Chapter 335

Contrary to what I'd worried about, after the duel that day, Minerva and I were getting along without any particular incident or trouble between us.

Daily life hadn't really changed either.

Tracking down Milited — which, against all expectation, had hidden itself so perfectly that we couldn't find even a trace.

The only thing that got added on top was sweeping aside the remnants of its forces who kept getting in our way.

And once we got back to our lodging, we'd sometimes spar or sit around chatting about trivial things to pass the time.

Today, like always, I was talking with her, wondering just how long this stretch of time could keep going — when —

Thump!

An enormous dragon's tail slammed roughly into the ground, like a stand-in for the displeasure she wasn't bothering to hide.

[Enough, enough! Day in and day out, all you talk about are stories about your little sister! I've never even laid eyes on this sister of yours, and yet by now I can picture her vividly right in front of me!]

A wounded note slipped out of me before I knew it at Minerva, who was bristling and shouting in frank exasperation.

"Hey, come on — Minerva, you were the one who told me to tell you."

[This Minerva asked you to tell me about your plans going forward — I never once asked what side dishes your little sister liked!]

"And like I said, those plans are tied up closely with my sister. I told you, the items that turned out so useful when we took down Juno and Venus were actually—"

[That, too, I already know — every bit of it! That your little sister is a famous master thief in the future! That she was, in fact, a fighter who fought for the weak! That she'd known the things about you and so prepared all of those items in advance! Right down to every word that was written in that heart-wrenching letter she left for you — every last bit!]

Watching her stamp the ground hard like she was sick to death of hearing about it, I couldn't help but go a little quiet.

Now that I thought about it, the truth was that I really had been talking about nothing but Ji-na for the past several days.

A little embarrassed in spite of myself, I grumbled like she was being harsh on me.

"Cold of you… all right, fine. Stuff about my sister, we'll save for some other time, separately."

[Some other time…?]

Minerva gave a hard shudder, then shot me a sidelong look with an expression that said is this fool actually serious right now.

I shrugged and spoke without straightening up, still leaning against her.

"…Su-yeong's been acting really off lately. Minerva, you got any idea what's up with her?"

I asked it, remembering how for the past several days she'd looked like she was deep in some private worry, and Minerva snorted and shot back:

[…Leaning against this Minerva's body and yet still saying another woman's name out loud, are you?]

She muttered it like she found me impossible, but Minerva let out a small breath and answered without resistance after all.

[Why would this Minerva know anything you don't. I've been keeping company with you, knowing exactly what you know… I just have a few things that strike me as suspect, nothing more. And isn't it the same for you?]

"……"

She was right — there were a few things that did strike me as suspect — so I quietly closed my mouth.

If my guess was on target… pushing her to talk would clearly only backfire.

With me gone silent like that, Minerva carefully read my mood before asking:

[Setting that aside, there's one thing I'd been wanting to ask you.]

"Yeah. What is it?"

[Didn't you tell me that the me you met in the future once nearly killed you?]

"I did."

[I see…]

Minerva nodded slowly for a moment, and then —

[Then it must be that once the two of you return to your original time, this Minerva loses every memory from this whole stretch.]

She burst into laughter at the sight of me flinching, startled.

[What? Did you imagine this Minerva had no clue at all? It really does seem to me that you take this Minerva for far too much of a fool.]

She let out a small, satisfied laugh and went on.

[Looks aside, this Minerva is a being who has lived a great many years. Time, the natural order, balance… I've picked up a fair amount of it just by listening here and there.]

She trailed off there and let out a small sigh.

[And the reason that… woman, Su-yeong, has been weighed down, it seems to me, isn't all that different from those very things. Time, the natural order, balance — every one of them sounds like grasping at empty clouds, and yet every one of them has its way of binding you all the same.]

"…I suppose so."

It wasn't something I could disagree with.

Still with that hint of laughter in her voice, Minerva murmured:

[In that case, the moment is coming any time now.]

She turned her head aside and broke eye contact with me.

[There's no way Milited could be hiding this perfectly. Its specialty was being hard to kill — staying hidden was never its strong suit. The one good at hiding was that wretch Margo. And if it's vanished without a trace this cleanly, that has to mean some other variable's come into play…]

"……"

Even as her head slowly turned, I, too, drew the sword out from the shadow.

A strange light flickered along the blade — still suffused with Juno's energy — and my fingertips felt almost like they were going numb.

[The one capable of that right now is just the one. Wouldn't you agree?]

"Well now."

Ahriman, walking toward us from a distance, murmured with a touch of surprise.

This time it had borrowed Minerva's face and voice.

"Looks like I've gone and barged in on your tryst with no read for the room."

Minerva blew out a rough breath at its joke, like she found it foul.

Holding something gurgling in one hand, it paused for a moment and looked us over slowly.

"A proposal. I'd like to talk. Ideally with everyone here, but… that's not going to be easy, by the look of it."

It then lifted its empty hand toward the growling Minerva, as if to tell her to settle down.

"I swear it on my name. I haven't come here to pull anything on you this time. If anything, I've come to help."

[That much is obvious from the thing in your hand alone.]

Minerva snapped back roughly and glared at it with a look that could kill.

[I'd been wondering how on earth Milited could be hiding so well… well, of course. With it already sealed and its trail gone cold, how were we ever going to find it.]

She rumbled her throat again and let out another rough growl.

[Stepping in to get in our way with such a paltry scheme.]

"Well now. From where I'm standing, I'd think I ought to be getting a thank-you, if anything."

Ahriman said it and looked at me.

"If not for me, that one would have had to wander around for ages trying to find Milited, and in the end run out of time. When you come down to it, I'm the reason he gets to go back safely."

"And what — show me a little gratitude? Is that what this is?"

Ahriman didn't answer.

It just gripped the piece of Milited it was holding tight in its hand and pressed it into a hardened crystal.

"…You and that woman are about to be caught here on this timeline. Which means if you don't get back as soon as you possibly can, something genuinely bad is going to happen."

"And you want me to take that on faith?"

"You'll have to. For both our sakes."

Ahriman flicked its gaze toward me.

Inorganic as anything, wearing Minerva's exact face, it looked at me out of vivid crimson eyes.

"I've said it many times by now, but if anything happens to you or to her, a very bad situation comes crashing down on me too. That's why I broke an unwritten rule, moved myself, sealed Milited directly, and brought a piece of it all the way to you."

The truth was, it wasn't wrong about that.

If it had wanted to put us in a bind, all it had to do was seal Milited and then vanish quietly — that would have been the end of it.

In the middle of mounting that flat, dispassionate self-defense, it flicked a glance toward Minerva.

"On top of that, Minerva — if you mean to use the piece of Juno's body that you've kept hidden, I'd say now would be the moment."

[…Still as repulsive as ever.]

Ahriman slowly lowered what had once been Milited down to the ground.

Then it tapped at it lightly with the tip of a finger and said:

"Exactly two people's worth. I've left enough for two to return, so use it well. You already seem to know perfectly well how to use it — no real need for me to explain."

It let out a sigh and pressed it again, like driving the point in.

"I told you, didn't I — caught on the timeline. How dangerous that is, you needn't ask me; ask Minerva. And the time left for you and her is, at most, about three days—"

That was the moment.

Watching for the gap when Ahriman's attention was on me, Minerva loosed a breath at it like a shot.

Of all the breaths of hers I'd seen up to this point, this one was beyond a doubt the most devastating.

But on instinct, I knew at once that her attempt had come to nothing.

Minerva had clearly picked up on it too — she clicked her tongue and broke off the breath.

Where the breath had landed, only the crystal that had been Milited remained.

— …Don't forget you're running out of time.

The voice came humming through from every direction at once.

Its voice had stopped imitating Minerva's and was mimicking mine now.

— And above all, don't forget there's nothing left in this era for you and her to do.

With that, Ahriman, the way it always did, vanished without leaving a trace.

Off in the distance, Su-yeong had picked up on the breath Minerva had loosed and was hurrying toward us, but Minerva and I just stood there saying nothing, only looking at each other.

…In truth, every one of us had known for a while.

We just couldn't bring ourselves to say it out loud, so none of us did.

And so, in the end, the time came.

In a form as sudden as it was final.

"…There's something I want to show you."

The words came from Minerva, who had shifted into human form on the spot.

And what came out of her wasn't only those resolute words.

She heaved with everything she had and brought up, from somewhere deep inside her, a sharp crystal shaped like an icicle.

For an instant Su-yeong, beside us, swallowed back a small groan.

"Ugh… I don't feel well."

She wasn't exaggerating; her face really did look awful.

"I forgot the human body is just as fragile on the inside as it is on the outside…"

She coughed and wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth, then cleaned the crystal in her hand on a cloth she'd prepared in advance and held it out, as if telling me to take it quickly.

"A fragment of Juno. When I tore into it back then, a piece ended up inside this Minerva's body. I deliberately kept it, rather than dissolving it away."

She wore it as plainly as if she had believed all along that a moment like this would come.

Minerva ran the cloth across the corner of her mouth, where a thin line of blood was running down.

"To it, I added a piece of my heart and my blood, and shaped it. It will be enough."

"Wait, Minerva—"

"Use it to pierce this Minerva's heart."

For an instant, a voice was ringing through my head — one I felt I'd heard somewhere before.

Seal this Minerva away. If nothing else, by your hand…

Who in the world had said that.

But there was no time to indulge in something like that now.

I stared at her, blank.

"Minerva."

"There's no helping it, you. No matter how many times I turn it over, this is the only way."

She gave a small shrug, dropped the bloodied cloth to the ground, and went on.

"Being caught on the timeline… the thought of dragging this out and somehow being the one who ruins everything — I can't bear how afraid that makes me."

She slowly shook her head and spoke to me as if telling me to get on with it.

"So hurry, and seal this Minerva. By your hand. Yourself."

Even as she said it, the faintest of smiles touched Minerva's face.

"I was prepared for this from the start. It was always going to have to end this way."

"But — this suddenly…"

"Then what would you have us do — throw a farewell party and stand there bawling, the three of us in an embrace?"

Minerva shook her head at Su-yeong's murmur.

"It's better this way. Yes — and this Minerva, unlike herself, leaned on the two of you, indulged herself with you… if I have to pay the price for that like this, then so be it."

She half-forced the crystal into my hand.

A crystal mixing Juno's energy with Minerva's.

"Made by shaping the fragment of Juno together with a piece of this Minerva's heart. The seal won't break for at least three hundred years."

She said it and let a bitter smile slip out.

"It's no more than a stopgap, of course. I know that perfectly well. That this is nothing more than a patch job, that it'll preserve only the smallest fraction of the memories, that it's the most foolish thing I could possibly do."

She gave a small shake of her head.

"Even so, this Minerva cannot go against what she feels. I don't want to forget my memories of the two of you. If even a little of them can be preserved, then surely…"

I lowered my eyes at her words before I'd realized it.

In my hand sat a crystal of pale red.

As if it had drunk in her blood.

"I — we — won't remember you, Minerva."

"……"

"More than just not remembering — we won't even know we ever met you like this. Because the me and the Su-yeong you'll meet for the first time…"

"It doesn't matter."

Minerva smiled at me at that.

It was the first soft, gentle smile I'd seen on her in this era.

"This Minerva will remember the two of you."

The two of us just stared at her smile in a daze, then quietly closed our eyes.

I don't know why.

Inside my head, only one phrase kept rising up over and over.

"…One hundred thousand."

"Yeah?"

"Count to exactly one hundred thousand and stop there."

I carefully took her by the shoulder.

With my other hand, I adjusted my grip on the crystal and looked her straight in the eye.

"One a day. Once you've counted out a hundred thousand of them, I'll be standing in front of you. No matter what."

"…Is that so."

Minerva burst out laughing and shook her head, as if she found it absurd.

"This Minerva, who can't even recite the times tables straight — whether she can count a number as large as a hundred thousand is anyone's guess. Still… it's a sweet offer."

She said it and slowly took my hand — the one holding the crystal — in both of her own.

Then, as if telling me to get on with it, she gently drew my hand in, until the tip of the crystal rested against her chest.

"Then I'll see you in three hundred years."

"……"

To hesitate or falter any further would be a discourtesy to her.

The crystal drove through her heart, and her exquisite human form began to crumble grotesquely.

She let out a thin, fragile breath and sank to the ground where she stood.

When Su-yeong and I reflexively reached to catch her, she put a hand out to stop us and, with great effort, spoke.

"…You'll get caught up in it. Step back. Any moment now—"

Even as she murmured it, her body was beginning, bit by bit, to return to its original shape.

The pale, slender hand turned into a foreclaw covered in thick, jagged scales, and the round pupils stretched into vertical reptilian slits.

From her back, wings emerged — and along with them, unlike usual, membranes that were already torn into ragged strips.

"I lived… a happy dream."

She let the words drift out in a hazy voice that sounded like metal scraping on metal, then looked at me and, with effort, opened her mouth again.

"You said you'd wait for this Minerva. You said it… didn't you?"

"I did."

"…Then this Minerva will wait for you too."

However long it takes.

Those were the last words.

The Minerva who had been laughing and talking with us just a breath ago was nowhere at all, and what remained beside us was only the Seven Calamity Minerva, sealed into a stone statue.

"…Minerva."

A wind picked up.

That wind — a wind that felt almost like a signal that our journey through this world had come to its end — was cool, bitterly cool through and through.