c14 7

Haruhiro felt weak, unable to even stand.
There’s nothing I can call my own self. I can’t deny that... I guess.
If you took his comrades away from Haruhiro, what would be left? He barely even had desires like, I want to get out of Parano, or, I want to get back to Grimgar.
His comrades, his comrades... everything was about his comrades. If you asked him whether he disliked that about himself, though...
No? I don’t think I do.
That said, it wasn’t as if he liked it, either. He couldn’t think of any one thing he couldn’t do without.
Isn’t it a perfect fit?
Resonance.
What else would I have?
Besides, was there anything of special value in the self? If you asked a lot of people that, they might say, Nah, there has to be.
Haruhiro could only say, Maybe you’re right. Maybe that’s true for you. I’m sure you’re the main character.
Well, if you looked at life as a sort of play, naturally, you yourself would be the main character in it, but not everyone wants to stand center stage. Haruhiro, honestly, didn’t even want to get up on the stage at all. He was fine being in the audience. If there was some reason he couldn’t be allowed to do that, he’d prefer to be backstage.
Now, if you were to ask if he didn’t admire heroes, it would be untrue to say he felt nothing of the sort. Still, even if he were given some special power, and you asked what he was going to do with it, he’d have no answer.
Carving out a new way of life with his own hands, self-realization, it wasn’t terribly interesting to him.
It wasn’t that he lacked greed. He had that. Just, he wasn’t especially greedy. It might have been fair to say he couldn’t get greedy. He clearly wasn’t what you might call a man of deep karma; he was quite shallow, actually. Most likely, even if you plumbed the depths of Haruhiro’s personality, you wouldn’t find anything unusual.
He let out a sigh. He wasn’t disappointed. He was relieved instead. It was less a, Things are fine like this, and more of a, That’s just how I am, so there’s no helping it. It might have been something close to defiant acceptance.
When he was about to chase after Alice, something vaguely human came out of a hole. It was the same hole Ahiru had come from.
“Alice, there’s someone else...” he began.
They’re not alone? There are multiple people. Two, three—four people, huh?
It was frustrating that the distance made it hard to see.
Eventually, Alice came back. “They’re that piece of shit’s vassals, too, huh?”

“You know them?”
“They came out of the same hole as Ahiru. What else could they be? The leader is... looks like a woman. The rest are men. One fatty, two tall guys... Ohh. A shadow came out, too. They’re being watched.”
“It’s Kuzaku.”
“Huh?”
“Kuzaku!”
Haruhiro nearly took off running. If Alice hadn’t held him back, he would have.
“Hey, you moron!” Alice shouted.
“It’s Kuzaku! The guy in the very back. That’s Kuzaku! I could never mistake him. He’s okay!”
“Calm down, damn it. Who’re the other three?” “The others are...” Haruhiro shook his head.
Damn. Alice was right. He needed to calm down.
“I don’t know... or at least I think I don’t. I don’t think they’re my comrades.”
“In that case, Kuzaku, was it? That comrade of yours may’ve been roped in by the other three and become one of that piece of shit’s vassals. If he’s gonna survive in Parano, that’s a valid choice. Not for me, though.”
“If I talk to him, Kuzaku will join our side.”
“Even if you do, it’s no good. The shadows are watching.”
“If we wait for the shadows to vanish... if we tail them, make sure the shadows don’t spot us...”
“If you want to do that, you do it alone. I’m going to the Iron Tower of Heaven. I arranged to meet Ahiru there.”
“Huh...? The Iron Tower of Heaven? What? I haven’t heard anything about this.”
“Because I didn’t say. If you listened when I was talking with Ahiru, you should’ve known without me having to.”
Because he left everything to Alice, he was losing focus. It wasn’t like he’d hadn’t lacked independence before now, but he wasn’t even thinking with his own head. He wasn’t making decisions.
Because he was the leader, and because his comrades were relying on him, he’d been able to do his best in Grimgar. It was different now. He wasn’t the leader, wasn’t anything.
Basically, Haruhiro had half given up on any hope of his comrades’ survival.
But here was Kuzaku.
He’d survived.
“Kuzaku and those other people showed up right after Ahiru,” Haruhiro said. “Ahiru might know something about them.”
“Could be. No guarantees, though.”
“Fine. I’ll go to the Iron Tower of Heaven, too.”
Before setting out, Haruhiro burned the image of Kuzaku into his eyes, then slapped his own cheeks.
He got his spirits back up. He didn’t like arguments that everything was about having a positive spirit, and he didn’t like to do stuff like this too often, but once in a while was okay.
First, they’d meet with Ahiru. He wanted to find out who the people with Kuzaku were. From there, he’d figure out how to meet back up with Kuzaku. Obviously, he’d find Merry, Shihoru, and Setora and Kiichi, too. For now, he had no clue where anyone other than Kuzaku was, but he’d work under the assumption they all had to be alive.
He wasn’t going to rely on Alice. He’d use Alice. Alice was using Haruhiro’s Resonance, so it was only fair. Then, no matter what it took, they’d all get back to Grimgar.
Haruhiro left Ruins No. 7 without looking back.
Beyond the horizon, a faint vertical line bisected the polka dot sky. That was the Iron Tower of Heaven.
This was Parano, so he frequently encountered nonsensical terrain, but if he kept his eyes on the Iron Tower of Heaven, he’d never lose his way. Thanks to the mask, he was fine even when the sweet wind blew. If you just knew how, it was possible to survive even in a place like this. He had no intention of staying forever, though. He wanted to keep holding on to that feeling. It was important to adapt to his environment, but he couldn’t let himself get used to being in Parano. This wasn’t where he belonged. He had no intention of living here.
We’re going home. To Grimgar.
“You don’t want to go back to your original world, Alice?” he asked.
It was hard staying silent all this time, so he occasionally tried talking to Alice. Most of the time, he got ignored, but when he got a response, it felt strangely good.
“Not really.”
“You can’t leave your friend behind?”
“I wasn’t that close to Nui.”
“You can’t be happy living out the rest of your life here.”
“I question if it’ll ever end, though.”
The Iron Tower of Heaven was a vertical line, the same as before. It didn’t feel like they were getting closer at all.
It just doesn’t feel real, thought Haruhiro. It’s a bit late to bring that up now, though. Is this all just a dream? How many times have I thought that already? Actually, I wish it could all just be a dream. I’ve thought that before, too.
“Hey, listen.” It was rare for Alice to be the one to start a conversation. “Do you know about Urashima Taro?”
“Urashima... Taro... That’s a name? A person’s name, right? Hmm. I feel like I might’ve heard it, but maybe not...”
“Taro’s a fisherman,” Alice said. “He saw a turtle being bullied by the seaside, and saved it. I guess maybe because, as a fisherman, he figured turtles aren’t for bullying, they’re for catching.” “Didn’t he just feel sorry for it...?” Haruhiro wondered.
“There’s a theory that he caught the turtle, too. But they say a turtle lives ten thousand years, you know? So, since it’s bad luck to kill them, he let it go.”
“Either way, from the turtle’s point of view, it owes him its life,” Haruhiro said.
“That’s why, to thank him, the turtle took Taro to this place called Ryugujo at the bottom the sea.”
“The bottom of the sea... You’d think he’d drown.”
“He could breathe, for some reason. Maybe the ‘bottom of the sea’ bit is a lie. Could’ve been somewhere else.”
“Ryugujo, huh?”
“Taro was welcomed by this suspicious woman called Otohime, but everyone else there was a fish. Fish swimming, dancing, and performing comedy.”
“Well, that’s surreal. Though Parano’s pretty surreal, too...”
“I dunno. It was like a big party with singing and drinking. He had a lot of fun with how new everything was at first, but he got tired of it in the end. Like, the food? The fish were serving him sashimi, and fried fish, and fish stem. That’s pretty creepy, if you think about it.”
“So Taro decided he wanted to go home?”
“He figured he’d had enough, and when he told Otohime it was about time he got going, the truth was—”
“Wait, did it turn out Otohime was... the turtle, or something like that?”
“It’s like, ‘You weren’t even human?!’, right? For Taro, at least.”
“It’s like she was lying to him.”
“Otohime was like, ‘Sorry. That was wrong of me. Here, you can have this treasure box to take with you as a parting gift. Please, go home now.’ But she also said, ‘You absolutely must not open this box.’” “Even though it was a gift?” Haruhiro asked.
“The whole thing’s suspicious, right? I think Taro was set up. Dunno why. It’s a bit like Parano in that way.”
“So... did Taro manage to go home?”
“Technically, yeah.”
“What do you mean, technically...?”
“When he got back, it was definitely the same sea shore, but something was different. Even though this was Taro’s hometown, no one he knew was there. The twist is that, while he was fooling around in Ryugujo, an insanely long amount of time passed.”
“Wait, what about the treasure box?”
“Oh, right. The real twist was that. Not sure what to do with himself, Taro opens the box Otohime told him he couldn’t open.”
“Well, in that situation, he’d have no other choice, I guess.”
“When he does, a white smoke comes out of the treasure box, and in no time, Taro’s hair turns stark white.” “So, he gets old?” Haruhiro asked.
“Yup. Taro becomes an old man. It’s an awful story, right?”
“You’re pretty awful, too, for bringing that story up to me now, you know?”
The line rising vertically from the surface had suddenly gotten a lot thicker at some point.
The Iron Tower of Heaven hadn’t changed one bit since they were last here. Ten to twenty layers of rusted walls surrounded the iron tower. After a long time walking the labyrinthine path between the iron walls, they came to a mountain of scrap iron. On top of it the iron tower stood straight up.
The two of them started climbing the stairs outside the tower.
“What if the shadow comes with Ahiru?” Haruhiro asked.
“Didn’t you notice?” Alice pointed to the maze of iron walls.
“Huh?” Haruhiro cocked his head to the side, but he wasn’t immediately able to figure out what seemed mysterious to him. He thought for a moment, then finally realized.
“Between the walls, there are shadows. There’s no sunlight, so why?”
“Who knows? Those might’ve been moving shadows, too, at one point. They could be dead shadows, or rusted shadows. Whatever the case, there’s one thing I can be sure of, and that’s that one shadow can’t pass through another. That means that piece of shit’s shadows are blocked from approaching the iron tower.”
“Is it safe here?”
“If you stay too long, you’ll rust, though.”
“That’s not safe...”
Haruhiro hung his head, sighing. This place wasn’t safe at all.
“Alice.”
“What?”
“Below.”
“What about below?” With a displeased tone of voice, Alice looked down to the bottom of the stairs, too.
The iron scrap piled into a mountain around the tower came in various sizes, large and small, some of the pieces many times the size of a person. Haruhiro, and most likely Alice as well, hadn’t noticed, but those girls must have been hiding between the pieces.
Wearing dresses in many colors, they swarmed out and looked up at Haruhiro and Alice.
From a distance, they looked like real girls. But they weren’t. Those were all dolls.
No, not all of them.
The doll girls were slender, but the one who was climbing the stairs and approaching them, with a bizarre walk that involved crossing her legs each time, was thinner than any by far. She was too thin. She looked like a moving stick person.
Her emaciated frame was dressed in an outfit that was practically underwear, with a gaudy cake-like hat on top, and she wore many pairs of glasses at the same time. She looked like more of a doll than the dolls themselves, but she had originally been human. It was less clear if she could still be called human, though.
“The doll master,” Haruhiro whispered.
“Nui...” Alice whispered in unison.
They looked at one another. It was kind of awkward. They looked away.
“What do you think she’s here for?” Haruhiro wondered.
“Search me. How would I know what someone I can’t even talk to is thinking?”
“I’m thinking she might be here for revenge.”
“Hey, we only buried her alive a little, right? She seems fine.”
“Don’t tell that to me.”
“I’d tell Nui, but we can’t talk, so what’d be the point?”
“She’s coming up.”
The doll master put her foot on the stairs. The doll girls followed.
“If we’re going to run, we should head down.”
“I don’t need you to tell me. Haruhiro, you’ve been getting cheeky lately.”
“There’s something I’ve been wanting to try.”
“Huh?!”
“I don’t think Resonance just amplifies magic. I want to touch the doll master. Could you help me?”
“You’re telling me to fight Nui without your Resonance, and lead her somewhere you can sneak up behind her, or whatever, is that it?”
“Yeah, that’s about right.”
“What are you planning to do to Nui?”
“I won’t know until I do it. If we aren’t going to try doing it my way, heading upwards we’ll get worn down, so we either have to scatter them or jump. You can handle the impact with your shovel, right? There’s the option of taking out the doll master, too.”
“That’s...”
“You were friends, right? Well, she’s something else now. I think if you were the one who put an end to her, that would be acceptable. I wouldn’t make that choice, of course.”
“What would you do then?”
“Find a way to turn her back.”
“If I could, I’d have done it all ready.”
“Maybe it’s just you who can’t.”
“You’re saying you could?”
“Didn’t I say there was something I want to try? I haven’t done it yet, so there’s no way to know if I can or not.”
“Ito Nui. That’s her name.”
Alice adjusted grip on the shovel. The black skin peeled, wrapping around Alice’s arm and forming into a kind of spear.
The doll master... no, what was left of Alice’s friend, Ito Nui... was climbing the tower with dolls in tow.
“If Nui hadn’t invited me, I’d never have gone spelunking. Of course, I’m sure I’d never have ended up in Parano, either. She could be a pain, but she wasn’t a bad kid at heart.”
Haruhiro subtly moved behind Alice. He let all the excess strength flow out of his body. The steps of the stairs weren’t especially thick, so it was hard to say they were tough. He visualized himself sinking into those steps.
Stealth—complete.
He got a feeling like he was watching himself and the area around him from above. It was going good. Still, he couldn’t let it go to his head. The heart was like a pool of water. Even the slightest disturbance made waves.
The waves gradually spread out. Haruhiro was riding on a little boat. It was a small ship, so it would easily capsize. He couldn’t let his heart be disturbed.
Nui climbed the stairs. Haruhiro was hiding behind Alice. He couldn’t see Nui. However, he could hear footsteps. They were fast. Much faster than before. Close. They’d gotten pretty close.
Haruhiro moved slowly, as if he had stopped breathing.
Alice advanced.
Nui stopped and stood still instead.
Alice didn’t charge in, instead stepping a little to the left and swinging the shovel in its spear form.
Nui didn’t back away. She moved up, dodging the shovel.
Alice spun around, and Nui turned so as not to let Alice get behind her.
Now, Nui had turned her back to Haruhiro. She was exposed. Nui didn’t notice Haruhiro.
He was clearly there, and there was no way she shouldn’t have seen him, but she missed him as if he had just happened to fall into some blind spot. When he got perfectly into Stealth, these things happened.
Without rushing or making a fuss, Haruhiro grappled Nui from behind. Nui suddenly tried to struggle, but there was no need to reject him.
“Ito Nui,” he said. “I am—”
Before he could say you, he had become her.



10. The Longing Called Love [loveway]


Once upon a time, was there me?
Yes.
There was.
Me. I was there.
I’m sure noooobody noticed me, or cared I existed, but...
I was there.
Kinda like... the air?
That was me.
I mean, noooobody really cared about me, right?
Up on a stage with lots of boys and lots of girls, dancing and singing, la la la, I was screaming.
Me...
Look at me!
I’m right hererererere!
Look at me!
These people aren’t the main characters, I am!
Why is it? Why will no one look at me? Am I lacking something?
Oh!
Oh!
I know! I know I knoooow!
Up, up, up shoots a hand.
Okay, you there.
Who aaaare you?
Ohhhh.
Me?
I’m the only one who’s been here all along, aren’t I?
Well, whatever.
Go on, answer the question.
It’s because you’re not cute.
Yes. That’s it. I’m not so hideously ugly it’s hard to live, but I’m not cute.
Well, I’m sort of normal, I guess?
No, no, not normal at all. I mean, I know what a pretty face is, and I’ve read about it in books, so I’m sure I’m right, but it’s the ultimate in average. If you added the faces of a million people together and divided by one million, people are made in such a way that they’ll find the result pretty. That’s why not being ugly, but not being cute, isn’t normal.
If I had to say I was something, it’s nothing.
People don’t look away from me, don’t stare at me. I basically have no value.
I bet that’s probably why my parents gave me a bit of a different name. It’s not a common one. At the very least, I’ve never met a person with the same name as me. Still, it doesn’t fit me.
When I give my name, everyone looks at me like, Oh, yeah?
I’ll bet they’re thinking, You look so average, so below average, but you have that name?
And that’s it. No matter what name I have—no, no matter who I am—no one cares. No one takes an interest in me.
There aren’t many people who cast a shadow as weak as mine. When you stand out as little as I do, Oh, you were there? isn’t even an uncommon thing to hear people say.
I don’t have any particularly amusing anecdotes about my utter lack of presence. I just don’t draw attention, and no one takes an interest in me. If I call out to someone, they’ll go through the motions, but the conversation never really takes off, and nothing comes of it. I know full well that’s how it’ll be, so I don’t talk to people unless I have business with them.
When I tell it like this, I sound like my abnormal lack of presence leaves me alone all the time, and that, in some way, I’m an unusual individual. That is not true. It’s just that I want to be a little different, so I’m spicing the story up.
The fact is, I’ve had a few passing friendships here and there. I’ve been asked directions by passersby, too. I may lack presence, but it’s not like I used to be a pale shadow of a human being, or anything like that.
However, my friends hardly ever contacted me. If I didn’t constantly interact with them, any friend of mine slipped away in no time. I might not have been hated, but I wasn’t especially liked. They clearly didn’t place much importance on me.
I, honestly, didn’t see those people as irreplaceable friends, either. Did their not caring for me make me not care for them, or did my not caring about them make them not care about me? I can’t say, but it was probably both.
Hey, hey, I’m lonely.
Oh? You’re lonely? There, there, you poor thing.
But it’s okay. Let’s play?
What do you want to play with today?
(Dolls...?)
That’s right. It was dolls that gave me comfort.
I bought and collected dolls they sold in stores a little at a time, and when I got tired with that, and it wasn’t enough, I’d make outfits to dress them up, or make changes here and there. I even made my own out of clay.
You could use longer legs, couldn’t you? Let me stretch those.
Now that your legs are longer, they’re out of balance with your arms. Let’s make the arms longer, too.
You could use a longer neck, too.
Your head is kind of big.
(Oh, the dolls...)
Let me put this little head here on you.
Your ankles are so fat and ugly. Let’s file them down.
Mind you, it’s not like I spend all my time setting up dolls. I think about all sorts of things, taking them into account, but the thing I focused on most at the time was improving my appearance.
In the end, you can dress it up however you want, but a girl who isn’t cute won’t get her due. It’s not just with me; all women are the same. When they see another woman, they decide in an instant if she’s cute or ugly.
Not many will say it out loud, but being ugly is a sin.
And not just any sin. A deadly sin.
Normally, if you bring up the seven deadly sins, there’s pride, wrath, envy, sloth, greed, gluttony, and lust, but for some reason no “ugliness.” I’ve always found that mystifying.
I want to be cute. That said, there’s nothing I can do about my face. I can’t freely reshape it like a clay doll’s. Maybe I ought to go for plastic surgery, but that’s expensive, and even if I might consider it an option in the future, it’s not possible now.
I secretly practiced putting on make-up alone, too. Maybe there’s something in common between make-up and doll-making, because I really improved. If a plain girl like me who doesn’t have much presence suddenly showed up in make-up, wouldn’t everyone be surprised?
No... worse than that. I’d stand out in a bad way, they’d think I was creepy, and then I’d be shunned for sure.
I was chubby from a young age. I decided that if I ended up fat on top of ugly, there was no hope for me. I’d be so ugly it would be hard to live, so I did my best to watch myself there.
However, I was genetically predisposed to put on weight easily. On top of that, I was born bearing the triple curse of big bones, thick skin, and hard flesh. No, I also had dark and dry skin, so make that a quintuple curse.
If I put on even a little too much weight, I’d end up a hideous barrel of person, and wouldn’t be able to get the weight off easily. Despite that, my one joy in life outside of doll-making and playing with dolls was eating. Sweet things, salty things, I loved them more than I could help. When I was sick of it all, I had a tendency to gorge myself, alternating between sweet and salty, until I puked.
But I had to lose weight.
No matter how lovely an outfit is, it looks hideous on a fatso. If you just slim down, even cheap clothes you bought anywhere will look good.
I resolved to get thin. I wanted to be as white as I could, too, so I did my best to stay out of the sun. Even if I didn’t change my face, or put on make-up, I should have been able to be pretty. I wanted to be pretty. If I was pretty, I was sure my situation would change.
It was rough.
Even more than I imagined I would, I suffered, and suffered, and suffered, and suffered, and suffered.
When it came time to limit my eating, for some reason, I’d end up thinking, I want to eat, or, I can’t eat, or, I can get away with eating this, or, Just one bite, or, No, I can’t, after all, or, I’ll die if I don’t eat, or, It’s not natural for a living being not to eat, or, If I just eat a little, I can throw it back up, or, Whatever, I just want to eat. I thought about nothing but eating.
Then, one day, while eating like always, I had a sudden thought.
They say the human body is about sixty percent water. If that was right, then reducing the amount of water would lower my weight. If my body were lighter, I’d be thinner. If I couldn’t go without food, I just had to go without drink.
I tried it out right away, and the results were dramatic. By not hydrating, my body weight fell rapidly. My throat would get so dry that it drove me nuts, but I’d eat stuff to distract me from that. That sometimes made me gain again, but it’d drop off again after a while.
I got thin. That must have made me that much prettier. My friends would say, Have you lost weight?
However, nothing else changed.
Weird.
Maybe it’s not possible to become pretty without changing my face? If there’s something I can do, I want to. I have ideals, too, you know. I don’t have wishes like, I want to be popular with boys, or I want a boyfriend. No, I just want to be pretty, that’s all. I want that kid to think I’m pretty. I want to be seen as special.
I don’t plan to kiss up to men, so I don’t need to be feminine, or sexy. I don’t need boobs, either. I want to be slim, and look good in anything. To catch eyes, and not let them go. That’s the kind of person I want to be.
Is that no good?
Is this not enough?
Yeah, I’m sure it’s not enough.
I have to get thinner.
Make my arms and legs, thinner, and thinner, and thinner, and thinner, and thinner, and thinner, and thinner, and thinner, and thinner, and thinner.
They’re so thick and gross. I wish I could tear them off and replace them.
You dolls can all do that, but I can’t.
Ohhh, it makes me so mad.
My throat’s bururururururururururururuururururururning.
I made dolls of young girls and broke them. I had no particular model for them, but men were out of the question, and women were no good, either. They had to be young girls.
The truth is, young girls weren’t in line with my ideal, either, but I could only think of young girls back then. That’s because I hadn’t met that person yet.
It took me by surprise. When I met that person.
(Alice...) Yes.
Alice, that was the kid’s name.
The first time we met, Alice gave off an aura that was not male or female, not even human anymore. The kid was clearly not normal.
And the weak constitution, due to a congenital condition and a number of other ailments, made Alice feel special, too.
It’s not just people; I think each living creature has their own color. However, Alice had no color.
Alice was endlessly transparent, a phantom-like existence that might vanish at any time. If there were a flower made only thin glass somewhere in this world, it would no doubt look just like Alice. I’m sure there is only one flower of that kind in this world.
It bowled me right over. I knew it keenly. I wanted to be like Alice. I wanted to be born as Alice. Though, of course, that could never be. Because, as you’re well aware, I am not Alice.
With a degree of forwardness even I couldn’t believe, I approached Alice. I talked with no shame, and I would do anything to draw Alice’s attention.
I think I had two emotions inside me.

Chapter end