2 - Let’s Go the Moon

When Junko woke up, the first thing she did was to stare at her hand in astonishment. All her wounds were healed.

She seemed to be in the sky. When she looked down, she could see a huge crater in the middle of the town below. She knew she wasn’t going to heaven because of the warmth she felt on her body.

When she looked up, she saw Akuto’s face. “Aah!” she screamed.

Akuto looked down at her and nodded, and then spoke in a soothing tone. “Looks like you woke up. You okay?”

“I-I’m fine...” she said, turning her eyes away in embarrassment. She tried to go over what was going on in her head, and remembered the conversation Kazuko and Akuto had had before she passed out.

“...Y-You didn’t choose to only bring me back to life, did you?”

A horrifying possibility passed through her mind. Kazuko had said that Akuto wouldn’t be able to teleport everyone. Which meant...

“No...” Akuto smiled in embarrassment.

—Impossible. Did he really...

For a moment her body shook with delight. Did he really pick her out of all those people...? But a moment later, that thought was followed by guilt, and the terror that came with so many deaths.

“D-Did you really...” she stammered with a shaking voice. Akuto looked embarrassed when he responded.

“No, I teleported them all. The others too.”

“The others?”

“Everyone who was there.” Akuto said calmly.

“Everyone?” Junko’s voice shook.

Akuto nodded. “I tried, and it worked. I was able to find where each of them were, look for a safe enough place for everybody, and then teleport them.”

That’s right; the massive explosion in the middle of the imperial city hadn’t resulted in a single casualty. The blast had stretched over a kilometer in diameter, turning it into a crater instantly, but not a single person had died.

Of course, there were a huge number of people surrounding the palace that was the blast’s epicenter. All those people even remembered now was that suddenly they were somewhere else. They hadn’t even seen the blast until a moment later.

It took them a moment to realize that they’d even been teleported. Of course, they had no way of knowing who’d done it, or why.

“You can... do that?” Junko couldn’t believe it. There must’ve been around 30,000 people in the area around the palace. It was incredible that someone could simultaneously locate every one of their locations.

To be able to do that, and teleport them too, was a feat of impossible mental strength. It was like focusing on every single grain in a box of sand, and then moving each one individually to another box.

Kazuko had only used that mana burst because she’d thought it was impossible. She’d probably assumed that he’d only be able to teleport the few people in his immediate area.

“But well, it worked. I teleported everyone else a distance way. But you were passed out, so I chose to just take you myself. I healed your wounds, too,” Akuto said calmly, as if he was talking about what he’d had for dinner last night.

“S-So that’s it...” Junko let out a sigh of relief, but she also felt a little disappointed.

“Anyway, it’s time to head down. Let’s go see everyone else,” Akuto began his descent. They were flying slowly, so Junko began to feel incredibly embarrassed that she was pressed up so close to Akuto. It might have made her feel even more uncomfortable because of her previous guilty thoughts.

“O-Okay... By the way, can you let go of me a little? I can use flight magic too, you know...” Junko said.

But Akuto just shook his head. “Sorry. Can you just put up with it for a while? If you’re not close, you won’t be able to get enough oxygen. I’m gathering oxygen and heat from the surrounding area. And the mana density isn’t high enough here to use normal flight magic, too,” he said.

“We’re that high up? But then why don’t we just descend faster? You’re powerful enough to bring us straight down, right?” Junko said, fidgeting.

“Well... There was actually something I wanted to talk with you about. Alone.”

“What?!” Junko looked up at Akuto in shock.

For the first time in a long time, he actually looked like a boy his age. He was keeping his eyes turned away from her like he was oddly embarrassed.

“Wh-Wh-What’s wrong? Why are you so hesitant all of a sudden?” Junko started to feel strangely embarrassed too.

Akuto started to speak slowly, like he was felt guilty about something. “Now that I can use all the power of the gods... I can kind of see into other people’s life logs...”

“Huh? Wait. Does that mean you saw every single moment of my life?” Junko panicked.

Akuto nodded. Awkwardly. “...I’m sorry. That’s why I wanted to apologize to you when we were alone...”

“Y-You dummy! You’re basically a peeping tom!”

“I-I told you. I’m sorry. But I only saw the parts that had to do with me...”

“That’s bad enough! Y-You didn’t find out what I was doing when you weren’t around, did you?” Junko began to violently shake her head back and forth as her face turned pure red.

“...Yeah. And um... I’m not sure what to say...”

“Uwaaah! Stop it! Does that mean... You know how I feel about you?”

“Yeah... it does.” Akuto nodded a little.

Junko let out a high-pitched scream and covered her face with her hands. But when Akuto said nothing, she either gave up or just stopped caring, because she asked in a trembling voice, “...Then you’ll accept me?”

Akuto answered with a serious expression. “Of course.”

“Huh... What...?” Junko spread her hands out and looked at Akuto in shock. She was about to cry, and her lips were shaking with joy. “Th-Then you’ll... You’ll...” She wrapped her arms around his body.

“Don’t worry. I’ll protect you. Um... I know that you sympathize with my ideals, and you rebelled against the government,” he said clearly.

Junko relaxed her arms as she realized she didn’t like the direction this was going. “...Wait. Ideals? Sympathize?”

“Huh? Isn’t that what you said? You were cautious around Yoshie, until you actually met and talked with her, and then your whole psychological state changed... You suddenly had the mind of a warrior.”

“Th-That’s because...” Junko mumbled.

It was because Akuto had said that Yoshie and Junko would probably get along. Yoshie was a woman, but when she’d met Junko inside virtual phase space, she’d been in the form of a man named Yoshihiko.

Junko had thought that Akuto was telling her to date Yoshihiko. But that had nothing to do with his ideals... Akuto didn’t actually understand her at all.

As if to prove this, Akuto began to speak in a serious tone. “It’s because you talked with Yoshie and learned from her what it was I was trying to do, and you sympathized with it. And that’s why I’m going to win this battle. For your sake, too.”

“...Um, when you said you ‘saw what I did,’ is that the only art you saw? You didn’t see what I was doing in my bed every night, or what I was whispering when I was alone?” Junko spoke quickly, and with a rather mixed expression.

Akuto looked confused. “That’s right. Of course I didn’t look into your private life. That would be rude. I couldn’t do that.”

“Haha.... haha... Of course. You couldn’t... could you.” Junko laughed, but it was really more of a sigh.

“Yeah. By the way, were you doing something weird then?”

“No, no, no! Of course not! Of course I wasn’t. Come on, let’s get back to everyone else. I get what it is you’re trying to say, so we can go,” Junko said, as she looked up at the sky in exhaustion.

“Are you okay? Does it hurt somewhere, or is it cold?” Akuto asked, realizing that something was wrong.

Junko shook her head, and then poked him in the cheek. “It’s nothing. But.... for now, just let me hit you.” And then she brought her fists down on Akuto’s head many times.

“Oww. That hurts. I’m tough, but I still feel pain, you know,” Akuto sighed.

“I don’t care! Just let me hit you!” Junko yelled, and then her punches began to go from “playful” to “painful.”

○

“So even the Empress didn’t know he was capable of a teleportation spell like this,” Yoshie said, impressed, as she looked down at the crater in the distance.

“Did Ackie really do this?” Keena asked. She was dressed, since the clothes she’d taken off were teleported with her.

They were on top of a building looking down at the remains of the palace. Keena, Yoshie, Keisu, and Hiroshi had all been teleported there. Hiroshi had run out of energy, so Akuto had brought him too.

“Who else could have? It’s hard to believe he’s got that kind of power,” Hiroshi said, a little embarrassed. “But the Boss would definitely try to save everyone.”

“He saved everyone that was there... You’d have to be a god to do that. But since only a god could do it, nobody will believe that it was the Demon King who did,” Yoshie said as she turned to look below the building.

The road was packed with the people who’d been around the palace. She couldn’t hear what they said, but almost all of them probably thought it was Kazuko who’d done it.

“From their perspective it’s a miracle, so I understand that, at least,” Hiroshi said. In front of the girls he didn’t bother with pretending to be Brave.

“It’s fine to be impressed, I guess, but we’ve got lots of questions we have to ask.” Yoshie turned to Keisu, who nodded. There was a more serious look on her face than she’d ever had before. She’d dropped her strange samurai accent, too.

“My memories have returned. I believe that the reason for this is Zero’s awakening. My brain seems to be linked to him.”

“So that’s how the system works, huh? And Zero’s going to awaken?”

“It’s called Stage 2. He has no primary controller, and has almost entirely fused with the gods.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Zero you’ve seen so far is essentially a terminal. By abandoning that terminal, he’s gained the ability to infect the network of the gods directly from their central area.”

“...Zero was supposed to be the core that makes the gods what they are. And so this core itself is like a computer virus that’s starting to infect the gods?”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“So, how do we seal it away? If Zero’s second stage is like a computer program, there must be some kind of antivirus we can use, right?”

“No. Zero’s true body... in other words, Zero himself, has a ‘self’ that is attached to the place of his birth. We need to lock that ‘self’ away. That’s how we seal him,” Keisu explained.

Even Yoshie didn’t quite understand that. “A self...?”

“A way of thinking that is conscious of the fact that you are yourself, and makes that fact the center of your thoughts. Neither the gods nor the Liradans were originally equipped with such ‘selves.’ Zero is the only one. And that’s what allows the gods the capacity for independent thought. That ‘self’ must be locked away. And since the self is a black box, we have to touch Zero’s true body directly and take physical measures.”

Keisu pointed to herself and continued, “I must touch it and then seal the self away personally. My body is linked with Zero’s black box. It’s possible, in fact, to say that I am a part of Zero. I am capable of making his ‘self’ go to ‘sleep’, you could say.”

Yoshie nodded. Now she understood. “So for now we just need to go to where he was born, right?” she asked. “Where is that?”

Keisu took the same finger she’d used to point at herself and pointed it upwards. “Above? Is there something there?”

“Hmm... I don’t see anything,” Keena said.

The only thing in the sky was a tiny pale moon. Suddenly, Yoshie realized. “Don’t tell me...”

Keisu nodded. “The moon. We have to go to the moon.”

“That’s... a problem. Spaceships can only take us as far as satellite orbit,” Yoshie said, surprised. She spread out her hands as if to say there was nothing they could do.

“I heard in history class that there used to be a research city on the moon, though,” Keena said. Studying was always the one thing that she was good at.

“They didn’t really get anything useful done up there, so when everybody started using magic instead of science, it was just forgotten. Of course, outer space and magic don’t really get along, so now nobody even thinks about it...” Yoshie said, as if she was going over what she knew again in her mind.

“That’s incorrect.” Keisu shook her head. “The lunar city was abandoned to seal away Zero, not for the reasons you learned in your history class. Zero was also the control program for the lunar city. But without activating Zero, the lunar city cannot function. The only available option was to abandon the moon.”

Yoshie was surprised. She’d heard already that Zero was created during the early days of magical civilization, but this was far different from what she’d been told. “I never would have guessed... But if you have to go to the moon to seal Zero, why is it possible to unseal him from the Earth?”

“My role was to stay on Earth and function as a link, so that Zero could function as the gods’ core system. I made minor adjustments to Zero as a safety valve. And it was possible to make monitor adjustments to Zero, in order to someday unlock the mysteries of Zero’s black box.”

“So there was some kind of lab that was working on that... I work for the government, but I’ve never heard of anything like that. The only places I could think of would be the Black Mages or CMID-8...”

Yoshie could feel everything clicking in her mind as she went on.

“Sheesh... All the mysteries are starting to come together. Why was space development always considered taboo? Why did the black mages survive and work directly for the Empress? And why did the first Demon King war happen...?” Yoshie was serious, but she also sound excited.

“I think we can talk about that later,” Hiroshi interrupted. “Is there no way we can get to the moon?”

Yoshie looked at Keisu. “From what you’ve said, there’s actually a pretty easy way to get to the moon, isn’t there?”

Keisu nodded. “Yes. There’s a teleportation circle that will take you there.”

Hiroshi clapped his hands together. “Oh, I get it. They knew they might need to reseal Zero at some point, so they made a way to get to him. Where is it?”

“The basement of Constant Magical Academy.”

“I see... So that’s why the first war was a battle over that school, right?” Yoshie said, impressed.

Keisu didn’t answer. Instead she continued, saying, “But Zero also knows where the circle is. And now he’s fused with the gods, he’s become a more intricate combat system. He’ll come to destroy me. Every single mana-based device, right down to traffic lights and air purifiers, will now be trying to destroy me and the Demon King,” she said gravely.

“That’s... a problem. I guess we shouldn’t be spending too much time in town, then. But Zero can’t detect you, right?” Yoshie asked.

Keisu nodded. “That’s right. So he’ll have placed Liradans there to attack anyone who gets close.”

“So we’re getting closer to all out war. No, wait, they’re basically our entire society right now. Which means we’re the bad guys, I guess. Does that mean it’s not an all out war, but just us rebelling against society? It feels like an awfully big deal for that...” Yoshie chuckled.

Suddenly a voice cut her off. “I do feel bad for getting you involved in this.” It was Akuto. He was coming in from above, carrying Junko.

“Ackie! And Junko, too!” Keena shouted as she ran towards them.

○

Hiroshi started to smile and run towards them, but when he saw Akuto’s face, he suddenly stopped.

Of course, he was on Akuto’s side now. But he’d just remembered the look he’d seen on Akuto’s face when he pretended to shoot him own.

Hiroshi had always intended for his ‘attack’ on Akuto to be a fake. He believed that Akuto was thinking the same way. But when he’d set his plasma ball to blow up early, so that it would only burn Akuto’s skin, Akuto hadn’t smiled at him; instead, there was only a calm resolve on his face.

—It was the face of someone who didn’t care if he was killed...

He knew Akuto felt that way, a little. He’d seen the same face the last time they fought. But last time, it had been the look of a man who thought being killed was better than suicide, or perhaps a man who thought that Hiroshi couldn’t kill him at all. It was a face filled with confidence.

But this time, it had an entirely different meaning.

—He was trying to leave everything to me...

Akuto wanted him to take over after he died. If you described it as meaning he had full trust in Hiroshi, it sounded like a good thing. But it felt like too much of a burden for Hiroshi to bear.

In other words, Hiroshi was being asked to stand decisively on the side of “Justice.” No matter what happened in this battle, Akuto would end it with his own death. But someone who stood on the side of justice wouldn’t be allowed to be destroyed, or defeated. No matter how powerless or exhausted they were, they would have to keep fighting. They would never be at peace.

For now, Hiroshi pushed aside the sense that something was wrong and walked over to Akuto. “Did you hear that? I can’t believe we have to go to the moon...”

“I did. But I can’t ask you all to fight with me,” Akuto said.

Hiroshi felt a pain in his heart when he heard this, because he knew that Akuto wasn’t talking about him. It was a sign that Akuto trusted his power, but it also made his heart feel strangely heavy.

But Hiroshi still offered his hand to Akuto. “Now that I know the truth, I have no choice but to do it.”

“Thanks.” Akuto shook Hiroshi’s hand.

When he felt Akuto’s warmth and strength, he knew why his heart felt so heavy. Akuto saw Hiroshi as an equal.

—You’ve got it all wrong, Boss. I’m not that strong. I can’t do anything without my suit...

Hiroshi turned the discussion to another topic so that Akuto couldn’t tell how he really felt. “If we’re going to do it, we should take a look at what we’re getting into first. Boss, can you bring up a screen showing the area around the school?”

“Sure.” Akuto nodded and called up a manascreen. It was displaying the area around Constant Magical Academy.

Yoshie looked at it from the side, impressed. “With Zero in full control, it’s hard for us to use magic. But you can do anything, can’t you? But... what is this? It’s like every soldier he’s got is here.”

The grounds of the academy were covered in Liradans. Constant’s courtyard was a big place, but now it was filled with thousands of Liradans and hundreds of tanks.

“He couldn’t deploy his army around the palace without killing civilians, but that doesn’t apply here. At least we don’t have to worry about any battleships, since he’s only concerned about protecting the teleportation circle.”

“But with this many enemies, only the Boss and I can fight,” Hiroshi said.

Akuto nodded. “We’ll have to take Keisu alone.”

But then Keena, who’d said nothing so far, cut him off. “You can’t do that, Ackie.”

“I can’t?”

“It’s dangerous.”

Everyone there was surprised. They all knew it was dangerous. They all looked at Keena in shock.

Hiroshi didn’t know what to say himself, but he was impressed.

—Keena is able to say what she really thinks...

And her words brought out what Akuto was really thinking, too. “I mean, I know it’s dangerous...”

“Of course, I know what it is you want to do, and I think you have to do it, but...” She looked up at Akuto with dewey eyes.

“You’re right. I can’t keep dying... But I was born to do this. That’s why I can’t stop,” Akuto said. There was a strange look in his eyes, a mixture of resignation and ambition.

Keena pouted. “Jeez! Next time you say that, I’m gonna get mad!”

“You’re already mad. But I understand why. You’ve been put in danger many times. You just saw a terrible explosion right in front of you...”

“That’s not what I meant!” Keena started fuming.

Hiroshi could understand how she felt. No, if anything, it was like she was saying the things he couldn’t. It made him feel kind of pathetic.

—I hope nothing terrible happens...

Just as Hiroshi thought that, Akuto suddenly turned around. “Look...!”

They could see a strange rift in space in a corner of the roof. It was like a mana teleportation circle, but different. Nobody else knew what it was, but Hiroshi did.

“This isn’t mana...” His eyes went wide in surprise. It was the same rift in space he saw when he summoned his suit. And only one person had ever used it in the past but him.

“Boichiro... Yamato,” Akuto whispered. The man who’d once tried to use Keena to offer up a mysterious ritual to the gods. He’d come from the future, and said that he knew humanity was going to be destroyed.

The man who’d just done a teleportation impossible with modern technology was thin, and wearing a white lab coat. He wasn’t an arrogant man, but he was a handsome one.

The man adjusted his glasses, and without even bothering to say hello, he began to speak. “I have a plan. And I want you to carry it out.”

Hiroshi tensed up.

—It’s a man with the same power as Boichiro...

“Where did you come from... A plan? Who are you?” he said, trying to not let the tension in his voice show.

The man shook his head, like he’d suddenly realized he’d made a mistake. “Oh, right. I have a bad habit of saying what I want before I introduce myself. I’m Kento Kurahashi, a member of CMID-8. But I believe you might actually trust me now,” the man, Kento, said. He was the last member of CMID-8 to talk to 2V.

“CMID-8.... Boichiro Yamato’s organization...” Hiroshi whispered. But none of the other members he’d seen had ever used the power of Brave’s suit. Maybe he knew something they didn’t.

“Impossible...” Yoshie suddenly gasped. “Are you Codename USD?”

Kento nodded. “That’s what my friends call me.”

“You know him?” Junko asked.

Yoshie started to speak in a strangely agitated voice. “He’s a graduate of Constant Magical Academy. He got the best grades in the school’s history. He won the Alpha Prize, the highest honor for a magical researcher. He’s a genius not just in mathematics, but in art too.

“He retired from the priesthood a while back, but there was a rumor that he joined CMID-8, and that besides their leader, Boichiro Yamato, he’s the only member of CMID-8 whose name is known. He was so good at his job he couldn’t hide his name. His codename was USD. He was supposed to be the strongest man in history.”

It was a profile that Yoshie was likely to love. Kento sighed as if to say that he’d been caught by somebody annoying, but he didn’t correct her.

“The way you teleported... it wasn’t magic. If anyone uses magic, I can detect it. But if you learned that from Boichiro Yamato, it explains things,” Akuto said.

Kento nodded. “You’re right. I can’t keep dying... That’s why I said you can trust me.”

Hiroshi felt a heavier meaning in those words than the others, since it was Boichiro Yamato who’d given the suit to Brave. “I don’t know about trust, but at least we know who you are. So whose side are you on? With us, or against us?” he said strongly.

“Neither, I suppose. At least, if you’re asking if I’m on your side or the Empress’s. But right now, I need to cooperate with you. In other words, I want you to seal away Zero.” Kento’s words were slow and deliberate.

“What are you after?” Hiroshi said, unable to figure it out.

“Hmm... I don’t think I can answer that right now. But you...” He pointed at Hiroshi, who gulped.

“What?”

“You, I believe, have to listen to me. You’re using the suit we gave you.” Kento’s words stuck into his head.

“What...?” Hiroshi said.

But Akuto cut him off. “‘We’? In other words, Boichiro is with you?”

Kento shook his head. “I don’t know where he is. I believe he’s dead, though I haven’t confirmed it.”

“So you’ve got his technology now?” Akuto asked.

Kento nodded. “All of it. Whether history will change or not is a matter for debate, but in the future, I’m going to be called the inventor of this technology.” Kento turned to Hiroshi and laughed a little. “In other words, I’m loaning you that suit. It’s set so that nobody can use it but you, but I can take it from you anyway.”

Hiroshi couldn’t hide his shock. His voice was shaking. “...So you’re threatening me?”

Kento laughed at him. “You’re free to interpret it that way if you like. But I’m just making a request. I don’t have anything I can offer you. But if you’re not going to fight, you don’t need the suit anyway, do you? Or were you planning on joining the police?”

Kento’s tone was serious, not mocking. And because of that his words seemed only more ominous to Hiroshi. He knew the suit wasn’t his, but seeing the person who’d leant it to him really drove the point home. He realized for the first time that he was essentially the man’s slave.

But for some reason, Hiroshi couldn’t bring himself to give it up. Right now, he needed to fight at Akuto’s side.

“...I’m going to fight of my own free will. That’s the one thing I can say for sure,” Hiroshi said in a pained voice.

But Kento laughed again. “That’s right. That’s exactly what I meant,” he said, trying to not let the tension in his voice show. Hiroshi couldn’t say anything back.

Akuto spoke in a low voice; he must not have liked Kento’s tone. “So why won’t you help us directly?”

“I’m an observer,” Kento said. “I have to be.”

“Is it possible to be an observer with everything that’s going on?” Akuto asked, annoyed.

Kento nodded. “If you view this situation from a higher level, you’ll realize that observation is the only possible move.”

“A higher level? I’m done with your crap. Now tell us what it is you came to tell us,” Akuto said, making no effort to hide his displeasure.

“Of course. You see...” Kento began to share with them a surprising plan.

Hiroshi was to play a core role in it; he groaned to himself as he listened.

○

Meanwhile, Fujiko was alone in a park on the outskirts of the city. There were other people there who’d been teleported as well. They were all talking with each other about the miracle they’d just witnessed.

Fujiko herself was approached by a middle-aged woman near her. She was good at pretending to be a normal, upstanding citizen, so she was able to learn from the conversation that the woman thought she’d been saved by the Empress.

—I see... What an utter fool.

Fujiko gave no indication of what she actually thought, though. She played along with the woman for a minute, praising the Empress and cursing the evil Demon King who’d caused the mana burst, before saying goodbye and leaving.

Of course, she didn’t want to curse Akuto, until she realized that she’d been sent here alone. Then, she thought, perhaps she should’ve meant it.

“Oh, Akuto... how could you do this to me just because I ran away?” she sighed, but then suddenly she saw someone in the corner of her eye. She stopped, and then she opened her mouth in surprise.

“Oh my...! Fancy seeing you here...! If this is what Akuto wanted, then maybe he really does care about me!” Fujiko said to herself.

There was no way it could be a coincidence. Akuto must have teleported her right next to this person deliberately.

Fujiko took back her curses as she began to follow them from a distance. It was a man, and a man who was trying to make sure he wasn’t followed. He was moving farther and farther away from the other people. In this case, that took him deeper into the park. He was heading towards a small forest, it seemed. It was what people did when they felt guilty about something.

“Oh my... That’s perfect,” Fujiko smiled. She dropped back a little further, taking care to watch for when he looked back.

It was a man with curly, messed-up hair. Issei Suzuki, the man who’d been the head of the black mages. But his position had only been given to him because of a secret contract with the Empress. His job was to keep the secret, and make sure nobody knew what the black mages really were.

For a devout black mage like Fujiko, that was more than enough reason to hate him. He’d deceived the black mages for years, and kept them from growing.

—Akuto gave me this chance, and I’m going to make full use of it.

Fujiko grinned. She waited for Issei to sit down beneath a tree in the forest, silently approached from behind, and quickly wrapped her whip around his neck. She was so silent and so fast that Issei didn’t even have time to scream.

After twitching in shock for a moment, he put his hands up to his throat as he struggled to breathe.

“Hello there. I didn’t expect to see you here,” Fujiko pulled the whip tighter around the tree as she peeked around to look at him. “Or maybe it’s not a coincidence at all. Either way, hiding in the forest out of guilt wasn’t a smart move. If you want to do something that makes you feel guilty, you need to at least be bold enough to not hide.”

Issei seemed to recognize her voice. “S-Stop it... I saw what Kazuko did... I didn’t think she was that crazy... Forgive me...” he said, gasping for breath.

Fujiko let out a nasty laugh. “Forgive you? I’m not mad at you at all.”

“I-I know that. I’ll tell you our secrets... And I’ll help you...”

“Help me...?” She pulled the whip even tighter.

“Gah... gah... Fine. I won’t just help you. I’ll serve you...”

“I think you need to understand who I am a little more. But we’ve barely just met, and I think I’ll need to explain. I’m a very greedy girl, you see,” she said as she started to relax and then tighten the whip.

“F-Fine... I’ll give you the secret treasure of the black mages... That’s good enough, right?”

Fujiko smiled. “Thank you. But I’m not going to let my guard down that much. I’m going to let you live, so start talking.” She relaxed the whip just a bit, but kept it just tight enough that it was still hard to breathe. “All those murders I committed in virtual phase space are finally paying off,” she said to herself.

“Gwah.. gaah... This is the password to take you to that room from my ship. It’s a series of keywords... I’ll write them in my notebook.” Issei put a hand into his pocket and took out a mana note book, and then wrote something into it. His hands concealed the notebook, so Fujiko couldn’t see what he wrote.

“I wrote it... here...” Issei said, and then threw the notebook away. It landed at a distance where she’d have to let go of the whip to get it.

Fujiko knew what he was trying to do. “That was a very clever idea,” she said.

Issei laughed, gasping, but relieved. “...I’m lucky that you’re so greedy. I don’t care about guarding some old crypt, but I do need to eat more ramen. I wrote the real password, I think... But I can’t guarantee I’m not wrong.”

“Hmph. You just saved your own life.” Fujiko let go of the whip, jumped back away from the tree, and came around to the front, keeping her distance from Issei.

But he had already started to run. She realized that there was no way she’d catch him, so she went to pick up the notebook instead. There were rows of randomly written letters in the book.

It was probably the real password. A fake one would’ve had more patterns in it. But she wouldn’t know until she tried.

“I don’t want to think that he tricked me. I need to rebuild the black mages myself. But first, I need to do something about Kazuko and Zero...” Fujiko whispered as she looked at the book again.

He probably didn’t have any more useful information, but she now had a way to contact Issei if she needed to. She could send him telepathic messages if she wanted, and if she was lucky, she might be able to track him.

—He probably didn’t mean it when he said he’d help me defeat Kazuko, but he might have actually had some information on her...

Fujiko wasn’t willing to put her life in danger to defeat Kazuko. She did, however, want to help Akuto.

“I suppose I can sell this information to the student council president. She’s so intent on getting even with Kazuko that she’d probably torture him. I might be able to see something fun...” Fujiko smiled wickedly as she memorized the password and then erased it from the notebook.

If it was real, she would be able to bring back true black magic with her own hands.