Grimgal of Ashes and Illusion - Volume 9 - Chapter 7

7. Indulgence

Floating... and sinking. He would notice he was floating, then sink. Sink endlessly.

There was no bottom. None, anywhere.

He felt heavy. So heavy that he didn’t know what was weighing him down. Then... he’d get lighter.

Ah. This is bad... he thought. Huh? What is this? What’s... going on? It’s so... dark.

It was pitch black. And... he couldn’t move.

Or maybe not?

It wasn’t like he couldn’t move his hands and feet. But somehow... it felt cramped.

Was he sleeping? Was he lying down somewhere?

No.

Obviously, he wasn’t standing, either.

His body was at an angle. His head was below his feet. It was like... he was wedged in somewhere? Or something like that?

It felt like a bad idea to call out.

Why?

Enemies.

That was right.

He’d be in a bad spot if the enemy found him. But who was the enemy?

What were they again?

I...

What was I doing?

Nothing, really.

I took a shower, dried my hair, and then was watching TV when Big Sis said something to me, and I was like, “Ugh, you’re so annoying.”

Then I went to my room, lazed around checking my smartphone, and got a call from Yukki saying, “I can’t head out after this,” or something like that.

I was like, “It’s fine! You can, you can.”

Big Sis was still nagging me. When I said, “Who do you think you are? You’re not my mom,” she came back at me with, “We don’t have parents, so I’m the one who has to say it!”

When did I ever ask for this? I didn’t, did I? Frankly, I don’t need it.

“Cut it out.”

“What? You’re saying I’m annoying?” she demanded.

“Well, to be honest, yeah, you’re annoying.”

“Well, then try getting your act together.”

“No, I’m acting normal.”

“In what way?”

“On the whole?”

“You’re taller than anyone, so I can’t stand to see you acting so irresponsible.”

“I’m not being irresponsible.”

“You so are. No matter how I look at you, you’re acting irresponsible.”

“No one’s ever said that to me. Only you, okay?”

“Don’t take that tone with me.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Honestly, you get me so ticked off.”

“Isn’t it exhausting, getting ticked off over every little thing?”

“It is exhausting. Isn’t that obvious? Don’t wear me out.”

“Then why don’t you just leave me alone?”

“That’s not going to work, and you know it.”

“It’ll work, seriously. I’m fine.”

“Says the guy who can’t even feed himself properly.”

“I can eat. If I wasn’t eating, I wouldn’t be so tall.”

“Like, seriously,” she muttered.

Big Sis was tiny. It wasn’t just that she was just small compared to me. She was under 160 centimeters (155, I thought it was), so I was pretty sure she was small even for a woman. That was why, when we were facing each other like this, Big Sis looked up at me. She was forced to turn her face way up.

Big Sis wasn’t just short; she was like a little animal. You could see it in things like how her head was small, even though she was short, but her eyes were big and dark, and her mouth was tiny. Or her hair, that she cut sometimes, and grew out at other times. Or the way her mood changed easily. Or the way she was pretty thin, but her skin was squishy.

She was my Big Sis, and there was nothing else she could have been, but she didn’t look like a big sis. It might’ve been different a long time ago, but if people were to see me walking with Big Sis now, not many would think we were brother and sister. Not that it really mattered, but we didn’t look like we were brother and sister.

“You’ve sure grown,” Big Sis said.

“What’re you getting all sappy for?”

“Well, Mom, she was big. So I always thought you’d grow. People say it, don’t they? That if a boy’s mother is big, he’s going to be big, too.”

“Ohh. Yeah, they do. I’ve heard that from Aunt Yasuko repeatedly.”

“But I never thought you’d get this big.”

“It’s not like I’m the one who decided on it. I was always telling my body to stop. You’re probably fine up until about 182 centimeters. But any more than that, and you start hitting your head all over the place in this country.”

“182? Why so precise?”

“Well, my friend says anyone 183 and over hits their head, no exceptions. If you’re under 182, that’s not the case.”

“Your friends are like giants, after all.”

“I know a lot of them are big because I used to play basketball, but some of them are small, too.”

“Are you going out?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“You delinquent.”

Big Sis always puffed her cheeks up like a little kid when she got angry. That was another way she wasn’t like a big sis. But this big sis who wasn’t like a big sis had gotten herself into a good company, was working hard, and was making money. She always wore a camisole and short pants around the house, like she was now, but when she went to work, she wore a suit. She’d tie her hair up, too.

I pinched Big Sis’s cheeks and pulled on them.

“Hey!” Big Sis cried, brushing my hands away. “Stop that!”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Geez!”

“Well, I’m off,” I said. “You go to sleep, Big Sis.”

“Of course I’m going to go to sleep,” she retorted. “I have work tomorrow.”

“Keep at it.”

“You tick me off so bad!”

I left the house. When I closed the door, the hallway in our apartment building were awfully quiet. I didn’t like this sort of silence, where it felt like I had something plugging my ears.

Before Mom died, I was at the hospital for days. I’d been told it was against regulations or something to stay overnight, but when I laid down in the hall, or on the couch in the waiting room, the nurses on the night shift didn’t complain. In fact, they even talked to me sometimes. There were clearly people in the hospital at night, but unless something happened, it was strangely quiet, and I couldn’t take that.

I should’ve gone home, but I felt obligated not to, like it was my duty to stay in the hospital. I worried that if I left, Mom might die. I had no reason to think she would, but that was how it felt.

At the same time, though, I didn’t want to be there when Mom took her last breath. It was unpleasant watching her gradually die. I knew she would die eventually, but I didn’t want to accept it. The sadness had long since passed.

Mom hadn’t just been sickly to begin with; she’d also been through several operations for cancer. When I was a kid, I’d cried every time, but I was long past that.

I hated the hospital, but for some reason, I couldn’t leave it.

Big Sis went to school up until the day Mom died.

It finally started looking bad, and the nurse told me I should call my dad and big sister, so I phoned them both. Neither answered, so I called Dad’s company and Big Sis’s school. Big Sis came immediately, but Dad said on the phone that he might take a while.

I calmly thought, Well, it’s noon, so he’s probably not with his mistress. Must be work.

My dad had a mistress he’d been seeing forever. I knew, Big Sis knew, and Mom knew, too.

Just once, I’d said to my father, “I’m amazed you could just leave her like that, and find yourself another woman.”

Instead of snapping at me, he’d calmly said, “I doubt you understand, and I don’t expect you to, but if I didn’t do something like this, I couldn’t keep things in balance.”

In the end, Dad made it in time, but Mom had lost consciousness well before her heart stopped, so it didn’t make much difference. Big Sis was crying like a baby, and Dad sobbed a little, too.

I couldn’t cry.

The silent hall I stood in now took me back to how I’d felt then. In a word: miserable. It had felt unpleasant being there, and I just wanted it to end already.

I walked down the hall quickly, and got in the elevator. Inside the elevator, I checked my smartphone, and then—

Then what...?

“...Huh?”

What was it?

There was something bothering him.

No, there was nothing bothering him. There had been something there. There should have been, but there was nothing. It had vanished.

“Big Sis... I... Wait, huh?”

Big Sis.

Had he just said “Big Sis”? If he’d been saying “Big Sis,” he had to be talking about a big sister. A big sister.

He had a big sister? He had a vague sense that he’d had a sibling. But even when he thought about it, he didn’t know if it was a big sister or a big brother that he’d had, and he obviously couldn’t remember them.

Had he had a big sister? He had called her Big Sis.

“...It doesn’t feel real,” Kuzaku murmured.

Whatever the case, there was one thing that was certain. Forget a Big Sis; he didn’t even have comrades here. It was just him.

Also, he didn’t know where “here” was. Why was he in this dark, cramped place alone?

Think, he told himself. If he couldn’t even remember that, he had it pretty bad.

His head hurt. If he moved it even a little, it ached. It wasn’t just his head. His neck hurt, too. He was still wearing his helmet. He hadn’t taken it off.

He’d been running.

Right. He was still in the middle of running away from Forgan.

Just what had happened?

He didn’t know. When he’d come to, he’d been like this.

Anyway, he needed to get out.

Get out.

Of this place.

Could he get out? How?

First... Yeah, first... the situation. He had to get a grasp on the situation. Haruhiro was always saying that.

It was dark, so he’d have to feel around to figure out what was what. Kuzaku tried to do that, and he was shocked.

He was empty-handed.

No sword, no shield.

“...Seriously?”

This was the worst. He wanted someone to help him. But it wasn’t going to happen. No one would save him. He was alone.

After his original party had been wiped out, he had been alone in Alterna for days. But that was Alterna. There’d been people around. He chased Haruhiro around, too. Basically, he’d wanted someone to save him. Who was he going to turn to help now, though?

Things were completely different this time. There was no one here.

Kuzaku had probably been here for a good amount of time. Maybe Haruhiro and the others were looking for him, and just couldn’t find him.

If he stayed put here, they’d find him eventually. No, that line of thinking was probably far too optimistic.

There was an earthy smell, but it wasn’t the same as dirt. It seemed damp near his left hand.

The area near his right hand was dry, more of a curved wall than a sheer cliff. The incline on his left was fairly steep, but that didn’t mean it was totally unclimbable... or was it? He couldn’t say without trying.

I’ll try it, I guess, he thought. I have to do it.

First, he turned his body around, getting his head facing upwards. Then he started slowly clambering up the steep slope.

He came close to giving up several times. Every few minutes, no, every ten seconds, he would think, I can’t take any more, I hate this, it’s over, I want to stop, fine, I’ll die, somebody kill me, and a whole lot of other things, but so what?

Alas, when there was no one to save him, getting dejected and desperate only made him feel empty. It was fine if someone would comfort him when he cried, but when there wasn’t the remotest possibility of that, he couldn’t even find the willpower to cry.

Kuzaku had no will to try harder. He just wanted to run away from the difficulty, the pain, the loneliness, the uncertainty, and the fear. He wanted to be released.

He knew he was near the outside. The air here was different. The cold, moist air was flowing in from up above.

Once he crawled out, he lay on his back facing up for a while.

“...Wait, I’m alive, right?”

The sky was studded with countless stars.

They were so clear it felt like he should be able to reach out and grab them, but they weren’t bright in the slightest.

Dark.

This world was endlessly dark, and it weighed heavily on Kuzaku. He found it suffocating. But he only felt suffocated by it; his actual breathing wasn’t impacted much. He hurt all over, but he wouldn’t be dying immediately, at least.

He stood up and tried to remove his helmet. His neck hurt when he bent it. He didn’t feel dizzy or nauseous. He felt much better without the helmet on, so he decided to carry it under his arm.

He stood up and tried walking around. There were no trees nearby. It looked like an open area. It wasn’t very grassy, and was more or less level.

It seemed Kuzaku had fallen into a rift and lost consciousness. It wouldn’t be funny if he fell into another, so he’d have to watch out.

His current location was unclear. He had no idea where it was. He’d even lost the weapon with which he protected himself. The situation was nothing if not terrible.

“...What now?”

No one was going to tell him. He had to think for himself, and act on his own.

“Well, I’ll manage... is something I’m gonna have a hard time thinking. Yeah.”

Despite that, Kuzaku was trying to walk forward. He could hear the chirping of insects and birds. He didn’t know the reason why, but he hated when things were so silent that it felt like his ears had been plugged.

This darkness wasn’t that quiet. That alone made it much better than that hole.