Chapter Three: The Girl Who Crossed the Darkness

Rumors of a disembodied killer, although unsubstantiated, continued to spread throughout Friedland. Neither Fiona nor the community watch had publicly acknowledged the string of murders, but it was now regarded by most residents as an established fact. Yukinari continued to remain in Friedland, not returning to his sanctuary, while the community watch along with Arlen and his knights beefed up their patrols. For better or for worse, all of this was plainly visible to the townspeople, and it had allowed them to keep their heads—but only just.

Everyone was tormented by fear. The people of Friedland didn’t really believe in invisible monsters—and the monsters they could see, such as xenobeasts and demigods, weren’t given to using swords. The only ones who used weapons in this world were humans. That meant this was the work of someone hiding somewhere in town. That was clear enough to everyone.

But then who was the criminal? Suspicion and mistrust had begun to spread among the populace. They were reaching their limits. It would only take a small number of further victims, perhaps two or three, before they could take no more and their fear gave way to violence.

Yukinari wanted to do something as quickly as possible.

It’s... It’s about me...

On top of that, he was probably the only one to have grasped the import of the killer’s clues. The community watch recognized that the same “symbols” or “characters” were being left at each of the crime scenes, but of course they didn’t know what they meant. Yukinari alone understood.

And yet, he could tell no one. He couldn’t reveal that the murderer might be his own sister, Amano Hatsune.

It seemed very likely, but he was loath to admit it. If he carelessly let something slip about his sister, he worried that everyone else, groping for an answer, would jump on the possibility, assuming his sister was the criminal without giving it due consideration.

But then, everyone’s at their breaking point.

Even Yukinari, the guardian deity of Friedland, found himself cornered. With his back against the wall, he was left with no choice but to consider the possibilities.

Let’s say, hypothetically, that Hatsune really is the killer. If she came to this world just like I did...

It implied that she might have been brought here the same way Yukinari had. In other words, as an angel.

In order to win people to the faith, the True Church of Harris had created homunculi that they called angels to perform miracles. These were very similar to humans, but rather than being born from the loving union of a man and a woman, they were artificial life forms, conceived in cold glass test tubes.

Angels had the power of physical reconstitution. They couldn’t create something from nothing, but they could produce bread from stones, or wine from water. They could even produce something as complex as a gun, if they understood how the object was constructed.

If there was something that could sever the spiritual link between Yggdra and her familiars like Ulrike, someone with such a power could create it, and put it between Friedland and Rostruch.

We call it spiritual power, but it feels an awful lot like the electricity of my former world.

So what if spiritual power was transmitted in pulses or waves the way electricity was? If you were to take some material that was a good conductor of spiritual energy and place it in the path of those pulses, maybe it would naturally distort or absorb the unstable spiritual energy. And Yukinari knew of one material that was an excellent conductor of spiritual energy.

Holy oil.

Holy oil looked like blood; it was what made the statues of the guardian saint move, and it was what flowed through Yukinari’s own body. It was the fuel that powered everything the Church did.

The True Church of Harris wants to expand its influence in the remote regions—out here on the frontier. The fact that they had begun sending units of missionary knights to the area was proof enough of that. They were investing in technology that would allow them to forcibly convert the people in these areas. Of course, the Church had several alchemists besides Jirina, and they were worked like slaves, forced to develop new technologies. It wouldn’t have surprised Yukinari to learn that they had developed some device that could interrupt the connection between an erdgod and the land.

If he knew what such a device was and how it was made, Yukinari would have been able to make one, too.

I suppose something similar could be said of becoming disembodied. But invisibility seemed unlikely from a number of angles. So the criminal wasn’t invisible. Most likely, they could be seen. But if people didn’t recognize them as the culprit, then it would be almost the same as being invisible.

Sort of like... the way I change my entire body when I become the Bluesteel Blasphemer.

This was a particular transformation Yukinari performed in order to take full advantage of his powers of physical reconstitution. When he used his powers to their utmost, it was possible for him to neglect to maintain of his own body, so he first surrounded himself in armor like a carapace, much like an insect, in order to prevent himself from coming apart.

To change his face, or the length of an arm or leg, was not difficult for him. The only concern was that he might get confused—for example, wearing taller shoes than he was used to, he would find his vision elevated a little, and that small change could make it difficult for him to walk. Or if he thoughtlessly changed his face, his smile might appear fake. Unnatural.

Yet if he didn’t need to maintain the appearance for very long, it might be enough to fool someone. To take them by surprise. It was the ultimate quick-change act.

So it’s not a killer without a face...

The people of Friedland were afraid of a murderer who couldn’t be seen. But they had seen the killer. By wearing familiar faces, the criminal was able to walk unmolested through town. Yukinari was starting to connect the dots.

He considered hiding his suspicions about his sister, telling the townspeople only of the possibility that an angel was involved. But that was no good, either. That would only deepen the spirit of suspicion. And the first person they would suspect was likely to be Yukinari himself. Plus—

I have to wonder... Is Hatsune still... Hatsune?

Angels required a soul in order to “activate” them. However much a homunculus might look like a human being, that wasn’t enough for it to function like one, or so Jirina had explained to him. Hence a ritual was performed to capture a soul from another world that had been separated from its body—in other words, the spirit of a dead person. The soul was channeled into a vessel in this world; i.e., a homunculus, and then sealed inside to give it life.

But this was only the beginning. As tools of the Church, it was better that the angels have no sense of self. Free will would only get in the way. So once it was confirmed that a homunculus was working properly, the information inside its brain was wiped clean. Then, it was given the ability to carry out only the most basic orders, so it could be controlled like a puppet.

When Jirina had brought Yukinari to this world, however, she hadn’t done that. Yukinari had been born here with his original personality and memories completely intact. It was probably a first in the history of the Church’s creation of the angels, and it was certainly the worst thing that could have happened for them.

Yukinari didn’t know why Jirina had done what she did. Perhaps she had hoped to use him as a weapon to help her and Dasa escape captivity. Whatever the case, Jirina was considered a rebel against the Church and was killed. It spoke to how serious a crime the Church leaders considered it to create an angel with self-awareness.

Suppose, then, that the Church decided to create a new angel. And suppose the soul they captured to activate it was that of Amano Hatsune. What would they do then?

Normally, they would wipe the angel’s memories, get rid of its personality, and turn it into a puppet. But if they had done that to Hatsune, she would never have been able to leave Yukinari’s name at the crime scenes. Or perhaps they had left her only the knowledge of his name and gotten rid of everything else?

No. They wouldn’t do that. The Church alchemists didn’t know that people in Yukinari and Hatsune’s world used kanji. They had no way of knowing, so it wouldn’t occur to them to leave only part of her knowledge like that.

Chances were, Hatsune still had her memories of their previous world. She was an exception to the angelic rule, just like Yukinari. That made the most sense.

But in that case, what was her objective? It was fairly obvious that the Church wanted Yukinari dead. To that end, they’d produced another angel with the same qualities as him. It was logical. The average mindless angel stood no chance against Yukinari. If one were put into battle against him, it would have to receive its orders, absorb them, and then act, in that order. It would be incapable of acting on its own, and that would make it fatally slower than Yukinari. In a straight fight, Yukinari could hardly fail to defeat it.

Now, if the angel were to ambush him, he might not have the same advantage—but this was no ambush. Someone was deliberately killing innocent people and leaving kanji characters at the scenes of the crimes as if begging Yukinari to notice them. That was not the way to set up a surprise attack.

Why, then? Assuming Hatsune had been allowed self-awareness by the Church, why was she acting this way?

She was always so kind...

Amano Hatsune had indeed always been kind. And Yukinari—Yukinari had loved her. And so...

“...Yukinari.”

A voice interrupted his thoughts. He looked around, blinking. Yukinari and his usual friends had come to the plaza in the center of town. Streets radiated away from the circular area. The plaza was surrounded by relatively tall buildings, so it almost gave the sense of being at the bottom of a hole. Admittedly, a very wide and shallow one.

“Is this about right?” Fiona was pointing to a sign set up in the very center of the public plaza. It was just a board stuck to a post. It had been put up by the community watch at Fiona’s behest, but it was Yukinari who had prepared the sign itself.

“Yeah, that’s perfect.”

The location at the very center of the plaza meant this sign was in the most conspicuous place in town. It didn’t have much written on it. Just four characters:

Amano Hatsune.

Nothing more. It wasn’t even a full sentence.

“What kind of charm is this?” asked Hans, who was accompanying them. “I’ve seen similar—letters? Or patterns?—at the crime scenes we’ve investigated.”

“Are they letters?” Fiona asked.

Yukinari was silent for a moment, trying to decide how to explain this.

“Dasa?” Fiona turned to the young woman.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Yuki won’t tell... me.” She sounded a little annoyed.

“Sorry,” Yukinari said, mussing her hair. She blinked and looked up at him, but he said, “I just... can’t say anything yet. I’m sorry about that.”

“...Mn.” Dasa blushed a little.

“If you say so, who am I to contradict you?” Fiona sighed.

He was telling the truth: he couldn’t say it. Until he was absolutely sure it was his sister, he didn’t want to speak his awful suspicions aloud. It was almost as if saying it would make it true.

Regardless, his friends didn’t press the matter. In fact, they were helping him. For that, Yukinari was deeply grateful.

●

It was evening. Berta was in the main plaza, everything around her bathed in crimson light.

Actually, she wasn’t exactly in the main plaza. She was just nearby, in the belltower of a building that was tall by Friedland’s standards. She was, however, looking directly at the main plaza from her perch. It was the focus of all her attention.

Berta. Yukinari. And Dasa. These three were up on the roof. Yukinari held Durandall and Dasa had Red Chili, as always. In addition, Dasa and Berta each had a sniper weapon—Derrringer.

Berta was watching the plaza through the weapon’s scope. Derrringer had a long barrel. She had asked Yukinari once why it was so long, but his explanation didn’t make complete sense to her—whatever the case, it wasn’t something you would normally just walk around with. Berta actually had a special Derrringer that Yukinari had given her for her use, but this was a different gun, one of the weapons Yukinari had lent to Fiona and the community watch. Berta and Dasa both had Derrringers back at the sanctuary, but Yukinari wasn’t willing to spare the time to go get them.

Berta didn’t understand what it was that had him so worried, but she trusted him from the bottom of her heart. Anything he wanted her to do, she would do it. Anything he asked her to do would not be mistaken. She wasn’t especially bright, so she would just do as he asked—that was what she had decided.

“If anyone down there has a strange response, shoot them,” Yukinari said.

Berta didn’t have any trouble with the actual shooting. She was quite used to Derrringer. It was highly accurate, and the distance between the belltower and the plaza wasn’t that great. Trying to hit one small, specific spot amid the hustle and bustle would be a very difficult shot—but just to land a round anywhere on a target the size of a human wouldn’t be so hard. She might even be able to deliberately miss any vital points, which soothed her resistance to killing things.

But there was still a problem.

“A strange response, my lord...?” She didn’t understand what he meant by that. “I’m sorry, but... what kind of response would be a... a strange one?” She thought it would be quite difficult to decide what was strange and what wasn’t.

For example, right at that moment, she could see two friends at one edge of the plaza, leaning toward each other and laughing about something. It made them stand out from the crowd; it was a little unusual. But they weren’t causing any trouble, and most people just passed them by. Surely he didn’t mean for her to shoot those two?

Berta hated how poor her judgment was. But...

“Um... hmm.” Yukinari frowned for a moment, perhaps realizing that his instructions had lacked a certain specificity. Finally he said, “Let me make the call.” He looked through his binoculars again. “Sorry, I know it doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

“No, it’s all right...” Berta shook her head. “I’ll just do what you say, Lord Yukinari.” She didn’t understand why he had ordered her to do this, but clearly, something was worrying him. Not that he had deigned to tell her what it was. That irked her. But still...

“Yuki...” Dasa spoke up suddenly. “He’s unsure.”

“What...?”

Dasa was doing an inspection of her own sniper rifle. It was basically the same gun as the one back at the sanctuary, but she was making sure that everything was in good condition.

“Do you know what’s going on, Lady Dasa?” Berta felt a short-lived flash of something she thought was jealousy. Perhaps there was something Yukinari had told Dasa, but no one else. She knew the two of them had been together for a long time before they arrived in Friedland, so perhaps Yukinari could say things to Dasa that he couldn’t say to anyone else.

Berta noticed her own envy, her own jealousy, and realized how shallow she was; it sent her into a spiral of self-recrimination.

But it was Yukinari himself who asked, “What are you talking about?”

Perhaps that meant this wasn’t some secret between the two of them.

Dasa methodically laid out her reasoning. “You’re staking out that... signboard, Yuki. And you’ve written... letters on it. Yet no one but... you... can read them. I think the letters are from... your home. And if you’re putting up a... sign with words no one else can read, it means there’s someone... else who can. Someone besides you. The words are like the ones at the crime scenes. And you’re watching them with a... gun, which means you expect to fight whoever... can read them.”

“Is it really someone from your... your home, Lord Yukinari?”

“I don’t know the details,” Dasa went on. “But I can guess that it’s someone who is... like you, Yuki.”

Yukinari was silent.

“In other words, someone else from the same place as you, whose soul... was used by the Church to make an... angel.”

Still he said nothing. He and Berta were both dumbfounded. Partly they were just surprised to hear the normally taciturn Dasa expound such a lengthy series of deductions—but even Berta could tell from the look on Yukinari’s face that Dasa’s guess was basically correct.

So we’re looking for someone from Lord Yukinari’s hometown...?

Berta didn’t know where Yukinari came from. But if someone he once knew had become an agent of the Church, that would certainly be very painful. Berta didn’t quite know what it would actually feel like, but she could understand that it wouldn’t be pleasant. She knew, for example, that if one of the other girls from her orphanage were to become her enemy, it would make her very sad.

“You’re right, more or less. Nice detective work,” Yukinari said.

Dasa nodded, a look of triumph passing briefly over her face. “It’s because we’ve been... together for so lo...ng, Yuki.” She almost seemed to be trying to make the point to Berta. Things that Berta couldn’t figure out, Dasa could. But considering the difference in the amount of knowledge each had, this was only natural.

Still, Berta had decided not long ago to stop acting as though this gap were something to resign herself to. It was something she had learned from the female mercenary, Veronika: not to give up, not to tell herself she could never win against Dasa. Even if she still sometimes felt hesitation.

Whatever the case, Yukinari said, “Anyway... To put it briefly, if the killer is one of the Church’s angels, I expect them to have some reaction to those words. People might be surprised at the sign, or laugh, or just look kind of suspicious about it. But if they do anything else, you can pull the trigger.

“We have to keep a constant watch on that sign,” he went on. “Including me, we have three snipers, so we’ll pull guard duty in three shifts. We leave two of the rifles here—one to use and one for backup, in case we have any problems with the first one.”

“Okay,” Berta nodded. Then she looked at Dasa. “Lady Dasa, you can feel free to rest for now!”

“Huh? Oh... All right.” Dasa blinked, uncharacteristically surprised, then nodded. “But—”

“Don’t worry,” Berta said. “I’ve got things covered here.” This seemed to be enough to cow Dasa into silence.

“First shift’s all yours, then,” Yukinari said.

“Yes, sir,” Berta answered. “You can count on me!”

●

In the Great Cathedral of the True Church of Harris. This was the most holy place for Harris believers. It was a temple so large it rivaled the royal castle itself for sheer size, and its main hall had room for tens of thousands of worshippers. The upkeep of the Cathedral naturally required a great many hands, and there were normally dozens of Church initiates to be found in the place at any time of the day or night. It seemed likely that the Cathedral had not been completely empty even once since it was built.

Still, it was quieter at night than it was during the day. Several knights patrolled the building to help keep it secure, but even they were careful to step as quietly as they could so as not to disturb the tranquility of this holy space.

Somewhere deep in the Cathedral, in a place few entered—indeed, that few even knew existed—a man and a woman were speaking together.

“And what progress has been made?” the man asked. He was just on the cusp of old age. His face was thin, and the clean white of his robes gave an impression of meticulousness. The embroidery on the mantle draped over his robes indicated his station as Dominus Doctrinae of the True Church of Harris.

This was Justin Chambers, the highest authority in the True Church of Harris. It wouldn’t have been too much to say that he embodied the Church.

The woman across from him was the exact opposite. The opposite sex, obviously, but she was also young—only in her mid-twenties—and she somehow exuded an air of eroticism. Her eyes, her gestures, her voice, her tone: all of it would make any man, regardless of his usual “type,” want to dominate her. And perhaps she was intentionally inviting as much.

A glance was more than enough to reveal that she was no priestess of the Church. She was different from the other adherents of the faith. Her outfit was mostly black, and the neckline revealed her generous bosom. She wore long white gloves that came up to her elbows, the palms of which were inscribed with circles full of complicated symbols.

The circles were the proof that she was an alchemist. Alchemists were widely reviled by the True Church of Harris as heretics. They were not allowed to set foot in the Great Cathedral, and they were certainly not allowed a face-to-face audience with the Dominus Doctrinae. At least not officially.

The woman’s name was Yaroslava Bernak, and she was very close to Justin—in fact, she was (unofficially, of course) his personal alchemist.

The room where the two stood was something else that shouldn’t have existed within the Great Cathedral. It was full of devices that looked very alchemical, and pipes crawled across the walls as if the building itself had veins.

Understandably, the vast majority of believers knew nothing of this room. Nor did they know that most of the “miracles” perpetrated by the True Church of Harris were the result of tools and even living things produced by alchemists the Church had kept captive through the generations. And they most certainly didn’t know that alchemists had then been publicly declared heretics by the Church so that the true faith could have a monopoly on such miracles.

“Progress? What do you mean?” Yaroslava looked genuinely puzzled.

“I mean, have there been no further reports since then?” Justin’s voice was calm. It was a voice the faithful were accustomed to hearing each day, expounding upon Church teachings. Now there was just a touch of annoyance in it. Only the slightest hint, such that even if someone else had been present, they might not have noticed it. Only Yaroslava detected it. Both of them knew perfectly well why he was upset.

It had to do with the “Blue Angel.”

The thirteenth angel, unlike his predecessors, had been born with his personality and memories intact. To their shock, he had gone on a rampage through the capital, devastating the area, and then vanished. Among his victims had been the previous Dominus, as well as the captain of the Missionary Order and many missionary knights. Yet despite all the wounded and dead, they hadn’t succeeded in even capturing him, let alone killing him.

It was a tremendous scandal for the Church. They had been able to hide it from the rank and file believers, but such a lopsided mauling would surely damage the Church’s authority. They weren’t able to send out large search parties, but behind the scenes the Church continued to look for the Blue Angel. Not long ago, they had found him.

He was in a small frontier city called Friedland. Not only that, but he had effectively destroyed two entire units of a Missionary Order civilizing expedition that had moved against him. If it was at all possible, the Church wanted this angel dead.

To merely bring more force to bear against him, however, would be foolish. The very existence of this creature was a black mark upon the Church, and committing four or five missionary units to a single small town would only fan the rumors of the angel’s existence.

What was needed here was not simply overwhelming power. Instead, a surgical strike was called for, an elite assassin—working alone, if possible. That was what had been in Justin’s mind when he had ordered Yaroslava to create just such an assassin. Specifically, he wanted another being with the same capabilities as the Blue Angel.

And so a fourteenth angel was made, the first born by Yaroslava’s hand. But she had had to move quickly, forcing her to work according to the research notes left by the Church’s most recent alchemist, Jirina Urban.

Thus the fourteenth angel was sent off to kill. But she had certain instabilities—she seemed almost lost—and she showed no sign of sending reports back to Justin and Yaroslava. Horses and carriages had been readied for her, so she should have been in the area of Friedland for quite some time now, but she had sent no word.

This new angel retained her personality so that she would be able to go toe-to-toe with her target, but it also made her difficult to handle. She generally did as Justin and Yaroslava asked, but it was sometimes impossible to tell what she was thinking.

It was the retention of its personality that had caused the thirteenth angel to go berserk, so it was only natural that Justin be somewhat concerned the fourteenth angel might do the same. If she were, say, to join forces with the Blue Angel in Friedland, the result would be catastrophic.

All the more reason Justin had told Church operatives in the area to keep an eye on her. But...

“I ordered the Missionary Order units operating near Friedland to see what she was up to, but after the recent defeat they have their hands full with their own patrols, nor can they spare many people from Aldreil.”

And that was why he was here, inquiring whether Yaroslava had heard anything from her new creation.

“No, milord, nothing.”

Justin looked a bit sullen and sighed. “And does this not worry you?”

“Worry me? Why should it?” Yaroslava almost seemed to be teasing him. “What is it you think I have to worry about? I don’t believe anything has happened to warrant concern.”

Justin was silent for a moment. Yaroslava seemed awfully sure of herself. What gave her the confidence to be so calm?

Finally Justin said, “We spoke of assassination, but he and she have equal capabilities as angels. If so, there’s no guarantee that she will be victorious. Indeed, I know full well that there is no guaranteed triumph on the battlefield. So where does this nonchalance of yours come from?”

According to the missionary unit that had done battle in Friedland, the villagers had some kind of mysterious and terrible weapon that could pierce even metal shields. Anyone facing the Blue Angel, who now stood in the place of Friedland’s erdgod, might well find themselves faced by Friedlanders wielding such weapons as well—so perhaps it was not entirely true to say the two were evenly matched.

“Comparative strength in battle has little to do with ambush and assassination. Rather, they were created as tactics to overcome a superior military force. The fourteenth angel was sent to deal personally with the Blue Angel, and as far as that goes, there will be no problem.”

“I suppose...” It was true enough.

“What’s more, it would be hard to believe the people of some frontier burg have developed such a weapon themselves. Most likely, it was brought into this world by the angel’s powers. They are, after all, the powers of creation, to be frank.” Yaroslava was practically singing the words. “Assuming there’s no major difference in their actual abilities, it simply comes down to which of them knows about more weapons and can use them more effectively.”

Justin didn’t speak. Theoretically, at least, the two angels should have been capable of producing the same weapons. Perhaps, by using a soul from the same world as the Blue Angel, their new creation would know of the same weapons.

Yaroslava went on. “I also made sure her memories included every anti-erdgod tactic in the Church’s arsenal, including the most cutting-edge weapons and techniques. There may be only one of her, and she may have to do everything herself, but she has as many weapons at her disposal as several contingents of missionary knights, joined to the freedom of mobility one can only have when acting alone. It makes a targeted assassination so much easier. I really think her chances are quite good.”

Justin still said nothing. Again, her logic made sense.

“But if so,” he finally said, “if one was so good, shouldn’t we have made two and sent them both?” He conjectured that this would have made them twice as likely to kill the Bluesteel Blasphemer. They couldn’t have sent five or ten angels; it would have been too conspicuous. But one more wouldn’t have hurt, surely?

“Well...” For the first time, Yaroslava looked troubled. “She refused.”

“Refused?”

“She looked as if she might decide to go on a rampage then and there if I insisted on creating an additional angel, so I yielded to her.”

After a long moment, Justin murmured, “A troublesome child indeed.” Self-awareness meant there were no promises that she would obey their orders absolutely. But there was something more on his mind. “If she’s so close to open rebellion, what’s to stop her from turning on us?”

That. That was the real problem. The chances might have been slim, but what if the fourteenth angel arrived at her destination and then decided to betray them, to join forces with the Blue Angel? Then they would be in twice as much danger as they already were, or perhaps more.

“Rebellion...?” Yaroslava gave a portentous smile and ran her pointer finger along her cheek. She almost seemed to be enjoying this, to be happy. She seemed to have something up her sleeve, a secret, and she was savoring the decision of whether to unveil it here and now.

“Yaroslava.” Justin narrowed his eyes and glared at the alchemist.

“Don’t worry, Your Holiness. Such concerns are utterly... utterly without merit.”

“I suppose you have some proof of that.”

“She is a weapon made to kill the Blue Angel. That is her only purpose.” Yaroslava licked her lips. The gesture reminded Justin of a snake; her smile was like that of a viper. “I’m an alchemist. Did you think I would slavishly follow Urban’s research to create my own angel? I put something special inside her, even before I inserted the soul to activate her.”

“And what would that be?”

“Poison.” Now Yaroslava was smiling openly.

“Poison... Slow-acting, I presume.”

“But of course.”

It would be meaningless if the fourteenth angel were to die before she completed her mission. So the poison would be slow enough to allow her to do her work, but then end her life before she could rebel against the Church.

“At most, I would say she has six months,” Yaroslava said. “At that time, the fourteenth angel will be destroyed, rendered back into her constituent parts. It’s all part of my plan. As I said, Your Holiness, you have no need to worry.”

Then she gave that smile again, like a snake about to strike.

It had been five days since they had started staking out the sign in the plaza. Yukinari and the others continued their observation day and night, but they didn’t see anyone who looked like an assassin. Sometimes townspeople would stop and stare curiously at the board, but they showed no more interest than that. No one so far had reacted strangely.

There hadn’t been any guarantees with this plan. But at the moment, they had no other options, and all they could do was continue their overwatch.

That, at least, was what Yukinari thought. But it had been four days already, and now the fifth was drawing to a close. The languid yellow light stretched out as if to mock their fruitless efforts, the shadow of the sign growing longer and longer in the plaza.

But then...

“Yukinari!”

Yukinari looked up, thinking it was time to switch shifts. But the voice was Arlen, shouting as he came up the stairs.

“Hey, quiet,” Yukinari said. “I thought I asked everyone to steer clear of this place.” If the killer knew they were being watched, all this would be for nothing.

But Arlen shot back, “Quiet, yourself! I’m not one of your lackeys! You are an utterly hopeless man! I might at least expect a little thanks for coming to call you.”

“Call me?” Yukinari frowned and exchanged glances with Dasa and Berta.

“Yes! They’ve found another victim!”

“Damn! Another one...?”

Had the killer not noticed Yukinari’s sign? Or had he been wrong in his supposition that the words “Amano Hatsune” would have some effect? Could it be that the criminal was not Yukinari’s older sister after all? Or...

“Just come with me already,” Arlen said in annoyance. “Fiona is asking for you! Sheesh. Spending all day staring at a sign at a time like this... I don’t know what the lot of you are thinking. We need every hand available to watch the area!”

“Well, I—”

It was true, Yukinari hadn’t explained much about this sign to Fiona, and certainly not to Arlen. It was hard to blame the young man for being upset. But still...

“Come on!”

Still, they couldn’t leave the watch unattended. What if the killer came through the plaza while Yukinari and the others were away? What if they showed some reaction to the sign? Even if the watcher wasn’t able to snipe the person, they might at least get a sense of who they were.

“Dasa, you come with me,” Yukinari said. “Berta—I’m sorry, but I need you to stay here. I’ll come back and switch with you as soon as I can.”

“I understand.”

“I know you might not be sure who you should shoot, but if you see anyone acting strangely, at least take note of what they look like and where they go.”

“Yes, sir. I can do that.”

With that, Yukinari and Dasa rushed down the belltower stairs after Arlen. Yukinari, however, stopped and looked back at Berta.

“Don’t do anything crazy!” he called to her.

“No, sir!” she replied. And then Yukinari was off again.

●

After Yukinari and the others left, silence returned to the tower. Berta watched the plaza, Derrringer at the ready. She had only looked away for a second, but now she scanned the area to see if anything had changed. Derrringer’s scope afforded an exceedingly narrow field of view, so until she was actually ready to shoot, Berta took her eye away from it and simply looked down at the plaza.

There was no wind. The sky was patchy with clouds. Ideal conditions for both observation and sniping. If it had been too sunny, the light might have reflected off white walls or water in barrels, making it hard to see. And if the eyes became too accustomed to bright light, it became harder to see into the shadows or notice when they were moving.

Berta made no sound. As far as she could tell, everything in town was still the same. Aside from a few human figures, nothing moved in the plaza.

Berta examined the faces of those in the area one by one, using the scope to get a close look at them. They all seemed totally normal, yet a close look revealed a certain stiffness, a darkness in each expression. They were all scared, afraid of the invisible killer.

Nobody knew who the murderer was, nor where they might be. That made it impossible to relax. But neither was this an excuse to stop going about their daily lives. Anxiety must have been squeezing at the people’s hearts—Berta knew, because she felt it, too. So long as she was with Yukinari, she didn’t worry that she might become a victim, but the thought that someone else might, perhaps someone close to her, left her with a constant tension. This was a different kind of anxiety from what she had felt when the Missionary Order had attacked. It was shapeless, hard to grasp.

She looked back at the sign. Or rather, at the area around the sign. For the first day or two, people had been quite interested in the unusual board, some stopping to stare at it, but now no one paid it any mind. Everyone knew that Yukinari himself had put it up, and they probably thought it was some sort of charm or invocation on the part of their god. Now they all passed by without a hint of interest, or at least without anything that would qualify as a “strange reaction.”

But what is a strange reaction? Berta wondered. Maybe looking very surprised and freezing in place in front of the sign...?

This part of the assignment still didn’t make much sense to her. Maybe Yukinari himself wasn’t sure enough to say for certain what they were looking for. Essentially, they wanted someone who reacted differently from the majority of Friedlanders—but responses to the sign were so diverse that it was hard to say what such a reaction would be. It might be easier to tell now that most people had lost interest in the sign.

Maybe if they get angry and smash the sign, or look terrified and run away. Lady Dasa said this person was an angel, but what did she mean...?

Yukinari was the only angel Berta knew personally. She tried to picture what another angel might look like based on her knowledge of him, but she simply couldn’t imagine Yukinari looking terrified and running away. After all, when suddenly confronted with an erdgod, he hadn’t panicked but had simply killed it.

At length...

“...Ah...”

Berta suddenly noticed a lone young woman standing in front of the sign. She could only see the person’s back, but she had black hair and looked like she was probably a few years younger than Berta—in other words, still just a girl. It wasn’t her size, but her long black hair and her clothing that made it clear she was female.

She’s looking at it...

Just childish curiosity? The girl’s head was tilted in bemusement. Given how little interest anyone else showed in the sign, this might qualify as a strange reaction.

Maybe she’s just confused by the letters?

Berta had been told that the sign bore letters used in the world Yukinari had once been in. It wouldn’t be anything anyone from Friedland could read. Fiona was exceptionally well-educated by Friedland’s standards, able to read and write, and even she didn’t know what the sign said. The average adult had no hope of understanding it, and once they realized that, they quickly lost interest.

But children might not react in quite the same way. They might think it was pictures, not letters, on the sign. Berta thought of her little sisters at the orphanage, whose childlike imaginations allowed them to see faces or shapes in rocks and trees. It wouldn’t be strange if a child treated these letters the same way.

Even as these thoughts went through her mind, Berta put her eye to the scope with the intention of taking close note of the girl’s behavior.

That was when it happened.

The girl began to shake. Was she afraid? No, that wasn’t it. Her body bent slightly, and both her hands came up in front of her face. Was she putting her hands to her mouth? Laughter—was that what this was? She was laughing out loud. Berta saw one of the adults walking by frown at the girl in puzzlement.

That’s her, Berta thought instinctively.

The inability to understand what was on the sign made some people angry. Others were surprised or suspicious. A few simply looked mystified. But no one would look at an incomprehensible series of letters and burst out laughing so hard their shoulders shook.

Berta, of course, didn’t know what Yukinari had written any more than anyone else did. Yet that girl could read the words, knew what they meant. Perhaps she even understood his plan.

Someone else from Lord Yukinari’s home...

An “angel” who had come from the same place as him. That was why she could read the words. That was why she was laughing.

The girl—I have to keep an eye on her!

Berta was terrified of even the smallest chance of being wrong, which was why she hesitated to shoot the girl from behind. But she had to remember the child’s face. The girl couldn’t stand there with her back to Berta forever. Eventually, she would have to turn and walk off somewhere. Then Berta would at least see her face in profile—at least see where she went, what kind of clothes she was wearing, and she could tell it all to Yukinari. If the girl went into a building, she would tell him which building, too.

Feeling the adrenaline begin to flow, Berta focused all her attention on the girl in her sights. At last, the shaking stopped. Was she done laughing?

Berta started as the girl abruptly turned around. This should have been convenient for her, because she wanted to see the child’s face. But the girl’s purple eyes seemed to stare straight back through the scope, directly at Berta.

“Wha...?” She found herself speaking without meaning to.

There was distance between them. Berta was on top of the belltower, lying on the balcony with Derrringer. No one should have been able to look directly at her without knowing she was there. Yet the girl was staring straight at Berta. She obviously knew where the sniper was.

And then, to Berta’s shock and alarm, a smile began to spread across the girl’s lips. Berta let out a little gasp and jumped away from Derrringer, leaving the rifle where it lay. Berta was much higher up than the girl; if she could back up far enough, the child would no longer be able to see her.

“I... I...”

Her breath was ragged and she had broken out in a cold sweat all over her body. She put a hand to her chest and could feel her heart pounding.

I—I’ve got to calm down... I’ve got to calm down... She repeated the phrase to herself, trying to think. She can’t possibly see me... I think... She only just happened to look this way...

Yes, that had to be it. She had only seemed to look in Berta’s direction. It had been coincidence.

“I’ve got to... get a good look...”

All she could remember were the purple eyes. The girl’s face, what she was wearing—Berta could recall none of it. She had to remember so she could tell Yukinari.

Berta, her voice still stuck in her throat, crawled back to where Derrringer sat and hesitantly put her eye to the scope. Only to find...

“...She’s gone...?”

The girl was nowhere to be seen—not just in front of the sign, but anywhere in the plaza.

Berta found herself letting out a long sigh. It was partly relief, and partly frustration.

“Just when I could have done something to help Lord Yukinari...”

She hadn’t seen the moment the girl disappeared. Didn’t know which building she had gone into, or which direction she had walked away in. She didn’t even remember the child’s face clearly. All she remembered was the long black hair, and people with black hair weren’t especially unusual in Friedland.

Berta resolved to have another look. She took her eye from Derrringer’s scope and began to gaze around the town below. Slowly, carefully. Checking the shadows. But still she didn’t see the girl anywhere. It was no good. She was gone.

Berta was distraught.

She jumped as someone put a hand on her shoulder. She shook with the surprise, but she knew it was just Yukinari getting back.

She turned around to find a figure with the sun at its back, the light making it impossible to see the person’s face. But...

“Y-You’re...!”

Two purple eyes, the same ones that had looked up at her as she stared through the scope, now gazed at her from only inches away.

●

A crowd had already assembled at the crime scene by the time Yukinari arrived. It was located just a short distance outside of one of Friedland’s gates, just beyond one of the newly dug irrigation ditches. This was one of the first such ditches that had been dug, and it was rare now for Friedlanders to come near it. The only visitors were periodic patrols checking on the ditch’s condition.

Fiona and the community watch were shouting at the assembled townspeople, “Keep back! Keep back! Keep your distance!” But their injunctions didn’t appear to be very effective. Everyone was so afraid; this couldn’t help but draw interest. The victim lying on the ground could have been any of them.

“Excuse me, out of the way please,” Yukinari said, working his way toward where Fiona and the others stood.

“It’s Lord Yukinari.”

“Lord Yukinari—”

As the people realized who had arrived, they parted to make way for him. As he got closer, Yukinari saw Fiona and the watch were standing by the body, a man in work clothes. Judging by his outfit, he was probably one of the fieldworkers. Most likely, he had been out here checking on the irrigation canal.

As usual, the cause of death was a single stab to the heart.

For several seconds, Yukinari stared silently at the corpse. But then he started walking, thinking that it was not so much the body as the surroundings he should be looking at.

“Hey, Yukinari! What are you—” Arlen shouted angrily, perhaps feeling that Yukinari didn’t seem to be taking this seriously, but Yukinari had no interest in going over the details with him. He interrupted Arlen with a wave of his hand.

“Trust me. You do your investigation, I’ll do mine.”

“Yuki...” Dasa, walking beside him, spoke up. “Are... you looking for... that?”

She seemed to have a good idea of what he expected to find. It was only natural that she should. She had seen the words “Amano Yukinari” carved into the earlier crime scene. She knew that a similar inscription had been left at nearly every killing.

“Yeah. I didn’t notice it the first time... Or rather, somebody probably just thought they were meaningless scratches, thought nothing of them...”

Chances were that his name had been written at every crime scene. But the people of this world couldn’t read kanji, and it was likely that the community watch, unaware of what they were doing, had simply wiped the inscriptions away. In some cases, they might have moved the bodies, separating them from where the words were written. Now that Yukinari was spending all his time in town, he arrived at the crime scenes much sooner, meaning there was no time for anything to be tampered with.

There they were. The two words: “Amano Yukinari.”

This has to be aimed at me, right...?

But why? If the words were being left by a Church angel who had come to kill him, why not attack him directly? There had been plenty of chances.

And if it is Hatsune...

What was the point of writing his name at each crime scene, as if it were the last testament of every victim? Maybe there was no point. They had yet to see anyone react strangely to the sign in the plaza. Did that mean the killer wasn’t his sister? Or did it mean...

No, wait. These characters...

Was this about being sure? In the same way Yukinari had put up the sign in the square, maybe the killer wanted to know whether Yukinari was really the reincarnation of Amano Yukinari. If that was the case, maybe the killer was watching even now to see what reaction Yukinari would have to the inscription.

Just like Yukinari had been watching the sign.

It came suddenly.

Yukinari jumped as he heard a crack like a thunderclap.

It was a gunshot. From the direction of Friedland’s gates, no less.

“What was that?!” Fiona and the community watch looked around, thinking there must have been a wild horse or the like nearby. But a few people must have realized that it was a gunshot. That somebody had fired a gun.

Arlen and the other former missionary knights, as well as the members of the community watch, had all been provided with guns. Some of them may even have used them when they ran into demigods or xenobeasts on their patrols. Certainly they would have heard them fired in practice. But the first person Yukinari thought of was the girl he had left on the belltower back in town—Berta.

“I’m sorry—you’ll have to take care of things here!” he said, and then he set off running as fast as he could. Dasa followed him, presumably having come to the same conclusion.

“Yuki...”

“Dasa,” he said, reaching out to her, pulling her up as he ran. As if she had known he would do this, Dasa jumped, ending up in his arms. It was a near-telepathic move that could only have come from long, long acquaintance.

Yukinari held Dasa in his arms and kept running. It was quicker to carry her than to have her run alongside.

“Yuki...” The note of anxiety in her voice might have been because she had a guess at who the serial killer was.

“It’s okay.”

If the gunshot was from Berta’s Derrringer, if she had fired because she saw someone she thought was the killer, that meant that when they arrived Yukinari might well be face-to-face with the criminal.

In other words, with...

“It’s okay,” Yukinari repeated, less to Dasa than to himself.

●

Yukinari ran as fast as he was able, Dasa in his arms. As an angel, his body was capable of superhuman feats of mobility and endurance, even without taking on the form known as the Bluesteel Blasphemer. A normal person could keep up a real full-tilt run for only ten seconds or so at most, but Yukinari could easily go for an entire minute. And that was while carrying another person.

Hence, he arrived at the belltower not long after hearing the shot.

“Yuki, put me down,” Dasa said before they began climbing the staircase. They would ultimately need to use a ladder to get to the rooftop, so even Yukinari couldn’t have reached the lookout with Dasa in his arms.

Yukinari set the girl down and began bounding up the belltower stairs. Anxiety and panic swirled in his mind. He knew how reluctant Berta would have been to shoot anyone, even someone who appeared to be their mysterious killer. True, in the battle with the Missionary Order, she had managed to shoot one Church person, but only with a great deal of reluctance.

What was more, this time she would have been picking her target out of a crowd, which made the technical difficulty of the shot much greater. No matter how talented she was, Berta hadn’t spent more than a month with her gun; predicting how people would move and then finding a space for the shot—essentially, seeing the future—would be tremendously hard for her.

That was why Yukinari had felt it would be enough if she could confirm that someone had had a strange reaction to the sign. And yet, there had been a gunshot. He was sure it had been Derrringer, and that it had come from the direction of the belltower. It was almost certainly Berta.

I hate to think it, but...

In all his time in this world, Yukinari had never dealt with anyone who knew what a gun was. Neither the humans nor the xenobeasts and demigods recognized the weapons. They certainly had no concept of long-distance sniping. No one knew that an attack might come from much farther away than was possible with a bow and arrow, or that a scope might enable such an attack to be very accurate.

So it was possible Berta had forgotten to be careful. Careful of the angle of the sun—or more precisely, the reflection of the light in the scope’s lens.

Nobody in this world would have seen the gleam of something on a rooftop and thought “sniper’s scope.” But if the killer was his older sister Hatsune, and if she knew that Yukinari had introduced guns to this world...

In deference to Yukinari’s interests, Hatsune had frequently watched action movies with him. Westerns, in particular, often had scenes where the hero would notice a sniper drawing a bead on him because of the reflection from a scope.

“Berta!” Yukinari powered his way up the ladder with such force that it seemed he might break the thing. He feared the worst—that Berta had been drawn into a one-on-one confrontation with the killer. They already knew that the criminal used something like a rapier in their attacks. If this person had gotten close enough to strike, then Berta, with her big, heavy gun, would be at a severe disadvantage. The belltower didn’t provide good footing, either.

“Berta—”

As he reached the top of the ladder, Yukinari saw a lone figure on the roof.

“Was that you who fired? What hap—”

His first thought was that he needn’t have worried. But he realized with a twisting in his stomach that the light had made it hard to see what was in front of him; he saw now that his first impression had been wrong.

There only appeared to be one figure because both people on the rooftop were in profile, so that their silhouettes overlapped from where Yukinari watched. Berta was there, along with someone else, a girl.

Yukinari immediately moved to get closer, but he noticed his feet slipping. He didn’t want to look away from the two people in front of him, but just for an instant, he glanced down. He saw a rivulet of blood at his feet. He followed it back, back to Berta and the girl.

With the sun at her back, the girl’s face appeared to be stained black—but her purple eyes were looking straight at him.

Calm down...!

He tried to talk himself down, and meanwhile he moved to one side, hoping to get a better look at what was going on. The movement changed the angle of the sun relative to where he was standing, stripping away some of the shadows that had ensconced the two women in the belltower.

Berta appeared limp, all but leaning on the young woman. The other girl was shorter than Berta, yet her hands were not up very high. She was clearly using some kind of tool. But what? Was that a stick? No...

“Bertaaaa!” Yukinari howled. Her generous chest had been pierced through by the rapier the girl was holding. And then...

“My dear Yuki...”

With the twilight sun behind her, the girl’s face was awash in shadows. The face of...

“Hatsune... Is that you...?”

My dear Yuki.

That was what she always used to call him. For as long as he could remember, she was the only one who ever called him that. And yet...

Her face... But of course it’s not like I remember. They gave her a new body when she came here.

It was an utterly ordinary face. It looked almost as if it had been designed not to leave an impression; it was pleasant enough, but confoundingly indistinct. It wasn’t the face Yukinari remembered his sister having.

Was this face the result of the preferences of the person who had created this angel, or had it been done deliberately to make her a better assassin? He had no idea. And the girl was so clearly young. Hatsune had been older than Yukinari. The last time he had seen her, when they both died when their house burned down, she had been eighteen. Yet this girl was obviously in her early teens. She was smaller and younger even than Berta and Dasa.

Yet the girl said, “My dear Yuki... Have you forgotten what I look like?” With the palm of her left hand—the one not holding the rapier—she began to rub her face. He could see a bluish-white light leak out from behind her hand, the light of physical reconstitution. The pale fingers moved as if stirring a soup, and the girl’s face changed completely.

Now it was the face he remembered. It looked somewhat like Dasa—yet not exactly. It was a face he knew much better than Dasa’s, one he could never forget. One familiar and beloved to him.

A face sweet and lovely. But to see that kind, gentle smile against this blood-soaked scene was completely bizarre. The feeling was only intensified by the spatter of red against the white hair and white clothes. The blood must have come out of Berta’s mouth when some internal organ had been ruptured by the rapier. The girl appeared unfazed.

It was unmistakably Amano Hatsune. But no—she was no longer human. She wasn’t even Japanese. Rather, like Yukinari, she was a soul sealed inside an angel’s body. Perhaps it was more appropriate to think of her as Hatsune Amano.

“Hrgh...” Yukinari put a hand to his chest, which was in agony, as if he were having a heart attack. He had expected this, but he had wished desperately to be wrong. His sister—his dear, sweet sister, the sibling he adored—was the killer, his enemy.

Time and time again he had suspected this, then tried to overcome his doubts, only to be filled with them again, the repetition of it all like a prayer. But now all that was over. There could be no more question.

“Why? Why...?” he groaned. “Are you acting on orders from the True Church of Harris?! If so, sister, then they’re deceiving you!”

The members of the True Church of Harris had ample reason to want to kill both Yukinari and the people of Friedland. But Hatsune didn’t. And if Hatsune had really come to this world with her memories intact, just like Yukinari, then she should have realized that she had no reason to fight him or to let the Church use her as its pawn. She ought to have refused.

So they must have tricked her. He didn’t know how, but they must have done it. It didn’t make any sense otherwise. How could his kind, loving sister do such things?

She cocked her head, the picture of innocence. “Deceiving me? I wonder. I don’t particularly think I’m being deceived.”

“So you mean—you mean to say that killing all those people in Friedland... Killing Berta... You did all that because you wanted to?!”

“Yes,” she said, her voice distinct but surprisingly quiet. “I think you’re the one who’s being deceived, my dear Yuki.”

“Me...?”

“You’re all I have, and I’m all you have,” she said, almost as if she were humming the words. “We were always together, weren’t we? Just two of us.”

“That’s—”

“We were going to be together all our lives, isn’t that what we said? After all, you were all I had, and I was all you had. You always said you would never leave me alone, my dear Yuki.”

What she was saying was true. With their mother lost in religion and their father lost in his work, the two siblings had grown up without any adults to look after them, and so had faced life together. Both of them had failed to build the bonds of love between parent and child that should have been primary in their lives; instead, they had clung to each other.

To each other, they had been parents, friends, and... lovers. Yukinari and Hatsune had each been every possible thing to the other. A parent should support a child from early on in life, yet in this both of them had been betrayed, and so they were reluctant—indeed, afraid—to form bonds with other people.

“And yet you, my dear Yuki...” Hatsune pursed her lips like a pouting child. Almost as if she were jealous. “The moment I’m not right next to you anymore, you forget all about me and go making friends with someone else.”

“No, I—”

“But my dear Yuki. Remember. No one else ever did anything for you, did they? Everyone who ever had anything to do with us did it because they had to, or because it was their job—always for their own purposes. There was no one who did anything because they cared about us, was there? No one who loved us.” The small smile remained on her face as she spoke. “The people of this town are the same way. They’re just using you, my dear Yuki. Deceiving you. They don’t love you. You’re strong, you possess great power, and that benefits them, so they’re using you.”

He didn’t speak. Yes, there was an element of that. The people of Friedland venerated Yukinari as the town’s guardian deity; nobody specifically liked him for himself. Or perhaps some did, but they were overwhelmingly few. Yukinari knew all this as well as anyone. And yet, somehow, he didn’t mind; it was only natural to him.

Love with no price? He recoiled at the thought. It was something his mother had often spoken of, yet she had disappeared into religion and never spared her family a backward glance.

Jirina, who had created Yukinari’s body, had told him that something could not be made from nothing.

“A price is always required in order to create something,” she had said. “Alchemy isn’t magic. An angel’s powers function on that same understanding. When you get something for nothing—well, that’s called a miracle.”

This was a world where people’s faith, the spiritual power of their intense devotion, could be stored up in Holy Oil or Spirit Oil. Jirina told him all this as if it were the most natural thing in the world. But that was all the more reason...

“They’re in the way,” Hatsune said. Her eyes were cloudy, as if she were dreaming. “The people of this town. They’re standing between you and me being together, just the two of us, like we used to be. You’re being deceived, my dear Yuki. I thought you might at least come to your senses, but you don’t understand anything at all.”

“You killed them...” To Yukinari, his voice sounded as if it were someone else speaking. “...because they were in the way?”

“That’s right.”

“And you thought I would figure out what you were doing? That you would keep murdering them until I decided to join you...?!”

Here he had thought someone was trying to sow chaos in Friedland, or perhaps cause the villagers to mistrust each other. But it hadn’t even been anything as devious as that. Hatsune had been thinking of nothing but Yukinari, and to her the people of Friedland were like insects—less than insects, in fact; they were no more than background clutter.

This wasn’t about brutality. She didn’t see killing them as an act of cruelty. She was just utterly uninterested in anyone but Yukinari.

“And you don’t need this, either,” Hatsune said.

It took Yukinari a moment to figure out what she was referring to. That’s why he was slow to react. That was why he failed to stop Hatsune from moving her left hand, turning the rapier over so that Berta would slide off the end.

Under the force of gravity, the body freed itself from the sword and dropped onto the roof. It rolled like an inanimate object; Hatsune had literally thrown Berta away.

“Hrgh...”

But as she tumbled, there was the smallest sound.

“Berta!”

She was still alive. Or was that merely air escaping from her lungs under the impact of the fall? It didn’t matter. Yukinari rushed across the rooftop and caught Berta in his arms.

He had no time to transform. Instead, he grasped Berta with his left arm, thrusting out his right arm and digging into the wall of the belltower with his fingers.

“Gah...!”

However strong his angel body might have been, he felt pain more or less like a normal human. He dug his fingers into the small cracks and undulations in the wall, and the friction burned his fingers, tearing away skin and flesh. But it was all in the name of slowing Berta’s momentum. He could only grit his teeth and endure the pain that lanced through his hand. Finally, he used the soles of his feet to soften the impact of the landing as much as he could.

“Ergh...!”

A severe shock ran through all the bones in his body, but he somehow managed to stop Berta from hitting the ground.

“Berta!”

He tried to get a sense of how she was doing. The actual piercing wound in her chest was small, and blood was only dribbling from it. But that fact was actually a bad sign. It meant her blood pressure was low—that her heart was near to stopping.

“Dammit! You can’t die yet!” He tore open her shirt, pressing his right hand to her exposed breast. “It’s too soon! You have to live, Berta!”

This wasn’t like when he had lost Jirina. Now he knew how to use his angel powers, and he had his memories from his previous world. He should be able to fix this. The heart was a bundle of muscle, and it had only been pierced by a rapier. If something as complicated as a heart had been totally destroyed, it would have been beyond even Yukinari to do anything about it. But a small wound? Surely he could cure that. Surely.

“Don’t you die, Berta!” As he shouted, Yukinari tried to use physical reconstitution to heal her heart. He could replenish some of the blood she had lost. Even if he managed to repair her heart, low blood pressure would mean she might go into shock and die from lack of blood flow and poor oxygenation.

A voice spoke from above him. “You mustn’t, my dear Yuki.”

He looked up. Hatsune was gazing down at him from atop the tower. “You mustn’t do that.” She sounded like an older sister gently chiding a disobedient younger brother. The rapier was still in her hand.

This was bad. If she attacked him now, he would have no way to resist. She probably wouldn’t even need her sword. She could just jump down on top of them. If Yukinari stopped his healing work now, Berta would die, no question.

Yukinari crouched protectively over Berta. He had to keep working on her, but as much as he could, he would defend her while doing so.

Then came the gunshot, a roar that split the air. Then a second, then a third.

Fanning. Using the left hand to work the hammer while the trigger remained pulled, a way of firing a machine gun-like volley with a single-action revolver.

Bits came flying off of the railing of the belltower where Hatsune was standing. Yukinari’s sister looked about to lose her balance, but instead she kicked off of what was left of the tower. Her gossamer appearance belied her acrobatic strength; she jumped over and landed on the roof of the next building. But three more bullets followed her, pressing the attack. Hatsune jumped backward across the roof.

Dasa...!

She, of course, must have been the origin of the gunshots. But her revolver, Red Chili, carried only six rounds. On top of that, it was a single-action weapon. It would take time to reload. The hammer had to be half-cocked, the loading gate opened, and the spent shells ejected, only after which could new bullets be loaded in. In other words, having spent her six shots, Dasa would be defenseless.

Hatsune crouched on the rooftop. Maybe she was planning to jump back to the belltower and kill Dasa.

“Hatsune! Dasa!” Yukinari shouted.

And then—there was another gunshot.

Yukinari started. The report was far louder than that of Red Chili; it belonged to Derrringer. Perhaps Dasa had picked up the gun Berta had dropped when she got stabbed.

“Hrgh?!” The shot must have landed, because Hatsune was thrown backward off the roof and vanished from view.

“Yuki!” Dasa peeked out from the edge of the belltower. Just as Yukinari had thought, she was holding Derrringer.

“Don’t let down your guard!” he called. “Reload while you can!” He pushed down on Berta’s chest, practically hard enough to break her ribs, trying to start the heart that lay still just beneath her breast.

If Hatsune had taken a bullet to the head, that was one thing, but if it had landed in one of her limbs—even if an arm or leg were blown off, an angel could regrow it.

“It’s okay,” Dasa said, not letting go of Derrringer. “I saw... her run away.”

Yukinari was silent. From her vantage point atop the belltower, Dasa must have been able to see where Hatsune had fallen, been able to watch her flee. Hatsune must have decided that Dasa was stronger than she looked and that a temporary retreat was called for.

“How’s... Berta?” Dasa asked, looking slightly unsettled.

Yukinari felt the girl’s heart begin to beat under his palm. “I think... I think she’ll make it, somehow...”

●