Think… think hard…
Fragments of memory, as vague and unclear as Tohka described, flickered in her mind.
Only a few binding promises remained etched in her consciousness.
A deep darkness threatened to swallow both pain and awareness, drowsiness gnawing at her already exhausted nerves.
Stay awake a little longer… thoughts still need sorting…
The boy’s shouting, as if he’d never known his sister was a spirit, and his own unawareness of his powers—his agonized, head-splitting expression didn’t seem feigned.
Something had tampered with his memories.
Something was orchestrating this behind the scenes, granting a human girl the powers of a spirit, giving that boy the ability to seal them.
She felt the sincerity in his hope that spirits wouldn’t be killed, but it wasn’t enough.
Rather, it was that very heartfelt sincerity that was terrifying.
Someone wanted to use him to achieve something, to seal the powers of spirits for some unsettling purpose…
But the beautiful flames wielded for someone precious, risking her life, were real.
Her rampaging, demon-like drive for destruction wasn’t her true intent.
What caused her to lose control?
Her once-human body?
An unstable seal?
Or a hidden move by the orchestrator?
Too little information to deduce further…
But whatever Its goal was, to ensure no mistakes before achieving it, she would choose a position where the vessel’s state could be closely monitored.
“Inside that organization.”
That sincerity couldn’t be allowed to be deceived, that beauty couldn’t be trampled.
“I need to pick a name…” the girl murmured in the darkness.
Her consciousness blurred, fading into silence.
***
The girl dashed through the city, weaving through alleys, vaulting over walls, and occasionally leaping between buildings.
Swift, efficient, and adept at navigating the unknown environment, she moved as naturally as flowing water.
If not for the mechanical troops chasing her, it might have looked like a parkour scene from an action movie.
“—!”
Someone seemed to be shouting, orders being relayed.
A barrage of ammunition rained down on the girl running through the steel jungle in complex patterns.
Most were blocked by buildings, and the few that slipped through were intercepted by beams as she deftly turned.
Logically, a spirit’s Divine Raiment could withstand such obstructive attacks, but the girl rarely let them get close.
As usual, she fled toward the city’s outskirts, occasionally firing obstructive beams from her rose-red eyes.
Just leave the city, she seemed to think.
Until a golden light struck her body, sending her reeling backward.
A longsword materialized in her hands, raised to parry the heavy blow of the light blade.
The slash aimed at her face veered, grazing her left eye, blood splattering.
A rapidly expanding spiritual energy shield pushed the female magician, who had attacked at an astonishing speed, back a distance before halting.
Standing in the air, the blonde magician arrogantly flicked her lightsaber, saying something.
“—.”
The scarlet spiritual barrier dissipated, and a ferocious armament slowly materialized.
The purple-haired spirit rose, her lips parting slightly.
Beams intertwined, cutting—not at the airborne magician, but sweeping across the nearby skyscraper.
Then, she placed her purple-red claw on the building’s wall.
Crimson spiritual energy spread rapidly, preventing the structure, lifted single-handedly, from collapsing immediately.
The pavement cracked and sank.
The purple-haired spirit lifted the ten-plus-story building like it was foam, hurling it like a missile into the distance—
“There’s no point watching the rest. Skip to the end,” Kotori said, waving a lollipop like a conductor’s baton as dust and debris obscured the view.
Continuing to watch the surveillance would yield nothing useful, and she signaled to fast-forward the footage.
The scene jumped, zooming in from afar.
The ground rippled like waves, with scarcely a flat surface left.
The entire city was devastated, barely a single intact building remaining.
Flooding groundwater poured into a massive central fissure, as if this weren’t a city but the ruins left by a rampaging beast.
“Even DEM’s headquarters was leveled, yet they claimed it was a 7.5-magnitude earthquake. Well, with enough PR, they managed to gloss over it on the surface. Shidou, you should remember the disaster in England with nearly 100,000 casualties.”
“Spirits are ranked by danger level. Though she was injured and retaliating, the destruction she caused is clear. She’s undeniably one of the most dangerous spirits.”
Tearing open a wrapper, Kotori popped a strawberry-milk lollipop into her mouth and glanced at the boy beside her.
“…A hundred… thousand…”
As a monetary figure in yen, it wasn’t much, but as a casualty count, it was suffocatingly heavy.
Shidou recalled the record of the Eurasian Air Disaster thirty years ago, which claimed nearly 150 million lives.
Without a doubt, spirits were an absolute calamity to humanity.
But…
He pictured Tohka earnestly practicing her name on the blackboard.
The purple-haired girl, nibbling a chocolate stick, a trace of weariness on her face.
Kotori, wielding her battle-axe, standing protectively before him.
“Kotori, are you… a spirit?”
Shidou asked directly.
“Hmph, if I say no, would you believe me?”
With a light snort, the girl in the commander’s outfit shrugged and countered.
“I would.”
Without hesitation, Shidou nodded.
“Are you serious? Ignoring the facts you saw with your own eyes to trust someone else’s word? That’s not wise.”
“If I don’t trust my cute little sister’s words, I might be a smart guy, but I’d lose my right to be a big brother.”
“…”
Kotori looked up, staring silently at Shidou, who met her gaze with equal intensity.
After a few seconds of mutual staring, Kotori sighed, conceding first.
“I’m human, or at least I think so. But according to the observation devices, I’ve been classified as a spirit.”
“What… does that mean?”
Unable to grasp it, Shidou expected Kotori to tease him with her sharp tongue as usual, but she wasn’t in the mood.
“I was born human, in the Itsuka family, no question about that. But five years ago—I became a spirit.”
“That’s—!”
Absurd.
Humans and spirits were supposed to be distinct species, as Kotori and Reine had explained.
Besides, Shidou had no related memories—
But mid-sentence, he frowned.
A scene flashed in his mind.
Seeing Kotori step forward earlier had triggered it—a sense of déjà vu, like he’d seen her wreathed in flames before.
“Agh…”
The same piercing pain from that day tore through his head.
The harder he tried to recall, the more resistance he met.
Clutching his head in agony, Shidou sank to his knees.
“Shidou…?!”
His vision and the sounds around him faded.
Shidou Itsuka passed out.
***
“Night shift worker, sleepy during the day, working at night, updates hard to stabilize.”