♣ Side Story – Farewell (Renge POV)
IN my oldest memories, I remember the way my father had looked down on me after we buried my mother.
Expressionless. Emotionless.
I never got the impression he’d cared much for me to begin with. So, when my mother died, I got the distinct feeling he’d disappear and leave me behind. And sure enough, my father left Wisty Air without a word.
“Did Oborozuki leave and return to his world?”
My uncle on my mother’s side, who took me in, eventually died too. A few years later, a man who looked very similar to my father appeared before me and asked me that question. He called himself Air. He was the creator of this world. Its god.
Oborozuki was my father’s name. And Air was one of his father’s—my grandfather’s—brothers. I was shocked to learn that. I’d thought all my blood relatives were dead.
With me having no one else to turn to, Air had raised me in the divine realm. He taught me about this world, other worlds, about my father’s family, and how to use my powers…all sorts of things. Those were truly fruitful, fulfilling days. Growing stronger was gratifying. Growing wiser was satisfying. Air was like both a father and an older brother to me.
If asked whether I liked or disliked him, I’d pick the former. I respected him. Apparently, Air didn’t know my real father that well, either.
I learned that, when Cerberi mature, they cross into other worlds and linger there for a century to train. My father came here to Wisty Air for that reason. Then he met my mother and fell in love with her, and I was born.
But the century came to an end and my father left this world. Refusing to take me along, he discarded me. Air was baffled by his nephew’s actions. But he didn’t pity me. Nor did he particularly criticize my father. He simply chose to focus on raising me as a pup related to his bloodline.
There were five aspects that determined whether a Cerberus was considered an adult. The first was growing one’s armored hide, which nullified most physical and magic attacks. The second was one’s third eye opening, which allowed access to the entire race’s accumulated knowledge.
The third was learning to use one’s third tail, which opened access to our detection abilities. This tail is what Cerberi use to cross to other worlds. The fourth was learning to use the black flames. And the fifth was to develop an ability equal in power to the black flames.
…There was also another condition: being able to assume human form, fight in it, and remaining in it for prolonged periods without one’s ears and tails popping out. But since I’d spent my entire life in human form as it was, I actually had more trouble maintaining my beast form.
And yet, I was able to fulfill all those conditions and was considered an adult Cerberus. When Air finally acknowledged I’d matured, I returned to the surface. But the changes I found there shocked me.
First, I met the man who would become my lifelong friend—the high elf Leishi, who’d later go on to be known as the Elf of the Sun. Uncharacteristically for a high elf, he was a peculiar person: the kind to leap before he looks. He was gregarious and impulsive, never thinking things through. I’d get mad at him regularly. But if not for him, I’d have never come up with the way to destroy the Sugula or considered burning the falling Kaguya from the continent’s edge.
But in the process, many lives were lost to the flame. Countless species driven to extinction.
Tina had mentioned to me that the Sugula truly being gone allowed her to think of the future and make new things. Her words honestly surprised me. I looked out the window in the hall.
Yes, indeed, it was a blue sky that hung over a world rife with greenery and a stirring ocean. Many races lived in this world—the same world Leishi and I had had to thoroughly raze two thousand years ago.
Things really are back to the way they were…
Of course, they weren’t quite back to the way they were. But the world was revitalized, and new life had replaced that which was lost.
Such nice weather…
“What are your plans for the future, Renge? Is there anything you’ve been meaning to do?”
I couldn’t answer Tina’s question. I’d never considered the future…or perhaps, I’d been avoiding such thoughts. Leishi had once asked me the same thing; I’d never given him a clear answer. I never had to decide what I wanted to do or who I wanted to become. Nothing interested me and there wasn’t anything I wanted to do.
All I cared about was protecting the world my mother and Leishi left behind.
Protecting the world…yeah, that’s what I want to do.
But other than that—
“What else do I want to do?” I muttered.
I loved Tina, of course. I wanted to protect her as much as I wanted to protect this world. Though, in the end, I’d end up all alone again…
I fell silent, remembering my father. The memory of his leaving has shackled my heart for as long as I’ve lived. Just like Leishi, Tina would leave me behind someday too. And that thought made it difficult for me to open my heart.
I…I can’t keep going like this…
I teleported down to the divine realm and found Air napping in front of the grave. When I’d lived in the divine realm, I’d heard this was where Air’s older brother was buried, the original god who’d made this world, Wisty—who, as a Cerberus, had been called Futuba. I’d heard he’d actually been killed by their younger brother.
“Hmm? Do you need something?” Air asked me, his eyes still closed.
“Ah…!” I jolted.
If I love Tina and intend to marry her…I’ll have to confront my father properly.
I swallowed, then said, “Air, I want to cross to another world and go to the village of the Cerberi. I want to see my father.”