Fate: I Just Want to Die and Sit on the Throne of Heroes-Chapter 64: The People Who Yearn for That One Light

Chapter 64: The People Who Yearn for That One Light
“Eh…?”
Her hands were slapped away.
Ishtar’s body went rigid for a heartbeat, not only because her little scheme had been exposed, but because, under all the bluff and bravado, she was genuinely afraid.
Was she… rejected?
“It’s fine.”
Contrary to what she expected, Rowe did not pull away and leave.
Instead, he bent down slightly and placed a hand on her head, fingers slowly brushing through her dark, silky hair.
“No one will cross the line I draw,” he said quietly. “No matter who it is.”
“Do not forget. I am the key that can open the chaotic heavens and earth.”
Leaving those words behind, Rowe straightened and walked toward Tiamat.
The tide still rose and fell, pale waves rolling and breaking.
On either side of the path ahead, Gilgamesh’s wild laughter and Enkidu’s calm gaze framed the silhouette advancing alone.
Ishtar remained where she was.
Just now…
Did that guy touch her head?
“Ugh…”
The black haired goddess flushed, hands flying up to cover the spot he had patted, only to be reminded of the lingering sensation by the warmth of her own palms.
It had been a very ordinary touch.
Very ordinary.
Yet, somehow, it felt warm.
And inexplicably reassuring.
“Is this how Ereshkigal fell…?” she groaned under her breath, but the fluttering in her chest did not stop.
Then, another realization quietly dawned on her.
“Wait, why do I feel like some daughter being scolded by her old man…?”
No, that had to be a misunderstanding.
It had to be.
Rowe’s attitude just now had been unmistakable.
My child, why are you so troublesome.
Ishtar Rin fell silent.
…
Give me back my fluttering heart, ahhh!
Rowe’s footsteps slowed a little.
He turned his head and glanced back at her, at that expression caught halfway between dazed infatuation and aggrieved disbelief, and could not help laughing softly.
At the very least, she was still his comrade.
His eyes moved forward again.
“Aaaa.”
The clear, chiming voice continued to echo through heaven and earth.
Tiamat stood upon the sea at the shoreline, her hair like an endless tide, surging and whipping in the wind, her massive horns casting mountain like shadows over the water.
Since arriving, she had not taken another step.
It was not because of Gilgamesh’s treasures or Enkidu’s chains.
They were strong, and had grown far beyond their former selves. By now, even taken alone, they had reached a level close to the chief gods. Yet without Rowe, the gap between them and the primordial Mother remained an abyss that could not be crossed. Their combined might could not even stir the surface of that existence.
Tiamat stood still for one simple reason.
She did not wish to move.
She only watched Rowe.
Rowe walked on until he stood before the primordial Mother Goddess.
Then he lifted his head and met her eyes.
“…Come,” a wordless meaning brushed against his mind. “Come with me. They will hurt you.”
Like me.
Rowe understood what lay behind that gaze.
In those pink eyes fixed on him, he saw it clearly.
So he finally pieced together the truth.
The Tiamat before him likely regarded him as a “companion” of her own kind, a fellow primordial god left behind in the world.
In a sense, she was not wrong.
Having merged with the Sword of Rupture, his “specification,” however faint, had indeed risen to the same primordial stratum.
Rowe had once been a priest in the age of the pantheon. He knew the myths of this land well.
In this world, the primordial God Ea was born first, as the embodiment of the planet’s rotation and the force that split the heavens from the earth.
After him came the Sea of Chaos, Tiamat, who nurtured all things.
She was the primordial ocean from which all life and all gods had been born. Rock, fire, forest, lightning, storm. Everything that existed had emerged from the authority she wielded.
Before her, there had been only Ea.
After her, every god was her child, crafted by her hands.
Tiamat had never had a peer.
Never once, in all of creation, a being with a nature parallel to her own.
Before she was betrayed and torn apart, she had only been an indulgent, gentle Mother Earth Goddess.
Now, however, she sensed in Rowe a similar aura, the planetary origin that resonated with her own.
It was only natural she would treat him as the companion she had never possessed.
Joy, wonder, a desperate desire to draw close.
Yet none of that changed the other thing he saw burning in her eyes.
The wish to erase civilization had not dimmed at all.
Then, in that case…
There is still a little time left before I die. But moving the schedule up a bit… is not such a bad idea.
Rowe smiled, quietly raised his hand, and spread his fingers.
Light blossomed in his palm, a deep, crimson radiance.
Mystic circuits of the same color ran along his arm in an instant.
The Sword of Rupture descended.
“Aaaa.”
Tiamat’s eyes widened slightly.
“Rowe, are you trying to snatch this King’s privileges again?”
Gilgamesh, standing upon the Starry Ark with the Gate of Babylon flung wide behind him, gaped for a moment, then could not hold back a furious shout.
“Rowe, your body will not withstand it!”
Enkidu called out as well.
Rowe merely shook his head, gaze locked on the unmoving Tiamat.
“I will not die.”
He spoke as if stating a trivial fact.
“And I will not go with you.”
He added that much more.
“Aaaa…”
Tiamat’s clear cry took on a note of confusion, as if asking him why.
Why?
“Because I am the Sage of Uruk,” Rowe answered.
“Because I do not fear death.”
“And because I believe I will not be betrayed.”
The crimson brilliance along his arm brightened further.
The Sword of Rupture, the conceptual blade that severed heaven and earth, manifested in full.
Its flowing light climbed higher and higher, like a pillar piercing the sky.
“Rowe…”
Ishtar’s breath caught.
In the Underworld, Ereshkigal lifted her gaze.
From the cold, grey depths, she too saw the streak of blazing red carving across the vault of the world.
“Is that… the Sage?”
Within Uruk, countless people had stopped.
Some stood framed in doorways, their eyes reflecting the sky that had taken on a strange hue.
Some paced in their small courtyards, then stepped outside without fully knowing why.
The People gathered again.
Just like that day when they had greeted the gods with their own hands.
The fire in their hearts rekindled.
They lifted their heads.
And beheld the light in the heavens.
They watched the Sage, who had brought them wisdom, once more raise his hand to the sky.
Rowe smiled.
He reached out and gripped the descending blade, fingers closing around the hilt as burning sparks scattered around him.
He held it.
Then he lifted it high.
The storm of light that burst forth was not only the power to cleave heaven and earth.
The one who had split the sky now grasped the instrument of that act.
To cleave heaven and earth was not merely to open the chaotic firmament and divide the sea from the land.
It was also to split open the hidden depths of the human heart.
To split open the sealed wisdom within the people.
This was the power that shattered all phenomena.
And the single beam of radiance that humanity, in every age, would forever yearn for.
“Enuma Elish.”
The name of the world’s beginning rang out.
In the next instant, a crimson maelstrom roared forth, devouring the sky.
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