I Think I Fell for You at the Bottom of the Abyss (Probably) - Episode 6

The water from the spring was still a little cold. Riko looked down at her feet. Her own feet. A girl's feet. Properly thin and small. "I'm back!!" She'd shouted again. But she couldn't help it. Reg was staring blankly beside her. Nanachi was looking away slightly. She climbed out of the spring and sat on the stone shelf. The force field's light swirled in eddies. The water surface gleamed silver. She'd really made it here. Riko stared at her own hands. Small. Thin fingers. My hands. The sensation of driving the small bottle into Tamaugachi's belly still seemed to linger in her hands. With those big, scarred hands. *I actually managed to do something like that back then,* she thought vaguely. "How's your voice?" "High!! It's actually high!!" "……You've been checking ever since." "But I'm happy about it!" Reg smiled a little. Nanachi's mouth curved up just slightly. The three of them sat side by side on the stone shelf. The Nanakamaado spring glowed quietly. For a while, no one spoke. Riko looked up at the swirling force field. Pale blue and beautiful. Mother's map was real. It hadn't lied. *(Thank you.)* She thought it without saying it aloud. To no one in particular. "……Should we head back?" "Yeah." "But" Reg stopped. She was looking at the water surface. "When it hit me, the light scattered. What was that?" Riko looked at Reg. Nanachi also turned quietly toward her. "……I don't know." "The legends say the spring has a will. That it returns existence to its original form. ……Maybe the spring couldn't judge what your original form was." "My original form." "Yeah." Reg looked at the water surface again. She was silent for a while. Riko wanted to say something. But the right words wouldn't come. Reg was what Riko wanted to know most about. But she didn't. Where she came from, what she was—she didn't understand any of it. And yet. "……Thank you for coming all this way with me." Reg looked up. "Huh?" "If you hadn't been here, things might've gotten bad in the Kurogane Corridor. You too, Nanachi. Thank you both." Nanachi turned away, her face unchanged. "Thanking us again." "I'll say it again." "……" Reg laughed softly. "You're welcome." Her voice was quiet. Riko felt a little embarrassed. It showed on her face, and she quickly looked away. "Why are you suddenly being so honest?" "Because Riko was honest just now." "……Shut up." Nanachi muttered quietly. "Both of you are loud." The three of them laughed again. This time Riko's voice was properly high. Not low. A girl's laugh. Hearing that laugh, Riko wanted to laugh again. She'd made it back. She'd really made it back. --- The way back was quieter than the way there. When they passed through the Kurogane Corridor, Nanachi walked in front. She noticed a dark section in the wall, stopped, and slowly moved right to avoid it. There was no hesitation in that movement anymore. The three of them mimicked it and continued on. It was much smoother than when they'd entered. "Somehow it feels like we have more room to breathe than before." "Well, we've been through once already." "There were two Nurikabe-modoki, right?" "Three. Two on the way in, one on the way out." "Wait, there was one on the way out too!?" "You didn't notice because I went through silently." Riko thought for a moment. "……That's not something you should tell people, is it?" "Knowledge is important." "Finding out later just makes it scarier!!" Reg laughed alone up ahead. "Don't you laugh." "I'm not laughing." "You were laughing!!" When they emerged into the sea of corpses, the pale blue light spread out again. Crystal pillars stood in a forest. Quiet, cold, but not frightening. She felt like she'd gotten a little used to it. Walking between the pillars of Towa no Hashira, Riko looked down at her feet. The surface of the stone shelf. Cold. But she could feel it clearly. She was walking on her own feet. "Hoozuki's stone shelf isn't usable anymore, right?" "Daiou Kabura got it. We're camping on top of a pillar tonight." "On top of a pillar again?" "You got a problem with that?" "Nope!" Reg had stopped ahead. She was looking at something. "What's wrong?" "……Tamaugachi's corpse is gone." The three of them stopped. The place where Tamaugachi had been lying. Nothing. The stone shelf was just a little wet. "Did something from the Fifth Layer take it……?" "Five hundred thousand gol, gone." "It was never ours to begin with." "It's the principle of the thing!!" Nanachi started walking. Riko and Reg followed. They passed through the place where Tamaugachi had been. Nothing. Only traces of the battle remained. Several of the spines that had pierced the stone shelf were still there. Riko pulled out one of the spines. She held it in her palm and looked at it. Thin, sharp, catching the force field's light and glimmering slightly. "Can I take this home?" "What for?" "……As a memento." "……Do what you want." Riko put the spine in her pocket. A memento. A memento of defeating Tamaugachi. A memento of fighting properly in a boy's body. *That's weird,* she thought to herself. But she didn't want to throw it away. --- While preparing for camp, Riko opened a bag of preserved food. "Let's eat." "I don't need to eat." "I know, I didn't calculate your portion from the start." "……You calculated it?" "Of course. If I thought it was for three people and we ran out of food, that'd be scary." Reg was quiet for a moment. "……Thank you." "So now it's your turn to say thank you?" "Was that wrong?" "Not at all!" Nanachi sat down silently and took the preserved food. She took one bite of the contents and made a slight face. "……This tastes awful." "Save that comment for after you're done eating." "It's a fact." "Even if it is!" The preserved food really did taste terrible. Dried meat and hard bread. Not warm, but edible. That was enough. Riko ate while glancing at Nanachi. Nanachi was eating with that same disgusted expression. But she was eating all of it. *(Nanachi came all this way with us,)* Riko thought. It was Nanachi who'd found all the Nurikabe-modoki in the Kurogane Corridor. In such darkness, she'd noticed such subtle changes. Riko could never have done that. But she shouldn't tell Nanachi. She'd definitely say "thanking us again." Riko took another bite of preserved food and looked at the force field's light. The top of the water crystal pillar was quiet. The pale blue light of the sea of corpses spread through the pillar. The sea surface swayed slowly. Beautiful. A frightening place, but beautiful. "Nanachi." "What." "Thank you for noticing all those Nurikabe-modoki." Nanachi stopped. She stopped, holding the preserved food. "……Didn't I tell you not to say that?" "You didn't, you just said I'd say it again." "It's the same thing." "It's totally different!" Nanachi turned away. But her profile seemed just a little softer. Reg looked between Riko and Nanachi and laughed quietly again. "You're laughing again." "I'm not laughing." "You are!!" The voices of three people echoed across the sea of corpses. --- That night, Riko couldn't sleep. Lying on her back on the pillar, she stared at the ceiling. The force field's light swayed slowly. She'd become a boy. Defeated Tamaugachi. Passed through the Kurogane Corridor. Reached the Nanakamaado spring. Made it back. All of it really happened. She touched the Tamaugachi spine in her pocket with her finger. Cold. Thin. But definitely there. *(I wish I could've shown this to Mother.)* That thought came to her suddenly. Riko's mother was a White Whistle. Now, no one knew where she was. Maybe she was somewhere even deeper. But the map was real. The Nanakamaado spring really existed. Riko took the spine out of her pocket and held it up to the force field's light. A thin shadow cast on the pillar's surface. When she met Mother someday, she'd tell her this story. *I became a boy and defeated Tamaugachi.* *(She'll definitely be surprised.)* Thinking that made her smile a little. Beside her, Nanachi was breathing slowly in sleep. Beyond her, Reg sat hugging her knees, gazing at the water surface. Only Reg didn't sleep. It was always like that. Riko looked at Reg's profile. The way the spring had bounced light back at Reg. It still nagged at her. The spring that returned existence to its original form had done nothing to Reg. Or maybe it hadn't done nothing—maybe Reg didn't have a "form to return to"—— Reg turned around. Their eyes met. "Can't you sleep?" "Yeah. What about you?" "I can't sleep." "Is that something to brag about?" "It's not bragging." Riko sat up and sat beside Reg. The two of them looked at the water surface. "Are you worried about the spring?" Reg was silent for a moment. "……A little." "I see." "But" Reg looked away from the water surface and looked at Riko. "Because Riko made it back today, that's enough." Riko froze when she heard those words. Her chest warmed from the inside. Words wouldn't come. "……You're saying nice things again." "I only ever say nice things." "You don't." "I do." Nanachi spoke in a half-asleep voice. "……You're both loud." They both looked at Nanachi at the same time. Nanachi's eyes were closed, unmoving. But her white ears twitched slightly. Riko held back her laughter and covered her mouth with her hand. Reg's shoulders were shaking too. The water surface swayed slowly. The light of the sea of corpses spread silver across the expanse. Riko looked up at the force field's swirl once more. She'd made it here. She'd made it back. That was enough. But the meaning of that light the spring had shown Reg remained unknown. And Mother's map had more ahead. Riko put the Tamaugachi spine back in her pocket and closed her eyes.

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Episode 6

Name: I Think I Fell for You at the Bottom of the Abyss (Probably)
Author: Novelia

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