Dia Grilite — [Truth]
Just like that, Pelican reshaped the space around them once more—back into the plaza, into the very moment she had first possessed Dullahan's body.
Why… why bring me back here?
But she never got the chance to voice the question. Dullahan's body was moving completely against her will, and the sheer wrongness of it left her reeling.
W-what… my body is moving on its own again… huh?
For a second she thought Pelican was puppeteering her again. Then the words that left the mouth of the body she occupied overturned that assumption entirely.
"Haaawn… what time is it… wait, when did I even fall asleep?"
"Hey, Dullahan!! What the hell are you doing out here?"
"Hmm… looks like I dozed off… I was always nocturnal, you know. There's no better place to sleep than under sunshine this bright."
"…Haa. Some of us have been running ourselves ragged on three hours of sleep a day since the second we possessed someone… and you're just living it up as an extra, huh?"
"Yep. If you're jealous, you go possess Dullahan~~ I'm off to see my favorite. Later!"
"Ugh. What a goddamn life."
Watching this Dullahan banter so naturally with Karl, Dia finally understood why she couldn't control the body at all.
This… is this the real Dullahan?
{Yep. The 'real' Master, twenty years ago. Looks like you didn't see this coming. That panic is written all over you… heh.}
The moment Pelican confirmed it, Dia turned to the smiling maid with a heart in turmoil.
Just… what are you doing this for?
{What for? Isn't it obvious? To watch you suffer. That's all.}
But… this is the real Dullahan. You said you were his slave… so why would you want to watch your own master suffer?!
What answered her was a voice gone cold—sharply different from a moment before—pressing down on her like a blade.
{Feeling rather comfortable, are we? Now you're fretting over my feelings on top of everything else… must be nice.}
…That's not what I meant!! Why would you use even Master's pain just to judge me—
{The only thing I'm looking at in this world… is you.}
…What?
Dia's voice came out blank with disbelief. Pelican only added to it, as if stating the obvious.
{You think I'd pay that kind of price just to deal with a single piece of trash? You think I'd actually watch Master suffer through something that horrific?}
…Then what you're seeing is…
{Only you. Sure, your eyes can see everyone else… but mine? All I see is you, writhing in front of that tragedy~~}
…What the hell. So that means… I've been watching this catastrophe alone this whole time…? And the Demon God has just been sitting there, enjoying the show?
What do you even think I am…
{What else? Trash that deserves to be erased. Someone who never once cared about the people she hurt, who only ever tried to run from reality for her own sake.}
Dia fell silent, words stripped clean out of her. Pelican didn't care. She kept going.
{You said you were sorry for everything, didn't you? All you know is what you did to Master… have you ever once thought about the pain he actually went through?}
I… I…
{You just keep screaming that you're sorry… while shamelessly trying to run from what you did, never wanting to face judgment. What does any of that even mean?}
"…"
{The first one to admit the sins you lot committed… was that Hero boy, who was guilty of nothing more than being your comrade. So what about the rest of you?}
That's… why…
{No… let me change the question. You. What meaning is there in living like that?}
…What?
Dia had been enduring Pelican's words like knives driven into every soft place she had left. The last one tore a reply out of her before she could stop it.
{Living so wretchedly… so pathetically… what meaning does that even have?}
What meaning…? Well, of course…
She started to push back—Pelican's words were absurd, she told herself—but then—
…What was the meaning of my life again?
She reached for it, and found nothing. No goal. No direction. Nothing left.
There had been a reason she first took up the sword… there must have been… that reason…
…I can't remember.
Why she had become the Sword Saint. What she had been chasing through all of it. She couldn't remember a single reason.
While Dia reeled in that confusion, time kept moving. At last it carried them to the moment Dullahan arrived at the training grounds.
"So this is… the training hall the swordsmanship department uses? Let's see… where would Dia be?"
The sound of his voice yanked Dia out of the wreckage of Pelican's words. She muttered in a daze.
What… why is Dullahan looking for me…?
Before the question could settle, his gaze found the familiar figure of her past self. Dia screamed at him in a voice that would never reach.
"No—don't come any closer!!"
Her wish went unanswered to the end. Through a wide window, Dullahan watched her past self training.
"So that's… Dia Grilite. Looks like she hasn't met that man yet. She's still holding a sword, after all."
…That man? Who is he talking about… and what does he mean, I put down my sword?
In truth, Dia had never once let go of her blade. But according to this possessed Dullahan… it sounded as if, by this point in the original timeline, she already should have.
Before she could untangle that, Dullahan kept muttering things she couldn't begin to understand.
"Karl's got it way too good… some of us are stuck with a power that drops us like a sunfish the second we attack… ugh. I wanted to join the swordsmanship department too…"
He looked at her training self again and smiled, then pulled a sour face.
"No, but seriously… we're both possessors, right? Hogging three heroines all to yourself is a little much, don't you think!! You bastard, Karl!!"
Then he sighed, and corrected himself like a man resigning to reality.
"Never mind… what can a possessor with nothing but penalties even do… damn you, Karl. When Dia confesses to you, I hope you faceplant into the floor. Ugh…"
Watching him, Dia's heart was pure chaos. None of it made sense.
What… Dullahan's reaction… it's almost like… he likes me…?
{And you only just figured that out. After claiming you knew everything. You people never knew a damn thing…}
…It's real? But… why?
Pelican answered with open irritation.
{Because the Dia Grilite Master knew, and the you he actually met, were two completely different people.}
Different people… what does that mean…?
{Tell me. Wasn't the last goal you still had… to beat our Master fair and square, with pure skill?}
She asked it calmly, almost gently, and Dia froze.
…Ah.
Yes. The last thing she had held onto… was defeating a boy she had never even met. Dullahan Franz.
And when she finally faced him, fully prepared… he was already a wreck. A swordsman so broken he barely looked like one at all.
After she finished shattering what was left of him, her own goal shattered with him.
She had won. What came for her wasn't triumph—only a hollow, endless emptiness.
I kept comparing myself to this guy… kept destroying myself over and over… and all that effort was just to beat someone like this…?
When that spar ended, it wasn't only Dullahan who collapsed. The one who had broken him collapsed too.
At last Dia understood: her goal had already been ash twenty years ago. And while she drowned in that despair, another truth was waiting for her.
What… what is this?!
In the span of a single thought, she was suddenly watching her past self charge Dullahan with a sword leveled at his chest.
…I have to dodge!!
"That was… a little aggressive… or is it just me?"
For a while Dullahan managed to evade her strikes. But every time an opening appeared, he remembered his own power—and never once attacked.
"Of all things… the healing reduction effect… keeps holding me back."
…Healing reduction? Why would that hold him back… wait… ah.
Hearing his mutter, Dia started to question it—then a silent thought slammed into her.
Had Dullahan really held back only because of his power?
…No. That can't be it.
She stacked those words—the ones about coming to the swordsmanship department just to see her, the ones that sounded so much like affection—and the pieces locked into a single conclusion.
No… no… that can't be…!!
She rejected it violently even as the crash of steel yanked her focus back to the spar—
…
—and forced her to face, beat for beat, the sin her past self had committed twenty years ago.
Every time her blade found him, a wordless agony tore through Dia as well. The possibility she had been shoving into a corner of her heart finally hardened into certainty, and swallowed her whole.
That certainty rang through her just as her past self stood over the Dullahan who could no longer take another blow. Contempt filled those younger eyes as she looked down at him and spoke.
"Honestly. What a ridiculously pathetic sight."
That was the final dagger she drove into the only person she had ever set as her goal—the only person who had ever loved her completely.
And Dullahan, on the edge of unconsciousness, stretched a weak hand toward the girl walking away and whispered, almost too soft to hear—
"…It hurts."
That was the last will of the last person who had loved her—spoken in the same breath that he vanished from this world.
After that day, the boy who loved her was gone.
"…Hic… hh… hwaaahh… I'm sorry…"
From the time she was small, Dia had starved for love without end.
The reason she first picked up a sword… was only so she could become an outstanding knight, and earn her family's love and favor.
At some point she was back in her own body, collapsed on the floor, sobbing. Pelican appeared before her, sighed, and peered into the wreckage of her mind.
"Young miss… the Lord and Lady have already…"
"They're dead…? What does that mean…?"
"…"
"I'll never… see them again… what are you even saying…?"
In the sudden wreck of a carriage accident, the little girl who had lost the only people who loved her was left with nothing but a small sword—the same sword she had first taken up for their love.
Swinging it without end was the only thing that child could still do and remain whole.
Until one boy appeared.