PandoraHearts ~Caucus Race~, Vol. 2 (10 page)

“As you see, then, this dream belongs, not only to the Blue Rose Club, but to the entire female student body. Prefect is a glorious position granted only to students chosen by this academy. We will do away with Gerald, a prefect unfit for the position, and install our own Master Blue Rose—”

Just as Josephine said those words.

At the phrase “do away with,” the girls gave anxious cries of “My…,” and immediately afterward—

BAM!
The door to the common room flew open as if someone had kicked their way through it.

A SHORT WHILE EARLIER.

Having entrusted their escape from the girls’ dorm to Leo, Elliot left the room with him. With Leo in the lead, they made their way down the corridor, carefully and swiftly. When they heard girls’ voices or footsteps approaching, they took cover until they’d passed. They really were skating on thin ice.

They suffered alarm after alarm.

What the heck are we doing…?

They weren’t in any position to laugh at the situation, but Elliot was finding it funnier and funnier.

He and Leo might as well be playing undercover agents.

Just as they arrived in front of a certain door, Leo murmured, “Not good.”

Elliot laid a hand on Leo’s shoulder, making him turn around, and mouthed,
What’s wrong?

Pointing at the door, Leo whispered, “This is a common room. There’s a secret passageway entrance in here, or there should be, but…” He sounded noncommittal. It didn’t take Elliot long to notice, too. There were voices beyond the door. Bright, lively voices, flying back and forth. It sounded as if they were having a wonderful time.

The common room was located at a distance from the private rooms where students slept. Students without business here weren’t likely to pass by.

But even so, they didn’t have time to simply wait for the room’s occupants to go elsewhere.

“There’s nothing for it. Leo, let’s think of some other way.”

In response to Elliot’s words, Leo said, “Uh-huh…,” but he didn’t move away from the door.

The longer they stayed in the corridor, the greater the possibility they’d be discovered.

Elliot decided that the best plan was to go back to that unused room one more time and see if they could get the mechanism for the secret passage to work. He tugged at Leo’s arm, trying to get him to retrace their steps. Just as he did so, from inside the common room, he heard a certain phrase.

Almost involuntarily, Elliot spoke the words himself.

“……‘Master Blue Rose’—?”

What was that supposed to be? he wondered. Who was it? The girl’s voice that came to them faintly from the common room sounded rapturous.

“Do you recall that, last month, there was a report that Master Blue Rose had yawned during class? Well, you see… Master Blue Rose is a silver-haired vampire who slips into the girls’ dormitory every night and drinks blood from one of us, and so during the day—”

The speaker’s voice was partially drowned out by high-pitched squeals and giggles.

“Hey, Leo. ………What’s all this?” Elliot asked in a small, thoroughly disgusted voice.

Leo looked back at him. “Umm……”

Even as he waited for Leo’s response, the girls’ conversation continued.

“Let me go next, if you would. I think Master Blue Rose is—”

Elliot kept his voice low.

“……So they’re setting up somebody from our school as ‘Master Blue Rose’ and getting all excited talking about him? It sounds as if they’re adding some crazy stuff, too, like he’s a vampire—Is that actually fun or something?”

“They do sound as if they’re having fun.”

At Leo’s response, Elliot muttered, “Girls make no sense.”

However, he thought, they could do whatever they wanted. It was nothing to do with him. —Not that he knew who their “Master Blue Rose” was.

Elliot thought for a minute.

“Somebody girls like… Would that be Gerald, maybe?”

“In Gerald’s case, it’s more that he pays too much attention to girls than that the girls like him.”

Now that he mentioned it, that sounded about right. Elliot looked convinced. Impressed, he glanced at Leo.

“You really watch other people, don’t you?”

“Not at all. I’m not even interested in them.”

Leo shook his head. “But,” he continued:

“Some things are easier to see when you aren’t trying to look. You
see
them, whether you want to or not.”

Beyond the screen of his hair and glasses, Leo was smiling faintly.

Elliot knew that Leo wore glasses and grew his hair long to hide his face, not because he didn’t want to be seen, but because he “didn’t want to
see
” the world. Maybe that was why: Although he was smiling, Leo’s smile didn’t look like a smile at all.

Elliot wondered whether he’d
seen
what he knew about Gerald and Marcel that way, too. …This wasn’t the time to discuss it, though.

“Well, never mind. Let’s go. For now, we’ll head back to that room—”

Just as Elliot whispered, a new voice began to speak inside the room.

‘Today, I saw a teacher summon Master Blue Rose to the guidance office.’

At those words, Elliot remembered his noon recess that day. He’d also gone to the guidance office, summoned by one
of the female teachers. Since he was a member of the House of Nightray, his teachers also paid a lot of attention to him, and they sometimes asked him about this and that.

However, many students were summoned to the guidance office every day.

Students who’d earned warnings for being tardy to class, students being scolded for breaking school rules… Apparently “Master Blue Rose” had been one of them. Elliot had no sympathy for him. The fact that they were having their discussion at his expense this way, amusing themselves with him, meant that, in other words:

The guy gives them way too many openings!

‘I’m quite certain that teacher is after him. When he enters the guidance office, she tries to seduce him. ‘Now then, Elliot-kun. Come to me’—”

Elliot-kun? …………What, ME?!

He felt a violent sinking sensation, as if he were falling.

Then a storm of fierce emotions welled up.

……Wait! Wait wait wait wait. Why!? Why are they talking about me like this? Openings? I don’t
have
any openings! ……Well, I was prepared for people to talk about me, but as a Nightray, a member of the four great dukedoms, not as…… Or is that why? Did my brothers and sister, or—I can’t see it, but—even my father, go through this? Is this the duty of the elite?!

Elliot’s spine was quivering.

He couldn’t sense anything like malice in the voices he heard. Quite the opposite, in fact.

That didn’t mean he could feel happy about it.

The being he called “himself” was being put to selfish use and used to entertain the girls, as if it were a stuffed animal or something. On his pride as a man, Elliot didn’t think he could take it. The urge to barge in yelling and make them stop was nearly unbearable.

But what would happen if he did? Yes, this was the girls’ dorm, territory where boys were absolutely not allowed.

Calm down, calm down, calm—Rrgh—

He desperately suppressed the torrent of emotions with reason.

“…And then, you see, I’ve thought of a different development for that yawn which we spoke of earlier. It’s possible that Master Blue Rose really doesn’t sleep at night. You see, although there is no way for us to know, a secret banquet is held in the boys’ dormitory every night, and Master Blue Rose presides over it as king of the night—”

What
“secret banquet”?!
What
“king of the night”~~~~~?!!

His emotions sent his reason flying.

Elliot flung his arm up, on the verge of striking the door open……but, at the very last minute, Leo held him back, curbing him with a tiny, sharp, “No, Elliot, don’t. You’ll cause a scene.”

However, as a man, he couldn’t keep silent any longer. Shaking Leo’s arms off, Elliot prepared to beat his way into the common room. Leo blocked him. The two pushed and pulled at each other, scuffling, just barely managing not to make any loud noises.

They’d gone on like that for a few moments when, suddenly, from inside the common room…

A girl spoke in tones that were clearly different from the rose-tinged voices they’d been hearing.

There was a tense silence.

“The time has come to reveal the full content of Project Coronation to you.”

The significant-sounding words woke Elliot from his rampage.

Coronation?
He and Leo looked at each other. The word seemed to have caught Leo’s attention as well.

The voice continued:

“It is a project I myself and Matilda over there have been carrying out for Master Blue Rose’s sake. I trust you’re all aware of the vote which was held—secretly, yet on a grand scale—among the girls last month? ‘Sparkle! The First Ranking of Boys Most Suited to be Prefect.’ The boy who triumphed over the current prefects for the glorious first-place spot was our Master Blue Rose.”

What the heck?
thought Elliot.

He hadn’t had the foggiest idea that something like that had been carried out in secret, in the shadow of school life.

The glorious first-place spot? Prefect was a tiresome role, and he’d never once wanted to be one.

The voice continued:

“As you see, then, this dream belongs, not only to the Blue Rose Club, but to the entire female student body. Prefect is a glorious position granted only to students chosen by this academy. We will do away with Gerald, a prefect unfit for the position, and install our own Master Blue Rose—”

…………!

Elliot remembered the threatening letter Gerald had received.

Resign from being prefect.

He remembered Gerald on the floor after falling down the stairs.

Gerald seemed to have thought that the culprit was Marcel, but—

It was these guys……?!

Elliot shook Leo off mainly by force and kicked open the door to the common room. The door opened with a terrific bang, and Elliot stalked in. Drawing himself up to his full height in the common room doorway, he denounced them with all the lung power he had:

“I just heard something I can’t ignore, you lot—!!”

It must have seemed like a bolt from the blue.

Every girl in the room froze, petrified. A nearly painful number of shocked glances were focused on Elliot.

Then one girl called Elliot’s name in a choked voice. She was the one who had been speaking about “Project Coronation” a moment before.

In a trembling, slightly hoarse voice, she said:

“…Master Blue Rose…?”

Elliot roared at her, as if to kill that nickname dead:

“Don’t call me stupid names! My name is Elliot… Elliot Nightray, a son of the four great dukedoms!”

He announced his name.

On the pride in his breast.

At that, from behind him, still out in the corridor, Leo said, “Aw…

“This is the girls’ dormitory, protected territory completely off-limits to boys, and you just yelled your name at the top of your lungs. …You’re going to be a school legend, you know.

“Congratulations,” he said. He even clapped.

Letting his seething fury take over, Elliot forced Leo’s words down with a “Who cares?!” When he thought of how Gerald had treated Marcel, Elliot couldn’t forgive him, either. Still, that didn’t mean it was okay to push Gerald down the stairs in what amounted to a surprise attack. And besides—

Grinding his teeth, Elliot pressed them further.

“What’s this about doing away with people, you wretches?! Even for villainy, you’ve gone too far! —
Have you no shame?!
”

“P-Project Coronation was…something Matilda and I advanced on our own. The other girls had no knowledge of it. Besides, ‘do away with’ was a…an overstatement, made for effect. We didn’t really intend to go that far—”

“Quit making excuses. It’s despicable!”

Elliot glared at the girls’ ringleader, condemnation in his eyes.

Uneasy voices called to her, here and there—“Josephine-sama…”—and Elliot’s gaze traveled across the girls seated on the sofas.

One lone girl was standing in the corner, and she flinched. As if trying to escape from Elliot, she backed up and sat down hard, half-falling onto the sofa. At once, Josephine the ringleader called her name: “Matilda.”

“They’re a group called the Blue Rose Club.”

Leo, who’d still been out in the corridor, spoke as he entered the common room. Coming up beside Elliot, he continued:

“Their formal name is The Society of Young Ladies who Admire Master Blue Rose. They’re your fan club, Elliot. Only…they do seem to have gotten a bit out of control.”

“Ahn? Why do
you
know that?”

Elliot sounded suspicious, and the girls’ eyes, colored with that same “why,” turned to focus on Leo. “Coincidence,” Leo said, brushing them off, and took a step forward. Through his glasses, he fixed his gaze on each girl in turn.

“Well, Elliot’s looks aren’t that bad, and you could probably call the fact that he’s idiotically straightforward one of his good points. Still, he’s fastidious about weird things, not to mention really proud, quick with his fists, foul-mouthed—”

“Why did you switch to talking smack about me?!”

Leo pretended not to hear Elliot’s complaint. He glanced at Josephine.

“I think you went too far this time. Threatening Gerald, hurting him and trying to get him to abandon his position as prefect… Gerald’s the only sixth-year student in our group, so if that happened, there was a decent possibility that Elliot would be chosen to replace him…”

After a pause, Leo went on.

“But becoming prefect because of something like that…… Did you really think that would make him happy?”

As he spoke, his gaze slid over to Matilda, who was shivering on the sofa.

Then:

“—Did you, Marcel?”

He called a name.

………………………Huh?

When Leo said that name, Elliot’s mind became an overwhelming blank.

He thought he’d misheard, or that Leo had misspoken.

Matilda. Marcel. The names did sound a bit alike, after all. Leo just watched Matilda, steadily.

Matilda looked down, avoiding his gaze; she was trembling. Elliot had no idea what was going on, and all he could do was stay silent. Like Elliot, the other girls also seemed speechless.

“What about it, Marcel?” Leo said the name again.

Elliot stretched a hand out to Leo’s shoulder, as if he’d awakened from sleep paralysis. When he spoke, his voice sounded mildly appalled.

“Leo, what are you talking about?”

“There are no girls named Matilda at Lutwidge Academy. I shouldn’t think anyone knows which class she’s in. …Well, maybe you know, Josephine. You probably arranged this.”

Even as Leo spoke, his voice filled with certainty, Elliot ran to Matilda.

Matilda covered her head with her arms, as if she was afraid she’d be hit.

Her hair was the same as Leo’s: long enough to hide her face. Elliot reached out and grabbed it. Then he yanked as hard as he could. It didn’t take much strength; it rustled and came off Matilda’s head with startling ease. —It was a wig.

The hair and face that peeked out from beneath it certainly did belong to…

“You’re……Marcel!”

It was Marcel—a student in Elliot’s year, who lived in Elliot’s dorm—and his face was the picture of fear. Marcel had always been teased for being more suited to the girls’ uniform than the boys’, and even without the wig, the girls’ uniform didn’t look odd on him.

Of course, Elliot was startled.

However, the shock was probably greater for the girls who had shared their club activities with “her.” At first, a stunned silence hung over the group, but finally a spectacular
“Eeeeeeeeeeeh—!?”
rang out.

“Come on, Elliot, think back.”

Leo began to speak, in a tone that seemed to say,
Can’t you even understand
this
? But it’s so simple!

“That threatening letter was delivered to Gerald in the boys’ dorm, and that’s also where he was pushed down the stairs.”

“……What about it?” Elliot looked puzzled.

“Just as the girls’ dorm is off-limits to boys, the boys’ dorm is off-limits to girls. It would be much too risky for a girl to go to the trouble of sneaking in, as I’m sure you know. If a girl was going to do something like that, it would have been much safer for her to make the attempt inside the school building. In other words, the culprit had to have been someone for whom being in the boys’ dorm wasn’t a risk: a guy.”

“Well, when you put it that way…”

Leo’s explanation had convinced Elliot, but those were still the only words he could get out.

Leo went on:

“When I heard their discussion from the corridor, all I thought was that they probably had a male accomplice
somewhere. However, when we came into the room and I saw him, it clicked. …Well, if I hadn’t heard Marcel’s name from Gerald, even I wouldn’t have caught on.”

Leo glanced at Marcel, smiled cheerfully, and spoke to him: “That looks really good on you.”

Then he added:

“When we left Gerald a bit ago, he seemed set to barge into your room right away. I bet he struck out there and has completely lost his temper right about now. He’d never dream you were in the girls’ dorm.”

As Leo spoke, Marcel was silent, his shoulders trembling.

As if to speak for him, Josephine opened her mouth. In a voice that seemed to say the game was up, she accepted it, and she regretted her actions, she said:

“When he…when Marcel learned of the Blue Rose Club’s existence, he came and said he wanted to join. That was about half a year ago. I was troubled. You see, we conducted our activities quietly, surreptitiously. A group that was all girls save for one lone boy would stand out…… And so I thought I’d turn him away. However, his enthusiasm got the better of me.”

To that end, she’d informed him that, if he wore a wig, donned the female students’ uniform, gave a false girl’s name, and pretended to be a girl, he would be allowed to attend. She also said he’d been required to be quiet, speaking as little as possible during meetings.

And so Marcel had joined the Blue Rose Club as the female student “Matilda.”

Taking up where Josephine had left off, Marcel began to speak, haltingly.

“…I was the one who heard about last month’s vote and proposed Project Coronation to Josephine-sama. I’d always thought that Elliot-kun would make a much better prefect than
stupid Gerald-san. If I was going to take care of somebody, serve somebody, I wanted it to be Elliot-kun. That’s why—”

Marcel was unable to continue past that point.

…Because Elliot had grabbed his shirtfront and yanked him up, forcing him to his feet.

Then Elliot pulled Marcel right up to him.

Elliot and Marcel faced each other, so close that the tips of their noses almost touched. A few of the girls seated on the sofas gave tiny, appreciative squeals, but when Leo looked at them, glasses glinting, they hastily fell silent.

Elliot took one slow, deep breath.

“—Marcel. I’m not going to hit you.”

His furious, merciless gaze bored directly into Marcel’s eyes.

Then he continued, his words frankly scornful:

“I won’t, because you aren’t a guy who’s worth hitting yet. I have zero interest in being prefect. However, if I wanted to be one, I’d use my own strength to take the position. It’s just like Leo said. You thought I’d accept being made prefect through underhanded methods like that. That means you could never be my valet. Quit playing me for a fool…!”

At this scathing condemnation, despair spread across Marcel’s face.

Elliot let go, shoving him away. Dropping back onto the sofa, Marcel said, “I’m sorry…” in a trembling voice. Then words seemed to fail him.

A heavy silence filled the common room.

Overawed by Elliot’s anger, no one seemed able to make a sound. However, in the midst of that silence, Leo fixed quiet eyes on Elliot. His lips moved very slightly, forming the words,
Such a kind soul
, but he didn’t say them aloud, and no one noticed.

Before long:

“And anyway—”

Elliot spoke as though spitting the words out, but there was a fearless smile somewhere in his prickly attitude:

“Valets are a pain in the butt. Leo’s the only one I need.”

After that declaration, he shut his mouth.

Behind him, Leo said, in his usual tone, “I’m well aware of that.” Then, as if to brush away the heavy atmosphere that filled the room, he continued cheerfully:

“Elliot’s a pain-in-the-butt master, too, you see, and you’re delicate, Marcel. I really can’t recommend him.”

Turning to glare at Leo, Elliot grumbled, “Can it.” However, something about his expression made it look as though he was enjoying himself. Then, abruptly, his face went grim again. This time he turned to Josephine, pointing at her.

“You people, too! Your whatever-it-was club. As of today, consider yourselves disbanded! You’re done!”

At that proclamation, Josephine gasped. She leapt up from the sofa.

“Please wait, Master Blue… I mean, Elliot Nightray-sama!”

“No excuses! I’m the one you were having fun chewing to pieces, and I say you’re done!”

“B-but! Would it not be sufficient if Marcel and I alone left—”

Josephine did regret her actions, of course. However, she didn’t seem able to accept that the entire Blue Rose Club should be punished, including the girls who had had nothing to do with the scheme.

That said, Elliot wasn’t willing to give an inch, either.

All Elliot would say was “Disband,” while Josephine kept insisting that no one except herself and Marcel had had anything to do with it. The girls watched this battle for the fate of
the Blue Rose Club with bated breath. A threatening atmosphere filled the common room, and the matter showed no signs of being settled anytime soon.

Then: “Hmm……” Leo, thinking hard, seemed to hit on an idea. Slowly, his lips parted.

“In that case, let me relay the final message from Gardener ‘M’ to you.”

At those words, all the female students—and Marcel—stared at him in astonishment.

“Gardener ‘M’? What’s that?”

Only Elliot didn’t understand. “Later,” Leo told him, and continued:

“I also think you should disband. This incident was—”

When he’d gotten that far, Josephine raised her voice: “Wait just a moment!”

Leo looked at her. She was so startled she’d gone pale. In a hoarse voice, Josephine said:

“You’re… You were Gardener ‘M’?”

When Leo nodded, Josephine whirled around to look at Marcel.

“Th-the letters said ‘Don’t pry,’ so I refrained from asking, but… I thought Marcel was the gardener… His name starts with
M
, after all……”

All the girls turned to Marcel, but Marcel shook his head.

“May I continue?” Leo asked, but there was no reply. Leo tilted his head slightly, perplexed.

“Mm, well, never mind. I’ll continue. —Even if this happened because a few members got out of control, it’s true that the existence of the Blue Rose Club caused it by inviting excessive fanaticism. For that reason, I can’t allow the club to remain, either.”

No one could argue. Everyone looked down, hanging their heads.

“However, each of you is free to consider Elliot something special, to think of him and about him. Even Elliot won’t intrude on your individual hearts and force you to change your thoughts. I really can’t imagine he would.”

“Well, I, uh……”

Emotionally, Elliot still objected, but he couldn’t say it.

As Elliot watched Leo speak in that matter-of-fact voice, he also seemed to see him as he’d been when he was still at the House of Fianna. Leo had called the younger children his brothers and sisters. When one of the older ones had been mean to another child, and Leo had reprimanded them, this was how he’d looked.

In contrast to Elliot, who’d faltered, Josephine hesitantly voiced her lingering regrets.

“But our precious assembly…”

“Yeah, I know. Listen.”

Speaking in a rather light tone, Leo approached Josephine and whispered something in her ear.

When, after a short while, Leo drew back, Josephine’s face wore a sunny smile.

“I understand. Today, as of this moment, the Blue Rose Club is disbanded.”

Her proclamation was delivered with good grace.