Hold Out Your Hand - Let's Play Inganock of the Brightest Flame

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Fates End: Oct 17, 2009

BGM: Amnesia

The Upper Tier Aristocrats controlling the City of lnganock.
They're all telling lies.

This Noble Tattoo that proves I'm an Upper Tier Aristocrat.
They engraved it upon my body.

They said that this would completely protect me from the unknown illness brought forth by Creatures and Monsters.
That's just another lie.

This does nothing more than ease one's mind.

The Aristocrats are telling lies.
They say that the Aristocrats' lives are prioritized above all else, but...

That's not true either.

The Noble Tattoo doesn't work.
Whenever someone contracts a fantastic illness..

They try to kill them right away.
They obey City Law by executing any family which produces a Host.

......that's why my father and mother abandoned me.

I was simply thrown out of the Upper Tier, like a broken toy.

......and then he picked me up.

......but... even he tells lies.

Everything around me is a lie.

I like Seikyouan songs.
I like the sound of the violin.
I also like the piano and the organ.

I also like what's called 'church music.�
It has a certain force and gravity to it.

I like songs.
......I can sing... a little.

I'd like to try singing next to that girl's organ while she plays.

I'd have to try really hard, but I have a feeling that I could make a beautiful sound.

......but, that girl. ..

She won't let anyone hear her beautiful organ piece.

......not even Smith-san.

Some information was recorded about the forty-one Creatures.
Ten years ago they materialized, and started killing off a subset of the City's population.

A subset of humans.
Namely, Seikyouans and their descendants.

lt's said that the Creatures persistently sought them out until they devoured all of them and their terror.
Their number isn't recorded, but it was probably less than a hundred.

And after that, the Creatures turned their fangs toward other humans��

That's the recorded information.
But, the truth is different.

Only a certain kind of Creature reacted to Seikyouans and their descendants.
The large Creature which creates endless duplicates of itself.

Its name is 'Blood Tree.'

A large Creature which attacks people simply by breeding.

At present, Runners, drug gangs, and Upper Tier Soldiers all own Crack Engines.
They give a strong impression of heightened battle strength.

They were originally developed as artificial limbs for medical purposes. Those Machines were meant to make up for lost bodily functions without being rejected or overburdening the body.

In the Lower Tiers, victims of accidents, Creature attacks, mutations or other strange diseases very often have these.

Most medical Crack Engines would be highly priced were they genuine Upper Tier-Approved Goods.

Therefore, the people of the Lower Tiers obtain cheap, illegal Crack Engines from back-alley doctors and markets.

Although it's a wide-open secret��

It's said there are Engine Factories which mass produce cheap Crack Engines for the Lower Tiers.
Unlike genuine ones, they're very likely to be rejected or overburden the user.

The City's Upper Tier maintains its silence on this matter.

Most of those rumors are about seemingly heroic people.
Some speak of a Runner with legendary strength.
Others speak of a Highness Agent.

The only highly credible rumor speaks of the person who once subjugated Creatures.

The Street Knight.
The knight said to be the fastest and strongest in all the City. An Engine Human, with Crack Engines implanted all over his body.

......I don't know whether it's true or not.

However,
I do know one 《Kikai》 user.
I saw him just once.

Just once over these last ten years.
I laid eyes on one user.

A shadow slicing apart a huge snake-like Monster.
One man with something black following behind.

The shadow behind the man��
In other words, his 《Kikai.》
That Monster had endured countless bullets from Upper Tier Soldiers, yet he destroyed it with ease.

A serpent said to be equal to the Creatures.
So easily, so simply...

The man had smiled amidst the blood splatter.

......Kerkan.

I know that man�s name.
That man was once an Enforcer of City Law.

......that man has taken hundreds of lives.
......and I'm sure, even now...

I'm one of them
I once brought death to a lot of people in the Lower Tiers, as an Enforcer of City Law.

What I'm doing hasn't changed.
I just kill.

People like to talk about 《beautiful things》 as if they�re something extraordinary.

But 《Kikai》 are power.

They're nothing but power.
We were chosen in order to wield them.

That power is for killing, for taking lives.
Those 《Kikai》 exist for nothing else.

......at least, that's what they are to me.

The other 《Kikai》 users aren't that different from me.

They're all my prey.
If I meet one��

��I'll be sure to kill them.

The fearsome Creature Blood Tree.
A fantasy which erodes a person's body and mind.
I remember it.

Its seeds of death possess people.
They grow within humans, and eventually kill them.

I've seen one hundred and forty-nine such cases.

One hundred and forty-nine lives I couldn't save.

......that's how many...
Arboritis hosts I've been unable to save.

The physical substitution healing of the Phenomenon Equation is useless against an illness which mutates the very nature of one's existence.
I couldn't do anything.

Cutting it off with physical normalization by the Phenomenon Equation.
Replacing limbs with Crack Engines.
Those are the only ways of dealing with it.

......like those three children.
There's nothing else I can do about it.

The seeds eroding the body can be taken out.
But any seeds which have taken root in the mind are there to stay.

......eventually, the mind's very basis is eroded.

......and when only despair remains...

......the full-grown "sprout" bursts out.

One hundred and forty-nine people.
I......

......couldn't save them.

I can use the Phenomenon Equation myself to some degree, though mine is specialized in Destruction.

Cracking Docs. They go to all the trouble of carving the theory into their brains,
then just use the Phenomenon Equation for money.
There aren't too many of them around.

Most of them are sucked into being Upper Tier Palace Doctors,
or working in First and Second Tier industries.

Slaves to money.
They don't understand what power is.

......I don't like them.

......but the one I dislike the most...

......is that Traveling Doctor who uses it for free.

I mean you, Doctor Gii.
How long will you continue performing that rotten hypocrisy?

Mutating illnesses run rampant in the City.
The medical view states:
'There is no way to avoid the diseases which cause one's body to change into a Fantastic Mutant.'

In the Lower Tiers, there's a superstition that wearing oxygen masks is an effective defense,
though there's no basis for that.

It's said that the Upper Tier uses a more realistic approach.

The "Noble Tattoos" engraved into the Upper Tier Aristocrats� skin.
In a sense, they're also proof of Aristocracy.

Equation Patterns based on the Phenomenon Equation.
They're said to be an inpenetrable defense against body-warping mutations.

The people of the Lower Tiers envy the Tattoos.
They often ask to be engraved themselves.

However, the Upper Tier announced that it was siuply performing a human experiment.

The Controllers, the Upper Tier Aristocrats,
were using their own bodies as test subjects,
so that they could ensure it was safe��

��They said the Tattoos would eventually be passed on to the Lower Tiers.

There are those who believe those words,
and there are those who don't.

Among the Aristocrats,
the system for engraving these Tattoos is called the 'Upper Tier Aristocrat Protection Policy.'

......whether they're really human test subjects or not is clear after a single glance at that name.

'lt's all right, you just play the organ.'
That's what he says.

......the Iiar.

I know.
He's ostracized even by the Lower Tier Citizens,
so he can't find any good work.

Because he s a Seikyouan,
he's discriminated against even in the Lower Tiers.

Even that......
He won't even tell me that.

It was given the name of a vampiric plant from the Southern Sea with similar characteristics.
lt's the only Creature out of all forty-one which can breed.

Colloquially, it's often called 'Youki,' which means 'Bewitching Tree.'

Those "vines" constructed of undulating blacks and reds.

They're spotted within the City's Lower Tiers from time to time.

It was disgusting, but somewhat illusory,
and was said to hold a certain beauty.

However,
that's just what produces the seeds.
lt isn't the Creature's main body.

Sightings of Blood Tree's main body ended ten years ago.

The only things ever witnessed in the Lower Tiers came from the seeds that Blood Tree's main body once scattered.
It's stayed hidden for all this time.

This Creature produces false bodies of itself through either reproductive division or seed scattering.

The seeds it scattered when it appeared ten years ago are floating as dormant particles in the City's Lower Tiers. They possess anyone with weakened vitality, young or old.

Then, they suck out their hosts' nutrition,
grow by stealing the mind and body,
and eventually burst apart,
scattering more seeds at the moment of death.

......but, in most cases, Enforcers of City Law kill the hosts before that can happen.

This Creature is the most famous in the City's Lower Tiers,
and it has produced the most casualties.

It does nothing but grow until its host dies,
but if anyone tries to cut it off,
the vines will attack.

Technically it isn't a disease.
It refers to a condition inflicted by Creature Blood Tree's seeds of death.

PeepIe's bodies are brought down over the course of a few years, as it eats away at the mind,
steals the body away with "vines," and kills the host.

It's been reported that implantation of Crack Engines or the Phenomenon Equation can extend one's life somewhat.

City Law states that Arboritis hosts are to be eliminated.
In other words, executed.

Most of the time, the people of the Lower Tiers hide their Arboritis with Artificial Crack Engine Limbs.

......while fearing the death that's sure to come for them.

Memories about the Creature Blood Tree.
They must be from ten years ago.

It happened within a month of the 《Revival.》
A scene from those hellish days.

Like the other Creatures,
Blood Tree manifested in the Lower Tiers.
lt scattered countless black deaths.

At that time......

There was a certain peculiar inclination in Blood Tree�s activities......

......I have hazy memories of it.

It was a reaction to a certain subset of humans.
Blood Tree showed excessive reactions around them.

A certain subset.
Yes, I'm pretty sure it was......

......Seikyouans......

He's whispering.
He's always, always whispering in my ear.

I can't imagine it's possible,
but is that the 《Kikai's》 voice?
His memories?

I don't know the truth.
I just "remember" that guy.

��Forty-one.

The same as the number of Creatures.
That number appears in my mind.
That scene appears in my mind.

l understand.
That's something from ten years ago.

Am I remembering it?
Or, is that a memory being planted into me?

I don't really care either way.
......forty-one.

......I just kill, that's all.
I'm after what lies at the end of that.

I've heard that the Grand Prince,
the most important person around here,
lives there.

I've never seen any of those Aristocrats,
or the Grand Prince.

What sort of people are they?
The only kings I know of are in fairy tales.

......when I told Gii that, he laughed.
......that irritated me a little.

He said I was joking.
I don't know what I did to make him say that.

Anyway,
to borrow Gii's words......

The Upper Tier isn't a comfortable place.
We can't go there,
and we wouldn't gain anything by going.

��An unpleasant place.

To me, that's what it sounded like Gii was saying.

Other than playing the organ, what?
Other than feeling myself being eaten away, what?

I played the keyboard today as well.
I played the sound.

But... I'm......
I'm so anxious.
My heart's breaking.

I can't look away from the Youki eroding away at me.
Every day, when I wake up and take a shower,
I look at my body.

......I'm scared.

......what will happen to me?
......someone... tell me...

......what should I do......?
What can I do to keep living?

......someone... tell me.

「I can hear your voice.」

「Your regret reaches me.」

「The one hundred and forty-nine people lost.」

「Those are all bad memories for you.」

「However...」

「However... I can see what you see.」

「Do you really...」

「See them as bad memories?」

「Have you given up?」