Chapter 26: The Coming Storm

London was razed to the ground. Apart from a handful of magicians, no one was left with an intact body.

The authorities gave the public a half-hearted explanation, calling it a ‘large-scale terrorist attack.’ As for whether anyone believed it…

Who would? Plenty of people had seen that enormous curtain blot out the sky that night, and all of London had been flattened. No one just dared to talk about it.

Jormungand had become the embodiment of nightmares. To counter her, the British authorities threw their full backing behind DEM’s development of the ‘Phantom Beast Bondski’ and related remote-operated humanoid weapons. But that was all a story for later.

Right now, the one responsible for all of it was lounging on a park bench, basking in the morning sun.

She wasn’t ignorant of what ‘Rule’ had done. She understood that she had probably become the world’s biggest murderer. But…

“Good morning, Miss Chihaya.”

Sayo Chihaya turned her head and saw Shido Itsuka looking a bit lost. She offered him a smile that she hoped came across as gentle.

His change in attitude was probably because of the massacre in England. In his eyes, she had likely become an unforgivable butcher.

But even so…

“Morning, Shido.”

Sayo managed a reply and smiled at him, then fell silent.

Shido didn’t respond. He didn’t move either. His hands were clasped awkwardly behind his back, and he couldn’t quite bring himself to look at the girl on the bench.

He knew she had her own special circumstances, but…

Even knowing everything, he was still afraid. Just as Kotori had said, no matter how you argued it, her hands were stained with the lives of so many. Three hundred thousand in Tengu City. An entire city in England. What about next time?

How much time had passed, and already over a million were dead? Even if it wasn’t her own will, still…

Should a Spirit like this really exist in this world?

“Um, Miss Chihaya…”

“Shido…”

After a long silence, they spoke at the same time. They exchanged an awkward glance and fell silent again.

Sayo glanced at Shido, who couldn’t seem to stand still. She managed a faint smile and pulled him down to sit beside her.

“Shido, you go first.”

Him first? What did he have to say? Demand why she’d done what she did in England? Or ask her out on a date?

Given Sayo’s personality, she definitely wouldn’t refuse. But he…

“I understand.”

As a Spirit who could influence others’ emotions, how could Sayo not know what Shido was thinking? In his eyes, she was probably beyond saving.

She pressed her dry lips together and stood up slowly, lifting her chin.

“Um, Miss Chihaya, I’m sorry, I… If you’re willing, I could try sealing your powers. Maybe after that…”

“No need.”

Sayo struggled to keep her voice steady and closed her eyes.

Right. Since when? She should have realized long ago.

She carried the mission of ‘incinerating human order.’ Whether she admitted it or not, perhaps… perhaps the first time she shouldered the weight of three hundred thousand lives, she had already set off on a path completely opposite to these so-called protagonists.

Either way, a butcher who killed over a million people getting salvation without any punishment… that was far too unfair to the dead.

Shido looked at Sayo, who seemed so forlorn. He opened his mouth to comfort her, but…

Thinking of those millions of lives, he couldn’t bring himself to say ‘I’ll definitely save you’ or anything like that.

The sky darkened. A cool spring breeze stirred the girl’s hair, hiding her melancholy face.

“It’s going to rain.”

Sayo spoke softly, not looking at Shido on the park bench, but at her own slender hands.

These jade-perfect hands had mercilessly taken millions of lives. She couldn’t smell even a trace of blood, but through her palms she could see millions of wailing ghosts.

Shido’s attitude had already said plenty. As a protagonist with a martyr complex, Shido was the type who could easily forgive the wicked Spirit Kurumi Tokisaki for killing right in front of him. But even someone like that ultimately… couldn’t accept someone like her.

No, she shouldn’t blame Shido. Even she couldn’t accept herself. It was just… just…

Sayo smiled bitterly. In the end, she was just a coward who clung to life. She had no courage for heroic acts like suicide for the greater good. Even if she would kill countless more in the future, she would still choose to struggle on living.

“Mm.”

Shido responded but said nothing else. He watched the girl’s lonely back as she walked away and pressed his lips together. It seemed he felt it wasn’t right to just let Sayo leave like that.

“Ah, um, Miss Chihaya, if it’s convenient later, we could still… hang out together.”

Together… a date…

That was what Shido had meant, but looking at the girl’s back, he couldn’t bring himself to say the word ‘date.’

Hang out… together?

“I understand.”

Sayo waved her hand without joy or sorrow and stepped into the shadows in the distance. Lightning flashed across the sky, tearing it apart in an instant.

Just like Sayo. It was going to rain. Maybe a big one… a thunderstorm.

****

Either way, life had to go on as usual. For Shido Itsuka, life had become unexpectedly full after Tohka Yatogami and Yoshino came into it. Not to mention Tobiichi Origami, who was watching him like a hawk at school.

Wait, why was he using a word like ‘came into it’? What he was doing was indeed… scumbag behavior, sure, but using that kind of phrase was a bit much…

And so, on a peaceful day, Shido Itsuka leaned back in his protagonist throne, bored, staring at the blackboard in the distance. Just as the argument between Tohka Yatogami and Tobiichi Origami was about to make his temples explode…

A gentle girl who perfectly matched every boy’s fantasy of a yamato nadeshiko walked into the classroom with light steps and wrote her name on the blackboard.

[Kurumi Tokisaki]

“My name is Kurumi Tokisaki. I’m… a Spirit, you know?”

“Huh?”

Shido, who had been dozing off, nearly slammed his head into his desk. He wondered if he’d misheard.

That new transfer student named Kurumi Tokisaki said she was a Spirit?

He must have misheard. Could someone just casually say ‘Spirit’ in a place like this? What she meant to say was ‘a girl like a Spirit’… that had to be it, right?

Kurumi narrowed her eyes slightly, her perfect gentle smile still in place. Her deep wine-red eyes glanced, almost imperceptibly, at Shido Itsuka in his protagonist seat.

****

“I know. I know those words are just cheap temptation. I know I’m an unforgivable sinner. But… I’m sorry. I have no other choice.”

“If you need a reason… then it’s simply that I want to live. That’s all…”

A torrent of destructive flame poured from the massive cannon’s mouth, surging toward the Spirit girl in her Astral Dress who had no strength left to fight back, carrying a terrifying force capable of burning everything. And just then, someone she never expected appeared in front of her.

“Idiot! I’ve already taken back my power, so you can’t heal anymore! If you keep this up, you’ll really die!”

“Let the Demon King return in triumph. That was our original plan. But didn’t I tell you? Jormungand is the Spirit that fits us best.”

“Such powerful strength paired with such a weak personality… what a waste!”

“We were… we were so close to succeeding!”

“What…”

He watched the smile on the red-eyed girl in his arms stiffen in an instant. The hand that had been wrapped around her slender waist felt an unstoppable warmth gushing from a gaping wound at her waist. Shido Itsuka collapsed to his knees, staring blankly at the golden-haired girl standing before him like a goddess.

“Sorry, you’re in the way!”

The girl stumbled through the darkness. Perhaps it was her imagination, but as she walked, she felt herself drawing closer to the black moon in the sky, as if… the black moon was slowly swallowing her.

“I understand. I will incinerate human order and reshape the world. Just as Yahweh did… I will create a beautiful, brand-new world.”

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