Oomi
Suddenly, the nebula that had been floating across the square fell to the ground.
There had been so many things I wanted to ask, but the sight that followed in the next moment made me forget every single one of them.
A field of cosmos—
As soon as the nebula poured onto the ground, it transformed into flowers that spread across the floor, and we found ourselves standing within them. In the very same hues it had worn while floating—red, blue, purple, orange—cosmos bloomed in a riot of colors.
“In this place where even blue cosmos can bloom, it seems impossible to obtain a black cosmos.”
The Heart-eating Bird, its chest filled with black cosmos, spoke in frustration.
“What is this…?”
“The world of death. God’s final verification is almost complete.”
Rhone-san said this, his profile tinged with sorrow.
“Does dying mean that even the ground becomes the sky?”
The one who answered my question was, unexpectedly, Mamoru-kun.
“I’ve always been in a place like this.”
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
So even if the heart dies, one comes to the world of death as if the body had died.
Then perhaps those people I killed were seeing the same scenery here.
That thought made my guilt fade, if only a little—because this place was far too beautiful.
“But then, I heard my big bro’s voice calling me, so I passed through the flowers to come see him.”
“Mamoru, thank you. I was so happy, really.”
Who, truly, had been the Oze-san I saw until yesterday?
If he had such an abundance of emotions, I would have wanted to meet him far sooner. I had always been inside Oze-san, and yet he only called me after years had passed since he became an adult in society.
As I touched the cosmos blossoms, I gazed at everyone I would never see again.
A little ways off, Silent-chan… in truth, she was someone who could laugh like that.
Hearing the “ululu, ululu, ululu” reaching me even here, I suddenly felt a pang of unease.
Ululu, too, must have been born from Silent-chan’s true body. And that was only yesterday, after the bloody tragedy on the deck.
“Rhone-san, Ululu will survive, won’t he? Even if we can’t meet him in the next world—he’ll be reborn somewhere, with a proper form, won’t he?”
Rhone-san kept his eyes fixed on Ululu.
“I’ve been thinking the same thing. I’ve seen children like that, born right before the departure, several times. I don’t go out of my way to urge the main body to kill a child born along the journey. Because…”
With that, Rhone-san lowered his gaze. It might seem strange to notice, at the very end of the world, but flowers suited him so well.
He looked like a prince straight out of a comic. If his true self were the Harvester… no, if the Harvester were the same age as Rhone-san, I’d probably bury my face in these blossoms for no reason at all, simply because he’d be that handsome.
…But now he just stood frozen.
“Rhone-san, if you have more to say, please tell us. We truly don’t have time.”
“Yeah, sorry. A child born like that will die upon hearing the siren that signals the start of the transfer, so I don’t bother killing them.”
So this was the world of death? The universe itself had fallen at our feet, and though all I could see now were flowers, I could certainly feel the cosmos beneath them.