Chapter 1 - Nightmare’s Temptation
“Ku-rumi……”
It was not in his intention to utter that name.
The moment the girl in his line of sight came into view, both Shidou’s attention and focus converged onto her figure like arrows honing in on a target. ——He had but uttered that name partly on ineluctable reflex.
The impression exuded by her towards others——was more than enough to captivate Shidou’s vision and bottle it up forever.
Splendid hair as sable as black pearls.
Glossy skin with a luster like that of white porcelain.
A bewitching grin on cherry red lips.
And the faintly visible corner of a clockwork eye.
Such a description could portray just one person in this world.
——Kurumi. Tokisaki Kurumi.
The ‘Worst Spirit’, capable of manipulating time using her Angel, <Zafkiel>.
The Spirit who had emerged before Shidou and the others innumerable times, targeted their lives, even alternating between standing against and with them time and again, was there.
“But, why——”
That fragment of a sentence spewed out of his mouth.
Where she had loomed constituted neither a secluded aley late in the evening nor one of the plights Shidou fell into after being besieged by the enemy—— This was classroom 2-4 of Shidou’s high school.
The embodiment of abnormality sat in a way which personified the everyday norm. Such an unbalancing presence made him quench the drought in his throat with his own saliva.
“——Fufu.”
Perched atop a chair, Kurumi eased her face with satire as she engrossed herself in Shidou’s reaction.
“Why…? What an odd question to ask, Shidou-san. Don’t you have anything else to say to your long-lost classmate who’s just returned to school?”
She straightened her posture as if to display her attire.
She donned not an Astral Dress stained with scarlet red blood, but a jacket matching her pleated skirt——the standard issue high school uniform that Shidou and everybody else were wearing.
“You……”
He creased his brows, venting a garbled voice.
No doubt, Kurumi had been a member of that class a few months earlier. The method notwithstanding, she seemed to have gone through the official procedures and entered the class, treating the abeyance as a sabbatical leave.
Yet, even so, Shidou was not going to accept it obediently. In the end, her entry indicated that cross hairs had already been carved onto his back.
“Ara, ara.”
Perhaps all the warning flags in his vision were raised at once. Kurumi stood up on a facetious whim and made a pre-emptive stride towards him.
“Shidou!”
“————”
Alerted by her sudden advance, two shadows leapt out from behind Shidou like sentinels on the lookout.
Unconfined hair the color of the night alongside a short pale shoulder-level trim, they were the Spirits who attended the same school as Shidou——Yatogami Tohka and Tobi chi Origami.
Nonetheless, both of them were but dancing within the palm of Kurumi’s hand. She exhibited not an ounce of discomposure on her faux smirk as she traced her lips with it.
“Ufufu, popular as always, Shidou-san.”
An uncanny remark came off Kurumi, her looming gaze sizing Tohka and Origami up.
“Fret not. I, too, harbor no intention to cause any trouble.”
“What are you trying to do……!”
“Why should we believe you?”
“My, my, aren’t I unwelcome. How heart-rending indeed.”
“Mgh……”
Kurumi veneered herself in a farce for sympathy. Tohka, at sixes and sevens, copied Origami’s grim poker-face without another blink.
Amid her charade, Kurumi let out a few snickers.
“……If I had so foolhardily wished to employ a more, violent, method, my Angel would have turned up at present.”
“Guh——”
All but silence remained in Shidou as she pilfered his speech. Kurumi’s simper beamed from ear to ear, the girl resuming with the eloquence of a chorus.
“Blanketing the premises with the <City of Devouring Time>, my clones utilizing the unconscious students as human shields…… each and every one of your classmates’ heads held at gunpoint, how would Shidou-san opt to tackle me? I look forward to that.”
“Kurumi……!”
“Kihihi, hihi.”
A spine-chilling, sinister cackle comprised Kurumi’s response to having her name called out by Shidou.
“I implore you to be so kind as to take my word that I won’t do such. If you still prove unable to trust me——then I shall be more than willing to abide by your preference.”
“……ch, you——”
Pitted against clear-cut intimidation performed so seductively, Shidou had his breath taken away.
Tohka and Origami heightened their guards as well , clenching their fists in resentment, only to be called off with a touch of Shidou’s hands on their shoulders.
“………Alright.”
“Ufufu, what a kind person you are, Shidou-san.”
It seemed to be a correct answer from him, as Kurumi looked filled with delight and fixed her hair.
Shidou could do naught except avert his eyes at the enchanting sight, yet he stayed vigilant about the femme fatale.
If she were not to have tempered with his rationale, then why had she gone back to school?
Shidou had no clue.
“Kurumi, why did you……”
“Ufufu, have the goodness to refrain from making such a frightening face——I’ve but come to find pleasure in school life together with Shidou-san.”
“…………”
Shidou was speechless.
Like delivering a pasquinade, Kurumi shrugged her shoulders and continued despite his solemn silence——and in a volume audible to the entire class.
“You’re too cruel~! I humbly wished no more than to go to school with Shidou-san——even after I obeyed everything you ordered me to do!? I’ve been nigh on disrobed at Shidou-san’s house, ready without hesitation to serve at your call! Can’t I have just this meager reward for all I’ve done?”
“Huh!?”
The ravings of the seductress elicited an emphatic shout from the boy.
“W-What are you talking about! Those things never——”
Shidou made haste to emend.
Though that haste had gone to waste by then. His classmates, having given ear to Kurumi’s promulgation, were now imposing awkward stares and whispering in hushed tones.
“Eh…… is that true? Has Itsuka-kun struck again?”
“By the way, isn’t she the Tokisaki-san who transferred here in June?”
“Seems that she was supposed to be on leave…… Could it be that she’d been at Itsuka’s house all along……!?”
And so, the dice of groundless rumors had been cast all at once.
“……Oou……”
Shidou’s face was stained with the most desperate of desperations as he placed a hand on his forehead. On the contrary, merry giggles escaped Kurumi’s mouth, perhaps resulting from his quandary.
However, his current plight entailed otherwise, not to mention that his reputation had been, and still was, shabby to begin with. In order to raise his mood, Shidou scratched his hair and heaved a sigh too deep, setting his sights back on Kurumi afterwards.
“……Just to enjoy school life, eh. If only that’s your true motive, then I’ll gladly welcome you.
Heck, we’ll even throw a welcome party for you if that’s the case. ——Of course, only if you let me seal your reiryoku.”
Shidou spoke with winces between his words.
Needless to say, he had not meant those statements as they were. No, to be precise, they did stem from his heart. Never in his wildest dreams could he have predicted what followed next.
Kurumi’s answer eclipsed his anticipations.
“Sure, sure. I wouldn’t mind.”
“……Eh?”
He was dumbfounded at her response.
Shidou meditated on the subtle tenor of her pronouncements. When he suspected his own ears and brain of abnormalities in communication, he darted a glance at Tohka’s and Origami’s expressions, only to discover a reflection of his own.
“Kurumi……? What did you just say——”
“To reiterate, I have no qualms about relinquishing my reiryoku to Shidou-san. That being said……”
Kurumi erected her index finger, a devilish grin delineating her mouth.
“I’ve but a single stipulation.”
“……”
His breaths became laden.
For that Kurumi to so forthrightly hand over her powers, it was far from rocket science to imagine what sort of unfulfillable condition she was going to propound. Presuming that she was pulling his leg would have fared better.
Yet Shidou opted not to. If there existed even the most microscopic possibility of sealing Kurumi’s reiryoku, Shidou had no choice besides venturing that impossible risk——More importantly, her playful gaze was no more as an unprecedented demeanor now took its place.
He resolved himself to probe.
“……This condition, what is it?”
“It’s——”
Then.
The moment Kurumi’s lips fluttered, the bell signaling the start of the lesson rang.
“Ara, ara. Look at the time. Be it a pity, nothing can be done.”
With a twist and turn, she moved to head towards her seat.
“Kurumi!”
Shidou raised his voice to derail her, not expecting its more-than-audible volume to attract the attention of a few classmates like a magnet.
Be that as it may, Kurumi remained composed, unsurprised at the flat-fallen attempt. She tittered, placing a drawn finger on her mouth.
“The details shall follow after school. A bit of a crowd has gathered here. Not to mention—— a student’s duty is to study, correct?”
Leaving behind that particular phrase, Kurumi gradually disappeared from Shidou’s side.
“……Tobi chi Origami, former member of the AST, ranked Master Sergeant at the time, Wizard level B+; resigned due to personal circumstances a few months ago.”
Within the walls of a room inside DEM Industries’ Japan Branch, Artemisia Ashcroft read aloud a document pixelated on the screen, her hand fumbling with her chin.
The strands of her glimmering golden hair seemed to absorb every trace of burnished sunlight, complementing her ultramarine pupils in an effigy of the summer ocean. By and large shaping a demure smile, her face was currently marred with sporadic hints of daze and skepticism.
“——There’s no doubt about it. That’s definitely her.”
Artemisia plied the control panel for further details regarding the dossier.
Height, body weight, and Realizer unit training level to name a few, were among the scores of assorted data which lit up the monitor.
What she now accessed and connected to was the DEM-owned state database available to Wizards in each and every associated country.
The Wizards of today were individuals of not incantations or rituals, but plain utilization of Realizers, allowing them to spread out their Territories.
In consequence, there was a need to surgically insert a tiny electronic chip into their brains ——to carry that out in discreteness and discretion was in the first place unfeasible.
That is to say, all information concerning Wizards who used the Realizers manufactured by DEM was inevitably recorded inside.
About a month ago, when Artemisia had attempted to launch an assault against the Spirits convened in outer space, another Wizard arrived on stage. After she conducted an enquiry as a provision against all contingencies, the visual display unit revealed any intelligence queried from the database relevant to that girl.
“Hm……”
Artemisia nevertheless pouted, somewhat fed up.
Conforming to her expectations, the fact that the archive contained such knowledge was more than tolerable, notwithstanding that only rudimentary particulars were chronicled—— none which she sought.
“——What are you doing, Artemisia?”
Someone propped themselves against the back of her chair then. A voice resounded from behind her.
With a glimpse, unbeknown to Artemisia, there stood a lady. She bore hair of a colour paler than that of the young blonde’s and eyes of one darker than hers. If Artemisia were the sun, then she was a lady with illusory features like that of the moon.
Regardless, the exterior spoke not of the heart, for Artemisia lacked the arrogance to name herself after the sun in front of her.
Ellen Mira Mathers, DEM Industries’ second in command, renowned by all and sundry as humanity’s strongest Wizard.
“Ah, Ellen. I’ve a matter to look into.”
Responded to with such ambiguity, Ellen leant forwards to some degree, scanning what lay next to Artemisia’s hand.
“Tobi chi Origami’s data, eh…… What’s up with her?”
“You’re acquainted?”
“Un, quite.”
Ellen straitened her eyes a little. This was no reaction to write volumes about, but for some reason, she seemed to cling onto vestiges of abhorrence.
“Anything wrong? Between you and that girl.”
“No, not in particular.”
Ellen averted her gaze——ironclad evidence of her disinclination to expatiate on any further.
Artemisia capitulated and returned to their initial topic.
“This girl…… She’s a Spirit, right?”
“That is correct. Codename <Angel>. The Spirit this world once termed <Devil>.”
“Was she previously one of the AST?”
“Yes, apparently abdicating her post on account of becoming a Spirit.”
“Hmph……”
Fingers still grasping her chin, Artemisia examined a photograph of Origami which turned up on the screen anew, murmuring a few seconds later.
“About that, Ellen. She and I have met in days gone by, I suppose?”
“……What are you driving at?”
“This girl appears to recognise me.”
“…………”
Her words annihilated any of Ellen’s, though after a short time; alongside airy breaths, she regained her savoir faire.
“Artemisia, you’re belittling yourself to too great an extent. There isn’t a thing over the top about a former AST member knowing the SSS-ranked Artemisia Ashcroft.”
“Un…… perhaps you’re right.”
“I am. Frankly, I haven’t the faintest how you believed I’d know something you don’t yourself.”
“Ahaha…… I guess so.”
Watching Artemisia shrug her shoulders and form a wry grin, Ellen could not help but sigh.
“Either way, Ike’s calling for us. Let’s go.”
“Ah, all right. In a minute.”
Having sent the computer into sleep mode, she followed Ellen’s retreating figure out of the room.
“………..”
As they made their way through the corridor wordlessly, Ellen shot a peek at Artemisia from nowhere. Naturally, being the sentient girl she was, it had been a mere trifle for her to perceive, and thereupon to reciprocate with a smile, discountenancing Ellen, who returned to face forward again.
When Artemisia had first touched upon the subject of Tobi chi Origami, Ellen felt rather unnerved straight from the shoulder, but it looked as though Artemisia had not indulged in reminiscence.
She had indeed clashed blade to blade with Origami in the latest battle. There was no helping it if some uncertainties had arisen during their heated dialogue.
Swordplay exchanged in the battlefield surely could not have jogged her memories. Even so, it would prove more prudent to confirm her conversation log later just in case. Thinking thus, Ellen entered the elevator together with Artemisia.
“Um, Ellen, does this meeting mean that we’ve new plans?”
“Who knows? Anyhow, he did say that he has something to show us.”
“Something to show us?”
“Yes.”
Trading trivial banters and immaterial whatnots, both of them reached the top floor of the building——before DEM Industries’ Managing Director, Isaac Westcott’s chamber.
But.
“——”
Ellen came to an abrupt standstill, having detected that beyond the door lingered an unwonted presence.
Despite Westcott possessing an air of intimidation that the majority of commoners nowhere near did, the roiling presence a meagre doorstep away distilled a unique ambience.
As if——yes, as if a horde of horrors awaited them both with hushed breaths.
“Ellen.”
“——Yeah.”
Artemisia showed signs of realization, knitting her brows and grimacing.
“Exactly what is this?”
“I haven’t an idea.”
“Sir Isaac couldn’t have been…… attacked, could he?”
“Certainly not, even if this place is just a branch office, it’s still within DEM Industries all the same. Come what may, to launch an assault under our very noses, no person could——”
Ellen gasped part way.
——There was one; one who had once raided the Japan branch company.
The Spirit <Nightmare>——Capable of manipulating time and shadows, along with an infinite stockpile of clones amassed from precursory timelines.
Of course, they hardly lowered their guards. When it came to a possible assailant, however, no one except her came to mind. Ellen gritted her teeth and threw the door wide open, knocking being the least of her concerns.
“Ike! You all right!? Ik——”
But as she stomped into the room, her brisk tread and voice died out just as quick.
It was self-explanatory. No Spirit could be found in the suite, and Westcott sat comfortably on his armchair.
“This is……”
“——Ah, I see you’ve arrived, Ellen. What’s the matter? You look like you’ve seen an apparition.”
“No, it’s nothing.”
She spruced up the disheveled lapels of her suit not a moment later, whereafter Artemisia expelled a staggered expression in similar fashion.
“Eh……? I’m definite I sensed something in here……”
Tongue-in-cheek, Westcott delighted in feasting his eyes on the two’s reactions, then rose to his feet and ambled towards the window.
“Well. I’ve summoned the both of you today for no other reason——Further to the Spirit from outer space falling into Ratatoskr’s clutches, they’ve now totted up ten.”
“……I apologize for those disgraces of mine.”
Ellen hung her head in shame at his words.
During the collision in the cosmos, the <Goetia> led by her had been brought to its knees by the spaceship <Fraxinus>. This memory vividly abided in Ellen. If she had not been shot down there, the tide of the battle would have, for the most part, stayed unaltered.
Westcott boasted a paucity of objurgating her, though.
“There’s no need to stir up a fuss over those affairs. The two of you have done ever so well.
In fact, I dare say our present circumstances shall precipitate the best-case scenario.”
“The best?”
“Indubitably. An ample tally of Spirits have flocked together, and I’ve a, nevertheless partial, Demon King in my hands. ——Elliot’s absence is a pity if anything.”
“……Tch.”
Elliot. At the sound of that traitor’s name, Ellen’s face distorted into one of grimness without thinking.
Most likely having discerned her gravity, Westcott unwound his shoulders.
“In any case, the time’s quite fit. Still bearing in mind what I mentioned earlier, Ellen? —— We’ll have that Itsuka Shidou play the part of the key for us.”
“……! That’s——”
Her pupils dilated.
Westcott chortled, his right hand hoisted aloft.
A varnish of jet-black murk began to gush forth, and a tome of tenebrous bindings materialized——The Demon King <Beelzebub>, a spectacle in the form of a book he procured from the Spirit <Sister>.
Its prowess lay in omniscience: to see everything and to know everything which had happened, happened, and would happen in this world, truly the worst of the worst of abilities.
“Let that <Sister> throw a spanner in the works of my rootling around for all I care. With adequate welly, even the tiniest chink in Ratatoskr’s circumspection won’t be kept under their hats any longer. ——It’s about time we thoroughly proceeded with slaughter. Mercy is uncalled for. Flaunt the might of humanity’s strongest Wizard to your heart’s content.”
“Leave it to me. I will without fail deliver you the perfect outcome.”
“All right. I’ve high expectations for the both of you.”
As though living up to his words, Ellen refined her posture in assent, Artemisia following suit a beat later.
“Then, we had best depart straight away——”
“——Oh, and one more thing.”
At that moment, having cut in on her, Westcott seemed electrified by a sharp moment of remembrance and roused the tips of his shoulders.
“What is it?”
“I forgot to tell you something with regard to this operation——I’ve assembled the supplementary personnel for this stratagem.”
“Supplementary personnel——Wizards? Do you deem our capabilities insufficient?”
Ellen strived her utmost to enunciate in an equanimous manner; yet to no avail, for conspicuous tinctures of pique leaked from her concealments.
“I uttered no such thing. You’re beyond the shadow of a doubt the most powerful Wizard, and Artemisia’s endued with vigor second solely to yours. However, you mustn’t underestimate strength in numbers. Sealed Spirits are child’s play before you both, but place two and two together and they could delay you by a couple of minutes. And it is these few ticks that might cost you your target.”
“That……”
“Ahaha, you’ve got us in a bind.”
Artemisia tactlessly giggled while her mortified colleague crinkled her brows.
What Westcott had stated consisted but of the truth. The basis for Ellen, whose power was unrivaled, to fall through in capturing her objective on many occasions was without doubt the Spirits’ trammels.
Even with DEM’s Wizards and unmanned Bandersnatches, in view of the monumental disparity between the strength of the contemporary Spirits and theirs, the trepidation of additional troops was critical.
“But, Ike, I’m not acquainted with any Wizards competent to keep pace with us. To have us muck in with a half-baked team would influence our performance quite the reverse.”
“Aah, of course it would.”
He ratified her expounding with good grace.
“Still , I urge you to take it easy. They shall be of great use to you, I believe.”
Raising his hand in his own good time, Westcott snapped his fingers.
In the twinkling of an eye, innumerable sheets of paper proliferated from the back of his chair like a frenetic gale, eddying in mid-air.
“Wha——”
“Waa!”
The rapid unforeseen turn of events paralyzed both ladies, after which the pieces of paper mantled the walls all the way to the hilt.
At that point, the two at long last ascertained the layers of paper to be the pages of an antiquated book.
“This……”
Ellen tapered her vision in a bid to zoom in on them——just to immediately broaden her eyelids in disbelief.
It was no wonder. Droves of girls crawled out of the pages.
Heads of grey hair gravitating towards a coal-black color beheld them both with verdigris pupils abounding in intrigue.
Yet the most idiosyncratic trait was——every single one of them retained the exact identical face, as though cut from the same cloth.
“……! Ellen.”
“Yeah……”
Drops of sweat oozed down from Artemisia’s cheek.
That’s right; those were the myriads of presences they felt prior to setting foot in the room.
“Introductions are in order. The Daughters of the Demon King——<Nibelcol>.”
His eyes tinted with cuprous rust, Westcott declared with a devious smirk.
Opalescent saffron rays of the evening sun beamed through the classroom windows.
Shidou took a brief glance at the digital clock etched on the face of his mobile phone, puffing out a breath and lifting his head.
It was after school, wherein all classes had drawn to a close. His classmates too had by then set sail for home, leaving behind no more than the profiles of Shidou, Tohka, and Origami, as well as the Yamai sisters, Kaguya and Yuzuru from the neighboring class. They comprised Spirits whose powers Shidou had sealed in the past.
Obviously, but one reason was keeping him there.
——To once again converse with Kurumi.
Her appointed tête-à-tête location was the rooftop of the school building. Shidou rounded his fists to gird up his loins and sprung up from his chair.
“——So, I should pretty much get going, everyone.”
Upset, Tohka creased her eyebrows into an upended letter V-shape.
“Muu…… Will you be okay, Shidou? Maybe we should tag along after all……”
The other Spirits nodded, each intimating their own respective accords.
“Like Tohka said, it’s too dangerous.”
“To do battle with she who enwreathes the Stygian, imperative are our forces.”
“Consent. We will accompany you.”
Shidou managed to muster a grin and patted Tohka on the head, swinging his own side to side.
“Thanks, all of you. But I’ll be fine. Sure, Kurumi’s one dangerous Spirit…… but she isn’t the kind to go back on her word. And besides——”
He clenched onto thin air with firm hands.
“If the guy who’s going to seal her powers can’t even talk to her one-to-one, won’t the future look awfully bleak?”
“Shidou……”
Tohka persisted in her distraught face, but then while stubbornly headstrong, she shook her head again post-haste and revivified her expression with zesty cheer.
“……Umu, I get it. Good luck!”
“Aah.”
Bowing with verve, Shidou withdrew from the classroom, and from everyone else. He ascended towards the top floor, coming up before the doorway leading to the open-air roof.
Just then, a well-known voice was relayed from a compact earpiece stuck in his right ear.
You ought to be aware already, but don’t try anything reckless. Even if it’ll be under <Fraxinus>’ surveillance, Kurumi’s Angel’s a bit peculiar. We won’t know what’s going to happen at all.?
The speaker was none other than his little sister, the commander of Ratatoskr, Itsuka Kotori.
She was currently situated within the airship <Fraxinus>, observing Shidou’s and the others’
state of affairs with extreme heed.
“Yeah, I understand. Even so, saving Spirits is Ratatoskr’s goal, right? No matter how scary Kurumi may be, running without a single word would get my ass kicked by my scarier Imouto-sama.”
Ara, I would tie you up and serve you a large helping of tickle torture, not to mention publicize to the whole world everything about your dark past I’ve gathered until now. Kick your ass? What a kind-hearted Imouto-sama. Make sure to take care.?
“……Haha.”
Kotori returned his quip with a humph. Face dribbling with perspiration, Shidou made an effort to smile.
The accretion of tenseness that had been swathing him lightened up a shade as he slapped his cheeks to irrupt into the right frame of mind. Shidou unbarred the door.
“——”
A brilliant radiance incomparable to the luminous intensity of the hallway set his field of vision ablaze, impelling him to attenuate his eyes——Bit by bit, his line of sight clustered upon the outline of the sole girl in the center.
“——Ara.”
Kurumi, vacantly gazing at the town in the distance beyond the fence, appeared to have noticed his advent and twirled a full semicircle around.
“Ufufu, welcome. You’ve my gratitude for presenting yourself, Shidou-san.”
She tramped nearer to him with a handful of extensive strides, afterwards raising the hem of her skirt to give a theatrical curtsy.
This unduly poised, graceful gesticulation mesmerized and ensnared Shidou’s sight in a wink.
Contrarily, now was not the time to occupy himself with such concerns. He swung his head left and right as if to liberate his mind from the imminent allure. Then, he locked his stare onto Kurumi’s face.
“Alright, Kurumi. I’m here as we promised.”
“……”
At first glance, she requited his eye, but to curve the corners of her mouth.
“As I thought this morn——albeit minuscule, you’ve certainly changed, Shidou-san.”
“Eh……?”
“Contrasted with our very first encounter, your countenance has matured. Well, after having spent your days in such a mare’s nest, that is to be expected. Ufufu…… How lovely you’ve become.”
“D-Don’t make fun of me.”
A hint of cold feet dogged his remark. The fact that it was nightfall made Shidou all the more appreciative. But for the sunset enveloping his entire physique, the image of his redden cheeks would have been impractical to veil.
“Rather, it’s time you fessed up. About this morning——the condition in order to seal your power.”
Kurumi’s lips curled once more at his utterances.
A simper too irresistible——one too bewitchingly eerie.
With her back shouldering the dusk sun, to say that she smacked of the Fourth Horseman ushering Shidou into the netherworld was not in the slightest hyperbolic.
“Oh, very well then. I’ll speak. I——”
——In that instant.
When the half-light smeared Kurumi began to talk.
“……gh!?”
Out of the blue, Shidou was afflicted with an acute dizziness.
No. If one had an aversion to faulty expressions, the word dizziness would fail to hit home the sensation. This feeling resembled having one’s source of power cleaved without warning; a sense of loss outclassing agony and malady at once, threatening to bury his body in darkness in a split second of vulnerability.
However, he had felt this impalpable formication before.
When his flesh and bones were punctured by a bullet.
When his guts were impaled by a sword from behind.
And——When a part of his body was obliterated to naught by a key.
It existed as a fleeting feeling of one’s own body being overrun by something which effortlessly transcended a human lifeform’s mortal potentialities.
In the fullness of time, this was the tingle of death—— ?
At 17:30, around the airspace of Tenguu City, Tokyo Prefecture.
Sheathed in the platinum CR-Unit <Pendragon>, Ellen levitated by means of her Territory encapsulating herself and her vicinity while peering down at a marked high school from afar.
The concrete in-between distance well exceeded ten thousand meters, yet the Wizard had a crystal-clear bird’s eye view of the small figures fidgeting there.
The Spirit by the name of <Nightmare>, alongside Itsuka Shidou.
“Are the preparations complete?”
Ellen surveyed the conditions below, muttering to herself.
The communication device then transmitted Artemisia’s voice.
Of course. Ready whenever you are.?
Equipped in <Pendragon>’s sister model, <Lancelot>, Artemisia was positioned at another location, studying the same targets as that of Ellen.
Ellen’s soundless silence acted as an interim substitute for her response, after which she again looked down and brandished with all speed the unit equipped on her back.
The retracted framework unfurled, rejigging into a luminously brilliant golden saber.
Made within the realms of possibility via the superabundant magic output of Realizer technology, the laser blade <Caledfwlch>, named after a holy sword, was <Pendragon>’s chief weapon.
“——Here we go.”
A laconic exhortation from her was all it took for them to start their accelerated descent, as though propelling themselves off a wall of thin air.
Such velocity rivalled a lead bullet’s trajectory; more than enough for an ordinary person to black out or even get ripped to shreds——and they gave the impression of traversing at such a speed being a cakewalk as the two centered on their goal.
A stale metaphor like ‘untraceable with the naked eye’ now encroached on reality. No soul could perceive Ellen, so to speak.
——However.
“……ch! Hah!”
Ellen, splintering through the molecules of air like a comet hurtling across outer space, experienced an instantaneous stop and armed her sword.
A vivid burst of magical energy dispersed in every bearing, illuminating the masses of clouds around.
“Kuh——”
Even the powerhouse <Caledfwlch> could not yield a blast of such immensity with a single strike.
That’s right; there prevailed yet another magic-endowed blade.
“——Phew. To pull up in that timing; it sure is you, Ellen.”
The girl who raised her sword against Ellen did so for the tips of her mouth as well.
She was clad in a CR-Unit formulated after a wolf, her hair bundled into a ponytail, a pronounced mole under her left eye.
“You’re——”
Having given ear to that voice, having caught sight of that face, Ellen found it difficult not to furrow her brows.
“Mana! Why are you here!?”
“Hah!”
Ellen calling out her name was a blunder; the girl——Takamiya Mana seized the opportunity to launch a riving follow-up.
“Chi——”
Ire contorted Ellen’s mien while she maneuvered her Territory and position, staving off the attack.
Their separation lengthened with a backward leap, she glared daggers at Mana, who shrugged her shoulders like a tease.
“Oya oya, that’s a nerve-racking look you’ve got there. With wrinkles comes old age, you know.”
“……Rubbish.”
As if spitting the vocable out, Ellen observed Mana with caution, pondering ad nauseam.
Mana had grasped her flight trajectory, which in and of itself was admissible. Despite not being at Ellen’s tier, she still proved to be an extraordinarily competent Wizard. Flanking a committed hunter would always turn out easier than challenging them head-on.
However, that would imply she knew Ellen’s whereabouts and objective beforehand.
——Did Mana know Ellen would attack Shidou?
No, granted that information was somehow leaked, pinpointing where and when she had started the assault alone would have been problematic.
——Then, had Shidou realized the likelihood of being ambushed and remained on his toes up till now?
No, supposing that he was astute, to keep a weather eye on a ten-thousand-meter radius area around the clock was a feat not accomplishable by even the most excellent Wizards.
“……Hm.”
Having invalidated the few hypotheses floating into her mind, Ellen neatened her hair leisurely.
What mattered the greatest now was on no account exploring how Mana had managed to stumble upon Ellen’s location. She conveyed a mental directive to Artemisia, who was situated on the other side.
“Artemisia. We’ve got company. Change of plans. For now——”
Midway, Ellen discerned it.
In lieu of Artemisia’s voice being broadcast back to her, only a scramble of random noise could be apprehended.
“This is……”
For Artemisia to be defeated was hard to believe. A jammed transmission, she feared, or Artemisia had been besieged like herself and was engaged in a fight.
Ellen clicked her tongue, glowering all the more ferociously at Mana.
“I haven’t the foggiest notion of how you contrived it, but brilliant work.”
Afterwards, from nowhere, even Mana’s face contorted into a frown.
“……You don’t say. Too brilliant it pisses me off. Ellen, if only you hadn’t shown up, I could’ve brushed it aside as a joke.”
“……? What was that?”
Her confounding statement left a crease or two in Ellen’s eyebrows. Lacking the intent to elaborate any further, Mana joggled her head from side to side.
“This has nothing to do with you. ——Instead, what are we to do now? You’ve missed the most suitable timing anyhow.”
“Hmph.”
Mana’s goading elicited a scornful scoff from Ellen, who aimed the sharp end of her saber at her.
“You managed to halt my attack, I’ll give you that. But all you did was give meaning to the words ‘you won against me’ for the first time.”
“Hnn? Come at me then——”
She adopted a combat stance and readied her own laser blade.
On the other hand, Ellen wasted not another second on listening.
“——is what I expected you to say.”
With that riposte, she unlatched her backpack unit, letting what had lain encased inside roam free in her Territory.
——The manifold book pages within.
“……Paper?”
Mana uttered in perplexity, lowering her posture to some degree.
Perhaps she was unable to tell the purport of Ellen’s actions, thus breaking into an offensive.
Ellen relaxed her lips with a sigh, thereafter extending her left hand forwards as opposed to her right which clasped onto her sword. Alongside that motion, the unnumbered sheets of paper arranged themselves in rank and file, spick and span.
Mana stood no chance, as it were, to overpower Ellen. Nonetheless, the way Westcott had noted, she could well buy time.
Hence, Ellen ought not to succumb to Mana’s taunts, but to carry out her mission not a moment later.
“……What are you conniving at?”
Scrutinizing Ellen’s oddly suspicious behavior, Mana muttered to herself.
Nonetheless, her doubt was not addressed specifically to Ellen. Even if it did get through, nobody of sound mind would outright reveal their own hand to the enemy.
“——Come forth, <Nibelcol>.”
Ellen commanded with a snap of her fingers.
The folios of paper encircling her then began to palpitate and pulsate, with many girls creeping out from within.
Enrobed in black garments, the girls all bore identical facial expressions.
“Aah——”
“What…… Is it time already?”
“No matter. It is for Otou-sama’s sake, after all.”
Looking the epitome of listlessness, each of them stretched their bodies while contemplating Mana.
“……!”
Her breath froze.
For a moment there, she had surmised herself hallucinating or even delirious. It would have been facile for Ellen to project any illusion she had devised in her Territory.
But that was far from the case.
A visual inspection of the space provided an estimate of twenty people.
Every single one of them emanated a very much tangible presence, not to mention a dense heap of energy.
Yes——It paralleled the time she came face to face with <Nightmare>’s, Tokisaki Kurumi’s, clones.
Ellen grinned from ear to ear at Mana’s guise.
“They shall be the ones to entertain you. ——<Nibelcol>, I’ll be making for the target. The rest is up to you.”
She issued orders to the girls——<Nibelcol>, who cast an indifferent glance at her and waved goodbye.
“Aah, all right. Take care.”
“By the way, who’s Ellen to Otou-sama? A lover?”
“Ehh, no way. Otou-sama’s got some bad tastes.”
The girls giggled with glee.
“……Hey.”
Ellen frowned upon the unanticipated feedback.
However, she abhorred wavering before Mana all the same. Freshening up with a shake of her head, Ellen faced downwards——at the high school where Shidou was.
“Ch. You’re not getting away……!”
In order to put an end to Ellen, Mana planned to deploy her thrusters.
Yet just before she could, the <Nibelcol> girls that were chortling until then darted a gaze as keen as a whetted needle at her in unison.
“Kuh……”
Grimacing, she gnashed her teeth.
If this were a one-against-one skirmish, Mana’s victory would be assured. But the adversaries totaled twenty, and moreover they were assigned to hinder her from hindering Ellen, not to subdue her. The circumstances were poles apart.
To obstruct a Wizard much more powerful than herself while under the obstruction of twenty people——Confronted with such an unrealistic crisis, Mana could feel the beads of sweat trickling down her cheeks.
Inadequacy stared her in the face. Without reinforcements amounting to that of <Nibelcol> —— “——Ara, ara.”
At that moment.
When Mana was on the brink of surrender, a voice vexatious to everyone reverberated from behind her.
“……Nn?”
“What’s with that? Exact lookalikes; Uwah, it’s somehow scary.”
“Ahaha, we’re no different, though.”
The <Nibelcol> in front of Mana were struggling to speak simultaneously.
As if in retaliation, countless silhouettes emerged behind her.
An Astral Dress of vermilion and jet black, hair bundled unevenly on both sides, and——a left eye that tick-tocked in sync with the passing time.
With facsimiles mirroring the Spirit, Tokisaki Kurumi seemed one-hundred per cent supportive of Mana and there to aid her.
“……<Nightmare>.”
She turned her line of sight leftwards, her manner ever more austere; to which Kurumi gave out a smug and amused smirk.
“What a twist of fate, Mana-san. You’ll allow me to lend a hand if you’re at a pinch, won’t you? Even I myself find it distasteful to bully the weak.”
“From whose mouth spouted such nonsense, I’ll chop off your head along with that cunning tongue of yours, free of charge.”
“Ara, how frightening, frightening indeed. ……How~e~ver, is now truly the time to keep up your bold front? Mana-san alone would flounder to tackle all of them, I wonder.”
“……Ch.”
Without as much as bothering to repress hostility, Mana clacked her tongue and hauled her light saber <Wolftail> anew.
“After each and every one of them is taken care of, you’re next!”
“——dou-san, Shidou-san.”
“…………!”
His name called out by Kurumi, Shidou cracked open his eyes.
“Eh…… Uh…… Huh……?”
He scanned his surroundings, throat in a daze.
Where he now reposed was the roof of the very Raizen High School they attended, in front of him a Kurumi bedaubed with the magnificent setting sun.
After Shidou became conscious thereof, question marks of introspection wafted into his mind.
——Why was I trying to bear out the obvious?
That’s correct; everything he attempted to confirm was already known.
Shidou was harrowed with an indisposition which stole transitory moments of his cognizance, merely to redo remembrance from the beginning, as though the reset button of a game had been pressed.
“Are you alive and well , Shidou-san?”
“A-Aah…… Sorry, spaced out for a bit there——”
Still an affliction bedeviled the boy.
Her back against the eventide, Kurumi’s physique gave the impression of being reoriented vaguely.
No, if truth be told, nothing should have shifted.
How was he to put it…… Her wonted profile of stiff aloofness and sangfroid appeared rather worn out and threadbare.
“Kurumi……? Did you……”
“——Ara, ara?”
A quiver absconded from the edges of her brows, albeit subtle, whereafter her habitual articulation rejoined.
“Have I something on my face?”
“……Ah, no.”
In the blink of an eye, the Kurumi he was familiar with came back, obliging him to prevaricate.
By all means, a perceptible contrast manifested. But where and how, Shidou could not point out to a nicety.
“——All right then; let us get back on-topic.”
Whether she saw through his thoughts or otherwise, Kurumi aggrandized her attitude and spurred on the conversation.
“My aim is as it was, letter for letter, the reiryoku contained within Shidou-san’s body…… I’d like to partake of but that. The rationale behind recommencing school is exceedingly simple, too. Including Mukuro-san, whom you’ve only recently sealed, hasn’t Shidou-san accumulated ten spirits’ worth of energy thus far? Ufufu, I fancy the time is ripe.”
“……”
Shidou deflected no segment of his view off her form, retorting with pure muteness, his face profusely drenched.
To partake of; in laymen’s terms, to devour his reiryoku, and him with it——synonymous with his demise. Undeterred by the fact that it was at a Spirit’s request, Shidou could not accede in any way.
In spite of that, Kurumi should have been au fait with this complication to a marked extent.
Placing a finger on her lips like a ravishing temptress, she mounded a spellbinding smile.
“And Shidou-san’s aspiration is to seal mine…… correct?”
“……Aah. But just that won’t be good enough.”
“I beg your pardon?”
She slanted her head, baffled at his assertion, to which he outstretched his index finger.
“I’m going to seal your powers, have you atone for all you’ve done until now——and on top of that, let you live a happy life. That’s my——our ultimate goal.”
“Ara, ara.”
Unable to stifle it any longer, Kurumi dissolved into laughter as she arched her stature.
“Ufufu, you’re quite the philanthropic saint, aren’t you, Shidou-san? ——Regrettably, I’m afraid I cannot agree either. Not that I’ve no interest in the happy life you mentioned, however, I mustn’t be deprived of my reiryoku at all costs.”
She proffered the finger on her mouth forwards.
“Here we are stuck in a quagmire. Shidou-san’s wish and mine run parallel to each other, none of which shall be brought to fruition in the status quo, frittering away precious time……”
Kurumi then lined up the forefinger of her other hand beside the previous.
“Nee, Shidou-san.”
The curvature of her lips ever so coquettish, she met the touch of her two fingers.
——Like a kiss.
“Rather than letting our parallel lines never intersect and our hopes come to naught, would you not prefer a method fulfilling both? ——Even if it may lead to us forfeiting everything.”
Her head canted.
“……”
Seeming to have fathomed out the treacherous cliff her words trod on, his body was jolted with butterflies.
Not long after, that precarious tension diffused throughout the environment by and by.
For all that, the source of the suspense, Kurumi herself, started chuckling.
“Please don’t be on pins and needles, Shidou-san. I believe I’ve said this in the past, but I haven’t the slightest intent to pillage your reiryoku by force.”
“……Then, what do you propose?”
A glint of uncertainty in his eyes, Shidou posed precisely the query Kurumi had been waiting to pounce on. She fanned out her hands exaggeratedly.
“Ufufu, that will conform to Shidou-san’s manner.”
“Eh……?”
“Fufu.”
There and then, Kurumi performed a twirling pirouette, the pitter-patter of the soles of her shoes tapping on the floor.
“——Whoever of us makes the other fall for them first…… How does that sound?”
“…………Eh?”
An unforeseen proposal dumbfounded him.
“The one who makes the other fall for them…… wins?”
“Quite so, quite so.”
Her voice whispered, edging nearer to Shidou.
“I shall continue in this high school for a while. In the event that I fall in love with Shidou-san, my powers will be yours for the taking. ……How~e~ver, if the converse is to occur, the win shall be mine…… On that occasion, Shidou-san will be mine to delight in.”
“You…… It’s clear I’ll lose my life if I fall for you, so there’s no way that’ll happen. This match was pointless to begin with——”
“——Are you sure?”
Kurumi interrupted him, her tantalizing digit stroking his chin up.
“I, however…… possess it - the confidence to make Shidou-san waive his life for me.”
“……!”
Shidou, astonished at her self-confidence, gulped down his breath.
Kurumi sneaked a peek with her upper field of vision at his expression, tittering.
“Tell me, Shidou-san, do you? The confidence to captivate me; the mettle to coerce me to choose Shidou-san over my everything.”
“I-I……”
Ba-dump, ba-dump; his heart throbbed with intensity.
Perhaps dreadfully aware that death awaited him at one wrong step, or the enchantress before him had plucked his heart, Shidou was currently incapable of differentiating.
At that moment, similar to a wake-up call from heaven, Kotori’s voice echoed from the receiver in his right ear.
Get a hold of yourself, Shidou. For that Kurumi to put forward such a strange requirement, she’s definitely plotting something behind our backs. Reine, start the analysis, quick——?
But, in that instant, an alarm piercing through her vocalization came blaring out from his earpiece.
What the hell ’s going on at a time like this!?
Commander, this response!?
Wha…… That’s……!??
Following Kotori’s voice brimming with dismay and buzzes of warbled static noise, neither intelligible nor random sound resonated from the receiver anymore.
“……!!”
Budging it had little effect.
Completely isolated from contact with <Fraxinus>, it was the equivalent to losing sight of the lighthouse while out at sea during the night.
Yet in defiance of the utterly forlorn circumstances, the incomprehension swelling within Shidou quashed any wisp of anxiety or trepidation.
——Noble obligation, along with a sense of duty.
Shidou was now gifted with the chance to persuade Tokisaki Kurumi.
The Shidou of the past would have already cowered in fear by then.
The former Shidou would have been in complete disarray, baffled with what to say.
But the person who now stood there was no longer any of his former selves.
He was a man who had charmed, as well as sealed, ten Spirits.
Tohka, Yoshino, Kotori, Kaguya, Yuzuru, Miku, Natsumi, Origami, Nia, and Mukuro; they all stood by his side, encouraging him without hesitation.
He could never look at them in the eye again if he were to shy away from Kurumi now.
“——I know.”
Shidou thrust his finger towards her, a broad smile surfacing on his mouth.
“I accept your contest. I’ll make you choose me and give your everything up.”
Being replied to with such ardency, Kurumi augmented her beam of mirth.
“Ufufu, fufu. That’s Shidou-san for you; the very person I’ve acknowledged indeed.”
Spinning her body around——Kurumi issued a manifesto of war with impish banter.
“Now then——let us begin our date, shall we?”
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