Those Who Stand at the End (8)
"Having fun?"
Someone had spoken to him.
"Hm?"
Vesta turned his head.
"Hello, Baatar."
A girl stood there, white as fresh snow.
"And you are?"
She looked about Vesta's own age. Her hair was white to the very roots, and even her eyebrows were white.
That alone would have made her a striking sight anywhere in the world.
But there was one more thing that set her apart — the noose hanging around the girl's neck. Thorns studding the noose were biting into her flesh, festering it, and the sight alone was enough to make anyone wince.
Yet even bearing pain like that, the girl showed nothing of it.
"Strange."
"Strange how?"
She was an unreadable one. Either she was entirely indifferent to Vesta's lukewarm reaction, or simply oblivious, because she pressed straight on.
"Weren't they far too weak an opponent for you to enjoy?"
Weak, was it. Could he really call a band of mounted brigands a weak opponent?
"They weren't warriors — nothing but common bandits. Hardly enemies worthy of you."
There was no accusation in her tone. Looking at her face, she seemed purely, genuinely curious.
'And just what kind of enemy would suit me?'
An enemy was an enemy. Where did this talk of worthy and unworthy come from? She certainly had a gift for talking strangely.
'Still, I suppose I should answer her.'
He decided to play along.
"Well, they weren't exactly formidable foes. You're right — they weren't warriors."
Just because a bandit carried a blade didn't mean he could fight like a warrior. A warrior was closer to a priest than a bandit. It demanded long discipline — and even that discipline had to be sincere.
No one could become a warrior without sacrificing something of their own life. It was easy for a warrior to fall into banditry; it was near impossible for a bandit to rise into a warrior.
"It wasn't much fun, honestly."
"Liar. Your face looked bright enough."
'If you had the leisure to watch my face, you could've come over and helped, no?'
"Maybe a little? I don't know, hard to say. Either way, the fight itself was mediocre. I just felt a bit of satisfaction, I suppose."
She could take that or leave it.
"Satisfaction?"
"Yeah. I won easily just now, but back in the day, they were overwhelming opponents. There were times I nearly died to men like them."
It couldn't be helped.
The Vesta of the past had been smaller, lighter, and far too accustomed to one-on-one combat. He simply hadn't been prepared to fight many enemies spread across open ground.
Vesta's strength came from reading distance — the measure of space between himself and everything around him. Which meant that when distance failed him, so did his greatest talent.
The mounted bandits he'd met outside the arena had been exactly that kind of enemy.
Had they clashed in some cramped, enclosed chamber instead, he could have felled ten of them without breaking a sweat.
'I went through that a few times back when I lived in the arena, after all.'
[Don't forgive me for this, kid.]
[That's rich, coming from the guy throwing the match. Go get your gladiator badge revoked along with the rest of those bastards back there. Seriously.]
Fighting in the arena by day, ambushed by his own comrades by night — that had been Vesta's daily life.
"See? It was a close thing."
"What? What are you talking about all of a sudden?"
"That over there. That's you, isn't it?"
"Could you speak in words a person can actually follow..."
He was more than a little startled.
When he turned to look where the girl was pointing, there was — another version of himself — locked in battle with the mounted bandits.
Should he call it a phantom? Or an astral double?
A bandit swung his blade, and the phantom caught it with visible effort.
-This little brat's got real skill with a blade! Better to just kill him and be done with it!
-If you think you can, go ahead and try!
-Oh, I will. I'll kill you for sure!
The battle was dragging on — and the tide was against the phantom.
'His spirit's willing, at least.'
He couldn't match the horses' mobility, and he was being toyed with.
'A mess. An utter mess.'
His small stature meant his strikes fell short, and unaccustomed to fighting many against one, he wasn't even keeping track of the archers.
'He fights too honestly. He never shook off the habits drilled into him at the arena. Well, I suppose he'd find it frustrating too.'
The Vesta of today had known far more varied battles. And that was precisely why he could look at his younger self and pick out every flaw.
Unexpectedly educational, he thought.
"Who knew I'd end up lecturing my own past self."
It was a mystical experience. The girl's intervention had to be behind it. Though perhaps doubting what power a young girl might possess was beside the point.
"Princess. That's it, isn't it?"
No common sense could apply to a being beyond the human.
"So you did recognize me."
Daughter of the Beast King Ekarquide. The royal beast — the one called the Princess.
She was a sacred spirit-beast, revered across the steppe.
"We've met several times in dreams, haven't we? I didn't recognize you then, though."
It made sense now, why she felt strangely familiar. He had already met her more than once.
"And I've seen you in the waking world too. Slow as you are."
"How was I supposed to know? You look completely different."
She should have walked around looking human in real life too. How was anyone supposed to identify her in the flesh of the beast itself?
"Outward appearance is only a shell."
The Princess yawned, her mouth stretching wide open.
"So — why did you come looking for me?"
"Follow me. I'll let you confirm it with your own eyes."
*
He hurried after the Princess as she pressed forward without hesitation.
"Huh."
The scenery shifted in a rush. The mounted bandits and the carriages receded behind them, and then fell away into staggering distance.
"This is..."
The next landscape to appear was the Empire. And not just anywhere — the place most familiar to Vesta of all the world.
The largest tomb in the world. The great circular arena of the capital.
"...There I am again."
An even younger Vesta. Younger than a boy — a child, really. He was that small, that young. The boy clutched a tiny knife in his hand, facing down a massive wolf.
He knew which memory this was at once. There was no need to dig for it.
That day's memory was vivid beyond vivid — as crisp as if it had happened yesterday.
It was his first match as a bestiarius — a beast-slaying gladiator.
Grrrr—
The wolf looked ready to tear the child's throat out at any moment.
No one in the stands would have bet on Vesta to win. Bringing down a wolf with a knife barely the length of a hand was not a thing permitted to small children.
The Vesta of that day was, truly, nothing at all.
'The circus troupe hadn't even taught him anything that passed for fighting technique.'
-Eat him! Eat him! Eat him!
The child — Vesta — was trembling all over. Not a single soul in that roaring crowd was cheering for him.
"Baatar, aren't you going in?"
"One moment."
The child's small back gnawed at him.
"If it bothers you so much, go cut the wolf down yourself, one stroke. It wouldn't be hard for you, would it?"
The Princess tipped her chin toward the wolf.
"True."
It was possible. The Vesta of now could do it easily. Between Vesta and the wolf lay a gulf of power far, far greater than the one between the child and the beast.
He wouldn't even need the knife. If he wished it, he could strangle the wolf to death with his bare hands.
But he shook his head. The glory of felling the wolf on this day did not belong to a warrior of the Khan of the Wilderness.
That honor belonged to the child, and to the child alone.
"It'll seem senseless to you. But you have to carve your way through with your own strength."
Vesta drew close to the child's side. The boy couldn't perceive him. Vesta lowered himself, bringing his eyes level with the child's.
He looked at the wolf through the boy's eyes.
'Ah. From your height, that wolf really does look like a monster.'
Of course he was terrified.
"It's nothing. Really, kid."
You'll grow strong enough one day to fight the leader of the Blue Wolves and win. A wolf like this is nothing at all.
"Win here, and you get to go see your friends."
And he would get to go see Ashtien.
Perhaps it was his imagination, but the child's trembling seemed to ease, just slightly.
The wolf, contemptuous of its tiny opponent, lunged a beat too soon — and the child —
"GRAAAAHHH—!"
Thud—!
"Well done."
The knife buried itself in the wolf's throat. The beast thrashed and bucked, but the boy never let go of the blade. That small knife fought as desperately as though it were his very life.
'So that's where the habit started, was it?'
Three minutes, perhaps? At last the wolf collapsed in a heap. The child did not rejoice in its death. He scrambled up and climbed onto the wolf's back.
Thud—
With a desperate, fevered expression, he began to hammer down at the carcass.
"Yes. That's right. That's how it was."
The boy pounded the wolf again and again, until someone finally came and pulled him off. His small body was already being swallowed in sticky blood.
The sight was so wretched that Vesta wanted nothing more than to carry the child far, far away from it all.
"...Now it begins."
You will live a life where not even a single defeat will be forgiven you.
Before Vesta's eyes, a great procession appeared — a long, trailing line of phantoms.
Ferocious beasts — bears, lions. And gladiators.
"Orthos."
The warrior of two heads. Orthos's phantom stood there as well. One day, he would become a towering wall, blocking the child's path through life.
Every last one of them had to be overcome. That child had no choice but to overcome them all.
'He can do it. Just as I did.'
"Baatar. It's time to go."
"Yeah. I've seen enough. Let's go."
He moved to follow the Princess — leaving behind the mad cheering and jeering of the arena's crowd.
And leaving behind their celebration of a young gladiator's birth.