Everyone froze when they heard those words.
The man before them, covered in bandages and missing his left hand...
While the entire nation had been preparing to celebrate, while everyone had been brimming with joy...
He alone had silently safeguarded this nation's peace.
He had watered the earth with his blood and shielded its people with his body.
Even now, grievously wounded and having lost an arm for it, there was not the slightest trace of regret in his eyes.
"That friend you mentioned before was the Great Serpent, wasn't it?"
"Yes," Xiu Yuan readily admitted.
"Then did you..."
"Did you know the Great Serpent would invade Yashiori Island...?"
Kitsune Saiguu looked at Xiu Yuan's battered body and asked, her heart aching.
"More or less," Xiu Yuan answered evasively.
He certainly couldn't spell something like that out. Neither saying he had known nor saying he hadn't would make sense.
"Then why didn't you tell us at the time...?" Zebu asked, her face full of anguish.
"A 'feeling' isn't a certainty. If he hadn't come, I would have delayed the Founding Celebration for nothing, so..."
"So you waited there all by yourself...?" Zebu interrupted him, demanding an answer.
Xiu Yuan merely nodded.
"Are you an idiot?! You're my general! You're our friend!"
"How could the Founding Celebration possibly matter more than you?!" Zebu shouted angrily.
Her eyes were filled with reproach, glistening tears shining in their reddened rims.
"Did you ever think..."
"If you..." Her voice caught with tears as they welled in her eyes.
"If you had died..."
"What would I have done...? What would we have done...?"
"We would have spent the rest of our lives feeling guilty over you..."
Zebu, who had always been so strong-willed, revealed a woman's vulnerability.
She slumped beside Xiu Yuan's bed, tears streaming