Present (Baaalisrbra)

  Piano Sonata Number 9.

  He was born to rule, but he was a low-born peasant.

  Baaalisrbra was born on a cold winter night. He was the only child of a soaper. His father was an ordinary man, so Baaalisrba was, in a way, content with his upbringing. He was content enough to become a soap maker. But then nomads attacked his clan, and his whole family was slaughtered—he became a prisoner.

  However, even back then, he was completely satisfied. He just did not have any desire left in him to live and fight.

  Baaalisrba served and obeyed.

  He served and obeyed.

  He served and obeyed.

  He became aware only when he experienced the life of luxury. He was very intelligent; therefore, all the ministers relied on his ability to deceive and gather intel from multiple people at once.

  He was a secret agent.

  Incidentally, he became cruel and deceitful, as he bit the sinful golden apple of insatiable desire.

  His desire has never been satisfied.

  He wanted to become a lawful ruler of the nomadic empire.

  In the end, however, he was an object, a slave.

  He did not have the noble blood of blue wolves.

  He did not have the noble blood of blue wolves.

  He did not have the noble blood of blue wolves.

  His disturbing thoughts were somehow interrupted by a knock at the door.

  “May I come in, my lord?” the eunuch asked sheepishly.

  “You may, my child,” replied he with a hidden smile that would make anyone shiver uncomfortably.

  “My lord,” began the eunuch abruptly, “first and foremost, I would like to apologise for my incompetence, as I have failed my mission.”

  “There is no need to apologise."

  “But I have failed you miserably, and the mere thought that I have failed you so miserably and that your prey is still alive and well is making me nauseous and insipid. For my only purpose is to serve you loyally and faithfully."

  “He is trying to flatter me. How sweet of him to flatter me just like that,” Baaalisrbra thought.

  “That is very sweet of you. But you should not blame yourself, child,” said he. “Because there is definitely some magic mixed in the whole ordeal of your unsuccessful assassination attempt. However, despite all of this, you must definitely complete your mission.”

  “Of course, my lord. It is a natural thing for an assassin to finish his mission.”

  "Aye, and I have very high expectations for you this time,” he said, and the eunuch kneeled before his lord.

  Baaalisrbra gave his order gracefully, in a vigorous manner.

  “My royal servant, this is an order that I am giving to you: take the royal consort named Peach Mitani into the woods so that our lady will not see her anymore. Stab her with this dagger,” he gave the eunuch a silver dagger. “Bring me her heart as evidence, and I will put it into the treasure box trench with the gold.”

  Past (The Testimony of a Magical Creature)

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  Piano Sonata Number 10.

  She stabbed her heart herself.

  She had cut the head off her mother. She even cut her mother’s legs.

  But that was not the problem. She clearly remembered how her mother always said that they were useless. So what was the harm? In a way, she was helping her out. She was helping her out, cutting and cutting.

  She looked then. She looked to stare at the scene. At the scene of what?

  Of murder?

  Oh, no, what had she done?

  What a jest, though! She knew exactly what she was doing. She was getting her revenge.

  She had gotten her revenge. She felt satisfied.

  “Hey, so you have finally done it,” I said to her.

  She stared at me, and abruptly, I saw in her eyes a whole galaxy of regret and deprivation. Did she regret her decision to murder her parents? Of course not; she had been planning this all along.

  “You don’t get it… Don’t you? It was not me who did the deed. They did it to themselves. In fact, I don’t even remember what had just happened.”

  “Denying the fact that you had cold-heartedly murdered your parents is not going to help you, you know,” replied I.

  “You are such a deprived creature… Earlier, I had heard your narration, and it seems like you are acting like I knew what I was doing. That I was getting my revenge. But you are clearly mistaken.”

  “Thou thinkest that I am mistaken?” I asked in an innocent voice. To be honest here, I was using the old language of Semitism. I used it to feel powerful and magnetic.

  The little girl got up and sat down on a flower. Immediately, she stood up. She weekly waved her hand.

  There was something in her.

  I am telling you, there was something in her.

  I stood there and saw something in her, and suddenly I remembered how I met her.

  I appeared before her like a shooting star.

  She was feeling down because today she could not eat her only meal, which was supposed to replenish her breakfast and other kinds of food delights.

  I desperately wanted to make an impression on her, so I inquired, “Isn’t it too dull to lie down here?”

  “No, it is not, sir," was her answer.

  I felt the urge to inspect her, so I danced my way out of heaven's doom. In heavenly bliss, I touched her nails. “What are these on your nails?” he asked.

  She did not answer.

  “Do you desire something?” I asked again.

  There was no answer, as I had come close to her—she and I were now almost face-to-face.

  She suddenly realised that I was not inspecting her nails anymore.

  I was fidgeting like a madman, and I was flying.

  There was some magic before her—I was showing off.

  “How about I grant you any wish? Perhaps you want two unicorns mixed with the race of a dragon?”

  She did not really seem to want to own two unicorns or dragons at that point in her life.

  So instead of waiting for her answer, I answered my question myself: “That won’t do. Right, I think the golden apple of ethereal beauty will just do. Do you want an apple?”

  “No, thank you, sir.”

  “How about the golden phoenix? Do you want a golden phoenix?”

  “I don’t want the golden phoenix.”

  “Then, how about the pearl powder? Nice and crusty. Eight and nine pearls were crushed hard and entirely made of calcium carbonate layers. You can even feel the sea breeze and raindrops falling down. It’s like licking the peel of the glistening part when you're hungry.”

  “Sir, I don’t want the pearl powder.”

  “Hmm… How very fascinating. Playing hard to get, huh?”

  “No, sir… Listen, I think you and I are on a completely different page, and I think I owe you an apology, but, sir, can you leave me alone?”

  She wanted me to leave her alone, and that indeed was a curious thing to happen: any other mortal would have been interested to know me, and any other mortal would have been desperate for me to fulfil his wish.

  Human beings are greedy; their species is programmed to be the lowest of the low. In contrast, the little girl did not seem surprised or mortified.

  Her face had just one expression: indifference.

  She has lost a lot of blood in the present, though, and there was a high chance, of course, that she was going to die from a loss of blood. It would be far better to eat her soul right away before her death. The fresh soul always tastes better than the dead one.

  “Yes, you are mistaken. Because it was not a revenge. It was an act of selflessness.”

  “Whoosh, there; an act of selflessness?” Well, that was an interesting concept. In the sense that her words made an impression as if she were examining the tiny line between justice and the cosmic law.

  “Wola, wola, wo ka, wola!” She twitched and broke down before me on green grass. I immediately got the impression that she was making fun of me. She was such a child. “Fair is fair, as I had been saying earlier, my parents were not my parent anymore- they were consumed ere long by a dreadful venom called hatred. But do you know what?”

  Perhaps I can entertain her a little bit more.

  “Foolish girl, what is it? Elaborate!”

  “The thing is…. The thing is, my parents have not always been bad folk.”

  Present (Peach Mitani)

  Piano Sonata Number 11.

  She was going to escape.

  She searched for an excuse to leave the palace.

  The only problem was… The only problem was that she did not have any excuse to leave the palace.

  She was not of noble blood. She did not have noble-born parents waiting for her visit, and her master and the ruler had long been dead.

  Peach Mitani bit her nails on the bottom finger. It was painful, but it was the old habit of hers.

  She looked down at the carpet. It looked warm and fuzzy. It was red, and it was her comfort zone.

  She needed to get out of her comfort zone.

  ‘I can always lie, though,’ she thought in confusion. “I can lie that I desperately want to go to the enchanted forest to harvest the healing herbs for our dead emperor.’

  Harvesting the healing herbs was a sacred ritual for all royal consorts of a monarch who had died.

  The legend said that these healing herbs had the power to guide the soul of the departed out of the shadow realm—lost souls would find the door to heaven.

  She was certain that the head eunuch would give his permission.

  Peach Mitani let out a small yawn. She could not sleep, and her yawn led to another yawn. It was a never-ending spiral.

  Suddenly, her eyebrows twitched, and she was having a nervous breakdown—she broke down—she could not breathe, and she felt like her brain was going to explode.

  ‘I used to have one of those a lot, actually,’ she reminisced. "I literally broke down before the magical creature right after my parents had been killed. I was twitching. The loss of an immense amount of blood was making me dizzy. I was exasperated. I was short of breath, but the magical creature seemed to be so unfazed. He did not help me. I helped myself.’

  Peach Mitani absurdly held her breath and rose in the bitter cold…