“Hmm, where should I begin?” said Maria nonchalantly.
I need to catch up to Fuuka-chan quickly, but is that really the right thing to do? Thoughts like that swirled around Miyako’s mind. She couldn’t bring herself to stand and leave, so she listened to Maria.
“I thought she was an angel. Or, in the words of the Continent, a Xian Nu. That’s how she seemed to me,” said Maria, Shan Li’s partner and “Mama” to her daughter Aisha. Maria took in the smell of her raspberry tea.
✦ ✦ ✦
Ten years before that time, civil war raged in the Neese Continent.
There was a mercenary by the name of Maria. That mercenary, hailed as “Calamity Witch,” “Murder’s Finest,” and “Wandering Massacre,” took a hit in one battle and was on the retreat.
Shit... Our leader’s useless!
A man who cared only about his own career had taken command of her band of mercenaries. As he belonged to the regular army, his command was a sight to behold and stole the lives of untold numbers of mercenaries. They were not victims of battle but victims of his command.
The battle wiped out Maria’s platoon. There won’t be any other survivors, thought Maria. Her own wounds were grave. How disappointing. How truly disappointing.
She lost her family to war when she was a child. Remnants of the resistance took her in, and they gave her a choice: the battlefield or the brothel. They told her women were fortunate; they had a choice.
So Maria lived as a soldier. Fortune kept her alive when the resistance collapsed, and then she became a mercenary. Fortune saw her through countless battles.
There was always someone who would start calling her the “Angel of Slaughter” and other such names, but that would all end on this day.
“I’ve really never had anything I could call a family.”
Covered in blood, she dragged herself along, before collapsing in the shadow of a rock. She muttered to herself in a tone of voice that was strangely carefree given the situation she was in.
Just then.
“Please stop!”
A shrill voice rang out.
She urged her cold, languid body further to see what was going on, and found a girl. She was unarmed and surrounded by bandits. She clutched an infant in her arms.
“Don’t kill us!” screamed the girl, shielding the baby in her arms.
Watching that, Maria realized something. I’ve never once fought to protect someone else. I’ve always fought just to fight.
And so, she thought to herself, If I’m going to die anyway, then this once. Just this once.
“...Get lost, scumbags.”
Before she knew it, her short sword was in her hand. She decided to protect this girl, a stranger whose name she didn’t even know.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Have you come to?”
When she next opened her eyes, she found herself wrapped inside a blanket. Her wound caused her severe pain, but she was still alive.
Just my luck. I survived again.
“...Did you look after me?”
The girl nodded. The infant she carried in a sling on her back snoozed gently. It seemed they were no longer in any danger.
“Okay, I’ve just got to go somewhere,” whispered the girl. After a moment’s silence, she said in a tone that seemed to feel Maria out, “If you don’t mind... could you look after my child for a little?”
“What?”
“Her,” said the girl, pointing to the baby on her back. “It’d make it easier for me to move about.”
It was the first time Maria had held a baby, but she accepted with pleasure. The baby was warm and soft, and so fragile. She had a sweet smell.
✦ ✦ ✦
“I’m telling you, Maria was my hero!” said Shan Li, as she mixed raspberry jam into her raspberry tea.
“Oh, Moooom!” Aisha laughed at her Mom’s embarrassed giggles.
“I’m from a clan called the ‘Mountain Sage’s Kin.’ That’s why I still look so young at thirty.”
“Right, er, you don’t just look young, you don’t look any older than fifteen.”
“For that reason, back in the Continent, people are always after the children from my clan.”
According to Shan Li, the noble classes would keep members of the Mountain Sage’s Kin at their side as a status symbol. When she met Maria, she was running for her life with her newborn baby girl from the mansion of a noble who had abducted her to keep as a concubine.
“I really thought I was a goner.”
The neighboring country was in the midst of a violent civil war, and the upper classes cared only for themselves. As the childlike Shan Li tried to escape with her baby, it was clear what fate awaited her: death.
But just as she thought that, a large-statured woman showed up. Though drenched in blood herself, she defeated the bandits one by one. After she dispatched the men surrounding Shan Li, she collapsed onto the ground.
“So I thought, ‘Oh no, I’ve gotta help her,’” giggled Shan Li. “Then I found this cave. I borrowed some medicine and food from a nearby village and sold the valuables I had on me to buy other things and start making money.”
“T-That’s when you became a merchant?!”
“Yep. Trading’s fun. It’s a way of life.”
Shan Li puffed her chest out in pride.
“That’s how it is, anyway. Fate... or maybe love at first sight? That sort of thing,” said Maria with a little laugh.
Looking closely, Miyako noticed that old scars criss-crossed Maria’s arms and cheeks. Miyako couldn’t reconcile Shan Li’s chuckling and Maria’s kind smile with the story she’d just heard.
Everybody has their own circumstances, and every family has its past. Obvious as that may be, it was novel to Miyako.
“Umm, can I ask one thing?”
“Anything,” answered Maria.
“Shan Li-san, why did you decide to save Maria-san back then?”
It was a frank question.
Maria saved her when she was in need, so she had a debt. But few would be in any hurry to aid a soldier dressed in the blood-stained uniform of a defeated army. Shan Li might have helped her only for Maria to act like she’d stuck her nose where it didn’t belong. At worst, Shan Li could have wound up dead. Even if it didn’t get that bad, staying put there was still nothing but risk for Shan Li.
“Hmm, that’s simple,” said the thirty year-old-woman with the looks of a young girl, “Because I wanted to.”
“That’s...!”
“And I’m sooo happy now because of it,” said Shan Li, before lowering her voice and continuing. “Are you any different, Miyako?”
“I...”
Fuuka’s face popped into her mind. She saw the tragic character from behind her screen, the villainess of an otome game. She was harder-working than anyone, a kind-hearted person who prioritized others over herself.
“I...”
She knows everything. She sucks at cooking. She loves helping other people. She’s stubborn and hates being alone and puts in so much effort and is kind and cute—my dearest Fuuka-chan.
Miyako wondered, Why did I decide to take her away with me? Because I felt sorry for her? Because I wanted to save her? Was I doing it for her? No, that’s not why.
I... I wanted it to be me who saved her. That’s why I chased after her. That’s all I was thinking.
“...Excuse me, Shan Li-san, Maria-san, Aisha-chan.”
“Sure.”
“I’ve gotta go!”
That brought smiles to Shan Li and Maria. It was the smile of a couple who had found a peaceful way to live after persevering together through countless troubles and hardships.
“That’s the spirit,” said Maria.
Miyako thought, From the beginning, it’s always been about me.
If that’s the case, I’ll go take her hand however many times I have to. I’ll chase her to the ends of the world. Because I regret my last life where I tried to grin and bear it with everything until I collapsed from overwork, I’ve decided to live more selfishly this time.
“Umi!”
“Nyaa.”
She looked out the window. Night had closed in. A full moon hung in the night sky. Aisha had been snoring gently for a little while. Fuuka had left about twelve hours before.
If Fuuka had taken a single-horse carriage, that would be one thing. But if she took a three-horse carriage or something faster, she would be almost at the capital by now.
I need to hurry after her.
No carriage would leave this late at night. But Miyako had Umi.
“What is it? Have you finally accepted what you nyeed to do and come around to relying on my power?”
Reining in her desire to stroke Umi as she wagged her bushy tail, Miyako ordered the mighty Undine.
“Yeah. Please, Umi. I order you as your master: take me to Ode!”
At once, light imbued with the power of pure water flooded into the room, and the Undine took on its true, divine form.