Grimgal of Ashes and Illusion - Volume 13 - Chapter 19

19. Behold, Her Tears Are Beautiful

It didn’t really make sense, but Kuzaku wasn’t in bad shape. His whole body was full of energy. It was no exaggeration to say he was in peak condition.

The fact of the matter was, his muscles were pumped up, and his armor was tight. Thanks to that, though it felt a bit cramped, his body was feeling more than sharp enough to compensate for that. He’d never felt so sharp before—which was all well and good, but...

He raised his voice to call his comrade’s name. “Shihoru-san!”

The voice that came out was really big, and it even surprised him. He was in a forest where the ground, the trees, and everything else was jet black, despite it not even being night, facing her down with his large katana in hand.

“Wake up already! You’re not that kind of girl, Shihoru-san!”

“Whyyyy?” Shihoru wailed.

Her body was covered here and there with something that looked like sparkling spider webs. Not on her clothes, on her bare flesh.

It was like he could almost see but couldn’t, or almost couldn’t see but could, but basically she was more or less naked.

Also, had her hair always been that long? Her lips were awfully glossy, puffy, and her eyes were sleepy, and slightly moist.

What in the world had happened to cause this? Was it like that?

All Kuzaku could say was, Stuff happened.

Well, not that he knew what most of that stuff was. In the end, he could use all the words he wanted; and he still wouldn’t have been able to describe it.

“I’m not that kind of girl?” Shihoru cried. “I’m not what kind of girl? How can you say I’m not that kind of girl, Kuzaku-kun? Huh? How?”

“No, but... Shihoru-san, you and I are comrades! We’ve been together all this time! We’ve shared good times and bad times! But the way you look now...”

“You don’t want to see?”

She started fondling her own breasts. She was gasping.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, wh-wh-what was she doing? Kuzaku nearly averted his eyes, but stopped himself.

It wasn’t that he wanted to see. No? If he said he didn’t want to see, would that be a lie? No. It wasn’t about wanting to see or not.

“This is crazy, Shihoru-san!” he cried. “You’re acting crazy!”

“Maybe I am. I feel like I’m going crazy.”

“No, not that’s not it! Damn it! We need to be searching for Haruhiro, and Merry-san, and Setora-san, and even Kiichi, but I can’t even talk to you!”

“Forget talk,” said Shihoru. “I don’t care about that.”

Out of nowhere, she started crying. But the sparkling tears that overflowed from her eyes, poring out, were not liquid. In fact, the spiderweb-like material covering her naked body... it was her tears.

The way she looked as she cried was strikingly beautiful, but he couldn’t afford to just keep looking.

The tears overflowed without end, wrapping around her, like diamond accessories, perhaps making her even more beautiful. In addition, they ran down her legs as they glittered, pooling at her feet.

“What’s going on, seriously?!” Kuzaku lowered his hips, large katana at the ready.

His body was moving really well. How many of those weird monsters had he killed on the way here?

The more he killed, the more muscle he built, and the sharper his skills as a swordsman became. His muscles became healthier, tougher, making Kuzaku stronger in a straightforward manner. The way things were going, he’d live to three hundred. Thanks to that, he’d been able to cut down one monster that attacked after another.

“The truth is, I don’t care.” While crying, Shihoru raised her right arm. In time with her motion, the spiderweb-like stuff pooled at her feet, her jewel-like tears, danced towards Kuzaku. Those tears were bad news.

“Nuwahhh...!” Kuzaku swung with all his might. No matter what he did, he couldn’t cut through her tears. And so he swung his large katana, pushing them away with the wind.

When her tears were scattered by his sword pressure, they hit the black ground and trees nearby, those parts sparkled brightly, and they were plainly crushed.

Was that possible? Really? It was scary. What was going on there? Kuzaku had no idea.

“What happened to you, Shihoru-san?!” he yelled.

She was still crying in anguish, and her brutal tears were pressing towards him.

Kuzaku backed away one step, then two as he swung, blocking the tears at the last moment, but it was weird that he could block them at all.

This power, it was kind of not normal, wasn’t it?

Is this some sort of nightmare? he wondered repeatedly.

All jokes aside, he wanted this to be a dream.