Curtain Call (2)
The Carnival King's final move.
She declared that this whole story was the Star of Scorn's delusion, fiction rather than reality, and that everything brought onto this stage was fake.
A flood of paint swept over the Knights of La Mancha.
As they sank beneath it, they looked at Najin, as if they had been waiting for this exact mont. Answering those looks, Najin kicked off the paint and ran. He too had been reduced to a fake and dragged into the flood, yet...
『Now then, it is ti to set out on an adventure.』
Because of the knight gripping the lance with him, Najin was not swept away. He pierced the surging wave of paint and charged forward.
『Run, run!』
A knight ran with him as if they were one body, both hands locked on the Lance of the Crossed Star with Najin. His na was Quixote, but he always put the honorific Don before it and introduced himself as Don Quixote.
Don Quixote, or Alonso Quixano.
A knight who lived in reality while dreaming, and fulfilled that dream in reality, shouted that none of it mattered: reality or dream, lie or truth, fake or real.
『For an adventure worth laughing and chatting about!』
Star of Mirth, Don Quixote.
No matter how harsh the trial, he never lost his smile. Even now, the knight who had gone on adventures for stories worth laughing over burst into laughter.
"Ahhh, ahhhhhhh!"
Star of Scorn, Quixote.
And what of the Star of Scorn? After realizing everything had been his own delusion, he scread. A scream louder than any jeer echoed out.
Wrapped head to toe in paint, holding a lance made of paint, and flying a flag like a child's scribble, Quixote charged in. He looked like sothing out of a child's nightmare.
Lance Charge.
His final strike, packed with everything the Star of Scorn had. Najin answered with the sa Lance Charge. In exactly the sa stance and at exactly the sa speed, he rushed straight at the Star of Scorn.
The reason for choosing this thod was simple.
At least on this stage.
To shatter the Star of Scorn's self, only self-belief could do it.
As one body with the Star of Mirth, Najin dashed forward. The La Mancha banner snapped in the wind. The Lance of the Crossed Star had already changed into the shape of the lance Don Quixote used to carry.
Sssshhhhhhk!
Cutting through air, piercing paint, kicking off the ground, they shot ahead like a single flash of light.
Collision.
Self and self crashed into each other.
2.
At the instant of impact, the entire stage shook.
The stage, pushed to its critical point, swayed hard, and the shockwave from the collision blasted the paint back. They had crossed dozens of ters in an instant and crashed together, but neither side pierced the other.
Exactly the sa speed.
Exactly the sa force.
With lance tip pressed to lance tip, aura was shaved away. Transcendent aura burst in all directions, gouging the ground and tearing across both bodies. Still, neither side stepped back.
Boom!
They stamped down and took one more step forward. Almost at the sa ti, both planted their feet and glared at each other. What reflected in the Star of Scorn's eyes was not Najin. It was the Star of Mirth gripping the lance with Najin.
Who is that one who looks like ?
Why can he laugh so freely even in this agony?
Grind.
The Star of Scorn ground his teeth. He mocked the self that had drowned in delusion. He mocked a life made only of lies. The thing he had despised most of all was his own life.
Pathetic. Miserable. Worthless.
That was his life. Alonso Quixano lost his mother young and shut himself away in a room. He fell into knight stories and dread of the knights in those tales. But weak as he was, he could never beco one, so everything remained delusion.
Everything had been delusion.
Thrilling adventures, irreplaceable friends, a guide, the stars he t while traveling in search of La Mancha, all of it was fiction born from his imagination.
"Fake, false, aningless things."
Only Dulcinea, only she who had played along with his delusion, had been his everything. And now she wished for his death. She whispered that even if he died, he had to pierce the enemy in front of him.
Then your life of pure delusion still has value.
I will turn your ridiculous, shabby life into a play, and let you dream forever.
"Uha, uhahahahaha, hahahahaha!"
The Star of Scorn forced out laughter. It was not natural. It looked like a coward puffing himself up before a fight.
Kkrrrk, krrrkkkk!
The lances ground against each other. The Star of Scorn pushed forward little by little. The scale that had been balanced slowly tilted toward him. But it did not last long.
The Star of Mirth shone.
Borrowing Najin's star, Don Quixote shone.
Smiling, he began to speak. A story only Star of Scorn Quixote could hear. He talked about pulse-racing adventures, the hardships endured through the journey, and the bonds built along the way.
No. Illusion. Delusion. A story that never happened. Everything is my delusion.
The Star of Scorn, and the Carnival King burrowed into his mind, kept repeating that. They said there was no need to listen to the voice of a being born from his own delusion.
『So what if it is a delusion?』
But.
『So what if it is a lie, a dream, a fake?』
The Star of Mirth smiled. His form of starlight gained substance. On this stage at the border of reality and fantasy, the Star of Mirth within Najin beca real.
"That is not what matters."
Don Quixote's voice rang through the air. Now with substance, he stepped forward. The lance that had been pushed back clacked and locked in place.
"It is like how it never mattered whether the La Mancha we reached was true heaven or not."
He smiled.
"Wasn't the adventure fun?"
Originally, the Don Quixote Najin had summoned here was a false being. He had been created from the mories of stars sleeping in La Mancha's sanctuary, and as a being, he had no real connection to Quixote who had beco the Star of Scorn.
A separate being from the Star of Scorn.
A being only reenacted from mory.
But even after realizing that was what he was, Don Quixote did not deny his journey. He laughed and clapped instead. If his story was one of fulfilling a dream in reality, then making a dream into reality should also be possible, he said, and left behind his star.
A false being left sothing true.
A character from a dream affected reality.
His existence itself was proof. Using his own existence as proof, Don Quixote spoke to the Star of Scorn. The Star of Scorn's eyes wavered. With an unsteady gaze, he looked at the stars rising around the Star of Mirth.
The stars buried in paint were rising.
They were the stars of the Knights of La Mancha called forth by Sancho.
Even while their captain declared this entire tale fiction, even while they themselves were denied, the Knights of La Mancha willingly made their stars shine. Every one of those stars held a joyful adventure story.
Because Don Quixote would have done the sa.
To one who had lost himself, to one who had let himself go, to one who had chosen death, to one waiting for death, Don Quixote had always reached out his hand. He had always asked if they wanted to shine their stars and laugh together.
They were only returning the hand once given to them.
"...Ah."
The Star of Scorn let out a breath. The stars happily sharing stories in front of him looked beautiful in his eyes. The Carnival King still shouted inside his head, but that voice felt far away now.
The Star of Requiem showed him the way.
Two paths.
Maybe, two stories.
The Star of Scorn had to choose which story suited La Mancha, the stage he had made.
Standing at the split, he looked ahead.
One path was to keep dismissing everything as delusion and contempt. In other words, to remain the Star of Scorn as he had lived until now. The voice ringing in his head urged him to choose that road.
And the other path was...
A road made by a certain Free Knight. Hard, exhausting, painful, yet one where he could still smile at the end. A story where they could laugh, chat, say, "That happened," and lower the curtain.
When he raised his head.
There was a boy who had endured nightmares for hundreds of years for that ending. There was a Free Knight who had risked his life to show such a possibility existed. There was the ingenious gentleman of La Mancha who had appeared before him to tell that story.
A path woven from a thread-thin possibility.
To the Star of Scorn, that path looked beautiful. Even with eyes that looked down on everything in the world, he could not bring himself to scorn that path.
"Ah."
The Star of Scorn sighed.
Sotis humans learn from their past.
Alonso Quixano chose.
Crunch. His lance snapped. The Star of Mirth's lance surged through that break and pierced the Star of Scorn.
3.
After piercing the Star of Scorn's body, Najin slid across the paint. When he turned around, the Star of Scorn stood there with his broken lance dropped, staring at the hole through his body.
No, not the Star of Scorn.
He turned his head and looked at Najin. A natural smile sat on his face, as if he had finally been freed from the voice that had tornted him for ages.
"So that is it."
His heart had been pierced through. Where his heart had vanished, the Star of Mirth was twinkling. Listening to the story that star told him, Alonso Quixano could smile.
Now he understood as well.
Najin's adventure in La Mancha, and the different ending given to them. He savored that ending and smiled.
"..."
Najin looked to his side.
No one was there.
The Star of Mirth that had charged with him now dwelled not in Najin but in Alonso Quixano. It had gone where it rightfully belonged.
The Star of Scorn crumbled, and in the heart of the man no longer called Quixote but Alonso Quixano, the Star of Mirth settled.
Of course, that starlight was tiny. A star that looked ready to dim at any second could not replace his heart. But it could at least give him enough ti to stand in the curtain call.
Kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiik!
But the stage's narrator would not allow it.
A tearing sound ca from the sky.
It was the Carnival King's scream, the first fierce emotion she had ever revealed. She was enraged, and she showed intense hatred toward Najin.
Boom.
This stage had been built on the Carnival King's power. The stage she parasitized bucked violently. Paint covering all of La Mancha surged as a giant wave toward Don Quixote, as if to strip away his self completely and turn him into a Forgotten One.
Najin laughed at that final struggle.
He could not help it.
Even this situation was exactly like La Mancha.
"Hoo."
He let out a short breath and lowered the Lance of the Crossed Star. With the hand that released the lance, he gripped Excalibur.
Najin raised the sword high into the sky.
First Horn.
Stepping forward, Najin thought. Unlike his master, he could not split the stage in a single blow. But he could clear away the paint covering the stage.
If the Helt Knight were hearing this story, he would burst out laughing and say this.
To cut only what you want to cut.
Isn't that the harder thing?
Triumph.
Najin brought his sword down.
Just like he had in La Mancha, to shatter the Carnival King parasitizing the stage.
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