Hieta was in no shape to be called healthy anywhere on his body.
His mind wasn’t intact either, and he would sometimes have seizures, but on a night when no one was around, he got out of bed and opened his eyes.
"W-where am I...?"
He had woken up in one of [Fraxinus]’s infirmaries. After looking around to confirm where he was, he curled up and started trembling.
"U-uuugh...!"
[Fraxinus] was absolutely not a safe place for him.
Rather, it was fair to say it was more dangerous than anywhere else.
There were plenty of reasons for that, but...
[H-hai? Marina! Hai has woken up!]
[W-what!? Where!?]
"M-Marina and Maria...?"
[Yes, it’s us!]
[What on earth happened—]
"Aaaah!!"
Marina and Maria.
The existence of those two AIs came at him as the greatest terror of all.
Originally, Maria and Marina were beings he had saved, and one of the most precious connections in his life.
Because of that, Maria and Marina had felt affection for him and shown him love.
[Hai...?]
But the reaction Hieta was showing now was incomprehensible to them.
They had been able to talk just fine, even joke around with each other, right up until he broke.
And now, after suddenly coming back with his body and mind in ruins, he was afraid of them?
Their feelings were a mix of confusion and hurt.
Even so, the fear he felt did not go away, so while Marina was flustered, she called the person who could calm him down.
Ziiing—!
In the middle of the night, two people came in wearing pajamas after Marina’s message woke them up.
"Hiki!"
"Hieta!"
They were the commander of [Fraxinus], Itsuka Kotori, and his friend Itsuka Shido, who had been handling the spirits alongside Hieta.
"I-Itsuka-kun and the commander...?"
At the familiar voices, Hieta cautiously lifted his head and looked at them.
Then tears started dripping from one of his empty eye sockets and from one eye.
"H-Hieta...?"
"H-hic...!"
Hieta had never cried in front of them before.
No, to be exact, he had never cried from sadness before.
He had already been through every kind of hardship imaginable, so crying because he was sad was impossible.
And yet here he was, clutching Shido’s pajamas with his one remaining arm and sobbing.
"Y-you... fo-found me...."
"Huh...?"
Even after hearing that they had found him, they still couldn’t understand why he was crying.
So the two of them decided to wait until he calmed down.
Maybe because of that consideration, Hieta stopped crying after a little while and was able to look at them properly.
"Hiki, what the hell happened to you?"
Once his tears stopped, Kotori asked him.
What on earth had happened?
What kind of ordeal had left him collapsed in such a terrible state on [Fraxinus]?
At that question, Hieta opened his mouth in fits and starts, trembling all the while.
"I-it’s..."
The words that came out of his mouth were enough to shock everyone listening.
The things he was describing were actions they could never have imagined from the people they knew.
"...That’s impossible."
"Yoshino did that?"
[W-wait! Wait a second! Hai, what do you mean by that...?]
[The timing doesn’t match up!]
As Marina said, what came out of his mouth didn’t match the timeline.
According to Hieta, Yoshino should not have been at home yesterday, but she had been there in the evening.
There were many other things that didn’t line up with what he was saying.
So it could have been dismissed as a lie, but Hieta’s physical condition made that impossible.
And so, while the listeners were thrown into confusion...
"...I think I get what’s going on."
Murakami Reine, who had appeared without anyone noticing, said that.
"M-Murakami-san...?"
"I called her."
It was Kotori who had summoned Reine.
She had thought that, as an excellent analyst, Reine would be able to understand the current situation.
"...For now, one thing is certain. Look at this."
In response to Kotori’s trust, Reine brought up something on a tablet PC and showed them the screen.
Hieta’s physical condition was displayed there in stark detail.
There were many problems, but one thing stood out in particular.
"This is..."
"...Hiki isn’t connected to Rinne, Mayuri, Rio, or Ren."
Normally, Hieta should have had a faint connection to Rinne, Mayuri, Rio, and Ren.
They were lives he had saved, after all.
And yet, for some reason, there was no connection.
Even so, they were all alive and well.
That could only mean one thing.
"...This boy isn’t the Hiki we know."
******
After I was attacked by the young lady and my perception stopped, time started moving again and I was in a space where everything around me was dark.
"Where is this...?"
"Ah, you’re awake~"
The young lady’s voice came from behind me.
Reacting to it, I tried to turn around, but my body wouldn’t move, as if I had been tied up by something.
So I put strength into my body and tried to break whatever was restraining me, and then...
"My, aren’t you being a little too hasty~?"
"...Young lady."
She appeared in front of me.
"Why on earth did you attack me?"
"Oh my, do you really not know? Or are you pretending not to know?"
"I really don’t know, so—"
"Because I love you, of course."
At that answer, spoken as if asking what was so strange about it, I felt my words catch in my throat.
She attacked me because she loved me? What kind of nonsense was that?
If you loved someone, then not attacking them was the obvious thing to do. Since when had the concept of love that I knew changed?
"That makes no sense!"
"Kihihihit! You shouting at me, Hai-kun... could it be that your memory has a problem?"
"What the hell does that mean...?"
"Ah, it’s fine! Even if that’s the case, my love won’t change. Hai-kun just has to stay here and live with me forever, okay?"
Because it was dark, I couldn’t see the young lady’s face clearly, but I could tell exactly what kind of expression she was making.
My whole body started breaking out in goosebumps.
Frozen by those words, which bordered on madness, I stayed still. Then she moved closer and sat on my lap, taking a position where she was facing me.
After that, she stroked my cheek as if handling a precious treasure and said,
"Hai-kun..."
The young lady’s atmosphere was so alluring that heat started rising to my face.
"Hng...! What is this..."
"Your body’s back to normal, I see?"
"...Huh?"
I couldn’t understand what she meant by my body being back to normal, and the heat that had been rising immediately cooled again.
What on earth was that supposed to mean?
The moment that question arose, the dark surroundings gradually started to become visible.
Since I had suddenly come to in a dark place, my eyes probably weren’t used to the darkness yet, so I couldn’t see around me properly.
As the surroundings came into view, what I saw over the young lady’s shoulder was...
"Ugh...!"
"My, you’ve finally seen it?"
The sight of someone’s eyeballs, arms, and various other body parts displayed inside transparent glass cylinders.
Body parts floating in some unknown liquid, rotting not at all as if time itself had stopped.
And the owners of those body parts were, no matter how I looked at it, myself.
"Kihihihit! Even your shocked face is adorable~ No wonder the others keep getting drawn to you, right?"
"W-what the hell is that...?"
"Ah, that?"
The young lady, having heard my mutter, smiled in a chilling way and said,
"That’s your body, Hai-kun. You were so insanely adorable, and yet you kept trying to escape, so I cut off one piece at a time each time you did. I plucked out that eye because you were looking at another woman, and I cut off that arm because another woman linked arms with you. And those legs were severed because you tried to run away. Every time I cut something off, I deliberately stopped time to slow down the regeneration. After all, if you regenerated, the time between you and me would disappear. And more than anything, whenever you disappeared, I’ve been comforting myself with those things, you know?"
Terrifying.
I was terrified beyond words.
The last time I felt fear this overwhelming was after Dark Souls.
What the hell was this woman even talking about?
She cut off my arm, gouged out my eye, and severed my legs?
Was that something a human being did?
I wanted to believe it was a lie. I wanted to believe it wasn’t true. But the look in that woman’s eyes right now was sincere.
"Ah, my adorable Hai-kun..."
The young lady looked at me again after glancing at the body parts lined up behind her, and with an expression of happiness beyond description, she said,
"This time, I prepared everything perfectly from the very beginning so you absolutely won’t be able to escape. Let’s love each other forever here..."
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