Paternal Love
Several days had passed since the storm.
Perhaps it was because of everything that had happened. Or perhaps the weight on my chest had lightened, just a little. I still felt afraid — but I was trying, at least, to grow accustomed to the terror of facing other people.
"The road to the capital really is crowded, huh..."
I was on my way to a famous dessert shop in the royal capital to buy something for my master. And then I saw a figure I knew all too well — black bobbed hair swaying at the nape of her neck, crimson eyes that shone clearly even from a distance, and a height that seemed a little taller than before yet still hadn't quite shed its childishness.
Strangely, I didn't react the way I had when I'd seen the knight. Had I overcome some of the trauma? Or had I simply grown too exhausted to feel the stimulus anymore? Either way, it was nothing to celebrate.
I prayed she hadn't noticed me and tried to slip away at once.
"Aa...ron?"
"W-wait... please stop. Aaron..."
The child chasing after me, her black cloak dragging through the dirt without a care, still speaking in that strange manner of hers — there was no mistaking it. It was Lisa.
"Please wait. Request... please!!..."
I ignored her and kept running.
Perhaps out of desperation, Lisa began to chant.
"Impedimenta!"
My legs suddenly slowed, and the momentum sent me sprawling. Magic other than household spells was forbidden within city limits...
What the hell is that bitch doing?
"Ah... Aaron... mistake!... Okay?... Confirm... request... I will heal..."
Still face-down on the ground, I muttered as if I hadn't heard a thing.
"You've got the wrong person. I'm fine, so please go away."
...
Drip.
Drip.
"What? Why is there water..."
I looked up. A young girl stood over me, tears falling one after another.
"Haa... and what is it this time? Did the knight put you up to it?"
"Ne...gative."
"Then what?"
"..."
"..."
"Lisa is... because she misses you... Response."
"What?"
"I miss... my family... I want to... restore... our party... Response..."
My head throbbed. Of course I had no intention of going back to that wretched party. And I certainly had no desire to play house with them again now.
You were all so united when you stabbed me in the back. Why the hell are you crawling back now...?
"Lisa is... because she misses you... Response."
"What?"
"I miss... my family... I want our party... to go back... Response..."
My skull pounded. I couldn't understand it. I simply could not understand.
"Lisa... has regretted it... every day... every single day... Not one day... since that day... without regret..."
Lisa clenched her fists as if trying to hold back the sobs. Even so, the tears welling in her eyes spilled over, and she hung her head as if to hide them.
"I want... Aaron to praise me again... I want to ask for forgiveness... I miss... eating meals... all together..."
"What?"
It was absurd. These were the same women who had latched onto some nobody who'd crawled out of nowhere and then stabbed me in the back. My blood boiled in reverse.
I'd been fine a moment ago — yet I was more agitated now than when I'd faced the knight.
Family... family...
That word I had once believed in so completely. Even after the betrayal, even after the wounds — I could not forgive her for putting that filthy word in her mouth.
"You destroyed that family with your own hands... no, with your hands! You personally smashed it apart!"
"...Aaron..."
Lisa flinched, startled.
"Family... you! ... Did I ever tell you I was your family? If you'd truly believed we were family... you never should have betrayed me in the first place."
...
You should have trusted me a little more.
...
You should have at least tried to listen to what I was saying.
...
I couldn't understand it. They were the ones who had discarded the bond. They were the ones who had wounded it and severed it. Did they really think they could just pick up the pieces now? Why were they trying to take it back after all this time?
"What the hell is your reason?"
"That's... Yuki... is family..."
"Bullshit... bullshit... bullshit!!! Fucking family!!! That goddamn word!! Everything you say about family is just an excuse! The knight too!! And you, Lisa!!!! You were the ones who drove me out! So why the hell are you clinging to me like this now? Did that bastard Yuki die or something? What, did you get lonely? Did all your little playmates scatter so you can't play house anymore?"
"Ne...gative!! It's not like that, Aaron!..."
"And so what? I'm not a hero anymore. There's nothing left for you bitches to leech off of. A hero's sense of justice, his pride, his kindness —"
No. I'd thrown all of that away for your pathetic little family game. Thanks to you, I learned it was all meaningless. There's only one thing I learned from you people!
"That humans are disgusting and vile. That they'll scheme behind the back of the very person who saved them! Betray them! Thanks to you, I came to know humanity's ugliness — and to despise it. For that much, at least, I'm sincerely grateful."
I thought of the old me, the one whose head had been full of nothing but peace and comradeship, and a hollow laugh slipped out.
"So please... I'm begging you. Take the hint already and get the hell out of my life."
"I can... apologize as many times as it takes. Aaron... Lisa must atone. But even so... Lisa... Lisa must... return to Aaron's side."
"Haa... I'm sick of this. What exactly do you want from me?"
"To atone to Aaron... To go back... like before... like family... Negative — I must return as family."
Tears fell steadily as she spoke.
"I was terrified Aaron would leave me. Terrified Aaron would abandon me! Aaron kept going somewhere... farther and farther away! He kept disappearing from my side!! I was scared...!!! Scared that I might lose my family all over again...!!!!"
"I wanted you to grow up wanting for nothing. Safe lodgings. Good food. And an education. You especially loved books, Lisa — and you learned so quickly you were already reading advanced grimoires. After finishing one, you'd pester me to bring you the next."
"A book is something an ordinary village farmer couldn't afford even if he saved every coin of his income for three months. A grimoire needs no explanation. The knight used to say I shouldn't indulge every one of your whims..."
"But I didn't want to put those kinds of limits on a child. I wanted you to keep loving the things you loved. So I did everything I could. Even if I was a washed-up hero, I figured if I worked hard enough, I could manage it. No matter how close it brought me to death — watching you grow by leaps and bounds, seeing that proud little look on your face — I told myself it didn't matter."
"Lisa... Lisa..."
"I even made sure we spent weekends together... Haha. Looking back now, it was all meaningless. All that time and effort I poured into someone like you."
"Ah... Aaron, I didn't understand. I'm sorry. But now I... I know everything! Lisa knows! But even so...!"
"Then Yuki... came. At first I... and the knight... we were wary of him. Black hair... black eyes... He kept overlapping with my father. So I grew close to him quickly. Sometimes he indulged my whims, and that felt nice... But he couldn't compare to Aaron!!! That night...! Everyone was bewitched by Yuki, clinging to his idiotic words as if they were absolute truth. Everyone was thinking only of hurting Aaron! The Saintess just stood there for some reason and did nothing! So I tried to persuade the knight at least! That Aaron would never do such a thing. Why would you trust Yuki over Aaron?! But... Yuki said he had something to tell me! That if I heard it, I'd understand too! Back then!! I never should have listened!! I should have ignored him!!!"
Lisa wiped at the endless stream of tears and snot as she spoke.
"Yuki said!... Doesn't it seem strange? That there's no way to stop mana combustion!! That covering mana combustion with more mana is impossible!! That he knew the truth.... You're skilled in magic — you know better than anyone that it defies common sense, don't you..."
A snort of laughter burst out of me. I couldn't help it. What kind of comedy was this?
"Aaron...?"
That incident had been covered up by the kingdom. Under normal circumstances it would have been thoroughly investigated as a supernatural anomaly. Despite our party's furious protests, the kingdom's investigators buried the case — blaming a faulty mana conduit installed in the village.
"Finally, the answer! This is so funny my stomach hurts — pff... pfft... huhuhahaha!"
Lisa watched me with a bewildered expression, clearly not understanding the situation. That look of hers was remarkably stupid.
"I kept searching! Kept looking! For the cause of the catastrophe that destroyed your village, Lisa. For whoever was responsible! I even used personal connections! Even when the kingdom refused to catch the culprit and rushed to bury the case! I kept searching. What I found was a runaway mana conduit — the kind that supplies power to mana-engineering devices — and the widespread mana combustion it caused!"
"You're smart, Lisa. You already know — a simple accidental overload couldn't trigger mana combustion in a human being."
"Affir...mative... It would require... an overwhelming injection of mana..."
"Exactly. So I searched for people capable of such a thing. Even sages who had reached the pinnacle of the magical arts couldn't do it. A human's total mana capacity is fixed, after all... But an anomaly. Heroes with strange hair and eyes, rare in this world — the kingdom's direct-commissioned heroes. They could do it."
That had been my theory.
"I never once explained to anyone how I stopped your mana combustion. That method was the exclusive research of my master, Luna. And the surgery itself was performed in a sealed room — neither the knight nor the Saintess knew."
Lisa's pupils trembled. At the same time she sank to the ground and began to shake.
"Ah... ah... ah..."
A masterpiece.
"You betrayed the man who saved you and raised you like a daughter. And the man you latched onto afterward was the one who burned your village and your parents to ash."
"Ah... ah... What has Lisa... what has Lisa done... Aaron... what on earth have I... Disgusting! Disgusting! Disgusting! I'm disgusting! Disgusting! I can't stand it! Tell me what to do, Aaron!! I feel like I'm going insane!"
"No one told you to do any of that, Lisa. You chose all of it yourself. You were the one who doubted. You were the one who did it. Even if you were deceived — the fact that you stabbed me in the back without giving me a single chance, me, the person you claimed was family... To me, Lisa, you and the knight are exactly the same."
"Lisa... Lisa... it hurts!!... Family... I just... I just want it like before!! I want to go back to how it was... I don't want to hurt anymore! I don't want to hurt anymore! I don't want to hurt anymore! I don't understand anything!! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I don't know how to go back! I'm stupid, I don't know...! Please... tell me like you used to. Aaron..."
Lisa sobbed. I answered her calmly.
"You don't have a family anywhere anymore, Lisa. Your first family was killed by Yuki. Your second family — you destroyed it yourself, 'together with Yuki.' I'm not your family anymore, and I feel nothing for you. We won't be seeing each other again. So go on living just like this — lonely, forever. Goodbye, Lisa."
"Ah... ah... aah..."
Lisa's deep crimson eyes grew steadily darker... then dull, as if her mind had simply let go.
"Ah... ah.... ah..."
...
Why was it? There was nothing left to do here — and yet I couldn't make myself walk away.
I knew. I hadn't done anything wrong. All of it was what she deserved.
I turned back to face Lisa, who sat there weeping with vacant eyes. And I met her gaze.
Up close, her hair looked noticeably dry and brittle. Her eyes were far too haggard for a child's.
...
She deserved it.
I knew that...
I looked into my daughter's eyes.
The discarded doll. The doll I had once given her. I took the small stuffed toy from my pocket and pressed it into her hands.
"Ah... ah... aah..."
"Even if only out of personal grudge, I'll make sure Yuki pays for what he's done."
"And..."
"...someday you'll find a new family too. When that time comes — trust them better. And don't betray them."
We would never meet again anyway.
This wasn't for her sake.
It was for mine.
To set down the burden in my heart. To scrape away even the last scrap of guilt that had lingered there. Because from now on, she and I would be complete strangers.
So this was the last time.
One final kindness for the child I had once thought of as a daughter.
For Lisa.
Didn't you once say that even if you want to die, you can keep living as long as you have hope?
If only he had remained cold to the very end — she would have gone on begging for forgiveness forever. She never would have let go of the hope that someday, somehow, they could be a family again.
She burned the sight of Aaron's retreating back into her eyes until the last possible moment. Then she laid a hand over her own chest and whispered a quiet incantation.
The doll he had given her. That final kindness was the proof that she could never return to being family.
When they found her, Lisa was still clutching the doll — the one given to her by the man she had loved most, the man she had betrayed, the man who had once been her father.