Aloha. Madame Pele
Thud!
One step.
Thud!
Another.
She had lost count of how many she had driven in.
Thud!
Ten? Twenty?
Thud!
A hundred, for all she knew.
Thud!
"Fall already!"
Thud!
She was furious — furious that a wall already crumbled to ruin still refused to come down, furious to have come this far only to be stopped.
She gathered strength into her fist again. Divine power, life, her very existence: she did not care what she scraped together. Blood burst. Muscle tore. Her being was pared away.
Thud!
If she stopped, that was the end. The finale.
"Aaaaaaah!"
A scream torn loose by frustration. The despair of being unable to repay them. Time that did nothing but pass her by. How many grievances were packed into that one cry?
Rrrumble.
The wall shook. She knew it would not fall, and still the thought crept in. What if.
"Damn it!"
Was she making any progress? Was she doing this right?
There was nothing but her and the wall. No wind at her back. No sight to fill the space beside her. Even the sound that had shaken the heavens was gone.
Was it already over?
Had the children who had been helping her already died, and was this her punishment?
"That can't be."
Life's Guardian. The Child of Nature. The Child of Heaven. The mother who had given birth to Nature. Heaven's tiger. And the Child of Man.
They would not die so easily. So long as the Child of Man was there, they were absolutely safe.
So enough of useless thoughts. Breaking this damned wall was her work.
"Hah!"
A one-sided beating would no longer do. What she needed was one greater blow. A spear of terrible power. A spear that pierced anything.
She shaped it. She imagined it — herself breaking through this wall and going on, herself returning to the children's arms.
Fwoosh.
Her vision rose. Her shoulders broadened. Her hair lengthened until it touched the ground, and from that hair lava surged.
Huuuu.
The breath she exhaled held fire. Magma ran along her lengthened arms. Her wide eyes shone brighter than the sun, and her body, sturdy and vast, was the mother of every mother.
I am Pele.
Mother of Hawaii.
Who is there to stand in my way? What trial dares to be set before me? Nothing can hinder what I do.
"My greatest trial, my hesitation — this is my praise for you. I'll give you what you require."
She struck inward, into the deep place. The divinity she had been peeling away little by little, she drew out in full.
Fwoosh! Fwoosh!
She could not see ahead. Divinity beyond her capacity had burned her sight away.
She was glad of it. She had no need of sight anyway. Her enemy would not run. It would stand firm, as it always had.
"When was the last time I faced a crisis like this?"
When she clashed with the four goddesses of snow? When her family drove her out? When her limbs were severed and she died once?
She would say it plainly. This did not fall short of those. No — it surpassed them.
She stood at the cliff's edge. One foot already hung in empty air. The ground was precarious, ready to give way, and ahead of her was pitch black.
Behind her waited the death the Child of Man had described to her.
The erasure of existence.
The thing called Pele, wiped completely from this world.
It was frightening. Terrifying. A god, and still infinitely small. The frame called the world had thought nothing of a god's death.
"Enough. What's the use of fretting any further?"
It was not the world that decided the end. Not fate, either. They were hardly going to live in her place.
The stray thoughts were finished.
Her hair streamed. Before she knew it, hair long enough to carpet the ground had gathered behind her arm and become a shaft.
Pele's hair was lava. From ancient times, the lava of Hawaii had belonged to Pele alone.
"This'll do nicely."
Lava dripped. The hottest shaft had been made.
She extended one arm and let it assimilate. The shaft alone could unleash supreme destruction, but that alone could not shatter the trial before her.
Bubble. Bubble.
Her arm melted. The shaft fitted the rest of her to itself, and what rose from its end was a wedge of single-point focus — crude, plain, and sharper than anything it could be set against.
Krrrk.
Merely lifting it was almost too much. But no one else could lift it.
This was a weapon made by sacrificing a god. There were weapons that had killed gods. Was there a weapon that could be called the same thing as a god?
"This should be enough."
She set her stance. Feet shoulder-width apart, waist slightly bent, every muscle in her body given over to driving the spear.
"Hah!!!"
She lifted the foot that had been hanging at the cliff's edge. Both legs floated in the void.
And the spear was driven.
Soundless.
Sensationless.
Thoughtless.
In the instant the spear went forth, everything vanished.
Ah.
Like this, she could not even tell whether it had worked.
Had it pierced? Had the wall fallen? Even a little would do — she wanted to know. Otherwise she would have to imagine it alone, like a fool. She would pass on being tortured by hope.
Still. She had done her best.
It must have succeeded. It had to. It had to, because then the children outside would be safe.
…….
They would be all right, wouldn't they?
"It isn't over yet."
"Hah!"
Her sight returned. Her body was flung as if flying somewhere, then sucked into a single point.
Shwoooong.
Kwaaaaaaah…….
She opened her eyes. She could see ahead. Sound that had been absent returned by degrees, then swelled until it rang through her skull beyond her control.
"Are you kidding me!"
Coming to herself, she swore at how wrong the world had gone.
The spear she had forged out of a god had been blocked.
Kugugugu!!!
It resisted. The wall, vast beyond vast, converged upon the spear's tip into a single point and was shoving the spear back.
"Graaaaah!!!"
Just a little. A little farther, and—
Krrrk.
It would not advance. It could not. Divinity streamed down in threads. The spear of blood and flesh could not bear the destruction and was collapsing.
At this rate she would die first — a death worse than dying like a dog, with nothing to show for it.
Not that.
"Kh!"
She erased her left arm. Erased both legs. Erased every part she did not need. One more step was all it would take.
"Go!!!"
Kugugugugu.
Crack.
The wall that had become a point was driven back.
The law that had seemed unbreakable cracked under a god's full power. A fissure so fine it was almost nothing — and still, an enormous advance.
"Haaaaah!!!"
At last she could break it—
Tok.
"Huh?"
It... stopped.
A drop, hanging in empty air.
"No. No. No. No!!!"
A little farther. A little would have been enough!
Why — why?!
She tried to move. The spear did not answer, as if it were only part of the background.
"No!!!"
The spear descended, slowly.
She had staked everything. Was this the end? Like this?
"It isn't over yet."
Someone's voice, again. She turned her gaze that way and found no one.
Instead, a green wave vast enough to overturn the whole sky came rolling toward her.
"That's...?"
It was Life. The power the three children had sent her had only now arrived.
She had thought she was still receiving it. She had not been.
Haha.
"It isn't over yet."
Shaaaaa.
The wave crashed over her. Infinite life laid fresh kindling on a flame that had been going out. The emptied divinity filled, and the body that had vanished grew back in a rush.
A triumphant smile drew itself at the corner of her mouth.
Tap.
She reached out the arm she had sacrificed and seized the shaft.
"No need to grow it so grand."
She reduced it. The lava hardened. The shaft grew solid, the arm was honed keen, and the spearhead became a sharp triangle.
A dark-crimson Divine Spear: a god, forging a god. Heavy. Fierce. Could anything be better?
"All right. Round two."
The point flinched. It seemed to be looking her way, and for some reason it looked as if it were sweating.
Amusing.
She aimed the spear at the faint, tiny crack.
"A pleasure."
BOOM!
"I can't hold any longer!"
Dan Miryu's face had gone black with strain. His trembling arms showed just how far past his limit he had pushed.
"Grrrr……."
San-gun kept the barrier up. Fresh blood spilled from his mouth in a stream.
Krrrrrumble!!!
The volcano's shaking had grown until it might as well have been an earthquake. Now magma was running from the walls and the ceiling as well.
"……Pele."
Mi Soryeong looked at Pele, uneasy. Pele hung limp, like a corpse.
Mi Soryeong looked at me.
"I think... she failed."
A weak thing to say, but for her it was a reasonable conclusion.
"No. Look again."
"What?"
Thud!
"Aaaagh!"
"Kh!"
"Kurgh!"
The three of them could not withstand the impact and were flung clear. Tumbling without a shred of dignity, they turned their eyes to the same place at once.
Wooooong.
A membrane peeled away from Pele's body. Layer by layer the shell came off, and the flesh beneath showed. When the membrane vanished, Pele's eyes lit, and she passed through the wall and was gone.
Krrrrr…….
The volcano that had seemed ready to burst grew calm. San-gun went slack.
"Mr. Dan Miryu."
"Yes?"
I flung San-gun, tongue lolling, and Mi Soryeong toward Dan Miryu.
"Kyaa!"
"Grr!"
"Whoa—!"
Dan Miryu caught them.
"And where do you think you're going?"
Hong Yumin was panting.
"To watch."
"Haa……."
Hong Yumin waved a hand.
"Go, then. I'll brace for the shock."
"Thank you."
Halemaumau Crater.
The mouth of Kilauea boiled and seethed.
Rrrumble.
The magma that had been flowing overran its banks. Volcanic ash crawled out through the gaps in the flow.
Rumble!
Thunder sounded.
Kwaaaaaang!!!
The volcano that had been giving its omens exploded at last. Sirens wailed in the distance.
But did they know?
The volcano had not erupted. This was a blessing.
The ash that ought to have covered the sky drew the shape of a woman, and the magma that ought to have burned everything became her hair. When the woman in the smoke beckoned, the sky cleared as if it had never been otherwise, and the air grew clean. The explosion became something that had never happened.
The woman's eyes turned toward me.
On this day, a god was revived.