He felt a familiar presence behind him. Walpurga advanced silently, her black silk dress brushing against the tall, dry grasses. She no longer had her parasol. Her excessively long white hair trailed on the ground like a royal train, catching the last golden reflections of the day. In her true form, her beauty was so terrifying that it became almost unbearable for an ordinary mortal, but Klein no longer looked away.

"You are still lost in your thoughts, Klein Konstantine," she observed. Her voice no longer held that aristocratic coldness from the beginning; it was imbued with a melancholic softness, a vulnerability she only allowed in his presence.

"It’s the habit of the tower," he replied without turning around. "The silence there was always the prelude to a new horror. Here, it is just... empty."

Walpurga stopped at his side. Her ebony skin glowed softly under the dying light. She turned her amethyst eyes toward him, scrutinizing his profile hardened by ordeals.

"Tomorrow will be the penultimate floor," she murmured, her gaze veiled by a shadow. "The woman of the scarlet night will surely wait for us at the top. After two years cleaning the laboratories and experiment rooms, we are finally reaching the goal."

Klein remained silent. He felt a strange unease rising within him. During these two years, Walpurga had cared for him, protected him, and sometimes even comforted him in his moments of doubt. She was no longer just the Witch of Curses. She had become his companion in war.

’If I do not do it now... if I let this silence separate us before tomorrow’s battle, I will regret it for the rest of my life,’ he told himself. The idea of losing this woman, of seeing her disappear in the final chaos, tightened his heart.

[ Ding! The Playboy skill activates unconsciously ]

[ The emotional impact of your words is multiplied ]

Walpurga, sensing the change of pressure in his aura, frowned slightly. "Your aura is unstable, Klein. What torments you so much? Are you thinking about your past mistakes? About your brother? Or is it the fear of not seeing the sun rise tomorrow?"

"It is not death that worries me," he replied in a muffled voice. He threw away his cigarette butt and finally turned toward her, reducing the space that separated them. "It is the idea of not having said what I had to say."

Walpurga let out a nervous little laugh, a rare sound from her. "Since when do you care about honesty? You are a manipulator, Klein. A liar who uses women’s feelings to achieve his ends. I did my little investigation on you..."

"That is true," he conceded, taking one more step toward her. His Predation Eyes were extinguished, giving way to raw sincerity. "But these two years have changed the situation..."

The witch stepped back half a step, destabilized by the intensity of his gaze. Her ice shell, forged by fifteen centuries of solitude and betrayal, was beginning to crack everywhere.

"What are you going to regret, Klein?" she asked, her voice trembling imperceptibly. "Not having obtained more magical secrets from me?"

"No," he replied simply.

Without another word, Klein closed the final distance. He placed his gloved hand on Walpurga’s cheek, his fingers brushing the witch’s soft, warm skin. Walpurga remained frozen, her eyes widened in surprise. Time seemed to suspend itself on the hill. The wind stopped blowing, and even the distant cry of the crows fell silent.

Klein leaned in and kissed her.

It was a kiss filled with raw emotion, an electric surge that seemed to pass through both their essences. It was not a calculated act of seduction, but the cry of a soul that had spent too much time in darkness. The contact of their lips instantly swept away the two years of mistrust and coldness.

Walpurga gave a slight start, her hands suspended in the void for a fraction of a second. Then, she closed her eyes and responded to the kiss with desperate fervor. She finally let her shell drop completely. Her hands rose to anchor themselves in Klein’s silver coat, pulling him toward her as if she feared he would vanish if she stopped touching him.

When they finally separated to catch their breath, a lock of Walpurga’s white hair was stuck to her moist lip. She looked at Klein with total vulnerability, her silver pupils shining with tears she no longer tried to hide.

"You are... really a bastard, Klein Konstantine," she murmured, a trembling smile on her full lips. "You choose the most inopportune moment to do this kind... of absurdity..."

"I was not going to wait until I was half dismembered by a demon to show you what I feel," he retorted with his usual smile, although his gaze was filled with tenderness. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

Walpurga rested her head against Klein’s shoulder, sighing deeply. "For a thousand years, I believed that love was a weakness that angels used to manipulate us. But with you... for the first time, I feel that I can finally stop running."

Klein tightened his embrace, feeling the warmth of her body against his. The bond that united them had transmuted. It was no longer an alliance forced by circumstances, but a deep connection forged in the blood of battles and the silence of guard nights.

"Tomorrow, we will kill this woman," declared Klein with a new authority. "And after that, Babylon will belong to you again. But you will no longer be alone in this shitty tower."

Walpurga raised her eyes toward him, her hand caressing Klein’s jaw. "Babylon no longer matters to me as much as before. All I want is to make sure you survive what is coming. Siel or Pandora are not ordinary opponents..."

"I know," he replied, his gaze turning once again toward the tower that stood in the distance, dark and threatening under the emerging stars. "But I promised my father and my brother to avenge them. And now, I have one more reason to stay standing."

They remained like that for a long moment, two solitary figures on the hill, contemplating the twilight of a world that would tip over the next day. The air was charged with anticipation, an electric calm before the final storm. The cleansing of the Tower of Wizards was over, the possessed had been eradicated, and only the ultimate obstacle remained.