Chapter 35 - The Fairy and the Red Feather Veins
He must not panic. If he misjudged, she would die.
Louis was someone to be relied upon. Both Lumina and Elenoa had ended up like this as a result of following his instructions. He would not let the girl currently in his arms die. He must not make a mistake this time. —No matter the situation.
Louis lifted her limp body into his arms and first checked her consciousness by her ear.
"Elenoa, can you hear me? Elenoa."
"...Mm."
Surprisingly, she responded quickly, and Louis felt relieved. He inadvertently hugged her tightly. She groaned, so he hurriedly loosened his grip.
Carrying Elenoa in his arms, he took her to his own bedroom and laid her on the bed.
"Does anything hurt?"
"...No. I just feel sluggish."
"Your breathing?"
"It's a little hard. But I'm fine. It feels like I caught a cold."
"Do you have any idea what fairy illness this might be?"
"...Sorry."
He asked gently and carefully, keeping his voice calm so as not to reveal his inner anxiety.
"Has anything like this happened before while I was away?"
"This is the first time I've collapsed."
"I see. Is it something like standing dizziness? Did it happen often?"
"...Yes. ...Are you angry?"
"Yes."
—Of course he would be angry.
When Louis spoke his true feelings, she pulled the bedding up to her eyes, hiding half her face.
Louis did not intend to show his emotions so openly, but she was sensitive to such subtleties.
"Knowing you, you probably thought optimistically that it was just your imagination, or that there was no need to tell me."
"...You're busy with work, after all."
"That is true. I appreciate your consideration, but I would have liked you to tell me about this."
"...Sorry."
Seeing her dejected, Louis suppressed his anger.
"Are you hungry?"
"I'm not. Ah, Louis's meal, the one in the kitchen, is already ready. Heat it up and eat."
"Yes. I will do so, so you just sleep now. Tomorrow, you are to rest regardless. Do not lift a finger for meal preparation, cleaning, or laundry."
"Eh, but that will be hard on you, Louis."
"Before you came, I was doing it for that child as well. I can take care of myself, so do not worry and just sleep all day. If you get hungry or want something, please tell me."
Cutting off the conversation unilaterally, he left the bedroom and went straight to his study.
He searched for books and materials about fairies. He turned the pages, looking for descriptions of illnesses fairies contract, causes of weakening, and symptoms.
He did not find any promising information, but within a certain document in his study, he found a sentence that caught his attention. It was a phrase he had seen countless times before.
『Feathers are life』
The literal meaning, devoid of any twist, stuck in his mind.
If a fairy's feathers are the pathway for magical power, then she, having lost them, was as if the flow of her magical power had been blocked. That clearly threatened her life, —but.
What if he stripped away that knowledge and accepted this sentence as it was?
—Ah.
He sighed. Louis ruffled his hair roughly, disguising the headache that was gradually asserting itself.
He remembered the coldness of her skin.
*
He did not think that decision, using her hair and feathers as a medium, was a mistake.
If he had not done that, she would have died in a tattered state.
Using multiple layers of magic, it could be called a miracle that she was alive like this. However, Louis could not rejoice honestly.
The fatal distortion for a fairy—having no feathers—was eroding her little by little.
First, he had to fix her magical power circuits.
However, there were no such cases even among humans, and furthermore, things were different with fairies.
While everything was in a state of groping in the dark, Louis suppressed his rising anxiety and continued his work, searching for a way to restore her feathers.
He purchased feathers from a fairy of the same rank at a high price. Comparing them with the drawing of Elenoa's feathers he had copied earlier, the shape of the feather veins was different. It seemed they varied by individual. He examined the shape, size, and other factors, and finally touched them to the wound on Elenoa's back, but the feathers simply melted away blackly. It seemed they would not adhere so easily.
The expensive magic potions Louis made, sparing neither sleep nor meals, which were said to be highly effective for humans, were also useless.
Even Ars, who possessed the highest level of technical skill as a Healer, silently shook his head. Since they were fundamentally different from humans, it was inevitable.
Even when he asked Elenoa, she said she knew nothing.
He had never hated a fairy so careless about herself as much as he did now.
"Haa... You can live with such ignorance, can't you?"
"I won't deny that I'm ignorant, but I think humans overthink things in reverse. For fairies, common sense like 'you must not touch feathers' or 'strong magical power is delicious' was enough. Basically, everyone lives by instinct, so that alone makes them happy, you know?"
"...Are there no fairies who possess knowledge?"
"I think there was one called the Fairy Chief, rank SS, but I've never heard where they are."
The investigation was struggling.
In the meantime, Elenoa's legs became unsteady, and she could not take a single step out of bed. Her body temperature dropped further, becoming cold as ice.
Some time had passed since the monster attack.
The town had almost returned to its original state. It had reached the point where only minor repairs to fixtures and the like remained.
Returning from work, Louis headed straight for the bedroom to check on her.
Elenoa, who had greeted Louis with a "Welcome back," closed the book she was holding. She smiled softly at Louis, who patted her head and treated her like a child, asking, "Were you a good girl?" as if to tease him.
Louis prefaced his words with, "I've been thinking about this all day," and then said,
"I intend to put my blood into you."
"...Huh?"
He gave a wry smile at the dumbfounded Elenoa.
"Blood. I want you to drink it, as usual. I will ask the magical power within my own blood to try and promote the formation of feathers."
"The skilled Master Mage will do anything."
"It is not that I will do anything. It is only because it is my magical power that I can control it. Ideally, it would be best to use your own blood, but as expected, one cannot freely manipulate another's magical power. Even with a contract, such detailed manipulation is reckless. Therefore, I will manipulate my own power from the outside."
"Hmm?"
Elenoa nodded, thinking, "Well, it can't be helped," but as she watched Louis cut the skin of his fingertip with a snap while chanting something solemn, she gradually became tense.
It was a first attempt. Thinking that changes might occur in her body because of it felt frightening.
But driven by the fairy-like desire to have feathers, she took his finger into her mouth.
The change happened immediately.
Just as the two of them had hoped.
But in a bad way.
"Ah, aahhh...!"
Repelling his hand in refusal, Elenoa clutched her head.
She suppressed her throat and chest, twitching violently. Her eyes were wide open, yet they reflected nothing. She vomited repeatedly, and large tears flowed from both eyes.
Suddenly.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"
"Elenoa!?"
Louis was driven by the unexpected change and her scream, which he had never heard before.
It was a high-pitched noise, as if tearing apart the previous peace as a lie, so high it felt like his eardrums would burst.
Did fairies, who excelled at singing, have such a special ability? He did not know. He did not know, but she did not know anything either. She was lamenting, frightened by something unknown, whether pain or fear.
Louis placed his hands on her shoulders and called out to her, but she only suffered.
"Help me, no, no, no... this... it hurts, it hurts...!"
What grew from her back were feathers red as blood.
Scritch, scritch, scritch.
Thin crimson lines extended from the wound on Elenoa's back and overlapped.
Snap.
Only the shape of the feather veins was woven delicately from the base.
Blood feathers.
The right and left feathers opened and closed slowly, swaying—how hideous. Her will was not reflected in their movement. They merely emphasized their presence, as if showing off before Louis.
Squeak, squeak, scritch... snap, snap, squelch.
This, which even generated a sense of disgust as if it were the embodiment of someone's sin, was a fake.
It was not Elenoa's feathers.
With a sound like flesh being pierced, snap, and a grating noise, scritch, squelch, something was being forcibly dragged out.
And those feathers gradually grew. Scattering the smell of rust around.
"Hi, ah...!"
Even during that time, she writhed in pain that crawled over her entire body. It felt as if dozens of thin needles had strayed into her blood vessels. A sense of discomfort and foreignness, as if something was stabbing around inside her body without hesitation. Her body was hot. She was dizzy. Her back burned with pain. It hurt. It felt like her insides were being stirred with something hot.
Elenoa gripped the sheets, pressed her upper body against the bed, drooled from her mouth, and shed tears from her eyes, desperately begging for it to stop. "Ah...!" Her limbs were shaken violently along with a small scream from the back of her throat, and the red threads twisted at the wound on her back crawled out sluggishly. The feathers grew large again. Tears scattered on the white sheets, making pat, pat, stains.
Seeing such a disgraceful state of the fairy, Louis spat out his own shallowness.
"...'Rejection', huh..."
—He had been arrogant. He had thought that his magical power was optimal for her.
But it was different. Louis's magical power was indeed large. T《.》h《.》a《.》t《.》 《.》i《.》s《.》 《.》w《.》h《.》y《.》, it was too heavy for her, who was on the verge of breaking.
Louis's magical power had granted his wish to return her feathers to their original form. But it could never become a part of Elenoa, and thus it tortured her.
The counterfeit feathers brought pain.
But she had to endure it.
By creating the feathers, her cold body temperature was indeed beginning to return. Her skin color was improving as well.
"It hurts, no, no, ...no, ah...!"
"I'm sorry, ah, it hurts, doesn't it, ...I'm sorry..."
Grasping her weakly extended hand, Louis hugged her. No matter how he let her act spoiled against his chest or stroked her hair to soothe her, he could not alleviate her pain. He was powerless. The Chief Court Mage, in this very moment, was just a human who could not cast even a single spell.
"It hurts, it hurrrts, it hurts it hurts it hurrrts, ah, ah, ku, u, ...agu,"
Her suffering hands clung to his black robe. The emblem of the Research Institute wrinkled.
Louis looked bitterly at the dark red pair of feathers that violated her white back.
Unable to bear the pain, she lost consciousness.
The ominous thing on her back collapsed with a splash. It turned into a bright red liquid and poured down onto her fallen back and the bed.
...Feathers were necessary.
As proof, her cold body had completely regained its temperature.
Probably, this would have to be repeated many times in the future.
Even if it hurt. Even if it was painful. Even if she came to hate him for it. Until he found a new method, he would make her drink his blood again and again, and hear her screams again and again.
Even so, he had to do this.
She would weaken easily. In the end, she would disappear.
"...Elie..."
Louis held the limp, strengthless Elenoa and bowed his head deeply.
What floated in his exhausted brain was the human who had exposed his sister and lover to danger. The human who had caused his sister's death. The human who had stolen the fairy's feathers. The human who had tortured his lover to the point of near death.
—Why, to what extent, would they interfere?
He had not desired luxury, yet they had taken away what was precious.
It was as if even their modest future of living together—his sister, his lover, and himself—had been mocked.
Had he not been helping their lives until now?
For this? —Just to be taken away?
『Really, this is why humans are...』
—Yes. You were right.
—If you had not gotten involved with humans, you would not have been writhing in pain here.