Chapter 13: Raika Usobuki's Lie

This time, I was going to confront that big liar and make her answer for her lies.

That was the resolve Hazuki and I had made, and at last, we had finally made it this far.

"It's close, Shota. Stay focused."

"Of course."

I'd already steeled myself for this.

We climbed over the rubble of the collapsed office building and headed toward the place where we'd witnessed the lightning strike earlier.

As our view opened up, the first thing that came into sight was a gigantic cross standing upright.

At its center, towering far above human height, a petite girl had been crucified.

Hazuki gasped.

Beside her stood a humanoid figure holding a spear. Its entire body wavered as though it were being distorted by static noise, making it impossible to believe that it was something that actually existed in this world.

There was a lot about the scene before me that I couldn't fully understand.

But I did understand one thing: a decisive moment was about to arrive.

"—Raika!"

Hazuki reacted faster than I did. She drew her sword and charged forward.

The intensity of her killing intent was overwhelming, enough to intimidate anyone who saw her.

—The very next moment, a dull-gray meteor streaked across the field.

"Phantom Style—Headlong Charge."

Hazuki's powerful thrust, delivered at an unbelievable speed, severed the base of the enormous cross.

The restraints collapsed. Raika's frail body fell toward the ground.

"Ah... Hazuki, don't! Don't fight!"

Raika, who had fallen to the ground, cried out in anguish as Hazuki continued toward the enemy with its spear at the ready.

The unstable-looking enemy raised its spear and moved to intercept Hazuki.

"HAAAAAAAAAH!"

The spear's strike, however, passed over Hazuki's head as she ducked low. From that crouched position, her sword tore through the enemy's hologram-like body from below.

The enemy let out an inhuman scream and staggered back one step, then another.

"Hazuki! Stop! Don't!"

I approached Raika, who was still sitting on the ground and desperately shouting.

Looking closely, it seemed she had taken quite a bit of damage.

She tried to get to her feet and go after Hazuki, but apparently couldn't stand properly.

It was the first time I'd ever seen her in such a weakened state. No matter the circumstances, she'd always acted as though she had everything under control.

Even so, as she tried to run toward Hazuki, I firmly grabbed her hand.

She turned toward me with a panicked expression, desperately trying to pull her hand free.

"Hey, let go! We need a sacrifice to defeat the amorphous god! There's no time to explain. If I don't get there soon—"

"No. I'm not letting go. I shouldn't have been worrying about being considerate when what I needed to do was understand you. I've finally realized that."

"Huh? What are you—"

I reached toward her head. Still sluggish from her injuries, Raika couldn't resist.

"Hey, stop! Don't touch me! —Stop! Don't look into my past!"

The moment my hand touched her white hair, my vision shifted.

It was the same as when I'd touched Hazuki's past.

The next moment, I could feel my consciousness being thrown into Raika's memories.

"Being a banker is all about deceiving people, isn't it?"

I still remember those words from Senpai.

Perhaps they stuck with me because he was the first person to teach me the job at the bank where I started working straight out of university.

To me, a working adult was someone like him.

He wore an immaculate suit, slicked his hair tightly back, and always looked down on other people.

"Listen. It's not like we're exploiting poor people. We just tell wealthy old folks, or some young guy who's struck it rich, something like, 'Why not make even more money with all that money you've got?' Increasing their earnings is someone else's job. We increase our customers and grow our pool of funds. That's all."

We got people to buy those dream products that supposedly made their money grow simply by purchasing them. Investment trusts, real estate investments, things like that.

According to Senpai, that was what working in bank sales was all about.

I couldn't see it that way.

Senpai was undeniably skilled at coaxing money out of people with carefully chosen words, but it wasn't just once or twice that he'd caused customers to lose their assets.

Senpai himself was competent, but the regional bank I'd joined was steadily deteriorating financially, so perhaps it was inevitable.

Even so, I could never accept being complicit in it.

Day after day, I worked despite the unease I felt, telling myself that this was simply what it meant to be a "working adult."

I gradually grew accustomed to lying to people and getting paid so I could put food on the table.

Before long, I had even started smoking the same cigarettes as the Senpai I hated.

My memories after that are hazy.

I think the customer was a woman in her twenties with sparkling eyes.

"You know, I want to make people dream through music! But I need money if I'm going to expand my activities... And when I asked my friend, they told me I should go talk to a bank."

"Yes. I'm sure we can help you."

I remember doing something terrible. The entire bank, which was already in financial crisis, was involved in something that was practically fraud.

And because of that, the money she'd needed to make her dream come true disappeared.

Her activities stopped going well.

And then...

I can't remember what happened after that.

The world around me suddenly plunged into darkness.

When my vision returned, I saw what appeared to be a Bluffer glaring at me with blood-red eyes.

They weren't focused. Her gaze seemed to be fixed on something far away, her eyes those of someone who had lost her sanity.

She had the face of a Bluffer that somehow seemed familiar, yet completely unknown to me.

Ascension Flyout.

There was only one fate awaiting a Bluffer who had gone mad.

At the very least, I would end it for her as quickly as possible.

I raised the muzzle of my gun toward her head and fired.

The way her life ended was almost anticlimactically uneventful.

I approached her as she lay there, blood flowing from her head, and observed her.

Blood running across the asphalt. Her pale face. Her long hair spread across the ground.

Seeing that, another scene surfaced in my mind.

Her jumping from the rooftop of the building. She fell beside me and died, splattering her brains everywhere.

She always had sparkling eyes whenever she talked about music.

She was beautiful, unable to lie, and yet she sang honestly, just as she was.

The woman I'd killed just now.

The scenes overlapped, until even whether this was the truth or a lie became unclear.

My vision grew muddled. Fragmented memories raced through my mind.

An office where people in suits worked.

Bluffers fighting. A cram school. Job hunting. Hazuki's smile. Someone else's smile. A bullet piercing through someone's brain.

A suicide by jumping. A dreamer. Honest people, whose honesty was supposed to be a virtue, being exploited.

"In the end, saying I wanted to save people, saying I was doing it for good people... it was all a lie."

I spoke to someone who was seeing my past.

"Saving Hazuki, doing it for everyone... Those were nothing more than lies I told myself. Otherwise, there's no way I could have forgotten about the people I'd killed."

My muddled memories would never fully return.

There was no greater proof that I was running away from my sins.

"—Hey, is that really so important to the Raika you are now?"

Before I knew it, I was speaking to her as she crouched there.

Her shoulders looked much smaller than usual. Ah, right. Come to think of it, she really was this small.

Her hazy eyes turned toward me, their pupils terribly clouded.

"No matter what your past was like, the fact that you saved everyone in the Fox Squad and then saved me doesn't change. Isn't that enough?"

"Of course it isn't. A liar can't save anyone. You guys weren't saved by me. You just saved yourselves. All I did was cheat and give you a push from behind. I don't deserve to be forgiven for something like that."

Raika's eyes seemed to be looking at me, yet in reality, they seemed to be staring somewhere far away.

Maybe she'd always looked at me like this whenever we'd talked.

It would be difficult to say that I'd understood all of her past. Raika's memories were far more muddled than Hazuki's, and I couldn't make out the details.

The order of her memories of killing a Bluffer and her memories of working. What happened afterward.

I didn't know any of it.

But there were things I did understand.

"Why are you being so stubborn? It's not like you're hurting anyone right now."

"Because I can't be satisfied unless I'm punished. I'm a wicked liar, after all. I've always wanted to atone by dying."

She gave me a twisted smile. It was a cracked expression, an awkward imitation of something that was supposed to be a smile.

Seeing it, I became certain.

"—That's a lie."

"...Huh?"

"Raika, you're lying again."

When I pointed it out, she became violently agitated.

"—That's not true! What do you know?! You can't see through even a single one of my lies, yet you keep going on about how you can 'tell when I'm lying'! This is my true, unadulterated feelings! I know that better than anyone!"

"No. You're just pretending to be fooled by the lies you've told yourself."

This time, I looked directly into her eyes.

Earlier, they had seemed to be looking at me while staring somewhere far away. Now, they were looking directly at me.

I put strength into my words, letting my anger toward her carry through in my voice.

"Don't lie to yourself, Raika Usobuki. Don't run away from your own feelings. You had fun, didn't you? Spending your days with everyone. You were happy, weren't you? Being able to help everyone."

"..."

At least this time, I wouldn't tolerate any lies.

With that wish behind my words, I stared into her eyes.

"Who cares about what happened in the past right now?! I don't care whether you're honest, a good person, a bad person, or a liar! I don't care about any of that! All I want is for the you who's standing here right now to live and do whatever it is you want to do!"

Only my ragged breathing echoed through the place.

Raika seemed to be lost in thought as she listened to my words.

"Even if I'm a murderer, would you still say the same thing?"

"I would. If it's you, Raika."

You couldn't possibly be enough of a bad person to hurt someone for no reason.

"Everything that looked like kindness when I showed it to you was a lie. I was just copying the protagonist after reading the story of some tale I'd read long ago. Even so, you wouldn't be disappointed in me?"

"Who cares why? You saved me. That fact alone is enough."

Whether it was imitation or a lie, it didn't matter.

That was what I told the lying girl.

Raika looked away from me and turned her back.

"...You're an idiot."

"Not as much as someone who can't even recognize her own lies."

Eventually, she turned back toward me—and she wore an expression I'd never seen before.

"Fine. Just this once, I'll let myself be fooled by your nonsense that sounds like a lie."

My vision cleared.

I escaped from Raika's past and returned to reality.

When I opened my eyes, standing before me was Raika Usobuki, grinning fearlessly as she held a gun at the ready.