[170]
In the room darkened by the setting sun.
On a mattress slightly too narrow for two people.
Memories of that time when it was just Yuri and him came flooding back.
Even Yuri’s gaze now was similar to back then.
The way he slightly furrowed his brow, as if pondering something.
“If it had been before my revenge.”
Yuri started speaking but then pressed his lips firmly together.
His mouth felt parched.
“I probably would have killed you before I died.”
Chris was a beast that couldn’t be set free carelessly. Yuri thought he had to take responsibility for him until the end.
Yuri believed he shouldn’t abandon him even in death.
This was his deepest thought, never spoken to anyone.
“…Does that mean your thinking has changed now?”
Chris looked at Yuri with desperate eyes.
Hearing that Yuri had planned to take him along when he died filled a frantic thirst.
‘While I left Yuri, he never had the slightest thought of abandoning me.’
What he felt wasn’t fear but joy.
His eyes suggested that he understood this twisted delight without needing an explanation.
However, bringing this up now seemed to imply that Yuri no longer intended to make the same decision.
“Yes.”
“What has changed?”
“The moment I realized I no longer had to race down a single path. The road split into countless branches. It was too confusing to call it freedom, but still.”
Yuri continued quietly.
“At last I left the Winter Continent, met people unlike any I’d known before, and reunited with old connections…”
His quiet voice flowed peacefully and slowly, like a lullaby.
“But you still only looked at me. Only me.”
“…Isn’t that natural?”
“Perhaps.”
Yuri murmured quietly.
“Maybe you’re right. The standard for your judgment lies outside yourself, not within. It doesn’t waver, doesn’t crumble, doesn’t deteriorate.”
At least not as long as Yuri was alive.
“What would you have done if I had really died?”
To this question, which seemed determined to get an answer, Chris felt his mind go blank.
Nevertheless, his mouth moved faithfully, delivering an answer to Yuri’s question.
“Probably… collapse Thorns Order. And then…”
Yuri quietly watched Chris, who couldn’t bring himself to finish.
Yuri had no doubt that Chris would follow a path similar to his own, as if he had traced it himself.
First, he would take control of Baekyah and declare vengeance for Yuri.
He would use all the information they had gathered to bring down Thorns Order and would draw in Northern Light and Barrel Society.
He would extend the battleground that Yuri had brought to the Winter Continent across all continents.
‘It’s my fault.’
Thinking about it, Yuri had taken Chris, who was no different from a newborn child, and taught him only how to kill people. Though he claimed it was for survival, this was merely an excuse.
Yuri was not a good role model for Chris.
“You would do it very well. And then what?”
“I’m not sure.”
Chris’s face was confused. Yuri, on the other hand, had an expressionless face, as if he had expected this.
Yuri after his revenge had Chris. But in this case, Chris would not have Yuri.
“You must have realized it from this incident. I am not as strong as you.”
Seeing Chris unable to deny it, Yuri showed something resembling a smile for the first time.
It wasn’t simply a matter of thinking ability or power.
This was about their physical bodies.
“If I die, I’ll die before you. Right?”
Assuming a bomb exploded in an unguarded moment, Yuri would die while Chris would survive.
Chris didn’t answer and just averted his gaze. He clearly didn’t want to even think about it, let alone respond in any way.
“If things turn out that way. I realized you would become very lonely.”
Yuri’s words were as heavy as the sigh mixed into them.
“Unlike with Miya and Susanna, I’ve taught you nothing but the flames that will consume you.”
Susanna will somehow continue to live. But no matter how much he thought about it, he couldn’t envision a future where Chris survived.
“I want to prevent that from now on.”
Chris pressed his lips together.
“I think you’re assuming the worst too much.”
His face was less dark than before. This was because he could half understand what Yuri meant.
“Shall I talk about something even worse?”
At his master’s ominous whisper, his dog tensed his body.
“Even worse?”
What could be more terrible than Yuri’s death?
“Have you ever thought about what would happen if you lost your memory again?”
“What?”
“If this time you go to a place beyond my reach. Would you be able to find your way back?”
Chris frowned.
Not because he was displeased or angry, but because he couldn’t understand.
“I have no intention of leaving your side again. Don’t you know that?”
He would be fine unless he met Anastasia and received new abilities.
Actually, he had acquired the ability to transform into a wolf again, but there was no problem now.
Therefore, Chris considered the incident at that time to be a one-time misfortune.
Yuri, who had been quietly watching him, whispered unexpected words.
“I met Anastasia.”
“…Why did she?”
“When Anastasia first overlaid you with abilities, you lost your memory.”
That’s right.
Fortunately, Chris, who was drifting without even remembering his purpose, was able to return to Yuri thanks to a flow that might have been the guidance of fate or manipulation.
“I visited to check if the same thing would happen again, and to see if there was anything that stood out.”
It certainly wasn’t an ordinary visit.
“But Anastasia told me that she had never had a side effect where memories were completely wiped when she used her ability.”
“Then, there’s no reason for it, right?”
“No.”
Yuri slowly shook his head.
“After meeting you, Anastasia tried various experiments. Because it would be a disaster if side effects occurred from using her ability without fully understanding it.”
The fact that Chris’s memory had been wiped meant that her own memory could be wiped as well.
Anastasia, true to being a ‘witch’ who had lived for a long time, wanted to eliminate such variables.
“But she said no case like yours was observed. Except once. Just one person had parts of their memory jumbled.”
“Who was that?”
“A victim who had previously been affected by a mental-type Esper who went out of control.”
“Ah.”
Anastasia hadn’t touched that person for the sake of experiments from the beginning.
Since conditions often improved just by breathing in a little life force, she had reached out with a touch of compassion.
And the result wasn’t very good.
“Anastasia seems to think that abilities collided with abilities, causing a shock to the head that resulted in memory loss. More specifically, her ability probably stimulated an existing prohibition.”
Chris fell silent.
‘That means…’
“It means you already have a mental-type ability placed on you.”
One powerful enough to rival Anastasia’s ability.
Yuri added quietly.
Chris’s eyes trembled.
Did that mean his past that he couldn’t remember at all and that ‘research facility’ were erased by a mental-type Esper’s ability?
“You said Thorns Order’s mental-type Esper targeted you. If something had gone wrong, you would have lost yourself again.”
When Yuri heard that Chris had interrogated Kalmia immediately upon waking, he felt a chill down his spine.
That was also why he had turned so serious, almost oversensitive, as soon as he realized Chris was hiding something else.
If Fortuna hadn’t been there in advance as reported, Chris might have really become a clean blank slate.
He would have joined the other side without Yuri being able to do anything, advancing to an unknown place.
It wouldn’t matter as long as he was alive. Because Yuri would find a way to get him back.
But Thorns Order wouldn’t treat Chris gently after barely gaining control over him. They would use him as much as they could and then discard him like trash.
And the naturally steadfast guy would gradually die without even realizing he had been abandoned.
Yuri would be too late.
He isn’t an Esper. He can’t control the wind nor does he have a tireless body. He even fainted from the shock of a single gunshot, and his recovery speed can’t keep up with an Esper’s.
While he might have cursed being a Guide, he never welcomed it, and though he might have felt relieved at not being an Esper, he never felt sorry about it.
But the situation that could have unfolded while he briefly took his eyes off Chris made him tense.
“I’m greedy, Chris.”
Yuri whispered quietly.
“When I first heard about the mental-type ability being placed on you, I let it go in one ear and out the other. But if what Thorns Order’s Esper said is correct, there must be clues at that research facility.”
Honestly, Yuri was curious about how much more Thorns Order knew about Chris.
Even if they expected Yuri’s death, how could they just charge ahead without preparing for the possibility that the assassination might fail?
Not unless they had separate information that Chris had a vulnerability to mental-type Espers’ abilities.
The original Chris was certainly in Rosenhauser’s grasp.
Rosenhauser wasn’t the type to treat things or people gently. So he must have done something to Chris.
‘Nobody knows what he did. Or what he discovered.’
At least Yuri had no way of knowing.
It wouldn’t be strange if the ‘leader’ who inherited Rosenhauser’s information knew more about Chris.
“You are already completely mine, but.”
Yuri, who had moved close, whispered in a barely audible voice.
“I don’t want to leave even the slightest possibility for you to escape again.”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
