“I’m surprised that there isn’t some kind of…” Canta looks around the large, empty room that reeks of a boss-arena. “- sub-boss.”

“It’s not a dungeon, butterfly,” says Alleluia. “It’s a castle.” She looks around the room. “They probably use it for uh… castle things.”

“Castle things?” he asks.

The two of them are walking through a giant, open space. The walls and ceiling are absurdly high and the walls are dotted with ornate, decorative windows that are beyond massive. In his mind, the entire room is perfectly purpose-built for some kind of dramatic, titanic boss-fight. But there isn’t a boss anywhere to be seen. Just a giant door on the way in and a giant door on the way out and a giant, empty room in the middle. ‘Room’ isn’t as grandiose a word enough to describe it, though. The ‘room’ is as large as the full cathedral grounds was.

“Yeah, you know?” she asks, spinning around and grabbing his hands. “Like a romantic ball?” she asks, swaying from side to side as she walks backwards.

“I doubt the demon-king throws many romantic balls,” says Canta, raising an eyebrow. “Doesn’t really vibe with everything I’ve seen so far. Besides, who would he even invite? Other demons? Great.”

Alleluia hums and sways to the side. “Oh-!” she yelps as she stumbles to the side, losing her balance. Canta catches her, surprised at his own strength as he’s able to hold her in place with his arm around her back.

“You okay?”

She nods, clasping her hands together. “My hero!” she cries theatricality. Canta rolls his eyes. “I think something is wobbly,” she says, wiggling from side to side. “Can you take a look inside, Can-ta?” she asks.

Canta sighs and nods. “Can you hold on until we get to the other side?” he asks.

“Mhm!” says Alleluia, stranding back up straight.

Canta can’t help but think as they walk how complicated the emotions of his new life have been. Sure, his old life was pretty miserable, all things considered. But this new one? It was also pretty miserable, all things considered. Honestly, it all hasn’t been that great. It’s really all starting to lose its novelty.

On the plus side, he did get to eat a lot of interesting things?

Then again, most of those were interesting by the nature of their either absurdity or repulsiveness. It’s not like he got to be the cake-eater or something like that. No, sins were usually gross, nasty things. Maybe the next life will be better. Though, at least he has one bright thing in this existence. Honestly, maybe having a connection to someone has made it all worth it.

“Why so blue, pumpkin?”

“Just thinking about life and stuff,” he says, looking at her. “I’ll be glad when this is all over. Hold on,” he says, grabbing her crank and winding her up a bit more.

“Yes,” says Alleluia. “I wonder why the guards aren’t chasing us anymore?” she asks, looking over her shoulder.

“Uh, probably because of the literal mountain of corpses they have to walk over?” he suggests. “It probably isn’t great for morale.”

“Hmm… I guess,” she ponders. “But they aren’t very good guards then.”

“They sure fucking aren’t,” says Canta, finishing. The two of them hold hands as they walk the rest of the way to the door. Nothing really happens, it’s just a nice, quiet, romantic walk through the demon-king’s castle and eventually, they reach the large, ornate doors at the end that reek of sin to a nauseating degree. The smell permeates the wood and seeps out from the cracks beneath the doors like overflowing perfume.

“Let’s get you fixed up,” says Canta, pulling out his tools.

“I think this is it,” says Alleluia, looking over her shoulder as she sits down on her knees so that he can fix the mechanicals inside of her back. “It looks like the last door.”

“It sure does,” says Canta, raising his gaze towards the distastefully giant skull engraved into the massive doors. Focusing his attention back to Alleluia, he pulls out his clockmaker’s tools and begins tinkering around with everything that needs to be tinkered with. He isn’t the best at this, but that’s fine. It just needs to hold a little longer.