Next chapter will be on the 1st of March.
"To be precise… Stealing your memories was not his ultimate purpose." The witch says, red eyes inhuman, as she looks down on all of them.
Fai can't look up to see that.
The princess still lies heavy in his arms and he can feel all the tension in her body which never used to be there and how did he let them come to this? How did he let her come to this?
Her eyes are so serious now, so cold.
He wishes now that he'd never went on this journey.
It would have been better if he'd died and never came with them because he's so much more a part of this than they know and he's betrayed them all and is doing it even now, second by second going by and adding to his guilt like sand in an hourglass already overflowing.
He knows, far too well, all of the things which the witch is saying. He's known them for years, since he was a child and just wanted to save him- just needed to save him.
That need is still within him. He feels guilt too for the fact that he cares just a little bit more for these people now than he does for his brother who waits for him still, frozen too.
It would be better if all of his past stayed frozen.
It would have been better if he had frozen too. If he'd stayed locked away like he was supposed to so he couldn't hurt anyone.
Back then, when he'd promised, they hadn't seemed like people, these 'travelling companions' that he was going to guide along the icy ledge to the top of the mountain, staying behind so that he could push them off.
That was the price to pay and he was willing to do that- to exchange complete strangers to have his brother back and alive again.
He wonders, just a little, about whether he could kill these people now.
He likes, and doesn't like, to think that he could.
"He murdered Kurogane's mother and led to the destruction of his country."
That is what stops his thoughts dead though.
That isn't something he knew.
He looks to the ninja who stands, barely reacting as the witch drags out his painful past and points to the one who made it as if she were reciting today's news.
He doesn't understand how the man doesn't cry or rage or do something.
He is.
Far stronger than Fai has ever been.
The mage hates him for what he's done but even now the ninja is still better than him.