IBHJ 1017 (Patreon)

"Yes, sister..."

Ayaka turned and walked towards the cocoon, her eyes blank.

After dealing with Ayaka, Manaka went back into her own mind space.

She came to the pure white villa, the light in her heart, now kept only for Arthur.

Arthur sat quietly on the bed. She smiled. It seemed this Arthur, the ultimate version of [Arthur], knew he couldn't escape once he entered this place.

"I killed Tethys, Arthur," Manaka said with a smile, sitting next to Arthur. "Don't worry. Soon, very soon, I'll make your wish come true."

She had no idea that Shirou had escaped long ago, leaving only a copy behind.

Normally, a clone couldn't fool Manaka. But when they first met, Shirou had made her angry, scattering her focus. He left his mud on her, confusing her senses and clouding her judgment.

But his trick might not have been needed. Manaka was the perfect Master, naturally connected to the Root, full of strategy and decisiveness. But around Arthur, she always lost her intelligence and good judgment.

And this was-

"Simping," Arthur said coldly.

But Manaka didn't flinch at the insult. She just smiled gently.

She'd already given everything to Arthur - her fate, her future, and all her senses. Mere words were like barely hearing people on the radio talking about feelings and happiness. They were hollow and unreal, so they couldn't hurt her anymore.

Shirou used his clone to say all sorts of hurtful things, trying to hurt her feeling. But she took it all with a smile.

How pure, yet how twisted? How precious, yet how low? Chasing the only real thing in a world of illusions, sinking into a world of love she'd made for herself, but drowning in it.

Having lost self-respect, self-love, and self, a puppet controlled by fake feelings - how sad is that?

No.

Maybe in Manaka Sajyou's eyes, everyone else was the sad one.

Shirou stopped using his clone to say hurtful things. It wasn't working anyway. He just hoped Manaka would leave his clone soon so he could talk to Tethys.

Manaka reached out, gently touching his face. It should have made her happy, but inside she felt empty.

The person in front of her was right there, but seemed as far away as the horizon.

What was this dull, empty feeling?

She felt confused.

—Manaka, when will you ever grow up? This isn't love. It's just self-indulgence, a fantasy to make yourself feel better!

Arthur's words suddenly echoed in her mind. Like a mirror of faith cracking, Manaka felt like she couldn't breathe.

No.

Manaka looked at Shirou's clone. She told herself there must be something wrong with this [Arthur]!

"I know everything, I can do anything. Father told me there's nothing I can't see or understand. But why? Why can't I figure out this awful feeling inside me? ...Tell me, Arthur."

Manaka's hands gripped Arthur's neck. Her body shook slightly as she asked, "Tell me, what does it mean to be grown up?"

Her sky-blue eyes suddenly turned bloodshot, as if she'd been possessed.

But she wasn't possessed. Her heart hadn't been pierced by Shirou and Arthur. She'd pricked it herself.

Shirou looked surprised.

"What's wrong, Shirou?" Tethys asked, confused.

He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "The perfect illusion was finding out its own heart isn't perfect and is filled with imperfection."

The emptiness in her heart kept growing, as if it might swallow her up. Manaka gripped his clone tightly, wild and hysterical.

"This isn't right—it shouldn't be like this—I should have gotten rid of this feeling—it's not supposed to be like this!"

Manaka hysterically gripped his clone.

She was a goddess born connected to the Root, the very image of truth. She was the girl who could do anything.

Let there be life—she wished, and life appeared.

Let there be death—she whispered, and death spread.

You could say the world was connected to her, and she to the world.

All-knowing and all-powerful.

Nothing was impossible. She could control, create, or destroy anything. Unable to find joy in this, she made one rule for her power.

—Never look into her own future.

She, who was like the world itself, put this limit on herself.

Rules. Limits. Chains. Without restrictions, being all-powerful would be too boring. Staying "human" would be pointless, even just living would be a chore.

So, her approach was right.

At least, it let her do certain things.

Waking up in the morning, opening her eyes, breathing, looking at the sky out the window, listening to birds sing, turning her clear eyes to her father, and so on.

She could finally do magecraft like her father said. When her new sister was born, she couldn't cry like her parents did. But at least she could poke her sister's cheek to feel how soft it was, just like other people do.

Even though—she felt nothing from it.

She could finally live.

But that was all.

Tick. Tock. The clock's hand moved forward.

Tick. Tock. Today became tomorrow.

Her soul grew more and more stagnant.

She saw through everything, had everything, understood everything. She and the world became one.

At the end of selflessness, she looked at pure white purgatory, sitting above it all.

This, you could say, was being a god.

But she had only the power of a god, not the heart of one.

Staying human while being human was too hard.

So she had no choice but to exist like a living corpse.

She didn't care.

Even if she died while living.

Even if she lived while dying.

She felt no pain, no hardship, no sorrow—just living day after day.

She understood and saw through everything in the world, but she was still just one person.

Her heart was pure white but empty. She couldn't feel the happiness people talked about, just going through the motions of things she'd already done.

Her father's praise, her sister's admiration, her friends' compliments, her enemies' fear, her peers' envy and jealousy... to her, it was all illusory.

Though human, she'd already reached the end of life—from something to nothing. She couldn't feel people exist, couldn't feel emotions exist, couldn't even feel herself alive. She just went through life playing the role of [Manaka Sajyou].

Just a living corpse.

Her world was gray.

So, like Cinderella, she hoped for a prince on a white horse to bring her light.

In fact, the prince she was waiting for wasn't a person. It was getting rid of the emptiness inside, a sense of reality, a surprise, a real, living feeling.

But as time passed, the emptiness in her heart grew bigger. She poured everything she had and all her hopes into the "prince on a white horse".

So the prince on a white horse became her heart's anchor. She longed for and dreamed of that perfect fairy tale prince.

Then Arthur showed up.

Arthur was something she didn't expect.

Different from her ideal. If she had to choose, she liked men with sharper looks.

Different. Different. Different!

Even Arthur's mana was different from what she'd imagined.

Everything was so different, it really surprised her. Made her happy. Made her heart race.

Then, truly—at first sight, she fell in love.

For the first time, she learned about herself.

The vague soul left in her corpse-like life, the empty choices, were gone. She found her true self that had always been hidden, her real likes and dislikes.

As a human living in the world, burning with life.

As a girl who knew how scorching first love could be.

In her dull life, a light appeared. She found that sense of reality. In this gray, foggy world, she found the one thing that felt real.

But when she got [Arthur], when she held [Arthur] tight, she found the emptiness in her heart was still there.

Is it because this isn't my Arthur?

Manaka looked completely lost.

She reached out, gently touching Shirou's clone's bruised neck. "I'm sorry, Arthur..." she said softly.

She stood up, about to leave this pure white heart-chamber.

But just then, Shirou used his clone to answer her question: "You can't put people in boxes. If you really want to know... you're grown up when you stop asking what it means to be grown up."

Manaka turned to look at his clone, but Shirou had already cut the connection with it.

He'd already given her an honest answer.

Manaka was about to ask more, but her face suddenly became strange. She felt something was off about this Arthur.

Even though Eternal King was different from the Arthur she knew, this weird, out-of-place feeling had been there since she came in.

She walked up to Arthur, circled him a few times, then suddenly hit his head. With a "pop", it burst like a watermelon. But instead of brains and blood, reddish-black mud poured out.

So that's it.

Manaka understood.

She finally got what that strange feeling was.

Hehehe...

Manaka reached under her collar and took out some mud. She looked at it in her hand, her face darkening. "...So you let me catch you on purpose..."

With [Arthur] gone, her intelligence and good judgment came back.

She finally realized Shirou had let her catch him on purpose. Worse, he'd been playing her the whole time!

"Eternal King... hehehe..."

Manaka smiled, a bright, gloomy, empty smile.

"You can't escape, my prince on a white horse!"

Her sky-blue eyes were completely lifeless.