Yuuki, Bearer of the Sword

 

I promise.

When danger comes, I'll be the very first one there.

 

"Ah… ahhh…"

I looked around, despair written across my face.

The blue dragon Gilta lay sprawled on the earth, bleeding from every inch of his body.

The wretched corpses of the Swordsaints were strewn everywhere.

Rin, Yuuki, Nina, all of them lay facedown on the ground, their fates unknown.

And the fire dragons, despite sustaining a few scratches, remained standing strong. All five of them.

"Do you understand now?"

My great-grandfather declared, imperious as ever.

"How foolish and futile everything you've done was?"

He was right.

The fire dragons' power was simply too far beyond every other dragon's.

"Mentor."

Ai called to me, her voice light and airy.

"Thank you for everything."

Then, with a mighty beat of her wings, she threw me from her back while I sat frozen in a stupor.

"As I promised, I offer my life. Would you please show mercy?"

She bowed her neck as though presenting it and knelt before my great-grandfather.

"As agreed. I shall not lay a claw on anyone but you."

My great-grandfather answered, tightening his grip on Ai's neck.

"However, you defied us, and for that crime there must be recompense… Every last one of them dies."

"That's not—!"

Despair bled through Ai's voice.

Stop. I tried to scream it, but no sound would come.

— Help me.

For the first time in my life, I prayed.

Helpless, powerless, unable to think of a single way out.

I didn't care who. God, devil, anything.

Please, someone, help us…!

But such a prayer could never be answered.

The crack of shattering bone rang out.

"That ain't like you at all, boss."

What followed was a rough, gravelly voice.

"… What?"

A voice from deep, deep in the past. One I hadn't heard in an impossibly long time.

"Am I… dreaming?"

A powerfully muscled frame, built like a living boulder. Wavy red hair like a lion's mane. A man who looked like a gorilla, a lion, and a bear all rolled into one —

"Dreaming, huh? Well, might not be far off."

"Durga?!"

Without question, it was the very man I'd believed I would never see again.

"Yeah. Though I'm the dregs of the dregs at this point."

"What… is this?!"

My great-grandfather cried out. The bone that had broken was not Ai's neck, but his own finger.

"Ngh…?!"

Tiny fragments of stone drove themselves into his flesh.

That was… the stone sword. Shards of Yuuki's stone sword, shattered to pieces.

The stone sword whose blade had been forged by crushing the very rock sword Durga once wielded.

"How… how is this possible?"

"All thanks to that girl over there."

I followed Durga's gaze. There, pink-blonde hair swaying as she desperately cast her magic, stood a girl who had broken free from the shattered rock mountain and returned to her true body. Chryse.

Of course. Magic and souls had to be intimately connected. That was why Durga's stone sword, imbued with his very soul, had endured unbroken for a thousand years. And now Chryse's magic had awakened it.

"I ain't the only one."

"What is this?!"

My great-grandfather snarled in frustration. No matter how he swatted at them, no matter how he tried to incinerate them with his breath, the stone fragments slipped past every attempt, anticipated his movements, and slashed back. Each soul-infused shard pierced and sliced through even a fire dragon's scales. And overlaid upon them, I saw the phantoms of the swordsmen.

"Durgo… Galgo, Jirgo, Jirdo, Jirido, Sarido, Saria. Aria, Arim, Urim, Urin, Aran, Miran, Kiran, Kinan, Kinaga, Kimaga… Amaga, Amata, Asata, Asaka, Ataka, Yutaka, Yuuka."

Twenty-five generations of Swordsaint heroic spirits. I remembered every single one. Not one of them had been weak.

"Now the rest of you, wake the hell up already!"

The stone fragments linked together and plunged into the rubble scattered across the ground. The countless corpses lying on the earth raised swords in their hands and slowly rose to their feet.

"O Founder… O our great ancestor!"

The head of the current generation, his left arm gone. Nashim of the Swordsaints, fiftieth in line, raised a sword that glowed red in his remaining hand and cried out.

"We, the Swordsaints of Scarlite! Now return our blades to their rightful bearer… the Sword of Black Stone!"

The spinning sword he hurled through the air…

Yuuki caught.

"… It wasn't just Mom and them."

Wide-eyed and dazed, Yuuki whispered.

"Of course not."

Nashim… the bearded giant with a build identical to Durga's, answered as he crumpled to the ground.

The Swordsaints had refused to accept Yuuka, born a half-elf, as their leader.

The Scarlite Swordsaints, who bore the scarlite sword as their symbol and governed the village.

The Black Stone Swordsaints, who carried the stone sword and devoted themselves solely to honing their swordsmanship.

Their paths had split in two, never to converge again. Even I had believed that.

But I was wrong.

They hadn't forgotten.

They hadn't lost it.

Unbroken, unextinguished, they had kept the fire burning from one generation to the next.

And now that fire, the soul of the Swordsaints, poured into the vessel named Yuuki, filling it to the brim.

"Ahh…"

Swung with a cry of exultation, the sword traced the most beautiful arc I had ever seen, cleaving through a red dragon's flames.

"I've come to keep that old promise, big bro."

Even when my life is over, I'll always be by your side.

That was the vow she had made.

"I'll hold them here. Big bro, please take care of Rin."

Surrounded by the many heroic spirits, Yuuki spoke.

"… Got it. Ai, take over for Gilta."

"Yes!"

Leaving Ai behind for Yuuki, who couldn't fly on her own, I straddled my staff and took to the air.

 

＊　＊　＊

 

"Rin!"

Beaten down onto the surface, Rin's transformation had come undone. She lay submerged in the lake, in human form.

The sight nearly stopped my heart.

— Rin, as she was now, could drown in a bathtub. She couldn't swim at all.

Unable to swim. Unable to cook. Unable to use any magic besides transformation.

Those were the prices she had paid for legs to walk the land, wings to soar the sky, and the power to become a dragon. What had once been restrictions only during transformation now persisted in every form she took.

Because she could never fully return to her original shape. Her transformation had become so stable that she took the form of a human girl even while unconscious.

If she ever did revert completely… she would die of old age almost instantly.

I dove staff-first into the lake, scooped her up, and rushed to shore.

"Rin… Rin!"

… She wasn't breathing.

How many minutes had passed since she fell into the lake? How many minutes before resuscitation became impossible?

Dredging up memories from my previous life, I tilted Rin's head back to open her airway, pinched her nose shut, sealed my mouth over hers, and slowly breathed into her.

Her chest rose, just barely. But even after two, three repetitions, her breathing wouldn't return.

One more time.

One more time.

Yet no matter how many times I tried, Rin's breathing did not return.

"D-dammit…!"

I hoisted her limp body onto my back.

Nina. Nina could surely bring her back.

The instant I grabbed my staff and launched into the air, a wall of red blocked my path.

"Road's closed… Just kidding."

It was the two-horned red dragon, the one who had done this to Rin.

"Move!"

"No. The fight isn't over yet."

The two-horned dragon answered my scream with brazen arrogance.

… What did he mean?

The strange words threw me for a split second, and in that opening, flames churned in the back of the two-horned dragon's throat and came roaring out.

I tried to dodge but couldn't possibly make it in time.

A thick wall of water intercepted the flames.

"God, this is the worst."

An exasperated voice came from behind me, arms tightening around my neck.

"I mean, if it was going to go like this, couldn't it have been more, I dunno? Like, with some mood, the right setting…"

"Rin, thank goodness…! You're all right!"

I spun around reflexively, checking on Rin, who was apparently grumbling about something or other.

She was clearly conscious, yet there was no sign of breathing. Could it be that her body had died, like Chryse's…?

"Over here, Mentorrr."

Rin guided my hand to her neck. Where a human's ears would be, gills had sprouted. A faint current of air flowed from their base. Not a human respiratory organ — a merfolk one. Made for breathing underwater.

"Mentorrr, you really are unfair, you know that? Stealing a maiden's lips without her consent… Twice, no less."

It couldn't be.

As if to confirm my suspicion, Rin tightened her arms around me.

"Hey, Mentorrr? I never got the payment from back then, remember? Don't you dare tell me you forgot."

Had she remembered?

Before I could ask, Rin pressed her lips to mine.