[398] Rapidly Changing Situation (2)
After the celebratory dinner for her promotion to Certified Grade 5 mage, Shiina arrived back at the dorm pleasantly tipsy.
She had received countless bouquets, but the only one she carried inside was the one Shirone had given her.
Kicking off her shoes and looking down, she found dozens of congratulatory letters piled up from various institutions.
Gathering a stack, Shiina sat at her desk, tossed her hair back, and examined them one by one.
The list seemed endless: Tormia National Defense Magic Research Institute, the Royal Magic Museum, the Climate Association, the Mage Pension Fund, and more.
"Huh. I actually did it."
She shrugged off her coat and stood. The hangover wasn't the problem, but she had sweated a lot and wanted a wash first.
She tossed her jacket onto the desk and noticed a distinctive seal among the letters.
"Kaizen School of Swordsmanship?"
Born into the Olifer family and raised as a mage, she had little connection to swordsmanship.
"Someone I met through the instructors' association?"
Shiina tore the letter open and checked the name.
Parka Kuan.
"Oh… Kuan."
She remembered Kuan from the matchmaking meeting last year—an arrangement pushed by the Olifer family. It had been a decent match, she recalled: his tone was cold and his manner austere, but he hadn't been rude.
"How did he know to send a letter?"
Maybe he'd heard through the instructors' association. But swordsmanship and magic were such different fields that, unless he'd been paying particular attention, he might not have known.
"I should write back."
Wearing only her underwear, Shiina sat back down. She opened a drawer, took out stationery, dipped a fountain pen in ink, and set the nib to the paper.
Plop.
A single dot appeared on the blank page and lingered for a long moment.
'Armin oppa…'
If there was one person whose congratulations she wanted, it was Armin.
The one who had sacrificed his sight for her in childhood. If not for him, she could never have dreamed of reaching this place.
Shiina slid the dotted sheet back into the drawer. She felt a bit guilty toward Kuan, but the memory of Armin she had already let go of left no emptiness.
'Is he doing all right? He hasn't published anything either.'
Since leaving Creas, not a single letter had come from him.
He had been the sort to write at least once every three months, so she worried something might have happened.
'Well. He's a lot smarter than I am.'
Who was worrying whom?
Even as a Certified Grade 5 mage, before Armin Shiina was still just the tearful little sister from her childhood.
She looked up at the ceiling and gave a sad little smile.
"Heh. Oppa, I did well, didn't I?"
* * *
It was the most terrible dream of Shirone's life.
From a city-sized hole torn in the sky, countless mara swarmed down.
Creatures humans called demons, dark gods—beings of nightmare—laid waste to everything on the surface.
He lost everyone.
Among corpses spread like a plain, all the people Shirone loved lay dead.
"No! No!"
Before Amy's body, Shirone wailed.
Her eyes wouldn't close; her gaze painfully fixed on the dozens of mara floating in the firmament.
"Uaaaaah!"
Ataraxia condensed at a terrifying speed. When every hair on Shirone's head stood on end, a colossal flash ripped through the sky.
The mara were swallowed by the light and vanished.
Just as the world filled with that light, darkness surged in from the edges and quickly smothered it.
Shirone was left alone in the dark. To the last human in a ruined world, even the word loneliness felt too small.
He sank to his knees and cried, pleading with the darkness to bring back the lost.
"Shi-ro-ne."
A hoarse voice tore at his eardrums.
A thin flash passed, and the darkness opened above and below to reveal an enormous eye.
Shirone's eyes widened. In the center of that vast iris, a face twisted like a fiend—his own—was reflected.
"...! ...!"
He screamed so hard he tasted blood. He had never hated anything so utterly in his life.
But the voice sounded muffled, as if underwater.
The great pupil, cold and rooted in the dark, continued in that hoarse tone.
"You have the right and the duty to answer the questions left to you."
"...! ...!"
Bloody tears streamed from his eyes. A torrent of curses and insults rained down on the iris.
Even in the dream he lost his restraint; he struck the darkness with both fists. Resentment, fury, longing—each shook his trembling shoulders.
For the first time, the gigantic eye truly looked at Shirone. Its pupil didn't move, but somehow he felt it had seen him.
As if ears had suddenly grown, he finally heard his own voice in the dream.
"What the hell? What questions am I supposed to answer?"
"…."
The pupil asked.
"Gah!"
Shocked as if struck, Shirone bolted upright. A desk partition plastered with sticky notes came into view.
'My room. It's my room…'
He collapsed back against the desk. Cold sweat soaked his brow; he felt utterly drained.
"Huff. What was that? Why such a weird dream…"
Feeling the texture of paper against his cheek, he sat up. Among the notebooks packed with dense handwriting, one word snagged his attention.
Heaven Destruction.
He'd fallen asleep after studying magic all night—literally drafting a mass-destruction spell. The stress of having no solution yet had probably produced the nightmare.
It was already five in the morning.
Shirone neatly organized his notebooks. He already had more than ten volumes of notes on ideas related to a Heaven-Destruction spell. His understanding of God's particles had deepened, but the chance of meeting Gaold's proposed standard was still zero percent.
'No, there has to be a way. Maybe…'
If completed, it would be the most destructive spell in the world. He couldn't let it go because a faint, answer-like resonance still pulsed in his mind.
After washing with warm water, Shirone slung a crossbody bag with notebooks and pens over his shoulder and left the dorm.
The final year that had begun in winter was now moving toward summer. Nights had shortened; dawn came sooner and the air tasted crisp, like carbonated water. Pleasant birdcalls drifted from the trees.
'Can I really reach heaven?'
When he first met Gaold, a year had seemed to fly by. But buried in the hectic schedule of his final year, all the promises tied to that meeting felt more and more dreamlike.
"Huh? Shirone?"
He turned and saw Maya blinking on a garden bench, a steaming mug of coffee in both hands.
"Maya, what are you doing up at this hour?"
"Huh? I'm always up now. I have to play the wake-up music. And you?"
Shirone had woken each morning to music, but he'd never thought someone might have that small burden.
"Oh, I woke up early from a nap. Had time, so I was taking a walk."
"I see."
They'd grown closer since taking the high ground, but a private moment between the two didn't happen on demand, so an awkward air lingered.
Maya, looking down and nudging her mug with her thumb, summoned her courage and patted the bench beside her.
"Want to sit?"
Shirone didn't refuse. He'd meant to clear his head, and sitting with Maya wasn't a bad idea.
Where mages drew sharp lines around their domains, Maya stepped across them and tended others' pains with an unsentimental ease.
At first Shirone had been puzzled—mages didn't normally offload their burdens on others—but he had to admit the truth.
Her kindness was an oasis, moistening Shirone's increasingly parched heart amid the grind of the final year.
"Want some? It's still warm."
Maya offered a coffee sweetened with sugar and milk. Stressed and tired, Shirone had no reason to refuse something sweet. And since it was Maya, he could accept without awkwardness.
"Thanks."
He took a sip. Maya's face flushed and she smiled shyly.
"Is something wrong? You look down."
Shirone made a weary sound and leaned back on the bench.
"I've been working on a concept but I can't find the thread. I haven't slept properly for days. And tonight I had a horrible nightmare. So I haven't been feeling great."
Maya could see he'd lost weight. Although Shirone seemed to be doing well in the final year, even someone of his level could be worn down.
"Don't make it so hard on yourself. Sometimes when I sing, if I try too hard to be perfect, everything falls apart."
Shirone had experienced that too—letting go sometimes brought clarity.
But that alone wouldn't build a continent.
It was when you squeezed yourself to the limit and then the dam broke that the mind became a rushing torrent and genius struck.
"Hmm, I don't know. Whether it's easy or hard, it has to make sense. I might go crazy otherwise."
He tilted his head back. Busy birds flew across the morning sky in search of food.
Maya's expression softened. How deep must his worry be to have such dark circles beneath his eyes?
"Shirone…"
She covered his hand with hers. Whether he was unaware or simply tolerating it, her palm on his made his heart threaten to burst.
"Shirone, can you tell me what's wrong? Even the greatest sometimes miss small things. If you ask others for help, a solution might appear."
Shirone blinked slowly.
'Hmm, ask for help? That could work. But this is a state secret—who could I… huh?'
His eyelids froze halfway open. From a distance he looked so still one might have thought him dead.
Maya didn't notice the change.
She wanted to comfort him. She wanted to be the one. To be his.
She felt his body lean toward her. A fleeting thought—Is this okay?—passed, but if he disliked it he would have rejected her the moment she took his hand.
Perhaps Shirone was waiting for what came next.
Gaining courage from that private hope, Maya parted her plump lips and leaned toward Shirone's mouth.
"Shirone, maybe I—"
"God particles."
"Huh?"
Unintelligible words spilled from Shirone's mouth.
Ask for help. There are limits to what one can do alone.
The faint light that had threaded his thoughts amplified at incredible speed and sent chills down his spine. Finally, with a head-clearing freshness as if his brain had been blown open, his mind went startlingly clear.
"Maya!"
"S-sorry! I was just—!"
Maya recoiled in alarm. Only after regaining her composure did she realize what she had been about to try. It was a scene that could easily be mistaken for something perverted—perhaps even actually perverted.
Shirone set his mug down with a clack and stared intently at Maya.
"Um, Shirone, so—what I meant was…"
Before she could finish, he pulled her into a hug.
Maya's eyes widened. A dizzy euphoria as if she owned the world washed over her.
"Thank you, really, thank you! I finally figured it out!"
Shirone grabbed Maya's shoulders and shook her energetically, then half in a daze slung his crossbody bag on and bolted upright.
"Sorry! Something came up! See you later!"
He stumbled as he sprinted full tilt; Maya leapt to her feet, but before she could call after him he steadied himself and raced toward the far side of the park.
Maya heard her heart pounding. Today didn't feel just lucky—it felt like a windfall.
She smiled happily and shouted after him.
"Shirone! Do your best! Fighting!"
Shirone answered with no words—just a clenched fist raised.