Children (before battle)
That's not it.
That's not how you shorten it!
Nooo...
You're doing it wrong, Mommy!
Just follow after me.
You get it now? Don't forget!
Such a shame.
That a blade tempered to such ruthless sharpness was used...
... to cut away her own mind.
Your baby's still at that house, ain't that right?
So the lines I learned to draw were connections, not boundaries.
Now, I watch from outside the clew the moments that have slipped past you.
When the End brushes past the Beginning, I will take you in my arms and bear you home.
<... shū.>
<Ryōshū, are you all right?>
…….
... Ah.
Am fine.
Ryoshu closed her eyes shut, then opened them again.
Some time ago, at the Laboratory...
Why did the Nursefathers create things like you?
The same people who used to complain day and night about what a pain it was to look after me... are keeping underlings now?
"Children."
We are their children.
... Hah.
So, what role are you "children" playing?
Yoshihide, the day you return to the House of Spiders...
We, the five children, shall bind together the thread you have slashed to pieces...
... and complete the clew.
…….
The Nursefathers of the House were beside themselves with concern, Yoshihide.
Were you to return home having forgotten even the time you had spent at their side...
... it would feel as though all the years poured into nurturing and honing you had gone to waste, they said.
Hah. Didn't know they called their errand boys their "children."
What they call us is immaterial to the relationship we share with them.
No. It's got a different echo.
The bond between a child and the parent is thicker, firmer. So much so that, even after I have mutilated my own mind with this sword... a thread of something remains still.
Yet my master tells me...
... that she has tended to you enough through all the time that has passed.
... Tended to me?
Yoshihide.
How does it feel to be a living fetter?
... Fet... ter?
I am... barred from enjoying the fresh air of the world outside,
no longer free to travel the mountains and cliffs as my feet would carry me... as the other members of the Pinky are.
I wish to no avail that I should be allowed to weave the delineations of Wings and Backstreets.
I don't understand... what you mean.
You don't? I'm saying I did not endure my grueling life only to be trapped here as your Nursefather.
Well? What do you make of it, Yoshihide?
*sniffle*
Stifle your crying. What makes you think you have the right to shed tears?
If anyone has a reason to cry, it is me.
Ever since you were pushed into my care, not a day has passed without me wanting to cry.
My knees...
Momm - Mother, I scraped... my knees...
Keep your bawling out of my sight.
Snotty, sniveling little brat... Disgusting. You wouldn't have gotten hurt if you weren't such a slow dullard.
Next time, keep your eyes open and dodge before it hits.
Maybe... maybe if you had a leg ripped away from you...
…….
Then you'd also taste a drop of this crippling agony of imprisonment.
That woman... was the one who hated me the most.
She blamed me for her fate.
Yet in the end, Yoshihide... It is thanks to her...
That your mastery of the blade has been cultivated to such a degree - enough to parry both this humble blade of mine and that brute's sword.
The man blocked the Ring Apprentice's blow as though it were a performance meant for Ryōshū.
…!
Uh, Ryōshū? I know there's some bad blood involved here... but this is our chance.
Let's pull out while they're busy fighting each other. We need to go after the one who swiped the Golden Bough, yeah?
Her whereabouts are unknown. However... this is indeed our chance to hie away from here.
*sigh*
We made our escape through another route while the Ring and the Pinky Apprentices were busy fighting each other.
That technique he used... was that hers? The Pinky Nursefather?
... Yeah.
It was one of my gouged-out memories, but clashing blades with him reawakened it.
The "Nursefathers" wanted me to learn every single one of their techniques.
That Pinky woman, too... she sure hated me all right, but that didn't stop her from teaching me what she knew.
... Probably to make me a more prolific, more efficient killer.
And that's why losing me was such a harrowing failure for them. All the work they poured into me slipped right through their fingers when I left the spiderweb.
Hmm... Well, love-hate can play out in all sorts of ways, I guess.
Your memories... did you hew them away yourself?
Yeah. With my own hands.
I was reminded of the expression I saw on Ryōshū's face in one of her memory fragments.
When she sliced off the Pinky Nursefather's tongue...
When she drove the blade she never unsheathed before us into that woman's mouth...
What I saw on Ryōshū was the expression of suffering.
Every time I draw this blade and cut something...
I'm also slicing away a piece of my mind.
That's the reason I didn't want to use this blade.
But had I not done so, they'd have taken her away from me for good.
The one last thing Ryōshū didn't want to let go.
The word that came out of Lei Heng's mouth the moment he saw her.
<Your baby...>
It was for her that Ryōshū sliced off both her own memories and the Pinky Nursefather's tongue.
... My blood, my ward... my daughter.
<Lei Heng said she's still there... in the House of Spiders.>
Yeah. In a place only I know. In a safe... that nobody else can find.
<What was your daughter to you?>
... Don't see why I should play coy at this point.
The one and only... precious thing.
She's all I have.
Even without her memories, Ryōshū spoke without any doubt.
I caught myself thinking how nice it must be to have such certainty.
<... I see. As long as we can stick to this path, we'll all eventually find the things we lost.>
Right. I know that.
<C'mon, let's go after them. With the elevator still busted, they can't have escaped to a different floor just yet.>
<The Golden Bough... It's faint, but I can still sense its presence.>