Americano (4)
It was a day like any other. With a light step I arrived at the Association building and made my way, as if by habit, straight to the top floor.
I eased the office door open carefully. To them I was still an unwelcome guest, so my plan was to slip in as if I weren't there, see only Erika, and leave the same way.
The reason? Nothing much.
I just wanted shaved ice with Erika.
I was used to being alone, but the desire to have her with me for every little thing had grown far too large. We had come and gone between cafés and the Association together before, but almost always for work. We had never really taken personal time simply to know each other.
Lately it felt as if I were acting on instinct alone.
I clawed for even one more glimpse of her eyes.
Surely it wasn't love.
I closed the door I had opened so gently and settled on that conclusion.
I would have to think about it seriously later.
Whether someone living a ruined life was even allowed to have love.
I glanced around, then quietly took a seat in one of the chairs lined up along the side.
If I just sat still, Erika would notice me, scowl, and come over to greet me.
I was looking forward to the abuse she would pour on me.
I let out a short breath.
The office was noisier than usual. The director up ahead wore a grave expression—ah, and Erika was there too.
"Gates at all hours. Honestly."
"Another high-tier one, I take it?"
The director pressed a hand to his forehead.
"Yes. The Union Department observed it, so they're certain."
"And the progress of the rift?"
"Not critical yet."
A staff member approached the director and handed him a sheaf of papers. The way he flipped through them at a glance and tossed them onto the desk was the mark of long practice.
"And also…"
Ah. Our eyes met.
I answered with a small smile, and this time Erika furrowed her brow and pressed a hand to her own forehead.
I'd already been caught, so I might as well own it.
"Hi."
I disliked noisy environments, but the fact that I wasn't drawing every eye in the room right now felt rather nice.
"I came because I wanted to see you."
Erika's face still said she couldn't stand the sight of me, but the director was surprisingly unfazed. Maybe because I had only ever shown a non-threatening side of myself at the Association. He adapted quickly.
"I suddenly had this massive craving for shaved ice."
"And so?"
"And so I came to you! From now on, should I just come straight up to the top floor?"
"…"
The training disguised as a hostage situation would come soon enough. But before that, I wanted to spend a little rest on pure self-interest.
Sitting together, facing each other, eating shaved ice.
It would be terribly sweet.
Only for me, probably.
"Why would I…"
"Hm?"
"Hah. Fine. Do whatever you want."
What came back was acceptance after refusal. I only smiled quietly, but the fact that she was going along with me felt better than anything.
She was scowling. I didn't care.
She seemed to work herself ragged every day. Didn't she deserve a break?
"The place in front of the station, right?"
"You already knew?"
"Go on ahead."
After that brief exchange, Erika turned her head back to the papers.
I smiled softly, turned on my heel, and left the office.
Outside the Association, the weather was mild. Neither hot nor cold—just the right temperature. Maybe I should start checking the weather news before leaving the house.
Ever since meeting Erika, I had been gradually adding ordinary habits back into my life. Sleeping in. Reading books.
This was an extension of that. Cafés, walks, desserts. And the small talk that came with them.
I still didn't know what I was looking for in this tangled life.
But I walked on anyway.
Maybe I was getting a little better.
On the desolate streets sliding toward ruin, bright places were few. Shops still doing proper business were surprisingly hard to find.
I was lucky to have found this one at all.
Shaved ice.
A field dressed in pure white snow, colors of blooming flowers woven through it.
Yeah.
That sounded delicious.
Thinking that, I walked the rest of the way.
I pushed open the cold entrance door and stepped inside.
Huh.
Strange.
Why was no one here?
All I felt was a chill.
In a place where the people who should have been present were simply gone.
I blinked once inside the shop, where calm and silence had mixed together.
Even that moment was shattered without mercy by a roar that slammed into my ears.
"Open fire!!"
Bullets.
The extraordinary invading the everyday.
A surge.
Pain crashed through my body, and a red sea poured out.
A festival of sound loud enough to split my skull made me clutch my ears and sink to the floor.
Countless foreign objects punched through my old, torn clothes and buried themselves in my flesh.
It hurt.
Harsh static and noise filled the space; a haze of smoke choked off my breath.
Swept up in the spray of gunfire, I was slammed into the back wall.
Savior.
The savior who rescued the human world.
I had almost killed Seran.
I staggered to my feet.
Greatswords drove into my abdomen one after another and forced me back down.
They pierced through.
Well.
No matter how I thought about it, that title didn't fit.
On the day of the massacre.
I had abandoned my original self.
I had forgotten the guilt and the depression that came with killing people.
I had felt exhilaration as I trampled hundreds underfoot.
Telling myself it was to wipe out the spirit soldiers with their spears, comforting myself that I was saving the human world.
I had swung my blade.
The slaughter opened, and I smiled.
A banquet of blood filled the land, and I sank to my knees again.
I howled. I mocked myself. I crushed myself and tore at my own flesh.
If the blood-soaked footprints left by that tangled being could be called salvation—
then even your disgusting invasion, deliberately unleashing spirit soldiers upon the human world,
could have been dressed up as reforming humans whose reason was rotting under mana.
"Hold!!"
My body split apart countless times and knit itself back together.
My heart burst and regenerated over and over.
When the floor and the interior of the shop were wreathed in flame,
when acrid smoke filled the space and the bullets and blade-strikes raining down on me finally stopped—
I lowered my head and held out my hand.
Cold. Hard.
A single red flower fell into my palm.
Its petals scattered and spread through the air.
Waves tangled; the current of air shuddered. Enormous thorns, vast as a sea, erupted outward in a surge of force. They woke the earth and punched through the air.
Screams rose. Death cries and uproar tangled together. Noise mixed and became chaos.
What am I?
What is this tangled thing that I am?
I had agonized over it since long ago.
I still didn't know.
Again.
Shaved ice.
An avalanche rolling down from a snowbound mountain of resistance.
The dark, murky colors of corpses crushed beneath snowballs and massive boulders.
I scooped up a spoonful, and a scream rang out.
I put it in my mouth.
The ice crunched, grainy between my teeth.
It tasted awful.
"Haa… Haa…!"
You're late.
"Welcome."
"…Orly."
Erika.
My goal. My everyday. My salvation.
"I killed people again."
A white blade rose and turned toward me.
Those pure white eyes were not looking at me, but at them—bodies torn apart until they no longer held a human shape.
"What am I?"
If it were you, could you define me?
"What am I supposed to be? What, exactly—"
Our eyes met over her bewildered face, and I closed my mouth.
Right.
Of course.
I didn't even have the right to lament.
All that was permitted to me was to carry out the plan I had made for her sake.
"Shall we do a rehearsal?"
"……"
I spread my arms.
"Kill me."
Please.
Cut me down. Crush me. Trample me without mercy and tear me apart.
Kiiing.
Her sword strokes were always sharp. The arcs she carved through the air were as gorgeous as ink flung across a pure white canvas.
But they were slow. Slow enough that I could see the edge, the material, even the fleeting color of the light—leisurely, unhurried.
I spun once where I stood. Droplets of blood disturbed the air and condensed into a single scythe. I swung it and shattered the long blade-stroke. I drove inward, jammed my foot into her abdomen, and Erika went flying.
I broke the scythe apart and reshaped it into a greatsword. I charged and swung; Erika's eyes snapped open as she raised her blade to meet mine. Two points of yellow light flared on her shoulders. Sparks leapt where the red sword and the white sword collided.
An explosion shook the air and sent it surging upward. Tables and chairs were swept away by the wind, crashing into one another. Glass shattered, and cracks began to spider across the building.
Looking at Erika where she had been slammed into the wall, I let out a breath.
Slowly, carefully—let's begin. For the sake of a sun that will shine brilliantly, I would kindle a small flame first. It would be hard now, but I believed the end would be beautiful.
You are the world I long for.
I only hope you can forgive this twisted self of mine—the one that doesn't want to hurt you, and yet wants to hurt you all the same.
Thinking about it again—
the fact that they only sent Erika, even after the chaos I caused, almost seemed excessive.
Or maybe it was a strategy that targeted how strangely friendly I was toward her.
Either way.
The lump of ice still in my mouth tasted utterly foul.
I wanted to spit it out.
But I had come this far, so I would force myself to finish every bite.
[ Orly. ]
You can look at me like that all you want. I'm not giving it to you.
[ Why not rest a while? ]
You're a cruel spirit, you know that?
Rest? Here?
In a place littered with corpses?
I let out a hollow laugh and rummaged through the clothes of Erika, who lay collapsed beside me.
A small, dainty phone.
I pressed the emergency call button, and the dial tone rang.
The voice that connected at once was thick with urgency.
I shoveled another mouthful of shaved ice and smoothed Erika's hair as I spoke.
"Multiple Union Department fatalities. One Association ranker critically wounded."
Strawberry flavor. No—chocolate, maybe.
"Shaved ice shop. Get here. Now."