Eclosion (2)
The sun was setting, and the night grew deep.
The battle had dragged on longer than expected. In the forest where darkness lay thinly across the ground, the demon hunter Jerold heaved for breath. Sweat beaded on his brow, and several scars—as if from a blade—marred his forearms.
From forearm to wrist. From wrist to the back of his hand. From the back of his hand to his fingers, and from his fingers to the hilt of his sword…
Blood flowed. Watching it trickle down, Jerold let out a long breath. What a vicious bastard. Never one to simply give up his flesh. It was as if he insisted that if he was going to surrender a piece of himself, he would tear a handful from the other side as well.
"Haa…"
Jerold panted and glanced to the side.
There stood Klaus Aten. His clothes, too, were stained dark red with blood. He had been bleeding. Jerold could not quite make sense of the situation itself.
Wasn't he a Sword Expert?
He had merely been approaching Sword Seeker.
Hadn't they said the target was a Sword Expert? But what Expert in the world could hold out against two Seekers? By any common sense, it was impossible.
"…"
Jerold looked ahead.
There was Najin, sword hanging at his side, breathing hard. He had shed far more blood than either Jerold or Klaus. A hole had been punched through his side, and wounds covered his entire body.
If their own wounds had merely slowed their movements a little, his made it difficult even to move. At best, he had one or two more exchanges left in him.
The end would come soon. The victors would naturally be them. But for Jerold, it was an unsatisfying victory. Two Seekers against a single Expert, and they were going to win by dragging it into a war of attrition?
Damn it…
He truly did not want it this way.
If only it had been decided in the first ambush. If only that youth had died before Jerold learned, blade against blade, what kind of man he was.
A sordid, ugly victory was no different from defeat.
Even so, he had reason he had to win. Jerold kicked off the ground. At the very least, he meant to finish it with his own sword before the youth collapsed from blood loss. Fierce aura bloomed over Jerold's blade.
This would be the end.
Against Najin, who could barely keep his footing, Jerold closed the distance in an instant and swung. Until the very moment Jerold swung his sword, Najin did not move. He must have run out of strength even to react. That was what Jerold thought.
A greatsword parting the air as it drove in.
In the split second when the greatsword was about to cleave Najin's body in two—
Najin's hair stirred in the rush of wind. Through the swaying strands, his eyes were revealed. The moment Jerold met those eyes right before him, he unwittingly sucked in a breath.
Sunset-colored eyes, calm and settled.
Unlike his wrecked body, those eyes alone were still. Then Najin moved. The sword he had let hang swept up, scattering afterimages. A speed so great it was hard to believe he had reacted late. A stroke that could be called lightning-fast struck Jerold's greatsword.
KAAAAAAAAANG!
Aura crashed against aura.
In the moment of impact, Jerold did not doubt his victory. Until now, every clash of aura had favored his side. Najin had been busy twisting the path of his blade and dodging. He thought it would be the same this time, but…
Kiiiiiiing!
This time was different.
A fierce rebound. Enough force that the hand gripping Jerold's hilt trembled. Jerold's eyes flew wide. His face flooded with shock.
Unable to withstand the rebound, Najin's body was driven far back—but he was not the only one. Jerold's greatsword, unable to complete its arc, had been flung the opposite way.
And the combat boots planted on the ground as well.
Looking at his own two legs that had taken a step back, Jerold's eyes went wide. How? No—more than that, the aura that had been shining a moment ago was clearly…
Jerold Oton.
Klaus Aten.
Both stared at Najin with wide eyes. Najin, driven far back, panted and slowly raised his head. A smile clung to the corners of his mouth.
"…Got it."
Najin muttered quietly.
The answer whose outline he had only vaguely grasped. The single step he had been lacking. Because he had finally seized it.
Crack.
A crumbling sound came from Najin's aura. It resembled the sound of a chrysalis breaking.
He had been born where no stars could be seen.
Born low, he had lived like trash. A sinner from birth, not even allowed to dream. To the boy, the subterranean city of Atman had been a prison.
A vast prison.
A prison he believed he would never leave for the rest of his life.
Even after he left that prison, the boy was still a convict. He regarded himself as one. And so he thought he had to change. A convict could never become a hero. A knight had to be someone who shone.
Even though he had finally gained freedom.
Even though he had crossed the line.
Even though he had smashed the bars and escaped the prison.
The boy was still bound by something. His speech and expression had grown rigid, and tension naturally gathered in his shoulders. He had decided that his roots were those of a mangy hunting dog, that he had been a sinner from birth, and so he had to tear himself down and rebuild from the start.
The denial of the self.
Even after leaving the prison, the boy unconsciously still thought of himself as a convict, still wore shackles on his ankles. He realized it only belatedly. And because he realized it, he smiled.
I was wrong.
The boy—
I was wrong from the very beginning.
Najin let out a long breath.
The subterranean city, Atman.
His damned hometown, the prison that had held him. A place he hated without end, an origin he wanted to hide—but now he had to accept it.
Najin closed his eyes. What he saw with his eyes closed was the landscape of the subterranean city. But the city was not merely dark, as he remembered. Two stars shone there.
A star hung high, and a star hung low.
In the place where no stars could be seen, the star the boy had dreamed of was there. Looking at the low-hanging star, Najin smiled bitterly. Who had been the first knight he ever admired? Ivan. Ivan, the knight of Atanga.
The knight who had planted a dream in him.
The master who had pushed him forward from behind.
He had said: Cross the line and run far. Run free. You are free now. Those were the last words of the knight he had served. How could he go around boldly calling himself Ivan's squire if he failed to keep them?
I was mistaken, Ivan.
Najin raised his sword.
The moment he raised his sword, Jerold and Klaus could only fall silent. They could not take a single step closer to Najin. If they approached rashly, they would die. That intuition flashed through both their minds.
The flow had reversed.
The air of the whole area churned.
But contrary to the roiling current, the pure white aura settled completely still. The violently thrashing aura was gone. The aura that shed a soft light was utterly quiet.
Najin lowered his sword. The pure white aura crumbled. Like a chrysalis breaking, or like tightly wound threads unraveling and scattering. With the scattering aura, darkness returned to the forest.
Najin still had his eyes closed.
What he gazed upon with closed eyes was his own inner world. A space of barely ten paces, at most. But that space was now churning violently. The landscape began to expand.
Along the outskirts, buildings rose.
The cityscape Najin had walked, the alleyways where he had scavenged through trash, the filthy, dark places that were nonetheless where he had lived—all appeared one after another.
He denied none of it.
He merely smiled as he looked at the pure white star shining in the center of the city. Ivan, you taught me so much. Truly, it is just as you said.
"Ease up a little, you brat."
"Smile more."
"How are you supposed to live if you go around like that? You'll wear yourself out."
My shoulders keep tensing up. I convince myself I have to be this way. I try to put on weight and dignity. Even now, it's the same. On my shoulders rest your life and your honor. And not only yours. Oppen's, old man Hogel's, the weight of everyone who helped me.
It is truly heavy.
I end up thinking I can't live like this.
I pulled Excalibur. I have to become a hero. Merlin, that great constellation of the night sky, watches over me. She whispers that I will become a hero. Yes, I suppose I must. And so I naturally think of King Arthur.
I have to become like Arthur.
That is what I end up thinking.
A little more refined. A little more knightly. A little more, a little more, a little more… Unconsciously, that is what I thought. My expression hardened. My speech stiffened. The hunting dog of the subterranean city that I was gradually faded.
But where would my roots go?
I will not deny them. Just as you did not, Ivan. Above all else, did I not make a promise?
I swore it in a place where no stars could be seen.
That I would carve a star into the sky.
It was a vow made where no stars could be seen, and that is why it has value. I have not the slightest intention of diminishing that value. Though I was born where there were no stars, I dreamed of stars, and I will hang a star in that sky no matter what.
"Haa…"
Najin let out a long breath.
The tension left his shoulders, and his stance softened. His breathing grew lighter as well. A mindscape that had expanded far into the distance. Najin slowly rose to his feet.
There stood Merlin.
In Merlin's hand was a small birdcage.
She tossed the cage toward Najin. A crude, shoddy birdcage. Looking at it, Najin smiled. Smiling, he swung his sword.
He swung lightly.
An astonishingly smooth, natural motion. The moment he swung, aura did not surge up. He did not drag the current either. Only the tip of the blade shone.
The tip of the sword shone.
A pure white star had formed at the sword's tip.
In reality, the sword cut through empty air—but the sword swung within his mindscape cut through the birdcage. The cage parted so simply. Watching the crumbling cage, Najin opened the eyes he had closed.
The chrysalis was broken.
The birdcage was shattered.
The boy had reached eclosion.
Flash-flash-flash-flash-flash!
Light flashed and exploded in the air. Beginning from the tip of Najin's sword, light continued. The linked light took on a form like a constellation.
Aura completely dismantled and reconstructed.
It was no longer the aura of a Sword Expert. Nor was it aura that merely held fragments of a mindscape. Aura that had taken on a completely new form. Aura that fully contained his mindscape—aura that belonged to Najin alone.
The boy's open eyes shone platinum-gold.
Sword Seeker.
One who walks the path of the sword, a seeker of the blade.
Having completed his eclosion, the boy had reached the realm of Sword Seeker.
"Eclosion…"
Klaus muttered without thinking.
Eclosion. A process one must inevitably pass through to reach the level of Sword Seeker, or something equivalent. He himself had undergone a similar process.
The sensation of his mindscape expanding, of the aura coiled around his lance being completely reconstructed. Having felt that sensation in the middle of a battlefield, Klaus recalled the past as he looked at the present.
Before him stood a youth who had just completed his eclosion. Klaus gazed, as if entranced, at the constellation that circled along the tip of Najin's sword. Aura in the form of a constellation. Had aura of such a form ever existed in history?
Though the auras of Sword Seekers were each different, there were always areas of overlap to some degree. But Klaus was seeing aura of this form for the first time today. The same was true of Jerold, who had fought countless powerful foes.
The aura Najin had raised shone brilliantly even in the dark forest. A radiant constellation drove out the darkness.
A constellation drawn with a human's sword. Before this aura he was encountering for the first time, the corner of Jerold's mouth twitched. Gripping his greatsword tightly, he let out a laugh. He knew instinctively. The tide of battle had flipped. Advantage and disadvantage had reversed.
What stood before him was a Sword Seeker.
A powerful fighter who had clearly reached the realm of Sword Seeker.
Jerold was not the only one laughing. Klaus, too, let out a hollow laugh. Eclosion in a situation like this! Trials were said to force growth upon people, but most trials simply killed them. Yet that youth had surpassed the trial and achieved growth.
Remarkable. Truly.
Forgetting even that they were locked in a duel to the death, Klaus purely marveled. And as he marveled, he felt cold sweat run down his spine.
A swordsman who had been perfect in every respect except aura had now seized even a ferocious aura.
From now on, it would no longer be a matter of drawing blood with each attack—they would have to take care that their own bodies were not torn apart. The situation had reversed, but the flow itself had not changed in the slightest.
One strike.
A single strike would decide the match.
Klaus steadied his breath. His mindscape surged and coiled around his lance. Jerold stamped his foot hard. Into the greatsword that had torn apart countless demons, his mindscape sank more fiercely than ever before.
One strike.
An instant would decide the outcome.