68: Without tranquility and serenity, one cannot reach far.
-Mash Kyrielight arrives just in time to protect me.
I'm shocked, at first. It seems unbelievable. The arrival of Mash, who I had thought dead, seems… too good to be true.
Right, so that's how it is.
"I see - I'm still trapped."
That's the obvious truth of the matter. Salvation by a total stranger, who then conveniently guides me out of the tunnels, simply because of a piece of half-finished sheet music that I just happened to have - it's too ridiculous to believe. It's nonsensical. And so it's obvious, that even after the hours, days, or weeks I spent in those tunnels, it's still not over. That all of my rescue was another illusion, that Prelati was just adding another extra layer of torment. After all-
"You already used this one, you lazy piece of shit." With a derisive laugh, I allow my body to collapse completely. "The fake rescue thing got old after the third time. Just kill me already."
Mash, or rather the illusion of her, turns slightly towards me with widened eyes. "Nice attention to detail, Prelati. A+ for effort. Unfortunately, you're still creatively bankrupt." I mumble.
The lone wyvern, beaten and bloody on the ground, starts to rise as she looks away, only for a harpoon to sail through the air to pierce its skull and finish it off.
"Thy whimperings grow intolerable, boy." A booming voice says from behind me, and a moment later, a calloused hand hauls me up, but I let my legs stay limp - there's no point, after all.. "Stand! Stand, damn thee!"
With a roll of my eyes, I glance at Ahab. "Really pulling out all the stops, aren't you? I haven't even seen this guy since the second loop."
And there's the clincher. Nothing happens whatsoever as I violate the taboo. I'm definitely still-
"I love you."
Finding my footing, I whirl around in an instant.
"I love you. I love you. I love you."
Some thirty meters away, moving slowly and yet impossibly fast - the Witch of Envy mouths a familiar refrain.
"I love you. I love you. Love me. Love me. I love you."
This proves nothing on its own - is what I want to say. But the way my soul is singing with joy at the sight of her, the way my heart fills with dread at her approach, the axact posture of her shadow-clad shoulders, the exact inflection of her confessions of love - this has to be the real thing. There's no way Prelati could have made such a perfect copy of her. It's just not possible.
This is real. All of this, is undoubtedly real. And that means-
"Aye, now thou'st done it, lad." Ahab snarls, turning to face the shadow, his broad, scarred back gleaming bronze beneath the light of dusk.
That means I've almost certainly killed us all.
"...We should probably run." I mutter numbly.
"Aye, that seems prudent." The sailor nods. "It ails me to use her so, but - [Pequod]!"
With a resounding crash, a whaling ship slams into Satella, splintering and shattering against the cobbled streets - and then, hefting me over his shoulder, the sailor takes off in an awkward staggering sprint.
…Right, he has a peg leg. And Mash's agility stat is nothing to write home about-
"Bayard!" Ahab roars. "Bayard, thou damned horse - where art thou!?"
We round a street corner - and almost crash into a screaming child.
For a minute my brain stalls – what's a kid doing in a place like this? But as I look up, and take in terrified faces peering out of windows, and the huddled shapes of cowering civilians at the edges of the street, it clicks in my head.
How did I forget? This was precisely why we came to Paris. The city had not yet fallen – und that meant, unlike La Charite and Lyon, there are still survivors in this city!
I cast a single glance backwards, at the slowly encroaching wall of shadows, just barely making out the sight of a silver-haired beauty wading amongst them, mouthing words of love.
And then, the Witch stops. As if her focus is lost – and she lifts a hidden object, shrouded in the darkness, cradling it against her cheek, facial expression lost in a strange revery.
"…What-?" I start to ask.
"Hm, distracted once more, then – how fortunate for us." Ahab notes. "Now, all of ye – flee this place! Get ye gone, lest ye be consumed by that witch!"
A brief murmur amongst the Parisians soon ascends into an all-out panic, as the men and women on the street stampede forth, fleeing into other parts of the city.
"-But wait, I'm still caught on the last thing! What do you mean she's distracted? She's supposed to -!" I cut myself off. I'm not sure what qualifies as breaking the taboo after all, and if I draw her aggro again, it could get messy. "No, it doesn't matter why she's distracted. Let's get the hell out of here. This is one mystery that can stay mysterious for all I care."
"…" Mash looks as if she wants to say something, but Ahab raises a hand, beginning once more to hobble along the street with supernatural speed.
"There will be time to exchange information later. For the time being, we must locate Bayard, and regroup with Georgius and the rest." He pauses for a moment to set me down on my feet. "Stand on thy own feet, boy. Use thy mystic code if thou must – it ill suits the Master of Chaldea to be carried about as passive as a sack of potatoes."
Potatoes.
Strange as it might be, it's a reference to vegetables that drags me back to recognition of my situation.
"Gareth…"
Gareth is dead. The smiling puppy knight is dead, and I as good as let it happen.
And not just her. Jeanne, Mozart, Marie – Every single one of my travel companions except for Mash Kyrielight has met a miserable death.
"-I can't." I mutter under my breath.
I can't allow this loop to continue. They'll stay dead, if it does.
"These kind of losses…!" Those bitter words leave my lips.
I can do it this time. I'm sure of it. Kill Prelati with a command spell, and at the same time avoid getting dragged out of the Grand Illusion by Chlodovech. We can just go around – I'm sure, if we just take the long way around, we can-
"-Didst thou truly believe victory was possible without sacrifice, Natsuki Subaru?" Ahab asks, and my unseen hand freezes behind my head. "Just what dost thou suppose Heroic Spirits are?"
"I can't accept that. With how close we got! If I had just been a bit more informed, moved a bit faster – hell, if we had just slept on the carriage on the way to Lyon instead of stopping to make camp, then we would have arrived to save Siegfried, and everything would have-!" I protest.
"-Master. Even if that's true, we can't change it now." Mash says, shaking her head. "We need to look towards the future."
"But-!"
"-Tch. I've changed my mind. Thou shalt make a perfect sack of potatoes." Ahab snarls – and then there's a blow to my neck, and everything goes dark.
I wake up feeling thoroughly refreshed, in the linen sheets of a plush bed. Everything rushes through my head, but somehow it feels far away, and I'm able to analyze the situation rationally.
The taboo was broken, earlier. That's why Satella appeared, because I foolishly said it out loud – had been my first thought.
But that's not right. Because, Ahab and Mash seemed to have been already aware of her presence. And, to be honest, Prelati chattered enough about [Return by Death] to break the taboo for both of us. And since she couldn't find us…
"She went on another rampage, like the sanctuary… so that's how it is." I conclude, stroking my chin.
In other words, if that time is anything to go by… hopefully the point of return will be before my conversation with Prelati.
No, there's not just that. Remember, Natsuki Subaru! Don't you remember – that bizarre first loop point, which spat me back into that ocean, even though we had made terrific progress! And the second reset point – not to the point just before the summoning, or to when we were peacefully talking inside [Grand Illusion]! Rather, Satella opted to thrust me back to when the Tarasque was chasing me, back into danger. Why? It's obvious!
Every time I have reset in this singularity, it has been to before I met Francois Prelati.
"-Wait, since when am I this insightful!?" I shout.
"-Tis not thine own power of reason, boy." Ahab mutters, materializing in the room – and all at once the feeling of serenity is broken, and wild emotional panic surges through me once more. "That much be obvious."
"What-?" I reel, trying to regain the lost clarity. "No, before we get into what the hell that was, where's Mash?"
"Fighting. The wyverns have eased off since that shadow woman made her appearance, but the lesser Dragons and Fafnir still seem content to try their luck."
"You're joking! Putting aside the Witch - who's still out there, by the way! - in what world can Mash take on multiple dragons alone-?" I shout, springing from my bed and moving towards the door, but Ahab stops me.
"Relax, boy. Georgius arrived after thou wert knocked unconscious, and he shall hold thy Witch at bay for a time yet. As for thy companion, she is not quite alone in her task." He pauses as, at that moment, an excited girlish scream splits the air, rattling the windows, followed by several screams of different pitch. "-Though at this point, I suppose she may be wishing otherwise."
"Is that… someone singing?" I ask after a moment of listening to the horrid noise. "Scream metal specifically?"
"Can something of that nature truly be called singing?" Ahab asks, and we both ponder the philosophical question for a moment. "To answer thy question about thy sudden surge of intelligence - Feng Shui, I believe he called it. That insufferable Three Kingdoms Tactician, I mean. A specific arrangement of space, to promote a specific state of existence in the occupant. In this case, the ability to think with absolute rationality. Painstakingly, that bastard taught me – the specific arrangement for this specific room, so that I might recreate it once he had disappeared."
"Ah, Feng Shui, that makes sense… not! There's so much information to unpack there it's not even funny! To start with, what do you mean 'recreate' it? I get that in theory its possible, but you'd have to have a photographic memory, along with-!"
"Aye." He affirms. "'Tis one of the class skills of the Avenger class – [Oblivion Correction]. An Avenger never forgets a single wrong perpetrated against him, no matter how much time passes. That Caster, monster that he be, engraved this arrangement and its permutations upon my very flesh, so that I might never forget it – speaking of which…" He hobbles forward, and, withdrawing an oddly shaped rock from his pocket, places it in a corner of the room, before returning to the opposite – at which point the feeling of total serenity reasserts itself. "To offset mine own presence."
I take a deep breath in, allowing my mind to settle. "I hope this guy left us something better than a room good for thinking in – a battle plan, perhaps?"
"Hmph. Of course he did. Thou hast already experienced it – or didst thou think it mere luck that thou had gotten this far? I suppose thou had no way of knowing, of the voice Sir Gareth heard from the moment of her summoning, commanding her to fight to her very death to see you to Paris safely, giving her the strength to nearly overcome the man who slew her in life." He growls out, and I blink in confusion.
"Wait, how do you-?" I can feel a bit of a headache coming on.
"She informed Mash Kyrielight of the situation whilst thou slept, and Galahad overheard – thus giving him the might to stand and fight at just the right time, and to overcome Lancelot. [Tactician's Command] – A personal skill granting the ability to enhance those under one's command. For someone of his caliber, even one sentence is enough. 'Victory is assured if Natsuki Subaru reaches Paris.' Even if the command is delivered through a proxy, 'twill be enough."
"That's nuts. You've got to be kidding – to start with, how did some guy out here in Paris know about me in the first place?" I ask, utterly baffled. And yet, even as he says it, I get the vaguest sense of correctness, a phantom memory of smoke tickling my nose.
"No, boy. Thou art incorrect – he was no stranger to thee. Nor was he here in Paris. Not until the very end." Ahab says, and for the second time in this singularity I feel my skin crawl.
"The very end…?" I repeat numbly.
"Of this singularity's previous iteration!" He barks a laugh. "Tis quite the look on thy face, boy! Did I not inform thee, that an Avenger never forgets? Not even if the currents of time move backwards."
My vision swims as his words sink in – he knows. Just like Prelati, Ahab is aware of [Return by Death] – but that isn't what truly shakes me. What truly shakes me isn't even the fact that he can remember the efforts of previous timelines. What truly shakes me is-
"So it was all the same timeline, then?" I ask, tears choking my voice as an impossible weight I had been carrying is finally lifted from my shoulders. "I'm so glad… I…"
For something like five years of subjective time, that question had haunted me – my [Return by Death], how does it work? Was I actually winding back the clock, or was I just hopping to another timeline and abandoning everyone to their fate. Ever since the Second Trial at the Echidna's Sanctuary raised that question, I had been unable to put it out of my head.
I hadn't dared ask Zelretch. "If he says the Second Trial was right, I think I might lose my mind again" – that had been my thought process.
Ahab's hand claps my shoulder once. "'Tis a heavy burden, for one as young as thee – and I am truly sorry that thou should be the one forced to bear it."
I blink fiercely, trying to force the tears back down. "I – I'm used to it. So tell me. Who was he? If he's someone I knew in the loops where Prelati was torturing me, how come he didn't show up this time?"
The old sailor gives a wry chuckle. "Simple, boy – thou didst summon Sir Gareth this time, yes? And so, there was no room for thy servant of those twenty-four loops to make his appearance. That, too, was certainly by design– there was no need for him to drain thy resources when the plan had already been made, and so he wrote himself out of it. I cannot speak for his vessel, but that was precisely the sort of unrelentingly efficient monster Kongming was."
My head swirls. Kongming? As in, that Kongming?
"Now let me tell you, Natsuki Subaru – of thy Servant, Zhuge Liang, and the scheme he carved into my skin."
A/N:
The promised next-day update! Don't get used to it. I wound up merging the next two chapters, so my backlog is already gone. next chapter will be posted when it's finished.
Anyway, surprise! It's ya boi, Kongming!
Chapter title is, of course, a quote from the historical Zhuge Liang.