White Blood Final Chapter (2)
Every cell in the body turned its eyes toward the sky.
The staff of the trading-city hotel, and even the cells living in the tiny village Ella had left behind, all craned their necks to stare at the image floating high above them.
"Wh-what is that?"
"Peggy. You're seeing that too, right?"
The broadcast came from the Narrator.
The screen projected simultaneously across the skies of countless worlds that made up the body began as pure black, though something seemed to writhe faintly within it from time to time. At its center a blue light flickered once, then vanished.
"Huh? That silhouette just now—that was definitely Uncle Dojin!"
Ella spoke the moment the brief flash revealed the outline.
The blue light flared again, this time clearly showing Dojin swimming through the water and the silhouette of a massive monster pursuing him with savage intensity.
At that very moment Dojin, completely unaware that his image was being live-streamed throughout the entire body, continued descending ever deeper into the sea.
Blub-blub—
A monster's tentacle surged forward, violently shoving the water aside.
Clang—
He raised his sword and barely managed to block it, but the water slowed his movements to a crawl, making the exchange razor-thin. The tentacle possessed such hardness that even when he met it tip-first with the sword's point, not a single scratch appeared.
Just then the blue gem set into the blade vibrated more fiercely, dragging Dojin's body farther downward.
Damn it, how deep is this going? I'm starting to run out of air.
That was when he remembered the pouch hanging at his waist—the spending-money pouch Akenaton had given him. One had already been used to pay for the destroyed hotel; the remaining one still hung at his side.
Right. This is oxygen, after all.
Dojin pulled an oxygen bead from the pouch and popped it into his mouth.
Hah… I can breathe again.
His feet suddenly touched something solid—he had reached the bottom of the Lachrymal Gland. Whether his eyes were open or closed, the darkness was absolute, yet Dojin shut them and focused, searching for any place where the energy wavelength felt different.
There.
Watching the screen, Yeon-woo recalled the actual shoot and gave a full-body shudder. They had filmed in a three-meter tank. Even for someone who had mastered combat swimming, the physical toll had been enormous.
Still, looking at the edited version, it really does look convincing.
The descent had been sped up far beyond the actual pace of him gripping the underwater rail, creating the genuine sensation of plunging into the deep sea.
"Yeon-woo really went through hell shooting that scene."
Director Hwang Min-gwon, noticing Yeon-woo's full-body tremor, offered a slightly apologetic grin and a thumbs-up.
"Hyung, how did you even film that?"
Dong-ha asked, mouth still hanging open. The later half of the series featured so many solo scenes for the protagonist that much of it had been shot on a separate set from the rest of the cast.
"…Well, I just kind of zoned out and floated there while they yanked me up and down underwater. They handled the rest."
Hwang Min-gwon flinched at Yeon-woo's words and suddenly found something fascinating to stare at in the far distance.
While the cast chatted, the Dojin on screen finally located the white gem on the seafloor. At last the blue, purple, and white stones fused together with the black sword into a single whole.
Holding a blade that now radiated multicolored light in every direction, Dojin looked upward. He leveled the sword at the Macrophage swarm that had doggedly chased him all this way, then kicked hard off the floor of the Lachrymal Gland and shot upward.
Every cell in the body watched the scene unfold in vivid detail.
Who was light and who was darkness could be distinguished at a glance from appearance alone. People instinctively focus more on those rising from below than those descending from above, prefer brightness over darkness, and cheer for the underdog.
A grotesque mass of tentacles plunging into the black deep. Dojin stood in perfect opposition to it—leaping from the bottom, blazing with brilliant multicolored light as he climbed.
The two met at a single point. Dojin, infinitely small beside the colossal monster, evoked the image of David against Goliath.
The composition of rising from below. Light contending with darkness.
In theater and film, the deliberate arrangement of every visual element within the stage or frame is called mise-en-scène. Aesthetically perfect mise-en-scène is the product of highly calculated psychology.
A lone star illuminating the deep-sea darkness pierced through gloom, grotesquerie, and corruption in an instant and continued climbing higher still.
Dojin burst free of the Lachrymal Gland, soared past Ella, Akenaton, and Dipangdal on the surface, and slammed into the barrier surrounding the brain.
Crack—
A fracture spider-webbed across it, yet the barrier did not shatter. Dojin came to a halt once more.
"Uncle! Whoa—you're so sparkly it's blinding!"
Ella couldn't look at him directly and covered her eyes with her arm.
"O gods, you have found the final fragment the sage spoke of! To think it lay in such deep water…"
"Hm? How do you know that?"
At Dojin's question both Akenaton and Ella pointed skyward at the same time.
But white-blood soldiers were already pouring in from every direction.
"Deal with these first!"
"Yes!"
Dojin drew his sword; Akenaton raised his crystal orb. Ella charged forward without the slightest hesitation.
Dojin watched her, then tilted his head.
"What's with her?"
"…You didn't know? Miss Ella is quite strong and fights extremely well."
"So she really is different. Cardiac said Ella is a young Hematopoiesis."
"…Pardon?"
Akenaton's eyes went round at the unexpected revelation.
The Great Mother Hematopoiesis.
"…Should I start calling Miss Ella 'Mother' from now on?"
Meanwhile every cell in the body watched the battle of light and darkness playing out across the sky. Over the past several years the white-blood army's tyranny had only grown worse; not a single cell harbored no resentment. Thus they all understood that although the white-blood soldiers appeared white, they were, paradoxically, darkness itself. Instinct engraved into their very existence made them realize, without being told, that the figures projected in the sky were fighting for their survival.
In the small village of the thigh region, chaos erupted.
"Hah! Th-that's Ella!"
"Right?! I'm not seeing things, am I?"
"What? You're saying that's Ella?"
The twin-tailed girl racing across the sky-filling screen was unmistakably Ella. The ordinary girl who had one day vanished from their tiny rural village alongside a stranger had somehow become a figure of legend.
"All of you, stop gathering and making a ruckus! Get back to the workshops at once!"
The village chief bellowed, but his shouts were empty. Everyone simply kept staring at the sky, talking about Ella.
The same scene played out in the red-blood-cell kingdom of Deyas in the Liver region.
"Ohhh! It's the prince!"
"Hurry! We must send reinforcements!"
They selected the elite soldiers of the red-blood kingdom and urgently activated the Hepatic Vein to send them upward.
While every cell held its breath and watched, one red blood cell forced into hard labor, bound in a work camp on the outskirts of the brain, dropped his pickaxe in shock. The face that had briefly appeared on the sky-filling screen was one he knew.
"Dipangdal…?"
John Taylor, a British internal-medicine specialist who had recently opened his own clinic, gripped the edge of his desk, palms sweating, eyes locked on the monitor. Morning consultations finished, the nurses all out for lunch, he sat alone in the empty examination room, lunch postponed, watching White Blood.
"Wow, the action in this episode is top-tier too."
He had started the previous two episodes that morning before work; only the finale remained, and the curiosity about what came next had been unbearable throughout the morning appointments. Ordinarily he avoided non-English films and dramas with subtitles, yet White Blood had smashed through that one-inch barrier.
His usual hobby was watching movies and series while deducing the hidden intentions of the director.
"Three gems and one sword. Hmm, four pieces in total."
From beginning to end the series had thrown out seemingly random elements, yet paradoxically none of them were disposable. The orbital elevators that moved characters between locations were veins; the currency cells exchanged was oxygen. Everything was tied to bodily functions and woven into the story.
"But the sword and gems—one of the core motifs running through the entire series—are just a sword and gems? That can't be right."
Those objects surely carried hidden meaning and foreshadowed what was to come. John had been turning the puzzle over in his mind since the midpoint. Among his theories was one he considered particularly plausible; he was eager to see whether it would prove correct.
He refocused on the screen.
Crackle—
Every time Dojin moved, white-blood soldiers burst apart. Yet for every one he destroyed, two more seemed to take its place.
They're multiplying…
Jeong Dojin stared at the endless tide of white-blood soldiers and could think of no proper countermeasure. From the impact earlier he knew the barrier was so powerful that even his full strength might not be enough to break through.
Hah… what do I do?
Then it happened.
Beyond the ridge, countless red blood cells appeared.
"All forces!"
Snap—
Each red blood cell raised a sword. At the distant voice Akenaton's head whipped around.
"Sir Levendel!"
It was the captain of the royal guard of Deyas, Akenaton's homeland in the Liver region, along with the elite troops.
"Protect the prince and our guests! Charge!"
Waaaaah—
Like a rising tide the red blood cells poured over the ridge. They crashed into the white-blood army. Their charge was spirited, yet the combat power of red blood cells was what it was—five of them were barely a match for a single white-blood soldier. Still, with one of the four fronts turning its back, the pressure eased considerably.
Still not enough to break the barrier…
But the red blood cells were not the only ones who had crossed the Hepatic Vein and come the long distance.
Kree—
Somewhere a bird's cry rang out.
Kree-kree—
Flap—
"…Pterosaurs?"
Dojin lifted his head toward the black dots approaching from afar. Akenaton cried out in joy.
"It's the Alanines! They've come!"
The Alanines might not be humanoid in form, but they were by no means a race of low intelligence. They fully understood that this struggle was directly tied to their own future.
In moments the sky was blotted out by pterosaurs that became a single gale and slammed into the barrier.
Kree—!
Thud—
With their cries they hurled their own bodies against the membrane. Beaks snapped; they lost consciousness and plummeted toward the ground. Yet another immediately filled the gap and struck again.
Thud-thud-thud—
One had its beak half-shattered; another's wing was broken. Even as they fell unconscious they desperately flapped wings that would no longer move, trying to fly and strike once more.
Thanks to the endless self-sacrifice of the pterosaurs, cracks began to appear in the barrier.
The barrier will regenerate any second!
He could not let their sacrifice end in vain. Dojin leapt for the fissure, seized both edges with both hands, and wrenched them apart.
"Ugh! Not enough strength. They said gathering all the gems would grant tremendous power—total bullshit! Damn it!"
Then twin-tailed hair slipped between Dojin's arms that held the gap open.
"I'll help open it!"
Tiny hands joined his just below the crack he gripped and added their strength.
Creak—
Grrrind—
The barrier was forced wider.
"Now!"
Dojin and Ella threw themselves through the gap into the darkness beyond and barely made it inside before the barrier sealed shut again.
"Hah… that was close."
Having passed through the darkness, Dojin finally felt the tension leave him. He simply lay back and looked up at the sky.
"…What the hell is that?"
Only then did he see his own image filling the heavens.
"It appeared after you got eaten by the teeth monster, Uncle!"
The "teeth monster" Ella mentioned was clearly the fused Macrophage.
The Narrator must have judged I was in danger and done something.
Suddenly everything made sense.
"So that's how the red blood cells and the pterosaurs knew to come."
He had been worried for some time—contact with the Narrator had been cut off for ages. Thinking about it, his first companion had never been Ella.
For six years my real companion was the Narrator.
He had never even seen the Narrator's face, yet without that presence he would long ago have given up or been captured and killed by the white-blood army. One way or another, the Narrator had to be somewhere inside the brain.
Dojin gazed at the rocky island floating high in the sky.
"So that's the brain."
He scratched his head while staring upward.
"But how are we supposed to get up there?"
"I know, right? It's so high!"
Ella chimed in from beside him.
Dojin looked at her.
"Ella."
"Yes?"
"Throw me."