14-Everything You Lo... Love... All of It
14-Everything You Lo... Love... All of It
The city of Bergana had the scent of excitement in the air.
From dawn, flower sellers had laid flowers along the procession route, and the sound of hymn practice echoed from every alley.
People dressed in their finest clothes began pouring out into the streets.
The golden flags of the Papal See fluttered from one end of the city to the other.
After all, this procession came only once every few years.
=======
I stood alone among that crowd.
The mission was simple. Walk along the procession route, visually confirm the Holy Knight Order's deployment, and return.
Verify whether Riche's calculated values matched reality.
Two hours would be plenty.
There was no reason to be in danger.
It was the day before the Holy Festival.
East side of the plaza. The Holy Knight Order stood in ranks at 10-meter intervals.
"Hmm..."
It perfectly matched Riche's calculations.
"Hmmmm..."
In front of the cathedral. Here too, it matched.
The outer wall of the Papal See. As I entered the alley, I sorted out my notes.
"Here... three-person deployment... here..."
Numbers, positions, rotation intervals.
"All done."
It was just as I was about to turn back.
"---!!"
Someone was standing at the end of the alley.
Since when had they been there—
When I entered, there had definitely been no one...
Had I been mistaken?
...No.
Definitely. There had been no one.
Then that person standing at the end now...
There was no sound.
No footsteps, no rustle of clothing, not even breathing.
Just like a single object existing in and of itself.
As if they had been there from the start.
As if they were melted into the shadow of the alley.
Red hair.
A face with a white eyepatch covering one eye.
...It's a familiar sensation.
My back went cold. My fingertips tingled. The notes I had been holding slipped between my fingers and fell.
I knew I had to run.
Right now, I had to turn around and run.
'If I get caught here, it's over.'
But my legs wouldn't move.
Mae-hwa smiled.
Soundlessly. A smile that only raised the corners of her lips.
A smile I had been seeing for five years.
The same smile she had each morning while drawing the mansion curtains.
Back then, I had thought it was a kind smile.
"It's been a long time... since our last meeting."
Her voice was low.
The voice I had heard every day for five years.
The voice that had called my name. The voice that had asked what I liked.
That voice was shaking me to the core now.
-step
My foot barely moved. One step backward.
That was all.
=====
Mae-hwa took one step forward.
Without the sound of walking.
It was different from just having no footsteps—there was no sound at all.
The moment this person entered a space, the temperature of the air would change.
The narrow alley seemed to grow even narrower.
"...Huh."
Then my frozen legs came loose,
and I turned and ran.
I ran back the way I had come. Toward where there were people.
Out of the alley, I turned right.
Turned again.
I pushed through the gaps between people and ran.
I collided with someone after someone, but had no time to apologize.
"Haah... fuck..."
Without pause, I immediately ducked into the next alley, but.
"...Hello?"
Mae-hwa was standing at the end of that alley.
She had gotten there before me.
'How.'
My legs locked up for a beat, then came loose.
I ran again. This time in the opposite direction. Left.
There were stairs, so I went up.
From above, I turned through an alleyway, came down, and passed through a narrow passage.
But again,
"I like seeing you so often."
Mae-hwa was standing at the end of the passage.
"...Dammit."
Three times.
Three times I ran, and all three times she was there first.
"I've memorized every single alley in this city."
Mae-hwa said it. In a voice not out of breath.
She didn't even look like she'd been running.
"Because I knew where you would run."
I was out of breath.
My back was soaked in cold sweat.
Behind me was a wall.
No way forward, no way back.
There was nowhere left to retreat to.
'Of course, she would have seen it already—'
"It's not that I knew the route." Mae-hwa said.
As if she had read my mind.
"It's that I know how you think.
Which way you instinctively choose when you flee.
What you feel is safe."
Mae-hwa kept drawing closer.
Three meters away.
"I've seen it tens of thousands of times. How you walk.
Which way you turn first in a given situation.
Where your feet point when you're nervous."
Two meters.
"Because I know all of it."
======
Those words rang inside my head.
That she knew all of it.
"...Countless times."
It had been five years.
She had repeated those five years tens of thousands of times,
time spent figuring me out.
Nausea churned inside me.
I couldn't tell if it was fear or anger.
"You don't have to run." Mae-hwa stopped as she spoke.
"Today, I'm not here to catch you."
"..."
"I have something to say, so I came."
My legs froze.
She wasn't here to catch me. She had something to say.
"...Th-there's something you need to say."
"You're not stammering this time. Did you fix it?"
I latched onto pointless talk to stall for time, but
"Well, you said it disgusted you, so I've been holding it back. And don't bother stalling. I know everything inside your heart, after all."
"You fucking bitch."
So she had figured out everything.
"Your mouth's gotten rough... it doesn't suit you."
"Well, it's kind of an act."
"...The stammering suited you better, though."
"...R-really?"
As if she really had been holding back, she immediately started stammering.
"Th-this isn't what I meant to say."
Mae-hwa finally collected herself and said what she'd come to say.
"Y-you said it in your last life."
Her voice was slightly different. Stammering like before.
Mae-hwa had once told me.
That she stammered
because she was usually suppressing so much inside...
Back then it had been a puzzling remark,
but I understood it now.
Which means even now,
she's holding something down,
something is boiling inside her.
"Just like I did, you too." Mae-hwa said.
"Told me you'd shatter everything I have."
I remembered.
That day on the cliff...
So she'd kept it in her heart.
"...What does that have to do with anything?"
"I-it just crossed my mind."
A laugh. A tone she used as if brushing off something trivial.
That nonchalance was even more strange.
Because when this person speaks nonchalantly,
it's when she's saying something of the utmost importance—and terribleness.
"This time, I had the th-thought that maybe I haven't taken away everything precious to you."
"That in this life, you seem to have found new family."
"Th-that kind of thought?"
My heart dropped.
"So."
Mae-hwa said.
"I felt like breaking them."
"..."
"Really. Everything of yours."
When those words left her mouth, the air of the alley seemed to change.
As if the words she'd spoken dissolved into the air and spread in all directions.
"So that you can depend only on me."
"Mae-hwa—"
"So this time, I'm letting you go."
Mae-hwa took a step forward.
"So that you can see it with your own eyes. The sight of your new family dying."
My heart beat in a strange way.
A beat too fast. A beat too slow.
"On this Holy Festival. The revolutionaries will be annihilated."
"Everything you lo-love... all of it."
Riche came to mind.
Her face when she spilled ink while writing formulas and pretended not to notice.
Cael came to mind.
His face with a gentle gaze and crossed arms.
Ori. Harlan. Ser. Leard.
Those faces
with my dead father, mother,
my family—
For an instant, they overlapped.
"Your new family."
Mae-hwa said.
Calmly. Matter-of-factly. As if announcing tomorrow's weather.
"I'll tear them apart, one by one."
Anger welled up.
The feeling of my entire body being turned inside out.
What this person was saying was no empty threat.
I had watched Mae-hwa for five years. Whatever she said, she carried out.
Exactly as she wanted.
That's who this person was.
Because I knew that—
From beneath that anger inside me, something else was rising.
Fear.
Larger than the anger. Far more powerful.
A fear colder than hot anger.
I could feel that chill from inside my bones.
'Riche dying.'
'Cael dying.'
'Ori. Harlan. Ser.'
'Leard.'
=====
Mae-hwa held out her hand.
"If you hate that."
An empty hand. An open hand.
"Come back to me right now."
"..."
"Then I'll spare them."
Above that hand, time seemed to stop.
'Just take it.'
Somewhere in my head, I heard a voice.
Just take this hand. Then no one dies. Not Riche, not Cael, not Ori, not Harlan, not Ser, not Leard. No one.
'Just take it.'
'If I just take this one hand.'
My hand tried to move.
I stopped it.
'No.'
I didn't take it.
Taking it wouldn't end things.
The moment I took it, things would begin again in a different way.
The mansion would reappear, people would be planted again, the five years would repeat... that's all.
And in the end, I'd either escape again, give up, or die inside it.
She said tens of thousands of times.
That across tens of thousands of times, it was the same.
"I'm not going."
My voice shook.
I tried not to let it shake, but it was hard, so
"Even if tens of thousands of times pass."
When those words came out, the look in Mae-hwa's eyes changed.
It was a fleeting instant.
"I'll protect those people."
Only after the words left my mouth did I realize how reckless they were.
In this situation. In front of this person. Alone.
"...From you."
But it wasn't a lie.
Strength gradually gathered in Mae-hwa's lowered hand.
And I could see that fist quivering ever so slightly.
"Fine."
Mae-hwa said.
A voice as if something had drained out of it. As if what had been there a moment ago had vanished.
Mae-hwa turned her body,
"Tomorrow, I-I'll be looking forward to it."
"..."
And in an instant, she disappeared.
=====
Even after Mae-hwa vanished,
I stood there motionless.
I couldn't gauge how long I'd stood.
I couldn't tell if it was one second or one minute.
Gradually, the strength drained from my legs.
I tried to grab the wall, but before my hand could find it, my knees buckled.
The alley floor. Stone. A cold sensation.
I couldn't breathe properly.
'I'll tear them apart, one by one.'
Those words echoed inside my ears.
In Mae-hwa's voice. A low, calm voice.
"Fuck... huu... fuuuck..."
A sob leaked out.
My fifteen-year-old body was too small to contain this fear.
I now understood that it's less frightening when you have nothing to lose.
When you have something to lose,
it's this terrifying.
I stayed there for a while.
Knees on the ground. Inside the alley. Alone.
I endured the fear that came and went like waves.
"...Hoo."
And after enough time passed,
I slowly stood up.
My legs were still trembling. My hands too.
Even so, I stood.
'I'll protect them.'
Because those were the words I had spoken.
Those words didn't disappear,
and strangely, they became a support.
-beep-
I immediately turned on my communication magic artifact.
"Leard."
"Yes."
"I'm on my way back. And, it's an emergency."
======
When I returned to the hideout, everyone looked my way.
"Hmm..."
I could tell from those gazes just how strange I must have looked.
I sat down in a chair and said,
"Mae-hwa appeared."
The table went quiet.
"Today. In an alley. When I was alone."
No one spoke.
It wasn't a good silence.
"What for." Leard said. His voice was low.
"She said she'll kill all of us tomorrow, on the Holy Festival. One by one."
"To be precise, all of you except me."
I looked at my hands. Still trembling.
"And she said if I go back to her right now, she'll spare you."
Cael spoke first.
"...So what did you do."
I shrugged my shoulders and said,
"I'm here now, aren't I?"
"Obviously." Cael's voice came out slightly faster than usual.
"Does it even make sense to go to that witch? Honestly."
"But."
I said.
"I was scared."
No one laughed.
"Really. A lot. It's not just that I can't afford to get caught... actually—"
Riche set down her pen.
Putting down her pen meant a lot for Riche. It meant stopping her calculations.
"Being scared isn't strange." Riche said.
It probably should have sounded stiff as usual.
But she said it like simply stating a fact.
"She's the one who took everything from you, after all."
"..."
"But." Riche said, pulling out a fresh sheet of paper.
"Thanks to you, this information came in. That Mae-hwa is targeting us tomorrow.
I can modify the calculations."
She picked up her pen and said,
"Thanks for telling us."
Ori pressed her cheek against the table and said,
"Your hands are shaking."
"..."
"I'm just saying what I see. It's not strange."
"I know."
"If it's not strange, why are you hiding it."
"I'm not hiding it—"
"You were hiding it."
I was at a loss for words for a moment.
Ser rummaged through her pocket, then took out a screw and slid it across the table.
"What's that."
"Roll it around."
I picked up the screw with my hand. I rolled it on my palm.
Degururu.
Strangely. A little. It helped.
Harlan said,
"You must have been very frightened."
"...Yes."
"It's only natural to be scared. That person has lived tens of thousands of lives, after all." A moment later.
"However."
"Sir."
"Even so, you turned on the communication, didn't you. Even while running away."
I said nothing.
"You thought to let us know." Harlan said.
"That's what's different from your last life."
Leard spread out a map.
"No change in operation. The possibility that Mae-hwa might appear was included from the start."
"From the start?"
"We're prepared."
"What kind of preparation—"
"It's prepared." Leard cut me off.
I was about to let it go, but then spoke.
"Leard."
"Yes."
"Tomorrow. Are you scared?"
Leard looked at me.
"Or well..."
A brief silence flowed.
"I'm not scared." Leard said. "Like I've said, for me."
"I'm not scared of dying."
"Because it will be a single spark."
"Right now I'm just."
His words paused for a moment before coming out.
"Just angry."
I rolled the screw on my palm.
"Angry?"
Leard looked at the map.
After a long while, he said.
"Yes."
"About what."
"Because something I can't afford to lose came to be."
Those words were short but heavy.
Cael picked up a device and then set it back down as he said,
"Do you think we're going to die?"
Everyone looked at Cael.
"Just curious." Cael shrugged. "The thing about Mae-hwa saying she'll kill us. Do we look like we'll just let ourselves be killed quietly?"
"...No."
"It's because I trust you all."
"Right?"
"...But she said she's coming to do exactly that."
"Then." Cael picked the device back up.
"We just prepare, right? It's different from not knowing if we'll die versus being able to prepare for it."
"Cael, it's not that simple—"
"I know it's not simple." Cael said. "But isn't doing something better than doing nothing?"
I looked at Cael.
"Right." Ori said, cheek still against the table. "You can be scared and prepare at the same time. That's how I've always done it."
"While sleeping?"
"Even while sleeping."
Riche wrote her formulas without pausing as she spoke.
"Looks like we'll need a dedicated response for Mae-hwa tomorrow."
No one called that strange.
Ser said,
"I'll need to make a few more screws."
"Having screws makes me feel secure."
Harlan chuckled quietly and opened a book.
"We should all get a good night's sleep tonight. Tomorrow will be busy."
Having said that, he started reading. As if he had no worries at all.
"..."
I rolled the screw Ser had given me.
Degururu.
"It's okay, right?"
"...Yeah."
I understood Ser's mood a little.
=====
The night deepened,
and it was after everyone had gone to bed,
but sleep wouldn't come to me.
Every time I closed my eyes, that voice echoed.
'I'll tear them apart, one by one.'
A low, calm voice.
I
closed my eyes, and answered inwardly.
'Yeah, me too.
I'll shatter what's precious to you into pieces.'