Chapter 4

Cross-Counter Heart

Day broke on the second day of the school trip.

Shido had made his way to Akaru Beach on the northern part of Arubi Island. Gouged out of the territory in the spacequake thirty years ago, the beach carved out a striking arc in the ground. Tourist guidebooks dubbed it Crescent Moon Beach, which Shido thought was an impressive name.

“…”

Strangely, he couldn’t see anyone resembling a tourist there.

Maybe that was to be expected. When he was on his way to the changing room with everyone else, Reine had stopped him and taken him in a rental car to a private beach on one end of Akaru Beach. She had gone out of her way to arrange the trip since there was a good chance of his classmates interfering in his mission otherwise.

“Haah… This is incredible.”

The sky was clear. The bright sun reflected off the almost perfectly clear water, causing Shido to narrow his eyes.

He sounded like an old man as he gently stroked the scratches on his cheeks and chest, in contrast with the lively young people frolicking in the public beach areas.

A slight pain raced along his skin, and he frowned. “Owww…”

Right when he’d thrown open the door to escape from Kaguya and Yuzuru, Tama had come at him with a slashing attack. Thanks to Kotori’s Spirit power, Shido would recover from even serious wounds, but it appeared these injuries weren’t something he could handle under his own power. If he went into the water as is with the scratches and all, he would no doubt shed tears at the fierce purification of the seawater.

“At any rate, it’s not like I get to do what I want here.” He sighed.

Right on cue, a sleepy voice came through the earpiece in his right ear. “…Shin, it looks like Kaguya and Yuzuru have finished changing. You ready?”

He took a deep breath. “Yes.”

“…Like I told you yesterday, they’ve both been given earpieces. They haven’t been swimming before, apparently, so I’d like to suggest they do a bunch of things. Go along with it as much as you can.”

“R-roger.”

“…To prevent crossed wires with my advice to them and my conversation with you, I have to close the line for a minute. Will you be okay?”

“Yes, I’ll do what I can… To be honest, though, I’m a little nervous.” He smiled helplessly, remembering the events of the previous day.

“…Well, no one can say you didn’t have a rough go of it yesterday. But I’m watching your back to a certain extent. Okay, the mission’s starting. Don’t forget to compliment them on their swimsuits.”

With those words, the transmission ended.

“Keh-keh… So this is where you were hiding?”

“Discovery. I found you, Shido.”

That distinctive way of speaking. He didn’t need to look to know. He slowly turned around anyway.

As expected, Kaguya and Yuzuru were standing there. Kaguya was wearing a black bikini decorated with white lace, while Yuzuru was the opposite in a bikini of white fabric with black lace. They were almost eerily alike. If they were to walk along the beach looking like this, more than one guy would feel compelled to call out to them.

“H-hey. Those suits are great on you. You two look amazing.”

When Shido complimented them just as Reine had instructed, Kaguya’s face flushed and her eyes opened wide like she was surprised, while Yuzuru looked down at herself, stunned.

But Kaguya soon shook it off and crossed her arms. “K-keh-keh-keh… I—I suppose I do. I suppose so. But don’t get the wrong idea. This garment pales before my actual appeal.”

“Gratitude. Thank you very much. That makes me happy,” Yuzuru agreed.

And then Kaguya and Yuzuru each arched an eyebrow abruptly and put a hand to an ear.

“…Hmm?”

“Confirmation. Yes.”

Shido looked closely and saw the same model of earpiece that he wore in their ears.

“Keh-keh… I see. Understood.”

“Acknowledgment. I have understood.”

He grinned unconsciously. He guessed it was just because they weren’t used to this. Watching both of them become so preoccupied with their earpieces was funny for some reason.

Soon enough, they took their hands away from their ears and turned back to him.

“Shido. Given that I live in eternal darkness, this Sonnenschein is too much. I will permit you to implement a protective miasma to block the holy light.”

“Huh…?”

“Petition. Please apply this thing called sunscreen.”

“Ohhh… Sure.” He finally understood, thanks to Yuzuru’s explanation. But the hard part came after the understanding. Applying sunscreen meant…

“Fwah… Then proceed. I trust that you have my back,” Kaguya said, clearly using the wrong words for the occasion, and handed him a bottle of sunscreen.

“Request,” Yuzuru followed up. “Please do this.”

He wondered where exactly they had gotten the sunscreen, but he quickly noticed a rest station nearby, offering beach umbrellas and blankets. Most likely, Reine had set it up in advance.

The girls traded meaningful glances and then lay facedown in the shadow of a beach umbrella. They unhooked their tops to expose their pale backs to Shido.

“Uh. Umm…” Sweat poured down his face as he looked at the backs side by side.

Apply this…? He would have to run his hands directly over their skin.

Perhaps impatient, Kaguya and Yuzuru touched their earpieces and began to speak in quiet voices.

“Hey. Shido’s not getting on board. Is there something else going on here?”

“Question. What is ineffective?”

“…! Crap!” He frowned. Their goal today was to give Reine’s advice credibility. If he balked here, the mission would end in failure. “O-okay! Here I go!”

Kaguya and Yuzuru looked toward him for a moment and nodded.

“Phew…” He let out a sigh of relief. It seemed that he’d managed to keep from making Reine’s advice worthless.

However…

“Keh-keh… Now, Shido, this goes without asking, but you will start with me, yes?”

“Question. With which of us will you begin the application of sunscreen?”

“Huh? Oh, uh, well.” He watched as they exchanged a look, and then Kaguya abruptly grabbed hold of Yuzuru, flipped her over, and got on top of her, pinning Yuzuru down with her arms and legs so that she couldn’t move.

“Shido. Now,” she commanded. “My miasma of protection!”

“Inattention. Hngh…”

A triumphant smile spread across Kaguya’s face as Yuzuru let out a pained groan.

This was all happening while they had their bikini tops unfastened, so Kaguya and Yuzuru’s breasts were pressed up against each other, and it was strangely erotic.

“Would you hurry?!”

“R-right!” Shido dropped to his knees, squeezed out a bit of sunscreen into his hand, and touched Kaguya’s back.

“Mm! Aaah…!” Kaguya shuddered, her voice sweeter than ever before.

“S-sorry… Is it cold?”

“I-it’s fine. Just…do it…”

“O-okay…”

But every time Shido moved his hand, Kaguya writhed like it tickled, crying “Aaah!” and “Mm!” in an excessively sensual way.

Held fast by Kaguya, Yuzuru also let out something like a moan of admiration at her twin’s reaction. Then she gasped, her eyebrows jumping up on her forehead when she found a momentary opening in Kaguya’s guard to flip them over.

“Counteroffensive. You were wide open.”

“Hngh!”

Now it was Yuzuru holding down Kaguya, and she turned her eyes toward Shido. Having been one-upped by her sister, Kaguya panted heavily, seemingly lacking the strength to resist Yuzuru.

“Petition. Shido, hurry. Do Yuzuru, too…please.”

“Ungh…?! R-right.” He knew it was just sunscreen, but his heart skipped a beat at this strangely suggestive pose and dialogue. But he managed to calm himself down somehow and began to rub the sunscreen on Yuzuru’s back.

“Spa…sm. Unh… Ah!” Yuzuru said in a strained voice, breathing quickly through her nose.

When Shido timidly moved his hand to follow the arch of her back, she shuddered as though unable to stand it any longer.

“Uh. Um…”

“Ad…miration. You are very good at this…Shido.”

“N-no fair! Me next!” Having finally gotten her breathing back under control, Kaguya sat up and reversed their positions.

But when Shido began to apply the sunscreen once more, she shivered again.

“Counter. Offensive… I won’t allow it.”

Now Yuzuru twisted and flipped Kaguya onto the blanket, sunscreen smearing across it.

“Why you—! What are you doing?!”

But Kaguya wasn’t going to let this go unchecked. She quickly grabbed Yuzuru’s hands and retook her place on the top.

After several cycles of this, they ended up on their bellies on the blanket, glaring at each other, now slippery with sunscreen.

“Um. In that case…” Shido rubbed his hands together to get sunscreen on both before letting his fingers crawl up their backs at the same time.

““Unh! A-aaaaah!”” they cried out together, threw out their arms and legs, and began panting as if they had just run a race at top speed.

“A-are you two okay?!” he asked, confused.

The two girls locked empty eyes.

“Who could be this good…and have no self-awareness of it…?”

“Shiver… The hands of God… A true wolf.”

“H-huh…?”

Then they got another transmission from Reine. They pressed on their earpieces, took a deep breath, and began to speak quietly.

“H-hmm. Next is…watermelon splitting…? Get Shido to blindfold me?”

“Con…firmation. After spinning around and becoming dizzy, await the direction of progress?”

“H-hang on! What are you trying to do here?!” Shido cried out, his eyebrows leaping up his forehead.

He felt like he heard another voice besides Kaguya’s and Yuzuru’s coming from somewhere. For a second, he thought it was Reine over his earpiece, but that wasn’t it.

“Shido!”

“T-Tohka?!” He whirled around at the familiar voice. He could see only the ocean behind him, but he was sure he’d heard the voice coming from that direction.

He squinted and saw Tohka swimming among the surging waves. Her form was all over the place, but she was incredibly fast. And behind her, Origami was following along at a beautiful crawl.

Observing her target, Tohka Yatogami, on the coast, Ellen sighed as she massaged her shoulder with one hand. It had been a long time since she’d done any intense exercise without a Territory, so her muscles were a little achy.

Those girls had kept her trapped in that pillow fight until late the previous night, and before she knew it, she’d succumbed to exhaustion and fallen asleep in the same room as her target.

Today, she was determined to get back on track and observe Tohka, but there were naturally a lot of eyes around during the day. It didn’t look like she’d be able to catch the target alone. Perhaps it was better for her to wait until evening again.

“—Hmm?” Ellen frowned.

The target had been restless for a while, whirling her head around as if searching for something, but now she abruptly turned toward the ocean. “Oh, Shido! You’re over there!” she called out and dived into the water.

That by itself would have been one thing, but the real issue was that the target (and for some reason Origami Tobiichi) began to swim off in a straight line.

“Arbatel. The target is on the move. Can you follow her from there?” Ellen asked her earpiece, and the operator’s voice came back to her immediately.

“I have eyes on her. It appears she’s heading for the opposite shore.”

“The opposite shore?” Ellen called up a map of Akaru Beach. She and the Raizen students were on one end of the shore of the crescent moon. She could barely see the opposite shore, which looked so small in the distance, but Tohka and Origami were swimming in a direct line toward it. “What’s over there?”

“It seems to be a private beach. I can confirm three people there now.”

Ellen licked her lips. She didn’t know why Tohka and Origami had suddenly started in that direction, but this was a favorable turn of events for her. Unlike this swimming area open to the general public, there would be fewer bystanders over there, and she could count on their classmates to testify that they had swum off into the ocean. This was her best chance to have Tohka become a missing person.

“I’ll head over there right away. Please have Bandersnatches follow.”

“Roger.” Ellen shouldered the camera she’d been holding and stood up.

However…

“Oh! Miss Photographer! Hey! Over here! Shoot this!” someone called out from behind, and Ellen glanced in that direction.

She saw a number of boys and girls playing in the sand on the beach. A boy with hair set in place with wax was buried up to his neck, and from the neck down, a strangely posed body had been created with sand. Worst of all, Ellen had spotted the three girls who’d dragged her into the pillow fight the day before.

“I do apologize, but I—”

“Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?!”

“Come on! Take a picture, Ellen!”

“We’re friends now! We spent that passionate night together!”

“…Uh-huh.” She sighed in annoyance, readied her camera, and went hard on the shutter. “Is that good? I’m actually in a hurry.”

“What? Take more!”

“I closed my eyes in that one!”

“And, like, where are you going? Come play!”

“…” Ellen started walking, trying to ignore them, but Ai-Mai-Mii raced over, slipping on the sand, before yanking her camera off her shoulder. “What are you doing? Please give that back.”

“No way! I feel bad that you’re the one always shooting us. We’ll take some of you, Ellen!”

“Th-there’s no need for that. Please give it back.”

“Relaaax! It’s fine! Don’t be so polite!”

“I’m not being polite. I do have something to do, so—”

“Yes! A table for one!” Mii said while students materialized out of nowhere and hoisted Ellen up into the air to bring her down to the shore.

Ai-Mai-Mii grabbed shovels and ksh! ksh! ksh! In the blink of an eye, they had dug out a human-sized hole, into which Ellen was safely deposited before she knew what was happening.

“Ngh! What exactly are you—?! Wait. That is some unbelievably fast digging!”

“Heh! We practiced our high-speed digging techniques in the woods behind the inn yesterday until the ground was nothing but holes!”

“Digging in sand’s like digging in tofu for us now!”

“Okay, gang! Get in there and do it!”

““Yaaah!””

With Ai’s shovel in the lead, sand flew at Ellen from all directions.

“Pwah! Wh—p-please stop!” Her resistance completely in vain, Ellen was soon buried.

The students packed the sand and shaped it like a sculpture.

“Hngh. I really don’t have time for this,” Ellen grumbled. “Please let me go.”

“Now, now, what’s the rush?”

“Let’s just get one good picture.”

“And I promise we’ll pad your boobs, so yeah.”

Ellen looked down and saw that sand was strangely piled up on her chest area, just as Mii had said… This was an unwelcome favor.

When she looked more closely, she could see the face of the boy buried in the sand earlier on her lower right. The body they’d built up beneath Ellen’s face was that of a dominatrix, whip in hand, while the boy’s body was a naked man on all fours with his ass turned toward her.

After moving a short distance away, most likely to fit both of them in the frame, Ai pressed the camera shutter.

“…” Ellen’s cheeks tightened.

The buried boy—she thought his name was Hiroto Tonomachi—turned his face toward her. “Ha-ha! Ellen, right? Looks like we’re in a real pickle here, huh?”

“Uh-huh,” she replied lifelessly.

Tonomachi’s cheeks reddened as he continued. “It’s like, nah! Ha-ha! Maybe, like, you could call it…destiny or something.”

“…”

For the first time in her life, she wanted desperately to spit on another person.

Tohka and Origami reached the shore and trotted over to Shido and the girls. They were both wearing the swimsuits Shido had bought for them last month. Tohka in dark colors, Origami in a white bikini. The suits looked great on them, as they should after the close scrutiny each had undergone.

“Here you are, Shido! I was looking for you!” Tohka cried.

“Shido. Why are you with the Yamai sisters?” Origami asked, suspicious.

Shido smiled vaguely and took a step back. “Oh. Well… Um. Ha-ha-ha! The truth is, we got lost…”

Having somehow managed to get their breathing back under control and their bikini tops back on, Kaguya and Yuzuru spoke up.

“Oh? Why, if it isn’t Tohka. Keh-keh… What a treasure you are, to come to your master’s feet of your own accord. I praise you.”

“Admiration. Master Origami, why are you here?”

Now that he was thinking about it, Kaguya and Yuzuru had ended up sharing a room with Tohka and Origami, respectively, so it was no surprise that they knew each other. Although he was a little concerned—most people didn’t enter master-servant relationships with their friends.

“Oh! Kaguya, you’re here, too?” Tohka said. “What were you doing?”

“Keh-keh… We were about to smash a shell steeped in the darkness of the abyss to perform the rite of the demon frolicking, spitting out crimson blood and sinew.”

“Wh-what’s that? Sounds scary.”

“Explanation. Kaguya says we are going to split a waterme—”

“…Could you hang on just a second?” a sleepy voice from behind interrupted Kaguya.

Shido turned to find Reine wearing a hoodie over her swimsuit. Perhaps blinded by the direct sunlight, she narrowed her eyes and held one hand up to shade them, her head wobbling. She looked anemic, a patient ready to topple over at any second. But he knew that this was her normal state of being.

“Reine…?” He furrowed his brow doubtfully. She was supposed to be advising Kaguya and Yuzuru through their earpieces.

The two Spirits likely had the same question. They stared curiously at Reine and put hands to the devices in their ears.

“…Sorry, I forgot to get a watermelon. But we have more people now, and there’s a court over there. How about some beach volleyball instead?” She pointed at a spot farther down the beach.

Although suspicious at first, Kaguya and Yuzuru quickly read between the lines of this suggestion and jumped up.

“Hmm, well, fine. Whatever we do, I will obviously stand at the peak.”

“Agreement. This is acceptable. It will be Yuzuru who wins in the end, after all.”

They met each other’s eyes, and even though it wasn’t a race, both began to run at the same time.

“Oh!” Tohka also took off running, as if inspired by this.

The eyes Origami turned on Shido and Reine said she still wasn’t entirely on board, but perhaps intuiting that she would get no further explanation, she started to walk along the beach.

Reine and Shido started after her.

“So, Reine?” he asked. “Why did you come out from behind the curtain?”

“…Oh. I decided to switch to Plan B because of the unexpected appearance of Tohka and Origami. If I’d had the Ratatoskr crew here, then this might have been nothing, but…there are limits to what I can do on my own.”

“Plan B?”

“…Yes. The strategy is to deepen the bond between the three of you and cultivate a sense of camaraderie by playing together on the same team.”

“The same team? Will those two actually play nice, though?”

“…Well, I have an idea. Watch.”

When Shido and Reine reached the magnificent beach volleyball court, Reine crouched down and picked up what looked like a tube sitting on one of the poles.

“…Now, let’s split into teams,” she said. “Three per team. Draw straws.”

“Mm?”

Reine held the tube out to Tohka first and had her take a stick from inside.

Shido slapped his thigh. It all made sense now. He was sure that those straws were set up so that he, Kaguya, and Yuzuru would end up on the same team.

“…Okay, Shin, you too.”

“Oh, right.” He drew one of the remaining two straws. And then stared at it, baffled. “Huh?”

There was no number or symbol written on it. Instead, the tip of the stick featured a wild caricature of a boy’s face.

“…Now then, if you drew Gregor, Jackson, or Spencer, you’re over here. If you got Alexander, Abraham, or Anthony, head to the other side of the court.”

“Reine, which one is this?”

“What’s this?”

Tohka and Origami showed their straws to Reine, confusion on each of their faces.

“…Mm-hmm. This is Gregor. And this is Spencer.”

Kaguya and Yuzuru also showed Reine their straws.

“…That’s Alexander and Abraham. Go on over there.”

“…” Shido looked again with dubious eyes at the drawing on his own stick (probably Anthony). He couldn’t tell how it differed from the other drawings at all.

Team A: Kaguya, Yuzuru, Shido.

Team B: Tohka, Origami, Reine.

Kaguya and Yuzuru and Tohka and Origami. Four out of six players found these team compositions to be incredibly unsatisfactory, but the game started with the promise that Reine would tell the winning team “a secret that Shin doesn’t want anyone to know.”

“All right! Here we go!” Tohka cried out, full of energy, and launched a serve from one end of the opposite court.

However…

“Wha—?!”

Pok! Hyooo! The ball easily tore through the net and kept going like a bullet. Shido immediately shifted to one side.

When the ball spiked into the spot where he’d been standing, it spun around like a top on the sand before finally coming to a stop.

“Reine! How many points was that?!” Tohka shouted.

“…Zero.”

“Mm, so no extra points for technical skill…?”

“…You’re confusing this with a different kind of contest.”

“Keh-keh.” Kaguya laughed. “You’re quite powerful, hmm? I’ll have to get serious—”

“No, you don’t. You don’t have to get serious.” Shido shook his head vigorously. All the extra lives in the world couldn’t keep him alive if every volley was going to be like that.

“Hmph, how dull. Well, fine. It’s our serve next, yes?” Kaguya reached for the ball where it had dug itself into the ground. And then she launched it into their opponent’s court with good form, just as expected.

“Oh! Here it comes!” Tohka started for the ball.

“Stay out of the way,” Origami snapped and received the ball.

Behind her, Reine tossed it up, while the incredible mass of her chest jiggled up and down. Shido’s focus unconsciously shifted to that motion and stayed there.

“Warning. You’re in danger,” Yuzuru told him.

“Ah…!” His eyes flew open wide. Before he knew it, Tohka was right there, doing a powerful jump shot over the net.

“Hyaaah!” With a scream, she whacked the ball with the palm of her hand. The ball shot off like a bullet and scraped Shido’s cheek as he stood there staring off into space.

“Whoa?!”

“Ngh! Keep your wits about you, Shido!”

“Agreement. You’re in the way.”

Kaguya and Yuzuru called out from behind him as they dived to catch the ball.

Because they both ran to the same spot at the same time, they slammed their heads into each other and promptly collapsed in a heap. The ball bounced inside the court and rolled off along the sand.

“Gaaah! Wh-what are you doing, Yuzuru?!”

“Objection. I would say the same to you. Please stay out of my way.”

Kaguya and Yuzuru glared at each other, each pressing a hand to her forehead.

“…Nice, Tohka. That got you a point.”

“Oh! Really?!”

The mood on the opposite side of the court was jubilant. Tohka and Reine high-fived. Origami tried to ignore them, but Reine took her hand and forced her to participate in the moment.

Kaguya and Yuzuru paid this no mind and continued to talk at each other.

“No matter how you look at it, that was in my area just now. Don’t go overstepping the boundaries!”

“Objection. I thought that the simpleton would not make it in time.”

“H-how dare you!”

“Counterattack. What?”

“H-hey, just calm down…” Shido wedged himself in between them, while Reine whispered something to Tohka and Origami on the other side of the net.

“Ohhh. Is that it?” Tohka said.

“I will acquire the promised object,” Origami vowed, and both girls coolly stared down at Kaguya and Yuzuru.

“Hmph.” Tohka snorted. “I guess Kaguya and Yuzuru are no big deal, after all!”

“Countrary to expectations,” Origami agreed. “Quite an overreach to come and challenge me with so little skill.”

““…!””

The provocation was obvious, but Kaguya and Yuzuru both twitched in response.

Reine whispered to Tohka and Origami once again. Shido felt like he heard her saying, “Trash them harder. That’s what they do in a real game.”

“Kaguya’s a poopypants, and Yuzuru’s real crummy! You’re both dodos!”

“You XXX. Go ahead and try to XXXX and XXX. Perfect for losers like you maggots.”

The ridiculously childish taunting and the ridiculously dispassionate cursing flew through the air from the opposite court.

““…””

Kaguya and Yuzuru narrowed their eyes at this fanning of the flames.

“Hey, Yuzuru?”

“Reply. What is it?”

The girls glanced at each other.

“…You wanna do it?”

“Confirmation. We shall do it.”

But the next server, Origami, appeared relaxed as she picked up the ball and knocked it beautifully toward one corner of the court.

“Yuzuru!”

“Response. I know.” Yuzuru dived at the last minute and received the serve with near-perfect form.

Kaguya knocked the ball up into the air and returned it to their opponents. It was a coordinated play in stark contrast to their earlier bungle.

But the opposing team didn’t miss a beat. Origami caught the ball as it came down toward the sand. “Ms. Murasame.”

“…Okay, I got it.” Reine tapped the ball. It was the same pattern as before.

Shido focused his attention on the court so as not to get distracted by her chest and saw Tohka jump up high again.

“Yah!” she shouted and smashed the ball from some distance above him.

“Shido! Stop it!” Kaguya called, and he hurriedly put his hands together, ready for Tohka’s shot.

But the ball didn’t fly into his hands, but straight into his face. It bounced hard off his nose and rebounded up into the air. His brain rattled in his skull, and he saw stars.

“Gnyah?!”

“All right!” Tohka cried gleefully. “The ball hit him, so that means we get Shido on our team now, right?”

“…No, I’ve never heard of that rule.”

Apparently, Tohka had been deliberately aiming at Shido this whole time.

“Praise. That was nice,” he heard Yuzuru say through the fog clouding his consciousness. “Construction. Kaguya?”

“Let’s!”

Yuzuru got down on one knee, locked her hands together, and turned her palms upward. Kaguya ran up, and the instant she set a foot on those hands, Yuzuru launched her up into the air.

“Wha…?!”

“…!”

He heard Tohka and Origami cry out from the enemy court.

“Hyaaaaaah!” Kaguya spiked the ball, and it whizzed through the air like an arrow and slammed into the enemy court. It was an impressive shot.

“Yes! Tied! You see that?!” Kaguya pumped a fist while still airborne, forgetting to maintain her usual dramatic manner of speech.

When her feet finally touched the ground again, she exchanged an easy high five with Yuzuru.

“Whoo-hooooo!”

“Delight. Whoo-hoo.”

Yeah! That was perfect, Yuzuru. I went boing! Boing!”

“Affirmative. That was an incredible hit. I’d expect nothing less from you, Kaguya.”

“No, no, that was all you—”

They both gasped and looked away from each other.

“Hmph… How vulgar to celebrate in such a fashion. Consider yourself honored to have touched my foot.”

“Displeasure. There’s an odor on my hands now. It’s stinky. It’s a cross between natto and fermented herring.”

“I-it does not smell that bad!”

And they began to fight again as if they had just remembered that was what they were doing. It was a strange mental shift.

But Shido didn’t have the opportunity to observe it in any real way. He heard a cry of “Shido! You okay?!” from above before the last shred of his consciousness slipped away into darkness.

“Owww…” Rubbing the lump on his head, Shido staggered toward the washrooms on the beach.

When he said he was going, more than one girl said that it was too dangerous for him to go alone, given that he had only just been knocked out by a volleyball, so she would go and “help” him. However, he had politely—but with the same force with which his head had hit the sand—refused these offers.

“…Are you okay, Shin?” He heard Reine’s voice in his right ear and smiled in a tired way.

“Well…more or less, I guess,” he replied. “How are things there?”

“…To be honest, I can’t say yet. I don’t know how much more we can fan the flames of their—” Reine abruptly cut herself off.

“Reine? Is something wrong?” he asked, frowning, but he soon learned the reason why.

…Because Kaguya popped her head out from one side of the washrooms.

“Kaguya? What are you doing here? I thought you were with everyone else.”

“Keh-keh… When I move with the blessings of the tornado, such a short distance has no meaning.”

“…Okay, well, maybe, but I was more asking about the why,” he started and then gasped and bent forward. “I—I told you I didn’t need any help!”

“Uh…?” Kaguya looked stunned for a second, and then her face turned red. “I—I obviously was simply saying that for the sake of the situation! Don’t take it seriously!”

“O-oh. Yeah?”

“Obviously! Wh-why would I do…that…?” She faltered and looked away. “A—! Anyway! That’s not what I’m here for!”

“R-right!” He agreed automatically before lowering his voice and speaking to his earpiece. “Reine, did you tell her to do this?”

“…No, I didn’t say anything.”

“Hey, don’t ignore me,” Kaguya grumbled.

“Oh, sorry.” He hurriedly turned back to her. But…there was one thing here that bothered him. He scratched his cheek as he looked at her. “Are you okay to keep talking like that?”

“Ah!” Kaguya cried, suddenly recognizing that she’d made a mistake. She cleared her throat with an awkward cough and struck a pose. “Keh-keh… So you were deceived by my deception, hmm? I found it quite humorous to have you dancing in the palm of my hand.”

“…”

“Why are you looking at me weirdly?” She pursed her lips in a pout, and Shido smiled and tousled his hair.

“Oh, uh… I was just wondering why you make such an effort to talk like that is all.”

“I’m not making any effort! This is normal!”

“You’re breaking character again.”

“Ah…!” She looked surprised again and then let out a sigh. “It’s just, you know. I’m a Spirit and supposed to be, like, super amazing or whatever. So I need that level of dignity or, like, something like that, I think.”

“I dunno about that one.” Shido frowned. He had met several Spirits, and he felt like there hadn’t been a girl like that among them.

“Of course that’s how it’s supposed to be. I mean, I’ve got this awesome origin story, and the dramatic setting’s already in place, you know? So I have to be the right kind of character.”

“Well…if you say you’re good with it, that’s all that matters,” he said. “So? What did you need?”

“I’ll keep going like this ’cause it’s a hassle to keep changing. Anyway, me and Yuzuru are in the middle of a battle over you. And the decision’s going to be made tomorrow.”

“Yeah… You’re right. Wait, you’re not actually—that’s not fair.” He frowned, thinking that Kaguya had come to plead her case with him.

But she said something entirely unexpected.

“Shido. Tomorrow…pick Yuzuru.”

“…Huh?” His eyes flew open.

“Not ‘huh.’” She shrugged and continued, “There’s nothing to hesitate about, is there? I mean, Yuzuru’s super cute. She might not be the most personable person ever, but she’s really nice, she’s got big boobs—she’s a total moe character, every man’s dream come to life. And on top of that, if you pick her, she’ll probably do all kinds of stuff for you to show you her thanks, you know? There’s no reason not to pick—”

“H-hang on a second!” Shido tried to get his chaotic thoughts in order. He didn’t understand what she was saying. Well, he understood the words coming out of her mouth. But the fact that she was telling him to choose Yuzuru the next day…

“Kaguya, you… You said that whoever won this contest would become the main personality of Yamai.”

“Yeah, and?”

“…You said the loser would be incorporated into the winner and disappear.”

“Yeah, sounds about right.”

“So then why—?” he asked, his throat tightening.

Kaguya scratched her head and laughed. “Hmm. Well, it’s not like I want to disappear. But I want Yuzuru to live more. I want her to see way more things and have all the fun she wants in this world.”

“…! You…” Shido groaned, pained, but Kaguya paid him no mind.

“And, like, if you hadn’t butted in that day, this would have all been over with.” She snapped a finger out at him. “We would’ve had a flashy collision, and I would’ve gone down, crying ‘You got meeeeee,’ and it would have been a done deal.”

Shido grimaced. His chest hurt, as if a hand were squeezing his heart. “S-so then the whole thing about whoever gets me to fall for her first?”

“Oh, that? That’s ’cause Yuzuru’s obviously the cute one. In this type of contest, she’s sure to win, no question.”

“But then…,” Shido started, but Kaguya stepped forward and held her index finger to his lips.

“I’m not really looking for your opinion here. All you have to do is be all ‘Yuzuru, you’re so cute, Yuzuru, you’re so lovely, hah-hah, pant-pant.’” Kaguya narrowed her eyes and lowered her voice. “Otherwise, I’ll destroy this island and all your friends.”

Shido gulped. He had almost forgotten the danger Spirits could pose until the look she gave him and the words she spoke brought it all rushing back.

While he was frozen in place with fear and tension, Kaguya relaxed and took a step back, whirled around, and struck a cool pose.

“Keh-keh… Well then, farewell, human. What we have spoken of is now a covenant of blood. Should you misstep, know that you will be burned with the Fegefeuer Flammen right to your skull!” she said and left.

Shido could only stand rooted to the spot.

“…Shin.”

After a while, he heard Reine’s voice in his ear and he gasped.

“Reine, just now…”

“…Yes, I heard. This…has gotten quite complicated, hmm? If this isn’t some tactic and it’s how Kaguya really feels…then there’s a real possibility that she won’t accept a kiss tomorrow, even if we fan the flames. So that she can let Yuzuru win.”

“Ngh.” Shido clenched his hands into fists. She was right. This was very serious. But more than that, Kaguya’s resolve to kill herself in order for Yuzuru to live weighed heavily on his heart.

He couldn’t stand there gaping forever, however. He began to walk, practically dragging his heavy feet. If he was gone too long, Tohka and Origami—and more important, Yuzuru—would become suspicious—

“Check. Shido, please stop,” called out a voice from behind.

“…?!” Shido jumped.

That was definitely Yuzuru’s voice. For a second, he thought he was hearing things, but no. At some point, the other Yamai had come to stand right behind him.

“Y-Yuzuru?”

“Response. Yes, it is I.”

The inflectionless voice. The calm mannerisms. The all-pervading cool.

“Wh-what’s going on?” he asked, his temperature rising again.

Yuzuru turned her face in the direction in which Kaguya had disappeared. “Question. What were you and Kaguya talking about?”

“…!” Shido’s breath caught in his throat. His heart, having started to calm, began pounding again. “What? I mean… Uh.”

Yuzuru shrugged and sighed. “Withdrawal. It’s fine, actually. I get the basic idea.”

“Y-yeah? You do?”

“Affirmative. She said that you should select me in the judging tomorrow, yes?”

“Oh… Uh.” He was about to continue, but she held out her hands to stop him.

“Question. I don’t mind that, but did Kaguya do something at the time?”

“Do…something?”

“Example. I am asking if, for instance, Kaguya held you and ran her tongue along your neck or pressed your face in between her breasts or thrust her hand into your swim trunks and groped your groin.”

“Sh-she didn’t do any of that!” he cried out.

“Disappointment.” Yuzuru shook her head in exasperation. “That’s where Kaguya falls short. Her endgame is weak. If she actually tried to seduce you, she would be able to take you down like you were a monkey in heat.”

“…” He felt insulted somehow, but he also felt like there was something off in the way Yuzuru was speaking. She sounded almost like—

“Petition,” she said, interrupting his thoughts. “Yuzuru has a favor to ask of you, Shido.”

“Favor…?” A shiver ran up his spine. He swallowed hard. His throat prickled, and his heart started beating even faster. Thump, thump. He felt as if his blood vessels had expanded and his blood was being pushed forcefully through his body.

In contrast, his thinking was clouded; he felt almost drunk. In this state, one thing popped up into bright life in his mind, the words he’d heard a few minutes earlier.

“Affirmative. It’s exactly what you think.” Yuzuru nodded and continued without any enthusiasm whatsoever.

“Petition. Shido, you must pick Kaguya in this contest.”

“…”

He couldn’t speak. He had perhaps more or less expected this from the moment Yuzuru appeared.

Yuzuru cocked her head to one side. “Question. I sense something off in your reaction.”

“O-oh, it’s nothing…”

“Demand. I would ask this above all else. You must please choose Kaguya tomorrow. Promise.”

“Wh-wh-why would you…ask that?”

“Explanation. Because Kaguya is far superior to Yuzuru. There is no need to hesitate. You also know very well that Kaguya is adorable. She does have a tendency to put on an act, but she is very earnest and considerate. Her body is so slender, it seems that it might break at the merest touch, but the only description possible for the pleasure of squeezing it is heavenly. I’m sure that if you select Kaguya, she will allow you to do all kinds of things. Please, it has to be Kaguya.”

“But if Kaguya wins, you’ll—,” Shido started, and Yuzuru lowered her eyes and nodded. As if to say she had already thought long and hard about all of it.

“Kaguya is the Spirit that is most suited to being the true Yamai. You must have already realized that, Shido. Kaguya is extremely appealing. There is no reason why you should not choose her.”

“B-but the two of you were fighting so hard…”

“Exposition. She may not look like it, but Kaguya is very shy. If you don’t hold her feet to the fire, she cannot show her true potential.”

“…”

When Shido was speechless, Yuzuru walked over to him and whispered in his ear, “Reminder. Please say you will choose Kaguya tomorrow. Otherwise, misfortune will befall your friends.”

Yuzuru walked away, leaving behind the same threat that Kaguya had.

“…”

When it was time for the group to gather at the meeting point, Ellen was finally released from the sand, and she sat now covered in grime, knees pulled to her chest, gazing out at the sea from the coast.

The target had already returned to this side of the beach and gone to the changing rooms to get out of her swimsuit. She had passed by Ellen, who had been buried in sand (where the body built up out of sand for her had seen improvements to make it more of a bodybuilder style), and she had been holding her stomach as she laughed out loud, so there was no mistake there.

Also, the way that boy Hiroto Tonomachi had stretched out his hands respectfully after being unearthed a minute ahead of her had rubbed her the wrong way, so she shoved him into the hole where she had been buried and covered him in sand again.

“…Chief, um.” She heard the awkward voice of an operator in her earpiece.

“…I’m fine. There’s no need for concern. It’s fine. My first choice was nighttime anyway. There is absolutely no problem here. I will catch her during this trip.”

“O-of course…”

The kindness in the operator’s voice was harder to bear.

Shido’s supper that day tasted like nothing. And it wasn’t because the inn’s chef was being overly thoughtful about the health of the guests or catering to his own tastes, et cetera, et cetera. It was simply that Shido’s mind was somewhere else entirely.

He finished his meal without a word to anyone else and walked slowly down the hallway, turning various ideas over in his mind.

The words that Kaguya and Yuzuru had spoken to him that afternoon at the beach were still going round and round in his head. In order to let her other self live, she would choose annihilation.

He hadn’t been able to understand what they were thinking right away.

But, for instance, if he knew his little sister, Kotori, would die if he didn’t sacrifice his own life, he was sure he’d do it without a moment’s hesitation. And that decision wasn’t the product of some sort of narcissistic impulse, like a fixation on self-sacrifice or devotion to another. It was simply that the question wasn’t a choice at all. His brain would automatically decide that there was only one answer without any conscious input from him.

“…do.”

So he understood painfully well Kaguya’s desire for Yuzuru to live and Yuzuru’s desire for Kaguya to live.

“Shido.”

Actually, it wasn’t just that. He was maybe even happy to discover that Kaguya and Yuzuru were thinking about each other in this way. But…

“Hey! Shido!”

“Ngh?!” He jumped in surprise.

“Honestly! So you finally heard me?” Without his noticing, Tohka had come to stand beside him, clad in a yukata, and now she pursed her lips out in a pout.

“T-Tohka… Where’d you come from?”

“I’ve been walking beside you for a while now.” She looked hard at his face.

“Hmm? What?”

“Oh.” She averted her eyes, and then the corners of her mouth slid up, and she grabbed his hand. “Shido, do you want to go outside for a bit?”

“Huh…?”

“I want to see the ocean at night.” She tugged on his hand.

“H-hey, whoa.” Shido braced himself and braked hard when Tohka tried to urge him forward. “No, it’d be bad if we just went out on our own. I mean, it’s almost time for the teachers to come round and check on us.”

She sighed through her pout. “Sorry, Shido. I kind of lied.”

“Huh?”

“It’s… I dunno, we came all the way here for our school trip, and it’s like…we haven’t really talked. So I wanted to talk, just me and you.”

“…!”

“Is that…bad?” she asked, looking up at him, head tilted slightly downward.

“…Oh. Is that—I mean.” If there was a man alive who could say no to that, Shido would have liked to lay eyes on him.

A second later, Tohka beamed as she dragged him away.

“Okay! It’s what you’ve all been waiting for—tiiiiiime for card games! Wait. Huh?” Ai jumped into the room and then looked around quizzically.

She could only see Mai and Mii.

“Where’s Tohka? And Kaguya?” she asked.

Mai, who had been lying down flipping through the trip itinerary, and Mii, who had been boxing with the string hanging down from the ceiling light, turned their faces toward her.

“Mm, Tohka’s with Itsuka. Getting cozy with him, prolly?”

“I saw Kaguya. She was hiding behind a wall, watching them.”

Ai stroked her chin thoughtfully. “No way. Could this be the vaunted love triangle? Eeek! It smells like a daytime soap opera!” She grinned and then dropped her eyes to the deck of cards in her hand. “But, well, in that case, we don’t have enough people. I thought we could play Tycoon.”

The other girls laughed.

“Yeah, you’d want five people for that.”

“Why don’t we ask Yuzuru?”

“Oh, I stopped by their room, but Yuzuru wasn’t there, either. I found Ellen, but then I lost sight of her almost right after. Where’s everyone running off to anyway?” Ai let out a sigh and began to shuffle the cards. “So how about a game of Sevens then?”

“Haah! Haah!” Pressed up against a wall outside the inn, Ellen took a few deep breaths. And then she peeked inside to check if the coast was clear before letting out a sigh of relief.

“That was very close,” she muttered to herself and wiped the sweat off her forehead. She’d seen her target, Tohka Yatogami, go outside with a boy, and she had taken a step to go after them when the voice of her natural enemy rang out behind her: “Eeeelllleeeeen! Let’s hang ouuuuuuut!”

She’d hurriedly withdrawn from the spot, but her heart was still pounding.

“W-well, anyway, this is my chance.” After peering into the inn one more time just in case, Ellen reached up to her earpiece. “Arbatel, can you see me? The target’s moved away from the inn. I’m in position.”

“Roger that.”

“And…please have one Bandersnatch on standby in this area.”

“We can do that, but why?”

“The AST’s Master Sergeant Tobiichi is inside. I’m sure I’m worrying for nothing, but…in the event that you do see suspicious movement on her part, please handle it.”

“Roger.”

After hearing the operator’s confirmation, Ellen stepped into the darkness of night.

There was no one on the beach. It was so quiet that the hustle and bustle of the day seemed like an impossible dream. Although the private beach Shido had spent the afternoon on had been quiet, too.

He strolled with Tohka along the coast near the breakwater, chatting about this and that.

“And then last night, I had a pillow fight with Ai, Mai, Mii, and the others.”

“Ha-ha! You had a pillow fight?”

“Mm-hmm. At first, it was a contest with Origami Tobiichi to decide which one of us would take care of you, but then we got really into it, and we ended up going until we both got tired and fell asleep.”

“…O-oh yeah?” Shido smiled. If they had settled the fight earlier or if one of them had had any energy left, the previous evening’s events might have invited even greater disaster.

…It was weird. They were just chatting away about nothing in particular, and yet he felt his mood lighten somehow.

After they had walked a little ways, Tohka abruptly looked back. “So, Shido. What happened?”

“…!” He felt his heart leap up in his chest. “What do you mean, what happened?”

“Oh, I don’t know the details, but…something did happen, right?”

“Wh-why would you think that?” he asked, and Tohka put her index finger to her chin.

“It’s just like, you seem like you’re having some trouble. Oh, right! Umm, it feels kind of like, just a little bit like that time with Kurumi.”

Shido’s eyes grew wide.

Kurumi Tokisaki. The evilest Spirit, who killed people simply because she wanted to.

When he learned her true nature the previous month, he had been overwhelmed by this new reality, and Tohka’s words had given him hope again.

“Oh! If there’s nothing, that’s okay, too. Maybe I’m just overthinking things.”

“…” Shido sighed heavily. “Tohka, did you maybe ask me out here for that reason?”

“Mm… Well, it’s—I dunno. No, I did actually want to talk to you, you know?” she said, her cheeks coloring. She looked so cute, he could hardly stand it, and his own face softened.

“Hey, Tohka? Can I tell you something?”

“Mm? Mm, anything.”

Shido nodded and began to speak slowly. “So Kaguya and Yuzuru? This sounds totally far-fetched, but the truth is, they’re…”

He explained that they were Spirits, that they were fighting, and that the loser would lose her life, all while deftly glossing over the who-is-more-appealing contest.

At first, Tohka nodded appreciatively, but soon a look of surprise came across her face. “What…? So that’s it?”

“Yeah. And this is the main bit here. This afternoon…Kaguya told me to pick Yuzuru.”

“What? That’s absurd. Then Kaguya will—,” Tohka started and then shook her head slightly. “No. I guess I get it. If someone told me that you would die if I didn’t die…I might do that, too.”

“Tohka…”

She gasped, her shoulders jumping up. “Nn—f-forget I said anything! Keep going!”

“R-right…” He scratched his cheek. “And… So actually, right after that, Yuzuru said the same thing to me. That I should pick Kaguya.”

“What?” Tohka’s eyes grew wider. “So then, Kaguya and Yuzuru…?”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “They both want to let the other live. Even if it means their own selves will disappear, Kaguya wants Yuzuru to survive, and Yuzuru wants that for Kaguya. And it’s, like, I don’t know what to do anymore.”

Tohka was quiet. After a while, she furrowed her brow as if she was having some difficult thoughts. A few seconds later, she opened her mouth, a strange look on her face. “Hey, Shido? This is what I think, but—”

Krnch. He heard a sound up ahead like someone stepping firmly on the ground, and Shido lifted his face.

When he saw the girl there in a yukata, he froze.

Kaguya Yamai.

“K-Kaguya?!” he cried. “What are you—?”

“Just now…what did you say?” Kaguya interrupted him, her voice quiet but colored with an intense rage. “Yuzuru…said that? Huh…? I don’t get it. What are you talking about?” she said, almost like she was talking to herself as she gritted her teeth and clenched her fists.

A cold wind began to blow around them.

“Kaguya, calm d—,” Shido started, his heart gripped with panic.

But Kaguya appeared not to hear him. She clenched her hands more tightly, and her whole body began to tremble.

Krnch. He heard new footsteps from behind and whirled around to see Yuzuru, her face lowered in the same way as Kaguya’s.

“…?! Yuzuru?!”

“Repetition. Demand. Kaguya said…to pick Yuzuru? Did she say that?”

“Yuzuru, just listen—”

““How absurd!”” the two girls snapped simultaneously, their voices angry roars, and a terrible blast of wind radiated out from both of them.

“Whoa?!”

“Ngh!”

Shido and Tohka were knocked to the ground by a sudden gust from behind. They pulled themselves up again, crouching behind the nearby breakwater, and turned their eyes back on the two girls.

Surging eddies of air whipped around Kaguya and Yuzuru, and their outfits transformed into particles of light. In their place, bondage gear materialized, buckled around them, and manacles clamped around their wrists and ankles.

Astral Dress. The absolute armor that protected a Spirit.

And that wasn’t the end of it. Kaguya raised her right hand in front of her, while Yuzuru did the same with her left.

An inorganic wing materialized on Kaguya’s right shoulder. A metallic luster crawled down her arm from there to the back of her hand, finally forming a lance so massive, it easily exceeded her height. “Raphael. El Re’em!!”

At the same time, an identical metallic wing sprouted from Yuzuru’s left shoulder. Armor rolled down to sheathe her arm, and a sword appeared in her hand, with a diamond tip and a chain affixed to the end of it. It almost looked like a dowsing pendulum. “Concord. Raphael. El Na’ash.”

Kaguya readied the lance while Yuzuru held up the blade with the pendulum at its tip.

Shido’s face grew pale. They had definitely just manifested their Angel, the most powerful weapon a Spirit possessed.

A number of thoughts raced through his mind all at once.

““Absurd.”” They had both shouted the same word. Were they talking about Shido, who had spilled their mutual secrets? Or about Tohka, who had been walking alone with Shido?

It appeared that the correct answer was neither.

Kaguya and Yuzuru glared at each other with eyes like knives.

“You’ve done something truly absurd, hmm, Yuzuru? Telling him to pick me?”

“Objection. What is your intention here? I don’t recall asking you to do that for me.”

The wind grew even stronger.

“It’s no use, hmm? It really is hopeless. I thought we could settle this quietly and properly with this sort of contest, but I forgot to factor in your idiocy.”

“Agreement. Your level of stupidity really does test one’s patience. So it’s come to this. It was asking too much to have someone else end a battle we started.”

They readied lance and pendulum, respectively.

“I suppose so. Looks like in the end, we’ve just got to do it ourselves. Perfect. I have never been angrier at you than I am in this moment.”

“Counterattack. Nor have I. I cannot completely hide my irritation and anger at your imprudence, Kaguya.”

“And how shall our battle be decided then?”

“Obvious. You already know.”

They spoke as one now.

““The one who falls wins.””

There was only one way to victory: fight…until one of them fell.

“Stop—,” Shido yelled, but he was ignored.

The two girls charged each other, a storm rising up around them.

Krr, krr, krr! The wind roared like the earth rumbling in an earthquake, and the exterior walls of the inn began to creak.

The reactions of the students inside were varied. Someone turned on the TV to check the weather report; another quickly took shelter underneath a blanket, frightened by the rumbling; still others laughed that it was a good thing the storm hadn’t hit during the day. Naturally, however, not one of them attempted to leave the inn with this squall outside.

With the exception of Origami Tobiichi.

“…” She silently slipped on her shoes and put a hand on the door of the inn.

The reason was obvious. When she’d gone looking for Shido earlier, she had obtained the information from Ai, Tohka’s roommate, that she had seen Tohka leading Shido outside.

Origami’s movements were quick. She slapped down the hand of Ai inviting her to play cards and ran to the inn’s entrance, taking in a warning from Tamae not to run in the halls along the way. A little thing like a storm couldn’t stop Origami.

She didn’t like the fact that Shido had gone out alone with Tohka. But more than her personal annoyance, being outside so close to the ocean in a storm was dangerous. She had to bring him back as soon as possible.

The wind was strong, but not so strong that she couldn’t walk normally.

“…?!” Sensing a presence behind her when she stepped outside, she immediately leaped back.

Sure enough, a metallic clang rang out from the place where she had only just been standing.

“Wha…?” She frowned the tiniest bit as she looked over to see what had appeared in that spot.

A thing in the shape of a human was standing there, fists pressed on the ground.

For a moment, Origami thought it was someone from the AST. It was equipped with a CR unit that closely resembled the official AST equipment, and being so close to it, she felt a twinge of the same headache she got when her Territory was deployed. The thing had likely activated the Realizer.

But it wasn’t the AST. Whatever it was wearing this CR unit was clearly not human.

The inorganic external appearance would have been impossible for a living creature. Rounded legs designed with an emphasis on efficiency and efficiency alone. A machine that took the shape of a person, what most people would describe as a robot or a mechanical doll or something along those lines.

“What on earth…?” Origami’s throat constricted around her words. A machine shouldn’t have been able to control a Realizer, not without using human brain waves. A robot deploying a Territory was just…

“Ngh…”

The puppet jumped at her, interrupting her thoughts.

She barely managed to dodge it and jumped as far back as she could.

“What are you?” She tried talking to it without much hope.

But of course, the doll did not respond. It merely attacked once again.

“…!” Evading by a hair, Origami noticed something curious.

As far as she could tell, the doll was equipped with a basic loadout like a laser blade and a gun. But for some reason, it wasn’t using them on her. It only punched at her with its bare hands, like it was trying to capture her uninjured. Or block the way to keep her from going any farther.

“…! Out of my—,” she shouted, annoyed, and leaped back. While she was dancing with this doll, Shido was in danger.

“…Origami Tobiichi, what are you doing? It’s dangerous out here. Hurry back inside.”

She heard the sleepy voice of her teacher, Reine Murasame, from the direction she had come. Maybe someone told her that Origami had gone outside.

“…! Ms. Murasame, go back—”

But before Origami was finished speaking, the doll whirled its head around toward Reine.

“…Hmm? Who are you? Sorry, but my student…,” Reine started to say to the doll and then stopped. She may have realized at that moment that she was not speaking to a human.

But it was too late. When the doll’s target changed from Origami to Reine, it yanked its round and thick arm up and charged the woman.

“Ngh!” Origami gasped, kicked at the ground, and knocked Reine aside.

In the next instant…

“Kah…haaah!” She flew backward helplessly, the doll’s heavy blow catching her squarely in the stomach.

The pain in her side was unspeakable, and she had trouble catching her breath. Her consciousness grew hazy, and her vision blurred.

“Ms. Murasame…hurry…run…”

Origami watched the shadow of the doll closing in on Reine’s back before slipping completely into darkness.

“Commander, an intense gale has sprung up near the coast of the northern part of Arubi!” Deep Love, Minowa called out at the same time as the alarm went off on the bridge of Fraxinus hovering in the sky above Arubi.

“A gale…?” Kannazuki stroked his chin dubiously as he stood next to the captain’s chair. Wind was a flow of air. Under normal circumstances, it did not just suddenly come into being at a fixed starting point. “Any word from Analyst Murasame?”

“Nothing!”

He frowned. She was supposed to contact them if there were any problems on her end. “Please open a line to her. If it’s nothing, that’s all fine and good.”

“Roger!” The crew member tapped at the console but soon came back with a dubious voice. “The transmission…won’t go through. There’s a possibility that someone has blocked communications!”

“Hmm?” Kannazuki arched an eyebrow. Jamming that they wouldn’t detect until they tried to send a transmission. What on earth…?

But he made a decision at lightning speed. In mere seconds, he was issuing orders to the crew.

“We have no choice then. It is a little dangerous, but we’ll have to send someone to speak with her directly. Drop altitude to a thousand meters, transfer a crew member to the northern district of Arubi, and deploy Yggdrafolium to maintain communications. Confirm the safety of Analyst Murasame and Shido.”

““Roger!”” the crew shouted in response and started tapping their consoles.

He heard a quiet rumbling, and a faint sense of buoyancy enveloped him, as though he were riding in an elevator. In minutes, the airship had dropped from fifteen thousand meters above Arubi to one thousand.

“Arriving at target coordinates. No Permanent Territory response.”

Fraxinus was equipped with eight control Realizers and ten large basic Realizers, to ensure that a Territory was constantly deployed around the airship. This Territory manipulated visible light to keep the enormous body of Fraxinus invisible. Additionally, the Territory was set so that the moment it came in contact with a plane or a bird, it automatically avoided a collision.

But when transferring personnel or materials to the surface with the transporter in the lower part of the ship, or when the independent unit Yggdrafolium equipped at the rear of the ship was deployed, this invisiblity was interrupted for a few seconds. Thus, when carrying out transmissions at low altitudes with Yggdrafolium as the relay point, it was necessary to check carefully for any signs of aircraft in the area and to monitor whether any of them had detected Fraxinus.

“Excellent. Then please deploy Yggdrafolium.”

“Roger.”

The invisible wall cloaking Fraxinus slowly melted away.

In the same airspace, at an altitude of one thousand meters above Arubi, a crew member’s shout rang out on the bridge of the DEM 500-meter class airship Arbatel. “Captain! I’ve got a contact on the radar!”

“An airplane?”

“No… An airship!”

“…What?” Seated in the captain’s chair, Paddington frowned dubiously as an image of the sky was displayed on the main monitor.

There was no doubt that it was not an airplane but an airship. The sharp form of the ship’s body was due to the several small heat sinks located in the rear, making it look almost like an enormous tree.

“Where on earth did it come from?” he demanded.

“The signal appeared out of nowhere. Most likely…it had to have had Invisible deployed.”

“What? What’s its call sign?”

“Unknown, sir. I can’t confirm that it is a DEM ship.”

Paddington grimaced and stroked his beard. “An airship equipped with Invisible? Impossible. DEM Industries only just succeeded recently in using a Territory for that.”

Yes. Invisible was cutting-edge technology, made possible for the first time with DEM’s new Realizer, the Ashcroft β-series. There were only three ships currently equipped with the device, including the Arbatel.

On the monitor, what appeared at first to be a heat sink peeled away from the ship, hovering independently in space. In the next moment, the ship in question melted into the sky and disappeared once more as if its job was done.

“The signal’s gone!” cried the crew member monitoring the radar.

There was no doubt then. This mysterious ship was indeed equipped with Invisible. He had confirmed it with none other than his own eyes. But there was no way something like that could exist—

“Impossible!” Paddington’s eyes widened. He had heard something along these lines before. The name of an organization that possessed the only Realizers outside of DEM. “Ratatoskr.”

The crew on the bridge gasped.

It was no surprise that those belonging to the second DEM enforcement division—the shadow DEM, the direct action group—would have heard this name. Paddington had been told of its existence himself. By none other than Isaac Westcott.

According to that tale, there existed an organization with more advanced technology than DEM.

To wit, there existed an eccentric group that was trying to resolve the spacequakes through peaceful means.

In other words, they were the enemy of DEM.

“If discovered, exterminate immediately.” Paddington chuckled. “I see it’s my lucky day.”

He stood up and shot out orders at the crew.

“Ready main guns! Divert Ashcroft-beta numbers ten through twenty to magic generation! The target is…the unknown ship that vanished!”

“C-Captain, perhaps we should ask the chief—,” a crew member said with an anxious look.

Paddington clicked his tongue in annoyance. The very idea that that whelp of a girl’s words were weightier than his own!

“No need! The Bandersnatches are sufficient for the chief’s mission! She’ll have nothing to complain about as long as she has them!”

“R-roger…” The crew member began to tap at their console, overwhelmed by the captain’s intensity.

Soon, a low rumble of operation echoed across the bridge, and Arbatel changed direction.

“Main weapons, magic charging complete!”

“Release Invisible! Change Territory properties to anti-attack!”

After hearing the calls of confirmation from his crew, Paddington turned a finger toward the monitor and half murmured, “Fire.”

With a rumbling roar, the bridge of Fraxinus began to shake violently. Static raced across the monitors, and shrill emergency alarms sounded. And then a signal appeared out of nowhere on the radar screen, and a massive shadow came into view on the exterior monitor.

“…!” Fraxinus crew member Hinako Shiizaki automatically covered her face with her hands. Her mind was in chaos. She’d never felt a shock like this on the airship before.

Her reaction was reasonable. In fact, some part of the crew still on the bridge reacted in the exact same way that she did.

She knew that Fraxinus was equipped with weapons in anticipation of the worst-case scenario. She had been told when she joined Ratatoskr that battle was certainly possible, and she’d been given combat training.

But she’d never experienced actual combat before.

“Left flank Territory, twenty percent shrinkage!”

“Output from basic Realizer AR-008 is dropping!”

“Slight damage to the ship! What on earth—?”

The cries of the crew rang out on the bridge.

“Wh-what was that?!” Hinako shrieked.

Still standing next to the captain’s chair, Kannazuki put a hand to his chin as he reviewed the situation. Despite the severe jolt the ship had taken, he remained perfectly composed and in place.

“Hmm. It seems we’ve been attacked. The fact that they were able to come this close without us noticing any radar contacts… I suppose that means that they also have Invisible deployed. Strange. It’s supposed to be technologically impossible with anything other than our Asgard Realizers.”

“Heat source confirmed! Second attack is incoming!”

“Oops. Release Invisible and Avoid. Please divert all magic generated by the basic Realizers to the Protect Territory.”

“R-roger!” a crew member shouted out, and the Territory deployed around Fraxinus changed from Invisible to Protect.

Another shock rocked the bridge.

“Ngh! We’re still getting hit like this—even with the defensive barrier up?!” Kawagoe grimaced in his seat on the lower level of the bridge.

He was right to be shocked. Such a powerful impact should have been impossible now that they had diverted the magic from Invisible to the defensive barrier.

“The fact that they are coming out with such a direct attack must mean that they are quite confident in their ship’s performance,” Kannazuki said, sounding utterly unperturbed. He grabbed his shoulders and writhed around. “Mm. That’s nice, it tingles. Oh! Don’t stop!”

“…” Hinako half glared at him while she operated her console. This man really was hopeless. If this kept up, the ship would be knocked out of the sky. She opened a secret line and placed an emergency call.

Before long, the figure of Kotori Itsuka popped onto her screen.

“…Shiizaki? What’s with the secret line? What’s going on?”

“It’s an emergency!” Hinako cried. “Please, Commander, you have to take over!”

Kotori’s face immediately grew stern. “You’re not telling me that Kannazuki made some weird choices again and soured Tohka’s mood, are you?”

“No, it’s more serious. Any more of this and we’ll—”

“So then what happened? …! Wait. Kannazuki didn’t go to the inn for the school trip himself and put on a strip show in front of Shido and Tohka, did he?!” she asked fearfully.

“No, that’s not it.” Hinako shook her head. “It’s an enemy! An unknown airship is attacking us! If we don’t do something, Fraxinus will be…” She was desperate. Naturally. Whatever else was going on, her own life was on the line.

But Kotori rolled her eyes as if she had lost all interest in the conversation.

“What, is that all?” She sighed. “I was totally convinced that idiot had done something. Don’t scare me like that.”

“Th-that’s—isn’t the ship the most important thing…?!” Hinako cried.

Kotori spread her hands out to stop her. “It’s okay. You don’t have to worry about that.”

“H-how can you be so calm…?” Hinako wailed.

Kotori shrugged. “I mean, you’ve got Kannazuki there, right?”