“You swore you’d remain by my side until this battle was over,” Leon continued. “So honor that promise. Don’t think about anything else and just stay with me.”
“But that…” Her voice trailed into silence.
After a painful pause, Veronica forced out words that felt like daggers in her throat.
“It was a lie,” she choked out. “I deceived you, just as you once lied to me.”
She forced the falsehood past her lips as though purging poison from her body. It was cruelly ironic that her claim about lying was itself the lie.
But there was no room left in her for irony. She was consumed by raw terror. Any moment now, the Bahamut would materialize and tear his heart from his chest. Veronica knew with dreadful certainty that if she vanished, It would track her down and hunt them both. She had to send him away before It discovered his presence.
“Did you truly believe that?” she asked, her voice hardening. “That I would remain by the side of a man who used me as bait and then discarded me?”
She forced herself to utter the cruel words with icy detachment. Even as she witnessed the profound hurt darkening his eyes, she pressed on mercilessly. “I loved you once and depended on your strength, but that’s not enough to sacrifice my final moments for you. The lives of other humans far outweigh yours in my heart. Don’t you feel the same way?”
But why was his face so ravaged with sorrow? Why was he crumbling before her like a mighty oak whose roots had been severed?
The Leon she knew possessed faith too powerful to be shattered by something as fragile as love. He was God’s chosen son who would ultimately sacrifice her to save humanity. That was why Veronica felt a rising panic as she watched the knight’s continued silence.
She wished desperately that he would fight back, at least. She wanted him to draw his verbal blade and wound her in return.
His silent acceptance revealed more clearly than any declaration what she had become to him. Reality crashed over her like a wave of ice water. She couldn’t drive him away with noble arguments about “saving humanity.” He no longer feared the end of the world. Only…
Veronica wrenched herself from his embrace. Though Leon’s brow furrowed at her sudden movement, Veronica gritted her teeth and steadied herself against a grisly pile of bones.
“So leave,” she spat. “Go, I release you. From the beginning, you dragged me to Karta solely to slay the First Bahamut. Everything has unfolded precisely as you planned. With my sacrifice, no one else needs to die, and this nightmare ends. The world can reclaim its former peace.”
She spoke the words that tasted like ash as she edged backward. Glancing behind her, she approached the sacred sword Genesis lying abandoned on the bloodstained ground.
In truth, she was desperate to flee with him. Hadn’t she already turned her back on death once and fought to survive? If asked whether she wanted to live, she could answer a thousand times without hesitation. Yes, I want to live. Of course, I want to live! The desire burned within her with such ferocity that she feared it might consume her sanity. She yearned to grasp his outstretched hand and escape this hell with him. If only she could—if only her shattered bones and mangled flesh didn’t betray her, she would have seized that chance already.
Perhaps that was why the divine blade had pierced her.
Leon kept his gaze lowered, studying her for an eternity as she trembled, bracing herself against the cold ground. Then he broke his silence with quiet resolve.
“I never wished for your sacrifice,” he confessed. “At least not since I came to know you as a person.”
His powerful hand reached toward her as if to reclaim her in his embrace. Veronica squeezed her eyes shut and retreated further.
“Are you planning to abduct me against my will again?” she challenged.
For a heartbeat, his movement froze mid-air. Leon’s eyes darkened with the shadow of remembered sin.
When they had first met, he had forced her to accompany him on his holy quest despite her vehement protests. He had dragged her into fate’s cruel wheel, where death awaited her. Though that fateful meeting now seemed like the greatest blessing of her existence, she forced herself to act as though it were the most horrific tragedy she’d endured. She had to wound him deeply enough to make him flee. Veronica clenched her mutilated hand as she stared at the knight’s expressionless face. Fresh blood soaked through the makeshift bandages. Her heart thundered in her chest, like a sculptor raising a hammer to destroy their most precious masterpiece.
“I heard someone once say,” she began, “that the ultimate revenge against a god who saved you is to take your own life. To reject his gift. To claim absolute freedom through self-destruction.”
Leon simply stared at her.
“You rescued me that day,” she continued, “and as payment for my salvation, you shackled my spirit. Now I’m merely settling our account. After this, there will be nothing—absolutely nothing—remaining between us.”
He remained motionless as a beast frozen to death in winter’s cruel embrace. Veronica drew a ragged breath of the stale air and grasped Genesis, the legendary blade that had tasted its master’s blood. With hands twisted and trembling from shattered bones, she raised the divine sword. She thought that she might never be able to write or do delicate things with her hands again, then laughed at her own foolishness. What did it matter if her hands were ruined when she was destined to die anyway?
“What are you doing?” Leon’s sharp question cut through the silence.
Instead of answering, Veronica pressed the trembling blade against her throat. The sword’s length meant it wasn’t the tip but the edge that rested against her neck, poised to slice through flesh and vein. The touch of steel sent a chill through her body.
“Exactly what it appears,” she replied.
“Put it down.”
“If you walk away first.”
At last, his rigid mask cracked, and raw emotion flooded his features. Suppressed rage, no—something far more desperate and devastating…
His arm shot forward, and Genesis clattered loudly across the bone-strewn floor. Before she could resist, he seized her wrist in an iron grip, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper.
“Nothing left between us, you said?”
She had never seen such naked anguish on his face before.
“Then ask me for my help,” he growled. “It’s simple. Accept salvation from my hands once more.”
His face transformed into something barely human, like the visage of a wounded beast abandoned by its pack. The proud knight’s features contorted as he revealed his true self. Veronica’s breath caught in her throat as his shattered expression came within inches of hers.
“Tell me you don’t want to die,” he pleaded, his voice breaking. “Say you’ll flee with me. Say we’ll forge a life together and damn the rest of humanity to whatever fate awaits them.”
Her captured wrist felt no pain; instead, she realized it was convulsing with his tremors. The legendary Bahamut Hunter was terrified at the sight of her attempted sacrifice.
“Shall I kneel before you?” he asked, his voice raw. “Should I spend eternity crawling at your feet in penance? What do you want from me? What in the name of God must I do to save you?”
The overwhelming despair in his words stole the breath from her lungs. The mighty warrior who held her looked utterly broken.
How could she have ever believed this man was cruel? She couldn’t reconcile her past judgment with the truth before her. She’d once thought he devoured innocent creatures drawn to his warmth—that being near him would only bring suffering, and that he was incapable of compassion. But wasn’t the aftermath of a consuming fire nothing but ashes?
“Why…” Veronica whispered, her voice trembling, “Are you crying?”
She raised her free hand to caress his beautiful yet devastated face. A trail of dried blood marked the corner of his right eye. As her fingers moved to touch the crimson stain, he collapsed against her, burying his face in the hollow of her shoulder. His iron grip on her wrist finally released as both their arms fell to the ground.
“Don’t threaten to die,” he murmured against her skin. “I won’t ask you to flee with me. I won’t even demand you remain by my side. Just… stay alive.”
She hadn’t wanted to know this truth: that the tears she’d shed for him had extinguished his flame.
“It’s my fault,” he confessed. “I should have passed you by when we first met. I should have saved you and continued my quest alone. I carelessly let you into my heart.”
The sun dipped below the horizon. The crimson sunset pooled across the white bones, casting them adrift on a sea of blood.
“The pain…” he whispered brokenly. “Even shattered to pieces, there’s no end to this agony. Damn it all.”
His anguished voice dissolved into the gathering darkness. Even as he laughed bitterly, his proud shoulders shook with silent tears.
Night had fallen, and it would be an endless night.