act18d3

Those cities are on our territory.

Keh! Even in the hinterland cities of Ægir, you still hunt people!

No... No.

We would not do that. Those who die in the cities are unable to provide for the many.

The Ægir attack us, we attack the Ægir. There is no difference.

Those in your territory die, by those in your territory's doing.

Lies!

Lies? I wish to know what lies means. 'Liar,' too, you said earlier. I wish to know.

Skadi is unable to move.

Skadi seems to have touched upon the Seaborn's thought.

The Seaborn's message flows directly from its scent into the waters of her mind.

She may do this. Of course... she...

No, no...!

Ishar-mla, the barrier between you and we is too strong. You have no way to pass on your ideas to we.

For you to know what we think, that is enough.

My body has grown, is able to speak, is able to communicate with you.

Language is bloated, not easy to use. I can only talk this way, but this way you are able to tell me.

Ishar-mla, I came to meet you.

Skadi knows. From every part of the sum of all of it, Skadi knows—

The Seaborn would not lie.

I and you... are not...

You often feel, the creatures around you, are unfamiliar to you.

When you travel, you are able to sense the direction of seawater, and know much of what happens in the unlit ocean.

At some times you sleep, you feel you are swimming with we many.

Skadi's blood is already boiling.

How could this be? How could this... be?

Skadi understands.

Skadi sympathizes.

Skadi and the other hunters whisper.

Skadi and the other hunters are all monsters.

Why did you have to tell me this? Why did you have to say this?

She is a monster.

She murders her own kind.

She for her own kind murders her own kind.

She by her own kind murders her own kind.

The eyes of the people in the streets are filled with warmth. They don't know anything.

The eyes from the research institutes and in the tents are filled with ice.

When the hunters sleep, there are patrollers guarding. No. Those aren't guards. That night patrol doesn't serve the hunters.

The patrollers are waiting for the hunters to become monsters.

And, she sees... she has seen...

That sister of hers ate Ægir, chewing the bones, corners of her mouth torn, up until the Captain had her killed.

'Her nerves have been infected by Sea Terrors. It may be that some kind of Sea Terror has become a part of her body. We can't save her.'

No, no.

That was because she no longer regarded Ægir as her kin. She returned to her home.

You have remembered.

Skadi is sunken in a black, still sea.

Her escape and defense were all meaningless.

Her past and future were all meaningless.

She is a sea monster.

Sea Terror. Seaborn.

Aside from her, anyone and everyone probably knew.

Sea monster.

And—she has already committed the gravest sin...

If she is a sea monster, if her brothers and sisters are here, then she...

She recalls that which did not resist.

She feels calls to mind its tentacles softly folding over its own skin.

I killed it.

I killed her.

I killed Him.

The bishop is in disarray, his questions now answered. His self-esteem and spite intermingle, yet he is unable to undo the truth that comes from the Seaborn's mouth.

...It cannot be...

Why did... we never before... why could we never before see it?! Why could we not find out?!

The wound that found its way through Gladiia's chest is still gurgling with fresh blood. But in spite of it, her heart has not yet stopped pulsing...

Ishar-mla. I have a question to ask, Ishar-mla. Lift your head up.

Mechanically, Skadi raises her face, and stares at the lifeform in front of her calling itself her own brother, her eyes vacant.

I killed it.

You did not.

I killed...

I killed their God.

I killed their genesezoic.

I killed our genesezoic.

I killed Him...

He did nothing, and I... I still...

Even my... my little sister... was... an Ægir... an Ægir...

All killed by the Ægir.

My sister, my mother, my grandmother...

All my years of revenge were mistaken, from the very beginning.

I never knew. All of this, everyone, killed by the Ægir. The Church of the Deep. The Ægir.

The Seaborn does not lie.

Sin?

My sin... I...

Ishar-mla, do not feel misgiving. We have no sin.

You only did what you were able to do, Ishar-mla. We kin act without sin.

But I acted for Ægir... We killed so many...

The stench of blood gushes against the throat.

Is it a sense of guilt? Not at all.

Skadi is simply at a loss. She suddenly realizes. The force that supported her for all these years, the impetus that led her to assume such vast suffering... has disappeared.

All she has done, empty, void.

For all of Ægir? Skadi certainly isn't one to present so loftily. Finding a justification for herself is little else but consolation.

Ægir... How did Ægir even look upon the Abyssal Hunters?

Just what 'am I'? What exactly have I lived? All of everything, and the reckless, death-defying me of back then—how are they even related?

'What—am I even doing?'

The Seaborn's unmatured words pull her back to reality, if such violent vertigo and profound anxiety can amount to 'reality'...

You believe you are an Ægir, so you are right to kill.

You regard the others as your blood-kin, so you do so, we do not know, and when we attack you and you do so, you are right.

Why?

—Ishar-mla.

Only Ægir, the scaleless, the finless, your language contains 'sin.'

To do to survive, is always right.

So...