Grimgal of Ashes and Illusion - Volume 11 - Chapter 5

5. Unable to Return

The buildings in the village were spared from the fire spreading, and most were not burned. It was probably because, if only for a short time, it had rained hard.

Fortunately, if anything about this could be said to be fortunate, that building was intact, too.

She was there. In the dirt-floored corridor of the building used as a jail. She lay on her back, facing up, with her half-clenched right hand lying by her hip. Her left arm was bent outwards a little, and the palm of her left hand was facing down. Her right leg was bent inwards a little, while her left leg was stretched out almost completely straight.

In no way did it look like she was sleeping. She was hurt badly.

Her face, with its eyelids closed, seemed completely drained of blood.

He wanted to put her limbs in the right position, at least. But what was right? Haruhiro’s ability to believe anything was right had long since vanished. He felt like there was nothing just in this world. Everything was wrong, and that was why things had turned out like this.

If you thought about it, that was how it was. It had to be.

Yume walked to her side, furrowed her brow, alternated between pursing and biting her lips, and for a while, she stared down at her. Then she collapsed into a sitting position. Shihoru silently hugged Yume’s shoulders.

Kuzaku made no attempt to enter the building.

“...Why?” and “This can’t be real...” he was mumbling to himself.

Setora and Kiichi the gray nyaa were outside, too.

Jessie leaned over her... her lifeless head, stroking the stubble on his chin.

As he stood there, Haruhiro’s shadow fell on her.

Jessie had called the shaman, or whatever he was, over, and had the man treat Haruhiro, Kuzaku, and Yume.

The shaman was a man with skin like old, cracked leather who resembled neither an orc nor a human, and Jessie addressed him as Niva.

Haruhiro had expected Niva would come with them to the jail, but Jessie hadn’t asked him to do that. Haruhiro wasn’t all that surprised. Be they a shaman, a priest, or anything else, once a person had lost their one and only life, there was no saving them.

There is a way. Just one, Jessie had said.

Haruhiro hadn’t believed those words. There was nothing he could believe. He had no intention of clinging to anything, but still he had brought Jessie to the place where she slept and would not wake.

“I see. Yeah, she’s pretty dead.” Jessie stated the obvious in blunt terms. Raising his face, he looked at Haruhiro. “May I touch her?”

“You can’t,” Yume replied instantly. It was a low, slightly hoarse voice, with an awful lot of intensity given it was coming from her. “What’re you sayin’? Merry-chan’s Yume’s comrade. Don’t you go touchin’ her.”

Jessie shrugged. “I thought it would be bad to just touch her, so I’m asking permission.”

“Yume’s sayin’ you can’t!”

“Yume,” Shihoru hugged Yume close, and glared at Jessie. “...What for? What meaning is there in what you’re trying to do?”

“I want to check how fresh she is,” Jessie said, then smiled wryly. “Ah. That was a poor choice of words. Too blunt? My apologies. Roundabout...” He paused as he searched for the appropriate word in the language they all spoke, and said at last, “I’m not so good at saying things in an indirect manner. Basically, if the corpse is too badly damaged, it will cause problems. There’s some preparation involved, you see. I want to verify things.”

“What... Just what are you preparing to do...?” Shihoru managed.

“Did I not say? There’s no question she’s dead, but there’s one way to resurrect her. I’m preparing to do that, of course.”

“Re—” Yume opened her eyes wide, looking from Merry’s face to Jessie’s and back. “Resurrect... Resurrect? You mean bringin’ Merry-chan back to life?”

Jessie didn’t respond to Yume’s question, turning his gaze instead to Haruhiro. “Can I touch her?”

Haruhiro looked at Shihoru to see her reaction. No, he was looking for help. He couldn’t decide anything himself. He could make no decision. If Shihoru didn’t nod, Haruhiro would probably keep quiet forever.

Without waiting for Haruhiro’s response, Jessie pressed his fingers to Merry’s neck, lifted her arm up, and tried bending her fingers. It was like he thought Merry was some kind of doll, and he was testing the range of motion of her joints, and their durability.

Haruhiro felt dizzy. Stop, he thought. He wanted to shout at Jessie and kick him away. Why didn’t he do it? Probably because he didn’t think he had the right.

“She’s not in bad shape.” Jessie moved his hands away from Merry’s body. “If we start right away, there’s no real preparation needed. Now it’s just a question of what to do.”

“...What do you mean, what to do?” Finally opening his mouth, that was all Haruhiro could say.

“Do we resurrect her, or not?” Jessie stood up, then took a short breath. “I can’t decide that, after all. It’s up to all of you.”

“Up to... us?”

“Before that, I guess I should explain at least a little.”

“Is there some sort of... condition?” Shihoru asked hesitantly.

“I guess you could call it that.” Jessie raised one eyebrow and snorted. “You want to know in advance what will happen, right?”

Had he been listening from outside? Kuzaku came inside the building and knelt next to Haruhiro. Why was he kneeling formally? His big body was twitching.

“Wh... What’s going to happen?” Kuzaku asked. “To Merry-san?”

“Well, if I do a certain thing, for the time being, she will come back to life.”

Haruhiro tried to say something in response, but his voice failed him.

Hold on.

Wait.

Just wait.

What does that mean, for now?

“For the time being.” Those are some awfully foreboding words. “For the time being.” My chest is so tight, it hurts. The inside of my head is a mess.

“Is there some sort of risk?”

Shihoru was the one to ask the right question. Most likely, the only one with a level head—or the only one trying to keep a level head—was Shihoru.

“’Risk.’” Jessie parroted the word back, cocking his head to the side slightly. “Risk, huh. You could say that, I guess. Let me tell you this, at least. I died once, too, and I came back. I’m not the only one who’s come back this way, either. The chance of failure is—well, I won’t say it’s nonexistent, but you can assume it practically is.”

“You...” Kuzaku looked up at Jessie, unable to even speak properly. “You... died once...? Huh...? Died...? Then came ba—Wha?”

“To put it simply, she can come back to life, like me, who already died once. There’s no risk, but there is a price to pay. That’s because she’ll be coming back in my place.”

It was hard to understand so suddenly. What had Jessie said?

“She’ll be coming back in my place?”

“In my place”—What exactly did that mean?

Merry was dead. But he said she could be revived in a certain way. So?

What about Jessie?

“In order to bring Merry back...” Haruhiro’s voice sounded like it was echoing somewhere very distant. “...you have to die...?”

“Yes. That would be the phenomenon.” Jessie said like it was nothing.

“That’s...” Shihoru hung her head. “B-But...”

Yume gently hit Shihoru on the back, as if patting her. It was probably an unconscious movement. While Yume’s hand moved, she seemed to be thinking.

“Ha ha...” Kuzaku let out a short laugh. He had no idea what was going on anymore, and that may have caused him to laugh despite himself.

“By the way, you people don’t need to worry about that part.” Jessie’s tone was nothing if not disinterested. This clearly involved him, but it was like he didn’t feel it had anything to do with him at all. “It was a little scary the first time, but I’ve experienced it before, so I know what will happen. My Jessie Land’s taken a pretty decisive blow. It’s too much of a hassle to start over from stage one. I’m happy to call this game over.”

“G-Game over? That’s...” Kuzaku lifted his hips, adjusted his sitting position, and pressed his hands down on his knees. “...Irresponsible, wouldn’t you say? Yanni-san is still...”

Jessie sighed, and snapped his fingers. “This was never a charity to begin with. I did it because it was fun. If it’s gotten boring, then it’s over. That’s what a game over is, right?”

This man was bizarre.

He’d died once, so since this was his second time—

No, so what if he knows what death is like? He’ll still be dying.

No, that’s not it, right?

Jessie had died once, and, if they took his story at face value, someone had died to bring him back.

Before then, Jessie hadn’t been the sort of creature that it was hard to call human, one that could take a Backstab and shrug it off. Jessie had been human. When he’d come back, that had changed.

Haruhiro pressed both his hands on the back of his head. He clutched his hair. By dying and coming back, Jessie had ended up like he was now...?

She can come back to life, like me who already died once, Jessie had said, right?

Didn’t that mean... Merry would end up like Jessie?

Haruhiro looked at Merry’s face. Her smile on the verge of death had vanished. When he inspected her closely like this, honestly, it could only be called a lifeless expression. In fact, she had no expression at all. Because her vital functions had ceased.

He didn’t want to recognize it, but the Merry there was nothing more than an object. He couldn’t think of her that way, and he couldn’t possibly treat her like a thing, but that was the fact. The Merry there was no more than the remains of what had been Merry.

If he didn’t use the method Jessie was talking about, Merry wouldn’t just stay that way; she wouldn’t even be able to maintain the form that was Merry.

Consider the season. She’d start to rot in no time. Eventually the curse of No-Life King would come into effect, and she would start to move.

They had to bury her quickly. Taking the curse into consideration, cremating her would be best. This wasn’t Alterna, so there was no crematorium. They’d have to burn her themselves. They would see Merry burning up with their own eyes.

He didn’t want to see that. But he probably had no choice. If he didn’t see this through, he was sure he’d have regrets. Even if he saw it through, he’d probably have regrets. If it was going to be the same either way, then he should see it. Haruhiro would probably watch.

I don’t want to see it.

Even imagining it—no, even attempting to imagine it—every cell in his body felt like it would be crushed to powder. If someone were to ram hot iron rod into his brain and jerk it around, it might feel like this.

I don’t want this.

Merry.

I really don’t.

He didn’t want to burn her at all. But he had to. The only other option was—

Bringing her back to life.

Jessie was saying it was possible. He would die, and Merry would come back in his place. Was that really a thing that could be done?

If she were his mother, his lover, or someone he had a great debt to, maybe it would be understandable. But that wasn’t the case. There was no good reason for him to offer, but Jessie had said he was fine with dying to bring Merry back.

Was there something he wasn’t telling them?

For instance, was Jessie thinking he was ready to die, or would rather be dead, and just wanted to die already? Like there was some sort of downside to coming back to life, and though Jessie looked healthy, he actually wasn’t? Maybe Jessie felt some sort of suffering or discomfiture, and he was trying to push that off on Merry?

If she came back, what would happen to Merry?

Naturally, Haruhiro wanted her to come back. If it meant a living Merry would come back to him, he’d do anything. He’d be fine with dying himself. In fact, he was ready to offer up his life instead of Jessie’s.

But what if that was a result the revived Merry couldn’t be happy with? If it was going to be like this, I wish you’d left me dead. What if Merry got turned into something that made her feel that way?

“Now then...” Jessie spread his arms wide, and looked around at Haruhiro and each of his comrades.

Haruhiro was suddenly suspicious. What had this man been like before dying? He might have been an entirely different person before then. He might have ended up like this because he was revived. Merry would be the same. If she came back to life, wouldn’t this happen to her...?

“What will you do?” Jessie asked. “Bury her, or bring her back? Decide as soon as you can. It’ll be a pain to do it if her condition gets worse, and the way things are going, the vooloos will come by sundown. It takes some time, after all. If we’re doing it, I want to be done before then.”

“...Vooloos?” Shihoru asked in a whisper.

Vooloos. That was a word they were hearing for the first time. If he recalled, Jessie and Yanni had been saying it.

He hadn’t known what it meant, but, Vooloo yakah, he’d said.

It wasn’t Jessie, but Setora who was standing by the entrance, who answered. “Vooloos are carrion scavenger wolves.”

Her tone was strangely flat.

“They’re related to canines, apparently, but they are also cat-like. While they prefer carrion, they will at times attack living creatures—humans and orcs included. They often target hunters who have made a kill and are in the process of carrying it home. The hunter becomes the hunted, and both they and their prey are eaten by the vooloos. With this many dead people lying around, I wouldn’t be surprised if the vooloos sniff them out.”

“The ones in Thousand Valley are small, right?” Jessie pointed to the north. “East of the Kuaron Mountains, there are vooloos that are bigger than the mist panthers in Thousand Valley. They’re the size of bears. If everything had burned, I don’t know how things would have been, but it rained. The eagles and crows are probably gathering as we speak. The vooloos will come next. We can chase off eagles and crows, but vooloos are a lot harder. Regardless, we need to abandon this place for now. I’ve already told Yanni that.”

“They’ve started evacuating?” Shihoru asked.

Jessie responded, “Yes, that is so,” with what was probably a deliberately foreign sounding accent. “If they come back here to rebuild, or if they search for another place, that’s up to Yanni and the others. I won’t get involved. I’ve lost interest, you see. I don’t do things I don’t want to do. I decided that before I died, and I’ve stuck to it.”

Jessie paused.

Then he added, “By the way. Since this probably has you worried, just let me say, nothing changed dramatically inside me when I came back to life. That’s up to you to believe or not. But I’ve always had this kind of personality. It did get harder for me to die once I came back, though. That was, well, I guess that’s a big change, not a small one. But it wasn’t a bad thing. If anything, it’s convenient.”

“...Details,” Haruhiro said, then pressed on his throat.

My voice, it’s all hoarse. But yeah. That was it. That’s what I wanted to say. Why couldn’t I say it before now?

“Please give us details. In concrete terms... if she comes back, how is she going to end up? What happens, and how... Basically, I want to know everything. In order to make a decision. I mean, without really understanding... I can’t decide that. Because... it’s not about me. I dunno how to say it, but without being able to receive her consent... I’d just be reviving her without permission. I need to think over it carefully. I need material to think on. Without that, while it’s not impossible...”

“I refuse to explain.”

“Huh?”

Jessie shrugged. “I’ve told you more or less all I can. There are things I can’t tell you myself, you see. You people aren’t stupid, so you understand, right? This isn’t normal. It’s common sense that people can’t come back to life, and that’s a fact. Things like this almost never happen. This is a special occurrence, and there are unique conditions. It’s no miracle, though. Like with a magician’s tricks, no matter how mysterious they seem, there’s a proper explanation behind it. I can’t spoil the trick. I have a reason why. I can’t tell you that reason, either. What will you do? Accept my offer, and bring her back to life? Or will you bury her? Decide already. I don’t care which it is.”

Haruhiro gazed up to the heavens.

There was a hole. He could see the sky. Whether the sky was clear and blue or black with thick clouds, what difference did it make?

That didn’t just go for the sky. For now, at least, he probably had no interest in anything. For now. Was it only now? Tomorrow, the next day, and beyond—as time passed, would that change?

Yeah, that was a thing that happened, huh. This happened, too. She was alive, huh. We spent time together, huh.

Would he be able to look back and remember it like that?

“Please,” Haruhiro said, his gaze still fixed on the sky he could see through the hole in the ceiling. “If you can really do it, I want you to bring Merry back.”

Is this a bad dream, or a scam? He still couldn’t shake those doubts. The next moment, I’ll wake up, Merry and I will be alone together, and Merry will be dead. There’s no one else around. There’s nothing I can do. Merry is just dead.

Or Jessie will say, “Sorry,” with a half-hearted laugh. “It was all a lie. My bad. Was just pulling your leg a bit. You know there’s no way to bring back the dead, right?”

It was neither.

“Well, let’s get to work, then.”

What would they do? What was about to start?

Bizarrely, it wasn’t just Haruhiro, Yume, Kuzaku, or Setora who was still by the door who said nothing. Even Shihoru didn’t ask Jessie about it.

No one opened their mouth, but when Jessie said, “Could you move? You’re in the way,” Yume and Shihoru backed away without a word, as did Kuzaku and Haruhiro.

Jessie pulled out a knife, pressing it to his own wrist. Then, he said, “If Yanni or the others come, do not, under any circumstances, let them in. This is going to take hours. I won’t tell you not to watch, but there’s no need to watch the whole thing. Some of you go outside and stand guard.”

First Kuzaku, and then Yume, stumbled out on unsteady legs. Yume was in a daze, and Kuzaku was tearing up.

Shihoru remained. Haruhiro stayed, too.

Jessie knelt next to Merry, and mumbled, “It’s here, right?” He slit his left wrist. He showed no sign of hesitation. It looked like he’d cut fairly deep, because the blood didn’t just flow, it gushed out. Jessie said, “Oops,” and hurriedly pressed the cut against Merry’s shoulder.

There was a horrifying wound there. That was where she had been bitten by the guorella, and that wound may have been the direct cause of Merry’s death. It was clear that Jessie was trying to touch the cut he had just made in his wrist to Merry’s wound. What good would that do? Haruhiro had no idea. It was a horrific sight, but Haruhiro didn’t stop him.

Jessie discarded the knife, clutching his left wrist with his right hand. He seemed to be trying to fix it in place. He took a breath. He grimaced.

“Haruhiro,” he called.

“...ah...” Haruhiro had meant to reply, but his voice hardly came out.

“Could you help me a bit here?”

“...With what?”

“I’m holding it in place, but I want to keep it from separating better. This is my first time doing this, so I don’t really know the process that well. I think it’ll be fine, though. You know what they say, take every due caution, right?”

It was Shihoru who did as he asked. She found a large piece of cloth in her belongings and, with her whole body trembling, and sharp labored breaths, she wrapped it around Jessie’s left wrist and Merry’s neck.

Haruhiro did nothing. He couldn’t do a thing. He just watched.

Shihoru returned, wiping her hands on the hem of her robe.

“...Sorry,” Haruhiro apologized in a small voice.

Shihoru wrapped both her arms around Haruhiro’s right arm and turned her head to the side. She was still trembling. It must have been hard enough just standing. Shihoru wanted his support.

Even I can manage that much, so I have to do it, and I ought to, Haruhiro thought.

“Haruhiro-kun, if you hadn’t said it...” she said softly.

I was wrong.

That wasn’t it.

“...I would have,” she finished. “‘Revive Merry’... I’d have said... so don’t shoulder this by yourself. Because Yume and Kuzaku-kun... I’m sure they’d have done the same.”

“Yeah,” Haruhiro nodded.

Shihoru hadn’t wanted him to support her. She had been trying to support Haruhiro herself.

The one who was about to collapse right now... was Haruhiro.

“I...”

While he was unable to get another word out, Shihoru held Haruhiro’s hand tight.

He’d sworn, if nothing else, he’d have no regrets. He didn’t know what Merry would think, and he might cause her suffering. Even so, Haruhiro could not let himself regret this. If this decision was wrong, and he’d made a mistake, Haruhiro would take the blame. He couldn’t complain if Merry resented him. Let her. But he’d had no other choice.

Taking any other option just hadn’t been possible for him. No matter how many times he went that scene, Haruhiro would ultimately have always asked Jessie to do it. He might not even have wavered over it.

If Merry could come back to life, of course he would wish for that. So he would have no regrets.

Haruhiro squeezed Shihoru’s hand in return. His heart was no longer racing. He didn’t have trouble breathing, either.

There was a lot of noise outside for some reason.

Caw. Caw. Caw. Caw, ca-caw. Caw. Caw. Caw.

Was that sound of birds? He looked to the hole in the ceiling. There were many black points flying back and forth in the sky. It looked like it really was birds.

Jessie had been kneeling with his right knee down, and his left knee up. Now both knees were down. His shoulders were moving up and down slightly. He’d started coughing, too.

Haruhiro perked up his ears, but his voice was so quiet, he couldn’t make it out. However, rather than talking to himself, he seemed to be talking to someone else.

Who exactly? Merry? But Jessie wasn’t looking at Merry’s face. His eyes were on the ground.

“Damn...!” Kuzaku yelled outside.

When Haruhiro looked, the birds had gathered and descended. The fairly large birds were eagles, and the comparatively smaller ones were crows, apparently. The birds were swarming around the corpses that had once been the gumow residents of Jessie Land and guorellas.

Kuzaku swung his large katana around, trying to drive the birds off, but there were just too many of them. Yume was occasionally swinging her katana, but only to menace any birds that came near her.

He didn’t see Setora and Kiichi. Had they gone off somewhere?

“Shihoru,” Haruhiro said.

“...Hm? What?”

“Why don’t you sit?”

“I’m... fine.”

“I see.”

“What about you, Haruhiro-kun? Are you okay?”

He came close to saying, I don’t know, but swallowed the words.

“I’m fine. Me, too.”

“...Okay.”

“Yeah.”

Jessie didn’t just have two knees on the ground; his right elbow was on the ground too, now.

That man doesn’t look fine at all, Haruhiro thought, but he couldn’t get into the mood to say anything to him.

Merry would come back to life in Jessie’s place.

What exactly does that mean? he came close to wondering again. Haruhiro shook his head. Let’s not do this. Even if I think about it, nothing will change. Besides which, it’s too late. No, he’s not done yet, so it might not be too late to act. Still, I have no intention of stopping Jessie now. Whatever else happens, Merry will return to life. I can see Merry again. Isn’t that good enough? It might not be good, but that’s fine.

Crows landed on the hole in the ceiling and started cawing. It was noisy, so he wanted to chase them off, but it was higher than he could reach by jumping and swinging his stiletto. Should he ask Shihoru to do it? With Dark? There was no need to go that far. For now, they showed no sign of coming in through the hole, so he could leave them be.

Jessie finally had his forehead on the ground. Haruhiro couldn’t hear him talking anymore. His back was moving slowly, and slightly. He was apparently not dead.

But it was bizarre. Even after being hit by Backstab, Jessie had been fine. He hadn’t treated it, but the wound had healed on its own. And what about the wound from before?

That time, Haruhiro’s stiletto had definitely punctured his kidney. It had been a fatal wound. It’d healed, but now the man was in this bad a shape from a mere cut to his arm?

It was weird.

Caw, caw, caw. Caw, caw, caw. Caw, caw, caw, caw.

The crows were cawing. There were a lot more of them than before. Not just four or five. There were easily more than ten.

“Sma...ller...?” Shihoru said.

He got a chill.

Was it a trick his eyes were playing on him? Was he just imagining it?

Jessie hadn’t been a mass of muscle to begin with, and he hadn’t been exceptionally tall, either. Even so, the size of his body... Was it because he was crouching? It was hard to imagine that was it. He was clearly small. Jessie had gotten small. There was less of him, you could say.

Haruhiro squinted. It’s no good, he thought. I can’t see well enough from here.

Shihoru let go of his arm.

Haruhiro moved to a spot where he could see the profile of Jessie’s face. He used Sneaking, not consciously, just naturally.

Jessie’s cheeks and eyes were extremely sunken, and he looked emaciated. Or perhaps desiccated was the better word. It wasn’t just his face. His whole body had lost its thickness. His collapsed torso, his bent legs, they were unpleasantly thin. Jessie’s arms had never been that thin before. They were like twigs now.

Caw, caw, caw.

Caw, caw, caw.

Caw, caw, caw, caw, caw.

The crows were cawing noisily.

Jessie shrank more and more.

What was this?

Why had he not found it strange sooner?

Jessie had slit his wrist. Even if the wound healed, he would lose a large amount of blood in a short time. Even if he pressed the opening of the wound against Merry’s injury, tying it there with a piece of cloth like that, it would make little difference. The cloth would be soaked in blood in no time, and a sea of blood would spread out. However, that didn’t happen.

Jessie kept on shrinking. Like he’d been nothing but a bag of blood. Like the skin on the outside had held the human form of Jessie, and the inside was filled with blood. Like, if the blood was let out, only the skin would remain. But that was impossible, of course. If he hadn’t had bones, and muscles, and organs, he couldn’t have walked around or breathed.

“...No way.” Shihoru covered her mouth.

Jessie was practically flat at this point.

What the hell was this?

Caw, caw, caw, caw, caw, caw, caw, caw, caw, caw, caw, caw.

The crows were cawing shrilly.

Haruhiro threw up. There was no going back. He knew that.

Really? No, that wasn’t true. If he acted now, he could still take it back. He honestly thought that might be for the best. However, if he pulled Jessie, who had become like a leather bag now, away from Merry, that possibility would vanish entirely. He would never be able to meet with Merry again.

Was he okay with that?