The Soul Was Never a Demon's

While X steeled himself for what was coming, a message from Elysia bloomed before Elia's eyes.

As if to etch the purpose into her once more, Elysia laid the objective bare.

Elia felt it with a warrior's eyes, a warrior's senses, and there was no room left to doubt. The aura pouring off X was, without question, that of a wicked demon. Elysia's words had not been wrong. He was more vile and more terrifying than the Demon King himself — an incarnation of evil that would drag the world to ruin, the root of every wickedness that walked the earth. Everything in front of her stood as proof.

"...Why."

And still, Elia could not move.

"Why did you tell me to kill Lola?"

If she had never heard those words, she might have taken a step.

"Why is X protecting her?"

If she had never seen the scene before her eyes, she might have made up her mind.

"Why am I fighting on the same side as a demon?"

The questions came like a flood bursting from a shattered dam, one after another, until they became chains and bound her from head to heel. And then, for the first time, Elia refused.

"I don't want to do this. Something is wrong...!"

She refused Elysia's command. Choking on her own doubts, Elia clutched ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠her head.

"The Valderun Barony, on the border of the demon nation? Did a place like that even exist? I caved in my brother's skull? What was the name of the brother I killed?"

Blood sheeted from Elia's nose — a nose that would not have split even if a sword had cut it. It was the backlash of reaching for knowledge her present intelligence could not hold.

"Who were the people I killed there? I read the Hero's life story? A tale of heroes? Have I ever even heard a story like that? I can't read...!"

Her brain burned as if it had been set on fire, but there was something she had to know. Buried in the haze of her past was a memory too precious to be allowed to vanish. And at last—

"G-Goddess Elysia. My mother, Yus, she... she was a beautiful woman. Beautiful enough that I take after her. B-but..."

Elia learned something she should never have learned.

"But I can't remember my mother's face."

It felt as though a hole had been torn through her memories, like a scrap of cloth that had been patched together too clumsily to hold. No matter how stupid she was, she could not possibly have forgotten her mother's face, or the name of the first person she had ever killed. She had only been looking away from it, all this time.

After a brief silence, Elysia answered. These were not words spoken to her own child. They were the words of someone looking at garbage that had outlived its worth.

Zzzt—

Elia's title window peeled open, and the information inside it changed. On the last line, a talent she had never seen before had been added. More precisely, something that had been hidden all along had finally shown its face.

The talent activated. Against Elia's will, her body began to move on its own.

"No... Please don't do this...!"

Her grief-stricken pleas changed nothing. Her body settled into a stance and charged with everything it had. The tip of the Soul Killer pointed at a single person — someone desperately holding out inside the Iris Barrier Lola had raised.

"Circe, are you almost done?!"

"It's ready! When I give the signal, punch a hole through!! ...Now!!"

It was X, gathering his power to unleash it on Circe's mark. The instant he drew that strength together and prepared to let it go—

Faster than any voice could finish the warning—

Shunk—!

The blade of the Soul Killer punched through X's heart. Elia shattered the Iris Barrier and drove the sword clean through. This was the power of Will-Infused Auror, wrought by a 6-Star warrior. No mere artifact, however capable, was ever going to stop it.

"X...?"

As the blade transfixed his heart, blood sprayed in every direction. Lola, standing closest, was drenched in it. She learned, of all the things she might have learned in that moment, that a demon's blood was warm.

"X...?"

X swallowed the nauseating taste of iron climbing his throat and looked at the person who had done this.

"...Elia."

Of course it was Elia.

"I-I... I didn't mean to..."

She hadn't wanted this. She had wanted to talk longer, to learn the truth, to look a little deeper into her own past. She had not wanted to stab him. And still, in the end, it was her own hands that had driven the blade in. Goddess's puppetry or not — that sensation had been hers. It became a scar that would never come out.

"Ah... ahhh..."

"No, this can't be...!"

As if she could take it back by regretting it fast enough, Elia yanked the sword free. That did not unmake what she had done.

"Ghk..."

Blood poured from the hole in his chest. He took a step back from the girl frozen in panic. Elia simply stood there, locked in place, and did not move at all.

"X. Y-your heart..."

Lola could only believe that all of this was a nightmare. X spoke calmly, trying to soothe her.

"My lady, don't worry. Demons don't die. It hurts like hell, but I'll be fine in a bit."

"R-really...?"

"If I were going to die, I'd already be dead. So..."

He never finished the sentence.

Crrrk—!

"Ghhk."

X's mouth snapped shut against a colossal agony. This was not the pain of a wound. Something more fundamental was shattering like glass, and the agony of his very essence being destroyed seized his entire body.

"GRAAAAH...!!!"

"X!! What's wrong!!"

Poison...? No. Demons don't get poisoned...!

Elysia knew that X had become a demon. She had never wanted that, but a demon's body, ironically, does not die. And Elysia wanted X dead. So what card had she prepared?

If the body won't die... then kill something else?

As if in answer, a voice rang out from far away.

"Aah~ she finally stabbed him~"

Gremory clapped her hands in delight. Watching X collapse, she turned to Elia with a look of deep satisfaction.

"Elia, do you remember what I told you? That the Soul Killer can't kill a demon~?"

"H-huh...? What do you mean...?"

In that instant, Elia felt it — something had gone terribly, irreversibly wrong.

"Think about it the other way around. What it means that being stabbed by the Soul Killer kills you."

The light in X's eyes was going out, little by little. Gremory smiled as if she were tasting their despair.

Elia's heart froze solid. She had just done something that could never be undone, and now she understood those words perfectly. X was not a demon. She had killed a human being.

Then, as if to scold her, a volley of ice arrows slammed into Elia and drove her back.

"X!"

Circe poured out magic in a frantic rush, forcing Elia away, and the instant the girl fell back she was at X's side. Lola was already there, clinging to him with a desperation that had no bottom.

"X, X isn't moving..."

Lola grabbed his fallen body and shook him. He did not so much as twitch.

"X, you said you wouldn't die... Why won't ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠you get up..."

Seeing him lie there unmoving, Circe's mind was a breath from coming apart, but she forced herself to look at the situation with as much coldness and calm as she could still command.

Possession? No. That reaction was an Advent Demon.

A possessing demon's power is inevitably throttled. The aura X had been pouring out was not the thin concentration of a borrowed vessel. Only an Advent Demon could have produced that much. How he had descended was a question for later. She would proceed from that premise.

Demons don't die. They're only sent back to Hell. But...

A sword with the strange name Soul Killer. X's eyes, emptied of the light of life. That girl's words: the soul is not a demon's. It was an absurd hypothesis. It was also the only conclusion that followed.

X's soul possessed a demon's body...?

Scholars would laugh at it until the end of time, and the faithful would have her tried for heresy — but there was no other answer, because that single assumption explained every last thing X had ever done.

Then first — a way to protect the soul...!

While Circe searched with everything she had, Lola gathered his cooling body into her arms.

"X, I... I actually knew..."

"After we escaped the mansion, my mana warned me, so I'd already noticed... that something had changed..."

X was not a demon possessing a human body. A demon's body had merely been wearing a human face. For Lola, so sensitive to mana, noticing had only ever been a matter of time.

"But nothing had changed, so X was still X..."

Even changed, he had always been the same insufferable liar. Always the same idiot who worked himself half to death for her sake.

"Why is this happening? Hic..."

"L-Lola. I..."

"Go away..."

Lola held him and pleaded, small and wrecked.

"Elia, I hate you..."

The words went through Elia's chest like a blade. She had believed that when all of this was over she could go ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠back to Lola — her only friend. They would walk to the library together again, study, chatter about the weather. That dream was gone now. Forever. Because the one thing she had never wanted to hear from Lola had been said.

"I hate you for killing X..."

"X said he was sorry. To you..."

"Sorry...?"

"He said he was sorry for deceiving you. That he'd take any punishment you wanted..."

"Th-that's a lie... It has to be..."

"Even if it was a lie, you should have heard it..."

Lola looked at his eyes. They stared into empty air and did not move.

"Because now you'll never get to hear it..."

Then her gaze found Elia. There was no sorrow in it. No pity.

It was hatred. A hatred so vast, so overwhelming, that it surpassed even Elia's own.

"L-Lola... It wasn't me who did this..."

For the first time, Elia felt fear — standing before a hatred larger and hotter than anything she had ever carried. The fear came with a sense of injustice. It was true. She had not driven that blade of her own will.

"I didn't want to do it... This is all..."

"If you're going to blame that goddess, I am sick to death of it—!!!"

But those words never reached her. Just as X's words had never reached Elia. Just as she had never opened her ears to him. Lola was no different.

"Once would have been enough!!"

Lola's explosive magic multiplied in a heartbeat, a swarm of stars. Even with the Iris Barrier still raised, she had mana enough to cast that much — and her rage burned just as fiercely.

"If you'd just talked to him once!!"

Her pupils blazed blue, drowning in overflowing mana.

"You wouldn't have killed X!!!"

The stars burned hotter and fiercer, swelling toward supernova.

"And I wouldn't have wanted to kill you either!!!"

The supernovas came down like falling light. The instant that stellar bombardment was about to descend upon them once more—

"And what exactly do you think you can do~?"

Gremory's chains of Spatial Binding tightened around the field again. There was still one more powerful demon here.

"I asked you. What can you even do~?"

A true demon, unlike X — one filled with a terrible, genuine malice.