“Avalon…oh, how I missed you.”
The people here had no way of knowing, but Miss A would have been shocked to see this after what she saw in that study. Lilith’s expressionless face transformed into a lovely smile that made her look like a young child.
That smile on that face would cause anyone to fall in love with her. Mutsuki was charmed by it, but…
“Fujita!”
“Mutsuki-kun, get away from her!”
Ren and Lucia prepared for a fight, but…
“Nh…mh.”
He could not avoid the kiss from Lilith.
“Damn you!”
Lucia pulled out and raised his red scythe.
He usually favored trickier methods, but he attacked at her neck without any hesitation. The tip of the blade sank into her beautiful nape like she was made of mist or was only an illusion and it burst out from her throat.
There was blood on the scythe. It must have cut her, but she had regenerated in the very next moment.
“…”
She glanced back at Lucia in irritation while still stealing Mutsuki’s lips. Down below, Ren was searching for some kind of weapon.
They could not relax here.
“Let us leave this place, Avalon.”
She picked up the boy between kisses. He was uncertain, but he could not move, as if she were stealing something through his lips.
And then they both floated up from the bed.
They hit the ceiling, but they disappeared into that solid surface as if being sucked in. Again, it was like she was made of mist.
Lucia and Ren reached out toward them, but their hands passed right through those two who finally fully disappeared into the ceiling.
Adolescent Adam 8: Chapter 8 – The End of Adolescence and the Beginning of Perfection
Where was this?
Everything was dark.
He recognized this as a dream he had had before. And once he realized that, his mind grew oddly clear.
He “woke up” in the dream.
Over the past five days, he had not been able to sleep peacefully what with being kidnapped and everything.
So he had not dreamed the entire time.
He had not once had that recurring dream.
“Adam.”
A woman stood before him.
She almost felt empty with her transparently white skin and the way she seemed to blend into the darkness. Her hair had looked blonde in the room’s lights, but in the darkness, its color faded to a silver instead.
And yet he could not tell it apart from the darkness. That woman, Lilith, carried an odd impression.
“Tell me. Why didn’t you choose me?”
Deep sorrow filled her words as she leaned toward him and guided his hand to her crotch. That sexual red flower looked quite vivid on her white skin and it was soaking wet.
“Why did you choose Lucya over me? Why did you have a child with her?”
“…”
He suddenly found himself in that wheat field from his dreams.
A brown-skinned girl was surrounded by a sweet wheat scent as she slept in a bed made of post-harvest straw. The core of the apple they had shared had been tossed aside and two sets of clothing lay next to that.
“Avalon…why didn’t you choose me?”
“…”
Avalon was him.
He somehow knew.
He stroked the sleeping brown-skinned girl’s cheek. That girl with unkempt blonde hair looked somehow similar to Lucia. No, it was Lucia. He also somehow knew that and it did not surprise him.
He could no longer see Lilith, but he could guess where she was. He looked even further out than the distant village. Apple trees, grape vines, and fig trees were growing there and being harvested with large boxes.
Lilith sat on one of those boxes with her long, long blonde hair falling behind her. She sulkily held her knees in her arms and snacked on a few of the grapes.
Mutsuki walked toward her.
All of a sudden, he felt like his body was melting.
It had not actually melted. It was more like he had broken free of some kind of membrane.
He looked back and saw a fit and half-naked young man.
He did not recognize the man, but the face somewhat reminded him of the one he always saw in the mirror.
The young man returned to the straw bed and once more embraced the girl named Lucya.
Mutsuki left the two of them to walk toward Lilith.
“Is that the previous Adam?” he asked her. “The one called Avalon?”
“Yes. That is Avalon. That is you.”
“…”
Was it his past life? He kind of felt like it was.
This was probably the period of time Shuntarou had mentioned when humanity had previously faced the rivalry and had their numbers greatly reduced and civilization greatly regressed.
The previous Adam known as Avalon had chosen the Eve known as Lucya and had a child. And those genes had created the current human race.
But another girl had not been chosen by Adam back then.
“Have you been waiting all this time?”
“It has been so long. So very, very long.”
He accepted Lilith as she nestled up against him.
In that instant, the wheat field vanished and darkness closed in around him again.
“Fujita Mutsuki. Is that your name?”
“Yes.”
“An excellent name. Fujita Mutsuki, please remember my name as well. I am Lilith, your wife.”
She wrapped her arms around to his back.
Her rustling blonde hair’s color had faded as if by exposure to the great gulf of time. But her silver eyes retained their light and her feminine beauty seemed to have been recognized by god himself.
She was more beautiful than any other woman on the surface of the earth.
She was the ideal pursued by all men and he could tell she loved only him.
He was trapped…he was swallowed up.
He felt some fear from that, but…
“Come here…you know what you must do now, don’t you?”
“…”
What was he supposed to do?
He recalled Ren and the grim reality he had seen over the past five days.
He had been wondering for a while how he could comfort Ren.
No, he had been wondering something else even before that.
“The world was created from discord.”
God was the only perfect being in the world.
He had been wondering this ever since he had received something that came from god.
“The human world has naught but discord. Civilization can bring naught but discord. In all of recorded history, conflict has never vanished from the human world. No human in this world is without sin. All life is born into the crucible of natural selection.”
“…Yes.”
“But if there is one – just one – form of harmony that can exist…”
“It must be…”
“Huh?”
Ange and Machina came to a stop after cutting through the Bioroids who kept attacking even after 100 of them had been defeated.
The Enjus filling the hallway had suddenly stopped moving.
A moment later, their bodies turned into black Succubi and melted away. All that remained were the mechanical skeletons.
“Wh-what just happened?”
“…Unknown.”
Burning away people who looked just like her had been weird, but it was also creepy to see them melting. Ange was naturally bothered by this, but Machina was confused as well.
The demon part of those demon-machine hybrids had given up on living. Almost like they had lost the demonic power keeping their bodies stable.
“Lady Lilith decided they are no longer necessary. Tch. It would seem she has captured the Adam boy.”
“Miss A?”
Alice and Schwarze ran over to join them.
“Lilith? You mean the Queen of Demons?”
Ange must not have been informed of that part because she frowned.
“She had apparently contacted the Kurosaki Family. You have grown careless, angels. A deal between demons and humans is the kind of thing heaven should really crack down on.”
“If that is true, then we really were careless, but this is the first I’ve heard of her being here.”
She accepted the fault, but she must have been frustrated too because she made an upset jab of her sword.
Alice did not respond, but Schwarze’s eyebrows twitched.