Chapter 149: Chaos
***
The dark Fire of Sin had long since crept up along the buildings on both sides of the street. Wooden beams and stone pillars were burned away, massive rocks and iron chunks melted into glowing red slurry, mixing with black sludge as they rolled and surged back across the cobblestone pavement, setting alight a great tree nearby that looked to be a hundred years old, and illuminating a street that had otherwise been shrouded in gloomy darkness.
Black smoke swirled and danced with ash through the air, casting the night sky in a strange crimson hue.
Buildings kept collapsing with thunderous crashes. A grey-coated hunting hound burst out from the burning grass, dragging its half-charred body, limping desperately toward the distant sound of human voices.
"Fire! Put it out—!"
From the street further away, someone was shouting in a panic.
Others called back right away: "Forget it! You can't get anywhere near it, you can feel the heat from way back here."
"The building's gone... I never got my silk cloth out. It's over. Everything's gone..."
"At least you made it out..."
"This is terrifying... look at that color. It's practically the same shade as blood."
"There are demons! I just saw demons... they were fighting each other..."
At the other end of the street, several Arbitration Office members in teal trench coats and berets stamped with a shield emblem stood huddled together, grimacing at the Fire of Sin blazing ever higher before them, powerless to do a thing, left to stare helplessly in frustration.
"Has the Sword of Kanri not arrived yet?"
"No."
"The royal capital's grain storage is across the street, and beyond that is the Cathedral... can't we think of something? This fire needs to be put out now."
"It won't reach that far, there's nothing in between."
"Did you not see it burning straight through stone?"
"What kind of fire is this..."
"No idea..."
"Captain, we haven't found any burned civilians. But some of the bodies... no, the chunks of flesh, you should come take a look."
"...Lead the way."
Nobody could have noticed that somewhere at a street corner on Alix Alley, atop a building several dozen meters away from the flames, a serene and lovely young girl sat cross-legged, chin resting in her hand, quietly watching everything below.
The girl's dress was soaked through with blood, even her hair was drenched in it. The dried blood had long since caked itself into a deep brown across her skin. If you looked closely, you could even make out... something on her, whether it was bits of flesh or something else entirely, that turned the stomach.
And yet the girl paid it not the slightest attention, her face still wearing that bewitching smile. After a moment, her lips parted softly.
"So beautiful."
The words, melodic as the rustling of a forest spring, seemed to be spoken to no one in particular.
There was no telling what she was even referring to.
The night breeze carried fine dust and ash, drifting across the girl's flawless porcelain face, gently stirring her black hair, strands clumped and matted together with dried blood.
The whole scene had an indescribable, unsettling quality to it.
............
It really is beautiful, I thought.
Whether it was the buildings below wrapped in roaring flames, the people down there gripped by fear and confusion, or the layered halls and towers stretching into the distance, the crisp and thin night air, the cool refreshing breeze, clouds rolling lazily across the horizon, 2 crescent moons hovering faintly in the sky. Everything in sight was a breathtaking kind of beautiful.
My lower abdomen was still cramping in waves. My dress clung to my body, slightly uncomfortable. My fingertips brushed across the stone surface, cool to the touch.
The heavy, metallic smell of blood filled every breath...
These were all the sensations of being alive.
I didn't know why I thought of it that way. It was just that suddenly, everything I saw had changed.
It was hard to put into words. It was just... I understood that the fire below was growing more and more violent, that letting it keep burning would be very bad. And I... could probably put it out without much effort, but I didn't want to. I really didn't. That had nothing to do with me. Watching from here was enough.
Some people might even die from it... I knew that too. So what?
There was no point in caring about any of that. People died every day anyway. They died, I lived. I was happy, and I was perfectly content to watch them die.
If I went around caring about people who had nothing to do with me, that would just be exhausting.
But something about that line of thinking... felt off somehow...
Strange... was I... always like this... I don't think so...
Yet right now it felt so easy, so freeing.
I wanted to kill more people... I wanted to take every bit of suffering I had ever endured...
Every last bit, all of it, every single piece of it. Every— last— one— give it all back to you... give all of it back... damn it...
I can't do that.
...Come to think of it, what suffering have I even endured?
I don't know.
But I am Peylo... Sylvia is not my name... I am Peylo...
My head is killing me.
My vision started going blurry again. I rubbed my eyes, and when I opened them once more, everything before me had turned a vivid red.
The night sky, the drifting clouds, the buildings in the distance, the figures below... everything was veiled beneath a layer of blood-red haze.
The flames looked even more vivid than before.
I lurched to my feet in a panic.
What's happening... what is happening!
I started furiously rubbing my eyes, but it was completely useless. The red deepened, and I felt my body sinking, like a tiny boat adrift on a sea of blood, suddenly pierced through with a gaping hole by something unseen, slowly going under in the intertwining of blood and fire.
"Caw—"
A crow's cry rang out beside my ear. I turned my head, and vaguely made out a pitch-black raven perched on my shoulder, its head tilted, staring right back at me.
Goat Cheese...
The moment that thought surfaced, the sky erupted with the cries of countless ravens.
I looked up and saw an overwhelming swarm of ravens sweeping past overhead, too many to count. The "Goat Cheese" perched on my shoulder, suddenly snapped its wings open, took off into the night sky, melding into the flock, disappearing without a trace.
Even the moon had turned blood-red.
My head felt like it was splitting open. I clutched it with both hands, trying to ease the torturous pain.
In a daze, I heard a young, childlike voice, it seemed to be calling out to me.
"Sis... can you hear... sister..."
Who is that.
"Big Sister Peylo—!"
Who are you.
"Sister Peylo... can you hear me... it's me..."
A little girl's sweet voice, as if coming from somewhere deep within my mind.
"I'm about to wake up." she says.
"Who... are you." I asked through gritted teeth, my frail voice trembling uncontrollably.
But that voice didn't seem to hear me at all.
"You'll come... find me, won't you..."
"Who are you?!"
Deep breath, deep breath... stay conscious. Peylo, you can do this.
"You'll... just like before... stay and talk with me, right..."
What?
Stay and talk with you, just like before? Have we met somewhere?
I... think I remember.
I know you... no, I know this voice.
"You are— Irushia."
But she really seemed to not hear a single word I said.
"Even if... we end up like this..." The little girl's voice was already fading into the distance.
"Even if we end up like this, you have to come find me."
Click.
Everything froze still.
When I blinked again, everything had returned to normal, as if nothing had happened at all.
"Hah— hah—"
I gasped for breath, steadying myself upright with great effort, my gaze turning toward the distant glow of the flames.
At some point while I wasn't paying attention, the people from the Sword of Kanri had already arrived on the scene. Someone was using Water Order to fight the blaze... No one seemed alarmed, and most likely no one had noticed the enormous flock of ravens that had just swept overhead... Had a flock of ravens really flown past?
What I just saw, was that a hallucination?
What's wrong with me...
And that voice just now. I'm sure that was Irushia, she said she's about to wake up... wait, who is Irushia?
Have I... ever met her before.
I can't remember.
My head is a complete mess.
Drip.
A drop of water fell onto the top of my foot.
A moment later, spring rain came pouring down.