What just happened?
It was hard to comprehend—the situation shifted so rapidly it would catch any ordinary person off guard.
Origami charged forward, alongside another AST member.
They attacked Tohka, but even a fool would’ve realized they were there to rescue him, an “ordinary student who didn’t evacuate in time.”
Except that wasn’t the case.
Shidou Itsuka was here to save her—to save Tohka, the spirit—by talking to her and building rapport.
But the AST didn’t know that. Without a doubt, in that brief clash, it wasn’t Tohka, the spirit, who was at a disadvantage, but the AST trying to rescue him.
He wanted to shout, to get the message across, to stop the conflict between the two sides.
Even if he couldn’t stop the AST, he at least had to prevent Tohka from causing the worst outcome.
He had to stop it.
He couldn’t let her sink deeper into sorrow!
“Origami!!!”
The shout came from the mature, dark-haired woman with a ponytail fighting Tohka.
His classmate, an active AST member, was rushing toward him at full speed.
No, not yet.
I haven’t gotten Tohka’s response.
If I’m taken away now, it’ll be hard to meet her again!
“Shidou, there’s—!!!”
The voice in his comms was drowned out by a heavy impact.
Origami’s figure blocked his view, and a force hit his waist, throwing his body off balance.
The world spun.
A sense of weightlessness mixed with sudden dizziness.
Pressure pressed against his stomach, as if propped up by a narrow pillar, and a binding sensation wrapped around his waist.
His gaze fell on slightly curled purple hair dangling down.
Just ahead, he could see pale skin on the outer thigh, not fully covered by a hem, framed by black-purple stockings, short boots, and the trampled classroom floor beneath.
Tohka’s and Origami’s shouts reached Shidou’s ears, but his view faced the ground and a slender waist, making it impossible to see where they were.
He was being carried face-down over someone’s shoulder.
The garbled message in his earpiece likely hinted at this—someone else was here, beyond Tohka, Origami, and the fighting AST member.
Instinctively struggling, Shidou pushed against the taut back beneath him.
The feedback from the hand pressing against him felt undeniably human.
The one carrying him was likely a girl, but she wasn’t wearing the high-tech gear of Origami and the others.
Instead, her outfit was peculiar, like a cosplay costume.
It instantly reminded him of Tohka in her fantastical princess dress.
A spirit…?
A vague realization formed in his mind, but the incomprehensible situation left him unable to piece together the information, his thoughts still in disarray.
“You seem to be having quite an interesting conversation,” a distinctly girlish voice said, its singsong, cute tone and odd self-referential pronoun making her sound utterly carefree.
“But sorry, I’d like to borrow this boy for a bit~ When I return him depends on my mood~”
But that was an illusion.
The binding sensation around his waist vanished as the girl released her arm, but in an instant, he fell into the palm of a giant.
With a deafening crash like a wall exploding, Shidou’s vision returned to normal.
His body was squeezed, but compared to the exaggerated visual, the force wasn’t heavy.
There was no tight grip.
Despite the claw looking capable of crushing him with a flick, Shidou was held as lightly as a spoon.
“Beast!!!”
A spirit?!
A second one?
That was a designation like Tohka’s Princess?
“Shi… dou! …Danger, immediately… can’t… receive?!”
Static garbled Kotori’s voice in his earpiece, but her tone signaled a dire situation.
“What’s wrong, Kotori!”
His hushed cry got no response.
Static and broken sounds, like an old TV, echoed in his ear, and fear overwhelmed Shidou for a moment.
“Let him go!!!”
The words were straight out of a third-rate drama’s kidnapping scene, perfect for a useless cop character.
“I’ll let him go when I’m done having fun.”
The spirit responded to Ryoko, who had drawn her anti-spirit lightsaber.
Without giving her a chance to react, the spirit’s sharp war boot slammed heavily into the ground.
Like piercing a thin sheet of paper, the entire school building shattered.
“(Curse)!”
The classroom on the second floor wasn’t high up, but the upper floors, already riddled with holes from the AST’s bombardment, had lost their stability.
The fragile balance was violently broken, and the detestable spirit, clutching the boy, fell alongside countless fragments of walls and bricks.
“Shidou!”
Without hesitation, Origami rushed toward the falling figure.
Several crimson beams shot up from below, and though she immediately deployed her Territory’s defense to block them, Origami couldn’t follow up right away.
“This place is collapsing! Get out now!”
An arm grabbed Origami’s, and Ryoko Kusakabe forcefully yanked the teammate, who still wanted to pursue, stumbling.
With the fastest speed, she wrapped an arm around the girl’s waist and darted through a gap in the falling debris.
Realizers were heavily restricted in confined spaces.
If they didn’t escape immediately, both she and Origami might be buried under the entire building.
No one wanted to test product quality with their life.
As Ryoko rushed out of the soon-to-be-ruined school building, she saw her teammates engaging the spirit who had just been thrown out.
“What a joke! That Angel!!!”
Expelling a spirit after it left a building wasn’t an issue—AST’s policy was clear.
“Don’t get in my way!!!”
A furious black-haired spirit faced them, wielding a massive weapon not mentioned in any manifestation report.
“You annoying pests!!!”
In contrast to the princess’s enraged roar, the opponent raised a colossal sword, over ten meters long.
The spirit lifted it effortlessly, its blade gleaming as it surged toward the airborne AST.
AST’s strategy wasn’t flawed, but in the face of an enraged Princess manifesting a devastating Angel, they had no spare energy to search for or expel Beast.
The ground began to shake, as if a massive earthquake followed the second spacequake, making Tenguu City’s string of disasters almost pitiable.
The quake lasted over ten minutes.
Afterward, the entangled Princess vanished, as recorded in past spirit manifestations.
After regrouping, the AST organized an investigation of the ruins, discovering an unknown complex of tunnels underground, their purpose still under investigation.
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