56. Dance Of The Blue Butterfly

For the Trial of Wisdom, I’d spent most of my time locked inside a prison cell. That was where I’d gathered my information, by way of ‘Beron,’ who’d been thrown in alongside me.

An Arne army that marched back into the next battle without a scratch, even after taking wounds that should have killed them. A grim rumor that the prisoners they hauled off never came back. And tucked in among all of it, one rather peculiar thread.

— It was about a year ago, I’d say. He appeared like a comet and turned the whole battlefield upside down.

The “Blue Lion” turned out to be none other than Valerian, and he’d even come to find us in person after our failed attempt on the Saintess’s life.

But back then, I’d let one decisive piece of Beron’s information slip right past me. Or rather, I’d brushed it off as nothing.

— It was only a few months ago. When a hero showed up who blocked the blade of that haughty Blue Lion.

I’d simply taken him for some hero the Empire never bothered to record. History, after all, is the tale not of those who survive, but of those who get written down.

— A massive man, carrying a shield like a mountain to match his frame.

The Empire called him the “Black Bear,” apparently. Even as Beron heaped praise on him, I hadn’t paid it much mind. If I’m honest, the strongest thing I felt was a faint wish to get a look at him someday, should the chance ever come. In the end, the trial was over before I ever did.

“…So you’re telling me that the ‘Black Bear’ who stopped Brother Valerian in his tracks during the Trial of Wisdom — that was really you?”

At my question, Elli nodded.

“I was possessed into the body of an Imperial soldier named ‘Mountain.’ He had a giant build and terrifying strength, but he was so timid he always kept to himself, all alone.”

Listening to her lay it all out so matter-of-factly, I felt a strange sense of dissonance.

The name ‘Kael’ was something I’d made up on a whim, too.

Honestly, I hadn’t even known the name of the body I’d possessed, and I hadn’t much cared to. He’d been a single-use consumable for clearing the quest, nothing more, nothing less.

…And here she’d figured all of it out.

Unlike me, Elli hadn’t treated the Trial of Wisdom as a mere consumable.

“Mountain kept a diary every day. I know I shouldn’t have, but I secretly peeked at it.”

Her frail woman’s body had been turned into a giant of a man and hurled onto a strange battlefield. Caught in a panic that would have shattered an ordinary person’s mind, she still hadn’t buckled.

“Mountain wanted to get close to people. So much that he wrote down all the names and habits and little quirks of the soldiers around him in that diary. As payment for peeking at it, I tried to make that wish of his come true.”

“How?”
“I worked really hard to get close to them — I helped them with their work and made absolutely sure they noticed!”

If anything, she’d struck up conversations with that signature cheerful brazenness of hers.

So this is what an unbreakable heart really looks like.

Even smiling the way she was, when I cast my mind back to what she’d actually endured, it must have been all but impossible to bear.

“I’m sorry.”

My mouth tasted bitter. I was the one who’d dragged her into the Trial of Wisdom against her will.

“I won’t make excuses. I’m sorry.”

Once the trial actually began, I’d buried myself in clearing it. Forget looking after her; I hadn’t even tried to find her.

“The truth is, I resented you so, so much, Young Master.”
“…”
“The training the Imperial army put me through was harder than I could ever have imagined. Every day, the second it ended, I’d collapse into bed dead on my feet.”
“That really is…”
“But then I thought about it, and I figured — when I’m training all day long, how on earth would you ever find me? So you don’t have to apologize. Because I didn’t go looking for you either, just the same.”

Elli fiddled with her shield, head bowed.

“That aside, though — when you kept trying to send me off to Master Valerian, I really was hurt. Who do you think I endured that hellish training for!”

“…I’m sorry.”

At my apology, Elli finally lifted her head. The fresh wave of hurt had left the corners of her eyes damp, but her signature plucky smile still clung to her lips.

“Hmph, I’m only letting it slide this one time! Anyway, I’ve definitely realized something through all of this.”
“Realized something?”
“Yes — that if I don’t get stronger, I can’t do anything at all!”

I don’t perfectly understand everything she went through. There are parts she left out to spare my feelings, and even if she had spoken them, the finer shades of the emotion inside them would belong to her and her alone. A change like that in her made me proud.

“So that’s why you asked Brother to train you directly?”

Leo, who’d been packing up the bags, cut in at my guess.

“Believe it or not, Master Valerian summoned her before Elli ever went to him.”
“…Seriously?”

At my question, Elli scratched the back of her head, looking bashful.

“I’ll tell you that story in more detail once we’re back at the house.”

I nodded at her words.

“Yeah. Sounds like we’ve both got a whole lot to talk about.”

There was even more I wanted to say, but for now, let’s just head home.

Elli, finished gathering up the last of the luggage, spoke up.

“Leo. It’s really all over now, right?”

Leo didn’t answer right away. He turned it over for a while, shot me a brief glance, then spoke.

“Wouldn’t it be fine if we took the Young Master along?”

One thing led into the next, and the two of them carried on a conversation I was the only one left out of.

“What? What is it now? What’s left?”

When I asked back, uneasy at the bad feeling welling up in me, Elli pointed at the sleeping Lucius instead of answering.

“I’ll keep watch over Lord Lucius. Leo, you go along with the Young Master.”
“Sure.”

The two of them were briskly settling everything between themselves, without bothering to ask whether I agreed.

“…Go — go where?”
“You’ll see when you get there.”

With no other choice, I followed after Leo.

Not far off, yet not quite close either, Seraphina’s face came into view. I drew a breath to call out to her, only for the sound to catch in my throat, and I clamped my mouth shut.

Thorned vines were sprouting up all around Seraphina in real time. A few of them bore the same vicious shape I’d seen before, lined with rows of sharp teeth. Even so, Seraphina stood there expressionless.

When I turned to look where Eve was pointing, I found the owner of the vines. She was glaring at Seraphina as if to kill her.

— CRASH! CRASH!

The nearest vine slammed down with everything it had, trying to flatten Seraphina.

Why are those two suddenly going at it like this?

Before my confusion could deepen, Seraphina was already moving, light and graceful.

— CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!

For all the wild, indiscriminate attacks, Seraphina dodged them serenely.

I crept in closer for a better look.

One of the vines growing nearby caught sight of me and lunged. I drew my sword in case things went south.

Huh?

It pulled its thorns back into itself and rubbed frantically against the back of my hand.

I sheathed my sword again, stroked the vine, and walked over to the pair of them.

“Looks like this is the best seat in the house.”

I plopped down right where I was and settled in to watch the two of them fight.

Seraphina dodged the falling vines, gliding as smoothly as a figure skater. The whole place had become her stage, and she crossed it in silence through the booming roar of the bursting vines.

“Beautiful.”

I marveled at the sight. It was like watching a stage composed down to the last exquisite detail.

“…Arden. You’re up.”

Hearing my voice, Seraphina turned her gaze toward me.

“Yeah, I slept like a log. So what’s going on here?”

Why were the two people who’d been my guardians turning their blades on each other? Whatever I’d missed over these two days, I was starting to see it hadn’t been simply time.

“The nerve of you!”

— CRASH!

The vine came crashing down on Seraphina once more.

“Your learning curve is poor. If you’d realized the downward smash doesn’t work, you should have chosen a different method.”

This time too, Seraphina slid back gracefully and gave ground.

“Shut up!”

Off in the distance, Lillian’s face was twisted into a deep scowl, so unlike her.

“Both of you, stop it!”
“I can’t do that. For your sake.”

Lillian bent back to her incantation and summoned a far greater number of vines, along with the bees and acid clouds I’d seen in the forest.

“Leo, what in the world is going on here?”

When I asked Leo, who’d arrived late, he hesitated a moment before answering.

“While we were watching how things would play out, the Young Master’s right arm turned pitch-black. And when Lady Seraphina saw that, she drew her sword.”
“Her sword?”
“Yes. She said that before the Young Master was eroded completely, cutting off the contaminated arm would give the highest odds of survival, so…”

At Leo’s words, my forehead throbbed. A coldly rational, ruthless call, exactly the kind Seraphina would make.

“The moment Lady Seraphina actually moved to cut off the Young Master’s arm, Lady Lillian threw herself in to stop her.”
“Don’t tell me they’ve been at it like this ever since?”
“…Yes.”

Maybe she’d been listening to our conversation. Lillian shouted.

“Sis wasn’t trying to cut off his arm. The place she was aiming for was clearly his heart!”
“Because if I’d said I was going to kill Arden, none of you would have stood by quietly.”
“How can you even say that!?”
“It was obvious it would come to this, which is exactly why I put it that way.”
“Why? You should’ve just let it run him through and killed me along with him!”

Seraphina didn’t answer. Watching her, Lillian flushed redder and redder, like a beet.

— KA-KA-KRASH!

The redder Lillian’s face grew, the more savage her attacks became.

“Do you want Arden to attack us? Removing the risk was the first priority.”
“Risk? Is your little brother a risk to you? Of course — that’s why you didn’t go looking when Big Bro Lucius went missing!”
“That was out of respect for Lucius’s choi—”
“No! You were the same way ten years ago, when I left the house! Respect? You knew everything that I, a child that young, was going through, and you call that respect? You just didn’t care. I was a nuisance. Have you ever, even once, truly thought of me… of us… as family?”
“…”
“Leaving Big Bro Lucius to rot until he ended up like that, trying to kill Arden without batting an eye — none of it means a thing to you! Because to you, family has never meant anything at all!”

Once Lillian’s fury had broken loose, it wasn’t something to be carelessly stifled. Her anger was justified.

“Her head’s—?”

A crimson flower bud forced its way up through the crown of Lillian’s head.

Condensed mana gathered above Lillian’s head into an enormous flower bud.

“Sis, stop!”

My danger sense instinctively flagged the magic packed into that flower. But Seraphina still didn’t so much as twitch.

Along with the resolve in Lillian’s bitten lip, the petals turned inside out and bloomed in full.

— KU-WAAAAANG—!

From the heart of the flower, out of that gap gaping open like a maw, a violent beam steeped in dark-red venom erupted.

“Sister!”

Seraphina didn’t waver. Slowly, she took hold of the hilt at her waist.

“…Nothing at all, you say.”

Murmured low, her voice carried clear even through the roar of light. The blade sliding into its draw-stance had taken on a deep blue, and a blue mist began to swirl around it.

“Dance of the Blue Butterfly.”

Seraphina cleaved the empty air horizontally. Everywhere the tip of her sword passed, thousands of phantom butterflies glowing blue sprang into being.

Toward Lillian’s huge oncoming beam of mana, the blue butterflies swarmed in a great flock.

It wasn’t a collision of attacks.

Everywhere the butterflies alighted, the beam froze into white crystals of ice.

— KWA-RRR, CRACK! CRRR-ACK—!

The dark-red cannon of mana that had been surging in to swallow her whole stopped dead right before Seraphina’s nose. The spot where the thousands of butterflies had settled was already frozen solid into a colossal ice sculpture.

“…!”

Lillian’s eyes filled with shock. When the butterflies stopped beating their wings and scattered, the frozen pillar of mana crumbled to powder with the sound of shattering glass.

“Emotion can be fuel for power, but it’s also an impurity that throws off your trajectory.”

Seraphina lightly shook the frost from her sword and fixed her eyes on Lillian.

“If your grief amounts to no more than this, then it truly means nothing to me.”