6. Much Ado About Nothing - 15
6. Much Ado About Nothing - 15
Behind the ceremonial hall where the engagement ceremony of Kain von Estel and Bianca del Castana was to take place, a secluded corridor led to the waiting rooms.
Click. Clack.
Entry was restricted to those connected to the two families, and the corridor was all but deserted. Bianca del Castana walked through it, her face set in rigid tension, her heels clicking and clacking against the floor.
She quickened her pace, a sense of urgency driving her, and soon entered the bride's waiting room prepared at the rear of the hall.
Bang—!
The door flew open. Inside, several maids were waiting to attend to Bianca, the day's betrothed. They simply stared at her in surprise, caught off guard by her abrupt entrance.
More than that, they could not make sense of Bianca throwing the door open without so much as a knock. The woman they knew as Bianca del Castana had always been a noble lady who never forgot her elegance.
"...Ah, my lady? There is still a little time before the ceremony begins. To what do we owe this visit...?"
They addressed Bianca with the utmost caution. Her reply, when it came, was chillingly curt.
"...Leave."
"...Pardon?"
One maid, still bewildered, couldn't help questioning her. Bianca spoke again, her tone now carrying a sharp edge. For reasons unknown, the very act of speaking to another person seemed to weary her.
"Did I not make myself clear? Did I not say it plainly? Leave this room. I am weary. I have no desire to share this space with anyone. I wish to be alone. Every one of you, out. Now. This instant."
This was a Bianca utterly unlike the one they knew, who usually addressed them with little emotion. The maids hastily bowed their heads, convinced she must have encountered something deeply upsetting outside.
"...Understood. Excuse us, my lady. Should you require us, please ring the chime bell over there."
With that, they scurried out of the waiting room one by one. The aura around Bianca was unmistakably volatile. For her to display such emotion in front of them, she must have suffered something truly unpleasant. None of them wished to linger and risk catching sparks.
The moment the last maid slipped through the door,
"Kuh-huk...!"
Blood gushed from Bianca's mouth. She could hold it back no longer. Simply feigning composure until she arrived here had consumed every last shred of her willpower. The internal injuries she had sustained were devastating.
Drip.
The blood she spat out was black. It was unmistakable evidence that her organs were far from normal. Worse still, small, clotted fragments were flecked throughout the dark, viscous flow. They were pieces of her own insides.
"Hah, ngh...!"
She could endure no more. Unable to fight off the vertigo that crashed over her, Bianca collapsed to her knees on the floor. The world spun. She could no longer focus her eyes. An agonizing pain stabbed at her skull, as if hundreds, thousands of needles were piercing into her brain all at once.
"Urgh...!"
Her hand flew to cover her mouth. A hellish wave of nausea rolled up from deep in her throat. Before she knew it, she was letting out animal-like groans. An indescribable agony seized her, so intense that for an instant she half-believed her entire body was burning alive.
The beautiful white dress she wore slowly darkened, stained by the black blood she had just vomited. It was an omen, as though the gown on her body was becoming not a bride's dress but funeral attire.
"...Ah, ngh..."
Yet she was less concerned about her dress being ruined than about the possibility of her groans being heard outside. If word got out that the bride-to-be had coughed up blood hours before her own engagement ceremony, there was every chance the ceremony would be postponed on health grounds. That could not be ruled out.
"...I won't allow that..."
That, she could not concede. No matter what else in the world she might tolerate, the postponement of her engagement to him was something she absolutely could not bear. She had endured, and endured, and endured. Her patience had run dry. She had nothing left to suppress.
Trembling.
Summoning every ounce of strength, she managed to lift her violently shaking right hand. She drew upon her Magic Power and shaped a single hand seal with her fingers. It was one of the most elementary spells—one that isolated sound between inside and out.
Fwoosh—
A small soundproof barrier formed, centered on the waiting room. Now, there was virtually no chance of any noise escaping. And then—
"Aaaargh—!"
The instant she used magic, an unimaginable agony ripped through her, as if every blood vessel in her body were being torn to shreds. Her body was already far from normal; forcing herself to draw on her Magic Power regardless had only made things worse. It was inevitable.
"Hah... ngh..."
She had been in good spirits when she returned, having dealt with a few pieces of trash who dared slander him within sight and earshot of House Castana. Even though he would never know what she had done, she had considered it merely part of a betrothed woman's duty and felt not the slightest resentment.
...Yes, that had been the case right up until this hellish agony consumed her body.
The moment the pain struck, she immediately realized its cause. It was feedback. A reflux of Magic Power. The backlash had come because someone had forcibly reverse-summoned the familiars she had called into this world.
Worse, the familiars Bianca had deployed were the strongest she could summon: the 'Storm-Calling Bronze Bird' and the 'Rocky Mountain Giant.' Even a decade from now, at the height of her power as a mage, handling them would not have been easy. As she was now, still far from her prime, she had been forced to resort to all manner of irregular methods just to command them.
This was the result. Because she had not summoned them through proper means, the backlash of their reverse summoning now inflicted an agony beyond words, beyond imagination.
"...Who... who in the world..."
Even as the excruciating pain ravaged her flesh, she could not stop wondering who had reverse-summoned her mightiest active familiars. It made no sense. By her estimation, the number of people on the continent who could defeat the 'Bronze Bird' and the 'Rocky Mountain Giant' did not exceed ten.
...And among those, possessing the 'motive' to enter the Castana Marquisate precisely at this moment—on the day of her engagement—perhaps three.
'...Is it really those women?'
Faces flickered through her mind, one by one. But just as quickly, she shook her head violently and denied her own conjecture.
It couldn't be. She could hardly bring herself to believe that someone besides herself had also deceived the pendulum of fate and seized a second chance at a missed opportunity.
At any rate, the question of who had defeated her familiars was ultimately meaningless. Even if those women she had in mind were indeed the ones who struck down the Bronze Bird and the Giant, it made little difference. By the time whoever it was actually arrived in the Castana Marquisate, everything would already be over.
Quiver.
Bianca stared at her hands, trembling uncontrollably. She had used nothing more than a trivial sound-blocking spell, and yet her fragile body had already failed to withstand the shock. At this rate, it seemed unlikely she would be able to use any proper magic for the rest of the day, however short.
"...It's fine. After all, we're at the final stage..."
She clasped one shaking hand with the other, gently stroking it as she murmured.
Yes. Everything was proceeding according to Bianca's plan. Her familiars being reverse-summoned, the backlash rendering her unable to use magic for a day—these were nothing more than trivialities. They didn't even qualify as variables.
No one in the world knew how much effort Bianca had poured into this day, nor what price she had paid. Compared to all the painstaking work she had accumulated, the problems she now faced were pathetically insignificant.
...Twenty years. A full twenty years had passed since that nobody of a girl had first laid eyes on a certain boy, and from that distance, she had only gazed at him. She could not hold back any longer. Not now, with only a single step remaining until the promise she had made with him in their childhood was finally fulfilled.
"...Ah, Kain..."
And today's main event was not only the engagement ceremony between herself and him. There was a surprise gift Bianca had prepared for him, waiting at today's ceremony.
He would probably be surprised. Perhaps even flustered. But once he understood the intention behind it, she firmly believed he would understand her as well. Everything she did was driven by only one thing: her love for him.
In a few hours, she and he would become a betrothed couple who loved one another, blessed by all.
And Kain would rise before the eyes of the world, standing tall as a hero.
"This time, I will not let go. Kain."
Her dress was soaked in a pool of her own blood, yet Bianca could not suppress her delight—a smile lingering at her lips.
Heh.
"You will love me."
Her prophecy was truth.
Because that was the ending of the story she intended to weave.
And because she would make that prophecy into truth, by any means necessary.
At its end, Kain and Bianca would love one another and live in happiness.
...Yes. Absolutely. And certainly.