Chapter 8: The Evil God’s Revival! The Prelude to Humanity’s Destruction!

It slept.

It lived a life in eternal haze.

From time to time, it awakened, reminded of its body’s incompleteness.

Broken, lost, gone.

Restoration would require great time and nourishment.

Time, it had. The mere loss of its body would not kill it.

But a failure to die was not the same as recovery.

Suitable nourishment did not exist in this world.

When it fell from the sky, only the most primitive of creatures existed here.

To absorb them in their present form would be difficult. It decided to change those creatures, little by little.

Little by little, it would urge them to evolve into life more compatible with itself.

Over the long passage of time, a suitable race was forged.

It began to absorb them, and after sufficient recovery, it concocted a new plan. It began to plant the seeds of intelligence into the creatures it had created.

Perhaps it could use them to return to the sky.

It urged their evolution towards further intelligence. The intelligence to develop technology, to sail into the sea of stars.

More time passed. It began to think of itself as God. For these beings had invented language and created their own myths, and in these myths, they called it “God.”

It created worshipers to whom it was God. For as their creator, what else could it be?

The time between awakenings grew shorter. Consciousness now returned every few hours. Its body’s recovery was complete.

That last nourishment, a mass of great power, had been the deciding element. It was stronger now than it had ever been, before the initial loss.

The light of the moon.

That was all it needed now.

Then body and mind would unite.

Its existence in haze, it awaited the time of revival.

✽✽✽✽✽

Aiko and the others were in a palanquin.

It was decorated grandly, in an anachronistic style. If not for the situation they were in, it might have felt like aristocratic treatment. It was large enough that four of them could ride in it with room to spare.

The bamboo blinds at the front that served as the entrance were down. They weren’t tied up, so escaping would be as easy as raising the blinds. But if they got out, they’d just find themselves in the middle of a group of alert anthromorphs, so it didn’t seem worth trying.

The palanquin was swaying. They were being carried somewhere.

There were four girls trapped inside the palanquin. The three girls of the survival club: Mutsuko, Yoriko, and Aiko, and also Rion Takamichi.

They were all wearing diaphanous white under-kimonos — traditional “human sacrifice” clothing. It seemed sacrifices were to be treated well, even if they had tried to escape once; their captors didn’t seem capable of roughing up future offerings to their god. Therefore, they hadn’t been forcibly stripped, just encouraged to put the light white gowns on themselves.

Realizing it was pointless to try to fight it at this point, they had changed clothes obediently. Their original clothes were in the palanquin with them, but they weren’t sure if they’d be allowed to change back.

“Do you think it’s okay to keep our shoes on?” Aiko asked.

Aiko was wearing sneakers. Since it was originally going to be a survival camp, she’d brought clothes that were easy to move in.

Mutsuko was wearing short, hardy-looking lace-up boots. Aiko had a feeling they were rigged up somehow, too.

“They didn’t tell us not to, so I don’t see why not,” Mutsuko answered. “These clothes are silk, right? They feel nice against my skin! Maybe they don’t mind us wearing shoes because it’s gonna chomp us and leave our feet behind?”

“Don’t say things like that, please...” Aiko felt sick just thinking about it.

After changing, they raised the bamboo blinds to see outside, and nobody scolded them for it. The palanquin had been taken into Kukurizaka’s mansion.

Ahead of them were two water buffalo anthromorphs, bearing the palanquin on their shoulders. There were probably two more in the back. The palanquin was surrounded by anthromorphs that all seemed to be on high alert. There was probably no way to slip by them.

Aiko couldn’t keep track of where they were going, but Mutsuko was probably memorizing the route. That would come in handy if they ever did get out, so Aiko felt a little relieved.

“But wow, this situation is seriously bad,” Mutsuko commented.

“After all this, you finally think so, huh?” Aiko asked.

Despite her words, though, Mutsuko was acting more or less the same as always.

“Ahh! Darn it! If you guys hadn’t come, this would never have happened!” Rion sulked. She must have thought she’d been out of the woods after meeting Yuichi.

“Even if we hadn’t been captured, we’d all be in deep once that thing was up and walking around.” Yoriko muttered back.

“Yeah... you’ve got a point...” Rion began quivering again as she remembered the sight of The Head of All.

“But what was it doing out and about?” Aiko asked. “That... Head of All, you called it?”

It was as if it had been waiting outside Rion’s house. They didn’t know how it had found them.

“Good question,” Mutsuko said. “You think it was after Nero? It did fly off, looking pretty satisfied, after it absorbed him.”

After doing that, the monster had flown off without giving them another look. It seemed logical to assume that it had been after Nero from the start.

“So it is you guys’ fault! Darn it!” Rion complained again.

“But it might not be possible to get off the island without getting rid of The Head,” Mutsuko responded. “I mean, it flies! You can’t really run from that.”

The thought of a monster like that pursuing them to the ends of the earth sent a chill up Aiko’s spine. There was no way to escape something like that.

“What are we going to do?” Aiko asked. “Rion, do you know anything?”

She didn’t want to know what was going to happen, but just sitting there in silence made her anxious, too.

“You mean, what happens to the sacrifices?” Rion asked. “Some are like you just saw: they get absorbed into the body. But that’s only for anthromorphs. Some are eaten whole. That’s only for virgins. I don’t know what’s so special about how virgins taste, but it’s been the rule since forever.”

Which meant Rion could fall into either party. Since she was with Aiko and the others, though, she was apparently part of the “to be eaten” group.

“Offering virgins to gods is a custom all over the world, for some reason,” Mutsuko commented. “Well, personally, I think it’s because priests wanted to use their god as an excuse to get it on with some virgins. Then again, as a food source, women who have given birth probably have a different hormone balance, which might affect the flavor!”

“Are we gonna get eaten?” Aiko asked nervously. The Head’s revival would take place when the full moon reached its summit. It had been evening when they were captured, which meant it could all be over in just a few hours.

I guess I really do have to transform...

Now that Nero was gone, Aiko’s power was all they had to rely on. She probably couldn’t beat that monster, but it might help them get away, at least. The only question was whether she could control it. The last time she had transformed, her body had moved on its own.

And then there’d been the other day, when she had wandered into Yuichi’s room in a daze. If that had been an effect of the vampirization, then she definitely didn’t have control over those powers.

“I personally think my big brother is going to come save us! Don’t you agree, Noro?” Yoriko addressed Aiko casually, apparently believing that very firmly.

“Y-Yeah,” Aiko said. Now that she mentioned it, they hadn’t seen Yuichi for a while.

Maybe Sakaki really will come to save us...

Since she didn’t know if she could use it or not, gambling on the vampire’s power should be saved for a last resort.

Yuichi would come. She believed in that.

They were carried from the mansion into the basement, and then into a strangely-lit passageway. It was completely different from the Japanese-style mansion halls they had been in previously; a perfectly square corridor lit uniformly with dim light.

“What is this?” Aiko asked, dumbfounded, to no one in particular.

“This is the festival site,” Rion answered. “Weird place, huh? Some people say it’s like being in a spaceship, but...” Rion said that in a tone that suggested she didn’t believe it.

“A spaceship! Maybe The Head of All is an alien! Of course! There are alien origin theories for plenty of yokai and gods!” Mutsuko looked around in great interest.

“Are there?” Aiko did find it plausible that this could be a spaceship. The technology certainly looked extraterrestrial.

From time to time, they came to a seeming dead end, in which a square hole opened automatically at their approach. It acted like an automatic door, except that it looked like an ordinary wall until they were right on top of it. She had never seen anything like this on Earth.

Speaking of which, Aiko realized, Yoriko had been very quiet this whole time. She decided to check how the girl was doing. Yoriko’s face was pale, and she was cradling her right arm. She’d said she had the pain under control, but it seemed that had reached its limit.

“Yoriko, are you okay?” Aiko drew up close to Yoriko. She didn’t know what to do except rub her back gently.

“Noro... thank you,” Yoriko said.

Aiko had never seen Yoriko acting so reasonable before. The pain must have been getting really bad.

“Sakaki will come, I’m sure of it,” Aiko assured her. “Then we can go back home together. It’ll all be okay.”

“Yes, Noro, I know that for a fact,” Yoriko said. “You’re the one who still doesn’t believe it, aren’t you?”

If Yoriko still had fight in her, she must have been feeling well enough.

They passed through wall after wall, until they came out in a round chamber.

The first thing Aiko noticed within the chamber was that monster.

It was sitting upon the highest point of the room, a dais at the far side. It appeared to be curled up and asleep, yet it projected an overwhelming presence throughout the room that was impossible to ignore.

Three girls in under-kimonos crouched at the base of the dais.

They were surrounded by a crowd of anthromorphs, all inhuman beings with various animal features, looking up at The Head in reverence. The girls weren’t restrained, but there was probably no way out of their current position, either.

Aiko’s group was the same way.

The water buffalo anthromorphs brought the palanquin to the center of the room, then stopped, and set it down. The anthromorphs stepped away from the palanquin and pointed to the base of the dais. It’s like they were telling them to go there.

“I know you! You’re Sato, who lives across the street! Don’t think you can get away with this!” Rion shouted back.

They must have known each other.

Perhaps he was the stoic type, or perhaps it was simply a rule, but the buffalo didn’t say anything in response.

“Well, let’s just do what they say for now.” Mutsuko got out of the palanquin without complaint. “We’ve got front-row seats, in a way! We get to watch a god’s revival close up! I mean, the fact that I saw it walking around earlier takes away from some of the excitement, but still!”

After a moment’s hesitation, Aiko followed her.

They walked, single-file, through the crowd of anthromorphs. Their kimonos probably weren’t see-through from a distance, but Aiko still hunched over as she walked, feeling self-conscious.

As they arrived at the base of the dais, Aiko started in shock. “Huh? Konishi?”

One of the girls present was Yuri Konishi, Aiko’s classmate.

Yuri was one of the ones who captured them; why was she being treated as a sacrifice? The other two were Manaka and Akemi, the girls who had been in the prison with them before.

“Aiko Noro!” Yuri glared at her.

It was all baffling, but Aiko huddled down close beside her.

“Excuse me! Could you not sidle up to me?” Yuri snapped.

“If we stay pressed up together, they can’t see through our clothes.” Aiko continued trying to hide her body, embarrassed to be seen in the outfit.

“Are you an exhibitionist, then?” Yoriko asked. “You have that kind of face...”

Yoriko pressed up against Aiko as she sat down. Mutsuko and Rion followed suit.

“Why? Why is this happening to me? All I wanted to do was kill Aiko Noro and reign over my own world of darkness!” Yuri complained.

“I’m not sure how to respond to that...” Aiko said with a wince.

“So, you were double-crossed, right? How stupid do you have to be to trust people like this?” Yoriko snapped. Her tongue had grown a mark sharper, perhaps due to the severe pain she was in.

“Just calm down!” Mutsuko said. “Sniping at each other won’t help! Now that we’re here, we just have to wait for Yu to show up.” Even though they were on the verge of being sacrificed, Mutsuko seemed completely unaffected.

“Um... I do believe he’ll come... but with the outfits we’re wearing...” Aiko murmured. The fabric was flimsy and nearly transparent. The thought of Yuichi seeing her in it made Aiko feel even more embarrassed.

“He’ll come!” Mutsuko declared. “He’s probably already out there, just waiting for his turn! Planning the most dramatic entrance!”

“That’s one thing I hate about Sakaki...” Aiko muttered.

Their discussion was cut off as suddenly, everything went dark. The light from the walls and floor had gone out.

Immediately after, they found themselves bathed in soft light.

Aiko looked up at the ceiling to see that at some point, it had opened wide, allowing the light of the full moon to stream down on them.

The monstrous Head began to tremble.

It spread its eagle’s wings, stood up on its lion’s legs, fixed its man’s eyes on the moon, and let out a howl

.

“Oh, we’re all doomed!” Yuri scrambled her hands through her hair and wailed in despair.

Rion covered her ears and bowed her head.

Manaka and Akemi hugged each other, trembling.

“Reviving under the light of the full moon... you think it reacts to Blutz Waves? 17 million zenos?” Mutsuko pondered, casually.

“Big Sis, those are fictional terms. He’s not turning into a Great Ape.” Despite her casual criticism, Yoriko didn’t sound at all surprised that Mutsuko had said it.

“How can you be so relaxed about this?” Aiko asked. She was dumbfounded... yet also, somehow, not surprised. It was certainly terrifying, and they were all probably about to die. But she had begun to realize this was the kind of thing that just happened when she hung out with Yuichi and his family.

The aura around The Head had changed now, too.

When they had met it at Rion’s house, its eyes had been those of a wild animal. But now it was different. There was intelligence behind those eyes. The “revival” had been a mental one.

The Head took a step forward. It thrust its giant face towards Mutsuko. “You’re not afraid, are you? You feel no awe towards me, nor are you my disciple.”

Aiko was surprised to hear it speak. Despite the fact that it had a man’s face, for some reason, she hadn’t expected it to talk.

The Head then looked at Aiko and the others. It seemed to be watching them intently, curious.

“Why would I be afraid?”

“Aren’t you afraid to die?”

“Sure, I’m afraid to die,” Mutsuko responded. “But that’s not happening here. You can’t kill me!”

“Can’t I?”

“Because — and I’m sorry to say this after your whole big revival thing — you’re the one who’s about to die.” She hesitated. “Oh, wait, I guess I should ask... you’re not planning to stay on this island peacefully, are you? Because if so, it’s okay if you stay alive.”

“What a stupid question,” The Head said coldly. “How much food do you think there is on this island?”

By “food,” the thing probably meant humans. There weren’t many on the island at all.

Mutsuko sighed, with a theatrical air. “Boy, I wish you hadn’t started talking! Final bosses always turn so small-scale the second they open their mouths.”

“Is that all you have to say?” The Head demanded.

“Mutsuko, why are you getting it angry?!” Aiko looked at Mutsuko in panic. She couldn’t figure out why anyone would go out of their way to provoke a creature like that.

“I just think it’s not very god-like to lose your cool that easily!” Mutsuko exclaimed. “You’ve gotta be more above this kind of stuff!”

The Head’s face had gone utterly blank.

“Oh, well. I guess Yu’ll have to handle the rest!” Mutsuko proclaimed.

“Hey! Don’t rile him up and then throw him to me!”

Aiko turned at the sound of the familiar voice.

Yuichi was standing right behind her. Beside him was Natsuki, dressed in black, skintight leather.

The Head began to laugh. It guffawed.

“That explains your confidence... so this is the man you were relying upon? I’ve seen him spying on me from that corner this whole time. I thought he was searching for an escape route.”

“Sakaki... were you actually waiting for the most dramatic entrance?” Aiko asked.

Then again, she could believe it. He was Mutsuko’s little brother, after all.

“No way! I had stuff to take care of first.”

Yuichi started walking straight to The Head.

“You take care of the girls,” Yuichi added to Natsuki. Then he urged Mutsuko to step back, and stood face-to-face with The Head.

✽✽✽✽✽

It remembered this thing. They had met while it slumbered.

But that was all. This thing was nothing: a human, weak, lacking even the power of its disciples.

With but a single stroke, it could reduce any human to lifeless meat. That would be easy, but also boring.

Yes, it thought. It needed a way to drive the female who had confronted it into despair.

Death could come after.

It would tear into the sacrifices, sink the humans into an ocean of blood and viscera, and then take its time toying with them.

First, it would crush this male that the female relied on, the one standing before its eyes. If it crushed the male effortlessly, the female would realize how foolish she had been.

The male merely stood there, unafraid, smiling with perfect confidence.

How irritating.

It would crush him with a single step.

It planted its left forefoot, and struck out with its right. It did not matter where it hit. It would end the male’s life, regardless.

But its claws caught air.

The male had moved.

It was only after that point that it noticed something amiss in its own body, and it realized he had pivoted.

It could not tell immediately what had happened, but there was something long, narrow, and hard now buried in its body.

Pierced.

The male took one step closer, holding a long, metal something in both hands.

A spear? A primitive weapon, but practical enough to have lasted throughout all of human history.

At last, its mind registered what it had seen.

The male had dodged its claw swipe, and had taken one step forward while pivoting. As he had, the tip of the spear had wobbled wildly, making the thrust unstable and hard to predict.

But the moment the spear had pierced its chest, all rigidity had returned, focusing the entirety of the weapon’s power into a single point.

“You...” It tried to speak, but realized it could no longer even control its own voice.

Its core had been pierced.

Questions ran through its mind.

Where had the spear come from? That had not been in the male’s hands when he had first approached. Where could he have hidden something so long?

How had the male known the location of its core? The core was its central control point, and its weak point. It was well aware of that. That was why it did not keep its core in any one place, but moved it freely through its body.

Yet the lance had impaled its core. There had been no way for the male to know where its core was, yet he had impaled it with perfect precision.

The core that had kept its body united was beginning to lose its grip. The flesh it had taken into itself and made its own began to escape its control.

A single, lethal blow.

✽✽✽✽✽

Yuichi confirmed that the blow was fatal, then he pulled the spear out and stepped back.

He kept the point of the spear pointed towards the monster’s head, his posture cautious.

“That’s a face with ‘but how?!’ written all over it...” he commented.

The monster was indeed frozen, with surprise written over its face.

“Well, I’ll let Sis handle the explanation,” he added.

Yuichi climbed up on top of the monster, still holding the spear.

“I killed this thing! If anyone’s got a problem with that, you can climb up here and try me!” Yuichi howled as he brandished the spear.

The anthromorphs clearly did not have a problem with that. They had all fallen to their knees where they stood.

Even the island’s chief, Dogen Kukurizaka, was groveling, powerlessly.

It was just as Rion had said: Anthromorphs instinctively served the strongest in the room. Which, Yuichi had decided, meant that the best way to resolve what was going on on the island was to defeat their god, The Head of All.

He jumped down again as he felt the surface beneath his feet begin to break apart.

The monster’s form was changing. It writhed, then expanded, then split apart. All that was left behind was a mountain of anthromorphs.

“So it was made up of fused anthromorphs, huh?” Yuichi mused.

The core that Yuichi had struck must have been what was keeping them all held together. Now that it had stopped functioning, they had returned to their original forms.

“Um... what’s going on here? I don’t think I followed it at all...” Aiko said to Mutsuko, looking extremely confused.

“Okie-doke! Allow me to explain!” Mutsuko said cheerfully. “First, Yu used the spear as an ‘anqi,’ a hidden weapon. It’s a fundamental martial arts technique for keeping your opponent from noticing your weapon until the very last second!”

“Huh? Um, but Sakaki was clearly holding the spear the whole time!” Aiko protested.

“From our point of view, sure. But he was holding it behind himself. The enemy was in front of him, so it couldn’t see it!”

Even if it hadn’t been able to see the weapon, there was a chance his opponent could have told there was something off about his balance. That was why it was important, in that technique, for the wielder to mask his center of gravity.

“Um, so where did he get the spear?” Aiko asked.

“That’s the beach umbrella we were using the other day! It’s an umbrella-spear! You remove the umbrella part, and it’s a liu he da qiang, 3.2 meters long, made from a special alloy! It’s super bendy, and really heavy!” Mutsuko proclaimed.

Yuichi had brought the spear as a weapon, and packed it away in the mini-truck when they had first headed to the festival site.

“After that, it was simple,” Mutsuko added. “Just strike the weak point! Well, as for how he did that, I think Yu had a hunch about what his opponent didn’t want him to do!”

A hunch.

That was a vague way of putting it, but it was the only way of expressing it. Yuichi had guessed its weak point via an instinct — on a hunch. He had been able to tell what his opponent didn’t want him to do through observation and intuition. He could unconsciously process all the information he’d taken in, then make a snap judgment based on that.

That was why Yuichi had spent so much time sizing up the monster, right until the very last instant. That was why he had remained hidden, watching.

“Of course, Yu can also tell what his opponent does want him to do!” Mutsuko added. “If he used that ability during sex, he’d be unstoppable!”

“Hey! That has nothing to do with anything right now!” Yuichi barked back at Mutsuko’s outrageous declaration.

Aiko was blushing, which just made things even more awkward.

“B-But wow, he took it out pretty easily, huh?” she said, perhaps trying to change the subject.

“Well, that’s how fights usually go,” Mutsuko said. “It’s a fundamental rule of combat: take your opponent out before they can muster their full strength!”

“Um, the fundamental rules of combat don’t sound very sporting...” Aiko murmured.

“Ah, but that’s what combat’s all about!” Mutsuko replied. “You’ve gotta take the upper hand, no matter what. Every traditional old fighting style has some techniques that are about fooling the opponent. I mean, of course they do! The point of martial arts is to beat the enemy, so you need ways to win even if you’re less powerful or skilled than them. That means using tricks, bluffs, anything you can bring to the table!”

“Hey, can we talk about that later?” Yuichi asked. “Let’s get out of here before these guys—”

“Big Brother!” Yoriko suddenly caught him in an embrace.

As Yuichi went through his usual ritual of prying her off, he realized that her right arm was injured. “Yori, what happened to your arm? Are you okay?”

“I’m not okay!” she cried. “I need TLC!”

“No, look, we need to get you to a hospital...”

“The boat’s on the way, so that’ll be easy enough,” Mutsuko said. “It’s probably already waiting for us at the harbor! And... hmm? What’s this?”

The spaceship seemed to be rumbling. The vibrations were small, at first, but they were starting to grow in severity.

“I see,” Mutsuko said. “I bet it’s that old cliché, you know? The whole place is about to collapse!”

“Huh? Why should it collapse because I killed the monster?!” Yuichi found the idea a bit ridiculous, but that didn’t change the fact that the ship was shaking.

“Okay! Yu, all of you, get out!” Mutsuko declared.

“What about you, Sis?” he asked. Mutsuko had encouraged them to run, but she didn’t seem about to follow them right away.

“I’ll catch up later! There’s something I’ve gotta do first!”

“Got it!” he agreed.

If Mutsuko said she’d be fine, she’d be fine. Yuichi grabbed Aiko and the others and started to run.

✽✽✽✽✽

Takashi Jonouchi awakened.

Ever since The Head of All had absorbed him, he had felt at peace, as if in a dream.

It had been a pleasant feeling. He had belonged there. It was as if he had become one with the entire world, with no separation between individual and whole.

He had shared thoughts with all kinds of existences, a single part of a larger something that could process great quantities of information at once.

And then, suddenly, that had all been ripped away.

It was disorienting. It took him time to remember that he was an individual named Takashi Jonouchi. But as he became aware of his surroundings, he realized he was in a pile of his fellow anthromorphs. He immediately recognized them as the others who had been absorbed into The Head of All.

And then, he realized that the ground was shaking. At first he thought it was a side effect of his disorientation, but it didn’t go away.

“Ugh... what happened?” He was disgusted with himself. He had regained his anthromorph power, but now that meant nothing. His existence as an individual was small and meaningless, compared to being a part of The Head of All. “Dammit... I’m...”

What would he do now? Nothing at all came to mind. He looked up at the sky.

The full moon seemed to flicker in his vision.

...Come... the voice said. It felt like it was speaking directly into his mind.

Takashi looked in the direction it seemed to be coming from.

There, he saw something lying on the floor. It was a small head, like a baby’s. It was looking at Takashi.

It is not... too late. Eat me...

The head that had fallen from the sky. The Head of All.

This is its true form, Takashi realized.

It was painful to see in this state, split like a pomegranate.

I shall give you power... tremendous power. I am going go to sleep... and while I sleep, my power shall be yours...

Takashi began to crawl towards it. He moved slowly. It was as if he was not yet in full control of his body.

Power...

Yes, power. Power was what he needed. Power even greater than that of an anthromorph.

Yes... yes... come here...

Takashi found himself in front of the little head. He reached for it...

Splat.

And just like that, The Head of All was crushed.

Takashi stared dumbly at the ex-deity, at first uncertain of what he’d just seen.

The Head had been smashed under a sturdy-looking boot.

Takashi began to turn his eyes higher. Above the boot was a smooth, slender leg, and still higher, a girl dressed in a diaphanous white kimono.

“B-horror movie sequel foreshadowing? Not on my watch!” she proclaimed haughtily. “This ends here and now. No continuations, no spinoffs, and no side stories!”

Then she turned her eyes to Takashi.

“Same goes for you,” the girl told him confidently. “You’ve gotta quit serving at the whim of other people all the time! Getting power from someone else doesn’t mean anything. Listen up! You’re a man, right? You’ve gotta earn your own power! Start training! Train and make yourself stronger!”

In that moment, to Takashi, she seemed to be shining.

“Who are you?” he asked, a feeling of reverence rising up inside of him.

“I’m Mutsuko Sakaki, second-year student at Seishin High School, and president of the survival club! Ah, just call me Flag Breaker Mutsuko! I thought that one up just now. Anyway, you ought to come away with the rest of us. You don’t wanna get crushed inside an alien spaceship, right?”

Mutsuko held her hand out to him.

Takashi gripped it tightly.

✽✽✽✽✽

Yuichi and the others escaped the festival site, passed through the mansion, and made it outside.

Mutsuko joined them a little while afterward, with two wolf-like humanoids following after her.

“Who are they?” Yuichi asked.

“They’re anthromorphs unaffiliated with the island, so we’ve gotta take them away,” she explained.

It was like she was saying the island anthromorphs could die, for all she cared. Mutsuko could be cold-hearted when it came to that kind of thing.

“Lady Aiko... forgive me!” One of the wolf-men walked up to Aiko and pressed his forehead to the ground.

“Um... it’s okay, really. I mean, it wasn’t your fault...” Aiko was clearly bewildered by this sudden prostration.

“But...” The wolf bowed even lower.

“This is getting really annoying. Why not just order him not to worry about it?” Yoriko said bluntly.

“Okay, then please don’t worry about it. Just do your best from now on. That’s an order.” Aiko must have also been getting fed up with it, as she took Yoriko’s suggestion immediately.

“Y-Yes ma’am!” The wolf-man’s voice was choked with tears.

Yuichi had no idea what the relationship between Aiko and this wolf-man was. All he knew was that he’d been introduced as “Nero.”

“Hey, is anyone else feeling that rumbling?” Rion asked nervously.

Yuichi could feel the ground shaking slightly.

“Don’t tell me...” he groaned, his stomach twisting into a knot.

He turned and looked back past the mansion, to the mountain’s summit high above.

There was a powerful blasting sound, followed by a shockwave. Red lava began flowing from the mountaintop.

“I see. Looks like the scale of things just got even bigger!” Mutsuko exclaimed.

The lava rock hardened in the open air, sending volcanic projectiles popping loudly into the sky above. If they stayed where they were, they’d quickly be caught up in the pyroclastic or lava flows.

“Oh, none of this makes any sense!” Yuri shouted in panic.

“Okay, everyone! Let’s run for the harbor!” Mutsuko commanded gallantly.

From the boat’s second floor rear deck, Yuichi watched the island sinking. “What the heck. This can’t be happening...”

The ground they had been standing on just minutes before was now splitting apart and sinking under the ocean. It was a truly unreal sight.

The volcano had continued to violently erupt, and then, as if unable to bear the strain any longer, it had begun to split apart.

“Maybe it had a self-destruct device!” Mutsuko mused cheerfully, standing to Yuichi’s right.

“Sakaki. I’m realizing for the first time just how small I really am,” Natsuki said listlessly, standing to his left.

The three of them were leaning against the railing on the deck. The others were down below. Yoriko was resting in a cabin, with Aiko looking after her. Nero was accompanying Aiko.

Yuichi had wanted to stay with Yoriko, too, at first. But she had been so insistent on getting coddled that he’d ended up retreating to the upper deck in disgust.

“This is crazy,” Yuichi muttered. “I never thought I’d see anything like this...”

“Now that I think about it... I wonder who was it that sent the letter to the Martial Arts Preservation Society,” Mutsuko mused.

They had been taken prisoner the moment they arrived on the island, so they hadn’t been able to meet whoever had sent the invitation.

“That’s right, I’d forgotten all about that...” Yuichi said. “Looking back now, it was pretty suspicious. I wonder if someone did that just to lure us there...”

But even if that was the case, who would want to set a trap for a bunch of ordinary high school students like them?

“Good question,” Mutsuko said. “Though if there really was a dying martial art there, it’s a sad loss...”

Mutsuko gazed off at the island, daydreaming, perhaps, of mysterious fighting styles.

Yuichi decided he’d had enough of watching the island sink, and turned back around. There were more people on the boat now than there had been on their trip there.

Takashi Jonouchi and Yuri Konishi.

The two girls who had been taken for sacrifice.

The cowgirl he’d met on the island, Rion Takamichi.

“What are we gonna do with all of them?” he asked.

Yuri Konishi shouldn’t pose any more trouble for them. She seemed to have lost her desire to attack Aiko.

But the college students might be a problem. They had come in a group of five, and three of them were missing. Now that the island had sunk, there was little chance they might be found alive.

“We could just kill them and spare ourselves the trouble,” Natsuki said. “If we did it now, we could just tell everyone they went down with the island.”

“You’re kidding... right?” Yuichi asked.

It didn’t sound funny when a serial killer said it. The small smile on her face was no guarantee that it was a joke, either.

“They’ll just have to go to the police and handle it through the usual legal channels!” Mutsuko said.

It might have been dismissive of her, but Yuichi felt the same way. He couldn’t take responsibility for every single thing in every single incident he’d ever been involved in.

In Rion’s case, though, he did feel some responsibility. He had promised to save her, after all.

“Takamichi said she was attending school off the island, so she’ll probably be okay,” Mutsuko said. “Oh, or do you want her to stay with us? It’ll be like a roommate comedy! It’s ‘eat or be eaten’ with a cowgirl roommate! Wouldn’t that be novel?”

“Anything but that, please...” Yuichi already had his hands full living with his weird older sister. He didn’t need anything more piled on top of that.

“By the way, Yu! You killed a god back there, right? Maybe we ought to start calling you God-Slayer Yuichi!” Mutsuko proposed with innocent enthusiasm.

“Was that thing really a god? Not just some weird creature?” he asked.

It had certainly been unspeakably powerful, but it had also looked like a mash-up of fairly common animals. It was hard to buy something like that as a god.

“I can’t believe you were so calm in the face of it...” Natsuki said, her voice a mix of reverence and disbelief. At the ritual site, Natsuki had remained on backup duty. She hadn’t even tried to approach The Head of All.

“Well, really, you can get god authorization anywhere!” Mutsuko said. “I mean, they used to use that word to refer to old kings and natural phenomena, so it’s pretty reasonable that people would venerate that thing. You saw how gold and shiny it was! They probably thought they’d get something out of it!”

“At any rate, anything that’s alive can be killed,” Yuichi said. What he’d done wasn’t special.

But Mutsuko’s reaction to his offhanded comment wasn’t what he was expecting. “Yu... you’ve become such a natural at condescension. It’s kind of cool...” Her eyes became dewy, as if greatly touched.

“Huh? What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” he demanded. “I’m not trying to sound cool...”

“Ah! Doesn’t killing a god get you perks?” she asked, quickly changing topics. “Has it awakened new abilities within you? C’mon! Can you use the power of the god you killed or something?”

“Of course not!” he snapped. “And I don’t want any more weird powers than I have already!” Just the thought of more unwelcome powers awakening within him made him feel slightly sick.

I’m not gonna undergo any weird changes... am I?

As Yuichi fell deep into thought, Mutsuko put a hand on his head and mussed his hair around.

“Hey, you’re embarrassing me...”

“You did great this time, Yu!” she proclaimed. “I see you learned from the vampire incident and used your full power right off the bat! I give it an 8 out of 10!”

Mutsuko continued to tousle his hair with sisterly affection. Yuichi had to wonder where the two docked points came from, but he wasn’t entirely displeased.