“She might have been. I don’t really remember anymore. She was just an important person to me. That’s all.”
“Yeah. After being with someone for three years or more, they’re practically your family.” Lupus sympathized, clutching the rings hanging from her necklace. Perhaps finding it difficult to delve further into the topic, she changed the course of the conversation slightly.
“I also heard about Elbar’s War of Independence. Gramps said you were involved right from the planning stages, before the war started.”
“Damn, Gramps sure does like to blab with those loose lips of his.”
Tsushima shrugged in exasperation and gave a short nod to confirm. Seeing that, Lupus raised her tone slightly.
“Did you meet the Seven Heroes during the War of Independence?”
“Well, I guess I’ve at least seen them in passing. Why? Do you like the Seven Heroes or something?”
“Of course! All Informationists adore the Seven Heroes of the War of Independence. They were the greatest Informationists of their era, fighting for their rights without any support from authority.” Lupus spoke as if trying to convince Tsushima, who seemed skeptical.
He gave a slightly hesitant scowl in response.
“I don’t think they were all that great in reality.”
“But you fought with them because you at least agreed with their cause, right?”
Tsushima couldn’t bring himself to answer Lupus’s innocent question with a straightforward yes. He tilted his head, looking troubled.
“Hmm, I wonder about that. I don’t know the answer, but at the very least, we had lost a way to back out of fighting. Back then, everyone was looking for a place to die. We needed a purpose and battlefield to fully ignite our ideals and beliefs. The losses we experienced in Jabar were just that devastating—so much that we felt we had nothing left to live for.”
Lupus was left speechless by Tsushima’s heavy, realistic response to her lighthearted question. Learning about war through words on a page and experiencing it firsthand were very different things.
“I see… So that’s how it was. I don’t really know much about that time.”
“Of course not. You were still a child.”
“You say that, but weren’t you still a kid then, too, Tsushima?”
“I was about the same age you are now. Maybe a bit younger. But the whole thing’s just a story from the distant past.” Although he spoke as if he had let go of everything from back then, Tsushima had a somewhat dim, gloomy aura about him. Not even the moonlight shining down on him could dispel his darkness.
Lupus’s face clouded over with unease when she saw that.
“Do you really think that way?”
Tsushima didn’t know what Lupus was asking about. He looked back at her with a questioning expression. Hesitantly, she began to speak.
“Earlier, Grandfather said something… He said he feels a sense of vengeful resentment from you. He thinks the old war was responsible for those feelings, and that they’re buried deep within you. He was really worried.”
“Vengeful resentment… He’s not entirely wrong.”
Tsushima quickly banished the emotions from his face.
“Since I didn’t have any other family, Shion was the most important person in my life. But I couldn’t protect her during the disastrous defeat at the War to Recapture Jabar. She mattered more to me than my own life, yet somehow, I survived while she died. Do you know why?”
Lupus wiped away her earlier smile and silently shook her head. Seeing that, Tsushima gave a self-deprecating smile.
“Because I was weak. Feebler than people who steal from others. That’s why everything was stolen from me. But this time, things will be different.”
“This time?”
“Yeah. I’ll get you to Elbar, even if it kills me. The circumstances are different from how they were in the past, but this might be a chance to settle the score—a battle for vengeance. This time, I’ll protect what I couldn’t back then. It’s that kind of fight.”
Should Lupus be happy to hear this? Conflicted emotions showed vividly on her face. Tsushima’s sentiment was not malicious in the slightest, but the wicked air about him left her feeling bewildered.
“Tsushima, you’re…kind of scary right now,” Lupus said, gripping the edge of her blanket.
Her comment snapped Tsushima out of his spiral of negative emotions, bringing him back to reality. His suffocating, gloomy aura, which had felt like it was melting into the darkness, receded like smoke.
“Sorry, I got a little emotional.”
Tsushima stood up from his chair and took out a cigarette he had swiped earlier. As he placed the familiar object between his lips, he started returning to his usual self.
“I appreciate you telling me how you feel, but don’t push yourself too hard,” Lupus told him.
“I’m fine,” Tsushima muttered—not so much to Lupus but to himself. He took out his gas lighter, but as he was about to strike it, his hand stopped.
“Come to think of it, you’re an Informationist, too, huh? So secondhand smoke is bad for you.”
“If you think that, you should quit smoking altogether. Even if I wasn’t an Informationist—”
“I know, I know. You don’t have to keep saying it.”
Fully back to being his usual self, Tsushima reluctantly put away his lighter. However, the fact that he kept the cigarette in his mouth showed he had lingering feelings of attachment.
“We’re flying to the Middle Sea tomorrow, right?”
“That’s right. If all goes well, we might find a ship heading to Elbar. You should make a list of the things you want to do once you’ve escaped the country.”
“You’re jumping the gun a bit, but thanks.” Lupus giggled quietly under her blanket, then turned over in bed. Within minutes, she fell asleep, her flowing silver hair swaying gently in time with her rhythmic breathing.
Tsushima gazed at her back while jiggling the cigarette in his mouth up and down. Although he felt like he’d said too much, he had realized what he really wanted deep down—to save her.
“Karma comes full circle, I guess.”
As time passed, the heavy emotions he had tried to suppress came to the surface. In the dim corner of the room, Tsushima’s eyes glowed a dull blue.