Detached Lights
Forgetting you and continuing as me... forgetting you and continuing as me... Was I trembling that much?
It was like watching a childhood video my parents had forced me to see—the more I looked, the hotter my face grew. This sensation was unfamiliar. I'd all but forgotten what it felt like to flush with heat. Even amid splattering blood, torn flesh, and echoing screams, my face had never once warmed. I simply carried out what needed doing and moved on to the next task. That was all.
But now, just recalling that one scene brought a bubbling sensation from deep inside. Shame. It took a moment to name the emotion.
...Is this really my past?
If so, it wasn't wrong to call this feeling an aftereffect. But that didn't explain everything. I raised my hand to touch my face again. The heat lingered. I could feel it clearly—the subtle warmth rising beneath my skin.
...Emotions.
"Me...?"
The words slipped out in a whisper. Espera tilted her head.
"Huh?"
"It's nothing."
Stay calm. What I needed now wasn't sentiment—it was analysis. Agitation helped no one. Hesitation dulled judgment. And for a very long time, I'd lived in a way that allowed no such delays. So I had to stay calm. This hot sensation cluttering my mind. The trembling hands from that memory. The helpless silence when I received the sword. All of it had to be pushed aside for now. That was right. It had always been right.
Yet strangely, this time the mantra didn't work as perfectly as before. Something still lingered where I'd swallowed my words—not a faint residue, but a solid mass with real weight, lodged somewhere in my chest, relentlessly shoving that scene back up.
I drew in a very slow breath. The air filling my lungs felt colder than before. The sensation persisted.
The me in that scene was incomplete. Too shaky to wield a sword properly. Too human to receive orders. The fact unsettled me. And the reasons weren't simple. Part of it was how alien that version of me felt. The other part was knowing it was unmistakably me.
I closed my eyes slowly, then opened them. My vision took a moment to focus. Espera still stood before me. Even after I'd said "it's nothing," her face held lingering doubt as she watched me.
Her eyes were unusual. Star-shaped pupils. I'd thought them unreal when I first saw them, but up close like this, their strangeness stood out even more. And yet, they weren't frightening. If anything, they were clear. Like a transparent lake with a single starlight sunk at its bottom.
I met her gaze briefly, then averted mine just a touch. Espera noticed, tilting her head slightly.
"Sister."
She called cautiously.
"What's wrong?"
"Did I do something unnecessary? If so, I'm sorry... The lights made people happy before..."
Her words trailed off unclearly. Her breath caught midway several times, growing quieter toward the end. Like someone who'd lost confidence mid-sentence, each word dropped to the floor with care. Even after finishing, Espera kept her head down. Her face had been so bold and smiling moments ago, but now her eyes were fixed on the ground. Her hands wouldn't stay still. She grasped the end of my sleeve, released it, grasped again, released—half-hearted motions, neither gripping firmly nor letting go entirely. Her tiny fingertips trembled ever so faintly.
I looked down at them.
Slowly, I raised my gaze. Espera's face came into view. Her lowered head hid her eyes, but her lips were slightly tense. She wasn't smiling like before. The expression felt unfamiliar. It should feel unfamiliar. That was normal.
Yet it struck me as oddly awkward. I drew in a very slow breath. The heavy sensation in my chest hadn't faded. The discomfort from seeing my past self moments ago. The trembling. The subtle heat. All of it remained unchanged.
And now, those sensations shifted slightly.
I stayed silent for a moment. The pause stretched. Unable to bear it, Espera bowed her head a fraction more. Then she added,
"...If people don't like it, I won't do it."
The words were almost a whisper. A self-deprecating tone. Speech that prioritized others first. Hearing it, I narrowed my eyes ever so slightly.
And I thought of my past self. On the Imperial Palace floor. Eyes downcast. Struggling to hide her state while pretending it wasn't an issue.
Now this child wore a similar expression. The realization made me catch my breath for a split second.
And then.
I opened my mouth.
"...Unnecessary? Hardly."
My voice was low. But different from before. A touch softer.
I took a step closer. The distance between Espera and me shrank. Her hand still clutched my sleeve. I glanced down at it, then gently placed my hand over hers. The contact was light enough to startle. Espera's shoulders twitched faintly. But she didn't pull away.
I said,
"It was necessary."
Espera lifted her head a little. Her eyes appeared. Not fully raised, but wavering. I looked straight into them. Without flinching. This time.
"Thanks to you, I could check my own condition."
"Really...?"
Espera beamed. Yes. It was true, after all.
"Then let's go find those lights! There must be tons left where you've been!"
"Pardon?"
"Bits of memories and emotions peeling off you little by little! You didn't do it because you wanted to, right?"
The words fell so brightly, lightly, and above all, without a shred of doubt—like stating an obvious fact. The shock that hit me wasn't sharp like a blade slicing flesh. It was the kind that froze every sensation at once, like being shoved without warning into icy water.
I couldn't respond immediately. Espera's sentence was too precise to dismiss as a child's simple fancy or careless metaphor. Too close to the essence. And it pinpointed the very alienation I'd been grappling with unnamed in my chest.
Finally, slowly but inescapably, a conclusion surfaced.
It wasn't something I'd chosen.
I drew in a very slow breath. The air was ordinary, just like before. Yet in that moment, it felt piercingly cold and sharp, scraping my throat and sinking into my chest. It clashed oddly with the lingering heat, leaving two distinct sensations uncomfortably divided within me.
The heat was definitely there. The faint shame and unease from seeing my past self. The alienation and rejection gazing at those trembling hands. The heavy residue when I had to admit it was me. It all still existed, undiminished.
I'd tried to chalk it up to a reaction from reminiscing or belatedly surfacing suppressed emotions... But the moment Espera casually said "memories and emotions that fell off," that explanation crumbled.
Fell off.
Memories fading in someone's life wear away from the edges over time. But the lack I felt wasn't erosion... It was like something whole had been sliced away from where it belonged, leaving an unnatural void. The kind of unpleasant emptiness where your fingertip traces healed skin and senses sharply that something should be here, but isn't.
The moment I realized it, a cold certainty slowly rose from deep inside.
Someone tampered with me.
The thought was so clear that, though newly formed, it felt like it'd always been there. Only the act of putting it into words felt belated.
I looked at Espera. Her golden hair still glowed softly in the sunlight. Beneath it, those star-shaped pupils were eerily clear and transparent—the eyes of someone oblivious to the weight of what she'd just tossed out so casually.
She didn't know. What she'd seen. What she'd touched. The conclusion she'd handed me. She'd simply said what she saw as she saw it. Lights scattered, so let's gather them—like picking up roadside petals. Nothing more.
When I said nothing, Espera blinked, wondering if she'd spoken wrongly again. But she didn't seem anxious, just waited patiently. That attitude oddly calmed me.
She'd spoken without fear or calculation, just voicing what she saw. So what I needed now wasn't doubting Espera, but pushing this information to its logical end.
I opened my mouth very slowly.
"...Miss Espera."
My voice was low, similar to usual, but it sounded different to my ears. A bit colder. Quieter. With a thin edge.
Espera tilted her head.
"Yes?"
Looking straight at her, I spoke very slowly, as if confirming each word.
"Those lights."
A brief silence.
"They were originally inside me, correct?"
Espera answered at once.
"Yes!"
No hesitation. No doubt. So immediate it made suspecting a lie pointless.
...Who benefits from this...?
I didn't need to think deeply. The answer was obvious.
"Starting tomorrow morning, let's embark on the journey to find those lights. If that's what you want, Miss Espera."
"Yay! That'll be fun!"
A quest to gather the lights would only ask why. Not who.
...Emperor.
The culprit was obvious.