Chapter 43
Chapter 43
YUKI always wanted to grow out her hair. She wanted to try cutting it super short too, but with no chance of her hair ever growing out, she found herself unwilling to cut it any shorter than shoulder length. She also thought it would be great to be just a little taller. How awesome would it be to wear high heels and look like other girls her age?
More. More. More. She wanted more height, more hair, more of everything she couldn’t have the past eight years. Her list of wishes was inexhaustible. Having everything you want suddenly given to you tends to have the reverse effect of making you lose sight of what it is you really wanted—Yuki was in exactly that kind of predicament.
***
IT all started when Yuki declared she was going to go to Adolunde.
I have to hurry there. I have to see everyone. I’m certain they’re bothered I suddenly up and disappeared, Yuki fretted.
“Isn’t it fine if you don’t go?” Vivi pointed out as Yuki worried about how to get there.
“No, it’s not. I need to apologize,” Yuki answered her.
“Hmm, I see. But you’ll stick out like a sore thumb, you know? How many ten-year-old girls with violet eyes do you think travel alone?”
“…I know. But I have to go anyway. Hmm, what should I do?” Yuki pondered aloud. Vivi laughed from where she sipped her tea across from Yuki. A knife cut vegetables and meat into perfect slices, while a pot began to boil, all without a single glance from Vivi. “…What?”
“Oh dear, little Vivi has gone and thought up a wonderful plan,” Vivi cooed.
Did she just refer to herself in the third person?
“More than thinking about the horrors of traveling alone through a war-torn land, your focus is on wanting to properly apologize to your friends. You can’t help being beside yourself with worry for them. Right? What a courageous and praiseworthy goal.
“So I’ll pitch in and help out the courageous and adorable little Yuki.” Vivi said the last part in such a sickeningly sweet voice, Yuki felt as if hearts or maybe little cherubim might spew magically from her mouth.
Vivi leaned in close to Yuki, “You’re so gallant, I want to be both kind and mean to you.”
“What!”
Vivi snapped her fingers. Rose vines burst up from the ground at Yuki’s feet and coiled around her. Yuki’s view was buried in bright-red rose petals.
“Stop it. Hey, what is this!” Yuki gasped. Once the petals fell to the ground, Vivi appeared shorter.
Her hair extended all the way down her back. The clothing she borrowed from Vivi also expanded to fit her current size. Vivi was looking up at Yuki.
“How is it?” she asked with a satisfied smile.
“How is what?”
“Nah, well, I tried adjusting your age to one that would be okay for you to travel alone. I’d say you’re about sixteen now? Your actual age is eighteen, right? I wanted you to notice when you aged for real, so I went with sixteen. Want to take a look?” Vivi asked, snapping her fingers. The closet door sprang open. A full-length mirror waddled out to stand in front of her.
Yuki examined herself in the mirror. Her face matured, her black hair reached the center of her back, her legs and arms were long, and—
“My eyes are black.”
The irises of her eyes were black.
“Yup. One wrong step with violet eyes and you’ll get sold off somewhere.”
“Is this an illusion too?”
“Nope. I mixed conjuration, some growth, a touch of age, and a rainbow with things from your original body and put it in your drink earlier. Your eye color is an illusion though. But I’ve at least made it so other Witches can’t tell when they look at you, so you’ll be fine!”
“…Thanks, Vivi. You’re the most wonderful Witch of them all.”
Happiness welled-up within Yuki. She couldn’t figure out why Vivi was so nice to her despite all her teasing. Yuki fixed her eyes on her reflection in the mirror. How many times had she imagined what she would look like older?
She was dejected every time she woke up and realized she had only dreamed about being older—in reality, nothing changed. What Vivi did almost made it worth everything that happened to her after years of being out of place. Yuki finally looked closer to her age.
Black eyes. They’re the same color as everyone else in Japan.
Yuki stroked her cheeks, feeling the soft skin.
Suddenly, a serious voice broke the silence. “Yes…I’ve made it so no one can tell if they look at you. That’s why, even if your friends look at you, they won’t know it’s you, Yuki.”
“What?” Yuki glanced over her shoulder—Vivi stood there with a coldhearted smirk. “Vivi?”
“…I’m not kind at all.” Yuki was bewildered by Vivi’s mischievous smile—she appeared like a completely different person. “When you’ve lived for too long, you get bored.”
There was something frightening about her overly sweet smile. Yuki couldn’t pinpoint what it was exactly. Vivi was definitely smiling—and that’s why it was scary. She wasn’t like Orga whose smile only reached his lips as hatred filled his eyes. No, Vivi was enjoying this from the deepest depths of her being.
“I’m bored, so I sow seeds all over the place. Seeds that’ll bloom into something fun.”
“Seeds…”
“Yes, seeds. I’ll help and save people, and do anything required if it looks like it’ll turn into something entertaining. So, won’t you please entertain me?” Chills raced down Yuki’s spine at Vivi’s composed smile. “Why don’t we play a game? It’s a simple game, really. You just have to return to your normal form. That’s it—then it’s your win.”
“H-Huuuh?”
“If you don’t take back your form, you’ll be stuck this way for life. Oh, and being considerate of you losing, I’ve made it so this form will age as a normal human. Let’s see, what should we make the charm for turning you back?” Vivi mused, cutely putting her index finger to her lip.
Her face lit up as if she thought of something good. “You’re stuck this way until you make eye contact with your Knight! Isn’t that simple?”
“Hang on a minute. Wait, Vivi! Regardless of what you’ve done for me, you’re being too self-serving with all this!”
“…Self-serving?” Vivi repeated, staring blankly at Yuki for a moment before her lips curled into the most innocent smile. “You should have learned by now that everyone is self-serving. Or have you failed to take the lessons of this world to heart, Yuki? Learn just how your unduly good-natured devotion and dedication to your friends appears to them. Learn just how shallow and ambiguous the relationships between people are.”
Vivi strutted over to Yuki and stood up on her tippy-toes to pat her on the head. “And then show me. Show me the bond between Knight and Master. I’ll give you everything and anything you need,” Vivi said, loneliness encroaching her voice. She stepped away from Yuki and swiftly went into the other room.
Did something happen? Did I say something wrong?
Yuki’s heart ached when she thought she might be the one causing the painful expressions that occasionally flashed across Vivi’s face.
Learn the hard way, huh? For some reason Yuki didn’t hate what Vivi was doing to her. How long has she been alive for?
“I’ve forgotten,” was Vivi’s response when Yuki asked her.
Either way, it was clearly an incomprehensibly long time. Yuki couldn’t imagine it.
The bond between Knight and Master, huh? Do Luca and I even have that kind of bond?
***
VIVI’S house was located in Rvydom.
Just when Yuki finished drinking her morning tea, Vivi said, “Now that you’ve made up your mind, hop to it!” and brought out a jute bag Yuki wasn’t sure could even pass for a bag.
Vivi gave her a change of clothes, spending expenses, and handed her a map. Another larger map floated out from a back room and spread itself across the table, where four needles drifted upward and skewered its corners into the table.
“Listen well, okay? We’re currently located in the dead center of Rvydom. And if you head down to the southwest there’s a mountain range. If I’m not mistaken this mountain over here is the smallest,” Vivi explained, drawing a circle around the smaller mountain with a pen.
“You’ve gotta go even farther south after descending the mountain. The city that comes just before the ocean is Adolunde’s Royal Capital. It’s pretty far,” she commented nonchalantly.
Yuki repeated every word she said in her head, so as not to forget. “…Okay, I think I’ve got it.”
First things first, I need to get over the mountain to the south.
“Thank you, Vivi. You went out of your way to tell me the way and even gave me money,” Yuki smiled at Vivi. Vivi looked shocked. “…Hm? What’s wrong?”
Vivi heaved a heavy and visible sigh at Yuki’s further questioning. “Do you normally thank Witches who one-sidedly force a life-altering game on you? Or what? Are you just an idiot?”
“I-Idiot—I’m not an idiot! I think you’re more of a good-natured person than I am, Vivi. You rescued me and then you’re giving me all this stuff. Is it really okay for me to take it? Maybe it’s best for me to give it back after all?”
“I don’t need it! Good heavens, I’m fine, thank you. I’m just an over-fond and doting parent.”
…An over-fond and doting parent? Whose?
Vivi smiled and changed topics before Yuki could ask, “All of the children in this world are my children! Now, off with you! Shoo, shoo!” Vivi waved her hand in a shooing motion to get her out of the house. Two brooms behind her made the same motion at Yuki, as if she were dirt needing to be swept away.
“Ahaha. Okay, I’m off then.” Yuki took several steps to the door and turned around. “Vivi, to be honest with you, I don’t know what the bond between a Knight and Master is. So I’m not sure whether it’s something I can show you. But if I do end up meeting my Knight Luca, come and see me, will you?”
“…Why?”
Yuki mulled over the answer for a bit before answering, “Because I think you’ll learn just how cool Luca is that way?”
A few seconds passed with Vivi’s mouth hanging wide-open before she burst out laughing. “Why did you make it sound like a question? …Sure, if you take back your own form.”
“Thank you.”
Reassured by Vivi’s smile, Yuki opened the door to the morning’s sun. She stepped outside and shut the door behind her. She looked back and saw the house steadily fade away without a trace. And thus, Yuki’s journey to find her Violet Knight and regain her true age began.
***
VIVI snapped her fingers the moment the door shut—now Yuki wouldn’t be able to tell where the house was anymore. Vivi’s smile faded and she sighed as she put her face on the table.
“Kind, huh?”
I haven’t heard that word in a long time, she thought and closed her eyes. She felt as if she could see Yuki’s beaming smile on the other side of her eyelids.
“I think I was pretty mean though,” she muttered.
Despite all the nasty and sarcastic things she said, Yuki thanked her with a smile. Vivi felt wretched in a place deep inside that she had long since thought lost. She rubbed her forehead into the cool wooden surface of the table.
“I really am mean…I didn’t tell you anything after all.”
But Vivi had decided from the start not to tell Yuki anything, so she didn’t regret her choice. Yuki’s pure and simple-minded smile still seemed to fill the house. Vivi sighed. She leaned against her chair and hunched her back. If anyone had been there to watch, they would have seen the true entity known as the Legendary Witch.
“May Aridol’s divine protection be with Yuki,” Vivi whispered as an epitaph to this crumbling world.
***
KAITO had been depressed lately. Ever since Yuki left for the other world, he was depressed and dejected, regretfully muttering things like, “I should have told her about that.”
“I should have let her go sooner.”
He was smoking a cigarette on the balcony looking up at the night sky again tonight.
“Kai, you’ll catch a cold if you stay out in the cool night breeze,” Nobuko warned him.
“Yeah…” he replied halfheartedly, his attention elsewhere. “I wonder if Yuki’s all right.”
“She’s fine.”
How many times had they repeated this conversation? Every time Kaito appeared to accept Yuki was fine, but obviously there was no way he had accepted it internally.
There’s no way of really knowing, so saying she’s okay only offers a momentary peace of mind for something we don’t know for sure, Nobuko thought.
The first time she met Kaito he was terribly confused. He was on edge, like a cat with its fur puffed to look bigger. Nobuko remembered how he slept with a kitchen knife clutched in his hands every night. She found it suspicious at the time, but now it was an endearing memory.
I’m the only one who doesn’t know of that world. Both Yuki and Kaito know that world now. Nobuko secretly wanted to visit the world her two most precious people had such a strong connection to.
“I wonder whether she’s okay,” Kaito muttered.
Nobuko smiled at Kaito’s forlorn figure and went out onto the balcony with him. She stood beside Kaito and stared at the sky. “She might not be okay.”
Kaito looked over at her. “Why must you say something so mean, Nobuko?” he asked her dejectedly with the eyes of an abandoned puppy.
Kaito was dreadfully worried about his beloved daughter. Nobuko found that side of him precious.
“Even if she’s in a situation where she’s not okay, our Yuki will do something about it.”
Nobuko always prayed to the stars that her beloved Kaito would be healthy and that their beloved child would remain safe.