Even in the darkness, her widely opened eyes were clearly visible.
Xenon, who had been staring blankly at Anelli frozen in surprise, rose to his feet.
Having reached a conclusion, he thought sleep would finally come. Just as he moved to return to his tent, Anelli, snapping back to her senses, quickly approached him.
Then she abruptly grabbed his arm.
"What?"
"Pardon?"
"What was that just now?"
Perhaps because of the moonlight, Anelli's face looked particularly pale and white.
"Why? It's my choice to follow you in death, isn't it?"
Perhaps because he answered so calmly, Anelli frowned and immediately scolded him.
"Don't joke around."
"Does it look like I'm joking, Anelli?"
Her hand gripping Xenon's arm was filled with tension.
Through that, he could roughly gauge how startled she was. Xenon lightly patted the back of Anelli's hand that held his arm and asked again.
"Did it look like I love you jokingly? Like child's play?"
If so, he'd be a bit hurt.
Swallowing words meant only for himself, Xenon calmly explained.
"I thought about it again from your perspective, and reached my own conclusion."
"...."
Anelli's lips parted slightly. She seemed to find it absurd.
Xenon didn't particularly want to persuade her of his feelings. So he simply smiled faintly.
At that, Anelli flinched and averted her gaze.
"If anything happens... just..."
Her voice, escaping her lips, was somewhat curt yet embarrassed.
"Mourning is enough."
"I refuse."
As he rejected without any room for reconsideration, Anelli released his arm and called him with a sigh-laden voice.
"Xenon."
"I didn't say not to die. Do as you please."
"You said you'd follow me in death!"
"Yes."
He nodded so matter-of-factly that Anelli seemed at a loss for words instead.
Pouting her lips and looking at Xenon with disbelief, Anelli pressed her forehead and let out a long sigh.
'Truly like a parent facing their immature son.'
If a child caused some accident and returned, would she stand like that and lecture them?
Xenon smiled faintly, finding his sudden sentiment amusing. However she interpreted his smile, Anelli wore a thoroughly hardened expression.
"Why would you do such a thing?"
"It's my heart, I said. And I might not die either. If nothing happens to you, I'll live perfectly well."
What Xenon said followed the same logic Anelli had used on him.
However, Anelli sternly reproached him.
"Don't make me laugh. That's not something you should say even as empty words. You have a place to return to. There are many who cherish you. They wouldn't want your death either."
Goodness, to think such fairy-tale moralistic words would come from Anelli's mouth!
Considering how she usually viewed everything in the world pessimistically, this current attitude was a remarkable transformation.
Moreover, Anelli didn't even seem to properly recognize that she had uttered such exemplary words.
'Declaring all humans are untrusterable, yet preaching to me about the value of connections.'
Xenon fell silent with a strange expression. It was because he suddenly realized that he was the one who had drawn out these small changes in her.
Slowly blinking, Xenon tilted his head back to look up at the black sky.
Anelli was a woman unaccustomed to exchanging emotions.
That's why she was trying to express one-sided love in whatever way she knew.
"Then what about your death, Anelli?"
But perhaps he could teach her. What it means to exchange emotions.
Is this thought arrogance?
"I don't want your death either."
Xenon, who had been gazing into the distance, calmly composed his mind and lowered his head.
"There are many who would mourn me. But there's no one who would follow me in death for my sake. So it's fine."
"That's such twisted logic..."
"But you have one. Someone who would follow you in death."
Me.
Unlike the voice added like a jest, nowhere in Xenon's expression was there any smile. Anelli standing before him was the same.
Anelli, who had been listening to Xenon's words as half-bluster until just before, now seemed to finally realize that Xenon was truly serious.
Looking at Xenon with a distorted expression, she roughly swept back her bangs. She seemed to have completely forgotten that her hands were dirty from using strength earlier.
"Why would you go that far?"
She truly looked like she couldn't understand.
Xenon raised his hand and lightly brushed the dust from Anelli's hair.
"Because there's only me."
Having straightened her bangs and side hair, Xenon didn't immediately remove his hand. Instead, he lightly traced down Anelli's cheek with his fingertips.
Her cheek had grown cold from exposure to the night air.
"Because I'm the only 'human' you hold precious. Is it strange for me to cherish as unique the one who considers me unique?"
Anelli hesitated, parting her lips as if to answer. But before she could speak, Xenon lowered his head.
Both their lips were cold, but the moment they touched, warmth began to circulate as if it had been waiting.
Anelli's eyelashes, which had trembled as if startled, soon settled down quietly. Instead of pushing him away, she embraced his neck.
The warmth shared from where they touched gradually brought them to the same body temperature.
The surrounding noises fading unrealistically, the floating sensation, and the warmth filling his embrace.
Xenon thought.
'It feels like a dream.'
That every moment shared with Anelli was like a dream.
A dream he absolutely didn't want to wake from.
* * *
"It wasn't a dream."
[Pardon?]
Mori raised her head abruptly at my inadvertently muttered words.
I waved my hand at her, then lightly traced my lower lip.
"...."
I could feel the skin slightly swollen and taut. There was no need to touch it with my hand; I could tell just by lightly brushing with the tip of my tongue.
Meeting Xenon's eyes while trying to check the surroundings of the campsite last night wasn't a dream.
'Then that conversation was all real too.'
Touching my lips, I slowly recalled last night's conversation. The gist was simple.
'Why follow me in death?'
Even thinking again, it was utterly absurd. I wondered if he was acting impulsively, but his expression was so serious I ended up flustered.
'Perhaps talking at night was the problem.'
Having such a conversation when emotions were overflowing, perhaps he blurted it out on impulse...
"Did you have something to say?"
I was caught glancing at Xenon. He, who had been far away organizing the campsite, approached with a puzzled face.
"No, it's fine."
I hurriedly turned and widened the distance between us.
It was because I hadn't yet decided what face to make when looking at someone who said he'd follow me in death.
Truly an unfamiliar feeling. When I was executed, there wasn't a single person who would mourn me, let alone follow me in death.
Pretending to look around, I paced about until Samuel's figure, dismantling the tent, caught my eye.
'Come to think of it, he had it hard too.'
I quickly approached him.
"Sir Samuel."
"Yes?"
Samuel gave me only his gaze without stopping his actions.
"You said you recovered all your memories?"
"That's correct."
"I'm curious about something."
"Yes."
"What happened after your past captain died?"
The hand rolling up the canvas stopped abruptly. Samuel, who had been looking at me with a stiffened face, frowned and averted his gaze.
"I waited until my life as a human ran its full course."
"....You didn't want to follow the captain in death?"
"At that time, I had already become a god's puppet, so I had to fulfill my predetermined lifespan. It was only after fulfilling that lifespan that I escaped being a puppet and received the goddess's guidance again."
Samuel placed the responsibility for not following in death on god. However, I thought that even without such constraints, he wouldn't have followed the captain in death.
Right, death isn't easy either. Xenon has the Magic Tower, his master, and his brethren—would he act recklessly?
I shook my head and turned my steps.
「If nothing happens to you, I'll live perfectly well too.」
Xenon's calmly spoken voice revived in my memory. He probably didn't know at all, but to me that was no different from a threat.
Because the rest granted through the final authority could be interpreted as anything.
When I asked whether rest meant death, Diaris had answered:
「That differs for each person. Those who wandered aimlessly will obtain the rest each desires, and for some, that may be death.」
The rest each person desires.
It's hard to determine definitively that the rest I desire is death, but I had been thinking it was close to that.
With that mindset, what I would obtain at the end of this journey would ultimately be death.
But if I die...
"Anelli, I've finished organizing!"
I, who had been staring blankly at Xenon calling me so calmly, struggled to compose my expression. Even with complicated thoughts, I could recognize one clear fact.
The fact that someone who knew I cherished him and reciprocated that feeling was right before my eyes.
"Shall we depart?"
"We should arrive within today. Beyond that ridge is the Belladia Valley."
Xenon and Samuel took turns speaking to me.
I nodded and firmly secured the pouch containing Mori at my waist. Then, as if by habit, I stroked the bracelet with my fingertips.
An uneven texture was felt due to cracks formed on the jewel's surface. Fortunately, it wasn't completely broken, so its function remained.
Fiddling with the bracelet containing the Durahans, I felt somewhat calmer.
"Now let's depart."
[F-finally being able to obtain rest... I can't believe it...]
Mori, who had been fidgeting inside the pouch, muttered to herself. I glanced down at the pouch, then lifted my head to confirm where we needed to go.
Beyond there, everything would end. The Durahans would reclaim their heads and obtain the rest they desired.
'And my rest as well.'
I don't know if death is rest for me, but one thing was certain.
「Is it strange for me to cherish as unique the one who considers me unique?」
That I couldn't even bear to imagine Xenon's death.