15. Frankenstein's Successor (2)
There are two kinds of wheat: spring wheat and winter wheat. The latter thrives even in cold, dry environments, so it's typically sown in the fall and harvested in late spring or early summer.
But even winter wheat barely sprouts by December. No matter how early you plant the seeds, it won't grow as tall as a man in the dead of winter — especially not in the soil of Kiev, infamous for its bitter cold.
Yet such sights were not uncommon in the Empire's southern regions. A warm wind sweeping up from the South Sea would envelop certain areas each year, shielding them so winter could pass like spring. The locals called this meteorological phenomenon "Flora's Curtain."
The blessed region could cultivate crops even through the winter, but only for that single year. Astronomers would observe the movements and shape of the polar lights annually to predict where Flora's Curtain would descend next.
Scattered farming villages dotted the vast cultivated plain, with the landowner's residence standing at its heart — a typical manorial structure common in southern Kiev. Despite it being December, the fields here were blanketed in green wheat, marking this territory as this year's beneficiary of Flora's Curtain.
A grand mansion loomed at the center of the wheat fields. Though nominally a "mansion," this five-story building rivaled a palace or small castle in scale.
At the training yard in the middle of the estate, two figures darted back and forth, wooden swords in hand. The young man in white training garb was Charlie, a guest currently staying at the mansion. The woman with flowing crimson hair was Ratena Rasen — the lady of the house herself.
"I know you've only been back from your mission a few days, but what's with this sluggishness? You think you can get your revenge at this level?"
Her skin was deathly pale, stark against the jet-black dress she wore. It matched the black feathers on her back perfectly — the very image of the woman they called the Crow Witch.
"Watch your footwork! You're leaving openings everywhere!"
Ratena folded her wings and closed a dozen paces in a single beat, like a predator's lunge. She brought her wooden sword down, striking Charlie across his body.
"Kh—!"
Thwack, thwack, thwack. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he tried to retreat, but she read his next move effortlessly, sticking to him, driving him relentlessly back.
"Wounded on your mission, were you? And with that paltry skill, you mean to kill the Black Magician? The fools who died breaking you out must be rolling in their graves."
The vitriol spilled from blood-red lips. Most insults slid off him, but the moment she invoked his dead comrades, his eyes sharpened like flint.
"Haap!"
With a sharp kiai, Charlie thrust his wooden sword forward. It shot out almost as if thrown, splitting the air as the tip zeroed in between Ratena's brows.
A strike aimed squarely at a vital point. Even a wooden sword, if it landed clean and unguarded, carried enough force to do real damage.
Still, Charlie had no reason to worry for his opponent. She and he had crossed swords thousands of times. The instances where his blows had actually landed could be counted on one hand. She was leagues above him.
As expected, his attack was parried with insulting ease. A light knife-hand strike from her flicked his blade away.
Even as he admired her skill, a note of complaint crept into his voice. If this had been a real sword, could she have swatted it aside with her bare hand like that?
"This was supposed to be swordsmanship training."
"I'll just say your form wasn't worth wielding a real blade against! Your attacks are too easy to read! The power buildup is completely visible! Disrupting that flow with a knife-hand is child's play."
He couldn't argue. Despite over a decade of ninja training, he was still clumsy at masking his offensive intent. By any standard, it was a strange deficiency. Charlie recalled the butler's advice concerning it.
'It is your thirst for vengeance, young master. Your heart is consumed with hatred for the Black Magician and the betrayer. That fills your strikes with killing intent. Focus on your training with Lady Rasen. Use it to overcome this weakness. Focus on your training with Lady Rasen. Focus on your training with Lady Rasen. Focus on your training with Lady Rasen.'
The image of the middle-aged man with the eyepatch flickered across his mind. Whenever he recalled the butler's voice, his gaze, and the ticking of the worn pocket watch he always carried, Charlie's heart would settle, the turbulence fading. His purpose would crystallize again.
Focus on the training.
Focus on the training.
Attacks are read too easily.
Movements are too obvious.
Focus on the training.
Charlie's breathing steadied. The hostile atmosphere around him stilled for an instant. He angled his wooden sword and deflected Ratena's thrust aimed at his throat. Then, with the same motion as before, he extended his blade.
Clack. Wood met wood. This time, Ratena failed to swat his attack away with her hand — he had launched it on a rhythm she couldn't predict.
'Look at this brat.'
Omitting preparatory motions to maximize the surprise of the next strike — that was an acrobat's trademark. Such techniques had a natural affinity with the assassin's trade. It was the reason Charlie could pass as a ninja within a mere two months.
But an acrobat and an assassin handled the finish of their movements in opposite ways. An acrobat aimed to make the audience notice the unexpectedness of his action, drawing gasps of admiration.
An assassin, by contrast, aimed to keep the target from noticing that unexpectedness at all. They tried to conceal even the finishing motions of the techniques they used.
Charlie had trained as an acrobat for a decade. No matter how hard he tried to play the assassin, he couldn't help adding a flourish to his finishes without realizing it.
His sparring with Ratena was meant to overcome that habit. And after a month of training to that end, the effort was finally bearing fruit. The attack he'd just made against her was proof.
'A genius really is a genius.'
Ratena pressed the training a while longer. Charlie moved differently now, meticulously concealing his preparatory motions and presence. Movement, evasion, attack, defense — none of his techniques showed any trace of the acrobat anymore.
"Now you're worth indulging a little. Shall we call it a day?"
Ratena's wooden sword knocked Charlie's sword skyward. With a sharp clack, the blade flew from his hand, tracing a wide arc before clattering far away. It wasn't a flaw in his technique. He had simply run out of strength and stamina.
"Hah... hah... th-thank you..."
Charlie crumpled to the ground. Both his body and mind had hit their limit. Yet a smile filled his face. He had finally overcome himself.
The butler, who had been watching their bout, hurried over to assess his condition. Charlie's body was a mess of purpling bruises and lacerations, so severe it was hard to believe they'd come from a wooden blade.
"How dare someone do this to the young master..."
"Oh my. It's just training. That sort of thing can't be helped, can it?"
At her brazen smile, the butler's teeth audibly ground together.
"I cannot forgive you. Whatever your aim in stoking the young master's motivation, you made a mockery of our lord and the ninjas' deaths!"
"It certainly made the training effective, didn't it?"
"Why, you—!"
"That's enough."
Charlie stepped between them.
"Duchess Rasen did all of it for my sake."
The butler's expression twisted with indignation.
"Not for your sake, young master — to raise a useful weapon! Hasn't she already worked you to the bone several times under the pretext of 'missions'?"
"That's... a transaction, of a sort."
Charlie deflected with an uncertain mumble. The butler glared at him for a moment, chewing over something, then announced he'd summon Lady Viola now that training was over and disappeared into the mansion.
Charlie's expression was bitter as he watched him go. He turned and lowered his head to Ratena.
"I apologize. Roksen has been like a father to Lady Viola and me since we were small. He spoke harshly out of concern for me."
The chief of the ninja village had been sworn brothers with the lord whose lands the village occupied. Viola, the lord's granddaughter, and Charlie, the village chief's grandson, had grown close running through the fields together since childhood. Roksen, then one of the younger servants of the lord, had called Viola "my lady" and Charlie "young master," chasing after them both and caring for them from early on.
Of course, Ratena, who knew Roksen's true identity, struggled to suppress a wry laugh at the apology. The butler's real identity was a high-ranking operative of Comprachicos. He had inserted himself into Charlie's childhood to strengthen his psychological conditioning.
A hypnotic suggestion wasn't simply a matter of pushing from behind. It was critical that the subject convince themselves. Roksen's aggressive, blind loyalty was designed to force Charlie to defend Ratena against it, and that act of defense became a cage of his own making. In that way, she could use him like a well-trained hunting dog.
Ratena swallowed the smirk threatening to surface and approached him, picking up the bandage Roksen had abandoned mid-wrap to finish dressing his arm.
"You don't have to defend me so much. I'm a villain. The kind who buys and sells children. I'm used to being hated."
Charlie shook his head at her self-disparaging remark.
"Don't deceive yourself, Duchess Rasen. You aren't selling children into slavery. I know they all go as adopted children to good homes."
"How do you know that?"
"I had the butler look into you... from the first day I arrived at this mansion."
"So you didn't trust me after all."
"D-Duchess Rasen..."
"Ah, it's fine. I told you, I'm used to being hated. Betrayed by comrades you trusted, it'd be hard for you to accept my goodwill so easily."
Ratena smiled, stroking Charlie's head like he was a younger brother. He flushed red.
He couldn't easily define the feelings he harbored toward her. It might be gratitude to a benefactor who'd saved them. It might be admiration for someone so impossibly far above him.
She scolded him like a stern master, and at other times, she encouraged him with the warmth of an older sister. He enjoyed that dynamic, yet a single note of dissatisfaction lingered.
From a deep corner of his heart, a desire to be something more than a student or a younger brother to her surged unbidden. He found his gaze drifting hazily to her shoulders and full chest. Ratena offered a faint, knowing smile at his glance, as if she might or might not have noticed.
"Then, until later."
"Ah..."
She spread her wings. In an instant, she shot up to the mansion's rooftop and vanished beyond the building. Long after she was gone, Charlie couldn't tear his eyes from the direction where she'd disappeared.
Ratena Rasen. Had he fallen for her — as a man?
He shook his head violently.
How pathetic. When he should have been devoting himself entirely to revenge...
He rose and tidied the training yard. Before long, his liege came out to greet him.
"Charlie!"
"My lady."
"Oh, I told you to call me by name when it's just us."
"You did... Viola..."
Charlie returned her embrace a bit more actively than usual — perhaps out of guilt over the fleeting, strange feelings he'd harbored for Ratena.
"I love you, Viola."
Charlie held his lover close. His liege and his childhood friend; his junior fellow student and his rival; his first love and his fiancée.
How could one person be bound to another by so many ties? The threads entangled them so deeply that even he doubted it sometimes. She was his entire life.
"I love you, Charlie."
Their lips met. A tight, aching warmth spread through Charlie's chest.
Love. Was this love?
Yet, unsettlingly, at that moment the face that rose in his mind wasn't Viola's. Nor was it even Ratena's. It was the image of the betrayer who had sold out his village.