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Less than an hour later...I had won. Decisively so—a crushing, overpowering victory. Our battle had unfolded hundreds of meters up in the sky, far past the range at which anyone could have witnessed us, and I’d had the upper hand from start to finish, ultimately driving Yusano Genre to retreat.
The outcome had felt inevitable, frankly. I had been given life to use System—or rather, White Rulebook—to eliminate each and every Player from the War. If I had so chosen, I could have prevailed against any Player, so even a Player in possession of nearly a hundred distinct powers was no exception. Genre had swapped from personality to personality at a breathtaking speed, assailing me with attacks of all shapes and sizes, but I had adapted to and dealt with each and every one of them, pulling awakening after awakening out of thin air. I truly was peerless in battle, with the one and only possible exception—my natural enemy, as it were—being Hinoemata Tamaki’s power. Short of her ability, no foe could stand against me.
Genre had soon determined that she stood no chance of defeating me, so she’d touched down somewhere out of sight and fled. Considering the wounds I’d left her with, I thought it likely that she would need quite some time to rest and heal. One of her personalities did have a healing power, but I had taken care to crush it especially thoroughly—I had awakened to a power that allowed me to target and attack specific personalities within an individual who possessed a multitude thereof, and I had made careful and efficient use of it. I felt confident in saying that neither Hitomi nor any of our other members would be caught in a surprise attack anytime soon.
Had I had my way, I would have finished Genre off for good, but regrettably, that had proven impossible. I would have chased her down if I’d had the time to do so...but time was the one thing I lacked.
“Hmph... So, this is my limit,” I muttered.
The moment I had alighted upon the ground, I had fallen prone on the pavement. My legs no longer had the strength to support me, and when I glanced downward, I found that the tips of my toes had already begun to turn transparent and fade into nothingness.
It seemed I had pushed myself past the brink. My power was a double-edged sword that ate away at my life with each use. Such was the price I paid for an ultimate power that brought certain victory—it was only by not using it at all that my life had lasted this long to begin with. In this battle, however, I had used all the life that had been left for me. I would have faded away by noon of the next day regardless of whether I’d fought Genre at all, so I’d had little life to spare in the first place, but with this, I’d undoubtedly expended what scant little I’d preserved.
In a sense, it felt like this was my natural lifespan coming to a close...but in another sense, it felt like my fate had been overturned. I had thought that I could only wait to die tomorrow, and yet here I was, dying today instead. By my own will—as a consequence of my own decision—I had defied the fate that had been written for me...though of course, I knew very well how hopelessly optimistic of an interpretation that was.
“Was there a purpose to this, I wonder?”
All I had done was very slightly extend the life of a woman I’d only spent the span of a few months with—a woman who would have come back to life regardless, per the Spirit War’s covenants. In a fundamental sense, the problems that had led to this situation had not been resolved at all. It was a stopgap measure, at best. What purpose could such an act have possibly served...?
Of course, it hardly mattered. I knew that no matter how much I pondered, no answer would be forthcoming. After all, I hadn’t acted with any clear sense of purpose. By the time I’d realized what I was doing, I had already sprung into action. My body—the body that had carried me through life up to this day, the physical form that had been granted the name Tanaka Umeko—had moved like it had possessed a will of its own.
“If only I could have eaten all that HI-CHEW,” I lamented with a sigh.
Partway through the battle, the last supper I’d prepared for myself had been caught in one of Genre’s attacks and incinerated, leaving not so much as a trace behind. What a waste it had been. Had I known it would end this way, I would have abandoned all thoughts of Jenga towers and sampled at least one of the flavors in advance.
Just then, I heard a voice. Someone was shouting, and when I strained to turn my head and look, I found Hitomi rushing toward me. She was on her way home after finishing her shopping, it seemed, and she had cast aside her reusable bag as she sprinted to my side. I tried to sit up, but that proved impossible—my arms and legs had already lost all feeling. I was well on my way to vanishing altogether.
Hitomi clutched my limp body in her arms. She was frantically screaming something at me, but my auditory sense seemed to have already deteriorated, and I could no longer hear anything at all. My sight, however, remained. I could still just barely make out her face as she looked down at me.
Oh, really, now. There’s no need for you to bawl so despondently, Hitomi. I’d planned to die quietly tomorrow precisely because I didn’t want to see that look on your face.
Eventually, my eyes ceased to function, and the world was blanketed in an all-consuming whiteness. I could no longer see Hitomi’s tearstained face...but I could still feel her warmth. I felt the warmth of her arms, the warmth of her tears as they fell upon my cheeks...and they told me that even after I was gone, my being would remain within her. I knew that very well, and that knowledge brought about a surge of emotion within me—a flood of sentiment powerful enough to fill my heart to its brim. This, I knew, was the attachment—the regret—that people so often spoke of.
I see now. So this is what it means to leave regrets behind. Honestly...
Oh, how I curse you, boy whose name I never learned. It is your fault that I learned to fear death. It is your fault that I have found the desire not to die. It is your fault that I have come to wish that I could live on.
At the same time...I thank you, nameless boy. It is thanks to you that I, an entity who was brought into this world with no sense of humanity, could leave this world in a manner befitting a human. I can pass on, praying all the while that my death could be delayed. I can die, wishing all the while that I could live on. I can leave behind regrets—leave behind a piece of myself—as I leave this world altogether.
I could no longer move my mouth, and I could not speak out loud...but with my inner voice, I spoke soundless words, straight from my heart, as loudly and clearly as I could manage.
My life had lasted for less than a hundred days, but now, in my final moments, I felt blessed beyond measure to be able to wish that I could have lived longer still.
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