Chapter 11: Comrade in Arms

 

 

 

Chapter 11: Comrade in Arms

 

Cliff

“NOOOOOO!” Kiriko shrieked. She stood paralyzed at the end of the bridge screaming hysterically. Gandolf locked on to her and struck with a backhand strike.

“KIRIKO!” Ouka lunged to protect her. Gandolf’s metal hand grazed his side. “Guh!”

Just the brush of Gandolf’s fist sent Ouka and Kiriko slamming into the bridge guardrail. The collision was likely headfirst, because they both lay limp and immobile.

“URAHHH!” Lovel burst into a run, ramping up speed with a war cry. She swung the quarterstaff down on Gandolf’s forehead as he bent over and reached for Ouka. He blocked the attack and punted her away.

Metal clanged throughout the area. Lovel had blocked his kick with the quarterstaff, but even that hadn’t provided enough friction to prevent the hit from blasting her backward and tumbling on the bridge. Cliff watched on, flummoxed by what he saw.

“…Gandolf.”

He would no longer answer. The red Engrave Incantations coursing through his body rejected Cliff.

Gandolf looked at Cliff and lumbered toward him. Watching the red metal giant come for him brought a surge of memories about the times they had shared.

They had done everything together. Gandolf was Cliff’s sole hope for crawling out from the bottom of society on Chest Island. He was the comrade in arms Cliff fought beside and drew strength and courage from, who helped him stand up and fight.

How… How did it come to this?!

Even though Cliff knew he needed to run, his legs were shaking so hard he couldn’t move them.

Gandolf came to stand right in front of Cliff. And he drew his fist back—

But before he could bring it down on Cliff, an amber lion jumped on his back. The full brunt of Dram’s attack sent him toppling onto the ground.

Without a moment to spare, Dram pinned him and bared his fangs, about to rake off the “e” on his forehead. Gandolf slammed his head against Dram’s open mouth with explosive force.

The pieces from Dram’s broken fangs clattered on the ground. Neither his claws nor his fangs could do any damage. Even so, Dram fought hard to keep Gandolf pinned.

“Boy…!” Ouka’s voice came from somewhere. Cliff looked around and found him still on the ground, staring at him. “Die once…with a bullet from this tranquilizer gun…”

Ouka’s hand was fastened around Kiriko’s tranquilizer gun—the gun capable of putting a Golem Tamer into suspended animation.

“This gun was originally created for this purpose… To cut the Tamer’s link and stop a Berserker Golem…”

“You’ve got the wrong idea! Gandolf isn’t going berserk—”

“That ain’t your Golem, kid!” Ouka forcefully cut him off. Continuing over a stammering Cliff, he said, “Please…if you don’t die temporarily, everybody here’s gonna die for real…”

“…!”

“He’s the life you created. It’s your duty to put an end to it… Don’t be a piece of shit who doesn’t take responsibility and abandons the life he made…!”

Cliff’s thoughts went to his street friends living together in the underground station. They had all been abandoned by their parents, irresponsibly neglected and tossed aside like dogs. If Cliff gave up on Gandolf here, he would be the same as those horrible parents.

Cliff had been abandoned too. But he’d at least received a proper name. That was a show of good faith on his father’s part.

So he had to take responsibility in the best way he could. Coming to that conclusion, Cliff replied, “But…I can’t die, not here, not now.”

“What?! Don’t be a spoiled brat! How’re you gonna fix this without dying?!”

“Who’ll protect Lovel if I die here and now?! I can’t just die and exit the fight! That’s why, I’ll…” Cliff rallied his resolve and continued, “…destroy Gandolf.”

Ouka answered him with silence. Cliff ran over to where Lovel lay flat on the ground.

“Sorry, Lovel… He finally came to life thanks to you, but I have to do this.”

Her eyes went wide, and she shook her head faintly, wearing a terribly sad expression. “…I won’t put the entire burden on your shoulders alone.” Lovel thrust the quarterstaff against the ground and staggered to her feet. “You’re Gandolf’s Tamer, so he’ll target you the moment you get close. So, I’ll be the one to hit him with this to destroy him… Let’s end our child’s life together.”

Cliff nodded and walked toward Gandolf aside Lovel. He didn’t know if destroying him here was the right choice or not. But he had no other options available at the moment.

“Ouka! Please have Dram use his claws to hold down Gandolf’s neck!”

Ouka didn’t answer, but Dram did as Cliff requested. Gandolf’s violent thrashes slowed as Dram’s claws pierced into the nape of his neck.

Yes, the neck was one spot Cliff had failed to find the perfect solid material to protect and the frailest location on Gandolf’s otherwise solid, metal body. The place Cliff kept thinking he wanted to do something about.

Gandolf couldn’t move if his neck was pinned. Cliff was well-aware of that. He knew everything there was to know about Gandolf. After all, Gandolf was his comrade in arms, his combat buddy, who he had been through thick and thin with.

Lovel tightened her grip on the quarterstaff. Gandolf looked at Cliff then. Their eyes met. The emeth on his forehead seemed to be oozing red.

For a second, it seemed as if Gandolf purposely stopped struggling.

“I’m so sorry…!” Cliff squeezed out. Lovel brought down the staff.

A sharp metal shriek ripped through the air and Gandolf stopped moving altogether. His body trembled as the Engrave Incantations covering it disappeared in succession. Once every last Engrave Incantation had vanished, only the letters spelling ‘meth’—death—remained on his forehead.

“Gandolf!” Cliff held Gandolf’s hand. Cracks split the metal hand. Fissures spread until they ran throughout his entire body.

And then Gandolf quietly crumbled away.

Only an iron finger was left in Cliff’s hand. His eyes locked on that finger as tears burst forth. Lovel pulled his head to her from behind. Cliff let the tears run their course in her arms.

After a while, Ouka pushed off the ground with his injured body. He picked up Kiriko and said, “Let’s go… We’ll only get caught if we hang around here. I’ve got a boatload of questions for you.”

He put Kiriko on Dram’s back. Cliff and Lovel nodded and followed behind him.

***

Ouka

OUKA and the kids walked Chest Island’s midnight roads back to his factory. Kiriko lolled on Dram’s back, still unconscious.

Lovel looked at her and asked, “Ouka, aren’t you going to take Kiriko to a hospital?”

“I will. After I’ve told her what I need to tell her.”

Lovel nodded in vague agreement.

“But,” Cliff joined the conversation, throwing in his own question. “…why was Kiriko so afraid?”

“Why wouldn’t she be afraid?”

“Well, it’s not like I know her well, but…why’d she breakdown like that when she saw Gandolf going berserk? She doesn’t seem like the type to panic.”

Ouka knew the answer. The red, sinister glow must have triggered her raw memories of freshly spilled blood. “…I bet it reminded her of the traumatizing past.”

“What past?”

“Four years ago, we created a monster at Torah Church—me, Kiriko, and a man named Alita did.”

The floodgates holding back his memories opened, and he let them wash over him. Ouka began to retell what had happened only four years before, yet felt like a millennium ago.

“Kiriko, Alita, and I joined the Church the same year, and we were eager to bring Golem manufacturing technology and techniques to new heights. We thought that was the right thing to do. We believed in the path we aspired to.”

Cliff and Lovel listened to his story without interruption. Ouka immersed himself in his recollection.

Kiriko used to be a woman who smiled often, someone much more cheerful than she was today. And then there was Alita, who Ouka was fairly certain Kiriko loved. Ouka loved and adored them both. He wanted to do something to congratulate them if they ever got together.

But the relationship between the three of them never changed, no matter how much time passed. The days went by peaceful, unchanging.

“After several years passed, we started to distinguish ourselves from the rest. That’s when our boss Spinoza invited us to participate in researchin’ the cubes.”

“So you do know what this is,” Cliff finally interrupted him. He pulled an object out of his pants pocket—the red cube Lovel should’ve had on her.

“You’re the one who had it…?”

Fissures ran through the cube’s shell. This cube had once been buried in Sephiroth’s chest.

His hand clasped around the cube, Cliff asked, “Please tell me what this cube is.”

“It’s called Sehem-hamphorasch. It’s something that can move a Golem from the inside.”

“It moves a Golem from the inside?”

“Engrave Incantations are generally inscribed into the exterior of a Prime Body, which the Tamer controls from outside, yeah? But there are limits to how much you can do with that. It’s incredibly difficult to maintain control over several Golems at once, and their intelligence is practically nil when you do. But what if there was something that granted a will to the Golem, making it move autonomously?”

Cliff and Lovel frowned at his question. Ouka supplied the answer for them. “That red cube can take an infinite number of Engrave Incantations. Not only for controlling the exterior, but Engrave Incantations programming the interior as well. Memories, emotions, principles governing their conduct—you can program all that through incantations using the ancient language.”

“Memories…? Isn’t that like the human brain?”

“Yup, it comes frighteningly close to what we call a brain or a soul. Well, the black cubes Jair’s got are more finite though… At any rate, burying the cube in the chest of something with a human shape and naming it will bring the puppet to life. Here’s the catch: Golems with the cube aren’t mentally linked with their Namer. They move and act according to their own will.”

Ouka’s research team and Grinzam had spent years searching for the ancient words to input. They had to find the elusive Engrave Incantations capable of restricting the interior because they were completely different from what they engraved into the exterior. Discovering those words would mean dispelling the secrets surrounding the cubes.

“We learned several things from our years of research. First, you can write Restrictors into the shell surrounding the original cubes. Second, if you fail to input the Restrictor ‘can’t kill people’ into the shell, the body you embed that cube in will instantly act like a Berserker Golem… But once we learned those two things, the Church elders declared, ‘Now is the time to create a holy warrior who can protect the country from heretics.’”

“…And that was Sephiroth.”

Ouka nodded to Lovel. “Yeah. The strongest militarized Silver Golem, powered by the red cube—Sephiroth. The development team was formed from the twelve best, handpicked Rabbis. We poured the Engrave Incantations we’d successfully discovered after many years into a Prime Body we built to be as combat-ready as realistically possible. After a year of trial and error, we finally completed it.”

He could never forget that day. For the rest of his life, Ouka would never forget the overwhelming joy he had felt and the living hell he witnessed soon after.

“We were ordered to unveil it for the military, right away. Naturally, the Restrictor ‘can’t kill humans’ was engraved in the shell of the cube embedded in its chest. We even went a step further, to ensure we were ready in the off chance it went berserk, by making the armor plate over its chest extremely thin… Alita was chosen as the Namer.”

Four years ago, in that underground research facility, the culprits had gathered. It was to be a historical moment, where a new generation of Golems came to life. The day should’ve been one of joy, of celebration.

“But…Sephiroth went berserk the instant he was named.” Ouka heard Cliff and Lovel draw in sharp breaths beside him.

A torrent of tragic, traumatic memories rushed through him. Spinoza, shouting something at the top of his lungs. Kiriko trembling uncontrollably in a corner of the laboratory. And in her moment of paralyzed fear, Sephiroth attacking her.

“We still don’t know the reason for it, but…the Restrictor preventing him from killing people didn’t function that day—and only on that day—despite all our successful tests. Sephiroth stormed around the laboratory massacring every Rabbi on the development team.”

Ouka couldn’t believe it then, and he still couldn’t believe it now. They had tested it hundreds, thousands of times; they only conducted the naming because they were absolutely certain Sephiroth wouldn’t go berserk as long as the Restrictor preventing him from killing people was engraved in his cube.

Yet, he’d gone berserk—the cause still unknown. Ouka had come up with a theory of why, even if it went untested.

When Ouka removed the cube from Sephiroth’s chest after the tragedy, fissures were webbed through the shell. Had they overlooked cracks that had already been there when they embedded it for the unveiling? Had the fissures formed when he removed it? He didn’t know the answer.

One possible reason for the Restrictor’s operating failure could be that a fissure had damaged the shell… The other possibility was one Ouka didn’t want to think about, but was the far more likely suspect.

He quietly ground his teeth. Unsettled by the abrupt silence, Cliff urged him along by asking, “How did you stop that monster…?”

“The Namer Alita challenged Sephiroth with his life on the line. ‘Whether I win or lose, it’ll stop him,’ he said. And then Sephiroth crushed him to death.”

Alita had tried to take on the berserker Sephiroth, and Ouka had tried to stop him from doing it. But Ouka hadn’t been able to stop him—he didn’t make it in time.

“…But even Alita’s death didn’t stop Sephiroth. That was the one thing nobody knew going into it—Golems powered by those cubes don’t stop moving after their Namer’s death. What stopped him in the end was Heaven’s Gunner’s bullet.”

The bullet had pierced through the thin plate covering Sephiroth’s chest, knocking the cube loose seconds after Sephiroth crushed Alita. “I didn’t make it in time!” Spinoza had spat out through his teeth, his hand on his face.

“…The incident was enough of a reason for the Church to freeze further development of Sephiroth and research into the cubes. The development team, with less than three members alive, was abolished too. Kiriko and Spinoza were transferred to the Civil Obedience Order, and I quit the Church.”

It was since then that Kiriko had developed an extreme hatred toward Illegal Golems. Crudely pieced together Golems posed the highest risk of going berserk, after all.

Kiriko abhorred Illegal Golems and feared berserkers, yet she still couldn’t bring herself to leave the world of Golems. She placed stringent Restrictors on her Golems, kept them under supervision at all times, and continued walking the path of a Rabbi. She faithfully stuck to what she believed was right and just.

By extension having failed to bring Kiriko out of the Church with him, Ouka chose his own path in life.

“And so, I became an Illegal Golem Artificer. Because there are people who need Golems, whether the Church permits it or not. Because as long as I keep a sharp lookout, I can surely prevent any from going berserk.”

It didn’t matter if no one believed it—those were the real motives behind Ouka’s choice. He had created Dram to run throughout the island preventing Golems from going berserk. He couldn’t think of anything else he could do to help.

“…If Kiriko’s a clean, silk handkerchief, I’m fine with bein’ a dusty old rag. They might look different on the outside, but they’re still both cloths for cleaning up messes. We both just wanted to do whatever we could for this archipelago.”

Ouka’s long monologue came to end. Silence fell between them. Eventually, Lovel asked in a small voice, “…What happened to Sephiroth after that?”

“The military pulled out of Sephiroth’s development too, and the research facility was locked down. He ended up being sealed away as the monster no one could Tame.”

“But Jair can control him…!” Lovel firmly insisted, conviction ringing in her voice. Ouka knitted his brow, frowning at her. She persisted. “You saw what he’s capable of! I’m telling you, Jair can control Golems powered by the cube, like the Ebens! It’s not too much of a stretch that he’d be able to do the same with Sephiroth!”

“That’s the thing that bugs me… How can Jair control Eben? It shouldn’t be possible.”

“It’s not something you can create in an experiment. It seems more like a predisposition. Jair isn’t the only one who has it, either—I’m positive I can do it too.”

“A predisposition, you say?” The answer couldn’t be so ridiculous. Jair had to have some sort of secret that let him do it. Did Lovel know what it was? Her reasoning was questionable.

“The Church will fall without much of a fight if he gets ahold of Sephiroth. You know that better than anyone else, don’t you? Then, we’ve got no better choice than to let me name him first.”

“…Tch.”

“So please, Ouka! Lead me to Sephiroth, before Jair gets to him!” Lovel’s expression was urgent and tense.

Ouka saw it and smiled weakly. “Hey, Lovel…won’t you stop with this now?”

“What?”

“I’ll cooperate if you’re going to fight Jair. But please stop trying to reactivate that monster.”

Dang it, saying crap like this ain’t who I am, Ouka thought, but those were indeed the words he had said.

“Ouka, why do you care so much…?” Cliff asked, suspicious.

“Sephiroth is the symbol of our mistakes. I don’t want to make Kiriko see that abomination ever again. If defeating Jair will settle everything, I’ll fight alongside you kids.” That was the totem of his resolve: to face the past he couldn’t escape.

Cliff and Lovel wore apologetic expressions. Ouka bowed his head to them anyway. “…Thank you for understanding.”

“I’m sorry, Ouka…”

“Ugh, shut it. You don’t gotta say stuff like that. Kids shouldn’t be considerate of adults,” Ouka said with his usual attitude, earning dry grins from Cliff and Lovel.

These kids most likely had their own set of problems. Lovel’s problems were big from the start, but Cliff had it pretty hard too, fighting the boy he admired enough to call Master. Ouka wanted to protect them, but he had more pressing matters to attend to.

Just as Ouka thought that, they finally arrived at the front of his factory. He picked up Kiriko and went in. Calling over his shoulder to the kids outside, he said, “It’s a promise, kids. I’ll help you out as soon as I resolve my own problem here.”

“What problem’s that?”

“Don’t sweat it. I’ll finish things up lickety-split. So do me a favor and wait outside for a bit,” Ouka said, closing the door and locking it behind him.

“Hey! Ouka?!”

“Come on, Ouka! What’s the big idea?!”

Cliff and Lovel shouted at him outside the factory.

Ouka answered them calmly, “I’ve got somethin’ I want to speak to Kiriko about alone. We’ll be having some adult time in here.”

“You’re screwing with us again…” Though Cliff and Lovel complained, they patiently settled down outside.

Ouka was grateful to them. This was the one conversation he wanted to have somewhere without any distractions. He laid Kiriko on the couch and lit a cigarette. Tobacco smoke curled in the poorly lit room. He followed the trails with his eyes for a while.

“…You really are an incomprehensible person,” she said at last. He looked to his side, where Kiriko stared at him from the couch.

“You were awake?”

“How could I sleep with how loud you were?” Kiriko shifted her attention to the ceiling and said quietly, “Ouka…did you quit being a Rabbi because it reminds you of Alita?”

“I quit because I came to hate the Church,” he replied without hesitation. A sad and lonely smile fell over Kiriko.

***

Cliff

CLIFF and Lovel were locked outside of Ouka’s factory.

“For crying out loud, what’s so important that they have to talk about it now? Things have turned sour between them because they’re both not honest with their feelings anyway,” Lovel complained, incredulous. She plopped down in front of the door. Cliff sat down beside her.

“At least he seems serious ‘bout helping us. He might surprisingly turn out to be a good person, that Ouka.”

“Yeah, but…I don’t think he’ll take me to where Sephiroth is after all,” Lovel said, her shoulders sagging. Cliff found that disappointing too.

“What happens if Jair finds out where Sephiroth is first?”

“I think we’re safe for now…? He can’t move Sephiroth without the red cube we’ve got.”

“Okay then. Now that we’ve got Ouka on our side, we just gotta regroup with Erie, and then…”

“And then we might stand a chance at defeating Jair,” Lovel finished his sentence, her voice brimming with excitement. But Cliff sunk into despair when he considered what defeating Jair really meant.

“…Hey, Lovel? I fought Jair.”

Lovel whirled her head toward him. “When?”

“A little before I rescued you. I fought him with Erie.” Cliff pulled his knees to his chest and rested his head on them. “That was…Master Roche. His actions and words seemed like somebody else’s, but I’m positive he’s my master.”

“……”

“But I can’t forgive him. He tried to kill Erie for real, and there’s what he’s tried to do to you, too… I want to protect you from him.” Maybe he didn’t have the right to say that now, without Gandolf. But he couldn’t stop himself from telling her.

Cliff gazed right into her pretty eyes and said, “So please tell me, why is Master calling himself Jair? Why is he after you? Lovel…who are you?”

“…..”

“I want a reason to fight. Give me a real reason to do this, Lovel.” Suddenly, soft, warm arms wrapped around him. Lovel was hugging him.

“Just when I was thinking you’re just a boy, you suddenly became a man…” He heard her happy voice right next to his ear. Heat flushed his face and the blood rushed to his head.

“L-Lovel?”

“You did save me, didn’t you, Cliff? I haven’t had the chance to say a proper thank you yet, but you made me really, really happy,” she told him, releasing him from her embrace. She gazed at him as he remained still, in a stunned daze. “I’ll share our past with you and you alone…”

And so, she began to tell her story. “My mom tried to leave me behind the Torah Church right after she gave birth to me. I was an unwanted child. But then a man named Grinzam persuaded her against it.”

“Grinzam? Isn’t he the Rabbi the Church calls a heinous traitor?”

“Yup. But he was a nice guy. He persuaded my mom to change her mind and raise me. Mom went on to quit her job as a woman of the night, and eagerly worked her butt off at the mines.”

“She worked in the mines as a woman? Was she a Golem Tamer?”

“Nope. Mom’s predisposition made her completely incapable of forming Engrave Incantations.”

The word predisposition struck Cliff like lightning. Proficiency with Engrave Incantations varied from person to person. Practice mattered, but it was a world where natural talent mattered even more. Lovel’s mom unfortunately lacked any innate talent, rendering practice useless to her.

Lovel continued the story as Cliff’s heart wept for her mom. “That’s why Mom used the Golems Grinzam created to complete her work in the mines. We were poorer than dirt, but our days together as mother and daughter were tons of fun. Grinzam often assisted us whenever we needed it too.”

Lovel had been speaking with a look of nostalgia, but then her face darkened abruptly. She cast down her eyes and continued, “But…Mom died when I was nine. She died in a Golem Berserker accident.”

“She did?!”

“Yeah. There were a lot of crudely made Illegal Golems in the mines back then, causing frequent Berserker Accidents. And mom got caught up in one…! …Grinzam helped me care for Mom with his young disciple until she died.”

“…He had a disciple?”

“Mom had changed her mind about abandoning me, but another woman abandoned her child at the Church later. With no other way to save the child, Grinzam raised the boy as his disciple… He gave him the name Jair.”

Cliff drew in a sharp breath. “Jair…?! You mean the Jair we know?!”

“Yup. I’m almost certain your master is Grinzam’s disciple from back then.”

“But how? Master had no parents and…” Cliff trailed off when he hit on his own answer.

Now that he thought about it, Master hadn’t lived on Chest Island since the day he was born. He once told Cliff that he moved to Chest Island eight years ago.

“That’s it…!”

Various doubts and questions became clear when he thought along those lines. Things like: where Master had been before they met, why he could use Remote Engrave Incantations, and why he called himself Jair.

Master used to be a Church boy. He changed his name to Roche when he moved to Chest Island! Cliff concluded.

“…Jair went to Chest Island, and I moved into the Academy dorms after Mom passed away. Unlike Mom, I had the ability to form Engrave Incantations, but the real reason I went to the Academy was because it was her wish for me. She didn’t want me to walk the same path in life she did.”

Cliff felt fulfilled when he heard her story. He had thought they were from two completely different worlds, but their backgrounds were similar. He thoroughly understood the loneliness and solitude of being left alone in the world. And he wanted to save her all the more for it.

“What happened since then? Why’s Jair after you now?”

“It happened early in the morning the day I met you, four days ago. Jair appeared before me for the first time in eight years with the cube. He told me about the plan to use Sephiroth to destroy the Church then, too.” Lovel gnawed her lower lip, her expression conflicted. “He told me, ‘Your mom died at the hands of a Golem. Such tragedies will disappear from this archipelago if the Golems do.’ But I couldn’t stand for that.”

“So you stole the cube from Jair and went straight to the Church?”

“Yup. I thought Grinzam would still be working there. I never imagined he’d be dead, and I especially didn’t think he’d be labeled a traitor.”

“And the Church didn’t believe you either…making you think you had to fight this battle alone.” Cliff glanced at Lovel’s profile—she was smiling.

“I wasn’t fighting alone… I’m not alone. I have you.” She lifted her head and looked at him. Emerald eyes gazed at him. “Thank you, Cliff. Thank you for fighting with me.”

“…If you’re fine with me, I’ll stay with you till the end.”

“In that case, I want you to promise me one thing.” Lovel took his hand in hers. “No matter what lies ahead, don’t think about killing your master. I’m pretty sure there’s a good reason for his change. A reason we just don’t know.”

“I think so too. So of course, I’ll make that promise with you. I want Master to return to himself too.”

“I knew you would… Don’t worry, I’ll be sure to do something about it,” Lovel said, and softly smiled. Cliff’s heart ached slightly.

She was definitely still hiding something from him. Her story had holes. The holes had begun from the moment they met, when she told him she had never made a Golem before. The fact that she hadn’t heard any news about the man who saved her life didn’t add up either, not when he was so involved in her life up until her mother’s death. What she had talked about didn’t answer any of those questions.

Does Lovel know the reason why Master changed? Cliff intuitively knew she did. Perhaps her far too kind attitude gave it away. But, so what if she’s hiding things?

Whether she was keeping secrets from him or not didn’t automatically make her someone he no longer wanted to help. Lovel had told him of her past to the extent that she could share. That was enough for Cliff.

I’ll fight to protect her until the end. Cliff steeled his resolve and returned Lovel’s smile.

***

Ouka

“…KIRIKO, there’s something I’ve got to show you,” Ouka started, handing Kiriko the black file. “A certain doctor stole this from the room of St. Rollins Academy’s dorm custodian.”

Kiriko accepted the file without resistance and scanned the contents. Documents including lists of Engrave Incantations, reports on trial-and-error results, and various graphs, were neatly tucked inside.

A long moment passed until Kiriko’s face stiffened. She must have caught on to what the file meant right away. Those documents detailed their failures, their mistakes. Inside was data that should’ve only been known to those involved—the Church’s most classified secrets, which were forbidden to be taken from Church premises.

Kiriko’s hands trembled. Wrenching the question out of her drying throat, she asked, “Why…did that dormitory custodian have this?”

“Apparently Grinzam’s aspirations haven’t been squashed. But what’s more troubling at the moment is how these documents got outside the Church,” he said.

Kiriko pondered the matter for a minute, then inhaled sharply. She was a smart woman—it wasn’t hard for her to understand what it meant.

Ouka stared at her as she fumbled for words and then told her, “You decide what to do with the information. But if you plan on returning to the Church with it, take me with you. It’s too dangerous for you to go at it alone.”

Kiriko didn’t answer him. Heavy, oppressive silence weighed between them. After what felt like hours, she held her head high and said, “…Let’s go, Ouka.”

Ouka solemnly nodded and stood. Kiriko held the file under her arm and slid off the couch. As he walked toward the factory door—a sudden sharp impact shot through the back of his head.

“Ngh!” Ouka pitched forward, landing on his stomach. Out of the corner of his blurring, swaying vision, he saw Kiriko holding the tranquilizer gun. She had bashed him behind the head with it. “Kiriko! Why…?!”

“I’m sorry, Ouka… I was happy you told me.” Ouka thought he heard her say through his rapidly fading consciousness.

***

Kiriko

KIRIKO stealthily slipped out the back door, careful not to let Cliff and Lovel notice her out front. She walked the causeway out of Chest Island, heading straight for Head Island. Her thoughts went to Ouka as she crossed Neck Bridge.

She might never see Ouka again, even though they had finally made a breakthrough in their relationship and found it in themselves to talk about the past. She had to go regardless. The file he had brought to her revealed the truth she never tried to discover for herself.

It’s my job to bring the truth to light… I know he will take care of the rest if I fail.

The risk that they would be killed at the same time was too high if they went together, so her choice to go alone was the best course of action. With those thoughts, Kiriko headed to the Torah Church by herself.

***

THE Church was quiet enough to hear a pin drop. Only a few people on night shift duty would be around under normal circumstances, but the halls were practically empty with the number of casualties they had sustained during the day. Only members of the General Affairs Bureau darted around, wrapping up the aftermath.

Kiriko was summoned to the conference room as soon as she arrived. She ascended the stairs to the second-story and headed there.

“Excuse me,” Kiriko said as she opened the door to the room with seven chairs lining the panoramic window. Spinoza sat in the farthest chair with the rest of the elders. Kiriko took a seat in the sole chair placed in the middle of the room.

One of the elders spoke as she sat down. “Twenty-one Rabbis have sustained minor or serious injuries, sixteen Golems were damaged beyond repair, and three have parts broken off—that is how much damage our side has taken. I assume you have captured the rats to make up for our heavy losses, Torah Chief Kiriko Strife?”

“I failed to capture them,” she answered tersely.

Another elder joined the questioning. “Then would you care to explain why we have a witness account of suspect Ouka Baraki taking you away somewhere after the failed battle on Neck Bridge?”

“The witness account is true. I was with Ouka Baraki and Lovel Sinclair up until the moment I returned here.”

“And why wouldn’t you have apprehended the suspects if you were with them, hm?”

“I made the judgment call to postpone their arrest.”

Spinoza gave her a skeptical look. “You did…? Are you sure you have your story straight, Kiriko?”

Kiriko stared right into his eyes and replied, “I have not made a mistake in my account. I willingly allowed the three suspects to escape.” Spinoza shook his head, disappointed.

One of the elders cut into her with a low growl. “You disappoint us, Miss Strife. We believed you were a talented Rabba, but you have proved our expectations of you to be false.”

“I am disappointed as well… I can’t believe I have been acting under a misconception all these years,” she remarked, turning all seven heads toward her.

Another elder spoke up, loud and unhappy. “What are you suddenly going on about? Misconceptions, you say?”

“Yes, misconceptions. I always believed that the Sephiroth Project was entirely pushed by you elders—in order to butter up to the military.”

“Watch your tongue, girl. What does this topic have to do with our current deliberation?”

The elders burrowed into her with sharp, unforgiving eyes. Unfazed, Kiriko persisted, “But it turns out the project was pushed by an entirely different person. Won’t you all please stop and recall who it was that was invariably involved in the cube research, who influenced its direction?”

“You bring up an unrelated matter—”

“No, I don’t. Think back even further. Who was the first person to discover Grinzam’s corpse when it washed ashore?”

“It was—”

“There is someone among us who is Grinzam’s devout follower, who inherited his convictions. Who do you think that is?”

“……”

The elders said nothing, giving her their ear for the first time.

Kiriko set the scene for them. “That person refused to take on the role of Sephiroth’s Namer when requested, surviving the Berserker Accident as a result. And now he is trying to lay another trap for the survivors.”

“A trap? What trap?”

Confused voices filled the room. Kiriko’s clear voice cut through the noise. “That person is here right now.” She stood from her chair. “The person who has always remained at the center of the conspiracy for years while deceiving the people around him…”

She thrust her finger at the man sitting on the lowest chair. “…You, Spinoza Bulledge!” she declared with confidence.

“What?!” one of the elders shouted, shooting a look at Spinoza.

Spinoza responded, voice cool and level, “…Have you become confused, Kiriko?”

“No, I have not. I don’t know whether Sephiroth going berserk was intentional or a coincidence, but you leaked extensive data on our research outside these walls. After all, you researched the cubes, not for the Church, but to realize Grinzam’s dying wish.”

That was what the black file revealed. The documents inside were full of data only members of the research team at the time would know. If Ouka and Kiriko didn’t leak it, only Spinoza could have.

“I have here a file full of documents that a certain dormitory custodian had in his possession. This is proof someone leaked data on Sephiroth’s creation, data unattainable without having been present at the scene.”

Kiriko handed the black file to the elder furthest from Spinoza. They read it and passed it around, their bewildered chatter growing louder. She glared at Spinoza.

“You conducted the research and experiments you needed to accomplish your objective at this Torah Church—using the Church’s funds, facilities, and talented personnel. That is the truth behind the Sephiroth Project.” Once the accusation left her, memories of those nostalgic days flooded Kiriko in waves.

Everyone had worked their hardest to unveil the secrets and mysteries of the cubes. She never doubted her path back then, for she had friends to experience the sorrows and joys of it with. She had a boss she respected and looked up to.

How was she to know every day was a lie?

“…Torah Lord, you used us till the end.” Tears gathered in Kiriko’s eyes. She confronted Spinoza without wiping them away. “Please answer me, Torah Lord. You sacrificed Alita and the others for your selfish objective, didn’t you?!”

A silent conference room answered her accusation. Spinoza dropped his gaze to the floor and kept quiet. A long pause went by before he quietly murmured with his eyes down, “You saw through me, huh? …I really am disappointed, Kiriko.”

“You—YOU TRAITOR!” One of the elders abruptly sprung to his feet, enraged. “You accursed traitor who rebels against God! You dare forget to be grateful to us after we raised you as a skilled Golem Tamer!”

The rest of the elders stood and pulled out their tranquilizer guns. Spinoza didn’t even flinch as he said, “Rebel against God? Do you people even have hearts capable of adhering to God’s will? Till this very day, you are still wetting yourselves over the fact that you failed to follow through with your present to the military. Don’t bring God up, when the god you serve is but yourselves!”

“We’ll take you to Small Sanhedrin, screwed up young man! We’ll throw you into prison, never to let you out!”

“I see… As I thought, you view yourselves as right. You don’t even stop to consider you may be wrong.” Spinoza lifted his head and swept his gaze across the elders. The intent to kill gleamed in his eyes.

Oh no!

Spinoza shouted before Kiriko could move to stop him. “You are traitors, smeared in their own avarice!” Gunshots fired in cadence from behind, accompanying his grave voice.

Kiriko spun around in time to see the door fall over. A four-armed Grim Reaper stepped inside with gunpowder smoke curling from his revolvers.

“Purge them, Heaven’s Gunner!”

Bullets burst from the four revolvers at his command. Watching the elders collapse in succession from one side of the room, Kiriko bolted for the window. She bashed through it and leapt outside. The impact from jumping down from the second-story numbed her feet with stinging prickles. She endured the shooting pain, broke the window into the first-story corridor, and entered the building again.

The Prime Body Storage Room is just ahead! The confiscated Prime Bodies should be there!

Another round of gunshots and screams reached her ears. She didn’t have a second to spare. Kiriko raced down the corridor and threw herself into the Prime Body Storage Room.

It was a tall and narrow room with only one window at the end. Well-organized lifeless statues lined the walls on both sides. Kiriko found a bronze statue with completed Engrave Incantations and shouted with authority, “My name is Kiriko Strife! With truth as my witness, I give thee the name No. 10! Live as one with me and return to dust with me! I order thee to defeat Spinoza Bulledge!”

Just as the Bronze Golem moved to life in response to her, Kiriko’s ears were pierced by the sound of a gun firing.

Scarlet sparks flew from No. 10’s forehead. The bullet shot through the “e” with precision. Cracks webbed through the bronze body and it noisily crumbled away. Kiriko whirled around to find Heaven’s Gunner standing in the entrance to the Prime Body Storage Room.

“I never thought you’d be the one to see through me… My plan failed me at the very end,” Spinoza said with a bitter smile, beside his Grim Reaper.

***

Cliff

AROUND the same time Kiriko was fighting Spinoza, Cliff and Lovel sat in front of the factory door chatting about various things. They filled each other in on what had happened since they parted ways two days ago and even swapped stories about their upbringing and families.

There was no end to what they had to talk about. They discussed the most trivial of things, such as their favorite colors and foods. The time they spent unconcerned with the rest of the world was fun beyond compare. And that’s exactly why Cliff failed to notice how much time had gone by since Ouka locked them out.

A long while passed before Lovel brought it up. “…Wow, look at the time. You think Ouka’s forgotten about us?”

“Now that you mention it, it’s been a while since he left. Let’s ask him what’s taking so long,” Cliff said and knocked on the door. “Ouka? Ouka? Are you ready yet?”

No one answered. Lovel frowned, suspicious. “…Doesn’t it seem like something’s off?”

Cliff pounded on the door, expecting some sort of reaction from inside since they probably couldn’t ignore the racket no matter what they were doing. He exchanged looks with Lovel and peeked in through the window. There, they saw Ouka sprawled out on the floor.

“OUKA?!” Cliff yelled. He didn’t see Kiriko inside.

Lovel smashed the window open with a rock without an ounce of hesitation. She and Cliff pulled themselves into the factory and ran over to Ouka.

“Ouka, what happened?!” She held him up in her arms and slapped his cheeks. He groaned and sluggishly opened his eyes.

“Wh-Where’s K-Kiriko…?” he stammered, his eyes blank, his voice hoarse with sleep.

“I don’t see her here. Did she go somewhere?” Cliff asked.

“What?! Does she plan to handle everything herself?!” Ouka clambered off the ground and flew out the factory door, stumbling over his feet along the way. Cliff and Lovel followed him, baffled.

“Where are you going?!” Cliff asked his back.

“To the Church! Kiriko is in danger!” Ouka leapt on Dram’s back in front of the factory and shot off toward Head Island.

“What should we do, Lovel?!” Cliff asked her, watching Ouka grow smaller down the road.

“Something’s not right here… Let’s follow him!”

Cliff and Lovel nodded to each other and ran toward the Church.

***

Kiriko

KIRIKO stood dead still in the middle of the Prime Body Storage Room with all four of Heaven’s Gunner’s revolvers trained on her.

“Torah Lord… Why did you do it?” she asked Spinoza, who stood blocking the exit.

“I told you why before. I’m still a Rabbi, even if the people whose orders I follow aren’t. I was the only one left who could continue Grinzam’s dream.”

“Was it worth accomplishing at the price of countless innocent lives? Are fulfilling the wishes of the dead that important?”

“Of course it was. Granting his wish was a world of difference better than making some worthless automatic weapon for the Church and military to sic on people. All your hard work paid off for me.” A distant look twinkled in Spinoza’s eyes as he went on, “Doesn’t it just remind you of the days when we all stayed overnight at the Church discussing what was right and wrong with the design until morning? We created Prime Body after Prime Body for tests and conducted experiments on top of experiments… I thought everything would go smoothly some day soon.”

He tilted his head down, slightly lowering his gaze. Dark shadows fell over his face, making his expression unreadable. He was a shadow of the man she knew.

“Why are you so obsessed with those cubes?! They are a washout. They can’t be controlled without inputting the Restrictor not to kill people!”

“You just don’t understand the potential the cubes have. You’re looking at things on a superficial level. The life created by the cubes isn’t even a Golem in the first place.”

“They’re not Golems? You mean they’re just Berserker Golems.”

“No, there is one other thing they could be. What else leaves the control of its parents the moment it’s born, and acts according to its own will?”

She gasped. “You don’t mean to say that—” Kiriko knew what he meant.

He nodded and answered her right out. “Humans. Those cubes are capable of turning puppets into humans. Or to be more exact, they transform them into something similar, but different.”

Kiriko had vaguely considered the theory four years ago. But it was wrong. It should have been wrong.

“…We certainly created a monster back then—a Golem with the same intelligence as a person,” she acknowledged. “We could grant memories and emotions all we wanted through the Engrave Incantations.”

“……”

“But is that really creating a human being?! A human soul can’t adapt to find its home in a metal body! Can you really call something without a soul, without a real body, human?!”

“You’re absolutely correct. But doesn’t that just make the problem finding a body they can adapt to?”

“What are you implying?” Kiriko didn’t understand what he meant by that. Spinoza eventually sighed.

“…I’ve said too much, Kiriko. Let’s end this now.”

Heaven’s Gunner cocked the four guns, about to fire, when the window behind Kiriko shattered. She looked over her shoulder as an amber beast landed beside her.

“KIRIKO!” Ouka shouted from Dram’s back.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Kiriko leapt onto Dram’s back behind Ouka.

Spinoza howled, “OUKA!” and Heaven’s Gunner fired.

“GUAH!” Ouka moaned, nearly falling off Dram. Kiriko held him up with both arms. He reoriented himself on Dram’s back and sent him charging at Spinoza.

Spinoza and Heaven’s Gunner evaded, splitting to the left and right of the exit. Dram zoomed through the gap and charged right through the corridor window into the garden outside.

“COME BACK HERE, OUKA!”

Bullets whizzed by Kiriko and Ouka as they galloped through the front quad. Dram cut across the stream of bullets and took cover behind a building a slight distance away.

Relieved to be out of the path of hailing bullets, Kiriko looked at Ouka. Blood was gushing from his side.

“Ouka! Are you all right?!”

“It’s just a dinky scratch. It hurts like hell though.” He forced a smile to reassure her, and it eased her fears a bit.

Bullets fired in the distance while they shared their sweet moment. They didn’t know who he was shooting at, but the gunshots came closer with gradual precision.

Ouka quietly whispered, “I’m going to have Dram leap on Spinoza the second he shows himself. Back me up when that happens, Kiriko.”

“Okay…!” Kiriko gripped her gun. Time inched along as they waited, tension hanging thick over them, gnawing at their feet. But then it was broken by the sound of Cliff’s voice.

“Ouka!”

Startled, Kiriko and Ouka looked in the direction of the voice. They spotted Cliff and Lovel running toward them from the main gate.

“Hide! Right now!” Kiriko shouted. The children hesitated, but ran over and hid beside Kiriko.

Spinoza must have spotted them, because his voice boomed out, “Hah! Looks like all the lead actors of this play have gathered in one place!”

Kiriko searched for the owner of the voice. Gunshots rang out whenever she peeked out from behind their cover and she quickly pulled her head back.

Lovel took one look at a stray bullet and raised her voice in shock, “Somebody’s shooting at us…?!”

“Torah Lord Spinoza is,” Kiriko answered.

“Huh? Why’s he doing that?! Wasn’t he on your side?!”

“No…he’s our enemy. He has been since four years ago,” Kiriko said with a self-derisive laugh. They could no longer return to the past. She was well-aware of that, but it still hurt and saddened her nonetheless. She could sense it had come to a definitive end. “…I have no reason to capture you now. You have been…acquitted.”

Relief washed over Cliff and Lovel, but their expressions instantly hardened.

“Being captured is the least of our problems at this point…!” Cliff retorted, and Lovel nodded.

Ouka snorted before yelling, “Spinoza, is this what you wanted?! Were you trying to turn the Church into a graveyard?!”

“It’s an inevitable sacrifice for righting this archipelago from the path it has strayed to,” Spinoza replied. They heard his voice continue from somewhere close. “Don’t you guys find the archipelago’s system strange too? He thought so, eight years ago, when Catalina died.”

Lovel’s face tensed at the sound of that name. She shouted at him, though he was out of sight. “Hold on, Spinoza, how do you know that name?! Who are you?!”

“You don’t remember me, do you? Well, not that it matters. That person chose it to be so.”

“What are you talking about…? We should’ve met for the first time during the questioning at the Church…” Lovel’s face clouded with unease.

Not following what they were talking about, Kiriko cut into their conversation. “What is all this about?! Who is this Catalina?!”

“She’s the woman who started it all. Well, I suppose I’ll take the opportunity to finish telling you of the past before I kill you, why not…” Spinoza set the stage and began retelling the story. “Seventeen years ago, there was a prostitute who came to abandon her baby at this church. Grinzam convinced her to change her mind and raise the baby herself instead.”

Kiriko had already heard that part of the story, but she knew there had to be more to it—an atrocious, appalling hidden storyline waiting to be retold.

“The mother and child found happiness, and Grinzam seemed happy as well. But then some years later, the mother died. She suffered all her life with the inability to make Golems, just to die miserably in an accident at the hands of a Berserker Golem.”

Kiriko scanned the area for Spinoza as he spoke, tracking the sound of his voice to pinpoint his location. Bullets sprayed the wall whenever she tried to stick her head out for a look.

He continued telling the story to his captive audience. “The woman’s name was Catalina Sinclair…the mother of Lovel, who you have hiding with you there.”

“Seriously?!”

“What?!”

Kiriko and Ouka cried out in surprise at the same time.

“Grinzam enrolled Lovel into the Academy dormitory using his savings,” Spinoza said, piling on more surprising details. “And then he tried to use the cubes to revive Catalina. But the Church wouldn’t allow the cubes to be used for anything other than Sephiroth, without question. Grinzam put this charge to the elders:

“‘If people are starving in the streets, you do not feed them. You levy exorbitant fees on the usage of Golems on an archipelago where it’s impossible to attain even a decent standard of living without a Golem. Seconds ago, a woman who lived a tragic, miserable life because she couldn’t make or afford a Golem just died. She’s neither the first nor last of her kind. Yet, you use Sehem-hamphorasch on a Golem meant to kill people; but you won’t use it to help people live. Is this the Church I’ve devoted my entire life to…?! You have no right to use Golems or Sehem-hamphorasch!’

“And so Grinzam took the cubes and fled with his disciple Jair. The Church’s greatest Golem, a puppet of a man, went berserk for the first time on that day…” Spinoza narrated, his voice quiet, solemn.

Lovel strained her voice against his. “But Grinzam is long dead, right?! Why’re you still obsessed with his dying wish?!”

“He died…?” Spinoza repeated, his voice hollow, vacant.

“He did! Grinzam’s already dead!” Ouka joined in. “So why did you leak the cubes and disclose our classified secrets to a dormitory custodian?! What are you really after?!”

A roar of laughter erupted out of nowhere. Spinoza was laughing at him.

“Wh-What’s so funny?” Ouka asked, flustered.

Spinoza answered through his laughter, “You think Grinzam’s dead?! He ain’t dead!”

“Are you for real…?!”

“Lovel, wasn’t there a man with Jair when you woke up four days ago? He’s the man you call the Mastermind! He should have told you the whole story, including things only those involved would know!”

Lovel frowned before the shock hit her like a ton of bricks. Tension tightened across her face, drawing her beautiful features into an uneasy expression. “How? …It can’t be…that person can’t be…!” she rambled, her voice trembling.

“You still don’t get it, Ouka?!” Spinoza taunted, sensing the confusion rising in his prey. “You’ve already been face to face with him! You’ve had a nice little chat with him!”

Realization flashed through Kiriko like a lightning bolt. Is it possible?! But what other answer could there be?! Various strands of information connected in her mind, revealing the image of the full picture.

Why had the condemning black file been in his possession? Why had the information been leaked to him? What happened eight years ago? Grinzam was—

“It can’t be him…!” Ouka said, his voice taut and stressed. He seemed to have come to his own conclusion about the identity of the man who had pretended to be another for eight years.