114.
But the scene did not end there.
It did not end just because I did not want to see it, nor did it wait just because I wanted to see more.
It was jagged and disjointed, like a nightmare mixed together at random.
The conversation between those strangers that had surfaced the moment I tried to shatter the crystal naturally circled through my mind.
‘It seems all it can do is peer into and manipulate memories.’
Then what I was seeing right now was truly Jaka’s memories?
“It’s the men from the Theocracy!”
“We should have destroyed the Theocracy!”
“Damn it! They came back from the dead! There were remnants left!”
“How did they know to come here?”
An old man with hair gone white suddenly pointed an accusing finger this way.
“It’s you! It was you!”
Startled, I looked back, and there stood Jaka, his entire body bound.
Before I knew it, he had grown enough to closely resemble the Jaka I knew.
As I watched him, drenched in sweat and rain, smirking with his teeth showing, a chill ran down my spine.
For the first time, he felt unfamiliar.
Though he had never been able to hold back his laughter, there was not the slightest trace of mirth left in his eyes. There was only deep rage and twisted pleasure.
“Fuck, has the old geezer gone senile? Huh? If those bastards find me, they’ll slit my throat too.”
“Th-then…….”
“Untie this. It wouldn’t be hard for me to take you and run, would it?”
“…….”
Conflict flickered in the old man’s eyes.
“High Priest! You must flee! We will open a path somehow…….”
A spearhead burst up through the chest of the man shouting those words. Blood splattered.
In the end, the High Priest’s face turned deathly pale as he released the device binding Jaka.
And in that instant, his neck was seized.
“Kuhak!”
“Do you know how long I waited for this moment, and you want me to save you? Me?”
The eerie laughter stopped all at once.
The High Priest, whose throat was being choked, flailed his limbs.
Jaka pinned the man whose neck he was strangling to the floor and stared down at him fixedly as he said quietly,
“Die.”
Just die.
“Die!”
As the final line of defense collapsed, the Theocracy’s soldiers pushed inside.
Someone pointed at the High Priest and shouted,
“There are things we need to find out, so he must be kept alive!”
Jaka, surrounded by a dozen men, resisted violently, but he had to be dragged away from the High Priest.
The High Priest, barely coming back to his senses, drooled as he coughed shallowly.
The moment he was freed from one set of restraints, Jaka was bound again—this time by a member of the Theocracy—and crushed to the floor as he spat curses.
In a voice that rose from deep within his lungs, mixed with despair and rage.
No one listened closely.
Jaka clenched his fists until they turned white and screamed, driven by malice.
“Kill me! Kill me already! I said kill me!”
“He was the one who remained by the High Priest’s side until the very end. For now, keep that one…… alive as well.”
Someone who had walked through the soldiers gave that order.
With an inexplicable premonition, I shifted my head this way and that over the shoulders of the soldiers surrounding him, trying to see the man’s face.
But before I could confirm his face, stuttering noise began to color my vision.
I felt a stabbing pain.
This time too, it was my left eye.
But if there was one thing different from before, it was that the bracelet’s red light began to extend as though connected to my left eye.
A harsh ringing filled my ears. A groan escaped me on its own. It felt as if something was kneading the inside of my head without restraint.
Terrible noise. As if I had connected to the wrong sector, the scenes I had been watching split apart, and an unfamiliar field of vision surged into my mind.
For an instant, it seemed snowflakes were flying.
Snow was falling outside the window.
The headache vanished without a trace.
“When did I ever ask you to save me?”
Then, suddenly, a thorny voice spoke, so weakened that it seemed only spite remained.
Soon after, in complete contrast, a relaxed and languid reply followed.
“True. When I saw you that day, it did look like you just wanted to die right then and there.”
For a moment, perhaps unable to contain his disbelief, only the rough sound of his heavy breathing could be heard.
Then Jaka poured out his anger.
“Then why did you save me? You should have just left me to die!”
Even at that ferocious shout, the person merely waved a hand as if telling him to calm down, and said by way of excuse,
“I’m sick of cleaning up corpses by now……. Besides, you can’t get a thank-you from a dead person, can you?”
The cramped room was filled with the sharp, stinging smell of medicine.
Jaka lay occupying the narrow bed and tried to raise himself, but he did not seem to have recovered enough for that yet.
In the end, all he could do was argue.
“What kind of bullshit that doesn’t even make sen……!”
“But if I keep you alive, don’t you think I might at least get a thank-you?”
“You think I’ll say thank you? Not a chance. Once I’m better, you’ll be the first one I kill…….”
“Yes, yes. You should hurry and get better.”
Jaka glared at the other person as though he would kill them.
“Anyway, you may want to die now, but who knows? Later, you might want to live. You don’t seem to know this, but once you die, you can’t come back to life.”
“What the hell is this woman saying…….”
As if a headache had newly risen in him, Jaka ground his teeth and muttered.
“Forget the thank-you. Later, you can wait on me for all the trouble I went through.”
“Do I look like someone who would wait on anyone? Are your eyes crooked? Or are you lacking somewhere?”
Jaka, who had been sneering to his heart’s content, jerked his head aside to avoid the bowl of medicine being held close to his face.
At that, the still-relaxed voice let out a soft sigh.
“I washed your body, treated your wounds, gave you a place to stay in this blizzard—you do know that’s my bed, don’t you? On top of that, I made you medicine, and what little food I had all went into your mouth. Are you really going to be this petty?”
“…….”
“Fine, I get it. If you can kill me, then go ahead and try.”
After answering like that, the person sank deep into an armchair and blew on the steaming tea in a chipped teacup before drinking it…….
It was me.
The woman had tied her hair back in a single ponytail and was half-relaxed, leaning against the window where snowflakes drifted outside.
It was clearly me, and yet it also seemed as though it was not me.
Outside the window, everything was white.
* * *
“Haa……!”
My heart was pounding like mad.
The memory I had experienced just a moment ago was blurring in an instant.
It felt as though I had “remembered” something important.
I unconsciously tightened my grip.
I could see a hairline crack in the crystal where my dagger had struck it.
I brought my hand to my left eye. Something was flowing down, and when I wiped it with my palm, my hand came away wet.
I seemed to have lost my judgment.
An unknowable sense of déjà vu, premonition, instinct, and emotions that had never once been mine swirled inside my body.
Only one thing was clear: if I did not completely shatter the crystal before my eyes, nothing would end.
I raised my hand once more, and
A second crack formed.
And the second memory began.
* * *
Tensing instinctively, I looked around when I heard a child's laughter.
When I turned, a petite little girl was hanging off the top of someone's head.
"Aer. It's dangerous, so come down."
It was a pleasant voice that mingled playfulness and tenderness.
I let out a sigh. Because, as he pulled the girl down into his arms, a smiling face appeared right before my eyes.
The smiling figure with disheveled hair was Prien Izanar.
In those days, he did not have long hair like the version I had known. There was still a youthful, boyish innocence remaining on his face.
And judging by the clothes he was wearing, he seemed to be a knight trainee. If so, it was only natural that his hair was short.
"But I haven't finished putting this in yet!"
"You shouldn't play with your brother's hair, Aer."
The two bickered back and forth for a moment, and in the end, it seemed Izanar had decided to let his younger sister win.
As soon as Izanar sat down, Aer once again climbed up onto his shoulders. Left with no choice, Izanar supported her bottom and had to watch as Aer stuck all sorts of strange pins and ribbons into his hair.
"Brother, can't you grow your hair out?"
"No."
"But it's my wish?"
"You can just go to Sister."
"She says I can't touch her hair."
Izanar let out a sigh.
"I want to practice braiding hair!"
"Then tell me why it absolutely has to be my hair."
"Because Brother is the prettiest in the whole world!"
"I don't think so. That can't be a reason."
"Aww."
"No."
"Nooo……."
"No."
Just when it seemed the endless parade of "no"s would continue.
Aer pressed her cheek against Izanar's with a loud smack and laughed.
"Because I love Brother the most in the world!"
"……."
Surprisingly, those words seemed to shake Izanar slightly.
"More than Sister?"
"Yeah! But it's a secret."
"More than Father?"
"Yeah! But you really have to keep it a secret."
"Then what about Mother?"
"……."
"……Never mind, go away."
"Nooo!"
Just then, someone called for Izanar from outside. Glancing in that direction for a moment, Izanar roughly plucked the hairpins and ribbons from his disheveled hair and rose to his feet.
"Aer, I can't play with you anymore now."
"Are you going to training again?"
"I'll be right back."
Izanar smiled, gently tousling Aer's hair as she clung to his leg.