What kind of crazy bastard burns someone's arm with fire just to save one person?!
Even after the bleeding had stopped, the pain wouldn't go away, and my hands were shaking violently.
I was sure I'd taken painkillers!
Haa... Whatever. Since I'm alive again, I might as well do something with it.
I force my barely moving body toward my weapon.
My left hand isn't one I've used much, but maybe I can make it work somehow. Conveniently, while I was lying there convulsing, Ahab looked pretty worn out too.
- Whirr.
I give it a light spin to find my zero point.
Hmm... If I fine-tune it to this degree, it should be manageable. It's a burden, trying to confirm every possibility with my eyes while also swinging the weapon with that kind of precision, but I'd already given up on thinking about what comes after a long time ago, so whatever.
One last check.
My condition is the worst.
The strain on my eyes is starting to push through the painkillers, and with one arm blown off, my center of gravity is a mess. The hand I'm using is my left, which I'm not even familiar with.
What's even intact... if anything? The damage from the impact alone is already substantial.
And yet, for some reason, I don't feel like I'm about to die. Pure instinct, but still.
I approach slowly, careful not to lose my balance. Toward Ahab, who's in the middle of trading blows with Ms. Ishmael...
A disruption at the enemy's attack timing, a tempo-breaking intrusion.
I set my blade precisely against the harpoon, bending its trajectory.
- Kkik! Ggrgrgrk...!
"Ms. Ishmael, now!"
"...!"
Right through the opening I created, Ms. Ishmael lands three punches.
Still, this really isn't something I can do twice. One time and my wrist already feels like it's about to come apart.
Ahab's counterattack against me, after I deflected the harpoon, is dodged. Unless my legs are missing, moves like this are possible.
Maybe I'll keep it to just this much. Support, but only within reason. Even that's shaky with my current condition.
Maybe she noticed my hand starting to tremble, because Ms. Ishmael looked at me and spoke.
"...Are you okay?"
"I can at least open a path, so don't worry and keep fighting."
Worry, huh. Strange. I don't think I've been worried about by anyone since I joined U Corp.
Hmm... That's probably a good sign. It feels like the clogged-up view ahead of me has loosened a little.
Though from her expression, she doesn't seem especially concerned. Still, even that is something.
I start matching my breathing with Ms. Ishmael's little by little.
When there's an opening, I deflect the attack. When there isn't, I only keep up a bit of pressure.
The other prisoners also slip in and out, landing clean, effective hits in between.
After all, the prisoners have no limit on their lives. No matter how hard the enemy retaliates, the side that wins the war of attrition can only be us.
"Haa... haa..."
Ahab breathes heavily, holding the massive harpoon in her right arm.
It's certain. We can win soon.
The tide has turned. And Ahab knows it too.
And when a person is almost certain to lose, they're also the kind of creature that can throw in a gamble without hesitation.
Ahab's eyes flash. Her target is Ms. Ishmael, standing a short distance away from her.
- Clack. Thunk!
"I drive the lake... I drive this city... I will seize its heart and sever the roots of evil..."
- Sssssss... PANG───!!!
The harpoon that had blown apart my right arm earlier is now aimed at Ms. Ishmael.
But unlike then, her move is obvious this time.
Over Ms. Ishmael's body, her E.G.O begins to overlay itself.
- KWAANG────!!!!
What she holds is a harpoon and a shield. Ms. Ishmael swings the shield wide and bats away the incoming harpoon.
Was it a trick of fate, or did she intend it?
The deflected harpoon slams straight into Ahab's body and ricochets again, and soon a single white harpoon tumbles before Ms. Ishmael.
[The pale whale... and Ahab... burrow into the gaps between the cracks of the heart.]
Huh, that's...
[The tiny, trembling fissures that must exist in any human being. Confusion and loneliness. Anxiety toward uncertainty. Loss that one cannot avoid experiencing. It fills these fragile, countless cracks so densely that there is no room left. At some point, my cracks had become... filled to the brim... with a single obsession... until it was hard to breathe.]
Ms. Ishmael's body begins to be covered in white, little by little. Like... a mermaid.
[The source of all this... the root of everything. I will kill Ahab. Those thoughts were layered so thickly... that they filled everything, so completely that I could no longer recognize the time I spent with everyone... or the choices I made in each moment... At some point, I...]
Right up until the very end, it was clear she still hadn't found the way.
Seriously. Seriously, she's such a handful.
I slowly walk toward her.
[I began to sink, forgetting even what my original self had been. I no longer knew where I was supposed to go.]
Ms. Ishmael, now completely bleached white.
I lightly peel away the white membrane covering her...
- Riiip, riiip!
"Seriously. You're a real pain in the ass. How are you supposed to live without me?"
"Saramago... san...? I... when did I... start being covered over...? I didn't know..."
"Is that even a question? You're the one who knows best when your thoughts started to skew, and whose will you were following..."
"......"
"Haa... Go on. Make the choice you want, the one you desire. I'm not the one leading you, so I have no intention of stopping you. So make a choice you won't regret."
I look her straight in the eye and say what I wanted to say.
And yet, for some reason, even after I pat her shoulder and tell her to go, Ms. Ishmael's feet don't move at all.
"Why are you so good to me...? What did I do to deserve it? Why? You and I have nothing between us except being coworkers."
"If I'm being blunt, that's true. But the reason I'm especially kind to you is... purely for my own satisfaction. You... seem a lot like me. A sense of kinship... yeah. Let's call it kinship. And besides, does being good to someone really need a reason? If you like them, you can do that."
"...Huh?"
"Now stop talking nonsense and go. We don't have time."
"......"
I push her back with my remaining left hand. Why waste time on someone like me?
Right in front of us, Mr. Queequeg, now reduced to a human-like shape again by Ahab's harpoon, is dying. And over there is Ahab, on her knees.
The first place Ms. Ishmael's gaze goes after me is Mr. Queequeg.
"Queequeg... I'm sorry. I couldn't save you..."
"I was too late. Too late to figure out what's right and wrong. To think for myself."
"I, I should have..."
"You know. Your name. Say it once more. Tell me."
Along with Mr. Queequeg's words, images from the past begin to overlap before my eyes.
The deck of the Pequod at sunset. The people visible are... Ms. Ishmael and Mr. Queequeg.
"The lake may be awful, but isn't the sunset beautiful?"
"...You. Your name. What is it?"
"Why do you want to know my name...?"
"Because I like your hair color. Whales... turn their heads when they die. Toward the sun. And it's sunset. Your hair is. So when I throw my harpoon, the whales will change direction. Toward you. We can become. Good friends."
"...Please call me Ishmael."
And over that, reality overlaps.
"Call me... Ishmael..."
"......"
The last.
After exchanging the same words as their first meeting, Mr. Queequeg soon begins to melt away completely.
And yet, for some reason, I feel as if our eyes met right before she died.
...That sensation was so vivid that it almost felt like her will reached me too.
She's extreme too. I was going to say it anyway, even if she hadn't.
Ms. Ishmael, who has finally seen her closest friend through to the end, starts limping toward Ahab.
Holding the harpoon she had been honing for this moment alone.
...Ah. I was originally going to send her off cleanly with that as the end.
It's not the time now, but I feel like I need to say one more thing.
Before that, I worried something meaningless might happen first... but seeing Mr. Dante once again blocking Ms. Ishmael's path, that outcome doesn't seem likely.
Ms. Ishmael's voice sounds terribly confused. Maybe because I'd already shaken her once, but contrary to what I expected, what filled that voice wasn't anger.
<......>
"You're blocking my way again, Dante. Why are you doing this? Why do you keep stopping me? Why do you keep turning the clock back? What do you gain from that?! Does pretending to be good, like you're trying to let everything slide so nicely, make you feel better inside?!"
"Do you... know? Where it is you're trying to go?"
I think what Mr. Dante said applies not just to Ms. Ishmael, but to every prisoner.
No matter how harmless and useless he may seem on the surface, he's the kind of person who looks carefully after every prisoner, one by one, from very deep inside.
He may just look like a stupidly kind person... but sometimes, he shows a very unexpected side.
Ms. Ishmael slowly walks toward Ahab, her expression even more conflicted now.
"Have you really killed off even the last of the crew? All of them?"
"Yeah. Now it's... just you."
"Ha, ha ha! Hahahahahaha!!!! Yes! Now you've become like me, Ishmael. If it means seizing what lies at the end, even if we have to kill someone to get there, then so be it! If we kill that one thing, there'll be nothing left to wish for!"
...After Ahab's words, the very last flashback begins.
If there was a meeting with Mr. Queequeg, then there had to be a meeting with Ahab too.
[One day, I suddenly had this thought. I was sick of living like this.]
"Hmm..."
[Getting certificates without any goal, and then heading to a Nest to land a respectable job. Competing every day to become a Wing, struggling not to be pushed out, sitting motionless at a desk and making money...]
"Yeah, I quit. ...I haven't decided that yet. What I'm going to do from here."
[I wanted to leave behind everyone who tried to stop me and put an end to this boring routine. I wasn't sure whether that meant I wanted to die, or whether I just wanted to try something new. I simply liked water ever since I was young. So if I were to die, I thought it would be nice if it happened near water.]
"Whale hunting... crew recruitment, huh."
[For the first time, my chest began to pound hard.]
"Required items... a sturdy body that doesn't get seasick. ...That's it?"
Somewhere on a U Corp bluefin harbor ship. Behind the young Ms. Ishmael, who was looking at a recruitment notice, came the sound of a harpoon striking the ground.
A person who even then was using a harpoon in place of one leg. Ahab.
One thing was unusual... Ahab at that time looked like a truly normal person.
Kind, with a philosophy of her own. The kind of person you'd want to follow.
"One more thing: you'd better have the grit not to whine when they hand you a mop and tell you to clean the bow."
"...Who are you?"
"An old woman who doesn't much like spending time walking around this hard land on one leg."
"......"
"Whales are... wondrous, mysterious monsters. Everyone runs away when they see them, but we bare our teeth and laugh."
[Every morning, I woke up and wondered what it meant to live.]
"......"
[She's reading the recruitment notice with me, but this woman... is clearly looking at something beyond the lake. Standing straighter than anyone, despite having only one leg.]
The young Ms. Ishmael looked at the recruitment notice and said one thing.
"The Pequod, huh. I don't know who the captain of this ship is, but they're awfully lucky."
"Oh? Why do you say that?"
[I wanted to be like her.]
"There aren't many sailors diligent enough to work for such a pathetically low wage."
"Still, if you sail aboard this ship, you'll get a Grade 9 Fixer certificate from the Seven Association."
[I hoped that someday I'd be able to throw myself into a fate I chose, just like this person.]
After finishing her brief recollection, E.G.O covers Ms. Ishmael once more.
The posture of someone about to throw a harpoon.
Now... is it time?
"Yeah. Break my heart... and put a hole through my head. Ishmael...!"
At the very end, Ms. Ishmael hesitates. Should she really kill Ahab?
"Ahab is forever, Ahab...!"
Interrupting while someone else's E.G.O is in use is dangerous... but so what if I die? I didn't care.
I cautiously move behind Ms. Ishmael and grab the arm holding the harpoon.
"Saramago...?"
"Ah... sorry. I'm not usually the clingy type, but I just can't seem to let go of that look in your eyes."
"What..."
"I'll just say one thing and go. Listen carefully."
As I tried to interfere again, Ahab glared at me like she wanted to kill me.
"You... again... planning to ruin this...!"
"Look properly. What you want. What you've wanted all along on that ship... is it really to kill that person?"
"......"
Ms. Ishmael falls into thought for a moment.
Once I let go of her arm, she finally seemed to make up her mind... and looked straight at Ahab.
"Yeah. I once wanted to become like you. I was... your mermaid. With your thoughts painted all over my body, I was swimming only for you, the enormous, mad whale that you were. If it hadn't been that way, I... wouldn't have had the confidence to live in this reality. That I'd been drifting without purpose. That I lost everyone precious to me. That I was the only one who survived. That I ended up killing even the ones I barely got back with my own hands... I could only endure by blaming everything on you."
Ms. Ishmael pours out everything she's been feeling.
As if she'd been waiting for this moment, violently.
"Even before I saw that recruitment notice, after I got on the ship... even after I joined Limbus Company... I never once sailed while holding my own wheel. But... I think I've finally found my compass."
"A captain, and yet you're talking about your own compass?"
"You'll keep blocking my way and being a nuisance, but... my compass still points, even while shaking, toward where I want to go. So I want to adventure with that compass. A true adventure, one that seeks to understand the world. With my friend... who looks straight at me."
As she says the last line, Ms. Ishmael turns to look at me.
...Friend, huh. That's a little embarrassing.
"But the bloodstained path I've rowed until now is also my course... I'll live while accepting all of it too. That's the reason I have to keep you alive, and the sailing style I found for myself."
"Wh, what..."
Ms. Ishmael's E.G.O, her heart firmly made up, resonates with the Golden Bough.
The scenery transformed through the Golden Bough is... the sea at sunset.
I was aboard a ship that seemed to be steered by Ms. Ishmael.
Ms. Ishmael stood there, gripping her harpoon firmly...
And hurled it, not at Ahab, but at the heart of the pale whale.
"The ship I'm steering is going to shake a bit, so everyone hold on tight!!"
- Huuuuung─── KWAK─!!
Ms. Ishmael's harpoon strikes true, dead center where the Golden Bough lies in the whale's heart.
And then... she begins to pull hard on the line attached to the harpoon.
Should I... help a little?
When I lightly take hold of the line, for some reason I feel as if someone other than Ms. Ishmael and me is also pulling on it.
...Mr. Queequeg?
"I'm wishing for it. The direction I want to go."
Mr. Queequeg's strong will is reacting to the Golden Bough!
I read the exact timing. The moment Ms. Ishmael's strength and Mr. Queequeg's strength overlap.
At that precise moment... I add a little force too and pull.
- Kuduk, kududududuk...!
It's being torn away. The whale's heart.
The pale whale's heart, with one side of its flesh completely ripped open, pours out blood in torrents, showing beyond doubt that it has died.
"You... what did you do..."
"Hah, look closely. See whether you and I still resemble each other."
"Why... why...!!!!"
Once Ms. Ishmael delivers the whale's death herself, Ahab begins to wail as if the sky had collapsed.
"You should have stabbed me! That harpoon should have been aimed at me! Why! Why did you!! Why!!!!"
Right after her scream, Ahab seems to go completely insane and starts shouting bizarre orders.
"Ugh, uuu...! We have to find the pale whale! Everyone! Open your eyes wide! Shout!! Harpooner! Tie the harpoon down tight! Helmsman!! Turn the ship! First mate, raise the sails! Row! Toward the pale whale that spews out all the evil in the world...!! My sailors! Set sail...! Set sail...!!!"
Ahab's cries scatter into the void.
The harpooner, the helmsman, the first mate, all her sailors—she had thrown them all into the jaws of death with her own hands.
"I'll watch you live. You're proof of my wandering. My witness to sin, for resisting endlessly without being devoured. My whale."
"No, don't look down on me like that! I am Ahab...! I am...!!!!"
From the whale's smallest heart to its largest, white blood bursts out in chains.
The sight looks almost like... every sailor on the Pequod is raising a cup in victory one by one... so I lift a hand too.
This is the end of the voyage they wanted.
The pale whale was slain, and Ahab fell.
Well, naturally enough, the path didn't open. I knew that was a lie.
Then we'd better escape. A little late, the clock turns back.
With the sensation of my right arm returning, all the prisoners begin to revive.
Though "revive" is generous, since the only one who actually died was poor Mr. Heathcliff, who met an unlucky end.
"Ugh... what. Is it over?"
"Yes. We killed the pale whale, and we beat Ahab too."
"Then where's the path? It's collapsing!"
"Don't tell me, if you blow up the heart, you can get out too..."
"That'd be a lie, I guess."
Sinclair's face goes pale at my answer.
Though there's probably no need to worry that much. Reinforcements will likely arrive before it sinks.
"No, it isn't a lie. We can get out."
"You didn't say we could get out with our lives intact. Obvious~ so obvious~"
...That's how you connect it?
Ms. Otis... I guess being the sort of person who leads by incitement means there's some overlap there.
"So, what now? Manager. Got any bright ideas?"
Just as the prisoners fall into thought, a huge rope drops down from above as the flesh tears open.
"...!"
"That's not important, let's climb!"
Starting with Ms. Rodion, who said that, the prisoners begin climbing one by one.
As time passes, even Mr. Dante is carried up on Mr. Meursault's back, and the only ones not hanging from the rope until the end are me and Ms. Ishmael.
Mr. Heathcliff glances at me and Ms. Ishmael for a moment, then seems to decide his job here is done and climbs up first.
Leaving behind something like, Take care of it, or maybe something equally incomprehensible... no, honestly, something I think I understand.
He probably knew a lot about Ms. Ishmael too. They'd collided so often.
"Aren't you getting on?"
"...I was thinking. This rope... somehow feels like it won't break."
"You should have... killed me... It should have been me who killed this whale..."
"You're leaving that there, right?"
"Yes. Let's leave her to enjoy this collapsing place to her heart's content. A captain has to stay there until the ship sinks."
After saying that, Ms. Ishmael starts toward the rope.
I was about to climb it too when... suddenly, I felt a trickle of blood running from my nose.
"Ah..."
My strength leaves me. Come to think of it, I'd been keeping my eyes active nonstop for nearly six hours. And I hadn't even taken proper rest after the earlier big burst of use.
And at the end, I'd been using them at maximum output for dozens of minutes, so the burden on my body...
I can't... take it...
"...Saramago?!"
Ms. Ishmael's startled voice comes into view as she runs toward me, blurred.
"I... need you to..."
"───!"
My strengthless body feels like it's being supported by something.
Ah. So I can... rest a little...
*
When I opened my eyes again, I was in a bus seat.
But not my seat... I was in the seat next to Ms. Ishmael, with my face resting against her shoulder.
"...You're awake?"
"How long was I asleep?"
"Not long. Haa... Do you know how shocked I was when you suddenly collapsed?"
"Sorry. I... pushed myself too hard."
Ms. Ishmael's hand brushes my forehead.
For anyone else watching, this would probably be an extremely embarrassing situation.
"Where is everyone else?"
"On deck. Do you want to go?"
"If possible...? But my body..."
"Here, I'll support you. Lean on me."
Leaning on Ms. Ishmael's body as we go to the deck, all the prisoners who hadn't been visible inside were... staring straight this way.
"Mm~? That was hot, you two?"
"Nonsense..."
Ah, damn it. I don't even have the strength to answer Ms. Rodion. Maybe I should've held back a little.
The others are looking at us with unsettling expressions too. It's not like that. It's not, anyway.
That much I could ignore, but the one that really damaged my mental state was Mr. Vergilius's comment.
"I don't forbid workplace romance, but... I'd appreciate it if you'd refrain from physical contact during work hours. It isn't a pleasant sight."
"Y-you...!"
He's messing with me. No, pinching me over physical contact of all things is definitely messing with me! There's no way that man doesn't know how bad my condition is!
I trembled, but there was nothing I could do.
...But Ms. Ishmael. You're not denying it? Why are you so calm?
"Time is nearly up. The waves will probably crash in soon."
"Already? Saramago... that sounds a little stiff. Can I use a nickname?"
...Hey, hasn't the distance between us shrunk a little too much? I mean, I guess it makes sense.
"...Sure, I guess."
"Then Sara. Are you okay? The waves."
"I'm not... dying or anything. I just can't really join the fight properly."
"Pfft. Then... shall we try facing it this time? You're ready, right, Dante?"
"Hah, you still don't get it? No matter how skilled you are at steering a ship... the most important thing is... telling us the right direction. And as the first mate of this ship, I'll trust the direction you give us and go with it. So... that means you're my captain right now. Someday, when I set out on my own adventure, I'll tie my little boat to you and Limbus Company's big ship and follow along. I'm really curious what's at the end of this voyage."
After finishing her long speech, Ms. Ishmael, for some reason, brushed my forehead again and swept my hair to the side.
"...And now, I don't have any friends except you guys."
"But while I trust the captain's resolve and orders, I'll also keep doubting them, questioning them, and turning them over in my mind. So that if my compass ever stops matching yours, I can leave on my own ship whenever I want. Never again. So I won't be devoured, and I won't lose myself."
Please don't look at me with that subtle expression while saying that. It's too much pressure.
Those people are all just full of plans to tease me later. Even Dante's clock hands are trembling like they want to tease me!!
While I was still flustered, a huge wave rolled in from far away.
Ah... big. Not that I'm the one dealing with it, so whatever.
"Heh."
The people handling it are confident too, so I guess it's fine.
When facing a wave, taking the wheel is essential.
The prisoners returned inside the ship for now. For some reason, I was still sitting next to Ms. Ishmael's seat.
...Why? Wasn't this clearly Mr. Meursault's seat?
"Fifteen seconds until contact with the wave. Take the wheel, seal... no. First mate, Ishmael."
"You sure do talk a lot for someone who isn't even the captain, Ms. Otis."
"Sorry to ruin the mood, but. Charon's taking the wheel. Everyone grab a handhold."
"Khhm..."
"Haa..."
Ah, that's a sigh like Ms. Ishmael's. That helpless sigh. It feels nice, like she's back to normal.
Outside, the waves undulate.
The waves come with the wind... and the wind makes Ms. Ishmael's sunset-colored hair flutter.
"...Ms. Ishmael."
"No. That's not right. Please call me Ishmael, Sara."
For some reason, I feel like I've been getting pushed around by Ms. Ishmael ever since a while ago.
It's not just that I'm the only one getting teased; she's also been sticking to me in this weirdly casual way.
So...
"...Ishmael."
"Yes, what is it?"
"Your hair is pretty. It's like sunset."
"Eep...?!"
I got her back. Heh...
With my dazed mind, the sunset gradually begins to fade.
The wind brushing against my skin feels especially cool today.
Today might have been the most satisfying day I've had since getting on the bus.
The world felt almost dreamlike... and I fell asleep in Ms. Ishmael's arms.
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