15. Frankenstein's Successor (8)
The Monster Circus Troupe members, who had roamed in small clusters, swapped partners the following day and shuffled schedules the day after that, savoring the festival. It seemed that roughing it together in close quarters bonded them far more tightly than living like emperors in a luxury hotel. Unrestrained jokes flew back and forth more and more easily, and they grew quicker to look after even the smallest details for one another.
Thanks to the prestige the troupe had accumulated, even the monster members could now walk around openly during the festival. There were still occasional glances of open disgust or hostility, but the atmosphere was noticeably softer than before.
Yet one member kept to herself like a recluse, refusing to set foot outside at all. That was Maya.
After her excursion with Wonderstein on the first day, she had burrowed into the wagon and shown no intention of leaving. Keeping to herself was in character, but refusing to go out at all was strange. Karen stopped by to check on her from time to time, but once the festival hit its stride, Karen's own troupe duties consumed her time.
"Miss Maya, is something the matter?"
When her hermit routine stretched on for days, Wonderstein grew concerned. He cornered Karen and asked what had happened that day, but Karen deflected the question with an uncomfortable look of her own, claiming she didn't know.
"No."
He fared no better asking Maya directly. She merely shook her head with the same wooden expression as always. He wondered if her inability to walk was the issue and offered to carry her on his back again, but she refused him in a frosty tone.
There was, he knew, a graver problem underneath. She no longer approached her treatment with her old fervor. The girl who had once been almost tiresomely diligent, pestering him every day for massages, had lately dodged therapy with excuses about feeling unwell or exhausted.
'I figured this day was coming. She's hit her limit.'
Wonderstein could guess her state of mind. He had fallen into a similar pit himself when he left the orphanage to be treated by an outside therapist. Frustration over negligible progress against a grueling regimen. Humiliation and resentment at having his body manipulated one-sidedly.
Two months in, he had pleaded to quit. Half a year later, he got into a shouting match with his therapist. A full year in, he had flatly refused to continue and simply lay on the floor. Then one day — a year and a half after treatment began — he finally stood upright, balancing on his own.
That was the moment his half-hearted faith in treatment hardened into conviction. The rush of achievement left a deep, permanent impression on him.
He understood how punishing this stretch was for Maya. But if she collapsed now, all the hard-won progress would evaporate. Her muscles would seize up, and the sensations she had barely regained could vanish as well.
"Troupe Leader, are you not finished yet?"
"I am. I'll be right out."
Anais was calling him from outside. Today was reserved for enjoying the festival with her. The women of the troupe had reached some sort of agreement among themselves and were now taking turns summoning him.
"I'll come see you again later. I know things are hard, but please don't give up."
Wonderstein offered his warm encouragement, but Maya, her back still turned to him as she lay facing the wall, said nothing in reply.
***
All seven professional circus troupes invited by the city of Kaldir were Circus Grand Prix competitors — each had earned at least one star from the Christian Guide — and all had already cleared at least one preliminary round. Festival-going here was never just sightseeing; it doubled as reconnaissance on the opposition.
Ella had reminded the members to observe carefully, but the moment the festival swallowed her up, she reverted to a die-hard circus fanatic, utterly absorbed in watching the shows. Reina, who was paired with her today, watched her friend bubbling over with childlike excitement and let a small smile slip out.
It was good to see her friend back to the version of herself she knew. Reina's first glimpse of Ella had been while Ella was still suffering the aftereffects of the Reaper's Scythe. The memory-restored Ella who lashed out at Wonderstein or turned irritable had never felt like the real Ella to her.
They had just stepped out of a show by Le Vodvilien. The all-clown troupe rotated teams on stage, each performing original comedy skits.
"Ahaha, they really put that together brilliantly! The 'Wonderland Academy' bit was fantastic."
"Right. Heh. They were as funny as people say."
Wonderland Academy was Le Vodvilien's sole permanent program — a satirical play built around the premise that famous acrobats gather to study at a school in Wonderland. It was packed with characters parodying figures from the industry's past and present. The personalities were vivid enough for outsiders to enjoy, and for insiders, the deeper one's knowledge, the more layers emerged to savor.
Today's installment featured caricatures like a "loudmouthed chicken-head thug," an "astonishingly cowardly golden mustache," and a "blond punk who seduces women," all of which caught the two women by surprise. The satire did leave a slightly bitter aftertaste, though, since the incident it mocked was the fake Christian script that had fooled them all.
"Out of all the shows so far at the Kaldir festival, which one's your favorite? Of the seven, I mean."
Reina answered without hesitation.
"Smackdown."
Smackdown was the troupe invited to represent Strength Show-off, an ensemble composed entirely of power acrobats. They fought in staged brawls on a ring with flashy makeup, and the sequences of blows and counters they exchanged were renowned for their blistering, breathtaking heat.
"You?"
"Obviously the taming show by Billy and Betty!"
"You haven't even seen it yet."
"Ha! Is that so? Hmm, out of what I've watched so far, I'd say... Morta?"
Morta Circus, the tightrope-walking representative, was a company where every performer doubled as a marionettist. Not a single person ever set foot on the stage. They all hung from lines near the ceiling, manipulating dolls by string. Their play's plot was unremarkable, but the sight of dozens of puppets weaving across the stage on hundreds of threads, never once tangling, was spellbinding.
"Have you been by the Scorpion Circus?"
"No, I only peeked. If I joined in, I'd spoil it for everyone else."
"Yeah, I was thinking the same thing."
The Scorpion Circus was a troupe of marksmanship acrobats and one of the rare outfits that specialized in interactive circus performances, which made them a welcome fixture at many festivals. They handed out prop firearms to guests and turned them loose in a mock frontier-town set, where they staged gunfights against troupe members dressed as bandits.
Naturally, no guest stood a real chance against professional sharpshooters. The acrobats obliged them by taking hits at the right tempo, allowing customers to enjoy a thrilling firefight.
"Oh, those guys came here too."
The Scorpion Circus used an open stage, so onlookers could survey the action from the fence enclosing the set. Ella and Reina leaned against the railing and watched the people currently trading fire with the troupe.
Minova, Dosville, Trimery, and the Ratmen were prowling through the set with prop guns in hand, faces tight with vigilance. They charged at any enemy they spotted, shouting and shooting wildly with no pretense of strategy or tactics.
Every BANG and flash from the fake guns sent a villain flopping to the ground — though occasionally a Ratman dropped as well. Trimery had already been "shot" twice, but he stubbornly defended his survival on the logic that three heads meant two hits weren't fatal. They kept mowing down outlaws until the clock at the center of town struck noon.
When at last only the three of them and two Ratmen remained, the door of the saloon at the far end of the set swung open and a man stepped out. A red scarf covered his mouth, a poncho draped half his torso, and a bowler hat sat on his head: it was Killpatrick, the "Red Scorpion," leader of the Scorpion Circus.
"I'll sweep you all away at once."
The five of them had been riding a wave of momentum, but before Killpatrick they couldn't afford to act rashly. He was the only performer here who fought at full capability — a boss-level opponent. Since founding the circus, he had never once been taken down by a guest.
He drew his gun, and the five of them were wiped out in a blink, with no chance to resist. They had scattered in every direction the instant the saloon door opened and taken cover behind obstacles, yet the moment they exposed so much as a sliver of themselves, his Illusion Bullets flew in with uncanny precision.
"Whoa, that's insane!"
"That's not human reaction speed."
"And can we talk about that accuracy?"
The set had been built by the Scorpion Circus from the ground up. Killpatrick knew the placement of every last object, so hiding proved useless against him. In a real street fight, he wouldn't have dispatched them nearly so effortlessly.
Cheers and applause poured from the spectators. The Monster Circus party, groaning and nursing the sting of the Illusion Bullets across their bodies, soon turned to each other and burst into laughter. It was genuinely jaw-dropping marksmanship.
"Minova, what brings you here? I heard the Morning Star Circus disbanded."
"Ah, well, about that..."
Minova and Killpatrick were acquainted; while the other performers tidied the set and readied the next round, the two men exchanged brief pleasantries.
Before long, the performance time for Billy and Betty drew near. Ella and Reina joined the queue in front of a tent that smelled heavily of animal musk. A few onlookers recognized Ella and murmured among themselves.
"That girl..."
"Oh, looking at what she's wearing... is she a fan?"
"No, from that Rekachev Exam..."
Ella's growing reputation played a role, but her outfit did just as much work. The red silk hat and red tailcoat she habitually wore were the signature look of Betty, co-leader of Billy and Betty. She had styled her acrobat's costume that way in the first place out of admiration for Betty, hailed as the greatest animal trainer of the current generation.
Before entering the tent, they stopped at a stall for a quick snack. Reina browsed the souvenirs while they waited and paused at a pile of stuffed bears stacked in a corner.
"They're Billy Bears. You want one?"
"I used to collect them."
"Really — the Golden Libra Reina, collecting dolls? I can't picture it."
"That's right. My father threw them all out and said I had to manage my image."
"...Every time you talk about him, the horror stories pile up. That mustache."
"He's gone now, so I want to start again."
Reina pulled out her purse and handed coins to the vendor. The Billy Bear dolls wore a different costume at every tour stop. The outfit they sported now was the traditional dress of the Amur region.
"Looks like you're loaded."
Ella gawked at how readily she produced the money. Reina's voice held a note of something close to pride.
"The Troupe Leader gave me an allowance."
"..."
"Didn't you get one?"
"What? M-me, needing an allowance... I already get extra dignity-maintenance funds as Deputy Leader, so..."
"...Is that so?"
Conversation died between them. Neither spoke another word until the show began. Ella stole glances at the other girl's mask, a nettled expression on her face.
'Tch. What's the big deal? He says I'm the only one, but he slips her secret spending money.'
In the past, she wouldn't have felt this anxious. But her duties had been shrinking lately, and a creeping sense of crisis had settled in, which made Wonderstein's special favor toward Reina grate on her.
Reina sensed the atmosphere coiled around Ella but couldn't bring herself to explain. The allowance, the freedom to enjoy the festival — this was what the "seven-year-old her" had wished for from her father. The Troupe Leader had simply granted it to aid her treatment. The shadow that had begun at age four had grown, unnoticed, into a seven-year-old.
But Reina questioned herself honestly. Even if she could have explained the circumstances to Ella, would she have come clean? Would she have given up a chance to appear more special to Wonderstein than Ella was? She couldn't answer yes.
It was a mercy when the show started. Both of them could set their troubles aside for a while.
"Have you heard the story of the friendship between a human and a bear?"
The emcee took the stage and briefly recounted Billy and Betty's history. The circus had been born seventeen years ago.
"Eighteen years ago, at the scene of the Second Circus Grand Prix disaster, a bear and a young girl were discovered clutching each other tightly. The bear, though half-starved to exhaustion, did not eat the girl. The girl, who could have escaped the ruins on her own, refused to leave the bear behind. The two of them, having survived a horrific catastrophe through their trust in one another, went on to found a circus together."
Every light in the venue went dark. A spotlight pinned itself to one side of the stage.
"And now, allow me to introduce the living legends themselves! An animal-only circus troupe composed entirely of trainers — the leaders of Billy and Betty! Betty Kreiss! And her partner, Billy!"
A red tailcoat and red hat, a white blouse, a short skirt.
A brown-haired woman in her thirties, clad in an outfit identical to Ella's, stepped onto the stage alongside an enormous bear, bathed in a roar of cheers.