She shouldn't have said it, she knew. Better to suffer an unintentional cruelty than inflict one yourself to relieve it. Why hadn't she seen that before she'd spoken? Change the name, change the self, but she was still far from Hayate's vision.

But she needed to bear witness, too. She, who understood best the kind of lives they'd lived, and could mourn knowing what she would have mourned, what they'd wished for from death as immortals and what they'd wished for from their lives newly-born.

"I see," she said, tears welling up in her eyes. Just as before, her body betrayed the emotions that ran under her orderly thoughts and speech. To think her champion had fallen in a place like this... it saddened her because it was far from the rightful place she'd earned at her master's side, but it was hard to accept for a different reason. She knew well the strength of the knights, who had been a part of her. Signum had been overeager to fight, perhaps, and proud, but she hadn't been a fool...

Still, this woman had survived. The knight had protected her... to her, that would have undoubtedly meant more than her own survival. It was something to take some joy in, in place of one who no longer could.

"Don't say that," Rein shook her head slowly. "Hers was a very long path. It wasn't you who guided her to this..."