Vestige (21)
Levina laughed.
As if the crackling, wire-taut tension of the last few minutes had never been there at all.
"A breeze? We're simply close. Family, after all."
Estelle didn't answer. She looked at me instead.
"Simply close. Is that so?"
Estelle repeated the words.
Her voice held no belief whatsoever.
"Yes."
Levina answered without a hint of concern.
She took a step back from me and faced Estelle squarely.
"Do close siblings these days go around kissing and embracing each other?"
A sharp edge crept into Estelle's voice.
"The Edelgard family has always been a little peculiar. Set apart from others."
"Peculiar. Yes."
Estelle said this, then strode toward Levina.
She seized Levina's face with both hands.
"Even so, no woman looks at her family the way you do."
Estelle murmured as she stared into Levina's eyes.
She slowly prodded Levina's chest with her index finger, poking as she spoke on.
Levina brushed the hand aside—a casual motion.
"Why not? It's possible."
"You're looking at Ravin with the exact same eyes I do."
"And what sort of eyes would those be?"
Levina asked.
A faint smile still lingered at the corner of her mouth.
"The eyes of someone in love. Eyes that wish I were the only one reflected in them.
You know how it is—when you're in love, the whole world looks beautiful.
It sparkles and shines. Impossible not to notice."
"And? What exactly is the problem?"
Levina carried on, utterly unruffled.
"Ravin can't do without me. Having someone like you or Serepina around never made anything better anyway."
Estelle couldn't get a single word out.
She tried to speak—whether it was bewilderment or fury, I couldn't tell—but her mouth only opened and shut, over and over, producing no sound.
"You wouldn't know this, but if you'd grown up in the Edelgard household, you'd understand."
"Enough of your nonsense. Just come clean and admit you're insane.
That woman alone is more than enough to drive anyone mad, and now you're telling me you're his full-blooded sister?
Your little brother—is any halfway decent-looking woman fair game for you?"
"Sure. Maybe so."
Levina conceded readily.
"But that's enough.
If he'll just hold me tight, talk with me, press his lips to mine—I can live on that.
Honestly, I don't even need that much.
I just need him to stay by my side."
Estelle had stopped retorting altogether. She simply glared at Levina.
"The truth is, as long as I can stay beside Ravin, that's all I require.
I want to make him look at no one but me. I want to build a proper room, lock him inside, feed him, put him to bed, raise him there. But he's already gotten close to you, so that's rather become a loss. Unless you feel like giving up?"
"Would I?"
"What on earth do you see in Ravin? His face?"
"Everything. Even his flaws."
"But why? There's no reason to like someone like Ravin."
"......What exactly do you think Ravin is?"
"Vermin. A worthless bastard. A concubine's child. A son of a bitch. A whore. A used rag. A man devoid of all gravity who drifts aimlessly about.
A fool who knows no satisfaction. The dregs of humanity. A surplus existence. A broken wretch incapable of happiness.
A degenerate who gets off on hitting and tormenting women."
Estelle's expression slowly hardened.
"My family. My little brother. The one and only person who understands me. And therefore, the one person who must stay at my side."
Levina grinned.
She stepped toward Estelle.
It was Estelle who recoiled—a step backward.
"I'm the woman suited to Ravin's station.
A person who is nothing once you strip away their title.
A human being whose company brings no joy, only a creeping sense of disgust.
Not a girl like you—someone who feels like peace itself just by standing next to him."
Levina's voice rose, bright with exhilaration.
I felt as though I'd never seen her quite like this before.
"Ravin shouldn't be with a girl who's whole and beautiful, like our dear Saintess.
And not that Serepina child, either.
She's too kind, too indecisive, too stupid—and she's a pretty little blonde with a fine body on top of it all.
Exactly the kind of woman men love best.
Stupid, pretty, cute—perfect to keep beside you and raise. Let her live in the same gutter you do."
"......This isn't worth listening to. Stop spewing garbage and get out."
Estelle spoke.
Levina laughed and shook her head.
"Ravin doesn't deserve to marry a girl like you and find happiness.
He's a wreck as he is now—do you really think having a child will make him capable of giving something like love?
No, before that—is he even capable of love at all?
Has he ever received it? Right now, you couldn't even give me a proper reason for why you like Ravin."
"That's because what you feel isn't real love.
I could give you dozens. Hundreds, even.
Maybe not thousands.
So, Estelle, you can just give up and walk away, and nobody would fault you for it.
Who's going to blame you for discarding something like Ravin? Hm?"
I stared at the ground.
Footprints marked the damp earth.
A memory surfaced—eating mud off the floor once, long ago.
A rainy day. About a month after my mother died, probably.
They'd put her in a coffin and buried her, but by then she was all rotted and crumbling, merging with the soil. Levina had said that if I ate this, I might be eating my mother. She'd gathered the mud into a clump, strangely pretty, and handed it to me.
I'd stood there, holding that round ball of mud, just blinking at it, until Levina forced my mouth open and shoved it in.
What did it taste like? What did I feel?
I can't recall.
All that remains is the emotion from that moment.
And Levina—Levina had scooped up the mud I'd spat out through my tears, put it in her own mouth, chewed it for a bit, and then spat it back onto my face with a soft little smile.
Then she'd said something like, It wasn't very tasty, was it.
She'd never been normal from the start. A human being incapable of being normal. So why had I ever thought we could pass our days in any healthy way?
Had I simply refused to let myself remember?
Even carrying Ravin's memories—even as I lived as Ravin—why had I let myself think that if we just kept living together, things might get a little better, she might become a little more human?
Probably because I carry the same heart as Levina. The same thoughts.
Because even now, I can't find a single thing in what she's saying that's actually wrong.
A strange feeling settled over me. I ground the sole of my foot against the dirt, erasing the footprints.
Then I looked up again.
There was Estelle, staring blankly at Levina as the words kept spilling out of her.
What had I been trying to do?
Why had I bothered staying alive all this time?
After becoming Ravin, I could've simply dismissed the years of brutal suffering as a foul dream and blown my head off at the first chance. It would've resolved everything fast. Why had I stubbornly clung to this thread of a life?
Was I living to survive, or living to save someone?
I haven't died yet, so I suppose I'm still alive to do something.
What made me any different from Levina, who'd once crammed mud into my mouth right in front of me?
After being treated like that, had I still gone to Levina craving affection? Still wanted her to look at me?
[Collect the Endings. 5/?]
[Currently Collected Rewards: Lingering Fragrance, Afterimage, Lingering Trace, Lingering Soul, □□]
[Reward: Love]
Because I wanted the people who'd been beside me to finally look back at me kindly?
Because I wanted the base pleasure of watching them regret how they'd mistreated me, how they'd hurled those vicious words—wanted to see them grieve over it?
Because I thought if Serepina saw how much I'd changed, we could go back to those innocent, happy days we once had?
Because, having accomplished nothing of worth, I still wanted the people around me to look at me differently, to praise me, just for having changed a fraction from the wretch I'd been?
I don't know. Why do I live?
If I died, there'd be no more worry, no more thoughts, no more pointless noise like this inside my head.
It's probably not some noble sentiment—saving someone, protecting someone, keeping them alive.
I understood that now, watching the vile, repulsive, horrific display of Levina standing before my eyes.
Vile enough that Estelle couldn't even find an answer.
I want Serepina to love only me. To look at no other human being, to fix her gaze on me alone.
I want Estelle to love only me. To care nothing for her surroundings, to listen only to my words, to have an expression she shows only to me.
Levina, I'm not so sure.
Since I'm not so sure about myself.
But no matter how Levina treated me, no matter how she abused me back in that mansion, I'd still wanted her acknowledgment.
Now I can't even distinguish whether it was acknowledgment, familial love, or romantic love.
My head is a tangled wreck.
So the blood really does run true.
I can't understand myself at all, and I have no idea why I'm like this—but Levina was the same.
Tormenting me, cornering me, spitting awful words—it was the same for her, surely.
In that case, whatever I say, Levina will stay stuck to my side.
"Estelle."
I spoke.
Both of them turned to look at me.
"Don't listen to the nonsense my sister's spouting."
I reached forward, lightly tapped Levina's cheek, then slapped her hard.
It was the first time I'd ever struck Levina in front of someone else.
I must have hit harder than I'd meant to; she staggered from the blow and stared at me.
"She's been posted to a warzone too long. Her mind's gone a bit rotten, that's all.
And there's no way I could ever love a woman like this.
There's no way I could ever want a woman like this at my side instead of you."
I walked past Levina and closed the distance to Estelle.
I kissed her, tongue and all, and then slowly, as my hands traced over her body, I whispered into her ear.
"That kind of thing is only for you.
So don't let it trouble you."
Estelle pulled away from me. She raised her sleeve toward her lips, stopped herself, cleared her throat with a small cough, and spoke.
"......Fine. I'll play along like nothing's wrong today, just like always."
She said that, and then the light in her eyes shifted subtly. She grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and murmured, low.
"But promise me this one thing.
The moment the demons are driven back, you and I start a household together.
I think seven children should be sufficient."
I smiled back at her.
"Got it. I'll do my best."
I felt bizarrely certain that if I dashed straight toward the teeming horde of demons right now, I could fight off any number of them and win.
Though if I happened to die in the process, I'd have no choice but to break my promise to Estelle.
That wasn't a lie.
If I died, there's nothing to be done about it.
Sometimes the thought had crossed my mind—was I, in fact, a demon myself?
Too impulsive, like them, and certainly not good.
From what happened in Rineta's village, to the things that keep happening to me, to Serepina and Estelle's feelings, to the semi-transparent window that'd suddenly started appearing before my eyes.......
It all began after I entered the Forbidden Archive, so clearly something happened back then.
Or who knows—maybe when I was a child, the Duchess laid some kind of curse on me.
Which would explain why my character is so twisted. Why I let others jerk me around, then impulsively lash out at the person I love in the most horrific, destructive ways.
The conclusion only came to me now, but it was far simpler than I'd expected.
I simply took after Levina.
I hated Levina, and so I hated myself.
And now I've decided to stop the self-flagellation and try to love myself.
That doesn't change the fact that I'm a human being who deserves to die.
I suppose I just have to live over and over until I'm no longer that cheap, worthless sort of person.
Even if Serepina tries to hold me back, I'm going to go die fighting the demons.
Strangely, I felt as though my cluttered mind had been swept clean in an instant.