CHAPTER 2
ERROR
Meanwhile—Elkia Royal Castle, in the study of the previous king.
“……tuch. Stuch, I’m goddamn hungry, please.”
Shaken gently, Steph felt her consciousness drifting up to the surface. Sprawled out on a desk, drooling, she rose with a start and looked around.
“—Wha…?! Uh, what, when did I fall asleep?!”
“After you ate, you banged your damn head on the desk, please. I thought you’d kicked the bucket, please.”
Seems the moment her belly was filled, she’d passed out.
“Wh-what time is it…?” she inquired vacantly, folding up the coat that had been draped over her back—an act of kindness by Izuna, apparently. A cute grmbrbrbrrrrl sound answered her. Izuna laced her hands over her stomach, entreating Steph sincerely.
“Exactly six hours since food, please.”
“…Y-you certainly keep a precise clock.”
They’d last eaten at about two AM , if memory served—so it had to be morning? The young sun was unable to shine its rays into the windowless study, but by now, the town would be getting active.
“Stuch. Stuch, food, please.”
As the Werebeast tugged insistently at her clothes, Steph acquiesced. “Ahh… Yes, I suppose so… All right, I’ll make some breakfast… Wait, what’s that?”
Suddenly, Steph noticed the mountain of books stacked where Izuna had been sitting.
“Miss Izuna, what is that?”
“…? Books, please?”
“No, I mean—why are they there?”
“…Obviously ’cos I read ’em, please?”
“—What? Since when do you know how to read…?!”
“I told you I’d learn your damn script, please. So I learned it , please.”
Impossible —Steph’s eyes popped. The matching game Steph had given Izuna that used Werebeast and Immanity script—the book for learning the Werebeast tongue. Just with that, in the time Steph had been unconscious, Izuna had learned Immanity’s language and read that many books—?
—Anything other than games was beyond Steph. But so long as it was a game— Seeing how Izuna had proven her prowess in an instant and already read more books than she had herself, Steph’s hair stood on end.
“……No wonder you get along so well with Sora and Shiro.”
Steph was struck by a fact that Sora and Shiro usually overshadowed. This small child, Izuna Hatsuse. This Werebeast girl, even younger than Shiro—who’d brought a match with “ ”, of all opponents, to within a hairbreadth—was, without a doubt, the real thing . But…
“…Miss Izuna, when was the last time you slept?”
“…Huh? I-I’ve had five meals…so, uh…please.”
Trying to count on her fingers, Izuna’s face darkened. Shadowy circles under her eyes evidenced that it had been long since she’d slept a wink.
If you thought about it, it made sense. However much one might be the real thing, it wasn’t as if anything could be accomplished without effort . Izuna had given her all, foregoing sleep entirely—just to learn Immanity and read all these books.
“…I’m sorry, Miss Izuna. I slept while you…”
“You’re such a wuss, please. Small fries should know to sleep when they get tired, please.”
Steph grinned at Izuna’s bluster. Seeing a faint ray of hope in the endless toil, she drummed herself up and slapped her cheeks. First, she’d make some food, and then— But as she turned to leave the study—
“…? Miss Izuna, in what order are you reading these books?”
—she noticed that the tomes had been extracted in a deliberate fashion from the various shelves.
“Starting with the ones that smell good , please.”
It was a cryptic answer, yet Izuna spoke as if it was obvious. Noticing the title of the book atop the stack, Steph picked it up. Indeed—it was related to the place Sora and Shiro found themselves.
Steph read the title, written in the hand of the previous king—her grandfather—aloud: “— Flügel: A Weapon without a Master …What made you pick this one?”
Izuna sniffed the book. “Damn thing smelled like Sora and Shiro, please. Guess they read it about a month ago, please?”
“They read it…?”
—At the beach, after they’d returned from Oceand, Sora had casually declared that they’d bust into Avant Heim and get three races. Steph, having been told nothing of how it was to be done—not like that was anything new—opened the book. A month ago. That would mean they’d read it before playing the Eastern Union… She skimmed the contents, lined up in letters directly set down by her grandfather, like all the books in this room.
Flügel—a god-slaying race created by Artosh, god of war, in the ancient Great War—
Flügel—these heavenly women collect knowledge not for amusement.
This was what the previous king—her grandfather—had written about the Flügel based on his observations. In other words, it was his insight into Jibril. Presumably… But.
They do it to live— Nay. To not die .
The inscrutable Jibril floated in the back of Steph’s mind.
They are living weapons having lost their master…lifeless puppets only wandering, hollow.
She visualized that girl, with her unreadable smile and ridiculous devotion to her curiosity and her masters.
Where is their reason to live—nay, the proof that they are even alive?
—What was it? The Jibril described by her grandfather didn’t remotely match the Jibril she knew. Disquieted by this disparity, Steph unconsciously stopped turning the pages and thought.
…Sora and Shiro had read this before venturing to Avant Heim. Just what were they—?
“Stuch, we don’t have time for you to be sitting here reading that shit, please.”
“Uh, oh, y-yes, you’re right.”
That was right. Their task wasn’t to research Flügel, but Siren— Steph reoriented herself, only to be interrupted by another grmbrbrbrbrrrrrl .
“It’s time for food, please,” Izuna declared with those decisive, round eyes.
Steph grinned wryly and went to return the book to its shelf when—it must have been from overwork—she went dizzy. “Oh…”
The books tumbled from the shelf she’d grabbed to steady herself. As read and unread books intermingled—and she felt ready to break down into pitiful wailing—
—a wind blew past at a speed too quick for Steph to react to. It was all she could do just to recognize the blur. Izuna had moved from the door to the corner in an instant—and now held a book in her mouth.
“…? What’s this shit, please?”
“…Th-that’s what I want to know. What in the world is this about?”
Ignoring Steph and her obvious confusion, Izuna sniffed the book suspiciously.
“Smells like fish, please…? No, please… Oh.”
Then, flinging the album aside as if it was of no interest, she said:
“Smells like Siren, please. Can’t eat those bitches, please.”
Instantly, amidst Steph’s hazy thoughts, a light shone. Just now, when she’d asked Izuna in what order she was selecting books, she’d said starting with the ones that smelled good . How had she been able to tell that Sora and Shiro had read—? No, more critically:
“Wh-why does a book of my grandfather’s smell like Siren?!”
“Dunno, please. Either a Siren touched it or someone who touched a Siren touched it, please,” replied Izuna, cocking her head.
“Like Sora or Shiro…or you or me?!”
“…? No, please. It’s just got the same geezer smell mixed in as all these books, please.”
It wasn’t their scent. Not Sora’s or Shiro’s. For starters, as far as she knew, they hadn’t come here since Oceand—so—?!
“C-can you tell when it was touched?”
While Steph fell over herself asking, Izuna counted her fingers, frowning, and then answered: “…Don’t have enough fingers, please.”
That was all but confirmation that it was from over ten years ago.
“…W-wait just a moment. You can tell that?”
“You can’t, please? Damn smell doesn’t run away, please.”
How am I supposed to know the common sense of another race? , Steph screamed inwardly, yet now—all the riddles were answered. The point of having Izuna help her, the method by which she’d identified books Sora and Shiro had read—and the fact that her grandfather had been involved with the Sirens over ten years ago… Everything had been laid bare! Now all that was left…!
“C-can you distinguish between books that were written before and after this one?!”
Izuna sniffed and tilted her head.
“…Smell’s weak, please. But if I try damn hard … should be possible , please.”
—The world filled with light. The scope of their search had narrowed tremendously!
“Ohhhhh, if you had such a useful power, I wish you would have employed it sooooner, but thank you so muuuuch. Finally, I’ve glimpsed a way out of this—”
Overcome with emotion, Steph hugged Izuna and rubbed her all over. But Izuna jumped back.
“—Hhhhh!!”
She threatened Steph as if about to bite her, her hair on end.
“Eh, u-umm…I-I apologize. Did I offend you?”
“…Stuch, you suck at petting, please!”
As Izuna maintained her defensive posture, Steph looked around in a panic. What caught her eye—
“Oh, y-yes. H-here, you can have this. Will you forgive me?”
“—The hell’s that, please?”
“I-it’s a confection I prepared for myself. S-see?”
Eating a piece herself to demonstrate that it was safe—she shakily proffered the goods. As she extended her peace offering, Izuna sniffed it several times.
“……Not bad, please. But right now I want food, please. Fish, please.”
—Snapping up the confection in her mouth, Izuna immediately recovered her good humor. Waving her big tail to and fro, she nibbled at the sweet snack like a hamster.
“Ah, w-well, I’ll go cook! Grilled fish, boiled fish, raw fish…which—?”
“All of them, please.”
“Wha—?”
“ All of them, please.”
“Why not! Now that I have found an ally to be reckoned with, why not display my true potential in the kitchen with every seafood dish in my repertoire!! In the meantime, could you segregate the books that my grandfather wrote before and after?!” Steph addressed a rapt fountain of drool.
“Understood, please!”
Izuna bolted up in time with her loud and clear response.
At last, the way out was in sight! Just as Steph started to fly out of the room, behind her—
—something broke with a bang.
“I’m sorry?”
Only when the Werebeast—growling, heart pounding as if about to leap out of her chest, panting, with close to ten books in her hands, stained scarlet by her bloodbreak—prodded her for action, did Steph realize the sound had been Izuna breaking the sound barrier .
“…— Hh, hff — I’m done, please—! Where’s my fish, please?!”
…If I try damn hard…should be possible. Well, well. Exactly as Izuna had promised, she’d tried damn hard.
—She’d tried so hard, she’d picked a fight with the limits of physics and bent them by force…
Izuna’s blood raged, her drool dripped, her gaze fixed as if on prey—
“…W-would you mind helping me buy some groceries?”
Steph decided to buy time…
—High in the sky of Avant Heim, enshrouded in the dark of night. The landscape was littered with countless cubes and lit only by the moon and the faint glow emitted by the cubes themselves. It was through all this that Sora and Shiro awkwardly, shakily, unconvincingly flew—or drifted.
“U-umm… Do you really have a chance of winning…?”
“Don’t talk to me now—you’re distracting me!”
“…Brother…more…more like this…”
They looked as if one false move would plummet them into a tailspin, which was not very reassuring at all.
Plum, who connected them through formed wings, murmured, “Y-you’re playing against Flügel , you know. I mean, you may have my help, but still , it’s not as if you’ve ever flown before … And there’s no way we can win on speed against Flügel …”
Struggling with the use of his wing, Sora answered merrily, if only in terms of his tone:
“Don’t…worry. Being fast is an advantage in tag—but it doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll win.”
“Well, that’s true…but still…”
At this stage, Plum the Scarf heaved a silent sigh.
—Flügel. Even if they couldn’t shift, they were a race that contravened physics by their very existence. The trio might never have seen their opponents’ top speed, but knowing their general nature was enough to imagine it. Probably, if they really tried—one might not be talking supersonic, more like hypersonic. Even allowing that tag wasn’t just about raw speed, there was no way you could expect a tortoise to beat a horse in a race. Seriously, the way they were going—it was—totally—?
“…Huh? Wh-what?”
Amidst these thoughts, Plum caught on to something funny. At some point, Sora and Shiro’s flapping had stabilized. Gradually, their pace increased, and the wind beating against the muffler—Plum—grew stronger.
“…Uumm, why did you have to make it so each of you—control just one wing?”
Thinking of this at such a late hour didn’t stop Plum from asking the question. The siblings, who were making the wings their own in the blink of an eye, looked at each other and smiled.
“That’s obvious—’cos if we didn’t, we couldn’t be sure we’d win.”
Suggesting, conversely, that if they did, they could be sure they’d win , their joined hands told the story.
—As long as our hands are touching.
We’re not gonna lose to anyone.
Empty weapons—objects…mere puppets—Flügel. Tools to destroy gods for their lord. This was enough for them. But it had been six thousand–odd years since they had lost their lord. Why did Flügel still exist? In search of this Answer, they had long drifted along with Avant Heim. But Jibril—who had flown off on her own and now suddenly returned—had clearly changed. As if, yes—she’d found the Answer.
…
Azril, chin in hand, looked up into the empty space. As per Sora and Shiro’s conditions, the entire assemblage of the hall—a hundred Flügel—waited out the siblings’ five-minute head start, all gazing in the same direction. At the image projected in the empty space—Sora and Shiro’s exploits.
“…Jibs, I think if any kid can complete the final mission Lord Artosh left us—to find the Answer—it can be only you, Jibs, the Closing Number.”
“……”
—There was a reason for this. But that wasn’t the issue, Azril decided as she continued.
“If your Answer is one planted in you by the Covenants—”
—Something Azril had confirmed, in the Flügel tongue so as not to be understood by Sora and Shiro… She went on deliberately, her plastic smile unchanged.
“—I’ll use my ‘privilege.’ You know what that means, don’t you?”
“Yes. However—to ask a question without already knowing the answer is the work of a weak will, my elder.”
At these words, all the Flügel staring up at the display stiffened.
—Azril, the Alipotentiary—the chair of the Council of Eighteen Wings. The one privilege held by Azril, who was not the agent plenipotentiary, was based on an agreement struck six thousand–odd years earlier.
“— The order for all Flügel to end themselves …is this not what you mean?” Jibril narrowed her eyes as she casually voiced what everyone was thinking. “Originally, this was a privilege you secured in order to prohibit our suicide until we might find the meaning of our existence as Flügel without a lord. Should you, however, judge there to be no meaning to our existence —please feel free.”
What tensed in all of them was not fear—Flügel had never held a strong fear of death. For a race created as weapons, a race that lived eternally, it was almost an honor. What took hold inside them despite this was anticipation.
—Something starting or something ending. Just that difference. But the promise of such an event created an atmosphere of anticipation.
“…As long as you…know.”
But it appeared that, alone among them, only Azril failed to grasp this. Considering her elder, Jibril could not help but evince a slight disappointment.
—And that, more than anything, gnawed at Azril.
“Elder Azril. Surely you can understand it as well. Our—Flügel’s— fundamental mistake .”
—Sora and Shiro didn’t know, but Jibril, since meeting them— had clearly changed . Before losing to them, Jibril too might have felt some unease as she moved through her days. When it came down to it, though, she’d been more or less the same as Azril. Turning the unknown into the known—in that alone, she’d found meaning. The unknown was to be overturned. It was unemotional, or—one might even say—an enemy to be destroyed. Jibril had just been a little more aggressive than the others in confronting that enemy.
—But the day she lost to Sora and Shiro, that changed.
“The knowledge we have accumulated over the course of thousands— tens of thousands—of years is upended in its whole by my masters, born scarcely over ten years ago. The meaning, the value of that—my elder, you do not understand.”
“……”
With an expression Azril had never seen, almost feverish—an expression that, as far as memory served, her little sister had never shown even to Artosh—Jibril elaborated.
“The heart burns when the unknown is transformed into the known. Hotter by far, though— when the known is transformed into the unknown . This revelation convinced me, of my own will, to follow. It has nothing to do with the Covenants.”
Azril could only look on in silence during Jibril’s oration. Frankly speaking, she had no idea what her little sister was talking about. The known transformed into the unknown—? What could that mean but terror?
—But as if inspired by Jibril’s words, heat welled in the eyes of the hundred Flügel raring at the starting line—and their wings quivered.
I don’t get this , Azril seemed to say as she put her chin back in her hand. At the very least—it wasn’t the Answer. She turned her attention to the two projected in the air—awkwardly struggling to fly.
“Elder Azril, I know that you, more than anyone else, have anguished over the fate of the Flügel. However.”
“……”
Otherwise unmoving, Azril flicked her eyes toward the remark, where her gaze was met with—absolute conviction.
—Somehow, as if pleading, Jibril spoke.
“The answer you have been seeking is not where you imagine.”
“Eegh…eegh…I-I can’t take anymore… It’s too hard… I give up…”
“Dude, it hasn’t even been three minutes! Even Ul*raman has more guts than you!”
Plum the Scarf was already whining and getting upbraided by Sora.
“I’m not some crazy Flügel! You two don’t even know how hard it is for me to defy gravityyy! And then you want me to give you wings. To be honest, I wish you’d—”
“You want sweat? I got plenty, so lick it all you want!”
“I’ll never give uuup!! For your sweat—come, let us continue!”
“Damn, you make yourself look ridiculous!!”
The sensation of having his neck licked sent something unpleasant screaming down Sora’s spine.
—This scarf was supposed to be Plum incognito. She had cloaked her physical self in the form of a scarf to link Sora and Shiro, with her “ends” functioning as wings that the siblings could manipulate at will. That was how it worked. It was a disguise, which meant it was a spell of illusion. So—Sora reminded himself that it was actually just Plum.
“Hey. To us, it looks like you’re a scarf that turns into wings. But what’s the real situation?”
“ Lickety-lickety… Ohh, this is heaven. ? Oh, yes? Umm, well, at the moment, I am holding you by your neck while licking it, you seee…while I am latched on to Queen Shiro’s neck with my lower extremitieees.”
“Ha-ha, let’s call this flying in ‘deformation’!”
“…Brother, that is lame, obnoxious, and, most of all…not funny…”
“Hey, I just gave it a shot. Why you gotta be like that?!”
A tear fell, sparkling through the night sky of Avant Heim. But Plum chimed in bitterly.
“Just so you know , simultaneous deployment of multiple rites is Elf’s patented specialty. Considering I’m not only disguising myself as a magical flying scarf, but also magically flying you through the air however you want, I really— reaaaaaaaaaaaaaally! —wish you’d say something nice!!”
Plum complained at length .
“Also, this tires me out more than I expected… If my soul supply cuts out, we’ll probably die in a few secooonds.”
“…You sure jumped in on a pretty risky proposal, didn’t you?”
“Uh, but then I get to lickety-lickety your neck all I want, Sir… Gee-hee-heee, it’s so delectable!”
“Nggahh! Now I just want to whip off this damn scarf!”
Just as the impulse struck him to toss the scarf, regardless of the consequences—
“…Brother, time.”
Five minutes had passed. Sora’s eyes narrowed at Shiro’s reminder. It was the time for the Flügel held at the starting line to come hunt them down.
“—All right, Plum, we’re trusting you with our lives, so don’t crap out on us in the middle.”
“Not to worry! If I run out of energy, we’ll just go down togetherrr!”
“That’s nice, but no thanks!! Here we go!”
The moment he said it, Sora and Shiro simultaneously flapped hard—reducing their altitude precipitously.
“Eeeyhyaaghh!”
The plunge was so steep that even Plum, still wrapped around their necks, screamed. Amplified by the force of their wings, their downward velocity was so intense that the wind beat against them. Just before they hit the ground—Avant Heim’s back—they leveled off into horizontal flight.
Are they…using the acceleration from the fall to leave their pursuers behind? Plum silently wondered, but — Something was behind them. The Flügel, who had just started, were already catching up. It was true that Sora and Shiro had gotten the hang of their wings quickly. But no matter how hard they pushed the wings Plum had woven for them, they couldn’t surpass the limits of physics. Two hundred kilometers per hour was the best they could hope for, whereas Flügel scoffed at physics. Th-they’re about to catch up to us! What do we do?! While Plum wailed internally, Sora and Shiro calmly assessed the situation behind them—
“Four. No formation.”
“… Syllables : one, three…”
“Evade. Collect?”
“…Number One, wing base: oh …Three, left side: hol .”
“One: Shiro. Three: me. Go.”
—An exchange indecipherable to Plum transpired in a blink, and before Plum could so much as mumble, Huh? —Sora and Shiro tweaked their course.
—That instant.
“Eh-heh-hehh! I’m first!”
“We have you now!”
Making short work of the five-minute handicap as might be expected, two Flügel closed in. They reached out toward Sora and Shiro—but grasped empty air.
““—Wh-what?””
The two Flügel, voicing their incomprehension at having failed to snatch the siblings, who’d vanished in a blink—
““Uhh!””
Behind. Sora and Shiro were, respectively, on their assailants’ wing base and left side —targeting the syllables transcribed there—and the Flügel moaned. The other two, who followed a moment later, looked around, having lost sight of their prey. It was no wonder, for by then Sora and Shiro were well on their spiraling path through the lines of cubes. Weaving among countless stacks of die—through the townscape of Avant Heim.
—Two syllables in hand.
“…Uh, excuse me…what was…?!”
A fleeting encounter that defied even Plum’s comprehension, and she was wrapped around their necks. As Plum gaped behind the spell of her illusion, Sora filled her in.
“A barrel roll —that’s how you dodge something flying in a straight line faster than you, duh.”
—Indeed, feeling pursuers at their backs and drawing them in as close as possible, Sora and Shiro had tweaked their course so that, of the four on their tail—the two bearing syllables would wind up in front of them . And the instant Sora and Shiro seized what they needed, they stuck out their wings and just rolled off at an angle . That meant they kept going in the same direction, but in a decelerating spiral. While, from the relative perspective of the too-fast Flügel, it seemed they’d vanished in midair—really, the siblings had just “outstripped” them. They weren’t used to using wings, and even if they mastered them, they were incapable of Flügel speed. In which case—
“If we can’t work our wings, we can just stop them . Those bitches fly around all ‘Screw aerodynamics’—like they know the maneuvers of fixed-wing aircraft.”
“…Even if they know…they’d never have…thought about it.”
Around the arms of the smugly smiling pair, just as Shiro had explained—revolved the syllables oh and hol . Plum, finally catching up, was dumbfounded.
“…Don’t tell me…you remember everyone who has a syllable—and which ones ?!”
Sora chuckled.
“Come on, Plum, you still haven’t learned to respect my little sister?”
Feeling shamed by these simple words, Plum fell silent.
“Well, in any case…Shiro, the syllables we need right now—you know, right?”
“…Naturally.”
“’Kay, then we’ll catch those first. It’s not like we can keep using the same maneuvers on these guys, after all.”
“…Mm, roger that…”
—Plum gaped at the pair casually declaring that they’d catch Flügel, as if such a thing were natural. It was as if they had decided that in this game of tag, the siblings were actually “it.” Sora and Shiro soared through the cityscape of Avant Heim, weaving as they went.
—Alone at the starting line with Azril, watching the scene projected before them, Jibril felt a flutter in her chest—a fervent sense of astonishment. At Shiro, who remembered all the syllables, their bearers, and even where they’d been transcribed. At their divine feat of evasion and the collection of the syllables—but, more than that , at her two lords flying about the city as if they knew it like their own backyard. She could not conceal her astonishment.
Avant Heim was constructed of intricately overlapping cubes. Through the fine cracks between the cubes, in the darkness illuminated only by the faint light and the moon, they flew as if threading needles. They still had little by way of speed. But in this scenario, a pursuer who flew too quickly would be lost . As they soared, diving, piercing precisely through the narrow alleys and cracks formed by the cubes, slipping through holes it seemed hard to imagine that even one person could fit through, one careless acceleration—would result in a calamitous crash.
…What magnificence… But still , that left something unexplained. Jibril puzzled to herself. Flügel was a race that tended to rely on brute strength. This was a truism she herself could not deny. But even so, they did know how to collaborate. They wouldn’t be much of a weapon otherwise. If speed was insufficient, they should switch to siege tactics—and yet—
“Huh—what?! Wha…? How—?!”
A Flügel girl shrieked. She’d been poised at the only exit from the crack into which Sora and Shiro had ducked—only to watch them burst from someplace completely unexpected.
Yes, Sora and Shiro had foiled the Flügel siege entirely. They’d glanced at the map for only a moment. Had they learned everything about Avant Heim in that short time?
—Impossible. It was conceivable that one of her masters—Shiro—could have memorized a map in those few seconds. But it was impossible to divine the cracks and alleys of the city, built by complex, three-dimensional stacks of bodies high and low, from a mere map. Then how…? And at last, careful observer that she was, Jibril nevertheless doubted the conclusion that she, of all people, had reached.
…Wha—? Th-this is a joke, righhht?
—Realization dawned that between Sora’s and Shiro’s firmly joined hands—their fingers were finely moving . Plum, who until recently had been desperately suppressing a cry, now believing that she had discovered the methodology by which her pilots were navigating implausibly narrow holes and cracks—a methodology one might safely dub “bullshitology”—suddenly found herself speechless.
So, probably…presumably…not that it was plausible—this is how they did it. Skimming the cityscape that Shiro had memorized, she confirmed that the cubes’ sizes were uniform. Through mental calculation, she then unraveled the patterns by which those cubes were stacked, revealing fine cracks that arose based on differences in level. Bypassing the necessity for words, she conveyed this information to Sora through finger movement alone, and Sora, in turn, shook their pursuers by deceiving them, leading them on, and plotting out escape routes.
—How could one find themselves at anything but a loss for words? As far as Plum was concerned (and pretty much anyone would agree), it was totally beyond all comprehension. They were communicating by finger movement. Yet simple information like “This way” or “Over there” wasn’t even what it was . Reading each other’s intentions from the sensation of their joined hands, the two Immanities, without a moment’s confusion or hesitation, flapped their wings and flew as if their connected palms were their very nerves. Well, it was fair to say that they had not yet completely acclimated themselves to flight. There was still some roughness in their execution. But all the more for that—witnessing something beyond belief—Plum was astonished.
Two in one set of wings—holding hands. If one twin worked harder to break gravity’s pull, the other would sense that effort before they were left behind , match it, and catch up. Without allowing a single flap of the wings to fall out of sync, they shared with one another what they learned and raised each other up .
—Limitlessly. At terrifying speed. The sight sent a shiver down Plum’s spine. These two—were even more—
—Then the siblings, who up to that point had maintained radio silence, opened their mouths.
“Left, right: four, four drawn.”
“…Left: shal , yoo , pahs , sel . Right: reyt , er , not , roh . Missing one. ”
“Collect, draw above. Twelve?”
“…Syllables: five. Completes …but risky .”
Following this cryptic exchange, a smiling Sora resumed speaking in complete sentences.
“Risk acknowledged—! Let’s get ’em!! ”
“…Roger! Left Shiro, brother right. Left shoulder, right wing, left elbow, hip!”
No sooner had they spoken—
“Eeyahhhhh!!”
They snapped their wings—that is, Plum—in a vicious break that sent them hurtling into a narrow hole…
“—! We have them at last!”
“Pincer attack, on cue!”
Sora and Shiro carelessly—or so it seemed to Plum—exited into a wide corridor. Waiting for them were four Flügel on either side—as they’d said themselves, a perfect pincer attack. But Sora’s and Shiro’s words echoed through Plum’s head.
— Left, right: four, four drawn …they’d drawn the Flügel—and now they’d get them ? Rushing forward with blinding speed, eight Flügel in total to their left and right, but in that case—
“Let’s do it, Shiro!!”
“…Mm!”
— Just who had who? — Sora and Shiro brought together their free hands to form a Word. The syllables on their wrists moved and combined—a flash of light. Targeting the eight Flügel assaulting them from either flank, the pair—held their hands out left and right and shouted:
““—‘Hollow!’””
—A heartbeat. The four Flügel from each side descending on Sora and Shiro with outstretched hands—
““…Huh?””
—only to pass harmlessly through their prey, reemerging on opposite sides.
““Waungh!””
Leaving eight moans in their wake, Sora and Shiro dove once more into the space between cubes. Navigating a crevice barely wide enough for one person, aligned vertically with Shiro, Sora laughed.
“ Pahs , sel , yoo , shal —how ’bout it, Shiro? I got ’em all!”
“… Reyt , roh , not , er … That makes eight…”
Each displayed the four syllables of light they had collected on their wrists, as if it was only natural.
—Gingerly, Plum inquired:
“…Uh, excuse me…what was…?”
“What do you think? A hole. ‘Words’ work on whatever you touch—those are the rules of the game, right?”
“…So…we opened a hole…in space.”
Plum, speechless, thought back. They’d opened a hole—a hollow space—around themselves, bridging the space at their flanks to evade the Flügel’s pincer attack. Once their assailants emerged, naturally, their backs would be to Sora and Shiro—who collected the syllables—but wait.
“…Could it be you drew in only Flügel with syllablesss ?!”
“Yeah, but we didn’t get all the ones we need—”
Affirming this as if it was nothing, Sora looked up audaciously from the syllables lined up on his arm like prayer beads.
—Plum involuntarily followed his gaze.
…Four, five, eight—twelve Flügel were converging on them at terrifying speed.
“Ah-wah-wah-wah-wah-wah-wah—what are we going to dooo?!”
“ Collect. Draw twelve from above —just like we planned. Don’t freak out.”
“…Brother, can we get out?”
Sora and Shiro were barreling at high velocity through a crack barely big enough for one person. As soon as they shot into the open again, they’d be assaulted by Flügel—twelve of them. But Sora grinned boldly—
“Sure, no prrrrrob—!”
Sora lost his balance as Plum suddenly licked his neck. They burst into the open—with twelve Flügel incoming. With Sora off-kilter, the centrifugal force—
“…Brother?!”
“Wwwaaaaah?!”
—almost bucked Shiro, but some furious wing flapping just managed to keep them whole. Even so, the effort to avoid a tailspin left Sora unprepared for the Flügel rushing in.
“ ? Shiro, do iiit!”
—A split-second decision. No time to right themselves. Sora extended his left hand to Shiro—and left the Word to her, wholly convinced she’d know what he meant. Shiro grabbed Sora’s hand and pushed the glowing syllables out into the void—
“—‘You shall not pass’…!”
With these words, the twelve onrushing shadows descended on Sora and Shiro, and…
* * *
Then, a beat—and with an exceedingly serious expression—
—Sora declared:
“—the will of the cosmos.”
“…You mean, the will of…you…”
As Shiro corrected her brother, her voice as cold as ever, Plum shouted a warning as she noticed something closing on them from behind.
“Wahhhhhhh, they’re coming at us regardless of being totally naked?!”
“…Brother, Flügel…have no shame…just, like…Jibril.”
“Whaaaaat? I never expected thaaat!! …Looks like they’re coming from ahead, too, huh, Shiro?”
“…No syllables.”
Shiro responded with a sulk. A few nude Flügel advanced from behind, having shrugged off the capture spell. Three approaching from the front, too. Deliberately fixing his gaze on the Flügel ahead of them and promptly positioning his camera, Sora spelled a Word. As three extended their hands toward them, he and Shiro dodged gracefully—and he slammed the Word in.
“— ‘Adulthood feat’ —”…that is.
At the same time, he flapped his wing to swing around, covered Shiro’s eyes with the wing, and turned his camera.
“Now they should hold ’em back for us… hff …”
The clothed Flügel started squeezing the breasts of the nude Flügel, restraining them.
“ Hff —at last I have succeeded in witnessing the Peach Blossom Spring with my own two eyes… It is truly marvelous. How unfortunate that it’s nighttime. I wonder if my camera is getting this all right?”
“…Sir, I’ve almost come all the way back around to respecting youuu…”
—Endlessly lithe. Joyful. Almost as if laughing at risk, her two lords danced through the sky. Yet someone was watching this display, still showing no sign of comprehension.
“—…”
Jibril sighed for the umpteenth time at Azril, who continued to do nothing but frown.
…It looked as if her masters were going to win—but there was no meaning in that by itself . If Azril still failed to grasp anything, would it not betray the expectations of her masters—?!
“…Elder, why do you not understand…?”
“—…”
“Will you yet command our race to end themselves? Shall all of us die because of you alone?”
Jibril’s words, smudged darkly with tension, meant nothing to Azril.
—Why should a Flügel fear death? Since when was this a feeling Flügel had? And to fear not even for her own sake—but for the others?
“Can you see the faces of my masters, see the faces of our people , and yet see nothing? If your thickheadedness seals away their possibilities and puts all of these six thousand years to waste—”
—Please, get it.
“They will go to waste—because of you?!”
On the verge of tears, Jibril forced out this accusation, and yet…Azril still didn’t get it. Didn’t get it. What was so…what was so…what was so…?!
……
“Nghhhh, can’t catch up to them!!”
“Cut them off! We’ll bring the capture spells to them by cross fire! Once they exhaust their syllables, we’ll have our chance!”
“Whaaat? But they’re just gonna dodge it, I’m sure!”
“We’ll try it, and if it doesn’t work, we’ll think of something different, right? Let’s go!”
As the Flügel conferred while darting about, for some reason, all of them—unconditionally, unreservedly—smiled.
— …What was so entertaining?
Anticipating the cross fire, Sora and Shiro once more flipped their wings, dropping and dodging expertly, just as predicted.
“Awww, look. I told you they’d dodge it!”
“Hee-hee! Then we’ll just shoot them from above and below at the same time! Everyone disperse. Fire together on my command!”
“Yes!!”
— …What was so entertaining?! How could they chase an opponent they couldn’t beat with smiles like those?
……Seeing Azril irritated at her own inability to understand, Jibril dropped some wisdom.
“Elder. Do you remember my spoils ?”
“……I remember everything. All the achievements of my sweet little sister.”
She looked down, distantly—somewhere far in the past—and smiled.
“Nineteen joint kills of Gigants, one individual kill. Three joint kills of Dragonias, one individual kill—”
—The Dragonia head enshrined under the giant tree at the outskirts of Avant Heim had been Jibril’s prize. Slaying a Dragonia alone was a feat that no one had achieved before or since. It had been Azril, in celebration, who had placed the skull—dressed it up. And—
“Three joint kills of Phantasmas—one individual kill.”
Likewise, only one had ever slain a Phantasma single-handedly: Jibril. Azril’s smile as she reminisced was unclouded—unaffected.
“The last created, racking up such spoils in only 245 battles, and returning home alive… How could I forget?”
…Azril recalled that faraway, nostalgic, beautiful time— a time they had a future —with a placid smile, prompting Jibril, not quite able to raise her eyes, to ask:
“…Then do you remember the number of times I sustained injuries sufficient to require a rite of restoration?”
“One hundred sixty.”
No hesitation. Jibril had caused her worry, always returning home on the brink of death.
“…Almost all of those were instances when you took on enemies alone …”
A Gigant, a Dragonia, and a Phantasma—one of each. Jibril, having slain members of three higher races single-handedly, had actually been beaten back the same number of times she had been victorious—multiplied by twenty-nine. And what that meant …this fact being completely unfathomable to Azril…caused Jibril to grind her teeth.
“All right—do you understand why I insisted on slaying them alone?”
—Jibril’s strong undertone indicated this was the final hint. Her voice was resolute, mixed with hope and the fear that hope would once more be betrayed. But…Azril could only shake her head.
“…Honestly, I never know what you’re going to do, Jibs. To begin with—”
“Yes, to begin with, they were impossible opponents .”
—Indeed, no one was supposed to be able to defeat an opponent of a higher rank without assistance. The Flügel had not been created with such abilities in mind.
—This was the end. If Azril didn’t understand that—
“That is why—I proved you wrong.”
……
“…I don’t get it. What are you on about? What did you see in them, Jibs?”
“……”
Jibril had no words to respond.
—That is to say, Jibril had lost all hope. The hope she’d held—that if she understood it, everyone else should be capable, too—crumbled. Her sister’s despair stabbed Azril with unbearable pain. But—
“…Jibs. You’re special…”
“……?”
“You don’t know this, Jibs, but Lord Artosh gave you something special. That’s why you can comprehend things the rest of us can’t.”
“……”
As Jibril stood mutely, Azril spilled out an earnest appeal.
“I want to know the Answer, too. I don’t want it to end here!! Because then, what will these six thousand years have meant?! But I just don’t get it—I can’t go on lying any longer!!”
—Azril, the first Flügel. Created first by Artosh with the goal of perfection. Crying was not a feature she had been given. But perhaps because they were alone, Azril’s voice, pleading, poured out for the first time with wet sincerity.
—I’m begging you, anyone, tell me.
—What are we living for?
—Why are we still alive?
—What are we looking for?
— What do we have to find in order to have lived—? Tell me!
Jibril listened to this silently.
—But deliberately, as if pushing Azril away in a voice without heat—
she conveyed what Azril needed to hear…yes, the words her masters would have chosen .
“…And so you use your limits as an excuse—to use me.”
“ ? !!”
“You and I, and all of us who have survived, lost, and we have lived for six thousand years as losers .”
Jibril turned her eyes away from Azril, hands trembling—
“That, from this , you have learned nothing speaks not of one possessed of an exceptional nature—but rather to your own indolence.”
Jibril tightened her fists.
…Though she had nearly died any number of times, she had never been as nervous as now, she realized. She recomposed her expression: Don’t let your voice shake. Don’t let your eyes wander. She forced all the spirits that comprised her body into submission and brought them under her control.
—Could she? Doubt assailed her, but she cast it off. Do, or do not—that’s what she’d learned . Chewing over her lessons from her masters, she did as she had learned from them .
—It did not come naturally to Jibril. But she decided to take a gamble—
Masters, please forgive the incompetence of your lowly servant, Jibril, on whom you have been forced to rely to the end.
So she whispered to herself, and she summoned the last of her hope—
Even so, please allow me to put my faith in the faith you have shown me.
And so with an expression that was, to the mightiest degree imaginable, contemptuous, she spat:
“ So feebleminded are you that I…can only despise you from the bottom of my heart—you heap of trash.”
For the first time in her 6,407-year life—she bluffed.
…
…— Ff. All color drained from Azril’s face, and a tired voice rang out quietly.
“…I’m so over this.”
And then—the world trembled.
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