The words sounded like the death throes of a life that was dying. Crows were startled by the pain-filled cry and flew into Omaha’s sky.
An unexpected change started to occur in the Default’s body after its mass had swelled up to a size that was several times larger than city hall.
The flesh of the Default’s body condensed until it eventually turned into the shape of an egg that was standing up straight.
Two horizontal tears appeared around the middle of the massive, Scotch egg-like blob of flesh. The tears opened widely like a pair of mouths, revealing two white spheres.
The tears opened and closed a couple of times before a certain color started to appear in the centers of the two spheres.
A perfect, pink circle in each sphere. There was a concentric circle with a darker shade in the center of each pink circle.
It wasn’t until the tears closed slightly and fine eyelashes started to grow on the edges of the tears that I realized they were actually eyes.
A mouth was the next thing to appear. A long, horizontal tear appeared on the bottom portion of the egg and the areas that could be considered the lips became nice and full. Teeth began to grow out from what I assumed were its gums along with a tongue.
That wasn’t the end. Following its eyes and mouth, a nose, a pair of ears, and some brown hair sprouted out. Skin began to cover its surface of exposed muscles and fat. Its form began to shift as protruding cheekbones appeared.
Under the moonlight, the gigantic head stayed perfectly still with no emotions on its face. The face was so beautiful that it was hard to believe that it had eaten a majority of Omaha’s population.
I immediately recognized the face.
A forehead that gives off a strong, assertive impression, and eyes that were fresh and overflowing with intelligence.
A massive version of Aretha’s face appeared on the streets of the Omaha which was now a hellscape.
“Aretha’s back.”
Aretha had come back to life.
Aretha is alive.
“I was wondering where she had gone, but she came back as a face on a large boulder.”
“I didn’t know she liked Nathaniel Hawthorne.”
“We can continue our journey since Aretha is back.”
“Mm, even if she receives the inheritance, I feel like, at that size, her food expenses would outweigh the inheritance. We should just find a replacement.”
Ray and I let out a small laugh as if we had gone mad.
“Wake me up, from this nightmare.”
The large mouth let out a voice. I could feel the strong vibration of the air from even over here.
“As I thought, how about we run away? If you want, I can ask my master to release you from your contract with Aretha. Aretha has turned into that thing, so I think it would be better for us to slowly gather the wills after we find another half Native American.”
Ray asked me again. It was a tempting offer.
Money or Aretha, which one should I choose? Would it unquestionably be my long-term friend, money?
I shook my head.
I could answer this question now. For the first time ever in my life, I got rid of the scale in my heart.
“No.”
It didn’t matter whether I had something like money or not. That’s not what I wanted, what I needed.
“······Haah, why did I become friends with an idiot like you?”
Ray let out an exasperated sigh.
A line of blood flowed down from each of the gigantic Aretha’s eyes, and yet, she was still beautiful.
“Your problem is that you suck at managing your facial expressions, Bill. It’s obvious what’s on your mind when you have such a tragic look on your face.”
“I think you should learn how to be considerate.”
Ray started to laugh; however, I had already started to laugh long before Ray did.
“It seems Gray’s life and existence disappeared once the Baton of the One and Only God exploded and Aretha took his place. This has become more troublesome than before.”
“Who cares? She’s alive now.”
“I thought we would have to defeat the monster and rescue the princess.”
“But the princess became the monster.”
Ray put his hand on his forehead and chuckled.
“How did things end up like this?”
This despair was much larger than the smaller despairs I would always shoulder; however, I was still capable of smiling. Our situation hasn’t improved one bit, but there was a glimmer of hope now.
“It seems I’m going to have to somehow persuade the princess to come back.”
Once I uttered those words, Ray gave me a dumbfounded look.
“What’s your plan?”
“I said I’m going to persuade her, so through a dialogue.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“Maybe. For starters⎯”
I didn’t have something like a plan. Regardless, I had to go. Aretha is waiting for me, after all.
The wheels that were supporting the Grand Piano started to kick up dirt as they began to spin fiercely.
“Let’s see how tall the fig tree grows.”
Once I made that comment, Ray let out a sigh and placed his hands on Jack’s keys. The Grand Piano let out a roar as it began to move.
Aretha’s bizarre head that had nothing below its neck used the numerous tentacles that were sticking out of the bottom of the head to reposition itself and look down at us.
“Gyaaaaa!”
Once Aretha’s head let out a scream, an incredibly powerful blast of wind swept over me and Ray. I don’t know how she’s able to make any vocal noises when she only has a head, but a large amount of blood came out of her mouth as she screamed and flew towards us.
“Pull yourself together, Bill!”
“Sorry!”
Right, this isn’t the time to be thinking about pointless things.
Once again, I created a wall of blank checks and protected Ray, who had lowered his posture as much as he could, from the alchemy-filled blood.
“Just as I expected. I don’t feel Gray’s distortion anymore.”
Several beams of light were shooting out from Ray’s glass eyes.
“I see···. I understand now!”
The piano continued to push forward despite the wind pressure. Ray’s hands danced over the keys more fiercely.
“The alchemy lost its control after Bryshere Gray ceased to exist. All Aretha has done is replace him as the pivot, the alchemy itself has already lost its effect. Right now, that Default is nothing more than a large monster that has haphazardly combined the citizens of Omaha and Aretha together. In other words, it doesn’t matter if I come in contact with that Default now!”
At that moment, a massive shadow cast over us.
“Turn!”
“I know!”
Ray’s fingers glided up the scale whimsically. The piano proceeded to ignore gravity as it started to drive vertically on the side of a building with a tax office signboard on it.
The next moment, one of the white tentacles sprouting out from the bottom of Aretha’s head slammed against the spot where Ray and I were just at. Each of its tentacles was as thick as a train. It’d be the end of us if those things even grazed our bodies.
“Watch out! Another one is coming!”
A tentacle rose up high into the air before it came down on us vertically like a beating stick. It swung down so powerfully that it felt like it intended to take the building down with us.
“Hit the road!”
Ray slammed both of his hands down on the keys. The piano lid opened as a bunch of thick piano strings burst out and split up to create a fine steel net. The tentacle was unable to rip through the net and wound up getting sliced into tiny pieces. I wonder if it was because he no longer had a reason to be afraid of the Default’s blood. There wasn’t even a single sign of hesitation on Ray’s face as he sliced through the tentacle with piano strings.
“Guaagh!”
A screech that was so horrendous that I couldn’t believe Aretha’s voice was the source of it came out of the huge Aretha’s mouth.
Regardless, my gaze was focused on something else. For a brief moment, I made eye contact with the countless faces that were inside the pieces of the chopped-up tentacle. They weren’t the faces of Gray or Aretha, but the normal faces of the people of Omaha. Pain-filled faces. They were alive.
Once I thought about how countless people were being tormented as a single clump within the Default’s body even after the disappearance of Gray’s existence, a chill went down my spine. Wouldn’t death be salvation for them?
“I can’t get any closer. There are too many of those octopus legs.”
Ray lamented.
“We have no other choice but to cut through them one at a time.”
Fortunately, the severed legs did not regenerate. You could understand why just by looking at Aretha. She may be a Flasko, but she won’t regenerate unless she dies. The tentacles were connected to Aretha’s head; therefore, they won’t regenerate unless the main body dies.
⎯Wake me up⎯
It was at that moment, a voice flowed into my head. Despite the loud roar echoing between the buildings, I could hear Aretha’s voice as clear as day.
“Shit!”
Regardless, I didn’t have the leisure to figure out where the voice was coming from. The Aretha-turned-Default’s attack continued. This time, multiple tentacles came down on the piano that had stopped for a second on a building’s rooftop.
“At this rate, we’ll never find a way to deal with this and end up dying in vain!”
Ray let out a desperate cry as he pressed his fingers down on the keys. The piano strings extended and grabbed on to a water tank that was located on the roof of a building adjacent to ours. The Grand Piano went at full speed as it drove off the rooftop. Ignoring the laws of gravity, the piano drew an arc as it flew in the air before it crashed into and destroyed the wall and pillars of a high-rise building, putting us inside an office filled with typewriters.
⎯I have no one left⎯
I heard Aretha’s voice once again. I wasn’t hearing things. I searched through my memories as I tried to remember what this familiar sensation was.
“Aah.”
I found it. It was the same phenomenon I had experienced back when I got on the train while chasing after Aretha. Even though my head had turned into gold coins and was scattered everywhere, I could still hear things clearly.
This was the same type of sound I’d hear when listening through one of my coins or bills. But when did Aretha get her hands on my money?
“Oh, so it was that.”
I recalled the single coin I had tossed to a beggar back in Sacramento. That beggar was actually Aretha in disguise. If she had kept that coin on her since that time, then everything made sense.
If that’s the case, then Gray had disappeared and Aretha had returned.
Doesn’t this mean that Aretha exists as a separate being within the Default’s body where countless people’s bodies are clumped together?
“Ray. Is that monster really Aretha?”
Contrary to the Grand Piano, Jack, which was unimpaired despite having received a huge blow, Ray looked rather exhausted. It must be because he had used the immense power of the Baton of the One and Only God and was continuing to maneuver Jack after having done so.
“Of course. Why exactly are you asking such a stupid question in a situation like this?”
“Because no matter how I look at that thing, that doesn’t seem like the Aretha I know. It definitely looks like her, but I get this feeling that the real Aretha is hiding somewhere that can’t be seen and is shaking in fear.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
Ray knit his brows. I also knew that this sounded crazy. That my words sounded like some foolish hope.
“Please. Trust me. It’s fine if it’s for only a short moment, but I need you to buy some time for me so that I can concentrate. I think I’ve discovered a way to rescue Aretha.”
Ray shook his head.
“You’ve finally gone mad.”
Ray rudely shoved me off the bench. I tumbled down on the floor before I got up and glared at Ray.
“···I’ve made a lot of money in the past 200 years⎯”
Ray pushed his tinted glasses up.
“, but this is my first time buying time.”
He was grinning. A smile spread across my lips as well once I saw his grin. For a brief moment, the two of us chuckled madly.
“I’m going to be doing something that I’ve never done before just for your sake, so I plan to receive a generous payment from you afterward.”
Ray stopped laughing and adjusted his suit.
“I’ll settle the expenses at the end of the month.”
I feel bad for doing this all the time. I couldn’t help but let an abject smile appear on my lips. Ray put his hand on his forehead in an exaggerated manner.
“Haa···. It’s troubling if you try to resolve this on credit as well, Bill···.”
“Sorry for making such an unreasonable request.”
“August 31st.”
As I thought, was handling this on credit pushing it too far? Ray spoke in a flat tone the instant I thought that. For a moment, I looked up at Ray’s face blankly, unable to understand what that date was supposed to mean.
“August 31st.”
“What?”
Ray took off his coat, sat down on the piano bench, and rolled up his sleeves.
“Today is the end of the month, you idiot.”
With a grin, Ray slammed his hands down on the keys. Fortissimo. The piano charged towards the collapsed wall.
Ο
∗∗∗
Ο
⎯There’s no one⎯
I closed my eyes and concentrated on the voice that was ringing in my head.
Aretha is waiting. She’s waiting for someone to come and wake her up from her nightmare. I can hear her fear. I can hear her loneliness.
⎯Even Rodney is dead⎯
I sent my consciousness out to scour Omaha’s night sky in search of the single gold coin that was allowing me to hear her voice.
⎯I have no one left⎯
I pulled out the mysterious power that moved my bills and coins like a very fine line of thread and extended it towards the source of the voice.
⎯This can’t be reality. I won’t accept it⎯
The golden thread swayed as it went forward. Everything around it was pitch black. A mental world where even the moonlight couldn’t invade. A golden star that I could faintly see in the distance was beckoning my consciousness, which had turned into a thread, towards it.
I found it.
⎯Get me out⎯
The short message turned into a faint ripple of light and made contact with me. I extended my thread of consciousness more strongly towards it as if I were acceding to it. The golden thread wrapped around the source of the light as if it were binding it. The gold coin that Aretha had taken had connected with my mind once more.
“I’ve reached it.”
The next moment, my consciousness returned to the starting point. I knew for certain where Aretha was now.
⎯Take me out of here⎯
Wait a second, I’m coming to you now.
After making a comment which couldn’t possibly reach Aretha, I opened my eyes and gazed at the large face that lay beyond the shattered wall.
Ο
∗∗∗
Ο
“Ray!”
Ray, who was at the bottom of the building struggling against the tentacles, reacted to my voice. The moment he turned to look up at me, multiple tentacles came down on the piano; however, Ray managed to slice some of them with Jack’s piano strings and avoid the rest through a very narrow gap.
“Watch out, Bill!”
He yelled out urgently. I shouldn’t have shouted. The Default noticed my existence and swung a tentacle towards the office I was in.
I jumped out of the building. I was 7 floors up, but I turned my body into a bunch of bills and rode the wind down. I utilized the same cohesiveness that would occur whenever I turned into coins in order to prevent the bills from separating from one another. Like a swarm of locusts, a storm of bills swirled downward violently.
However, the air pressure caused by the tentacle was extremely powerful. The wind swept me up and sent me flying somewhere else before I was roughly caught in someone’s hand.
“Get on, quick!”
It was Ray’s voice. I changed back into my human form and sat down on the piano bench.
“Where to?”
“On top of its head.”
“I was wondering why an unusual wave of distortion kept spewing out from there, but that was the reason, huh?”
“Aretha’s voice is coming from there.”
I said as I pointed towards the Default’s brown hair.
“All right.”
Once Ray’s fingers started to dance over the keys, piano strings came out from the piano lid and secured us to the bench firmly.
“Hold on tight. This is going to be a rough ride.”
Ray resumed his performance. His fingers pressed down on the keys sternly. Black and white keys moved up and down incessantly.
The piano made a sharp turn and proceeded to drive up the side of a building. I put some strength in my legs as I made them hold on to the leg of the bench in order to endure the downward weight. Another turn followed. The Grand Piano went up the wall vertically and hopped from building to building as if it were traversing over stepping stones. Ridiculous movements that ignored the laws of gravity.
Nevertheless, the Default’s tentacles swung down at us after having accurately predicted our path. Tentacles approached the piano from 3 different directions. Ray quickly stepped on Jack’s damper pedal.
The wheels let out a loud screech as the piano came to an abrupt halt. The three tentacles overlapped one another and slammed into a single spot in front of the piano which had suddenly come to a stop after having its gears switched to reverse. The building broke in half after its midsection received a huge blow.
“Now!”
Ray took his foot off the pedal. The piano lurched forward as it accelerated once more. It treated one of the tentacles like a road as it drove up it. The top half of the building that had broken in half was falling on top of our heads, but Ray didn’t stop. The piano drove onto an adjacent tentacle and continued. When I turned around, I saw the tentacle we were just on get crushed underneath the building.
“Uah!”
The moment I looked forward again, I saw another tentacle fly towards us. It looked like it intended to brush us off like a bow sliding down the strings of a violin.
“Don’t worry.”
Ray stepped on the shift pedal. The piano drove around and under the tentacle which allowed us to avoid the other tentacle.
“We’re almost there!”
After we reached the base of the tentacle, the piano started to drive vertically once more as it went up Aretha’s face. After we passed the slope that connected her chin with her cheek, we rode up the ridge of her nose. Aretha’s large eyes turned to look at us, but we were in her blind spot. As it was outside her field of vision, it couldn’t be attacked.
Once we slipped between the pair of eyebrows that were slowly swaying under the moonlight, we arrived at a chiseled forehead. Additionally, Aretha’s hair was casting shadows over the forehead.
“This is as far as I can take you.”
Ray declared as he parked his piano at the boundary between Aretha’s forehead and her scalp.
“You aren’t chickening out after having come this far, are you?”
“I already pushed myself a lot just to come this far. Don’t say something so disheartening.”
Ray loosened his necktie and undid the 3 top buttons of his shirt. He had large bruises all over his chest and neck.
“Continuing to stay inside a field of distortion this powerful would be fatal for Mojos like me who are closely connected to the will of the world. I’ll die if I go any further than this.”
I wordlessly nodded my head and got up from the bench.
Ray opened his Catalogue and took out a lantern and a small cookie before handing them to me. It was the same cookie he had used to get rid of Rodney’s mind control alchemy back in the streets of Omaha, Jie Majie’s Fortune Cookie.
“You might need this. Don’t break it if you aren’t in a desperately dangerous situation. If it does break, then run away as far as possible.”
“All right.”
“Be careful. No one knows what may happen in there. Also⎯”
Ray hesitated for a second before he continued.
“Sorry for interrupting earlier. Make sure to have a jolly time together this time.”
Ray said jokingly. It’d be great if we really did have a jolly time.
“I’ll try my best.”
I smiled slightly before I began to push my way through the forest of reeds. I could hear Ray drive away across Aretha’s face on his piano.
“I guess I’m on my own from here on out.”
Due to a weird sense of anxiety, I instinctually opened the cylinder of my gun and counted how many bullets I had left.
There was only one bullet loaded. I should have asked Ray for some extra bullets.
I don’t know where my Mauser had gone. I didn’t use it that much compared to my Peacemaker, so it isn’t that much of a loss, but a gunslinger losing his gun is embarrassing.
One gun. One bullet.
The dark forest of hair lying before my eyes. It felt like I was entering the valley of the shadow of death by myself.
Please protect me. I gave a prayer to no clear subject and moved forward.
Ο
∗∗∗
Ο
Moonlight leaked through the small gaps between the overhead strands of hair that were covering the sky. The Default’s dense head of hair was almost like a labyrinth of enormous reeds. I had already lost the lantern near where I had entered. I closed my eyes and used the piece of my consciousness that was in the coin Aretha had on her as a guiding light to lead me to her. I tripped on some strands of hair and fell a couple of times, but I pressed forward and headed towards the direction where I felt Aretha’s presence.
Contrary to my expectations, nothing attacked me. I thought that the tentacles I saw earlier would try to get rid of me.
How far had I walked? The scenery around me was changing little by little.
The strands of hair were standing upright when I first entered the forest of hair, but they were gradually starting to tilt to the side as if there were a vortex the deeper I went in.
I could feel it. I was almost there.
I pushed my way through the strands of hair as I approached the center of the vortex.
It wasn’t long before I arrived at an empty, circular area with no hair. This was undoubtedly the hair whorl.
Additionally, at the center of the empty spot was a single, large chair.
A throne with a tall backrest made solely out of multiple arms.
Aretha Franklin was seated on that throne wearing, from top to bottom, a men’s tuxedo.
“Aretha!”
Before I knew it, I was running to her. Once I arrived in front of the throne, I was able to get a closer look at Aretha’s state. Aretha’s legs were firmly connected to the scalp of the large head. I looked at Aretha’s face.
However, Aretha didn’t look back at me. A pair of hands that were sticking out from the chair were covering her eyes.
“Answer me, Aretha. Can you hear my voice?”
Despite calling out to her, Aretha didn’t respond. Instead, 4 arms sprouted out from the chair and covered Aretha’s mouth and ears.
A clear refusal. Aretha was refusing every form of contact with me. In order to figure out why she was doing this, I thought back to Aretha’s words.
‘Wake me up, from this nightmare.’
The first words that Aretha had uttered after borrowing the mouth of the large face once she had turned into a Default.
“So this reality is a nightmare to you, huh?”
I had been sorely mistaken. Aretha wasn’t having a nightmare about becoming a part of a monster.
This cruel reality itself was a nightmare to Aretha.
What exactly happened to Aretha while I was gone to make her shut her own eyes and ears and lock herself up?
Aretha had declared.
That she had no one left. That Rodney had died.
Did Rodney’s death cause Aretha’s mind to collapse?
Even if that were the case, I couldn’t leave things like this. I had to talk to Aretha. If I give up here, then I would lose Aretha again knowing nothing and understanding nothing.
I have to peer into Aretha’s heart in order to rescue her.
“It’s me, Bill Withers.”
She was blocking her ears, so it was impossible for her to hear my voice. Nevertheless, I had to let her know who was talking to her.
Are there any other options?
I noticed Aretha’s hands quietly lying on top of each other above her lap. I could feel the coin I had tossed to her when she was disguised as a beggar inside her pocket.
I recalled the moment when Aretha transformed into Gray. Aretha held my hand tightly as she was being consumed by Gray.
After running away from a nightmare, Aretha wound up getting trapped inside another nightmare. How am I supposed to wake her up? If the reality she wakes up to after being released from her nightmare is no different from a nightmare as well, then would waking her up truly be the right choice?
I opened Aretha’s closed hands and placed my hands on top of them.
As I thought, contemplating about things doesn’t suit me.
I turned my hands into bills, coins, and then finally back into human, blood-pumping hands. Something which only I can do. Through the sense of touch, I made Aretha know that the person holding her hand was Bill Withers. I pleaded to Aretha that the sensation wrapped around her cold hands clearly existed.
This was a trust-building exercise. The act of trusting someone was a hard thing to accomplish. The process of gradually building up trust. A sense of pressure was weighing down on me, but I didn’t hurry.
I didn’t try to force her. I couldn’t force anything onto her. I suppressed the anxiety in my heart and patiently held on to both of Aretha’s hands in order to transfer my warmth to her.
“It’s time to wake up.”
The hands covering Aretha’s ears returned to the chair’s backrest. Aretha’s heart had opened slightly.
Everything that happens from here on out is crucial. All she has done is open her ears to the outside world.
As this was the case, what should I talk about first? What should I do to get closer to this young lady? I thought back to the night in Oz’s place where I drank alcohol with Aretha.
⎯For starters, how about we start with introductions again? Who knows? Maybe if we become acquainted enough to refer to one another by name, then you’ll listen to my request.⎯
The memory of Aretha laying on the sofa next to the fireplace throwing a childish fit while speaking in a tired tone popped up in my mind.
“For starters, how about we start with introductions again?”
I repeated the exact words Aretha had said to me that night with a grin on her face.
I’m going to approach her first this time.
⎯Then I’ll start first.⎯
Aretha’s voice resonated in my head. I continued using Aretha’s words as a guideline.
“Then I’ll start first.”
A warm sensation filled the bottom of my eyes, but I suppressed it and smiled.
⎯You know already, but my name is Aretha Franklin.⎯
The pivotal point of one’s delivery is your tone, pace, and enunciation.
“You know already, but my name is Bill Withers.”
In a calm tone. At an appropriate pace that wasn’t so slow that it sounded like I was treating the opposition like an idiot or so fast that I couldn’t be understood. My tongue felt like it would go numb trying to prevent myself from crying, so I desperately moved my tongue around in order to spit out each and every word naturally and clearly.
⎯My occupation is a Sioux Native American District handicraft merchant. I’m 20 years old and I’m currently traveling east in order to fulfill the inheritance condition that was written on the damn will.⎯
It’s your turn. The Aretha in my memory smiled at me brightly.
Yeah. It’s my turn now. It’s my turn to open your heart.
I grit my teeth. I put my heart and soul into each and every consonant and vowel as I pleaded to Aretha’s ears.
“My occupation is a bounty hunter-cum-Aretha Franklin’s bodyguard. I’m 22 years old and I’m currently⎯”
I broke down. Warm droplets of water dripped down on the backs of Aretha’s hands.
“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”
No, this isn’t what I wanted to do. This isn’t what I wanted to say.
I rifled through my head in order to find the words that would accurately express my feelings. I didn’t require that much time to find the right words.
I stood up and grabbed Aretha’s hands as I spoke.
“I came here to keep my promise. Once I get you out of here, we’re going to go to another festival.”
Words that weren’t an imitation of what Aretha had said and had sprung out from my own heart instead.
I almost bit my tongue by mistake, but I managed to say everything without tripping over myself. I felt my face heat up. What do I do if Aretha shuts her ears again? I was even struck by this worry.
Despite my anxiety, I saw tears seep out from between the fingers of the hands that were covering Aretha’s eyes.
It almost felt like a lie when even the hands blocking her mouth drew back.
“No.”
The next moment, a long arm extended out from the chair and started to strangle me. Its grip was much stronger than the time Aretha grabbed me back at Rodney’s estate. I felt a certain desperation in the hand that was choking me.
“Everyone is trying to kill me. Even the few precious people still left by my side will become unhappy. I don’t have the confidence to continue living in this nightmare.”
Her voice sounded hazy. Those words came from the boundary between dream and reality, from Aretha’s heart.
I realized that the name of the nightmare she was having was despair. The optimistic girl who had never fallen to despair before knelt before it for the first time ever in her life.
“I’m afraid of everything that has happened to me and the fate which I will continue to encounter. I’d rather sit here in silence than face that future.”
Aretha’s heavily sunken voice came out as a whisper.
“Don’t say words that don’t suit you. Aretha Franklin isn’t that kind of girl.”
“You don’t know anything.”
“No, I know you very well.”
I retorted sternly.
“Because I’m also afraid.”
I continued.
“I also know that the fear you’re harboring is much larger than what I can possibly imagine.”
The hand choking me trembled as if it were wavering. More arms stretched out from the chair and grabbed my limbs.
“The despair that you and I have to respectively face is so large and overwhelming that we can’t endure and overcome them.”
I acknowledged this fact meekly. Even after today, we’ll most likely continue to live within the nightmare of alchemy. In my dreams, my body will continue to collapse into a pile of bills and Aretha will lose her brother over and over again in her own dreams. Furthermore, every time she wakes up from her sleep, she’ll come to realize that it wasn’t a simple nightmare and that it was something that had actually happened. Additionally, she’ll have to start her day knowing that something worse than what happened in her nightmare could potentially happen at any moment.
I doubt that Aretha and I would be capable of enduring such days for the rest of our lives. Regardless⎯
“Regardless, you taught me a way to overcome my despair. You’re the one who rescued me.”
The hand around my neck strengthened its grip. How could this thin arm muster this much strength?
“······.”
It seems she doesn’t remember. Well, it’d be more accurate to say that I arbitrarily tried to make her remember, so it can’t be helped.
“I decided to accept the despair.”
My breathing was becoming faster. Blood no longer circulated properly in my head and my breathing became shallow. I desperately held on to my consciousness and squeezed out my words as clearly as I could for Aretha to hear.
“I’ll die if I can’t pay back my debt in half a year, but it doesn’t matter. Be it the will, money, or anything else, I don’t need any of them. I don’t care if I fail to pay back my debt and turn into money.”
Accepting the despair, that was my decision. Instead of struggling to avoid it, I intend to take it all in as is. It was a complete contrast to Aretha’s decision to run away from the worst curse in the world known as Flasko.
“If I’m at your side, then something like despair stops mattering. I don’t give a damn about money or survival. Everything turns into small problems that aren’t worth contemplating.”
She had burned away the old sense of values that had been binding me. She made me realize what was truly valuable. She had rescued me from despair.
“That’s why I want to be by your side.”
It felt like I was pulling my heart out. I was sincerely confessing everything to myself and Aretha with words that didn’t suit me. How ironic.
“Every moment with you is precious.”
I hoped that her thought process wasn’t the same as mine. Her despair was different from mine, after all. Nevertheless, if we face the fears, which we used to deal with on our own, together, then wouldn’t it be less scary?
“This time, I’m going to save you.”
I finished saying everything I wanted to say. I released my grip on the string that was holding on to my consciousness.
“······.”
No words came out of Aretha’s open and trembling mouth. Tears started to stream down from her face once enough teardrops had pooled at the bottom of the hands that were covering her eyes.
“Sorry.”
Within my gradually fading vision, I saw Aretha’s lips move slightly with my own two eyes.
“It’s fine as long as you know, idiot···.”
I responded with a smile.
The next moment, right when I was about to fall into a deep slumber, an intense pain washed over me.
“Guah···.”
3 pairs of arms pierced through my stomach. Blood gushed up my throat and flowed out of my mouth.
This girl has some strong hands. A strong taste of iron choked me.
“I··· want to stay confined like this.”
How terrified was she? The sob in Aretha’s voice fanned the flame underneath my heart.
“Don’t lie. No one in the world would want to stay in a place like this forever!”
Blood came out of my throat together with my voice. It felt like someone was carving out my throat. I felt like my tongue would fall off.
“Countless people have died because of this power. I still hear the screams of the people who have been swallowed inside of me. They all resent me. I can’t run away from here. Hundreds of hands are holding me down.”
“This isn’t your fault.”
“Stop! I don’t want to hear it!”
The arms that had penetrated my stomach churned my insides. The pain had caused my concentration to disperse, so I couldn’t activate my Liquidation. Blood continued to flow out. A fatal injury that couldn’t be reverted. I’m dying.
“If I wake up, then the same thing will happen over and over again. I’d rather⎯”
“Quit it.”
Even though my stomach had been penetrated, I reached my arms out and grabbed Aretha’s shoulders.
A thought went through my head. Who could possibly embrace this girl who had embraced her own anguish?
That’s right⎯
, I’m the only one here.
“How long do you plan to whine uncharacteristically for?”
I pulled Aretha into an embrace just like that.
The arms that were reaching out from the chair and piercing through my stomach went further through me until they were elbow-deep. I felt the entrails that were caught on the three pairs of arms fall out of the hole which the arms had created. It hurt like crazy, but compared to the loneliness and fear Aretha was feeling, this was bearable.
“At the very least, I’ll continue to stay by your side. I promise you that.”
Aretha’s body stiffened as her face was buried in my blood-soaked chest. The word ‘promise’ which I had uttered myself. I bound myself with my own words. The scar on my left arm became scolding hot.
“So hurry and wake up.”
I lifted my dreamcatcher necklace off from my neck and put it around Aretha’s. If you really have the power to catch nightmares, then save Aretha, not me. I begged.
“I···.”
Aretha’s lips quivered slightly. I don’t know why, but looking at those lips gave me a craving for marshmallows.
I wrapped my arms around the back of Aretha’s neck and pulled her into a hug.
“I···.”
I quietly held Aretha’s face against my chest as her eyes remained closed. Due to my own self-control, that was both the least and most sincerity I could manage to express.
There was a long silence as if both time and the wind itself had stopped.
After a long moment of stillness, the sound of sobbing broke through Aretha’s firmly shut lips.
“Good morning.”
This was either an incredibly late or incredibly early morning greeting.
The two hands that were covering Aretha’s eyes returned to the chair. Both the hand that was choking me and the arms that were penetrating my stomach retreated back to the chair as well.
“···Idiot.”
Aretha’s voice was shaking. Tears had formed in her clear, pink eyes.
“Did you sleep well?”
I smiled towards Aretha who had just now woken up.
Soon after, a direct blow landed on my cheek. I spat out some blood. If pain was measured on a scale from 1 to 10, then this was around a 7.
This girl has a strong hand. How many times have I repeated this phrase today?
“Don’t hug me all of a sudden. You surprised me.”
Aretha uttered in a sulky voice. It was the usual Aretha. I chuckled.
“I’ll make sure to tell you beforehand next time.”
And then, my cheek received another blow. This time it was by the back of her hand.
“How could you push yourself forward this much?! Your insides are coming out! Are you trying to kill yourself!?”
“Haha···. I don’t know if you know what shock therapy is.”
“Hurting yourself like this··· like an idiot···.”
She had burst into sobs, so she couldn’t finish her sentences.
“···You’re the one who did this.”
My guts squirmed and spilled out from my stomach and drenched Aretha’s tuxedo in blood. Squish, squish. They made an absurd sound. I nonchalantly shoved my intestines back inside of my stomach and healed my injury through Liquidation.
That was quite the timing.
Without having to plan anything beforehand, we simultaneously burst into laughter after a three-second silence. We laughed for a while, tears flowing from our eyes.
“Hey.”
After laughing and crying for a long moment, Aretha wiped her tears away and spoke.
“Rodney, died trying to protect me.”
“···I see.”
I don’t know what had happened, but I simply took in Aretha’s words without asking any questions.
“Still, I should keep living, right?”
In response to Aretha’s question, I nodded.
“Yeah. That’s the only thing which the people who have survived can do.”
People who have survived. A faint smile drifted over Aretha’s lips as she repeated those words.
We have to shoulder the shadows of the people who have died and keep on living. That was one of the few ways that still remained in this era to pay tribute to the dead. To not forget them and continue walking forward. That’s all Aretha and I can do.
“Hand.”
Aretha grabbed on to my hand tightly after I held it out.
“It’s coarse like a field of rocks, rough like sandpaper, and it feels like my hand will be ground to dust if I hold on to yours.”
“······Thank you for the needlessly elaborate review.”
An exchange which we already had once before. Aah, it’s the normal Aretha.
“But··· it’s warm.”
Aretha carefully caressed my hand as she spoke.
It’s warm. Aretha’s voice echoed in my ears several times.
This, is quite a fresh feeling.
The night breeze which contained the dust of the city, which had turned to ash, brushed past my cheek. ‘I’m also hot, but you’re no less hot than I am,’ Omaha’s gust of wind whispered.
“That’s strange. No matter how you think about it, I should be really cold right now due to the excessive blood loss. I don’t think it’d be a bad idea to visit a hospital once we get out of here and test to see whether my skin has lost its sensitivity or not.”
In the end, I didn’t know how to react, so I wound up ruining the mood by saying something stupid on impulse. Excessive blood loss and skin sensitivity? I wanted to put my last bullet in my own head.
“···You’re the worst.”
After uttering those words with a disappointed look on her face, Aretha avoided my gaze. I have no other choice but to accept the fact that out of every response I’ve made today, that was the stupidest.
I smiled servilely out of embarrassment. Please understand. I’m only a simpleton, after all.
“···Let’s get out of here first. Ray should be waiting for us.”
In any case, Aretha woke up from her nightmare. Now all I had to do was get her out of here. I wanted to talk to her more, but there isn’t a lot of time, so I’ll push that aside for later.
“No.”
However, I received an unexpected answer. I doubted my own ears for a second.
“What?”
“No. I don’t think I can leave this place.”
Aretha lowered her gaze.
From her hips all the way down to her toes, the majority of Aretha’s lower body was attached to the chair. I had forgotten an important issue. The fact that the chair and the Default were all a part of Aretha.
“I can’t get up from this chair.”
Aretha said with a smile. I couldn’t bear to look at those eyes, so I lowered my head.
“Why···. It’s all over now···.”
I bit my lower lip and gradually started to taste iron. Do we have to give up like this?
“Thank you, Bill. You kept your promise.”
Aretha’s voice was bright; however, I noticed that it was also trembling.
“If it weren’t for you, then I would still be trapped inside that nightmare. Thanks for waking me up again.”
I couldn’t give Aretha a response. I had no right to receive such words. I’m the one who failed to protect her twice. I wanted to save her this time.
“I won’t forget you. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget you.”
Aretha told me.
“Don’t lie. I know that you’re afraid. Stop saying insincere words when I know very well that you’re unbearably afraid of being alone.”
“Yeah. I’m scared. But even if you leave now, there will still be a good memory left here, right?”
Aretha smiled at me more brightly than ever before. Whether that smile was genuine or she was forcing herself to smile like that, I couldn’t tell. It might have been both.
“I realized something after meeting Rodney. Being able to remember a time where you were once loved is the greatest blessing in the world.”
You’re right. That’s a fact.
I wound up being made to understand. However, at the same time, I didn’t stop trying to find a way to save Aretha as well.
Is there something I can do? Isn’t there anything I can do?
I recalled the faces of the citizens of Omaha that were inside the tentacle that had been sliced up by piano strings. As the Default had lost its pivot known as Gray, it had transformed into a cluster of multiple lifeforms.
All of the citizens of Omaha that the cluster consisted of were alive. I saw the faces inside the severed tentacle blink. They were finally able to obtain peace once they were sliced by Ray’s piano strings and put to death.
They obtained peace only after death.
Death.
That’s right, if it’s death, then.
“No. Don’t end it with just a memory. I’m going to get you out of here.”
My peacemaker which had been with me through the joys and sorrows of my life for a long time. I popped open the cylinder and gazed at the single bullet inside of it.
How contrived.
If fate truly exists, then it must have left this bullet here for this very situation.
“What? Are you going to show me the magic trick where a bullet disappears?”
Or am I going to disappear? Aretha asked with an innocent look on her face.
“Something like that.”
I nodded.
“If you die once, then I should be able to tear you out of there like the other corpses.”
The Default is currently in an unstable state. Its severed tentacles don’t reconnect and, although the people inside the tentacles became a single clump because the effects of Gray’s alchemy had disappeared, they were all living inside the Default with their own respective faces.
This means that if Aretha dies once, she should be able to escape from this throne. If I leave here with Aretha’s corpse and wait for her revival, then everything might end amicably.
“That sounds like it’d be worth a shot.”
Without any sign of unrest, Aretha remarked with a smile.
“Don’t answer so nonchalantly. It’s scary. Is that something a person who’s going to die should be saying?
“Hurry up and shoot me. No matter how I think about it, getting out of here using your plan is a hundred times better than staying here attached to this chair.”
I nodded my head, but the hand that was holding the revolver was hesitating. Another possibility had popped up in my head and it was asserting a strong pressure over my hand.
‘Remember, Miss Franklin. No one knows how many chances you have left.’
Oz’s words made me waver. There’s no way to know how many deaths will erase Aretha’s existence completely.
“Bill, hurry up.”
Or am I going to disappear?
She said that jokingly, but Aretha had already considered the possibility of her complete disappearance.
There’s no way that I could pull the trigger with a light heart.
“Wait, there’s something I want to say.”
Aretha looked into my eyes in surprise. I averted my gaze so that she couldn’t see that I was scared.
“What happens if your entire being disappears because of me killing you? What happens if this is your last chance? If it really is, then the Equalizer will be useless. You’ll lose your existence and be alone forever.”
An unpleasant stillness fell over us. With our heads lowered, the silence continued.
If Aretha can no longer return because I had killed her, then I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself.
“It’s okay.”
Aretha was the one to break the silence.
“I told you, didn’t I? The memory of being loved is the biggest blessing a person can have. I’m confident that I can live through eternity by myself with just this memory alone.”
Aretha wrapped her hands around my hand that was holding a pistol.
“If my existence disappears and I’m severed from the world, I most likely won’t be able to have another day like today. But being able to live while remembering this day should be enough, right?”
Was she being considerate by not showing her weak side to me? Or has she truly resolved herself? I shook my head strongly. Nothing will change even if I stayed still like this.
“There’s something I want to tell you.”
“Save it. I’ll hear you out later.”
“But⎯”
Aretha was smiling. I couldn’t finish my sentence.
Slowly, Aretha raised my hand. It was as if she were telling me to not bear the weight pushing down on my hand by myself.
“I won’t forget. I won’t be able to forget.”
I thought to myself. It would have been great if something like alchemy didn’t exist. It would have been great if the power to deceive providence didn’t exist.
“Thank you.”
Tears soaked Aretha’s smile.
“It won’t hurt.”
After gradually lifting my hand up, the muzzle of the gun was now aimed at the center of her forehead.
“Actually, I’m a little scared.”
I asked myself. Is what I’m doing the right thing to do? If I leave her like this, then wouldn’t I be able to see her for a little longer?
However, I soon realized that that was just my own selfishness.
“Then, I’ll be in your care.”
Aretha closed her eyes.
I couldn’t look at Aretha. I turned my head and used my other hand to stop my hand that was holding the gun from shaking.
People are the ones who start stories, but bullets are what always bring them to an end. As this was the norm in the West, this is how things will always be.
However, the one thing I eagerly want is for a single miracle to happen. I prayed.
I plead.
I prayed with all my heart.
I plead.
I prayed with all I had.
My thumb pulled the hammer.
My index finger rested on the trigger.
The girl’s warm breath tickled my hand and I forced myself to smile.
I plead earnestly.
I plead that what she saw in the muzzle was love.
“See you later.”
Tears had formed within Aretha’s closed eyelids as she smiled radiantly. I engraved that smile in my heart.
“Yeah!”
Aretha responded. I closed my eyes.
Ο
∗∗∗
Ο
The futility inside the barrel went towards the girl.
The smiling girl and the guy closing his eyes.
The moment of silence which felt like an eternity was torn apart by a gunshot.
Ο
∗∗∗
Ο
In an instant, the scenery around me began to change.
Aretha’s corpse was separated from the chair. The tuxedo that had been wrapped around the girl’s body melted away and revealed her original outfit.
After watching the arms that were making up the throne disappear into the scalp under my feet, I began to run while carrying Aretha’s corpse.
The strands of hair, that felt like a large forest of reeds, dissolved instantaneously and opened up my once limited field of vision. The soft skin underneath my feet turned into a darkish type of flesh and began to spurt out blood. The Default that had turned into Aretha’s face was returning back to its original form as a bizarre blob of flesh.
Thousands of hands pierced through the flesh under my feet. They were all clamoring to grab my feet.
If there were a Hell, then would it look like this? The faces of the residents of Omaha who had become a single clump penetrated through the skin. People who were screaming endlessly after having lost their rationality. They looked too pathetic to be called alive.
“Sorry, everyone. I’ll let you all rest soon.”
I pulled out Jie Majie’s Fortune Cookie which I had been holding carefully in my pocket before breaking off one of its corners. A long, white piece of paper with a line of incomprehensible words on it started to pour out from the broken end of the cookie at an alarming force.
I tossed the fortune cookie behind me. The long piece of paper crammed with words shot out from the cookie infinitely and started to cover both the body of the collapsing Default and me.
“Hurry, Bill!”
Ray was coming towards me from a distance on his piano. Ray approached me with the piano lid open.
With Aretha in my arms, I dived into the open lid. The inside of the piano was a lot larger than how it appeared on the outside as it was created with alchemy in order to contain its immense amount of piano strings.
The piano made a sharp turn the instant Aretha and I got in it. We fled from the wave of paper that was spilling out from the fortune cookie.
“We’re falling!!”
Through the gap under the lid, I saw the field of flesh come to an end as the piano leaped into the air. A fierce gust of wind slipped under the piano lid, which couldn’t possibly shut completely, and washed over me.
I held Aretha in one arm while I turned my other hand into coins and held on to the piano strings.
Our descent then followed. A floating sensation encompassed my body. I held on to Aretha’s body more tightly in order to not let her go.
I could see the Default covered in a band of paper from the gap underneath the piano lid. The strand of paper coming out from Jie Majie’s Fortune Cookie was constricting the Default’s body with an incredible force.
We free fell for a couple of seconds. The Default’s body wrapped in a band of paper gradually shrunk in size before it eventually emitted a loud sound and disappeared. It felt like it had been sucked inside of a small hole in midair.
“Hold on tight!”
And then the moment of impact. Similar to the time back in the train, I embraced Aretha’s body firmly.
“Neighboring Marshmallow! Extra-large size!”
Our descent stopped after Ray exclaimed those words.
The impact I was expecting never occurred. The piano simply shook a little. All I could see between the gap was the color white.
Ray’s marshmallow which had inflated to the size of a building had comfortably caught the piano like a large mattress.
We survived once again. I’ve experienced multiple life or death situations as a bounty hunter; however, it was my first time going through a day as horrible as this.
Right when I was about to confirm Aretha’s safety, I realized that the weight in my arm had disappeared.
Don’t tell me.
I felt my breath get caught in my throat. Aretha had evaporated during that brief descent.
“We meet again, huh?”
No. She was here. My despair was subdued as I heard Aretha’s voice next to me. She had only left my arms for a short moment.
“I wanted to see you.”
I opened the lid of the piano as I responded. I wanted to confirm that Aretha was all right.
However, I soon realized that it was too soon to be relieved the instant I saw Aretha under the moonlight.
“Ray! The Equalizer!”
Aretha was slowly becoming transparent. Her being was leaking out from the crack that was created through death. Her brown hair, pink eyes, and healthy skin color were all losing their tones.
I pulled Aretha into my arms, hopped out of the piano, and placed her down on top of the marshmallow.
While I was feeling Aretha’s disappearing face in order to find her mouth, Ray opened the cap of an Equalizer. I poured the first bottle in Aretha’s mouth, but nothing happened.
Ray hurriedly handed the second bottle to me without even opening the cap. I poured another Equalizer into Aretha’s mouth.
“Bill···.”
Aretha spoke to me with her gradually fading voice. I fell into a panic and barely managed to understand a few of her words.
“I won’t let you disappear like this.”
That damn swindler, these don’t work at all. I spat a bunch of curses at Oz.
The third bottle, I began to pour the medicine. Aretha, who had become invisible, coughed out the medicine. I patted her back and wiped away the medicine that had splashed on to my face.
“No!”
The sensation I felt on my palm as I held Aretha’s head up was gradually disappearing until I eventually felt nothing.
The Equalizer flowing out of the tilted bottle spilled between my fingers to no purpose.
I could no longer feel Aretha’s form or weight.
“Thanks.”
Aretha’s voice was the last thing I felt or heard.
“Don’t disappear!”
That was it. Aretha disappeared and was gone.
I couldn’t feel, hear, or see her anymore.
“Please···.”
My wish wasn’t realized. Aretha’s existence itself had disappeared. The chance that Oz mentioned was already gone.
“Aretha···.”
How many times did that make this? Even though I didn’t want to lose her again. The tears that I had been enduring pushed their way out from between my eyelids. I thought I had passed every single crisis. In the end, the prearranged curse known as Flasko had dragged me down.
It would have been great if the will of the world and alchemy never existed.
If they never did, then we would have been led to a different conclusion.
I pictured Aretha’s appearance. I clutched on to the string of the last memory I had of her.
Despite my efforts, even that image started to fade away. Aretha’s hair, her sharp eyes, spunky forehead, and her idiotic smile.
I couldn’t remember anything beyond these things.
Her name. Her name.
“I’m going to get some fresh air for a second.”
With a gloomy look on his face, Ray hopped down from the marshmallow.
After becoming truly alone, I fell over on top of the marshmallow.
I couldn’t remember anything. I couldn’t bear how cold my two hands had become. It felt as if the blood circulating throughout my body had stopped.
As I was beginning to lose my memory of her, I was saddened by the fact that I couldn’t even remember what I had lost.
“Stop sobbing. It doesn’t suit you.”
However, my heart started to fluctuate once more the instant I heard a voice come from behind my back. A pair of warm arms wrapped around my waist. I placed my hand on top of those arms. She definitely existed here.
I found something which I had lost.
Her name, that’s right, it’s⎯
“I’ve been waiting for you.”
Aretha was back.
“If you have something to say, then I’ll hear you out.”
I quietly shut my eyes, and felt her warmth.
“Next time. I’ll tell you next time.”
A tingling sensation traveled through my veins. My wish was granted.
“It’s a promise.”
I nodded.
The heat caused by the contract branding mixed together with the temperature of Aretha’s body and let me know that Aretha and I were both completely alive and well.
“All right, it’s a promise.”
I held Aretha’s hand firmly as it slowly regained its color as if I were declaring that I would never lose her again.
The words sounded like the death throes of a life that was dying. Crows were startled by the pain-filled cry and flew into Omaha’s sky.
An unexpected change started to occur in the Default’s body after its mass had swelled up to a size that was several times larger than city hall.
The flesh of the Default’s body condensed until it eventually turned into the shape of an egg that was standing up straight.
Two horizontal tears appeared around the middle of the massive, Scotch egg-like blob of flesh. The tears opened widely like a pair of mouths, revealing two white spheres.
The tears opened and closed a couple of times before a certain color started to appear in the centers of the two spheres.
A perfect, pink circle in each sphere. There was a concentric circle with a darker shade in the center of each pink circle.
It wasn’t until the tears closed slightly and fine eyelashes started to grow on the edges of the tears that I realized they were actually eyes.
A mouth was the next thing to appear. A long, horizontal tear appeared on the bottom portion of the egg and the areas that could be considered the lips became nice and full. Teeth began to grow out from what I assumed were its gums along with a tongue.
That wasn’t the end. Following its eyes and mouth, a nose, a pair of ears, and some brown hair sprouted out. Skin began to cover its surface of exposed muscles and fat. Its form began to shift as protruding cheekbones appeared.
Under the moonlight, the gigantic head stayed perfectly still with no emotions on its face. The face was so beautiful that it was hard to believe that it had eaten a majority of Omaha’s population.
I immediately recognized the face.
A forehead that gives off a strong, assertive impression, and eyes that were fresh and overflowing with intelligence.
A massive version of Aretha’s face appeared on the streets of the Omaha which was now a hellscape.
“Aretha’s back.”
Aretha had come back to life.
Aretha is alive.
“I was wondering where she had gone, but she came back as a face on a large boulder.”
“I didn’t know she liked Nathaniel Hawthorne.”
“We can continue our journey since Aretha is back.”
“Mm, even if she receives the inheritance, I feel like, at that size, her food expenses would outweigh the inheritance. We should just find a replacement.”
Ray and I let out a small laugh as if we had gone mad.
“Wake me up, from this nightmare.”
The large mouth let out a voice. I could feel the strong vibration of the air from even over here.
“As I thought, how about we run away? If you want, I can ask my master to release you from your contract with Aretha. Aretha has turned into that thing, so I think it would be better for us to slowly gather the wills after we find another half Native American.”
Ray asked me again. It was a tempting offer.
Money or Aretha, which one should I choose? Would it unquestionably be my long-term friend, money?
I shook my head.
I could answer this question now. For the first time ever in my life, I got rid of the scale in my heart.
“No.”
It didn’t matter whether I had something like money or not. That’s not what I wanted, what I needed.
“······Haah, why did I become friends with an idiot like you?”
Ray let out an exasperated sigh.
A line of blood flowed down from each of the gigantic Aretha’s eyes, and yet, she was still beautiful.
“Your problem is that you suck at managing your facial expressions, Bill. It’s obvious what’s on your mind when you have such a tragic look on your face.”
“I think you should learn how to be considerate.”
Ray started to laugh; however, I had already started to laugh long before Ray did.
“It seems Gray’s life and existence disappeared once the Baton of the One and Only God exploded and Aretha took his place. This has become more troublesome than before.”
“Who cares? She’s alive now.”
“I thought we would have to defeat the monster and rescue the princess.”
“But the princess became the monster.”
Ray put his hand on his forehead and chuckled.
“How did things end up like this?”
This despair was much larger than the smaller despairs I would always shoulder; however, I was still capable of smiling. Our situation hasn’t improved one bit, but there was a glimmer of hope now.
“It seems I’m going to have to somehow persuade the princess to come back.”
Once I uttered those words, Ray gave me a dumbfounded look.
“What’s your plan?”
“I said I’m going to persuade her, so through a dialogue.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“Maybe. For starters⎯”
I didn’t have something like a plan. Regardless, I had to go. Aretha is waiting for me, after all.
The wheels that were supporting the Grand Piano started to kick up dirt as they began to spin fiercely.
“Let’s see how tall the fig tree grows.”
Once I made that comment, Ray let out a sigh and placed his hands on Jack’s keys. The Grand Piano let out a roar as it began to move.
Aretha’s bizarre head that had nothing below its neck used the numerous tentacles that were sticking out of the bottom of the head to reposition itself and look down at us.
“Gyaaaaa!”
Once Aretha’s head let out a scream, an incredibly powerful blast of wind swept over me and Ray. I don’t know how she’s able to make any vocal noises when she only has a head, but a large amount of blood came out of her mouth as she screamed and flew towards us.
“Pull yourself together, Bill!”
“Sorry!”
Right, this isn’t the time to be thinking about pointless things.
Once again, I created a wall of blank checks and protected Ray, who had lowered his posture as much as he could, from the alchemy-filled blood.
“Just as I expected. I don’t feel Gray’s distortion anymore.”
Several beams of light were shooting out from Ray’s glass eyes.
“I see···. I understand now!”
The piano continued to push forward despite the wind pressure. Ray’s hands danced over the keys more fiercely.
“The alchemy lost its control after Bryshere Gray ceased to exist. All Aretha has done is replace him as the pivot, the alchemy itself has already lost its effect. Right now, that Default is nothing more than a large monster that has haphazardly combined the citizens of Omaha and Aretha together. In other words, it doesn’t matter if I come in contact with that Default now!”
At that moment, a massive shadow cast over us.
“Turn!”
“I know!”
Ray’s fingers glided up the scale whimsically. The piano proceeded to ignore gravity as it started to drive vertically on the side of a building with a tax office signboard on it.
The next moment, one of the white tentacles sprouting out from the bottom of Aretha’s head slammed against the spot where Ray and I were just at. Each of its tentacles was as thick as a train. It’d be the end of us if those things even grazed our bodies.
“Watch out! Another one is coming!”
A tentacle rose up high into the air before it came down on us vertically like a beating stick. It swung down so powerfully that it felt like it intended to take the building down with us.
“Hit the road!”
Ray slammed both of his hands down on the keys. The piano lid opened as a bunch of thick piano strings burst out and split up to create a fine steel net. The tentacle was unable to rip through the net and wound up getting sliced into tiny pieces. I wonder if it was because he no longer had a reason to be afraid of the Default’s blood. There wasn’t even a single sign of hesitation on Ray’s face as he sliced through the tentacle with piano strings.
“Guaagh!”
A screech that was so horrendous that I couldn’t believe Aretha’s voice was the source of it came out of the huge Aretha’s mouth.
Regardless, my gaze was focused on something else. For a brief moment, I made eye contact with the countless faces that were inside the pieces of the chopped-up tentacle. They weren’t the faces of Gray or Aretha, but the normal faces of the people of Omaha. Pain-filled faces. They were alive.
Once I thought about how countless people were being tormented as a single clump within the Default’s body even after the disappearance of Gray’s existence, a chill went down my spine. Wouldn’t death be salvation for them?
“I can’t get any closer. There are too many of those octopus legs.”
Ray lamented.
“We have no other choice but to cut through them one at a time.”
Fortunately, the severed legs did not regenerate. You could understand why just by looking at Aretha. She may be a Flasko, but she won’t regenerate unless she dies. The tentacles were connected to Aretha’s head; therefore, they won’t regenerate unless the main body dies.
⎯Wake me up⎯
It was at that moment, a voice flowed into my head. Despite the loud roar echoing between the buildings, I could hear Aretha’s voice as clear as day.
“Shit!”
Regardless, I didn’t have the leisure to figure out where the voice was coming from. The Aretha-turned-Default’s attack continued. This time, multiple tentacles came down on the piano that had stopped for a second on a building’s rooftop.
“At this rate, we’ll never find a way to deal with this and end up dying in vain!”
Ray let out a desperate cry as he pressed his fingers down on the keys. The piano strings extended and grabbed on to a water tank that was located on the roof of a building adjacent to ours. The Grand Piano went at full speed as it drove off the rooftop. Ignoring the laws of gravity, the piano drew an arc as it flew in the air before it crashed into and destroyed the wall and pillars of a high-rise building, putting us inside an office filled with typewriters.
⎯I have no one left⎯
I heard Aretha’s voice once again. I wasn’t hearing things. I searched through my memories as I tried to remember what this familiar sensation was.
“Aah.”
I found it. It was the same phenomenon I had experienced back when I got on the train while chasing after Aretha. Even though my head had turned into gold coins and was scattered everywhere, I could still hear things clearly.
This was the same type of sound I’d hear when listening through one of my coins or bills. But when did Aretha get her hands on my money?
“Oh, so it was that.”
I recalled the single coin I had tossed to a beggar back in Sacramento. That beggar was actually Aretha in disguise. If she had kept that coin on her since that time, then everything made sense.
If that’s the case, then Gray had disappeared and Aretha had returned.
Doesn’t this mean that Aretha exists as a separate being within the Default’s body where countless people’s bodies are clumped together?
“Ray. Is that monster really Aretha?”
Contrary to the Grand Piano, Jack, which was unimpaired despite having received a huge blow, Ray looked rather exhausted. It must be because he had used the immense power of the Baton of the One and Only God and was continuing to maneuver Jack after having done so.
“Of course. Why exactly are you asking such a stupid question in a situation like this?”
“Because no matter how I look at that thing, that doesn’t seem like the Aretha I know. It definitely looks like her, but I get this feeling that the real Aretha is hiding somewhere that can’t be seen and is shaking in fear.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
Ray knit his brows. I also knew that this sounded crazy. That my words sounded like some foolish hope.
“Please. Trust me. It’s fine if it’s for only a short moment, but I need you to buy some time for me so that I can concentrate. I think I’ve discovered a way to rescue Aretha.”
Ray shook his head.
“You’ve finally gone mad.”
Ray rudely shoved me off the bench. I tumbled down on the floor before I got up and glared at Ray.
“···I’ve made a lot of money in the past 200 years⎯”
Ray pushed his tinted glasses up.
“, but this is my first time buying time.”
He was grinning. A smile spread across my lips as well once I saw his grin. For a brief moment, the two of us chuckled madly.
“I’m going to be doing something that I’ve never done before just for your sake, so I plan to receive a generous payment from you afterward.”
Ray stopped laughing and adjusted his suit.
“I’ll settle the expenses at the end of the month.”
I feel bad for doing this all the time. I couldn’t help but let an abject smile appear on my lips. Ray put his hand on his forehead in an exaggerated manner.
“Haa···. It’s troubling if you try to resolve this on credit as well, Bill···.”
“Sorry for making such an unreasonable request.”
“August 31st.”
As I thought, was handling this on credit pushing it too far? Ray spoke in a flat tone the instant I thought that. For a moment, I looked up at Ray’s face blankly, unable to understand what that date was supposed to mean.
“August 31st.”
“What?”
Ray took off his coat, sat down on the piano bench, and rolled up his sleeves.
“Today is the end of the month, you idiot.”
With a grin, Ray slammed his hands down on the keys. Fortissimo. The piano charged towards the collapsed wall.
Ο
∗∗∗
Ο
⎯There’s no one⎯
I closed my eyes and concentrated on the voice that was ringing in my head.
Aretha is waiting. She’s waiting for someone to come and wake her up from her nightmare. I can hear her fear. I can hear her loneliness.
⎯Even Rodney is dead⎯
I sent my consciousness out to scour Omaha’s night sky in search of the single gold coin that was allowing me to hear her voice.
⎯I have no one left⎯
I pulled out the mysterious power that moved my bills and coins like a very fine line of thread and extended it towards the source of the voice.
⎯This can’t be reality. I won’t accept it⎯
The golden thread swayed as it went forward. Everything around it was pitch black. A mental world where even the moonlight couldn’t invade. A golden star that I could faintly see in the distance was beckoning my consciousness, which had turned into a thread, towards it.
I found it.
⎯Get me out⎯
The short message turned into a faint ripple of light and made contact with me. I extended my thread of consciousness more strongly towards it as if I were acceding to it. The golden thread wrapped around the source of the light as if it were binding it. The gold coin that Aretha had taken had connected with my mind once more.
“I’ve reached it.”
The next moment, my consciousness returned to the starting point. I knew for certain where Aretha was now.
⎯Take me out of here⎯
Wait a second, I’m coming to you now.
After making a comment which couldn’t possibly reach Aretha, I opened my eyes and gazed at the large face that lay beyond the shattered wall.
Ο
∗∗∗
Ο
“Ray!”
Ray, who was at the bottom of the building struggling against the tentacles, reacted to my voice. The moment he turned to look up at me, multiple tentacles came down on the piano; however, Ray managed to slice some of them with Jack’s piano strings and avoid the rest through a very narrow gap.
“Watch out, Bill!”
He yelled out urgently. I shouldn’t have shouted. The Default noticed my existence and swung a tentacle towards the office I was in.
I jumped out of the building. I was 7 floors up, but I turned my body into a bunch of bills and rode the wind down. I utilized the same cohesiveness that would occur whenever I turned into coins in order to prevent the bills from separating from one another. Like a swarm of locusts, a storm of bills swirled downward violently.
However, the air pressure caused by the tentacle was extremely powerful. The wind swept me up and sent me flying somewhere else before I was roughly caught in someone’s hand.
“Get on, quick!”
It was Ray’s voice. I changed back into my human form and sat down on the piano bench.
“Where to?”
“On top of its head.”
“I was wondering why an unusual wave of distortion kept spewing out from there, but that was the reason, huh?”
“Aretha’s voice is coming from there.”
I said as I pointed towards the Default’s brown hair.
“All right.”
Once Ray’s fingers started to dance over the keys, piano strings came out from the piano lid and secured us to the bench firmly.
“Hold on tight. This is going to be a rough ride.”
Ray resumed his performance. His fingers pressed down on the keys sternly. Black and white keys moved up and down incessantly.
The piano made a sharp turn and proceeded to drive up the side of a building. I put some strength in my legs as I made them hold on to the leg of the bench in order to endure the downward weight. Another turn followed. The Grand Piano went up the wall vertically and hopped from building to building as if it were traversing over stepping stones. Ridiculous movements that ignored the laws of gravity.
Nevertheless, the Default’s tentacles swung down at us after having accurately predicted our path. Tentacles approached the piano from 3 different directions. Ray quickly stepped on Jack’s damper pedal.
The wheels let out a loud screech as the piano came to an abrupt halt. The three tentacles overlapped one another and slammed into a single spot in front of the piano which had suddenly come to a stop after having its gears switched to reverse. The building broke in half after its midsection received a huge blow.
“Now!”
Ray took his foot off the pedal. The piano lurched forward as it accelerated once more. It treated one of the tentacles like a road as it drove up it. The top half of the building that had broken in half was falling on top of our heads, but Ray didn’t stop. The piano drove onto an adjacent tentacle and continued. When I turned around, I saw the tentacle we were just on get crushed underneath the building.
“Uah!”
The moment I looked forward again, I saw another tentacle fly towards us. It looked like it intended to brush us off like a bow sliding down the strings of a violin.
“Don’t worry.”
Ray stepped on the shift pedal. The piano drove around and under the tentacle which allowed us to avoid the other tentacle.
“We’re almost there!”
After we reached the base of the tentacle, the piano started to drive vertically once more as it went up Aretha’s face. After we passed the slope that connected her chin with her cheek, we rode up the ridge of her nose. Aretha’s large eyes turned to look at us, but we were in her blind spot. As it was outside her field of vision, it couldn’t be attacked.
Once we slipped between the pair of eyebrows that were slowly swaying under the moonlight, we arrived at a chiseled forehead. Additionally, Aretha’s hair was casting shadows over the forehead.
“This is as far as I can take you.”
Ray declared as he parked his piano at the boundary between Aretha’s forehead and her scalp.
“You aren’t chickening out after having come this far, are you?”
“I already pushed myself a lot just to come this far. Don’t say something so disheartening.”
Ray loosened his necktie and undid the 3 top buttons of his shirt. He had large bruises all over his chest and neck.
“Continuing to stay inside a field of distortion this powerful would be fatal for Mojos like me who are closely connected to the will of the world. I’ll die if I go any further than this.”
I wordlessly nodded my head and got up from the bench.
Ray opened his Catalogue and took out a lantern and a small cookie before handing them to me. It was the same cookie he had used to get rid of Rodney’s mind control alchemy back in the streets of Omaha, Jie Majie’s Fortune Cookie.
“You might need this. Don’t break it if you aren’t in a desperately dangerous situation. If it does break, then run away as far as possible.”
“All right.”
“Be careful. No one knows what may happen in there. Also⎯”
Ray hesitated for a second before he continued.
“Sorry for interrupting earlier. Make sure to have a jolly time together this time.”
Ray said jokingly. It’d be great if we really did have a jolly time.
“I’ll try my best.”
I smiled slightly before I began to push my way through the forest of reeds. I could hear Ray drive away across Aretha’s face on his piano.
“I guess I’m on my own from here on out.”
Due to a weird sense of anxiety, I instinctually opened the cylinder of my gun and counted how many bullets I had left.
There was only one bullet loaded. I should have asked Ray for some extra bullets.
I don’t know where my Mauser had gone. I didn’t use it that much compared to my Peacemaker, so it isn’t that much of a loss, but a gunslinger losing his gun is embarrassing.
One gun. One bullet.
The dark forest of hair lying before my eyes. It felt like I was entering the valley of the shadow of death by myself.
Please protect me. I gave a prayer to no clear subject and moved forward.
Ο
∗∗∗
Ο
Moonlight leaked through the small gaps between the overhead strands of hair that were covering the sky. The Default’s dense head of hair was almost like a labyrinth of enormous reeds. I had already lost the lantern near where I had entered. I closed my eyes and used the piece of my consciousness that was in the coin Aretha had on her as a guiding light to lead me to her. I tripped on some strands of hair and fell a couple of times, but I pressed forward and headed towards the direction where I felt Aretha’s presence.
Contrary to my expectations, nothing attacked me. I thought that the tentacles I saw earlier would try to get rid of me.
How far had I walked? The scenery around me was changing little by little.
The strands of hair were standing upright when I first entered the forest of hair, but they were gradually starting to tilt to the side as if there were a vortex the deeper I went in.
I could feel it. I was almost there.
I pushed my way through the strands of hair as I approached the center of the vortex.
It wasn’t long before I arrived at an empty, circular area with no hair. This was undoubtedly the hair whorl.
Additionally, at the center of the empty spot was a single, large chair.
A throne with a tall backrest made solely out of multiple arms.
Aretha Franklin was seated on that throne wearing, from top to bottom, a men’s tuxedo.
“Aretha!”
Before I knew it, I was running to her. Once I arrived in front of the throne, I was able to get a closer look at Aretha’s state. Aretha’s legs were firmly connected to the scalp of the large head. I looked at Aretha’s face.
However, Aretha didn’t look back at me. A pair of hands that were sticking out from the chair were covering her eyes.
“Answer me, Aretha. Can you hear my voice?”
Despite calling out to her, Aretha didn’t respond. Instead, 4 arms sprouted out from the chair and covered Aretha’s mouth and ears.
A clear refusal. Aretha was refusing every form of contact with me. In order to figure out why she was doing this, I thought back to Aretha’s words.
‘Wake me up, from this nightmare.’
The first words that Aretha had uttered after borrowing the mouth of the large face once she had turned into a Default.
“So this reality is a nightmare to you, huh?”
I had been sorely mistaken. Aretha wasn’t having a nightmare about becoming a part of a monster.
This cruel reality itself was a nightmare to Aretha.
What exactly happened to Aretha while I was gone to make her shut her own eyes and ears and lock herself up?
Aretha had declared.
That she had no one left. That Rodney had died.
Did Rodney’s death cause Aretha’s mind to collapse?
Even if that were the case, I couldn’t leave things like this. I had to talk to Aretha. If I give up here, then I would lose Aretha again knowing nothing and understanding nothing.
I have to peer into Aretha’s heart in order to rescue her.
“It’s me, Bill Withers.”
She was blocking her ears, so it was impossible for her to hear my voice. Nevertheless, I had to let her know who was talking to her.
Are there any other options?
I noticed Aretha’s hands quietly lying on top of each other above her lap. I could feel the coin I had tossed to her when she was disguised as a beggar inside her pocket.
I recalled the moment when Aretha transformed into Gray. Aretha held my hand tightly as she was being consumed by Gray.
After running away from a nightmare, Aretha wound up getting trapped inside another nightmare. How am I supposed to wake her up? If the reality she wakes up to after being released from her nightmare is no different from a nightmare as well, then would waking her up truly be the right choice?
I opened Aretha’s closed hands and placed my hands on top of them.
As I thought, contemplating about things doesn’t suit me.
I turned my hands into bills, coins, and then finally back into human, blood-pumping hands. Something which only I can do. Through the sense of touch, I made Aretha know that the person holding her hand was Bill Withers. I pleaded to Aretha that the sensation wrapped around her cold hands clearly existed.
This was a trust-building exercise. The act of trusting someone was a hard thing to accomplish. The process of gradually building up trust. A sense of pressure was weighing down on me, but I didn’t hurry.
I didn’t try to force her. I couldn’t force anything onto her. I suppressed the anxiety in my heart and patiently held on to both of Aretha’s hands in order to transfer my warmth to her.
“It’s time to wake up.”
The hands covering Aretha’s ears returned to the chair’s backrest. Aretha’s heart had opened slightly.
Everything that happens from here on out is crucial. All she has done is open her ears to the outside world.
As this was the case, what should I talk about first? What should I do to get closer to this young lady? I thought back to the night in Oz’s place where I drank alcohol with Aretha.
⎯For starters, how about we start with introductions again? Who knows? Maybe if we become acquainted enough to refer to one another by name, then you’ll listen to my request.⎯
The memory of Aretha laying on the sofa next to the fireplace throwing a childish fit while speaking in a tired tone popped up in my mind.
“For starters, how about we start with introductions again?”
I repeated the exact words Aretha had said to me that night with a grin on her face.
I’m going to approach her first this time.
⎯Then I’ll start first.⎯
Aretha’s voice resonated in my head. I continued using Aretha’s words as a guideline.
“Then I’ll start first.”
A warm sensation filled the bottom of my eyes, but I suppressed it and smiled.
⎯You know already, but my name is Aretha Franklin.⎯
The pivotal point of one’s delivery is your tone, pace, and enunciation.
“You know already, but my name is Bill Withers.”
In a calm tone. At an appropriate pace that wasn’t so slow that it sounded like I was treating the opposition like an idiot or so fast that I couldn’t be understood. My tongue felt like it would go numb trying to prevent myself from crying, so I desperately moved my tongue around in order to spit out each and every word naturally and clearly.
⎯My occupation is a Sioux Native American District handicraft merchant. I’m 20 years old and I’m currently traveling east in order to fulfill the inheritance condition that was written on the damn will.⎯
It’s your turn. The Aretha in my memory smiled at me brightly.
Yeah. It’s my turn now. It’s my turn to open your heart.
I grit my teeth. I put my heart and soul into each and every consonant and vowel as I pleaded to Aretha’s ears.
“My occupation is a bounty hunter-cum-Aretha Franklin’s bodyguard. I’m 22 years old and I’m currently⎯”
I broke down. Warm droplets of water dripped down on the backs of Aretha’s hands.
“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”
No, this isn’t what I wanted to do. This isn’t what I wanted to say.
I rifled through my head in order to find the words that would accurately express my feelings. I didn’t require that much time to find the right words.
I stood up and grabbed Aretha’s hands as I spoke.
“I came here to keep my promise. Once I get you out of here, we’re going to go to another festival.”
Words that weren’t an imitation of what Aretha had said and had sprung out from my own heart instead.
I almost bit my tongue by mistake, but I managed to say everything without tripping over myself. I felt my face heat up. What do I do if Aretha shuts her ears again? I was even struck by this worry.
Despite my anxiety, I saw tears seep out from between the fingers of the hands that were covering Aretha’s eyes.
It almost felt like a lie when even the hands blocking her mouth drew back.
“No.”
The next moment, a long arm extended out from the chair and started to strangle me. Its grip was much stronger than the time Aretha grabbed me back at Rodney’s estate. I felt a certain desperation in the hand that was choking me.
“Everyone is trying to kill me. Even the few precious people still left by my side will become unhappy. I don’t have the confidence to continue living in this nightmare.”
Her voice sounded hazy. Those words came from the boundary between dream and reality, from Aretha’s heart.
I realized that the name of the nightmare she was having was despair. The optimistic girl who had never fallen to despair before knelt before it for the first time ever in her life.
“I’m afraid of everything that has happened to me and the fate which I will continue to encounter. I’d rather sit here in silence than face that future.”
Aretha’s heavily sunken voice came out as a whisper.
“Don’t say words that don’t suit you. Aretha Franklin isn’t that kind of girl.”
“You don’t know anything.”
“No, I know you very well.”
I retorted sternly.
“Because I’m also afraid.”
I continued.
“I also know that the fear you’re harboring is much larger than what I can possibly imagine.”
The hand choking me trembled as if it were wavering. More arms stretched out from the chair and grabbed my limbs.
“The despair that you and I have to respectively face is so large and overwhelming that we can’t endure and overcome them.”
I acknowledged this fact meekly. Even after today, we’ll most likely continue to live within the nightmare of alchemy. In my dreams, my body will continue to collapse into a pile of bills and Aretha will lose her brother over and over again in her own dreams. Furthermore, every time she wakes up from her sleep, she’ll come to realize that it wasn’t a simple nightmare and that it was something that had actually happened. Additionally, she’ll have to start her day knowing that something worse than what happened in her nightmare could potentially happen at any moment.
I doubt that Aretha and I would be capable of enduring such days for the rest of our lives. Regardless⎯
“Regardless, you taught me a way to overcome my despair. You’re the one who rescued me.”
The hand around my neck strengthened its grip. How could this thin arm muster this much strength?
“······.”
It seems she doesn’t remember. Well, it’d be more accurate to say that I arbitrarily tried to make her remember, so it can’t be helped.
“I decided to accept the despair.”
My breathing was becoming faster. Blood no longer circulated properly in my head and my breathing became shallow. I desperately held on to my consciousness and squeezed out my words as clearly as I could for Aretha to hear.
“I’ll die if I can’t pay back my debt in half a year, but it doesn’t matter. Be it the will, money, or anything else, I don’t need any of them. I don’t care if I fail to pay back my debt and turn into money.”
Accepting the despair, that was my decision. Instead of struggling to avoid it, I intend to take it all in as is. It was a complete contrast to Aretha’s decision to run away from the worst curse in the world known as Flasko.
“If I’m at your side, then something like despair stops mattering. I don’t give a damn about money or survival. Everything turns into small problems that aren’t worth contemplating.”
She had burned away the old sense of values that had been binding me. She made me realize what was truly valuable. She had rescued me from despair.
“That’s why I want to be by your side.”
It felt like I was pulling my heart out. I was sincerely confessing everything to myself and Aretha with words that didn’t suit me. How ironic.
“Every moment with you is precious.”
I hoped that her thought process wasn’t the same as mine. Her despair was different from mine, after all. Nevertheless, if we face the fears, which we used to deal with on our own, together, then wouldn’t it be less scary?
“This time, I’m going to save you.”
I finished saying everything I wanted to say. I released my grip on the string that was holding on to my consciousness.
“······.”
No words came out of Aretha’s open and trembling mouth. Tears started to stream down from her face once enough teardrops had pooled at the bottom of the hands that were covering her eyes.
“Sorry.”
Within my gradually fading vision, I saw Aretha’s lips move slightly with my own two eyes.
“It’s fine as long as you know, idiot···.”
I responded with a smile.
The next moment, right when I was about to fall into a deep slumber, an intense pain washed over me.
“Guah···.”
3 pairs of arms pierced through my stomach. Blood gushed up my throat and flowed out of my mouth.
This girl has some strong hands. A strong taste of iron choked me.
“I··· want to stay confined like this.”
How terrified was she? The sob in Aretha’s voice fanned the flame underneath my heart.
“Don’t lie. No one in the world would want to stay in a place like this forever!”
Blood came out of my throat together with my voice. It felt like someone was carving out my throat. I felt like my tongue would fall off.
“Countless people have died because of this power. I still hear the screams of the people who have been swallowed inside of me. They all resent me. I can’t run away from here. Hundreds of hands are holding me down.”
“This isn’t your fault.”
“Stop! I don’t want to hear it!”
The arms that had penetrated my stomach churned my insides. The pain had caused my concentration to disperse, so I couldn’t activate my Liquidation. Blood continued to flow out. A fatal injury that couldn’t be reverted. I’m dying.
“If I wake up, then the same thing will happen over and over again. I’d rather⎯”
“Quit it.”
Even though my stomach had been penetrated, I reached my arms out and grabbed Aretha’s shoulders.
A thought went through my head. Who could possibly embrace this girl who had embraced her own anguish?
That’s right⎯
, I’m the only one here.
“How long do you plan to whine uncharacteristically for?”
I pulled Aretha into an embrace just like that.
The arms that were reaching out from the chair and piercing through my stomach went further through me until they were elbow-deep. I felt the entrails that were caught on the three pairs of arms fall out of the hole which the arms had created. It hurt like crazy, but compared to the loneliness and fear Aretha was feeling, this was bearable.
“At the very least, I’ll continue to stay by your side. I promise you that.”
Aretha’s body stiffened as her face was buried in my blood-soaked chest. The word ‘promise’ which I had uttered myself. I bound myself with my own words. The scar on my left arm became scolding hot.
“So hurry and wake up.”
I lifted my dreamcatcher necklace off from my neck and put it around Aretha’s. If you really have the power to catch nightmares, then save Aretha, not me. I begged.
“I···.”
Aretha’s lips quivered slightly. I don’t know why, but looking at those lips gave me a craving for marshmallows.
I wrapped my arms around the back of Aretha’s neck and pulled her into a hug.
“I···.”
I quietly held Aretha’s face against my chest as her eyes remained closed. Due to my own self-control, that was both the least and most sincerity I could manage to express.
There was a long silence as if both time and the wind itself had stopped.
After a long moment of stillness, the sound of sobbing broke through Aretha’s firmly shut lips.
“Good morning.”
This was either an incredibly late or incredibly early morning greeting.
The two hands that were covering Aretha’s eyes returned to the chair. Both the hand that was choking me and the arms that were penetrating my stomach retreated back to the chair as well.
“···Idiot.”
Aretha’s voice was shaking. Tears had formed in her clear, pink eyes.
“Did you sleep well?”
I smiled towards Aretha who had just now woken up.
Soon after, a direct blow landed on my cheek. I spat out some blood. If pain was measured on a scale from 1 to 10, then this was around a 7.
This girl has a strong hand. How many times have I repeated this phrase today?
“Don’t hug me all of a sudden. You surprised me.”
Aretha uttered in a sulky voice. It was the usual Aretha. I chuckled.
“I’ll make sure to tell you beforehand next time.”
And then, my cheek received another blow. This time it was by the back of her hand.
“How could you push yourself forward this much?! Your insides are coming out! Are you trying to kill yourself!?”
“Haha···. I don’t know if you know what shock therapy is.”
“Hurting yourself like this··· like an idiot···.”
She had burst into sobs, so she couldn’t finish her sentences.
“···You’re the one who did this.”
My guts squirmed and spilled out from my stomach and drenched Aretha’s tuxedo in blood. Squish, squish. They made an absurd sound. I nonchalantly shoved my intestines back inside of my stomach and healed my injury through Liquidation.
That was quite the timing.
Without having to plan anything beforehand, we simultaneously burst into laughter after a three-second silence. We laughed for a while, tears flowing from our eyes.
“Hey.”
After laughing and crying for a long moment, Aretha wiped her tears away and spoke.
“Rodney, died trying to protect me.”
“···I see.”
I don’t know what had happened, but I simply took in Aretha’s words without asking any questions.
“Still, I should keep living, right?”
In response to Aretha’s question, I nodded.
“Yeah. That’s the only thing which the people who have survived can do.”
People who have survived. A faint smile drifted over Aretha’s lips as she repeated those words.
We have to shoulder the shadows of the people who have died and keep on living. That was one of the few ways that still remained in this era to pay tribute to the dead. To not forget them and continue walking forward. That’s all Aretha and I can do.
“Hand.”
Aretha grabbed on to my hand tightly after I held it out.
“It’s coarse like a field of rocks, rough like sandpaper, and it feels like my hand will be ground to dust if I hold on to yours.”
“······Thank you for the needlessly elaborate review.”
An exchange which we already had once before. Aah, it’s the normal Aretha.
“But··· it’s warm.”
Aretha carefully caressed my hand as she spoke.
It’s warm. Aretha’s voice echoed in my ears several times.
This, is quite a fresh feeling.
The night breeze which contained the dust of the city, which had turned to ash, brushed past my cheek. ‘I’m also hot, but you’re no less hot than I am,’ Omaha’s gust of wind whispered.
“That’s strange. No matter how you think about it, I should be really cold right now due to the excessive blood loss. I don’t think it’d be a bad idea to visit a hospital once we get out of here and test to see whether my skin has lost its sensitivity or not.”
In the end, I didn’t know how to react, so I wound up ruining the mood by saying something stupid on impulse. Excessive blood loss and skin sensitivity? I wanted to put my last bullet in my own head.
“···You’re the worst.”
After uttering those words with a disappointed look on her face, Aretha avoided my gaze. I have no other choice but to accept the fact that out of every response I’ve made today, that was the stupidest.
I smiled servilely out of embarrassment. Please understand. I’m only a simpleton, after all.
“···Let’s get out of here first. Ray should be waiting for us.”
In any case, Aretha woke up from her nightmare. Now all I had to do was get her out of here. I wanted to talk to her more, but there isn’t a lot of time, so I’ll push that aside for later.
“No.”
However, I received an unexpected answer. I doubted my own ears for a second.
“What?”
“No. I don’t think I can leave this place.”
Aretha lowered her gaze.
From her hips all the way down to her toes, the majority of Aretha’s lower body was attached to the chair. I had forgotten an important issue. The fact that the chair and the Default were all a part of Aretha.
“I can’t get up from this chair.”
Aretha said with a smile. I couldn’t bear to look at those eyes, so I lowered my head.
“Why···. It’s all over now···.”
I bit my lower lip and gradually started to taste iron. Do we have to give up like this?
“Thank you, Bill. You kept your promise.”
Aretha’s voice was bright; however, I noticed that it was also trembling.
“If it weren’t for you, then I would still be trapped inside that nightmare. Thanks for waking me up again.”
I couldn’t give Aretha a response. I had no right to receive such words. I’m the one who failed to protect her twice. I wanted to save her this time.
“I won’t forget you. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget you.”
Aretha told me.
“Don’t lie. I know that you’re afraid. Stop saying insincere words when I know very well that you’re unbearably afraid of being alone.”
“Yeah. I’m scared. But even if you leave now, there will still be a good memory left here, right?”
Aretha smiled at me more brightly than ever before. Whether that smile was genuine or she was forcing herself to smile like that, I couldn’t tell. It might have been both.
“I realized something after meeting Rodney. Being able to remember a time where you were once loved is the greatest blessing in the world.”
You’re right. That’s a fact.
I wound up being made to understand. However, at the same time, I didn’t stop trying to find a way to save Aretha as well.
Is there something I can do? Isn’t there anything I can do?
I recalled the faces of the citizens of Omaha that were inside the tentacle that had been sliced up by piano strings. As the Default had lost its pivot known as Gray, it had transformed into a cluster of multiple lifeforms.
All of the citizens of Omaha that the cluster consisted of were alive. I saw the faces inside the severed tentacle blink. They were finally able to obtain peace once they were sliced by Ray’s piano strings and put to death.
They obtained peace only after death.
Death.
That’s right, if it’s death, then.
“No. Don’t end it with just a memory. I’m going to get you out of here.”
My peacemaker which had been with me through the joys and sorrows of my life for a long time. I popped open the cylinder and gazed at the single bullet inside of it.
How contrived.
If fate truly exists, then it must have left this bullet here for this very situation.
“What? Are you going to show me the magic trick where a bullet disappears?”
Or am I going to disappear? Aretha asked with an innocent look on her face.
“Something like that.”
I nodded.
“If you die once, then I should be able to tear you out of there like the other corpses.”
The Default is currently in an unstable state. Its severed tentacles don’t reconnect and, although the people inside the tentacles became a single clump because the effects of Gray’s alchemy had disappeared, they were all living inside the Default with their own respective faces.
This means that if Aretha dies once, she should be able to escape from this throne. If I leave here with Aretha’s corpse and wait for her revival, then everything might end amicably.
“That sounds like it’d be worth a shot.”
Without any sign of unrest, Aretha remarked with a smile.
“Don’t answer so nonchalantly. It’s scary. Is that something a person who’s going to die should be saying?
“Hurry up and shoot me. No matter how I think about it, getting out of here using your plan is a hundred times better than staying here attached to this chair.”
I nodded my head, but the hand that was holding the revolver was hesitating. Another possibility had popped up in my head and it was asserting a strong pressure over my hand.
‘Remember, Miss Franklin. No one knows how many chances you have left.’
Oz’s words made me waver. There’s no way to know how many deaths will erase Aretha’s existence completely.
“Bill, hurry up.”
Or am I going to disappear?
She said that jokingly, but Aretha had already considered the possibility of her complete disappearance.
There’s no way that I could pull the trigger with a light heart.
“Wait, there’s something I want to say.”
Aretha looked into my eyes in surprise. I averted my gaze so that she couldn’t see that I was scared.
“What happens if your entire being disappears because of me killing you? What happens if this is your last chance? If it really is, then the Equalizer will be useless. You’ll lose your existence and be alone forever.”
An unpleasant stillness fell over us. With our heads lowered, the silence continued.
If Aretha can no longer return because I had killed her, then I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself.
“It’s okay.”
Aretha was the one to break the silence.
“I told you, didn’t I? The memory of being loved is the biggest blessing a person can have. I’m confident that I can live through eternity by myself with just this memory alone.”
Aretha wrapped her hands around my hand that was holding a pistol.
“If my existence disappears and I’m severed from the world, I most likely won’t be able to have another day like today. But being able to live while remembering this day should be enough, right?”
Was she being considerate by not showing her weak side to me? Or has she truly resolved herself? I shook my head strongly. Nothing will change even if I stayed still like this.
“There’s something I want to tell you.”
“Save it. I’ll hear you out later.”
“But⎯”
Aretha was smiling. I couldn’t finish my sentence.
Slowly, Aretha raised my hand. It was as if she were telling me to not bear the weight pushing down on my hand by myself.
“I won’t forget. I won’t be able to forget.”
I thought to myself. It would have been great if something like alchemy didn’t exist. It would have been great if the power to deceive providence didn’t exist.
“Thank you.”
Tears soaked Aretha’s smile.
“It won’t hurt.”
After gradually lifting my hand up, the muzzle of the gun was now aimed at the center of her forehead.
“Actually, I’m a little scared.”
I asked myself. Is what I’m doing the right thing to do? If I leave her like this, then wouldn’t I be able to see her for a little longer?
However, I soon realized that that was just my own selfishness.
“Then, I’ll be in your care.”
Aretha closed her eyes.
I couldn’t look at Aretha. I turned my head and used my other hand to stop my hand that was holding the gun from shaking.
People are the ones who start stories, but bullets are what always bring them to an end. As this was the norm in the West, this is how things will always be.
However, the one thing I eagerly want is for a single miracle to happen. I prayed.
I plead.
I prayed with all my heart.
I plead.
I prayed with all I had.
My thumb pulled the hammer.
My index finger rested on the trigger.
The girl’s warm breath tickled my hand and I forced myself to smile.
I plead earnestly.
I plead that what she saw in the muzzle was love.
“See you later.”
Tears had formed within Aretha’s closed eyelids as she smiled radiantly. I engraved that smile in my heart.
“Yeah!”
Aretha responded. I closed my eyes.
Ο
∗∗∗
Ο
The futility inside the barrel went towards the girl.
The smiling girl and the guy closing his eyes.
The moment of silence which felt like an eternity was torn apart by a gunshot.
Ο
∗∗∗
Ο
In an instant, the scenery around me began to change.
Aretha’s corpse was separated from the chair. The tuxedo that had been wrapped around the girl’s body melted away and revealed her original outfit.
After watching the arms that were making up the throne disappear into the scalp under my feet, I began to run while carrying Aretha’s corpse.
The strands of hair, that felt like a large forest of reeds, dissolved instantaneously and opened up my once limited field of vision. The soft skin underneath my feet turned into a darkish type of flesh and began to spurt out blood. The Default that had turned into Aretha’s face was returning back to its original form as a bizarre blob of flesh.
Thousands of hands pierced through the flesh under my feet. They were all clamoring to grab my feet.
If there were a Hell, then would it look like this? The faces of the residents of Omaha who had become a single clump penetrated through the skin. People who were screaming endlessly after having lost their rationality. They looked too pathetic to be called alive.
“Sorry, everyone. I’ll let you all rest soon.”
I pulled out Jie Majie’s Fortune Cookie which I had been holding carefully in my pocket before breaking off one of its corners. A long, white piece of paper with a line of incomprehensible words on it started to pour out from the broken end of the cookie at an alarming force.
I tossed the fortune cookie behind me. The long piece of paper crammed with words shot out from the cookie infinitely and started to cover both the body of the collapsing Default and me.
“Hurry, Bill!”
Ray was coming towards me from a distance on his piano. Ray approached me with the piano lid open.
With Aretha in my arms, I dived into the open lid. The inside of the piano was a lot larger than how it appeared on the outside as it was created with alchemy in order to contain its immense amount of piano strings.
The piano made a sharp turn the instant Aretha and I got in it. We fled from the wave of paper that was spilling out from the fortune cookie.
“We’re falling!!”
Through the gap under the lid, I saw the field of flesh come to an end as the piano leaped into the air. A fierce gust of wind slipped under the piano lid, which couldn’t possibly shut completely, and washed over me.
I held Aretha in one arm while I turned my other hand into coins and held on to the piano strings.
Our descent then followed. A floating sensation encompassed my body. I held on to Aretha’s body more tightly in order to not let her go.
I could see the Default covered in a band of paper from the gap underneath the piano lid. The strand of paper coming out from Jie Majie’s Fortune Cookie was constricting the Default’s body with an incredible force.
We free fell for a couple of seconds. The Default’s body wrapped in a band of paper gradually shrunk in size before it eventually emitted a loud sound and disappeared. It felt like it had been sucked inside of a small hole in midair.
“Hold on tight!”
And then the moment of impact. Similar to the time back in the train, I embraced Aretha’s body firmly.
“Neighboring Marshmallow! Extra-large size!”
Our descent stopped after Ray exclaimed those words.
The impact I was expecting never occurred. The piano simply shook a little. All I could see between the gap was the color white.
Ray’s marshmallow which had inflated to the size of a building had comfortably caught the piano like a large mattress.
We survived once again. I’ve experienced multiple life or death situations as a bounty hunter; however, it was my first time going through a day as horrible as this.
Right when I was about to confirm Aretha’s safety, I realized that the weight in my arm had disappeared.
Don’t tell me.
I felt my breath get caught in my throat. Aretha had evaporated during that brief descent.
“We meet again, huh?”
No. She was here. My despair was subdued as I heard Aretha’s voice next to me. She had only left my arms for a short moment.
“I wanted to see you.”
I opened the lid of the piano as I responded. I wanted to confirm that Aretha was all right.
However, I soon realized that it was too soon to be relieved the instant I saw Aretha under the moonlight.
“Ray! The Equalizer!”
Aretha was slowly becoming transparent. Her being was leaking out from the crack that was created through death. Her brown hair, pink eyes, and healthy skin color were all losing their tones.
I pulled Aretha into my arms, hopped out of the piano, and placed her down on top of the marshmallow.
While I was feeling Aretha’s disappearing face in order to find her mouth, Ray opened the cap of an Equalizer. I poured the first bottle in Aretha’s mouth, but nothing happened.
Ray hurriedly handed the second bottle to me without even opening the cap. I poured another Equalizer into Aretha’s mouth.
“Bill···.”
Aretha spoke to me with her gradually fading voice. I fell into a panic and barely managed to understand a few of her words.
“I won’t let you disappear like this.”
That damn swindler, these don’t work at all. I spat a bunch of curses at Oz.
The third bottle, I began to pour the medicine. Aretha, who had become invisible, coughed out the medicine. I patted her back and wiped away the medicine that had splashed on to my face.
“No!”
The sensation I felt on my palm as I held Aretha’s head up was gradually disappearing until I eventually felt nothing.
The Equalizer flowing out of the tilted bottle spilled between my fingers to no purpose.
I could no longer feel Aretha’s form or weight.
“Thanks.”
Aretha’s voice was the last thing I felt or heard.
“Don’t disappear!”
That was it. Aretha disappeared and was gone.
I couldn’t feel, hear, or see her anymore.
“Please···.”
My wish wasn’t realized. Aretha’s existence itself had disappeared. The chance that Oz mentioned was already gone.
“Aretha···.”
How many times did that make this? Even though I didn’t want to lose her again. The tears that I had been enduring pushed their way out from between my eyelids. I thought I had passed every single crisis. In the end, the prearranged curse known as Flasko had dragged me down.
It would have been great if the will of the world and alchemy never existed.
If they never did, then we would have been led to a different conclusion.
I pictured Aretha’s appearance. I clutched on to the string of the last memory I had of her.
Despite my efforts, even that image started to fade away. Aretha’s hair, her sharp eyes, spunky forehead, and her idiotic smile.
I couldn’t remember anything beyond these things.
Her name. Her name.
“I’m going to get some fresh air for a second.”
With a gloomy look on his face, Ray hopped down from the marshmallow.
After becoming truly alone, I fell over on top of the marshmallow.
I couldn’t remember anything. I couldn’t bear how cold my two hands had become. It felt as if the blood circulating throughout my body had stopped.
As I was beginning to lose my memory of her, I was saddened by the fact that I couldn’t even remember what I had lost.
“Stop sobbing. It doesn’t suit you.”
However, my heart started to fluctuate once more the instant I heard a voice come from behind my back. A pair of warm arms wrapped around my waist. I placed my hand on top of those arms. She definitely existed here.
I found something which I had lost.
Her name, that’s right, it’s⎯
“I’ve been waiting for you.”
Aretha was back.
“If you have something to say, then I’ll hear you out.”
I quietly shut my eyes, and felt her warmth.
“Next time. I’ll tell you next time.”
A tingling sensation traveled through my veins. My wish was granted.
“It’s a promise.”
I nodded.
The heat caused by the contract branding mixed together with the temperature of Aretha’s body and let me know that Aretha and I were both completely alive and well.
“All right, it’s a promise.”
I held Aretha’s hand firmly as it slowly regained its color as if I were declaring that I would never lose her again.
