CHAPTER 7. THE TRUTH

The war raged on. Nobody really knew what prompted it and naturally they assumed that it was Osborne's endless lust for power. Even those who were aware or suspected that the Church was one of strongest and most dangerous organizations in all Zemuria thought so. When asked about the chancellor's strange decision to go to war with it, they'd just shrug and say that his lust for power must've blinded him to the inevitable loss that was coming.


'What do you think, my son?' president Rocksmith asked.

The face of Rufus Albarea darkened on the big screen. Then it quickly brightened again, as if he decided not to show his feelings to the president, and he replied as lightly as always:

'They'll kill him for sure. I will make sure of that.'

'Hmmm… Do you perhaps have any regrets?'

'Of course, not. That small face-change just now? It was provoked by an entirely different reason.'

He stretched his hand towards the camera and apparently pressed something, because the screen went black. That was quite an abrupt, no-goodbye end to the conversation.

'Tsk, tsk.' The president walked all the way to the mirror. 'Our boy is growing rebellious.'

'Perhaps it would help if you didn't call him 'my son' all the time,' Kilika Rowan, a Calvardian spy, offered from her seat. 'Each time you do it, he gets angry... By now he's realized the joke of it, I'm sure, and it must be irritating for him that you wouldn't drop it. What do they say about jokes repeated more than once?'

'Haha, Ms. Rowan, you're right, as always'. The president smiled his most charming smile to the mirror. 'But it wouldn't be good for my image to appear rational.'

He wasn't lying. Despite his racist policies in Calvard and his attempt to invade Crossbell with tanks and airbombers, everybody and their toy robot believed him to be just a silly and harmless guy, while Gilliath Osborne they believed to be a personification of ultimate evil. Why such a disparity? Because president Rocksmith smiled charmingly to his mirror every day, training to appear silly and non-threatening. Okay, that was a joke. The real reason was because Zemuria's creator gods wanted the better ruler to appear evil and the worse one to be whitewashed to the point of appearing harmless. And it helped that Rocksmith had no charisma, it did. He really didn't look like someone imposing enough to be evil. After all, you had to be very charismatic to be a video game villain, only charismatic people were typically considered to be candidates for baddies.

'I'm not so sure...' Kilika said. 'That Osborne will be killed. Remember what happened the last time…'

'The last time Rufus was still on his side,' Rocksmith smirked in a mean way, using the chance: after all, nobody but Kilika was looking at him! 'And now... now he's the most likely to assume the mantle of a new chancellor! Our boy did well for himself. And he'll continue working for us, unless he wants his streak of fortune to end. Rufus is too smart to lose a chance like that.'

A FEW HOURS BEFORE

The Ironbloods were extremely busy. While Osborne and Rufus were distracting the Church by their absurd and fake war –- and it was surprising how easily even the Church fell for the trick, - the others sneaked in to steal the now unguarded Salt Pale that the Church was hiding in their headquarters. It should've dried up and curled in on itself sufficiently now to be small enough to be carried, they reasoned. The general idea was that the mysterious Salt Pale was another sept-terrion and thus a source of some mad powers that should be stolen away before the Church misused it one way or another.

Imagine their surprise when instead of a sept-terrion they saw a small note on the ground. Lechter picked it up with a face of an upset baby. Millium snatched it out of his hands, happily announcing 'Too slow!' and read as quickly as she could:

'Sorry guys, there was a ridiculous sept-terrion here, but we've removed it after we decided to remove vampires from your world. It's no longer needed. Falcom.'

Millium gasped for air.

'Falcom again!' Claire said. 'Who in bloody hell…'

'I know!' Campanella cried out. 'I know now! Well, sorta... They're the ones who made me never age! How unnice, I always wanted to eventually grow into an adult, you know. And they forced dear Millium to be a loli. We're so lucky to have found each other, otherwise we'd be have been lonely and miserable all our lives…'

Altina perked up. It was so unusual for her to look happy that everybody stared at her.

'Does it mean,' she said, averting her eyes. 'That Bleublanc was telling the truth and all his hideous deeds were caused by these Falcom people?'

Everybody else exchanged a glance. It tooks them quite a while, since there were four of them.

Finally, Campanella nodded and said:

'Most definitely.'

'How do you know that?' Lechter asked suspiciously. 'And don't you start telling me about tarot cards…'

'I am their voice,' Campy said eerily. 'Don't you know how many times they've made me break the fourth wall? I frequently talk to myself in games, that's how they want me to impart exposition to the observers. Sometimes I even talk to the observers directly.'

'What observers?' Claire asked. 'Be clear. Your explanations only make us more confused.'

'I'm trying, I'm trying!' Campanella said in despair. 'Do you have any idea how difficult it is to be clear when you've been forced to be cryptic for the duration of all games? It's a heavily ingrained habit by now. And I had to smile all the time to appear more mysterious, too. Ugh, my face is still aching...

'Gosh, he's so whiny!' Millium felt impatient. 'Stop this self-pity party and get to the point, Campy!'

'All I know for sure is that we're controlled by these Falcom gods,' Campy said grimly. 'They're like creator gods, but worse, because they robbed us of free will. Even Aidios herself is their creation. And the observers… They're other gods who can see our world and us.'

Everybody shuddered in shock and disgust. Including Kevin and Ries, who were the only minions of the Church left to guard the Salt Pale. Currently they were hiding in a huge wooden box nearby the wall and shamelessly eavesdropping.

'It sounds crazy, but it actually explains much,' Claire said slowly. 'Much of what is crazy in our world. Like, why we wear the clothes we hate. Or why all those ridiculous superficial crushes on Rean ever happened, even though at least three other boys in Class VII were very attractive, while he was not.'

'Or why some of us never grow up,' Campanella added. 'Couldn't I… you know, have a life? But noooo, I couldn't grow up…'

'Stop it!' Millium soudned irritated. 'You're better off! At least you weren't forced to have a stupid crush on… I don't know… the protagonist of Sky games. Just imagine, all Ouroboros members having a crush on Estelle. Even Weissmann. Even Loewe. And instead of caring for his friend Joshua, his sole motivation would be something as stupid as superficial feelings for Estelle whom he barely knew. And you... I don't know, you'd jump in front of Estelle during the final battle and kill the final boss just to keep her safe!'

Campanella's face displayed no small amount of terror.

'That would be shallow of Loewe', Lechter shook his head non-chalantly, humming a tune to himself. He didn't care for Campanella much, in his opinion Campy could take care of himself, so he ignored the part about him and concentrated on the part about Loewe. 'As if he'd have no life and reasons of his own. No, that wouldn't be our Loewe. Milly, how do you even come up with crap like that?'

'In fact, did you know...' Campanella giggled sadistically all of a sudden. 'Did you know that our Claire was originally supposed to have exactly such a shallow personality in CS3? She was supposed to be torn between the Ironbloods and… a school brigade led by Rean, of all things. No, not because of any respectable reasons of her own, but because of something as dumb as a crush on Rean.'

Claire winced and felt nauseated. Lechter hugged her, telling her that it's all right now, they're together and Rean is gone like a nightmare. Claire enjoyed the hug quite clearly. That set the mood for Campanella and, feeling romantic, he attempted to give a hug to Millium. She swatted him off like an annoying flea and asked, puzzled:

'So why is it so different with us now? We don't behave stupidly in CS3 at all. Campy, bugger off, would you? We're at work and we have serious stuff to discuss… So, we seem to be treated like real people, you know?'

She looked down, onto an empty space on the floor where the Salt Pale was supposed to be found. Something had clearly changed.

'Yeah, no kidding, even you are out of character!' Campanella complained. 'You're supposed to be clingy, you know? 'Bugger off'… How rude.'

'I am not out of character, I just have more of a character,' Millium said with pride. 'Or would you prefer me to always behave in the same manner, always have the same mood? You'd be the first one to run off in terror... Or rather in boredom.'

'I have a question,' Altina said all of a sudden. Everybody forgot about everything else immediately, as it was so rare for her to speak up, so they turned to her and stared. 'Why did these creators want us to be so shallow in the first place?'

Even Kevin in the wooden box started thinking this question over, which was rare for him. Thinking, that is.

'Maybe they're sadistic,' Campanella offered.

'Don't judge by yourself!' Millium snapped.

'I don't, and I'm not really sadistic, you know?' Campanella whined. 'They just made me behave sadistically once or twice… And I can't fathom why.'

'Yeah, right.'

'Who cares for their reasons,' Claire sighed, clearly tired of their fruitless discussion. 'What we need is to inform dad... ahem, to inform the chancellor. And to discover how to set ourselves free. '

That sounded oddly like Luciola's grand plan of pursuing freedom. Even the wooden box in the corner shook in surprise a little. Something sounding vaguely like 'Hereti…' started to be heard coming from it.

'No, they aren't heretics,' Ries whispered quietly, her hand tightly on Kevin's mouth. 'They're in the right. And stop fooling around, you aren't really that stupid… Someone is just making you be, they want to make fun of us. Come to think of it, I'm not even sure that it's the same person as these Falcom creator gods. At least you weren't that stupid before.'

By this time everyone's attention was on the wooden box, which was obviously whispering something to itself, but before Claire could train her gun on it, they heard loud footsteps coming from behind the door.

'Scram, everyone!' Campy squeaked. 'The Church brutes are back! I don't think they're going to believe us when we say that the Salt Pale suddenly disappeared from existence!'


The Ironbloods were watching the news grimly. They tried and tried, but their efforts to reach the chancellor failed, so they had to resort to TV for the news, like all ordinary people.

Apparently the war effort went worse than they had anticipated. It was risky from the start, but somehow the Church managed to capture Osborne himself. It was all over the news now. The Church leaders appeared on orbal TV and declared their ultimatum: either the thieves give up something called Salt Pale willingly, or the chancellor was going to die.

They gave three days to the thieves, but the thieves couldn't return what they didn't have, even if they wanted to.

'Why don't we make a fake pale of salt?' Campanella offered. 'Bring in some salt and...'

'It wasn't merely salt and you know it best,' Lechter said. 'It was salt that could kill anything, apparently even vampires.'

'But Falcom wrote they removed vampires, so there's no way to test it now, right? Let's make some substance deadly enough to eat through anything and tell them that it's their salt. I could attempt to hand it over and teleport away if something goes wrong.'

'Even Campy likes gramps,' Millium said with pride. 'That's how cool he is!'

'What do you mean, even?' Campanella faked indignation. 'But yeah I'm cool.'

'I meant that you've barely even known him,' Millium said. 'But forget it, you're a mean jerk. Gramps' life is in danger, and you're making bad jokes like everything is going great.'

'Okay… Okay…' Altina said on the phone and put it down. 'I just talked to Bleublanc, using my VIP prison phone card. He said… Well, first, he said we were all fools, then he said it was good that finally someone believed him.'

'Where did you get a VIP prison card?' Millium asked suspiciously.

'From the chancellor,' Altina replied succinctly. 'And then he said that he remembered something vital from the Grandmaster's predictions…'

'But why did he give you a VIP prison card? Did you ask for it?'

'…she told him once that Rufus Albarea would turn out to be a villain.'

Everybody stared at her. Rufus Albarea, a villain? They didn't know whether they should laugh or cry. Besides, the Grandmaster of Ouroboros didn't know how to read the tarot in the first place, right? She'd been lying to everyone.

'Did you request it to talk to Bleublanc?' Millium prodded. 'No way! Alty! How could you!'

Altina had to admire her. That was some single-pointedness of mind! Even the yogi would be envious.

There was a knock on the door, which saved her from replying any further.

'Who's there?' Lechter called out lazily, but actually he was opening the window, just in case.

'Your dental care,' a familiar voice replied, using a rhymed password.

By now everybody was climbing out of the window. Just in case.

'Is anybody home?' The voice insisted.

He was supposed to ask twice. That was his part of the password game. He wasn't telling passwords, so he was supposed to ask twice so that others would know it was him.

But rather than say 'a little merry gnome', as the second password required, Lechter was the last one to climb out of the window. Just in case.

When Rufus got impatient of screaming out code questions and getting no replies, he finally opened the door and was rewarded with the sight of an Ironblood hideout. A totally empty Ironblood hideout, with one window open wide.

His face took on a puzzled expression. Did they know something? Did they perhaps even know that he was the one who made sure that the chancellor would get captured? Rufus felt guilty for a moment, but the feeling quickly passed.

There was nothing resembling a pile of salt in the room, either, but it made sense for them to take it along. His task was to make sure that nobody attempted to hand it back to the Church.


A suspicious scratching noise could be heard all throughout the night. Luciola didn't care: she'd given up on caring much for anything in this world where everybody, including herself, was merely a puppet. She ignored the noise all night and just slept soundly without a worry.

In the morning, though, bricks in the wall of her prison cell started rapidly falling off and a simple feeling of curiosity drove her to give her saviors a look.

'Hello again,' Campanella said, smiling apologetically. 'Sorry for helping to jail you and all.'

'What matters is that you've realized the truth of my teaching. Congratulations.'

'Yup,' Lechter agreed. 'Kind of. And we need a new leader. Hey mama Lu, now let's get you out of here.'