Ritsuka clung to Mash.
"Senpai! Breathe slowly. Inhale...."
The kind advice from her junior didn't reach her ears.
In her mind, the screams of fairies echoed.
It had happened in less than five minutes.
The man's memories were hell.
Someone died, was torn apart, swallowed, murdered.
Death and death were all there was to the memories.
They all died in blurred forms, as if a mosaic had been placed over a harmful video.
The only time a clear image appeared was when he took down his family from the crosses they had been nailed to.
He stared blankly at his family's corpses, and then he howled.
"■■■———!"
His hands and feet transformed into those of a beast.
His teeth sharpened, and his eyes narrowed into slits.
The glint in his eyes was a chilling red.
Half-man, half-beast.
Transformed into a wolf, he sprinted through the island on two legs, adding everything he touched to the sea of blood.
The most terrifying thing was that he didn't just take revenge for his family.
Among the dead were also those he had sought to protect.
"Kyle! It's me! I… huh?"
A farmer fairy holding a plow welcomed him.
It was a fairy who had barely managed to survive by hiding.
But the look of elation, as if gazing upon a savior, did not last long.
Thump.
A fist thicker than the fairy's head punched through its stomach.
The fairy died instantly.
Its expression right before death was one of 'questioning'.
Why?
She didn't know.
Ritsuka watched everything as his memories unfolded, but she couldn't understand.
He simply wanted to kill someone.
He was a demon who snuffed out the life of everything he touched.
A beast that craved blood.
"Ugh... uweeegh...!"
At that repulsive sight, Ritsuka threw up once more.
Pure, unadulterated evil.
The beast's instinct was something Ritsuka, an ordinary person, could not possibly endure.
It was overwhelming even for a woman who was not ordinary, a woman accustomed to malice.
But it wasn't unbearable. Her true form was an Evil of Humanity, a being equal to or greater than a Beast.
What broke her spirit was something else entirely.
"No. Father. I'm sorry. That wasn't my intention. Father. Please forgive me. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
Tamamo saw beyond what Ritsuka had seen.
Ritsuka trembled in fear at the pure malice, at the ugliness of instinct.
But Tamamo could deduce things from the beast's memories.
The world where the beast was rampaging was clearly not 9th-century Rome.
It was a different place, a land of fairies where mystery still thrived.
Meaning, he was a being from a separate world.
Tamamo also realized that the beast would soon die.
His body, thoroughly bathed in blood, was covered in wounds that had long surpassed their limit.
He certainly died. Yet, he created a Singularity once more.
He could be reborn.
He was a Beast capable of reincarnating across time and space.
He was not someone who merely resembled Father.
—He *was* Father.
The wounded soul of a beast that had lost its family and gone mad.
That man, writhing on the floor as the memories he wanted to erase came flooding back.
The father who had loved her, the father she had loved so dearly.
"Ah... haha. Hahaha!"
He laughed. His eyes were unfocused.
He had no will to live.
Everything he had wanted to protect was broken.
Loneliness, anger, pain, despair... in the torrent of all negative emotions, his soul could not endure and was whittled away.
The mother he couldn't protect.
Orkney's dream, torn apart by the fairies.
The self-loathing for being too weak to even witness his terrified younger brother's final moments.
The miserable end of not being able to support his beloved youngest sister's dream, not even with a lie.
He cursed his fate and rejected his own birth.
But he could not reject it.
The Beast had a destiny given to a Beast.
In the end, the vessel became empty.
Hollow.
Cursing his own fate of endless rebirth,
he sealed his own memories.
Trapping himself inside a 'dream' created using the Holy Grail as a resource.
He wanted to be happy.
And Tamamo had betrayed his heart.
Not just anyone, but,
"Me...?"
She herself.
Tamamo-no-Mae walked forward.
The playback of memories had ended.
Because she had forcibly stopped the technique, and just in time, the memories had concluded.
His memories ended deep beneath the sea.
The world had transformed into a black, barren land.
If Tamamo had paid even a little attention to the world's transformation,
she might have noticed that this world was another barrier created within a barrier.
An arena within Rome, so to speak.
A special space designed for killing.
But in Tamamo's vision, there was nothing but the being who was once her father.
Not even her own Master, who was currently being supported by her junior.
Tamamo called out to him plaintively.
"...Father. I-It's me. It's Mizukume. Father?"
"Do not call me that."
For a moment, Tamamo felt a chilling sensation, as if her own head were tumbling on the ground.
She instinctively touched her neck, but fortunately or unfortunately, it was still properly attached.
"You damn fake. Do not call me that with Mizukume's face."
Tamamo swallowed hard.
Tears welled up in her eyes.
The moment his memories returned, he recognized her.
He recognized the girl who was his daughter, the child he had loved so dearly.
But he was rejecting her.
He did not accept that this Tamamo was Mizukume.
She reached out her hand. But then she let it fall limply.
What right did she have to speak to him?
"Was it fun? Getting your revenge like this? Did you want to laugh at me that much, playing around with nonsense in a dream? How did it feel, to drag out my memories and trample all over them?"
No.
I... that wasn't what I meant to do.
I just wanted to get some petty revenge on someone who looked like Father....
"How you must have laughed, holding me in your arms as I died? How delightful it must have been to deceive me to the very end, to let me die so miserably!"
"No, Father! I…."
She tried to argue, but he wouldn't even listen.
A tsunami of betrayal washed over her.
Betrayal.
Betrayal.
"How... how could you do this to me? You...!"
His heart, discarded like a rag, screamed out once more.
He squeezed out a voice that barely came out, like a singer with damaged vocal cords.
"I dedicated my life to you, I wished for your happiness, and you…."
He was at a loss for words.
He still lacked the experience to master all the curses of the world.
Not that it would have mattered against Tamamo-no-Mae, whose talent was overwhelmingly superior.
Instead, he had the most effective 'words' of curse.
A language more brilliant than any incantation, more powerful than any magical formula existed.
"I regret you. I regret ever meeting you in my life."
"......What?"
Tamamo spoke like a fool.
Empty words that had reflexively escaped her lips.
A curse that surpassed her understanding.
"If only I hadn't taken you in, if only I had never met you."
"F-Father?"
"How happy I would have been."
No.
Father loves me, and I love Father.
We cleared up our misunderstanding, and in the end, we reconciled and met our end together.
"You are worse than the fairies."
But when the man who had been her father confessed his feelings so calmly,
Tamamo dug her nails into her own arm.
"Aah———?!"
Something broke.
Something important that constituted 'me' had slipped away.
"Father. No. I'm sorry. If you tell me to die, I will die. If you want to tear me to pieces, please do so."
"...."
"I was wrong. Please forgive me. ...It hurts so much. It feels like my chest is being ripped apart. I'm scared, Dad. Please save me. Dad…."
He, who said nothing, was more terrifying than he, who had been pouring out curses.
Because it felt like they had become complete strangers.
Because everything they had built had vanished.
Tamamo-no-Mae crumbled from her very roots.