“Don’t change the subject. The dragon isn’t what’s important.”
“What is wrong with you?!” Nea growled, her voice rough but shaky. “What do you want me to say?!”
“You regret it, don’t you?” said Usato, his voice unwavering. “You regret that things ended up like this.”
“But I . . . !” Nea started, then paused. “Yes. But all I did was give it everything I had. I did what I had to do to get what I wanted. While I regret how it ended up, if you’re asking for an apo—”
“No,” said Usato, cutting her off. “That’s not what I’m talking about. You regret raising the dragon, that’s for sure, but not because you failed to catch me in the end.”
He glared at her, completely sure of himself.
“You regret putting all of the villagers in danger,” Usato stated.
“Why would I even care about them in the slightest?” Nea shot back.
“If they meant nothing to you, you never would have tried to talk the dragon out of attacking Ieva. I fought that thing myself. I know exactly how terrifying it was. The village had to be important to you for you to show that kind of courage.”
“Important? No, it’s just . . .”
Nea was shaken by Usato’s words.
“You realized it straight away,” Usato said. “You knew what the dragon would do and where it would set its sights the moment it broke free of your control. Ieva is full of people, and the dragon would have trampled on it, flooded it with poison, massacred everyone, and left nothing standing in its wake.”
Nea’s eyes wavered, but Usato ignored them and went on.
“Breathe in that dragon’s poison, and your body breaks down from the inside. Your throat festers, your lungs rot, and you die while struggling to take a single breath. The dragon’s claws and tail were powerful enough to leave huge cracks in the ground. Any ordinary human would be crushed flat under that power.”
“Stop,” Nea uttered.
“But worst of all? The dragon’s cunning and cruelty. All living creatures were just feed for the massacre. All it wanted was destruction, and it would have spared no one. Not the elderly, not the women, and not the children. Every—”
“I said stop it!” Nea cried.
Usato’s words had taken shape in her mind. It was clear by the sorrow flooding her face.
“I’m sorry,” Usato said.
He ruffled his hair. He knew it wasn’t a nice thing to consider. He knew he’d gone too far. But now I knew, just as well as Usato, why Nea had tried so desperately to save the villagers from harm. But that didn’t make what she put us through okay. As I watched her there, broken and scared, I suddenly thought of her as pitiful.
“You’re an idiot,” Usato said.
The moment he spoke the words, I knew I’d heard them before.
You’re an idiot.
They were from my vision, three days ago. I looked around. Aruku was leaning on his sword to keep standing, and the ballroom was strewn with rubble. Above us, the full moon shone through the gaping hole in the roof.
“Regret? Why didn’t you realize sooner? You already have everything you wanted, but you ignored your own wishes. You tried to let go of it all.”
Impatience itched at every part of me while Usato spoke the words from my vision. I tried to scream, to make him stop, but Usato raised a palm and stopped me in my tracks. He knew that he was making my vision a reality.
But why is he willingly stepping into danger?
As I struggled to work out what he was doing, Usato took another step closer to Nea.
“I’m not here to kill you,” he said.
“Huh?” Nea uttered.
Usato’s shoulders slumped at her reaction.
“What? Why is that so surprising?” he exclaimed, kneeling to look her in the eyes. “You asking us to take down the necromancer was all part of your scheme to catch us, right? So don’t do it again. Don’t kidnap any passing travelers. If you can promise me that, then you can go right back to just being a villager.”
Usato paused to chuckle.
“But I’ll be checking in from time to time to make sure, okay?” he added.
Nea went wide-eyed with surprise.
Did Usato change the future that I saw? The one where he was stabbed?
My visions left no room for change. But there were always exceptions to the rule, and I wondered if perhaps this was one of them.
“Go back to being a villager, huh?” said Nea, laughing.
Then she looked down at the floor and mumbled something to herself. For a brief instant I was relieved, but then I saw Nea’s lips curl into a smile. The moment I saw it, I cried out.
“Usato!”
I saw something sharp, like a blade in Nea’s right hand. It sped through the air. At the same time, Usato’s own right hand moved like a flash. It all happened right at the moment in which, for the briefest of moments, I felt like the future could change. But now, I felt only panic. I watched, stunned, as drops of blood fell around Usato’s feet. Aruku, Blurin, and I all rushed to see what had happened.
The sight that met our eyes was not at all what I had expected.
“What are you doing?” grunted Usato.
Nea giggled.
“What, you ask?”
Usato’s hand was clasped over Nea’s own. The blade that I saw was in fact Nea’s claws, which had sprouted to a length of twenty centimeters. They weren’t pointed at Usato at all. They were pointed at Nea’s own throat! The end of her claws had just barely pierced her skin, and blood flowed down her claws to Usato’s hand, before dripping to the floor.
“Sir Usato,” uttered Aruku. “What . . . is this?”
“She tried to stab herself in the neck,” replied Usato.
He sounded gruff and annoyed. He gestured with his eyes to Nea’s throat. She’d tried to commit suicide.
“But why?”
I couldn’t understand why she would try to throw her life away like that, but more than anything else, I was simply relieved that my premonition had never been about Usato getting stabbed.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Just how much do you want to belittle me before you’re satisfied?” Nea asked. “I’m ready to die. I’m ready to be killed, just the way my parents were. And you’re telling me to just go back to being a villager? After the danger I put the whole village through? I can’t go back. I can never go back. Not anymore.”
Usato let out an exasperated sigh. Nea was stubborn and ignorant, and he was tired of it. Although her suicide attempt had been thwarted, Nea nonetheless grinned.
“But you know what?” she said. “Thanks to you stopping me, I’ve finally made up my mind.”
“Huh? About what?” asked Usato.
“Blood is information. It is a contract and a payment. If you hadn’t stopped me, I’d be dead. But now you have my blood on your hands, and with that, another condition has been met.”
“Huh? Wha?”
Nea’s claws receded and her hand returned to normal. She then clutched Usato’s hand tightly. I tilted my head in confusion. I didn’t have the faintest idea what she was doing.
“Monster and human, acolyte and leader,” she said. “By the proof of their own blood the ancient pact is written.”
“Whoa, hang on a sec,” said Usato. “What’s with the ominous chant?!”
A white light shone from Usato’s hand. It was a light I’d seen before. It looked like the light of a magically powered contract. My face went pale at the sight of it.
“No way!” I cried.
The contract wasn’t going to hurt Usato. At the same time, it was going to make things extremely annoying and very complicated.
“Usato!” I shouted. “Let go! Nea’s—”
I tried to run over to Usato, but all of a sudden I couldn’t move. I looked down at my feet and saw that Nea had bound me with the same hex she caught Usato in. Somehow, she’d done it through the carpet.
But when?! And why is she so insistent on this?!
I looked over at Aruku, but he was holding his head and struggling against something. His gaze was locked on Nea, her eyes alight with a dull glimmer. Usato saw that Nea was up to something again.
“You’re trying to get to Aruku again!” he shouted.
“I just want him to sit still for a minute!” she said, coughing.
Usato pulled back his free hand and clenched his fist.
“Oh? Are you sure about that?” Nea snapped. “Hit me like I am now and I’ll almost certainly die. Sic Blurin on me and it’s the same.”
“Blurin!” Usato said. “Stay back!”
Nea enjoyed the pained look on Usato’s face even as she spat blood. Between their hands, a magical seal was forming from the white light. The sight of it brought Nea to life.
“You are going to regret trying to save me!” she cried. “Now you’ll never get rid of me!”
“What?!” Usato exclaimed. “Why would you even say something like that?! Let go of me!”
“Never! Never ever!”
“Ow! Ow?! Quit digging your fingernails in!”
Nea laughed maniacally while Usato struggled to free his hand, and in the next instant, the light between their hands grew brighter still, illuminating the entire room.