Shia Disappeared

Beyond the golden light was Father’s estate, and since it was around sunset, no one was there.

I took Shia by the hand and led her around to the back of the estate.

Following a maintained path where there was no sign of anyone around, we eventually came upon a single grave surrounded by trees and plants.

“The person you said you wanted me to meet, Nova-san…”

“Yeah. My biological mother.”

The name carved into the gravestone was “Celia Fols.” She was my mother, who had died of illness when I was young.

I crouched down in front of the grave and put my hands together in prayer.

Shia, standing beside me, did the same.

In my heart, I told Mother about everything that had happened recently.

How I had been surprised when a marriage proposal suddenly came my way, only to discover that the person involved was Shia, and how I had learned all sorts of things about her.

About Aura-chan and Yuti-san as well.

I spoke for quite a while, but almost everything I told her was about Shia.

“…………”

As I silently spoke to Mother at her grave, Shia simply remained quiet beside me.

Even without looking, I could tell that she was smiling gently.

When I stood up and turned toward her, she was smiling just as I had expected.

“Thank you, Shia. For praying with me.”

“Of course… What kind of person was your mother, Nova-san?”

Thinking back on my kind mother, I told Shia about her.

“She was frail and spent most of her time in bed, but she taught me a lot of important things. She never spoke badly of other people, and she really was a kind person. But she always said she hated a world filled with conflict. She was constantly worried because I suffered so much over not being able to use Haki at all. That’s why she wished conflicts and wars, where Haki was needed, would simply disappear.”

“…I see.”

“That’s why I’m grateful to you, Shia. You practically created the world Mother wished for.”

Now, the war that had plagued this country was over. And it was all thanks to her.

If Mother were still alive, I was sure she would have been happy.

When I expressed my gratitude, Shia smiled. But somehow, that smile looked lonely.

“She cared about you so much… She sounds like an ideal mother… Truly, she was nothing like mine.”

That last remark lingered strangely in my mind.

Shia, Yuti-san, and Aura-chan.

I had met all three sisters, but I had never once met their mother.

“Um… Shia… what is your mother like…?”

When I asked, Shia let out a long breath.

“Elisabeth Ark Gate, the previous head of House Ark Gate. At a time when the balance of power between the north and south was becoming increasingly even, she greatly elevated the north’s authority and won great favor from the royal family. She was a once-in-a-generation mage, a formidable woman whom the Colle Lake Empire went so far as to call a witch. That was how the outside world viewed my mother.”

But then, Shia lowered her eyes.

“That woman had no such thing as love for her family. Everything was merely a sacrificial pawn so that House Ark Gate could rise above the rest. Nothing more than an offering for her to peer into the depths of magic. In that sense, she truly was a terrifying witch. Her sisters, her daughters, her husband—everyone feared her.”

The image of her mother was just as harsh as I had imagined—no, even worse—and I was left speechless.

“She forced everything to go exactly as she wanted. If anyone defied her, if anyone stood in her way, she cast them aside without hesitation. To her, no one but herself mattered. Mother possessed enough overwhelming power that she was allowed to behave that way.”

“…So power… was everything to her.”

There was a coldness in the picture Shia painted of her mother.

At the same time, I could understand all too well the pain and hardship Shia herself must have endured.

“I think she had a clear order of priorities. Magic came first, then House Ark Gate, and everything else was irrelevant. That was why she behaved like a tyrant without mercy, and in the end… she…”

As Shia’s words trailed off, I looked over at her, wondering what was wrong.

We should have been standing face-to-face.

But Shia’s eyes were trembling slightly, and they were staring at something that was not me.

“Ah…”

Before I could even process the sound she made, as though she had realized something, Shia spoke.

“I’m… the same…”

“Shia?”

When I called her name, those gray eyes turned toward me.

They were the same eyes she had worn on that snowy day long ago—lost, uncertain, with nowhere to go.

“!”
“Shia!”

Ignoring my attempt to stop her, Shia apparently used gate magic and rushed through the opening.

I tried to follow her, but the gate closed before I could step inside.

Against the sky, growing darker as the sun sank below the horizon, the golden light simply faded away.

“Shia!? Shia!”

I called her name, but there was no answer.

Without warning, Shia had disappeared.

She was gone from right in front of me.