c14

1. Distant [faraway]


Everywhere was suffocatingly red.
It was red, but not red red. It was a yellowy red, so vermilion.
The leaves, the trunks, and the branches of the trees in this forest, though there was some variance in strength, were all the same color. To say a bit more, the ground onto which the leaves had fallen was red, too.
No, not red, vermilion. It kind of made his eyes hurt.
Up ahead, Alice C turned back, the sinister shovel thrust into the ground. “This is the Scarlet Forest.”
It was dirty, or rather stained, but Haruhiro wondered if maybe Alice’s raincoat had been red at one point.
“Scarlet...” Haruhiro murmured to himself. The word sounded familiar. If he recalled, Alice had offhandedly mentioned they were heading to some place with a name like that once. “‘Scarlet’ is the name of a color, right?”
“What else did you think it was?”
“No, nothing really...”
He hadn’t heard Alice properly to begin with, and there would have been no point in going, “Scar... what? Sorry, what’d you say?” He’d just have been ignored. And if he argued back now, saying there hadn’t really been any reason for him to think it was that color, that would get ignored, too.

“First you write the beast radical with the character for star beside it,” Alice explained very quickly, using the tip of the shovel to write 猩 on the ground. “You have two of those next to each other. Then this character for red,” Alice continued, writing another 猩 beside the first, and then 緋.
“Ohhhh!”
Alice’s face was mostly hidden by the raincoat’s hood and the mask. Surprisingly, though, the eyes said as much as the mouth. Those upturned eyes weren’t simply exasperated; Alice was almost certainly looking down on Haruhiro.
“The Scarlet Forest, huh,” Haruhiro said. “Okay. The Scarlet Forest...”
He looked down, nodded to himself, cleared his throat, and scratched his head, but Haruhiro wasn’t feeling out of it.
Or so he thought. Probably.
“Huh?” Haruhiro looked around the area. It was weird. Where’s...?
He couldn’t see Alice anywhere. Why?
“Huh? Whoa, um, Alice?”
There was no response, so he perked his ears up. There was a rustling of grass, and a faint crunching of leaves underfoot. Or at least he thought he heard that. It might have just been his imagination.
No way. Had he been left behind?
He started to run, and nearly ran into something red.
“Wah!”
When he took another look, it was the leaves of a shrub. Everything here was red—no, scarlet—so it was hard to tell it all apart, but there was undergrowth all over the place in this forest.
The leaves of the shrubs and young trees were as hard as metal, thin, and sharp as razors. The branches all had thorns, making the place a natural death trap. With all this potential for getting cut or stabbed, it was beyond dangerous.
He brushed the whip-like branches and the razor-like leaves aside with his cloak, pushing forward as he rushed onward. He might have wondered how long he’d been going, but he had no watch, and time was unreliable here, so it didn’t mean much, anyway.
Whatever the case, he finally saw the back of a person.
“Alice!” he shouted.
“You’re so noisy.” Despite sounding irritated, Alice did stop for him, so he was able to catch up somehow. If not for that, he might have lost sight of Alice again.
“You don’t have to go so far ahead,” Haruhiro complained. “You’d be in trouble without me too, wouldn’t you?”
“So, what, you want me to be nice?”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
Alice snorted and walked off.
It wouldn’t have killed Alice to say, Let’s go, at least. Alice was always acting a little faster than Haruhiro anticipated.
Maybe we’re a bad match, he thought. At the very least, they didn’t feel like a good match.
He decided to keep quiet and focus on following behind Alice for a while. Even just keeping up was pretty difficult. Alice was slender and short, and though they weren’t exactly speed walking, Alice was moving forward strangely quickly.
What was with the way Alice walked? It wasn’t just a matter of being light on the feet. The steps made it seem like Alice was walking on water, or floating on air, to the point it made Haruhiro question whether Alice had any weight at all.
Naturally, Alice had weight. Alice wasn’t a ghost, so that had to be the case.
“Once we get through to the other side of this Scarlet Forest, there’s the king’s castle, right?” Haruhiro asked. “No... not the other side, right? Umm, it was in the middle of this forest, wasn’t it?”
Alice didn’t answer. Not that he minded. Whatever. He was used to it now. He never expected a proper conversation to begin with. No matter what he said, Alice responded maybe half of the time, at best.
While he was thinking that, Alice mumbled, “Assuming we can overcome this, yeah.”
There was a sudden shadow, and a chill ran down Haruhiro’s back.
When he looked up, something massive was looking down at him.
Something.
No, wait, is it... someone, maybe?
It was awfully big to be human, so a giant? Maybe?
It was taller than the trees of the Scarlet Forest, looking down on them sinisterly from above. It had really good complexion, and its puffy lips were pink. No eyebrows. No eyelashes. No hair on its head, or at all for that matter.
If you set aside the size of it, it had a puffy face like a newborn baby. From where Haruhiro stood, he could only see up to its shoulders, but it was probably buck naked.
“Eehee... Aahaa...” The world shook a little. “Uhohoho... Eheheh...” The volume was incredible. Was it that thing’s... voice?
To be perfectly frank, it was damn scary.
“What is that?” Haruhiro gulped.
“A dream monster, duh.” Alice already had the shovel at the ready. It was no ordinary shovel. Though Alice’s shovel wasn’t specially made, it had gained special powers after certain occurrences. It was blackened and dented all over, so it looked like nothing if not bad news. That fact of the matter was that shovel was pretty nuts, but they were up against a giant baby.
“Isn’t it kinda big...?” Haruhiro protested.
“Well, this is the Scarlet Forest. There are plenty more where that one came from.”
“You’re joking... right?”
“Why would I feel the need to tell you jokes? Are you stupid?”
“Ooheee... Ohohhh... Ahyahhh... Ehahahahhh...” The baby howled once more.
No, it’s not a baby, Haruhiro corrected himself. The dream monster. Sorry.
No, this was no time for apologizing inside his head.
In the next instant, the wind blew. Bwoosh! Scarlet leaves scattered.
“Whoa!” Haruhiro huddled and dug in his heels. If he hadn’t, the wind was strong enough that he felt like he might have been blown away.
“It’s coming,” Alice said, not really shouting.
Haruhiro wanted to ask, What is? but with a dream monster that big in front of them, what else was it going to be? It had to be the giant baby dream monster. The problem was, how would it come at them?
“It jumped!” Haruhiro shouted.
Indeed. It jumped. The baby, the giant dream monster baby, jumped. Well, didn’t that just beat all. It was getting some impressive air time, too. He could see the bottoms of its giant demon monster baby feet.
It was more of a running long jump than a vertical jump, and it had leapt over the tops of the Scarlet Forest’s trees. Then it came down. Praise be to gravity. No, he didn’t want to praise it at all. At this rate, Haruhiro was almost certainly going to get stepped on. If that thing stomped him, he’d go splat like a little bug.
“Haruhiro!” Alice shouted at him.
“Coming!” Haruhiro replied as he rushed to Alice’s side.
He went just close enough that he wasn’t touching her, but, “More!” Alice shouted.
If Haruhiro hesitated, Alice might hit him with that shovel, so Haruhiro worked up his courage and hugged Alice tight.
Suddenly, Alice’s shovel burst.
No, it didn’t burst. The black outer layer, the skin-like stuff split, forming ten or more writhing, slithering strands, stretching up and downwards from its holder. It was almost like they were alive. It wasn’t often you saw a shovel like this.
Incidentally, the main body—was that what it was? Anyway, the inside revealed when the skin peeled was like a red meat stick.
Did calling it a meat stick sound indecent? Maybe it was best to stop at referring to it as a stick of meat. Maybe it didn’t make a difference.
Regardless, the way the shovel looked with its skin peeled defied the imagination. It wasn’t normal for a shovel to have a skin that could peel away to begin with.
The black strands of flesh formed a basket as he watched, wrapping around Alice and Haruhiro. There were gaps in between the black strands of skin. Those gaps were gradually filled by other strands of skin.
Obviously, the giant dream monster didn’t stop falling as it did that. The giant dream monster baby’s foot—oh crap, the bottom of its foot was getting close. Not good.
It was coming right at them.
This was bad.
Seriously bad.
Haruhiro was about ready to scream.
He tried to hold it in, but he let out a little yelp despite himself. “Eep!”
The moment when the gaps filled in completely, and the black strips formed more of a cocoon than a basket, maybe a little before that, or a little after, the foot finally came down on them.
With how big the thing was, the giant dream monster baby had to weigh more than just a few hundred kilos or a few tons. It wouldn’t surprise him if it weighed tens of tons, or hundreds.
Surprisingly, the cocoon of black straps cushioned the weight of it, and it somehow managed to protect Alice and Haruhiro inside. However, the cocoon sank into the ground, so the impact must have been incredible. Haruhiro had no idea how the two of them were all right.





If someone told him, Actually, you got smashed flat as a pancake, he’d have had an easier time believing it. However, there was nothing wrong with his body, so he clearly hadn’t been crushed.
In that case, what on Earth had happened? What was going on right now?
Haruhiro was still clinging to Alice. There was no question about that. No light shone into the confines of the cocoon, but inside the shovel—no, inside the meat stick—no, the stick of meat—there was a faint pulsing glow. Thanks to that, it wasn’t pitch black.
Alice’s face was right in front of his.
It was like Haruhiro was hugging Alice from behind. No, it wasn’t like that—he actually was hugging Alice from behind, so it couldn’t be helped that they had ended up so close. On top of that, Alice’s face was turned towards him, so if they hadn’t been wearing masks, they were so close they might have had no choice but to end up kissing.
Normally, he would have moved away, but he couldn’t do that now. The cocoon was tight, after all. With the giant dream monster baby having stepped on it, the cocoon was probably embedded in the ground, and indented as a result, which made it so tight inside that neither Haruhiro nor Alice could move.
This was unbearable.
Alice blinked. “...What?”
“Nah... I was just wondering what happened out—” Before Haruhiro could finish, there was another impact.
What was this? What the hell was this?
He didn’t know, he couldn’t possibly have known, but if he had to take an educated guess, this would be it. They were being stepped on. Repeatedly, by the giant dream monster baby.
Bam, bam, bam! It was stomping them.
“This is tight!” Alice called, so it had to be pretty bad. Actually, he was amazed Alice could speak.
You’ll bite your tongue, he thought. Be careful.
Naturally, he couldn’t actually make the warning. If he opened his mouth now, he was sure he’d bite his own tongue. He might bite all the way through.
There was a more than remote chance the cocoon would be smashed with them inside before then, so maybe he didn’t need to worry about his tongue? Maybe he should just bite through it anyway? Bad idea?
“Oh...?”
What now? This was different from before. The situation had clearly changed.
Up, huh? Up? Yeah, up. The cocoon was moving upwards.
Were they being lifted, maybe? The giant dream monster baby had picked the cocoon up? If so, what did it plan to do with it next?
“Haruhiro,” Alice said.
“Yeah?”
“It’s probably going to spin.” What did that mean, spin?
Before he could ask, it started spinning. What was spinning, you ask? This world? Parano the other world? No, the cocoon. The cocoon was going round and round.
Haruhiro shut his eyes tight. If he did this, it felt just a little more bearable. If he opened his eyes, it was nauseating. Scary, too.
He shut his mouth tight, gritted his teeth, and held on to Alice tight because he had no other choice.
That was right. There was nothing Haruhiro could do.
It was common in Parano, common sense so to speak, that people could use magic here.
When it came to magic, there were three types: Philia, Narci, and Doppel. Alice’s was Philia.
The source of strength for Philia was an attachment, a thing that supported one’s way of life, something a person couldn’t do without. This was called a fetish.
It went without saying that Alice’s fetish was the shovel. The shovel was the source of Alice’s magic, and magic itself.
To simplify things, with Philia a fetish, with Narci oneself, and with Doppel another person, you gave a person power and became their magic.
Incidentally, Haruhiro could use magic, too. However, Haruhiro’s magic somehow wasn’t Filia, Narci, or Doppel.
Weird, huh? Weren’t there only three types of magic? Normally, yes. But there was an exception to everything.
The exception in Parano’s magic was Resonance.
Sadly, this magic did nothing for the person who had it. Each magic, regardless of type, strengthened something, and Haruhiro felt it was a faster and more reliable way than working out and improving skills through experience. But no matter how hard he worked to improve his magic, Haruhiro would not benefit in any way.
Resonance enhanced or expanded the magic of another. That was apparently the type of magic it was.
That was incredible—or was it?
According to Alice, it was an incredibly unusual and valuable magic or something like that. But as far as Haruhiro himself was concerned, he couldn’t be happy about it without reservations. Actually, he wasn’t happy in the least. He could strengthen his magic as much as he wanted, but it wouldn’t make him any stronger at all. Wasn’t that unfair? It was pretty awful, right? Like, seriously, screw that. If flipping out over it would have solved anything, he would have, but there was nothing to be done about it, so he’d just have to shut up and accept it.
Yeah. If he was getting spun, he’d just have to spin. He could look at it as a form of training, and accept his spinning self.
But hold on. They weren’t just spinning, were they? They were flying, too, right? He could feel as it whooped round and round that they were whooshing through the air, too. Had they been thrown, maybe? The giant dream monster baby had picked them up and thrown them? That was it, huh?
So that was what it had come to. It’d gotten pissed when it couldn’t stomp them flat, so it was throwing them. For all its babyish appearance, it had some pretty strong shoulders. If they’d been thrown like Haruhiro was thinking, they were really flying. This was some serious air time.
How far was this thing going to fly...?


2. False Armor [solitude]


Once upon a time, there was a poor little girl.
The girl was all alone.
That was because the girl was born very ugly, and everyone told her, You’re ugly, you’re fat, you’re gross, go away.
The girl wasn’t alone because she liked it. Being called names hurt her, so she had no choice but to be alone.
When the girl was crying in the corner of her room, her stepmother got worried.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
Through her sobs, the girl answered. “Everyone, they bully me.”
“You haven’t done anything wrong, so you don’t need to worry about people who bully you like that.”
“But everyone bullies me!”
“If you cry, you’re only making the bullies happy. Act like you’re all right.”
“But I’m not all right at all!” the girl cried.
“Have confidence. You’re not bad. They’re the bad ones. You have to be strong. It’s silly, letting those stupid people beat you. Besides...” The girl’s stepmother rounded on her. “You say everyone bullies you, but who? What do they say? What do they do? Tell your stepmother.
Come on, what are their names? What did those people say? I want details.”
Though the girl was confused, she told her stepmother who said what, who did what, what had been done to her, and what she had gone through.
When she did, her stepmother had something to say about every little thing.
“You’re not fat, so tell them you’re not a fatty.” And...
“The reason they leave you out is because they’re too cowardly to try anything else. If they cause you any real harm, tell your stepmother. I’ll sue.” And...
“Look in the mirror. Is your face ugly? It’s not, now is it? But no one looks good when they’re always looking down. Stand tall, and face them straight on.”
She tried to cheer the girl up.
The stepmother was probably right, and the girl was wrong. Her stepmother was always right. And she was doing her best to look after the girl, even though she hadn’t gone through the pain of giving birth to her. The girl understood that.
If she could do as her stepmother said, how wonderful that would be. But even though the girl was not very fat, she was not thin, either. Being left out didn’t hurt like being punched or kicked, and wasn’t as much trouble as having her things stolen and broken, but it made her feel lonely.
The girl’s face might not have been sickening to look at. Still, she obviously lacked the beauty of her stepmother. Her face was full of flaws, and the girl worried whether it was okay to let other people see it. Unlike her stepmother, her eyes were weird, and her nose was unshapely. Compared to her stepmother, she felt her lips were awfully small, too. Unlike her stepmother’s well-defined cheeks, the girl’s were puffy, and her round, little chin was hard on the eyes. She’d tried growing out her hair to hide the bad parts, but there was no way to hide it all, so she ended up looking down all the time.
Besides, even if she told her stepmother how things were, and why, all with proper reasons, she wouldn’t understand.
“You’re worrying too much,” her stepmother said.
Or...
“Nothing is perfect. We’re beautiful because we’re imperfect, and the little flaws give us personality.” Or...
“Just try doing as your stepmother says, just once.”
Those were the sorts of response she always got. No doubt, her stepmother was right.
Her stepmother was thinking about what was best for the girl, and she knew spoiling her would do no good, so she sometimes told her the harsh truths she must not have wanted to. Doing what a stepmother like that said, that would be for the best. The girl understood that, too.
But the girl was not like her stepmother. She could never say this to her stepmother, and she wouldn’t, but they weren’t truly mother and daughter, so they weren’t much alike to begin with. She could never be like her.
There were things people could and couldn’t do, and just because her stepmother could do a thing, that didn’t mean the girl could, too. Was that not what it meant to have a personality?
Once upon a time, there was a little girl, and she was all alone.
That said, the girl was not okay with being alone. She hated it, so the girl did her best.
She thoroughly read people’s expressions. What were the people around her feeling, and what did they think? It was important to be able to pick up on that. No matter what, she didn’t want to be hated, so she had to be very, very careful. In all things, she would be reserved, and not stand out.
If she puffed up her chest, walking straight forward with her head high, they might think, Who does that ugly fatty think she is? and she might trip over something. Then, when she was feeling that, they’d laugh at her. That might make her cry, and if she cried, they were almost sure to think she was annoying. Nothing good would come of it.
“You always have to take responsibility for yourself. In the end, it’s all on you.”
Her stepmother was always saying that.
“You can try to change people, but it won’t work. If you can’t change people, you have to change yourself. If you’re going to change, work hard to make sure it’s always for the better.”
Like always, her stepmother was right. The girl had no power, and no right, to change anyone. That was why she had to change herself. It was just like she said.
She wanted to be like her stepmother. Beautiful, stylish, reliable, devoted, considerate, intelligent, skillful, but always working hard at whatever she did, never saying a wrong thing, always right, admired by everyone... that was the wonderful sort of person the girl wished she could be.
If it were possible.
Ahh, but in the end, it was a wish that could never come true.
Tears.
Tears.
Tears.
Tears. Tears.
Tears. Tears.
Sparkling tears.
The tears of a girl with nothing good about her.
Sparkle, sparkle.
The tears were shed by a filthy, ugly girl, yet how strange. They were so very beautiful.
Sparkle, sparkle. The girl’s tears flowed without end. Sparkle.
As she shed tears, the girl walked. Sparkle, sparkle.
Sparkling tears flowed down the ugly girl’s body, glimmering and covering it.
They wrapped around the grotesque girl, sparkling, unlike her filthy lies.
Yes. The girl told lies. Many, many lies.
I don’t want to be this pathetic me. I want to be someone else.
With that wish, the girl lied, wanting to become a sparkling version of herself.
Cheerfully, cheerfully, she greeted people. People looked at her with eyes that said, What’s with that girl?
When people laughed like they were enjoying themselves, the girl laughed, too. Her voice sounded ridiculous, like the laughing of a jester.
When they all cast stones at someone, the girl would pick up a pebble and throw it, too. It was just a pebble. It was fine. She wouldn’t hit someone anyway, and even if she did, it wouldn’t hurt.
If there was a sparkling girl, arrogant, like a young noble lady, she would look on from a distance with admiration. When she approached, little by little, and the young lady spoke to her, she would be beside herself with glee.
When someone spoke to her, the girl listened and said, “Mm-hm. Mm-hm.”
Even if she thought, How lame, or, You’re scum, or, Screw you, in her head, it never showed on her face.
Because she wanted to sparkle, she cut her long, long hair short.
“Hey, that’s nice. You look good like that,” her stepmother said, but the girl did not miss the pity that showed on her face for a moment.
“Thanks,” the girl said, but her heart felt like it might burst. I’m sorry. For not being your real daughter, and for being so ugly. I’m sorry. You’re so beautiful, and so right. You always sparkle, and it corners me.
I hate you.
The girl, of course, would never say that aloud. She would smile, saying, “Really? I’m glad,” and put on a show of how happy she was.
The poor thing, she tries so hard, her stepmother was probably thinking.
Oh, I was a poor thing. Tears. Tears. Sparkling tears.
No one knew my feelings, always hidden by tears. Tears, sparkle.
With tears flowing, I walked. Glimmering and sparkling. Sparkling and glimmering.
Flowing and flowing, my tears pooled. Sparkling everywhere. Sparkling, sparkling, making me beautiful.
Tears, sparkle, tears.
I only needed things that sparkled. I didn’t want to see anything else.
Everyone... everyone could turn to sparkles.
Plop! Something struck my cheek.
Oh, my, is it raining? I looked up.
Lavender-colored, and spreading out like a lattice, were those branches? They were almost like an umbrella.
But rain was dripping from those branches.
Lime yellow drops going plip, plip, plip. That was no rain. It was dirty, like excrement. Oh, how dirty. It was unclean.
There! I spread my arms wide. The accumulated tears, those sparkling tears, they flew away, spreading sparkles everywhere. Sparkle, tears, glimmer, tears. The swirling tears made the excrement pretty. They clung to the lavender-colored branches, sparkling, sparkling, making them screech, bend, and then shrink away to nothing.
Only the tears remained. Falling, falling, sparkling, glimmering tears.
The lavender-colored branches vanished, and the polka dot sky spread out above. I wanted to make that sky beautiful, too. But my tears couldn’t reach that sky.
Tears. Tears. Tears.
Shedding tears, I walked.
There were large, lavender-colored trees, with branches of the same color spreading out. So, so many of them. Unsightly. Unsightly. My chest, it was full of unease.
I blew hard. Tears, tears, fly away. Sparkling tears, fly away. Sparkle, screech, bend, sparkle, glimmer, shrink.
Behind the trees that grew smaller and smaller, until they disappeared, someone was crouched down, hiding. There was nowhere left to hide now.
“Damn, she found me!” that person shouted. It was an awfully loud voice.
In my chest, there was unease. Suffering, suffering. Why do you bully me? How come? What for?
“Eeeeeahhhhhiiiiiiahhhhhhhheeeeeeahhhhhhh!” I was crying. Crying. Tears flowing, overflowing, overflowing. Swinging both arms up, sparkling tears flew. Glimmering, sparkling, they flew.
“...Whoa, this again?!” Someone swung a large katana around. When he did, wow! There was a strong wind, and it blew the sparkling tears away.
Grr. Crying, I was crying. The tears flowed. Sparkling, glimmering.
“Enough, Shihoru-san! You can’t get me like that! You have to know that by now, right? What good is repeating this forever going to do?” That someone was talking like he knew the girl.
Knew her?
“Ohh.”
That was right. I had an idea. Come to think of it, the girl knew who that someone was, too.
“Kuzaku-kun, huh...?”
“...Uh, yeah? Did you forget me, Shihoru-san?”
“Eheheh.”
“Don’t ‘eheheh’ at me! You’re acting seriously weird, Shihoru-san!” “Weird, huh. Me. You think I’m weird?”
Even as they spoke, tears. Tears. Sparkling tears, streaming, sparkled and flowed. More and more, without end. Maybe that was weird?
Had I gone weird?
If so, when did I go weird?
How funny.
“What’re you laughing about, Shihoru-san?” the boy demanded.
Yes, that someone was a boy. Tall like a beansprout, with an excellent physique. The girl knew that boy. Kuzaku-kun.
Kuzaku-kun was in love with a certain girl. Not me, of course, a different girl. A girl who was shapely, and pretty, so very pretty, to the point that I could only sigh in admiration. What was more, she wasn’t conceited about it, wasn’t nosy, and was kindhearted, a lovely girl.
Heh heh. My chest, it felt so, so full of unease. Heh heh. Heh heh.
That’s right. That was right. Not just Kuzaku-kun; Haruhiro-kun loved that girl, too.
I could see why. Even if she never says a word, a lovely girl will be liked by others. Treasured, treated kindly. There’s nothing strange about that at all. It was natural. No one was wrong for doing it. Heh heh. It was no one’s fault. Heh heh. Heh heh.
“Shihoru...san?” someone called her name.
The girl looked up to the polka dot sky.
When had this story become so warped?
All the girl wanted was for someone to be kind to her. To treasure her. To adore her. To praise her. To comfort her. To hold her tight, and to spoil her. That was all. Was it all that difficult?
Yes, it was incredibly difficult.
I mean, I’m not pretty, I’m fat, I’m dim-witted, I’m gloomy, I’m timid, and if it’s for you, for everyone, not for myself, I can try hard for everyone, no, that’s a lie, a big fat lie, that’s not true, I want to be recognized, I want to be praised, I want people to be kind to me, to treasure me, I want something in return for me, for myself, it’s all I want, I want it so bad it hurts, it’s all I do everything for.
Once upon a time, there was girl so ugly you had to pity her.
That girl is still ugly.
That girl will always, always be ugly.
This story was warped from the beginning.
Because the girl who was its main character was incredibly ugly and warped.
“Shihoru-san,” someone called her name again.
Looking down, the tall boy with the big katana was standing close enough he could reach out and
and touch her.

Chapter end