Chapter 268 : Chapter 268
Chapter 268: Butterfly (2)
A dream, then.
Harad was certain.
'...... Is it truly a dream?'
And simultaneously puzzled.
'Ellen. Did she dream?'
Even so, something was off.
The Stone of Regression did not force dreams upon Harad.
'What changed?'
It felt like a dream.
Harad surveyed his surroundings. Nothing was visible. Everything was pitch-black.
His eyes were not closed.
In a dream brought on by the Stone of Regression, there was no body. One could see, hear, and think. That was all.
The same now.
He could not explain it, but Harad was now seeing with open eyes and hearing. Such was the vagueness.
'This is the kind of dream it is.'
Meaning it was not that he could not see, but that the dream's backdrop was pitch-black.
Not that he could not hear, but that no sound existed.
'Is the sky black too? No, the very concept of sky seems absent. Same for the ground.'
That was deeply unfamiliar to Harad.
Dreams meant the past life. But in the past life, no such moment had existed.
Thud.
A footstep was heard then. It was the sole noise in this world. And therefore singular.
The form was all the more singular.
Every nerve seemed seized in a single instant.
The pitch-black world rippled. On closer look, it was hair the same color as the world.
The hair stretched to the calves. Even that showed signs of having been cut several times. Its ends fluttered ragged.
'How many times.'
The garments behind the hair were unfamiliar.
Never seen before...... no. She had encountered them in Laash. Thin, clinging, the most uncomfortable garment. Otherworld clothing.
The curves visible through the fabric seemed to command the eye never to look away.
But Harad had to raise his gaze. Because eyes far more intense than any body were staring straight at him.
Pupils redder than blood.
The same color as Ellen's. But far deeper. Looking down upon everything.
'Elaine.'
That was more than familiar to Harad.
More so than Ellen, even.
"Who watches?"
Grand Duke Elaine spoke.
Harad thought that voice stickier than blood. Several times more bewitching than the Moon's, that old hag's voice.
'It's me.'
Harad said.
Being a dream, it did not become sound.
As expected, it did not reach Elaine's ears either.
Her hand moved.
The hand that held Serzila's heirloom sword, Patern.
In the past life it had been Elaine's; after regression, Harad's. That sword bisected Harad's vision.
He was cut. But not cut.
His vision split briefly, then returned to normal. Harad thought it was because this was a dream.
But to Grand Duke Elaine, it seemed an incomprehensible act.
"Cannot be killed."
Elaine's eyes narrowed.
As if to say: if cut, one ought rightly to die.
"It is you."
Before long, Elaine's eyes curved.
"You are dreaming me."
He had not been cut.
Through that, Elaine was certain the watcher was Harad.
As though he alone could not be cut.
For Harad, this was beyond understanding.
This dream itself was the first anomaly. A moment that had not existed in the past life. Dreams, Manoa, the Village of Embers, Kandenkel, Manifestation...... lips.
-This is my dream. A most welcome rubbish dream.
Before their lips had met.
Elaine had said that.
To that Elaine, Harad's reality after regression was a dream.
Proof that the foolish Grand Duke who had sent Harad back still lived on somewhere.
...... That somewhere was here, Harad soon sensed.
A moment that had not existed in the past life. Yet dreams meant the past life.
This place was the past life.
The world left behind when Harad regressed and only Elaine remained. That was what Harad was now dreaming.
"I am pleased, yet not pleased."
Elaine was embarrassed.
"Not a place fit to show you."
As if to say her world was paltry.
***
"You are like a butterfly."
Elaine said.
It was the sole voice and noise in this world.
"Your gaze sways as if in flight. Whether winged or merely precarious."
No, in this world she seemed to be the only thing that existed.
To Harad, nothing but Elaine was visible.
"This is a dream you were never meant to see."
Not a platitude. The scene before him was literally so.
In the pitch-black world, Elaine alone existed.
Even that world was Elaine's, Harad soon realized. The shade of darkness coloring the world was familiar.
It was not a mere backdrop.
It was Elaine's jet-black. She had colored the world with Aura.
"Done, not chosen. Was it intended? No. You would have no reason."
No, she had layered it.
Harad realized again. Because Elaine had taken a step.
The jet-black disguising the ground shifted with her stride. Meaning...... there was no ground. Nothing to step on or walk upon.
Elaine was walking on her own jet-black, making it her floor.
"Do not understand. Doubt. You must, for this is such a phenomenon. Quite so."
His breath caught.
Harad did not want to dig deeper. But he was in a position where he had to. The regression should have been Elaine's.
"A sight you must not see."
Elaine's lips stirred.
A slight motion, yet brimming with life. Because it contrasted with this world, he felt.
Harad thought Elaine was envious.
And immediately corrected himself. She was not such a person.
She could not see his face, yet Elaine was reading Harad's mind.
She was reassuring him that it was right for him to regress, not her.
Had Elaine regressed, Harad would have died before the world came to this.
Elaine took a step.
Exceedingly slow. Yet Harad felt speed. No wind blew. The world was still. Without Elaine, he would not have perceived it as a world at all.
"It exists, yet does not."
The past life.
This world existed, yet did not.
The same for Elaine.
Unless she dreamed the most welcome rubbish dream, she existed yet did not. She merely lived on in this world.
'With whom?'
Harad wanted to see another person.
Even if it were Enverque, or the Church.
Or even the Otherworld.
"It exists, yet does not. I said."
Elaine said again.
Only then did Harad realize those words were directed not at this world or at Elaine, but at himself.
That was absurd.
It made him angry. Right now, who was saying what to whom.
"What would you have done? If you were I."
Thought stopped short.
"You would have done your utmost. For me, even in a place like this."
I too wish to do so.
"Weaker than I, yet you would."
Elaine said, smiling.
Harad felt life in that smile. And thought it bleak.
"Serzila."
Elaine said after a few steps.
Harad did not understand. The world still showed only jet-black.
"The Boundary."
Elaine said after two more steps.
To Harad's eyes, still only Elaine and jet-black.
Having entered the Boundary, Elaine changed direction.
In a world where only jet-black was visible, her stride held no hesitation.
Perhaps what was invisible to Harad was visible to her. This place was a dream for Harad. For Elaine, it was reality.
Instead of the unseen world, Harad watched Elaine. The same face as just before the regression, and hair grown far longer since. He traced the direction her steps were heading.
That direction, that gaze into vagueness, did not feel unfamiliar. The Watchtower's smoke. Elaine was proceeding along its path.
"Here."
Elaine stopped.
As expected, the end.
Elaine had just come to stand at the end the Watchtower's smoke pointed to.
"Here lies what exists yet does not, for you."
Elaine was telling Harad to find this place in reality.
'What exists yet does not.'
What could it be.
Instead of thinking, Harad kept watching Elaine. The Otherworld garments suited yet were foreign on her. Why had she come to wear them?
The most uncomfortable garment.
And beside it, the most fearsome sword. The worn Patern caught his eye. If Elaine were to come, what would become of it? Would there be two?
That could not be, the reverted Harad knew better than anyone. There was one Harad. The same for Elaine. She had Manifested into reality through Ellen's body. That was the Stone of Regression's role.
If Elaine came, Patern too would become one.
Then whose hand would hold the sword?
The place the Watchtower's smoke pointed to.
Elaine had stopped there. To Harad it was a world of nothing but jet-black, but in reality, a Magical Item the Sun had left behind would be there.
'Reality.'
The word grated. Then he felt their eyes meet. Elaine reached out a hand. The hand passed through the air.
"I cannot touch. In reality, I cannot reach."
This world and that world.
Harad thought Ellen's phrase fit with maddening precision.
"Harad. You are strong. Stronger than I."
Earlier.
Elaine had said Harad was weak. Yet now she said the opposite.
"You know the answer."
What answer.
Harad could not ask. But Elaine looked as though she had arrived at something, or realized it.
"You would have chosen."
Elaine spoke with conviction pressed deep.
He did not know what answer, but yes. Harad was confident he could say so.
That was the kind of bond they had.
Each knew what the other knew.
If she had found the answer, Elaine too would choose.
If she was the Elaine Harad remembered, the Elaine he knew, she naturally would.
"I cannot choose."
But Elaine shook her head.
"I have no confidence in dying."
A jest. Teasing again.
Harad thought it was the Elaine-like arrogance he had always seen. No confidence in dying, no matter what she did.
"Harad."
Wrong.
Monster-like. Not a monster. A tyrant. That it was decidedly untrue, Harad alone knew full well. Elaine was strong yet not strong.
...... Elaine.
Had grown stronger. And grown weaker.
The woman before him was Elaine, yet not the Elaine Harad had known.
Now he did not know everything.
Her reality, Harad did not know.
"I don't want to die."
Elaine was smiling wryly.
"I miss you."
To Harad, it looked like tears.
"A jest."
A lie.
***
...... A ceiling was visible.
Harad could not immediately name its color. But it was plainly not jet-black. A face popped into view.
"Are you all right?"
Grand Heir Elaine.
When Harad opened his eyes, the Grand Heir in Ellen's guise had reacted.
Must have come from working as the Grand Heir.
Harad thought so. But his mouth opened on its own.
"Elaine?"
He should have said "Grand Heir."
But the name came out. He could not help it.
"Yes, it is I. Familiar, aren't we. Are you in much pain?"
Grand Heir Elaine blinked yet showed concern. Between them, a slip this small was light enough. On the surface, at least; beneath, it was.
He recognized the mistake.
But Harad could not help making another.
"The dream?"
"What?"
He had just woken from a dream.
Then why were Grand Heir Elaine's, Ellen's, eyes so round and bright?
"Did you dream?"
One look at her face was enough to tell.
"Have you lost your mind?"
The dream Harad had dreamt, Ellen had not.