Chapter 85

PERIOD.32 Maria Kumokawa could clearly see the blast wind from her vantage point on the surface. The top layer of stacked-up vegetable plant containers had been severed, beaten, and crushed, and even as the destruction happened, the two monsters had fought, shaving away at each other’s flesh and blood. It was clearly different than a normal battle. There was no such thing as defense. They were quite literally killing each other—that was the only purpose this fight served. They crushed, they broke, they pierced, they sliced, they shaved, and they crunched. Their duel was an encapsulation of every method of destruction imaginable, driving both participants ever closer to death, like people tumbling down a hill. Kumokawa called out a name. But the man didn’t answer. A hopeless roar tore through the air as the battle between the two in the heavens changed form. One of them, a monster that looked almost like a woman swallowed by a dinosaur, had slipped on its foot. It collided several times with the piled-up containers due to the height gaps as it careened down toward the surface, where Kumokawa was. “Wha…?” A half word. The dinosaur, spread out on the snow as if crushed, said something. The voice was soft and belonged to a woman. “How could…this be…? I didn’t even need to kill him. I even found the perfect thing to make him give up. And yet…” The thing looked squarely at Kumokawa—it resembled a plesiosaur. Its giant mouth, lined with teeth in the same manner as a human’s, opened wide. In a blink, she remembered it. This terror. She’d experienced it once before. Right near the gates of that elementary school, when that person with a blade had set his sights on her. This time, though, that blade didn’t strike out at her. Or rather, not “though” but “again.” From straight above. The man fell from the stack of containers, his right arm plunging into the dinosaur’s head. He no longer had a left arm, his entire upper body was bloody, and he was covered in wounds from head to foot. And yet he’d still held fast to his way of doing things. Having used some technology or other, he thrust his remaining arm through the dinosaur’s head until it was buried up to the elbow. And that was the finishing blow. The plesiosaur screamed and writhed but soon seemed to exhaust itself. It fell to the side, sprawled out, and stopped moving. Its skin became a translucent white, and then it began to smoothly melt into the snow. The man, flung around by the dinosaur’s head, ended up careening into the snow as well. None of his individual wounds were fatal, but the sum total blood loss from them was definitely robbing him of his remaining life. Even the placement of his injuries seemed intentional. “Mr. Kihara!” Kumokawa ran to him, calling him by what she used to. He lay on the ground, eyes unfocused, trying to track where the sound was coming from. But it wasn’t certain if he even perceived her there. His recent memories were probably already gone. He wouldn’t even have the ability to register where he was at this point. As he looked up at her face, it was like he was looking at someone else entirely. His entire body exhausted, he moved his lips a little. And said this, in no uncertain terms: “I’m…sorry…” The man didn’t move again after that. He’d exchanged his entire life to say those two words. And if he’d said them aloud, then he must have just been released of the burden he had carried for such a long time. He’d cast off everything. He’d worn himself down past his limits. And after everything, his last words were an apology. Kumokawa didn’t move for a while. Eventually, seeing the man’s face begin to be covered in a dusting of negative-twenty-degree blizzard, Kumokawa finally spoke. “…I know.” She looked down slightly in this world that froze even tears. Then she raised her voice, expelling everything that had accumulated inside her for so long. “Don’t you think I’ve researched enough?! I know you did it to save us! I know you left in silence so we wouldn’t idolize a killer! I know someone set up that slasher, and I know the guilt has been eating away at you this whole time! I…I know who that apology was really for!” There was no voice to answer her. Not even a slight nod of acknowledgment. The only thing on the man’s face as the white snow buried it was the self-satisfied smile of a winner. “I know things you never knew, too! Everyone you saved is still striving to be the best they can be! They were all grateful. They were all worried about you. This wasn’t all for nothing. I don’t know how much you hated what you did, but it wasn’t a waste! It still meant something!” His features, his body, continued to disappear as the brutal blizzard kept covering him in sheer white. “Damn it! Don’t die with that smug look on your face! I’ll punch you! And if punching you would wake you up, I’d beat the hell out of you! You’ve always hated that, haven’t you?! That’s why you stuck to your guns this whole time, isn’t it?! So… So why are you so accepting of your own death?!” She yelled, she wailed, she cried. But it wouldn’t change anything. In a world like this—because it was like this—Kagun had settled his score, and Kumokawa would go on living in the world he left behind. She wouldn’t waste the life he’d chosen to save by abandoning his own. And so the Kiharas sweeping through Baggage City had gone completely silent. But one other group was still at large in the streets. Gremlin. One of their members. Dragging one leg behind her, one eye covered with a big piece of gauze, Marianne Sringeneier had witnessed everything that happened amid the piles of vegetable plant containers. She’d seen the certain death of Kagun Kihara—or, to use their name for him, Bersi. Reeling from the undeniable truth, she stumbled and leaned against a container wall. “This can’t…be happening…” Her murmur drew the attention of the people around Bersi. Marianne didn’t count how many. She didn’t care how many. She only saw the man being buried under the snow. “I never thought you’d bite the dust. I mean, that was why I taught you everything I knew. So you wouldn’t. But what the hell is this? This isn’t… How dare you just die as if you pieced together the whole puzzle or something!” She was acting even more disturbed than how one would normally imagine her being. She was, after all, a Gremlin sorcerer—one who altered living humans and made them into her weapons. But that wasn’t it. The only reason she could do such inhumane things to so many people was because had drawn a clear mental line between enemy and ally. Saving enemies and betraying allies blurred the line, and she harbored no such ambiguities. Once she acknowledged someone as a friend, she’d destroy the world for them. “Was it me? Did I bring all the pieces together…? No, that’s not it. You’re not like that. Even if I’d never given you anything, you would have found other pieces to finish your puzzle with. That’s how you always were. That’s why I wanted to avoid you! I should have avoided you!” And now Marianne was face-to-face with it—the death of a friend. “What…what is this…?” No. It was right in front of her, but she couldn’t accept it. “What the hell is this?! Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” Something changed. Marianne’s surroundings—supposedly empty space—began to produce odd creaking and cracking noises. Her smartphone beeped. She didn’t answer it, but then it cut to a magical transmission on its own. Othinus. Another name for the chief god in Norse mythology. The voice of one known in Gremlin as a “magic god” reached her mind. “Don’t do it, Marianne! You’re outputting too much power! If you keep going, the entire experiment will come crashing down!” “…Shut up.” Two words. That simple phrase, steeped in hatred, was all she needed to dismiss the words of a magic god. “If I hadn’t pulled my punches to start with, this never would have happened. If someone with your power had shown up, Bersi wouldn’t have died. And I’m…I’m just as much to blame.” “You… Don’t tell me! You can’t use that!” “Oh, I can. And I will. Even if it’s too late for everything else, I’m not about to back down. I won’t let it end like this! Who cares about the experiment? Who cares about Gremlin? Who cares about magic gods?! Huh?! If I don’t slaughter everyone in Baggage City who killed Bersi, I’ll never be satisfied!” Screaming, Marianne reached into her overalls. However, she did not pull out a golden tool. No, it was a sheathed sword. Dáinsleif. One of the signals of Ragnarok, the final war in Norse mythology. A legendary magic blade that could bring about untold catastrophe when used by a human. The war started by the king who wielded it was said to continue until Ragnarok itself. As the sword’s creator, as the one who had named it, Marianne knew more than anyone how dangerous it was, yet she grasped the sheath without hesitation. Gripping it, she shouted. “Vengeance! I will use your skulls and millions of others to build Bersi’s grave!”