Causa Insania.
✦ ✦ ✦
Lupus felt mental dots connect, and her face twisted in disbelief. Tachibana confirmed her suspicions.
“Tsushima Rindou has already completed his mission of helping you defect to Elbar. The reason he’s still in Balga now is because he’s carrying out this other request. Once he’s done, he can return. If he flees… Well, what happens then is up to fate. But thanks to your negotiations, it looks like he won’t have to die. If, by any chance, he does fail, I’ll take responsibility and rescue him myself.”
With mixed feelings, Lupus chose not to get any more involved. Learning the details would mean stepping into the same web of scheming and plotting as them.
In truth, she wanted to know more about the situation Tsushima was in and what he needed to accomplish to be able to come back.
But she wondered what he would think of her if, when he returned to Elbar, she had once again become entangled in the shadows of conspiracy.
Lupus felt like facing him as a new version of herself—broken free from the bonds of power, status, and all such entanglements—would be the best way to be sincere with him.
Keeping her feelings in her chest, Lupus looked at Tachibana.
“I wonder if I can really believe you?”
“It’s important to be skeptical. But I pride myself on being the kind of adult who keeps his promises. After all, trust is the foundation of any negotiation,” Tachibana cheerfully told Lupus. There were no signs he was lying, but even if he was, she probably wouldn’t be able to tell.
Lupus nodded, as if convincing herself, and offered her a farewell.
“I understand. Thank you for taking the time to speak with me despite your busy schedule. Well then, I’ll be going now.”
As Lupus bowed deeply and turned to depart, Tachibana called her back.
The tone of his voice was as relaxed as it had been at the start.
“Oh, that’s right. Could I ask you one last question?”
Lupus turned back at his question, the look on her face unintentionally asking, There’s still something else?
Tachibana gave a wry smile and posed his question.
“I just can’t see any reason why you’d go to such lengths to help Tsushima Rindou. He’s a skilled Informationist, but that’s all. I don’t get why you’re so invested in him.”
Apparently, even Tachibana didn’t know everything that had happened between Lupus and Tsushima. He didn’t know they had become knight and master, or that a relationship of trust had grown between them. For someone like Tachibana, who saw people as pieces on a board, such things were likely incomprehensible.
“Who knows? I wonder why that could be?” Lupus muttered as if hinting at something, then gave a confident smile.
Tachibana regarded her with a suspicious look, but in the end, he couldn’t decipher her true intentions.
“It seems this is out of my depth. I’d be kicking a hornet’s nest by digging deeper, wouldn’t I? Forget I brought it up.”
“All right. Good-bye, then,” Lupus bid him farewell once more, then vanished into empty space. It was a form of travel wherein one executed a special Code that connected different points in space-time. There was no other way in or out of this room.
After seeing Lupus off and confirming she was gone, Tachibana clapped his hands together.
“She was a pretty confident lady, wasn’t she?”
At his signal, a middle-aged man appeared by Tachibana’s side out of nowhere.
The man, standing as if he had been there all along, was faintly shrouded in the afterglow of information factors. He seemed to have used some kind of Code to appear, but the exact specifics of it were a mystery. The only thing clear was that it was unimaginably advanced.
Tachibana looked up at him with a sigh.
“For some reason, I’m reminded of how my wife used to be. Let me tell you, that woman had me whipped.”
“Well, at least with the princess, it probably won’t hurt too much.”
“Lupus is dainty now, but who knows what she’ll be like in twenty years.”
They exchanged jokes and laughed, but then Tachibana’s expression changed.
“Now then, about that request. How is it progressing?” Tachibana asked.
“Tsushima is doing well,” the middle-aged man replied. “Seems he’s just taken down the first target.”
“So there’s one more person left to go? Looks like it’ll be right away, doesn’t it?”
The middle-aged man let out a deep sigh at Tachibana’s irresponsible remark, clearly exasperated, as if he were thinking, Honestly, this man…
“The Six Imperial Swords are on a completely different level from ordinary Informationists. No matter how skilled Tsushima is, this won’t end quickly. With his brain slowed down from his nicotine addiction, he probably won’t be able pull off the reckless stunts he used to.”
“Huh? He still smokes? Unbelievable.”
“Nicotine and alcohol are effective at disrupting Code construction. For someone who wants to hide their true identity, like Tsushima, they’re a vital tool.” Arms crossed, the middle-aged man seemed to be firmly on Tsushima’s side. Tachibana glanced up at him, then leaned back in his chair.
“I got a little carried away and made an unusual promise against my better judgment. I doubt he’ll be taken out, but please give him a hand, just in case.”
“Understood,” the middle-aged man briefly replied. Then he vanished from that spot faster than the blink of an eye.
Left alone, Tachibana reached for a photo frame on his desk. It was a picture taken just after the end of the War of Independence, showing the seven Informationists who would come to be called heroes, all gathered together.
After that photo was taken, the seven of them had never been in the same place at once again. It was their first and last commemorative photo.
The man in the center, covered in mud and showing his white teeth as he grinned, was Tachibana. And right in the corner was a boy smoking with his back turned to the camera.
Tachibana flicked the picture of the boy with his finger.
“That lady killer’s still going as strong as ever, even while hiding his true identity. I envy him.”