A chair floated over and landed in front of Eugene. Slowly slinking closer, Ciel swallowed a gulp and sat on the chair.
The distance between them was so close that their knees were touching. While staring into Eugene’s face, which was right in front of her nose, Ciel could feel her heart pounding loudly.
She silently clenched her sweaty hands.
It had only been a few seconds since she had just sat down, but the silence between them already felt awkward.
Ciel felt like she should say something, but right now, she couldn’t think of anything to say. It was then that Ciel’s eyes were drawn to the diagonal scar across Eugene’s right cheek.
“Th-that scar…,” Ciel suddenly began speaking.
The scar had been left during Eugene’s duel with Gavid Lindman. Even though Eugene’s limbs had been able to regenerate instantly after being torn to pieces during the duel, the scar on his cheek had yet to disappear.
Eugene didn’t care about the scar on his cheek. This was because, back when he was Hamel, his life had left him with enough scars to cover both his face and body.
In fact, Eugene was actually just the slightest bit pleased to have this scar. Scars like this would only add to his reputation as a warrior, and since his face was already almost excessively handsome, Eugene felt like the scar would set off his handsomeness quite well.
Ciel’s sentiments about this scar weren’t that much different from Eugene’s. After all, compared to a year ago, with his hair becoming much bushier, the addition of a diagonal scar across his right cheek, his slightly sharper eyes, and the strong bridge of his nose….This was a face Ciel had already seen countless times ever since she turned thirteen, but for some reason, as she looked into Eugene’s face while sitting across from him like this, Ciel felt a strange emotion rising within her.
But right now, she couldn’t just finish her sentence by saying that she thought he looked good with a scar.
Ciel thought frantically for a few moments and finally ended up asking a question that she wasn’t fully at ease with. “...doesn’t it hurt?”
“It’s already fully healed, so why would it hurt?” Eugene raised an eyebrow.
“That’s… there’s a thing called phantom pain, isn’t there?” Ciel awkwardly argued.
“It doesn’t feel like anything. It doesn’t even tickle,” Eugene said as he began to lean his body forward.
Due to this movement, the already close distance between them narrowed even further until Ciel’s entire vision was fully occupied by Eugene’s face. As her breathing began to quicken, getting closer to panting, Ciel unconsciously swallowed a breath and jerked her body backward.
“Stay still,” Eugene ordered, his large hand grabbing Ciel’s shoulder.
Because of his grip, she couldn’t get any distance. This whole situation was causing Ciel’s head to spin.
No way, could it be?
This strangely oppressive attitude, the serious look on his face, the strength of the hand holding onto her shoulder, and the whole situation of being caught in Eugene’s grip and unable to move was causing Ciel to feel a mysterious and nerve-wracking sense of excitement.
‘No — no way…,’ Ciel cried out internally.
If they were to get even a little bit closer, his lips would end up touching hers. No way, could it be? Would the fantasies she had dreamed of hundreds or even thousands of times before now finally become reality? Feeling a nervous sense of anticipation, Ciel subtly puckered her lips.
“Mmph….” In the bathtub behind Eugene, the Saints who had been submerged in holy water were struggling to endure the pain.
However, the moans that they were releasing couldn’t reach Ciel’s ears. Right now, Ciel’s eyes could only see Eugene and her ears were directed solely toward listening to Eugene’s voice.
“Your eyes,” Eugene said abruptly.
“...Huh?” Ciel gasped in confusion.
“Open your eyes wide,” Eugene ordered.
Ciel stammered, “Wh-why do you suddenly want to look at my eyes?”
“What do you mean why? I want to take a look at your Demoneye,” Eugene answered impatiently.
As expected.
‘There’s no way that this bastard would do something like that…,’ Ciel cursed to herself in disappointment.
Her senses suddenly returned to normal. Ciel retracted her subtly puckered lips and let out a long sigh. Then, just as Eugene had ordered her to, she opened her left eye wide.
“You already examined my Demoneye last time,” Ciel complained. “Why do you have to examine it again at this point?”
Eugene justified his actions by saying, “I am different from back then, almost as if we are two completely different people.”
“Ah, so that’s why~,” Ciel drawled sarcastically. “How impressive of you. But why are you the one doing this? Has Lady Sienna gone somewhere?”
“She went to meet with the elves in our forest. She last saw them a year ago, and she also wants to inform some of them of what she experienced in the World Tree,” Eugene revealed.
But those weren’t all of Sienna’s reasons. Among the elves currently living in the Lionheart's forest, many were suffering from the Demonic Disease. Signard, who was currently taking on the role of acting representative of these elves, had also caught the Demonic Disease. So, regardless of their own free will or personal situations, the fates of these elves had left them with no choice but to live in the forest.
Naturally, Sienna couldn’t just watch this happen without doing something about it. Three hundred years ago, even though the war had ended, the Demonic Disease didn’t disappear, and the Demon King of Incarceration had also washed his hands of the matter, saying that he couldn’t do anything about it. Although no one knew for sure whether or not that was true, as someone who considered the elves to be her family, Sienna wanted to find some way to treat the Demonic Disease.
She had already experimented with several treatments in the past, but she had never managed to succeed. Whether it was with magic or with holy magic, it was impossible to cure the elves’ Demonic Disease. However, having managed to attain the Godhood of Magic, it might now be within her reach. That was why Sienna had gone to the elves’ village.
“Open your eyes a bit wider,” Eugene suddenly demanded.
“How can they get any wider than this? If you want me to open my eyes any wider, I’ll have to tear open the sides of my eyes first,” Ciel retorted unhappily.
Eugene tsked before saying, “Your eyes are actually quite small… even though they seemed really big when you were younger.”
Ciel’s fists were clenched tightly at these mumbled words. Unable to hold it in, she lifted her foot and kicked Eugene in the leg to vent her anger, but there was no effect. Eugene’s leg was as dense as an old oak tree, so when she kicked him, only Ciel’s foot ended up getting hurt.
“Stay still,” Eugene muttered as Ciel’s chair shook from the recoil of her kick.
Eugene slightly strengthened his grip on Ciel’s shoulder as his face pushed even closer. At this point, the two of them truly were close enough for their noses to be touching. Once again, Eugene’s face had filled Ciel’s entire field of vision.
‘Is my… is my skin okay?’ Ciel suddenly panicked.
As someone whose body would always work up a healthy sweat during her daily training, Ciel’s skin was already plump and smooth without needing to take any special care of it, but Ciel couldn’t help but feel unreasonably concerned. Naturally, Eugene didn’t have any interest in the texture of Ciel’s skin. Focusing all of his attention, Eugene carefully examined Ciel’s left eye.
Fwoosh.
A flame ignited in Eugene’s right hand and engulfed it. His flame-enshrouded right hand rose past Ciel’s cheek as it headed towards her left eye. Ciel’s body trembled in surprise, but she didn’t close her eyes.
“Stay just like that,” Eugene mumbled as his finger carefully touched Ciel’s left eye.
Even though the flames were now touching her very iris, there wasn’t any burning sensation. Instead, her eye felt cool, like it was being washed clean.
Crackle.
Having taken the form of a flame, Eugene's divine power flowed into Ciel’s eye. Following their battle against Iris, two Demoneyes had appeared in Ciel's eye. The Demoneye of Darkness that Iris had possessed and the Demoneye of Immobility that Noir had named.
At that time, they had confirmed that these Demoneyes didn’t seem to rely on dark power and had settled into Ciel’s eyes without any problem. As such, there was no need to try and treat them.
However, they wouldn’t have been able to treat them even if they had wanted to because no one knew what had caused Ciel to come by her Demoneyes.
Back then, Eugene had been caught up in the rampage of the Moonlight Sword. His consciousness had been swept away into an unknown void, and his body had been assimilated by the Moonlight Sword.
It was Ciel who had saved Eugene at that moment. Her blood as a Lionheart had responded to the Moonlight Sword, and Ciel’s consciousness had also been swept away into the void, just like Eugene’s. That was how Ciel had ended up meeting Vermouth for a few scant moments before she escaped from the void with Eugene….
‘This Demoneye… was probably given to her by Vermouth,’ Eugene admitted to himself.
At that time, Vermouth hadn’t been in a position to provide any direct help to Eugene. But even with that being the case, Vermouth still seemed to be aware of the situation as a whole. He knew that Eugene was battling against a Demon King and that Eugene was in for quite the struggle.
The piece of Darkness that had pierced through Ciel’s left eye and shattered it had probably fused with what remained of her eye and transformed into a Demoneye of Darkness. But what about her Demoneye of Immobility? At that time, they had decided that the Demoneye of Immobility may have belonged to Ciel herself, or to be more precise, it was something that had been locked away in Ciel’s Lionheart blood from the very start.
‘The Lionhearts are human,’ Eugene reminded himself.
However, after they had met Vermouth, the founder of the Lionheart clan, as he was sitting within that void, Ciel’s Demoneye had been awakened.
Now wasn’t the time to remove Ciel’s Demoneyes. The Demoneye of Immobility might prove useful in the future, but they would definitely need the Demoneye of Darkness to summon Molon when they reached Babel. But that left a question: if Ciel was ordained as a Holy Knight, would that cause her Demoneyes to disappear?
Also….
Could it be possible… to meet with Vermouth one last time through the power of this Demoneye?
Until now, Eugene had managed to reunite with Vermouth a few times. However, he had never once been able to meet with Vermouth when the latter was in a fit state to speak. This meant that they had never been able to have a proper conversation.
“Tell me if this hurts,” Eugene said as he traced his fingertip across Ciel’s eye.
It didn’t hurt. There wasn’t any burning sensation. But that said, it didn’t feel good either. At first, Ciel’s eye had just felt refreshed, but as the flames penetrated deeper, her stomach began to churn with nausea, and her head grew dizzy.
“Mmph,” Ciel swallowed a groan.
She could still endure. Ciel bit down on her bottom lip and clenched her knees together. Meanwhile, Eugene closed his eyes to focus his will.
Eugene’s consciousness melted into the flames. He left his physical body and flew into Ciel’s Demoneye. By doing this, he was able to dive into the depths of Ciel’s Demoneye.
During the process, Eugene was able to achieve his first objective. He confirmed that even if Ciel was ordained as his Holy Knight, her Demoneye wouldn’t disappear. In the first place, this wasn’t exactly the same thing as a demonfolk’s Demoneye, and it had now become an ability that was unique to Ciel. Even if the ability’s origins were demonic, that was no longer the case.
‘But the situation is still precarious,’ Eugene thought in concern.
He could feel it. The mysterious factor hidden in the Lionheart bloodline that was responsible for the development of Ciel’s Demoneyes hadn’t been diluted even after being passed down for over three hundred years.
Eugene suddenly recalled Eward Lionheart. The shame of the clan. An idiot who had allowed himself to be possessed by the remnants of the deceased Demon Kings and who had attempted to become a Demon King by sacrificing his siblings and relatives. The reason Eward had been about to complete the ritual with only a very small number of sacrifices wasn’t just due to the help of the Demon Kings’ remnants.
It was partly because Eward was a Lionheart and partly because he had chosen to use his fellow Lionhearts as sacrifices. The blood of the Lionhearts, descendants of the Hero, was paradoxically close to that of a certain Demon King.
‘The Demon King of Destruction,’ Eugene silently pondered.
Eugene wasn’t flustered by this revelation. He had already known that Vermouth’s true origins had something to do with the Demon King of Destruction. However, the fact that the Lionhearts’ blood was so potentially dangerous alerted Eugene to several incongruities.
Vermouth had only ever wanted to save the world. Eugene had seen this truth for himself during his time with the Hero three hundred years ago. Vermouth wasn’t the type to easily reveal his inner feelings, but all his comrades from back then had seen the truth in his actions. Everyone in the world had also known that Vermouth had dedicated himself to saving the world.
Setting aside the issue of whether or not the Light had truly acknowledged him as such, Vermouth was the Hero. Even though the Holy Sword had refused to recognize him until the very end, Vermouth had still held the Holy Sword in his hand as he slayed the Demon Kings.
So why had such a man… allowed his inherently dangerous blood to spread across the world through his descendants? Why had he chosen to increase the number of his direct descendants with such uncharacteristic enthusiasm[1]? Eugene knew the answer to both of these questions. It was because he wanted Hamel to be reincarnated as his descendant.
But why was that?
Was it because he wanted Hamel to inherit the White Flame Formula? Because he wanted to pass control over the whole clan to Hamel? Or was it because he wanted Hamel to start off with the advantage of a body that carried a genius level of talent? Any of these might have been part of the reason for Vermouth’s choice, but Eugene had narrowed it down to a more fundamental reason than that.
The reason was simple. In order to kill the Demon King of Destruction, the blood of the Lionhearts was needed. That was why Vermouth had passed down his blood. Then, after three hundred years had passed, the soul of Agaroth was placed within a specially prepared vessel named Eugene Lionheart.
“As impetuous as ever,” said a voice that Eugene had been expecting to hear.
Accompanied by the familiar sound of clinking chains, Eugene opened his eyes.
The voice continued, “Even if you meet him like this, it will be impossible for you to save him.”
The first thing Eugene saw when he opened his eyes was the Demon King of Incarceration sitting on his throne of chains. Behind that throne, Eugene also saw a door that, similar to the throne, was wrapped in chains.
Eugene gave a wry grin as he turned to look at his surroundings.
Apart from the Demon King of Incarceration, his throne, and the door, there was nothing else here. Eugene’s room seemed to have vanished, along with Ciel and the Saints.
“It seems that only my consciousness has been sent here,” Eugene observed.
“That is what you intended, isn’t it?” the Demon King of Incarceration said with a smile. “You are truly persistent. This isn't the first time you’ve come looking for Vermouth using such impulsive means. Don’t you remember what happened the last time you tried this?”
Eugene thought back, “You’re talking about when I tried to use Draconic Incantations to examine the Moonlight Sword?”
“I had to stop you back then as well. There was also the time… when the Moonlight Sword went on a rampage. Now that I think about it, you’ve never thanked me for either of those incidents,” the Demon King of Incarceration chuckled as he lazily rested his chin on one hand. “If I hadn’t held on to you back then, your soul would have completely dissipated. Just like three hundred years ago, everything would have failed due to your stubbornness and reckless mistakes.”
“That’s just you acting on your own accord because you didn’t want to see me fail,” Eugene dismissed the Demon King’s grievances with a snort. “So why exactly did you spare my life all those times when you could have killed me at any moment?”
“Because of the Oath,” the Demon King of Incarceration said in explanation. “I also had to put a lot of effort into upholding the Oath. Having invested so much effort into it… if possible, I also want to see it through to the very end.”
Eugene sarcastically proposed, “In that case, why don’t you just commit suicide? It would be good for the Oath, and that way, you’re the only one who needs to die.”
“Hahaha,” the Demon King of Incarceration’s laughter grew louder. “It seems that you’ve managed to guess what exactly I derive from the Oath.”
“I’ve given it some thought,” Eugene admitted. “What must it feel like to have to move on to the next era after everyone around you dies, leaving you as the only one who will live to see the next era? What must it feel like to conquer the world but not be able to rule it, as everything will eventually be completely erased by Destruction? Why did you make such an Oath with Vermouth and grant him and humanity a grace period of three hundred years? What benefit would you gain from doing so?”
The Demon King of Incarceration smiled silently. Eugene met this smile with a wry smile of his own.
“You want to end Destruction, but you’re unable to do so. No matter how strong of a Greater Demon King you might be, you’re still unable to bring an end to Destruction. The only thing you can do is to survive by yourself in the middle of its raging sea as everything around you disappears,” said Eugene as he began walking forward.
“I have never experienced such a thing, and I can’t even imagine what it must feel like, but it must be a horrible feeling. Especially since it isn’t something that just happens every few dozen years but instead something that repeats itself over and over again every hundreds of thousands of years. When I think about it that way, I actually can’t help but feel awed by you.”
His steps never slowing one bit, Eugene arrived in front of the Demon King of Incarceration as he asked, “Just how long have you wanted to die?”
The Demon King of Incarceration silently stared at Eugene. There was still a faint smile adorning his lips.
“No matter what, this body is unable to die in such a vain manner,” the Demon King of Incarceration finally began to speak. “Do not be so quick to presume that you know what I truly desire, Eugene Lionheart. I have shown you much mercy, but… it would be an extravagant insult for you to so hastily conclude that you truly understand the great longing that I have harbored over the course of my long life.”
“So you’re saying that you can’t just commit suicide,” Eugene impatiently concluded.
“If that were possible, I would have done so a long, long time ago,” the Demon King of Incarceration shook his head with a dry laugh. “Telling you about myself, pulling on your emotions, and making you understand what I truly desire will be one of the greatest pleasures I will have experienced in the countless eons I have been alive, but… there is no reason for me to grant such an honor to the current you. This is not Babel, and you have yet to obtain the qualifications to stand before me.”
“Will killing Noir Giabella give me the qualifications?” Eugene angrily questioned.
The Demon King shrugged. “You are the one who decided that you needed to kill her before you could climb up through Babel.”
“Fine. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do something like understand you, but before I kill you when I climb to the top of Babel, I will at least listen to your story,” Eugene said as he stepped past the Demon King of Incarceration.
Or at least, he tried to step past, only for a towering wall of chains to block Eugene’s path forward.
“Do you truly wish to head in there?” the Demon King of Incarceration questioned.
“That is why I’ve come here,” Eugene insisted.
The Demon King of Incarceration reminded him, “Even if you meet him now, it will be impossible for you to save Vermouth.”
“I know,” Eugene impatiently replied.
“It might not even be possible to have a clear conversation with him,” the Demon King of Incarceration added.
“I know,” Eugene repeated as he glared at the door covered in chains. “I just came here because I wanted to take a look at that bastard’s face.”
The Demon King of Incarceration fell silent.
Eugene scowled, “It doesn’t matter if we aren’t able to communicate. Because I can just say what I have to say to him and be done with it.”
The chains that were blocking Eugene’s way forward slowly retracted downwards.
“This will be the last time,” the Demon King of Incarceration softly whispered. “This meeting will be the last concession that I ever grant you. At the same time, this is also the last time I will show any sympathy for Vermouth Lionheart.”
“Yeah, alright.” Eugene shrugged this reminder off.
A portion of the chains covering the door came loose. Following this, the door opened slightly, and Eugene stepped forward towards that gap.
Behind him, he heard the Demon King of Incarceration say with a final chuckle, “Good luck.”
As he entered through the gap in the doorway, Eugene closed his eyes and then reopened them.
Eugene arrived in a place that he had seen before.
A bleak world that seemed to recreate the nothingness of the void.
It felt like he was standing at the center of a deep wound in the world.
And in front of him, he saw Vermouth sitting on a chair wrapped in chains.
1. It’s been a while, so just a reminder. Vermouth was said to have taken many wives and mistresses. ☜