Grimgal of Ashes and Illusion - Volume 14 - Chapter 15

15. A Boy Named Desire [sexy_drive]

Question:

Who does this world exist for?

Answer:

The world is mine.

Mine.

Mine.

Mine.

Mine.

Mine.

The world exists for me.

Do you get it?

Don’t you get it?

Basically, that’s how it is.

What does that mean, you ask? Well, the world exists for me. I dunno why. I can just tell. I know these things. It’s just a thing you get.

Like, you can see it. Once it comes into view, it’s easy to have an epiphany, you know? For real.

When I had my epiphany, I jumped right up, and grabbed this bald, octopus-like dream monster’s slimy face in my vice-like grip. Then, I smushed it good.

It was damn easy. Like cooking made easy. Nah, I wasn’t gonna eat him. From there, I rolled around laughing. Wahahaha! No need for meaning. The meaning can come later. Like how meaning gets attached to the things I’ve accomplished.

While I was rolling and laughing, it got more and more fun. Wahaha! Wahahahaha!

Rolling around and laughing is the best. Spin, spin, spin, spin. It’s the secret to good health, you know? Spin, spin, spin, spin.

While spinning around, I found a dream monster that looked like a sea anemone running away.

Ping. Locked on.

Zoom! I spun around, and I took that spinning power, that revolution, you might say, and both using and not using it—no, using it, yeah, using it good—bam, I got him with the large katana. Right in two, slice. It felt sooooooooooooooo good.

But why was I crying?

Because it felt so good?

I screamed.

“Classic...!”

Damn, I thought. I dunno what was classic about it, but the way that word sounded coming off my lips, seriously, hot damn.

The universe of waves in its flavor gave it a supernatural groove that already bordered on divine. It was a god damned miracle, wasn’t it? It was, or more like I was. I was God, wasn’t I?

I turned an ear to the heavens and listened. “I can hear it. The voice...”

“What voice are you talking about, Bossari, you utter nitwit?!” There was Tonbe-kun, running at me with his beloved, oversized mirror. Hilarious.

“Eheheh.” I stopped his mirror with just the index finger of my left hand.

“Urkh! Wh-Why you! Wh-Wh-Where is that idiot strength coming from, you big pile of narcissism?!”

“No, no, Tonbe-kun, you’re just weak,” I smirked. “I can do better than this. I’m holding back. This is me, pulling my punches. Is that you at max power, Tonbe-kun?”

“N-N-N-No way is this my max! I’ve still got my trump card!”

“Then show me! Show me your... trumpet?”

“Trump card!”

“Yeah, that!”

I kicked Tonbe-kun’s massive mirror and sent both it and him flying. Did he really have a secret... What was it? Dump cart? Well, if he had one, I seriously wanted to see it. But before that, I had a feeling Trashman would be coming for me with a surprise attack, and not even so much as a polite hi-yah before he did it.

That was exactly what happened, too. Trashman wound up with his great sword and lunged. He was like a violent blast of dark wind.

Dark Storm. Whoa. Badass. But I saw it coming, so I swung my large katana hard.

My shockwave collided with his Dark Storm.

“Whuh...?!” Trashman sputtered as my shockwave peeled his Dark Storm off him. He stumbled in an exaggerated manner, and he couldn’t finish his swing.

“Ahaha,” I laughed. “What’s the matter? You’re looking weak there, Senior. Is it because you’re Trashman? I guess, since you’re Trashman, you were always trash, huh.”

“I... I ain’t Trashman! I’m Gomi!”

“Gyahahahaha!” I laughed. “You’re hilarious. That’s so funny, I wanna kill you like the trash you are!”

I wanted to kill him so badly, my vision was going blurry. That’s a thing that happens, you know? You didn’t know? Well, now you do. Isn’t that great? It was that kind of urge to kill you get when every hole in your body is oozing I-wanna-kill-something juice. If you don’t know what that is, you’ll never understand this.

“Kuzaku! What’s gotten into you?! You’re acting strange!” Setora-chan was yapping like a little dog.

I’ll kill her next, I told myself. When I killed her, that’d be the end of it, which was one drawback, but it was obviously better to kill her than to not, so, yeah, I was gonna kill her after all.

What was it gonna be like killing Setora-chan? Sad, I guess. The sadness would tear open my chest, and something would poke its face out to say peek-a-boo, I bet. Then it’d be like, Let’s kill, kill, kill, baby! and urge me to go on. I couldn’t wait for that, so I shouted out loud.

“Uwahhhhhhh! Re! Vo! Lu! Tioooooonnnn!”

Bzzzapzapzap! The power arced off of me like lightning. I was tingling thanks to it. This feeling of the blood vessels bursting inside me. It was so, unbearably, gooooood.

“But why am I crying? Eeeeheheheheheh...”

While I laughed, my lungs convulsing like crazy, I brought my left hand up to touch the area around my eyes. My fingers got wet. When I looked, they were red.

“Huh? No...? It’s not tears... this is... blood?”

Is, like, my face, like, a total mess?

This, it’s all blood, isn’t it?

I’m covered in blood, aren’t I?

“Pfft...” I burst out laughing. What was I getting myself covered in blood for? “Gwee! Gwehehehehe! Gwahah! Bwuhuhuhuh! Bweheh! H-Hilarious...”

My sides hurt. My head hurt. My body hurt. I hurt everywhere. It hurt so much, I couldn’t stop laughing.

“This is bad.” Someone said that.

Bad? What did she mean, bad? Ba-ba-bad? Was it bad? It might be bad? Be bad, be bad, be bad?

Splitting. It was splitting. Trying to split. My outside. Outside, inside. Maybe my inside, too. Feelings of love. Redundant trap.

Trap. Rapping noises. Symbolic princess carnivalvalvalval. Oh, shit. Shiiiiiit. Something was coming out. It was going nom, nom, nom, nom. I was getting eaten. I might’ve been doing the eating, too.

Feelings of love. Feelings? What feelings? No, this wasn’t the time for that, I was breakingeakhingbreakbreakbreak.

Blaaaack. The me that was coming out of me was so black. The black me was eating me.

No, not black, dark. Ohh, was that me...?

Something had wrapped around the outside of mememememememememe.

“Kuzaku! Don’t fall into the darkness!”

Darkness, darkness, darkness, darkness, darkness, darkness, darkness, darkness, ness, ness, ness, ness, ness, ness, ness, ness, ness, dark, dark, dark, dark, dark, dark, dark, dark, dark, dark, darkness, ness, ness, ness, ness, ness?

...Hahh.

Throw... ow, ow, ow, owowowowow it off? The thing clinginginginginging to my outside...?

They’re gone.

Everyone’s gone.

It’s just me, alone...

The darkness is me, and I am the darkness, and dadadadadadadadadadadadadarknessnessnessnessnessnessnessness—

(No...)

A...

(You’re wrong.)

U...

(There is someone.)

I...

(You’re not alone. You’re not...)

O...

AAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

(You know that, right? ...I’m here.)

A,

U,

I,

O,

(I am...)

Ha,

Ru,

Hi,

Ro?

(That’s right, Kuzaku, I’m here. Here. With you. So... you can’t fall into the darkness. It’s like... What’d he say again? When you’re about to cum, you hold it back, and do multiplication tables inside your head, was it...?)

Multiplication tables... One times one is one... One times two is two... One times three is three... One times four is four...

(Don’t let your lust... your urges... get the better of you. They’re yours... They’re a part of yourself... So accept them... Recognize them, make them your own...)

Three time five is fifteen... Three times six is eighteen... Three times seven is twenty-one...

(You don’t actually have to do multiplication tables, though. It can be anything. Like, you just need to calm yourself down, take hold of your reins for yourself. If you were a horse, think of it like learning to ride yourself. Man, I’m the one saying this stuff, and it still kinda makes no sense to me...)

Ohh... but...

(...Yeah.)

Hold on...

(Huh...?)

...I get it.

...You’re there, right, Haruhiro?

(I am... yeah.)

...Right there.

(Well, yeah... I’m here.)

When I think about it like that, you know... I feel like it’s all gonna be okay.

Maybe?

“...Wogh.” A weird groan came out of his mouth.

His eyes opened. Wait, they’d been closed? Apparently they had.

Kuzaku kneeled on the ground, hanging his head. His large katana was lying on the ground next to him.

As for what was clinging to his back, that went without saying.

“...Haruhiro?” he mumbled.

“...Yeah.”

“Sorry, I...”

“It’s fine, man. It looks like I made it in time, at least. Thank goodness.”

“You saved me, didn’t you? I was in serious trouble there, wasn’t I? Like, I was going crazy. I’ve got no idea what happened, though...”

“You killed too many dream monsters at once,” Haruhiro said. “Your id went up too much, and the gap with your ego... Oh, whatever. We can explain that later.” With a grunt of exertion, Haruhiro pulled Kuzaku to his feet. “We need to get out of town now! Can you run?!”

“Huh? Uh, um, probably!”

Picking up his large katana with his right hand, he rubbed his face with his left hand. Whoa. It’s all red, he thought.

He couldn’t see very well. He wasn’t totally blind, but his vision was blurry. His hearing was a bit off, too. Like something had been stuffed in his ears. He apparently had a nosebleed.

His body hurt here and there, all over... actually, his body was in the worst possible condition, but Haruhiro said they were getting out of town.

Even if he couldn’t run, he’d run. He could run.

He had a lot of thoughts, like, There are a bunch of people here I don’t know, or, I could have sworn I saw that guy in the moss green coat somewhere before, but right now running came first.

Haruhiro was here.

If he could see Haruhiro’s back in front of him, he had to keep following.

Because Haruhiro was here, after all.

He didn’t need to think about anything else.

It seemed he’d gotten quite deep inside the town at some point, and no matter how much they ran, they weren’t reaching the gate, but occasionally Haruhiro would turn back to encourage him, so he was easily able to keep going.

The gate was blocked with that same thorny vine stuff as before, but someone busted a hole in it so they could get through.

Even once they were outside, they ran for a while.

For his part, Kuzaku wanted to stop running, but Haruhiro shouted at him, “Not yet!” so obviously he did as he was told.

They climbed a hill that was made of chaotically interconnected stairs. He tripped on the steps repeatedly. Each time, Haruhiro would help him to his feet.

Thanks, man, I’m super grateful, Kuzaku thought.

His eyesight had gotten a lot better. He could even hear half-decently. It’s amazing what you can recover from. No, could you recover from all that, normally? Was it because this wasn’t Grimgar?

When he reached the summit, the feeling of accomplishment was going to be incredible. Haruhiro would probably praise him.

But was this even a hill? It wasn’t, was it? Hold on, it had changed completely from before. Kuzaku was climbing the steep slope of what seemed to be a mound of rubber tube-like things piled up. When he squeezed with his hands, those tube things stuck to him, making it pretty hard to climb.

Well, not that it mattered. He was almost done.

“All right...!” Kuzaku yanked on the tube things to pull himself up, finally reaching the summit.

There she was, crying.

Sparkling, sparkling, the tears flowed.