What Cannot Be Undone - 4
"Do you truly... mean to do such a thing?"
Yuria asked back, her lips working with visible effort. To her, it must have been an answer beyond comprehension — to put off speaking with her, the Young Matriarch of House Taylor, and choose to leave at my side instead. It would have sounded like nothing less than a declaration that the Princess was taking my side.
Of course, Mirajane had likely said it on impulse, out of simple irritation. Even so, to Yuria it must have landed as quite the shock.
"Yes. I still have matters to discuss with Lord Robert."
"And I have matters to discuss with you as well."
"Later, then. I hardly think they're so urgent they can't wait until after."
Mirajane answered in a voice lowered a notch, as if she had already guessed what Yuria wished to discuss. She probably found the topic a rather awkward one to broach as well. The Imperial family stood opposed to the subjugation of the South — what business Yuria had come here to raise was obvious enough.
After biting down hard on her lip for a long moment, Yuria glared at me. Her face said she wanted to say something, anything, but she could hardly do so in front of the Princess. And with Her Highness seemingly siding with me besides, she would be floundering in more ways than one. When I deliberately smirked and gave a shrug of my shoulders, Yuria's fist began to tremble.
...Connections really were useful. I hadn't expected the situation to flip in quite this manner, but the moment our eyes met, Mirajane winked at me and let a small smile curl her lips.
In the end, it was Yuria who yielded first. With Mirajane having refused her, she had no further pretext to stand there — she would simply seek another opportunity later. Yuria bowed her head briefly to the Princess, then met my eyes and spoke.
"Then I shall take my leave first. I pray my brother causes you no inconvenience."
"No need to worry. Lord Robert isn't that sort of person."
"...I see."
The muscles around her eyes, straining to feign composure, twitched for but a moment — then Yuria turned on her heel, climbed into her carriage, and was gone.
Clip-clop. By the time the hoofbeats had faded beyond sight, Mirajane stuck her tongue out at me and flashed a grin.
"Well? What do you think? I was rather helpful, wasn't I?"
"Will you be able to bear the consequences?"
"If it's Yuria Taylor, she'd have been desperate to speak with me from the very start. In her mind, she means to smooth things over regarding this subjugation. From the look of it, she stands on the opposite side from you."
"I wasn't asking about that. I was asking about what you said just now."
She had declared, before the Young Matriarch of House Taylor no less, that she would keep an unrelated man at her side for an entire day. Any other time, I wouldn't have cared — but was it not already full dark? When I tipped my head subtly toward the moon, Mirajane, who had been gazing blankly up at it, went faintly red.
"Oh."
I knew it. As I exhaled a small sigh, her flickering gaze settled on me. What sort of images were running through her head... even a fool could likely have guessed.
With a brisk little flourish, Mirajane extended her hand toward me, her bearing utterly unashamed. A resolute expression, and a resolute tone to match. Her hand hovering just short of my chest, she began.
"First things first — don't misunderstand. However loose my tongue may be, even I have lines I know to keep."
"Is that so."
"What is that tone? As if I knew nothing at all. Anyway, when I said I'd be borrowing Lord Robert, that wasn't what I meant. Hmm... just think of it as me throwing you a rope."
A rope. It wasn't an inaccurate way to put it. Without her, I might have ended up in a war of words with Yuria — and provocations well past the line might have left her mouth. Besides, it had felt rather like Yuria had been dealt a clean blow to the face. The only emotion I held toward Mirajane was pure gratitude.
She went on diligently dressing up her own antics, until at last, sensing something off, she asked me:
"By the way, the two of you don't seem particularly close. I couldn't hear everything, but it felt as though she was deliberately raking at your nerves."
"At this point, I hardly mind. I did intend to answer her in kind, but thanks to Your Highness, I've been spared at least one headache."
At that, Mirajane's mood seemed to lift; she wiggled the corners of her mouth and stared straight at me. It was the face of someone inviting further praise. If she was going to wear that expression, I decided, the compliments had better stop there. The moment I fell silent, Mirajane's triumphant face began, little by little, to droop.
"...Well, I'm glad it worked out. So what do you intend to do now?"
"What do you mean?"
"When I said I'd borrow you, it was to help you. I can hardly keep dragging you around at this hour — were you planning to return to the ducal residence?"
"It makes no difference to me if I stay out. After all, no one much cares whether I am there or not."
She looked as though she wanted to argue the point, but Mirajane, who understood my circumstances well enough, promptly pressed her lips shut. My lot was, viewed one way, a genuinely pitiable one; from her position, she would hardly wish to raise the subject lightly.
Truthfully, I didn't much care where I stayed. Had she wanted it, I could have remained a day at the Imperial Palace — but that was better avoided. I didn't believe Yuria would carry the Princess's words from ear to ear, yet there was no telling what needless scandal might sprout. And if I was returning to the ducal residence regardless, better to do so early. There was no reason to avoid Yuria in the first place. If one asked who stood on firmer footing between Yuria and me in the present situation, it would have to be my side — the one that had just made a show of the Princess's support.
"I think it best I simply return."
"I suppose that's for the best?"
"There's no need to trouble yourself further on my account. As repayment for your earlier counsel — what just happened was thanks enough."
"That's not why I did it... but fine, have it your way. If you need a carriage, just say so. I can summon one for you."
"I'm quite all right. I do have the carriage I rode here in from the palace, don't I?"
When I pointed a finger at the carriage waiting alone, Mirajane nodded as though only now catching on. Even so, she seemed mildly curious about my affairs. She knew my reputation was wretched, but this was likely her first glimpse of how things truly stood between Yuria and me. In public I did accompany Yuria, but that had ever been purely in support of her. To outside eyes, I must have looked like nothing more than a younger brother attending upon his sister, the Young Matriarch. However incompetent I was, the sight of me striving to prop her up had even spawned rumors of fraternal devotion. From where I stood, no rumor could have been more absurd.
"Will you be all right?"
Mirajane asked as she watched me climb into the carriage. Her voice carried several meanings at once; I weighed them briefly, then smiled faintly and nodded.
"I'll be fine. And — this."
Tap, tap. I rapped a knuckle lightly against the artifact at my chest. Ordinarily I would never have planned to contact her privately, but she had aided me in more ways than one. Offering her the occasional word of counsel regarding the Northwestern Region would do no harm. Understanding at once, Mirajane waved with a face gone visibly brighter.
"I'll be waiting to hear from you. Idle chatter is fine too, you know — you could simply talk to me now and then, couldn't you?"
I inclined my head slightly to her artfully casual reply and surrendered myself to the carriage. As it jolted into motion and pulled away, I caught a last glimpse of Mirajane turning back toward the Imperial Palace.
It was something I had thought before — my life kept entangling with Mirajane's, in one way or another. Our first bond had formed when we met at a ball, though this cycle I had missed it, occupied as I was with meeting Adele and Adrian. In every life, my first meeting with Mirajane came on her birthday. At first, I counted the mere fact of meeting her an honor; later, there were times I seduced her with the intent to use her. Thinking back on the lives where we became lovers... I don't think it was bad. She was the one who grieved hardest when I died, and that granted me a small comfort.
Had even she forsaken me, my regressions might have halted right there, circling the same spot for all eternity. It was Mirajane, too, who personally took up the sword in the lives where I had gone mad — and on those occasions, she always wore a sorrowful expression. As if she knew I was not the sort of man who would truly do such things. A face that looked ready to weep at any moment. So I had wondered — what if I simply avoided her, this time around? I even built that hypothesis. Because I questioned what might happen if she and I became strictly formal, erasing every point of contact between us. But here we were, meeting after all — so even that, it seemed, had failed.
I did not believe in fate. But if bonds are indeed predetermined, I thought the odds were high that Mirajane and I were stitched together in precisely that way. And in this life, too, ours had become a rather interesting relationship, hadn't it? I toyed with the artifact at my chest, then tucked it away again with a wry smile.
"...Winter is almost here."
To be precise, the day I would depart for the North was not far off — but there were certain things that had to be brought to a close before then. Raising my support within the ducal residence could proceed slowly without issue; Yuria's attitude, however, was a problem. Wasn't the current situation precisely this: she believed everything I did was wrong, and pressed forward on nothing but her own stubbornness? Left that way, she would merely collapse over her own mistakes — and that was not the ending I wanted. She had to start taking me seriously. Didn't my every step have to grate on her nerves — didn't I have to feel, to her, like a rival who could not be dismissed?
What I wanted was for her to fall from the very highest place. When she was swollen with the conceit that she had won everything by her own hand, when she believed the designs she had laid had at last carried her to the summit — only a fall from that height could become true despair.
She would make her own preparations while I was away, but by the time winter ended and spring arrived, I would have prepared a great deal more. By then, I would likely have finished readying everything needed to bring her down.
I did not imagine Yuria would ever repent her past actions. The likelier truth was that she sincerely believed every act of hers had been right. As I recalled the things she had done, my brow knotted of its own accord.
There was an age when my feet didn't even reach the floor from the chair — back then, I was locked in the basement and had my fingernails torn out. A wad of cotton crammed my mouth; choking, gasping, I received the pain in its pure, undiluted form. Thick pliers closed over each nail, and every instant of its tearing free was seared into my mind. I had begged them — please, just pull it out quickly. I knew pleading for them to stop would change nothing, so there had been a time when I thought it kinder to have the pain come fast. Even as salt water was sprinkled over the raw, emptied nail beds, I smothered my screams, clinging to the belief that this time I would be forgiven. Blood welled from my molars; teeth splintered, and the shards drifted across my tongue. I must have been ten.
I knew all too well how Yuria regarded what happened then, so the notion that she might feel remorse over it never once crossed my mind. My bid to become Family Head was nothing more than preparation for treason.
And yet, at the same time, another thought surfaced. What expression would Yuria wear as she looked upon Robert Taylor, Family Head? If the family she had treasured so dearly were stolen away by the brother she had always deemed pathetic — and stained with treason, no less — what face would she make then?
What I wanted was not for her to repent her sins. Only that the arrogance she harbored, the carelessness she permitted herself, would in the end seize her by the ankle and scatter everything she had into hollow ruin. Would that not be a fitting end for a woman called Yuria Taylor?
Just as I had with Theresia, it was time to plant a seed in Yuria as well. A seed that would one day sprout more brilliantly than anything else.