The World Is Power and Authority
The world is power and authority—
CRASH—
Something noisily toppled and shattered across the desk, a sound wholly ill-fitted to such bright, sunny weather. It had come from the mansion of the Reinhardt Ducal House.
"Kyaaah..!"
"D-Duke, please, calm yourself..!"
"P-please, just a moment..!"
The once-pristine white tablecloth was stained and spoiled, the legs of the wooden chairs smashed apart, and a storage cabinet hoisted into the air by mana was ground to powder where it floated.
KWA-BOOM— KWA-KWA-KWANG— CRUNCH—
Pitiful cries rang out from every corner as the terrified servants cowered before the unending sounds of destruction—
CRACK—
—but it was all for nothing against the Duke, who still ground his teeth, seething with fury.
"Who in the world dared do such a thing..!"
"Kyaaah..!"
With a single sweep of the Duke's arm, a violent gust of pressure seized the entire hall. And through that storm of flying splinters and swirling sawdust, one sheet of paper fluttered on untouched—the very paper now littering the streets, the kind even snot-nosed children played with.
"What is the meaning of this!!"
"Kyaaaaah!!"
"P-please calm yourself..aaagh!!"
As the aura boiling up from the Duke grew fiercer still, the screams of the servants around him rose to match it. The maidservants who had tried to pick themselves up crumpled back to the floor, and even the manservants barely propped against the wall toppled over backward.
"Th-that's quite enough, Father."
Weaving between the servants collapsing one after another and the splinters whistling through the air, someone made his way toward the Duke—clad in the clinking armor of an Apprentice Knight.
"..Allen?"
"Yes, Father. It's Allen."
"..What business brings you here?"
At the sight of his son, the Duke's aura ebbed, if only a little. Precarious as it was, it was proof that reason yet remained in him—and that alone was enough for Allen to breathe a sigh of relief.
"Father, if you would only calm yourself a little—"
"..Calm myself?"
Ah. I should have waited just a moment longer. The instant that thought flashed through Allen's mind, the Duke's aura surged anew—slightly stronger than it had been before.
"..You say I need to calm down?"
"Kgh..urk..Father, for now, please just—"
"Do I look capable of calming down right now, Allen?"
Chunks of wood and clouds of sawdust rose into the air once more, clumping together and scattering apart in an endless rhythm. CLINK— Hairline cracks spidered across the still-whole windows and glassware before they burst apart entirely. Fissures split open wherever his footsteps fell, and his hair and cape billowed upward, as though the aura itself had taken hold of them.
"I don't know what piece of trash it is, but someone has made bold to lay hands on our family in the open."
"...."
"And yet you—the eldest son of House Reinhardt—would tell me, the head of this house, to calm myself?"
"Kgh..ugh..!"
It grew more savage still—that aura leaping and snapping across the Duke's body. The cracks in the floor gouged deeper and deeper, and his power began to take shape. Into the form of a single sword.
"Allen, do you think so too?"
"..Wh..at..kgh..do you mean, Father."
"Do you think..that I should not have discarded that boy?"
"...."
Allen could not answer. For some reason, the Duke's voice had sunk a little lower—and the aura that had known nothing but ferocity until now had grown calm, if only for the briefest moment. Allen had no wish to shatter that fragile quiet.
"My own father used to say it. Justice without power is incompetence itself."
"...."
"So I honed my strength. That is how I survived—how I rose, at that, to the very seat of head of this house."
"..Yes."
"I will not watch the family I built with nothing but my own strength be ruined by a thing like this."
He swung the sword. Or rather, the mana that had taken a sword's form—a single arc from sky to earth, dropped with a careless flick, as though he hadn't bothered to put any force behind it at all.
KWA-KWA-KWA-KWANG—
"Kyaaah..!"
"R-run, run..!"
Yet the aftershock was anything but weak. For five meters in front of where he had swung, the ground had been gouged away entirely.
"I care nothing for casting aside, without mercy, whoever proves useless along the way."
"...."
"That was my life—and in truth, I lived it exactly that way, won my success exactly that way, and that is why I stand here now."
The mana vanished from his hand. In the same breath, he turned and made for the only thing left unbroken in the room—his chair. Sinking slowly into it, he rested a hand on the armrest and spoke.
"Even if I was wrong, I have no intention of denying my life at this late date. Regret lasts but a moment, and in the end, it is results that prove everything."
"Fa..ther."
At words that sounded less like speech directed at a son than like a man talking to himself, Allen could not lift his head. For it seemed as though all of this had come to pass because he himself had failed to live up to expectations.
..Jenison. What in the hell has that bastard done..!
"Allen."
"Yes, Father."
"Find them first—the one who spread that rumor. Then bring them before me."
"Yes."
Allen rose from his spot at last. Even as he trampled the rubble of the shattered wall and crunched step by step over the broken glass, his head never once lifted. Nor did he so much as glance at the servants, who had fled far out of harm's way and now watched him with terror written across their faces. He simply walked out of the mansion in silence.
"..What is this, Ella?"
"I..I don't really know either. I just picked it up off the street while I was out and about.."
"...."
"B-but this is about you, isn't it? Why on earth is it..all over the streets like this?"
Ella looked utterly bewildered by this sudden news of her former workplace. Then again, so was I—seeing as I was one of the "family members" that paper spoke of. Only a tiny handful within the household had ever known that I'd received such orders from the Duke..
"..Aria. It was you."
"I'm sorry? What did you say, Young Master?"
"..It's nothing."
Aria. Her words from our last meeting came back to me—how she'd said she was going to see the Duke. And the instant those words surfaced, I knew: everything that had happened was her doing.
..I'll have to meet with her before long.
To me, the Duke was nothing more than a man who had left my mother to waste away—a man with no right to call himself a father. But to Aria, he was the father she had revered all her life. And when it came down to it, what she had done was little different from a cherished daughter exposing her own father's shame to the world. The eyes of the world she would have to endure could very well press down on her like a crushing weight.
..I need to see her, make sure she's holding up—
"..Young Master."
And I should ask her why she went so far as to do something this reckless.
"Young Master!!"
"...?"
She must have finished loading everything she'd bought into the carriage, for there stood Ella with both hands empty, calling to me anxiously at my side.
"What is it, Ella."
"Young Master, you're heading to the Imperial Palace now, aren't you?"
"...."
"You have to go..! What will you do if they take issue with you for not calling on them the moment you arrived in the capital..!"
Ella's worried voice rang through the cramped carriage. She seemed genuinely afraid that something might befall me. Her eyes and silver hair drew so close they filled my vision.
"And besides, if it's a decree from the imperial family—"
"..Fine, I get it. Now back up a little."
"Really?"
"..Yes. It's not as if I can defy an imperial decree."
Only when I gave her the answer she wanted did her face finally brighten, and I, too, turned my head away in relief—all the while oblivious that her questioning gaze had settled on the crests etched into my neck.
As if Greed's death were not enough, now even Envy had gone silent. By this point, it was getting difficult to chalk it all up to coincidence.
"This is no trifling matter. If any more of us die beyond this, the loss to our fighting strength will be severe."
"Honestly, didn't those two just get themselves killed out of sheer stupidity?"
"Ha. I suppose their minds are as vulgar as those lowborn bodies of theirs?"
"..And why are you picking a fight out of nowhere again, old man?"
At least three voices—two men and one woman—echoed through the hall, which darkness filled to its corners.
"I would have you both remember, once more, that this is hardly the time for us to be at each other's throats."
"What did I do wrong? That old man keeps picking fights right to my face?! A proper old fogey if there ever was one."
"Hah. You've lived every one of my years, yet every other word from your mouth is 'old man' this, 'old man' that.."
"Enough."
A weighty man's voice rolled through the chamber—resolute and sharp, the voice of one who would tolerate no more.
"First—the energy source Envy was to secure. We shall divide it amongst ourselves and each acquire our share."
"..Well, fine..we can simply split the vital energy."
"Understood. I'll do my part as well."
"And..for the time being, I believe it best that none of us set foot outside."
There was no need to gamble away any more of their strength.
"For the sake of our great cause—and for our Mother above all—we must see this plan through to success. And not a single thread of unease may be allowed to taint it. We are all in agreement on that much, are we not?"
"Well said. Understood. I'll lie low for a while myself."
"Heh. It's all the same to me..but I do wonder what that old maid will do, starved of a man's company as she is."
"Oh, shut it already—"
The woman's words cut off mid-breath, and the darkness around them lifted. The only one who remained in that place was a single middle-aged man. And the only things to be seen there were..
Nothing but the man murmuring those words into the dark, and the moonlight that fell upon him—cold, blue moonlight.