Chapter 45 (Your eyes below the sunlight)
Es lied on the floor of the school's rooftop, exhausted. She'd been terrified of something happening to the prisoners if she wasn't there again, so she'd been staying up for days on end looking out for them.
Shizuku had noticed though, and she'd been insisting she'd take a break. Es reluctantly agreed to doing so but had left her and 010 in charge of looking after the others if anything happened.
She let out a sigh. The school's rooftop had the most beautiful night sky she'd ever lay her eyes upon, and the light breeze was something the prison clearly didn't have at all. Truly, it was the only place where Es could relax. A place without having to worry about sins, about murder, about anything. The one place where Es' only duty and only quality of being the Warden completely disappeared.
She could faintly hear somebody play the piano, so she guessed it was either Luka or Saki in the school's lower floors. She also took notice of somebody's steps going up the stairwell and approaching the rooftop's entrance. That always created a small feeling similar to fight or flight that Es couldn't pinpoint the reason to. Maybe it was the want for this place to remain foreign to Milgram, but she wasn't sure.
Es' train of thought was put to a stop with Miku opening the door. She closed it gently behind her and quietly approached her.
"Hey, Es." Miku sat down beside her. "It's been a while since we've talked, hasn't it?"
Es nodded, looking at the stars above. It was true that she usually just spoke to Saki, and she had had some interactions with Luka too. However, Miku remained the one she'd talked to the least.
She recalled her first interaction with her back when she first discovered the school. She'd forgotten about it with the pass of time, but Miku had said something that one time that Es never quite made out.
"Miku?" The Virtual Singer looked into her eyes as Es called her name. "Remember the first time I came here?"
"Of course."
"Well, I was wondering..." Es averted her gaze, looking for how to ask. "What did you say that time?"
Miku looked just a bit surprised. She too avoided Es' eyes for a moment. "Haha... It's good you were the one to mention it..."
"Huh?" Looking at Es' confused expression, Miku stood up and opened the door she'd previously appeared from.
And, well, Es quite literally couldn't believe her eyes. She knew some part of the school was weird, magic if you will, but...
Standing there, was nobody but Es herself. A carbon copy, one could say, but completely different in a way. That wasn't Es. She wasn't even dressed like a Warden at all, but rather as a normal person. It was eerie.
"Miku... What is this?" Es was freaking out, and Miku could probably tell this by the way she chuckled in an awkward way.
"This–" Miku glanced at the other Es. "–is Shiho!"
Shiho? As in Hinomori Shiho? Es thought. It was strange that a missing person suddenly appeared in the school, wasn't it? And Es was starting to realize why exactly everybody thought she was her.
"I'll leave you two to chat, see you guys!" Miku then ran to the door and left without saying much more. Shiho stared into Es' eyes, almost as if trying to figure out what was going on.
"How much do you know?" She asked Es. Her voice was literally the same as hers.
"About you?" Shiho nodded. "You've been missing for around 10 months at this point. Your sister, Hinomori Shizuku and 2 of your friends, Mochizuki Honami and Hoshino Ichika, have all taken somebody's life. They are prisoners I must protect... And they all say I am you."
"So that's how it ended..." Shiho thought out loud.
Es asked her a question this time. "If you don't mind me asking,, how did you disappear, Shiho?"
If she had the information, maybe she'd be able to find her in the real world and get her home. It was the least she could do.
"Well, uh... I was at home practicing with my bass when somebody knocked on the door." As she explained, they both sat back down to stargaze. "I thought it was Shizuku coming back from the archery club but..."
Es could somehow clearly picture that moment in her mind, almost to the point of it not being anything short of her own buried memory.
"You remember it, don't you?" Es looked at Shiho in disbelief. "How it all felt... And waking up as a different person right after, with a gap in your memories."
She hated to admit it, but Shiho was right. She wasn't her, she couldn't be. But the feeling of the bass on her hands, the exact location she'd put it in when going to open the door, the way she almost tripped when going to open the door and then nothing.
Suddenly, a wave of memories washed over her mind, overwhelming her. Blurry memories of holding onto Shizuku as a child for whatever reason, stargazing with Ichika, Saki and Honami, playing with them.
She suddenly recalled being in an audience for Shizuku, cheering her on with light teal colored light sticks all around her, remembering the exact moment Shizuku noticed her presence and ran to say hi in the middle of a concert.
Her first visit when Saki was hospitalized, her last one... The last time Honami ever talked to her before she distanced herself...
All the memories were blurry and she couldn't recall much more than that, but it was enough to make her question her entire life and identity as the prison guard.
In the midst of all of this, she glanced back at Shiho, her equally green eyes looking back and her hand on Es' shoulder signalling she was there for her in that strange moment.
Shiho quietly wrapped her arms around Es as the latter disappeared from the school and into the real world in an instant.
And just like that, Es found herself back in the walls of Milgram. She didn't want to think about what had just happened, but her mind wouldn't let her forget even a single thing. She hated to consider the possibility, but maybe Es and Shiho were as similar as everyone claimed them to be.
She walked out of her room and into the hall, not before taking a minute to breathe in and out and get her shit together.
She walked through the hallway, checking on everyone. It'd be better if she did that often with Yuzuriha there.
001's cell. Letters. A lot of letters. 001 was talking to Shizuku, 002 and 003, they were having fun. Shizuku waved at her.
002's cell. Tidied up and clean. She looked better when she glanced at her in 001's cell.
003's cell. He was in 001's cell and seemed to be doing well enough even if he still couldn't speak. That reminded Es to ask 010 how the guilty prisoners were doing.
004's cell. There were some papers on the ground, but the ones at the top looked like music sheets so she figured it was probably guitar practice for when she got out. She'd seen 010 do something similar that one time late at night so it wasn't far fetched. Something concerning was her absence there but maybe she was in another prisoner's cell.
Shizuku's cell. Pretty much normal, she'd asked for a camera a couple weeks ago and so there were pictures she'd taken up on the wall. Somehow, one of the pictures with 009 looked strange, as if there was a ghost in the picture. ...It was probably nothing.
006's cell. Good god. She knew 006 was an inventor and all that, and maybe that caused him to be a bit disorganized or whatever but Es had never seen a cell as messy as this. There were robot parts scattered across the floor, sheets of paper attached to other sheets of paper and so on, all scribbled from top to bottom. And of course, he wasn't there. Well... If he understands this then,,
007's cell. There she was, discussing something with 004. The two of them were focused enough not to notice Es walk by, and they both looked okay.
008's cell. It was filled with pink decorations. She could hear her, 009 and 006 talking in the next cell from there.
009's cell. The only one with a broken door from the attack, it looked clean enough. 006 and 008 seemed to be helping a struggling 009 study for some reason. 009 gripped the pen and paper she was writing on and 006 was holding a calculator in his hand.
Finally, 010's cell. The synthesizer she'd always play was placed on the table, alongside a couple of pens and what she assumed were the remainings of the straps on her hands from the first trial that 008 had helped her with. The space left on that table was occupied by medical reports and there was a first aid kit on the floor.
She stopped her walk in that very cell, catching 010's attention as she was playing the synthesizer.
"Warden, hello." 010 greeted her in her naturally monotone voice, getting up from the chair she was sitting on.
"Hey..." Es didn't go into the cell, she just leaned on the doorframe. "Are 001, 002, 003 and 004's injuries healing properly?"
010 grabbed the medical reports. "Tenma's arm is healing faster now, I think it'll be back to normal in a couple of weeks."
"That's good." Es said, some good news were nice in Milgram for a change. "How about 002?"
"She's recovering. Slowly, of course, but it's not like she's getting worse. The less serious wounds have already healed, at least." She passed 002's medical report to Es. The latest update 010 had made to it did show improvement.
"Then there's Shinonome." 010 noticed Es get slightly concerned about that one. "His trial and the song extraction situation definitely pushed full recovery back, that's for sure."
"Yeah... I figured." Es sighed, remembering 003's trial. "004?"
"Hoshino's physically doing okay." 010 placed the reports back in their place. "Still a bit dizzy from time to time, but overall okay."
"Alright." Es replied. "Thank you for your work, 010, really."
010 nodded. "No problem. To nurse the others back to health... Maybe it's what I wanted."
"Alright, so." Ichika sat down with Honami by her side. "I reached the Sekai while I was asleep last night."
"Really?" Honami took a notebook out of one of her drawers. "How did it go? Did you see Es there?"
Ichika shook her head. "I only saw Miku there. But she did mention you, Saki and Es also having access to it."
Honami wrote something down. "Can't we use it to get out then?"
"It won't work. We'll still be here when we leave the Sekai if we go in from here." She explained. Honami scratched what she'd written.
"We should study the layout of the prison." Honami said. "If there's an escape route, we'll find it quicker. Maybe the ventilation system could lead us out?"
"Good idea." Ichika thought about the plan for a second as Honami rewrote what she'd scratched with it in mind. "The prison's probably huge though, we probably haven't even seen all of it."
"Talking to Es about it might be a good idea." Honami suggested. "I'm not saying we should tell her about the plan, of course. She might know the prison better than we do, that's all."
She passed Ichika the notebook and she started writing things down too. That's when they heard footsteps slowly approach, stopping near Kamishiro's cell. They exchanged looks, silently agreeing to change the subject quickly.
"Ah,, I haven't practiced the guitar in a long time, you know?" Ichika randomly said. "I'm probably really out of practice."
"Hm! Yeah!..." Honami played along with the change of subject as long as she had to. "We should practice if— when we get home, right?"
The footsteps soon continued, quickly stopping by her cell. Neither Honami nor Ichika even dared to glance up at their childhood friend, keeping the cover up conversation going until her footsteps sounded far enough for her to be out of sight and earshot.
Ichika sighed. "Phew, that was close..." She quickly poked her head out through the doorframe to see where Es was just in case, seeing she was far away. "Okay, good."
"We could do this—" Honami started brainstorming a plan. "— I'll talk to Es, try to see if she knows any information that might be useful. And in the meantime, you walk around the prison, map out the ventilation system as much as possible."
Ichika nodded. "Okay... Maybe I'll ask Asahina if she wants to help."
"Sure." Honami stood up, looking ahead to see where Es was. "I'll also take this opportunity to,,, y'know."
She blushed slightly, signalling what she was going to do to a pretty confused Ichika who immediately gave her a smile.
"You can do it, Honami. Good luck!"
Es was heading back to her room in the prison, her plan to take it easy and relax in the Sekai for a couple of hours having been thrown out of the window after what had happened.
She still couldn't get that conversation with Shiho out of her head, and the memories still lingered inside her mind, consuming her every thought like a black hole.
"Es?" A familiar, soft-spoken voice that had been prevalent in the memories called her name. She turned around, only to be faced with Honami and her sky blue eyes. She looked nervous."Could we... could we talk for a moment? I have something to tell you."
Her heart sank inside her chest. What could Honami possibly have to say? Es knew she probably couldn't handle more bad news in the prison for a while after that day.
Honami was so beautiful, it was something Es found impossible to deny. Not only that, she treated Es in such a kind manner, it felt so genuine, so sweet, if you will.
Jackalope being right wasn't something she really wanted, but truth be told, she really loved Honami. Her heart skipped a beat when she asked her to see the world with her.
At that time, there truly wasn't a memory of how the world was inside her head. There was the possibility of Honami leading her to a certain doom if the extracted videos weren't accurate to her reality.
But having remembered things that same day... She wanted to see the world with Honami more than anything.
Es couldn't leave her duty, but when it ended and Honami and her stopped being prisoner 007 and the prison guard, maybe then they'd go out to see the world together.
Oh right, Honami was right in front of her.
"Did something happen? Are you and the others okay?" She asked, feeling beyond relieved when Honami shook her head.
"Could we, you know,, take a walk around the prison?" Es nodded at the question and Honami offered her hand for Es to take, covering her slightly red face with her other hand. Es was just as flustered as Honami, and she hoped it wasn't obvious.
They talked for a while, Honami asking about the prison and what Es knew about it. Of course, Es did get a little suspicious, and a lot went unanswered since it was classified. But at the end of it, Honami stopped walking, right on the center of a skylight on the ceiling of the east side of the prison, at least a dozen meters above them, it was a calm and serene part of Milgram and was always open to the prisoners but often went unnoticed since it was far from the cells.
Es, who had walked out of the skylight's sunlight, stepped back to directly face Honami.
"Es... I'll admit, I've been stalling here for a while now." Honami explained. "I think— I think I'm ready."
Honami was nervous and Es was too. The blue eyed prisoner took a deep breath.
"I'll go straight to the point... When we first got put in here and I saw you... I guess— I don't know, I was terrified that something would happen."
Honami placed both of her hands on Es' gently. "But through all this time, after all that's happened..." She stopped for a second. "I didn't know what I was thinking when I asked you to see the world with me... It was probably just wishful thinking at that moment, something I said, having given up on ever getting you back."
Es listened to her every word, as quiet as she could possibly be, and as nervous as she'd ever been.
She thought it was over, that's it. Honami had changed her mind about her offer. It was over.
However, Honami wasn't done. She held onto Es' hands as tightly as she could without hurting her and poured her heart out for the guard to see.
"But now... I'll do everything I can for you to experience the joys of life on the outside." Honami's hands were warm, her words were warm, the sun outside bathing them in its light was oh so warm, and Es could feel that warmth consume her and all her previous worries.
"I'm afraid. I'm scared and I don't know how to say it but— I love you, Es. Not the prison guard at Milgram, not the one to judge our sins. No one but you. Es."
Es' eyes widened, her cheeks blushing more than they already were. She let go of Honami's hands, processing what she'd confessed.
Oh my god. She thought, looking down at the floor in absolute shock. All her moments with Honami, past and present... Forgetting constellation names as a kid, having apparently forgotten herself, Honami had always been there.
There was nobody else with them.
"It's okay if you don't feel the same." Honami added. "I just— needed to say this before I couldn't anymore—"
Es cupped Honami's face, closing her eyes and placing her forehead on hers.
"Can I...?" Es asked silently, enough for Honami to understand.
Honami nodded softly, and Es kissed her in the calm silence of the skylight room.