Waiting Beyond the Wall
??
This was not a question of whether I could resist or not.
The barrier of pure white flame was as unbending as the very wall of the world itself.
And yet, it was not merely unbending.
Heat that seared my entire body. The agony it brought was terrible beyond all words.
Not at this level—!
But I could not yield to something like this. Not to this much. Not to so little.
Above all, being dragged about by a tyrant's whim — that was something I could never, ever endure.
Elhermina.
I understood well enough how she thought of me. But accepting it was another matter entirely.
I would never accept her coercion. Did she truly believe I would bow so meekly to this kind of tyranny?
…
…
"Enough. It is over."
Resistance was futile. My will was as wretched as a candle before the wind and rain.
If that thing had been human, could the world really be so unfair?
Cruel. Merciless.
…And yet.
From this moment on.
My heart died. My will collapsed. My resolve shattered, and hope crumbled away.
Like a doll with no soul. As though it had always been this way.
I returned to the Imperial Capital with her.
But… that did not mean I was reunited with my mother and father.
She knew me far too well.
Deep within the Imperial Palace. In a place I could not name, a room with not even a single window.
There, I simply wait for her to come.
"If it is too much, then do not think."
Was it not nothing but pain? She would give her instructions. She would ask what I was feeling, and soothe it away.
Everything unfolded exactly as she intended.
And yet perhaps, for me, that was the best possible outcome.
"…How did it come to this? This isn't… what I wanted."
The first time I saw Seras in so long, she was in a terrible state.
But I paid it no mind. Because whenever I started to think, my head began to ache.
So I decided not to think. After all, I was already dead.
Seal the heart. Lock it tight and bolt it shut. Keep it closed for the one moment that matters — the moment I receive her.
She loves me. She cherishes me. If I ever reached for her throat to strangle her, she would receive the result with a smile on her face.
That is the kind of woman she is.
…She, and she alone, is my salvation. My savior.
I have no other hope, nothing else at all. Apart from the moments I spend with her, nothing in this world… was worth a single copper.
"What a bother."
Some unintelligible voice kept scratching at my eardrums. My chest felt tight, and sometimes I couldn't quite draw breath — but that was fine. I only had to take the potion she gave me.
Don't think. Thinking only hurts. Only wears me down.
If I simply threw this much of a tantrum, everything I wanted and everything I wished to do was handed to me.
I plucked at the lute. Even without leaning on any potion, this alone would be enough.
"Your face has brightened so much."
Perhaps because I had stopped depending on needless things, my relationship with her flowed more smoothly than before. No — even before, it was truly, genuinely affectionate and tender… in any case, an ideal bond beyond all argument.
"Are you really all right with this?"
Seras asked me.
She alone came to visit periodically, cleaning this vast space before departing once more. Aside from Elhermina, only Seras — only she — ever came here.
I prefer to be alone. That is what I wished for. It was never a choice made because she wanted it. This is the truth.
I am always waiting for her. Only when we are pressed together, only when we have become one, are we made whole.
Like the sun and the moon — when we are apart, I am so terribly lonely, so desolate that it hurts.
Don't think. I pluck at the lute.
Endlessly. Endlessly. Until I forget even myself. On and on, I spread the sound of the strings.
…?
A voice drifted in from somewhere.
I don't know. It seemed like something important, somehow, but I couldn't grasp it.
Don't try to remember. It hurts.
I have suffered enough. I don't want to push myself anymore. Even breathing was exhausting.
Every time I opened my eyes, I hated that the day had come again — feared it, ached from it. Falling asleep had always terrified me. Because tomorrow would arrive.
And so I thrashed and struggled not to close my eyes — and that only made everything hurt more.
You can't even listen properly. Why can't you understand a simple word? Pull yourself together. Are you mocking us? Why do you live like that? Aren't you ashamed in front of your parents? How long do you intend to go on like that?
This way or that way, there was never any escape for me.
So pray. Pray.
Even those days locked in a room with nothing to do but pray feel, in hindsight, almost peaceful. But being shut in a corner, praying — that was better, at least.
Unable to sleep at night, unable to eat, training and studying and dragged from place to place. Scolded, insulted, despised, browbeaten, mocked, compared, chided, nagged — lectures, contempt, curses, slanders, defamation, jeering…
I didn't want to open my eyes. I wanted to plug my ears. I wished I simply couldn't hear. I wished I couldn't see. If only I could feel nothing at all — then I wouldn't be in pain.
Even the air was a needle stabbing into my lungs; it frightened me. Was the world, in truth, harboring malice toward me?
I was not born to be blessed. I was not born to be loved.
…I was born to be cursed. Wasn't that what I was born for?
"It's all right."
Because I'm here. Because I'm here. Isn't it enough, as long as you have me?
"…That's right."
As long as you're here. As long as it's you, that's enough.
"I wish time would just stop like this forever. You are truly… the more I look at you, the more beautiful you become. My very own El. Cariel. Cal."
Even if the whole world bore malice toward me, this woman alone, of everyone in it—
"…"
Day by day, the strange voice in my head grew louder and louder.
Was it a hallucination? Or perhaps a ghost?
…I can't hear it.
…
What was it lamenting so? I could hear it, and yet the sound seemed to come from somewhere beyond this world entirely — the far side of some other place.
…I don't know.
I was sleepy, so I simply closed my eyes.
There was a time I dreaded sleep so much. When closing my eyes frightened me so terribly. These days, I close them without a second thought.
Not thinking, when you wake, is genuinely difficult. But when falling asleep, it comes easily.
I can forget everything. Even the will, even the resolve, that I must forget.
In a single instant.
…
…
…
"…"
"…"
Step.
Step.
"Ah."
I can hear it. The sound of footsteps.
"…"
Why was it that, in the Demon Realm — hell, and hell's other name — it clung so fiercely to its contracts?
Screeeech—
After an impossibly long silence, came the sound of grinding metal.
It had never once sounded before. Not a single time.
Instinctively, I looked up at the empty air. No — not there. The ceiling? No, not even the ceiling.
Far, far deeper than that. Somewhere profound.
Yes.
From somewhere far deeper still — someone was looking this way.
An enormous finger reached toward this place.
And at last—
Pop.
The world burst apart, clean and complete — as though someone had, in idle play, touched a tiny water droplet and broken it.