Coming of Age (2)
Meanwhile, sparks were flying in the training grounds at the dead of night.
Late evening. Soft snow drifting down. Amid the flurry, brief flashes of light kept blooming into existence. There could only be one cause for that.
A spar.
Two girls faced each other across the training grounds, blades leveled, and had been at it for a full half hour.
And yet something about the bout unfolding before her eyes was off. So off that she couldn't immediately say whether it even counted as a proper spar at all.
A strange spar.
Maid Jaina tracked the sparks hanging in the air with her eyes.
Across the broad training ground, flames whirled and scattered, flung wide by the mana laced through the swords whipping through the empty air. That much still more or less resembled a particularly vicious spar. The fighters themselves, however, stood utterly motionless while their blades danced.
Can you even call this a spar?
As Jaina understood it, a spar was a fight that was not quite a life-or-death struggle — a way of measuring each other's skill. But the swords carving through the air never once aimed for the other's body. They only tangled and clashed with one another.
And then—
Kak—
Lucia's sword, her head spinning, drove point-first into the snow.
Roughly half an hour. Long or short depending on how you looked at it — and the spar was over. Hwaruk— Jaina conjured a flame in midair to push back the dark.
In the light, both girls looked exhausted to anyone with eyes. Even if it hadn't been a real spar, Jaina's duties hadn't changed, so the maid took up two dry towels and approached Lucia.
"Well done."
"...Thanks."
Lucia accepted the towel, and the next one was held out toward Siriel.
"Well done."
"Thank you."
There was a subtle difference in how the maid attended each of them, but Siriel chose not to make an issue of it.
It's ridiculous to hold a demon to human standards anyway.
Without so much as a flicker of irritation, Siriel looked Lucia over from head to toe.
Sweat beading at her chin. Cheeks flushed a vivid red. Siriel toyed with the towel she had drawn across her own brow.
It wasn't damp.
Whether from the cold air or something else, Siriel hadn't shed a single drop of sweat despite half an hour of telekinetic magic. She clenched the towel tight in her fist.
Lucia isn't used to magic. Using magic to become special... is that the answer?
A thought she had turned over countless times.
Swordsmanship alone would never be enough to beat Lucia.
They had sparred hundreds, thousands of times. Siriel had beaten her now and then, but by pure numbers her odds sat in the single digits. When they measured themselves with magic alone, though, Siriel won easily.
"...Haa."
Siriel tipped her head back and looked up at the night sky.
Driving snow filled her vision, and a white breath spilled out into the air after it.
...At least I can still pull ahead with magic. That's something.
Smoothing the gravity from her face, Siriel walked over to Lucia.
"Well? My telekinesis magic — pretty useful at this level, isn't it?"
She spoke with a faint smile. Watching that slightly triumphant look, Lucia dragged in a deep breath before answering.
"It's excellent."
Short as the reply was, she meant every word. Not because she herself was poor at magic, but because Siriel's swordplay, driven by telekinesis, was more than good enough to hold up in a real fight.
Dawn Castle's training grounds stayed bitterly cold year-round, and at night the temperature dropped even further. To maintain her body heat with mana in a place like this and still cast that fluidly — even across her entire previous life, masters of that caliber had been rare.
And for a girl barely fifteen, rarer still.
The Priens really are monsters.
What kind of Apostles did a Prien like that fight, then?
The question spun out from one into another in Lucia's mind.
She knew, intellectually, that Glenn was fighting them even now. But living an ordinary girl's life at the Academy — thrashing the occasional unpleasant student — had made it all feel distant.
Ever since coming here to Dawn Castle and facing Glenn, though, the thought refused to leave her head.
Glenn Prien is stronger than I am.
Even against Kyle at her peak, she would have called it even.
You didn't need to cross blades to sense the presence a person carried, the ease they wore. The memory wasn't a fond one, but the height Kyle had reached fighting for humanity had been something to be proud of — and it remained the yardstick by which Lucia judged strength.
Glenn, by that measure, had honestly looked like a corpse.
No wounds on his body that she could see.
But he had looked like a man whose heart had been hollowed out.
Once she'd grown strong enough in her own right, she had fully intended to grab him by the collar and thrash him the moment she saw his face. Then she had seen him, and that impulse had gone cold. Glenn no longer seemed like someone fully alive.
She had wanted to demand, point-blank, why he had abducted her.
She had wanted to ask what the hell a family was doing, stealing her name without asking—
"......what do you think?"
"H-huh?"
A voice cut clean through her train of thought. Siriel was watching her with bright, glittering eyes.
"The practicality of telekinesis magic. If I can handle it this well, I should be able to use it in a real fight, right?"
"Ah... about that."
Back in the present, the corner of Lucia's mouth tugged upward just a little.
She hated the Prien family. She hated Glenn too. But she liked Siriel.
"Practicality... If you can move your body hard at the same time you're casting telekinesis, that should be fine, shouldn't it?"
If the Priens were the family that held the Apostles at bay, then Siriel would inevitably face them someday as well. Even if she didn't, her goal was to become a formidable hero.
"Moving your body is good, but expanding the number of objects you can control, or trying to coat them in Aura — those might be good directions to develop in, too."
Lucia weighed the path forward with her the way a teacher would with a student.
If someone asked what reincarnated Lucia held most precious, it would only be the two of them — Shiron, and her.
This past life is nothing but a curse, but when a real crisis hits, I guess it has its uses.
Someone was watching the two girls murmuring back and forth.
Crunch, crunch— From far off, the sound of snow giving way underfoot drew nearer.
"A good relationship."
Looking toward the voice, she saw red hair.
Glenn Prien.
"At your age, winning or losing tends to leave the heart in knots. To chase improvement together without clinging to the outcome — that's a blessing."
"..."
Lucia watched Glenn approach with a pleased smile, her own expression flat.
"Have you been watching this whole time?"
"Did it offend you, that I watched without a word?"
At her question, Glenn smiled with a touch of awkwardness.
As far as he knew, Lucia was at an age when everything felt raw. A strange man who had never properly played the father, watching from out of sight — if she decided that was unsavory, what then?
Fortunately, contrary to his worries, Lucia shook her head at him.
"It's not that."
She looked up at the red-haired man.
What is with this guy? He's smiling this time?
"I was waiting for my chance."
"Your chance?"
"Yes."
Lucia nodded without dropping her guard. Then, as if she had made up her mind, she glanced sideways.
"Siriel. I need to talk with the Family Head alone for a bit."
"...Got it."
Siriel bowed her head to Glenn and headed into the castle. She had no wish to interrupt a long-overdue family reunion.
Watching her friend's back recede, Lucia shifted her gaze to Glenn.
"Could we speak for a moment?"
"Of course."
Glenn Prien.
Lucia's first memory of meeting him had not, to put it bluntly, been a good one.
The day after her mother in this life had died. Before the grief had even begun to fade, a complete stranger had come to the cabin.
I am your father.
That was how the man had opened. Lucia had never believed a word of it.
The red hair and golden eyes were similar enough, but nothing he did afterward resembled the way a man treated his own daughter.
A human trafficker. That had been her first impression of Glenn.
Honestly, it still was — and back then his appearance had been far from respectable. When a scruffy man had slung her over his shoulder like a kidnapper, she had been certain her second life was ending right there.
If he hadn't said I was a descendant of Kyle, I would have run.
Clink—
While her thoughts wandered, a teacup was set before her. Talking outside in a blizzard had felt absurd, so they had moved to the first-floor drawing room.
"Do you enjoy tea?"
"...Yes."
"I'm glad."
Seated on the sofa across from her, Glenn's mouth curved faintly upward.
Earlier he had carried himself like a man at the end of the world. Now he was smirking.
An inscrutable human... The impression crossed her mind, but Lucia shook her head clear a moment later.
Unless he's manic-depressive, I should be able to ask.
Reincarnation. Prien. Prophecy... The fragmentary conversation from seven years ago had left far too many unanswered questions. The prophecy Shiron had once mentioned was one of them.
Lucia called up every knot that had sat heavy in her chest all this time.
"I have a lot of questions for you, Family Head."
"So it seems."
She had deliberately chosen a title that kept him at a distance, and fortunately Glenn didn't appear to mind.
The problem lay elsewhere.
"Unfortunately, I cannot answer every question you have in mind."
"...Why not?"
Lucia's eyes blinked. What? There were things he couldn't tell her even if she asked?
Glenn regarded her for a moment, then took a sip of tea.
"The power of Prophecy comes with many constraints. Simply maintaining an ability far beyond one's station is quite the ordeal in itself."
"...Then just answer what you can. Surely that's not too much to ask?"
"I see no harm in trying."
Glenn nodded, feeling the weight of his debt toward Lucia. In answer, her lips moved as she chose her words.
"Why did you abduct me?"
"Next question."
Ah. A miss right out of the gate. With no other choice, Lucia voiced the second question that had been nagging at her.
"What exactly is Prophecy?"
Any number of questions crowded her mind, but Prophecy had just come up, so she decided to start there. Shiron's prophecy troubled her as well — yet something else troubled her more.
The dream.
That vivid dream of driving a blade into Shiron's chest.
Fortunately, answering about Prophecy itself didn't seem to trip the constraints.
"Prophecy is the family's secret art for standing against the Apostles. Without even that, no matter how much martial prowess one possesses, one cannot face Apostles blessed by a god."
"Is Prophecy actually real?"
"It is."
Glenn answered plainly and swept his hair back. Doubt was only natural. He himself hadn't believed it until he experienced it firsthand.
"My father glimpsed the future through dreams. In my case, it simply arrives in my head all at once — whoosh. The method differs a little from person to person, but learning what is going to happen does not change."
"..."
What was going to happen. Lucia thought of the ominous dreams she had been having.
"When you say something that will happen... does that mean it absolutely will?"
"Your expression has gone dark. Do you truly wish to hear this?"
Lucia nodded over her long-cold tea. A little regretful, Glenn closed his eyes.
"Yes. Once a future has been foreseen, that future does not change."
"..."
"That said, Prophecy only occurs within a scope one can still respond to. You foresee from which direction an opponent will strike. You foresee in which region they will appear. And in my case, I use that information in whatever way benefits me most."
"There's truly no way to change the future?"
"None."
Glenn cracked open the eyes he had closed.
"It seems you have seen something."
"...Yes."
"In what form did you see it?"
"A dream."
Lucia answered as if it were nothing, but Glenn's gaze caught the subtle fidgeting of her hands.
The conversation stopped there, and there was nothing more he needed to ask.
Even without using the power of Prophecy, her face and bearing made it obvious enough that the dream's contents were not good.
Already having prophecies, is she.
"...Sometimes, when you have prophecies, they get mixed up with nightmares."
By all indications, what Lucia had experienced was a true prophecy. But Glenn gave her an ambiguous answer.
"You're saying it wasn't a prophecy — just a dream?"
If he answered that way, her face would brighten.
But—
"Think of it as nothing more than a nightmare."
"...What do you mean?"
"I mean that treating it as a nightmare will put your heart at ease."
Glenn wanted the daughter he was meeting again after so long to survive.
Far more than he wanted to grow close to her.