Side Story 2, Chapter 11: Vacuum
[Side Story 2, Chapter 11: Vacuum]
While sitting around, with nothing to do, Kasuri thought:
"What should I do?"
"Chris is dead, but I’m convinced attackers absorb the life energy instead of letting it go, which makes it impossible to revive Chris at the hospital. The attackers are clearly trying to purge the entire population."
"Mom wasn’t attacked by those people either, but why wasn’t she able to be revived at the hospital?"
Then, she asked Sephine exactly that.
“It’s because her life energy was also stolen, and was used to restore someone’s life, illegally.”
“How do you know?”
“If it isn’t that, then I don’t know what is. Hospitals in Mokkato usually make life energies gravitate towards the hospital, which makes the souls easier to find, but I assume the person was a criminal who died, so to save the criminal’s life, they had to take your mother’s life.”
“Really…?”
“I don’t know for sure. When we retrieve the Naiko crystal, we’ll go to where your mother died, and I’ll try to look into the past.”
“By the way, my mom died in a bank attack in Utoko… Everyone’s mothers were revived except mine. I don’t think it was for a criminal.”
“That’s bad, it might be because someone placed a curse on you. Let me scan your body for anything… I can still sense your mother’s ghost somewhere, but you never got to find her.”
“Wait, wait! How do people get revived?”
“Either by a necromancer, which makes an artificial life energy, or using the default way where you put their actual life energy and ghost into their body. The people in graveyards are either people who couldn’t be revived or chose to be dead! Like, some people enjoy being a ghost, you know?”
“Okay, continue searching my body…”
Sephine carried Kasuri to somewhere private.
“Eek…!” Sephine looked at something.
“What!? You scared me!”
“It’s a seal paper. The bad thing is, I need to cut your body open for this.”
“Wait, no!”
“Calm down, bud. I’m gonna cast an anesthesia spell on you.” Sephine casted a spell which made Kasuri unconscious.
Sephine then put on her gloves and cut Kasuri’s body open, trying to search for where the seal was.
“Inazuma, give me a hand.”
“Sure. What do you need me to assist with?”
“Find something like a seal paper. Do you know about seal paper?”
“It is obvious that I know about the things called seal papers. It is the papers use to make seals, correct?”
“Yes. Also, you don't even look like a magic person! You use a bow, Inazuma."
"...I am afraid my ego has been too much."
"You're not a robot, Inazuma. You can use basic words." Sephine sighed.
"I have always learned to speak this way, Sephine."
Inazuma searches for the seal paper, and pulled it out of Kasuri's body. It was bloody, and it wasn't even in an organ.
“This is normally disgusting for people my age. but I am used to seeing things like this. Ambroise has led me to a lot of dismembered bodies.”
“This Ambroise girl must be a crazy girl.”
“Ambroise is not crazy. She is always calm and collected.”
Sephine healed Kasuri’s body, and woke Kasuri up.
“Aa… Did you get the seal paper out? I didn’t feel anything.”
Inazuma showed Kasuri the bloody seal paper. “Great news. You can reunite with your mother once again. Your mother is still a ghost, so I advise against resurrecting her right now, since the attackers can steal her life energy, but luckily, not her ghost.”
Kasuri was excited. She’s ready to meet her mom once again. “Thank you…”
"I am honored." Inazuma doesn't smile, but she feels good to help a person.
“I wonder where my mom is. She might be worried sick…”
“I do not know what your mother looks like.”
Kasuri shows Inazuma a photo of her family, which includes her mom, her dad, herself, and her twin brother Risuka. “This is a picture from when I was still little. I’m still little…”
Inazuma was 1 foot taller than Kasuri, which makes Kasuri feel like she’s the shortest in the group. Even Meriku is taller than her.
“Ah.” Inazuma was intrigued. “When I was young, I looked quite similar to you. But, I had no mother, and no father. I was born, and I was left in the empty, silent alleyways. Back then, I could not read, nor speak. Nothing ever made sense to me until I was 7 years old, when I met Ambroise in the Bisukan Forest. At least, it seemed like your mother cared about you. Is this why you felt a longing for your family?”
“Yes. I was able to live without my mother, but my life was harder without her…”
“I see. My life was like something you call an ‘escape room’, even from the start. I did not know what to do or where to go. I was clueless, just like a person who has never gone into an escape room before.” Inazuma described. She has never cried once in her life, because it’s hard to get an emotion out of her.
“No one found you laying around in the alleyways?"
"Unfortunately, no."
"Damn… People's lives are more tragic than I thought, but yet I still cry over my mother dying."
"It is normal. Do not worry. Other humans I have seen are like this too."
"Yeah, yeah, it's totally normal…"
"There are a lot of people who have suffered a fate worse than both you and mine. There is no time to cry right now."
"Yeah, right…"
Inazuma put her hand on Kasuri's shoulder.
"Just because I never cry does not mean I don't feel bad for you. We need to hunt down more of those attackers."
"I don't wanna kill anybody…"
"We have to. If you kill them, they can not kill more people. You need to accept this."
"Fine…" Kasuri stood up, and equipped her pistol. "Let's do this."