The final chamber of the Millennium Castle was drowned beneath nameless crimson blossoms, a place of silence like the repose of the dead.
This was the room of the Moon's King—no humans had ever set foot here, no enemies intruded, and it had long been overseen by the True Ancestors.
The world before her eyes was awash in red, her heart slowly cooling as she stepped inside. Awakening from her haze, Altrouge surveyed the vast chamber. She was alone.
Only at the sea of flowers' center stood a bed, pure and pale, like a coffin.
The black-haired maiden walked closer, step by step. The bed appeared empty, yet from the aura gathering there, she could feel it—her sister, not yet born, but undeniably present.
Though invisible, soul met soul, and Altrouge saw her: the younger sister, Arcueid.
In that instant she understood. This was the princess of the True Ancestors, the perfect successor to the Moon's King, the planet's rightful ruler—
the true, flawless product.
Her own one chance at victory was now. Beyond this, there would be none.
Altrouge was the child of a True Ancestor and a Dead Apostle. But the Dead cannot reproduce—their essence is revived corpses. Crimson Moon had not been her mother; her mother must have been some offshoot of his, a True Ancestor given form. But regardless, it was because of Crimson Moon that Altrouge existed at all.
Though she surpassed the Crimson Moon by bending the Hound of the Baskervilles to her will, she was still unstable, tainted by the Dead Apostle side of her nature. For that, Crimson Moon had branded her a failure.
Take, for example, the battle that should have occurred in the 12th century: under the full moon, the Black Princess possessed infinite vitality but not infinite energy. Against the White Princess, the longer the fight dragged on, the worse it became. As dawn approached, the Black Princess staked everything on one final strike, managing only to shear off the White Princess's hair before being dragged to safety by the Black and White Knights and her Hound, pursued by the True Ancestors' army.
"..."
The child Arcueid looked up at her with red eyes, pure and uncomprehending.
Altrouge understood. The True Ancestors had raised her only as a weapon, not as a ruler. They had no need to teach her anything—only her power mattered.
Pity flickered in Altrouge's heart. But her hands did not stop moving.
"It's enough."
Arcueid's feeble resistance slowed, her struggling legs weakening.
She was killing her own little sister.
Altrouge knew it clearly. Yet, as though soothing a dying family member, she spoke softly:
"You can… go back now."
Back to the world you dream of in your heart, or—to the abyss where all the dead return.
Seeing Arcueid tremble before death, her fear primal and instinctive, Altrouge suddenly recalled the old man in the skull mask she had once seen beside Avia, and how she herself had shuddered then in the same way.
Unbidden, she remembered Avia's words—not spoken to him, but lingering still:
"Only a will unshaken by anything is truly necessary."
All at once, Altrouge released her.
Fear clouded her red eyes. She bit her lip.
"...I really am afraid. I can't defeat you. There's no way I could ever win. You're the true successor. You're so much stronger than me. The perfect one. Then what am I? Nothing. A failure, completely meaningless. I've held on for so long, but what for…?"
Her ambition to stand as the Moon's King—at the moment she faced Arcueid, it had already withered.
Her only chance was now.
"But still—I don't want to give up. I don't want to end like this, pathetic and shameful."
To struggle on, until her very last spark burned away.
From the beginning, she had demanded this of herself. The Black Princess could not allow such disgrace.
She would not allow herself to fall so far.
"Because I—I don't want to abandon who I am."
"So, next time. When you've grown, when you've matured—then we'll settle it. Our final battle. You, the destined victor... my sister."
Her crimson eyes grew heavy, sinking into shadow, into a darkness like a solitary abyss.
Her lips moved in the faintest whisper:
"...Strange. Why have so many of your flaws been repaired? You're not yet a perfect vessel, but… for now, it's enough."
As she spoke, her figure warped—taking on the visage of Crimson Moon.
It was the ideology of "Crimson Moon," long buried within Arcueid's subconscious.
The vampiric impulse shared by all True Ancestors was no defect. It was Crimson Moon's design, a backdoor to wear down the vessel's mind. Once the spirit died, the soul would be no different. Crimson Moon could then claim the empty flesh, resurrected in perfection.
Thus, every True Ancestor was nothing more than a spare body for Crimson Moon.
And when a True Ancestor succumbed to their impulse, becoming a Demon Lord, they more readily manifested the phenomenon of "Light." By destroying humans en masse, they shed their accumulated selves, reborn stronger, stranger.
"Crimson Moon" should rarely have surfaced in Arcueid's consciousness, only to show her haughty, cold demeanor as a noble transcendent.
But Altrouge, surrendering her one chance at victory, was deemed a viable vessel by Crimson Moon's will. And so, Crimson Moon rose, seizing her body.
"But still, Altrouge… Even as a failure, your face twisted in suffering has its own charm. Perhaps I should let you linger, to savor your pain?"
Smiling as though in celebration of her return, Crimson Moon's presence caused the crimson blossoms in the chamber to pale, their very shadows thinning.
And at that moment—
From the great doors, a spiral of raging sorcery shot forth, aimed straight at the newly awakened Crimson Moon.
The torrent of prana whirled between the withered flowers, scattering them like a forgotten song in a barren wilderness.
"You are—"
For the first time since her birth, Crimson Moon shuddered. Not even in the war of the Millennium Castle had she felt this.
"This time… won't you die completely, Crimson Moon?"
Avia gazed upon the body seized by Crimson Moon, his voice calm, steady.
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