What are they?
A cat, a mouse, and a bear that can talk.
A pig who can use building blocks to assemble real, solid houses.
A strange creature that calls itself a "Mole," from a magical country known as "Mole Manor."
"They're Nursery Rhyme's good friends—wonderful companions who've stayed by countless children through their entire childhoods, and taught them precious knowledge."
And what are you?
"I'm Nursery Rhyme. I'm Alice. I'm a hero to children. I'm a story dedicated to someone."
A tea party down the rabbit hole, a tiny bookmark tucked between pages, a clock that never stops going tick-tock, Pinocchio whose nose grows when he lies, playing cards turned upside down, a mermaid who can no longer sing, a robin that was killed, a magic lamp that grants wishes, the very first Mother Goose, a long-haired princess sitting in a tower…
All of those are NURSERY RHYME.
"But judging by your faces, you don't seem very satisfied with that answer."
Nursery Rhyme could see the lost, bewildered look on Satomi Rentaro and Seitenshi's faces. Her explanation was still too hard for them to grasp.
"In words you can understand, I'm a spirit born from children's wishes—the collected whole of every fairy tale and picture book in the world. My power comes from every child whose heart is still pure and young. And I sincerely bless all kind, innocent children to find their happiness… and I use this power for that purpose."
This was a world with no Mystery at all. Nursery Rhyme had gone to great lengths just to get Satomi Rentaro to believe that she—and everything here—existed beyond reality. Even if this world had Norse mythology, and even the concept of Heroic Spirits, explaining Servants, the Throne of Heroes, and everything else would've been far too much trouble.
And though Nursery Rhyme was indeed a Heroic Spirit—indeed a Servant, with her own mark carved upon the Throne of Heroes—she was still different from other Heroic Spirits. She wasn't a hero who had ever truly existed. She was the name for all nursery rhymes and picture books as a whole: a beloved literary genre in Britain that carried countless children's dreams, becoming a concept, and then being given form as a Servant—the "hero of children."
All Satomi Rentaro and the others needed to do was think of her as "a spirit born from fairy tales and children's prayers."
From their expressions, it looked like Satomi Rentaro and Seitenshi were still trying to digest the shock of it.
"If it's giving you a headache, you can always think it over while having afternoon tea."
Thoughtfully, Nursery Rhyme made the suggestion. Then she gently shook a bell that had appeared in her hand at some point. Its clear ring trembled through the air and carried far into the distance.
Something came sprinting toward them at incredible speed.
Faster than a car, on four long, slender legs.
Looking closer, it turned out to be three armchairs.
Satomi Rentaro and Seitenshi didn't even have time to be surprised before two of the chairs barreled in and bumped their shins, making both of them drop straight down into the seats.
The third chair was, naturally, for Nursery Rhyme. It didn't ram into her like the other two—it respectfully bent its legs so she could sit down more easily.
And that wasn't the end of it. Nursery Rhyme shook the bell again.
Since they'd already seen something like this once, even when a tea table and a full tea set came hopping and bouncing up to them—and the teapot considerately poured fragrant black tea into the cups in front of the three of them—Satomi Rentaro and Seitenshi weren't quite as stunned as before.
"Sorry. It's not a famous blend—please don't mind it." Nursery Rhyme lifted her teacup first, smiling as she spoke.
Hearing that, Satomi Rentaro lowered his gaze to the cup in front of him, his brow twitching almost imperceptibly.
It wasn't that he cared about the tea leaves, like Nursery Rhyme had said. Even though he'd been scraping by lately—never sure where the next meal would come from, barely surviving by fighting over discounted bean sprouts—before leaving the Tendō family, he'd studied under Tendō Kikunojo on how to become an excellent politician. That included learning how to judge tea.
Just the faint aroma in the air was enough to tell him this black tea was anything but ordinary. So of course he wasn't going to complain.
What he actually cared about was the cup…
This thing had just hopped out on its own. Did that make it… alive? And if it was alive, putting his mouth to it felt a little…
"Thank you. Then I'll take you up on it."
Seitenshi, on the other hand, didn't have such tangled thoughts. With flawless poise, she lifted the cup in an elegant grip and took a small sip. Her movements were calm and practiced, as though this weren't an impromptu tea party on a school field, but a formal banquet in a palace—these manners were carved into her bones.
"It's wonderful. The best black tea I've ever had."
With a gentle curve to her lips, Seitenshi said it with a charming smile.
"I'm so happy onee-san likes it." Nursery Rhyme's eyes curved like crescent moons, genuinely delighted.
"Would you like some music? I can even take requests—live."
As she spoke, Nursery Rhyme shook the bell again.
From violins to double basses, from trumpets to French horns—plus accordions, harps, saxophones, drum kits, oboes, triangle… all kinds of instruments appeared behind her. Even without performers, they could play on their own, and they did it in perfect coordination.
Nursery Rhyme turned back to the two of them. A trace of laughter shimmered in her pink eyes.
"If you don't like Western music, we can do something Chinese or Japanese. How about a suona?"
"Cough—no, no, we don't need music!" Satomi Rentaro cut in hurriedly. "You can have them put it away."
Clearly, Satomi Rentaro knew exactly what a suona could do. Otherwise he wouldn't have reacted like that.
"Oh. All right, then."
Nursery Rhyme didn't get discouraged. She shook the bell again.
All the instruments stopped at once. Behind her, they slowly turned transparent, and soon vanished completely from Satomi Rentaro and Seitenshi's sight.
So this really is magic… Satomi Rentaro couldn't help thinking.
"Hmm…" Nursery Rhyme glanced at the slightly bare tea table. "If we're drinking tea, how can we not have sweets?"
The bell rang again, and in the blink of an eye, the clear blue sky turned dark with storm clouds, and heavy rain poured down.
Raindrops the size of beans didn't fall on them at all—every drop seemed to grow eyes and dodge them on its own—but the atmosphere was not exactly tea-party-friendly.
"Heehee. Oops—wrong one. Let's try again."
The bell chimed once more. This time, what fell from the sky wasn't rainwater, but macarons, little cakes, ice cream, and crêpes.
They were dropping from so high up, yet none of them were damaged. They stacked neatly onto the tea table, one after another.
Once it looked like there was enough, Nursery Rhyme shook the bell again. The storm clouds retreated, and the sky returned to bright sunshine in an instant.
Only then did Satomi Rentaro realize he'd been shocked too early.
"Making it rain desserts… that really is the kind of wild, whimsical wish only a kid would have."
Adults were more material, after all. If it had to rain, they'd wish for money, diamonds, jewels, or gold… and since the last three would probably kill you if they really fell from the sky, paper bills were the most acceptable option.
"It's not just dessert rain," Nursery Rhyme said with a smile. "There's chocolate rain, strawberry milk rain, candy rain… Oh! Right—why don't I just pull a cloud over? Then you can tell it what kind of rain you want, and it'll do it."
With that, Nursery Rhyme stretched her arm up toward the sky.
Her arms were short—she had a child's body, after all. Even fully extended, she couldn't possibly reach the clouds.
And yet, right in front of Satomi Rentaro and Seitenshi, it was as if their vision slipped out of alignment: a cloud floating in the sky was abruptly yanked down to Nursery Rhyme's side.
"If you don't like white, I can make it red, blue, pink, green, black, brown—anything. I can even make it ultra-deluxe, cosmic, rainbow-colored!"
Staring at the cloud—now a dazzling, multicolored sphere like a disco light hanging from a bar ceiling—Satomi Rentaro's mouth twitched. Any desire to accept it died on the spot.
"…Never mind. Nursery Rhyme, you should just keep it."
"…"
"Mm. I see…"
When Nursery Rhyme lifted her hand with a blank expression, she was holding a bamboo skewer. She poked it into the floating rainbow cloud, then opened her mouth and took a bite, chewing.
…How did the cloud suddenly turn into cotton candy?
Satomi Rentaro still didn't want to put his mouth to the teacup, but the little cakes on the table didn't have that problem. He popped a piece into his mouth.
He had to admit—it really was delicious. The kind of taste you could call happiness.
Nursery Rhyme's identity, the uncanny things she could do, and everything about this place had shattered the worldview Satomi Rentaro had spent sixteen years building.
Even so, he didn't forget what mattered most.
Tendō Kisara…
And the whereabouts of everyone in the Tokyo Area, swallowed up by the white fog.
Later, Nursery Rhyme brought a little girl—she looked not even ten—over to Satomi Rentaro and Seitenshi.
The instant Satomi Rentaro saw her, he shot up out of his chair.
"Kisara-san?!"
He and Tendō Kisara had been childhood friends. He remembered clearly what she had looked like as a child.
And the girl Nursery Rhyme had brought over looked almost exactly like the Kisara in his memories.
"Kisara-san! Is it really you?" Satomi Rentaro hurried to the black-haired little girl and crouched down in front of her, shock flooding his eyes. "I was so worried about you… Why are you so small?"
On instinct, he reached out—but she bolted behind Nursery Rhyme like a startled rabbit, clutching Nursery Rhyme's skirt tightly with trembling hands.
"Y-you… who are you? I don't know you…"
That one sentence hit Satomi Rentaro like a bolt of lightning. His mind went blank, and even his heartbeat seemed to skip.
Even after Nursery Rhyme soothed the girl and sent her away, Satomi Rentaro still hadn't snapped out of it.
Seitenshi looked at him with worry, then turned to Nursery Rhyme.
"Nursery Rhyme-san… that girl… really was Kisara-san?"
"That's right."
Nursery Rhyme nodded, but after a brief pause, she added, "From the perspective of the soul, she really is Tendō Kisara."
"…"
"Didn't I tell you? My Nameless Forest is a forest you can't return from. Anyone without a child's heart will lose their way inside it, and little by little, they'll lose their name, their memories, and their very existence—until they become a completely untainted new life."
Nursery Rhyme picked up a piece of bread from the table, broke off a few crumbs, and tossed them onto the grass around them. One pigeon after another flew down from the sky, pecking happily at the crumbs, while Nursery Rhyme continued.
"Enju and Tina—because they're children who still have that child's heart—weren't affected at all, even after falling into the Nameless Forest. They were able to enter this fairy-tale paradise."
"And you two… you kept your memories, your names, your existence as well. But the others couldn't."
It was obvious: Tendō Kisara was one of the cases that had lost its name, its memories, and its own existence. And there was no way it was just one or two cases like that.
It was the entire Tokyo Area.
At this point, it could be said that the Tokyo Area no longer existed.
From start to finish, Nursery Rhyme never looked up, as if the collapse of the Tokyo Area—so many people having their memories erased—was nothing worth mentioning.
"Why… would you do that?"
Hearing the indifference in Nursery Rhyme's tone, Satomi Rentaro asked, unable to understand.
"Isn't that killing people?"
"Hm? Why are you angry, Satomi-oniichan?" Nursery Rhyme looked up at him and tilted her head, puzzled. "Haven't you always believed in reincarnation? China, Japan, Egypt, India, Greece, South America… every country has myths and legends about the underworld, the land of the dead, hell. People believe that after death, you reach the world beyond, settle all the sins and ties from your last life, and then enter the cycle again—starting over."
"So if Satomi-oniichan and onee-chan just think of it as everyone having a bowl of Meng Po's soup and crossing the Naihe Bridge, doesn't it become easier to understand? Easier to accept? Oh, right—I'm much gentler than the underworld. I'm not making them take a tour through Tongue-Ripping Hell, the Cauldron-of-Oil Hell, or the Iron Tree Hell to atone."
At most, she'd used the plot of BLACK SOULS 2 as reference to make a fake boxed world, then tossed a few utterly wicked souls inside to experience the local "customs" for a while…
Of course, everyone in there was fake, and it had nothing to do with any incomprehensible Outer Gods.
With an innocent, guileless smile, Nursery Rhyme said it like that.
"And besides… Satomi-oniichan and onee-chan shouldn't forget that before I stepped in, the Tokyo Area's defensive line had already been breached by the Gastrea horde, right? Even with Civil Security officers like Satomi-oniichan still around, how long could you really hold them back now? One day? Half a day? Then you'd be wiped out, and everyone in the Tokyo Area would die."
"Sure, they lost their memories and names, but they still have their lives. At least they're still alive. And because they're brand-new lives, all the illnesses and defects they used to have are gone too. Like Kisara-oneechan—didn't she have diabetes and kidney failure? But now she's a truly healthy child."
Nursery Rhyme tapped a finger lightly against her chin, smiling faintly.
"If you look at it that way, doesn't that make me the Tokyo Area's lifesaver?"
"Hey, Satomi-oniichan—are you really supposed to treat your lifesaver like this?"
"I…" Satomi Rentaro opened his mouth, but no words came out.
"Or do you think the old Tendō Kisara was just fine?" Nursery Rhyme tilted her head again. "Carrying that bone-deep hatred, forcing that battered body along a thorn-filled road of revenge… her ending could only be burning out halfway, or reaching the end of hatred and turning into a hollow shell called a killer…"
"Tell me, Satomi-oniichan—do you really think that would've been okay? Don't you want Kisara-oneechan to become an ordinary little girl, and fight for an ordinary kind of happiness?"