It was around the time that almost everyone had gone off to bed, nursing their distended bellies and moaning about being force-fed. I sent Raphtalia off to bed as well, finished cleaning up the kitchen, and was just heading back to my room when I encountered Itsuki taking in the night air and the wonderful view on a terrace. Rishia . . . was, what, sleeping in her room? She was supposed to be keeping an eye on him . . . but from everything he had done so far, it seemed safe to trust him at least a little now. “Ah, Naofumi,” Itsuki said and turned his gaze from the night sky and directed it to me. There was something about how he’d been acting recently . . . He was almost too quiet. It was a bit unsettling. “Passive” sounded nice in theory, but it was also hard to tell what he was actually thinking. “The moon looks so beautiful. I was just taking it in,” he told me. “It is nice,” I said. These other worlds still had a moon. There was also one in the world I had been summoned to. I mean, it was a world with werewolves and demi-humans liked Fohl and Keel who could transform. The silence drew out between Itsuki and me. I wondered if I should just leave. As though answering my thought, Itsuki broke the silence. “You know about me, don’t you?” he said. “Know what?” I asked. “That . . . my curse has broken and my awareness is back to normal,” he said.
“Yeah, I know.” I wasn’t a moron. Itsuki’s ongoing increase in self-assertion had definitely started to become suspicious. “I expected as much,” he said. “I mean, the curse should have definitely lifted by now, so I thought something was going on,” I said. There had also been the possibility that he was just permanently broken, like Motoyasu. If I had to classify it, I’d basically been treating him the same as Motoyasu. But he’d responded to questions normally and talked when required. So long as he didn’t display any hostile intent toward us, and in considering Rishia had been watching him, I had just not been worrying too much about it. “With my curse broken and having recovered, aren’t you wondering why I remain with you?” Itsuki asked. “Not really. Having Rishia close to you has settled you down, I thought. That’s about all the thought I gave it,” I said. Of course, I had wondered whether he was broken like Motoyasu. “That’s just an indication of how broad-minded you are, Naofumi,” Itsuki told me. That didn’t sound right to me—I considered myself to be pretty narrow-minded. I was fine with him having the wrong idea about that, but I knew the truth in my own head. “To be honest . . . I didn’t have the bravery to say that I was wrong and you were right, Naofumi,” he finally told me. His pride wouldn’t let him accept me, even though inside he knew the truth. A particularly thorny feeling. I had my own times when I didn’t want to acknowledge someone else being right—even when, inside, I knew that they were.
And so, without the bravery to say anything, he had just carried on. “I can say it now. You weren’t in the wrong, Naofumi. If all you collect is bad information on someone, even a saint could look like a demon,” he said. “But I am a bad person,” I told him. It was my fault that the people from the village happily went to their deaths—happily went into battle. I still thought making people happy with products and getting them to pony up their cash was the best way to get rich. But I didn’t consider someone who made people happy to place themselves in combat to be a good person. “I haven’t been able to save anyone from the ravages of war,” I admitted. “But you always try to. Everything you do is to protect them,” Itsuki said. “And yet I failed,” I continued. It was true. I had repeatedly failed my villagers. We had lost people in the Phoenix battle—not just Atla, but many others. Losses against Faubrey might have been smaller, but ours hadn’t been zero. “They know all about the ravages of war, right from the start. They were born into it,” Itsuki said. I took a moment to think about them. However you framed it, they had a hard life. And yet I could only see their smiles. I wasn’t exactly getting homesick, but I did feel like a trip back.
“Being able to protect everyone from violence . . . that only happens in stories. But I deeply respect your desire to do so,” Itsuki told me. I had no reply. “I understand now that a village where everyone can fight for themselves and want to help you shines far more brightly than one that doesn’t.”
“Sophistry,” I said. “I don’t disagree. But I finally understand everything that Rishia and Ren tried so hard to tell me about you,” he continued. “You mean how I was like the slave of everyone in the village?” I said. I’d sworn that wasn’t the case, but the two of them had been quite passionate in their defense of the idea. I’d never felt quite so strange about a concept before. “That’s not the case though, is it?” Itsuki said. “What do you mean?” I asked. “When saving and leading people, you need to think about the kind of people they need to be in the future,” he replied. That was a roundabout way of saying things. “The world is full of corruption, starting with but not limited to the Church of the Three Heroes. It all comes from the idea that if anything goes wrong, they can just rely on a hero to save them. If they are trusting their very lives to someone else, it doesn’t do them any good if that person saves them.”
“I won’t deny that,” I said. It was just common sense. You only ever noticed the power that had been quietly protecting you when it was finally gone. Even worse, if people relied upon something completely, once it was gone you were left with people who could do nothing for themselves. “We heroes . . . have to be more than just self-satisfied. We really needed to be more like you, Naofumi—working to make people happy and to prevent them from slipping into that same corruption.” As Itsuki talked, I was having flashbacks to my time as a merchant in Melromarc. Itsuki had joined a revolution and defeated an evil king, but the people saw nothing but a change in their leadership, and their daily lives had only gotten worse.
That wasn’t what it meant to save people. “That’s why you say you’re creating a place for these people to live after you’ve gone home, right?” Itsuki said. “I started out just wanting to thank Raphtalia,” I said. “Even so. By learning the importance of protecting other people, everyone also feels what it is like to be protected themselves. That’s why your village is such a nice place. I want to protect it myself—the justice that you protect, Naofumi,” Itsuki told me. “Justice, huh?” I said. I had no intention of saying things that I thought to be true were justice. I’d made a whole bunch of mistakes myself. But Itsuki saw justice in what I had done. “If you think you see justice in me, then stick with Rishia. You don’t have to worry about me.” I had some mental leeway myself, and thanks to Raphtalia and Atla, I was now capable of accepting the feelings of the others as well. I knew I had better things to do than pick over everything Itsuki had done in his past.
“I did something really horrible to Rishia. She was struggling with her low status and wanted to become a hero . . . but I looked down on her, just like so many had looked down on me. I thought it was only natural that I be praised and respected. I saw my past weaknesses in Rishia and so I discarded her,” he muttered, his voice full of regret, eyes downcast. “I have to spend my life to make amends to Rishia and stop Mald and the others. That’s the punishment for my sin.” “Yeah, I feel you,” I replied. Armor had been rambling on about his own warped sense of justice. He wasn’t the kind of person we could come to an understanding with. L’Arc had said Armor was trouble the first time he saw him too. I didn’t know whether he had been warped into that under Itsuki, though, or whether he had started out that way. “In the past, I would have thought anyone opposing me was evil to be defeated. I don’t know how many times I’ve judged people simply based on one-sided opinions,” he said. I recalled when Witch had framed me. I wondered what might have happened if Itsuki and Ren had read the situation better back then. When I thought what Trash and that stinking Witch would have done to Ren and Itsuki if they had known the truth though, I couldn’t imagine a good outcome. “I don’t think you can generalize,” I said. Things could have turned out a whole lot worse—like being down a holy hero or two. Considered in that light, the seemingly rash decision that Itsuki had made didn’t look too bad in hindsight. It was hard to accept, but that’s just how bad that situation had been. “There are lots of people who wouldn’t have been saved without your justice—Rishia among them,” I said. Itsuki was definitely the only one who could have saved her from that particular situation. I had basically been on the run, and Ren had only been interested in getting stronger. Motoyasu might have been able to save her, but with Witch around, there was no guessing what was going to happen next.
“Thank you. Just hearing that makes me feel so much better,” Itsuki said. I turned to look at the same scenery as Itsuki. The lights of the castle town . . . everything so different from Melromarc and from Siltvelt, was really driving home how far we had come. I was meant to be the Shield Hero, but now I was the Mirror Hero too. “I’ve learned not to make judgments based solely on what I personally feel. Without that, I may have ended up like Miyaji. You always need to have a discussion, even with people who appear completely evil,” he told me. “Decide whether to fight or not after talking first,” I agreed. Indeed, Itsuki had talked at length with our foes this time. Talking to determine someone’s nature was never a bad thing. “Rishia always says that it takes a fine hero to call someone out when they are wrong, but pushing your justice onto someone is—probably—a different matter entirely.” Rishia really had come a long way to be able to say such things to Itsuki now. The “probably” was also just like her. This all reminded me of when Yomogi had confronted Kyo, demanding to know if he had done something wrong. That was bravery—it felt like. Kyo’s reply had been half-assed, and he hadn’t shown any repentance for his actions. But Yomogi had worked out what the right to do was and proceeded to aid us.
“I know Rishia will teach you all about justice, but you should also talk to a woman called Yomogi here in this world. She’s a good person and a straight shooter,” I said. “Okay,” Itsuki said, his voice faltering a little. “Justice really is a difficult concept, isn’t it?” he pondered. I could tell he was trying to change, and that prompted me to ask him something. “Once the waves are finished, what do you want to do?” I asked. We were still locked in a fight with no end in sight. Once I’d achieved a satisfactory result, I planned on returning home, but I wondered what Itsuki was planning. “I’m thinking of staying in that world and doing some traveling,” he told me. “Traveling? Where to? Why?” I asked. “I want to help people in trouble. I’ve decided to try and bring satisfaction to other people rather than myself. To choose to continue to think about things. Even if people end up throwing stones at me, I won’t make excuses,” he said. He had it worse than I’d expected—the “justice” sickness. But as for the arrogance, the self-justification he’d been full of before, there seemed to be less of it now. I really wanted to believe he was making progress. Itsuki had caused all sorts of problems, but he had saved people too. Rishia was a prime example—even if he had messed up after that. In any case, Itsuki was changing.
“Let’s both continue to do our best, Naofumi. We can start by using the time waiting for Kizuna to recover as productively as possible,” Itsuki said. “Of course. You can start by getting some rest,” I said. “I will,” he replied. I decided to do the same. More conflict awaited us tomorrow.
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