The moment the sharp talons dug into his flesh, a harpoon flying through the air pierced the beast’s chest. From its chest through its back, the harpoon thrust out viciously.

The beast stopped moving. Struck by lightning from an unexpected attack, the beast stood frozen, then slowly lifted its head. Its crimson eyes, blazing like fire, looked at Isaac leaning over the gunwale. The one who threw the harpoon. The beast’s eyes burned like flames.

Beside him, the boatman gasped, taking in a sharp breath. Isaac also swallowed his breath.

The beast’s eyes, burning crimson with rage, were looking at none other than Isaac.

The beast roared. The agonizing scream, laced with pure wrath, rang out terrifyingly, as if to tear the night sky apart. In the very next second, the beast looked straight up at Isaac and kicked off the ground, taking flight. The eagle wings sprouted from the beast’s back flapped powerfully.

The beast shot into the sky in an instant, reaching the Crescent Moon-Silver Boat hovering at the height of a spire, and Isaac locked eyes with the beast right before his nose.

Eyes like crimson fire. Filled only with rage and murderous intent.

「Man, MANBANG-IE!」

It sounded like the cats screaming. The moment the beast’s blade-like talons, capable of lopping off a human head in an instant, sliced into Isaac’s skin, 

“——!!!”

The beast stopped moving. A brief moment where even time seemed to halt.

Just as a red blade swinging diagonally downward seemed to flash into view. A blade, slashing diagonally downward from its neck to below its opposite shoulder, cleaved the demonic beast’s torso.

The beast’s head slowly slid from its body. In an instant, the head detached completely and tumbled toward the distant ground below, while crimson blood erupted from the remaining torso.

The toxic acid showering down like a fountain toward Isaac, who was standing right in front of it, did not touch him. Only a few droplets splattered on him; the vast majority of the blood struck the back of the person who had blocked Isaac’s path, burning their skin with a sickening sizzle.

And Isaac knew who the person blocking his view was.

He knew who the man was—the man who had grabbed the beast’s tail the moment the house-sized monster took flight, ascended with it, and severed its neck the very instant he set foot on the gunwale.

“——, Prince Kyan.”

Drenched in vivid crimson blood, droplets ceaselessly dripped from his body in a steady, rhythmic patter—so much so that he could no longer tell which was his own blood and which belonged to the beasts. The man standing before him, his body battered and soaked in gore, looked so broken that even if he were to draw his last breath at this very moment, it would come as no surprise

Flesh laid bare and raw red, bones showing stark white, skin charred black and blistering—seeing His Highness in that wretched state, Isaac swallowed his breath.

The man, whose appearance was so horrific he was barely recognizable, looked at Isaac with vividly living eyes. Those eyes looked down at Isaac as he slowly descended one step from the gunwale. And with every footfall, streams of crimson blood dripped in heavy, rhythmic patters upon the wooden planks below.

“I told you I wouldn’t let you go.”

A low voice spat through his teeth.

Isaac couldn’t even blink as he looked up at him, holding his breath. The Prince was looking at Isaac with fiercely flashing eyes. He felt like his heart was going to freeze. Something hot surged up in his chest.

The Prince reached out his hand. The hand, drenched in blood and blackened by toxic burns, grabbed Isaac’s shoulder. Then, the Prince turned his gaze around the boat.

Those on the boat, from the boatman, the cats, the witches, …… were staring at the Prince in stunned silence. The cats were crouched low with their fur completely puffed up at the witches who were whispering disapprovingly while glaring at the Prince with contorted faces. Then, the Prince spoke. His gaze shifted to the boatman who was still gripping the oar.

“Turn the boat around. We must go back down.”

The moment the Prince’s cold command dropped, the cats, as if suddenly coming to their senses, widened their eyes.

「Of course you have to go down! A human can’t be on the Crescent Moon-Silver Boat!」

「That’s right, hurry up and get off! You have to get off alone!」

「Yeah, yeah, get off by yourself and go back by yourself!」

The cats chattered as if competing with each other. But the Prince didn’t even pretend to listen, pointing his chin downward toward the boatman. The boatman was glaring at the Prince, scowling in displeasure. Right then,

“……I am not going.”

Isaac spoke.

In that instant, the Prince’s terrifying gaze snapped back to him.

Isaac met that icy blue stare head-on. Even though his heart was pounding like crazy, even though a hot lump was blocking his throat, he didn’t avert his eyes and spoke slowly.

“I am going to cross over to the Land of the Dark Moon just like this and live among the witches.”

The Prince stared a hole into Isaac. Scanning every inch of Isaac with an expressionless face, it was impossible to tell what he was thinking. Meeting the Prince’s gaze, Isaac eventually blurred his eyes. It was because he couldn’t hold back the emotions surging inside him.

“Why did you come? Why did you get so horribly injured, leaving such a terrible final memory of you? Like this…… getting so severely hurt like this……”

However…… he stopped mid-sentence. His chest grew heavy. His throat locked up. Isaac looked at his feet for a moment before letting out a sigh that sounded like a groan.

“But even so… I still feel truly happy to have seen you one more time. I have always regretted leaving without being able to bid you a proper farewell…… Please take care of yourself. I wish you a long life and peaceful days.”

Isaac bowed deeply in greeting.

He felt gloomy. No, beyond gloomy, he wanted to cry. He didn’t know how badly he just wanted to break down and sob loudly. Afraid he really might burst into tears if he looked at that battered figure again, Isaac kept his head bowed. At that moment,

“I am not letting you go……?”

A low voice came from above his head. At that chilling and terrifying tone, Isaac flinched. When had he ever heard that low, emotionless voice? Isaac slowly, very slowly raised his head. And when he saw the Prince’s face,

“——.”

Isaac stopped breathing. Unable to form a single thought, he just stared blankly at the Prince.

How could a man’s complexion be so deadly dark? As if he had just received some sentence of utter despair. That face……. so dark, so completely sunken.

But that face quickly hardened terribly. As if a steel-like crust was covering his torn and bleeding skin.

“I told you. I am the one who decides everything about you. You are going back.”

“——, I am not going. I am going to stay on this boat and cross over.”

Isaac said again.

The Prince’s terrifying glare flew at him. Glaring at Isaac with eyes contorted with rage, the Prince suddenly spoke in a low voice.

“Then I’ll just have to bring this boat down.”

With those final words, he moved simultaneously. The Prince, having released Isaac and turned around, swung his sword at the towering mast in the center of the boat.

It was a split-second event that no one could have anticipated or stopped.

*SLASH!*

With a sharp blade that could slice a house-sized beast in half with a single stroke, and with terrifying strength, the Prince drove his sword deep into the thick mast, which was wide enough to require two grown men to embrace it. That unstoppable blade stopped only when it had cut more than halfway—no, almost entirely through the mast.

The faces of those on the boat hardened. Above all, the boatman’s face paled completely in sheer terror.

「Y-Y-YOU HUMAN BASTARD, TO THIS PRECIOUS BOAT……!」

“Turn it around right now. Before I snap the mast entirely.”

The Prince looked at the boatman, resting his hand on the mast. The Prince’s face, as if he had lost his mind from rage soaring to the top of his head, was chillingly expressionless. No, it looked as if half his reason had flown away.

“Kyan,”

“Stay quiet, witch.”

The moment Isaac opened his mouth, the Prince, without even glancing his way, spat out sharply through his teeth. At that low voice, which sounded as if it were precariously suppressing something, Isaac unconsciously shut his mouth.

“If you say one more word, I might really end up killing you, so stay quiet. ——Please.”

That last word squeezed out of his crushed throat.

As if he were barely, desperately holding back the urge to really kill him. As if he were precariously holding onto something that absolutely must not snap.

“No matter what you say, whether you hate it or refuse it, ——no matter what you think of me because of this, you are going back with me.”

The Prince spoke in a crushed voice. Something imbued in every single word dug into Isaac’s heart. It felt terrifyingly similar to pain.

‘……But surely not.……How could it?’

Isaac stood blankly, staring at the Prince. The Prince’s darkly dead complexion, his terrifyingly blurred expression, his battered and tattered body—all of it was because he came looking for Isaac.

‘Why?’

Isaac bit his lip. His heart constricted.

Right then,

「……You mere human, you’re quite insolent……!」

The boatman muttered lowly.

His beard-covered face contorted horribly. His short, stocky body swelled massively. Like a beast transforming into a monster, his sheer size inflated. His beard and hair fluttered and stood on end. The eyes that had been hidden by his beard began to glow blue.

A terrifying magical energy emanated from the boatman’s body. An aura grander and fiercer than any witch Isaac had ever seen surged from the boatman——the guardian of the Crescent Moon-Silver Boat——like a tidal wave.

「A human shouldn’t even be on the Crescent Moon-Silver Boat, let alone dare to lay a scratch on it……! You have no right to be on this boat!」

The boatman, swelled up like a cloud, roared thunderously. With a shout that echoed deafeningly as if in a cave, the boatman thrust out the oar he was holding. Spewing blinding white light and shooting sparks, the oar flew toward the Prince.

That terrifying beam of light cut through the air, moving at such a horrifying speed that no one could possibly dodge it. And by the time Isaac managed to steady his gaze and look again, that blazing spear had already pierced straight through the Prince’s chest.

“——!!!”

「——.」

A silent scream erupted from Isaac’s lips. Seeing the beam of light strike slightly off-center from the heart, the boatman widened his eyes in surprise and muttered, 「He dodged that?」 But that muttering ceased instantly.

“This boat…… will not be able to leave without returning the one I desire……!”

The Prince gritted out. At the same time, he slammed his entire body into the mast with all his might. *BAM——!* with a heavy impact that seemed to crush his body, the already mostly severed mast let out a screech and tilted.

The boatman’s face instantly turned pale blue. The cries of the witches surged.

*Screeeech——* the tilting mast was caught by the rigging and stopped mid-way, avoiding a complete collapse. However, as the massive mast tilted, the hull itself began to tilt along with it. In an instant, the boat listed sideways.

The Prince, who had been leaning against the mast, grabbed the falling sail and hung on. However, the rigging, which was holding onto the sail billowing with silver light, could not bear his weight and snapped with a sickening sound. The Prince’s body fell outside the hull.

“PRINCE KYAN!!!”

Clinging to the gunwale’s railing, Isaac’s heart dropped when he saw that. The blood drained from his entire body in a flash.

The boat was floating higher than a spire. It was not a height a person could fall from and survive.

His heart, which seemed to have stopped, began to beat like crazy. The vision that had blurred black quickly returned, but his hands were trembling.

“PRINCE KYAN! PRINCE KYAN!”

Isaac scrambled over the railing and moved toward the direction the Prince had fallen. In the meantime, the boatman, crawling on all fours, grabbed the ship’s helm and quickly righted the boat, and the heavily listed ship regained its balance, though the broken mast still swayed precariously.

And Isaac,

“PRINCE KYAN!”

He didn’t even know what state of mind he was in. He just mindlessly ran to the gunwale where the Prince had fallen and leaned his body over. And——he saw the Prince dangling from the sword driven deep into the outside of the hull.

From that dizzying height, the Prince hung suspended in midair, relying solely on a single sword lodged into the ship’s hull as his only anchor. Yet his battered, blood-soaked body seemed to have no strength left to hold on any longer—he looked as though he might plummet straight to the ground in the very next instant.

Isaac unconsciously leaned his body over and grabbed the Prince. The very moment his fingers closed around the Prince’s wrist, his own body, leaning dangerously over the railing, was dragged down with him.

“——!!”

He reflexively grabbed a rigging rope hanging loose over the gunwale, but even the rope slid off the tilted outside of the boat.

「MANBANG-IE!!」

He heard the cats screaming from behind him. Isaac, feeling his body falling straight down, dangled in the air, relying on a single rigging rope. *Thud!* The moment his body jolted to a stop in midair, Isaac almost lost his grip on the Prince’s arm, but barely managed to hold onto his wrist.

「MANBANG-IE! MANBANG-IE!!」

The cats shouted from above the boat. But he couldn’t look back. He felt like the moment he looked back, he would lose his grip. So Isaac only looked forward——looking only at the Prince, who was staring up at him.

“——Hold on.”

He felt like he would slip from his hand at any second. Afraid he would lose his grip if he even spoke too loudly, Isaac whispered to the Prince to grab his wrist. But the Prince only stared at Isaac with flashing eyes, not taking hold.

“Hold on!”

Isaac shouted again anxiously. His heart felt like it was going to burst. If they fell from this height right now.

“——Are you going to go, witch.”

Right then, the Prince spoke. Even as his words left his lips, the faint scent of blood drifted from his mouth, evidence of injuries internally. Yet he appeared utterly indifferent to his own suffering, indifferent even to this situation where he could fall to his death at any moment. He stared at Isaac with darkly sunken eyes.

“If you were going to leave in the end, why did you bewitch me.”

The Prince spat out through his teeth. Every, every word, rage——no, something very similar to rage, but mixed with something else entirely, something buried deep within. At that agonizing tone, Isaac found himself speechless.

“Why did you make me think only of you. Why did you make me look only at you……!”

The Prince’s rough voice flowed out desperately. His eyes, fixed solely on Isaac, flashed pitch-black.

“I have never hated any witch this much. No emotion I have ever felt before was this violent. I have never had my mind completely blown away like this, disregarding everything else. ——Why did you bewitch me, WITCH!!!”

It was a voice boiling out as if spitting blood.

Isaac stared at him without even being able to blink. His heart. His heart clenched terrifyingly tight.

‘What is this man saying? What is he trying to say?’

‘When had he ever seen such an intense emotion?’

Whatever that emotion was. At the end of those terrifyingly fierce words,

“——Don’t go.”

The Prince said.

It was an endlessly powerless and unstable command. Even revealing a faint tremor. The words were so blurry and low. They sounded almost like a plea……

“Don’t go.”

The Prince repeated the words, nothing else remaining in him. The faint voice scattered into the air.

The Prince did not grab Isaac’s hand. Only Isaac was holding onto the Prince. He was desperately holding onto the Prince with hands that looked like they might slip even if covered in blood, barely keeping the Prince from falling. From behind, the cats on the boat were screaming 「DANGEROUS!」 「LET GO!」 「LET GO OF HIS HAND AND CLIMB UP QUICKLY!」 But the wind brushing past his ears swallowed their words. It rendered their voices unintelligible…… No, such sounds didn’t matter anyway.

Isaac just stared at the Prince, only watching him for a long time, before abruptly opening his mouth.

“……, I, I am a witch.”

The words tumbled out in stammered fragments, Isaac himself no longer knew what he was saying. Words suppressed in his throat leaked out as if he were going to cry.

“Every time you see me, Prince Kyan, you will endlessly regurgitate your thoughts about witches, and you will never forget your feelings about witches.……You will continually be forced to remember the emotions you have hated and been enraged by all this time.”

Isaac’s clumsy words were faint and small, but they undoubtedly reached the Prince’s ears. The Prince contorted his face. It looked like he was smiling, and it looked like he was grimacing.

“Witches or whatever,”

The Prince spat through his teeth.

“Because of you——because of this intense sensation that surpasses everything else, I can’t even think of them. Only you——only you, there isn’t even room for any other sensation to squeeze in.”

The Prince’s hand seemed to slip. Isaac grabbed that hand even tighter and cried out, “HOLD ON!” but the Prince didn’t move his hand at all. Even though he seemed about to plummet down right then and there.

“It’s because of you.”

“——.”

“It’s because of you that I can’t think of anything else.”

The Prince said. At the end of that fierce gaze, Isaac kept his mouth shut and met his eyes.

“So you must go back with me. If you don’t want to do that——then let go.”

Isaac flinched his body. The hand gripping the Prince tightly trembled.

If he let go of this hand. Then Isaac would break free from the Prince. The Prince would never be able to catch Isaac again. And Isaac would never see him again. Forever.

“……If I stay, the curse won’t be broken.”

Isaac muttered with a crying face. That was the last excuse he had left. Please. He shouldn’t, but if he went back with him, so many things would lose their meaning——yet he hoped the Prince wouldn’t make him want to go back.

He wished the Prince wouldn’t look at him with such a desperate face. He wished the Prince wouldn’t speak with a voice boiling so desperately.

“If you go, a life worse than the curse remains for me.”

The Prince said. His hand, which Isaac was gripping, seemed to tremble faintly. As if he had recalled the horrifying agony of the new moon, or something even worse than that.

“I would rather suffer only during the new moon. Than live every minute, every second with this horrifying feeling.”

The Prince spat out through teeth clenched like a nightmare. His body stiffening was transmitted through the hands holding him.

“If you are going to go, let go of this hand.”

The Prince said. Isaac stared right back at him. Those words were undoubtedly the Prince’s sincere truth. And, a whisper steeped in the pain that had flowed out just moments ago.

“Stay by my side. ——Please.”

Whichever it is.

Whether he lets go of this hand——dropping him far below and leaves, or returns to his side.

Isaac looked at the Prince.

Due to their weight, the Crescent Moon-Silver Boat was tilting. Above, the boatman was saying he’d have to cut the rigging rope, and the cats were yowling, 「LET GO!」, 「IF YOU JUST LET GO OF THAT HAND AND GRAB THE BOAT AGAIN, WE CAN PULL YOU UP! MANBANG-IE!」, 「DROP HIM!」

Whichever it was, he couldn’t just keep holding this hand and stay like this.

The Crescent Moon-Silver Boat couldn’t go to the Land of the Dark Moon while still tilted, and if they kept going like this, the boatman would soon cut the rope. Even if he tried to pull them both up, the precariously tilted hull didn’t look like it could maintain its balance. Furthermore, Isaac himself no longer had the strength to keep holding onto the Prince, whom he was barely gripping with just his fingers now.

In the end, he had no choice but to let go.

However,

“Is it really okay if I stay by your side? ……Really, truly?”

Isaac asked with a heart that felt like crying. If he let his guard down even a little, he felt like he really would burst into tears.

The Prince would have to carry on, unable to forget his feelings toward witches. Now, the long, long curse was just about to be broken. Moreover, he himself would have to endure many difficult and upsetting times amidst the stares of people. No matter how much he thought about it, it was better for him to cross over to the Land of the Dark Moon.

“You must be there.”

The Prince said. His voice was low, yet firmly asserting, as he stared piercingly at Isaac. In those desperate eyes, he saw a faint glimmer of joy, or some similar heat, taking root. It was strange. He felt like crying, but he didn’t know why this man’s expression looked like that.

“If later you tell me you need to break the curse and that you’ll kill me……, I’ll be so angry I’ll curse you.”

When Isaac mumbled with a choked throat, the Prince seemed to smile faintly. But maybe not. Whether he was smiling, relieved, or if some emotion was surging, the corners of the Prince’s mouth curved up.

“Do as you please. By then, I don’t think I’ll be in this world anyway.”

“——.”

‘It can’t be helped. It’s no use.’

Isaac had never experienced an emotion this intense. Neither his own, nor anyone else’s.

He had never been so intensely conscious of someone and held them in his heart. He had probably never been held so intensely either.

Now, he didn’t care what that emotion was. He felt that everything else didn’t matter.

「MANBANG-IE!!」

The cats cried out loudly.

The Prince’s hand, which had barely been clinging on by the tips of Isaac’s fingers, finally slipped from Isaac’s grasp, but it wasn’t that hand he was supposed to let go of.

Isaac let go of the hand holding the rigging rope. And quickly grabbed the Prince’s hand again. Only then did the Prince grab Isaac’s hand. He gripped it so tightly, as if he would never let go again.

From this height, no matter how lucky they were, they wouldn’t survive. He felt regret and sadness for many things, but he also didn’t feel entirely resentful.

The Prince pulled Isaac into his arms. As if colliding, the Prince’s arms embraced Isaac terrifyingly fast before their bodies met. Tightly enough to suffocate, as if he would never lose what he had just barely regained. In that warm embrace, Isaac slowly closed his eyes,

.

.

.

.

.

“——.”

*Thud——!*

Like a body jumping down with a bungee cord, his body, which had suddenly stopped in midair, bounced up. It wasn’t as hard as hitting the ground, but his body shrank at the considerable impact. From behind Isaac’s neck, tightly holding the Prince’s body, the sound of crying full of resentment could be heard.

「Manbang-ie is bad!」

Voices mixed with resentment, anger, and frustration rang out one after another.

「This is all because of that Mr. Moisture!」

「Mr. Moisture is bad, but Manbang-ie is bad too!」

「Why is this kid so dense?!」

「I just threw you away! I told you to let go!」 the voices bursting with wails echoed above his nape.

And Isaac, still tightly holding onto the Prince, realized that his body had stopped just short of touching the dense branches of the mountainside. What was dangling them was a pitch-black, sleek tiger. Right next to them, two tigers floated in the air, looking up regretfully at the Crescent Moon-Silver Boat as it wobbled, struggling to regain its balance while drifting farther and farther into the sky.

“……, Cats…….”

「WHERE DO YOU SEE A CAT?!」

The tiger biting Isaac yelled angrily. In doing so, Isaac, who had been held in the tiger’s mouth, dropped straight down, and *thud——,* tumbled onto the dirt ground. It wasn’t high enough to die, but it was a height where breaking a bone or two wouldn’t be strange. He was thrown down hard. Isaac let out a sharp gasp, struggling to catch his breath as he trembled. Then, belatedly seeing the Prince pinned beneath him, he hurriedly got up.

“A-Are you okay?”

But before he could fully rise, the Prince’s arm pulled Isaac back down. Embracing Isaac’s body exactly as it was, the Prince hugged him fiercely, as if he would never let him go again.

‘…… Got you.’ He thought he faintly heard the Prince muttering into his ear.

‘Finally…… Finally.’ Even that sound vanished into the Prince’s lips.

“——.”

Isaac stopped trying to get up. He stayed like that for a moment, then quietly relaxed his body.

The tremor contained in that faint sound. It was the relief of barely escaping a distant fear. He felt the arms embracing him trembling. No, perhaps it only felt that way because the heart pressed against his own was beating so crazily.

However, Isaac couldn’t tell whose heart it was that was pounding so wildly.

“……”

Isaac quietly buried his forehead into the nape of the Prince’s neck and lay prone. It felt like the arms holding him tightly would never loosen and would stay like that forever. As if telling Isaac to remain lying on top of him just like this.

Many problems piled up like mountains waiting for them when they went back flashed briefly through his mind, but for now, he decided to cover them up. Isaac pushed the thoughts out of his mind and closed his eyes.

Right now, just being like this was good. Everything else didn’t matter.

The Crescent Moon-Silver Boat gradually grew more distant, eventually vanishing into the far reaches of the night sky; the grumbling of the beasts crouching beneath the tree with their heads together, muttering, 「I don’t know,」 「We have to be stuck here for another 7 years,」 「Manbang-ie is an idiot」; the sky slowly brightening with a grayish white hue.

Right now, it was enough just to have this man, who was exhaling faint breaths while holding him as if he would crush him.