Chapter 12: The Truth
Chapter 12: The Truth
Erie
A little earlier than when Cliff and Lovel fought Berserker Gandolf on top of Neck Bridge, Erie and Heath were racing down the roads of Chest Island shadowed in the darkness of night.
They were headed for Getz’s clinic. Erie glanced at the leg Heaven’s Gunner had shot. She originally thought the bullet had severely injured her, but it stopped bleeding a while ago. Or rather, wiping away the crusted blood revealed no puncture wound beneath it. Had the bullet only grazed her skin? Had a knick caused that much blood to pour from her leg?
Erie decided to think so. She had a strong feeling nothing good would come of thinking about her injury further.
Heath mattered more at the moment anyway. His body had been filled with bullet holes during the fight with Heaven’s Gunner. Though his body wouldn’t shed blood, she couldn’t bear to leave him looking like a pincushion.
I just know Professor Getz can do something about Heathy’s wounds! Erie hurried to his house.
But her hopes were dashed when she arrived at the clinic and breathed in with a start. The windows were shattered and the front door was busted. Something bad had clearly happened. Imagining the worst, she rushed into the clinic, panicking for Getz’s safety.
She saw no one inside. However, she could hear voices conversing in the kitchen, farther inside.
“…You surprise and disappoint me, Professor Getz. Never did I think you would sneak out with that file.”
“I knew you had it. I merely handed it over to the right person.”
The second voice belonged to Getz, and Erie could recognize the first as well. She tiptoed to the kitchen and discovered a staircase leading to a basement below. A cabinet had been moved aside, revealing the hidden entrance.
Erie felt her heart leap to her throat, and she swallowed before descending the stairs with Heath. She heard them talking downstairs while she quietly made her descent.
“Why have you done such a thing, after we have come so far? I feel like I’ve been betrayed.”
“You’re the one who betrayed me first…! I heard nothing of you using it on Erie!”
“I had no other choice. It was the best course of action a year ago.”
The voices grew clearer the farther down she went. She was very familiar with the second voice. Why could she hear it coming from the basement? What was it doing here? After a long descent, Erie stepped off the last stair. She raked her gaze over the dark cellar and saw four figures.
“…Why?”
Getz stood by the window, facing Jair and Eben. And then, the fourth form, standing beside Jair, belonged to someone unbelievable.
“Why…why are you here…?!”
“Oh, why, if it isn’t Miss Erie. You’ve arrived at just the right time.”
The gentle, caring eyes that had watched over Erie for the duration of the school year turned on her. The first voice belonged to the Dormitory Custodian, Benny Navarov. He smiled at her arrival.
“Mister Navarov! Why are you together with Jair?!” Erie yelled.
Navarov answered her question with nonchalance. “Because I’m the one giving him orders.”
“…You are?!” Erie brought a hand over her mouth in shock, her stomach roiling.
“Allow me to pay you my deepest respects by explaining how things came to this. Otherwise, I’m sure you would find it simply unbearable to die and leave things without putting up a fight.” Erie sucked in a shaky breath, and Navarov flashed her a sorry smile as he launched into an explanation. “I doubt you remember, but you met me about ten years ago. And I taught your younger self how to make Golems. I showed you how to use Remote Engrave Incantations then, as well.”
“That can’t be true…! I thought you couldn’t use Remote Engrave Incantations…”
“I have my reasons for hiding the ability. In any case, my little display led to you harboring the dream of becoming a Golem Tamer.”
Navarov’s story coincided with what Heath had told her of the past. But Erie didn’t have any memory of the incident. No matter how she tried, she couldn’t remember what had happened.
Navarov continued over her confusion, “It seems like you didn’t abandon that dream, even after returning to the mainland. And so, you came back to this archipelago last spring. Many years had passed since then, and I should have changed quite a bit, and yet, you remembered me.”
“Wh-What are you talking about? Didn’t we meet for the first time at the dormitory, a year ago?”
“I made you think we did. I made you forget what happened between us.”
“You made me forget it…?”
“I had no alternative. My plans were still a work in progress. It was dangerous to have someone who knew me around. But I didn’t want to attract the attention of the Church, so it wasn’t as if I could just get rid of you. So I—”
“Eh?”
Erie lost the ability to process the rest of what Navarov was saying. She saw his lips moving, but only heard ringing in her ears. When she tried to ask him to repeat himself, Navarov finished his statement with, “But it’s time to put an end to that. There is no need to keep you alive any longer.”
Those words spurred Jair and Eben into action—they surged toward Erie. Getz stepped between them. “Stop it! Don’t lay your hands on this child!”
Jair hesitated momentarily before him. Navarov thought it over for a second, then said, “Move him out of the way.”
Eben promptly swept out his arm, knocking Getz through the air. He crashed against a wall in a corner of the room. “AGH!”
“No…why…why would you…” Erie sputtered, her voice lifeless and dazed.
Navarov had been such a kind and friendly custodian. And yet, here he was, hurting Getz and trying to kill her.
Jair and Eben closed in on her. Erie panicked, and the confusion rooted her to the floor, robbing her of the ability to run away. In the drawn-out seconds before her fate was sealed, something glowed, bright and vicious, from within the inner depths of the dark cellar.
Everyone turned toward the light. At the glowing corner of the cellar was a large tank with a girl inside. The girl wore a hospital gown, and the Engrave Incantations covering her entire body floated at the surface of her skin.
Getz lifted his face from the floor and moaned, “Roberta…”
“I had forgotten your daughter is still active,” Navarov spat, revulsion coating his words.
Erie thought back to the story Getz had told her. Daughter? This is the daughter Professor Getz turned into a Fresh Golem?! No sooner did the thought flash through Erie’s mind than the girl balled her fists and slammed them against the inside of the tank.
Cracks spread through the tank until the material could no longer withstand the pressure and shattered. The encased embalming fluids spilled onto the cellar floor, filling the room with a pungent, bizarre smell.
Alarm and wariness came over Jair’s features, and he stood protectively in front of Navarov. The girl hopped onto the floor from her confines and let out an enraged shriek.
“Roberta… You don’t have to do a thing. Just behave…!” Getz begged her, but the Fresh Golem Roberta fixed furious eyes on Navarov and howled.
“Eben, defeat this woman first!” Jair ordered, and Eben lunged at Roberta. But she was gone. She had jumped into the air a second faster, evading Eben’s powerful jab.
Jair’s eyes widened. Roberta sank her nails into the cellar ceiling, then, hanging from them, she kicked out with both legs and knocked Eben back.
“Tch!” Navarov clicked his tongue and took a few steps back. Roberta flipped smoothly onto the floor and stalked closer to him. Erie watched on, motionless, as if she were stuck in a nightmare.
Erie didn’t know who the real enemy was, and she didn’t know what was true. But she did know what she had to do.
“Heathy, let’s grab Professor Getz and run!”
At her command, Heath picked up Getz and bolted up the stairs with Erie. She heard fierce, savage bangs and crashes behind her, and the intense bloodlust numbed her limbs and sent tremors down her back. She made it to the top of the staircase and rushed right out of the clinic without looking back.
“Professor, let’s escape somewhere safe!” Erie exclaimed. Getz shook his head and pulled himself off of Heath’s shoulder. “Professor!”
“I won’t run… I can’t flee when I’m the one who caused all of this.”
“Caused what? Are you talking about the events leading up to this?”
Getz didn’t answer. Erie grabbed his arm as he tried to walk back into the clinic. “Can you tell me the whole story…?” she pleaded. “Don’t you know the truth behind everything that has happened, Professor?!”
A long bout of silence fell between them. Eventually, he came to a decision and looked over his shoulder. “…Navarov arranged everything that has happened. The boy Jair is also moving according to his will.”
“I can’t believe it…!”
“I thought I was one of the few friends he cared about. We sympathized with each other for losing who we loved most. That’s why I tried to help him, to the best of my ability.” A sour expression overtook Getz’s face, as though he resented himself for his choice. “But he used everything and anything to make his plans succeed—including you, Erie. I tried to stop him, and this is the result…”
“Stop him from doing what? What is Mister Navarov trying to do?” Erie asked.
Getz wrung out his answer through a constricted throat. “Listen to me very closely, Erie. The man you know as Benny Navarov does not exist in this world.”
“He doesn’t exist…?”
“It happened about eight years ago. On the run from the Torah Church, Grinzam came to my clinic with his disciple who had fled with him. His disciple, Jair, was unharmed, but Grinzam had serious injuries, and had grown haggard.”
Erie listened to the unexpected story about Grinzam with her head spinning.
“He was at the point where he couldn’t run any longer. It was clear he wouldn’t be able to research the cubes he went through all that effort to obtain. I told my friend I would do anything to save him from the brink of demise. What he asked of me was…” Getz took a deep breath, “…to erase Arusrad Grinzam from existence, and create another identity for him.”
“You don’t mean to say Mister Navarov is…” Erie trailed off as the answer to her doubts flashed through her mind.
Navarov became the Academy’s dormitory custodian eight years ago. So why did he tell Erie that he had met her ten years ago? Because he had worked for the Torah Church before he became the dorm custodian. Because he was the Golem Tamer Erie had met and idolized as a child!
Erie finally understood what it all meant. In a quivering voice, she whispered the answer. “Mister Navarov was…Arusrad Grinzam…all along…!” Shock and grief jolted through her, robbing her of speech.
“I performed plastic surgery on Grinzam and his disciple, then autopsied completely unrelated corpses and reported them as theirs. Thus, the Torah Church believed they died, and the man known as Arusrad Grinzam vanished from this world, along with his disciple Jair…”
That was the hidden truth. Grinzam, the man everyone thought had died eight years ago, hadn’t really died. He had changed his name and face and lived on, never leaving the archipelago.
“And so, his plans continued below the surface. His accomplice, Spinoza, conducted research into the cubes within the Church. Grinzam received the data so that someday he could attempt to unravel the secrets of the cubes.”
“But wasn’t the research canceled when Ouka and the others failed?”
“It never ended. Grinzam’s obsession, his vindictive feelings, didn’t end with that horrible tragedy…! He waited and waited at the dormitory for the perfect opportunity to exact his revenge on the Church and bring the woman he loved back to life!” Getz turned to Erie, holding her in his intent gaze. “And then, four days ago, Grinzam finally put his plan into action—his plan to reactivate Sephiroth and demolish the Church.”
“That’s when I was pulled into it… Is that what you are saying?”
“…I’m sorry.”
Erie didn’t want him to apologize. She didn’t desire those words from him. She sought them from no one. She only wished everything had just been one big, bad dream. But it wasn’t.
Mustering her courage to face reality, she insisted, “Let’s run away, Professor Getz! Our opponent is a monster! It’s too dangerous to stay here!”
“I won’t run! I’ll stay with Roberta in her final moments!”
They could still hear chaotic thundering and crashes coming from inside the clinic. Roberta was still fighting Jair.
“A Berserker Golem is no different from a baby. They simply lose control because they were born with power. But she was capable of even making peace with me—the man who imprisoned her in that cellar.”
This was the first Erie heard anything of the sort, but Getz’s tense face and what she had witnessed in the cellar told her it was the truth.
“Roberta grew angry when she saw me being hurt. She grew angry for her worthless, cruel father, who had locked her up in a tank for over ten years… She left the tank and told me, ‘Daddy, run away…!’”
Erie hadn’t heard Roberta say anything. But she didn’t doubt Getz had. She understood their relationship better than anyone else, because she was the same as him. It was for that reason she didn’t object outright.
“Professor Getz, even your daughter has asked you to run… So please! Run away!” Tears welled in Erie’s eyes.
Getz looked away and said, “I’m staying. You run for it.”
“But—”
“I can’t leave my daughter behind to escape and live a carefree life without her.”
“But—”
“This is all I can do for you, and the many others embroiled in this chaos my actions enabled—”
“But I don’t want you to do that! I don’t want to lose the people I care about, ever again!” Erie wailed, taking Getz’s hands in hers. Bewilderment flickered in the eyes directed at her.
“Erie…?”
This man had wandered for many years, lost and unsure of what he should do. He was a lonely, miserable, grieving, and selfish doctor. But those were the exact reasons why Erie connected with him on a deeper level. He taught Erie, who could only ever believe in Heath, the warmth of others. Getz had become someone important to her.
“Professor, you wanted your daughter to live, didn’t you? You wanted to be with her in whatever shape necessary, right? I was the same. Please don’t make me lose another person I care about!” Erie looked squarely into Getz’s eyes and declared, “I will protect you, Professor Getz. I will defeat them!”
After a long pause, Getz squeezed Erie’s hands. His warmth was conveyed to her through his hands.
“…Don’t die, Erie.”
“Thank you, Professor Getz… I’ll go settle things for us,” she told him, and then reentered the clinic with Heath.
***
ERIE stepped inside and heard a terrible, loud bang from the cellar. Roberta and Jair were still fighting.
Erie ran down the stairs leading to the cellar with Heath. Below, she found a destroyed Eben, Navarov with his back up against the wall, and a haggard Roberta with her hospital gown in shreds.
Jair seized Roberta’s neck in his hand and lifted her up by it.
“STOP!” Erie cried out, but Jair ignored her as he scraped off the letters on Roberta’s forehead.
Roberta’s body trembled with violent spasms until she ceased moving entirely. The red Engrave Incantations floating at the surface of her skin were smothered, like flames put out by a lid. And thus, the Golem girl, who had spent eleven years locked in a tank in the basement of the clinic, crumbled into fine fragments of ash, never to set foot above ground.
Erie clenched her fists so hard her nails cut into her skin and drew blood. Her voice trembling with her sorrow and fury, she shouted the accursed name. “MISTER NAVAROV…!”
Navarov—no, Asusrad Grinzam—pulled a wry, embittered expression at being called by that name.
“You came back? The circumstances aren’t in our favor, but we can’t back down now… Jair, kill Miss Erie.”
Jair nodded and faced Erie. Erie squarely met his gaze. Resentment and hatred far surpassed her despair for being betrayed.
The rage burning in her gut leapt out in a murderous shout. “HEATHY, KILL JAIR!”
Heath swiped out with his knife toward Jair at her command. The knife flashed as it sliced through Jair’s hand. Jair retreated a few steps and held his ground, but Heath stepped forward and thrust in a volley of relentless cuts. The knife stabbed Jair’s arm, contorting his expression. The number of wounds on Jair’s body increased with each gleam and flash of the butcher’s knife in the faintly lit cellar.
I can’t lose! Erie thought, pouring her concentration into the battle. The instant Roberta had defeated Eben, Jair’s fate had been sealed.
He had run away during their battle at the Academy four days ago. But this time they were inside a basement with nowhere to run.
I absolutely won’t let you escape! I’ll put an end to it all here and now! Erie thought.
Jair made a break for her and launched a kick to her side. Heath slid between them, intercepting the blow with his elbows. Without a second to spare, he swung down the knife, cutting Jair.
“Agh!” Blood gushed from Jair’s shoulder and he fell forward. Heath pressed the tip of the knife to his throat.
“Tch…!” Grinzam’s face twisted.
“I have a question for you,” Erie said, looking at him with disgust.
“…What is it?”
“Why did you target me? What do I have to do with your plan?”
“I suppose it’s only natural that you would want to know… Then allow me to present you with my final lecture—on the true power of the cubes.” Grinzam procured a black cube from his chest pocket. “Each Sehem-hamphorasch can take an infinite number of Engrave Incantations. You can even use them to program the body’s interior, and its mind.”
Grinzam’s hands glowed and Engrave Incantations inscribed the surface of the cube. The ancient letters immediately vanished, returning the cube to its slick, black surface.
“You can use them to implement basic human intelligence and instinct. Depending on the Engrave Incantations used, you can even make internal organs and vocal cords that work. It’s even possible to create a personality and memories. You can go as far as to say the Engrave Incantations can give birth to an artificial soul and mind.”
Erie had learned the gist of those capabilities from Ouka. But it was what Grinzam said next that sent shockwaves through her.
“The one thing that came as an utter surprise, you see, was that embedding the original red cube into a body grants it the capacity to manifest the ability necessary for using the all-powerful Remote Engrave Incantation, if so desired. My guess is that the original purpose of the power was to allow the Golem to engrave newly gained knowledge into the cube embedded in its chest.”
“Remote Engrave Incantations…?!” A sudden bad premonition swept over Erie. A mysterious and intense, volcanic anxiety suffocated her.
Grinzam continued his lecture over her silence. “However, that does not mean you can create a human being. You may be able to create a soul—a persona—but we are still incapable of creating a human body. So how do we get around this obstacle?”
Erie felt like she was on the verge of producing the answer. But a fog muddied her mind, obscuring her ability to think. Grinzam lectured on.
“Even if you embed the cube in a corpse, the body will eventually rot away. Embedding it in a living human has no effect, as a living person’s will appears to be far stronger than that of the cube’s power… So what is the answer then?”
The truth was just before her, but Erie didn’t want to think about it. She didn’t want to consider where the host body would come from.
“The answer is simple: just make a human without a will,” Grinzam said, answering his own question. He pulled a gun from his jacket. It was the same type of gun Kiriko had pointed at Erie the day before—the absurdly powerful tranquilizer gun.
“A medicine that doesn’t kill the person, but renders them completely unconscious and without any will—that’s the weapon the Torah Church made. Do you understand now? Understand how it is you were created, that is.” Grinzam smiled at the speechless Erie and said, “A year ago, I shot you with this concoction and embedded Sehem-hamphorasch in your body while it was in a state of suspended animation.”
Erie couldn’t hear what he said. Or to be more precise, she heard him, but it went through one ear and out the other.
“By putting the human body in a state of suspended animation, you can overwrite the original personality with an artificial one using Engrave Incantations. You can kill the mind of a person who knows something they shouldn’t, yet have them act as if they were the same. I was able to do that by combining the Church’s drug with this cube.”
“……”
Erie’s mind stopped working, like the cogs had gotten stuck. The same thing that happened every time she tried to think of her past.
“When you enrolled in the Academy a year ago, you remembered me. You didn’t remember my face, but you recognized my voice and the air about me; the things that couldn’t be changed with plastic surgery. So, I used a rare red cube on you. I engraved a personality that imitated the original you and implanted fake memories into it.”
She couldn’t hear him.
“And born anew on that day was the current you before me. I gave you two Restrictors, ‘can’t kill humans’ and ‘believe you are a normal human being and never doubt it.’ These were truly effective Restrictors in buying me more time.”
She couldn’t hear him.
“And then, when all my preparations were finished four days ago, I put my plan into action. All that was left to do was have Jair activate Sephiroth and use him to wipe out the Church. But Miss Lovel nabbed the last red cube and ran for it…! I was out of cubes, and I needed one to activate Sephiroth.”
Grinzam’s eyes dropped to Erie’s chest as he said, “So I decided to remove the cube from your chest and use it on Sephiroth instead. Long story short, I’m just trying to take back what I never intended to use on you in the first place.”
“…!”
Clarity returned to Erie’s mind after he finished talking. She knew she had been told something of great importance, but couldn’t rouse the desire to think about it.
The one thing she knew for sure was that Heath had gotten mixed up in this man’s evil plans and was murdered for it. She knew this man was a hypocrite, who didn’t hesitate to kill people in order to achieve his goal of raising someone important to him from the dead.
For some reason, Erie couldn’t find it in herself to take matters into her own hands and kill him, despite the hatred she felt. But she could never forgive him for what he had done. The origin of the disaster haunting this archipelago had to be ended, right now.
“Heathy, kill Jair and Grinzam!” Erie shouted to Heath. Her command would put an end to all of it.
But Heath didn’t move. He stayed perfectly still with his knife thrust at Jair’s neck.
“…Heathy?” Erie didn’t understand at first, and then she gasped. Red Engrave Incantations floated to the surface of the hand around the knife. The Engrave Incantations that had originally vanished after inscribing them reappeared, covering his entire body.
Grinzam saw it and cackled. “Haha! What a sorry twist of fate…! Did your temporary brain freeze cause it? Or is it the result of the bloodlust you’ve harbored since you created him…?”
“Heathy?!” Erie called his name, not wanting to believe her eyes. But her voice didn’t reach him anymore. Red suffused the Engrave Incantations drifting on his skin. The emeth on his forehead began glowing like a freshly stoked fire.
“He’s gone berserk!” Grinzam announced, elated with his triumph.
Erie cried out in a hysterical voice, “HEATHY! Listen to me! Kill him! Kill him!”
Heath didn’t move. He trembled, his limbs quivering as he fought against the desire to rampage surging through him.
Jair snatched the knife from his hands. He shoved Heath away and ran at Erie. He swung the knife down at her as she stared up at him wide-eyed.
“Ah!”
She had no time to do anything. The tip of the knife sliced deep through Erie’s chest. The strength rushed out of her body and she crumpled to the floor. Heath’s movements completely ceased. Jair tossed the knife aside, and it clattered against the cold, hard floor.
“I never even considered you would turn Heath into a Golem… Your quick-thinking sure threw a wrench into my plans.” Grinzam took a deep breath and strode over to Erie. “Use the dead in whatever way necessary to exact revenge—of course, you would have at least considered the option. I created you. It wouldn’t be strange for us to think alike.”
Erie was his captive audience—she was unable to even twitch her fingers. Grinzam peered down at her face and said, “But the moment you viewed him as a tool, he ceased to be Heath. Golems are just Golems, after all. They are nothing more than empty puppets that move to their Tamer’s will. Being together with this Golem is no different than being all alone.”
Erie couldn’t even cry. Her consciousness was barely hanging on by a thread. A red cube rolled out with the blood gushing from the giant slice through her chest.
It’s Sehem-hamphorasch. Why’s it in a place like this? Erie thought, seeing her own soul, the soul that had lived Erie’s life from a year ago until this day.
“We finally have it… Let’s make haste to the station, Jair.”
She heard Grinzam’s voice in the distance. He left the cellar with Jair. She merely watched his fading back, unable to do anything to stop it. Erie could no longer move her body. Darkness dyed her vision black. Sensations disappeared, thinking ceased, and her heart sunk in despair, dropped into the void of darkness.
And that was how the soul of the girl who had been called “Erie Reyer” for the past year vanished from the world.
***
Kiriko
…RETURNING to the events of two hours later at the Torah Church; Lovel hissed at the truth Spinoza had shared with them. “So that man was Grinzam…!”
Kiriko pieced together all the information she had gathered, matching her conclusion with Lovel’s. “I fear it is so… The dormitory custodian was Grinzam all along, just with a different face!”
“I can’t believe it…!” Lovel’s expression turned grim, and she fell deep into thought. Cliff peered at her, worried.
Though Lovel was still but a young woman, Kiriko realized she had a beautiful face when she looked closer. Kiriko had no doubt she resembled her gorgeous mother—the only woman the strongest Rabbi in history had fallen in love with.
“She has the right…” Kiriko muttered under her breath, and Ouka nodded.
Lovel had the right to be brought face to face with Sephiroth—whether she was actually capable of controlling him or not. True to her word from the start, Lovel was only trying to activate Sephiroth to protect the Church and the archipelago.
Kiriko had misjudged her. And Spinoza, the man she had thought her friend, turned out to be Grinzam’s puppet. The man she knew as the strongest Golem Tamer alive worked for the enemy.
Regret won’t fix what’s done, but…I will make sure to take responsibility for it, Kiriko thought, scanning her surroundings. She still didn’t know where Spinoza was shooting at them from. Four people and Dram remained in the building’s shadow, unable to escape.
“…He hasn’t made a move,” she whispered after taking everything in. Spinoza didn’t show himself, and he was no longer droning on about the past.
“Did he run away…?” Ouka asked, dubious.
“Wouldn’t that be strange? Where would he go?”
“If Grinzam’s alive, hasn’t he gone to meet up with him?” Cliff suggested.
“Meet up? Where?” The second the question left her mouth, Kiriko suddenly figured it out. She understood why he would leave them there, and where he had gone. “Oh no! Torah Lord Spinoza plans to beat us to it!”
Shock and comprehension flashed across Ouka’s face. “We’re leaving, kids!” he beckoned to Cliff and Lovel, who looked at him confused. “I’ll take ya to where Sephiroth is!”
“You will?!”
Ouka hopped onto Dram’s back.
Kiriko turned to the perplexed children and told them, “Please wait for me real quick! I’ll bring a Golem along with us too!” She headed toward the Church as she spoke. She retraced her steps back to the Prime Body Storage Room.
Only one Prime Body was unscathed in the wrecked room full of scattered, broken bits of Golems riddled with bullet holes. Kiriko named the giant wooden body.
“My name is Kiriko Strife! With truth as my witness, I give thee the name No. 11! Live as one with me and return to dust with me! I order thee to,” Kiriko drew close to the Prime Body and whispered in its ear, “…please protect us.”
The Wooden Golem named No. 11 came alive.
Kiriko left the Prime Body Storage Room with No. 11 and found Ouka and the children waiting for her. She led them all out of the complex to a corner of the Church grounds.
“Please wait, Miss Kiriko. Where are we going?” Cliff asked on the way.
Kiriko left his question unanswered and ran down the staircase leading underground at the corner of the front garden. It was the entrance to the underground Torah Church Station. The group descended the stairs and stood on the platform. No one was around.
“They went on ahead of us…!” Kiriko breathed. She began operating the switchboard at the edge of the platform.
“Explain what’s going on, Kiriko,” Lovel demanded. “How are you taking us to where Sephiroth is? Is he inside this station?”
“Yes. To be precise, he’s beyond this station.” Kiriko finished working the switchboard and directed her eyes to the railway tracks. The tracks leading north abruptly cut off at a wall. Staring at the wall, she explained, “This underground railway connects Chest Island’s mine to the Church. Hence why everyone believes this station is the last stop to the north, and that there is nothing beyond it… But the truth is that the tracks go beyond this stop.”
The wall obstructing the track began to open, emitting the mechanical sound of churning gears. Another platform with a set of tracks appeared on the other side of the wall.
“This is the hidden track that lies beyond the last railway stop, the path that leads to the Church’s underground research facility,” Kiriko clarified. Cliff and Lovel’s jaws dropped.
“Then, is he—”
“Yes, Sephiroth is there. An automatic train connects this station to the research facility.”
It didn’t take long before they heard the rattle of an accelerating train come from the darkness farther down the railway track. A large two-car train slid into the platform. It was an automatic electric train designed to only run on this track.
“Let’s head off to where that monster lies,” Kiriko said, boarding the back railcar with her Golem. Ouka and the children climbed in behind her, and the doors closed. Now that they were all on board, the train took off.
“We will arrive in five minutes. Before that, we should—” Kiriko had turned around to face Cliff and the others when gunfire cut her off.