Chapter 26

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 26

LUCA heaved a long-winded sigh. Tita was angry at him again, at least if her bright-red face was anything to go by. She looked as if she were about to explode at any moment—the boy was clearly baffled as she squeezed the color out of his hand.

“Luca! Go after her!”

As expected, the first words out of Tita’s mouth related to chasing after Yuki. Luca sighed again. “There is something I want you to all hear before I do—”

***

LUCA sat alone on a log in an absentminded daze. Nasette and the others were shocked when they heard what Luca had to say and frantically went to search for Yuki afterward.

Luca sighed. He was certain he hurt her dearly. A part of him regretted rebuking his own Master. The image of her face as she desperately tried to endure the tears filling her eyes replayed in the back of his mind. The cheek he slapped turned red.

But as much as she is my Master, there is no way for me to protect her if she has no sense of the danger she is in. Luca had no idea why she even ventured onto the battlefield in the first place. I can’t deny it was reassuring she had our backs. She’s a good shot too.

But Yuki was neither a soldier nor Luca’s retainer. If anything, she was the Master he was supposed to protect. They were in such a dangerous position during their escape from the prison earlier, he accidentally asked her to cover their backs.

Asking her to help us was a failure on my part.

Luca disliked the fact he was protected by his Master, who also happened to be a young maiden.

That person absolutely would have never done what Yuki did…

The image of that person’s slender and fragile form crossed his mind. He could hear her gentle voice call his name. The soft and slight scent of flowers that surrounded her and her abnormally white skin were still—

“Luca!”

Luca came to his senses when he suddenly heard his name. Tita stood imposingly in front of him.

“…You’re still here?” When he didn’t answer, Tita muttered, “Good grief. It’s understandable that you would be angry, Luca, but do you understand why Yuki went to the battlefield?”

Luca looked at her with a face that plainly said there’s no way he’d understand why. Tita smiled softly.

“Yuki prioritizes others before herself. You understand that much, right? She put herself in danger when I said I would go to the prison. She put herself on the line when it seemed like Ain was going to get left behind before coming to Cele.

“Do you think someone who goes so far for others would be able to run away alone while everyone else is fighting for their lives? I can’t believe you would fail to understand your Master to such a degree. Just what part of Yuki have you been looking at until now?” Tita chided, a little exasperated with him.

“Well, it can’t be helped either way. Yuki will prioritize others no matter the situation. That’s one of the things that’s so great about her,” Tita said.

I know that. I knew that before you said anything about it, Tita, Luca grumbled in his thoughts. Yuki always took action for the sake of others and sympathized with them. She resented Orga more than Luca did when he ordered him to the front lines in Fol and when he ordered Luca back to fight another battle elsewhere.

He’d nearly forgotten everything about his one late-night encounter with her, but he clearly remembered her eyes as they gazed up at him with great concern. And before he realized it, he was going out of his way to do things for her.

Especially earlier—he should have just let Yuki go on with the prison guards to find Dante, but instead he knocked them out. What would he have done if there were twenty guards as he originally expected? He got the feeling he would have done the same thing.

Luca chuckled to himself. That unmanageable tomboy… Is she sitting alone somewhere chiding herself right now? Or is she meekly crying?

“Luca! Apologize to her!” Tita’s face was flushed crimson with anger when he looked up at her.

“Yeah, I know. I will.”

At any rate, the fact that tiny girl is my master won’t change. Whether I rebuke her or make her cry, it’s my duty to be by her side.

Luca removed his ring and pulled the Knight’s Token and chain from his chest pocket.

***

CRYING as much as she wanted to cry caused some of Yuki’s frustration to spill away with her tears, leaving her calmer and worn out.

My eyes hurt. Her eyelids were hot and heavy after sobbing; a dull pain throbbed in her head too. She was depressed, but more clearheaded now.

“I have to apologize…”

I have to tell Luca I’m sorry and thank him. But I ran away. What kind of expression should I face him with now? What if he refuses to allow me to be with him even after I apologize? Thinking about it makes me even more afraid. And if he does refuse me? What do I do then? Will I be sold off this time and live out the rest of my life clad in tattered clothes forced to beg for scraps?

“I don’t want that! I’ll bow with my face to the dirt until he brings me with him.”

She even considered begging him to allow her to work at Adolunde’s castle as a servant. Anything was better than being sold off.

“…I have to go.”

Tita is surely searching for me. Yuki stood up and dusted the dirt from her clothes. The cool, hard ground and icy air thoroughly chilled her.

“Hey! Anyone there?” she shouted in hopes someone nearby would hear. But there was no response. “I ran quite a way after all…”

What’s the deal with this? She blinked several times. She was a little tired after sobbing away her pent-up stress. Every few steps she took she called out in hopes her friends were near enough to hear her. The setting sun dyed the world crimson.

I don’t get why you can’t search for your Knight with the ring if you don’t have the Knight’s Token. What’s the point in that? Yuki glared at her ring, but she had no way to use it to search for Luca. She swung her hand around, unsure of how to relieve her resentment over the actions that dragged her into this ridiculous situation.

“I mean Luca should be the one who comes looking for me! N-No matter how wrong I was, he’s way too short-tempered to raise his hand against me…”

The rest of her sentence trailed off as she muttered her complaints. However, she was painfully aware how right Luca was.

I’m just a ten-year-old brat in his eyes after all.

“But if he wants to see me as a bratty child then that’s fine, just be a good guardian and come find meeee!”

Yuki searched the area, but all that surrounded her were trees. An already terrible situation was further worsened by the fact it was getting dark and the forest was taking on a creepy gloom. She was getting worried she didn’t know which way was which. In the distance strange animals shrieked. Fear crawled up her spine as the once-bright forest took on an eeriness she had never seen in Tokyo’s well-lit streets.

They say not to move around when you’re lost. But what should you do when you’re the one who went and got yourself lost? As Yuki pondered what to do next, the thicket to the left of her moved.

“Who’s there!” she jumped back in surprise. Was it someone she knew? Or was it a bandit?

The thicket rustled and moved until a boy stuck his face out.

“Ah! You’re the boy from earlier!” Yuki sighed with relief. The boy slipped out of the thicket and walked over to Yuki.

“Miss…” he muttered weakly.

Yuki glanced at his knee. Someone must have treated his scraped knee because a bandage was neatly wrapped around it.

“What’s the matter? …Did you come looking for me?”

The boy nodded firmly. “You’re the one who saved me after all, Miss.”

The innocent way he thanked her made Yuki happy.

“Thank you.”

“…Everyone is this way.” The boy timidly held out his hand. Yuki smiled sweetly and took his hand.

***

THE boy led her by the hand as he weaved his way through the trees until they came out in a clearing the size of a small apartment. The boy stopped once they set foot into the clearing.

“What’s the matter? Is something here?” Yuki crouched down until she was eye level with the boy. When their eyes met his face filled with sadness and he cast down his eyes.

“Miss…I’m sorry?” he said, almost as if he were asking a question.

I’m sorry? Why is he apologizing? Yuki didn’t understand what he meant. The boy let go of her hand and gripped the hem of his shirt with both hands.

“What’s…the matter?”

“My mom…my mom is…” the boy started sobbing. “I wanted to save my mom…so…I went looking for you…Miss…”

“…You want to save your mom?” Yuki tilted her head to the side in confusion, when she heard footsteps and saw a face she really did not want to see.

“Basically, mommy got captured, and in order to save mommy I have to find and bring a little miss with violet eyes to the instructed location. If I don’t, both mommy and me will be killed,” Orga said derisively mimicking the boy’s voice while laughing as if he were enjoying himself to the utmost degree. He held a rope leading to a tied up woman.

“MOMMY!”

“RUN!” the woman shrieked, but was smacked roughly over the head by Prince Orga. The boy made to help, only for spears to be leveled toward him by the guards standing at the forest’s edge.

What the heck?

“Why are you doing this?” Yuki said in a dark voice coming from the deep hatred seething inside her. She wanted to lash out after hearing his sick little story.

“Why, you ask? What a funny question. Isn’t the answer obvious? They aren’t needed. This or this thing’s mother either. They aren’t needed at all; that’s why,” Orga drew his sword before he finished speaking and swung it. Orga’s sword pierced through the mother’s back and stuck out her chest.

“NO! MOMMY!” The boy rushed forward to catch the woman who moved forward awkwardly like a broken doll and collapsed. Orga swiftly pulled his sword out of her, splashing blood everywhere, and met the boy before he could reach his mother. He raised his sword and swung it down. The boy with a bandaged knee took his last breath after being dealt a wound no small white bandage would be able to cover.

“Aaah…” a guttural scream narrowly escaped Yuki’s throat. “H-How could you!”

It all happened in seconds. Another scream that wasn’t a voice anymore struggled to escape Yuki’s mouth as the boy’s blood splattered before her eyes. Her throat hurt, but she couldn’t stop screaming.

“See? They’re so unnecessary they became worthless just like that. The disgusting living things are all gone now,” Orga said in a terribly elated voice.

“…Why are you here? Why are you doing something like this! Why? You’re in the middle of a war right now, so why? Why aren’t you in your castle!” Yuki shouted through her confusion. The expression on the boy’s face when he said he wanted to save his mother moments ago was burned into her mind and wouldn’t go away.

“Ah, yes, the war. The word war has such a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? But you see, the way things actually stand right now, we’re only having Rvydom’s prisoners of war kill each other, so there’s not even the slightest bit of damage to either my country or Maruk, you know?”

Yuki glared at Orga with all the hatred roiling inside her as he spouted his unbelievable nonsense. Orga smiled with the same spiteful eyes as Yuki.

“What a nice look you’ve got there. It gives me the chills. Just makes me want to kill you.”

“How are you a prince? You are nothing but scum!”

He’s way beyond rotten and evil. This man is insane.

Yuki felt like his insanity was going to rub off on her and make her go insane with him.

“Why, thank you. Those are the greatest words of praise I could ever receive. But you know what? I won’t kill you off as easily as that. I’ll kill you with what will be the perfect ending.”

“Don’t screw with me!” Just as Yuki shouted, something impacted the back of her neck. A feeling akin to anemia—where all the blood rushes from the body—rushed through her before she collapsed.

“The Prince of Maruk and I will screw with you all we want,” Orga laughed malevolently; his voice not reaching the unconscious Yuki. A young man with the appearance of a doll and eyes like glass stood behind her.