IBTRFL Chapter 5

"Well. This is bad."

Aer drew her sword with the words.

Her hands had no strength left in them. Her legs shook like a newborn goat's. Between chaos beasts and priests she had cut down something north of two hundred—and the body that remained was a wrung-out rag that couldn't manage one more proper swing.

She steadied her stance anyway.

"Bastards."

Around an ominously pulsing grey orb, the surrounding corpses had begun to fuse.

She had seen this particular last gasp hundreds of times, fighting the Extinction Cult. Never got less revolting.

The chaos beast completed itself. Priests and their creatures merged into something glutinous and wrong—a grotesque amalgam fed on countless lives, studying her now with the curiosity of a thing that has never had to hurry. The large central eye blinked. Hundreds of smaller eyes blinked with it.

The creature swung a dripping tentacle. Aer jerked her sword up to knock it aside.

The impact hit like deflecting a falling iron beam. Her numbed hand spasmed—the sword almost flying free.

She dropped fast. A heavy rush of air as the tentacle passed directly over her head. Half a second later and her skull would have burst like fruit knocked from a tree.

She was going to die here.

She had turned it every way she could. Nothing fit. Her hand moved without deciding to and found the hard shape near her ribs.

A refined soul stone. That would be enough. A last moment shared with this creature—it would be more spectacular than anyone else's. At least it would burn.

Aer spat and made herself smile wide—on purpose, radiant, for the creature's benefit.

"Come with me."

The chaos beast twisted in what seemed like confusion. She charged at it head-on.

The tentacle would have gone through her and pulled her in as raw material, soul stone and all.

If the sacred light hadn't come through the wall.

The explosion swept the room. Her exhausted body tumbled across the floor like a scrap of paper caught in a gust—the sword gone somewhere, spinning away. The chaos beast's dark viscous blood rained down. Shapeless scraps of it scattered across the floor in a wet mess.

Aer lay where she'd landed, eyes shut, and slowly opened her mouth.

"……Are you insane?"

"No. Bit harsh to say that to someone who came to rescue you, isn't it?"

"Could have come earlier, then. What kind of rescue arrives when someone's already a wrung-out rag."

"That's fair. I'm a bit sorry about that. More to the point—you were going to use a soul stone, weren't you."

"Oh, I don't know," she said, the words going loose as she said them.

The eyelids that had been clamped shut opened—barely.

A broad-built middle-aged man with one arm missing. His priest's robes were torn in several places and soaked with blood that might have belonged to anyone. No one would have taken him for a devout churchman.

"Someone might think you belong to the Extinction Cult."

"Ahhh, I've got nothing but the Goddess."

"And the drink."

A startled cough echoed through the room.

The man put a hand on his hip and looked pointedly at the middle distance, avoiding her eyes. Aer snorted and forced herself upright with effort. There wasn't a part of her that wasn't damaged.

She grimaced and leaned the back of her head against the wall. Something sticky—blood and worse—matted into her hair. She couldn't feel any revulsion about it. She just needed something to rest against, even for a moment.

"……Should someone of your standing be at the scene?"

"Hm. The Church is still full of the smell of old men who haven't come to their senses."

The answer she'd expected. Aer looked up at him and asked:

"Someone who's a cardinal, at that?"

"Cardinals come in different varieties. You know what I'm like."

The man grinned, showing teeth, and lowered himself to sit beside her against the wall. He'd tried to make the grin look easy, but the exhaustion on his face was plain.

Aer blinked her bloodshot eyes.

"When does it end."

He was quiet for a moment. Then he pointed at his missing arm and said:

"If I'd had both arms, those bastards would have been finished long ago."

The warm brown eyes that were always a little fond held a deep, inveterate playfulness.

Aer laughed, the air going out of her all at once.

How could she ever forget.

The one-armed cardinal. The nightmare of the Extinction Cult. The Reformed Fist. The last conscience of the Church—a man who went to the front lines even after reaching the rank of cardinal, under more nicknames than anyone could keep straight.

The one man she had once been able to believe in and follow. Valor Remisa.

Aer forgot she was supposed to be performing. She kept looking at his face. Couldn't stop.

The young version of the uncle who, in her memory, had been close to fifty. No silver threading through his hair, no lines carved around his eyes. The left arm—always referenced like a joke—was whole, still attached.

Above everything—he was alive. Valor. That uncle. The body that had fallen and gone cold stood before her, solid as a mountain. The warm brown eyes that had grown clouded and dim were clear, shining bright.

The miracle she had finally reached. The salvation. The composure she had painstakingly assembled came apart, sorrowfully, in front of that face—a face she had spent too long missing.

I must have really, truly missed you—that much. What couldn't be put into words found another way out. From her cold, wet eyes—one tear, hot.

"Hey—little one?"

Valor called to her, alarm in his voice.

Aer startled back to herself. Quickly she ducked her head, pressing one palm against her eye.

The Valor in front of her didn't know who she was. Aer wiped the tear and said, her voice gone thick:

"I understand."

"Sorry?"

"I said I understand."

Valor blinked—then broke into a wide smile and scooped her up.

The guards and onlookers surged forward, but Valor had already launched off the ground and into the air. Screams of astonishment rose from below.

Running the rooftops, Valor asked:

"Not scared?"

Aer said, in a flat voice:

"Terrified."

A boisterous laugh stabbed into her ear. A volume matching his boulder-frame—her skull rang on like a great iron bell.

She scrunched her face and clapped both hands over her ears. Valor caught himself and scratched the back of his head.

"Ah, sorry. My voice tends to carry."

"Tends to carry is not how I'd put it."

Even an answer that could have landed as impertinent didn't seem to trouble him.

"You're sharp."

"I'm ordinary."

"Hmm. I don't think ordinary children can put on that kind of performance in front of a crowd."

"……I don't know."

Aer answered in a drowsy voice and leaned her head against his chest.

Was it the release of crying hard after so long? Or the fact of being near someone she could trust? Relief spread through some corner of her chest and the tension went out of her body with it. The exhaustion and the tautness of the past few days broke open like a seal, everything at once.

Valor shifted his hold on her and held her more firmly.

"Then will you tell me now?"

Aer rubbed her darkened eyes and slowly began.

Too specific and too organized would invite suspicion. She kept the relevant parts purposefully vague, blurring the edges, and laid out what had happened at the orphanage and what was happening now.

"That's the end of—…"

The person who would normally have laughed it off didn't answer.

Aer lifted her eyelids—heavy as bricks. The easy expression was entirely gone. In its place: the face he wore just before stepping onto a battlefield.

A face that said someone was about to be crushed to nothing—right now, this instant.

She had known this face. Valor always looked exactly like that in the moments before a front line.

He felt her looking. His expression cleared and he smiled, easy and open.

"Ah, was that frightening. Sorry, sorry—your uncle just heard what you said and got a bit angry."

Aer smiled back, weakly, and gave a slow nod.

Valor landed. Despite his size, it was quiet—like a feather coming down.

"...Uncle. You can save them, can't you."

"Of course I can. That's why I came."

"……My name is Aer."

"Right then, Aer. When you wake up, it'll all be over."

The warm brown eyes began to shine. A gentle light wrapped around her, close and safe.

The dreadful dizziness that had been hammering her skull eased. The blistered soles of her feet, the burning sting of her cheek—they faded too.

I'm leaving this with you.

Other people—I couldn't say. But you—you I can trust.

Her eyelids closed quietly. Only the small, even sound of her breathing remained.

Valor looked down at the child in his arms. The face, asleep with all the innocence restored to it, finally looked like other children her age.

"Well, now."

A child who hadn't even lost her baby fat yet. The way her face had already settled into something older than it should be—it flew at him like a blade and caught him in the chest.

How hard must this little one have had it. Valor wrapped his robe around her, in case she was cold. Any other movement would have woken her, but she didn't stir.

He held her close and moved forward.

Before long, an old, dilapidated building came into view—worse tended than a slum warehouse, the signs of long neglect obvious in every surface.

Valor lost the words for what he was looking at. The reality was several times worse than the child had described.

An orphanage. No sound of children laughing. The very idea. He tried reciting a prayer to push back the anger climbing his chest.

It didn't help much.

He crossed the barren yard and went in. No adult appeared to stop him or ask his business.

He pushed open a worn door and found the kitchen. It was nearly dinner time. But the hearth held nothing but cold, dead ash, and there was no food in sight—no vegetables, no meat. A few rotting beans scattered on the floor. That was all.

"……"

A small sound of presence.

Valor smoothed his face into something open and turned. A boy, as thin as the child in his arms, was watching him from behind the doorframe.

"Hello there."

"H-hello. Um, mister, who are you?"

"Mmm……"

The boy was clearly on guard. Valor scratched his cheek and thought, then tilted the child in his arms slightly forward to show her face.

The boy's eyes went wide when he saw her face. He edged closer and asked, on the verge of tears:

"A-Aer—is Aer-sis badly hurt, mister?"

"No—she just fell asleep for a bit. And I'm here because she asked me to come."

"……Really?"

Some of the wariness came down. Valor smiled, showing all his teeth.

"Really. So won't you show me to Aer's room?"

"……"

There was no malice in those warm brown eyes—nothing like what he'd seen in the orphanage priests. The boy looked between Aer and Valor, then gave a small, cautious nod.

The boy went first. Valor followed, taking in the orphanage as he went.

"I-it's here."

The boy slowly opened the door. Valor's face went still when he saw what was inside.

Not one child was well. They lay motionless, past crying, too thin by half. The boy glanced sideways at him and pointed to an empty bed.

"Th-that one's Aer-sis's."

"……Thank you."

Valor ruffled the boy's hair. The boy's cheeks went red.

Valor smiled at the children watching him as he crossed to Aer's bed. He set her down—the child who had been carrying what she'd been carrying—and let her finally rest.

That was when the door slammed open, hard footsteps first.

Saura, her face flushed a violent red, came in at a pitch designed to peel paint.

"Aer! I'll—, gah!"

Valor moved in a single step and swung his fist at Saura's face.

The massive fist—like a bear's paw—stopped a hair's breadth from the tip of her nose. The force of the air from it pushed Saura back through the doorframe and sent her rolling across the floor.

"Keep it down. You'll wake the kid."

He walked out and closed the door behind him.