Jester or Knight? (2)
The star that mocks knights—the Star of Contempt.
The Knight of Revelry, Quixote.
Not a man who had merely contracted with a demon for power, but one who had truly sworn his loyalty to that demon—society had given this knight a single name.
Jester. A jester who danced for the devil.
It was a word antithetical to knighthood, a pejorative hung on him in mockery, yet Quixote took a liking to it. He regarded himself as a jester. A jester who danced ridiculously for the sake of one woman alone. To him, "jester" was not an insult but the highest praise.
Laugh. Dance. Sing.
For her.
For my only master.
The jester-knight had dyed his armor in every gaudy hue. Yellow, green, red, blue—armor that called to mind a child's scribble, loud and absurd beyond measure. And it was not only the armor.
A helmet crowned with peacock feathers, a banner stitched from rags, a mount that resembled a donkey, a mask split cleanly in half.
Every element that composed the human called Quixote was ridiculous. A jester imitating a knight, or a knight imitating a jester? Which it was remained unclear, yet with all that made him up, Quixote mocked the very idea of knighthood.
"Charge with all your might, Rocinante!"
He spurred the donkey with exaggerated flourishes.
The demonic beast, donkey-like yet easily twice a horse's bulk, snorted and tore forward. Its speed was startling. Closing dozens of meters in a heartbeat, Quixote came thundering in.
Astride the beast, he thrust his lance. For all the comical, overblown gestures, the force of that lance charge surpassed anything Najin had imagined.
Kwaaaaaaaaaang!
The instant Quixote's lance struck the Helmeted Knight, a shockwave erupted. Air burst apart; the earth split. The Helmeted Knight's body lifted clean into the air, and even Najin—who had not been touched by the lance itself—was flung by the blast and sent tumbling across the ground.
It was less a lance strike than the detonation of a bomb. A high, thin ringing filled Najin's ears. Blood ran from them. His eardrums had ruptured. When he managed to raise his head, Quixote was looking down at him.
"Oh, Sancho! Sancho, why are you here?"
Quixote smiled at Najin—an almost absurdly friendly smile—and held out his hand.
"Let us ride, Sancho. Is there not a monster yonder? A giant stands there. A giant! A true knight fights giants and sings for his lady. Come, let us sing together."
Najin drew up his aura at once and swung to bat the hand away, but Quixote knocked the blade aside as lightly as if catching a child's wrist.
"Come along now."
Just as Quixote's fingers reached for him—
"Begone, filthy jester."
A violent surge of sword aura howled forth.
From far off it came, carving the ground as it flew, and slammed into Quixote's body. As the jester was driven back, the Helmeted Knight advanced with his sword leveled.
"That one is my squire. Did you not kill your own Sancho with your own hands? What—do you regret it now?"
"What nonsense is this? Sancho is right here."
Quixote stroked his lance.
He caressed the star-lance forged from a melted constellation as if it were something precious, the corner of his mouth curling. Once, Sancho had been the name of the squire who served him. To the Quixote of the present, Sancho was no longer a squire but a word.
A young star. A star that had not yet lost its purity.
Raising the lance forged from Sancho, Quixote threw back his head and laughed. Mad laughter. Roaring laughter. Mocking laughter. The jester who could give voice to his feelings only through mirth laughed until the world itself seemed to shake.
"My lady desires you."
He spoke.
"My master wants you."
Lance leveled at the Helmeted Knight, the jester sneered. The Helmeted Knight answered that sneer with silence. The sound he wished to keep in his ears was not a jester's mockery.
Tak.
The Helmeted Knight came to stand at Najin's side.
"Najin."
No answer came.
The Helmeted Knight looked at him. Sword raised, Najin stood with eyes wide and staring. Far too much force locked his shoulders and arms; blood vessels stood out in the whites of his eyes. He seemed so taut with tension that the world around him no longer reached him.
The Helmeted Knight tapped him lightly on the head.
"Ease up. Swing that hard and you'll fail to cut even what you could cut."
"······."
Najin turned to look at him.
The eyes were hidden by the helm, yet Najin felt the Helmeted Knight's gaze—and the meaning it carried.
"Najin."
"Don't."
"Three times······."
"I told you not to."
Najin cut him off.
"Not twice. Do you understand me? Not twice."
The Helmeted Knight knew what those "twice" meant.
He had heard the story of Ivan from Najin. He knew what fate had befallen Najin's first master, how that man had ended.
And he knew that the present moment overlapped with that one.
"So," Najin said, the words chewed and spat, "none of that bullshit about spending the third request here. Just get ready to fight."
"What are you on about? I wasn't planning to use it yet."
"···What?"
"Three times. I'll hold him three times. In that window, go for his left. Drive a strike into the blind spot of his vision. I don't see any other way to open a gap."
Even as he spoke, Quixote came again. It was less a charge than something closer to teleportation; in the space of a blink he was already upon them.
"If you've got it, move. Now."
At the Helmeted Knight's glance, Najin kicked off the earth and sprang aside. The Helmeted Knight met the lance that had closed to a hair's breadth. The joints of his entire body creaked at the impact, yet he held.
One strike. Two······.
With every thrust of Quixote's lance, shockwaves burst, gouging the ground, shattering the Helmeted Knight's armor into flying shards. And Najin slid like water into Quixote's flank. The aura along his blade blazed hard and bright.
Third strike.
The Helmeted Knight did not take the third thrust on his sword. He took it with his hand. The shockwave reduced the gauntlet to powder. Fingers snapped; flesh ground away. Paying one arm as the price of catching the lance, he reached with the other.
Kwak.
What that hand seized was not Quixote. It closed on the nape of Najin, who was lunging in. The Helmeted Knight drove his raised foot into the earth—then, with a great sweep of his arm, he hurled Najin away.
The place he threw him was the destination they had been making for all along: the sacred territory the Helmeted Knight had won from the Revelry Emperor and torn from her grasp.
To the Revelry Emperor it had become a Forbidden Territory.
Stars of revelry eroded at a murderous rate merely by setting foot there. The same held for Quixote before them. Flee that far, and Quixote could pursue no further. The Helmeted Knight knew it.
Both of us getting away is impossible.
Then whom to save? The answer came easily—far too easily. As he flung Najin toward the Forbidden Territory, the Helmeted Knight smiled.
"Go on ahead."
With those words the shockwave caught him and flung him in the opposite direction from Najin. Najin stared after him, eyes wide. The Helmeted Knight did not answer that look.
Have to save at least one of us, don't I?
The star that stood at death's door had made its choice. Now it was time to pay the price. Rolling, sliding across the ground, the Helmeted Knight forced himself up.
Hurled by the Helmeted Knight, Najin passed through the opaque membrane and tumbled down the slope beyond. He drove his sword into the earth to bleed off speed, came to a halt, and clenched his teeth.
He lied, the bastard.
What "on the third, take the flank"? He meant to do this from the start. Grinding his molars, Najin started back up the incline. He had no intention of moving as that man had wanted. Blood hot in his head, he acted on impulse.
Tak.
He stood before the boundary. He meant to push through the same opaque film he had just crossed and return to the Helmeted Knight. But the boundary would not allow him out. He struck it with a dull thud and scowled.
Even shoving with both hands, the barrier did not yield.
Why? There had been no resistance coming in. Najin drew his sword, raised his aura, and slammed the boundary. It merely bounced him lightly back.
"This fucking······."
He ground his teeth and hammered the line again.
A boom rolled out, yet not so much as a scratch appeared. Bloodshot veins stood hard in Najin's eyes. He looked to the side.
What is this? Why—
—It's a Forbidden Territory.
So what does that mean?
—A kind of sacred domain. Rules are set. Break them, and you cannot leave.
Najin shouted, voice raw with urgency. What are the rules? Tell me how to get out of here right now.
—I don't know. And even if I did, I wouldn't have told you.
Najin's eyes flew wide.
"What the hell does that mean?"
—Calm down.
"Do I look like I can calm—"
—I said calm down.
Merlin thrust her face directly in front of his. Her water-blue eyes mirrored the bloodshot glare of his own.
—Do you honestly believe anything would change if you went back there right now? Honestly?
······.
—This isn't like you. You're far too worked up.
The situation—look at the situation. How am I supposed to—
Najin groaned.
As his face twisted, the raw force of the feeling reached Merlin as well. She knew exactly what he was feeling, exactly what he was thinking.
"It's the second time. The second."
This was the situation that had left a scar in him. Ivan—master, father, friend—had thrown his life away to save Najin. And knowing it, Najin had been able to do nothing.
Because he had been powerless. Because his skill had been lacking. Because the Najin of that day had possessed no means to save Ivan.
A great deal of time had passed since then. Najin had climbed past Sword Expert to become a Sword Seeker, reached the realm of Sprouting, and claimed three stars. Far stronger than he had been, he had believed he would never again face a moment like that one.
He was wrong. Utterly wrong.
He was still weak. Even with three stars in hand, nothing had changed from that day.
"What's not like me? What am I even fighting for—"
—······.
Merlin gritted her teeth as well.
It was not as though she wanted to say these things. She, too, burned with anger at the situation; she felt much the same as he did. But a guide was not someone who raged in sympathy. A guide was someone who showed the path.
—The Knight of Revelry is a constellation of seven stars. Equal to the Sword Masters you met on the Continent—or stronger. What exactly do you think you can do against him?
She shoved reality into his face.
—If you go there now you'll only be in the way. The Helmeted Knight will try to fight while protecting you.
But—!
—I know. I know!
Merlin spread her hand before him.
—Then shall I descend? Smash him for you? If that's what you want, say so. I'll do it.
Eleven blue stars shone upon that open palm.
Najin felt that she was not bluffing. If he asked, Merlin would truly do it. She had the power. Manifesting her true body, killing Quixote, and saving the Helmeted Knight would be almost trivial for her.
But after that?
Even if Merlin saved him, the Helmeted Knight had little time left—a day, two at most. And the price of buying those two days? The ruin of the Outer Land and the Continent.
The moment Merlin moved, the boundary would shudder and a gap would open in the seal of Kamran. Through that tear the cursed things of Kamran would pour, and the Witch of the Abyss would not miss the chance to reach into this land—to deliver the destruction she had postponed for a thousand years.
Outer Land and Kamran would bleed together; next would come the Continent.
Countless people would die.
They would suffer fates worse than death.
In the end Najin could not choose. The cost was far too heavy for a single moment's impulse. And at the same time he felt a deep disgust for himself.
For the self that could do nothing. For the self that set a single life against the fate of the world. For the self that possessed a way to save the Helmeted Knight yet could not bring himself to take it—Najin burned with anger.
His hand tightened on the sword hilt until it shook. He had thought he had changed. He had not. Just as on the day he fled and left Ivan behind, helplessness closed around him.
A way. There has to be a way······.
While he clawed desperately for one—
Tuk.
Someone touched his shoulder.
The Helmeted Knight thought:
Truly, the world never goes as one wishes.
It's pure shit.
At the very least he had wanted to choose his own end with his own hands, yet the world would not even grant him that. It whispered in his ear that heroes did not get clean finishes, that death was always like this—miserable, shabby, without glory.
Quixote's lance punched through him. Armor shattered; blood welled from flesh long since dried. The Helmeted Knight felt a dull surprise that so much blood still remained in him.
Ah······.
Fighting Quixote with everything he had left, he groaned. He hated how pathetic he had become. Hated it past bearing. His past self could have crushed this jester with ease—torn that laughing mouth open and claimed a glorious victory. Now he could not.
Because he had weakened. Because he had eroded. Because he had broken.
He could no longer swing a sword as he once had. He could no longer win. Yet in his mind he was still glorious, still radiant. The gulf between that image and the reality tormented him.
Damn it. Damn it······.
He clenched his teeth.
Fear of the moment had him by the throat. The miserable end waiting for him stood so close he could feel its breath. He shuddered with terror of it.
He felt his defeat as a certainty.
An opponent he simply could not overcome.
To give that defeat meaning he repeated, desperately: Yes—I saved my disciple. A master who gave his life for his student. Isn't that a decent enough end? If it's this much······.
No. He could not accept such an end.
He wanted to be content and close his eyes with dignity, yet lingering regrets still clung to him. Those regrets made him thrash in an ugly, desperate scramble.
He rolled across the ground in a graceless sprawl, flinging dirt to foul Quixote's sight and open even a sliver of chance. Unknightly. Repeating the filthy tricks he had once despised most, he clawed for survival.
I cannot die like this.
An end like this is not allowed.
I still have dreams left unfinished.
I cannot die here······.
But the world is not so kind that wishing makes it so. Quixote's lance drove through him again. Blood poured as he staggered back. His steps wavered; he looked ready to fall at any moment.
He no longer had the strength even to remain on his feet.
Just as his knees began to buckle—
"Trying to kneel again, you damn bastard. Is a knight's knee so light as that?"
Tak.
Someone caught him and held him upright. The Helmeted Knight turned his head. Bernstein stood there.
"···Bernstein? How are you—"
"Didn't you say your destination was unchanged? So I waited."
Bernstein hauled him to his feet.
As he did, he spoke.
"All of us came running with our eyes fixed on you alone. Your end cannot be like this. It will not do."
Bernstein smiled, bitter and quiet.
He did not bother to say the rest—that for the past month he had tracked down everything this man had done in the Outer Land, that he had gone from place to place to test whether the words were true, that he had finally opened his eyes to the truth he had sealed away for a hundred and fifty years······.
Instead of all that, he spoke a single line.
"Isn't that right, hero of the Empire?"
Not monster. Not coward. Not traitor. Not runaway.
Hero.
Calling him that, Bernstein raised his sword.
"A hero deserves an end that fits him. This is not your final stop. I will not let you close your eyes in a place like this. If I did, I could never lift my head before the comrades who stood in that place with me."
Bernstein lifted his blade.
"So go."
Above the single sword, stars rose.
Five old, eroded stars kindled above Bernstein's head. Stars that should never have shone again answered their master's will and flared one last time.
"To the place you must reach."
Bernstein's sword aura burned the stars.
Fed on those stars as fuel, the aura blazed like the sun itself.