8. Bianca del Castana - 06
8. Bianca del Castana - 06
My words faded, and silence settled over the small cabin.
The Imperial Princess offered no immediate reaction. She merely closed her eyes and stood there quietly, as if weighing something deep within herself.
"....."
I could not say whether the quiet stretched for a fleeting instant or an eternity before she opened her eyes again. When she looked at me, her gaze held nothing but someone struggling to keep her emotions in check.
"...Kain. Those words you just spoke. Were you truly in your right mind when you said them?"
Her voice carried a faint ache, a sorrow aimed squarely at me, though I could not grasp why.
"Regrettably, my mind is perfectly sound. And the words I spoke were most certainly uttered with a sound mind."
I answered without a flicker of hesitation, and the Imperial Princess took a step toward me. A pressure I could not name radiated from her entire presence, and I caught myself retreating a pace. For reasons I could not explain, I sensed she was angry with me.
"...Why?"
She bit her lip, frustration slipping through.
"Why, Kain? I do not understand. I truly do not understand your intent. What meaning do those women—Aria, and Bianca del Castana—hold for you, that you would cast everything aside to protect them?"
"....."
"Bianca del Castana is the one who abducted you and imprisoned you here. I do not know what manner of life you have shared with her in this place, but I can easily surmise that your own free will played no part in it. Nor do I know what her intentions were, but I know well that her actions cannot be called righteous."
The Imperial Princess was right. It was the truth, and I knew it plainly. My stay in this cozy cabin was never a matter of my own will. And that was not the whole of it. Not content with abducting me, she had wiped my memory clean, then played the role of my lover by my side. Frankly, what Bianca had done to me surpassed the common sense of an ordinary person in more ways than one.
"And what of your personal attendant, Aria? Is she not, in a sense, a girl who harbors problems even graver than Bianca del Castana?"
The Imperial Princess's voice had shifted. The tone she had used with me earlier was gone. Now it carried unmistakable hatred.
"Kain, my eyes are not knotholes. She may have lost her power and now quietly, faithfully, perform the role of a maid at your side—but that does not erase the deeds she will yet commit. If you thought I did not know her true identity is the 'Winter Witch'—the one who brought the Unending Winter upon the entire continent, the very cause that drove you to your death in the end—then that was a grave miscalculation."
"....."
The claim that Aria drove me to my death was a little strange, but it was not entirely wrong. All the acts Aria committed as the Winter Witch had been undone when the clock's hands turned backward—but that did not mean those acts had never occurred. As long as people like the Imperial Princess and myself, who had regressed to the past after subjugating the Winter Witch ten years later, still existed, the original sin Aria bore would one day come to judge her.
"Answer me. Explain so that I can accept it. Why do you cherish and treasure those women? Why do you call them 'yours'? They are clearly beings who have brought great harm into your life, and yet... why..."
Why do you treasure them so, and love them so? Why, to the point of hurling yourself into peril where your life may be forfeit, do you seek to save them?
As if she could not bear to speak the rest aloud, she scattered only wordless groans into the air.
"....."
...Certainly, the Imperial Princess's words were correct. And yet, at the same time, they were not right. I could say it with certainty. This feeling I held toward Aria and Bianca was not so simple. It was not a thing so clear-cut that it could be cleanly defined by a binary choice.
So I will speak. Having felt so many emotions alongside them, I will confess my past self in detail.
"Because I made a promise."
"...A promise?"
I remember. The day I regressed ten years into the past, the image of a white-haired girl sound asleep beside me. I call once more to mind the figure of that fragile woman who looked at me with fear-filled eyes, unable to remember who she was, unable to recall any knowledge at all.
The Aria of that time could not be called the Winter Witch who would plunge the continent into ruin ten years later. She was nothing more than an ordinary, powerless girl you might find anywhere.
That was why I reached out my hand to Aria. And I made her a promise. That if she would become my strength in the future, I would give her a place to stay and shield her from this world. That I would create for her a reason to live.
The promise still holds. Our trust was never severed. As long as Aria is not the Winter Witch who would bring calamity upon the world—as long as she is Kain von Estel's personal attendant—I have a duty to protect her. I must stand as her ally against any threat this world offers. That is why Aria is, in every sense that matters, mine.
It is the same with Bianca. She, too, has wronged me greatly. Back when we were together on the expedition, she tormented me under every pretext she could find. Not content with that, this time she abducted me by force, erased my memory in the process, and in the end, deceived me outright.
But I think I am no less a sinner toward Bianca. Because I never once noticed—not until the very end—that she had held feelings for me for a very long time. ...No, it would be more accurate to say I desperately refused to see it. For me, admitting Bianca was not truly a bad person was no simple thing.
So over those terribly long years, I failed to look back at her. I only deliberately averted my eyes from her feelings. I merely left her sorrow unattended. I only watched her pain from a distant place. I was not someone who could stand entirely proud before her either.
So I think I have wronged her in equal measure. I do not think myself so righteous as to claim the moral high ground. If I were to compare it to something, I think our relationship is a kind of mutual fault—a bond where the wrongs we have inflicted upon each other cancel out.
"...That is nothing but sophistry."
"You are right. It is all sophistry and forced logic."
I acknowledged the Imperial Princess's words with a nod. I did not deny that my argument was strained and full of convenient reasoning. But that does not mean I wish to retract what I said. So what if my words are sophistry? So what if they are forced? That is simply how my heart feels in this moment.
And, decisively, I had shared love with Bianca. The moment Bianca entered my embrace, she became my woman and became mine. Is that not reason enough for what I do? I am not fool enough to let go of something that has come into my hands.
"...For such a reason alone, you mean to carry out so reckless an act?"
"It is no small reason."
I added this with a bitter smile.
"Your Highness, I am an exceedingly greedy man. I am the sort of covetous creature who, once he has grasped something, clings to it tenaciously and will never let it be taken. How could such a man as me tamely release women who have already become mine?"
"....."
At my words, the Imperial Princess gazed vacantly beyond the horizon to where thunder and flame shimmered, and shook her head slowly.
"It is suicide. Even if you go there, what can you possibly do? Do you think you can defeat them and impose your own will?"
To her question, I answered only this.
"Your Highness. When we faced Aria—no, the Winter Witch—back then, did we charge at her while weighing our chances of victory?"
At my words, the Imperial Princess's body went rigid, as if struck by lightning. Then she slowly closed her eyes, releasing a low sigh as though lamenting something.
"...We did not. Yes, you are right. Though we knew full well our odds of victory were vanishingly small, we opposed the Winter Witch head-on. And at the end of it—"
"We won. That is all there is to the story."
"Is this the answer you have arrived at?"
Without averting my gaze from the Imperial Princess, who was watching me with strangely bittersweet eyes, I nodded quietly.
"Are there not times when one simply wishes to follow the heart rather than reason?"
****
And so, you leave me. Not because another commanded it, but purely of your own will, you walk into a place of certain death.
"...Kain."
Your back grows farther and farther from me. I wanted to run to you and stop you now. But I did not. I only kept watching your back. Gazing vacantly at your retreating figure, I found myself recalling the you of another time.
—Iris El Debhart, my great teacher. How long do you mean to lie collapsed like that? If you simply sit still, we will ultimately fail to change a single thing. So rise. The you I know is not so weak a woman.
—...Did you know? I think I truly did like you very much, Your Highness. So please, watch over me until the end. This is what I wanted to show you.
Truthfully, I was disappointed. Because the you I knew so well and the you of now were vastly different.
The you I knew was a dazzlingly brilliant person. Someone so radiant that a person like me could not utter a single word. You were the only star set upon the earth.
...But the you of now was only terribly ordinary. Though the you I knew and the you of now were unmistakably the same person, I would secretly sigh, wondering if they were, in the end, different people after all.
Yet I was wrong. I was mistaken. Across time, across space, you have always been you. The person called you was, now as ever, dazzlingly beautiful, scattering brilliant starlight. I am simply captivated by the luster you cast, as if I had become a moth. As I was in the past, so I am again now: I have fallen for you once more.
"...Kain."
You grow distant. That firm, courageous back I had always wished would shield my front is drawing ever farther from me. Truthfully, I want to seize you even now. I want to seize you, who declared without a single moment's hesitation before my eyes that you are going to save other women. I want to cling to you and beg you to look only at me. I want to plead with you to love only me.
But I cannot seize you. For if I were to seize you at this moment, it would be an act that denies everything you are.
So I will only watch over you. I will respect your will. I will engrave clearly into my eyes just how far you can carry that will through.
If I can see you shine brilliantly one last time at the final moment, then the pain I feel now is truly nothing at all.
That is my own way of loving you.