It wasn’t a smile of relief that she had managed to bring safely to life the work she had been given. Instead, she felt unconditional love for the new life she had created with her very own hands.
The woman who had been only a cog had become someone who could create. That was perhaps the moment she truly took a step out of the glass case. At the same time, that moment was when she learned about fear.
From her own common sense, she knew this life could hardly be said to be a proper being. She knew that it was commonly accepted that lives were equal, but in the Soul Society, where the aristocratic system was celebrated, that way of thinking would not hold up.
Aura realized that because, for some time, she had known…
She knew how Tokinada Tsunayashiro planned to use this life.
All this being would do was reign over the world in the place of the Soul King. When she was faced with the reality that the life she had created was simply meant to execute Tokinada’s orders and, as the “next Soul King,” act as fuel to make the system that made the three realms, the Soul Society, the world of the living, and Hueco Mundo, continue, Aura’s world completely changed.
Or, it may be more appropriate to say the blank sheet her world had been until then started to gain color.
After some time, when the Soul Reaper who had been named Hikone called out to Aura with their own voice, it became even more obvious.
“You’re Ms. Aura, aren’t you?! Lord Tokinada told me that you’re almost like a mother to me! I don’t really know what a mother is, but it’s nice to meet you!”
Their eyes were innocent and contained not even the slightest hint of ill will. She realized they were the same eyes she saw in her own face when she had stared at the glass wall during the days of her youth. She realized that time had filled her heart, and that, in the past, she had been happy living her days locked away in that place with her father.
But had that really been right?
At this point, she couldn’t know whether her father had confined her out of parental love, a desire for control, or possibly for some other reason entirely. Something she hadn’t considered even after she had entered the outside world was now being thrust at her. At the same time she learned about love, she realized the missing piece that was somehow warping her all this time was just that. Regardless, Aura thought she didn’t mind continuing to be that way herself.
However, for Hikone, this innocently smiling being she herself had created, to be subject to the same fate—no, an even worse fate in which they were to eternally preserve the bedrock of the world—was now something Aura just could not allow.
And this was why she had come to a secret resolve in her mind.
She would rescue Hikone’s future from Tokinada’s hands.
Hikone might curse at her, telling her that following Tokinada’s directions had made them happy. There was a chance that Hikone would shout at her, “Why did you stick your nose where it doesn’t belong?” and Hikone’s konpaku might rot away from their hatred.
Yet in the same way that her father had shut her away out of his own egoistic desires…
…her own sense of ego compelled her to teach Hikone about the vast world.
Even Aura did not know which would mean happiness and which would mean sorrow for Hikone. It was just that she wanted to give this to Hikone, the being she herself had created. By giving Hikone a vast number of options, she wanted to give them the right to make their own choice, of their own volition.
She wanted to provide the light that would illuminate what Hikone Ubuginu’s soul desired.
She believed that even if Hikone chose to follow Tokinada and hated her, that was fine too. She couldn’t be certain that what awaited at the end of Hikone’s selected path would be happiness.
Even if becoming Tokinada’s puppet for eternity might have been far more peaceful than another possible path, one that might result in Hikone caving in partway through, starving and in pain…
She just wanted to show it to Hikone.
She wanted to show them the infinite variety of paths that extended into the future.
That was why she had resolved herself to stop Tokinada.
She would do it even if that meant that her own life would end before she herself had chosen a path of her own will.
≡
“That was unexpected. I had no idea you would attempt something so foolish,” Tokinada groaned.
Aura answered matter-of-factly, “Oh, I actually find this even more surprising. You acted as though you didn’t trust anyone, with no exceptions, Lord Tokinada.”
She hadn’t been treated particularly terribly by Tokinada. Because of that, she didn’t hold a grudge that caused her to desire his death; Aura was satisfied simply stopping Tokinada. However, the reality was that it would be difficult to stop him without killing him, so Aura had prepared herself to destroy Tokinada for the sake of saving Hikone. Because of that, she had also prepared herself to be cut down and killed by Tokinada as well.
Aura was hoping that in the worst case, things would end in a draw, but…
“What are you talking about? I knew that you would betray me from the start.”
“Huh?”
At the moment Tokinada spoke, her konpaku felt something abnormal happening in her physical body.
“What I found unexpected…was the timing. I thought you would betray me a bit before this or a bit after.”
“Huh?”
Then, Tokinada, who should have been immobilized, narrowly dodged Ginjo’s blow.
“Huh?”
When she saw that her restraints were not working on him, Aura realized the identity of the abnormality she felt in her body. At the same time, she went down on her knee on the spot.