The middle of a stagnant swamp.
There was no heart in its unstable depths.
Although there had once been something within, although its contents had changed many times over, there was nothing inside it now.
The feelings, the experiences, the memories.
The heart it certainly once possessed had fallen to the bottom of a deeper abyss, lost. It would never surface again.
Lost things never return.
But there were voices calling it back.
Voices that penetrated the water’s surface, reaching the bottom of the swamp.
The heart was lost. Voices wouldn’t reach the lost.
Only memories would.
Countless thoughts, feelings, wishes, hopes, and prayers.
They broke through to the collection of memories resting within.
And — a new heart was born.
Wave upon wave piling upon each other, becoming a surging sea.
Enfolded by accumulated experience, calling voices, fresh memories, a newborn heart took form.
Beckoned by the voices crying for its return, it came to completion. In its desired form.
If that isn’t a miracle, what is?
–
–
“…L–.”
My eyes opened.
The one who said to me, ‘Come back’ —
The figure of the man who suffered for me, who now threw anything and everything aside for me, who singlemindedly fought for my sake alone —
Was right before my eyes.
All of those memories were now in here.
Each and every one of those memories, those experiences, was in my heart.
Now, they made me anew.
“L–Leon…”
I called his name. My tears spilled over of their own accord.
I knew. Or maybe, god help me, I knew.
I am no longer me.
The thing born that day in the labyrinth — no longer exists.
And now, a new swamp man has been born.
This me is a swamp girl born from the memories of Chris, my previous self, and Leon.
“Chris…!”
“Umph–”
Two shaking hands embraced me. Tight enough that it hurt.
That called forth Leon’s memories from inside me with even greater intensity.
“Big Sister!”
“Chris.”
Clinging to me in a similar way were Aira and Palmira.
Their memories were in here too.
Is it alright for me to answer to that name? Do I have the right? Am I worth holding?
I thought it over, just a bit.
However, the emotion in my heart was neither sadness nor pain.
Leon, Aira, Palmira.
Then, visible over Leon’s shoulder, Rupert, Vyde, Arc, Maddox. And — Chris.
Right now, it was all I felt.
My body enclosed in warmth, I shut my eyes.
It didn’t mean being spared the guilt.
–
–
The ones who welcomed us upon our return to the mansion were Leopard, followed by the entire Elite Guard. After that, Irene and the maids.
The first to return were Leon and me. Palmira. Vyde, Rupert.
Maddox said he’d be by to collect his pay sooner or later and disappeared again.
Chris said he had a special errand to run.
Here yesterday but gone today, at least the battlefield in the mansion courtyard had been cleaned up. Though the place was in shambles, there weren’t any corpses left.
But I knew that in fact, several of the Elite Guard had died in action. And Allie wasn’t here either.
It was for precisely that reason that in contrast to the joy with which Leopard and Elite Guard welcomed Leon back, Leon’s own demeanor was somewhat somber.
Even so, he faced the welcoming crowd with a smile. To me, it only spoke of pain.
“Leon.”
When I called out to him, unable to bear it, he stroked my head with a gentle look on his face.
Something in Leon’s feelings toward me might have come unbound.
But the more he treated me that way, the more I questioned whether I had the right accept it.
I should set things straight after all.
She made a strange face.
“…Chris?”
Noticing me, a puzzled-looking Irene drew closer at the same time.
Her behavior, which had been totally unconstrained from the very beginning, unlike Leon’s, made my heart thump quite a bit.
“…What’s with this feeling? Is there something different about you?”
“…Dunno, I guess so.”
“Chris got bridal training here. The Chris now is very much a girl.”
Palmira followed up with something very different from the spirit in which I answered.
She’s sharp. Her words ratcheted up the tension in my innermost thoughts: maybe, just maybe, she’s seen through me. She knows that I’m not who I was before. I don’t mean that wasn’t a nice save that she made just now, but I can’t just smile and go along with the content.
Ah, goddamnit. Even though it’s got nothing to do with being a man or woman.
A self-deprecating smile slipped out of me.
“I see… Hmmmm. Yeah, it does feel that way. The way you talk hasn’t changed, but — I mean, the atmosphere around you, your behavior, there’s something girly about them. Kinda refined, or… I didn’t feel it so much at my house earlier, though.”
Speaking of which, Irene did see me before my previous self was destroyed.
For it to take me this long to remember, I must be different from before after all. And to be more precise, it was because I took in the memories of four people — Allie, Chris, Tetra, and Leon — after that.
That’s why Irene’s ‘earlier’ felt quite long ago to me.
To take in another’s memories.
It might be a handy tool, in a sense, but it didn’t seem fair to me.
If I were to make a show of taking Irene’s memories, right here, right now, I think she’d definitely be furious.
“But I’m still kinda pissed. Even though you’re a guy in a girl’s body, there’s really no way for me to win against you, is there?”
Unsurprisingly, she muttered that part in a small voice.
I think there’s a good chance that my knowledge of the arcane is greater than Irene’s. With Tetra’s memories, I’d inherited all of her knowledge on magic.
Of course, I planned to keep silent about it to Irene for the rest of my life.
“Chris.”
“Ah, yeah.”
Leon called me as he went inside the mansion, and I jogged after him.
Hey, Leon.
Is it okay for me to be Chris?
Is it alright for me1 to accept your feelings like this?
–
–
Disheartened, I had my meal, missing just Aira and Arc out of the usual faces — they were due to return soon — and then took a bath.
After that, I entered the room assigned to me.
The truth is, I don’t know how to act around Leon.
I feel like a lie. No matter how I try, I can’t decide whether it’s okay for me to accept him and his intense honesty.
Is it okay for me to casually play Chris like this?
I can’t help but guilty about the version of me who disappeared. Leon’s memories, Aira and Palmira’s memories, none of those belong to me. I’ve just inherited them.
Truthfully, I don’t even have the right to be in this mansion.
Even this room belongs to Chris, not me.
I’m not Chris. I’m just a swamp man.
There’s no such thing as a true past, not for me.
I collapsed onto the bed.
— I’d rather go somewhere with no connection to any of this.
“…Hi–, c…guh–…”
I’m scared.
I don’t know who I am. It’s a fear that runs heart-deep.
Chris couldn’t take it. That’s why I’m here now.
Leon. Leon.
Tell me. Tell me who I am.
And whether even these emotions — are a lie.
Knock, knock
As I lay curled up on top of the bed, I heard a quiet knocking at the door.
Terror and joy mingled in my eyes, I looked at it.
“Y–Yes?”
My voice shook. Could it be — could it be?
Then, in came —
“Big Sister?”
— Aira and Palmira.
–
–
It wasn’t like I was disappointed. It was just anticlimactic.
That’s what I told myself as I sat back down on the bed. Then I noticed, and I used my hands to wipe at the area around my eyes.
“Wh–What’s up? You’re both here.”
Keeping as calm as I could, I welcomed my two visitors, who came with a lantern in hand.
Somehow, I felt like this had happened before.
“What a relief. I was thinking, ‘What if Lord Leon is here too?'”
“Even if he was, would it matter…?”
Alright, what the hell are they talking about?
After everything that’s gone down, there’s no reason for them to be reserved even if he was around.
“If the two of you were together in bed, then naturally we would also be discreet.”
“Bu–!?”
As usual, Palmira said the unthinkable with total bluntness.
What — what ‘naturally’?
Imagining it for even a moment, I felt my face burning. I was about to put my hands to my cheeks, then stopped in a hurry. Even I thought it would be too suspicious.
“N–No, even if you weren’t in the bed, we’d be discreet, of course!?”
Then it was Aira with the bizarre follow-up, crossing her hands. The lantern shook, scattering light throughout the room. Perhaps noticing that, she put it on the table.
Then they each sat down on the bed, to either side of me.
I didn’t remember saying anything at all, but when I saw them avoid the chair before me, I knew why they did it.
“So, what is it?”
Boxed in, my guts were in knots.
Not that. Definitely not that. Of course it won’t be that.
“Mm, there was something… that is, there was something a little strange about you, Big Sister.”
Ba-dump.
The sound of my heart instantly grew louder. Sensing my fingertips trembling, I balled my hands into fists.
The trembling in my arms themselves, I suppressed with a hand on either side.
“Your condition has been strange since we arrived at the estate.”
I bit my lip.
— No, this is something else.
These two only came to talk about how I was a bit off, that’s all.
From their perspective, that was strange enough by itself, right? But I did it deliberately.
If I did, then maybe the way my heart was jumping about wouldn’t directly affect my voice.
“…Big Sister?”
“No, uhm. It’s just a bit, still. It doesn’t feel real. Look, a lot of things happened…”
“…I see.”
As questionable as my response was, Aira looked relieved.
Palmira is who she is, so there’s always that kind of feeling. But right now, it’s bad for my heart.
“More importantly — how’s Allie? Aira, you went with her, right?”
I changed the subject as naturally as possible. Though this was purely out of concern.
Aira and Arc had gone with Allie when she was taken away somewhere else.
However, though I asked, I could roughly guess the answer.
As I expected, Aira’s face darkened.
“The Head Maid’s soul is gone… Lord Arc…”
“I see…”
No other words came to me.
And at the time, Lucien had egged her on.
A broken heart will never go back to the way it was. Lost things never return.
That, I understood better than anything else.
— But I could rehouse that heart.
That was from Tetra’s memories.
What it came down to were the memories, but I definitely had those here.
However, it would give birth to one of my kind: a swamp man.
Would it be just like Chris had been? My guess was that no one around her would know. Not even she would.
If that was the case, wouldn’t she be saved?
— But would that really be okay?
It wouldn’t be Allie. A swamp man.
I couldn’t decide at all whether that would be a good thing, or bad. If I could, I wouldn’t have been conflicted myself in the first place.
“Arc didn’t say anything else? Like, for example, whether she can be healed or not?”
If it was Arc, who created me — or rather, [Chris] — he might be able to come up with something.
But Aira merely shook her head listlessly.
Honestly, I wanted to try asking people.
Whether it would be a problem if she were resurrected as a swamp man.
But at the same time, I didn’t want to ask.
What if Leon’s answer — was rejection?
Even thinking about it terrified me.
— No.
Instead, it might even be better to ask.
If Leon rejected it as a way of healing Allie, then at that time — .
At that time, I wouldn’t be able to stay here either.
Or shall I ask the two with me right now?
Aira, Palmira, what do you think?
“C–Come to think of it — ”
My voice trembled slightly.
“You two, that is, you came to save me. Ummm, so — I’m sorry. Even though I said I’d be the one to protect you. How pathetic…”
But what came out of my mouth was something else.
An apology. Yeah, what I came out with were words of apology to the two of them.
Maybe they would reject me. Sure, I was afraid of the possibility.
But if things were going to come to that, then I had to say it now.
I sighed. Without looking at them, I continued.
” — Thinking about it, a lot’s happened. We became slaves. But then Leon saved us… Haha. Only we went right back to being slaves again. We all went walking around Telaberan… Looking back on the journey in the carriage, I had fun. We tried to sneak out, we were attacked by a dragon… Now that I think about it, we’ve gotten mixed up in a whole lot of things, the three of us.”
— Those memories were no more than temporary.
All of them belonged to Chris. Not me.
“…After — after that… L–Leon… said all that w–weird stuff — about getting married, and g–gave everyone such a surprise — Aira, you — said something strange, and, and P–Palmira — ”
“Big Sister!”
“Chris!”
Suddenly, both of them hugged me.
What is it? All of a sudden?
“We know. We know already…”
As she hugged me, Palmira said something I didn’t understand. Her body was shaking.
Aira’s, too.
— Are they crying?
“We’re okay with anything, Big Sister. So — so — don’t leave anymore… I’m begging you…”
Hearing Aira’s words, I breathed in sharply.
Then, at that moment, I realized I was crying too.
The truth is, I’m flimsy, and everything about me is no more than a lie. It’s lonely, a sorrow impossible to endure.
Not [Chris], nor Chris.
Just what is the truth? Just what am I? I don’t even know that much; I can’t help but feel forlorn.
But Aira says, ‘It’s all okay,’ even to someone like me.
Is she saying that knowing the truth, or is it something else?
But — the two of them probably understand what I am.
“Hgh–, uuu, guh–, ah, waah–”
Inexplicable tears tumbled down one after another without stopping.
Because there were people who’d understand me.
This reassurance doesn’t come from taking in memories.
It’s definitely conveyed through the heart. That, I want to believe.
Footnotes
1. Chris uses ore pretty consistently throughout this chapter and the next, but will occasionally switch to watashi in keeping with her new incarnation and her identification as a ‘swamp girl’. ↵
Here it is, the only time I actually cried. It was the line “Chris couldn’t take it. That’s why I’m here now.” Until she said it, I hadn’t realized that Chris — the one we’ve been with through all those ups and downs — had died.* Guess I got pretty attached.
You could argue that Chris 3.0 is Chris 2.0 with character development (i.e. several more sets of memories and one horrifying revelation), but it still hit me pretty hard when I first read it. And Chris 3.0’s severe case of imposter syndrome is just painful after everything that’s happened.