Like a Comet Into Your Heart (10)
Like a Comet Into Your Heart (10)
Acceptance freely given by another.
The power of peace.
Trust offered purely, without the slightest ulterior motive.
As if to repay that trust, Red Vega’s ember blazed to life.
It was like a meteor.
A long, long trail of starlight wreathed in flame.
“Why did you get up? Are you insane?!”
“The insane one is the girl who scorched my stomach with fire.”
“Isn’t your regain speed way too fast? It’s only been a few minutes.”
“I’m actually wondering if I’m really conscious right now. Maybe this is all a dream, and I’m seeing a deathbed hallucination. My brain assembling a fantasy out of my subconscious.”
His consciousness was hazy, but the warmth against his right hand was vivid.
Red Vega slid her foot back between his legs, tucking it in furtively.
“Want me to scorch you one more time? That might help you figure out this is real.”
“That’s quite a bold suggestion. And yet, strangely, I don’t find it hateful.”
“Is that because I’m pretty?”
“It’s because you scorched my stomach and now I don’t even have the strength to be angry.”
Red Vega chuckled softly and poured even more magical power into her right hand.
The golden light that had seemed impossible to oppose was now veiled by the fire she herself radiated.
A strange feeling. Against her hand, atop another’s, she felt a warmth stronger than the flame.
Red Vega thought she hadn’t managed to infuse even a fraction of the pure trust she had just received into her flame.
She only thought it was right to repay this goodwill as best she could.
“...Thank you.”
Slowly, the strength drained from the hand that had rested upon her right hand and fell away. Calling it draped against her was now more accurate than saying it rested there.
“I learned a great deal from you.”
Red Vega wasn’t flustered. She accepted the man’s weight gently as he gradually leaned into her.
The breath she had sensed behind her had grown very faint. The low, gentle voice had also stilled.
Of course he had.
He had already reached his limit.
At the very last, for the girl, he had poured out every ounce of his strength.
To cheer her on, to affirm her.
A hero cannot exist alone. No one can.
A merchant needs consumers. A leader needs followers.
A hero needs people to sing her praises.
He had overcome all pain and hardship for that, to place his hand upon the girl’s.
A miracle gained for a fleeting moment.
“Ahh....”
Amid the din of destruction, the monster’s admiration fell.
“Ahh...! Indeed, this is....”
Though his own light was being pushed back, he did not rage.
He murmured reverently.
“The light of a comet, is it....”
Abruptly, the clashing lights shattered at the center. Gold and crimson swirled together, scattering sparks. The sight recalled a fireworks display.
As if blessing something, they bloomed beautifully and scattered.
Amid the dispersing light, the girl’s face was visible. Her expression was resolute.
Holding the man’s hand, she faced the monster before her without a single tremor.
Libra chuckled.
“They say a flower is most beautiful when it blooms with its last strength before withering. Light is the same. The light a body gives off as it burns itself out on the verge of death is the most beautiful.”
The man behind her slowly fell. Leisurely, like scattering blossoms.
“That light of yours now is certainly magnificent. But... it is a light that will someday fall. A light that will fall and become an ordinary stone.”
To grow stronger through another means to vanish the moment you lose that someone.
A power that dims the more the person behind you disappears.
Peace is only possible when there is something to protect.
That is why a magical girl’s power is unstable and ill-defined. Because she draws no strength from loss, only from preservation.
The flow of time draws all things toward loss. Eternity does not exist.
Human emotions are the same. Gradually worn away and corrupted.
“Congratulations on growing stronger, girl.”
There was no sarcasm from Libra. It was sincere congratulation.
“And, I mourn you for receiving a foregone conclusion, girl.”
This, too, was sincere mourning.
A silent tribute to a tragedy that would come someday.
A sacrifice he would welcome with delight.
“Didn’t I say it before? I don’t need your understanding. Or your value judgments.”
The girl released the hand she had been holding. The man finally fell to the ground.
Now all that remained in her palm was residual heat. A sensation like a few grains of sand.
“Maybe it will change someday. So what? You’re stating the obvious.”
She smiled as she brushed her palm with her fingers, as if cherishing it.
“Everyone dies in the first place. The end of all things is always the same. It’s already decided. There’s no need to make a grand point of it. So.”
And she took one step forward.
“What matters is remembering that an end will come someday, and how you fill this life.”
Red Vega charged. There was no longer any fear in her stride.
She didn’t ignore him.
She shook him off.
“And you are not my end.”
A single bound was enough to reach the monster.
“My end is not now!”
The girl’s foot struck the monster’s jaw. She was faster than moments before.
Even though it should have been hard to balance without her left arm, Red Vega’s kick was swift and precise.
“Kgh!”
“Maybe he won’t affirm me in the future! Maybe everyone will be disappointed in me and leave. But what of it?!”
The kicks did not end with one. Her left leg followed the same trajectory her right had drawn, then carved a new path.
Unlike before, she kicked the monster’s jaw upward.
“Right now, I existed as a star in his heart! I know that! I saw it, I heard it. So....”
Magical power gathered before her foot, which had lost its centrifugal force. It ignited into flame and became the girl’s propulsion.
“I can remember it. The fact that I was hope to him definitely existed here.”
Her foot retraced the path it had just drawn and drove its heel into the monster’s solar plexus.
BOOM!
A heavy body slammed into the ground.
“That’s enough for me!”
Red Vega wreathed her feet in flame again. Libra likewise wreathed both hands in golden power.
Libra was faster. The instant he extended both hands, light shot straight upward.
Red Vega abandoned her attack and pulled her body back to evade the heat ray.
“You mean to say you will dwell in the past. Foolish.”
“I don’t know how many times I have to say this, but don’t judge me with your twisted eyes. I don’t need your understanding.”
Then she thought quietly.
As she expected, Sky Polaris’s combat style didn’t suit her.
An overwhelming battle of crushing force.
Attacks weighing several tons loaded into both fists.
Each blow intense, decisive.
In contrast, a speed-focused battle using the propulsion of her flames suited her.
Especially a combat style using both legs.
She would need to modify it. Red Vega felt that genuinely.
“I don’t mean I’ll dwell in the past. I’ll always move forward. It means that even if that end comes, it wasn’t meaningless. And knowing the end doesn’t mean I’ll accept it. I will always postpone my conclusion.”
Indeed, Sky Polaris and she were not identical.
Even after acknowledging that, the respect remained.
The image of her arriving like a comet upon the burning road that day.
Baek A-hee had felt hope watching it.
It was like making a wish.
Please, let that light be my salvation.
She could not become the same person, but she wanted to place that same hope in someone else’s hands.
As if making a wish upon a shooting star falling from the sky,
she wanted to be a wish to someone.
That is why Red Vega is a comet.
“My starlight is a comet.”
Red Vega moved her right arm and pointed at the sky.
“Starlight that will reach someone’s heart like a comet.”
Even if she someday became a stone,
she would burn and become a wish.
That was the mindset she had lived by.
But not anymore.
“Even so, I will not shine for the sake of falling.”
Because if she fell after a single flight, many who hadn’t made their wish would grieve.
Would lose hope.
She would burn her body again and again, but the end of that journey would remain unseen.
She would shatter and crash again and again, but there would be no rest on that path.
She would appear like a vision again and again.
She would continue, and be observed.
“My flames are a light for moving forward together.”
She wanted to become a comet that rises into orbit like a star and circles the world many times.
A star that can always illuminate and guide people’s hearts.
Such a star.
The beginning may be fearful, this journey may be arduous, but become a great star that will always shine upon its orbit.
Become everyone’s wish.
The girl moved again. Not in a single bound. Now, though she must be more urgent than anything,
this moment didn’t need to be rushed.
CRASH!
Therefore, the one to arrive first was Libra. His massive hand thrust a vicious fist to crush Red Vega.
Red Vega retreated again.
The fist couldn’t even graze Red Vega and boomed through empty air. Libra felt déjà vu at the solemn footwork he had seen once before.
“...!”
From Red Vega’s retreating foot, hot starlight flickered.
It was not a step to chase admiration. It was a step to walk her own path.
In her first step.
‘Fear.’
CRUNCH!
A crack formed where Red Vega had stood.
This time, Libra was the one to retreat. The spirit radiating from the girl, so much smaller than him, was anything but ordinary.
One Path. Flame Roar.
The single path she had chosen in the past was a flame like someone’s valiant battle cry.
The path she chose now was not a reenactment of someone else’s.
It was her own path, and hers alone.
‘This path is truly the single path I have chosen.’
One Path.
‘A ring that orbits around me, a halo that adorns me.’
A circular path that yields no conclusion as long as she does not give up.
The path of a comet.
A ring formed around Red Vega’s leg.
She extended a step.
Courage for the step that had overcome fear. The courage to seize hope.
The ring deepened. Its size did not change.
But the light emanating from the ring was so immense that it deceived the observer into thinking its size had grown.
“Into your heart... like a comet...!”
A beautiful trajectory that brings hope to the heart of the one who beholds it, and fear to the heart of the one its starlight reaches.
Red Vega’s light knew no bounds and erupted out into the world.
Crimson starlight.
It dyed the shattered wreckage, dyed the ground, dyed the sky, dyed the one who had held her back, and dyed the enemy before her eyes.
It resembled the sunset glow. A brief moment when the world is stained vermilion.
A moment to scatter her influence upon this world.
As if demanding that everyone see with their own eyes just how much stronger Red Vega had become, the ring proved the power now gathered within her with its overwhelming light.
A surge of magical power breathtaking to behold.
Libra retreated again. His biological instincts screamed a fierce warning.
Into his eyes, the girl’s blazing gaze seared itself.
“Red Vega, entering.”
With courage, Red Vega took one large step forward.
It was the moment hope became actualized.
The ring on her leg gathered into a single point.
The further compressed light emitted stronger heat and brilliance.
It was as if a star had been plucked from the heavens and placed upon her leg.
“Are you prepared to be reduced to ash?”
Whoosh. All the light she possessed ignited into flame. A volume of magical power that seemed capable of slicing and crumpling the sky compressed entirely into fire.
Into a single point.
The flames leaping from that point bound Libra’s body like a serpent. Red Vega put strength into her legs and launched herself upward.
Having ascended into the sky, Red Vega fixed her aim on one thing.
She flowed downward like a shooting star, gentle and swift.
A faint aurora-like trajectory in sunset hues streaked along her path.
Libra struggled, but each time only his body charred. Red Vega’s flame approached at a speed that was literally like light.
Red Vega drove a flying kick with one leg extended straight into Libra.
The compressed flame was released.
KABOOOOOM!!
A colossal blaze stormed forth.
Flames with a temperature rivaling the frictional heat of atmospheric entry erupted, vaporizing all moisture in the vicinity. The dry air was enough to burn just by inhaling.
The scattering flames resembled a flower in full bloom.
The roar of the explosion shook the earth majestically, like a hymn of praise.
One Path, Flowing Flame-Blossom Radiance.
On the single path you have chosen, may flames bloom like flowers, flow forth, and illuminate the road ahead.
This was the new path Red Vega had chosen, and her new technique.
Red Vega landed and turned to look back.
Libra, most of his body reduced to ash, was staggering and crawling along the ground.
It was astonishing he was still alive, but it was clear he would die soon.
“Well... to think you had this much....”
One of the scales on his shoulders tilted. The movement creaked like a rusted hinge. It was deeply shabby.
“Yes... magnificent... magnificent....”
What was placed there was gold, which seemed far too precious to rest upon a heap of ash. Libra’s favored transaction using money. The gold bar vanished, and the scale leveled again.
It meant the transaction had been completed.
Black smoke resembling exhaust fumes rose from his body. Within the smoke, Libra’s body gradually faded. Even so, he did his utmost to flee from Red Vega.
“You... have won....”
He crawled along the ground like an insect, but Libra felt not a shred of shame. If he could extend his life, if he could obtain a future, the mockery of others meant nothing.
He who had spoken of a hero’s flight as disgraceful found himself in the same position at the end.
Soon his body was consumed by the smoke. When the smoke cleared, his body was gone.
Now it was truly over.
The evil that threatened her life had vanished. The tension drained out of her.
The taut, straining thread of tension went slack.
At the same time, the strength left Red Vega’s legs.
“Ahk... urgh....”
Sinking to her knees, Red Vega let out a pained groan and a sigh at the same time. The pain and exhaustion she hadn’t noticed while focusing on the battle hit her all at once.
She placed a hand on her chest and steadied her breathing.
“Hoo... haah....”
Then she immediately forced herself up.
This was no time to rest yet.
Slowly but surely, she moved forward. There lay a man, a civilian and yet not, who had pushed himself even harder than she had in this short span. Fortunately, he was still breathing.
Red Vega lifted him into her arms.
“Haah... ngh!”
For a moment, her legs nearly buckled, but she didn’t drop him. Cradling him with her usable right arm, Red Vega leaned against his shoulder and buried her face.
“Mr. Jae-jung... I... won... we won... we pulled through...”
Shaking off her slightly trembling voice, she smiled.
“No, we... won. Now... I suppose we need treatment to really survive.”
She straightened her bent knees and carried him on her back.
“I’ll save you.”
Still holding him, Red Vega flew into the sky once more. We are all hurt. We need treatment. She thought she understood more now what he meant by needing rest after a fight.
Red Vega whispered playfully into the ear of the still-unconscious Han Jae-jung.
“This time, I’ll probably be reliable.”
Because there was no one to stop her.
Red Vega soared powerfully. Nothing brought her down. Her descent was a landing, not some kind of fall.
A line was drawn across the blue sky. It looked straight at times, and at other times seemed to bear a gentle curve. Only because no observer’s gaze could follow the speed at which that line was drawn.
A child walking down the street pointed at the trajectory drawn that way and shouted.
“A shooting star!”