"Ah, hell. Hell! Where everything burns and festers and crumbles and dies. Where are you off to in such a hurry amid all this death?" "I said it not moments agoâ€”we have a task to fulfill in the shadows." "My, how underhanded. What task is that?" Elisabeth responded to the Kaiser by silently glaring forward. For she knew. There were two people, and two people alone, capable of turning the tables on this despair-inducing situation. The Fremd Torturchen Alice Carroll and Lewis. And hunting smaller beings like them was a job for rats. As such, Elisabeth voiced her and Vlad's mission aloud. "'Tis simpleâ€”kill Alice and Lewis." The two of them needed to be killed. That was the price of peace. To. Fro. Chitter. Chatter. There were voices. Throngs of people sobbing and screaming and trembling. Someone was loudly crying out with pride, "Victory is ours!" Someone else lamented their defeat, their tone that of a person dashing through a field with deranged abandon and laughing their head off. "We're doomed; it's all over." And there, in that place that seemed halfway between a nightmare and reality, a young girl spoke. "Come now, let's be good girls and sing a song. "Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall! Humpty Dumpty had a great fall! "All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again." But what is it that truly can't be put together again? Right as the thought began tickling Elisabeth's brain, the girl stopped singing. She slowly spun to face her. The white, rabbit-ear-like ribbons attached to her oversized hat swayed from side to side. It was then that Elisabeth realized the girl was grinning and clutching the hem of her dress. She gave it a vigorous flourish. Desert lilies went fluttering up through the air. They were in the temple courtyard, and the girl had been picking flowers. That was what she'd been doing amid the destruction and the slaughter. Just like she had once before, Alice bent a knee. "Welcome, Elisabeth. Welcome to Wonderland." With that, Alice gave her an elegant curtsy, and her white hair flopped adorably about. Although their surroundings had been reduced to a grim hellscape, the way Alice faced her was much the same as ever. Things were quiet in the temple, but red light lapped at the tops of courtyard walls. The settlement was burning, and every so often, sparks would come tumbling down. In time, the temple would go up in flames, too. Yet even so, Alice was waiting inside it without so much as trying to hide. Elisabeth nodded. She'd had a feeling this was how it would go. Fleeing and hiding weren't exactly Alice's style. Alice spread her arms wide as though gesturing at the conflagration outside. She began turning in circles. "Say, Elisabeth. Did you do this?" "Aye, that I did. 'Twas I who laid the groundwork, and 'twas I who lit the fuse. What of it?" "Ah, I knew it! Oh, that's so sad. Poor, poor Elisabeth." Elisabeth raised an eyebrow. Surely it was the mixed-race people and demi-humans who deserved Alice's pity, not her. She certainly didn't feel poor. However, Alice just kept going, spinning all the while. "Poor Elisabeth. Poor Kaito Sena. Poor, poor everyone. Someday, you're all going to break." What did Kaito Sena have to do with anything? Right as Elisabeth was about to voice that question, though, another voice cut in. "Ah, Elisabeth Le Fanu... You're here already?" Lewis strode out from inside the temple proper, calling out to her as one would a friend. Much to her surprise, he seemed completely composed. Most of his comrades had been consumed, and his experiments had gone up in flames. However, the light that burned in his one unmasked eye was as calm as ever. And as always, there was an indescribable sadness about him. Elisabeth raised an arm to gesture at the burning settlement. "Behold the grim spectacle. Would you still call me weak? Would you accuse me of having had everything taken from me? And one other thing. Why do you yet speak to me with such confounding familiarity?" "Valid questions. Allow me to make one amendment, though. You are weak. But it's not a term meant for people like you. No...perhaps it never was." Lewis spoke quietly, as though talking mostly to himself. He gave his head a small shake. Elisabeth glared at him. For the first time, the faintest hint of dejection spread across Lewis's countenance. "I and heâ€”the man who wanted a starâ€”were too different. And you and I are different as well. But even so, I have to ask. Can't I persuade you to change your mind? To lend us your strength, mother the vessels of God and Diablo, and release Kaito Sena from his burden? Or if not that, would you at least join our side?" "Enough of your blathering. Frankly, I'm surprised...you seem to be taking this all in stride. But that point passed us by long ago." Elisabeth's reply came sharp. The time had come. The Three Kings' unprecedented march had laid waste to all the mixed-race forces' plans. At this point, not even swaying her mind would make a difference, not in the face of the all-consuming violence that was destroying everything in its wake. It was too late to wax poetic about ideals. All that was left was to cut the two of them down, andâ€” But then, suddenly, out of the blue... ...Elisabeth realized it. Something was off. His reaction, Alice's actions, everything. What if... What if none of this came as a surprise? There were countless tiny discrepancies she'd been filing away in her subconscious. It was like looking at a giant painting filled with little moth-eaten holes, and now bits of information were snapping into place one after another over the blank spaces. One by one, they twisted and turned and gradually came together. After all, it was odd how Aguina's wife had been left behind. And then there was the matter of Lewis's declaration of war. Even with a few of the demi-humans on his side, wiping out the three races was still a distant pipe dream. But depending on the Fremd Torturchen's strength, it might well be possible to overturn the world's power structure. Their dream was the realization of a perfect, idealized utopia. And to achieve that, there were certain prerequisites they had to fulfill. So what was it they needed? Then a different scene flashed through Elisabeth's head. The raided villages filled with poison and burned to the ground. That wasn't the kind of thing you did if your aim was a long, peaceful rule. Next, she overlaid that horrible image with one much like it. Jeanne's hometown. Countless people had died agonizing deaths in sacrifice to the Torture Princess. It was something that shouldn't have had anything to do with their current situation, but it filled a blank space all the same. However, it went without saying that pain was an indispensable component in dark magic, and that held just as true for the Fremd Torturchen. The completed painting melted, and something new rose up in its place. The mass of flesh born from its viscous sludge slowly but surely began assuming a human form. Was that hell truly of Satisbarina and Elisabeth's making? Wasn't it possible that that place filled with agonized screams was simply being used as a sacrifice? "...No. You knew?! You knew this would happen?!" Elisabeth shouted, her voice a fevered bellow. Behind her, the sound of flesh burning filled the air, punctuated by the snapping of bones. Somewhere, someone was being burned. And off in the distance, dragon bones were being crushed underfoot. The earth was searing hot, and the sky was choked with the black of smoke and ash. Great roars rocked the air. The Three Kings were laying out their decree. Burn the earth. Burn the trees. Burn every blade of grass from the ground. Many of our foes will perish. For that is the price their betrayal commands. And amid all the death and slaughter, amid all the horrific tragedy... ...Lewis just gave an ever-so-slight nod. 9 The Jester's Decision The room was red. Its walls, floor, and ceiling were all dyed with the color of fresh blood. It was the kind of room that burrowed its way into your eyeballs and chipped away at your mind. After all, staying calm and levelheaded when your entire field of view was filled with crimson was no easy task. But that was to be expected. The room was completely sequestered from the outside world. Nobody could leave it. And nobody could come in. It was almost like a graveyard. Or perhaps a prison. It was a place where nobody ought to be. That was why there was nobody there. It just...was. That was all. "That should be self-evident. No matter how much our preparation exceeded the three races', the gulf in resources and manpower was simply too vast. Wiping them out was a distant pipe dream. The only way for us to overturn the world's power structure was with the Fremd Torturchenâ€”so as such, it was imperative that we fostered her growth. Surely you knew all that, Elisabeth Le Fanu?" Lewis began his speech in a calm voice, one almost reminiscent of a teacher's. It was dim in the temple courtyard, but the flames visible over its wall were as ferocious as ever. A booming noise sounded out. The shelling must have started. As Elisabeth recalled, metalworking and the weaponization thereof was a particular strength of the demi-humans. However, even their cannons would be powerless against the Three Kings. They probably wouldn't so much as put a scratch in their sleek, hefty fur. The best they could even hope for was to slow them down. Despite that, the demi-humans continued their bombardment. All of them were desperately fighting for their lives. Yet the temple and the temple alone remained quiet. Lewis leisurely continued his dispassionate speech. "We sought God and Diablo. But there were prerequisites we needed to meet before we could take the world, make it our own, and kill every last fool who lived in it. And to meet them, there was something else we needed to prepare." Pain and sacrifices were the water they needed to fill their limitless vessel. Lifting the hem of her skirt once more, Alice beamed. As she did, a trickle of crimson blood slid from the corner of her young lips. Now Elisabeth realized in full just how closely the events unfolding around them resembled the manner of Jeanne's creation and the method Kaito had used to amass his power. There were two things Lewis had once told her. "By summoning from another world a soul that's accustomed to pain, placing it in an immortal body, making it form a contract with a demon, and giving it the heart of an individual who's ingested demon flesh and accumulated a massive amount of pain, it's possible to artificially create an entity capable of revolutionizing the world. "...I summoned a pair of weaker demons into a man and a woman, then destroyed both their egos. They had two children. Then I bred the children together. By repeating that process, it was possible to create a pure, powerful demon. Eventually, I created a demon powerful enough to meet my needs." The ingested demon wasn't the only one; the demon for Alice's contract was likely produced in the same way. In all likelihood, it was nothing more than a mass of flesh and power, a caterpillar-like being with no reason or intellect, capable only of writhing, cackling, and suffering. Its strength no doubt paled in comparison to the Kaiser's, but if all you needed was an apparatus for turning the pain of yourself and others into power, then it did the trick just fine. And because Alice was from another world, there was no limit to the amount of mana she