The Day Kashmir Came Holding Aria
Kaiser Crisis, endowed with the acute senses of a Sword Master, awoke the instant the source of the disturbance arrived before the Chrysis Ducal Residence.
Danger.
He sensed an immense presence approaching, and his body hair stood on end as his eyes snapped open.
Shing.
A razor-sharp blade slid free from its sheath, leaning against the bed.
Kaiser hardened his expression. He couldn't identify what was coming, but it was far from ordinary.
An invasion by northerners?
The overwhelming pressure felt like that of an entire army bearing down. Given the suspicious movements of the northerners lately, Kaiser ran through various scenarios and prepared a communication orb for any contingency.
But...
His brow furrowed. The approaching presence felt strangely familiar.
Kaiser felt his heartbeat—always reminiscent of the dead—quickening as he moved toward the window.
Boom!
A deafening explosion rocked the air. A blinding light erupted in the room, briefly swallowing everything in brilliance before the night curtain descended once more.
The barrier protecting the Chrysis Ducal Residence shattered in an instant.
Pressing himself silently against the window and peering down into the courtyard, Kaiser froze for a moment.
A feral energy rampaging like an untethered beast. Something suffocatingly melancholic and sinister. An aura surging with endless plummeting despair.
...'Mir.'
"Damn it! Open the gate! Come out!"
Mir began pounding on the Chrysis Ducal Residence's grand doors, unleashing her mana in a violent frenzy.
Her long black hair was a tangled mess, her fluorescent pink eyes gleaming desperately through the dampness. The little girl clutched in her arms was held as if she were her very lifeline.
In that instant, Kaiser felt his heart drop in a bizarre sensation.
"Open the gate! Please!"
Mir cried out desperately. Tiny hands hammered relentlessly at the door. Red blood smeared across it.
For some reason, Kaiser couldn't tear his eyes from that small figure.
...Ah.
It suddenly struck him. Mir looked a little like him. The glossy black curls, the glass-like eyes tinged with red—they all resembled his own.
...That woman.
His gaze darkened at the face of one woman that flashed in his mind.
'I'll save two lives, so please help me just this once. My magic, my abilities, my soul—all of it is yours, Your Grace. Whatever price you demand, I'll repay it with my life! So I can protect what I love... just once, please help me.'
In his life, Kaiser had helped someone without demanding payment exactly once. A woman who, even in endless despair, had begged him with unyielding resolve. Moved by her willingness to stake everything to protect what was precious, he had given her his body.
Ah.
In that moment, Kaiser realized the source of the strange familiarity he felt from Mir.
'Let me handle everything, so just lend me your bed once.'
Mir resembled that woman.
Kaiser stared intently at the shimmering fluorescent pink irises with his deep eyes. He had seen those eyes before. The desperate look that emerged only when one had to protect something more precious than oneself.
Is that it?
His impassive gaze shifted to the little girl cradled in Mir's arms. The nerve-tingling forest scent emanating from the child was unmistakably from the fairies.
His blood-red eyes flickered with brief interest at the realization, but the light evaporated just as quickly.
Only when his gaze moved back to Mir did his impassive eyes regain their spark.
Kaiser, who hadn't felt excitement from anything in so long, sensed something intensely powerful about to burst from Mir.
Bang! Bang!
The entire mansion trembled with each pound of Mir's small fists on the door. Scratches marred the steel gate, and blood began to flow from her small, rough hands.
Even as her knuckle bones started to crack, Mir didn't stop.
Kaiser grimaced. With every bloody strike from those tiny hands, something inside him felt like it was crumbling.
Something boiled up within him. An emotion akin to rage surged, and he was seized by a dark urge to smash something.
Is she insane?
The usually calm beating of his heart roiled like a sailboat caught in a storm, an unfamiliar sensation.
Even as he recognized he wasn't himself, he couldn't look away from Mir's bleeding hands.
Stop.
Kaiser twisted his face. Each tear in Mir's skin felt like his own flesh being shredded—bizarre and painful.
He didn't want Mir to get hurt.
As he turned to open the door himself, unable to bear it any longer—
"Damn it all! Everyone back off!"
Mir, gasping raggedly, drew her sword from her waist.
Shiiik!
The wildly rampaging mana gathered around the blade. Forcing the unstable, trembling mana to coalesce, Mir unleashed her aura.
It was famous that Mir wielded black aura. The calamity of calamities, who butchered magic beasts—disasters themselves—with aura as black as pitch.
Kaiser Crisis beheld Mir's aura with his own eyes for the first time.
It was despair incarnate.
Why.
A question welled up. Aura was the unique answer a swordsman found upon clashing with their limits. Formed on that answer's foundation, the darker the truth, the darker the aura—that was the rule.
The answer Kaiser had found before another Sword Master was 'slaughter.' He had cut down everything in his way.
Thus, his aura was a blood-like deep crimson.
But her...
An abyssal black that permitted no light. Endless darkness.
In all his years, Kaiser had never seen an aura darker than Mir's.
Why did you end up with that color?
Feeling an inexplicable urge to wipe away the tears streaming down her mask, Kaiser watched Mir's actions in a daze.
Bang!
And soon after, the grand doors of the Chrysis Ducal Residence—boasting centuries of history—shattered under Mir's single strike.
"Hahaha!"
Kaiser burst into loud laughter for the first time in ages.
He didn't dislike this Mir, who not only knocked on the doors of the Chrysis Ducal Residence—rumored to house devils—but also demolished its ancient legacy.
No, the emotion she stirred in him was...
Adorable.
Kaiser realized he went strange whenever he saw Mir, but he didn't mind it.
Aside from the unpleasant experience of feeling something snap when he saw her hands get hurt, the emotional shifts she caused were nothing but enjoyable.
After pulverizing the doors and striding boldly into the mansion, Mir vanished from his sight.
Feeling amused, Kaiser stepped out of his room and hid beside the staircase wall.
"...I am Taylor, the head butler of the Chrysis Ducal Residence. May I have your name?"
"Mir."
"Yes, Lady Mir. What brings you here..."
"Call the Duke first. I'll explain everything later."
Me as the goal, huh.
Kaiser felt the situation growing ever more intriguing. Suppressing a rising smile for some reason, he observed.
"...I'm sorry, but that's difficult. The Duke has already retired for the night."
"Truly, my apologies."
The entire hall filled with killing intent. Even Kaiser, another Sword Master, felt his breath catch for a moment.
"I need to see the Duke right now."
Her cracking voice was heartbreaking.
"...Please tell us why you've come first. If you act like this, I can't help you."
Taylor, who had served as the ducal butler for many years, remained rational even before the skin-cutting killing intent.
Mir's eyes went dead at Taylor's question.
Why.
He couldn't understand why his chest ached so.
"My sister... my sister's hurt. Please call the Duke..."
For some reason, at that desperate voice, Kaiser felt an impulse to leap down into the hall.
...Just a bit more.
Torn between sudden impulse and reason, he suppressed his instincts and decided to watch a little longer.
"Call him! Kaiser Crisis, Duke of Crisis—bring him out! Bring him!"
The girl, struggling to maintain composure, erupted like a bomb, splattering blood as she sought him out. As Mir began to sob desperately, tears streaming if she kept going—
Should I go down? No.
From earlier, Kaiser had been fighting instincts that betrayed his reason and raged within.
Each tear from Mir's eyes made his heart feel like it was dripping away.
"The Duke has retired for the night..."
"Whom do you serve!"
And then Mir dropped a massive bomb.
"I am the daughter of Duke Crisis, Kashmir Crisis! Take me to my father!"
What...?
His heart plummeted in a dizzying freefall. Its beating accelerated.
Only then did the scattered puzzle pieces fall into place.
The vanished woman and child. The red-tinged eyes. The strange familiarity. The wildly fluctuating emotions.
Kaiser leaned against the wall. For him, to whom everything was boring, this was a fresh shock after so long.
Confused yet unable to look away from Mir—no, Kashmir.
And Mir removed her mask.
Thud.
The face revealed as the mask fell resembled his own, and thus...
it was lovable.
Have I finally lost my mind?
Kaiser clamped his mouth shut. The laughter leaking out felt awkward.
Reason and instinct seemed to be playing separately.
Interesting.
Kaiser deemed the wriggling emotion in a corner of his heart as intriguing.
He vaguely knew it was something more, but he didn't know what name to give it.
"Anyone who stands in my way will be cut down."
This is bad.
At this rate, the mansion might collapse.
Truth be told, if the child wanted to tear it down, he'd let her—but since it was just a tantrum to summon him, it was time to intervene.
"Stand down, Taylor."
Kaiser suppressed the writhing strange emotion and casually stepped in front of Taylor.
In that moment, their eyes met.
Eyes stained red with killing intent, matching his own. Beneath the feral glare lay the image of despair plummeting into hell.
His heart throbbed. He didn't know why.
The child's tearful eyes, clinging to him as if he were her only hope, stirred his insides.
Tap.
Finally, he stood before her.
Up close, the child's state was even more wretched than he'd imagined. The sight shook him again, and he gruffly exuded killing intent.
The child drew in a deep breath.
For a moment, the two Sword Masters' clash of presences lingered, then the gritted-teeth child withdrew her killing intent first.
Clang.
Her small hand released the sword she'd gripped desperately.
For a Sword Master to release their sword first before another was akin to baring one's throat; he couldn't help being swept in a strange mood.
Is that thing so precious?
His gaze brushed over the little girl cradled protectively in her trembling, skinny arms. She held her like an irreplaceable treasure.
"Interesting."
Kaiser smiled faintly.
It was truly amusing and strange that his own daughter could be so devoted to something.
Stepping up to Kashmir, he gently lifted her chin. Her skin was sticky with tears.
"You're my daughter?"
It was the moment Kaiser Crisis—who had known no love for 39 years—met the one he would love for the rest of his life.