Rushing Water – Part 03

Kazuya sprinted through the spiraling labyrinth back to the room. The crowd had thinned out considerably. A large suitcase was sitting on its side in the corner.

On top of the suitcase, Victorique, wearing a red, torchon lace dress, silver boots, and a rose mini hat, was lying on her stomach, looking like a kitten bathing in the sun. Her body was still limp, and she was staring at him groggily. A thin wisp of smoke was rising from the ceramic pipe in her glossy, cherry lips.

Her green eyes were glassy, and her cheeks were puffed up.

“How do you feel?” Kazuya asked. “Still sluggish?”

Victorique grunted in response.

“Can you at least give a proper answer? By the way, I saw—”

Kazuya shut his mouth, then sat down beside Victorique.

He sighed. “I don’t know what’s more important. The individual or the country.”

“Dimwits like you shouldn’t think about things too much,” Victorique said. “You’ll only get dumber.”

“Good point… Wait, what did you say?!”

Victorique jerked like a kitten being scolded by its owner. Then she puffed up her cheeks in annoyance.

Kazuya looked around the room. “We should go outside too.”

Puffing on her pipe, Victorique gave a small nod.

With one hand pulling on the suitcase and the other holding Victorique’s hand, Kazuya started walking down the corridor. The further down the spiral corridor they went, the damper the floor became. Their footsteps echoed wetly. As they moved on further, water puddles became frequent, as though it was flooding. Victorique frowned.

“Victorique,” Kazuya called. “I, uhh…”

“Did you meet my father?” Victorique said.

Kazuya stopped in his tracks and looked at her.

Victorique sniffed audibly. “My Wellspring of Wisdom.”

“You knew he’d be here?”

“He had me transferred all the way here to lure my mother. I expected him to come in person.” She hung her head. “For him, I’m effective.” Her tiny shoulders were shaking.

Kazuya squeezed her hand tight and resumed walking. Victorique’s hand was cold, quivering faintly.

“Kujou.”

“Hmm?”

“Have you ever thought about why you were born?”

Kazuya was silent. Victorique did not say anything more either.

The corridor soon became so flooded that it was difficult to walk. Men who had waded back through the water shouted to Kazuya and Victorique.

“Bad news! They’re opening the sluice gate.”

“What? You mean that huge gate?!” Kazuya asked, shocked.

“Yeah. It’s slowly opening. I doubt you two could even walk down there. It’s too deep. We turned back ’cause it looked dangerous.”

“We should look for a window that’s facing higher ground,” another man added. “We’ll head to the station from there. This one’s a dead end.”

Kazuya turned around. Victorique was staring at the dark, submerged corridor, so Kazuya looked back. A guest’s suitcase was floating in the water. There was a hand mirror, a bag, a pair of men’s shoes that someone had taken off. Kazuya urged Victorique to start walking.

Kazuya opened one of the doors, found a window facing the coast, and peered down. The water had not yet reached this side of the monastery. A sandy beach stretched on under the dark night sky. In the distance, he could see the half-open sluice gate, the water rushing in. He threw the suitcase out the window before jumping down. He then climbed on top of the suitcase and reached out his hands to Victorique, who was tilting her head like a little bird at the window.

“Come on, Victorique.”

Fully trusting Kazuya, Victorique jumped down without hesitation. Red ruffles descended softly into Kazuya’s chest, the snow-white bloomers under her fluffy skirt, and her thin calves, wrapped in silk socks, glimmering briefly. Kazuya caught Victorique, light as a kitten, safely.

Kazuya held hands with Victorique and started running along the beach with the suitcase.

Rain was still falling from the dark night sky. From time to time, the full moon peeked through the clouds, making the raindrops sparkle. Waves rolled in and out from the purple sea. The rain pelted down on the surface of the sea, forming white foams.

Guests scattered on the beach were running toward the station platform in the distance, some holding umbrellas. Kazuya thought he could hear faint whistles in the distance. He listened carefully.

The train whistle, he realized.

The Old Masquerade had returned.

Its black frame rolled through the shimmering rain, cutting through the night. The whistle blew loudly. Again and again. The sea rumbled, churning huge waves in response. Over and over.

The peal of the whistle was coming closer.

A powerful vibration hit them.

The half-open sluice gate was shaking. The huge wall jerked, and slowly moved downward until the gate was completely open. The seawater billowed and came surging in toward the beach.

“The sluice gate!” someone shouted.

Kazuya’s breath caught in his throat. The water was rapidly closing in.

Rain continued to fall.

“Someone touched the machine!” shouted a nun standing on the beach.

“It’s not supposed to be opened at high tide!”

Kazuya remembered the late Simon Hunt emerging from a mysterious room full of running machinery. It had seemed like he was doing something discreetly.

Was it him? Did he set the gate to open before he died? He probably thought he was going to leave alive. The gate opening right before the train arrives is too much of a coincidence.

Snapping back to reality, Kazuya gripped Victorique’s hand. The purple ring Cordelia gave him sparkled in her small finger. As they were running up the beach, Victorique’s legs tangled.

“Victorique!”

“Kujou…”

Victorique glanced down at her legs. She looked behind her.

The water was closing in.

The monastery they had just emerged from was being swallowed.

“I can’t run. I’m still feeling groggy.”

“I know! That’s why I’m pulling you.”

“Go on without me, Kujou.”

Kazuya huffed. Victorique’s head was slumped; she seemed dispirited.

“You know I can’t do that. I came here to pick you up.”

“But I…”

“Victorique…”

“How can I run for my life if I don’t even know why I was born?” She sounded uncharacteristically childish, her husky voice nowhere to be found.

Kazuya stood still. Suddenly he clenched his fist and made a motion of swinging it down on Victorique’s head. Victorique closed her eyes tight. Her lips quivered. Kazuya bent down to meet Victorique’s eyes, as one would with a child, and peered into her little face.

“Hey. This isn’t the time for nonsense,” Kazuya chided.

He glanced at the approaching water. Half of the guests were scrambling toward the station, the other half climbing to the top of the monastery for safety. Kazuya squeezed Victorique’s hand tight as they hurried to higher ground.

“Victorique.”

“What is it?”

“You’ve helped me before, and I’m here to help you. We are one of body and soul. I’m not going to run away alone. Live or die, we do it together.”

“Kujou…”

“I…”

Dark-purple water was fast approaching. The white foam. The light of the moon. The raindrops that kept on falling.

Kazuya let go of the suitcase and picked Victorique up with both arms. Victorique gasped in surprise. In Kazuya’s arms, the mysterious girl was light, like a weightless creature from heaven. Kazuya ran, scrambled across the sand. The rushing water was much faster than him.

Victorique was shaking in his arms like a wounded little bird.

“Although my situation’s a little different than yours,” he managed, “family matters have been bugging me a lot too. I talked to my father and brothers. We had differences in opinion. So I came here to study to broaden my horizons. I get stressed. I fret over things. Sometimes I feel lost. I’m only fifteen. The world is a big place. There’s a lot of things I don’t know, so I can’t come up with answers to questions most of the time. But when I met you, I learned one thing.”

The station was close now. Victorique looked behind them and gasped. Kazuya glanced over his shoulder as well and saw the large suitcase about to be swallowed by the waves, pulled into the depths of the purple sea. The water roared as it devoured everything in its path, swirling like the tongue of a giant monster, threatening to drag them both into its mouth.

“Don’t look,” Kazuya warned.

“O-Okay…”

“So I was saying,” Kazuya continued softly. “This might sound embarrassing. I know a man shouldn’t say this out loud. But I realized something. Whether you work hard for your country or not is not important, like my father and brothers keep on saying. I don’t know what kind of responsibility I will have when I grow up. But I believe it’s okay to strive for something important to you at the moment, even if it’s just for one girl. I’m starting to feel like I have a duty, a responsibility. A responsibility to protect you.”

“You’re so thickheaded,” Victorique bantered.

Kazuya went silent, a little peeved.

“Victorique,” he murmured. “I think it’s okay for you to feel the same. To feel that maybe you were born for someone. To meet someone important.”

Victorique did not answer.

Kazuya kept running. He heard Victorique sniffle.

“Please… Please protect me,” she whispered in a husky voice that was almost inaudible.

A huge purple wave growled ominously behind them.


They reached the platform. The water level continued to rise. Women who had boarded the train earlier turned, saw them, shouted, and reached out their arms from the ramp. A girl with dark hair and blue eyes, and a quiet-looking, middle-aged woman, the same women who were on the train with Kazuya on the way to Beelzebub’s Skull. The girl pulled Victorique, while the woman pulled Kazuya up just before the waves could swallow them whole, holding them tight in relief.

The whistle blew.

The Old Masquerade began moving slowly, fleeing from the incoming water.

Guests scrambled onto the train. Noticing Victorique’s wide-open eyes, Kazuya turned his attention outside.

The water, swirling and twisting like an eerie purple creature, engulfed the monastery. Rain continued to fall from the dark sky. The monastery, resembling the head of a fly, stood strong, glaring at the surging water.

“Beelzebub’s Skull,” Kazuya muttered. “A fortress cursed with death. Lord of the Flies.”

Victorique squeezed Kazuya’s hand. Her face was blank and expressionless.

“But we’re alive,” she said.

“Yeah…”

“Thanks to you, Kujou.” Her voice was soft.

Kazuya silently squeezed Victorique’s chubby hand back.

The whistle blew.

The Old Masquerade sped away from the flooded platform, as though taking off into the night sky.

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