Chapter 42: At The End Of The End (1)

It was a day when rain was drizzling. I had visited Abydos for external work and was finally returning to Schale at night.

[It’s pouring a lot.]

“It is…”

I didn’t want to damage the wing decorations with the falling rain, so even if my left wing got a little wet, I held my right wing deeper into the umbrella and walked.

In the process, an unexpected, but truly someone I had been waiting for, came into our sight.

-Thud-

“….Sensei…”

[…..]

“Atsuko…has been kidnapped… The other comrades… Scattered by Arius’s attack… I don’t know if they’re alive or dead…”

Jomae Saori knelt in front of me and Sensei, the knees she wouldn’t think of kneeling, and desperately pleaded.

“I couldn’t stop it… If I leave it like this…. Atsuko… The princess…. Will die…

Tomorrow morning… When the sun rises… She will kill Atsuko….”

Shameless…

“I, my words… You may not believe it… But that much… Is true…”

Shameless, but… Yeah… I like it.

“Atsuko-hime is… a being raised like that from the beginning…”

“Shut up.”

[So, Sora?!….Ah…]

At the sudden remark, Sensei seemed to be momentarily flustered and called my name, but he saw my expression and stepped back again.

“You’re shameless… After hurting and trying to kill so many people… Now you’re asking for help from the person you tried to kill again…”

You must be in pain, you must be desperate, so I have to say this. You just haven’t had a chance, a proper chance.

“…I’m sorry… But… Please… The only person I can ask for help, the only person left for us… Is Sensei…

She… Said that if we could seize the Eden Treaty, hurt everyone… Obtain the Sanctum, and get our hands on Trinity and Gehenna…

We, the princess, could live… But… We eventually… Failed… I failed….”

I see… Seia-senpai’s words weren’t wrong after all. And we weren’t wrong, were we… That’s why I can forgive this person.

“What can you, Jomae Saori, offer?”

“…My life… If it’s a bomb that destroys the halo… I have one too… I can use that… So… Please…”

But… Even so, I can’t let this go easily. It’s not my place to say, but while still a student, trying to give up everything so easily and throw everything away for just one thing… Isn’t that too wasteful?

“Haha, you shouldn’t risk your life so easily…? Have you heard of the trolley dilemma?”

It might not be the right words for this person… Well, whatever? It’s fine if it’s roughly correct, isn’t it? If we believe it can be so, then it can be so, because it’s us.

“It’s a story where one person and five people are lying on a track with a fork where a broken train is running, and if you pull the lever, one person dies, but five people live.

And for you, that one person was a precious person, so you were constantly thrown into an absurd either-or situation of whether to kill your precious person or kill everyone else.”

“Then… What choice should I have made…? The only other option left for me is… To give up my precious thing…?”

This story doesn’t have that interpretation, and that’s why I hate this story. Because it’s a boring story that forces a loss and makes it seem like you’re given a choice. It’s an unfair story.

“Please raise your head, stand up. We still have plenty of opportunities left.

In the story I just told, originally, there are no convenient options like finding someone around to help us, or releasing one person and then pulling the lever.

But… Now we still have the privilege of choosing such convenient options. And… Right behind me?”

[Get up, Saori.]

“Bu, but…”

[A student shouldn’t kneel to a teacher.]

“I’ll take care of the rest?”

[Sigh… Where did such a child come from…]

I don’t know if he’s referring to me, but… Let’s not believe it. It’s probably not… Anyway.

My role for Saori-san is up to here. From now on, Sensei will take care of everything… Then, now, what I have to do is…

I subtly step back and put my hand on my smartphone. I put my hand on the button with the familiar name engraved on it.

“Huh? Sora-chan? What’s wrong at this hour? Didn’t you say you’d be late because of your shift?”

I call one of the people who is most precious and most reliable to me.

“Mika-senpai, it’s finally here. That person, that opportunity.”

“Wow-oh… You’re a master at not being able to time things… Yeah… Okay! I’ll see you in front of the Trinity main gate!”

“Yes!”

Perhaps because she was in a hurry to prepare, I could hear some noise on Mika-senpai’s side, and the call ended.

After the call ends, Sensei and Saori-san walk together.

Sensei’s hand was bleeding slightly. When I looked closely, I saw that mechanical parts were scattered on the ground…

“Wow… Did you break that with your grip strength? With that weak body?”

[Haha, a student has something dangerous, so I can’t just leave it, can I?]

“That’s true, too…”

It seems that he broke the detonator of the halo-destroying bomb that Saori-san brought with his grip strength. Isn’t your hand hurting…? While I was thinking about that, Sensei casually threw the detonator into a nearby trash can.

“Well then… Sensei? You know, right? I’ll bring some people~”

“What…?”

I wonder if it’s because she’s spent her whole life receiving malice, not goodwill. Her expression is greatly shaken by the undeserved kindness. Her face is filled with bewilderment. It seems like a slightly fun reaction, should I tease her a little?

“Ah! Right, since we don’t know the Arius Autonomous District… I’ll call you Leader until this is over? Are you familiar with it?”

“Wait… You… You… How can you trust me… Us, who hurt and wounded you so much…”

“Huh…? Where does it say that I’m hurt?”

“…What?”

-Flap-

I spread my wings wide. I raise both hands. There’s no way there’s any sign of injury left on me. It’s well hidden by those people’s traces. Because of those people, my wounds are now probably, not left.

“Did you see? Well then… The location of the entrance is… Sensei? Please send it to me via Momotalk as soon as you share it later?”

[Sure, and… Thank you.]

Thank you… It’s me, it’s senpai who wants to do it. And… The world is so bright, but only one place is dark, isn’t it? Then, I’ll just try to shine light into every corner of that dark place. We have such light, such debt.

Mika-senpai was waiting when I arrived at the main gate of Trinity. No, how did you know this and bring it…? Mika-senpai was holding my weapon case containing my Evolys.

“Wow~! Sora-chan~ Here! Here!”

“Wow… Where did you find that? I put it in my personal cabinet?”

“Ah… That… Sorry… It’s broken…”

“Ah-“

“Yeah, the key is with me, and you wouldn’t know the password… And it would take a bit of a detour to use the master key… Yeah… Let’s say that good things are good…”

“Sora-chan, sorry? It seems that it was late at night… Yeah… It’s hard to get the children of the Trinity Justice Realization Committee to go outside, right?”

“Yeah… Nagisa-san…”

“Well… I understood… Nagisa-sama also reacted like she couldn’t help it, right?”

“What…?”

“Ahaha☆ Sora-chan, you know well?”

“Well, that’s how it is, but… Mika-senpai, you’re here, so wouldn’t it be overkill?”

“Ahaha☆ Do you think so? Yeah! I might be a little happy?”

While having such chitchat, I get into the prepared vehicle. As soon as I got into the vehicle, I moved the vehicle to the passage to the Arius Autonomous District through the location sent separately by Sensei, who had already arrived.

-Vrooom-

“Hey, stop the vehicle, get out! This place is temporarily closed…?! Misono Mika and Yumetsubasa Sora! Everyone, prepare for battle..”

When I arrived at the passage at the location sent separately by Sensei with Mika-senpai… A considerable number of ambush troops were waiting. Their purpose would be to capture and eliminate Squad.

-Bang!-

I shoot Daedalus once at the head of the first troop who was talking loudly. With the ringing gunshot, numerous Arius troops revealed their appearance.

“Ahaha☆ It’s fun. Did you think you could win with just the two of us? Do you not know how to calculate?”

“Well… I don’t think we need to open the weapon case…!”

-Crash!-

With those words, Mika-senpai and I charge.

“Ugh?! Aaaagh!”

I knock out the guy in the forefront by hitting him in the head and use him as a shield. I steal the gun that the guy was holding and shoot.

There’s a big difference in the number of troops, and if it were outside, it might be different, but once we entered the tunnel, the shelter itself wasn’t a particularly complicated structure, so there was no difficulty in shooting.

-Crash!-

“Hey! If you had opened the road obediently, I wouldn’t have done this much, right?”

Wasn’t the shelter itself a particularly complicated structure? Mika-senpai kicked the shelters one by one, collapsing three of them at once and retiring a large number of enemies at once.

I guess she controlled her strength quite a bit. It would be dangerous if the tunnel collapsed, after all.

“Oh?”

Come to think of it, this method seems to be a method that Kenjaki-senpai often used when sparring with Kenjaki-senpai.

-Crash!-

“Wow~ Sora-chan? Aren’t you becoming more and more like me?”

“I! Re! Fu! Se!”

“Wow- I might have been a little hurt?”

I also have some confidence in my physical abilities, so I tried it, and I was also able to produce a similar result.

So, the numerous shelters that were installed to prevent intruders became our weapons, and the Arius ambush troops were quickly cleared out because they weren’t at a level to stop me and Mika-senpai’s charge.

When we defeated numerous Arius ambush troops and put them in a corner, Sensei and Squad walked into the entrance of the tunnel belatedly.

“Wow… Weren’t you a little too late? Sensei?”

[You guys are fast.]

“Misono… Mika…'”

“Ahaha☆ Long time no see? Saori? Squad too! Wow-oh… You’re much thinner than when I saw you last time… You must have been starving a lot? Yeah! Let’s go make sure that doesn’t happen anymore?”

The moment she saw Mika-senpai, all of Squad went into working, but Mika-senpai didn’t seem to have any particular thoughts, so she just brushed it off lightly and entered into a ice-breaking prodding, and everyone relaxed their guard.

..Yeah… Let’s hurry…”

It’s a place built in the past, but the inside changes at regular intervals, so I wonder how many students have gotten lost here. Catacombs… It’s been a while

“Sora-chan? Stop telling scary stories! If I get lost alone in that cave now, I might be scared and sit down…!”

“Huh? Can you break through it with the wall…”

I chat and move into the catacombs. I stopped teasing when I felt Mika-senpai’s gaze in the middle.

The Arius troops we meet in the middle are significantly reduced in number due to two coups and terrorist failures, so the scale was quite small.

Squad wasn’t in good condition, but they were still incomparable troops compared to those mobs.

So, entering the Arius Autonomous District ended up being easier than expected.