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.
It was just like Dad said. I didn’t have talent. Worrying about whether or not I had talent meant it wasn’t rock at all.
A little laugh bubbled up inside her.
“Isuzuuu!!”
Their group had grown. Nodding to Serara, who’d come running up to them with a pure white wolf, she swung the head of her lute around. She heard the sounds of combat rising all over: weary sword strikes and attack spells chanted as if they’d lost sight of the way home. Even so, dyed by the fading light, the town was beautiful.
“Mademoiselle Serara!”
“Thank you!”
Serara stumbled clumsily two or three times. Even so, as Rundelhaus’s flight spell levitated her heels and she hopped up and down with an earnest expression, she laughed a little to hide her embarrassment. Isuzu felt warmth building inside her.
“It’s all right! I checked all the buildings from this point west with Wolfie’s nose. We’ve evacuated all the People of the Earth.”
Isuzu, who was still playing, wanted to shout for joy, but she put her feelings into the song instead.
Suddenly, light filled the sky.
The glow belonged to a spell they’d never seen before, and as the three of them stared in its direction, they immediately understood.
They’d heard the loud yell across the party chat, and they launched themselves into a run. Roe2 and Minori—and probably Touya—were under that light.
Isuzu understood Touya’s pain: There’s no way in hell this world is the real thing. Touya had heard that heartrending scream; Isuzu and the others had heard it as well, over the party chat. The voice had been excruciatingly sad, as though even the one who’d screamed it had been hurt by it.
The song, which spread in widening rings, gave its first cry with Theldesia’s approval. Magic had been born. Everywhere, small rocks about the size of eggs rose into the air and began darting around like squirrels. They formed an impromptu defense, hurling themselves against all attacks on the battlefield and attempting to turn aside spells.
It really was a trivial song. A song that only little rocks danced to.
It was doubtful whether the song would add even a tiny bit to the combat situation, but Isuzu didn’t give up on it.
She struggled precisely because she was limited.
Her heart blazed precisely because she was impatient.
The despair that it might not reach anyone now was also the blessing that, someday, it might reach somebody. Isuzu thought she might be a weakling for needing reasoning like that, but it was possible to walk all the way to the ends of the earth on just one hope. That was “little rock.”
Right now, Isuzu was music, “the forty-three.” The world was hers.
She splashed bright lemon-yellow notes all across the madder red sky. No matter who this melody reached, it was fine. She wanted it to crumble and scatter, raining down like stardust, over People of the Earth who raged helplessly, and over the Odysseia Knights who were crying for their home like children.
Come to think of it, the rainbow light that rose into the air like bubbles when they died was the same as the rainbow colors of the scale.
The realization startled her.
When the sun set, the rainbow-colored light broke off. After that, it simply drifted upward, toward the moon.
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login