Prophetic Dream
Crunch.
The juices from the meat I'd bitten into seeped into my mouth. The oil of the meat, mixed with that red liquid, offered a flavor all its own.
Yes. This was the kind of reward that made all that patient waiting worthwhile.
I closed my eyes and quietly chewed, savoring every bite. The aroma grew richer with each chew; the meat grew more tender. "Beautiful flavor" — that phrase must have been coined for moments exactly like this.
Ah, the hope and light of my life.
Koko-chi.
As I devoted myself to the skewer in my hand, tears of pure emotion welling up, I felt a peculiar gaze from Cecilia, who'd bought it for me, and so I asked,
"What is it?"
"…Is it that good?"
"Yes! Would you like some too, Teacher?"
"I'm fine…."
Why did everyone refuse whenever I offered them Koko-chi? It was so delicious…. They could only refuse because they'd never tried it. Once they tasted it even once, refusing would become impossible.
A life without Koko-chi was a life of pure loss!
"Come on, just try some!"
"…No."
"You're really not going to eat it?"
"I'm not eating it."
"Really, truly not?"
"I said I'm not eating it."
"Really, truly, absolutely not?"
"……Haa."
In the end, Cecilia let out a sigh of surrender and parted her lips just a little. I slipped the Koko-chi between them, and somehow it felt like I was offering a toy to a puppy. On top of that, the way she took a tiny bite and chewed with that inscrutable expression…!
Without thinking, I reached out and gave her head a light pat. She furrowed her brow in clear displeasure — but I paid it no mind and kept right on stroking. Pat, pat.
While I was at it, I asked softly,
"Well? It's good, right?"
Of course, I didn't stop petting her. Pat-pat-pat-pat.
Cecilia was taller than me, so I had to lift my hand a bit higher, but all that training must have paid off — it wasn't hard at all. And so: pat-pat-pat-pat.
She wore that look of displeasure for a while longer, then seemed to give up, closing her eyes and giving a small nod.
See? Everyone loves Koko-chi after all!
Incidentally, Cecilia must have taken good care of her hair, because it was remarkably soft. Even when I tugged it gently closer and gave it a sniff, all that came was the fragrant scent of shampoo. The way she startled and yelped when I smelled her was pretty adorable, too — almost a shame I hadn't recorded it. If I'd captured the footage of Cecilia thrashing around making incomprehensible noises like Eukkeut!, I would have happily set it as my morning alarm…. Such a waste. Such a waste. The way her face flushed red when passersby on the street jumped at her outburst was just a bonus.
Right now, we were on our way back to the Academy after being discharged from the hospital. More precisely, Cecilia — who'd been discharged first — had come to pick me up after my belated release.
If someone asked, "You're going straight to the Academy the moment you get out of the hospital?" I would have loved to answer that it was because I was a diligent, outstanding, beautiful young student…! I might not attend a single class, but it was the heart that counted. Even if my grades weren't great, the fact that I'd tried hard was what mattered!
More than anything, Tania, Adele, Luna — and all my classmates who truly loved me — were waiting for me!
The Academy side had told me to rest another day or two, but that simply wouldn't do…! Somehow, overlapping with how I'd gone home sick on the very first day of enrollment, the image of a frail, delicate beauty seemed to be solidifying around me. At this rate, my friends would start telling me to sit in the shade and rest during PE class….
I was perfectly healthy…! Even if I had gone home sick at the start of the semester and spent several days in the hospital this time…!
Wait. Was I actually frail?
Come to think of it, since arriving in this world, I'd never lifted anything heavy. The heaviest thing might have been a dagger.
The suspicion that I might genuinely be frail took hold, so I briefly abandoned Cecilia mid-walk and dashed over to a decorative boulder sitting in a flower bed. I tore off a convenient grip at the bottom with a bit of force, then heaved upward with everything I had…!
Hoo… So I really was nothing more than a delicate girl — aside from being excessively beautiful….
If I couldn't even lift a rock like that, wasn't it embarrassing to call myself an Awakener?
I suddenly felt gloomy. I vented my frustration by kicking the chunk of rock I'd torn free, then headed back to Cecilia. When I clapped the dust from my hands, rock powder went flying in every direction. Cecilia flapped her hands like a fan to keep it from drifting her way and asked,
"What was that just now?"
"Proof that I'm a delicate young lady."
"…?"
She tilted her head as if she couldn't make sense of a word I'd said. But her interest cooled almost immediately, and she turned away again.
Cecilia was so cool…! Cool beauties were popular. She might become a rival — I'd have to stay on guard.
Due to the nature of Cecilia's ability, she often had prophetic dreams. Unlike actively using her power, these dreams left almost no penalty — after waking, her ability worked just fine aside from a mild tiredness — so it wasn't a problem.
Her prophetic dreams usually showed the near future of herself or someone she knew. Nothing grand. Just small things: finding money here, tripping over her own feet there. Still, they were useful in their own way. If she'd dreamed of forgetting her wallet and ending up in trouble, she'd consciously make sure to bring it.
But the prophetic dream she'd had today was different from usual. She had seen a future very far away.
Cecilia glanced sideways at Elysia, who was happily eating that thing called Koko-chi.
Today was the day Elysia was being discharged. She'd said she planned to head straight to class, so Cecilia had come to pick her up at lunchtime, and the two of them were walking together. Elysia had suddenly stopped in the middle of the street and thrown a full-blown tantrum demanding Koko-chi, so Cecilia had bought it for her, too….
Watching Elysia eat her Koko-chi as if it were the greatest happiness in the world, Cecilia found herself wondering whether today's dream might not have been a prophetic dream at all — just a meaningless nightmare. She knew perfectly well that couldn't be true.
Whether something was a prophetic dream or not, Cecilia could feel it instinctively. And she could also tell whether that prophetic dream would be easy or difficult to change.
But sometimes, there were realities one wanted to look away from — to deny. And today's prophetic dream had been exactly that.
A dark place lit only by moonlight. In a desolate, deserted location stood a vast black castle. Crystals of a material that looked strangely familiar, differing only in color.
Mountains surrounded the black castle. Mountains of corpses, crushed beyond recognition. Every single body was pierced with black thorns.
Blood flowing from the mountains of the dead had pooled into a crimson lake, and the moon reflected in that lake was stained red as blood — redder even than blood itself.
A literal mountain of corpses and a sea of blood.
Unlike her usual dreams, which unfolded from a human point of view, in this prophetic dream Cecilia had been free to move. Or perhaps "free to move" wasn't quite right. She hadn't been able to choose the option of running away from that place. She had simply walked, as if entranced, slowly into the black castle.
The interior was empty. Nothing but the black crystals that formed the castle itself, and the cold moonlight filtering in. The first floor she'd entered through, the second, the third, the fourth — all the same. An unbroken succession of empty space.
And on the fifth and final floor, she met Elysia.
Seated upon a throne of black crystal, looking down at her in silence. Skritch. The pitch-black ring on her finger scraped against the chair, producing a bone-chilling sound.
A few blue crystals floated on either side of the throne. A black dress that glittered faintly in the moonlight like obsidian. Eyes that had once been a vivid red, now black and hollow. A frigid expression without the slightest hint of a smile, and deathly pale skin. And a sharp black crown resting upon her head.
By the time Cecilia came to her senses, black crystals that had grown from somewhere had bound her entire body, leaving her unable to move.
Elysia looked down at her for a long time with those empty, vacant eyes, then slowly rose and approached. Skreee-skreee-skreee. The black dress — almost certainly formed by her own power — scraped across the floor of the black castle, producing that same bone-chilling sound.
In those black eyes that came right up to her face, Cecilia saw her own reflection. Her own expression, as lifeless as Elysia's.
Elysia carefully parted her lips.
"…You're still alive, Teacher."
The Cecilia in the dream gave no answer. Or perhaps she couldn't. Whether it was pure terror or something wrong with her throat, no voice would come out.
Elysia's hand slowly stroked her cheek. The touch was ice-cold, and her body trembled faintly — yet the gesture itself was careful and warm.
"Don't worry, Teacher."
Having spoken those incomprehensible words, Elysia carefully drew Cecilia into an embrace.
"You don't have to worry about a thing. I've lost… I've lost everything, but you, Teacher — I'll protect you until the very end."
Don't worry. Don't worry.
The words echoed in her ears, over and over. Again and again.
At first she hadn't understood what they meant, but soon she did. The blue crystals floating around the throne were not decorations. They were coffins, each holding a dead person.
Looking closer, she could make out the people inside. Tania, Adele, Luna, Rina. And two other girls she was sure she'd seen somewhere before. Every one of them bore terrible wounds — a gaping hole through the chest, or some part of the body severed clean away.
Only then did Cecilia understand what Elysia had meant. The meaning of having lost everything.
In that future, Elysia had been forced to watch the deaths of everyone she held dear with her own two eyes.
Don't worry. Don't worry. Don't worry.
That single phrase rang in her ears without end — right up until the moment her entire body was swallowed by black crystal.
Had she been staring without realizing it, lost in the memory of today's prophetic dream?
"What is it?"
Elysia asked with a bright, beaming smile — a happy smile utterly different from the one in the dream.