The Meeting (5)
"Then what's this report supposed to be?"
Professor Selma's report from the infirmary clearly documented injuries caused by an unidentified magic — one that wasn't taught anywhere at Elysion.
"..."
Confronted with Kallen's pointed question, Jiya fell silent, cornered.
If things stayed as they were, the wounded swordsmanship student's account would only gain weight — but Kallen had no desire to blow the incident up any bigger than it already was, either.
Besides, everyone's nerves were already stretched taut after the recent attack in Alheim.
If word of this reached the Church of Aten, there was no telling whether they might rise up all over again, desperate to redeem their blunder at the trial.
"It hasn't even been that long since the last mess, and here we go again... Haah..."
Kallen grumbled his complaint, then sighed and muttered quietly.
"...First things first. I need to hear what actually happened."
***
"You again, Pas?"
The Elysion infirmary.
Kallen looked down at the student lying in the hospital bed, his face twisted with disgust.
"You've got some nerve. A swordsmanship student — and you're out there stealing other people's things?"
The victim was Pas, the student who never missed a chance to lord himself over his classmates.
Only after the trial had ended did Kallen learn that Pas had also been the one hounding Garnet most relentlessly, back before the truth about Nigel came to light.
One look at him groaning, wrapped head to toe in bandages, and Kallen felt precious little sympathy.
"Have you no shame, hm?"
"Professor, please...!"
But there was no remorse on Pas's face — only an overwhelming sense of injustice.
"You're supposed to be on my side...! How could the Magic Department—"
"Shut it. If you weren't laid up in the infirmary, you and I would already be settling this in a one-on-one duel."
"Urk..."
Having delivered his rebuke, Kallen watched the boy gulp nervously and pressed on, displeased.
"What did you steal?"
"...A jewel."
Pas opened his mouth carefully, watching Kallen's expression.
"A red one, about the size of a palm... carved with the head of a roaring lion..."
"...Hm? A jewel?"
And for a moment, Kallen tilted his head.
Some strange flicker of déjà vu had crept into Pas's description, and he couldn't place why.
"I-it's not like an orphan could ever own a gem that rare in the first place!"
Reading Kallen's frown as anger, Pas hurriedly added his excuses.
"If anything, she must have stolen it from somewhere! I was only trying to return it to its rightful owner... Ugh!"
"I told you to shut up."
"Agh...!"
Kallen slammed his palm down on the babbling boy's head as if he weren't worth another word of listening.
Watching the pathetic student moan in pain, he sighed and spoke again.
"...Fine. Then how did you get those wounds?"
"Hk—"
In an instant, Pas's whole body curled inward like an enormous caterpillar.
Fear still bled plainly from his eyes as he clutched his head.
"I-it was the most horrifying magic I've ever seen in my life."
Pas stammered, his voice trembling, his eyes glazed and vacant.
"There was nothing there — empty air — and then suddenly I heard sounds, and then my skin just... tore open all over my body, blood bursting out of—"
"Hey. Hey, you."
"It was like being devoured by invisible monsters...! And through all of it, that girl just stood there without moving a muscle, looking down at me... Hrrk—!"
Alarmed, Kallen reached out, but Pas only kept muttering convulsively, rambling on as if in a fit.
Then, all at once, he sucked in a huge breath, seized Kallen by the arms, and pleaded.
"S-she's a heretic, I'm telling you...! She sold her soul to a demon — she has to have! How else could anyone wield magic that vicious...? You have to punish her! You have to...!"
Earthquake-trembling, Pas's eyes brimmed with nothing but fear carved deep into his bones.
"Hoo..."
Kallen frowned down at him, utterly baffled.
"What in the world is going on here..."
***
Having finished the interrogation, Kallen made his way back to his office.
"...He's lying about something."
Professor Jiya, met once more, was furrowing her brow even harder than before.
"He insists the boy is entirely at fault, and to every other question he just clams up completely..."
"...She's the same."
Kallen scratched the back of his head, looking pained.
"She was shaking like a leaf, half out of her mind, begging me to punish him. It doesn't feel like an act... but what on earth did she see?"
Going by the circumstances, the girl called Silvie was closer to the victim in all this.
But there was no denying that something didn't add up.
If the full story never came to light, it was entirely possible that Pas's accusation of heresy would be pinned on Silvie, exactly as he wanted.
"...Could I take a look at the girl's student records, by any chance?"
"...Here."
Jiya, who had been pressing a hand to her forehead at his careful phrasing, handed over a bundle of documents with her free hand.
Kallen read straight through them — and his face abruptly hardened.
"Loss of sight. Loss of smell. Loss of taste. Lame in one leg. Permanent burns across half her body. Special Management Subject?"
For a first-year student's personal file, the words were merciless, each one crueler than the last.
Kallen shot Jiya a silent look, demanding an explanation.
"...She was trapped in someone's torture chamber until the Caliburn Guard rescued her. Afterward, it turned out she had a talent for magic, so she sat Elysion's entrance exam."
As Jiya began to speak, a certain unease had settled over her face that hadn't been there before.
"The truth is, Silvie is currently under a curse. The loss of sensation and the burn scars are symptoms of it."
"A curse...? From whom?"
"She won't say."
Jiya shook her head.
"Judging by the evidence, something happened to her in that torture chamber... but whether the memory is simply too agonizing to speak of..."
"Hold on. If she can't see, how does she even attend classes?"
Listening to the explanation with a puzzled expression, Kallen suddenly remembered something and pressed the point.
"No matter how well someone explains things to her, there are bound to be parts that require written notes, aren't there?"
"...I've wondered about that too."
Jiya continued, looking uncertain.
"She claims she just has good instincts... but there's clearly more to it than that."
"Does that even make sense...?"
"It actually came up as a point of suspicion in the faculty meeting. Her admission was nearly deferred because of it. But Headmistress Talisa used her direct authority to approve the enrollment, and so..."
"...Her again?"
Jiya shot a sharp glance at Kallen as he twisted his face in exasperation.
But Kallen, paying her no mind, sank deep into his own thoughts.
If the headmistress herself had vouched for the girl, then Jiya's eagerness to protect her wasn't entirely beyond understanding.
Though even so, the whole thing reeked of something suspicious to any observer.
After a moment's deliberation, he looked back at Jiya and spoke.
"I'll need to see the girl myself."
No matter how he turned it over, branding her a heretic outright sat wrong with him.
And in situations like this, his instincts had a way of proving right.
"...You will? What exactly are you planning to do?"
"Weren't you the one saying she's your precious student? Isn't trying something better than letting an innocent girl wear a false accusation?"
"Hmph..."
Faced with Kallen's nonchalant shoulder-shrug, Jiya could only swallow her growl.
"...Fine. You have a point."
She let out a long sigh and went on, resigned.
"But it won't be easy. Silvie is abnormally wary of people... She still can't even look Captain Fabian in the eye, and he's the one who rescued her."
"Hoh... Fabian, of all people..."
Kallen let out a whistle of admiration, his characteristic smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.
"Well, in his case it's just that face of his — ugly as sin. With me, things might go differently."
"Are you ill? It's not easy saying things like that with a straight face."
"Anyway — where do I find her?"
"...She should still be in my office. I told her to wait there for a moment..."
"Then I can see her right away. What's there to drag out?"
Kallen turned on his heel at once.
***
Professor Jiya's office was just one floor up.
Standing before the door, Kallen gave it a light knock.
"Anyone in?"
"C-come in, sir."
A girl's voice, tinged with a trace of nervousness, drifted faintly through the door.
He opened it and stepped inside to find a tidy office stretching out before him.
On the sofa facing the entrance, someone sat quietly, waiting for him.
The girl with long, lilac hair spilling down her shoulders looked remarkably familiar.
Kallen recognized her at once — the girl he'd bumped into in the corridor days ago.
'I had a feeling it might be her...'
He'd half suspected as much ever since Jiya mentioned the student who couldn't see.
Kallen cleared his throat lightly and began.
"Ahem. I'm Professor Kallen, of the Swordsmanship Department. You're Silvie, I take it?"
"...Yes."
The girl gave a small nod.
Her stiff, awkward movements made her tension plainly visible.
"There's something I'd like to talk with you about, so..."
And recalling Jiya's warning about the girl's extraordinary wariness, Kallen moved to take a seat across from her, keeping a careful distance.
"Hm?"
The moment he'd settled into the chair, however, the girl sprang to her feet and slid right up beside him.
Caught completely off guard, Kallen flinched.
"Kallen... so your name is Kallen..."
Seating herself right next to him, Silvie simply turned his name over and over, as if marveling at the sound of it.
Between the strands of disheveled lilac hair falling across her face, her unfocused eyes and the burn scars marring half of her skin were laid bare.
Then she turned her head toward him, a bashful smile spreading across her lips.
"It's been a while."
"Uh... I—yes, I suppose it has."
Kallen replied, somewhat flustered.
The girl's familiar warmth sat so strangely at odds with Professor Jiya's description of her.
In any case, it seemed she remembered their collision in the corridor as well.
"Three days ago, wasn't it...? Sorry about that time. Made it back all right?"
"..."
But Silvie's mouth clamped shut.
And on her face, somehow, a look of hurt disappointment had surfaced.
"You... don't remember, do you?"
"Hm? Remember what...?"
"..."
The lilac-haired girl's lips pushed out into an even deeper pout.
Bewildered, Kallen's head tilted slowly to one side.
'...What is this?'
For now, he needed to focus on the matter at hand.
"I hear you had a run-in with one of my swordsmanship students."
Kallen reset the mood with another light cough.
"Could you tell me what happened at the time...? If you're willing to talk about it."
"...If it's you asking, Teacher, I can answer anything."
The disappointment lingered in her voice, but she was cooperative as ever all the same.
"But... the one at fault is him. Without question."
A bitter chill ran through her words, entirely at odds with her gentle appearance.
Kallen trailed off, still grappling with his confusion.
"I heard he tried to steal from you, but..."
"...He tried to take the most precious thing I own."
"The most precious thing you own?"
"Yes."
At Kallen's puzzled question, Silvie nodded and, with careful, delicate hands, drew something from within her clothing.
"A gift... from the one who saved me."
Her cupped hands unfolded gently, like petals blooming.
Resting in her softly opened palms appeared a crimson gem, carved with exquisite craftsmanship into the head of a roaring lion.
"..."
And a strange silence settled over the office.
Kallen stood frozen on the spot, his lips unable to form a single word.
He could only stare blankly at the gem before him, his eyes trembling violently.
Why hadn't he realized the moment Pas described it?
There was only one house in the entire empire that bore the lion as its emblem.
An inferiority complex he longed to forget.
And the name of a past self — shameful, and weak.
The House of Duke Aramis.
"This... is..."
The jewel before him grew only more familiar with every passing second.
There was no way Kallen could fail to recognize it.
Because it had once belonged to the heir of that house — to himself.
"Now... do you remember?"
Silvie smiled softly.
