The Harvester of Hearts
Glasses came back, bringing Silent-chan and Ululu along.
I had never heard Silent-chan’s voice, but they said she spoke only to Glasses.
Even in the short time until Glasses returned, Aochi had been asking me excitedly all kinds of nonsense—where god lived, whether all Harvesters were brothers.
Did he know he was the one closest to death?Or was it because he knew that, that he was living so earnestly?
“Well then, I’ve brought them both. Please tell us, Harvester-san, about your father.”
“Uluulu――”
Having him around made it feel like no matter what we talked about, it would never turn too grave.Could Rhone really abandon him in this world?
“I’ve never told any passenger about god before.But this will likely be my last time as well. You understand, don’t you?My hearts are already running out. So I want to tell you.My god is――”
――Everything.
Yes, to me, god was no exaggeration—literally everything.The place I was born from, and where I return.When the hearts given to me are gone, I merely go back to being one of god’s cells.Whether I will be summoned again as a Harvester, revived as something else,or simply remain as one of god’s cells—that is entirely up to him.
I don’t know if it’s true, but they say god never lets go of a life he favors,keeping it as one of his own cells forever.
Some say he wanders the worlds to complete his own imperfect body.
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When god cast us into the sea, he said, “Help my weaker cells.”
The weaker cells, of course, are you.
You, too, were born from god, and you will return to him, the same as us.
Listen: god weakens if he takes into himself lives with too little will to live.So when weak lives overflow across the world,he carries only the strong into the next world.
That is why, in the end, only one passenger remains.
In the next world, god reconstructs his body for a while from the strong lives,and then once again, in pursuit of completeness,sends his imperfect cells out on a journey of trial.
You, as humans. That is what he repeats, over unthinkable spans of time.
――Does god’s story bore you?Well, you had never even known of his existence until now.It’s no wonder if it doesn’t sink in.
Then how about I tell you of the birds?
The bird that saved Aochi—the one with jet-black wings rimmed in red eyes—the story of the watch-birds.
As I said earlier, there are many such birds.
But what if I told you that they are all actually born from a single bird?Would that surprise you?
If we are god’s cells, then they are the cells of god’s familiars.
A familiar means the great bird that god always keeps with him.
It is a beautiful blue bird――.
You want to say, “But the watch-bird is black,” don’t you?You humans really are ruled by what you can see.When it returns to its true form, it becomes blue.
The watch-birds do not appear only at the end times.
They are always flying above you. Aochi knows this.It was thanks to one of them that you were saved from the heart-eating bird.
The birds you saw in the towns—the ones that ate eyes—those were to keep the dead from returning to life.That, too, is another form of the familiar.Familiars can change their appearance and size with remarkable skill.
The heart-eating birds are not another form of the familiar.They are the final form of those who abandoned their own lives.What you call suicides.
They are forever starving, flying about seeking hearts.
That is why I end them with the silver gun.
Because they are suffering from hunger.If I do not do that, they will never be released.
Now, the watch-birds.Their role is to carry out the will of god.The troublesome part is that the familiar’s own will does not always match god’s.
It seems one of them once saved Aochi in the snow mountains.That was its own judgment.
It took an interest in you.Though such a blatant appearance was unusual.
We, the Harvesters—god’s cells—are certain that Oze will be the one to survive.But the watch-bird seems to want to take Aochi along.
And… I hesitated to say this, but I want you to hear it.
The rule that only one person can be carried into the next world—it was none other than god himself who made it.