Tatakau Shisho

Volume 10, Prologue: Parting of the?Tools

Let us first speak about the ending of a certain girl.

It wasn’t much of a story. A tool no longer useful was thrown away – that was all this story was.

Even if that tool has a human appearance, a human name and a human heart, once broken it will be thrown away. That is the fate of those born as tools.

“Please come out, Chacoly.”

Hamyuts Meseta called with a calm voice. She held her favorite sling in her hand.

“You have nowhere to escape to and no chances of victory. As I am now I can snipe you before you activate your ability from here. I became strong. Much more than you.”

Hamyuts was at a corner of the mountainous region of western Principality of Meliot. To the east was a plains area dotted with Meliot’s major cities, and to the west extended the Kuler Region currently engaged in civil war.

She was deep into the mountainous region where population density was extremely low. The towering mountains, the sky so bright it hurt one’s eye and the dry, thin air all encircled Hamyuts.

“I came to kill you. I’m sorry, but please die obediently.”

At the time Hamyuts was 20 years old. This happened 12 years before the last day of Bantorra Library.

Hamyuts was peeking inside a cave deep within the mountain. She released her Sensory Threads there. She could feel a lone girl was sitting in the depths of the cave.

“Come in, Hammy. Chacoly would like to talk to you about something.”

She felt with her Sensory Threads that Chacoly raised her face. She could hear her voice from inside the cave.

“Please, listen to her. Before Chacoly dies talk to her even if just a little.”

Hamyuts thought for a while, then set her feet inside.

She knew of Chacoly’s defeat three days ago. The one to tell her that was Lascall Othello.

Four days ago, just as designed by Makia, Chacoly had tried dominating Ruruta and making him commit suicide. However, she heard that he had rejected Chacoly and broke her down.

Hamyuts flew to Meliot immediately. Bantorra Library’s Acting Director Photona and the Overseer of Paradise Kachua already began their move. Hamyuts had to kill her before she was captured.

It was easy finding her using Hamyuts’s Sensory Threads. Photona and Kachua were still looking for her at the wrong places. She had some spare time.

“Who would’ve thought you would lose… I really can’t believe it.”

The cave was deep. Hamyuts slowly descended without any hurry.

“Yeah. Chacoly also thought she would succeed. She believed she would die with Ruruta. But there’s nothing to do about it. That’s reality.”

Her voice was dark.

“…Yeah. Unfortunately that’s reality.”

Hamyuts proceeded while talking. The deepest part of the cave was a vast cliff. It had a rope ladder coming down from it. After cutting it off, she leapt down. Chacoly was there.

“…!”

The moment she saw her Hamyuts gasped. She even thought she might have gotten the wrong person or that it was a substitute. She was much different than the Chacoly Hamyuts remembered.

Chacoly, who was once always calm, now seemed haggard and exhausted. Her detached and otherworldly atmosphere was gone. Her body seemed to be full of sadness and she wore a smile alike that of complete resignation.

However, that wasn’t what surprised Hamyuts. The violet hair that once even charmed Hamyuts was missing. The color of her hair turned into an ordinary dark brown.

“…It’s as you see, Hammy. Chacoly’s broken. Unfortunately, she was a failed product.”

In front of the lamp’s light Chacoly was sitting on a rock. Her face downcast, she raised only her eyes and spoke to Hamyuts.

Hamyuts’s chest was suddenly assaulted by sadness. In front of her was a simple loser that had nothing. She was no longer a tool meant to defeat Ruruta. She also couldn’t live as a normal girl either. She was a being that merely awaited its death.

“What a surprise, Hammy. You’ve changed so much. Chacoly never would’ve thought you’d make such a face.”

Chacoly said while smiling. Her expression was painful.

“…Chacoly, what did you want to talk to me about?”

She exerted power in her hand holding the sling. I can’t bear looking at her, she thought. I want to kill her as quickly as possible.

“Listen, Hammy. Ruruta wasn’t the sort of man daddy thought he was. He’s…”

Chacoly tried to talk, but Hamyuts stopped her.

“I’ll find out how you lost after reading your Book. That would be more accurate.”

“…Right. Hammy, you have to read Chacoly’s Book.”

“…Anything else?”

Chacoly thought for a while. Hamyuts waited with great patience.

“It’s been four days since Chacoly’s lost to Ruruta. She thought about a lot of things. She thought without eating or sleeping. Even though she’s tried so hard, she couldn’t think of anything.

How can Ruruta be saved?”

“…Saved?”

“Yeah. Chacoly wants to save Ruruta. He’s deeply desperate. At this rate he wouldn’t be able to endure it and break down. So Chacoly wants to save him.”

As Hamyuts made no reply, Chacoly kept talking.

“…Even when it turned out like this. Even now that she’s broken down and can’t do anything… Chacoly loves Ruruta.”

“…I see. Do as you please. It has nothing to do with me.”

“Wait Hammy!”

Chacoly shouted at Hamyuts as she was about to spin her sling.

“…Listen until the end. Please, I have just one wish.”

I don’t wanna, she thought of saying but stopped. She noticed that Chacoly asked this of her because it truly was the first and last time.

“Hammy. Saving Ruruta is simple. Someone just has to sympathize with him. That’s it.”

“…Sympathize with him?”

Sympathy. It certainly was important. It was wonderful. But such a thing only appeared in fairy tales for children.

“He doesn’t need anything else. Neither ability nor strength, smartness or anything else. Simple having someone sympathize with him… as long as someone feels that Ruruta will be saved.

Sympathy is an amazing power. Much more than Hammy’s sling, than Chacoly’s Soul Sharing, than Ruruta’s Book-Eating power… a much bigger power. Without the ability to sympathize we wouldn’t save abandoned puppies. If you have the power the sympathize, you can save anything in the world.

Chacoly realized that was how it was.”

Hamyuts made no reply.

“By simply sympathizing anything and everything will be solved. If someone sympathizes with Ruruta he will change. He will stop killing people. He will stop ruling the world and forcibly collect Books of happiness. The Indulging God Cult won’t be needed either. Even you, Hammy, won’t need to fight him.

So please, sympathize with Ruruta.”

No reply came.

“Please, Hammy. Save Ruruta. Sympathize with him. That’s all you have to do!”

Hamyuts shook her head.

“Hammy!”

She wasn’t coldly ignoring her. Hamyuts just became speechless. She couldn’t help but pity Chacoly.

“How unfortunate, Chacoly. It’s impossible. That guy’s a monster. The worst kind of monster. It’s impossible to save him just by sympathizing with him. It’s impossible to solve everything just by sympathizing. It’s sad, but that’s reality.”

“Hammy, you’re wrong, Hammy…”

She downcast her eyes. Then, she rotated her sling.

“Please. Just die already. I don’t want to see you like this. I don’t want to see you being this miserable!”

“Hammy!”

A single pebble flew from the sling, crossing through air with a small noise.

“…It’s impossible, Chacoly… changing someone by sympathizing is impossible.”

Looking down at Chacoly’s crushed forehead, Hamyuts mumbled.

That was the end of a tool. Although she had broken down and became useless, she never stopped loving Ruruta. This was the end of someone who’s lived as a tool. Thus Hamyuts thought while looking down at that which was nothing more than a corpse.

“Is it over, Hamyuts-sama?”

At that moment she heard a voice from behind. It was Lascall Othello. He was probably watching their conversation from behind this entire time.

“How do you feel? Now you are the only person to possess a possibility of killing Ruruta.

It is likely that once you are defeated, no other people who could beat him will ever appear.”

“So what?”

“Will the world be destroyed at Ruruta’s hands, or will he be destroyed, saving the world? The fate of the entire world all falls on your shoulders.

I would like to hear your feelings about this.”

“…I have nothing of the sort.”

Hamyuts brushed her hair with a hand and spoke sadly.

“I’m also just a tool. Nothing’s changed. That is how it is.”

Hamyuts read Chacoly’s Book and came to know of Ruruta’s past. She saw him while he was a hero and saw Nieniu’s existence. However, she didn’t read the memories of the three days from Chacoly’s loss and until she was killed by Hamyuts.

It was because she didn’t want to see her one and only little sister’s miserable state.

Hamyuts Meseta and Ruruta Coozancoona. It would be another 12 years before the two of them clashed.