Mom Protected Me
It had all been coincidence.
Cornered, Luna had groped for Mother's mask and put it on without knowing what her own hands were doing. Mother, her strength spent, had hit the ground with a heavy thud, slipped from the top of Lactea's list of threats to a lesser priority, and crawled until she reached Nahan. Of all things, it was a hand closing around the throat — the old trauma jolting awake — that brought her back to herself. And in the moment she barely managed to open her eyes, Mother's inner world brushed against reality, so that she could sense Mother even from far away.
Two people who, had the original story held, would never have met again — who ought to have lived out their years in regret and gone dark — had come face to face. It was nothing short of chance.
Of course.
By the contract between Black Wolf (Ex) and Aria (???), the world assists you.
The memories of Mother (S-) flow in.
There were times when someone intervened in the coincidences of the world.
"......Mom."
"...!"
Whatever the cause, the two of them stood before each other again, unlike anything the original had written.
And that was not all.
"It is shameless of me, asking nothing but favors — but please, teach her what an ordinary life is."
"Doing nothing dangerous. Making friends. Taking a lover. Bearing a child and raising it, and living happily with everyone.... Let her know that such things are an ordinary life."
Luna had been linked to Mother, had even rampaged through that link, and so from the moment she woke until now she had heard every word Mother spoke. Questions crashed over her like a great wave. She chewed them down, swallowed them whole, and looked at Nahan.
"Boss. I'm sorry, but just for a moment......"
Any other time she would have apologized over and over and tried to end her own life. This Luna did not look away.
Nahan found it strange. Knowing the whole truth would not erase the sins Mother had committed. A reason for the abuse, if there was one, could not cover how far past the line so much of it had gone.
"I— I'll take the punishment for what I did. Gladly. Please, just this once......"
Why did she want to speak at all, even with Black Wolf — the one she feared most — set aside behind her?
...Right. As if I'd know.
I really don't.
But it wasn't something he could stop.
"I'll wait."
Nahan drew quietly back.
Only then did a moment come that belonged to the two of them alone. Two people who had lived their whole lives in nothing but dark stood, at last, together beneath the moon.
"......"
"......"
Silence lay thick. Amid the dust drifting around them, Luna hesitated, then forced her mouth open.
"......What happened?"
She meant it. She could not make sense of what was in front of her.
"Mom was.... Mom was definitely......"
You died four years ago.
The attackers who hit the Ash-White Wasteland — you stopped breathing right in front of me.
She could not bring the words to her lips. While she faltered, Mother took one step back.
"I am not your mother. I am only a lingering thought that a woman named Mother left inside you because she did not want to die. A parasite, of a sort."
"...What?"
"You didn't know, but I prolonged my life by living off you. I gnawed at you, stored up power, and meant to take that body and rise again someday...... Unfortunately, I was found out just before I woke."
A dry voice. Without the slightest tremor, Mother backed toward the shadows and added one more thing.
"So go back."
Soft steps, one after another. She never stopped walking as she spoke, and at last she was about to vanish into the dark—
Luna closed the distance in a stride, reached out, and seized her wrist.
"You're lying."
"...Fool. That's why you could never run from that monstrous woman."
"No. I'm not an idiot anymore."
Luna looked straight into the ash-gray eyes beyond the mask, and went on, calm.
"Anyone else can think what they want. I know. That day, Mom protected me."
That day was still vivid.
Criminals dying where they stood. The thick reek of blood drifting in from outside. And at the last, attackers bursting in even upon the wandering troupe.
"They're kids."
"So?"
"...Tsk. Heartless bastard. You heard him, didn't you, children? He said to kill you, so we're killing you."
The children died one after another, until at last it was the turn of Luna, shut in the farthest room.
"Luna!!!"
Mother came flying down the passage, drenched in blood, her face gone white. In a single breath she cut down every attacker there, then caught Luna up and held her close.
"This way!!"
"Fuck — how many times did I say that bitch Mother is in here!!"
"Enough!! Swarm her and kill her!!"
But what Mother had been fighting was only a handful. Drawn by the noise, attackers poured like a flood toward the iron cages underground.
"Ah......"
At the sight of so many wicked powers crowding in, Luna nearly let go of her life without even knowing it.
"It's all right, Luna."
Whispering it, Mother pushed her back into the cage and turned to face them.
The fight went on for hours.
"Kill her!!"
"Even if you die, tear something off her on the way!!"
"Everything is for Him!!"
No matter how many she cut down, more came to fill the gap — and then, late, Auctioneer No. 1.
"Oh my. Meeting over something other than an auction — this would be the first time. And now I am told I must kill you. Not a situation I relish, Mother."
The ordinary attackers were already of no small rank, but his strength stood far above Mother's, and she had been one of the ten strongest. So the end was this.
"Any last words?"
"...Kh — run... run, Luna!!"
Mother lost.
"...My. How the heart races. Melodrama of this sort — I am rather fond of it."
The fight had ended, and his ease had returned. Auctioneer No. 1 made her an offer.
"For as long as you remain alive, I will not pursue that merchandise. If you scream, however, or if you faint, I will send pursuers each time."
Mother nodded.
Seeing it, he looked toward Luna and took hold of Mother's finger.
Crack.
"Begin."
The cage opened.
Luna did not leave.
No. She could not.
"M-Mom......"
Mother was there.
"Good girl, Luna."
"No, I......"
"Luna...!! Please, come to your senses and run!!"
"Aaaah......"
For all of Mother's desperate crying out, fear had locked Luna where she stood. Even if she had chosen to flee, she would still have been inside the Ash-White Wasteland — a grave of the living with nowhere to go, sunk under a fog thick enough to make anyone lose the way.
"Then I'd rather die with Mom...!!"
Something hardened in her. Luna burst from the cage and threw herself at Auctioneer No. 1.
The air hissed. A small fist, clumsily thrown.
"Oh dear. I do hate it when someone puts a hand on me."
She understood the instant she heard it. The moment that fist landed, Luna would die where she stood.
And so Mother—
"I'm going to be a strong mercenary, just like Mom!"
"......Mom?"
"If that's what you want, I can see that you become one."
Those precious memories rose in her, and with the strength of someone about to die, Mother shoved Auctioneer No. 1 back.
"Run, Luna!!"
"But—!!"
"Please!!"
Crack. A wet series of snaps.
Even in that brief span the pain was enough to break one arm to pieces, yet Mother turned a smile toward Luna and whispered.
"Good girl. My daughter."
Just as you take me for your mother, I take you for my daughter.
"Go on, Luna. Run."
Only then did something reach her. Luna clenched her small fist and nodded.
"I love you, Mom."
There was no answer.
A grinding crunch.
Auctioneer No. 1 had crushed the whole of Mother's lower jaw.
"Hah...... I will keep my promise."
"......"
...Click.
Mother put on her mask. If Luna escaped and someday came back to find the body, she did not want the girl to grieve over this day.
To speak of the result first: Mother succeeded.
"......How tenacious."
She was broken past any hope of recognizing her, but she had bought the time Luna needed to get clear of the troupe.
Of course—
"Bring her. I should like to show her the child once more before this one dies."
"Yes, Lord Proxy!!"
The pursuit set out late, and she was nearly taken before she had run far. But—
"Please, help me!! I'll give you anything!! If you want it, I'll even give you my life!!!"
"...?"
"Shall I kill her, Boss?"
"Leave her, Lactea. Let's hear her out."
Luna was faster at catching hold of a miracle.
After that, it was swift.
"Wipe them out."
"Yes, Boss."
At the silver woman's hand, every criminal there — the raiders among them — was erased, and the land with them.
When they went back underground at Luna's word, Auctioneer No. 1 had already fled. Only Mother's ruined body lay where it had fallen.
Luna wept for a long time. She thought of her only family, gone and leaving nothing behind but a gentle whisper — Good girl. My daughter. — and the words that had told her to live. And she made a vow.
"I......"
"...I'll become someone just like Mom."
After that, Luna became one of Black Wolf, and she drove herself on with Mother in her thoughts.
"Smile brightly. That's how you live."
"That's it. Try smiling a little more."
"Brighter — smile until your mouth splits."
"That's how you live."
So that someday she might become someone who could protect another, the way Mom had.
"Don't tremble. That's how you live."
"When it hurts too much, put on the mask and cry."
"Try, and try again."
"Until the day you can smile even with the mask on."
She set her own grief and pain behind her, so she could become someone able to protect the person she loved. And if she ever had anything to spare, she would use the power Mother had left at the edge of death, and the ability she herself had awakened, to take revenge on the attackers.
Only because of Mother. She had kept no one in her heart but Mother and the Boss, and she had missed them in every moment. So why, then — why was Mom—
"...Why are you trying to leave me behind again?"