45 Usagi Days / The Primary Scrutinization of Hanasaki Ruby

- 45.1 -

Hoo, boy.

Those must've been some powerful drugs they'd put Ruby on.

Because she was now hallucinating that an Orc—a captured one, no less—was standing in front of her, separated by a circular, glass (?) cage. Like she was looking at some animal in a zoo.

- 45.2 -

Orc: "Oh, a zoo? That's an interesting comparison. Because you've never actually seen a zoo before, have you, Hanasaki Ruby?"

Ruby's head was still spinning. Her vision still blurry. It was hard to focus, much less form a proper argument against … her own subconscious, she supposed.

"… I mean, you've been to petting zoos before. Little billy-goats and alpacas, eating hay out of your hands on those farms you girls have passed through. But those big ones, you see in movies and pictures—artifacts of a bygone era. … Oops, our bad, I guess!" The Orc stuck out his tongue, winked, and tapped himself lightly on the head, with a closed fist. "Tee-hee!"

Yes, this was all in Ruby's head. That's why he knew her name. That's why he could read her mind. Why he had memories of all her memories.

This was all in her head.

Ruby muttered, "I—I need to s-sit down."

The Orc spread his arms wide, making a theatrical gesture of invitation. "Why, be my guest! Grab a seat! Pull up a chair! Make yourself comfortable! Mi casa, su casa!" Then he laughed. A bellowing, dark laugh.

Ruby rubbed her temples. Her subconscious wasn't making any sense. The room was empty. There wasn't anything to sit on—

… Oh. Wait. Yes, there was. A plain, steel folding chair sat there, in front of her. (Had it always been there?) Unsteadily, her arms wobbling, she lowered herself into the chair.

She looked ahead. Face to face now with the Orc.

- 45.3 -

"Poor Hanasaki Ruby. All you wanted to do was leave."

Ruby tried to speak. But her lips were still lagging behind her thoughts. "Wh-what—"

The Orc put a giant green finger to his lips. "Shh, shh. Hush now. Your body is still tired, I can tell." He brought his finger up to his temple. He tapped it. "All you have to do is think, Hanasaki Ruby. I'll do the work from my end."

Ruby must have been losing her mind.

"You're not. I assure you, you're not. You're only about as crazy … as I am!"

Then, that same dark laughter echoed through the walls of his cage, reverberating throughout the empty room.

- 45.4 -

Orc: "The two of us—we find ourselves in similar positions, no? Trapped underground. Unable to leave. Both of us, yearning for that sweet, above-ground air. The only difference between us being, how we ended up here. Because, like I said—all you wanted to do was leave. But oh, the guilt! The guilt!"

The Orc raised his hands, and announced, framing some kind of invisible newspaper headline, hands moving with each word: "Breaking news! Hanasaki Ruby wrestles with her conscience! Compunctions galore!"

Ruby wanted to go back to her hospital bed, and sleep. She wasn't following a single thing her subconscious-Orc was talking about.

"Follow? What's hard to follow? It's simple, I'll lay it all down for you: see, you've been the leader all this time. You've gotten the other girls through the stickiest of situations. Bandits. Luck module monsters. A tyrant King. Hanasaki Ruby—brave, impulsive, wild. Up there you were thriving.

"… But now? Now you find yourself defeated. Not by starvation. Not by sickness. Not by hardship. No! By comfort, of all things! By luxury! Oh, you might not be in touch with your own emotions, Hanasaki Ruby—so let me, your 'subconscious', as you so badly wish to convince yourself I am, elucidate you on what exactly it is you're feeling.

"You feel worthless. Useless. The girls don't need you anymore. They have everything they could ever want down here. Where do your driving skills come in now? Your ability to make rash decisions, to pull off the impossible by the skin of your teeth. You have no use in the compound. And so now you feel like you were nothing more than … a tool, all this time. You got the girls where they needed to go, and they have no more use for you.

"… Oh, but how do you square that with how nice Ivy and Violet are to you? Your own feelings of inadequacy. Even a bowl of curry rice from them, you feel like you don't deserve. … The paradox being that, you know you do. After all, weren't we just going on about how amazing you are? The great Hanasaki Ruby. Ivy and Violet owe everything to you! If anything, they should be making you curry rice for the rest of their mortal lives!

"… And herein lies the problem. You think, Hanasaki Ruby, that if you're not constantly saving their butts out there every single second, then you're not worthy of their love. Their affection. Their friendship. Because to you, you should be working every single second of your short human existence, doing something for someone.

"… Oh, it killed you that you couldn't save Anemone, didn't it? Sure, she turned out fine, in the end—but not because of you. Her sister, her R.A.B.B.I.T. egghead companions—they were the heroes that day, weren't they? … Oh my, I seem to have moved on to the subject of Anemone Grayscale. Let's continue talking about her, shall we?

"You wanted so badly for her to stop you, didn't you, Hanasaki Ruby? That night, on the bench, sipping your coffee. You wanted her to kneel at your feet, kiss your shoes. Because there's a reason she's just the co-driver, isn't there? She'll always be second-in-command. And she better know her place, if she knows what's good for her! How dare she not beg you to stay!"

No, it wasn't true. Ruby hadn't thought that at all. She just wanted …

… Wait, good question. What had she wanted?

"My, my—in the medical profession, Hanasaki Ruby, we call that a bit of a narcissistic streak. Mayhaps not so much unlike the King yourself, eh?" At which the Orc then adopted, to a startingly degree of accuracy, Violet's speech and facial mannerisms. "Bu-but Mister Orc! You can't just say mayhaps!" Then he dropped the impression, and cackled harshly.

"… All joking, of course. What is life, without some levity, eh? Cheer up, Hanasaki Ruby! Life's a blast!"

- 45.5 -

Orc: "R.A.B.B.I.T., and the Usagis. … Say, what do you think the chances are, that a group of girls driving around in a car called the Usagi, end up being inextricably entangled, through the sister of one of the members, with a group calling themselves R.A.B.B.I.T.?

"… Do you believe in chance, Hanasaki Ruby? In fate? Do you believe it was humanity's destiny to be thoroughly decimated and humiliated by a bunch of green-skinned brutes? My kin? … Speaking of which—how strong is that conviction of yours? What continues to enforce your belief that Orcs still roam this planet? … Oh, me? You want to use me as evidence? How can that be, when I'm in your head? … And if I'm real—well, that must make me the Last Orc on Earth. Lonely, lonely Louie … Last of his kind."

Ruby's head swam. Orcs. Villagers. Hanasaki Village. A group of Orcs had slaughtered them all. Dismembered them. Eaten them. Toyed with what remained of them. For sport. For fun. She saw it all still, to this day, in her nightmares.

Orc: "Oh, yes, dreams. The very cornerstone of reality itself. … I'm not making fun, I promise. When your own subjective filtering of true reality becomes your interpretation of reality—if you can further bend the external world to match what your mind understands, or what it sees … Then, anything's possible. Rewrite history. Rewrite reality. Reshape, rewire, re-organize. Make the universe yours.

"… But this is hardly news to you! After all, I'm talking to the girl who can create bridges out of thin air. Who can restore her car to its original state, over and over again. … A burgeoning practitioner in the art of particle manipulation—now, are you sure you're not part Orc already, Hanasaki Ruby?" He laughed, as if he had just told the funniest joke in the world.

"… But you're not quite there yet, are you? Rewriting past history is still a bit out of your grasp. Well, the fine folks at R.A.B.B.I.T. are doing their best to help you unlock your full potential, I'm sure … That's why you're down in the guinea pig wing in the first place. Couple of lab rats, the two of us. Ah, when they're done with you—perhaps then, you can reshape history the way you remember it.

"… But until then … your nightmares … and the reality you presume they represent—your entire reason for existence hinges solely on the fact that the two are not at odds." The Orc now adopted Ruby's own mannerisms. He extended a green arm, finger pointed high to the ceiling. "'As long as there is breath in my lungs—I, Ruby Hanasaki, vow to exterminate the Orc Menace once and for all!' …"

He dropped the impression. "Bet you thought you sounded pretty cool, didn't you? But the attack on Hanasaki Village was so long ago. And one, isolated incident of an Orc attack, decades after we all left the planet. Does that sound likely? Do you think every single person you've come across is wrong? And that you happen to be right?

"… But if it wasn't Orcs who carried out the attack … Then it would've had to have been humans responsible, right? Certainly couldn't've been … a band of … kittens, now could it?

"So your young brain had to fill in blanks. No way it would have been able to accept a world where humans could do such terrible things to other humans. But that's where your brain lost the plot, see? Because you crazy hairless apes have been doing much worse than what happened to your village, for hundred of thousands of years. Way before we came along.

"Your brain had to do it, to protect you. You, who chooses to see the good in humanity. Picking up strangers and offering them food, only for them to steal your car. Oh, Hanasaki Ruby … You sure are one of a kind."

Ruby swayed drunkenly in her chair. She just wanted him to stop talking. She didn't want to be here anymore. She felt close to passing out.

- 45.6 -

Orc: "Alright, Hanasaki Ruby. We're almost done. Now I offer you, your one chance. You have an Orc in front of you. You can ask him any question, any question at all. What do you want to know? Once in a lifetime chance. … Don't blow it, now. No pressure."

Ruby buried her face in her hands. The only word on her mind …

… Why?

The Orcs didn't enslave humanity—at least, not en masse. They didn't use Earth for resources. They just … did what they did, and left.

Why? … Why the SDF? Why … any of this?

The Orc slammed his fists against the pane of glass (… or whatever it was made of) separating the two. Ruby jumped at the noise.

"Why? WHY!?"

He seemed to fly into a rage. Or maybe it was just for show. She couldn't tell. As soon as he had become aggravated, he resumed his previous, carefree attitude once again.

Orc, mock-innocently: "Oh, you think we're all in this together? That Orcs have a common purpose? Like we have some kind of hive-mind? Oh, you've been watching too many movies with your friends upstairs!

"… 'Why'? Well, why not? Isn't it fun to watch lesser lifeforms struggle? Haven't you ever snipped the wings off a bird, just to watch it struggle to fly?

"… No? You haven't? Oh, well … Maybe you should try it sometime." His eyes began to glow red. He grinned viciously. Those sharp, yellow teeth. "It's a whole … lot … of fun."

- 45.7 -

Ruby's head was getting heavy. She was having trouble keeping it upright.

Orc: "Sleepy baby. Can't keep her eyes open. Would you like me to sing you a lullaby?"

Ruby couldn't keep her eyes open any longer. She began to drift off.

"… By the way. Everything I've told you during our conversation was a lie.

"… All of it.

"… Some of it?

"… Or none of it, maybe. Ha!

"… Thank you, Hanasaki Ruby.

"… I had a lot of fun.

"… But I do believe it's finally time for us to go.

"… Yes, 'us'. Both of us.

"… We'll see each other yet, Hanasaki Ruby."