Remember the End (7)
So frustrating. So damn frustrating...
If it had been up to me, I would have greedily sucked Tamako’s despair dry without a second thought—but doing that would have made my halo appear for certain, so I couldn’t.
How long is she planning on hanging around here, anyway?
She was a magical girl, right? Shouldn’t she be off hunting monsters by now? Hmm?
I threw every pointed look I could manage her way, but Emerald remained completely unmoved. It almost felt like she was just sitting there waiting for me to transform into Apocalypse.
...Should I just slap on some twin tails and try to despair her again?
Judging by how she reacted at the clothing store, it would probably work one or two more times. Combine that with the same level of despair as last time, plus whatever was still rolling off the bedridden Tamako, and it might even be enough to get me out of here.
“Akari.”
“...”
“Akari?”
“Huh? Were you calling me?”
“Is there anyone else here besides you?”
Well, no. But I wasn’t a person—I was a monster.
I wanted to snap that right back at her, but a powerless monster like me was better off just rolling with the punches. Life—no, monster life—was full of twists and turns. Something bad was happening now, so something good was bound to come along eventually.
“Talk with me for a moment.”
“I’m such a boring person that I’m not sure we’ll manage a proper conversation.”
That was my polite way of saying I didn’t want to talk to her. Of course, she paid it no mind whatsoever.
...Isn’t she getting a little too close?
Emerald had edged herself right up to the bed I was sitting on, and the proximity was way too much. The one silver lining was that she wasn’t leaking any hope.
“It’s fine. I just... want to know more about you, Akari.”
“...Do you have a thing for that?”
Wanting to know more about me? Anyone could see that was flirting. Wait—was this a confession?
Was Emerald secretly a masochist who got off on confessing to her enemies? Or maybe it was more of a “know your enemy” kind of deal.
“Wha—n-n-no! I’m just purely interested in learning about you!”
“That just makes it sound even weirder. So please stop talking to me.”
Watching Emerald’s expression shatter from pure panic was a pretty delicious sight, but right now I just wanted to be left alone. More precisely, I wanted to be alone with Tamako, who was lying right over there.
Damn it, stop ruining my sweet little despair-sucking time with Tamako! Stupid magical girl. Stupid magical girl!
“I-I like fish!”
“I hate it. I didn’t even know I hated it until now, but I do.”
Anyone who had to eat that completely flavorless grilled salmon would have ended up the same way. Just watch me never touch human food again.
...No, wait. Wouldn’t that look suspicious if I stopped eating?
“That’s... I’m sorry...”
“It’s fine. I really didn’t know. While I was locked up in there, I didn’t get to eat anything at all.”
Might as well seize the initiative here. Emerald clearly believed I’d been captured by the Doctor’s lab and remodeled into Apocalypse. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t be probing me like this.
“...What was that place like?”
“Wouldn’t it be better to ask Tamako about that?”
I had been created and immediately sent out into the city, so I didn’t know much about the lab to begin with. Besides, it was a little funny listening to the person who had smashed the place to pieces with magic ask what it had been like. Weren’t you supposed to gather intel before you destroyed something? Just how shortsighted could one person be?
“I’m sorry for bringing up painful memories.”
“It’s fine. If you keep dredging up the painful ones long enough, they eventually go dull. Or maybe they don’t—I’m not sure.”
The Doctor who had stolen my despair essence and gorged himself on it. And the Doctor who had abandoned me and run for it the moment Emerald showed up!
No matter how many times I thought about that scene, it still made my blood boil.
“...I see.”
“Yeah.”
Something in my answer seemed to click for her; Emerald sank into thought. The hospital room fell quiet again, and honestly, the silence was better than talking to her. Of course, her leaving the room entirely would have been best of all.
People said you were most flustered when someone showed you the exact opposite of the image you held of them. But the situation in front of me couldn’t be explained with a word as simple as “opposite.”
“...”
An expression that looked ready to vanish at any second. I didn’t know what she was thinking, but she had clearly been dragged back into memories of being held in the Doctor’s lab. There was no other reason she would wear a face that hollow.
I already knew how monstrous the Doctor was... and still my thinking was too shallow.
The sights I had witnessed when I stormed the Doctor’s lab had been too horrific for words like “terrible” to cover. Magical girls floating in test tubes with their limbs severed. Magical girls howling like beasts while tubes attached to their heads drained the despair out of them. Some of them had even looked half-merged with monsters.
“Emerald, are you okay?”
“...I’m fine, May.”
May must have sensed the turmoil in my emotions; she was looking at me with eyes full of worry. I’m fine. Really. I just... realized how lacking I still am, that’s all.
Akari still hasn’t become Apocalypse.
The physical exam results had said she was no different from an ordinary person. A slightly lower body temperature and a slower heartbeat were easy enough to understand. Among the people who had been locked up in the Doctor’s lab, symptoms that mild almost counted as healthy.
“I’ll step out for a bit.”
“...”
“If you need anything, just say so, Akari.”
When no answer came back, I sighed inwardly. I had promised myself I would treat her normally, but I just couldn’t. Every time I looked at that face, revulsion and suspicion boiled up. No matter how hard I tried to push them down, once those feelings started rising they refused to settle.
“Emerald, are you really still suspicious of that child?”
“No, it’s... nothing. I was just anxious.”
“I can’t sense any hope from her at all. Even the girl who collapsed and lost consciousness still had a faint thread of it...”
“...”
“Do you think something terrible happened to her there?”
May was right. She would act spacey and offbeat one moment, then flip into pure cynicism the second the conversation turned serious—almost as if the usual act existed solely to hide that other side of her. If she had just stayed silent and still, at least I could have hated her freely. I knew it was you, Apocalypse. You’re exactly the same as you were back then, I could have told myself.
“May. What do you think about hating someone just because they look exactly like a bad person?”
“It’s not a good thing. Of course you have your reasons, Emerald, but judging someone by appearance alone is wrong. You judge a person by what’s inside, not by how they look.”
Every word was pure common sense.
“Even so, I believe in you. I know that someday you’ll look at that child’s true self!”
“...I’ll try.”
How much effort would it take to cover over memories stained in blood? Even now, every time Akari’s face rose in my mind, those nightmarish hours came flooding back with it. But maybe I could do it. I had poured everything I had into finding Akari when I normally never would have—surely I could manage this much as well.
“Thanks, May. That helped a lot.”
“Ahem, of course! I’m your partner, after all!”
I smiled faintly as May puffed out her little chest. Right. I just needed to get to know her slowly. And from now on, I needed to start erasing the rest.
Deep in my chest, a small flame of hope began to kindle.
First, I should start by apologizing.
It wasn’t too late. I would tell her I was sorry for every rude thing I had done so far. The thick resistance still lodged in my heart tried to close around my throat, but once I had decided, I refused to reverse course.
All right. My mind was settled. Time to go back in.
Creeeak—
“Akari, I have something to sa—”
“Ugh... hhk, cough... cough cough...!”
“Akari!?!!”
The moment I opened the hospital room door, the sight that greeted me was Akari vomiting dark crimson blood. Her face was so pale it looked ready to disappear, which only made the clots of blood pooling around her stand out even more vividly.
“Akari, are you okay?! Akari, Akari?!”
“Ugh, hhk, hhk...”
“Someone! Is anyone there?! Please, anyone! The patient is coughing up blood!!”
Of course she wasn’t okay. Why had I ever thought she would be?
Just because she shared Apocalypse’s face, had I actually deluded myself into believing she was Apocalypse? Even if she really were Apocalypse, the person standing in front of me right now was nothing more than an ordinary girl.
You said you would save everyone.
Was I not included in that “everyone”?
Akari’s lifeless eyes fixed on me, filled with resentment. And inside those black irises, Apocalypse bared a cold, mocking smile at me.
The final enemy of all magical girls, Apocalypse, still existed.
Inside my memories—in the form of a nightmare I would never be able to cast off.
Even now. Always.