Nagi walked on, holding Saya’s withered hand. Her fingers were slender to begin with, but now they were skin and bones. It wasn’t difficult to figure out which way Lernaean went. They simply had to follow the trail of shredded bodies.
“He’s killing nobles?” Nagi muttered.
“Lernaean is trying to build a world where only people he has chosen exist.”
“We can’t let him do that.”
“Right.”
Nagi matched Saya’s steady pace. Once he reacclimated to the sight of the corpses, he spotted someone he knew among them.
“Keele?!”
His entire body was stained red. He’d lost an arm and a leg. Nagi ran over to the body; the husk of his brother stirred and began to speak.
“Nagi...? Kept me... waitin’...” Nagi could hear things inside Keele break under the strain of his own voice.
“Don’t talk!”
“No... I’m done for... already... Hm...?” Keele’s bloody eyelids opened; he looked up at Saya. “You’ve sure... shriveled up...”
“I have,” Saya replied with an honest nod.
“So, you’re still alive... That means... Heheh... Right on... We still... got a chance...” There was a bright spark in Keele’s eyes. “Lernaean’s... Sovereign’s Blood... is still... incomplete... as long... as you’re alive...”
Saya nodded. Despite Keele’s ragged breaths, he smiled in delight.
“Nagi... Gimme your hand...”
He used his one remaining arm to pull a bottle from his pocket. Nagi caught it as it slipped from his grip and fell toward the floor.
“This is... the last of my Halahala...”
Keele broke into a painful coughing fit. Blood, spit, and bile poured out of his mouth.
“Keele!”
“Calm down... Listen... Blood calibers... and Halahala... don’t work on the Sovereign... But so long... as the little lady... still lives... the Sovereign’s Blood... is incomplete...”
He stared into Nagi’s eyes. Nagi hated his older brother’s gaze. It always felt like he was looking right through him.
“Lernaean’s got... a scar... on his chest... Jubilia’s... last strike...”
“Is Jubilia...?” Saya asked.
Keele shook his head. Saya bit her lip.
“She didn’t... die in vain... There’s still... a scar... Normally... there wouldn’t be one... You get me...?”
Nagi nodded.
“Aim for... his heart... and brain...”
Nagi clenched the Halahala in his hand. Keele nodded in satisfaction. After another coughing fit, his voice grew even weaker.
“His royal caliber... is a buncha... flying... invisible blades... There’s a lot of ’em... but dodge ’em all...”
“Got it,” Nagi replied with a nod.
“Get goin’ already...” Keele said, closing his eyes.
“Right. Saya, let’s go.”
Nagi stood up and turned his back to Keele, squeezing Saya’s hand. The quiet breathing behind him gradually faded out.
“Bye, Keele.”
There was no response. Nagi’s vision blurred, but he walked on without looking back.
He sat atop the throne. His whole body was stained with blood—his own and that of others. Even through ragged breaths, he lorded over the ones who appeared before him. He had a gash at the base of his right arm covered in dried blood.
“Nagi Strano and Saya.”
“We’ve come to stop you,” Saya declared.
A smile crept on Lernaean’s face. “I have the power of the Sovereign. Jubilia and Keele Strano broke against me before either could accomplish anything.”
Nagi stared into Lernaean’s eyes. “They did accomplish something. Doesn’t that wound on your arm hurt? Keele did that, right? Looks like you still can’t move it.”
“When that decrepit woman dies, this wound will pass into memory with her.”
“I’m going to kill you before it can.”
Nagi readied his bow, but Lernaean sat unmoving.
“Let’s see you try.”
“You just going to sit there?”
“A king has no need to leave his throne.”
“Liar,” Saya cut in. “You can’t move. You’ve used too much of the royal caliber. It’s useless to try and hide it. I can tell. I can feel it through the Sovereign’s Blood, just a little.”
“So what? It would take so little effort to crush the both of you.”
Lernaean held up his left hand. Nagi made his move, expecting him to lash out with his caliber. His arrow shot true, bearing down on his heart, but shattered before it could reach its target. Lernaean had gotten the hang of using the royal caliber defensively.
Nagi anticipated Lernaean’s next volley and tumbled to the side. The ground where Nagi had been standing exploded in a cloud of pulverized stone.
Keele’s warning had steered Nagi right. Without it, he would’ve died before he could figure out the true workings of Lernaean’s royal caliber; now he could stay ahead of Lernaean’s blows so long as he watched his gestures and the direction of his gaze. As the flying blades whipped past him, Nagi nocked a second arrow. This time, he aimed for the head.
“Too weak... Do you think you’ll ever hit me like that?”
The arrow shattered in midair, just as the first did.
“I’ll just keep trying until I do.”
“It’s useless. You only have so many arrows. Still, you’re quite skilled. If I was a weaker man, you’d have made pincushions of my vitals. I believe you are worth granting eternal life. How about it?”
“You asked Jubilia and Keele the same thing, didn’t you?”
“I did... And they refused me.”
“My answer is the same as theirs. There’s far more worth in living for a single instant helping the people I believe in than living forever for myself. I’ll live for Saya’s sake, then die. Take your eternal life and shove it ’til you can taste it when you cough.”
Nagi loosed another arrow. It still didn’t reach its target, but little by little, Nagi was closing in. With each shot, he closed the distance with a single large stride. Lernaean staggered from his throne to evade a shot that would have drilled a hole in his skull otherwise.
“I thought you didn’t need to leave your throne?”
“What impudence... I simply realized this blade is more than enough to kill a commoner like you.”
Lernaean drew the sword at his waist with his left hand. He swung the large blade around idly. Nagi unsheathed his knife and dived in, tossing aside his bow and empty quiver.
“You believe you can kill me if you stab me in the heart with Halahala, don’t you? Who knows—maybe you’re right. But you’re running out of time to find out!.”
Lernaean was wielding his sword in his off hand. His swordsmanship wasn’t at Jubilia’s level, either. Still, his fiendish strength made each swipe of the blade potentially lethal. What’s more, Lernaean still had the royal caliber. Nagi wove between the sword and intermittent volleys of his flying blades, slashing furiously with his knife. He was biding his time for the moment Lernaean showed an opening.
“Impressive. You weren’t like this before. You’ve grown since the revolution,” Lernaean said, admiration in his voice. “Unfortunately, you can’t win against me. If I do this, for example...”
Lernaean feinted, releasing his royal caliber at a new target. Nagi didn’t dodge it this time. Blood burst into the air.
“You can’t avoid it, can you? You’re far too naïve.”
There was no way he could. If he got out of the way, it would’ve hit Saya.
“Changing this world is too great a task for you,” Lernaean declared.
“Shut up...”
Nagi pushed through the pain as he jumped in once more.
“You couldn’t hit me before. Do you really think you’ll come any closer with those wounds? You should’ve tossed that woman aside. You were mistaken, and you let your chance at victory slip through your fingers for that mistake.”
Lernaean kept his composure as Nagi exposed a fatal opening. He slipped in a puddle of his own blood and lost his balance.
“Farewell, Commoners’ Hero.”
Lernaean stabbed Nagi in the stomach. Nagi’s blood coated the blade as it slipped between his ribs. The clatter of his knife falling to the floor echoed through the throne room. Lernaean relaxed. Nagi’s death was certain now. He wasn’t capable of moving with such a wound. Nevertheless, Nagi mustered the last of his strength to seize Lernaean’s sword arm in an iron grip.
“Got you... Saya, do it!”
Lernaean raised a quizzical eyebrow. In the next instant, the bottle hanging from Nagi’s necklace shattered, unleashing... a red butterfly. It was Saya’s royal caliber. The bottle contained blood from when Saya was the Sovereign. It took all the power she had left in her to activate it.
Lernaean’s eyes shot open. He tried twisting clear of it, but he couldn’t move with Nagi locking him down. The butterfly fluttered in the air as if time around it had stopped, and crawled into Lernaean’s chest through his scar. In the next instant, Lernaean screamed and bent backward. Nagi lost his hold and was flung away. Lernaean clawed at his chest, writhing from the pain in his heart.
“It’s useless,” Saya told him. “Your heart has withered. You probably won’t die right away, but there’s no regenerating that sort of wound.”
“Serves you... right...” Nagi muttered, before blood poured from his mouth in a violent coughing fit.
Right when he felt like he would collapse, Saya ran over and caught him in her arms.
“Nagi! Don’t talk!”
“You really can tell... when you’re about to die... huh?”
She held his head to her chest as his blood stained her arms.
“I’ve also... used up all my strength,” Saya told him with a smile.
Nagi returned her smile. “See? We’re together to the end.”
“Yeah.”
His body was getting cold. He couldn’t even feel Saya’s warmth anymore. His limbs felt like they’d frozen, and the sensation was spreading throughout his body. Still, he didn’t shiver.
“You two have destroyed the world,” Lernaean said, his voice sounding far away. “Saya and I are the only royalty left in the world. The Sovereign’s Blood is gone. Amrita can no longer be created. Cursed with short lives, humanity won’t be able to maintain civilization. It is sure to perish.”
Nagi felt hazy, and his breaths came in ragged spurts, but he still replied. “I’m sure it’ll work out. Crestfolk live longer than commoners.”
“I wonder about that? It’s so dull that we won’t be able to see who’s right. Lifespan... such a... worthless notion...”
Lernaean’s voice cut short. Nagi couldn’t even confirm whether or not the man was dead now. He was at his limits himself.
“Saya...”
And feeling strangely relieved at the fact that no reply came to him, Nagi closed his eyes.