Immortality stole death from the world—but it could not steal the ruin of the mind. When the heart corrodes beyond repair, only one answer remains: the Rite of Termination, carried out by the pale-eyed Executors of Calm Finis.
Daria has frozen her heart to carry that blade. Emotion is a flaw to be purged, attachment a weakness to be erased—and she has mastered both disciplines better than anyone. But the writ placed in her hands names a target she cannot erase: Ethan, the boy who once broke a s
Executor Dahlia — Before the Last Bell Rings - The sound of the bell will end you.
The cold sensation of the stone floor seeped into Daria's knees.
The top floor of the bell tower. The massive bell hung silent overhead, and through the open windows, the pre-dawn wind blew in. The sky above the ruined city of Remna Grease was still dominated by a deep indigo, but only the edge of the eastern sky had begun to faintly whiten.
Ethan quietly closed his eyes.
His black hair, grown to his shoulders, swayed in the wind. His golden eyes were shut, and on his lips floated his usual faint smile. The facial muscle fixation caused by the heart-eater—but now, that smile no longer seemed like a lie.
"Daria."
It was a boy's voice. The voice of the seven-year-old Ethan who had cast off the poetic verbosity of a cult leader, the one who had once offered her a shell in the ruins' underground.
"I have a request for you."
Wordlessly, Daria placed her right hand on his chest. The silver pattern on the back of her left hand—the Calm Signa—began to glow with a faint, pulsing light.
(*A request, he says.*)
Deep in her chest, an emotion she couldn't put into words swirled. He didn't need to use a word like that. I am—.
"I want you to end me."
His voice was astonishingly gentle.
"I've been waiting all this time. For you to come. For you—to come and fulfill the promise from our childhood."
Daria lowered her eyes. Her narrow, bluish pupils wavered with emotion. The water's surface that should have been frozen was now on the verge of crumbling, like the thaw of spring snow.
"...Why."
Her voice was hoarse.
"Why does it have to be me? You could have had another Executor do it much sooner—"
"If it isn't you, there's no point."
Ethan shook his head softly. The pattern of black blood vessels surfacing on his left wrist—the physical manifestation of the heart-eater he called the "Map of Paradise"—writhed faintly.
"Ever since you went to Fortuna, I kept writing letters. Hundreds of them. Even knowing they would never reach you."
He quietly opened his eyes. The focus of his golden pupils was unsteady. Due to the heart-eater's progression, his left eye pointed slightly in a different direction. Even so, he looked straight at Daria.
"They were all stopped by censorship, weren't they? You knew nothing. My voice never reached you."
Daria bit her lip. The hundreds of letters she had read in the underground water source archive. The blurred ink. Fifteen years' worth of words that never arrived.
(*If I had known—*)
Her chest ached.
(*If I had known, I would have—*)
"But that was for the best."
Ethan smiled.
"It's precisely because you didn't know that you came here as an Executor. To end me with your own hands."
He placed his own hand over Daria's, which was pressed against his chest. Cold fingers. Due to the heart-eater's progression, his body temperature had begun to fade.
"Daria. You just need to fulfill your duty. If you do that—the ice in your heart will melt."
Beneath her expressionless mask, Daria clenched her teeth.
No.
Her duty didn't matter anymore. Neither her mission as an Executor nor the laws of Calm Finis held any meaning for her now.
She just—didn't want to end him.
"...I don't want to."
A hoarse voice escaped her own lips.
"I don't want to, Ethan. I—don't want to lose you."
Tears traced down the silver pattern on her left cheek.
As an Executor, as one who carries out the Rite of Termination, these were words that should never be spoken. She was supposed to be a machine that swore loyalty to her mission, froze her emotions, and merely judged the target's heart-eater stage.
That self was now—crying.
"Thank you."
Ethan's voice trembled.
"Just hearing you say that—that alone makes my fifteen years worthwhile."
Tears overflowed from his golden eyes as well. They ran down his cheeks and fell onto the stone pendant at his neck—the one with the clumsy cross carving that Daria had picked up and given him in their childhood.
"Daria, it's okay if you forget me. The cost of the Rite of Termination will likely fade your memories. But—that's fine. As long as the ice in your heart melts."
"I don't want to."
Daria shook her head. The tears wouldn't stop.
"I don't want to forget. You, our promise—all of it, things I've treasured. To forget that—"
"It's alright."
Ethan squeezed her hand tightly.
"Even if you can't remember—I will remember. Our promise, the stone you gave me, the days I spent with you. Even if I—become ash, I will remember."
His hand pressed Daria's hand firmly against his chest.
"Now, Daria. It's time."
The eastern sky was beginning to change from white to a pale gold.
Daybreak.
The last night the two of them would spend together was about to end.
Daria let out a trembling breath. In her vision blurred by tears, Ethan's smile wavered.
(*End him.*)
She repeated it in her heart.
(*I will—end him.*)
The Calm Signa on the back of her left hand began to emit a pale, bluish-white light. The mark pulsed, growing hot. The Rite of Termination—the sole means to completely end an immortal.
"Ethan."
Daria spoke his name.
"I—never told you. Not even once. I didn't have the courage to tell you. But now, I can say it."
She forced out the words she had kept frozen for fifteen years.
"I—wanted to be with you, always."
Ethan's golden eyes opened wide.
And then—he laughed through his tears.
"Me too. I too—wanted to be with Daria, always."
The light of the Calm Signa intensified.
Particles of bluish-white light overflowed from Daria's right hand and were drawn into Ethan's chest. The mark had begun to neutralize the unknown force within his body that granted immortality.
Ethan's body began to feel faintly warm from the inside.
"It's warm."
He murmured it as if in surprise.
"So ending... is something this warm, Daria."
The tips of his limbs—from his fingertips, from his toes—quietly began to turn to ash. Golden particles, carried on the morning wind blowing through the bell tower, sparkled as they danced and scattered away.
Daria kept her eyes wide open.
(*I won't forget.*)
The cost of the Rite of Termination began to eat away at her memories. Deep in her head, the sensation of something thinning out like mist. Fragments of the specific days she had spent with Ethan—which year, which season, what conversations they had—blurred and vanished.
(*I won't forget—I won't forget—*)
Even so, she kept her eyes wide open.
Only Ethan's final smile. Only the voice with which he had said "It's warm." Those, she would absolutely never let go of.
"Ethan—"
His body was turning to ash up to his chest. Only the area around his heart—the place Daria's right hand touched—retained its heat until the very end.
"Daria."
Ethan called her name as if mustering the last of his strength.
"The ice in your heart—it's already melted, hasn't it?"
Daria could only nod. Tears fell in heavy drops onto the stone floor.
"I'm glad."
He smiled, as if relieved.
"All is within the green—an ending is a beginning—"
His catchphrase.
With those words as his last—Ethan's body completely returned to ash.
The golden particles soared up on the morning wind and vanished through the bell tower window into the sky. Daria's right hand grasped empty space.
A dry clatter sounded.
Only the stone pendant—the gray river stone Daria had given him in their childhood—had fallen onto the cold stone floor.
With trembling hands, Daria picked up the pendant. It was still faintly warm.
She clutched the pendant to her chest.
And then—.
"Uu... aah... aaaah—"
She stifled her voice and collapsed in tears.
Executor Daria died.
The one here now—was a single human being, Daria.
The silver Executor's pattern etched on her cheek quietly faded away, proof that the freeze had thawed.
She continued to let flow, along with her tears, all the emotions she had locked away for fifteen years.
Only her sobs echoed through the cold bell tower.
—How long had she been like that?
Suddenly—a heavy impact sound, *gong*, shook the entire bell tower.
It was the sound of the iron door being broken down from outside.
"Your Holiness—!!!"
A frenzied scream.
A girl with flaming red hair in disarray and large, light-brown eyes glaring with madness—Mia—leapt in from beyond the broken door. Her freckled cheeks were twisted with tears and rage, and the missing piece of her left earlobe trembled faintly.
Her gaze caught the ash remaining on the floor—and Daria's figure kneeling within it.
"Ah... aah..."
Mia froze for an instant.
She understood the situation.
The floor with only ash remaining. The stone pendant in Daria's hand. And—Ethan, gone.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaah!!"
Mia screamed. Brandishing the iron pipe in her hand—its tip still caked with Daria's blood—she attacked Daria.
"You killed His Holiness! You did! You death god!"
Her blade slashed shallowly across Daria's shoulder. Darkened blood oozed from the torn skin.
But Daria did not flee. She remained on her knees, motionless. Though her face twisted in pain, she looked straight into Mia's eyes.
"...Ethan."
Her voice was wet with tears, but calm.
"Until the very end—he regretted that he couldn't take you to paradise."
Mia's movement stopped.
"He wanted to protect you. It's just—the only way he could do that was by deceiving you."
Daria's words pierced Mia's heart.
"Lies... you're lying...!"
Mia dropped the iron pipe. A heavy clang echoed through the bell tower.
"It has to be a lie! That His Holiness—cared about me—that's a lie!!"
"It's the truth."
Daria spoke while gazing at the stone pendant clutched in her left hand.
"He—feared his own end more than anyone. But even more than that—he was terrified of ending and leaving you believers behind."
Mia collapsed on the spot.
Her flaming red hair scattered over the ash. She prostrated herself in the ash and began to let out sobs like a child.
"Why—why is it her and not me—"
Mia cried out as if clutching the ash to her chest.
"I was—I was the one always watching over His Holiness! Protecting him! So why—why wouldn't he let me be by his side, even in his final moment—"
Her wailing seemed to make the bell tower's bell tremble.
What lay at the root of her fanaticism—an overwhelming fear of being abandoned—was now laid bare. The truth that Ethan had cared about her struck her down all the more.
(*I couldn't even be present at his final moment.*)
That moment had been stolen from her by the Executor she hated most.
That despair made Mia's entire body tremble.
Daria almost reached out a hand toward Mia's back.
But—she couldn't touch her.
(*I am—the one she should hate.*)
Daria pulled her hand back, and while clutching the stone pendant, she quietly stood up. The compound fracture in her left leg ached, but she didn't care.
"...Even in a paradise without His Holiness, you'll protect it, won't you?"
She spoke with her back turned to Mia.
Mia didn't answer. Only her wordless sobs continued to echo through the bell tower.
Daria left the place. She passed through the broken door and descended the spiral staircase.
When she exited the bell tower, the morning sun was dyeing the ruined city a golden color.
She pressed the stone pendant to her chest once more. The shell had been crushed—but the stone remained.
(*Ethan.*)
Within the haze of her memories, only his final words and smile emitted a clear warmth.
(*I will live.*)
She gazed at the eastern sky.
Not as an Executor—but as a single human being.
Several days later.
Fortuna—the fortress city named from the ancient word meaning "fortune."
The top floor of the Calm Finis headquarters, the "Tower of the Final Chapter." In the office of Overseer Lazarus, a heavy silence hung.
Sergei, his long, gray-brown hair streaked with white tied back in a single tail, looked down at the documents with his one gray eye. On his left, clouded cornea, a pattern like fine cracks—the physical manifestation of the heart-eater—had surfaced. His left metal prosthetic hand creaked with eve
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