Firewood
My very first thought was why?
Isabel would never forgive me for insulting Lucas. Therefore, I believed her anger would never fade. But for some reason, her rage was clearly dying down right now.
What did I miss?
I didn't know. The focus of Act 3 was Nikita. Because I had been focusing entirely on monitoring Nikita's situation, I hadn't properly accounted for Isabel.
"Isabel."
If that was the case, it was better to be direct.
"Didn't you boast so triumphantly about how you were going to crush me for insulting your friend? Where did all that fire go?"
Beating around the bush wouldn't yield any answers. I put on a sullen face and looked at her.
Isabel clenched her fists tightly. But just as quickly, her grip loosened. My eyes narrowed.
"Yeah, I did," Isabel said, staring blankly down at her open palms. A hollow laugh escaped her lips.
"But suddenly, a thought crossed my mind." The light in her eyes began to dim. "A thought about whether I even have the right to condemn you for insulting Lucas."
Anger can burn fiercely enough to give someone a reason to live again. But sometimes, because it burns so hot, even the smallest spark of a realization can extinguish the entire flame.
"You know... after Lucas died, I didn't do anything." Isabel stared down at her empty hands, her body trembling slightly. Her tightly bitten lip quivered.
After receiving the shocking news of Lucas's death, Isabel had completely given up on the world. And that included her own life. A sunflower that had lost its sun, she was withering away miserably.
"I just sat there, dazed, unable to accept reality. I did absolutely nothing. No, that's not it." Isabel's hollow eyes looked up to meet mine. "It's exactly like you said before. I was trying to follow Lucas to the grave."
She had lost her most precious friend in the world. Being torn apart from the companion she had grown up with since childhood was a tragedy devastating enough to shatter her entire life. She hadn't eaten, she hadn't drunk water. She hadn't slept, spending her days in a mindless, repetitive stupor.
"I just wanted to die like that."
But as time passed and she reached this point, Isabel had come to realize.
"How could someone like me..."
She had truly wanted to die.
"...have any right to..."
She had lived only because she couldn't die, wishing to follow Lucas. But now.
"...act like I speak for Lucas?"
She finally realized what a terrible mistake she had made.
Lucas had died fighting an Apostle to save others. Isabel knew this better than anyone. Lucas had sacrificed his life to save people, yet she, unable to accept his death, had tried to throw her own life away. It was the one choice Lucas would have hated, grieved over, and been most pained by. To the deceased Lucas, Isabel was on the verge of becoming the worst kind of friend—one who died following him.
Isabel buried her face in her hands. She clawed at her own skin, gripping her face tightly as she poured out her agony.
"How... how could I be so shameless?" Thick tears began to drip from between her fingers. "After trying to do something like that to the deceased Lucas... how could I..."
Unable to bear the burning torment in her chest, Isabel collapsed to her knees. Surely, the one who suffered most was the deceased Lucas. Even knowing that, she had been about to inflict even greater pain upon him. The guilt and sorrow of that realization tore at her heart, leaving her utterly devastated.
"How could I..."
Isabel was drowning in self-loathing. Self-loathing is a poison. A vicious toxin that relentlessly gnaws away at a person until not even a handful of their soul remains. It was anger that had dragged Isabel back to reality. But because of that, she had reflected on the mistake she was about to make and realized just how pathetic her actions were. And once that realization struck, there was no going back to the ignorance she had clung to before.
She must have chewed over my words countless times. And in that process, she had come to understand. Even her current existence, burning with rage for Lucas's sake, was ultimately just using Lucas as an excuse to keep living. She realized how pathetic it was to live solely on anger, and she began to crumble once more.
"……So, are you just going to stand by and do nothing even if your dead friend is insulted?"
Isabel cherished Lucas more than anyone. I asked her if her self-loathing would really make her stand by and watch while someone defiled his memory. Isabel remained silent. Seeing this, I pressed my lips together and called out to her.
"Isabel Luna."
Calling her by her full name, I took a step closer. The Isabel I knew was a person who shone like a brilliant sun. She was someone who should burn fiercely with rage, not someone who would let herself be consumed by self-loathing until she was weaker than a flickering candle.
"Is your love for your friend really that shallow?"
"Then what!" Isabel shrieked, her voice cracking. The scratches she had clawed into her own face were still raw. "What do you want me to do?! I tried to follow Lucas to the grave! And yet, I had the nerve to get angry because someone insulted him, desperately training like this! Shamelessly, without even realizing that the one who insulted Lucas the most was me!"
Isabel slammed her hands onto the stone floor of the rampart. She pressed down so violently that her fingernails cracked, and blood began to seep out.
"And yet... you, the one I thought was insulting Lucas, were actually doing exactly what Lucas would have wanted more than anyone……."
Only then did I understand why Isabel had changed. On the day I woke up in the Gray Forest, Isabel had seen the overlap between me and Lucas—the boy who had thrown his life away to save others. That was why she kept avoiding my gaze. Looking at me reminded her of Lucas, forcing her to remember the terrible thing she had almost done to his memory.
"I was just a selfish bitch who entered the Demon Palace, obsessed with the fact that Lucas was insulted, claiming I wanted to change that……."
Her emotions had grown increasingly unstable because of this. She had thrown herself into training as a form of escape, desperately trying to learn the sword from Ban to overcome her self-loathing. But the result of that obsession was hearing rumors about whether she was dating Ban. It had only been a few months since Lucas's death. The realization that she, who had lost her precious friend, looked happy enough to be dating someone dragged her down into an even deeper abyss. That was why she had lashed out at her friends. The sword she thought she was swinging for Lucas was a sword she didn't even have the right to hold. And to others, the sword she wielded for Lucas looked like a sword wielded for her own happiness. Looking at her like that,
"What's so bad about being selfish?" I asked, dismissing her words as nonsense.
Isabel slowly raised her head.
"No one can live their entire life solely for others. Naturally, everyone lives for themselves. I'm the same way."
It was only natural for everyone to put themselves first.
"It's human nature, and it's the logical way to act."
My eyes met Isabel's. She began to listen closely to my words. So,
"Isabel, let me tell you something. What you're doing right now is just playing the martyr."
"……What?"
Time to hit her with the hard truth.
"You tried to die for your dead friend. And because you committed the sin of trying to follow him to the grave, you're now going to stand by and let him be insulted? What kind of bizarre, idiotic logic is that? Pick one: either play the martyr, or be selfish. Don't do both."
Showing my irritation, I took another step toward her. The blazing sun directly overhead cast a shadow over my face. My red eyes gleamed from within the darkness.
"Your friend is dead. The dead don't speak. Even if you follow him and die, you'll just become another silent corpse. Your friend won't grieve over that. A dead person has no way to feel sorrow."
Isabel was bound by the ghost of Lucas. If I wanted to save her now, I had to use that very ghost.
"If the roles were reversed—if you were the one who died, and your friend Lucas heard someone insulting you—do you think he would have said the same things you're saying now?"
Isabel's shoulders flinched. This was a truth we both knew. Absolutely not. If it were Lucas, he would have never let anyone get away with defiling Isabel's memory, no matter what.
"You said you didn't want to insult your friend anymore," I declared coldly. "But isn't what you're doing right now the ultimate insult to him?"
Keeping her mouth shut when her precious friend was being insulted, claiming she had no right to speak—that was the worst thing she could possibly do to Lucas. Isabel's eyes shook violently.
"I still believe Lucas's death brought shame upon the history of Jerion Academy, and that his actions were a terrible example for the students."
I brought up the very words that had first ignited her fire.
"Isabel, what about you?"
Her face stained with tears, she bit her lip hard. Clenching her blood-smeared hands into fists, she looked up at me once more. Within her eyes, which had lost their light moments ago, a small but distinct flame began to flicker again.
"……No. Lucas did everything he could to save others. No one has the right to devalue that."
Isabel rebuilt her resolve, piece by piece. This time, it wasn't on an unstable foundation, but a solid pedestal of iron will that she could stand upon.
"I have no intention of letting another tragedy like your friend's happen again. His death is a stain that Jerion Academy must wash away."
Isabel countered immediately.
"Lucas's death was a noble sacrifice. His will to sacrifice himself for others is an exemplary model that everyone should inherit."
Our opinions clashed. Before I knew it, Isabel had stood up.
I had made a decision the first day I saw Isabel. I could never be a sun to her like Lucas was. So, I resolved to at least be her moon. Even if she mistook the moonlight for sunlight, I would make sure this sunflower lifted her head once more.
"Isabel, I don't think we will ever agree on anything. You are exactly the kind of person I detest."
"The feeling is mutual. I hate you too."
Just like the day I first met her, her eyes glared at me with fierce intensity. For now, this was enough. Now that she was bound by the ghost of Lucas, she would live on, if only to uphold his legacy.
"Fine. Then let's see whose beliefs hold true in the end."
My role wasn't to comfort Isabel, hold her close, and help her back up. In her story, my role was to be the rival, the enemy she had to fight against. My job here was done.
Below the ramparts, I saw her friends running toward us. Among them was her best friend, Sharin. They would be the ones to listen to her and take care of her. I turned around.
"……Hanon Airey, let me ask you one thing."
At that moment, as I walked away, Isabel called me by my name for the first time.
"……Have you ever met Lucas?"
Had she sensed something in our conversation today? I stared at her for a brief moment before turning my head back.
"Who knows. Maybe we crossed paths somewhere by chance."
It was better to leave her with a question than to invite unnecessary suspicion by flatly denying it. Leaving those words behind, I walked away. Even after I left, Isabel simply stood there, quietly watching my figure disappear down the ramparts.