Episode 8: Night Is Coming!

* * *

My name is Alex Cave. I'm a student at Corporations.

(Honestly, this academy's not a comfortable place to be.)

Corporations was a coalition academy made up of countless student-run enterprises. The kids who belonged to the ones with money walked around like they owned the place, and the ones who didn't never got a shot at anything.

(Personally, I couldn't care less if the world ended or humanity got wiped out.)

"The Apocalypse Stagnation Committee" -- what a joke of a name. How the hell do you people have the bandwidth to worry about other people's problems? I could barely handle my own. Guess that's something the elites would never understand.

* * *

"--You're Alex Cave, right?"

Eight years ago. The one who called out to me in a back alley of District 6 was a tiny girl. She was barely half my height, but her eyes were cold as a corpse's.

"Huh? Who the hell are you? I'll kill you."

"I am Caitlin Ann Austin. Elementary division, Corporations."

The girl -- three whole years younger than me -- announced this with the composure of an adult.

Back then, I was just another bottom-feeder peddling e-drugs to junkies, a dumbass kid who thought getting disrespected was the same thing as getting killed.

"The hell, kid. Get lost. You're creepin' me out."

I grabbed the little brat by the collar.

"--Heroes Never Die (Finish Line)."

In an instant, my body was sent flying. Sprouting from the small girl's back were wings -- impossibly massive, intricately structured, scarlet wings designed for one purpose: to hurt people. They were enhancing her body.

"Alex Cave. I came here to kill you."

"...Wh-what. What the hell are you? This... I don't even know you!"

Her scarlet wings, gleaming with the dull light of a guillotine, seized me by the throat and pinned me against the wall.

"Let me tell you about your future."

The small girl stared at me with eyes as dark as a corpse's.

"At forty-two, you're unemployed and holed up at home. You trick a young woman into working for you and live off her earnings. ...In a room that's basically a garbage dump, complaining all day long."

"...Huh?"

"You get one of them pregnant, and a cute little girl is born. You start resenting your daughter, and the abuse begins. Hitting her for no reason, calling it discipline while you throw her out on the balcony naked."

I had no idea what this girl was talking about.

(What is she. --She's serious.)

Genuine killing intent and rage -- that's what she was gripping me with. That much I understood.

"That girl meets me when I'm thirty-nine."

"...Meets you?"

"I want to make her happy. But she goes back to you."

"..."

"The girl dies. She's killed. By you."

As I listened, I thought -- yeah, that sounds about right. As the ending for a piece of trash like me, it was a boringly predictable story. Right. This girl was telling the truth.

"Th-that's... no way... that can't...!"

Even though I knew it deep down, stupid me kept making stupid excuses.

"That's... that's the same as my old man...! My old man... he... my brother... Th-there's no way I'd turn into someone like that! That's the last thing I'd ever wanna be!"

When I said that with a face on the verge of tears, the girl's anger cracked for just a moment. She stared at me with wide, innocent eyes -- like any ordinary girl would.

"...Really?"

"Y-yeah! I'm not like my old man! Look, I'm working, aren't I? I'm the top earner around here. I'm gonna hustle on the streets, save up, and go to dance school!"

"...Dance."

"You ever seen it? The hallway at the biggest theater on East Street's got all these photos on the wall. My mom's picture is one of 'em. Someday, I'm gonna dance on that stage too!"

That's right. I was different from the other trash in this neighborhood. I had goals. I had dreams. I was working toward them. I wasn't gonna hurt anyone, and someday I'd become the greatest man alive.

"...Your dream won't come true, Alex."

"H-how would you know?!"

"I'm -- a survivor of last year's 6.13 Time Paradox Incident."

I felt my throat close up.

That was the catastrophic time paradox accident from last year. A huge number of people had either died or vanished. The only survivors were those who'd managed to kill their future selves.

(She killed herself. A kid this small. She fought herself -- thirty years older.)

Now I understood why this tiny girl carried herself like a battle-hardened soldier.

"My future self and my present self became connected. I inherited a small fraction of her memories. Alex Cave. You will never become a dancer, and you will kill your own child -- just like your father."

I felt my spine freeze. Her words were the truth. I was just like my old man. Somewhere deep down, I'd always known. That my life was already over. That it would end in the most pathetic way imaginable.

"...I'm... I'm not... a bad person..."

The girl who'd called herself Caitlin stared at me in silence. A gaze so still it was terrifying. But deep within it burned a fierce, blazing will.

"I changed my mind."

"Huh?"

Caitlin put away her scarlet wings and released me. I collapsed onto my ass on the spot.

"I came here to kill you. Because in the future, you hurt someone I love."

"..."

"But that was wrong. ...We have to challenge the future. We have to fight this fate. We're not worthless garbage, and we're not irredeemable villains."

She held out her palm to me.

"I'm giving you a chance."

"...What... do you mean."

"Come with me. The path ahead will be a bloodbath. But I still have to go. I still have to fight. For the people I care about. I have to become stronger than anyone."

It was then that it finally hit me.

(This girl -- she's trying to become a hero.)

I thought there was no way she could pull it off. After all, I could barely keep my own life together.

"'No one is born evil. People can change' -- a worthless sob story. But you and I are going to prove it. This is a fight that only we can fight."

"...Me?"

"Don't worry. If you start going bad, I'll kill you. No begging for your life."

What a weirdo, I thought. Someone I definitely shouldn't get involved with. But at the very least, I knew this:

(If I don't go with her, I'll become the person I never want to be.)

That much was crystal clear to me now.

If that was how it was going to end, I'd rather be killed.

"Fine. I'll go with you, Caitlin. But how far are you planning to take this?"

"Until I'm satisfied. Until then, I'll go as far as I have to."

--From that day on, I've been walking behind that girl ever since.

Following the footsteps of a hopelessly stubborn, inflexible, and nobler-than-anyone little monster.

* * *

"You good to go, Alex."

The one who clapped me on the back as I headed up to the square was Caitlin Ann Austin, captain of Corporations' Corporate Security Force. She'd grown a lot since those days as a cocky brat.

"Don't worry about me. Worry about yourself."

"..."

"I'll come back with a win."

The captain might've looked like a hardass, but deep down she was a total softie.

"You sit tight right here. We'll carve the path."

Gray. mALEEa. Fiddler. And me.

None of us had ever dreamed of being heroes.

We just admired the back of the one person who kept fighting alone.

"Senpai... I've got your back."

Fiddler stared at me with a face on the verge of tears. Idiot. This kid too. Act tough like you always do. Everyone on our team was a stubborn fool like that.

"Yeah. I'm heading out."

I gave the stupid kid a light tap on the head and made my way to the square.

(The enemy is Mehleeza Janebekova. --A real warrior.)

Not a fake like us, who specialized in fighting other people and only ever showed up on the competitive circuit. She was the genuine article -- someone who'd stood on real battlefields where death was right next door, and come back alive every single time.

(She seems like the serious type, so I tried provoking her -- but did it actually throw her off?)

It couldn't be helped. People like me and the captain were on the "have-not" side, in the end. Going up against a real first-rate fighter was heavy. So I'd tried everything I could to get under her skin, but...

"..."

The dark-skinned woman on the other side of the massive transparent box gazed at me with eyes as clear as crystal. Yeah, figures. She was the real deal. Trash-tier provocations from someone like me wouldn't even register.

"--Let's do this, lady. I'm gonna wreck you."

"I look forward to it."

Hearing that clear voice, I thought -- yep, she's definitely strong as hell. Strongest opponent I'd ever faced. But the ones who were going to win were us. It was Caitlin.

"Now let's start the countdown! Here we gooo!"

The commentator screamed, and the venue erupted. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. The numbers ticked down.

I loved this moment. Feeling everyone's cheers at my back.

--Because it made me feel like a hero.

* * *

The battle stage selected for this match was "The Night City" -- the massive urban district of District 6. A metropolitan combat zone filled with all kinds of obstacles. The simulator had recreated every detail of the city. It was one of the largest and most obstacle-heavy stages in the lineup.

"Let's go, Chalquiruq!"

The wide-open outdoor space gave Mef and her team a natural advantage -- she excelled at flying freely through the sky and sniping from long range with her rifle.

"Aye! The time to deliver justice has come!"

Chalquiruq's body transformed into a bike. A motorcycle that soared through the sky. Mef mounted it and tore through the air at tremendous speed.

"...Hah. Over there, huh!"

Mef and Alex's starting positions were roughly 200 meters apart. Watching Mef streak across the night sky in a straight line, Alex grinned at her textbook maneuver.

(Flying through the night sky while sniping with a rifle! Yeah, no kidding! Without a way to get airborne yourself, that alone's checkmate!)

But when it came to versatility, Alex's Half-Wing was no slouch either.

"Let's get wild, partner. ...--The Nights!"

* * *

[The Nights!] [Half-Wing]

A Half-Wing that "becomes night." It converts the physical matter composing Alex Cave's body into "night." Its properties are hardening and particle conversion. However, the heart alone cannot be converted.

* * *

Alex's ability was simple.

Convert his body into the hardest substance possible.

That was all it did. It reshaped him into whatever form was optimal. Unlike Mef's Chalquiruq, it couldn't transform into complex shapes, but its raw power was overwhelming. Simple -- and for that very reason, versatile.

"I don't need... fingers for this fight!"

Alex transformed his fingers into five massive scythe-blades. Hardened "night" wrapped around his chest and head. He looked like a giant humanoid insect.

"OHHHHHHH!"

Ten scythe-blades -- like a hermit crab's legs -- stabbed into the building's walls, and he scaled it at blistering speed.

"...! Incredible speed. That's--"

"Mef! Shoot him down before he closes in!"

Alex reached the rooftop in an instant, and Chalquiruq's bullets caught him square in the forehead. They tore through the air with ferocious force, but ricocheted off his "night"-clad brow.

"...What?"

"Huh? --Was that a mosquito?"

Alex's legs swelled with "night." What formed were massive spring-loaded legs. He gripped the rooftop edge with his outstretched scythe-arms, coiled the power in his legs -- and released it all at once.

"Incoming!"

His straight-line speed utterly dwarfed Chalquiruq's. Generating a sonic boom as he rocketed forward in a direct line, Alex bore down on Mef, who barely managed to throw up a guard in time.

"RAAAAAAAAAGH!"

What he thrust forward was neither a fist nor a blade-kick. It was a headbutt.

"--Nnngh!"

Chalquiruq's defense barely held, but Mef was airborne and couldn't absorb the impact. She lost her balance, spinning wildly as she was sent hurtling into the distance, falling.

"Crash landing! We're going into the ocean!"

"Yeah, let's regroup!"

Chalquiruq's body had taken significant damage, but not enough to impair its function.

(In a straight line, he's faster! Long-range is a disadvantage!)

Chalquiruq plunged into the nighttime ocean and shifted to submarine mode, pursuing Alex as he free-fell. Alex's ability wasn't exactly flexible -- he had no way to precisely control himself in midair.

"That didn't kill her? Tough. Crap, I was planning to end it with that, so I've got no plan."

Underwater, Alex was at an overwhelming disadvantage. Chalquiruq was a Gunscar that "goes anywhere." It specialized in navigating extreme environments.

"Ow ow ow!"

Dozens of rifle rounds erupted from beneath the water, each one precisely targeting Alex's body.

(They hit like a peashooter, but a shot to the heart is instant death! Gotta be careful.)

Alex's weakness was his heart, but he'd layered it with multiple shells of "night." He was confident a firefight wouldn't be his downfall.

"Hah. Your aim's so accurate it makes it easy to tell where you are!"

Alex's back swelled massively, forming flat, aircraft-like wings -- far larger than anything on an actual plane. He tilted them slightly and banked into a turn.

"What?!"

A violent impact struck Alex's body. This was nothing like the peashooter rounds from before.

(Something's embedded in my armor!)

Extending from the wound was a thick wire rope. It was a harpoon round fired from Chalquiruq.

(The regular rifle rounds were just a smokescreen! The real attack was a harpoon from my blind spot!)

Alex's body was slowly being dragged.

"Mef!"

"Yeah!"

It was a part of Chalquiruq's body. Threads of its form stretched out and seized Alex hard, pulling his body toward the sea.

"We're dragging him under!"

Chalquiruq tore through the water with tremendous horsepower. With nothing to brace against in midair, Alex had no way to escape, and his body was gradually drawn closer to the surface.

(What precise Gunscar control! A dumbass like me could never pull off something like that.)

They probably had similar abilities, Alex figured. But the core wish behind them was different. Mef had created Chalquiruq to "go anywhere," while Alex had created The Nights! because he wanted to "become like Caitlin." Because he wanted to be as strong as her.

"---You wanna fight at this range? You lookin' down on me?"

Alex concentrated all of his wing's volume into his fist. His particle-form muscles wielded the massive fist of night with staggering brute force. The fist was easily over ten meters across.

"Hang in there, Chalquiruq. My wind! This has to be the moment of truth!"

Alex spun in the direction he was being pulled, fast as an arrow.

"Aye!"

Alex's massive fist bore down on Chalquiruq from above, as if scooping out the sea itself.

"Kyaaaaaah!!"

It split the sea.

The impact raised waves several meters high in every direction. Chalquiruq took the full brunt of the shockwave, tumbling through churning water and crushing pressure --- but somehow managed to right itself.

"Are you okay?!"

"The armor's taken heavy damage! Control systems are shot too. Repairing now!"

The damage was severe. But Chalquiruq's arms refused to release Alex's body.

"Guhhhhh!!"

Alex was dragged deep underwater. His body still needed to breathe. The Nights! only converted muscle and bone --- his nerves and organs remained fundamentally unchanged.

(The damage balance favors me! But I'll drown if this keeps up! So then---!)

In terms of raw power, The Nights! had the edge. But when it came to versatility and endurance, Chalquiruq had the advantage.

* * *

"How are you breathing? ---That sub's got oxygen inside, hasn't it!"

Alex's "night" shifted form. He transformed his lower body into five arms and one enormous drill. The arms locked tight around Chalquiruq's submarine form, and the drill began to spin at ferocious speed.

"OOOOOOOHHHHH!"

Chalquiruq's armor began to grind away at a terrifying rate.

"Mef! This is bad! He'll pry us open before he drowns! The deep sea --- if we dive deeper, maybe the water pressure will crush him... no, we won't make it in time!?"

Chalquiruq had realized it. In pure combat, this ability was overwhelmingly superior to its own. The will to win. The obsession with victory. Those were things Mef didn't have.

"...Forgive this one, Mef! This one is... This one was simply too weak..."

Mef gazed up at the sky with eyes clear as crystal.

"Chalquiruq. Don't look down. Look up!"

"...What?"

"We look at the stars. Even if we're at the bottom of the deepest ocean."

Mef's feelings flowed into Chalquiruq. In that instant, Chalquiruq released its submarine form.

"What?!"

"---This is the real moment of truth."

A massive rifle materialized in Mef's hands. Alex couldn't react to the speed of the transformation. His half-wing was far less adaptable than Chalquiruq.

"OOOOOOOOOOHH!"

Underwater, Chalquiruq's bullets targeted Alex's heart.

"...Tch!"

Because he'd shifted his volume to the drill, the armor around Alex's heart had thinned. But it wasn't thin enough to pierce with a single shot.

"Chalquiruq!"

"Aye!"

---What if it wasn't one shot, but ten?

"OOOOOOOOOHHH!"

Again and again, bullets struck the exact same spot on his heart. They hammered the armor of The Nights!, dented it, and finally --- punched through.

"Gah...!"

The shots had pierced Alex's chest.

"...That one stung, I'll give ya that."

"...!"

Even with a hole blown through his chest, he was still operating The Nights!.

"I can reshape my body, remember? Shifting my organs around a little? No big deal!"

"...!"

"Gotcha!"

The massive arm of The Nights! seized Mef's head and began to crush it. That was the moment.

"Chalquiruq! ---Now! Reach for the sky!"

"Aye!"

Mef's sniper rifle burst apart like a bubble. The dissolved Chalquiruq wrapped around Alex's arm --- and not just his arm. Its viscous fluid began engulfing his entire body.

(It's---invading my body! Damn, the transformation speed is on another level!)

Alex immediately tried to shake it off with brute force. But Chalquiruq was already ahead of him, absorbing his body and seeping through the gaps in his armor, infiltrating from the inside.

"Mehleezaaaa! But what now? From here on out, it's a battle of endurance, isn't it!?"

By releasing the submarine form, Mef had lost her oxygen supply. Alex's physical capabilities were higher to begin with, and he could last far longer underwater.

If this became a contest of endurance, he'd win --- Alex was certain of it.

"This one shall go, Mef! At maximum speed!"

"Safe travels. To the edge of the night."

Chalquiruq hadn't just been infiltrating his body. Its form had transformed into a sleek, beautifully functional miniature jet. It burned its own body as fuel and tore through the sky at tremendous speed.

"Wha---"

"NNNGGOOOOOOOOOHHHH!"

Mef's breathing wouldn't last another minute. She had no time to surface.

Before that happened, Chalquiruq had to kill Alex.

Chalquiruq's jet launched straight up. Mef watched it go.

"OOOOOOOOOOH!!"

"Hah! What's the plan?! Abandoning your master! What can you do on your own? Gonna slam me into the ground? I can handle that kind of impact, easy!"

He was right. This man was tough. In the one dimension that mattered --- sheer combat --- Chalquiruq held not a single advantage over him.

"---But can you endure this?"

"...Huh?"

Chalquiruq shot straight through the night sky. Racing. Racing. Racing.

It climbed above the clouds.

"This bastard, don't tell me---!"

Altitude exceeded two thousand meters within seconds.

The beautiful golden moon illuminated the pitch-black "night" and Chalquiruq.

"For every hundred meters of altitude gained, the temperature drops approximately 0.65 degrees Celsius. ---A phenomenon known as the lapse rate."

"Hah... hah... hah..."

"Can that imposing armor of yours endure this? Can those fists that smash through anything endure this environment?"

Alex's internal organs were still flesh and blood. His brain, his organs, his heart --- none of them had changed from when he was human.

---Altitude: ten thousand meters. Temperature: minus fifty-five degrees Celsius.

"You were truly strong, Alex Cave."

A powerful body. Staggering brute force. Like a hero straight out of a story. But Chalquiruq thought to itself:

"Endure this..."

"...Don't... mess... with me...! I---I'm gonna---AAAAAHHH!"

"Endure this!"

Chalquiruq released its transformation, and Alex's body was flung into the open air.

(No good, it's cold, my body won't move! I have to protect---if I don't, my heart---)

His heart, in a world of minus fifty-five degrees Celsius where winds screamed far past the speed of sound, froze in an instant.

(Even if I convert my body to "night," I can't shield my organs from this cold!)

Chalquiruq pushed past its limits, unable to hold its form any longer, and began to slowly fall.

(Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on! If I can just hold on, I win---)

Everything stopped in the frozen world. His frozen heart ceased to beat.

The last thing Alex remembered was the proud back of the scarlet girl who had pulled him out of the gutter. He'd come all the way here trying to catch up to her.

(Sorry... Captain...)

---He had wanted to help her win.

"...I... lost..."

The moment he murmured those words among the stars, the world was enveloped in particles.