First (8)
First (8)
I opened the drawer. The revolver was gone.
As if it had never been there at all.
For a moment, I stared blankly into the empty space. The faint scent of old wood rose up.
Who took it?
Levina? Or Estelle?
It couldn't have been Serepina.
I wasn't angry. I wasn't anxious, either. A mild inconvenience. That was the extent of it — the bitter inconvenience of watching the easiest exit slam shut.
At least blowing my head off hadn't hurt.
Jumping from a height, though — that still scared me.
Anyway, it was nearly five o'clock.
I opened the door to head out — another joyless stretch of time with Levina waiting — and someone collided with me.
"Ah."
A short, pained breath. A familiar figure staggered.
Serepina.
She'd smacked her head on the door. She stood there with her hand pressed to her forehead, head bowed.
She looked far worse than she had a few hours ago, in front of the library.
"How long have you been out here?"
"...I didn't know what to say. So I just kept... just kept standing here."
Her golden hair was disheveled, the strands a mess. Her eyes were red and raw. Her neatly pressed uniform was crumpled. Her pale face was streaked with dried tears. The lilac scent that usually felt so clean seemed damp now.
"Go back for now."
"Wait. Just a moment. Can't we talk? That— what I said before, and earlier, I meant it, I..."
I cut her off and moved to step past her into the corridor. Then she grabbed my wrist.
Her hand was cold. Trembling, barely perceptible.
"Please. Just a minute. I have something to say. I mean it. Please, Ravin."
There was an aching kind of plea in her voice, something I'd never once heard from her. It dragged up memories from the early days after I'd first become Ravin — the desperate scramble to change her mind — and my mood sank.
"It's not that I dislike you. It's this."
I pulled the crumpled Disciplinary Committee summons from my pocket and showed her.
Her unsteady blue eyes traced slowly over the letters on the page.
"We'll talk later. Or wait inside."
I jerked my chin toward my door. She hesitated, looking from my face to the doorknob and back. At last she gave a tiny nod and went inside.
The soft thud of the closing door echoed faintly down the corridor. I left the sound behind and headed for the Disciplinary Committee meeting.
The Student Council Room was on the top floor of the Academy's main building. The hallways were quiet. Most students had already returned to the dormitories after classes, or gone for dinner. Outside the windows, the sun was setting. An enormous red glow soaked the building in crimson.
I arrived at the Student Council Room door. I stood gripping the handle, taking a long breath.
What should I say? What kind of face should I wear?
Should I just tell them all to quit their shit — that we're all students here, so go fetch the dean instead?
Sure, I get it. An institution that mixes in commoners needs to drill the distinction between superiors and inferiors from an early age. But having Levina look down from on high and weigh my sins wasn't going to be a pleasant experience. Back at the family estate, 'Ravin' went through that every day. Now it was my turn.
I turned the handle and walked in.
A long table dominated the room. Around it sat faces both familiar and unfamiliar. Levina occupied the seat at the head. Her expression held nothing at all — the same blank mask as always. To either side sat a handful of professors and other student council officers. Their faces mixed boredom, annoyance, and a thread of mild curiosity.
At the far end, opposite me, sat Marcus and two of his crew.
They looked wrecked. Marcus's nose was bandaged. A huge plaster covered his cheek. The moment they saw me, they shot me hate-filled glares, but when I met their eyes without a word, they quickly looked down.
Couldn't find a decent priest, I guess. Or maybe they dragged themselves here looking that way on purpose — to play the victim.
"Sit."
Levina gestured toward the empty chair in front of me.
I pulled it out and sat without a word. The chair was hard.
"Ravin Edelgard. I imagine you know perfectly well why you are here."
Levina's voice was as cold and dry as the air in the room. I said nothing.
"A few days ago, not content with becoming the subject of idle talk due to unnecessary conduct, you once again committed unilateral violence against Marcus Klein and two other students, inflicted needless injury, and in the process brought disgrace upon the Edelgard name. Do you have anything to say regarding these facts?"
"No."
My reply was brief. At that, everyone's face flickered with something like surprise. Levina's eyebrow gave an almost imperceptible twitch. She must have expected me to make excuses, or burst out raging, or cause a scene.
"You have nothing to say?"
The student guidance professor seated off to one side asked, clearly suspicious. I couldn't remember his name. I simply looked at him for a moment. He had his legs crossed; when my gaze landed on him, he coughed uncomfortably and straightened up.
Where does this status, this bloodline, draw its authority from? To make even a soon-to-be-expelled bastard grovel like a crushed rat.
"Yes. Nothing. So handle it however you like."
I spoke while looking straight at Levina. The silence in the room grew heavier. Now their faces registered bewilderment.
"Let's hear from the injured parties."
Levina turned toward Marcus. As if he'd been waiting for his cue, Marcus opened his mouth with a look of grievous wrong. He launched into a performance pitched somewhere between a third-rate stage actor and a wounded innocent. I let it flow in one ear and out the other.
It was a pretty convincing act, I'll give him that. If he'd put that talent somewhere else, he might have had a real future. But even then, he'd probably have slipped up — laid hands on some actress who belonged to a gang and vanished without a trace.
In his version, I'd suddenly, without a word, beaten three young men senseless and burned them with a cigarette. A complete madman.
"Ravin Edelgard. Do you have any rebuttal to the injured parties' claims?"
Levina asked me again.
"No."
"Then I will take that as an admission of all charges. The disciplinary measures will be decided after thorough deliberation and communicated to you in due course. You are dismissed."
I shrugged.
"...All of you may leave. Except Ravin Edelgard. You stay."
The professors and student council officers rose one by one and left the room. Marcus and his cronies slipped out wearing smug, nasty little smiles. With their missing teeth, it just looked ridiculous.
"Why didn't you say anything?" Levina asked.
"The day I came back beaten half to death — that was those three lowlife bastards. You knew that."
"What did you want me to say?"
"At the very least, I thought you might make an excuse."
"And if I had made an excuse, were you going to listen?"
She didn't answer. That was her answer.
A faint smile tugged at my lips. "Alright, then. If we're done, I'll be going."
I rose from my seat and moved to walk past her. As I did, Levina spoke in a low voice.
"The revolver. I took it."
I stopped.
"That? You?"
First of all, it was my mother's keepsake. Levina used to call her 'that filthy whore who bore a bastard.'
"No—how did you even know where it was?"
I crossed to the other side of the table, closing the distance between us. I was smiling faintly — the kind of strange expression where the corners of the mouth lift but the eyes hold no laughter.
"I just... had a feeling it would be there."
She answered with a look that suggested she herself didn't quite understand. I never knew her signature blankness could leak something like unease.
"Why? Why the hell would you do that?"
"Because I was afraid you'd... do something stupid."
She hadn't risen. She simply looked up at me.
"Levina."
"Even if you're expelled from the family, even if the Academy throws you out, your life isn't..."
I grabbed her by the collar. Her thin body came up as lightly as paper.
"Levina."
I hauled her out of the chair.
Thud!
Her body hit the floor with a dull, heavy sound. I straddled her and wrapped both hands around her throat.
"Guhk... hak...!"
A choked, agonized whimper tore out of her mouth. Her hands tried to push my arms away, but there was no strength in them — they just scrabbled at my sleeves and slid off.
"You could've just kept doing what you always did. Despise me. Curse me. Treat me like garbage. What suddenly got into your head that you'd lay a hand on my things, hmm? Our great pride of Edelgard?"
Her eyes were wide open. I'd never seen those eyes — the ones that always looked down at me with contempt and disgust — look like that before.
"Is the filthy little bastard so far gone now that he can't even carry a single gun without you losing your mind? At least for the last few years, I wagged my tail in front of you, rolled over like a dog whenever you said roll over, and kept my head down, you fucking—"
My grip tightened. Her face shifted from red to a mottled bluish hue. Tears slid from her eyes.
"Is what happened in the Forbidden Archive my fault, too? My fault? How the hell would I know? Those goddamn idiots deciding to cause an accident on the same day I went in — you think I knew that was going to happen?"
Abruptly, I loosened my hands. I felt her body go slack. She coughed harshly, desperately sucking in air.
"How long am I supposed to live like this? Why are you pretending to care now, after all this time!?"
Lying crumpled on the floor, she just watched me with a kind of bleakness I'd never seen on her face before.
Was it because I'd died once? Or was this always my real nature? I don't even think about the consequences anymore, the way I used to. I just let myself get swept around by whatever I'm feeling. And how exactly is that any different from Ravin?
She said getting expelled from the family and the Academy meant my life was over. Because I'd never get to go back. I don't feel miserable on my own — it's you people who always turn me into someone miserable.
I dropped into the chair she'd been sitting in and let out a long sigh. "My gun. Where is it?"
I knew better than anyone that no answer was coming. So I stood up and walked out of the room — nearly fled it. Fast. I walked the corridor very fast.
"...don't."
I did hear Levina's cracked voice from behind. Don't do? Don't go? I'm not quite sure what she said. I didn't care enough to wonder.
Right then, I just wanted to go back. To the place I used to live. The place where no one calls me 'Ravin.'