Sharon Pierce (2)
Sharon Pierce (2)
After offering her dantian to Richard.
In the endless darkness, Sharon Pierce looked back upon herself.
Thinking back, she had been nothing.
She had simply chased a single wish with blind devotion.
That wish was not something grand like growth. Nor was it a noble or lofty value like chivalry. It was something utterly self-evident. And to Sharon, it was more precious than anything else.
That was why Sharon Pierce walked a straight line.
The path she had walked, and the path she would walk—both were a single straight line.
Every straight line has a beginning and an end.
Her beginning was a certain night.
.
.
.
Red.
Snow should be pure white, yet everything was red.
"M-Mama!"
The little girl stumbled through the snow, fell, and rose again before kneeling beside her mother.
— Splash.
The girl's knees were stained red with her mother's blood.
"You're here, my daughter?"
"W-why are you like this? B-blood—you're bleeding, Mama."
Sasha Asilia smiled faintly.
"Mama is fine."
"H-how... how can you be fine?"
"My daughter."
Asilia stroked Sharon's cheek with a bloodied hand.
"This time, Mama has to go somewhere a little far away."
"Y-you're hurt... you can't go..."
"Sharon. Be careful of the bad people called the Blood Rock Sect."
Asilia could not bring herself to speak the whole truth.
If her daughter tried to oppose Richard, she would die in an instant.
So she taught her to hate the Blood Rock Sect.
If Sharon ever realized Richard was one of them, she would have to resist then.
That was the best she could do.
"Mind the head of the family well."
"O-okay... okay. W-will you come back?"
Asilia smiled with great effort.
"Sharon... we made a promise, didn't we?"
"A p-promise?"
"How many counts did Mama say until I'd come?"
"Uh... ah... t-ten thousand."
"Yes. Ten thousand. You must count carefully, alright?"
"Okay. I'll definitely count. Mama."
And so.
The snowfield was thick with blood.
.
.
.
Why were those memories surfacing now, when she had lost consciousness?
It was a nightmare, and the only moment she could see her mother.
The memory faded, and darkness resumed.
...It should have been darkness.
But the surroundings were loud.
— "Sharon Pierce!"
A voice Sharon never wanted to hear reached her ears.
Ian's voice.
The one who had always stood in her way.
He seemed to have come here.
'Be quiet. I hate the sound of your voice.'
Even as she thought that, she kept finding herself listening to his voice. She didn't know why. But it had always been like this.
Perhaps it was because.
Yes.
She was afraid that he would make her stray from the straight line she walked.
Because he kept making her look back at herself, for whatever reason.
Her vision returned faintly.
Sharon stared blankly outward.
Someone's sword technique entered her blurred sight.
'...Mama?'
In Sharon's memory, the image of her mother training—her every movement—unfolded before her eyes.
— Mama is struggling now as well, but one day we'll blossom. Sharon, please watch over me carefully.
The movement of the sword that seemed certain to bloom.
It was unmistakably her mother.
No one else could possibly perform those movements.
She wanted to open her eyes.
She wanted to see that figure more clearly.
Her blurred sight began to brighten little by little.
At last, her mother...
But the figure that crystallized in her vision was not her mother.
'...Ian.'
Ian. It was him.
How could that man know her mother's sword art?
— It is bewitchment. Do not be drawn in.
The voice of the family head reached her.
Yes. It must be as the head of the family says.
Her mother had said the same. Follow the head of the family.
Just as Sharon was about to sink back into darkness, Ian caught hold of her.
His movements caught hold of her.
Those were, without doubt, her mother's swordsmanship—the ones Sharon had struggled so hard to reproduce.
And so.
A single snow blossom settled before Sharon's eyes.
It is bright.
So bright and pure it made her eyes open.
Sharon opened her eyes.
Ian stood there, his entire body stained red with blood.
"Sharon. Sleep well?"
A boy who had borne all her suspicion and hatred smiled a pure white smile amidst the blood.
◆
Ian smiled.
If Sharon walked out of here, Richard would lose her dantian once more.
Richard's wavering eyes suggested he understood this fact.
So Ian focused on Sharon.
Since he could not cut her down as long as Richard blocked him, he concentrated on making her stand on her own.
'So you just need to stop me from harming Sharon?'
What nonsense.
I can make Sharon walk out on her own two feet.
Watching Sharon open her eyes, Ian smiled.
'This will be your defeat, Richard.'
Humans are not prey.
Humans possess something called emotion.
The Blood Rock cultists failed to recognize that fact.
And so they made mistakes.
Richard's mistake was Sharon.
She, who at a glance seemed emotionless—who seemed to gaze only at her sword—was not truly like that.
She had been looking at something else all along.
Her sword was simply on the path to that goal, so that was how she appeared.
Ian looked at Sharon and smiled.
It did not mean he had forgiven Sharon for all the torment she had inflicted on him until now.
— Don't just look ahead. You have to feel. Your surroundings. The environment that surrounds you.
It was simply the satisfaction of fulfilling the teaching of the master, Asilia.
The satisfaction of seeing Sharon Pierce's eyes—the eyes of one who had run forward only in a straight line—tremble.
The satisfaction of a situation in which that arrogant and noble knight's lips trembled as she requested his instruction.
"...Ian."
Sharon's mouth opened with effort, then immediately closed.
Parting slightly.
Her lips trembled.
◇
"Ah."
Only a meaningless sound without intent escaped her.
She had to say something.
At the same time, she did not know what to say.
What had Sharon herself lived for until now?
Her mother.
Sasha Asilia. My mother.
Only her.
But.
Then how.
Ian, you.
How do you know my mother's sword art?
"......Ahh."
She had to ask.
Why do you know my mother's swordsmanship?
Why do you know my mother's smile?
Just what bond do you share?
— Are you a disciple of my mother?
One question would be enough.
The reason she could not ask that one simple question was because she feared the result his answer would bring.
Fear.
Sharon Pierce felt fear for the first time.
She was afraid that Ian would answer 'yes.'
She was afraid of all the truths that would surface as a result of that answer.
She was afraid of having jumped to the conclusion that Ian was a villain.
She was afraid of having mistaken his actions for a curse upon her.
She was afraid of everything she had done to him because of that belief.
She was afraid of the price of those actions, a price she could never repay across a lifetime.
Ultimately, it was the fear of her own stupidity.
The fear of having walked down the wrong path.
The fear of accepting that everything had been wrong.
"......."
Her mouth went utterly dry.
Her focus kept scattering.
She could not look at Ian properly.
But even so.
Sharon had to face that fear.
Because it was the result of her own actions, she had to bring it to an end.
This question was not asked to doubt Ian.
It was a question asked to confirm her own fault.
"Did you... ever cast a curse on me?"
"Would I do that?"
"Was it just my misunderstanding that you were obstructing my path?"
"I was too busy walking my own path."
"Then, Ian... are you also not a member of the Blood Rock Sect?"
"Of course not."
Grinding.
Blood trickled from Sharon's lip.
"You... are you my mother's disciple?"
"Yes."
"......."
Her eyes, always expressionless and sharp, crumbled.
"What on earth... have I done."
Ian stopped Sharon as she sank into deep self-loathing.
"Listen well, Sharon."
".......?"
"You're not steadfast. You're a stupid, garbage woman. You're pathetic, in other words."
"......."
"You merely pretended to have matured early."
His words pierced Sharon like a dagger.
"You still need your mother. Go receive a little more education."
"......?"
"Go and bring your mother back. She is in the snowfield."
"Mother...?"
"Wasn't she what your entire life was about? Your mother."
He was right.
His words were true.
The reason Sharon Pierce could always walk with her gaze fixed straight ahead
was because there had been only one goal in her life.
Her mother. Sasha Asilia.
Creak. Her body moved.
Sharon instinctively took a step.
Richard blocked that step.
"Sharon Pierce."
His chilling voice stopped her.
"Does your father not call for you?"
It was a voice Sharon had never once been able to defy.
"If you walk out like this, you will not be able to overcome your internal injuries."
But that had only been because of her mother's words.
Now that she had realized the truth, now that she knew where her mother was, nothing reached her ears.
Sharon's eyes completely lost their light.
She already knew the path she had to take, so her vision held little meaning.
Sharon simply moved her feet.
— Thudududk.
The sound of something snapping rang out.
Sharon, still walking, coughed up blood.
Richard's expression contorted.
It was the sound of a dantian connection severing.
— Gr-grinding!
Along with a chilling noise.
Sharon walked out, leaving a long trail of blood behind her.
◆
Sharon's receding back.
Richard asked.
"Why did you let her go? She would have heeded even a command to fight me."
"She actually left just because I told her to."
Ian smirked.
"Usually at a time like this, someone would say, 'You've proven your truth. I will help you,' and stay to assist. Tch. The girl only looks straight ahead. She shouldn't be like that."
"How ridiculous."
"You should have educated your daughter better. Then I might have received some help."
"Kahahahahaha!"
Richard laughed like a madman.
"Actually, maybe there might be another method over there to steal someone else's dantian instead. How on earth do you just gulp down dantians like that?"
"Are you curious?"
"Yes."
"Then I will tell you."
"How?"
"I will make your dantian my own. Come at me. Do you not have your final gambit remaining?"
Ian's lips curled up once again into a smirk.
"Ah. The thing about letting me attack seven times."
"Yes."
"That was just a scheme to pull Sharon out. Does any of that even matter now?"
"...?"
"Your dantian is already completely blown away and only the shell remains."
Richard's face twisted.
— Kaboooom!
A tremendous explosion engulfed the surrounding area.
◆
Snow poured down from the sky in sheets.
The sound of an explosion echoed from afar.
— Iaaaannnnn!
Someone's scream pierced through the snow.
Sharon, who had been walking forward in a daze, stopped.
"It was ten thousand."
Ten thousand. Her mother had definitely said they would meet after ten thousand nights.
Suddenly, Sharon realized.
That she had counted five thousand nights today.
Five thousand starry lights she had counted, longing solely for her mother's embrace.
If she pierced through the snow stretching out before her, she would surely meet her mother in half the promised time.
But.
Her feet would not move.
"...Why."
Tears began to spill from Sharon's eyes.
"...Why can't I go?"
Thud. Thud.
She struck her own legs that had stopped.
She hit them, beat them, but her legs would not move.
The legs that had walked forward so straight and true, yearning only for her mother—for once, they refused to obey.
Even when Hermann had tormented her, they had never lost their way.
Yet now, at a distance where she felt she could reach her mother directly, Sharon's legs stopped.
"Mama's over there. So why can't I go..."
She wanted to meet her mother first.
She wanted to become garbage just once more.
She tried to push all her emotions into one corner of her heart and walk forward.
But she could not push them away at all. Every stain of her own filth would not be washed away.
As a human being, she could not do this anymore.
Plop, thud... thud.
Sharon's hand, which had been striking her legs, grew numb.
With her head bowed, she murmured.
"...Mama."
It should have been a straight line.
It should have been a perfectly straight path leading only to her.
Sharon turned her steps around.
"...I'm sorry. Mama."
The light returned to Sharon's eyes.
Before she could meet her mother, there were still stars left to count.
Following the steps stamped into the snow, Sharon ran back.