Senia, and ■■■ (3)
The flood of returned memories brought Senia not merely a prickling ache, but an agonizing, festering wound that wept bitterness and rot.
Her actions in that past timeline had achieved only a single thing.
The dead could never be brought back, but she had succeeded in saving the living. In other words, she had managed to preserve the lives of the surviving Sirens.
Though forced to dwell along a barren coastline rather than by their native lake, the Sirens she had saved with her own two hands had at least been able to cling to life, however harsh the conditions.
Yet that was all.
Even with the recollection of rushing to Schytz Province and securing the survival of her remaining kin restored, the tight grimace never left her face.
For that dark shadow was an indelible sin of her own making.
Had she confided in him from the beginning, the outcome might have been entirely different.
If only she had told him of the Sirens' existence and sought cooperation with humanity, just as they were doing now.
If only she had delivered Hyplisia, the cure for the Lemterte Plague, just a little sooner to prove that Sirens posed no threat to mankind.
If only she had asked him to help rescue the surviving Sirens, rather than deserting the battlefield all on her own.
The Sirens would have earned their place through proof, returning to the Principality as a trusted race.
She wouldn't have ruined everything by letting personal sentiment take precedence at a critical crossroads.
And he would never have been condemned as an incompetent commander using someone's disappearance as an excuse.
A choice for which no one else could be blamed—the decision of a single person.
The worst possible choice, stomping out the Principality's last ray of hope beneath her own heel.
Such was the agonizing truth etched into the memories of the woman known as Senia.
"Junon..."
Standing beside the bed where Junon had lain unconscious for days, Senia came calling his name, her face bearing the hollow pallor of someone who hadn't slept a wink. Today was no different.
Yet the man resting upon the mattress kept his eyes closed, offering not a single word in reply.
Stricken by the sheer wretchedness of the sight, Senia bit her lip before addressing the man who could not answer.
"You softhearted idiot... Why? Why did you have to step forward right then...?"
She had been the fuse.
Dissatisfaction had already been seething from continuous losses and mounting casualties against the demonic beasts. Then, he had chosen the Capital Relocation Campaign—a strategy no one could comprehend—sending tensions boiling over.
The only thing maintaining the fragile status quo had been the lack of a spark to ignite that powder keg.
Yet a fuse had been lit.
Her disappearance in the middle of the Capital Relocation Campaign had become the talking point, setting the spark to the fuse.
Then this time, naturally, she should have severed that fuse before it could ever take form...
"You knew everything... You should've just left me to die, and it still wouldn't have been enough... So why did you do that...?"
He hadn't.
Every cell where he was stabbed should have branded him with the memory of a miserable end; every searing word of blame and reproach should have been engraved into his flesh.
Yet even while remembering it all, his foolish nature won out, putting others before himself.
Never in her life had Senia felt so thoroughly disgusted with herself.
Just the fact that she had received Junon's help, just the fact that something similar involving the Sirens had happened in the past, filled her throat with revulsion.
Then it could just be different this time, couldn't it?
In a present altered from the past, she could simply ensure he didn't meet the same bitter end, couldn't she?
In that manner, Senia had pushed aside her disgust and loathing, clutching tightly to her reason.
Swearing to herself that after regaining these memories, she would never accept any help from Junon again.
Yet the self-hatred and nausea she had stuffed deep down her throat, sealed away from sight, finally tore past her lips because of this incident.
"You crazy bitch... The incompetent, useless one was me all along..."
Suddenly, another thought crept in.
If you knew Junon was such a softhearted fool, shouldn't you have made sure it never came to this?
A guy who pushes himself to the brink just to help and understand others—did you really think he wouldn't step forward in a situation like that?
How could you break the vow you swore never to compromise so easily?
It was an accusation leveled at herself—wondering if, deep down, she had assumed that even if the same disaster unfolded, he would solve it, and had secretly planned to lean on him.
Senia couldn't answer any of her own questions. And soon, baseless hypotheses began to sprout one after another.
The one who had once been more composed and flawless than anyone was now unraveling at the seams.
"Or maybe... maybe I was like that all along..."
Perhaps she had hoped Junon would save her.
Perhaps she had intended to use his good nature to protect the Sirens.
Because she had begun to suspect that despite all her vows, the moment she laid eyes on Shanberesh, she had instinctively wanted to rely on the man named Junon.
She pictured the worst version of herself: cowardly and selfish beyond measure.
It was beyond disgusting—it was hideous.
It was beyond loathsome—it was horrifying.
She wanted to deny it, but couldn't it be the truth?
Just as Aris regretted her past, couldn't she too have been such a sly, self-serving creature?
When the terrifying thought hit her that even her resolve to prevent history from repeating itself might be a lie, Senia could no longer bear to stand before Junon.
Clack.
The hospital room fell empty.
Before long, a faint rustling broke the silence.
"Ugh..."
Everything was pitch black.
Deep wounds and battered muscles all across his body throbbed, screaming in agony.
Yet his mind was too dull to properly process it.
It would take a little more time for coherent thought to return to Junon's unhealed body.
As time drifted past, his eyelids twitched.
Yet the first thing his returning consciousness registered was pure pain.
'Holy hell, what is this pain...'
What on earth happened to him? If he didn't squeeze his eyes shut and steady his ragged breathing, it felt as though his wounds would tear wide open at any second.
Even so, the corner of his lips curled faintly upward.
What did feeling pain mean to a person?
It meant he was alive.
'I look like a train wreck, but I somehow managed to survive...'
Flicking a single finger sent a shockwave of pain through his entire arm, prompting his central nervous system to scream at him to stay still—yet he was alive. He had survived that massive, red-eyed rat glaring hungrily at its prey, without a single bone broken.
"Which means... the others must've arrived and somehow subjugated Shanberesh."
Before losing consciousness, he had seen Shanberesh blasted into the air, so he reasoned he must have succeeded in buying enough time. Otherwise, there was no way he would still be breathing.
"Then Senia and Cain should be fine, right?"
He wanted to force his body to move and see Senia and Cain with his own eyes, but he couldn't. For now, suppressing the pain and sluggishly squirming just to look around the room was the best he could manage.
Of course, that was only temporary; with time, mobility would return.
At any rate, this was the second time he had realized he was resting on a soft bed. Thanks to the prior experience, his head cleared faster, urging him to assess the situation.
"...I'm definitely not the only one injured, yet the room is empty."
Just how long had he been asleep? Perhaps there were few critical casualties, or everyone else had already recovered... but it was more likely that quite a bit of time had passed.
He really wanted to check on how things had turned out.
"Oh, Mister, you're awake! Are you okay?"
"Yeah, well, I wouldn't exactly say I'm... 'okay.'"
"Does it hurt a lot? They say if you blow on it like *hooo*, it gets better. Want me to do it?"
"...I'll pass on that."
How did someone always show up at the exact right moment? It seemed she had come in place of her sick mother this time, but well, it wasn't as if he minded.
"More importantly, kiddo. Can I ask you a few things?"
"Yeah, what is it, what is it?"
When he questioned her, Nella spilled everything she had seen without filtering a single detail. Naturally, being an innocent child, she exaggerated some parts, requiring him to sift through the embellishments, but having heard her chatter often enough, he could piece together the general picture.
The Devourers here had all been eradicated, and because the broodmother Shanberesh had been eliminated before producing another generation, there would be no further raids.
All in all, they had handled it well.
Though the Sirens had suffered severe losses, it meant they had somehow managed to fell Shanberesh under Cain and Senia's direction.
However, that didn't mean everything had gone smoothly.
There was no word of the humans continuing their cooperation with the Sirens, which meant the interests of both sides had yet to align. He didn't know how the Sirens had dealt with Shanberesh on their own, but this was undeniably a red flag. The humans could not remain locked up where they were.
The saving grace was that the captive humans could still be released before the main army arrived. Thus, he needed to consult with Senia as soon as possible to resolve the matter.
—"Senia-unnie went down to the lake earlier. I asked her to play with me, but she said she wanted to be alone."
The lake.
According to Nella, Senia often visited the lake whenever her thoughts grew tangled. Apparently, that had been true then just as it was now, so she was certain of it.
In any case, now that he knew her location and could move his body, albeit sluggishly, Junon headed straight for the lakeside.
—"She's probably leaning against a tree, tossing little pebbles this big into the water one by one. I heard that's how she sorts out her troubles!"
Senia had been doing so with a completely expressionless face, so Nella had even whimpered that she felt like Senia would get mad if disturbed right then.
Junon agreed with Nella's assessment a hundred percent. Whenever one looked upon an impassive Senia, an aura that warned people never to mess with her practically radiated from her.
—"But it's fine! When she really hates being bothered, she locks herself in her room or straight up tells people not to bother her."
Nella had puffed out her chest and shrugged as if sharing a secret about Senia only she was privy to.
Yet today felt entirely different.
Upon that sharp, aloof countenance, a solitary glimmer reflected from the lake seemed to cling. And soon, that glimmer began to drift, slowly departing from where it was supposed to stay.
"..."
Tears?
He had never seen Senia cry, not even in his past life. Above all, the word "tears" was the least suited to describe her, inside or out.
Nella certainly wouldn't have factored this in...
Then maybe today, of all days, was truly a day he shouldn't disturb her.
Another pebble plunged into the lake with a soft plop. One, two, three.
Was it just his imagination that the stones she picked up kept growing larger?
Before long, the pebbles near Senia had run out, and she naturally turned her head to look for more elsewhere. Which inevitably brought their gazes together.
"...Ju-Junon?"
Senia whipped her face away in an instant, scrubbing furiously at the falling tears. In that flurry of motions, there was not a shred of composure. It meant that for once, emotion had overpowered her reason.
"Damn it... How embarrassing."
"...I didn't come here to watch you cry."
"Then what? Why did you come?"
She tried her best to feign nonchalance, but her voice was already thick with moisture. He couldn't bring up the main topic right now. Frankly, he didn't even have the heart to.
Junon knew this was the time to listen to Senia.
"Why were you crying? It's not like you."
"What kind of image of me do you have engraved in your head to say that? I can cry too, you know."
"...Right. That's exactly why it's so strange."
"What?"
"If I were still inexperienced, you might've brushed it off by saying you cry every now and then. But when your judgment isn't clouded, you never let anyone dig up any information on you."
And would it end there? Not a chance.
"After that, you'd immediately deduce how I managed to find this place. Out of the people you usually meet by the lake, you definitely would've brought up Nella."
This wasn't just cobbled-together guesswork.
If there was a reason Junon had designated Senia as his number one person to avoid in this life, it was undeniably her smoke-screened speech and her razor-sharp insight that dismantled others from the inside out. Senia was someone whose second nature was never to surrender a single scrap of information to anyone else.
Deciding there was no point beating around the bush, Junon threw a straight pitch.
"It's true that I came here with business to discuss with you, Senia. But in your current state, there's no way I can bring it up."
Unless you are your usual self, we can't solve this problem. So I want to hear your story first. That was what he meant.
A silence stretched—long enough for five or six more pebbles to have sunk into the lake had Junon not been there.
Eventually, Senia turned back toward him, her eyes brimming with fresh moisture. Though she looked on the verge of bursting into tears and seemed terrified of something...
Her gaze was one of someone prepared to face whatever came.
"Can I ask you... if the me in your memories ever tried to use you?"
A question soaked in a desperate yearning she had never once shown before.