[100] Meeting God (2)
"Shirone…."
Amy, her eyes swollen from crying, gripped Shirone's hand. None of the teachers had come; they were all stunned. Or perhaps they had already accepted that Shirone was dead.
But Amy shook her head in denial. She couldn't bring herself to believe Shirone was gone. There were too many strange inconsistencies for it to be mere obsession.
Nade offered words of comfort.
"Senpai, don't worry. Shirone will come back."
"That's right. It doesn't make sense. Why would he die? If casting Mass Teleport would kill you, it wouldn't have activated in the first place. Something strange definitely happened to Shirone."
Iruki frowned. He'd stayed up all night too, but nothing was as foolish as pretending the dead were still alive.
"If you argue like that, Arkein should have lived too. Magic can kill you just from casting it."
"This is different from Arkein! Shirone fully opened his Immortal Function. That has nothing to do with brain-function decline!"
"In any case, he exceeded capacity. Humans can die from any variable. What matters is whether they're dead or alive; speculating why they died isn't rational."
Nade pinched his brow. Even if that was true, there were things you could and couldn't say in front of a girlfriend. Just as he was about to snap back, Amy approached Iruki with a cold glare.
"You're as detestable as ever."
Iruki watched her, chin propped on the table. Her irises were burning red.
'The Karmis family, huh. Crimson eyes—immune to mental-type magic, I suppose.'
Crimson eyes were a famous trait across the continent. Only anti-magic could touch them, so it made sense she'd gotten out of Abyss Nova. Iruki's curiosity ended there; he turned his gaze away as if bored.
"It's a bad habit to blame others just because you feel bad."
"No, you're the one spoiling the mood. Who are you anyway? Are you really Shirone's friend? How can you say he's dead?"
"I didn't say I think he's dead. I said he is dead."
"That's worse! And you—talking down like that when you're Class Five?"
"If you don't like it, report me to the student council. If I get punished, so be it."
Amy couldn't hold back. She grabbed Iruki by the collar and, using schema power, lifted him clean off the ground. His legs left the floor.
"Say that again. But this time, say it properly."
"Oh my, how scary."
Iruki's eyes showed nothing—only emptiness as he looked down at Amy. But when Amy's temper flared, she didn't hold back.
"Repeat after me exactly. Shirone is not dead. If you don't, you'll end up lying beside him."
"Shirone is dead."
"Shirone is not dead! Say it now!"
"Shirone is dead."
Amy's crimson eyes flickered. Using her self-image memory to calibrate the precision of her blow, she aimed for Iruki's third and fourth teeth and sent her fist flying. Iruki's expression didn't change. The acceleration slowed—she planned to stop right before his lips.
As expected, Amy halted just before impact. Watching her fist tremble with rage, Iruki said flatly,
"Ah, thank goodness."
"Don't be ridiculous! Miserable Servant. You wouldn't even understand why I stopped my punch."
Amy couldn't bring herself to hit Iruki. No matter how much she hated him, he was still Shirone's friend.
"The meaning of stopping a punch. You're saying I just wasted my strength?"
A spark lit in Amy's eyes.
"So you'd say with that mouth that Shirone is dead? Do you know what that means? People like you don't deserve friends."
"That may be. But do you deserve them?"
"What do you mean by that? This is—!"
Amy grabbed his collar again and raised her fist. For the first time, Iruki frowned and shoved her hand away.
"Damn it!"
Amy tore her hand loose and glared as Iruki walked to the bed and pointed at Shirone.
"You're the pathetic ones. Does this look alive to you? He isn't breathing and his heart's stopped! And you lot keep spouting nonsense about him being alive or that something strange happened—what kind of friends are you?"
"What do you want me to do? Shirone's like this—what do you expect me to do?"
"Think, then!"
Iruki shouted with an intensity rarely seen. If they kept insisting he was alive, would that bring the dead back? If they had the time for such useless fantasies, they should be thinking of ways to resurrect the dead.
Amy bit her lip, hunting for words, then finally slumped, head bowed. Iruki was right. Mathematically, Shirone was dead.
Nade, sorrowful, said, "I understand. But Iruki, how do you bring someone back? There's no way to resurrect the dead, is there?"
"Hmph. That's your limitation."
Iruki slammed the door and left. Silence settled over the infirmary. Amy collapsed onto a cot, exhausted; Nade dozed in a chair. Nade tried to comfort her.
"Senpai, don't hate him too much. Iruki's just frustrated, that's why he's like that."
"I don't want to deal with that brat. Saying 'think of ways to bring the dead back'—don't they realize that's just rubbing salt in the wound?"
Nade had no answer. Maybe it was just Iruki's way, but this time Nade felt stung by his bluntness.
Iruki walked down the corridor with a scowl. Two people he least wanted to see were waiting. Canis was leaning against the wall, and Arin shifted her gaze nervously.
Given their roles in the incident, they needed to be watched closely, but there simply wasn't room to deal with them now.
Iruki had no patience either. If they'd intended to run, they would've fled already—though even then they couldn't escape the Magic Association's notice.
"Come to gloat? Or to apologize now?"
Canis pushed off the wall.
"Both. To gloat a little and to apologize. Dying in battle is one thing, but Shirone died for something meaningless, and that leaves a bad taste. But I guess you picked the wrong time."
They'd apparently heard Amy fighting. Iruki, annoyed they'd come at all, scratched his head.
"Good call. You won't see anything pleasant if you go in now. The girl in the infirmary will start by breaking your legs. Do your best. I'm leaving."
Canis watched Iruki pass.
"That doesn't matter. Saying you picked the wrong time means the opportunity's gone. What apology do you offer someone who's already dead?"
Iruki halted and glared.
"What?"
"I agree with you. Dead is dead. Seeing you fuss over a corpse made me lose any desire to apologize."
Iruki paused, then snorted a laugh.
"So you came back from the dead and now you're full of talk. Whose idea is that? Yours? Or a shadow's?"
"….You trying to pick a fight here?"
"From my point of view, Shirone was an irritating friend."
Canis frowned at that sudden remark.
"The truth is I'm a strange, bad guy. So I imposed restraints on myself. Think of Shirone as a kind of lock for me."
"Hmph. A weak notion."
"Is it? Without Shirone, I might not have started thinking that way at all. Anyway, he's gone now. So I'd appreciate it if you watched your words."
Arin flinched when something in Iruki's demeanor struck her.
"Because I'm different from Shirone. If I set my mind to it, I could do anything insane. So you should pray that Shirone is alive and will stop me."
Iruki's eyes began to gleam. Sparks from his brain flashed through his pupils.
"If Shirone ends like this, I'll find a way to kill you myself."
Canis's mental channel opened and Harvist's brainwaves transmitted.
- Canis, warning level. You've been targeted.
- I know. I already knew he was a Servant.
- It isn't that simple. His calculation speed is enormous. Judging by the Spirit Zone's movement, he's estimated to be more than ten thousand times faster than our mental channel.
Canis could hardly believe it. Exchanging thoughts with Harvist was already faster than normal thinking. Ten thousand times faster was beyond comprehension.
- How fast is that, exactly?
- The amount of information needed to analyze every event in a city over three seconds. You'd need a special strategy to handle it. But we're criminals. Causing a scene here could make things worse.
Canis didn't want to back down. That stubbornness was why he'd been chosen as Arkein's protégé, but the timing was bad. As Harvist urged restraint, Arin interjected.
"But doesn't that mean you think Shirone isn't dead?"
Iruki's Spirit Zone vanished. Arin, who'd been watching his murderous intent through First Sight, finally felt relief. Iruki forced his emotions down. He had to be colder than anyone. Letting feeling ruin things—only the fools in the infirmary would do that.
"Shirone is dead. You won't find a solution if you don't accept the fact. I'm only being rational."
"No. You believe Shirone is alive. Maybe even more than the two people in that room."
Iruki scowled. A Servant was unrivaled at calculating causality. There was no room for illogical sentiment.
"What do you think you know about me?"
"I have an ability called First Sight. I perceive things as if seeing them for the first time. So I can't remember the form of objects—they always look different."
"And? What does that prove?"
"I see your emotions. In a completely different form than others do."
"I don't feel anything. Dead is dead. There's no room for emotion here."
"No. You're different."
Arin shook her head.
"Because you're crying a very sad kind of cry right now."
Iruki had no answer.
Before First Sight, a hundred words were useless.
That night.
The infirmary door opened slowly.
Amy had collapsed on the cot, exhausted from crying, and Nade dozed in a corner chair.
Iruki approached Shirone. Sleep and death felt different to the touch. Seeing Shirone's face cold and still, Iruki felt his heart collapse.
In the morning the teachers would come to check. They'd start embalming to prepare for a funeral, and once that happened there'd be no returning Shirone.
Iruki steadied himself and drew a scalpel from a fold in his clothes.
'I will bring you back, no matter what.'
Amy and Nade showed no sign of waking; they'd been under extreme stress for two days. Iruki steeled himself and made the incision.
The blade shone in the moonlight as it cut into Shirone's skin.