by Kamiya Yuu
Naoto pricked his ears.
“Anyway, we got to get back to the surface.”
Since there was someone maintaining this place, there should be an exit, and an elevator to return to the surface.
Then, Naoto picked up the next destination he should head to through his hearing.
“Over there. Looks rather far.”
Naoto turned his head aside as he said this,
“There’s the sound of machines running…and it sounds like there’s someone there.”
RyuZU nodded.
“Then let us go forth. Please hold my hand, Master Naoto.”
Both of them held hands as they cautiously passed through the dilapidated, dim passageway.
They were not hampered in the pitch darkness at all thanks to Naoto’s super senses and RyuZu’s highly function sensors…but even so, if they were to miss their footing, they would really fall to the abyss.
Both of them walked on tentatively.
The path was winded and irregular, sometimes a steep slope down, followed by a gradual slope up.
But even so, they would not lose their way thanks to their sense of direction, and after proceeding forth for more than an hour, the path became wider like the twigs to the branches, and the state of repair was better than before.
Let’s have a rest. Just when Naoto was about to say this.
Light shone into Naoto’s surroundings, slightly off from where they were headed towards. Lots of light was shining from the ceiling, into the unfathomable depths.
“…What’s that?”
He tilted his head skeptically. Looking at it, it seemed to be some massive structure. It did not seem to be something that was built at first, but that the constructs that had fallen here just so happened to land on the web-shaped paths…
Feeling puzzled, he pricked his ears, and immediately got an answer. That was—
“That’s the city’s…Core Tower, I should say?”
To be precise, those were the remnants.
Logically, it was not in operational at the moment. It seemed the most of the inside was hollowed out, and Naoto, pricking his ears, could basically feel the emptiness within it.
RyuZU, right beside him, tilted her little head as she said,
“Looking at the direction, I suppose it is the purged Grid Shiga, no? Looking at how it managed to stop at this height, I must say that it is rather light…though the city itself was already a hollow.”
“A hollow?”
“In the past era, it was the area with the largest stretches of lakes in Japan. Yes, it is said that one-sixth of the land was filled with lakes, and the rest were mostly the rural countryside; a plain, peculiar location city here.”
With his eyes half opened, Naoto stared at RyuZU,
“…Erm, you have any grudges against Shiga?”
“No? It is not personal. This is just what is stated in my records.”
RyuZU denied with a blunt look, and continued,
“When the world was mechanized, Grid Japan was replicated into a water city in Western Japan. Most likely, the weather in Mie is so brutally humid due to this purge.”
“Ah, speaking of which, I think Marie just said that too.”
Naoto nodded, and looked over at RyuZU, who continued with her explanations.
“But anyway, you do know quite a lot here, RyuZU.”
“Yes. Since you have forgotten, I shall regrettably introduce myself again for the umpteenth time. My maker is the one who designed this planet.”
“Ah, I see.”
No wonder she knows this so well, Naoto nodded.
“—”
“…Hm? What’s the matter, RyuZU?”
Naoto noticed RyuZU being silent and staring at him, and he asked,
“Yes…it is regarding AnchoR.”
RyuZU replied.
She faced Naoto directly, and stood on her toes as she lowered her head.
“Please accept my belated apologies. I am really sorry here.”
“Eh…? Wait, RyuZU. Why are you doing this out of a sudden?”
“I placed you in utmost peril, Master Naoto. My shallow thinking and my bungling little sister are grave losses that cannot be atoned for…but I still yearn for your forgiveness, Master Naoto.”
Dumbstruck, Naoto had his mouth ajar.
RyuZU continued to have her head lowered, her face nary to be seen. Once he saw her quivering shoulders and her fists clenching the skirt tightly, Naoto panicky said,
“Don’t do this. Lift your face up, RyuZU.”
“…”
“I say, I’m not angry at all. I’m not thinking too hard about it.”
“…But…”
“—I’m really not, RyuZU. Anyway, isn’t it pitiful to say that she’s bungling? AnchoR on her part did say that she hope you’ll be able to stop her.”
Naoto sounded so relaxed as he said this, not minding at all.
But after hearing this line, RyuZU lifted her face. Her beautiful golden eyes widened as she said,
“—You are able to hear AnchoR’s voice?”
“Hm? Ahh, well, sorta. If it’s not my imagination.”
Naoto nodded, and RyuZU relaxed her expression somewhat.
“To be honest, I am very surprised. Amongst us sisters, that girl is the one with the most difficulty expressing herself.”
“Hm? I don’t think that’s the case.”
“No. For you, Master Naoto, so isolated from humanity and one whose communication skills are a question mark by itself, it really is a miraculous accomplishment to do this.”
“Please don’t say that or I’m gonna cry.”
Sorry for being a weirdo here Naoto shivered, and RyuZU frowned as she continued,
“However, if that is not AnchoR’s will, that really is…?”
“Ah…hm, I guess that mask’s the strange thing. That mask’s the only thing giving off a really bad ‘sound’. AnchoR’s ‘sound’ seemed to be overpowered by it.”
After hearing Naoto’s words, RyuZU lowered her eyes.
Her arms were folded in front of her, ostensibly enduring as she clenched her fists, and curtly replied,
“—Unforgivable.”
“Yeah, AnchoR’s innocent here. The ones responsible are definitely those bad guys who put that on her. Once we find those culprits, we’re going to demand apologies and compensation until they cry.”
“Of course.”
RyuZU said this with an angelic smile,
“First, we shall shred them from the toes. Once they fully understand to the bone how they should not be born in the first place, we shall etch their names in the annuls of humanity and publicly execute them when they are filled with pain and despair.”
“…And please regulate those grotesque scenes, ‘kay?”
Naoto tentatively added this line, and RyuZU nodded as she smiled at him; it was a vague smile that could have been yes or no.”
“…Well, whatever, let’s move on for now.”
Both of them then continued to walk and rest from time to time, and finally arrived at their destination.
On first glance, it was a ‘town’ akin to a ruin.
The residences were built on the waste accumulated on the footings, and though shoddy in structure, they were neat homes. The tower right in the middle reached out far above, and it seemed to extend to the ceiling, the bottom of Mie city.
—However, there was no one around. The signs showed that there were at least thousands of people who once lived here, but either house was littered with dust, looking dilapidated.
After looking through a few houses, RyuZU said,
“Based on a logical deduction, I would assume that the survivors of the Grid Shiga purge once lived here, no?”
“They’re still living after a purge…is that, such a thing possible?”
“I suppose they are rather fortunate, or maybe extremely unfortunate.”
RyuZU lamented as she let out a sigh,
“…But there are actually people
who built such a town and lived on. It seems all of humanity are exceptionally hardy as compared to what I would think.”
“Well, they say home is where we make it, but I don’t want to deliberately make my bed here…”
Naoto chimed in as he pricked his ears.
Amidst this abandoned slum, he clearly heard the voice of a single human.
Once he found a vague idea of where that voice was, he asked RyuZU,
“What do we do, RyuZU?”
“Let us hear him out. It can be said that a person is a failure of humanity if he ends up living alone like this, and there is no worth in conversing. However, perhaps we may get a clue as to the uncouths who manipulated AnchoR. Also, he is alone, so we can definitely handle him.”
“…Hm, anyway, try being a little friendlier?”
After hearing RyuZU hint at her actual intention, Naoto felt a chill up his spine as he said this.
They walked forth to the middle abandoned ‘town’, where the Central Tower was.
Soon after, they arrived at a little hut. It was no different from the other houses, a barrack made of scrap materials. However, there was no dust near the entrance, and there was the deep buzzing from a mini-generator at the back of the house. There was someone there.
Naoto carelessly knocked the door twice, thrice, and said,
“Erm, excuse me! I got something to ask here~”
And then, there was an immediate response from behind the door.
“…Who’s there? What are you here for?”
It was an exceptionally hoarse voice of an old man.
“We’re lost. We want to know how do we get back to the surface.”
“…”
After a long silence, the old man said,
“…The door’s unlocked. You may come in.”
Naoto and RyuZU exchanged looks, and decided to slowly open the door.
Once inside, they found that the room was as cramped as how it was on the outside.
The ceiling was low, and the lights dim. The shelves, probably made of scrap materials, filled the walls completely, and there were old books and papers stuffed all over it messily. Looking towards the side, they could see a simple kitchen and a little bed. This was a home adequate for one person.
In the middle of the room, under the lamp of light gears, was a large old man seated on a rocking chair.
His shoulders were wide, his bones large, and under the wilted skin, the refined muscles covered his body completely.
Both his messy, tangled hair and the little beard filling the profile of his chin were silvery white. The color however was reminiscent of one who went through much rather than one who was old and feeble.
He had his elbow pressing against the armrest as he supported his face, and the glittering, metallic eyes, were staring at Naoto and RyuZU, who entered the room.
He tapped at the closed, thick, hard cover book on his knees,
“…Who are you people? Why do you come here?”
“Ah, well actually, we accidentally, erm”
Naoto muttered vaguely, and RyuZU chimed in from the side,
“We fall from the bottom of the city, approximately 34,258m to this place.”
“Yeah yeah, erm…I guess that’s how it is? Then, we don’t really know how to get back up there, damn it. It’s all because of that land mine of a girl Marie, that plague goddess.”
The old man stared at the duo skeptically, and slowly shook his head.
He let out a languid sigh, and told them,
“…There’s no way to go back up.”
“Ah, you can’t think of a way then? You got to know that I’m now driven by a mission t save this girl called AnchoR, you know?”
“This is a place that was already purged, and everything’s moved out. It’s just left with me and a few production plants here. The elevator leading to the surface has stopped.”
“Then try activating it again. Anyway, can you be a little faster, gramps? While we’re dragging our feet here, AnchoR will—”
Naoto was suddenly left breathless. His vision went black, his feet unsteady. While supporting his collapsing body, RyuZU said,
“Master Naoto, there is air here, but the atmosphere is extremely thin. Even if you have graduated from humanity, and is currently an existence equal to God, you are still a human at this point, yet to evolve into a living entity of a higher dimension that can survive without oxygen. It is best for you to calm down to avoid dying.”
“I-I’ll really die?”
Utterly shocked, Naoto widened his eyes.
RyuZU gently caressed Naoto’s pale face, and continued,
“…After your remedial, you were forced by Master Marie to Mie because of her self-insisting personal reasons, and so we invaded a military facility, fought AnchoR, fell more than 30,000m, and walked through thin air for prolonged time. Master Naoto, I am truly impressed that your perverted desires, especially your devoted love for dolls, led you to perform beyond your limitations, but please have a little rest.”
“…If you want him to rest, let him sleep on that bed.”
The old man said.
RyuZU wordlessly stared at the old man, and nodded. She lifted Naoto’s lifeless body to the bed in the corner of the room, and let Naoto lie down.
After seeing that Naoto was asleep, RyuZU again turned to the old man,
“Now then, please allow me to ask the questions in place of Master Naoto.”
“…”
“I do not have any interest as to who are you, and what you are doing here. Master Naoto however has things he has to do, and I have a duty to fulfill all of Master Naoto’s wishes to the best of my abilities. This place is not good for health either—”
While RyuZU muttered this stoically, the black scythes were revealed from the hem of her skirt.
The blades curled up like a snake eyeing its prey.
“Please provide us with information on how to get back to the surface. I shall get the answer through all my knowledge and abilities, even if it means causing you all the pain in the world.”
“I see. So you’re one of the Initial-Y series?”
—The scythes raced forth.
The black scythe blades were resting precisely at the old man’s neck.
“You really think for your master’s sake.”
The old man let out a bitter smile, and sighed. Despite his face about to be sliced off, his eyes showed no signs of fear.
RyuZU asked,
“What exactly do you know?”
“It’s nothing weird. Basically, you survived after fighting ‘that’, and fell to this level, right? Also, you were unscathed—no automata other than those of your kind can do that.”
“…”
“I heard that the Princess of the Breguets put in quite the contribution to prevent Kyoto from being purged. Let me guess, you are the unit 1 she has, right?”
RyuZU did not answer, and her golden eyes narrowed warily.
“Since you know of such a recent thing, I suppose you are not a shut-in who thinks of himself as a hermit and failed in life.”
“It’s not off to say that about me. I am a failure after all.”
The man continued,
“The elevator leading to the surface is really stopped, but you just need to get some power in it to get it moving.”
“Then, please do this.”
RyuZU commanded.
While keeping his smile, the old man said,
“I shall do so, if you are willing to hear some words from an old man.”
● ● ●
“—And so that’s how we came back.”
Naoto concluded just like that.
The 4 of them returned to the room Marie and Halter rented in the empty hotel to avoid the rain, and exchanged information.
After hearing Naoto’s words, Marie said blankly,
“In other words, you weren’t thinking of dying back then…?”
“Eh? Thinking of dying? Me? Why?”
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Naoto was dumbfounded, and Marie stammered,
“It’s, nothing, just that, I thought you wanted to sacrifice yourself to cover us…”
“What are you saying?”
Naoto immediately denied it, and continued,
“I was just thinking of stopping AnchoR, that’s all. Or rather, how can I possibly think of saving a foul-tempered girl like you here? Where was the flag set up? If I die, RyuZU will be sad, and I can’t save AnchoR, so logically thinking, nobody will benefit here, right? Marie, are you…actually stupid?”
“—”
Earning Naoto’s sympathetic looking eyes, Marie was trembling with rage.
“…Well, that makes sense.”
Halter whispered, and upon hearing this, she turned around, asking him with a voice echoing from the depths of hell,
“Halter…are you telling me that you realized this a long time back…?”
“No, I didn’t have solid proof back then, you know?”
Being glared at, Halter shook his head, and continued,
“In fact, it is undoubted that he would have died falling to the underground far below. However, it is also a fact that it’s suspicious to think this kid would save you there, Milady.”
“In that case, why—”
“Would you have listened to such words back then? Unless we actually proved that Naoto’s still alive, such words would not even be considered as consolation. I thought that it would be adding fuel to the fire if I said that, so I chose to be silent…”
“—”
Marie went silent, and wondered,
There were a few doubts she could not get; for one, Halter was unexpectedly calm about Naoto’s group falling down. Marie however felt that it was a natural mentality of a retired soldier who went through ample training and actual combat…
And so, she understood.
In other words, she was the only one toyed like a clown. Such despair, burden, tears, vomit, wounded hearts and repeated considerations over the current situations were all—just a foolish misunderstanding here, a silly one-man show.
—Right, let’s kill them.
Marie decided this quietly.
There’s no way I can salvage my wounded pride unless I bury all those related to this and pretend that nothing happened here…!
“You guys…”
Marie swayed as she stood up,
But Naoto ignored her as he laid out the map on the floor.
