Falling into eternal night
Two hours ago, at the heart of the manor.
After Rose stormed off, Anthea reported her whereabouts to Mycroft: "Sir, the young lady's carriage has left the manor, heading towards Baker Street. Should we continue to monitor her?"
“No need.” Mycroft rested his arm on the desk, looked down and rubbed his temples. “She went to say goodbye. It seems she’s determined to leave.”
The only sounds in the study were the crackling of the fireplace flames devouring the firewood, and a deeper, more profound sound of tearing apart his heart.
The sounds clashed fiercely within Mycroft's skull, almost overturning his proud temple of reason.
A voice, rational and composed, spoke: "Throughout your life, you have upheld justice, maintained order, and defended the law. You have abhorred evil, suppressed violence, and cleansed politics. Eaton Smith served twelve years in a foreign land without a single stain on his record. To purge such an innocent man on criminal charges would be the most utter betrayal of all your ideals. Once this is done, you will be no different from those corrupt officials who abused their power and trampled on justice. Crossing this line will lead to utter ruin."
A gentle, compassionate voice said: Let go. Let her go. You are his brother, she is your sister; your relationship is illicit. The fact that you argue every time you meet speaks volumes. True love is not about possession, but about letting go. Watch her be happy, even if that happiness has nothing to do with you, even if it's given to her by another man. Let her escape this grave, to see the sunrise over the Ganges, to feel the desert winds. Someone like her deserves to be free and happy in the wild, and that's the only thing you can't give her, and it's what she truly needs.
Another voice screamed shrilly: No! You can't lose her! She's yours! She's the only light in your bleak life, she's part of your mother's legacy, she belongs to you, rightfully and without question! And that smooth-talking soldier, what right does he have? What can he give her? He can only offer her a life of wandering and an uncertain future! Imagine life without her, it's not just days dragging on endlessly, it's years of monotonous repetition, day after day! She should be here, always here, in your palm, beside you, within your sight!
Power and duty, reason and personal desire, the happiness he should give as an older brother and the unbearable loss he suffers as a secret admirer... everything tore at him, entangled him, and made him wish he were dead.
He felt as if he were standing on the edge of a precipice, with a dark abyss of utter devastation and alienation beneath his feet, and behind him his well-ordered kingdom of reason, cultivated over many years. One step forward meant eternal darkness; one step back meant a lifetime of desolation.
Mycroft closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened his eyes again, all the struggle, pain, and hesitation in his gray eyes had vanished, leaving only a calm.
It was a kind of calm after making an irreversible decision, a kind of emptiness after completely banishing a part of the soul.
He walked to the desk, picked up the heavy fountain pen, his movements slow and precise, as if he were carrying out a death sentence on himself.
He pulled out a piece of paper made of a special material, printed with a five-level access control symbol.
Instead of signing a transfer order, he quickly wrote down a name and a number: that was his absolutely secretive contact channel within military intelligence, dedicated to handling "unspeakable" matters.
Then he wrote something and signed his name—the name that represented the order and reason of the British Empire. At this moment, that name became a warrant for the murder of an innocent man.
He finished writing, but lingered on the paper, the ink from the nib spreading in a circle. His other hand clenched tightly, then suddenly released. He tossed the pen onto the table with a sharp crack.
When Mycroft spoke again, his voice had lost its usual composure and indifference, but carried an undeniable, cold decisiveness:
“Anthea”.
"gentlemen."
“Contact ‘The Cleaners’ and give him this. Target: Eaton Smith. His crime is…” Mycroft’s gaze fell into the void, and he uttered two cold words: “Treason.”
“Sir…” She hesitated for a rare moment, trying to make a final confirmation, or rather, trying to stop him, “His file…”
“That’s exactly why,” Mycroft interrupted her.
That's why, precisely because he's a good person, precisely because he's blameless, he must disappear. A bad person, a person with ulterior motives, has a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand ways to make Rose see the truth.
But he just happened to be a good person, a thoroughly good person, a good person she fell in love with, an innocent and pure person.
Eaton is the sun, and the sun can penetrate into all the weak places.
But sunlight itself has no gaps; it has no openings and is indestructible.
No one can defeat the sun; the only way is to embrace the darkness and use the worst and most effective means to make the sun sink below the horizon forever.
The price was the life of an innocent person, and the last vestige of humanity in their soul. The tragedy lies not in death, but in knowingly committing a crime, yet still consciously and step by step crossing that line.
Anthea's pupils contracted almost imperceptibly, but she immediately lowered her eyes, concealing all emotion. "Understood, sir. In the name of the department?"
"No. In my personal capacity."
He murmured his name, as if confirming something, or as if saying goodbye to something.
“Mycroft,” he paused, “…Holmes.”
……Mother.
Did you see that? Are you satisfied now?
This is the final act you wanted, the one you meticulously planned, the one crowned with death.
You calculated everything perfectly. You calculated that I would struggle, that reason would be so vulnerable in the face of desire, and that my heart would embrace the deepest darkness in order to hold onto a glimmer of light.
You left me everything. The estate, the clan rights… and Rose. You said she was part of my inheritance, like this manor, these deeds, which I could dispose of as I pleased.
You are tempting me. You want to see if I will be corrupted, if I will live after you die as the kind of person you admire most, and the kind of person I despise most: a qualified Sherlock Holmes who will stop at nothing for the sake of love.
The only difference between us is that you love the reputation of nobility, while I love Rose.
I fought back, Mother, with what I thought was an unbreakable rationality. I told myself that I was her brother, the only remaining family member in the world who could protect her.
I pushed her away, with indifference, with harshness, with self-deceiving nonsense like "emotions are the appendix of personality".
I even considered giving up. When she told me she was leaving, at that moment, I almost, almost convinced myself to let go.
When I was young, I was arrogant and thought I was extremely smart, but as I grew up, I realized that even the smartest person cannot remain unaffected in love.
But when something you cherish is about to be lost forever, when you realize that all rational calculations point to the same unsolvable future—the future of losing her:
At this moment, power revealed its most primitive fangs.
It whispered in my ear: Keep her, keep her. If we cannot trust each other and be in love, then let us live together and die together.
So I did it.
How ironic that the order and law I dedicated my life to upholding ultimately became the tools I used to carry out vigilante justice.
You said you hated me, and you would take your revenge. You said you gave me both blessings and curses, and you said you would watch me go mad, fall, and become insane.
You won, Mother. You won completely.
I have spent my entire life trying to escape your shadow and the tragic cycle of this manor.
I escaped into the pure logic of mathematics, into the intricate chessboard of politics, thinking I had built an indestructible sanctuary that belonged to me.
But you destroyed it so easily with just one death, one will, and one Rose.
Now, I have personally sacrificed my eternal reason, my remaining humanity, and the life of that innocent person to this endless darkness.
I have finally become a monster.
A monster like you.
Look, Mother. Look closely.
Your son, Mycroft Holmes, has finally achieved your wish, finally...
He lowered his eyes:
"...fallen into eternal night."
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