I Pulled Out Excalib Chapter 219

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Lapis (3)

All witches possess a mystique.

Mystique, a rule that transcends providence.

Witches acquire their mystique either through birth or through experience, and in Lapis's case, it was the latter. The day her mystique was determined was the day she turned fifteen.

Until she was fifteen, Lapis had not known that she was a witch, and so she lived among humans without a second thought. Just a girl with a small talent for magic, that was how Lapis saw herself, and the villagers treated her no differently from any other person.

That was how things were, until the day a knight and a priest came to the village and exposed the truth of what Lapis was.

"Filthy creature."

"Foul, ominous, and wicked."

"Did you think hiding among people would mask your stench? Your true nature is that of a filthy witch. A madwoman who takes pleasure in killing and burning humans!"

The priest pointed his finger. The knight drew his sword. Lapis looked back at her friends and the village elders, but all she found were eyes wide with terror staring back at her.

Fear. Disgust. Contempt. Betrayal.

Not a trace of the familiar warmth she had always known could be found in their eyes. And yet, one could hardly blame them. In that era, their reaction was nothing less than expected.

It was an age when the Witch of Camlann had burned half the world to ash and stained the remaining half black, when demons and witches who had gathered beneath her shadow slaughtered humans without mercy. In such an age, a witch was a virulent plague, something to be feared above all else. Countless people had lost their villages and their loved ones to witches, and so all of their fury came bearing down on Lapis.

She was slashed by blades.

Stabbed over and over again by swords and spears.

Burned by fire and pelted with stones.

The mother who had taken her in from where she had been abandoned in the forest, whispering to her that she was her daughter and that she would always be her mother. As a stone thrown by that same mother, who had always smiled so gently at her, split open her forehead and blood ran down her face, Lapis thought to herself.

How worthless trust was. How empty were the promises and oaths that humans spoke.

At fifteen years old, the girl who had faced the malice of the world was a witch, and she held the right to choose her own mystique. On the day when everything she had ever believed in became utterly worthless, Lapis made her choice.

That day, in that moment, the course of Lapis's life was decided.

Distrust.

She would believe in nothing. If she gave her trust to no one, then there would be nothing left to hurt her. Trust was worthless, nothing but a hollow facade.

Lapis, the Witch of Distrust.

That day, Lapis burned to ashes every last person she had ever trusted. And so the Witch of Distrust was born.

Ten years, fifty years, a hundred years...

The Witch of Distrust lived through the long years with hatred for humans in her heart, yet she could not devote her entire life to that hatred alone. For at the very beginning of her story, there had been a human.

The gentle smile of the mother who had always looked at her so warmly was something she could never forget for as long as she lived. She missed the warmth in that smile, the quiet peace of the little cottage where she had lived with her mother.

In the end, she let the flames die down.

She shut herself away in her own cottage, seeking a peace of sorts, but she remained the Witch of Distrust all the same. A witch who could not trust humans, nor other witches, nor even herself.

"......"

And then, one day.

"Hey, you."

Lapis found a human who resembled herself.

A human who had lived burning through his own life, and yet had nothing left to burn. A human who wanted to give up on living but still wanted to live, torn between two opposing desires.

"Are you that famous witch hunter?"

Lapis called out to this human who reminded her of herself.

With the thought of, just maybe.

"Me?"

A flicker of curiosity. A small indulgence. A soft spring breeze tickling one's hair. With nothing more than that light of a heart, Lapis reached out to a certain human.

"Lapis."

Lapis, the Witch of Distrust.

2.

It had been a light-hearted thing.

She had not expected much of anything.

A brief distraction, a pinch of salt and sugar to scatter over the dull, dry stretch of her life, that was all Lapis had thought he would amount to.

"Hey."

But.

"Hey, witch."

Just as the world had always betrayed her.

"Lapis."

Anton defied every one of Lapis's expectations, plain as day. As though to prove he was no ordinary man, Anton Quixano kept on knocking at the door of her cottage, day after day.

"Lapis, today it's morning glories."

Anton appeared covered in dirt, holding out flowers with eyes that sparkled, as though he was eager to see how she would react. Whenever he did that, Lapis would debate whether to grant him a reluctant smile, but then she would look at the flowers he had brought and burst out laughing before she even knew it, simply because she couldn't believe it.

"Where did you get these? Morning glories aren't easy to find in the Outland, are they?"

"Ah, it certainly wasn't easy. But there's a tremendous gulf between 'difficult' and 'impossible,' you know."

"I can already tell this is going to be a long story. Come inside first. Shake off some of that dirt."

"Oh my. I couldn't possibly step inside a lady's home while covered in dirt like this."

At his theatrically dramatic tone, Lapis once again covered her mouth with her hand and let out a small laugh.

"So where exactly did you get these flowers?"

"You know the Heaven-Wandering Star?"

"Ah, that control freak? I know of it."

"There's a wide garden on the Heaven-Wandering Star's sky whale, isn't there? I just quietly plucked them from there."

"...From there? Are you out of your mind?"

"It was quite the heart-pounding adventure, I must say. Shall I tell you the details? The grand adventure contained within those morning glories."

A pale violet morning glory.

She had thought nothing of the flowers when she received them, but Anton's tale of adventure made her see the morning glories in a different light. By the time the story was over, Lapis had carefully placed the morning glory in a vase.

"It's lovely, this flower."

As though handling a precious treasure, Lapis gently ran her fingers over the petals. And before she even realized it, a smile had found its way to her face.

"Then it was worth all the trouble."

Whenever she smiled, Anton would nod with a look of satisfaction, as though any amount of hardship was worth bearing just to see that smile of hers.

Such days continued.

Anton found every possible way to make Lapis laugh. Lapis, who had always thought of herself as someone who rarely smiled, found herself laughing again and again whenever she was with Anton.

"Pfft, heh, hehh... What, what even is that!"

She clutched her stomach and burst out laughing.

She bowed her head and her shoulders shook.

And sometimes she laughed out of pure disbelief.

As those days piled up, Lapis began, little by little, to look forward to the days Anton came to visit. On the days he didn't come, she would sit by the window and stare out at the world with nothing to do, and on the days he did come, she would lie awake the night before wondering what to wear and what they might talk about.

Throb.

And every time that happened.

A dull ache.

Lapis felt her heart pounding, and with that pounding came pain. Distrust, the fear that Anton might one day betray her as everyone else had. Taboo, the rule carved into her very soul that she must never love a human.

"...This far. Let's keep it to this far. Anton."

On one such day when her heart ached as though it might burst, Lapis finally made a choice.

To keep her distance from Anton.

To not grow any closer than this.

"Let's end it here, the two of us. I don't want to be hurt by you."

"......"

"Here. Just right here. Come on, let's not cross that line. Life is bearable enough now, isn't it? I'll return your heart to you, you take only the good memories, and that's the end of it. Clean and simple, isn't it?"

Leave behind only the happy memories, and put an end to things before they could betray each other. She could end it now, while things were still clean. Lapis took one step back, but Anton did not.

"Then take it. My other half."

"What?"

"If you think I'm going to betray you, then you can just shatter that heart, can't you? I'm not asking you to trust me. Doubt me. You can keep doubting me forever."

He pushed forward instead.

Affirming even her most terrible quality, her distrust, Anton knelt before her and smiled. The same smile as always, dashing but just a little awkward.

"I love you, Lapis."

Those words were something Lapis could never forget.

"Find me."

And so, even though she thought she shouldn't, even though she knew she shouldn't, those words still crossed her lips.

"Come and find me, Anton."

I'll be waiting.

That was the trust offered by the Witch of Distrust.

A trust extended by a witch who had resolved to believe in no one, a faith that denied her entire life. As she reached out with that faith, Lapis endlessly denied herself. He'll betray you. Just like always, your hopes will be betrayed, and your trust will be trampled.

But at the same time, Lapis thought.

That if it was Anton, it would be all right. Even if her trust were betrayed, even if he hurt her, if the one doing so was Anton, she found herself thinking that would be okay.

And so the time passed.

Ten years, fifty years, a hundred, two hundred...

Four hundred years.

Today, after four hundred years had passed, Lapis raised her head and looked forward.

"Lapis."

He was standing there.

"I kept my promise."

Anton Quixano was there, holding out a red rose.

He was still there with the same smile, still dashing and still just a little clumsy, even after four hundred years. The moment their eyes met, all the doubts and anguish that had crowded her mind swept away in an instant.

Once again, Lapis burst into laughter.

A smile not a single thing different from the one she had worn four hundred years ago.

3.

"It's a rose."

"Indeed, a rose."

"A red one, at that. How did you manage it?"

"When you've been researching for four hundred years, things have a way of working out. The story behind that rose has no end to it. I'd have to start from the oldest garden in existence."

"Really, now."

"Indeed."

"Truly."

Lapis gently ran her fingers over the rose's petals.

"You kept it. Your promise."

It wasn't only the rose she was speaking of.

Lapis had asked to be found, and Anton had truly spent four hundred years doing exactly that.

"It must have been difficult. Finding me."

"Ah. It certainly wasn't easy."

"Was it hard?"

"It wasn't hard. I was traveling with the thought of collecting stories to tell you, and before I knew it, I was here."

And that friend over there helped as well.

As he said this, Anton gestured back with a slight tilt of his head. There was Najin, catching his breath after having dealt with the monsters. As if to say they should talk undisturbed, Najin gave Anton a small nod and stepped a few paces further back.

"There is much I want to say."

Anton drew in a long breath.

"But there is only one thing I want to say right now. Lapis?"

"Yes, Anton."

"Thank you for trusting me. And thank you for waiting for me."

Lapis swallowed dryly.

Just as she was about to open her mouth to deny it, Anton shook his head and pointed to Lapis's heart, more precisely, to the half of it that belonged to him.

"Don't say it wasn't so. You were nowhere else in this tower. You could have waited for me in a dream. There is a level just below this one, a level that shows happy dreams, and you could have lost yourself there. You had the chance to."

But you didn't.

"You waited for me in reality."

For four hundred years, no less.

"And it is for that wait that I am grateful."

"...Honestly."

Lapis dragged her hand down over her face.

"Do you even know my name?"

"Of course. You're Lapis."

"Lapis, the Witch of Distrust."

"Doesn't matter. Whatever comes before the name, you're still you."

"Distrust. That's my mystique. I cannot trust anything. I cannot give my faith to anyone, nor give my heart to anyone."

Because she had been betrayed by humans.

Because everything she had ever trusted had betrayed her.

She had simply lost all trust.

"So you see, I am the Witch of Distrust."

"I know. Because you told me."

"......"

"......"

"At this point, maybe catch a hint, you fool."

Lapis let out a small laugh.

"I am the Witch of Distrust, and yet."

She looked at Anton.

"I believed your words. I believed that you would come for me, and I waited for you at the top for four hundred years. I tried to doubt you, but I couldn't. Even if a thousand years had passed, it would have been the same."

Lapis cried, and laughed at the same time.

"You said you would give up being a knight for love of me, didn't you?"

As though it were nothing, as though it mattered not at all, the Anton of four hundred years ago had said it. That for her sake, he could throw away everything he had.

"As for me."

The answer she had not been able to give back then.

But the one she could give now.

"I gave up being a witch to love you."

Anton's eyes went wide.

Lapis placed her hand over her heart and spoke.

"What kind of Witch of Distrust doesn't distrust?"

Just as you discarded everything for me.

Just as you changed everything about yourself for me.

"I am Lapis."

I too will change everything I am for you, and discard it all. Wouldn't that only be fair?

"Simply, Lapis."

The Witch of Distrust had placed her trust in a human. That trust was repaid after four hundred years. In the moment her trust was answered for the very first time, Lapis's mystique lost its color, and the elements that made up her very being began to fade.

The chains that had bound her to the Black Spire.

The shackles created by the Witch of Camlann, designed to imprison witches, undid themselves on their own. Because Lapis was no longer a witch.

"Thank you for finding me. Anton."

As she said this, Lapis looked as though she might crumble at any moment. For the sake of this reunion with Anton, she had denied her mystique and the very element of 'witch' that made up her soul. Without denying those things, she could not have reunited with Anton.

But the price of that denial could not be escaped.

For a star that denies itself will always break.

Flash.

The nine stars she possessed fell. Lapis's soul and body began to erode and crumble. As though mocking the reunion that had taken four hundred years, the moment of parting was approaching.

"Ah..."

Lapis murmured to herself as she watched her body crumble.

"To think that I, who laughed and called Rena a madwoman for falling in love with a human, would end up making this same choice. It's all your fault, Anton."

Lapis gave a bitter smile.

"It's unfortunate, but Anton. The love between a witch and a human always ends this way. Even so, I think we have about ten days. Ten days of unforgettable..."

"Ten days after four hundred years of waiting. That is far too short."

"There's no helping it. Love between a human and a witch is nothing but tragedy."

"Tragedy."

Anton grinned.

"Lapis, do you remember what I said before?"

This time, it was a perfect smile, with no trace of awkwardness.

"Whether this ends in tragedy or comedy is for me to decide."

"...What?"

Anton pulled Lapis into his arms. He pressed his forehead to hers. Close enough that their every breath mingled together, Anton whispered in Lapis's ear.

"Did you really think I wouldn't have known that my lady would make a choice like this? And did you think that with four hundred years at my disposal, I wouldn't have found a way?"

Anton smiled mischievously.

"As if."

Anton divided the stars he possessed in half. The half he divided off moved toward the place where his heart occupied half of Lapis's.

Because Lapis held Anton's heart.

Because each had given up themselves for the other.

Because each was everything to the other.

Half of Anton's stars passed over to Lapis in perfect entirety. This was nothing like simply splitting a star or sharing starlight. This was two people sharing a single, whole constellation between them.

The body of Lapis, which had been losing its stars and eroding, was restored.

As Lapis stared at Anton with wide, bewildered eyes, Anton smiled as though even that look was endearing to him, and then he kissed her.

"I love you, Lapis."

Even after four hundred years, still.

As the nine stars fell, a new star rose up between the falling ones. The greatest romantic of the age, or perhaps the greatest fool of the age, the man who had loved a witch had finally accomplished his feat after four hundred years.

A feat that no one in all of human history had ever achieved.

The heavens recognized this feat.

Anton Quixano and Lapis earned a new star.

When they saw the name given to that star, both Anton and Lapis burst out laughing.

Trust.

For Lapis, who had given up on distrust and on being a witch, there was no star more fitting.

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