Editing Rakuin no Monshou:Volume6 Chapter7 (section)

=== Part 3 ===

“Y-You.”

A broken-sounding voice escaped from Orba’s mouth.

Oubary Bilan.

When his brother Roan had left as a soldier for Apta, he was man who had let him die. He was the man who had then burned the village that Orba and the others had taken refuge in.

He should already be dead. Orba had not landed the death blow when he caught that hated enemy in a trap but had successfully pinned the blame on him or the Crown Prince’s assassination. He had believed that he should already have been executed.

But that man was now approaching him, his whole face covered with soot.

“Impostor.” Oubary opened his burned, festering lips and spoke. “A fraud posing as the crown prince. Why did I have to be killed by the likes of you?”

“Why, why!” Orba screamed. His body was still being restrained by Roan and Alice. As Oubary drew closer, Orba’s eyes were filled with murder. “You should know why. You brought it all on yourself. Isn’t that right!”

“No,” Oubary pointed straight at Orba. As the finger was completely smashed, more than half of it dangled loosely. “You are not a noble lord. And yet you manoeuvred a great many people and killed a great many people. That is a privilege allowed only to those who bear a duty. Even though your existence is not recognised by the populace, you brandished your fake authority merely for the sake of your own goals and of your own desires. And then you killed. And killed. And killed. And killed.”

Killed, and killed, and killed…

The gladiators echoed Oubary’s voice like a chorus. The frightful sound encircled Orba and overwhelmed his ears like the reverberations of a tolling bell inside a narrow bowl.

Perhaps so as not to lose to it, he shouted, “It’s because you killed. If you hadn’t, I wouldn’t have had to kill anyone!”

“No, no, no, no,” the pallid ghosts all shook their heads at the same time. “The one who killed Oubary was you. The one who killed Roan was also you. You were the one who cut down Alice and your mother and cast them into the flames. You who tossed duty aside from the start and wanted nothing but the privileges, you who murdered the innocent populace, who put branded slaves to the sword, who built a pile of corpses in your life.”

Oubary’s hand stretched out in the air. The crowd of hands of the gladiators followed it. And the hands of the soldiers.

Feeling as though his heart would stop, his field of vision filled completely with those hands, Orba watched as they approached towards him.

He was no longer able to tell if they were illusions or not. The voices of the dead had reawakened the pain concealed in the deepest part of his heart, exposed it and twisted it.

A scream like that of a child tore from his mouth.

The hands were approaching. The hands, the hands, the hands…

“Stop!”

He swung his sword wildly. From his haphazard swipes, you wouldn’t have thought that he was a master swordsman but, by chance, one of the approaching hands was sent flying.

At that,

“Will you kill?” Roan’s voice whispered in his ear. “You will kill, won’t you Orba? Those who get in your way, those who are inconvenient, all of them.”

“You’re wrong. You’re wrong, Brother. You’re wrong.”

“Then draw back your sword.” This time, Alice’s voice seemed to be pleading with him. “Don’t kill. We’ve always been waiting for you.”

''Right''. Behind the mask, tears spilled from Orba’s eyes. He didn’t want to hear anyone’s voice. He didn’t want Roan or Alice or his mother to condemn him. He had only been focused on revenge. Even while knowing that what was lost could never be regained. Even so, he had had no other purpose.

“Come, Orba.”

“It would be good if you were here.”

“You don’t need to be afraid or to hesitate anymore. We will gladly take your heart. And then, we can all be together for ever.”

“Come on, Orba.”

“Come on.”

Half stupefied, half in a sort of ecstasy, Orba looked up at the crowd of hands descending upon him. The strength had left his body and the tip of his sword also hung down.

And then, he was enveloped.

Innumerable fingers stroked his skin. Those fingers that he felt slowly crawl over his arms, legs, torso, back, groin, granted him the same feeling of relief as when he had been an infant, sleeping cradled in his mother’s arms.

''Right''.

All of his tension melted away into the darkness, his fervent heart was smoothed out under those fingers and seemed to disappear. The swarm of fingers reached the nape of his neck then crawled up towards his lips.

Orba was on the verge of abandoning himself to that soft sensation. In a corner of his mind, a voice echoed incessantly, warning him that if yielded now he would never be able to return to the real world, but now that voice, the voice of instinct, was merely an annoyance.

Behind the mask, his eyelids slowly started to drop. The sensations from his body were now far away.

Almost everything that made Orba, Orba was crushed and scattered under the onslaught from that black wave until finally, even his consciousness grew murky.



Meanwhile, Garda was right under Orba’s nose. He had neither concealed himself nor called forth a shadowy dimension. The darkness that had wrapped around Orba was no more than the shadows within his own heart.

No matter how great or noble a person might be, there was no one whose heart was entirely encased in impenetrable steel armour. Somewhere, there would definitely be a spot that was weak and soft and on the other side of which, everyone harboured shadows to a greater or lesser extent.

When Garda seized hold of someone’s heart, his first step was to amplify those shadows. If his purpose was merely to remove an opponent, there was no need to go beyond that. A person who was swallowed by their own darkness had their heart destroyed.

Garda smiled triumphantly at the swordsman who had dropped his weapon and fallen to his knees.

“Hmm,” he chuckled, “he might be usable.”

He was the man who had killed Kadyne’s sorcerer, who had gathered the routed soldiers together and had brought them to Eimen. And furthermore, he had after all chased Garda down all the way here. So once this battle was over, he intended to brainwash Orba and make him into one of his personal guards – in other words, into one of the black-clad swordsmen. Just as it had with the maidens he had kidnapped, it would take time for Garda to sift through his very memories and alter them himself.

“And so, you’re going to be in agony a little longer. I need to strike another blow against that western lot so that they don’t get carried away.”

When he once again gazed into the jewel within his bracelet, the state of the battle was changing. The soldiers glared at each other on the blood-soaked plain, unable to tell who was a friend and who was a foe.

There was still people engaging in combat but at some point the low moans from the wounded and the sound of the wind had grown greater than that of rough voices and shouts.

Garda focused his mind and closed his eyes.

Those on the battlefield did not notice that at that moment, the air carrier, after having disgorged its many soldiers, was visibly jerking and squirming, like a flying ant putting up its last resistance after having been crushed by a human hand. Garda had hit it with the ether that was swirling around the battlefield and had swatted it towards a group of soldiers who would probably soon make their way to Eimen, with the intention of dropping it on their heads. 

Whether they were allies or enemies no longer mattered to him. If he could ultimately weaken the enemy's chase and delay them, then that small bit of time would allow him to leave for Zer Illias by airship..

From that demonic capital, in which far greater stocks of ether were stored than here, he would ambush whatever few opponents remained. Naturally, that wasn’t what he had initially planned but given how things were turning out, he didn’t have any choice.

“It’s fine. Troops can easily be scraped together again. But since you defied Garda to this extent, know that you will never have another peaceful night. I will obliterate the western people and utterly drain your souls of ether.”

With both hands, he traced a complicated pattern in the air. The air carrier’s large frame undulated. A blaze seemed to burn within the ether-emitting engines.

Garda smiled broadly.

“Ah yes, Princess of Taúlia. Send me stronger ether. Open your heart to the point of being as one with me, then consecrate your all to me. Just a little more, just a little more and I will grant your wish.”

Thereupon, the mist rising from Esmena grew denser and the movements of the air carrier grew correspondingly fiercer. The jewel fragment in Garda’s brow turned a colour that was impossible to describe and emitted an ominous radiance. Sensing a strong surge of ether within his body, he laughed out loud.

“Yes, so that your beloved Gil Mephius will be revived!”



At the same moment, like wind blowing from far away, the name “Gil Mephius” brushed past Orba’s ears.
Suddenly opening his eyes wide, he became aware of the innumerable hands encircling him and of the innumerable faces surrounding him behind them. The dead who had been raised from his memories drifted in this space outlined by flames and dyed a grotesque colour, neither black nor white, as they smiled at him, cursed at him, spoke to him.

But amongst them, there was one who had its back to him.

''Who is that?''

Preoccupied by that person, Orba’s vanishing consciousness surfaced as though rising from the muddy depths of an ocean.

''Who are you?''

Orba called out repeatedly. As he did so, other faces and swarms of hands got in his way and prevented him from seeing, while the figure seemed so ephemeral that it looked like it might disappear in an instant. But –

''Ah!''

When the person glanced over his shoulder and turned his profile towards him, Orba’s re-surfacing accelerated.

“You’re…”

A pair of eyes looked out from a suntanned face. His build was somewhat on the small side for a fighter but he was extremely nimble and smoothly escaped whenever Orba seemed about to catch hold of him. Somehow, that figure was perfectly identical to the one Orba saw whenever he stood in front of a mirror, and so he called out a name.

“Gil Mephius.”

The man standing opposite him seemed to part his lips slightly. But not into a smile with any warmth. It was an unpleasant smile, one that made the recipient feel as though they had been hit by a wave of utter contempt and disdain.

“You, why are you here?”

For some reason, he felt extremely agitated. “He” should no longer be in this world. Meaning that it couldn’t be the real Gil Mephius. Orba had replaced him and, after struggling through numerous battles, he was supposed to have buried Crown Prince Gil with his own hands.

''Are you scorning me? Me, who even used innocent people and killed them?'' Orba wondered for a moment but then, the ghosts that had been about to bear down on him turned their hostility against Gil Mephius, even though he should be the same kind of phantom as they were.

Each of the dead bore the faces of soldiers from the opposing side of the battles that Orba had been in command of as Gil. There were Garberan knights, Mephian fighters who had risen in rebellion with Zaat Quark, Taúlian soldiers and warriors from Ende.

Faced with that vast number of ghosts, Gil again seemed identical to Orba in body and spirit. His blade flashed before Orba’s eyes, glittering red as it reflected the flames.

“Stop,” he almost said unintentionally. But Gil didn’t display the slightest hesitation as he cut them down one after another. The ghosts were careless and nowhere near good enough, and they seemed to jump up merely for the sake of being killed by Gil once again.

Heads whirled, limbs flew and as each one lost part of their body, they sagged in Orba’s direction.

“Stop, stop, stop.”

But even as he cried out –

''What is there to hesitate about?''

Orba heard a voice like his own within himself. Or rather, wasn’t it the voice of Gil Mephius’ phantom?

''I was the one who killed them. Whether I defeated them directly myself or whether they were killed by someone following my orders. Why should I need to hesitate about killing them again? After all, they can’t rest in peace unless they accept their own death''.

To Orba’s stupefaction, the thing that looked like Gil Mephius shook off the ghosts and as he watched, walked towards the flames that surrounded the area. He seemed to have chosen to commit suicide. But, just as Gil was about to step into the fire, the ghosts that he had cut down jerkily staggered up. Gil raised his hand as though giving an order to his subordinates and, looking like puppets hung from strings, they climbed on each other’s shoulders, joined hands and feet, then fell forward, creating an arched bridge that extended over the sea of flames.

Without hesitation, Gil firmly trod on the bridge formed by their backs and started to cross it.

“Wait!”

This time, Orba felt horribly afraid of being left behind by Gil Mephius and unthinkingly chased after him. Just like Gil, he was about to step on the ghosts’ backs when,

“Orba.” Roan’s voice called out once more. It wasn’t chasing him from behind however. It came from in front, from exactly the direction of the “bridge” that Orba was about to place a foot on.

“Hii,” he let out a strange voice. The ashen-skinned ghost whose arms and legs were intertwined in a complex pattern with those of other people was Roan himself.

“Where are you going, Orba?”

“Are you going to leave us and run away?” With Roan’s hand wrapped around her foot, Alice formed part of the bridge. Further beyond, he could see his mother and people that he recognised from the village.

“Orba wouldn’t do something like that. Isn’t that right?”

“Right. You’ll stay with us here forever. Since that’s your wish.”

Roan and Alice’s voices once more drew up from behind him so that Orba felt like he was being attacked from all sides by echoes that seemed layered one on top of the other.

Gil Mephius, who had reached the summit of the bridge’s arch, turned to look back at Orba who stood petrified with horror.

''You’re not coming?'' He asked with his eyes. He sneered. ''Are you afraid? That you will never meet these people again? What a complete idiot''.

“What!” As Orba bellowed reflexively, Gil smiled faintly and suddenly vanished. In his place, a voice was projected from far away.

''Lord Gil''.

Orba’s eyes widened in surprise. Now that Gil was gone, he could make out the end of the bridge. Something was flickering. At that one, single point, the surrounding darkness lifted slightly and what lay beyond it could just be seen.

Garda was there. And standing as though to block the way between him and Orba was Esmena. Perhaps by some trick of the ether, this time Orba could see the wave of magic power rising from her. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end at the sight of what looked like a giant hand tightening around Esmena’s delicate body, as though to squeeze every last drop of lifeblood from her.

Amidst that, she sobbed like a child, incessantly,

''Lord Gil, Lord Gil, Lord Gil''.

As her heart called the name of a man she had met no more than once or twice, the princess of Taúlia wept. The tears trailing down her cheeks were the colour of blood.

Orba gulped.

''I’m…''

He felt himself unable to move. It was different from when the ghosts’ hands had been holding him back. It felt as though rather than his arms and legs, something within him, a softer, less tempered part inside of him had been seized hold of.

In front of him, a bridge of corpses. Behind him, a crowd of ghosts drawing ever nearer.

For some reason, at that moment, Esmena’s anguished voice and figure overlapped with those of completely different people that he could perceive on the other side of the rising flames. He could see the figure of the mother who had died protecting her child when Kadyne was set ablaze. And mixed with Esmena’s cries, he could hear those of the young mother who had lost her child and who was clawing at the surface of the road.

The sound of swordfights shook his eardrums. It seemed to him that he was seeing actual images of his comrades and of the western soldiers who were still fighting.

The clammy heat of the flames licked his entire body. The beat in his chest pounded until his ears hurt.

Of course, even if he stretched out his hand, it wouldn’t reach Esmena. The wails and gasps of agony of the people and soldiers filled his ears and echoed directly inside him.

''To get to them'' – he had to step on the dead that now stretched out before him. He would have to shake off those he had lost and had never stopped longing for.

Orba understood. Why Gil Mephius had appeared among the semblances of the dead. His heart overflowed with emotions and desires that he hadn’t been able to grasp hold of since taking revenge on Oubary. And then –

Esmena’s hair now swayed platinum and the figure of a completely different girl was projected before him.

A girl with a strong gaze who steadfastly looked him straight in the eyes. Orba, who wore a mask of falsehood, had always fled from those eyes. Even now, the girl directed them right at him.

Orba lowered his head.

''I’m…''

But immediately raising his eyes, as though pulled towards that strong gaze, he trampled on the ghosts’ backs. Treading firmly on Roan’s head, stamping on Alice’s back, feeling the heat rising from the flames below, he raced across the bridge.

“Wait.”

The ghosts behind him simultaneously emitted hostility and crossed onto the bridge, stretching a crowd of hands towards him once more.

“Wait.”

“Wait, wait. Are you running away?”

“Wait, wait, wait. You’re leaving us behind. You’re banishing us. Are you planning on running away?”

''No'', as he looked back, Orba brandished his sword. As it hummed through the air, he cleaved at a single stroke through the swarm of pursuing hands and through the very shadows themselves.

He wasn’t a bystander this time. Orba swung his sword as an expression of his own intent.

''I’m not running away. Rather…''

Orba did not avert his gaze from the resentful eyes turned towards him, and even though the surrounding darkness had cleared away, he gave his body over to them.