Editing Seirei Tsukai no Blade Dance:Volume15 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 8===

&mdash;Kamito, listen to me, Kamito, where are you...?

Inside endless darkness that stretched without boundary... ''Her'' voice came.

(Restia... Is that you?)

Guided by the voice, Kamito felt his way around the darkness to advance...

In the center of the lurking darkness, he saw a concentration of greater darkness standing there.

It was the darkness spirit girl, sitting crouched there with her beautiful jet-black wings closed.

(Restia, I am here!)

Towards her figure, Kamito desperately reached out&mdash;



"...!"

Kamito woke to a start.

(...A dream huh?)

Wiping sweat from his brow, he slowly sat up.

The sky outside was still dark, so it looked like dawn had not come yet. Normally, he would be woken up by either Scarlet or the presence of Est in his bed. Very rarely would he open his eyes at such an hour.

(...It's been so long since I last had a dream of Restia.)

During the three years of wandering in search of Restia, there was almost never a night when he did not dream of her. Among them included both beautiful dreams from childhood and severe nightmares.

But only in recent times did having such dreams become less and less frequent&mdash;

"...!?"

Suddenly, a mild pain passed through his left hand. Kamito could not help but look at the back of his hand, but Restia's disappeared spirit seal had not returned.

This was an occasional illusion. Perhaps fighting Greyworth might have stirred up his past memories with Restia&mdash;Reaching this conclusion, Kamito got out of bed.

He somehow felt like he was no longer in the mood for sleep.

After putting on a leather glove over his left hand, he exited the room.

He had abandoned the glove after losing the spirit seal, but after Restia returned with her memories lost, he had started wearing it again.

Kamito went through the corridor to reach the a balcony in the castle.

The moon was still bright. Looking down at the courtyard below, he could see the place littered with wine bottles and drunken soldiers and locals.

After leaning on the railing and enjoying the night breeze for a while&mdash;

"Kamito, what are you doing...?"

Suddenly, he heard a voice.

He looked back to see Claire arrive in her pajamas.

"What's up, Claire?"

"Hmm... I couldn't sleep for some reason."

"I see..."

Claire came up to Kamito and leaned her head against him.

"Claire, are you... drunk?"

"Yes, a little... I might have drank too much."

Her cheeks were a few shades redder. Usually a bit childish, Claire's appearance instantly looked gorgeous with her twintails untied and a tipsy expression. However, letting such comments loose would probably bring forth the flaming whip, so Kamito kept quiet.

Claire looked out at the starry sky that was even more expansive than the Forest of Ice Blossoms and said:

"Things have gotten huge in many ways."

"Yeah, you're right."

Kamito nodded.

"...It feels like I've experienced many things since meeting you."

"Me too."

Back when he first arrived at the Academy, Kamito's mind was completely occupied with finding Restia.

But now, they were about to be swept into a war to decide the world's fate&mdash;

"Back then, I was trying desperately to meet my sister. I did many reckless things, a-and caused lots of trouble for you too."

"Well... After all, I almost got burned to charcoal as soon as we met."

"Th-That was your fault for seeing me naked, Kamito... A-And you even said something about having no interest in a child's naked body, didn't you!?"

"...Now that you mention it, I think you're right."

Thinking back, he had apparently said something quite awful at the time...

"I-It was my first time to be seen naked by a boy, it was such a shock..."

"It was my bad there... Sorry."

Kamito apologized honestly.

"But even though the way we met was so terrible&mdash;"

Claire paused then continued.

"Kamito, I think it was truly wonderful that I met you."

Claire lowered her head. Under the night's darkness, it was hard to see her expression clearly. The reason why she could voice her true feelings honestly was because she was drunk, right?

"Me too. I'm deeply grateful for the coincidence that allowed me to meet you in the Spirit Forest back then."

Saying that, Kamito patted Claire on the head.

&mdash;Yes, it was ''coincidence''. It was only out of coincidence that Kamito, the Demon King's reincarnation, had rescued Claire and even contracted with Est.

It was absolutely not destiny decided by someone&mdash;

That coincidence was far more precious than so-called destiny. That was what Kamito thought.

"Kamito..."

Claire looked up and stared at Kamito.

Then taking a deep breath as though committing some kind of resolve&mdash;

"Uh, umm, Kamito... I-I..."

&mdash;Just at that moment.

Suddenly, Kamito noticed something glowing in the night sky.

"That's...?"

The light source was approaching Winter Gulf Castle.

It was a military ship's searchlight.

"Could it be the Imperial Knights?"

"No, that's... Nee-sama's military ship!"

At the same time as Claire's exclamation&mdash;

The outline of the military ship, the Revenant, appeared from the other side of the Kyria Mountain Range.
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