Editing Kami-sama no Inai Nichiyoubi:Volume6 Chapter2 (section)

===Part VI===
&nbsp;

The sun had long since set, and before her was a towering, black, deformed wall.

What was he planning?

She had to find out.

&nbsp;

Ai hid right beneath the wall, waited for the searchlight  to pass as she looked up at Madame before her..

With her feet on the ground, Madame had transformed herself into a fortress. her tall walls opened with countless embrasures, various kinds of firearms she had never seen before scanning the streets below. Madame was still growing, flattening the abandoned buildings around her and transforming them into her own body.

Ai measured the distance between the searchlights and leapt into the gap. With a triangular leap, she kicked up the wall and crept into a small side hole where the wind was blowing incessantly.

It seemed Madame's fortress was designed to resemble a human body. The courthouse was the heart. The watchtowers were the eyes. The walls were the abdomen and the floor was the feet. There were many exceptions, but that seemed to be the general structure.

In that case, she was probably inside the windpipe.

<i>Haa!</i> With one hand, she caught the ventilation fan that was spinning at high speed and snuck in through the gap. She did not bring her shovel, did not wear her Gravekeeper outfit, and was wearing the same shirt and skirt she wore during the day.

<i>Gong, gong, gong.</i> And behind her, the huge ventilation fan was whirring.

She could tell the building resembled a human body. However, this information would not help her to find Alice. Ai could not imagine a place that resembled a prison within a human body.

"…Maybe I should look for someone who might know?"

She found it.

Ai hid in the ventilation shaft and listened to the humming that approached.

One, two, three!

She removed the wire mesh, jumped down the aisle, went behind her opponent and twisted his arm. That was all Ai could do without the other person noticing.

But it was nothing to be proud of.

"Eh? That's weird, I can't move forward."

Surprisingly, the man was still unaware of his predicament.

"Please be quiet."

Ai whispered into the man's ear, enduring the alcohol stench.

"Please take me to Mr. Alice. I won't hurt you."

The man turned around with hazy eyes and finally saw Ai in his sights.

Shaun Sullivan was clearly drunk.

"………Ugh."

"If you throw up on my back, I'll throw you out of the window."

"…Don't worry, I don't have anything left to throw up…"

After that, Shaun suddenly started to vomit, and Ai carried him down the inside of Madame's body. The infiltration was completely different from what she had originally imagined with the involvement of a hostage. The current situation was, to put it mildly, that of a drunken father's caregiver.

"There…right …"

Shaun led the way with a few words. He was surprisingly obedient.

"You're not trying to trick me with…are you?"

"Why would I?"

Vomiting, Shaun pulled out another bottle of liquor out of nowhere and tried to put it at his mouth.

"Hey!"

"Ah, wait, give it back."

"—I thought you lost them all. Where did you hide it…"

"Arrrghhh, my drink!"

Putting down the bottle of liquor she had snatched, Ai went down the aisle.

"And yet. Hic."

Shaun said, flailing his feet like a child.

"You're a brave girl, walking into a monster like this all by yourself."

"…Sorta."

"I heard you’re half Gravekeeper, half human? I see~but well~that was amazing. I didn't even notice when you took my back...hic"

It really was not something for Ai to be proud of, for any normal kid could have pulled it off.

"But well, I’m really jealous of that guy Alice. He even got a little girl like you come to his rescue."

"……"

"No no no, it's youth. I had a time like that too....hic"

Ai did not understand what Shaun was thinking. Even after she questioned him as to where Alice's prison was, he just complied, and Ai could not smell any decit.

"You seem curious. little girl. Is it because I don't resist?"

"… Yeah."

"No, you can't ask for that from a drunk, when the reason is that there’s no reason! Fufu~"

"I’m an idiot for asking you seriously…"

"Eh, little Ai, you are stupid? Woah…poor you…cheer up, will you?"

"Hmph!"

"Ow! Wait, little Ai! Why are you headbutting me!? Be nice to an uncle and a drunk! And double for me when I’m both!"

"…Please be quiet. You're a hostage, after all."

"Hmm? Are you worried about the old lady? Don’t worry. She's sleeping."

"…Is that so?"

The dead did not need to sleep, but some of them still did. They could not forget their habits from before they died, and they sleep as a tranquilizer.

The dead who sleep were usually bound by the common sense of the past, so it was a little surprising to Ai that Madame, who was so deformed, could sleep.

"Is it that unexpected for a seventy year old old hag to sleep early and wake up early—hic."

She had been hearing lots of intermittent important information, which troubled her, but she continued to move on. She was curious as to what the relationship of Shaun and Madame were, why they were doing this.

—If it had been the old her, she would have prodded the matter and asked thoroughly.

But the current Ai had no such intentions. All she wanted to do was to go to Alice. That was when she resolved herself again.

"Ah, there there, that door. You can put me down now. …"

<i>Oopsies, </i>Shaun hopped off and pointed to the door before him.

—There was Alice on the other side.

"Phew, thanks. You helped me out.."

Shaun opened the door. Ai, who was not ready yet, involuntarily braced herself.

But what she found was not a prison.

It was like a child's room. Brightly colored wallpaper, lots of toys, twirling decorations on the ceiling, and a fluffy carpet on the ground.

Shaun strode into the room and lay down on a pile of cushions.

"Thank you for your hard work~"

"What…is this place?"

"My room. Sorry for lying to you, I'm sorry I tricked you, but it's not a trap, I just wanted you to carry me, so don't worry."

Ai was more confused than fooled. Was this childish looking room Shaun's? it was no longer an issue of whether it was suitable for him.

Ai really wanted to ask him. About the significance of this room, their relationship, and what Shaun was thinking.

But,

"If you want to see Alice, just keep going up."

Shaun said as he sank into a small pile of cushions.

"……Okay."

"Here's the key. If you don't use it properly, you'll wake up the old lady, so be careful."

"…Thanks."

"Well, take care, little Ai. I wish you all the best."

"…You—"

—You want to let us escape?

Ai retracted her question at the last moment.

"What?"

"Nothing…don't drink too much…"

"……Yeah."

After hearing his strangely honest reply, Ai left the room.

&nbsp;
<p style="text-align: center;">+</p>
&nbsp;

……What should she ask?

It was as Shaun said. After leaving the children's room, Ai climbed up the common iliac vein from the uterine vein, showed the key to the BBB gatekeeper, and kept going up to the top until she finally found the prison.

The prison was located at the head.

The accused, Alice, was trapped in a place where a human body would have a brain.

"You should at least knock when you go into someone's room."

"…I’m not in though."

She really would find it difficult to call it a room. It was a real prison, the floor and ceiling were made of stone, taut iron bars, and a crude straw bed. Alice sat there, his eyes closed as his back faced the moon.

"Why is…this place in the head…?"

"Heh, you noticed. Not bad. Why then? Well, if we’re using the human anatomy for comparison, you can say that the skullcap is a prisoner, but then there’ll be questions as to whether the brain is the prisoner—"

"Wait, wait, please wait—please ignore what I said…there’s no need to talk about that now."

Ai stopped Alice's speech, holding her forehead. Why was this thing in the brain—she decided to forget this question for the time being.

"What are you planning?"

She grabbed the bars.

"Why did you plead guilty back then?"

"……"

"Please answer me!"

Alice looked at the moon above him and said something completely unrelated.

"It's quite a smart move, isn't it?"

He did not look at Ai.

"At least a moon for a prisoner who doesn't know what tomorrow holds. Nice prison."

"Mr. Alice!"

"I've been locked in a lot of places, and I can tell you this. The best place to hear the bugs and see the moon is in a jail cell."

"Mr. Alice! Please look at me!"

Slowly, Alice turned his head to look at Ai.

"What were you thinking? Please answer me!"

"I can't."

"Y-you can't!?"

He did not deny it, he said it was impossible.

"—Ar-Are you telling me that someone is keeping you silent? That has to be the case, right!?"

"No."

"Then why?"

"Because I decided not to talk."

Saying that, Alice looked at Ai with his pitch black eyes.

It was...

<i>It might be impossible, </i>Ai thought.

She felt that since Alice had resolved himself, he probably would not change his mind again.

Her knees buckled, and she sat down, clutching at the bars. The words caused her to turn limp.

"…You've changed."

Alice's expression resembled that of someone who had seen a horse with a broken leg.

"I thought you were someone who would go all ‘so what’ even in the face of the impossible…"

He was right.

He was supposed to be right.

The old her would not have believed Alice’s words, and would force him to say it out, or even drag him out of his jail cell…even if it was impossible, she would run off, firmly believing that she could…

But her heart refused to run.

[[Image:Kamisama v06 Illustration 07.jpg|thumb]]

"I don't know anymore…"

She thought she was going to cry.

But no tears flowed.

She could cry at Alice's grave. However, she could not cry in front of Alice, who was still alive.

She truly was a horrible creature.

"I don't know…anymore. I don't know how I've been living till now. . I don't know how I’ve been dreaming, how I’ve been breathing, walking , running… everything, everything…I don’t understand everything at all…"

"……"

"It's like I'm a bubble…my soul is gone somewhere…my heart isn’t here…I've searched and searched…but I can't find it—say, Mr. Alice?"

Ai asked.

&nbsp;

"Have you seen my heart?"

&nbsp;

A long sigh drew a white cloud in the prison cell.

"…Is your dream such a big deal…?"

As the moonlight slid down Alice's cheek, Ai wondered if her lost tears had been there.

"So how are you going to live from now on? …"

Alice covered his face with his hands, as a person trapped in despair would do.

"I don't know…about that…"

She was asked again.

So what are you going to do?

How are you going to live?

What will you be doing next year, next month, next week, tomorrow?

(How are you going to live?)

Someone once asked her so. He knew that Ai found the false goal of being a Gravekeeper as her guide, and kicked her all over, wanting her to give up her dream of being a Gravekeeper.

Ai suddenly and unexpectedly realized why Hampnie Hambart did that.

‘This’ was what Hampnie Hambart wanted to do. He wanted to kick, punch, and break her dreams so that she would become a ‘normal person’.

Something like that.

It was a much kinder fate compared to this predicament..

"Do normal people…get happiness? Do they live in a world like this? Do they not think anything of this world they live in, where it’s so harsh, it’s impossible to breathe…"

"……"

"What about you…Mr. Alice? How do you…live in this world when you have lost your dreams…like me?"

Alice remained silent in the same position until the moon disappeared.

"…Ai."

"Yes…."

"Go back…now, I'm not going to say anything."

Alice said.

Ai obeyed him.

Because she did not have the heart to.

She had no choice.

&nbsp;