Mushi:Vol6 Ragnarok 00

Ragnarok 00: Damaged hair of a place no one knows

It was the beginning of her two-hundred-and-seventy-fifth life.

Her ability was nothing compared to that of cats, who possess innumerable lives and could resurrect endlessly.

However, she kept going in a cycle between life and death. Her life kept going round and round, kept repeating over and over - over and over.

She could feel the pain in this cycle.

And she could also feel the joy.

But now she had forgotten everything.

"..."

After death descended on her for the two-hundred-and-seventy-fourth time, her two-hundred-and-seventy-fifth life had begun.

Her reconstructed body and her regained life were reinstated in this world.

“… Eternal Cycle, initiate.”

It was hard to tell whether the girl was a high schooler or a middle schooler, but she was definitely a teenager, not yet in her twenties. Her beautiful golden hair shone with a light that rivalled the sun, yet her red and insect-like eyes contained no signs of life within them. She gave out a subtle aura of incongruity, making it feel like she did not belong to the mortal world.

Nor was she dressed normally. She wore a tight priest’s robe, which gave her a severe appearance and restricted her physical movements at the same time. She was also wearing a clownish hat made of some hard material, and it looked like it would be painful to wear.

“…”

The girl moved slowly and absent-mindedly, fitting for her otherworldly appearance. She then suddenly lifted her head, and spoke with a hoarse, barking voice.

“… The two-hundred-and-seventy-fifth re-start is complete.”

She was inside the bounds of a school at night.

According to the stone plaque erected next to the school gates, she was in a place called ‘Kannonsakazaki Private High School’.

It was the middle of the night. Neither the stars nor the moon could be seen. The sky was covered in thick clouds and of course, no one was nearby. The enormous, terrifying school building loomed over the empty school grounds. Rows of trees, having shed their leaves in the winter, added a melancholic air to the scene with their barren branches.

The girl was standing there, in the middle of the school grounds, alone.

The ground she stood on was full of blood. No, the place would be better described as an entire swamp of blood. This girl was killed over and over, and she resurrected again and again. But her previous, dead bodies did not disappear into the pool of blood. They remained where they fell, an accurate record of how she was repeatedly killed.

A corpse was lying by the girl's feet. It was a body with a look of despair on its face. It was missing half of its torso.

The girl standing there, and the severed body next to her, were identical - no, rather, it was her own body. This current body was merely a reconstruction after her last death. All these bodies were the same. Even if she kept getting killed over and over, everything - her height, weight, the composition of her flesh, and the duty bestowed onto her flesh - would always be rebuilt perfectly.

That was the girl's special characteristic.

Her two-hundred-and-seventy-fifth life had started.

"How -"

Her emotionless, blank eyes reflected the shape of her own corpse. The girl only slightly tilted her head.

" - did I die?"

She curved into a ball and squatted down, silently reaching out with her hand. Even though this 'thing' was an existence identical to her, it was now a completely immobile corpse. It had become simply a piece of meat. She felt no emotional catharsis or even sympathy. The girl may wear a priest's robe, but she was not part of the clergy, nor did she pray for the bodies or planned to bury them.

She softly held the face of her own dead, immobile body, then rapidly sliced off the corpse's skullcap. Bodily fluids, a mixture of blood and cerebral fluids, poured out as if a raw egg was just punctured. She gazed emotionlessly at the head before her, even as the scene became more grotesque.

"The two-hundred-and-seventy-fourth 'me' suffered severe brain damage."

Even though her body could be reconstructed, it was still impossible to inherit her memories from her previous lives. It was as if a 'reset' button was pressed in a role-playing game. But this role-playing game also didn't allow for any saves. No matter what she wanted to do, what she wanted to obtain, once she hits a game over - death - then everything will be erased.

There was only one way to obtain the memories of her 'previous incarnation'.

Memories were evidently recorded in the brain. In other words, if she made her previous brain a part of her new body -

"I can surmise that I was in a fight, and that I lost."

As the girl muttered to herself, she took out the corpse's brain. Her hand, clothes, and her pale face were all stained scarlet, but she did not seem to mind.

"I didn't expect much more. I just want to regain my memories."

And with that, the girl started to eat the brain of her own corpse.

She gnawed away at the brain held tightly in her hands. Her mouth was full of pieces of broken flesh soaking in blood, and she gulped them all down. The bloody, gooey brain matter slithered down her throat, but she didn't so much as frown as she devored the contents greedily. Pieces of the soft spinal cord spluttered around her. The girl licked everything down, swallowing everything down to the last drop, and gathered them all into her stomach.

"..."

As long as she ate the brain, then the rest of the body no longer served a purpose. The girl licked her lips and slowly stood up. She completely ignored her wracked, brain-less corpse, which now rolled limply at her feet.

“… I definitely took a great amount of damage.”

The activities, recollections, and memories of her previous ‘life’, which lingered in her old brain, were being recognized by the girl’s new brain one after the other. However, such an activity was akin to a worm gnawing away at a book – not only were her previous memories damaged, they were also incomplete. She did not find any meaningful memories.

But there was one puzzling word buried deep within her brain, one word that was kept securely as a treasure.

“Damaged Hair.”

The girl shook her head softly and wiped her lips with the sleeve of her priest’s robe.

“That… seems to be my name.”

She mumbled softly and emotionlessly etched her name into her mind. That was the moment when the nameless girl became someone named Damaged Hair. She stood there and looked about her in silence.

Everything stank.

It was a bestial stench. Even though a thick stench was coming out of the blood her corpse shed, there was still a very unique and foul odor coming from somewhere close. The scent was a mixture of old hair and sweat – it was the scent of completely decomposed leaves, which were buried for a long time in the mud.

“…”

Damaged Hair's insect-like gaze vaguely discerned an existence similar to her somewhere in the school yard. It was no ordinary human. It exuded a thick scent, but ordinary creatures could not see it.

A spear, about as tall as a grown man, was stabbed deep into the earth in the school garden. Spears were no longer useful in modern wars, but it was the equipment of foot soldiers who historically used it for stabbing attacks. Although Damaged Hair did not recall anything sentimental such as any past memories, she naturally remembered knowledge as it was recorded in dictionaries.

"Spear... Weapon... It's... a weapon to kill."

Damaged Hair moved in that direction as if she might like to pull out that spear. Perhaps she thought it would help her.. Compared to being defenceless, it was better to have a weapon in her hand. Though her brain was filled with fighting methods, she predicted that if she has a weapon in her hand, then her skills would undoubtedly become more effective.

Damaged Hair's brain lacked knowledge - rather, she lacked common sense and the capacity to process normal thoughts. She didn't have any doubts - she never considered why there would be a spear stuck in the edge of an ordinary school garden.

If she didn't notice that spear here, or was completely oblivious to it and walked away - then this story of Damaged Hair, an extra story similar to a small ruckus after the curtains fell at the end of a play, would never have happened.

She met this thing in this story, set within in a world that had already met its end and was being gradually forgotten. Damaged Hair, who had no significant relationships with the world, met a weapon. The weapon - no, tool - was a plaything for the Gods in this world of Mushi and Eyeballs, where everlasting peace had already been established.

She stretched out her hand to pull out the spear buried in the earth. As soon as she started to pull, the solid earth around the school started to crack.

"Gah gah gah!"

It was the sound of laughter.

It was a sharp sound, a piercing laugh that sounded like the crazed barking of a wild dog.

"Gah gah gah! Gah gah gah! Gah gah gah gah gah!"

It was a very shocking sound. Damaged Hair was also startled, and she pulled her hand away. She swallowed, and stared at that spear. She definitely felt that the spear was laughing. It was a cunning, venomous laugh, as if its owner regarded everyone else as mere naive fools.

"It... can't be my imagination, right?"

Damaged Hair blinked rapidly and felt along the spear in horror. It was still stuck in the ground, but it was vibrating violently. It was shivering and shaking without a rhythm, as if it was trying to extract itself from the ground.

"Gah gah gah! Gah gah gah gah gah!"

It was defiitely not her imagination. The spear was laughing. And what was even more unbelievable was that it started to talk in that piercing voice, and showed no signs of stopping.

"Gah gah gah! Stupid idiot! Best if you give up! You dare to touch ME? Gah gah gah!"

"...?

Damaged Hair frowned and muttered a simple question.

"It... spoke. Are you... alive? Alive as a spear?"

"Gah gah gah! Gah gah gah! Gah gah gah gah!"

The spear swayed from side to side and kept laughing, as if it encountered something very funny. It was appearing more and more like a living creature... the bestial stench that surrounded the area was most likely also emitted by this thing.

All sorts of questions rose up in Damaged Hair's mind. Meanwhile, the spear started to yell in a condescending way.

“What's wrong with a living spear? Gah gah gah! And I'm not just a spear! I only look like this right now because of some specific reasons. My true form is a demonic god of Greed, and my very name will even terrify crying children! I am Lord Fenrir, the Wolf of Ice!"

"... I still don't understand."

Damaged Hair spoke her thoughts and clutched her hands into fists as she walked up to the spear.

No matter what, this spear seemed to be alive.

It said its name was the God of Greed, Fenrir, the Wolf of Ice... That was a name that will be hard to remember.

She would have to fight someone one day. She needed a weapon for that battle.

Would be it a problem if her weapon was alive? No.

Would it be a problem if her weapon didn't know how to shut up? No.

"..."

Damaged Hair gave some brief thoughts on the situation, then she suddenly reached out and firmly grasped the shaft of the spear, and pulled it out of the ground without hesitation. Surprisingly, only a little bit of the spear was buried in the earth. She could easily pull it out even with the limited strength of her wrists.

She polished the sharp tip of the spear where it was dirtied by the earth, and kept waving it about as if experimenting.

It was the right weight for her, and it fitted easily into her hands - hmm, she picked up something pretty good.

"... This life can be declared as a good life because on this auspicious sign."

Damaged Hair hummed as she nodded, and walked forward while holding onto the spear tip. The shaft of the spear bounced along the ground as she dragged it along. Where were they going? She didn't have a set destination. She didn't even consider what she would do next. Her life, which had repeated itself over and over, had always been like this. She was simply aimlessly wandering around the world. At the end, she always because a silent and passive tool for others. She was always used by others to commit all kinds of actions.

That was the purpose of her existence. That was how it was meant to be. She had always thought that she was not sad, nor empty.

But something changed this time -

She won't stay passive and be used by others this time -

She won't become someone else's tool this time. She must weave a story that only belonged to her -

But the girl named Damaged Hair had not predicted all those things mentioned above at this point in time.

"Ga ga ga! Ga ga ga! I give up! I give up! I'm not something anyone can just casually pick up! I will summon misfortunes! I am the enemy of the entire world! As long as you hold on to me, disasters will continue to fall upon your head like pouring rain for the rest of your life! Ga ga ga ga ga ga ga!"

"... You are very loud."

There were no stars or moon on the sky. The girl dragged the spear and walked along the pitch-black school grounds.

She would feel no hesitation, even if destruction awaited on her path.

She moved forward like she had always done. She will never stop until death.

It kept repeating. It kept repeating. Life kept repeating, going round and round.

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Forward to Ragnarok 01: 19-year-old Useless Repeat-year-student, Hobby is video gaming