Brave Story - Miyuki Miyabe [376]
One, two, three. His heart beat with each breath. I’m alive. I’m here. Me.
Me…and everyone else.
Wataru took a jerky step forward, then another. No one had taught him the proper procedure. Even Wayfinder Lau hadn’t told him how to behave in the presence of the Goddess. Wataru went down on one knee, took her hand and placed it on his chest, and bent his head.
“My…wish…”
“Yes?” Her soft voice seemed to stroke his hair.
Make your wish into words.
From long before he had realized what his true wish was, Wataru’s heart had already known. It had been waiting patiently for this moment. When the words came, they came without a moment’s hesitation.
“Goddess of Destiny. With your power, destroy the Mirror of Eternal Shadow. Break it, like the Mirror of Truth, into countless fragments, and spread them through the land. Please, destroy it. Cut off the paths of the Dark and save Vision.”
The Goddess’s white fingers were motionless in Wataru’s hand.
“Is this your wish?”
“It is.”
“Do you understand the entire nature of your wish?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Do you understand that I may only answer this one wish, this one time. You will never have a second chance.”
“I understand.”
“Will you not regret this? If I grant you this wish, your destiny in the real world will not change in the least. Can you tell me that you walked the long road to the Tower of Destiny, overcoming many hardships, all for the fulfillment of this one wish?”
The Goddess’s words wrapped around Wataru like gauzy ribbons of silk. Wataru grabbed each one of them and held them close.
“You are certain? Even if Vision is saved, your fate will remain as it was.”
Wataru looked up. The smile had faded from the Goddess’s face, her expression was stern, and her black eyes were focused on Wataru.
“No,” he said. “I think you’re wrong. Save Vision, and you will save me.”
The Goddess’s head tilted slowly. “On your way here, you saw the disaster that has befallen Vision. You saw the demonkin hordes attacking your traveling companions. That is why these things are burned so strongly into your mind now. You think only to help your friends and save Vision, above all else. But, Wataru, think again. You will never return to Vision. You do not live here. Nor will you ever meet your friends again. You go from here back to the real world. And when you do, you will realize. Once again, you will face the cruel destiny that has found you, and you will find it not a bit changed from when you left. Will you not curse your fate, and be ravaged by regret?”
Wataru managed to smile, surprising even himself. “Like you say, I first came here to change my destiny in the real world. I swore to myself I would do it when I started my journey.”
But it’s different now. Everything is different. I can see that now. “I was wrong. I was looking at it the wrong way. This Vision, it’s my Vision. I walked its roads. And as I did so, I created it around me. I made this world. It’s me.”
Protecting Vision from the demonkin is the same thing as protecting myself. “When I go back to the real world, my fate will be waiting there as it has been this whole time—I know that. But it’s not like it was when I left. I’m not who I was before I came to Vision.”
“So you say you have grown stronger?”
Shaking his head, Wataru continued. “I don’t think I’ve gotten stronger. In the real world I’m still just a kid. That’s why all I could do when things went bad was cry. Because I’m powerless.”
And I still am. I can’t do anything by myself. I cry when I’m lonely, and I tremble when I’m scared. I fear that what I loved will be taken from me, and I’m afraid of being hurt.
“The time just before I came to Vision, I was sure that I would never be so sad in my whole life. I thought I would never hate another person so much, or get so mad. I wanted to change my fate because I knew then I was the unhappiest I could ever be.
“But, when I came to Vision, I made friends and I had fun—a lot of fun. Sometimes so much that I forgot why I had set out on my journey in the first place. At the same time, I encountered