“Detox… completely…”
“…so…”
“The authority… of darkness…”
With someone’s murmurs drifting by, Plona regained consciousness.
‘Am I dreaming right now?’
In a consciousness that flowed indistinctly as if submerged in water, Plona struggled to remember what she had been doing.
It seemed like a desperate situation, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t recall it.
‘I’m sleepy.’
If it were really important, she would have remembered quickly.
Plona stopped flailing and closed her eyes again beneath the sea of memories.
“…Me.”
As she closed her eyes, a wave of drowsiness washed over her. Letting herself float in the current, Plona sank deeper and deeper.
“…Lona!”
Ripples disturbed the calm surface. Plona’s closed eyes jolted open.
It wouldn’t have been strange to feel displeased by the noise disrupting her deep slumber, but somehow, even with her muddled mind, she recognized the voice as someone she missed.
‘…Voice?’
A tiny question arose in Plona’s mind. Now that she thought about it, why did I think of it as a voice?
The warm, soft current urged her not to worry about trivial things and to just close her eyes again. Yet, Plona instinctively felt she shouldn’t do that.
A feeling of forgetting something important washed over her. Plona suppressed her dizziness and began to retrace her memories.
‘Ah.’
Gaining a focal point, the chaos could no longer drown her in a swamp of disordered memories.
Using her small intuition as a lifeline, Plona began to swim toward the surface. The closer she got, the clearer her mind became.
What was I doing?
Right, I was fighting the church members.
…Wait. Why was I fighting members of the same church?
‘Ugh!’
At the same time she felt she was on the verge of reaching an important truth, a pain tore through her entire body. The unexpected agony made her grip on the lifeline loosen.
Just then, as if to take advantage of the moment, the current pulled her down. The moment she distanced from the surface, the pain vanished like a lie.
‘The surface is painful.’
Plona lost her reason to continue rising. It was too intense a pain to endure just because she felt like she should.
The deep sea, where the bottom was unseen, seduced Plona with its warm allure.
Come here, and you’ll never feel pain again. It seemed to say.
‘I’m tired. I just want to rest.’
Plona’s grip on the lifeline loosened a bit more.
Right. Do I really need to know this now?
I’ll think about it again after a long sleep.
Once more, Plona’s eyes began to close. Just before the lifeline slipped completely from her now-loose grip, a voice sharper than ever struck her ears.
“Plona!!!”
‘Ah, sister.’
Crack! The sea of memories cracked.
Startled awake by the voice she longed for more than anything, Plona quickly grasped the lifeline that was slipping away.
Right, I was fighting the inquisitors to save my sister.
She almost got pierced. What happened to her?
Plona’s grip tightened once more. Pulling on the lifeline with all her might, she climbed upward.
As Plona ascended, the sea began to warp around her, and an intense gravity pulled her down, as if it was saying it wouldn’t let her go.
The closer she got to the surface, the more the sharp pain surged back. Yet now she had a reason to endure this pain.
‘Sister, sister.’
With gritted teeth, Plona desperately climbed toward the surface.
But as if saying she would never let go, the pain tore through her body and the pull downwards intensified to its peak.
‘Just a little more, just a bit more.’
If only I could reach out one more time and crawl up there.
Plona’s hand trembled. Her shaky hand, slow but steady, reached toward the surface.
Finally, just before Plona’s hand touched the surface,
– If you go out, you will die. Do you know that?
Plona’s hand froze. The voice that came from the swirling deep of her cracked memories was undoubtedly her own.
– You don’t need to die painfully, right? Just stay here like this—
“Even so, I think I will die, right?”
The voice that had been prying at Plona’s hesitation suddenly fell silent.
You can’t even lie properly!
Thinking that was kind of funny, Plona chuckled bitterly.
Indeed, Plona had known all along.
Once she remembered, there was no way she couldn’t. How could she forget that she was pierced instead of Aria, and that she shouldn’t use holy magic in that state, yet ultimately did?
– …Right. You will die soon. But seeing that you called for me, your sister will be safe. Since you’ve worked hard your whole life, for this last moment, just comfortably close your eyes.
‘What? You were worried about me.’
Plona understood that the words drifting from beneath the soft surface were true. With this level of injury, she had no hope of surviving anymore.
If that was the case, rather than return to reality and taste the final pain, it would be far better to quietly give herself to the peaceful oblivion and disappear.
“But I still have to go.”
– Why?
“I need to apologize to my sister one last time.”
Aria could no longer trust humans. Even those who had looked at her so warmly now cast her cold, wary glances.
Plona had always thought about it. What if she had acted just a bit faster, what if she had discarded her hesitation a little sooner?
Until the very last moment, she never could step outside common sense.
Despite having longed for her sister so deeply, she only acted when Aria had reached her breaking point after transforming.
And yet, because she hesitated to cut down a human unconsciously, she ended up in this situation, dying to someone she could have easily defeated if she had fought with all her might.
What if she had acted boldly from the start? Would the outcome have been different?
On the day she heard of Aria’s identity as the progenitor of vampires, if she had rebelled against the palace at the mere word of being forbidden to visit, instead of hopelessly searching for a way to meet her, if she had managed to escape with her before she broke…
Could such a tragedy have been avoided?
I don’t know. It’s far too late to regret possibilities that might have existed at points in the past that will never happen again.
“So I think I might feel a bit better if I at least apologize one last time.”
With all her might, Plona reached her hand out to touch the surface.
Clang! The swirling sea shattered, and the world warped.
As sparkling shards seemed to fall, suddenly the gravity flipped upside down.
Before she knew it, Plona was lying on the cold ground.
“Plona, Plona!!”
The warm, soft touch she felt in her right hand and the troubled voice she heard beside her.
Overwhelmed by the longed-for sensation, Plona struggled to lift her eyelids. Feeling dizzy and listless, her body ached as if it were torn, but a smile naturally blossomed on her lips.
“Ah, sister….”
A sound unexpectedly cracked from her throat. She had wanted to end with a pretty voice.
As Plona cleared her throat, blood spurted from her throat.
Her lips smeared red, droplets of blood splattering onto Aria’s chest. As Plona forced a smile through her embarrassment, Aria’s face visibly contorted.
“I’m glad you’re safe.”
Aria’s lips trembled, wanting to say something but unsure of what to say.
Seeing Aria’s flustered face, Plona felt a wave of relief.
‘Even at the orphanage, when I jumped into my sister’s arms without permission, she looked just as confused.’
Even if it seemed she had completely changed, perhaps a part of her hadn’t changed. The way she never pushed Plona away, even while troubled, reminded Plona of happier times.
Coughing, more blood rushed out again. A look of urgency mixed with resolution crossed Aria’s face.
She cautiously began to speak, as if about to reveal something very difficult.
“Why… did you save me?”
“But you’re human.” Aria added carefully.
Human and vampire. For her sister, that was the greatest distinction.
Even as she spoke cautiously, as if stating something obvious, Plona understood clearly that the boundary between her and Aria was very clear.
Even this moment was a luxury allowed because it was the end.
“For me… it seems like, you were… more precious than my race.”
Aria’s grasp tightened around Plona’s hand. With deepening hesitation, Aria squeezed her eyes shut.
But Aria also knew there was no more time left.
She straightened her kneeling posture and confessed like someone confessing their sins.
“I realize now that Plona is on my side.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah. But… I’m not sad at all.”
Startled, Plona’s trembling gaze slowly met Aria’s face.
Aria wore a strange expression. It was clear that she was confused, bewildered, a face filled with disarray.
Still, the seriousness in her eyes proved that she wasn’t lying.
“Sister?”
Instead of a pure white lie, a cruel confession spilled out.
It had been only a few months, yet Plona, who had always watched over Aria’s side, could tell.
That her sister truly no longer questioned the authenticity of her feelings and that her saying she wasn’t sad to see Plona dying was also… the truth.
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