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Siblings – Part 03

Meanwhile…

Behind the Saubreme police department building, there was a different commotion.

“No! Where are you taking me?!”

“Calm down, and be quiet. Stay… still… Someone’s here to pick you up.”

Two young detectives were dragging along a middle-aged woman, who introduced herself as Empress Britannia. One was pinning her from behind and the other holding her legs.

Hearing the commotion from the corridor, Kazuya went downstairs and peered into the dim back door, where a black car had just pulled up. Three men in white coats opened the door and stepped out. There was a pungent smell of disinfectant. Doctors, Kazuya realized.

The men took a rolled-up vermilion carpet from the car’s trunk, and with a familiar motion, laid it all the way to the back door of the police station. When Empress Britannia noticed the carpet and the three men in white standing by the car, she gasped and stopped thrashing about. The detectives let go of her, and she fixed her disheveled hair and lifted her chin with dignity.

“I see they’re here,” she said.

The men bowed at the waist simultaneously.

“We’ve come to pick you up, Empress. Please return to the Kingdom of Krehadl.”

“Your subjects are waiting for you.”

“And the king too, of course.”

After saying what sounded like practiced lines, one of them opened the door of the car. The Empress lifted her chin and strode across the carpet.

“Imagine our surprise when we received a call,” a detective whispered to Kazuya. “Asked if we had Empress Britannia in our custody.”

“Are they…”

“Doctors,” he said in an exasperated tone. “They’re used to the lady escaping the hospital and causing a commotion somewhere, claiming to be Empress Britannia.”

The other detective looked a little sad as he watched the middle-aged woman get into the car. There were fresh fingernail marks on his face.

“Apparently, she was a famous stage actress before the war. She was especially great as Empress of the Sirens. Then she lost her son during the Great War. Her only son served in the war, but never came home. That’s when she went crazy. Her husband has already remarried, but he still pays for her stay at a luxurious hospital.”

He wiped the blood dripping from his cheeks with the palm of his hand. “I served in the Sauville army until six years ago. Luckily, I came back in one piece, but if I didn’t, my mom could’ve ended up like her. The thought is unbearable.”

The door closed. The car window slowly opened, and Empress Britannia smiled broadly as she waved to Kazuya and the detectives standing by the stations’ back door. Kazuya searched for signs of madness behind her smile. She looked sad, but kind-hearted nonetheless. She appeared as gentle as she did last night in the Old Masquerade, not at all crazy.

Is she really crazy? Kazuya wondered. Or perhaps she’s acting crazy to drown her sorrows.

The car drove off. Kazuya and the detectives bowed as they watched it go.

When the Orphan was crying, the Empress stayed with her. Comforted her. And the Lumberjack said she was like a mother.

The car moved farther and farther away.

A mother who lost her son, once a famous stage actress. Empress Britannia, the poor siren…

At that moment, distant shouts of “They took off!” and “Gideon!” came from the front of the station. Kazuya turned his gaze to the direction of the voices.

Right. My mother cried too when I left for a faraway land. She cried from sadness…

The car with the Empress slowly turned the corner and disappeared.

As Kazuya started for the front of the station, another group of detectives appeared from the back door, escorting the Dead. Surrounded by five muscular detectives, he was walking in quiet resignation.

A young man in a driver’s uniform was walking next to them, inclining his head. “I didn’t expect to see the boss here. I was sure the driver killed him, and he got arrested. I thought I was coming here to identify him. Then I entered the room and saw the boss instead. I thought I was seeing a ghost.”

“I totally understand. I thought the charred body in the car belonged to Jason Neal, the coal-mining tycoon.”

“So the charred corpse belonged to the missing driver?

“Maybe.”

“Did the boss kill him?” The driver glanced at the Dead in horror.

A large police van approached, and the Dead—Jason Neal, the mining tycoon—was tossed inside. The man glanced at Kazuya.

His eyes were empty. Eyes as blank as the dead’s.

One of the detectives poked Kazuya. “As soon as that driver entered the room, he shouted ‘Boss!’ Imagine my surprise. The Dead was actually the mining king, who was supposed to be dead.”

“What do you mean?” Kazuya asked, astonished.

The words that Victorique had spoken about the dead’s soul residing in the body of the living, and the inside being different from the outside, came to his mind.

The detective shrugged. “Apparently, Jason Neal tried to disappear by pretending to be dead, burning his car along with his driver and made it seem like it was his body. He was on the run with his fortune when he got mixed up in another case. That wad of cash was his entire fortune.”

“Really? That money?”

“Yeah. The man was actually on the verge of bankruptcy. The age of electricity is upon us. You don’t make much money owning a coal mine. He became rich at a young age and rose through the business world, but his dream ends here.”

Kazuya recalled one of the gossips that the Empress shared. She said that the mining tycoon was actually on the verge of bankruptcy. The door of the van closed, and it slowly drove off in the opposite direction to the car carrying Empress Britannia.

Kazuya stood still as he watched the car go. A cool autumn breeze blew, gently ruffling his jet-black hair.

The mining tycoon faked his death, assumed a different identity, and went on the run. He tried to live another life. Like a dead soul entering the body of a living.

A tiny voice called his name. A low voice, easily recognizable no matter how distant and faintly it was. It was Victorique. Kazuya turned around.

She came trotting down the stone stairs. Her tulip-shaped green dress, its hem meticulously trimmed with crocheted black lace, billowed softly. Her pointy silver boots pattered on the floor. Her golden hair fluttered, glistening like the mane of some mysterious creature.

The Dead replacing the living, the Empress protected by a dream world, and the Lumberjack searching for his sister. I can’t believe it. Except for the Orphan, all the stories they shared last night at the weird masquerade turned out to be true.

Victorique was watching him curiously. Kazuya dashed to her side.

As he neared, she said, “Gideon has escaped.” She sounded satisfied for some reason, smoking her pipe softly.

“What?! Now that you mention it, I did hear shouting about someone taking off.”

“It’s complicated. I’ll explain it to you on the way home. It’s a lot of trouble, and I’d prefer to keep it to myself, but you won’t stop bombarding me with questions until I explain, so I have no choice but to verbalize it to you.”

“Well, yeah… The Empress and the Dead were taken away just now. I’ll tell you what happened, too.”

“Very well.”

Kazuya squeezed Victorique’s hand and started walking down the corridor of the police station. He called out to Inspector Blois, who was returning from the entrance.

“We’re headed back to the academy.”

“Okay…” The inspector was breathing hard. “They got away,” he mumbled, forcing himself to strike a pose. “The first train in the afternoon should be leaving Charles de Gilet station soon. If you take that, you’ll be back at St. Marguerite Academy by evening.”

“Okay. See you around.”

“Not getting accolades is truly unfortunate, but I don’t have much of a choice this time,” Inspector Blois muttered regretfully.

Victorique exhaled sharply in response.

---

Outside the police station’s brick building, the afternoon streets were bustling with people—fashionable ladies with parasols, gentlemen in silk hats, businessmen in suits. Passenger carriages clattered along, and cars sped past, blaring their horns. There was a cavalry on horseback. An accordionist playing cheerful songs. Scruffy street urchins begging for coins at the corner.

Kazuya was relieved to finally be able to return to St. Marguerite Academy. It was hard to believe that only a few days had passed since he left the academy alone with his luggage. At the time, he was heartbroken at the thought of never seeing Victorique again. But after rescuing her, he could now return to the village with her.

Kazuya whistled to hail a carriage, and Victorique moaned in admiration. The first time they went out together, Victorique was surprised when he stopped a carriage with a whistle, bettering her opinion on him. Now she seemed to be a little more used to going out than she was on their first adventure.

Back then, a weekend outing turned into a dangerous adventure on the cruise ship Queen Berry. Kazuya and Victorique joined forces to solve the case and returned to St. Marguerite Academy together. And today too, they were heading back hand in hand. Suppressing his excitement, Kazuya entered the carriage with Victorique.

“To the Charles de Gilet station,” Kazuya said in fluent French.

“Got it.” The coachman nodded, and whipped the horse into motion. The carriage rocked as it drove off.

Carriages and cars mingled in the traffic. Ladies were also divided into two groups: one dressed in the glamorous old-fashioned style, with their hair tied up, corsets around their waists, and those in the new century’s fashions, with modern short hair and loose-fitting dresses. A middle-aged gentleman in a silk hat and walking stick and a young businessman bumped into each other, neither side giving way.

The occult and science, the old and the new, nostalgia and longing for a new era, coexisted in the boisterous streets of Saubreme. Six years had passed since the horrific Great War that involved countries from all over the globe, but traces of the conflict still lay heavy in people’s hearts. People were still hurting, looking back, reflecting on the past and what they had lost, yet still longing for a new era, dreaming of a supposedly wonderful future.

Outside the carriage window, the past, the present, and the future intermingled.

Victorique’s tiny face looked a little perplexed as she studied the purple ring on her finger grimly.

A precious ring given to her by her mother.

For Victorique, her mother was the past and Kazuya was the future. Both extremely important. Hot and cold, mysterious things that opened a big hole in her heart.

“We couldn’t have been born in stranger times,” Victorique murmured as she leaned against the window.

“Hmm?” Kazuya smiled.

“The old and the new. Everything is in conflict, and the future looks chaotic. A storm came once, but I have a feeling that a second storm is coming soon. I can smell the wind. The damp wind before a storm. A wind with a mixture of gunpowder smoke. An unwelcome and frightening sign of change.”

“Yeah.” Kazuya nodded nervously.

Victorique smoked her pipe languidly. Her expression was as icy as ever, with the haughty impassivity characteristic of aristocrats. But her eyes, green as a deep lake, quivered faintly.

“Chaos fills the world once more. In the not-too-distant future, a storm will come again, ushering a great change, and the world will be reconstructed. A massive change that the world will seem like a different place. Everything will undergo a transformation—some will grow old and disappear, some will be elevated to legends, some countries will become new powers, history will be distorted for the benefit of others.”

“Since you’re a Gray Wolf, it must be true,” Kazuya said quietly. “But no matter what happens, if you have a trusted friend by your side, you’ll be fine. You can protect each other.”

“Y-Yes…” Victorique blinked repeatedly, caught off-guard, and went silent.

Kazuya peered into her face and smiled. “We’ll never be apart, no matter what.”

“Ahuh.” Maintaining an icy expression, Victorique nodded firmly. “Yes. We’ll never be apart.”

They stared at each other.

Kazuya was smiling. Victorique was wearing her usual expression, cheeks puffed up.

The carriage rocked as it drove through the hubbub of Saubreme, and eventually arrived at the Charles de Gilet train station. The station was bustling, too. Porters in red uniforms were running around. Travelers, ladies and their children, ice-cream vendors, and station staff hurried past. Kazuya walked through the station, holding Victorique’s hand tightly so they wouldn’t get separated.

The express train to the village where St. Marguerite Academy was located was about to depart.

Kazuya pointed to the platform. “That’s it!”

Victorique nodded. Standing still, they held each other’s gaze.

A gentle smile bloomed on Kazuya’s face. “We promised to go home together,” he whispered softly.

He blushed a little as he recalled their intimacy when they worked together to fire the gun from the driver’s cab of the Old Masquerade.

Victorique nodded solemnly, unashamed. “Of course.”

She regarded Kazuya with gleaming, jewel-like eyes as he turned redder and redder, studying his crimson face curiously.

A whistle pealed.

“Oh, no. We have to get on that train. Let’s go!”

“Let us.”

Holding each other’s hands tight, they scurried across the platform.

For a moment, Victorique’s magnificent golden hair, blown by a pleasant autumn breeze, curled softly around Kazuya’s slim figure like gentle magic.