Star, Please Permit Me to Be a Righteous Thief Again Today
Lupin's head and both arms slid into the Holy Ark first.
Until then, gravity still pulled downward. Then, at a certain moment—most likely just after her heart passed the Ark's mouth—a strange sensation came over her, as if the body she had been tipping forward had suddenly stood upright.
"...Oh?"
Darkness. A vast black in which nothing at all could be seen received her. No matter where she looked, there was no sense of distance, and she couldn't begin to tell where the place ended. She reached out this way and that, and far from touching anything, her hands only stirred empty air. The sole spot that felt like ground was beneath her feet. Lupin stood alone in the middle of the dark.
Fortunately, the blood on her hand really did serve as a guide. It drew out long and thin as a thread and snapped off in the empty air—probably a hint that the way out lay there.
"Yoo-hoo!"
She shouted at the top of her lungs. No echo came back. Perfect stillness. Perfect absence of color. Perfect absence of smell. Lupin wilted on the spot.
What the hell. This is no fun.
No gold coins, no relics, no curious treasures. The moment she remembered how hard she had worked to get into a place like this, regret came flooding in——.
"Ah. This nostalgic feeling."
"Eep."
The voice had come from inside Lupin's chest. It was Big Sis Star.
Wondering if she was wedged in somewhere and couldn't get out, Lupin pressed both hands into the soft flesh of her chest and kneaded this way and that. Soon a tiny purple ember floated up. Set upon her palm, the little light glittered, swelling and shrinking by turns.
"Thanks to you, I have reached this place at last. And what on earth was that dance you did at the end? Even I, who have seen every kind of thing, found in it a peculiar flavor I could not make sense of."
Former meme master that she was, Lupin reflexively launched into a full-speed lecture.
"This is a dance like a nightmare out of the abyss—born when some streamer's Japanese-style butler series blew up so hard they turned the whole thing into an actual music video. And the person who looks Japanese here is actually not Japanese, but Korean...."
Halfway through her excited explanation, Lupin suddenly came to her senses.
What's the point of explaining this? How would Big Sis Star know this meme.
"...Anyway, why'd you get so tiny? Is this place different from that universe where I used to meet you?"
"This is not my domain. It is a mercy that I can speak with you even like this."
"So. Now what? I came in and there's nothing here. Where's my Fragment of the Stars."
"Wait a little. It has been ages since any guest came calling, and with two unwelcome ones at that, the master of the tomb seems to be weighing whether to throw us out."
Lupin, whose intelligence had degenerated in the meantime, scratched her cheek and muttered.
"So I just have to wait?"
A bright, ringing cackle—Destiny's Star broke into a great laugh for the first time in a truly long while.
"Yes. Are you ready to speak with a Sephira?"
"A Sephira? Is that a star too?"
"Oh my. Clever, today of all days. That's right. Very stiff, old-fashioned sorts. They will faint dead away the moment they see you."
So another star is about to make an entrance?
Lupin got excited for no good reason. If they possessed a cosmic generosity of heart, old-fashioned was perfectly fine.
The other star still had not appeared, even after an hour and a half of waiting. Worn out, Lupin flopped onto the floor spread-eagled. Something against her hands and feet felt moist as water, yet when she rubbed it between her fingers it was like sand. Her tongue flicked out and dabbed at the floor. Faintly salty, maybe. A bitter taste, too.
Destiny's Star watched and sighed.
"I beg you—do not go coveting even the incense scattered through someone else's tomb."
"Ptooey, ptooey. Incense? Incense? Like the kind you burn at a memorial? I was wondering why you kept saying tomb, tomb."
She'd thought it was a joke. It was an actual tomb?
What, a star's grave or something?
Then, from the empty air where there had been nothing, came the click of a tongue. Tsk, tsk.
"And where did you pick up another mannerless thing like that...."
A man's voice, thick with sternness. Lupin's keen hearing snagged the sound, and her eyes snapped of their own accord toward its source.
Beside Big Sis Star, it was a white light the size of a far larger orb. Inside it, two roses of five petals each overlapped, turning in opposite directions. A mystical sight, certainly—but this star was a harmful one. Making a person wait an hour and a half: did that even make sense? And it wasn't even a big sister. Lupin's anticipation crumbled from the roots.
Whether she seethed inwardly or not, the conversation between the two lights began.
"It has been a while, Master of the Seraphim. Were you terribly startled when the crazy woman who ran away from home suddenly came back?"
"The woman I dragged out by the hair and drove off has come to the tomb—of course. How could I not be startled. What have you been doing, that you return dragging four wandering stars?"
The situation felt familiar somehow. Lupin quietly took the temperature of the room, and searching her memory landed on the time Tasili and Dmitri had spoken. The mood now was even worse than then.
"There is only this one child left now. Don't frighten her too badly—look on her kindly. Gold... what did I call it?"
"Golden Child."
"Right, Golden Child. She is our Golden Child. Cute, isn't she?"
"What I dislike is you. I have no reason to extend that to a wandering star."
"Oh? Was that how it was? Now that you say so, I suppose it was. You looked kindly even on the other children who came before, when they misbehaved, did you not? Hehe."
"Why not say it plainly—that they were worn-out relics with nothing but traces left, so there was no choice but to indulge them. I ought to have cut out that bewitching tongue of yours long ago."
Um.
How about we all have a conversation the rest of us can actually follow.
And hey, Status Bro? The status window isn't doing its job today of all days? You usually fill me in on all sorts of things at times like this. I skipped a bunch of stuff recently, sure, but you're not sulking over that, are you?
The status window did not respond.
Did it actually get mad.
Nothing for it. The one small mercy was that Lupin was inside a treasure chest. She could, you might say, easily overwrite a memory by clearing out a few other chests. The problem was which treasure-chest memory to tidy away.
The chest buried under sludge deep in the sewer—she had nearly suffocated getting that one out. She was pretty sure she hadn't seen another like it since. Or the chest plastered right in front of a dam's sluice, so that every release of water forced her down the slide? Hmm. A chest that had taught her the important fact that a human sucked into a hole under tremendous pressure might come apart—that one, too, felt a shame to throw away.
She picked through this and that for a long while, and every last one of them was regrettable.
Unique treasure chests are babies. They have to be protected....
But if she kept on like this, she would end up erasing nothing at all. Tears in her eyes, Lupin emptied her memory warehouse one piece at a time. The story unfolding inside the Holy Ark right now mattered more.
Meanwhile the two lights had carried on however they pleased....
"So I would like you to pass the Fragment on to this child."
"An absurd request."
Before she knew it, they had already reached a conclusion. Lupin tilted her head.
What, was I just the poster girl? Things move along on their own even if I sit still.
Since she didn't really understand, Lupin gave up on thinking. If she could obtain the Fragment of the Stars on auto-progress, that was plenty good enough! Forcing a bright, bright smile, she focused on the conversation between the two lights.
"But, Master of the Seraphim, you must know my proposal is not wholly groundless."
"I agree with your view: set aside the old hostility, and raise Ein Sof once more above those who forsook the stars. But if that is the aim, then what were the wandering stars who came first? Because of them, the wariness upon the ground has climbed high for nothing."
"Either I chose poorly. Or the children could not trust me. Or their other goals were so firm they could not be bent.... It was like that. I had my own troubles, you know."
"And you can be certain this child is different?"
Destiny's Star answered with absolute firmness.
"Yes. As you can see, I am here, am I not? Our Golden Child—if it is Lupin, she will open every Holy Ark and stand before every Sephira."
But the talk seemed ready to end and yet would not, and Lupin grew anxious too.
If you're going to give it, give it. If not, say so. Keep stalling and the rice is going to burn.
In the end, unable to hold back, she shot her hand into the air. She meant to throw her weight behind Big Sis Star's words. Not by understanding, but by feel, she had caught the angle from which the two stars were keeping up their delicate tug-of-war.
"Um. May I say one thing?"
Calling to mind a certain girl orator from her memories, Lupin roared.
"My dream is to open every Holy Ark on the continent. That I will absolutely not fail—this Lupin soooolemnly declaaaaares————!!"
Of course, thanks to a space like one giant soundproof booth, it came out as clean, echo-free live vocals. The silence returned so quickly that Lupin was the one left flustered.
"Ahem. Well. Anyway, that's the gist of it. I am this era's true Holy Ark Appreciation Society. All praise the Radiant Ark."
The white star asked her.
"Enough. If you gather every Fragment of the Stars, as you claim, do you know what will come of it?"
"Well... my collection list will finally be at peace, right?"
"A collection?"
"There is such a thing."
Destiny's Star traded a wink with Lupin. While she stifled a laugh, the white star asked again.
"Child. Do you not fear being hated by humankind?"
"People are supposed to have the courage to be disliked. That's just how it is."
At that sunny answer, even the white star was left with nothing to say. Destiny's Star settled her laughter and spoke.
"I told you. Pure and kind, isn't she?"
"Is she not simply a fool? One ought at least to know properly how the world turns."
"No. I rather think not knowing is better."
The white star was still only half convinced.
"Your will is clear, and that is good—but, child. The road you mean to walk may be stained with hardship. Even so, will it be all right?"
Lupin let out a short laugh.
"Hardship? My whole life right now is hardship. A life without a single sure thing, sending pigeons up every night, begging a Secret Chest to please, please appear.... Honestly, there is no hardship to match it. And I get worried, too—what am I supposed to do if every bad guy in this world up and disappears...."
The white star couldn't follow, so Destiny's Star advised him to let it wash past. Then he asked again.
"Even if the entire world turns its back on you. Even if there is nowhere in all the world for you to remain?"
"Why would that be a problem? I've been living exactly like that for five years. So what."
The white star and Lupin failed to find any common ground. Their thoughts were simply too far apart. In the end Destiny's Star couldn't hold it in and burst into loud laughter, while the white star groaned, plainly displeased.
But if one asked whether Lupin had said anything strange—not particularly. She had only spoken as she knew things to be.
With a keyboard, a mouse, her fingers, and a gamepad, she had ranged across a great many worlds and lived through every kind of story there was. Along the way she had often become a public enemy, or a wanted criminal, and been hunted by people. Well, go around cracking treasure chests and wasn't that the baseline? Some stranger shows up out of nowhere and cleans out the imperial vault—it would be stranger if they didn't react.
But those stories had a way of ending with her bringing down the final boss, claiming that last treasure chest as well, and being treated as a hero, so there had been no particular reason to dwell on the white star's question. Above all, the instant a chest opened, every sensation she had felt until then was promptly replaced by dopamine. So what did it matter who hated her, who loathed her. All she could see was the dopamine waiting at the end.
Honestly, this was less Lupin's fault than the fault of game design. Tell her a moving story all the way through, then have a treasure chest pop out at the finish, and of course her mind got sold off in that direction. Afterward she couldn't even remember the story that had come before. By the same token, if Elysium had wanted Lupin to focus on the world's tale, it should never have placed treasure chests in the world at all.
You reap what you sow!
One way or another, Lupin was only here to crack treasure chests!
She put on an utterly pure expression and let her eyes sparkle.
"So. When do I get the Fragment of the Stars? I'll hold my breath right here until you hand it over! Hup!"