PandoraHearts ~Caucus Race~, Vol. 2 (16 page)

“Are you both deaf!? I said I want to make a child with Oz!”

“Why are you talking crazy all of a sudden, rabbit~~~~~~~~~~~~?!!”

Gilbert grabbed Alice’s shirtfront.

“Are you stupid?! No, I know you’re stupid, but are you
terminally
stupid?! Do you know what making a kid means? Child-rearing is really tough: It means changing diapers and feeding it milk and giving it baths and staying up all night with it when it cries and cuddling it and saying ‘There, there’—and that’s not even the problem! Don’t you dare say insane stuff to Oz and cause him trouble!”

Gilbert—red-faced, steam spouting from his head, eyes whirling—scolded Alice.

Alice, who’d been yanked into the air by her shirtfront, drew her brows together in displeasure.

“Shut up!”

She rammed her forehead into Gilbert’s and shook his hand off. “Hmph,” she huffed, straightening her rumpled shirt.

Gilbert looked at Alice. He had a hand to his forehead, and he seemed dizzy.

Alice folded her arms, striking a grand pose.

“‘Stupid stupid stupid stupid’… Is that the only word you know, you low-watt seaweed head!? I am always serious, and I always mean what I say!” she said with a flourish.

Overwhelmed by that overpowering, self-confident force, Gilbert was aghast. Holding his forehead, which had gone red, he thought, dazedly,
Is she nuts?
At Gilbert’s silence, Alice smiled triumphantly, gloating: “Ha-haaaa.”

Gilbert spoke.

“……Why…do you want a kid? Do you want to……to marry Oz?!”

He seemed absolutely unconvinced, as if he didn’t even think he
could
accept it.

“Marry…?” Alice murmured. Her face softened slightly. Her expression was so fragile and gentle that Gilbert was almost won over in spite of himself. For a little while, Alice seemed to think. Then she answered:

“What’s this ‘marry’ business? Can you eat it?”

“Huh?!” said Gilbert.

“Well, if it’s edible, I’ll eat that, too.”

Alice looked as if her curiosity had been piqued; her nostrils were twitching. Gilbert hung his head silently, as though he was getting a headache. Then, as if something had caught his attention, he muttered, “……That ‘too’?” Stiffly, he raised his head.

“Answer me, stupid rabbit. What do you want a kid
for
in the first place?”

“Hah! That’s obvious.”

Alice looked down her nose at Gilbert:
Don’t you even know
that,
you fool!?
Then, with an attitude of complete condescension, as if saying,
I suppose there’s no help for it. I’ll make an exception and tell you
, she answered:

“Heh-heh-heh…… Obviously. Because I want to eat delicious things. Why else?”

“…………!?”

Gilbert was dumbfounded. It was as if he’d abruptly taken another hit to the head.

He shook his head, wondering if he’d heard her wrong. However, Gilbert had definitely heard what Alice had said. She wanted a child so she could eat it.

Pandora had confirmed the existence of Chains that devoured humans. However, Gilbert had never thought he’d hear those words come from Alice’s mouth.

It was true that Alice was the B-Rabbit, a vicious Chain that other Chains feared.

Lately, he’d only been exposed to her greedy, stupid-rabbit aspect, so he kept forgetting, but…

Did this mean Alice was revealing her true nature as a Chain?

With cold sweat breaking out on his forehead, Gilbert spoke:

“Enough joking around. To…eat? Are you serious!?”

“You forgot ‘deliciously.’ That part’s important. If it’s Oz’s child, I bet I’ll experience flavor like never before!

“Mwa-ha-ha-ha-haaah!” As Alice laughed, exhilarated, she looked like the devil himself.

Gulping, Gilbert barred Alice’s way. In a low voice, he muttered, “……I won’t let you.”

Alice only gave a dangerous-sounding sigh: “Hoh…

“You’re going to get in my way?—You…you lowly marine product?”

“Of course I am! As if anyone would let you do that! Think again, you stupid rabbit.”

“I will not! No one—but
no one
—gets between me and my meals.”

Alice widened her stance slightly, dropping her hips. It was the stance of a carnivore about to leap at its prey, a stance that said,
Maybe I’ll eat you, too.
Even as Gilbert felt baffled, he told Alice off, anger clear in his voice.

“And anyway, you know there’s no way Oz would agree to that…that ridiculous demand!”

“Why you… Are you mocking my lofty ambition?!”

Alice’s eyes were growing colder, sharper, and more dangerous. However, Gilbert didn’t care.

“What’s lofty about it?! …I thought you were a halfway decent sort…someone I wouldn’t mind acknowledging, and yet you—! So, what, does this mean Chains and humans are fundamentally unable to coexist?!”

“Interesting! Now that you’ve gone that far, I expect you’re prepared, right!?”

A savage smile burst onto her face, and Alice launched herself.

In an instant, she’d landed right in front of Gilbert, leaned back into a midair somersault, and unleashed a kick. Her target was Gilbert’s chin.

However, at the last second, Gilbert twisted and evaded it. The toe of Alice’s boot grazed his cheek, drawing a red line. “Oho, you dodged that!” Alice laughed loudly. As she touched down, she switched directions and came at Gilbert again.

“Tch!” Gilbert clicked his tongue and stretched out an arm to capture Alice. Alice struck it aside with her hand and cut loose with a roundhouse kick. Realizing he wouldn’t be able to dodge this one, Gilbert intentionally took the kick in his side, then trapped her leg.

Just as he was about to take her down and pin her to the floor, Alice’s free leg aimed a kick at Gilbert’s temple. There was really no way he could let that one hit home; Gilbert dropped the leg he’d caught and leaned back, avoiding the kick.

“Hah! And here I thought all you could do was shoot a gun. Not bad, Raven!” Alice sounded elated, delighted.

“Just calm down, B-Rabbit!”

Gilbert’s anger was boiling over. However, Alice didn’t seem to care what he said, and she launched another kick.

Gilbert dodged that kick, but on taking the follow-up volley of knees and legs that Alice rained down on him, he reflexively drew his gun from inside his coat. He didn’t intend to shoot, of course. He’d only thought the threat might serve to cool Alice’s head. But—

Alice’s face wore a taunting smile:
Go on. Shoot.

The air between them grew tenser and harder.

Finally, just as it reached its limit, and a cat’s small “mew” was heard somewhere in the distance…

“Hah!” Alice gave a scornful laugh and charged him head-on, and Gilbert spat out, “You complete idiot—” His fingers tightened on the grip of his gun.

The two of them screamed at the same moment.

“Stupid rabbit! Don’t be rash! You’re not eating a baby!”

“Seaweed head! I just want to eat yummy grilled pork skewers!”

And then…

“……………………………………………………Huh?”

The two stopped in their tracks, staring at each other.

“Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah……”

Oz heaved a long, long sigh. He was sitting at the foot of an elm tree in the courtyard at Pandora Headquarters, leaning back against the trunk, his legs flung out in front of him. The soft light that filtered through the leaves dappled his clothes.

I can’t believe I panicked and ran away from Alice…… I’m the worst.

Remorse weighed on him so heavily he felt as if he might sink deep into the earth. He’d considered himself to be calm and collected under most circumstances, and he didn’t think he was slow-witted. He couldn’t believe he’d been thrown into confusion so easily, just because someone had told him they wanted to “make a child.”

No, well, I just…… I mean, I can’t even imagine it…

He’d been startled and upset, and he hadn’t known what to do. No, that wasn’t right: He knew exactly what he had to do.

He couldn’t grant Alice’s request. That was all there was to it.

Uwaaah… Am I a complete failure as a guy…?

Oz had lost all self-confidence.

Without really meaning to, he curled up, hugging his knees and burying his face in them. What should he say to Alice? How should he apologize? The thoughts went around and around in his head, but no answer presented itself. He tightened his arms around his knees, curling up even smaller.

It was as if he hoped he’d keep getting smaller and smaller until he disappeared.

—
Lick.

As Oz sat there, hiding his face and hugging his knees, something licked his fingers lightly. “???” Oz raised his head.

A familiar white cat was sitting demurely on the grass, licking Oz’s hand.

It seemed almost as if it was trying to comfort him.

“Hey, you’re Snowdrop…… What’re you doing here?”

The cat was always with Oz’s little sister Ada, and he thought it was odd to see it at Pandora Headquarters. Was Ada here? As Oz looked around curiously, he saw two figures enter the courtyard from the building. Oz’s shoulders shook slightly.

It was Alice and Gilbert.

When Gilbert caught sight of Oz, he called to him. His voice held both relief and worry: “Oz!” Gilbert was holding Alice by the scruff of her neck, as if she were a cat, and Alice was struggling. “Lemme go!”

“—So that’s where you were, Oz. I looked all over for you.”

Coming right up to Oz, Gilbert broke into a relieved smile. Alice was trying to shake off his hand; crossly, she said, “It’s not my fault!” Oz could only watch, perplexed; he didn’t know why Gilbert was doing that.

“Don’t worry, Oz. It was all a misunderstanding. All of it.”

“…A misunderstanding?”

Gilbert’s words left Oz as perplexed as before.

“Right, see…” Gilbert began to explain, but then stopped. He pushed Alice’s head toward Oz.

“Explain it yourself,” he told her. Alice looked blank. “Explain what?”

This irritated Gilbert.

“Why you suddenly started saying you wanted a kid!”

“Ah, that.” Looking as though it all made sense now, Alice glanced at Oz.

Alice had already told Oz that the reason she wanted a child was because, right now, it was what she needed most, but—

Alice shook off Gilbert’s hand, puffing her chest out proudly.

“I already told you! Because I want to eat delicious things!”

“To eat……?!
Gack, koff!
” Oz was so startled that he choked.

Gilbert smacked Alice upside the head. Alice complained—“Quit hitting my head!”—and then gave a little growl. Oz had no idea what was going on.

With a resigned sigh, Gilbert said:

“Forget it. I’ll explain. It’s going to take a while, but hear me out, Oz.”

Oz nodded. Snowdrop, the white cat, clambered up onto his knees, so he hugged it to his chest as he listened to Gilbert.

Gilbert began to speak, relaying what Alice had told him about “yesterday.”

Yesterday, Oz, Gilbert, and Alice had gone into town together. However, just after they’d reached the town, Alice had wandered off, and they hadn’t seen her again for a little while…

During that time, Alice had walked around town on her own, and she’d ended up rescuing a young man from one of the street stalls who was being harassed by a gang of toughs. “Rescued” might not have been quite the right word—apparently the toughs had tried to harass Alice, too, so she’d casually knocked them out cold—but at any rate, the young man had been terribly grateful.

In thanks, the youth had treated Alice to one of the skewers of grilled pork he sold at his stall. According to Alice, she’d enjoyed it.

At that point, Oz had absolutely no idea how this story was connected to making children.

Telling him that the next part was the problem, Gilbert continued.

As Alice was eating her pork skewer, new customers arrived: a family with children. The family bought the same sort of pork skewers Alice had and sat on the bench beside the stall to eat them. Alice said the flavor of the grilled skewers
had been only so-so, but apparently the family with children had eaten theirs with delight, as if they were the best things they’d ever tasted.

Finding the situation odd, Alice asked them directly, not bothering to choose her words carefully:

“Hey, you. Are those pork skewers actually that good?”

The family looked a bit startled at having been spoken to so abruptly, but the mother smiled and answered.
“Yes, they’re very good,”
she’d said.

“…And then the mother said
this
to the stupid rabbit.”

Gilbert pulled a very sour face.

To wind up the story, he relayed the mother’s remark—which had been overflowing with affection, and had become the cause of all this trouble—to Oz.

“‘Food you eat with your children seems many times better,’ she said.”

“Isn’t that amazing, Oz?! Many
times
better!” Alice was terribly excited.

She clenched both her hands into fists and leaned in toward Oz, eyes sparkling. Oz was speechless.

Gilbert scratched his head, looking disgusted by Alice’s attitude.

“…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Um, Alice-san?”

In contrast to Alice, who kept repeating “Amazing, amazing,” Oz was silent for a long time, but he finally managed to squeeze out a few words. Alice looked at him: “What?”

“When you talked about making a child, was that maybe—?”

“So meat would taste many times better, obviously! What else could it have been?!”