[162] Marsha Clay (5)
"I don't even know anymore. Noona, what kind of person are you? Why is everything a lie? What do you think you can gain by deceiving people like that?"
"Why should I tell you? You're only trying to use me anyway! If you really care about me, then just leave like this! Then I'll trust you! Hm? I mean it! So just go!"
"I'm asking you what's real!"
At Sirone's sharp shout, Marsha's shoulders jerked.
"Don't just say it hurts—tell me where and how it hurts! Only then can I decide whether I should leave or not! You keep painting the world over with every kind of lie…"
Having closed to right in front of Marsha, Sirone lifted his fist and shouted.
"I can't properly see how much you're hurting!"
At that moment, a piercing cry rang out from behind.
"Marsha! Noooo!"
Amy and Tess looked back. Freemon, eyes flipped back white, was charging at unbelievable speed straight toward Sirone.
"No way! He took a direct hit to the face."
Amy stared as if she were seeing a ghost. The shock of Flame Strike was one thing, but there was no way anyone could come back alive with his face burned like that.
"As if I'd let you pass…!"
The moment Tess moved to block the way, Freemon leapt. With a truly tremendous jump that easily cleared Tess's height, he drew his gun and hurled himself at Sirone.
Rian pivoted, swinging his straight sword at Freemon. His muscles screamed as if they were tearing, but if they let Freemon slip by here, all their efforts would be for nothing.
"Uwaaaaaa!"
Freemon was no exception; the Slow magic took hold. It was obvious Rian's blade would split him in two.
But he didn't back off. He had to protect Marsha. One way or another, he had to pry Marsha away from Sirone.
In that instant, both Rian and Freemon froze with the same shocked look. Rian's sword didn't cut Freemon, and Freemon didn't reach Sirone.
Because Sirone, sensing what was happening behind him, suddenly released Slow.
Being able to expect the same effect in both on and off modes was an advantage unique to time magic.
Meanwhile, Sirone's fist was sweeping through the air in a great arc.
Marsha could only watch—the fist of a ruthless boy coming to smash everything of hers.
Sirone's fist exploded against Marsha's face. Her head snapped aside, and she crumpled on the spot as if struck by a massive impact.
"M-Marsha."
Freemon's face went pale. Marsha couldn't accept reality either. Staring blankly at the ground, she looked no different than dead.
Sirone realized his magic had returned. In contrast, Marsha's mind now held no magic at all.
"Marsha…"
Freemon approached with a somber expression. Subordinates who had returned through the teleportation magic circle appeared behind the building. But not a single one dared come close.
Because Marsha had fallen. They knew what that fact meant.
"Are you all right?"
Freemon's voice, asking Marsha, was low. His jaw twitched so visibly you could tell he was clenching his teeth.
"Yeah, I'm fine."
Marsha forced a smile. Do people become detached when faced with a fact that can never be changed?
She was smiling, but almost all feeling had evaporated. It was as if her soul had left and only a shell remained.
Amy had no intention of pitying her. This was the very person who had tried to shatter Sirone's life to pieces.
"You had it coming! And surely it doesn't end with just this. An ability that steals another's magic—there has to be a price waiting, doesn't there?"
Marsha didn't get angry. That's equivalent exchange. If she hadn't steeled herself for this, the magic wouldn't have even activated in the first place.
"Yes. The condition to undo the theft is someone touching my body. Then the magic returns. And the price for that is… I say this to that person."
Marsha turned to face where Sirone stood. With a face full of terror, she opened her mouth.
"You can hold me."
Tess frowned, dumbfounded.
"W-what?"
To stake something like that because she had nothing else to put up as a price—what kind of woman could be so frivolous?
But Sirone knew. Theft was an ability you could never obtain without staking a price tantamount to death.
The incantation that had forced her to kill her adoptive father that night was, to her, the reenactment of a memory she would rather die than recall.
Now grasping the circumstances, Rian spoke in disgust.
"What kind of price is that supposed to be? Sirone would never do such a thing. What if Sirone refuses?"
Freemon answered.
"Then Marsha dies. By the rule she set, the moment Sirone refuses, she loses her life."
At the word "dies," Tess flailed, words tangling.
"E-even so, isn't that something he can't do? What kind of law is that? Amy, say something. This doesn't make sense, right? Right?"
"Don't ask me. It's Sirone's choice."
Amy's heart was just as unsettled. Sirone wasn't the kind of person to hurt a woman this way. But with her life in his hands, who knew what sense of responsibility he was feeling?
"All right. Because I think living is better than dying. I'll bear the price myself."
Sirone decided and stepped toward Marsha. Even Amy couldn't help her heart pounding this time.
Freemon, who'd kept silent, suddenly blocked Sirone's way. His body moved before he knew it. It was a helpless, single-hearted devotion.
But in the end, he had no choice but to step aside.
"Please. Save Marsha."
Marsha closed her eyes and waited. She trembled like someone on the operating table for the first time, but on the other hand, she wondered if this was all it took.
That accursed trauma. A memory like an enemy, one she could do nothing about because it was hers—if someone would sear it with a branding iron, maybe she could finally feel some relief.
"Freemon, I'm sorry."
For the first time, Marsha spoke the words "I'm sorry." Knowing what they meant, Freemon bowed his head and withdrew.
Sirone came up beside Marsha.
Trauma is dangerous because it chains both present and future to an event of the past. Perhaps since that day, she had never truly lived in the future.
"Could we go somewhere just the two of us? Please."
"There's no need. It's enough here."
Marsha opened her eyes and searched Sirone's expression. But he was still composed.
Just what was he thinking? Maybe he planned to torture her with false hope backed by her life and then kill her.
'Well… I did do something like that.'
She had stolen magic and taunted him over and over. Sirone had probably experienced the absolute worst of his life. She could even understand if he wanted to vent his anger this way.
Sirone supported Marsha's back and drew her upper body toward him. She did as she was told. Refusing whatever he asked would only exact a greater price.
Holding Marsha's face to his chest, Sirone whispered softly in her ear.
"I have embraced you."
Marsha only blinked. Then, realizing what Sirone meant, she knit her brows.
What kind of childish game was this?
"What are you doing right now?"
"I hugged you, Noona. You told me to hold you."
"Don't play around. You think this ends it? Are you mocking me?"
"I told you—I will never give up."
"Let go! I don't want cheap pity! You think this makes you look great? Just hold me, I said! You're furious with me! Take your revenge as much as you want!"
By the rule of the price, Marsha couldn't harm Sirone. Even if she thrashed, Sirone had no intention whatsoever of letting go.
"You bastard! Bundle of hypocrisy! You piece of trash!"
"Noona, you're a good person."
Gently stroking Marsha's head, Sirone spoke.
"You're different from Arcane. You can tell just from how many people follow you. And even if that's a lie—then so be it. No one knows what's inside other people, Noona or anyone else. I don't know either. You just live by believing. Even if you can't trust anyone, you can trust yourself. If you truly love someone, there absolutely is someone in this world who will truly love you back the same way."
"No! That can't be! What do you know! What do you know to spout that nonsense!"
Marsha, driven by rage, denied Sirone's words. But when she realized tears were running down her own cheeks, she stopped, startled.
Even now, her heart wasn't the least bit sad. So why were tears flowing?
"Huh? What's this? Why am I suddenly crying…?"
How tightly had it been sealed that the tears came first before her feelings even opened?
But not anymore. As the memories she'd left sealed rose to the surface, Marsha at last faced her trauma for the first time.
It was a day when she was seventeen.
Her adoptive father was approaching Marsha, who lay on the floor staring at the ceiling, reeking of alcohol.
Always the same situation, always the same violence.
Marsha was aware of the dagger hidden behind her back. Its cold touch felt like it was freezing her skin.
"You can hold me."
Her adoptive father's eyes shot wide as if in shock.
Marsha still remembered vividly—the monstrous emotion swelling in his pupils.
Marsha gripped the dagger. He was coming closer. She had no choice but to stab.
But the father she was imagining at this moment was different from the father in her memory.
He raised Marsha's upper body, pressed her face to his chest, and gently stroked her back.
"I'm sorry for everything, Marsha. You are my daughter."
The one sentence she had wanted to hear more than anything in the world.
The moment she called that single sentence to mind, the door of her heart, long sealed, opened completely. Emotions suppressed for ten years burst forth, and she couldn't stop the tears.
"Huk! H-heuk!"
Held in Sirone's arms, Marsha broke into wretched sobs.
"Waaah! Dad! Daaad!"
Sirone said nothing. He only stroked her back.
"Dad! Why did you do it! I'm sorry! I'm sorry, Dad!"
In truth, what she had wanted was to be held like this. No matter how violent he'd been, she had wanted the man who took in an orphan like her to remain her father to the end.
"It's all right, Noona. It's all right now."
Marsha's past was breaking apart. It was being reconstructed into a slightly sturdier memory and turning into a hope with which she could live toward the future.
"Waaah! Dad! Dad…!"
Freemon checked the time.
The moment when the rule she had set should already have taken effect. But Marsha was still alive.
"What happened? What is going on?"
Only the two of them could know what feelings had passed between Marsha and Sirone. So the others still couldn't lower their guard.
Freemon explained.
"The theft has been undone. Sirone neutralized her magic."
"No way. 'You can hold me' really just ended with holding her? What kind of price is that?"
Freemon hesitated to answer. It was natural that Amy, who didn't know the backstory, would think that way.
But if you dug deeper, it wasn't a matter of words.
Sirone had opened Marsha's closed heart. He smashed the shell she had wrapped around herself with her Out-of-Rule style and presented a new path.
"Sirone didn't just undo the theft. He canceled the very condition under which theft activates and severed Marsha's authority. Marsha's deprivation no longer exists in the world."
Freemon gave a bitter smile. Perhaps it hadn't mattered to Sirone what Marsha's true pain was. From the start, he had intended to take everything onto himself.
'I couldn't do that… This is our complete defeat.'
"Waaah! Waaah!"
There was no sign of Marsha's tears drying up. She knew it too—that if not today, the door might never open again.
Countless memories that had lived in the past were sinking into the depths for the first time in ten years.
Twenty minutes had passed since the battle ended.
The subordinates of the Parrot Mercenary Corps had sunk down to rest, and Rian had his wounds treated under Tess's first aid.
Even so, Marsha was still in Sirone's arms.
No more tears came. But she trembled intermittently, savoring the lingering aftereffects.