Duel (4)
“Anyway, now that it’s all over, why don’t you explain it to me? How did you predict that our Crown Prince would get beaten like a dog by your brother?”
“Well, that part was simple. I didn’t like it, of course, but he’s still our brother. Unlike the other idiots, I at least know exactly what he can do and what he can’t.”
My head felt stuffed with cotton. The conversation those girls were having sounded distant, like a tiny echo drifting across some faraway chasm.
“My brother spent half his life on battlefields, and every single time, he came back alive. He’s a monster like that. There was no way he could lose a duel to some brat like our Crown Prince.”
“…But last time, didn’t you clearly say that you couldn’t tell how the duel between His Highness and your brother would end, so we’d have to make some preparations of our own?”
“I did. Because back then, my brother had a very fatal weakness.”
“A weakness?”
“Money. Or maybe power… though background might be the better word.”
Letitia was explaining everything in a calm, almost leisurely way, as though she were standing in the position of an undisputed victor and simply recounting events after the fact.
“Think about it. Our Crown Prince always dresses himself in nothing but the finest luxury goods, so of course the sword he always carries around would be a fine weapon too. I heard that blade of His Highness’s is one of the Empire’s treasured artifacts.”
“And?”
“By contrast, our brother always lacked money, so he wore cheap things from head to toe. From the clothes on his back to the sword a mercenary values more than his own life… as far as I know, that sword he carried had already been used for over ten years.”
Just as I knew a great deal about Letitia, Letitia knew a great deal about me.
And precisely because of that, all of that information had become a deadly knife aimed straight at me in this very moment.
“To be honest, for a strongman like my brother, a weapon isn’t all that important. Even if he’d been holding a branch, he probably still would’ve beaten our Highness. But if that happened… it would’ve put us in a terrible spot.”
“Because he’d prove his ability in front of all those people?”
“Exactly. That’s why I didn’t think it was a good idea for my brother and Eli to fight. The more my brother showed off his strength, the more obvious it would become that all the rumors we worked so hard to spread were lies, wouldn’t it?”
So that rumor was yours too, after all.
All those rumors that made my life miserable, that hounded me and dragged me down—so you were the ones behind them.
“My brother is strong. But depending on the opponent, that strength can become a weakness too. For instance, against a foolish brat whose only virtue is that his body is terribly precious to us… our Crown Prince.”
“So that’s why you gave him the sword you’d carefully prepared, instead of a demon sword.”
“That’s right. If I wanted my brother to put more force than necessary into dealing with our Crown Prince, gifting him a good sword was enough. Until now, he’s only ever used those worn-out, bargain-bin iron swords, so he doesn’t really understand how sharp or powerful a truly good blade can be.”
At Letitia’s words, I was reminded of how I’d bloodied Ricardo’s right arm in the duel just now.
I’d swung the sword intending only to nick his skin and tendon, but it had come out with far more force than I expected, and I’d been a little taken aback.
But now I could see it clearly. That, too, must have been part of what those girls had planned.
A cruel scheme to put a sword he’d never once had the chance to touch into my hands, so I would inflict a more devastating wound on Ricardo.
“My brother won the duel beautifully, just as we expected. And in the process, he didn’t just badly injure the Crown Prince; he utterly trampled him in front of everyone. Do you really think our prideful Highness can swallow an humiliation like that?”
“But as a rule, things that happen during a duel don’t count publicly. What if our Highness, being arrogant as ever, says he won’t hold your brother responsible for anything?”
“That’s why it’s our role to provoke the awakened Highness. When he comes to, we’ll whisper in his ear: are you really going to let some street orphan humiliate the future ruler of the Empire like this and just let it go? With His Highness’s personality, there’s no way he’d ever swallow that. Even if, in the long run, it would only hurt him.”
“This time, there won’t be a single way for your brother to escape.”
Their giggling voices rang in my ears.
The truth was tearing my heart apart, though if I’d remained ignorant, I might have been happier for it.
At the bitter pain, I slowly closed my eyes.
...Ah.
So I had finally learned everything. The truth I had been desperately avoiding, the truth I had not wanted to know.
The way they’d hovered around me with that strangely lingering attention, after saying they no longer thought of me as family.
The way they’d spread all manner of malicious rumors to drive me out of Rutra, and then even gone so far as to arrange a duel—only to hand me a sword as if they were doing it for my victory.
All those little signs that made me hope, however faintly, that maybe they were only sniping at me on the surface and still thought of me as family somewhere deep down… those were all, in truth, acts meant to destroy me.
At last, I had no choice but to admit it.
What I had believed was family had already collapsed long ago, leaving only an empty shell behind.
And that was why those girls were trying to discard me.
Just as a hunting dog’s fate, once the hunt was over, was nothing more than being thrown into a cauldron.
I, too, had simply become useless to them, and so I was being thrown away.
“.....”
I had known it, really. In the past, the girls and I had certainly been family, but in the present we were little more than strangers who happened to know each other.
And yet I had wanted to believe. Even if it was something stained through and through with lies, I wanted to preserve that relationship to the very end.
During the hardest period of my life, we had met each other in the middle of the street.
When life was unbearably harsh and difficult, when I could barely endure it alone, when the thought filled my head that this world must hate me and that I might as well die.
Every time, the ones who held me up and stayed beside me were those girls.
For someone like me, who had nowhere in the world to lean on, the fact that there was a home to return to—and a family waiting there for me—was a comfort greater than anything else in the world.
It had been much like wounded dogs licking each other’s wounds, but for me back then, that alone was the force that kept me alive.
That was why it hurt.
Even if someone took a knife and gouged through raw flesh, even if they seared it with a branding iron, it still wouldn’t hurt as much as what I felt now.
Because the ones I had loved until now, the ones I had vowed to love forever, had not only cast me aside—they had abandoned me completely.
...You said you no longer think of me as family.
More precisely, they’d said this.
If I still thought of them as family, then I should please leave the Academy on my own two feet.
Because I was such an embarrassing, shameful existence to them.
...Maybe I should just give up on all of this and leave.
After all, the only reason I had stayed in Rutra while enduring all this humiliation was for one thing alone: for those girls.
I knew very well that not only the Imperial Family, which had dragged us here in the first place, but people all over the world were eyeing their talents and waiting for the right opportunity.
In a situation where no one in the world could be trusted easily, I had entered this academy to protect my younger sisters myself.
But now, all I could think was: what did any of that matter?
After all, those girls were no longer my family. What was the point of enduring to the bitter end here, anyway?
It wasn’t too late even now. I could go to Cartesia, say my goodbyes, and leave the Academy without looking back…
...No, wait. Is it really all right to end everything like this?
Of course, I wasn’t suddenly about to start spouting nonsense about becoming family again with those girls.
Still, I was angry.
I was hurt by those girls, hurt so deeply that I was ready to leave the Academy, and yet Eli, Letitia, Seria, and Lobelia would remain here and be happy once I was gone. That made me furious, and it felt profoundly unfair.
And then, in that very instant, one thought flashed through my mind like lightning.
Then I’ll cast you aside first.
They said they no longer considered me family.
I had begged, I had tried to reach out to them, and in the end they still meant to discard me.
So this time, I would discard them first.
They would not be the ones to throw me away. I would throw them away before they ever got the chance.
After I cast them aside, I would make them look at the empty space I left behind and drown in regret and bloody tears.
Because now I no longer thought of them as family.
Not ever.
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