Then he flapped his great white wings and took off into the ashen sky. Fairly soon, there was no trace of him at all.
It was then I heard it.
“It’s all…my fault.”
“Master!”
A voice. From the bisected torso on the floor. I pulled my crippled body over to her. Her face was already as pale as bone, devoid of her usual spark.
She was no longer the Hero of Salvation. She was just a dying woman, lamenting the tragedy that had befallen her. Befallen all of us.
“Leon… Rheina… It’s all my fault…”
“No! It wasn’t you! It was me! I did this!”
I said it over and over and over again. But Master could not even fix her gaze on me. She just flapped her mouth wordlessly, like a fish.
“I’m sorry. I’m so, so, sorry. I’m so, so…”
A trickle of a tear ran down my cheek, staining me in my own regret.
My master. My mother.
I loved her. She was the most beautiful human in existence.
Yet she drew her last breath on the cold, dirty ground, like a discarded doll.
“…It’s not fair.”
I wept over her lifeless corpse.
I was filled with regret, remorse…and anger. Anger at my own weakness.
“Why couldn’t I do it?”
Memories swept into my mind. Memories of the days we spent together.
“From now on, your name is Leon Crossheart.”
The day they granted me my name, made from the two halves of their own.
It was supposed to symbolize our eternal bond.
“I’m glad I made you my apprentice, Leon.”
I remembered all the things they gave me. All the things I didn’t deserve. A name. A purpose. Emotion. A home.
And yet… And yet…
“You never loved those two at all.”
I heard Night Walker’s words echoing in my mind, and at that moment, something within me snapped.
“Ahh…ahhh…”
My whole body shook involuntarily.
But I shed no tears. None came. Even now, this pathetic ghoul was powerless to act.
“Ahh…ahhh…aaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!”
A tearless wail. There was no punishment more fitting than this. No punishment more deserved by this cowardly ghoul. To be denied even the solace of tears.
“Waaaaargh! Aaaaaaaaaaaaagh!”
I wailed. In the depths of my own personal hell, I wailed. In sadness…and in anger. A curse upon my sorry self.
What happened to your one and only Master? Your one and only brother? How could you let them both die?
How dare you tell them you’ll protect them? How dare you lie to them? Thanks to your selfish weakness, the two of them are no more.
You needed them. They were your world. They meant everything, and you meant nothing.
Why was it them and not you? What worth is there in your survival?
It should have been—
“It should have been me!!”
Heaving out those words, my eye was suddenly drawn to the holy sword, discarded on the floor. How easy it would be, I thought, to draw the blade across my throat and put an end to this nightmare. I didn’t belong in this world anymore.
…However, I couldn’t leave yet. To die here would result in only another betrayal.
“Rheina…”
My condemned friend. The friend I condemned. Wherever he now was, he was surely crying. Begging for me to come and kill him.
“…I cannot flee. Not now.”
Despite how desperately I craved the blade, I forced that desire aside. There was only one thing to do.
My brother.
My friend.
My Rheina.
“I have to save you…”
Beyond the distant mountain range, the setting sun descended.
Its dimming light a curtain falling to end my foolish dream.