[485] The Night of Heaven (3)
"What are you thinking about so intently?"
The basement of Lakia Hall of Corruption.
Gangnan lifted her eyes out of her reverie.
Mara Torco, a first-rank Mara under the fallen angel Mauriel, looked at her with a smile that seemed to reek.
"Steeling yourself for the horrible torture to come? Cutting off your thoughts won't help at all."
Torco grabbed Gangnan by the collar and tugged; fabric tore with a sharp rip.
"We are all slaves to time. Stretch yours out and there are exactly eighteen hours left. A span that holds nothing but pain and annihilation."
Torco meant to force reality into her, but inside Gangnan's head time had already stopped.
"Gaold won't come."
This is the end. No matter what future might have waited, it was already finished.
"Heh heh heh, then all that remains for you is a pathetic scream."
When Gangnan answered his taunt with a last sneer, the last trace of expression drained from Torco's face.
"What a rare, entertaining specimen."
Torco stepped back slowly and extended both hands; the two-pronged whips that were his weapons materialized in his grip.
"First, I should mince the meat."
No sooner had he finished speaking than his hands began to lash out alternately.
Each time a whip cracked across her, Gangnan felt her skin burn as if in flame.
'It hurts.'
The pain ran along her nerves into her brain and transmuted into a new, mental ache.
'It hurts.'
At the edge of that pain bloomed an even more distant, wistful feeling.
'It must always have hurt like this.'
Breathing felt like inhaling glass dust; every step was like walking over knives.
But Gaold had endured everything and come this far.
So she could endure it too.
'I won't give them the satisfaction of a scream.'
With each fierce lash across her cheek, memories of the time with Gaold flashed through Gangnan's mind like lightning.
* * *
"The sun's going down."
Sein checked that the light outside the woods was fading and stepped up to Gaold.
Gaold's gaze, still busy with chewing on his thumb, was as savage as something that could kill anything approaching, but even Sein could no longer yield.
"Decide, Gaold. What will you do?"
The snap of teeth coming together stopped Gaold's self-harm.
No one here knew what Gangnan meant to him.
They couldn't possibly know.
What had only just become clear was that Gaold himself had long since blacked out the things she had given him.
Only Miro.
He had poured every ounce of passion into turning the stopped clock; he never had the time to even wonder who was following behind.
'Pathetic.'
Miro propped her chin on her hand and sat on a rock, crossing her legs in a look of displeasure.
Her left leg jiggled, the motion voicing her dissatisfaction.
When her mood soured, Arius crawled over and nudged her shaking foot with his head.
He made a little whimper, brushed the dirt from the pad of her sole with his paw, then took her toes into his mouth and began to suck them.
If Arius were human, Miro would be a god; if Miro were human, Arius would be something less than human.
That relative order would never change, so Miro simply left him be.
Annoyed, she pulled her toes from his mouth and kicked Arius in the face.
"Nng! Nng!"
Whether Arius rolled on the ground looking wounded or not, Miro sprang up and strode over to Gaold.
"Hey! Decide! Me, or that woman? I won't put up with this indecision!"
Inside Miro's head a grand map of heaven and humanity was unfolding, but on a more human level she was simply hurt by Gaold's wavering.
Of course she wouldn't take him back even if he chose her.
But that's precisely why it was absurd he should be torn between two women.
Gaold slowly turned his gaze up to Miro.
The woman he had wanted so desperately, the one he had staked his whole life on, stood before him. There was not the slightest doubt that he loved Miro.
So why did his heart clatter?
Each time it should have run blindly toward Miro, thoughts of Gangnan made it shudder like a vehicle on an unpaved road.
"I can guess a little about what kind of life you lived."
Seeing Gaold's reaction, Miro gained certainty.
"You must have been hardened by countless pains. Twenty years looking only at me to get this far."
Gaold simply listened.
To have the woman he wanted more than his life acknowledge his toil was overwhelming, and then he realized something.
He could never have come this far by his own strength alone.
"You know too, don't you?"
Miro recalled the last look in Gangnan's eyes.
"While you ran looking only at me, that child ran keeping only your back in sight."
Gaold averted his eyes from Miro and looked straight ahead.
Perhaps it was the first time.
At the moment Gangnan stood before him.
"I don't know what kind of story you two have…"
"I'm going."
Gaold cut Miro off and rose.
Everyone's gaze fixed on him—more precisely, on his lips.
"I'm going to rescue that mutt."
No one objected to Gaold's decision.
It had been his fight from the start.
Only a faint flash of disappointment crossed Miro's face.
The price to retake Gangnan would be Miro's death.
She had already steeled herself, so there was no fear, but when Gaold made the decision it stirred a strange, first-time jealousy.
Yet that human feeling seeped into her vast mind and disappeared without a trace, and she smiled again, light and free.
"Fine. Then go. If you bring the child back…."
"No. I'm going alone."
Sein frowned. "Alone? What do you plan to do?"
"I told you—I'm going to take back that mutt."
"But without Miro—"
Sein stopped as realization hit.
"You mean…?"
Gaold intended to end it.
He had already achieved what death could not, so he could confront the impossible.
No matter the result, Gaold had no future beyond this.
"There might be a final war. Miro must not die."
Sein, who had bowed everything to Gaold's great emotion, understood that fact better than most.
"Hmph. Do you feel even a sliver of responsibility for the chaos humanity's in because of you?"
"No."
Gaold turned away, letting out a mocking laugh.
"What do I care? I'm just going to see Gangnan. The rest—handle it among yourselves."
From god to Miro, and now to Gangnan.
A human who only knew how to run forward—perhaps that was Gaold, Miro thought.
'Right. That's why I…'
Miro watched Gaold fade into the trees and murmured.
"Hey, you're doing all this and you won't even say goodbye?"
Instead of looking back, Gaold pushed aside a branch that blocked his path.
"We'll say it when I come back. I already booked it once."
Miro let out a short laugh when she realized he wasn't talking about a farewell.
Having said it herself, it was awkward to take back.
"We'll see then. If you come back with all five limbs intact."
"Heh heh heh."
Gaold shrugged and disappeared into the forest.
'He's grown. Gaold. He's really gotten strong.'
Still single-minded to the point of annoyance, but he had reached a level where he could meet her gaze squarely.
'Goodbye, Gaold.'
There was no smile left on Miro's face as she turned toward Sein.
"We need to move quickly from now on. The risks humanity will have to bear depend on whether we can return."
Sein said, "What will you do? You stopped the Stop magic and prevented the explosion, but among the archangels there may be those capable of dispelling magic."
He'd learned that from seeing Uriel's judicial halo.
Ikael's Ataraxia surpassed human common sense, but Ragnarok matched that level of anomaly.
It wrapped the body in the concept of destruction and struck physically.
Because its source concept is unshakable by anything, once Ragnarok activates there is no way to stop Uriel.
Miro propped her chin on her hand and said, "The only one who can lift the Stop magic would be the archangel Rael of Light. His judicial halo could achieve light-speed. If the Stop lifts, my head will fly."
Armin said, "If he can manipulate light-speed, he won't be trapped by the time barrier. But dispelling a magic is another matter entirely. I doubt it will be easy to break."
Sein asked, "How long do you estimate until the magic is dispelled?"
"If it's an archangel's power, then probably…."
Armin thought for a moment, then spoke.
"Around five minutes."
Miro nodded.
"That's enough. From now on I'll handle it. You all focus on your own operations."
"How do you mean to do that?"
"Arius."
When she called, Arius wagged his tail-like hind and approached.
"Stop the stupid acts. From now on I grant you language."
As if nothing had changed, Arius bowed one knee and sat.
"Arius. I receive the master's command."
"You must have a door installed in my head. Enter the maternal consciousness again. The second time will be easier."
"It is so, but… with my ability I cannot dismantle the archangel's magic circle."
"That doesn't matter. I'll remove the magic circle."
Miro explained the plan.
"Kariel's magic circle blocks cerebral circuits and prevents focus. So you'll be my nerves. Connect my nerves via a bypass route around the magic circle. As soon as I enter the Spirit Zone, I'll use scale magic to infinitely shrink the magic circle. I can't stop the explosion, but at that scale I can handle it."
This was the terror of scale magic.
If you maximize relative sizes, all reasoning produced by intelligence becomes meaningless.
Even Sein thought it an excellent judgment.
"Can you time it? If the Stop is lifted right now, you'll die."
"Then I'll have to be fast. Once Arius enters the consciousness, time there runs differently from reality. Five minutes. It's definitely possible."
"All right. We have no choice but to trust you. Be careful."
Worrying about Miro of all people was absurd.
"Let's go, Arius."
Reading his master's thought, Arius cast the Flicker spell and moved Miro to an empty spot.
With Gaold and Miro sent off, Sein set about planning how to finish the war.
With the first objective—recovering Miro—half accomplished, the thought that came to Sein was the source of the unease he'd felt before coming to heaven.
'Even though war has broken out, the angels aren't moving. How can this be?'
Aside from interference by Uriel and Kariel in the Second Heaven, only the fallen angels and the Maras were visible.
Fighting a war without the seraphim was like fighting with both arms tied from heaven's perspective.
'Something must be happening that we don't know about. Where are they moving from? Heaven? Or from humanity's side?'
Whatever it was, the fact the seraphim were not acting was an opportunity for the rebels.
'If there's no special contact, Shirone will activate God's Punishment by noon. We can't pass up this chance.'
No matter the outcome, the war would be over by tomorrow.