Volume 8, Ending X-02 - The End of a Rebellious Phase

Volume 8, Ending X-02: The End of a Rebellious Phase

“Remember what it is you must do.”

“Don’t…worry.”

(Ending X-02 Open 08/04 07:30 “UTC+03 Flanguild time”)

The End of a Rebellious Phase

Was it no more than an incoherent dream?

Kyousuke stared blankly up at heaven and could not get his eyes to focus.

He saw someone’s face there.

They peered down at him.

Someone gently held his limp body. They smelled just like someone who could never be here. Had the Yellow Gills done something? Kyousuke aimlessly accepted this situation he could not logically explain.

A dream was fine.

As long as it meant he could see her smile once more.

<Kyousuke-kun.>

“Hh…ah…?”

<Kyousuke-kun.>

He found it nostalgic.

His actual father was simply the worst. He had no real memories of his mother or his “little sister”. To that boy, the Queen’s Miniature Garden was both a symbol of nightmares and a fond childhood memory. Biondetta and Shiroyama Kyoumi had acted like his big sisters and Shigara Masami had raised him like a parent. No, that was not all. He had not really focused on it much, but when the Queen’s Miniature Garden had collapsed, a great many people had reached out a helping hand out of concern for him. He had not been alone. He had held connections to a lot of people back then.

But.

He could not lose himself in memories.

He still had something to do.

<Are you okay? Are you capable of processing your memories in sequence?>

“Yes…”

Shigara Masami was dead…supposedly.

No matter how much he wished to, he could never speak with her again…supposedly.

<Remember what it is you must do.>

“Don’t…worry.”

After trying to speak, he realized just how little control he had over his body. He may have been seeing an ominous hallucination on the border between life and death.

He tried forcing out his voice.

“I know…what it is…I really, truly…must do…”

<And what is that?>

When asked anew, Kyousuke swallowed the saliva in his mouth.

It was as sticky as glue, so it threatened to seal up his windpipe if he was not careful.

“I…”

<Yes?>

“I…”

<Yes, yes?>

“I will settle things with the White Queen once and for all. And I will save the Colorless Little Girl. If I don’t… If I don’t, I wouldn’t be able to face the changed world or the people who were lost…!!”

<That’s not it at all, you moron. No one wants that.>

He heard a sigh and an oddly raw voice.

And a very real fist struck the top of his head like a small child being scolded.

Facts:

*Shigara Masami got carried away and overpowered Shiroyama Kyousuke as well.