Chapter 259: CH 258

Feb 16 2021

“Claire-sama!!”

The Demon Queen could only look on in shock as Claire-sama’s body collapsed.

Crimson blood flowed out of Claire-sama’s body onto the floor.

The Demon Queen’s sides were bleeding as well, but she paid no heed. Instead, she continued to look at Claire-sama’s body, completely bewildered.

“You’re in the way! Move!”

Completely forgetting how threatening the Demon Queen once seemed, I rushed to Claire-sama’s side.

Pushing the Demon Queen out of the way, I checked on Claire-sama’s condition.

The bleeding was horrible.

“Aa…. aah…”

As though she had seen the absolute scariest thing in the world, the Demon Queen staggered back before falling to her knees and clenching the hair on her head.

“Aaaaa…. ahhh…!!”

No matter how much I’ve despaired, it didn’t compare to that. That’s what her screams made me think.

However, now was not the time for that.

“Manaria-sama, Lily-sama, help me!”

As though they had yet to fully grasp the situation, they too simply looked on in shock.

It seems my call returned them to their senses. The two rushed over to join me and cast healing magic.

“Rei, give her the elixir!”

“We can’t, Claire-sama is unconscious!”

“Do it mouth-to-mouth, whatever works! Just get her to drink it!”

As I was told, I transferred the liquid into my mouth before locking lips with Claire-sama.

Her lips were cold enough to make me tremble.

Why do all the memories of our kisses… have to be tinged with suffering.

We used all of the healing methods that we could possibly think of.

Even then, Claire-sama’s body rapidly lost heat.

“Claire-sama, it’s a lie, right… We promised, didn’t we!? That we’d return home together!!”

Even as I wiped the tears that welled up, I continued to cast healing magic.

Claire-sama had promised.

In that case, there was no way that she would choose suicide.

“Demon Queen!”

Manaria-sama’s called out in a sharp voice.

As her shoulders still violently shook, she lifted her head.

“Get over here and start healing! If Claire-sama truly dies in this way, are you really okay with that!?”

The Demon Queen’s face twisted and warped.

Her face seemed to express the very meaning of the words internal conflict.

This was the result that she had supposedly desired, and yet, she wasn’t able to bear it. The pitiful Demon Queen (me) was there.

Her original fear of losing Claire-sama which had been chiseled away over an eternity, was now baring its fangs at her once again.

“There’s no time to hesitate! If this continues, Claire-sama will really die! Please, help Claire-sama!!”

Tossing aside my sense of shame, I begged the Demon Queen to help.

If there was someone capable of saving Claire-sama, it had to be her.

“Lo―, if we use the Loop System―”

“I won’t allow that, Oohashi Rei.”

“Taim…!”

Lily’s manner of speaking completely flipped.

It appears that TAIM had taken over.

“This application of the Loop System is rejected.”

“That kind of thing, if I simply use my administrator privileges―”

“Yes, eventually that system should recover. However, by the time everything resolves, Claire François will certainly have already died.

“That can’t be…!”

The Demon Queen’s face twisted once more.

Observing her expression, TAIM heartlessly declared.

“Demon Queen, choose. Lose her to eternity, or continue for an eternity.”

“Uuh…gh…guuuaah…!”

As the storm within the Demon Queen raged on, she managed to drag herself toward us.

I hurriedly opened the path.

Once the Demon Queen knelt beside Claire-sama,

“I… I… I’ve just had enough… Having had to endure through the eternal loops all alone… Having my feelings for you slowly drip through my fingers even though I tried to hold them so tightly…”

“Demon Queen, hurry!”

“Rei!”

“Rei-san!”

“I want it to end… I’ve had enough… but… even then…”

As I watched over her, her next words seemed to echo with the weight of billions of years.

“I… even after all of this… I can’t abandon you…!”

With Claire-sama at its center, a pure white light gushed forth.

It was a healing light similar to―no, surpassing that of the Pope’s Area Heal.

“This…”

“Her wounds are healing…”

“A-amazing…”

The light not only healed the wound on Claire-sama’s stomach, but Manaria-sama’s, Lily’s, and my wounds all began to close as well.

“Mm… gh….”

“Claire-sama!?”

“Re…i…?’

Claire-sama opened her eyes.

Her face which had turned blue due to the lack of blood, had returned to a healthier hue.

Though it initially seemed that she was not all there, once she recognized the Demon Queen crouching next to her, a small smile dawned,

“I see… to the very end, it seems that you are Rei.”

As she spoke those words.

It appears that she wanted to say that everything had gone according to plan.

“Claire, you dummy!”

Before I realized it, I was pulling on Claire’s cheeks.

Claire looked at me, filled with surprise.

Honestly, I was surprised by my own actions.

However, the words did not stop.

“How could you do something so reckless! Luckily, you were saved so things kinda turned out okay, but what if the Demon Queen had just decided to abandon you? What were you planning to do then!?”

“R-rei, please calm down…?”

“How am I supposed to calm down! You said that you’d keep your promise, but then you go off and do something like that! Just a bit more and I’d… you…!”

After that, I was no longer able to form words.

My two arms repeatedly flailed into Claire’s chest as I cried like a child.

“Dummy… dummmyy… Aaaah…!”

“Sorry… I’m sorry, Rei. I put you through something really scary, didn’t I. I’m really sorry…”

As though she was soothing a baby, she gently hugged me, apologizing repeatedly.

However, this time of all times, I didn’t intend to forgive her.

I didn’t, but,

“But Rei. I believed my chances to be pretty good, you know? Did you not realize that the Pope was nearby?”

“… Eh…?”

Claire-sama pointed behind me, once I turned my rigid neck to face that direction, I could see the usual expressionless Pope there.

“Ah, so Rei hadn’t realized after all. I had actually realized, so I was really impressed by your acting.”

Manaria-sama gave me a wry smile.

Then, it seems that when I had thought they were just watching in shock, they were actually waiting to see how things would go?.

“Lily Lilium had realized too. But in her case, even though she had realized, she was still consumed by her worries.”

TAIM too wore a wry smile.

No way… then that means… it was only the Demon Queen and myself who had lost ourselves to that degree?

“… I want to die.”

“That’s why I’m apologizing. I was trying to trick her, but I hadn’t realized that I was also very likely to trick you, since you’re a very similar existence.”

As I continued to sniffle, Claire-sama pulled me into an even stronger embrace.

“Claire-sama, afterward I’m definitely going to punish you, alright?”

“Yes yes, I understand. I’ll willingly accept it. But for right now―Demon Queen?”

“…”

In response to Claire-sama’s call, the Demon Queen reluctantly raised her head.

“You said it didn’t you? That you’d release this world from its accursed cycle of reincarnation.”

“… Yes.”

“It’s possible that too, is correct in its own way. However, haven’t the loops also become part of our world? Perhaps a time will come when it’s no longer needed. However, I believe that line should be crossed not by your own personal feelings, but by the combined will of everyone living in this world.”

“…”

“To begin with, I myself have only lived this long as the result of the sacrifice and effort of many. My life is no longer my own. If the people important to me all decide that suicide is the answer, I would happily oblige. However―”

“““Absolutely not!”””

Lily-sama, Manaria-sama and I all answered instantly.

“So that’s my answer.”

“…”

“Also I… actually lied just now. I said that humans weren’t built to be able to love forever.”

“That was… a lie…?”

Pulling the Demon Queen in as well, she held both of us in her chest.

Then she spoke.

“Demon Queen, I don’t believe that the eternity that you desire is something that humans can bear. However, this is what I think. This one moment, one second… this time right now, can’t that perhaps become eternity?”

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

The Demon Queen shook her head.

Claire-sama smiled before continuing.

“Who decided that this time, that these emotions, are inferior to the eternal flow of time? Aren’t we the ones who decide what moment, to us, is eternal?”

Claire-sama offered this story as a metaphor.

Would a couple who were only able to spend a month together due to a terminal illness be objectively inferior to a couple who were able to spend their whole lives together?

Certainly not.

The thing we call eternal love, is likely not related to a length of time.

“The depth of your love, something so horribly subjective, is that not what decides if your love deserves to be called eternal?”

Even if the couple was not able to spend a long time together, if their love for their partner was true, then it is eternal. That is what Claire-sama was saying.

“Whether or not it was eternal is entirely decided by the two. You sought objectivity within such a subjective thing. That was where you had strayed.”

“I strayed… hm…”

“Yes, you simply strayed.”

In the face of Claire-sama’s certainty, the Demon Queen hung her head.

“How long do you intend to cling to Claire, Demon Queen. Claire-sama is mine, get away!”

“But…”

“There are no buts. Having told her to kill herself, how can you remain next to her like this? Know some shame, shame!”

“Hey now, Rei. You shouldn’t bully Rei too much.”

“It’ll get confusing, so could you call that one the Demon Queen!?”

Even while we fooled around, I did not lower my guard against the Demon Queen.

After all, there was no telling what insane thing she might say next.

“There’s no need for that concern, Rei Taylor.”

“Once again, could you stop reading my thoughts as though it were natural?”

“My apologies.”

The one who had called concerns groundless was of course TAIM.

“So, why don’t we need to worry?”

“The Demon Queen no longer holds administrative permissions. She has abandoned them.”

It appears that was the Demon Queen’s answer to TAIM’s last question.

“In that case, who is the current administrator?”

“The transfer is still in progress, but the plan would be for Claire François, the vice administrator to take over.”

“M-me!?”

Claire-sama raised her voice in surprise.

Well, of course she’d be surprised.

She was just told that she would have influence over the continuation of human history.

“I’m sorry to say, but I must decline. I really don’t feel that it is a role that I can fulfill.”

“You are free to do so, but you must do so after you’ve become the administrator.”

“How bothersome.”

Claire-sama shrugged her shoulders and sighed.

“Yes, it’s troublesome… That’s why I think I’ll remove the seeds of those troubles here.”

“!?”

The next moment, our surroundings went completely dark.

“What’s this!?”

“TAIM, you, what do you intend to do!?”

Claire-sama’s uncertainty and the Demon Queen’s harsh inquiry echoed.

“I have but one goal. The continuation of the human race. It appears that you humans are just a tad too fragile to be entrusted with such a task.”

As those words came to a stop, so my consciousness blacked out.

◆◇◆◇◆

When I came to, what I saw first was an unknown ceiling.

Sitting upright on the bed, I checked my surroundings. I came to understand that I was in a very sanitary room.

It was likely that I was in one of the Spirit Church’s treatment facilities.

As I went to raise my voice to call out for someone, I realized that there was someone sleeping on my lap.

“Manaria…sama…?”

“Mm… Rei…? …Rei!”

When I called out to her, Manaria-sama woke up as well.

When she recognized me, she used all of her strength to hug me.

It hurts, it hurts!

“Wait, Manaria-sama! It hurts!”

“Ah, sorry. I was just so happy. I thought that you might never wake again… Does it hurt anywhere?”

Waking her body off of mine, she looked intently at my face.

“Nowhere in particular… If I had to say, perhaps the parts where Manaria-sama held me.”

“Ahaha, if you’re able to say that then you should be fine. Since our battle with the demons, you’ve been asleep. It’s been a month.”

“A month!?”

I see, I suppose that explains Manaria-sama’s reaction.

“Sorry for causing concern, I’m fine now. So uhm―”

We maintained your body using healing magic, so your muscles shouldn’t have degraded either. I’m really glad.”

“Ah, yes, thank you. So uhm, where’s Claire-sama?”

I asked the one question that I wanted to ask the most.

I felt bad that I had caused so much concern, but the one who should’ve been in Manaria-sama’s current position was Claire-sama.

If Claire-sama wasn’t here, of course I’d be worried.

“Claire?”

“Yes, wasn’t Claire-sama carried back as well? Where is she? Is it possible that her wounds are more severe?”

I didn’t want to consider the possibility, but there’s no way that Claire-sama had died, right?

“Rei, could I ask you something?”

“Y-yes.”

With a confused expression, Manaria-sama asked something that I had never seen coming.

“Who’s this, Claire?”