At the beginning, you created this persona to deceive me. If things had continued like that, I would not have needed to agonize over any of this. I could have simply treated you as a monster that stole people's hearts and defeated you.
But afterward, I witnessed with my own eyes the steps you took from being a "heartless monster" toward becoming "a human being." Even I could not help being drawn to that version of you. Yet in the end, for their sake, I had to defeat you... By the end, this tangled mess of emotions had become so muddled that I could no longer tell what was real and what was false.
Yet the faint but persistent barrier between them kept them separated even at the very end, speaking words neither of them could fully make clear.
"Anyway, up until now, you were the one who made me become who I am... the real me."
Looking at the "beloved" before her, even that eternally unchanged iceberg-like expression seemed to show signs of melting.
"Am I no longer as unpleasant as the person you hated back then?"
"If only it had been sooner."
Before any of this had happened, I would have risked my life to change you.
"Yes, if only it had been earlier."
The light composing her body seemed to grow even more fragmented amid their disjointed exchange.
"Hmph... It looks like you have some good companions now, Ash."
"It was only coincidence that former enemies became companions. But it was those countless coincidences that formed the path that made our intertwined lives inevitable."
"To be surrounded by them... that is your strength..."
Back then, when I merely longed for strength, perhaps that was what drew me to you as well?
And for someone who yearned for