Aria of the Withered Branch
Chapter 4

When I opened my eyes, the sun was setting outside the window. Next to me was the culprit behind my current situation, dozing on the corner of the bed.

Her name is Hellicharde, isn’t it? She looked like the picture of innocence, nothing more than a lovely little girl, but seeing her made me wish I was still unconscious. I stared blankly at the wall in despair, and Hellicharde seemed to notice my movements.

She rubbed at her eyes and sat up. “Oh, so you’re awake. Sorry about that. I didn’t think tossing a bag at you would be enough to knock you out. The others scolded me a lot for it, so please don’t be angry, okay?”

She commented that I seemed to be weaker than I looked, regarding me with a worried expression. I was at a loss for words. I swore that even a full-grown, sturdily built man would have been taken out by the force of that bag hitting them. It’s not that I’m weak.

Since she’d already suffered through a scolding, however, I decided not to say anything more.

“I have a question, though. Will you answer it for me?” asked the girl hesitantly, which didn’t seem in character for her. The way she squirmed, fiddling with her tiny hands, would have pulled at anyone’s heartstrings, but I knew I mustn’t fall for it. What was she planning to ask, anyway?

“I make no promise to answer. What is your question?” I said, tensing.

“All right… Why do you want to die?”

“Is that what you want to know?”

“Yes. Very much so.”

I hadn’t been expecting her to ask this. As my mood turned grim, I pushed my long brown hair back from my face. My mind was consumed with wondering how I was going to answer. I didn’t really know the answer to this question myself.

How can I explain it to her in words? I wondered how I could summarize the complex emotion that had been with me my whole life. It was so old and worn by now that it seemed to be falling apart all on its own, disintegrating into nothing and taking me with it. How can I explain that to a strange little girl I’ve never met before? Will she even understand what I’m trying to say? No. Never mind. It’s not something anyone needs to understand, certainly not on my behalf.

“Life’s just… no fun,” I said. I would have nothing to say in defense of myself if she were to respond that this was not a legitimate reason.

“Yeah?” The little girl, Hellicharde, did not react the way I expected her to. She seemed to think for a long moment, and then she suddenly got to her feet and shouted, “Then I’ll make life fun for you!”

“What…?”

She threw her arms in the air and shouted again, “It’s simple! I’ll make it enjoyable! That way we can all get what we want.” She jumped to her feet, skipping around the room in a manner befitting a child her age, and began to chatter cheerfully. “Listen! We’re not ordinary people. We can do a lot of incredible things, and there’s a lot we can show you. If life isn’t fun for you, we’ll simply make it fun, so that you no longer feel that way! It will be good for you, and we won’t have to worry about our lives being cut short! It’s the perfect plan!”

“Is it really so easy?” I asked.

She made it sound so simple that I honestly felt disappointed in her. Perhaps her cavalier attitude to my troubles upset me a little. But she wasn’t done.

“Even if it’s hard—no, in fact, it’ll be anything but easy. I know that much. Something has driven you to the brink—that’s why you’re here. But you know, I like living. Three hundred years is not nearly enough for me. Which is why I came to you for help! So I’ll do whatever I can to help you in return!”

My breath caught in my throat briefly.

“It’s not just me, either. All of us will try. We weren’t all that close to one another until now, but after coming together here, we’ve been talking a lot. None of us particularly welcome an early death. That means they’ll be forced to give it their best. Hehe! I mean, it’s a bit disappointing that you’re not a cute little girl or boy—but I can let that go. So why don’t you put your trust in me and live on?”

“You want me to live a little longer?”

“Yes, I do! All of us are pretty fun to be around! You might have already noticed, but Julius is definitely unhinged! He’ll be very interesting to have around!”

Yes, his hobby certainly seemed very peculiar. I felt a bead of sweat trickle down my temple. I’d forgotten for a moment, lost in my odd thoughts, but the last thing Hellicharde said pulled my mind back into alertness. It occurred to me that living with these five might actually be a fate worse than death. I needed to think carefully about this. Perhaps now was my only chance to escape.

Sweat poured down my face as my mind began to scream. Then I felt a sudden warmth in my left hand. I looked down, only to find two small, chubby, white hands gripping mine tightly. They were warm.

“Don’t die.”

Her big, green eyes seemed to ripple and shimmer, like she was about to cry. I knew that all they wanted was a longer life themselves. But even so, I found myself wondering why they had appeared now, of all times. I’d forced myself to let go of all my attachments and come here to find relief. I was a withered, worthless being. What did any of this matter to me?

My thoughts were a jumbled mess. I felt like someone was standing before me, boldly declaring that they were going to water the field that was my heart, whether I liked it or not. It was full of nothing but thorns and best described as a barren wasteland. I looked down at the pale hands holding mine without saying anything, only to notice quiet noises coming from somewhere nearby.

“What was that just now?”

“Oh.”

Hellicharde’s shiny eyes suddenly became vicious as she turned and charged at the door. When she threw it open, the other four were standing awkwardly in the doorway.

“You morons! I was about to get her to agree! You ruined the moment!”

“Oh, well… We were worried… and we wanted to know how it was going…”

The handsome young man with blond hair smiled with embarrassment. Mahorren, the old man who’d been squatting with his ear pressed to the door, shot to his feet and clasped his hands behind his back solemnly. But it was too late, I’d already seen him eavesdropping.

“It’s rare that I’m unable to determine a person’s gender. So which are you, darling? A boy or a girl?” The beautiful assassin, who’d hidden away as soon as they were discovered, appeared again with feigned casualness as she repeated her previous question.

“What do you mean I’m unhinged?” Julius asked gloomily. He seemed to have heard Hellicharde’s earlier assertion about his strangeness and was squatting in the corner, drawing doodles on the floor with one finger.

I recalled what Mahorren had said to me as I stared at this motley crew. They were here, as was I, because we had resonated with one another.

I’m on the same wavelength as these people? It made me feel strange. They were so full of life and vivacity. As someone who wanted to die, I was the polar opposite of them.

***

“So, when are you going to make that declaration for us?”

I could swear this is where I left it… The next morning, I found that the sleeping powder I’d put in my bag was gone. I’d been looking for it for a while when Julius, who’d been reading a book in the corner, asked me this question in passing.

“I don’t even know how,” I replied.

“Oh… We didn’t tell you?” He cocked his head to the side, then shot to his feet. He seemed to have realized that they had completely glossed over the most important part. I assumed he intended to gather the others, but I called to him as he headed through the door.

“Jules, where is my sleeping powder?”

Jules stopped short as soon as I spoke. His hood still concealed his face, but I assumed that he was taken aback. By what, exactly? Is it because I called him Jules because I couldn’t be bothered to say his full name? Or is it because I brought up the sleeping powder?

He turned his head awkwardly, and I smiled at him. One of my five interlopers had taken the powder. I was sure of it. Feeling as though they would never stop taking advantage of me if I kept being too polite, I’d gratefully accepted Mahorren’s suggestion to shorten all their names and stop speaking to them so formally.

I need to take a firmer tone with them. I’d promised myself this, though I wasn’t sure I would be able to see it through. How long had it been since I’d called anyone by a nickname or used a tone that wasn’t painfully formal?

I pointed at my bag, looking at Jules. “I was organizing my things, and it wasn’t in my bag.”

“What’s the deal? I thought you decided you weren’t going to die?” he asked.

“I was going to keep it just in case. Have you seen it?”

Jules seemed to stare at me for a long moment, only to turn away and continue on his way. “No.”

So it wasn’t you, then. The five of them quickly gathered in my room, and they all avoided my eyes as they similarly avoided the question. This meant all four of them were responsible, or, at the very least, all four were complicit—bystanders at the very least.

“You don’t need that powder anymore,” Hellicharde said, her huge eyes wide and betrayed. She looked like she was ready to grab me by the collar to shake me about.

“I haven’t said that declaration thing, whatever it is, yet. I’d like to remind you that I have a say in the matter,” I said, taking a step back.

Phasion, who’d been standing behind me, gently agreed. “You certainly have a point there. I suppose it would be rather rude of us to march in here out of the blue and force you to make a decision. You can take some more time to think about it, if you wish.”

“But what if he suddenly decides to off himself? What then? Are you going to take responsibility?” said Channe-Lodiharrah, her pretty face twisted into a frown.

“Until he makes the declaration, he is just a human being, nothing more—it doesn’t matter if he’s the declarer and the token. Suicide aside, what if something happens to him? The world is a dangerous place.”

Phasion laughed with a troubled expression on his face as the others berated him. “But I don’t want him to resent us if he makes the declaration without understanding the full picture.” He was a noble and a knight, and accordingly, a gentleman. I guessed that he must be the sanest out of the five, along with Mahorren.

“He knows all he needs to know. He’s already aware that death is not an option after he makes the declaration, if only because of us. We die if he does. We explained all that yesterday.”

“But he doesn’t know that she will be immortal as soon as he does so. Merely hearing about it is not the same as really understanding the facts. We need to give him plenty of time to accept what making a declaration means for him. Unlike us, some humans can be driven mad by the concept of eternity. In fact, not even our people are immune to that, as you well know.”

“I suppose…”

Wait, what was that? They’d told me yesterday that without a declaration, they would die within three hundred years. And even if I did make the declaration, they would die as soon as I did. That was why I suggested putting me into an everlasting sleep. Though they refused that, of course.

“But even if I agree, you will all die as soon as I reach the end of my lifespan. Isn’t it better for you to enjoy the three hundred years you have to its fullest extent, and—” I began.

“Seriously, you—” the assassin began to shout indignantly.

“No worries. The moment you make the declaration, you will be immune to the passage of time and the Grim Reaper of Mahara,” said Jules, cutting me off mid-sentence in his usual offhanded way.

“Jules, when you say I’ll be immune, you can’t mean—” I said.

“Yes. You will not age or die. In other words, you will be unable to die.”