The Will of the Oracle (1)
The lab was still noisy. The sound of Schadenfreude's saw blade grinding through metal and sinners' corpses, the sinners crawling across the floor, the uncle swinging his gladius in response. Everything was the same.
Yet to me, it felt strangely distant. Like I was an audience member watching a play from one step back, everything seemed far away. I was barely standing, propped against the wall. My right foot and left arm had been wrecked for ages, and every breath made my side ache. But what hurt more was the hollow emptiness. The person who'd been right in front of me just moments ago had vanished from that spot. Their life snuffed out, reduced to cold chunks of meat. That reality pierced my chest, tearing me apart cruelly.
Then, a voice spoke. It was close. As near as if it were pressed to my ear, yet as familiar as something that had dwelled inside me forever.
I couldn't close my eyes. Ganet's blood, the crawling sinners, the gaze peering from Schadenfreude's keyhole—they all felt vivid. But clearer than any of that was the beautiful voice whispering right beside me now.
It was tender. And beautiful. Which made it all the more horrific.
The lab floor seemed to slowly turn black, like ink spreading. It was clearly different from blood. It was water that swallowed light. The boundary between floor and ceiling blurred, shattered glass and corpses and shadows blending into a rippling surface like an endless river. I felt like I was adrift on a flimsy raft pieced together on that river's surface, all alone.
I looked down at my hands. Empty. The sickle I'd been gripping had slipped away long ago, and the hands of the people I'd had to grab—reaching for me—had all slipped through my fingers. Ganet, Rapis, the kids. All that remained at my fingertips was blood. And pain.
Schadenfreude's eye rolled toward me with a squelch. One sinner dragged its severed arm, crawling to my feet. The uncle turned toward it. A red line flashed once, and the sinner's legs were severed.
"Get back."
...That scene felt so distant to me. Like watching someone fight alone beyond a thick, tinted glass wall. I barely moved my lips to open my mouth.
"Uncle."
The uncle's gaze flicked to me briefly.
"I hear it... again."
My voice felt distant, like it wasn't mine.
"A beautiful voice... I can't resist."
The moment those words left my mouth, the voice laughed like an innocent child, clear and tinkling.
—Grab.
A snow-white hand shot up from the black water, seizing my ankle. It wasn't cold or hot. Instead, a thought overwhelmed me: I should have accepted this sooner.
—Grab.
—Grab.
—Grab.
The white hands climbed past my knee, up my waist, brushing my chest—by then, I no longer knew what I was thinking.
As those words settled, a faint cracking sound echoed from above my head. The light that had always been warm twisted. Pale white hands crawled toward my face, one by one. They covered my forehead, my eyes, my mouth. Platinum hair flowed between the fingers. From my back, hands of those I couldn't grasp sprouted all at once. A child's small hand, the old nun's hand, hands desperately searching for someone, rough hands that gripped a shovel with courage. They gathered, pushing against each other to form my wings. At the same time, my left arm curved long and gripped a black, elongated sickle.
Then I screamed. A wail toward someone, even forgetting who.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!"
The voiceless scream overturned the lab. Unable to withstand it, the sinners tore apart. The hands of the wings stretched out, seizing Schadenfreude's body, snapping and ripping it. Schadenfreude spun its saw blade and charged. I twisted my left arm's sickle downward. Its iron body split diagonally, and a beat later, the eye inside burst. Ink-black liquid sprayed from within.
Now, only one remained in this lab. In the center of my vision stood the uncle. I saw him. He saw me. And in that moment, the faint thread of consciousness snapped, plunging me beneath the pitch-black surface.
Vergilius stared silently at the figure before him for a moment. Beril's face was gone. Instead, white hands completely covered the spot. Platinum hair flowed between the fingers. The halo above her head was tilted and cracked, and behind her back, blood-soaked hands spread like layered wings. Her left hand gripped a black, long sickle.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa—!!!"
Beril screamed and charged first. In her rush, Vergilius saw something greater than the scream itself. Things she couldn't hold onto until the end, surging forth all at once. He twisted his gladius to meet the sickle blade head-on. The moment blade met blade, the wing's hands lunged at him from both sides.
—Slash!
Vergilius stepped back, slicing the wing's hands. Severed hands scattered across the floor, spraying blood, but for every one cut, more surged from behind.
"...Damn."
No openings. —Slash! Slash! Before the severed hands could hit the floor, new ones pushed up from behind, instantly filling the torn wings. Seeing the endlessly regenerating wings, Vergilius dove straight in. He judged he had to end it quickly.
—Crunch!
He deeply gashed Beril's shoulder and below her ribs with the gladius, but instead of retreating, she pressed toward him even more. The left sickle surged from below, the opposite wing crashing from above—he twisted his body to sever the wing. But in that gap, the unchecked sickle grazed his side, soaking his coat with heat.
"Ha..."
Vergilius fell back, observing Beril's state. The wounds he'd inflicted regenerated immediately, pale hands sprouting from each severed stump, the wings swiftly returning to form. As his own wounds accumulated, Beril bore no proper damage, and the fight showed no sign of ending. Only then did he realize: what he fought wasn't a mere monster, but the embodiment of one person's despair.
"Looks like we're digging our graves here, Beril."
As he thought this might be his final moment—
A voice called him, and suddenly all sounds blacked out.
"......"
It was quiet. A complete silence he hadn't felt in ages. The heat of battle receded in an instant, warm light filling his vision.
"Who are you?"
Only after asking did he realize it was a meaningless question. No one left in this city would call him Verg.
The voice's owner laughed softly.
Vergilius didn't reply. As if expecting the silence, the voice continued.
Vergilius's gaze slowly sank.
"They were all kids who shouldn't have ended up like this."
The light drew closer.
Vergilius retorted curtly.
"That's not an answer."
The voice paused briefly.
"It might feel sweet now. Fulfilling, even. But that way, you can't see everything."
Vergilius stared straight at the light.
"Erasing everything but myself and calling only what fits my eyes a world—that's not a path. It's more like collapsing drunk."
The voice laughed again.
At the voice's words, something long buried quietly resurfaced. He wanted to shatter the City's shell. Reach the wounds hidden beneath. He'd hoped someone else might do it, even hung his heart on the orphanage's small light. But in the end, the path was his alone.
Vergilius gripped the sword hilt deeper.
"I get it now."
The light trembled faintly.
"Your words pretend to ease wounds but ultimately blind me to what I must see."
His voice was low, resolute.
"I'll hold everything I've seen in my mind. The beautiful, the ugly, what I've done, what I'll bear. I have no interest in a world gained as a blind man."
The voice asked one last time.
Vergilius let out a small chuckle, uttering his final words.
"We'll end up walking opposite paths."
In that instant, the light split. The warm space shattered, the lab's smells flooding in at once. Blood, chemicals, ground metal assaulted his nose. Right before him was Beril. No expression readable through the hands covering her face, only blood-soaked hand-wings spread wide, flying toward him.
Vergilius swallowed. Blood-soaked thorns slowly coiled around his head. The sensation of them piercing flesh was vivid. Faded laurel leaves sprouted atop them, and heat blazed inside his eyes. The blood pooling at his feet spread wide like a general's path resounding with triumph.
—Drip—
The red curtain bearing karma and forging more flowed quietly across the floor. He raised his sword. No more hesitation.
Beril charged first. Screaming as if burrowing into his mind, the wing's hands stabbed like blades from all directions. Vergilius dodged the threatening wing attacks, sinking into the blood pool.
"Where... are you...?"
As Beril, confused by his sudden disappearance, looked around, Vergilius emerged from the blood puddle at her feet.
—Slash!
The blood-wrapped gladius severed her left hand holding the sickle, and the red curtain whipped diagonally.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!"
One of Beril's wings split entirely. Severed hands poured to the floor. Simultaneously, new hands tried to grow from the wing's cut surface. But this time was different. The red light passed over the wound, clotting the blood thickly, denying new hands existence. Pale fingers pushed out but stopped dead.
Beril pressed in again. Gripping the sickle with her right hand instead of the severed left, she swung it upward from below. Vergilius roughly twisted his body, deflecting the attack. As the sickle tip grazed his coat hem, his sword whipped short and heavy.
—Crunch!
The white hands covering her face tore halfway off. Beril's body shook for the first time. Vergilius didn't miss the gap.
—Whoosh!
A step infused with Shin (Heart). The distance to Beril vanished.
"STOP IT!!!"
The red curtain coiled up around Beril's body, and the gladius deeply tore below her chest. Blood burst from her chest, but it couldn't fall to the floor. Caught by the eerily red energy, it hardened at the wound's edge, blocking regeneration.
—Boom!
Beril swung the sickle wildly, carving a deep gash in the lab wall. Vergilius gripped the hilt deeper, pushing straight on.
—Slash!
Finally, her right hand holding the sickle fell, and he thrust into her defenseless torso, seizing her nape. Then slammed her to the floor.
—Crash!
Shattered floor tiles scattered irregularly. The wing's hands twisted savagely. New hands tried to sprout from severed parts, but the blood curtain mercilessly enveloped the wings. Pale fingers went limp, powerless, and Beril's black sickle began to fade bit by bit.
Beril's body heaved greatly. Then it stilled.
—Shaaaa...
Beril's distorted body scattered like Christmas's first snow on the wind. Soon, the unconscious Beril slumped inside, revealed.
"...Exhausting."
Vergilius stood there for a while, catching his breath. His shoulder torn, blood flowing from his side. Deep and shallow wounds lined his cheek and forearm. Still, he lived.
—Step.
He slowly looked around. Rikako no longer moved. Shim Nan-seul neither. Both seemed caught in Schadenfreude's battle and killed. Only he and the unconscious Beril remained.
Exhaling shortly, he went to a glass tube and leaned against it like sitting. Right then—
—Hiss.
A small noise, the only sign of life here, came from right beside him. It was the glass tube holding the orphanage kids. Most had been forcibly opened, the children inside twisted by glass, dead on the floor. But one remained sealed to the end. And now, it slowly opened.
Vergilius's eyes wavered. A face he thought he'd never see again emerged. Rapis.
He rose immediately, approaching the tube.
"Rapis."
No visible wounds outside. Breath still there. But her pupils no longer saw light like before. Eyes gazing somewhere far beyond here, another world outside time.
Rapis slowly opened her mouth.
"...Rapis? I'm not Rapis. My name... Charon."
At those words, Vergilius's face hardened. Thumb's glass experiment had succeeded. In the most horrific way. Rapis looked alive, but was no longer Rapis. The lighthouse light he'd thought was a shadow on water, and the island forever unreachable.
"........."
Vergilius said nothing for a long time. Turning away would be easy. Cut her as not-Rapis, take only what he needed now. Emotions were waste, waste a luxury he couldn't afford. He moved toward where Rikako and Shim Nan-seul lay. Scanned remaining gear and papers. Had to take what was useful. Even after losing this whole night, he had to survive.
Reaching Rikako, his hand stopped. Eyes staring blankly at nothing from her back-split corpse. Vergilius closed those eyes. Then removed his coat, quietly covering Rikako's mangled body.
Footsteps from behind. A child with Rapis's face walked toward him.
"Charon hungry."
Vergilius didn't answer. The child looked around briefly, then headed elsewhere. Soon returning, something in hand.
"Found something shiny. It's warm."
A small white hand extended. On it, a golden gem. A fragment from Beril's body. But too clear and warm for mere debris. Amid countless shattered remnants, this one alone shone like a sob.
As Vergilius reached, the child pulled back first.
"Charon found it in that pile, so it's Charon's. Feels good 'cause it's warm."
Hearing that, something tightened slowly below his chest.
The child peered into the gem.
"Charon wonders what this shiny is called. Know?"
Vergilius couldn't answer right away. Opening his mouth took longer than expected. Like that day he first brought Beril, in the afternoon light.
After a long pause, he spoke.
"......Beril. The most beautifully shining golden gem."
As those words ended, something he'd tried to cut away melted just a little. Before this child who'd somehow plucked a star in the night's heart.
Why did the heart shake so against his will? He wondered anew.
Vergilius slowly crouched. Hoisted the unconscious Beril onto his back. With his other hand, took Charon's. As he moved to leave the twisted lab—
—Step, step.
Footsteps from the corridor's darkness. Neither light nor heavy, excessively orderly steps. Beeping sounds between them.
Vergilius knew this sound.
"Index..."
It was Index. Proxies and attendants filling the hall front and back, and at the lead, a familiar figure. Black suit, mimicking some fixer, obeying oracles—a facsimile existence.
—Beep—
Index Oracle Proxy, Ruen.