Chakra (3)
"Lady Sien."
"Yes?"
"There is something I have been curious about. May I ask you a question?"
Sien's eyes went round. It was not that Adel never spoke. But he rarely asked questions, and more rarely still was he the one to start a conversation. Most of their talks ended in clipped, one-word replies. For him to say, out of nowhere, that he was curious about something—to Sien, that was a novelty all its own.
"Of course. Anything at all. Go ahead, Adel."
"I heard mention of something called the Northern Coalition earlier. I would like to know what that is."
"Ah. You mean the annual gathering."
Sien nodded and went on.
"It's a council the northern houses convene once a year. They exchange news and brief one another on their circumstances. But the most important purpose, as ever, is to inspect each family's arms and the state of their training. Large-scale Rift outbreaks still occur, even if they are no longer what they were at the start of the Great War."
"I see."
"The knights were discussing the Northern Coalition, I take it?"
"Yes. That is so."
Sien nodded, as if she had expected as much.
"They won't want to look lacking next to the other houses. The training of the knights, the soldiers, and the attendants most of all. A matter of pride, I suppose?"
"…Are most of the northern houses not on good terms with Lichtenauer?"
"They are. Very good terms, in fact. But relations are relations, and competition is competition. There's no need to snarl at each other the way Lichtenauer and Fiore do—but a little friendly rivalry is necessary all the same."
Adel said nothing.
"There's a reason Lichtenauer stands at the heart of the North. In the end, it's because we can do the most when a Rift opens. Because we can protect the most people. Because we hold the greatest strength. That's why."
That was why the retainers and the knights drove themselves so hard. Lichtenauer had stood unshaken as the heart of the North all this time. There were few things harder to watch than the crumbling of that glory.
"Then if Lichtenauer's strength were to wane, a new center could rise at any time."
"Yes. It wouldn't be easy, of course. Lichtenauer has been the heart of the North for decades now. Everyone works themselves to the bone to keep that glory intact. I have to do the same."
A thought came to him, unbidden—something the Emperor had once said.
That humans spent their whole lives fighting to protect a moment's glory. Even if that glory had been ground to dust in a sandstorm, they were the sort of creatures who would clutch those fragments and endure to the bitter end. Some looked at that and called it stubborn folly. But was it not better, the Emperor had asked, than having nothing left to protect at all? Those who had never held onto anything—those were the most pitiful of all.
The Emperor had said this with a smile, and then he had gone on fighting for the Empire. If a person would fight even to defend crumbled dust, then for this vast Empire he would do anything at all.
The sun of the Empire was always burning itself away. So fiercely, so brilliantly, it shone.
So that is why you fight as well.
His own battles had been nothing but desperate and base. A fight with nothing behind it, waged solely to kill. No nobility, no honor—mere slaughter. But Sien's fight was different from his. She fought to protect: for those who remained, and for those who had already gone. Was that why she shone? Was that why he could not look away?
"So in conclusion, everyone must present their very best."
"Uh… well, if you had to boil it down, I suppose that's it?"
She smiled as she said it, but a sliver of worry crept in all the same. Adel's skill was beyond question—the highest caliber there was. And there was not a hint of carelessness in the way he carried himself. The shock and terror of that last incident was still burned into her memory: the time he had sparred with an attendant and sent the man flying all the way to the far end of the training ground.
It was a miracle that attendant wasn't badly hurt.
In truth, even that had been precisely calculated on Adel's part. But Sien had no way of knowing, so she simply assumed the man had been extraordinarily lucky.
"You don't need to worry about it too much. The ones in the spotlight will be each house's knights and soldiers, after all. They're just telling everyone not to let their guard down."
Adel nodded. There were ways in which his stepping forward might even work to their advantage. But to do so would run directly against everything the Emperor and Sien had done to keep him hidden.
The Emperor had wanted him to stop fighting. To take the chance to live as a human being, among other human beings. The rest could be left to others. So that he would not remain trapped in the past, unable to escape it. That was why the Emperor had buried the existence of Adel and his comrades in secrecy. He had wanted to see them live as ordinary people—not as the wolves who had hunted down and slain demonic beasts.
And that was why Sien had downplayed Adel's achievements as much as she could. For a man who had known nothing but fighting, she wanted to show him that there were other ways to live.
"Enough about that. How is your chakra? Has there been any change?"
Adel shook his head. There had been no change through all the years behind him. There was no reason one would appear now.
"It is still a single line."
"Ah… Don't be too disappointed. If you keep training, a change will come eventually."
"Is that so."
He had not been disappointed in the least, so the reply came short. He had managed well enough all this time without any help from chakra. The regret was not large, and he had not expected anything to begin with. But that was not how it looked to Sien. To her, that manner of his was a man doing his best to hide his disappointment. And the misunderstanding was a plausible one: given Adel's skill, his Chakra Disk ought to have carried at least two bands. That she could sense nothing beyond a single line meant he must, of course, be disappointed in himself. From Sien's point of view, that was by far the more reasonable conclusion.
"Ahem. Ahem."
Sien cleared her throat a few times and clenched both hands into fists.
"Adel!"
"Yes, Lady Sien."
"Let's both do our best. Just as my swordsmanship will keep growing, so will your chakra. Don't be disappointed. If anything, we have so much potential ahead of us! Right?"
"Yes."
Where Sien had put on a deliberately exaggerated show of spirit, Adel's response was so still it was almost rigid. Something nameless stirred in her at the sight of it, and she opened her mouth again.
"Aja! Come on, you try it. Aja!"
"…Aja?"
"What was that? Put more into it. Haven't the knights told you? A battle cry isn't merely the act of shouting—it's a solemn rite that steels the will of both mind and body."
"Aja."
"Louder. So that both of us can find our strength! Aja!"
"…Aja!"
He could not begin to see what use any of this was. And yet Adel did as Sien told him, without a word of protest.
"There. See? You already look like you've got more energy."
Sien, for her part, seemed quite pleased by the faint rise and fall that had entered Adel's voice.
"On that note, shall we give it a go today as well?"
As always, Sien took up a wooden sword and settled into her stance. She had not beaten Adel even once, not in all this time—but she could feel herself getting faster, little by little. Change, once you could see it, had a way of lifting the spirit. Thanks to that, she could throw herself into the work with more joy than usual.
"A moment, Lady Sien."
But Adel stepped in to stop her.
"What is it? Is my stance off?"
"No. Rather, I think we might try something different."
"Really?"
Until now the training had followed the same pattern, over and over. A change in that process could only mean she had improved. For Sien, that was welcome news.
"From now on, attack with a slash rather than a thrust."
"A slash? But I still can't even reach you with a thrust…"
"It is all right. Try it. One never knows."
There was no need to cling to a single thing simply because she had not yet reached it.
He had already gotten everything there was to get from the thrust.
Her stance, which had been slightly off in every particular, had become very good. He could have spoken at endless length starting from the way she stepped—but Adel had kept leading her to correct it herself. When her line was wrong, he tapped the tip of her sword toward the proper one. When her speed was lacking, he moved a little more slowly himself. So that next time she would thrust in that direction. So that next time she would move a little faster. The result was that this stage had given all it could. There would be no problem in moving on.
"Then… I'll be in your care again today, Adel."
Sword in hand, Sien moved with a lithe, sharp grace. After nothing but thrusts, the sudden turn to a slash felt a little unfamiliar—but the blood in her veins was the blood of Lichtenauer, a renowned swordsmanship family. Add to that a body that had grown faster without her even realizing it, and—
A low hum sang through the air as a sword path unfolded before her, so clean and fine that Sien herself was taken aback.
Crack!
"Ah!"
Adel's blade stopped it at once. But Sien had felt it clearly: she was different now. There was no experience more precious than the realization that one had grown more skilled.
"Adel! Again. Just one more time!"
She did not want to forget the sword path she had just drawn. A little more effort, and it would be far better than this. Holding that thought, Sien made to swing again.
There was only one problem. Her heart was racing with excitement, but her body was still realigning itself. She put force into the swing from that unsettled state, and of course the rhythm broke. Her balance went with it.
"Ah?!"
Adel snatched her out of the air before she could pitch forward. She was spared the fall—but in the process, Sien found herself gathered straight into his arms.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
"…I, um. That is…"
"Are you all right?"
"Y-yes. I'm all right, but…"
Look, the truth is, I don't think I'm all right at all.
The words had been on the verge of leaping out of her on reflex. Sien crushed them back with a superhuman effort of will.