PandoraHearts ~Caucus Race~, Vol. 2 (13 page)

Even after learning that Matilda had really been a boy named Marcel, the girls had been sad to see him go, and they had wished him well.

“Now then, my dears. Shall we go?”

At Josephine’s words, the girls stood. Then, with Josephine in the lead, they began to make their way to a certain destination.

There had been more to what Leo had whispered to Josephine in the common room.

“I know I told you to disband, but there’s one thing I’d like your group to do for me. Gerald’s been harassing Marcel. Would you help stop it?”

She’d had no reason to refuse.

When she’d told the other girls, they’d immediately promised to help, for Marcel’s sake.

And so—

Gerald was still in the school building. When Josephine and the girls surrounded him and denounced him, he tried to play innocent.

“Why, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

However, when he realized that wasn’t going to work, he grudgingly admitted it. Gerald was constantly and painfully conscious of the female students. The result, apparently, was that he didn’t want to harass Marcel badly enough to risk making enemies of Josephine and the other girls.

After that…

It goes without saying that the girls were thrilled:

“The leadership Master Black Rose displayed in entrusting this matter to us was absolutely perfect, wasn’t it!”

It was a faint, distant sound, still out of reach. A sound from somewhere in the future.

One afternoon, about two months after Discipline Reinforcement Week.

………What was that?

Elliot had been lying on the sofa, dozing, with an open book over his face to shut out the light, when something pulled him back to wakefulness. He thought, perplexed.

He was on the fourth floor of the school building, in the anteroom next to the piano studio. The room wasn’t off-limits to students, but for some reason, there were no students who used it regularly, which made it a nice, private, nearly secret spot. It had good sofas for sprawling out on, and Elliot often came here with Leo during the noon recess and commandeered the room all for himself.

……At first, it really had been just a “nearly secret spot,” but the truth was that, at this point, students were careful to keep away from it because it was rumored to be “Elliot Nightray’s favorite place”—not that Elliot knew this.

Still not sure what had awakened him, Elliot drifted again.

As he fell back into sleep, in a corner of his mind, he thought:

Oh, right. I’ll have to get
Holy Knight
back to the library soon—

He’d checked the book out two months ago, but between this and that, he hadn’t yet returned it. He’d already had it far longer than the Lutwidge Academy library allowed books to be checked out. If he didn’t return it soon, he’d probably start getting complaints from the library assistants.

He had it in his bag, he thought, so all he’d have to do was head over to the library later.

He heard a knock at the door. The anteroom had two doors: one that led to the adjacent studio, and one that opened into the corridor. The knock had come from the second door.

He sensed it when Leo, who’d been sitting on another sofa reading a book, stood up and walked over to the door.

The door opened with a
click.

Immediately, he heard several sets of loud, agitated footsteps in the corridor. Elliot thought it might have been the faint echoes of this noise, coming to him through the wall, that had disturbed his nap.

In a voice tinged with faint disgust, he said:

“What’s going on? It’s so noisy.”

Leo had been talking to the student who’d come to the room. He shut the door, answering as he did so.

“It would seem that intruders have somehow entered the academy, Elliot.”

“…Huuh?”

At the unexpected response, Elliot lifted the book from his face and sat up. “What do you mean, ‘intruders’?” he asked, but Leo only shook his head. “How should I know?”

“Well, whatever. The teachers or the disciplinary committee will deal with it.”

“You’re probably right.”

“Leo, we’re going to the library. I forgot to return a book.”

“Sure,” Leo answered. Elliot stood.

“Nn!” As he stretched lightly, his eyes fell on the musical score he’d tossed onto the end of the sofa. He cracked his neck, yawning a little. Elliot picked up the booklet of music, tapping his shoulder with it, and glanced at Leo.

“Before that, come hang out with me for a bit.”

“Mm.” He gestured to the door that led to the studio with his chin, inviting Leo to come play piano for four hands.

Leo nodded.

“Besides, if the intruders hear your music, it may purify their hearts and convince them to let themselves be caught.”

“Moron. It’s not that kind of music.”

“Are you sure? Well, maybe it will get their attention and draw them here.”

“What, we’re supposed to catch them and turn them over to the teachers? What a pain,” Elliot grumbled.

With the score tucked under his arm, he crossed to the door that led to the studio. Leo followed. Elliot didn’t play the piano every time they used this room during the noon recess. Most of the songs he played were pieces he’d composed himself.

Elliot didn’t know whether he had a knack for composing or not. He didn’t care.

In any case, he’d never written a song with the intent of letting lots of people hear it. He only tidied up melodies that popped into his head, to give to his family.

“What are we going to play?”

“Oh, you know—”

When they visited the library after finishing their duet, it was deserted.

Under ordinary circumstances, there should have been a
library assistant in the information corner, at the very least. It might have had something to do with the fuss about the intruders, or maybe it was coincidence. He really should have completed the return procedures, but Elliot thought it would probably be okay if he just put the book back where it belonged.

It was the library assistant’s fault for not being here when he’d come to return it, he thought. Immediately after entering the library, Leo had wandered away from Elliot, heading off into the stacks. To Leo-the-bookworm, the fact that the library was deserted meant only that it was a nice, quiet place to read.

Deciding to leave Leo to his own devices, Elliot took the book he was returning and headed toward an inner stack.

In front of the shelf he wanted, he saw a lone figure.

It was a male student, blond and a little on the short side… About as tall as Leo. He seemed glued—eagerly, excitedly—to the row of Holy Knight books on the shelf.

He was exclaiming (“Whoa!” “Awesome!”) at every little thing, although it shouldn’t have been that unusual to see all the volumes of a work as popular as Holy Knight in one place.

Maybe he’s from way out in the sticks?

He thought this, even as he felt that something about the idea clashed with the atmosphere the boy wore.

Elliot walked up to him. The boy must have been completely engrossed; he didn’t notice a thing. He seemed to be examining the toothless gap where the volume Elliot had borrowed should have been. He murmured, sounding perplexed:

“—But… Huh? There’s a volume missing…?”

“Aah, sorry.”

Elliot spoke from behind the boy, coming up to stand next to him. As he returned the volume in his hand to that gap, he said:

“I’d borrowed it just now.”

The boy apparently hadn’t noticed Elliot’s approach until he spoke to him. He stepped away from the shelf, mildly startled,
and looked at Elliot. Elliot also shot him a sidelong glance, his expression cold. The boy had bright golden hair and deep green eyes. His features seemed childlike, and yet there was something about them that made him look a bit philosophical.

Elliot didn’t recognize his face; this was the first time he’d seen it. Of course, Elliot didn’t know every single student at Lutwidge Academy, so this wasn’t all that unusual.

“…Do you…”

Elliot spoke to the blond boy, who was watching him silently.

“…like this series…?”

Just as he said it…

—Tunk.

Elliot felt as if he’d heard a sound, inside his head.

What was that?

It was a very small sound. …Or maybe a faint feeling. Something so slight it would have been easy to think,
It’s my imagination
, and forget about it right away.

“Eh… Yeah, I love it…”

The blond boy answered Elliot’s question…

…And the hand of fate began to move.

~ Fin ~