Bursting through the earth, brushing aside sand and debris, the dust was swept away.
The light was dim, but far better than the pitch-black underground.
The giant claw tightened slightly, squeezing the boy and silencing the words he was about to speak.
“I don’t have much time, so let’s make this a mutual Q&A. You go first.”
Straight to the point, without any preamble or introduction, the restraint on Shidou Itsuka’s body vanished.
Orange light filtered through the window, and the three-meter-tall figure shrank down.
With both hands lifting the hem of her dress, her toes touched the ground first, and with a light twirl, the purple-haired spirit landed in front of Shidou Itsuka.
Only now could he see that she wasn’t some malevolent spirit matching her ferocious armor but a girl with a delicate air.
The static noise in his earpiece persisted.
Shidou confirmed the situation: no support from the airship.
He was alone in this room with the girl, utterly isolated.
“Who are you? Why are you doing this?!”
“Ha… a miscalculation…”
Her body swayed as if struck by his thoughtless question, letting out a slightly weary sigh.
“Do you really need to ask that now?”
Her expression seemed to say.
“As you can see, I’m a spirit, like Tohka,” she said, her shoulders slumping as if she couldn’t muster enthusiasm for the question.
She turned to rummage through a nearby shelf.
“As for why I’m doing this…”
“I followed the AST’s trail to see a fellow spirit I hadn’t met before. I entered your building the same way I brought you here, listening from the part where you named her until they barged in.”
“I needed more information, so I showed up and brought you here. Is that explanation enough?”
Her eyes scanned the shelf critically, standing on tiptoe to grab a snack from the fourth tier, tearing open the paper packaging with her teeth after answering.
“What about Tohka?! What happened to her?!”
“It’s my turn to ask a question. Please don’t interrupt, dear boy,” she said, pulling out a chocolate stick and tossing it into his chattering mouth.
Observing Shidou’s face and confirming he was only slightly choked, she relaxed and popped one into her own mouth.
“How many times have you spoken with a spirit, excluding me?”
“Cough… probably the first time…?”
Caught off guard by her interruption, Shidou regained some clarity.
This spirit was completely different from Tohka’s somewhat naive demeanor.
If he wanted to keep asking, he’d have to answer first.
“Is that so? Then, to follow up, Tohka was trying to take you back when I threw her out of the building. If the AST spotted her, they’d naturally start fighting, or I wouldn’t have been able to bring you out so easily.”
“That answers your question. Now it’s my turn again,” she said, responding to his earlier question as well.
Noticing his hesitant expression, she held up the box of Pocky, adhering to the back-and-forth rule, and gestured for him to take another stick.
“No need to worry about her. Tohka’s endurance aside, her speed is slightly above mine. The ones who should be worried are the AST.”
“I’m not in the mood for snacks… Tohka, she…”
Shidou waved off the offer, unable to relax at her words.
“Hm, as for whether she killed anyone, my answer is no. Despite her angry look, your conversation made her realize humans aren’t all the same. She’s just swinging her sword threateningly.”
“Some serious injuries, but no deaths. Consider that an early answer to your next question.”
“So, I’ll throw out my second and third questions together.”
At this point, Shidou realized he’d been pulled into her rhythm.
From the start, she held the conversational reins.
Crunch—the stick-shaped biscuit snapped as she bit it, her rose-red eyes glinting with distrust and malice.
“Who are you people, and what do you want with her?”
“…You people?”
“Don’t play dumb. While you were talking to her, you were muttering to yourself like you were consulting someone else.”
“That nervous, awkward attitude might fool a naive spirit like her, but what’s your organization’s stance? What are you trying to achieve by using her?”
Her reasoning and judgment far surpassed Tohka’s.
If she hadn’t pointed it out, Shidou wouldn’t have realized how obvious his slip-ups were during his talk with Tohka.
It was inevitable.
Though he’d resolved to save spirits, it wasn’t through hiding, fighting, or some other method.
Instead, it was through “special training” with dozens of dating sims, practicing with real people at school, and then standing before Tohka after a spacequake alarm to talk with her…
But at its core, a nagging sense of unease lingered in Shidou’s heart.
Would this really work?
Dating sim training, talking to people, building affection, asking for a date—could that really save a spirit at the next meeting?
He didn’t know.
Ratatoskr’s policy was to resolve spacequakes by talking to spirits without killing them, but the specifics hadn’t been explained to him.
He was just following the airship’s instructions to raise affection, ask for a date, and pin hopes on the next encounter.
Even so…
“No, we’re definitely not trying to use Tohka! I—we’re trying to save spirits, to resolve the problems caused by spacequakes without harming them! That way, you won’t be hunted by the AST!!”
Despite everything, Shidou could assert that his sister’s plan was right.
The idea of no one getting hurt was correct.
His passionate rebuttal caught the girl off guard.
She shook her head with an exasperated expression.
“If you resolve the spacequake issue, spirits won’t be hunted. Is that what you think?”
“Isn’t it?!”
“Of course not. You’ve probably only been told that when a spirit manifests, a spacequake happens automatically, regardless of their will, right?”
“That’s not entirely true. While spirits can’t control whether a spacequake occurs during manifestation, they can train to reduce the scale of the automatic spacequake. And spacequakes of similar magnitude can cancel each other out.”
Growing accustomed to Shidou’s startled reactions, the girl read his answer in his expression and continued without waiting for a reply.
“—?!”
“Whether a spacequake can be controlled isn’t why spirits are hunted. As long as a spirit remains a spirit, they must be killed. Mere conversation can’t solve the root issue. A mature organization wouldn’t overlook that. So your goal…”
“…is to strip spirits of their powers, isn’t it?”
