Editing Apocalypse Witch:Volume3 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 6===

Karuta groaned.

His throat moved against his will. The back of his mind was full of noise and he could not stop the scream that was threatening to explode in his chest.

His trembling hand was already moving, but not to cover his mouth.

It was moving toward his Crystal Blossom. His mind was focused on its communication function even though using it would mean death here.

“Sacri-sama.”

“Gh!?”

Aine kicked him in the back of the knees, his vision dropped straight down, and she pulled his head toward her flat chest while shoving him into a nearby classroom.

The heavy and damp sound coming from the hallway had to be one of the Threats. Aine pressed against the wall while sealing his mouth by holding his head to her flat chest while she also held the sword tight in her other hand.

It was all over if they were found.

But Aine’s pulse through her thin wet dress was as accurate as a grandfather clock’s pendulum. Her heartrate apparently did not rise due to tension. The sound out in the hallway was awfully sticky for black metal and it slowly moved toward them from the far end of the hallway.

Would they be safe in this empty classroom?

Of course not. The other side of the windows covered with metal panels were ''crawling'' with Threats shaped like wharf roaches and legged tadpoles. Those things produced a disturbing number of scratching sounds.

A crystalized girl’s leg had been on the floor in the hall.

There was no safe zone here. The normal assumptions had long since stopped applying.

They were isolated. Not only were none of their allies around, but they were about as surrounded by predators as it was possible to be. This was not a lonely isolation. It was the isolation of being behind enemy lines. Merely existing like this was enough to wear down the heart.

“I suggested they are not reliant on visual information, remember? As long as we keep the curtains closed, the windows will not be a problem. But we do not know how sturdy those metal panels are or if there are any gaps between them, so we must be on the lookout for any open space.”

However, Aine was worried about the hallway.

“We have less information on the hallway, so we cannot say how many methods they have to search us out or move around,” whispered the crystal girl. “The risk there is greater. The Threat may be scattering lubricant across the floor to assist their movement.”

“…”

“But leeches and slugs coat themselves in slime to prevent themselves from drying out in the air, so they generally actually want more friction with the ground in order to provide a more solid grip. …Sacri-sama?”

Karuta did not respond.

He could not stop trembling. Aine’s steady body heat did nothing to calm him. He was breathing heavily and a cold sweat poured from his body.

The crystal girl continued speaking with the boy’s head held to her flat chest.

“It appears the Threat in the hallway has gone elsewhere. There is no more danger as long as we do not provoke the ones outside the windows. Do not worry. None of them appear to have noticed us.”

No, that was not the source of his fear. His own life did not matter.

Something else was filling his mind.

He moved his trembling lips as he clung to the crystal girl’s chest.

“That was a girl’s leg.” He wanted to reject that fact, but he could find no way of doing so. “But whose? That’s obvious. There aren’t all that many Crystal Magicians on Second Grimnoah now that the Threat has taken over. So…so that had to be…”

“Sacri-sama.”

“''There’s not some rule that says Marika will always make it out okay.'' When people die, they really do just die. That’s the kind of shitty world we live in.”

“Sacri-sama.”

She repeated herself more strongly as if to cut him off.

“That was a human right leg. Based on the shape, it likely belonged to a girl.”

“Kh.”

“But on the other hand, we only found the leg there.”

“So?”

He looked up while still pathetically clinging to her.

Their lips were only a few centimeters apart as he squeezed out a desperate voice like a baby bird asking for food.

“The rest of the body might have been smashed to pieces by the jaws of a Threat the size of construction machinery.”

“That is not my point.”

Aine stroked the back of his head while holding him to her flat chest. She was a head shorter than him, but she looked like a mother soothing a small child.

“There was no sock, shoe, skirt, or underwear crystallized along with the leg, was there?”

“Oh.”

She was a part of him, but she had pointed out something he had failed to realize himself.

He had never known how much it could help to talk something out with someone else.

“Crystal Magic regeneration is generally made to heal wounds, but when the magician receives a fatal wound and their full body crystallizes, their clothing and other possessions are solidified along with them.”

“So…so that means Marika isn’t dead yet? That wasn’t the leg of a corpse – it was the regeneration working on a living person? Please, Aine, tell me I’m right about this!”

“It means whoever it was still lived when their leg was cut off. They could always have received a separate fatal wound afterwards.”

“…”

“Since her group has been attacked by the Threat, we should assume Miss Marika’s attempt to remain hidden has failed. We should assume they remain in an extremely dangerous position.”

Aine was as blunt as ever.

Maybe because she was not influenced by emotion and maybe because she had been born only for combat.

Karuta removed his face from her flat chest and looked up at the empty classroom’s ceiling.

“Pwah. You said they had been found by the Threat, but I don’t hear any fighting.”

“The situation is unknown, but the Threat may have a reason to capture them without killing them. Or the Threat disseminated a knockout gas to hinder their movements, but Miss Marika’s group escaped before it took effect and passed out in a blind spot of theirs.”

“We have no proof of that.”

“Of course not. The above two possibilities were biased toward your own hopes. Since there is no sign of combat, the most reasonable assumption is that ''the battle is already over.''”

That did not change what Karuta and Aine had to do. They could only search for his childhood friend using the handprints that glowed when exposed to a laser.

That was a signal from the past, not one arriving in real time. No matter how much hope they placed in it, it was always possible the person who had left it was already dead.

“…”

“Sacri-sama?”

Just then, Karuta came to a stop in the middle of the hallway. He stood completely still and stared at a single point even when Aine spoke to him.

The hallway was dark, but he could see a slender and faintly glowing hand sticking out from around the corner. When it noticed his gaze, it waved a few times as if beckoning him over and then pulled back around the corner.

“Sacri-sama.”

The boy swayed weakly side to side.

It was like a moth trap that used a moth’s tendency to gather around light, like a lure that convinced a fish to take a nibble, or like an attractant that led an ant to eat deadly food. A third party might never understand, but for the target, it was like being externally controlled by the pull of a lever.

The slender girl’s hand did not lure him in just the once.

When he turned the corner, he saw it around the next one. Or on the stairs. The hand sometimes extended from an unnatural location. On the stairs, it stuck straight down from the ceiling.

Even Karuta was vaguely aware that ''this'' was not a normal human.

But what did that change? He had to check and see what ''this'' wanted to show him.

It did not lead him to some special room.

It was an ordinary hallway in the middle school building. Just a long stretch of cold floor. He heard a quiet breath of laughter from the center of it.

A naked girl stood casually in the center of the hallway. She looked to be about 13 or 14. The Threat covered the ship’s exterior and the windows were covered by metal panels, so no one could tell what color this region of death had originally been. This girl seemed terribly out of place here, yet here she was. Her undeveloped and skinny body was faintly glowing and showed no sign of any sort of injury.

There was no wind, but her blue hair was fluttering as she beckoned to him.

She was smiling ever so gently.

At her feet…or where her feet ''would have'' been, her legs combined like a mermaid’s and tapered down to a single thin thread that attached to the floor. Something was scattered across the cold floor directly below her.

Utagai Karuta slowly lowered his gaze.

And he realized what ''this'' was trying to show him.

There were arms and there were legs.

:::They were connected to what looked like a torso.

But none of it had any color.

:::::::Because it was all made of translucent crystal.

::::There was no hint of a rusty smell at this sharp and cold scene of carnage that only looked like a piece of glassware had been smashed against the floor.

:But when he looked to the smashed chest, ankles, and everything else…

::He could see they were clothed.

:It had all been crystalized at once. Which happened when a Crystal Magician died.

:::::::He could not tell at a glance how many bodies’ worth that was.

::::But it was clearly more than just one.

However, he did recognize one thing among the scattered remains.

Something round was lying there. It could perhaps be described as “small” at about the size of a melon. But when his everyday values gave meaning to that simple image and the unasked-for reality of the situation came rushing in at him, he felt sparks bursting in the back of his mind.

Utagai Karuta crumpled to the floor, picked up the translucent object, and screamed.

It was the head of a girl with one of the curly twintails broken off.

It was Amaashi Marika.