Part 84: Silent Sky

Part 84 - Silent Sky





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The instant I heard that voice.




OST: Find the blue (Vocal)



The sloppily stirred-up world gathered together all at once.

The chaos collected, forming my Di-Sword.

I returned to the shape I held as me.

The world returned to the shape it held as the world.





My body had healed.

My upper and lower halves were connected.

I stood on my own feet.

The pain had utterly disappeared.

My heart was calm and still.

"You did well to overcome the delusions."
"I entrust the last of my power to you."

I recognized Rimi's form at the corner of my eye.

She was unhurt. She was looking at me. She was crying.

Don't cry.

I tensed the hand with which I held my Di-Sword's hilt.

I tested the sensation of it. My arms moved properly. I'd completely come back to life.

"This is.... truly fascinating."
"You.... monstrosity....!"

I fixed my eyes on Norose.



In order to rescue Rimi. In order to destroy Noah II.






He had yet to take Nishijou Takumi's CODE sample.

Norose had meant to drive him into a corner via delusionary psychological attacks, but instead, he himself had been made to trip up.

He couldn't afford to forgive that.





He sliced Takumi across the chest. With his Di-Sword, which severed all manner of things.

The target's hardness made no difference. Cutting down a mere human being was as simple as cutting through jelly.



His head and his right arm, his right shoulder, slid apart. With a slithering noise.




Takumi's lower body was on the verge of collapse. He started bracing his legs.

He'd braced his legs.

The next instant, waves beat across the severed surface of the wound. It squirmed.




Unhurt. Unaffected.

His body, which had been cut down merely a second ago, had already brought into being a new neck, a new right hand and shoulder. His old head and intestines remained where they had slipped and fallen.

"I blocked off my sense of pain."

Takumi took a step closer to Norose.

Norose clicked his tongue. He turned his Di-Sword around.

"You cast aside your fleshly shape--"
"Therefore, you can take any earthly form."
"It's thanks to the delusion you showed me."

Being unable to maintain his shape as a human being-- Takumi had co-opted that delusion and made it his own.

This wasn't regeneration. It was replenishment.

As for his lost body parts: Out of the dust infinitely multiplying from within him, Takumi once again produced flesh and bones. He replenished himself.



That was the reason Takumi had called himself a monster.

Takumi's feet took another step toward Norose.

Norose's irritation increased. Clenching the grip of his Di-Sword, he lunged at the approaching Takumi. Catching Takumi's head in what resembled a giant pair of scissors.






He lost everything above the neck. Even then, Takumi's body continued forward.

Regeneration--replenishment--happened in a second.

When his heel, which had been stepping forward, touched the floor.

It was though nothing had happened.

As though he had been wholly replaced.

His head was there without a single scratch on it.



Physical attacks with his Di-Sword would have no effect.

Takumi had co-opted the delusionary attacks that denied his very reason for existence.

The current Nishijou Takumi was

All too abnormal as a human.

All too warped as an existence.

All too appropriate as a monster.

Even so, Norose couldn't bring himself to withdraw.



Every kind of existence would transform to negative matter when confronted by antiparticles, thereby arriving at self-collapse.

If it were impossible to destroy him with outside attacks. Then one simply had to make him crumble from within.

"True enough."

OST End

Takumi had read Norose's thoughts.

"Wha....!"



Black flames enveloped his sword. Growling. Lengthening.





OST: Last Battle



As though licking the roof and the floor. As though scraping away at them.

It ate and ate.




It forced everything it touched to undergo self-collapse.

Such an avaricious stream of destruction.

"I don't really care much for tentacle games, though."

Standing there, Takumi held his Di-Sword. Its point was fixed in Norose's direction.

The black snake, which had been coiled up, lashed its body out like a whip. Its jaws snapped at Norose.

"To think you could do this much....!"

Norose had never before witnessed such a phenomenon coming from a Di-Sword.

He couldn't determine whether this was a hidden power belonging to Gigalomaniacs, or part of Takumi's delusion.



So sluggishly. Like a frog gradually dissolving inside a snake's belly.

He was being swallowed by darkness.

He felt no pain. Normally, this would have led to his death in an instant.

But that wasn't what Takumi wished for. Realizing this, Norose twisted his lips self-disparagingly.

Norose had no dread of death. It would be fair to say that the ideals he aimed for had been achieved together with the completion of Noah II.



"It's a perpetual motion machine."
"It will continue to monitor humanity for all eternity."
"A man-made god, one that will intervene for the sake of human happiness, rather than simply sitting there and watching."

Norose was, so to speak, God's creator. As long as Noah II remained in existence, humanity would be indestructible. The eternal utopia Norose had desired would become a reality.

However--

"You can approach it, can't you?"
"Wh.... at....?"

The snake that held Norose undulated its body. Raising him higher.

"Then you're the key."




What did Rimi feel as she looked at him? It would have been a simple matter to read her heart. But Takumi didn't do it.

--It seems like I've been able to save you.



His gaze moved to the still-buzzing Noah II. A deity's inapproachable throne. A cradle for the display of happy dreams.

"Sorry."

He apologized to no one in particular.

"I might be an enemy of the human race."

The endless utopia this device would bring about.

A future without war.

Takumi was going to nip it in the bud with his own two hands.

He couldn't provide the answer as to whether that was right or wrong.

"But it happens a lot in legends."
"Even gods slack off when they get tangled up with women."
"So I, too--"

Will sacrifice the happiness of all humanity for the sake of the girl I love--

Holding his Di-Sword Takumi drew his arms far back, almost in the shape of a bow.




As its tip bit into Norose, its bait, it went to Noah II.

A massive spear of antiparticles, capable of annihilating anything.

It had no will of its own. Therefore, nothing about it could be warped.




OST End





Norose and the anti-particles are thrust into Noah II, and upon contact mutual annihilation results.







SFX: The sound of a gentle rain makes itself known.



A violent explosion had taken place.

The blast from it had sent me flying away as easily as some old rag.

Before I knew it, I was here.

Those eyes are always watching me.

The stare pierces through the rain clouds coated in pitch black.

It pours down on me like the rain.




But, it's more the cold rubble I'm sitting on than the chill of the rain.

It's horribly cold......

An anonymous gaze from the heavens pierces me.

As if to escape it, I raise my head ever so slightly, surveying my surroundings.




No one is here.

No one is moving.

No one is alive.

All I can hear is the sound of the rain, continuing to fall.

If everything remains this way, both alive and dead, will it all be gently enveloped and washed away?




The action is involuntary.

I don't want to shiver like this.

If I can't move it freely, then it isn't my body.

It's as if I was never born with my own free will.

No one knows where it is the soul is kept.

Despite that, how can anyone say for sure that my soul is inside my body?

But.

If that's the case, then where am I?

Am I here?

Am I nowhere?

SFX: The sound of footsteps on the rubble is heard.



The source comes floating out of the midst of nothingness.




Is it because you're frozen from the coldness of the rain?

Or because you're already dead?

But, she isn't trembling.

And those eyes, almost hidden by her bangs.




If-

If she and I are the only ones in the world, if we continue gazing solely at each other like this for the rest of eternity-

Would my world be reduced to what her eyes reflect?

Would her world be reduced to what my eyes reflect?

I am what's reflected in her eyes. She is what's reflected in mine. When I think about it that way, the world instantly becomes much smaller.




She hangs her head and spreads her arms apart-

It's like she is trying to take off and fly away, taking aim above the clouds.

Or it's as if she were to catch all of the rain.





What kind of face are you making beyond that thin film of rain......?







Those feathers of light that dance wildly... are they giving me a blessing? Or maybe......







She'll use "that" to kill me-



Even now, her head remains lowered.

She softly reaches to embrace my head.

Relieved that she isn't looking at me, I simply surrender my body to her.





A whisper near my ear. A beautiful noise.

"I'm sorry...... I'm so sorry......"

There's nothing to apologize for.

If I don't disappear, the other me, the real me, will die.

So I'm fine with this.





A warm, soft, tender, and sweet sensation.

Much like anesthesia--

And mysteriously, my trembling gradually calms down. Her faint breaths tickle my cheek. A very sweet scent.



The great sword she carries is tearing through the skin of my chest, boring into my flesh, threading between my bones, and steadily sinking its way into my body.

Yet, numbed by the anesthesia of her kiss, I no longer feel any pain.





OST: Pity





And so we reach Ending A, titled 'Silent Sky' in the NoAH release. Unfortunately, everyone got all the questions right, bar one. Come back next time, for the True Ending to Chaos;Head.