Delusion (26)
Delusion (26)
Kyle collapsed in front of me.
His face still held a look of disbelief.
His mouth opened and closed, trying to form words, but only bloody froth came out.
He crumpled, pouring blood onto the floor at my feet.
Where he lay face-down, his back was a hollow, gaping wound.
I stared down at him, lowered my arm, and leveled the revolver at Kyle's head. I cocked the hammer with my thumb.
And pulled the trigger one more time.
Bang!
The bullet never reached his skull. It veered off on some warped trajectory, as if it had struck an invisible wall, and buried itself in the floor.
Only then did the others seem to snap out of their stupor. They rushed to Kyle and surrounded him.
They turned his body over. Tried everything they could to stanch the flow from his chest. It was futile.
Red blood kept surging up through their fingers, through the strips of cloth they pressed against the wound.
A few of them glared at me, then at Serepina, their eyes flicking back and forth.
Probably because I'd pulled the trigger on Kyle while he was already down.
A female knight whose face I knew grabbed Serepina by the collar.
I'd thought she was someone else entirely back then—back when she looked at me and fled while I burned to death.
"Why?"
Her voice was shaking with rage.
"I—I didn't mean to... I just wanted to stop him... but my hand moved on its own..."
Serepina was still crying, her words a tangled, rambling mess.
Her blue eyes were flooded with terror and confusion.
"How could you do this to us? Kyle was our last hope!
Was it for him? That worthless piece of garbage ex-fiancé who threw you away? You goddamn fucking whore!"
The knight spat the words like a curse.
Her face was a mask of hatred.
"No, no... that's not what I... I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."
Serepina's eyes darted wildly. She was panting, breathing too fast, repeating her apology like a madwoman.
The knight's expression twisted further.
She drew her sword.
Then she drove her knee into Serepina's solar plexus while Serepina was still frozen rigid.
Serepina crumpled with a choked gasp.
She looked up at the knight, coughing in agony. The knight raised her blade and swung it down to take Serepina's head.
I raised the revolver, aimed without taking proper time, and fired.
Gunshots rang through the corridor in quick succession.
The knight deflected them with her blade on pure reflex.
A sharp metallic ring split the air.
Not a trace of panic. She knocked aside the remaining bullets the same way.
With a sword. Cutting bullets out of the air like it was the most natural thing in the world.
A hollow laugh escaped me at the absurdity of it.
The knight's face was still contorted. She hurled a dagger straight at me and charged, sword raised, feet pounding the floor.
A stray thought flickered through my mind: Rineta was still standing frozen in front of me. She might take the hit.
I grabbed the back of Rineta's collar and yanked her aside.
I twisted my own body, but a sharp, searing pain bit into my shoulder.
The dagger was buried deep.
Maybe because part of me knew I might die here, the pain didn't register as strongly as it should have.
The knight was closing in, blade aimed at me.
I tore the dagger from my shoulder and barely managed to parry her first swing.
But the gap in strength was too vast.
The dagger flew from my grip and spun into the air.
A second strike came for me—and then the blade shattered right in front of my eyes.
Estelle.
She kicked the knight away, grabbed a fistful of her hair, and drove her knee into the woman's stomach.
The knight crumpled without a sound.
Estelle held her by the hair and dragged her across the floor as she walked slowly toward me.
The raw, scraping sound of a face grinding against stone was unmistakable.
At Estelle's arrival, every person in the corridor stopped moving.
A suffocating stillness settled over the hallway.
"I've got a rough idea what's going on here. I'll pretend I didn't see it, so quit your shit and get back to the front."
Estelle's voice had its usual languid drawl, but underneath it, something low and guttural was rumbling.
"Go back... Not that it matters... We're all dead anyway..."
The knight groaned through clenched teeth, her voice drained of strength, hair still in Estelle's grip.
"If you stay here, it's the same result."
Estelle answered in a low murmur.
"Please... at least let us tend to Kyle... without him, the front line will collapse in hours..."
One of the people beside Kyle begged.
He came forward and dropped to his knees in front of Estelle, pleading for her to heal him.
Estelle heard him out, then told those gathered around Kyle to step back.
She gazed at Kyle's wound for a long moment—at the mangled wrist, the missing hand.
Then she set her foot on his head and crushed it.
Crunch.
The sound that echoed through the corridor was not a pleasant one.
"That doesn't give me any reason to spare a son of a bitch who attacked Duke Edelgard and tried to kill him the moment things didn't go his way."
She wiped the blood from the tip of her shoe against the floor with a light, dismissive motion.
Then she pointed a finger at Serepina.
"You were the one who cast it, weren't you?"
Serepina's hands trembled violently as she looked around.
"Just stay behind me."
She was chewing her lower lip so hard that blood was trickling down her chin.
She hesitated, then took slow, faltering steps toward me.
* * *
Levina and Estelle arrived together after hearing the gunfire. They exchanged a few quiet words, then assigned a handful of knights to forcibly escort the attackers out of the estate.
No objection. They weren't going to come back anyway, and they were as good as dead out there regardless.
Levina pointed at Kyle's ruined corpse.
"You should've kept that bastard alive, no matter what he pulled. Then we could've bought a few more years, at least..."
"He was already dead."
Estelle cut her off.
Levina pressed her fingers against the bridge of her nose as if fighting off a headache, then her gaze landed on Serepina.
"Serepina? What's she doing over there?"
Serepina flinched at her name but didn't turn around.
She was staring blankly at the servants. Rineta, her face a mess of complex emotion, was among them. They were gagging and retching as they cleared away Kyle's body and scrubbed at the gore soaking the floor.
Estelle told Levina to handle the aftermath, then walked over to Serepina and wrapped her in a tight embrace.
"Thank you for saving Ravin."
Then she looked at me.
"Ravin, it's been a long time since you two last met.
As a thank-you, go have a quiet conversation with her. Just the two of you.
Look at that face. If you let her leave like this, she's going to walk off somewhere and die. Heh."
I looked at Serepina.
Stomach acid still smeared at the corner of her mouth. Tears leaking from only one side of her face because her left eye was gone.
The fine web of scars across her whole body, across what was left of her face.
It was hard to believe she was the same person I'd known before we parted.
"I'd prefer it if you didn't cheat on me."
Estelle said it with a smile.
Serepina wouldn't move even when called, so Estelle grabbed her hand and pulled her along, forcing her into the drawing room.
She sat her down on a sofa and told the servants to bring tea and refreshments.
When the cookies, cake, and tea arrived, Serepina's one remaining eye went wide.
"You... you still have things like this here."
I didn't answer.
Serepina reached a hand toward a cookie, stopped it midair, then pulled it back without taking one.
"We've got more cookies than we know what to do with. Eat as many as you want."
Serepina shook her head.
"No appetite. It's fine."
"'How have you been' feels like a stupid question to ask."
"I wanted to see you. But I had no way to reach you, and you had no reason to want me there. So I just... lived with the thought of you."
Serepina's right index finger was bent back nearly to the breaking point. Her whole hand was trembling.
"I wanted to see you badly. But not like this."
"What's wrong with this?"
"N-no matter how cornered we all were... K-Kyle, I never thought he'd do something like that."
"He's the type of friend who'd do that and worse to me."
I noticed the tea in her cup had gone cold, so I emptied the cup into a spare saucer, refilled it from the teapot, and slid it back in front of her.
Serepina took the cup, her eyes flickering toward me as she sipped.
She drained the tea, steadied her breathing, and spoke.
"R-Ravin. If you stay here, you'll die soon. K-Kyle is dead now."
She rose from her seat and came toward me.
"I know this must sound in-insane when you've been living here p-peacefully, but we have to run!
With the Saintess here, we can get even f-further away."
Serepina sat down beside me, clasped my hands, and leaned in close. Her single eye fixed on me, raw and desperate.
She was still stammering badly, like someone who hadn't been in her right mind for a long time.
"Run where?"
"Anywhere! I just don't want you to die!
That's why I fought all this time, even after seeing all that... and I—I ruined it again. With my own hands."
I pushed Serepina back gently and stood up.
"It's always the same mess, I know. It's always me ruining everything with my own hands. But still—I don't want you to die."
I stayed silent for a long pause before I answered.
"At least this time, it's all right."
She must have startled me a little when she came closer. I felt a slight catch in my throat. I drank a cup of tea and then continued.
"I told you last time, too. I've stumbled too many times.
You ending up like this. The world turning into this. Estelle suffering even while she stays beside me. It's all my fault."
I picked up the chocolate cookie from the plate—the one Serepina had reached for but never touched—and handed it to her.
Serepina hesitated, then took it and began to eat in tiny, tentative bites.
For a long time, she ate that single cookie as if it were the most precious thing in the world.