“What would happen if I hadn’t come here?” Kanako asked.
She realized part of what was off. The sorceress had always been blunt, but she had always seemed to be concerned about Kanako. There was none of that concern for her now. The sorceress wasn’t ignoring her completely, but Kanako had a nagging feeling that something about the way she was being treated had changed.
“There was a chance you might get pulled into the game and die, and the isekai would disappear,” the sorceress said. “Besides, as the creator of this world, your powers are limitless; I couldn’t have you running amok in the middle of the game. I should have ensured a way to get you off the game field and keep you safe.”
“Game? What are you talking about?” Kanako asked. She had heard the announcement. There had been a similar setup in the story Kanako had meant to write, but she didn’t know why the sorceress was going through with it.
“It’s a little hobby of mine,” said the sorceress. “I like to trap people in an area and make them kill each other in various ways.”
Kanako paused. That was the last thing she had expected to hear the sorceress say.
“I have an ability that lends itself to the creation of these games, but it doesn’t work on enclosed spaces I create myself,” the sorceress went on. “I need someone else to create them for me. It’s quite troublesome, and makes it hard to set up fields of any decent size. The most participants I’ve ever had in a game before was a few dozen.”
“What are you...” It made no sense to her. Making people kill each other? Enclosed spaces? Abilities? Games? The words jumbled together in Kanako’s mind, never fully parsing.
“I wanted to create a game on a larger scale,” the sorceress said. “I was going to use the Evil God’s power, but that plan hit a major setback, so I turned my attention on the school isekai enclosed space plan I had been working on, and what do you know? It all worked out. Thank you, Kanako Orihara. I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“I-I see... all right,” Kanako stuttered. “But I don’t care about that. I just want to go to an isekai. How can I make the whole world into an isekai? Please, tell me.” Kanako didn’t mind being used, just as long as she learned how to turn the whole world into an isekai.
“Don’t you understand what I just said?” the sorceress asked. “I’m trying to say that I have no further use for you.”
No further use for her? Why? Kanako couldn’t understand.
“If you turned the whole world into an isekai, it would stop being an enclosed space,” said the sorceress. “Why on Earth would I help you to do that?”
“But... you promised...” Kanako stumbled. The world was growing dark around her. If that was the case, then none of it meant anything.
“Promised?” the sorceress asked. “I told you how to do it already. If you can’t do it, then it’s just a sign you weren’t powerful enough. Don’t blame it on me. Here, I’ll show you. Do you see something strange about how this castle is set up?”
The sorceress opened the door to the Black Tower. There was nothing inside. The floor, walls, and ceiling were gray, with only the windows and doors decorated in grand style.
It was only natural; Kanako hadn’t decided what should go in the Black Tower yet. She couldn’t bring to life a place she didn’t know.
“Your setting is haphazard,” said the sorceress. “How do you expect to rewrite the entire world with such a trivial imagination?”
“But... that means...” Kanako found herself wavering, then she fell to her knees.
“Did you really think the meager despair caused by your mother not loving you is power enough to change the world?” the sorceress mocked.
Meager? Meager, she’d said? All of Kanako’s despair, her loneliness... and she’d called it meager?
Suddenly, it all made sense, and something inside Kanako snapped.
She let out a moan of agony, and swung the staff in her hands, even while still on her knees.
Immediately, shards of ice appeared in the hallway.
They were smaller than the icy weapons that Rochefort had crafted — more like little knives than spears — but they filled the hall.
“That’s not good,” the sorceress muttered. “‘Inviolable Domain’ doesn’t prevent suicide...”
Suicide? Kanako didn’t realize what the woman had meant by that, at first. Then, she realized that the tip of the ice knives were pointed towards her.
“Attacks like that won’t work against Outers,” the sorceress said. “Your failure was a foregone conclusion, but it seems you were particularly unlucky. I hope you can still stop them. I’d prefer you to remain alive too, after all...”
Shocked out of her anger towards the sorceress, Kanako froze.
Stop them? She didn’t know how. She didn’t actually know how to control her magic.
“Stop! Disappear!” she screamed.
As if taking that as the trigger, the knives of ice fired off towards Kanako.
If she had racked her brain, she might have thought of a way to stop it. But the minute she saw that wall of ice knives, Kanako’s heart gave up. She lost her ability to think of anything, and closed her eyes tight.
✽✽✽✽✽
Yuichi ran for the oncoming barrage of ice knives.
“Orihara! Put up a wall of ice to block them!” Mutsuko called out from behind him, but Kanako probably couldn’t hear her.
Protect Kanako. Yuichi felt time slow down as he focused his mind on that one task.
The ice blades slowly came for Kanako. Kanako knelt, immobile, eyes closed. Makina watched, brow knitted, from some distance away.
He was too far away. He wouldn’t make it like this. The icy blades were going to run Kanako through.
But Yuichi had the power to overturn despair, and a method for breaking through seemingly insurmountable situations.
Furukami!
Yuichi stretched his power past its limits, and kicked off the floor with all of his might. The flagstones broke away and went flying off behind him. He brought his body as low as it could go, sailed across the floor, grabbed Kanako, and rolled.
The rain of ice knives came a millisecond later.
Yuichi sat up and looked at Kanako in his arms. Her eyes were squeezed tightly shut, but she didn’t seem hurt.
Yuichi let out a sigh of relief as he realized he had made it in time.
Kanako, as if only just noticing that she was still alive, slowly opened her eyes. “Sakaki the Younger...”
“Orihara... are you okay?” he asked.
“What’s wrong?! You’re covered in blood...” Kanako paled as she registered Yuichi’s current state.
There was a broken ice knife sticking out of his left arm, the result of prioritizing Kanako’s protection over dodging. It had impaled him, then broken off during his roll, which had resulted in terrible damage to his left arm. He probably wouldn’t be able to move it for a while.
“I’ll be fine,” he said. “This is nothing compared to the punishments Sis dishes out.”
“R-Really?” Kanako looked at him questioningly.
“Yeah,” he said sincerely, thinking back on her previous punishments. “Sis does worse than this without batting an eye. So seriously, it’s fine.”
He could hear Mutsuko shouting objections behind him, but Yuichi ignored her. He was also hiding the fact that his left leg was in serious pain from how he’d strained it.
“Oh, thank goodness. I thought I might have to change the rules for what happens when you die,” Makina said. She was standing a little ways away, in front of the Black Tower. She sounded relieved, though she wasn’t addressing anyone in particular.
Still holding Kanako in his arms, Yuichi glared at Makina.
He’d pushed himself too hard. He could still move if he had to, but he wanted to conserve energy for as long as his opponent remained still, and focus on recovering.
“It’s lucky for me that Kanako Orihara didn’t die, but what are you people doing
here?” Makina asked. “You should be playing the game inside the school with the others.”
“If you didn’t want us here, you should have forbidden it with some special rule,” Yuichi said.
“You’re right, I should have done that,” Makina agreed. “Even if I assigned it now, it wouldn’t apply retroactively, so it wouldn’t get you out of the castle. But I can do this.”
She stepped into the Black Tower, then turned back to Yuichi and the others, and spoke her words of power.
“I’m adding new rules. Anyone who leaves the hallway linking the Black and White Towers will die. The exception is Kanako Orihara. If she leaves, she will merely lose consciousness and be immobilized until the game ends.”
Makina was just stating a few rules, but that by itself seemed to change the air around them. Yuichi’s instincts were telling him that her words had become reality.
“That’s a pretty roundabout method,” said Yuichi. “Why don’t you just say ‘everyone dies’?”
Makina seemed to enjoy listening to the sound of her own voice, so Yuichi was hoping he could get her to talk a little more about her game. At least, if she did, he could buy a little time.
“I can’t imagine how buying time will help you, so I’ll explain,” she said. “My power has limitations regarding rules of death. I can’t set rules that mean unavoidable instant death. And the reason I made Kanako Orihara an exception is that if she dies, the school isekai will disappear. Is that what you wanted to hear?”
“So you could make it happen with the right combination of rules,” he said. Even if instant death was forbidden, there were easy ways around that. Having limitations on the rules was no reason not to just kill them.
“It’s true that I could do it, if I wanted to set rules just to kill you,” she said. “That’s not my style, though. I much prefer situations where a game that could be solved with some consideration is bulled through thoughtlessly, until at the very end, the participants realize how they should have done it, and die in despair. Or one where people could solve the game easily if they all worked together, but they betray each other one after another and end up destroying each other... that sort of thing. If I want to see that, the games have to be winnable.”
“That’s no reason not to kill us, though,” he said. “Besides, we can’t take part in the game if we’re trapped here.”
“I was instructed not to interfere with you, Yuichi Sakaki,” she said. “So I can’t just kill you. Of course, you’re still participants in the game, so you’ll die in a few hours either way.” Makina’s expression was bored now; she seemed to be getting tired of answering Yuichi’s questions.
Then, something completely unforeseen happened.
Natsuki Takeuchi was in the Black Tower.
Yuichi noticed her first, and just as he did, the battle began. Makina noticed her next, and when she did, the battle ended.
Natsuki had moved up behind Makina silently to strike her with her scalpel. It was a flawless surprise attack. Makina didn’t see the attack coming, and should have been ripped to pieces, helplessly.
But Natsuki’s scalpel missed.
The attack that had been aimed at her neck slid off in a random direction. Despite her shock, Natsuki tried to regain her initiative, but Makina struck out with a back kick, hitting her in the solar plexus and sending her flying. Natsuki bounced off the wall of the tower, and then lay still.
“Takeuchi!” Yuichi shouted.
It had been only one kick. It would require a more powerful attack than that to kill her, but it was enough to send her into a heap on the floor.
“Oops, I let my guard down,” Makina said. “I didn’t realize there were more of you. It’s true that under the rule I just added, you’d be safe coming in through a route other than the hallway. Still, violence means nothing in the face of ‘Inviolable Domain.’”
“Where did that kick come from?” Yuichi demanded. It didn’t seem like the kind of move a teacher would be capable of.
“I study martial arts to amuse myself,” said Makina. “I don’t take it particularly seriously, but I have lived for a very long time. I’d say I’ve reached master level by now. By the way, I can bypass ‘Inviolable Domain’ myself, which is the reason I could hit her.”
Her words heaped despair on top of despair. If he left the hall, he would die. His enemy was protected by an invincible force field, she was a martial arts expert, and she could add new rules whenever she wanted to.
“Sorry... younger Sakaki... I’ve been so stupid...” Kanako said weakly as she pressed her face into Yuichi’s chest. She must have felt that it was all her fault.
“It’s okay... I never realized you’d been through so much...” Yuichi was regretting the superficial way he’d always looked at Kanako. If they’d talked more, if they’d been closer, maybe she wouldn’t have been driven to this.
“How upsetting. You make it sound like you think you could have done something,” Makina objected, seeming offended by his words. “Kanako Orihara. This has all been set in stone since before you were born. Your mother’s personality came as the result of my manipulations, as was the fact that you were born a girl, and the way your mother treated you. I’m the one who made you like isekai stories, and the one who made you decide to become a writer. And of course, I made your debut as an author possible. Do you really think that a little nothing like you could have ever been published without my hand guiding the way? What I’m saying is that you are who you are as the result of my continuous manipulation of your destiny.” Makina said it all as if she were bragging.
“Why... why me?” Kanako stumbled. “Why my...”
“Don’t get the wrong idea,” Makina said carelessly. “It’s true that I manipulated your destiny, and things turned out this way as a result. I’m sure it sounds like I’m boasting of my skill. But as you know, destiny is not always cooperative. Things never go exactly as you plan them. That’s why I do this same exact thing whenever I have the chance to. It’s mere coincidence that you turned out this way, yet I want appreciation for the effort I put in to guide you to it. Still, I don’t want you to just look at the result and think that you’re special. This is fully the result of a lot of hard work, and it’s frustrating to hear people claim otherwise. That’s all that I’m saying.”
“But... then I...” Kanako spoke, unable to find the words.
Yuichi was speechless.
He didn’t want to understand what it was that Makina was trying to do, but he did. She was saying that she had twisted Kanako’s entire destiny, all to create her stupid game here at the school. And she was hinting that she had played with the destinies of others the same way she had played with Kanako’s.
“Perhaps it’s bad form to say this only after I’ve succeeded, but I think it went very well,” said Makina with satisfaction. “Your misery levels were just perfect. It would have been easy to make you more miserable, but humans are strange creatures. They can adjust to too much misery. Some even grow stronger in adversity, although most of them break down or kill themselves. I suppose this is proof that a light hand is necessary. Everything in moderation! An insensitive and neglectful mother appears to be just the right formula for making a person just a little bit depressive. Maybe that twisted depression is necessary for a writer to be successful, as well.”
Why was Makina saying all of this? There was no reason for her to say it all out loud.
Just as Yuichi was about to ask her, he realized that Kanako was crying.
“What... what’s the point of living? If destiny... if it’s all set in stone... then what’s the point of living?” she choked out. It was hard to make out the words between her sobs, but he could tell that she was devastated.
“Orihara...” Yuichi couldn’t think of what to say to her. He knew that even if he could, she probably wouldn’t hear him.
“Why are you telling us this?! This has nothing to do with your game!” Yuichi screamed back at Makina, trying to vent his anger.
/>
It was one thing for Makina to brag about manipulating everything and achieving her goal. But why did she have to mock Kanako?!
“I thought I might get an amusing reaction,” Makina responded simply. “I wondered how someone might react to learning that their whole life has been the result of someone else’s machinations. But I’m disappointed. The bawling-your-eyes-out response is so cliché. If she’d gotten angry, now that might have been slightly amusing...”
Yuichi tried to scream, but the words caught in his throat. He was too angry to say anything.
“Ende likens the world to a story, but I believe it’s more like a computer game,” said Makina. “Who hasn’t played a simulation RPG where they sent a unit that’s grown useless unarmed onto the field to be slaughtered, or a romance adventure game where they picked the most irresponsible choices to see what would happen?”
Makina said all this without a trace of guilt. Perhaps she was trying to get an “amusing” reaction out of Yuichi, now. If that was the case, she had more than succeeded.
Yuichi was angry. There was enough rage coursing through him to meet all of Makina’s perverted expectations.
Yet he forced that swelling, violent emotion down into the pit of his stomach, and stroked Kanako’s hair gently.
“Orihara. I’m just an ordinary kid in high school,” he said. “I won’t claim to have understood the life you’ve lived, the suffering you’ve been through, or the sadness you must be feeling. I don’t think it would help to say something superficial, like ‘just put it behind you and keep living your life.’ But... please don’t say that destiny is set in stone.”
“But... there’s nothing we can do... I can’t take it back... everyone’s going to die... I’m sorry... it’s my fault...” Kanako’s response squeaked from her throat in fits and starts.
“Wait here.” Yuichi laid Kanako down with a smile as she looked back up at him, tears streaming from her eyes. “I’m gonna go crush this jackass destiny of yours.”
Yuichi stood up and fixed his eyes on Makina.
The claim that one would change destiny was usually just big talk. But this one time, it might be possible. There was a way to change destiny right in front of his eyes.
The Melancholy of the High School Girl Light Novel Author?! Page 16