Reunion Is Hell
The vast stretch of packed earth inside the building looked less like a studio and more like a training ground for duels.
Perhaps lost in some thought of his own, the Hero came out to greet me wearing not so much as a scrap of light armor.
“Welcome, Arte.”
“……Don't. Call me by that name.”
I forced down the surging rage and shook my throbbing head until it cooled.
“You know why I'm here. Don't you?”
“Hmm. Honestly… I really couldn't say. Care to tell me yourself?”
“I'm going to kill you for parading around in his shape — and I'm taking that body back.”
“……'Parading around'? What on earth do you mean?”
Tendons stood out on my clenched fist at the sight of that detestable fake asking the question with an expression of perfect innocence.
In combat, anger does nothing but lower your odds of winning.
All the more reason to stay cold right now.
Focus on nothing but the kill.
“The Heroes…… they're dead. That day, right in front of my eyes.”
“……I see. Hah. I did wonder what had become of them — and here we are.”
“So don't stand there wearing that same face…….”
Don't smile at me.
“You're nothing but a weak, watered-down fake. I'll kill you.”
“My. That's a little sad to hear.”
“Don't you dare lie to me!”
[Don't worry. We will never, ever leave you alone again.]
If every one of those sweet words had been nothing but a lie, then the figure standing before me now had to be a lie as well.
They had abandoned me, alone, in that hellish world — and now here he was, alive and breathing, collecting the same hero's worship as if nothing had happened. Just looking at him……
Made me feel like my insides would twist apart at any moment.
“Please. Don't…… don't lie to me…….”
“Don't worry. I won't lie to you.”
Because I was relieved you were all alive.
Because I was happy to see you again.
Because the sight of you smiling in happiness was so beautiful.
Because it seeped into the very furthest corners of my soul, how glad I was that you had finally been recognized as heroes.
“After all……”
Because the thousand years I spent alone had felt so hollow.
Because I couldn't bear to believe that the hope with which I had waited for you all this time had been for nothing.
Because the sins I committed under the banner of bringing you back had burrowed so deep into my heart.
Because I refused to accept that everything I did beneath that righteous justification had been my own fault all along.
“I…… I don't think I can hold on…… unless I kill you……”
“……Right. So that's how it is.”
“Is that… all?”
“Yeah. I'm just not sure what it is you want from me.”
“Even after you all left, I've killed more than a hundred wearing your face. I'm stronger than you now. You understand that, don't you?”
Fallen one. Dangerous individual.
It was the Empire that decided those labels.
Drawing the line, handing down judgment — that had always been the privilege of the strong.
Having lost everything and given up on thinking altogether, I placed myself in the hands of the imperial family.
And so, choosing once more to live as a tool, I spent over a thousand years living exactly as they wished.
Pulled, dazed, from my seal. Killing whatever evil they designated. Briefly facing the faces of those who had once been precious to me. Then sealed away again.
A dagger at the bottom of a bottomless pit.
That was who I had become.
“When I think of you all, my chest hurts so much I can hardly bear it. So……”
Honestly, it doesn't matter whether you're fake or real.
I just want to fill this hollow shell of myself back up again.
With the warmth of the people who meant everything to me — to the very brim.
So I'll be taking that body.
Because I am still a monster. I'll devour every one of you who were once so precious to me —
And lock you away forever, in a place that no greedy soul in existence could ever reach.
And so the Hero and her companions defeated the Demon King, and lived happily ever after.
A cliché worn threadbare by a thousand tellings — and yet that, more than anything, was what we had wished for, back then, more desperately than anything in the world.
Otherworld reincarnation. Holy swords and Demon Kings. Seven Earthlings kidnapped for the crime of having talent, who go on to save another world — a story as stale as stories come.
The talent, at least, was no lie; thankfully, we managed to strike down the Demon King without losing a single one of our own.
Having claimed a victory hailed as a miracle, the Hero Party returned to the place where they belonged.
Since most of the party had been mid-to-high-ranked hunters in their former lives, finding one another again took no great effort. All except one.
Arte alone was left behind.
The Saintess, closest to Arte of any of us, shut herself away in her shock, and the rest of the members threw themselves into searching for some way to reconnect with the world beyond.
Estimated Project Duration — 328 Years
A reunion had been impossible from the very start.
And so I gave up on Arte.
Telling myself that she, too, was now a hero who had saved a world, and must surely be living a happy life.
So this is the price of that.
You've grown so much. How have you been, all this time? The Saintess struggled so terribly without you. So did I.
Of the countless words I had longed to share with her, I couldn't manage even the smallest one.
Down the eyes of Arte — confusion clouding them as she leveled the tip of her sword at me — fat tears spilled over and fell.
If I offered up my heart to her blade right here, would you stop, Arte?
I didn't know. What she was thinking — or even how deep the wounds we had carved into her truly ran.
And so.
“Wake up, Serenity.”
I would survive with everything I had, and protect with everything I had.
Perhaps this, too, was nothing more than self-justification — me scrambling for a reason to keep myself alive.
After all, it had never been out of any innate goodness that I came to bear the name of Hero.
But. Even so.
“Sorry. I don't think I can afford to lose here.”
Gripping the unresponsive holy sword tight, I waited for her to move.
'Hero. Are you an idiot? Raw firepower isn't what wins a duel between people. Eyes, shoulders, feet. Watch them and react.'
'No, you're just way too fast in the first place!'
'Figure it out anyway. Mana, scent, sound. Catch whatever little clue you can. What — if a real assassin ever comes for you, are you just going to lie down and die?'
'There's nobody better than you, though?'
'Th-that's… that's just in case, okay?! Focus. I'm really going to stab you this time.'
Even with her composure shattered, every movement carved into Arte's instincts existed for one purpose alone: killing people.
Lethal strikes that aimed for nothing short of fatal wounds.
I was being outpaced outright, and reading intent from those hollow eyes was impossible.
Improvisation was all I had left.
“Okay. I'm ready. Let's begin.”
“…….”
Arte vanished without warning, gone in a single instant.
I calmly sharpened every sense in my body to a needle's point, yet there was no presence, no mana — not even a trace of the killing intent that had once made my whole body prickle.
But if sensing it was impossible—
'Then you die.'
'Just… die?'
'You've never died before, so I suppose you wouldn't know, but when a person takes a blade to a vital point, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, they're dead.'
'Still. There has to be another way.'
'Hmm. In that case……'
Clang!
On instinct, I swung.
I deflected the blade surging up from beneath my feet with the flat of my sword and blasted out mana of light to erase the shadow it came from.
“…….”
“Say something, will you!”
'Idiot. You think an assassin announces 'Here I come!' on the way in? That's about as dumb as a mage shouting the name of their own spell.'
No answer came back this time.
Utter silence. A formless killing intent, without sound or shape, came crashing in.
I could feel the ferocious will behind it — that it would not stop until one of us lay dead. But I had no intention of falling here, either.
“Haah…… this is already getting rough. Any chance you'll go easy on me?”
Because turning the impossible into the possible is the role of the Hero.
With a light flick of my fingers, image after image of my own countless deaths seared themselves into my mind.
“Ghk—”
I had expected as much, but was defeat simply a foregone conclusion?
And yet — precisely because of that —
A path had opened.
The Demon King was an untouchable existence. Physical attacks, magic, even divine power — nothing worked against that absolute being.
And the role of the Hero, summoned as its natural counter, was this:
To make the impossible, possible.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
I knocked aside the daggers hurled at my vitals one after another.
Of course, this was mere sleight of eye. The real one—
A sharp hiss of wind.
I twisted my waist hard, and the blade aiming for my flank grazed past, leaving a line of burning pain in its wake.
A truly lethal strike. But I survived.
Snapping my wrenched waist back around, I used the recoil to drive a headbutt in return.
Clang!
It was turned aside, almost insultingly easily, by her gauntlet — but the impact had to have landed at least a little.
Damn it. I'd have liked it if her head rang at least as much as mine does.
I honestly can't decide whether I should be glad you've gotten this strong.
The Hero's power refuses to activate unless there is even a speck of possibility left.
It was a paradox: only because beating her had become impossible did winning become possible. But the possibility was there now.
In that case.
There was nothing for it but to entrust my body to instinct and scrape out a victory somehow.
“All right. Come at me — no holding back.”
A single misstep meant the afterlife, but the thicker Arte's killing intent grew, the higher my odds of survival climbed.
“Actually, now that I think about it, maybe a little mercy wouldn't be so bad—”
I parried the shadow-blade lashing out at me like a whip and nudged Arte's outstretched arm aside, breaking her stance.
Obviously a move of this caliber couldn't deal any meaningful damage to Arte, but for me right now, simply surviving from moment to moment was struggle enough.
Diverting an opponent's gaze and striking at vitals was the assassin's way of fighting — but Arte had long since transcended the very category of 'assassin.'
The moment her stance broke from even a light hit, it would be over.
Which meant that all I could do was endure to the very end.
“If I'd known this would happen, I should've brought a shield instead of a swor—ah……!”
I drove back Arte's mana as it eroded the very space around me, its pure-white radiance pressing in.
In mana affinity, I held the advantage. What decided the fight in the end was sheer skill.
“Serenity, come on, wake up…! Your master is about to actually die here, you know that?”
Murmuring the name of a holy sword reduced to scrap iron, I chased the fading afterimage of Arte, who had melted away into the ground.
Blocking by sheer luck had a limit of once or twice; I needed another method, and soon.
Echolocation and the like — I'd only ever seen those in videos……
Tap. Tumble.
I poured every nerve in my body into the sound of a pebble I'd roughly kicked, rolling across the packed earth.
“……There.”
Clang!
Sparks scattered between Serenity, belatedly extended, and Arte's blade.
If there was one positive to note, it was this: Arte's raw physical specs hadn't grown all that much stronger.
I had to hold our blades together and force this into a contest of strength.
I planted one leg forward and pressed down on her, exploiting the advantage of my superior reach.
“……Heh.”
But with a twisted smile, Arte sank down into the earth as if she had anticipated even that.
“Oh no, damn……!”
My stance had broken for only an instant — but for the assassin standing before me, that was more than enough.
The sharp edge surged up toward my chest.
Her target: my heart.
No helping it. Here, I would have to push past my limits and beat causality itself—
[And here I was wondering why I felt like rushing over today. So it was you calling me, huh?]
A curt girl's voice.
Ours was a relationship closer to friendly rivalry than friendship — but a comrade's voice arriving at exactly the right moment was always a welcome thing.
Chains of violet mana had appeared from nowhere, binding both Arte's limbs and mine.
Personally, I wasn't fond of being tied up — but if it was restraint of this kind, I'd accept it a hundred, a thousand times over.
“What is this, are we beasts or something? You show up and the first thing you do is this?”
The mage of the Hero Party. The United Kingdom's S-rank hunter.
'Merlin' — Vivian Sterling.
“If you've got complaints, say them out loud. Not that I have any intention of listening.”
Well, either way……
Who was right and who was wrong — that much was obvious this time too, wasn't it?
