Chapter 4, Part 3:
(—What’s going on?)
I clenched my teeth as my brother fell silent again. The connection was still intact, which meant that they were in a situation that demanded his full attention. Why did he keep running into trouble? I knew the gist of his reasoning, but I might as well have been without help.
“We killed our teacher, Dr. Heartless?” Asheara said with a light laugh. The light of the dead dragon’s Magic Circuits glistened on her dark skin. “What an interesting speculation. Wouldn’t that nullify your previous theories about Heartless kidnapping his students and creating a Divine Spirit?”
“I’ll talk about that later. I just want to confirm this fact with you first.”
“Why are you insisting that it is a fact? How would killing our teacher benefit us? You are right in saying that, apart from Kurou, we were all heading toward the next stages of our lives. That does not explain why we would get rid of the backing of our teacher.”
“It would bring you plenty of benefits,” I said, grasping the opportunity like a merchant who had found a chance to profit. “That’s because you four were never Dr. Heartless’ students.”
“Oh? What do you mean by that?” Asked Inorai.
“I mean that many of the people who enter Albion were ordered to do so by the Clock Tower. Then, they can infiltrate the Arcane Autopsy Division.” I continued, turning to the old woman.
This was the hypothesis that my brother had arrived at after Touko gave us a tip.
Rufleus didn’t speak up, probably because either he or a faction close to him was involved in this operation.
“Out of these five students, we know that this was the job of Calugh, who was murdered.“
I was putting aside the possibility that he switched places with his brother for now. The Lords probably weren’t interested in that, and I needed to keep their attention.
“I’d also like to point out that I’m not the only one looking into this. Miss Touko Aozaki is as well.”
“Passing the baton to me? Alright. Come to think of it, you were there when I talked to Heartless.” Touko said with a wry smile. She had guessed that Heartless’ students were spies sent from other factions before we had.
—“
I’m asking you whose students they really are, former department head.”
Touko had said that when she fought Faker underneath Slur Street. Now, it was time to confirm it with Asheara.
“I didn’t want to reveal it, but I have to admit that it’s true. I have indeed asked Heartless about his students. He replied that he told them to dedicate their lives to the most radiant things, and that they went to search for what they thought were the most radiant things in their lives.”
“……”
Asheara’s gaze wavered for a moment. The confirmation of a Grand-ranked mage made my statement harder to dismiss. Now, she couldn’t deny my charges easily without losing her position in the Grand Roll.
“And so? What does that prove?”
Hm. That was a better tactic than denial. She was willing to make certain concessions to end the entire conversation.
“Besides, we couldn’t have assassinated Dr. Heartless. No one would be able to get away with killing the head of a major department in London.” She said, diverting the focus of the conversation again.
She still had the upper hand in this situation. I was again reminded that all she needed to do was cut the right part of the tattered rope I was walking on for me to fall to my death.
Therefore, I nodded cautiously and planted the next trap into the conversation.
“Exactly. You’re right. The Clock Tower watches over every nook and cranny of London. Though it’s not impossible to assassinate someone as important as Heartless was, any traces of a struggle would be discovered.”
“I’m glad you agree with me.”
“However, you have a place that no one will be able to watch over,” I said, feeling the surface of the round table and letting my words sink into the audience. “You led Heartless into Spirit Tomb Albion ten years ago, didn’t you?”
“You mean, using the same mechanism that enabled smuggling?” Olgamarie asked, wide-eyed.
I nodded and continued.
“Yes. Just as Heartless used an unstable portal underneath Slur Street to enter Spirit Tomb Albion, you four baited Heartless there. At that point, apart from Kurou, all of Heartless’ students had left him. According to my research, you seem to have been the last one. You might have said that you wanted to bring him on a tour through Spirit Tomb Albion as thanks. An opportunity to enter Spirit Tomb Albion without the restrictions set by the Dissection Division is too good to pass up. Heartless must have been delighted.
“At the same time, the Clock Tower’s surveillance doesn’t extend to Albion, because it has it own rules. Though Heartless was a better mage, Albion was your domain. Your team was trained through combat the treacherous environment of Albion. I’m sure you had plenty of means to kill a mage absorbed in his research.”
“……”
Asheara fell silent again. This time, she showed no signs of argument. She probably realized that a careless defense in the face of Rufleus and Touko Aozaki would only make her situation worse.
“Kurou must have objected to this. He was Heartless’ protege, after all. You could have gone ahead without him, but you didn’t. That means he must have been necessary to find a portal. As we saw when Faker attacked Slur, portals don’t disappear immediately. Once you got to Albion, you could have killed both of them. Or maybe you planned on persuading Kurou, but that would have been impractical considering the portal’s duration.”
“…You’ve taken an absurd leap of logic.” Asheara finally said as if she was wringing out her words.
Of course. I was aware of that. Did she think that this was the place for careful, logical reasoning?
“That means that you couldn’t check their corpses, right?”
“…What are you talking about?”
“I’m answering your question from earlier. If Heartless is dead, who are we dealing with now? If you didn’t have the chance back then to check their corpses, we can narrow down the identity of the current Heartless. That’s because the current Heartless is able to find unstable portals, just like his protege could in the past.”
“…!”
McDonell watched his daughter eerily quietly.
“Are you trying trying to say that… the current Heartless is actually Kurou…?”
“We’ve already witnessed the extent to which the mage who calls himself Heartless can transform himself. He caused us a lot of trouble on the Rail Zeppelin.”
With shape-shifting skills like that, it would have been easy for him to impersonate his teacher, who he knew better than Caules.
“…Impossible!”
Asheara’s voice was distorted to the point of anguish.
“That’s why I asked you if you checked their corpses.”
“……”
The color had been leached from her face. Asheara was an accomplished mage. Controlling basic bodily functions should have been a piece of cake for her. That meant that the shock she had just suffered was so great that she had forgotten to do so.
“That’s…That’s just a bunch of nonsensical hypotheses piled on top of each other!”
“Yes. You’re right.” I admitted.
I had no other choice. After all, this was just the first few pieces of the puzzle, a set up so we could move on to the main point.
“But the next part is not a hypothesis. An acquaintance in Albion provided us with evidence.”
I was referring to Geraff.
This next part was what my brother had wanted me to look into.
“I’m talking about Kurou’s full name.”
“Kurou’s full name?” Asheara echoed, furrowing her eyebrows.
They had both been born in Albion. Maybe they were even childhood friends. Still, it was the nature of a mage to betray others. Maybe McDonell had been the one to make her betray him.
“You don’t know it either? I should have guessed. It isn’t strange for people here to lack last names. If you had known, there was a good chance that it could have been documented somehow.”
I had to thank Geraff for this final piece of information. It was the final silver bullet that I needed.
“You did not manage to kill Kurou, who opposed the murder of Heartless. Maybe he even pretended to be dead. We happen to know someone else who is good at that.
I turned to look at the mage standing behind Touko.
“Oh? Are you talking about me?” Hishiri said, blinking in surprise.
I didn’t know what score to give her acting. It would have been convincing if she hadn’t come to the Grand Roll for this very reason.
“His full name is
.”
No one spoke, probably because everyone realized the importance of that last name. Asheara stiffened, Olgamarie swallowed, and McDonell stroked his own neck. Rufleus sputtered a dry cough. Touko’s eyes sparkled in a way that reminded me of Inorai.
“Or, in the style of Eastern names,
.”
For some reason, finally arriving at this conclusion made me want to sigh.
This puzzle was needlessly complicated. I was used to Clock Tower conspiracies that stretched tens or even hundreds of years, but this took it to a whole new level.
I almost wanted to praise the Department of Law for managing to keep it under wraps for so long.
“This is the card you were hiding, isn’t it? Gray told me that you were looking for your brother on the Rail Zeppelin. You explained that, like you, Dr. Heartless was an adopted child of Norwich. Now I know that was a terrible excuse.”
Hishiri’s explanation back then had been so simple, because she had realized that the current Dr. Heartless was related to her by blood.
“So? What do do you have to say for yourself, Ms. Hishiri?”
Hishiri smiled faintly, reminding me of a Noh mask from Eastern theater.
*
Countless spirals of light illuminated the last Command Spell on Heartless’ right hand, which was covering his face.
“…So you’ve still come.” He suddenly said, looking to his feet.
Several things had been placed there for the ritual. First, there was a living Mystic Code that used to be the mage Emiya. Then, there was a clock that was there to control it. Finally, there were piles of golden Staters scattered around the floor. All of those coins were now shaking, probably because Lord El-Melloi II wanted to locate him using the coin that he had found.
Heartless had noticed that the coin had been taken.
If Lord El-Melloi II could use the coin to find a path, Heartless could do the same. These coins were his final trap, just in case Lord El-Melloi made it as far as he had.
“This is either my last and greatest obstruction to your plans…” He said in a low voice, feeling the surface of a coin. “…Or the final trap that pushes me over the edge.”
He seemed exhausted, as if he was also experiencing every second of time as Faker was.
Magical Energy spread across the cavern of twisting light along with his voice.
“Good night, Lord El-Melloi II.”
With that, the red-haired mage closed his other eye.
*
We continued to glide silently, afraid to make the smallest noise. I tried to keep my use of Magical Energy at a minimum. The conclusion that had been reached in the Grand Roll was less impactful than a fairy tale in the face of the all-consuming darkness that slowly filled my heart.
The name of the darkness was terror. In its face, I finally understood where we came from. We had been born from a dark, hopelessly empty void. The abyss that was darker than night was our cradle.
I felt as if we had been released into the vacuum of space, except our souls was about to freeze instead of our bodies or minds.
And yet, we had no choice but to continue gliding. I saw a couple of smaller tunnels on the side of the pit. One of them was probably connected to the Heart.
It was not sufficient to call my mentor’s face pale anymore. He continued to stare at the golden coin in his hand, trying to stop himself from trembling. Some people may have called his demeanor pathetic. But for me, seeing him persevere was endlessly reassuring, like a fragment of a star in the midst of unsurmountable darkness.
“Just…a little more…” I said as quietly as I could.
Neither of us had the courage to look down.
From the perspective of the creature, we were probably no more than a few grains of sand. It lived in a completely different dimension from us. It was the embodiment of the world beyond the farthest reaches reaches of Albion. Had people created the existence of the myth of the guard dog of hell because they could not forget about this beast?
The wind carried a faint stench.
Though it wasn’t very loud, its roar shook every loose rock on the walls of the Pit of Oblivion. I was sure that we would pass out if we had been any closer. All I could do was summon all my willpower and wrench myself away from it.
My mentor’s gaze quivered as he clutched the coin in his hands.
“Gray…!”
He gestured to one of the tunnels. Suddenly, I saw hope again. But it only lasted an instant.
One of the six eyes turned to us.
—Time ceased to exist.
The beast of Albion did nothing.
It only stared us with its eye that wasn’t magical or evil. Nevertheless, it was enough to tear us apart, crushing our nails, our skin, muscles, internal organs, bones, and brains until it reached our soul
My breathing completely stopped, as did the blood in my veins. Each of my cells froze as if they were never part of a living thing in the first place.
Someone said that fear was born of the unknown. I didn’t agree. Fear didn’t come from things that we didn’t know, but things that we couldn’t know. In the face of such an immense presence, all of my senses closed themselves off and brought about their own demise before I surely would as well.
“…Sir…”
Of course, my mentor was going through the same thing.
“It’s gaze…was drawn to us by someone…”
He said in a voice that was indistinguishable from panting, as if he knew that these were his last breaths.
“I finally understand…what Heartless’ Mystic Eyes are…”
Just before I lost consciousness, I finally realized where we had gone wrong.
Despite all our preparation, we had badly underestimated Spirit Tomb Albion.
—————————————————————————————————————————————————— ——
Originally Posted by Comun
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
