13. Circus Charlie (21)
13. Circus Charlie (21)
When she first encountered the Reaper in Wonderland, Ella had assumed her life was over.
For most people, distinguishing one animal from another wasn't easy — but it was for her. The moment she spotted the Reaper, she knew it was the same creature she'd fought before. And he knew her, just as instantly.
"Oh-ho. If it isn't the little acrobat from last time."
A low growl. A twitching snout, bristling whiskers.
The Reaper's tone was courteous. But Ella, who could read an animal's emotions with unnerving precision, caught the raw impulse beneath it: he wanted to tear her apart right then. He prowled through the hall, making a show of searching for someone.
"Wonderstein — that was his name, yes? Is he here as well?"
"No. None of the others are here. I'm the only one."
"Ki-ki-keek! A pity. I had a debt to settle. Then again, perhaps I should call it luck. There's no one left to stop me from adding pieces of you to my collection."
Kataropi gestured at the trophies strung across his body. One look, and Ella swallowed a curse. Dangling across his chest like beads on a cord was an assortment of heads — human, animal, abyss-spawn alike.
"It would be an honor to make room for one more."
"I'd rather decline."
"Kik-kik. Regrettably, you have no say in the matter."
The Reaper raised his scythe.
In that split second, when everything hung by a breath, a thought struck Ella like a bolt of lightning. A way out. The one way to break this deadlock.
"W-wait! Make a contract with me!"
The scythe halted inches from her nose. The Reaper studied her for a beat, then bared his teeth in a grin.
"Humans all think the same thoughts when they're cornered. A contract, you say? But you don't appear to have anything to offer me."
"No — I do!"
Ella pulled a fist-sized glass bottle from her coat and held it up for him to see. Wonderstein had given it to her not long ago — an object imbued with power that mimicked Professor Phairen's Inspira. Kataropi, high-ranking abyss-demon that he was, recognized the magic tool for what it was at a glance.
"A space apart from this world."
Her proposal was simple. She offered the one thing every creature of the Abyss dreamed of: the freedom to roam the surface. She promised she would release him from the bottle at regular intervals.
"On one condition. You cannot kill anyone. If you won't accept that, the deal is off."
"Do you imagine you're in any position to set conditions?"
"You think I'm playing coy? I'm not about to save my own skin by sacrificing other people. I haven't forgotten. The people you killed that day."
"......."
"......."
Silence stretched between them. After a moment, Kataropi tilted his head and scratched the back of his skull.
"Who was it I killed that day, exactly?"
The question brought her up short. She cast her mind back, and realized — now that he mentioned it — the Reaper hadn't directly killed a single person that day. Heat flushed into her cheeks, and she raised her voice.
"Th-that doesn't matter! Those are my terms. Decide. Will you take the deal or not?"
Kataropi stared at her for a long moment. The commission he'd accepted had been simply to prevent their performance. The instruments were already destroyed; killing her was unnecessary. And letting old grudges deprive him of such amusement would be a waste. He withdrew his scythe.
"Very well. I accept."
Ella drew a blade across her palm and let her blood fill the bottle. Kataropi drank it, sealing the contract. Before entering, he froze the wound shut to stop the bleeding for her.
"Reaper — no, wait. What's your name, anyway? What am I supposed to call you?"
"A demon does not lightly share its true name — not even a syllable. Our names carry many forms of binding. Not as potent as the Madosa of Sinepekus, perhaps, but it remains true that if someone speaks my name, I can hear the whisper wherever in the world I am. Call me as you like."
Ella nodded, solemn.
"Fine. Then I'll call you Todori."
"......Nevertheless. For you, I shall make an exception and grant you two syllables. I am called Cappi."
And so Ella formed a contract with the Reaper — yet after returning to the surface, she had never once let him out. Exam preparations kept her busy, and releasing him in the middle of a city was far too dangerous.
She had never told Wonderstein about Cappi, either. She didn't want to burden him with pointless worries when he was already stretched thin. She planned to bring it up after the exams, once his body had recovered.
But the moment to reveal the secret came sooner than she expected.
Ella had recovered every memory from that day. Starting from her first meeting with Wonderstein, through the Theater District Festival, all the way to Anna's death and their departure from the village. The gaps that had dotted her recollection were filled in now, complete.
She came to understand that this was not the first time she had bargained with a demon to save her friends.
Wonderstein.
The enemy who had slaughtered the people of her hometown. Her friends.
He was walking toward her now, perfectly hale, as though his earlier death throes had been nothing but a performance. He looked down at Charlie cradled in her arms and let slip a faint smile.
"You've done well, Miss Ella."
An ominous premonition gripped her. She remembered, with brutal clarity, the kind of man he truly was: someone who wore kindness as a mask while coolly toying with people's lives, wielding threats without a flicker of guilt.
Ella clenched her fists until her nails bit into her palms.
What was this? Had he tricked her into shooting her own friend? Had she been nothing more than a puppet dancing to his scheme?
She barely managed to hold her crumbling mind together and force out the words.
"You...... knew about him...... about Charlie...... this whole time?"
Somewhere in her heart, a voice still clung to a half-dreaming hope, insisting she still loved him. That voice, grasping at straws against all the evidence, struggled to defend him.
It couldn't be true. It was a coincidence. He wasn't a bad man.
But he betrayed that fragile faith without so much as a flinch.
"A man who bears a grudge against me."
Ella felt herself plummeting into a vast, lightless abyss.
He had known about Charlie from the very beginning. He'd faked his own dying moments, watching to see what choice she would make.
I love you, Wonderstein. Truly.
He had used the feelings she held for him to do it.
"Cough."
Charlie spat out a mouthful of blood.
"That must be quite painful."
Wonderstein's murmur was almost taunting. He glanced at Charlie once, then walked past as if the man's life or death meant nothing to him.
A chilling, inhuman indifference.
Yes. This was his true nature.
Hot tears spilled down Ella's cheeks.
Three months of trusting him without a single doubt crumbled inside her. The resolution she had made — to keep loving him even after her memories returned — shattered with appalling ease.
Then Charlie called her name.
"El...... la......."
Relief surfaced on his dying face. He was glad, at last, to have confirmed that Wonderstein had her under some kind of coercive hold.
"Charlie, I'm sorry...... I'm so sorry...... I — I wasn't in my right mind. Back then, I had no choice — I was trying to save the others......"
"It's... it's all right...... cough."
Charlie coughed up more blood, but the faint smile never left his lips. The fact that she had broken free of that demon, that she was crying for him — that alone was enough.
"Can I...... say one last thing?"
"Oh, Charlie......"
A wave of déjà vu washed over Ella. She had witnessed this scene once before. And the moment Charlie opened his mouth, she knew her premonition had been right.
"The truth is...... I always liked you."
Tears streamed from Ella's eyes.
Why...... why did they all have to fall for someone as pathetic as her......?
"Ella...... I love you......"
He whispered it, and then his eyes closed, his head dipping to the side.
A sob slipped through Ella's lips.
Again. It was happening all over again.
While she had been blinded by that demon, she had lost another friend.
Both of them, on the verge of death, had confessed feelings — feelings she didn't deserve.
Ella could not forgive herself. And she could not forgive the man who had brought this about.
She summoned the Reaper from his bottle. Wonderstein, clearly caught off-guard, stopped in his tracks, his posture rigid.
Ella pointed a finger at him and gave Cappi her command.
"Kill him."
"Kik-kik. A falling-out, is it? Fine by me. Now I can take my revenge for last time."
The Reaper loosed a shrieking cry and hurled himself toward the altar. A single swipe of his savage claws demolished half the staircase in a cascade of rubble.
But Wonderstein was no longer there. He had flung himself aside the instant his opponent leapt, landing cleanly on the floor below.
"Kir-rrk. This is somewhat inconvenient. The lingering aura of the sanctuary is making my body feel rather stiff."
Cappi rolled his neck and shoulders as he descended from the altar.
Ella fixed Wonderstein with a stony glare.
"So the wheelchair was an act after all."
The movement he had just displayed was nothing like what he'd shown that morning. Her suspicion hardened into certainty.
"You misunderstand. I recovered only moments ago. Strangely enough, the instant I touched that coffin, I was healed."
He wasn't lying. When he had been playing the part of Charlie's victim, his soul had still been unrestored. But the closer he drew to the heart of the sanctuary, the easier his steps became, and the moment he made contact with the stone coffin bearing the saint's remains, every soul-shard that had been ever-so-slightly misaligned clicked back into place.
Ella did not believe a word of it. Everything out of his mouth now sounded like a lie.
"Enough. I won't let you play me any longer. Cappi!"
At her cry, the Reaper launched himself at Wonderstein again. Wonderstein retreated, dodging blow after blow.
Thanks to the spare Devoluts he had diligently accumulated over the past three months, his physical abilities had largely recovered to the level he'd reached during their first fight. The Reaper, meanwhile, was clearly not operating at full strength in this place that had so recently been a sanctuary.
He no longer had a coach whispering precise, moment-by-moment advice the way he had back then, yet Wonderstein evaded Cappi's every attack with fluid motion. He didn't really need her guidance anymore — three months spent observing his troupe members practice against traps and obstacles had honed his ability to read movements and seize timings.
Between his shoulder and wing-blade, he prepared a strike that fused Mantula's Blade with his whip-like tentacles. He'd read the Reaper's next move, and that gave him an opening to drive a blade through the creature's chest.
Now!
The instant Cappi raised his arm, Wonderstein shot out a tentacle.
But at that exact moment, someone threw herself directly into its path.
It was Ella.
Shit.
Wonderstein wrenched the tentacle to a halt in midair. In that split second's hesitation, Cappi's claws carved down across his chest.
Flesh split open, blood splattered across the floor. He'd dodged fast enough to avoid being skewered entirely, but the wound was still severe.
"Wh-what are you doing?"
Wonderstein shot her a look of genuine anger. If he hadn't stopped, she would have been impaled on his own blade.
Ella bit her lip hard and glared back at him.
"Then you should have just killed me."
"Excuse me?"
Crrk.
She ground her teeth audibly, then shouted.
"After killing everyone else — killing my friends — so easily, don't you dare pretend you care about me! How long do you have to keep toying with me before you're satisfied? I've had enough, do you hear me? From now on, I'm getting in the way every time you try to attack! If you stop because of me, Cappi will finish you! So the only way for you to survive is to kill me first."
"Miss Ella......"
The sight of his wound nearly softened her heart, but she steeled herself at once. This was the same man who had faked a far worse injury, pretending to be on the verge of death. It only looked like another ploy to exploit her sympathy.
"I won't fall for it again! Hah. Let's see how long you can keep that mask on."
The Reaper looked back and forth between them — Ella, her voice steeped in anguish while she strained to hold a ruthless expression, and Wonderstein, outwardly composed but visibly drained. A laugh burst from him.
"Ki-ki, this is entertaining. I like you, contractor! I'm curious to see how this ends. I'll follow your orders."
Cappi hoisted her up onto his shoulder, then charged toward Wonderstein once more. All Wonderstein could do was watch the two of them bear down on him, a hopeless weight settling in his chest.