Spirit Again (4)
A single sentence.
"Yes. She is here."
It had taken me an enormous amount of deliberation to spit those words out.
"Truly!? She truly was here...!"
Watching hope blossom across Mohaim's face as he absorbed my answer, I let out a long sigh inside.
I must be out of my mind.
These people were a military force. Worse, they were the ones the world knew as the anti-Pope faction — branded heretics by the Holy See.
Unless their purpose was entry into the Crossline Kingdom, I had no obligation whatsoever to lift a finger for them.
The border stands open to all, and yet closed to all at the same time.
An officer must be courteous to everyone while remaining colder than anyone.
And these pilgrims were exactly the people I should have turned away.
No — I shouldn't even have engaged with them at all.
Reasons were hardly in short supply.
They had already attempted to cross the border under false pretenses, the world knew them as traitors, and they were an armed company.
I should have dismissed them. Locked the gates tight and surrendered nothing — not a scrap of information.
And yet, in the end, I had spoken.
Why?
Though I have lived my whole life by the bloodstained blade, I cannot bear to see abandoned those who were cast out for no reason other than learning the truth!
Perhaps because, in Mohaim's eyes, I had seen my own self from years past.
Or perhaps...
You were the one who told me to find a way forward together. So I will make up my mind the same way.
Perhaps because, in Erzena's eyes yesterday, I had understood that the time had finally come.
I turned a conflicted gaze toward Mohaim.
The fanatic he once was no longer existed. Neither did the man who had once drawn his sword against me.
All that remained was a knight seeking to set down every burden and right his own mistakes.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
...Damn it all.
By revealing the whereabouts of a temporary asylum seeker, I had already abandoned my duty as good as confessed to it.
If the Minister learns of this, he'll try to have me killed.
No — it will climb all the way to Her Majesty the Queen before it ever reaches the Minister. As long as Her Highness the Princess resides here, my every move will be reported to her.
She's already sharpening her blade for the Holy Order. If she learns I disclosed a temporary asylum seeker's location...
Principle matters above all else. The border must admit no exceptions.
But the water is already spilled.
There was no asking them to forget it now.
Swallowing down the tangle of my feelings, I looked at Mohaim, who still knelt before me.
"That is all this officer can offer. If your purpose is not to cross the border, then this officer will take his leave."
That was my roundabout way of saying: this much courtesy is all you will receive.
"That is more than enough. Thank you, thank you! Central Officer!"
Leaving Mohaim behind, brimming over with gratitude, I was turning back toward the wall when my gaze caught on the civilians standing behind him.
People caked in dust and wounds, looking ready to collapse at any moment.
Ah, for the love of—
Why did they have to drag innocent civilians along?
"...We, ah, have stationed healers at an open ground nearby. If you wish, we can extend medical support — to unarmed personnel only."
They hadn't entered the country, so I shouldn't be helping them at all — but having come this far, I might as well go one step further.
Yet Mohaim shook his head.
"No. Your words alone have already given us more than enough."
"..."
"If you extend us any further kindness, it will spread into a far greater problem for you, Central Officer."
The knight commander refused in an exquisitely deferential tone.
Quick on the uptake, this one.
I answered with a curt nod.
"...Interpret it as you see fit."
Tena helped Mohaim to his feet, then murmured in a low voice.
"So what do we do now?"
The fundamental question.
Neither Mohaim nor I answered.
Instead, we lifted our eyes to the top of the wall.
To the place where Erzena stood.
The decision now rested with her.
To remain. Or to answer their call.
Nathan had broken principle.
"Good heavens...!"
At that almost unbelievable fact, Erzena, standing atop the wall, clapped both hands over her mouth.
Even the border guard commander beside her tilted his head in bewilderment.
[Border Guard Report: The Central Officer Nathan Kell's exceptional conduct is a matter of inquiry.]
Erzena barely mastered her shock and found her voice.
"Why?"
Why would he act that way, knowing full well that his words ran directly contrary to the values he had guarded so fiercely?
Nathan's face, as he turned away, was full of worry. And yet, at the same time, it wore an expression that seemed — somewhere deep down — to be searching her for an answer.
"Nathan..."
Erzena realized he had resolved himself to something.
Then...
Now it was truly her turn to step forward.
Nathan could step forward no longer.
As an immigration officer, once he had declared the pilgrims would not be admitted, he could neither do anything more for them nor permit himself to try.
If I don't act here, it will only make things harder for him.
The sin of breaking principle must be answered for, without fail.
Which meant he had told her the truth even at the risk of that reckoning.
To keep Nathan out of political and professional peril, she — the temporary asylum seeker herself — had to act.
But how?
What was she supposed to do?
She was nothing more than a refugee, after all.
Climb down and lead the healers out beyond the border, offering prayers to each of them one by one?
But a prayer for every single soul would take an eternity.
The healing would crawl along, and people would die in the meantime.
She didn't know.
That was when it happened.
"T-take me to the Dawn of Rest... that I stray not far from the brilliant light... and sleep within the shadow..."
Someone was singing, pain wracking their voice, forcing out every note.
It was anything but cheerful music. It was closer to a funeral dirge — the kind sung when a life reached its final edge.
But one by one, the people began to sing along.
"Send me to that dawn where neither the chill of midnight nor the heat of noon can reach..."
It struck Erzena like a hammer between the eyes, and her mouth fell open.
I had forgotten.
She had never been one who wielded divine power through prayer.
Prayer was a secondary act of faith. There had always been something surer — something only she could do.
Softly, quietly enough that only she could hear, she joined the song.
"That I may forget this pain... that sorrow and ache may pass away in the night... that I hold fast only to memories shining like starlight..."
And with the words, memories came flooding back.
Yes. That was it. That was the thing.
She remembered the one thing she could do.
— Tap.
She bolted down from the wall.
"L-lady Erzena!? Where are you going!"
Ignoring her attendant's urgent cry, Erzena ran for Nathan's house.
"Hah... hah...!"
She snatched up something that had been carefully enshrined in the corner of her room, and ran back to the wall all over again.
When she returned, the attendant could only stare in disbelief.
"Lady Erzena... don't tell me..."
What she held in her hands was a guitar.
The old guitar — the very one Nathan had given her as a gift.
She stood at the foot of the wall, holding it.
The moment I play this, there is no turning back.
Erzena's divine power burned more intensely than anyone else's.
It had grown stronger still since her days as the Saintess — grown to where even a dragon could be healed.
And to perform here and now was, in effect, announcing to the entire continent that she was in this place.
At the same time, it was an act that could only be read one way: that Erzena Selaphe had healed the anti-Pope faction — that she had resolved to stand against the Pope himself.
It would unquestionably set off an enormous change.
It meant the quiet days she had lived until now could never return.
Her eyes met Nathan's below.
Nathan...
He had clearly seen the guitar in her hands, yet he made no move to stop her.
He simply looked up at her in silence.
She met those calm, still, black eyes.
How happy would I be, if I could stay beside that man forever.
She wanted to cast aside all this responsibility and this power, become a proper citizen of the Crossline Kingdom, and simply be with him.
If only it were so, she could turn her back on worries like these — on all this sorrow.
"No."
Erzena shook her head hard.
She could not let her heart waver.
You knew this day would come.
That someday — someday — a day would come when she had to leave Nathan's side.
And that day had arrived.
If I betray those people and just stand here, I will never conquer this guilt.
This power was not some ability handed to her by luck.
It was strength she had reclaimed only by casting herself out of the Holy Order with her own hands and begging forgiveness.
And that was precisely why she had to show them that they, too, could become like her.
I am the only one... who can do this.
This was something only Erzena could do.
She had to become a symbol.
So that the Order might become a church unstained by the false Pope — one that truly accorded with God's will.
Holding down the ache spreading through her chest, Erzena murmured:
"To stay by Nathan's side... I have to leave."
So that someday she might stand before him with even greater pride, and without a single regret.
He already knew her heart.
And perhaps she knew his, too.
Then there was nothing left to cling to. Whatever remained, she had to let it go.
For each other's sake. So that we may be together all the more, in the days to come.
Slowly, Erzena gathered divine power into her fingertips and plucked the thinnest string of the guitar.
— SKREEEEING!!
A sound wave shrieked out, sharp enough to tear the sky open.
It was a note she knew intimately well.
It was the ritual Erzena had always performed before a show — checking the rhythm of a song before it began.
In those days of wild, ferocious abandon, it had also been the surefire way to seize every eye in the crowd at once.
And that method worked — precisely, perfectly.
"Wh...?"
"That sound... I know that sound."
"D-don't tell me..."
The pilgrims began murmuring among themselves, and slowly, one by one, raised their heads to look up at the wall.
Sky-blue hair streaming in the wind, and a golden radiance blazing bright despite the broad daylight, gazed down upon them.
"It's the Saintess."
"It is the Saintess."
"She really was here — she really was!"
"Saintess!"
The voices swelled louder and louder.
"L-lady Erzena..."
"She... she forgives us..."
Even Tena and Mohaim called her name, their faces a tangle of disbelief and overwhelming emotion.
Even the Five Senses Officers and the attendants inside the border looked up at Erzena with expressions impossible to name.
On both sides of the line drawn without mercy, every eye was lifted toward her.
Facing the bitter wind, Erzena felt the guitar's vibration in her hands.
This cool, heavy sensation.
Her fingers had already returned to the Erzena of those years, poised on the guitar's chords.
She drew in a breath to the very limit.
"SSSSSSHHHHH—"
Pulling the cold air deep, deep into her lungs.
So the whole world could hear.
So the people below — those who had staked their lives on a search for salvation — would know their choice had not been wrong.
And so it would ring out, unmistakably, to those inside the wall as well.
She poured every last drop of divine power she possessed into her throat and screamed:
"HELLO, EVERYONE!!!!! HAVE YOU ALL BEEN WELL!!!!!!"
An immense tide of golden radiance burst outward in every direction, enough to swallow the entire sky.
I have shown myself once more.
I will hide no longer.
And the effect was immediate.
— Vuuuuum.
Mohaim watched as divine power coiled itself around the stump of his severed arm.
And a moment later.
"...!!!"
His arm began to grow back.
At the same moment, the great wound on Tena's leg closed, and the dying drew breath once more.
"A-aaah...!!"
Voice thick with tears, people rose slowly from where they had fallen.
Erzena shouted:
"Is everyone ready to sing — for the Lord, no, for us!?!?!?"
Everyone answered. Steeped in old memories and new hope.
"YEEEEEEESSS!!!!"
A Saintess tempered by unshakable resolve, one who could shake the very soul, had appeared once more.