Opening

The rainbow bridge was already disappearing from the sky.

Now all that they could make out was a faint trace of the rainbow’s right foot above the mountain range in the distance.

“…”

Projecting from the back of the Boar Hat’s pointed roof was a long, narrow lookout tower. Sitting alone on its handrail was a boy.

His chestnut-colored hair stuck up wildly. He face looked slightly sleepy.

For a long time he had accompanied the friends now in the shop along their journeys. But at the moment, he seemed to really want to avoid being in the others’ circle.

The boy glanced down at his feet, discontented.

Directly underneath the lookout tower where he was, hidden by the roof, two men had come out of the shop and sat side-by-side on the balcony that stuck out from the side of the shop. They were deep in discussion.

Distracted by the footsteps of the giant boar on the move, the boy couldn’t hear their voices well. But he had taken great pains to look for a place with no people before settling on the lookout tower and couldn’t help but find the two men irritating.

“They should just go back inside. Those jerks, Gilthunder and Howzer. They’re always together anyway, what could they still have to talk about?” the boy muttered, and heard a mocking laugh in response.

“What is it, Helbram?”

The boy slid on a worn-out helmet sewn into the hood of his clothes. He looked out through the six narrow vertical slits of the grille, and another boy, who looked to be the same age as him, floated lightly in the sky in front of his eyes.

“Aren’t you being a bit jealous, Harlequin?”

With the bright green hair, pointed ears, and thin wings growing out of his back, no matter how you looked at him, he was a fairy.

His name was Helbram. In his current state he was able to exist only as a spirit and was inhabiting the helmet. He was Harlequin’s closest friend.

“Who’s jealous?” pouted Harlequin.

“It might be strange for me to say this, but those two have been through quite a lot in the past ten years, too. Isn’t it understandable that they might want to exchange old grievances and feel sentimental? Though I guess it’s not my place to talk…”

Harlequin sighed, and was quiet once more.

Over the past decade, among the many things that had happened in the Kingdom of Liones, there had been one particularly complex circumstance that could not be easily summed up.

Nearly everyone involved had made some terrible mistakes of their own and were tormented by a powerful sense of remorse.

Even so, that complicated series of events had in the end only been an omen for an unprecedented menace assailing the kingdom—or rather, all of Britannia.

So there wasn’t any time to be caught up with resentment, sorrow, or regret. Now was the time they needed to join their forces and fight against the approaching threat.

“I know that,” Harlequin muttered.

I know that. I know that, but…

No matter how I try, I can’t get my feelings sorted out.

There was Hendrickson, who, possessed by a demon, had used Helbram’s body and spirit as guinea pigs in some magical experiment that drove him to his death.

There were Meliodas and Merlin, who likely knew important—even vital—information about their circumstances, but never shared it.

And worst of all was Gowther, who toyed with the girl Harlequin held dearest.

In his current mood, the boy could not possibly join with them and fight.

“For crying out loud…You’re so stubborn. You know you’ll regret it sooner or later, so why are you being so pig-headed?” Lightly swaying up and down, Helbram shrugged his shoulders.

“Oh, shut up. You’re pretty okay with all this, considering you’re under the same roof as Hendrickson, the same guy who made you like that!”

“Well, it’s not that I’m okay with it, exactly, but…how should I put it. Since I’ve lost my body, intense pain and feelings like that have faded. And in any case, he seems to regret it, and it’s not like I’m blameless, either.” Helbram fluttered his hands.

Harlequin gave no response.

“Are you feeling down again? Did you remember? What happened two hundred years ago?”

“…Not really.”

“You’re such a terrible liar.” Helbram laughed. “The rainbow is already disappearing. See, look, Harlequin.”

Just as Helbram said, the rainbow they could still see a bit of a moment ago had lost its color and was disappearing.

“I always remember the Fairy Realm when I see a rainbow.”

At Helbram’s words, Harlequin narrowed his eyes too.

Just as Helbram said, rainbows often appeared in the Fairy Realm. The huge divine tree rising at its center would soak up fallen rain and release it back into the air, so usually a small rainbow would form among its branches.

Harlequin remembered.

Come to think of it, he also had a memory about a rainbow.

In the place where he used to live with her.

It seemed to have lasted forever and to appear only for an instant—a nostalgic memory.

Harlequin thought that was rather like a rainbow.

1

Northern Britannia: Deep within a remote forest, a late spring arrived.

The sound of the waterfall, heavier with the winter thaw, roared in the distance.

Animals that had been hibernating in the dirt and cavities in the trees were finally starting to emerge.

The forest was growing denser with greenery with each passing day. A small shadow flew through the verdant woods, lightly touching the glistening sunlight filtering through the trees.

It was a young fairy boy—Harlequin.

“Oh, these look good, too.” He flew down to the root of one of the trees and plucked a cluster of mushrooms. “This area has a lot of mushrooms.”

Looking around, he saw many types spreading their colorful caps in the shade of rocks and on rotten trees.

“As I thought, this area must always be damp because of the waterfall nearby. The ventilation here isn’t very good, either. It hasn’t been long since I last saw these shrubs, but they’re growing rampant…” Muttering to himself, he tossed mushrooms into the basket he held in his hand one-by-one.

“Okay, I think this should just about do it. And next…Oh, that’s right.”

He easily flew up, peeking into the empty dens in a few locations higher up in the forest, and found a small bird’s three newly laid eggs.

“I’m sorry.” Apologizing softly, Harlequin picked out one of the eggs.

The Fairy Clan ate neither eggs nor meat. It wasn’t that those foods were inedible for them, but they didn’t have the custom of cooking with fire, so it was normal not to eat those foods.

So why did Harlequin take the bird’s egg?

“Harlequin!”

As he heard his name called, heavy, threatening footsteps made the forest trees shake.

From the other side of the grove appeared a giant.

She was still a child, the equivalent of a young human girl who was not yet ten years old. Dark brown hair hung down to her shoulders. Her clothes consisted only of scraps cobbled together from bearskins, which she wrapped around her body.

“Hey, Diane. How’s it going?”

“I got lots!” The giant girl called Diane smiled triumphantly, then raised the three wild boars she was holding in her hand to show him. “How about you, Harlequin? What did you get?”

“These. But it’s not much compared to you.” Harlequin raised his basket with a smile of his own.

“Oooh, an egg, an egg! That’ll taste great in the mushroom soup!” Even though for this giant girl, the small bird’s egg was only the size of her pinky nail, she excitedly jumped up and down. Each time she jumped, the nearby trees shook.

“All right, let’s eat!”

“Okay.” Harlequin floated up into the air, following Diane, who had started walking off.

2

“Diane, has your fever gone down?”

They were atop a hill on the outskirts of the forest. A large boulder covered the stump of a giant tree, which was rotted hollow. Inside the hollow was their den.

Harlequin had asked while they were eating, and Diane laughed, amused. “I’ve been over it for a while now. Harlequin, you’re such a worrywart. That was a while ago.”

Not long ago, Diane had had a high fever from a cold and been on the verge of death.

“Since the Fairy Clan doesn’t get sick, we don’t understand health very well.”

“Must be nice to not get sick. Then, do you not die?” Diane sunk her teeth into the whole roasted wild boar, chewing loudly.

“No, if we’re severely injured or something, we die.” Saying so, Harlequin’s expression turned brooding. “If we’re severely injured…we die.”

“What’s wrong?” Diane looked at him. Harlequin, surprised, forced a smile.

“Sorry. It’s nothing.”

“Did you remember something?”

“No, that’s not it. I felt like I was about to remember something, though. But now it’s gone.”

“If that’s the case, you might have died back then. I’m glad you didn’t.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Thanks.”

The two smiled at each other.

Once, Diane had rescued Harlequin when he was injured and fallen on the ground.

Both the Fairy Clan and the Giant Clan have very long lifespans, so their sense of days was different from humans’. Diane and Harlequin no longer accurately remembered how many years ago that had happened. It may have been decades ago—or even a century ago.

And from the shock of his fall, Harlequin had lost his memories.

All he could remember was that he was a member of the Fairy Clan, and that his name was Harlequin.

Sometimes he had dreams.

A giant tree stretching into the sky. Rainbows straddling the branches. The deep forest spreading out all around.

Blooming flowers. Mushrooms larger than he was tall. Ivy entwining with the trees.

And the small figures who flew among that scenery, flickering their colorful wings.

He was most likely seeing the Fairy Realm and his friends.

Yet, as befitting something that happens in a dream, every time he tried to grasp the scene, it vanished.

Harlequin actually didn’t have wings. Even the clothes he wore was different from what the fairies in his dream wore. Harlequin’s own attire was similar to what humans wore, but he had no idea as to why that might be.

But he felt that he was a fairy, as much as he felt he was male.

However, it wasn’t just his own history that he was in the dark about.

He also didn’t know much about Diane’s past, though she lived with him.

The Giant Clan was said to be the first of the clans born in Britannia. They were known to have an affinity with the earth and wielded its power as their own. But as a result of their strong fighting spirit and tendency to seek out battle, they didn’t often mingle with other races and lived secluded in their isolated villages—supposedly.

Though she was young, Diane wielded great magical power. By all rights she probably should have been training in a Giant Clan village as a potent prospective military asset. So Harlequin wondered what had driven her to live in this place all alone.

But he never asked.

He thought it might be a sad story.

He also thought it was unfair to ask someone about themselves when he couldn’t talk about himself in return.

Right now, the two of us are living well just by ourselves. Isn’t that good enough? he thought.

But there were times.

Sometimes, something ached in the depths of his heart.

Wasn’t there something that I was supposed to do?

Is it okay to be living like this, thinking only about my own happiness?

Sometimes, a girl named Elaine would appear in his dreams.

She was a pretty young girl with bright blond hair, in a white dress.

Sometimes a boy named Helbram appeared too.

Elaine didn’t have wings and Helbram did, but there was no mistake that they were both fairies.

He believed Elaine was his younger sister and Helbram was a close friend.

Elaine, sometimes angry and sometimes sad.

Helbram, always smiling.

Somehow, he had the feeling that those two had a lot to do with why he was here.

But when he tried to think about that more, the connection disappeared like a fog burning away.

3

One day, at dusk, Diane said to him, “Hey, hey, Harlequin, I just saw a human over there.”

“A human? It wasn’t that old hunter?” Harlequin had been cleaning the interior of their den. He turned his head as Diane entered.

The old hunter was a male human living in a cabin on the outskirts of the forest.

Diane had become acquainted with him when she assisted him with hunting once, and when she was struck with fever after coming down with a bad cold, he had taught them how to make medicine.

“Not him. It was a boy.”

“A boy? In a place like this?” Harlequin frowned.

It’s probably someone from that hunter’s family. I remember him saying he had a daughter—

“A boy, you said…About how old?”

“Hmm…I’m not sure. But from what I saw, he was a little bigger than you.”

“Where was he, and what was he doing?”

“Let’s see,” Diane answered happily. “I was taking a nap on Lone Cedar Hill and saw a boy walking by himself in the meadow across the river. He had a brown cloth wrapped around him and was wearing a hat that looked like this.” Diane gestured around her head and traced the shape of a wide-brimmed hat.

“A traveler, perhaps.”

That’s rare, thought Harlequin. We’ve lived here for a long time, but besides that hunter, we haven’t seen any other people.

“Diane, I tell you this all the time, but—”

“You can’t trust humans, right?” Diane laughed.

“Th-That’s right. That hunter is a good person, but there are very bad people among humans, too. So unless you know what kind of person they are, don’t do anything reckless.”

“Yeah, I know.” Diane nodded, smiling.

I’m still a little worried. But if it’s a traveler, he’s probably just passing through on his way somewhere else, thought Harlequin.

He won’t stay in a place like this with nothing at all for very long. However.

The next day, when Harlequin was heading into the forest to look for food—

“Waaaaggghhhh!”

He heard a loud cry, and when he looked back, over the hill across from him, a cloud of dust was running towards him.

“D-Dusk bison!” Harlequin gasped.

It was a wild bull with huge horns.

Why was that bull, which was, as its name implied, mostly active at dusk, charging at full speed in the middle of the day?

“S-Save me!”

“That’s…”

A human boy was being chased by the bison.

“A brown cape. He must be that guy Diane saw.”

The boy didn’t have on a wide-brimmed hat, but he might’ve dropped it while he was running.

“Guess I have to do something…” Harlequin said to himself.

He didn’t really care whether a human lived or died, but if Diane came across his corpse, she’d be rather shocked.

Harlequin floated into the air, and then flew after the boy, who looked like he’d be caught in the dusk bison’s horns any second now.

With just a hair’s breadth of time to spare, Harlequin grabbed the edge of the boy’s cape and pulled him up into the air.

“…!!”

The dusk bison, whose target had disappeared right before its eyes, kept running down the hill at full speed, unable to change course or come to an abrupt stop.

Crash!

The bull smashed into a large boulder, making an enormous noise, and was immobilized. Harlequin spoke to the boy he was carrying.

“Isn’t it great, you’re safe now.”

“…”

“Hey, shouldn’t you be saying something?”

“Gaahhhk, gaahhhk…”

“Oh!”

The cape was constricting the boy’s throat, and he was about to pass out. Harlequin hurriedly flew down to the ground.

The fairy dropped the boy and waited as he held his throat and panted for air. When the boy finally regained his breath, he rose slowly.

“Th-Thank you…” He looked up at Harlequin and gave a feeble smile.

“You’re welcome.”

“Excuse me, are you a fairy? Amazing. I’ve never seen one before.”

Harlequin was silent.

“Oh, that’s right!” Remembering something, the boy felt around his waist on his right side. There was an item that looked like a stick wrapped in a red leather bag inserted into his belt. Reassuring himself it was still there, he sighed in relief.

“Thank goodness…I still have it…”

“…?” Harlequin didn’t know what it was, but it didn’t look like a sword.

The boy turned to Harlequin once more and quickly bowed his head.

“Really, thank you for saving me,” he said. “I leaned on what I thought was a boulder, but actually I was disturbing that bull’s nap time.”

“I don’t know what you’re doing in a place like this, but there are also bears and wolves around. You should leave soon. If you’re lost, there’s a family of hunters of living just beyond here, so you could ask them for directions.”

“Well, I have gotten myself lost, but…” The boy stood up and looked around, his hands on his waist. “Hey, you seem like you know a lot about this area. Would you perhaps happen to know about the Rainbow Waterfall?”

“The Rainbow Waterfall?” Harlequin tilted his head to the side. “There is a waterfall if you travel upstream along the river flowing by that—this hill. But I don’t know what its name is.”

“Oh, so it is that river. Does it end inside the forest?” The boy stood on tiptoe and cupped a hand over his brow.

“That’s right. It’s rather far back.”

“Hmm, is that so…I heard that a rainbow always sprouts from the top of the waterfall during the day.”

“Nah, that’s not true.” Harlequin recalled the waterfall’s appearance. “It’s deep within the forest, and there’s hardly any sunlight, so I’ve never seen a rainbow there.”

“I see…” The boy hung his head. “Is that the only waterfall around these parts?”

“As far as I know.”

The boy contemplated some more, but before long he straightened his cape and checked the stick at his waist once again.

“Thank you. I’m going to go see it myself after all.”

“You’re really going? It’s pretty far. On human legs.”

“Yes…But finding a forest with fairies in it has given me hope. Thank you very much.” The boy smiled. Then he turned his back to Harlequin and walked off.

Harlequin watched the boy’s back until it passed out of sight.

Is it okay to let him go? Or should I have removed him…

…Remove?

He surprised himself with that word.

Come to think of it, though, in his dream, wasn’t he always arguing with his younger sister Elaine about something like protecting the forest, or this and that about handling intruders?

But try as he might, he couldn’t remember anything specific.

The boy was still climbing the grass-covered hill, wandering here and there.

Well, I guess it’s okay…He doesn’t look like such a bad human.

He didn’t seem to have any magical power or to be carrying a weapon. It’s not like a boy can do much on his own.

For now, I’ll just tell Diane not to go near the waterfall for a bit.

Harlequin nodded to himself, then flew off to look for food once again.

4

Three days passed.

While Harlequin was flying through the forest as he always did, he heard a faint, unfamiliar noise.

A bird?

He first thought that the resonant pi~pi~ was a bird’s call, but quickly realized that it wasn’t.

The sound formed into a velvety melody.

“A flute…”

Yes. The sound of a flute.

A musical instrument that humans play.

Harlequin flew through the grove, drawn towards the sound.

“Ah.”

He could hear running water over the melody of the flute.

Of course. The waterfall is just beyond here. The one the boy attacked by the dusk bison said he was heading for.

Harlequin approached the waterfall quietly, hiding between tree trunks.

It had not rained much the summer before, so the waterfall’s flow was less than usual, but still water flew down, creating a violent white spray.

The boy sat on a large boulder nearby.

He had a side-blown flute pressed to his lips. It was made from some kind of white material, bone or horn, and he played the song wholeheartedly.

I see, in the bag around his waist was that flute.

It was a beautiful song.

It seemed cheery, but sometimes also felt very lonely.

Human flutes can make beautiful sounds like this…Harlequin thought to himself. It’s so different from the flute from then.

—“Then?”

Harlequin was surprised.

When was “then”?

A scene suddenly rose up in his mind.

Helbram smiling, holding a small flute made from hollowed-out wood.

“Since you do it too, Helbram won’t give up his bad habits either.”

Elaine looked like she was in a bad mood.

Harlequin held a similar flute in hand.

That was right.

He’d picked up a flute used to ward off beasts, which some human had dropped.

When he came back to the Fairy Realm, Helbram was carrying a similar flute, too.

Elaine became angry with them, accusing them of having gone off to play in the human world again—

His flute from that time made a strange pii-hyoh-roh-roh noise when he blew into it.

Without his noticing, Harlequin had started crying.

I don’t know. I don’t know when that memory was or what it was about.

I don’t know anything, so why am I sad?

Perhaps the song the boy was playing was too beautiful.

The musical scale smoothly rose and fell.

The refrain held steady through the changes in key.

A melody by turns cheerful, playful, and heartrending.

The melody repeated itself, modulating its tone a little each time—it was causing him to remember something—

Abruptly, the song broke off and Harlequin returned to his senses.

He looked up to see the boy sitting atop the boulder, unchanged.

He seemed to be merely gazing at the basin under the waterfall, with his flute still pressed to his mouth.

Harlequin thought about calling out to him, but something stopped him. Instead he began to leave.

However—

“Is that it?!”

A voice he knew very well broke in.

Downstream from the waterfall, a thicket split with a crunch and Diane’s face peeked through.

“Aaahhh! A giant!” the boy shouted.

“Hey, I want to hear more! Keep playing!” Diane tried to climb over the thicket and get closer. Overcome with surprise, the boy tried to flee. But his leg slipped—

“Aaahhh!”

He tumbled headfirst into the basin.

5

“Come on, hey, wake up!”

“Waahh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”

Harlequin and Diane had hauled the boy back to land as soon as he fell in. He shouldn’t have swallowed too much water, but he didn’t rouse easily.

While they waited for him to come to, they built a fire nearby and made a soup from mushrooms found in the vicinity and birds and eggs that Diane gathered. As if lured to consciousness by the smell, the boy finally opened his eyes.

“Where am…Oh, you’re that guy from…”

“Sorry for scaring you.” As Diane peered in from his side, the boy screamed again.

“It’s all right,” Harlequin said. “She’s my friend. She’s also the one who picked you out of the waterfall.”

“Oh, really…Thank you. Ah—” The boy turned pale. “Flute! My flute!”

“Your flute’s over there. You flung it away when you fell. It was next to the boulder.” Harlequin jerked his chin, indicating the boy’s side.

The boy picked up his flute and smiled, relieved. At that moment, his stomach growled loudly.

“How about we have some food?” Harlequin brusquely poured some of the contents of the pot into a wooden bowl and held it out to the boy.

“Th-Thank you. First time in days since I’ve had real food…” The boy crinkled his eyes happily, blowing on the soup a couple of times before beginning to slurp it down happily.

“That flute is very important to you,” Diane remarked, smiling, and the boy gave an embarrassed nod.

“Now you’ve rescued me twice. My name is Terrence. Please call me Terry.”

“I’m Diane.”

“And I’m Harlequin. From the looks of you, you haven’t had proper food since we met last time. I told you it’d be impossible for a human to go all the way.”

As he was about to tell the boy to hurry and go back home, Diane interrupted.

“Hey, Terry. That song you were playing, was that all of it? Why did you come here? What are you doing?”

“Diane…” Harlequin gave her a troubled glance.

But Terry only laughed a little sadly without looking particularly offended.

“Up until a short while ago, I was part of a traveling troupe.”

Gripping his flute, Terry started talking.

“I was told that my parents died when I was only an infant, and that I was raised as part of the troupe ever since. The person who looked after me the most was a man called Marius the Flutist. He told me I had a talent for the flute and taught me many things.”

Terry cast down his eyes with a but.

“Everything went well for a while. But as the songs I learned became more and more difficult, as you might expect, practice became more and more of a hassle. So often I’d slip off behind Marius’ back to go and play. But one day, when I returned to the troupe’s tent…”

“When you returned?”

Terry took a deep breath, and continued with difficulty. “Everyone was dead.”

“Dead?”

Harlequin and Diane looked at each other.

“You said they were dead? Were they killed by bandits or something?” Harlequin asked. Terry quietly shook his head.

“I don’t know…Usually, a traveling troupe is summoned by kings or nobility for celebrations or festivals and goes from town to town. But because they tend to visit places that favor them every year, the route is generally set, and troupes try to avoid dangerous areas as much as they can. That day, we were camping at a spot we were familiar with, near the riverbank along a large main road that we took every year.”

Telling them how he’d grown more irritated with Marius’ nagging year by year, Terry was moved to tears.

“I took a nap in the forest nearby, and when I returned to the tent, everyone, every single person was cut down. And nothing valuable had been taken, and it didn’t look as if any of the women or children were assaulted, they were just…just killed.”

“How terrible,” Diane murmured, covering her mouth.

“Later I heard that area had similar occurrences before. I think there must have been someone lurking around who just likes to kill.”

“For crying out loud, humans are really worthless.” Harlequin let out a sigh. “Only humans do things like kill others of their own race for no reason.”

“I guess so.” Terry gave a humorless laugh. He continued, “When I got back, Marius was just barely breathing. This is the flute that he gave me in his last moments.” He gently caressed his precious white flute.

“So that song you were playing earlier, did you learn it from him?” Diane asked, and Terry nodded.

“It’s called The Promised Rainbow. When Marius was young, he once saw a small waterfall that always had a rainbow across it. He said he wrote the song then.”

Terry looked off in the distance with another but.

“Because I was always slacking off, I can’t remember the final phrase no matter how hard I try. I know I learned it once, but I can’t recall the melody.”

“So, you came to see the Rainbow Waterfall?” Harlequin asked. Terry nodded again.

“That’s right. If I remember correctly, he said it was around here. But I guess this isn’t the place after all.” The boy looked in the direction of the waterfall that he had fallen into earlier. The sun had already gone down and in the dark, of course, he couldn’t see any rainbows.

“There are other waterfalls around. You should give up on this one already and go look someplace else,” Harlequin said curtly.

Terry smiled.

“Yeah. You’re right…I feel a bit better now that I’ve come this far.”

“Wait, are you leaving?” Diane looked a bit disconsolate. “I wanted to hear you play the flute again.”

“Diane, don’t be unreasonable. This isn’t a place for humans.”

“I see.” The giant hung her head, dejected. Harlequin sighed again, as though to say, Good grief.

“Well, your clothes haven’t dried yet, and the sun has already set, so why not set out tomorrow?”

“Yes, that sounds good.” Terry nodded in assent, and Diane clapped her hands happily.

“Great! Then let’s hear some more of that flute!”

“Okay. What do you want to hear?”

Terry, smiling, put his flute up to his lips.

6

“Looks like she fell asleep.” Terry glanced back at Harlequin with an amused expression.

It was near dawn. Their surroundings were hushed but for the sound of the waterfall.

Diane, who had been singing and clapping her hands to the rhythm of Terry’s flute just a short while ago, lay with a giant boulder for a pillow. She breathed gently with an air of utter satisfaction.

“Why don’t you get some sleep, too? When the sun comes up, I’ll escort you out of the forest.” Harlequin tossed a small stick onto the fire, and Terry nodded.

“Thank you. It’s too bad I didn’t get to see the Rainbow Waterfall, but it was nice to meet you guys.”

Copying Harlequin, Terry tossed a small stick onto the fire.

“So you and Diane have been here for a long time, just the two of you?”

“Yeah.”

“How nice. I’ve heard that fairies and giants have really long lifespans. And you can use magic, so even if some beast or evil human came by, you could handle it.”

At those words, Harlequin felt a prick in the depths of his heart. But he couldn’t identify what it was.

“You’re such a weak human, why would you come to a dangerous place like this?” Though Harlequin usually wasn’t interested in humans, this point was bothering him.

Terry hung his head and gazed at the fire. “I sincerely regret that I was such a lazy oaf. I never thought that Marius and I would part so suddenly. I thought that tomorrow would continue just the same as today, so if I slacked off a bit, I’d be able to make it up later.”

“…”

“Ultimately, I never got to ask Marius why he titled that song The Promised Rainbow. But as he was dying, I promised him I would learn to play it.”

“So, you still plan on finding your waterfall?”

“Yes.” Terry nodded. “Ah…It’s already dawn.”

The two of them looked up. Through the openings in the grove above them, the bits of sky they could see were already purplish bright, and the stars were gone.

“I’ll get a little sleep before I head out. Thank you, Harlequin.” Saying so, Terry lay down, using his arm for a pillow.

About to throw a small stick onto the fire, Harlequin halted his hand and let out a small sigh. “A promised song, huh…”

Something pricked at his heart again.

“When that time comes, you have to stop me! You, my true friend!”

Helbram…

The boy, always smiling in my dreams, who called me a true friend.

I feel as though I made a promise to him. Did I keep it?

I don’t know. I can’t remember. It always fades away.

This uneasiness just keeps growing.

It’s like a dark stain welling up in my chest.

I just don’t understand.

“I guess I’ll sleep for a bit, too.” Shaking his head, Harlequin lay down where he was.

Diane’s deep breaths and Terry’s shallow ones formed a strange rhythm.

As soon as Harlequin closed his eyes, he began to doze.

Suddenly, it seemed to grow bright in front of his eyes, and he woke up.

Bands of light shone through the grove. The morning sun had risen.

“…?”

The golden bands stretched out towards the waterfall.

“Ah!” Harlequin jumped to his feet.

A rainbow. There was a rainbow.

The waterfall, which until yesterday had been shielded by the thick grove, now had sunlight hitting it directly—and wasn’t that a rainbow, arcing directly over the water’s spray!

“I got it! Yesterday Diane smashed those trees!”

She’d forced her way through to hear Terry’s flute and created a path for the sunlight to flow.

“Terry!” cried Harlequin. “Get up! There’s a rainbow. A rainbow!”

“Huh?” Shaken awake by the fairy, Terry jumped up too. “Ah, it’s true! Ah…”

But the rainbow soon started to disappear.

The sun had moved, and light no longer filtered through the cracks in the trees.

“Aaaahh, look, it’s gone.”

“Hold on.” Harlequin lightly flew up into the air around the branches to come out on top of the waterfall and looked down at the basin from above.

“Terry. Was that guy, Marius, kind of old?”

“Huh? Yes, he was. I think he was already near ninety when he died.”

“I see. It’s as I thought.” Harlequin had finally figured it out.

“Terry, this waterfall here is what that man called the Rainbow Waterfall after all.”

“What?”

“That’s right. I remember it now, too. A long time ago, when we started to live around here, it wasn’t so dense with trees. The grove was thinner, and it was bright and sunlit.”

“Oh, I see! Since the trees grew so much, the grove became darker and rainbows stopped forming?”

“What’s going on?” mumbled Diane, getting up and rubbing her eyes.

Terry rushed over to her in a fever pitch of excitement and cried, “Diane! Help me out! Tear down all the trees around here.”

“What?!”

“Wait, wait! Not all of them!” Harlequin butted in. “This area has definitely grown a bit too thick, so I think that thinning it out a little would be good for the forest. But cutting all the trees down would be too much. Terry, you just want to see a rainbow, right? If that’s the case, I’ll…” ask the forest properly, he nearly said but stopped, stunned.

“I’m going to ask…the forest?”

He slowly scanned his surroundings.

…

He looked around once again.

He clearly understood what he had to do.

He knew which trees to cut, and how much the sun would shine through.

He knew which trees were approaching the end of their lifespan, and which saplings were going to grow.

He knew which branches to prune to make the trees stronger, and which roots that, severed, would kill the tree.

Why?

Is this the power of fairies?

“How are we supposed to protect the forest without you?”

Elaine’s voice echoed close to his ear.

“Protect—the forest?”

“Harlequin, what’s the matter?” Diane asked, looking concerned.

He came back to his senses. “S-Sorry. Anyway, I think we can see a rainbow without having to knock over all of the trees. Terry, wait over there.”

Saying so, he turned back to Diane. “Diane, will you pull out and knock down the trees as I tell you to? Then the sun will shine through, and we can see a rainbow.”

“Yeah!” Diane sprung up.

Afterwards, Diane followed Harlequin’s directions in pulling up several of the trees in the area.

“It’s true!” she said. “The trees you point out are all easy to pull out.”

“The insides of their roots and trunks are rotted,” he explained.

Each time a tree was taken out, the surroundings became a little brighter. The sun shone on damp surfaces covered with moss and fungi, drying them out. A breeze passed through, and the still air started moving.

“It feels so good!” Diane stretched widely. “Hey, will flowers bloom too?!”

“They’ll bloom. Look!”

Harlequin pointed at grass that was sprouting right before their eyes.

“Ahhh…a rainbow.”

Before long, the sun shone brightly onto the waterfall—and a rainbow came alive.

“It’s just like before. Maybe we won’t get to see the rainbow all the time, but this way, we should be able to keep it for at least a little while.”

“That’s for sure…Ah, it’s so beautiful.” Terry sat on a large boulder beside the waterfall and gazed at the rainbow arching through the bright spray.

He put his flute to his mouth.

And he started to play that song: The Promised Rainbow.

The musical scale smoothly rose and fell.

The refrain held steady through the changes in key.

A melody by turns cheerful, playful, and heartrending.

The melody repeated itself, modulating its tone a little each time—

It represented a rainbow.

“So beautiful…” Diane murmured.

Before long, the song approached the part where it had broken off earlier.

Terry’s fingers danced upon the flute without faltering—and he spun out the next phrase without hesitation.

The notes ran up the clef in a ringing fanfare.

A quick melody. A bewilderingly changing tempo.

This probably represented the cascading waterfall.

Then the rainbow refrain repeated once again.

Modulating its tone and repeating many times over—

“When that time comes, you have to stop me! You, my true friend!”

“How are we supposed to protect the forest without you?”

“Don’t go, big brother. Don’t leave me alone.”

The song that carried Terry’s regret, determination, sorrow, and hope pricked at Harlequin’s heart.

It was triggering something: the fairy’s own, similar regret and sorrow.

Then, too quickly, the melody ended.

“I played it. I remembered…” Terry muttered, and tears overflowed from his eyes. “Marius…I did it…”

“Yay, amazing, ama~zing!” Diane clapped.

“Harlequin, wasn’t that amazing? Right, Harlequin? Hmm?”

Looking down, Diane gasped.

“Why are you crying, Harlequin?”

“What?” Harlequin hurriedly raised the back of his hand to his cheek. Tears had escaped from his eyes without him realizing it.

Not wanting Terry to notice, he hastily wiped his face with his sleeve.

Terry sat on top of the boulder as though in a daze. But before long he stood up and looked back at the two of them cheerily.

“Thank you,” he said. “It’s all thanks to you guys.”

“No. It’s because you tried so hard,” Diane told him, smiling.

But Harlequin couldn’t muster a smile of his own. He felt like there was something stuck in his chest.

As though, if he listened to the song even more, he would remember a terrible truth.

“Hey, Terry, play it again!” Diane pled, but Harlequin interjected—

“No, don’t!”

“Why not?” the giant asked, surprised.

Harlequin had surprised himself, too, but he shook his head to hide his confusion. “Nah…It’s just, well…You feel satisfied now, right? So…”

“Yes, you’re right. Thank you. I’ll be going now.”

Terry stared wistfully at the rainbow still spanning the waterfall, restored the flute to its leather bag, and thrust it into his belt on his waist.

“Well then,” Diane said, “I’ll show you out of the forest! I can do that at least, right, Harlequin?”

“S-Sure. I mean, I’ll go, too.”

“Yay!” Diane held out her hand to Terry happily.

From his viewpoint in the sky, Harlequin looked down at Terry dozing off on Diane’s shoulder as she walked to the forest’s edge. He thought to himself:

What do I want to do?

Do I want to keep living with Diane forever?

Do I want to recover the past I can’t remember?

I don’t know. I want both.

Terry will return to the human world.

As for us. What will become of us?

In the quiet forest with the sunlight filtering through the trees, only Diane’s footsteps made a sound.

7

After that, the months continued to pass.

The time the two of them spent together, which they thought would never change.

Then, that day abruptly arrived.

“Hey, hey! Let’s go visit the old hunter’s cabin today. It’s been a long time!” Diane proposed one early afternoon.

“Sure, let’s go,” Harlequin agreed. “We haven’t seen him in a while.”

Heading to the hunter’s home, the two saw something surprising.

In the valley where the hunter’s cabin had stood isolated and alone, surrounded by trees, a small village had been erected.

The wild-growing brush had been cleared, and fields had been tilled around the village.

Smoke from cooking fires rose from the chimneys of many of the small homes, and children ran about playing.

The old hunter was no longer there.

Two men who looked just like him came out to greet them, saying they were his grandchildren and telling them that he had passed away long ago. They explained that they had settled in this village and that they operated a general store, purchasing goods from merchants who sometimes came by.

As Harlequin followed the path back home with Diane, he recalled the scene he had just seen.

The numerous children. They each had their own parents and homes.

Children that looked just like their fathers. Children that resembled their mothers. And maybe, children who took after their grandparents.

A fence of roses encircled the village. Before he knew it, fields had been cleared for crops, and vegetables and wheat were being blown by the wind.

Just how much time has passed?

It feels like just the other day to me.

That hunter taught us how to make mountain bird soup, and medicine to lower a fever.

Perhaps that boy who played the flute the other day is no longer of this world either.

During those endless, unchanging days we spent in the forest, they, with their magic-less small bodies and hands, laboriously cleared the forest, cultivated fields, built houses, and multiplied little by little—

“Diane, did you know? Humans are a race with short lifespans, so I heard they have a thing called marriage, where two unrelated people come together and bind their lives to each other,” Harlequin said.

After a pause, Diane sighed and mumbled, “I’m so jealous.”

“Huh? Of humans with their short lifespans?”

Diane didn’t respond. Looking through the gaps in the trees, she asked, sounding lonely: “Harlequin, do you love me?”

Harlequin turned red at the sudden question. But in a weak voice he confirmed, Yes.

“Recently you told me you’d grant me one wish for anything, right?”

“Huh? Yes, I did say that.”

It had been a childish promise from when they played tag. But Diane, slightly blushing, fixed her eyes on Harlequin.

“Well then…please love me forever.”

As if embarrassed by the speechless Harlequin, Diane turned on her heels and ran off into the forest.

Harlequin shouted hastily at her retreating back.

“I…I promise! I’ll always love you, I’ll always be by your side!”

Diane stood still for a moment. But without looking back, she reminded him, “You just have to love me forever!”

Somehow, Harlequin felt bothered by her choice of words.

He was just about to ask her why, when his ear caught an unfamiliar sound.

“What’s this noise?”

Harlequin looked through the trees in the direction of the disturbance.

The noise was clattering…Clattering…A horse-drawn cart was passing along a distant road.

“A cart? They did tell us that merchants come, didn’t they…”

He could see many cloth bags tied to the cart. There were daily necessities such as pots, tableware, and pans, as well as farming tools such as hoes and spades, and even swords.

The wooden wheels advanced down the poorly built mountain road.

Merchant. Carts. Goods.

That noise. Those words. That echoing.

Hanging in the air, Harlequin watched the cart absentmindedly until it was out of sight.

That was the trigger.

As if the final piece of the puzzle had fallen into place, that night, he remembered everything.

An elderly warrior, his left eye hidden by an eye patch, was laying waste to the fairies.

There were fairies suspended, covered in blood, or fallen flat on the ground.

And there was Helbram.

“He must be after our wings!! Some humans believe our wings can be used for potions of longevity…”

“Fairy King!! At this rate they’ll—”

Harlequin shook free from the nightmare and jumped to his feet, completely dumbfounded.

How could I forget something so important?

“I…was the king…of the fairies living near the Sacred Tree of the Fairy Realm.”

That was it. He was no ordinary fairy, he was the one and only Fairy King.

“I had many friends…and my one and only little sister…”

Elaine in her white dress—the organized little sister who always scolded him.

“She watched over the Fairy King’s Forest, with the Sacred Tree that connected this world and the Fairy Realm.”

The huge Sacred Tree pierced the heavens, and its roots spread across the land. Rainbows arched among its branches. The hollows of its trunk were like looking glasses, reflecting occurrences from distant worlds.

“But…My friend who had an interest in humans was deceived by an evil one, and taken away.”

That’s right. The eccentric human lover, Helbram. Always a cheerful optimist.

He laughed and said that humans had various “ways of thinking” and “cultures” that fairies lacked.

When I told him that if he was too trusting, someday he’d have a bad run-in with humans, he laughed and said:

“When that time comes, you have to stop me! You, my true friend!”

And sure enough, he was deceived and caught by an evil man pretending to be a peddler.

“I…came to this world…chasing after him.”

I ignored Elaine who tried to stop me.

“How are we supposed to protect the forest without you?”

“Don’t go, big brother. Don’t leave me by myself.”

Just how many centuries ago was that?

However, though Harlequin had flown out of the Fairy Realm to rescue Helbram, he did not make it in time.

His friends were killed, with their backs cut up and their wings torn off.

The old warrior with the eye patch snuck up from behind while Harlequin was trying to rouse a barely-breathing fairy cradled in his arms.

Taken by surprise and cut down, Harlequin fell into the river. In the end, Diane picked him up on the shore downstream.

At that time, he lost all his memories.

“…I…”

Harlequin clenched his fist.

I wasn’t able to save Helbram or my friends, and I abandoned the Fairy Realm and the Fairy King’s Forest.

All this time, I was living here by myself, happily having forgotten everything.

There’s no going back from what happened.

Then.

Suddenly, a violent boom that sounded like an explosion came from outside. Harlequin and Diane rushed out of their den.

“Aaahh! Is that a fire?”

They could see the sky beyond the hill turning a bright red.

“The village is over there.”

That human village they had just gone to visit in the afternoon was burning.

“Let’s go! Quickly!” urged Diane.

“It’s too dangerous!” Harlequin shut her down. “Diane, you wait here!!”

His expression wasn’t his usual slightly foolish one.

It was the expression of the Fairy King, who protected the Fairy King’s Forest with his immense magical power, whom humans feared.

“I’ll go alone. When it’s over, I’ll—”

When this is over.

I have to go back to the Fairy Realm.

In order to fulfill my duties as the Fairy King.

But before he could speak, Diane gave a sad, lonely little smile.

“Go find your friends and return to them.”

Harlequin froze momentarily.

“I promise! I’ll always love you, I’ll always be by your side!!”

“You just have to love me forever!”

He remembered their previous exchange.

Perhaps Diane had already known.

That was why she interrupted him when he said he’d stay at her side.

She’d realized it was a promise he couldn’t keep.

Harlequin looked back at her.

Diane was smiling. But her large purple eyes were brimming with tears.

Who needs me the most?

Harlequin clearly knew who that was.

“I’ll come back to you. I promise,” he said gently.

At those words, the tears started falling out of Diane’s eyes at last. “Okay!”

Harlequin flew towards the village, leaving behind Diane, who nodded and waved her hand.

8

“How awful!!”

Flying over the forest and hills at full speed, Harlequin witnessed a terrible sight.

During the day, the small houses had smoke from cooking fires rising from their chimneys. Now the homes were all engulfed in flames.

The roads and squares were covered in corpses.

“Everyone was cut down from behind…”

Even the children who had looked up at Harlequin and Diane so curiously.

And the women who had stretched out of their windows and smiled at them.

“…!”

One of the grandchildren of the old hunter was also lying on the ground. Harlequin flew down to his side and lifted him up in his arms.

“…”

He wasn’t breathing anymore. Harlequin clenched his fist. “It’s just like that time…”

The terrible scene made Harlequin distinctly remember that other time.

Yes, back then, too, my friends were all cut down from behind, with slashes on their back, and fallen on the ground—

“It can’t be that man with the eye patch! No. It’s been several hundred years since then. There’s no way a human could still be alive…”

A burning house blocked the road, with the flames engulfing corpses as well.

The smell of blood was overwhelmed by the smell of things burning.

It was then that a single living person appeared from within the fire and thick swirling clouds of smoke.

The flames reflected off his blood-spattered armor. The sword in his right hand wavered in the rising heat.

Harlequin looked at his face—and found himself speechless.

A dull metal-plated eye patch. Coarse hair mixed with white. A distinctive helmet in his left hand.

“How! How…are you still alive?!”

There was no doubt. This was the old knight who killed his fairy friends—and Helbram!

But the old knight also stiffened when he saw Harlequin.

“That’s my line!” He was clearly flustered. “Back then, I sensed your presence and knew that you’d come to rescue me. But since that villain took you by surprise, I thought he killed you…I took him by surprise and killed him in revenge.”

“No, it can’t be, that way of talking—” Harlequin remembered that characteristic accent. “Helbram!!”

Without a doubt, this was Helbram, the friend he thought had been killed by the old man!

“Why do you look like that?!”

As though in response to Harlequin’s cry, the old knight changed forms in an instant.

Now Harlequin saw the unforgettable figure of his old friend, the form that had appeared in his dreams so often: a young fairy with bright green hair and amber eyes.

Helbram quietly cast his eyes down and spoke.

“I stayed in that form so I wouldn’t forget my hatred of humans.”

He spoke of his hate so clearly.

“So you did this to these people?!”

Harlequin couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe his friendly, cheerfully smiling friend could commit such a violent deed.

“Didn’t you like humans?!”

“Yes. I did,” Helbram muttered sadly. “Even though they could be weak or foolish, humans lived their short lives to the fullest. They were dear to me…But humans deceived our fairy friends and killed them. Without even a real reason—”

The smell of smoke choked the air. There was the clattering noise of burnt roof tiles falling.

Helbram gave a thin smile.

“They said that fairy wings would make good money…heh. What is money, anyway?”

Out of all the things that humans wanted, money was the thing that fairies understood the least. Yet, for it, humans sometimes even gave up other things that were important to them, one after another.

“They told me, ‘We’ll give this stuff to your friends.’ Just because I brought our friends out to see this rare…On account of my bringing our friends to see some rare-looking rubbish…everyone…was killed…”

A shining drop fell from his lowered eyes.

“Harlequin, can you picture it?”

Reflecting the red flames, it looked like a drop of blood.

“Right in front of your eyes, one by one, your friends getting their wings ripped off!! He even took his time, going slowly…saying he didn’t want to damage the wings!”

With a forced smile, Helbram mimicked the brutal snapping and cracking sound effects.

“Even now, the sound, the screams of all my friends are stuck in my head!”

Harlequin bit his lip.

What a horrible sight that must have been.

Helbram loved humans, and believed in them.

His trust was betrayed in the cruelest fashion—and he’d lost his mind.

Harlequin remembered something the boy with the flute had told him: the rumors of a madman who just roamed around killing people.

That was it. It must have been Helbram.

His old friend’s voice was warped with loud laughter.

He screamed, his face strained with tears: “I hate the humans! I’ve been killing them for five hundred years!”

The updraft caused by the heat brought winds, and the air rushing into the valley reverberated like a beast’s howl.

Harlequin cast down his eyes.

Helbram, I’m sorry.

Five hundred years.

Did I live with Diane, so carefree, for so long?

And all that time, my friend was walking in hell, killing the humans he’d loved.

“But it’s not enough. I won’t stop until I’ve wiped out every last human on earth!”

Harlequin, however, heard a different meaning in Helbram’s declaration.

I don’t want to kill anymore. Somebody stop me—

“When that time comes, you have to stop me! You, my true friend!”

Yes. Just as he had promised then.

Beside him, part of the rose fence had escaped the fire. Harlequin broke off a white rose at its stem.

He slowly held it aloft, imbuing it with the magical power of the Fairy King.

Helbram was still laughing and crying. With a prayer, Harlequin flung the rose at his chest.

The white rose blossomed into a red flower there. Everything was stained a deep red, and the fairy boy fell to the ground.

Helbram, I am truly sorry.

His fallen friend’s face looked peaceful.

Harlequin squatted down beside him. Placing his forehead upon Helbram’s cooling one, he let his tears spills out.

They fell onto Helbram’s face and mixed with his.

I have to atone for this.

Crying, Harlequin swore to himself.

I have to atone for the sin of not seeing his suffering…for letting my friend suffer for a long time…for such a long time.

With his sleeve, Harlequin wiped Helbram’s soiled face clean, and then stood up.

He slowly looked around.

The fire had burned down all the houses and was starting to die down. As if the heat had mustered them, clouds thickened in the sky. The full moon, visible shortly before, had disappeared. Rain began to fall.

It was almost dawn.

When the sun rose, the clouds would disperse, and a rainbow would no doubt appear.

Harlequin suddenly remembered Terrence’s words.

“I sincerely regret that I was such a lazy oaf. I thought that tomorrow would continue just the same as today, so if I slacked off a bit, I’d be able to make it up later.”

That was really true, Harlequin thought.

There’s no guarantee that tomorrow will be like today.

There’s no guarantee that you can always fulfill your promises.

He gently floated up into the sky.

He could already see the clouds breaking, and a hint of sunrise in the eastern sky.

In the distance, he could see some humans on horses heading towards him, coming from across the hills.

They were wearing armor. Most likely they were knights dispatched from a nearby kingdom. Someone must have reported the fire and explosions, and they were coming to investigate.

It’s my duty to tell them about what happened here and to bear this sin in Helbram’s place.

As a lazy Fairy King, Harlequin thought that, at least, was his duty.

I’m sorry, Diane. I wasn’t able to keep my promise to you.

Harlequin resolved to at least erase her memories so that her feelings wouldn’t be so hurt.

The sun started to shine.

The forest and plains where the two of them had lived spread out under Harlequin’s feet.

There’s probably a rainbow at the waterfall today, too.

Harlequin found Diane sitting, clutching her knees, in front of their home.

Holding back his tears, he flew down to her.

Ending

The sun approached the foot of the western mountains in the west, and a cool breeze sprung up.

In the wake of the vanished rainbow, a white cloud rose up.

“What’s that song’s name?”

Harlequin was startled by Helbram’s question.

“Was I singing?”

“Well, humming.”

Harlequin gulped and went red.

“It’s okay. Nobody heard you anyway. Those two below couldn’t hear you. You were drowned out by this boar’s footsteps.”

Hawk Mama’s footfalls continued shaking the earth rhythmically like the beating of a drum.

“It’s a song I learned from a human child, long ago. It’s called The Promised Rainbow.”

Harlequin didn’t mention that Helbram had killed that boy’s family and friends. More than anything else, Harlequin thought there was no point in telling him because the present Helbram probably knew everything already.

“Perhaps it means that promises are fleeting, like rainbows.”

“Perhaps.” Helbram smiled. “But rainbows will always appear again, in another time, in another place, won’t they? So even if a promise seems to have been broken, you’ll have any number of chances to keep it all over again elsewhere. Just like how you saved me so many times.”

“Helbram…” Harlequin’s voice choked up.

Through the slits in his helmet, he could see Helbram floating lightly in the sky, his arms folded behind his head, as carefree as ever.

“Aah, I can see the first star of the night.”

Just as he said, in the gaps of the clouds in the western sky twinkled a bright star.

Before long, the two of them heard the entrance to the Boar Hat open from below, and Hawk’s shrill voice sounded up to them.

“Hey, we’re about to get to the next village! Time to prepare to open shop, so you guys help, too!”

“What a pig. So full of himself.”

Howzer’s disgusted voice. Gilthunder’s low laughter.

Before long, the door closed, and it was quiet again.

“…”

Harlequin gave a loud sigh.

Will the day come when I can forgive those people that I can’t right now?

And will the day come when I can fulfill, in a different form, the promise that I wasn’t able to keep?

Diane…

Once again, Harlequin made a vow in the depths of his heart to the girl whose whereabouts he didn’t know.

Just like a rainbow appears over and over, I’ll keep remembering you again and again.

I’m sure that someday I’ll be able to fulfill my promise to you.

I’m sure I’ll return to you.

Little by little, Hawk Mama slowed her steps and the lights came on inside the Boar Hat.

Far off yet, down the gently sloping road, the lights of the human village flickered.

---

---

---

---