Chương 639: The Doll and the Throne

Little Erza stood in the castle gardens. It was late, the maids were busy, and that meant she and her little sister could play together.

"Restricted entry? Not for me," little Erza said. She glanced back and spotted a figure half-hidden behind a tree.

"Anne, are you coming, or are you just going to stand there?" Erza asked. Anne stepped out from behind the trunk. She looked adorable in the little maid dress Erza had sewn for her on her eighth birthday.

"Doll Mother... said... we're not allowed... in there," Anne said. Erza took her hand.

"Doll Mother also says eating sweets is bad for me, and she's the same one who trains me by feeding me poison."

"But..."

"And she also says we shouldn't sleep together, that you need to get over your fears. Do I listen to her about that either?" Erza asked. Anne fell quiet and kept walking beside her. There was a tower in the castle they were forbidden to enter. Even the staff was not allowed inside without permission.

"Grandma Queen... arrives today. We'll be late... for maid... training," Anne said. Grandma Evelyn was the one everyone in the family feared. No one dared make even the smallest mistake in front of her. She was one of the strongest, most dangerous people in the world.

"I don't care what Grandma Evelyn might do. One day, you and I will be the ones in her place," Erza said as she crawled through a hole in the tower wall. Inside, they emerged into a dusty room cluttered with junk.

"My uniform... got dirty," Anne said.

"I'll sew you another one. You're going to have lots of them, Anne." The two of them spent the next hour exploring the tower. Erza could not understand why this place was forbidden. Then suddenly, arrows shot from the walls. Erza moved like a dancer, flipping and spinning out of the way. When she reached the end of the chamber, she disabled the mechanism.

"Another easy trap," Erza said.

"You can come now, Anne." Her little sister came forward hesitantly, staring at the holes in the walls.

"I'm... scared, Erza."

"You're such a coward. How are you ever going to kill me like Grandpa P told you to?"

"I would never... hurt you. I... love you, sister."

"Don't ever say that to anyone, Anne. Do you hear me? Never say that again."

"But..."

"Hold my hand." They reached another part of the tower. This one was beautiful, carefully arranged, but as they walked, they found dried blood on the walls. Some of the paintings had been thrown to the floor. The tapestry was torn. Beside a doorway hung a family portrait, every face slashed over with an X.

"Human Mother... will kill... whoever did this," Anne said.

"If she hasn't already," Erza replied, straightening the portrait. Then the door swung open on its own. Anne gripped her hand tighter.

"W-we should go back."

"Go back? Now that it's finally getting fun?" Erza stepped into the darkness.

"Why not me?" a voice said from inside. A boy's voice. The sound of chains dragging echoed through the room. Erza kept walking, Anne still beside her, until they saw him. A boy their age sat there with a knife, carving something out of a piece of wood. He was dressed like a butler. The door behind them slammed shut.

"Did Doll Mother come to bring me food, or did she send some foolish servant?" the boy asked, still carving a wooden doll with an absurdly long nose.

"Who are you?" Erza asked. The boy turned around.

"You're not a servant." He got to his feet with a knife in his hand.

"Erza... I'm scared."

"Y-y-you!" the boy stammered, eyes going wide.

"You're here!" He was staring directly at Anne.

"You're the reason for all of this!" He stepped toward them, raising the knife.

"Why didn't P choose me? I devoted myself so completely. Why couldn't I inherit the legacy?" The entire room began to tremble. Furniture scraped and shuddered across the floor. Then he charged at them with the knife pointed forward.

"Get behind me, Anne!"

"You damned doll! You fake!" Then Erza realized she could not move. Threads had wrapped around her, pinning her in place.

"Anne!"

"I'll take from you what should have been mine!" And then the door burst open. Something leaped into the space between them, and threads shot out, yanking the boy upward and binding him tight. It was a porcelain woman with six arms.

"Mother!" Anne cried. The threads restraining Erza fell away.

"You are being punished, Julian," the porcelain woman said. All the furniture stopped moving at once.

"Mother..." The porcelain woman turned toward the two girls.

"You are both being punished."

"It's my fault. I'm the one who brought her here," Erza said. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

"You are both being punished."

"Punish only me. I forced Anne to come."

"If the punishment does not hurt you, then it is not punishment. Both of you will suffer the consequences." And everything began to darken. Erza opened her eyes.

"Good morning, Lady Erza," Florence said. Erza yawned.

"Good morning, Florence."

"You usually don't sleep much."

"I think I was having a nightmare... maybe."

"A nightmare?"

"More like a memory." She got dressed and stepped out of the tent. They broke camp. The sky held two suns, a reminder that she was not on Earth. She was in this event world.

"Julian's locator thread has been pointing in the same direction since last night," Erza said. Ever since leaving Anne in Luke Moon's care, she had been traveling by following the locator thread toward Julian. Her maids had caught up to her along the way. Erza had not refused their help. Navigating the sea alone would have been complicated. The island Julian was on was part of a large archipelago, the islands packed close together, and the old civilization of that world had built a city across them.

Following the path through the city, Erza and her servants fought thieves and anything else that crossed them.

"He's there," Erza said from the top of a building.

"The thread is pointing there?" Joanna asked.

"I don't need to look at the thread to know my brother will be there," Erza said, watching a ruined castle in the distance. As they moved through the city, they passed many corpses.

"This one is recent," Florence said.

"But it's dry. There's no blood left in it."

"That's because I drained it all," a voice said. A man was sitting high up on a building. Erza had already noticed him with her refined perception field. Ever since the day Julian's threads had captured her, one thing she had dedicated herself to was sharpening that sense as far as possible, learning to catch intent, breathing, and the faintest sound.

"You gave up your advantage by hiding so carelessly," Erza said, bluffing.

"That's because I don't need the advantage." The man vanished, teleporting. One of her maids deflected something, and the man reappeared, attacking with daggers as he stepped out of the shadows. He kept pressing them all at once. When one of the daggers was knocked from his hand, he raised his index finger and something shot from it fast, a blood bullet. Erza dodged and counterattacked. Within seconds, they had immobilized him.

"He's a vampire, Lady Erza," one of the maids said.

"You're all far too dangerous. But I'm worse." Then the shadow beneath him turned into a large black puddle. Arms rose out of it, hands clawing for them, and the vampire broke free and fled. Florence activated her flower power, and sharp petals burst into being, slashing into the vampire as he ran. He did not get far. A thread caught him. Erza pressed a scythe to his head.

"Tell me what you know about the man inside the castle." The vampire still strained against the restraint.

"Try anything and I cut your head off. Now answer me."

"The man in the castle? I don't know what the hell you're talking about."

"That already tells me everything."

"Wai—" His head came off before he could finish. A system notification appeared.

"He's working for Julian."

"How do you know?"

"Because no one would be inside his territory unless he allowed it." When they reached the castle grounds, Erza stopped the others.

"Stay here."

"But why, Lady Erza?"

"Because I said so. This is family business." They nodded.

"Do not follow me. Do not interfere. Stay here." Then Erza went on alone, entering the castle that stood at the edge of the coast. The sound of the waves faded as she stepped deeper inside. She put away her scythe and kept only a pair of dagger-thin blades in hand. That was her deadliest style of fighting. As she moved through the ruined castle, she saw bodies hanging everywhere. But the place also dragged her back to the first time she had ever seen her brother. Back then, she had known nothing about him.

Julian was older than Erza, the son of a different father. He was also deeply unstable. A half-doll was born with two souls, and that drove a person mad. Because the god P favored her family, each Grimhart child was given a doll body at birth, an artificial vessel meant to receive the second soul. That meant every Grimhart grew up with a kind of conjoined soul-twin, except the twin soul lived inside the doll. The doll twin shared the exact same system as the human Grimhart.

Erza's human mother had never spent much time with her or Anne. She had been obsessed with power. So instead, they were raised by their doll mother, their mother's twin. Even from far away, whenever the human mother leveled up, the doll mother leveled as well. Their systems were linked in strange, singular ways. Except for Erza's. Or rather, Anne's. At Anne's birth, the god P had personally come and blessed her, granting her his legacy and bestowing a Unique Bloodline Skill.

Because of that, Anne had her own system instead of sharing one with Erza. And Erza had been given the ability to keep Anne inside her soul. Julian had resented that. He was much older than Erza and Anne and had been sent to the doll world to train as a craftsman. He wanted P's legacy for himself. When he was denied it, he went mad and was locked away in the family castle. Erza stayed alert as she walked. Her brother was not gifted in combat. He did not have the raw talent the other Grimharts had.

But his mind was razor-sharp. His strategic thinking was frightening. He had always possessed an unnatural intelligence, something that had stunned the family from the time he was small. Even as a baby, he remembered everything. His memory was perfect. He forgot nothing. That had refined his talent as a Puppet Artisan to an absurd degree. He could create flawless dolls, even dolls that resembled real people after seeing a face for only a few seconds. Toys and dolls were scattered all over the castle floor.

The walls were covered in children's drawings, sketches of Castle Grimhart. There were even drawings of Erza playing with Anne, while a little boy watched from far away.

"Little Red Riding Hood...?" Erza had found a book on the ground beside a campfire. He was here minutes ago at most, before I came in. From the way everything had been left, Julian had gotten up in a hurry and run. Using [Assassin's Tracking], Erza could see the trail of footprints. The book was lying next to a backpack full of Julian's things. He tried to come back for it, but didn't have time. He knew I was getting close. Staying alert, she picked up the book. She was deliberately leaving openings as she moved.

There was a chance the camp itself was a trap, and even so, she allowed herself a few vulnerabilities, inviting an attack if one was coming. She flipped through the pages. It was simple enough. A children's story about a girl in the forest. There was a wolf, an old woman who was the girl's grandmother, and even a hunter. Nothing special. Except for the note at the end. A dedication.

'I hope you can accept my proposal. From your friend, Narrator.' A door slammed at the end of the corridor. Erza let the book fall to the floor and moved on. The door ahead stood open. Once she stepped through it, she entered the throne room. Corpses hung from the ceiling, wrapped in cloth. Only a few torches were lit. The door behind her slammed shut.

"Did you come to save me, sister?" said a childlike voice. At the top of the steps leading to the throne, an eight-year-old boy sat waiting. He wore a butler's uniform. He looked exactly like the boy Erza and Anne had seen in their childhood. Erza kept moving toward him, eyes flicking in every direction.

"Why are you carrying that knife, dear sister?" The boy picked something up. For a moment, Erza slowed. Two stuffed dolls. They looked exactly like Erza and Anne as children.

"I... I'm scared, sister. This place is frightening. I want to go home." Erza tightened her grip on the daggers.

"I'm not your mother, and I'm done wasting time on this. I'm tired of your games, Julian. I'm going to kill you for what you did to our doll mother."

"You won't play with me, Erza? I can be Anne for you." Erza threw the dagger hard. It sank into the little boy's stomach, and he tumbled down the steps.

"S-s-sister...? W-why?"

"I swore I would kill you, Julian. And I will."

"Play... with me..." the little boy whispered, and his eyes closed. Then Erza felt it. Fast. A blade punched through her back and came out through her stomach. Erza's body shattered into porcelain. She slipped free of the blade, took several steps away, and turned. A man stood there. Long hair, sharp eyes. Pale skin. And even though he was much older than she was, he had the same youthful, beautiful appearance as Erza.

"What a shame, little sister," Julian Grimhart said.

"You don't want to play." Fun fact: this chapter has several pieces of artwork waiting over in that other place: Anne as a child in her maid uniform, Anne at her current age, Erza, and Julian Grimhart. The Anne and Erza ones have already appeared in previous chapters, but Julian is new.