by Yuu Kamiya
But Sora, as if reading Steph’s thoughts, shook his head. “That’s not even the problem.
“So, if we say this is a horse race, what about us as racers—Where’s our prize money?”
With a wicked smile, he cast a look at Plum.
“Um, i-isn’t it the queen’s love…the queen waking up?”
“—If you make me fall in love with you, I’ll fall in love with you? She’ll wake up for the sake of the prince she loves? —First, that’s total bullshit, and, second, the queen comes out ahead either way, doesn’t she? What happened to the ‘wager of equal value’ for the victor?”
Finally, Steph arrived at the source of her misgivings. The marine resources, the friendly relations, domination over Plum—none of these things seemed like things the queen would have specified. In that case, the queen’s wager in the game she’d sworn by the Covenants before sleeping… The reward she’d figured was of equal value—to be paid to the rider who won—
—the prize money—
hadn’t been mentioned at all?!
The Shrine Maiden grinned slyly and played with the stick that had held the fish she’d just eaten.
“’Tis a set of games with two sides. But when Mr. Sora brought up what he stood to gain from winning the game, that Dhampir there answered deliberately so as not to touch on that two-sidedness. She told no lie.” But—smiled the Shrine Maiden. “What is not a lie—still may not be the truth.”
Hearing that bull’s-eye noise coming from Plum’s heart as this truth was laid down, the Shrine Maiden smirked. Sora, though, with an exaggerated performance of deep thought—
“So, here’s the problem… Why didn’t she mention the two-sidedness?”
Playing with his stick, Sora turned to Plum.
“Until we were underwater—where you thought the Shrine Maiden’s and Izuna’s senses would be cut off—you didn’t bring it up. Why couldn’t you just have told us something as simple as, ‘Amila says it’s no-risk’?”
Positioned behind Sora, Jibril diligently occupied herself with chopping up fish, sticking it on skewers, and seasoning it. Handing a well-salted piece of fish on a stick to him, she offered, “—For speaking these words would constitute a lie…I presume.”
With a thin smile, she answered his question. Sora nodded to Shiro as if to say, which means…
“—…June 20, 04:28 UTC… Plum… ‘Please save our raaace!’…”
Nibbling at her fish like a rodent, Shiro deftly rendered Plum’s—
—first line in “playback.”
“If this isn’t a lie, that means she wanted us to save their race—that is, Dhampir.”
Which meant—
“She wanted us to save Dhampir—only—so then what’s the methodology?”
As Steph was incapable of responding to his rhetoric save to round her eyes like glass ornaments, he ignored her. He took the stick with which he’d been toying—and tossed it onto the sand next to where Plum was seatecd.
“So, now we’ve got everything we need to figure it out, right?”
One—and another, throwing additional sticks in the same manner.
“The questions are three. The conclusion is one.”
Casting his eyes upon the beach where the three sticks protruded from the sand, Sora gave her the setup.
“—You ready for this, Plum?”
As if in response to Sora’s pronouncement, in the light only of the fire, the red moon, and the stars, four pairs of eyes glinted, each with its own variety of light.
The first to move was the Shrine Maiden.
“—Why is it that you shied from mentioning matters relating to the two-sided nature of the game?”
The stick launched by the Shrine Maiden whooshed through the wind and caught Sora’s first—splitting it in two.
“Because she couldn’t lie.”
Hearing Sora’s answer, the next to move was Jibril.
“Whyever would you request our help when you already have a spell that will make her fall in love?”
Jibril’s wooden projectile made a sonic boom and caught Sora’s second skewer, shattering it.
“Because Plum couldn’t lie.”
At Sora’s response, the last to move was Shiro.
“…In the first place…why—couldn’t…she lie?”
Shiro’s skewer arced through the air and caught the core of Sora’s third—and stuck there.
“Because if she lied—we’d know.”
—Indeed.
“If it’s a horse race, then you gotta remember—everyone’s betting on different horses.”
Amila was betting on—the queen. Plum was betting on—Team Sora. Two games. Two wills. And, taking all of this into account, there was indeed but one conclusion.
“Siren was using the sleeping queen game as bait to chow down on Immanity.”
“Wha!”
Steph alone was still shocked. Siren, just as Sora had said at the beginning, had made the game out to be cake to draw in Sora and Shiro—the agent plenipotentiary of Immanity. To avert the destruction of their race by gaining new “resources for reproduction”—Immanity itself. But—
“Dhampir took it a step farther and plotted against Siren—to stab them in the back and free Dhampir.”
Yes—Plum was actually trying to make the queen fall in love. But Amila—wasn’t.
“So she couldn’t lie around Werebeasts, but she couldn’t tell the truth that there were two agendas, either.”
As usual, Steph alone was speechless, just flabbergasted. But—Sora raised his hand to say, Hold on.
—To say, This is where it gets good.
“So, let’s think back, shall we? What’s the prize money for winning the queen’s game?”
Tossing a merry smile at Plum, Sora turned his line of sight. And—under the moon, glinting sharp, four pairs of eyes shone.
“Be there aught to make Amila—to make Siren—prefer to maintain the status quo rather than awaken the queen?”
The Shrine Maiden, with her bewitching golden eyes, smirked.
“Whatever could make Plum—could make Dhampir—believe that emancipation lay before their eyes to seize?”
And Jibril, with her inorganic amber eyes, sneered.
“…Something that threatens the existence of Siren…and would allow Dhampir…to reclaim their rights…”
And Shiro, with her emotionless ruby eyes, simpered. And, taking each of these sequential observations was Sora, with his obsidian eyes. Coldly he brought them all together.
“The queen’s wager was—‘everything I have’…right?”
—Plum hung her head, and Steph took a breath. While the current queen had slept. She wasn’t quite queen—wasn’t quite the agent plenipotentiary. But now things were different. Now, if the victory conditions for her wager were fulfilled—it would mean everything Siren was.
—Literally everything, even the Race Piece, would go to the victor. But, ignoring Steph as she shivered, Sora continued to grin his coy grin—and dropped a few words that made Steph doubt her ears.
“This much we figured out before coming to the beach.”
“—Huh?”
“But, still…we couldn’t say we had proof. So that’s why we decided to head for Oceand.”
As if to confirm it—but in a teasing tone, Sora laid it all out.
“It was the beach, after all. I got my fun in—in other words…”
Then, after giving Plum the sickest smile of all, in a single breath—he revealed the answers to all of the remaining secrets—rapid-fire.
“Shiro and I:
• Dragged you out to the beach in the blazing sun to sap your power
• Had the Shrine Maiden pretend to mess around with Jibril while actually verifying that she could cover up her bloodbreak with water pressure
• Simultaneously had Jibril go way out into the ocean to check where Oceand was
• Gave the Shrine Maiden time to recover from her bloodbreak while Shiro helped
her by petting her till night came
• Skipped out on your welcome boat, that was probably a trap, and had Jibril warp us in
• Created a situation in which you had to get blood from Siren to cast your underwater breathing spell on us
• Made you leave while Jibril compressed and stored the air she’d brought
• Then had Jibril jam your underwater breathing spell so it wouldn’t work on the Shrine Maiden
• And met Amila with the ability to utilize Werebeast’s senses to their fullest even at the bottom of the sea
—So, yeah. Didja figure it out?”
…
……
—Both Plum and Steph were just totally dumbfounded, unable to speak. But, seemingly unconcerned, Sora just checked to see if his fish was done and said:
“You had no way to get all the way to the game without lying. ’Cos you had to get us to wager ‘everything’ by the Covenants. To uncover your lie, the Shrine Maiden had to be free of your fishy magic.”
A spell that enabled breathing and conversation underwater—cast, of all people, by Plum, who they knew was their enemy—was likely to fool their senses. Having laid it all out, Sora continued.
“Siren and Dhampir each bet on different horses—but did you forget? It was you who got us to put down everything on our own tickets and participate in both the race and the gambling—we’ve got tickets, too.”
—Indeed.
“Tickets on us getting ahead of all of you and winning.
“Man, I gotta hand it to you, Plum. That was an awesome strategy from a weak position. That’s how a race thinks when it’s got all its power owned by the Ten Covenants. I mean, that way, Dhampir would still get an extra life if Amila got her way and chomped up Immanity, while, if we actually did manage to wake up the queen and Siren—”
From his heart, without irony, Sora clapped his hands in praise.
“She’d be in love because of your spell, not us, so you’d run away with the lot.”
—Having casually called out the reason Plum had participated in the game, Sora continued.
“Look, I’m not the kind of guy to flatter people, so I mean it when I say this—that is a sweet strategy.”
To create a situation in which she would win wherever the chips fell, while having to do almost nothing herself, instead getting other people to do it for her and walking off with the rewards. Now that was truly the ideal way to win. But—
“I think there’s something you’re overlooking.”
“—Huh?”
With this, Plum raised her downcast head.
“Don’t you get it? The point isn’t that we just totally blew your cover. It’s not that you were hiding the prize money for winning the queen’s game in a plot to emancipate your race, either. You couldn’t wake up the queen even with a spell you had total confidence would work—but that’s not even it.”
—And, then, twisting his face. With the most ironic of tones, Sora spoke.
“It’s that Amila is assuming there’s not one chance in a million we’ll wake the queen.”
“…Oh—”
Plum’s breath stopped. Yes, because that explained everything. Why Ino hadn’t been able to beat the game—Plum’s spell had activated properly. It had worked on the queen, without a doubt, Jibril had said as much. Yet, even so, she hadn’t awakened.
Which meant
“The condition to wake up the queen—isn’t to make her fall in love.”
—…Grsh. Though Plum’s molars ground audibly, still Sora continued.
“Amila knew that. If she hadn’t, no matter how much you enticed her, she’d never have given you a chance to possibly wake up the queen. It would be fatal for Siren—you see?”
Sora now dropped even his scornful smile.
“Amila, of whom you thought so little—took your betrayal into account.”
“…—!”
Yet—Sora rained down another blow upon Plum as she sat on the beach, outstripped even by Siren, of whom she’d thought nothing at all.
“That’s a hell of a strategy for the weak, a really slick play—but it ain’t the real thing.”
Indeed. The wisdom of the weak could not be wielded to its full potential by the strong. For what formed its foundation…
…was the cowardice borne of abject weakness.
Sora finally flipped off his smile and spoke with a serious mien.
“The natural enemy of the strong is the weak, but the natural enemy of the weak isn’t the strong—it’s the weaker.”
The weak—the man who embodied this word advanced intimidatingly on Plum. Squatting to eye level with the seated Dhampir, he softly and directly announced:
“A fool who knows what he is, is far more fearsome than a fool who thinks he’s smart.”
Without touching on who he was just talking about, Sora moved on:
“So—it’s check.”
Plum blanched. To begin with, the only ones who had accepted these conditions were Sora & Co. But now that they’d laid everything bare and left the game, she was out of options. That meant that all Siren could do to survive was to devour the last male to whom Dhampir so desperately clung. Now that Plum’s betrayal had been confirmed, it was all the more likely Siren would do precisely that.
—So Dhampir was pretty much screwed. But, then, if Dhampir died, Siren would be next. Siren—would have to find someone to give them permission to procreate. But who would say yes to these broads who demanded your death to reproduce?
—Whence it followed that Siren was also screwed. The only way they could survive would be unconditional surrender—being turned into livestock.
“—Plum, do you know the ultimate way to win a game?”
A chilling, devilish smile.
“—By default. We don’t even have to beat the queen’s game for this to be our win.”
Dragging Plum down to the depths of hell—with a smile.
“You think you can beat the weakest with the tactics of the weak, you got another thing comin’—ya friggin’ n00bs.”
—One move. In just one move, having seized the power of life and death over two races. Darkly, he smiled and spoke.
“So, I hope you get the gist of the situation. By the way…”
Sora now fidgeted as if uneasy. And, if you looked carefully, Shiro, enshrined on his lap, also seemed to be writhing—
“Oh, dear… Master, what is it?”
……
“—Wh-where’s the bathroom?” Sora inquired with a piteous visage that reduced the rarefied atmosphere of a moment ago to rubble.
“Bathroom…oh, you mean the chambers Immanities use to urinate and—”
“What else would I mean?!”
Then suddenly thrusting his finger individually everyone at around, Sora shrieked.
“I mean, what kind of bladders do all you guys have?! After a full day at the beach and then going to the bottom of the sea and then coming back to the beach at night and eating fish and shit, who the hell can last that long?!”
“…B-Brother…I-I…have to go, too…!”
The Shrine Maiden laughed superciliously at Shiro as he pleaded with teary eyes. “No beauty does such things. I can’t say I know how it feels, but why don’t you go do your business wherever serves?”
—Jibril’s one thing, but you’re a “living thing,” aren’t you?—he would’ve said. But apparently not even having the time for quips like that, Sora rose.
“O-okay, we’re—I mean, I’m going to the bathroom. Shiro’s going to pick flowers!”
Sora, snatching up Shiro and dashing off.
“…B-Brother—d-don’t…shake…meee…”
“Aagh, this is the beach! They’ve gotta have one of those beach shacks! Where is it?!”
With Sora and Shiro’s noisy departure, all that remained was the still beach.
……The waves and the crackling of the fire were the only sounds.
“And so, all we’ve left to do is to wai
t for their unconditional surrender, eh. I’m a bit weary. I’ll be taking my leave.”
With these words, the Shrine Maiden stood wearily and turned—
“H-hey, hold on, you! What about Mr. Ino!”
—only to have Steph descend on her, having finally caught up with the situation.
—All right, she’d understood that Siren meant to gobble up Immanity. She grasped that Plum had plotted to exploit this for the emancipation of Dhampir. She saw that Sora and Shiro had seen through it all and gone another step ahead. But still—Siren held the Ino Hatsuse card. That was one question that was still unresolved, ranted Steph. The Shrine Maiden paused, looking back. With a smile even more bewitching for the light of the moon—eerie as a specter’s—she spoke.
“There is naught for it. ’Tis enough to bring two races into our hands—a fine bargain, wouldn’t you say?”
At the Shrine Maiden’s assertion that there was no trump card, Steph finally understood it all. So—to sum up: Neither Sora, nor Shiro, nor the Shrine Maiden ever had any intention of saving him—! The three of them had colluded—to make this one move that would trap two races. For this. Just for this. As if it were nothing.
—They’d sacrificed Ino—!
“…That…I cannot tolerate.”
“Hmm?”
While almost overwhelmed by those golden, literally inhuman eyes of a raptor, still—somehow—Steph looked around and managed to squeeze out her voice. Ino Hatsuse—the Werebeast who had been the only one to support Steph in Elkia when Sora and Shiro were away—albeit only for two weeks. He’d played alongside her, even fought to rebuild Elkia alongside her. He’d done so much to lay the foundations for the Commonwealth of Elkia; without him, she’d have had no ground under her feet. For the Eastern Union and for Elkia—for Steph!—he was an intrinsically valuable asset, and, on top of that, to make a sacrifice a member of just one race while attempting to bring together two… The risk of such an action was incalculable. It was so self-evident, it defied comprehension that the Shrine Maiden wouldn’t understand—
“Ino Hatsuse. There was a man of ability, who held me strong, right from the early days of the Eastern Union. A man who would accept an order to die for the Eastern Union with an ‘As you wish’—indeed a credit to his people—and now he’s demonstrated his mighty prowess to the very end. What could one possibly say against such a man?”
