10

Crimson.

That was the first thing Haruyuki saw after they slipped through the tiny crack in the gate and finally escaped to the outside world.

Swirling, raging, deep-crimson flames. But this was no ordinary heat energy. It was the form of a massive bird with two enormous wings, a long neck, and eyes glittering like rubies.

The super-level Enemy, the God Suzaku.

“Wh-why is it already materializing?!” Utai shouted hoarsely, clinging tightly to his neck.

Haruyuki was equally stunned. Suzaku, the guardian of the south gate, started to pop into existence above its altar, which sat on the near side of the bridge, at the moment someone intruded on its territory. That territory was the large bridge five hundred meters in length and thirty meters in width. Judging from what they had witnessed the last time, it took the God about five seconds to materialize and start to move. Haruyuki had calculated that they could pass through the gate and fly a fair distance in the time it took for Suzaku to appear.

And yet, for some unknown reason, the instant they flew through the gate, Suzaku had already finished materializing—only thirty meters away from them. Haruyuki frantically spread the wings on his back and braked desperately to avoid slamming into the phoenix.

The south gates at their back were already tightly closed. Even if they turned around, the gates wouldn’t likely open again. The gates had let them in the last time because Trilead—real name: Azure Air—had broken the seal plate for them in advance, but the seal apparently regenerated whenever the gate opened and closed again.

Since it was probably safe to assume Lead had been attacked and killed by the dozen guardian Enemies, they obviously couldn’t hope for him to slice into the plate for them again. And if they went back inside now, they wouldn’t be able to endure seeing Lead anyway, not after he had faced his own death to send them off.

Our only choice is to slip through Suzaku’s flames and fly to the other side of the bridge, Haruyuki resolved, banishing the fleeting hesitation.

The Enemy with the name of a god had stopped right in front of them and was staring at the two avatars with red eyes.

Little ones. This time, you will indeed pay for the crime of disturbing my sacred place and slipping through so cunningly.

You will burn.

Anticipating the breath attack that was coming, Haruyuki focused every nerve in his body on seeing through to its trajectory.

But rather than opening its beak, the bird of flames spread its enormous wings out wide and flapped them firmly once.

“It cannot!” Utai cried out.

At the same time, Haruyuki saw a pure red, super-hot wave generated by Suzaku’s wings push toward them in a semicircle. It wasn’t a line—it was a surface. No matter which way he flew, there was no escaping it.

No way. We’re going to die here? Just like that? We worked so hard to get out of the Castle inner sanctuary, Lead gave his life to open the gates for us—all that, and we get locked up in the cage of unlimited EK here?

“I…will not allow it!!” the childish shrine maiden in his arms shouted with determination when Haruyuki started to descend, brain frozen. She reached out her small left hand as far as it would go. The incredibly slender palm released a crimson fluctuation that looked very much like Suzaku’s wave attack.

The instant the two energy waves touched each other, a dazzling white light colored the world.

Suzaku’s heat wave became a ring with a circle in the center and passed around Haruyuki and Utai with a roar. At the same time, perhaps in some kind of damage feedback, Ardor Maiden’s left arm disappeared instantly at the shoulder.

“Unn, ah!” The shrine maiden convulsed with a thin cry. Unable to withstand the intense, and very real, pain the Unlimited Neutral Field generated, her head drooped.

Holding the unconscious Utai tightly with both hands, Haruyuki mustered every last bit of energy he had to reactivate his will to fight.

Fly. Fly! If you don’t fly right now, there’s no meaning in the fact that you were born a flying avatar!

“Unhaaaaaaah!!” Haruyuki howled, and vibrating both wings as hard and as fast as he could, he plunged forward.

Beyond him, Suzaku spread its wings once more. The same attack again. He had to make it through the damage zone before the God could launch it.

I have to make it in time!!

But. The air ahead of Haruyuki shimmered like a heat haze and started to glitter red. The surface of his avatar crackled as it burned. A dizzying heat assaulted them, and his HP gauge—nearly 90 percent full—started to drop…

Then…

Something else he hadn’t expected blocked Suzaku’s attack.

Two lances of light, one red, one blue, shot in from behind the enormous bird and pierced the left and right wings at the same time.

He recognized those colors. The blue was Lightning Cyan Spike, the special attack of Cyan Pile—his best friend, Takumu. And the red was Vorpal Strike, the Incarnate attack of Haruyuki’s parent, his teacher, the person he respected more than anyone in this world—Kuroyukihime.

On the verge of disintegrating Haruyuki and Utai, Suzaku’s super-heated wave was ripped to pieces and dispersed.

And then, almost brushing up against the massive, flame-shrouded wings, Haruyuki finally made it past to the rear of the God. But the Enemy naturally whirled around and, catching Haruyuki with eyes burning with rage, opened its large beak. The breath attack.

As Haruyuki charged forward with all his might toward the south side of the large bridge, he crossed paths with a silhouette racing in from that direction at a terrifyingly high speed. Accelerated to the limit, Haruyuki’s perceptions caught the true form of that shadow.

Burst Linker. Not one—two. The deputy leader of Nega Nebulus, also known as ICBM, Sky Raker. And someone else was clinging to her, low against her back. A jet-black duel avatar with obsidian armor and long swords as limbs—the Black King, Black Lotus. The pale flames jetting out far behind Raker’s Enhanced Armament, the Gale Thruster, colored the translucent black armor a beautiful sapphire.

In the instant they passed each other, Raker/Fuko and Lotus/Kuroyukihime looked at Haruyuki with eyes of madder red and of blue purple, and gently smiled. Their voices echoed directly inside his head.

Welcome back, Corvus. Leave Suzaku to us.

I’m trusting you with the future of the Legion, you know, Haruyuki. Now fly. Straight ahead without looking back.

The extended flow of time returned to normal, and Haruyuki, with Utai in his arms, and Fuko, with Kuroyukihime on her back, immediately receded from each other.

“Ah!” Unable to put the brakes on his own body as he flew ahead at full speed, Haruyuki simply let out a sound that was more like a cry as he earnestly turned his head and picked out the scene behind him in the corner of his field of view.

The single bullet that Fuko and Kuroyukihime had become grazed the right eye of Suzaku, who was even now about to spit out its lethal flame breath. Black Lotus’s right arm flashed, slashing into the Enemy’s eye. An ocean of flames like blood gushed out, and the monster bird howled its thunderous rage.

Suzaku stopped its breath attack and began to turn its massive frame back toward the north. It had shifted its target from Haruyuki to Kuroyukihime. Which meant—

They were planning to die.

In one sense, this was equivalent to the sacrifice of the young samurai Lead, luring away the dozen or so Enemies so that Haruyuki and Utai could make it through the gate, but in another sense, it was very different. Because unlike Lead, who would immediately be moved to a safe zone when he next regenerated and thereby avoid the unlimited EK state, Kuroyukihime and Fuko had nowhere to run. The only thing to the rear of Suzaku was the square altar—the very place where Ardor Maiden had been sealed—and if they died there, the next time they regenerated, they would only be immediately attacked by Suzaku and die once more.

Most likely, Kuroyukihime and the others had witnessed the sudden materialization of Suzaku while on standby and seen that it was an action designed to hinder Haruyuki and Utai’s escape. And then they had made an instant decision: use themselves as bait to let Haruyuki and Utai get away. Even if it ended with Kuroyukihime and Fuko being sealed away themselves.

No.

That couldn’t happen. That absolutely could not happen. Haruyuki’s only objective as a Burst Linker was to revive Nega Nebulus and stand by Kuroyukihime’s side as she reached beyond the horizon of level ten she yearned for. If his Legion Master and Submaster were sacrificed here, there would be no point in him alone surviving.

Haruyuki was seized with momentary conflict when, up ahead, a sharp voice reached him from below.

“Haru!!”

He turned with a gasp. A large, light-blue avatar with heavy armor was waving his left hand wildly about two hundred meters from the foot of the bridge. Cyan Pile. And beside him, a yellow-green lightweight avatar, Lime Bell.

“Haruuuuuu!!” Bell also shouted as loud as she could, and whirled the large bell equipped on her left hand all the way around. A faint chime rang out, and the bell was wrapped in a fresh green light effect.

“Citron Caaaaall!!”

As she shouted the technique name, she brought the hand bell straight down. The lime-green light that gushed out folded up around Haruyuki, a warm blanket of air.

Before his eyes, the damage he’d taken from the fight against the Enemy in the Castle and only moments ago from Suzaku’s heat wave was healed. However, the wounds on Utai, still unconscious in his arms, remained. The target for the Citron Call effect was individual, so they couldn’t both be healed at the same time. But shouldn’t Lime Bell have cured the more heavily damaged Ardor Maiden first?

For a moment, Haruyuki failed to grasp what Chiyuri’s intention was in recovering Silver Crow’s health gauge first. But then Takumu called out to clear away his confusion.

“Haru, I’ll take Maiden!”

Haruyuki opened his eyes wide and then immediately and without hesitation handed Ardor Maiden over to the outstretched arms of Cyan Pile below him. Lighter now, his body bounced upward, and he pulled into a tight U-turn.

“Haru, Lotus and Raker!” Chiyuri’s voice pierced the air roaring past his ears.

“Got it! Leave it to me!!” Haruyuki shouted as he finished his turn.

His childhood friends had agonized and hesitated and decided for him that they could not let Kuroyukihime and Fuko die here. That whatever happened, they were all going home together. With Takumu’s and Chiyuri’s feelings as a tailwind, Haruyuki flew north once more.

Ahead of him, Suzaku, also changing course to the north, bent its long neck into an S shape and opened its beak wide. He had only five—no, three seconds before the super-hot breath was released.

In his sights, Sky Raker and Black Lotus were carving out a parabola in the sky as they descended. The flames jetting from the Gale Thruster flickered irregularly, on the verge of dying. The thrust of the Enhanced Armament was incredible, but once its energy was used up, a long recharging period was required before it could fly again. They wouldn’t be able to escape Suzaku’s flames. Orange light flickered in the massive beak. The air around him shook with a heat haze.

I won’t let you!!

“Unhaaaaaaaaah!!” With a force that would use up everything left in his special-attack gauge, Haruyuki vibrated the metallic fins on his back. A hazy light enveloped Silver Crow’s entire body. He pierced the wall of wind pressure with the tips of his sharply outstretched hands, turning his avatar into a lance shooting forward through the sky.

Having lost its eye to Kuroyukihime’s devastating blow, Suzaku didn’t notice Haruyuki approaching from that side. He charged forward on a course so close to the giant bird that he nearly brushed alongside its face. Passing only a few dozen centimeters to the right of the beak, which looked like it would spit out its conflagration even now, Haruyuki sprinted out in front of the Enemy.

Behind him, a wave of overwhelming rage swelled up at this intruder. Before him, the two Burst Linkers opened their eyes wide in stunned surprise.

“Why?!”

“Haruyuki!!”

With a force that was very nearly a collision, Haruyuki grabbed in midair the two avatars groaning and crying out. He held the slender waists of Sky Raker and Black Lotus, who were basically the same size, with all his might and abruptly started flying upward.

The situation resembled the mission to rescue Ardor Maiden two days earlier, in which he had picked up Utai after she appeared in the center of the altar. However, one difference was that, unlike Utai, who had been on the ground, Kuroyukihime and Fuko were still maintaining an altitude of twenty or so meters. From here, he still had the leeway to change direction and take their sole route of escape—straight up.

Abruptly, their surroundings were dyed red. Suzaku had finally launched its flame breath. A raging river of overwhelming heat damage chased after them; one direct hit, and no matter how high-level they might be as Burst Linkers, they wouldn’t be able to avoid being incinerated.

“Ngh. Aaaah!” Gritting his teeth, Haruyuki used every ounce of strength he had to fly directly upward.

Zzt! Something brushed up against the tips of his toes. His health gauge plummeted over 10 percent. He probably hadn’t touched the breath itself, but rather the damage zone around it; still, he didn’t look down. He simply, intently stared up at the blue-black cloudy sky of the Demon City stage and flew.

The slightest deviation in his trajectory would not be forgiven. A no-fly zone where extra gravity reigned was set up on both sides of the large bridge, and invisible barriers stretched up to infinity above the gates to the Castle and the walls of the palace. The instant he touched any of these, his flight would be over and they would fall.

The only course permitted was a completely vertical ascent. He would fly up as far as he could go and break free of Suzaku’s targeting, cut out a large arc due south, and descend to escape to the south side of the bridge.

Through the roaring wind, Kuroyukihime whispered in his right ear, “Honestly. You really are…”

And then Fuko said with a smile in his left, “Hee-hee, I had a feeling it might turn out like this.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll apologize plenty after we get back!” Responding as he had two days earlier, Haruyuki fluttered the silver wings on his back even harder.

“Ah!” Fuko cried out.

Sensing something abnormal, Haruyuki reflexively looked down—and saw the figure of the massive bird shrouded in flames, surprisingly close. But why? They should have reached an altitude of close to three hundred meters already.

So then, it was chasing them. The guardian beast, the God Suzaku, supposedly unable to leave its territory, the large southern bridge, was also rising up into the sky, following Haruyuki and his friends.

The Enemy narrowed its remaining left eye as though it were laughing. A ponderous voice rang out in Haruyuki’s mind.

Fools. I shall not allow you to escape from these wings of mine on such imitations.

At the same time, Suzaku violently flapped those wings, wings that likely spanned twenty meters. The enormous bird accelerated suddenly and began to close the distance between them.

“Ngh!” Turning his gaze straight up once more, Haruyuki tried to go even faster. But he immediately realized something terrifying.

His special-attack gauge, fully charged when they took off inside the Castle, was very quickly running out. When he thought about it, it only made sense. He had been flying continuously at top speed, first with Utai and then with Kuroyukihime and Fuko. It was no mystery that his gauge would disappear several times faster than when he was flying solo.

But if he lost thrust there, they would immediately be burned to a crisp in Suzaku’s flames and die. And the place where they would regenerate was directly below—the altar in front of the south gate of the Castle. If that happened, they would all fall into a state of unlimited EK.

Staring at his special-attack gauge disappearing pixel by pixel at a frightening speed, Haruyuki investigated all their options in a brief thought.

Just Kuroyukihime and Fuko escape? Not possible. If they fell from this height, they would die instantly from the fall damage. And before that, they’d be killed by Suzaku immediately beneath them.

Do a U-turn now and escape to the south? Not possible. As long as they were targeted by Suzaku, even if he did manage the turn, they’d take a direct hit from the breath before they reached the ground.

Get them both to attack Silver Crow and recharge his gauge? Not possible. If his speed slackened even slightly while he was taking damage, they would instantly be caught in Suzaku’s attack range.

His only choice was to fly.

Even if his gauge ran out. Even if the Brain Burst program announced that he would not be permitted to fly any farther. He would smash the controls of the system with the power of imagination, overwrite the phenomenon of impossible flight, and fly.

Imagine. The image of true flight.

The lone and maximum power given to the duel avatar Silver Crow. Flight was the form the scar in his heart, a scar he had carried for so long, had taken in the Accelerated World.

And that scar was the desire to escape. He wanted to break away from the ground, where nothing good ever happened, and go somewhere high up, somewhere far, far away. He wanted to go to a world where there was nothing but the speed of light, free of everything.

But…

Haruyuki hazily felt now that maybe that wasn’t really flying.

No bird could fly forever. To fly, they had to eat, sleep, store up energy. To fly, they lived. To live, they flew. These two were one and the same, indivisible.

In which case, even if a person didn’t have wings on their back, they could definitely fly in the real world, too. Hold the things you aim for, the things you want to overcome in your heart, imagine that materializing, and move forward one step at a time. Rather than looking down and passing the days with dissatisfaction, stare up at the sky—the place you want to reach someday—and actively put your feet forward. When they were doing that, people were definitely flapping invisible wings and flying.

“Fly!” Haruyuki cried briefly, staring intently at the sky of the Unlimited Neutral Field and its swirling black clouds.

Instead of vibrating the propulsive objects called metallic fins with the numerical energy known as the special-attack gauge—he had to flap the wings created by his own heart, flap them with the power of the imagination, and fly.

When she was first teaching Haruyuki the Incarnate System at the top of the old Tokyo Tower, Fuko had once said, “Perhaps you are the one who will be able to fly one day with Incarnate alone. But that will probably take a very long time.”

As a Burst Linker and as an Incarnate user, Haruyuki was still just a little chick. He didn’t have anywhere near enough training or experience. But if he was going to fly, now was the time. If he couldn’t fly now, then for what purpose had he been born with the name Silver Crow?

The image. He had to imagine it. The meaning of flying itself. The meaning of kicking at the ground and aiming for the sky.

In Haruyuki’s view, a vision of a small scops owl danced up, flapping white wings.

“Fly, Crow!!” Kuroyukihime to his right.

“Fly, Corvus!!” Fuko to his left.

He melted all this together into a single silver image, sending it racing through his body before concentrating it between his shoulder blades. And then Haruyuki saw with his mind’s eye. He saw the ten metal fins extending from Silver Crow’s back shine dazzlingly and change form, overwritten into real wings resembling those of a bird of prey.

“Unh…ah…aaaaaaaah!!” As Haruyuki howled, the last pixel of his special-attack gauge was consumed. But the propulsive force accelerating his whole body into the sky did not disappear.

Haruyuki flapped with all his might the wings shining a dazzling silver and called out at the top of his lungs the name of the new Incarnate technique that came rising up from the depths of his heart.

“Light…speed!!”

Pwaan! His entire field of view was enveloped in the dazzle of silver. He approached the vision of the owl flying slightly ahead of him, touched it, became one with it. Cradling the other two duel avatars, Haruyuki flew with an incredible acceleration he had never felt before. The thick clouds of the Demon City stage drew closer in the blink of an eye, and then he was plunging through them without a hint of resistance.

His view was painted over with a thick gray. But soon, a crimson light shone below. Suzaku was chasing after them even now. The pace of the Enemy’s acceleration was clearly increasing. The two flying bodies of different sizes pierced the sky of the Accelerated World, carving out trajectories of silver and red.

A few seconds later, his field of view suddenly cleared.

The limitless sky, an azure so blue it almost sucked him in. A sea of snow-white clouds below, stretching out into the distance. He couldn’t even imagine how many hundreds—or thousands—of meters up they were. But Haruyuki flapped his silver wings even harder.

Bompf! An enormous hole opened up in the sea of clouds beneath them. Appearing from within it was the enormous bird, shrouded in flames that burned even hotter. The God Suzaku was burning up anything and everything for the sake of the intruders who had not once, but twice disturbed its territory. Its fierce will spilled out from its lone eye as it charged forward at the same speed as Haruyuki flying with the power of the Incarnate.

Exactly what I was hoping for! Come on!! Haruyuki howled in his mind and mustered every bit of his imagination to beat the silver wings.

The color of their surroundings gradually began to change. From azure to ultramarine, and then to black. Beyond them, several small points of light glittered. Stars. And far off to the right ahead of them in the sky, he noticed a thin silver thread stretching straight up, shining. That was…Hermes’ Cord. The low-earth-orbit space elevator that circled the Accelerated World at a super-high altitude. It was just moving into the Tokyo area.

Finally, the speed of their ascent gradually began to falter. It wasn’t that Haruyuki’s Incarnate was weakening; it was that his “wings” had reached their maximum altitude. No matter how he might try to overwrite with his imagination, the propulsive mechanisms extending from Haruyuki’s back were wings, and they’d had their limit. Without air, they could not fly. And he was basically in space.

The crimson light chasing them from below abruptly grew weaker. At the same time, the enormous bird’s rage-filled roar shook the thin air.

Haruyuki stopped flapping and he looked down as they continued to gently ascend through momentum alone. The flames eternally blanketing the body of the God Suzaku, who had been right on their tail up until that point, had almost entirely disappeared because of the little oxygen in the air around them. The exposed, sleek red feathers began to frost at the tips.

“This is our chance!” Kuroyukihime suddenly shouted.

“Crow, let go! Raker, you can fly, right?!”

When Haruyuki reflexively opened his arms, the jet-black and sky-blue avatars drifted gently in what amounted to a zero-gravity world.

“Of course, Lotus!” Fuko nodded sharply and turned her back to Kuroyukihime.

“Good!” Black Lotus grabbed hold of Sky Raker’s back with both legs. Raker whirled her body around, and blue light burned at the exhaust port of the Enhanced Armament, now recharged to some degree.

“Here we go!!” Fuko announced briefly, and without hesitation went full throttle with the booster.

Trailing a long streak of pale flames, the two avatars joined together as one charged fiercely toward the God Suzaku cruising below them. Unlike Haruyuki’s wings, Sky Raker’s Gale Thruster was an energy-injection-type propulsive mechanism. Only she could fly in space where there was no air.

Left eye burning with fearsome rage, Suzaku spread its half-frozen wings to greet the two avatars with an attack. But no matter how it flapped, its massive body didn’t move. It gave up on advancing and opened its beak to launch its flame breath, but it seemed that the warm-up took more effort than it had on the ground.

“Too late!!” Kuroyukihime shouted, opening wide the swords of both arms from her position on Fuko’s back, and then drew them back into a downward V. Haruyuki had never seen this movement before. Both swords were enveloped in a whitish-blue light reminiscent of a distant star.

“Haaaaaaaaaah!” Fierce battle cry surging from her throat, the aura on her arms focused into several points of light. Eight on each sword for a total of sixteen.

With the collection of lights from an enormous constellation trailing her, Kuroyukihime called out in a voice so clear it threatened to echo to the ends of the universe, “Star Burst…Stream!!”

Both swords shot out so fast they became invisible to the naked eye as they alternated. With each blow, a single, pale, shining star was released, becoming a shooting star that slammed into Suzaku. Each time, the sound of the impact was enormous, shaking Haruyuki’s body.

Each time a falling star, riding Sky Raker’s incredible acceleration, crashed into it, the God shrieked. The massive body of the Enemy had lost its armor of flames, and any number of red feathers and damage effects flew off and scattered into the air. Displayed in Haruyuki’s field of view, Suzaku’s five-tier health gauge was carved away with such intensity that he almost doubted his eyes.

“Hnnngaaaaaaaah!!” Kuroyukihime’s swords glittered and flashed nonstop to launch the shooting stars created by her Incarnate, a celestial machine gun. Ten shots. Eleven. Several holes had already been gouged out of Suzaku’s wings, and its chest and tail were also torn up here and there. But the flames of rage burning in its left eye did not disappear. Even as it took this massive damage, it opened its beak and tried to force out its flame breath.

“Aaah!” Haruyuki reflexively howled, and drew his right arm back. The image of light collected from all over his body contracted into a single point, and then changed into a lance of light—and shot forward.

“Laser Lance!!”

The lance became a beam of light and raced through space, overtaking Kuroyukihime on the right to hit Suzaku’s remaining eye precisely on target.

The God faltered on the verge of breathing out its flames, and in that single-second opening, Kuroyukihime released the last star—the sixteenth—with a roar. Drawing out a tail like a comet, the star fell from the heavens and crashed into the inside of Suzaku’s mouth, causing the white-hot flame breath there to explode.

Haruyuki’s view was filled with red light.

An unbelievably enormous ball of flames—a second sun—was born, and a surge of overwhelming energy expanded in all directions.

Haruyuki intently grabbed with outstretched hands the bodies of Kuroyukihime and Fuko, blown backward by the blast. He held them to his sides once more, caught the energy stream with the wings on his back, and turned the force into thrust. This phenomenon seemed like nothing other than Suzaku itself exploding, but the last bar of the Enemy’s health gauge was still about half-full. They couldn’t get reckless and get too close.

Haruyuki carved out a large arc as he circled the fireball and entered a downward course toward the earth’s surface.

The red light gradually weakened, and the figure of the large bird on the verge of death was revealed. It had already lost the menacing air of a God; it lifelessly flapped its beaten and battered wings.

If we’re going to defeat it, now’s the time?! Haruyuki thought fleetingly.

But then a strange light cloaked Suzaku’s massive frame—a tricolored aura of white, blue, and black. Haruyuki opened his eyes wide, wondering just what this was, and then something even more supernatural happened. Suzaku’s injuries were healed from the outside in before his eyes. And its health gauge, down 90 percent, suddenly started to recover.

“Honestly. That the support of the other Gods would reach even this far into space,” Kuroyukihime murmured, and he finally remembered.

The four super-level Enemies that guarded the four gates to the Castle were linked to one another. Even if one were attacked and damaged, as long as the other three were not engaged in battle, they would endlessly heal the injured one with their support abilities.

“It’s pointless to chase this too far, Corvus.”

Haruyuki nodded at Fuko’s words. Their current objective was not to defeat Suzaku but to get out of its territory. He flapped the wings still wrapped in silver overlay to catch the thin air and move straight downward. The surrounding darkness shifted before his eyes to ultramarine and then a clear azure.

They finally approached the thick clouds and flew in headfirst. He broke through the gray veil to the sky of the Demon City stage. Far below, he could see the enormous palace surrounded by a circle of walls and the bridge stretching straight out from the south gate. He caught sight of three tiny figures waving their hands wildly at the southern end of the bridge.

A hundred meters above the bridge, he changed direction and moved into a gentle feetfirst glide. Flapping his wings carefully to avoid popping out over either side of the bridge, he headed for the ground as quickly as possible. The patterned tile of the surface of the bridge rose up, and the resolution increased.

Finally, the tips of the toes of Haruyuki, Kuroyukihime, and Fuko simultaneously touched the surface of the bridge. The place they landed was one meter from the southern end of the large bridge—the border of the territory of the God Suzaku.

Before them were the grinning faces of their three friends. The small shrine maiden standing on the right had apparently also been healed with Chiyuri’s special attack; Ardor Maiden was stretching out a completely restored left arm alongside her right.

Haruyuki, Kuroyukihime, and Fuko took one step, two, and then three toward them and left the bridge.

“Welcome back!” Takumu, Chiyuri, and Utai said in unison.

“We’re home.” Kuroyukihime, Fuko, and Haruyuki also brought their voices together to speak as one. And then they each took a final step forward.

Haruyuki and Takumu. Kuroyukihime and Chiyuri. And Fuko and Utai. They all hugged one another hard. At the same time, a pillar of red light shot down from the sky above the altar in the distance and was sucked into the floor there, disappearing.

In that instant, the twin missions to rescue Ardor Maiden and escape the Castle, executed by all members of the Black Legion, Nega Nebulus, were completed.