Re:Zero Arc 9 Chapter 27 - A Child's Words

The twin swords, swung so that they traced a cross, carved into the opponent the wound that decided the contest. Blood ran from the wounds that covered his whole body, none of them shallow, yet Wilhelm's mind could not hide its frustration with his own strokes—with the poverty of his swordsmanship.

"—Weak."

What escaped from behind his clenched teeth was disappointment and anger at himself, grown old and diminished. The feebleness of a body that had piled up the months and years, that had accumulated age, made him want only to cover his face. Were he a poet, were he an artist, those accumulated years would have become knowledge and craft in their own right, and words turned with greater skill, a brush handled with greater finesse, would reveal heights he could never have reached in his youth.

But a swordsman has no such thing. Years enough to make one feel one's age are nothing but a fresh coat of decay laid over the old, past all excuse, and strength, technique and speed alike bear no comparison with the days when they were at their keenest.

—That was simply, purely galling.

He had tasted the same frustration many times before. When, as captain of the kingdom's Royal Guard Knights, he had decided to withdraw from the front lines. When the White Whale had taken his wife, and he had spent fourteen years in pursuit of vengeance, only to be made to understand that he had no choice but to face the one foe that mattered with swordsmanship in decline. And now the frustration searing Wilhelm was, without exaggeration, the greatest he had tasted in all his life, the equal of the moment during the Demi-Human War when he first learned that Theresia was the Sword Saint and was made to grasp how far short of her he fell.

Weak. Far too weak. That fact, his weakness, was an unforgivable sin in a world whose law took strength as its measure. Excuses held no currency in this world. There was only strong or weak, nothing more. Talent, sloth, sickness, age: the moment one stepped into the ring where strength was contested, none of them meant anything.

Naturally so. A sword cannot choose who holds it. That being the case, it was the plainest of truths that whoever holds the sword is permitted no excuses. —No. In this world there did exist a "sword" that chose its wielder. And the bearer of that "sword" was the one who stood at the summit of this world where no excuse would serve.

—And that was the very opponent whom Wilhelm Trias, who could not make an excuse of age and decline, had to surpass with his own hands, no matter what it took.

"—"

Heedless of Wilhelm's verdict on himself, the battle in which he had shown swordsmanship closer to his prime than at any time in the past several decades came to its end, and the Shinobi, a fearsome talent, fell toward the bottom of the pit. Of all the Shinobi Wilhelm had faced, she was without doubt among the very finest. How much training the girl had endured to reach such heights was beyond his imagining, but in the world of contest there is no prize for effort. —That was the cruellest thing about the sword.

Even if one loved the sword first and above all else, whether the sword answered that love had nothing to do with how deep or how great it was. Rather, the deeper the love, the greater the love, the more surely the heart of one who learned that nothing repaid what they had poured into it would crack, and break beyond all mending.

Keeping that sentiment in a corner of his mind, Wilhelm did not relax his guard, even with the outcome settled. As the girl fell, her body caught on one of the threads that had not snapped, and he saw her left dangling in midair. Blood ran down her upturned body and dripped away, but her slender torso had not been severed. —That was the reason for his wariness.

In a fight to the death, neither side had room to hold back. Wilhelm had granted his blade no leniency for his opponent's youth, her sex or her circumstances. He had loosed his sword and struck her with every intention of ending her life. Even so, the fact that the girl's body had not been cleaved in two proved not only the shortcomings of Wilhelm's swordsmanship but that she had somehow avoided a fatal wound. Most likely—

"—The threads, then."

The threads the girl worked with every finger and toe, which she had strung in advance even through this shaft leading down into the depths. Mastering them at will must have demanded rare talent and training that drew blood, and the art they embodied could serve as a blade to slice an opponent apart or a chain to bind an enemy's movements, and, wound tightly around her own body, as armor that turned aside a sword stroke. At the final exchange she had made a show of guarding her neck and heart, and Wilhelm had swept the full force of his blade through her open torso: that had been her split-second lure.

There was nothing to call it but splendid, the way the girl had kept a sliver of hope alive with an instant's judgment. His wariness did not peel away, but her survival was something Wilhelm himself desired. Capturing the enemy alive where possible was the view shared by everyone on their side.

"—Nngh."

A faint groan escaped the slender throat of the girl hanging in midair. Wilhelm had driven a sword into the wall to hold his position and was working his way closer to retrieve her from below. Perhaps sensing his approach, she opened her trembling eyelids, and her crimson eyes caught him. Wilhelm did not lower his guard at the reaction. Still, the feel of his blades had told him with certainty that she was in no condition to strike back.

Fifty years he had wielded the sword, and in that time the battles fought with his life at stake, and the lives he had taken, were beyond counting. The weight of the blood he had spilled and the lives he had cut down did not lie. It told Wilhelm exactly how deep the wounds he had dealt her went.

"..."

And so, however much the girl hinted at a trump card with her gaze to hold him at bay, Wilhelm saw it for the desperate bluff it was and kept coming.

"I do not know the full details of your circumstances myself, but it would serve you better to cease this pointless resistance. Before long, Lord Al will be taken into custody as well."

Having seen through the bluff, Wilhelm warned her off any further resistance. He had heard that the girl was one of those who had conspired with Al, Priscilla Barielle's knight. He had heard, too, of the tragedy of Priscilla losing her life in the Vollakia Empire, and of the guess that it was this which had driven Al to his madness.

Wilhelm understood all too painfully what Al must feel, having lost the one he loved. It would be like having one's flesh carved away and one's heart torn apart, one's soul left to burn forever in a bottomless helplessness. And yet he could not let that black fury become a reason to break the world. Still less could he stand by while those he owed a debt of gratitude were counted among the victims of that rampage.

—He would thwart Al's scheme, every last part of it. That was the same as stopping, without exception, all who took part in it and aided Al, whatever their reasons. No matter who might be among them. This Shinobi girl, too, was one of the cogs that had to be pulled from that scheme—

"...How pathetic."

The words rode on a feeble breath, the thin thread by which she barely clung to life. The suspended girl seemed to realize that her bluff had failed against Wilhelm, and she let her disappointment in herself spill out without trying to hide it. It was—

"Far from being of any use, I've only dragged them down."

Remorse from the bottom of her heart, which might even have come with tears had she not been hanging upside down. Had that remorse concerned nothing more than the outcome of her fight with Wilhelm, he might at last have let go of the final scrap of his wariness. But that was not it. Right after the girl's murmur, there came a sound—from above, outside the pit. A heavy thud, as of something toppling onto the floor. And after it—

"—Ghk, hhk!"

The instant he realized the strangled cry came from Felt, whom he had left in the room above, Wilhelm braced himself on the sword in the wall and kicked off, leaping upward. Bounding from wall to wall, he sprang out of the pit, and there his eyes went wide.

"Nnngh...!"

Felt was dangling in the air, legs kicking, clawing desperately at her throat. She was being hanged by a thread around her neck. But the girl who controlled the threads should have had no strength left for that. Then Wilhelm saw that part of the wall in the corner of the room had collapsed, and understood: that was the source of the sound, and the device that had strung Felt up. A thread looped around Felt's neck, a section of wall cut out at an angle beforehand and left to fall after a set time, yanking the thread taut and hoisting her off her feet. A timed trap. This way, however the battle went, and whether the girl lived or died, the device would go off and Felt would hang.

"At once, I will—"

—free you, Wilhelm meant to finish, sword in hand as he rushed toward Felt. The thread was strong, but with no one to wield it, it could not withstand a sword stroke. Freeing Felt would be easy. And the girl who had laid the trap could not escape either. She must have set the timed trap in the first place so that, if her fight with Wilhelm dragged on, it would draw his attention away from her and let her catch him off guard or slip away.

But the fight had been decided before the trap went off, and the girl had been wounded too badly to flee. The trap gave her neither an opening to strike nor time to escape. One could say Felt had simply been strung up for nothing, caught in the crossfire. —Or so Wilhelm reasoned.

His train of thought at that moment was natural, and no one could fault him for it. After all, at this point, no one but the members of the faction at the root of the kingdom's peril truly grasped what it meant for Felt to be hanged. However—

"Far from being of any use, I've only dragged them down."

Had there been time to weigh the true meaning behind the dangling girl's words of regret, things might have gone differently. Her regret did not lie in the defeat itself but in what came after it. What she regretted was not losing, but the "insurance" that would follow.

"—u... n..."

Just before Wilhelm's blade could sever the thread, Felt, hanging there with a desperate look on her face, was straining to tell him something with each rasping breath. It was not "Help me." It was—"Run."

"—"

It was the very instant after Wilhelm's eyes caught it clearly—that the Dragon's enormous arm smashed through the wall of the Barielle Villa and struck Wilhelm mercilessly from the side.

△▼△▼△▼△

—Infiltrate the Royal Capital Lugunica and free the Sin Archbishop of Gluttony held in the Prison Tower.

Heinkel had complicated feelings about Aldebaran, who had announced this plan, less absurd than outright deranged, and then promptly headed into the city by himself.

The root of Aldebaran's goal had never been shared with Heinkel. Yae, who followed him, seemed to have been given about as much to go on, but unlike Heinkel, who was helping Aldebaran in hopes of a reward, Yae apparently had a part in the scheme because of a twisted obsession with Aldebaran.

"Twisted obsession. ...Hell of a thing for me to say with a straight face."

Yae's inscrutable feelings toward Aldebaran, neither love nor hatred. Having measured them by his own yardstick and passed judgement, Heinkel mocked himself, chilled to the bone. And by what measure could anyone tell straight from twisted in the first place? If he could call Yae's obsession twisted, what about his own? The obsession of Heinkel, who had searched for a way to wake his sleeping wife and ended up a traitor to the realm.

"—Ngh."

The questions he put to himself, half self-reproach and half self-mockery, brought on a splitting headache, and Heinkel pressed his fingers into his temples as if to gouge them out, trying to mask the pain. Ordinarily, drink was the best cure for this pain, like wandering a fog with no answer at the end of it. Drink didn't heal the pain, but it let him forget it for a while, numbed it. He knew it was unhealthy, but only in the haze that drink created could Heinkel manage even to open his eyes and see things properly.

Even so, he couldn't put drink to his lips now, however much he wanted a haze to dull the pain. —At long last, the moment might have come. The moment of his heart's desire, which he had chased for nearly twenty years, craved until his soul cracked, longed and burned for.

"—Luanna."

Behind his closed eyelids, as his lips shaped the name of the woman he loved, her image rose up. The figure of his wife, as youthful, sweet and lovely as the day they met, had not changed in the slightest since the year she fell asleep. Not because his memories of her had stopped being renewed, but because her sleeping face truly ignored every passing year and remained just as it had been.

He wanted to see those eyelids open again. He wanted to burn into himself the way she was: her lips forming words, wild and free despite her delicate looks, so full of life she couldn't sit still for a single second. If that wish came true, Heinkel would never have to ask anything more of his life—

"I..."

"—Ahh, Pops, you're not getting all mopey again, are you? You're kinda giving off that vibe."

The voice came suddenly from right beneath him, and Heinkel held his breath. The one who had spoken to Heinkel, who was still grinding his fingers into his temples, was the Divine Dragon, its wings spread wide. For all its majestic, overwhelming presence, the Divine Dragon talked with the utmost flippancy, and though it surely couldn't see the face of the man on its back, it was quick to pick up on his moods. Faced with a question from the Divine Dragon that might or might not have been concern, Heinkel was at a loss for an answer. Naturally. —For Heinkel, being left alone with the Divine Dragon like this was exactly like being a wyvern or a water dragon with its favourite treat dangled under its nose.

To wake the sleeping Luanna Astrea, Heinkel had tried every means he could find, clinging to magic and to curses, to Metia and to crafted magical tools. With every one of those hopes cut off, his last hope was the Dragon's Blood. With that treasure, said to drive off every sickness and bring a bountiful harvest even to barren earth, he could wake Luanna. —And right now it was pulsing, announcing its presence, close enough that Heinkel could reach it just by drawing his sword. Though—

"...Leave me alone. Don't bother with me."

"Aw, don't get all sulky on me. I get that you're itching to move, Pops, and I know being stuck with me's a drag. So I figured I'd look out for you in my own way, make sure your brakes actually work, y'know?"

"Look out for me? Don't tell me this is what you mean."

"Yeah, I was gonna say this is it. That a no-no?"

The Divine Dragon spoke without a trace of malice, sounding as though it might even be tilting its head, and what it meant was where Heinkel and the dragon now were: above the clouds, with the ground far, far below. Heinkel had been set on the Divine Dragon's back, high up in the sky. Perhaps the Divine Dragon was controlling the wind, because there was no jolting and no buffeting gusts; apart from the hardness of the scales, it was comfortable. But this comfort was surely not the consideration the Divine Dragon had in mind. It meant the altitude it was holding, a height from which no one could survive a fall, should Heinkel ever draw his sword.

"Say you gouge out my heart and get the heart's blood. Doesn't mean a thing if we both drop outta the sky and die. So even with it just the two of us, you can't lay a finger on me up here, Pops. Well? Not a half-bad idea, right?"

"Don't pat yourself on the back. Besides, that's neither considerate nor clever. If your little scheme falls flat and I draw my sword without a thought for what comes after..."

"Nah, that's not happening. You're a decent guy, Pops."

"Wha..."

"Decent folks actually think about what scares 'em. I've seen all kinds of guys with a screw loose, but you could never be one of 'em, Pops."

At the Divine Dragon's pronouncement, delivered however it pleased and saying whatever it liked, Heinkel's mouth flapped open and shut, and no retort came to him in time. Still, was it anger or shame that turned his ears red first? If it was anger, then his failure to spit out some reckless curse proved the Divine Dragon right. If it was shame, then the rebuke had struck something true, and again the Divine Dragon was right. In short, the moment his ears went red, Heinkel had already lost.

"Me, decent...?"

Heinkel dug his fingers harder into his head, his voice grating at the Divine Dragon's verdict. "Decent" was an all too ironic word, given where Heinkel stood now. What was the Divine Dragon thinking? What decent man would take self-interest so far that he became a traitor to his country? Heinkel was neither decent nor upright. He did not deserve such a word, a word for the plain goodness that most ordinary townsfolk came by as a matter of course.

"That's why I took Aldebaran up on his offer when Lady Priscilla died."

Priscilla Barielle, who had involved herself in the Vollakia Empire's national crisis and lost her life there. Heinkel could never claim, not even if his mouth were torn open, that he had sworn loyalty to her. Theirs had been an alliance born of shared interests and nothing more, and even then, there was no telling now how much use Priscilla had truly seen in him.

Yet though Heinkel had sworn her no loyalty, he had never once doubted that she had the makings of a monarch, that she could claim the throne and lead the people as the kingdom's new ruler. Her exceptional ability, her farsighted intelligence, even her beauty were fine qualities in a queen. Priscilla had been fit to become queen of the Kingdom of Lugunica. And once she had, she would have rewarded him with permission to use the Dragon's Blood.

That hope had perished in that empire along with Priscilla. He regretted it from the bottom of his heart: that he had not obtained the Dragon's Blood, and that the Kingdom of Lugunica under Priscilla's rule would never come to be.

And to Heinkel, crushed and bereft of hope, Aldebaran had held out a hand. Help him, and in exchange for making an enemy of the world, Heinkel could have the Dragon's Blood. For Heinkel, it was an offer far too sweet.

It hurt to lose a hope that had been right before his eyes, one that should have been within his grasp. And this was the second time Heinkel had watched the light of hope go out one step short of reaching it. The helplessness of that first time, when his own foolish failure had cost him the chance, was impossible to forget.

That was exactly why Heinkel clung so shamelessly to the possibility, telling himself that this time it would be different. To call that decent was about as wide of the mark as the Divine Dragon could get.

"Aaand you've crawled back into your shell to sulk. I'm not one to talk, but nobody's gonna love a cranky middle-aged guy, y'know?"

"...That ship sailed a long time ago."

"Man, you've got it bad. ...Well, that one's a total boomerang, so I'll leave it there."

Even a simple shrug was overblown on the Divine Dragon's enormous frame. In that eerily human gesture, Heinkel saw an unmistakable resemblance to Aldebaran, and he ignored the headache that throbbed harder at the strangeness of it.

Not being loved by anyone was exactly what Heinkel wanted. He was not fool enough to sulk and declare that he had never once been loved. Heinkel had been born loved, and no small number of people had loved even a man like him. And far from repaying the love turned his way, he had betrayed it, and gone on walking through the drizzle.

"...Oh yeah, come to think of it, we're not gonna get many chances to be alone like this, so there's something I've been meaning to check with you, Pops."

"Can't you just keep your mouth shut and wait?"

"I'm the type who can't handle silence. Maybe 'cause I had a chatterbox glued to me the whole time."

The Divine Dragon's nature was a complete unknown. It had not said much, and Heinkel had not wanted to hear much. Either way, once this was over, it was a creature that would have to die so he could take its heart's blood. There was no need to go adding reasons to feel guilty. Besides, whether it was meant kindly or not, he was grateful for the change of subject. Talking about something else might ease this headache a little.

"So what is it the most venerable Divine Dragon wants to ask me?"

"Ah, it's nothing big, but you're weirdly tough, right, Pops? I was just wondering if you know why you're so tough."

"—"

"Huh? Did I, like, do something?"

Heinkel ground his teeth in disgust at the Divine Dragon playing dumb. The sharpening pain in his head was proof that his hope of a moment ago had come to nothing. He had hoped the subject would change. This proved it hadn't.

"—"

Saying nothing, Heinkel looked down at his open palm and let out a breath. The Divine Dragon's question was about Heinkel's body. His own body, of course. He knew it was abnormal, and he understood the reason perfectly well. Of the many sins Heinkel had committed, this was the punishment for one of the heaviest.

Luanna Astrea's sleep, from which she would not wake. That, without question, was where the fracturing of House Astrea began, Heinkel included, but what made it final was what happened fifteen years ago.

Theresia van Astrea riding out in the campaign against the White Whale, the transfer of the Blessing of the Sword Saint in the middle of that battle that changed who was Sword Saint, and Theresia's death. And what set it all in motion: the kidnapping of the daughter of Ford Lugunica, the king's younger brother.

The unforgivable betrayal Heinkel committed on the night of that incident, and the catastrophic failure that made the betrayal meaningless. The Heinkel of today was heaven's punishment for it.

"I've got no reason to go spilling that to you..."

"Oh, you're gonna be like that? Then what if I threatened to tattle to the other me that you're being uncooperative, and get the deal called off unless you talk?"

"You...!"

"Kidding, I'm kidding. Everybody's got fifty, a hundred things they don't wanna say. Me and you both."

"...A hundred's a lot."

That feeble answer was all Heinkel could give the Divine Dragon, whose banter sounded anything but light. It talked about fifty, a hundred, but the things Heinkel carried could be counted on one hand. And he was fragile enough that one handful was plenty to nearly crush him. Even so, piecing together what had cracked, dragging along what was stretched to breaking, telling himself just a little more, just a little longer, he had kept going, and at last—

"—"

"—? Uh... what's wrong?"

Sensing a faint change in the air, Heinkel asked the Divine Dragon. For a moment he hesitated over whether to just call it Volcanica, and in the end settled on the safe option. But paying no mind to his hesitation, the Divine Dragon turned its head downward, toward the royal capital beneath the clouds. And then—

"Hold on tight, Pops!"

"Gwagh!?"

The next instant, a gale bore down from directly above and slammed Heinkel flat against the Divine Dragon's back, as if he were bowing his forehead to the ground. Before he could even gasp at the sudden impact, the Divine Dragon, with Heinkel pinned to its back, dove all at once and tore down through the sky over the capital.

So much for hiding above the clouds while Aldebaran took the Prison Tower. Which meant something had made it necessary to show itself. At a speed that never let Heinkel lift his head, the Divine Dragon reached its destination. The raging dragon swung its foreleg, and with a tremendous crash it smashed through the wall of a building.

The reason for this wildly sudden outrage, and its target, were a complete mystery. All that was certain was that the building, struck by the catastrophe of a blow from the Divine Dragon, was brutally wrecked, and that its claws were smashing everything inside to pieces—

"—You're kidding me!"

That voice was pure astonishment, and it came from the mouth of the Divine Dragon that had just wrought such brutal destruction. The Divine Dragon narrowed its golden eyes, its gaze piercing the building into which it had thrust its arm, and it was voicing surprise at the outcome of its merciless blow. And who could blame it? The Divine Dragon's claw, sharper and stronger than nearly every blade in this world, had been severed, torn away, and reduced to motes of light. And the one who had done it was none other than—

"—Father."

The figure standing inside the half-ruined building with twin swords raised, having just turned aside the Divine Dragon's claw, was the Sword Demon, Wilhelm van Astrea.

△▼△▼△▼△

"—My thanks."

Conscious of the numbness in both arms from deflecting the dragon's claw and only barely knocking it aside, Wilhelm said this to Felt, who had warned him of the approaching threat. Felt had been strung up by a thread around her neck. Even with her own life in danger, she had not begged Wilhelm for help; she had ordered him to brace himself. Thanks to her, he had readied his guard in the nick of time.

"Uh, normally being ready in time doesn't mean you can stop it!"

The one who raised his voice at Wilhelm's sentiment was the colossal form standing outside the mansion, the absolute being whose terrible, mystical presence made most who laid eyes on it fall prostrate. The majestic "Divine Dragon" Volcanica was peering into the mansion from outside.

"*Cough, cough*... I'm with that Dragon on this one. I told you to run. Not to go and fight it... *hack*."

Coughing painfully, Felt of all people sided with Volcanica. In the chaos of the claw strike she had been freed from the noose... no, Wilhelm's eyes had caught more precisely what happened. Felt had not been saved by chance, with no hand from Wilhelm.

"Can it be that you came to save Felt?"

"Given where I stand, that's a tricky one to say yes or no to. But if I say yes here, does that make Felt an official member of Team Traitor with the rest of us?"

"I'm not one of you guys. But yeah, no doubt he flew in here to save me..."

Felt answered while rubbing her neck, the aftereffects of the hanging still lingering slightly. Volcanica did not deny it. It seemed the Dragon had sensed Felt's peril by some means and burst in here to rescue her. In other words, the Shinobi girl had planned that far ahead when she looped the thread around Felt's neck. That said—

"It seems to have been a bitter choice for the one in question. After all, if you came here..."

"Then I can't back up the me over there."

"Indeed. Incidentally, your manner of speech has changed considerably. You seem an entirely different person from when you cast your glance upon me some forty years ago... no, a different dragon."

"You know the saying: don't see a guy for three days and he's a whole new man. Forty years is a crazy long time. Summer casts a spell on girls, gramps."

"I see."

Though he said it aloud, it was hardly an answer that accounted for Volcanica's transformation. Still, Wilhelm had no time to press the matter of the change in attitude here. There was something that took priority. Volcanica had not burst in alone. The dragon was apparently carrying someone else on its back. That this person had kept silent until now and was trying to hide their presence was not in order to catch Wilhelm off guard, but rather—

"—Can you not even show your face before me, Heinkel?"

"—!"

At Wilhelm's call, he could feel through the air that the other had flinched. No matter how low he kept his head, how he stifled his voice, how hard he tried to conceal himself, Wilhelm already knew that Heinkel was among those aiding Al, who had become a traitor and an enemy of the kingdom.

What Al was doing was more than enough to threaten the kingdom's very existence. For Wilhelm, also a former captain of the Royal Guard Knights, not to wield his sword in such a crisis was unthinkable. And even setting all that aside, Heinkel's presence was the very reason Wilhelm had resolved to take up his sword before anyone else.

"No doubt you were told that if you cooperated, the Dragon's Blood would be yours to use. And with it, you intend to wake your wife... Luanna. If so, you are being far too shortsighted."

The Dragon's Blood kept in the royal castle did indeed hold tremendous power. With the power of the kingdom's greatest treasure, it might even be possible to wake Luanna Astrea, who had slept on for reasons no one knew. However—

"Do you truly believe Lord Al... no, the man called Al, now a traitor, will keep his promise? He has betrayed what was left behind by the mistress he served, Lady Priscilla Barielle, and deceived even those around him who worried for him, all to carry out this scheme. Why, then, would he grant your wish alone?"

"Nah, I mean, I get why you'd have your doubts, yeah? But that's pretty one-sided of—"

"Revered dragon of Lugunica, I am not speaking to you now."

Wilhelm made it plain in word and manner that there was nothing to discuss, and Volcanica fell silent with a "Hm..." Past the silent dragon, to the one hiding on its back, Wilhelm went on.

"What is it? Have you nothing to say? Is that because I struck the mark, or did it never even occur to you? Yes, I suppose so. Ever since you were a boy, you have turned your face from anything unpleasant, stopped your ears, and done nothing but run. And so even now, you refuse to look at anything but what suits you—"

"—Shut up, shut up, shut up!"

"..."

"Saying whatever... whatever the hell you want...! Whatever I do for Luanna, you've got no right to say a damn thing about it, old man!!"

With a roar like spitting blood, a figure rose up on Volcanica's back. The familiar face, the voice long known to his ears, the trembling finger jabbed at him in a tantrum: Wilhelm let out a deep breath at all of it. It was exasperation and disappointment, and a sliver of relief. There were many reasons for the relief. That, spoken of so harshly, he still had enough fight left in him to lift his head; that lying flat to hide while siding with traitors was a coward's act. But what could be said of it all together was—

"...So you finally show your face."

"Ngh..."

"Well? Have you no rebuttal beyond bellowing? Did you join that man for the reason I surmised? If so, why do you believe that man would grant your wish, and yours alone? Have you worn yourself so thin with wishing that your eyes have clouded?"

"I... I'm...!"

Under Wilhelm's mounting questions, the figure on the dragon's back, Heinkel, hung his head. Wherever the force of his tantrum had gone, his dejection was plain to see. Nor was it anything new for Heinkel to shrink before Wilhelm. It had been so for a long, long time—since before he swore to become a knight and was entrusted with "Astrea," the sword Wilhelm had loved. Since long before that.

"Yeah, the old guy's after the Dragon's Blood so he can wake up his sleeping wife. No mistake there."

In place of Heinkel, who stood with his head bowed and could not form words, it was Felt who answered Wilhelm's question. She lowered the hand rubbing her neck and straightened her back. Of everyone present, she had the least strength, yet her face showed not the faintest trace of it as she said,

"He told me himself. Not that I heard the whole thing."

"...No, I thank you for answering on behalf of my unworthy son. And I apologize for having dragged you into such a matter."

"Skip the apology at the end. Like I told the old guy, his way of doing things just ain't mine. It's not about good or bad."

Though she had been caught up in this and harmed herself, there was no anger in Felt's answer. In that dignified way of seeing things, Wilhelm saw in her the true caliber of a ruler. Without question, Felt too, like Crusch, was one of the five chosen by the Dragon Stone. And yet for that very Divine Dragon to stand against them like this...

"Many will already have seen you descend to the ground and lash out with your claws without mercy. The foundations of the Dragon Kingdom will shake. Are you aware of that?"

"Yeah, I feel bad about it. From the bottom of my heart. But y'know, even if the Dragon Kingdom slides back into being the Lion Kingdom, that beats the world getting smashed to bits by a mile."

"I would think your treachery is catastrophe enough to break the world."

At the very least, there was no doubt that a great tremor would run through the Kingdom of Lugunica before long. That quake might crack the kingdom's precarious footing, and the rifts it opened might swallow many. Even if what Volcanica and the others were doing was meant to oppose something greater still—

"Supernatural dragon or no, this is not something a mere handful of people may decide. Still less when one of that handful is a fool who cannot see past his own feet. It is beyond pardon."

"It's a genuine holy oracle, revered dragon included, though?"

"Then, as you once did, save the many common folk suffering and gasping at this very moment. After that, you may save the world with many more at your side. If you cannot—"

"If I can't?"

"—Then I have no choice but to regard you, too, as one led astray by sweet words, the same as my foolish son."

With that, Wilhelm tightened his grip on his twin swords, raised them, and faced the "Divine Dragon" Volcanica. The numbness from deflecting the first blow had left his hands. But if a single exchange did that, a mere three would see the swords torn from his grasp. He would have to evade completely, or, if he parried, do it with greater skill.

"Felt-chan, don't move. Can't promise a soft touch."

"Might be about done doing what I'm told. I've been fed up ever since Old Rom almost pulled one over on me."

"Then I must ask you to bear with the inconvenience a little longer."

"Don't you two go getting all friendly just about how to handle me!"

Felt shouted it, glaring at Wilhelm and Volcanica in turn and sticking out her tongue. Giving her no more of his attention than he had to, Wilhelm watched Volcanica's every movement. The dragon, too, had come rushing to the Shinobi girl's rescue. It had already been seen, and the longer this dragged on, the further the uproar would spread and the harder it would be to move. —Here as well, it had to end fast.

"I may be past my prime, but I'm still a legendary dragon, y'know? Isn't this where you look for some option other than throwin' down?"

"Unfortunately, I was just now thinking that I must surpass a legend once again. Forgive me for using you so conveniently, but I'll ask you to indulge me."

"—!"

When Wilhelm answered Volcanica's warning that way, Heinkel, who had been unable to say anything for some time, caught his breath, and his cheeks visibly stiffened. His eyelids quivering, Heinkel stared at Wilhelm with dazed blue eyes.

"Old man, you don't mean..."

"—"

Seeing that Heinkel had grasped something, Wilhelm closed both his eyes for a moment. Before Volcanica, it was a recklessly defenceless thing to do, but the trust that his opponent would not seize on the opening was something the two of them had come to share through each other's will to fight. Surrendering himself to that feeling, Wilhelm pictured his regret behind his closed eyelids.

An overcast sky, and an empty grave with nothing laid inside it. Throngs of mourners sunk in grief, and the words of His Majesty the King praising a life given up in service of duty. A son absent from the place where he should have stood, and a weak man without the will to drag him there. And then—

"—It's all right, Grandfather. When she died, Grandmother wasn't the 'Sword Saint.' So the 'Sword Saint' didn't lose."

"Because the 'Sword Saint' must never lose. That's what Father told me."

"So you needn't grieve, Grandfather. House Astrea is secure."

"—They were only a small child's words."

The words, without a trace of malice, of a small child who had only just inherited, along with the Divine Protection, the right to draw the Dragon Sword. Recalling that day's regret in every detail, Wilhelm opened his eyes and looked at the dragon. —At the Divine Dragon that, as it had said itself, stood among the legends, and had once saved the kingdom.

With the kingdom's very survival at stake and so many hearts thrown into confusion, he knew this was unseemly. Yet just as there was a kingdom, a world, to save, Wilhelm had a vital task he must accomplish with the sword. —A vital task that only the sword could accomplish.

Wilhelm knew of no other way. —No other way to make the Sword Saint human again. And so he demanded of this sword the strength it once had—no, more than it ever had—and would challenge even a dragon. All to surpass the legend waiting beyond it, the legend that would overwrite legends.

"—'Sword Demon' Wilhelm Trias."

"—'Divine Dragon' Volcanica."

The instant the names were spoken, both moved. —Sword light and dragon claw left sound behind them.