Look out!
This chapter ...
... contains spoilers for the Visual Novel Guilty Crown: Lost Christmas!
... may finally want you to watch the Visual Novel because it's so AWESOME!
... may let you cry like a little baby because of Mana ...
... but may let you hate her, anyway =D
. . .
. . .
Crown of thorns
I failed.
Feeble I let myself fall backwards, now floating in an almost horizontal position through the light enwrapping me completely. There was nothing but brightness and emptiness. There wasn't even time. Seconds could pass by. Or centuries. You couldn't notice.
But would I really have been able to prevent the escalation? If I would have separated Eve from her Adam, it would have ended much earlier …
I closed my eyes, but the light still shined through. I felt unusually calm and relaxed and recognized just by now that the loud voices in my head finally became silent, which all had led me to Mana into the church in different ways.
Perhaps Da'ath lost patience with me?
I had to smile thinking that the three people, who claimed to rise above time and space, now were mad at me. But even they wouldn't have been able to prevent this ending. Mana had just been too young. It was too late to change that now.
'The sun has already set.'
Hearing Mana's voice all around me I opened my eyes.
'Although I thought it would be a little bit better up here, I was wrong. This place is so different from the one I had this great view with Shu by my side. The sky here is really cloudy.
I have nothing anymore.
The view back then … The clear sunset and the sparkling sea … This place was my most precious treasure.'
I slowly sat up. Although Eve had destroyed herself and her body had vanished, her consciousness still remained. As Eve she was immortal anyway, becoming reborn in the Cocytus as long as she wouldn't have completed her task. I just wasn't prepared for her awakening so soon.
'Everything leaked through my fingers. And the most important of all …
Shu.
You are not by my side. Why? What went wrong? Is it because I'm a monster?'
Following Mana's chain of thoughts I stretched out my hand in order to open a portal. The sun symbol on the back of my hand lightened up brightly. I already had an idea where it would lead me to and this idea should become true.
'Now I have nothing anymore. And if I have nothing …
… everything else can get lost, too.
Let's end this. Everything. Let's make everything empty.
I don't need something like a new world. Exactly.'
The portal led me to a high-lying viewing platform where you could overlook whole Tokyo. In a not too far distance the inferno caused by Eve's energy blast could be seen. It spread with high speed from Roppongi over the whole town.
On the platform on the other hand have grown big, violet crystal formations on whose surface the fire got reflected in many ways. In one of them was Mana. She had closed her eyes, her body was already covered all over with crystals, but she seemed content, almost happy.
'A world without Shu … has no meaning at all.'
This thought had barely faded as she began to sing.
The sky above us reacted to it and lighted up. The symphony of the apocalypse buzzed through the air and got carried far over the whole country.
I threw back my head and laughed out loud.
I never would have thought that it was possible for Eve to start the apocalypse without her Adam. Not only love, but also a mixture of desperation and hate seemed to make Eve finish her task.
It's really surprising how events have been unfolded. I teleported high in the air, a tad away from the platform, so I had a better view over the city. Although Eve destroys the world willingly now, Da'ath still needs an Adam … For a moment I considered searching for Shu, but I dismissed this thought immediately. Even if he was still alive, what was really unrealistic due to his presence next to Mana when she had lost control, she was certainly out of sorts with him. Furthermore, he was too young to become an envoy of Da'ath.
Unsteady remaining in the air, a clattering noise let me look down in surprise.
Scrooge.
I clearly recognized him by his red coat. Also Carol was still with him. He had stretched out his right hand to Mana causing her bursting in thousand shards immediately.
I just shook my head in bewilderment. I was looking for a king as suddenly the impostor king pops up in front of me. Why do you still want to kill the queen, Scrooge? I enjoyed myself watching how a new projection of Mana appeared not far away from the last one and how Scrooge stared at it, shocked.
"It's no use."
Now even Present joined. I was a little bit surprised that my ghosts still haven't eliminated Scrooge yet. Did I underestimate his skills so severely?
"I mean: She doesn't have a physical body anymore at all", she calmly kept on talking. "Mana Ouma died a long time ago in that church. But the apocalypse-virus … No", she corrected herself, "humanity's will won't let Eve die. There is no way to stop it anymore. Too bad, isn't it?" She smiled ironically causing to anger Scrooge even more.
"Probably this result is unexpected even for Da'ath", Scrooge answered. It made me laugh what they certainly couldn't here in this distance.
You read my face, Scrooge!
I just tinkered with the idea of appearing in front of him finally, because he had desperately searched for me for such a long time, when suddenly an intense duel began between him and Present. To my astonishment Scrooge didn't use Voids although Carol stood right by his side. While Present let crystallize different arrows and daggers out of nowhere, throwing them against him, he only tried to dodge her attacks what easily worked due to his superhuman powers and speed.
I watched their battle for a while from above, which a normal person barely would have been able to follow with his eyes, so quick were their movements, so fast their attacks.
Shuichiro had created real monsters.
After the battle had gone on for several minutes in which none of them had been able to prevail, suddenly the earth trembled. The apocalypse has proceeded so far by now that Eve's singing let the platform collapse. With loud clattering noises of the bursting crystals, the building collapsed back upon itself, sucking every figure on top of it into its deepness.
Monsters like them which were no normal humans would stay in the Cocytus for all eternity, never being able to be reborn again.
A fitting end for an impostor king.
I sighed deeply and looked at the world to my feet. Eve's wonderful singing let the seed of the apocalypse, which the rock had spread over the whole world, blossom into beautiful violet crystals. Every life would become an eternal memory. Humanity's will had come true.
Perhaps I just should appoint Shuichiro the new Adam, I reflected while overlooking the sea of crystals. He is as good as everyone else and at least –
I froze when my head suddenly started to hurt again.
"What's going on?", I mumbled, trying hard to keep the voices in my head apart from the cries on earth. They became louder and louder, the pain got stronger, until finally …
The whole world seemed to stand still for a moment. There was no sound anymore and the fires burning far away lost their intensity. The virus had buried everything under a thick layer of crystals and had frozen everything to ice.
Then Eve's singing stopped.
The crystal layer split up and released the life enclosed within. The particle floating around lighted up violet in the dark for a second, and then they vanished into thin air. The cloudy sky cleared, granting a look at millions of stars.
I was thunderstruck. As if the singing had kept me alive I now felt completely empty. I couldn't hear any voices, no matter how quiet they were, I couldn't feel anything, I couldn't move anymore.
It's impossible.
As if this fact would have broken a wall, different thoughts assailed me and were mixed up to a sluggish mass of inextricable attempts to explain.
A once started apocalypse can only be interrupted by the death of Eve or Adam! There is no Adam yet and Eve's consciousness is immortal in the Cocytus … from where she still … I stopped in my own thoughts. Silently I stretched out my arm. My hand trembled when I searched for a gap in the space-time continuum and created a portal then.
Whatever has happened, I would find the answer in the Cocytus.
. . .
. . .
"As I see Da'ath has to wait even longer for the new member …"
I tore my eyes away from the dark water of Cocytus and turned around. It was Hiroki. His white coat was decorated with a black pattern and was so long that it almost reached to the ground. He had crossed his arms behind his back, examining me carefully out of his bent over position. I wasn't able to interpret his mood; neither his voice nor his face gave me a clue.
"He's just overextended because of his young age." Akira stepped out of the shadow beside him. Her red eyes sparkled threateningly in the dark, even if her voice seemed to be more amused than angry. "What did you think about choosing him as Adam back then, Shin?!"
"You know exactly that Eve had chosen him." Now also Shin stepped up to them. "So don't blame me. Eve's demand was explicit back then and I had just executed humanity's will."
Akira made a derogatory noise. "Of course, humanity's will. Your excuse for everything."
When Hiroki lifted a hand both became silent immediately. "Shin is right. You must let Eve have her own way or manipulate her so clever that she doesn't notice. So Yuu wasn't able to act in a different way. He did his best", he ended calmly.
I was some kind of relieved when I listened to these words. I have already reasoned by my own that I hadn't been able to change the outcome. Wasn't I just a puppet by whom humanity's will could act, anyway? If the apocalypse failed, doesn't that mean that …?
"I, for one, was amused by this performance", Shin interjected. "And Eve beginning the apocalypse even without an Adam … I didn't know that someone could be so defiant." He looked at Akira with a smile. "You would have gotten along very well with her."
Before Akira could angrily answer, I stepped in. "After Eve has resurrected from the Cocytus I will let her end the apocalypse." I've just turned around to the river again when Akira sighed deeply, put her hands on her hips, and shook her head.
"Like I said, the kid has no clue about what happened."
"What could be said against it?", I inquired, but Hiroki just shook his head, pointing at the river.
"Descend on your own. Then you will understand." Before I was able to say something all three merged with underworld's darkness and left me alone.
I waited another moment and then finally turned around and descended into Cocytus. The water was dark and freezing, but I didn't mind. Anyway, it felt less like water and more then cold air which nestled to me like a second skin. When I was all in I sank down like into a black, never ending abyss. The deeper I came the stronger became the suck which finally let me lose every sense of time and space.
When my feet touched hard ground I knew I had reached hell's heart. Cocytus was the river of lamentation and held every sinner down here, so they could regret. It was only granted to Adam and Eve to leave this place reborn again.
Only slightly surprised I recognized that the floor was out of hard, violet crystals. If Mana had sung from here, this place was the center of the apocalypse what meant that the crystallizing process had advanced here the most. But the bizarre sight apart from that let me pause.
The whole place was overgrown with twines of thorns. They formed a tight netting including everything in order to never let it escape again. In its center towered a huge, clear crystal in which something seemed to be trapped. When I stepped closer I spotted two figures.
Scrooge and Carol.
With closed eyes and tightly embracing each other they also were entangled by the twines. I could see how the thorns pierced deeply into their flesh, but they didn't seem to worry. With a calm expression they froze to a crystal in this position.
"Finally the impostor king himself put the crown of thorns on his head." I slightly smiled at the thought of having him underestimated by far, as my smile suddenly disappeared. Just in this moment I became aware of his action's consequence.
The twine of thorns was Yet to Come's Void, the unborn child of Carol. But it wasn't any Void, not any twine of thorns.
It was the crown of thorns.
Illustrating the guilt of all sinners it tied these down to this place for all eternity.
My eyes slowly followed the twines up to crystallized stairs. At the end there was Mana sleeping in her protective cocoon.
And this cocoon was covered over and over with blooming twines of thorns. They meshed so tightly to a compact netting that Mana barely could be seen. Scrooge not only had prevented the apocalypse but had also guaranteed that Eve would never be reborn again to finish her task.
And so the impostor king crowned himself with the crown of guilt and bound the queen to him for all eternity …
Involuntarily I clenched my fists and turned around to Scrooge one last time. I could see a suspicion of a smile on his face.
I underestimated you, Scrooge. I really underestimated you.