by Yusuke Kishi
But now that I think about it, all of this had probably been anticipated by Yakomaru’s meticulous calculations.
The timing of the fiend’s appearance. The movements of the crowd. And even Kaburagi Shisei’s speech at the square.
Without warning, the ground shuddered and collapsed. Before they even had time to scream, dozens of people were swallowed by the gaping hole that opened up under them.
The sinkhole was about a hundred meters in diameter, large enough to take out the entire square. The pit stopped right in front of me, and its center was right where Kaburagi Shisei had stood in the crowd.
I have to wonder if at that point, the queerats had surpassed us in civil engineering technology. Even now, we can only speculate about how they managed to collapse such a large area in the blink of an eye. Perhaps they used their innate tunneling skills to create a network of tunnels below the square to weaken it, then dug a larger cavern below that.
To trigger the collapse, they probably brought in a small powder-spewing monster. All they needed was a small explosion to bring down the already weakened structure and send hundreds of people plunging to their deaths.
The cloud of debris from the collapse blocked out everything in my field of vision. I covered my face to keep the grit from getting in my eyes.
“Run!” Niimi shouted, grabbing my hand.
“But I have to tell Kaburagi…!”
“There’s no point. Not anymore,” he said, coughing from the dust.
I didn’t believe that Kaburagi Shisei could die so easily. But no matter how powerful he was, there simply hadn’t been time for him to use his cantus.
As we turned and ran in the other direction, rain began to fall once again. At first it was just a drizzle, but soon it started coming down almost as hard as before.
I looked up and was surprised to see that the rain was confined to a tiny area. Namely, only the places that had been obscured by dust.
The rain stopped abruptly and a strong wind kicked up, blowing away what was left of the dust.
Kaburagi Shisei was standing in the same spot as before. Well, it’s probably more accurate to say he was floating, since the ground was no longer there.
There were numerous people hovering around him, held up by his power. They looked on dazedly as Kaburagi Shisei moved them slowly to the edge of the hole and set them down.
“I am deeply ashamed I couldn’t save everyone,” he said, his voice full of anger and bitterness. “But we will avenge them. Let us vow to eradicate these cursed and ugly creatures from the land of the gods, from the archipelago of Japan…”
A loud blast interrupted his speech.
Queerats had appeared from a tunnel leading to the sinkhole and were firing in formation. Another troop appeared from a different tunnel and shot hundreds of arrows into the air. They had only one target: Kaburagi Shisei.
But before they could reach their target, the bullets and arrows vanished, as if transported to a different dimension.
“Your tenaciousness is quite admirable. But unfortunately, you are powerless before me.”
The queerats were pulled out of the hole by an invisible hand. There were hundreds of them.
“Is there one that speaks our language?” he asked.
No one spoke. The queerats seemed to know that they couldn’t escape and were quietly waiting for the end.
“Don’t think I’ll have pity and let you die peacefully if you stay silent. Not after your egregious betrayal.”
The queerats began to writhe in agony.
“Unbearable, isn’t it? I’m sending pain signals through your nerves. There’s no real injury being done, so you won’t die from it. I can keep this up until someone talks.”
One suddenly cried out.
“St-stop!”
“Oho. You’re quite fluent. Where’s your supreme commander?”
“Kii! I don’t know…ghh!”
The tortured queerat squirmed, foaming at the mouth.
“Death! Death! Death!”
The crowd seemed to have regathered its wits and began chanting again.
“Tell me! Or else…” Kaburagi Shisei lowered his voice threateningly.
But the queerat suddenly spasmed and went limp, eyes rolled back, drooling and moaning senselessly.
“I must have exceeded its pain threshold,” Kaburagi Shisei muttered.
The now-useless queerat went up in a gout of white flame, and dropped back into the hole.
A piercing scream came from somewhere far behind us.
I turned and was confronted by an otherworldly spectacle.
People were swirling through the air like confetti. Some slammed into nearby buildings and left vivid blossoms of blood on the walls.
“Fiend!”
The street instantly fell into terrified chaos. But there was nowhere to run.
“A fiend? Impossible…that’s impossible.”
He began descending toward us.
The queerats hanging in midair seemed to have outlasted their purpose, and exploded one by one. Their bones were torn out, and the limp corpses disappeared into the sinkhole, trailing long, bloody intestines.
I heard a high-pitched shriek like that of a raging beast.
In the blink of an eye, a dozen people were engulfed in flames. They writhed and screamed, then toppled to the ground. Niimi wrapped his arms around me protectively and pushed me into the gap between two buildings.
An eerie silence followed the screams. All the survivors had, like us, found places to hide and were trembling in fear.
The fiend came down the center of the street.
There was no way to get a good look. I concentrated my entire being listening to his quiet footsteps.
My heart was racing, as if it were trying to pack a lifetime’s worth of work into the next few seconds before everything ended.
But…
I caught a glimpse of the fiend from beneath Niimi’s arm and found myself unable to look away. It was the scariest thing in the world, but I just couldn’t tear my eyes from it.
It was so small. The size of a queerat, or maybe a child.
No. I was right, it was a human child. A boy, about nine years old.
He was dressed in a military outfit and his arms and face were decorated with intricate blue tattoos. He stared straight ahead at Shisei Kaburagi.
“Are you really a fiend…? But why? Who are you?” Shisei Kaburagi shouted.
My eyes went wide.
This was my first time ever seeing the boy. But I knew exactly who he was.
His refined features resembled Maria’s almost perfectly.
And his hair was the same vibrant red, with Mamoru’s untamable curliness.
The fiend was a memento of two people from the distant past.
“Grrr…★＊∀§▲ÆAÄ!” he shrieked in a high, wild voice.
A couple roof tiles lifted into the air and shot toward Shisei Kaburagi like bullets. They hit an invisible wall and disintegrated.
Tree roots began creeping out of the pit. The next second the supporting beams of the houses on both sides came bursting through the walls.
But the attacks were useless. Before the beams could crush Shisei Kaburagi, they were broken into a million splinters. The tree roots went up in flames before they could wrap around his legs.
“≠＊◻︎È…Ë▼ÞÓ.”
The fiend suddenly stopped short. It stared at Shisei Kaburagi, as if puzzled that his prey was putting up such a fight.
“It’s useless. I can easily see through your primitive attacks,” he declared. “In any case, let’s see how I can deal with you.”
The houses on either side of the fiend collapsed as the ground slid away under them. Even the cobblestones crumbled into sand and sank like an antlion’s trap. The fiend jumped away with the dexterity of a wild animal, a look of surprise on his face.
“Saki!” a voice called from behind.
I leapt up and saw Satoru standing there with a sorrowful ex
pression on his face.
“Satoru…you’re okay!”
“We have to run. The outcome here is already decided.”
“Huh? But…”
Shisei Kaburagi and the fiend were at a stalemate. It was impossible to tell who was more skilled, and neither of them seemed to be able land the winning blow.
“Right now, Shisei’s bluff is keeping the fiend at bay, but he’ll see through it sooner or later.”
“See what?”
“That Shisei can’t kill another human, even a fiend, because of attack inhibition and death feedback. …but that doesn’t apply to the fiend.”
“But, wait. The fiend can’t defeat him either, right?” Kaburagi can deflect all of his attacks,” Niimi said.
“No, it’s simple for the fiend.”
“That…”
A previously forgotten memory suddenly flit through my mind.
Shisei Kaburagi slowly approached ◼︎, who was still staring fixedly at the chicken egg.
Everyone was waiting for an historic encounter. ◼︎ was the one expected to inherit Shisei Kaburagi’s mantle in the future. This could be the first time he receives advice from him.
But Shisei Kaburagi’s steps suddenly halted.
What was wrong? He took one, two steps backwards, then turned on his heel and quickly left the classroom as everyone watched in a daze.
Cantus leakage. I had forgotten about that for so long. At this moment, what exactly was the unbeatable Shisei Kaburagi afraid of?
“Gaaaaaah!”
Shisei Kaburagi let out an unearthly scream. It was more than just a normal scream, it sounded like the shrieks of someone about to die.
His head tilted upward and the golden mask fell away, revealing his eyes with their four terrible irises. But the shadow of death was already upon them.
“Run! We have no time!”
Satoru pulled at me and we ran. Not back the way we came, but past the fiend and toward Shisei Kaburagi.
The fiend completely ignored the three of us. Its attention was fixed on Shisei Kaburagi.
I looked back and saw an iridescent light surrounding Shisei Kaburagi’s head. The interference pattern of two cantus pushing against each other.
The fiend was using its power directly on Shisei Kaburagi’s body. All Shisei could do was fight against the fiend’s cantus.
There was a dry snapping sound.
His head was twisted at an impossible angle. That was my last view of Shisei Kaburagi.
The giant pit at the center of the square was right in front of us. It was unbelievably large, and so deep I couldn’t see the bottom.
We leapt desperately into it.
Chapter 6
We fell down the pit that seemed to extend all the way to the center of the Earth. It was the final resting place for dozens of humans and queerats. The bottom was too dark to make out, rendering cantus useless. I flipped over to face the sky and imagined throwing a grappling hook over the edge of the hole. I managed to swing myself over to the wall.
The stone was still wet and slippery from the rain. It was humid in the pit, and the explosion had depleted most of the oxygen in the air, making it hard to breathe. A miasma of blood and burnt flesh wafted all around us.
“Saki, are you alright?”
It was Satoru’s voice. He appeared to have found a place to land far above me.
“I’m here! How’s Niimi?”
“I’m okay.”
I couldn’t see around the rocks, but his voice was closer than I expected.
“I see a tunnel just below me. Let’s go in there.”
A green flame flickered on the wall. I was blinded for a second, but managed to mark the spot where it had come from A red afterimage drifted across my field of view.
I imagined myself sticking to the rock face like a compass needle on a magnet. Once I was secure, I started climbing slowly up the wall like a gecko.
From beyond the pit, I could hear a cacophony of screams and falling buildings. The fiend must have started his slaughter. I bit my lip. There was nothing we could do right now. All I could do was pray that at least some people could manage to escape.
I closed my eyes and tried to slow my frantically beating heart. I had to concentrate on getting out. There should still be some time before the fiend turns his attention to the pit.
Satoru was already waiting inside the tunnel when Niimi and I arrived.
“Hurry! Get inside.”
He pulled us up one by one.
The tunnel was only a meter and a half tall, forcing us to stoop to fit inside. It smelled even worse in here. I thought my nose would wither from the stench.
“What is this smell?”
“I think they used mortar made of feces and dirt to reinforce the tunnel,” Satoru said, pinching his nose.
“Why would they do that?”
“To speed things up as much as possible, I suppose. They really pulled out all the stops for this war.”
Niimi spotted a torch on the ground and lit it. The smell was still stifling, but now we could see a little ways down the tunnel. The ground was littered with all sorts of debris. Grass, twigs, dead bugs, and more. I assumed this was the remains of their food.
“Take a look at this,” Niimi said.
There was a large bloodstain in the ground, with smeared tracks leading from it.
“There’s an injured queerat here. Be careful, it might still be alive,” Satoru whispered.
We followed the trail farther down the tunnel and saw the queerat lying ahead. At first glance it looked dead, but then I saw its chest rising and falling slightly.
“Look, its left arm is missing…” Satoru pointed.
Its left arm was cut off at the shoulder, and it held a bloody sword in its right hand.
“Kaburagi Shisei probably caught it by the arm, so it cut it off to escape.”
“I can’t believe they’d go to these extremes…” Niimi said.
“Back when Kaburagi Shisei pulled the soldiers out of the pit, most of them were naked. This one is wearing metal armor, so it has to be at least a general. It knew it had vital information that couldn’t be revealed to the enemy so it had to get away at all costs.”
“…should we put it out of its misery?”
“No, we’ll make it talk if it still can. …don’t worry, the fiend won’t come after us so we have some time.”
Satoru pulled the queerat’s sword away. It seemed to regain consciousness and looked toward us, eyes glowing red in the light of the torch.
“You. Answer our questions honestly and I’ll give you a quick and painless death,” Satoru said, crouching in front of the queerat. “You look like you’ve been through hell. Why do you go this far to rebel against us? I don’t understand what’s going through your heads.”
The queerat just stared at him from its position on the ground.
“What is it? You speak our language, don’t you? It’s too late to pretend you don’t.”
“There’s no need to deceive you,” it replied in a calm, almost conversational tone.
“I see. So tell me. Where’s Yakomaru now?”
The queerat shut its mouth and refused to answer.
“Yakomaru is lying to all of you. Why can’t you see that? He doesn’t value the lives of you soldiers at all.”
“The lives of soldiers? Please. The lives of individuals are meaningless before a greater cause.”
“What greater cause?”
“The liberation of our entire species from your tyranny.”
“What tyranny? I don’t think we’ve ever treated you badly.” I spoke without meaning to.
“We are an intelligent species. We ought to be treated as your equal. Yet with your devilish powers, you’ve robbed us of our dignity, and treat us like animals. The only way we can restore our pride now is to wipe you off the face of the Earth.”
“Do you really think you can do that?” Satoru shouted indignantly. “You’ve killed a lot of people
with your cowardly attacks. But a single survivor is enough to slaughter you all!”
“That will not happen. Not as long as the hero of our liberation, Squealer, who you call Yakomaru is with us. As well as the messiah heaven has sent us.”
“Messiah? The fiend?”
“Fiend? …you are the fiend!”
The queerat leapt up from all fours and made to attack Satoru.
The tunnel flashed with iridescent light as our cantus collided. The queerat hurtled through the tunnel and smashed against the exposed rocks.
“Shit!” Satoru shouted, but it was too late.
The queerat was very obviously dead.
“He jumped at us so we’d kill him…”
“Let’s go,” Niimi said. “We can’t linger here. I must fulfill the final task Tomiko-sama left me. The two of you should get to the Temple of Purity.”
We hurried through the narrow tunnels, sweating and gasping in the stinking air, searching for the exit to the surface that we were sure was somewhere along here. Satoru believed we had a good chance of escaping as the fiend most likely wouldn’t be able to dig out a deep enough shaft to cut off our path ahead of us. But if he finished his slaughter early, there was the danger that he would arrive first at the tunnel exit and wait for us.
I remembered what happened at summer camp fourteen years ago. Finding our way through the maze of tunnels had seemed like an insurmountable task, but compared to what was happening now, it seemed like a nothing more than a child’s dare.
So many people had died, and I still had no idea whether my parents were safe. And now we probably didn’t even have a town to return to anymore.
I fought hard to keep tears from falling down my face.
Koufuu Hino and Shisei Kaburagi, both unparalleled in their power, were dead. We had nothing left to fight the fiend. But we couldn’t give up. This was the real test of courage–how far you could continue to go when the future looked completely hopeless. This was our test.
I couldn’t give up. Tomiko had entrusted the towns to me. Just this thought alone gave me strength.
We came across a shaft to the surface about two hundred meters into the tunnel. The exit was located in the space between tree roots and cleverly camouflaged by grass. I was shocked that they had the audacity to place the exit so close to town.
