The One Who Remembers (7)
Najin had never put much stock in human nature.
A person's character, he believed, was forged by the background they came from and the path they walked growing up; whatever disposition they were born with played only a minor role in shaping who they became.
He himself was living proof of that.
As a child, Najin had scavenged through garbage, stolen, and done every filthy thing imaginable just to stay alive. Looking back now, the boy he had been in the underground city was unmistakably a villain. He had no intention of denying it.
Reasons aside, he had killed people. He had drowned more than a few traitors as an example, and the most polite name anyone had for him back then had been "hunting dog"—that said everything. Most simply called him a butcher of men.
Butcher. Filthy hunting dog. Executioner.
How had someone like that come this far? Najin thought about it. Because he had met good people. Because he had learned good things from them, and because he had seen a wider world.
Human nature, he had always figured, was no different from clear water sitting in a paint pot. The color it took depended entirely on which pigments you stirred in.
That was what he had always believed.
And yet—
"Use me as your foothold and climb higher."
"Please, use me as your foothold and climb higher still."
Watching Blue Spear speak the same words even after losing every memory, even after forgetting himself—Najin had no choice but to admit it.
There were people born that way.
People whose nature, even at its lowest and most fundamental layer, was simply good.
—I don't put much faith in "nature" either, but there are plenty of people who come into the world already broken somehow. Borrowing your metaphor, sometimes the pot starts out filled with filthy black water instead of clear.
Merlin said, listening to Najin's thoughts.
—You're right that people change with their environment, with the people they meet. But I do think there's a color poured into the pot from the start—call it nature if you want.
"A color, you mean?"
—Yeah. That said, I don't go so far as to call it someone's essence, or some unchangeable true nature.
Merlin flicked a finger.
—Even black sludge can turn pure white if you keep pouring white paint into it. Takes a ridiculous amount of work, of course.
And the reverse, she went on.
—Someone born pure white can be stained black by a single drop of dark paint. If they stay white anyway, that takes just as much ridiculous effort.
"Then which do you think I am?"
—How should I know? I'm a mage, not a psychologist.
Merlin laughed mischievously.
—Still, though.
She watched Najin swinging the spear, sweat pouring off him. The look she gave him was soft.
—I don't know your nature, but whatever color is in your vessel right now? It's a pretty one, don't you think?
"What is that. You're making it weird."
—A person says something nice and you still complain.
Leaving Merlin's grumbling behind him, Najin kept swinging the spear. Even with the end drawing near, Blue Spear's spear art remained unfinished. It couldn't be otherwise. Najin could not fill in the parts the man himself no longer remembered.
And in this case, the situation was different from the one with the Helmeted Knight.
The Helmeted Knight had had Gerd, another disciple who had learned the Triumphant Sword, and in his final moment he had recovered his memories and completed the technique—but Blue Spear could not. No miracle would restore his memories.
I'd finish it if I could.
That was what Najin thought. But Blue Spear only answered him briefly.
"And if it remains unfinished, so what?"
"It's a little disappointing, isn't it?"
"Haha. And if it is disappointing, so what? If it bothers you that much, then you finish it yourself, no?"
He laughed, clear and easy.
"That you have come this far at all is already a miracle. I laid the foundation—build your own atop it. Fill in what remains yourself."
I prefer it that way.
That way sits better with me. Blue Spear said so with a gentle expression.
"This is the last of it, then."
Looking out over the barren desert, Blue Spear murmured.
"You said I had three days left, did you not? Tomorrow will be the end. So this greeting, too, will be the last I offer."
The sun set over the desert. In that brief span before night arrived, on the border between day and dark, Blue Spear spoke.
"Well then, Najin?"
He offered his greeting.
"I will see you tomorrow."
The hourglass shattered.
All that remained in the broken glass was a single handful of sand.
2.
When Blue Spear opened his eyes the next day, they were different from usual. Not the empty, transparent gaze of before, but a hazy one—as if he had not fully woken. He looked at Najin with those half-lidded eyes.
Even the Star of Requiem could not rouse him from sleep.
It had only reminded him how to read. He read the diary he had been writing. After a while he closed it with a hollow laugh.
"I cannot remember the earlier parts."
He murmured.
"I forgot them while reading. Reading the diary seems pointless. Though according to the last entry—"
Blue Spear looked at Najin.
"It says to ask you. That you would have the answer. Who are you?"
"Najin. Free Knight Najin."
"Who am I?"
"You are a knight of Rondinel—Blue Spear. And the master who taught me the spear."
Blue Spear's memories could no longer last a full day.
Before even an hour had passed he forgot them again, and the intervals themselves were growing shorter.
"Who are you?"
"Your disciple."
A question for the who-knew-how-many-th time.
An answer for the who-knew-how-many-th time.
"Why am I in this situation? It hurts. I remember nothing, nothing at all. Why did I make this choice?"
He groaned. Fear filled his unsteady eyes. The serene composure of only the night before was nowhere in him now. Najin started to say something to the trembling Blue Spear, then stopped.
Instead he lifted the spear.
A warrior spoke with the weapon in his hands. What words could not hold, Najin would pour into the spear.
Thud.
In place of an answer, Najin stamped his foot. His footprint pressed into the desert sand. Blue Spear, still shaking with fear, raised his head and looked at him. Under the eyes of Blue Spear—under his master's gaze—Najin began to swing the spear.
Najin did not know much about the spear as a weapon.
He was a swordsman, not a spearman. All the spear arts he had learned so far amounted to the basics from the Helmeted Knight and the signature technique of the Golden Horn Knights—Ramming. Both of those specialized in the thrust.
Not techniques for sweeping a space into submission.
Techniques for piercing the enemy who stood in the way.
But the spear he had learned from Blue Spear was different. The spear art of Rondinel that Blue Spear had preserved focused not on a single point but on the line—and beyond that, on commanding space itself. It was a style built with being surrounded by many foes in mind.
That was the spear Najin swung now.
Whoosh.
Every time he swung, wind followed the spearpoint. The wind scattered grains of sand. Once airborne, the grains did not fall. They moved as if dancing, following wherever the blade pointed.
Right now they're only sand grains, and this is only a barren desert, but…
Kirchhoff had said:
Whenever Lord Blue Spear swung his spear, blue petals always scattered. The sight had been so beautiful that even his own sword aura had come to resemble it.
"What is Blue Hydrangea?"
Najin spoke as he swung.
The words he was about to speak were the ones Kirchhoff had told him—and three hundred years ago, the ones Blue Spear had told Kirchhoff.
"A hydrangea, you see—if you look at a single petal, it's really nothing much. Small and shabby. But a hydrangea does not bloom as one flower alone. Dozens of blossoms open at once. They come into full bloom."
Sand grains scattered.
Najin laced aura along the spearpoint. Aura, at its core, was no different from sword energy. Najin's aura resembled a constellation. The sand grains, steeped in starlight, shone like stars.
"Why is Rondinel's national flower the blue hydrangea? I think of it this way. Not because of one large, lush bloom, but because it is made of many small ones—and that is where the meaning lies."
Najin had already reached the realm of Sprouting. He had not yet Bloomed, but he could at least sketch the vague outline of it.
"It is because of knights like you that Rondinel can be beautiful."
The starlit sand grains put out shoots.
"You are Blue Spear. Knight of Rondinel—Blue Spear."
"…"
"You asked why you were put in this situation, what you sacrificed your memories for, whether any of it had value?"
Najin swung the spear in a great arc.
"There is one knight you saved. His name is Kirchhoff, and in the Outer Land there is no one who does not know that name."
Sword Master of a forgotten kingdom.
Last knight of Rondinel—Kirchhoff.
"That knight who remembers Rondinel, which everyone else has forgotten, still swings his sword for Rondinel. That is why Rondinel has not been forgotten."
Whoosh—the sand grains scattered.
Staring at the grains that drifted like petals, Najin tightened his grip on the shaft. The currents he had woven with every swing until now—he meant to bind them into a single line.
Najin did not know the name given to this technique. There was no way he could. Even Blue Spear himself no longer knew it.
"Petals scattered."
"I can't recall how he swung the spear, but I remember that much. Wherever he walked, flowers in full bloom always drifted around him."
"And he gathered those full-blown flowers into a single bouquet. A technique that pulled in the very currents around him."
But piecing together the form with what Kirchhoff had told him, he could guess the name. The clues were already there.
Blue Hydrangea.
A technique like a hydrangea, full-bloomed flowers bound into one. Of course Najin's aura was neither blue nor made of petals—but that did not matter.
He yanked the spear that drew the currents toward himself, as if reaching out and seizing the wind. The sand grains whirling in every direction were pulled to him all at once.
Sssssshhhk—!
The drawn grains collided, shattered, and sprayed outward. The rebounding grains struck one another again and again… and in that repeating cascade, starlight flashed before Najin like fireworks.
No petals came into full bloom—but starlight overflowed.
Incomplete though it was, Najin had splendidly recreated what he had learned from Blue Spear. He gasped for breath. Forcing strength into his legs so the stance would not break to the very end, he spun the spear once and drove it into the desert sand.
"So."
Then he looked at Blue Spear and smiled.
"Your devotion had value."
Blue Spear's eyes shone with the starlight Najin had kindled. With eyes steeped in that light, he looked at Najin.
"That…"
He asked.
"That—whose spear is it?"
Pointing to the lingering traces of the spear art, he spoke.
"It is beautiful. A sight I want to remember. I want to resemble it. Truly… beautiful…"
Najin answered the question.
"It is the spear of a knight who fought oblivion."
And—
"It is your spear."
Najin drew the spear Blue Spear had once let fall, and held it out to him.
"I will teach you. Take the spear."
This time, I will teach you.
3.
"…"
Blue Spear took the spear without a word.
He mimicked Najin's movements. Forgetting his memories no longer mattered. For as long as he swung the spear, he was Blue Spear. He swung and swung again.
Blue flowers bloomed from the spearpoint.
Blue flowers settled upon Blue Spear.
In a barren desert where nothing grew, flowers opened. One, two, ten, dozens, hundreds—coming into full bloom.
Sprouting, Blooming, and Full Bloom.
The full-bloomed blue flowers filled the desert. Blue Spear stretched his spear toward them. To a first-rate warrior, their weapon was no different from their own hand. So Blue Spear was simply reaching out his hand toward the flowers.
He closed his fist around them.
He bound the full-bloomed flowers into one and made a hydrangea.
The hydrangea was blue. In the middle of the barren desert, a blue hydrangea bloomed. Looking at that flower, Blue Spear smiled. He smiled for a long time. He smiled with true contentment.
"Ahh."
He lifted his head.
From the blue hydrangea to the desert, from the desert back to the sky—and at last his gaze settled on Najin.
"Najin."
He looked at his disciple.
He seemed to be weighing what final words to leave him, but the weighing did not last long. He left something close to the greeting he had always spoken.
"Go on. Toward tomorrow."
Those were Blue Spear's last words.
Rustle.
The last handful of sand left in the broken hourglass scattered on the wind.