Abel’s family home.
Ise lay down on the bed.
The clean bedding felt pleasant.
Today, for the first time in a long while, she had felt what it was like to have a family.
Family…
Something she never had, yet she found herself thinking back on her own blood relatives.
***
My name is Ise.
The blood of the demon race runs through my veins.
Because of that, my hair is black, and my eyes are red.
What is my earliest memory?
I peel back the layers of images, one after another.
It was when a baby was born.
It was a boy.
I remember my parents rejoicing wildly.
I had never seen them like that before, so I wondered what on earth had happened.
It was nothing special. Simply that another person had joined the family.
That new life disappeared almost immediately.
In just a few days, my little brother died.
It was not unusual for children to die.
Illness would strike, and lives were snuffed out all too easily.
The next little brother never made it to birth.
Something in my chest stirred faintly, leaving me short of breath.
I would later come to know. That faint stirring was the emotion called sorrow.
My family.
My grandfather. My mother. My father.
That was all.
My grandfather was half demon, half human.
Black hair, slightly red eyes.
Among humans, he would have appeared to be around forty.
But the demon race was long-lived, so one could not judge age by appearances.
Up until about the age of ten, I grew much like a human child. But after that, my physical growth gradually slowed.
My father….I had believed he was a pure human.
My mother, as my grandfather’s child, bore the blood of the demon race.
A beautiful woman with black hair and red eyes, much like me.
She was always at home, her gentle smile never fading.
When I was still very young…
I saw my father and grandfather practicing swordsmanship in the yard.
I wasn’t watching with any particular intent. My eyes had simply been drawn to them, without thinking.
I could read the movements of the two as if they were laid bare before me.
No matter how I looked at it, Father was weaker than Grandfather.
Led on by Grandfather’s feints, Father attacked while off balance.
That opening was exploited.
I told Father exactly what I had seen.
“Such an attack won’t work on Grandfather.”
Father’s face twisted. It was filled with rage and hatred.
His fist exploded against my face.
My body lifted off the ground and fell. Blood spread through my mouth.
When I spat it out, something white fell with it. A baby tooth.
Grandfather stopped Father as he raised his hand to strike me again.
“Calm yourself. This is becoming interesting. Let us teach Ise swordsmanship as well.”
Without laughter or anger, Grandfather made his decision in an even tone.
He placed his hand over my cheek and chanted a healing spell.
A soft glow spread from his palm.
The pain vanished.
I had been strong from birth.
The magic within me was dense, burning inside like a pillar of fire.
I could swing a sword as long as my own height as though it were a mere stick.
At first I only swung it aimlessly, but when I imitated Grandfather, I began to understand the principles behind it.
By then, Father must have already grown to hate me completely.
He too was a swordsman.
A practitioner of the style known as Illusory Flow.
A master of the Seventh Rank. He was by no means weak.
Among humans, he was without doubt a formidable warrior.
But he could not match Grandfather.
Grandfather was on an entirely higher plane of strength.
And so, I first sought to handle the sword as though I were a precise copy of Grandfather himself.
I trained every day without pause.
For ten years, not once did I rest from my practice.
What I aimed for was mastery vast enough to split boulders, yet precise enough to pierce the tip of a needle.
Small, steady efforts would one day refine themselves into technique.
Techniques combined and evolved into something broader and greater.
Whenever I mastered a new technique, I had to cast it aside.
Abandon it, and seek the next.
Moment by moment. That was all there was.
The growth of humans and demons was not the same.
Father was steadily losing his youth.
By that time, I had grown into the form of a young girl.
I will never forget that day.
My father, who rarely ever spoke to me, handed me a sword.
And then he said:
– Right now, our strength is evenly matched.
– In a few years, you will surpass me.
– Today is the last day I can still defeat you.
– So, from this moment…fight me.
And so, we trained.
But it was no ordinary training; we wielded real blades, a practice that brushed against death itself.
It was nothing less than a true battle to the death.
My father’s face. His intensity. The countless strikes.
Each carried with it a sharpened edge of killing intent.
For the first time in my life, I was forced to wield the sword in earnest.
Exchanges as thin as paper.
A life-or-death struggle where time itself was forgotten.
A heart that should never have wavered.
And yet….it surged with fierce excitement.
A battle with life at stake brings crushing fatigue.
But whether due to the blood of the demon race within me, I did not tire as much.
My father, however, was unmistakably wearing down.
And then came the final exchange.
Facing my father’s display of terrifying skill, I could no longer hold back.
Blade met sword.
His strike was impossibly fast.
In desperation, I launched a counter.
The tip of my blade drove deep into his abdomen.
My sword had pierced my father.
I had inflicted a grievous wound upon him.
Red blood spread across the floor.
My father collapsed and muttered in frustration, unable to accept defeat.
Had Grandfather not healed him with magic, the wound would have been fatal.
Drenched in blood, my father began to speak to me as if forcing out a curse.
– You are not my child.
– I am not your true father.
– No matter how many times we tried to have a child, the ones I had with her were always lost.
– Seven times, she miscarried.
– The son who was finally born died soon after.
– You did not shed a single tear, but that was truly my child.
– Back then, I was truly heartbroken.
– Yes. Because the miscarriages happened so many times, I began to wonder if perhaps the cause lay with me.
– There happened to be a man from the demon race visiting the Empire, so I had him lie with her.
– And with just that one time, she conceived and gave birth to you, Ise.
– To me, you are a stranger.
– What’s more, I am weaker than you.
– There is nothing left that I can teach you.
– From this day forward, I will no longer treat you as my daughter.
This was my final conversation with my father.
After that, we never again exchanged meaningful words.
For some reason, my emotions had been faint ever since I was a child.
Fear, anger, sorrow, hatred, joy…
All of them were like a pale mist.
But the face of the man who was not my father yet claimed to be was worthy of fear.
It was then that I was taught true killing intent and hatred.
After that, I followed my grandfather and fought against every kind of foe.
From a squire, I became a junior knight, and just before the previous Emperor passed away, I was made a knight.
When the throne changed hands and non-humans began to be oppressed, those we served shifted from one master to another.
When my mother died, her body ruined by repeated miscarriages and childbirth, my grandfather and father went off to war.
I was left alone in Highwand.
There was no one to fight at my side.
All I could do was carry out missions alone.
The more dangerous the battle, the more exhilarating it is.
When death draws near, life blazes all the brighter.
I had felt that the more one clings to life, the more it begins to rot.
And only beyond the brink of death can one find a heart stripped of all falsehood.
That was how it should have been.
But now, I was no longer alone.
And strangely, when I was with Abel, my heart would stir.
At times it leapt with joy as if in dance, and at times it sank into unfathomable unease…
If I continue down this path, what will I find?
Even if seeking the unknown were to lead to my death, I would surely be satisfied.
For in that final moment, I would discover a new heart.
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