“You want me to end my own life?” Claire glared at the Demon Queen with naked hostility.
Calmly, the Demon Queen replied, “I do. Is that a problem for you?”
“Of course it is! I promised my family I’d return home with them!”
“So you say, but if you do nothing, that fool Lady Manaria will die, as will Miss Lilly.”
“Not unless we defeat you here! This fight isn’t settled yet! We haven’t given up!”
“I see. So you still haven’t had enough.” The Demon Queen raised her right hand above her head. Black blades appeared, and in a far greater number than before. They blotted out the light of the sun and casted our surroundings into darkness. Even Claire paled at the sight.
“Wh-what’s the point?” Claire asked. “If I kill myself, won’t I just be taken in by the Loop System?”
“I’m the administrator of the Loop System. It’s a simple matter for me to pause its functions the moment you die,” the Demon Queen replied matter-of-factly. “So what’ll it be?”
Her threat was clear: End your own life or I’ll sic these black blades on everyone.
“No matter how I die, the world will come to an end, right? In that case, I’d rather resist you until my last—”
“While I did say I’d end the world, I don’t think you quite understood what I meant,” the Demon Queen interrupted.
“What?” Claire said, nonplussed. “What do you mean? You’re going to kill all of humanity, right?”
“Not quite. I just want to bring an end to human history. In other words, I just want to end the loops for good.”
“That’s the same thing.”
“No, it’s completely different. There will be no needless deaths. Humanity will continue in all its glory until it reaches its breaking point, and then—nothing. No more unnatural, fabricated loops. The world will be freed from its curse of endless death and rebirth.”
Claire was visibly shaken. I could see her wavering, wondering: Would such an end truly be that bad?
“Don’t listen to her, Miss Claire!” I yelled. “We have no way of knowing if what she’s saying is—”
“Excuse me, I’m talking to Miss Claire right now,” the Demon Queen said.
The black blades pursuing me grew faster. I tried to eradicate them with my magic bullets and magic arrows, but a dozen or so slipped through and pierced my body. “Aagh…!”
“Rae!” Claire yelled.
“Please consider carefully, Miss Claire,” the Demon Queen said with compassion in her voice. “If you end your life here, the world will simply return to its true course.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Then I’ll kill everyone you love before your eyes, one by one.”
“You fiend…!”
“Don’t give in to anger. Think calmly. The correct answer should be clear.” The Demon Queen raised her right hand above her head, urging Claire to think.
Claire bit her lip and thought, no doubt conflicted. The end of the world the Demon Queen was promising was far kinder an ending than we could have anticipated.
“Don’t do it…Miss Claire…”
“Rae?”
With great effort, I eked out some words as I crawled along the ground. “What right do we have to decide whether humanity continues or not? Making such a decision would make us no different from her!”
“Be silent.” A dozen of the blades above the Demon Queen rained down on me.
“Agh…ngh…!”
“Stop it! Rae, please, be quiet!” Claire said.
“No…I will not be quiet,” I said. “Demon Queen, what you’re doing is wrong. The choices you’ve made on the whole are beyond reproach, but by far the worst thing you’ve done is try to shoulder everything yourself…”
The pain was unbearable, but I pushed myself to keep speaking. I mean, what else could I do at that point? “Eternal love? Don’t make me laugh. Is love something so one-sided to you? Did you ever stop to think about what Miss Claire might have wanted? Making decisions on your own, then falling into despair on your own…you know nothing about love!”
“Don’t talk like you understand!” For the first time, the Demon Queen expressed anger, the hatred plain on her face. “Someone who’s lived mere decades like you could never understand what it feels like to see your first love dying before your own eyes, what it feels like to have your love slowly crushed to a pulp under the weight of eternity! You know nothing of what I’ve endured!”
Her love for Claire seemed to be a sore spot. Not that I cared. “I don’t know what you’ve been through, and I really don’t care to know. But there’s one thing I can understand.”
“Enough!”
“I’ve made the same mistake as you. Before the revolution, I acted on my own and because of that, I nearly lost everything.”
I’d told myself what I was doing was for Claire, but in reality, I just hadn’t trusted her enough. I’d been afraid things would backfire if I explained myself to her and instead hidden it all. If I had only opened up, that disastrous day might never have unfolded.
“People can’t manage alone, Demon Queen. No matter how talented the individual, no matter how faultless their logic, no matter how righteous their ideals—people just weren’t meant to stand alone.”
“Spare me the empty platitudes!”
“But these aren’t just empty platitudes. Didn’t Miss Claire ever teach you not to run away from your ideals just because reality got a little tough?”
The Demon Queen went wide-eyed. The Claire I knew and the Claire she once loved were technically different people, but I was sure her Claire must have told her something similar before.
“No matter how difficult things got, you should have confided in Miss Claire, even if it would have made things tough for her too. You should have tried to find a way as two—no, together with everyone.”
I believed not doing that and choosing to continue alone had been the Demon Queen’s greatest mistake.
“Hiyah!”
“Miss Lilly!” I exclaimed.
Lilly attacked, taking advantage of the Demon Queen’s focus on me. The Demon Queen hurriedly blocked with her free hand.
“I-I don’t have a right to lecture Rae, er, you on anything, b-but I still think what you’re doing is wrong! You don’t look happy about what you’re doing at all!” Lilly pulled back her blocked sword and swung with the other, then continuing her onslaught further.
“I don’t need something like happiness anymore!” the Demon Queen snarled. She fired a number of the black blades above her head at Lilly, forcing her to retreat.
“Let me get a word in, too, Demon Queen. I agree with Rae, you made the wrong choice.”
“Lady Manaria… You’re going to spout such nonsense as well?”
Manaria attacked from the opposite direction. Though she only had one sword, her speed could have given Dorothea a run for her money. She moved as though dancing and made blow after blow. “I won’t keep you long, so let me just say one thing: You and Rae are different. You cut off everyone but Claire, but Rae chose to not give up on anything.”
“You understand nothing either, Lady Manaria!” The Demon Queen attacked Manaria with the black blades.
Manaria didn’t bother dodging, instead blocking and using the force of the blow to fall back. Once she had retreated until she was near me, she began healing me with one hand while holding her sword at the ready with the other. “You can still fight, right?”
“Of course.”
“Good. That’s my Rae.”
“Thanks, but I belong to Miss Claire,” I joked as I got up.
“None of you understand anything. You had better make your decision soon, Miss Claire. Before it’s all too late,” the Demon Queen said sternly. What would she come at us with this time?
“Rae?”
“Yes, Miss Claire?”
Before I’d realized it, Claire was standing by my side. She looked like she had resigned herself to something. “Do you remember our promise to return home as a family?”
“I do. Why?”
“Do you trust me?”
“Of course?”
“Good… Let me apologize beforehand for scaring you.”
“Miss Claire?”
“I swear to you, I’ll see our promise through.” After saying that, Claire smiled and began walking away, right before tossing me her magic wand.
“What?! Miss Claire?!” I exclaimed.
“Claire, what are you doing?!” Manaria called after her.
“M-Miss Claire?!” Lilly cried.
She continued to walk steadily toward the Demon Queen.
“What’re you plotting, Miss Claire?” she asked.
“I finally understand,” Claire responded.
“Understand what?”
“How to make you stop.”
“I cannot be stopped.”
“Demon Queen…no, my other Rae. Listen carefully…” Claire was standing right before the Demon Queen by this point. Without warning, Claire pulled her into an embrace, causing the Demon Queen’s eyes to widen in surprise. Claire patted her back. “Everyone wishes for their love to last for eternity. But people are not meant to love for eternity.”
“Miss Claire…? What are you doing…?” the Demon Queen asked, flummoxed.
Claire formed a magic lance behind herself and sent it through them both.
As the rest of us watched in stunned silence, only the Demon Queen’s confused groans and Claire’s loving voice could be heard.
“Ar…gh…? Miss Claire…?”
“Be that as it may… I still love you, Rae.”