Kaze no Kishihime v2c2
That night...
When Cendrillon and the others returned from the palace and reported everything that had happened, Vivian’s residence erupted into celebration at the news that the Royal Mage Guard had been restored to its duty of protecting the king.
Amid the revelry of the drunken guardsmen, Karin alone wore a troubled expression.
This is no time for celebrating!
The king was no better.
It was obvious to anyone that Eustache and the Unicorn Guard were the prime suspects. And yet he had allowed himself to be talked around almost instantly. At this rate, Eustache would be free to do whatever he pleased. One had to wonder who the real king was.
And as for Narcissus and Bacchus, they seemed interested only in drinking and rejoicing over the restoration of their duties.
As far as Karin was concerned, if they had time to drink and make merry, they ought to be using it to uncover Eustache’s secrets. But because she had no idea how to go about doing that, she wanted to discuss it with the others.
“...Honestly, where has that drunkard wandered off to?”
Karin searched for Cendrillon, but he was nowhere to be seen. Looking around with a glass still in her hand, she finally spotted him standing beside the staircase, drinking alone with a deeply pensive look on his face.
She approached and called out to him.
“Hey, Cendrillon.”
“Hm? What is it?”
“What were you talking about with the king?”
“He ordered me to investigate.”
“Investigate whom?”
“That woman. My former lover.”
“Do you have any leads?”
Cendrillon shook his head.
“Then we should confront Grand Duke Eustache immediately!”
“Now, now. Don’t say things like that so loudly.”
Cendrillon lowered his voice as he spoke.
“No matter how you look at it, Eustache and the Unicorn Guard are obviously suspicious. What do you mean by simply letting them be?”
“We have no proof. No conclusive proof.”
After everything that happened, to say that they could do nothing simply because there was no proof—Karin found that impossible to accept.
Her feminine intuition was screaming at full force that Eustache and the Unicorn Guard were guilty.
“At this rate, they’ll get the better of us again.”
“Then what would you have us do? Pick a fight with the Unicorn Guard ourselves? That would be civil war.”
“But still!”
“Calm down. Right now, we have no evidence. If they say Angelo was merely a former member, that is the end of the matter.”
“That’s just an excuse!”
“If you want to put it that way, Angelo once wore the uniform of the Royal Mage Guard as well. To speak plainly, neither the Unicorn Guard nor our Royal Mage Guard can boast too much about the backgrounds of all their members. Quite a few are impoverished nobles, and others are former mercenaries. It is not unusual for a former member to cause trouble.”
“Ugh...”
“Yes, they are suspicious. But that is all. Nothing more and nothing less. If we decide they are guilty and strike first, we will be doing exactly what the enemy wants. And for all we know... the Unicorn Guard and Grand Duke Eustache may have nothing to do with this.”
He paused, then added with a faint smile.
“Though, to be honest, I doubt that myself. In any case, our priority is to determine the enemy’s objective. Why is the Royal Mage Guard such an obstacle to them? What are they truly after? Until we know that, there is no way to act.”
Hearing Cendrillon state it so matter-of-factly, Karin fell silent with a frustrated groan.
The reality before her felt nothing like the glamorous world of knights she had imagined.
And yet, even after hearing his reasoning, Karin had no intention of backing down.
“Don’t look so disappointed. For now, let us be satisfied that we have at least been reinstated. Listen to me carefully: under no circumstances are you to act on your own. Carry out your duties as usual. Understood?”
Cendrillon reached out and ruffled Karin’s hair as she stood there, clearly unconvinced.
“Don’t worry. I have no intention of letting this matter be swept aside. Absolutely none.”
Even after hearing those words, Karin could not bring herself to nod.
Hmm... Is this man really just a coward after all?
The thought crossed her mind.
The other day, he seemed to reach some kind of resolution. But perhaps he was still the same timid man as before...
Perhaps he intended to let this matter quietly fade away.
Don’t be ridiculous, Karin thought.
An entire town of innocent people died.
If they simply waited for the enemy to make the next move, there was no telling how many more would perish.
“And you still call yourself a nobleman!”
“Karin...”
Cendrillon scratched his head helplessly.
“That’s enough! I was a fool to expect anything from you!”
“H-hey!”
Karin turned on her heel and strode away in long, angry steps.
“Honestly... does she know no strategy other than charging straight ahead?”
Left behind, Cendrillon let out a sigh and muttered to himself.
Next, Karin marched over to Bacchus, who was drinking and laughing loudly with the other guardsmen.
“Hey, Bacchus!”
“Hm? Oh, Karin. What is it?”
His easygoing manner only irritated her further.
“What do you mean, ‘what is it’? How can you possibly be this relaxed?”
“Well, when I’m drinking, I like to relax.”
With that, Bacchus drained his cup.
Something about his attitude made Karin’s temper flare.
“Don’t you think Grand Duke Eustache and the Unicorn Guard are suspicious?!”
“Of course I do.”
“Then this is no time to be drinking!”
Bacchus blinked and asked in genuine surprise.
“What did Cendrillon say?”
“He said there’s no proof and that we should leave it alone for now. He really is a coward!”
Bacchus stroked his chin and gave a large nod.
“Then that must be the right answer.”
“What?! He’s a coward!”
“No. I mean Cendrillon is right.”
“What did you say?!”
“I’m not very clever, you know. I leave the thinking to Cendrillon. If he says this is what we should do, then that’s what we should do.”
What kind of answer is that?!
Exasperated, Karin decided to go argue with Narcissus next.
But Narcissus was nowhere to be seen.
After searching for him, she found him in the kitchen, busily flirting with one of the maids.
“Please, Lord Narcissus... Lady Vivian will scold me.”
“It’ll be fine. Lady Vivian would never come somewhere like this. Come on, accept my love. Here.”
“This is not love... ah!”
“Come now, tell me how handsome and irresistible I am. Go on.”
“Y-yes, Lord Narcissus, you are indeed very handsome... mm!”
“See? And look at all this love. Love, my dear. It’s overflowing, isn’t it?”
Karin, her face bright red, strode over and brought her fist down on Narcissus’s head with a loud whack!
“W-what was that for?!”
“Lewd behavior is prohibited.”
Seizing the opportunity, the maid hastily straightened her disheveled clothing and fled.
“Hey! Wait, Julietta! Karin! What possible grudge do you have against me?!”
But the moment he saw Karin draw her wand, Narcissus panicked.
“W-wait! Why are you so angry?”
“Y-you... at a time like this... how can you be flirting with women so casually?!”
“At a time like this? What exactly do you mean?”
“Can we really afford to ignore Grand Duke Eustache and the Unicorn Guard?!”
At once, Narcissus’s expression turned serious.
“What did Cendrillon say?”
“Again with him! He said we should leave it alone for now. He’s a coward!”
“Then that settles it.”
“Don’t you think they’re suspicious?! You really think it’s fine to leave things as they are?!”
“Of course I think they’re suspicious.”
“Then why?!”
“Because if Cendrillon says that is the right course of action, then we should follow his judgment. I’ve never known him to be wrong.”
“You too?!”
Karin’s shoulders slumped, and she let out a deep sigh.
Meanwhile, Vivian approached Cendrillon, who sat drinking as usual with his customary air of weary detachment.
She stood there for a moment, silently watching him lift his cup to his lips.
Then she asked:
“Is it true that your former lover is involved in this?”
Cendrillon gave a single nod.
“Hmm... And you told His Majesty everything?”
“Yes.”
“Honest as ever. In this case, that may have worked in your favor.”
Vivian studied him for a moment longer.
Then she said:
“You are to withdraw from this matter.”
“Why?”
Cendrillon looked genuinely surprised.
Vivian sighed.
“Because it will be difficult for you to deal with someone who was once the woman you loved.”
“What are you talking about? His Majesty himself ordered me to investigate this. This is something I must resolve with my own hands—”
“Don’t be foolish. Your emotions will cloud your judgment.”
Cendrillon frowned.
“Surely you don’t think I’m that kind of man.”
“You are exactly that kind of man. You could never bring yourself to hate a woman once you had truly loved her.”
“...”
Without answering, Cendrillon drained his cup.
“If you involve yourself in this affair,” Vivian said quietly, “I suspect you are going to see something you would rather not see. That is what my instincts tell me.”
“A woman’s intuition?”
“Something like that.”
Vivian let out another weary sigh.
“Take any horse you like from the stables.”
Leaving those words behind, Vivian turned and walked away.
Cendrillon bowed his head slightly toward her retreating back, then poured himself another cup of wine.
The next morning… Karin awoke with a throbbing head. Apparently she had drunk herself to sleep at Vivian’s mansion.
After getting angry at her pathetic comrades the night before, she ended up drinking far more wine than she was used to. In the mansion’s sitting room, the members of the Guard were sprawled across the floor, dead drunk.
Honestly, can these people really be trusted with protecting His Majesty?
As she was thinking that, she saw Cendrillon leaving through the front entrance.
She hurried after him.
He went around to the stables and was fastening a saddle onto a horse.
“Hey, where are you going?”
“There’s something I want to look into. I’m counting on you to hold down the fort.”
With that, he swung lightly into the saddle.
Karin stared at him blankly for a moment, then shouted:
“I’m coming too!”
Cendrillon shook his head.
“No. You’re staying here.”
Ignoring him, Karin suddenly climbed up onto the horse behind him.
“No way!”
Cendrillon stared at her for a while, then slowly shook his head.
“There are things there I’d rather you didn’t see.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re always mistaking me for Karina.”
At those words, Karin’s face turned bright red.
“T-then that gives me even more right to see it!”
“Maybe so.”
With that, Cendrillon dug in his heels, and the horse sprang forward.
“Where are we going?”
Cendrillon did not answer.
On the second day after leaving Tristain and riding northeast along the highway, they arrived in a peaceful rural district. To Karin, who had grown up on the western edge of Tristain, it was a completely unfamiliar place. But the richness of the harvests made it obvious that this was a prosperous region. A lazy, tranquil atmosphere hung over everything.
“Could this be where you were born?”
“More or less around here,” came the vague reply.
His evasive tone suggested that he did not want her to know exactly where his family estate was. Even at the inn where they spent the previous night, Cendrillon refused to answer any of her questions. As soon as he finished eating, he went straight to bed without even touching any wine.
Karin decided not to press him any further. Before long, Cendrillon pulled his hood low over his face, as though trying to hide himself, and stopped speaking altogether. He had never been a particularly talkative man to begin with, but now he did not even bother answering when Karin spoke to him.
In front of her was Cendrillon’s back.
At first glance he looked slender, but Karin knew that beneath his clothes was a body of solid, well-trained muscle.
Seen from behind like this, his shoulders looked broad.
He really is a man.
Karin thought to herself.
Must be nice.
He was free to chase his dreams. And yet he remained trapped in the past, spending his days drowning himself in alcohol. Does he really intend to solve this case?
Perhaps, now that he knew their enemy might be Grand Duke Eustache—the man feared even by the king himself—he had lost his nerve.
What exactly was he planning to do by returning to his homeland?
Surely he was not intending to run away and hide there.
And he calls himself a man.
Karin felt an almost irresistible urge to shout those words at his back. This was no time to retreat. Investigating the Unicorn Guard should have been their first priority. So what if they were discovered? Then they would simply fight. Civil war? If they settled it quickly, there would be no problem. If they left the enemy alone, there was no telling what they might do next.
Karin looked down at her left hand.
In the past, she wasn't able to summon courage unless she wrote the word courage on her palm.
But she was different now. She no longer needed such a suggestion. She was strong enough to fight on her own.
Proceed carefully, proceed carefully... isn’t that just another way of saying you’re afraid?
A knight was supposed to confront her enemy openly and honorably.
As she was thinking that, Cendrillon left the highway and led the horse into the forest. After some time, he brought the horse to a stop.
“...Is this your family estate?”
No matter how she looked at it, they were deep within a dense, overgrown forest.
A hunter’s hut or a woodcutter’s shack would have made sense here, but certainly not the manor house of a noble family.
Still, Cendrillon did not answer.
Parting the undergrowth, he revealed a narrow path so faint it was barely recognizable as a trail at all.
Without a word, he stepped onto it.
“Wait! Where are you going?”
Karin hurried after him. Cendrillon moved with easy familiarity, picking his way through the woods as though he walked this path many times before. Karin, unaccustomed to forest travel, nearly slipped again and again on roots and moss.
“Hey, wait... don’t go so fast... wah!”
Trying to catch up, Karin stumbled over a root and nearly fell. Cendrillon immediately turned and caught her by the hand.
“...Ah.”
Karin felt her face flush. Cendrillon’s expression was utterly serious. His usually sleepy eyes were wide open, filled with unmistakable concern for her.
“Are you all right?”
“Y-yeah...”
Karin nodded before she even realized it. Then Cendrillon let out a quiet sigh and shook his head. The serious look faded from his face. At that moment, Karin realized something.
He just mistook me for Karina.
So that was the face he used to make when he looked at her...
For some reason, the thought irritated her.
He never looked at her that way. Of course he didn’t.
And yet, for some reason, she found that impossible to forgive. With a faint pout, Karin continued following him.
After walking for nearly an hour, they suddenly emerged into an open clearing. It was like stepping from darkness into a fragment of heaven.
A spring bubbled at the center, and stones encircled it. Flowers bloomed in abundance, and butterflies danced through the air. The scene seemed like life itself distilled into its purest essence.
Karin stood there for a long moment, utterly captivated.
“This,” Cendrillon said in a distant voice, “is my ‘homeland.’”
The way he said the word carried countless emotions.
“What exactly is here?”
“Karina’s grave.”
For an instant, Karin was speechless. Without hesitation, Cendrillon walked to a stone by the spring, then he knelt and began digging at the moss-covered base.
Karin immediately understood what he was trying to do and rushed to his side.
“What are you doing?”
“I buried Karine here.”
Apparently, he intended to dig up his former lover’s grave.
“Stop!”
Before she knew it, Karin had shouted. Digging up a grave... the very thought of it was enough to make her skin crawl.
“I have to see for myself. I have to know whether that was really Karina, or whether it was some imitation. Whether it was truly her. Whether she was brought back by magic... or not.”
Cendrillon began to chant. Using the common magic spell Levitation, he started digging up the earth. Karin squeezed her eyes shut.
What if bones appeared? What if there was nothing there?
Either possibility promised a sight crushing enough to break one’s heart.
Cendrillon still loved her.
Watching the dreams that haunted him night after night, and remembering the expression on his face when he had taken her hand earlier, Karin was certain of it.
That was why she wanted Karina to be alive. And yet, that same woman had become someone capable of acts worthy of a demon.
So she also wanted that figure not to be Karina at all.
In other words, she wanted Karina to remain sleeping peacefully in this place. Those conflicting desires were surely tearing Cendrillon’s heart. Either way, there was no doubt that what lay ahead was something he did not want to see.
Which outcome would bring Cendrillon greater happiness?
Surely not even God Himself could answer that question.
Before long, the answer revealed itself. No matter how much he dug... there was nothing there. Only dirt and scattered stones.
“...Are you sure this is the right place?”
Cendrillon gave a small nod.
“I see...”
Without a word, he began filling the grave back in. When he finished, Cendrillon slowly began walking around the spring. His reflection appeared in the clear water, and his face was terrifyingly expressionless. No emotion whatsoever could be read there.
Karina’s bones were gone.
Karin could not begin to imagine the force with which that fact was crashing down upon his heart.
“This is where I always met Karina. In fact, we almost never met anywhere else. This is the first time I’ve come back here... since I buried her there.”
He spoke as if talking to himself, and his voice was perfectly calm.
“The spring, the flowers, the trees... nothing has changed. But she has changed. Isn’t that right, Karin?”
Hearing her name spoken so suddenly, Karin hurriedly nodded.
“...Yeah. I suppose she has.”
“When I buried her here, I intended to follow her. But I couldn’t.”
He gave a faint shake of his head.
“That’s right. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t take my own life. It wasn’t because I owed anything to God. It wasn’t even some sentimental excuse like, ‘She wouldn’t want me to.’ Nothing so noble. I was simply afraid. I was afraid to die, and so I couldn’t do it. I said countless times that I loved her enough to die for her, and yet... I couldn’t even follow her into death.”
Cendrillon sat down on one of the stones. Then he shook his head and said:
“Hey, Karin.”
“...What is it?”
“Just while I’m here... am I allowed to be happy? No matter what form she’s taken, she was alive. Even if she’s become something like that... I’m truly glad. I hate myself for feeling that way. But I’m happy.”
Cendrillon covered his face with his hands.
“...I’m a coward. A coward to the marrow of my bone”
Karin could not think of anything to say, she simply tilted her head back and looked up at the sky. The warm spring sky stretched endlessly above them, clear and blue. That pure blue only made her feel more keenly how powerless she was. She wanted to help this man, but she had no idea how.
Cendrillon.
The ashes covering him were deep, layer upon layer having built up over the years, until they seemed so thick that Karin’s small hands could never hope to brush them away.