Chương 50: Worldline α: Narrative Translator

『■■■■■?! (Out of my way! Vanish!) 』 Saigo's boulder-like fist swung straight toward me. The words were nothing but distorted static. Yet, I heard it. I registered the exact "meaning" buried deep beneath the noise.

"It's not 'vanish'!... You're saying you're scared, aren't you!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. Saigo's colossal frame froze instantly.

"You don't hate Choshu! You're just terrified of being betrayed again, of watching your comrades die! Your rage is just the flipped side of your profound kindness!" I mobilized every single ounce of data from the countless historical novels I had devoured in my life. The tragic depth of Saigo Takamori's capacity to love—his raw sentimentality had simply run rampant, driven mad by paranoia. I spun around on my heels, glaring directly at Katsura. 『●●●●●?! (How illogical!) 』"It's not about being logical!

You're just lonely!" I asserted without a shred of doubt.

"You're too smart for your own good. No one could keep up with you, so you've been enduring it all entirely on your own! That's why passionate people like the Satsuma clan look so brilliant to you—and why you envy them, why you can't forgive them?!" Katsura's frozen, icy eyes trembled violently.

"Who cares if the words don't make sense?! Read the hearts buried beneath the language! You two aren't enemies!... You're just two incredibly terrified human beings!" My desperate shout tore a massive, permanent hole right through the tempest of digital noise. The crimson and azure auroras bled away, and the pale, organic color of "humanity" began to flush back into their faces.

"... Kid..." RYOMA murmured, staring at me as if he had just witnessed a miracle.

"Are you... translating? Not their words, but their very souls...?" We can do this. Just a little more. The exact moment the two titans began to lower their respective weapons— SLASH!! The ground beneath my feet fractured violently, as if cleaved by a localized laser. A pitch-black shadow dropped straight between Saigo and Katsura.

"... This sentimental farce is over." A voice of absolute-zero temperature. Emerging from the shadows was a man whose pale-blue haori cloak was thoroughly drenched in fresh blood. The Vice-Commander of the Shinsengumi, Hijikata Toshizo. But his status parameters had completely shifted from moments ago. His physical body had transitioned into a semi-transparent "Data Entity," and the colossal, spectral phantom of a ravenous wolf flickered menacingly behind his back. You might be reading a pirated copy.

Look for the official release to support the author. [Spatio-Temporal Immune System, Phase 2: Purge Execution Mode]"The contact between you anomalous bugs is causing the historical error coefficient to spike," Hijikata declared coldly.

"Allowing any further 'reconciliation' will trigger a total system collapse. Therefore, I will now execute a hard-cut." Hijikata swung his katana. It wasn't swordsmanship. It was an act of "system editing"—literally slicing through space-time itself. SHATTEEEER—BOOM!! A colossal crevasse tore open between Satsuma and Choshu, and right between RYOMA and myself. The very earth collapsed into a void.

"Whoa—aaaaaargh?!"

"KATARU!!" Losing my footing completely, I plummeted straight toward the viscous sea of black mud below. RYOMA desperately lunged to grab my hand, but a devastating vacuum wave unleashed by Hijikata forced him back.

"RYOMA, you will be dismantled here. As for the kid—the future 'translation matrix'—he shall remain silenced for eternity at the bottom of the sludge," Hijikata announced with chilling finality. Worse still, the "Division Wave" emitted from Hijikata's strike forcefully dragged Saigo and Katsura back into the digital noise. 『■■■■■!! 』 『●●●●●!! 』 The hearts that had just barely begun to open snapped shut once more. This time, the mutual slaughter would be absolute.

"Damn it...! Wait up, Hijikata!" RYOMA leveled his dual pistols, but the spectral wolf behind Hijikata unleashed a deafening roar, blowing RYOMA violently backward. As RYOMA's shouting voice faded into the distance, I sank deeper and deeper into the dark, freezing sea of black mud. Blub... blub... blub... I couldn't breathe. The black mud wasn't water. It was the literal "Historical Trash Bin." The graveyard of deleted data, forgotten memories, and the suffocating wreckage of unfulfilled wishes. —It hurts.

—This is it. I'm done. My consciousness began to liquefy. The strength drained from the hand gripping my bamboo sword. In the end, I changed nothing. My words had reached them, only to be brutally torn apart by reality. Right then. From the absolute deepest abyss of the mud, a faint, impossible "light" flickered. No, it wasn't a light. It was a sound. I could hear someone's voice. 『... Do not give up yet, you fool. 』 『... How unbeautiful, covered in mud like that. 』 『... O Editor of the Land of the Rising Sun.

』 What...? These voices... The cybernetic chip inside my brain caught a frequency entirely separate from Gennai's comms. It was ancient, weathered, yet beautifully familiar. 『Can ya hear my voice, kid! 』 RYOMA's roar suddenly thundered from high above. He was leaning far over the deck of his ship, screaming down into the sea of sludge. 『Gennai! Open up the Trash Bin's blast gates! 』 『Open them?! Boss, if I do that, the capacity overload will blow us into next week! 』 『I don't give a damn!

I can't tie this broken nation back together on my own!... But we owe this kid a massive debt, don't we?! 』 With a mechanical shriek, a massive cybernetic anchor shot out from the Irohamaru. It plunged straight toward me... no, it bypassed me entirely, stretching into the deepest crevices of the space-time Trash Box. 『Time to show 'em the sheer grit of a Laundryman! 』 RYOMA howled. 『To all of you who became the forgotten dust of history! If your flames ain't completely burned out yet, grab onto my damn hand!!

』 CRASH—BOOOOM!! The anchor embedded itself into the very bedrock of the space-time abyss. In that exact millisecond, the suffocating mud surrounding me transformed into a torrential storm of brilliant, golden light. It was warm. It was blazing hot. This was... the massive convergence of "wills" we had kindled across every single era we had traveled. The sea of mud split wide open. And out from the golden radiance, several distinct silhouettes began to ascend.

The heroes who had once fulfilled their roles and faded away into deleted data—they were rising. —The smoke of the ultimate counter-attack was finally rising.