Episode 24
The wind lay still.
Come to think of it, it was quiet like this that time too, Teresia thought, hazily remembering.
After purifying Flower Lake’s corruption, she’d meant to tell Yurina how she felt.
At the end of a journey that had felt both long and short, Teresia had planned to finally put her feelings for Yurina into words.
But instead, at that very spot, Yurina had — become the demon lord.
And to save the world, she’d driven a sword through her own body with her own hand.
The sight of it was burned into Teresia’s eyes, vivid and unerasable.
There was no way she could ever forget it.
Yurina, wearing something close to a smile even then, choosing to become a sacrifice of her own will.
In the end, she’d survived — but the world had never actually forgiven her existence.
A demon lord is a being that should not exist in this world.
Teresia understood that.
It was something she’d been taught, over and over, from the moment she was chosen as saint, alongside the power itself.
Even setting that aside, over the course of the journey she’d seen countless lands and countless people sacrificed to the demon lord’s power.
Given that, the demon lord’s power wasn’t permitted to exist at all, not even quietly, not even harmlessly.
She understood that.
But if the true source of that demon lord was, of all people, Yurina—
…Using the saint’s power to erase her. That, Teresia could not do.
She could not kill Yurina.
To Teresia, Yurina mattered more than she mattered even to herself.
So, while Yurina slept, she’d spent every spare moment turning the problem over in her mind, searching for some way to destroy the demon lord’s power without that.
Purifying only the demon lord’s power out of her body — impossible.
Separating the demon lord’s power from her body — couldn’t be done.
Extracting the demon lord’s power from her body—
Every single approach ended in failure.
And in the end, Yurina woke up, and Teresia had lied to her.
Told her the demon lord’s essence was gone.
Yurina had apparently believed her.
…Having lied to her, and having that lie so readily, trustingly believed.
It felt like her chest might tear open.
Betraying her trust like that had been almost unbearably painful.
Of course, she’d told Yurina lies before, even now. Small, harmless untruths, over things that didn’t matter.
But this time, she was lying purely out of her own selfish desire — simply because she wanted Yurina to live.
If Yurina learned the truth, Teresia was certain she would try to end her own life again.
That was an ugly certainty she couldn’t shake.
Not because Yurina thought her own life was worth little.
It was the opposite — she understood exactly how precious her life was, and could still set it on the scale without hesitation.
Which meant time was limited.
Sooner or later, Yurina would notice the demon lord’s power was still lying dormant inside her.
And when that happened, surely, she would—
…If there had been anything unexpected in all this.
It was that Yurina had managed to control the demon lord’s power at all.
That had caught even Teresia off guard — but it changed nothing about the situation.
The demon lord’s power simply could not be allowed to exist.
To begin with, controlling it now was no guarantee of what might happen down the line.
That was how any outsider would judge it.
And the risk of leaving the demon lord’s power intact wasn’t hers to carry alone.
So.
“In the end — I’ll move the demon lord’s power into my own body, and choose to die.”
Only she herself would die.
Yurina would surely never forgive her for this — but Teresia had wanted, more than anything, for Yurina to live.
So this wasn’t a sacrifice at all — it was a wish.
All that remained now was to drive this sword, gripped in her hand, through her own chest.
That was all that was left to do.
“Ah— guh, hh…”
Her hand was shaking, no strength left in it.
Against her own will, her body was refusing to die.
Trembling, quivering.
The blade’s point wouldn’t settle, wouldn’t find its aim, wouldn’t advance.
And it wasn’t the demon lord’s power resisting her.
“Hah, hah… i-it’s alright. I can do this. I can properly die. I can—”
She told herself, over and over.
“I— I can die. Because I’m going to. C’mon— move.”
What came to her instead were memories.
Memories of the journey.
Memories of all the days the two of them had spent together.
They shone inside her like scattered jewels, glittering.
I wish this could just go on forever, Teresia found herself thinking, with a fierceness that startled even her.
And so.
“Ah, uh—”
It wouldn’t move.
She couldn’t move.
She simply could not bring herself to end it with her own hands.
All she could do was let the tears fall, one after another.
Her arm kept trembling, and before she knew it, the sword had slipped from her grip and clattered to the ground — and she couldn’t even bring herself to pick it back up.
Aware of how pathetic she must look right now, Teresia still couldn’t move.
“Yurina…”
The name slipped out of her, unbidden.
*
“Teresia—!!”
—In answer, a cry rang out, and whether it was fortune or misfortune for her, it was Yurina’s voice.