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Denyuuden V11 - Chapter 8: The Truth
Apr. 19th, 2020 02:28 pmChapter 8: The Truth
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And yet, they reunited in darkness.
It was dark, hard to see.
Horrible, she thought. Just horrible.
“…Why did this happen…?” Milk Callaud whispered to herself with a shaking voice.
She’d just begun to notice, little by little, that there was something off about this country. Something unsettling, despite the fact that the hero king Sion Astal had dethroned the mad king and ushered in an era of peace. Even though the hero king was supposed to fix everything for them.
But now Roland was distorting because of that very same hero king.
“…What am I looking at?”
Her voice shivered. Her body shivered.
The sight before her was unbelievable.
She was standing by herself in a noble manor, but she wasn’t alone. Hundreds of soldiers surrounded the building, but they hardly looked human now.
Some had their faces burnt off, their features replaced with tattoos of magic circles.
Others had both of their arms torn off and were turning strange weapons inside of them.
Others were… others were…
Everyone had undergone drastic changes. No one here retained their sense of humanity.
“…Human experiments…”
This kind of thing permeated the previous era of Roland. In order to obtain stronger, more able soldiers with better magical abilities, they killed people, tested them, experimented on them, toyed with them however they saw fit. She and Ryner had been among their subjects. They’d been forced to participate in killing matches with other kids. She was only here now because she just so happened to survive back then.
It was just something that happened back in those days. But not now. Roland wasn’t supposed to be this kind of country anymore. Because they had their hero king, Sion Astal, who was supposed to save them from this. Things weren’t supposed to go back to the way things were as long as he was here.
“…So why did this happen?” Milk whispered as she watched the soldiers before her.
It wasn’t just these soldiers.
She’d met many such victims of human experiments since returning to Roland. It started over half a year ago, when she first realized something was off about her country. She had suddenly been removed from her job of chasing Ryner Lute and given another one instead.
Her instructions had been simple: capture the taboo breaker and bring him back to Roland.
But that taboo breaker was just a little boy. A victim of human experimentation. And he had been on the verge of death when she found him, his body covered from head to toe in scars forming magic circles.
A child like that had perceptive abilities far past what a normal person did due to their magical enhancements. But most kids didn’t make it through the experiment - ninety percent died, and those who lived lost both their vision and hearing.
It was a horrible experiment. Sion Astal had outlawed it as soon as he became king.
And yet that boy had still undergone the experiment.
His side effects made him seize and vomit several times daily, and the pain was so severe that he constantly had to scream and cry. Despite everything, he still made it outside Roland. But he ended up dying in Milk’s arms.
He’d spoken to her then, as he clung to her and shivered. He’d said, “I just wanted to try laughing like I was normal. I want to be reborn so I can make friends. I want to live in a peaceful world next time.”
And then he died there, still in her arms.
He had said such a thing and died in their new Roland, which should have been peaceful. But he had only been able to dream of it.
That was the start of her nightmare.
She had caught lots of taboo breakers since then. Eighteen total, over the course of the year. Most were victims of human experimentation. So she didn’t really have a reason to catch them and bring them back. Because when she finally got to them… their lives were already ending.
Even as their lives melted away, they smiled. Because they had finally gotten to see the skies outside of Roland, because they were finally free of that hellish country, and because they finally got to have a human-like conversation with someone, in the end.
They were all grateful to her, in the end.
“Thank you for not bringing me back for the end.”
“Thank you for being with me in the end.”
“Thank you for talking to me at the end.”
“Thank you for saying my name in the end. Nobody has ever called me my real name before…”
That was what they said, even though she couldn’t do anything.
“…This country is mad.” It was still very obviously mad, and all the signs pointed to the same cause: their hero king, Sion Astal. “So this is Roland’s darkness.” The very darkness that Luke, Miller, Lach, Lear, and Muu had tried to keep her from seeing.
“But this is the real Roland…”
Milk looked to the hundreds of victims of human experimentation before her. They were magic circles surrounding the manor.
If Luke had seen her leave and followed after her, he’d already be here.
“…What are you doing here, Luke?”
In truth, she had seen Luke leave the Taboo Hunters headquarters and followed him here. She’d managed to make it pretty far without him ever noticing her.
“Is he not inside anymore?” Milk wondered to herself and looked around the building. It was definitely on the small side, as far as nobles’ residences went. But she couldn’t recall ever hearing about a noble having a vacation home here. “Whose manor is this? And what’s Luke doing here? And…”
And why did he bring these soldiers?
More secrets. Same as always.
Luke never told her anything. He thought that not knowing was better for her. That it’d protect her.
She thought of something Luke had said months ago, just before she met that boy: “I’d like to keep Milk from seeing the dark for a while longer, if possible…”
The dark. Yes, this dark.
“What have you been doing here in the dark, Luke—?”
Her words were cut off by the harsh crash of the manor’s walls being blown apart.
“Wh… what!?”
A massive white snake had broken through the wall. No… it was… just letters? It was many layers of white letters, their mass bundling together to create the form of a snake.
What was it? Magic? No, it was no magic she’d ever seen. So what was—
Milk’s thoughts froze in place. There was someone on the snake’s head. Someone she knew. A tall man with white hair.
“—L, Luke!?” Milk screamed.
But Luke couldn’t answer her. He was too busy dealing with the snake. He had what looked like a glittering string wrapped around the snake’s mouth, and was focusing on keeping its mouth shut with it with all his might so that it didn’t eat him.
“You damn monster!” Luke yelled, his tone far harsher than Milk had ever heard from him. He tugged once more at his string. When he did, it cut into the snake’s form, and it collapsed into letters once more.
“Yes!” Milk yelled.
But the snake soon reformed itself from the pile of letters.
“Nooo!”
The snake opened its mouth wide so that it could eat Luke.
“Wauugh! No!” Milk yelled. “Wait, L, Luke! I’m, I’m coming to save you!”
Milk ran over to him as fast as she could. But…
“You can’t, Chief Milk. Luke will be fine with an enemy like this. Please calm down,” someone suddenly said from behind her, grabbing her by the arm.
Milk turned around to see her subordinates - the always calm-and-collected Lear, rambunctious Lach, and innocent Moe.
“E, everyone! Why are you here!?” Milk said, but quickly corrected herself. “No, I mean, Luke’s going to be eaten!” She said and tried to run off again.
Lear tugged her back harder this time. “Please calm down, Chief Milk. Look, Luke’s just fine.”
Milk looked up. The snake was on top of the manor now, with a knife piercing its face through its mouth. Luke stepped off its still back, returning to inside the manor.
“Y, yay! He did it!”
“You’re amazing, Luke!” Moe said.
“Ha! I told you, that monster was no match for our Luke!” Lach said.
“See?” Lear said, his voice as serene and calming as always. “He’s just fine. So you can calm down.”
Milk nodded. And just like that, she did. Because she could trust these people implicitly. If they said it was okay to calm down, then it was okay.
They were her first real family. They would never betray her.
“……”
But even when she calmed down and tried to think about it logically, the fact that they were here was still bizarre.
Milk had slipped out of the headquarters as quietly as possible to follow Luke. She’d hid her presence and had been on the watch for a tail of her own the whole time. So how had they managed to get close enough to grab her by the arm and stop her from helping Luke?
Even now, they were right here behind her. But she couldn’t feel them. They had completely erased their presence. That meant…
“……”
That meant that they were all actually many times stronger than she was. Even though they spent all their time saying, ‘Chief, you’re amazing! You’re so strong! You’re such a good kid! I can’t compare to you!’
But actually they were way stronger than she ever was.
“………”
Well, she already knew that, though. In a vague sort of way…
Milk smiled bitterly.
Still, it was really weird that they were all here. No matter how strong they may be, they still shouldn’t have been able to predict that she’d notice Luke on his way out and follow him. But here they all were, like they just knew.
Milk squinted at her subordinates. “Don’t tell me you guys have been watching me this whole time. Staaaaring.”
“What!?” Moe said, flustered. “N, no, we’d never, um… R, right, Lach?”
“Wh-what!? Why’re you makin’ me answer!? Uh, see, we weren’t staaaring or anything, it was more like… uh, you know. Right, Lear?”
Lear smiled softly and nodded. “Yes. We were watching you. To be more precise, Luke asked us to keep a close eye on you since he figured that you’d start to doubt us soon, so…”
Milk held her face in her hands. Luke saw right through her!
But Luke was always like that. He trusted the others completely, even when he was away, but spoiled her like she was his granddaughter or something. He was keen to the point where he seemed to understand everything, and was always guiding the rest of their team, showing them how to move forward in a way that’d keep them away from the darkness as much as possible.
He protected her, covering her eyes from everything dirty to protect her.
She hated it.
Hide everything ugly. Surround her with nothing but smiles so she’d be happy and everyone would do their best.
And so Luke would tell her, “You’ve always had it so hard, Chief. I think you ought to have it better now.”
And so everyone would tell her, “I want to see you happier and happier. I want you to laugh more and more.”
But it was enough. They’d already done enough. Just laughing with them was enough for her.
She wanted to be able to look at the ruined underbelly of the world, too. She wanted to see it so that she could protect others from it, too. She didn’t want to be the one who was always protected.
She looked at her subordinates. “I’m going in—”
Lear squeezed her arm. “No, you are not.”
His response was exactly what she expected.
All she had to do was think about things for a minute to understand. They were told to stop her from coming here. But she did anyway.
“Did Luke tell you that it was okay to show me just this much and no more, then?”
Lear looked troubled. “Yes. Only if you truly wanted to know… This country’s gears are already turning, after all…”
What gears?
Milk looked up at the manor. It’d been destroyed by the snake, so its rooms were now bared to the open air. There was the snake that made that hole. There were the strange soldiers surrounding this place. Everything about this place was strange.
Gears. Yes, the gears were turning alright, spinning and creaking and rotating the world. Distorting it.
This was a world that he created - the world that everyone had longed for, given to them by their infallible hero king at last.
And now the country Sion Astal created was starting to lose its facade. What lay inside wasn’t really hope. It was despair. Despair. Despair.
“……”
Milk grimaced. A year had passed since she returned to Roland, and in that time, she’d seen nothing but despair. ‘A peaceful world,’ huh? No, not here. An absolutely flawless king’s smiling country? No, that wasn’t what it was at all.
The truth was that there was no such thing as a hero king. Flawless kings didn’t exist, either. What they had was a king much like the one before him - a demon.
But then…
“……”
Milk looked up at the manor.
“Then who are we fighting for?” Milk asked through a shiver.
She thought back to when she first met that demon. To when she first met Sion Astal.
He’d been smiling then. It was the indestructible smile of a king who everyone called flawless. He immediately promoted Milk to the rank of first lieutenant and put her in charge of a team of Taboo Hunters. But why?
Why would he take Milk of all people and promote her? Had he chosen her on a whim?
No. She’d be stupid to believe that. Sion Astal was not that kind of person. The hero king who had successfully dethroned the previous mad king and took control of the country was not the kind of person who operated based on whims. Everything he did had a reason.
Back when she first met him, he’d said something to her.
“Yes. My subordinates are excellent, you see. They’ve already gathered information on you going all the way back to your birth. Even back to Roland’s Special Institute #307…”
He already knew everything about her before they even met. So… so why did she catch his interest?
She was starting to see the real reason.
The keyword was Roland’s Special Institute #307. That was the orphanage she’d lived at as a child, and that was where that genius had lived at, too: the perfect killing machine, the dark-haired demon, the Alpha Stigma bearing monster—Ryner Lute.
Ryner was currently on Sion’s side, working as his subordinate. But Sion had ordered Milk to chase him down as a taboo breaker anyway. He’d given her fantastic subordinates for the job, too - Luke, Lear, Lach, and Moe.
And that was weird. Too weird.
Sion had his subordinate Milk chase his subordinate Ryner. That was too weird. Like a bad comedy. He had them running around playing a silly game of tag even though they were supposed to be on the same side. And even though Milk didn’t chase Ryner with the intention to catch him and turn him in, Luke didn’t say anything. Neither did Major Miller, or even Sion Astal himself.
It was so, so strange. How had she not realized until now? It was so obvious. She’d have realized if she thought about it even once. She’d had all the information she needed to determine that things weren’t right since the very beginning.
“…I…”
She was a hostage to keep Ryner tied to Roland. A hostage so that Sion Astal could use the genius Ryner Lute to his heart’s content. And Luke and the others were there to make sure that it was working without a hitch.
Milk thought of Sion’s face. His noble silver hair and his strong-willed golden eyes. His lips and the perfect smile they held without faltering. He was the king everyone had longed for, their absolutely infallible ruler. But his smile was too perfect. It would shatter with a single touch, just like how Ryner’s smile used to be. They had the exact same expression.
Back in the orphanage, Ryner’s face had been perfectly distant, untouchable by others’ feelings. He was too perfect, bearing everything all by himself. That was why it ended up distorting, morphing in the darkness of the orphanage.
“……”
Milk looked to the strange soldiers surrounding the manor. What happened to them?
She thought back to the Callaud estate’s destruction. What happened to them?
She thought of the children who cried and died in her arms. What happened to them?
Sion Astal was already…
“……”
He was already going mad, wasn’t he?
Milk shivered. “Just who… have we been serving?”
An insightful, trustworthy king, or a mad king whose heart had been destroyed?
Which was Sion Astal?
Milk looked to Lear.
“……”
But she didn’t say anything. She just watched him.
As if understanding what she wanted to say, Lear’s expression turned sad. “I am sure that what you are thinking is correct, Chief Milk.”
“…So I’m right to think that His Majesty is mad?” Milk asked. “Or that… that everything happening in this country now is something that His Majesty planned for?”
“…The latter,” Lear said.
The latter. So Sion was the one turning the gears of this world.
The human experiments, the children’s deaths, the destruction of house Callaud, the strange soldiers following Luke, taking Milk as a hostage, using Ryner, the creaking crawling gears turning. As soon as they moved, the country darkened, and the door to despair, to darkness… opened.
“…What’s our role in this?” Milk asked, turning away from Lear and back to face the manor.
What part did they play in this?
Were they standing in the heart of darkness? Or were they fighting it?
“…Our role is the same as always: to stand by His Majesty’s side,” Lear answered.
“……”
For a moment, Milk stopped breathing. Because Lear had just said that they were allies to Sion Astal, who had conducted these horrible human experiments. Her side was responsible for the strange soldiers outside, and for the children who died in her arms.
They were the ones who killed those children who had cried and died in her arms.
“…I… Is this what you’ve been hiding from me… Roland’s true darkness…?”
“Are you feeling disillusioned?” Lear asked, his sadness reaching his tone.
Milk shook her head. “No. This isn’t disillusionment,” she said. “It’s not. Because, because I mean, Luke and you and everyone else, you guys know me best, right? I wouldn’t get disillusioned.” She shook her head again, then looked at her allies. Lear, Lach, and Moe all looked horribly uneasy. They didn’t need to be. That’s what she thought.
Because this wasn’t going to break the trust she had in them.
She’d always been alone. The only reason she managed to live for so long was the fleeting thought that she might one day meet Ryner again. Even so, these people called her a part of their family, and… and they were so much nicer to her than her real family… and they always protected her…
They made her want to protect them, too. They gave her a new reason to live, and that was still true even now. She wasn’t disillusioned with them at all.
“It’s okay,” Milk said. “I’m not going to get disillusioned with you guys. So don’t look so uneasy, okay? I… I trust you guys.”
For some reason, Lear’s face tightened like he was about to cry. He was always so calm and collected, but here he was on the verge of tears. Lach and Moe behind him were already crying.
She had the urge to tell them how silly they were being, crying over something like this. There was no way this would break the trust she had in them.
But.
“……”
But this darkness was serious. Their country’s darkness was serious. If it weren’t, then there was no way her team would be involved in these things. The people who she trusted wouldn’t work for a mad king unless it was necessary.
That meant… that the deaths of those children, the experimental soldiers here, using Ryner, killing her family, everything… it was all necessary. Sion and Luke and everyone else had reasons why they dirtied their hands even though they didn’t want to. Reasons why they had to keep moving forward.
But what were those reasons?
“…What’s happening in Roland—”
Milk’s words stopped. Because everything suddenly went dark outside, everywhere. Something in the manor sucked the light in from everywhere.
“What!?” Milk said.
“This can’t be good. Lach, Moe, protect the chief!” Lear ordered.
Lach and Moe picked her up despite the complete darkness. “We’re leaving, Chief!”
“We need you to stay safe!”
“Wh, what!? W-wait, what’s happen—”
Her words cut out again. Because the light was fired from the manor in a concentrated beam with a horrid, ear-splitting rumble as it pierced the darkness and gouged the earth.
“…Wh, what?” Milk could hardly believe her eyes. The light returned to the world, illuminating the scene before her.
The manor had disappeared without a trace. The strange soldiers that had surrounded it were also gone. Past that, too - the countryside, the forest, the hills - it’d all disappeared. Now all that was left was a wasteland. The light had sucked everything but the ground itself in.
“…Wh, what just…?”
Large-scale magic? No, even that wasn’t this powerful. Even Roland’s most powerful large-scale magic that required 60 mages to cast it was only a tenth as destructive as this.
So what had just happened?
“What’s Luke fighting…?”
“Oh? Ohhh? Who would’ve thought we’d meet here. What a coincidence.”
“Huh…?”
Milk turned around towards that voice, but no one was standing there. Lach and Moe had been knocked out, and were lying on the ground.
“L, La—”
“I won’t kill them, don’t worry,” the voice said, again from behind her. “More importantly, boy, it sure is good luck meeting you here, Miss Milk Callaud. I’d been thinking that I’d go see you after this, see… But here you are, right when I finished my errands.”
A hand, bright and pale as if it were made of light, reached out for her… for her chest—
“Chief Milk, over here,” Lear said. He pulled her over by the nape of her neck, to get her away from the hand.
She turned around once Lear pulled her away to see that the hand belonged to a man in his forties who hadn’t been there before. He had blond hair and blue eyes, and wore a classic black suit.
But.
“……”
But that was whatever.
His face was what really caught Milk’s attention. He had a calm, almost lethargic expression. It was a familiar expression, but she’d never seen him before. She didn’t know him. But his face…
“……”
His face resembled Ryner’s. Painfully so. To the point where it would be easy to call them family.
“Y, you’re…”
Milk had wanted to ask him just that, but Lear stood in front of her protectively. “You won’t lay a finger on her,” he said and glared at the older man as an overwhelming murderous aura radiated from him. Milk had never seen him act like that before. It was overwhelming, to the point where Milk froze even though he meant to protect her.
The man just smiled, completely relaxed. “Oh, wow, what killing intent! But there’s no reason for it. Going against me would be suicide for someone at your level.”
“…Dying to protect someone important to me isn’t something I’d consider suicidal,” Lear said.
“Lear!?”
Lear didn’t answer her questioning tone. He just stood his ground, glaring at the man in the suit.
“But your power can’t protect them,” the man said, all smiles. “Wouldn’t you say that dying without actually protecting anyone is just stupid? So give her here—”
Lear took a knife from his pocket and jumped towards the man, aiming to stab him in the heart. It was a stunning move, fast and graceful. Milk likely wouldn’t have been able to dodge it. He turned the knife with incredible, undodgeable speed, and easily buried the knife in the older man’s chest to end this.
“……”
But it didn’t end.
“…See? You’re no match for me,” the man said and laughed like nothing had happened, even though the knife had pierced his chest.
Lear twisted the knife, but no blood came out no matter how deep he pushed it in. He was in down to his arm. Lear scowled. “Y, you monster…”
The man just smiled. “Yep. I’m a monster alright. This place is a den for monsters like me… Not somewhere that nice boys like you should be. So you should turn tail and run instead of dying a pointless death here. Nothing worth worrying about will happen. I just need to curse her real quick, then I’ll be out—”
“Then why don’t you do us all a favor and disappear now?” A calm and kind voice that Milk knew very well asked from behind the man in the suit.
Milk looked over to where the voice came from to see a lanky man with white hair. “Luke!?”
Luke didn’t meet her eyes. “We’ll talk later, Chief. Once I’ve dealt with this guy.” He made a waving motion with his hand, and as he did, a bright thread glimmered and cut into the older man’s neck.
“Ggh.” The man grimaced, then turned to face Luke. “You. Here I thought Justice’s Serpent had taken care of you…”
“Justice’s Serpent? Do you mean that big ol’ snake? I destroyed it a while ago. You’re next.”
The man in the suit shrugged. “I guess it would’ve had a lot on its shoulders dealing with you, Rahel Miller, and the Holy Knight Miran’s descenda—”
Luke raised his arm, and with a horrid noise, the string cut the older man’s neck clean off. It fell to the ground with a thud.
Luke just… Luke just killed a man… so easily.
“L, Luke—”
Luke held his hand up. “Not yet. Don’t move yet…”
He looked down at the fallen head. “You can’t die, can you?”
And then… the unbelievable happened. The severed head on the floor rolled all on its own to stand itself up. “Oh, you got me.” It stuck its tongue out.
“Whaat!? Tha, ah, agh!” Milk yelled. She wanted to say something but didn’t know what, so it all just came out as gibberish.
Luke sighed. “Anyone would realize that after severing your head for the third time… I’m rather used to seeing this by now… But what to do? Humans that don’t die when their heads are severed aren’t supposed to exist.”
“Well, I’m not human anymore,” the severed head said.
Luke crossed his arms. “Perhaps I should try burning you to ash, or piercing your heart with a stake? If I’m lucky you’ll die like a vampire in a fairytale.”
“Oh, you’re sharp,” the head said happily. “You knew I was a vampire?”
Luke ignored him. “Those tactics are still too extraordinary, aren’t they. Humans that can’t die shouldn’t exist, and vampires and the like would be far too unrealistic. Which means…”
Luke looked back down at the severed head.
“Which means that you must be an illusion. You cast magic to show us all the image of your head falling from your body while you continue to live, giving us the illusion that you’re incapable of death. Correct?”
“…Aww, you got me. Was it really that easy for you?”
Luke responded expressionlessly. “What gave you away is the fact that I haven’t seen Miller or Lieutenant General Froaude since defeating the snake. That’s strange, isn’t it? Logic dictates that you must have stopped them. Therefore, there are two of you, and you are capable of creating illusions… Your tactics today have been full of such holes.”
The head didn’t look too happy. “Uwah, you’re really going there? This is why I hate Rahel Miller’s men. You guys are way too bright, so you end up seeing right through my magic.”
Luke shrugged. “I haven’t seen through you yet. I still don’t know where your real body is, after all. Where in the world are you making these illusions from…?”
“Wanna know?”
“Would you really tell me?”
“Yeah. I mean, I’ve been thinking that it’s about time to show myself.”
“Is that so. Be my guest, then.”
The severed head suddenly burst into thousands of little black letters. His body did the same.
And then he appeared.
“I’m right here,” he said from right behind Milk.
“Wha…”
Milk didn’t have time to turn to face him. He used both arms to hold her.
“Ch-chief Milk!?” Lear yelled.
And then Luke spoke… in the coldest voice she’d ever heard, as he stared behind her. “That too was according to my predictions.” He raised both arms. Thin, bright threads that Milk hadn’t noticed until now converged behind her, squeezing the man. “It’s over, Duke Lieutolu.”
The man was immobilized by the strings. “Uwah, so the whole ‘I don’t know where your real body is’ thing was a feint?”
“……”
Luke didn’t answer. He moved his hands to squeeze the man between the strings, cutting him to pieces.
And that was that.
The real body of that man was now mince meat behind her.
Normally.
“……”
Normally, that would’ve been the end of that.
But the man who’d been cut to pieces managed to raise his arm.
“What!?” Luke said, raising his voice in astonishment.
It didn’t stop with that. The man who should have been cut into pieces smiled. “You’re amazing… If I hadn’t stopped being human… it would have absolutely ended with your win…”
The man reached out to try to grab Milk again.
“S, stop!” Luke said and ran for them.
The man didn’t stop. His arms started to shine a bright bluish-white, a horribly suspicious color. Just looking at it was enough to understand that it was dangerous. But despite knowing that, she couldn’t move. It was like she was paralyzed.
“Please stop!” Luke yelled, as he continued to run for them.
But the man didn’t. He smiled and spoke in a familiar sleepy voice. “Elifore, Elifore… Curse her, Goddess of the Lifecycle,” he whispered.
The man covered her eyes.
“…Ah.”
Something. Something made a noise in her head, coupled by the sensation of something entering her. She didn’t know what it was, but it felt disgusting. It went in her head, in her brain, and wrapped around her nerves.
She felt her knees collapse. She didn’t have the strength to stand.
At the same moment she fell, Luke punched the man behind her. It hit him square in the face, but instead of falling, his whole body disappeared without a trace. It was like no one had been there from the start.
Milk lost her support and began to fall the rest of the way to the ground.
“Chief!?” Luke said, and held her as support to keep her from falling. He looked worried. “Are you alright?”
Milk tried to say that she was alright. That he didn’t need to make that face at her. But she couldn’t find her voice.
“…Bastard… What did you… what did you do to her!?” Luke yelled to the sky.
A reply came from the empty darkness, in that voice that so resembled his. “Whoa, there, don’t yell like that in the middle of the night. I didn’t hurt her. She’ll be up and running in no time. But… well, I just won’t let you guys do what you’re trying to do. I was just removing one of the gears that turn the mad demon’s world.”
“You’re the mad one!” Luke screamed.
“……”
No reply this time. So Luke looked back to Milk. “Chief… are you alright?”
Milk couldn’t answer. She couldn’t muster the energy - she was just too tired. Her mind was blurry, like she was viewing the world through the murky waters of a marsh.
The only thing her vague consciousness could do was repeat that man’s words.
The mad demon. The mad demon. The gears that turn the mad demon’s world.
Who was that mad demon?
The human experimentation. The dead children. The destruction of the Callaud family. The grotesque soldiers Luke was commanding. Taking Milk hostage. Using Ryner. All those gears moving each other in a complex pattern. They were moving so much that it made her dizzy.
Ah, she was losing consciousness. But in the last few seconds before she did, she decided that she’d go see him when she next woke up. She’d go to the heart of darkness and speak with the mad demon himself: Sion Astal.
---
And so their peace ended.
The world was distorting. It was going mad. It couldn’t be stopped now.
Even though he should have known that since the very beginning, he didn’t ever stop it. It was like he was incapable of it.
He hated it. He just hated it.
But he couldn’t stop it. It was impossible.
The world was mad. The world was distorted. There was nothing he could do about it. There was nothing to do except for move forward.
But if that was true, then… if that was true…
Just a little longer, he said with a face that seemed to cry. Couldn’t he stay inside this happy dream just a little longer?
That was what he wished for. That was what the darkness wished for. The light.
The—wished.
But it was a meaningless wish. It was absolutely meaningless, born from nothing but sadness. But it was possible to grant, despite the end of their peace drawing closed, despite knowing from the beginning that the good times would inevitably end, because they hadn’t ended yet.
Everyone had already realized how off things were. But that didn’t make the fake peace fade.
Just a little longer, he begged. Please, just let it last a little longer.
It didn’t matter if it was fake. It didn’t matter if it was all just an illusion that wouldn’t save anyone.
Just let him watch this happy dream for a little longer.
Even if it was already…
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