by Ao Jyumonji
“Yeah, you’re a guy who gets it, Kikkawa,” said Ranta. “I didn’t decide you had potential for nothing.”
“When did you ever decide he had potential...?” Shihoru muttered.
“Just now?” Ranta shot back.
“In a way, I’m jealous.” Merry’s voice was so incredibly cold, she didn’t sound like she envied him at all.
“I kind of feel that way, too,” Kuzaku said in a subdued voice.
“Seriously?” Merry sounded displeased.
“That’s Anna-san, all right,” Tada suddenly said. “That’s Anna-san, Tokimune, and Mimori. No doubt about it. I can tell.”
“Yeah...” Inui agreed. “You’re right... Heh...”
Hopefully they’re right, Haruhiro thought. But I don’t want to get my hopes up prematurely, and I don’t want to get emotional and have it disrupt my concentration, so I don’t want to think it’s them just yet.
“Haruhiro,” Tada called suddenly.
Startled, Haruhiro nearly slipped and fell.
Don’t do that! he nearly snapped, but then reconsidered. Oh, whatever, it’s fine.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“You know, you make a surprisingly good leader,” said Tada.
“...No, I don’t.”
“You’re as plain as a ladybug, and not as good as Tokimune, though,” said Tada.
“I know, right?” Haruhiro said.
He didn’t quite know why he’d responded like that. And, wait, what did Tada mean, “plain like a ladybug”? That made no sense. Well, maybe he couldn’t expect sense from Tada.
It didn’t feel bad being praised, though. It was just, more than anything, it made him feel a bit ticklish, and the strongest feeling he got from it was a desire to say, Please, stop.
He wanted to do his best work, to do the best he could for his comrades and those he had ties with. He did have those sorts of feelings, but Haruhiro also really didn’t want to stand out. He had finally realized that was the sort of person he was.
What’s wrong with being plain? he thought. Plain is good. Plain is the best. I want to be plain forever.
Haruhiro wasn’t particularly sleepy, but with sleepy eyes, he was searching out a suitable route to the tower, having run-of-the-mill thoughts like, It’s still pretty far, and, We’re not getting much closer. But he was a run-of-the-mill sort of guy, after all, so that was no surprise.
However, he didn’t stop. He didn’t throw in the towel. If he didn’t give up, he could move forward one step, or, well, one half-step at a time. Even if he turned back occasionally, he just had to move forward again afterwards. Plainly and boringly, slowly and steadily.
“They’re wavin’,” Yume said, waving both her arms back at them. “Looks like all three of them are doin’ fine.”
Haruhiro narrowed his eyes, too, and confirmed that the three who were at the tower were waving their hands. No, only two of them were waving. Tokimune and Anna-san. Mimorin was sitting down and wasn’t moving. Tada had said that Mimorin had hurt her leg, or something like that. Hopefully the injury wasn’t too bad. Still, she’d gotten that far, so it couldn’t be so bad that she was unable to move.
We’re coming now, Haruhiro said silently. We’ll be there in no time. No, it could be a while still, maybe? But, we’ll get there eventually. It’s just another fifty meters or so, I’d say.
“Tada! Inui! Kikkawa!” Anna-san called, stretching out with her tiny body. She must have been unable to hold it in any longer.
Tada pressed on his glasses with the index finger of his left hand, then silently lifted his warhammer aloft.
“Heh...” Inui was—tearing up?
Kikkawa looked ready to burst into tears, too, so Ranta slapped him on the shoulder.
“You guys!” Tokimune spread his arms out wide. “Viva Tokkis!”
“What’s that he’s doing?” Kuzaku whispered.
“A ‘T’...?” Merry tilted her head to the side quizzically.
“Oh...” Shihoru didn’t sound like she approved. “The ‘T’ from Tokkis...”
“Hoooh.” Yume nodded, seemingly impressed, then looked to Tada. “That’s a thing people do, huh? That sort of, what do you call it? Erm, a party pose, kind of thing?”
“No.” Tada shook his head. “This is the first time I’ve seen it.”
“Same here...” Inui said. “Heh...”
“It’s new to me, too,” said Kikkawa. “Oh! It’s the ‘T’ from Tokkis! It’s that one, huh!”
What other one did Kikkawa think it might have been? Haruhiro thought. It doesn’t matter which, I guess. Yeah. Whichever it was, it doesn’t matter.
Mimorin really was sitting down. Right now, she had just raised her hand a little. She was looking at Haruhiro. They were too far away for him to make out her face, but he could feel her eyes on him.
Haruhiro raised his right hand in response.
Did the usually expressionless Mimorin smile? he thought. I wonder. Not that it matters. Yeah. It doesn’t matter. After all, we’ll be there soon anyway.
Haruhiro tried to step over a largish gap.
“...Whoa,” he muttered.
Their eyes met.
It had a lion-like head. White. With one eye. Its body was like a sculpture, but the eyeball was a very eyeball-y eyeball, raw and vivid.
The area beneath the gap was pretty wide, and that thing was looking up at Haruhiro from inside there.
Ah! Aha! So this is the one I’ve heard so much about.
“A white gia—”
The white giant reached out towards him. Haruhiro leapt backwards. That thing—it could reach.
“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh?!” Ranta hollered.
Kikkawa was flipping out, and Haruhiro thought he’d heard the girls scream, too.
The white giant’s hand shot out through the gap, and the rubble that made up the ceiling collapsed.
“G-Get back! Get back!” Haruhiro shouted commands as he fell back himself.
This is bad, he thought frantically. Even thinking calmly about it, this is really bad. In order to return along precisely the route we carefully used to come here, it’s going to require just as much carefulness on the way back, but now we’re in a hurry. More than that, we’re panicking.
“Hyahhhh!” Kikkawa screamed.
Who was that? Kikkawa? Apparently, yes. Kikkawa’s gone. He must have fallen through some gap somewhere.
“Meowwwr?!” Yume nearly fell into a hole, too, but clutched onto the rim.
“Heh!” Inui was trying to pull Yume up out of the hole. Ranta, Merry, and Shihoru looked like they meant to help him.
“Dammit! Kikkawa!” Tada slid down through a nearby gap.
“Haruhiro?!” Kuzaku turned to look over in his direction.
Tokimune and the others had also noticed something was amiss, and they were trying to come this way.
This is awful, Haruhiro thought. An instant. All it took was an instant for everything to go to hell. It’s not fair. I was trying my best in my slow and steady, plain and boring way, but this is really awful. It’s all a wash. It’s just way too awful.
This is just how things go. I know that. When I pile up the tiny stones of hard work and finally think I have a nice little mountain going, something always comes along and makes it fall apart.
Even so, I won’t cry. I’ll make an immediate decision. This requires an instantaneous response. If I get it wrong—no, I don’t have time to think about what will happen if I get it wrong.
“Ranta, get down there!” Haruhiro shouted. “Inui, you, too! Support Kikkawa and Tada down below! Everyone else, attack it from up here!”
“Man, what do you mean attack—” Ranta began.
“Are you scared, Ranta?!” Haruhiro shouted.
“Don’t be stupid! There’s no way I’d be scared! Bring it on!” Ranta screamed.
It was a good thing Ranta was an idiot. Inui and Ranta immediately moved into action.
The white giant was using one arm to
smash through the rubble like crazy. Attack it from above? Could they really do that?
Yume was already being pulled up. Tokimune and the others would still take time to arrive.
“Don’t push yourselves too hard!” Haruhiro shouted to Tokimune, jumping from one piece of rubble to another, heading towards the white giant’s back. “Shihoru! Test if Darsh Magic will work or not!”
“Right! Ohm, rel, ect, el, vel, darsh!”
Vwong, vwong, vwong. Three shadow elementals that looked like balls of black seaweed flew towards the white giant.
Shadow Echo. They hit. All three of them. For an instant, it looked like its arm stopped moving, but that was all.
“Maybe not!” Shihoru called.
“Whew!” Yume let an arrow fly, but it bounced off. “No good! It’s hard!”
The eye, Haruhiro thought. That one eye. It seems like a blade would go through there. But the eye, huh. How will I do it?
“Ohhh!” he cried in realization.
Like this? Is this the only way?
Haruhiro kicked off from the rubble, leaping onto the giant’s arm. It really was hard. And cold. Like a boulder. It was impressive that it could move. Haruhiro leapt from the arm to the shoulder. Then to the head.
“That’s dangerous, you know?!” he heard Ranta shout.
Yeah, you said it.
Haruhiro circled around to the front of its head, twisting his dagger into its one eye.
Ahh, this looks bad, he realized. This thing’s definitely gonna thrash around. Should I jump down?
The giant was more than three meters tall. Maybe not four meters, though. It wasn’t a height he’d die falling from, but he might get hurt.
While Haruhiro was hesitating, the giant opened its mouth and emitted a rumbling roar. Go, go, go, go, go... Then it dove headfirst into the nearby rubble.
Haruhiro circled around to its back side moments before the impact, so he managed to survive somehow. But the giant hadn’t stopped yet.
“Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go...!”
It punched the wall of rubble. It smashed it down. It was all Haruhiro could do to hold on. He had no idea what might happen to him if he was thrown off now.
Actually, does it feel like I’m gonna die even if I do hang on? he thought. I might. This could be a situation where, if I manage not to die, it would be fair to say I got really lucky.
“Gwahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” Ranta yelled.
Haruhiro thought he caught a glimpse of Ranta rushing towards the giant. A split second later, the giant shuddered slightly and stopped.
It was probably for half an instant, Haruhiro thought. No, it couldn’t be that, could it? Lightning Sword Dolphin. Is that it? Did he slash it with Lightning Sword Dolphin?
“Ah!” Haruhiro cried.
He threw himself away from the giant’s back as hard as he could. When he did, the giant was already starting to move again, and if he missed this chance, he figured he wouldn’t get another one.
He had been trying to be careful not to land on anything funny, but his left arm struck something, he hit his tailbone, and his back collided with something hard.
It hurts! ...was one thing he couldn’t afford to say right now.
The giant was right next to him. Haruhiro rolled away from it. For now, he just needed to put distance between them. It didn’t matter how he got it; he just needed that distance.
Once he was further away, and had hidden in the shadow of some of the larger rubble, Haruhiro noticed he couldn’t move his left arm.
His butt, he wasn’t sure about. It hurt when it touched something. His back hurt, too. Was he bleeding? Apparently. His breathing was fine. Other than his left arm, well, it was just pain. His left arm, though—he wasn’t sure. It might be broken.
The giant was rampaging about, seemingly at random.
Where was Ranta? What about Tada? Inui?
At the very least, they didn’t seem to be fighting the giant.
“Haru-kuuuun!” He heard Yume’s voice from above him.
For just two seconds, he thought about it. Then he called back. “Where are Tokimune-san and his group?!”
“Haru-kun?!” Yume cried. “Er, lessee, they’re not here yet!”
“What about the others?!” Haruhiro shouted.
“They’re okay!”
“Get away from here!” Haruhiro shouted. “From the giant! We’ll join back up later! Ranta! Tada-san, Kikkawa, Inui-san! Can you hear me?!”
“Yeah!” Ranta responded immediately, although Haruhiro couldn’t see him.
“Gotcha!” Judging from Kikkawa’s voice, he was still full of energy.
“We’re getting by somehow!” Tada responded a little after the other two.
There was no response from Inui. Searching for him wasn’t an option.
I’m sorry, Inui-san, thought Haruhiro.
“Yume!” he called. “Head towards Tokimune-san and his group, and once you’ve joined up with them, wait! Ranta! Tada-san, Kikkawa—and Inui-san, too! Find me, and follow me!”
Haruhiro remembered the direction of the tower Tokimune and the others had been in. To go that way, they would have to rush past the giant, which was dangerous, but they had no choice.
As for his left arm, he could move his shoulder, but nothing past his elbow. It hurt, of course. But not that badly yet. His butt and back were bearable, too.
“Here we go!” Haruhiro shouted, giving the signal to everyone, then took off at a run.
Just to be safe, he chose a time when the giant had its back to him. But as he tried to get past it, the giant made an about-face, which made him panic pretty badly.
Haruhiro couldn’t stop or turn back. He had to keep on running past. He nearly got kicked by the giant. Somehow, he managed to dodge its leg and turned back.
Ranta was with him. Kikkawa, too. What about Tada? Or Inui?
“Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go...!” The giant emitted its rumbling roar.
Haruhiro didn’t have time to think about it. He needed to worry about himself before others. He’d wounded its one eye, but could it still see? Could it sense him? The giant was chasing after Haruhiro!
“Why?!” Haruhiro screamed.
The giant’s movements were languid, but it was twice as big as a human, after all. If it ran straight forward, it would be as fast as a human, maybe faster. Not to mention, Haruhiro was injured. He couldn’t run at his top speed.
When Haruhiro leapt behind a wall of rubble, the giant tackled the wall and pulverized it.
“Ow!” Haruhiro shouted.
Pieces of rubble flew everywhere, and Haruhiro ran away while they rained down on him. The giant knocked down piles of rubble, springing into the air in pursuit of Haruhiro.
“I-It looks like... it’s holding a grudge?!” he shouted.
“Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go...!”
“O-Oh, crap! Th-This is bad!”
Am I gonna die? Haruhiro thought. Am I really gonna die? Normally, I would, right?
He wanted to give up.
But Haruhiro was still running towards the tower.
Should I change course? he wondered. Pull the giant as far away as I can, and then—if I do that, I mean, it might save my comrades.
Even if he was going to die, he wanted to at least do that much.
That’s right. It’s not time to die yet. Haruhiro still had things he could do. I’ll pull the giant away from my comrades. It won’t be too late to die after that.
Okay.
With a goal set, he felt the power welling up inside him.
“This way!” he called.
Haruhiro tried to hang a right. That was when it happened.
“Okaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!”
What was that? Haruhiro stopped and looked back despite himself.
It looked like the guy had fallen down from up above. In other words, through a gap in the roof. The roof was pretty high arou
nd that area, leaving considerable space above the head of the giant, which stood nearly four meters tall. The ceiling was probably around two meters higher than the giant.
The guy had fallen that distance. No, that wasn’t it—he had leapt down at the giant from it.
The guy slammed his sword into the giant’s head hard. The giant stumbled. It wasn’t clear how much damage it had dealt, but it didn’t look like the giant could just shrug it off.
Then the guy landed on the giant’s shoulders, slugging the side of its big face with his shield.
“Goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong!”
The guy used his sword not so much to slash it, as to punch it.
“Dahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
Then, like a deer running through a valley, he stepped lightly from the giant’s arms, to its knees, then finally to the ground.
“Wahaha! Heeeere’s Tokimune-san!” Tokimune banged his sword on his shield loudly. “Bring it on, big guy! I’ll make quick work of you!”
“No, that’s clearly not going to work, you know?” Haruhiro let his true feelings escape.
“Haruhiro!” Tokimune called.
“Y-Yes.”
“You’re about to witness a miracle! So dig the wax out of your eyes and watch!”
“If I dig out my eyes, I’m not gonna be seeing anything...”
“You’re so nitpicky!” Tokimune shouted.
Am I really? Aren’t you just too sloppy about things, Tokimune? And random, too. I’m glad you dropped in to help, but this is reckless.
“Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go...!” The giant crouched down and attacked Tokimune.
Its right fist. It was going to punch. Not straight. A hook.
“Ta-da-da-dahhhh!” Tokimune—wasn’t dodging.
No, shouldn’t you dodge there? Haruhiro thought.
His shield. Tokimune meant to block the giant’s right hook with his shield.
—No. That’s not even an option. He’s crazy. He’s absolutely crazy.
“Guhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...!”
There was an incredible noise, and then Tokimune—was not sent flying. He was holding his ground. He had been pushed back about a meter by the force of the giant’s right hook, but he’d stopped there.
“Yay! Ta-dah!” Tokimune shouted.