27 - Advent End (2)

We're on a highway, going straight.

The wind rushes past our faces, blowing our hair back.

Just make it to the end, Odd-kun. That's all you have to do.

Valerie's words echoing through my head.

Every time I look back, there's seems to be … less of the world. The city's disappearing, building by building.

Parallax Plaza is gone.

At least there's no sign of the man with the eyepatch.

… Yet.

Looking back, I can't but notice that the look on Addy's face is changing, too.

Though still wet with tears, her expression is looking more like how Sunny, Moeka, and Valerie's were, at the end.

… Is she starting to understand, what they understood?

What exactly did they figure out, that I haven't?

"I don't know where we're supposed to go," I say.

"Just keep driving, Odd-kun. … It'll all be okay. As long as we keep driving."

We don't say anything for a while. There are no other cars on the road.

It's just us.

After a long time, Addy speaks again.

"You know, Odd-kun," she says. "This is really all my fault."

"What? No, Addy—"

She shakes her head. "It is. It's because I was selfish. I wanted to—…" She struggles to find the right words. "I wanted to pursue my own fantasy. And I dragged everybody else into … into this. But it's over now. We have to go back. It's time for it to end."

I don't say anything.

"I remember now. I remember it all. I'm—I'm not real. Not like you are. You and everyone else. I'm just a character, from another story. I was written with an entirely separate narrative."

I just keep driving.

"… So thank you, Odd-kun. You and the others. You all let me experience something I never would have, otherwise. Thank you for indulging my fantasies. It was like … I got to live, for once."

"Addy—"

"No, Odd-kun. Don't you remember? It's not Addy. It's—…"

"… Advent," I whisper.

"That's right," she says, wrapping her arms tighter around my waist. "You remember it all, don't you?"

I do.

I do remember it all.

Point Parallax, the club room. L.I.M.B.O. and Jessica.

All of it.

But I don't want to, because—

"—because the illusion will be over!" I shout, tearfully. "I don't want it to end! I hate working, but I love being there with everyone! I want to have more fun with you all! I want to go to karaoke again! I want to joke around with everyone! … Just a bit longer …"

I feel Addy—Advent—squeeze me even tighter. She presses the side of her face against my back.

"We can still do all of that. Alex, Valerie, Sunny, Moeka … They'll be waiting for us. We'll all laugh together again."

But as soon as she says this, a figure appears before us, in the distance.

It's the man with the eyepatch.

He raises his gun.

He fires once.

The bullet pierces the front wheel of the moped.

The bike swerves. I lose control.

The two of us are flung off, and we roll onto the asphalt.

Everything goes dark.

*

When I come to, I'm lying on my side.

Smoke billowing from the wrecked moped a little ways down the road. Addy lying nearby, face-down, still.

I can barely move. I try to stand. I can't.

"Addy … Advent …"

I start to crawl toward her.

I only make it a few feet, before a boot comes down, crushes my hand.

I look up.

The man with the eyepatch wags his finger. "No, no," he says.

"Who … are you?" I manage. Like it really matters right now.

"Me? Why … I'm just like her," he answers, nodding toward Advent. "And she's realized the truth of it all. Perhaps it's time for you to do the same."

He presses the gun against my forehead, and grins.

I grit my teeth. I close my eyes, and wait for the inevitable.

… And that's when I hear it.

Not a gunshot—but the sound of impact, of metal slamming against flesh, as something—someone—rushes in, and punches (?!) the man off my arm.

I open my eyes.

Standing in front of me, where the man was, is some … office lady with a ponytail, with a pair of mechanical gauntlets.

Wait.

Wait, I know who this is.

This is—

"—Jessica," I mutter.

"Sorry I'm late, Odd-kun. … I can't do anything until the illusion falls apart."

The man, knocked back all the way to the other end of the highway, picks himself up, dusts off his coat. He laughs. "Ah, the same old dance. How many times have we done this, I wonder?"

Jessica is back on him immediately. She disappears in a blur, and re-appears in front of the man, as the two of them trade blows, the flurry of movement too fast for my eyes to even comprehend.

Advent begins to stir.

I rush to her side, help her up. "Are you okay?"

"Y-yeah … I think so."

The man and Jessica continue fighting, as Advent and I watch in awe.

Jessica dodges his gunfire, even at such a close range, as she counters with her barrage of punches and kicks. Though she gets in some good blows, the man seems to shrug each one off without so much as a flinch.

I feel a hand grasp mine. I turn to Advent.

She's no longer wearing her office clothes.

No, she's dressed in an adventurer's outfit, like the ones you seen in a fantasy anime. Slung across her chest is a bow, and she's clutching a shortsword in one hand, a wooden staff in the other.

She turns to me and smiles.

"Odd-kun … Do you remember my backstory? I was an adventurer, in a fantasy land. When the villain of the story massacred my village, he also left a debuff on me. Terrible luck. Remember? My spells fail. My sword breaks on even the weakest slimes. And my arrows always miss."

"Advent …"

"The protagonist of my story, he helps me overcome the debuff. At the end of the first volume, I get part of my luck back. Not all of it, no—it's a series, you see. You can't solve the problem that quickly, or else there's no tension going forward. You have to save the big bad for the endgame—that's how it works."

She steps forward, her staff glowing.

She turns her head back.

"Thank you … Odd-kun. We'll see each other again, soon."

I open my mouth to object, but before I can say anything, she's already off.

She charges into the ongoing battle.

I watch as Advent shoots a blast of magical energy at the man.

He's caught off-guard, stumbles.

Jessica uses the opportunity to land a flurry of punches into his abdomen.

Advent stabs her sword into his chest. She jumps back, readies her bow, and shoots a volley of arrows, one after another, into his back.

The man staggers forward, unsteadily.

Jessica winds up, delivers an uppercut with her gauntlet, launching the man into the air.

As he falls back down, Advent and Jessica team up together for one final dropkick, the combined force of their double-blow sending him flying back several feet, crashing into a concrete barrier.

He doesn't move.

The two women stand over him, triumphantly.

… Is it over?

But then, their smiles fade.

The man stands up, pulls the sword out from his chest. Throws it to the ground.

He adjusts his cap.

"Not bad," he says. "But this has gone on long enough, wouldn't you say?"

Before any of us can react, he rushes toward Jessica and Advent.

Advent tries to fire an arrow, but the man grabs the bow. Snaps it in half. Knocks her to the ground.

Jessica unleashes a full combo at him, but he dodges back, once, twice—and manages to grab ahold of both gauntlets, with both hands.

He yanks them right off Jessica's hands, with barely any effort at all. He tosses them away, kicks Jessica away from him. She falls to the ground.

"Now, then …" he says, lifting Advent up in the air.

I have to do something.

I try thinking of a weapon, something, anything, the way Valerie summoned her katana.

But I can't.

I just can't do it.

Unable to think of anything else, I grab Advent's shortsword off the ground. I don't know what I'm doing. I have no idea how to even use this thing.

I run to the man, slash uselessly at his feet, his back.

I'm not even worth acknowledging, as he continues to hold up Advent by the neck. I hear Advent's cries as she struggles.

The man frees one hand from Advent's neck, and brings it up to his face.

"Ready, fox girl?" he snarls.

He lifts up the eyepatch, revealing the terrible yellow eye behind it.

He grins.

And then—

And then he's gone.

Along with Advent.

As if they were never here at all.

*

The world around us is fading.

Soon there's just nothing but Jessica and me, standing on a small patch of highway in a white void.

We don't say anything to each other.

I fall to my knees.

Jessica stand beside me, places a hand on my shoulder.

"Odd-kun …"

I look up at her.

"It can't keep ending like this, Jessica. It … It can't."

She squeezes my shoulder.

"… Let's go back now, okay?"