“Are you ready?” asks Alleluia, squeezing his hand.
Canta turns his head, looking at her, and nods. “I am,” he affirms.
Canta and Alleluia walk through the final door hand in hand. An ornate hallway leads up to the final chamber ahead of them.
“Hey, Canta?” asks Alleluia, squeezing his fingers. “Can I tell you something?”
“Sure,” he says. “Alleluia,” he says, squeezing her hand back.
“Promise that you won’t be mad?” she says.
“I promise,” he says, looking at her and feeling the vibration of her mechanical body running through his hands.
She plays with a strand of her long, silver hair. “Well… the thing is, you remember those skulls by my old chamber, down where we met?”
“Don’t call it a chamber,” he laughs. “It makes you sound super evil.”
She laughs. “Well… the thing is,” says Alleluia, looking back ahead of them. It is quiet for a time as they walk.
“– I had nothing to do with those,” says Alleluia. “They were outside of my room, but that’s because that’s where the boss-arena was, remember?” she explains. She turns her head. “But then you thought they belonged to me, and I thought it made you think I was really great and strong and mysterious. So I didn’t tell you because I wanted you to think that.”
Canta nods. That makes a lot of sense. He isn’t mad. Smiling, he turns his head toward her. “Thank you for telling me.”
“You’re not mad?” she asks.
“I’m not mad,” he affirms. “I would have been then. But…” Canta looks at her. “Now I’m not,” says Canta. “Thank you for helping me grow, Alleluia,” he says, entirely without shame.
“So?” she asks expectantly.
“So what?” asks Canta.
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She turns her head away in a huff. “So now you have to tell me about your old life.” Canta sighs. “I don’t have to be on the lookout for some other woman, do I?”
“You’re the only one for me,” he reassures her. “Forever.”
“Good. You still owe me a ring.”
He nods. “One problem at a time.”
Holding each other's hands, they step into the throne-room of the Demon-King. It is a large, ornate stone chamber. A long staircase leads up towards what is clearly and undeniably a throne that sits up on its perch, looking down over the fully empty court. There are no guards, there is no Demon-King. There is only Alleluia and Canta. He was afraid of this, not that he hadn't seen it coming.
“Where is everyone?” asks Alleluia, looking around. “Is this a trap?”
“Yeah,” says Canta, walking on ahead and dragging her behind him. “It is,” he says, looking around at the open space. “It’s just like the west, just like the cities, just like everything else that we’ve seen,” he explains. “It’s been set up. That fucking dick,” barks Canta in frustration at the man he hates most in the world – The Demon-King. That piece of shit, that miserable, worthless wretch of a creature. He hates him. He hates him with every fiber of his being.
“We should get out of here,” suggests Alleluia, tugging on his hand. “We’ll look somewhere else! Come on, let’s…” Alleluia stops, holding a hand against her chest. “Lets…” She looks around, her eyes going wide. “Canta,” she says. “My crank,” Alleluia turns around, reaching for her back, towards her crank which is slowly starting to wind down.
“Hold on,” says Canta, running to her backside. “Don’t worry, I got you,” he reassures her, grabbing the crank and planting a kiss on the back of her neck.
“I love you so much,” she sighs in relief. “Can… ta…” Alleluia doesn’t have time to turn around before the crank comes to a stop, still held in Canta’s hand that hadn’t started turning it.
He stands there for a moment, one hand on the crank and the others still holding hers, which has fallen limp to her side as all of the mechanisms in her body, for the first time, come to a full stop.
It’s quiet.
Canta hisses, gritting his teeth together as he feels a tightening in his throat that feels like it travels all the way down to his writhing heart. He feels a hot wetness run down his face, but this time, it isn’t something born of catharsis. It’s hate.
He hates him so much.
Alleluia’s body begins to droop, and he catches it, holding his right arm under her back and his left arm under her knees.
The goddamned Demon-King.
Making a face that he’s glad that she can’t see, Canta bites his teeth together and, carrying Alleluia in his arms, makes his way up the staircase towards the throne.
A man appears, standing to the side. Canta feels the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end as he turns his head to look at the shadowy entity.
The man tips his hat.
Canta nods back to Oriol, the man with the hat, as he carries Alleluia the rest of the way up the stairs. Looking out behind himself, he sits on the throne, which is far too large for himself, in a room that is far too empty for himself alone, and thinks, as Alleluia lays cradled in his lap.
He thinks.
He thinks about how he got here — to this place. It’s because he was a dick. That’s it. That’s the whole reason, really. It was all a set-up. It wasn’t just the central-city. It wasn’t just the farms or the outskirts of the wilderness or all of the other places that they’ve been that had been set up for him.
The dungeon itself, his rebirth — it all had been set up for him too, just the same. Every single moment from the first second of the end of his old life to now was predestined.
Lifting his arm, Canta lets out a noise that is indistinguishable in its tone from an animal’s dying scream as he sinks his teeth down into his own flesh and eats himself, the body of the woman he loves laying in his lap.
Everything goes white.
[SIN LEVEL: {10} - DEMON-KING]
{YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT}