by Yuu Kamiya
“I don’t care. ”
—Steph realized she was dead. The smiling glance from Azril had gouged her heart. Azril continued to smile despite Steph falling apart like a corpse.
“All right, tin men! Let’s talk. Here are the rules. ” Azril clapped. “I’m gonna ask you a question, very politely, and you heaps of junk are gonna answer, very politely. That’s it!” She looked back at the Ex Machinas. “I anticipate a satisfactory answer that tickles us. If not—”
—Don’t make me do this, she implied.
“Av’n’, all the kids in the sky, and I are gonna kill you until there’s not a speck of dust left. Getting rid of anything in our way. Elkia, Sora, his sister—even Jibsy. We’ll smash the planet if we have to, to exterminate you… So you’d better answer carefully.”
It seemed that she was, however, expecting to have to do it.
“Lord Artosh. God of war. Strongest of all the Old Dei—”
After a beat, the first Flügel commanded those who slew her lord to tell her—
“How did you mere dolls manage to kill the strongest deity—?”
What had happened to her lord, the king of all? How was it possible—?
“Flyyy me to the hmmm, hmm hmm hmm hmmm…”
Sora and Shiro lazily sang a song they only remembered the first stanza of. It was one giant leap for them, one small step for humankind. Suddenly, they found themselves standing on the surface of the moon, leaving behind all of humanity’s dreams, struggles, and wisdom back on Disboard. Just like the song, they’d arrived here so casually, carried by Jibril. Viewing the new horizon without a trace of the awe or respect it might have merited, they grumbled.
“…It’s not, as blue…as they say…right…?”
“It’s not even round. Tet’s pieces are all, ‘Look at me’!”
They didn’t know about Earth, but now they knew about Disboard—seen from the moon, it wasn’t blue or round. With those giant chess pieces towering from it, it reminded them of a barrel with swords stuck in it. Would something pop out if they stuck in a few more? …Maybe Tet? He’d be in a pirate costume, flying through space. As Sora and Shiro daydreamed—
“…Ex Machina, surely won’t be able to follow us, all the way here. Heh-heh… Siiiiigh…”
Jibril mumbled fiercely, looking pretty close to death as she sprawled onto the ground and sneered.
—They didn’t have to ask where “here” was. It was the moon, most likely the red moon that Sora and Shiro were always looking up at. Other than the planet, all they could see in any direction was sand, sand, and sand on stone. The heavily cratered surface was windless, and gravity was so weak that you bounced if you took a step. Apart from the sand being red, presumably composed of different materials, even a monkey could see that this was exactly the same as Earth’s natural satellite, also known as the moon. Then if you weren’t a monkey, there were other questions you had to ask. One being—
“Hey… If I’m remembering right—isn’t this someone’s place?”
Not that they had any standing to ask after barging into the Shrine and bringing all that commotion…but the Shrine Maiden had given them permission.
—Ixseed Rank Thirteen, Lunamana… It was said that the gods created this red moon as their abode even before the time of the Great War—and this being so, knowledge of what kind of race they were was nonexistent. Sora sure didn’t remember making an appointment with them, and he really would rather not have more problems.
“Ah, Master, the Lunamana metropolis is on the opposite side of the moon. This side belongs to no one.” Jibril knelt reverently, answering to soothe Sora’s unspoken fears. “As you can see, it is a barren wasteland, devoid of air or even spirits. And the races with the power to come here are the very ones for which it holds no value. However, it is quiet, and the sun will not rise until a good while later in the month.”
Indeed, there was no air to propagate sound waves. One would it expect it to be rather quiet here by the standards of the world. Yet, Jibril was saying she’d brought them here for their comfort.
“I also brought with us a globe of severed space sealing in the air in a radius of five hundred meters.” She smirked crookedly. “It is not possible to penetrate severed space. In addition, the average distance here is one hundred ninety thousand kilometers. Even Ex Machina would surely find it difficult to achieve such an ultra-long-distance shift. It should also be noted that the red moon has an orbital speed of approximately three kilometers per second. Even if they were to reopen the crack I made in space, they would find themselves lost in space… Ex Machina will not find us here… Heh, heh-heh-heh…!!”
As Jibril cackled, Sora and Shiro wondered: …Did you just jinx us?
…Ah, whatever. They wiped the sand off some random rock and sat down, using it as a backrest.
“Hey, why does Lunamana only live on the opposite side of the moon? Why not take it all…?” Sora suddenly asked.
“…Brother, look…” Shiro pointed ahead of them.
There—those countless craters. Finally, Sora saw there was something wrong. If Jibril was talking about a front and a back, that meant that the red moon, too, always had the same side facing the planet. Just like Earth’s moon. Then shouldn’t the back also be covered in craters—the remains of cosmic bombardment?
“Oh, yes. I misspoke. Let me correct myself, with apologies.”
Sora had a suspicion—no, a near-certain hypothesis—which Jibril proceeded to address.
“The back, where lies the metropolis, is of course blessed with air, spirits, and even rich greenery, as I am informed.”
Only—she smiled on as she confirmed the hypothesis—
“It seems this side was subject to stray fire during the War. Now it is dead. ”
…The bombardment wasn’t from space—it was from the planet. So stray fire transformed a lunar surface 190,000 kilometers away into a dead world…? Sora was beginning to ask seriously why they didn’t do it in space— Oh. No spirits…
“Ahhh, whatever! At least now we can think about the most important issue at hand in peace.”
Sora took out the tablet. He and Shiro started messing with it. Jibril nodded gravely.
“What to do about Ex Machina… Indeed…”
Sora and Shiro looked at her questioningly.
“Wh-what? Is it a different issue?”
“…Uh, but… What good will it do, to think about, that one? …Them…”
“We’ve got more pressing matters to attend to! Like what to do for stage equipment for Holou’s second concert!!”
The task scheduler was already packed. And they’d already had to delegate one important task—the meet and greet—to Steph. Any more of this, and they’d totally fail as producers! They had to nail down plans for Jibril to do the effects, as they were envisioning before Ex Machina showed up. And how to accomplish all their other tasks while being chased around by Ex Machina? This by itself was incredibly hard. Sora tore at his hair and groaned.
“…Yeah. It would be ideal to do something about Ex Machina and get them to help us. That would solve everything.”
Walking, talking stage equipment. Anything was possible.
—Walking was the hard part.
And the talking. And the bugs behind the thoughts they spoke of. And how you couldn’t squash or ignore the bugs without breaking the rules. In summary, the problem was that there seemed to be nothing to do about them.
“…Maybe, they’d help…if you just…asked them? …They do, love you…”
“You want me to be in Einzig’s debt?! He’s gonna ask for my chastity in return!”
“…If it’s, between that…and another, girl…I’d rather…have you do it—with a guy…!”
“Hey! Lil’ sis! Do we have to take things to their logical extremes?!”
Shiro chewed her nails as she laid down her agonized conclusion, while Sora shrieked back.
Even if they got them to help for a bit, in the end, it wouldn
’t solve anything—he’d still be screwed. I guess there’s no way around it… Sora folded his hands behind his head, leaned back on the rock, and thought.
“…A trap to make Ex Machina accept a game under any conditions… Let’s see…”
Was such a thing possible? Sora and Shiro didn’t even know where to start.
“O thou! O thou and thou, O ye!! O Sora and Shiro! What hath brought ye here? Answer me!!”
Out of nowhere, without so much as a sound or flash of light, as naturally and smoothly as if she’d been there from the start—a little girl, Holou, popped out in her idol costume and berated Sora and Shiro.
“—Wha…? Wait—h-how did you know—rather, how did you get here?!”
Jibril must have had pure confidence in that flight and that “severed space” she’d so worn herself out to accomplish. She shrieked to see Holou pass by it as if it were nothing.
“…? I looked up. I chanced to see you here, and so I came to air my complaints!”
“N-no! That’s not—it’s severed space! You couldn’t see it—”
—Just saw you and thought I’d say hi. Holou’s answer, tinged with displeasure, invited further objection from Jibril, but—
“I know not of what thou speakest. Space provideth no severance. Thou must sever the continuity. Thou hidest in an open cylinder.”
…No one knew what she was talking about, but it seemed that they were in plain sight as far as a polygenetic entity was concerned. Thus, a line emerged that one never would have expected to hear from its speaker—in the moment of the century—
“Th-that’s…that’s…that’s bullshit……!”
Jibril shrank away from Sora and Shiro’s scrutiny.
“Let us put aside such trivialities, O Sora, O Shiro!” Holou pointed her finger, smoothly slashing through Jibril’s deep despair. “Why have ye consigned Holou for four hours to hold a meet and greet attended by no one as ye tarry here? Ye must answer!”
Yes, she’d showed up punctually at the time indicated by Sora and Shiro and sat there in her lonely little booth. Apparently the poor, unloved idol had waited out an attendance of zero to the end. It was no wonder she was interrogating them—or rather, appealing to them with teary eyes. Sora and Shiro drooped their heads, unable to provide useful comment.
“Heh, heh-heh… Unable to escape the Ex Machinas or Holou… What am I good for?”
Thus, Jibril crouched and murmured, scribbling out spirals on the moon’s surface. Was it really so depressing to lose in a test of strength to Holou, an Old Deus, albeit a weakened one? This doubt of Sora’s did not seem to attract her attention. But all of a sudden, something else did entirely.
“…Oh! Come to think of it, Jibril, against whom are you capable of winning? You’ve lost to the furry beasts and to your masters… Could it be, Jibril—that you are utterly useless?”
Oh… It seemed she’d seen something that shouldn’t be seen. Watching her from behind as she fell ever further into the depths with a smile, Sora and Shiro decided not to say anything.
—You beat us, bitch, is what they wanted to say, but.
“—Hmm. Ex Machina… Those inorganic humanoid life-forms?”
“Uhhh… I have no idea what you’re looking at from the moon when you say those, but the, yeah, I think.”
Having been filled in, Holou was looking with her hand above her eyes as she murmured to draw Sora’s bile.
“Wait, don’t you know? Ex Machina’s supposed to have slain Artosh. They’re kind of a big deal.”
“H-Holou is a god! She possesseth information! H-however—”
Holou choked on her words for a moment as Sora commented on the unexpected ignorance of a transcendent being able to drive a Flügel to despair.
“Before the current races were created, Holou… Ah… Hngh?! Wh-what dost thou?!”
“Hmm? Oh, I just was thinking your head was at just about the right height to rub, so I did.”
“…It’s your fault…for having…a rubbable head…”
Holou’s objections were met with frivolity by Sora and Shiro, who now understood.
—They realized she didn’t want to say attempted suicide. They let her off the hook.
…A dizzyingly long time ago, Holou had gouged herself of her own ether and left herself comatose. She’d been awakened only half a century ago by the Shrine Maiden. She probably didn’t know anything that had happened in that time… And even after that, she’d been inside the Shrine Maiden… She could only have known what she saw through her. It was just as Holou had said: She had information—knowledge—about Ex Machina, but it was her first time seeing them. Now that she was independent, she could apparently use powers approaching clairvoyance, but she was probably still far from omniscient. Her ability was a far cry from anything that could be considered “all-seeing,” because it would impinge on the Covenants. Sora was getting a little sentimental thinking about it when Holou spun back.
“Do it? Sexual intercourse, is it? Why dost thou not then make haste to copulate? To procreate? Thou must abide by thy promise!”
Holou’s doe-eyed spamming of the smut button got Sora back on track with the clowning.
—Hmm. Holou, the ultimate being of bullshit, was all about intellectual concepts to the point of defying comprehension. Did she have no feelings about the reproductive activity of living things—or could she just not imagine it? Sora was sure it was the latter—but first things first—
“How many times do I have to say I’m not their guy…? That’s why I’ve gotta think of a way to make them accept the condition—”
—of releasing their lock, he was about to say, when Holou asked:
“How art thou sure thou art not?”
…
What?
“Hey now, hey now, look at this, this supple, silky skin! Do I look like a six-thousand-year-old fossil?!”
“…I am sorry, my master… Though I be but a useless fossil, p-please allow me to stay…”
“Mm? Uh—no, it’s not like that! I was talking in human—look, that’s not my point! What I’m saying is—!!”
Flustered by the further depression of the voice of the fossil just over six thousand years in age, sinking deep into a corner of the moon, Sora continued.
“I know who I am! What, you think I think I’m you, Holou?!”
At Sora’s appeal to self-evidence, Holou cocked her head seriously.
“Holou is capable of error. Art thou not, O Sora?”
With that, Holou’s appearance flipped like a card. It was not even an instant before what stood before Sora was no longer a little girl in costume. It was a young man with black hair, dark eyes, and an “I PPL” shirt:
“…If now Holou should falsify her memories, she would herself perceive as Sora. Error is trivial.”
Sora’s face and voice—but not the man himself—asked Sora.
“Ego, time, and fate signify not. I ask on what basis they identify thee as him they call the Spieler, and on what basis thou determinest this perception to be false.”
“…………”
…Sora responded with silence. No…with a sigh. He knew. Holou didn’t mean any harm. She probably didn’t know what it meant to mean harm. She was just hoping for an answer to a question, as usual—a draft to slake her curiosity. You could see that now she was getting her brush and scroll out—but that wasn’t the thing.
—Okay. The question of the definition of the self and its proof…was it? Sure sounded fancy—but it was total crap. No matter how you directed your argument, you could only end up at the conclusion that there could be no proof. That was why Sora was making Holou be an idol. He couldn’t answer her. But then—Holou, having returned to her original little form, sulkily asked him another question.
“What indeed is the basis on which thou definest thyself as thee?”
…
…With that.
—It was as if the one gear that had been missing fell into place. The clockwork that
had been disconnected and lifeless suddenly started turning. It was as if he could see Ex Machina’s actions, their words, their intent, their will—he could see everything. How could they trap Ex Machina? He felt like an idiot for struggling on that. Sora and Shiro looked at each other and held each other’s hand—smirking self-deprecatingly in spite of themselves. These were machines with hearts. What weighed upon those with hearts was always simple—
—and full of crap!
“Wh-what is it? Why advance ye forth? Y-ye must answer— Ngyah?!”
They tossed high the god who had shown them the light.
“Damn, d00d! They don’t call you a god for nothing! Is this what they call ‘revelation’?!”
“…Well played, Holou…! It was worth, giving you the hollow, out of our Blank…”
“In-indeed?! D-do they call others gods for nothing?!”
Holou wafted up and down in the scarce gravity of the moon as they threw her, unable to grasp the flow of the conversation. She hurried to produce her brush and scroll to record her questions, but they didn’t answer them. Putting her back on the ground, Sora and Shiro splendidly turned and spoke forth.
“Jibril! It’s been rocky, but let’s get back to work—back to Elkia!”
“…Uh, yes… If—if only I could be of service to you… Nghh…”
“—Work? O—O ye—do ye propose to engage in labor?!”
This must have been what the ancient scholars looked like when they first heard about heliocentrism. As Holou was overcome by astonishment and doubt, Sora and Shiro tut-tutted, wagging their index fingers at her.
“Holouuu, what’s that faaace? Shiro and I work. What’s our job?”
“……It is hypothesized as administration of a monarchy…is it? No evidence has been observed in your actions.”
The dearth of clear justification for her hypothesis forced Holou to form it as a question.
“Heyyy, hey, hey… Come on, you future top idol, you!”