No Game No Life, Vol. 8

by Yuu Kamiya

  “—Hey, you’re making me sound like some nasty-ass criminal sicko…”

  ……And you claim you’re not? the Shrine Maiden quietly wondered at the objection of this unsightly lolicon, who could hardly excuse himself now. She distantly regarded his futile impasse with Holou. Holou was right. Her present form was not her true self.

  “Holou’s ether lieth here.”

  “……Uh. You mean…that thing you’ve been sitting on? The inkpot?”

  “—Nay. That, too, is incorrect. The appearance of an inkpot is an illusion borne of the extent of thine understanding of my divinity. An Old Deus properly hath no physical form. This humanoid form, likewise, is but an illusion for the purpose of—”

  “HA-HAAA! OKAY, ENOUGH ALREADY! WATAAAH!!”

  “……O thou? Thou. Thou. Why hast thou karate chopped Holou’s head?”

  “Your head! You admitted it!! So this and that are all you, Holou, right?!”

  Holou gasped. As she muttered at the apparent revelation, Sora figured it was their chance and started inching away. The Shrine Maiden snickered as she watched complacently.

  Long ago, a certain fox…had made a terrible mistake. She’d thought that the god of doubt, born to doubt everything, questioning eternity—her first friend—wanted evidence to support herself as she went on doubting. Having made this mistake, the fox could hardly call herself the girl’s friend. What the god had actually wanted was just someone she could trust, who would believe in her—

  —and now, that someone strode up to the Shrine Maiden and whispered:

  “So I’d say we win, wouldn’t you, Shrine Maiden?”

  Holou had ceased denying herself and stood on her own. Sora had sailed right over the Shrine Maiden’s trap.

  “Heh-heh! Watch yourself, lad. Grown-ups have their own way of winning.” She chuckled. That’s right. I’m a grown-up. I ended up an adult. The Shrine Maiden smirked. She’d turned into one of those boring folks complicating the world, the ones who’d given up on so much— But still. “…You accomplished what I couldn’t…” Yes. She’d bet that they could free Holou. He’d made the gamble of her lifetime—and won. “From the very beginning, I bet on my loss… So wouldn’t you say I win? ”

  She let herself be a sore loser to see what would happen.

  “…Shrine Maiden… If you bet…on your own loss…”

  “That’s where you lost—so we win, d00d.”

  “……?”

  “A word to the wise: You’ve got something you’ve gotta say before you start on the details, right?”

  Sora and Shiro laughed at this rather ominous remark and waved at the Shrine Maiden with a flourish. She eyed them suspiciously as they headed toward the edge of the rock that was just about to arrive on solid ground.

  “O Host, O Host!”

  Holou had scrawled something with her brush, then suddenly cried out and ran for the Shrine Maiden.

  “Holou—is Holou! Hast thou any objections?”

  …………

  “What sort of expression is that?! Dost thou not understand?!”

  Holou was like a philosopher who’d just made a great discovery only to be confounded by the ignorance of the masses.

  But that wasn’t the case.

  “I propose that the present condition in which an observer which defineth Holou’s self perceiveth and addresseth Holou as Holou implieth that Holou can be provisionally confirmed to exist as Holou—and thus that Holou may call herself Holou!”

  The reason the Shrine Maiden looked so dazed was that Holou had run to her—and confidently taken her hand.

  Has she forgiven me? Is it appropriate for mine to be the hand she holds of her own volition? In the end, I couldn’t do anything. Am I really good enough—?

  “You’ve got something you’ve gotta say before you start on the details!”

  “…Sorry, love, I tricked you… Will you forgive me…?”

  “Holou cannot forgive you,” Holou shot back doubtfully.

  The Shrine Maiden averted her gaze, but Holou continued.

  “For Holou hath yet to hypothesize what it is to forgive.”

  .

  “However, thy deception hath wrought what thou didst say would come. It hath changed the ending, changed the conclusion, yea, changed Holou herself.” Holou thought for a bit as if checking something and nodded several times. “And it doth seem that this change be not particularly unpleasant.”

  Holou smiled subtly, probably unaware of it herself.

  —Gong… A slight swaying.

  They had landed—in the Garden of the Shrine, greeted by the smiles of Steph, Jibril…and Izuna. The three of them looked at Holou’s, the Shrine Maiden’s, Sora’s, and Shiro’s faces one by one.

  “We’re back—I suppose one should say.”

  Steph was beaming more radiantly than anyone. Sora and Shiro gave her a thumbs-up.

  “Sure thing, Steph… And sorry to bring the bad news…”

  “…But, Steph… Now…it’s good-bye…”

  Weighed upon by fatigue, tension, and hunger, among many other things, Sora and Shiro fainted.

  IDEAL END

  Clatter, sploosh.

  Within the Great Bath of the Shrine resounded the echoes of wooden buckets clattering to the ground, among other heavenly noises. Like a reverie, the Peach Blossom Spring filled the space… Well, presumably. Unable to view this paradise with his own eyes, Sora put his faith in the power of science (i.e., cameras).

  “O thou! Thou, thou, thou! O so-called Sora!”

  “Don’t make me sound like some cheap knockoff! I am the one and only, universally recognized Sora— Hey!!”

  On the other side of the screen, Sora was angling his camera, painting the paradise in his mind’s eye—when paradise came before his body’s eyes, transcending space as if it were only natural. This particular paradise apparently constituted some crazy shit of an even higher order than Jibril, despite her having lost most of her powers.

  “Holou?! For a fair maiden to let it all hang out—! Learn some modesty, please!!” Sora quickly averted his eyes.

  “…Thy logic is utterly inconsistent. Were thou not quite of late visually recording Holou’s nether regions?”

  Verily so. She was probably at least hundreds of millions years old. She wasn’t even human, and on top of that, this wasn’t even her proper self, but an illusion. Who’d have thought this world had such a perfect, unblemished legal Loli? —However!

  “Damn it! This is the problem with gods! Lust without shame can scarcely be considered lust… Wait a second… Maybe that’s how a Loli should be? …Mmm, uhhh, but I’m not thaaat—”

  Sora muttered in deliberation of this quite critical global issue, only to be interrupted by the stark-naked deity advancing on him.

  “Holou will hear thy troubles at a later date! But now a more vital question is upon us: Answer, thou so-called Sora! Hast thou defined Holou as Holou?”

  “…Are you still going on about that? And d00d, I’m not ‘so-called’!”

  “…? But are not the cells that define the individual named Sora variable? It followeth that the Sora observed by Holou from her dimensional point and the Sora presumed to exist at the current dimensional point are separate entities, and thou art a so-called Sora! Thus, the question is from what dimensional point the monogenetic intellect Sora which defineth Holou as Holou defineth the polygenetic intellect Holou—”

  “Eeyaaah, I didn’t know you’d be this much of a pain in the ass!!”

  “Art thou, after all, a so-called Sora? Sora hath promised to answer Holou’s questions!”

  As Sora snapped and shrieked at her indecipherable words, the butt-naked Loli goddess advanced on Sora, causing him to frantically cry out. Holou jumped back, her eyes slightly uneasy.

  “……Sheesh, just where the hell do you get all that energy…?”

  The exasperated query echoed through the dreamlike Peach Blossom Spring…

  It was a sight far beyon
d anyone’s wildest dreams: Soaking in the steam-filled bath were Fiel, despondent, and Chlammy, leaning on her; Plum, immobile and under a feminine guise, still on the verge of evaporating if he stopped sucking blood, and Laila, on whom he chomped; Shiro, taking advantage of the exhausted Shrine Maiden and Izuna’s defenselessness to fluff and wash them to her heart’s content; Steph, soaking in the bath, her mind drifting to a better place; and the last two participants, who never seemed to grow tired—Azril, in good spirits for having lent out the Flügel Piece, who washed Jibril, herself in not-so-good spirits.

  …And lastly—Holou, moving restlessly about.

  Immanity, Elf, Werebeast, Dhampir, Siren, Flügel—and Old Deus. Seven of the sixteen seeds that had hated and slaughtered one another and fractured the very planet were here. Who could have dreamed of or even imagined this? Very few. One of that number, Sora, was currently bursting with boundless vigor at the thought of all those beauties his camera was capturing.

  “All right, then!” he shouted, checking that his camera was in working order before raising a glass. “So! To the Commonwealth of Elkia and its new Elven Gard domain!”

  “…And… Let’s not forget… To…Holou…”

  The two who had overcome the vast game raised their juice glasses.

  ““Cheeeeers!””

  Jibril, Azril, Holou, the Shrine Maiden, Laila, and Steph followed suit.

  ““““““Cheeers…””””””

  Their cheer was somewhat lacking, but to the victor go the cheers.

  Note: Mr. Ino Hatsuse is absent today for critical medical treatment. We appreciate your understanding.

  “O thou, the presumed Sora.”

  Holou poked her head right through the dividing screen. Sora scolded her with a quick No! Bad!

  “Holou, you have to address people properly. It’s called manners.”

  “…Holou is a god. Very well, then. Hypothesis: ‘Sora.’”

  At Sora’s overly serious admonishment, Holou puffed out her cheeks slightly, rewording things, having decided to provisionally assume the so-called Sora to be a “confirmed Sora,” and asked:

  “Holou considers herself to have understood her host’s objective—to instigate Holou’s independence…” Holou must have felt guilty for failing to grasp this much. She was probably unaware, but her voice was glum. “But ye two. For what purpose did ye engage Holou in that game…?” Nervously, she was inquiring as to their motives.

  Yes. A fundamental question. What had they sought so earnestly as to engage in a game of that scale?

  A game with the Race Piece on the line had only one precedent: their showdown with the Eastern Union.

  And this matchup bet five Race Pieces. Multiple agents plenipotentiary had put up their Race Pieces to take on an Old Deus. Immanity, Werebeast, Dhampir, Siren, Flügel—one wrong step and five races would have perished. And they’d managed to survive this unheard-of game, coming out on top. And in the end, what Sora and Shiro and all those races had to show for it was the rescue of one lonely Old Deus—one helpless girl.

  That was all.

  It had yet to be determined whether Holou had such value—or any value to speak of. Putting her query to Sora and Shiro, her voice shook uncertainly as to what could justify going to such lengths on her behalf, but—

  “Huh? To have fun together, right, up-and-coming babe gamer?”

  “…Mm. To game…and game…and, like, game…and stuff?”

  The immediacy of Sora and Shiro’s response left Holou suspicious—rather, speechless. They’d said as much when they’d extended their hands to her…but could that seriously be all? Though Holou was baffled, Sora and Shiro’s next words were the coup de grâce.

  “Well, I guess you’re gonna be pretty busy gaming for a while as part of your idol career.”

  .

  “…Holou suspects Sora hast used a word in a sense yet unknown to her. What was thy meaning just now?”

  The few seconds of contemplation it took to frame her question, from a divine perspective, would have been comparable to a few years to a human.

  “I said, idol career. A god is an idol, right?! Gotta spread the word! ”

  Even so, Sora’s answer, with Shiro chiming in, continued to baffle the girl.

  “Prepare yourself, Holou! You’re gonna be busy! We’ve even got candidates ready for your costume design!”

  “…We’ve got…your concert venue…and even…a good composer!”

  “We’re sorting out all the merch manufacturers and cross-marketing ventures, so relax! ”

  Sora’s and Shiro’s motor mouths brought even Holou, an Old Deus straddling dimensions capable of communicating without language, to tears.

  “…Why?! Holou is a being of manifold intelligence! Why can she not comprehend a single term?!”

  Rather than a response from Sora and Shiro, though—

  “It is no surprise that a god (lol) would be unable to understand the grand designs of my masters. ”

  —Jibril likewise poked her face through the screen, apparently having shaken off Azril.

  …Sora felt sorry for the poor, unheeded laws of physics, but no one cared.

  “Allow me, their humble servant Jibril, to explain in a manner that even a dumb god such as yourself can understand. ”

  Jibril beamed before elaborating.

  “First of all, my masters are in the process of deposing that fuck—pardon me —the One True God.”

  …She could have said aiming to depose or planning. But no, she stated it as a fait accompli. Holou looked cynical, but Jibril’s assertion hardly surprised her. She’d heard about it when she was in the Shrine Maiden, and anyway—

  “…Holou is aware, though currently dubious of their sanity.”

  —while it may largely have been a flight of desperation, Holou herself had had the same plan. But Jibril seemed to mock such thoughts:

  “Then surely you must know—you can’t take any of the Race Pieces. ”

  “Hwa?”

  Holou, who had known no such thing, made a funny noise and froze. Hell, had she known, why would she have demanded their Race Pieces? Jibril knew this all too well. She smiled giddily with the elation of looking down on a god.

  “It is the opinion of my masters that, rather than take the Race Pieces, we must unite the Ixseeds under a common will and together challenge Tet, each race of its own will, its own Piece in hand. ”

  “……”

  Holou’s expression asked why. Sora answered:

  “—You want us to take their Pieces and be like, ‘Look, just shut up and do as I say’?”

  He chuckled. “Wouldn’t you say that kind of domination and coercion falls under the conventional definition of war?”

  .

  If they were just going to dominate, enslave, and trample everything, it’d be no different from the Great War. The words of the one who asserted that the world had changed—who had proven it—silenced Holou.

  “However, having avowed we shall not take it, we do require an agent plenipotentiary to assume possession of the Old Deus Piece,” continued Jibril.

  Hmm, muttered Holou. Aware that it might sound hypocritical, she laid out her hypothesis skeptically.

  “—Hypothesis: Those fools will never select an agent plenipotentiary.”

  An agent plenipotentiary was supposed to represent a group in a conflict. Old Dei didn’t form factions; they didn’t even congregate. There was no reason they would designate an agent plenipotentiary.

  “What? Who says they need to select one?”

  Sora regarded Holou blankly, tilting his head and adding:

  “You’re Old Deus’s agent plenipotentiary.”

  .

  .

  “S-Sora… Holou is a fool. Such is her hypothesis. B-but could she truly be such a thickheaded babe…?!”

  Holou, utterly unable to follow, seemed to have begun doubting her own intelligence. Her face, peeking through the screen, slid down toward the f
loor.

  “All of the Commonwealth of Elkia’s victories so far—and those to come—are thanks to you, Holou!”

  “Indeed, Holou must be…a thickheaded babe…”

  Holou sank even further as Sora cheered, but he went on regardless.

  “No one would believe that shit, right? But who cares!”

  Sora pointed meaningfully beyond the dividing screen. Holou looked. It was the Great Bath, where key personnel of various races bathed.

  “What if Old Deus joined this multiracial commonwealth?”

  At Sora’s knowing smirk, even Holou could guess. The whole world, the breadth of nations, regardless of race—would spiral into paranoia.

  “That’s where I, your humble servant Sora, come in! Master of Idolm*ster, L*ve Live!, 7*h Sisters, Aik*tsu! and more!”

  “…Together, with Shiro… Collectively dominating, the global leaderboards, for all these idol-raising games…as Blank…!”

  “To produce a sensation! To debut Holou, a literal idol! We’ll have her singing, dancing, doing meet-and-greets—and reaping the profits!!”

  With that, Sora peered delightedly into Holou’s eyes.

  “…The god of doubt and yearning… The god of wisdom.” If the power of an Old Deus was determined by the strength of a concept—if that was her ether… “Doubt, longing, rejection, hope… All these things, Holou—will be your bread.”

  “!”

  “Yes—!! All the emotions that congregate around an idol will be your power!”

  “…H-Holou did not comprehend the latter statement…but dost thou mean…?”

  At last, Holou arrived at understanding, though she doubted her interpretation. Sure, her Immanity hosts and the like had succeeded in bringing down an Old Deus—Holou—together. Everything and nothing was possible… But this was just too… Holou considered, wide-eyed, but Sora proceeded to affirm her inference.