CHAPTER 303: MEMORIES OF A SINGLE WING

 

～Magarasu’s POV～

This was back when I still had both wings on my back.

Even now, I had not forgotten how cold the wind had been that day.

The judgment grounds of Tengu Valley.

The downward-blowing current that swept into the valley floor had stabbed at my skin as though it possessed a will of its own.

At the center of it, I had been pinned to the ground.

All because I had ‘driven the intruders away without killing them’. …That alone.

I had judged that sending them back with fear would serve as a greater deterrent than simply killing them.

Because I had believed blades alone were not enough to protect this valley.

「No one was harmed! Besides, if we want people to know this valley is dangerous, letting intruders go back alive should spread that far faster than killing them!」

I had shouted until my voice nearly broke.

This was not a defense for my own sake.

It was because I could already see the future ahead—a future in which Tengu Valley’s code would one day rob every thinking member of our kind of their freedom.

「The code is supposed to exist to protect this land! It’s not meant to forbid us from thinking!」

At my words, the tengu around us had sucked in their breath.

Defying the chief was something that should never have been allowed.

Up on the rocky ledge above us, the Great Tengu Tenkei, chief of the tengu tribe, looked down at me with eyes utterly stripped of emotion.

「—So. You object.」

That single sentence alone froze the air.

「To harbor doubt toward the code… that itself is a crime.」

「That can’t—!」

My cry had been swallowed by the wind, and in the next instant my body had been torn up from the ground.

The wind bound me like a beast obeying Tenkei’s command.

「Damn you…!」

I had desperately tried to spread my wings.

But a crushing pressure had borne down on me.

It had felt as though the wind itself—no, the very sky—had rejected me.

「The right to fly through the heavens is granted only to those who obey the code.」

The steel war fan in Tenkei’s hand had opened.

The sound of it had been unnervingly quiet.

No one had been able to move. After those few seconds of stillness, his right arm had slowly come down.

Then, in the next instant, an impact and searing pain had ripped through my back.

And together with that pain, one certainty had been carved into my mind—

a cold understanding that if I kept submitting like this, nothing would ever change.

My body had been hurled to the ground and sent rolling.

The sound of the wind had suddenly grown distant.

And at the same time, I had realized that one of my wings was ‘no longer connected to the sky’.

「…Ah… aa…」

Even when I reached for it, my wing gave no answer.

Even when I tried to flap it, I could no longer grasp the air.

At the edge of my vision, Tenkei had pronounced my sentence.

「This is the punishment for defying the code. A heretic has no need for wings.」

No one had moved.

There had been no one to help me.

That, too, had been the actions dictated by ‘the code’.

The reason I had not been killed was not mercy.

It was an example.

As the fate of one who dared think, I was stripped of the sky and forced to crawl upon the earth.

That was judgment.

That day, I had lost the sky.

And at the same time, I had become certain.

This judgment is going to destroy the tengu themselves someday.

Then—

I had to obtain the power to break through that future myself.

What does it mean to protect?

What does it mean to judge?

Someday, I would choose those answers again with my own hands.

Until that day came, I would go on crawling across the earth.

I did not care.

Anything was better than having my heart itself bound in chains…

◇　　◇　　◇　　◇

—And now.

There stood the intruder, Aun, planted in the valley without flinching before the raging wind.

The moment I saw him, a single drop of heat fell into my emotions.

…He carries a strangely familiar air.

He stood there like the very embodiment of ‘freedom’.

Wild, and utterly straightforward in all he said.

He wore with ease the very air I had failed to seize that day.

But… at the same time, he irritated me.

That man stood where I had never managed to reach.

It was not sympathy.

It was not envy.

I simply—

I want to surpass him.

When we had first faced each other at the mouth of the valley, Aun had certainly been strong.

But compared to now, he was clearly different.

The instant he clenched his fist, the surrounding wind warped.

It was not bloodlust. Not intimidation.

It was simply the unmistakable weight of his existence itself.

So back then, he was only measuring my strength…

Now, the only one in his sight was Tenkei.

But that one man was the code itself.

The tengu around us had started to move, but the beastwoman and the young beast blocked their path.

When I looked toward the youth who had been treated moments ago, his wounds were already gone.

「Don’t interfere.」

Her voice was quiet.

Yet blue flames stitched the air in place.

Elsewhere, the young beast bared its sharp fangs.

It radiated the kind of pressure that said, ‘Take even one more step, and I’ll tear your throat out’.

But I understood.

This was not genuine killing intent.

They were setting the stage.

They’ve divided the roles completely…

This place was—

Aun and Tenkei.

Choice and code.

A stage stripped bare, leaving only those who must collide.

Aun merely clenched his fist and slowly settled into his stance.

At that moment, I understood.

…In the end, I couldn’t do anything.

The wind let out a low cry.

What was about to begin now—was it the ‘future where we can choose’ I had once dreamed of?

Or was it ‘absolute unfreedom’?

That answer—

Aun and Tenkei were about to smash into each other to decide.