#27.5 Siblings
#27.5 Siblings
* This chapter is a story of Anella and Agail's past.
If you are not fond of side character stories, feel free to skip this.
* A regular-length chapter will still be uploaded at 18:00 today.
A shadow fell across the ground at her feet. Anella looked up, dazed, and found a man standing there, holding an umbrella over her.
"Are you feeling any better now?"
At his question, Anella nodded.
"I'm fine. I knew it would come to this eventually."
'Fine, she says...'
Cigarette smoke drifted slowly outward.
"Thank you."
"For what, exactly?"
"Everything."
Anella exhaled.
"There was never any real reason for you to trust me, was there?"
"It was a transaction. Nothing more."
At that, Anella let out a bitter smile.
"It was. Don't worry. I will keep my promise."
"......."
"What's wrong~? Don't trust me?"
He shook his head, then asked carefully.
"...Do you intend to return to the Square?"
"I suppose I must. I don't expect to succeed Mother at this point. But it is still where I belong, isn't it?"
Anella was unquestionably an exceptional mage even within the Square. But if someone asked whether she could contend for the Master's seat.
'I doubt it.'
Truthfully, she had to tilt her head. That thought had only grown stronger after seeing Agail. Agail's sins were not something that could ever be forgiven. And yet, the Phantom Butterfly had not killed him... perhaps precisely because of that talent of his.
An older sister who, for three years, had been unable to fill her younger brother's place. That inferiority. What on earth had she been thinking?
'.......'
Silence stretched on for a long moment. Clutching the urn to her chest, Anella murmured.
"If I had found courage in that moment... would things have turned out differently?"
"Courage?"
"The day Agail killed a person for the first time..."
Anella carefully reached back into the past.
She still regretted it.
Her own impatience. Her own foolishness. Ever since that day five years ago. Until now. And perhaps for the rest of her life.
'Agail.'
Her younger brother had always been brilliant.
At first, that brought her nothing but joy. But before she knew it, their mother's attention had dwindled. So too had the expectations of everyone around her. Even so, she did not dislike Agail. Yes. Until he surpassed her.
'.......'
The first time Agail defeated her, she had congratulated him with a joyful heart.
At a family gathering, she gave him a parrot as a gift. Her brother was delighted, and she smiled.
At that gathering, at least.
After that day, it grew harder and harder to look at her brother's face. One day, then two... the number of days she lost to Agail steadily increased.
When she finally realized she could no longer beat him, the sheer, insurmountable wall called talent crushed her, and she shut herself inside her room.
She did not even see Agail's face when he came all the way to visit. After holing herself up like that for days, when hunger finally drove her out, her existence had long since been forgotten.
In the end, their mother proclaimed Agail the successor, and Anella fell into despair.
There was no one left who expected anything of her. Her meager talent had shackled her ankles. The wall of talent that no amount of effort could overcome left her exhausted.
Thus, the inferiority only grew.
Every time she saw Agail, her own inadequacy was laid bare. She despised that feeling, so she deliberately ignored him.
'And so.'
Slowly, everything began to go wrong.
Excessive expectation breaks a person. The indifference of a loved one eats away at a person's soul.
Agail began to change.
Where there had been smiles, now there were sneers. Where there had been laughter, now there was scorn.
Their mother remained indifferent, and Anella flailed desperately, trying to catch up to Agail.
She, carrying her inferiority. He, nursing his wounds. Time rushed onward.
She happened to witness her brother killing a person.
When she asked why he had done it, he only shook his head wordlessly. She still did not truly know the reason. But looking back now, she could not say she had no inkling.
The clothing of the dead man had been far too suspicious.
Startled, she closed the door and hid.
She did not know how much time passed. From outside the door, she heard Agail sobbing. And yet she could not bring herself to go out. Because beyond the door handle, the brother she glimpsed was smiling.
'Anella.'
Crying as though broken, he called her name endlessly. The terror of it was too much.
She pulled the blankets over herself and trembled until his sobs finally faded and he was gone. The shadow visible through the gap beneath the door had seemed terribly large.
Perhaps, even then, her brother had already been devoured by a demon.
The incident was quietly buried.
After that day, Agail began to display a fanatical obsession with living things. As though he could not tolerate the very fact that they were alive.
That was when it started.
'Madness.'
When madness first became visible in her brother's eyes. She dismissed it as nothing serious. No—she did not even notice it.
Their mother's whip. The expectations placed upon him. Agail met all of them.
No one compared her to him anymore. The gap had widened to the point where comparison itself was meaningless.
The things she had bled and struggled for, her brother accomplished without the slightest effort. Bitterness festered deeper inside her.
Then one day, after failing for the first time to live up to their mother's expectations, Agail killed the parrot he had been raising.
The parrot she had gifted him.
She asked nothing, and he said nothing.
Later, Agail stuffed the dead parrot and put it on display.
And so more time passed.
By the time the parrot's colors had faded—yes, five years ago—Agail killed someone who belonged to the Square.
No matter who he was, punishment could not be avoided.
Agail kept his head bowed, but the eyes she briefly glimpsed were trembling madly.
It was ecstasy.
Her brother had become a lunatic who took pleasure in murder. And then, as if making a final wish, he called out their mother's name and hers.
"Mother. And Anella."
It was chilling.
Under the delusion that Agail might kill her too, she could not stop trembling. But looking back, it had likely been a plea.
A plea to please, please stop him.
If, in that moment, I had cast aside my inferiority, cast aside my impatience, and spoken to him. If I had only summoned a little courage, perhaps we would have turned out differently.
But I was smiling.
That brilliant brother of mine was being punished. My heart swelled with the hope that he might even be stripped of his position as the Square's heir.
...Naturally, no such thing happened.
The incident was quietly buried once again.
By that point, she and Agail had reached a place where they no longer even looked at each other's faces.
More time passed, and her brother's deeper sins came to light.
She only learned of it afterward, but Agail had been turning other people's magical power into his own—or so they said. Through incredibly brutal methods. In the end, Agail was banished.
That came as a surprise. She had thought their mother would kill him. Was it mercy? Or reluctance?
When a little more time had passed, their mother spoke to her.
'Go and bring Agail back.'
Those were cruel words.
Her mother was telling her to chase her brother's shadow.
Ah. In the end, I was not even worthy of being my brother's shadow.
'Mother.'
She collapsed on the spot, as if crumbling.
She could not see her mother's expression, but she did not want to bring Agail back, nor could she have.
What had her mother been thinking? In the end, would her heart only be satisfied if I died?
...She did not know.
Three years passed like that. She received support from the Square but was passive in her efforts. She shrank from the very prospect of fighting Agail. She knew it, too. Unless her mother came in person, no one could capture Agail.
Time flowed on emptily, with only vague rumors of her brother reaching her ears. Around that time, she was giving up. She thought to herself—let us just keep living like this.
'Gu Jin-ha.'
Then she heard talk of this man.
Dawn's Team Leader 3. A swordsman of exceptional caliber... perhaps this man could stop Agail? And when she met him, the longing in her chest, which she had thought long cold, blazed to life once more.
Three years. They had already become three years that meant nothing.
But the moment hope of returning arose, those three years became a source of lament. Yes. This man was my hope.
Seizing the opening when Agail was away, she and Gu Jin-ha destroyed the blind spot her brother had created. They ended up fighting Agail when he returned too late.
I thought we could win.
I thought that, once those three years of strife were over, we could capture my brother.
It was a delusion.
Her brother had become a monster.
In the end, she and Gu Jin-ha were trapped inside an illusion.
What she saw within that illusion was the two of them in childhood.
Time passed gradually.
Inside the illusion, we were different.
We were joyful. We were happy.
We had not fallen into such ruin.
If only I had found a little more courage.
'.......'
That was how she realized it was an illusion.
The dissonance was so overwhelming that, even knowing it was a lie, she did not wish to wake.
Mother. And me. And my brother.
Inside the illusion, we were happy. It was so unbearably wretched that I woke from an illusion I never wanted to leave.
That was why.
When she returned to reality, she could only stare endlessly at Agail's dead body. Perhaps this was what he had wanted to show her, after all. That we could have been like this. That, in the end, what he had truly wanted was simply—
She let out a hollow, self-mocking laugh.
'It's far too late.'
It had already become something that could not be undone.
Her brother's sins could not be washed away. Could not be covered up. He had to pay the price for them, as was only right... and so he met his death at the fangs of a certain Wolf.
'.......'
A tight ache swelled in her chest. As raindrops fell upon the still puddle, she finally surfaced from the long tide of rumination.
"...It's nothing."
She seemed as though she might speak further, but soon only shook her head. At that, the man said nothing. Instead, he removed his coat and draped it around her shoulders.
"Are you all right?"
"Even if I say I'm fine, so what. Can't you see I'm perfectly—?"
In the end, as something slid down from the corners of her eyes, the woman who had stood motionless for so long parted her lips, as if all strength had left her.
"You really are dense."
At the sudden remark, he tilted his head.
"The umbrella... put it away."
She clutched the urn to her chest.
That day, the rain fell without pause until night came.