Chapter 157: Past (7)
TL/ED – Miso
She saw a river.
A river flowing with blood.
“…Eek, eeeeek!!!”
Sharmia shot up and clutched the blanket.
As she groped at her eyes with hands drenched in sweat, the door burst open and Knights filed in with practiced precision, drawing their swords.
“What happened, Princess!”
“…”
She had been breathing in ragged gasps, but…
She forced a smile and shook her head. “It’s nothing. I just had a nightmare…”
“…Are you alright? You look very pale.”
“I’m really fine. There’s been so much trouble at the Imperial Palace lately, I think it just got to me a little.”
“Yes, understood. Should anything happen, please do not hesitate to call for us.”
Once the Knights left, Sharmia clutched her trembling left hand.
‘…That was the future, wasn’t it?’
The dreams she had been having all this time.
She had dismissed them as mere nightmares and forgotten them, but now they all surged back at once, tearing through her mind.
The great Empire, which had seemed as though it could never fall, was gnawed away by vermin and crumbled pillar by pillar.
Wizards took their own lives, every tree withered and died, and on the wastelands where not a single grain of food remained, all people could do was wait for death to come.
Plagues swept through and insects swarmed. Amid the suffering, she saw people simply waiting to die.
Hatred with nowhere to go simply evaporated into nothing.
Because the ones they might have blamed had already been dead for a long, long time…
-Crack!
“Ngh…”
Alone on the bed, Sharmia hugged herself tightly.
It felt as though she were the only person left in the world. And in truth, it was a secret that she alone knew.
She could tell. That this nightmare would inevitably come to pass someday, and that nothing could stop it.
Being certain of that was the very nature of her magic.
“N-no, I don’t want this…”
Sharmia had been about to call for the Head Maid, her throat burning, but she hesitated.
…Would she believe it?
No matter what she said, it would only be dismissed as a child’s nightmare.
And even if she were believed, that was a problem too.
If they learned that this future, that all the coming Calamities, were far beyond anything the Empire could hope to stand against. If they learned what manner of enemy they would have to face…
It would lead to nothing but despair.
Whether they believed her or not, it was a problem either way.
As Sharmia sat trembling on the bed for a while…
A small cracking sound reached her ears.
“…?”
Tap, tap. A faint sound, as if someone were knocking on the door.
But the only entrance to the Princess’s bedchamber was firmly guarded by the Knights. Surely they would never play such a prank as knocking on her door.
Tilting her head for a moment, Sharmia realized the sound was coming from the right, from inside the mirror that had been draped with cloth so she would not have to look at it.
The mirror had been left in the room and covered with fabric to hide a weakness she could not let anyone discover: the Princess could not look into mirrors.
Swallowing hard, Sharmia hesitated, then took a small step and slowly made her way to the mirror.
And, slowly, she drew the cloth aside.
“Ngh.”
It was exactly as she had expected.
Whenever Sharmia looked into a mirror, she would sometimes notice an unidentifiable person staring back at her.
But whenever she tried to fix her gaze to get a proper look, they vanished as though they had never existed… so in truth, this was the first time she had ever come face to face with them.
[Nice to meet you.]
Cascading golden hair and beautiful eyes. A woman wearing nightclothes similar to her own held up a sheet of paper bearing those words, an enchanting smile on her lips.
She was breathtakingly beautiful. For a brief moment, Sharmia forgot the anguish of the future and stared at her with her mouth agape, but she quickly shook her head and came to her senses.
“Wh-who are you? Who are you to be inside my mirror?”
Only after speaking did she realize the other person could not hear her voice, and her cheeks flushed. But the woman simply smiled and lowered the paper.
Remarkably, a reply was already written on it.
[Sharmia. The Princess of this Empire.]
“But that’s me…”
[Just a bit older, though.]
“…Oh!”
Only then did Sharmia realize why the woman’s golden hair was such a familiar shade.
The clothes she wore, her face, the color of her eyes, everything was an exact match.
‘No, but this is…’
Of course, everyone has eyes, a nose, and ears.
That did not mean everyone looked the same. She had never once thought her own appearance lacking, but even accounting for that, she was not so self-assured as to believe she would grow into someone this beautiful.
After looking the woman’s tall figure up and down, Sharmia soon realized that was hardly the important thing here.
“You’ve been watching me, haven’t you? From inside the mirror, secretly.”
[Yes. That caused me quite a lot of heartache, actually. I tried not to, but living in a world like this, I kept finding myself longing for the past.]
“…A world like this?”
Her thoughts touched the nightmare once more.
A future borrowed from nightmares.
“S-so it really is the future, isn’t it?”
[Yes.]
“And it can’t… be changed?”
[Yes. I think I of all people would know that best.]
“…”
It was the truth.
The moment Sharmia had that dream, she had known with certainty that these things would inevitably come to pass.
A seed that had been watered might not sprout; a seed given too much water might rot. The possibilities in this world were endless.
But a seed given no water at all could never grow.
That was simply the way of things. Just as a seed could never take root in desert sand.
“…Why.”
Sharmia clenched her teeth.
A single tear rolled down her cheek.
“Why is this happening? Why does it turn out like this? Did I do something wrong? Is it my fault…?”
Young as she was, she had already steeled herself for the life ahead.
She had accepted the fate of being a Princess, given up the life she wanted, and resigned herself to a lifetime of devotion to the Empire, so that she might leave behind a world slightly better than the one she had inherited.
But a destiny in which no amount of effort held any meaning was a burden far too heavy for a small girl to bear.
The Sharmia inside the mirror gazed at her with a look of pity and turned to the next sheet of paper.
[It’s not your fault. If anything, it’s because we are pitiful creatures trapped within bodies of flesh.]
“…Pardon?”
[It’s simply the process of returning to our original forms. All suffering arises because we define it as suffering.]
“??”
The gap in understanding was too wide to bridge. Still mid-tears, she looked up at the mirror with a bewildered expression.
The Sharmia inside the mirror smiled benevolently and let the next paper fall as though bestowing salvation.
[But yes, I know what my younger self is thinking. I know all of it. After all, I am you.]
“I-I’m…”
[You want to run away, don’t you?]
“…What? Run away?”
Sharmia asked back, looking puzzled.
[In the end, the title of Princess, the duties you must shoulder, they’re all nothing but illusions. If a boulder is falling, you should run, not try to catch it with both hands only to be crushed into a smear of blood. You know this, don’t you? That in truth, I’m not such an exceptional person.]
“…”
She was right.
Sharmia knew all too well that stripped of the title of Princess, she was nothing.
And even if she did possess extraordinary abilities…
Even a superhuman before whom her father would concede would be nothing more than a single person in the face of what was to come.
“But…”
[Hmm?]
“Th-that doesn’t seem quite right…”
Sharmia protested, stumbling over her words.
“If I run away, if I know about this future and don’t even try to stop it, then I’m just… an accomplice.”
[And what kind of effort do you mean?]
“…I should tell everyone about this future.”
[Who would believe you? No, even if someone did, wouldn’t they have to be out of their mind? If the Princess had a dream and someone genuinely believed the end of the world was coming because of it… hmm, yes, they’d definitely be out of their mind.]
“If the Calamities start arriving one by one, people will have no choice but to believe…”
[If they believe, it becomes even more terrible. After barely managing to fend off the first Calamity, if, as per the Princess’s Prophecy, each one that follows is always worse than the last… isn’t that so?]
“…”
Her future self had already seen through everything.
As Sharmia stood there, struck speechless, more sheets of paper unfolded as if to soothe her.
[This is for everyone’s sake. They can hold onto hope, and I can find peace. Imagine people locked inside a steel box where they can’t breathe, fast asleep. What the Princess would be doing is the same as waking those people up.]
“…But even if I did run, where would I go?”
[I found it. Our Ark. That’s why I’ve come to stand before you, to tell you about it.]
“It will be agonizing. I’ll… spend every single day drowning in the thought that I abandoned the Empire…”
[Humans are capable of forgetting. Three years after the peach tree I raised with my own hands bore fruit, I let go of everything.]
“…”
Sharmia still hesitated.
But even she could not understand why she was hesitating.
[My past self. Of course, if you don’t want to listen to me, I won’t force you. I don’t even have the means to.]
“…”
[So may I ask just one thing?]
“…?”
[What if, hypothetically, someone else had a Prophecy like yours, and that person said nothing and simply ran away? Would you reproach them? Would you ask them why they didn’t tell you about the future bearing down on you and chose to save only themselves?]
“I couldn’t… do that…”
[Why not?]
“…Because it was better not to know.”
Sharmia lowered her head.
She wished she had never known.
Humans cannot see the future. If one were to learn even what lay beyond death, then death itself would lose its meaning as an escape.
[Exactly.]
The Sharmia inside the mirror reached out her hand.
It had clearly happened within the mirror, and yet…
Sharmia felt a touch gently stroking her shoulder.
“It’s the right choice.”
The voice of her grown-up self was startlingly similar to her own.
***
“Alright then.”
-Clatter.
Only after watching the still-young Sharmia shuffle out of the bedroom in tears did I push aside the ceiling tile and drop down.
The Knights had all followed after Sharmia, so the bedroom was silent and still.
Having witnessed the entire scene just now, I clicked my tongue and fixed my gaze on the door.
“So that’s how it happens.”
When I had first heard the word “runaway”, I had wondered what on earth could have made Sharmia leave home. But having snuck a peek at what went on inside that mirror, it was, well, how to put it.
The only word that came to mind was “cruel”.
Part of me wanted to stop the whole runaway attempt before it even started, but…
Sharmia had asked me again and again. Don’t stop it. If I tried, it would only lead to something far worse.
And yet whenever I pressed for details, she dodged the question. Typical.
I let out a sigh and glanced at the mirror.
The one who had just been talking to Sharmia was still there, beaming away with another sheet of paper in hand.
[Going to follow her?]
“That’s right. If that kid dies, I’m done for too.”
[I’ll be rooting for you.]
The paper was flipped without an instant’s hesitation.
…She looked remarkably identical to the real Sharmia.
Cheon-hwa had been the same way, but at least there had been some difference, like dark circles or something. This one was simply Sharmia herself.
Then again, they were the same person, so it made sense.
As I was thinking that, a thought suddenly occurred to me.
“Just out of curiosity, do I die here?”
Strictly speaking, she was an enemy, but she was nothing more than a phantom who could not even leave the mirror.
And, well, the idea of a Sharmia who had joined the Crimson Circle was unusual enough that I wanted to have at least one conversation with her.
Sharmia smiled softly, then…
Lowered the next sheet of paper just like that.
[—————-]
“…”
Words I could not possibly comprehend were written there.
I carved them into my memory exactly as they appeared.
The next moment.
Sharmia was no longer visible in the mirror.
…It was a departure befitting her, as if it were her last.