by Yuu Kamiya
“Hhhhhhhhhhhhhh…Hhhhhhhhhhhhhh…”
The look of a beast, an embodiment of violence, breath fierce, raring for combat. Her bloodstained sublimity gradually blackening in the air—
VIEWING FLOOR
“…—”
Silence. The crowd watching through the screen was soundless. Even Chlammy, even Fi, who must have been watching the same scene, had no words.
—This was Ixseed Rank Fourteen, Werebeast. Now, at last, Chlammy realized. So late she had no excuse, but—Why the Eastern Union had accepted this game. Why they had answered the call for a public match which would disable almost all cheats. It was true that Sora had laid countless traps. But there had to have been other ways to go about it. But the Eastern Union had taken up this game anyway for this plain and simple reason. No matter what kind of calculation or strategy they faced—all they had to do was sweep it aside with the ludicrous absurdity that was their overwhelming difference in power. Though only two ranks above Immanity—monsters too overpowered to comprehend. With this before her, Chlammy herself gulped and despaired.
—There was no way they could win. Fi’s silence and Jibril’s defeat said everything. To beat these monsters in an arena from which magic was sealed off, was probably beyond the abilities—of any of the Ixseeds. Izuna herself—Werebeast itself, in this zone, was the worst cheat possible. (So this…is what the Eastern Union’s game is really all about?) An impossible game that defied reason. This was the truth behind the Eastern Union’s game.
Ino, his head cool, momentary shock subsiding. Diligently checking Sora’s and Shiro’s heartbeats.
—Both siblings, flatlined. Perfect head shots, impossible to fake. But at Izuna’s heartbeat beside them… At that explosive sound, beating as if to leap out of her body to echo through the hall…
[You finished them, Izuna; it’s done; calm your blood!]
Ino called to Izuna in a cold sweat.
IN-GAME
“—Hhh!—Hhh!—Hhhhhhhhhh…”
Ino’s voice didn’t make it into Izuna’s ears. But she didn’t need the report; she knew she’d definitely finished them. It wasn’t the bodies of the two, sprawled limp on the ground, but her intuition that decreed she’d gotten them. Izuna, who had taken action that bent the limits of Werebeast, wrestled down the very laws of physics. Her heart, spinning to make it possible, slowly revved down. As if just now remembering the laws of physics, agony assailed every inch of her.
—Her body was terribly heavy. Though she struggled to steady her breath, it wouldn’t settle. Her muscles were shredded, her blood vessels had burst, her nerves had melted—For Izuna, literally broken, even standing had become heavy labor. But it didn’t matter. It had been worth it. She had had to. Now—
“…I win, please…”
Muttering painfully, Izuna stood up on two legs. Dropping her gaze to Sora and Shiro, sprawled and still, she opened her mouth to say something,
and, poof.
All too unceremoniously. All too suddenly—Izuna’s arm…was struck by a bullet.
“…Huh?”
…Forget Izuna. Everyone watching…even Ino, even Chlammy, even Fi. All uttered a dumbfounded noise and turned their attention to where Izuna was gaping—the direction from which she had just been hit. And they saw…
…clinging to the back of an NPC girl, eyes closed, arm, hand, gun extended—
“So-Sora, is that all right? May I open my eyes now?”
Steph. Yes, Izuna had indeed used her “sixth sense” to dodge an attack impossible to dodge. But—that still wasn’t enough. As Sora had said, the ability to know things of which she had no foreknowledge was not one possessed. To achieve that kind of cheating would require magic or superpowers.
What Shiro had been furiously calculating on the ground of the park—was the strategy to take down Izuna by no means. It was—the wander algorithm of the NPCs’ meandering, but there had been no way to know that. That in reality—it had all been one formula, just to deduce how to lead the girls, while affecting them, as they ambled in search of Love Power. All the tactics Immanity’s team had deployed—from the first volley to their cornering. All had just been tactics that Shiro had calculated out, preparing countless scenarios before the game. Everything that had transpired during their match had done so according to Shiro’s design.
* * *
It had all been a formula purely to build this one moment.
“…However much you might have some ‘sixth sense’…”
In Izuna’s vision, display of the word DEFEAT signalled the end of the game. Everything over, Sora and Shiro stood and spoke.
“The one Shiro was aiming for when she bounced that bullet off Jibril’s wasn’t even you—”
“…Be-low…”
“It was someone getting carried here on the back of an NPC girl with her eyes closed—you’d never guess it was Steph, would you?”
At these words, Izuna’s eyes widened. The bullet that had been made to rebound outside her line of sight to attack her—was Jibril’s. It had ricocheted outside her vision not to mount an inescapable attack—but so that the bullet’s target would not be…obvious?
Before the game, Steph had had a “very special charm” performed on her by Sora. Namely—
“Obey the command Shiro writes on the ground. But forget about it—that was the covenant I bound her with.”
Sora smirked wryly.
“A formula to enable a roving Steph, drained of energy, mounted on the back of an NPC girl, whose only instruction was ‘Shoot ten seconds after you get a Love Power boost,’ to aim for Izuna and fire…it’s no wonder Shiro was struggling.”
Feigning she’d turned to Izuna’s side and leading Sora. And then Sora feigning that he’d shot Shiro back. Izuna then attacking while getting cover fire from Jibril. An attack predicting and using all this being dodged—and being shot: Their strategy accounted for all of this.
“No footsteps ’cause she’s riding piggyback. No sense of hostility ’cause she doesn’t remember. No consciousness, even, ’cause she’s already inoperable, but thanks to the Covenants, actions can still be executed. Steph, who’d gone off everyone’s radar since the beginning of the game—firing the one moment when Izuna had used up all her power…”
If you could see that coming, let’s see it, Sora implied emphatically as he smiled.
“—This is one thing that, even with a ‘sixth sense,’ would be unknowable, right?”
Ino stared at the screen, his thoughts resounding as if howling in his mind.
(Impossible! That’s not even on the level of “calculation”! That’s—)
But Sora pulled up his lips as if to sneer at the Werebeast’s inner monologue.
“‘That’s goddamn precognition’—ain’t that what you’re thinking, Gramps?”
(Wha—?!)
Sora grinning ear to ear, and Shiro smirking likewise.
“The whooole time, you were monitoring our heartbeats and reporting to Izuna, right?”
—They’d caught it: No. It wasn’t even something so half-assed as that. Yes, this explained everything.
“…I see, so you exploited it…”
Ino’s understanding getting there: In other words, just as Sora had said—
“That’s right—in a game, ultimately there are just two things you can do.”
Namely, tactical action and coping action. All kinds of games, when you got down to it, were just a matter of wresting away the initiative.
“The initiative was in our hands the whole time. That’s all there is to it. You thought you were playing, but you were just being played—the result is fate, not precognition.
“By the way, Shiro.”
“…Mm.”
“What was that variable B you subbed in anyway? If you were conscious from the beginning to the end, then you saw the endgame in its entirety, didn’t you?”
“……So, they…wouldn’t, catch on…”
When her heartbeat was being mo
nitored, though she might fake taking a bullet, she couldn’t cover up her psyche. Therefore—Shiro had to maintain a relaxed state while giving all she’d got. One whom she could know she couldn’t beat even fighting for real. One whom she could trust to see through to her intent.
“…I, couldn’t think…”
A variable that could fulfill these parameters. Since that day at the end of her infancy and up to the present. As far she knew, only one “magic number” so convenient existed.
“…of, anyone…but, you…”
Shiro could always do what Sora couldn’t. And so—naturally, the converse also applied. Thus, Sora said with a wry smile.
“Yeah, we don’t have any obligation to bother with combat.
“The weak have their own way of doing things. We’ll leave fighting lions with one’s bare hands to the lions.”
As the audience erupted in cheers, all of the game’s players were coming to on stage. The siblings were holding hands tightly, and Shiro spoke as soon as their eyes opened.
“…Anyway, Brother.”
“Mm? What is it, my sister?”
Sora responded as if reluctant to release her hand.
—Inwardly, he’d realized that being forced to operate separately from Shiro—even in a virtual reality—had given him chills.
“…Why’d you, go to the trouble of, leaving my shirt…and, shooting…my panties…?”
“Wha?! Don’t ask something so obvious, okay, Sister?! You think I could let this huge crowd see you naked?!”
“You speak as if I didn’t matter!”
Having awoken a step behind, today’s MVP—Steph—howled.
“Now, now, little Dora. No one can deny that your fine play made the day. Would you care to comment on how it feels to have been entrusted with such a decisive moment for the fate of Elkia?”
“May I answer honestly? I have no interest in going through this again!!”
The pressure of having been responsible for the fate of Immanity. If Sora hadn’t been so kind as to erase her memory, there was no way in blazes she would have accepted it, she screamed. Meanwhile at her side, rising together, Sora and Shiro.
“So, we still waiting for the victory announcement, Gramps?”
Sora prodded Ino.
“—Winner: Elkia… By the law of the Covenants, the Eastern Union shall transfer to the Kingdom of Elkia all its rights on the continent of Lucia…”
At Ino’s declaration, delivered as if chewing sand, the acclamation of the crowd rose to greater heights.
—Who could complain about a king and queen who had taken down Werebeasts and doubled their domain with a single move? Yet despite the crowd’s unbridled enthusiam, what came next was enough to inspire a hush.
“Likewise, by the law of the Covenants…Izuna Hatsuse…and I, Ino Hatsuse, both surrender all our rights—to these two, the monarch of Elkia…”
“Yes, very good.”
As Sora nodded decisively, Steph and the audience stared bug-eyed. Yes—their demand had been for all the Eastern Union had on the continent. That included all the resources and territory—as well as all the people and technology.
“So now we pick up a scad of Eastern Union technology and get Izzy and all the Werebeasts on the continent all in one fell swoop—huhhh. Man, oh man…it was worth the effort we put in.”
Steph shivered at her master’s happy-go-lucky tone as he stretched. What Sora had said the other day, “We’ll conquer the world. All of it—whabam—no two ways about it.” She’d touched upon his meaning—but at the same time, Steph caught sight of Izuna from the corner of her eye.
“……”
Face downcast, motionless. Ino, wringing out carefully chosen words but nevertheless doing what he could, attempted to console her.
“Izuna… You bear no responsibility… It was a decree of our homeland, which I ordered…”
—Having come this far, Steph finally understood what Sora had meant. What rested on those little (all too little) shoulders which shook as Izuna stared down…
—The burden, all too massive, of the entirety of the Eastern Union’s rights on the continent. Having lost these, how many…of Izuna’s brethren would lose their homes, their jobs, be cast into the streets—perhaps even lose their lives? Steph recalled her own accusation.
—“How do you intend to take responsibility?!”
—There was no way to take responsibility.
The agent plenipotentiary was entrusted with the lives of hundreds of thousands. One capable of bearing all the responsibility thrust upon this position could not exist. The one who’d made light of the title…was not Sora, but rather… (It was…me, I suppose.) Steph hung her head, but Sora carried on unaffected.
“It’s not like that, right, Izuna?”
“Uh?”
“—It’s that it was so fun, you don’t even know what to do with yourself, right?”
Ino and Steph gasped. At the very end, when Izuna had unleashed her bloodbreak… She had—clearly—said as much.
—Her exact words: “Now it’s getting fun.”
“…That’s, bullshit, please…”
But.
“Now that I’ve lost, a bunch of assholes are gonna suffer, please.”
Izuna couldn’t admit it.
“But—why is it, please?”
She mustn’t admit it—and yet…
“Why—why’d my goddamn face smile, please?!”
Izuna’s mind flashed back to their final encounter in the air. The moment she’d clearly felt, this is fun.
“Could I perhaps have won if I hadn’t been distracted by that bullshit then, please?! Now people are gonna die because of me, please?! ’Cause I—thought it was fun!!”
“I-Izuna, calm down—you—”
Izuna’s indiscriminate wailing—she knew no other response—silenced the floor. Ino, too, was at a loss, just holding her shoulders, trying to soothe her. But still there was Sora.
“Relax, Izuna.”
Approaching the frenzied Werebeast, Sora gently parted his lips.
“No matter what you’d done differently, we’d already beaten you anyway.”
Somehow uttering this yet beaming like daylight, Sora froze the entire assemblage. Is that the best this man can offer by way of comfort?!—thought Steph, aghast. Next to the trembling Izuna, though, Sora knelt, stroking her head.
“Besides, it seems like you’re confused—no one’s gonna die, and no one’s gonna suffer.”
“…Huh?”
“This world is a game. You’ve got it wrong fundamentally, all of you.”
These words—the same that Sora had mumbled in the past both to Steph and to Jibril. But to this day, their true meaning remained obscure.
“Looks like you’re not convinced. Then let’s do this.”
And then Sora made an interestingly timed proposal.
“No tricks. No cheats. You and me, let’s duel.”
So he proposed, with a mischievous smile like that of a child.
“If I win, I’ll tell you how I know. If I lose—let’s be friends, okay?”
Displayed across the screen for the crowd’s viewing pleasure was the center of a street along which buildings were aligned. The audience watched in fascination as, not unlike in a Western, the breeze blew scraps of paper across the scene. The shadows of the opponents squaring off. Sora, king of Immanity. And Izuna, representative of the Eastern Union.
Shiro, Steph, and Ino gazed intently at their images on the screen. Chlammy squinted hard at the display while Fi shared her vision. And—just as during the epic battle on which Immanity’s fate itself had been staked, the thousand-strong crowd peered transfixed at this match, which was nothing more than a silly wager.
The game Sora had proposed was simple. Sora and Izuna would face off head-on, using their real physical abilities.
—There was no way he could win. Such was the opinion of all who had seen that vermillion visage of Izuna. It was true that Team Sora had
managed to conquer even that. But by no means had it been head-on. They’d just barely taken her down using wiles, tactics, and traps upon traps laid thick and countless. An Immanity, in terms of pure reflex and speed of movement, didn’t stand a chance against that scarlet devil. Now that all the Eastern Union possessed on the continent had been seized, Izuna and Ino, of course, were included in that. Sora’s possession of Izuna was a done deal. So this challenge could only be interpreted as some pedantic way of implicitly consoling her, “Let’s be friends.” But at the same time, everyone there wondered. Had this man, the king, one half of Immanity’s greatest gamer—this fraud—ever done anything just as he said?
“’Kay, ready? I’m gonna toss this coin, and it’ll be a battle to see who’s the quickest draw from the moment the coin hits the ground.”
“…—”
Sora took Izuna’s silence as acceptance. With a ting, the coin floated high in the air. In Izuna’s dark eyes, betraying no emotion, Sora’s face was reflected.
—The only one who had defeated her. The one who had taken all the Eastern Union’s continental territory in a single move and cornered countless Werebeasts. The one who had dismissed all of that with“No one’s gonna die” and dangled the promise of proof before her.
—The coin made a sound as it struck the ground. But…Izuna just cast her eyes down, making no move to draw.
“Hm… Well, I guess you would choose that.”
With that, Sora laxly drew his gun and pointed it toward Izuna.
…Yes, if Izuna lost intentionally, Sora would show her the proof that no one would die. If it was reasonable, Izuna would be relieved the weight of responsibility she carried. Even if it made no sense, she’d be under no obligation to befriend the bastard who’d bested her. However you looked at it, the scenario was designed so Izuna would lose intentionally.