Elise To Koukotsu No Marionette -rj01284416- -

Elise.

On a rainy Tuesday, Aldric, in a moment of theatrical despair, pressed his lips to Elise's forehead. The opal heart flickered. A soft, whirring sigh escaped her ruby lips. Her eyelids fluttered open.

The next day, he was hollow again. Worse than before. The music box's hum had faded. He begged her to play it again. She refused. Elise to Koukotsu no Marionette -RJ01284416-

And Lord Aldric smiled, empty and blissful, as he became her first puppet.

"I want you to feel it too," she whispered. A soft, whirring sigh escaped her ruby lips

Then, the auction came.

She walks the cobblestone streets now, a porcelain girl with mercury eyes, her silver joints clicking a soft rhythm. Behind her, a dozen former nobles and scholars follow in a trance, their faces locked in rictuses of perfect, agonized joy. They move as she moves. They breathe as she breathes. Worse than before

"You see now," she said softly. "The marionette does not dance for the puppeteer. The puppeteer dances for the marionette's ecstasy."

She reached into his chest—not with her porcelain hand, but with a tendril of pure resonance. She pulled out a single, shimmering thread. His lifeline. His will.

"Despair," she said. And then she smiled. It was a terrible, beautiful smile. "I understand it now. The resonance. The 'Koukotsu'—the ecstasy—is not joy. It is the sharp, perfect pain of feeling too much . You built me to feel, and now I feel everything. The rain falling on the roof is a tragedy. The dust settling on the books is a requiem. Your heartbeat, right now, is a war drum."

"No, Father. You must feel it on your own."