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Au Revoir – Part 05

An ominous black ship appeared from the distant horizon. Half-sunken in the sea, it seemed to carry the souls of the departed, emanating a dark and mournful aura as it neared. The morning sun bathed it in radiant light.

As the ship docked, men in military uniforms descended slowly down the ramp. They looked haggard, almost unrecognizable from when they departed for war. Some had missing limbs, walking with the support of others. The men assisting them were also wrapped in bloodstained bandages. Wounds marred all of their bodies.

“I’ll go check over there. Wait here, all right?” Ruri said, walking briskly towards the ship.

Her companion took a step to follow but stopped, looking down in fear.

The din grew louder. People cried and cheered upon finding their families. Some mourned the sight of injuries.

The sun beamed down from the heavens, its light resembling the one that used to bathe the conservatory atop the library tower. A distant memory. Setting down books and reading them, waiting for evening to come, when the door to the library from down below would creak open. Footsteps running up the seemingly endless labyrinthine staircase until the boy made it to the top. And in a delighted voice, he would ask…

At that instant, she felt a presence behind her. Someone smiling perhaps. The morning sun sparkled.

“Were you bored?”

For the first time since arriving in the small island country in the Far East, she heard fluent French. The familiar voice, coming from behind, brimmed with spirit.

“I brought you an interesting story, Victorique.”

Victorique gave a start and turned around.

Kazuya, covered in scars, stood there in his filthy military uniform. His right leg seemed to be injured, as he was leaning slightly to the left, putting his weight on that side. He had grown taller, and his features had matured, looking almost like an adult man.

His black hair rippled softly in the spring breeze. Unchanging jet-black eyes gazed at Victorique tenderly.

Suddenly she recalled a promise she made with this boy. That someday, they would watch the beautiful sunrise together out at sea. A considerable amount of time had passed since then, and now, behind the man lay an expansive sea of a foreign land, dazzling under the morning sun.

Sinking into silence, Victorique’s moist eyes widened more and more.

Kazuya extended his scar-laden right arm toward her. His fingertips trembled. With a careful gesture, he removed her hood.

A strong wind blew, and Victorique’s long silver hair billowed like a river of stars in daytime. Blinding silver filled Kazuya’s field of vision, gently enveloping him. It felt like a continuation of a dream.

Kazuya blinked and gasped in surprise. Memories of a silver illusion he had witnessed on the battlefield slowly came back, then faded before resurfacing fully. It felt familiar, filling his chest with warmth.

Sensing a gaze, Kazuya snapped back to his senses and found Victorique glaring up at him with an all-too-familiar dangerous look in her eyes.

It was undeniably Victorique de Blois, a legendary Gray Wolf from the Old World. A philosopher in a fur coat. A sinister, nocturnal beast with astounding intellect. Although her hair color had changed considerably, her quiet and piercing emerald-green eyes, small nose, glossy cherry lips, rosy cheeks—everything was the same as that night, the New Year’s Eve of 1924, when she conversed with Kazuya. In fact, the passage of time had only amplified her awe-inspiring, otherworldly beauty.

Kazuya stared at Victorique with a smile. Then, as if to reassure himself that this wasn’t one of the sorrowful dreams he had seen countless times in the battlefield, that this reunion was real, he reached to embrace her. Flushing in embarrassment, however, he opted to touch her cheek with his trembling fingers.

Poke.

Relieved, his expression loosened, and he smiled. Victorique squirmed in embarrassment.

“S-Stop that,” she grumbled, deliberately adopting a displeased tone. He fixed Kazuya with a sharp glare. “You’re late, Springtime Reaper.”

“Y-Yeah…”

“Just so you know, I’ve been waiting for a looong time.”

“D-Don’t be mad. I came here as fast as I could. And look, I actually arrived in spring.”

“Uh…” Victorique cast her gaze down.

“Ah, Ruri!”

As soon as Ruri, running back from afar, spotted Kazuya, her face scrunched up tearfully. She rushed over to embrace him, but stopped, and peered at Victorique.

“Um, welcome home… Kazuya.”

“It’s good to be back.”

“This girl…” Ruri glanced at Victorique and smiled. “One night, she just appeared at our old address with a map. But she’s a foreigner, and we could hardly communicate. I only learned a little bit of English and French at school. All I understood was that she has a sharp tongue and likes sweet food.”

“Uh, yeah.”

“I couldn’t help but think that she was the special someone you were talking about.”

“That’s right.” Kazuya smiled broadly.

Noticing Victorique’s presence, people around them began exchanging whispers about how there was a foreigner or how beautiful she was. However, Victorique paid them no heed, proudly standing in front of Kazuya with her silvery hair rippling in the wind.

“Victorique,” Kazuya addressed curiously.

“What is it, Reaper?”

“Your hair is very beautiful. It’s like snow from a foreign land. It reminds me of snow on the battlefield. So sparkly.”

“Hmph!” Victorique snorted.

She hung her head as if to conceal the joy of finally meeting Kazuya. Then, like she did back at the library tower, she spoke eloquently.

“Making the trip from the fading realm of the old gods was not easy. A lot of the ancient beings met their end along the way. Brian Roscoe was one of them.”

The memory stabbed at her chest. Her long eyelashes quivered.

“I see…”

“Cordelia Gallo believed in my potential and sent me out of the Old World, even at the cost of her own life. But is that really true? As I watched over Brian on the ship, thoughts crossed my mind: perhaps this new era that arrived with destruction doesn’t need old creatures like me.” Victorique paused.

Kazuya held her small hand. Realizing it was shaking violently, he squeezed it even tighter.

“But I really wanted to see you again…” She trailed off.

“I also wanted to survive just to see you again.” Kazuya’s voice trembled too. “And I told myself that if I made it back…”

They stared at each other in silence.

Something sweet and exhilarating drifted in between Kazuya, now standing tall and looking like a young man, and the small Victorique. Depending on the observer, they could resemble a father with his little daughter, an aging mother with her grown-up son, lovers, or exceptionally close friends. A peculiar pair. However, as one looked closer, they seemed none of the above.

Ruri, standing a little behind them, watched with a smile.

“Sans Dieu,” Victorique murmured. “A world without gods is coming.”

“What does that mean?” Kazuya asked.

“The magician Brian Roscoe left those words behind. And he was right. The old gods have left, giving way to the New World’s culture and life in a new material reality. However, I firmly believe that we will find small gods every day. In the lives of our loved ones, the radiance of something beautiful and finite, or someone’s unexpected display of courage. And gradually they will come back to life, scattered throughout town. We will support each other and find our respective gods in all sorts of things, in what we love, in our culture, and turn them into a source of hope that will help us live for tomorrow.”

“I saw that in you all the time, my Victorique,” Kazuya said with a smile, a gentle wrinkle appearing at the corner of his eyes.

Victorique blushed faintly and turned her face away. “Me too,” she said hesitantly. “I saw it inside you since the day we first spoke in the conservatory, the day I mustered the courage to talk to you for the first time.”

Silence fell between the two. The wind gently blew. Victorique’s silver hair, and Kazuya’s black bangs, swayed gently.

“By the way,” Kazuya said.

“What is it?”

“I love you,” he declared softly.

Victorique turned away, concealing her eyes behind lowered, long eyelashes, making the color of her eyes indiscernible.

As it neared noon, the sunlight grew more intense.

Then, in a tiny quivering voice, yet holding unprecedented honesty, she said, “I, too, seem to… um, love you. Otherwise, my heart wouldn’t ache so much, and it wouldn’t throb painfully. Fragments of chaos gather and tell me. After reconstructing everything, I have finally reached the truth.” Awkwardly, she added, “This is love.”

Kazuya inclined his head and smiled. “I see… All along.” The warm spring wind blew, ruffling his jet-black bangs and Victorique’s beautiful silver hair. “Victorique, I’ve made up my mind.”

Facing Victorique, Kazuya trembled with fear as he gently pressed his forehead against hers. Victorique’s green eyes widened in surprise, her face showing a complex expression—gentle, poignant, yet subtly tinged with anger, unlike the empty and cold demeanor she always displayed before.

She smiled softly upon locking eyes with Kazuya. Their faces drew slowly closer, and Victorique closed her eyes.

The wind sighed.

Kazuya also closed his eyes, stroking Victorique’s hair with his hand. Victorique’s beautiful silver hair flowed endlessly in the breeze.

Their lips touched.

Time stopped. With their combined efforts, the fifteenth mystery that had remained unsolved since the end of 1924 was finally unraveled. Like ice melting away under the bright sun.

Their lips parted reluctantly, and they slowly opened their eyes.

Kazuya embraced Victorique tenderly, as if she were a fragile object. Much like that unforgettable night, she was thin, small, and quivering like a little bird.

Kazuya couldn’t help but feel extreme affection and overwhelming concern for Victorique. What he felt a few years ago, when they first ventured outside the academy and were chased by the man with an axe on the deck of the ghost ship Queen Berry, remained unchanged even now. He wanted to protect this precious girl with his own hands so bad it hurt.

“No matter how the world changes,” he whispered in Victorique’s ears, softly and firmly. “I will never leave your side ever again.”

Victorique stared at Kazuya with eyes filled with desperation and longing.

Gradually, a look of relief and genuine happiness spread across her face. With each passing moment, her breath became more animated, her eyes lively and joyful. It seemed unlikely that anyone would mistake Victorique de Blois, the beautiful girl with rosy cheeks, for a lifeless, cold porcelain doll anymore.

“I…” She mumbled shakily, then fell silent for a while. “I will hold you to that promise.”

Softly, she closed her eyes again.