Before he remembered his past life, he had always stayed close by her side.
Afternoons spent sitting on her lap, listening to fairy tales.
Naps where they'd drift off holding each other without quite meaning to.
Hours of sitting across a chessboard, heads tilted in thought.
He never won once.
In strategy games that demanded brainwork, Ofilienne was overwhelming. She could predict her own victory before the first piece moved, and she always proposed a wager.
"Let's make a bet."
"A bet?"
"Mm-hm."
"But I'm bad at chess…"
"Whoever wins gets to order the loser around."
"If I win, I get to order you around?"
"I'll do anything."
"Hmm… okay, deal!"
Lured in by that sweet whisper, young Matyos walked straight into the swamp of his own accord.
The result was a massacre.
Ofilienne toppled his king and recited the words with languid ease.
"Checkmate."
"I lost…"
"Now you do whatever I say."
"Do I have to…?"
"You promised. You said you would."
"…What do I have to do?"
At his question, she made a show of sinking deep into the sofa cushions. She lifted the hem of her skirt just slightly and extended one neatly groomed bare foot toward him.
"Give my feet a massage."
Young Matyos had kneaded her feet without a single complaint.
They made many more bets after that, and he lost every one.
Ofilienne savored each victory to the fullest.
"Lie down flat. I'm going to sit on you."
She sat on top of him.
"Give me a back massage."
She received a thorough back massage.
"Feed me ice cream."
She was fed ice cream like a queen attended by her servant.
"Good boy."
Each time, Ofilienne patted Matyos on the head the way one praises a puppy.
Young Matyos had no idea what was happening and kept letting it happen.
It wasn't until he remembered his past life that he finally understood her devious little scheme.
"What are you doing? I said take them off."
A voice faintly tinged with excitement rippled through the quiet room.
…He'd thought he'd escaped the shackles of the past. Reality, it seemed, had other plans.
Ofilienne's foot dangled arrogantly right in front of his nose.
Close enough to touch — yet there was no unpleasant odor. Quite the opposite. Through the thin weave of the fabric, her characteristic sweet and faintly fragrant scent drifted toward him like a gentle breeze, tickling the tip of Matyos's nose.
Matyos swallowed dryly.
Truth be told, Ofilienne's contribution to this operation had been nothing short of decisive.
During the infiltration mission into the Sanctum City-State, she had played the role of drawing the Holy See's attention. Before that, she had provoked the Protestant factions in the empire's north to divert their forces. She had even stationed an army outside the city-state's borders — unused, but there.
It was no exaggeration to say she had shouldered the entire strategic framework of the operation to rescue Tiana Pilrn.
If I could use her in exchange for myself, that was fine.
I'm regretting it a little now, though.
I had been nervous. Afraid she might demand something enormous of me.
But she hadn't.
'Give me massages.'
'Massages…?'
'Every time I call for you this semester, you give me a massage.'
'The whole semester…'
It was the first semester, and midterm season was just around the corner. Far from a short stretch of time. Months of massaging his sister.
'Compared to what I did, a massage is nothing. You said you'd do anything, didn't you?'
'…Fine. I'll do it.'
'Heh, that's more like it. Come to my room after class today.'
And so here he was.
Honestly, it wasn't so bad.
Compared to some unreasonable demand, a full-body massage was manageable. If it only cost him a little pride…
"What are you doing?"
Poke.
Ofilienne jabbed the tip of Matyos's nose with her big toe — a playful little prod aimed squarely at him while he was steeling himself with great solemnity.
She watched him flinch and rub his nose, and her eyes curved with amusement.
Matyos finally conceded defeat and dropped to one knee before her.
"What was that for…!"
"Stop spacing out. That's why I said hurry up."
"I — I'm doing it, aren't I. I'm doing it…"
Matyos drew a long breath.
Carefully, he knelt on one knee before her.
Right. Just do it.
Get it over with quickly.
He took hold of her slender Achilles tendon and gently pulled at the stocking.
As he slowly drew it down, white skin began to emerge like a dark shell peeling away.
The luxurious silk slid smoothly downward, then caught taut near the narrow curve of her hip. The black stockings were a single piece, like trousers.
"…They're not coming off."
"Wait a moment."
Ofilienne lifted her hips slightly.
A line drawn naturally by the motion — the soft curve from waist to hip appeared for just a moment, then settled again. She reached down and worked the stockings loose herself, as though untying a knot.
At last, bare skin.
Against the pitch-black darkness, her legs were white as winter snowflakes. In the wavering candlelight they gave off a faint ivory glow, and Matyos found his gaze stolen for a moment by the bewitching line of them.
The instant he took her bare leg in his hands, the warmth of her skin seemed to travel through his palms straight to his heart.
He forced himself to maintain composure and began pressing firmly into her small, delicate foot.
"Hmm… right there."
A short breath escaped her.
"There — keep going there…"
His hands moved from the hollow arch of her sole, up along the supple muscle of her calf. When his thumb pressed into the sensitive skin behind her knee, Ofilienne's upper body arched like a bow.
He worked the calf, moved just slightly above the knee.
He did not go to the thigh.
When his hands stopped near the thigh, a shadow of unmistakable longing passed through her eyes. But she opened her mouth as if to say something, then closed it again.
"Come up onto the bed now."
She was already lying face-down on the bed, her face buried in the pillow. Between the disheveled strands of ash-grey hair, the white nape of her neck and the sharp lines of her shoulder blades disrupted Matyos's vision. Stretched out full-length, her body seemed somehow longer than usual. Matyos climbed onto the bed beside her and settled himself, preparing to begin.
"Shoulders down to the legs."
Matyos nodded and got to work.
Kneading, pressing.
"Mmh… mhm…"
The longer he went, the stranger the sounds she made.
Matyos continued with an awkward expression.
His working hands swept past her shoulders, glided softly over her shoulder blades, then pressed firmly into the latissimus dorsi.
"Hah… hnn…"
As time passed, increasingly hazy and ambiguous sounds slipped from between Ofilienne's lips.
Matyos did his best to let them go in one ear and out the other, steering clear of her backside and continuing from the back of her thighs down to the soles of her feet — enduring it all like a man performing penance.
After thirty-odd minutes of that ordeal, when he finally lifted his hands, only the sound of ragged breathing filled the room.
"…Hah, hah. Good work."
It was Matyos who had given the massage, yet it was Ofilienne who lay there damp with perspiration, disheveled, breathing in short gasps.
The way she gazed up at him with wet, unfocused eyes looked somehow dangerous.
"…I'm done, so I'll be going?"
Without waiting for an answer, Matyos fled the room.
Ofilienne swept her damp fringe back from her forehead and flopped onto her back.
All that remained in the room was the faint sound of a candle flickering, and the shallow rhythm of her breath.
* * *
This incident brought the Holy See a torrent of condemnation.
The human experimentation conducted within its walls had been inhumane.
In recent centuries, slavery had been abolished and human experimentation had become taboo — and the institution that had led that charge most vocally was none other than the Holy See itself.
People were outraged by the hypocrisy.
Emperor Friedrich the Great, followed by the kings of Hispanya and Sharlan, publicly denounced the Holy See. They had been donating to the Church out of deference to the faithful within their own borders — and now they were making clear they intended to stop.
The Holy See moved quickly to produce a scapegoat.
They heaped every sin onto Cardinal Teo.
The human experiments had been conducted entirely on his own initiative, they declared; the Holy See bore no connection to any of it.
Even so, people seized on the fact that the Pope and Cardinal Teo were blood relations, and suspicion refused to die. In the end, they burned him at the stake.
"AAAAAAH!!!"
He was strung up in the public square, pelted with stones by a countless crowd, and burned to death.
To appease the furious populace, the Pope had him burned twice more, leaving not even a fragment of bone. Cardinal Teo was reduced entirely to ash and vanished.
After that, the Pope employed every scheme he could devise to get his hands on Tiana Pilrn. First, he declared her a 'Saint' and dispatched Holy Knights to Porca.
"Tiana Pilrn is a subject of the Empire. Protecting her is the duty of the Empire's soldiers."
But the Emperor moved faster.
He sent his own Imperial Guard to watch over her. When the Guard's commander — the Emperor's hound, Chiten — stepped forward, the Holy Knights ground their teeth and withdrew.
And then.
"Um… Professor."
Matyos went to find Professor Vilhelmine, camera in hand.
She had been jogging with a candy in her mouth and came to a stop.
"Matyos. I heard about what happened. Quite the feat you pulled off."
"You heard."
"Hard not to hear about something that large. So — what brings you here?"
"Would it be all right if I took one photo of you, Professor?"
"A photo of me?"
"Yes."
"No reason it shouldn't be. What do you need me to do?"
"Just jog like you normally would."
Click.
Through the lens, she was far more dynamic than he'd expected. Her hair streamed in the wind, and her eyes were alive.
Matyos gave the photo to Joi.
Joi took it and was silent for a long moment.
"Here. The photo of the Professor I promised."
"A photo of Vilhelmine…"
She held it carefully against her chest.
As though it were a shard of glass she was afraid to break.
He wondered if it was wrong to hand someone else's photo over so freely, but…
'…Still. She's family.'
Matyos turned to go.
"I'll be off."
"Thank you, Matyos. If you need me again sometime, call on me. Or — shall I teach you swordsmanship?"
Joi's — Henri's — swordsmanship.
Henri was one of the strongest individuals in this world. His martial ability rivaled that of the Sword Saint.
Even so.
"You're weaker than Senior Tiana. Who are you going to teach?"
"Ah. That's true."
Stay in character.
She's playing the role of Joi. Who's she going to teach?
"But, Maty."
"Yeah."
"Are you studying for your exams?"
"Oh."
Reality struck him from behind.
The midterm assessments were right around the corner.