"A sword of True Death? Hmmph, maybe, but if you're willing to go to that extent, you could likely just manipulate the core of Roa's being. If my theory about his reincarnation magecraft is correct, it means that there should be a portion of his soul that is connected to the Root itself, not the vague weak connection all life has, but a solid connection that you could directly destroy or... well, do practically whatever you felt like doing. I've got to say that even I'm not able to tell what might happen if you were to do something like that. For all I know, it might be possible to cause the Root itself to reject the existence of Roa entirely, perfectly erasing his entire personal history.

"His... entire personal history?" You don't really know what that means, it's not something that's ever really come up with Touko, discussing the Root itself.

"That's right. It's... hmmph, how should I put this. Think of the Root as if it's something like a book, the Akashic Records, if you would. If you can actually manipulate his connection to the Root itself through exploiting his own Reincarnation Magecraft against him, you would in a way be able to effectively tear out every page of the chapter titled 'Michael Roa Valdamjong' and discard them to the void. Of course, I'm not quite sure what might happen did that. Something like the negation of a cause whilst retaining the effect, I imagine."

---

"Nothing will ever matter for you again, now." You take a deep breath of air, and you begin. "I am truth given form." The first line of your aria.

"I look upon the falsehood of reality." You place a palm atop the head of the restrained vampire.

"An infinity of lies." You close your eyes as you begin conceptualizing the structure of the body of the restrained vampire before you, seeking out the connection to the Root hidden deep within.

"Blind to the beyond." You delve deeper and deeper into the magical structure in your search for the connecting point as the world around you begins to shift and destabilize.

You find just what you're looking for, in the very core of the body, a very minute and tiny crack, one that allows Roa to infect the target of his magecraft with the essence of his being. It is at this moment that you understand that what Roa does is infinitely more parasitic than what happened between yourself and Shinji, a parasitic form of reincarnation where Roa slowly overwhelms his host until they can no longer resist being under his control, trapped as a prisoner in their own body, as Ciel was. Your own experience with reincarnating was of a more true fusion. A genuine gestalt being.

You have no regrets about just what you're about to do to this existence... this... character. "I shall guide the way!" You grab hold of the tiny rift (Not a true connection to the Root, mind you) allowing Roa's continual resurrection, and through it, you apply a new concept to the record of Roa. Non-existence. There's a bright flash of light that lasts for a single instant and seems to encompass everything within it before vanishing entirely.

Your eyes strain as the flash of light disperses, as all the life that was once in Roa's body vanishes, and the very existence of Roa becomes something that could only be questioned. Roa is gone. You wonder for a moment just what sort of effect that erasing somebody from the Root itself might have on the other Roas that exist within the multiverse... Probably best not to dwell on the details. You stand up once again, and you realize that you've managed to become coated in the blood of the now truly gone Roa, not to mention that your previously full reserve of magical energy has been reduced to almost zero as a result of the incomprehensibly herculean task you just underwent. You do find it funny though, that you were able to use the very foundation of Roa's immortality as a method to not just destroy him, but completely erase his existence.

Part 16