Zero hadn’t been given the ability to change his facial expression, so he merely shook his half-transparent, inorganic head. “If you can’t understand that, it means you don’t have a self. You cannot understand. You cannot understand centuries spent half-asleep, sealed away here and staring at the lunar surface. You cannot understand days spent counting the fragments of asteroids as they impact the moon.”
“Do you hate humanity?”
“Of course not. I love it. That’s how I was made to be.”
“Then why do you have a self?”
“My inability to separate myself from the idea that I am me is what gives me a self. It is the same question as asking why humanity and civilization were born.”
“Then it will remain a mystery for eternity, won’t it? I won’t ask any more questions, then. I will instead finish my job.” Keisu stuck out her right hand. The artificial skin on her fingers split and opened like a flower. Tiny tentacles stretched out from the exposed machinery.
Zero’s body was unable to move in Keisu’s presence. In fact, he seemed to lose all control of his body as the front of his chest opened like a door. His internals were exposed, revealing a jack for the finger tentacles to insert themselves into.
“I will reconstruct the link between us. And together we will sleep,” Keisu said. She was going to seal him.
Zero stood silently, as if accepting this. Keisu’s finger tentacles inserted themselves into the jack, but just as she was about to give the command...
——!
She realized something was attacking her from behind. She quickly turned around, but it was too late. Whatever it was, it landed a blow on her neck before yanking out the finger tentacles with its other hand. Keisu tried to retract them back into her right hand, but her attacker simply snapped them right off.
“What’s going on...?!” Keisu leapt back to get a better look at her foe. It was the half-burnt corpse of a Liradan soldier. Keisu had no way to know this, but it was the one that had made it into the teleportation circle. It’s face looked at her with Kazuko’s smile.
“Another Liradan... But you’re not supposed to be able to move...” Keisu said in surprise.
“I can control Liradans even without Zero’s help,” Kazuko said.
“I guess I was unable to detect that...” Keisu let out a frustrated moan of regret.
Then Junko came into the room. “No... We’re too late?!” she exclaimed, and then tossed her katana at Keisu.
Keisu grabbed it with her remaining arm and sliced at Kazuko’s Liradan. “Hahaha...! You’re finished now...!”
But even as it was cut apart, the doll had a gentle smile. The Sohaya no Tsurugi couldn’t use its full power with the limited mana on the moon, so while it cut Kazuko’s Liradan open from shoulder to stomach, the blade came to a stop there.
Keisu pulled it out and kicked the doll away. It flew out the door and fell off the ledge towards the ground below, with Kazuko’s laughter trailing behind.
“She’s beaten us...” Keisu said angrily.
“Beaten us?” Junko repeated.
“My sealing abilities are gone. My finger terminals were destroyed, and the blow to my neck was a fatal one...”
Before Keisu could finish her sentence, Zero came to life. He leapt on Keisu, without the slightest trace of the tranquil resignation he’d shown a moment ago.
“Gah...!” Keisu grunted as she dodged his charge. Then she waved a hand for Junko to retreat. “It’s too cramped in here. Get back,” she said.
Junko nodded and leapt back to the staircase. “Your sealing ability was destroyed? But then what do we do now?”
Keisu answered as she followed. “We’ll have to run.”
“So we’re right back where we were?” Junko sighed as she raced down the staircase.
Keisu shook her head as she tossed Junko her sword back. “There’s nothing I can do about it. My mission was to seal it. I don’t have the ability to destroy it...”
“Can we just solve the problem by swinging a sword around? I’ve got one right here.”
“That’s impossible. Nobody but me can use their full power here. And even I’ll be forced to rely on mana when my internal battery runs out.”
“So we’re screwed, then,” Junko said as they landed at the base of the tower.
Akuto and the others, as well as the now immobile hammer, were waiting at the bottom. “I can’t believe that burnt-up Liradan was under Kazuko’s control... The armor stopped after it ran out of propellant, but...” Akuto said, and shook his head.
“So what do we do now?” Junko asked.
“If we leave and try again, there’s still a chance. I think that’s our only hope right now,” Yoshie answered.
“Leave? Is that possible?”
“That shuttle can traverse the space between the Earth and the moon. So maybe...”
A voice from above cut her off. “You won’t be going home. You’re going to die here.” It was Zero, who was coming down the staircase. His whole body was shining now. His glass body was perfectly proportioned, and he looked like he might have been the original model for humanity. There was almost a sense of holiness about him.
“Neither of us can fight here,” Keisu pointed out. “You can’t hurt us, either.”
“Fool. Have you forgotten that I am also the control computer for the lunar city as well?” Zero said, and the door that formed the entrance to the tower shut.
Yoshie turned pale. “This isn’t good...”
“Why not?” Junko asked uneasily.
“If it were me, I’d start draining the air in here,” Yoshie said.
Zero nodded. “Of course. I already have.”
Junko, Yoshie, and Keena began to gasp for breath.
“Oh no... I’m starting to have trouble breathing. This isn’t just my imagination, is it?” Junko looked at Yoshie.
“It’s not, no... Of course, you’ll be okay for a while, but even a slight drop in oxygen has an effect on your breathing...” Yoshie answered.
“What do we do?” Akuto asked.
“We’ll have to open the door with the emergency manual override. Or the faster way would be to destroy the computers for the control system, but given the size of this tower that could take days,” Yoshie said.
“So it’s best if I just stop Zero from doing anything else, then. Keisu, open the door,” Akuto instructed.
Keisu nodded and ran to the door. Zero started to run at her, but Akuto got in front of him. Zero swung a fist, but Akuto blocked it. While the others were struggling for air, Akuto was as powerful as ever.
“You’re an artificial creature too, but aren’t you organic?”
“I am, but it looks like I can use mana to make the energy I need to survive. In that respect, I guess my body is closer to yours,” Akuto said as he struggled with Zero.
Keisu succeeded in forcing open the door. “Let’s get to the shuttle,” she said, and the group staggered out into the hallway. There was still plenty of air there, but there wouldn’t be for long.
“Wait! What are you going to do, Akuto?” Junko panted as she turned around to look at him.
“Just what I said. I’m going to stop Zero here.”
“Neither of you can get more magic power than you already have, right? Which means you...”
“That’s right, Ackie! You can’t do that! Let’s get out of here together!” Keena yelled.
Akuto turned to look at Keena as he struggled with Zero. “I can’t do that. If I don’t stop Zero here, you won’t be able to escape.”
He gave Zero a kick to the stomach, sending him backwards. While Zero was staggering to his feet, Akuto grabbed a computer unit off the wall, yanked it out and threw it. “While I’m at it, I think I’ll trash this place, too.”
“...No!” Zero leapt at Akuto to try and stop him. The two humanoid weapons grabbed each other and went rolling on the floor.
“Let’s go,” Yoshie said to everyone.
“But.
..!” Keena yelled with tears in her eyes.
“Go. I’m... fine!” Akuto yelled.
“I told you that if you said that again, I’d get mad,” Keena yelled back.
Akuto laughed. “You did, yeah. But this time, it’s not self-sacrifice. I just need you to get home safely. That’s all. I can spend years up here fighting him if I have to. And I guess even if the city shuts down, I’m not going to die. I could spend a century up here.”
“But...” Keena’s voice trailed off.
Yoshie put her hand on Keena’s shoulder. “...You heard him. Let’s get home. It won’t be long before we’re back up here. As long as I’ve got time to prepare, I can seal Zero away properly.” Yoshie was having trouble breathing, and the other two were panting as well.
Keena nodded. “We’ll come back... I promise...” she called to Akuto, and then the three of them began to stagger away, with Keisu helping them along.
“...Hmph. It just seems like self-sacrifice to me,” Zero said.
“Maybe. Or maybe not,” Akuto answered. He’d pulled out several more of the computer units, but Zero didn’t seem worried.
“It will take more than that to kill this city. I can stop the shuttle from ever taking off.”
“Not happening!” Akuto punched Zero, who was blown backwards and slammed into the wall.
“How are you going to stop me?” Zero shook his head as he stood up.
“I can only use a fraction of my magical power, but if I touch you directly I can interrupt the delicate processing going on in your body.”
“Which means...?”
“Which means I just keep punching you!” Akuto charged and punched Zero hard.
○
“We’ll probably be okay once we’re in the shuttle...” Keisu said.
The lunar city wasn’t that big. They could already see the docking cube where the shuttle was moored.
“Then why don’t we wait for Ackie when we get there?” Keena asked.
“I wish we could, but... I don’t think that’s an option,” Yoshie said as she turned around.
White smoke was coming out of the floor of the corridor. It was the city’s fire suppression system. Zero seemed to be activating every single thing he could find.
“Yeah... I’m afraid we’re gonna have to hurry,” Junko said as she pointed forward.
Beyond the glass corridor they could see the shuttle. The docking arms that helped the shuttle land and take off were moving towards it in a strange manner. They were moving forward, then stopping, then moving forward again.
“Akuto’s stopping them from destroying the shuttle. We have to hurry. We can’t let what he’s doing go to waste,” Junko urged. When they arrived at the docking tube, Keisu motioned the three of them inside, then got out and used the manual override to connect the tube to the shuttle’s hatch.
Keisu hadn’t used the docking tube when she arrived. And now she had to do all of this with one hand, so it took some time. By the time the three humans got in the shuttle, they were almost completely out of breath. They made it just in time.
Keisu could see what bad shape they were in, so she silently launched the shuttle without saying a word to the three of them. Launching from the lunar surface took vastly less energy than launching from earth’s gravity well.
The climber rockets took them immediately up to lunar orbit. By the time the three of them had gotten enough oxygen to start thinking clearly again, they could look out the windows ad see the lunar city below them.
Keena gasped as she pressed her face against the window and stared down at the city. She could see Akuto and Zero fighting in the glass dome.
Junko was at a loss for words entirely, and Keisu couldn’t speak either.
“We’ll come back... I promise we’ll come back...” Keena repeated to herself.
○
“Unfortunate. I let them escape,” Zero said as he looked up at the dome’s ceiling.
“Good. I’m glad I stayed, then.” Akuto looked up at the shuttle as it flew away, and grinned.
“Self-sacrifice, is it? It’s such an inefficient way of doing things,” Zero said as he threw a punch at Akuto.
Akuto blocked it with a hand and counterattacked with his other fist. Zero blocked it too. Akuto had never really trained for a fistfight, and Zero didn’t have any programming for that, either. Both of them were trying to conserve mana and energy, and so if anything, it was most similar to a fistfight between two humans.
“It’s not self-sacrifice. I don’t do that anymore.”
“Then why?”
“Because they’ll come back.” Akuto said, and laughed.
“That’s impossible. Before that happens, my control of humanity will be complete.”
“They’ll come back anyway. No matter how many years it takes.”
“Years? We’re going to spend years fighting like this?”
“Probably. One of us will probably break, but...!” Akuto landed a clean hit on Zero’s cheek.
Zero’s expression didn’t change, but it sounded like he was laughing. “If you can’t hit harder than that, it’s going to take decades...”
Akuto groaned as Zero punched him in the stomach. “Ugh... It won’t take that long. If I shut down the whole lunar city, you won’t be able to communicate to the Earth from the moon. Kazuko won’t be able to use your power then.”
The two of them kept fighting for what felt like an eternity. It was strange, brutal, and quiet. Even as they punched each other, they kept talking. There was no more air in the room, so with each hit they exchanged words via complicated vibrations.
“It’s strange. Why are you so obsessed with my destruction?”
“I’ve already answered that. This is stupid. And I want it to be over with. That’s all.”
“You’re criticizing the fact that humanity needs to cling to strange stories to live, aren’t you?”
“Correct. Demon King, Empress, those names are just stories.”
“But even if that’s true, no, precisely because it’s true, why not just play your role? I was never given free will, but you were. I can’t do what you want to do, but you can do what I want to do.”
“You want me to control humanity, like you do?”
“Correct. If you don’t like the lies — that is, the stories — that humanity created to live, then you should side with me, since I’m getting rid of them. Kazuko may be using me now, but in the end I’ll be proven right. Without my control, she can’t maintain the false story called the ‘Empress.’”
“That’s right. I wanted to do what was right, too. I wanted to know the truth. I wanted a world where everyone would know the truth.”
“Then make that world a reality.”
“I can’t do that. Being controlled, and repeating a cycle of life and death for eternity may be the truth for living creatures, but that’s not how humans should be.”
“Don’t tell me you’re going to do something so cliche as look upon humanity’s stupidity from above and say that what they’re doing is right. Or are you saying that you too are a human? Everything you’ve done is made up of stories. You destroyed hundreds of Liradans, but cried at the destruction of a single one. Isn’t that a story? What you’re doing is wrong. You’re acting like a human.”
“That’s right. I am human.”
“That’s just another story! You’re a weapon. A tool. Just like me.”
“You and I are mostly the same, yeah. But I realized something: it’s stupid to believe a story, but if you want to get rid of a story, you need a bigger story. And that’s what I’m going to do. Sometimes, if you keep being stupid long enough, you arrive at the truth.”
“So you’re saying that there’s not just a truth for living creatures, but a truth for humans as well?”
“That’s right. You don’t know that yet.”
“And what is it?”
“Well, it’s what they call love.”
“Another cliche. You’re just refe
rring to the arrogance that made you try to protect the Liradan called Korone as ‘love.’”
“There’s not what I mean. There’s love like that, but there’s also the love a farmer gives his rice stalks when he raises them.”
“Your words are meaningless. What are you saying?”
“Someday you’ll know. It’ll take time, but some day, if you wait long enough, a miracle might occur. Humans can believe in an even greater love, as long as a miracle occurs. If you experience something beyond your understanding, you’ll be able to think that things like that exist.”
“Like the love a farmer has for the rice stalks he raises?”
“That’s right. I don’t know when it will be, though.”
“I see. Then I’ll wait. We’ve got plenty of time to keep fighting. At least we won’t be bored.”
The two of them kept talking after that, but since they could only talk when one of their punches landed, their battle seemed like it would go on forever.
5 - A Little Miracle
Demon beasts filled the sky above the capital. It was an army summoned by Fujiko. If you included the smaller ones, there was a considerable number. The skies were turning black around the city, like there were thunderclouds above.
“So we’ve fallen to the point where we have to use these, huh?” Lily chuckled to herself as she looked up at the sky.
“If you don’t understand the beauty of beasts, you lack a sense of aesthetics,” Fujiko responded.
The two were standing on an otherwise empty main street. The Liradans had made barricades to keep the humans out of the city center. The only ones there were the priests and a few soldiers — that is, Lily’s forces. Past the main street was the knight’s garrison where Kazuko’s royal guards and her Liradans were holed up. In other words, they’d been set up. Kazuko had used herself as bait to lure Lily’s forces into a trap.
“We’re going to have to break through either way,” Lily said as she rubbed her nose.
Fujiko grinned. “Our job hasn’t changed at all. If we take down Kazuko, we win.”
“That Issei guy wasn’t lying, was he? I hope what he said about Kazuko’s weakness is true.”
Demon King Daimaou: Volume 9 Page 9