Editing Rakuin no Monshou:Volume12 Chapter8 (section)

=== Part 3 ===

They returned victorious to Solon.

By all rights, fireworks should have been booming since morning and throngs of people should have gone out to greet them, but it had not yet been five days since the announcement of Emperor Guhl’s demise. In order to observe mourning, the people were forbidden from wearing bright colours, while taverns, brothels, arenas, and any other entertainment venues were to remain shut.

Despite his achievements and the hopes for the future that the people held, the hero who had rushed to aid the Grand Duchy of Ende, and who had repelled Allion’s expeditionary force quietly alighted from the ship which had landed with an equal lack of fanfare.

Naturally, he had been informed of the emperor’s death before he had returned. It had left Gil Mephius – Orba, lost for words. He listened in silence to the detailed explanation.

Guhl Mephius had been bathing in a puddle of blood on a cold stone floor. There was no clear information as to whose hand had killed him. However, slightly less than ten people, including elders of the Dragon Gods’ faith, the empress and Zaas, had afterwards fled in a suspicious air carrier believed to have been concealed beforehand within the temple. It was certain that they were responsible.

''Guhl…''

''Is dead.''

Most of the retainers understood Orba’s silence as grief over the death of his father. Yet – needless to repeat at this point – Orba and Guhl were not related by blood. The circumstances to which each had been born were wildly different. They had barely even spoken face-to-face from the time he had become a body-double, whereas his life had been targeted more than once. However, saying that Orba had simply pretended to receive a shock and then sink into silence would also be incorrect.

Orba had, in fact, experienced shock. It was similar to receiving a serious injury.

But whether what he was feeling was a sense of loss because victory had been so abrupt, pity for the pitiful dictator, or perhaps even regret that he had not personally killed him, Orba himself could not tell.

The enigmatic feeling followed him even after he had disembarked in Solon.  
 
With a mourning token<ref>Traditionally, people wore mourning badges attached to the breast of their clothes in Japan, but the custom of wearing an armband has also been adopted along with western clothes, so it’s unclear  what, exactly, Orba is wearing.</ref> attached to the coat he wore over his armour, Orba was met by nobles of his acquaintance who were similarly clad in mourning, but they barely exchanged any words. He merely stopped to sweep his gaze over all of their faces and give a brief nod.

''It’s so sad.''

Just as had happened on-board, everyone understood that Crown Prince Gil was grief-stricken.

''He won the war, then his father died just as he was returning triumphant and victorious.''

''Although they’d led soldiers to wage battle against one another, they were still father and son.''

''And his lady mother has already passed away.''

''No matter how heroic he is, the Lord Crown Prince is still young. It must be so hard…''

Ineli Mephius was at the centre of the group of nobles. He was aware of everything that she had done in Solon. Calling both her and Odyne forward, Orba said only a few brief words: “You did a good job looking after things.”
 


Afterwards, he did not return to his own chambers but instead went somewhere as though to avoid the public eye.

The Black Tower soared above the centre of the city of Solon. The shrine to the Dragon Gods had once been housed beneath it. Normally, before the ceremonious funeral, the remains of royalty should have been laid out in state in the temple where that shrine had now been moved to. However, that place was what it was, and the elders who managed the temple were now viewed as those responsible for dividing the country in two, as well as being suspected of having murdered the emperor. Which was why the corpse had been transported to the underground morgue beneath the Black Tower.

This had been reduced to an almost cylindrical cavity. The paintings, gorgeous ornament, and sculptures of the successive generations of emperors which had once lined the walls on both sides had been transferred to the temple.

While the tapping sound of his footsteps echoed, Orba walked along alone, holding a torch aloft.

The sound of footsteps stopped.

He could see the temporary altar which was all that had been carried from the temple. A coffin had been quietly laid out.

Orba stood still for a long time before it, neither opening the lid nor approaching any closer than necessary to the casket in which his ‘father’ slept.

Somehow, now that things had come to this, he felt that there was a lot that they would have needed to say.

For example, maybe there should have been words of reproach. For so long, the emperor had been unable to distinguish between his real son, and the impostor that Orba was. For Orba himself, he felt both that it was a relief and, at the same time – or ''rather'' – that he would have wanted to reveal his own identity, and fling all of his reproaches to the statesman who had robbed him of everything.

Or perhaps he would have wanted to receive instruction on all sorts of things from the one who had ruled for so long, and who, for all his faults, had so much experience.

Or perhaps he would have wanted to assert his intention before the emperor that from now on, he would take care of the country in his place, like a true descendant of the imperial family.

That was something else that not even Orba himself could tell for sure.

“Who are you?” only Guhl’s voice as he had asked that question continued to reverberate within Orba’s mind.

''Well then'' – Orba mentally asked in return –  ''who were'' you''?''

Thinking about it now, the emperor, who never trusted or let others into his heart, was the very image of a lonely old man. Yet Orba’s own heart violently opposed the thought of neatly summing up the emperor’s last years with just those few words.

This was the man who had held the throne of the Imperial Dynasty of Mephius for many long years. Despite innumerable conflicts, he had held fast to most of its territory. He had defended his people with high stone walls and the might of the sword. These past few decades, at least within the cities, barely anyone had known starvation. Even if the price for that prosperity had been the emperor’s despotism and the lives of several hundred, or even several thousand slaves, it was impossible to feel that the life of a man who had reigned, with ups and downs, over an entire country could be understood just by saying that “he was lonely.”

''Shit'' – Orba kicked at the stone floor, aware of his own inner turmoil.

Orba knew what it was like for the sacrificed slaves, for the populace on the very bottom rungs, who were held down and suppressed through force. It didn’t need to be said that he himself had been one of them. And so –

''It’s fine for me to laugh.''

''It’s fine if I spit on your coffin and kick your corpse. It serves you right. A slave that you thought was worthless… no, whose existence you didn’t even recognise, is going to grab everything that you cherished during your life, while all you can do is curse and grind your teeth in your grave…''

Even though he tried to work himself up, his emotions did not reach half the pitch he had hoped for, and he was not even able to grasp a genuine sense of having finally won. And more importantly –

''Where did Guhl go wrong?''

However much he tried to manipulate his own feelings, that question stayed with him and would not vanish from his mind. It irritated him.

''Where did he go wrong, where was it?''

''It’s because of what he did wrong that the retainers grew arrogant, and looked down on the people and slaves like something to be harvested in the fields each year. And the result was that my home village was burned down, I lost my brother, my mother was killed…''

''It’s because of what he did wrong that so many men died before me. That there were people I had to kill.''

Even if he were somehow to never more have a reason to grasp a steel sword, the smell of blood would never fade from Orba’s hands. The colour of entrails torn from inside a body, the appalling stench of them, would never disappear from his memory.

Within that darkness in which there was nothing to lean on, Orba had firmly trampled on those sacrifices, one step at a time, as though walking along a road. His guidepost had been the thought of revenge, its flame constantly flickering right before his eyes.

And yet now that he had finally arrived where he had been going, he had, at the same time, lost sight of that flame.

''No…'' Orba sighed deeply – ''it didn’t just start now''.

I’d already lost sight of that flame after I defeated Oubary.

A new voice then asked a question within Orba.

So then, ''why did you come this far''?

''I know.''

It hadn’t been to bring down Emperor Guhl. It wasn’t a simple, fairy-tale-like story, or a play in which the last scene was overthrowing the dictator.

Orba took a deep breath as he realised that anew.

“Fool.”

Orba neither laughed nor kicked the coffin, but simply spoke.

“You should have gone all the way with being a ruthless ruler. The kind of ruler who would want ten slave sacrifices today and a hundred tomorrow. It would’ve been great if you’d been an emperor who seized all of his retainers’ assets, then started wars all over the place to stifle their complaints.”

Was it because Orba’s eyes were filled with the black shadow that had abruptly risen from the coffin that they were so dark even as he spoke curses?

It had human limbs. The shadow did not have any facial features, but Orba was certain that he could sense them: an unmistakably powerful gaze. Along with words being spoken.

Orba pretended not to notice. He continued to speak –

“If you had, it could have continued to serve as a guidepost to the future. Intending to carry everything all alone. You’re…”

''Me.''

Whose voice was it that replied?

''The road you are advancing along is the one that I followed. The road I travel is the one you once walked.''

Step by step, the shadow came closer to Orba. He could neither escape from it nor fight it. His eyes wide open, Orba could only watch as the shadow gradually turned gigantic, and prepared to swallow him whole, from the top of his head to the tip of his toes.

“Were you able to talk with His Majesty?”

A voice spoke from behind him. At the sound of that gentle voice filled with hidden strength, the shadow which had been one second away from pouncing on Orba scattered and vanished like the mist.

Orba turned around, looking as though he had just snapped out of a dream.

It could not have been sorcery. The one before him was Vileena Owell. For all that she was an oddball princess, she could not hide sorcerous power in her voice or her kiss, like Hou Ran.

Besides, Orba had realised the identity of the wraith-like shadow about to strike him a moment ago. Although of course, he did not know that Emperor Guhl Mephius had once experienced similar conversations himself, both within his own room in the main palace, and in the underground of the temple to the Dragon Gods’ faith.

“Am I bothering you?”

“No,” Orba shook his head.

He stepped to one side to leave a space for her beside him. Vileena, however, stopped a step before that. She gazed at the coffin placed in front of the altar.

“His Majesty Emperor Guhl Mephius was not easy to understand.”

Only a single light illuminated the semi-darkness. Vileena’s eyes shone bright. She scrunched up her eyebrows.

“He threw a retainer who had admonished him to the dragons, promoted gladiator games in which fellow slaves were made to kill each other, and turned his blade against my native country, Garbera. In that, the gentleman was unforgivable. Yet when I talked directly with His Majesty, he was like a completely different person from the one who had done those things.”

“…”

“When we watched the gladiator games together, he made a bet in fun with me. Then, when I brought up that bet and asked for soldiers, he readily agreed to it. Even though I was almost suffocatingly nervous during every second that I spoke with him, in no way did I hate him. If – although talking about it won’t make any difference now – but if we had just a little longer, if we could talk some more, it might be possible to shorten the distance with him, even just a little, and to understand him maybe just a little bit more. I keep thinking that.”

“Me too,” answered Orba as he too looked towards the coffin. “Now, I also think that. He was an unforgivable ‘father’, with a lot that needed to be corrected about him. But, he was, after all, the emperor. He was the one who showed the way that I needed to take from here on.”

“Empty talk,” Vileena Owell said softly and closed her eyes. Tears ran along her cheeks, but Orba again pretended not to notice. “Thinking that now is truly pointless. Why didn’t you spend more time with your father before having to regret it?”

“Because with a father like that he wouldn’t even have listened to me.”

“No, no,” this time, it was the princess who shook her head. “Did you make any effort to understand your father? And did you even make any effort to be understood?” Her tone was approaching one of cross-examination. Orba did not answer, and Vileena once again shook her long hair.

“It’s too late after something like this has happened. Much too late. When words haven’t even run dry but you decide that you cannot understand one another, you’re inviting a situation like this, in which father and son, brothers, or mother and daughter fight against one another. There are already so many cases like that. People from the same country spill each other’s blood, family members who share the same blood turn their blades against one another, I’ve had enough already.”

“Princess…”

Vileena buried her face in her hands. It was as though she had been intending to talk matter-of-factly but, before she realised it, had been overwhelmed by her feelings, and, one after another, tears fell from between her white fingers. When he tried to place a hand on her shoulder, Vileena shook her head fretfully, shaking his hand off at the same time. The princess sniffled.

“I don’t want to have to regret anymore. I don’t want to be bitterly sorry and bite my lips and stamp my foot like a child when it’s already too late,” the princess fervently complained, sobbing like a child.

''Now that I think about it…'' Orba suddenly realised something as he stared at her profile.

Right, now that he thought about, Vileena was a girl who had witnessed internal battles again and again. She had not even been ten years old when a man named Bateaux, who was supposed to be a leading figure among Garbera’s long-time retainers, had rebelled right before her eyes. She and her grandfather, Jeorg, had been taken hostage, but they had prevailed thanks to her grandfather’s tact and the princess’ ability to take action.

Then, no sooner had Orba and Vileena met than they were dragged into the drama of the Garberan general Ryucown’s similar rebellion. He had been none other than the princess’ former fiancé. Grieving over the future of Garbera and of chivalry, he had even raised his sword against her.

Even after she had come to Mephius, internal conflicts occurred one after another, with Zaat Quark’s attempted uprising, the war between Mephius and the west which were supposed to have become allies on the prince’s decision, and now, the civil war between father and son. Although Orba himself did not know it, back in her native country of Garbera, a quarrel between her two brothers had also been on the verge of intensifying.

Innumerable motives intermingled. To carry through the justice one believed in, to satisfy one’s own ambitions, out of worry for where one’s country was heading… That selfishness of men gave rise to the clash of violent emotions, and bloodshed became inevitable, which had also left the princess’ emotions in disarray. With Emperor Guhl Mephius’ death, she had probably reached a kind of saturation.

Orba realised as much, yet at the same time –

“What you’re saying really isn’t like you, Princess.”

The words that came out of his mouth came off as sharp. And, as was to be expected…

“What do you mean by ‘not like me’?” the girl glared at him with red eyes. “What do you know about me?”

“What makes you think I don’t know?”

“No, you can’t know. You have no interest in anything except yourself and victory in your own fights. You show no concern for other people or topics,” the princess flatly stated.

Orba desperately bit back the wry smile that almost appeared on his face.

“It isn’t too late for everything. It’s true that my father and I ended up with this miserable result because we wouldn’t understand each other. But, standing in front of my father’s altar like this and leaving my emotions to one side for the first time while thinking about him, I wondered. I wondered about what kind of things my father, the emperor, had done until now, and what he had been thinking of doing from here on.”

“…”

“That might not have been possible when my father was still alive. If we had continued with our usual relationship – sounding each other out with our words, cautiously observing each other’s expressions – I probably wouldn’t have had an opportunity to think particularly deeply about him. I won’t say that it’s a good thing that my father died, but it definitely gave me that opportunity.”

“But… But. That’s too lonely. To think of someone for the first time when you’ve already been separated by death, that’s just too…”

“There’s no fixed shape for the relationship between people. The process that leads to understanding each other and sympathising, the method, and the result… they vary. Understanding each other doesn’t only mean happily taking each other’s hand. Understanding each other absolutely perfectly could lead you to mutually trying to erase the other’s existence from this world.”

''That’s…'' Vileena’s voice disappeared into a faint sob, unable even to form into a murmur.

Orba gave a nod. “I understand what you want to say, Princess. There are plenty of situations were fighting comes about because people don’t understand each other, or because misunderstandings have piled up. That’s what happened with the war with the west after I disappeared. That’s what happened between Garbera and Ende. For those involved, that’s certainly very sad and heartrending. Deeply grieved over it, the fourteen-year-old princess sobs in front of her hateful fiancé.”

Maybe because he had deliberately gone and said that, or maybe because he had failed to say something else, he found himself on the receiving end of another glare from the princess. As she turned her red and swollen eyes towards him, Orba grinned.

“But, Vileena Owell. You aren’t just ‘a fourteen-year-old princess’. You can’t be. Or, at the very least, the Vileena that I know – the girl who was my trustworthy comrade, who was an opponent I couldn’t be careless around otherwise she would do me in as soon as my guard slipped, and who twisted me around at every opportunity – she wouldn’t be crying and complaining at a time like this, but would look at me with a cool expression.”

''What are you…'' Vileena’s eyes asked. Their redness added to the intensity. Orba received that glare head on and straightened his posture.

“Prince, from now on, the two of us, let’s create a country which tries to understand others even after words run dry. No, you have to. If you don’t, I, Vileena, will never forgive you and will chase you down with a gun…”

Vileena gaped open-mouthed as Orba imitated a woman’s voice to speak. He then watched as the princess’ face instantly flushed redder, perhaps from anger, or embarrassment, or a mixture of both, and while it did so –

“And like that, you draw out my heart, Princess. The twisting, winding, complicated road I follow becomes so very simple thanks to you,” he said almost in a whisper.

Vileena’s eyes went perfectly round. The smile Orba was wearing closely resembled the expression she had once caught a glimpse of in the evening glow, lit up by its flaming light. And then –

“Vileena, you’re adorable.”

“W-What…”

Unable to keep up with what he was saying, Vileena did not even notice that at some point, Orba had placed his hands on her shoulders. The torch that he had been carrying was now hanging on the wall. As the light coming from it shone to one side of his face, he continued –

“You’ve shown me how you look when you’re sobbing and falling apart. A clever princess like you, must have already realised how I look when I’m in that state too – right, like someone said before, I’m sure you’d see me as childish. We haven’t spoken much. We haven’t spent a lot of time together. But compared to when we first met, I’m sure I’ve learned a lot more about Princess Vileena, and that I’ve come to respect that princess, that I find her a difficult person to deal with, and that, sometimes, I think she’s a girl I feel at peace around. How about you, Vileena?”

“I… I’m… I am… I, also…”

“For the two of us, we’re different in that we were born in separate lands, we’re a man and a woman, we honour different values… but, it would be good if we could lower the fences between our different positions, one by one. It’d be good to create a country in which everyone had a chance of doing that. That’s what I’ve resolved on, after losing so many things in so many battles. As long as you, Vileena Owell, just you shared that thought, nothing could make me happier. Nothing could be more reassuring.”

“…”

Vileena’s face was now as red as a glowing sunset. Any kind of blockhead would be able to tell that the reasons for that were different from earlier, but it was at that moment that Orba let go of her shoulders.

''Ah…'' said her face as Vileena followed his hands with her gaze. Her expression was one of having only now noticed the touch of his hands for the first time, and of only now being bewildered about why her shoulders were so hot they were almost burning.

Orba took half a step back.

“Emperor Guhl was undoubtedly a very great father,” he said.

For a second, Vileena was perplexed all over again at how he seemed to be going back to that topic at this point.

“Even if I don’t inherit all of that, unworthy though I am, I, Gil Mephius, will carry it as best I can. However, even if Mephius currently has a father, it has no mother.”

As he spoke, Orba suddenly got down on one knee.

While the crown prince bowed his head far more deeply than he had when, not so long ago, he had been before Emperor Guhl, the princess held her breath.

“Lady Vileena Owell, third princess of the Kingdom of Garbera. Proud princess, would you become Mephius’ mother?” he asked.

Vileena finally lost all power of speech.

The single light threw their two shadows against the stone floor from which frescoes had clearly been torn off. Each time she seemed about to say something in reply, Vileena struggled for breath and gave up. She repeated the process several times.

Orba did not move.

Not speaking, he remained kneeling.

It was less than a few minutes that passed, but how long did it seem to the two of them?

As might be expected, Orba was beginning to feel conscious of sweat forming on the back of his neck.

“My lord prince,” a voice landed on top of his head.

Orba did not show any expression.

“Is that all you wanted to say?”

“…”

“I feel that your words are missing something. It can’t have been your intention, my lord prince, to embarrass me by saying something like this to me – who is, after all, a girl – and watch my face burn red with shame?”

Orba silently stretched out his knees and stood up straight.

Vileena’s face was right before him, a little lower down.

He opened his mouth which had previously been shut.

He knew, of course.

What it was he needed to say. He had known that since long ago.

Yet now that it had come to it, his back was throbbing.

At some point, the fire hanging from the wall had spread to his body, and it felt as though his back was blazing hotter and hotter.

His back was burning.

His brand was burning.

His slave brand was burning.

“Princess, I…”

The flame erupted violently from his back and engulfed every direction around him within its scarlet veil.

But only for a moment.

There was only a fleeting moment in which Orba closed his eyes then wrenched them open again.

He once again focused straight ahead of him.

Vileena Owell’s countenance was before him.

His wavering gaze, in which countless emotions struggled against one another, met her eyes and in that moment, the flame went out.

“Princess, I definitely need to talk to you.”

“Right,” Vileena nodded decidedly.

“It will probably be a long, long conversation.”

“Even so,” she smiled brightly. “Your Highness, we have time. From now on, we have a long, long time ahead. But I am not patient enough to spend all of that time waiting. You ''do'' understand, right? Your Highness?”
[[Image:Rakuin no Monshou v12 345.jpg|thumb]]



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