Demon Lord Mephistos staggered forward to the edge of the black coffin.

"I'm sorry, Silvia," he whispered with a choked and raspy breath. "It's done."

A puddle of blood formed a small lake around the coffin. Dribbles of crimson stained the bed of white flowers. The undead homunculus twitched ever so slightly, although the wandering soul had not yet reawakened. Mephistos resented every little tremor that passed through the lamb's limbs. It was unnatural. Those movements did not belong in that body. 

"I'm sorry."

He struggled to keep himself upright, but he kept slipping on the slick surface of the bloody stone floor. Muddled red fog clouded his vision. Mephistos fought to keep his eyes open, but his eyelids were growing heavy. 

The Demon Lord struggled. He reached out with bloody fingers.

But Mephistos sank to the cold ground, motionless.

+ + +

Meanwhile, Saikawa Kotori was reborn.

The corpse in the coffin stirred quietly.

Her first thought was that the air tasted very nice. It was stale and cold, but it filled her lungs and she felt her chest expand. The sensation was luxurious, and she inhaled deeply, then exhaled. The girl had almost forgotten what it was like to breath.

Suddenly, she sneezed, sending a cloud of ash floating into the air. Blindly, Kotori flailed and tried to pull herself upright in the coffin, but there was stiff resistance in every direction. Layers of charred skin peeled off from her outer torso, like an insect shedding its exoskeleton or a bird molting its coat. Underneath, there was healthy pink flesh, as smooth as a baby's skin. Most of her body was still caked in a thick hardened layer of cinders, and Kotori coughed a few times as she struggled to free herself from the crumbling plaster-like material.

There was the rattle of golden chains every time she moved.

They were constricting, rigid, and almost claustrophobic in quality.

She tried to push herself up to a sitting position, but the shining manacles around her wrists kept her hands bound together. Peculiarly, there didn't seem to be anything holding them together — they were just stuck together with some kind of invisible force — kind of like magnetism? 

Each manacle had five or six chains that were fused to it, and these trailed off in a massive tangle of coils scattered all around the coffin and the floor. It was virtually impossible to see where each chain led, as the floor was covered with a thick sea of metallic links. It reminded her of a snake pit filled to the brim with writhing serpents.

Thankfully, the chains seemed to be mostly slack, and Kotori could push herself up to her knees after fighting against the restraints and twisting to the side. Occasionally, she would have to stop and untangle herself the spider web of chains.

She was panting heavily, and she took a moment to catch her breath. Kotori hadn’t expected to tire so quickly. Her lungs actually hurt. After months without a physical body, she hadn’t realized such ordinary facets of life could be so challenging. Her shoulder blades felt stiff and there were aching cramps in her muscles.

That said, wasn’t this homunculus supposed to be undead? Why was she breathing? Why could she feel her heart thumping? Why was a charred and burnt corpse suddenly uninjured? Kotori was skeptical. The logic of this world confused her. She tried to use her awareness, but was disappointed to discover that it was gone. She couldn't feel anything. 

Kotori shook her head a few times, trying to shake off more of the residual blackened charcoal. Large swaths of burnt flesh were stuck to the fleece of her new body, and it was challenging to get it off without picking at individual pieces. Although there was no mirror in this room, Kotori imagined that she must have looked disheveled and miserable. 

Her heart froze when she spotted the Demon Lord in her peripheral vision.

He was slumped over on the ground beside the coffin, completely still. The sword still stuck out of his back and the black obsidian floor was covered with a translucent sheen of scarlet blood. He was unconscious.

Kotori's first instinct was that he was dead.

But then she doubted this immediately. Demon Lord Mephistos wasn't so much of an idiot to go through the effort of sticking a stranger into a homunculus just to kick the bucket immediately afterwards. He had spoken as if this entire exchange was favorable to him. 

The sheep girl looked down at her shackles. There was a set around each of her wrists and ankles, as well as a collar around her neck. In total, there were somewhere around 25-30 chains that restricted how far she could walk, although there seemed to be enough slack for her to wander around a little bit. 

Kotori struggled to pull herself out of the coffin. Her bare feet touched the smooth stone floor, and she tested her legs with uncertainty. They seemed to work fine, although the floor was slippery from the puddles of blood. Gingerly, Kotori took a step towards the Demon Lord, but she collapsed to the ground without warning.

(Ow!) She exclaimed, as she landed firmly on her rear end.

No sound came out of her mouth.

Confused, Kotori brought her hands to her throat, and she tried to say something again.

Although her lips moved and she could feel the air moving past her vocal chords, there wasn’t any noise.

She was silenced somehow. 

The sheep girl struggled to pull herself up to her feet again. Even though she was leaning on the black coffin for support, her legs felt wobbly. Why was it so difficult to walk? Was this a magical side effect of the chains as well?

Kotori tried to move as slowly as possible. Again, she felt her hips give out underneath her as soon as she took a single step. Sudden proximal leg weakness — she realized. The hip flexors and extensors were critical for walking. On Earth, patients who broke their hip bones were unable to stand because they could not use these muscles. In her case, they only seemed to go weak whenever she tried to walk.

These golden chains… were simple yet so cruel.

Suddenly, Kotori felt an inexplicable sense of distress rising in her chest. She felt so helpless, and negative feelings welled up like a faucet. The lack of control was frightening. Perhaps it wasn’t rational, especially compared to the fact that she had spent months inside a bottle, but everything felt so much more real with her bruised knees aching against the cold stone floor.

There were goosebumps on her bare flesh. She was naked, cold, shackled, and there was blood and remnants of burnt skin all over the floor. The anxiety was a psychological effect, the professor tried to convince herself in vain.

She needed to compartmentalize and think rationally. Isolate herself from her feelings. 

Kotori’s breathing was uneven and shaky, but she forced herself to think about her objectives. The Demon Lord was on the ground a few feet away from her. If she was searching for a way to free herself from these chains, it made sense that the answer laid somewhere close to him. Perhaps if she searched him while he was unconscious, she could find some leverage she could use.

The sheep girl swallowed once and put aside her reservations. She hoped that he wouldn't wake up while she examined him.

The horned man didn't move at all as she shifted closer.

...He was in really bad shape.

There was no way a human could survive such severe wounds, but the Demon Lord wasn't human. In fact, Kotori presumed that the man had some kind of regeneration cheat. Most final bosses in traditional JRPGs had multiple health bars, and Kotori simply just couldn't believe that the Demon Lord would be finished off so easily. In fact, Kotori was half-expecting the Demon Lord to snap open his eyes and spring to his feet in anger at any moment.

But that didn't happen.

Kotori stared blankly at her motionless captor.

The puddle of blood around his body was still growing in size. His wounds were still actively bleeding and his innards were spilling out of the hole in his abdomen. These observations seemed inconsistent with the theory that the Demon Lord had a fast regeneration ability. However, this left the professor feeling puzzled and troubled. She felt extremely underwhelmed. Where was the Demon Lord's trump card?

If he just kept bleeding like this... eventually he would die, right?

Kotori looked around the room. Aside from the coffin, there were no other furnishings. The ceiling, floor, and walls were made of solid stone, and there weren't any entrances or exits. She remembered that the Demon Lord had teleported them into this space. Kotori also looked down at her shackles, which kept her from wandering too far away.

Perhaps this the Demon Lord's gambit. Clearly, if the man died, Kotori would be trapped here.

Kotori thought about this for a moment.

But if the Demon Lord expected her to do something, what was it?

Kotori hesitantly licked a little bit of the demon blood on her arm, and waited for a few minutes. In some of the stories that Kotori was familiar with, demon or dragon blood often had special qualities. Could it be that demon blood unlocked a special ability that she could use?

However, she didn’t feel any different.

She stared at the Demon Lord’s limp body further, and decided to examine him closer. Kotori inched forward until she was kneeling beside him. The least she could do was to evaluate him using medical standards from Earth.

Although her hands were bound together with shackles, she struggled to remove Mephistos's clothing. Kotori needed to see the full extent of his wounds. She already knew that the demon was missing an arm and a chunk of his torso, but it would be helpful to know there were any more. Furthermore, the Demon Lord was the only one wearing clothes, so those would have to serve as the bandages.

The sheep girl yanked as hard as she could, and the Demon Lord's shirt tore, revealing his bare chest.

Honestly, Kotori had no idea what she was doing. 

There was blood gushing everywhere and she was practically bathed in it.

Kotori knew that the basic principle for treating traumatic bleeding was to apply pressure, but she counted at least ten different places that needed attention. Just from common sense, she knew that if she pressed down on one source, more blood would gush out of the other wounds like a leaky balloon. With only two hands, there was no way to control the bleeding.

The sheep girl paused for a moment and sat back on her haunches. This was impossible situation to handle. 

Maybe the Demon Lord had been wrong.

Kotori hesitated.

What was she even trying to do, anyways? She wasn't a doctor. The Demon Lord wasn't even human. What was the point of even trying to save him? Perhaps her fate had been sealed a long time ago. Worst caste scenario, she'd just rot to death while chained to the coffin in this small room.

But what was there to lose?

Holding her breath, Kotori plunged her hands into the bloody pile of gore. She honestly couldn't even see her hands anymore. She was pushing blindly, but she had no idea if she was having any amount of effect. Kotori's fingers touched skin — and she shivered upon contact. It was almost hot, like sticking her hand directly on asphalt that was baking in the summer sun.

Was this normal...?

Intense heat crept into her hands and slithered up her arms and shoulders.

Kotori pulled back immediately, taken completely off guard.

Her palm was still tingling and hot.

This definitely wasn't normal. Something ominous from the Demon Lord spilled into her body. Honestly, it scared her, the way it raged like an insatiable wildfire. Kotori had felt it burning hungrily, eager to devour her soul whole. Similarly, her body had reacted like a vacuum, greedy to suck it all inside.

What the hell was that?

Kotori did not have the luxury to think.

Suddenly, there was a thunderous crash in the wall. The stone exploded, sending dust and debris flying into the air. Kotori ducked as rocks soared and chunks of the ceiling caved in.

The sheep girl’s ears rang, and she looked around in confusion. Anxiety and adrenaline raced through her heart. Who was responsible for this massive explosion?

Was it a friend? Or a foe?

As the smoke settled, Kotori could faintly make out a figure standing in the mound of wreckage.

It was a man wearing a suit of brilliant golden armor.

His shining plates matched the design of the golden falchion that was buried in the Demon Lord's body.

"You can't hide from me, Mephistos," his tenor voice was relaxed and casual. "I believe you owe me... your severed head. I apologize if it's a bit overdue."

∎

ohko

Ugh, I really struggled with the chapter. I re-wrote parts of it several times and I kept changing the way I wanted it to go. I'm still not positive if I like it, and I'm really sorry that it took a few days to get out. If you follow me, sometimes I post status updates on the progress chapters. I hope all of you had a wonderful Mother's Day. The past few days I've been listening to Das Zweite Kapitel, reading Kamisama to Tobenia Tsukai, and playing some go. Please let me know if you have any feedback or suggestions on how I can do better! Thank you to everyone who has been commenting and favoriting the chapters up until now!