*
Dante side
Sinclair had been momentarily stopped by Saramago's sudden intervention.
If he had remained in that state, Sinclair would surely have been able to do something to Kromer.
...If he had remained in that state.
-Splat.
With the sound of flesh being crushed, Saramago's body collapsed.
That was the price of the miracle he had performed, holding the transformed Kromer in place by himself.
Kromer, seeing that, mocked him for a moment before resuming her devil's whisper toward Sinclair.
"Sinclair! You have to accept pain! Only when we transcend even suffering can we be reborn!"
With every word Kromer spoke, I could feel the strength draining from Sinclair's body.
"Fill yourself with flesh, spill your blood! Keep amplifying what is most human in every moment!"
And yet he did not stop crawling toward Kromer.
It was as though his will were made of steel.
"Toward the purest world, where the impurities of the City of all people are filtered away!"
But even steel has its limits, perhaps, because I could see the killing intent in Sinclair's eyes growing weaker and weaker.
"Mom... Dad... Sis..."
...Sinclair muttered like a man out of his mind, staring at the faces of the dead prisoners.
At this rate, he would surely break.
I couldn't let that happen. I, I couldn't leave it like that.
It was shameful to say it now, after twelve prisoners had already lost their lives, but I still wanted to act, even if only now.
As the Manager.
Because I was his Manager.
That was Sinclair.
He thought more than he spoke, afraid of becoming a burden, and swallowed most of it down inside.
He chewed his thoughts and swallowed them in the form of guilt.
"My family died because of me... I said what should never have been said..."
"Yes! It's all your fault. So accept it! Only then can you be reborn completely! Come with me... into my hands!"
I shouted with all my strength.
Because if I didn't, no one would.
Because it was my duty as their Manager.
And yet Sinclair seemed not to hear me.
"Ah..."
-Splat.
The weapon in Sinclair's hand finally rolled across the ground.
He no longer moved toward Kromer.
...Yes, it was all over now.
-Ssshhh...
I could feel my own body melting into the hill as well.
Hah... So I really was going to die while playing this half-baked, ridiculous little Manager role.
...But.
There was more I had to say.
I had to tell him that Kromer's words were lies, intimidation, hypocrisy, nothing but a pile of exaggerations.
Every nerve in my body screamed that I must not give up on Sinclair like this.
Feeling the shape of my dissolving body in full, I...
I squeezed out a voice and sent it to Sinclair.
Then I heard an unfamiliar voice.
"Only then... will you be able to see what matters most."
Someone approached quietly.
"If you can see what matters most..."
Pale skin, neatly parted hair.
"You won't need to kill yourself with shallow threats or tricks."
A man with a long blue muffler.
The face I had seen a moment ago in Sinclair's memory.
"...Right, Sinclair?"
It was Damian.
He moved very lightly, as if floating through the sky.
As though nothing in the world could bind him, he looked lighter than anyone else.
He seemed like a man who had been relieved of everything, and yet the air he walked through felt as though it was dragging everyone down.
Then, as he casually blocked the space between Sinclair and Kromer and swung his right arm—
-Ping———
Kromer's upper body vanished completely.
What was that miracle just now...?
At that absurd phenomenon, everyone present fell silent.
How long did that silence last? Before long, Sinclair, who had regained his senses, was the first to speak.
"Da... Damian..."
"You changed your own fate, Sinclair. You're still neither a coward nor a hero. It seems you still haven't let go of fear completely. I said it before, didn't I? To fear someone is..."
"...to have given that someone the power to control you..."
"That's right. And I... don't like other people taming you. So I made Kromer disappear."
The one called Damian began walking forward at once, as though setting out on a light journey.
"The world will soon move toward a new birth. And only a very small number of people can go there."
He spoke so lightly that anyone listening might have dismissed it as a joke, then continued.
"Sinclair, you're one of them."
But Sinclair lost consciousness without being able to answer, and the one who called himself Damian slowly approached me.
"Kromer was trying to become the god people once believed in long ago. Sinclair was almost made into the fertilizer for that."
God...?
"But an egg has to be broken by itself."
Egg... what was that supposed to mean?
A painful feeling, half-remembered and half-forgotten, tormented me.
"Kromer put in quite a lot of effort. She used all kinds of methods to create the same situation as when Sinclair lost his first coin. There's still a long way to Christmas, but... in the end, they were fabricating the very thing they hated so much. Irony, isn't it?"
Even though he should not have been able to hear me, he spoke as if he had.
"Nice to meet you, Dante."
He said my name as if it were only natural, though I was certain I had never told him.
"You're the adult who'll be taming Sinclair for a little while."
As always, he rambled on with words I couldn't make sense of, then paused slightly before saying,
"Who I am... and what I was talking about, you'll know when the time comes."
<...?!>
I heard it.
Not as a feeling that I had heard it, but as a certainty—I had heard that.
"When Sinclair firmly believes in the power of the heart and flies upward... yes, when the day comes that he becomes one with the star of beauty."
Then he left a small pause.
"...I'll come back then."
When he finished speaking, he looked straight at me and said,
"Until that day, please take good care of Sinclair. Dante."
He looked as though he might disappear at any moment.
Before that happened, I hurriedly asked to clear up my question.
"I can hear every chirp, Dante. Naturally, I can hear your voice too."
...What the hell was that supposed to mean?
"As always... the most important things can't be seen by the eyes, nor heard by the ears."
The boy with the blue muffler vanished right after saying that.
And then the hills melted away and slowly collapsed.
Mud and flesh mixed together and flowed down.
Before them, a single [Golden Bough] stood revealed, glowing warmly.
And Sinclair's world, too, slowly melted away.
With only my upper body left, I barely crawled forward toward Sinclair.
"....."
He was still breathing.
So was I. Thanks to that, I felt like I could turn the clock hand again.
Then I still had to play the part of Manager.
What I had realized while dying...
I had to keep trying to become a wise Manager.
So what I had to say was...
But.
With my right arm, half of which had already melted away, I patted his back.
Sinclair said nothing.
In truth, if you start tracing blame for everything, there is no end to it.
From the fact that each of us chose to board this bus while carrying our own sins.
To the fact that I, having lost my head and my memories, was made to take on the role of Manager.
...If you go back to the roots, the cause may lie in ourselves.
But if you sink into that fact alone, you can't take the next step.
My consciousness drifted farther and farther away.
The unmistakable sensation of death drawing near.
At the edge of that nauseating feeling, I heard someone's voice.
"...Found him!"
The sound of several pairs of shoes rang out here.
...Vergilius must have grasped the situation and called the after-team.
"It seems to be this one. Inject now?"
"If this one survives, the others can be brought back as well. Use everything to restore this one's body."
<...Ugh?!>
Something felt as though it had been driven into my shoulder blade, and a strange sensation began spreading through the melted parts of my body.
"The HP ampoules provided by that person are three. Inject them all?"
"Watch the progress of regeneration. Use them if you think they're necessary."
The one I assumed was a superior gave a short order to a subordinate and spoke in an irritated voice.
"Those bus freaks... always getting to live it up just because they happened to meet a good Color Fixer. They even have connections at K Corp..."
"...confirmed the ..."
The voices of those surrounding me grew farther and farther away.
Sinclair's cry, mixed with a sob, echoed low and quietly.
"And so, our third operation came to an end in a somber mood."
*
Saramago side
Well, yes. Should I start with the conclusion?
We lost. Badly.
If that familiar figure hadn't vaguely burst in at the end, we probably would have been wiped out.
Somehow, some way, the after-team arrived before Dante died and we were brought back in a dramatic reversal.
I couldn't see whether the bodies of Sword and Epi had been recovered by the after-team...
A crushing defeat, lost comrades.
By all appearances, the bus should have felt like a house of mourning, but instead we ended up with a livelier, more energetic atmosphere than usual.
...That was the defense mechanism the bus department had developed for forgetting bitter memories. At some point, it had just become that way.
"I bought exactly enough chicken skewers for everyone, so if you start whining that there aren't enough, figure out the culprit yourselves."
Vergilius had even gone out of his way to buy us chicken skewers!
...It's a secret that Charon wanted chicken skewers.
"Wow, they look weird. Why do you stick chicken on a skewer?"
As expected of a rich young master. Of course he wouldn't know street food.
Though I'd only had it once or twice myself, aside from my old world.
"In the place I lived too... I think I saw food like this."
Was chicken skewers... originally a uniquely Korean food?
"Sweet smell. A smell Mephistopheles likes."
Anyway, perhaps feeling cheerful, Charon picked up the pace.
She was humming again. This time it was a fairly familiar tune.
"Charon, Christmas is still a long way off, you know?"
"Don't ruin Charon's fun, bug man. If Charon feels like it's Christmas, then it is."
"Bug... no, I finally call you Charon and this is what I get!"
"Well then, Greg can call me knight man or something~ Why do you just take it?"
"Tch..."
"Ehehe, bug man lost an argument to Charon~"
"Hey, why are you doing this too, doctor man!"
Pfft. As expected, teasing Gregor got the best reaction.
I should keep messing with him often.
...By the way, what was this thin line I could see?
I vaguely guessed it was possibility, but I had no idea why it had suddenly started appearing in my vision.
Maybe something from those two missing years... I think.
Even now, whenever I tried to think about it, only a faint feeling would rise up.
"....."
My gaze drifted to Sinclair.
I quietly watched him, smiling blankly as if he had too much on his mind.
Hmm...
...What? Had I caught whatever that Damian kid had?
"....."
That bastard Vergilius was making a low sound for no reason when he couldn't even hear me.
"Ahahaha! What are you talking about, Dante? Saying weird things again. Here! Dante too, chicken skewer~ Ah~"
That's teasing me, right?
Trying to feed Dante, who can't even eat, how cruel can you get...
"The Manager does not have a mouth."
"The Manager is such an amazing talent that they can command us without saying a single word. Keep that in mind."
Wow... He's good with words.
He can dress it up like that?
"No... if you keep flattering them like that, won't you get tired of it, Otis?"
Did Ishmael speak casually to Otis? That's shocking.
"Hey! ...Got any more of this? It's good."
"Hey, bug. Man. Hand me a lighter."
"...You thought I wouldn't notice if you shortened it?"
I thought about bringing up my eyes, then stopped.
It was a good atmosphere; there was no need to suddenly bring up something out of nowhere.
I wondered if I should tell Vergilius in advance, but that man probably already knew.
More than anything, it would be a drag to suddenly bring up something serious and kill the mood, right?
"Um... Red, no. Mister Vergilius."
"What."
"I believe I acted as instructed... so... may I have one chicken skewer?"
"...Do as you please."
The noisy bus sped on even more energetically, with Don Quixote's cheers added to the mix.
About two weeks had passed after handling three missions.
It absolutely did not feel like two weeks... But aside from resting after the last mission, there probably had never been a time this lively, so having fun wasn't a bad thing.
I quietly bit into my first chicken skewer.
...It's good.
The first food I received as a gift from Vergilius after finishing three missions was, how should I put it...
As bitter as the last three missions had been, it was that much sweeter.