Fortunately, the fight ended with only minor injuries.
By the time Azuma arrived, everything was already finished. The hero crumbled before his eyes, leaving only Kaguya behind.
Before Azuma could take even a step closer, Kaguya opened her eyes. He asked her if she was all right, but Kaguya remained silent, making him worry even more.
With some trouble, she eventually managed to say that she was okay. However, Azuma and the others weren’t focused on her words. Instead, they were focused on her tears, and she even didn’t seem to be aware of them herself.
“Are you feeling better now?” Azuma asked Kaguya.
“Yes…I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me… I feel like a child.”
“It’s fine. You’re probably just tired.”
They practically had to force her into one of the barrack’s infirmary beds. She was sitting up at the moment, smiling in embarrassment.
“Tired…? Yes, maybe I am.”
“Of course you’re tired. It’s been less than a week since you came out of your coma and barely over a month since you first entered it.”
Although she’d been awake for only a few days, it felt like years already.
“What were they like…? The hero?” Azuma asked hesitantly. “Male? Female? How old were they? What did they look like? What were their last words? Can you remember?”
“He was male. A little older than me. I think probably around eighteen. His face was…pretty normal. As for his final words, well…”
Azuma regretted asking. He hadn’t been trying to stress her out by asking about what had happened in the hero’s mental world. He was hoping it might help to lighten the burden for her instead, if only by a little. But her face grew darker as she spoke. He watched as she struggled to find the words, her long eyelashes downcast.
“‘Don’t forget us.’ That’s what he said. His wish was…not to be forgotten.”
“That was a pretty cruel thing for him to ask…”
“Cruel?”
“Yes. Cruel, arrogant, and cowardly.”
He meant it. Asking someone not to forget you was brazen and conceited. And trapping someone emotionally like that, even if you were about to die, was just craven.
But no one was forcing Kaguya to do this. She had accepted all of this of her own free will.
“What are you going to do? Are you going to remember him?”
“Of course. That’s what I’m here for, isn’t it…? The whole reason I intervene in their minds, even when it’s already too late, is so that there will be someone to remember their last moments as humans.”
“Are you sure that’s all there is to it…?” Azuma said.
Kaguya lifted her head in response.
What Azuma saw there was a face on the verge of collapse. There was something pleading in her pale violet eyes, something which perhaps she herself was unaware of. Although Kaguya was attempting to keep up a calm facade, it was apparent at a glance that she was anything but.
“Is that really what you want? I can’t help but feel it’s not and that you’re just forcing yourself to continue at this point.”
“I’m not forcing anything!” Kaguya said, scowling. “The entire reason I’m out there fighting is to save people who have become heroes. Sure, I was a little tired and needed to rest for a bit, but I can hardly just ignore a hero when I come face-to-face with one.”
“Why not? I don’t see how you’re under any obligations.”
Azuma stood and whipped open the curtains. Sunlight suddenly streamed into the room, causing Kaguya to close her eyes and hold up her hand to block the light.
“Captain! If you wanted to open the curtains, you could have at least told me before you—”
“You’re too hard on yourself.”
Azuma stepped toward the window, likely leaving him backlit from Kaguya’s point of view. He was standing there on purpose because he didn’t want her to see his face.
“All of the heroes we’ve encountered so far, today’s included, had absolutely nothing to do with you. How much do you really know about them? You don’t even know their names or where they come from.”
“Yes, that’s true, but—”
“Kaguya, you’ve got a goodness that is almost blinding. It’s hard not to appreciate that. I’ve always felt that way about you, and I even look up to you for it.”
“Y-you look up to me…?”
“Yes, because you have something I don’t. We used to take it for granted that heroes were just monsters, nothing more and nothing less. You’re the one who changed that for us, and I am always going to think highly of you for that,” Azuma said, explaining calmly and honestly how he had felt for so long. At times like this, he believed it was important to be honest about your feelings.
“Y-you’re not acting like your usual self, Captain Azuma… You didn’t eat something you found lying around on the ground, did you?”
“Do I look like someone who goes around eating food off the ground?”
“What if I said yes?”
“I guess I would feel pretty bad about myself,” he replied.
Kaguya gave a little laugh, dry and forced. Even on the surface, Azuma could tell her heart wasn’t in it.
“In any case,” she began, “I can’t agree with what you’re saying, Captain Azuma. I’m the only one who can see them like that, remember? If I don’t remember them, who will?”
“I’m telling you that you need to take better care of yourself. I probably shouldn’t say this, but who cares if they are remembered? It’s not like you’re getting a gold star for it or anything.”
Kaguya scowled even harder. Maybe because what Azuma was saying made sense. He pressed further.
“Why are you even being so stubborn about all this?”
Azuma didn’t understand why she was so determined to stick to her guns on this issue. What was holding her back?
There was, of course, an obvious answer.
“Is it Sakura…?” he asked.
Kaguya’s eyes wavered for a moment. She didn’t say anything. Azuma sensed intuitively that he had just hit the nail on the head.
Still, he doubted that was all. After all, that didn’t explain why she had been so zealous about this even before coming to Charon. If there was another reason, it could only be one thing.
“Or is it your brother?”
Her older brother, who had vanished before Kaguya’s very eyes, and was now quite possibly dead.
This, too, seemed to have hit the mark. Kaguya’s eyes remained closed as if in defeat. She looked like a criminal, wrestling with her own guilt. Azuma had a sudden flash of insight.
“It’s that you want to be forgiven, isn’t it?”
This wasn’t justice or even obsession. She may not have been aware of it herself, but she was seeking salvation. Salvation for herself.
“You still want to be forgiven. By Sakura for not being able to save her. By your brother, who became a hero. All because you couldn’t help them.”
Azuma was finally beginning to understand the motivation behind Kaguya’s self-destructive behavior.
“This is about saving yourself, not the heroes. About absolving yourself of what happened seven years ago and of what happened a few months ago. I’m right, aren’t I, Kaguya? You’ve been fixated on your own past shortcomings, haven’t you? Not on others, after all.”
“I…”
Kaguya’s voice sounded feeble. She pursed her lips and grew quiet. A look of fear surfaced in her violet eyes. As if, until Azuma said those words, she had never realized that about herself.