The Executioner and Her Way of Life, Vol. 5: The Promised Land

Menou had failed against Sahara when they were young children, and she’d known far more defeats than Sahara overall. Both of the young women remembered that well enough.

“Oh, shut up!” Sahara bellowed angrily. She didn’t want to hear another word of this loser’s logic. “You give up way too easily, Menou!”

“Do I?”

If Menou were swift to quit, she wouldn’t be here in the first place. She’d ventured all this way because she refused to give up on Akari. Still, Sahara wasn’t having any of the protest in Menou’s eyes.

“Quitters don’t have such pretty eyes.”

“…What does that mean?”

“I’m sure you’re telling yourself you did all you could and you shouldn’t want for anything more or whatever, right?”

“…Is that so wrong?”

“Of course it’s wrong.”

Menou fell into a sulky silence at that. Clearly, she felt that her quick decision-making was one of her precious few strong points.

“This is why you’re the worst, Menou…!”

In the fog, Sahara crossed the field and reached the entrance of the monastery.

“I hate you so much.”

She put on a good show for others, but the truth was, she didn’t feel anything. Menou was moved only by a sense of duty and obligation.

She didn’t cry. She didn’t yell. She constantly wore a vague, amiable smile. She was always calm and collected.

Menou was ever beautiful.

And that drove Sahara crazy.

Even now, when she was gravely injured, her beauty still won out.

“This is why people with pretty faces piss me off so much.”

“Um, what…?”

Menou blinked at the illogical statement.

Sahara didn’t care.

So what if she wanted to see the person she hated look ugly once in a while? If you were going to cry, then your face should be red and snotty. Should you wish to yell, there was no need to hold anything back. That was how Sahara felt.

“If you always act on logic alone, you’ll lose touch with your feelings.”

Breathless with anger, Sahara reached for the monastery door when it suddenly opened.

“Ah…”

“Huh?”

She was utterly defenseless, supporting someone with her shoulder. And while she’d assumed the monastery was deserted, who should appear at the entrance but Momo, who’d just finished showering there.

All three of them froze at the unexpected encounter.

Momo’s gaze went from the stiffened Sahara to the injured Menou.

In a flash, flames of rage filled Momo’s eyes.

“Wait, this isn’t what—”

“Diiiie!”

Before she could say another word, Momo punched Sahara in the face.

The chaos in the cathedral reached the room where Akari was being held captive.

However, she no longer had any energy to spare for paying attention to what was happening beyond that chamber. She couldn’t open the door from the inside, and even if she weren’t being watched, Akari would’ve stayed put.

Master Flare’s words stabbed into her like thorns.

The more she turned back time, the worse things got. With every conjuring, her memories faded. The price for all of Akari’s fruitless actions was eating away at her.

She was starting to lose herself.

Her conjurings claimed bits of her past. It was rare for a Pure Concept holder to overcome that fear. In Akari’s case, she had overcome the terror of herself because she possessed both an unshakable hope and a negative resignation.

The girl had long since given up on herself.

She gave no thought to herself as she turned back time repeatedly. It didn’t matter as long as she could save Menou.

If Menou killed her, that would be enough. And if Akari was going to die anyway, she didn’t care whether she lost her memories.

So she was fine with the notion of losing herself.

She would die to keep Menou safe. Menou would remember her, so Akari didn’t mind losing all else.

Things had changed, however. Akari was freshly aware of all the holes in her memories of Japan. She’d long forgotten her parents’ names, which frightened her.

She recalled the questions Menou had asked her the first time they met.

“What school do you go to? What year are you and which class are you in?!”

It was a way of testing whether she was an Otherworlder. Would Akari still be able to answer now?

“I’m… I…”

She’d been wearing a sailor uniform when she arrived, so she must have attended a school. At sixteen, she would’ve been a first-year in high school. Akari was pretty sure she wasn’t a second-year, at least.

It was difficult to provide specifics, though.

Akari clutched her shoulders and trembled.

Who am I really?

She couldn’t remember her friends, her family, or even herself. There was no continuity in her memories, as if her life had begun abruptly from a long-lost past.

What happened back then? What sort of person was she in Japan? She still knew her name, at least. Akari Tokitou. That much was correct, surely.

“…Am I, though?”

If she couldn’t be certain of anything else about her history, was she genuinely Akari Tokitou?

“It’s fine… I’m still okay,” she reassured herself out loud.

Akari’s recollection started with her appearing in this world, a loop she’d repeated many times. The journeys she’d taken with Menou. All that supported Akari Tokitou’s personality now were her memories with Menou.

Nothing else remained.

There was still time before she forgot Japan, the fact that she was an Otherworlder, and then all else to turn into a Human Error.

However, because her memories with Menou were everything to her, she didn’t want to lose them.

Should she relinquish her purpose for rewinding time, there’d truly be no point in coming all this way.

Menou had said that she refused to let anyone save her. She would definitely come.

To kill Akari, who was trying to save her.

Opposing feelings clashed within Akari.

She wanted Menou to come so that this would finally end.

She didn’t want Menou to come so that Menou would live.

Her thoughts contradicted each other. And now that she had been captured by Master Flare and could do nothing but wait, Akari’s wishes didn’t matter. At this point, what Menou did depended entirely on Menou herself.

Menou had already refused Akari’s plea to stay away.

Surely, that meant she was hurrying here.

There was nothing Akari could do. Should she start over again? At present, she was denied even that much. Her Pure Concept conjurings were limited in the cathedral. It was doubtful that she would find a chance to escape under Master Flare’s watchful eye.

No matter how twisted it seemed, Akari carried absolute faith in Menou. She knew the Executioner would arrive to kill the hopeless Akari.

And yet…that didn’t matter if Menou died.

She would still want to start over, just like the first time.

Menou dead, Momo dead, and Akari killed by the red-haired priestess. It was because Akari hated that conclusion that she insisted on rewriting it all.

She still remembered feeling like it was fate the first time she encountered Menou.

“Help me…”

The appeal wasn’t for herself.

Akari covered her face weakly, still searching for a way for Menou to live.

The monastery had been evacuated due to the monster attack, but there were three girls in one of the abandoned rooms.

Menou, injured from her battle with her Master; Sahara, unconscious from being punched in the face; and Momo, the only one who was perfectly fine.

In a way, it was a balanced group: a priestess, a priestess’s aide, and a nun. Menou had been laid down in a bed. Momo was using medical supplies from the monastery to tend to her wounds.

As for Sahara, who had carried Menou all this way, she had yet to wake up from the blow Momo delivered to her face when they bumped into each other at the entrance. Momo had dragged her inside and carelessly left her lying on the floor. She wanted to finish the job, but Menou had managed to stop her.

“Darliiing, I really think we should kill her right nooow. She’s obviously some kind of taboo, not to mention one of the criminals who attacked the holy land, tooo! I’m told she’ll die if that Guiding prosthetic is destroyed. Now’s our chaaance!”

“No, just leave her alone.”

Menou patted Momo’s head, quieting her insistence on executing Sahara. Seeing Momo’s usual antics had somehow calmed Menou’s mind.

It was true that Sahara had committed a taboo, and it made perfect sense to end her while she was unconscious. Yet Menou was putting it off because Sahara had aided her.

No, that’s not it
, Menou admitted to herself.

Sahara saving her was just an excuse. The fact was that Menou didn’t even know if she could kill right now.

From the moment she hesitated against Master Flare, she’d been overwhelmed by a feeling that she had no right to claim any other lives, either.

As Menou waited for Sahara to wake, the unconscious girl’s eyes fluttered open with perfect timing.

She sat up slowly, shaking her head.

“That’s weird. I had a dream that we tried to take shelter in a monastery, only to run into a wild pink gorilla…”

“Excuse me? Do you have something to say?”

“…Sorry. It wasn’t a dream. Being in the same room as this pint-sized ape is worse than any nightmare.”

No sooner had Sahara woken than she and Momo were raring for round two. They could hardly be expected to act friendly when they’d been trying to kill each other just a few hours ago.

Momo stopped glaring at Sahara long enough to look over at Menou.

“So. What were you doing out here with
her
of all people, darling?”

It was a very valid question.

Menou gave a brief explanation, going over her infiltration of the cathedral as Kagarma Dartaros’s guest. Then she recounted her defeat against Master Flare and how Sahara had inexplicably saved her.

It wasn’t an ordinary failure. Menou had deliberately chosen not to slay Master Flare. She’d stupidly done something an ordinary person would do—act reluctant to take another’s life. Menou confessed it all openly.

“And now I have no idea what to do.”

Maybe she wasn’t an Executioner anymore.

Menou had strayed from Master Flare’s teachings.

If she’d truly become a villain, she could have reclaimed Akari without a second thought. That was the right thing to do, and she had no need to want for anything else. A truly committed Executioner would have felled her Master without question.

The uncertainty that clouded Menou’s actions was a change brought on by Akari.

Akari’s smile had irreversibly altered Menou. Their conversations had softened her heart. She’d fought Master Flare on the foolish premise of doing it for the sake of the individual called Akari, and now Menou’s beliefs were so shaken that she couldn’t kill.

“I was unable to completely give up what it means to be an Executioner, yet I went against Master Flare, who’s more of an Executioner than anyone.”

Akari had staked her existence for Menou, yet Menou was stuck being half-hearted.

She didn’t care about her own life, for she’d prepared to throw it away. However, she wasn’t willing to give up her identity as an Executioner to save Akari. Instead, she’d hoped to resolve things by killing the Otherworlder, clinging to the same methods she’d always followed.

That had fallen apart after she’d lost to Master Flare, though.

The contradiction between the principles Menou believed she carried and the reality she’d been confronted with weighed heavily on her heart.

“You know, Momo…”

“What is it?”

“I never wanted you to have to slay a good person.”

“Pardon?”

Momo tilted her head in confusion. Heedless, Menou continued to lay out her feelings.

“I know there’s no choice when you’re fighting someone. Priestesses, knights, those adventurers who showed up in the Wild Frontier, or other scoundrels who attack you first. I would never ask you not to kill in situations like that, of course.”

Refusing to take a life could endanger Momo in such predicaments.

As long as she was in the world of Executioners, Menou had to approve of violence and murder. She had to be willing to resort to bloodshed on the job to prevent greater death.

At the very least, Menou cared about Momo more than most others. So she wouldn’t object to Momo doing what was necessary for her own survival.

But…

“Innocent people who did nothing wrong… I didn’t want you to have to harm anyone like that, Momo.”

Perhaps the way of life she was unconsciously trying to entrust to Momo was an ideal Menou had seen in a dream.

Menou herself had already done too many things that couldn’t be taken back. She’d killed enough dreamers that she saw them in her own dreams, taken enough life that she sought meaning in it. Ultimately, she found a version of herself who couldn’t do it anymore and lost her way.

“All it took was a single step off the path Master taught me, and my way vanished.”

Akari had called their meeting fate. She had memories with other versions of Menou. Those recollections were so powerful that she was willing to risk herself.

It left Menou wishing she could have that much time, too.

The memories that led Akari to care so much for Menou. A connection without any lies.

Unfortunately, she had no way of knowing all those lost experiences.

“…What an idiot.”

It was Sahara who spoke up to ridicule Menou’s complaint. Menou and Momo both turned to stare at her, and Sahara went on irritably. “Do you enjoy getting all wishy-washy, saying things like you’ve had some great revelation, getting all worked up about a basic concept that anyone could’ve hit upon? Plenty of people get lost and confused about their way of life all the time. You have no idea? Pff! Why don’t you just ask someone, then?”

Sahara didn’t mean for her sarcastic statement to be anything but an insult. Momo’s eyes narrowed in rage, and her small body glowed with Guiding Light.

Menou, on the other hand…

“Ah.”

Looking at Sahara, who was clutching her knees to her chest, Menou suddenly had a flash of insight. The girl’s throwaway mockery had given her a revolutionary notion of how to seek the answer she wanted.

Menou had directly received another’s feelings before, even the ones that couldn’t be vocalized. She had experienced that person’s past through their eyes. It was none other than Sahara whose life had once been projected into Menou’s mind.

A Guiding Force connection.

That was how Menou could access the many things Akari had experienced with her.

“…What? Quit staring.”

Sahara shifted uncomfortably under Menou’s gaze.

After learning of this answer she’d been lacking, Menou was shocked into silence for a moment.

Then laughter welled up from the pit of her stomach.

“Ah-ha…ah-ha-ha-ha!”

Momo’s eyes widened, and Sahara appeared even more disturbed.

Their reactions couldn’t stop Menou from laughing until tears came to her eyes, however.

This time, it wasn’t self-derisive.

In all their years together, even Momo had never seen her like this: laughing uncontrollably, exuberantly, the way a young girl her age ought to.

The heaviness in her chest began to melt away. Her goals rearranged themselves. The path that had been so unclear was suddenly wide open.

“Ah-ha-ha, I really am an idiot. It’s been right in front of me all along. I can’t believe I was too stupid to notice it.”

“D-darling?”

“Hmm? Oh, sorry. I’m fine.”

Menou wiped away a joyful tear with her finger.

Her eyes were opened.

First, she felt Momo’s presence. Then she thought of her own memories with Akari.

The solution had been within her the whole time. It was something only she could do, something she had already proven was possible with Akari.

Menou felt the blood rushing in her veins. For the first time in a long while, she was aware of the sound of her own heartbeat.

“Thank you, Momo.”

“Awww, no need to thank meee!”

“…Yeah, seriously, don’t,” Sahara added quietly.

Without breaking her smile, Momo grabbed the nearest chair and flung it at Sahara, who flinched but managed to block it with her prosthetic arm.

The flimsy wooden thing broke on impact. Ignoring both her destruction of monastery property and Sahara’s hostile glare, Momo went on as if nothing had happened.

“So what are we going to do nooow?”

“Let me think…”

Menou looked outside.

The sun had set, and stars dotted the sky.

It had been several hours since the clash with Master Flare. Nothing about the situation had changed for the better.

But now she knew what was necessary. A smile surfaced on Menou’s face. At last, she felt the energy to move forward.

Long had she walked a red path. From where the young woman stood on it now, she couldn’t discern what to do next. But she’d caught sight of a way to gain the courage to step forward onto the road that surely lay beyond.

“I’m going to go see Akari again. Momo…will you help me?”

“Of course I will, you silly,” the pink-haired girl replied immediately.

Why was she so willing to follow someone like Menou? The assistant’s devotion felt unearned yet heartening.

“What about you, Sahara?”

“I’m going home.”

Home to where?

Menou raised her eyebrows at the absurd declaration. Sahara concealed her face behind her knees, possibly to hide from Menou’s stare. Evidently, she belatedly regretted the choice to aid Menou.

“Sahara. What do you think of Akari?”

“…She’s a good girl, that Akari. Unlike a certain violence machine.”

“You help, too, then.”

“What?!”

Sahara whipped her head up, but Menou ignored her astonishment. She was going to drag Sahara into this whether she liked it or not.

Next, Menou cast a glance at Momo.

“So I didn’t get to ask this before…”

“Yeees?”

“Did you make friends with Akari?”

“Absolutely not. Not even in the slightest.”

“Really? Even though you ditched me to travel with her?”

“Not. At. All!”

Momo’s response was just as prompt as her previous one. Menou couldn’t help chuckling at the unnecessarily strong denial. Somehow, this convinced her that the pair had indeed become friends.

That was just Akari’s nature.

She was very friendly, and quick to sympathize with others. One couldn’t help getting drawn in by Akari’s personality.

“Then wouldn’t it be lovely if we could spend more time with her?”

“…Whaaat? No, she’d just get in the waaay.”

“Akari’s a thousand times better than this weirdo. I’m Team Akari all the way.”

“No one asked you! In fact, who
are
you, anywaaay?!”

“Huh? Momo, you don’t remember Sahara?”

The three girls who had been raised in Master Flare’s monastery talked over one another. In a way, it was like a tiny class reunion.

But something was missing.

Thus, Menou had to reclaim it.

Something Akari knew that Menou didn’t.

Menou could see now what she required to press forward.

“All right… Let’s go destroy the holy land, shall we?”

“Menou’s brain is broken.”

Sahara stared at Menou in disbelief, and Momo’s eyes widened, too.

“Well, what else are we supposed to do? It’s absolutely necessary.”

The strongest barrier city in the world.

First of all, they needed to reveal everything that barrier was hiding.

“I’ll decide whether to fight Master Flare after that.”

Menou still couldn’t imagine the crimson-haired woman dying. Her teacher was strong and clever enough that it was impossible to conceive of killing her.

Was that really all it was?

Or had Menou just been making excuses in her mind by conceiving of it that way? Did some part of her believe she couldn’t kill her because she couldn’t win?

“If you fight Master…can you kill her?” Momo asked anxiously.

“Why do you think I wouldn’t be able to?”

“Because, darling, Master is…” Momo hesitated but found her resolve and continued. “…even more special to you than that boob-lady.”

It was so obvious that a faint smile flitted across Menou’s face.

Momo understood better than Menou herself. Because Master Flare was important to Menou, she’d faltered when the time came to end her. Menou had those feelings just like anyone else, and Momo knew it, even if her darling didn’t.

It wasn’t a matter of strength, or Flare’s unreadability, or the possibility of a trap. Menou had faltered because her Master was precious, like a parent.

Momo had ever been aware of Menou’s weakness.

Menou didn’t even know her own heart.

“I really am stupid, aren’t I?”

“Of course you’re not stupid, my darliiing!”

“No, I most certainly am.”

Truly, Momo was such a good assistant that she was wasted on the likes of Menou. She grasped Menou better than Menou did.

The Executioner had never truly understood herself.

“It’s all right,” Menou declared firmly.

She could still move forward. Once she knew what she lacked deep down, she could seek it.

“I’m not pure, or strong, or noble.”

If she wanted to be like her Master, she would have to be able to kill absolutely anyone.

However, Menou ultimately couldn’t become Flare.

“That’s what makes me the villain.”

Menou grinned.

Regardless of her failures or how many occasions she’d disappointed herself, she would stand again. Menou would break from her Master’s instruction to move further on the path.

Master Flare’s act of raising Menou would be repaid with vengeance. Menou would speak of love, yet employ every dirty, cowardly, unfair, nasty trick in the book. Not for justice, a creed, nor even peace—only for herself.

The first person she had to kill was her old self—the one fettered by the notion of existing as an Executioner and trying to navigate relationships within that rigid structure.

If Menou could destroy the part that clung to that way of life she had pursued for so long, she could find her next step.

Thus would begin an inconsolable killing, one that would make Menou the villain.

She’d commit the worst murder possible and be haunted by it until her death.

By perpetrating this selfish act, Menou would take the first step toward her unique existence.