Chapter 51

7 – The Eternity of Kaliarya Ignis – 11

 

.... .... The thing called fate, in spite of being something that has been decided from the beginning, is not something that can be foreseen.

 

It happened only a few days after I had lost Ilya.

As I was unsteadily roaming around downtown, a familiar figure appeared in my field of vision. “He” crossed in front of me, at a range so close that I could have touched him had I extended my arm.

 

I gasped.

 

For a second, I didn’t understand what had just happened.

I involuntarily looked around only because of a conditioned reflex. However, there was nothing wrong with the usual tumult. The busy merchants were quickly walking by, the housewives were standing around and chatting, and the little kids were running all around. What unfolded under my eyes was simply the same scene as a few days ago, when I came to buy flowers.

When I once again looked forward, “he” looked over his shoulder, as if having been waiting for the right timing. I was convinced his eyes were softly laughing. As I thought, it’s a face I knew. I remembered this appearance that didn’t betray his real age and made him look too young, as well as his frivolous smile.

 

But, why?

 

I rushed over with all my might and grabbed his arm. ... No, I tried to but failed. Reflexively, I blurted out, “Wait.” But he didn’t stop, he simply looked towards me.

At that moment, a young child ran in front of him. I thought the child would surely bump into him, yet he didn’t stop and steadily continued to proceed forward.

It was strange how, each time I lost sight of him in the crowd, he kept turning his gaze towards me. He didn’t say anything, but his eyes seemed to be telling me to follow him.

 

Amidst the bustling town, he kept looking back towards me. Yet, he didn’t bump into anyone. His gait was smooth, as if he didn’t have any weight, and his thin presence, which was likely to disappear were I to blink, felt like a dream or an illusion.

As I followed his lead for a little while, before long we arrived in front of a small church. He stood in front of the door without going inside, finally turning over to face me.

 

“...Why...?”

 

As I was chasing after him, a handful of questions filled my mind, yet now, I couldn’t put them into words. A lingering silence heavily weighed on us. His gaze that was pointed towards me wasn’t sharp at all, yet it felt extremely uncomfortable.

 

“Why... I do not have an answer to that question.”

 

Unlike me, who couldn’t express myself well, he smiled and tilted his head. His overly composed behavior, almost too “normal,” conversely felt out of place.

I hadn’t seen his face for years, no, for decades, or maybe even longer. Yet, he acted in a relaxed way, as if greeting a friend whom he had parted with only yesterday.

 

“Doctor. Why... are you... here? Or rather, why are you... still alive?”

 

I was clearly confused and failed to speak properly. Seeing me in this state, his eyes gleamed with happiness. This expression that showed his amusement was kind of funny.

In fact, this chance meeting was strange enough that it made me want to laugh out loud. Because the person who was facing me right now wasn’t supposed to exist in this world.

 

The first time we met was right after I sustained father’s spell. He examined me as I lay on the bed. How many years have passed since then? Even if I thought back on it, I didn’t know.

 

“I don’t have the answer to that question... But instead, let me ask you something.”

“Eh?”

 

This development was too sudden. I was supposed to be the one asking questions but in the blink of an eye, our positions were reversed.

“Hey, wait a minute, please wait.” I raised my voice once to try to stop the conversation, but he still asked me with his usual gentle smile,

 

“Do you... believe in God?”

 

For a second, all the noise seemed to disappear from the world. What this man was saying, I couldn’t understand anything at all.

But, after having swallowed my breath, I was dominated by an emotion akin to wrath that welled up from my chest. At this moment, I wanted to scream at him—what the hell was he asking me? Because he should have known everything about what was done to my body.

 

Such a deed couldn’t have been done without God’s help. In the past, that’s what he, himself, said.

 

That’s why his question shook my emotions so much.

 

“...”

 

I thought I would try to answer right away. But what leaked out of my slightly opened lips was only a small sigh.

It’s precisely because I believe in God that I resent him. Just a few days ago, I became dominated by this strong emotion. In spite of that, there was some part of me who was trying to deny the existence of God.

 

Was God this merciless? Is he so heartless, unjust and cruel, to the point of not even showing the slightest bit of kindness? Should an existence like that really be called God?

 

When I reflexively tried to speak, I swallowed back the words I was about to spit out. My voice, which wasn’t turned into sound, became a black mist in the depths of my throat. It felt like sediment had been accumulated inside my body.

 

The eyes of the man, who was closely watching my reaction, seemed to calm down.

 

“Let’s say it’s a god who created this world. Then I wonder if “that” supposedly almighty existence called god has really only created one unique world.”

 

He spoke in a roundabout way. My mind couldn’t immediately catch up.

But maybe he wasn’t expecting any answer from me to begin with, as his gaze was not on me. When I followed his line of sight and looked up, I only saw a cloudless blue sky spread over us. 

 

“There is not just one world.”

 

... Not just... one...?

 

In the end, his words still didn’t make any sense. When I once again looked at his gentle expression, trying to probe him to guess his true meaning, his smile deepened.

At that moment, a gust of wind suddenly assaulted me. That fierce wind made me trip and stole my voice. As it brought along a cloud of dust, I couldn’t open my mouth at all.

 

Finally, the wind receded and I could open my eyes again. In the narrow field of vision... he wasn’t here anymore.

However, a lot of white feathers were dancing in the air. It looks beautiful and mysterious, but when I wondered where these feathers came from, I felt all this was eerie and strange. Unconsciously, my back quivered a little.

 

While I was looking around restlessly, the bells of the church started to ring, as if they were aiming for this timing. I was so startled that I froze in a funny stance.

Then the doors opened and believers started to leave the church in groups. Everyone shot me a suspicious gaze as I stood still right before the door. Maybe they were cautious of me, but no one talked to me. Only the children slipped right through me. Their loud and innocent voices prompted me to wake up.

 

I must have been daydreaming, right?

 

In the first place, normally you wouldn’t think that “he” was still alive. Was his existence similar to mine? But something felt different. If so, what the hell was that?

 

“... No, that’s not it.”

 

The real significant thing wasn’t “what” he was. It’s the words he said. I mustn’t miss the important facts. If I make a mistake here, I’ll lose the thing I care about again.

 

Think, think, think.

 

“There is not... just one world.”

 

I repeated the words that left me with a strong impression, as if they were carved into my memory.

“That” thing, which took the doctor’s appearance, probably wanted to convey this to me, no doubt about it. Then, those words must hold a very important meaning for me.

Unnoticed by me, everyone had left and I was the only person standing in front of the church. I closed my eyes. The church, which used to make the air tremble with the rings of its bells, had already regained its tranquility.

 

I inhaled and expired once then twice, repeatedly breathing deeply like a normal person. By doing so, my mind cooled down and a certain idea surfaced.

If. If... what he said was true and if it was the truth... If several words exist at the same time, and if in each, “similar people” or “the same people” exist then...

 

Then, for example, what about this? Ilya said that she kept repeating the same past, but what if she wasn’t really returning to the past and instead, was merely crossing over to different words?

This is only a thought but, if a thing called “soul” exists, what if it could fly to another world? What if it could join consciousness with the me who exists in this different world? This way of thinking felt more coherent.

 

If you think normally, it is strange to always reach a sorrowful ending each time you start your life again. That’s because repeating the same past means that you can anticipate the future. Then she absolutely shouldn’t become so unfortunate.

Originally, she had a high ability to save herself. She is good at reading people’s emotions from their complexions, and with the refinement and knowledge she cultivated as a noble and as Soleil’s fiancée, she should have all the abilities required to save herself.... If she was in her original world that is.

 

But Ilya always fails. 

 

This happens because the people around her are different from those who existed in the past. They only have the same face, but the person inside is different, so she cannot predict the moves they are going to make. That’s why it’s natural that she cannot foresee what will happen from now on.

 

To sum it up, isn’t it what he meant, saying the worlds are different?

 

If the people around her are not simply just “behaving like someone else” but are in fact, completely different people...... If you were to think like this, then?

It’s an overly crazy idea, no more than a mere hypothesis. In the first place, it’s also dubious whether or not I understood the words he said earlier correctly.

 

But. If it’s impossible to go back to the past, then maybe, just maybe, we could cross over to different words?

 

Such a thought crossed my mind.

 

**

 

Anyway, for now, patience was needed to accomplish such a reckless idea. I needed time to collect my thoughts, polish a plan, and put it into action.

In this regard, for the very first time in my life, I was grateful for my condition. 

 

Because when it came to time, I had more than I could ever need.

 

In other words, I spent what would be an unthinkable amount of time for a normal person to come up with a spell to go beyond our world.

And then, contrary to all the time spent making careful considerations, the spell was invoked so effortlessly that it even surprised me. Almost too quickly, almost too easily, I stoop over the walls separating “worlds.”

 

When I came back to myself, I was flying in the sky. I was startled and my field of vision was greatly shaken. Disoriented, I flipped both hands, and I distinctly heard the sound of flapping wings.

At this instant, I understood that the spell had worked.

 

I was sure I had been in my human form before crossing over worlds. But what about now? I was a bird. I was a little shaken by the fact that my body form changed while I was unconscious.

But at the same time, the wind I felt, the wide blue sky I saw and the faint melody I could hear in the distance made my heart jolt. This lonesome lullaby was without doubt, Ilya’s.

 

What I saw and heard roused up my memories. Without needing anyone to ascertain it, I knew it was “that day” I met her.

 

However, there was no mistake that this was another world, a falsely similar world. Because even if the spell I created could make me cross over words, it couldn’t bring me back to the past.

Therefore, I must be very careful. Because I knew I wasn’t allowed to fail. If I were to make too big of a change, the following events would also be deeply influenced....... It scared me deeply.

 

*******************

 

“You... you are quite strange, aren’t you?”

 

She said this and smiled at me. A few months had gone by since I met Ilya in this new world.

I had hoped that “the Ilya from this world” would know me, but naturally, that wasn’t the case. 

Certainly, somewhere inside these countless worlds, there must be an Ilya who knows me. But by probability, “the Ilyas who don’t know me” must be more numerous. So, it was natural that the girl, who was smiling and standing in front of me right now, was only a stranger to me.

 

It was only natural, and yet.

 

“From my point of view, you’re a lot, lot stranger you know,” I snorted, and when I behaved like a spoiled child, her eyes opened wide but she stayed quiet.

After that, I said words I had heard somewhere, “Yeah, that’s right. I’m indeed strange.”

 

Just about everything was the same. She and I, even Soleil and Silvia, were the same, our surrounding environment was too, not even a single thing was different.

Except for the fact that she didn’t know me. It made me realize that all the time we had spent together had turned into dust and vanished.

 

But........ Ilya was breathing, smiling, living. These mere facts meant everything to me.

 

I will save her. Definitively. Even if this world is different, even if she is not the person I knew. This time for sure, I will save the human being called Ilya.

In fact, I thought I should take her out of here, I should abduct her. But that wouldn’t save her. The important point was to scoop up her heart, which had sunk into darkness.

 

“....... Hey, have you ever wondered why you are not loved?”

 

Aiming for when she was alone, I tried asking this.

Even though it was daytime, she was hurled up in a corner of the gloomy archives. After making sure there was no one else, I called out to her. As she had been gazing at a bulky book, she probably didn’t even notice when I sneaked in. Taken aback, she lifted her face as if resigning herself, and when she recognized me, she heaved a long sigh.

 

“.... What happened to you so suddenly?”

 

Ilya frowned and laughed with a troubled expression. A charming expression.

Usually, one might be exasperated by such a question and rebuke that it’s bad manners to ask it. She didn’t do that, probably because she partly agreed with what I said.

Still, I felt she might be accepting me more than I thought. There weren’t many people who would share intricate conversations with someone against whom their vigilance was raised. 

 

“Have you never thought that, in the same way there is no reason for loving someone, not being loved also doesn’t need any cause?”

 

As she wasn’t answering, I pressed her for a response. Ilya averted her gaze and looked at her fingers stained by black ink. Usually, the sound of the pen running frantically across the paper never stopped. Yet, today the silence seemed to last longer than usual.

She was tired today, I could tell just by looking. Or maybe her conviction had started to crumble. The things she thought she could obtain if she made great efforts and continued to struggle, can never be hers, no matter what she does.

 

What was she thinking, as she continued to gaze absentmindedly at her fingertips?

 

“... If love knows no reason, then what you’re doing may be meaningless.”

 

So, let go of everything. I couldn’t say it, but I almost had a desire to beg her.

Being robbed by someone and letting go of things yourself might seem similar, but they were actually completely different. That’s what I wanted to convey to her but I didn’t know if I succeeded or not.

Ilya suddenly raised her head, the corners of her mouth risen up as if she was smiling. Then she poked my cheek with her finger, “Making such an expression, it is not like you.”

She acted like she was joking. But I knew that the smile floating on her lips was a fake one.

 

“You know that it’s meaningless.”

 

My mutter echoed in the empty archives. Since you know, then stop already, was what I stopped myself from adding.

“Won’t you stop making such a face? You will also make me feel disheartened like this,” she said, half joking but also half serious, relaxing her exhausted expression.

I could no longer endure that childish, innocent look. That’s why I reflexively said,

 

“Won’t you come with me?”

 

There wasn’t any trace of seriousness in my voice, but neither did it strike me as frivolous. It’s not something I did consciously. But I thought it was fine like this.

 

She didn’t ask me, “Where to?” Maybe she knew that I hadn’t any destinations in mind.

She hesitated for a while, but in the end, she once again turned her gaze back on her hand, as if my words hadn’t even existed. Then she moved her pen without saying anything.

The white paper was being stained black, to quite an impressive extent too. It also looked like it was writhing in suffering. All in all, it was only my own, conceited impression.

 

The sharp tip of the pen —was it hurting the paper or her heart?

 

I hadn’t the slightest idea of what she was thinking at that time.

Anyway, our conversation that seemed like it would fail had indeed ended in failure.

However, she must have had some thoughts about this matter. Because merely a few days after this took place...

 

“.... I... want to go somewhere far away, with you,” she said. It felt like she took me by surprise.

 

Without any sign or logical connection, it happened late at night while we were having our usual clandestine meeting.

I must have made a dumbfounded expression, as she laughed and said, “But, I cannot afford to throw away everything so suddenly, so please wait a bit.”

Then, she stood in front of me, who remained seated on the bed. As she looked down, dark shadows fell on her face.

 

“Saying that black birds are portentous of ill omens, it is obviously a lie.”

I didn’t know what kind of expression she was making as she claimed that. However,

 

“Because, from now on, I will become happy.” There was no trace of sorrow in her following words.  

 

The middle of my chest firmly tightened and hurt. I remember that once, a thing called a heart had been there.

In the dim room lit by a small light, I forgot to answer back and stared at her.

 

“Right? Crow.”

 

When she asked me, I certainly nodded. ...... I think I have nodded. I don’t remember it clearly, because the next day, Ilya...

 

 

........ died.

 

 

“I will just go shopping for a little while. So, in the meantime, could you watch over my little sister?”

 

Her tone was very light. She walked as if wings were growing on her back and informed me with a joyful voice.

It wasn’t the first time she told me to watch over Silvia like this, but this time, it made me want to refuse. Silvia was always accompanied by a maid and a chamberlain; it was impossible for an incident to happen inside the estate.

Just as I shook my head, she shot me a reliant gaze.

 

“If something happens to that child, I won’t be able to live.”

 

Isn’t this a mother’s line? Should I laugh or pity her? She showed the kindness and affection of a mother despite the fact that she wasn’t one herself.

Had I understood the true meaning behind her words at that time, could I have changed it? The fate that she will “die.”

 

In short, I, once again, made the wrong choice.

While she was shopping, she was hit by a wagon whose horses had rampaged. Several people were dragged into it, but Ilya was the only one who died. That’s what her parents told Silvia. That’s how I was indirectly informed of Ilya’s death.

 

The piercing scream that resonated was unmistakably Silvia’s.

 

Yet, ironically, her voice sounded like Ilyas’s.

 

Chapter 50                                                                                        Chapter 52

Nocta’s thoughts:

While reading, did you think Crow had succeeded for once? Too bad the author is a first grade sadist. You should resign yourself and get used to it by now.