Kira and Nival raised their hands like they were in some sort of competition.
“She’s very beautiful!”
“And elegant, graceful, and merciful!”
They sure are eager to tell me useless things…
Then the boy with blue hair, who was leaning against the door, began reeling off information.
“She has red hair and green eyes. Tall for a girl. She wears white gloves and has an irritating, conceited way of talking. Her feelings show on her face, and she blushes when she’s excited. Also, she hates to lose more than anyone you’ve ever met.”
“Sir Aurealis, Miss Brigitte would be angry if she heard you…,” Kira said.
“It’s all true,” the blue-haired boy said, snorting grumpily. But the description was clear. Tonari nodded.
“My spirit is summoning wild spirits to search for Brigitte as we speak. They should find her in a matter of minutes,” he said.
Kira and Nival looked surprised. Yuri, however, was unmoved.
“You two help in the search,” he told his undine and fenrir, who had burst through the air to his right and left. No sooner had the beautiful spirits manifested than they prepared to depart by air and ground, respectively.
“Yes, master. Wherever could that Red Fairy have gone off to?”
“Let’s just get going, undine!”
“Oh my—are you worried about her, fenrir?”
“Now’s not the time to talk about who’s worried about who!”
Tonari whistled without meaning to. He’d finally remembered Yuri Aurealis’s name. The one-and-only child genius contracted with two first-class spirits. But the most striking thing was his ability to concentrate—and the enormity of the vessel he must possess in order to summon two first-class spirits at once.
As Kira and Nival summoned their own contracted spirits, Tonari glanced at them and smiled.
This is getting interesting.
He didn’t mean to disrespect these students who were genuinely worried about their classmate, but he was excited. Purely by chance, the situation was developing into something much more intriguing than interviews. Plus, his main objective was to learn about Brigitte. Pulling the other priests into it could be amusing, too.
I wonder how this will turn out.
He never imagined that a few minutes later, he would be witnessing the Legendary Spirit spread its wings.
From within the blinding light, Brigitte heard wood and plaster splitting apart overhead. The column of light seemed to be shooting upward straight through the roof and walls of the room.
This could be b-bad…!
She envisioned herself being crushed under the collapsing ceiling.
“Brigitte!”
Still unable to open her eyes, she heard his voice.
“Sir Yuri…”
Turning toward the sound, she reached her hand out—her scarred left hand. She was in too much of a panic to think.
Ah!
Before she could withdraw it, he pulled her powerfully toward him and wrapped his arms around her. She stiffened, her eyes still closed.
But the impact did not come. Very timidly, she opened her eyes.
Two eyes were gazing at her from very close. The beauty of those citrine eyes never failed to astound her.
“You’re safe,” he said.
Pressed to his chest, she let out the breath she had been holding in. She didn’t want him to know that the sudden release of tension almost made her cry.
“A skin of water…,” Kira whispered. Just as Yuri was shielding Brigitte, Nival was protecting Kira’s head. Brigitte was relieved that neither of them appeared to be hurt.
She followed Kira’s gaze and saw a clear membrane stretched over their heads, protecting them.
It must be the second-class Sphere spell…
Yuri’s magic was preventing the debris from raining down on them. When he released it, a sky appeared, too blue to be real. The sparkling sunlight left Brigitte half-dazed.
The column of light had vanished—but the traces of its path piercing the sky remained. The clouds had a peculiar, coiled shape, as if a little hole had been punched into the sky.
“Can you stand?”
“Y-yes.”
Even in a situation like this, Yuri was exceedingly rational. She took his hand and managed to stand. Dust and pieces of wood were scattered where the storage room had been, and the surroundings were in shambles. She could hear footsteps and excited voices approaching. No wonder—an entire room had been blown away.
Suddenly, Brigitte realized something.
The gloves she had wrapped around Peep were gone—leaving her left hand completely exposed.
He saw it…!
The hideously scarred back of her left hand was bare. Flustered, she tried to shake Yuri’s hand away.
“Sir Yuri, it’s dirty—”
“What’s dirty?”
But he just squeezed her hand like nothing was wrong, as if to assure her that nothing she said could make him let go. All she could do was puzzle over this unexpected response.
“Ugh, I must have inhaled some dust…”
“Are you all right, Nival? Your nose is running.”
When Brigitte looked away awkwardly from Yuri, she saw that Kira and Nival were getting to their feet, apparently recovered from the impact. Joseph was the only one sitting completely still.
And who’s he…?
A man wearing slightly dirty clothes was standing next to Nival. His face was covered by a mop of hair, so she couldn’t really see it. Not noticing Brigitte’s gaze, he was staring up at the sky and muttering something.
“I can’t believe this…”
Just then, a bird cawed overhead; it was the same cry she’d heard a few minutes earlier. She looked up to see a large red bird soaring in the sky, clearly enjoying itself. Brigitte wasn’t the only one who whispered to herself when she saw it.
“A phoenix…”
It’s the Legendary Spirit in The Wind Laughs…
The Wind Laughs recounted stories that the spiritologist Lien Baluanuki claimed to have heard from a sylphide, a wind spirit. Because the entire book was written in the enigmatic language of the spirits, scholars varied widely in their interpretations…but there was a single illustration in the original edition.
It depicted a creature with sharp claws and a long tail trailing on the ground. Its crest appeared to glimmer in a rainbow of ever-changing colors, its beak was pink, and its body was covered with fiery red plumage.
The magnificent creature was called a phoenix. Next to the illustration, written in Lien’s distinctive version of the continental lingua franca, were notes explaining that the bird presided over rebirth and belonged to the orders of both fire and light. Famously, these notes about the phoenix were used as a key to translate the rest of the text.
I always thought “fiery plumage” was a metaphor…
As the phoenix soared across the sky, scattering sparks, Brigitte realized that the bird’s body was swathed in literal flames. It wheeled and streaked overhead, and left a brilliant trail behind it.
It’s gorgeous…
When she looked closely, she noticed the phoenix had something in its beak. Just as she realized this, the bird swooped low across the sky, clearly focused on her.
“Uh-oh, it’s coming over here…,” Nival said nervously, backing up.
The phoenix alighted gracefully on a half-collapsed bookshelf. Although it was close enough to touch, it was not hot. Its fire must not be the kind that burned.
Ah…
Finally, Brigitte noticed what it held in its beak—a pair of white gloves.
Its beady eyes stared meaningfully at Brigitte, and she called its name.
“Peep.”
The phoenix answered with a gurgling cry deep in its throat. It was bobbing its neck up and down, as if to say, Hurry, take them. She reached out her empty right hand, but for some reason, Peep cooed grumpily. What could this mean? What was it unhappy about? Brigitte cocked her head. Yuri, still holding her left hand, lifted it in the air.
“I think it wants this one.”
“You do?”
Brigitte thought this was a ridiculous idea, but Peep’s eyes seemed to narrow in a semblance of a smile. Apparently, Yuri was right. She wriggled her left hand.
“Should I keep holding your hand?” she asked.
“What, you don’t want to?”
“…”
She was at a loss for words. Yuri was always unfair at times like this. He probably knew that if she really didn’t want to hold his hand, she would have withdrawn it already.
She wanted to run away or melt into the floor, but she stayed strong and raised her left hand, still entwined with Yuri’s right, toward the phoenix’s face.
It felt like they were making a vow.
As that thought crossed her mind, Peep spread one flaming wing wide and enclosed their hands in it.
Sparks swirled around them. Brigitte could hear someone gasp, but neither she nor Yuri pulled their hands back.