Kimi to Boku no Saigo no Senjo, Aruiha Sekai ga Hajimaru Seisen - Volume 11 - Chapter 4.5

5

Life continued, living hidden indoors with bated breath. Outside the open curtains, the reporters and journalists were still likely flocking around the vicinity looking for someone to hound. Crossweil, Eve, and Alicerose were not exempt from this.

Overcome by the stifling atmosphere, they steadily spoke less to each other. When they did, everything they talked about was cheerless.

How many days had it been? They turned off the lights in the room and absentmindedly watched the TV reports each day. But today, of all days, they had a visitor.

“I’m sorry!” The sobs of a small girl shook their small house. “…If…if I just hadn’t gone on TV…!”

It was Musha.

She wiped her eyes with her right hand, where a red mark glittered. That mark had the power to produce flames, and that news had spread worldwide like wildfire.

“I was so worried about it at first that I went to the hospital,” she said. “But then TV reporters found me and said all sorts of nice things about how I had an amazing power…no one had said anything nice like that to me before and I was so happy that I went on TV…”

“None of this is your fault,” Eve said from the floor, spitting the words out.

She pointed at the TV in the corner of the room.

“Look at the news. It’s another witch with the beast’s mark. She’s rampaging around the Empire creating more problems. I don’t know what kind of idiot she is, but she’s the reason why the public hates us.”

There were an endless number of people using their astral powers for crimes and in acts of violence. There had only been eleven last week. Now this week there were suddenly a hundred twelve incidents. They were growing exponentially.

“You made it out of your home, but ours is being regularly watched by the guards. That’s how it is everywhere.”

Public opinion had changed. The “stars” with the miraculous powers were now dangerous people worthy of surveillance.

“There was another report about a witch who got caught,” Alicerose suddenly said.

Her face was clouded over as she watched the TV. He hadn’t seen his sister’s sweet and cheerful smile in days.

“Anna from next door wouldn’t even talk to me when I went out for groceries yesterday.”

“Nobody would want to talk to us right now. The TV and newspapers treat us like a gang. Hey, Crow, don’t be so quiet and join the conversation, will ya?”

“…”

“Hey, Crow?”

“……Ugh. Yeah, I’m listening,” he said. When Eve turned to him and called his name, Crossweil quickly nodded.

“I was too focused on the TV,” he explained.

That was half-true. He’d been watching TV but focused on something else.

…What’s going on, Yunmelngen?

…You told me you were trying to keep public opinion of astral power contaminators from falling!

But this was their reality.

The TV reports and news articles were behaving with a strange amount of caution toward them, even deriding them as witches and wizards without batting an eye.

Armed forces surrounded their homes, and they were spied on even while buying their groceries.

…There are astral power contaminators willing to commit acts of violence.

…Even if that’s the case, how could there be so many new crimes?

Are these numbers real?

In the very least, Crossweil had yet to see a crime in his area that actually involved astral power.

…If I could just get in contact with Yunmelngen again.

…And if he could pull himself together.

He hadn’t gotten a response back from the Crown Prince. When he had last gotten in touch days ago, he’d learned that the changes Yunmelngen was going through were ongoing and that the prince was still sometimes losing consciousness.

“…I’ll go home,” Musha said, standing up. “The military police outside must have followed me from home, so I’m just creating trouble for you by being here…”

“Hey, wait, Musha! You leaving won’t change anything!”

“Th-that’s right, Musha. We’re all uneasy. We’ll feel better if we’re together!”

Eve and Alicerose leapt up. But it wasn’t them that Musha looked at.

“Crow.” Instead, she addressed him. “You’re a boy. Make sure to protect your sisters.”

“Huh!”

“See ya!”

She opened the door and ran outside. She pushed through the ring of military police and camera-wielding media as she sprinted down the main road without turning back.

“Musha…” Alicerose said.

“She’s the youngest out of us, but she’s trying to make us feel better.” Eve gritted her teeth. Even Eve, who normally laughed everything off, seemed to have trouble figuring out what to say.

“How did this happen…?” she murmured, leaning against a wall. “We haven’t done anything, but the whole world is calling us witches, and guards are surveilling and arresting us now. Why? If they’re doing everything they can to detain us, then…we should rebel like the witches they think we are—”

“Eve,” Alicerose said.

“I’m kidding. Obviously it was a joke.” The words came out of Eve easily when her younger sister gave her a concerned look. “But Alice, if Crow or I were actually imprisoned, would you really do nothing? Even if they arrested us on false charges, would you not stand up against them?”

“Huh! I—I…”

“I couldn’t let that happen. I don’t want to lose any family. I’m the oldest here. It’s my duty to protect you and Crow.”

Eve, for the first time, had cast away her contrarian outer shell and revealed her true feelings.

“If you or Crow were arrested, I’d go in alone and launch an attack. I don’t care who it’d be against. The military police, the Imperial assembly, I’d punch the top person there…well, I’m half joking, though. Of course it’d be better if that never happened.”

“Th-that’s right, Eve!” Alicerose nodded earnestly. “We’re all just on edge right now. Let’s wait it out. They’re calling us witches, but there’s nothing to be scared of. They’ll realize that sometime. We’ll go back to when we all got along. That’s what I believe!”

“You’re so trusting, Alice… You’re optimistic.”

“I-is that so wrong?!”

“I never said it wasn’t. You’re actually mature, unlike me,” Eve suddenly smiled bitterly. “I hope it ends like that…”

That small hope would be mercilessly crushed in just four days.

Musha was arrested for being a witch.

She’d used her astral power to commit arson and harmed normal people. The military police who came to the scene of the crime were terribly wounded.

“There’s no way!”

Crossweil had come home from the grocery store, while trying to avoid prying eyes.

When Alicerose, with an expression he’d never seen before, had told Crossweil, he was at a loss for words.

“I can’t believe that Musha would hurt anyone. She was so scared when she came to our house. There has to be some mistake!”

“I thought that too, but there wasn’t!” Alicerose’s voice quivered. This was a first. He’d never seen his usually calm and kind adoptive sister panic like this.

…Actually, what about Eve?

…Why isn’t she home?

Only his younger sister had been waiting for him at home. His older sister should have been there too, but she was nowhere to be found.

“I think Eve must have left to save Musha!”

“Damn it. I’ve got a bad feeling about this!” He grabbed his sister’s shoulders and nodded slightly. “You wait at home, Alice. I’ll bring Eve back. Don’t open the door for anyone!”

He turned his back to his sister and ran out the door.

He needed to stop her. He had a feeling this wasn’t going to end well. In his head, it felt as though a foreboding chill seemed to be closing in on him.

…Alice is worried for Eve.

…But that’s not the problem. The military police are in the most danger!

Only he knew about the many flashes of light that Eve had released while she wasn’t herself. If she used that power on the police, they would all likely perish.

Eve’s astral crest was larger than anyone else’s, and to Crossweil this was proof that the power she possessed was stronger than the rest.

“Eve, where did you go?!”

He ran down the main road. The nearby police station had no clues for him. He ran around the spot where Musha had been arrested, but saw no sign of Eve.

“Was Musha not taken to a police station, then?”

She’d been arrested.

That was why he’d went there, but if Musha was being brought in as a witch, the people who would question her would be those who had been pressing for the astral energy plan in the first place.

“So she’s at the Imperial assembly?!”

“If you or Crow were arrested, I’d go in alone and launch an attack.”

Musha’s arrest wasn’t just a problem concerning her.

The only ones who would listen about the disparagement of witches and sorcerers were those in the highest body in the Empire. Thinking of it that way, he might find his sister at the Imperial assembly.

“But that’s reckless, Eve!”

He broke into a run again, still out of breath.

His heart was thumping in his chest louder and louder. The worst thing that could happen was if Eve went on a rampage in the Imperial assembly and injure its highest members.

By the vast silver-barred gate to the premises of the Imperial assembly…

“Please, let me see Musha!”

A tan girl was shouting, her throat raspy as armed guards surrounded her.

She didn’t stop, even as they grabbed her shoulders.

“She’s still only fourteen! A fourteen-year-old kid hurting people? There’s no way! Someone had to have framed her!”

However…

None of the muscular guards who looked down on Eve responded. Their eyes were emotionless. Was this how they would look at a small girl?

Even after seeing her appeal to him, their gazes were distant. A chill ran down her spine as she realized they saw her with the same hollow eyes as someone observing a pebble by the roadside.

“…”

“Hey! You guys…,” one of the guards said.

They weren’t looking at Eve’s face, but instead at her back. They were staring at the gigantic astral mark that showed through the thin shirt she wore.

“It’s a witch. Yeah, that’s right. We caught it smack-dab in front of the assembly gate. Tell the Eight Great Elders.”

“Guh.”

The look in Eve’s eyes changed as she heard the guards murmur.

Instead of being treated as a girl who had come to save another innocent child arrested for a crime she didn’t commit, she was being treated as a violent witch trying to free a ferocious comrade. Those were the eyes with which the guards looked at her.

“…I see. Am I—is my mark that unpleasant to you? Is that the only reason why you captured Musha, too? So she didn’t actually hurt anyone. You just arrested her to make it seem justified. You just wanted to create a villain.”

The guards didn’t react.

They simply pulled up Eve’s wrists and matter-of-factly clasped shackles on her. Crossweil cut in, trying to stop them. But right as he did that…

Sera……So Sez lu teo fel nalis pah pheno lef xel—I will purify this planet, as one of its children.

There was an explosion.

Or so it seemed to Crossweil.

The light was strong enough to burn his retinas. There was a sound loud enough to make him almost lose consciousness. The shock wave, which seemed to contort the atmosphere itself blasted at them. At the epicenter was Eve.

By the time he came to his senses, there were spider cracks in the concrete, and the bars of the gate were bent beyond recognition. Even the cars in the surrounding area had been overturned.

“Don’t touch me.”

The girl glowered at the guards on the ground.

The back of her shirt had been ripped apart, exposing her dark astral crest. Her flowing straw-colored hair fluttered even though there was no wind as though it had its own will.

Crossweil didn’t know how to begin describing the way she carried herself. She’d awakened. She had turned into something beyond human. That was all he could think.

“…Eve?”

“Is that you, Crow?”

She turned around.

It seemed she’d only just realized he was there.

“Go home,” she said.

“What are you planning on doing, Eve?! And what happened here…?”

“I’m going to release Musha.” Eve turned toward the Imperial assembly that towered up ahead. “I don’t need the Empire anymore. It’s not where I belong.”

“…What?” Realization came rushing to him at once. Eve planned to go on a rampage. She was planning to destroy the Empire, wiping out anyone who got in her way, until Musha was returned to her.

“Wait, Eve. We don’t even know if Musha is here! If you destroy things randomly, it’ll be a disas—”

“She’s under the assembly. I feel Musha’s astral power there.”

“…”

He felt something cold running down his cheek. Eve was no longer the older sister he knew.

…She’s the same as Yunmelngen.

…She doesn’t look different, but she’s acting like another person.

Eve raised a hand.

She looked at the sky as though summoning something.

“Crow, go back home,” she said.

“Wait, Eve!”

She disappeared. Eve had calmly disappeared into a black void-like gate.

Just thirty minutes later, the Imperial assembly was partially destroyed by an explosion from underground.