Chapter 85: Mother's Miracle (Patreon)

Actually, ever since he'd performed that vivid, theatrical scene in the throne hall—impersonating Capella trying to talk the Beloved Children into surrender, in front of a full audience—Natsuki Subaru had grown a lot more comfortable with the idea of dressing up as a woman.

If he could pull off that oily, venomous tone of a seductive femme fatale, then mimicking Theresia's gentle voice was going to be far easier by comparison.

"Yes, my child."

"Theresia" smiled faintly, a warm and forgiving smile without a trace of reproach.

She settled onto the edge of the bed and reached out, gently stroking Heinkel's coarse red hair, damp with sweat and tears.

The hand was warm.

The sensation of fingers tracing his scalp felt utterly real, carrying that faint, particular fragrance only a mother has.

Feeling that real, warm touch against his forehead, hearing that gentle call, the psychological wall Heinkel had maintained for fifteen years—already riddled with cracks—collapsed completely in that instant.

He no longer cared about the dignity of a Royal Guard, no longer cared whether this was a dream, didn't even stop to wonder why his mother, dead for fifteen years, would suddenly appear before him.

He lunged forward and wrapped his arms tightly around "Theresia's" waist, burying his face deep in her chest, and burst into tears like a child who had suffered some terrible wrong out in the world and finally made it home to his mother.

Even though Subaru had braced himself for some version of this reaction, seeing this middle-aged man break down so pathetically still made his scalp prickle. Playing Theresia wasn't hard in itself, but being called "mother" by this particular man was deeply unsettling.

All he could do was keep telling himself: right now, you are Theresia, you are Theresia, don't slip up, or all this effort will have been for nothing.

So, from an angle Heinkel couldn't see, "Theresia's" face twitched with a bitter, almost murderous smile—quickly smothered again beneath that same motherly warmth. Subaru decided that after this was over, he was absolutely going to make that Reinhard kid kowtow to him at least once.

This was killing him!

"Mother! Mother! Is it really you?! I'm not dreaming, am I?!"

Heinkel's sobs tore out of him, his whole body wracked with convulsions. Fifteen years of pent-up grievance, resentment, envy, helplessness, and despair poured out of him all at once, like a dam breaking.

"Theresia" said nothing. She simply held him, stroking his back again and again, letting his tears soak into the front of her dress.

"Mother... it hurts so much... I really can't take it anymore!"

Heinkel's voice twisted and blurred through his crying, as if he were dumping out every dark, painful thing inside him:

"Louanna won't wake up! It's been seventeen years now! I've tried everything—nothing works! I'm useless... I couldn't even save my own wife! What kind of knight am I? What kind of Astrea am I?!"

Heinkel clenched his fists in "Theresia's" robes, his voice choking.

"If... if I hadn't recommended you to the Council of Wise Men that day, to go and slay the White Whale... if I'd properly shouldered my responsibility... if it had been me who died in that battle instead..."

"I'm an unfilial son. Not only did I fail to protect the woman I loved, my cowardice cost Father the woman he loved too. Mother... I should die... I should just die! Why did it have to be me, the useless one? Why...! Mother!"

Heinkel wept until he could barely breathe, his body trembling in "Theresia's" arms like a leaf caught in a storm.

"And then there's Reinhard..."

At the mention of that name, his sobbing caught for a moment, then gave way to something deeper—a more twisted anguish.

"I hate him... Mother, I really hate him! Why did he have to take your Divine Protection away at that critical moment? Why does the world dote on him? Why can he do so easily what I could never manage no matter how hard I tried?!"

"Because of him, Father gave up on me completely. Because of him, I became the laughingstock of the entire royal capital. Everyone says, 'Look, there's the Sword Saint's father—a failure who can't measure up to even one of his own son's fingers!'"

"But I hate myself even more for it... he's my son! He's the child Louanna and I made, the child I watched grow up! How can I hate him? How can I be jealous of him?!"

"Every time he looks at me with that gentle, obedient gaze, every time he calls me 'Father' in that guilty voice—I feel sicker than I've ever felt. I feel like a monster. An ugly monster, jealous of his own flesh and blood!"

Heinkel pressed his face in deeper, tears and mucus soaking the front of "Theresia's" white robes.

"All I can do is drink... only when I'm drunk does my mind stop chewing on all this. Only by pretending to be a hopeless wastrel can I convince myself that I turned out this way because I'm rotten at the core—not because I'm useless..."

"Mother... I'm a coward. I've become the very thing I despise most. I've dragged the Astrea name through the mud... I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Louanna..."

Heinkel's confession echoed through the room, every word steeped in despair and self-loathing.

There was no way he could ever say any of this to Wilhelm, who had only ever looked at him coldly. But Theresia had always been different—always so gentle, so kind, never once harsh with him for his mediocrity, never blaming him even when his own son pushed her back onto the battlefield.

Only to a mother who loved him unconditionally could he ever bare his heart like this.

"Theresia" only listened, quietly.

She didn't interrupt Heinkel, didn't try to comfort him with words. She simply watched this weeping, dignity-shorn middle-aged man with those gentle blue eyes, her hand moving in slow, steady strokes through his red hair.

Honestly, Subaru wasn't surprised at all that Heinkel had come unraveled like this.

Squeezed between the mother who had been the previous Sword Saint, the father who was the Sword Devil, and the son who was the current Sword Saint, Heinkel—an ordinary man with no exceptional talent of his own—had been carrying a weight that no normal person could imagine.

He was like an ordinary pebble crushed between three mountains, no matter how hard he struggled, there was no escaping being ground to dust.

His jealousy was real. His pain was real. But so was his love for Louanna, and so was that twisted, guilt-ridden, jealousy-laced father's love he felt for Reinhard.

"You're not useless, Heinkel."

No one could say how much time had passed, but by the time Heinkel's sobs had faded to quiet sniffles, "Theresia" finally spoke.

Her voice was still gentle, but it carried an unmistakable weight.

Heinkel flinched slightly, lifting his tear-streaked, red-eyed face to stare blankly at "Theresia."

"Mother...?"

"Theresia" reached out and cupped Heinkel's face gently in both hands, using her thumbs to wipe away the tears at the corners of his eyes.

"You're not useless."

"You've just been crushed under the weight of your own sense of duty, my child."

"Theresia" looked at him, her eyes brimming with tenderness.

"You don't need to force yourself into being some great hero. The Astrea name was never meant to be a shackle binding you. What you truly need to do is find your own path."

"But... I can't do anything right..." Heinkel hiccupped, like a child awaiting punishment for some wrongdoing.

"You've done a great many things right, Heinkel," "Theresia" said softly. "You've loved Louanna, and for fifteen years you've never once given up searching for a way to wake her. Isn't that a wonderful thing?"

"You love Reinhard. You're jealous of him, yes, but you've never truly hurt him—you've even protected him. You just don't know how to face his perfection, or your own inadequacy. Isn't that right?"

Heinkel's whole body shuddered, and the tears came again. He didn't argue, because his "mother" had put words to the secret buried deepest in his heart.

"No matter how you've fared elsewhere, you were once a good husband and a good father. Why can't you go on being both?"

"Theresia" lowered her head slightly, resting her forehead gently against Heinkel's.

"Go back to the royal capital. Face Wilhelm. Face Reinhard. You don't need to prove anything to them. You just need... to let yourself go."

"Tell Wilhelm you resent his coldness. Tell Reinhard you're jealous of his perfection, but that you love him just the same. Say it all out loud, and stop numbing yourself with alcohol."

"As for Louanna..."

The corner of "Theresia's" mouth curved into a mysterious, tender smile.

"If you take that first step, a miracle... might just happen."

Listening to his "mother's" words, Heinkel felt an unfamiliar warmth flood through him, driving out the cold in his body and the headache from his hangover.

His eyelids grew heavier and heavier. The anxiety and pain that had tormented him for so long finally dissolved, replaced by a peace he hadn't felt in a very long time.

"Mother... don't go..."

Heinkel murmured, his arms slowly loosening. His body slumped back onto the bed, sinking into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Watching Heinkel finally settle into peaceful slumber, tear-tracks still on his face but his expression serene, "Theresia's" entire bearing collapsed. Her hands fell limp, and something close to a pained grimace crossed her face.

"God, this is not a job for a sane person!"

Black mist spread out again, swallowing "Theresia" whole.

A moment later the mist cleared, revealing Natsuki Subaru back in his usual black coat.

The instant he shed the "female form," the Deathwing inside him let out a low, rumbling laugh he couldn't quite suppress.

—Heh heh heh... hahahaha! What a splendid performance, noble Dark Templar. Every day spent with you truly opens my eyes anew.

His murmur echoed through Subaru's mind like boiling magma, every syllable dripping with undisguised malice and mockery.

—I had assumed you'd put the power we devoured to some more meaningful use. But instead, you play at being a temporary mother for some blubbering middle-aged infant?

—Oh, and look at that gentle touch, that tender gaze, so convincing! If I didn't know better, I'd think your body and soul had truly become that woman. Tsk tsk, truly eye-opening.

Deathwing's taunting proved quite effective. Subaru, already feeling nauseated enough from the whole ordeal, now felt as if he'd swallowed a fly, his irritation flaring up even worse.

And once his mind lost its calm, his control inevitably slipped, giving that dragon more room to run wild in his head.

"You don't know a damn thing, you overgrown lizard!" Subaru shot back mentally, annoyed. "This was counseling. Sure, maybe my methods got a little... creative, but my heart was in the right place."

"Pulling a family back from the brink of collapse—that's straight-up good deeds, my friend! Compared to you, some world-destroying terrorist who wants to burn everything to ash, I'm basically a saint!"

—Is that so?

Deathwing's voice dropped lower, laced with a cunning that seemed to see through everything.

—When you weave salvation out of lies, when you soothe pain with false illusions, how are you any different from those Old Gods who toy with mortal hearts? All you've done is let one pitiable mortal wallow in a happiness he never earned.

—Admit it, Natsuki Subaru. The moment you took this step, you stood at the edge of the abyss. Next time, as long as the cause is "just" enough, you'll reach for even more of the power you claim to despise. You and I—there's really no difference between us at all.

Subaru ignored him entirely, channeling his void psionic power into a meditative state, forcing himself back into calm and pressing Deathwing back down into the depths of his own consciousness. Even so, the great dragon let out one last laugh—half smug, half mocking—as if everything were unfolding exactly as he'd planned.

As their bond deepened further, Subaru's will grew steadily more resolute, but Deathwing's methods grew correspondingly more cunning. He knew he couldn't simply seize control of the body by force, yet he never let an opportunity slip to try and tempt his host toward corruption.

As a Black Dragon King who had endured N'Zoth's corrupting whispers for tens of thousands of years, Deathwing had been the craftiest and most calculating of them all since his days as a proto-dragon. That was precisely why he'd once allied with Malygos, the Blue Dragon King of wisdom and magic.

But now Deathwing's plans had clearly shifted. Having realized he couldn't shake off this other half of himself, he'd begun to consider a different angle: rather than destroying the world alone, wouldn't it be just as satisfying to drag this troublesome other half down into becoming something just like him?

"Is salvation woven from lies really salvation at all?"

Once Deathwing's voice faded, Subaru found himself repeating the question anyway.

He looked at the middle-aged man on the bed, his sleeping face finally at peace. It could be said that this was one of the rare moments of true, raw feeling from Heinkel—pouring out fifteen years of cowardice, jealousy, and pain before the "mother of his dreams."

Well, dreams were fiction to begin with anyway. This was just a bit of cosplay played out inside a dream. Even if it was only a fabricated salvation, it hardly seemed like too much of a sin—call it granting someone a sweet dream. Everyone knows dreams aren't meant to be taken as real, after all.

Since he was dreaming anyway, why not let the man have a little satisfaction while he was at it?

Truth be told, Subaru wasn't fond of lying. But Heinkel's story was tragic enough to make even the most wronged souls in history shake their heads in pity—the man had truly drawn the short straw in life. It really went something like this:

Step forward, and like a mist-shrouded sea of war, mortal flesh could never break the White Whale's chains;

Step back, and like the lingering resentment of a tavern, the drunken fool could only watch his years slip away in vain.

Ahead lies an abyss of white fog, a divine beast's terrible might like a wall none can cross;

Behind him wait old dream-demons, inner devils and hungry ghosts calling for his soul.

Three generations' burden—no ordinary son could bear the name of Sword Saint;

Fifteen years drunk—the coward hears enemies on every side.

On one side, a towering stern father, the Sword Devil sighing over the son kneeling before him in vain;

On the other, a radiant divine son, envy blooming thick in the Sword Saint's shining light.

Bound by the shackles of such a great house, with no path for common bones to walk, and the ancestor returning to life once more—what is one to do?

Sometimes all a situation needs is one final push. If Subaru hadn't stepped in, this man would probably have woken from yet another ordinary drunken stupor, maybe reflected on things a little, but soon enough gone right back to hiding behind his mask of shamelessness, until he finally rotted away in some dark corner of his life.

When this man woke up, he'd find everything still just as bad as before—his wife still comatose, his father still cold toward him, himself still just an ordinary man of unremarkable ability.

But after an experience like this, even a pig ought to feel some kind of realization. As long as this man still had even a spark of will left to rise, this should be enough to nudge him forward a little.

"I hope this guy can scrape together a bit of courage after making such a fool of himself. Otherwise all this trouble would've been for nothing."

Subaru murmured to himself, a faintly self-mocking smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

He thought of himself.

He thought of the parents he'd left behind, back on that distant Earth.

If... if one day he could have a chance like this too—even just in a dream—to hold his mother, to scream out at his father all the cowardice and unresolved grief he'd ever carried, how good that would feel.

But he'd never get that chance.

He'd already forged himself a will strong enough during his days as a Stellaron Hunter that even if such a chance were placed in front of him now, he'd probably just tell his parents, calmly, that he'd grown up and could face everything on his own.

"So really, old man, you're actually pretty lucky. At least you still had a chance to cry to your mother."

Subaru took one last look at Heinkel. The confusion in his eyes gradually faded, replaced by something steady and deep once more.

He tugged at his collar, and his form flickered slightly, dissolving like melting ink, slipping silently into the pitch-black night.