From ANOTHER STORY, by yasu
The two people and the animal pressed on to the Land of Ice, at the end of the world. No matter where you went, ice-covered plains stretched across this frozen, silver world. Eventually, they arrived in a city encased entirely in ice.
"Oh, how pretty!"
"It's all ice..."
"Punipuu!"
The three of them all said, in awed voices. In this city of ice, the buildings, roads and trees, all glittered and sparkled, ice reflecting in every surface, glinting here and there. It was as beautiful as any piece of art that one could make using only ice.
In passing, the Servant caught his own reflection, and said, "Wow! I really have become an adult."
"You really have. I wonder...what in the world happened here?" Looking closely, the things truly reflected here and there in the ice were humans, encased in the ice as they stood in the city. Within that glimmering ice, there were people who appeared forlorn, men, women, frozen together like lovers; cute children, still running about...
"Something about this makes me sick..." said the Left-Sided Servant. Just then,
"No one loves me. I don't believe in love."
"Hey, did you say something?" The Right-Sided Servant asked the Left, getting the feeling that he had heard something.
"No, I didn't...really...no, I didn't say anything."
"Oh? Could that have just been my imagination...?"
"In any case, let's get out of this horrible place. Has the miraculous map shown you where the music box is yet?" The Servant asked the girl.
"According to the map, it's far, far that way." Turning their eyes to where the girl was pointing, far, far in the distance, beside all of the eerie frozen statues, stood a castle, emerging beautifully over the rest of the landscape.
"There's no mistaking it; the music box has to be hidden within that castle!"
And then...
"No one loves me. I don't believe in love."
The eerie voice echoed, from the direction of the Castle of Ice.
"Hey! You surely heard it, just now, didn't you?!"
"What could it be?"
"Anyway, should we go see what it is?" When the Servant tried to start walking, his left foot wouldn't move. Looking at himself, he realized his left side was shivering.
"Hey, you, are you still as much of a coward? Got cold feet, now?" The Right-Sided Servant asked the Left.
"No, it's not that! It's just cold! So, like you said before, let's go!" The Left-Sided Servant said angrily, sticking his foot out before the right one.
And so, the two and the animal walked through the city, walked through the vast ice-covered plains yet again, and found themselves before a huge ice chasm.
"If we were to fall in, we'd be totally helpless." Looking in, the chasm was so deep that it was impossible to even see the bottom.
"But, there has to be some way to jump across it, right?"
"Still, still. Even though it looks impossible from here, there has to be a place somewhere along it that's not so wide, right? It's a little hasty just to say we're going to jump over here, isn't it?"
Though the two were still in the middle of talking about it, the Puni-Puni, having the will to jump over it himself, began pawing at the edge of the cliff, hopping up and down.
"Hey, you, that's dangerous! Get back here!" Just as the Servant was scolding the Puni-Puni this way, a violent wind stirred up from behind them.
"Watch out!" The girl reached out her hand as if to save the Servant. But, the Servant's left hand was not that strong, so they all ended up being dragged over the cliff.
"Uwaaaaa!"
"Kyaaaaa!!"
"Puniiiiiiii!"
As they were falling deeper and deeper into the chasm, the Left-Sided Servant yelled to the girl, "So, this is how my life is going to end?! You, you're the Messiah, aren't you? But, you couldn't save us from being dragged over?!"
"Being able to do things like that isn't why they call me that, is it? I'm not a witch or anything."
"Is it just that my lifespan is as deep as this chasm? All I wish is to be able to do all that I can." The Right-Sided Servant said, surprisingly calm.
"Hey! Puni-Puni! You know this is all your fault, don't you?" The Left-Sided Servant complained, turning toward the Puni-Puni, who looked as if he didn't notice.
As they fell farther, they were able to see more and more of the bottom, but they were not able to do anything at all, or decide what to do.
"This isn't good!"
Boing, boing!
"Ha..huh? Are we alive?"
"Have we been saved?"
They thought they would be landing on solid ground, but something flexible was surrounding them. When the girl and the Servant looked below them, there was some kind of large green object. Somehow, the Puni-Puni had used his imagination to turn himself into a giant cushion. The two of them quickly fell off of his back. The Puni-Puni, slowly regaining his shape, couldn't move at all. It was as if the shock of breaking their fall had caused him significant damage somehow.
"Are you all right?? Puni-Puni!!"
"You saved us?! You really are a good boy, aren't you??" From the Servant's left eye fell something that looked like tears.
"Anyway, if for no other reason than to save the Puni-Puni, we need to get out of here, quick," said the girl, rummaging around in her sack, as if to pull out the miraculous map.
"Huh? What?!"
"What, why are you saying what?"
"The map's not here!"
"Isn't that risky?! Do you think it fell out sometime when we were falling?!" The two tried looking around them, but it was nowhere to be found.
"We've already looked here as best we can, there's nothing more we can do. The Puni-Puni's life is more important than the miraculous map." When the girl looked around her, the chasm suddenly expanded, and on the pitch-black edge appeared something like a cave.
"That cave, I wonder if it's connected to somewhere? In any case, let's go check it out," said the girl, taking the Puni-Puni in her arms.
"I'll carry him," said the Right-Sided Servant with a trembling, but reassuring tone of voice, taking the Puni-Puni from the girl's arms.
"So, let's go!"
The two of them entered the cave. The air was chilly. Their voices reverberated off the walls, creating an eerie echo. As for where the light came in to the cave, it did come in, but very dimly. Once their eyes adjusted, they were able to see a human-like shadow in front of them.
"What's that?" In that instant, the human shadow suddenly fell over.
"Who's there? You there, you guys! Are you retainers of the Queen of Ice?"
The person who had fallen was a human man. "There...there! What are you doing?" The man had put his hand on the left side of the Servant's chest, and pushed him down to the ground, twisting his arm. The figure of an uneasy-looking woman could be seen behind him, swaddling a small child, as if it was very important to her.
"Wait! We're not apparitions!"
"That's right! We're the warriors of justice! The companions to the Messiah! Quick, put up your hands!"
"We came here to find the music box hidden in this land! It's just that going to the Castle of Ice to reclaim the box, we fell into this chasm..."
The man gave them a hard look for a long while, but seeing the honesty in the girl's expression he calmed down, or at least enough to let the Servant up off the ground and sheath his sword. "Really, do you intend on going to the Castle of Ice? You do know that the very angry Queen of Ice lives there? You really think you can take back the music box?"
"The Queen of Ice? That's right, that's what you said before...who is she?"
"So you don't know. The Queen of Ice is a cruel woman, who carries a completely frozen heart. Since she does not care to have those humans here who believe in love, she turns all of them, and everything else, to ice with her frozen breath."
"Oh, so it was her who froze all of the people and buildings in that city to ice...?" the Servant said, rubbing his recently twisted left arm.
"Why are you here?" asked the girl.
"We..." The man took one glance at the woman and child, then answered, "We're in love. As evidence of this love, we also had a child. However, the Ice Queen hates this more than anything else. And so, I want to protect my family. So, to escape the eyes of the Ice Queen, we've hidden ourselves here underground. You as well, to keep something horrible from happening to you, it would be wise to stop your quest to go to the Castle of Ice."
"We'll be fine. For sure, we'll get the music box back, and show you. Hey, tell me something? When you both set out to hide yourselves here, you know the way you came, don't you? We're in trouble because we've lost the miraculous map that will show us to the place where the music box is hidden...if we don't find it quickly, that child's life is in danger," said the girl to the man, pointing to the Puni-Puni being carried on the Servant's back.
"The Ice Queen might be even more upset to hear sentiments like yours."
"We're really okay! That girl already has three of the music boxes. I think that she will surely be able to take back the fourth, as well!" said the Servant.
"........."
"If you take back the music box, surely this country will be free of the cruelty of the Ice Queen, and the world will once again know love," said the man, after thinking for a while.
"If that is true, to think that even if we can't make a living here anymore...we could live in peace, under the bright sunshine...all right. I really have no idea what will happen. Since it's a little difficult, listen well. Outside of this cave, there is a winding road. First, you go right. Then left. And then..." He taught them all of the road's meandering directions in this way, and then, "...finally, at the last one, you go left. Once you do that, the Castle of Ice will appear before you."
"Got it! Thank you! Surely, I'll try my best to make it so that your family can live happily!"
It was truly a complicated road to walk, but, the girl, having memorized it well, set off on their journey once more, thanks to that family.
Eventually, the two and the animal exited the cave, and arrived in front of the Castle of Ice. In front of their eyes spread a long, long, frozen staircase, and beyond that, a great hall of ice laid before them.
"No one loves me. I don't believe in love."
Here, the eerie voice that could be heard in the city of ice rang clearly.
"Is that voice the Ice Queen?" said the Servant.
"Who's there!" the Ice Queen called out.
"Be careful!" The girl and her companions quickly hid behind an ice pillar.
"Somehow, something about today is a little off. It's as if some burdensome people have found their way into my precious castle," The Ice Queen looked around her, continuing down the great hall, and slowly descended the staircase. Wrapped in a deep blue dress that looked as if it would make you cold by simply looking at it, she wore a glimmering crown of ice on her head that caught the light and made it glimmer. An entirely crystalline face...no matter how you looked at it, it was beautiful.
This exposed her cruel heart all the more to those gazing upon her. For some reason, her left breast alone was left exposed through her dress, and through the transparency of her skin, it was possible to catch a glimpse of her frozen heart.
The voice of the Ice Queen reached the ears of the girl and her companions, hiding behind the pillar. "Who are you? What are you doing here?"
"Did she find us?!" The girl asked herself.
"Oh, it doesn't matter who you are...you all stink of that wretched love that I hate most in this world!" The Ice Queen then exhaled her frozen breath, rounding her lips.
"Oh no! We'll be frozen solid!" The Servant closed his eyes.
However...even after a little while, no kind of ailment had taken their bodies. The Servant slowly opened his eyes. The girl, thinking this was strange, peeked out from behind the pillar, to see humans, frozen solid, standing in the doorway to the great hall. They were the family whom she had met in the cave.
"But, why?!" When she looked again, she saw that the man had the miraculous map in his hand.
"For some reason, there's still a horrible smell in here...and it's so strong, too." The Ice Queen looked around once more. When the girl flew out from behind the pillar, unable to stand it anymore, the Servant inevitably pulled her back.
"If you go out there now, you'll be frozen solid!"
"Surely that man found the miraculous map for me, and came here to give it to me! And that horrible Ice Queen...I can't just stand here silently and take that!" The girl suddenly flew out of the Servant's grip.
"How dare you? Why would you do such a merciless thing?!" the girl yelled, whirling on the Ice Queen.
"What was that, you? Ah, ha, ha, you're where that horrible odor is coming from...?"
"All those people want is to be able to live in peace in a family that still loves one another! Even knowing how dangerous it is, they still came here for our sake, just because they treat those around them with such kind love!"
"Ho ho ho...love? You really believe in something like that?"
"Of course I do! Loving someone is truly a wonderful thing, is it not?"
"Oh, how disgraceful! To think, you would think to speak of something as worthless as love before me! Love and all like it are all illusions. Even if you believe in such things, in the end you're just kidding yourself. And so, I don't love anyone, and no one loves me. I don't believe in love."
"How tragic...so tragic...too tragic!"
"Ho ho ho...you're still a child! You can say those things because you do not have those things that have wounded you, or ill thoughts that have done the same! In this world, there are far more shameful things that wander around donning the mask of love than you care to think about. Forced to accept everything from one of those shameful things, do you still say that you have a heart capable of love?"
"I do!"
"Oh...you're just like that person I met...that one who I hate most of all! It would be easy enough to kill you with a single thought. However, speaking of love, that face of yours, that one that believed in a love that doesn't exist in this world...it doesn't suit you. I will make that face reflect a torturous sadness. I don't care if you curse me in your sorrow. Also, you had better be careful. After all, in this world, there's no such thing as love..." The Ice Queen smiled a frighteningly beautiful smile, before blowing her icy breath toward the girl.
"Ah!" The girl's body was thrown strongly, hard enough to make her reach nearly to the ceiling of the hall, before suddenly crashing back down again. After being tossed about again and again, she suddenly stopped in midair, before the Ice Queen's very eyes. The girl's legs were thrashing about. She was unable to breathe within the influence of the frozen breath of the Ice Queen.
"So, it's painful, isn't it? It's all right to forsake that worthless love, and say you were wrong, to save yourself..." The Ice Queen told the girl.
Painful as it was, the girl said in a strained voice, "L...love exists!"
"Foolish girl. It seems you don't understand yet."
The embrace of her icy breath gradually stole all the heat from the girl's body. The girl's face was turning blue. These icy breaths, like they carried the life of a living thing, began to tighten themselves around the girl's body.
"So, do you curse me? You cannot love me, who has put you through so much pain, can you? Understand—there is no such thing as love in this world!"
The girl could no longer make her voice leave her lips. However, she gathered her strength as much as she could, and moved her head from side to side.
"Hmph, you really are a stubborn girl, aren't you. All right, I have no choice. I'll give you my loss in this battle. As your prize, I'll gladly finish you off." Just as the Ice Queen was getting up her strength to exhale the last, giant breath of ice, suddenly something green flew before her eyes.
It was the Puni-Puni. Not yet recovered, he had somehow flown into the air. Not quickly enough to stop him, the Servant's left side cried out in a voice that sounded on the verge of tears, "Puni-Puniiiii!!"
The Ice Queen groaned painfully. "Ooh..." The Puni-Puni could not move away from her face. Thanks to this, the girl's body, held by the icy breath, was able to get free, lowering down to the ground. The icy breath around her entire body, cold as if it was frostbitten, disappeared as if it was melting. However, the girl was so exhausted she could not move. It was as if she had lost consciousness.
"Wha...what are you?!" The Ice Queen yelled at the Puni-Puni. The Puni-Puni's eyes shone red.
"You're the Great Demon of Darkness? What have you done, taking on such a non-threatening form as that? Let me go, quickly! I have to finish off this girl!" However, the Puni-Puni did not move even an inch.
"Mm, I suppose it's no surprise that even the angered Great Demon of Darkness would be willing to lay down his life for this little girl, being one of those fools who say that love was awakened within them, now is it?"
The Puni-Puni's body was full of strength. Though he had sustained enough wounds to leave him near death, he pooled together the last of his strength in an attempt to protect the girl.
"What a pity...I'll have to send you and this girl out of this world together!" The Ice Queen pulled the unwilling Puni-Puni off of her, and with her breath of ice, froze him solid. However, even within the ice, his eyes shone red.
"You're a stubborn one, aren't you? Take this!" Fashioning a blade of ice with her breath, the Ice Queen sliced at the frozen Puni-Puni. Ching-ching!
"Wha...what are you doing?!" The Servant flew out from his hiding place, and tried to put the pieces of the dismantled Puni-Puni back together frantically.
"Puni-Puni...Puni-Puni!!" Speaking in a voice that proved it was difficult for him to speak, tears welled up in his eyes. Then, he stepped up to face the Ice Queen, and said, "I'll avenge the Puni-Puni!!"
Pointing at her heart, he drew out his blade of flames with a shout, and ran as fast as he could at the Ice Queen. "Uwaaaaaaa!!!"
"What? You, you little thing that looks like a radish? It looks like you want to die just like the rest of them!" The Ice Queen said dismissively, breathing her ice breath toward him. But, the blade of flames dissipated the frozen breath, leaving his body unable to be frozen by it. When the Servant got close enough that he was right in front of the Ice Queen's eyes, he leveled his blade at her. However, the Ice Queen moved quickly aside, parrying his blade of flame with her own ice blade, cleaving the Servant in twain, back into his left and right halves.
"Waaaah!" Divided into their halves again, their mutual reaction was to run away from one another.
With a gasp, the girl regained consciousness. Right in front of her face was the Left-Sided Servant. At first, the girl's consciousness was cloudy, and she didn't know what had happened or where she was. But, seeing the Puni-Puni in pieces, and the form of the Servant back in two again, she became absolutely terrified.
"Why?! What happened here?!" She yelled desperately at the Left-Sided Servant.
"We...we were all...we all lost to her..." Blood dripped onto the girl's hands, embracing the Left-Sided Servant. Looking more closely, blood was pouring out of the Left-Sided Servant's chest.
"What's this? Are you all right?!"
"Hee hee hee...I'm okay! Or at least I'd like to say so, but it really hurts...somehow..." The Left-Sided Servant tried to joke, but as his white face turned ashen, the girl knew that his wounds were lethal.
"I'm so sorry! All of this just happened because I took you along with me against your will..."
"...it's not like you...saying things like that. Surely, if I would've been watching more carefully, I wouldn't have been hurt...but I know now...that a life doing nothing isn't "living" at all...I feel like I'm alive because things hurt, and I've finally noticed that after pain comes happiness...though...during this adventure I have seen a lot of scary things...I owe you...because you taught me the most important thing in life...I don't regret...going along with you..." The Left-Sided Servant's voice became weaker and harder to hear, until it grew hoarse and faint at the last.
The girl wept.
"Hey, hey, you're crying? You're the Messiah...so you're strong...you can't cry at something as insignificant as this...cough, cough..."
"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! It's okay if you don't talk anymore!!"
"Now that's not fair...let me talk with you...just a little longer...you're just like that...because you've grown up..."
"............" The girl couldn't say anything.
"Next time...next time I'm reborn again...let's go on another journey...together...It was fun...thank...you..."
With those last words, thank you, his voice became no more. The girl, without thinking, embraced him.
Then, the Right-Sided Servant snapped her out of it. "Look out!"
Once again, the Ice Queen set upon them with her icy breath. When the girl looked back, the Right-Sided Servant, joined once again with the left, was fanning back the icy breath, as the Left Side's right side slowly healed.
"Hey, left-side, you had to go and die, did you? You were just a coward after all, I knew it." The Right-Sided Servant said sorrowfully, hitting his head gently. Once again, the two were joined back together. And yet, the ice still overtook them...
"How cruel you are!" The girl cried out in front of the frozen Servant, weeping.
The Ice Queen turned toward the girl. "What a lovely condition you're in now! Show me all your tears!"
Facing the Ice Queen, the girl glared daggers at her. Her face was stained with the anger of her malice.
"Ooh...how beautiful! That's right, you've finally shown me a face full of hate!"
"I'll never forgive you..." said the girl, picking up the blade of flames from the Servant's side and advancing toward the Queen. Of course, the Queen's icy breath still whirled around her, but still she advanced on her without giving up.
"Hate me! Hate me more!" The Ice Queen blew another gale of icy breath at her with a cold smile.
"It's no good...I can't go on like this anymore. What should I do, I wonder?" Just then, the girl saw the pieces of the Puni-Puni.
"Ah! The Melody of Dreams!" The girl took the Music Box of Dreams out of her bag, the lid opened, and the Melody of Dreams began to play. It played its beautiful melody. Upon hearing it, the Ice Queen said,
"Hm? What's going on? My body..." Her icy breath stopped, her movements became rigid, and her blue eyes gently closed, drifting off to sleep.
"Now it's my turn!" The girl stepped over right next to the Ice Queen. "I can never forgive people like you! I'll avenge everyone!" The girl raised the blade of flames to the sky, and brought it back down again, as if to let it pierce through the Queen's quietly exposed, frozen heart. So, it was time. Suddenly, the Ice Queen's dream flooded into the girl's mind...
A woman stood alone, in the middle of a field of gently falling, pale flowers. It looked as if she was waiting for someone.
"He said that he would surely come back for me..."
However, no matter how many days she waited, the one she waited for never came. Even when the pale flowers had stopped falling, and the leaves on the trees changed color, still the woman stood and waited.
"He said that he would surely come back for me...he said he loves me...I believe him..."
Her clothes became tattered rags, eventually, the snow began to fall, and the season grew gradually colder. And yet, no matter how many days, how many years, she waited, no one returned for her. The woman's body, too, grew colder and colder. Even so, the woman did not worry that no one would ever return for her.
"I believe in him...he said he'd come back for sure...but can it be...I've lost him?" The doubts piled on to her heart slowly, along with the snow. Then, eventually, her very heart became cold and froze solid.
"No one loves me. I don't believe in love."
She had become the cruel Ice Queen, the bearer of a heart of ice.
It may have taken several minutes, or seconds, for that scene to unfold. However, the girl, in those scant moments, understood everything. Turning toward the Queen once again, she cast aside the blade of flame at her feet. Then, she softly, gently, embraced the Ice Queen.
The Ice Queen slowly opened her eyes.
"No one loves me. I don't believe in love."
The Ice Queen said this over and over again, but the girl just shook her head and embraced her all the harder. Then...
"...la, la, la, la..."
The girl started to sing that one phrase of the Song of Love at the top of her voice. The Ice Queen stopped moving. It was as if a little bit of the ice around her heart had melted away.
The girl said,
"It's not true that no one loves you, you know."
"This song...why..."
"He taught it to me...an old man with a wound across his chest. He said he sang it for a woman he truly loved. Even now, he still loves her. So, he couldn't forget the song completely."
"A man with a...wound...on his chest?" the Queen said, as if remembering something. "He loves me...even now...he loves me..."
"That's right. He loves you. Even now. Even though he's an old man...but he's a wonderful old man, all the same."
After a small silence, as if she was thinking, the Ice Queen spoke.
"I'll teach you how the rest of the song goes." With that, she started to sing.
"...la, la, la, la, la..."
Little by little, the Ice Queen's frozen heart began to thaw. The girl started singing along with her, as well.
With that, the ice, which had left the land trapped, began to melt.
"The old man...he promised you. He promised he would meet you at the edges of GAIA!" the girl said.
"That man...I can see him?" The Queen's heart suddenly skipped a beat. The ice around it had, for the most part, melted.
"So...I don't have to be the cruel Ice Queen any longer..." She suddenly remembered something. "Before I return to being fully human, there's something I must do."
With eyes that seemed to be looking far into the distance, she exhaled a single breath. It was not the same breath that had the power to enclose everything in ice; it had changed to that with the ability to breathe new life into everything. Then, the ice around the Queen's feet melted away, revealing the Music Box of Love.
As the lid opened and the Melody of Love spread over the city of ice, the people frozen in the streets began to move again. Those who had been sleeping coldly in their homes stepped out into the city and began to sing. The family who had come to return the miraculous map was revived, as well. The Puni-Puni, who had been shattered into pieces, as well as the Servant, were both able to breathe once more.
The Melody of Love spread throughout the world. Joining with the music box, the Queen sang. Gradually, all the people of the world sang along, as well. The Land of Ice had become a place where love was everywhere.
"Wait just a minute. Surely, after I get back one more melody, this world will be saved. Then, I'll let you meet with the old man again," said the girl, "So, let's go look for the last melody!"
As the revived Servant fell into step as to follow her, the girl stopped him.
"From here on, I go alone."
"Hey, hey! What are you saying! You promised me that when I was reborn, we'd go out on an adventure together!"
"Puni-puu..." The Puni-Puni chimed in, sounding unsatisfied.
"I'm sorry...but from here on, I have to go alone. I just have this feeling...so, please, let me go on alone." The girl was serious, aiming at her target, and did not even glance back to look at the Servant again.
Swallowing his own sinking feelings, the Servant patted the Puni-Puni on the head. "So is it our turn just to be left here after going along with you for so long?"
"Puni-Pa-Puu..."
"You have to come back to us!"
"Thank you, you two..." With that, the girl set out on her journey, alone, to find the last melody.
Finishing her reading of "The Land of Ice" and being snapped back to reality again, Nozomi smelled something. The smell of something burning.
"What's that smell?" With a start, she looked around her. Doing so, she found her manuscripts, the paper with her stories on them, smoldering. Some of them had risen up in crackling flames.
!
Nozomi frantically moved to put out the flames. But, a thought remained with her.
"What made me so disconcerted, I wonder? Do I not intend upon dying, no matter what?"
Looking at the clock, it showed that it was past 11:30 in the evening.
Very soon, my final day will be over. However, sometime in the next 30 minutes, I'll have to burn this place to the ground, and myself with it. Since this place always was a sanctuary to me, I suppose I should make it so that I have no other troubles. So, this book won't be able to live on after me? I suppose since I've come this far, I should read it to the very end. Ending my life reading a book I wrote myself, on the birthday of someone I loved, in a place full of beloved memories, in an embrace of bright red flames...that might be quite magnificent after all...
The wisps of flame grew higher.
Nozomi did not even try to stop them.