She was crying. She didn't grasp how this could have happened. Wonderland had somehow transformed into the Labyrinth… And she herself had been transformed into "something that was not human".
She had no idea as to why. Within the darkness, she pulled her transformed legs together and sobbed silently.
"What are you doing there?"
A voice called out to her and she raised her head. A girl with an unhealthy look on her face was standing there. She shoved her hand into the pocket of the hospital gown she was wearing and walked barefoot into the basement.
"I've found number G46, Master Lewis."
With her hands over her ears, she directed her voice up into the sky. Then, after a short pause, she said to the girl who had started crying again, her face in her knees.
"Don't you know why you're here?"
She nodded. The girl in the hospital gown stared down at her blankly for a moment, then said in a quiet voice, "We, the Original Nightmares, are the products of an error. Even if we are left alone, we will eventually disappear from this world."
"…"
"And so will you. Even I myself. We're not going to see the 'demise of the Apocrypha' as it's called…"
Hearing those words, the girl looked up. Then she glanced up at her with a face that had been transformed and was beginning to disintegrate like a clay doll.
"The demise of… Apocrypha…?"
"…"
The girl in the hospital gown contorted her face sorrowfully for an instant and then brought her hand up in front of the girl. From the empty space, a messed up "thing" appeared with a thumping sound and rolled into the basement.
There was a sickening visceral stench.
Although she didn't know what that was, the stench seemed very "sweet" to her. She looked down at the corpse as if attracted by it.
"I'll give it to you. I killed it around here." The girl in the hospital gown said as if it was a trivial matter. "If you don't eat it, your data chain will collapse. Eat it."
She extended a trembling hand. Then she picked up a piece of the shattered corpse and began to stuff it into her mouth.
Slurping up the blood; swallowing the guts; chewing the flesh. As her stomach filled up, her thoughts became clearer. The disintegration of her body, which had begun to collapse, slowly subsided and began to form a beautiful shape.
"Yes, that's your… 'Gryphon' ability. Take it in. The data of Alice will be inside you without leaving any trace." She continued with a small smile. "My name is Mock Turtle. You will protect me from now on and create a paradise. Let's see it together, shall we? The demise of Apocrypha."
Crouching down in front of the girl who kept gobbling up the meat, the girl who called herself Mock Turtle reached out her hand. She gently stroked the girl's head as adults do with children, as she kept sobbing and devouring.
"Let's live together. Even though the world is rotten. The two of us will certainly be able to survive."
◇
Exhaling roughly, she looked up at the "enemy" standing before me.
She couldn't hear a sound.
She couldn't catch sight of what was happening from one of her eyes.
The scenery around her was spinning in circles and it wouldn't stop.
She couldn't stand up.
My arms.
My arms are…?
Various things reverberated through her brain like electric shocks, but there was nobody to answer them and she couldn't figure them out.
The only thing that she understood was this.
That was, in a few seconds from now, she would be killed by this "enemy".
That was the irrefutable fact. She tried to scream, but couldn't find any voice and coughed up blood. In an almost instinctive movement, she moved.
Her silver hair pulsed and her Bandersnatch densely gathered, ready to rush at the Alice in front of her.
Right.
I'm going to live.
Together with Mock, and always will be.
Beyond even the demise of Apocrypha.
We will create paradise.
Together, we'll live on…
Together.
There was a thud, a heavy bass sound. Stelcis' head was severed in two by Alice's Bandersnatch, which was launched a moment earlier.
Her vision shifted.
In her fading consciousness, the last thing she could see was darkness.
◇
"He made his escape, didn't he?" Alice said nonchalantly, and Jack released a small grunt of pain. When he pulled his Dáinsleif out of the rubble, a massive amount of human flesh pieces dropped to the ground in a sticky mess.
The skewered Jabberwock had apparently discarded a part of his body and forced his way out. His figure was already out of sight.
Jack was silent briefly as he observed Alice returning with two cores, rainbow-colored mists emerging from her body. He reached out and gently stroked her head with his armored hand.
"Let's both calm down a little. There's no point in getting worked up over it."
"Yeah…"
"You… won…?" Raffi continued, muttering in a daze. "Did we win…?"
"Yes, we… missed the Jabberwock, but… it was practically a complete victory…"
The standing Iberis had reached her limit, and her fluctuating legs and arms dissipated into the air. Philrain hurriedly supported her as she tumbled to the ground.
Then, a loud alarm suddenly sounded in the shelter, announcing an emergency. After a glance at the frightened Philrain, Alice said with a bitter look on her face. "It's the… Jabberwock. I guess he's trying to blow up the power reactor in this shelter…"
"Let's get out of here," Jack said, sheathing his Dáinsleif at his waist and glancing around.
"But where are we going to run to…?"
Raffi asked, and Jack continued in a composed tone.
"Before we came here, we noticed that there was a relay station, though it was quite far away. I'll use my Dáinsleif to slash away the 'distance' to it and build a path."
"W-Wait…" Iberis said in a broken voice. "Some of the people in our shelter may still be alive… We have to save them…"
"We don't appear to have time for that," Alice remarked blandly, as if she were a puppet, and looked at the crater they had just drilled. There was a hollow space extending down to the basement, from which a white discharge of light can be seen.
"But…"
"Besides, we need to treat Iberis immediately. Jack, let's go."
"… Okay," Jack said in a stifled voice and held Iberis in one hand with Philrain.
"No…! We can't just abandon them!"
Iberis' voice was hoarse, but Alice ignored it and looked down at Raffi. Raffi looked at her left eye and was momentarily horrified.
That was like a glass ball.
It was nothing more than a sphere that reflected light and lacked any emotion.
It wasn't even in focus.
"Alice…?"
"Raffi, too. We don't have time for this."
At the side of Alice, who was speaking in a light tone, Jack swung his Dáinsleif at the empty air in the style of a drawn sword. The air ripped open, revealing a dark space behind it.
"Please, we have to rescue them…!"
Iberis stretched out her remaining arm. But Jack, accompanied by Alice, slid his body into the gap in the space without hesitation.
Raffi stared at the underground power reactor, which continued to discharge for a while. This was because the Jabberwock standing beside it seemed small. He gritted his teeth… and let his body dive into the rift of the space.