Chapter 4
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What would Tgurneu have to do to see people suffering from love? This thought had been a preoccupation for three hundred years. It always kept the question at the top of mind as it conceived its plan to bring down the Braves of the Six Flowers and whenever it approached humans in order to use them.
That was its only joy—its sole purpose in life.
Tgurneu had seen the faces of dozens, hundreds of humans. It was such fun disrupting their affections. When Tgurneu saw humans dirtying their hands with evil deeds for the sake of friends or lovers, its heart leaped. What a glorious thrill to manipulate the love of humans to make them its allies, only to discard them afterward.
But at the same time, Tgurneu had also come to feel less and less satisfied. Something was left unfulfilled. The spice was missing. Tgurneu wanted to see deeper despair on the faces of humans.
Ultimately, it hit upon an idea: Rather than entrapping a human to see his or her suffering face, Tgurneu would personally raise one who would show it the ultimate expression.
Tgurneu waffled as to what sort of human it should raise. Who would put the most satisfying expression on display?
For example, something like this:
A girl was best. An immature and foolish girl—simple and kind. She would want to be loved but never would be. And this life should bring her despair. Sometimes, she would think she’d found love, but she would always be betrayed. She would believe she should give up her search but would always fail to do so.
When that girl met a boy who loved her from the bottom of his heart, how deeply would she come to love him? How strong would her desire be to protect him? What if Tgurneu was to disrupt their relationship and torture them at its whims? Wouldn’t that be amazing? Tgurneu thought.
Or then how about this:
A boy would be good. He would have to have an indomitable will and a righteous heart, the strength to never lose hope, no matter what, and the determination to sacrifice his own life.
Tgurneu would make that boy fall in love with a certain girl. And then, it would place that boy in a predicament: In order to save his beloved, he would have to give up his own life as well as the lives of everyone else he cared about except the girl.
How would he react faced with such a dilemma? Tgurneu so desperately wanted to see. As it put together its plans for fighting the Braves of the Six Flowers and as it considered how to use the Saint of the Single Flower, these ideas remained fixtures in its mind.
This was why Tgurneu had raised that boy and girl: Adlet Mayer and Fremy Speeddraw.
There had to have been some other, more certain way to kill the Braves of the Six Flowers. There had to have been some simpler strategy. But Tgurneu hadn’t chosen such a path—hadn’t even considered it an option.
And why not? Because victory was about crushing love, and any “victory” without that was worthless.
Tgurneu had tried exploiting the love of Mora Chester and Goldof Auora—and had failed. They were still alive, as were their loved ones. But Tgurneu had already forgotten about them. They had ultimately been nothing more than a mid-battle diversion.
Fremy and Adlet were Tgurneu’s true goal and its reason for existing.