These Reincarnators Are Sus! Sleuthing in Another World

'"Don't you dare wound our daughter, Sigurd! You promised to watch her grow… Keep your word!"

Sigurd rejoined the world of the living with a sharp gasp.

His heart, freshly mended, was still racing to catch up, each breath struggling in his lungs. His limbs were heavy. His senses were scattered.

Even so, he didn't hesitate—ripping the spear from his chest and lunging for his sword.

The creature recoiled, shocked by Sigurd's sudden revival. One limb. And then another. One by one, Sigurd cleaved through them, as fast as they could reform. The wounds would froth and glisten, a new weapon erupting to life from each stump with a sick splatter.

Yet Sigurd gave no respite. Halberds and maws, clubs and axes, blades of all kinds—as unwieldy as they were menacing—were pruned before they were ever swung.

The creature was panicking. Reaching for whatever instruments of violence it could think of. Desperation dulled its invention, and it fell back on the sharp tendrils which had served it well before, spewing them in frantic bursts until they were a writhing swarm.

They were simple. Lethal. They sprang up like weeds, sprouting at such a frenzied pace it left Sigurd breathless.

But Kylian surged across the room, joining Sigurd in the culling.

Alarmed, Sigurd risked a single glance back. Kylian was supposed to be—

Ciel was awake. Cradling Bea protectively in one arm, her typically drowsy eyes sharp with purpose, she raised her hand toward Sigurd.

He felt it. The faintest chill, trickling into his dominant arm. It was healing.

Sigurd gripped his sword with both hands. Far from whole, yet no longer hindered, The Divine Blade set to work—steel and orichalcum shimmering to life, searing across Gerhardt's torso, rending the creature's body.

The sound of crystal chimes filled the room, clearer, brighter, more resonant than before.

And with them came the relentless splatter of black wax.

Gerhardt's torso reformed sloppily, bubbling and crawling, the thrill of coming back together beginning to wane. Euphoria was replaced by a subtle nausea. The constant needling of divine light was accumulating into a sharp sting.

But worst of all was the itch in Gerhardt's chest.

He couldn't stand it. The child's constant crying only made it worse.

He'd won, hadn't he? He'd transcended, hadn't he?

He'd killed Sigurd… hadn't he?

How many more miracles could they possibly produce? Before him was a father who'd come back from the dead for his daughter. Behind, a mother who'd leapt from a tower to catch her falling child.

There were no words left in Gerhardt's mind. Yet he felt the ache of it all the same. And in his sloshing, degrading form, he only understood it as that maddening itch.

It was searing. It was like his flesh was burning from the inside out. It was undermining his triumph, denying what he'd become.

He needed to finish this. His limbs lashed in every direction, flails upon flails. All he needed was more. Nothing mattered as long as the well was bottomless. Nothing could touch him if he simply continued to become.

As long as he killed that man, the feeling would go away. As long as he commanded the miasma and mastered the shadows—as long as he quelled the divine blessing once and for all…

As long as he could make it stop.

The creature was weakening. Kylian could sense it, even if he couldn't fathom the cause. And he wasn't about to waste the opportunity.

His blade was finding purchase. His holy aura, earlier a pale flicker against the creature's overwhelming shadow, now burned it away. Little by little, the miasma was evaporating.

Gerhardt was melting.

To strike a decisive blow had seemed impossible. But if all they needed to do was wear it down—to purge the miasma nothing remained—then it was a matter of patience and resolve.

They could win this.

Once more, Kylian scored the creature's torso. He severed another limb. His holy aura scorched the black wax.

The tendrils spilled out faster and faster, yet some were beginning to malform. Some never fully burst to life, stuck as a churning bud of flesh. Others fell limp.

Suddenly, his gut tensed. His instincts pulled his eyes downward. The constant dicing of tendrils had left it glistening. And just when he saw it begin to froth…

"The ground!" Kylian shouted.

The black wax shot up sharply, jutting out at chaotic angles.

Kylian leapt back, yet felt one tendril slip beneath his tasset and scrape the back of his thigh. He cursed, but not a moment later the wound had already been healed.

It was thanks to a certain wielder of the divine blessing, who'd just woken up.

Just far enough to stay clear of the fray, Ciel's raised hand was trembling. Her heart had seized the moment those lances erupted from the ground.

She'd already nearly had a heart attack just upon awakening. The first thing she saw was Sigurd facing off against a monstrous shadow with an unfathomable mass of arms—a sight no less absurd than her dreams. And she almost hadn't registered the difference.

Then she saw the spear pierce through the chest of the man she loved.

She didn't even have time to think. Her blessing surged forth, flowing with a clarity she'd never managed. It reached him across the battlefield, healing a precise and lethal wound with such delicacy it was as if her soul had known exactly where to mend.

If she'd woken just a moment later…

Ciel forced the thought out of her mind, and consciously deepened her shallow breaths. Her divine blessing was weak. That meant she had to wield it judiciously. She couldn't heal grievous injury. But she could ensure Sigurd and Kylian fought unhampered.

She exhaled without realizing she'd been holding her breath, watching the two knights safely shatter the spikes jutting from the ground, one after another.

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"Is that truly Gerhardt…?" Ciel mumbled. "He was just a boy when I last saw him…"

They had never been particularly close. Gerhardt was just another cousin who pretended she didn't exist when she was a child.

Yet watching the thing he had become—melting, deforming, losing its humanity with every cut—she felt grief all the same.

Bea continued to cry quietly into Ciel's shoulder.

"We'll be home soon, Bea…" Ciel whispered to her.

Bea nuzzled closer, seeking warmth. Her small body had become so cold, running through these mountains, climbing into the belfry. The image returned to her unbidden: Bea dangling from the bell tower's lip.

The sight of her falling.

Those unbearable moments when she thought she'd truly lost Bea forever.

She had to stifle the shudder that ran through her. The cold pit of dread that still made her want to throw up.

Then she heard Bea's sniffling. Felt her soft breaths against her neck, hitching but still there.

"Mama…" Bea rasped.

"What is it, Bea?" Ciel asked, hugging her a little tighter.

"Mister Gerhardt doesn't want to fight anymore…" Bea whispered.

It was difficult to believe the monster still had a mind left. Its thrashing had become rhythmless, its writhing reflexive. At the same time, the monster's body had begun to slump. Its head hung low, and it stayed rooted in place almost like a plant.

It was almost as if its tendrils were the only part still alive.

Still, Bea's deep compassion sent a pang through Ciel's chest. Even though it worried her, this wasn't a part of Bea she ever wished to deny.

Ciel gave her daughter a troubled look. "What makes you say that, Bea…?"

"Because his eyes…" Bea said.

Its eyes?

"He can't talk, mama…" Bea said with a cracking voice. "He can't say sorry anymore… He can't tell them he wants to stop…"

That's when Ciel noticed it. There was a glow in Gerhardt's eyes that hadn't been there when she first woke up.

The frenzy was consuming itself. At this point, Gerhardt was more sludge than man. Every new limb budded, warped, and gnarled, coiling around each other until they pulsed as one, his torso turning into a grotesque, almost intestinal mass. What could still flail struck as much at empty air and phantoms as at Sigurd and Kylian.

This wasn't a battle anymore. These were death throes.

And yet—

Sigurd sidestepped a wayward tendril—one still powerful enough to send fragments of stone flying, gouging into the wall.

It couldn't be allowed to live.

No, at this point… Ending its life was a kindness. If nothing else, they could offer it a release from the horror.

Sigurd gave Kylian a look. And wordlessly they moved to finish their bitter, final labor. The two knights wasted no time, sprinting, dodging whatever appendage came their way.

The twisted growths fell away under their blades, still whipping dangerously as they were severed, some crystallizing into dark lances the moment they hit the ground. Sigurd and Kylian reached the torso, carving into the tangle of flesh, sloughing away layer after layer of tissue.

It was a matter of speed now—a race, between their divine blessing and the creature's miasmatic, burgeoning flesh. Between the punishment it could take and their sheer endurance.

The work was brutal and simple. Slash and slash and slash. Splatter its flesh until it vanished into nothing.

Erase it.

Sweat stung their eyes. Their arms burned. Their lungs begged for air. Their holy auras flickered like candles under the strain. But they couldn't slow down. Not until it was fully undone.

And when their blades finally stilled—

The black wax had been sloughed off, the monster cleaved away. But what was left underneath was still less than a man. Whittled down, gouged out and hollowed, the creature's last two limbs hung slack, almost like arms.

What was left almost looked human. That was all the more reason to end this.

Sigurd raised his sword to end its life. And he heard Ciel's voice.

"Sigurd!" Ciel called out. She sounded trepidatious, as if she wasn't sure she should be stopping him. "Look at… Gerhardt's eyes."

For a few moments, Sigurd just breathed, too tired to think.

The pale glow had returned to the monster's eyes. And it was staring at something just past Sigurd's shoulder.

Gerhardt was gazing at a mural. Or what remained of one.

With both of his obsidian eyes gone, Robin collapsed onto the forest floor, struggling for breath.

"I've got questions for you, Robin," Ailn said.

"You're not gonna let me… die in peace?" Robin asked bitterly. He groaned, taking in one deep breath that came out as a painfully shuddering sigh. "Leave me… alone."

"So, you are dying," Ailn mumbled.

He sat back against a tree. Maybe that was unwise, but Ailn was certain Robin didn't have anything left in him. The forest's breath was thin like the gasps of someone fading away.

"Was it you Renea heard in Varant's catacombs?" Ailn asked, reaching into his trenchcoat. "Did you make the obsidian jar and give it to Aldous?"

He took out his pipe. It had been a while.

For a long time, Robin refused to respond. Ailn simply packed his pipe while he waited, lighting it and taking a long, slow puff.

Eventually, Robin scowled and started to talk.

"She heard me…" Robin said. "Someone else made the jar and its contents. I was… there to get it."

The boy glared at the pipe, gasping a little heavier as if Ailn's smoke was to blame. Seemed he hated the stuff and wanted Ailn to go away.

"Why'd you call out to her in my voice?" Ailn asked.

"...I wanted to hurt her," Robin said. "The sight of your family… makes me furious."

Ailn grimaced, feeling his jaw clench despite himself. But he moved past it.

"Who made the jar?" Ailn asked.

"Someone like me," Robin said.

Ailn waited for him to elaborate, but he didn't.

"And the attack on the carriage seven years ago? Did you whisper in Marcella's ear to hurt the eum-Creids?" Ailn asked.

"Why would I do that…?" Robin asked bitterly. "Would you tell your rabbit to pick a fight with a wolf?"

"...Given everything I've heard about her, that's a crazy thing to say," Ailn replied. "Then it was all on her own accord."

"I never… said that," Robin said weakly.

"Then who?" Ailn pressed.

"Is this—really what you want to ask about?" Robin asked in return. He grunted, clutching his chest. By now, both his shoulders had half evaporated away. "Your fake family?"

Raising a single hand, he conjured the same voice that had been plaguing Ailn during the fight. It echoed weakly through the air.

'You never found me.'

Ailn didn't respond.

The very beginnings of dawn were showing. The sky had gone from nearly pitch-black to indigo over the course of an hour. The sylphs, apparently still energized from their earlier performance, continued to sing as night turned to day.

Now that he could see without them, Ailn dispelled his emerald eyes. It had been painful to maintain. He still felt the ache from when he'd tried to take a jewel shard Ashton never had—that sense of something about to crack. Like his soul was fragile, balanced on the edge of a precipice.

…No.

It was brittle before that.

"What's the point in chasing someone I can't remember..." Ailn started, trailing off. "From a world I've already left?"

"Then just forget about them forever, I guess," Robin said drowsily, closing his eyes.

"I'm not here to untangle myself, Puck," Ailn said. "Just answer my questions, and I'll leave you be."

"Call me Robin," he murmured. "Please."

"...Alright, Robin. What are you?" Ailn asked.

"I'm…"

Across two different lifetimes, Robin managed to avoid having parents.

In his first life, he was an orphan. A kid from a group home, left perennially unadopted, whose fibs and pranks drove the staff to exhaustion. A welfare worker saw it differently—or perhaps they were just tired of filing the young boy's incident reports.

They decided to channel his knack for pretending into something productive, placing him into a program meant to keep at-risk youth on the stage and off the streets. For just a spell—with his stellar memory for lines, and the ease with which he slipped into roles—the young boy thrived.

Other orphans, other actors came and went, while the young boy stayed—a fixture among a constantly changing cast, growing from child to adolescent

Eventually he aged out. Out of the program. Out of the system. The real world had no stage. No script. No audience. Like so many teens suddenly cut off from the state support they'd had all their lives, he had no home.

He drifted, because he never quite figured things out. He didn't know how to keep a roof over his head. The world forgot about him. So he slipped away one particularly cold night, unnoticed until the next morning, when an officer tried to prod him awake.

And in his second life…

He wasn't born. He was made.