Fireworks…..

-Crash!

Still within the collapsing space.

By the time I reached a point where I could no longer climb on two feet, I found myself facing off against the girl who had been chasing me.

The girl who now seemed to struggle even to move, her legs wobbling…

Yet still focusing her gaze intently on my hand.

“…Yes, it must have been the same at first.”

She’s probably staying still now just to recharge her strength.

To mount one last resistance with the rapidly dissipating residual energy.

I found myself pitying that sight.

“We humans were probably just like you.”

Born into this world knowing nothing, following our parents’ words, following our teachers’ words, and even after becoming adults, assimilating with those around us and following the words of leaders…..

Even if death awaits at the end, we consider it natural.

Because everything surrounding us tells us it’s right.

Even glimpsing the miserable future that awaits, we commit reckless acts without hesitation, believing that being faithful to it is everything.

“Do you know why? Why the humans you want to protect give up their lives for something other than themselves?”

“….I don’t know about that.”

“No, you surely do know.”

That people cannot go against their environment, and the environment humans perceive is one created by others, not themselves.

That’s how it is with families, social groups, and countries.

The bonds created by people gathered in such foundations to ensure their own safety.

The rules created to protect those bonds are seen as truth by humans born unable to go against their environment.

“But even that, if it continues long enough, will eventually make people realize.”

I quietly lowered my hand holding the power core to the floor, having taught her that fact.

And as I unwrapped the bandages on my arm using mana, I said:

“That the result of simply conforming because there was no choice, that everything we’ve done until now was wrong.”

“It’s not… wrong….”

“No, it is wrong. To inherit a fight you didn’t even start in the first place.”

A fight for dominance.

A fight to protect…

While there may be reasons for those who started it, those who inherited it can’t help but feel disconnected.

Yet they had to follow.

Even if those who first stood on the battlefield retreated, the foundations they cultivated didn’t disappear.

Because we believed we could only survive by relying on the rules they established.

“…Because now we’ve finally realized that just continuing to follow that was wrong.”

But at some point, the moment of realization comes.

It’s when the number of those who died following it exceeds those currently living that we realize.

“People…..”

Why must those with no connection inherit the resentment of the past?

Why must we pour hatred on those we’ve never met, on those we know are suffering the same circumstances as us?

“Beings with self-awareness, we’ve finally realized that they don’t need to take up weapons against their will.”

-Rustle, rustle.

Finally, at the end of the unwrapped bandage, the core was tied.

Only then did the girl doll, coming to her senses, turn her gaze towards my hand hanging down.

“What are you trying to do…..”

Yes, at this moment, the core is tied to the bandage I’ve unwrapped.

To the bandage that has become like a ‘sling’ to dramatically increase throwing power.

“If we truly must fight in an era when everyone is realizing this, then the reason should at least be our own will.”

“Stop, don’t…!”

“Deus Ex Machina!!”

I shouted the girl’s name as I put strength into the bandage.

And I ask.

“Are you… really fighting of your own will right now?”

No answer returns.

Along with that, the strength in her legs temporarily gives out.

Just seeing that was enough to understand.

That this girl too doesn’t follow such a mission because she wants to.

Just a young child created out of someone’s need and brought into the world knowing nothing.

Her stubbornly following even as she heads towards destruction was like the boy who had knelt before me.

Simply following because she believes it’s right…….

“…If not, then just watch from there. The moment you’re finally liberated from the mission you don’t want!!”

The fate of such a girl.

I will liberate her from it at this moment, in this place.

For the sake of a vow that won’t break even after this moment passes, for that earnest wish.

“Wait.”

For an era when no one needs to inherit hatred anymore.

“No, stop……”

Where every single person living in this world can affirm their own existence.

And furthermore, yearning for a world where equal opportunities are given to everyone in the communities created by such people coming together.

-Boom!!!

The core tied to the sling, propelled by that force, is thrown.

The projectile, amplified by centrifugal force, pierces through the ceiling and soars high above the tower, tracing an arc of light.

The core, destabilized by that collision, will soon explode.

The power source of a weapon with enough combat capability to destroy several units.

“Ah……”

Its contained power would be considerable, but at least there would be no damage to the city.

An attack thrown using a sling, not even bare hands, with a circle applied and using full power.

The height the projectile soars to reaches as high as several hundred meters.

“Ah, no…….”

Just as the girl’s body sinks onto the rooftop, realizing that immense height.

-Booooom!!!

A violent explosion occurs through the cracks in the ceiling.

Its aftermath finally breaks the last balance of the debris in the space where I’m standing, causing it to collapse downwards.

The moment all the complex parts that made up the clock tower crumble down.

To escape that collapse, I barely made it to the floor remaining near the ceiling that had been destroyed by the previous throw.

Although the interior is intricately made to collapse in a chain reaction if one part breaks, the building itself is sturdily built to accommodate such vast components.

It won’t completely collapse down to the bottom just because the ceiling has fallen.

“Ah, ah….ah…….”

As I climbed onto the fallen ceiling, the girl doll who had fallen there before me was lifelessly staring up at the sky.

The sky that had turned purple as even the sunset was almost gone.

For a very brief moment, a violent explosion lit up the surroundings, but even that trace eventually disappeared without a trace, only pushing away the surrounding air.

The energy making up the core was so intense that all fragments completely vaporized.

An ironic situation where the aftereffects were minimized due to such overwhelming power.

“…Is this, the end?”

The girl just stared blankly at the now empty sky.

With her body completely drained of strength, as if unable to believe the current reality.

“Yes.”

I sat down heavily next to the girl, my tired body giving out.

I could move more if I tried, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t fatigued at all.

After all, Deus Ex Machina was created as a weapon of destruction.

If I had continued a head-on battle without removing the core, I might have lost in terms of destructive power or endurance.

“I can’t… fight… anymore…..”

That’s why I even felt guilty for bringing about this result.

No matter how much I liberated this girl from the curse she bore, my original reason wasn’t for her sake after all.

Since persuasion didn’t work, I had no choice but to stop her operation.

If her operation doesn’t stop, this girl will endlessly crave battle.

Although she hesitated to charge at me at the end, the risk was too great to pin even a sliver of hope on that.

“Then, what am I……”

Her upper body collapses with a thud.

As the magnetism disappears from the iron filings connecting various parts of her body, which no longer has the energy for even a final resistance, the cracks in her body begin to worsen.

“Do I… no longer have a reason to exist…?”

Is what this girl is feeling now the emotion of despair?

Yes, having self-awareness means having emotions as well.

Because she carried out her purpose more desperately than anyone, she must have felt that despair grow even stronger.

“If you want to resent me, you can.”

Knowing that her foundation was the same as the children I taught, I couldn’t erase my sympathy for this girl.

Even if she’s nothing more than an artificially created tool.

Because I understand that her foundation is the same as us humans.

“…I’m sorry. For not being able to save you.”

All I can do, feeling conflicted, is stay by this girl’s side.

And listen to the curse she’ll pour out at the end.

“You……”

The moment the fallen girl’s head turns towards me.

In the gradually settling darkness, I met the girl’s gaze squarely, without avoiding it.

To read the emotions reflected in it.

To accept all of it.

-Boom.

But the explosion that follows immediately after.

At the same time, my nerves stand on end, and my gaze reflexively turns towards where the sound came from.

An explosion when I thought everything was over?

Could there be a bomb left in this city that the city’s forces failed to remove?

-Boom, bang!!!

…No.

It’s not the city.

Being on top of the tallest building in the area, I could tell even more clearly.

“What is that?”

Yes, the explosions were occurring not in the city, but in the center surrounded by the city.

None other than in the skies above Maris.

But what I felt when I saw it wasn’t vigilance.

“Fireworks……”

If I had to say… yes.

This was a sense of incongruity.

Something I never thought I’d see in this world, in the center of this continent.

“…Fireworks?”

Because I never expected to see none other than a symbol of peace appear in a place that had become just that.

---

Yes, in that moment, everyone couldn’t take their eyes off the sky.

It was just a phenomenon where gunpowder shot high into the sky exploded, and its debris scattered around before disappearing as if evaporating.

The light created by simple firework reactions spreading across the sky and disappearing, repeating over and over…..

-Boom, bang!!!

As soon as those fireworks disappeared, new ones burst forth again, and in the moment when the sky became filled with fireworks, no one could look away, thinking it was insignificant.

Nobles and commoners, leaders and workers.

Officers and soldiers, scholars and mercenaries, citizens and wanderers… and students and teachers too.

All of them, in this moment, gazed at the array of lights unfolding in the sky above Maris.

For everything existing in the sky, those on the ground could do nothing but look up.

“Wow.”

It was the same even for the boy born and raised underground, who had finally come to the surface.

Even the boy who until now had been wary of those explosions, in this moment……

He couldn’t take his eyes off the array of lights substituting for the stars that should have been in the sky.

“It’s beautiful.”

A beauty that could hardly be thought to have been created by human hands.

Was captivating the boy’s heart in this moment.