Part 6
Even though Kyousuke had prepared himself for a high pressure environment, there was only so much he could do on the fly. However, he could not float while inside the protective circle. As soon as the battle ended, he discarded the Chain time, returning Librarian-chan to her human form and removing the circle that prevented him from swimming. His vision immediately shook.
He just barely remained conscious.
That was the most his safety measure had bought him.
"…"
He clenched his teeth and grabbed the arm of the assassin floating at the bottom of the ocean. The boy did not put up any kind of resistance. When a summoner or vessel lost, they entered a state of mental shock similar to seeing the god they worshipped slaughtered before their eyes and that state would continue for more than twenty-four hours. They became puppets that did anything they were told, but he would definitely drown if left like this.
Kyousuke swam toward the surface.
Librarian-chan was a slender girl again and she was already swimming up as well. He had instructed her to keep the fight on the upper edge of the Artificial Sacred Ground. More accurately, he had told her to keep the lower position so she could drive Student Council President Benikomichi Fuuki ever higher and keep her at the ceiling of the Artificial Sacred Ground.
Artificial Sacred Grounds were twenty meter cubes by default, so at a depth of thirty meters, the top would be about ten meters deep. That was shallow enough to keep the water pressure from crushing her.
Librarian-chan grabbed Benikomichi Fuuki's arm because the girl was still suffering from the water pressure (and had become a zombie in the original sense of the word after the shock of losing).
Kyousuke swam after them, but a dull pain ran through his head. He felt nauseous, like a magnified version of carsickness.
(Dammit… I have a light case of decompression sickness…)
A rapid change from low to high pressure was a problem, but the opposite was also a problem. The nitrogen in the blood would form bubbles that could cause headaches, nausea, internal bleeding, etc. The symptoms were known as decompression sickness or the bends.
However, he could not stay underwater forever.
He clenched his teeth and forced down the urge to vomit as he stuck his head out from the water.
If he had been about twenty meters deeper, the symptoms would have been more severe and may have killed him.
"Bwah!!"
"Wait, Shiroyama-kun, what is that!? Your eyes are all bloodshot and they're shedding bloody tears…"
"I'm lucky that's all it is. More importantly, let's find somewhere to get out of the water. We can't float forever with this baggage weighing us down. And it'll probably get more troublesome once they come to."
To make sure the dazed summoner and vessel did not drown, Kyousuke and Librarian-chan placed them on their backs and supported them from below as they swam. They felt like otters, but they finally arrived at one of the pillars holding up the high school's midair float and climbed up using the staircase wrapping around it like ivy.
Librarian-chan looked up while carrying the student council president on her back.
"W-we really messed up our school, didn't we?"
"Maybe we should be glad you've calmed down enough to be worried about that," spat out Kyousuke.
That summoner and vessel pair had their origins in the summoner known as Telomere's End.
They had planned to create a world without death.
That had all been stopped now that no one remained to complete the final ignition. The world built on the hatred and acceptance of human death would not be destroyed overnight.
It was all over.
For the time being, anyway.
Part 7
The school building's roof had collapsed, the gym had been smashed flat, and the midair float supporting them had broken apart and fallen into the sea. The collapse had reached the school building which was shaped like three sides of a square, so around half of the building had been lost.
Most of what remained was the empty schoolyard.
"Phew…"
When they arrived at the partially-collapsed schoolyard, Kyousuke and Librarian-chan set down the assassins who were now dazed dolls. Kyousuke confiscated their Blood-Sign and Incense Grenades before tying their hands behind their backs.
Once they were bound, he pulled out his smartphone.
"Aika, how is the weather map looking?"
"The unnatural currents that ignore the wind direction and pressure changes are beginning to fall apart. At this rate, their 'circle' will be gone in a half hour or so."
"Is there anything else we need to destroy?"
"Government personnel were sent to that factory in the name of an inspection. Based on the documents they found in the rubble, the special materials in the atmosphere will not last long-term without the ignition, so they will break apart on their own."
In that case, time would solve the rest.
Kyousuke said goodbye and hung up.
And then…
A harsh look came over his eyes when a girl's voice cut in.
He looked over and saw a new figure on the crumbling schoolyard. The Queen with silver twintails and a white dress seemed enveloped by pale glowing particles. That peak of the Unexplored-class was known as the strongest of the strong. She smiled as she used the Rainy Screen to appear in the extended rain and used directional speakers to speak.
"Why are you here?"
The White Queen pointed up toward the night sky from which the rain fell.
"Really?"
"That's really the only reason?"
The world without death had been stopped and the mysterious things caused by the masterminds would be gone by the following day.
But then someone else came to Librarian-chan's mind.
She could never remember what that person looked like no matter how hard she tried.
They should have been closer to her than anyone.
The rainy image of the Queen briefly blurred.
Rubber rain boots could be heard on the wet ground.
A small girl hid her face behind a broken umbrella and her raincoat was dyed red.
"Onee…-chan?"
The Rainy Girl did not reply to Librarian-chan's trembling voice.
No, it was just that she did not speak out loud. Her small lips may have been moving below the umbrella, but her posture kept the broken umbrella in the way and Librarian-chan could not follow those movements.
She too would disappear.
A paranormal system had twisted causality and allowed the impossible to appear, but that would collapse with time. Once that happened, the Rainy Girl could no longer appear. The same was true of the White Queen who was supported by the Rainy Screen. Once the rain let up, they would return to their proper places. No one could stop it. Even if they tried to stop it by force, it would create a great distortion just like Yasuzumi Hayato and Benikomichi Fuuki had.
"…"
For a while, Librarian-chan and the Rainy Girl faced each other.
Only Librarian-chan knew what thoughts filled her heart then.
No matter what anyone said, that was her sister. At the same time, no matter what explanation she was given, she could not rid herself of the deep-rooted fear she felt.
Even so, she finally spoke.
"This is…for the best."
She was not just talking about now. Her voice seemed to restart the time that had been stalled ever since a certain tragedy had thrown a certain family into despair.
"I mean, it would be wrong to leave you wandering in the rain forever. It isn't right for everyone to treat you like a strange monster. So we need to end this here. I don't know if there's an afterlife or if we're reborn, but there must be some place you're meant to go. So…"
The Alice (with) Rabbit boy briefly thought of a certain pair of twins.
But there were as many different endings as there were people. Without saying another word, Kyousuke handed Librarian-chan a single Incense Grenade. He then held her small hand in his own. He aimed it toward the target while it was in the vessel's hand.
This was not the kind of distortion that Hayato and Benikomichi Fuuki had created. This would create a true Artificial Sacred Ground. The clog would be removed and the ghost that was unnaturally caught here would be swept away to "somewhere else".
It was a tool to assist a wandering soul.
"…"
Librarian-chan had said this was for the best, but her face crumpled up and she fell silent when she felt the actual weight in her hand. But the summoner had concluded she would regret it later if she just let it happen and had Kyousuke do it for her.
The Rainy Girl said nothing.
The broken umbrella spun around with its bearer in the center. Unlike her thorough silence, the small movement seemed to reveal a slight will. And that will relaxed the tense atmosphere.
This would end it.
More accurately, it would accept that this life had already ended.
The rain let up just a little. A break might open in the clouds and the rain might stop entirely. If that happened, the Rainy Girl would disappear. She might never appear again.
So Librarian-chan decided to place her finger through the pin along with Kyousuke's finger, pull it out, and see it through to the end.
However, something interfered.
"Uuh…"
She heard an odd sound.
No, it may have been a voice.
"Uuh…ohhh…"
The terribly distorted voice seemed to be coming from a broken audio system, so she could not tell what it was saying.
But at the very least, it was not coming from the Rainy Girl. That ghost could not produce her own voice as a sound.
However, it was not Shiroyama Kyousuke, Librarian-chan, or the White Queen either.
Then who was it?
Something happened as soon as they all turned toward the sound.
"Ohhhhh, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!! Notice us alreadyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!"
There was an explosive sound much like bluish-white sparks scattering.
Static ran through the White Queen's image.
The raindrops that should have all fallen in the same direction had their paths bent in every direction by the noise.
And with that explosion, the producer of the voice appeared as if through a split in space itself.
It was a pair of twin shrine maidens with long blonde and black hair.
Kyousuke spoke in confusion.
"Meinokawa Renge and Higan?"
"Ohh… So we finally made it to this side. I don't know what layer we were on, but when our presence is observed strongly enough by the people of any of those worlds, we're pulled toward them. It's scary how those fields overlap."
"Eek!? W-wait a second. Is that the, um, White Queen smiling over there?"
Librarian-chan could not keep up and her mouth flapped open and closed.
"What are these layers you're talking about? A-and where did you come from?"
"Hm? Who are you? Well, that doesn't matter.
The black-haired shrine maiden, Renge, casually ignored Librarian-chan's questions.
"We were investigating some mysterious disappearances in Toy Dream 35 and – while I'm not sure this is the best way to put it – we fell victim to it ourselves. Well, it was something like that girl with the umbrella over there."
".......................................What?"
Layers.
Mysterious disappearances.
When their presence was observed strongly enough by the people of any of those worlds, they were pulled toward them.
Nothing Meinokawa Renge mentioned seemed to fit with the assumptions Kyousuke and Librarian-chan were working from. After all, the "girl with the umbrella" she had mentioned was Librarian-chan's ghost who had been killed years before.
But.
What if it was those assumptions that were wrong?
"W-wait! What do you mean mysterious disappearances? That isn't what happened to my sister. If she had just gone missing, there would have been some hope left!! She really was killed, there was no hope at all, and that's why she's appearing to me as a ghost now!!"
"Did she look like a ghost to you because she was suddenly appearing and disappearing? But that's just a normal girl. And she isn't causing this. We don't understand it all ourselves, but we do know something since we 'lost our way' too. …The issue is with the world, not the people. I thought Higan was a ghost at first too."
This was not over.
They did not understand it all.
If the Meinokawa Sisters had appeared out of thin air, there had to be a reason for it. Those living girls had mysteriously disappeared somewhere and had now returned. That much made sense, but the Rainy Girl was different. She had to be different. After all, she had already died several years before.
And yet.
And yet!
And yet!!!!!!
Only the White Queen was laughing.
And she had more to say.
Shiroyama Kyousuke felt like the blood was boiling in his head.
The current situation and the basic assumptions vanished from his mind and he tried to grab at the illusion in the rain.
"Queen!!!!!"
The Queen gave him the look of a playful kitten.
"Then what was this…? No, wait. Don't tell me…!!"
"So you knew from the beginning…?"
There was blatant enjoyment in the White Queen's voice.
Kyousuke knew he could not reach her, but he still yelled at her.
"You knew and you kept giving me unneeded hints to distract me!! You knew every moment I spent on stopping that world without death was wasting the time limit of another girl's life! What's going to happen to this girl who is unnaturally living here? What happens once time runs out!? Is what I'm thinking accurate!? If it is…!!"
The Queen placed a hand on her cheek with a smile reminiscent of thick gum syrup.
"What…are you…?" Librarian-chan spoke up as the rain hit her tearful face. Then her voice rose to a confused shout. "What are you talking about!? I mean, my sister was…I mean, she had to have been killed way back then!! Even now she's covered in blood! What could you call that if not a ghost!? How can all of you say she's alive…!?"
The White Queen giggled at her confusion.
She had maintained her lovely smile even when idolized by Guard of Honor and when used by the heirs of Telomere's End. Her boiling point lay elsewhere. She could accept any impoliteness as long as it did not involve Kyousuke.
All of a sudden, she held some ice cream.
"Eh? Eh?"
The core of her voice was powerful enough to shut down any resistance, but it also had the strength to invite dependence.
Librarian-chan gasped and forced out her voice.
"Where is it…? Aren't you holding-…?"
Before she could finish speaking, the White Queen took a step to the side.
The ice cream left her hand and floated in midair. Not only that, it was quite far away. The two images displayed in the rain had simply overlapped and the ice cream image had been displayed much larger in the distance.
"What…?"
Librarian-chan's mouth flapped wordlessly.
The Meinokawa Sisters did not interrupt either.
But not because they were flabbergasted by what the White Queen had said. They were overwhelmed on a more fundamental level. It was like coming across an alien that spoke Japanese.
"…"
Librarian-chan looked over to Kyosuuke as if asking for help.
She may have wanted him to say this was all the Queen's insanity.
But Kyousuke could not give her the "common sense" she wanted.
"As the heirs of Telomere's End spread their thin layer of incense across the globe, the laws of this world were gradually distorted. And probably without them even noticing. Can you picture that much?"
"Y-yes. But how does that mean my sister is alive?"
"I'm getting to that," spat out Kyousuke as he agonized over the situation himself. "Say you have a window in front of you. If you color the window red, you would see a red scene when you looked through it. …But just looking at the red window, you can't tell which side of the window was painted. In other words, the concept of 'sides' goes away."
"If Toy Dream 35 is the 'red window', then was the entire world being dragged into it?"
The White Queen's outline blurred.
Then gray static filled her Rainy Screen image. It looked like a swarm of small bugs was crawling across her. She remained a twintail girl, but one's impression of her could transform into anything like with a Rorschach test.
"If she exists, breaths, walks, and speaks like a person…and she has been defined as something other than a ghost, then the Rainy Girl here is alive. We have to view her as alive…"
Kyousuke tightly clenched his back teeth.
He was ashamed that his own miscalculation had brought him a step away from being won over by the White Queen.
"If we save her here, she will live. If we kill her here, she will die. The rules couldn't be simpler, right?"
"But why the Rainy Girl? If she was called back because she's missing and was lost, then shouldn't the age of the dinosaurs show up too?"
"I could calculate it out that far. But that isn't a reason."
The White Queen had become a mass of gray static that almost made Kyousuke feel like he was facing himself and she answered him as if rewarding him.
"…"
"A subconscious bias entered the fine-tuning of their ceremony?" blankly muttered Kyousuke. "And that twisted causality enough that it altered the murder that led to all of this?"
The world without death itself had been an ideology born of a desire to escape an unbearable reality. And what reality would have felt most unbearable to them…no, to the original Telomere's End? That line of thinking naturally led to the answer.
They had wished to reject a certain girl's death.
Even if it meant using a giant Artificial Sacred Ground to twist causality and vaguely erase the concept of "sides".
"And I was about to confirm that death… Ahh, ahh. The Rainy Girl was what Librarian-chan told me about in the very beginning! But I got distracted and rushed into the unrelated matters of Killer Intent Antenna, Telomere's End, and the world without death!! And all the while, the Rainy Girl's time was running out!!"
"W-wait."
Librarian-chan spoke up with a tremor in her voice.
She was trying to reject that the Rainy Girl, her sister, was alive, but not because she did not want to accept it.
She suspected that some great malice was hidden behind it all. She suspected that something would ruin it all.
"My sister is all bloody and broken! If she's still alive, she wouldn't look like that!"
The Queen gave a malicious smile as a bloody-smelling "illusion" oozed from the gray static.
The twin sisters were afraid of the sandstorm-like White Queen, but they also seemed confused by the topic at hand.
Yes, they had simply called the Rainy Girl a "girl". Whether she was a ghost or not, that was not how someone would describe a girl who had been stabbed in the head nineteen times by a grass sickle. She had to look different to the Meinokawa Sisters than she did to Kyousuke and Librarian-chan.
And if she looked different…
If she was really just a normal little girl…
"What's…going to happen…?"
Librarian-chan hesitantly spoke up.
She could tell from the ominous conversation that this would be more than just a reunion.
It would mean abandoning the Rainy Girl and throwing her back to the murderer. Those words stabbed into Librarian-chan's chest.
"What's going to happen to my sister!?"
"The Rainy Girl was a murder victim, but in this place where everything is mixed together, why would we 'only' meet the victim?"
"You…don't mean…"
The White Queen cheerfully answered.
"You're kidding, right? …Right!? My sister is still standing! She's here and she's alive in some form! We might be able to change something, but you're saying we can't do anything as she's killed again!? Th-that's…that's too much. No, wait. It'll be all right. We defeated a paranormal-controlling summoner and an assassin! A normal murderer doesn't stand a chance against us, right!? Tell me I'm right!!"
"…Queen."
The White Queen said "and" as she snapped her fingers in her rain-projected image.
The mass of static instantly vanished and only the beautiful Queen remained in perfect clarity.
"…"
In the image, the White Queen, raised her arms like a set of scales and turned her palms toward the rainy sky.
The monster among monsters giggled as she whispered to him.
He had the worst possible solution in his hands.
If the White Queen and the Meinokawa Sisters were telling the truth, then this was indeed a crossroads. When the Rainy Girl had been killed, her death had influenced the original world. In the same way, intercepting the murderer and preventing him from killing her might change something.
He was not just viewing a news story from the past.
Nothing was certain in this world and he stood here as an active participant.
But should he really change that?
But was it right to not change it?
"Help her."
Librarian-chan's voice shook.
She had been prepared to say goodbye, but that was only when there was no other option. Now that she knew her sister was about to be killed and would become a ghost again, could she really abandon her? Could she watch the tragic scene of the girl being stabbed nineteen times in the head?
The answer was obvious.
And so she raised her voice.
"If there's a way to save her and a way that she might not have to die, then I want to try it! Shiroyama-kun, tell me what to do!! Tell me how to save my sister!!"
But…
However…
The broken umbrella spun around.
The tattered edge of the fabric failed to cover the bottom of the girl's face, giving a view of the small lips.
No voice left them.
Even so, what they said was clear.
"I don't need help."
"…!? Why not!?"
Librarian-chan tearfully shouted back, but the Rainy Girl mouthed more words.
It was a definitive rejection.
"I don't want to destroy your world."
This was no longer a spooky ghost.
It was nothing more than a girl who had pursued this incident from beginning to end and seen her sister's part in it all.
The long rain looked like it would let up at any moment.
The Rainy Girl's body faded.
If she vanished now, they would lose their one and only opportunity.
Even if they grabbed her hand and tried to shelter her, she herself would vanish, so there was nothing they could do. And could Kyousuke, Librarian-chan, and the others really find her if they ran around the city? Wouldn't the murderer find her faster since he would appear for the sole purpose of killing her?
In other words, her fate was sealed.
Part 8
It felt like waking from a long, long dream.
When she came to, the girl was alone. Her little sister who had grown bigger than her was gone, the boy and the two girls were gone, and the very, very scary white girl was gone.
She was still in Toy Dream 35.
At first, she thought she had returned to the past…no, to her original world, but she soon realized that was not the case. The city around her looked a lot like it, but the paint and signs were completely different. And when the girl had been killed, the city's grand opening had been approaching and the power had been off. She had snuck in, thinking it was like a secret base, but then she had run into that monster. It was because the city had been like a brand-new model house that no one had come to save her no matter how much she screamed.
This was still the distorted world, her sister's world.
But the location itself was the scene of her murder. Because people around the world had taken a mild interest in the ghost known as the Rainy Girl…no, in the depressing crime from the past, the incident had been "searched for". And that had summoned her here. And the most appropriate place was the spot at which she had been killed.
Furthermore, if the people had subconsciously, involuntarily, and irresponsibly searched for and brought her back like restoring a deleted virus, what if that applied to the murderer as well as the victim?
Just as the Rainy Girl had been summoned here, that murderer would also arrive here.
"…"
The end was nigh. The deathless world at the foundation had crumbled away and this mysterious space was supported by the bugs and errors that world had created as side effects, so this too would be broken. Yet oddly enough, the girl's outline was clearer than ever before. It was like a cruel joke. It was like she was being displayed more fully now so she could experience the pain, fear, and destruction of her murder all the more vividly. The world returned her sense of pain so it could torture her and it returned her throat so it could hear her scream. That was the extent of the malice she felt here.
Still holding her umbrella and with raindrops still falling on her raincoat and rain boots, the girl simply looked up.
That strange person stood there without wearing any kind of rain gear. Even after taking into account her child's point of view, he was clearly abnormally huge. His muscles bulged out with complete disregard for his skeletal structure, so he had likely undergone the genetic tuning that had been all over the news for a while. Injecting banned drugs from outside the body was against the rules, but if they were produced inside the body, nothing could be done. At the very least, it was not banned under the existing rulebook. This was the result of undergoing the one-way ticket of organ surgery for that reason. In the end, that simple loophole had been filled by an updated rulebook and those people and their superhuman strength had been driven from the world of sports.
A grass sickle blade glistened wetly. The weapon looked out of place in his baseball glove-sized hand. He may have wanted to seem like a civilized human being by using a weapon. Or perhaps he had decided beating her to death with his fists would be like leaving behind a calling card.
The words he muttered below his breath did not reach the girl's ears. More than the quiet volume, the intonation was bizarre and made it sound like a strange incantation.
The girl more or less knew what would happen next.
She remembered how her grown little sister had seen her and described her in that "living dream".
I'm going to die here.
I'm going to die without returning to the world I came from.
Only the fact of her death would return to that world.
That could not be changed now. And that was not a bad thing. No matter how it happened, it would be odd for her to survive here. What was odd was wrong and what was wrong was bad. It was right for her to be murdered here. What was right was just and what was just came from a good heart.
Thus, goodness had abandoned the girl.
Thus, justice had left her to her death.
"Yes," she muttered.
The man shouted something and shoved the girl.
She collapsed backwards and he leaned over her while raising the grass sickle. She could tell from his eyes that he was taking aim at her face or head.
She would die here.
That weapon would be swung down nineteen times and she would be so thoroughly killed that she would no longer have a real face or head.
She knew that, but some words spilled from her mouth as a dark look filled her eyes.
"This was…for the best."
For a brief time, she had seen her sister all grown up in that intersecting world.
With a smile on her face, her sister had lived in a fairy tale of a place and had found people she could rely on.
The girl could not destroy that.
So she chose what was right and spoke those words to herself while staring up at the deadly weapon.
However…
A great noise interrupted.
It was a tightly clenched fist.
As the man leaned over her and prepared to swing down the grass sickle, the fist dug into his cheek with enough force to break the bone. The blow had someone's full body weight behind it and it knocked the man off of the girl. He then rolled along the wet ground.
The girl recognized the newcomer.
A boy had thrown the fist. He was the one who had stood beside her mature, grown little sister.
It was Shiroyama Kyousuke.
But he should not have been "here".
"…Why…?"
As the girl forced out a scratchy voice, Kyousuke crouched down and reached into her raincoat pocket.
He pulled out a smartphone.
"I'd appreciate it if you wait until later to bring up the privacy issues. As soon as I noticed the White Queen's malice, I switched the GPS on and snuck it into your pocket. After all, I had no way of knowing when or where you would disappear and reappear. I wanted to increase the odds of finding you as much as possible. I was worried the disappearance and reappearance would mess with the electronics, so I'm glad I could pick up its location."
"No, not that! I'm supposed to be-…I have to be killed here…!!"
At that point, Kyousuke ended their conversation and turned his back on the girl.
He used his body as a shield.
He of course did so because the man he had punched away was squirming. He would get up again at this rate. The entire world seemed to be saying it was right for the girl to die and no amount of opposition would change that.
That meant Kyousuke's actions here were wrong.
Or they should have been.
While keeping the girl protectively behind him, the boy spoke without looking back.
"Why do you think I'm doing this? The calculations to reach the relevant answer shouldn't be that complex."
"But!!" The girl shouted a rejection of what was happening to her. "But I can't survive here! Pulling away the foundation just for me is wrong! It's right to let me die here and we have to do what's right! There's no room for me in this world!! None at all!!"
"Everyone changes the world. It's just that most people don't realize they're doing it."
"But!! Not everyone can bring the dead back to life! Everyone calls that cheating!!"
"If so, have you ever thought about why people think it's wrong?" Kyousuke spoke with his back to her. "You're using an irregular method to save someone whose death has already been determined. That seems wrong because the effects of the change will spread throughout the world and change everything, which will reject everyone else's honest efforts. It would erase everyone else's bright happiness and smiles for your own convenience."
"Then…!!"
The girl shouted until her throat was dry.
She had seen her grown little sister in that world where everything intersected. Her sister had been smiling and a happy world had surrounded her. The girl had felt lonely when she found no place for her in that world and it had saddened her that everyone feared her when all she did was stand there, but even that small girl knew she must not destroy that.
"Then why are you destroying your own world!?"
"I'm not necessary destroying it," he immediately answered. "Just think about it like this: What if altering it won't take away anyone's happiness, won't rob anyone of their smile, and will actually benefit everyone? …What crime is there in that? And if it isn't a crime and it won't produce any evil, then there's no reason not to save the dying person. There's nothing wrong with saving you here."
"…"
"This is our last chance."
Alice (with) Rabbit seemed to thrust his words before the girl.
He faced the murderer who was trying to "reboot" his mind, but he was clearly speaking to the girl.
"In that distant world you saw, Librarian-chan was smiling, wasn't she? She was happy enough and satisfied enough with her life, wasn't she? But what if? Don't you think adding you into the mix would create an even more wonderful world that removed the 'enough'?"
"But…but…"
"Besides," spat out Kyousuke. "What even is the 'proper world'."
"That's the world where I'm killed!! All of it was built on top of that!!"
"Was it really?"
Kyousuke calmly replied to the girl's cries of true desperation.
"Does the White Queen's evil really stop there? She was intentionally lying. In order to break me."
"Eh…?"
"Before being pulled back to her world, the Rainy Girl will be killed by the murderer in this chaotic world. Thus, her death will remain unchanged and everything will revert to normal despite any irregularities. That's what she led me to believe, but it's completely wrong. The place and the murderer might be the same, but you weren't supposed to arrive in this chaotic city. If you're killed 'here', then that murder technically won't happen. That means whether I save you or abandon you, the world will still be changed."
"B-but…no, but…!"
In other words, her death would be meaningless.
Weighing her life against seven billion other lives was a complete falsehood and that one lie would take away an irreplaceable life. It was the ultimate evil.
"The White Queen knew that, but she still tried to have me choose it. She wanted to see me 'do the right thing' by abandoning a girl I could have saved only to discover the world changed regardless. She wanted to crush me with the fact that I had chosen to let you die when I could have saved you even if it was 'the wrong thing to do'! And by so thoroughly defiling the name of Alice (with) Rabbit, she would have broken me and obtained a convenient dress-up doll to play with!! Are you going to say doing what she says and dying would really protect the 'proper world'!?"
The girl was dumbfounded.
What did this mean? The girl herself had been prepared to offer up her life to protect her grown little sister, but had that resolve been trampled underfoot by that pure white smile?
The girl's small body trembled at that bottomless malice.
However, it was not over yet. This would not end in despair.
Not as along as that boy possessed the will to fight the Queen's evil.
"So let me say it again. It doesn't matter how trivial a difference it is. Now that the murderer and victim have met in a situation where they shouldn't have met, the world will change. It has to change…no, we have to change it. And if the risk is the same, it all comes down to our decision. If it can only change for the better or for the worse, we have to change it for the better. What do you want? Do you want a world with a few more smiles around a girl whose life was spared, or do you want a world where that girl's death was assumed and a family falls into darkness as planned. Which do you want to be 'the right thing to do'?"
She had thought the world's justice had rejected her.
She had given up, assuming the world's goodness had abandoned her.
But…
"Really?"
The girl hesitantly spoke up.
"I don't just have to wait for what's right? I can really stand on the side I've chosen?"
"How about I rephrase this to make it a little more unfair? If the circumstances of the murder are changed just a little, the investigation back in your world might change. And if he escapes, he might kill even more people after you. …So this isn't about doing something or doing nothing. Just letting this play out has its own risks."
"…"
"A time bomb is about to explode and we're the only ones nearby. The police and the military won't make it in time. In that case, I think we have the right to make the ultimate decision. Do we sit there and wait for it to explode, or do we try to disarm it despite the danger? I say we risk our lives, tremble in fear, and choose one of the colorful cables to cut. Choosing the best option available seems like 'the right thing to do' to me."
"..................................................."
" 'Save my sister's world.' …Who said that? If there's going to be risk either way, it can't be wrong to work toward reducing that risk as much as possible, toward reducing the tragedy as much as possible, and toward increasing the number of smiles as much as possible. Is what I'm saying really that strange?"
The girl looked back and forth between Shiroyama Kyousuke's back and the man squirming on the ground.
For a while, she was unable to speak.
She reflected on Kyousuke's words and faced what she had seen.
There had been no place for her in that scene.
However, that did not mean she had not been needed.
Her little sister had pursued the secret of the Rainy Girl and had grown angry when someone was trying to toy with that existence. When she had learned that the Rainy Girl would be killed by the murderer whether she remained here or returned to her original world, she had clung to the summoner boy and tearfully begged him to save her.
Having no place there after so much time had passed was not the same as being rejected from the very beginning.
They had wanted to accept her if it had been possible.
But that gruesome murder had torn it all apart.
If that was all…
If it was just some gear out of place…
If she could have been there too…
(I want to…stand.)
Something changed in the girl's chest.
The gears that had been jammed for so very long were slowly beginning to turn once more.
(I want to stand there…and smile with my sister again…)
So she looked up.
She faced that utterly depressing "reality".
There was no such thing as a "proper" world. The weight bearing down on her had been a false illusion. The only thing standing in her way was the creepy murderer. Not even offering up her life would fix this and it would only fulfill a few people's dark desires.
The invisible path forward was not something someone else prepared for you.
It was something you made and walked down yourself.
In that case…
If Shiroyama Kyousuke's answer was correct…
If she could choose that…
"Then no. I don't want to die."
She finally said it, as if peeling the pure feelings from her stubborn soul.
"I want to go to festivals, I want to get first place at the athletic festival, I want to have fun at an amusement park, and I want to go around Toy Dream 35 with my sister once it's finished! I want to go to middle school, I want to go to high school, and I want to grow up! I want to fall in love, I want to learn all sorts of things at school, and I want to show my sister how amazing her big sister is!! I want to be proud of myself! I want to face forward!! I want to see the future!! I want to walk my own path and become something someone can look up to!!"
What the girl really thought was released into the world.
She gathered all her strength and shouted to the summoner who could overturn it all.
"So…hic, so please! H-help…help meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!"
That voice should never have reached anyone.
That hope had been snuffed out. That scream had been sealed away.
But that boy heard it.
And to prove that simple fact, Shiroyama Kyousuke looked back to the girl just once.
The summoner known as Alice (with) Rabbit pulled his Blood-Sign from the back of his hoodie and accepted her request with a fierce smile.
"As you wish."
At the same time, a roar finally reached them.
Their opponent had finished "rebooting".
Instead of just squirming on the wet road, he rose up with the grass sickle in hand.
Kyousuke's Blood-Sign produced a whistling sound as it spun around.
The girl's little sister was not here.
The boy could not use his mysterious power.
If by some coincidence or in some kind of bad joke that blade stabbed deep into his body, Kyousuke would die. That large man's muscles swelled out to an unnatural extent, so if he swung his powerful arms with no concern for the damage to his own body, he could probably break through a car door. But as the boy stood protectively in front of the girl, he spoke to his opponent.
"You're a lucky man."
He aimed the tip of the Blood-Sign toward him.
"After all, you won't become a murderer today. Your arms and legs might get a little messed up, but you'll be able to rethink your entire life. A pretty good deal, don't you think?"
He received a yell in response.
The man ran forward with the deadly blade at the ready, so Shiroyama Kyousuke also stepped forward.
It would end here.
The very, very end was truly beginning.
Part 9
In that instant, Shiroyama Kyousuke determined the location of his opponent's center of gravity from his build, determined the range of motion of the man's arms and legs, and accurately calculated out where he could strike to knock him out in a single blow. At the same time, he was thinking about something entirely unrelated to his victory.
(I need to at least take out his knee so the girl can definitely escape. I need to make sure he can never get back up. I can only interfere while they're in this place that was summoned based on people's "searches". Once it's all over, she has to step back into the world where she belongs. If she can't reach safety on her own, this will all be meaningless.)
He coolly analyzed the situation and stood up while just barely remaining within the limitations of Alice (with) Rabbit.
(It's true some people might think this is wrong. They might laugh and call it a farce soaked in opportunism. Even if I cheat like this, it might not be enough to shake all of mankind and it might only slightly expand the circle of smiles surrounding a single family.)
The grass sickle approached from overhead.
(But.)
Kyousuke swung his body to the side to dodge the deadly blade and stared calmly at the man who tried to tackle him.
(Some might say this is absolutely wrong and some might say it's a grand farce.)
He gathered strength in all his body's muscles as if drawing a bowstring and he took aim with the tip of his Blood-Sign.
He targeted the man's right leg. His kneecap. He stared at it with almost ruthless accuracy so he could smash it with a single strike.
Time seemed to stop.
And in that moment, Shiroyama Kyousuke shouted from the bottom of his gut, as if releasing all his pent up anger.
"But!! This has to be what everyone really wanted to do!!"
He released the Blood-Sign like a bullet.
A tremendous roar burst out.
The knee shattered. This time, the man collapsed with a scream and writhed in pain. He was now no longer a monster or a murderer and the tip of the Blood-Sign jabbed into his gut. It was like the final sword strike to finish off the writhing dragon after a fatal blow from a spear. The man was truly knocked out.
The world would now change.
Kyousuke could never accept the idea that the girl's gruesome murder was "right".
Not as long as he possessed these perfectly normal feelings.
Facts The Artificial Sacred Ground's reference surface cannot be the water's surface.When the reference surface is destroyed, the Spots will not reappear until the new Artificial Sacred Ground has been set up.The Material cannot interfere much with either summoner due to the protective circle. It differs from case to case, but if a giant hand tries grab them, they will usually automatically slip away as if grabbing an eel or a wet bar of soap.The Rainy Girl was not a ghost. She was a girl with the possibility to survive.As a side effect of the world without death, the global Artificial Sacred Ground twisted even causality and created a world with no concept of "sides" because "you cannot tell which side of a red-painted window is painted just by looking through it and the observer cannot tell if they are on the inside or outside".The one and only target that the previous Telomere's End failed to kill was the Rainy Girl's murderer.Whether Yasuzumi Hayato and Benikomichi Fuuki were aware of it or not, they were influenced by Telomere's End and fine-tuned their plan in accordance with his wishes. That meant to reject the Rainy Girl's death.Shiroyama Kyousuke saved the Rainy Girl himself. No matter what he did or did not do, the world would have been distorted, so he prayed it would accept this as a new form of "right".