“If you’d dug your heels in and lost control, every one of those engineers would have been swept off and turned into drowned ghosts.”
For a moment the officer’s voice rose in her ears again.
That voice and the knight’s voice overlapped, and her throat went dry. There was nothing she could say back. Because it was true.
If the link had snapped even a little sooner, that knight’s year-mate would have been in danger too. When Dear couldn’t get a word out, the corner of the man’s mouth climbed higher.
“What, nothing to say?”
“...I’m sorry about that part.”
“Sorry?”
The man let out a disbelieving laugh.
“You nearly get a man killed and ‘sorry’ settles it?”
“Nobody was hurt, though.”
“As it turned out, no.”
He was right about that too. Dear’s lips pressed into a hard line.
“All that strutting about your high-ranking spirit and whatnot.”
The man’s gaze dropped to Dear’s swollen hand.
“And you can’t even control the one spirit you’ve got, so now you’re in this state?”
“...”
“And you call yourself an Elma.”
At that, even Dear couldn’t hold back, and she lifted her head.
“Are you quite finished?”
“Why?”
“I’ve already been reprimanded plenty by the officer in charge for what happened in the operation. There’s no reason for me to be graded by you on top of it.”
“Graded?”
The man’s mouth curled into a twisted smile and he snorted.
“You’ve got it wrong. I’m worrying about you. You really think you get to keep being an Elma after this? Pull a stunt that big and the brass upstairs have used up every last scrap of patience they had for you. When that day comes, hauling water buckets is going to look downright romantic. You might be spreading your legs and rolling around keeping the soldiers happy instead.”
It was a shameful thing to say, the kind of humiliation that bored straight into the bone.
The knight sidled closer to Dear, raking his eyes up and down her with a sticky sort of look. A foul reek of liquor and rot wafted off his breath.
“Eh, don’t worry. When the time comes for you to roll around like that, I’ll take the first turn with you. My technique’s better than you’d think.”
Grinning smarmily, the man reached out to take Dear’s chin.
That was the moment.
With a vicious crunch, a rough hand snatched the man’s wrist and bent it back, hard.
“Gkh...!”
By the time the man lifted his head with a “What the,” Kyle was standing there, blocking the space between him and Dear.
“The hell are you doing, clogging up the walkway this whole damn time?”
“What?”
“You deaf?”
He bore down harder, and this time the man’s whole upper body buckled. Kyle shoved him off like he was discarding something and raised an eyebrow in warning.
“I said quit blocking the way.”
“Why, you little...!”
The knight lunged, going for Kyle’s collar. But before his hand could get there, Kyle’s boot cracked straight into his shin, and he went down in a heap on the dirt.
Kyle looked down at him and jerked his chin toward Dear.
“Also. She’s got to go get treated right now.”
“...”
“No time to sit through your shitty little confession, so move.”
“Confession, my ass!”
Whether the man flared up or not, Kyle’s face showed not the faintest flicker of interest. It really did seem he’d gone at the man purely for blocking the path.
His pride badly wounded, the man clenched the hand he’d planted in the dirt and ground his teeth, but he couldn’t actually bring himself to go after Kyle. There wasn’t a soul in this unit who didn’t know what kind of man Kyle was.
Kyle shook out his blood-soaked arm lightly, as though it stung a bit, and muttered a halfhearted curse.
“Shit, this hurts like hell.”
Then he walked off without so much as a glance back at Dear.
“...”
Dear was standing there blankly watching his back when, a moment later, Kyle stopped and turned his head halfway.
“You coming or not?”
“...Me?”
“Who else would it be.”
Kyle’s brow creased.
“You’re supposed to be going for treatment.”
“...”
“Or you want to get cornered somewhere else on the way?”
He really has a filthy mouth on him. Still, he was the only one helping her, so Dear pursed her lips and hurried after him.
A few steps on, she glanced back and found the knight still clutching his wrenched wrist, glaring in her direction. When their eyes met, he chewed something out, shaping it with his lips alone.
Dear pretended not to see it and turned her head forward. ‘You’ll pay for this.’ It was too childish a line to bother reacting to.
Dear and Kyle were treated side by side. To be precise, it would be more accurate to say they were treated sitting on cots set side by side, with a single thin partition between them.
“Take off your top.”
Dear blinked at the medic’s words.
“All of it?”
“I need to see down to your waist. You said you got scraped by the rope.”
“Ah...”
Belatedly, Dear looked down at her own waist.
Under the soaked uniform, the skin stung in sharp little pricks. It had been hurting for a while, but her fingers and wrist were throbbing so badly she hadn’t spared it any attention.
“There’s a partition, so it’s fine.”
“...Yes.”
Hesitating, Dear undid the buttons of her uniform one at a time. In the hush, the small pops of each button coming loose sounded unusually loud. But right beside her came a thud, then a wet slap, as sodden clothing hit the floor without the slightest ceremony.
The sound was loud enough that it naturally reminded her he was just on the other side. And all at once she was remembering his chest, the one she’d seen through a thin shirt when she’d been sprawled on top of him.
“...”
Why am I even thinking about that?
Dear quickly turned her head away.
I must be losing my mind.
Maybe I hit my head on something when I fell in the water.
“Raise your arms, please.”
“Yes.”
Dear lifted both arms.
“Ah.”
Her side pulled tight and her face screwed up. The medic examined the flank exposed beneath her wet underthings.
“That’s a bad scrape.”
“Very bad?”
“It’ll bruise, too. Tomorrow will probably hurt more. Still, the bone looks fine.”
Something cold touched her, ointment.
“Nn.”
Dear flinched in on herself.
And in that moment.
Voices came from the other side of the partition as well.
“This needs stitches.”
“Don’t want ’em.”
It was Kyle.
“This isn’t the kind of wound where wanting comes into it.”
“Just slap some ointment on it.”
“The flesh is split open.”
“Won’t kill me.”
“Is death the standard for treatment now?”
“Obviously.”
Dear’s brow creased without her meaning it to. Why does that man keep insisting everything’s fine as long as it doesn’t kill him?
The medic, apparently at the end of his patience, issued a warning.
“If it festers, you lose the use of the arm.”
A brief silence.
“...How many stitches.”
A snort of laughter slipped out of Dear before she could stop it. So he’d been refusing because he was scared of the needle. A voice shot straight over the partition.
“What’s so funny.”
Dear’s laugh cut off dead.
“I wasn’t laughing?”
“I can hear everything.”
“Sharp ears you’ve got.”
“I can hear you breathing. You think I’d miss you laughing?”
“...”
Dear shut her mouth.
Why does he have to say it like that? Dear’s earlobes quietly turned red.
“Hold still, please.”
“Ah!”
The medic spreading the salve scolded her.
“Why did you move all of a sudden?”
“Sorry.”
For no good reason, Dear shifted herself further from the partition. And then, somehow, her gaze dropped.
The bottom edge of the cloth. Through the gap between the cot and the partition, she could see a hand. Kyle’s hand.
No. To be precise, fingertips crusted with dried blood. The muscles twitched now and then, probably as the medic wiped at the wound.
Dear looked at it for a while. The arm that had been wrapped in the rope earlier. The arm that had dragged her out of the water. The arm that hadn’t let go until the skin was stripped clean off it.
Come to think of it, how many times had that man helped her today already? Once in the river, and once just now with that knight.
Dear’s expression turned strange.
He was still an awful human being, and yet she had the creeping feeling that her debt to him kept growing.
“All done.”
The medic’s words snapped Dear back to herself.
“Oh. Right.”
“The finger needs setting as well.”
“...Does that hurt a lot?”
“A little.”
“A little as in how much exactly...”
Crunch.
“Agh!”
Dear’s shriek rang through the medical tent from end to end.
A moment later, a low chuckle drifted over from beyond the partition.
“...”
Dear’s face screwed up.
“You just laughed, didn’t you?”
“Didn’t laugh.”
“You absolutely laughed!”
“And what’s it to you.”
At which point the medic slid smoothly into the middle of their childish squabble.
“Right then, Sir Kyle. We’re stitching now. It’s going to hurt, so bite down on this.”
The medic was probably putting a strip of cloth or something between his teeth. Dear could see him moving back and forth by the brazier, heating a long, hook-like needle in the flames. Her mouth closed on its own.
...With that thing?
She stole a glance toward the partition. Soon came the hiss of hot iron being quenched in water.
And a moment after that, the medic spoke.
“Here we go.”
Dear found herself tensing her own shoulders. A moment later she caught the faint, blunt sound of flesh being punched through. But not a single sound came from the man himself. Only the occasional clink of the medic setting down an instrument.
Dear stared hard at the partition. Don’t tell me he passed out?
“Elma Dear.”
Just then the medic assigned to her called her name.
“Yes?”
“We’re finished. Use that hand as little as possible today. I’ve put salve on your waist as well, so change out of those wet clothes right away.”
“Yes.”
“And keep applying this. It’s an ointment that’s good for wounds.”
The sturdy wooden tub even had a design carved into it. When she opened it, the smell was sharp and medicinal, but one whiff told her it was top-grade stuff made from fine ingredients.
“This looks far too nice, doesn’t it?”
When she asked, as if to say am I really allowed to take this, the medic only smiled.
“You’re an Elma. We can hardly give you the same thing we give the ordinary soldiers.”
I see. So I’m still an Elma. Even if it might be stripped from her before long. Dear gripped the ointment tightly in her hand and walked out.
