"……It was a simple story."
Having finished recounting the circumstances of his betrayal, Yurugen spoke on.
"I couldn't take it anymore. Endlessly purging the nobles who'd been corrupted by this country's poison... no matter how many I killed, I could never see the end of it. And I realized that the kind of people who'd stood by and let you die would just calmly forget everything and settle themselves into the new country too."
"So that's how it was... That's why you turned against those children."
Having heard him out, Sheeta neither denied his actions nor flew into a rage.
She simply told him, quietly:
"—
the enemy
, those wicked nobles
can eliminate more efficiently
.
Because it means the new country that Katia and the others... the children are building won't be left with the bad legacies of the past. Because they can drag as many of them down with them as possible."
At those words, spoken with such conviction—
Yurugen replied without changing his expression.
"……Were you even listening to what I said?"
"I was listening. That's precisely why I'm saying this."
"There's no way you had some grand design like that. I joined the Organization simply because my hatred outweighed everything else.
I didn't want to help build a new country — I wanted to destroy it all in one fell swoop.
That's the feeling that won out."
She spoke matter-of-factly... recounting what she had questioned herself about, over and over again.
"After all, if there really was some grand purpose like 'everything for a new country,' there would have been far better ways to go about it, wouldn't there? Ever since I joined the Organization, everything Katya and the others have been through has been a tightrope walk. If you truly wanted them to succeed, I could have come up with countless better ways to support them."
"True. Then let me ask you the reverse... why did you call Rose? As far as fulfilling an obligation goes, that was fatally reckless. And if you'd been planning to betray them from the start, you could have come up with a thousand ways to crush Katya and the others beyond any hope of recovery."
"Gu—"
Deflection wouldn't work. As if to declare just that, Shiita pointed it out with the same calm detachment.
Right — she, too, had been the wife of a duke, a remarkable woman in her own right. No matter how skilled Yurugen might be, there was no way he could converse with her without any preparation and maintain a perfect lie.
"...It was... both of them, wasn't it?"
As if to prove it, Shiita cut straight to the heart of the matter.
"You hate this country enough to want to see it destroyed entirely. If the country crumbled simply because you lent the Organization some help, that wouldn't bother you in the slightest — and that, too, is true."
"..."
"But still — even so. You also want to fulfill that promise you made to her. To Rose. You want to entrust to the children of the future what you yourselves couldn't achieve, and build a country where no one is ever dragged around by Bloodline Magic again. And that, too, is true."
She laid bare his heart, his deepest feelings — and then posed the question.
"Which one was closer to your true heart?"
"...That's obviously been decided."
That question was...
Something Yurgen had truly asked himself, over and over again. He had interrogated his own heart, and on that basis, decided — been forced to decide.
That was why he could not waver. Pouring all of that resolve into his voice, Yurgen spoke:
"
Hatred.
That's what it is. I've already made up my mind."
He spoke, his tone growing harsh.
"Others can be deceived. Appearances can be deceived. If necessary, I'd even try to deceive my own heart.
But——magic cannot be faked. I can only summon vengeful spirits, evil spirits now. That fact alone shows it——long ago, I was consumed by hatred. My heart strayed to the place farthest from the Netherworld of Salvation."
He pressed a hand to his own chest. It was painful to watch.
Recalling the disappointment and despair he had felt toward himself back then.
Yurugen spoke——of the very core of his own feelings.
Sheeta accepted all of it, head-on.
And then, with a smile that carried countless emotions,
she answered.
"Then——why,
in the Netherworld of Salvation
—
are you still
there?"
Next time——the climax of the previous generation's conversation. I'll also go into detail about that final line. I hope you'll read it!