Epilogue

It was June, some time after we’d come back from the cave, when I went to visit Rosalind’s mansion again. I rang the bell at the front door of the huge house, but I didn’t have to wait long before I was greeted by a silver-haired maid.

“Sir Namidare, we’ve been waiting for you.”

“...”

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

“No,” I said.

I couldn’t tell her that I was trembling in awe at the sight of her. Not to her face. Especially not to someone I knew.

“Silver Slayer... Wait, I guess you’re Suzuran now, right? Have you gotten used to being a maid?”

“Yes, thank you for asking.” The silver-haired maid a.k.a Silver Slayer a.k.a Suzuran bowed as she answered.

She’d gone from being a homunculus to being human, but she still had no paperwork and no place to stay. Harissa was still living with me, so I wasn’t sure what to do about it myself... but surprisingly, it was Rosalind who had volunteered to take her in. She’d scoffed and said something to the effect of, “Hmph. Well, we have known each other a long time.”

And so now Silver Slayer was taking care of Rosalind as her maid. It gave her a place to live, but there was one other thing she wanted. It was to be rid of her homunculus name, “Silver Slayer the Vampire Hunter,” and gain a new name as a human. So we all came together to pick a new one for her.

“...Are you sure Suzuran was the right name for you, though?” I asked as I walked down the hallway behind her.

She turned to me and tilted her head to the side. “I’m sorry?”

“I mean, it’s a really simple name.”

Suzuran was the Japanese name of the flower she’d been staring at in the waiting area, lily of the valley. When we were deciding on a name, I’d remembered it and gotten out an encyclopedia to figure out what it was called. I added it to the list of candidates, but I didn’t think she’d actually pick it...

“I am very fond of the name that you gave me.”

But her gentle answer dissolved my worries.

“It’s the name that you, the person who granted my wish, tried your hardest to come up with. When I whisper the word ‘Suzuran’ within my heart, I feel warm here.” She held both hands up to her chest. “Just like the flower that shares my name, I want to meet lots of other people so we can all experience that warmth from now on.”

“I see. I guess it was a silly question.” I chuckled and scratched my head.

Suzuran looked at me and laughed softly.

We talked a little more as we headed for the third floor. We arrived just in time to see the door to Rosalind’s room fly open and a tiny girl pop out.

“Wh-What are you doing? It was just a little vase!” the young, dark-skinned girl wearing a maid outfit shouted.

It was Ulaula.

“Do you know how many you’ve broken today?! Do it again and I’ll send the wolves after you!” Rosalind yelled back.

Ulaula appeared to shudder in terror and turned to get away from the room as quickly as possible. Only then did she notice us approaching.

“Oh, it’s that human I hate so much!”

“If you’re blaming anybody, it should be yourself,” I said, but she wasn’t listening.

“You’ll regret the day you showed yourself to me! I don’t need a contract. I’ll kill you right now...”

“GET BACK TO WORK!” Rosalind roared from inside her room.

“Aaah!” Ulaula screamed and fled down the hallway.

“...Even as a vampire, she hasn’t really changed much, huh?”

“She was originally a demon, so not even turning her into a vampire seems to have affected her mind.”

Maybe demons had a different kind of mind than humans and animals? Rosalind was still clearly in control though, and she’d said she wasn’t going to let Ulaula drain anybody’s blood. And, well, if Rosalind said it, I could believe it.

“Sir Namidare, my mistress awaits.” Suzuran bowed slightly in front of the open door and ushered me inside.

“Roger that. I’ll just pray she’s not in a bad mood,” I said as I went inside. Suzuran softly closed the door behind me.

“...Hmph. So you came, Rekka?” Rosalind languidly sat up on the bed where she was resting.

“Hey, how’re you doing?”

“...Tired.”

She was wrapped up in blankets and her eyelids were swollen. All she’d done since we get got back was cry.

She’d woken up shortly after we’d returned to her mansion from abroad. Once awake, she finally accepted that she couldn’t get the past back and that my ancestor would never smile at her again... Then the tears started. Even after she’d calmed down long enough to decide what to do with Suzuran and Ulaula, she would still break down and sob for most of the day. The next thing I knew, she’d missed two weeks of school.

But the truth was that the rest of us had been out of school without permission for a week while we were off looking for the pot too. Rosalind had started skipping classes around the same time, but she was the only one who hadn’t come back to school yet. Speculation and nasty rumors abounded, plenty of which involved me. The teachers had repeatedly asked to talk with me about it, and I was honestly getting pretty tired of it.

“Listen... you think you’re about ready to come back to school?”

The reason I was here today, in fact, was because my homeroom teacher had told me to visit Rosalind.

“No. I can’t let anyone see me like this.”

Hmm... Well, that I could kind of understand.

“Oh, that’s right. The pool’s opening soon. Our school does it a little earlier than the others, I guess, and they’re putting the water in early next week.”

“Flowing water isn’t a weakness of mine, but that doesn’t mean I like it!”

What...? Swimming class was the most popular class in the whole country this time of year. I never imagined anyone would get upset over it.

“...Well, anyway. You’re the one who used your charm to create all that fake paperwork and get them to accept your transfer, right? If you don’t start coming to school, they’re going to start calling you Rosalind the Truant, and I don’t think you want that.”

“...”

Still nothing. She just looked away. Okay, I figured it was time to try my last resort and tell her what I really thought. If that didn’t work, I would just go home.

“I want you to go to school, though.”

With that, she gave me a little glance.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“It’s got to be boring sitting in the house all day, right?”

She laughed.

“Rosalind, you’ve... you’ve had a rough time, so I want you to be really happy now.”

“...Does that mean that you’re going to make me happy?” She turned to me, looking up at me needily.

Come on now...

“Listen... weren’t you supposed to stop treating me like I’m my ancestor?”

“That’s not what I meant!” She leaped out from under the covers and crawled towards me... but then realized how desperate she looked and quickly pulled the covers around herself again. “That’s... not what I meant, Rekka.”

She sounded really hurt, and I realized that I’d made a mistake.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Indeed. As long as you understand...”

There was a moment of silence between us. And finally...

“You win. Starting tomorrow, I’ll go to school.”

“Really?”

That would make me happy. Her too. But she put a condition on it.

“Just for tomorrow... will you walk to school with me?”

“Sure, but... why?”

I didn’t really mean anything by asking, but Rosalind pulled the covers all the way over her head.

In a barely audible voice, she whispered, “D-Don’t make me say it...”

▽

It was Sunday, just one day before the pool opened. We’d gone to the airport to say goodbye to Chelsea.

“Bye, guys. Thanks for everything, really.”

“Don’t sweat it. Right, Hibiki?”

“Yeah,” Hibiki said, nodding.

“You guys really aren’t treating this like the big deal it is. Does helping people come as naturally to you as breathing or something?” Chelsea joked, laughing a little. Then she looked to the side. “And thank you too, Satsuki. Without you, I never would’ve been able to figure out how to make that elixir from the philosopher’s stone so quickly. And Iris, your spaceship helped a ton too.”

“Don’t worry about that either. It seems like I caused a lot of problems for you too, so we’re even,” Satsuki said.

“That’s right. I didn’t come to my senses until the middle of the climax, and then I got knocked out. The only thing I really could do to help was play taxi,” Iris added.

“I-I was totally useless,” Harissa said, a little disappointed.

“No, that’s not true!”

“You were great!”

“You did just fine!”

Satsuki, Iris, and Chelsea surrounded Harissa and tried to make her feel better. She was just the kind of girl that nobody liked to see sad, like some cute little animal. As they fawned over her, we heard the announcement that it was time for Chelsea’s plane to board.

“Okay, it’s time to say goodbye.” Chelsea grabbed her luggage and came back over to me and Hibiki. “I’ll say it again. Thank you. From the bottom of my heart. Without your help, my little brother wouldn’t have made it.”

She then wrapped her arms around both of us in a big hug... And kissed me on the cheek!

“Huh? What?!”

I recoiled in shock. Hibiki looked dead frozen with a similar expression on her face, so I was guessing Chelsea had probably done the same thing to her.

“Aaah!” Hibiki and the other girls screamed.

Were they all shocked by the unusual way Chelsea said goodbye?

“Bye, you two. I’m going to keep wandering around the world, but just call me if you need me. You can bet I’ll be there.”

That was the last thing she said as she picked up her luggage and headed for the gate. Her little brother was waiting for her and waved. He bowed once to us, and then the two of them disappeared into the crowd.

Chelsea was probably going to keep traveling the world as a treasure hunter, but she’d told me what her first stop was going to be. She and her brother were heading home for the first time since they left all those years ago. She was going to face her past and once more start walking towards her own tomorrow.

▽

And so we’d said a pleasant goodbye and ended the story on a happy note. Or so I thought. About an hour later on our way home on the train...

“Hey, Rekka! What was that kiss about? What happened with you and that girl while I wasn’t around?”

“D-Dat’s right! I-I wanna know too, durn it!”

I was getting the third degree from Iris and Harissa. Satsuki, however, hadn’t said a word. She was just silently sitting across from me and staring. Of course, they were talking about the kiss Chelsea had given me before she’d left. I was getting all kinds of questions about it.

“Well, what’s the story?” Iris asked.

“What happened?” Harissa chimed in.

Satsuki was still silent.

Only Hibiki had gone through the same thing I did, so she was sitting in the next row of seats and ignoring us.

But come on! You could at least stick up for me...

“I told you, it didn’t really mean anything...”

I started to explain that it was just how people in foreign countries said goodbye, but...

“Aww... And I was going to have my first kiss with Rekka at the amusement park three weeks ago!” Iris declared.

The bomb was dropped.

“What?!” the other girls shouted.

They were all just as surprised as I was... Wait, why was Hibiki reacting like that too?

Iris had only told me she wanted to go to the amusement park! Why was she thinking about something like that?! She should only be doing that with a boy she really liked... Wait.

“What are you saying, Iris? Were you trying to get to him before me?!” Satsuki, who had so far been silent, was the first one to yell.

I’d told her that I would go to the amusement park with her too. Of course she’d get mad to find out Iris had some weird plan...

“Don’t you even start! You were hoping things would get romantic after a fun afternoon at the park too, weren’t you?”

“...”

...Satsuki? Why are you getting so quiet again?

But that wasn’t all. Harissa spoke up too.

“W-Weren’t you supposed to go clothes shopping with me that Sunday?!”

Yes, I was. There went the next bomb.

“What did you say?!” Satsuki and Iris clamored in the same breath, stopping their argument to shoot daggers my way.

Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap! This was seriously scary! And I had the seat farthest from the aisle, so there was nowhere to run. I was trapped. Satsuki, Iris, and Harissa closed in on me and began to question me, but then Hibiki piped up too.

“I see. So that’s why you invited me to the amusement park.”

Another bomb.

A poor boy like me couldn’t survive having three bombs dropped on him! There’d be nothing left of me!

No, Hibiki was probably just saying that because she finally realized there’d been a misunderstanding when we talked on the phone that day, but even if she didn’t mean anything by it, it only made things worse for me!

“Rekka...”

“Oh, Rekka...”

“Sir Rekka...”

See? Did you hear that?! Those voices that sound like they’re coming up from the pits of hell?!

“Would you look at that... They’re fighting over you again. Gee, who could’ve seen that coming?”

R, shaddup!

“W-Wait! Let’s just forget about the past, and focus on the fut—”

They didn’t even give me the chance to finish my sentence. Palms, fists, and a staff were raised in unison.

And as I listened to the pleasant sound of them slapping my face over and over, I realized... you can make up for your failures in the past, but you can’t pretend they never happened.

Now—gwah! Um, guys... Ouch! Cut it out! Ack, please! Gaaah!

—Fin—