Sister and Brother
KRAAAAAASH!!
"Lilith, have you truly gone mad?!"
"No! You can't! You just can't!! Aaaaah!!!!"
"Wh-what on earth…"
The moment I stepped into Camilla's office, the sight that greeted me left me utterly speechless.
Mother and daughter—Camilla and Lilith—were locked in a vicious clash, both wreathed in murderous Aura.
Camilla had Lilith pinned face-down on the floor, both of the girl's arms twisted behind her back, completely overpowering her own daughter.
Lilith kept thrashing and drawing up more Aura in a desperate bid to break free; the collision of their energies was what had sent those thunderous booms rolling through the mansion.
Even now she was screaming and writhing, trying to escape her mother's grip.
Then her eyes met mine.
"Aaaah…! Ed?"
In an instant the Aura she had been flaring vanished as if it had never existed.
"Hah… hah… Edward?"
Camilla, clearly exhausted from restraining her, was still breathing hard. When she saw her daughter looking at me, she turned her head as well—and froze the moment she realized I had entered the room.
She immediately rounded on her personal maid.
"Amelia! Why did you simply let the boy walk in here?!"
"Y-Young Master insisted he had to come in no matter what, so… I am deeply sorry."
Amelia started to offer an explanation under Camilla's scolding, then seemed to realize that to her mistress any excuse was still just an excuse; she bowed her head at once and apologized.
Of course Camilla would never have wanted her son to see her locked in a blood-curdling fight with her own daughter.
But Amelia was not at fault.
The moment I reached the office door she had tried to stop me by force if necessary. I simply refused to yield, shoved past her, and forced my way inside.
Under normal circumstances I could never have pushed aside someone as strong as Amelia. So I had done the unexpected: I suddenly drew up the mana in my body and shoved her with Aura.
Compared to the women of this world it was pitifully weak Aura—but Amelia had never imagined I would use even that much against her. For the briefest instant she left an opening. I seized it, wrenched the door open, and stepped through.
I felt terrible about the small wound my Aura had left on her, yet something far more urgent demanded answers right now.
I had to know why Mother and my sister were causing this chaos.
"Amelia has done nothing wrong! Mother, Sister!! What in the world is going on here?!"
"Young Master Edward, it is dangerous—please step back at once!"
Amelia grabbed my arm and tried to drag me out by force.
"Let go!!"
"Yes, Amelia, take him away this instant! Edward! Your sister is in an extremely dangerous state right now! I will explain later—"
Camilla was giving orders to Amelia and trying to put me off with a promise of later explanations when—
"Ed… Ed… hic…"
"Lilith…?"
The heartbroken way she sobbed my name stopped me cold.
Of course…
The reason my sister Lilith was throwing this tantrum and defying Camilla… was me.
The instant I entered the room her fighting spirit had drained away, so Camilla released her.
"Hic…"
Even free, Lilith did not rise. She simply lay face-down on the floor, tears continuing to fall.
"Mother… why is Sister…"
"Haa… Your sister is wearing me out, Edward…"
When I tried to ask Camilla what was wrong with Lilith, she only heaved a long sigh of pure exhaustion.
"Hic…"
Even with her mother lamenting beside her, Lilith just kept crying.
"Mother, can you please tell me why the two of you are like this?"
I asked the question of Camilla, who was rubbing her temples while staring at Lilith—why Lilith was acting this way, why Camilla had been forced to use actual force to restrain her.
But—
"…Haa… It's really… difficult for me to say it out loud."
Camilla sighed again and dodged the answer.
What possible reason could make it that hard to speak?
It was clearly about me…
Then there was only one thing left to do.
"I don't fully understand, but… I think this is because of me. May I speak with Sister alone for a moment?"
I would have to ask Lilith myself.
It had been the same when we were children.
Whenever she hid in a corner of her room and cried alone, I would quietly stay by her side to comfort her. And then she would tell me the things she could never easily say to anyone else. I simply listened.
That was how she always poured out every sorrowful thing while weeping.
After she entered adolescence, though, it never happened again.
Yet right now it felt almost exactly like those old days.
"Th-that is dangerous!… No… wait… haa…"
Camilla started to stop me, then sighed and gave permission.
"Fine. Lilith, you wouldn't do anything strange to your little brother… would you."
"Something strange…?"
Something strange?
Anyone else, maybe—but Lilith would never do anything strange to me.
Still, curiosity made me ask Camilla.
"It's nothing… Right, Lilith?"
Instead of answering me, Camilla called to the girl still collapsed and crying on the floor.
Hearing her mother's voice, Lilith—
"…"
—stopped sobbing and fell silent.
"Haa… We'll step out for a while. If anything happens, shout immediately."
"Pardon…? Yes, understood."
Camilla left me with that cryptic warning and exited the room.
Shout if anything happens…
At any rate, I was now alone with my sister Lilith inside Camilla's thoroughly wrecked office.
"Ed…"
The instant their mother left the room, Lilith called her little brother's name.
My beloved little brother… I missed you so much…
Hurry and help me up. Hold me…
She wanted him to soothe the wounds in her heart the way he used to when she was little—when Mother scolded her and she hid alone in her room crying, and he would come and simply stay beside her.
But contrary to her hopes—
"Why did you suddenly defy Mother like that? Is something wrong…?"
—her little brother only scolded her.
The question was only natural, so under ordinary circumstances she might have made some excuse and changed the subject.
But she was far too heartbroken right now.
"It's because of you!"
She shouted at him, angry.
It's all your fault. You're the reason I'm crying and hurting like this.
"Pardon?"
Her brother looked completely bewildered at being blamed out of nowhere.
Lilith was furious.
Furious that she alone had been the one left aching and terrified at the thought of him leaving this house.
"Why! Why did you decide without saying a single word to me?!"
So she confronted him.
Why had he made such a huge decision entirely on his own, without even consulting her once?
"About what…? Ah—don't tell me…"
Her brother immediately understood what she meant.
"Yes! You i-idiot!"
She cursed him as she pushed herself up off the floor.
Calling him an idiot was hardly a real curse, yet Lilith—who had never once spoken even a mildly harsh word to her little brother—could only stammer it out.
Seeing her like that, he said—
"I'm sorry… But it is still my own matter…"
—he apologized, yet drew a clear line that it was his business alone.
That only made Lilith angrier again.
"Your business is my business too!"
Why would he say something like that?
His business…
Everything about him was something his older sister was supposed to take care of.
"Pardon?"
Yet her brother still wore that same uncomprehending expression.
She had never really expected him to understand her easily anyway… so it didn't matter much. Lilith simply kept pouring out everything she had been holding back—everything she wanted to say.
"Did you not trust me?"
Yes. The reason things had come to this was because her little brother had not trusted his own sister.
"What do you mean by that…"
"Did you think I couldn't protect you from that Hero—that crazy bitch?!"
"Th-that's…"
"I… I would protect you even if it killed me, Ed…"
Her little brother, Edward Frigid, had been terrified that at the debutante the Hero who had fallen for him would force him into her possession. That fear had driven him to choose the imperial princess as the lesser evil.
Lilith had never intended to lose to that Hero. Even if the woman one day grew as strong as the legends claimed, Lilith was prepared to die if that was what it took to keep her little brother safe.
Yet because he was afraid, he had chosen not to trust her and to run to the princess instead.
And—
"I made the decision because I hate the idea of the people around me being sacrificed because of me!…"
—of course. Her kind little brother had chosen to propose to a princess he did not even love simply so that no one else would be hurt for his sake.
If that was the case—
"I'd rather just die myself!"
"Sister…?"
She would rather die.
If her brother had truly fallen in love with someone, if he wanted to confess and be with that person… then no matter how angry, how resentful, how heartbroken she felt, she could have forced herself to let him go.
But that wasn't what this was!
"Don't leave… Ed…"
It wasn't because he had found someone he loved.
So please don't force yourself to leave my side.
I will protect you no matter what, so please…
I can't live without you.
"No, even if I get married it isn't as though we'd never see each other again…"
Her desperate, tearful clinging left her little brother flustered.
The imperial palace and the grand ducal estate were far apart, true, but just as the princess visited every year, they could meet whenever they wished.
But—
"I can't last even a single day."
"Pardon?"
She couldn't.
If the little brother she loved was not somewhere her eyes could reach, she had no confidence she could stay sane for even one day.
"Even if I can't keep you right beside me forever, if you're not somewhere I can see you… I might go mad."
"What on earth are you saying…"
Hearing those words, her brother recoiled in pure alarm.
She seized him.
"As long as I don't… cross the line… right, Ed?"
But she never finished the sentence.
Because—
"Sister, what do you mean by 'the line'…"
—the expression on her little brother's face as he listened was flooded with utter bewilderment.
"Th-that's a lie, right? Sister, you… toward me…?"
Lilith instantly realized she had made a catastrophic mistake, yet spilled water could not be gathered again.
"Yes… But as long as I don't cross that line it's fine! I've never been greedy enough to want that far!"
It was already too late.
"I'll endure it… so please just don't go far away from my side…"
All she could do was beg.
"…"
And to her silent little brother—
"Ed… I love you…"
—she confessed with affection that went far beyond mere family.
"…"
Yet her brother, hearing that confession, said nothing at all.
"I'm not ready to let you go yet… I can't allow it… so please…"
Clinging to her silent brother, Lilith kept pleading.
Please don't leave my side even for a moment.
But the only thing that came back was—
"…And if I refuse?"
—a cold question from her little brother's eyes.
"Ed? Please… if you keep trying to leave me… I might…"
Why won't you accept my plea? Why won't you understand my heart?
Lilith had been about to tell him that if she let him go like this she might truly go mad—
"You might…"
—when her brother suddenly cut her off, so she never finished.
"Kill me?"
"Wh-what are you…"
She could only be stunned.
Kill him? Me? Why?
"I'm asking whether, like that damned Hero bitch, you'll kill me if you can't have me the way you want."
"I would never do that! And why would the Hero try to kill you?"
And the Hero was trying to kill her brother?
"That woman isn't doing this simply because she wants to be with me…"
Her little brother's voice trembled as he continued.
"She's doing it because if she can't have her way she'll kill me…"
"E-Ed, wait…"
Something was terribly wrong.
Lilith still did not fully understand why, yet she realized her brother was under the absurd misunderstanding that she intended to kill him.
She urgently called his name—
But it was already too late.
"I wasn't throwing a fit for no reason!!"
Her little brother, who had never once raised his voice at her, was now the one shouting through tears.
"But Sister… no, Noona, if you act like this, what am I supposed to do?!"
He poured out his rage like a man spitting blood.
"I… want to live… Please… don't become the same kind of person as those bitches from this life…"
"This life…? Those bitches?! What are you talking about, Ed?"
Lilith asked about the words "this life" and "those bitches" that had left his mouth, but—
"…"
—he did not answer.
"I beg you. Sister."
He simply bowed his head and pleaded.
"Please don't try to kill me."
And in a tiny voice he added one more request: please don't try to kill the people around him either.
At that plea Lilith was thrown into complete panic.
"No! It's not like that! I would never do something like that!"
No matter how mad she became, she would never do that.
She hurriedly shouted at her misunderstanding little brother—
"Then… farewell."
—but he was already turning away with a parting greeting.
"Ed!!"
To stop him, Lilith unconsciously called his name and wrapped her body in mana.
The very next instant—
Clack!
—the door burst open and Camilla rushed in leading soldiers.
"Edward! Are you all right?! Lilith, were you actually about to harm your little brother?!"
"No, no! Ed!"
Lilith denied Camilla's words, hastily dispelled the Aura around her body, and called after her brother in a loud voice—yet he never even looked back as he left.
"Lock Lilith in solitary confinement at once. And keep her under constant watch."
"Yes, ma'am!"
Camilla and the house soldiers bound her.
"Ed!!!"
Lilith screamed her little brother's name loud enough to echo through the entire mansion—
but no one answered her call.
"Ed!!!"