Chapter 262 – 16.16 and So the Flowers Wither
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Dark room.
The door was opened and a man entered.
“Ryoko.”
The man approaches his wife who is lying in the middle of the tatami room.
That man is Ichiro Mizuki.
His wife was still asleep as if dead.
“Ryoko.”
Sit next to him and put your hand inside the duvet.
There were hands that were cold as ice.
“Like this… When it gets cold…”
Swallowing his emotions, Mizuki Ichiro cherished his wife’s hands with both hands.
Hoping that even a little bit of his own body temperature would reach his wife.
“Ryoko…”
Death approaches her wife.
No matter how much power she had, no matter how much wealth she had, she could do nothing for her dying wife.
Ichiro Mizuki trembled at his helplessness.
“You.”
Her wife, who had fallen asleep, was the first to respond.
Mizuki Ichiro held his breath.
“Why are you making that face?”
With her fading smile on, Mizuki Ryoko asks her husband.
Mizuki Ichiro opened his trembling lips and said.
“Stupid person… Why did you use runes?”
There were so many things to talk about.
The time given was too short.
But at most, all that came out of his mouth was to blame his wife.
“So… The person I was so afraid of, why… !”
Tears dripped onto the floor.
Ichiro Mizuki, the leader of the ruling party, is called an iron-blooded politician.
He, too, was only a loving wife in front of her wife.
“Heh. I am not that little girl back then.”
Her wife said with a mischievous smile, just like back then.
Seeing her wife like that, her husband also struggled to fake a smile on her face.
“In my eyes, you are still that little girl back then.”
His feelings toward her wife had not changed at all from those days.
And so was her wife, Ryoko.
She does not regret saving her husband.
However, the lingering feeling of leaving this unreliable man alone in this harsh world kept Ryoko’s soul tied to the ground.
“Ryoko, Ryoko… Please forgive me.”
Ichiro knelt in front of his wife and prostrated himself.
He wept and confessed his sins.
“Maybe there was a way to save you. But, but I couldn’t… !”
Ichiro Mizuki is a politician. Negotiation was one of his specialties.
He should have persuaded the man with all of his power, personal connections, money, and eloquence.
But he didn’t.
Mizuki Ichiro feared losing his wife more than losing his wife.
“Even with a way to save you right in front of my eyes, I, I… !”
Mizuki Ryoko also understood her husband’s words.
She already knew from her report how Naives Windsor maintained the doll that returned with her magic.
Right now, he must be in a state close to that doll.
“Ichiro-san. Raise your head.”
Ryoko said, but Ichiro couldn’t lift her head.
She just lay on her face and wept. Lamenting her own helplessness, her own cowardice.
“Show me her face. I miss you.”
After hearing the words of her distraught wife, Ichiro managed to raise his head.
I saw the stupid man’s face messed with tears.
Ryoko looked into her husband’s eyes, and she spoke word by word.
“I loved you because you were that kind of person.”
Ichiro couldn’t stand it.
She threw her face back on her floor and wept silently.
Ryoko had no choice but to hold her husband’s hand still.
Waiting for her husband’s tears to subside, Ryoko asked.
“Did Shinjiro come?”
“… Yet… You didn’t come.”
“What an unfilial child this is.”
Shinjiro Mizuki.
He is the eldest son of the two and is also Kyoko’s older brother.
Unlike his mother and sister, the son, who is not a rune holder, went to study in the United States in opposition to his mother’s educational policy. And he never returned to Japan for the next 4 years.
“It must be because of the wrong education of the mother.”
Is child farming not going your way?
Shinjiro was a sore finger for his couple.
But it would be too late to regret it now.
“You are not wrong. As proof of that, didn’t Kyoko grow up to be that wonderful?”
Kyoko. Our daughter
Neither of them said anything, but she was a proud daughter no matter where she presented it.
“Kyoko, where are you now… ?”
“I called, so I will be back soon.”
When Ryoko wakes up, she has already given her signal.
If she’s nearby, it’s time for her to come.
“Father.”
“Come in.”
She just arrived outside the door.
Kyoko, the daughter of two people in love, and the boy’s boyfriend.
“Mother.”
Kyoko comes over and sits next to her father.
Knives waited outside the door.
“Mother. Is this the picture her mother wished for? Is it enough to make her family all sad and leave her mother alone like this?”
“Kyoko.”
Even on her mother’s final journey, the father scolds the bitter-speaking daughter.
Mother laughed. Just like my father
In a way, this woman must be similar.
“Kyoko. My beloved daughter.”
At the words of affection she had never heard in her life, the daughter’s firm expression collapsed at once.
“For this mother’s share, please support my father well.”
“No! Isn’t that the mother’s job! Stop saying irresponsible things like that!”
Kyoko cried reluctantly like a child complaining.
“Don’t die. Don’t die, Mother!”
Kyoko knew that this was the end.
Falling on top of the mother she hated but loved, Kyoko wept bitterly.
“Knives.”
Surprise.
In the midst of this, Knives, who had never dreamed that his name would be called, was taken aback by the unexpected situation.
“Come closer.”
Even the ignorant Knives couldn’t help going.
Knives hesitantly went to the seat next to Kyoko and sat down.
Restless seat.
Knives’ condition could be described in one word.
Like a stray dog that has strayed into a quiet art gallery, Knives found himself deeply out of place here.
Either way, Ryoko awkwardly held hands with her daughter’s boyfriend who sat next to her.
It was a large, sturdy, man’s hand.
How could that small child back then have grown so much?
Ryoko felt a new sense of alienation.
“Nives. You are like another son to me.”
Eh?! Was that?!
Ryoko says something that will surprise even Knives herself.
Fortunately, Knives wasn’t blind enough to talk nonsense in this situation.
“That day, in the great disaster…”
Ryoko, who brought her out, couldn’t bear to follow her back.
All in all, it was a very long story.
The time left to talk about everything was too short.
Mizuki Ryoko also served in the Great Disaster.
At the time, her husband was already a Member of Parliament. You could have subtracted it if you wanted to.
However, considering her husband’s political standing, she chose to go to war on her own.
Given much consideration due to her social status, she was fortunately able to return unscathed.
However, she also suffered a lot in her heart.
Great disaster campaign.
Her son, her daughter and other children of her age took up swords and went to the battlefield as if for granted.
Even if they were rune holders, they were the same children. There was no way it could be placed on the battlefield just because it was a rune holder.
However, the children were driven to the battlefield by the adults and perished fighting the monsters.
There were children crying for their mother.
There were children seeking her mother for her blood.
In Mizuki Ryoko’s eyes, the children overlapped with those she had left at home.
The scene was heartless and brutal.
Many people, both adults and children, lost their lives.
In such a miserable scene, there was a special child.
There was a blond-haired, blue-eyed child who neither cried nor complained.
“Mizuki? Then, is that lady Mizuki Kyoko’s mother?”
He knew his daughter, Kyoko, for some reason.
It won’t be strange. Even if they are in different grades, they are students of the same academy. Both Kyoko and this child stand out, so there could have been a point of contact.
“Don’t worry, lady! I’ll protect the aunt’s daughter later!”
I didn’t know on what basis, for what reason, or with what confidence he was saying that.
Is it just childlike innocence, or did he see the future in his dreams?
However, what is clear is that even though it is a child’s word, it did not sound like a simple bravado.
“Well, in order to do that, I have to survive here first.”
Even in the hopeless situation, the child smiled.
And he jumped into the battlefield himself and opened a way out.
Even after that, the child raised numerous criminal records, saved countless lives, and brought the catastrophe to an end.
After the catastrophe, Mizuki Ryoko took over as the academy’s president in place of the deceased former president. And her daughter, Kyoko, also sits in her student council president.
I wanted to change the wrong world.
She tried as best she could, using her husband’s strength to the fullest.
But there were limits.
Her husband’s policies met with opposition every time. Too many rune holders have lost their lives, leaving few to claim their rights. No one in power listened to anything contrary to their interests.
In order not to repeat such a tragedy in our children’s generation, Ryoko tried her best.
But looking back now, it seemed like nothing had been accomplished.
She should have left hope for her daughter’s future, at least for the next generation.
Out of pity for her, Ryoko called the child by name.
“──Knives Windsor.”
Ryoko held his hand as hard as she could, but her hand was weak.
“Please take good care of our daughter.”
Summarizing her entire story, Ryoko left him with just one word.
“Yes.”
He also understood everything.
She had the ability to read her opponent’s mind.
I understood her will, the heart she left behind.
“You.”
Last but not least, Ryoko made a request to her beloved husband.
“Please create a world where these children can live happily.”
Breathing hard, she squeezed out her last words.
Kyoko, her daughter, and Naives were children in her eyes.
She entrusted those children, the rune holder’s future, to her loving husband.
“I loved you.”
That was the last
Mizuki Ryoko closed her eyes.
“Mom——!!”
Mizuki Ryoko, 44 years old.
A great figure who worked in the shadows to reduce discrimination against rune holders all his life died in vain.
Her death caused a great repercussion in the world afterward.
And it was trying to bring a quiet but big storm to the world of rune holders.
