The Family Head and the Weight He Carries
"...Dad? This bitch here... is she your daughter?"
"So you ordered us to bring you your own daughter, just now?"
"Good grief... what kind of dysfunctional mess of a family is this..."
"...Do you wish to hear more of the details?"
Behind the Duke, killing intent began to smolder. The implication was plain enough: if they wished to hear anything more, they would have to wager their lives to do it. It was the kind of artistry only a man who truly possessed both the strength and the authority could perform.
"N-no, of course not, hahaha... What business would the likes of us have, knowing the details?"
"Th-that's right, as long as the money's good... we don't ask and we don't argue — hell, we'll curse the crown itself on your behalf if you like."
Killing intent like that was something men who trafficked human beings to scrape by from one day to the next had never once known. The two men's heads bowed of their own accord, their hands folded themselves without being told, and flattery came spilling out of their mouths.
"If you understand, then get lost. You can collect your payment up ahead."
"Y-yes, sir!"
"Haha, th-thank you!!"
At the Duke's word of dismissal, the two men vanished like arrows loosed from a bow, and before anyone knew it, only two figures remained in that place.
Aria, still locked inside the small cage, with no choice but to gaze up at her own father — and Duke Reinhardt, looking down upon that daughter of his with eyes of utter, glacial cruelty. Between the two of them hung nothing but a silence so chilling it raised the hair on one's neck; not a single word passed between them.
"Guaaaargh!!"
"H-hey, why are you doing this to u—aaagh!!"
It happened then — two screams tore through the air somewhere behind Aria. The voices of the pair who had kidnapped her only moments before. She was no longer so young that she couldn't understand exactly what those screams meant.
"...Is this what they call silencing the witnesses, Dad?"
Her voice was trembling so badly she herself could scarcely believe it. Whether she didn't want to believe it, or simply couldn't, she couldn't have said — but her voice carried within it a faint sliver of hope, and the tremor of rising tears.
"Isn't it obvious, Aria?"
"...."
"What would you have me do if the family's honor took even the smallest scratch from the worthless mouths of men like those?"
The Duke's voice that followed shattered what little hope she had clung to, and her tears swelled all the more for it.
"Why... why would you go... that far..!"
"You're still young. It's not something you need to understand."
"No matter how young I am, I can still tell right from wrong!!"
"Then go ahead — tell me which this is. Though of course... this was the right thing to do."
His words, so unwavering they went beyond resolve into something carved from stone, made her press a hand to her forehead and fling her head back. Half of it was because she could no longer bear the sight of her father's face. The other half was because she wanted to lament — to mourn how the man who had once been her idol had come to this.
"Da...d, please... stop... enough..."
"Stop what, Aria? Do you truly not understand a single thing I do?"
"Th-this..!! How am I supposed to understand any of this!!"
Duke Reinhardt showed no regret, no guilt — it seemed he did not feel even the slightest remorse. And at that man, Aria raged with everything she had. For the first time in her life.
"You'd cast aside your own child for the family's sake... you think it's acceptable to trample on human lives, as long as it's for the family?!"
"...."
"All for... all for that hollow, empty thing... that 'family honor' that doesn't even have a shape of its own—"
"'Mere' is not the word."
The silver longsword that had hung so quietly at the Duke's waist began to slide free of its scabbard.
Shiiiing─
A sound that raised gooseflesh across the whole body just to hear it. Steel meeting steel, steel grazing past steel — the sound alone stood every hair on her body on end.
"That I live better than others, that you do, that all of us do — every last bit of it is owed to the family's merit. How could you possibly renounce that? Deny it?"
"...Even if that precious honor of yours gets a little dirtied, nothing would actually—"
"You are different from me, Aria."
A blue aura coiled around the Duke's blade. A blue so deep, so cold, that a single glance at it would freeze the marrow of anyone who beheld it.
"Unlike you, I am the head of a family. Do you know what that means?"
"...."
"The gain of the many over the sacrifice of the few. The happiness of thousands over the suffering of one. To cast off even one's own children, should it come to that — such is the inescapable fate of a family head."
"...."
"Have you ever — even once — considered the weight of this name?"
His blade resonated, together with the blue aura he breathed out. A massive sword that no ordinary man could so much as lift began to tremble with a deep, rolling hum — and in the same breath, the Duke took a single step forward.
"While the two of you were growing up safe and sound inside the family's walls, I was outside them."
"...."
"Because I had to show it to a family head who refused to acknowledge me — that I was the one who deserved to inherit this house."
"...."
"I cut down countless monsters. I cut down countless people. In the end, I cut down even my own brothers."
"...."
"This seat is soaked in their lives and their blood. That is the kind of weight it carries."
He came one step closer. Precisely speaking — toward the iron cage that held her. His sword, resonating with his mana, dragged along the floor behind him, carving a long scar into it.
"I have a debt to repay. A duty to raise this family as high as the price of all those lives."
"...."
"And my family has no need whatsoever for riffraff."
"...That's—!"
"Even if that riffraff happens to be my own child..!"
The Duke swung his sword. A horizontal slash, sweeping from left to right. His colossal blade split the air and drove straight on toward the iron bars.
"...Kyaaah!!"
"...."
The Duke's sword was, in truth, nothing special. Its hardness, its shape, the very materials that made up its edge — not one of them was remarkable. It was simply one large sword. And yet that ordinary blade was utterly remade, reborn, the moment he poured his mana into it. Harder than common steel several times over, its edge meticulously coated in mana — before a sword like that, these iron bars were nothing more than wooden sticks.
Swish─
There wasn't even the sound of steel meeting steel. His slash sheared through the bars so cleanly, so smoothly, that not the slightest resistance remained.
"...Huh?"
And yet she had not been cut. Not even a single strand of her hair.
She stared down at her own unharmed body, then lifted her head again to look at him, pitifully — but he had already turned his back on her without a trace of warmth, as though she were no longer worth even a glance, and was walking away.
"Allen."
"Yes, Father."
"Take Aria and lock her in her room. Sever every line of communication to the outside."
"Yes."
"...."
Her eldest brother, Allen Reinhardt — the man gleaming in his silver armor — came to her, took her arm in support, and helped her to her feet.
"...You alright?"
"...Big brother. What do you think about all this?"
"...."
"Am I the one who's strange? Am I overreacting..?"
"...."
"Before he's the family head, before he's a duke... he's our father. He's a person, like anyone else..."
"...."
"Then... why..?"
"...Let's go, Aria."
"...."
"...For now... let's just go."
Shuffle, shuffle — the sound of their footsteps drifted through the air, the sound of two people walking toward a sun that had already all but set.
"Um, maybe you could try calming down a little..."
"I'm afraid I can't do that."
A voice kept trying to hold me back from behind, but my footsteps did not stop. No — I didn't want them to.
"I... I know it's not my place to say this, but we are looking into it, in our own way, so..."
"...."
"You're supposed to receive your title tomorrow... straight from His Majesty the Emperor himself, no less..."
Her words kept trailing off into nothing, but my pace never changed. I glanced around, searching for the exit. The exit to this endless corridor.
If it were up to my heart alone, I would have smashed through any wall at all and gone outside to start searching — but the priceless paintings and beautiful carpets that kept catching my eye barely held my reason in place. This is the Imperial Palace. Cool your head for a moment. At the very least, you do not cause a scene in here.
"Keep this up and... rumors will spread in a heartbeat... I know it's your sister we're talking about, but try to calm down a little..."
"Calm down?"
My arm whipped out toward her, and something dropped with a sharp, slicing hiss. Her pink hair scattered through the empty air, drifting and swirling. She threw herself backward a beat too late — but she knew it as well as anyone would. If I had let my hand sink just a little deeper, she would be dead right now.
"If you have no intention of stepping in yourself, then kindly keep your mouth shut."
"Haha... you really are... fast, aren't you?"
"And stop trailing after me, chattering away. It does nothing but grate on my nerves."
If she had been anyone else, I would never have gone this far... but she was no stranger to me. She was my little sister — the only one I had in this life. My family.
I wanted to protect her. This time, if nothing else.
"...Haa. Fine."
"...?"
Before I knew it, she had closed the distance again, and her hands settled on me from behind — one gripping my shoulder, the other pressed to her own forehead. Somehow, the sight of her carried an air of quiet resignation.
"Tch. House Charlotte will put everything we have into finding her... so you stay here."
"What kind of bullshit is—"
"Or what? Do you have some other way? Some brilliant method of yours to find that child?"
"...."
"You don't, do you? So we'll handle it. In exchange, you stay here... how does that sound?"
"...Why"
"Because if you're not here tomorrow... His Majesty's plans could come apart at the seams."
"...."
"Don't worry too much. We already have a few places we suspect. Besides, I doubt they'd kill her right away."
Her tone was meant to soothe me — if they'd wanted her dead, they would never have kidnapped her in the first place.
"...."
"So? What do you say?"
Just... that expression. Just... that tone of voice.