171

Strength drains from the hand clutching Emilia's as she witnesses Fortuna's body fall limp.

Juice: "NoOW is—THE END!"

Juice makes violent touchdown as he shouts, sweeping his battered arms hard to the side. As if pulled along by that gesture, Fortuna's body dances through space along the exact same trajectory. Her limbs go limp like a doll's, and her body tumbles across the ground as if discarded. Blood shoots out from her convulsing form like a geyser, painting the grassland red in an instant.

Juice: "That did, PROVE EFFECTIVE. …After all of this, assuredly…"

With a ragged sigh, Juice falls to his knees.

Emilia does not see how Juice yet gazes at the fallen Fortuna with caution.

She merely draws closer, gait tottering, to Fortuna as she sleeps prone.

A hole gapes open through Fortuna's back and breast, the damage so great that the innards of her ruined body are visible. The force of the bleeding dampens, leaving Emilia sitting in a puddle of blood.

She hugs her mother's pale head, somehow managing to set it on her lap. Red spots sully Fortuna's pretty silver hair, and Emilia frantically attempts to clean her by wiping the grime away with her fingers.

But Emilia's fingers are already dirty with blood, and the more she touches, the bloodier Fortuna's hair gets.

Juice: "Fortuna-sama! Do not loosen your guard, I ask that you remain vigilant! Once I verify…"

Emilia: "juice?"

Juice: "—"

With a sharp breath, Juice heaves himself up with his palm faced towards Fortuna.

Hearing him, Emilia calls his name. After a moment of looking distantly at nothing, he blinks,

Juice: "Emilia-sama?"

He looks to have only now noticed the girl sitting in the pool of blood.

His gaze lowers down, to where Emilia's lap hosts the woman's head, her limp body lying there uselessly.

His eyes, shoot open.

Juice: "…Impossible."

His expression one of disbelief, Juice shakes his head.

Between his own plodding self, and the fallen Fortuna, there stands a platinum girl.

Pandora smiles at Juice as he looks on.

Pandora: "I am afraid that there is nothing to be done. YOUR EYES HAVE MERELY DECEIVED YOU."

Juice: "aaaAAAHH… AAAAaAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!?"

Putting his hands to his face, Juice ruthlessly drives his nails into his skin, carving out crimson gashes.

The force is enough that his fingernails pare off, the bright blood from his gouged cheeks painting his face scarlet.

Juice: "Impossible impossible impossible impossible impossible impossible!? Wh-what, what am, what am I DOING!? What have I DONE? Why, whywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhy!? Then for what purpose have I… what… ahh! Ahhhh!? AaaAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!"

Juice had taken a witch factor into his body, and kept the thing's discordant power restrained by force of will.

The most important support for that resilient will snaps away. Every single thing inside Juice crumbles away.

Because the powers he had gained by risking his life had destroyed the one he had risked his life to protect.

Juice suffers mental damage beyond any possible repair, screaming as he loses his sanity.

Juice: "For what purpose—did I do anything!?"

Pandora: "Everything, for love."

Juice's eyes peel wide, froth spilling from his lips as he gazes at the sky.

Pandora's quiet voice answers the screams of his soul.

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Pandora: "You have sacrificed your soul to save the person you love. This is not anything ordinary. All of your long, long time spent supporting the Witch Cult was also for the sake of that love. All of your deeds are the outcome of love. A most excellent, pathway of love."

Juice: "Love… LOVE… love… love… love… love…!"

Pandora: "Exactly. There is no need to fear or regret anything. Everything was inevitable. It was all according to the path of fate. The road had continued its course to lead to this point. EVERYTHING,

FOR LOVE."

Juice: "For, love…"

As he deliriously mutters the words back, Juice's mind shatters to pieces.

Juice's eyes lose their colour. He is trancelike, motionless.

He mutters inaudible whisperings, endlessly, a living cadaver.

Seeing Juice's mind so utterly broken, Pandora gives a satisfied sigh.

???: "Emi, lia…"

Just as Juice's being shatters into tiny pieces, the flame of yet another life begins to dim.

Emilia: "Mother,"

Called by a voice so frail it could disappear, Emilia calls back in astonishment.

Her trembling arms reach out to draw her mother closer, to find that she had grown depressingly light. At some point, the flood of blood has stopped its flow.

Which means that her mother is okay now, right?

Emilia is not immature enough that she can think this and protect her mind. Fortuna, too weak to even move, plainly wears the face of a dead man.

Fortuna: "…I'm, sorry, brother…"

Emilia: "Mother,"

Fortuna: "I didn't… stay, by, a single thing, you… told me…"

Spoken like a child giving an apology, as Fortuna voices her regrets.

Blood no longer streams from her body, though tears pour from her eyes. Emilia feels the hot teardops land on her fingers, and scrambles to gather them up.

Because Emilia inevitably feels that these compose the entirety of her mother's current strength to live.

Fortuna: "I know, you'll… be angry, sister… I know you, won't, forgive me…"

As she listens to Fortuna mutter incoherently, Emilia finally realises. Fortuna's amethyst eyes have not been reflecting any light for a long time.

She has long lost her sight, and they have degraded solely into organs for shedding tears. She is not even looking at Emilia's face. She has not even noticed that Emilia is right beside her.

Emilia can touch her, can hug her, but won't reach her.

Faced with Fortuna as she sobs like a child and seeks forgiveness, Emilia—

Emilia: "—I forgive you, mother."

Fortuna says nothing.

Emilia: "You're my… you were so good to me… and not even Father, or Mother, could beat you with how you like me sooo much…"

Fortuna says nothing.

Emilia: "So you, don't have to apologize. You do not have to. Emilia will always, always love you, Mother Fortuna. Love you. Love you, love you… love you…"

The dam bursts.

Her voice loses its usual tone, as the overflowing tears drip one-by-one onto Fortuna face.

Should teardrops compose the strength to live, then the final miracle here was the strength conferred by Emilia's tears.

Emilia: "…Mother?"

Fortuna: "Lia."

Her hand slowly reaches out, to touch Emilia's cheek.

A hand which should not be moving strokes Emilia's cheeks, her ears, tickles her hair. As if touching something beloved, so as not to break it, lovingly.

Fortuna: "You big crybaby."

Emilia says nothing.

Fortuna: "I love you, sooo much…"

The strength drains from her.

Her arm thuds to the ground.

Emilia senses that Fortuna's body has grown lighter.

Her body has lost its strength, and this should be compounding the weight on Emilia's lap, but Fortuna as she lays in Emilia's arms has definitely grown lighter.

The most Important part of her mother, which must not be shed, has been shed. Even Emilia can understand that.

She has lost Fortuna, her mother.

Juice, Betelgeux Romanée-Conti, has lost his mind.

And Emilia,

Pandora: "Now, have you prepared yourself to choose the hope which follows the opening of the seal?"

Ask Pandora after walking over to Emilia, who holds Fortuna's corpse close.

She watches Emilia sit, all while wearing that calm expression and waiting silently for her reply.

Finally, Emilia understands.

Emilia: "Open, the siel?"

Pandora: "Yes. Although highly unfortunate, your Mother, who you shared your promise with, has passed away. There is no need for promises to bind you as fetters for any longer. What do you think?"

Listening to Pandora as she speaks insane logic, as if it's normal, Emilia comprehends. She knows what this demon wearing human shape was thinking in pulling this stunt.

This demon did what she did so that Emilia would break her promise.

Entirely for the sake of making Emilia lose sight of a promise's significance, Pandora had caused Fortuna's death, tormented Juice's mind, and annihilated the forest.

Pandora: "Right, I forgot."

Emilia says nothing.

Pandora: "I doubt that they will be necessary for you any more."

Pandora reaches her hand out toward unresponsive Emilia's face. For dim lights to begin glowing, encircling Emilia, before selecting Pandora's arm as their home and perch.

The minor spirits.

The fairies who had guided Emilia to the seal, and shown her the path.

And, why were they, going to Pandora?

Pandora: "Seeing as I doubted that you would come here on your own, I have enlisted their help. They do not communicate with words, but they have been very reliable."

Pandora smiles as she thanks the spirits, and with that, they dance through the air.

Since when had this started? Emilia cannot even tell.

Emilia's head wavers as she looks up at the seal's door.

It feels like the door is looming, pining to someday be opened, and watching Emilia. She feels the weight of the key in her hands. She had thought that she had dropped it somewhere, but now it is again in her grasp.

Pandora: "You do have the key. Then, you know what to do."

Pandora gives a nod. Emilia slowly stands up.

She lowers her mother's head from her lap and silently sets it atop the grass. She twines her finger through her bangs, arranging her prided mother's beautiful face nicely.

And,

Emilia: "Just die."

—A blade of frigid wind whistles through the air, slicing Pandora's body to pieces.

Her spouting blood freezes in an instant. Flowers of frozen crimson bloom furiously.

With a single icicle standing central in their midst, out scatter the sanguine-flecked petals, a masterpiece of ice and death.

Pandora: "That was rather dangerous. Where on earth is this all coming—"

Emilia: "Just die."

Rods of ice spear down to impale Pandora's limbs, a spear of ice shoots up from the ground to pierce Pandora from groin to crown, her frozen body screeching as it shatters into pieces.

Pandora: "Please calm down. I am sure that discussion will lead us to an understanding."

Emilia: "Just die."

Balls of ice close in from both sides, crushing Pandora between them and transforming her into a splatter of blood.

Pandora: "We should stop. You are kind by nature, and not a girl capable of harming others. Has your Mother never told you so?"

Emilia: "Just die."

A spinning blade of ice slices through Pandora from the feet up, casting up a spray of red sherbert.

Pandora: "It would sadden your Mother to see you like this. Neither your legitimate Mother and Father, nor Cardinal Betelgeux, would desire this."

Emilia: "JUST DIE!"

White mist cloaks Pandora's body, transforming her into a sculpture of ice. The giant icy sword which slams into her the moment after smashes rather than slices her with its force, beating the Pandora sculpture to the earth.

But despite this storm of destruction and bloodlust,

Pandora: "This is something of a predicament. It appears that the effects were the opposite of what I had intended."

Emilia: "Just die, just die, just die, just die!!"

Bawling, swinging her arms, Emilia rains icy destruction upon Pandora.

But even as they all strike her, and she dies gruesome death, she continuously comes back fully restored after only the space of a blink.

Emilia: "Hahhh! Hahhh! Hauhhh!"

Emilia is approaching her limit for using this excess of magic.

With her repeated casts of magic unfitting to her, red-faced Emilia's lower body begins to freeze. The vast mana swallowed inside her young body is running rampant, and failing to escape outside in time.

Pandora: "The manifestation of power surpassing your capacities, such that you cannot even avoid damages to your own body, would be because of your bloodline. The blood of a witch cannot escape that karma. —Perhaps this forest had been necessary so that you would not awaken to this power."

Emilia shakes her head in refutation of the noise. Her right led is entirely frozen, and it's questionable whether she can even stand. She falls to her knees, her eyes brimming with bloodlust as she glares at Pandora.

Seeing that pointed, ominous gleam, Pandora shakes her head.

Pandora: "This is unfortunate when I am standing before my dearest goal, but I believe that I will withdraw for the day. It does not seem that you will be willing to listen to anything more about kindly opening the door."

Emilia: "Just die, just die just die just die, just die…"

Pandora: "I will regard this day as well enough finished with only the presence of your lineage, and the creation of a new Cardinal of Sin. I will achieve my goal at another time."

Egocentric logic, disregarding of other and entirely self-centered.

Pandora appears to have washed her hands of the situation, when white flakes flit through her vision.

Snow.

Emilia's outrageous magical powers are running amok, warping weather to the extremes and making it snow.

At first it merely sprinkles down, but the snow progressively builds in force and strength, soon coming cloaked with wind ferocious enough to call the whole thing a blizzard.

Pandora: "It appears that, whenever we next speak, I will have to begin by having you expel everything before we may even face each other."

Pandora looks down from the sky as she walks over toward Emilia, who breathes white puffs. Although she witnesses a hated enemy approaching, Emilia cannot move. Her body has already frozen up to her waist, and she cannot even raise her arms any more.

Pandora: "You have caused this frenzy of power, and will proceed to fall into a long slumber. Will the mana of this glaciated forest be fully exhausted, or will an entity possessing power comparable to your own counteract it? Whichever it may be, I suspect that you will spend more than a short period beneath the ice."

Emilia: "Just die, just die!"

Pandora: "I regret to tell you that I will not die. I suspect that both you and I will still remain healthy by the time that the ice melts and we again meet. And certainly, once that time comes, we cannot have things proceed in the vein that they currently are. And so."

Pandora's white finger touches cold against Emilia's forehead.

Emilia's amethyst eyes seethe with loathing. Pandora smiles without any malice.

Pandora: "ALL OF YOUR MEMORIES LEADING TO THIS DAY ARE CONSUMMATED WITHOUT MY PRESENCE IN THEM."

Emilia: "—Ah,"

Pandora: "Feel free to supplement them however you wish. Indeed. You did your very best to keep your promise. It would make me glad if that fact could be engraved in your heart, and you could proceed to be as you presently are."

With her body frozen up to her breastbone, Emilia's face recoils, her gaze unfocused and puttering.

Her eyes spin and drool trails from her mouth as Emilia's mind is ransacked.

It crumbles.

Indiscriminately and unfeelingly, the wallpaper of her memories is replaced.

The conversations she had fade into the distance, while insults she surely did not receive assault her.

Important, unfading—a promise.

She kept her promise, and that alone was something that she would never forget. And she would never forget to keep her promises, either.

She kept her promise. The promise was kept.

Nobody had any reason to invalidate her for keeping her promise.

Pandora: "What conclusions shall your heart reach, and what smile will you give me when next we meet? I will be eagerly awaiting our wonderful reunion."

The blizzard rages through the forest. Pandora holds her long, dishevelled hair down as she starts walking.

Having remained on his knees in a stupor, Juice is halfway buried in the snow. Pandora whispers something to him. He stands up, expression powerless.

The two of them, Pandora and Juice, walk side by side as they leave the snowy forest.

Emilia can only watch them go.

The freeze has already reached her face, and her awareness remains only in her eyes.

Emilia lowers her gaze, and notices it.

On the ground before her, there is an unnatural lumping of snow.

As if, in the middle of this white snowscape, somebody is hugging her.

Emilia: "—"

Her mouth doesn't move. She cannot even close her eyes any more.

Her body is frozen, and her heart is freezing. Emilia's consciousness—

Emilia: "—ther,"

—then came to spend a century encased in the unmelting ice.

Until a spirit found her, a spirit who was searching for her, a spirit given life in this world entirely for the sake of her.

—Until that time, Emilia remained frozen in the ice.

※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※

Having witnessed it all, and faced with the sight of her own frozen self, Emilia stands stock still.

She remembers everything that happened.

These scenes of the past, slowly unfolding ever since she had woken up.

All of them have been peeled of their superficial, false skin, and come flowing out.

Young Emilia had seen everything that day. She saw how Fortuna died in her arms, how Juice's mind broke and went insane, and witnessed the perpetrator of all this evil.

And she forgot them, because of her own weakness and desire to forget them?

Echidna: "It would be a mistake to fault yourself for the falsification of your memories."

The girl standing beside Emilia, Echidna, addresses her.

Just as Emilia had experienced her memories vicariously, Echidna had witnessed everything that happened from start to finish.

She glances at Emilia, who gazes at the snow.

Echidna: "That thing you confronted was the WITCH OF VAINGLORY Pandora. She brandishes superficial and self-serving logic, REWRITING events however her whims and pleasures dictate. The dampening of her influence would be a result of time's passage, and your very own strength."

Emilia: "My, strength…"

Echidna: "As you can see, your strength is so immense that you can't fully control it. If we are speaking entirely in terms of combat, you surpassed Pandora even here, when you were young. But battles aren't so shallow that you can prevail on strength alone. And especially not when Pandora is a witch with a penchant for surviving."

It Isn't clear how far her knowledge spans, but it appears that Echidna knows about Pandora. Although, her expression as she speaks with Emilia is as bitter as ever, and she doubts that she will get an honest answer if she asks her any questions.

Emilia: "…You're not insulting me like you were before?"

Echidna: "That's the kind of thing about you that I hate. Of course I'm thoughtful enough to be considerate toward someone who just remembered the death of their mother. Even if that someone is a filthy licentious whore."

Emilia: "Thank you."

Echidna gives a sigh, speaking no further comforts.

Noticing that she's coming close to smiling at Echidna's attitude, Emilia realises that she has been attempting to divert her attention from the grisly memory before her in a show of weakness.

These resurrected memories are utterly things which shake Emilia's perspective of the world. Things which overturn Emilia's life from its very outset.

After all, Emilia was going to save everyone in the forest—and so was her reasoning for devoting herself to the Royal selection, but,

Emilia: "I wonder if anyone's still alive… in this frozen forest."

Emilia had witnessed both Fortuna and Arch's deaths.

The BLACKSNAKE's attack was information which had been absent in Emilia's memory. She knew the beast's might, and the wicked characteristic it possessed.

The Witchbeast of Blight the BLACKSNAKE infects living creates with a hundred diseases just by contact alone. And it places curses on the land it travels, transforming the region into a locality of death where only witchbeasts can live.

—How many people had survived before the village was buried in snow?

And were those who survived and now encased in ice uninfected by the Snake's pestilence?

This was equivalent to Emilia losing her very reason to fight.

Indeed, she can agree with these memories being sealed.

Even had Pandora not interfered, perhaps Emilia would have wanted to forget about these events.

That is how utterly hopeless these memories are.

Echidna: "…Standing here indefinitely won't end TRIAL."

Echidna gazes at the silent world of snow.

Echidna: "The past went along without any issues. Challenger of the TRIAL as you are, you must have recognized your greatest regret. Now you need to present an answer."

Emilia: "Present an answer for the TRIAL?"

Echidna: "The first TRIAL is beaten by demarcating an end to the symbol of your regret. Do you affirm the actions of your past self, or reject them? If you are unable to fully accept this and reject the question, this will all end without the TRIAL being accomplished."

Emilia gives a deep sigh.

She has thought over and over about what she needs to overcome the TRIAL.

When faced with counterfeit memories, she had questioned herself as to why she was unable to overcome them.

Losing Puck, and having to take over the parts of herself that she had entrusted to him, was what first let the cap on Emilia's memories come loose.

Now, Emilia finally stands at the starting point for the TRIAL.

But even though her legs have reached the starting line, she has lost sight of the starting line in her own heart.

She left the forest because she wanted to save everybody, save her mother.

It's turned out that those ideas weren't even idealistic ones, they were straight-out fantasies.

Her mother is dead, and she doesn't know if the villagers are safe.

If she loses the reason that she set out on this path, what remains for Emilia?

Emilia: "—That's already been taught to me."

Just when it seems that her heart is beginning to waver, a hand reaches out from the light and stops her.

A powerful arm, to pull Emilia forward when she is lost as to her destination.

Don't give up. Look forward, raise your head, watch me.

Over and over, again and again, he had said that to her.

He knew that Emilia was weak, but roared at her not to stay weak.

When Emilia shook her head and insisted everything was over, he said that nothing was damn over and pulled her back up.

When Emilia wanted to give up, thinking that she was useless, he had baselessly asserted that she was the best.

The pain from their teeth striking each other, and the warmth of their overlaid lips, lights a flame in Emilia's heart.

Emilia: "Mother loved me."

Echidna: "—"

Emilia: "I wanted to help Mother Fortuna. I wanted her to hug me again as we slept in the same bed. I wanted to tell her, countless times, that I love her."

Echidna: "Then do you regret it?"

Echidna is asking about the moment of Emilia's decision, with the two hopes.

Back then, if Emilia had taken Pandora's hand and broken the promise, perhaps Pandora's group would have withdrawn from the forest, and Fortuna and Juice would not have been stolen.

IF, HAD I, SUPPOSING. Using those words to look back on the past, perhaps this would indeed be the case.

Emilia: "I don't regret anything."

Echidna says nothing.

Emilia: "I don't regret that I kept my promise, and stayed my ground back then. If there's anything I regret, it's that I wasn't strong enough, and couldn't consider things more wisely. I'll never regret that I stayed true to my Mother's teachings and didn't listen to Pandora, ever."

After all, hadn't Fortuna told her?

That she was proud of Emilia, who had determined to keep her promise, and that she was her treasure?

Those very words were a treasure, to remain inside Emilia forever.

Echidna: "Your fight hasn't lost its meaning?"

Emilia: "Nope. I… couldn't save mother. But I still don't know about everybody in the village. Everybody might be waiting there, waiting for rescue under the snow. I'm the only one who can save them."

Echidna: "That land's been polluted by the Blacksnake. Even assuming that there are villagers alive under the frost, I doubt that they will survive long while harbouring infection."

Emilia: "That's just how you're imagining it'll go. A nasty kind of speculation. Everybody's waiting for rescue under the snow. I'm gonna get them out of there quickly, and they'll all tell me off. And then laugh, glad to be alive."

Echidna: "Imbecilic delusion."

Emilia: "No, it's a forecast for a happy future!"

Emilia steps forward.

She faces Echidna and she gestures to the snowscape.

Emilia: "I won't let you invalidate something that no one's even seen yet! I'm not going to accept that the things my Mother left for me ended so sadly! I'm going to realise my Mother's ideals!"

Echidna: "Ideals? Your mother was searching for something?"

Emilia: "She said so. That one day everyone would leave the forest, and be able to live like normal. Just like how Juice's group and all the villagers could get along, and how Subaru told me he likes me, one day that world will arrive which my Mother and Juice were supposed to walk together!"

Echidna: "And the frozen villagers will be included in that world? After you trapped them in the ice?"

Emilia: "I feel sooo sorry about that. I'll apologize over and over, and over and over until they forgive me! And once they forgive me, I'll show them the world. Tell them that they don't have to live in secret any more. That this is the world that Mother Fortuna was talking about!"

Echidna: "—"

Taking a deep breath, Emilia shouts.

They are no longer in the snow, but a world of white light.

Heedless to the absence of the prickling chill, and to the departure of the scene composed of her regrets, Emilia raises her voice.

Emilia: "I'll shout myself hoarse as I holler my dreams, so that my Mother in the sky can hear it!"

Echidna: "—"

Emilia: "I am happy in the world that my Mother loved!"

The world fractures.

Seeing the fissures run through the white space, Emilia finally notices the change in setting. Her eyes widen in surprise, and Echidna strikes her hands.

Together, in applause.

Echidna: "I see, understood. I didn't expect that I'd know what would happen, but this exceeds anything I imagined. This pushy, complacent, hubristic, egotistic, hypocritical and forced purchase."

Emilia: "Exactly. Anything wrong with it?"

Echidna: "No, I don't really care. But this is one of those points where you're exactly like your mother."

Echidna scrunches her pretty brows, when Emilia asks her question.

Because it sounds like,

Emilia: "My, mother… you don't mean Mother Fortuna, you know about my other mother?"

Echidna: "I know her. She's part of why I get so emotional when dealing with you. Though there is

Still some kind of irrational resentment to it, as I lament: why does it always only happen with you?"

Echidna gives a shrug, her form beginning to fade.

Emilia feels a vague kind of weight press down on her consciousness, a floating feeling like waking up from a dream circling around her.

Echidna: "Here's the end. No matter how complacent the logic is, a settlement with your past is a settlement with your past. All you have to do is dance clumsily around as you take your mother's resolve to sacrifice herself and use it as your rationalization."

Emilia: "You can say anything you want. Me, I've gotten used to your insults."

Hand to her hip, Emilia shows off her composure to Echidna, who doesn't forget to give one last jab. Echidna averts her gaze.

Echidna: "There's still two TRIALS left, but… frustratingly, I doubt they'll prove much of an obstacle."

Emilia: "They won't?"

Echidna: "Constant rationalizations are the nemesis of self-inquisition. These TRIALS, which intrude on your interior, have terrible comparability with the present you. You could call it a boon resulting from your utter neglect to think."

Emilia: "When you talk in a way that sounds like I'm not thinking, it actually strings sooo much."

Emilia bares her displeasure.

That said, their conversation here is close to meeting its end.

Echidna is practically gone from view, and Emilia's head is beginning to fog. She cannot keep herself conscious any longer.

Echidna: "—I hate you."

Emilia: "But I don't really hate you."

What expression did Echidna make in this moment? Even though Emilia doesn't see it, she gets the sense that she knows.

Her consciousness, ascends.

※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※

Emilia regains her conscious and groans, a hardness at her back.

Behind her is a wall. It seems that she has collapsed against it, and fallen unconscious with the thing still supporting her.

She reaches out to touch the wall and checks the writing rudely engraved there. She runs straight into an I LOVE YOU, and winds up smiling at the perfect timing.

Right now, Emilia wanted his words more than anyone else's to be the ones validating her.

Emilia: "—I'm sorry, Mother."

Her smile twists, as her voice slips, choked, out of her mouth.

Her apology echoes through the dark room, as does the noise of her sniffling.

Teardrops stream one after another, unstoppable. Unendurable.

She had chosen to act strong, to be stubborn, and not let the witch see her cry. Inside this tomb, where there are no worries of any onlookers, Emilia presses her face against the wall and cries magnificently.

Emilia: "Mother… mother…"

The tears overflow.

They're truly from forever ago. Tears that she needed to cry one hundred years ago.

She had forgotten about it, and so had never been able to mourn her mother's death. In this small chamber where no one will know about, Emilia proceeds to mourn exactly that.

So that once she exits, no one will know what her face looks like in tears.

So that she could end this, without the boy who told her weak self that he loved her seeing her being weak.

She cries, and cries, and cries, and cries.

All while mourning the memories of her mother, her mother's affection, and everything she had given her.

Emilia remains exactly like this, proceeding to cry with her face pressed to LOVE.

2Doesn't have a body → more accurately, doesn't have a head or neck. I'm 99% sure this futzing doesn't matter at all (the 1% is the chance that Juice is the mysterious kind of spirit that has pinkies or something) but hey.

3The trick behind Pandora's powers and how they work has yet to be explained. This is how the line clicked in my head, but it's questionable whether my phrasing gives any legitimate suggestion as to what her power is doing.