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When the front door to the room creaked, Enji did not move.
He was good at pretending to be asleep, having learned it back in childhood, when sometimes, at night, as he and his brothers lived together in the barracks, he would unintentionally listen to their chatter, where they mostly complained about the harsh training and dreamed of escaping to the big city. All of this was done in secret because the children of the Sazanami family were not supposed to think like that. Enji himself did not consider such thoughts right, but he never told anyone about such conversations, first of all, because they never made sense, and secondly, because he was curious about what others thought, since he himself was perfectly content with everything at home. He never saw in the big city or in free life the longed-for escape that some imagined, and listened to all that chatter with skepticism, but he still found it interesting to picture himself free, where the Damocles’ sword of the auction did not hang over him, and where he was free to do whatever he pleased. Still, Enji was a realist. He knew he would not leave, and so such dreams quickly wearied him.
When Enji grew up, he stopped dreaming of the big city. He had proven himself and managed to become a part of the Tou, one of the pillars upon which the family rested. His father loved him, his brothers respected him — this was the highest step he could climb, being a son not of the main branch. He was satisfied with much… but not with everything. Sometimes Enji watched how children were trained, and, having gone through such training himself, he often wondered if it was truly worth it. He was bound to be loyal to the family until the end, but he remembered how broken bones hurt, remembered the exhaustion in the mornings when he could barely get out of bed. He observed this for a long time, but every time he thought the same: first, when they trained the eldest son of the main branch, Soya, and then when it was the younger brothers’ turn. And this thought beat in his head like a firefly trapped in a jar, when he saw how Hakuri failed time and again, unable to grasp sorcery, and how cruelly he was treated for it. Hakuri held on in public, but cried in secret, and Enji knew many children did the same. Soya did this, even Enji himself did this. He wanted to be a good older brother, the kind written about in books, but the Sazanami family lived by their own rules, and so he could not obey righteousness as one ought to.
Perhaps that was why he only looked after Soya a little when he was small, and then distanced himself from heavy thoughts once the boy grew up and the training began for other children.
He did not move when light steps approached his bed. There was no threat in the air, and he recognized the steps; when the bed sagged under the weight of another person, he only sighed and turned to his side, after which he felt someone small press up against his back. It was hard not to recognize Tenri. He always seemed pompous and sly, but Enji knew that in truth this was just a carefully kept image. Tenri worried a lot, sometimes over nonsense, but those nonsense worries led him to do many things no one his age had ever done before. For example, he became one of the Tou while still a teenager. But that was not for the family’s pride, though Tenri said so — Enji knew he was trying to compensate for Hakuri’s failures, from whom everyone had turned away.
Tenri could insult him all he wanted and say he hated Hakuri, but Enji knew it was pure farce. He cared. For the family, for the brothers. Even for Soya at times, though Soya made Tenri so furious that it could not be described in words. No wonder… He was still just a child, essentially. And when the burden became too much for him to carry, he came to complain too, only without tears, because Tenri was far too stubborn.
He buried his nose into Enji’s shirt, then clutched it with his fingers.
"Can’t sleep?"
Tenri mumbled something indistinct and pressed his head harder against his back. It was easy to picture him now: small and angry, but not because his heart was dark, rather because he worried and knew no other way to express it. In the family, no one was taught to be kind. Everything was expressed through violence. Enji knew this was wrong, but sometimes it was the only way to keep the entire clan under control; thanks to it, they had held the underground market under their heel for two hundred years.
"Hakuri again, isn’t it?"
Tenri suddenly sat up and looked down at Enji. The latter turned his face to him. Even in the dark, thanks to the pale light from the window, the boy’s frown was visible. He had been deeply troubled about his brother for years. Many were troubled. How had it happened that in the main line, a person was born with an anomaly, unable to master sorcery? How had it happened that the son upon whom Sazanami Kyora had pinned such great hopes turned out to be a failure? But it was not only reputation at risk. Hakuri himself suffered most of all. The other brothers tormented him, a filthy stain on the clan’s white pedigree, because, unlike the distant branches, no longer so influential for the Sazanami, Hakuri was the patriarch’s son. He was beaten every day, but it was Soya who tormented him the most.
Once Enji grabbed his hand as he passed by and asked — why? What was the point of being so cruel to a younger brother? It wasn’t as if he had chosen to be a failure; it was simply fate that had been cruel to him. Soya then looked at him as though he were insane, and barked:
"What are you talking about?! I suffer just as much as he does! I’m only making him stronger! For his own sake!"
Soya was convinced of the righteousness of his actions. Enji knew he believed that in this way Hakuri would be tied to him — as if, since Soya tried so hard (though in his efforts there was only cruelty and poorly hidden anger), then if Hakuri ever gained powers, he would stand by his brother’s side. Or something like that. Sometimes it was hard to tell what was in Soya’s mind. He swayed from mood to mood, and being named heir did nothing to improve his already poor mental state.
Enji pitied Soya, too, because Soya preferred to live in illusions rather than reality. After all, reality was cruel.
"I…"
Tenri alone worried about reality. He lowered his gaze, and Enji reached out his hand to him. It was their little conditional gesture for reassurance. Squeezing his palm, Tenri stroked it with his thumb, then lay down beside him, looking into his eyes. No doubt, he was an extremely talented sorcerer, but inside, he remained a child.
"I thought… Maybe I could do something… He can, well, activate his ability! He gets flames in his eye! That means something must be working."
Enji wanted to ask him — why don’t you go to Hakuri with this? Why don’t you show that you care? It would morally support your elder brother. But Tenri, like all children of the Sazanami family, was bound by tradition, and tradition said not to show tolerance to weaklings. Hakuri, unfortunately, belonged exactly to them. Enji felt so sorry for him. But what could he do? Life did not always go as one wanted. He simply did not beat him, and if Hakuri asked for help — which sometimes happened — Enji did not refuse him. He remembered once when he had to take Hakuri to the house doctor, because he could not stand. That had been a brutal beating. Afterwards, he fell gravely ill, and only the maids cared for him, and Enji could only guess what would have happened if he had left his brother without help. Perhaps he would have died right there on the steps of the house. Small and weak.
So he answered honestly:
"This is a problem at a level we cannot fix. Genetics."
"But my genetics or Soya’s are fine!"
"A one-in-a-million case."
Hakuri really was just that, an outstanding one among outcasts.
"You could tell Soya to stop," Tenri muttered, as if he didn’t know how useless that would be.
"You know that won’t help."
"But something must help… Did you hear? Soya’s been named the next head," it was fresh news, but Enji knew that Soya was not at all eager to receive that status. Hints had been around for many years, and back when he was a child, he had honestly told Enji that he was afraid. After the recent verdict was passed… Soya had grown even gloomier than before. "When he becomes patriarch, he’ll kill Hakuri. I’m sure of it."
Enji feared this as well.
"We can only try to dissuade Soya. Perhaps if he stops bothering him, the others will, too. Why don’t you want to try?"
"I can’t!"
"You’re his blood brother. Of the same mother. Unlike me."
"At least he listens to you a little!"
"I’ve already tried, Tenri."
Silence fell, and his brother’s face contorted. If he had been able to cry, he might have shed a tear, but all humanity in him had been driven out by training and the desire to please his father. Almost all, but not entirely, otherwise he wouldn’t secretly care about Hakuri. Sometimes Enji thought it would be better if he didn’t know. About what Tenri and Soya really thought. It made their cruel façades seem more human, and he realized that fragments of the children he had once seen remained within them. Children of whom he had once been an older brother, not merely a squad comrade. But while in Soya such fragments had almost completely withered, leaving only cruelty, since he was incapable of accepting humanity in himself, also striving to please his father, also killing off any hint of weakness within because he feared the future, venting this stress on his brother, a convenient punching bag who would not resist — in Tenri those sparks still glimmered, not yet so faint. He was cruel and rough, but he was still a child.
Enji sat up on the bed and wearily looked at his brother. The boy crawled closer to his side, then leaned against his shoulder. When Enji brushed the loose bangs from his face, he softened slightly, relaxed, because he knew Enji would never judge him. And Enji thought how strange it was to see his younger brother change from mask to mask. From the cold-blooded sorcerer of the Tou to an ordinary teenager whose face still bore the traces of puberty. When he laid a hand on his head and ruffled his soft hair, Tenri sniffled loudly.
"Just tell Hakuri that you worry about him. He’ll be very happy."
"I’ll try."
But Enji knew Tenri would never say it. Because he was afraid. Because the coals of kindness in his soul were fading. Soon, he would become like Soya — ground down by the cruel machine of the Sazanami family, turned into a monster. For the second time, Enji watched this happen… He could not truly help Hakuri, but he could at least make one little monster not quite such a monster. At least, he hoped so.
Then he smiled at Tenri and hoped that fate would save him from becoming a complete monster.
Months later, he reflected on this, when he and Tamaki looked upon what was left of the family, the pitiful remnants of former glory. When he thought about where to lay a new family tomb, since the previous one had perished along with the auction house. To bury his father, to bury his brother — those were the tasks before him, but Enji could not think of them clearly, because in his mind only the memory of how Tenri was torn apart by the explosion kept spinning in his head. Well, he truly had not become a complete monster. Because he had died, inglorious and pitiful, embodying the very spirit of the Sazanami family on that dreadful day.
Enji still remembered the child whom he had once helped with sorcery. He remembered how he smiled. How Hakuri and Soya had once smiled too. All those smiles had been erased. Only disappointment and regret remained. Maybe, if he had been a little braver, he could have made Soya come to his senses, stopped Tenri… Maybe… But he remembered the words of Rokuhira’s companion, the boy who had come for his family treasure. The boy who had shown kindness to Hakuri and extended a hand to him, which Hakuri had accepted. The man had told him then:
"Live. So that children like Tenri will never again be born into the family."
And living, in truth, was far harder and braver than dying. It was too late to regret, but the future still lay ahead, and in that future Enji no longer had the luxury of closing his eyes and turning away, surrendering to the old truth of blissful ignorance. He had to move forward. Not alone, together with Tamaki, together with those who remained, so that the next generation would not die for empty ideals, so that at least someone in this world might be well. So that more children would smile, this time sincerely. What he had failed to do then, it was time to begin doing now. Fortunately, he had people at his side. Even Rokuhira’s companion, who had promised to stop by.
Together, they would succeed.