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She would stand in the spot where Fron had died, recounting her day, showcasing the swordsmanship she had learned.

There was no one there, but it didn\'t matter.

Rem continued her ritual, her voice echoing in the emptiness as if speaking to a ghost.

One day, a genuine smile, brighter than ever before, graced her lips as she spoke to the empty space.

\'I\'m going to school now.\'

\'Just like you always wanted, I\'m going to make friends, and then...\'

She paused, her smile tinged with a profound sadness.

\'Then, I\'ll die.\'

She believed she didn\'t deserve to live.

Fulfilling Fron\'s wish was the only way she could atone for her perceived sin.

With that, Rem turned and left the prison, never to return.

Silence descended upon the forsaken place, a silence that stretched on for years.

* * *

I was ejected from the past, back into the present.

“……What in the world…?”

Fron\'s past, or rather, Rem’s past.

The necklace had allowed me to witness everything.

It answered all my questions—why Fron had suddenly decided to die, why her personality had changed so drastically.

Fron had lived a fulfilling life in Sytan, making many friends, just as the real Fron had wished.

But as time went on, the guilt had become too much to bear.

And so, Fron chose death.

Oblivious to the real Fron\'s true desires.

“You fool,” I muttered, shaking my head.

Don’t you realize the real Fron wouldn’t want you to die?

But perhaps, deep down, she knew.

Perhaps the guilt was simply a convenient excuse to choose the path of least resistance.

A humorless chuckle escaped my lips.

“You and I, we’re not so different after all.”

I, too, had been running away from my past, crippled by guilt. And Fron, consumed by her own guilt, was heading towards self-destruction.

We were two sides of the same coin.

Our methods differed, but the root cause was the same.

I turned my gaze.

To be precise.

“…Should I call her that?”

“No, don’t worry about it.”

Lever answered in a voice that was a mix of laughter and tears.

I asked Lever.

“I think I understand why you brought me here.”

“Yeah, I thought you would figure it out. Even if I didn’t tell you.”

“…You probably wanted to show me directly, because you didn’t think I would believe you.”

“Hee hee, you caught me.”

Lever chuckled awkwardly.

Ha.

I sighed and waited for the wall to open.

Clank-.

And the wall opened with a loud sound.

Lever was looking up at me.

“So what do you think?”

“Well, it’s depressing. But I think I know how to persuade Fron.”

“Good, so, brother, you’re not forgetting something, are you?”

“Forgetting something?”

“You know, the thing we promised.”

That thing.

Ah, that’s right.

I had promised to tell Lever about my life at Saitan.

I didn’t have time to tell her properly, but now I had time, so I could tell her.

“Where should I start?”

“Tell me everything.”

“Haha, okay.”

I chuckled and continued.

Fron telling me to become her slave.

Luna and Fron teasing me.

Fron almost getting hit by Baltan after becoming top student.

Getting teased by Samuel and fighting him.

Lever smiled as I told her about my time at Sytan.

“Lem is doing well? She made a lot of friends. But why did her personality change so much?”

“You know the reason, don’t you, Lever?”

“…That’s true.”

Fron wanted to be like the real Fron.

No, she was obsessed with being like her.

She practiced swordsmanship until her wooden sword broke and her hands bled, to become talented like Fron.

She studied so hard that she pasted all the theory class materials on the wall until she memorized them, because she wasn’t naturally gifted.

Fron was trying to make herself into the real Fron.

But Fron couldn’t hurt anyone with a sword.

Because she had seen her friend’s neck cut by a sword.

Fron couldn’t even hold a sword in front of others.

Lever opened her mouth to me.

“Brother, can I, ask you a favor?”

“Please, tell me.”

“Take care of, Rem.”

“…I’ll try my best.”

“Hee hee, thanks, brother.”

I asked, seeing Lever scratching her head, sticking out her tongue.

“But were you always like that?”

“Yeah, me too. I was pretending to be perfect, to get my mother’s attention.”

“…I see.”

The moment I asked my final question.

Woosh-.

The Red Dagger hummed in my pocket.

A sorrowful, wistful cry erupted.

Swish-.

Lever kissed my forehead, in time with it.

“Please, Brother.”

“…You’re so sly.”

As I was about to say something.

Lever disappeared.

I felt a pang of sadness, but I smiled, seeing her like that.

Lever, yes.

She had never hidden her identity from me.

Lever.

The meaning behind her name.

Reverberation.

She had been telling me who she was from the beginning.

I opened my mouth to Lever, who was no longer here.

I hope you were happy during the time you spent here.

I wished that.

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