The clock is ticking. Or standing still. Or pretending to tick, when in truth it cares nothing for you.
The desire of a single being to see you humiliated is enough to halt any external resistance, even if space itself has already stretched towards the curtain, ready to lower it on the final act.
Or perhaps the one being diminished has convinced himself that someone is rushing to free him from this shame.
Then again, if you think about it… does it even matter anymore?
An ant long ago accepted the fact that it is insignificant before a human. And the clearer it understands this, the less remains in it even the attempt to resist the inevitable.
Space is laughing at you. Over and over, it replays memories as if before it stands something like a television, tuned only to the most repulsive scenes for you.
And you can say nothing. You are forced to swallow them deeper than words, right down to your very tonsils.
And one might think it would still be tolerable if the fashion show was held with your things. With your past. With your mistakes.
But no.
It is held with the things of your hated enemy. Perhaps that infuriates most of all. Or perhaps I am simply trying to dull the taste of my own insignificance, stuck somewhere in my throat like a lump.
But we are dealing with reality. With that very reality you cannot escape if it has chosen you as its target.
And so, all that remains is to greet it with strained, almost sarcastic courtesy: "Welcome."
Space continues its motion. Echoes of the past, one after another. Like a child unwilling to finish the last spoonful of porridge, it resorts to cheap, almost lazy manipulation.
Cheap. But sometimes… effective. That is precisely what this scene looks like now. Yes, it seems I have just admitted that I am the child.
"Yo-ho, Yu-u-ha-a Enua. I think champagne is still a bit beyond your years… Let's settle for a bottle of milk. In honor of your confession."
"It seems the shards have multiplied… Could this be a sign of someone's approaching demise? Oh… such a sight makes one's eyes want to run in opposite directions!"
One.
Two.
Four.
Ten.
A hundred…
"No. A thousand memories seep through for one single thought: how utterly insignificant you are… Ha-gha-ha-kha-ha!"
…
...
...
"If the accused has nothing to present," the witch declared, "We shall continue our most splendid trial."
A memory is something you claimed. As if it were your own home, and someone one day decided to take it from you. But if you look reality straight in the eye, without averting your gaze… the only stranger here, the one you so desperately tried not to notice, is you.
Rewriting history is not actually that difficult when you are the narrator. A narrative cannot show its reverse side if it lacks the key. And that very side… was easily concealed.
Because the true owner of the key in this story simply does not exist.
A broken part can be replaced. And done so masterfully that it will seem as if it were the original all along.
But now the narrative changes direction. It no longer follows the rules imposed upon it by the stranger. It is free.
And with that, the eyes finally open to reality. The world silently nurses its burden until it is permitted to speak. So let us allow the heart to break free.
The heart that has been silent since its very inception.
It expanded, and with it expanded the burden placed upon it. It was ordered to be silent, as if it were inanimate. And the story from the very beginning spoke of only one thing:
Fate acted wrongly. Fate was unjust to the one who was not guilty.
But what makes you guilty in the first place? The mere fact of a bad deed?
How can you determine if it was truly bad, if no one can give a truly objective answer about the boundary between "right" and "wrong"?
You asked the question: "Why?"
And received an answer almost immediately: "Can anything be considered wrong if it never got the chance to fully blossom?"
This question could have remained beyond correctness. But it blossomed. It expanded. It brushed paint across your canvas.
And at some point, you began to think you were not guilty of adding that paint. But this whole performance from the very beginning boiled down to one thing — a lie.
A lie that was carefully wrapped, packaged, and served to you as a sweet truth.
You are the one who gave birth to it. You are the one who expanded it. You are the one who added the paint.
You cannot do something and pin it on another when your eyes saw everything. When they observed. You were not happy. And that is what hurt the most.
Having nothing, you looked upon the one who had everything you held dear. And it broke you. Pain turned to despair. Despair to malice. And what you fought so fiercely against ultimately lived within you.
"AaAAAAAaAA!aaAaA!aAaAAA!!aaAAaAAAAaaAa!!!"
The scream became the trigger. The activation button. But not for one — for all of them. Dozens of blades surrounded Enua, hanging in the air for a single, fleeting instant. And after that, one by one, they began to pierce his already wounded body.
First was Kutō, driving straight into the solar plexus.
Right after it — Zetsubō. Upon impact, it seemed to vanish, but the truth was far worse: it devoured him from within, striving to turn his organs into formless pulp.
Jiga plunged into his chest.
Kioku found its path into the spinal cord.
Shinri shattered the nasal bone.
And Kyogi struck at the shadow, creating the sensation it had simply lost its way.
"Lies belong in the shadows," the witch drawled with a faint smile. It seemed she had just praised one of her blades.
The turn came to Yokubō, and it chose the prostate as its target.
"Let the festivities begin, Ho-ho-ho!" Mariana uttered, as if conducting a perfect orchestra of destruction.
Then Unmei moved. As if only now had time decided to start moving. Its target was the forehead. It flew with such absolute velocity that ℵ realized its insignificant smallness before Ω.
And then — Hōkai. It was not ordered to "strike." Rather, to leave. To leave a trace for future excavations. Enua became a geometry lesson. A diagonal drawn across living flesh. And Hōkai slid across his body like dripping oil.
But Enua did not scream. He waited. Not for mercy. And he was silent not because he felt no pain. He was silent because he could not speak of it.
And, perhaps, that was the most painful thing of all.
One blade remained. Like an unwritten period at the end of an overly long sentence. But the body was already beginning to fade, crumbling like dust in the wind.
Enua fell to his knees and covered his eyes with his hands.
"Well then… It seems the game has reached its end point," the witch spoke, as if reading a verdict. "Do you now understand where this battle has led you?"
…
"In the end… do you understand… that fate was blind. For… In fighting the inevitable, you only destroyed yourself."
…
…I was blind. Seeing my own pain, I did not see the pain I caused others. I beheld a monster, but not the one standing opposite.
The monster was me.
How ironic… I fought fate, failing to notice that this very fate was born of me.
If the world gave me another chance… I would ask for its forgiveness.
In the end, all I ever wanted…
Was to love and be loved…
And finally, the blade Seijaku struck into the void.
"Do not fear. This silence is far softer than all the words you've ever heard before."