Hero, Commoner, Nation (3)
Humans are beings who dream.
And some dreams face not the future but the past. There are those who dream not of a future where they achieve their purpose and find happiness, but by reminiscing over a past already gone.
Kirchhoff was such a human.
He always dreamed of the past.
The most brilliant period. The things he held dear lay not in the present but in the past. The slums of Rondinel where he had been born and raised, the cities he had wandered claiming the title of roaming knight, and the lord and master who had turned the fake him into a true knight…
For three hundred years since that day, without missing a single one, Kirchhoff had yearned for the past. He reminisced over the landscapes of Rondinel he would never see again, and turned over and over the memories of the benefactors he would never meet again.
“······.”
Before such a Kirchhoff stood the past. His dream was not in the future but here. Kirchhoff kept silent and performed an expression. He could not show an unsightly face to the lord he faced after three hundred years.
“Yes.”
Yuria looked at her knight’s face and smiled gently. She did not hurry him. Sipping from her teacup, she continued at a leisurely pace.
“How have the years been, Kirchhoff?”
“They were hard days.”
“I suppose so. I asked a difficult role of you.”
“Yes, it was difficult. Truly. Days when even recalling the faces of my benefactors was hard, when I had to strike my own head to dredge up the memories.”
Kirchhoff smiled bitterly.
“I was a knight and a hero of Rondinel. What a knight must do is protect his lord, and what a hero must do is protect the weak and save people.”
“Indeed.”
“I failed to protect you. I failed to protect the nation, failed to protect the people, and saved no one. I fulfilled neither a knight’s duty nor a hero’s obligation.”
Kirchhoff looked wordlessly at his own hands. A constellation’s body recovered from most injuries in an instant, yet Kirchhoff’s hands were covered in calluses and scars.
Because he had not rested a single day in three hundred years.
Without resting a single day he had swung his sword, swung it, and swung it again. Crying the name of Rondinel he had crossed countless battlefields. So as not to be forgotten. To make known that a nation called Rondinel had existed, he had run.
“I wanted to die.”
“······.”
“I lived because I could not die.”
“Is that so.”
“Yes. In a world where not a single soul remembered me, I lived reminiscing the face of you that I remembered. I endured by chewing over your final wish.”
Cracks began to show in Kirchhoff’s expression.
“Do you remember that wish?”
“As if I could forget.”
Yuria closed her eyes and spoke.
“My dear knight, Kirchhoff.”
“You are Rondinel itself. So live a life worthy of that. Just as the knights of Rondinel have always done, you too must swing your sword for humanity.”
“And… if possible, it would be nice if you were cool about it.”
“So the bards can sing of it. Well, aren’t you handsome? If a handsome knight fights splendidly as well, there is no finer heroic tale.”
The words they had shared before the collapsing Rondinel. The last conversation between Kirchhoff and Yuria.
“I laughed. I acted the cool knight Kirchhoff. I deceived myself that I was the knight of a fallen nation who resolutely fought on even after Rondinel’s destruction.”
For the past three hundred years Kirchhoff had worn a mask.
“Just as I once acted the roaming knight Hof, I acted Kirchhoff, knight of a fallen nation.”
That mask was now crumbling.
“I am no hero. I am merely a loser who has lost his homeland and everything he was meant to protect.”
What the crumbling mask revealed was the face of a human worn to the bone.
“The Revelry Emperor, the Star of Oblivion, Lancelot… chewing those three names I endured three hundred years. No answer ever appeared. One worked in the shadows without revealing himself, and the other two I did not even know where to find.”
Even so he had lived for revenge. Revenge became the driving force of Kirchhoff’s life. Whenever he wanted to rest, hatred whipped his body onward.
“And so I came this far.”
“······.”
“For the sake of revenge I must destroy this place. Beyond it will be the Constellation of Oblivion and Lancelot.”
“Is that so.”
“But I cannot possibly destroy this place. Revenge was ultimately for you. For the knights of Rondinel who died that day, and for the people.”
Kirchhoff’s expression twisted. He spread both arms wide, as if to say look at this scenery.
“Here Rondinel truly exists. Everyone is alive and breathing in this place. Yet how am I to…”
Kirchhoff’s voice trembled.
“Destroy them with my own hands? How am I to kill you with my own hands? I cannot. This alone… I cannot do.”
“Sir.”
“I cannot. This alone…”
“Kirchhoff.”
Unable to meet her eyes, Kirchhoff hung his head. But the last queen of Rondinel would not leave him with his head bowed.
“Raise your head. Kirchhoff.”
“······.”
“Did I not tell you? To raise your head and live proudly. That you were more knightly than anyone.”
Yuria smiled bitterly.
“Yes, shall I tell you an interesting story?”
“······What is it?”
“The truth is, I knew from the beginning.”
Kirchhoff raised his head.
To the Kirchhoff who had raised his head, Yuria said:
“It is the story of the day we first met. I knew you were not a knight. You probably thought you had deceived me, but one should not doubt the eye of the princess of Rondinel.”
“Then…”
“I saw through it from the first meeting. Ah, this fellow is no knight. For a knight the etiquette was wrong in more ways than one or two. Etiquette from a few hundred years ago mixed with the present.”
She chuckled softly.
“So at first I listened to your story intending to tease you. Thinking, let’s see how far this fellow goes, I left you alone when you trespassed into the garden.”
A little amusement of the tomboy princess. At first with a light heart, merely as a brief diversion, Yuria had listened to the roaming knight Hof’s tales, yet…
“As one day, two days, a few weeks passed, this thought came to me.”
At some point Yuria had changed.
She had listened to Hof’s stories, seen light in the eyes of the man who chattered so excitedly, and felt beauty in the honor and pride he spoke of.
“Even if they were lies, the things you accomplished were all true. You raised your sword for the weak, and without even knowing what honor and pride were… you lived more honorably and proudly than anyone.”
More knightly than a knight, that is.
“The beginning was acting, was a lie, yet everything you achieved is true. Then there is no reason for you not to be a knight.”
Tap—she drummed a finger on the table.
“Do you remember what I said then?”
“······Then you are a knight. So you said.”
“Yes, it is the same now.”
Yuria smiled.
“You said you merely acted as a hero, that you are a loser, but I think differently. You are indeed a hero. A most noble hero who has fought without resting a single day for three hundred years. You may take pride in that fact.”
And it seemed she was not the only one who thought so.
Yuria raised her hand.
With the raised finger she pointed behind Kirchhoff. In that moment Kirchhoff saw the past overlapping her. Memories of the past flowed into his mind.
“Roaming knight, Hof.”
Kirchhoff, who had secretly trespassed into the garden and told heroic tales to Yuria, had once faced a situation much like this.
“I know that you told lies. I know the fact that you were not a knight, that you merely acted. But even so I wish to say this.”
Then too Yuria had spoken so.
“You raised your sword for the weak, cried out honor, and lived with high pride. Even if the start was a lie, everything you accomplished is true.”
“Then there is no reason for you not to be a knight.”
“I, Yuria, first princess of Rondinel, declare.”
“You are indeed a knight.”
“No one shall doubt this fact. There is no way they could. For the most noble knight of Rondinel will guarantee it.”
Saying so she had pointed behind her.
“Is that not so? Sir Linden?”
“Is that not so? Sir Linden?”
The voice of Yuria in the memory and the present Yuria overlapped. Kirchhoff turned his head. He looked to where Yuria’s finger pointed.
“You are correct.”
There he stood.
The most outstanding knight of Rondinel stood there. In the same appearance as more than three hundred years past, in the same posture, he was there.
“It has been a long time. Kirchhoff.”
Blue Spear, Linden Walterhorn.
Kirchhoff’s master stood there.
Ding, dong, ding······.
Throughout the Sanctuary of Oblivion the sound of bells still rang out.
2.
“I killed one hundred and seventy thousand people.”
“I know. I killed about that many too.”
“Killing and killing and killing again until my own will was no longer in it. The human called me grew faint. I felt like a precision machine that judged according to the law and moved according to the law.”
“Ah, I know that feeling. When you start killing people without much thought, when no matter how pitiful a story you hear your heart no longer races—that’s when that thought comes.”
“······.”
“Why are you glaring at me like that?”
“Do not interrupt.”
“Ah, yes, well.”
Hooo. Cigarette smoke mingled.
“You are rather emotional.”
“It turned out that way somehow.”
“Did you not go through the same thing I did? The first thing to erode should have been emotion.”
“Well, because it was unnecessary—that would be the reason.”
“Yes. Emotion is not needed to enforce the law. Emotion is easily stirred, and in that damned city emotion was nothing more than a toy for constellations to play with.”
“It was.”
“Yet why are you—”
She looked at her.
“Why are you still human?”
“······.”
“What was different between you and me? I am still trapped in the past, dreaming that day’s nightmare, yet why do you look not at yesterday but at tomorrow?”
Just what, she said.
“There is no difference between you and me.”
“No difference, you say.”
“Yes. I can more or less tell how you lived. I am you as well. And because I lived a life that nearly became yours, I cannot help but know.”
Cigarette smoke rose.
“There was no one to trust, was there? A secretary you had worked with for years became overnight a beast that killed people. A sturdy bodyguard was killing people behind your back. A place where you never knew who would turn, when, or how. You could not trust people even if you tried.”
“······.”
“Then someone came to that place.”
“Came? To the Closed City?”
“Yes. Someone who did not exist in your world. That man, that person, changed my life.”
Yuel smiled. Merely recalling him allowed her to smile.
“He did not change. He was simply always by my side, saw me as a human rather than a lord, and remembered me in my place when I would forget everything.”
“······.”
“Whether that person was there or not—that is the only difference. Not because your life was wrong or mistaken. Because you existed, the present me exists.”
“That is—”
“Yes, this is the possibility we once imagined.”
Yuel had once thought it. If only someone would look at me. If only a trustworthy friend would appear in this city where there was no one to trust. If only there were just one such person, I felt I could find the strength.
She had thought that.
No such human had appeared for the lord, but one had appeared for Yuel. That was the only difference.
“So you were able to remain human—is that what you mean?”
“Well, as you can see.”
“You smile often.”
“I think I will be able to smile a little more from now on.”
“Can you free yourself from the past? That is, can you live without being bound by the past any longer? Have you become able to endure the stench of blood that vibrates from your own body?”
“Who knows. I will have to try. But someday it will be all right, will it not?”
“What do I look like now? A doll without emotion? A monster that feels ecstasy in killing people?”
“I was born that way, yet I am changing.”
I am changing, she said.
“I am feeling emotion again. Joy, and occasionally sorrow, regret or yearning. Little by little I am becoming a person.”
“······.”
“When I am whole, the boundary between me and her will disappear. In the end, I and you and she are all the same existence called ‘Yuel.’”
She fell silent.
“······I—”
“Yes.”
“I did not want to live like this. I wanted to die. I hoped it would end like this. I thought if it simply ended this way I could accept my end.”
“I thought the same.”
“Yet what waited for me was not death. Nor was it rest. Fallen here, I had to chew over my past life for hundreds of years. I cannot even forget. In this place there is no oblivion.”
“It must have been hell.”
“I thought I was being punished. Did you think you could die so easily after killing a hundred and seventy thousand? I thought it was punishment, yet…”
She looked out over the city.
“The people I killed are here.”
“······I thought as much. Yes. And so?”
“Those people smiled when they saw me.”
“······.”
“They smile as if they understand everything. They pat my shoulder saying they know I had no choice.”
“Is that so.”
“I killed them calling them beast bastards, not people but dogs—yet the ones I meet here are people.”
She crumbled.
“I did not kill a hundred and seventy thousand beasts. I killed people. Then how is this hideous murderer living in reality? Killing people, of course. Killing, killing, and killing again.”
“······.”
“Thinking of that fact I could not endure. Seeing the stench of blood vibrating from your body the moment you set foot here, I could not bear the confirmation that my thought was right.”
Yet, she said.
“You are different.”
“I will become different.”
“Can you be certain of those words?”
“Of course.”
Yuel clenched empty air.
The code of law written in blood, the Star Relic engraved with the stars of Transmission and Inheritance, settled into her hand. Yuel held it out to her past self.
“That damned old man blessed me to live like a human. I can hardly ignore those words, can I?”
Ding, dong, ding······.
Throughout the Sanctuary of Oblivion the sound of bells rang out.
3.
A constellation formed of ten stars.
A constellation formed of nine stars.
As the two constellations clashed, a majestic peal of bells rang out together with starlight. From the summit of Argo the bells rang without pause. The Tower of Heroes had become a bell tower, spreading the sound of bells throughout the sanctuary.
Ordinary people raised their heads at that sound; the nation resonated with the ringing bells; and the heroes added their own stars to the peal.
The bells rang even louder.
Gooong, guuuuung······.
Between the ringing bells there was one who ran. Drawing a flock of stars with him, Najin swung his sword. Blocked, shoved by the shield, rolling across the ground, yet he righted his posture. Charging without rest he pounded Galahad’s shield.
Thus the bells never ceased.
Stars shone. Beneath the shining stars Najin raised Excalibur. At the remnant of the past Najin leveled his blade. To prove. And to surpass.