[419] In Heaven (1)
Heaven — the Sixth Heaven. The Great World War.
There was an angel whose face was as translucent and beautiful as light.
A slim form, two meters thirty tall, the pinnacle of intellect born knowing all the world's truths.
Among countless angels he was one of only eight archangels, and among them Kariel—the Angel of Birth—was famed for his exceptional beauty.
But now his face was as pale as any sick human's.
His eyes were sunken, his expression twitchy.
The benevolent, sharply defined features that once overflowed with intellectual clarity had lately begun to warp.
In truth, he was in much the same state as a diseased being.
If an angel's power springs from the crispness of its concept, Kariel's clarity was down to barely a tenth of its usual brightness.
All of this was the price he had paid to bring back a single human.
"Kariel, are you really all right?"
Yuriel, the Angel of Destruction, watched Kariel—whose presence had even dimmed—with concern.
Of the archangels he was the tallest at three meters, solid of build, his heavy breastplate reaching nearly to his chin. A golden halo spun at its center like an angry wheel.
"I'm holding up for now. I have to. This is only the beginning."
By human standards Kariel's fatigue equaled forty years without sleep.
Any other creature struck by such exhaustion would have had every cell drained dry.
Yet his eyes still burned with feeling.
Yuriel turned toward where Kariel was looking.
Beneath the galactic mirror that governs the world's motion, a woman who was beautiful by human standards sat cross-legged.
Adrias Miro.
What could be more loathsome to the beings of Heaven?
She was humanity's last bulwark, the obstacle to conquering the cosmos, shielded by a barrier even Anke Ra—the living Akashic Record—could not pierce.
And yet even she had fallen helpless to Kariel's persistence.
"You actually managed it in the end."
When Anke Ra had abruptly canceled the war just as the rebellion was about to be annihilated, she forbade any investigation into that human.
All the angels obeyed, but Kariel alone refused to relent and quietly pushed forward a plan to eradicate humanity.
What he had gained was Miro's physical body—sitting there in front of them.
"How did you do it? I thought Miro's spacetime couldn't be destroyed."
A smile ghosted Kariel's tired face.
"When we attacked Miro's spacetime with heavenly bombardment, Optrus slipped through a fissure. Information about Miro's spacetime was imprinted on his electromagnetic pattern. I analyzed it."
"But Miro's spacetime healed right away. You couldn't have pierced a dimensional barrier and hauled her out."
"A dimensional barrier, in truth, has no substance. Heaven's army can't go to the Land of Earth because the protocols differ. It's an independent world with no quantum entanglement."
Yuriel did not try to understand.
One born for destruction had no obligation to comprehend that which he destroys.
"So?"
"I used the data from Optrus to decode the protocol. Then, by means of quantum superposition, I transmitted Miro into the Great World War."
"Hmm. And?"
Kariel realized Yuriel hadn't quite followed.
"To put it simply, it's like putting your hand into a jar and pulling things out until you get what you want. The jar might as well be the entire universe."
Yuriel understood why Kariel had grown weak.
"So you rummaged through the universe and kidnapped her."
"Yeah…exactly that."
Kariel let it pass.
"Hmm."
Yuriel stared at Miro's face, lost in trance.
She looked just as she had before—young, the same face that had alone opened a dimensional wall against Heaven's army on the eve of the final war.
"Human minds are, in a way, terrifying."
Miro's mind—the thing that now constituted her spacetime—was being endlessly sucked into the void dimension.
An angel born perfect could not comprehend such a mental state or concept.
"Hah. That's proof they're imperfect. Don't get all sentimental over mere humans."
Yuriel did not reply.
If something could not be understood, his solution was to destroy it.
But would Kariel do the same?
Birth presupposed an understanding of all things. For Kariel, who handles the potion of life, to fail to understand humanity might be the greatest contradiction in this universe.
"Humans are strange. Even now, a single human is holding back all of Heaven's forces."
Kariel's features tightened.
Human. Human.
He could not fathom why Anke Ra and the others applied different standards only to humans.
"That won't happen. I'll annihilate them."
Yuriel changed the subject. He did not want to further rile his twin—born the same day under a different concept.
"All right. What now? Even if we kill Miro, her spacetime won't disappear. Why wear her mind to the brink of annihilation just to bring her here?"
"Hmph. Naturally, it's to destroy Miro's spacetime. We'll pull her out of the void dimension. Once she regains consciousness and we kill her, Miro's spacetime will vanish."
It was a sound plan—indeed, the only plan.
"But we can't comprehend human imperfection. None of our subjects could understand Miro's mind. After Gaffin's deletion, the Nephilim disappeared."
"They don't exist in Heaven, but they do in the Land of Earth."
Yuriel tilted his head.
Of course, on the Land of Earth there are those who spontaneously awaken as Nephilim.
But as long as Miro's spacetime blocks the way, bringing someone from there is impossible.
"You're going to scour the universe again? You might be completely annihilated doing that."
"No need. I don't have the strength left."
Kariel flew up to the pillar-shaped central system and linked into the Akashic Record.
Yuriel followed, hovering behind and peering at the screen over Kariel's shoulder.
"I dug through the Akashic Record and found something interesting."
Kariel stepped aside and a human name flashed on the display.
Yuriel read the description beneath it and nodded.
"Indeed, interesting."
Coincidentally, it was the human who understood human minds best.
No—more accurately, he had become what he was precisely because he understood the human mind so well.
"I'll summon this one into the Great World War."
Kariel spread his hand and a holy light flashed. A codex appeared in his palm.
The book that contained the universe's laws was a high-strength metal hardcover; pages made of light began to turn.
The central computation system kicked into full operation; bluish electricity ran across the floor like waves and gathered into arching mechanical devices.
Yuriel watched for a moment, then turned back to the central system's screen.
"A tomb raider…"
A name that existed as nothing more than a concept blinked on the display:
Morrigan Arius
* * *
Rebel First Headquarters.
Shirone and his party received the rebels' enthusiastic cheers.
News that Shirone had used archangelic power to command hundreds of giants spread quickly through drones and had already become the rebellion's new legend.
Amid a roar of noise, Shirone's face was grave.
He found it odd the headquarters carried the number One, but the unexpectedly large size of the rebel base erased his doubts.
Dozens of buildings, likely munitions depots, ringed the grounds, and in the forest a massive structure rose over thirty meters tall.
"Formidable forces. If they mobilize—"
Gaold's thought was different.
"Won't make a damn bit of difference."
Of course the HQ's power was strong.
But the captain's report that they had been driven to the brink of annihilation left no doubt.
This wasn't merely an issue of force asymmetry.
From the start, the beings of Heaven were something other than humans.
Like how a human wouldn't passively let thousands of ants bite them to death, angels were not the kind of things to be chewed up.
"Hey? Shirone's over there. Hey, Shirone! It's me, it's me!"
A familiar face suddenly popped out from the crowd.
It was Clove and Gadrak, who had a year earlier guided Shirone and his friends to a Nor shelter.
Shirone still remembered Clove's earlier dismissal of Amy, but a familiar face was welcome.
Still, Shirone couldn't bring himself to go. If he did, the crowd that heard Clove would surge forward.
"Waaah! It's real! Shirone really came!"
Clove and Gadrak were swallowed by the crowd and vanished.
Outside the people of Sector 73, almost no one knew Shirone's face, so such a reaction was inevitable.
Shirone stepped back, startled.
If he went any closer people might be injured.
Clove, watching Shirone draw away, grabbed his head in dismay and complained.
"Ah, I never thought that kid would become such an important figure. If I'd known, I'd've made friends sooner."
Gadrak smacked his student's head.
"Is that what matters right now? We're on the verge of being wiped out by angels."
Clove looked aggrieved.
"But Master, you said if Shirone came we'd be treated better too."
Gadrak said nothing.
Shirone's return had come at a perfect moment.
Heaven's halt to the attack was certainly a boon for the rebels, but that alone could not mend the widening rift between Mecha pilots and the Nor people after repeated defeats.
Unable to reach consensus, the command had split into First and Second Headquarters, and though there was no fighting now, the mood was already bleak.
Just when everyone seemed to be waiting for self-destruction, the light of Sector 73 shone on them again.
"Why now? Did he come back on purpose?"
A chain of events linked by unseen ties made Shirone's return harder to dismiss as a mere miracle.
"Hehe, I love strolling with my big brother like this."
Meanwhile, Rena looped her arm through Shirone's and didn't leave his side for a moment on the walk to command.
Plu, watching Shirone's stiff, upright back, clicked her tongue.
"What's with that? Did he come to Heaven for a date?"
Gaold didn't care.
"Let it be. That kind of display will probably help the parade."
For rebels who had been pushed to the brink, a little stagecraft around Shirone's miracle was acceptable.
But Kanya was embarrassed by her sister's antics.
Unable to hold back, she approached Rena and whispered.
"What are you doing? Get off him. Don't you know what Shirone means to the rebels? What if people get the wrong idea?"
"What wrong idea? We're not just anyone with Shirone oppa. We met after a year—can't we link arms?"
Rena looked back at Shirone.
"Oppa, let sister link arms with you too."
Shirone had no answer.
His heart was racing as it was—how could he walk with two girls on his arms?
Kanya's face flushed crimson.
"You—you can't be serious. Why would I link arms with Shirone?"
"Ah, come on. You're too soft. If we look close to Shirone oppa, we'll get treated better at headquarters. Your Guroi was damaged anyway. If we can get a new Guroi issued here, you can be a pilot again."
Kanya was silenced, as if honeyed.
Though younger, her sister was far more calculating—perhaps scheming would be a better word.
Shirone reassured her.
"Kanya, don't worry. I destroyed that Guroi. I'll tell the commander when we meet."
Kanya smiled at Shirone, then blinked sleepily and looked back at Rena.
'Ugh, that sly fox…'
Whether she understood her sister's motives or not, Rena only smiled contentedly with her arm around Shirone.