by Yuu Kamiya
—This fear as I gradually vanish is as planned? Bullshit! If I planned on this terror, who did I think I was?! Did I think I was capable of staying sane through this—?
“…Brother…”
But. The aching chill of absolute zero.
“…I’m, here…for you.”
With these few words, the frost melted too readily to fathom and receded.
“—Yeah…you are, aren’cha?”
I’m…Sora. Proud brother of my darling sister Shiro. Now I’m—playing a game. Losing for now, but ultimately to win. That’s all. As long as I know that, that’s plenty. There’s no problem at all. Whispering this in my heart, I clench my chattering teeth firmly to shut them up. To pick up the next piece—I slowly open my mouth.
—…
“Master?!”
“Shiro!! Are you all right?!”
At the sounds of Jibril and Steph’s voices calling her worriedly, Shiro’s consciousness rose back to the surface.
—Apparently she had collapsed. Finding herself in Steph’s arms, assessing the situation—
“…!”
—finding her brother nowhere in her line of sight wherever she fixed her gaze, she almost leaped out of herself again. But somehow she managed to anchor herself with her thoughts.
—Her brother was in this room. Which meant—there was nothing more to fear.
“It’s, o…kay…”
As Shiro, holding her throbbing head, tried to raise her sweat-drenched body, Steph held her back.
“It is not okay! Suddenly going silent and then collapsing like that—do you know how worried I was?!”
Noticing that Steph’s eyes as she shouted were faintly red.
“…Sor-ry…”
Shiro mumbled quietly. Meanwhile, Jibril, who had been keeping an unnatural distance from Shiro, said as if having made up her mind—
“Master, I have something to tell you. I went to check about Sora—Master …”
As Jibril tried to give her confirmation report from the embassy of the Eastern Union—
“…Never, mind…”
Shiro interrupted her.
“…Brother…exists…”
“—Yes, just as you say. Please mete out any punishment—”
Poking at the embassy of the Eastern Union—at Ino Hatsuse—Jibril had been able to confirm definitively that “Sora” existed. For her, one who had doubted the assertions of her lord and lady, to have even entertained the notion of her lord and lady’s defeat—
“…Okay…a, command.”
“Yes, Master, speak the word.”
Jibril, ready to comply without hesitation if her lady demanded her life then and there. But Shiro’s reply was soft with only with a somewhat rushed edge.
“…Help, me…find…Brother…”
Jibril received these words as though they were divine revelation. And as if to say, Now it’s really okay, Shiro gently let go of Steph’s arm and stood on unsteady feet. The glint in her eyes once again normal, Shiro cast her gaze upon her servants and asked:
“—You, two…what, were you, doing…yesterday?”
As if she already knew their responses ahead of time, it was more of a confirmation than a question. Looking at each other, Steph and Jibril answered.
“Yesterday—I had my hands full with the protests, but in the corner of my eye, I saw you playing games on the throne.”
“Yes, and I was with her.”
—But Shiro authoritatively declared that this was wrong.
“…That was…the day, before yesterday…the nineteenth…”
While the two of them exchanged glances, Shiro pressed on.
“…Different question…where…were you…that, night?”
Having this put to them pointedly, Steph and Jibril searched their memories. But.
“……”
They couldn’t remember a thing. Noting Shiro’s expression which seemed to imply that this was only natural, Jibril inquired—
“Master, do you mean that you remember last…no, the night before last?”
“…No, so…that’s, fine.”
—She was confirming the fact that the memories that had been erased from all of them. In other words—
“Then you mean—the game ran from the night before last through yesterday?”
Spurred by her oath to help, Jibril spun her brain at full speed to keep up, and Shiro nodded.
“Excuse me, but what do you mean?”
Steph looked puzzed, as if she didn’t get it after all, prompting Jibril to explain.
“Lord Shiro had memories that we did not, and we had memories that Lord Shiro did not. This caused confusion—however, if there are memories that have disappeared from all of us, that changes things.”
Steph looking all the more confused. Jibril distilled it further—
“It is proof that all of us are participating in the game and that the player is the only one with influence over all of Immanity—the agent plenipotentiary.”
—Yes. And now all that remained—
“…Next…Steph…let’s check.”
“Y-yes, Your Majesty, please tell me your will.”
Shiro staring at her with an expression more serious than Steph remembered ever having seen before. Bowled over by an eleven-year-old girl, Steph’s reply had been quite solemn, her voice cracking as she prepared herself.
—It took her a few seconds to grasp the situation.
“………Ex-excuse me…what are you doing?”
If Steph wasn’t misunderstanding or hallucinating, she was watching Shiro—still wearing that same severe mien—as her two little hands…those hands groping her—
“…I’m…squeezing…your, breasts…”
Shiro carried on unabated with gestures befitting such cute onomatopoeia as: squish squish, boing boing.
“—…Uhh, um, how am I supposed to react to this?”
Utterly unfazed by her question, Shiro merely nodded once, asking quizzically:
“…Doesn’t, it, turn you on?”
“Of—of course it doesn’t! If it did, that would disqualify me as human in so many ways!”
As if having received the verification she required, Shiro let go.
“…Even though…I told, you…to fall, in love with me?”
“Oh…”
…It was true. If Shiro had been the one with whom she’d been required by the Covenants to fall in love, Steph should have felt something. In other words, it meant that the one who’d demanded she fall in love with him was Sora… As Steph finally wrapped her brain around it, Jibril interjected apologetically.
“Master, may I ask…it was not necessary to confirm that, correct?”
“…Right…”
Shiro nodded dismissively without any apparent interest.
“—Pardon?”
“…Since, I, already, know…Brother’s, here…”
“…Then may I ask for what purpose you fondled me?”
Steph, looked broken, as if to say, After I worried about you so much, Shiro—!
“…As thanks.”
“How does that constitute thanks?! What do I gain from having my breasts—”
But what Shiro said next stopped her rant short.
“…Because…without you…I wouldn’t, have realized—”
Then—just as Shiro was about to utter her next words—it occurred to her. Had she ever spoken them to anyone but her brother? She considered.
—No was her conclusion. Perhaps for this reason, Shiro awkwardly, ineptly, averted her gaze and blushed before articulating…
“…Thank, you…Steph…”
Her words and the sincerity of her expression left Steph breathless. Though for the next few days she would be clutching her head, Shiro wouldn’t notice Steph’s turmoil as to whether or not having her heart skip a beat for an eleven-year-old girl was something abnormal. Ignoring Steph’s conundrum, Jibril asked quietly.
“With that, Master…may I assume
that the situation is fully grasped?”
“…Mm.”
Her brother figured that if he bet the Immanity Piece, Chlammy—Elven Gard—would come to him… Her brother, having summoned Chlammy thusly, must have been trying to win her to his side.
“…Just, one…more thing.”
Only one question remained, but it was the crux. It was—the game itself. But even for this, almost all the answers had already coalesced in Shiro’s thoughts.
—Her brother knew he would be challenged. And that his opponent would be Chlammy, and by extension Elf, Elven Gard. But considering their memories were being rewritten before the covenant was sealed, there had to be magic involved. A game prepared by Elf?—No. Taking on Rank Seven, Elf, her brother had to have anticipated the involvement of magic.
“…Brother, accepted…with a game, made…by, Jibril.”
Without a doubt, he had answered with a game with the power to resist cheating by means of Elven magic. There was only one—among them—who could achieve that.
“—By me, you say?”
Yes, the Rank Six. Jibril the Flügel, capable of building an entire virtual world.
“…Jibril…could you, build it? A game, that erases, memories…”
Having been asked, Jibril thought deeply. If her master told her now to build such a game…?
“I could build a virtual world like that of Materialization Shiritori…but this is the real world…”
“…What about—with Elf, together?”
“T-together—?! With those woodland rubes?!”
Heartfelt dismay colored her voice. Such an idea had probably never even entered her imagination. But with Shiro’s eyes fixed on her, Jibril gave the matter serious consideration and concluded:
“—It would depend on the skill of the Elf mage… But it might be possible. In terms of the absolute quantity of power available, we of Rank Six are superior. However, when it comes to weaving a complex rite…Rank Seven, Elf—is our better by a wide margin.”
Jibril, from whom an admission lowering her own position was unheard-of. But now, having committed such an atrocity as to doubt her lord…being scrutinized by her master’s gaze…what pretense could she uphold?
“For instance—if I provided the core of the Materialization Shiritori board, and an Elf mage wove the game around it…then it might be possible to weave a space-time distortion spell of this scale.”
But there was still something missing. There was still a necessary component, surmised Shiro.
“…Also…they can’t, build in…cheats. Can you, be sure?”
“Yes.”
Shiro’s concern was dismissed by Jibril forthright.
“To enact a rite inducing space-time distortion of this magnitude, a quantity of spirit far exceeding the limits of any Elf would be required. In the end, it would be I who would launch the game. Were there an impropriety in the rite, I would detect it thereupon.”
“…Positive?”
“Yes, if this series of events has been brought about by magic, I have a feel for the amount of power that would be required.”
Jibril, looking around, went on.
“Frankly speaking—it is on the level of the Heavenly Smite I unleashed upon the capital of Elf in the Great War.”
Smoothly, she continued as if relating a trifle.
“I remember that, as I let loose a single blow with the intent of wiping all trace of the city from the land, the Elves attempted to block it with a spell that took the spirit-corridor-connected nerves of three thousand Elf mages and their lives to deploy, and still they were unable to stop it.”
Shiro , deciding it pointless to be surprised at anything Jibril said by now, carried on with her musing. But Steph, unable to take it, let out a jab at the decisive weapon before her.
“Y-you…just what were you doing?!”
“Elf has developed their magical arts since the war, but the absolute quantity they can handle has not changed. If we assume that this space-time distortion is part of the game, under the direction of my masters, then the one who launched it is me. I could not possibly overlook an impropriety.”
Jibril continued unfazed, her conviction absolute.
—In other words, the answer had been in this room all along. Somewhere in this living space littered with countless games was the base. The ongoing game’s—board. But looking around, no such item presented itself. Then—
“…Jibril…in this room…there, should be…a magic, response…”
Her brother was in the room—but had been rendered imperceptible. This could mean that the game board itself, also, was excluded from Shiro’s perception.
“…The day and a half we lost…our memories from the game…then, we can’t…perceive, the game, either…”
But even if it was excluded from their perception, if the game was ongoing, then there had to be magic in use—
“…Let me investigate.”
The Flügel could sense no magic there. But—unwilling to doubt her master again, Jibril spread her wings and opened her amber eyes.
“Eek—what…is this?”
Even Shiro and Steph, who weren’t supposed to be able to detect any magic, were all but flattened by the pressure. Jibril had moved an obscene quantity of spirits—the source of the magic. Her halo spun wildly over her head, and there was an illusion as if the room itself was swaying—
“—I have located it.”
This phrase was enough to make Shiro and Steph’s faces spontaneously relax, but Jibril pointed to a corner of the room.
“…However, I must apologize. The best I can do is to sense that, over there, a field is deployed that blocks perception. If, as my master infers, this is an Elf rite using a game-board core provided by myself, then I suspect that overcoming this barrier to perception—is impossible.”
“…!”
Biting her nails, Shiro groaned.
—One more step. The answer was lying right there before them, and yet—
“A-around here? I’ll see if I can find anything.”
Steph walked around the area Jibril indicated, lowering her eyes to the floor—but, suddenly, as if she had tripped on something, Steph fell spectacularly and did a face-plant.
“…Dora, I feel that falling when there is nothing to trip on is laying it on a bit thick for your character.”
But Steph’s gaze as she got up and turned back was blank.
“…What? I fell? I fell?”
At these words, Shiro and Jibril realized at the same time.
“…!”
“Even if it is not perceptible, it is there. It simply eludes awareness even on touch, I suppose?”
Nodding at Jibril’s words, Shiro walked forward. Even if you couldn’t perceive it, it was there—you could touch it. Completely invisible, imperceptible even to the sense of touch, a game board was there. Then Shiro noticed something near where Steph fell. A little box of pieces—white on one side, black on the other—engraved with Chinese numerals. And another box with similar pieces, engraved with Elf numerals. Surmising the true nature of these pieces was very simple.
“…Othello…pieces.”
“Whatever might this mean? Are these the pieces for the game?”
To Jibril, wondering why they would be able to see the pieces but not the board, Shiro responded.
“…Be-cause…they, haven’t been used.”
The pieces that hadn’t been used, which they could still perceive. A game that took away their memories and their very perception of the game—a game that was not yet over. Shiro connected it all in her mind by a single thread. The rules were probably—
“A game, where you split…your, memories…and existence…among the pieces…and take them, from each other.”
Jibril was first to react to Shiro’s whisper followed after a beat by Steph.
“M-Master, if I may be so bold…”
“Wh-what kind of lunatic would play that?!”
Yes—if Shiro’s conjec
ture was correct, it was, with no room for doubt, a game of madness. But if the rules were as surmised, then, after all—
“…Brother, you’re…so, amazing…”
Shiro felt a trickle of cold sweat at the realization that at last—she had arrived at her brother’s intent.
Before the first move
“—Come, then, let’s review the game’s rules.”
Sora speaks to Chlammy, sitting in the chair across the table from him. And behind him, Shiro, Steph, and Jibril. And, behind Chlammy, the Elf girl.
“We shall split the concepts that constitute us into thirty-two pieces each—and play Othello.”
Playing in his hand with a piece with white on one side, black on the other, with a numeral engraved, Sora continues.
“The pieces have numbers engraved, lower numbers for more important concepts. Like your memories, personality, body, and stuff, I guess? Otherwise it’s just normal Othello. You flip over the opponent’s pieces—and take the opponent’s existence.”
The game Sora had thought of, Jibril had provided the power source for, and the Elf girl had woven. Though Sora explained the rules casually, they were by no means ordinary, and everyone swallowed audibly from the tension.
“Also note that importance is judged by the game’s magic according to their importance in your unconscious. Which would mean that you can’t tell yourself what pieces govern what.”
Sora seemed quite happy, but—
“…You don’t know what you’re gonna lose given which pieces are taken—is that a rush or what?”
To Sora, stirring up madness in his eyes—Chlammy responds with eyes calm and cold.
“I want to expose your true identity and backers. You want to expose as much as possible of Elven Gard’s hand. It does seem a game in which our interests would be aligned.”
“Correct. And then, the winner gets back everything that was theirs—and the loser gets back nothing.”
At the meaning of these words, a chill jolts down Steph’s spine.
“—If you lose your personality and then lose the game—ha-ha, now that’ll be something, won’t it?
“Oh, and one more thing. Unlike normal Othello, you don’t get to pass. Even if there’s no place you can play your piece to capture, you still have to play it. I’m sure you can imagine the endgame in such a situation, in which you have to place the pieces with low numbers…right?”