PandoraHearts ~Caucus Race~, Vol. 1 (13 page)

Gilbert’s voice was grim, but Break remained easygoing to the last. “Ohhh, I doubt that will be necessary.”

What was that supposed to mean? Oz and Gilbert both looked at him. Break tilted his head back, looking up at the ceiling, and spoke. His tone was joking, but there was an edge to it.

“—We can leave the rest to ‘them.’”

“Them?” Gilbert echoed, but Break didn’t explain further.

As if taking advantage of the blind spot in Gilbert’s consciousness:

“…Gilbert…sama.”

From her place by the wall, Dahlia spoke in a faint voice; she sounded as if she might collapse at any moment. Gilbert turned to look at her.

Her face was pale.

She’d taken part in a plot to kill Gilbert, and she knew the plot had been foiled. She seemed to have accepted that there was nowhere left to run. Among other things, her expression seemed slightly…relieved.

Gilbert gazed at her, silently. Memories of the time they’d spent together yesterday skimmed through his mind, but they already felt terribly distant.

“I don’t expect to be forgiven,” Dahlia said. “Besides,” she continued, “I don’t regret what I’ve done. I couldn’t think of any other way, you see.”

When they’d offered to bring her beloved, departed father back to life…

“But…I’m sure this was the better ending—”

“Enough.”

Gilbert cut Dahlia off.

As the Great Mother had said, Dahlia probably had hesitated. She might have been the one who’d tied Gilbert to the chair. If her hesitation had made the bonds loose enough that he could slip out of them easily…

What should I say to her?
Gilbert asked himself. Should he thank her? Comfort her?

No
, he thought,
that’s wrong. I doubt she wants either of those
. She didn’t want anyone to say they understood the pain she carried. That said, Gilbert didn’t feel like blaming her either.

Both he and Dahlia held someone irreplaceable and precious in their hearts.

For that person, they could do anything. Even commit an unforgiveable crime.

…Deep down, Dahlia and I are a lot alike
, Gilbert thought.

Still, what he needed to show now wasn’t understanding or sympathy. No matter how far they went, Gilbert’s world and Dahlia’s would never intersect. And so…

And so—

“I won’t ever forgive you. Never let me see your face again.”

Gilbert’s voice was endlessly cold.

Faintly, Dahlia murmured, “—Thank you.”

She didn’t understand. She had no idea what had happened.

Having fled the stone chamber, the Great Mother ran through the underground corridors.

She hadn’t understood when the sacrifice intended for her god had abruptly turned a gun on her, and she hadn’t understood how two intruders had appeared in the underground chamber, a place whose secret had been so carefully guarded up till now.

The plan had gone wrong.

The idea that this plan, which should
never
have gone wrong, had in fact done so, had thrown her into extreme confusion.

“Why…?!
Why
, my god?!” she screamed, panting for breath.

She was certain none of her actions had been mistaken. Back when her life had held no meaning for her, these scriptures had come into her hands, quite by accident, through a curio dealer. The curio dealer had said that the ancient tome was the only one of its kind in the world.

Through it, she’d come to know an ominous, powerful being. It had been marvelous.
This is it!
she’d thought.

Since then, she had dedicated her life to it, acting as the first servant of the god described in her scriptures.

She had done what must be done, in accordance with the
scriptures, and had made the necessary preparations for the grand advent.

According to the scriptures. According to the guidance of her god.

That sacrifice had been the very last key to that plan.

…And yet.

…I was so close! So close! I’ll never forgive them!

She convinced herself that she was not running away.

The plan had gone awry, but she must not give up. She swore to herself that she would rebuild her organization and carry out the plan without fail.

She reached the foot of the stairs that led to the boutique and ran up without paying much heed to where she was going. …Or rather, she tried to run up, but a blow to the chest sent her flying. She tumbled clumsily into the corridor, with no idea of what had happened.

However, she didn’t let go of the scriptures she held in her hands. She must not let go.

“You won’t escape.”

A young girl’s dispassionate voice came to her down the stairs. Although there was still something childlike about it, its complete lack of emotion made it seem lifeless, like the voice of a doll.

The Great Mother looked up. Possibly because she was so terribly confused, she felt no pain. About halfway up the stairs, she found a girl with one leg raised as if she’d just unleashed a kick. The girl lowered her leg, gazing down at the Great Mother with eyes in which no emotion could be read.

Her face was young. However, the inorganic coldness about the girl struck terror into the Great Mother’s heart.

Then, almost immediately:

“See that you don’t overdo it, Echo…”

From behind the girl, something even more terrible appeared.

“I intend to discipline that one myself…”

“
!”

It might have been the Great Mother’s pride that kept her from actually screaming aloud.

Standing behind the doll-like girl was a handsome, rather androgynous young man.

It wasn’t the handgun the youth held that terrified the Great Mother. She felt an unspeakable, fathomless darkness from him that was impossible to put into words. She had the illusion that the darkness was swallowing her up.

The Great Mother didn’t move. It was as though her fear had paralyzed her.

Slowly, the youth turned the muzzle of his gun on the Great Mother.
I’ll be killed
, she thought.

Swallowed up by his darkness.

She tried to call for help, but her throat was tight, and only a rasping noise escaped. “……Ee…yee……”

“You’re just a lowly mother of venemous spiders, and you dare attempt to defile my Gil—”

The young man spoke in a gentle, velvety voice, almost as if he were singing. He cocked the pistol’s hammer. And then…

“No, I’m afraid I can’t forgive you for that…”

Aiming straight at the petrified Great Mother, he pulled the trigger.

A gunshot echoed down the corridor—

“…Hmm. I missed.”

Vincent raised the gun’s faintly smoking muzzle. His murmur sounded unconcerned.

Echo darted a glance back at her master, agreeing in an indifferent voice. “—Yes.”

“I suppose it can’t be helped. Unlike Nii-san, I’m no good with guns…”

He didn’t seem very upset. Vincent glanced at the handgun, then, from about halfway up the stairs, pointed the muzzle back toward the corridor. However, there was no one there—only a small black hole drilled into the corridor wall.

At the same time, they heard the receding sound of the woman’s frantic, scrambling footsteps.

“She ran,” Echo reported unnecessarily.

“Quite stubborn for a worm, isn’t she… No, maybe it’s
because
she’s a worm.”

Vincent’s voice was suffused with joy. He and Echo descended the stairs and walked down the corridor, following the woman. Either way, he didn’t plan to kill her easily. He intended to toy with her and torment her, acquainting her with the taste of agony and despair.

The woman made a racket as she ran. It was easy to follow her.

Finally, Vincent and Echo found themselves in front of a door at the end of a corridor. The door was open, and the two stepped into the room.

It was an austere room—furnished with only bookcases, a desk, and a sofa—and it was unoccupied.

There was no doubt that the woman had entered this room. However, she was nowhere to be seen.

“My, my,” Vincent murmured, entertained. He looked around the room. Echo called his name. When he looked at her, Echo was pointing at a bookcase set next to the wall. Or, no: What she was pointing at wasn’t the bookcase itself.

There were signs that it had been moved, and a thin gap was visible in the wall behind it. There was a room behind the bookcase.

“…A secret room, hmm?”

With a sinister little chuckle, Vincent crossed to the bookshelf and peeked through the gap into the room beyond.

He could see the Great Mother’s back.

However, she wasn’t alone in the room. There was someone else there, a very familiar face.

Vincent…

…regretted having looked from the bottom of his heart.

The Great Mother had fled into the secret library behind the bookcase. In addition to being a library, it was a place for her to pray in peace.

It wasn’t a large room: A handful of people would have been enough to fill it. The library held the volumes in her collection that she couldn’t leave exposed to the public eye. …Not that any of them could match the value of the scriptures she cradled in her arms.

Here, in the library that she’d assumed would be a safe haven, she stood shocked and transfixed.

Her eyes were wide at the impossible sight that confronted her.

How…could there be someone here?!

A woman was sitting right on the library floor, turning the pages of a book.

Who is she…?! Why is she in this secret room?!

There was something heartwarming about the woman. She had the air of a young child who’d curled up in front of a warm fireplace with a picture book.

This was precisely what the Great Mother found so hard to believe. This was a hidden room, known only to herself. She had personally designed the space below the boutique, and the location of this little room had been selected based on her advanced knowledge of the occult. The bookcase that formed the hidden door was locked with a code that only one well versed in the occult would know.

The woman, who’d been avidly reading the volume, noticed the Great Mother and looked up.

She gasped, and then—shamefacedly, apologetically—said, “Oh, I, I’m sorry! I let myself in…”

“Young lady… How? This is—” the Great Mother panted.

“I, um, well…” As the woman answered, she fidgeted and looked quite sorry.

…It was Ada.

After parting with her brother, Ada’s concern had proved too much for her, and she’d returned to the boutique. On entering, she’d discovered the stairs leading underground. Then, since she knew her brother had entered the boutique but didn’t see him inside, she’d grown worried and gone down herself, but…

“This cellar is wonderful!”

Abruptly, Ada’s eyes sparkled, and her voice was bright and cheerful. It was the sort of response one would expect from a hungry child who’d had a mountain of sweets placed in front of her. Her enthusiasm made the Great Mother flinch and shrink back.

“I was terribly impressed, and I wandered around for a while; I couldn’t help it. What a marvelous place!”

She’d been entranced, she said, clasping her hands in front of her chest.

The Great Mother could not have been more confused. Who on earth was this woman? What was unfolding here, before her eyes? She didn’t understand it in the least.

Then Ada’s eyes fell on the ancient book the Great Mother held. …The scriptures.

“Oh, that’s…”

Diffidently, as if drawn to it, she reached out for the book. She took it in a motion that, while excited, exuded elegance, and turned the pages. The Great Mother had thought she was holding onto it carefully, but she’d been caught completely off guard.

Flustered, she reached out in an attempt to take it back.

“Now see here! Give that back! That’s more important than life itself! It’s my…!!”

However, Ada didn’t seem to hear her, and as she looked at the book, her face fell.

Then she gave a sorrowful sigh.

“…So you bought a copy. This book… I have it, too…”

“I have it, too”?

What was she saying? After her initial bewilderment at Ada’s words, the Great Mother felt indignation well up inside her. It was a ridiculous lie, she thought, and altogether too rude. She reached out to take back her scriptures, shouting as she did so. “Don’t talk nonsense! That text is the only—”

“The only one of its kind in the world. That was what the curio dealer passed it off as, at any rate, so I bought it, but…”

At Ada’s dreary murmur, the Great Mother froze.

It was the same. She’d acquired her scriptures in the exact same way.

Ada’s shoulders drooped dejectedly, and she sighed as she continued.

“It’s such a dreadful counterfeit, isn’t it…? It’s a crude patchwork of bits from all sorts of magic books, and anyway, it’s full of mistakes, and there are scores of typographical errors… As a devotee of the occult, I’m ashamed to have bought such a failure of a book— Oh! Oh, I’m sorry!”

Realizing that what she’d said indirectly disparaged the Great Mother as well, Ada hastily apologized.

…A dreadful…counterfeit? Full of mistakes? A failure…of a book?