The holy light stopped.
Cut off abruptly, it surged back from all directions, retreating into the body of the little blue-haired girl.
Eladia was trembling.
Her entire body shook—her shoulders, her arms, her knees, her lips.
Her gaze was locked onto the spot ahead. Esper lay collapsed in the middle of the street.
Most of her clothes had burned away, exposing the charred, festering skin beneath. In some places, it was carbonized and white; in others, a clear fluid was still seeping out.
She looked like a corpse thrown onto a woodpile after being executed by burning at the stake.
Eladia took a step forward.
She stepped onto the scorched earth, which still held a lingering warmth.
Another step.
Her body was still unconsciously leaking holy light. Faint white specks of light drifted away from the surface of her skin.
Esper still had words she wanted to say, but they weren't close enough yet. She couldn't say them with the impact she needed.
But if Eladia came any closer, that light would burn her.
It would send her straight to heaven.
Eladia seemed to vaguely realize this as well.
Her footsteps halted when she was still four or five feet away from Esper.
Beep... beep... beep...
“Bzzzt... Hello? Can you hear me?”
In the depths of Esper's consciousness, that voice—the one she hadn't heard complete a single full sentence in days—finally rang out again.
The remaining light in the magic stone flickered in her palm.
“Oh my, the signal got so much better after the Flame Demon died. Looks like the ending cutscene has started playing.”
Noelle's voice was still lazy, as if she had just woken up from a nap.
Then, a new magic barrier expanded from Esper's body. The light blue film of light blocked out the leaking holy light.
“I bet you have a lot of questions right now. Like what's happening in reality, what 『Pride』 is, or how your mission went. But let's set all that aside for a moment and focus on the problem at hand.”
Esper heard her snap her fingers.
“Do you need me to heal you? It looks like you're about to die.”
“...No.”
Esper's lips moved. Her voice was so hoarse it was almost inaudible, but she indeed made a sound.
She was still alive.
She raised her hand. Her charred fingers trembled as she reached forward.
She reached out toward the trembling little girl who stood before her, too afraid to draw close.
“Eladia... Eladia...”
Eladia's body flinched violently.
She was alive.
Her mouth was moving.
She was calling her name.
Her feet moved.
One step, two steps, three steps.
The holy light struck the newly deployed barrier, making a faint hissing sound. But it did not penetrate.
Eladia ran over.
She knelt beside Esper, her knees slamming onto the scorched earth.
Up close, the sight was even more horrific. Only tatters of her exquisite children's clothing hung from her body. Her skin was covered in extensive burns, and her black hair was almost completely gone, with only a few charred strands clinging to her scalp.
“Esper... Esper...”
Her hands hovered in the air, not daring to touch.
She didn't know where she could touch without causing pain.
Esper's hand moved first.
Her charred fingers grabbed Eladia's cuff, and then, using the last of her strength, she pushed herself up and collapsed toward her.
She embraced her.
It was a light, weak embrace. The bodies of the two six-year-old children pressed together, and Esper buried her face in the crook of Eladia's neck.
It was just like the way she used to hold someone, a long time ago.
“Eladia...”
“Yes... yes... I'm here...”
“It was you... who saved everyone...”
Eladia's hands finally came down. They rested on Esper's back, touching the charred fabric and skin.
“I don't want... any of that...”
Her voice trembled.
“What do they even matter to me...?”
Her fingertips clenched Esper's tattered clothes.
“Esper... don't die... please... don't leave me...”
Something slid down her face.
It dripped onto Esper's shoulder, warm.
Eladia was crying.
She had forgotten if she had ever cried before. Perhaps she had.
When she was first hurt, when she was first bullied, when she first came close to death—she might have cried then.
But those tears, if they ever existed, had been shed only for herself.
Feeling pain for the injustice she suffered, feeling despair for everything she experienced.
In the end, even the pain and despair had vanished, leaving nothing but an empty void beneath Eladia's young skin.
She shouldn't have, and wouldn't have, cried ever again.
But now, what was she doing?
Even she herself didn't know what she was doing.
She only knew that because of this strange little girl before her, because of her very first friend, liquid was now flowing from her eyes.
She couldn't stop it. No matter what, she couldn't stop it.
“Eladia...”
Esper's voice was almost entirely gone.
Her lips moved, her breath blowing incredibly weak against Eladia's ear.
Eladia's eyes widened. She pressed her body closer to Esper, placing her ear almost right against her lips.
She listened. She listened to the last words the person she cherished would leave for her at the threshold of death.
And for Esper, this was also an extremely unique experience.
Even if this was inside a dream, even if dying here wasn't real death, the pain and memories it left behind were entirely real to her.
She felt her life slipping away with time, her strength no longer as abundant as before. The scene before her grew increasingly blurry, and even Eladia's tearful cries became faint and distant.
But she still remembered. She would not forget her purpose for coming here.
And so, the girl whispered:
“Don't... forget me again...”
Her fingers loosened.
The weight of her body slumped completely, resting in Eladia's arms, motionless.
“...Esper?”
There was no response.
The tiny body that used to take her shopping, the one that had seemed forever brimming with vitality, had turned into dead flesh holding only a trace of residual warmth.
“Hey, Esper? Answer me?!”
There was no breath.
That person had spoken words that confused her, yet made her heart tremble.
But she would never speak again.
“No...”
Her tears flowed even harder.
She tightened her arms, hugging the breathless body tightly to her chest.
What was death?
Eladia had once been infinitely close to death, so she believed she understood what it was.
It was the punishment of endless accumulated pain that left a person unable to move ever again.
But it wasn't like that.
Death was an end.
It was the proof that you would never see a person again.
Even on some warm afternoon, when the sun was just as pleasant, that person would never return to call out her name again.
“Don't leave me...”
The street fell silent.
The fire had been extinguished. Balor's halved corpse still lay in the distance. The villagers stood even further away, watching the scene, none of them daring to approach.
There was only a child kneeling in the middle of the street, cradling the corpse of another child, weeping.
For the first time since her birth, she broke down for someone else.
Wailing like a newborn baby.
Rate on N.U.
