have spread. The end-time...is not nigh. It is already here, and yet..." "Yeah, true. I mean, I'm sure that's what you believe, at any rate. So I figure you should go live as you please. You were planning on dying the moment you set down your burden, but you were able to buy yourself a grace period before the end. The way I see it, nobody has any right to interfere with that." Kaito's voice was kind. He was implying it would even be fine for her to use old-world magic to make her escape. The Saint tilted her head to the side in a gesture one would expect from a young girl. Kaito had a vague sense of why she was acting so innocently. She'd gotten tired of trying to figure out whether he was a friend or a foe. Her unease was plastered across her face. She was no doubt hoping he would turn out to be a friend. However, as he gazed at the woman who had nowhere in this new world to turn, Kaito lacked such kindness. Unfortunately, I'm neither. He had no intention of denouncing the woman for her solitary fight. On the other hand, though, he held a strong personal grudge against her. "You're a normal person now, just like you wanted. Go onâ€”live wherever you want and die however you like. But you're the one who brought all this down on us. Don't forget that." As he lowered his voice, Kaito snapped his fingers. Azure flower petals flashed around his wrist, and he nonchalantly sliced his own artery. Blood gushed from the gap between his glove and his sleeve. The blood flew over onto the wall, then began writhing. The Saint blinked. Before her, the blood had taken on a recognizable form. A "window" had opened up in the underground chamber. Scenes from the outside began projecting where the Saint had been staring at. "...Ahâ€”" A faint noise slipped out of her open mouth. Kaito gave a short nod. The Saint had finally come to a realization. She'd been staring fixedly at the wall for some time, almost as though she could see something in it. Yet in truth, she'd seen nothing, in every sense of the phrase. "The ignorant had no right to cast blame, did they not?" Kaito was ironically reminded of the quote the Saint herself had murmured mere moments ago. According to the Saint, her recollections of the end-time were dim. In other words, she'd never really seen the things outside that window before. God and Diablo had both descended on the world at once. It was a situation that wasn't even supposed to be possible. Because of that, there were probably differences between how the destruction was currently progressing and how it had occurred in the old world. However, the tragedy of the situation was identical. Outside the window, blood was spraying, desperate screams were echoing out, and hundreds of crying voices could be heard. Every scene unfolding there was actually happening somewhere in the world. It could only be described as hell. A giant, rabbitlike underling was grabbing the elderly alive and gnawing on them like carrots. A soldier carrying a cannonball was snatched into the air by some black thing and let out a shriek, before being returned to the ground as a pile of skin. A woman was frantically trying to get her crying children to stay away from her as a creature made of nothing but digestive organs melted her flesh. An armless demi-human was dancing an ecstatic, meaningless dance atop a mountain of charred corpses. Because Kaito was linked to Diablo's pillar, he could sense the particulars of every person in every tragedy that was occurring. He could sense them, and he had abandoned them all. I can't save everyone. Kaito wasn't a god. He could boast about saving the world, but it was impossible for him to save everyone from the personal tragedies befalling them. No matter how quickly he reached his hands out, it would never be fast enough. And at the same time, he knew. The world was hell, and that wasn't just true at the moment. There were countless people begging to be saved. Each and every one of them was crying out just as desperately as Kaito had in his previous life. "Help," they were crying. "Please save me." And Kaito had abandoned them without so much as glancing their way. Because of that, they'd suffered and died. I have to make sure I remember that fact. Kaito had decided his objective was more important to him than the world. He had no regrets. Given that, remembering seemed meaningless. It certainly didn't do the dead any good. Even so, though, Kaito refused to let himself look away from reality. Anyone who could forget something like that isn't worth the air they breathe. When one possessed preeminent power, the whole world started looking flat. However, the end-time was fundamentally just the accumulation of countless personal tragedies. Forgetting that fact would mean forgetting how to love the world. The Saint gazed blankly at the scenes playing out before her. She had undoubtedly once seen the fragments leading up to the end-time. However, at some point, without even noticing it herself, she'd become blind to the individual tragedies. As he looked at her skinny back, Kaito suddenly said something wholly unrelated to the various horrors. "The Butcher was a good guy, you know. Even though he betrayed us, I still liked him." The Saint cocked her head. She gazed up at him in wonderment. Given her expression, she hadn't understood what he'd just said. Ah, thought Kaito. A momentary despair overtook him. As it did, the Saint asked Kaito the very question he'd been expecting. "...The Butcher?" "Ah right. Yeah." Originally, the Butcher hadn't had a name. He was the Apostle, nothing more than a seed of evil planted in the world. The Saint should have been able to perceive his actions. Yet she hadn't known he called himself the Butcher, nor the fact that he had been loved. "And finally, thank you so much for your many years of patronage." The words Kaito had been told rang in his ears once more. He shut his eyes tight. The Butcher had abandoned everything he'd enjoyed and canceled out all the memories he'd collected. He'd swallowed up the pain as he cut away both the feelings of those who'd shouted at him not to die, as well as his own arm. All because he'd been told, "Thank you for being born unto me." That was all. Yet the person who'd told him that didn't even know what it was he'd sacrificed. She hadn't even tried to learn. "They would hear only what they wanted to hear, see only what they wanted to see." In the whole time they'd been talking, she hadn't mentioned him a single time. Kaito drew in a deep breath, then slowly let it out. He spoke quietly, scratching at his faded-brown hair as he did. "You said that 'even so, you were alone for so, so long'... Meaning you endured it all alone, right?" "I did. And it's true." "Well, not quite." Kaito shook his head. After a brief moment of silence, he snapped his fingers and dispelled his simple, wooden chair. The wound on his wrist had already closed up without a trace. His soles clicked rhythmically against the ground as he walked. Right before he reached the door, he stopped. His black coattails fluttered as he turned around. The smile he was wearing could almost be described as kind. "You just chose to be alone, that's all." And now the Saint had no one. Not even her hideous, adorable attendant. The Saint looked around the room, baffled. The window was still there. Cruel hells were still displayed on its surface. Tragedies building to the world's destruction piled up one after another. For the first time, the Saint's face curled into a faint grimace. She was the one who'd caused those scenes to occur twice over. They were what had come from her attempts to save everything. The Saint called out to Kaito in a small, trembling voice. "You...aren't going to...kill me?" "Why would I?" As he answered her with a question of his own, Kaito's expression was so calm that it seemed practically sublime. Her response was immediate. She cried out, imploring and urging him. "I'm a sinner without peer!" "So?" "You... Your grudge against me is so strong that even killing me wouldn't satisfy you, right?" "Nah, I'm over it. I don't care anymore." Kaito asserted his claim indifferently. Then with a casualness that befitted his tone, he pushed open the door. However, he stood still for a moment. Without turning around, he closed his eyes again. The Butcher then appeared behind him, humming a strange song in the throne room. Elisabeth shouted at him, calling him an annoying lout. Their lively exchange blurred in the dim light, then vanished. With that, Kaito opened his eyes back up. He didn't check the Saint's expression or bearing. Still facing forward, he continued. "Lucky you. You got everything you ever wished for." And then Kaito Sena closed the door. For a moment, he felt like he saw a frantically outstretched arm in the periphery of his vision. Something rang in his eardrum. Perhaps it was an entreaty, or an insult, or maybe some kind of question. However, Kaito didn't even spare it enough thought to figure out which. He passed by the faithfully waiting doorkeeper boy and headed back. The exit was blocked, but he'd already known that. That was why he waited until he couldn't see the boy anymore, then stopped in his tracks. "Geh, gah, bleh... Blerghâ€”" He bent over and hacked up a massive amount of blood. There were chunks of flesh mixed in with the red liquid that was gushing from his pale throat. Kaito squeezed his chest tight. After desperately regaining his breath, he looked up. As horrible pain racked his body, he let out a fierce laugh. "Fourth wave's almost here, huh?" He snapped his fingers. The blood spilled atop the floor wriggled, then started painting a magic circle. Azure flower petals flew through the white hallway. They formed a cylindrical wall with Kaito at its center, then cracked and vanished in a dazzling display of light. When it was gone, it left nothing and no one in its wake. And with that, the chance encounter between the Mad King and the Saint came to an end. 5 The Battle Against the Fourth Wave As the Diablo pillar released its fourth wave, a series of strange occurrences happened at the Northernmost Shore. Black clouds surged across the sky, yet the ocean was still. Lightning flashed, yet there was no noise. The sound of waves rang out, yet the water didn't move. The sea before the Northernmost Shore was as level as a mirror. This was certainly no natural phenomenon. Not even a sudden temperature fluctuation that'd cause it to freeze over would bring about such a state. The sea was calm, all the way to the distant horizon. It had completely forgotten to churn. Furthermore, it was slowly being dyed uneven shades of red and black. As an experiment, one of the soldiers tossed a seashell into it. A loud thunk echoed out, and the shell bounced back. It wasn't just its appearance; the sea had physically hardened. The change had happened silently, making it all the more disquieting. "Th-this is..." "Hmm, it seems almost artificial. If I was to compare it to something...I suppose it's like if the glassworkers from the human capital all came together and crafted a single, giant pane of glass in order to maintain their skills. The scale of it is kind of impressive, not to mention ominous, but..." With that, Valisisa snorted. She was rightâ€”the fact that the sea seemed to be covered by a