Argonaut (6)
At the summit of the heroes' tower, Argo.
The top of the tower touched the sky, and in that sky shone Galahad's star—a constellation of ten stars. Beneath it stood someone.
A knight armored from head to toe.
Black plate enclosed his entire body, and an iron mask had been affixed to the helm, so that even his expression remained unreadable. The engravings on the armor glittered as they caught the starlight, yet they gave off not the faintest sense of the sacred.
There was no vitality in him.
It was like looking at a statue.
An existence that called to mind a statue that had stood in that place for decades, for centuries, without ever moving. The moment Najin set foot on the hundred-thirtieth floor he paused. His first thought was simply: Is that thing even alive?
······Clank.
The question answered itself almost at once. The instant the armor saw Najin, it moved. It offered him a formal greeting.
"Welcome, descendant of the great king."
The voice that rebounded once off the iron mask was refined. The resonance was quiet, yet it carried weight—the sort of voice a renowned orator or a commander might possess.
"I am Galahad, who once sat at the thirteenth seat of the Round Table and was charged with the search for the Holy Grail."
Galahad observed the courtesies, yet it was the courtesy one knight offered another, not the etiquette due to a sovereign. Before his lord a knight ought to drop to one knee; he still stood with both feet planted on the ground as he regarded Najin.
"······."
After a brief silence, Najin spoke.
"Where is Lancelot?"
"Beyond this place, where all memories gather and flow—at the final river—he awaits you."
"Why are you here?"
"Because someone is needed to gather the heroes."
No hostility could be felt from Galahad. He answered Najin's questions with mechanical precision.
"Lancelot believes he cannot be the one to gather the heroes. Unlike the brilliantly shining heroes, he regards himself as a filthy, turbid existence."
"······."
"That is why he placed me here. He believes the captain of the Argonaut—the ship that carries the heroes—must be the most perfect hero of all."
"You seem to think otherwise."
"My thoughts are of no importance."
Galahad spoke.
"Though he denies it, I am also a part of him. I respect his decision."
He pointed downward—to the place where he stood, to the tower that held the lives of countless heroes.
"Because I, too, am a being of the past."
He was saying that he was no different from the heroes imprisoned here. At those words, Najin frowned.
"Galahad."
"Yes, descendant of the king."
"I do not believe Lancelot and Guinevere's actions are right."
As he climbed the tower, Najin had seen them—the forgotten heroes, lives that had once shone brightly only to vanish into the back alleys of history. Listening to their stories, he had come this far.
"Whatever the cause, this is the wrong method."
"Is that so."
"I will tear down the Sanctuary of Oblivion, and I will hold Lancelot and Guinevere to account. Because I believe that is what I must do."
"Is that your choice?"
Najin did not answer. Instead of answering, he leveled his sword at Galahad.
"Yes. Therefore—"
I will pass you and go to them.
"······."
Even with a blade pointed at him, Galahad did not take up the cross-shaped shield planted like a gravestone at his side. He simply continued to look at Najin. Because of the iron mask, Najin could not read his expression.
"Take up your weapon."
Speaking thus with Excalibur leveled, Najin waited. After a brief silence Galahad opened his mouth.
"What is a weapon to you?"
"Something with which to open a path, and a means by which to prove myself."
"Indeed. Then telling me to take up a weapon means I am to prove myself."
Galahad shook his head.
"I cannot prove myself, and to me a weapon does not carry that meaning. To me a weapon is something with which to protect, and a means by which to fell the enemies of humanity."
Therefore, he said,
"I cannot take up a weapon."
"Why not?"
"As I said, because you are not my enemy. You are not an enemy of humanity, and there is nothing I need to protect from you."
Did that mean he would simply let him pass? No—looking at it, that was not the case. To go beyond this place, one had to wrest a defeat from Galahad by some means or other.
That was the rule of Argo.
Najin suddenly recalled the stories he had heard from the heroes as he climbed this tower. Among them were those who had once challenged the hundred-thirtieth floor, and with one voice they had described Galahad thus:
"I had no idea how to wrest a victory from an opponent who had no will to fight. Swinging a weapon at an enemy who offered no resistance was also something I could not bring myself to do."
"Sir Galahad does not regard me as a rival. It is not because of a difference in level; he simply does not recognize me as an enemy at all."
"I beat him for ten days and nights and he died, all right. But it was meaningless. Death is worthless in this tower. You have to make the opponent acknowledge defeat… yet even I who killed him could not be sure of my victory, so how could that ever happen."
Galahad did not resist.
He merely stood there. No matter who challenged him, no matter who swung a weapon at him and killed him, he did not even defend himself.
He simply stood guard over this place.
At that appearance of one who seemed to have transcended all worldly affairs, Najin's eyes narrowed. He had heard the stories, but of course the man would come at it like this.
If he's going to act like that…
Then I have no intention of observing etiquette either. Najin raised the Excalibur he had leveled at Galahad.
And then—thunk.
He drove Excalibur into the ground. He shrugged off his Free Knight's coat and draped it carelessly over the blade. It meant that now he was neither a knight nor the descendant of King Arthur. Najin strode boldly toward Galahad.
"Come to think of it."
Najin reached a hand toward Galahad's helm. With his bare hand he seized the iron mask that covered that face and gripped it hard.
"Isn't it proper etiquette to talk while looking at each other's faces? We ought to observe at least the minimum of courtesy. Both you and I."
"······."
"Let's have a look at that mug of yours."
Crack! Najin's fingers dug into the iron mask. As he applied force, the mask began to warp.
"Do not do that."
"Then take up your weapon."
"I cannot."
At that answer Najin snorted a laugh.
"Bullshit."
"······."
"Do you know what I think when I look at you, or Lancelot, or Guinevere?"
A little—no, rather considerably.
Najin was angry right now. His brow furrowed. Veins stood out on his forehead, and the sinews of his grip and forearm stood taut.
"Are only you people noble?"
Najin said.
"Are only you special? We have realized the truth. We have come to know what others do not. Therefore we will prepare for what comes next. Is that the end of it once you decide that?"
It was not only Galahad who heard that voice.
Merlin, who had not manifested, sat perched on the wall of the subterranean city in Najin's mindscape and listened. She knew where Najin's anger came from.
It was not a sudden anger.
It was an anger that had begun after he faced the Merlin of the past in the Black Spire. Every time he heard the stories of the Round Table from the present Merlin, every time she showed a painful reaction, a question had piled up deep inside Najin.
"Without any explanation."
At first it had been a question.
But the closer he drew to the truth, the more the question turned to anger. At Guinevere and Lancelot, who acted as if only they were special, and at the conduct of Galahad before him, Najin felt disgust.
"Without even trying to persuade, arbitrarily deciding, arbitrarily acting, arbitrarily ending the story."
Najin let out a scornful laugh.
"How self-righteous. You, and Lancelot, and Guinevere, and Arthur."
A flinch. Merlin held her breath. Galahad, who until now had shown no reaction at all, also stiffened.
"I would rather have Mordred. At least he explained why he raised a rebellion, why he denied Arthur, and then acted."
Galahad stretched out a hand. He seized the arm of Najin that gripped his iron mask.
"You do not yet know the truth."
Galahad's voice rang out.
"To insult another's life without knowing the whole of it is not right. Correct yourself."
"Then do you know?"
Najin put more force into his hand.
"While you people arbitrarily decided and locked yourselves up in a place like this for a thousand years doing this kind of crap—"
Najin's voice boiled.
"Do you know how Sir Bedivere felt, quietly guarding the Round Table in place of you who threw everything away and ran? Or Merlin, who, without hearing any explanation, resented you yet still said, 'I hope there was a reason'?"
"······."
"The Merlin of the past who even resolved to die because of you—what, was she not noble and special enough like you people, so she made that choice?"
One step—Najin took another step forward. He was angry, yet he was not being swept away by the anger. He had not forgotten his purpose in the midst of it.
Najin briefly called upon his past self.
The self before he was a knight. He seized the bottom of himself, his essence. It was the form of the rough-mouthed, ill-mannered boy who had lived in the subterranean city.
"Who the hell are you to try to select people?"
Najin spat the words as if chewing them.
"Don't act as if you alone are carrying the world on your shoulders. While you were here debating the lesser evil and the like, the ones who protected the world for a thousand years were Merlin and Bedivere."
Crack.
"Don't put on airs of being the only noble, the only special ones."
That much was sincere.
"Ha."
What he was about to say now was something he did not mean.
"Looking at this sorry state, I can tell."
As a knight Najin could not lie, but the hunting dog who had lived in the subterranean city could put any falsehood he liked into his mouth. Najin apologized to Merlin in advance.
-All of a sudden? Why?
As Merlin was flustered, Najin drew a breath. And then, with a scornful laugh, he opened his mouth.
"No wonder you failed. Taking scum like this along on the journey—how could Arthur have done anything but fail?"
Abuse so extreme it could make one's mind go blank. Even Galahad lost his words, and Merlin's eyes went wide.
Crackkk!
In that moment when the strength left Galahad's arm, Najin shook free of that grip and tore off the iron mask. What was torn away was only a portion of the mask, yet that portion alone revealed Galahad's eyes.
"Ah, now that's more like it."
Emotion could be felt in those eyes.
Najin twisted up the corner of his mouth.
"A weapon is—"
Najin stepped back. Returning to where he had been, he put the coat back on that he had hung on the sword, drew the planted blade, and leveled it at Galahad.
"A means of proving myself, and a means of proving that my words are right."
With the sword leveled at Galahad he provoked him.
"Well?"
Najin twitched the tip of the sword.
"Do you have a reason to take up a weapon now?"
If you mean to prove my words wrong, you will have to take up that weapon. It was as good as Najin declaring that. This was a kind of provocation.
Words that a knight of the Round Table could never let pass.
Moreover, the speaker of those words was the descendant of King Arthur who had drawn Excalibur. The descendant of King Arthur had insulted a knight of the Round Table, and gone further to speak of Arthur's failure. If the insult had been limited to himself it might have been one thing······.
The moment he insulted the king, Galahad could never let it pass. That was the point Najin had used.
-You really······.
'You know I don't mean it.'
-I'm going crazy, seriously.
Merlin looked at Najin as if she could not believe it. Her expression was complicated. Najin had uttered abuse, yet that abuse had been spoken for none other than Merlin's sake.
Whether she ought to like this or not.
As Merlin could not get her bearings, Najin raised his sword. If even after remarks of this level there was no reaction, Najin intended to thoroughly ignore Galahad.
If even after going this far he shows that transcendent, that kind of attitude······.
Then he would be a human no longer worth dealing with.
"Those are not right words."
Should he call it fortunate.
Galahad reacted to Najin's words.
"As I said earlier, you can say such things because you do not know the truth. You······."
"A knight, as a rule,"
Najin cut Galahad's words short,
"washes away insult with a duel."
Before the most perfect knight, Najin spoke the precepts of knighthood.
"And honor and pride must be proven with the sword."
Prove it with actions, not words. There would be time enough to talk after the duel. Najin drew the line that he had nothing more to discuss with the man as he was now.
"······."
If you mean to open your mouth, you will have to accept the duel. You will have to take up that cross-shaped shield.
And.
At last Galahad moved. He seized the cross-shaped shield planted at his side. In that moment, the entire tower, beginning with the thirteenth floor, began to tremble.
Rummmble······.
On the shaking summit of the tower, amid the spreading resonance, the strongest knight of the Round Table raised his weapon.