man such as that." "Don't you dare mock my groom." Her rejection rang out needle sharp. One of the Grand King's eyebrows twitched. Hina swung down her executioner's ax in front of her. It split through the air and kicked up a gale. Leveling her ax's blade toward the Grand King, Hina spoke quietly. "That kind man told me to die. Do you fail to understand the meaning of that?" "I'm afraid I do. You were cast aside and told to die. What do you wish to say?" "After anguishing over it, that man decided to rely on me and entrust me with a grave order. And I understood. It had come from a place of love and trust. Loving me from the bottom of his heart, he finally asked me to fight alongside him. At long last, he included me in his thoughts and his strategies. For that kind, cowardly man to trust me so fully, to think of me so intimately...do you have any idea how great a joy that is?" She gripped the handle of her ax tightly. Tears devoid of sadness gradually welled up in her emerald eyes. The Grand King grimaced in disgust and shook her head even harder. When she spoke, her tone was exasperated. "And that's enough for you to willingly die. Faced with a thousand troops, you plan to throw your life away." "Indeed, and with utmost gratification." "That's...a surprise. You...you aren't sane!" As she peered into Hina's burning eyes, the Grand King forgot herself and shouted. Her seductive red lips parted, and her expression was overtaken with shock. She cast her gaze skyward and then continued speaking in bewilderment. "You've gone mad." "Very. Didn't you know, Grand King, love is madness! The day I met Master Kaito, my love for him began driving me mad!" Hina loudly made her declaration. She swung her ax again, this time to the side. The air split, and a powerful gust rocked the soldiers. The wedding dress's hem twirled brilliantly. Her snow-white dress and veil shook as she cried out. "Now then, demons, come face me! My name is Hina! I am my beloved Master Kaito's eternal lover, his faithful companion, his soldier, his weapon, his love outlet, his sex dollâ€”and his bride!" Upon hearing the loud introduction, the Grand King closed her fan and then wordlessly swung it down in front of her. "Very wellâ€”if that is what you say, then I shall have that body of yours trampled." In the next moment, a wave of underlings and familiars rushed the bride. Their countless footfalls rattled the earth, and Hina readied her executioner's ax and assumed a low stance. As her foes reached her position, she kicked off hard against the ground and plunged into their ranks. She swung her blade sideways, mowing them down by their stomachs. Familiars trampled on the innards, drew swords from the sheaths on their backs, and advanced. The battle had begun. However, the Grand King quickly lost interest. Amid the clamor, she leaned far back in her throne. "Hmm... I wonder what that all was about." The Grand King stifled a yawn as she muttered listlessly. After all, the bride's show of courage couldn't possibly last. Not even automatons could run forever. Given the number of soldiers she faced, the battle was bound to end momentarily. The Grand King shrugged as she made an underling pour her a drink. She downed the golden goblet full of wine, elegantly passing the time. A handful of heads flew in front of her, accompanied by fountains of blood. However, she hardly minded losing a few dozen men. She cast a drowsy gaze over the battle unfolding before her. "She's giving it her all, isn't she...?" Blood sprayed, heads went flying, and severed torsos toppled to the ground. The bride's dress fluttered. All at once, the underlings and familiars came down upon her like a wave. She broke their formation and forced them back. No matter how much time passed, the sound of her blade cutting flesh never ceased. Sensing that something was wrong, the Grand King's face stiffened. Something seems off, no? Something impossible was happening. Before she'd noticed, a mountain of corpses had piled up in front of the Grand King. A great many bodies had fallen to the ground, and more viscera were heaped up on top of them. Another scream rang out. Another underling's head went flying. The ax loudly whooshed through the air, shaking off blood as it went. The Grand King's eyes went wide. The golden goblet dropped from her hand. Seeing the person standing atop the mountain of corpses, her voice leaked out. "This must be a joke...that whelpâ€”" There stood a fierce Valkyrie, a being who defied all logic. Her wedding dress stained a deep red, the bride was holding her executioner's ax at the ready. Her veil was soaked crimson, as though she'd just been caught in a rain of blood. The bloody bride stuck an approaching underling hard in the chest with the handle of her ax, then turned to the side, dodged a familiar's attack with the grace of a dancer, launched herself from the ground again, and rolled into a backward somersault. Her veil traced a gentle arc though the air. As she landed, she brought her ax blade up and sliced one of her foes clean in two. Seeing her bloodcurdling movements, the Grand King reflexively clutched her crow-feather fan. That ax... Is that one of Elisabeth's torture devices? No, that's not it. What is it, then? The sharpness of the black executioner's ax that Hina wielded was beyond the pale. It was like one of Elisabeth's summoned torture devices. But Elisabeth should have been in a coma. She shouldn't have had nearly the leeway required to make a weapon and give it to the automaton. The Grand King was baffled. What she was even more amazed by were Hina's movements. The way she was moving in order to kill her opponents had long since passed the realm of praiseworthiness and transcended to the point of being repulsive. There wasn't so much as the tiniest gap in Hina's defenses. She maintained oversight in every direction, straining her entire body with such force that the blood vessels in a human's brain would've probably burst by now. The speed at which she responded to the varied attacks would normally have been unthinkable. With efficient movements, she severed the heads of her enemies, tore open their chests, and at times used their corpses as shields as she murdered everything in her path. The only thing that could be felt from her motions was an absolute resolve to kill her foes. It was then that the Grand King recalled a certain fact. "Say, Vlad. Your dolls are well crafted, but aren't they a bit dull?" The words she herself had once said to Vlad flashed back through her ears. His automatons had been generally high functioning, but the range of their emotions was limited. They had been lacking in passion, and their movements generally fell into patterns. As a result, they couldn't be used as anything more than sacrificial pawns. At times, determination, impulses, and strong emotionsâ€”both negative and positiveâ€”could grant people unusual amounts of power. The Grand King recalled a man who, despite being an ordinary human, had been able to fell five underlings when he was defending his son. If she were to assume that the automaton, whose abilities were far beyond those of humans, possessed emotions of equalâ€”or perhaps even greaterâ€”intensity... Could love...bring about such aâ€”? What had been born could not be considered anything as pedestrian as a bride. She was nothing short of a monster. "I can do this aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹lâ€‹l day!" As she howled, Hina used one leg as a fulcrum to spin around and mow down several more underlings at once. The guts that came flying out of their stomachs sprayed her in the face. As she violently spit out the flesh that had landed in her mouth, she held her executioner's ax firm and punctured the lung of the underling who had just rushed at her. Maintaining her stance, she dashed forward. She skewered her foes, shattered their bones, and then kicked them to the side as she screamed. "Send as many as you wish! My love is unbreakable!" The Grand King shuddered at the impetuous timbre of her voice. Despite her overwhelmingly desperate situation, the bride truly intended to win. For the sake of her beloved, for her bridegroom alone, she intended to slay each and every one of her thousand foes. How can this be? How can it be that I feel afraid? Realizing that fact filled the Grand King with humiliation. In that moment, she felt as though she could hear the sound of Vlad's laughter ringing in her ears. He had been the type of man to enjoy bizarre developments such as this. However, the Grand King was decidedly not. She was a woman who only held affection for herself. She had no love for unexpected turns of events. Curse you, Vlad! This is all your fault for devising such a bothersome creation! The Grand King stood. There were still some underlings and familiars remaining, but she couldn't leave this to them. She resignedly closed her crow-feather fan and then swung it down as though carrying out an execution. From atop her palanquin, she gave orders to the two that she'd been holding in reserve. "Marquis, Grand Marquisâ€”go forth." The black cylinder of a man slowly nodded. As he did, the rolling birdcage's door opened, and the Marquis came tumbling out. He let out shrill yells. "Damn you, you bitch, you whore-ore-ore, oh yes, Your Majesty the Grand King, at oooooooooonce!" The Grand King ground her teeth. While the Marquis was under her strong control, he was more or less unable to use his mind-controlling abilities. But if she loosened her leash on him, even just a little, the odds were high that he'd immediately turn on her. At any rate, I doubt mind control would have much effect on an automaton. Having reached that conclusion, the Grand King left her brainwashing intact as she sent the two after the bride. The Grand Marquis ascended buoyantly into the air, rising above the ranks of the underlings and familiars. He opened his crow's beak wide and then spewed black flames from it, catching his subordinates in the blaze as well. "â€”Hiyah!" In a flash, Hina raised her executioner's ax as high in the air as it would go and then brought it down upon the earth. The ground swelled wherever the shock wave passed, flinging the corpses of her foes high into the air. The corpses formed a barrier and took the billowing flames head-on. For a second, the charred mass of black ash blotted out the Grand Marquis's vision. Slicing it in twain vertically, the bride rushed forward. Beneath her bloodstained veil, her eyes glittered with an animalistic light. With a fierce battle cry, she leveled a diagonal slash at the Grand Marquis. "Now I have youâ€”!" "True, if your foe was the Grand Marquis alone, you might have been able to land a blow." The Grand King spoke sweetly. As she did, a black shadow appeared beneath Hina. The Marquis, who had been crawling along the ground in agony, slammed his limbs into the earth. He leaped into the air like a cricket, with power and height no human would have been able to muster. Hina was raising her ax high, and he launched into her defenseless stomach like a bullet. She took the hit directly, and her body bent at a sharp angle. "â€”Gahâ€”!" Hina went flying into the distance and then crashed into the ground. As she rolled, she struggled to get to her feet. However, the Marquis had landed and was running alongside her. He reached out to stop her, and once he'd grabbed hold of her, he