In what way could ninety-nine deaths be considered a victory? It couldn’t. It was a pitiful defeat. Rat felt no victor’s elation after the Zodiac War. Everyone else had only died once, while he died ninety-nine times.
Can you even imagine what it’s like to live a life where you can’t make any excuses like, I should have done this or I should have done that? I can try anything I think of, only to learn I still fail. Ox said to do what I believe is right, but I don’t believe that anything is right. Look what happened this time …
Rat said, “I told her I wouldn’t do it. I learned how strong she was in the routes where I was unlucky enough to fight her. But then she told me that Sheep’s high explosives—the ones he mentioned when we were being told the rules—would work well against the undead. She said she could manage them alive, but not dead.”
And she had been right. Rat had told Ox that killing Rabbit was thanks to Tiger, but it was also thanks to Monkey. By that measure, Ox also played a role by keeping the former pacifist occupied—otherwise, she might have escaped the grenades.
Sharyū claimed she didn’t know who intended to attack the entire group at the beginning, but I bet she suspected Sheep—she just didn’t want to say it if she wasn’t absolutely sure.
Rat continued, “The point is, all the strategies I came up with on my own failed. Like I said, it was luck. This was the only path where the course of the contest happened to take shape in a way that benefited me.”
“You’re being too humble,” Duodecuple said. “You were able to respond admirably well to a battle that was in a state of constant and bewildering change. I imagine that experiencing one hundred branching paths at once helps you react so quickly, but it’s still impressive.”
“By the way,” Rat said, “Sharyū never told me her plan for a peaceful resolution in any of my paths.”
Had the pacifist only been bluffing, as Rat had speculated to Horse in the bank vault?
Duodecuple chuckled. “Even still, I wouldn’t be so sure she was making it up. For example, I can imagine a scenario in which she knew some of what goes on behind the Zodiac War.” The judge let this slip in only three of Rat’s hundred scenarios. “Rather than use her single wish directly, she might have intended on using it to negotiate with the organizers. That hero and savior of nations had deep connections with many states. Sitting at the big table with them, betting countries—I could see her dealing with them on equal terms.”
Betting countries? The big table? Them?
Rat didn’t know what the man was talking about. No matter how many paths he could follow, he was only one little rodent, and such secrets were not to be his—neither could he know the hero’s true intentions. He had no information-gathering ability like the Eye of the Cormorant, and his hundred-fold experience would never compare with that of a true veteran.
All I can do with my possibilities is scurry around, and if I can’t be perceptive enough to make good of it, then I’m nothing, Rat thought, though with not much sentimentality.
As for Rat’s scurrying, Horse had thought it incredible that the boy had managed to penetrate the barricaded bank vault, but there wasn’t anything incredible about it. Rat simply put his Hundred Paths ability to use.
As Horse himself had been aware, any barricade, no matter how sturdy, was still a product of haste—some gap would exist somewhere. Finding that gap, however, required time. Rat had searched the piled-up debris from one hundred different approaches and found an opening. To put it another way, Rat commanded one hundred searchers to find Horse’s mistake.
And finding the cracks is a rat’s specialty—of my hundred attempts, about ten found an entrance large enough for me to slip through.
This, too, was a stunt of little practical use, and one that counted on someone else making a mistake. In this instance, however, it had allowed him to escape Snake and Monkey’s pursuit.
Rat said, “If Sharyū wasn’t bluffing, then I can only take that to mean I didn’t have what it took to be a part of it. I hope that she would have pulled it off in one of the routes where I died. She said she had many different plans—I pray that each had a path to be successful.”
Prayer wouldn’t change the fact that he had erased all other possibilities. In that sense, just as Monkey had saved more people than any other fighter, then Rat killed more than any other fighter—or, he had killed entire worlds by wiping them from existence.
Duodecuple chuckled again. “Peaceful resolutions or not, I wonder who won in each of those other ninety-nine paths.”
Rat would have liked to know that himself, but each of those paths ended in his death and left him no knowledge of what happened after—though he seriously doubted any scenario ended with Monkey’s peace.
In any case, no route contained all twelve fighters, including myself, joining hands and finding another way—or at least, no route that led from my first choice.
Judging from everything he experienced up until his deaths, Rat guessed that Rabbit won the majority of the time, followed by Ox and Tiger. Dog’s and Sheep’s bending of the rules—or outright breaking of them—rarely paid off. Maybe that meant that a straightforward approach was the best policy—except Rat might have been the least straightforward of all.
“By the way,” Rat said, “among the hundred patterns, there was one where Rabbit and I came to a mutually beneficial arrangement. When I built up the courage to speak to him, we found more common ground than I’d have thought. Our partnership ended when I screwed up and got both of us killed by Horse.”
Working with Rabbit was an experience that was hard to come by. Rat didn’t retain a perfect recollection of all his experiences, but that one had left a vivid impression.
Rat said, “It wasn’t just him either. Aside from Sharyū, they were all scoundrels—but when I tried talking to the others, they were shockingly open with me. I didn’t know what to think of that. I scurried around asking everyone what they would wish for, and the ones who told me had wishes that were … I don’t know how to put it—normal, or common, maybe? I was surprised at how modest their wishes were.”
“I see,” Duodecuple said.
Rat was taken aback. He felt like the judge had gotten him to spill everything—even though the boy had long felt he should never speak of the alternate paths he’d erased. Rat felt like he had failed, and he supposed that meant Duodecuple had succeeded. The boy considered erasing this path, but in every other simultaneous conversation with the judge, Rat always ended up talking. His power was not unlimited.
Besides, I don’t think I can handle being any more exhausted than this.
As if reading the boy’s thoughts, Duodecuple said, “Thank you for your cooperation. I have no further questions. What you’ve told me today will inform the next Zodiac War twelve years from now. Now, go back home and have a good rest. Whenever you decide how you want to spend your single wish, please get in touch with me. I am at your disposal.”
Duodecuple bowed deeply. “You say the other fighters’ wishes were modest. I look forward to seeing how majestic yours will be.”
Rat said, “That’s a good point. As long as there’s no rush, I’ll take my time thinking it over.”
Rat made a show of standing up. He didn’t feel any tremendous pressure over choosing the right wish, but if he did it now, he might just wish to go to sleep. He had no intention of seeking any deep meaning from this battle, but that would have been too much of a waste.
“Anyway,” Rat said, “I’ll make my wish after I’ve thought of a hundred.”
The next day, the boy went to the school that was just another battlefield to him. There, as he lived one hundred lives, he thought of the one wish he really wanted to come true—and the ninety-nine others he didn’t so much.
End of the Zodiac War