The world remained unchanged—familiar, desolate, and steeped in a quiet, biting cold.
Beneath the fractured expanse of ice, a dark blue current surged restlessly. A colossal full moon hung low upon the horizon, its pale light washing over the land, while the Milky Way carved a brilliant path across the night sky. Then came the wind—sharp, relentless—howling as it battered everything in its path.
It was a scene that seemed lifted from the canvas of some master artist—
and yet, jarringly out of place, there stood a lone bench.
And upon it, a solitary figure.
As though waking from an impossibly long dream, Lloyd stirred, his consciousness returning with a quiet ease. He opened his eyes and took in the strangely familiar world before him.
He did not know how long he had slept. A thin layer of snow had settled over his clothes, yet he felt no real cold. Ahead, a familiar man stood with his back turned, as if waiting—silent and unmoving.
"Good morning."
The man turned, a faint smile touching a face that bore an uncanny resemblance to Lloyd's.
"Me…danzo?"
Lloyd pressed a hand to his aching head. It seemed he had returned once more—to the end of all connections, to that strange and distorted mental realm… or rather, the place known as the Interstice.
A world that lay at the deepest edge of demonic corruption, where darkness itself seemed to take form—unknown, and profoundly unsettling.
"You dragged me here?" Lloyd asked, testing the thought aloud. The first time he had arrived, it had been Medanzo's doing.
"No," Medanzo replied, shaking his head. "This time, you were pulled in. I was curious myself—your connection to this place surged to its peak in an instant, and then you fell into the Interstice."
Lloyd paused, taken aback.
"You mean… I came here on my own?"
Medanzo nodded, his gaze carrying a quiet weight.
"Lloyd, you've forgotten many things. You are far more complex than you believe."
There was something hidden in his eyes—something Lloyd himself had nearly lost to memory. But before he could press further, Medanzo simply gestured for him to come closer.
Lloyd rose slowly from the bench.
He tried to recall how he had arrived, but unlike the first time, his memories were blurred—fragmented, like a dream dissolving upon waking.
He forced himself to grasp at them.
Gradually, the haze began to clear.
He remembered stepping into the divine armor…
and then—this place.
It was the relic of the old era—the god-armor—that had brought him here.
"So that damned thing does this too…?"
Tesla's warning echoed faintly in his mind. The first time anyone wielded such armor, it came with unpredictable risks. No one knew what might happen.
It seemed this was Lloyd's.
He walked toward Medanzo, intending to speak—but his words faltered as his gaze was seized by what lay ahead.
The once-solid ice plain was breaking apart.
Great fissures, several meters deep, split the surface like gaping wounds, stretching outward in a web that reached the very limits of sight. Dark blue seawater surged within them, and from deeper still came the grinding sound of chains—metal dragging against something unseen.
The Interstice… was changing.
Lloyd remembered what it had looked like the first time he came here.
Now, it was collapsing.
"She's here."
Medanzo's voice cut through the stillness.
Before Lloyd could react, the ice gave way entirely. Seawater surged upward, mingling with shattered ice. Chains lashed through the air, stirring a storm of freezing wind.
A bone-deep chill descended.
Under the pale glow of the moon, a silhouette took shape—haunting, elegant.
And then, another familiar presence appeared at Lloyd's side.
Watson.
She smiled softly, her gaze warm—almost gentle—as she looked upon them.
"You know," her voice echoed, though her lips never moved, "I've learned of a procedure. It can destroy my nerves… perhaps that would be enough to keep her contained."
Strangely, Lloyd did not panic.
Whenever Medanzo stood beside him, there was always a sense—illusory or not—that everything remained under control.
Even now, when Medanzo was little more than a lingering echo… a ghost of what once was.
"No," Medanzo said calmly. "For now, she is not our enemy, Lloyd."
The words came as a shock.
"What do you mean?" Lloyd asked, unease creeping into his voice.
In his mind, Watson—the false Grail—was a greater threat than even Archbishop Lawrence.
"A gift from the devil," Watson's voice drifted again, hollow and distant. "What do you think?"
She simply watched him.
Lloyd took a step back, instinctively wary. The fear he had long carried seemed to be unfolding before him. He could not hold her forever. She was cunning—a devil in human form.
The ice had already shattered.
Even Medanzo… seemed to stand at her side.
"Relax, Lloyd," Medanzo said, anticipating his reaction. "In truth, we are now on the same side. She is a threat, yes—but she is also… an ally."
Lloyd's expression hardened.
"You'd better explain this clearly, Medanzo," he said coldly. "Because when I wake up, I need to know whether I should put a bullet through my own head and end this for everyone… or choose another path."
He spoke with absolute seriousness.
More than once, he had considered ending his own life—bringing an end to this cursed and absurd existence.
But he did not understand the nature of the false Grail.
The Evangelical Church had created it—a replica born from the Holy Grail itself. Yet no one truly understood its properties. Before it could even be studied, the Night of Descent had already begun.
No one knew whether Lloyd's death would halt its spread.
Just as no one knew whether destroying the Grail would truly erase the very concept of demons.
Everything rested on unproven belief.
On nothing more than stubborn conviction.
"You're still the same, Lloyd," Medanzo said softly. "You know you cannot die. Your purpose is not yet fulfilled."
He knew him too well.
There were still things Lloyd had yet to accomplish—and until then, he would not choose death.
"After you left last time," Medanzo continued, "I thought about it for a long time. About what the Interstice truly is. How this strange world exists… and in what form I continue to exist within it."
His gaze shifted toward Watson.
"Like her. Is she the person we once knew… or merely a demon wearing her skin?"
"Demon!" Lloyd snapped without hesitation.
"But then, Lloyd…" Medanzo asked quietly, "what am I?"
Lloyd faltered.
"What is the difference between her and me?" Medanzo pressed on. "We are both dead. Yet we live on—within your mind, within this Interstice. In truth, we are the same… save for the slightest difference. But is that enough to truly distinguish us?"
Lloyd opened his mouth—
but no words came.
"You see?" Medanzo said. "Your thinking is still bound by the Church's ignorance. Cast aside the so-called gods… and think with absolute reason."
Silence lingered.
Only after a long pause did Lloyd speak again, his voice low and tense.
"So that's why she's here…? You let her go. You allowed her to return."
His anger surfaced, raw and unrestrained.
"Have you forgotten what it cost us?"
"It was me who paid the price, Lloyd!"
Medanzo's voice struck like thunder, carrying that same force that had always shaken the soul. Yet just as quickly, he fell silent. After a brief pause, his tone softened into something quieter—almost distant.
"…It seems I've taken hold of your thoughts, Lloyd."
Lloyd stared at him.
From the moment he entered the Interstice, Watson—whom he had nearly forgotten—had reappeared. At first, he believed she had broken free on her own, drawn back through his renewed contact with demons.
But now, it was clear—this had been Medanzo's doing.
The man who had once slain dragons… now stood aiding one.
"Then let's both calm down," Lloyd said at last, after a long silence. He kept his distance. The feeling was suffocating—like trust itself had become impossible.
And yet, there was still resistance in him. A refusal to accept this reality.
"Give me a reason, Medanzo. One I can accept."
Seeing that Lloyd had not completely closed himself off, Medanzo exhaled quietly, as though relieved.
"This began after you left last time. You must have noticed it—the strangeness of this place. Both Watson and I… we're trapped here."
"What are you getting at?" Lloyd pressed.
But the moment his words fell, the world shifted.
The ice shattered completely.
Dark blue seawater surged upward through the fractures, swallowing everything. Lloyd clung desperately to a fragment of floating ice as the waves roared around him, tossing him like driftwood. Just as the tide was about to crush him—
Silence.
An impossible cold swept through, and the raging sea froze solid in an instant.
As though a painter, with a careless stroke, had thrown the entire canvas into chaos—then stilled it again.
"This place…" Medanzo's voice rose once more, calm and unwavering, "…is a world shaped by us."
Unlike Lloyd, he had not moved at all. It was as if some unseen force shielded him—neither wave nor ice could disturb his position.
"A world… shaped by us?" Lloyd pulled himself upright, disbelief etched across his face.
This was the Interstice—the deepest convergence with darkness itself. How could such a place belong to him?
"Yes," Medanzo said. "That is your flaw, Lloyd. You are too consumed by anger—so much so that you have never truly tried to understand demons."
"Understand them?" Lloyd's voice flared. "Their only purpose is to be destroyed—eradicated completely!"
"And so your anger blinds you," Medanzo replied, almost wearily. "You fail to see the extraordinary thing that stands right beside you."
He paused, then added with a trace of ill-timed humor:
"We've never truly understood demons. Their corruption, their aggression… and the fact that they don't even bother to speak our language."
Then his gaze shifted toward Watson.
"But haven't you noticed, Lloyd?"
"At our side stands the first demon we can communicate with—one whose presence we can endure without fear of corruption. She is born of the sacred imitation of the Grail… an artificial calamity… and once, she was our closest friend."
Watson smiled.
It was the same familiar smile as before.
"I should have realized sooner," Medanzo murmured to her.
"You're making a deal with demons!" Lloyd snapped, unable to contain himself. "A deal with the devil!"
His rejection of Watson ran deep—rooted in something far more visceral. Like the memory of Saint Nalo Cathedral, consumed in flames. That fire had never gone out. It still burned within him.
"But aren't we hunters born from demons ourselves?" Medanzo countered. "Lloyd… sometimes a wrong decision leads to the right outcome."
Then, as if arriving at a conclusion, Medanzo seemed to abandon words altogether. Persuasion would not come through argument.
Only through sight.
"Show him," he said to Watson.
"Are you certain?" she asked.
"This is the perfect moment."
Watson nodded faintly.
"Very well… but remember—everything comes at a cost."
Like a transaction, sealed without contract or signature—formed entirely through words.
Lloyd watched them, unease tightening in his chest. Something was about to happen.
He stepped across the frozen shards, which had risen like a forest of ice under some unseen force. He smashed through jagged spires of frozen seawater, one after another—
But he was too late.
The sensation defied description.
It was as if his mind had been forced open in an instant—every sealed boundary shattered at once, revealing something vast and unbearable.
As though a blade, far beyond human comprehension, had fallen from a higher dimension—splitting reality itself.
A massive black fissure tore through his vision.
It was not a wound in any ordinary sense. It did not belong to any fixed space—no matter where he looked from, it remained unchanged, absolute.
The Interstice… had been cut open.
The prison had been breached.
"Medanzo, you've lost your mind!" Lloyd roared.
Even the strongest demon hunter would go mad if confined with demons long enough. And she—she was no ordinary demon. She was the false Grail. The one Medanzo had once longed for above all else.
He should never have trusted him.
As Medanzo himself had said—he was already dead.
He was no longer the man he once was.
Lloyd surged forward, smashing through the frozen spires, stumbling toward them. He raised his fist—
But Medanzo caught it effortlessly, halting it midair.
"Be rational, Lloyd."
He did not even look at him.
His gaze remained fixed on the fissure that split the world in two. Something stirred within that endless darkness.
"Tell me, Lloyd… what do you think the Interstice truly is?"
At a moment like this—and he was still asking questions.
"I think you're trying to set her free!" Lloyd snapped.
"She will not leave," Medanzo replied calmly. "But have you never considered this? Corruption works both ways. As you feel the pressure of demons… their influence seeps into your will as well."
"…Just like now."
He released Lloyd's hand.
And just as he said—Watson had done nothing. She merely watched, as Lloyd vented the fury he had carried for so long.
"Look there, Lloyd. Then you'll understand."
At last, Medanzo revealed his force.
He seized Lloyd's head, forcing his gaze toward the fissure—his movements practiced, as though he had done this many times before.
At first, Lloyd resisted.
But soon… he stopped.
The anger that had once burned so fiercely began to fade. What remained was something colder—clearer.
Reason.
He stared into the darkness.
And for reasons he could not name—fear, perhaps, or something deeper—he felt his blood run cold.
"What… is that?"
"The Interstice."
"…The Interstice?"
Medanzo nodded again, his voice carrying a strange note of certainty.
"Yes. The Interstice… another Interstice."
There was even a trace of excitement in him now.
"Congratulations, Lloyd. We've taken another step closer to the truth of demons."
Beyond the black fissure—beyond this Interstice—lay an endless expanse of darkness.
And within that darkness, faint stars flickered.
Countless distant lights.
But near the edge—near the place where their Interstice met that abyss—those lights burned with the brilliance of day.