A Tormenting Past
A Tormenting Past
Isabella had set two conditions.
Picking up a brush of her own accord and returning to Fran—those were the two things she currently believed she could never possibly do, and so she had made them her conditions.
"...That's not enough."
But those would never serve as proper bindings. Especially in Isabella's case, since her memories had been manipulated while her foundation remained intact. Because of the existence of her younger siblings, her roots couldn't simply be erased.
Canaria intended to keep Isabella's foundation intact while appropriately manipulating her memories. But if she did that, the two conditions Isabella had just proposed would never function as adequate restraints. After all, the foundation of the memory-altered Isabella would be that of an artist who had gone to Fran with ambitions, failed, returned, and become a maid.
It was obvious that the desire to pick up a brush and return to Fran would bloom again before long. Moreover, since she didn't know when the soul that would settle into Rosaria's body might regain its memories, she didn't want Isabella, in such an unstable state, to come to her senses too quickly either.
Canaria recommended placing a few more shackles on her.
"...Would something like this be enough, then?"
Isabella's proposal came in two parts.
First, she requested a knot tied to the moment her teacher Mikel forgave her for running away and vanishing without a word. And second, another knot tied to the moment the sun set after receiving that forgiveness. Two bindings in total.
"...Why do you want those kinds of knots?"
"Well, Master Mikel is like a father to me. If he ever wished for my return, I'd have to go back someday. I'd like you to think of it as a matter of righteousness and duty, Canaria."
Both Rosaria and Canaria were precious to her.
But Mikel was a benefactor nearly as dear. If he ever asked something of her, Isabella was prepared to answer.
'...Because he was someone who made me happy.'
Even if it had returned as a wound,
she had been profoundly happy and joyful during that time.
She had not fallen so far as to be a beast who couldn't honor a request from the benefactor who had given her those irreplaceable memories.
But Canaria saw it differently.
"...You don't place shackles like that, Isabella."
They're called shackles precisely because they don't come off. Tied like that, they'd break loose in no time and fail to serve their purpose. And so Canaria sighed and began to explain the concept of a shackle to her—that was when it happened.
"...That's exactly why I'm tying them lightly, Canaria."
But Isabella was not ignorant.
She had deliberately chosen light shackles, fully aware of what she was doing.
"...I don't want the people around me to suffer for too long. That's why I'm tying these light shackles."
Even with those empty eyes, her heart had not yet changed. Though, perhaps it had changed, and she was simply remembering that past and speaking it aloud as it was.
"...Throwing tantrums is something you only do when you're a child, after all."
Because by Fran's law, Isabella would soon be an adult.
"...What are you talking about? You've got a long way to go before you're an adult, Isabella."
But that was Fran's law.
In the Holy Kingdom, you followed the Holy Kingdom's law.
And all the more so when the one giving the command was the Saintess.
"...It's a little different in Fran."
Ordinarily, Isabella would have bristled. But now, she merely smiled bitterly and didn't even offer a retort to Canaria's words. Still, that expression was far better than the broken shell of a person she had been moments ago.
It wasn't that she had come to her senses.
She had simply found an escape and felt relief.
Isabella, who had been in agony because even her happy memories could not become an escape, had found a new refuge in the erasure of those memories, and the relief had returned her to a semblance of composure, just for a little while.
Temporary delirium. That was likely what it was.
And so Canaria wanted to let Isabella, who had barely found peace in the eye of the storm, rest easy. She wanted to indulge the tantrum of this girl who was still a child.
She handled the matter swiftly.
There was a three-day grace period that had been arranged.
During that time, Isabella wrote a letter to Mikel.
Though she suffered spasms every time she recalled those events, she wrote a letter containing the circumstances he might understand.
She handed it to Canaria, and then erased her memories.
Canaria's heart ached.
That was why, even as her memories were being erased, Isabella smiled with effort and placed a light binding upon her.
"...You have to be happy, Canaria."
It was a sentence wrung from what little reason remained to her. Because her memories would be gone in a short while. And if they were not erased—if they remained, she might be swallowed by the creeping fog of those corrupt emotions and become the same broken shell she had been before.
The second curse, after Rosaria's, was placed by Isabella.
*
"...So, you are hoping for my forgiveness?"
After reading the letter, Mikel's expression turned grim. It was because he had read the story behind the scenes, darker than he had imagined. Moreover, despite appearances, he had an extensive history of working on various projects connected to the Holy Kingdom.
He felt an exceptional sense of guilt toward the Saintess standing before him. Even though he knew it wasn't his fault, precisely because he had been so close to them, the shock simply hit that much harder.
"Well, something like that."
Canaria wasn't particularly bothered. After all, everyone who had committed sins that day had either been purged by her own hand or reduced to a state like Zeke's. Whether Mikel felt guilt was of no importance to her.
'...Though of course, the answer is already decided.'
Canaria had read the disturbance in his soul. And Isabella, from the start, had not placed this as a heavy shackle. So she already knew exactly what answer a man like Mikel would give.
"...That foolish pupil of mine."
Mikel behaved exactly as she had expected. Pressing his fingers to his brow, doing his utmost to hold back tears. He wore the expression of a teacher grieving the pain his pupil had felt on that day—the day she had been so broken, so tormented, that she couldn't even send him a single letter.
Watching him, Canaria thought to herself.
'...You've done something foolish, Isabella.'
She thought of her as a sinful woman. Because she had erased her own memories, and Canaria herself had fallen into prolonged, deep heartache as a result. She found it distasteful—that Isabella had placed the same curse as Rosaria, telling her to be happy, and then was now living comfortably on her own while making so many people weep.
Canaria blamed the bitter taste on the coffee and let it pass.
"...Then, when will that child regain her memories?"
"She'll recover them once this year passes. That was the nature of her promise."
Hadn't she said that she would stop throwing tantrums the day she became an adult? Back then, they were in the Holy Kingdom, but now they were in Fran. When in Fran, it was only right to follow Fran's law.
Isabella was scheduled to regain her memories sooner than Canaria had expected.
"...Then, later on—once she's okay, please tell her to come."
And so Mikel let out a sigh and made his request.
"...Because from the look of it, she seems to have a lover."
He was recalling Zeke, who had been standing guard beside her. He simply thought that settling things with the young man—who had been watching her with the eyes of someone in love—should come first.
"Rather than a teacher who isn't on the verge of death, I'd like you to tell her that resolving things with the young man at her side should come first."
And inwardly, Mikel rooted for that young man.
But he was profoundly, spectacularly mistaken.
Because they were closer to sworn enemies than lovers. The moment she regained her memories, Isabella might very well slap Zeke across the face. But Canaria didn't bother to correct Mikel, standing right in front of her.
Sometimes, ignorance was medicine.
There was no need to trample on the heart of an old teacher wishing his pupil's first love well.
And so Canaria replied that she understood, mentioned that she had someone else to show the letter to, asked Mikel to return it, bought a drink and some bread for Rosaria, and headed outside.
At the same time, Mikel thought to himself.
'...That Leo fellow is fighting a battle he can't win.'
Recalling the name of that fool who had a one-sided crush on Isabella, he inwardly consoled Leo, who was fated to contend against that invincible presence standing beside her.
Though of course, his odds of winning were less than zero—in the negatives, even.
'He looked like a man carved from a statue.'
With eyes that shone like stars, and hair like the night sky—a man who seemed as though chosen by the heavens themselves.
Then he thought to himself: For Isabella, he was quite the catch. For someone who claimed to have no interest whatsoever in romance, hadn't she reeled in something incredible?
Of course, Mikel knew nothing of the truth, so that was simply what he believed.
*
The tournament was soon approaching the finals.
Isabella finished the semifinals and advanced to the final stage.
"...To think she would sacrifice a dragon as an offering."
What's more, the scene of her escaping that crisis through bizarre, unconventional play—using outrageous antics to avoid her opponent's traps—could safely be called the greatest highlight of the entire tournament.
Isabella had become the protagonist of this competition.
'...The prize money is mine.'
She felt good. Riding the flow as though luck itself was on her side, Isabella smiled faintly, already celebrating her own victory in advance.
...But that goal never became reality.
Having poured all her luck into the semifinals, Isabella suffered a crushing defeat against the White Magician deck in the finals that followed, so complete it felt like a lie.
"It was a good match."
Isabella was deeply bitter inside.
But a loss was a loss. She acknowledged it gracefully, finished the succession ceremony, and exited to receive her second-place prize. She turned her back, raised a thumb, and made a cool exit.
After the first tournament ended that way, it was time for promoting the next pack, and for the creators—Rosaria and Isabella—to personally award the prize money and special cards to the top three finishers.
And with that came the moment Rosaria's face was revealed.
'......An angel.'
The entirety of Fran's populace had the exact same thought as Isabella.
Everyone stared, entranced. A silence fell over the Fran plaza at the sight of that divinely crafted beauty. It was a face that silenced men and women alike. Everyone present was struck with no small shock at that appearance, which radiated an almost sacred aura.
'...This is a strange country.'
And Rosaria felt the same. She resolved inwardly that from now on, whenever they went anywhere, she absolutely had to cover her face, and did her best to ignore the gazes of the artists, filled with awe.
"...Second place goes to Isabella."
At that moment, Isabella stepped forward to receive her award. She scurried over from the organizers' seats to collect her prize. It was modest compared to the first-place prize, but it wasn't so shabby as to be embarrassing.
She couldn't hide the smile forming on her lips.
"...I'll put it to good use, Lady Rosaria."
It was a brief victory speech.
And it was the day that, along with the awarding of first place, three divine cards (designed by Isabella) were scattered into the world. Isabella received a card depicting a blue giant.
It was the symbol of second place.
*
"...What is this letter?"
As soon as the tournament ended, Canaria called Zeke aside. Ignoring the bread and drink she held in one hand, Zeke asked about the identity of the letter tucked inside the wooden case she had handed him.
"It's the letter Isabella wrote for her teacher before she lost her memories. I thought you, of all people, would need to read it, so I brought it. Read it thoroughly. Several times."
Not that he needed to be told. From Zeke's perspective, this was his first real chance to trace the footprints of Isabella's past on that day, and he had no intention of letting it slip away.
"...Isabella."
Clutching the pendant tightly, he read the letter alone, in a place with few people around.
Much of what was written inside was difficult to read. A letter filled with resentment and loathing toward Zeke, with self-recrimination, with nothing but fury and hatred—and then, at the very end, a plea for forgiveness from her teacher. A sad letter, like a written confession.
"...It was my fault."
Zeke bit his lip. He knew it was an apology that would never reach her, but he couldn't bear not to offer it, so he simply hung his head and repeated words of contrition, over and over.
He had the body of a Hero, one that could barely feel the chill of a winter wind. But against this coldness blooming from within his own heart, he could hardly resist. Zeke's breathing grew ragged, his body trembling.
He had braced himself for it.
He had expected it.
But seeing it laid out like this—it felt different.
It hurt more than he had thought.
It was more agonizing than he had imagined.
Because the future was uncertain, yet to arrive,
but facing a past that had truly existed was something else entirely.
Zeke regretted the hypocrisy of that day.
And at the same time, thinking that this was what the unchanging pain from the past that had tormented Isabella must have felt like, he was simply sorry—sorry that she had been unable to endure that agony and had lost her mind.
The Hero's heart grew heavy.
The weight of his guilt doubled,
and even as a mighty being, a Hero, a pressure began to bloom inside his chest so crushing that simply breathing became painful.
At the same time, the pendant, once so light, now felt infinitely heavy.
And yet, he could not remove it. He simply held onto it.
He was throwing a tantrum.
Though some time had already passed since he'd become an adult,
he was simply throwing the kind of tantrum only a child would throw.
Because even if it was a lie, it had been a precious memory.
'...About two weeks left, then.'
Until the year ended.
Isn't that far too short?
Zeke thought.
And then, inwardly, he reproached himself.
If he had known it would be like this,
he should have faced it a little sooner.
Once again, an unchangeable past tormented him.