Chapter 658 — Arc 10, Interlude – “――Why?”

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――When I discovered that flower bud, yet to blossom, in that courtyard, I unwittingly halted my feet.

It was a courtyard with blossoming flowers of all kinds and hues.

Regrettably, I was not very well-versed in the names or varieties of flowers, but I had heard that these were precious blossoms that had budded from seeds brought from all over the country.

That was how expansive and ornate this flower garden was. The gardeners entrusted with its care must have found their labor’s fruit worthwhile. The refinement of this flower garden was truly proof of such.

In all honesty, when I had first entered the courtyard, I did not harbor many expectations for its flower garden, brimming with color.

I was already deficient in the sensitivity to admire flowers, and did not bear much interest in the courtyard at my parents’ home. Even though I had been spoiled by my sympathetic father and allowed onto this land―― the Royal Castle of the Royal Capital Lugunica, I did not estimate myself so highly as to expect my inclusion in the discussions between responsible adults.

Thus, with no other choice, to kill time until the business of my father and the others had concluded, I stepped into the courtyard and was unwittingly bewitched by that flower bud.

???: [――――]

What lay before my amber gaze was a large bud with its head drooping.

Enclosed within it were petals with a faint tinge of red, and the reason for my captivation by the bud, yet to blossom, was because my own self, sojourned with an unescaping frustration, seemed to overlap with that flower bud―― was a rather poetic thought, and far too excess of an intoxication with myself.

But, it was true that I empathized with the flower bud, yet to bloom its marvel in the midst of a flowerbed blossoming with outsize flowers, their florescence proclaiming their enchanting allure till the very horizons.

――Just what is it that I am capable of, and what is it that is desired of me?

???: [I am…]

Blessed in my birth, blessed in my pedigree, blessed in talent: this conceit I did possess.

I also possessed something akin to a purpose that I must live up to fruits of outcome even greater than those that would correspond to my birth, my pedigree, my talent.

And finally, I possessed the self-awareness that this conceit and this purpose were fatally incompatible with my own desire.

???: [――――]

If I were to say it, then amidst the blossoms of flower seeds planted in that flower garden, I was the sole immature seed that remained a flower bud, fostering doubts for how to bloom.

The other seeds bore no doubt, no indecision, and discerned their domains, comprehended them, and implemented themselves fulfillingly.

And yet, I was――,

???: […Just, what kind of a flower will you blossom?]

I inquired so of the flower bud and sealed my breathing, met with silence incapable of responding. Enveloped in the sweet scent of the fragrant blooms, I failed to understand or be understood by even the flower bud with whom I had felt a camaraderie.

After all, what my insolent self wished for was not to blossom into a grand, enrapturing, and vivid flower, but rather to become a gigantic tree that would protect those flowers from wind and rain.

Yes, I found myself who bore this doomed desire to be a futile, comical existence――,

???: [Fuwagh!?]

――That moment, something fell onto the flowerbed of swaying buds, in the company of a terribly unseemly shriek.

???: [――Hk.]

I widened my eyes upon the abrupt happening, rendered immobile as though my feet were stitched to the ground.

Within my blank white mind, all thoughts suspended, resounded the delayed echo of an alarm bell warning of danger, and the plentitudes of mental preparation and first responses in such a circumstance.

But, before I could haul them out of the depths of my mind, the personage who had fallen onto the flowerbed before my eyes, nearly face-first, sprung himself upright,

???: [Koff kaff! Koffack! Ptui! Wh-What is that, mud? Mud!?]

Vocalizing so, whilst disheveling his beautiful, golden hair and blinking his eyes that were red as glimmering jewels, the young boy who had grandiosely smeared himself with soil crawled, crawled, and crawled himself out of the flowerbed.

That was――,

???: [Oh~, as expected of my eminent self… despite imagining it to be the end of the line by falling onto a paving stone head-first, it would seem my eminent self can shrug off even such predicaments with my natural fortune…]

――That was, my first reminiscence with the last Lion King.

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???: [――Ah.]

A hoarse breath escapes me, and my consciousness returns to life.

My five senses begin to awaken, and a myriad of information is successively dispatched into my brain. ――In that moment, the most powerful beseechment to my mind and body is that of inescapable, vehement thirst.

???: [――――]

Thirst, yet it is not simply the mere thirst of the throat. Not enough. Not enough. Not enough. In every single conceivable place inside my body, there is not enough water. They are craving moisture, starving for hydration.

My nasal cavity that is the passageway for air and my throat are both thirsty, my gastric lining that digests food is thirsty, even upon blinking my eyeballs become thirsty, the veins that should be circulating blood throughout my whole body are thirsty, and my soul that beseeched this deficiency is thirsty.

Thirst. It is thirst. Thirst is eating to rot my lifeline.

???: [――Aegh, ah.]

My mouth is so thirsty, that my numb tongue is unable to enunciate a proper sound.

Wanting to do something about this thirst, I tried to call for someone. I can’t vocalize any voice. Rather than calling for someone, moving myself will be faster. ――No, I cannot even conceive of it. Like how someone who is drowning ends up drowning their rescuer by clinging to them, my mind has turned into a blank slate from the thirst.

My body, thirsted to its utmost, I beseech it from the top of my head to the ends of my feet and scrape together the meager strength that is left in my body and somehow try to upraise myself. I upraise myself. I try to stand up. I stand up. I try to walk. I start walking. I try to search. I search.

???: [――Ah.]

Desperate. I am desperate.

In my mind that is tyrannized by thirst, I admonish myself that this is my last chance.

If I halt my feet, if I slip and fall, if I make even a single error, I won’t be able to do the same thing again. I won’t be able to search. I won’t be able to walk. I won’t be able to stand up. I won’t be able to upraise myself.

I will sink in the deluge of this aimless, barren thirst, and never again, never again, never again――,

???: [――――]

With every fragment of strength in my frail body, I somehow push open the heavy door and exit outside. As I curse this thirst of my body that would verge on defeat by even the faintest of breezes, I compel my gaze to swivel.

My vision is bleary, difficult to see. Narrow. I immediately discern it is due to one of my eyes being covered. But, even before my vision is secured, a faint, fragrant aroma carried upon the breeze wafts to me.

Lured by it, I tilt my head to discover. ――A vase with amber and pink flowers arranged therein.

???: [――Hk.]

No time to think. I pounce at the vase, as though flopping onto it.

As though tearing at it, I extirpate the adorned flowers and tilt the vase in my grasp with both of my arms. And, as though showering in the water that was arranged for the flowers, I drink, drink, drink.

The spilled water traces the edges of my lips and my cheeks, dousing my nape, drenching even my black nightgown. I don’t mind. In a violent fit of coughing, I discard the vase, and the sound of shattering porcelain reverberates.

???: [Eough, eough…]

I violently wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, and turn around. Vases are set in the corridor at even intervals. I approach one with greater strength regained in my feet, throw the flowers aside, and gulp down the water. Toss away the vase. And again I make for the next vase.

Repeating this twice, thrice, pouring water onto my parched body, whilst retrieving my own existence from the thirst, I once again make for the next vase――,

???: [――You musn’t!]

Accompanied by a piercing call, my wrist is seized and I turn backward.

The one gripping my wrist, frozen in place with eyes dilated, restraining me is an aged, white-haired butler―― before I could haul out the memories of who he was, submerged in thirst as they were, a mired, violent emotion overspills from me.

???: [Let me go!]

My right arm apprehended, I swing my left hand and clobber the opponent’s body with all my might.

I literally hold nothing back. I attack to smash his bones or cleave his flesh, but the aged butler effortlessly parries this with another hand and brings it to a close with both sides unscathed.

Physique, ability, experience, I could discern a sprawling plethora of reasons for it. ――But, I won’t stop.

???: [Let me go! Let me go~! Let me go this instant…!]

A strike for each word; for each swing of the arm I am reminded of how to swing, my precision augmenting.

However, no matter how sharp my fingertips are as they rend through the wind, the aged butler defends against them without a modicum of trouble. I can gradually feel the creeping shivers of thirst seeming to crawl up from beneath my feet.

???: [I’m begging you, please let me go! My throat… is parched… I’m thirsty… so thirsty, so thirsty, so thirsty so thirsty so thirsty, I can’t tolerate it… hk.]

???: [Please calm down and compose yourself. I will provide you with water right away. To add to that, you mustn’t walk barefoot. You must receive treatment.]

???: [Water… rea… lly? You have… water…?]

???: [I do. I shall bring it immediately. But before that, please receive treatment.]

The vigor that wrings my body in desperation steadily dissipates at the aged butler’s entreaty.

The thirst yet subsists. The thirst is marginally better than what I had experienced right upon waking up. If he has the water to cure that thirst, then I am glad. It’s a huge help. I’m very grateful.

???: [Treatment…]

As my body gradually relaxes its strength, I incidentally cast my gaze downward upon that incongruous word.

I look to discover that by the aged butler’s and my own feet, are bestrewed red vestiges left on the carpet lying on the corridor. They start midway through the corridor and terminate below my feet. ――It’s blood. I didn’t take notice, but I must have stepped upon the broken shards of the smashed vases, and drenched the corridor with bloodstains, it would seem.

What I had trampled underfoot was not just the shards, but also the flowers I had thrown aside from those vases. The trampled, scattered petals meld with the efflux of blood, painting dreadfully foul, mottled patterns.

Dreadfully, foul, mottled patterns. ――In that moment, ominous black mottled patches flash through my mind.

???: [――Aa, AAA, AAAAA!!]

My slender throat howls a screech, writhing in agony.

He must have let his guard down, as I was seeming to calm down for a moment. The aged butler’s restraint unfastens in reaction, and I flail my liberated arms to rend my drenched nightgown, to inspect my body.

Coiling bandages, and pallid, wearied skin bereft of color―― the parts those bandages are concealing, repulsive black patches drape over my entire frame, cursing this body with toxic venom.

???: [NOOO, FERRIS! FERRIS!! WHERE!? WHERE ARE YOU!?]

The wailing screams escape from me, as my own body seems to me something so unsalvageably defiled.

I don’t want to rip off the bandages and witness what lies underneath. The ugly black patches concealed beneath the dressings, I don’t want them on my body for even a second longer.

I don’t want to look at them.

I don’t want to touch them.

I don’t want to come close to them.

I don’t want to be defiled.

I would rather, just die――,

???: [――Crusch-sama!]

This ugly, repulsive body of mine is captured by two slender arms from behind.

They do not pinion me. They have not come attempting to stop me with any such physical technique. I am only being embraced by those arms wrapping around me from my back, purely by force and impulse.

If I wanted to shake free from them, I could. But, not an iota of such intent surfaces within my mind.

My body is simply, as I entrust it, faintly enveloped in a fleeting, radiating blue light.

???: [It’s alright, I am right here. I am here, right next to Crusch-sama…]

???: [Ferr… is…]

Ferris: [Yes, yes, hk. That’s right. It’s Ferris.]

The arms coiled around my body tighten their embrace, yet I feel neither ache nor fear.

When I take notice, I have already collapsed at that spot, sitting slumped upon the floor. Naturally, the person hugging me―― Ferris, has also sunk to the floor of the corridor with me.

I incline my head to peer, and right there is the lovable boy’s face, close enough for our breaths to intertwine. His round pupils quivering in tears, as he is earnestly endeavoring to not let his facial expression collapse, he appears so very beloved and gallant.

In natural spontaneity, the sense of rejection toward all things which brims inside my body dispels.

???: […But, I am scared. I am still scared. My… body… those black mottled patches… are still…]

???: [Crusch-sama, if you are concerned about that matter, then that has already been――]

Ferris: [――Wil-jii.]

As the aged butler is about to say something, Ferris calls him so and cuts him off. Upon sustaining Ferris’s glance, Wilhelm―― yes, Wilhelm. He’s Wilhelm. The aged butler is Wilhelm, is the Sword Demon, is a preeminent swordsman, is a dependable person.

Wilhelm at my front, Ferris at my back; I am interposed between them.

???: [I… am…]

Ferris: [Please listen, Crusch-sama. You need not worry about your body. ――Please excuse me.]

???: [――Ah.]

As he embraces my trembling, racking body, soothing my faltering gaze, Ferris’s hand slowly begins to unravel the wrapped bandages. I can only gasp at his tender yet terrifying action, unable to do anything but view as those dressings slowly come undone.

The frayed nightgown that I had rended from the neck to the breast with my own hands, the skin peeking from its gaps comes bare and unconcealed―― absent from there are the patches I had feared, as my eyes begin to widen.

???: [Eh…]

Ferris: [It is not only here. From your arms, your shoulders, your legs… the patches have been removed.]

Whilst pronouncing so, Ferris unwraps the bandaging on my collar as well, and elevates my arm as I stand stunned. While it does seem parched, desolate from the thirst, all traces of those black mottled patches have disappeared from my arm.

And at last, I notice. ――That torment, as though cauterizing my body, as though boiling, scalding water torrenting throughout my entire body, has come to cease without my awareness.

The thirst, persists. Its remnants are yet there.

However, that is the thirst which craves for life that my body is seeking after having broken free from that torment.

???: [Ferris… that curse… did you? From my body…]

Ferris: [――――]

The leeway to reflect upon myself is birthed in my heart, as my mind finally arrives at it.

Whilst I continued to rot in that torment, every morning, every evening, every day, Ferris had devoted his power to exhaustion in order to heal it, in full intrepidity and sincerity.

His wish has borne fruit, and he has rescued me from that prison of anguish――,

Ferris: [――No, that’s incorrect. I was… unable to do anything.]

However, those questions and anticipations are repudiated by none other than Ferris himself.

Shaking his head, disappointment sojourning in his yellow pupils―― imbued with a deep dye of dejection and despondency toward himself, he gently touches my arm from which those patches have vanished as I swallow my breath, watching his lips quiver in trepidation.

He wavers to voice what he must, resolves himself, then wavers yet again, repeating this cycle a number of times, before Ferris finally commits to his determination and vocalizes it.

That being――,

Ferris: [In order to heal your body, Crusch-sama, we turned to the cooperation of the Church of the Divine Dragon.]

???: […Huh.]

Ferris: [A girl who named herself as a Saintess of the Church lent us her strength. I was… unable to aid you, Crusch-sama… I’m truly, very sorry.]

With enough tears to fill a cup in his eyes, Ferris speaks with a quavering voice, to which I am rendered voiceless.

Steadily, my brain, released from the agony, progressively being liberated from the mighty thirst, comprehends the significance of the words he has spoken.

The Church of the Divine Dragon―― it is an organization that harbors deep, profound faith in the existence and grace of the Divine Dragon who has protected the Kingdom of Lugunica since antiquity, and lends assistance in maintaining peace and calm for the citizens of the Kingdom.

Forbidden from involving itself in the body politic for the purpose of prohibiting their actions from carrying too much influence, the Church of the Divine Dragon’s faith and fidelity, whilst agreeable as a legitimate and splendid thing, to the contrary is something we couldn’t easily recognize―― for the being that the Church of the Divine Dragon esteems to the utmost, and our way of being, are fully irreconcilable with one another.

???: [――The Dragon.]

The Church of the Divine Dragon follows and proffers gratitude toward the Covenant formed between the Kingdom and the Divine Dragon. ――That is to say, the preservation of the Covenant is the first priority for the Kingdom’s prosperity above all else for them, and the members of the Royal Family who were lost to an inordinately unmerciful blight have been regarded as cogs for the Covenant, the same philosophy as the Kingdom.

――With the same values that disposed his death, the death of Fourier Lugunica, as merely an act of nature.

???: [――Hk.]

A chill creeps up through me, the surge of formless emotions bayonet my chest, I feel nauseous.

The thoughts, images, sentiments surfacing in my mind all give a chaotic stimulus to my five senses, light kindles my hearing, odor kindles my vision, ache kindles my taste, voice kindles my touch, taste kindles my smell, things that ought not originally have connection join forces and crusade upon me.

――Why, did that name come forth?

――Why, did that smile emerge in my mind?

――Why, did his voice resound in my ears?

――Why, did I feel that face from those reminiscences?

――Why, did I remember the taste of the blood and tears that grieved his death?

――Why, did Crusch Karsten, remember Fourier Lugunica?

Crusch: [――Ah.]

A sensation of revival.

The loss and purpose, the loving affection and sorrow, the rage and joy, the warmth and glacial cold. ――That person, eternally estranged and forever distant, the pleasant recollections and unpleasant attachments of him coalesce together, meld together.

But… I am… lethally aware… of one thing.

Crusch: [――The Royal Selection.]

A note spills from my trembling lips, to which Ferris’s shoulders shudder, and even Wilhelm, whose face I can’t see, I can tell firmly stiffens his body.

We are irreconcilable with the Church of the Divine Dragon. Never, could we reconcile with one another.

It is nobody but ourselves who chose, determined, and declared that we could never keep pace, or view the same sights together with them.

And yet, if you’re saying I was saved by one whose power we absolutely must never borrow.

Crusch: [Ferris――]

Ferris: [――Yes.]

When I call his name, Ferris’s voice bears no tremors.

Giving a short bow, his gaze straightforward, forging a resilient expression, he does not avert his eyes. His yellow eyes tell that, regardless of what he may be told now, he has made this choice and has resolved himself for it.

Crusch: [――――]

I must say it to him.

I know his reasons. For why he had no other choice but to select that option.

I know it was to save nobody else, but myself.

Just what days of anguish must he have endured as he remained by my side as I continued to rot, every morning, every evening, every day.

Unable to save what he wished to save, with how much powerlessness of his healing hands had he been forced to contend; I had seen it up close, from the closest of distances, with my own eyes, and that’s why.

That’s why, I must say it to him.

“I’m so sorry for making you worry. I understand what you must be feeling.”

Crusch: [――――]

That’s why, I must say it to him.

“I forced you to take a bitter decision. But, its responsibility rests upon me.”

Crusch: [――――]

That’s why, I must say it to him.

“Please don’t lament. It is thanks to you that I am in this condition at this moment.”

Crusch: [――――]

I must say it.

I must say it. I must say it. I must say it. I must say it. I must say it. I must say it I must say it I must say it I must say it I must say it I must say it I must say it I must say it I must say it say it say it say it say it say it say it say it say it say it say it say it――,

Crusch: [――Why?]

As though cascading forth, this spills out. This.

This, completely dissimilar in warmth and texture from the words I thought I must say.

Crusch: [Shouldn’t you, have known?]

Stop it, stop it right this instant. Shut your mouth, close your eyes, and lacquer your consciousness.

The things before your eyes, everything that has transpired, the choices that were made, avert your eyes from all of them, forget all of them, defy all of them.

Crusch: [Ferris, you alone, were supposed to be the same as me, and yet.]

I must not say it. I must not let him hear it. I must not let him learn it.

After all, he tried to save me. After all, he devoted his prayers for me. After all, all he did was wish to remove the suffering of what he loves.

That’s why, I must not say it.

Crusch: [――Why?]

I must not.

Crusch: [Why, did you betray our vow to Prince Fourier?]

――That I would have rather died, than betray that person.