What Is a God? (1)
Uorin—
"Haaaaa!"
She couldn't contain her excitement as she watched Shirone fly alone toward Dr. Martin.
'Ah???'
Shirone, Shirone.
'You'll be mine.'
In High Gear, Shirone's failure would clearly put Uorin in a favorable position.
'Is that what love is?'
It was Shirone—rushing at the strongest enemy—that showed what it meant to love with everything.
'Like this???'
She felt a little embarrassed to recognize her real feelings in reality. Maybe she was overly excited, but even that mistake tasted so sweet it felt like relief.
'Shirone. You will come to me.' Uorin's feeling leaned more toward pleasure than devotion, but the other users' minds were different.
'You're still going to fight?' Watching Dr. Martin's machine hovering at high altitude, it looked like recklessly brave behavior.
Durability: 140 billion.
Even those who couldn't grasp the number's scale could sense the presence of Real Martin's super-form.
'A horrible tragedy.'
That would be an appropriate title.
One thing was certain: this was not a form any single person could imagine alone.
Chiiing!
From the center of that grotesque contraption—a patchwork of bizarre things—an eyeball popped out.
"Whyyyy—"
A plainly mechanical voice. Yet it sounded as if it carried emotion; those who heard it got chills.
"Is there no output value?"
The users trapped inside infected machines grew suspicious at Dr. Martin's words.
'What does that mean?'
They couldn't even communicate with one another, but the same unease spread among them.
'That's not a line of dialogue; that's a system message. It's irrelevant to the episode… It felt like the lead actor on stage suddenly turning to the audience and announcing the ticket price.'
'Error.'
The operators intuited it.
'The system was destroyed and the algorithmic changes exceeded a critical threshold. Number Seven couldn't have predicted this far.'
So what was an output value?
'Dr. Martin's mission is the end of the world. If that probability isn't being computed properly…'
Her gaze shifted to Yahweh2.
'It's not over yet.'
It meant the victory probability Dr. Martin was calculating wasn't being tallied correctly.
No matter how much it evolved, no matter how many values the system inflated to the point of breaking, the end did not come.
'How?'
The operator shuddered.
'It can still fight, right?'
She thought of the colossal force pushing against Yahweh2's back.
It felt sacred and solemn, but above all it bore an immense weight of responsibility.
'I understand.'
Why they had to fight.
'Because if not you, no one else can. Because we all surrendered.'
Ask anyone in this world, and none would want to carry the burden Yahweh2 now bore.
Shirone gritted his teeth.
"Kuuuu!"
Spamming Air God, he shot straight upward. A vivid sense of déjà vu struck his mind.
'It's not a god.'
From Dr. Martin's line, Shirone recalled the question Anke Ra had posed.
-Why can't I become a god?
To pick the right answer from countless possibilities, he would have to answer another question.
'What is a god?'
You can try to define it, but that definition has no substance—because it cannot be imagined.
'Dr. Martin is not a god. Number Seven that created Dr. Martin is not a god. A god is…'
A sudden thought struck him.
'Could it be?'
Having experienced the world of High Gear, a new insight electrified his mind.
'Could there really… be one?'
A god.
Real Martin howled.
"For a perfect world!"
When he spat a system message like a line of dialogue, the line between life and matter blurred.
'Durability: 140 billion.'
Even that grotesque exterior, with all manner of horrors mixed together—
'It has no form.'
To Shirone, who had reached formlessness, it was nothing but a collection of signals where ones and zeros, being and non-being intersected.
'I can do it.'
The spirit of Immortal Function intensified photon condensation and swelled to an unprecedented scale.
'Michelan Gun!'
When the flash detonated, Dr. Martin's durability was cut by over a billion.
"...We win."
The operator sprang to her feet.
"We can win."
Her words rippled through every user's heart, igniting their fighting spirit.
'We fight. We protect this world.' It was ironic.
Because it wasn't real, human unity came far more easily—
'Fight! Fight! Fight!'
Shirone could clearly feel the users' hearts merging into one.
'They're uniting.'
Even Yahweh couldn't freely move users' hearts. But when their hearts gathered as one, quantum signals became photon signals.
'Now!'
They seeped into the sense of formlessness and began to act as a single system that could be changed.
That system's name was—
"Ultima."
The world convulsed, and the virus that had infected the users' AIs began to vanish.
"We can move! It's back!"
"Fight!"
Restored selves simultaneously hoisted their weapons and began firing at the creatures.
Shirone checked the ground on his screen.
'Everyone's fighting.'
In their resolve to die protecting the world, where was prejudice? Where was competition, discrimination, or level disparity?
'None.'
Long ago, the species called human once formed an integrated mental system.
They used intelligence solely for humanity's advancement, for everyone's happiness.
'Why can't it be like that now?'
What worked in High Gear failed in reality.
'Since when did humans…'
When did they start refusing to become one and chase only their individual existence?
'Uorin.'
The little witch murmured.
"It's not my fault."
No matter how often she repeated it, the original sin of all life called human lay with her.
"I love you, Shirone."
In this world, the only being she could love now was Yahweh.
She could only be a beautiful flower forever waiting for the butterfly to come.
Yolga's son glanced at the little witch's machine, which looked calmly up at the sky.
'A poisoned flower.'
When the holy war's true test came, her value would be revealed; for that reason she was not someone to be avoided.
"Anyway..."
Even as everyone fought, Fermi had not joined Shirone's Ultima.
'He wasn't infected anyway.' Aegis communicated.
-Boss, what will you do?
Fermi watched the clash between users and system that would decide High Gear's annihilation.
"Heh."
Trust people?
'After seeing Ultima's potential, you were far too dismissive, Shirone. The human heart is much deeper and murkier than the surface you saw across history…'
-Let's at least buy time. Finish this.
Yolga's son smiled as he surged into the sky.
"Not a bad feeling."
The top of Dr. Martin's machine opened and a red flash pierced the heavens.
-Metal Rain activated. Initializing the world.
'I don't know what it is, but…'
The system doesn't lie.
Shirone, having dodged the barrage, brushed past Fermi as he rose.
-Buy me time.
The key was destroying Real Martin's level-3 machine before Metal Rain activated.
No need for words; Fermi ascended.
"Right."
Decisions impossible in reality were easy here for one reason.
'That's the point.'
They had an outside world to return to even if this place was destroyed.
'High Gear is a toy, and because it's a toy it's a child.'
Because it meant nothing, they could wager everything and love it—the contradiction of the heart.
'You've realized it too, haven't you?'
If humans cannot strip away the concept of death, integration is impossible.
'You must prove it.'
You must bring back clear evidence from the outside world that death in reality is not the end.
'Then humanity can unify. But also... the moment that happens, humanity will be annihilated.'
That was why Argones activated.
'Even Gaia was wiped out. This world won't allow us to know the outside.'
Why?
To find the answer, Shirone waited on the surface.
'I can do it.'
All the users gathered their hearts with a single determination to protect this world.
In that instant, hearts became law, and the greatest system quantum signals could form came into being.
"Ultima system."
As their minds focused as one, Shirone's formlessness strengthened.
'End it in one blow.'
-Steel Rain is activating. Thank you to everyone who has loved High Gear until now.
Dr. Martin's voice snapped back into perfect mechanical tones as if nothing had happened.
It began to rain from the sky.
Countless steel rods fell, made of iron, crashing down to destroy the world.
"Damn it! What is that?" Through augmented reality they could see each rod had the power to wipe out a city.
"Fight! Fight to the end!"
Even then, the hearts of users without fear of death did not waver.
The little witch suddenly felt a wave of nostalgia.
'It used to be like that.'
Even without an outside world, the Gaians had been the only people to overcome the fear of death.
"We were infinitely free."
Though mechanisms of courage differ, looking at the users' faces here—
"Come at us! We're the masters here! We will never submit to the system! We'll fight to the end!"
Voices of absolute conviction drove them forward.
"How great was the place I came from."
'And now, from what heights am I falling?'
It would be unfair to call it a mistake.
She herself could not bear that she had sown good and evil into the human mind.
'You must understand me.'
The little witch seemed to be crying.
"Just you...!"
As she tried to speak, the code that made up Shirone trembled violently.
'This is it!'
Metal fragments gathered high in the sky and coalesced into a gigantic Michelan Gun.
'Hand of God.'
The sky dimmed, and at the Michelan Gun's center an enormous Photon Cannon was born.
Kukukukukuku!
As an uncountable rain of steel fell, the users looked up.
Staring at that massive sphere of light, language felt utterly futile.
'Just that.'
An idea that couldn't even be called an idea.
"Now!"
When Yahweh2 swung his arm, the Michelan Gun in the sky hurled the Photon Cannon.
The flash struck Dr. Martin, and every creature exploded.
Augmented reality filled with system messages, and finally Shirone became a ranker.
-Ranker privileges granted.
At that moment Dr. Martin's machine detonated and tore apart the signals composing the world.
The sky opened.
'There.'
There—an eye.
Shirone activated the metallic-winged Da Vinci and flew toward the rent in the world's veil.
Yolga's son, ragged from the brief fight, fell and said, "See it clearly."
Shirone nodded, and a system message appeared for everyone on the ground.
"Huh?"
-Ranker privileges activating. Yahweh2's codename will be changed to the ranker codename.
Even the operator, Golden Halo, Ascension, the Destruction Demon God 707 crew and the Mafia crew, even the Tenmen... they all—
"Heh."
They merely stared, dumbfounded, at the unique concept rising into the sky.
Yahweh.