Chapter 59

“Sister…!”

Even though she knew it was an illusion, Rosie tried to grab hold of her sister’s apparition.

There was no guarantee that the apparition was real. But the situation and environment of the battlefield were exactly as she had investigated.

No, more than that, seeing her sister’s face after so long made her so happy that there was no room for doubt.

“Always acting so rational, yet here you are trying to grab an illusion…”

The crow snorted in disdain, mocking her.

“Your sister ended back then. From that point on, she was just a pitiful puppet in the Demon King’s hands…”

“Shut up! What do you know?!!”

“And what do you know to say such things to my… no, to Raul?”

“That man took my sister away…! He never cried, just kept that lifeless expression…!”

“Ha!”

The crow glared at Rosie with furious eyes.

Her golden, glowing eyes were filled with nothing but stubbornness. The crow sighed at her eyes, which seemed desperate to find someone to hate.

It was all meaningless. If she had known it would come to this, she wouldn’t have made that choice.

“You… need to feel it.”

A single feather from the crow’s wing pierced Rosie’s chest and lodged itself in her heart.

“The pain he felt.”

And then, what unfolded next was Raul facing Layla, who had been consumed by a curse and gone mad.

“Layla…?”

“Quickly…”

“Layla… what are these traces of sorcery on your body…?”

“Kill me, Raul…”

Layla swung her Sword of Four Forms at Raul, but her voice was begging for death.

“Before I kill the people I cherish… please…!”

“If it’s a curse, we can break it. Penelope is knowledgeable in these matters…”

“Snap out of it, Raul Berze! Look closely at what’s behind you!!!”

The Dragon Queen was watching the entire melodrama unfold.

As a key figure in this plan and the one who proposed this scheme to the Demon King, she was eager to see the end of this tragedy.

“Now, show me the end of this love…”

Like an audience member before a stage, she yearned for that unknown conclusion.

With a spectator like the Dragon Queen, the play couldn’t just end.

Even if Raul subdued Layla, there was no way he could escape the Dragon Queen with Layla in such a broken state.

“Don’t disappoint me.”

The Queen’s words held no meaning for Raul.

The only thing that mattered to him now was Layla.

“No… you… you know… you’re my other half… I… I can’t…!”

“You can’t kill me… but you have to… only you can kill me… it has to be you… if someone else kills me… you’ll surely…”

Layla couldn’t finish her words and transformed her Sword of Four Forms into a scythe, swinging it at Raul.

The vicious slash tore through the air, leaving deep scars on Raul’s cheek and shoulder.

The curse placed on her was cruel—a curse that forced her to kill everything she once sought to protect.

“Please… kill me before I kill my comrades and Rosie… my other half…”

“Layla… you truly are… a cruel woman.”

Layla tried her best to hold on to her sanity, but she couldn’t stop her rampage.

“Raul Berze, son of Arthur Berze and Latri Berze, Commander of the Empire’s Migratory Knights. From now on, I will consider you… an enemy.”

“…Fine.”

Raul’s staff deflected Layla’s scythe.

His staff, capable of scoring 100 points, could deflect her scythe, which scored 99.

She could never surpass that one point. She was born before the finish line but destined to die before it. A tragic genius who could never reach the finish line, no matter how far she outpaced everyone with her talent.

“Kill me, Raul…!”

Raul tried to slash Layla’s thigh with his hand blade. His hand trembled, not just because of the ‘resonance’ he had imbued it with.

Every moment he had spent looking at her face only made his hesitation stronger.

“If you’re this slow, you know you can’t kill me…! Faster and stronger…! Do your best to kill me…!”

He wanted to, but his body wouldn’t follow through.

His mind, heart, and body all recognized her as part of himself.

Who could strike their own body with full force? Who could stab their own body with a weapon? Hesitation was natural. Weakness was natural.

Layla was Raul’s other half, and Raul was Layla’s.

For a moment, Raul even thought it wouldn’t be so bad to die by her hand.

“If I leave you like this… I might end up killing even your younger sister… She was one of the people I wanted to protect too…”

Then, a dull impact echoed.

Raul’s palm struck Layla’s jaw.

“That’s right… that’s how it should be… we’re the older sister and brother, aren’t we…? Fools with a cute younger sister should get angry at such words.”

Layla was Raul, and Raul was Layla.

That’s why she knew exactly what to say to draw out his full strength.

“I’m sorry, Layla. I refused your request… and tried to make you my death.”

“That’s enough now. Let’s make this last moment spectacular, Raul, my other half… my beloved, beloved other half…!”

Layla’s scythe clashed with Raul’s staff.

Raul wore the saddest expression he ever had, but it seemed he had finally made up his mind.

“Thinking about it, I introduced myself wrong. What I should have said wasn’t something so trivial.”

Raul corrected his introduction.

“Raul Berze, the other half of Layla Nevermore. From now on, I will suffer… and save you.”

“Layla Nevermore, the other half of Raul Berze. Please do your best to kill me… I can’t control my body anymore…”

Her scythe transformed into a Sword of Four Forms with nine blades on a single hilt. Like the nine-headed serpent from myth.

The nine blades flew at Raul simultaneously.

And Raul deliberately took the attack.

Rosie screamed at the pain that seemed worse than death. But Raul calmly accepted it. No, it would be more accurate to say he welcomed it.

Because the love that made him scream was not shallow.

“Layla. I still can’t define this feeling.”

Raul still couldn’t define his feelings.

But one thing was clear—no one made him feel as intensely as Layla did.

Raul knew everything about her. How she wielded her weapon, her little habits, even the mechanics of her weapon.

Because Raul was Layla’s other half.

“Even so, I will say it.”

Layla transformed her weapon into a Chain Scythe and threw it.

The Chain Scythe flew straight for Raul’s heart, but Raul knew the flaw in her attack. Because Raul was her other half.

The moment the scythe touched his body, Layla had an unconscious habit of adjusting the chain. That slight gap was one of the countless one-point differences she could never overcome.

Knowing this, Raul deliberately left an opening, then wrapped the chain around his arm as it flew toward his blind spot.

Her weapon had a flaw—it couldn’t transform if both of them were in contact with it.

“You are my everything, Layla.”

Raul’s right hand began to vibrate intensely. The white energy swirling around it was so strong it seemed to glow.

“That’s why… that’s why… I won’t let anyone else kill you. Only I can kill you… and only I should kill you…”

“Right…”

“That’s how it should be… but this misery… this sadness… this anger… what are they? What is this feeling that gives birth to them?”

Raul didn’t know.

He wanted to tell her.

He wanted to tell Layla his feelings one last time.

“If not being able to tell you these things… is the punishment for failing to protect my other half… then truly… that is…”

Raul, now close to Layla, wore the saddest smile he ever had.

“A cruel punishment, Layla.”

Consumed by the curse, Layla dropped her weapon and began to strangle Raul.

Layla’s strength was immense, and if left unchecked, Raul would surely die from a broken neck before suffocating.

“Raul… Raul… that feeling is surely…”

“And… that is…”

With his last ounce of strength, Raul’s trembling right hand plunged into Layla’s chest.

That right hand trembled not from his ability, but from misery, sadness, and anger.

That right hand grasped regret and crushed Layla’s heart.

“Layla… Layla… I…”

“Don’t say it… Raul. I have something to say too…”

Even without a heart, Layla’s chest still beat.

Not from the lump of flesh called a heart,

But from the emotion called love.

“More than anyone in the world, I… love you more than anyone in the world.”

With the last of her strength, she resisted the curse and caressed Raul’s cheek.

“I love you, Raul Berze.”

With those words, Layla breathed her last.

Their relationship ended with their hands still touching each other.

“Love…”

As if he had finally remembered a forgotten answer, Raul was in shock.

If the feeling she had for him was love,

Then the feeling he had for her must have been love too.

“Was it love… my feelings…”

Black tears of blood began to flow from his eyes.

“I… until the end… couldn’t even tell you I loved you… wasted all those moments… foolishly you…”

Raul looked at his right hand, drenched in Layla’s blood.

Black tears of blood fell onto his red-stained right hand.

The red love began to stain with black regret and sorrow.

“By crushing your heart… I feel like I crushed my own too…”

Raul’s heart began to tear apart.

“I can’t let you go like this… I need to tell you I love you too…”

Raul prayed.

For time to stop. The moments to come, all the moments without Layla, all the moments he would have to live without telling her he loved her, terrified him to the point of madness.

He couldn’t accept this reality. He couldn’t acknowledge it. But reality was reality. The reality that he himself had killed Layla would never change.

“Please… Layla… don’t leave me alone…”

Layla was Raul’s other half.

Without legs, he couldn’t walk. Without hands, he couldn’t hold. Without eyes, he couldn’t see. Without ears, he couldn’t hear.

Without a heart, he no longer felt alive.

“I loved you too… it was the same for me… more than anyone in the world… I loved you more than anyone in the world…!!!”

Raul shed endless black tears of blood.

From a distance, Rosie watched the scene and cried. She had faced the brutal truth of that day, the truth she had been avoiding, in the worst possible way.

As she cried, Rosie could hear it. A wail that couldn’t possibly come from a human.

And Rosie could feel it. A pain so terrible it couldn’t belong to this world. A pain that felt like her heart was being torn apart and burned.

Even Rosie had never felt such pain from her sister’s death.

“Raul Berze…”

Raul was the man who grieved Layla’s death more than anyone.

Raul was the man who loved Layla more than anyone.

Raul was the man who suffered because of Layla more than anyone.

It hurt as much as he loved. That was all.

---