신의 그림자(2)
The mountain seen from the sky was a vast block of charcoal, hundreds of thousands of lights twinkling like stars.
At a temperature high enough to incinerate living things by heat alone, Amy exhaled calmly.
"Yahweh's assassination unit, huh."
Gultan's ability, Imagery Craft, would almost certainly be far deadlier to Shirone than to her.
"Maya."
Pushing countless thoughts aside, Amy looked toward the forested slope across from them.
Was it already too late?
If whoever had attacked Maya was on Gultan's level, she would have been dead a hundred times over by now.
"Hm?"
A flare of red bloomed.
Deep in the woods, an artificial disturbance—nothing like a natural phenomenon—was detected.
They were still fighting.
Without hesitation, Amy teleported straight for that spot.
Miyo, her arm severed, was trying to make sense of what had just happened rather than stop the bleeding.
"What the hell just happened?"
She couldn't accept how she could have an arm cut off and not even registered it.
"I'm a division commander. And that guy was a weakling who couldn't even get up a second ago."
Frustrated by a gap that reason couldn't bridge, Miyo turned to Kaiden.
"What are you?"
Kaiden couldn't answer.
Why couldn't he move his arm? His right arm remained fixed, sword held horizontally, frozen in space.
"Lower it! Put your arm down!"
When he forced his consciousness into the limb, the texture of the hilt and the weight of the blade came through vividly.
"It's not a sensory issue."
Still the arm wouldn't move; he felt as if he'd forgotten how to give orders.
"The problem's the brain. What the—" The tearing sound he'd heard a moment ago probably had something to do with it.
"Don't think." Kaiden left his right arm stiff as if in a cast and turned away.
"Protecting Maya comes first." The instant he took in Miyo's figure, the sword began to slash at the air like a madman.
Kaiden stayed unnervingly calm.
He could feel everything, but his brain wasn't processing it.
"What are you doing?"
Startled by Miyo's shout, Kaiden finally noticed the arm that was moving on its own and froze.
"What is this…?"
The moment he pushed his consciousness back in, his thought evaporated and his body lunged forward.
"Kyahhh!"
Miyo's remaining arm was sliced off, and a tearing scream embroidered the mountainside.
"You bastard!"
She thrust her brutally shortened stumps forward, mouth wide, teeth bared.
"I'll chew your heart out!"
Kaiden fought to regain control of his mind.
When he briefly reclaimed his body, he felt all his strength leaking away.
"Damn it!"
Miyo charged headfirst.
Even a simple headbutt from a division commander would be enough to break bones.
At that instant Kaiden's right arm drove the sword into the ground and raised a thick iron wall.
Thud!
Miyo's pupils trembled violently.
"Aagh!"
She sank to her knees, clutching her head and trembling, while the iron wall cracked loudly.
Kaiden finally put the pieces together.
"Two brains."
Not certain, but it seemed the network between his left and right hemispheres had been severed.
"The brain that moves the right arm isn't sending signals to me anymore. That's why I can't control it."
If that hypothesis held, it explained why his thoughts had evaporated during his all-out strike a moment ago.
"If the brain that won't signal me suddenly takes control of the body…"
Kaiden would receive no signal at all.
"Heh heh. Heh heh heh."
It didn't matter.
If even one right arm could be free from the damned fate of the Red Cross Star—
"Maya."
If he could hold her hand.
"Finally I—"
Before he could finish, the hunched Miyo lunged at Maya.
"Kyaaa!"
Her head striking the iron wall would already be catastrophic.
At the very least, completing part of the Catacomb plan was the best they could do.
"Kill Maya. If I can gnaw even a sliver off Yahweh's heart—" Kaiden screamed.
"Maya!"
But the brain Kaiden controlled was trapped by the Red Cross Star's fate and could not move an inch.
"Dieee!"
Miyo's chest split open vertically; vicious ribs sprouted and gaped like a jaw.
At the same moment a flash descended.
Amy, arriving by teleport, took in the situation in an instant and hurled herself forward.
"This is bad!"
By her self-memory analysis, she was short by 0.43 seconds to save Maya.
"Kya!"
Maya, with the nervous reflexes of a sensitive ordinary person, screamed belatedly.
"Heh heh heh! Too late!"
Miyo, her grotesque entrails fully exposed, hunched her many ribs together and pounced.
Smack!
Amy's steps stopped.
Miyo's body split in two, brushing past Maya's sides and smashing into the ground.
"Ugh! Huh!"
Maya, hands raised like a frightened puppy, slowly opened her eyes, realizing something was wrong.
Kaiden glared at the split form of Miyo from an inverse grip on his longsword.
Amy gaped.
"Magic Sword Technique—Seomryeo."
It was a finishing move in itself, and the sword speed compared to their school days was on a different dimension entirely.
"Kaiden, what happened to you?"
She had a mountain of questions, but something more important came first.
"Dreaming used to be a luxury I couldn't afford, but now I can."
Kaiden squinted with resolve and stepped forward; Maya smiled and greeted him.
"Thank you, Kaiden. If it weren't for you, I—"
"Maya."
Kaiden cut her off. Maya's shoulders twitched and her face went pale.
"I'll confess properly. From the moment I first met you, there's only ever been you in my heart."
"Ka, Kaiden—"
Amy tried to interrupt, but Kaiden ignored her.
"You don't have to like me. Just know I love you. Then I can do anything. I'm not afraid of hell or death." Maya couldn't find words—Kaiden's tone and gaze were too earnest.
"Why is he like this? Is he teasing me?"
If she hadn't seen how much Kaiden had sacrificed to save her, she might have slapped him.
"Can I ask one thing?" Kaiden said with a gentle smile.
"Will you sing for me just once? That's my only wish. If you don't want to—"
"Hey! Kaiden!"
Only then did Kaiden turn his head.
"Why are you being like this? Don't you see what you're doing right now?"
"Aren't you doing it because it looks so good? What are you doing to Maya? Your hand! Your hand!"
"Huh?"
Kaiden blinked and traced where his right hand lay along Maya's shoulder.
After about a second of staring at where his hand rested on Maya's chest, terror filled his eyes.
"Aaah! What the hell is this!? What the hell is this!?"
"How should I know, you lunatic! Take your hand off, now!"
Kaiden stamped his foot, but no method to move the right hand came to mind.
"Ugh!"
Finally grabbing his wrist and pulling it away, the horrific episode was at least temporarily settled.
"Why? Why the hell?"
He'd never made a mistake like that in his life—how could his own hand do something so stupid?
Only the brain would know.
"Maya!"
When Kaiden turned, he saw Maya avoiding his gaze and his expression crumpled.
"It's ruined. It's all over."
Would the Red Cross Star's fate not even allow a first and last confession?
Imagining how she might see him made him feel as if he were falling into an abyss.
"I'm sorry, Maya. This wasn't my will. I don't even know what my hand did."
A classic pervert's excuse, but the composed Maya nodded.
"Oh. Okay. I understand."
Of course that didn't give her the courage to get closer to Kaiden.
Despair shadowed Kaiden's eyes; he drew his sword with his left hand.
"Damn it! Then I'll punish you!" Amy and Maya shouted at once.
"Wait! Kaiden!"
But before Kaiden could do anything, his right hand moved of its own accord and slapped his face.
"Ugh!"
Struck by his own fist, Kaiden lost his composure.
"Aaaargh!"
He began fighting his right hand with the left that had thrown the sword; it was a brutal, neck-and-neck struggle.
In the end the right hand overpowered the left and twisted sharply outward.
The two women watched in disbelief as Kaiden finally conceded.
"All right! I get it! I lose! I give up!"
Stubborn as he was, what could he do against his own hand?
"I always knew he was weird," Maya muttered.
"Goddamn it! Damn it!"
Kaiden slumped to the ground and stared at the sword lying beside him.
"Should I just cut it off for real?"
Amy said, "Kaiden—regardless of what happened, you protected Maya. Thanks to that right arm."
"Tch! If you keep saying stuff like that, how am I supposed to stay by Maya's side? What will this hand do next?"
Maya understood the real reason Kaiden felt so crushed.
"I'll tell you." She sat down beside him.
"You weren't being sincere. I don't know what causes it, but the Kaiden I know isn't like that. So… whenever this happens, I'll tell you."
"Ma—Maya."
"Thank you, Kaiden. Because of you I can keep singing. I'll grant that request you asked earlier."
Kaiden bit his lower lip, unable to hold back the tears.
"She's softhearted underneath it all." Of course she knew.
She knew how long Kaiden had dreamed of this moment, how he had screamed at his cursed fate.
"Congratulations."
Even if it was only the right arm, it was the first thing he had torn from fate by his own power.
Some time passed.
After the storm of emotions subsided, the three sat side by side on the hill, watching the city.
"By the way…"
Even Kaiden, who'd fought fiercely, was left hollow-faced by the sight.
"Amazing."
The gray space the Taeguk produced was spreading toward the horizon.
"What could be happening in there… I can't even begin to imagine."
Amy said, "Time, space, the Law, minds—everything is collapsing and cycling endlessly. The moment you enter, reality would be destroyed and you'd lose yourself."
This was beyond their ability to interfere.
The Taeguk's space looked like a waterfall of furious energy rushing backward.
Shirone and Giyorugi faced each other.
Two meters apart—inside that tiny core, the driving force to swallow a world was being generated.
Giyorugi said, "How long do you plan to hold out, Yahweh? You know how this goes. The Taeguk expands without end."
If neither side gave ground, it would soon swallow the entire world.
"The odds are fifty-fifty. I wouldn't stop you if you wanted to bet humanity against me…but Yahweh can't do that."
"Giyorugi."
Shirone spoke for the first time.
"You're overconfident. Whatever you are, you're only a shadow to me. You can't surpass me."
"…Maybe that's true."
Giyorugi hunched his upper body; a sinister light flashed in his eye and a ghostly face showed.
"But what about this?"
As the power of evil swelled, the Taeguk's space, which had been in a lull, began to expand again.
"Krkrkr! Will you take it or back down? You, Yahweh, gambling with humanity?"
"That's why you can't do it."
Giyorugi's expression twisted as Shirone abruptly warped the distribution of power.
Where the light's force had weakened, darkness began to flood in at terrifying speed.
"Twist it again here—"
Taking the force the darkness pushed out and feeding it back into the rotation accelerated the light far more.
Giyorugi realized.
"Damn it!"
Light and darkness circulating endlessly in the Taeguk's loop.
"Using darkness to amplify the light. In effect, Yahweh becomes faster than me."
"If you want to play this with me, bring someone my size." In the whirlwind of yin and yang spinning at incredible speed, at last the teeth of light bit the tail of darkness.