Grimgal of Ashes and Illusion - Volume 14 - Chapter 17

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17. The Form That Completes Me [perfect_world]

Once upon a time, there was an incredibly ugly and very pathetic little girl.

She was so ugly...

So warped...

The little girl was, pitifully...

L O N E L Y

Yes, she was.

Glimmering, sparkling... The girl’s tears flowed.

Sparkling, glimmering... The tears never stopped.

When she cried that way, she stopped caring about anything.

Even so, the tears, sparkling, glimmering... continued to overflow without end.

How very, very mysterious.

If I don’t care, why am I crying?

Could it be... Could it be... I don’t not care?

Was that why... glimmer, sparkle, glimmer... the girl cried?

It might well be, you know?

The girl surely must have been... searching for something.

The thing she was searching for, what was it?

(What? Searching for something...?)

Hey, hey, I’ve felt like there’s something, yes, something. Something I’m missing. From the very beginning, I think. I mean, because I’m lacking something, missing something, I’ve always been inferior, and that’s why I’m like this, right? I think I was born this way, with some sort of inborn fault, deficiency, inferiority, or syndrome.

If I say that, I’m sure people would say, “That’s just how it is. Everyone’s missing something. That’s a given,” right? Yeah, sure, I know that. They go and act like know-it-alls, even though they can’t possibly know a thing about other people.

I’m uneasy, unsure about staying insufficient as I am. I’m more scared than I can handle. I want to be complete. I feel like I’m a hole. A hole in my own shape. If there’s a hole, you have to fill it, or it’s dangerous, right? If someone fell into that hole, they’d be in trouble. Ohh, I want to fill this hole. But, you know, nobody had to fall into this hole, no one had to fall into the trap that’s shaped like me, and I’m glad.

I have to hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry and fill the hole. That’s why, you see, that hole, I decided to jump into that hole.

“Hee hee! Don’t be stupid,” I’ll bet you’re thinking. I’ll bet you’re laughing. But I’m not stupid. It’s not stupid at all. Don’t laugh. Don’t laugh at me. I’m serious. This is sincere. It’s important. If I don’t do it, what else can I do?

No.

That’s not it.

The truth is, I knew. I’ve always known.

The pathetic little girl, she wanted to be loved. The reason the girl was pudgy, disfigured, and hopelessly ugly, ultimately was because no one loved her.

Not charitable love, neighborly love, the love of humanity, or the close affection of friendship, but something stronger, deeper, an intense love. Basically, the girl wanted a love that was exclusively hers.

She wanted to be captured, and told, “I’ll never let you go again.”

Of course, that one moment needed to last an eternity. If it could, the girl would cease to be a hole. She wouldn’t be lacking. By being loved, the girl would become complete.

Yes.

I knew.

I knew that it was impossible.

Who could possibly love an ugly girl whose greedy thirst for love was so brazen, and so disgusting?

But I want to be loved.

I want you to love me.

I want

“...I can’t do this!” Haruhiro jumped off of Shihoru.

He might even deserve praise for having not pushed her away while doing so.

Shihoru sat on the ground with her legs spread in an M-shape, staring into the polka dot sky with empty eyes. She hadn’t started crying yet. But it could only be a matter of time.

So that’s how it was, Haruhiro thought.

Even between comrades, there are things you just don’t know. Haruhiro was supposed to be the leader of the party, but he hadn’t had even the slightest inkling.

I want to be loved. I want you to love me. For Shihoru, that was more important than anything, her one and only wish.

Shihoru was Haruhiro’s comrade, and his friend. She was a very important presence in his life, but he couldn’t do it. The feelings Haruhiro had for Shihoru were clearly not what she would have called love.

Even if he decided I will love her out of a desire to save Shihoru, love wasn’t something that would just automatically come into existence like that. He couldn’t pretend to love her, either. That would be fake. It was possible he’d be found out, and what Shihoru wanted was sure to be something genuine.

Obviously, Shihoru had the right to choose her partner for herself, too. She wouldn’t want Haruhiro. Even if she did, Haruhiro didn’t love Shihoru.

Besides, let’s assume for a moment that Haruhiro did love Shihoru, and she accepted that. What would happen to Shihoru when she found that salvation? If Shihoru was a trickster who had fallen into the darkness, wouldn’t she end up just like Nui?

It’s no good.

Either way, it’s no good.

“I’m sorry, Shihoru, I...”

Shihoru’s face was turned his way. Still expressionless. Shihoru’s eyes focused in on Haruhiro.

In the corners of her eyes, the truly sparkly, shining tears began to form.

It happened right after that.

Shihoru’s glance moved. Diagonally behind Haruhiro, there was someone there.

“Let me try, too.”

He didn’t even have to turn and look.

Setora had moved up beside Haruhiro.

“If it works, that should be some comfort.”

Try? Try what?

Before he could ask, Setora thrust out an orb she held in both hands and shouted. “Enba!”

Shihoru started turning into Enba. No, the transformation happened in an instant, so it was as if Shihoru and Enba had traded places.

Enba was larger than Shihoru, but they were sitting in the same position. Shihoru had turned into Enba.

Enervated, Haruhiro fell to the ground. He looked up at Setora.

“Ho... Huh? Wh...?”

Setora sighed deeply, then thrust the orb out in front of Haruhiro’s nose. “What do you think this is?”

“I think you called it... a pseudo-soul vessel, right? You took it out of Enba...”

“Right. The pseudo-soul vessel functions because it’s inside a flesh golem. Despite that, I am still able to call out Enba, for some reason. However, the pseudo-soul vessel is still in my hands.”

“I don’t get it...”

“I am merely proposing a hypothesis here, and I have no proof. However, I believe that this Enba is similar to, yet distinct from, the golem Enba that I made.”

“It’s your magic.” Alice walked up carrying the shovel.

Kiichi tagged along, too.

Io and her group were still on guard. The three of them were hiding behind Tonbe’s shield, poking their heads out and looking this way.

Merry stayed by the edge of the hill, not approaching. Ahiru did the same.

Kuzaku was still naked, and spacing out. Well, no, he wasn’t completely naked.

“Try... putting on some clothes?” Haruhiro suggested.

“Oh, yeah, I should do that, huh...”

“That body... Oh, I get it. That’s your magic, huh. Self-strengthening. Narci...”

“So I’m told. It’s kinda embarrassing, though.”

“If anything, I’m jealous,” Haruhiro admitted.

“Whaa, why? Wait, what is your magic?”

“Mine is... No, before that—”

“Stand, Enba,” Setora ordered.

Enba stood up slowly, or a little awkwardly.

Was it Haruhiro’s imagination? He could hear something. Something like a voice, a voice coming from inside Enba.

Actually, it was a voice.

Haruhiro hesitantly approached Enba. Bending over slightly, he pushed his ear to the golem’s chest.

“No... Not anymore... No... Noooo... Hee hee... Doesn’t matter... Huh...”

“Is that... Shihoru’s voice?” Haruhiro wondered. “Then... that means...”

She was inside. Shihoru hadn’t changed into Enba. Shihoru was inside Enba.

“That’s an unusual magic.” Alice leaned side to side and squinted while examining Enba.

Hmph, Alice snorted.

“But it’s probably philia, like mine or Ahiru’s. What was it, again? That thing you’re holding. The pseudo-soul vessel? You seem to value it highly. Setora, was it?”

“Yeah... Well, I suppose I do. This is Enba’s main body. If his pseudo-soul vessel were destroyed, Enba would never come back. For me, Enba was an emotional support.”

“That’s why that pseudo-soul vessel became the source of your magic, huh. So, originally, it was inside a flesh golem? That’s like something out of Frankenstein, I guess? It was an artificial heart, or something?”

“The pseudo-soul vessel is like a combination of the heart and brain. However, I think your understanding of it is sufficient.”

“So, despite that, the pseudo-soul vessel is in your hands. So, what’s inside Enba, then?”

For now, it seemed Shihoru was inside. But what about before? What had been inside it before?

Haruhiro cocked his head to the side.

“...It was empty?”

Setora put her hand on Enba’s shoulder. “That was my hypothesis. Even if Enba had been recreated by some power that transcends human understanding, so long as his vessel was in my hands, he had to be empty. It’s well made. However, even just making a flesh golem’s organs function is a difficult task, and even once accomplished, it won’t move without a pseudo-soul vessel. Something that shouldn’t move is moving, so we can discard the notion that what ought to be inside it is.”

“You put Shihoru in Enba...”

“It looks like she’s staying put inside the hollow golem for now,” Alice said. “She might come out soon enough, though.”

It was an unpleasant truth.

“This may only buy us a little time, then...” Haruhiro murmured.

“I’m sorry, Haru.” Setora turned to Haruhiro and bowed her head. Beside her, Kiichi lowered his head, too. “This was all I could think of. I can’t say I thought it was likely to succeed, and I had no other plan. I have no idea what to do from here.”

“No, it’s enough... More than enough.”

Phew. Haruhiro let out a sigh.

When he tried to stand, Alice offered a hand. Haruhiro gratefully took it, and Alice pulled him to his feet.

“You’re welcome,” said Alice.

“...I never thanked you, you know?”

“You were about to, though, right?”

“Well...”

Scratching the back of his head, Haruhiro looked to his comrades.

Setora and Kiichi were still looking down. Kuzaku was having a hard time getting back into his armor. He’d gotten too buff, so it must have been a tight fit.

Merry was staring off somewhere in the distance, maybe thinking about something. It didn’t really matter, but wasn’t she acting a little distant? Was she avoiding him, maybe? But he didn’t think he’d done anything that would make her hate him. They’d been separated, so he couldn’t have.

What was Shihoru doing inside Enba, who was just standing there? He’d have liked to find out, but it was best not to stimulate her.

“Shihoru is fine.” Haruhiro made a point of stating that clearly.

The truth was, he couldn’t do anything about her immediately, and he could only come up with ideas that might work, maybe. What was fine about that?

There was the question of if Ahiru and the Io-sama Squad could be trusted, too. And did they have enough firepower? There was a lot to be done, and he probably couldn’t solve all the problems.

Even so, he’d found everyone.

With all his comrades gathered, what they had to do now was clear.

Haruhiro looked for the Iron Tower of Heaven. Using that vertical line, he could figure out the general location of the Scarlet Forest.

No mater how perilous, nonsensical, or long the road might be, the castle was there.