Why hadn’t I noticed sooner? This Fifth Spirit War had begun after Kiryuu, the winner of the Fourth Spirit War, had asked to fight another round. As his addition of the Final Eight rule made clear, he was, in a very real sense, the War’s true overlord. To put it in different terms, he had admin privileges over the whole War. If he’d had the ability to modify Kudou Mirei’s power and turn it into a game-breaking cheat, then it stood to reason he could freely meddle with other people’s powers as well, remaking them from the ground up if need be—and apparently, he could do so in real time.
Kiryuu Hajime had just rewritten all of our abilities. He’d gone out of his way to specifically purge the elements that were inconvenient to him and add ones that worked in his favor. He’d acted like the developers of an online game adjusting characters and abilities that were too strong in order to balance them, or like the makers of a card game writing errata to deal with overpowered cards or rules inconsistencies. He’d patched our powers.
“Are you serious...? You can’t do that...” I said with a pained chuckle. It was so absurd, I couldn’t even bring myself to despair over it. I couldn’t see how everyone else was reacting, of course, but I had a feeling that they were in much the same boat as I was. Kiryuu had demonstrated that he was operating on such a thoroughly different level than us that despairing over it would just feel stupid.
Reverse Crux Errata. He’d done his best to name it like one of our powers, but from what I could tell, it wasn’t precisely a power itself. Rather, it was his name for the authority that he held over the whole War—a power that existed in a completely separate dimension from the ones we held. That explained why Head Hunting had never even hinted that he had such an ability.
When the cards were all on the table, the situation was surprisingly simple: we’d never stood a chance from the start. Kiryuu Hajime could easily defeat any foe he went up against, and he could win the whole War just as effortlessly. He could also put on a convincing act that any battle he engaged in was hard-fought with no trouble whatsoever. He’d been going easy on all of us, enjoying a self-imposed challenge run. From the very start to the very end, from top to bottom, the whole Fifth Spirit War had been nothing more than a chance for Kiryuu to indulge in an over-the-top power fantasy. He had never been playing the same game that we were. He’d never lived in the same world—never saw things the way we did. Even calling him the War’s overlord felt like an understatement. He wasn’t the overlord of the War—he was, in a very real sense, the author of our story.
To Kiryuu, our powers were nothing more than elements of a plotline that he was still in the process of working out. He could revise them whenever and however he pleased. If a power was so strong it was getting in the way of the story, he could just hit the backspace key and act like it had never been there at all.
A story can have all sorts of its aspects get altered solely according to its author’s whims—and, as a result, can all too easily collapse in upon itself. The Spirit War had already collapsed in just that manner. As things stood, no one had the slightest chance of standing up to Kiryuu. He was unbeatable. His power was so absolute that complaining about how cheap it was didn’t feel worth the effort. No matter how the characters in a story struggled, they could never defeat their own author.
Our tale of supernatural battles had broken down in the most bullshit way possible: with the introduction of its own author into the story itself.
Silence fell. Nobody was saying so much as a word anymore. The fact that we felt tens of times heavier than usual thanks to the gravitational field was part of the problem, but more than that, our spirits had been shattered.
To pull out another card game analogy, it was even worse than playing a one-of-a-kind card and informing your opponent that all of your cards are toons now, so nothing affects them anymore. It was more like the sheer unfairness of playing against the game’s creator and having them decide to change the rules on the spot after declaring that one of your cards was too powerful. It was stupid, and once that line had been crossed, there was nothing left to do but flip the table and call it a day. Shifting back to story terms, if I encountered a twist like that in a book, I’d throw it straight at the nearest wall. You just didn’t do that.
What are you thinking, Kiryuu? You have to know that this is the one line you should never, ever cross, right?
“...Ugh. Hmnh... Ahhh!”
While most of us suffered in silence under the crushing force of Hajime’s gravity...a single individual was still trying to resist. Even after being hit in the face with the most awful, plot-decimating twist in history, just one of us was still willing to play along.
“Agh... Argh... Haaah... Ha ha... Ha ha ha ha! Yeah... I guess this isn’t happening,” said Saitou Hitomi. Her moan-like grunts of exertion had finally given way to resigned laughter. “I’d really thought I had you for a minute...but I guess this is as far as a foil like me can ever go. Damn it all... Who knew you’d be saving a trump card like that all the way to the very end? For god’s sake, couldn’t you be just a little predictable at least once in your life?”
Saitou sounded frustrated—as frustrated as she’d ever been. Her chagrin was clear in every word she spat out.
“Hey, Hajime,” she continued. “If you kill me here, I’ll come back to life without any memories of any of this, right? In that case...why the hell not? Might as well take this one last chance to just put it all out there.”
Saitou took a quick breath and hesitated for just a moment.
“Love ya, Hajime.”
She came out and said it—and in a weirdly showy tone, to boot. She put all her stubbornness—her inner self—her everything—on display. She’d put everything she had into betraying Kiryuu Hajime, scheming with all her might to bring about his downfall, but at the end of the day, who she was at her core hadn’t changed at all. On the one hand, she’d fought him with all her might, but on the other hand, she’d faced him with more sincerity and devotion than anyone else ever could have.
Kiryuu offered no response to Saitou’s out-of-the-blue, eleventh-hour confession of love. In my blinded state, I had no way of telling how he reacted to her all-too-intense feelings.
“...Later, Fallen Black.”
As he spoke those words—the last he cared to offer to us—the air around me seemed to shift. I could feel something so terrible looming over me, it made my whole body break out in goose bumps. Screams of shock and despair rang out around me. Kiryuu had clearly used some sort of absurd special ability, but I had absolutely no clue what specifically it was.
What I did know, though...was that our time in the spotlight had come to a close. Our hopes and dreams would have to be carried on by those who’d spent the whole story so far indulging in the little pleasures of their commonplace adventures.
Welp. I guess this is it for me. Take care of the rest, Jurai—nay, Guiltia Sin Jurai.
As I said that final, internal prayer, an incomprehensible and illogical power assailed me with irrational force. Before I’d even had time to feel pain, I was gone.
Bye-bye.