Chapter 50 - Volume 2 (1/2)

The red that gushes out of her dainty body is just vivid. Pierced by the dark red sword of light, the body flutters in the air from the shock, and after a second, falls to the ground with a thud. Then, quietly but certainly, a red liquid flows onto the ground. Agedilus looks down at it, strangely calm.

「……Filmina?」

It takes a little time for Agedilus to realize that that muttered voice is his. He knows his intellect is faster than other people’s, but even he cannot understand just what happened at the scene in front of him. No, that’s not true. It’s not that he can’t understand, it’s that he doesn’t want to. His eyes, his head, his heart, all of him is refusing to accept it.

The hand which he’d been gripping his wand tightly with loosens. The wand falls from his hand to the lawn. The ornament on it makes a jingling, clear sound just once, but it’s terribly out of place.

「Filmina—!」

At Clementine’s shout, Agedilus gasps briefly. ‘What is this? What does this mean?’ He silently asks himself that. He can’t help but do that. Because, isn’t that right? Why and how is it none other than her——Filmina, who is bleeding, collapsed on the ground?

With shaky footsteps, he approaches Filmina’s collapsed body, kneeling beside her and helping her body up. Her body is supposed to essentially feel light to him, but now it feels much heavier than usual. Her slender hand falls from on top of her stomach, feebly drooping and shaking. He takes that hand and presses it to his cheek, but he gets no response from her.

「Fil…mina…」

No matter how much he calls her, that gentle voice calling him ‘Edi’ is gone. Her eyes are closed as if she’s sleeping, hiding her calm eyes with those eyelids. If it was just that, he may have thought she was just sleeping. But the blood gushing out of her chest with no sign of stopping, thrusts the certain truth at Agedilus.

「Suzette!」

As Agedilus dumbfoundedly sits, holding Filmina, Celves’s sorrowful shout reaches his ears. His sunrise-colored eyes slowly leave Filmina, looking at Celves who’s still trying to run up to them.

Agedilus simply looks at Celves. It’s nothing more than merely looking towards him, but——Celves’s body suddenly flicked off like a pebble by an invisible shockwave.

Unable to even scream, Celves is thrown into the trunk of a tree in the courtyard. He loses consciousness just like that, but Agedilus pays him no mind, once again dropping his gaze to Filmina in his arms.

Even as he does all this, the blooming flower of fresh blood coming from her chest is steadily growing bigger.

「Filmina.」

Agedilus’s long white fingers stroke her cheek as it loses blood. What replays in his mind is that day when they were young, when he summoned a high-ranking spirit and Filmina protected him.

‘It’s just like that,’ Agedilus thinks. ‘Edi,’ Filmina had called him, then thrust him away. She had bore the wound that Agedilus was meant to bear.

——It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay.

The voice that had repeated those words to him that day, isn’t here now. In front of Agedilus’s eyes, all turns to sheer red. That’s the color of the blood gushing out of Filmina. Red, just like that time.

「————Ah…」

Along with her face back then, what comes to Agedilus’s mind is her usual gentle smile. What replays in his ears is that voice calling him, ‘Edi’. Both of them are surprisingly vivid.

‘F-i-l-m-i-n-a,’ Agedilus tries calling the name of the person in his arms and fails. His voice won’t turn into words. His trembling, hoarse voice spills over and falls. There is no response, as if it’s only natural. Now, the only thing that’s still proof of the being he wants to hear more than anyone and anything, is the weight in his arms and the gushing blood.

「—ah, Ah…」

Agedilus’s light-colored, petal-like thin lips tremble. Deep inside his body is hot. He feels like melted iron being mixed, round and round, rumbling. He can’t hold it back. It’s as if the reason to hold it back itself has melted in that heat. And then.

「AAAAAAAAAGH—!」

That moment, certainly the whole world screams along with Agedilus.

A colossal flood of magical power bursts out of Agedilus in the center, holding Filmina. It mows down the trees around, swallows down even the arbor, wildly devastating the surroundings.

With a voiceless voice, Agedilus calls to his beloved in his arms. But there’s no response to it. The only person in the world he had allowed to call him ‘Edi’, is now sinking in the depths of a sea of silence.

Until now, he had lightly picked up Filmina’s body in his arms countless times. But now, he can’t believe how heavy it feels. He doesn’t want to believe it either. He can’t look straight at Filmina’s face, turning paler than usual, and he tightly hugs her thin body.

‘Ah, that’s right.’ Agedilus suddenly realizes. That he’s the reason Filmina has gotten so thin. No matter how much he tried to hide her, he knew nothing all along, not realizing anything, and he hates himself for it. And even that thin body feels so heavy because it’s lost consciousness, Agedilus knows for the first time. It’s all too late.

The smell of her fresh blood, like rusted iron, reaches his nose. Why has it turned out like this? Why did it end up like this?