Say My Name (2)
Say My Name (2)
Early-winter sunlight tickled my cheek, carrying a crisp warmth. I looked up through it. The sky was almost cloudless, bluer than yesterday, and beneath that blue, buildings in gray and white rose high, filling the sky in place of the clouds.
Below the buildings, pedestrians walked the streets with today’s usual vacant expressions.
Not a hint of alertness in them. No awareness that they might die right now. No sign of the lethargy that awareness might bring.
Hundreds of casualties every day, but the thought that their own names might join that list clearly never crossed their minds.
With that barren imagination, picturing what kind of threat lurked on the hospital rooftop they could see if they simply turned their heads would be a demanding task.
“Hmm....”
A single set of green footprints marked the stark white rooftop. The owner of those footprints was the threat.
A being whose mere existence was enough to become someone’s misfortune. Of course, the same could be said for most humans, but that description applied with far more certainty to someone who looked like this.
A bizarre and ridiculous appearance no ordinary human would ever willingly adopt. A material like black spandex covered his entire body—head included—and over that, green armor plates.
Once human features are that thoroughly concealed, calling it human becomes difficult.
A monster.
Solid and heavy-looking, nine out of ten people would run from a figure like this.
The one who didn’t run had the face of a girl, as always. This time was no different.
Watcher turned at the call. A young-faced woman. A girl on the doorstep of adulthood, still small. A magical girl wreathed in colors reminiscent of flame.
“You came.”
Watcher, wearing a monster’s form. It was how he’d looked in the days before he awakened Origin, when his appearance had been more menacing.
“Sometimes it’s important to dwell on memories, don’t you think?”
Watcher spread his arms with an air of ease. Red Vega watched him and snorted softly.
“Sure... that’s true, too.”
Fwoosh. Red flame welled up from her hand, no ignition device in sight. She held its incandescent heat, yet not a single mark touched her skin.
“Then, just like last time, I’ll go first.”
Their first meeting. Red Vega settled into her stance as she recalled that memory.
“Like a red comet in your heart.”
Reciting the signature line she hadn’t been able to deliver back then.
She launched herself forward.
Only a single step. One step. A distance too short for most people to cover a mile, but she was different. By concentrating flame beneath her feet and jetting it out, she could achieve a leap on an entirely different order of magnitude.
This time was the same.
“Red Vega, here!”
Her fist slammed into Watcher’s body. Just like before, Watcher didn’t defend.
The flame coiled around her hand had the same wavelength as back then—a flame that scattered sound-like pulses. One Path. Flame Roar. Same response. Same technique. But the result wasn’t the same.
BOOM!
With an exhilarating impact, Watcher was launched high into the sky. Fast and fierce as a bullet fired upward.
Unlike before, the attack wasn’t without effect. The price of arrogance, of not defending, was steep.
A single human body was framed against the cloudless sky. His armor, which had taken the full destructive force of the punch, began to show faint cracks.
“Still far from done!”
“You’ve certainly flown far.”
As if she’d followed him up, Red Vega’s shadow appeared above the airborne Watcher.
‘She means to move the location entirely.’
They couldn’t exactly destroy the hospital rooftop, so this was for the best.
“Still far from done” meant “still far from hit enough,” and to put that into practice, Red Vega reached out with her left hand. She caught his shoulder. It seemed she’d tossed her cast far away when she transformed. Her left arm was far from healthy, but it served well enough to grab someone.
Red Vega smiled deeply and raised her right arm.
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
She pummeled him with punch after punch as they flew. Every fist set the sky faintly vibrating, and the already-cracked armor shed fragments as carelessly as cookie crumbs. His body, which had been flying at an angle, began a slanted descent under the downward force of her blows.
Thwack! Thwack!
Red Vega’s fists showed no mercy, each one struck with sincere conviction.
In midair, Watcher’s freedom of movement fell far short of hers. That didn’t mean he had to sit still and take her punches. When Red Vega raised her right arm again and flame began to gather in her hand this time, Watcher moved his hand quickly.
[ALIOTH.]
A low voice issued from the Belt. His armor turned crimson, and a slender sword appeared in his hand. Flame Nail, a red blade like a nail. A flame began to gather along it, similar to hers—only sickly green, unlike hers.
“Hup!”
Watcher grabbed her shoulder and pulled. Like seizing a bird in flight and dragging it toward the earth. He forced her off-balance with sheer strength.
Not missing the opening, he drove her down and pulled himself up at the same moment. Naturally, Red Vega ended up below. Their positions reversed: Watcher on top, Red Vega below. Still in the sky. Holding each other’s shoulders, they readied flame-wreathed techniques. Both drew back their arms at once, taut as archers.
Then blade and fist collided.
KABOOM!!!
The result was an explosion.
Two flames flared in the idle afternoon. The bursting light outshone the day. A single red dot fell onto the canvas of the sky, staining its blue, and the blazing dot soon transformed into a hazy smoke cloud.
A meteor dropped from the smoke. A human-shaped meteor. Naturally, they were Watcher and Red Vega. Thrown apart again by the detonation, they spun in the air until they regained their balance.
BOOM!
They struck the earth.
A cloud of dust billowed up as masses on a human scale slammed into the ground. Still, neither looked seriously injured. They’d landed steadily on one knee. The pose people commonly called a hero landing.
’...Dammit.’
But Han Jae-jung’s leg still wasn’t good, and he couldn’t fully disperse the impact. It jolted the leg, so he couldn’t rise immediately. Gritting his teeth, he scanned his surroundings.
A wide plain where dust and sand mixed in the air. Little grass and few trees. A desert-like environment. The scattered building wreckage suggested this was one of the no-entry zones abandoned after a past monster incident.
While the dust cloud still obscured his vision, Watcher focused to pick up any presence. And he caught one: footsteps cutting through the wind, breathing, a shadow—a human presence blending all of it together. He forced his leg up and readied his stance. Red Vega burst from the smoke.
Watcher moved first. He thrust his blade forward. The roaring flame sharpened to a deadly edge. He was confident it could pierce solid rock.
FWOOMP!
An explosive sound rang out. Red Vega had jetted fire from her left hand. The propulsion she gained was enough to render his stretched-out attack useless. It also gave her the option to put far more distance between herself and her charging opponent.
But she didn’t.
FWOOMP! Another burst. This time she’d jetted flame in the opposite direction of her travel. She shot straight back at Watcher. FWOOMP! FWOOMP! FWOOMP! Jets of fire erupted again and again in midair as she adjusted her course boldly yet precisely, closing in on him in the time it took to blink. She poured all the inertia and propulsion of her flight into a spinning kick aimed squarely at his side.
CRACK!
Watcher’s armor shattered further, and for the second time today he went flying. This time it was low-altitude flight. He reached out his right hand and dug it into the ground. Scraaaaape! He gouged the earth for a brake and managed to stop within a few steps.
A far gentler landing than the last. Watcher rose.
“Hoo....”
A deep sigh stirred the hazy dust cloud. Battered and wrecked as he was, he looked oddly refreshed.
“You’ve gotten stronger.”
“...!”
It was a simple statement. One simple statement, enough to move someone’s heart.
“And you’ll keep getting stronger. Every day, the wall blocking you will grow smaller. The path you walk will always hold trials, but you will always overcome them.”
Han Jae-jung placed a hand on the Belt.
“So there’s no need to hesitate.”
The wheel, resembling a telescope’s focus adjuster. He struck it with his fist.
“If you want to reach the truth, act. You have the strength for it, and the right.”
The wheel spun hard, and the light inside the glass at the Belt’s center spun with it—like a star completing a full revolution through the sky. Within that spinning light, the armor that made up Watcher began to crack away.
[ORIGIN.]
The Belt’s voice sounded again, and most of the heavy armor encasing him shattered apart into fragments. The armor was ground as fine as powder, then gathered at his neck in a form resembling starlight. That starlight became a red muffler. The muffler billowed in the shape of the Big Dipper.
He raised a finger and pointed at Red Vega.
“Have you ever seen a star?...Heh. Who’s asking whom, here.”
It was a question she, of all people, didn’t need to hear. Watcher laughed in spite of himself at the absurdity.
Without a word, Red Vega stepped forward. Flame welled up from the leg that planted itself firmly on the ground. Her long, pale legs blazed bright, as if they contained all the world’s rage pressed down and ignited.
“Yes. I have.”
She charged again. Her flame-laden leg swung wide, and Watcher raised his arm to block it.
CRASH!
The vibration rang out like a drum, shaking the earth.
“Thanks to you! Plenty of times! Because that was the first time I’d wandered that close to death! Just like you said—my brain got rattled so hard my optic nerves were overstimulated!”
The moment she felt the block, Red Vega pulled her leg back and extended the other. This time Watcher bent backward at the waist and evaded.
“I was scared! It hurt!”
Red Vega kept attacking with kick after kick. Every blow was dangerous. The long afterimages her flames traced in the air created a dense, lyrical beauty like ink-wash painting.
“Why did you do that?!”
CRASH! Unable to fully disperse the impact, Watcher slid backward. The friction from his dragging feet left black lines on the ground, the color of burnt ash.
“Like I said before, I was threatened....”
“...!”
A faint expectation flickered across Red Vega’s face.
“...if I put it that way, should you forgive me? Because you’re a magical girl?”
Watcher cut that expectation down ruthlessly.
“Threatened or not, using violence against you was entirely my choice. And that’s not all. Through the violence I used on you, I got closer to my own goal. Whatever circumstances I had, I benefited from it.”
It was almost a compulsion. He couldn’t forgive the sins he’d committed, and so he didn’t want others to forgive them either. A sin cannot be rationalized. Having extenuating circumstances doesn’t make the sin itself disappear.
“I am your sinner.”
Red Vega stiffened for a moment at his answer. She slowly studied his form, then opened her lips.
“...Then why!”
She shouted as though possessed, then lowered her voice.
“Then why... to me... all this time... that appearance... those words... what in the world....”
It was a string of words no one else could understand. She hadn’t spoken hoping anyone would understand. She’d spoken to steel herself.
Regaining her breath, Red Vega asked calmly,
“Did you... want me to gain fear of a monster?”
“Are you asking so you can forgive me?”
“No.”
She cut him off flatly.
“It’s a question so I can accept it.”
Watcher stared at her blankly for a moment, then nodded.
“Yes.”
The instant she heard his answer, Red Vega crossed her arms and drew a deep breath. She gave a few small nods, then uncrossed her arms and settled back into a fighting stance.
“Alright. I accept it.”
A tiny ember settled on her foot.
“One last thing. Are you really a monster?”
“....”
“...Silence, huh? I don’t know if it’s awkward for you or if you can’t say... but it’s fine. My answer’s the same either way.”
Softly, like the first snow, it melted away.
Only for a moment. From the spot where the ember vanished, a massive blaze erupted. The tiny spark had been nothing but a trigger to ignite a greater fire.
“One. I resent you. The fear and negative emotions you carved into me through violence don’t disappear easily. They’ll come back as dreams sometimes and torment me. So I hate you.”
The towering blaze cast a cold light on Red Vega. The heated air rose, and her hair billowed softly like a flame.
“One. In spite of that, I hold some goodwill toward you. A kind of camaraderie, something like respect for a teacher, and also admiration for someone stronger than me. Don’t misunderstand. It’s not romantic love.”
“Do I look like I’d misunderstand something like that?”
“I’m relieved. I almost reported you.”
They looked at each other and laughed hollowly. But not even a joke could erase the razor-sharp fighting spirit that flowed across this battlefield.
“Last.”
The wildfire of embers grew calm. The flames gathered, restrained, creating a single cycle—an unending circular form. A ring.
“That’s why, even though I hate you, I don’t want you to die.”
A halo formed around her leg.
“Even though I despise you, I want you to keep standing before my eyes and saying those infuriating things.”
Watcher moved his buckle in response.
[SET. Seven-Star Step Kick.]
A green aura gathered around his leg. Faint glimmers like fireflies dampened the embers and illuminated him.
“That’s why I must not learn your identity. Because even when you’re at your most vulnerable, I’d have to act to kill you. That’s my duty. My mission. The choice I’ll make to protect the safety of the people in this world.”
Red and green light blanketed the ruins.
“So, my sinner, I hereby pass a single judgment on you.”
The light that had been swirling around them for some time compressed.
“Be my enemy. My rival. My teacher. My friend. Be a trial for me to climb higher, an ally I can someday trust at my back, an object of resentment I can rage against with all my heart.”
As if storing up power to explode, the light gathered within a single ring, shining smaller than before but sharper.
“That one thing will be enough.”
“Isn’t that more than one thing?”
“Not being picky about stuff like that is what makes it cool.”
“Kids these days have complicated sensibilities. Or maybe you’re just special.”
They faced each other for a moment, their fighting spirit blazing. Two lights, carrying clear resolve, trembled with intent.
Both moved at the same time.
“Then, here I come.”
“Come on, then.”
The first step. ‘Fear.’ A moment of silence before action. A time of inner struggle. If I step forward, what will I gain? If you have struggled... then step forward. Now there was no hesitation in their steps. Both ran forward—light, heavy, and certain, one step at a time.
Resolve, understanding, conviction, composure, will, and fear driven away. Turn every attitude you’ve forged into power. Load it all in.
The ring of flame around Red Vega’s leg grew larger. Above the green ring on Watcher’s leg, another ring layered over it. They’d never shared their feelings together. They’d never shared this kind of teaching. But they both knew it naturally. That the other had gone through the same process. That there was a thought process unique to those who held a clear will.
Just as every planet in the solar system aligns in a single line beyond immense coincidence, as if by fate, infinite coincidences overlapped for the two of them until they reached the same step. The final step. What it held was the will to prove their will.
CRRRRAAAACK!!
The ground split open. Under Red Vega’s foot, flame erupted like a volcano. Under Watcher’s foot, where the ground had split in the shape of the Big Dipper, dreamlike starlight like an aurora welled up. The rings on their legs condensed into single points, compressing their power to its limit.
“Let me ask you.”
Right before she leaped, in the fleeting moment their eyes met, Red Vega asked.
“Have you ever seen a star?”
Watcher smiled.
“Of course! Seen them and more!”
She leaped high. She blotted out the sun, but cast no shadow. Red Vega became a second daylight radiance, scorching the horizon with heat. Leaving a comet-like trajectory, she plummeted downward. Watcher moved his foot to meet her.
One Path. Flowing Flame-Blossom Radiance.
Seven-Star Step Kick.
Two overwhelming starlights met.
“Right here, right now, right before my eyes, shining brilliantly!”
Radiance enveloped the ruins.