The Deadly Trinity
Tommy looked up at him with reddened eyes, and everyone ringed around them had gone silent as the grave, watching the two of them.
"Now talk."
"About what?"
"Is that how Rosinante taught you?"
The boy's head dropped again, and he murmured as if he were making a confession.
"No."
"And the conditioning Rosinante drew up for you?"
"I didn't do it."
"Why not?"
"Because no matter how hard I try, it won't amount to anything."
At words steeped in the boy's cynicism, shadows fell across the faces of the other children crowded nearby. It was a painfully realistic thing to say, and regret settled over Aubio and the nun in charge as well.
"Tommy..."
Tommy scrubbed a dry hand over his face and went on.
"I'm from the monastery anyway, and I still am. And then a young master crushes me this thoroughly..."
"Why would it have to be that way?"
"I heard you attend the magic academy, Young Master."
"Polite speech doesn't suit you. I went, and I quit. That's all."
"...You didn't swing even once in the match just now. That means the gap is that wide, doesn't it?"
"What kind of gap?"
"The kind of things that get placed in your hands from the moment you're born."
In that moment Blow caught the eyes of the other children who had been watching the match, all of them lowered. This boy called Tommy had probably been something of an object of envy among the rest. His skill was enough to warrant it. But even Tommy hadn't managed to make him swing once, so they too must have felt the distance between themselves and Blow as something vast.
Feeling it would be pathetic to lay out his whole background for them, Blow rolled his neck and opened his mouth again.
"Tommy, was it?"
"...Yes."
"All right, Tommy. So the choice you made was to do nothing? You're just going to sit there and do nothing at all? That's what you're saying. That your circumstances aren't good."
"...I didn't want to think of it that way, but—"
"Rosinante is my master too. He's also the master of my older brother, who's at the knight academy now."
Tommy flinched and stared. Blow swallowed a sigh and went on.
"Who are you trying to blame? If anything, your luck is better than most. You get to show your sword to a master like Rosinante, and learn from him."
"........"
Tommy's head dropped once more, as if he had ended up insulting his own teacher. Seeing it, Blow let out a heavy sigh, then added in a somewhat gentler tone.
"......"
At those words the shadows left the children's faces, and surprise filled Aubio's. Blow raised his sword and struck hard just above the grip of Tommy's wooden blade.
Crack—
Tommy's wooden sword shattered. The fragments scattered through the air, and every child's mouth fell open.
"There. You win."
With that, Blow turned his steps toward Jane and Melo. The strength gone from his legs at the sight of the broken sword, Tommy sprawled flat on the ground in sheer emptiness and covered his face with his palms.
"Tell your master you're sorry. And beg him to teach you again from the beginning."
"......"
"Rosinante will teach you with everything he has. So long as your will is enough."
"Yes."
Of all the voices Blow had heard since facing him, it was the plainest and the clearest—a boy's voice, at last. Blow decided to give him time to face himself, and once more started toward Melo.
About twenty minutes later, the monastery dining hall.
In the same hall where they had eaten breakfast, Blow was having a late lunch with Melo and Jane, and before he knew it children had clustered around him, looking up with bright, shining eyes.
...Why do I feel like an animal in a zoo?
A little burdened, Blow found Melo was the first to speak.
"Y-Young Master! Y-you're good with a sword toooo...?!"
"No."
"But just now it looked amazing..."
Blow answered her with a small smile.
"This isn't even half of half of half of half of Rosinante."
"Whoa, really? Then what is he even..."
At that the children nearby started whispering, then came right up to Blow and asked in slightly flushed voices.
"Really? Young Master, you're not even half of half of half of Lord Rosinante?!"
"Yeah. To be exact, not even half of half of half of half."
"Whoa..."
"Lord Rosinante must be incredible...!"
"I spent every day just running away. I should've actually listened..."
"I'm taking sword class starting this week too."
Blow smiled without meaning to. What he had said was nothing but the truth. He had beaten Tommy through the difference in hardened muscle and experience, not because he had reached any realm of the sword the way Rosinante had. The reason he had gone out of his way to break Tommy's wooden sword at the end was to leave an unforgettable jolt—in Tommy, and in the other children watching. A vivid memory would help them in all sorts of ways, when they made up their minds and when they tried to move forward. The conversation just now would reach Tommy's ears as well. Then, perhaps, a flame could rise in the boy's heart too, the way it had in Melo, who was smiling as she looked at him.
Hoping for that, Blow put the last potato in his mouth. Beside him, Jane murmured, just loud enough to hear.
"You really are something, Young Master."
"What? It worked, didn't it? This is what gets through best at times like this."
"Yes, well, that's men for you."
"Pick up a sword, and some things can't be helped."
"But Young Master, that thing about the flower. Did you come up with it yourself? It was really striking..."
Blow cleared his throat and muttered.
"No."
"Then where...?"
When he beckoned her closer, Jane leaned in, wondering if it was something he had heard in another world.
"It was something Rosinante said when we parted. Told me to actually work hard once I got to the magic academy..."
"Honestly."
Jane was left without a word. Their eyes met, and neither could say who started it—they both burst into a short little laugh.
After lunch, during the break, most of the children had Blow surrounded, asking him everything they were curious about.
"Y... Young Master."
"Yeah, Liz. What is it?"
"Um, can you use magic too? I heard you came from the magic academy..."
"That's right! They said you came from the magic academy!"
Then Aubio's face, holding a smile, came into Blow's eyes. As if to say it was fine, he gave him a nod.
"It's dangerous, so step back a little."
A moment later flame bloomed from an unfurled red magic circle, and the children who saw it started to cheer.
"Waaaaah!!!"
"Fire magic!"
"D-do ice magic too!!"
"Water magic too!!!!"
The children were in a complete uproar. Blow tugged at the hem of Jane's clothes—she had been watching contentedly beside him—and planted her in front of himself.
"She's better at it than I am."
"Young Maaaster...?"
Having set Jane up as a shield, Blow began to slip away. But most of the spellbound children stuck to him, clamoring for just one more spell.
A little later, caught by the children, Blow showed them several other magics. Watching, the nun in charge and Aubio thought they wished someone would paint this peaceful, homey hour.
And while all of them were spending such a happy time, Blow, in the middle of shaping a flower of water for Liz, saw two carriages climbing toward the monastery in the distance.
"It's the Saintess's carriage!!!!!"
The moment one child shouted, every child clinging to him ran that way as if bewitched. At the name Saintess, Blow froze as well, swallowing dryly as he looked in that direction.
A short while later, she stepped down from the white carriage that bore the emblem of the Orthodoxy. Saintess Marta, grown just as he remembered her—hazel-brown hair, freckles, and the same worn wooden staff as back then. Her clothes were so frayed that a stranger might have thought of a beggar before a saintess, patched here and there like the abbot's. And her feet, true to the epithet Barefoot Saintess, had nothing on them even in this cold. Even so, her face, which looked at ease, held a softness and warmth gentle enough that simply looking at her let a person feel grace.
"Saintess!!!"
"Liz, Blair, have you all been well?"
Stroking the children one by one, Saintess Marta slowly approached where Blow stood. Then one of them shouted to her.
"Saintess! Saintess!! Today Tommy and Young Master Blow had a sword match!"
At the unexpected name, Marta's hand, which had been stroking the children, stopped.
"...Who did you say?"
"Young Master Blow!"
At that the Saintess immediately looked for her younger brother nearby.
"Aubio?"
"Young Master Blow Deblique is here."
"Where...?"
"He is standing right in front of you."
At those words Saintess Marta turned her head precisely toward where Blow was. Under a feeling as if she could see straight through him, strength entered his whole body before he knew it.
"...Young Master Blow?"
A faint tremor in the Saintess's voice. Blow went to her, offered the greeting of the Lunaria Orthodoxy, and bent one knee in respect.
"I am honored to meet you, Saintess."
Surprise filled her face again at the sound of his voice, and then it changed into a smile.
"Young Master Blow, it has truly been a long time. Your voice is really... just the same."
"You are just the same as well, Saintess."
"You may rise."
Blow got up and stood there awkward and half-bent, while Saintess Marta held her hands neatly together. An awkward silence flowed between them. The children looked back and forth at the two of them in that subtle atmosphere, when Jane, who had been quiet behind him, saw someone stepping down from the other carriage, startled, and poked him.
"Jane, I'm with the Saintess right now..."
But what came into his eyes then was the Indigo Witch, approaching with the abbot. Yulia Edfolk.
...Why on earth was that person here...?
While Blow stared that way, at a loss for words, Yulia had already come up to him. She wore her characteristic elegant smile and offered him a bow.
"We meet again, Young Master Blow!"
"Young Master, did the work in the vineyard go well?"
Yulia... and the abbot...
And Marta as well...
...Before this deadly trinity, Blow Deblique squeezed his eyes shut.