After all, the feelings it engendered in me were so great that my heart could not fully contain them, and even now they seemed about to spill over and fall as tears.
And yet, as I faced him, I still could not manage to respond.
I felt as if my heart would by torn to pieces by my own unresponsiveness, which must have looked as if I didn't remember him at all.
"Lady Wilmarina?"
"Ah... Excuse me."
I returned to myself, thanks to a word from the adjutant.
He came from a noble family no less distinguished than the Noscrim, and his words reminded me that I was at a holy ceremony.
The initiation ceremony wouldn't end, no matter how long I spent standing around in a daze.
I had to go through with it for the people who were even now standing at attention, waiting for their own turns to come...—
—No...! That wasn't what I wanted to do... It wasn't...!
"Lady Wilmarina... quickly."
"Huh...? Oh... r, right..."
At the adjutant's urging, I took the Badge of the Order from his hands.
Then I just had to hold it firmly in both hands, and offer it to El, and with that it would be over.
With that... with just that... our "reunion" would be over.
Without even a word of celebration, without even a gesture of acknowledgement...—
—...I couldn't... I couldn't bear such a thing, but...!
Even so, my hands, trembling with nervous diffidence, were holding the Badge of the Order out to El.
He quietly accepted it from my hands, which shook as if the entire hall were pressing down on my back.
For an instant, I knew that El wanted to say something, but nothing came from his mouth.
El too must have been unsure what to say.
No... I could not discount the possibility that he might have been more bewildered than I was by the difference in social standing between a "Hero" and a "soldier."
—That's why...! That's why... I have to step up to meet him, but...!
I still couldn't move, just as if the fact of being a "Hero" were binding me in place.
I suppose he must have been disgusted with me for being like that.
There was a sad look in El's eyes for a moment, and then he made to pass by me.
As he drew near, and then passed me, I recalled the sense of powerlessness and the desolation of the day we parted.
—Ah... he's going...! He's... leaving me again...!
I wasn't like I'd been back then... I had "power" now.
I had come to possess not just the actual strength of a "Hero" acknowledged by many, but also the influence attendant on being both a "Hero" and "the Daughter of a Holy Knight and a Priestess."
I no longer had to feel as I had then.
I could honestly detain him.
...
In spite of that... even though I should have been able to do it...
I... I... was...
—...Losing him again?
"Ngh!!"
In the moment he passed by me, my mind, which had become sodden with the words rising in my breast, cleared just a little.
I realized that my seemingly bound arms would now move just a little.
There wasn't enough time to direct them towards him; he was already in the middle of passing by me...
And it didn't seem my sluggish arm could possibly reach him in time.
—Then... then... the only thing I can do now is...
"...P, please... do your best... okay?"
"...Thank you... very much."
"Ngh!"
—His response to my words, which sounded as if they had been squeezed from me, was too distant, as if I were a stranger to him...
No...
In the first place, I should be the one to speak.
Surely I had no right to reproach him.
But... even so, my heart trembled greatly at the distance I sensed in his words.
My sense of balance vanished, just as if that shock to my heart had been an earthquake, and I felt as if my feet were going to collapse under me.
In the moment that I experienced vertigo from a sensation that I was falling forever, I felt several worried looks shoot through me.
—No... I mustn't... fall here...
A "Hero," a symbol of the nation, must never show weakness in front of such a large crowd.
Desperately telling myself that, I braced my legs with all my strength, and prevented their collapse.
But while I did so, he passed by me, and quietly descended from the platform.
I shut my eyes in silence, stealing a sidelong glance at his retreating figure.
—If... if... if I were unable to bear it, and collapsed here...
El would... my childhood friend would have saved me, surely?
No...
I'm certain he would have saved me.
He had always stretched out a hand to me whenever I was in trouble.
Of course, I couldn't discount the possibility that he had changed in the years we'd been apart, but...
I had a feeling El's eyes were still filled with the same kindness they had been on the day we parted.
If I'd collapsed in front of him...
I had no doubt that he would have tossed the badge aside and come running to me.
—...What am I thinking...?
I couldn't help but let slip a smile of self-derision at that thought, which seemed almost to say that it would have been better if I had not braced my legs, and collapsed.
Still, I was in the middle of an important ceremony.
I, who had been appointed a major role in it, must not show such a grin here.
Bracing my heart with such ideas, I silently faced forward again and conferred the badge of the order on another child.
—And yet... I didn't have confidence that I could smile like a "hero," as I had before.
Unable to get him out of my mind, I mechanically went on conferring the badges, and...
—Fade to black—