Ch.154Report on the Downfall of Diligence (19)

– Tell me.

“Live.”

– Tell me.

“Let’s live.” Kairos spread his arms. Guilt tilted its head in confusion.

“I’ve decided. To live searching for meaning. So, come with me. Let’s live together.”

Beatrice approached. She embraced Kairos and kissed him. Twice, three times she kissed him. She was as beautiful and radiant as when he first saw her in the rose garden under the sunlight.

Eventually, she shattered. She broke apart into red, white, and yellow rose petals. The petals swirled around Kairos, carried by a wind from an unknown source.

With inevitable regret, Kairos tried to grasp the petals. But they mercilessly slipped past his palms. It was as meaningless as trying to hold water in his hands.

Still, he wanted to convey something. He wanted to speak to her somehow. He wanted to tell her that he was here.

But the person who needed to hear it had long since left this world. It was time to stop this self-deception of whispering to himself.

So Kairos raised his sword.

He recalled each movement Beatrice had taught him. He remembered how to extend the blade smoothly, and the touch of her hand correcting his improper posture. Elegant, light, yet concise and precise.

It wasn’t traditional Eastern style. The difference wasn’t simply that he held an Imperial sword instead of a staff. No, it couldn’t even be called swordsmanship. It wasn’t even a dance.

It was a recreation of memories.

A recreation of precious moments spent together. Gestures dedicated to times that could never return. Remembering how things were then, remembering those movements, it was a plea saying that I am still here, and you are still there.

But it wasn’t mere repetition.

The path he had walked was too long to simply sit down and repeat old habits. He had wandered too long, fled too long, and suffered too long.

He had met precious people, seen unspeakable horrors, and made room in his heart for things he deeply relied on.

And he had met today.

Lily had always been about the present moment.

She never forgave even a moment’s distraction. When he pushed hard, she pushed back harder; when he thrust with all his might, she thrust back even more forcefully.

But that was her way of expression. The heart that wanted to love more than being loved, the feelings that couldn’t be expressed in clumsy words, the expressions that couldn’t be mixed with speech—she had conveyed them all through her sword.

How else could the White Blood Valkyrja speak but through her sword? What else would the greatest swordsman need besides a sword? How else could she express it? That confession placed between life and death, how else could it be spoken but through a sword?

Hatreds swarmed toward Kain.

As always, hatred tried to break Kain. Because hatred knows only destruction, knows no other way than to crush, press down, tear apart, and devour.

That’s why hatred is always lonely. No matter how much it expressed itself, no one remained to receive it. No matter how much it exploded, no one was there to accept it. The world turned its back on hatred.

Unable to bear the loneliness, hatred plucked out its own eyes. If it couldn’t see anything in the world, perhaps it would be less lonely.

But it was wrong. Even blind, the loneliness remained. Even without anyone to receive it, the things that needed to be spewed out overflowed. Eventually, hatred swelled itself. In a place with no one to receive it, hatred consumed itself and continuously expanded to forget its loneliness.

The hatreds summoned by Hans were like that too. The sword gleaming in the moonlight was utterly ridiculous.

As always, hatred would crush Kain too, and express itself. The heads of bundled words. The spirits of unjustly killed beasts.

But in the final moment, the beast was puzzled.

Even a beast that has lost its reason can understand certain expressions. Life and death are such things.

Kain’s swordsmanship was threatening enough to draw attention, but not lethal enough to take a life.

Yet it “entangled” with the beast. As if inviting it closer.

One of the beast’s heads roared and charged. It was one of four horses that had lived obediently pulling carriages as it was told, but had died with a broken neck in an incomprehensible accident and now found itself in a terrible state.

The horse, now a monster, expressed its resentment. It tried to express itself by biting and tearing wildly.

The blue sword received it all.

The horse couldn’t understand. The sword wasn’t pushed back by hatred. But neither did it strike back. It merely “engaged.”

As if saying, spew out everything you have to spew, as if saying, tell your story to your heart’s content, it continued to meet the charge.

The horse expressed its hatred as it wished. It bit, kicked, howled, and gnawed.

The human holding the sword avoided it all. Sometimes he would thrust in a way that made the horse flinch.

‘Tell me more. Express as much as you want to express. What has troubled you so? What has caused you such sorrow?’

For the first time, hatred found someone who would listen to its story.

The opponent was unusual. When it pushed strongly, he received it strongly; when it pushed weakly, he received it weakly.

He seemed about to break but didn’t, seemed about to charge but retreated.

It was a welcome but unfamiliar experience.

For the first time in hatred’s one-sided life, someone appeared who matched its pace.

He responded without being swept away, knew how to take care of himself without forcefully thrusting in.

For the first time, hatred became curious.

– Who are you? Who are you that converses with me like this?

Then it asked:

– And who are you? Is your hatred truly yours? Who are you who fights with me here?

‘Me?’

The horse finally recalled “itself.” It could see hazily before its eyes. A human stood holding a sword.

But he was merely “holding it.” The distance was far, and he wasn’t threatening.

‘Why was I trying to fight?’

The horse couldn’t remember. It couldn’t find any reason to bite and kill someone standing so far away.

‘What happened to my body?’

The horse examined itself. It seemed to be bound to something strange. It was unpleasant, irritating, and cumbersome. Somehow, it reminded the horse of when it first wore stirrups and reins.

– Who are you? What did you want to do?

I wanted to roam freely, the horse recalled the answer. But it didn’t know how to convey that. In frustration, the horse neighed loudly.

The human raised his sword upward in expression.

Strangely, the horse seemed to understand that motion. It seemed to mean cutting what was bound. Perhaps it appeared that way because of the horse’s own desire.

‘Yes. That’s right. That’s what I wanted.’

For the first time, the horse felt at ease. It had found someone who understood and listened to it. It was a bit disappointing that it wasn’t another horse, but it wasn’t a bad experience.

– Then let it be so.

The horse, which had lost its body in such an absurd way, thus breathed its last and departed peacefully.

Sobbing shadows swarmed toward Kain. Because there was someone who would listen to their resentment, grief, and sorrow, yet would not yield to them.

Kain saw countless sorrows. Hatred and sadness passed down through generations. All those things squirming, begging for someone to listen to them, surrounded Kain.

They gathered seeking someone who would listen and pay attention, seeking a heart where they could be released.

For each one he read, he swung his sword once. For each one he saw, he drew one stroke. Kain didn’t understand. He didn’t try to understand hastily. He merely expressed.

I am here.

I have seen you.

I have heard your words.

I have seen your memories.

Kain didn’t know any other way to express it. He merely slashed at the empty air. He only hoped it would reach the shadows. He only expressed with all his might.

This hatred is not mine.

This hatred is not yours.

Countless expressions passed through Kain.

Happiness and sadness, resentment and anger, joy and sorrow, times when one had to smile while crying and moments when one had to hold back tears, memories that were sad at the time but later brought laughter or vice versa—all these memories passed through Kain.

Some memories were too intense. Those that reminded Kain of his own memories, those that unconsciously absorbed him, were like that.

But they were not Kain’s memories. They only reached what was Kain’s own.

So Kain murmured the song Elisabet had taught him. That common song about how everything flows and flows, passes and changes.

Then he heard it from somewhere. Kain knew it was Maria’s voice. Just as Kain was here, Maria was there.

Maria’s song was heard.

“The human heart has nowhere to rest in this vast land.”

Kain answered:

“Not even a place to stick a needle, so where should it be placed?”

Both knew the words that would follow.

“The human heart should be placed not in the land but in another heart. Because the heart, at least, comes not from the land but from another heart. If you have nowhere to place your heart, you should find another heart to plant it in and let it sprout.”

The monster’s body collapsed.

The hatred these beings carried was not their own. The lives of the four horses and the woman called Grace were not to be simply overlaid with hatred and resentment.

Even in broken lives and bodies, there was something to salvage. Even in completely ruined lives, there is a ray of light. Having expressed themselves fully and emptied themselves out, they finally found their last remaining brilliance.

Like how the purest and cleanest things remain after fire has passed. Like how only the truth remains after fierce storms have passed, they departed satisfied with what remained.

The hatreds that lost their place to stay remembered where they had come from. The nine-headed hydra, the heads that kept rising no matter how many times they were cut off, returned to their master Hans despite resistance, shaking off, and being cut down.

Because hatred resembles a wasteland, making both itself and others barren, Hans collapsed in the wasteland, ultimately unable to overcome his own heart.

“Uuugh, huuugh…”

In the middle of the carcass, Hans groaned.

Kain opened his eyes. His sweat-soaked clothes clung to him, and various parts of his body ached and tingled. But his heart, at least his heart, was light and at ease.

“You, you. What, what kind of man are you? Are you human, are you really human…?”

The shadow was still eating away at Hans’s body. In agony, Hans sobbed and asked.

Snap.

Holy fire clung to the shadow. Hans’s body burst into flames.

“Aaaagh!”

Though it only burned the vain shadow without harming life, purification and cleansing are always accompanied by pain.

The sins he himself had nourished and raised became fuel, purifying his body with fire.