36 Stonegarden Castle / The King in His Castle, Pt 1

Previously, on Usagi Days: After making off with the Hayate, Sylvie returns to the castle. In the sewer depths, she lights the Hayate on fire and casts it down the pit that had swallowed her family, long ago. The castle … screams!?

- 36.1 - Madness -

Complete and utter pandemonium swept through the coliseum. The crowd surged toward the exits, screaming in terror.

Ruby, Ivy and Violet rose to their feet. No need to play dead anymore.

The ground under the entire castle was still shaking. An earthquake? Maybe … But then—what was making that awful screech? Ruby had to cover her ears, or risk losing her mind entirely.

The Usagis were stuck in the arena pit, with no way out. The walls too high to climb.

Up in the balcony, the King was doubled over, seemingly in immense pain. Some kind of black aura swirling around him. Next to him, now free of his grasp, Lucy hopped over the ledge, and made her way down the rows of seats, toward the fighting pit.

When she made it to the edge of the wall surrounding the pit, she stood on her tippy-toes, and waved to the girls. They waved back.

… Now what?

Then, a voice: "Usagi-chan! Over here!"

- 36.2 - Ghost -

Sylvie stood at the edge of the pit. With a snap of the wrist, she unfurled a rope ladder down the length of the wall. "Hurry!"

No time for questions. The Usagis ran to the bottom of the ladder, and began to climb.

Ruby: "You came back!"

Anemone: "You left me!"

Ivy, confused: "Sylvie was gone?"

Violet: "… I have no lines to contribute here."

When they'd made it up the rope, most of the crowd had thinned out. The six girls ran for the coliseum exit.

Up above, the King's screams were reaching a fever pitch. He began thrashing at his viewing balcony, destroying the pillars, the chairs, the railings.

He rose to his feet, raised his head up to the sky, and bellowed out:

"HA-NA-SA-KIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!"

- 36.3 - Courtyard -

The six of them raced through the courtyard, headed straight for the gates, just like everyone else.

Violet: "Something's happening to all the stone. Look. The walls, the keep, the buildings—they're … phasing out of … existence? Well, that's not entirely accurate. I don't know how to describe it."

Ivy, a lightbulb popping over her head: "I know! This is like … in manga—"

Violet: "(Again, with the manga …)"

Ivy: "—the shading techniques. Cross-hatching. Screentone. Looks exactly like that."

Anemone: "Whatever's happening to the castle is also happening to the King … Did you see him? He was bigger. More … abstract."

Sylvie, matter-of-factly: "The King and the castle are one and the same."

Usagis: "…?"

Sylvie continued to explain, even as they ran.

"The Interstitial Latticework is coming apart.

"The castle—the material it's built out of—it was never made of matter. Not as we know it. It's always existed in the spaces between this reality, and some other. Normally inaccessible to us. But made concrete through the King's will.

"I'm sure the castle used to be something else entirely. Who knows what the Orcs used it for. But one day the King discovered it. Its nature.

"Don't you see? The castle—it transmutes human will—human lifeforce—into Interstitial matter. There's a Pit, at the bottom of the castle. The castle's true form is down there. The King tosses those he deems undesirable into it. His enemies. The infirmed. The … below-par workers. The people become part of the castle.

"Over time, the King and the castle have become entangled. One cannot exist without the other. After all, Stonegarden was manifested into reality from his will.

"And now the Interstitiality is falling apart at the seams. … Which also means that the King is stuck here, forever. He can never leave. His very own existence has become Interstitial. He can't exist in our realm anymore.

"… All because I set the Hayate on fire. And sent it down into the depths.

"… Bon appetit, Your Majesty. Hope you choke on it."

- 36.4 - Gates -

They reached the gate. The last of the crowd had left through the ink-line screentone drawbridge—its contours flickering abstractly in and out of reality—with only a few stragglers left.

Behind them, the sounds of the King on a rampage echoed through the courtyard, as he tore through walls, and any Knights foolish enough to try pacifying or reasoning with him.

The six of them were about to leave—but Ruby and Anemone hesitated, looking back.

Ivy: "What is it? Come on—we gotta go!"

Ruby and Anemone were looking at the various stragglers, still inside the castle. Children, standing around, crying. Elderly residents, who had trouble walking. Nobody was helping them.

"… Annie?"

"… Yeah."

And the two girls ran back, and started to help those who couldn't make it on their own.

Ivy sighed. "Can't be helped." And she, along with Ivy, and Lucy, joined the other two in their rescue efforts.

Sylvie watched, from the other side of the drawbirdge, as the five of them ran back into the danger of the castle.

She watched for a bit.

And then, she too, went back inside, to help.

- 36.5 - Drawbridge -

When the girls had finally helped the last of the stragglers over the drawbridge, they finally began to make their way over it themselves.

Ivy, Violet, and Sylvie managed to reach the other side, but as Ruby and Anemone—Lucy between them, holding their hands—were about to finish crossing, the King appeared behind them in a flash. With terrifying speed, he seized the two girls, and threw them back into the castle.

Ivy, Violet: "RUBY! ANNIE!"

Lucy was still on the drawbridge. She looked ahead to Ivy and Violet. Then she looked back, at Ruby and Anemone, the two of them on the ground, the wind knocked out of them.

She didn't want to abandon them. She didn't know what to do.

Ivy, beckoning: "Lucy! Over here! We'll figure something out! Just come here first!"

But Lucy waited too long.

The King lifted both arms up high—and brought his fists down on the screentone-cross-hatch drawbridge. In an instant, it flickered out of existence.

Lucy fell into the moat below, with a splash.