Chapter 57

AFTERWORD I made an old man the main character again. And this time he’s the bad guy. Top billing. The book’s even subtitled “Bloody Battle with Lord Kelshinha,” so that probably tips you off that I have a bit of a soft spot for the guy. To trample all his blind followers into the dirt, absorb their power, and use it to ascend the staircase of his own ambition is very clearly an evil act, but it is a positive evil. Unlike Kurokawa in Volume 1, he has the power to believe in himself, just like Bisco. This makes him Bisco’s strongest foe yet. In the end, though, he lacked love and thus was defeated by Bisco’s and Milo’s bond. I liked the way he died, defiant to the last. What a him way to die. A proactive death, no regrets. And then we have the other person who liked that character almost as much as I did, the trickster of this volume, Raskeni. While all of Kelshinha’s other pupils abandoned him, she fell in love (perhaps he appealed to her maternal instincts) and strove to grant his every wish, enabling his every destructive act in the process. Perhaps if she had held him in check, his daughter, Amli, could have taught him how to love, and then, maybe… But then again, Kelshinha was a pretty hardheaded old man so perhaps it wouldn’t have made a difference. Meanwhile, the good guys. To begin with, I had intended to have only our three dramatis personae (or perhaps one of them is a dramatis cancer) and then round that out with Amli a little later. It was my manager who first suggested to me the idea of bringing back Tirol, and I found her so easy to work with that I ended up relying on her quite a lot. Then it was, like, “Well, at this point why don’t we bring back Pawoo, too?” “Sure,” and before I knew it, I was adding her and the Calvero fishermen as well. It was looking quite busy by the end of it all. And so, despite all of Kelshinha’s thousands of followers, all it took for Bisco to defeat him was two. Himself and, of course, Milo. Blind belief won by fear or charisma will never amount to even a single bond born of mutual understanding… The theme of this work was, “What does it mean to believe in something?” and this is my answer. It means that you really come to grips with what that something is and actively place your trust in it. (By the way, Sabikui Bisco was written for the purposes of entertainment, and I have no intention of infringing upon the reader’s personal philosophies. Just thought I’d make that clear!) There may always be more Kelshinhas out there in the world—people who seek to capitalize on the faith placed in them by others and trample all over their followers for their own benefit. You may even have to deal with them yourself, and when that time comes, I hope you will remember Bisco’s words. That a god lives inside each and every one of us. And as arrogant as it may be, I’d like to think that somebody out there will make use of that thought in their time of need. I leave you with all my best wishes and prayers for the future. Shinji Cobkubo