Reunion (3)
Fairy Pain (妖精痛), also known as Fairy Bloom.
The agony fairies endured once every year was classified under three distinct symptoms.
The first was a searing fever accompanied by excruciating pain.
"Uuugh!"
A wave of heavy groaning washed over the Vice Tower Master the moment she stepped into Shasha's room.
Heat like a living flame was pouring off the girl's body where she lay upon the bed.
"Step back for a moment, please."
Guiding the Vice Tower Master behind him, Oscar approached Shasha and placed his palm against her forehead.
Sizzle!
A sound like meat thrown onto a scorching griddle filled the room.
"Oscar!"
"It's fine."
Oscar held back the Vice Tower Master, who had started forward in alarm.
And no wonder — the heat radiating from Shasha's body defied imagination. Had he not been wearing Breeze on both hands, he would have suffered terrible burns.
Feeling that blistering temperature even secondhand, Oscar's expression turned grave.
Her symptoms are far worse than when she was a child.
And she had been enduring this pain all by herself, all these years.
As he clenched his jaw, Shasha's moans reached his ears.
"Ugh…… it hurts……"
Tears streaming down her face under the relentless agony — the sight of her overlapped with the Shasha of his memories.
One thing was different, though: back then, she would wail at the top of her lungs and burrow into his chest, crying it hurts, it hurts.
Now she simply bore the pain alone, weeping in silence.
This is no time to be lost in nostalgia.
For her sake as much as anything, Oscar forced himself to think clearly and cast Scan over her body.
The second symptom of Fairy Bloom was a rampage of mana.
As if to prove the point, her seven mana circuits writhed like bombs that could detonate at any moment.
……As I thought — even calling Shasha half-blooded, the fairy blood runs far stronger in her.
If he had to put a ratio to it, it would be something like seven to three.
Frankly, her petite frame said as much on its own. If more human blood had been mixed in, she would have grown taller.
And if her human blood had run deeper, she'd never have suffered this badly through her Fairy Blooms.
Yet Shasha had always been hurt abnormally badly whenever the affliction came, ever since she was small.
And he had forgotten that completely. He had grown complacent.
His heart had sung, over and over, that he had to see her again — and yet he had failed to remember the single most important thing.
First, I need to calm the mana rampage.
Oscar raised his signature mana.
Ordinarily, fairies going through this period were cared for by their parents.
And the method, remarkably enough, was simplicity itself.
The mana of the person they recognize as their parent.
All one had to do was pour that mana into the child's body and blend it with their own.
Sitting at the edge of the bed, Oscar let his mana flow through the fingertips resting on her forehead.
Vmmmmm.
Two strains of mana that by all rights should never have mingled began to blend together like paints.
And at the same time, the scenes she was witnessing within her pain began to pour into Oscar's mind.
Shasha Meist slowly opened her eyes.
"……"
Everything felt hazy, as if she were drunk on some potent medicine.
She looked around, and realized where she was.
Ah…… right. I'm in the middle of my Fairy Bloom.
The final symptom of Fairy Bloom was sinking into a deep sleep and dreaming.
Ordinary fairies dreamed a different dream each year, they said — but that had never applied to her.
From a certain point onward, she had always dreamed the same dream.
"……"
Shasha lifted her head and gazed up at the sky beyond the window.
Through the clouds of the pitch-black night, countless balls of fire came raining down.
She watched the sky turn red in an instant and smiled, faint and weary.
No matter how many times I see this, I never get used to it.
But it was all right. This time, too, she would make it through.
She was no longer the little girl who soaked her pillow with tears every night.
So it's fine. Surely……
BOOOOOM!
The moment a tremor powerful enough to shake the entire tower rolled through the air, her shoulders flinched of their own accord.
Cold sweat broke out across her whole body, unbidden.
"Deploy the defensive arrays at maximum power!"
"It'll be fine! We only have to hold out until the imperial reinforcements arrive!"
On the 45th floor of the White Tower, in every corner of the grand conference hall, the mages' voices rang out in desperate chorus.
At the same time, Shasha's breathing began to quicken.
"Hah, hahh……"
This was the dream of the night the Great Emperor was slain.
For humanity, that day was remembered as a joyous anniversary. For her, it was anything but.
"Damn it! The demons — they're swarming in!"
"Calm the citizens down first. We cannot allow a stampede — no one gets out of this hall."
Because for Shasha, that day — that night, those hours —
They lived in her memory only as the day when precious people died, one after another, before her very eyes.
"Shasha! Shasha!"
At the sound of her name, Shasha slowly turned her head.
There stood three small children, their faces achingly familiar.
"Don't let go of my hand no matter what. Got it?"
"Mm-hm."
"Gilli, you stay right beside me too. No wandering off."
Lloyd Schultz.
Despite his young age, he was steadying his younger siblings with all the maturity he could muster.
"……Big brother. I'm kind of scared too."
"Then hold my hand."
Gilliot, usually such a handful, had gone meek as a lamb — even he was frightened by this — and did as he was told.
The three of them, hands clasped together, huddled in a corner of the conference hall, waiting for nothing but the end of this ordeal.
BOOOOOM!
Once again, massive fireballs slammed into the tower, shaking it to its foundations.
Screams erupted from every side.
"Damn it! Defensive array output dropping! At this rate the barrier won't last!"
"……Damn it all. Split the main force in two! Drop the barriers below the fifth floor and reinforce the upper levels — protecting the archives comes first!"
"We form the first defensive line from the lobby upward! Not one of them sets foot above it!"
Fear is contagious.
Once it caught like wildfire, it spread without restraint, setting everyone nearby trembling.
Brrrr…
Young Shasha and Gilliot, unable to withstand that atmosphere, shook where they sat.
"……Don't shake. It's all going to be okay."
Lloyd kept soothing his younger siblings, steady and sure.
But Shasha, grown now, finally understood.
Those words had also been Lloyd's way of brainwashing himself.
"……"
At a glance, it looked as though he was trembling because his hand-holding siblings were trembling. He wasn't.
He simply couldn't let it show in front of them. He, too, was nothing more than a frightened child.
"I-I want to go to the bathroom."
At little Shasha's words, Lloyd gently chided her.
"You just went a little while ago."
"B-but I want to go again."
"……Hold it a little longer. Right now it's better to sit quietly and not bother the adults."
It was a sound judgment.
But as time wore on, the situation only grew worse and worse.
"The library on the 35th floor has collapsed! The defensive array is effectively neutralized! Enemies are breaching the rooftop as well!"
"Damn it — split the main force in two!"
The blood-red sky seemed to herald the end of the world itself.
But she knew.
What met its end that day was not the world. It was the White Tower alone.
"The reinforcements! Where in blazes are the reinforcements they promised?!"
"The western Red Tower and eastern Yellow Tower contingents each encountered demon armies. Word has come that they've engaged in battle."
"The imperial army coming straight from the capital will arrive fastest. Estimated time of arrival is……"
"……Eight hours, you say?"
Eight hours.
Under ordinary circumstances, that would have sounded fast. But now, with every minute and second precious, it stretched out like an eternity.
"Hic…"
Even a small child understands what matters, more or less. Children have an instinct for these things.
Sensing the desperation of the situation around her, little Shasha huddled down where she sat, on the verge of sobbing.
"When is Master coming…?"
"You crybaby. You've seen Master be late, sure, but have you ever seen him not show up at all? Just wait a little and he'll burst in all dramatic and beat up every last one of the bad guys."
Gilliot, having barked that at little Shasha, turned his head and asked,
"Right, big brother? I'm right, aren't I?"
"……"
Lloyd, who under any normal circumstances would have answered of course, said nothing.
Over the past several hours, his words had dwindled to almost nothing.
BOOOM!
The tower shuddered once more, screams rising from every direction — and he murmured, barely audible,
"……He might not come."
"What? What's that supposed to mean?"
Gilliot stared back at him, unable to comprehend.
"There's no way. This is Master's home, isn't it? And all the people Master cares about are here too!"
"Th-that's right…… Master even said so over the communication spell yesterday. That if we waited a hundred nights, he'd come back…"
Lloyd said nothing in reply to his siblings.
He only gripped their hands tighter.
BOOOOOM!
"Children!"
At that moment, Marlon, Vice Tower Master of the White Tower, came over and crouched down to meet their eyes.
Then, with a graver expression than any of them had ever seen, he spoke.
"From this moment, I am going to hide you inside the Space Rift. Not one breath, not one sound, is to escape you while you are there."
"……The Space Rift, you say?"
"You've at least heard of it. A place of unknown purpose, created by the First Tower Master. Those who see it for the first time cannot even perceive the space itself — which makes it the perfect place for you to hide."
Sensing the farewell in his words, little Shasha shook her head, tears welling.
"N-no! I don't want to go. If I go, then you come too, Vice Tower Master Marlon!"
"……Shasha. I received a request from the Tower Master — to protect you, the future of the White Tower."
"But…"
"Shasha, Master told us, didn't he? If he's ever away, we're to listen well to the Vice Tower Master and to Lloyd."
Marlon cast a grateful glance at Lloyd, who had been so diligently comforting Shasha.
"And Gilli."
"Hm? What about me?"
Marlon hesitated a moment, then murmured,
"Forgive me."
Snap! With a flick of his fingers, he cast the spell Sleep — and Gilliot dropped into slumber on the spot.
"Lloyd, it will be a burden, but I'm counting on you. This one would never sit still — the moment he woke, he'd bolt right out of there."
"……Understood."
Lloyd, grasping at once what that meant, swiftly hoisted Gilliot onto his back.
Then he bowed his head toward Vice Tower Master Marlon.
"……You have to win. No matter what."
"Heh. And here you are, telling me the obvious. I'll come back alive, buy you all candy, and spend the rest of my life bragging about today."
Marlon ruffled Lloyd's hair as if he were something precious, then slowly rose to his feet.
And with a light flick of his hand, one wall swung open, revealing the hidden Space Rift.
He looked at the three of them and spoke.
"Remember this. So long as you survive, the White Tower can begin again — always."
"……"
"So you must live. All of you."
Lloyd, head bowed low, bit down hard on his lip.
Then Marlon pushed the three of them into the Space Rift —
that strange place where nothing existed but white — and sealed the wall behind them.