Evidence (7)
“Dumb Sir, stupid Sir, the biggest idiot Sir in the whole world…….”
Deathbringer knelt before the unyielding wall of holy power. The hands he had struck and pounded over and over in a desperate bid to smash it open had turned an angry scarlet, ready to bruise at any second.
“You’re really going to regret this…….”
Yet the place that hurt far worse lay deeper than his heart, somewhere inside his chest.
“Damn Sir…….”
Ah. Should I have talked with her more?
If instead of lounging around thinking we’d bump into each other soon enough, I’d pressed and nagged the Inquisitor harder, would anything have been different?
If instead of hesitating out of fear of whatever answer she might give, I’d gathered the courage to approach her, then…….
But after the Demon Knight vanished, she hadn’t been the only one in pain. The agony had been so thick that he wasn’t the only one who had stalled at the thought of conversation.
Not knowing how to look at one’s own heart objectively, finding it strange to work things out by talking with others, and finally choosing to bottle everything up alone—that kind of life didn’t belong to just one of them.
In short, this was an outcome that couldn’t be dodged even if one tried. It was the conclusion that appeared precisely because several people like that had run into one another.
They never crossed each other’s walls, so they could only sink into their own swamps and die. Forever staring at a door that would not open no matter how hard they knocked.
“What are you doing.”
“……?”
Forever?
“Is rolling around in the dust your hobby? Or have you finally figured out your place and decided to sprawl flat on the floor?”
Deathbringer looked at the one who smashed the unopenable door instead of knocking. He stared straight at the human who lived however he damn well pleased and barged in whenever he felt like it, whether people were drowning in swamps or not.
“…You, what the hell is your problem?”
And he delivered a one-line verdict. Does that guy have no feelings at all? Because he spends his life hammering iron, has he turned into iron himself?
“What.”
“Sir just went off to kill the Young Master… and you don’t have a single thought about that?”
“Ah, she went to kill him?”
Deathbringer clenched his teeth. Went to kill him? Went to kill himmm? Went to kill himmmm?? Anyone listening would think she’d just stepped out to buy side dishes at the market……!
“Even a snake’s blood runs hotter than yours!”
“Snakes are cold-blooded. I’m hotter.”
“You think I said that because I didn’t know?!”
“Then don’t make a wrong analogy.”
Meister truly was an iron man who lived exactly as he pleased. He tossed out a pedantic correction and then dug in his ear.
“Anyway, where’d she go?”
“…Why are you asking.”
“The Inquisitor went to kill the Demon Knight, right? Aren’t you following?”
“What am I supposed to do even if I follow─”
“So you’re just going to stay here?”
“…….”
The remark that struck at the core of the problem shut Deathbringer’s mouth like a bear with a mouthful of honey. It was infuriating, but Meister was the sort of person who only ever said things that were right in every sense of the word.
“…Why do you want to go?”
“I’ve got a commissioned piece to deliver. Gotta hand it over before he dies.”
“I’m the idiot for asking.”
“So, going or not.”
“…I’m going.”
Deathbringer stacked the rising resentment into a neat pile and answered sulkily. Knock, knock. At the same time his hand rapped the holy-power barrier that still hadn’t faded. The barrier that was locking him in.
“But because of this, for the moment…….”
Thud.
Before he finished speaking, something was tossed over. Decorative pieces—cuff links, epaulettes, brooches, over-ornaments.
“…These are.”
Their peculiarity did not come from being ornaments. It came from the fact that they had passed straight through the holy-power barrier and landed in front of him.
“Normally you shouldn’t put a commissioned item on someone else, but the client doesn’t look like the type to complain, so let’s be flexible.”
Deathbringer snatched them up in a hurry and began fastening them all over his body.
“That one goes on the boots. That one plugs into the ear. Think one per joint.”
Meister kindly explained every piece he didn’t know where to put. He suddenly found himself about to pierce his ears, but urgency left no room to care. Deathbringer equipped one accessory to every part of himself.
“But will just the two of us be able to race through the Demon Realm?”
The instant he decided he was fully geared, Meister crooked a finger.
“Dunno.”
It was a come-out gesture, so Deathbringer obeyed in silence. A subtle sensation accompanied his hand as it slipped through first; his torso followed.
“Then how did you get down here.”
“I said I’d bring you, so they let me down.”
“Didn’t think about the aftermath?”
“Nope.”
Is this even right? Faced with Meister’s sheer audacity, Deathbringer was left speechless.
“Then… what are you planning to do?”
“The Inquisitor just walked there. No reason we can’t either.”
“Through the Demon Realm? The place where demons pop out?”
“…Hmm.”
Right. That place was the Demon Realm. Meister tilted his head as if only now realizing he hadn’t factored that in. Is this guy really a Grandmaster Craftsman? Deathbringer slapped his own forehead in front of the sentence that rose in his mind at least five times a day.
“…If walking’s a bit much, we can just bring horses.”
“How are you going to get horses down here.”
Part of the wall had collapsed, sure, but could horses even pass through that? Even if they could, you’d have to lead them slowly—would the people around just stand there and watch?
Deathbringer raised every practical objection; Meister chewed them all up and spat them out.
“Well. Still don’t know about that.”
What he was looking at then was a man with navy-blue hair and an expression that somehow looked like a screw had come loose.
“…Ah?”
At just a few words from me, the green eyes wavered. Eyes whose subtle gradients of shade looked like paint dropped onto blank paper grew even paler under the single spinning tear.
“I know it’s an overstepping request. But, Inquisitor. I……”
How pitiful that is.
I forced my increasingly ragged breath under control and moved my tongue. One chance would be enough. I wouldn’t shamelessly hope for two, so just once—just once.
“No… I cannot.”
Yet some apologies arrive late even when no one wants them. Even when no one hopes for them, circumstance and judgment force them into being.
Just as leaving Bemyurhen had never been a choice for me. Just as our prioritizing our own problems over each other had been inevitable.
“I am… I am the Hero. I must follow the oracle and carry out the will of God.”
Therefore my apology was late.
“I cannot save you.”
Naturally, inevitably late.
“…Is that so.”
But Inquisitor. Even if I never receive the chance to atone, what becomes of you after you kill me?
The you I know, the you I see right now, does not look as if she could live as a normal person after ending my life.
It looks as if the word “Hero” will swallow your entire existence.
Is that really all right?
“I’m sorry.”
There were so many other things I wanted to say besides the apology. That you mustn’t treat one of the concepts that make you up as identical to yourself. That you mustn’t confuse means with ends.
But judging by the way my vision was clouding over, my body had already reached its limit. I wondered whether I’d die of blood loss before the Inquisitor even brought her mace down on my skull.
“Do not apologize.”
“No. I have to apologize.”
Still, this was better. Better than the Inquisitor carrying a wound for the rest of her life because she had killed me.
“…Sorry.”
“Demon Knight, I─”
While picturing a future that, if not the best, would at least be the lesser evil, I repeated the only words I could still pick up and swallow.
After long deliberation I abandoned the idea of confessing the truth—that the Demon Knight had an entirely different story. Because the Inquisitor had made this choice not because “I” was the Demon Knight, but because the “Demon Knight” was me, there was nothing else to be done.
If speaking would not change her decision, if it would only deepen her guilt, then shutting my mouth and leaving was the wiser path.
“Sorry.”
But yes. Even knowing it was inevitable, what still tugged at my heart was the Inquisitor who would be left wounded and the boy who would never find salvation.
I blinked while looking at the vaguely visible faces of Faust and the Inquisitor. [Is this how it ends? Like this?] The hysterical cry ringing in my ears really did its best to ruin my mood right up to the very end.
“Sorry I couldn’t save you…”
“…It’s okay.”
[If it’s going to end like this, if this is how it has to be……!]
But the bastard’s shouting didn’t stop at merely souring my mood. “You……!” Not knowing what he intended, Faust called out to the demon as if horrified.
“You think I’ll just let you run?!”
[Damn brat, let go! I’m not dying here no matter what!]
“You’re not going anywhere!”
[Damn little kid……!]
Ah, honestly. The damn demon bastard stayed trouble until the last second.
[You think your soul is the same as it was at the start? You think you can stop me with a broken soul?!]
I spat a whole basin of blood while watching the demonic energy that was already killing me begin to swirl even harder. “Ah.” The Inquisitor gasped, but I no longer had room to care. My vision was so blurry I could not see ahead.
“If it’s all right… could you use that.”
[…This fucking!!]
Yet the only thing that still reached my ears clearly was a single voice.
“There’s a contract, I’m suppressing it, and time’s almost gone, so I think it’s nearly impossible… but you never know with the world.”
[Bullshit! Die here all together?! I can’t, I can’t! Do you think I crawled out of that Hell for this?!]
“If the heart bursts here, death is certain. Even if the Hero doesn’t move. Even if we don’t stand around fretting.”
[No, no! Don’t you dare try it, Gretchen!]
Faust’s voice had grown strangely calm; the demon’s had turned into pure screaming.
“Just so you know, I’m fine. Really.”
[No, no, Gretchen. Please. Don’t. You’re already dying—what’s the point of rushing it?! You wanted to save the kid and now you’re going to do this?! Are you?!]
“From the beginning, your salvation was far too much for me.”
[I don’t want to die!!!]
Was all that conversation sad? Or was it exhilarating?
“…Don’t cry.”
“Yes. I won’t cry. I don’t have the right.”
I couldn’t really tell. This ending felt tragic and I was sorry toward the Inquisitor, and yet there was also relief at the approach of the final curtain and the pure joy of finally going back. A train that has no choices left is both tormenting and peaceful.
“It’s not your fault.”
“It’s not your fault either. So, kind one… please wake up now.”
Ah, still… Inquisitor. I’m sorry for giving you this trauma right up to the end. But at least this has to be better than you killing me yourself.
“Please… may this nightmare not torment you for long…….”
As if entranced, I spoke the keyword that activated the magic of the chest protector.
“I want to go home……”
Ah. I really wanted to go home.
“I want to go home……”
Watching the eyes go blank and vacant, the Hero—the one who had been the Hero—unconsciously flung the mace away. Clang, clang-clang. Metal clattered down the sloping pile of stones, and the hand that was suddenly empty reached toward the other side.
“Ah… no……”
She hurriedly cupped the dying man’s cheek. Hoo… The thin breath that reached her only grew fainter with every second. Death was trying to take him away.
“No. No. Demon Knight, no……”
I don’t want to see that. Even though I am supposed to kill him, even though everything that brought him here is my own choice, still I don’t want to watch this.
Her heart finally smashed its way out of the grave and raced free. Please don’t die. Don’t leave me behind. How am I supposed to…
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I… I… I……”
The Inquisitor hugged the fallen man while tears poured down in thick streams. I have to kill him. The duty of a Hero crushed her, yet that was all it managed to do.
In the face of true, absolute loss, duty simply flowed away with the tears and was forgotten.
But as if standing in for him, the warning Slicker had once shouted at her kept ringing in her ears.
That guy had been right. She regretted it. Deciding to kill you, attacking you, turning you into this… she regretted every last part of it.
In the end she was someone who could never become a Hero.
“I was wrong, Demon Knight……”
But what worth does someone who cannot become a Hero even have?
If she cannot carry out the mission God entrusted to her, what meaning does her existence hold?
“I……”
…I don’t know. From the very beginning it had been doubtful whether she even possessed the qualifications of a Hero. Can a person who cannot kill even the Great Demon standing right in front of her because of simple affection ever become a Hero? Was it truly right that she had been chosen?
“I never should have become the Hero.”
God must have seen some possibility when designating her. Yet she had been far too lacking and had failed to do what God commanded. She had not even managed to save you.
All that remained was the wretched reality of being neither one thing nor the other.
“Someone like you should have been chosen as Hero instead……”
Ahh. Why had God picked her? Why had He selected her and placed such a crushing weight upon her shoulders?
If the Demon Knight had been chosen instead, it would have been better than her.
“God, please… please……”
In the face of that bone-deep helplessness the Inquisitor reflexively sought God. Even though it was God who had ordered her to kill him, she had no other choice.
The faith she had served her entire life offered no alternative options, so even while knowing better, habit made her pray.
“Please, God……”
Yet the unconscious habit and the misery of realizing that habit were two separate things. She swallowed her choking breaths while still holding the Demon Knight.
The fact that at this very moment there was nothing she could do except pray to God only made her more wretched.
She could not heal the Demon Knight. She could not save him. She could not promise him any future.
Because every single act she performed would only kill him further.
“Rather take my life and spare this person.”
Why did we have to become like this? She still bit her lip while gazing at the one who remained her idol.
Why must we only ever go astray? Even after learning that the devotion which disregarded her own life had really been nothing more than self-abuse, she still clung to the one who had been a fragment of longing.
“His harboring a demon was never his true will. Please grant such a man a proper chance.”
She still wanted the Demon Knight to live. She wanted his reliable back to stand in front of her. She wanted him to choose the remaining options for her whenever she had to decide something.
Because he was her longing, her idol, and a lantern that showed the path ahead. The person who had helped her keep moving forward even when she did not have to lead everything as the Hero.
Even if every one of those lessons had begun as a temporary misunderstanding, she had clearly been able to change because you were there.
So.
“God, please……”
Because you were my hero.
I want you to live.
“Ahh……”
But she probably could not save him. He harbored a demon, and she was a priest. She possessed no power that could preserve a vessel of demons.
Clatter.
“I knew this would happen.”
Because she had never possessed the strength to heal her own hero.
“I told you you’d regret it, damn Sir……”
“…You.”
“Wow. He didn’t die.”
In front of the ones she had left behind yet who had stubbornly followed her all the way here, the Inquisitor finally broke down and wailed like a child.
“I won’t be the Hero or anything, so please… please save this person……”
It was a cry that matched her age perfectly.