Chapter 29 — “The Power of Love”

Chapter 29 — “The Power of Love”

“Lemon!”

Lemon heard his simple name being called in the whitespace. The whitespace, where everything is but a blank canvas. Lemon opens his eyes, expecting an angel to greet him in heaven, but no — of course it has to be her. Lime’s crouching next to where he’s lying at, scrubbing his eyes.

“Wakey-wakey. ‘til when are you going to lie there, you lazy bum?”
“Even when I’m dead, you’re still a piece of work, are you?” Lemon grunted. He can feels the numb sensation all over his body.

“No, you’re the piece of work!” Lime scoffed, “What were you thinking? Leaving me alone in the cafe. I thought I was abandoned, you know?”
“…I had Shem to put an illusion around the cafe while we’re distracting the SCF.”
“Yeah, I kinda figured it out when I saw was her fox, instead of you and Bitter. But you know you can’t do this without my consent, right? I haven’t agreed to any of this.”

“Oh god, here we go…” Lemon rolled his eyes, “You got everything you needed, Lime. I even gave you what should be mine to you... You know? Money-wise?”

“Yeah, and don’t you dare try to ask for it back.”
“I won’t. I won’t.” Lemon scratches his head. He smiled lightly, watching the pouted girl.

“— What?” Lime barked.

“Nothing…” Lemon said, “It’s just — it feels weird to see your face even in after life.”

“There you go again, babbling about this afterlife and that. Seriously, what are you on?”

“I’m dead, Lime.” Lemon said with a straight face, “Bitter died, for you to live.”

“Huh? Bitter died? You died? Is this what this about?” Lime fluttered a piece of burnt paper, “Seriously, if you’re going to leave an important memo, don’t put it half-heartedly.”

“Yeah…I’m not used to it, you know — leaving a final memo.” Lemon puts his hand on her shoulder,
“Lime, live well, and live happily, alright?’

Lime slapped Lemon’s hand off her hands, "Snap out of it! I went a long way not to get a weirder Lemon!"  Lemon stares at his hands. He can feels the sting when Lime smacks his hands. Which should be normal —  if he is alive.

But... he should’ve been dead, right? The militant should’ve shot him down, right? He remembered hearing the sound of his murder weapon ringing right behind his ear.

“You sure were inches from being dead, but I saved you.” Lime had her hands on both of her hips, “Be thankful to your saviour, will ya?”

“You saved me? But —“

Lemon's head start to spin — scenes of an unknown origin start to flow down to his memory lane, as if he watches his 'murder' from a bird-eye angle. He saw his killing bullet, encased with green aura, stopped right before it drilled into his own head. It flew back toward the shooter, puncturing their helmets in a flash. In another moment, Lime landed to the park with the sound of a thousand bombs. With her arrival — everyone, except for Lemon — encased in green aura — ruptured into fountain of guts. There were no survivor, no 'final words', and no exception. Even the head of The SCF has been squeezed into an unidentifiable glob.

With the roars of commands, hails of artillery starts to blast her away. Tanks, armored trucks rammed the park's gate, shooting barrages of artillery to the fourth, ascended Ordained One. With the littlest efforts, Lime flicks them like squishing insects. The vehicles of war squashed into a thin plate of metal. Reinforcements keeps coming toward the now gory park. Within a single millisecond, Lime's body encased with the green aura, as she flew from the ground. With her, she carried a large number of live ammunition from what's left. In another split second, her entire body slammed to the ground, along with the sound of explosions — eradicating any form of organic, or inorganic matters surrounding her.

Lemon’s eyes now have been opened. He isn’t in some bullshit limbo, or heaven, or hell. He’s still alive in the world —  in what supposed to be the Kajiharayama Park. He looks toward his west —  his spine grows cold. Half of Shizuoka has been eaten by a crater. Gone. Reduced to only but seamless ground.

“And now, here it comes — the first batch.”

Lemon takes a glance at his sister. After what she has done, there’s not even a hint of regret on her face. Her attention's locked toward the sky, as numerous missiles rains down on them. Lime raises her finger, and the missiles now engulfed in green.
Lemon now understand, the parts of Katsuo’s speech in the office —

. . .

“ — To guide you, so you can give your all to the cause you’ve been fighting for. All for you, to be the next hero.”

Katsuo reached to the safe. He twisted the combination of the correct pass — attempting to obtain the secret inside.

“There’s something about human nature.” He started talking to himself again, while kept on twisting the circular safe lock, 
“It strives to do the logical. To do what’s best for ongoing survival. However you’ll try to fight it is a different matter of discussion. The point is — the human body is built for individual longevity. And that will be the first reaction of when faced with great danger. The instinct kicks in, and the best solution the neural system could think of will be executed. That instinct, is called fear.”

The sound of the safe lock spinning puts Lemon in some kind of a trance of restlessness. His heart beats faster, and faster — awaiting for the answer behind the safe. And then —

*click*

It stopped. Katsuo grabbed the handle next to the circular lock and pull it open. Lemon takes a peek inside, as Katsuo grabs the item in it. A black handgun — an even older version of what he’s equipped with.

“This is it.” Katsuo said. “This is what kills Yamamoto Shiori — the third Ordained One.”

“…a gun?” Lemon's intrigued got the best on him.

“Yes. A regular .44mm handgun“

Lemon scoffed, “Surely you didn’t just shot her with just… that.”

“I did. With no subtle trickery or latest technologies. Right between her eyes.”

“An Ordained One? With just a handgun?”

“With just a hand gun.”

“With due respect, I find it hard to belief, Yamamoto-sama. I mean, if this is ‘Solution B’, then what is the first solution? A hand grenade?” Lemon waved the still-full drink on his hand around.

“…Solution A would be — to bombard the ascended Ordained One with all the ammunition in the world. Rocket artillery, hypersonic weapons, intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear warheads; everything, before the OO becomes too powerful to interject —”

. . .

Lemon’s train of memories got interrupted with the deafening sound of explosion up in the air. The missiles exploded right in the midair, twisted in its trajectory and thrown into each other. It’s like watching a firework made of weaponry of war — exhilarating — exhilaratingly terrifying.

Lime’s whole body now covered with green aura. Her fingers dances as if it was nothing. The non-stop barrages that could end a small country seem like a mere child play to her. Hundreds of explosion has blinded Lemon, but the barrages of heavy artillery keeps on raining down on them. 

Yet, with everything that the barrages did, not even a single new scratch can be seen on the siblings. Hundreds of missile flung against each other — the explosion causes one or two missiles to lose its track, and flown into a nearby city. An explosion struck — wiping probably multiple communities. And Lemon watches. Watches it takes hundreds of life, and watches Lime’s giddy face.

. . .

“I don’t understand — are you saying that all the artillery in the world’s firepower is comparable to a single handgun?” Lemon pointed his finger to the handgun Katsuo held.

“The secret is not the handgun, Lemon-san. And it’s not the bullet —” Katsuo mumbled.

“If it’s not the weapon itself, then what is? Who is? Or —“ Before he’s able to say another word, he stood in silence — realising the answer, probably. He didn't want to admit it, but there's a chance that it might be the answer to it all.

“Shiori could just melted the gun —” Katsuo studies his trusty weapon. “— or hell, she could easily melted the bullet incoming to her face —”

Katsuo pointed the gun toward Lemon, whom drenched in cold sweat.

“— but she didn’t. Not because she can’t, but because she won’t.”

Katsuo slowly approached Lemon, took the glass which frost has long melted since his conversation.

“There’s another thing about human’s nature. The stronger they are, the more they disregard fear. There’s nothing to fear, when nothing endanger their life. When there's nothing to fear, other feelings takes greater control of the reactive action. It clouded that ‘logical survival decision’. A stronger feeling that eventually, kill the strong…” 

He took a quick sip before resuming his monologue, “That is how the weak win — to stay a coward — to bury every emotion, and depend on fear. And that's how the strong loses… That’s why Shiori accepted my bullet. ”

. . .

“Phew! Finally, we’re done. I think that’s around half of Japan’s arsenal.” Lime patted her hands from the dust. The dust goes off from her hands, as the land scorched from the heat of the explosions. Yet, a small circle in the crater remains unaffected in the hellfire.

Lime turned her body around, with the purest smile on her face, “Then— where should we go from here, Le—“

A gun, pointed to her by her brother. His finger on the trigger trembles with anxiety, while his eyes tries it best to focus on the target. The last of dialogue with the late hero is what passes his mind.

. . .

“This is it…” Katsuo pulls the trigger on his gun —

*click*

Of course, nothing came out from it with the empty magazine, but Katsuo made it as if it recoiled on his hand. He took another sip from Lemon’s glass as he delivered the answer,

“This is what kills the strongest —“