He Who Believed in Himself (5)
Upon the false sky, the Dawn Star rose.
With a single sword, Najin carved his constellation into the heavens, and the Dawn Star etched along the path of his blade shone with a platinum light. Gazing up at his own constellation, Najin put a question to himself.
What is dawn?
That which illuminates the dark of night.
Then what is Jeol-ya — Night Severer?
That which cuts the night away.
Dawn Sword. Night Severer.
The sword that heralds the end of night severed the night itself.
Chaaaaaaaaaaak!
A constellation carved into the night sky as a single line. Taking as its axis a constellation of nine stars, the night began to split apart. The Revelry Emperor's flesh burned in the heat and light the stars produced. She tried to press her obliquely sundered body back together, but it was a futile resistance.
When the night has been severed, how could darkness remain?
Starlight set the night ablaze.
The hundreds of stars that had adorned the false night all fell. The laughter that had never ceased could no longer be heard. And so, in the silence that followed, the night — stripped of everything that had dressed it up — became endlessly wretched.
The last eleven stars plummeted.
Beneath the splitting night, desperate to live even a moment longer, the Revelry Emperor fled, abandoning even her true body. Engulfed in flame, she crashed down and tumbled across the ground.
"Aaah, aaaaaaah! Aaaaaaaaah!"
Unable even to hold her form together, she crumbled and screamed. She smeared the paint that covered the floor over her body, but the fire did not go out. Then, with a dry crack, both her legs crumbled to dust.
The Revelry Emperor collapsed face-down. On her arms she crawled, trying to put even a little more distance between herself and Najin.
If she survived, there would be a next time.
So long as she could put death behind her, the Revelry Emperor would make herself as ugly as she had to. In that moment, she felt as though she had been thrown back a thousand years. There she was again — terrified, thrashing to get away from death.
A thousand years had passed, and nothing had changed.
She was still nothing more than a pitifully weak creature. Without other people's lives to decorate herself with, she was no one at all. The Revelry Emperor crawled and crawled across the floor.
Tak.
Footsteps. Drawing closer. Even through the agony of her burning body, the Revelry Emperor thrashed. But there was no escaping the human whom dozens of transcendents had failed to stop.
She looked back.
"Aaah…"
There stood her death. Looking at Najin leveling a sword at her, the Revelry Emperor's gaze wavered. A blade shining platinum-gold was pointed at her throat.
"You."
Before the death that had come right up to her face, the Revelry Emperor trembled and opened her mouth. To buy herself a little more life? Or because she truly wanted to put the question to the one standing before her? Even she could not say.
"Aren't you afraid of death?"
She put the question to a human who seemed to have no capacity for fear at all. Najin answered.
"Who in the world doesn't feel fear?"
His face was expressionless.
"Did you really think terror and dread were yours alone — that they were a weapon only you possessed?"
Hardly. Najin snorted.
"Everyone feels terror. Everyone fears death. It's just that there are things you can only gain by taking that fear and stepping forward anyway… things you can only protect that way."
Najin looked down at the Revelry Emperor.
"You press on in spite of the fear."
The being she had always looked down upon, the Revelry Emperor now had to look up at.
"It isn't because the one standing in front of you is special."
Behind Najin, fallen stars lay everywhere. Gazing at them, he went on.
"Every last one of the countless people you've trampled underfoot felt terror too — and still they moved forward. There must have been times when the fear was so great they sank to their knees. But they were people who tried to stand back up."
"Th-that's…"
"Revelry Emperor."
Najin put the question to her.
"Have you ever once overcome your fear?"
No answer came.
"I see."
Najin raised his sword.
"Then you are a more worthless existence than any of the stars you've crushed."
The nine stars engraved upon Excalibur blazed. Star after star flared, and a deep, heavy sword-cry rang out — goong.
The sword that kills the undying.
The Demon-Slayer. Arthur's emblem.
Countless demons, the moment they saw Excalibur, thought of Arthur. But the Revelry Emperor could not summon Arthur from that blade. Reflected in her trembling eyes was only Najin.
From the man who had shattered every one of her schemes, crossed every trap, and finally smashed her head-on, the Revelry Emperor felt a terror beyond words.
Ah.
On a stage once filled with nothing but laughter, there was no laughter left. No jesters to dance and sing. On a stage stripped bare of everything that had adorned her, left with nothing but silence, the Revelry Emperor could no longer wear the name of Emperor.
The Demon of Revelry let out a hollow laugh.
It was a sneer as well.
Not at the one before her — a sneer she turned upon herself. The last words of the Demon of Revelry were mockery.
As if there was nothing more to say, Najin swung his sword.
The blade cut down the Demon of Revelry.
It was nothing extraordinary. A knight cutting down a demon was the most natural story in the world, and Excalibur killing a demon was a common tale as well.
Eleven stars fell.
Before the Imperial army, the jesters crumbled all at once. At the sight of the paint-dissolved jesters, they were about to raise a premature victory cry — The Dawn Star has done it! — when
"Huh?"
What they saw was the night sky falling. The entire vast heaven was collapsing. Hundreds of stars poured down like a meteor shower, streaming toward the heart of the stage — the Revelry Emperor's fortress.
Hundreds of stars falling with the night.
Before that overwhelming spectacle, the Imperial army fell silent. Even the transcendents did not dare move rashly. In the first place, there was no way to set foot in that fortress, sealed off as it seemed completely.
All they could do was evacuate the Imperial forces. How was anyone supposed to stop a falling sky? And so the retreating soldiers' footsteps halted all at once.
The stars were being cut.
The falling stars burst apart. They shattered into fragments and scattered light. From a certain point on, the stars were being sliced through before they could even hit the ground.
Even the transcendents who had raised their weapons in a desperate bid to slow the falling sky stared upward with their mouths open. A storm had blown up out of nowhere, sweeping the stars away.
What on earth was happening?
Only Gerd looked up at the sky and smiled. The old man understood at once. The storm that had just swept across the heavens was a secret technique of the Triumphant Sword.
And then —
Dawn Sword.
A single line of light split the sky. The light that cleaved the heavens became a constellation and shone.
Night Severer.
A single stroke of sword-ki cut the night apart. What was revealed when the false night was sliced away was the real sky — still dark, but so full of stars it was never lonely. And in that severed sky blazed one star brighter than all the rest.
The Dawn Star. The star that announces the end of night.
Some constellations gasped in awe. Others stared, lost. And the Sword Masters who had devoted their entire lives to the blade let out hollow laughs.
What is the ultimate that swordsmen pursue?
It is the act of pouring oneself into the sword — the realm of cutting down whatever one means to cut. In that single stroke that cleaved the night, they felt beauty. It was an infinitely beautiful sword-strike.
"…"
"…"
Only when they saw the Revelry Emperor's stars fall did the Imperial soldiers, who had been staring up at the sky in silence, draw a deep breath and turn toward the comrades who had endured this long, grueling fight.
Then the roar broke loose.
Blood-soaked, battered, blackened with soot and dirt — still they threw their arms around their comrades or slung arms over one another's shoulders without a second's hesitation. It had been an impossibly hard fight, and they had nearly died more times than they could count, but they had survived. And they had won.
Across a battlefield still hot with the heat of combat, their cheers rang out.
Everyone standing there — knights and mages, soldiers and mercenaries, transcendents and ordinary people alike — felt the same surge of exhilaration.
Because they knew, instinctively.
That they were standing at a moment in history. That they stood as characters at the heart of a legend that would not seem the least bit strange if it were recorded as myth someday.
Through the cheering, the name of the Dawn Star was chanted again and again.
Even the legion commanders leading each force burst into laughter or shouted along with the throng, and Yuel Razian smiled as well. Many were startled by the smile of a woman who so rarely smiled, but…
That is a story for another time.
A handful of transcendents, including the less-wounded legion commanders, made for the Revelry Emperor's fortress to greet the hero of the victory. But it would take a little time for them to arrive, and that little time belonged to Najin alone.
Najin walked through the fortress that had become a wasteland.
Then he stopped before two corpses.
With a soft thud, Najin sat down beside them.
"It's been a while."
Ivan. And Oppen.
With the Revelry Emperor's death, the puppets she had commanded returned to corpses. Wandering among the bodies, Najin soon found the ones he was looking for.
Two corpses slumped in place, heads bowed.
Oppen and Ivan.
He dragged over a suitable rock from the rubble of the collapsed fortress and sat down beside the two of them. Sitting like this brought back old memories.
"Hey, Najin! You come sit over here too."
At the tavern, Ivan — laughing and talking with Oppen — would often wave Najin over and tell him to sit beside them. And every time, Najin would drag over a chair and drop down at their side with a thud.
"This kid Najin does a hell of a job. Way better than Edgar, I'm telling you. Sharp as a tack."
A hand roughing up his hair. A voice thumping him hard on the back — You have one too! Ah, you can't drink yet? Innkeeper, bring a juice over here!
"So."
Ivan would ask him with a laugh.
"Life treating you okay?"
What had he answered to that? He'd probably grumbled. Something like, same as yesterday, same as today. Getting by well enough. That was probably it.
"I'm doing well."
Not anymore.
"If you heard how well I'm doing, you'd be genuinely shocked. If I wanted, I could drop the formal speech with the Emperor of the Empire, and even he can't treat me carelessly. If I asked, he'd practically peel off a territory several times the size of the underground city and hand it over."
Najin smiled.
"I've made good friends, too. A guide, mentors — people who are truly extraordinary. And there are even two people who say they like me. That's how well I'm living."
And when he said that —
"Don't skip your training. A sword rusts in an instant."
He thought he heard Oppen's voice.
Najin nodded with a laugh.
"Of course. Ha, damn. Oppen should have seen the sword I just swung. I want to ask him what score he'd give it."
In front of the two of them, Najin had always wanted to show only his finest self — but in the end, before a master and a parent, a disciple and a child remain a child no matter how old they grow.
Like a child again, Najin spread his arms and waved Excalibur about, showing it off.
No answer came back.
But Najin felt as though they had burst out laughing.
"It's all thanks to you two."
It was late, but — thank you. Truly.
Najin stood.
Then he bowed his head before them. And as he did, he suddenly found he could see the faces of Ivan and Oppen, their heads still bowed.
"Ah."
Seeing their faces, Najin couldn't help but laugh.
Because the two of them were smiling.
Najin let out a long breath. Looking up, he saw stars shining. His own star — and Merlin's constellation, glowing softly as it wrapped around it.
Twinkle.
With a wash of blue light, she appeared before him. Merlin, looking a little worn. She looked Najin over, glanced at the fallen stars of the Revelry Emperor, and then smiled.
"Well? How does it feel to be a complete transcendent?"
"How does it feel…"
Najin smiled.
"I suppose another line just got added after the question, Who am I?"
"Huuu. I really, really, truly hate that — but I'll let it slide as a special exception today. Just today, got it?"
"Then I won't hold back."
Who am I?
As Najin recited the long string of sentences that would follow, he found it so funny even he had to laugh. Merlin laughed too, as if she couldn't believe him.
On a stage from which mockery had vanished, Merlin and Najin shared a long, easy conversation.
For when one story draws its curtain, it is only right that there should be laughter and talk.