“She just saved me, too.”
Charlie was looking at a second figure standing atop the rubble, near the flower. Due to her bloodline, that girl was probably the only one anywhere who could interfere with Yggdrasil.
“…No wonder you’re okay even after being taken hostage.”
The girl seemed to feel our eyes on her. We were quite a long distance away, but it looked like her red eyes turned to us, and she flashed a peace sign.
“Anyway, we’re fine now,” Charlie said. “You still have things to do, don’t you? Leave this to me.” We were back at the end of the bridge I’d crossed earlier.
“Convincing your dad is going to be tough.”
“Yes, it will. I’ll try talking to him again and give it everything I’ve got.”
Charlie’s blond hair streamed in the wind. She seemed prepared for this to turn into a real battle. She looked a little lonely, but there was solid determination there as well.
The agent smiled. “It’s okay. Worst-case scenario, I’ll give him a good whack and drag him back to Mom.”
My eyes widened, and then a wry smile settled across my face. “I never needed to be here at all, did I?”
I didn’t mind, though. It had worked out fine.
I turned around.
“Kimizuka!”
I had the feeling she’d called after me like that before.
“Thanks for coming to rescue me. It made me happy.”
Without turning around, I raised my hand in a wave, then headed to my next battlefield.
✦ ✦ ✦
“After all that, I guess I basically just did a U-turn.” I laughed to myself as I ran down the long stairway.
There hadn’t been anything I could do there. My attempt at persuading Lot hadn’t worked. Saying “I knew it wouldn’t all along” seemed like taking the easy way out, but in the end, I’d had no choice but to entrust the situation to Charlie’s will—and maybe her stubbornness.
However, if worse came to worst, Nagisa was there, too. The most important thing to do right now was tell Siesta and Ookami about this. They thought Nagisa was being held hostage, but she wasn’t, so Ookami didn’t need to listen to Ice Doll and fight anymore.
“Well, Ookami probably knew that all along.”
Under the watchful eyes of the dignitaries, he likely hadn’t had any other choice. In that case, he and Siesta likely weren’t genuinely trying to kill each other.
“We’ve bought enough time.”
All that was left was the government officials. If we couldn’t talk them around, we’d have to use force. No matter what their reasons were, we couldn’t just let them flee on the Ark by themselves. We couldn’t let them abandon the world.
And anyway, how were they planning to escape the Great Cataclysm on the Ark? Would this country really be safe when nowhere else was? We had to find out how that was supposed to work. With Ookami and Siesta’s powers, we should be able to make that happen.
Once I’d run to the end of the long corridor, I was finally back to where I’d started. I planted my hands on my knees for a few seconds, catching my breath, then pushed open the large, heavy door.
“__________________Ah!”
It couldn’t really be called a cry of surprise, just my voice catching in my throat.
Siesta was standing on the platform at the back sof the great hall with a sword thrust through her stomach. As I watched, the sword was pulled out, and she slowly toppled over backward.
“Siesta…!”
I hadn’t made it in time. Siesta’s limp body tumbled down the stairs, spattering blood as it went.
I desperately moved my feet, trying not to trip as I started to sprint toward her. But just then, a figure—the same person who’d run Siesta through—leaped lightly down from the platform and blocked my path.
“Did you really think that all I did was give orders from my throne, never standing on the front line?”
It was Ice Doll.
She planted her blue, icelike sword in the floor, wordlessly forbidding me from going any closer.
There were no other dignitaries there. It was just me, Ice Doll, and the fallen Siesta. When I strained my eyes, I saw one other figure: a man lying face down on the platform, covered in blood.
“Ookami, too…”
…Come to think of it, Noel had said something the other day. She’d mentioned a rumor that the Federation Government employed retired Tuners as guards. However, from the look of this situation, guards hadn’t had anything to do with this. It had been Ice Doll herself.
“I don’t intend to harm you.” I’d involuntarily braced myself for a fight, but the icy official spoke to me in the same tone she always used. “The System may not function as well as it used to, but the Singularity is still special. I can’t kill you.”
“…That’s rich. Another dignitary just tried to blow me up.”
“And yet you survived. In the end, that is the nature of the Singularity.”
“You’re saying you’re not going to kill me because you can’t anyway?”
“I told you so quite a long time ago: I am a moderate, and I have always been in favor of keeping you alive.”
The Singularity. Ice Doll was calling me by the name of my role.
“Board the Ark, please. That is my reason for keeping you alive.”
“I don’t get it. You can’t possibly need a potential threat like me around.”
That was what Lot had thought, at least. That was why he’d tried to kill me: to ensure the Ark was complete.
“Yes. Until the Ark is finished, that’s quite true. After that, however, the day will come when we need your strength. Let me begin by giving you a proper explanation.”
Then Ice Doll answered the question that had been nagging at me all this time.
“After boarding this ship, we will make for Another Eden.”
That was a name I hadn’t heard in a while. The first time had been from Bruno, right before the Ritual of Sacred Return. The “unexplored sanctuary.” People called it an undiscovered nation or continent, an unobserved satellite, and a sanctuary that even the Federation Government couldn’t touch.
“So where is this sanctuary of yours?”
Was it a place you couldn’t get to without using a cheat, like the control tower that housed the Akashic records?
“The System that would stop me no longer exists. I’ll tell you a secret.” And with that, Ice Doll revealed the final secret of the world.
“Another Eden is a second Earth, entirely separate from this one.”
I almost let out a laugh that was somewhere between surprise and exasperation. But there was no way Ice Doll would be spouting nonsense at a time like this.
“A ‘second Earth’ isn’t entirely accurate. Let us say it is one of countless parallel Earths.”
Ice Doll continued her explanation. She said that the world we lived in was only one Earth in a multiverse. Some of the other Earths had histories that were almost identical to ours, while others had developed entirely different civilizations.
However, the one thing all the worlds had in common was that Earth was managed by a “brain” in the form of the Akashic records. When the literal System of the world collapsed, that Earth came to an end. In that multitude of universes, this was the equivalent of losing the battle for survival. As a failed example, it fell victim to disasters and became cosmic dust.