“You’re scrapping Plan Homunculus?!” Maha exclaimed, surprisingly raising her voice. Several days had passed since we fought the demon Tao, and we were gathered in the meeting room.
“That’s right,” Diriyah said dryly. Ney watched the two without saying a word.
After the fight with Tao, the brains of Al-kimiya gathered to discuss their course of action moving forward. They finally reached a conclusion and were going to make an announcement today. As Maha was Ruri’s instructor, she was being told ahead of time, but the inhumanity of their decision infuriated her.
Metako, your memories are leaking out again.
“Oh? I apologize.”
It’s fine, but now really isn’t a good time. After communicating such to me, Maha returned to questioning Diriyah, her voice slightly emotional. “Why? I don’t understand.”
“You of all people should know why. You reported it yourself. The demons want Ruri as the key to the Song of the End.” Diriyah’s voice remained calm. She didn’t sound particularly apologetic, however. “Remind me, what was Metako’s analysis?”
“…The existence of a homunculus has opened something resembling a hole in the world, connecting Ruri to the Akashic Record. But Metako’s seal doesn’t cover her, meaning the demons have a high possibility of obtaining the Song of the End if they can get their hands on Ruri.”
This analysis came about after Ney and the others had Maha ask me to look into this issue. As I was an interface for the Akashic Record, I could access any and every piece of information there was to know in this world. But the scope of the Akashic Record was too great for my formerly human self to grasp at once, so I needed a specific query to look into anything. That was why I couldn’t tell anyone this information sooner.
“Right. Not realizing that was possibly a mistake on my part. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t too late to fix things by scrapping the plan,” Diriyah said.
“But you don’t have to go as far as disposing of Ruri! She’s alive, just like the rest of us.” That point alone was what Maha couldn’t accept. She could barely get behind just the plan being scrapped, but she drew the line at Ruri being scrapped with it.
“The matter is already decided,” Diriyah said with a tone of finality.
“Don’t give me that. Ruri has had a right to live from the moment she came into this world. It doesn’t matter if she's a homunculus. It’s not up to us to decide whether she should live or die.”
“Have you got any brighter ideas then? It’s not like we can leave a hole to the end of the world lying around.”
“Isn’t coming up with brighter ideas your job?”
Diriyah kept trying to bring the topic to a close, but Maha wouldn’t back down. The desperation in Maha’s expression made it seem like she was arguing for more than ethical reasons, so Diriyah changed her tone and asked, “What’re you so worked up about? I thought you would welcome this decision.”
“…What?”
“You were against Project Homunculus, weren’t you? You should be overjoyed that we’re terminating it.” Diriyah scoffed. Maha finally lost her patience at that.
“Those you bring into this world are not tools or toys you can do with as you please!” she shouted, dropping her mask of calm. Diriyah’s eyes shot wide. “It’d be one thing if it were a non-thinking, inorganic creature like a golem, but she’s not. She has a heart. You can’t just order something with a heart, something that feels pain and fears death, to die when it suits you!”
“…Are you talking about yourself here?” Diriyah thought she finally understood why Maha was kicking up such a fuss. But Maha shook her head.
“This isn’t about me. I’ve already accepted that I have no choice but to fight. But has Ruri been given a chance to accept her fate? Does she even know you all want to dispose of her?”
That question seemed to hit a nerve for Diriyah, causing her to grimace.
Maha continued. “Even if she’s not human, you have a responsibility as the one who brought her into this world. And while I might not know what that responsibility entails, I know it can’t possibly include ignoring her thoughts and feelings and deciding her future for her.”
“…You’ve certainly got a lot to say,” Diriyah said, perhaps as her final act of resistance.
Maha was unfazed. “Anyone would if you came to them with this nonsense.”
“All right. I understand what you mean to say,” Diriyah said. “But it’s not like I made this decision lightly. Preventing the Song of the End is humanity’s greatest priority. What are we supposed to do about that?”
“Can’t we just put another seal on it?”
“It’s not that easy. Your friend Metako had to offer up her entire existence just to create the one we have now.”
I was being treated like a bigger deal than I really was, but what Diriyah said was about correct. In the past, there was an urgent need to sever the connection between the demons and the Song of the End. I just so happened to be experienced in converting things, so I turned myself into raw energy, became an interface between the Akashic Record and the world, and successfully sealed away the spell.
“If we know how to do it, then I don’t mind being the one,” Maha offered.
“No.” Diriyah refused immediately as though she knew Maha would say just that.
“Why not?”
“Because I said so.”
“That’s not a reason.”
“Just forget it. That’s an order.”
“I refuse.”
This was probably the first time Maha had ever disobeyed an order. She has treated orders as absolute her whole life. She hadn’t refused once, not even when she was ordered by her own mother to go to war, to fight battles with no hope of return, to burn her comrades with her own hand—she obeyed it all. Now, for the first time in her life, she was acting out of her own will.
“That’s enough, you two. Goodness… How can you both be such poor communicators?” Ney finally stepped in between the two, looking exasperated by them both. “Maha, my dear. I understand how you feel. But do you really not understand why Diriyah made the decision to scrap Plan Homunculus?”
“I do not,” Maha answered.