To find a flower in a place like this. I suppose Mothy was anything but unironic. Speaking of Mothy, I hadn't laid eyes on her for quite a while—or Yuka, for that matter. Who knew what they were up to. It made me wonder and even worry. There seemed to have been a conflict on the horizon last time I spoke with Yuka. Shaking my head, I tried to dispel the thoughts from my mind. I shouldn't have cared what happens to her anymore.
Yet, I found myself hoping that the others around me would fall to the ground, and my old friend would appear again as they slept. Then, we could talk. Maybe I could finally understand.
Meiko and Gakupo led the pack, an odd and awkward pair. Not too long ago, Meiko would have gladly taken that ax she was grasping to his neck. One fell swoop, and his head would have been rolling across the ground like a saggy basketball. Gakupo didn't seem worried, though. Then again, he seemed to have been all too ready to die just a short while ago. Part of that sentiment irked me. Didn't he know how hard I was trying to get us all out of here alive?
Slightly ahead of me, Miku shivered. Her bare legs and shoulders were clearly subject to the cold, stale air that surrounded us. Wrapping Len's coat closer around myself, I intercepted Kaito who walked behind us, alone. His eyes quickly averted from Miku as I fell back. "You should give her your jacket," I suggested quietly.
"I'm not so sure about that," he replied. "I… have a feeling that we are not meant to be like that."
"Then, as her father, at least." With that, I caught back up with Len, looping my arm through his and watching to see if he would take my advice. After a few minutes, he quickened his pace, slipping his arms out of his sleeves and offering the jacket to Miku as they walked on. Despite her hesitation, she accepted it graciously. Kaito left her side immediately, but at least there was some semblance of a smile on his face.
Once again, the corridors grew more and more familiar. My gut wrenched in familiarity, and I had to remind myself repeatedly that I had escaped. That this life had ended. It felt like yesterday. It felt like centuries ago.
As we turned reached the stone stairway down to the basement, I could tell that everyone was becoming increasingly uncomfortable. Len tensed beside me. I placed a hand on his arm to calm him down. The bulky door to the cellar was wide open. Mothy finally got one detail wrong. This door was never wide open.
The others were pooling right inside the doorway but did not move any further inside. I had to push past Meiko to get a look inside. Immediately, the fear that loomed over me here was more than a memory. Covering the entire floor, like a blanket of skin, laid hundreds of girls, asleep, unmoving. Many of them I recognized from my time here. Against my will, their names came to me in droves. I could almost hear their voices asking me why I was helping the man who hurt them, who degraded them into subhuman play things while their families moved on without them. Were they all going to stand now so they could kill me for this betrayal? Yes, this must be considered a betrayal, yet I could not regret trying to save him or anyone else.
The girls on the floor didn't move.
"No door," Rin whispered, as if afraid she would wake them up. "Let's just get out of here."
Far off to the right, a girl teetered to her feet. Everyone instinctively flinched away, but as I squinted to see who it was, I was seized by curiosity and confusion. It was me, way back there. Her dress was the same as the one I wore right now, and the window beside her was as familiar as an old friend. She was looking at me with a serious expression and, once she knew she had my attention, pointed to a stone on the wall.
"Wh-What is going on?" Miku asked. "That's you, right?"
"Yeah," I replied. "I think I know what she's doing." I stepped forward, weaving between the catatonic women strewn across the floor.
"Mayu! What are you doing?" Gakupo kept to a hushed whisper.
"I've got to do this," I responded, stepping over another body. Slowly, I was making my way toward the stone wall under the window, where the doll of myself waited. I hardly heard the bursts of concern that periodically shattered the silence behind me, as it took all my concentration to avoid the miscellaneous hands and legs jutting out from all sides. With one final leap, I made it to the wall. Somewhere along the way, the mirror image of myself had vanished. I sank down to the floor and ran my hands along the stones.
This brick held significance. It was where I found the card bearing the number 2 all those years ago. Just as I thought, as my fingers curled themselves in between the crevasses, beside the rough tally marks I had carved into the wall, I skimmed something soft. Gingerly, I took hold of it and extracted it from the crease. It was a purple rose, crumpled up and wilting. At last—
I didn't have a chance to brace myself before I was launched headfirst into the darkness. My ears had barely stopped ringing before the words starting slipping through the quiet.
"Come in. Oh, be careful of the step there. We don't want to hurt the little ones." Gakupo sounded like himself again, and by that I mean, like an asshole. His voice was tinged with that superficial bravado I so often was subjected to before he trusted me. He never trusted me at first.
"I promise that this is the last experiment. We will want for nothing after this, my dear. You have my word."
"I can't believe she has betrayed me like this! Quick! Get the guards! Don't let them leave the facility!"
"Mayu! Mayu, snap out of it!" Meiko was whisper-shouting at me, and I didn't know why.
Off-balance all of a sudden, I placed a hand against the wall that had just re-manifested itself into my reality. Then I looked around. The girls were getting up.
Oh. Hence the—Hence the whisper-shouting.
Shooting to my feet, I banged my head against the stupid windowsill. Wincing to myself, I quickly threw the rose in my bag and tried to gauge the situation. Hundreds of girls were languidly, as if they were rising from the dead, straightening their backs and turning toward me. Back across the cellar, Gakupo, Rin, Kaito, and Miku had already bounded back up the stairs. Only Len and Meiko remained, motioning for me to get the hell out of there. Good advice, except that I was already surrounded.
They were staring at me. I held my breath. They did not teleport all around me, grabbing every inch of open flesh and draining me of life essence. No, they did quite a shocking thing. Those standing in between me and the door moved out of the way. Soon, a clear trail of open space led right to Len and Meiko, stunned into silence.
Still weary of quick movements, I carefully began walking through the tunnel of women. Their eyes followed me with something like fondness somewhere behind them. Fondness.
When I made it to the door and my two friends, the women curled back up on the ground, dead once again. Len ushered me out so fast, I nearly tripped over myself. Meiko followed close behind, sealing the gigantic, wooden door shut forever. "Please stop scaring me like that," Len said.
"I had to do it. You know why," I replied.
"Yes, but—please." He was trembling.
"Okay. Yes, of course. I promise I'll keep out of trouble as much as I can," I assured him soothingly. "I promise, okay?" Len nodded, steadying himself but not altogether convinced.
"I wouldn't hold her to that one, Little Len," Rin's voice chimed from above. She and the rest of those who fled peered down at us from the top steps. "She's got that hero complex, remember?"
"We're glad you're not dead," Kaito added.
"Well, we are dead, but that is beside the point," Meiko intervened, bringing back a sense of professionalism. "I think the only other logical place to go look for the door is the front entrance. Is everyone in agreement?"
"That sounds like a good plan," Miku said.
"Okay, let's get as far away from this place as possible." With that, Meiko shimmied her way past us on the narrow stairwell so she could lead the pack again. At least she had stopped giving me passive aggressive remarks.
The trip to the front entrance was short but unsurprisingly fruitful. Right where we left it, there in all its golden glory stood the door out of this place—quite possibly the last exit before the exit. The exit to this whole damn labyrinth. "We're almost out of here, everyone," I said as we faced it a few yards away.
"I would like to think that as well," Meiko mumbled. She aimed her sharp eyes toward me and continued in a low voice, "Mayu, do you think there is another period? One before Queen Kagamine?"
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"I don't know myself. I just have a feeling, deep down inside my mind, that there still are memories that have yet to resurface."
The voices in the black. Everything was starting to connect. Just one more push and maybe I would be able to face Mothy with an answer to her question. Why have the Seven Deadly Sins manifested here?
"Guys! Guys, we've got a Len!" Rin shouted.
We've got a Len?
I turned around to see a pale version of the man beside me, eyes dead-set on Gakupo's throat.
Ah, we had a Len.
"Gakupo, run for the door!" I yelled.
I didn't have to tell him twice, but even with his gigantic steps, he wasn't fast enough. Len the Doll appeared in front of the door, ax in hand. Meiko gasped, holding her empty hand up to her face in bewilderment. "When did he…?" she said.
He was cornered, and he was starting to get that ridiculous look on his face again—the one that seemed about ready to die. No, I wouldn't let it happen. "Len!" I shouted at the real one, the one right beside me. I grabbed his hand. "Len, you can stop this."
"Wh-What?" he managed to say through the fear.
"You have to forgive him. That's the only way. That's why the women didn't attack me in the basement or why my ghost hasn't killed anyone yet. It's because I don't blame them. Len, you have to forgive Gakupo right now."
He shook his head, still not comprehending. I tightened my grip. The doll of Len took a step toward his victim, but then he hesitated. "I-I can't do that," Len said to me. "What he did to you—I can't ever forgive that."
"You have to! It wasn't him! Don't you see? It wasn't any of you! It was Mothy! Hate Mothy! She did those things to me, not him. Please, Len. I don't want to see anyone else get their souls taken from them. And Gakupo, get that look off your face. If you let yourself die again, then I'll never forgive you!"
Len looked back and forth from me to Gakupo, tears in his eyes. It was selfish of me to ask him to do this, just as it was selfish of me to save the people who caused others so much suffering. Maybe being a hero or a savior or whatever else they wanted to call me meant being selfish. Len shook his head again, but then all of a sudden, the walking corpse guarding the door disappeared as suddenly as it came.