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Violet, the Perforr (4)
They walked through the rain and past the half-lted city walls, scorched by Ladon’s breath, into the kingdom, through the plaza, and across the market, treading a deserted street.
Pachhak. A low splash sounded after they stepped in a puddle.
“So Kassel Kingdom must’ve fallen.”
Najin remained silent.
“I appreciate your consideration, but there’s no need. I already know. It feels like it happened a very long ti ago, but I still rember bits and pieces.”
Pachhak.
“I think it swallowed about a third of the kingdom, then dropped a star on it to end it. Kassel was on the edge of collapse anyway.” Violet walked ahead, her back turned to Najin.
“I wasn’t the hero who saved the kingdom—I was the disaster that destroyed it.” Her voice trembled slightly.
That was all Najin could sense. He opened his mouth, then closed it again, unsure of what to say.
‘That wasn’t your fault. It was Ladon that consud you, wasn’t it? Besides, the fundantal problem lay in Kassel’s structure, which relied too much on you…’
Countless lines flashed through his mind, but none felt appropriate. She didn’t seem to be asking for excuses or comfort. He sensed he had no right to pass judgnt, having been no part of it at the ti.
“Back then, I suppose I was trying to punish myself. I don’t know if this punishnt is sufficient, though.” Violet lifted her eyes toward the sky. Rain continued to fall.
“Twelve thousand tis,” she murmured. “I think I repeated that final month around twelve thousand tis. I wonder how much ti passed outside.”
“About five hundred and sixty years.”
“So I spent double that here.” Ti there flowed differently than in the outside world. Violet had experienced well over a thousand years.
Mulling over that, she gave a bitter laugh. “Too much ti has passed. I barely rember what I was thinking when I created this grave. It was surely , but it feels like it was soone else.”
“If a thousand years have passed, that’s only natural.”
“Right? If I had to guess... my past self chose to repeat this last month endlessly—without knowing who I am or what I’ve beco—probably because...” Violet spun around to look at Najin. “I suspect it was because I wanted to overco it and hoped for a different outco from the self who was consud by Ladon.”
Every month, she lost her mories, returned to the beginning, forgot everything, and started again—Da Capo. Over and over. If soone had asked, “Until when?” a thousand years ago, the ‘Viola Oldina’ of that ti would have answered, “Until you, who are not a hero, becos a true hero. Until you create a very different ending under the sa circumstances.”
She was always that sort who believed only a flawless, perfectly pure being could be called a hero. At the sa ti she punished Violet, she also forced a trial upon her.
“As if it could be that easy.” Violet laughed in exasperation, cursing her past self. It hardly made sense. Forgetting everything and replaying it would inevitably lead to the sa conclusion.
Unlike Viola, Violet was frail. She wanted soone else to save her, soone to shatter that nightmare on her behalf. Hence, the entrance to Violet’s tomb was left open, awaiting a hero.
“Viola Oldina wanted to break this dream myself; Violet wanted soone else to do it.” Violet gestured at Najin, a wry smile curving her lips. “In the end, not Viola but Violet, it happened as I wanted. You arrived and saved . You killed Ladon and broke this dream.”
Violet sighed. “I guess that ans I never overca it. Even after a thousand years, I’m still—”
“I don’t think so,” Najin cut in.
“What?”
Standing in the middle of the rain-soaked street, he looked her straight in the eyes. “At the very end, you stood against Ladon of your own free will. No one forced you.”
“That was—”
“You had no obligation, no compulsion, no sense of responsibility, right?” He had taken her place. If she hadn’t joined the fight, no one would have died. There was no space for the old obsession of, “If I don’t act, people will die.”
“You still showed up. You stood there.”
She gave him a curious look.
“When I asked what I should call you, your response was…”
‘It doesn’t matter either way, does it?’
aning: whichever you choose, it’s still .
“I didn’t push you into that. I didn’t steer you toward that answer. You spoke it because you believed it.” Najin smiled. “All I did was prepare the stage. You were the one who leaped onto it and beca the hero. Isn’t that the very definition of overcoming?”
“It doesn’t change the fact you helped .”
“Must a hero do everything alone? Even the great King Arthur had the Round Table behind him.”
“Then...”
“Yes.” Najin nodded. “You were a hero.”
Hearing that, Violet’s eyes blurred with emotion. Pressing her trembling voice down, she said, “The truth is...”
She exhaled a long breath, looked at Najin, and smiled. “Maybe all I really wanted was to hear soone else say it. I couldn’t be sure on my own. I couldn’t be confident... Perhaps I just wanted soone truly heroic to acknowledge .”
She wanted soone to say, “You really were a hero. You deserve that title. Violet and Viola Oldina aren’t different people; they’re one, and that one was a hero.”
“Indeed.” Violet—Viola Oldina—exhaled, as if a great weight had been lifted. “Yes. Exactly.”
Najin had fulfilled her wish by rescuing her and breaking the dream. Likewise, Viola Oldina’s wish had also been granted. Though Najin assisted, Violet wrestled with the dilemma herself and reached a conclusion that the “Viola Oldina” could accept.
The final regrets of the fallen constellation, who had sought her own death five hundred and sixty years prior, found release. After a thousand years of repetition, the dream finally arrived at its endpoint.
Clatter.
Sowhere, the sound of shattering glass echoed.
Clatter. Cracks spread across the sky. Not only the sky—fissures appeared throughout the Kassel Kingdom. Unlike when Viola had devoured everything and caused a loud clamor, that ti, the collapse ca quietly.
Where it previously began at the center and spread outward, it instead began at the edges and traveled in.
The dream conjured by the Star of Detachnt was crumbling, slowly but surely. Her world narrowed.
Watching the sky and the land break into shards, she murmured, “I’ve thought about what I’d do if I ever quit being a hero. Actually, not just once—countless tis.”
The world neared its end.
“What would I want to do, if I could be free of everything and do anything at all...?” Her voice remained calm. “Maybe read novels or explore famous restaurants. Perhaps journey to far-off places. Sotis, I imagined visiting a city filled with famous musicians. I even made plans in my head, but I never told anyone.”
She smiled, the expression faint as if she might vanish at any mont.
Instinctively, Najin reached out and clasped her hand.
Looking at his hand over hers, Violet nodded. “There’s so much I’d like to do, but if I had to choose just one, there’s only one thing left.”
Placing both her hands over Najin’s and said, “Najin...”As the world neared its end, Violet bead and tugged on Najin’s arm.
“Let’s play music together. One last ti—straight from the beginning!” She took his arm and ran, the two of them racing through the rain-soaked streets of a world collapsing into fractured pieces. Their destination was the old tavern—her final refuge.
She took a seat before the piano. Calming her breath, she struck the keys with vigor. Thus, the performance began. At the sound of the music, Najin picked up the violin, and rlin—who had followed silently—heaved a sigh and joined in on cello, as if she had no other choice.
The pounding rain, the shattering glass, the crumbling world—all beca part of the song, rging into a harmony. Violet pressed the keys more intently than ever, sweat forming on her brow. Her eyes shone bright.
“Ah... Ah, ha!” She raced toward the finale.
Da capo—“from the beginning.” At the end of that dream, there had always been that mark. But in this mont, another symbol appeared beside it:
Al fine—“to the end.”
Put together, Da Capo al fine. The performance repeated twelve thousand tis, finally hurtled toward its conclusion.
The performance that once seed it would never end now approached its finale.
“Aah...”
Violet pressed down on the last chord with all her might. A resonant note spread, and she lowered her head. Tuk. A tear fell onto the keys.
“I still want to play a little longer.”
Tap, tap.
“I still want to talk to you a bit more.” Her voice trembled as she spoke. “It’s such a sha it ends here. Ah, if only I had held out longer. If I hadn’t made that choice... Maybe, in ti, another chance would have co. Why did I choose lthat?”
Regret. Remorse. Grief.
“Still…” Violet lifted her head. “Still…” she muttered, wiping her tears away with her sleeve, forcing a shaky smile. “I’m satisfied with how it ended. I can accept this kind of finale.”
She stepped toward him. The fractures in the air reached her last refuge as well. The tavern, her sanctuary, began to shatter.
Violet slipped the band from her hair.
“Najin.” Falling into his arms, she whispered in his ear and reached behind his head. “Thank you. Truly, right up to the end.”
She pulled loose the cord tying Najin’s hair and, using her own band, bound his hair in its place. Then she stepped back.
“My hero…” Tears ran down Violet’s face even as she laughed. “Rember .”
Who am I?—the question etched into her gravestone. With a radiant smile, Violet answered it. “Hero Viola Oldina, and...” She pressed a hand to her chest. “The perforr, Violet.”
Al Fine.
Clatter.
At last, the world split apart completely. Like shattered glass, everything cracked. Fissures ran across her body as well. She who had led a detached life, belonging nowhere, could finally belong to reality.
It didn’t matter that it was a dream. For her, it was reality. Refusing a life of detachnt, the Star of Detachnt died. By rejecting her star, she t a complete death—neither falling nor distorting.
Crunch.
As her hand crumbled into shards, Najin grabbed it. Over the roar of the world’s collapse, he spoke to her. Though his voice was lost in the chaos, she heard him perfectly.
“I’ll rember you.”
In her final mont, Violet smiled. Not in false repose, but in genuine rest, she closed her eyes.
‘At least at the end, it was all right.’
Her life had not been so bad after all.
Najin’s hand swiped through empty air.
The Violet he had just been holding was nowhere to be found. When he blinked, he saw only a tangled undergrowth and, amidst it, a gravestone and the ruins of the Kassel Kingdom.
Viola Oldina’s dream was broken. Though it all felt like an illusion or a dream, there was proof it had truly been real.
Najin touched his hair. Tied around it was a band. Embedded with six stars, it was a Star Relic left by Viola Oldina—evidence that Violet had existed.
He clutched that band tightly.
rlin, back inside Najin’s mind since the dream was over, could guess what he felt. She remained silent.
Only after a long while did Najin exhale deeply. He gazed at the gravestone before him.
Viola Oldina, Hero of the Kassel Kingdom.
Defended her country from an Evil Dragon.
Fought valiantly until the very end.
He lowered his eyes to the line beneath it.
「Who am I?」
He extended a finger. Channeling the star-luster that held the power of the Star of Detachnt, he engraved new letters onto the gravestone as perhaps the only person who would ever know her na.
「Perforr, Violet.」
For five hundred and sixty years, no one had answered her. For a thousand years within the dream, she had posed that question.
Najin left his answer. Thus, “Hero Viola Oldina” and “Perforr Violet” coexisted on the stone.
There was no difference between them—they were both her na.
The mont he placed that final mark on the gravestone, a star sparkled high above.
The Star of Requiem…
Najin gained his fifth star.
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