Editing Kami-sama no Inai Nichiyoubi:Volume7 Chapter1 (section)

===Part III===

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Just as droplets come together to form water, water comes together to form rivers, and rivers come together to form oceans.

The junk gathered and became waves.

"Ai, wake up!"

"Uuuuunnnn…no, I'm Strawberry…"

"Wake up, Strawberry!"

"…Hoeh?"

She woke up to find herself in a nostalgic blue car.

But something was wrong. Was this blue car ever this high? It was so high that it was above the roofs of the houses…

"Wh-wh-wh-wh-what’s going on?"

Ai's eyes widened, and she leaped on the window.

The blue car was riding the waves of iron bugs like a leaf floating in the rapids.

"Shhh! Be quiet! They haven’t noticed us yet!"

"Ehhh~?"

It was hard to believe, but that appeared to be the case. The third generation of iron bugs have learned from Ai's attacks and started a horde strategy, but it appeared they had forgotten the reason why they were learning, <i>"Say, what are we doing?"</i> and they rolled down the hill.

"Mr. Julie, come on! Start the engine!"

"I'm on it!"

<i>Brrr. </i>The sound of a whirring cell motor echoed around them, but that piqued the interest of the iron bugs.

The iron bugs surrounding the blue car were showing interest, and appeared to be chatting, "Isn’t this thing a little different?" "Let’s see?" The praying mantises formed by circuit breakers banged on the hood, and the spiders’ eyes made of traffic lights turned from blue to red.

"Mr Julie… hurry up, they're going to notice soon…"

"I know …."

One more turn of the cell, and the iron bugs would probably notice. Julie took a deep breath, one, two, three…

<i>Vroom vroom vroom!</i>

The iron bugs realized, <i>"This is different!"</i>

"Please! Come on!"

The waves broke and the iron bugs swung their weapons. But the attacks, which were uncoordinated with each other, became jumbled and tangled like a hundred pairs of legs kicking over each other.

The blue car slid down the wave of iron bugs and was just about to hit the ground,

<i>Vrrrroooommm!</i>

"Alright! It worked!"

The car, oblivious how it malfunctioned previously, surfed past the pelting iron bugs. From the tailslide, it rose up the wave and did a cutback drop turn.

<i>Boom.</i> The suspension screamed, and the blue car returned to the earth.

"Mr. Julie, you're amazing!"

"Whahahahahaha! How about that!?"

Julie was laughing hysterically, taking credit for this incident that was 50% luck and 40% chance. Only Scar, who was in the passenger seat, was cringing at the realization that he had merely stomped on the gas pedal. Celica was sleeping soundly.

"Right, time to take action."

Alice opened the back door.

"Everyone, listen up."

The strong gales caused the hems of his jumper to flutter.

"I need to concentrate for one minute now."

"…That's fine though."

Ai was still worried about Bendo's words.

Was Alice going to sacrifice himself after all?

"It's fine."

Alice patted Ai on the head.

"I'm not going to die anymore."

"…Got it. You have one minute."

She raised the shovel and stepped outside.

"Leave it to me."

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"Yahoo~!"

Ai was shouting with joy, even though the situation was dire. She wanted to imitate what Julie did earlier.

"Heyyy———!"

Julie was fuming in anger, and yelled out loud. Ai pretended not to hear and stepped on her shovel to accelerate.

Ai pretended not to hear and stepped on the shovel to increase the speed, calling it iron bugs riding.

"Yahoo~!"

Ai was riding on her shovel like a surfboard, and the iron bugs as the wave tubes. She had the whole beach staring at her .

"It’s dangerous! Hey! Ai! Stop it!

"No, wait, old man, that’s surprisingly sensible. She’s able to lure the attention of the iron bugs, and also maneuver her way through. She’s not just playing around—"

"That's right! I'm not playing! Yahoooiii!!"

"…Well, she's playing alright."

Ai strafed back from the roller coaster, and scraped the ground. She slid through an avalanche of tubes for 30 meters, gathered energy from a bottom turn, and did an over the moon sault .

Ai is a ground-scraping slashback from a roller coaster. I'm not sure if you've ever heard of it, but I've seen it.

"Now then."

After calming the waves down to some extent, Ai looked at the ceiling of the blue car as she hovered about.

"———————!"

There, Alice was showing tremendous concentration, staring into the air and seemingly forgetting the existence of the iron bugs.

(It's about time.)

Ai had a vague idea of what Alice was going to do.

Madame was a ‘Dead who could recognize and manipulate any artificial hands and eyes as part of herself’. These iron bugs before them were Madame's artificial hands and legs, so to speak. No matter how much she enlarged herself, this relationship of ‘main body and artificial’ remained the same..

In other words, Madame's own corpse exists separately.

So where was the body? Were they all gathered somewhere? Or in pieces, mixed up with all the junk?

Probably the latter, Ai predicted.

(Noooooowwwww thhhhhheennnn, pull out the heart, iiifffff yyyyooouuu ccccaaannn! That is if, IIIIIIIII hhhhaaaaavvvvveeeee aaaannnnnnyyyyy lllllleeeeeeffffftttt!)

That was what Madame shouted, but there was something strange about the phrase ‘if I have any left’. Given this line, it might be possible that Madame herself might not know where her heart was.

Further supporting Ai’s theory was the internal structure of the courthouse when Ai snuck inside. The fact that the building was constructed to resemble a human body was probably the result of the diffusion of different parts of the body.

Alice was most probably going to use his Buzzer Beater ability to shoot through and disperse the main body. Ai glanced at the blue car, which should have been setting up the heavy weaponry he had collected by now.

But Ai's prediction was proven wrong.

(Eh?)

Alice stood amidst the gales, holding a single Molotov cocktail.

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"Pistol Devourer (Buzzer Beater)".

It was ‘ability to hit anything he wanted to throw at’

That was how Alice Color always described his ability.

However, this was a simplified explanation, and Alice perceived his own ability in a slightly different way.

(The true power of Buzzer Beater is that it ‘raises the probability of hitting a target’.)

The wind was blowing on the hood, but Alice ignored it and remained concentrated. He was firmly aware of his ability, and concentrated his entire will upon it..

(1% first. 0.1% first. I know I can do that.)

Alice was aware of his ability to ‘manipulate probabilities’

For example, this was the situation as to how the name of his ability came about, the ability to shoot anything down with pistols. Alice could not see the bullet, but his ability could work as usual. The phenomenon indicated that the target the Buzzer Beater was aiming at was a ‘concept’, and its essence was manipulation of probability’.

This is due to the origin of his ability.

Alice became aware of his ability because he wanted to shoot and score from a distance of 25 meters. He knew how impossible it was. 25 meters was a distance where visual aiming was meaningless, and Alice himself was naturally bad at aiming. It was one of the reasons why he could not become a starting member no matter how hard he tried.

But at that moment, Alice was not ‘aiming’. He was just betting on the possibility that if he threw the ball, it might go in.

Therefore, the Buzzer Beater was not about ‘aiming’, but about rigging the possibilities.

Putting the 1% chance at the forefront, the 0.1% before then, and to pull off the 0.01% chance.

The probability here, however, depended on Alice's perception: He could puff off the 0.1% chance, but sometimes miss the 99% chance..

For example, suppose Alice shot a baby at a distance of one meter. His bullet was certain to miss at that distance however.

Why would this happen? It was because the probability that Buzzer Beater raised was not objective, but dependent on Alice's perception.

Alice Color, as a person, could easily imagine the immense possibility of hitting a 0.01% possibility, but could not imagine himself killing a baby.

<i>That's because you're kind,</i> Ai would say.

But at this moment—

(That's not good enough!)

Alice smiled fiercely and stared at the waves of insects.

The Buzzer Beater would abide by Alice's nature and abstain from violence.

But still, there were times when he had to shoot. There were times when he had to defy his own nature and enact violence? What should he do then in such situations?

Alice knew the answer. He had learned from his past.

"Whhhhoooooooooaaa!"

He yelled like a beast, like a demon, and set the Molotov cocktail on fire.

If he still yearned for destruction.

<b>All he had to do was to change who he was.</b>

He solidified his thoughts. He imagined himself killing the enemy, himself being unkind, being a bloodthirsty person, wanting to tear apart the limbs of a baby, killing his friends, killing the world. He pictured himself so strongly!

<i>Clank! </i>The bottle shattered in Alice's hand. The oil chilled his right hand and then began to heat it hellishly.

"Mr. Alice!"

Ai's voice was no longer audible.

"Mr. Alice!"

Feeling no heat or pain, Alice grabbed the flame.

"Let it burn."

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"Ending Whistle (Buzzer Beater)."

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The magic flame was thus unleashed.

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[[Image:Kamisama v07 Illustration 03.jpg|thumb]]

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The flame flew slowly.

The flame fell from Alice’s hand, like a human soul that was more feeble than a candle. The soul sank weakly like a lantern dropped into the sea.

The waves easily swallowed the light.

"Mr. Alice!"

Kicking off the top of the wave, Ai hopped onto the hood instantly.

"What’s with you!?"

It was strangely bright on top of the car, like an optical illusion, and flames were burning in Alice's right hand. Ai resisted the urge to cry as she tugged at the sleeve of her jumper.

"What are you doing?"

"Stop yapping…my head hurts…"

"Wh-what do you mean by stop yapping!? What are you planning to—"

"Just watch…"

Alice pointed. Ai had no intention to obey, but the vigor in his burning right hand manipulated her gaze.

The fire sparks caught on one of the iron bugs and were barely burned.

The iron bugs noticed the flames and raised their mantis-shaped right hand in annoyance, smacking at it.

However, instead of being doused, the flame had attached itself to the arm and had grown in size.

The iron bugs panicked a little and flail their arms about, trying to extinguish the flames by pressing their surroundings.

However, due to some coincidence, the flames were on the verge of extinguishing, only to come back to life and slowly burn wilder.

The iron bugs started to get impatient and slapped the flames, but each time the flames got bigger and bigger, and eventually, each of them turned into a fireball.

At that stage, the immune system of the iron bugs finally kicked in. The fireballs were immediately recognized as lesions and were torn to shreds. The flames were finally extinguished, leaving only some fire sparks that scattered around.

But there were about a hundred of them.

—And then the flames rained down on the iron bugs.

The same thing began to happen.

"This is—"

The wave burned.

The fire sparks were burning the iron bugs with such force that one could hear cracks. A pungent stench engulfed the darkness of the night. The sun, sinking into the lake in the west, begins to burn the mountains in the east.

<i>"Gyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!"</i>

The iron bugs tried their best to put out the flames. A bear made of fire extinguishers blasted its contents and a plane of grasshoppers flew up to escape the flames.

However, the flames were cursed by luck to escape extinguishing, flying through the air and burning iron bugs.

"Th-this is..."

Ai stared at the scene before her, terrified.

The immortal iron bugs continued to burn as though they were tormented hell. The uncommon flames clung to the iron bugs by some chance, refusing to extend its tongue to the town. She knew this was caused by Alice, and understood that the fire was their ally.

But what was this horror, this nauseating horror? Which hell did this forest fire escape from?

"Mr Alice…"

Ai squeezed the sleeve.

"What…?"

She looked into his eyes and saw the flames of hell reflected in them, as if it were the place where she had started.

For a moment, she thought it was someone she did not know.

"…Sorry, but ask me questions later…"

But Alice immediately gave his usual smile.

"I can’t take this anymore—"

"Eh? Eh? Ehhh~?"

He lost consciousness and fell on Ai's body.

"W-wait! Ehh!? Wha-what should I do now!?"

While Ai was screaming, the blue car ran away and iron bugs were left behind in the flames.

Thus, the night ended with Ostia's victory.

The biggest horror was that Celica never woke up until the very end.

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