A/N: Thank you very much for reading this story. I have published the last two chapters (14 and 15) at once because they were ready, and I was too excited to wait. I started this story many months ago before many of the secrets of Meliodas and Elizabeth were revealed, and this story has evolved as those things came to light. I hope that you find this ending satisfying.

Writing this story has been sometimes a battle of wills on my part. I had challenged myself to do something different and tell my own interpretation of the manga. I hope I was successful, and that you all enjoyed the journey.

There are a few people I need to thank for their help and work on this story. First, I'd like to thank my co-author, DOMinMatrix. She and I collaborated on the first half of this story, and writing with her was an experience I will never forget. I learned a great deal about myself working with her, and I'll be forever grateful for helping me grow as a writer. Even though life ended up causing us to part ways, I wish her the very best and my deepest, sincerest thanks for her ideas, her words, and her enthusiasm for this story.

I also must thank two very dear friends, without whom this story would have never been finished. Cerulean Grace gave me the encouragement I needed to embrace this story and tell it in the way that I wanted. Thank you so much for listening to me work through everything and pushing me to publish. Also, Woundedowl served as my sounding board, proofreader, and guinea pig. Her feedback, honesty and earnestness in helping me polish chapters has been invaluable, and I am so, so grateful for all of your work.

Please enjoy this final chapter (and make sure you read chapter fourteen first). Thank you to all of you who have stuck with this story and followed it for so long. I'm very humbled by you.

.o0o.

With a great deal of satisfaction, Meliodas watched Ruin disappear in the distance. The cold, calculating side of him had taken over, and with a blank expression he walked with a steady pace towards the Holy Knight. His body had skimmed along the ground, bouncing as it crashed again and again, but he felt no satisfaction at this. In fact, he felt very little at that moment.

When he reached he knight, he struck him again. Once more, Ruin went flying, and again, Meliodas stalked after him. The demon did not often allow his emotions to shut off the way they had in this moment. It was too easy to return to that thing he had been three thousand years before. Only through being aware of his body and mind, of keeping a careful control on his emotions, did he maintain a balance between demon and knight.

Ruin came to a stop. Baste Dungeon was in sight now, and Meliodas continued forward. Soldiers were shouting now: "What was that? He just came flying out of nowhere!" But he paid no attention.

When he was steps away from the Holy Knight, he punched him again. Ruin crashed into the stone wall of the prison with a shout. The rest were yelling too, calling to the knight and demanding that he halt, but Meliodas only walked forward.

He watched with a bit of interest as Ruin pulled himself from the wreckage. This one was powerful, too. "You should draw your sword," he shouted at Meliodas. "You will hurt yourself if you try to destroy my armor!"

"Stop," the Dragon Sin said. The demon mark threatened to emerge, but he stood resolved to settle this without using that side of him. He would defend Elizabeth without resorting to that part of himself; a part that he never, ever wished for her to see.

"You won't draw your sword then?" Ruin screamed. Meliodas did not answer, and he yelled, "Fine then! As you wish, I will bring you ruin…"

There were more blows exchanged, and he heard the Holy Knight laugh, convinced he had done away with the captain of the Seven Deadly Sins. He boasted about his strength, and suddenly Meliodas was tired. He wanted to get back to Elizabeth and check on her. He wanted to be there when she woke up, and this knight was wasting his time.

With an elbow, he struck the knight in the stomach. He was still too angry to trust himself to punch him again, but the move was enough. Ruin went flying backwards into the prison, the wall collapsing on top of him. Meliodas knew that he would survive if he was as resilient has he had claimed. There was a part of him that absolutely hated this, because it reminded him too much of his former self. But there was also a part of him that was deeply satisfied.

"There's no way around it," he explained. "You hurt someone important to me." Someone I love, he thought to himself. His chest tightened with the idea, but there was no point in denying it any longer. "And that is your sin."

.o0o.

Meliodas sat quietly on the cliffside, watching the sun go down. He was back in Britannia as the king had promised. At first, he had been glad. Now he could exact the revenge that he had wanted against the Ten Commandments and the demon clan. But the pain of losing Elizabeth was proving to be more overwhelming than he had first predicted.

The sky was beautiful, deep set in oranges as the sun lowered. But it felt empty, just as he felt empty. Elizabeth was dead. He had failed to protect her, had broken his promise. Yet the world around him was still moving. It felt almost unnatural.

Soft footfalls in the grass behind him caught his attention, and Meliodas took a deep breath before turning to the person approaching.

Meliodas was grateful that she did not speak at first. Instead, the druid leader stood a few feet away, allowing her presence to be company enough. He didn't deserve her condolences. She should have been just as enraged. She should have avenged her fallen comrade. Instead, this woman was offering her sympathies to him.

If only I had never laid my eyes on her…

Strangely, no matter how hard he tried, no matter how much he wanted to, he could not find it in himself to regret meeting Elizabeth. From the moment she stumbled into his life, she had filled a void he didn't even know existed. Made him feel whole in ways he never imagined he would. Now that she was gone… her absence left an emptiness in his very soul. An emptiness that was fueling a growing heat in his blood.

He hated himself for failing her, but he was not the one who had sliced his sword through her heart. No, that was Estarossa's sin.

The thought of his brother brought a raging fire in his blood that he feared would never be extinguished. Getting close to the Commandment would prove difficult if he did not get control of his wrath. "Even you can't fight all of them," he whispered to himself, his voice catching even as he smiled sadly.

The druid leader sighed heavily, eyes searching the horizon as if all of the possible outcomes were written there in the sky, "So… we cannot possibly win," she said. It was not a question, and her tone gave away her hopelessness.

"I didn't say that," he responded, finding his voice growing more determined. The druid's confused gaze fell on him. "But you can't kill them."

"Then how—"

"There is a way," Meliodas said, cutting her off. "But before I tell you, tell me first about Elizabeth. What do I not know?"

Lady Jenna hesitated for a moment before saying, "Elizabeth is the Apostle, the most powerful druid of our kind. Was, I should say. She had the power to turn the demon army. We—we didn't know exactly what that meant." Jenna turned and scanned the horizon. "I suppose we understand now."

Meliodas nodded. "She was able to stop the red demons herself."

"No, that's not it." He turned and looked at her with a frown, and the druid hurried on, "I mean, yes, she did that. She was able to calm the demons so they submitted to her will. But I think…" Nervously her eyes darted to the demon. "I think her true purpose was… you."

Quickly standing, Meliodas bit out, "What are you talking about?" She hesitated again, and he took a step forward. "What are you not telling me?"

She drew a deep breath. "The purpose of the Apostle is to save us from the demons. That's all. Once her duty is completed, then…"

The unspoken words hung heavy around him. "You were meant to fall in love with her. You were meant to leave the demon clan behind. With you out of the equation, we have a chance now of defeating them." Jenna drew another breath and said, "When we need to harness the power of the goddesses, an Apostle is born. And one day, when we need to fight again, Elizabeth will be reborn. That was her purpose."

"That was her purpose?!" he shouted at the druid. His hand twitched as he tried not to draw his sword and end her life. "Elizabeth is more than just your tool. She is more than just your Apostle! She—she—" His voice was shaking with rage, but Meliodas could not care.

Turning away, Meliodas looked down at his hands. These hands had held a sword that had ended countless lives, had struck and hurt more people than he could even count, had harmed and ruined and destroyed. He was a pawn of the demon king, just like Elizabeth had been a pawn of the goddesses. "She didn't know, did she?" he whispered.

"No," Jenna answered firmly. "Neither did I. Suspected, yes. But there was no way to know for sure—"

"Enough," Meliodas said bitterly. He still stared at his hands, these hands that had taken so much. But he had also used them to protect her, and to brush away her tears, and to hold her against him. He knew he was more than just the tool of the demon king, just like Elizabeth was more than the Apostle. She had taught him that, and he would live up to her belief in him.

.o0o.

Meliodas sat by Elizabeth's bedside, watching her sleep. Her body was wrapped tightly from the wounds she had suffered in the battle at the capital. "She's not waking up at all," Hawk whined. He was so tiny now, he could fit on the pillow beside her head.

"Yeah," he sighed. Meliodas looked down at the floor, folding his arms, his elbows on his knees.

"But I thought Elizabeth healed you and everyone else with some amazing power!" Hawk squealed. "Why doesn't she just heal herself?"

"Because the princess' power activates unconsciously," said a voice behind them, causing Meliodas to start.

Glancing over his shoulder, he gave her a half-hearted greeting, but Hawk insisted, "That doesn't explain why she won't heal herself!"

"The problem lies in the princess' mind," Merlin explained. "Whatever power she has left she will disperse to those around her."

Hawk sniffled. "I keep telling her to stop worrying about everyone, and take care of herself!"

Meliodas looked back at Elizabeth. Now that he knew for sure she was the Apostle, he was twisted with anxiety. Would she succumb now to her injuries, as he watched her die, again? They had defeated Hendrickson and destroyed the New Generation who sought to raise the demon clan. Isn't that what she had come back for? Isn't that why the Apostle had been reborn?

And if it wasn't, and she lived, what else could there be?

He shivered suddenly, thinking of what the future could hold. But it didn't matter to him, as long as Elizabeth lived. This time, he would not fail her.

He had kept himself alive all this time, three thousand years from when Estarossa had killed him. It had been three thousand years since he learned the truth of who he was, and how he had been used over and over to sustain the power of the demon king. Even though the demons had been sealed away, he knew that his death would return him to Purgatory; but Meliodas would not allow the demon king to use him again.

It was easy, once the Ten Commandments were gone, to keep himself alive all this time. There was nothing left in Britannia that could match his strength or his power.

Well, nothing could, until Merlin had stolen his power from him.

"Merlin, step out with me? I need to ask you about something." She nodded and they walked into the hallway, where Meliodas hesitated. "Actually can you wait for me out here? I think I forgot something." The pig yelped a protest, but in a flash Meliodas was back inside the princess' room with the door closed tightly behind him.

Slowly, almost reverently, he approached the bed. Meliodas struggled to breathe, watching her. He blinked a few times, willing the tears back, and he swallowed thickly around the lump in his throat as he took his place beside her.

There were many, many girls that had come and gone over the years since her death. His father's curse had worked too well. Or, maybe his love for her was too strong. But Elizabeth haunted him every day. He saw her everywhere, thought of her every morning when he woke up, every night when he laid in his bed.

Time and time again he would cross paths with a woman that bore such a strong resemblance to the druid he fell in love with that it would cause him pain. He would hear her laugh, or see her blue eyes, or learn her name, and all of his memories of her would come flooding back. The twist in his chest was always agonizing, but also bittersweet. It was like she was never really gone, and for a moment, he could pretend that she had returned to him for real.

But when he had met Liz, and looked in her eyes for the first time, the surety had hit him like a blow. Liz was the Apostle of the Goddesses, and the weight of that was nearly crushing. Lady Jenna had said that she would only be reborn because they needed to fight the demons. But the demons had been gone for three millennia, so why was she there? What work was there to do?

Meliodas had forgotten to wonder for long, because he had fallen for her again, even faster and harder than before. She was so different from the Elizabeth he knew, but her spirit called to his. He did everything within his power to get close to her, and to his delight and relief, she returned his love. This was his chance to be with her the way he had always imagined. Meliodas made sure to tell her as often as possible that he loved her, learning from his mistakes.

Liz was as unaware of her powers as Elizabeth had been. So he watched her, waiting, as they lived and worked beside one another. Then Danafor was attacked, and she was killed by Fraudrin. Meliodas figured that was why she had been reborn… but then she reincarnated again, immediately and with a devastating force of power. It exploded and destroyed Danafor, and he had found his Elizabeth in the rubble. As he had stood in the crater holding her in his arms, Meliodas could see how wrong he had been.

"Elizabeth?" he said softly, taking her hand in his. He brushed his fingertips against her hair. He had continued believing she was not really the Apostle, until her light had healed them and driven back the demon Hendrickson had become. It seemed so impossible, even with all of the clues and events that had led them to this point. Liz's death and rebirth had ended his hope that she was the Apostle, returned to him again.

But it wasn't the end. Meliodas shook his head, turning all of this over in his mind. He was such a fool. In three thousand years, he hadn't learned a thing. The Apostle still had work to do, so she was was reborn immediately. That's why Elizabeth had come back. Meliodas had thought that she couldn't be the Apostle after all because there were no demons to fight. She was just another one of the girls that had drifted into his life as a result of his father's curse, making him love and lose all over again.

That's what he had decided, anyway. Because he had no idea a red demon had escaped the seal to destroy the Fairy King's Forest. That this demon would one day be used to find a gray demon, long dead, and give birth to a new generation of Holy Knights. That a new and terrifying threat would rise in Britannia, wanting to gather the Coffin and break the seal on the entire clan.

The Apostle had been immediately reborn because there was still work to be done, but Meliodas did not realize it at the time. He had taken the blame for Danafor's destruction because he had failed to protect Liz, who was the closest he had ever found to the Elizabeth he once loved. He did not understand why she had been reborn in such a devastating way, but Meliodas had never assumed to understand everything.

Now, the truth was revealed. She was the Apostle of the Goddesses. His Elizabeth. There was no denying it now.

The elation he had felt seeing her like that, the power flowing from her as it had the day she was killed, confirming what his heart had long suspected, was dampened with a sinking dread. If Elizabeth was still alive… it meant there were more threats on the horizon.

But he would worry about that later. Right now, he needed her, and she needed him.

"Elizabeth," he said softly. Meliodas leaned in closer, knowing she could hear him. Her soul would always answer him, just as his would answer hers. "If you disappear from my life, I'll have no reason to live." He could not do it again, he could not watch her die again. It would destroy him, and all the work he had done to stay out of his father's reach, to keep from feeding the demon king's power, would have been for nothing.

He knew the love he had in his heart now would be enough to break his father from the seal. He had loved Elizabeth enough for lifetimes upon lifetimes. He had met a shadow of her over and over before finally getting to hold her, the real her, in his arms again. Seeing Liz reincarnate had convinced him she was not the Apostle after all, and that idea had kept him from death. Meliodas had been able to go on, believing that he needed to continue to wait to find the real Elizabeth again.

Then, the princess had crashed into his bar. She showed him again what it was to need another person. If he died now, and returned to Purgatory, the demon king would have immeasurable power to draw from. Because this was Elizabeth, the girl he had been waiting for, for three thousand years. Her innocence and grace and beauty and spirit had made him fall in love with her again.

Meliodas knew that his love for her would never die.

"So, please," he whispered. "Live for me." He placed his mouth on hers, kissing her softly. She stirred beneath him, and Meliodas smiled.

Elizabeth had saved his life, again.