He got away.
Vandal gripped the stock of his long gun and clenched his teeth, his rage hot but silent.
He would have slit Nu's throat ... there was nothing I could do.
Had that one called Magpie not shown up, that bastard that, looked like Jayden, would have killed us both. He was relieved to see her being healed by Nu.
"Van?" Nu said carefully, resting a hand on his forearm, "are you alright? You seem tense."
"Yes," said Vandal brusquely, without looking at her.
"Van," implored Nu sweetly, "please look at me and tell me you are alright."
He did not want to look at her. Shame prevented him, reminding him of his failure to protect her. I'll cut her throat before you can finish pulling the trigger, that twin of Jayden threatened.
If he did not look at Nu, it would worry her even more. Vandal glanced more at her throat, not meeting her eyes. Nu noticed this and tilted her head to meet his somber grey eyes.
Look deep, a thought forced Vandal, for these eyes would have been shut forever.
Van's heart began to pound and a strange air of terror surrounded him. It wouldn't have been my fault, Van defended himself, trying to escape his anguish, it was an ambush! How could I have known ...
The voice in his head thickened and separated itself from his mind; it became a different voice. Leonette felt as if it was getting hotter. It burned like a cauldron over a fire, yet he did not drop her. What's happening?
"She's dead because of you!" a voice called.
Vandal looked at his long gun. Am I going mad? Did Leonette just talk to me?
"Who's dead?" Vandal said weakly as he fell to his knees.
"Huh?" Jayden turned, annoyance clear in his eyes, "What now? I told you what you wanted to know."
"Van!" Nu shouted.
The others heard her and looked back at him.
Then, suddenly, darkness swallowed the marksman, like a swarm of crows on a corpse.
Within the pall, there was a light, flickering orange and yellow. It rapidly approached him and flung him into a new world. This was a world he knew, one that he remembered.
The faint flickering turned out to be roaring flames that engulfed the city of Tarm. That's right, remembered the Vandal, I was doing mercenary work when I ...
The voice came once again, repeating the same message.
"She's dead because of you!" the voice, now familiar shouted.
His adversary stood before him, a crossbow in his hands.
Gods, thought Van as the memories came back like the venom from a snake's bite, Ren ... don't say it, please, I can't take it!
"If only you hadn't come to our village eight years ago ... "
Van made a move to run, as he did back then, but Ren fired his bolt, sending a bolt to sail across Vandal's thigh, the injury making him drop to his knees.
"If only you hadn't brought them to our home ... "
"STOP!" Vandal shouted, "DON'T SAY IT!"
Ren stood before him, drew his longsword, and aimed the tip to pierce Vandal's chest.
" ... Lottie would still be alive!"
Ren, Leonette's little brother, took his anger and pain out on him, thrusting the blade through his heart. Or that is what Vandal thought he did. If he did, then I am dead. That is why I am here, isn't it?
So that's what really happened, to her, Vandal thought. Uncle Vardis told me the fever got her. The old man was kind. After they brought him back to the castle, he told him he sent his personal spies to deliver his love letters to her and to receive her responses. Perhaps he was the only one in his noble family that had compassion. Ladnavia found out, however, and that's why she had Leonette killed and her village razed. Tell the boy it was fever, Vardis, Van could imagine Ladnavia's father muttering to his uncle, we can't have him despising us. That Vandal ... he's already difficult as is, running off like that.
The memory and realization were so sobering, his mind flew back to the present.
The others stared at him, Nu, the sweetling, seemingly always at his side. He stood up suddenly.
"What?" said Vandal suspiciously, "I'm fine."
Jayden, exhausted, shrugged and walked away from him.
"Senshi," Van called as she turned, "that crystal, back in the warehouse. Was that something ... from your home, as well?"
The stirring of his emotions must have made him react the same way with Leonette in his hands. There must be more than our bodies that followed us to this afterlife. Memories, the things left behind ...
The question seemed to open a wound, so Van told her he did not need to know.
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