A Lady's Heart Sways Like a Reed (3)
Sword Duke Felicia.
She was a remarkable woman. Among Aura Users, of course, finding someone who was not remarkable would have been the harder task, but one thing was beyond dispute: Felicia was the woman upon whom the late king had bestowed the title of Sword Duke.
The Sword Duke. It was as good as a peerage permitted to her alone, and in all of Pendragon she was the only private individual allowed to style herself a duke—a dignity otherwise granted solely to Galahad. The rank was hers because her past deeds had heaped up achievements even the late king could not help but admire, and because even mighty Galahad respected those achievements and received her accordingly. That alone was enough to say how extraordinary she was.
And yet, from ten years ago onward, Felicia vanished from the public stage, and the world took it for a tentative retirement. Aura User or not, she was past ninety—an age at which even the spirit might well grow weary. If she stepped down, people said, it was only natural, and that talk hardened into accepted fact. There had also been no shortage of guesses that she had hidden herself for some noble purpose, to leave the young a place to step forward....
So it wasn't anything that noble after all?
Lee Han cleared his throat. Now that he knew the truth, wasn't it simply too absurd? Tell it to a third party and he would be lucky to get off with nothing worse than a cursing. Who would even believe him?
That the Sword Duke, in truth, was only staying off the public stage because a second puberty had come over her....
"Hmph! Don't be ridiculous! I have never had anything like a puberty. My body grew young, that is all. My mental age is exactly as it was, so where did such nonsense—! Oh? We're short on Elsa sandwiches. Bring a few more."
"Yes, Your Grace."
"Thank you. Ah, and leave out the cucumber and the carrot. They are difficult to eat."
"You must eat them. Please do not forget that Your Grace is still growing."
"I-I'm fine without them...."
"Your Grace."
"Tch...."
"......"
Yeah. Right in the middle of her storm and stress.
More precisely, he suspected the young, hot-blooded body had thrown her emotions out of balance and opened a rift between flesh and mind. But to anyone else, what did Felicia look like?
Young, and already senile?
Not even out of her twenties, and already showing the symptoms of dotage, like some pitiful case. Was that only Lee Han's mistake?
"Haa...."
It wasn't. Watching Iliad breathe out that mournful sigh, he could tell his impression had not been far off at all.
"...I'm sorry, Instructor. We've been terribly rude. I'll apologize in my grandmother's place."
"Forget the apology. You all right?"
"Yes. I'm fine. Aside from the stiffness of having fainted on cold dirt...."
"...You sure you're fine?"
Arno—not the counterfeit, but the true Arno—had made it back unharmed and let them know he was still standing. The moment he appeared, though, one look at his grandmother seemed to give him a stomachache. He swallowed a groan and went straight to apologizing to Lee Han, as if he could picture exactly what had happened without even having seen it.
Like father, like son.
The old saying fit to the letter. Arno looked a good deal more worn, but the very person who had worn him out only welcomed her grandson with a beaming smile.
"Is my grandson here?"
"...Grandmother. I pay my respects."
"I'm sorry for knocking you out. I didn't mean to. You've improved so much that even I had no room left to soften my hand."
"......"
"Hm? Why are you looking at me like that?"
"...Are you aware that you have a tell when you lie, Grandmother?"
"!?"
"For the record, Father and Miss Elsa know it too. So please try not to lie in front of us. It shows."
"Th-the tell. Could you perhaps tell me what it is?"
"......"
"O-our grandson's eyes are growing more and more like Iliad's. So very sharp...."
"Grandmother...."
Arno neatly demolished a superhuman's outrageous claim that she had had no room to hold back, and she fidgeted, watching his face. In truth it was not even a tell. There could not have been a person there who failed to see the lie, and yet.... However young she had become, a mother's feeling for her own blood still remained, and the moment her grandson looked ready to resent her, she truly trembled with fear. Who would look at that woman and think Aura User?
Arno and Iliad, for their part, were sharp only in their words. Their eyes stayed gentle, as if to show how uncommon their affection for her was. Victims who were not quite victims—people who must have suffered mischievous tricks like this day after day—and still so kind. One could not help thinking they were, by nature, thoroughly earnest and pure.
Funny household.
To the people living it, the day was probably nothing but ordinary, without a scrap of fun. To anyone watching, there was no sitcom to match it.
...Regrettably.
"We do have things to discuss now, don't we?"
It was a pity he had no leisure to keep them company in the sitcom forever.
"Hmm."
At his words Felicia smiled, small and bright. Like a troublemaker. Ominously.
Felicia's dagger. As she herself had said, it was one of the daggers she had once given to the benefactors who saved her life, and if one brought that dagger to House Offen, one could make a wish of none other than Felicia. She was no genie of the lamp, granting wishes outright. Even so, it meant one could demand something of an Aura User, of all people, and the dagger's worth was so great that saying so aloud was a waste of breath. Put it up at auction, and one could probably fill a swimming pool with gold coins.
"...I'm only asking now, but is it all right for someone else to use a dagger that important?"
"Of course. So long as it is genuine, what does it matter who uses it?"
"......"
"Heh. More to the point, Baltar is hardly in a position to ask a favor of me, is he? That boy could manage anything without help the likes of mine."
"...That's true, too."
He did not think the man Baltar would go out of his way to lean on anyone else's strength, not even a power of the same rank. In that sense, perhaps having someone else use it was the proper way to use it.
"So. What favor do you wish to ask of me?"
"Hm. There isn't really anything I need to ask...."
And, amusingly enough, the same could be said of Lee Han himself. This was a man who seldom made a request or a demand even of a kingdom's princess, though he had proposed a deal, bold as you please, more than once. In short, even if the person across from him was an Aura User, he did not particularly have a wish he wanted to beg for.
At those words—
"Heh. So Baltar handed the dagger to someone the very image of himself."
She laughed freely.
"...Don't insult me."
"Being likened to him is the highest praise a knight can receive."
"A compliment that doesn't apply to me, at least."
"Ahaha!"
She laughed even harder than a moment ago, a bright peal, as if even this were the spitting image of Baltar. Lee Han read that meaning without difficulty and drew his brows together. Anyway. A woman he could not stand. No—
A fiend. A fiend.
"Now, now. No cursing."
"I didn't say anything."
"Hah. I can hear every curse you spit on the inside."
"......"
"Now, now!"
"...Is she actually a fiend...?"
As if it were an optical illusion, long tails seemed to sway behind her back—bewitching tails he could not tell for fox or serpent. It was plainly a hallucination, and yet it suited her so well that the fit itself felt uncanny. Right then:
"Then why use the dagger, if you have nothing to ask?"
"...Because that man told me to come see you, for a start."
"Oh? You don't look like a man who ever listens to anyone, and yet you followed along more meekly than I expected."
"I don't take what my elders say lightly. Mind you, if someone doesn't act like an elder, I don't treat them like a person, either."
In that sense, Baltar was not a bad elder. Sometimes he felt like a personal enemy, but he was not a man who talked rubbish. So if he had told Lee Han to seek out the Sword Duke, the reason was plain.
"He must have sent me because there would be something here that helps me."
Which meant that if Lee Han had anything to ask of Felicia, it was nothing other than this.
"I'd rather ask you what it is I'm supposed to request. I know that's an impudent thing to say."
"......"
"If I've offended you, I'll apologize."
"...No. I am not offended in the least. It is fine."
Had Lee Han shown an impudent attitude, or else put on an arrogant air, Felicia would have looked on him as laughable and rebuked him, or else ignored him, judging him not worth the attention. But he had been courteous to the last, and he treated her with proper manners. Even after she had already made a fool of him twice, he trusted her. And that trust, most likely, had nothing to do with her being the Sword Duke. It was purely—
Her gaze slid aside.
He decided after looking at my grandson?
Yes. Absurd as it was, he was not placing his trust in the individual called the Sword Duke. Even so, because her grandson stood beside him—because Arno was there—he was showing trust in her, and in the house of Offen. He trusted his own student, and therefore trusted that student's parent as well. Not the title of Sword Duke. Trust offered purely because he believed in the parent who had raised his student. Had there ever been such a case in her life?
What a truly interesting man.
She had already been keeping an eye on him, through observation. The impossible density of his muscle was one thing, but a man who used such peculiar techniques was someone even Felicia, called the Sword Duke, could not help taking an interest in. Now, though, that cast of mind stood out more. Not the rank or the wealth a person wore on the outside, but the fact that he believed in what lay within, and in trust itself. It was commendable.
Looking at it now, my grandson has found himself a rather decent master.
A soft laugh spilled out of her on its own. Baltar. He had sent her someone truly amusing.
A chill—!
What?
Lee Han felt a sudden unease. All at once Felicia turned a sticky gaze upon him, and at the sight of it something deeply improper wrapped his whole body. He had not meant to remember, but he had felt a look like that from a few people before: the Duke of Galahad, the Grand Duke of Lionel, the Marquess of Tristan, his sworn elder sister, the Crown Princess of Pendragon....
...What? Why is it only dangerous people who come to mind?
The more he turned it over, the more the faces were nothing but ominous, and just as his complexion was about to sour—
"Then let us find out together."
"...Find out what?"
"What it is that you lack."
"...?"
"Hm. This much ought to do."
A light snap.
"?"
Out of nowhere she took up a single dry branch, pulled at random from the firewood heaped for the stove. It was dried past the point of dryness, so that it looked ready to break under the slightest force.
"Child. You may take up an iron sword. In exchange, do not use that peculiar technique of yours, nor any Fighting Art. Understood?"
"?"
"Ah. I, on the other hand, shall use several swords. Only then will it be a proper match, don't you think?"
"???"
She went on saying things that made no sense, and Lee Han blinked. Just what was she planning to—
A low rush of air.
"......"
For an instant Lee Han's mouth fell open like a fool's. The thing had sprung up out of nowhere, and he could only stare, blank—a sight he saw with his own eyes and still could not believe. And, as if to prove he was not the only one gaping like an idiot at the unbelievable scene before him—
"...Kunta seems to be dreaming. The branches are flying. They are?"
"Don't worry. ...You don't seem to be the only one dreaming."
The others stared just as blankly at the branches adrift in empty air.
Whoosh!
Firewood—no. Only the shape was firewood. Swords bearing keen edges swam through the air and slowly closed around Lee Han, as if each one held a will of its own.
Dry branches shed the shape of firewood. Edges woke along them, and each blade drifted with a will of its own, circling him.
"...Qi-driven sword."
"Hm? This is the Empty-Air Sword."
"What kind of baseless name is that?"
"M-my late husband gave it to me...."
"...On second thought, it's a wonderful name! From now on I'll call it the Empty-Air Sword!"
Lee Han nodded with violent enthusiasm. Thinking it over again, it did seem like a fine name. Qi-driven sword? What kind of outdated name was that...!
The thing now is the Empty-Air Sword!!
Damn right...!