by Mamare Touno
Isuzu was just a high school girl, but what was wrong was wrong. Whether she was an imposter or not didn’t matter anymore.
“Mademoiselle Isuzu…?”
“We’re going, Rudy.”
“Huh?”
Her heart was on fire. She thought, I’ll never forgive this.
She was going to pick a fight with the gods who’d only made a bare handful of songs before they cast this world aside. It was the biggest resolution Isuzu had ever made. Something she loved and had always cherished had been held in contempt. She swore she wouldn’t stop, never, not until she or the gods were completely exhausted and dropped in their tracks—no, not until the gods cried and apologized.
There was absolutely no need for Rundelhaus to clench his fists and be at a loss for words.
“To go fight.”
“Fight?”
Startled, Rundelhaus echoed her words back at her. Ignoring him, Isuzu looked down over the wide avenue through the ruined building’s crumbling floor. Even the idea of using the stairs was irritating to her now.
The first stroke was a warm-up chord.
“Mademoiselle Isuzu?!”
Like a glissando sliding down the strings, Isuzu leapt out into the dusty air.
Rundelhaus, Touya, Minori, Serara.
Isuzu herself.
They didn’t have a single reason to hang their heads.
4
“Keh-heh-heh-heh. Ah-ha. Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha…”
Roe2, who’d looked startled, bent nearly double and laughed for a while. Then she patted Minori’s head, gently.
“Here, on this battlefield, that’s your answer?”
“On this battlefield, that is my answer.”
The eyes behind the round glasses narrowed softly in a smile. “Even if nothing changes?”
“It means there are some things we can change.”
Roe2’s question hadn’t been intended to make her give up. Minori took it as encouragement.
“Now, at a time when Touya’s huddled up?”
“He’s just resting for a little while. He’ll get up again soon.”
For that reason, Minori was able to answer without hesitation. Predictions of indefinite misfortune were a hammer meant to temper her blade of blue steel. They were the ring of the anvil, so that Minori could obtain the strength she wanted.
“I doubt your words will get through, Minori.”
“But we’re together right now.”
It might be no good. There was a possibility that it would fail.
Still, that mattered a lot less than the fact that she was able to make an attempt now.
Some sort of important choice had been made. It wasn’t that Roe2 had presented the options and Minori had chosen. Roe2 had helped with an answer Minori had carved inside herself. Like the time she’d determined to protect Choushi, and the time she’d decided to act as the rear guard for the Libra Festival, the resolution had welled up from deep inside her and had dyed her in its colors.
A premonition of change set Minori’s heart trembling. It wasn’t a vague assumption. It would truly change her, and had changed the world. Just as she’d experienced before, her vision was rapidly recolored, starting at her feet, and in the midst of it all, Minori gazed at Roe2.
She held out a hand to the woman. She’d been given permission to reach out.
Minori carefully stored Roe2’s kindness away, deep inside herself.
This experience mingled with Shiroe’s words in her and became the root of a new, great tree. She knew this quite clearly.
“I heard the word ‘please.’”
“Yes.”
“Right. Good, Minori. Fine. I am your big sister, after all.”
“Yes!”
“Summon!”
Backlit by the evening sun, Roe2 waved an arm casually, and a powerful magic circle appeared.
The Pale Horse came running up. From where she sat astride it, Roe2 held out a hand to Minori. She took it; it was noticeably tepid.
Startling at the thoroughbred’s energetic movements, Minori clung on tightly. But Roe2 spoke to her merrily: “True. I seem to have overlooked that. We have a duty as those who lead the way. It would be very uncool of us to shake off the hands you’d stretched out to us. Yes, ‘uncool.’ I’m glad that word was in my brother’s vocabulary—we really should live gallantly.”
With the sound of powerful hoofbeats, the Pale Horse raced through the air.
Minori was so taken aback by its true abilities—which it hadn’t shown once while it was pulling the cart—that she couldn’t even open her mouth.
“Big sisters don’t abandon little sisters. I’ll internalize that rule. I’m probably the first Traveler to stand beside you. I didn’t think this would happen, but I feel quite cheerful.”
Minori burned those words into her heart.
Unfortunately, she didn’t understand their meaning in the slightest.
However, every single one was a piece of some important secret.
Without being told, Minori assigned herself the role of delivering them to Shiroe. Right now, Minori was in a special, reborn world; in this world, meetings were part of an important secret ceremony, and they had special meaning. Even now, she could feel Touya’s bitter grief so keenly it hurt, but her heart danced at the premonition of a storm that would blow all of it away.
“The larger element clusters grow, the more stable they are, but their behavior becomes deterministic. That’s true for countries, and for planets, and for the Milky Bridge. They also begin to let tiny pieces fall.”
An iron pole fell toward them, but the Pale Horse knocked it flying, not even bothering to go around it.
“It’s only natural for all people to wish for happiness. However, that’s also the origin of sadness. For example, in Theldesian history, take the alvs, who shook off their former neighbors’ hands, and the humans who destroyed those alvs. Individual anguish is truth, but errors of misunderstanding are compounded, and when they become too great for individuals to manage, they sear the world. Grief, anger, and despair are poisons released into the world.”
Roe2’s words were mild, but they held the ring of sublime wisdom, something like the echo of a memory keeper relating a legend of irreparable destruction.
“You don’t understand, do you?”
Behind Roe2, Minori shook her head.
She didn’t want to pretend she had understood.
“Your words are inconvenient things, aren’t they? This restriction-riddled protocol is dragging down the inference engine’s maximum. You can’t even construct proper clouds, and everything you do is peppered with loss. You don’t even have a method for stably expanding clusters. You live in the midst of this unfair isolation, as if you were in the Stone Age. That’s awful. It’s just too much.”
There was no accusation in her voice. No pity, either. Only understanding and empathy.
Her cloak fluttered in the wind, and Minori squeezed it tightly.
“But Empathiom is transmitted. So much so that those of us who are suffering from a lack of resources don’t understand it. This is how you do things, isn’t it?”
An enormous explosion went up.
It was probably a phoenix’s suicide attack. The Pale Horse Minori and Roe2 rode charged straight through the middle of the roiling flames. At that point, Minori was finally able to see the state of her surroundings. There was fighting. Fighting everywhere.
Skillfully maneuvering her summoned horse, Roe2 destroyed wyverns and Nightshade Servants the whole way, brandishing the true power of a level-90 Adventurer.
Minori cast Purification Barriers. She cast them on People of the Earth and on Odysseia Knights.
Yet even as the rapidly changing scenery and battlefield kept her on her toes, Minori came to a curious conclusion.
What she was casting right now were countless barrier spells. They were the foundation of Kannagi healing, barriers to halt falling HP. It was one of the major spell systems from which battles w
ere composed.
Minori had wanted to make them into something that wasn’t a combat technique.
She wanted them to be like water to the thirsty and the possibility of rescue for People of the Earth who were fleeing from the flames. For the Odysseia Knights, who were swinging their swords as if they’d gone mad, she wanted them to be a small reminder that their bodies were precious.
In other words, they were Minori’s hope, her ego: She wanted to protect all life, to put an end to this. With the wish that that ego would become a prayer, Minori kept casting Purification Barrier to the limits of its recast time.
The confusion of the battlefield seemed endless.
Several times, she saw Serara and Touya. Both were still fighting.
In the midst of the dizzying melee, Minori was on the verge of grasping something mysterious. It was the “full control encounter” she’d been chasing ever since she’d heard about it from Shiroe, but it seemed to have been expanded in places. The People of the Earth parents and children who thanked her over and over as they fled, the knights who knelt as if they were exhausted—they weren’t Minori’s friends, but in this moment, they were companions who were sharing this place with her.
As Shiroe had shown her several times, in the midst of a mental world without clouds or conjectures, Minori felt as if she’d heard their wordless cries.
They were cries of hatred for this place that brimmed with sorrow, and cries of longing that wished for better choices.
If Minori had used her own awkward words to express them, she would have had to call them prayers of entreaty.
“Little brothers and sisters!” Roe2 called out loudly.
She’d raised her Staff of the Wise Horned Owl high in the air, and white light was drawn to it. With a smirk, she made a mischievous announcement.
“Your big sister will not abandon you! The first friends I made in this world are angry at this place, which generates only sadness. A ruined princess who was once unable to understand or be understood and was abandoned is screaming inside me.”
Touya, who was standing in the rubble and crossing swords with a knight, abruptly looked up.
Rundelhaus, who was encasing countless wyverns in coffins of ice, turned around.
Drawn by Wolfie’s gaze, Serara lifted her head, bewildered.
Isuzu, who was singing without bothering to wipe her tears away, saw white wings spread as if to enfold the town.
It was the white of a snowfall that covered everything.
“Thou who hast broken thine contract, walk with me. Sword Princess: Al Quinjé!”
Roe2’s summoning spell activated with a flash of light that illuminated the area.
Her summoned servant, Princess Lace, revealed her true form. Minori thought it was probably the Combat Skill Summoning known as Sword Princess, a woman holding a harp, but it was completely different from the spell she knew from Shiroe’s classes.
The spirit’s face was covered by a veil-like sealing cloth, and she couldn’t see her expression, but she felt a tranquility woven with sadness. Radiating a divine light, the beautiful woman with the harp raised her arm in a gesture that seemed to trace Roe2’s, layering the sound of her harp over Isuzu’s song.
In the midst of the notes emanating from the legendary Ruquinjé’s harp, Roe2 looked decidedly proud.
5
She kept strumming the strings intently.
She yelled enough to make her throat hoarse.
She didn’t care whether she was for real or a fake. Isuzu was singing all the songs she knew.
She ran and ran, racing down the street. Right now, she was turning into eighth notes and bursting in the crimson evening sunlight. An arched quadruplet, a stroked long-tone chord. Isuzu’s footsteps were a snare, and her heart was a bass drum.
Isuzu sang, letting her Bard Style–reinforced endurance do the heavy lifting. The repertoire she played became rainbow-colored melodies that filled the air.
Dirge of the Captured Lion!!
The torrent of a rippling scale froze a group of Nightshade Servants as if they were mechanical dolls who’d run out of oil. Isuzu didn’t even glance at them: She knew her partner would slip in to fill the empty solo part.
“Orb of Lava!”
The violent riff wasn’t melodious; it was more like a drum solo. By the time she’d transitioned through an interlude and into the song’s C section, the Nightshade Servants were already turning iridescent.
She made eye contact with People of the Earth who were peeking out of a cellar like wild rabbit siblings.
The two of them were huddled close together, and they looked as if they were about to cry.
The town had been pulled into this battle, and there was no place for them to run. Their mouths hung half-open, wretchedly, seeming more stunned than angry or despairing. One of the Odysseia Knights fell on the road, turning iridescent right in front of them.
Just now, the world had probably collapsed in front of those siblings. The hope that would have saved them had fallen.
Isuzu slammed a melody into the scene.
I can’t do anything, but I’ll sing.
She raised her voice.
She sang at an impossible volume, stinging her throat. But she didn’t think about backing off.
I’m looking. I do see you.
She spun those feelings into a phrase.
There really wasn’t a thing Isuzu could do. She could play her lute and scream, and that was all.
Evading the Nightshade Servants’ spells, Isuzu nodded to the pair. The brother and sister ran away like rabbits. Feeling relieved, she sang a song at their backs.
Songs were trivial things. No matter how recklessly Isuzu raged, there was no guarantee that she’d be able to save those siblings. It was a fact that, in terms of the whole town, there had been lots of casualties. Even if Isuzu sang, she couldn’t change that. She liked John Lennon, but she thought the idea of world peace through music was ridiculous.
The music that had saved Isuzu, the famous songs by great performers, probably couldn’t do anything that big.
That awareness was endlessly bitter, and it wounded Isuzu with a weight that was completely different from when she’d poked fun at it in a peacetime world. Even Isuzu’s father’s guitar couldn’t save the world. Not even the songs of Japan’s King of Rock Kiyoshiro could do that, and Isuzu herself certainly couldn’t.
But that was only natural.
Even Isuzu, an ordinary high school girl, knew this.
However, she’d never thought about why they raised their fists in the air. She’d thought it might just be some sort of fad.
Now she felt as if she understood it a little.
It was a bluff, a show of bravado. They raised their fists because if they didn’t, they felt as if they’d lose heart. When they played, it was so they could scream, I’m right here! They sang to tell people, It’s okay; I see you. Songs were fleeting exchanges: I know you. I know what you’re feeling. It’s all getting through to me.
So what if you lost?
So what if you couldn’t be saved?
If you got discouraged over stuff like that, you wouldn’t need songs in the first place.
In order to stand and fight again, songs were necessary.
Throughout Isuzu’s life, music had held her close.
At times when nobody understood her, it felt as though music did. On lonely nights when she was all by herself, the ballads she heard from her music pod had seemed as if they were about her. When she was happy, old rock numbers took her for drives down endless coastal highways.
Even as she was surrounded by a host of songs, Isuzu hadn’t really understood singers.
Now she did. She was sure they’d been trying to tell her, at the top of their lungs, I know how you feel. I’m feeling the same way right now, as I sing. Don’t let ’em get you down. You can do it! After all, there wasn’t much else they could do. Isuzu’s songs were powerless, but her spear was just about as helpless. She
knew it wouldn’t save this world.
Still, she didn’t stop.
After all, she’d started running because she was picking a fight with the gods.
Enveloped by Rundelhaus’s magic, she raced through the streets with winged shoes.
She was running to her companions, who were waiting for her help. To Touya, who’d raised his fist against unfairness and been sent flying by it. Leaping onto a glacier-like spell that Rundelhaus had cast, the two of them ran.
Even now, she couldn’t say she had any special talent.
When she sang with all her might, her voice wasn’t transparent enough. Her fingertips only chased after the melody, and sometimes they stumbled. She was fully aware of it. For that reason, she couldn’t say she planned to become a pro. The mere thought of making music for a living scared her so much her knees went weak.
Still, Isuzu was sure she’d never forget this moment as long as she lived.
She wouldn’t forget this evening, when she’d worked up reckless courage and started to sing.
She couldn’t say she was going to be an artist, but she could guarantee that she’d love music her entire life. That was the best she could do, and in fact, it was enough.
With an explosion that sounded as if the heavens were roaring in anger, lightning ran across the sky. Rundelhaus erased a layered magic circle with a wave of his arm and ran up beside Isuzu. The young man couldn’t possibly know about her secret resolution, but his profile warmed her heart.
Rundelhaus had said from the very beginning that he wanted to become an Adventurer, that he wanted to be like the Adventurers. He hadn’t meant the class, but the way they’d lived. Even if the occupation of Adventurer really wasn’t worth the cost, he probably wouldn’t care one bit. This blond guy, who’d chosen to live a certain way to fight injustice, had always known the answer Isuzu had finally managed to reach.
…No. Rudy pulled me closer to it.
She remembered her father’s faint, mocking smile, the words he’d seemed to use to inspire her in a roundabout way.
Now that she thought about it, those words hadn’t been directed at her alone. They’d been a promise a musician—one who’d harbored bitterness and regret, but had still resolved to spend his whole life making a living with music—had made to himself.