EP.2 — Mountains of Corpses, Seas of Blood (11)
A tunnel without a single point of light.
From within the Revenant, which pressed onward relying on nothing but its headlights, laughter suddenly spilled out.
It was not a human voice. It was electronic.
"Ahahah! Did you see the faces on those fools? They didn't even think to shoot. Quite the shock, I imagine. Who would ever have dreamed that this grand Revenant could take to the sky?"
All of Ash's usual gravity and composure had vanished somewhere, replaced by an oddly giddy electronic voice. Siren regarded him with an inscrutable expression.
It was such a profoundly unfamiliar sight that she spoke up carefully.
"Master Ash...? Are you quite all right?"
"All right? Never better. In truth, I am splendid."
As if to prove it, his cyan optical sensors flickered brightly.
"The Kunlun Sect has a teaching: where the heart points, all things become a road. Do you know what that means?"
"Uh... no?"
"It means that wherever the heart desires, a path exists among all things. It is a teaching that so long as one's will to go forth is firm, walls, pipelines—everything in this world—will become your road. Is it not truly so?"
And with that, Ash spent a good while cheerfully lecturing about things no one had asked. Apparently the chase earlier—especially that final leap—had pleased him greatly.
Kunlun. His sect had, in its day, been renowned throughout the world for its Lightbody Arts. To dash like the wind, to roam the empty air as if it were one's own courtyard—that was the very essence of Kunlun.
It seemed that nature of his had simply found new expression in a practice called driving.
Abruptly, Ash slapped his palm down on the steering wheel he held.
"This creature is truly a marvel! What a splendid beast—how does it obey my every wish so faithfully?"
He spoke as one praising a beloved warhorse.
At this bizarre behavior, Siren quietly edged away toward the passenger-side door. She seemed a little afraid.
From the back seat, Zero craned his neck forward and murmured under his breath.
"Um... is he always like this?"
"This is a first for me too."
Even as they whispered, Ash continued heaping praise upon the Revenant without pause.
* * *
Ash's eccentric performance at last came to an end.
They had reached the end of the long, long tunnel—the ground-level exit, at last.
The tunnel they were passing through now was the very same one they had used to enter Underland before. In other words, the secret access point managed by the Restmen.
Another battle might well break out at any moment, and a subtle tension began to settle over the companions inside the vehicle.
Ash, back to his usual self, glanced behind him and spoke.
"There may be combat ahead. Be prepared."
At his words, everyone nodded.
Soon the Revenant emerged fully from the tunnel, and a dawn sky rippling with golden auroras greeted them.
It was a scene in a class entirely apart from Underland's—one that opened the chest and cleared the head. But there was no time to admire it.
Because of the ones standing below.
Contrary to expectations, the figures guarding the tunnel mouth were not Restmen.
Gray ballistic vests built for pure function, tactical overcoats in sky blue draped over them. It was the Vortex standard-issue uniform they had grown sick of seeing in Underland.
There was one difference from before, however.
The soldiers were neither aiming their weapons nor moving to attack. They simply stared at the Revenant in perfect silence.
That stillness, if anything, generated a suffocating pressure of its own.
"Doesn't look like they intend to attack?"
At Siren's remark, Ash nodded.
"So it would seem."
"Then why are they standing there blocking the road?"
"I could not say. And so..."
The Revenant slowed to a halt before them.
"We shall find out now."
Ash stepped out of the vehicle.
And stood before the ranks of Vortex soldiers drawn up in formation.
"..."
For a moment he surveyed his surroundings—then, all at once, he shrugged and let his electronic voice ring out.
"I confess I do not understand the meaning of standing about blocking a road. Do not tell me you mean to have a bit of blade-work here in Sanctum?"
No one answered him.
But it was not that nothing changed. Their formation began to split open to either side, as if by prior arrangement.
From between the parted ranks, a man emerged.
Even his attire set him apart from the others.
A pristine white coat, buttoned neatly to the throat without a speck of dust on it. Something about the ensemble brought to mind the priest of some religious order.
But the golden tactical goggles obscuring half his face, the pair of pistols at his hips, and the faintly acrid smell of gunpowder clinging to him made it clear he was no ordinary man.
His manner, however, diverged slightly from that crisp composure.
The man glanced at the chronometer on his wrist and heaved a deep sigh.
"What in the world is this, at the crack of dawn."
To the man sighing his lungs out, Ash replied.
"Are you the one in charge here?"
"Hm?"
"I ask whether you are the commanding officer of those standing in the road."
The man shrugged.
"Well... I suppose, for now?"
"I see."
At the man's words, Ash took a step forward.
And his optical sensors blazed.
"Then step aside, and swiftly. If you have business, speak it or be gone."
At the threatening gesture, the man took a step back—then waved both hands in a dismissive flourish, his expression one of mild trouble.
"Now, now. Don't be like that, humanoid. You come at me all high-handed like that and..."
In that instant, behind the golden goggles, the man's eyes leaked a thick murderous intent.
"...I start wanting to kill you on the spot."
At that single line, the air around them froze solid.
Faced with the killing intent radiating from the man's entire body, Ash slowly raised his right arm and brought his hand to the Blade strapped across his back.
"You would kill me?"
Then he poured out the killing energy he had kept sheathed, letting it flood his whole frame.
"Try, and see."
Killing intent collided with killing intent.
If the man's was a sharpened blade, Ash's was a mountain that crushed all things beneath it. The two different currents of energy swirled violently between the men who faced each other down.
At some point, the man's hand had drifted down to rest on the pistol at his hip.
"..."
"..."
In the taut, stretched silence, it was the man who broke first.
As if he had never exuded killing intent at all, he heaved another deep sigh and shook his head.
"Forget it. That's not why I'm here anyway, so let's both ease off."
The man drew his hand away from the pistol.
Watching him, Ash released the Blade as well.
Then he spoke.
"Then for what purpose do you block the road so?"
"You're holding it, aren't you. Our property."
"Property, you say."
At that, Ash rummaged in his breast pocket and produced a single memory chip—the master key of the Dreamweaver, the instigating cause of everything that had happened.
"You mean this?"
"No."
To his surprise, the man shook his head.
"That's the ops support team's jurisdiction. Nothing to do with me."
"...Nothing to do with you? Are we not both of the Vortex Society?"
"Buddy, you've never worked a day in a corporation, have you?"
He had not.
"Honestly, I'd be happy if that chip never came back. To tell you the truth, their department and mine don't get along. Here's hoping this sticks it to them."
With zero experience in corporate life, Ash found the man's words difficult to follow. But one thing was certain.
Whatever the man sought had nothing to do with the Dreamweaver.
"Then what is it you seek? Of Vortex's possessions, aside from the Dreamweaver—"
Ash stopped mid-sentence.
Another piece of Vortex property had surfaced in his memory.
Just then, the man spoke.
"You see, I came across something rather interesting in the bodycam footage from our field agents."
The man stretched out one hand and pointed at Ash's ink-black chassis.
"The footage was such low quality I couldn't be sure, but—yep. That's one of ours."
"..."
"Where did you get it? That part isn't supposed to see the light of day yet."
Ash was silent a moment, then answered the man's words with a question of his own.
"...You deployed this formation to recover this body?"
At that, the man shrugged.
"No. I only came to confirm. I told you, didn't I? The footage was far too low-resolution. Well, recovering it right now would suit me fine, but... you don't look nearly as easy a mark as that. There'd be a huge mess, no doubt about it."
In that instant, both eyes behind the golden goggles flashed.
"So I'll wait. For the moment you—a Pathfinder—step out into the Outer."
The man checked the chronometer on his wrist once more, then jerked his chin toward those behind him. At that small gesture, the Vortex forces blocking the road parted in unison.
"Confirmation complete. You're free to go."
Ash glared at the man for a moment—then turned and walked back toward the Revenant. Mid-stride, he glanced over his shoulder.
"...What is your name?"
"John. John Priest. And you?"
"Ash Blade."
"Right, Ash. See you again before long."
"Before long, is it... Very well. I shall look forward to it."
Ash climbed back into the Revenant.
The armored vehicle slipped smoothly through the gap the Vortex soldiers had opened for it.
In the space of a heartbeat, the eyes of Ash at the wheel and of John crossed. The meaning held in that gaze was something only the two of them would ever know.
* * *
The city of light. Sanctum.
True to its dazzling name, even as the sun climbed, the city went on burning through its countless debts, washing the streets in every color of neon.
Skyscrapers stretching endlessly skyward, humans and vehicles weaving between them. Holographic signs plastered wall to wall across the buildings looked down upon it all.
Through that landscape, the Revenant cut its path.
It looked far different from when it had set out for Underland. Beyond the scorch marks and bullet pocks, armor plating hung dented or torn away in places.
Bloodstains not yet dry and bullet holes riddling its flanks told of the savage battle this beast of steel had fought through the night.
Sanctum citizens out on the early-morning streets stopped and eyed the Revenant they'd chanced upon with mingled curiosity.
Ash, watching them pass from time to time, turned over in his main core the memory of the strange man he had just met.
John Priest, was it...
A languid man steeped in weariness and irritation. And yet, with that clinging, serpentine killing intent that surfaced moment by moment.
Before long, he suspected, their paths would cross again. In the Outer, just as John himself had promised.
—GRROOOOWWL...!
Deep in thought as his hands worked the controls, Ash gradually registered scenery that had grown quite familiar.
Santa's Rest Stop.
The front gate that had been shattered in the earlier commotion had evidently been repaired in the interim—it now looked sturdier than before.
As the heavy rumble of the engine rolled out across the pre-dawn quiet, the rest stop's cheap neon sign flickered to life.
The light spread gradually through the rest stop's interior, stirring up a small commotion.
And then, all at once, the freshly rebuilt front gate swung wide open.
"Mister!"
Bursting out of it was Akina.
Ash stepped down from the vehicle.
And toward the little girl running to meet him, he silently opened his arms.
Amusingly enough, the sight bore a striking resemblance to a certain mysterious video he had once seen.