The Name of the Man Who Brushed Past You (4)
They say everything in this world comes down to how you choose to see it.
Even a merciless flurry of snow can warm you if you decide it's sunlight. A master who has reached the peak can chew a rock as if it were candy. A beggar sees only beggars; a prince sees only princes.
So if I simply decided that the razor-edged blades closing in from both sides were nothing more than a shy bouquet offered by a blushing maiden of the red-light district…
"Haaah!"
"Hup!"
"…Waaaaagh!"
Damn it. Still blades.
The hopeful little hypothesis had just been thoroughly disproven, which left me with nothing to lean on but a thin, trembling survival instinct. I twisted clear of the two blades that came flying in succession, and the twisted, ragged breathing of two women filled my ears.
"Tch."
"Too shallow."
"W-wait. Why are you even—"
I opened my mouth to demand some kind of explanation, but the question never reached them. The two women had already locked into combat stances and slammed into each other, and the surge of bodies that followed sealed off my eyes and ears completely.
"Come on, you tin-can dogs of the kingdom!"
"You brainless bandit trash!"
"Owaaaaaaah!!!"
The human wave shoved me farther from the two of them, but I couldn't exactly call it a stroke of luck. The crowd was still split into two opposing camps, and I was still standing dead in the middle of the chaos.
The only silver lining was that the insults they kept screaming at each other gave me a rough idea of what kind of mess I'd landed in.
"You filthy pack of thieves! Today we wipe you out for good!"
…So those are the people that girl brought with her.
"Nothing but the kingdom's dogs, and they still won't shut up!"
…And those are the ones that knight dragged along.
One side was kingdom soldiers. The other side was criminals. Judging by the way they talked, neither group was exactly high-caliber. Stupid bandits, kingdom tin cans — same difference, really.
Of course I had no intention of picking a side. I was a little too decent to become a criminal, and not nearly law-abiding enough to stand with the knights.
So why were both sides pointing their swords at me?
"You knight-order snitch!"
"You filthy bandit stooge!"
"W-wait. Wait a second!"
How many times had I already said those words today alone? I flailed my hands in frantic denial, and in that same instant sword strikes came flying from four directions at once. I dodged them only for six spears to come hurtling at my back.
I have to block. That was the thought that made me reach for my waist — except what kind of lunatic brings a sword on a casual stroll? The blades, of course, did not care about my personal circumstances. They came for my body with perfect honesty.
In that instant my body moved on pure instinct. I kicked the hilt of the nearest sword into the air, snatched it mid-flight, and immediately swept the spears away behind me. Even I had to admit it was a pretty slick little stunt. The people watching, however, only seemed to get angrier.
"Showing off cheap tricks like that — you really are a bandit!"
"That rootless body technique — is that what your king taught you, tin can?!"
"I'm going to lose my mind."
Somehow I was single-handedly tanking the honor of both factions in real time. And it wasn't entirely wrong, because every time I dodged an attack, a fresh wave of curses against the opposite side came pouring out.
Once emotions started running that hot, the fighting only grew fiercer. Faster. More vicious. And the fact that the attacks aimed at me grew more relentless in the process hardly needed saying.
"Wait! Just wait a second!"
"Shut up! You're loud!"
"You worm gnawing at the kingdom!"
"Would you just—"
"Run away like you always do, you damn bandit!"
"Stop running like a coward and fight, tin can!"
"What the hell do you people want from me, you maniacs?!"
"Oaaaaaah!"
Attacks without end. Curses without end. And somewhere in the middle of it all, the previously chaotic sword strikes began to lock into increasingly precise combinations. At one point a knight and a bandit even crossed blades in a beautiful exchange — then stabbed at my waist in perfect unison.
When those endlessly refining movements finally reached their peak, two blades came at me on trajectories I simply could not avoid. One for the shoulder. One for the leg. Even if I knocked one aside, the other would land a killing blow for certain.
"Ugh…!"
This is actually dangerous. The thought had barely formed when my body moved on its own. Some unknown memory drilled into my mind jerked my shoulder, and my empty hand suddenly shot toward the ground.
I scooped up a fallen sword and knocked both strikes aside at once with both hands. Of course it hadn't been a prepared motion, so a sharp, tingling pain shot through my shoulder joint.
"Ah, damn it — I knew this was a bad idea…!"
"…!"
I had a bad feeling about this, you old bastard. I was still muttering curses under my breath when I lifted my head and found a strange silence hanging over everything. For the briefest moment I even entertained the delusion that my dual-wielding had been that impressive.
Wrong again. The real answer was already charging at me from front and back. The duel between the two women I'd briefly lost track of had crossed paths once more — and I was right in the middle of it.
"You… just now, that was…"
"W-wait…"
"…"
In pure speed, the girl without armor was clearly faster. But the knight was closer to me than I'd expected, and she had already raised her sword high overhead.
The black shadow cast by her white armor swallowed my head in an instant. My shoulder still wouldn't let me lift a sword, so I clenched my teeth and braced for the pain that was about to arrive.
And then, out of nowhere, the knight's low voice brushed past my ear.
"Move. You are not my target right now."
"What…"
I started to protest, but the sheer pressure in her voice made my body react on its own. Behind me, the girl who had been closing in finally showed panic for the first time and sucked in a sharp breath.
"…Oh no."
"You won't dodge this one."
Because I had unintentionally blocked her line of sight, the sword came down on a trajectory she could never avoid. And the weight behind it felt easily twice as heavy as before.
If a fragile girl like her tried to take that hit, she wouldn't survive it.
"Then…"
"…Stop!"
The thought hit me and my body moved before I could stop it. I raised the sword. The two blades crashed together with a deafening roar and the sharp, metallic stench of iron.
"What…?"
"Ugh!"
Just as expected, the attack was far heavier than before. My shoulder finally screamed and gave out completely. But I held the force to the very end, and at the last possible moment I deflected the strike off to the side.
"Aaagh…!"
The heavy sword slammed into the ground and sent a spray of dirt flying. I forced out the breath I'd been holding, then finally gave up and started complaining out loud.
"Haa… haa…"
"…"
"Haa…"
Thick dust rose and clouded the girl's vision. Amid the intermittent sound of someone else's ragged breathing, she turned her eyes toward the scar left by the deflected strike.
The stories of the white knight who had slain a dragon alone. She had always prided herself on the fact that no one could match her sword's speed — but when it came to raw power, she had no choice but to concede. And what she had just witnessed was, without question, a blow heavy enough to sever a dragon's neck.
She might not have been able to dodge it. Blocking it would have been impossible. A single moment of carelessness had brought her to the brink of death — and the one who had stepped into that path was the knight order's spy.
He was still standing in front of her, breathing hard. Then, suddenly, he opened his mouth and spoke in a perfectly calm voice.
"Still the same brute strength, I see."
"…"
"But even so, don't you think that was a little much?"
A faint smile even tugged at the corner of his mouth. For someone supposedly addressing the famously strict white knight — even as a close subordinate — the tone was far too casual.
No. Casual wasn't the right word. There was something almost intimate about it. This was clearly not a relationship built on simple chain of command.
Friends.
Or perhaps family.
But the white knight had no friends. As for family, aside from her father, they had all died long ago; at best she had distant relatives. That was what everyone knew.
If you eliminated every possibility one by one, only one conclusion remained. Closer than a friend. Perhaps even deeper than family.
"…No way."
Having stumbled onto a secret far too large, the girl stared at the boy and the knight with wide, startled eyes. The two of them were still looking at each other, sharing those rough breaths.
On the surface it was nothing more than an exchange of glances — but inside it, some secret history that no amount of intelligence work could ever have uncovered was surely passing between them. While the girl quietly sorted through her thoughts, the boy spoke again.
"Ugh… this hurts like hell."
"…"
"This is going to be rough for a while."
Words that would normally have sounded like simple grumbling now seemed loaded with deeper meaning. Perhaps even for the white knight, facing this man again after so long was a rare thing. And for the operation to draw her out, she had summoned the only person she could truly trust.
But no matter how carefully she filled in the blanks, one part still refused to make sense. Even granting all of that — why? Why on earth…
Why had that man protected her?
…
Had he, in the final moment, simply felt pity for his enemy?
"You…"
That was the only reason she could think of, but until he opened his mouth she would know nothing. She was still turning the thought over when, without warning, the man's back bumped against her shoulder.
"That was seriously close."
"…"
She had no idea what those words were supposed to mean. But the thought that she couldn't let this chance slip away came first. In a fight where a single mistake decided everything, if a hostage walked right into her hands, no assassin worth the name would let it go.
So the girl immediately seized his wrist. And then, unexpectedly, the man was the one who leaned in and whispered first.
"What. You were scared too, huh."
"What…?"
"You just got swept up in their momentum and forced into the fight, right?"
What on earth was this man talking about? Did he not understand his own position? The girl frowned and looked at him. In contrast, the man calmly took her wrist in return with an almost serene expression.
"All right. On three, we run."
"What did you say?"
"One… two…"
"Wait—"
"Three!"
In that instant the man took off running, still holding the girl's hand. The girl, for her part, clamped down hard on his hand in return — she couldn't afford to lose a knight-order hostage — and let herself be pulled along.
Just like that, the two of them broke free of the crowd and vanished toward the horizon in a blink. Faced with the sheer, absurd speed of the boy and girl, neither the knights nor the Dark Guild forces even considered giving chase. They could only stare blankly after them.
"Uh…"
"This is…"
Of course, both sides were highly specialized combat forces, so the stunned silence didn't last long. Before long they reached a thoroughly reasonable conclusion, drew a deep breath, and roared with everything they had.
"He's running off with the Black Lady!!!"
"The knight order's snitch has kidnapped the Master!!!"