A smile hidden behind the blade

Unlike the previous incidents, this time Vektor does not return to the world of his subconscious. From his perspective, he opens his eyes seconds after fainting, but in reality it has been several hours. His body is lying on a soft sofa, and the first thing his eyes see when they open is a very familiar ceiling.

"Uhhh..."

"Finally woke up!"

"Hm?"

After slowly turning his head to the side, he finds the legendary swordsman sitting in a chair with a relieved expression on his face, his hair loose and not wearing his blue vest. Vektor finds himself quite confused:

"Kder...?"

"How are you feeling?"

"I- I'm fine... but where am I now?"

"You are now resting at Noogard's residence. Even though your entire body is healed, you will need some time to recover the energy lost in battle."

"And what happened to us...?"

"We were defeated, and Maken escaped again... Soon after that, you ended up fainting, so I took you to the Valley of Music, where the Musician named Hiki healed us. After I explained what happened to your friend Sych, he released the other Etykiran apprentices to return to their homes. I then brought you here, and Master Noogard gave us shelter to rest as long as we wanted."

"I see...

(In the end, all that came to nothing... No, wait a minute... If I'm not mistaken, just before I passed out... That's right!)

The Slasher Platinum!"

"Huh?"

"Where's the Slasher Platinum?! Where did my sword go?!"

"C- Calm down! Your sword is fine, I brought it with us to this house. There's nothing to worry about."

"R- Right... That's a relief..."

"By the way, the current state your sword is in... That is Burning Silver's awakened form, am I right?"

"Yeah, actually kinda. That is the true form of Drenn's legendary sword, Slasher Platinum. I had to do some sort of astral travel to obtain it."

"So, does that mean..."

"Yeah. That means I finally got rid of that curse. I finally finished my goal on this island."

"Congratulations."

"Guess I need to pack up my things and leave as soon as I finish my little rest."

"However, remember that you have one last thing to do before you return. Maken has challenged you to a duel at the Dawn Plateau."

"Oh yeah, that happened, forgot about that part. I should've known that my Golden Ending wouldn't be as simple as that. But what do I do now? If the two of us together didn't have a chance, how I'm gonna...?"

"...I'm sorry."

"Hm?"

Looking more closely at Kder, Vektor realizes that the steadfast swordsman is downcast and quite frustrated with himself. Vektor does what he can to comfort him:

"Ah, don't feel bad! What happened wasn't our fault. You did what you could."

"No, that's not true. From the beginning of that battle... I had already improved enough to be able to defeat Hiroshi. Everything that went wrong could have been avoided if I had fought at my best from the beginning. However, something inside me was preventing me from going all out. I wasn't able to hurt our opponent even once. I was only able to fight without holding back when the two of us faced each other. It was at that moment that I realized. Hiroshi, for a long time, had been like a brother to me. Knowing this, my body was unable to deal any lethal damage to him. My emotions forced me to hold back... That's why... I'm sorry."

"There's nothing to blame yourself for. That's something natural.

(That's right. That's something a human would do. He's so good at playing the perfect guy that sometimes I forget he's also a human being.)

Well, I can't say for sure that I know how you feel, after all I don't remember having a brother, but I think that if Sych were in Maken's place, I would probably do something similar, so I guess I'm in no place to judge you."

"Will you actually forgive me? Even after I hurt you like that?"

"Well, I'm already 100% healed. Besides, I know very well how destructive I can become when I lose control, so you were more than right to do what you did to stop me. In fact, I'm the one who should apologize in advance."

"Why?"

"Maken is someone really important to you, to the point that you aren't even capable of hurting him. But there's one thing you must remember: I'm not you."

"That's okay... No matter what happens, I have no right to judge your decisions."

"Don't worry, I won't kill him or do anything that morbid. I just want to warn you."

"If I had paid more attention, I would have figured out what made Hiroshi like that, and maybe I could have stopped all of this. But that's not what I did, and you, who had no involvement in this, got pulled into this whole mess. I'm the last person who can decide what you can and can't do."

"If there's anyone to blame in this story, it's not you. If you're still wondering why this happened, I can take this opportunity to try and find out for you."

"Would you do that? I must make it quite clear that I currently carry nothing that could serve as a reward."

"That's fine, you can owe me a favor. I mean, this is nothing compared to everything you've done to help me so far, so..."

"No, it really means a lot to me. Thank you."

Kder's facial expression becomes something very different from what Vektor has seen of him before. No trace of forced seriousness on his face. Just a pure, genuine smile. One could say that this is not Kder's face, but rather Katsuo's face, the one hidden behind the title of hero...

After this conversation, Kder leaves Noogard's residence to patrol Etykiran City until nightfall. Vektor spends the rest of the day resting and eating properly. Hayato is absent because he is helping the royals deal with all the destruction caused by the incident with his airship. After recovering completely, Vektor decides to go to bed much earlier than usual, so that he can wake up a little before dawn...