最期に見るのがこの空か―――

流されて生きてきた。生まれに流され、掟に流され、そして見たこともない主君のさらに上とやらへの忠義とかいう得体のしれないものに。
そういったものに流され、だが、そういうものかと生きてきた。

そんな自分が江戸という町で出会った男たち。いや、女もいたんすけど。そいつらは剣で国を救うとか、大名になるだとか、途方もない夢物語を本気で語り合い、そして馬鹿みたいに笑いあっていた。

そんな馬鹿みたいな奴らを監視するのが仕事だったはずなのに、いつの間にか一緒になって馬鹿をするのが楽しくなってしまっていたのだ。楽しみなんて、自分の人生にはなくて良かったものなのに。

とにかく自分はそいつらが気に入ってしまったのだった。

だから、そいつらがずっと馬鹿みたいに笑えるようにと時代の流れに逆らって、槍を振るい続けた。

だが、そんな気のいい奴らを騙し続けたのは事実なわけで、いずれは報いが……、

―――来なかった。

そうして壬生の赤狼は誰に責められることもなく、一人遠い大陸の原で空を見上げて目を閉じた。

……なあ、おまえら、俺を笑ってくれよ。

<i>"So that's gonna be my last view, huh?"</i>

I'd lived my life just going through the motions. Shoved along by the circumstances of my birth, dragged by the yoke of law, and, in the end, by that ghost people dress up as "loyalty" to some lord-of-a-lord I'd never once laid eyes on.

I let myself get swept along by such things, thinking, well, maybe that's just how the dice fall.

But then, in the streets of Edo, I crossed paths with those fellas. Well, there was a chick in there too. So, <i>folks</i> who could, with a straight face, talk about saving the whole damn country on the strength of their swords alone or about rising to be lords in their own right. They spun some crackpot ideas and laughed together like a pack of clowns.

I was supposed to be keeping tabs on them, y'know. But before I knew it I was laughing right there with 'em, and finding that their brand of idiocy was… actually fun. Joy was never something I thought my life had room for.

And yet I took a shine to them.

That's why, so we could keep on laughing like the bunch of idiots we were, I picked up my spear and struck back against the very current that'd carried me all this time.

But the truth is, I'd been deceiving those good-hearted people from the start, and I knew the bill for that would come due someday…

…Only that day never came.

And so the Red Wolf of Mibu, never once reproached by anyone, lay back alone on some faraway steppe, stared up at the sky, and finally let his eyes fall shut.

"Hey, you dimwits. Laugh this one off with me, willya?"