Chapter 416: Like a Flowing River, Like Falling Stars.
Chapter 416: Like a Flowing River, Like Falling Stars.
I should have told The Child to go on alone.
In principle, that would have been the right thing to do.
Given the situation, we couldn't afford to look after every civilian one by one; we had simply given them general directions and sent them off without an escort. To treat a child as a special case...
Isn't that a rather arrogant choice?
No, even before weighing that, the method we chose for this operation was closer to treating people as mere numbers. It was far from the "correct" answer.
It was a problem that preceded the question of special treatment.
Do you save thousands at the cost of half their lives?
Or do you definitely save the hundreds within your immediate reach?
There is no answer to this question.
Some will look at the number of people saved, while others will look at the number of those abandoned in the process.
Even for one who chooses the latter and saves everyone within their reach, someone else will look at those who went unsaved because of that choice and criticize them for a lack of efficiency.
However, there is a method that comes infinitely close to the right answer.
Saving everyone, without fail.
Saving every single person present without abandoning a soul.
That is the closest thing to a perfect answer, the result that would end all debate.
If such a choice were actually possible, even the most twisted person who criticizes everything would only be able to bring up criticisms external to the event, not the action itself.
But that answer is somewhere far too distant—a happy ending found only in children's fairy tales that we can never reach.
To believe in the existence of such happy endings, the corpses of others created by our choices, and the corpses of our own selves created as we forged ahead, are piled too high beneath our feet.
Perhaps.
Just perhaps.
On a small scale, such an ending might exist.
Like a miracle where a fallen Hero specializing in suppression convinces terrorists holding citizens hostage to surrender peacefully, ending the standoff with no one hurt save for a few minor scratches.
On a small scale, such hope might truly exist.
Even knowing it is an impossible and narrow path, because there are those who walk it, the world might be lit—much like the starry sky above.
Like a starry sky that shines because it is dark and devoid of light, despite being in the middle of a city.
Perhaps they are lighting up this dark world.
Was it because I mimicked a memory from the past in front of The Child?
A certain emotion wells up.
My past self. The version of me that believed the world was brimming with hope.
Buried under the debris of distant time, a past dream I can no longer recall resurfaces as a single drop of memory fallen from the night sky.
The stars in the night sky whisper.
As always, they reproach me.
They ask if I could show my current self to my past self.
They ask if I can truly say my current self is walking the right path.
This is a different story from the hallucinations and auditory illusions that usually bloom from the darkness.
I often struggle to sleep.
Just as I felt it was strange to fall asleep in an instant back at Nanjido, despite the uncomfortable situation.
The darkness of the night and the shadows of the stars whisper to me.
About the sins I have committed.
About the people I failed to protect.
About the proof of my existence.
Even if I flee into the sleep of respite, it follows me and stays with me in other places.
The memory of the day my comrades died.
The memory of the day I killed an old comrade with my own hands.
The memory of a firearm, untouched by the tactile sensation of killing, yet reaching beyond my grasp.
It constantly reminds me of my sins.
That is the memory of the night I possess, and the story the night tells me.
But today, at least, my past self asks me through the starlight.
Am I truly walking the right path now?
Is this path—one I have agonized over, changed countless times, and continued to tread—actually correct?
Doesn't the activity of the Black Marauder also lack a single direction?
For a path so filthy, paved with sacrifices, can I really say I am walking it correctly?
The question itself isn't unusual.
It is an eternal, tail-biting question that circles endlessly within me without ever reaching a conclusion.
However, the one asking it isn't my current self.
It is the self from the days when I could look at a Magical Girl with pure eyes.
The me from back then, who loved the girls beyond the cathode-ray tube who painted happy endings with magic, asks me.
Why am I remembering this now? Is it because of The Child's warmth traveling up my hand? Is it because of the stars pouring down from above?
Even though we are the same being, the question posed by this "other" self torments me.
They say people get used to things.
I thought the pain blooming from hallucinations, nightmares, and internal monologues was agonizing.
But it seems I had grown accustomed even to that.
Because the same stimuli repeated infinitely, I had become so familiar with the pain that I could sense it coming.
I only felt the familiar sting of a wound I was used to; it didn't truly hurt.
Under the star-stained night sky, a new stimulus appears.
An unfamiliar pain torments me to the point of agony.
A question thrown at me by my self from the distant past.
An internal monologue, yet not an internal monologue.
A question thrown by a version of me that has now become completely different.
Within a world completed by me alone, continuing infinitely like a snake biting its own tail.
Another me, who shouldn't exist in that world, throws a question.
Why did you like Magical Girls?
There is no reason.
But my past self throws the question again.
You must know.
Because I am you.
Even though we are different people now, I am still myself.
Memories well up.
Memories I had kept hidden.
Magic.
Magic that drives away the glowing darkness.
Those girls—who were beautiful, or spunky, or cute, or cool.
Through magic, they mended the world’s absurdities.
They erased the darkness and lit the light.
Through magic, which does not belong to the laws of the world.
Even if there were hardships and despair, they reached a certain conclusion.
That doesn't mean they were all bright stories.
Dark stories existed too.
Even if they were murky and black, cruel stories that would sometimes leave scars on a young heart.
They found the light through the hope called magic.
That was the essence of the genre.
Something even my young self could understand.
A power outside of logic that drove away the world's irrationality. Magic.
But it wasn't a power that was merely violent or vague like the magic in fantasy.
It was magic created by the gathering of universally bright things—food, songs, perhaps wishes.
And even love, though it's almost too cringeworthy to watch.
With that magic, they erased the world's absurdities.
That was what a Magical Girl was.
My past self probably liked that.
I'm only just now able to remember it.
Yes.
The me within me nods.
And then, he throws another question.
Then, can the current you and I be called Magical Girls?
I ponder.
I continue walking the path.
Holding The Child's hand.
I force a bright smile onto my face so The Child—who is more sensitive to others' reactions than adults think—doesn't react to my inner turmoil. I light the way ahead with the glow from the Winged Hammer.
I lower The Hammer slightly so the light doesn't reach my face, preventing The Child from seeing my expression.
I negate it.
The question itself.
The world isn't that bright.
Those beyond the cathode-ray tube could do those things only because they weren't real.
The moment magic, a logic from outside the world, reached reality.
Magic ceased to be a logic from outside and became a power belonging to the world.
The omnipotence of magic vanished, and it could no longer solve everything like it did in their stories.
Because the cruelty of reality was murkier and filthier than any dream of fantasy.
I had no choice but to become like this.
Lee Ha-ram asks.
Did you even try?
I barely suppress my anger.
There's no way I didn't.
Endlessly, and endlessly again.
Through the fogged glass on a dark night, I wanted to become a being like the ideal self I had drawn.
But beyond the glass—not even a mirror, but a murky image of a blurred world—was a world of dreams that didn't even leave a proper image.
Because it was glass that would shatter the moment I reached out, I never reached it, despite cutting my body and being wounded time and time again.
Really?
You thought about it earlier too.
That there was a man who reached it.
That there was a man who walked the path everyone thought was difficult and reached The End.
Don't move hoping for a miracle.
A miracle is a miracle because it doesn't happen.
Even if it does, it never happens twice.
Just because a slot machine hits once by chance, pouring everything back into it is just the psychology of a gambling addict.
The stakes you have to bet to move while believing in a miracle are too high.
You're me, so you should know.
Earlier, I thought the world could be bright because such people walk the path.
Yes, a miracle is a light bright enough to drive away the world's darkness once it happens.
But how many failures do you think there were for that one miracle?
What about the countless shadows hidden beneath that bright light?
That is reality, and even magic has become a part of the world—a world where there are no errors.
Don't run your mouth when you're just my past self who doesn't even know that.
Even as I said this to myself, I began to grow confused.
Am I truly having a conversation with myself?
It is such a strange sensation.
It is certainly an internal monologue.
The warmth of The Child connected to the world tells me clearly that I exist in reality.
The ruins of dark Detroit reflected before my eyes.
They make me realize over and over again that I exist in reality.
But in one corner of my mind.
I am sitting on a sofa.
And my childhood self is sitting on the living room sofa, having a conversation with me.
That is the image.
The Other Self throws another question at me.
Then do you believe that a miracle can happen?
Do you believe that you can reach it, even if the probability is tiny?
I don't know what kind of nonsense this is.
Of course I believe it.
I just don't hang my life on it because the probability is too low.
"No, that's not it."
I hear a voice.
A voice that isn't mine.
"You don't believe in miracles."
At that young voice, I amplify my senses to check my surroundings so The Child holding my hand won't be frightened.
There is no one around.
"You don't believe in hope either."
My own voice, which I can't even remember anymore.
"That is the difference between them and you."
The voice echoes in my ears.
"They always believe in small hopes and miracles; therefore, they know they can seize the opportunity without missing it when it draws near."
Stop talking.
"But you think it doesn't exist. You've become unable to catch the possibility of a miracle even if it passes right in front of your eyes."
Bullshit.
You think I don't know that?
It's just that the probability is so low.
Reality is just too cruel to look at.
That's such a fragile story.
Words that can only be said by a child who hasn't encountered the darkness of the world and doesn't know how rare miracles are.
A child who hasn't touched reality and only watches the world beyond the cathode-ray tube.
I have nothing to say to a brat like that.
You little brat.
A brat who hasn't even lived half as long as I have shouldn't try to teach me the ways of the world. Moving while wishing for that is already a great loss in itself. You have to move based on the premise that there are no miracles to reduce sacrifice and error. That is the choice, and the answer to keeping the world running somewhat correctly in the grand scheme of things. Thinking about miracles and catching them when they come is enough when the miracle is actually right in front of you.
So, don't you ever spout that crap to me again.
The moment I harbored that thought.
Suddenly, the sound ceased.
All that remained in the world were The Child, Detroit, the starry sky, and the flashlight emitting from The Hammer.
As if all of it had been a daydream enchanted by starlight.
Even the voice and the turmoil within me vanished.
And before long.
The destination of this journey comes into view.
Members of the Assassination Team were gathered, hiding in the alleys.
They had been waiting for me, as I had exceeded the assembly time.
When the light illuminated the path, they looked at me, the source of the light, and The Child.
They looked at me and The Child for a moment, seemingly startled.
Soon, one of them opened his mouth and asked me a question.
"Is she your secret daughter, Captain?"
Drop dead.
A fist carrying all my inner turmoil exploded forward.
Montague, who failed to activate his ability because he couldn't react to the punch, was slammed into The Wall.
Even in the midst of such a hellish scene, the stars continued to flow.
Within the black sky.