Mistaken for a Masked Munchkin

Javert's Iron and Justice (14)

How many more times had I died after that?

I had not bothered counting, but I thought I had died roughly fifty more times.

Crack!

[You have failed to clear Regret 'Memory'.]

[Restarting the set trauma.]

My neck snapped, and the trauma rewound.

A stretch of time where life and death repeated.

Rough hands tightened around my throat.

[You have failed to clear Regret 'Memory'.]

[Restarting the set trauma.]

[You have failed to clear Regret 'Memory'.]

[Restarting the set trauma.]

[You have failed to clear Regret 'Memory'.]

[Restarting the set trauma.]

Dying was not exactly easy.

It came with terrible pain.

Sizzle.

Divine energy bubbled up from the woman's palm.

Again and again, I had to endure my flesh being seared and melted away.

[You have failed to clear Regret 'Memory'.]

[Restarting the set trauma.]

Pure white light washed over my vision.

Again.

Again.

And again.

I died a few more lives, and lived a few more deaths.

Even inside that loop, I did not scream once.

Because if I wavered here, I would never be able to save you.

"Investigator."

That frightened me far more.

If it was my flesh, she could burn as much as she wanted. If it was my intestines, she could pull them out as many times as she liked.

I did not care even if this moment was not an illusion or a dream.

Even if all of this was reality, I would still offer my neck.

But failing to save someone, that was something I never wanted to experience again.

-Muro.

If someone was precious to me, I wished they would not leave as they pleased.

In my head, Teacher's face appeared in a blur.

The mischievous smiles of my younger siblings appeared too.

So I smiled.

Even as I died, I smiled instead of crying.

I was painfully happy that this time, I was not powerless like I had been then.

"Please breathe slowly."

A distance I could reach if I stretched out my hand.

You were close.

"I will not leave, even if you tell me to."

Time was infinite.

A time frame where life and death repeated forever.

Crack!

"I would not mind being trapped here forever."

Misfortune was my dear friend, and misery was my companion.

I had lived my whole life with that attitude.

A mere hundred deaths could not ruin my smile.

I smiled.

Not crudely, and not in a forced way.

This was one of the few things I had learned from Teacher, and the one I cherished most.

-Don't make a crying face, and always keep a smiley expression!

-I believe our Muro will do well.

I looked up at you with a smile.

Green eyes.

Your expression was badly twisted.

Tears streamed down your face, and you looked so fragile you might break at any moment.

"Student Viktor..."

Clear droplets fell onto my cheeks.

Their temperature was hot, as expected.

Your heart was not silver.

It was surely red, no different from anyone else's.

"Please... stop, please stop..."

A pleading voice.

I was a little surprised by how unlike you it sounded.

"It has already gone past two hundred times. Your mind will soon wear down and break..."

"Investigator."

"Please. Leave at once."

"I cannot leave you behind."

"It does not matter what happens to someone like me. I was going to die anyway!"

"I came this far to stop that suicide."

"This is not something Student Viktor should meddle in!"

"Even so, I want to interfere."

"Why on earth...!"

Crack!

With a grotesque snap, my consciousness drifted away.

Then the scene began again.

When I quietly looked up at you, you were crying.

I carefully reached out and wiped the tears gathered around your eyes.

"Because you are precious to me."

"......"

"I do not want to lose you."

"......"

I do not want to lose you.

Words I had once regretted not saying enough.

Crack!

[You have failed to clear Regret 'Memory'.]

[Restarting the set trauma.]

Javert's expression twisted into something even more complicated.

The numbness in her eyes had completely crumbled.

She sobbed like an ordinary person.

A frightened, sorrowful expression.

They were truly unfamiliar emotions to see from the woman.

Her lips trembled, and then she poured out the feelings churning inside her.

"I don't know anything... I don't know anything anymore."

A quiet confession.

"Everything is already a mess... I can only think that I have no reason to live anymore... I tried to live by following principles, but now I no longer understand even that. I let Student Viktor go with my own hands. What I protected my whole life, I destroyed with my own hands."

The woman was like a lost child.

Perhaps she had been wandering all along, ever since a certain winter night when she was fourteen.

"And... if, in the future that will arrive someday, I only end up regretting this life."

The future I had shown her.

Javert, who had ended her life by suicide in every single one of hundreds of futures.

Her life had only ever been denied.

"What meaning is there in living through a future like that...?"

The girl asked.

The one strangling my neck was a child who still had not moved on from being fourteen.

Crack!

[You have failed to clear Regret 'Memory'.]

[Restarting the set trauma.]

The girl seemed to want an answer from me.

About the meaning of life she had missed.

Her question was desperate, but I did not answer rashly. I only asked in return.

"What about you, Investigator?"

"......"

"What have you lived for? While living so obsessively, what were you trying to protect?"

"......"

Srrk.

I brushed aside her red hair.

Between red petals, eyes like leaves trembled pitifully.

My breath rose.

White breath blurred my vision.

"Things like that do not matter. What I want is..."

"It matters. I want to hear what is in your heart, Investigator."

"......"

"Setting aside principles, rules, and proper arguments... just the wish that Javert Droit holds."

The reason you had clung so desperately to principles.

The reason you had despaired and committed suicide.

The reason you had regretted the ending.

I wanted to know the sincerity lying beneath such a tragic life.

No.

Perhaps I already knew, but I wanted to hear it from your mouth.

"I want to hear your answer."

"I..."

The woman fell silent.

During that time, I lived and died three more times.

Crack!

[You have failed to clear Regret 'Memory'.]

[Restarting the set trauma.]

Had she finally become unable to endure those moments any longer?

The woman poured out her true feelings as if sobbing.

The words hidden deepest inside her were spoken.

"......I only."

Drip, drip.

Tears fell like a rain shower.

"I just didn't want anyone, anyone to get hurt..."

For her, obsession was the heart that wanted to protect someone.

A small wish from a fourteen-year-old girl who wanted everyone to be safe.

Javert revealed the vulnerability beneath her armor.

Beyond that iron shell, she let me touch what lay underneath.

"Investigator."

Yes.

You were this kind of person.

"You must know by now. Principles are never perfect. Principles can only keep us from becoming beasts. They cannot make us human. That is why the one who leads a life must not be principles, but the person themselves."

"But if I ruin everything by doing that..."

"You will not ruin it. Even if you do, you can try again. If you move forward, make an effort, and think, you will eventually reach the end."

"How could I do all that alone..."

An individual was immature.

Perhaps balancing what was right all alone was impossible.

That was exactly why I could answer Javert's unease.

"We are not alone, are we?"

"......"

Living together.

The reason a human could not become human alone.

"We live gathered together. So we can support one another amid uncertainty."

In the end, what made a person human was another person.

I had learned that belief from people.

People and love made me.

And this time, it was my turn to help someone else become more human.

"I will stay by your side."

I would not leave you alone.

I would stay beside you through all that anxiety, sadness, and fear.

I would guard the outside so you could break out of your shell.

If I could tell you words like these, I would offer my neck as many times as it took.

Crack!

[You have failed to clear Regret 'Memory'.]

[Restarting the set trauma.]

"I saved you twice today, Investigator. I saved you from the reminiscence of the past, and I saved you from the imagination of the future. All of that was to earn your trust."

There was something I wanted to tell you.

That you were not alone.

"I am here. No matter the situation, I will come to save you. Whether trouble happens because you broke your principles, or things go wrong because you insisted on them... I will always be by your side. I will support you when you stumble. I will help you make better choices and create better results."

Your wish.

"The wish that no one would get hurt, and no one would be sad. I will help make that dream come true. I will become your support. So I want you to live, Investigator. I want you not to let go of life."

"Why on earth... why does Student Viktor go this far..."

"I told you, did I not? Because you are precious to me."

"For only that reason..."

"It is more than enough reason."

I smiled faintly.

My feelings were complicated, mixed with pity and affection.

Even so, I smiled.

Because I wanted you to feel at ease because I was here.

Because I wanted you to use me as your support and begin again, with that fragile life that looked ready to shatter.

"So, Investigator."

"......"

"I want you to live a little longer."

"......"

Since when had it been?

Javert's hands were no longer choking my neck.

She was only holding onto the hem of my clothes, her head lowered deeply as she shed tears.

I slowly raised myself up.

My arms naturally pulled the woman into an embrace.

As I patted her sobbing back, I whispered into her delicate ear.

"You do not have to answer. You only need to hold onto me."

"......"

Javert had her face buried in my shoulder.

She cried like that for a long while again.

I quietly waited for the woman.

After some time passed, I felt trembling arms wrap around my back.

"......You made the right choice, Investigator."

The will to keep living.

It seemed that, even if only slightly, it had been repaired inside the woman.

Scratch, scratch.

The sound of a pen nib scraping across parchment hovered by my ear.

When I gently lifted my head, there was a contract written in a soft light.

A blue screen appeared before my eyes.

Ding!

[You have successfully cleared Regret 'Memory'.]

[All traumas have been cleared.]

And so,

we ended the Nightmare.

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