On the City Walls (2)
For a long while I just kept stroking her hair — and then, all at once, I came back to my senses.
What am I even doing right now?
Maybe I was used to it by now, but from Ais's point of view, I was a suspicious stranger she'd only met yesterday. And that stranger had just reached out and patted her head without so much as a warning? A little kid like that, no less?
I've lost my mind.
Just because she wasn't resisting didn't mean everything was fine. Even I could tell how little sense that made.
Look at yesterday. I was unmistakably stronger than Ais — which meant she was probably standing there so quietly not because she wanted to, but because she knew she was in danger.
God, I'm an idiot...
How had I not thought of that? Even by my own standards, it was pathetic.
"Ah..."
The moment my hand left her head, Ais let out a small sound, almost like she regretted it. Maybe I was imagining things.
Then she just stared at me, as if she wanted to say something.
That, at least, hasn't changed.
Staring intently at someone while she mentally rehearses what to say next. It was a habit I'd long since grown used to, but I remembered how unbearably nerve-wracking it was the first time I faced it — all the more so because she was someone I looked up to. Back then, of course, I had no idea it was just her natural awkwardness.
"Um."
Having finished arranging her thoughts, Ais finally spoke.
And yet — why? Why did this moment feel so strangely familiar?
"Can I ask you something?"
A different time, different circumstances, different positions — and yet it felt as though I had lived through this exact scene once before.
"How do I get that strong?"
The words were a little different, but there was no mistaking it: a replay of a scene from another life.
A different time, different circumstances, different positions — but the same person, in the same place, asking me the very same question.
It was the moment she first crossed swords with the one she admired — no. The moment she was first taught.
Her usual dazed, absentminded expression honed to a razor's edge, those serious eyes fixed on me — the girl before me and the woman in my memory overlapped perfectly.
Anxious, fragile, unpolished — but then as now, she was unmistakably Ais Wallenstein.
"...That's."
And precisely because of that, I did not give the answer I'd given back then.
I couldn't.
I knew her circumstances. I knew her situation. I knew her feelings.
I knew — so clearly it almost hurt — that my words from that other time would never reach the girl standing in front of me now.
"Tell me."
Her straight, unflinching gaze bored right through me.
A longing so intense it bordered on purity dwelled in her eyes.
Pure yearning. Pure vengeance.
One who had lost everything, burning herself alive to take it back — marching forward without ever realizing there was no road back.
"..."
I couldn't find my voice.
Her eyes hurt to look at.
More than anything else, what tormented me was the truth that there was nothing — absolutely nothing — I could give her, for her sake.
"Then may I ask you one thing?"
Which meant the only thing I could offer her was a single bargain.
"If you answer, you'll answer mine too?"
"Yes."
"Good, then."
Ais nodded, looking satisfied. Watching her, I let my thoughts turn heavier and more tangled than before.
What could I actually give her, right here and now? What did she truly need?
Showing her the "right path" meant nothing at all. The genuinely important thing was to hold her hand so she wouldn't fall. And —
To make sure there was always a place she could come back to.
"Over there, huh..."
At first, it was nothing but coincidence.
A chance flicker of the eye as she idly looked around. The chance timing of glancing that way at that very moment. The chance that something happened to catch her attention, just enough to focus on it.
Layer upon layer upon layer of chance.
But the result of all those coincidences piling up was anything but small.
"That's..."
Far in the distance, atop the great wall that embraced Orario, a girl and a boy walked side by side.
The girl gave off a golden gleam. She looked familiar.
That child... Loki's?
It was definitely the one Loki had brought back. She remembered her because of that peculiar soul — a soul sharp as a blade, more weapon than person. She herself had no interest in blades, so she'd simply left the girl alone, but still...
"She's changed."
Somewhere along the way, the sword had become a girl again. A softness had settled into that once-hard expression, and the bared blade had slid back into its sheath.
And who's that?
The white-haired man beside her — someone she had never seen before.
Strange. I can't feel a thing off him...
Looking straight at him and yet feeling as though she weren't looking at all. As if someone had thrown a cloth over her eyes.
"I can see his face just fine, though..."
Decent-looking, honestly. Missing one eye was a mark against him, but it was a face cute enough to turn even that into a selling point.
"Hmm~"
Interest stirred in her silver eyes.
Had that man changed that child?
Curiosity bloomed — the chronic, incurable curiosity every god carried, great or small. Who was he? Where had he come from so suddenly? How had he won that girl over?
Was he Loki's child, or some passing god's?
She wanted to meet him. Simple as that.
If the boy really had changed the girl, wonderful. If not, that was fine too — she'd just fall madly in love with him instead.
The goddess did not hesitate.
"Mia."
"Hm? What is it?"
Even with her child treating her with zero ceremony, the goddess couldn't have cared less.
"I've got a favor to ask."
And so I found myself facing Ais.
How had it come to this? No such questions were necessary — it was my own suggestion in the first place.
Shall I teach you how to fight?
She had pounced on that abrupt, context-free question and nodded without a second's hesitation. From there it was a straight line. Ais forgot the question entirely the instant she drew her sword, and I, watching her do it, picked up a nearby branch and whittled it into something weapon-shaped.
She looked at it with an expression that wavered somewhere between wounded and wistful, but she raised no objection. Presumably she understood, at least, that the gap in our abilities was real.
Not calm — but not blindly reckless either.
She could look facts in the eye. That much gave me a measure of relief.
A very small measure, mind you.
Because she charges in anyway, knowing full well...
Knowing is fine. The problem is charging in with a "so what?" on her face. Would it kill her to be a little more careful?
...Says the guy with no right to talk, huh?
Not much persuasive power coming from a man who'd lost an eye and an arm as a matched set. Not that she'd listen if I corrected her anyway.
Which was exactly why I had to redirect her. That blade-honed, monster-killing focus of hers needed to be steered somewhere else — slowly, and little by little.
Small steps, but certain ones. That was what would change her life.
...Is this really okay?
I'd tried not to think about it, but the thought kept creeping back — because this situation was nothing like the ones before.
The Zeus Familia, the Hera Familia — those were no real dilemma. They'd been wiped out before I was ever born; with so little overlap between them and my future self, I'd assumed any changes would stay contained.
But Ais? She was a woman alive in the future — a woman who meant an enormous amount to me.
Was it really right to interfere with her this deeply?
And yet, detached from all that anxious second-guessing, a quieter part of me kept whispering: does it actually matter?
Because even now, some part of me regarded this whole situation as vague and dreamlike. Unreal, I suppose you'd call it. Some benumbed complacency kept me from ever quite taking it seriously.
"What are you thinking about?"
Ais puffed her cheeks out at me, clearly put out.
Ah — crap. I was zoning out too hard...
No matter how large the skill gap, nobody enjoys being ignored. Least of all Ais, who was obsessed with getting stronger. Daydreaming right in front of her had to sting worse than an open insult.
"...No, I'm sorry."
Setting everything else aside, it was simply rude. Best to focus on the present situation first.
I let out a long breath and loosened my body, holding as natural a stance as I could — while being careful not to put any real force into it. Right now, Ais was Lv.1. One careless blow from me could end her life.
I'd have to fight with my strength held back, gently, constantly watching. Suddenly I understood, a little, the tightrope Ais had once walked while training me.
With that thought, I looked over at her. She was already in stance, fully ready and waiting — like a dog told to stay, which was oddly endearing, but we couldn't stand around all day.
I gave the shock-deadened branch a light little wave.
"Then — come at me."
At those words, Ais shot forward in an instant.