Chapter 97: I Don’t Want To…
Speaking out loud, I watched as Esme's calm and collected face flushed red with a grin creeping up her mouth. Her ears steamed up, and she released it back at me with a bump of her forehead into my waist.
"Naturally, and so are you."
She spoke at a natural volume, loud enough for everyone to hear her. But the only person to understand why she could be so confident with her statement was Hilda.
She's the only one to know that we're twins, and she's also the only one to have seen my untouched face other than my mother and the Maiden.
"Esme, Alora, that's enough messing around~" Swaying left and right, and pulling Jill along into his banter, Elden strode out of the Captain's Cabin, "We've got more to explore!"
"To the frontlines, fellow soldier! To the edge of death and back!"
So he said, but with one subtle look at their feet, anyone with functioning eyes could tell that he had pushed Jill ahead of himself.
Nemora quietly collected the blueprints, rolled them up, and tossed them over to Hilda, "Store them on Alora of Light, she's not walking anywhere anyway. It shouldn't get in her way."
Holding onto the rolled-up blueprints, Hilda then passed them over to Esme, "Stuff it into her shirt from the top. She's not wearing a bra yet, so nothing will get in the way."
Esme gave me a sideways glance, "You don't wear a bra?"
...Do you really have to ask me that?
"I don't have breasts. So, no, I don't."
"Don't worry, little dummy! Esme is well-endowed, you should be fine!" Hilda pulled together a fumbled attempt at improving my mood; alas, her encouragement accomplished the exact opposite.
I don't want boobs, damn it.
"Isn't it uncomfortable?" Esme asked innocently. Tugging at her shirt, she revealed a glimpse of her plain, beige bra, "Mine hurts if I don't wear one."
Of course it hurts, your breasts are twice the size of mine!
...Also, damn.
That view.
Yet, even with that view in front of me, something within me forced my eyes away; an order, perhaps, to not desecrate my sister?
Or is it a need?
An urge?
"Esme, it only hurts because your shirt rubs against those two sensitive buds all day long. The little dummy doesn't have that problem yet-"
Just as Hilda was explaining:
"You three!"
Nemora's voice shot at us from the doorway.
"There are boys here, stop talking."
Hilda turned to the side, allowing me to spot Nemora pointing at the two young men with their hands planted over their ears.
"La~ La~ Didn't hear anything~"
"Sigh... I think I'm deaf."
Esme shrugged, not really caring about it. And for good reason, she was only 9, the same age as me. Forget feeling embarrassed over it; she didn't even seem to understand the implications yet.
Not to mention:
We're 9.
If they did have a weird reaction...
And no.
Hilda doesn't count.
Her Curse counteracts that problem, partially, at least.
"Come on, let's explore the rest of the ship." Shaking her head, Nemora walked behind Jill and patted his back, "Off you go, sacrificial lamb."
"Yay! Off you go, Jilly boy!"
---
Clatter!
"Haa... So tiring." Releasing a deep breath, Hildekar wiped beads of sweat off his forehead and patted the table beside him.
The room's furniture was cleaned up by him alone, revealing the remainder of the tapestry engraved into the ground.
"Your fault, should have reinforced yourself with Blessings."
"Don't want to, that tingly feeling from my Curses isn't pleasant to deal with for minutes on end."
"How about you don't complain then? Dumbass bitch." Vanessa's sour tongue remained as unfiltered as always.
Classic Vanessa.
Even Hilda was lightweight in comparison to her now, due to Vanessa's increased mental age and Hilda's lack thereof, stemming from her Curse.
...But how real was it?
This facade she had built, this mountain of lies; this fake persona-
Where does it start, and where does it end?
"Vanessa. Stop." Yulei's whispery, hoarse voice brought Vanessa's barrage of insults to an end.
Once more, Vanessa seemed to only listen to Yulei.
Clap- Clap-
Smacking his palms together, Hildekar cleared off the dust and stepped back to Vanessa's side; the core of the tapestry was now in full view of the teenagers.
"...What do you think it means?" Hildekar stared curiously at the tapestry.
"How the fuck am I meant to know?" Vanessa didn't seem to give a shit.
"..."
But Yulei...
Yulei stared at the engraved image in silence.
The Canary was sailing on a mind-numbingly vast, thunderous ocean of pitch-black waves, sailing away from whatever that thing was that lay in the background.
It loomed over The Canary;
It loomed over the waters;
...And it seemed to loom over the very fabric of the world itself.
A crown.
Sitting in pure white, a set of three upside-down crosses bore down at The Canary in-
'Glee.'
That word inexplicably shot into Yulei's mind.
---
House.
After house.
After another house.
Rummaging through each ramshackled, abandoned abode led to the discovery of a myriad of goods inside. Most were old, rusty, and unusable, but that factor didn't matter in the slightest.
Because-
"The Canary." Hildekar pointed at one house.
"Ruins." Then at another.
"Birds." And at a third.
Stood within a triangle of shacks, Yulei, Vanessa and Hildekari each faced a home.
Three tapestries, each located within three makeshift homes set up in a vague triangle formed out of smooth angles. Were a circle to be drawn connecting each shack that contained a tapestry-
"A crown. It forms the rough outline of a crown." Hildekar mumbled with his hand on his chin, and the girls listened solemnly; if anyone could easily deduce and link the dots, it would be him.
"The same crown from the first tapestry we saw?" Vanessa asked with a more serious expression on her face than usual.
"It's practically the same crown. This outline is slightly more crude, but I'm sure of it, it's the same crown."
Yulei observed the houses with a calm, but slightly tense expression.
Because, at that very moment;
Standing at the centre of the triangle;
Bearing the sight of the source of nightmares;
Exhaustion.
Pain.
Two things she was gradually getting accustomed to, yet, currently, both were amplified.
Her body was getting pulled into the chair, and her legs were getting torn out from the inside out; the pricks of dozens of sizzling, heated blades stabbing into her insides were almost enough to pull out cries of agony from her mouth.
"We wait now?"
Hildekar shrugged, "What else do you think? You can leave if you want, though. Go get all pissy with the others for all I care."
"Fuck off. I'm not leaving Yulei's side."
The two were bickering, as usual.
Everything was normal.
Nothing was wrong.
...Yulei continued staring in silence.
All was right.
...Her eyes remained honed in on the trifecta.
All was true.
...Then, her eyes flickered.
Or was it?
With the sound of the two bickering in the background.
With the sound of her pounding heart screeching from the depths of her chest.
She heard.
Steam.
Sizzling.
Cries.
'My cry.'
Shivers broke down her spine, sending her teeth clattering with an explosion of irrefutable, gut-wrenching fear.
Yulei slowly lifted her head.
She raised it, gradually, slowly...
Clatter-
'No.'
Clatter-!
'I don't want to...'
CLATTER!!!
She witnessed it.
Leaking from her scalp.
Leaking from her eyes.
Her nose.
Her mouth.
Her ears.
A white haze.
Her soul.
Her life.
"...die."
-----
Tap. Tap.
"It's rock solid."
"No shit." Jill thumped Elden back with his knuckles. It was sweet, sweet revenge for the past few minutes.
Ignoring those two for a moment, I observed the wall of rock that stood before us. It filled the interior of the ship, blocking us from entering any further; the bottom of the staircase we'd just gone down was right behind us, and the wall of rock was right in front.
There was nothing else for us to explore on this ship, not unless we destroyed the mountain of rock holding the ship encased within the cavernous walls.
"Can you break it?" Nemora asked, and the recipient of the question naturally knew who she was talking to even without being named.
"Impossible."
Jill, shrugging, promptly received a knuckle to the back, courtesy of Elden.
"Forget it then, let's return."
Nemora, Esme, Hilda and I were the first to get back up the stairs.
A cacaphony of sneak attacks echoed behind us. The thuds, smacks, and cracks whispering into our ears would have been quite the sight to behold.
Alas, everything occurred out of our line of sight.
They make a good circus.
Hm.
I've never been to a circus before, have I?
Or a theatre?
Or a cafe?
Or a restaurant?
Or a ci-, cine...
Whatever that thing used to be called.
...Anyways, after a few minutes of dancing through a myriad of self-deprecating, realistic thoughts, we exited the ship and stood upon the quarterdeck once more.
"Hilda, hoist me up properly. I can't see."
"Oops! Sorry!"
Fixing me properly, I grazed my vision across the vast, cavernous expanse.
I watched.
I studied.
And I noticed.
The white haze.
Immediately, without a hint of hesitation, without even sparing this dreaded body of mine a second thought.
Dashing all worries, limits, and consequences into the belly of a volcano-
I summoned it.
Curses exploded before my eyes; in front of the cohort; in front of their casual, amused expressions; in front of my dear sister.
The Book of Heresy.