Every day. Every hour. Every second.
I regret that moment.
It replays in my mind again and again—an endless spiral of agony.
Guilt. Terror. Ruin. Hatred.
My soul feels like it's been dragged through every circle of torment, twisted and broken until I can no longer tell where I end and my remorse begins.
I was too absorbed in my own narrow world—too desperate to save everyone—to realize what I was truly doing.
Why didn't I stop and think? Why didn't I question it?
I was so consumed with living up to everyone's expectations… to being the hero they wanted me to be.
And now that moment haunts me—over and over, the same question pounding against my skull until I can barely breathe:
What if I hadn't taken her hand?
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
After all the crying, the pleading, the blood-curdling screams—it stopped.
Just like that.
Lye Batenkaitos rose to his feet. His movements were fluid, unnaturally steady, as if nothing had ever happened. The tremors that once wracked his body were gone. The madness in his eyes—gone. The laughter, the howling, the deranged hunger—all gone.
In its place came silence. A suffocating, heavy stillness that pressed down on everyone present.
The very air changed. Where once there had been chaos, there was now… poise.
Crusch's stomach sank. Her lips pressed into a thin line, and she bit down hard enough to taste blood.
The plan failed…
She didn't know exactly what Tanaka had done, what he had intended when he allowed Gluttony to consume his memories. But she had seen it—the flicker of pain that crossed his face, the sheer, desperate focus in his eyes before he'd offered himself up.
And now, seeing Lye standing there—calm, breathing slowly, expression unreadable—she could only assume the worst.
Whatever Tanaka had tried… it hadn't worked.
"You bastard!" she snapped, stepping forward, fury lacing her tone. "What did you do!?"
Lye's head turned toward her, slow, deliberate. His pale hair fluttered slightly in the wind. When he spoke, his voice was calm—too calm. "Calm down, Crusch. It's me… Kazuki Tanaka."
Her breath caught.
For a heartbeat, she froze. Then her hands tightened around her sword hilt, knuckles whitening. "Stop playing games!" she yelled. "Undo whatever it is you just did!"
Tanaka tilted his head, almost offended. "What the hell are you all talking about? What's going on? I'm Kazuki Tanaka."
"Ah, sorry," said Lye—or something wearing his skin. "I should explain better."
The way he acted, It was distant. Rem knew that it wasn't the way Tanaka usually is but sometimes he he wears that expression. That posture. That cadence.
"I'm you… or maybe a copy of you? It's hard to say. Honestly, it's quite confusing."
Tanaka blinked, his pupils dilating slightly as a sharp pain stabbed behind his eyes. His own memories felt… heavy. Fuzzy at the edges, like a dream slipping through his grasp.
"Wha—what are you saying?" he muttered.
Lye's gaze softened—eerily calm now, the kind of tone one would use to reassure a patient in delirium.
"You have amnesia," he said evenly. "You didn't lose everything—only a part of your memories. The rest…"His hand rose, fingers tapping against his temple."…were transferred to me. Along with a copy of the ones you still possess."
"..."
Tanaka could only stare. His mind spun in circles, trying—and failing—to make sense of the words. Everything about this was absurd. Unreal. But the sincerity in Lye's tone, the almost autonomous tone behind his expression… it made him hesitate.
Still, he needed something tangible. Something that could prove or disprove this insanity.
Lye spoke again, his voice quiet, almost reverent."10–01–2002…"
The sequence of numbers hung in the air like a gunshot.
At first, everyone looked confused—except for Tanaka. His eyes widened. His breath hitched.
"…What?"
"That," Lye continued calmly, "is the password for your phone. Your sister's birthday."
Tanaka froze. His throat went dry."You—how did you—"
"You took photos and recorded things since coming to this place," Lye interrupted softly. "You can check for yourself."
With trembling fingers, Tanaka pulled out his phone.
He began scrolling.
Photo after photo filled the screen—images of the blue-haired girl were there, other images of a girl that look exactly like her but with pink hair but a completely different expression, that of an annoyance. A lot of pictures of a beautiful girl with silver hair and white clothing surrounded by blue beams of lights, with some angle where she is looking at him with embarrassment. A lot of photos of a little girl with creamy blond hair styled cutely, eating cakes and seemingly getting teased.
They were his photos. His angles, his framing, even the way he captured the light—it was undeniably his style. But he couldn't remember any of them.
His gaze flickered to the blue-haired girl standing beside him. She looked back, troubled, her hands clasped tightly in front of her.
He kept scrolling. Then he stopped.
A familiar face. A man he recognized—a regular customer from the convenience store where he worked back home. The presence of something so ordinary among these bizarre memories made his stomach twist. The surrealness of it all pressed down on him, as if he were trapped in a lucid dream he couldn't wake from.
And then he noticed the date on the last photo.
Forty-five days ago.
If what that boy said was true—if he really had amnesia—then why were all his memories after that date gone? What could possibly have happened to erase a month and a half from his life?
His breath trembled. His vision blurred slightly as panic began to creep in.
"What… what is this place?" he stammered, voice cracking. "I— I don't get it…"
He then added, "Wh— What has become of everyone?"
A question that caused more fear than anything. His family, that's the only that he cared about, the only thing that mattered.
"Just sit tight for a moment," Lye said Coldly. "I'll return your memories, and it will all make sense."
Rem took a hesitant step forward, her eyes narrowing. "Are you really Tanaka-Kun?" she asked, her voice uncertain but firm. "That doesn't make sense. If every time Gluttony eats someone's memories he risks losing himself, then…"
Lye tilted his head, considering. "This hasn't happened before," he admitted. "So it must be an exception. I suspected he wouldn't be able to handle my memories. They must've overwhelmed him—so much that his consciousness fractured. The result…" His lips barely moved. "…is me taking over."
Rem's eyes widened. "Before?"
It was slip of tongue but Rem caught it. Tanaka was hiding many things
Crusch, standing nearby, said nothing—but her divine protection whispered truth in her mind. Lye wasn't lying.
And that terrified her more than anything.
Gluttony might be incapacitated, yes—but Greed was still out there. And if Tanaka had been wary of him before, there had to be a reason.
Lye—Tanaka—breathed deeply, then spoke with quiet resolve. "In any case, there's no need for proof. I'll return my memories to my body, along with the names he stole."
He straightened his back, his expression unreadable. "But first…"
He turned his gaze to the man standing before him—Regulus Corneas. The Sin Archbishop of Greed stood there, perfectly composed, his white hair shimmered faintly beneath the gray light, his golden eyes fixed on Lye with detached irritation, as though he were being inconvenienced by a particularly dull conversation.
"This is how it's going to be," Lye said coldly. "I did as I promised. I kept my side of the bargain and allowed him to eat my memories."
Regulus raised an eyebrow, amusement tugging at his lips."Bargain? Promise?" He gave a quiet, disdainful laugh. "Aren't you getting a bit ahead of yourself? I don't recall agreeing to such terms. You just made up a fantasy, convinced yourself it was real, and now you're trying to drag others into it. Pretty cocky of you… especially for a weakling."
Lye's tone didn't waver. "Even if you didn't agree, the conditions were clear. Either he takes my memories alone and spares the others… or I kill myself. You had more than enough chances to object, but you didn't."
Regulus's eyes hardened, that condescending air sharpening into something venomous."First of all," he said slowly, "what makes you think you have the right to decide when I speak? That's something no one—absolutely no one—can dictate but me." His words came out clipped, each syllable soaked in righteous fury. "And another thing—you actually expect me to believe you would've killed yourself? How pathetic. An empty threat that idiot Batenkaitos was stupid enough to fall for. But me? Don't expect the same."
Lye tilted his head, unimpressed. "What you believe is irrelevant," he said. "You can't get what you came for. You're acting as if you being here is coincidence—but I know better. You're here because of the Gospel's command. You were meant to accompany him. And since I now have access to his memories, I know your true goal—the names you were after. Mine… and Crusch's."
His eyes grew cold, like shards of ice. "But that's not going to happen. Your partner is gone."
Regulus frowned hardened, though his voice stayed maddeningly calm. "Didn't I say he isn't my friend? Honestly, it's rude of you to assume. And besides…" he stepped forward, his polished shoes making no sound on the snow. "…don't you think it's arrogant to assume you know—"
Lye sighed. "Ahh… I really don't care."
He took a breath—steady, deep—and then whispered the word:"...Huma."
A pulse of cold burst from his body. The air trembled, the world dimming as a thin mist of frost spread from his feet outward in expanding circles.
Frost blossomed along his fingertips, crawling up his arm, across his shoulders, and down his chest. It wasn't violent—it was serene, almost beautiful, as though the cold itself were embracing him. His breath turned to fog, his lashes glistening with ice.
Everyone watched in stunned disbelief.
Lye glanced back at Tanaka—his gaze strangely serene, almost kind. The faintest ghost of a smile crossed his lips as his skin began to pale, frost crawling over his arms.
"The rest…" he murmured, voice fading into the wind, "…is up to you."
And then, with a final shattering sound, his body froze completely—perfectly still, caught mid-breath.
The wind stilled. The faint shimmer of mana hung in the air, sparkling like frozen dust before fading into silence.
The silence didn't last.
Crusch suddenly staggered, clutching her head. A sharp, piercing pain bloomed behind her eyes, stealing her balance. Around her, the soldiers cried out, their bodies jerking as though struck by lightning.
The pain wasn't physical. It was the rush of remembrance.
Faces. Names. Voices long forgotten burst back into existence.The fog over their minds was gone.
Rem stood unaffected, her blue hair swaying faintly in the breeze, it was probably because she wasn't acquainted with the people whom their names were eaten.
But Tanaka—Tanaka was suffering most of all.
He dropped to his knees, hands clawing at his temples, his entire body trembling as if his very soul were being torn apart."AaaaAAAAAAAHHHH!"
"Tanaka-kun!" Rem rushed forward, catching him before he collapsed completely. His weight fell against her, his breathing ragged and uneven, each inhale a desperate gasp for air.
Tears streamed down his face in torrents, uncontrollable and raw.
Memories flooded in—too many, too fast. The weight of centuries poured back into his mind. The pain of every death, every scream, every failure he'd buried came crashing into him like a tidal wave of grief.
He remembered how he died. He remembered the endless loops of torment, the futures he could not change, the worlds he watched crumble. He remembered his family—the faces he would never see again.
It was all too much.
He convulsed, clutching at his chest, choking on sobs that wouldn't stop. The air around him shimmered faintly with spirits, responding to his turmoil. His voice broke apart between cries and apologies.
"I—I'm so sorry… Rem, I'm so sorry for what I did… I'm sorry for being so useless—!"
She was supposed to marry Subaru and have children. But that future was gone because he existed.
His voice cracked, his words tumbling out in fragments between shallow, panicked breaths.
Rem's eyes softened. She held him tighter, pulling him against her shoulder, her fingers trembling as she ran them through his hair.
"Shh… it's okay. I'm here, Tanaka-Kun. Rem is here."
But her heart ached.
She'd seen him angry. She'd seen him reckless, self-sacrificing, even desperate—but never like this. Never so broken.
What in the world did he have to endure?
Tanaka's breathing came in short bursts, uneven and strained. His shoulders shook uncontrollably as he clung to her like a drowning man.
"Hah… hah… hah…"
Each breath scraped his throat raw, each exhale trembling with everything he had tried to hold back.
Regulus's voice cut through the fragile quiet like a bell struck too hard. "Listen up—how many times will you interrupt me? I am standing here, and you will not act as if I do not exist. No matter how tolerant I seem, I will not let such insolence go unpunished!"
Something in that perfectly measured outrage ignited Crusch. All the fury she'd been swallowing—over her slaughtered knights, over Tanaka reduced to tears, over the contempt from a man who treated this ordeal as an inconvenience—flared into white heat. Her hand tightened around her sword. She bolted forward, armor clanking, eyes alight with fury.
Tanaka saw her expression and knew what was coming. He muttered, "D_D--on't...." But she didn't hear him, even Rem didn't hear him.
And even if she did, she had no reason to stop her, no one had any reason to. Even the soldier drew their weapons, they were fed up with the situation and were ready for a battle to the death.
"You bastard!" she snarled. In an instant she unleashed the wind slash, the same one she had used against the White Whale: a translucent arc of compressed air, a blade of tempest trained for battlefields and nightmares alike. It screamed through the air toward Regulus with the terrible beauty of falling glass.
For a heartbeat they all watched—because they had to believe it would end here.
It didn't.
It was as if the wind slash met nothing. No spark, no resistance. It swallowed the space where Regulus stood and simply… vanished. Not deflected, not blurred—abolished. Regulus did not so much as blink. His expression hardened, the boredom curdling into something akin to rage.
"You attack me for speaking?" he said, voice small and incredulous and full of an authority that made the hair on the back of Tanaka's neck stand up. "You act as if I made some slight. I would have overlooked that foolishness had you apologized. But you tried to kill me—before I had done anything. That's the same as trampling on my life, on my existence, on my authority, on my humanity itself, isn't it? "
Crusch's breath came ragged; the shock of impotence cut her as much as any blade. For a beat she looked ready to rout the world.
Tanaka didn't think. His brain was a smashed bell, but his limbs still obeyed. He shoved himself to his feet and surged forward, every step an effort against the weight of exhaustion and grief. He saw Regulus raise a single hand—an easy, graceful motion aimed at Crusch and the ranks behind her—and the world narrowed to one brutal thread: protect them.
He dove, shoulder slamming into Crusch, hauling her out of the line of sight. The soldiers behind them were a living wall, but many had no time to react; some were knocked off their feet by shock and the aftershocks of magic. Tanaka shoved with everything he had left and bellowed a single word:
"Fura!"
The air obeyed. The co-flow he'd pioneered earlier spat outward in a violent pulse, not delicate this time but raw force—ultimately precise enough to hurl the nearest soldiers aside and wrench the ground itself.
Crack.
A fissure ran through the frozen wall. The ice barriers he had raised to divert the carriages splintered with the sound of breaking bone. Sheets of the conjured glacier sheared apart and tumbled.
Bodies slid, men tumbled, but by some slender mercy there were no shattered corpses. Tanaka hit the ground hard, the impact jarring through his bones. His arm locked instinctively around Crusch.
"I'm sorry Tanaka, you saved us."
She didn't know the extent of the enemy's strength but to think her strongest attack didn't have any effect what so ever. [1]
And also his offensive power, it was by a strand of hair but if Tanaka hadn't intervened. Crusch and half of her soldiers would have died.
For a few seconds, there was only the thunder of his pulse and the sharp sting of cold air caused by the fractured ice.
Then she felt it—warmth.
Crusch blinked, dazed. Beneath her palm, where her hand had landed against Tanaka's shoulder, something hot was seeping through his coat. When she pulled her hand back, her glove came away dark red. Blood.
Her breath hitched. "You're hurt—!"
Tanaka didn't answer immediately. His face was pale, teeth gritted.
The wound wasn't deep, but it burned like fire—a scrape across his shoulder where the invisible force had grazed him, close enough to have torn through bone had he been a fraction slower.
His mouth trembled. Tears seeped free, a single rivulet tracing down on her cheek. Rage curdled into a grief so sharp it wound around his voice.
"I want to kill him," he whispered, no longer able to hold the sentence back. "Right now—more than anyone else."
"It's not a matter of our soldiers being capable of fighting or if they are willing to die to take him down."
"Right now... If we fight him, we will all die without defeating him."
It wasn't matter of strength, he won't take any damage regardless of the power of the attack, he saw it before hand.
"I don't want you to die… I don't want Rem to die… I don't want anyone here to die," Tanaka continued, his voice quieter now, almost pleading. "If we don't figure out how his authority works—the secret behind that invincibility—we can't beat him."
He felt the same logic that governed Gluttony's name-eating: a law, a hinge on which power turned. If Gluttony needed names, then Greed must have its own condition.
Tanaka pushed himself up with slow, deliberate movements. The spirits that fluttered like pale moths around him responded at once, swarming to his shoulder.
This is unfair.
He felt it as a hot, bitter taste: they had never intended to keep their promises.
Still, behind him stood Rem, Crusch, and dozens of soldiers—faces bright with courage and the terrible willingness to die for a cause. Their resolve was a mirror that reflected only his own responsibility.
He saw the resolve in their eyes and felt despair coiling in his gut.
"Odglass, please help me…" he murmured, barely audible over the wind. The name was a private thing. Odglass had been the only one whom he could actually ask for help. But her appearing was simply not possible—she had told him she could not be there physically,
He closed his eyes and imagined that polar bear anyway. For an instant he allowed himself the thought that if she were here, she would have saved him without question.
When he opened his eyes the look on Regulus's face told him what he did not want to know: there would be no compromise. The man's contempt made the choice plain; This would only end in slaughter.
If it was a dead end, then he would take the first step into it. He would be the one to go first.
Summoning the last of his strength, he tried to shape mana into a weapon as he had before. His gate felt ragged, his concentration frayed from the flood of memory and grief.
Still, he forced will into shape: a shard of ice, jagged and crooked, not the elegant blade he once could conjure but something sharp enough to be an end.
Tanaka began walking forward. His steps were unsteady, boots crunching against the fractured ice and gravel beneath him. Each step echoed too loudly in the deadened silence.
"Tanaka-Kun! What are you doing?" Rem's voice cracked and desperate.
He didn't look back. "It's okay, Rem… everything's going to be fine." His tone was soft, almost gentle, but there was something final in it—something that made her blood run cold.
Regulus's lip twitched, irritation replacing his mock civility. "What exactly do you hope to achieve with that?" His voice sharpened with disdain as he gestured lazily toward the crooked shard. "You saw how I blocked that woman's attack, didn't you? Or did your common sense freeze over too?"
Tanaka stopped mid-step. The shard in his hand pulsed faintly, as if reflecting the rapid beat of his heart.
They couldn't lose. Out of hundreds, thousands—no, millions of possible outcomes—there had to be one that led to victory. There had to be a way out. He refused to believe otherwise.
His hands trembled. Fear coursed through him, raw and suffocating. He wasn't numb to it; he was human, and humans feared pain, feared death. The memory of dying before—of burning, of suffocating, of watching everything he cared for crumble—gnawed at him. Yet if he had to endure it again, he would. He had that much resolve left in him.
He couldn't afford to lose. Not someone who could bend the flow of time, not someone who had already died and clawed his way back. But what terrified him wasn't death itself.
It was the thought that, one day, after countless repeats, he might lose himself—forget who he was, what he fought for. That his resolve might become hollow repetition.
Tears welled again, hot against the cold air. His vision blurred, the edges of the world softening into an indistinct haze. His fingers shook as he raised the shard, its freezing surface biting into his palm. He turned it slowly, pressing the jagged tip against his throat. The chill seared like acid.
Regulus's eyes widened slightly, surprise flickering behind the arrogance. "You… don't tell me?"
Tanaka smiled through the trembling. It wasn't a brave smile—it was weary, broken, but defiant. "I won't let you win. No matter what."
His thoughts whispered, relentless and clear. I just have to find another way.Even if I don't get it next time, I'll try again.And again.And again and again and again.
"Noooo!" Crusch screamed but there was no point.
His resolve had to be absolute—unyielding. He drew in a sharp breath, tightening his grip until the edges cut into his palm. Without hesitation, he drove the shard toward his own throat.
The ice sliced through skin with a cold, electric sting. Blood bloomed scarlet against the frost. His breath hitched, vision tunneling as white-hot pain shot through his body. The world blurred, sound fading to a dull ringing. His heartbeat slowed.
This is what it means to protect them.
He braced himself for the darkness—ready for time to fold, for everything to reset.
But it didn't.
The ice spike vanished—not shattered, not melted—simply gone, erased from existence. His hand was empty. His throat unscarred. His pulse steady.
He was still standing. Still breathing.
Then, a slow deliberate cut sound through the silence.
Clap
Clap
Clap
"A truly magnificent soul," a voice murmured, low and admiring, reverberating through the still air like silk over steel.
The voice was light, almost playful, yet dripping with something far more sinister.
He turned toward the sound.
She stepped forward, moving with an unnatural grace, a presence so overwhelming that even the air seemed to bow in reverence.
She was beautiful. So impossibly beautiful that it was terrifying.
Her long, platinum hair shimmered like woven sunlight, cascading over her delicate shoulders and trailing down her back. Each strand caught the light in a way that felt unreal. Her lashes framed eyes so deep a shade of blue that they seemed to devour the world itself.
Her porcelain skin, untouched by imperfection, was wrapped in nothing more than a single white cloth—a garment that the world itself seemed to permit, as if no other fabric was worthy of gracing her form.
She was fragile, almost unbearably so, yet every fiber of my being screamed that she was the most dangerous entity in existence.
Her voice was like a spell, binding everyone present. No one moved. No one spoke.
Most of the men around me were enthralled, their reactions similar—captivated, overwhelmed.
But what he felt in that exact moment was something entirely different.
True, soul-crushing, mind-numbing fear.
Not the kind that came with battle. Not the fear of death, or failure, or pain.
No, this was something deeper. Something primal.
More than any wound, more than any loss, more than any torment he had ever suffered in my life—nothing compared to the terror he felt standing before this girl.
She tilted her head slightly, amusement flickering across her flawless face.
"What a selfless yet prideful act," she whispered, her voice dripping with sweet malice. "That was truly worthy of praise."
She resumed her slow applause, her slender fingers meeting in quiet, deliberate claps.
Her breathing hitched, a little gasp escaping her lips.
The sight of his struggle—of my resolve—thrilled her.
"Who..."
Tanaka swallowed hard, his throat dry as he managed a whisper.
His body was wrecked, his mind barely functioning. The word barely came out, more of a broken breath than speech.
The girl smiled. A slow, deliberate curve of her lips that sent an unbearable chill down his spine.
And then he forced his voice to work.
"Who the hell are you!?"
One after another, they kept appearing.
Her expression didn't falter. If anything, she seemed delighted by my defiance.
"Ah, please forgive my rudeness," she said sweetly, almost mockingly.
Then, she tilted her head, placing a hand over her chest as she introduced herself.
"My name is Pandora," she said.
And with a smile as beautiful as it was horrifying, she added—
"The Witch of vainglory."
"A witch?"
That word echoed repeatedly across everyone present.
He knew the witch title carried a weight you could not bargain with in this world.
Everything narrowed to a point of cold clarity. Terror lanced through him and, for the first time since the loops had begun, it pinned him into absolute stillness.
He forced words out like a plea. "What do you want? Your comrade is dead..." The sentence fell flat, cruelly small in the open air.
Pandora smiled like someone admiring a delicate thing. Her voice was syrup-soft, entirely without the hard edge of cruelty you'd expect from such a presence. "The death of Bishop Batenkaitos is regrettable," she said, almost conversational, "but regrettable is not the same as wasted. After all… you are still alive."
Those words should have been an answer. They should have offered some terrible clarity. Instead they opened more questions. Why am I alive? He had driven the dagger through his throat — he had felt the ice bite, the blood, the sky fold — and yet he stood.
Everyone reacted to that impossibility with a different shade of horror — everyone except her.
Pandora stepped forward as if crossing a room to kiss an old friend. Her eyes, huge and limpid, found him and brightened with something like recognition. She reached out as if to touch a relic.
"May I have the honor of knowing your name?" she asked, the question folded in silk.
"Kazuki Tanaka," he managed, voice raw, the syllables tasting like iron.
Her face changed: the expression that flickered there was not predation but rapture. "Kazuki Tanaka-sama…" She closed her eyes, clasped her hands beneath her chin, and something like a single tear slid down her cheek. The sight was disarming — holy, almost maternal — and utterly, terrifyingly sincere. She pressed a palm to her heart as if she had found the one missing piece she'd been searching for across lifetimes.
For a breathless second, she seemed even more inhuman. Then the underlying wrongness crept back: the way her smile hung a heartbeat too long, the way her fingers twitched as if savoring a flavor only she could taste.
"I have a proposition," she said finally, voice honeyed with promise. "Come with us. If you do, everyone here will be spared."
Her words hung in the air like a velvet noose.
Regulus's face tightened, affronted. He straightened as if braced to argue, color flushing faintly beneath his pale skin. "Wait a second, Pandora-Sama," he snapped, voice high and incredulous. "What gives you the right to stroll in here and make decisions on my behalf? To overstep my authority, my being, my very existence?"
Pandora inclined her head with an almost maternal patience, the smile never leaving her lips. "I understand your anger, Bishop, but you must follow the Gospel's commands."
Regulus's arrogance snapped back like a taut wire. "I am upholding the Gospel—do you not know why I am here?"
Her smile softened into something that looked like approval. "I see. And I commend you for that. But what does it say now?"
For the first time since he had arrived, Regulus was unmoored. His mouth parted; the practiced smirk faltered. He did not have the Gospel with him—he never had bothered to travel with that burden of parchment and decree. He'd come because he was told to come.
Pandora's eyes glinted, cognizant and cool. "You fulfilled your duties by coming here; you have my thanks. You are free to leave."
Regulus's outrage rose, then crumpled—part indignation, part bewilderment. "You tell me to come, and now you tell me to go at your whim? What sort of—"
But Pandora cut him off with a soft, conclusive nod. "Very well. I shall take responsibility myself." Her voice held the absolute calm of someone signing an irrevocable decree.
She spoke the next words with the casual clarity of a verdict. "Bishop Corneas should not be here. He is at his mansion, surrounded by his wives, awaiting for us."
Regulus's hand rose in a reflexive, furious gesture—an instinctive cast of authority. "You bitch! Not a—"
The sentence never finished. The air around him seemed to tighten for a single, absurd heartbeat, then he simply disappeared. One instant he was there—heated, indignant—and the next he was gone, as if a thread connecting him to the world had been severed. No sound. No tremor. No trace.
Everyone's breath froze. The absence was a physical thing, as palpable as the cold: the place where Regulus had stood felt too large, the air hollowed out by his sudden vanishing.
Pandora folded her hands, the picture of serene control. "Now that the noisy young man is gone," she said lightly, as though announcing the arrival of tea, "we can converse at leisure."
Silence slammed into them like a physical thing. The question hung in the air: what had she just done? One moment Regulus had been there—imperious, dangerous, insolent—and the next he was gone, erased in a motion that left no footprint.
Pandora's manner only made it worse. She wore sama on her lips as if it were a garland, and the word sliced through him. That Regulus, who had swaggered through slaughter, showed deference to her—subdued as if by a look—was a signpost that pointed to something far deeper and darker than brute strength.
"You were willing to die rather than accept defeat," she murmured, turning her head to regard him with an exquisitely tender look. "You were prepared to sacrifice yourself to save everyone here. They may not see it, but I do."
Her praise landed like hot coals. Crusch's face had been a study in raw panic when Tanaka had driven the dagger to his throat; Rem and the soldiers had felt it too—an instinctive lurch toward failure. Pandora's appraisal seemed to fold those moments into meaning, as if she'd read the book of his last actions and decided they were beautiful.
"What is it? Did you really think he was going to die in vain? Everything he does is for the sake of oth..."
"Stop it!" Tanaka snapped, the sound cutting through the false calm. He could not bear Pandora's soft sanctimony. Her voice carried certainty about things she had no right to understand. Greed might be gone, but the presence she cast felt heavier than any single enemy.
"Ara, my apologizes..."
Pandora's smile widened, almost fond. In a motion too quick to follow fully, she reappeared at his side.
One second she stood across the clearing, the next she was close enough that the scent of her—something like perfumed snow—brushed his skin. Her fingers came up and, with an effortless grace, she wiped the blood from his cheek. The stains vanished on her palm as if swallowed by air.
Before he could react, she was behind him. Her voice was a whisper against his ear, a cold silk that crawled down his spine. "Your resolve and steadfast will," she breathed, "you truly deserve nothing but praise."
The witch's attention felt invasive, as if she'd read through him and was cataloging the most useful parts.
She stepped back into view, as composed as ever. Her eyes gleamed with that impossible warmth. Despite the terror thrumming through his veins, Tanaka forced himself to speak. "What do you want?"
Her smile softened into a question that was almost gentle. "Let me ask you once again. Come with me—and with that, you will save everyone here."
"Stop messing around!" Rem's voice broke across the tableau, frantic and raw. She lunged toward him, hand outstretched. "Don't listen to her, Tanaka-Kun."
Tanaka's expression didn't shift much—only his eyes, dimmed and distant, seemed to absorb the weight of what was coming. He turned toward Pandora, his tone quiet but steady. "Everyone won't be harmed if I go along?"
Pandora's smile was serene, almost motherly. "Yes," she said, her voice soft as falling snow. "I promise."
He nodded once. "I accept your terms."
The air seemed to thin. Crusch stiffened, her hand trembling against the hilt of her sword. Rem froze mid-step, disbelief flashing across her tear-rimmed eyes. The faint curl of a smile tugged at Tanaka's lips—a tired, broken thing that didn't belong to someone his age.
"Rem, Crusch," he said gently, the calm in his voice at odds with the storm behind his eyes, "this is the only way."
"There is no way we can accept this outcome!" Crusch's voice broke through, fierce but cracking at the edges. "Stop this now, Kazuki Tanaka! We can fight! No, we will fight" She took a half-step forward before stopping herself, helplessness coiling in her chest.
Tanaka looked at her, then at Rem. "If you're alive and well, then I won't have a reason to throw my life away," he said softly. "My worries will be gone too. So don't worry—I will not die."
He exhaled, a small, weary chuckle following the words. "I promise."
Something flickered in his eyes then—hope, maybe, or the faint shimmer of resolve on the verge of breaking.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out his phone and tossed it toward Rem. "Keep it safe until I come back," he said. "So we can take more photos."
Rem caught it with shaky hands, clutching it to her chest as if it were his heartbeat she was holding. Her lips trembled, words caught in her throat.
"Tell Subaru to stay alive until I'm back," Tanaka continued, his voice low but clear. "It's a bit selfish to ask that… after everything I did."
His gaze softened then, distant but fond. "And tell Beatrice I'm sorry. I was supposed to accompany her. But… she'll find the answers she's looking for—with Odglass."
Each word felt like a nail sealing a door that would never open again. There were so many things left unsaid—too many promises left dangling, but this was all he could give them.
Pandora stepped forward, her every movement deliberate, unhurried. She extended her hand toward him—pale, graceful, patient.
Tanaka hesitated, the faintest flicker of fear passing across his face. Then, with a steady breath, he reached out and took it.
Their hands met. The air around them shimmered once, distorting like heat over stone.
And then—they were gone.
No light. No sound. Only the echo of Rem's voice breaking the silence as her knees hit the ground.
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Somewhere in the Al Mathers Estate, more precisely in a place called the forbidden library.
Silence and stillness clouded that place.
A petite young girl with pale cream blonde hair was sitting facing the door of the library. A few hours ago, her brother came and warned about a eminent attack by the witch cult on the mansion.
She didn't have to leave. Afterall, Beatrice was strong and given her door crossing technique and the mansion as her domain, the library was the safest place for her.
Actually, it was more like she couldn't leave, she had a contract that she needed to follow. As that word popped through her head, another face flashed through her memories.
A human with mana too peculiar and too pure.
With a presence that drew her whilst also nostalgic.
Tanaka, she had many opportunities to call his name but never did.
When the camp returned from the capital, that man relayed a message with Puck. 'referring to the last part of chapter 45.'
"He asked me to tell you that he's going to comeback when he's ready to give you answers."
At this point, it was clear. There was some connection between Beatrice and Tanaka, no it would be strange if there wasn't.
He had knowledge about things that only Puck and Roswaal should know about, and even after talking to them, they denied disclosing such information to him.
He was human, somewhat special but nevertheless, a mere human.
He shouldn't have been alive when the contract was made. But again, no one is really alive anymore from 400 years ago with the exception of her brother.
But he knew about everything, he knew about the contract, he knew about the secret behind her door crossing which he doesn't even need to exploit, he knew about Echidna and he knew about the existence of a person whom her mother said she should wait for.
And although he didn't admit it, he didn't deny being that person either.
It was the only thing that would explain how he knew all that stuff. He could have had some special circumstances, a reason as to why he couldn't admit it.
Like an oath or a contract.
"Maybe Betty was also too impatient, I suppose..."
Next time, she would listen properly.
Next time...
She clutched her book tightly and muttered quietly.
"What should I do.... Mother..."
[1] Here you might say that she is stupid for not listening to the mc which is true. But, in her defense, Regulus isn't even a strong fighter, he wasn't even, Reinhard, Cecilus or Halibel strong. He was straight up a cheater. In addition, Tanaka was just stalling and was also heading into a dead end, he didn't have any plan to defeat Regulus.