The Whaler (before battle)

......

Don Quixote had stopped dead in her tracks. She was looking blankly at a section of the wall.

See anything interesting, kiddo?

Here. In the wall.

Huh...?

There is... a person in this wall.

... M-maybe it's a sculpture?

... If there is anyone capable of sculpting something so true to life as this, I'll drop everything and plead the artist to take me in as their student.

Ahh...

Hurk... No... Are they the people Pilot was looking for...?

Hark! Heed mine words!

Why the heck would ya talk to it?!

… … ….

Behold! This man is alive!

Oh, this is the worst. This is the absolute worst. It's making me real queasy...

... Hm.

…….

Hark, mine friends! This man is alive! We must free him from this bond posthaste!

Mm... Even if we wanted to, looks like it's a bit late for him.

Total disassembly is the only way I see it ever getting out of there. Heh.

Wha...

Well, by now we should be getting used to these failures...

The body is firmly lodged in the walls. No ordinary human strength could separate his body from it.

With superhuman strength, you risk tearing the body to several parts.

Fie, this is an evil that... cannot go unanswered...

Impressive... There's no sign of anyone forcing it into the walls.

This is quite a natural exhibition. As though this was how it was conceived from the very beginning.

We thought... I thought it would be different this time. We made a promise, gave our word...

…….

Unlike the other Sinners, Ishmael didn't even spare a glance to those that were trapped within the walls.

Manager, staring at them won't magically summon the Golden Bough to your palms. Say something so we can get a move on.

<I guess there's nothing we can do for them. Still...>

And I've said repeatedly that I don't want to waste time.

We don't have to worry about the laws of the Lake here, so why don't we make this a more leisurely -

Sure, look around all you want. But you won't find any survivors here.

A testament against thy claim is right here!

Those things aren't really alive. They're only pretending to be.

Yet...

I recognize these. They're ruin left behind by... the thing. The thing that leaves nothing unchanged in its wake.

It could swallow the world in the blink of an eye. But it also spews it back out just as quickly.

And what it spews out... never comes back right...

Isn't it funny? If it's going to spew it out anyway, what's the point of devouring it in the first place?

I don't understand... Why does it try to devour everything it comes across?

<Are you... talking about that same Whale you mentioned before...?>

…….

In no tales of adventure have I heard one mention of such a terrifying Whale! Is it truly a Whale?!

Then why didn't you listen when I told all of you that we weren't ready? If you did, at least we could've been in the right headspace for the Lake. But no.

<So you're saying that... that Whale you met devoured this building?>

Yes.

<How can you be sure of that?>

Because... this pale ruin is what that Whale leaves behind. Everything turns pallid... like this building.

…!

W... It... me... div...

I have visual on a suspicious individual.

Maybe it's an Abnormality? We're in a Lobotomy Corp. Branch, after all...

Y-yeah. Let's just say that that's what it is and chop it down.

... Wait, wait a minute! That might be a survivor!

Well, didn't you say there won't be any survivors left here? Which is it?

I did. And that's why it's... so... incredible...

Hey!

<I-Ishmael! You shouldn't get so close to...!>

Ishmael strides toward the figure.

Maybe she's being mind-controlled by an Abnormality?!

No such signs have been detected. There is nothing out of the ordinary in her eyes.

He... Iah.

The closer Ishmael gets, the more of the figure's body is taken over by the pallid, off-white membrane. The voice grows increasingly incoherent.

…. … …… … ……. …

That's impossible.

Just now... It was... talking. Like a human.

<... Ishmael...>

You saw it too! Just now, it...!

<Ishmael! You have to get away from - >

No, no. This can't be real. I-if what I've known my whole life about this place is... About the Great Lake...

She is experiencing heightened emotions.

<Damnit, Ishmael!!>

I could've asked one of the Sinners to stop her, but... Before I even realized what I was doing... I was running toward Ishmael.

I think it was guilt that pushed me to act. Guilt that I may have played a part in driving Ishmael to this point.

Dante! You mustn't -

Oh.

But guilt can sometimes help.

The figure's face shifted again when I approached Ishmael.

The white membrane covering their face begins to withdraw, as though an unseen force is peeling it off the skin.

The mouth didn't come back... but the eyes that looked at us were unmistakably human-shaped.

They were blinking. With effort.

… … ……. … ……

The membrane... is gone...?

This... When you approached it, this damn white membrane... it... faded.

It appears that the Golden Bough is counteracting its effects.

Faust approached us.

Dante, it appears that the shard of the Golden Bough lodged into your clock is counteracting the infection of this... Pallidification effect to a degree.

The figure, whose mouth was still wrapped under a pallid membrane, blinks wearily. As though they could understand what we were saying.

... Counter... acting?

Wait, so with a Golden Bough...

A Mermaid can... Ha ha. A Mermaid can turn back into a human? Is that what you're saying? Did I get that right? Faust?

... While that theory has not been properly cross-examined...

Just! ... Just tell me if it's possible.

Though it was curt... I've never heard such intense desperation in her voice before.

... Yes. Although it may be limited to... Mermaids of the Whale that presumably devoured this structure.

Ha... Ha ha...

Manager... Dante... Just what are you...?

Realizing that there was something that I could've done... The memories of that day... the nightmare that I tried so hard to lock away...

They're coming back right before my eyes.

I can see them, vomited from that Whale, sinking, floating in the briny sea... All of them...

Ishmael looked at me with a vacant expression.

You hear it too, don't you...?

You hear how the waves roared that day...

Ishmael was right... Emotions of the past begin flooding, roaring before me.

Ishmael...

She stands alone in a sea of tall, rolling waves.

<…….>

I nodded, carefully.

... Once, I was a seafarer.

A Fixer. A sailor.

I was something in that awkward middle ground... which we called Whalers.

Do you understand? No... Do you see them?

Do you see the looks on the faces of those who dared to wager everything... and those who had nothing left to wager?

Whaling ships carry people like them across the waves.

<So... You've seen it yourself? The Whale that devoured this place?>

The Whales we've met so far... transform those they devour into something completely different. Into something utterly unrecognizable from who they were before by rearranging and replacing their whole body.

But that Whale... is different.

Those devoured by the Pallid Whale aren't transformed. They're still themselves... just wrapped in a pale membrane.

Hah. I guess it's a stretch to say that they're still themselves.

Sometimes, we'd sail our ship toward the Outskirts.

There, we'd see those ships. Those... false ships.

The ships that have turned completely pallid.

It's an old wisdom among Whalers that those ships must be avoided at all costs, even if it meant going all the way around the Lake they're in.

Because the sailors consumed by that Whale retain everything, their habits, their skills...

Except they wander the Lake only to attack everything they come across.

The Captain of 'the Pequod', our ship...

She had a mission. To hunt that Pallid Whale with her own two hands.

The entire time we sailed on the Pequod... she sermonized our ears off about what a worthy, honorable mission it was to hunt that Whale.

It was annoying, and we knew that she wasn't exactly all there, but...

... No. Maybe she just knew how to sink the rest of us to the depths of her insanity.

Her mission soon became our very own. To hunt that Pallid Whale became our salvation. Our destiny.

That Captain drove everyone on that ship mad.

When the time finally came to face that Whale, the Whale from which all hatred, all evils of the world spout...

We were promptly crushed. Devoured. Reduced to a scattered pile of driftwood.

When I came to, floating in the vast coldness of the sea, holding onto my dear life to a piece of driftwood... there was nothing left. Nothing.

And when I realized what I was holding onto wasn't a piece of driftwood, but the...

That's why I can never forgive her...

At a certain point, this stopped being a conversation.

Ishmael's words grew increasingly aimless like a vortex of the sea, endlessly whirling in place...

Now, it was clear what Ishmael's mission was. Where the tip of her razor-sharp harpoon aimed.

It was aimed at the Captain that drove them all to damnation - an overwhelming tide of hatred and obsession burned fiercely in her direction.

I'm going to kill her... with my own two hands...

There was no room for reason or rationality to convince her otherwise.

<…….>

I suppose bringing up that I saw from Ishmael's obsession...

... a glimpse of her old Captain... won't do anything to help right now.

<Ishmael... We don't even know if that Captain is still alive.>

I was... desperately hanging onto my best mate's coffin. The coffin of someone with whom I'd shared everything. That's when I, through the tempest, saw the Captain.

I saw that fucker standing alone, facing down that Whale as it devoured her ship. Laughing mad.

Her fiercely loyal crew were floating on the surface of the Outskirts sea, powerless to do anything but wait until they too were devoured. But none of that mattered to her.

That bastard is alive.

She has to be alive still. She has to be.

So... I have to find her...

We have to... not before... we kill the Captain...

<Ishmael...>

I wanted to ask her which "we" she was referring to,

But...

I was starting to think that nothing I say would improve anything, if it didn't outright bring everything crashing down.

... That was when an imperceptibly light breeze broke through the silence.

A solitary butterfly.

It moved with grace tinged with fragility, as though it did not fear the weight of this heavy silence.

It took a moment to gently flutter onto a puddle.

…….

... That is a butterfly.

Hmph, you think any ordinary butterfly would wander into a place like this?

After a quick respite, the butterfly fluttered its wings and took off once again.

It's like... the butterfly is asking us to follow.

Is it an Abnormality? Finally. I was wondering when they'd show their ugly mugs.

…….

<It might be a trap... But we're lost. It's the only thing with any sense of direction we have at the moment.>

I am in agreement.

I am... also quite intrigued by the butterfly.

… … …. …

What do you think they are... saying?

I have been lending them my ear, yet none has yet to reach me.

They are speaking in a certain pattern, though I am unable to decipher it.

It is a code, of sorts. A mix of sound frequencies and encryption patterns.

Ah...

Don Quixote was at the far back end of the line, looking back at the figure.

I suppose... it is true that without Manager Esquire, there could be no resolution to thy predicament...

When I walked away, the pallid membrane grew over the face again, burying it.

And... it began to shamble.

Is it as Ishmael said...? Will they now roam the Great Lake, attacking everyone and everything they come across?

Not only their physical senses but also their sense of self... forgotten deep under the pallid membrane.