Side story episode 30
* * *
There was a ‘black prince’ who appeared in Dale and Ray Uris’ dreams and mocked their existence.
But it wasn’t Dale or Ray or anyone else’s doing.
And there she was. Arachne, the real culprit of this incident, Dale’s younger sister, standing atop the Blue Tower.
In the shadow of Lize, the ‘Black Prince’ was smiling.
Dale smiled and looked into her shadow, and Lize stepped away, keeping an eye on the ‘Black Prince’ who was there as well as Dale.
The greatest genius of the empire, a synonym for cruelty who knows no defeat and shows no mercy to his enemies. The past of old Dale and the name itself that symbolizes him.
“… … It’s my fault, brother.”
Hidden in the shadows, Lize lowered her head. Unable to understand the conversation between the two, Yuffie tilted her head for a moment.
Only the power of the Shadow Lord can see the truth in the shadows. And Lize, too, was claiming to be another Shadow Lord after Dale.
“Miss Yupi, could you please step aside for a moment?”
“Okay, Uncle Dale.”
“Let’s talk about it later.”
“yes!”
Dale said, and Yuffie bowed her head and stepped back. Immediately afterwards, the two were left behind.
Dale and Lize, two siblings who carry on the name of Saxony.
And as if wrapping around the world of the two, the scenery collapsed. A pure white and pitch-black winter night descended upon the place.
“… … .”
Nevertheless, it was never Dale’s world.
“Tell me. What did you do, Lize?”
Still, Dale had nothing to be embarrassed about. No matter what she had done, he could forgive her and understand her.
“… … .”
It was just then.
The ‘Black Prince’ who should have been in the shadow of Lize has revealed himself in the world of thought.
“It’s not your fault, Lize.”
And he was calling his little sister’s name nonchalantly.
“In the world of absolute zero, I took on the role of an eternal guardian for the happiness of all, prepared to endure endless waiting and loneliness. Through this one-sided and utter self-sacrifice, I made you realize your foolishness, the Lord of Black Gold. That was Lize’s determination.”
“… … You’re talking as if you were Lize’s older brother.”
“Is it wrong?”
The black prince paid no attention to Dale’s ridicule.
“You know that your existence is nothing but a lie.”
Dale answered coldly.
“Then do you know how much loneliness and cold she had to endure, shivering in the cold of the cosmic winter? Lize, in order to bring about your foolishness, bore a pain that cannot even be compared to what you have borne. And I… … .”
The black prince continued speaking coldly.
“I was born in that pain.”
“what……?”
“In the midst of the hopeless emptiness and loneliness, and the cold that made her heart freeze, it was my role to protect her so that she wouldn’t break down.”
“Brother, I… … !”
Lize tried to continue speaking, but couldn’t. She couldn’t even laugh at those words.
“Her desire, you might call it a delusion. So strictly speaking, my existence is nothing but a lie. Nevertheless, clearly, I exist here.”
The black prince said.
“Because my sister, the ‘Empress of Black Gold’ who accepts both gold and shadow, truth and lies, needed me.”
“… … .”
“And when you came to me at the end of Lize’s loneliness, I too lost my need.”
The black prince answered bitterly.
“Because I couldn’t be real in the end. Even if it was a lie that was truer than the truth.”
But at the same time, because of that existence, Lize was able to survive the winter of the universe. Even if Dale had accepted Lize’s self-sacrifice, Lize would have been able to survive.
Because her older brother, the ‘Black Prince’, was by her side.
There was a primordial darkness that could be anything as the Shadow Queen, and furthermore, she was also the Empress of Gold and Lies.
The Empress of Black Gold. The form of salvation that gold and shadows long for in their loneliness.
“So you moved to take my place and take the seat of truth?”
“No, brother!”
Just then, Lize broke the silence and shouted, as if desperately defending another older brother.
“Lize… … .”
That’s why Dale bit his lip. Nothing had changed.
“The God of Meaninglessness.”
Just then, the black prince asked back.
“What does it feel like to abandon humanity and become a god? Where has the ‘Black Prince’ of that era gone, who mocked the immortal Frederick and continued to be ‘human’ until the very end?”
“… … .”
I thought back to my promise with Shuv. The Black Prince, the man from back then who had decided to remain human until the end.
But then he looked back at himself standing in front of him.
“The scenery and people you are looking at, is it a scenery of humans looking at humans?”
“What do you wish for?”
“When our little sister was crying in the cold and loneliness, what were you, you who call yourself God, doing?”
“… … .”
“It was all for you.”
The black prince sneered.
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“Do you still feel like a god? Does everything before you seem meaningless and fleeting?”
Dale couldn’t answer.
“I am not like that.”
The black prince said.
“For my beloved sister, I want to comfort the pain she must have felt. I want to hug her and give my all so that she will no longer suffer and so that those I love will not suffer.”
“Me too… … .”
“Is that really true?”
Dale tried to say something in response to that, but the black prince sneered.
“You, who are following the Emperor of the Ninth Empire, chewing over and contemplating the meaninglessness that lies before him, you, who are still whining like a child that you have lost your way and are wandering, can you really say that you are more truthful than me?!”
At the same time, the ‘Black Prince’ kicked the ground. The shadow cloak he was wrapped around swung like a blade, and immediately a cold wind blasted from his hand.
It was neither the darkness of primordial times nor the cold of the apocalypse.
It was just the ‘Black Prince’ he knew so well.
“Gatling type”, “20mm”.
Even the bolt magic spell that was being projected was just ‘ordinary magic’ desperately projecting a formula.
It was a fight filled with brutal truth.
The ‘Black Prince’, without a doubt, was struggling against the God of Nothingness.
It didn’t mean anything.
It shouldn’t have happened.
No matter how many times his Ice Bolts and Shadow Bullets rained down, they never reached Dale. Neither did his Shadow Blades.
But I couldn’t say anything because of the sight that struck me so sincerely.
I just looked at Lize.
I could see the truth hidden in her shadow. My little sister was crying like a frightened child, as if her secret had been revealed and she didn’t know what to do.
In her shadow.
No matter how cleverly he planned and plotted, Dale was still his younger sister who cherished him. That was why he could not help but feel the presence before him even more painfully.
Phew!
At that very moment, the shadow blade of the black prince slashed down towards Dale’s body.
“Because you taught me… … ”
The shadow blade tore through Dale’s chest and emerged from his back. Black blood, dark gore, dripped down the blade.
“thanks.”
Blood dripping down, Dale silently embraced his false past.
For the first time, there was something that truly did not lose its meaning in the face of the God of meaninglessness. There was a struggle that did not fade away.
A meaning that cannot be exchanged for anything else.
In front of that meaning, what collapsed was the ‘god of meaninglessness’.
As Shuve said, the beings called gods cannot defeat humans in the end. Just as only humans can kill dragons, killing gods was also the job of humans.
That is why one human, the black Confucius, killed the god of meaninglessness.
“And don’t forgive me.”
Dale said, embracing the black prince.
Phew!
There was a sound again. It was the sound of darkness, which could have been anything, being slashed down like a blade.
However, the black prince was not surprised either. He just laughed as if he had known this would happen from the beginning.
“… … I have no intention of understanding or forgiving you.”
The black prince laughed weakly, bleeding. More than anything, blood, red and almost blood-red, flowed from his lips.
“Just keep our promise… … our promise to Shuvwa.”
A human killed the god of nothingness, but that didn’t mean Dale’s death.
“The determination to remain human, not god, until the very end.”
“I swear to myself and in the name of the ‘Black Prince.’”
God died and man was born.
“That’s enough.”
The black prince nodded bitterly. Just then, his body collapsed without strength and began to scatter in vain.
The human raised his head.
On a pure white and pitch black winter night, Lize was left behind.
A black bandage wraps around the world she sees.
“Lize.”
Dale looked at her.
“Can you forgive me?”
“There is nothing my brother can forgive.”
Lize smiled quietly, but with a sad, bitter smile.
“It’s all my fault.”
“It’s all our fault.”
Dale shook his head and said, “That’s it.”
* * *
Some time after that.
“Congratulations, Your Highness the Duke! You have a son!”
The old woman’s voice rang out, and Dale, who had been swallowing his breath anxiously, finally raised his head.
Not as a god of meaninglessness, but as a human being who trembles and doesn’t know what to do before the laws of life.
“Dale… … .”
Charlotte smiled quietly and took Dale’s hand, embracing the lifeless creature still wrapped in a blanket.
Charlotte’s body, a bloodthirsty creature that cannot be called human, is not much different in some ways.
But the one crying between the two was undoubtedly a human child.
That fact was just strangely sad.
“My child.”
Charlotte laughed. Charlotte, who had been practicing to the point of cutting her bones, could not possibly be this painful. However, the weight of a mother carrying a life on her back was not something that could be passed over lightly.
Dale was the same.
There were no gods, nor the sword of gods. There were two humans, and between them a human was born.
A life that cries.
Father and mother came in late.
“Good job, kid.”
Charlotte smiled at Elena’s words, and her father, Alan, looked at the two children.
It was a picture of a family that could be found anywhere.
