Still fighting the pain, Adlet sighed. The strength left his body, and his back slid down the trunk of the tree. He thought about pumping a fist, but he just didn’t feel like it. “It’s like I’ve been saying all along. I’m not the seventh.”
His victory had been on thin ice. Adlet had not been entirely certain that this was where Leura’s body had been hidden. The impostor could have decided to be less clever and simply buried it, or they could have killed her outside the barrier. That last part had been sheer luck.
But still, he’d won. He’d exposed the seventh’s plot. How about that? thought Adlet. Who else could make it this far?
“Hey, so who killed Granny?” asked Chamo.
“Probably that crocodile-fiend. It killed her and ate her, and then it died here,” said Adlet.
“Wait. More importantly, which of us is the seventh?!” cried Mora. The rest of them replied to her with silence.
Adlet still didn’t know the identity of their infiltrator. He’d exposed the entirety of the scheme itself but hadn’t managed to acquire any evidence as to who was actually responsible—though he felt there was nothing to discuss at this point.
“Mora, do you understand your position right now?” asked Nashetania. Her words held quiet anger. She picked up the sword she had dropped and pointed it at her fellow Saint. “Fremy, please stay close to Adlet. Goldof, do not let Mora get away.”
Backing up, Mora protested. “Wait, Princess. It isn’t me. What proof do you have?”
“You’re right, there is no proof,” she replied. “But who else could it be? You cannot intend to suggest that the impostor is Fremy?”
I should probably stop her , thought Adlet. There was no evidence. But who else could it be besides Mora? Adlet was convinced that Fremy wasn’t the impostor, and neither was Nashetania. Hans had cooperated with him in revealing the plot, and Adlet had never even suspected Chamo. And Goldof? It didn’t seem likely that such a loyal man would be a traitor. It has to be Mora , he thought.
But as he did, Chamo said, “It’s not Auntie.” All eyes were drawn to her. “Chamo’s got this,” she said, rolling up her shirt to show her stomach. There was a slate tucked under her belt. Adlet had no idea what it was. “After Auntie left, Chamo punched through the temple floor and dug down under it. There was a big box under there with a sword and slate inside.”
Hans took over from Chamo and explained. “The person who made this barrier was damn well prepared. They made a spare altar for activatin’ it and buried it right deep. We had a real rough time diggin’ it up. Didn’t you go into the temple, Adlet? There was a big hole in the floor, wasn’t there?” Adlet shrugged. Nashetania had been chasing him, and it had not been the time for exploring.
“Tee-hee. Chamo’s the one who found it,” boasted the young Saint.
“Well, I was the one who got the idea there might be somethin’ underground,” said Hans.
“But Chamo found it.”
“But I thought of it. Meow. ”
“You can argue over who gets credit later. What’s written on the slate?” asked Adlet.
Hans and Chamo smirked in unison. “There were two,” explained Hans. “One was the same as the one on the altar, and the other one has this written on it. It ain’t in hieroglyphs. It’s somethin’ even I can read.” All present turned their attention to Hans—which was why nobody noticed that the expression of one among them had changed.
“‘In order to activate the barrier once more, after the decorative sword and the broken slate have been removed, the procedure for activation must be repeated. In other words, grasp the sword, drip blood upon it, and then break the slate while reciting the prescribed words,’” Hans read.
“Huh?” Goldof emitted a sound. It made him sound foolish and wasn’t the kind of noise one might imagine coming from him.
Adlet doubted his ears. Next, he doubted his memory. Lastly, he doubted the authenticity of the slate.
He remembered. He remembered what had happened after the four of them had set foot in the temple, before Chamo had walked in.
“Hmm? Meow then, who broke the slate? I don’t know that part,” said Hans.
“When Chamo came in, the slate was already smashed up,” said Chamo. “So who broke it?”
Adlet searched his memory.
“The barrier has been activated. I can’t believe this. Who did it?”
“I don’t know. Sorry, but I have no idea what happened,” Adlet had said, shaking his head.
“Well, let us deactivate it, then. Pardon.” Goldof had been the first to touch it. He had pulled out the decorative sword in an attempt to deactivate the barrier.
“Give me that for a second. The previous generation of Braves made something like this before. Back then, I think they canceled out the barrier like this.” The next one to touch it had been Adlet. He’d put the sword back in again, let a drop of blood fall on it, and attempted to deactivate the barrier. And then, after that…
“Nullify the barrier! Cancel it, you! You stop now! Stop the fog! I will be this barrier’s master!” Nashetania had grabbed the sword. She’d shouted a bunch of different incantations and then finally grew impatient, using the sword to batter the slate on the altar. That was most definitely when the slate had broken.
“Isn’t that nice, Auntie Mora? You were about to get killed,” said Chamo.
“I cannot take this in,” said Mora. “What does this mean?” Chamo smiled at her. Unable to keep pace with the situation, Mora could manage nothing but confusion.
“Adlet, you saw, didn’t ya? Who’s the one who broke the slate?” asked Hans, but Adlet couldn’t reply. “Hey. Do you know, Fremy?” He turned to Fremy instead.
Fremy replied without hesitation. “It was Nashetania.”
Nashetania backed away, her expression frightened. She was speechless. She shook her head very slightly, desperately asserting her innocence. “So the slate, then… B-but I wasn’t trying to activate the barrier—”
“The princess, meow? That’s surprisin’. I thought it was Goldof.” Hans drew his sword, and Chamo put her foxtail to her mouth. Goldof stood in front of Nashetania, holding the two of them in check.
It has to be some kind of trap—or if not, then some kind of mistake. There’s no way she could be the culprit , thought Adlet, and as he did, he searched his memories of the time he’d spent with Nashetania. She’d done nothing suspicious. Not when pretending to be a maid to visit his prison cell. Not when he’d been chosen as a Brave or when they’d set out on their journey together. Not when they’d saved the villagers from fiends. Not when they’d been separated and met up again later. Not when she and Goldof had attacked Fremy, deeming her the enemy. Or even when they’d approached the temple when it was being bombed.
“…Ah.” A small cry slipped from Adlet’s throat. On the way to the temple, the four of them had been waylaid by fiends. During the fight, Nashetania had said, Adlet. Please head for the temple. We will take over here!
Why hadn’t he noticed? There’d been one important prerequisite for this scheme to work—and that was that one of the six Braves had to arrive at the temple first. Adlet had gone ahead because Nashetania told him to, and then when he’d arrived at the temple, he’d fallen into the seventh’s trap.
“It’s one thing after another, isn’t it? Don’t worry. I will protect you.” Goldof’s entire body emitted an aura that spoke of barely contained violence. He protectively shielded Nashetania behind him.
“The princess? It cannot be…” Mora was unable to act, utterly at a loss.
Hans and Chamo slowly approached Nashetania. Fremy drew her gun and stood at the ready. Nashetania drew her sword and looked pleadingly at Adlet. “Adlet, say something, please. I’m not the seventh.”
No, she’s not the impostor , is what Adlet tried to say, but what came out of his mouth was something else. “It can’t be. Is it true, Nashetania?”
“Adlet…” When Nashetania heard that, suddenly her expression cha
nged. She went from frightened and forlorn to empty and listless. And then she smiled. It was a dignified and cheerful display, just like the one she’d had on her face when they’d first met. “I concede,” she said.
“Huh?” Adlet was stunned.
Nashetania sheathed her sword, raised both hands, and said, “Do you not understand that? I concede. It means I surrender.”
None were able to speak. None were able to move. They were all taken aback by the look on Nashetania’s face and her indifferent remarks. They could do nothing but stare.
“Your Highness…what are you talking about?” asked Goldof.
“Like I said, Goldof. I’m the seventh.” Nashetania patted his shoulder as he stood frozen in place. It was as if she were saying, Good job, now you can go home. “Sorry,” she said, walking around him to stand in the center of the crowd. “Perhaps I could have held out a little longer. But if Adlet doesn’t believe me, I’m sure I would have been unable to convince the rest of you, no matter what I said.” And then she considered the group and said, “I bungled this one. I knew that there was a backup set of ritual tools, but not that the method for activating the barrier was written on them. I should have been more prepared. But to think I would fail to defeat even one of you… I thought that, at worst, I could shave down your numbers by two.” Nashetania was calm. She was not timid, not apologetic, and she was not confused. “I think the reason I failed was that I was simply not proactive enough. I had so many options open to me—I could have approached Adlet and caught him off guard, or I could have simply killed Goldof. Any number of options were available to me, but I let all those chances slip by. Up until halfway through, it was all going so well.”
Adlet heard what she was saying, but her words weren’t reaching his brain.
“Hans,” she continued, “I had thought that most likely, you would be the most annoying of my enemies. I devised a number of ways to pin the deed on you and get you killed, but…it all came to nothing. What a disappointment. Well, I was right to predict that you would be the strongest of the lot. If you hadn’t been here, I would not have lost.” Smiling, Nashetania swept her gaze over the crowd. “What’s wrong? You’ve all gone quiet.”
When Adlet saw that smile, he thought that maybe Nashetania wasn’t the enemy, after all. The way she was so up front about it made it hard to doubt her. He even began thinking that perhaps it had been right that she had caught him in her trap.
“Wh…,” Mora squeezed out, “why did you think to kill us…? No, you really did intend to kill us, so…you were allied with the Evil God, with the intention of destroying the world…” Mora was so shocked, she couldn’t speak properly.
Nashetania frowned slightly. “Perhaps all this was unnecessary. Perhaps I should have revealed everything to you and asked for your cooperation. There’s no point in that now, though.”
Then Goldof knelt at Nashetania’s feet. “Your Highness! Please, tell me! Just what on earth are you trying to do?! I will follow you!”
Nashetania looked down at him and smiled wryly. “The truth is, Goldof, I thought you might become my ally. If you had said nothing, kept your silence, and done as I ordered, I would have told you what was really going on. But you…” She trailed off and put her hand to her mouth. A mean look on her face, she giggled. “I had no idea you would say something like that.” Had something happened with Goldof? But that didn’t matter.
“Chamo wants to know, though, Princess. Why’d you wanna kill us?” inquired the little Saint.
“Oh yes, about that.” Nashetania put her hand to her heart and said sincerely, “I really do wish for peace. I want to create a world where the Evil God, fiends, and humans can live together without strife. That was my goal in putting this plan into action.”
Adlet couldn’t say a word. He didn’t even understand what she meant.
“I have no ill will toward any of you,” she continued. “But I must revive the Evil God. To that end, I was forced to eliminate the Braves of the Six Flowers, no matter what.”
“I don’t…I don’t understand what you mean. What are you talking about, Princess?” Mora sounded utterly confounded.
Nashetania ignored her and continued. “I have a request for you all. Would you please withdraw? I will deal with the Evil God once it has revived. I will not allow it to destroy the human world, because I love both humans and fiends equally.”
“Princess, please. Explain in a way we can understand,” said Mora.
“Let me put it simply,” said Nashetania. “My goal is to replace the hearts of fiends in order to force them to reconcile with humans.”
That doesn’t make any sense , thought Adlet. What she’s saying is absurd. But even so, he listened. Perhaps he’d just been swallowed by the atmosphere of the moment, or perhaps it was her charisma.
“S-so…we reconcile, and then there’s world peace?” said Hans. Even he was overwhelmed.
“Yes, that’s right,” Nashetania replied. “Though I will not say there is no danger. There will be some sacrifices. But really just a few.”
“How many?” asked Fremy.
“I estimate that it will not be more than approximately five hundred thousand human lives.” Nashetania rattled off the figure as if it were a simple matter of course. Her voice was filled with confidence.
I don’t get it , thought Adlet. He couldn’t understand any of it—not what she was trying to do, not what she was thinking. What he saw there was a monster with a charming form. “Hans. Fremy. Mora. Chamo,” he said. He turned to his dazed allies. “Kill her!”
Roused by Adlet’s words, Hans drew his sword and dashed forward. Chamo put her foxtail in her mouth and spewed up fiends. Mora clenched her fists and threw a punch at Nashetania. The first attack to connect was Mora’s fist. She smashed Nashetania’s head in one hit. But…
“So trying to explain it to you was useless, after all.” Nashetania stood there, her head caved in as if it were nothing. Her body crumpled. Armor, clothing, and all, she transformed into something mud-like. “What a disappointment.” The voice came not from the mud that had been Nashetania, but from the forest around them. “Good-bye, Goldof. It’s really a shame we couldn’t go together.”
“What was that…?” trailed off Goldof.
“A fiend technique. And that of a high-level fiend, too,” said Adlet.
“And Fremy,” Nashetania continued. “I feel that perhaps you and I could understand each other.”
“Meow! She should still be close!” said Hans.
“Let us see each other again sometime,” the voice finished.
Hans ran in the direction from which it had been emanating, chasing after Nashetania alongside Chamo’s fiends.
“Fremy! Take care of Adlet!” Mora said, sprinting into the forest. Goldof, who had been momentarily frozen, ran off, too. Only Adlet and Fremy remained behind, alone.
“No way…Nashetania? I can’t believe it,” Adlet moaned. The moment the identity of the seventh had come to light and he could relax, pain had assaulted him.
Fremy moved Adlet from his perch against the tree and laid him down on the ground. “Don’t speak, Adlet. You’ve pushed yourself too hard.”
“Pushing myself too hard…is my special technique.” Adlet smiled.
Fremy’s face hovered just above his. “You’ve lost too much blood. Hold on. This isn’t much, but I have some tonic.”
“You’ve gotten a lot nicer… You should’ve been like this from the start.”
“I told you not to talk,” Fremy ordered, fishing within her cloak.
As Adlet watched her, he thought of when they met. When he’d first seen her, he’d found her beautiful and wanted to protect her. There had been no logic in those desires. Even now that he knew she was the daughter of a fiend, knew she was the Brave-killer, those feelings had not changed. “Hey, Fremy. Do you like me?” he asked.
The hand that had been searching beneath her cloak stopped. Fremy looked at Adlet and said, “I hate you.” Sh
e averted her eyes as she spoke. But she didn’t sound upset.
“Why?” he asked.
“When I’m with you, I want to live.”
When Adlet heard that, he smiled. I won’t let you die , he tried to say. But the words wouldn’t come out, and his mouth wouldn’t move right.
“Adlet!” His vision suddenly narrowed. Fremy was slapping his cheeks. She seemed to be yelling something, but he couldn’t hear.
“No…on’t di…me……”
Don’t worry, I’m just closing my eyes for a bit , he tried to say, but his lips would move no more.
Something soft touched his lips. A stimulating liquid poured into his mouth, down his throat, and into his stomach. And then Adlet’s consciousness fell into darkness.
Epilogue
The Next Mystery
When Adlet opened his eyes, it was painfully bright. The light of the morning sun was shining on his cheeks. The fog had cleared.
“…” Adlet looked around. He was inside the temple, and sunlight streamed in through the broken door.
“So you’ve awakened.” A voice came from the direction opposite the sunlight. When he turned his head, there was Mora. “Sorry. I am not Fremy,” she said.
Sarcasm? Come on , thought Adlet. But he probably actually would have been gladder to see Fremy beside him.
Adlet looked at his body. What seemed to be a dark-green poultice was wrapped all over him. He didn’t remember Fremy using something like that when she’d treated him, though.
“Those are medicinal herbs imbued with the essence of the mountain,” said Mora. “With injuries of that sort, you should recover in two days.”
“Really?” marveled Adlet.
“The power of the mountain is the power of healing. Believe in my abilities.”
Adlet sat up. It hurt quite a lot, but he could move. The previous day, he’d been prepared for the very real prospect that he’d never be able to fight again. The power of the Saints is unbelievable , he thought.
Rokka: Braves of the Six Flowers, Vol. 1 Page 21