snapped her arms. Cogwheels and oil tumbled out from her beautiful white skin. "Ah, gah, arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" She had been crafted too delicately, and the fact that she possessed a sense of pain was backfiring. Her body jerked up repeatedly, and her emerald eyes rolled back in her head. The Grand Marquis floated down beside her. Right before he could breathe fire at her, the Grand King called out from behind him. "Halt. I've taken an interest in that child. I've never seen one of Vlad's automatons put on such a display. I want it...but at the same time, one can never be too careful. Burn away only her limbs." The Grand Marquis nodded and then released a controlled blaze. He carefully burned Hina's beautiful limbs to ash. Where her fist had been, only the executioner's ax remained. Clenching her teeth and trying desperately to stifle her screams, Hina glared viciously at the Grand Marquis. The animosity burning in her emerald eyes was untarnished. However, she quite literally didn't have a leg to stand on. The Grand King gazed at her, and eventually the forbearance returned to the Grand King's smile. "I see you've finally settled down. You're quite the obstinate one, but certainly none could accuse you of being boring, young automaton lass." *** "Now then, once I've killed Elisabeth, what to do with you? First of all, I'll have to take a good, long look through those gears of yours. Then once I've finished my examination, perhaps I'll leave you without arms or legs and just hang you up on the wall like that. Your mouth and your nethers should still function, so I'm sure that those who come to my tent will be pleased with you." A graceful smile found its way to the Grand King's face, and she covered her mouth with her fan as she made her vulgar remarks. As she did, Hina snorted and laughed at her. "Ha, you sleaze. You're no different than the people who came to visit Vlad. Now, once more, I shall declare to you. Becoming that man's bride...made me joyous from the bottom of my heart." "Good heavens, still trying to have the last word even in that state of yours. How adorable." The Grand King spoke magnanimously. As she did, Hina spat something out. It was a small animal fang, and it snapped tightly into an open hole in the halberd's handle. The next moment, Hina leaped with her torso alone. Her wedding veil, which had survived the fire, fluttered, and cogwheels came tumbling out of her. As she did, the ax's handle twirled from the point where the fang had stabbed. The curved ax blade snapped out of place and flew into the air. Hina caught it by the back with her teeth and then swung it with nothing but the strength of her jaws. "Hwah?" With it, she cut the Marquis's neck clean through. His head spun through the air and then landed on the ground with a thump. His eyes glanced left and right, as though trying to make sense of a bad joke. He didn't seem to quite grasp the situation yet. After a short time, though, the Marquis's mouth went slack, and he stopped moving altogether. His head and body crumpled, transforming into black feathers. "...Oh...my?" Unable to follow, the Grand King let out an uncharacteristically foolish voice. However, at the same time, her rational side was precisely analyzing the situation. Due to the brainwashing, no doubt. The strong bindings she'd placed on the two of them had backfired. Because they'd been ordered to "burn away only her limbs," the Marquis hadn't been able to respond to Hina's attack quickly enough. Even so... "An automaton...killed...a demon?" The Grand King murmured, aghast. Reality had diverged too radically from her expectations. The Marquis had been weakened, it was true. Still, this was an unacceptable upset, on the level of a rabbit killing a lion or a servant defeating a king. It was something that someone like her, who stood high above others, absolutely couldn't allow. The Grand King put strength into the hand she was grasping her crow-feather fan in. Her favorite fan creaked and then loudly snapped. Having finally abandoned her elegance, the veins in her forehead throbbed as she screamed, "Kill her! Kill her, kill her, kill her! That girl can't be allowed to live any longer! Burn her to nothing! Don't even leave ash behind!" Hearing her howls dripping with naked bloodlust, the Grand Marquis nodded deeply. He opened the mouth of his crow mask. Seeing the hellfire swirl within his maw, Hina hung her head and murmured quietly. "Master Kaito... Even if death separates us, I shall always be yours. I believe that I, too, have a soul...and it shall be waiting for you." A burst of flame shot forth, the largest one yet. The violent mass of black death bore down on Hina. As it did, a smile full of love and affection spread across her face. "I beg of you, don't follow after me too quickly." In that moment, the bride was whispering as though in prayer, about to be burned to death. Far away, up in the castle, the groom watched over it all. A thousand chains were stuck into his body. He was suspended in the air like prey stuck in a spider's web. A certain magical formula was written on the ground beneath his feet. If anyone with knowledge of magic had seen the inscription, they'd have no doubt instinctively opened their eyes wide in shock. The ax that Hina had been using was linked to the arcane scrawl. Kaito had based it off Elisabeth's torture devices and had created it with the assistance of the Kaiser. The formula would transfer all the pain that the blade received to the chains and then straight into Kaito's body. Demons took little pleasure in the pain of underlings and familiars. To be able to give it to the Kaiser in the form of "human pain," Kaito had to reexperience all the gathered suffering himself. The young man, who'd just experienced the death throes of hundreds, who'd just had his nerves burned to a crisp, and who'd just died countless times and been revived just as many, whispered. "Can I go now? At this rate, my bride's gonna die." "Oh yesâ€”this should be sufficient, you madman." The next moment, the black flames trying to engulf Hina were devoured by shadows. All in attendance opened their eyes wide. At the same time, black feathers and azure flower petals began gently wafting down from the sky. They danced upon the battlefield, as if celebrating something. The beautiful color and sinister shade coalesced upon the blood-soaked ground. "What...isâ€”?" The Grand King's eyes were like dinner plates as they beheld the last person she ever would have expected. A madman drenched in blood had appeared. The jet-black cloth made by magic that adorned his body fluttered in the wind. The slender outfit called to mind a military uniform, and it was adorned with bloodred cloth and flared out partially into a long coat. Its hem whipped around. The figure bore a resemblance to Vlad but gave less of an impression of a nobleman and more that of a military officer. Stepping on the black feathers and azure petals, he spoke. "Sorry for the wait, Hina." Kaito murmured in a gentle voice, one unbefitting the situation. Then the groom took his place next to his bride. 7 A Mage Is Born "Damn right. I had this idea, seeâ€” Will you hear me out? I can just give the Kaiser my pain. If I do that, I should be able to grant him a human's pain without having to hurt others." That was the answer Kaito had given when Vlad asked him how he planned to fight the Grand King without taking anything from others. Dark magic was accompanied by pain, and the power of demons demanded it. And Kaito's body was accustomed to pain. Those were the three points that Kaito had drawn his conclusion from. It was a method that wasn't available to Elisabeth Le Fanu, the Torture Princess. She wasn't contracted to a demon. Demon flesh had spread it roots throughout her bone and sinew, and she generated mana within her own body. In Elisabeth's case, self-harm would do nothing but cause her pain; she wouldn't be able to accept anything from others and still offer it up as human suffering. However, even though Kaito was contracted with the Kaiser, the two had yet to completely fuse, so the method was available to him. Still, as Vlad had said, it was a plan utterly devoid of sanity. Taking on the pain of hundreds of people wasn't a sensible course of action. The shock would cause cardiac arrest in most people, which would lead to a drop in blood pressure, rapid loss of consciousness, and likely death. However, Kaito was immortal. His soul was housed in a doll of Elisabeth's design. As long as all his blood didn't flow out of his body, he could come back to life as many times as he needed. As a result, he'd been able to continuously supply the Kaiser with pain. At that point, it became a matter of whether or not his soul could endure the agony. And Kaito Sena was well accustomed to pain. He'd placed his hand on the door that Elisabeth would never have told him to unseal and then boldly cast it open. The Kaiser had called Kaito "Accumulation of Seventeen Years' Pain..." ...and praised him as a madman. Kaito stood on the battlefield, his beastly arm raised straight ahead. The unflattering butler uniform he'd been wearing up until then had been completely replaced with a military outfit that looked right at home on the field of battle. Shadows swirled around his beastly arm, the proof of his contract with the Kaiser. It caught the flames as though caressing them and then swallowed them whole. Still limbless, faint tears welled up in Hina's eyes as she looked up at him. "...Master Kaito." "I'm sorry you ended up like this... It's all my fault." Kaito knelt to the ground. He then held the newly lightened Hina in his arms, cradling her as he would something precious. He gently pressed his face against her lovely silver hair. She closed her eyes and then nuzzled her cheek against him. After taking in his smell, fat tears began streaming down her cheeks. "Oh, Master Kaito...I can smell your scent, I can feel your warmth. I beg of you, don't apologize. Being able to see you again brings me nothing but absolute joy." "I'm really, really sorry. Up through the very last minute, I didn't know if I'd make it in time...so no matter how much I wanted to, I couldn't make any promises." Kaito spoke softly. Would his method even work? Would the accumulated pain be enough to let the Kaiser wield the necessary amount of power? Until he tried it out for real, it had been impossible for him to predict. The amount of pain he could collect from single-mindedly torturing himselfâ€”which he'd actually done while he was waiting for the Grand King to show upâ€”was a far cry from what could be obtained by harvesting the suffering of many foes at once. Hina wielding the ax capable of sending pain to Kaito and fighting the thousand enemies had been indispensable to his plan. But he'd had to gamble on whether or not he'd be able to successfully save her. Consequently, when he'd asked her to help him, "Could you die for me?" had been the only thing he'd been able to say. He hadn't been able to give her any clumsy excuses or optimistic promises about their prospects. Even so, she'd nodded in agreement. As a result, he'd stacked Hina's chips atop his own, slid them across the table, and ultimately came out victorious