Hello, Zeo
Robin Lydian Musica was—
Lize Valles. The words written neatly on her hand, a clean hand that wove curves and straight lines together, were still not a pleasant sight to behold. She answered by wiping it away right in front of Lize's eyes, as if to make a show of it. Hmhm, Lize laughed softly.
“You may go.”
Robin didn't answer. Not because she had nothing to say—she simply didn't feel like saying it. All she did was turn quietly and walk out.
“…….”
And the instant she opened the door, an indifferent blackness stared back at her. She tilted her head slightly, glancing back at Lize. Pfft, the woman was smiling lightly.
“Oh, no need to be alarmed. She's the guild master's personal bodyguard—I've borrowed her for the moment. As for what for… well, I trust I don't need to spell it out.”
The explanation was courteous; the heart behind it was repulsive. By this, Robin's judgment had proven correct.
She fixed her gaze on the woman before her. Strip away the white bandage wrapped around her left arm, and she was, quite literally, black. No other word came to mind.
A woman in black.
“Say hello, Chloe. You'll be seeing her often from now on.”
“……Please, treat me kindly.”
The woman, who hadn't moved a muscle, bowed her head slowly at Lize's single word.
Even that motion was so unnatural that Robin found herself thinking of a marionette despite herself. The kind that would never move an inch without someone else's command.
“……Pathetic.”
Pity slipped out of her before she knew it. She walked past the woman and out the door.
Every step of the way, everyone bowed their heads to her. No doubt Lize had ordered them to treat her with the utmost deference.
Outside, the darkness was no longer mere black—it had swallowed everything whole. She looked up at the sky, but not even the moon would show her its face.
Her mood soured.
“……Robin, are you there?”
My heart was heavy, but my hand knocked lightly, tap tap. If our situations had been reversed, Robin would surely have flung the door open without a word of warning, but I wanted to keep at least some semblance of manners.
Tap tap, once more. That made twice.
Still no answer came. The knocks merely echoed, striking nothing but empty air. She might be asleep, I thought, and was just about to give up and quietly head back—
“……Ah.”
“Welcome back, Mr. Zeo.”
The woman I cherished most in this world, the one I longed most to see, was welcoming me.
“When did you get back?”
“……Do be careful with your wording. Come in, first.”
With that, she took my hand and drew me inside. Her fresh smile melted away even the knots inside my chest.
To me, she was that kind of person.
Robin carefully led me to a table. She asked if I'd like some tea, but I declined. I didn't want to ask her for anything else right now.
“How's your body holding up?”
“It's healing faster than I expected. As long as I don't do anything too strenuous, I should be fine.”
Relieved by the news, I breathed another quiet sigh, and the anxiety slowly washed away.
It was like sprinkling water over a parched wilderness. It was around then that the corners of my mouth, dry and stiff until now, began to tilt upward on their own.
“I know you've already heard most of it, so I'll say it upfront—I went to see that woman.”
“……By 'that woman,' you mean.”
“Rize Valles. The vice guild master of Tocalos.”
And that was when Robin's smile began to harden.
“Still, didn't you ask me to wait until you'd fully healed?”
“To you, right now, it was a request. To her, it was an order—and a threat.”
“……If you put it that way, I have nothing to say.”
Robin laid a hand over her head. Watching her face slowly contort, I ached as well. My chest stung a little—a rawness I couldn't swallow down.
“But still, just knowing you were there helped me more than you can imagine.”
“……Me?”
“Whenever I was afraid, whenever I felt I might lose control of myself, I'd picture your voice in my mind, and somehow everything got better.”
That was the kind of person Robin was. The only light in a place where nothing but black existed—the person I knew who walked, above anyone else, in the most righteous direction.
If I was being a little dramatic, I might even say I was depending on the bright warmth she carried.
“……That's a good thing. Truly—having something to lean on is a good thing, and I'm happy to be that anchor for you. But even so, that's not right.”
She gently wrapped her hands around mine. Her violet eyes lowered, sorrowful.
It was sorrow enough that even watching her, a faint sadness stirred in me too.
Beyond simple empathy, my own emotions rose and fell with hers.
“To lean on someone is one thing, but dependence is a slow poison. It gnaws away at you, bit by bit, before you ever realize it.”
“But…… you're the only good person I know here.”
“A good person… a good person, hm.”
Tap tap. Robin tapped the table with her index finger, and my eyes were drawn to it against my will. Not simply because I harbored deep feelings for her.
How should I put it—come to think of it, she always carried an air of refinement. In her words, her actions, and even in the way she treated others.
The kind of thing people called nobility.
“Then tell me, Mr. Zeo—what separates a good person from a bad one?”
A familiar question. She'd asked it just yesterday, after all.
Good people, bad people—who gets to decide which is which?
Because just last night, I had heard those very words from Rize Valles herself.
“It's awfully subjective, isn't it? Even if I were known far and wide as a good man, if I refused someone's private request on official grounds, that person wouldn't think of me as good at all.”
“You know it well. Just as I could be a good person to you, someone else might call me a bad one.”
And so I quoted her conversation back at her. I hated to admit it, but it was the right answer. Robin agreed.
“Where in this world is there a person with only good points? Even the sun casts a shadow, and on the opposite side of light, darkness always exists.”
The opposite side, she said—and the word struck me with such uncanny force that the corner of my mouth twisted without my meaning it to.
As if she understood even that gesture, Robin gently smoothed it over with a proper smile.
“So this is what my bad side looks like, then.”
“I'd like to deny it, but—perhaps it is.”
Her manner was ever gentle. Robin truly knew how to deal with people without ever leaving a bad taste behind.
While we discussed my faults and merits, she laid out only her own strengths, and somehow it left me feeling smaller for it.
“But that's precisely what makes you human. Where in the world would you find a perfect person?”
“Human… you say?”
“I, too, am the same.”
In that instant, she turned her head and gazed at the kitchen knife lying some distance away. The kind of blade you'd find piled in any market stall—perfectly ordinary, nothing special about it whatsoever.
And yet, her eyes held something more bitter and more lacerating than anything I had ever seen.
“…….”
A still, heavy silence.
“But you understand what I'm trying to say now, don't you?”
I chose silence again. This time, however, the silence came with action—I nodded quietly, giving my assent.
Deep down, I understood what she was trying to tell me.
“In any case—leaning on someone is fine, but don't come to depend on me too much. No—truthfully, it doesn't have to be me at all.”
Tap tap. She lightly touched her own temple with a fingertip.
“Isn't there someone even closer to you—someone you could lean on?”
“……Haha.”
An awkward laugh was all the answer I could give.
“All right. Now, could we finish the conversation from before?”
“I just… went, met her, and talked.”
“……You met her?”
“Yeah. Oh—and I hadn't mentioned this, but she gave me something. A device to guide me to her.”
The dark red guiding orbs. I took them out and showed her. I'd assumed she would know what they were, but her expression flickered with faint confusion.
“I've never seen such a thing myself…… In any case, this is supposed to lead you to that woman's dwelling?”
“More precisely—to Tocalos headquarters.”
“…….”
This time, the silence was hers—woven almost entirely of worry, and of the faint anger that grew out of it. Guilt welled up in me unbidden.
A remarkably delicate air hung thick in the space between us, and her worry set my own nerves on edge.
“I'll say it again—it's because you were hurt that I went.”
“……Then the 'me' you spoke of—which one was I?”
The same question from yesterday's Robin. I'd been caught so off guard then that I'd failed to answer properly, but today I could say it outright. I hardened my gaze slightly and spoke to something within that violet.
“Both of you.”
“……Hehe. Is that so.”
As if melting away, even the smallest trace of her anger vanished. Her strangely refreshed expression spoke volumes about her mood.
It had been, unmistakably, the right answer.
“I'll pray that heart of yours never changes.”
The gentlest of smiles—hers. The kind that could pull a smile from the lips of anyone who beheld it.
Seeing Robin so thoroughly satisfied was something even I hadn't witnessed in quite a while.
“Still, I really do think you should discuss that matter with me instead.”
“……Robin?”
“Don't worry. I'm feeling quite satisfied at the moment.”
With that, she rose quietly, leaving me no time to stop her—toward the kitchen knife she had been glancing at furtively this whole time.
“I'll say it once more, Mr. Zeo. Keep only this one thing in mind.”
“Robin? What are you—?”
“It is precisely because the bad and the good exist together that we can call ourselves human.”
I scrambled to my feet, but before I knew it, she had reached out with a trembling hand and closed her fingers around the knife.
And at that very moment—
“……Ah.”
A low sound she never would have made before pierced straight through my lungs.
Her body twisted, unnaturally. The hand gripping the knife clenched so hard the veins threatened to burst—crushing, ruthless, destructive to the point of savagery.
“Agh—aaagh!!! Aaaaaaargh!!!”
And then she screamed. That voice was, paradoxically, terrifying. It was undoubtedly hers—and yet, that was not Robin's voice.
No. Strictly speaking, it was.
“Robin! Stop—!”
“Haha…… ha…….”
When the storm finally subsided, what emerged was silver hair without its luster—and all the more striking for it, hair of uncanny radiance. Skin pale as a moon-shadowed sky, moonlight-white. Violet eyes holding the frost of starlight, framed by sharp, keen eyes.
“Ah…… today's conversation, most of it was satisfying. Truly, truly—I could almost praise you for it.”
She had been rather famous even in the organization. Not merely for her looks, but for the coarse behavior so ill-suited to them.
And, too, because of her peculiar constitution.
“But if I had to point out just one thing—Zeo, you said you 'came back' when you saw me earlier, didn't you?”
Robin Lydian Musica. A member of the same organization as I.
And a person who showed me an interest so intense it bordered on the strange.
“That expression is wrong. To 'come back,' properly speaking, means to return to one's original state.”
Her alias was the White Snake. Her weapons, not the axe she carried openly, but two concealed daggers.
“And here—the real one is me.”
The her I feared, and yet trusted and relied upon.
“Then let me greet you once more. Receive it properly, won't you?”
The her I believed shone brightest in this dark, dark place.
“Hello, Zeo.”
Robin Lydian Musica had a split personality.