[Translation] Dies Irae – Beatrice vs Eleonore Part II

https://vndb.org/v548

A sequel to my previous attempt at translating a fighting scene from Dies Irae. As always, forgive me if my prose sounds lousy at times; this was done purely for practice, and is by no means a definitive translation of the work.

Special thanks to GareJei for helping me out with the chants.

You can check out the subbed videos here:

***

BGM: Thrud Walkure

The lightning blade caught up to Rubedo’s step.

Finally, a hit… finally she caught up to her elusive superior who might as well have been above the clouds to her before.

Inside her ‘creation figment’, Beatrice was but shimmering flashes of light. No ordinary attacks could ever hope to catch her in her flight. Taking the shape of lightning itself, she penetrated fires… she pierced through bullets.

The echo of her blade rending flesh still lingering on her fingers, Beatrice turned to face her adversary from the edge of the hall.

Eleonore: “…Hmm.”

A sound of silent befuddlement left Eleanore’s lips as she traced her fingers along the cut on her cheek. Narrowing her eyes, she gazed at the blood on her glove in subdued admiration.

Eleonore: “Well done. You are the second.”

Schreiber was the only one who could still force her shed blood after the day she joined the Obsidian Table.

Eleonore: “I shall advise Lord Heydrich that you possess more than enough to join us champions.”

Eleonore: “What’s wrong? You ought to be proud. ‘Tis a glorious achievement.”

Beatrice: “Stop mocking me…”

For she aimed for the neck. Even a newborn babe can shrug off a slice on a cheek.

Nonetheless, despite her initial goal, one could only commend Beatrice’s feat.

Both of them were of the same breed. Both of them materialized their divine relics and fought with them in their hands. One could call their approach the most standard… the most basic.

Commanding tens of thousands of souls, and turning them into your weapon… the secret art of Karl Kraft. The faithful fixation on its basics stood testament to their talent as a commander; their ability to lead an army.

This style, therefore, had neither clear strengths, nor weaknesses.

In exchange for not excelling in defense or offense, in speed or reality bending powers, the two offered no obvious weaknesses to exploit.

Just as heavily armored soldiers sacrifice mobility, so does one have to sacrifice something to improve one of his other abilities.

Souls were their armor. Souls were their fuel. Even equally matched armies can easily juggle the advantage with different formations.

Just like spearhead, crane’s wing, crescent moon and fish formations have their advantages and disadvantages, so fusion, expansion and special types are significantly affected by their deployment, and are mostly confined to a single strategy.

But both Eleonore and Beatrice were embodiment types. Both of them could juggle their formations at will. However, in exchange for their ability to spread and manipulate their souls, they lost their sheer destructive power in comparison to those specialized in a single art.

One could call them jacks of all trades and masters of none, their destructive power meager, almost redundant on the field of battle.

However…

Beatrice: “You really never let your guard down, do you…”

One who could perfect all of those trades at the same time would stand omnipotent.

If you were to divide hundred soldiers into five groups, you would get measly teams of twenty. However, if you divided ten thousand, you would end up with two thousands per group. There is just no use in trying to exploit an imaginary weakness of such a powerful commander.

For Reinhard Heydrich himself was such an omnipotent type. And while Eleonore was not quite his equal, she did possess the same aptitude. Therefore it should be impossible for someone of her lower rank to match her on the battlefield.

Hence the fact that Beatrice, despite her inferior army, managed to hurt Eleonore von Wittenburg…
…was proof that her soul… that her talent as a commander compared to, if not exceeded, that of the crimson knightess

Emboding her selfhood in concrete shape, Eleonore’s body was like steel itself. So how could one not praise Beatrice’s feat even if it only left but a tiny scratch on her superior?
And, as a true champion, the maiden of war who wished herself into lightning, didn’t boast of… wasn’t satisfied with her meager achievement.

Calmly assessing the situation, she just threw her superior a self-mocking remark.

Beatrice: “Won’t you just call me a fool again if I show satisfaction?”

Eleonore: “It appears you take me for a sadist…
That is not the case. I treat everyone fairly, and commend those who deserve it. I might only come off austere because there are very few who do.”

Beatrice: “Are you aware of the fact that you’re putting yourself above everyone else with such words?”

Killing is the trade of a soldier, there is little meaning in a sword that cannot reap lives, Beatrice’s glance added.

A smile crept to Eleonore’s lips.

Eleonore: “Say what you wish. So… what now? Are you giving up already?”

Twenty meters separated the two. A perfect range for projectiles.

Eleonore: “Didn’t I tell you that the moment I draw is your last?”

Beatrice: “I won’t let you, even at this range.”

Her speed was on the whole other level from before. She didn’t mean to boast, but apart from excelling on the physical, she sealed Eleonore’s weapon on the cognitive as well.

For—

Beatrice: “You’re full aware of what will happen to this castle if you draw. You won’t use it here… you can’t.”

She said she was forbidden from harming the Divine Vessel herself. Her all-scorching cannon is sealed in this place.

Beatrice: “You won’t catch me that easily.

An explosion that expands until it obliterates all your foes. Your ‘creation figment’ is a double edged sword.

I doubt there will be a thing left standing of this place by the time it catches up to me.”
With those words her shape vanished in lightning once again.

Beatrice: “I am not declaring victory…”

Closing the distance in less than a moment, she whirled through the side of the crimson knightess, her blade taking a bite out of her shoulder.

Beatrice: “But I have sealed all of your trump cards!”

And a second bite out of her thigh on the way back.

Cutting through the air like a web, Beatrice’s ever-consecutive slashes went after Eleonore. None of them could prove fatal, but no longer could the knightess dodge them cleanly.

Step after step, little by little, her jolts of lightning grew crimson in color from the splashes of fresh blood. Beatrice was, indeed, cornering her superior.

She didn’t think it cowardly; utilizing the terrain in the battlefield is but common sense. Not to mention this field was theirs, the creation of their lord commander himself. They brought this situation upon themselves.

Eleonore: “How about we continue our discussion?”

Knowing her disposition, one would imagine Eleonore should be gritting her teeth in vehement humiliation. However, in reality, neither anxiety nor anger colored her face.

Eleonore: “Lately I’ve been thinking… and realized I cannot quite put a finger on why… what for did you join us, the Obsidian Round Table.”

Beatrice: “That’s—”

The question she postponed earlier left Eleonore’s lips in the most peaceful of tones, her placid countenance slowing Beatrice in momentarily bewilderment.

Eleonore: “When was it that we met Lord Heydrich first? The day when he vanquished and re-assigned us to his Gestapo.”

Beatrice: “………”

Why would she speak of that now? What is she still trying to tell her at this point? Puzzling thoughts swirling in her mind, Beatrice opened her mouth still within her electromagnetic dance.

Beatrice: “It was… the same day… the today of 19… 39.”

Beatrice: “You forced a ridiculous job on me on Christmas Eve of all days… I was pretty annoyed at the time, to tell you the truth.”

Eleonore: “It’s not like you had another courter on the day.”

Beatrice: “That’s— the truth, but…!”

That day was not all misery, however.

For it was also the day she met Lisa… it felt as if she made an older sister…

Eleonore: “Haha… Do you recall how marvelous were Bei and Schreiber in their bout?”

Beatrice: “My screws aren’t loose enough to call ‘that’ marvelous.”

Cleave, slash, thrust. Her hands didn’t rest for a moment, yet her attacks started to lose their target once again.

The pangs of anxiety made Beatrice raise her voice

Beatrice: “So, what’s your point?!”

Eleonore: “Nothing particularly complicated. We both got involved regardless of our will at first.”

Eleonore: “That is why we were confused. That is why we were scared. That is why we
dithered. For I was, in the end, but a human then, and so were you.

However, as soldiers during those times we did not have the right to refuse power.”

Their country was in the midst of bloodshed. They would have sold their souls to transcend their limits.

Eleonore: “You are, in core, a coward hardly able to swat a fly in good will. Yet you were born into a family of warriors, joined the army, and even found yourself the Valkyrie of our Obsidian Table.

Incredible. Your record begs admiration, first lieutenant Kircheisen. There is not a man who could deny your bravery… your resolve.”

Eleonore: “At least up to that point.”

Sidestepping Beatrice’s blade, she escaped through the valkyrie’s open side. The tip of the blade, however, found Eleonore’s hair clip on the way, cutting it in half, releasing her hair free; locks of pure vermillion danced in the air.

Beatrice: “……”

She couldn’t… she couldn’t sustain her pursuit.

The thin locks fell on her shoulders like gashes, Rubedo literally turned crimson… Despite being a woman herself, Beatrice could not help but be captivated by the beauty of her opponent.

Eleonore, however, just shot her an inquiring glance, continuing her parley.

Eleonore: “I am more interested in what happened after, Kircheisen.

What could you have possibly desired from Swastika?”

A spineless fool who could hardly swat a fly without breaking into tears.

In a foreign land… fifty years after the end of the war.

What could have possibly driven her to participate in the ceremony of bloodshed… in the opening of the Swastikas?

Eleonore: “In the past I thought you hoped to revive the family you lost to the war, or maybe rebuild our crumbled motherland… However, I realized that was not the case. A craven you may be, yet a soldier still. Death as your constant companion, you should comprehend its essence better than anybody else. In other words, you know when to abandon those who cannot rise for themselves.”

You cannot bring back what is lost. You cannot move forward looking behind your back.
That is the fundamental principle, the absolute rule of the battlefield, of soldiers.

Eleonore: “Ressurection of the dead is a ludicrous notion. It’s a naïve dream of those who know not the battlefield. Kristoff, Brenna, and the little cur of Sakurais… They are just civilians trying to play soldiers. You are not their breed. But then is your wish to become einherjar like me? No. For in fact you stand in my way now… defy me. I do not understand. I cannot comprehend you, Kircheisen. What on earth are you trying to achieve?”

Beatrice: “……………”

Beatrice didn’t answer right away.

But… after a short pause…

Beatrice: “I admit… I admit I don’t believe in bringing people back from the dead. I killed many, I couldn’t save even more. I have my regrets, but that’s just how war is. It’s all just like you said, Major.”

They might have gained the power surpassing armies of thousands, but they were by no means omnipotent. In the end, her power did not do much good to her ideals, for she was the type that could only achieve things by murder.

Eleonore: “Yes, killing is our trade. We know how to survive, and how to prevent others from doing so. Bringing people back from the dead is not within our jurisdiction.”

How could someone whose essence is to kill others wish for something as contradictory as infusing their victims with life anew?

Eleonore: “Let others worry about such rubbish. I and Lord Heydrich have never even, in essence, died. We just surpassed death while we were still alive. And so will you. Refusing to return back to the cycle, your soul will linger here, eventually transforming into one of an einherjar. Brynhildr never died, she was just sentenced to eternal sleep. However… you do not wish for such an outcome, do you?”

For Beatrice denounced Valhalla, for she refused the glory of the einherjar.

Eleonore: “You can defy me if you so wish. I am used to compelling unwilling misfits to keep me company. You can snivel or howl in tears all you want; the fact that I am taking you with myself is set in stone.”

Eleonore: “And thus my puzzle… Why in the first place?”

Neither bringing someone back, nor turning immortal enticed Beatrice’s heart. But then why did she remain with the Obsidian Table after the war?

Eleonore: “And I highly doubt your head was as much in the clouds as to misunderstand our essence, like the little cur of Sakurais did.”

Born into the family of counts, Beatrice Kircheisen was a German of the purest blood. Just like Eleonore.

There was not a chance in the myriads that she did not know the truth behind the warmongering einherjar.

Eleonore: “Bei who has probably never seen a blackboard in his life; Malleus who, on the other side of the spectrum, had her head full of rubbish; Brenna, who could never comprehend a warrior’s spirit; and a little cur of another race… You were not like them. The more I think about it, the less I comprehend your actions.”

“And thus I want you to explain yourself,” Eleonore’s eyes urged Beatrice to answer.

Eleonore: “It’s an order, Kircheisen! Tell me your wish. Depending on your answer I may even grant it.”

“…………”

Eleonore: “Or was it just sheer laziness? Did you think of helping Brenna in her schemes just because you didn’t have anything better to do?”

Beatrice: “No.”

Beatrice’s retort was brief but firm.

Beatrice: “I did have a wish of my own, Major.”

Honest truth; and she hasn’t given up on it yet either.

Beatrice: “Didn’t I tell you there is a person I respect from the bottom of my heart?”

She was a bit intimidating, somewhat haughty, and unbelievably idealistic—

Beatrice: “She is of a very sharp mind… yet, at the same time, she is also, you know, kind of dumb sometimes. She seemed to excel at everything, yet, turns out, she had a cardinal flaw.”

A painfully human achilles heel, a common weakness so unlike her.

And yet very fitting for someone of her constitution, in a way.

Beatrice: “Love is blind—”

A knightess who made a fatal mistake in choosing her master.

Beatrice: “Your taste in men is terrible.”

Perpetually resurrecting, perpetually battling einherjar, Ragnarok their sole destination… Warmongers is not a word Eleonore herself liked, but that was the nature of immortals. Eternal battle defined their existence.

And, in the end, she did not really mind.

Beatrice: “I won’t attempt to justify myself. For I am but a soldier. I didn’t want to die, so I killed others… You could have wished for the twilight of the world itself, and I would still have stood by your side.”

As long as you remained yourself.

Beatrice: “But I finally realized. Or rather, I knew it from the very start but just forced myself to look the other way. Both of us were blind, in truth. What did Lord Heydrich do during the fall of Berlin? Do you remember what you ordered us?”

“Lose this battle. Let the mongrels think they have the upper hand”

“So slay your comrades. For killing millions of those foes is but a drop in the ocean compared to a German soul.”

Beatrice: “I’m not naive enough to think we could’ve saved them all, but…”

“It is all a matter of grade. Citizens you wish to protect, your beloved friends; there is no better sacrifice than their pure souls. They have value precisely because you cannot bestow them lightly.”

Beatrice: “Why did we have to—”

“Slay them. Annihilate them all with love burning your hearts.”

“Don’t let a single man loyal to the Reich survive, let the sacrificial flames consume them all.”

That order was beyond insane.

It defied common sense, contradicted the fundamentals of soldiers.

Those were not the words that should have been allowed to leave the lips of those born to the family of warriors, sworn to protect civilians as the sacred blades of the motherland.

Beatrice: “Weren’t we soldiers?!”

There were indeed many who cared little for sides among the Obsidian Round Table, but they were criminals and witches in the first place.

Beatrice and Eleonore were supposed to be different from them, and yet—

Beatrice: “Your order turned Berlin into hell itself.”

An abaddon that swallowed them all within.

This Valhalla is just a demonic castle built from the corpses of their comrades.

“And even you… fell.”

Hellfire swallowed even Eleonore, turning her into this demon standing here before Beatrice.

Beatrice: “And so—

Beatrice: “And so my wish was…”

Beatrice: “To rescue you from this place. To tear you away from Lord Heydrich, to make you return to your old self. That’s all I ever wished for.”

Eleonore: “…………”

Eleonore did not have words to answer the grievous resolve of her once comrade. Only the faint crease on her forehead betrayed her bewilderment, unknown if borne from inability to comprehend or just from mocking stupor.

Eleonore: “Why should I let you dictate the choices of my life? Not to mention your wish is absurd. Swastikas cannot grant a thing like that.”

Beatrice: “Yes, I am painfully aware of that already.”

Eleonore von Wittenburg didn’t die, she became undead while she was still alive.
There was but one way left to liberate her.

Beatrice: “That is why I decided to kill Lord Heydrich.”

Beatrice: “Isn’t it but another wish for Swastikas to grant? He won’t even re-appear without them to pull his ass around.”

Beatrice: “I was the one who lured Doppeladler to Shamballa eleven years ago. I hoped to avoid civilian casualties by opening Swastikas by their… and our blood. Using chaos as my cover, I planned to kill Bei, Malleus and the Divine Vessel at least. And—”

Beatrice: “Summon this castle back to the surface of the earth, the cursed Glaðsheimr that sullied your soldier self. I thought my chances were best with Zonnenkind still young, and Zarathustra nowhere in sight.”

And… she had another reason to wish to put it all to end precisely at that time.

Beatrice: “Well, I failed in the end, though.”

But she did not regret it.

For she was finally liberated from her days of hatred and contrition.

Beatrice: “Didn’t I tell you that I am the person who ‘chases’?

I will believe in the success of the lass and the lad, and, you know, other younguns. I will become the beacon to shine their path. And I will continue to chase after you as your useless subordinate.”

Beatrice: “That is why I am here. I will make your sword, rusty from blood, regain its shinning brilliance. I swore to myself to rescue you from this demonic castle, and no words will change my mind. You surely know how stubborn I can be sometimes.”

Beatrice declared her goal firm and steadfast.

Beatrice: “Did it help you comprehend me better, major?”

Smiling through tears, she shot her question almost jovially, serenity in her tone. Eleonore considered her for a few long seconds, a sigh eventually escaping her lips.

Eleonore: “…Fool.”

A long deep breath… permeated in an affectionate bewilderment one would harbor towards his recalcitrant little sister.

Eleonore: “To think you would one day come to lecture me on being a soldier… Ah, now that I think about it, Berlin was your birthplace. So even now, after all those years, you still cannot forgive my order of that day… What a quagmire. What am I supposed to do with you, foolish girl? I doubt you’d even listen if I tried to illustrate how much of a blessing is it to become one with Lord Heydrich’s legion as opposed to merely living… And I am not one who enjoys hiding behind excuses either way. However—”

Her glazed over eyes suddenly peered straight at Beatrice, the wry smile vanishing from her face, her pupils set ablaze in demonic fervor.

Eleonore: “You said two things that you should never have.”

Her figure and everything around it grew hazy, as if veiled by a heat shimmer.

Eleonore: “One is the inexpiable bilge about killing Lord Heydrich; know your place, runt.”

The surrounding air suddenly rose in temperature, blasts of hot air swirling in chaos across the hall.

Eleonore: “And the other—”

To tell the truth, the other one was the one that disappointed her the most.

That was why she disliked women. They only had one thing in their heads.

Eleonore: “Love of all things…”

A cheap banality befitting a depraved runt.

Eleonore: “You insulted… my fealty.”

Crimson flames erupted all across the room in synchrony with her disdainful words. The last traces of her goodwill… of her wish to end her once comrade without suffering had vanished to the nether.

BGM: Einherjar Rubedo

Eleonore: “Your platitude begs punishment, Kircheisen. You have disappointed me. Even despite of your qualities as an einherjar—”

Ultimate pain and utmost fear… she will carve them to her soul so she will never dare spout such nonsense ever again.

Eleonore: “By the time we meet next, you might already be mad. But… I no longer mind.
I won’t let you get away. You shall crawl by my side and entertain me for all time to come.”

Beatrice: “Angry because I got it right?

And I think I already told you; you can’t use your figment in this ca—”

Eleonore: “Ridiculous.”

Vexed at her subordinate’s ignorance, she spat her words in scorn.

Eleonore: “You show no progress, you naïve fool. What on earth made you think you know everything about me?”

Eleonore: “An explosion that expands without limits? Yes, I certainly used it. But it was just something I tinkered to suit the battlefield.”

A large-scale weapon system, a weapon potent enough to devastate cities in their entirety, a weapon of mass destruction. Her figment took that shape only because it was most useful that way for military operations.

However, Wittenburgs were an old lineage of respectable knights.

Duels were where their true honor lied. One man against the other. An explosion that expands without limits is just an arid tool to eradicate cannon fodder.

Therefore, in case her opponent was a knight, just like herself—

Eleonore: “I shall unbind it. Feel honored, Kircheisen. Only Lord Heydrich knows of its true shape.”

Eleonore: “And you shall be the first to actually witness it.”

Beatrice: “—————”

The expanding pressure of the air pounded Beatrice like a hammer.

The scent of burning steel and oil at her nostrils, the unforgettable heat wave of the battlefield.

—It was coming.

A divine relic of unprecedented destructive power… A cannon so monstrous that one could hardly envision it in a sane mind.

Beatrice: “But…”

Something was not right… something was not right here! Knowing full well that she cannot afford her superior to draw her weapon, Beatrice’s legs, nonetheless, refused to move.

“No man more honest ever took an oath;
None more true made treaty
None was more pure in love;”

This aria was not the same Beatrice remembered her superior chant in preparation of the infernal cannon.

“And yet none so betrayed all oaths, all treaties, his truest love!
Answer me, O mortal man: can you understand why?”

Was it really just something she tinkered with to fit the battlefield? Then… what in heavens could *this* be?

“The fire raging within my breast shall melt all taint, all impurity to oblivion!
Let yourself be purified, your taint washed, melted clear away; your soul thus released, exalted
Till naught is left but radiant Gold, its lustre pure.”

Rubedo was the last of the molds to shape Gold’s gestalt. Hence she was the closest to the Beast, and as the one who revered him most, she turned herself into his loyal blade that would obliberate any and all impurities threatening her master.

Aye, the twilight of the gods is upon us
And so shall I be reborn as the fire that cleanses our sacred halls of Valhalla!

She was overwhelmed… unable to move just for a few seconds, and yet, all was already too late.

“Creation figment—”

It left its scabbard. The Surtr’s sword that was to be suppressed at all costs, was finally unsheathed, revealed in all its glory.

The cosmos condensed from all-devouring, inescapable flames that unconditionally pursue their target.

Its name was—

“Harrowing Sword of Inferno!”

Beatrice: “—————”

The castle walls gave way for molten crust… the two were transported to a land of simmering crimson.

Beatrice felt as if within a furnace. The omnitude of matter melting in flames, turning to vapor and dispersing into the heat waves.

No exit. No shelter. Despite being a wide space stretching to the horizon, it filled Beatrice with a tingling sense of claustrophobia, as if she was stuck in a long but suffocating tunnel.
Indeed, an ant trodding the rails of a subway might feel just the same.

And so it hit her.

Beatrice: “Is this… the inside of the cannon?”

That she was just swallowed by a thirty meters long throat that 800mm shells used for their runway… that she was within the jaws of the “Demon of the Hunt,” the Dora railway gun.

Eleonore: “Precisely. And thus… you understand already, do you not?”

That there is no escape. That the cannon cannot miss. The absolute nature of her weapon.

A bullet that pursues its target? An explosion that expands without limits?

Nay… It is nothing so frivolous.

Beatrice proclaimed herself as one who chases, yet the label fit Eleonore just the same.

The hegemony of Gold bewitched her, drove her mad, and thus she yearned… craved to burn in its absolute radiance for all eternity.

She had no intentions to run. She had no intentions to turn back. She would chase her goal to the ends of the earth and beyond, and would burn in its glory forever.

Therefore, this place had no exit… no means of escape.

Eleonore: “Something can only truly be inescapable when there is no way to run to begin with.”

An inferno with naught but scorching flames abound. The world that the crimson knightess imagined was inside the cannon… a world that burns everything to ashes with incandescent fury.

The flawless, gapless dominion of Rubedo’s eternal fervor.

The symbol of her fealty, the symbol of her oath, the symbol of her… love.

Eleonore: “And so comes the end. There is naught you can do now.”

A wall of boiling hellfire was closing in towards Beatrice from behind Eleonore’s back like a pyroclastic flow following a freshly erupted volcano. Beatrice was highly doubtful that even she could survive being swallowed by a molten wave.

Eleonore: “For you are bare.”

The souls Beatrice had carried have all but vanished with the opening of the first Swastika.
The only soul she currently had within was that of her own. And even that was already showing signs of wear.

However sharpened your blade, and no matter how much skin it can tear through, you will not overthrow an army alone. And surviving a blast from the already unsheathed harrowing sword in her current state was a notion beyond the wildest dreams of even those most deluded..

Eleonore: “Your soul is wearing down with every second you spend with me in battle. I can literally see through you already, Kircheisen. It’s about time you made peace with your fate. I cannot hold back at this point, but the more you struggle the more of your soul you lose. The only thing you can achieve at this point is heightening your own despair.”

Eleonore: “Accept your defeat. Resign and kneel before me. “In the end, you could not even best me, let alone defeat Lord Heydrich himself.”

Beatrice: “Never!”

Yet, despite the impending doom, Beatrice retorted in full, her resolve crisp and obstinate.

Beatrice: “I will save you!”

Eleonore: “Why are you so stubborn?”

It was not something Eleonore would ever wish for; Beatrice’s “favor” was uncalled for, or rather, in complete opposition to all her aspirations.

And yet she stood before her unyelding to the ultimate terror… risking her life… transcending death… sacrificing her soul.

Meaningless… Uncalled for.

Beatrice: “I mean… you don’t have other friends, Major!”

How she could still spout such nonsense was beyond Eleonore’s comprehension.

Beatrice: “You are too strong, too stern, too pure… too woeful. Treated only as a tool by the only man you truly loved, and unable to even realize your own feelings. The unapproachable Loge of blazing fires, and Wotan who enveloped you in them… you are the only one who’s worthy of the name Brynhildr here!”

Beatrice knew she no longer had a chance at victory. Leviathan has been cast, and its flames had already swallowed most of Eleonore’s hazy figure.

For a swordsman like Beatrice, the only way to fight would mean diving straight into the furnace, and dilly-dallying would but momentarily delay her demise.

There was nothing she could do, any action was futile, and yet—

Beatrice: “So, I have no choice but to climb over this wall.

Let us wake up, princess! The man who entrusted you with his flames is a dastard!”

Eleonore: “…………”

There was no anger in her countenance, nor did Eleonore took the plea as particularly impudent. Only an unconscious, slightly bewildered wry smile lingered on her face as she traversed through the memories of her past.

Right… she remembered how no matter how much she beat this subordinate she never learned the concept of mincing words.

Eleonore: “You think yourself Siegfried?”

Beatrice: “Yes. I imagine you don’t exactly fancy the fact that I’m a woman, though.”

A fleeting smile on her lips, Beatrice lowered her hips, bending forward.

Was she seriously contemplating jumping into the blazing flames?

To traverse them? Is such a thing even possible?

Beatrice: “Remember how you told me that having a gun pointed at you wasn’t as scary as you thought?

Now I can wholeheartedly agree; indeed, it is not scary in the slightest.

Getting ready for her leap, Beatrice suddenly hollered towards the heaven.

Beatrice: “Karl Kraft!”

Beatrice: “I know you are listening. And I beseech you! This is a duel between knights. Not a bout that a magician has any right to interfere with! If I shall succeed in defeating Major Wittenburg—”

At least just until she puts an end to everything.

Beatrice: “I hereby forbid you intercession! How do you answer?!”

Was it just a failing of one’s senses that it seemed that the entirety of Muspellsheimr flickered in obsidian in response to the valkyrie’s harangue?

However, at the very next moment.

――JawohlFräuleinWalküre――

Something that was neither voice, nor thought, nor a figment of imagination reverberated as an antiphon across the fiery space, making even Rubedo’s Inferno feel chilly to the skin for a fleeting moment.

Eleonore: “That monkey…”

Beatrice: “Did you know that he, surprisingly, has a soft spot for the weak?”

And thus she made peace with her fate. It appears this was indeed the last thing she will be able to do in this life.

Beatrice: “I beg you Kai… lend me your power.

So I can protect your little sister—”

Beatrice: “I do not mind perishing here.

But I promise I will take her with me.”

Back to their shining days.

Beatrice: “Let’s go back to those times, Major Wittenburg. The times when there were no Valkyries or Samiels.

Our true Valhalla is there.”

Eleonore: “Don’t make me laugh, fool. It’s you who should accompany me to the countless future battlefields all the way to the twilight of time!”

Just like back in those days when they still shared the same fervent vision.

Eleonore: “Turning back now would be foolish beyond words. You are the one who will come with me!”

Beatrice: “I shall not shine my light upon the path made from the bodies of innocents!”

Eleonore: “Cease your foolery!!!”

Beatrice: “You are the one deluded!”

Flames swallowed the flash of the lightning, enveloping the two maidens of war in their embrace.

Yet the victor was certain, as long as a miracle did not occur, the tide of battle was as good as set in stone.

However, what is a miracle?

Did it not grow to be called by this name precisely because it only happened in such occasions?