Editing BlazBlue:Phase Shift 4 Chapter 4

==Chapter 4: Azure Wish’s Fate==

===Part 1===

The time they had left to them passed as inexorably as sand being eroded by a river.

Morning came, night came. The sun rose, the sun fell. The wind blew, the wind died away. Whenever something moved, someone flinched. The passage of time was like a stairway to oblivion, but that seemingly endless, illusory stairway was already nearing its end. Waiting at the bottom was their final battle. The final confrontation with the Black Beast, with humanity's survival on the line.

The city now seemed less like the Magister's City of Ishana and more like the Military City of Ishana. Soldiers were everywhere and combat vehicles rolled down the cobblestone streets. The curtain was just about to fall on dusk to make way for night. The sky shifted from a pale light blue color into a whimsical pink, and the western horizon was painted with a single orange line.

At this moment, the entire Mage's Guild was abuzz with activity, with everyone running to-and-fro looking for any more preparations still needing to be made. Inside one of the guild's spacious conference rooms, a solemn atmosphere reigned over a meeting in progress. More than thirty people were in attendance, but counting the secretaries, messengers, and the like who were coming in-and-out periodically, it was more like fifty.

The attendees consisted of the Ten Sages and the Duodecim of the Mage's Guild and the top executives and military directors of the Orbis Librarius Norma. Hakumen, Celica A. Mercury, Trinity Glassfille, Jubei, Valkenhayn R. Hellsing, and Yuuki Terumi were also present.

Nine looked out over the faces of everyone who had been summoned to the meeting as she stood before them, giving a briefing. An alchemical screen projected a large map that already had three points marked on it.

First, a black x-mark indicated the location of the cauldron on the furthest western edge of the continent, where the Black Beast would appear in less than ten days.

Next, a white circle showed the antibody-bearing cave near the Kaka village.

Lastly, a red circle was drawn on the spot closest to where the Black Beast would appear that was still within range for their teleportation spell.

Indicating the black x-mark with a magical light and using magic to amplify the volume of her voice, Nine continued with her explanation.

"When the Black Beast appears from within the seithr, the Ars Magus Corps station directly to the north will commence a coordinated attack. This will restrict its vision and slow it down. In addition to halting its progress for a few seconds with a barrage, we hope to make it think that it is being assaulted from long range."

Her magical pointer traced the Ars Magus Corps' location, then she drew another mark in the woods to the east, very close to where the Black Beast would appear, indicating a second deployment of the Ars Magus Corps.

"Here, Hakumen and Jubei will lead their unit in a charge out of these woods to ambush the Black Beast, executing a direct assault on it. Using hit-and-run tactics, their objective will be to bait the Black Beast into following them."

In reality, the charge would actually serve another purpose as well. Using the Ars Magus assault and the charge as a smokescreen, Jubei would slice open the Black Beast with Hihiirokane and Nirvana would infiltrate the creature through the resulting rift with Celica in tow. Hakumen would be there to support them.

The part about Celica entering the Black Beast was kept strictly secret from anyone who hadn't been at the meeting in Trinity's workshop. No one else would have been able to understand it in the first place, and if the army didn't understand, they wouldn't cooperate with the plan. The second reason for their decision was that if they made this plan common knowledge, then Celica's special characteristic, the presence of Hihiirokane, and the existence of the Black Beast's heart would all become common knowledge too.

There would be no telling how some people might deviate from the plan if they got it in their heads that all they had to do was destroy the heart. Nine had been the one to propose keeping it a secret among their group, and even in this moment she was being careful to hold her cards close to her chest. To that end, Nine was slipping in lies during her briefing at this conference, which would be the final meeting of all the movers and shakers of Ishana.

"Those who participated in the one-month battle to delay the Black Beast will be familiar with the tactics we will employ to lead it along. That is the reason why command of this unit has been entrusted to Hakumen and Jubei."

Jubei had been sitting in an uncomfortable conference room chair and pretending to not be paying too close attention, but in this moment he unconsciously threw a glance at Nine. He had noticed how her statement had differed from the truth a little bit, but he wasn't foolish enough to speak up about it. But when he heard Terumi, sitting on the opposite side of Trinity from him, let out a cackle, Jubei couldn't help but shoot him a nasty glare.

"We will bait the Black Beast until we reach this location."

Nine's pointer moved to the red mark.

"All of the Ten Sages, myself included, will prepare a massive teleportation circle here. Once the Black Beast reaches the circle, our forces will surround it. Ideally, we don't want to let it take even a single step outside of the circle. Valkenhayn R. Hellsing will be serving as supreme commander of our army. Also, regarding the teleporation magic..."

Nine took a deep breath. This was the part she was most worried about. Running her eyes across the Ten Sages sitting together in a line, she surreptitiously peeked at Three and Seven, seemingly not wanting to meet their gazes.

She had given both of them a Nox Nyctores so that they would, theoretically, be able to bring much more magical power to bear in the fight. That was only going to matter if they managed to survive until after completing the teleportation spell, though.

"If we are able to catch the Black Beast in the middle of our formation and complete our preparations, we will carry out the teleportation spell. The teleportation circle will transport anyone standing inside it, so those who do not wish to be teleported should retreat when they see the circle start to glow."

Finally, the pointer moved to the white mark. It was a spot close to where a subway line had once run under a city.

"This will be the destination of the teleport. For some reason, something about this place gives it the power to suppress seithr. Once the Black Beast is teleported here, the activity of its seithr will be restrained, and it won't be able to go on a rampage like it has in the past. A unit of mages centered around the Duodecim will be stationed here, with Trinity Glassfille and Yuuki Terumi standing in reserve. We can also expect support from the Kaka Clan positioned in the nearby village. If we confirm the teleportation of the Black Beast, we will launch an all out attack utilizing every unit at our disposal and defeat it."

Finishing her speech, Nine used the back of her hand to push her long glossy hair behind her back and extinguished her pointer light with a motion like flicking away lint.

That was it for the complicated explanation, and Nine felt a small sense of relief. She didn't even want to count how many times she had already repeated this briefing in front of various organizations, bureaus, and executives. Doing this briefing that she had grown so sick of so many times was yielding results, however, as she had done it so many times at this point that no one in this meeting spoke up with their dissenting opinions or nit-picky concerns. Thanks to that, they were able to wrap up early.

Nine took another look at the meek-looking faces lined up on the other side of the desk, adding another lair of tension to the air as she stared them down with her aggressive eyes.

"As I've said before, if this plan fails, the Black Beast will resume its progress towards Ishana, and this time, it will almost certainly raze us to the ground. If that happens, there will be hardly anyone capable of using magic that can damage the Black Beast remaining and the techniques to make alchemical weapons will be lost along with the ones that currently exist, which will leave us with nothing more than the fledgling Ars Magus technology."

They were still reliant on the magic of the Mage's Guild to determine who was suitable to wield Ars Magus, so if all the mages were to disappear, it would be difficult to find any potential new Ars Magus wielders.

"The defeat of Ishana will spell defeat for all of mankind. On the other hand, if we win here, then humanity can be free from this calamitous war. We will be able to rebuild ruined buildings, cultivate withered land, and create new countries."

Then she wouldn't have to work without food or sleep to develop weapons or thrust her little sister into life threatening situations anymore.

"We all must bring everything we have to bear on this, and I don't mean that we must callously sacrifice lives... I am requesting that everyone contribute everything we have to offer to our common cause."

She made her declaration with a quiet yet hard-to-defy vigor that did not suit a young woman like her.

Nine's final words signaled the end of the meeting. All that was left was to look onwards toward their decisive moment, like they were being swept away by inescapable rapids.

There had been several days left still, but somehow the time passed in a flash.

It was the early morning. The sun hadn't risen yet, but the sky was growing faintly brighter. In about an hour, the rising sun would be visible and the temperature would go up a little.

Celica, staring through her bedroom window from where she sat on her bed, turned her attention back to the rucksack resting on her lap and, packing away the hand towel she had been holding, closed it tightly shut.

"That should do it."

Giving it a light pat with her hands, she hopped off her bed.

She swung the light rucksack around and onto her back and turned her attention away from it to look up at Nirvana.

"It's finally time, huh?"

On this day, Celica was about to leave Ishana. She was going to get on one of the Joint HQ Army's massive ships and set sail for the continent, then from there get in a car and go to the forest where Hakumen and Jubei’s unit would be taking up position.

Her destination was somewhere that could already be considered part of a battlefield. There was no telling how long after she arrived that the Black Beast would appear, but the decisive battle should take place within the next two or three days.

If she was being honest with herself, it still didn't feel real to her. She wondered if she was really scared and anxious deep down, but perhaps because of the clear early morning air, she wasn't feeling any serious, paralyzing fear at that moment.

Instead, she actually felt a little bit optimistic. Her heart was racing nonstop like she was looking forward to something. Would it really all end with this? Would the Black Beast disappear, and would the war go away with it? Would everyone be able to eat and sleep in peace again? She hoped so, and she felt like this had to be the end. With a smile filled with an earnest wish and her sense of responsibility, Celica took Nirvana's hand.

"Let's go, Nirvana. We'll be together until the end."

Whether Hakumen's plan went well or not, Celica would probably be with Nirvana in the moment when the battle came to a close either way.

The tall machine woman descended the staircase that was a little too tight for her, and they left the house the same way they always did. This time both they and Nine would be gone for a long while, so they made sure the doors and windows were securely locked, turning the key in the lock of the front door when they got outside.

Someone touched Celica's shoulder like they were patting her on the back, and her ponytail swung as she turned to face them. It was Nine.

"Onee-chan! Wait, why are you here?"

She had been working overnight at the Mage's Guild, and she had said yesterday that she was going to go straight from there to the ships.

"Did you forget something?"

"No, that's not it. I just figured we may as well go together, and you happened to be leaving right as I got here."

Nine shrugged and smiled wryly. With a hint of irony, she added on an extra comment, saying,

"Plus, what would we do if you got lost on the way to the harbor? "

Celica pursed her lips in protest.

"I'm not a kid anymore, I wouldn't get lost!"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever you say. I guess you really don't get lost in Ishana very often."

"Yeah, see?"

"...The fact that you do get lost sometimes is the problem, though."

They walked off together while having their silly conversation.

Usually, the streets were quiet and the atmosphere was refreshing in the early morning in Ishana. This morning, however, things were understandably quite different. Countless men in military uniforms were running around busily while tanks rolled down the cobblestone paved slope, taking care not to run over anyone.

The sight of it served to make it clear that today was no ordinary day.

"We've never taken a walk together at this time of day, have we? "

Nine spoke up while looking onward toward their destination. The crisp sound of her high heels regularly striking the cobblestones sounded good.

"I don't think so. You don't like getting up early, after all."

"I just stay up too late."

This time Nine was the one to protest, making a slightly embarrassed face. Brushing some hair off her cheek, she narrowed her eyes and looked at Celica with incredible determination.

"...Did you eat breakfast?"

"Just bread and tea. I overslept a little. How about you, Onee-chan?"

"There's no way I could eat right now."

"Aww, I brought you something though. I made a jam sandwich."

"I'll pass. They'll ration me something at noon anyway."

"How can you say that after telling me to eat... you're always thinking of other people before yourself, Onee-chan."

Celica shook her head wearily. Nine, looking just as exasperated, crossed her arms under her chest.

"I don't want to hear that from you, of all people. I don't even want to think of how much you've worried me by being the way you are up 'til now."

"I don't wanna hear that from you, either, Onee-chan."

Celica intentionally said it in a bratty-sounding way, and Nine's hand immediately shot out and started patting her head like she was petting a kitten.

"Ahhh, how are you always this cute? Maybe I should specially teleport just you over after all. If you get on a boat full of shady soldiers I've never even met before and they all start leering at you, I'd have to dispose of every last one of them. Then the boat wouldn't be able to sail anymore."

"O- Onee-chan, you're messing up my hair! "

Trying to protect her ponytail that she had gone out of her way to tie up really nicely this morning, Celica bent over to escape Nine's hand. Feeling her hair with her hands, it seemed fortunately alright.

Watching Celica rub her head with her own hands, Nine breathed out lightly. She wasn't so much laughing at how silly Celica looked; it was more of a gentle sigh, like she was reflecting on something.

The pace of her high heels got slightly slower.

"...It's been a while since we last got to have a stupid conversation like this."

Her whispering voice was as fresh as the first breeze of the morning. Conveniently, in that moment, just such a breeze blew down the slope toward the harbor, tousling Nine and Celica's hair.

"You've been really busy."

Combing her hair one more time, Celica gave an honest smile.

Pushing a lock of windswept hair behind her ear, Nine returned with an unenthusiastic smile of her own.

"I'm glad I didn't go straight to the ships. I probably won't get any more chances to just spend time with you, after all."

She didn't just mean that she would be too busy attending meetings and giving orders as a member of the Ten Sages to spend time with Celica once they boarded the ships, though. The words that slipped out of her mouth sounded strangely ominous, and Nine furrowed her brow with a troubled expression on her face.

Celica, however, didn't pick up on how ominous they were at all; instead, she heard loneliness in her big sister's words. The rucksack on her back bouncing along with her ponytail, she shot out in front of Nine.

"It'll be okay. We can spend a lot of time together when we get back home."

Laughing without a care in the world, Celica looked from Nine to Nirvana.

Looking back at them from the front like this, it looked like Nine and Nirvana were walking side-by-side together. Faced with such a reliable sight, Celica's chest swelled with pride.

"Yeah, you're right."

Answering with a wry smile, Nine picked up her pace to catch up with Celica and continued forward, Nirvana following along behind them.

They could see the ocean at the bottom of the slope. The eastern sky would be turning white soon.

When the sun rose, the last fleet set sail for the decisive battle with the Black Beast.

The island of Ishana, with only those without the strength to fight remaining on it, saw them off.

===Part 2===

A scattering of bonfires lit up the village in the night. Crudely constructed metal cages containing burning logs held the bright red fire in an embrace while shadows danced across the trees of the forest surrounding the village.

Last time, a party of seven had barged into this place unannounced, but this time, they had brought an incomparably bigger army for their return visit. Nevertheless, the women of the village were astoundingly unperturbed, and when they were asked if they would lend them the village and the forest as an encampment for ambushing the Black Beast from, they agreed on the spot.

This was a small village in a forest thick with seithr, the village of the Kaka Clan. It was the night of the second day since the army's arrival.

The voices of no small number of Kaka clansmen among the crowd proved that they had already forgotten what little wariness they had had and were now helping with the preparations like any other military unit.

The Kakas were an innocent and kind people. They were created solely to fight the Black Beast, but none of them dwelled on that fact, simply living in the moment. If they could, they would have been happy to just lead quiet, peaceful lives forever.

As Trinity was leaving the meeting she had to attend every night, even when they were traveling, she was thinking about the Kakas. She held a staff roughly as long as she was tall in her hand while she walked toward the tents for female soldiers in the forest. Arma Reboare: Muchourin. She never let go of this precious item Nine had entrusted her with for even a moment.

The year was going to come to an end in two more days. She wondered if Nine and Celica, who departed on ships that set out later than hers, would be reaching their respective positions soon. Perhaps it was because she spent every moment of every day thinking about battle, but her head was spinning with incoherent thoughts whenever she was alone at night.

Going past the huts that made up the Kaka village, she set foot on the game trail leading into the encampment in the forest. In that moment, a tall silhouette suddenly appeared from out of the woods.

She only had to wonder who it was for a moment before the nearby bonfire revealed their identity. It was Terumi.

The firelight seemed to be casting an even deeper shadow than normal over his face, which he always kept hidden beneath his hood.

"Is something the matter, Terumi-san?"

Tilting her head slightly, Trinity softly called out to him.

Terumi usually had his hands shoved in his pockets, but this time they were hanging by his sides as he walked steadily towards Trinity. His mirthless face looked uncharacteristically sincere, and Trinity found herself a little taken aback.

"Umm...? "

Thinking it strange that he hadn't responded, Trinity tried to speak up again, and in place of a response, Terumi just kept on walking right past her.

In the instant when their bodies were side-by-side, she heard a low whisper in her ear.

"...We need to talk."

With that, Terumi proceeded deeper into the forest, in the opposite direction of where the tents were. His thin back seemed to be telling her to follow him as he pressed on into the deeper shadows.

Trinity hesitated. Terumi was acting strange. But that was all the more reason to not leave him alone, and so she quickly ran off after him.

Terumi took one look back to make sure Trinity was following him into the woods, and after that he simply walked on in silence.

They left the village and got clear of the forest. Once they got all the way to a rubble-scattered plain that Trinity had once gone to with Celica and Nine, Terumi stopped. A nearly-full moon hung in the sky, and its pale light so different from that of the bonfires crisply illuminated the surrounding area. Now, it was also illuminating Trinity, standing there slightly out of breath, and Terumi, with his back turned to her.

A little embarrassed by her labored breathing, Trinity put a hand on her gently rising and falling chest and caught her breath. Once she had done that, she spoke quietly, like she was whispering into the wind.

"What did... you want to talk about, Terumi-san?"

He was acting very strangely tonight. Normally he would look Trinity in the eyes and throw some sarcastic comments her way, but he didn't do that now. Even now his arms were dangling limply at his sides and he was hanging his head, like he was struggling to endure something as he stood there silently with his back turned. Trinity felt an indescribable anxiety as she watched this disquieting display from behind and waited for him to break his silence and end the suffocating atmosphere between them.

The moon took a breath. In that space of time, Trinity grew uncharacteristically impatient and heaved a little sigh, but Terumi cut it short by suddenly turning around.

"...You've got it wrong, actually."

The way he turned to face her and the voice he spoke to her with were nothing like the Terumi she was used to. Trinity couldn't breathe for a moment.

She was getting dizzy, experiencing déjà vu that made her feel like she was struggling to keep her head above water. She shook her head weakly, denying the images that were rushing to her mind one after another. There was no way that was possible. They just had similar builds. It would be unthinkably rude to just stack the memory of someone else... of that person on top of Terumi.

Her inner thoughts desperately tried to talk her out of it in a ridiculous sort of self-deception. Stirring up Trinity's heart even further, Terumi placed a hand on the hood hiding his face.

He pulled it back like he was slipping out of it, baring his face before Trinity in the pale moonlight. His real, unconcealed face, which he had kept hidden all this time.

"Ah- ah..."

Sounds unwittingly spilled from Trinity's pink lips, her voice trembling. Her green eyes slowly went wide.

"I'm not Terumi-san."

The person who said that to her... had green hair. He had distinctive bangs, long enough to hide the upper part of his face, and the upturned eyes beneath them stared at her while his face showed an unambitious expression.

"Kazuma...san...? "

Trinity's mouth felt like the teeth didn't fit inside it anymore, but she managed to get it moving again and called that name.

It was the name of someone she had once spent her school life in Ishana with, the name of a friend. But something had happened to him, something had happened to him that Trinity didn't know about, and he had left the school.

It was him. He was wearing the same clothes as Terumi, was the same height as Terumi, and had the same voice as Terumi.

"So you remembered me... I'm glad. Thank you, Trinity Glassfille-san."

That nostalgic voice cut the last thread inside of Trinity.

Big tear drops overflowed from her wide-open eyes, running down her cheeks in rapid succession. Forgetting to wipe them, Trinity placed a hand that was trembling all the way down to the fingertips over her mouth that seemed to be on the verge of breaking down into sobs.

Kazuma was clearly bewildered, raising his arms ineffectually halfway up his body and watching Trinity with concern.

"Tri- Trinity-san? What's wrong? Um, please don't cry."

His flustered voice fanned the flames of nostalgia once more, making Trinity cry even harder. Kazuma messed up his own hair as he rubbed his head, either at a loss for what to do or just feeling discouraged.

"I'm sorry. I've made you sad once again."

"No... no, you haven't. I was just, so surprised. I mean, I can't... I can't believe this."

She had been holding out hope that she might get to see him again, but it wasn't like the conviction that Celica held on so tightly to. It was more of a fleeting, pale fantasy of a thing. Somewhere inside her, she had been sure that they would never meet again. That's why she had really never expected something like this... Something like this…

Trinity took off her glasses and wiped the tears off. She had managed to cry a river without even realizing it, so much so that even her chest was stained with tears. Wiping the last teardrops from her eyes with a fingertip, she put her glasses firmly back on and earnestly raised her head.

"Are you really Kazuma-san?"

"Yes, I am. I never thought I would get to talk to you in this form, though."

Kazuma scratched his cheek with his index finger and gave a strained smile.

His unassuming face was just like how it had been when they went to school together, stimulating Trinity's déjà vu.

The fact that his appearance and the way he talked were just like her classmate Kazuma Kval, but he was wearing Terumi's clothes, was extremely bizarre.

"But, why are you here? You were Terumi-san this whole time... but now you're Kazuma-san～... Ah, excuse me～ I'm a little confused. I don't know what to think..."

"That's no surprise. Here I am standing right in front of you, but... I don't know where to start explaining, or even what I should explain."

His thin shoulders, so much higher up than Trinity's, sagged helplessly. Gathering his thoughts a little, Kazuma's lips tightened.

"I just wanted to talk to you so badly... so I decided to show myself, prepared for you to despise me."

"I would never despise you."

Trinity was about to shake her head from side to side, but a sudden thought came to mind that stopped her.

Kazuma shook his head in her place, his face heavy with strong conviction and intense grief.

"There's no way you've forgotten, right? Not after what I said to you, and what I did to you..."

"That..."

Trinity unconsciously cast her eyes to the ground at his self-accusatory tone. Of course there was no way she could have forgotten. It was the moment her peaceful school life was flipped on its head: the moment of her not at all peaceful parting from him.

"I remember it very clearly, and I've regretted it all this time."

Kazuma forced the words out, blaming himself.

"Something was wrong with me back then. It was all just like you said it would be... before I realized it, Terumi had completely taken control of me, in both mind and body."

Spreading his powerless arms wide, he looked down at his own body.

Feeling led to do the same, Trinity looked him up and down. She had had a feeling ever since she had first met Terumi. His stature, body type, and voice had all reminded her of Kazuma, and it was no wonder that it did. Under the name of 'Terumi,' she had walked with and talked to that same body, and occasionally she had been supported by those same thin but firm arms as well. She had often caught herself remembering Kazuma when she looked at him, but little did she know that that really was the Kazuma Kval she knew.

"What do you mean, he took control of you? Just who is Terumi-san...? "

Confusion was written on her face as she desperately tried to cool her faltering brain down before it gave up on thinking entirely. She felt like she was going to stop breathing. It seemed like everything that she had accepted as fact had just completely changed in the space of a blink.

Kazuma puzzled over how he should answer for a few seconds before eventually giving a hesitant answer.

"I don't know all the details myself, but apparently he's actually someone who exists only in a spiritual sense. He wanted a body so he could do things for himself, so he approached me. Right now his consciousness happens to be drifting off, which is why I'm able to act freely, but usually it's quite the opposite. I've just been watching you all, Trinity-san..."

Sounding like he was searching for words as he was saying them, Kazuma's tone gradually grew weaker and weaker until he finally bit back his words and shut his mouth before he became unable to hide the quiver in his voice anymore.

He tried to gloss it over with a sigh, messing up his hair by grabbing at it again.

"It seems like Terumi doesn't do too well in this general area, for some reason."

Roaming about with his eyes, he glanced toward his feet and then off in the opposite direction of Trinity.

"You were... really..."

Trinity suffered a dull, stabbing shock to her chest and felt like she needed to sit down. She clasped her hands together like she was praying, desperately trying to rouse herself, but she couldn't feel her fingers.

"Of course, I was still in control of my consciousness when I was in the Mage's Guild. I remember eating lunch and drinking tea in the dining hall with you, Nine-san, and Celica-san. I couldn't find the words to say it at the time, but... that was a lot of fun."

Kazuma smiled slowly, thinking back to how things were back then, but his smile was tinged with pain because he knew that he could never return to those days.

Trinity's chest ached like it was creaking under a heavy weight.

"You thought, it was fun?"

The question came out before she even realized she was speaking, and a look of surprise came over Kazuma's face. That was when Trinity finally realized what she had just asked him, and her eyes widened far later than they should have as she touched her lips with her fingertips like she was pointing at herself.

"Oh, I- I'm sorry for saying something so weird～. I just always thought that I was bothering you."

"Yes... it was fun. I never felt like I deserved it, but I really enjoyed myself. I wanted life to be like that forever."

Hanging his head listlessly, Kazuma let his words trail off. He was only standing here right now because those days came to an end. It felt like there was a deep ditch dug in the space between Kazuma and Trinity.

Kazuma's shoulders dropped as he sighed, this time without a hint of a smile.

"My daily life changed the moment Terumi told me he could give me my memories back. I felt like I had some sort of purpose to fulfill. Thinking back on it, I guess Terumi already had me under his control right then and there."

What Kazuma was saying was exactly what Trinity had been worried about back then. She had watched Kazuma slowly but surely change into a different person, as if he was a man possessed.

Even now, she wasn't sure if it would be more appropriate to call this body that was supposed to be Kazuma Kval 'Kazuma' or 'Terumi.' Trinity had only just now learned of the connection between Kazuma and Terumi, so there was no way she could answer that question.

Checking the sensation in his hands, Kazuma lightly clenched and unclenched his fist.

"I suppose talking about it is really just complaining at this point, but I just had to apologize to you. You were very important to me, and I hurt you. This all happened because of my own weakness. I'm truly sorry for what I've done... I'm so pathetic."

His last few words were so loaded with self-loathing that you could almost taste it.

What could she possibly say to that? What words could she conjure up in her heart that would soothe Kazuma's?

She had no idea. Trinity reflexively grabbed one of Kazuma's hands, still dangling weakly at his sides. Holding her staff with her chest, she wrapped his hand in both of hers and squeezed it softly.

"Please, don't say things like that. It makes me sad hearing my precious friend talk that way... Please, don't hate yourself."

"You're so kind, Trinity Glassfille-san. To think you would still call someone like me your friend."

Looking down at the hand she was holding, the corners of Kazuma's lips turned up in a faint smile. There was no happiness there though, only sorrow.

Trinity furrowed her brow and frowned like she was trying to keep herself together when she heard the word 'kind' come from that face of his.

"I'm not kind. I just..."

It was just like with Nine. She just didn't want him to get hurt, neither from his own words nor from her actions. She just didn't want to be thought of as cruel.

As her feelings of self-reproach threatened to overflow, Trinity felt a faint brush of body heat. Kazuma had put his other hand on top of Trinity's. He squeezed her hands hard enough for his knuckles to turn white, but not hard enough to hurt her.

"How did it come to this? I just wanted everything to stay how it was. I was so happy before I met Terumi... why did I lose sight of that?"

His voice was shaking slightly, heavy with lament.

"I want to be free of Terumi's control. I want to... go back to being your friend."

"Kazuma-san..."

"Please help me, Trinity-san! I know I'm in no position to be saying this, but please... save me."

Clasping his fingers together within the knot of their hands like he was praying, Kazuma appealed to her from the bottom of his heart.

His voice pressed in on Trinity's heart and she lost the words to respond with. Pure confusion danced across her green eyes, open as wide as they could go, and she couldn't read the expression of her lanky friend as he looked down at her. She thought she saw a deep, deep sorrow, however, and it felt like it was blocking her throat.

"But... But, what can I do...? I..."

Can't do anything. The sense of powerlessness that Trinity had pushed down time and time again was steadily building up in her heart.

"I... can't believe that Terumi-san is as bad a person as you say he is."

How could such a half-hearted person like her do anything?

Fragments of countless memories awakened in Trinity's mind, leaving her perplexed. Nine treated Terumi with extreme hostility, and Jubei and Valkenhayn were always incredibly cautious around him. Hakumen certainly didn't seem to like him either.

Even still, he had helped her countless times with his incomprehensible form of kindness.

"Don't be fooled, Trinity-san."

As if he was trying to snap Trinity out of it as he saw her drop her eyes in bewilderment, Kazuma blurted out a warning. Kazuma's grip on her hands got a little bit tighter, like he was clinging on to her.

"Trinity-san, I of all people know very well just how kind of a person you are. Even still, you can't take mercy on Terumi. That's exactly how I ended up losing everything I cared about. If you keep on trusting him, you're going to lose what you care about too..."

Kazuma stopped speaking mid-way, the words refusing to come out anymore. He wasn't sure if it was okay for him to continue. Realizing what he was thinking, Trinity took a breath.

"Do you know what he's planning to do?"

She asked on a reflex.

Knowing that he had said too much, Kazuma lightly bit his lip and shrank back. It wasn't long before he resigned himself to the situation, however, and opened his mouth to speak.

"He's... planning to kill Nine-san."

His answer carried a serious weight.

It didn't sound like an assumption or a guess in the slightest, and so Trinity knew that Kazuma's words were fact.

"But how could he... he's still under the effects of Nine's Mind Eater."

Terumi couldn't disobey Nine. He was compelled to obey all of her orders, and he couldn't tell her lies either.

However, he might have known of a way that he could kill her anyway, and that's why he was planning something so dreadful.

Kazuma put the anxiety in Trinity's heart into words.

"That's right, which is why Terumi is planning on using me, who isn't under Nine-san's control. Of course, I don't want to do it, but Terumi has already figured out how the Mind Eater she cast on him works. He's going to cast it on me and take Nine-san by surprise... and I think he can really pull it off, too."

Nine probably never ordered Terumi to 'never learn Mind Eater' or 'never use Mind Eater.' The more open-ended an order was, the more leeway to work around it there would be.

Trinity's eyes clouded as her anxiety grew deeper. She didn't even want to think about the possibility of Nine being killed. The idea that Kazuma would be forced to kill her was just as frightening.

"The way things are going, you and Celica-san may be in just as much danger as Nine-san. If you... were to get hurt because of Terumi... I don't think I could handle it."

Kazuma shook his head hard, his long bangs swaying.

He trembled with fear, remembering something even worse.

"If Terumi were to gain Nine-san's power, capable of creating something so fearsome, by killing her, then..."

You could practically hear the thrill of fear running through his body in his words, making Trinity look at him a little quizzically. She was trying to make sure she understood what he was getting at.

"Umm... what do you mean by 'something so fearsome,' exactly?"

"Hm? Take-Mikazuchi, of course. Surely you know what that thing's core is made out of, and what Take-Mikazuchi really is, right?"

Looking surprised and hardly believing the question he was asked, Kazuma answered with a question of his own, sending Trinity's heart into an uproar.

What Take-Mikazuchi really is. Trinity had asked Nine that, but in the end, she never got the answer.

"Um, I..."

Resisting the urge to let her head hang bitterly, Trinity couldn't say any more than that.

Picking up on what words were supposed to come next, Kazuma drew back slightly in dismay.

"Don't tell me you haven't heard!?"

Kazuma's excessive outburst of astonishment stabbed into Trinity's heart like a thorn.

Noticing the slight tremble in her green eyes, Kazuma hesitated with an apologetic look on his face, but eventually decided to tell her the truth.

"Take-Mikazuchi's core is composed of the souls of the millions of people who have died in this war. Take-Mikazuchi's titanic black form comes from a massive amount of seithr gathering around that core. It's... essentially the same thing as the Black Beast."

She had no doubt that he was telling the truth. Trinity's train of thought came to a screeching halt for a moment. Feeling like she was paralyzed, she tried to make herself move again.

"The Black... Beast? "

The words didn't feel real on her tongue. She felt like she would faint as countless emotions drifted through her.

"So that means that Nine created an artificial Black Beast?"

She gingerly gave voice to her thoughts.

Kazuma didn't shake his head, but he didn't nod it either. He didn't say anything, but his apologetic body language was a far clearer answer than any words ever could have been.

Trinity's hands slipped right out of Kazuma's, all their strength disappearing. She put her ice cold fingertips over her mouth like she was trying to hide it.

"Could a..."

Could a human really do something like that? Trinity already had the answer to that question: Nine could do it. She was a truly, truly incredible person.

She didn't know what she had done to deserve having that incredible person as her one and only best friend. She flattered herself by thinking that Nine was willing to talk to her about anything and everything so she was genuinely shocked that she wouldn't tell her about something so important.

Perhaps Nine was worried that Trinity wouldn't be able to look at her the same way again after learning the truth. It's not like Trinity couldn't understand her concern, but it still pained her. It wasn't just about Take-Mikazuchi, either; Nine hadn't told her about Terumi and Kazuma as well.

"Um... please don't get too upset. Nine-san might not have told you because Terumi convinced her not to."

"Terumi-san...? "

In response to Kazuma's conciliatory words, Trinity urged him to continue.

The unassuming young man with hair covering his eyes tried his best to cheer her up, putting both hands on Trinity's shoulders.

"We won't let him do as he pleases anymore. Please, lend me your strength. Let's take back everything that man has ruined together."

It was a very enticing invitation.

Kazuma probably hadn't meant it as an 'invitation,' per se, but nonetheless Trinity half-closed her eyes like she was in a dream. It wasn't a second chance at all the mistakes they had made and the regrets they had, but rather a new start with a blank slate. What a wonderful thing that would be.

Trinity nodded her head, her beautiful platinum blond hair shining brightly in the pale moonlight.

"...Alright. I'll do anything I can to help you."

"Thank you very much, Trinity Glassfille-san."

Kazuma's shoulders sagged with relief. Trinity felt like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders as well, a small, weak smile gracing her lips. Kazuma's expression hardened and he scanned their surroundings. Feeling sure that no one else was around, he whispered so quietly that even the moon wouldn't be able to hear him.

"I already know what we have to do, but you need to not tell anyone... not even Nine-san. If by some chance Terumi catches on to us, we're finished."

With a hint of fear in his voice, Kazuma looked at Trinity with a grave expression.

Firmly returning his gaze, Trinity cautiously nodded her assent... and then Kazuma whispered his secret plan into her ear.

===Part 3===

The fateful day was the same as the one when the Black Beast had been stopped and the one when it had started moving again: the last day of the year.

In the encampment of the ambush forces spread out across the forest, Celica had come to the edge of the woodline with Nirvana and finished her lunch rations as she stared out toward the west. The cauldron where the Black Beast was expected to appear was supposedly somewhere in that direction, far beyond the limit of her sight.

She couldn't confirm it one way or the other, but she had a feeling that it was true. She had felt a sort of haze around her chest since she had woken up this morning, making it impossible to relax. She somehow got the sense that the seithr in the air she was breathing was thicker than it had been the previous day.

"...Do you see something?"

"Wah!"

Suddenly hearing a deep, reverberating voice coming from diagonally behind her, Celica jumped up like a small animal and turned around to look. There she saw the owner of the voice, Hakumen, and Jubei, dressed in his battle armor. She felt like she had been caught doing something wrong, so she ducked her head and turned her lips up in a smile.

"Nope, nothing. I just thought it'd be neat if I could see something from here."

"The cauldron, you mean?"

"I guess."

Answering vaguely, Celica leaned her back against a nearby tree trunk, turning her gaze westward again.

"My chest has felt all tingly since this morning. It's pretty rough, knowing that this is going to be the end."

"You nervous? Well, no surprise there."

Jubei walked to Celica's side, breaking twigs beneath his feet. Following Celica's lead, he turned his red eye in the direction of where the cauldron was supposed to be.

"Don't get too worked up now. No sense in wearing yourself out when nothing's even happened yet."

He was wearing two swords on his back. One was a sword in a red sheath with hilts sticking out of both ends, Mucro Somnio: Musashi. The other had a black sheath, and was the last blade that Jubei's younger brother ever wielded: the Time Killing Blade, Hihiirokane.

"Yeah, you're right. Nothing's even happened..."

Yet. As if it was trying to prove those words wrong, Celica, Jubei, and Hakumen all saw black smoke suddenly rise before them.

No, it wasn't smoke... it was more of a mist. It was seithr.

Celica took her back off the tree trunk like she was bouncing off of it. Jubei swiftly leapt to the top of a tall tree and stared off into the distance from an overhanging branch. After a few seconds, Jubei shouted down to Hakumen in alarm.

"Hakumen! It's starting!"

"Indeed."

Hakumen turned on his heel and headed back to the camp, leaving a brief response in his wake. Smashing dry twigs beneath his feet with every step, he spoke to Celica.

"You two make haste and return as well. We're sallying out."

"I- I'm on it!"

"Jubei already said as much, but do not strain your nerves. We will escort you safely."

When he said 'we,' he meant himself, Jubei, and Nirvana.

"Okay!"

Chasing after Hakumen with Nirvana and Jubei, Celica answered clearly.

The time had finally come.

The end had finally begun.

The seithr splitting the earth and spilling into the air increased in intensity and volume in the blink of an eye, and it looked almost like a black lake in the west as it spread out over the bare rock beach. Its edges spread out like they were groping around for something, but there were no people within their range. Everyone had already been evacuated. Nevertheless, the seithr writhed like a wave, or perhaps more like a snake, and found its way to the nearby abandoned coastal town and crashed over it, destroying it utterly.

As if doing that was the last step in its preparations, the seithr pooled towards its center. Rising out of the seithr like a snake uncoiling came a single massive head, followed by a second, then a third. Countless heads lifted themselves up and glared sinisterly with glowing red eyes, all looking to the west at once.

Past the waves that withered beneath the seithr, beyond the muddied sea, floating alone off the coastline, there sat a single small island. It was Ishana.

The innumerable heads let out a chaotic roar, making the air tremble and the ocean froth. Big arms and legs ripped themselves free of the seithr and a colossal body fell out all at once, like the seithr had given birth to it. The grotesque scene was plainly visible even from far outside where the seithr could reach. Everyone was mercilessly subjected to the same repulsive and dreadful sight.

Now that the Black Beast had fully materialized, arrows of light fell down upon it from the north like incessant rain. It was the Ars Magus Corps lying in wait for it. Stationed on a plateau with barely enough of a view to overlook the seithr on the coastline, they fired and fired for all they were worth. The sound that their veritable hail of arrows made as it rent the air and struck the seithr was similar to the sound it would've made if it were hitting the ground instead.

A great portion of the seithr protecting the Black Beast was shaved away, and the beast itself squirmed in annoyance as it was bathed in the arrows of light. Its great feet stopped moving and it turned its heads away from Ishana to find the Ars Magus Corps. The monster had strayed from its previous path, and in so doing it was immediately met with a pounding right to its abdomen from the Ars Magus rain.

Its long necks thrashed about in frustration, and it swung its massive legs through the sky and smashed the earth beneath it, sending countless fissures running through the ground. The Black Beast charged forward with a roar, seeming to pull its body along behind the sound, and from its mouths shot a wave of seithr. That single attack blasted away a portion of the Ars Magus Corps along with the very ground they stood on atop the plateau, but in the instant after it did, a white shadow darted past the wave and assaulted the Black Beast from a diagonal, slicing into its side.

Seithr sprayed from the wound in place of blood. The man responsible for that gushing wound was Hakumen, half of his body now drenched in the stuff. He paid it no mind, bringing the naked blade of his nodachi down once more. He stabbed his long blade so deep into the base of one of the Black Beast's necks that it seemed like it had simply sunk right into it.

Its roar, previously sounding like an enraged animal trying to cow its opponent, now changed to a high-pitched shriek.

Its heads writhed madly. Hakumen moved his arms like he was driving the beast. Changing his grip on the still-buried nodachi, he sliced it from the inside like he was trying to throw it over his back. The resulting cut was many times deeper than the actual length of the blade itself, causing the Black Beast visible harm.

"This is Ookami..."

Kicking the rampaging Black Beast in the side and jumping to its front, Hakumen muttered with admiration. Nine had said that it would show its true power when it was wielded against the Black Beast, but he was only now truly understanding what that meant.

The sword was becoming sharper and more forceful than a sword should be, cutting his enemy ever deeper. He could swing it with the weight of a guillotine and the speed of the racing wind.

Leaping out in front of its red eyeballs, Hakumen swung Ookami down to strike one of its heads right in the brow. Even though the blade didn't reach all the way through, he still smashed the giant head downward so far that it nearly hit the ground.

That one strike was the decision maker for the Black Beast's heads: they were now considering Hakumen to be a greater threat than the Ars Magus Corps, and prioritized crushing him first.

The heads swooped down at Hakumen from left and right, trying to devour him with colossal fangs. He took the first one on with Ookami. He used the recoil from that clash to narrowly dodge the second head, but in avoiding the fangs of the third one he ate an intense head-butt, and Hakumen's body got sent flying.

Realizing that a neck was stretching out to pursue him, Hakumen shouted, "Cut it now, grimalkin!"

A grazing slash ran along the neck in time with his voice, and it pulled the seithr that was pursuing him away as it slipped out toward the Black Beast's hindquarters. Jubei had taken that as his cue, jumping into the fray from who knows where.

The sword he had swiftly drawn from his back in mid-air was Hihiirokane. He gripped the sword in his right hand while he used the claws of his left hand to cut down and kick away the pursuing seithr.

With speed and precision that would be impossible for a human, he raced above the seithr and jumped again, this time swinging his right arm wide.

"Hihiirokane!"

The sword responded to Jubei's leap, trembling in his cat paw as he took a big swipe. It changed into a different form, but remained just as sharp as ever; it now appeared less like a sword and more like an animal's claw. The blade of the sword split into three, and he aimed it at the towering Black Beast with its spear-like fangs.

Jubei took a breath. Then he bit into the Black Beast's collar with the sword and pulled it all the way to the bottom of the creature in one go. The Black Beast roared madly as its very soul was sliced open rather than just its body. Jubei felt a sensation strangely different from the feeling of cutting flesh or seithr before he scrunched up his face, pulled Hihiirokane out, and shouted at the top of his lungs.

"Nirvana, Celica!"

"Here we go!"

Celica answered Jubei's call, and Nirvana, who had been busy fighting using her arms as blunt weapons up until then, picked her up.

Grabbing and mowing down the seithr in front of them like she was sweeping it away, Nirvana easily bashed her way through. Arriving at Jubei's side, she stood before a massive gaping rift.

The Black Beast's entire body was crawling with vein-like, pulsating, dark red lines. Three distorted vertical gashes now ran over that pattern, as if someone had painted over it. This was the wound left by Hihiirokane, and the entrance Celica and Nirvana would now use.

"Watch yourself in there. Don't overdo it."

Turning to face the seithr alone, Jubei was thinking that he was hardly one to talk as he gave Celica a little lecture.

He returned Hihiirokane to its scabbard and drew Mucro Somnio: Musashi in its place. He gripped the two separate parts of the sword in his left and right hands and touched their pommels together, which connected their hilts and turned the whole thing into one long, strangely shaped two-bladed sword. He held the sword in his mouth and extended his sharp claws.

Seithr swelled before him before assaulting him like a massive wave. Jubei watched it coming with only his left eye, then did a flip.

One heartbeat. That was all it took for Jubei to scatter the roiling wave of seithr many hundreds of times larger than himself.

He was truly moving faster than the eye could follow as he spun through the air, cat claws and sword leaving who knows how many cuts in his wake.

He was strong. As Nirvana leaped through the air and forced the rift open, Celica was watching Jubei from her arms.

"You too, Jubei-san! Don't lose!"

Celica raised her voice as loud as possible so it wouldn't be drowned out by the sound of the wriggling seithr and gave a single wave of her hand before throwing herself along with Nirvana into the monochrome black rift.

===Part 4===

By the time she took her very next breath, her surroundings were already nothing but pitch black.

The blackness was so deep that she couldn't tell if her eyes were open or closed. She couldn't tell how far it continued, or even if it had an end at all. It might have been a mistake to even be thinking about it in terms of distance.

Isolated in darkness so deep that it overrode the very concept of being 'deep' at all, Celica and Nirvana stood in stark contrast to their surroundings as obvious irregularities, being the only two entities that possessed chromatic color.

Celica steeled herself and quickly checked her surroundings.

This was her second time here.

This was the inside of the Black Beast.

Last time the deep darkness of her surroundings had been so irrationally terrifying that she had felt like she was slowly being swallowed by it, but she didn't have the time to waste on being stupefied by something like that this time.

"Nirvana, are you alright?"

She looked toward where her partner was standing directly behind her, and Nirvana looked back with her big, solid eyes. Reacting to the question may have been her way of saying that she was fine. After all, Nine had remodeled her into a Nox Nyctores for the express purpose of fighting the Black Beast. She was incomparably stronger than Celica, so she was okay.

Deciding to go with that convenient bit of reasoning, Celica took a step closer and huddled next to Nirvana. She thought that she could see herself a little better that way, and the surrounding seithr felt far less suffocating as well.

"First, we've gotta hurry and find Ragna."

Or so she said, but she didn't know how she was going to find anyone in this pitch black darkness with neither a path nor lights.

She did have an idea though. It was an idea that only Celica would have thought of. She unconsciously ran her hand along Nirvana's arm as she took a deep breath in, forgetting about the thick seithr all around her. And then…

"Ragnaaaaaaaaaaa!!"

Using all the air in her lungs at once and bending her body forward, she shouted as loud as she possibly could.

Then she took Nirvana by the hand and started running straight forward in the direction her eyes were facing.

She wouldn't be able to figure out which direction she ought to go or where she ought to look no matter how much time she spent thinking about it, after all, so she just started running and planned to keep on yelling until she found Ragna. This is what she had planned on doing even before jumping in here.

"Ragna, answer if you can hear me! Raaaaaagnaaaaaaaa!!"

The black nothingness she was stepping on felt like a hard floor beneath her feet. It was an incredibly strange feeling, like a sort of phenomenon where simply thinking that there was a floor beneath her made it so.

Celica kept on running straight ahead, continuously calling out Ragna's name. No one answered. She didn't hear any sounds that made her think that someone was out there, either. Naturally, she couldn't even hear the sounds of the battle that deviated from the boundaries of common sense that must have still been going on outside.

Loneliness started to sink into Celica's chest.

There was nothing there.

Her mind was on the verge of being filled with nothing but that thought and the feelings that came with it. Like she was trying to wipe away those feelings, Nirvana suddenly and forcefully wrapped her arms around Celica and brought her to a halt.

"Hya!"

Surprised by the sudden bodily contact, Celica jumped with a yelp. A moment later, however, a far more shocking phenomenon made the arm-bound Celica forget to breathe.

The monochrome black landscape was changing. Like little black pieces flipping over to reveal color hidden on their other sides, their surroundings were widening out into a definite scene... until eventually they changed into a thick but pitifully lifeless forest.

"This is..."

Her lips moved on their own.

Celica gently pressed on Nirvana's chest to get her to let go then walked into the forest like she was being drawn in. It was just like last time, when she had accidentally gone inside the Black Beast. It was the same scenery as then, and it had appeared before her in the same way. This was the deserted village in the forest where Celica had first met Ragna.

"Which means... Let's go, Nirvana! "

A baseless hunch set Celica's legs in motion. She ran off like a kitten and Nirvana followed after her.

She didn't have to run long before she saw something.

In the middle of the deserted village, overgrown with grass and scattered with rotting old houses, a thick tree seemed to be pointing toward the entrance to the forest.

A young man in a brilliant red coat stood before it. Celica sprinted at top speed and leapt onto his red-coated back with all her momentum.

"Ragna!!"

"Uoogh!?"

The man made a sound of surprise as she landed on him with a dull thud.

Reflexively shaking Celica off and turning around with his guard up, his grim face stiffened in shock.

"Wha... huh!? You dumbass, why are you still here! Didn't I just see you leave!?"

He shouted with more agitation than anger in his voice.

He stood much taller than Celica, had distinctive white hair, and seemed to only be able to open his beautiful green left eye. It was Ragna. They really had met again. Completely forgetting that she was inside of the Black Beast, a smile overflowing with joy covered Celica's entire face.

Then the words Ragna had said a moment ago finally clicked with her.

"What do you mean, you just saw me leave?"

Celica had an idea of what had happened even as she asked.

Thinking back on it, she remembered hearing a while ago that there was a strange phenomenon where time passed extremely slowly near cauldrons. The Black Beast had passed through countless cauldrons, so they might have had an effect on it that makes the flow of time all weird here.

"I mean that I just saw you leave, what... oh, I get it. Time flows differently here."

Muttering as he figured the situation out faster than Celica had, Ragna had a discontented look about him as he took his hand off of his chin.

He looked annoyed as he gave a big sigh. Every one of his mannerisms was so nostalgic, and they made Celica so happy, but she took a deep breath and came back to her senses. She didn't have time to be standing around in a nostalgic daze. Squeezing her small hands tight, Celica took a big step closer to Ragna.

"That's right! Ragna, I need your help!"

"Huh? Help? With what?"

"I want to defeat the Black Beast!"

Celica looked up at Ragna with passion in her eyes, but Ragna gave her a hard frown.

"The Black Beast?"

He was obviously perplexed, but before he even finished getting the words out, Ragna's expression changed from doubt to understanding, as if he had suddenly remembered something.

His eyes said that he knew the gist, and he prompted Celica to continue.

"It's that time already, huh... What about the Nox Nyctores? They're done, right?"

"Huh? Why do you know that, Ragna?"

It was Celica's turn to be surprised this time. Her eyes went wide as she took another step toward him, and Ragna got a troubled look on his face.

"Well, uh... that doesn't really matter, right? Do you have them or do you not?"

"Oh, yeah, we have them. Onee-chan made them. Nirvana's one too."

Celica raised her arm to introduce her, and Nirvana stared at Ragna as she continued to stand there silently.

Shrinking away from her inorganic gaze, Ragna's expression looked a little bitter.

"Nirvana..."

Celica stared blankly and tilted her head as she watched him mumble, but before she could ask, Ragna belted out his next question.

"So, how do you want me to help?"

As he spoke, he leaned back on one of the trees making up the forest surrounding the village with a plop. His right arm dangled limply at his side, apparently still unable to move.

Celica's cheeks relaxed with relief. It was no surprise, but she was glad that he was hearing her out like it was the only natural thing to do. With a nod, she started explaining Hakumen's plan.

In order to defeat the Black Beast, they had to strike at both its body and its heart.

In order to defeat the body, they were going to teleport the Black Beast to a certain special place. Its seithr would be repressed there, which would keep the Black Beast in check.

While that was going on, Celica's job was to go inside the Black Beast and find Ragna. She and Ragna were then supposed to find and destroy the Black Beast's heart... doing so at the same time as when its body was destroyed on the outside.

She got mixed up and confused herself as she gave the explanation, but Ragna, still leaning against the tree trunk, listened all the way to the end (occasionally looking exasperated). Celica was worried that she might have forgotten something, but she whispered to herself that she was okay and waited for a response.

Ragna moved his body off the tree, twisting his mouth like he had swallowed something bitter.

"...So that's that masked bastard's plan, then. And my job is to destroy the Black Beast's heart? Jeez, when did I become part of his crew?"

Ragna grumbled a little, but Celica's eyes started sparkling.

"I knew it! You and Hakumen-san know each other."

She had been curious about that for a long time. Ragna had never mentioned Hakumen and Hakumen wouldn't give her a straight answer no matter how many times she asked, but she had thought that there must be some connection between them. Above all, they had that sense of similarity that occasionally stirred Celica's memories, making her think that they resembled each other too much to be complete strangers.

Her curiosity overflowing, Celica's innocent eyes bored into a flustered Ragna.

"You mean Hakumen-san when you say 'masked bastard,' right?"

"You... weren't you in a hurry?"

Ragna's eyes narrowed as he gave her his most exasperated look of the day, and Celica abruptly reigned in her curiosity.

"Oh, right. Well anyway, that's the plan, and I need your help. I don't even know where I would look on my own..."

"No need to look anywhere."

A disturbing note suddenly mixed itself into Ragna's pleasant voice. His green eye was sharp and vigilant, and he slowly rose to his feet.

Ragna's eye was looking over Celica's shoulder at something behind her rather than at Celica herself. Nirvana stood at the ready next to her. Picking up on what was happening slower than the other two, Celica turned around.

When had she gotten there, and how long had she been there? A silver-haired girl clad in a white cape was standing barefoot behind her.

(She's... the girl from last time!)

Celica had seen her before. A memory of a single fleeting glimpse came back to her mind. It was the girl she had seen right as she was leaving Ragna and escaping from inside the Black Beast.

"Ragna..."

The silver-haired girl called out with a lovely, flirtatious voice, looking truly delighted as a smile of ecstasy spread across her face.

"Here you were all along. Nu was looking for you for so, so, sooo long... how cruel of you."

Her name must have been Nu. Baffled, Celica took a step back. Her back bumped into Ragna, and she looked up at him questioningly. Celica's wet soil-colored eyes were met by Ragna's green one as he answered.

"She's what you came looking for."

There was only one thing that Celica was looking for right now, which meant…

"She... is the Black Beast's heart."

Hakumen had said the same thing once before, too. The girl she saw inside the Black Beast was the very heart of the monster that threatened the world.

Celica gulped nervously.

She was here to destroy the heart of the Black Beast, but it was easier said than done. In order to save the people outside, and to save all the people in the entire world, she had to kill this girl standing in front of her.

"...Hey, Ragna? Who's that?"

Exhaling heavily, the smile vanished from the heart-girl's face as ice-cold blood lust lit up her eye. She could only open her left eye, just like Ragna, and it was staring straight at Celica.

"Nu hates her. Hey, Ragna, hurry up and kill her. Nu will do it if you don't."

Her words were as cold as a blade of glass, but she trembled like raging fury was burning her away from the inside as she said them. She was looking at Celica, but it was questionable whether or not she recognized her as a living being. It felt more like she saw Celica as a concept to direct her hatred towards, and Celica was left dumbfounded.

Pushing Celica back behind him, Ragna pressed forward unflinchingly. He seemed to be very familiar with this girl.

"Stay back. Dealing with her is my job."

Firmly instructing Celica to stay behind him, Ragna drew his wide-bladed sword from his hip and stood ready to fight. Nirvana wrapped her arms around Celica and pulled her close to keep her safe and far away from them.

The girl wasn't looking at Celica anymore. A twisted, childish smile rose to her face as she opened her arms wide for a hug.

"Good, come here, Ragna. I'll love you. Ragna is all, all, aaaaaall mine, after all... ahahahaha!"

Her musical voice suddenly gave way to a shrill laugh. She pulled off her white cape and started floating soundless above the ground.

===Part 5===

On the outside, the clash between the Black Beast and humanity was intensifying like a balloon being pumped full of air.

The Ars Magus Corps ambush unit maintained formation and alternated between trading blows with the Black Beast and gradually retreating northward, with Hakumen and Jubei having a massive impact on the flow of battle as they wielded Ookami and Musashi.

The plan to lure it in a direction other than where Ishana sat was going unexpectedly smoothly. The Black Beast had suddenly started getting impulsive at some point, which made it less vital for the humans to cleverly choose when to start running.

In exchange, its attacks had grown all the fiercer.

Its countless heads started haphazardly devouring anything they could reach, not caring whether it was a living organism or not. The heads flailed about chaotically, mowing down soldiers along with the very ground they stood upon and tearing them to shreds with their fangs.

Hakumen's Ookami felled three of the Black Beast's heads while Jubei's Musashi regularly crushed eyes. No matter how deeply they wounded it, however, the grotesque colossus never slowed down or let up its attack. What's worse, it would use the seithr surrounding it to repair itself on the spot.

Falling back step-by-step in that way, the ambush unit finally led a seriously wounded Black Beast and a massive quantity of seithr all the way into the magic circle, looking like they were being chased by a massive raging wave. Flowing together in complete harmony, the unit and the seithr continued to brawl with each other atop the massive magic circle.

Valkenhayn's force quickly moved to support them, turning the magic circle into a platter of human screams and writhing seithr.

Human voices and the seithr's noises got jumbled together.

Trying to not lose her grip on consciousness, Nine focused on preparing to cast a spell. The rest of the Ten Sages were standing on the edge of the circle spaced at regular intervals, pouring their massive mana reserves into it.

Feeling a sudden wave of cold, Nine glanced across the circle and saw a dragon made of ice shooting through the air. The dragon, fangs bared, was accurately targeting only seithr entities, freezing them solid before shattering them to pieces.

It was Seven's magic. Nine looked at Seven, knowing that the ice must have been created using Yukianesa's power. Seven was currently not chanting the incantation to control the dragon.

The other Nox Nyctores wielder, Three, was pouring mana into the circle as she used her magic to wield Bolverk. Unseen hands held the pair of guns, using them to stop seithr cold in the vicinity of wherever its projectiles made impact.

The magic circle just needed a little more. Just a little more mana and it would be ready to teleport at any time.

As Nine prayed for everyone to hold out for just a little bit longer, a massive shadow abruptly shot over her head.

"Huh...?"

An ominous chill ran down her spine.

Nine wasn't sure what it was at first, but she instantly lifted her head to look. She saw one of the heads of the Black Beast.

Having charged into the magic circle, scattering soldiers and seithr alike, the Black Beast looked down on her.

"Oh no..."

She needed to break off her teleportation spell immediately and intercept it with an attack. As Nine panicked and lost her focus on the magic circle, a bulky wolf flew in from behind.

It was Valkenhayn.

Changing back into a human in the space of a breath, he raised both arms and blocked the head that was about to crush her flat.

"Nng, grrrrrr..."

"Valkenhayn, that's absurd, get away from it!"

As the person managing the magic circle, the place where Nine was standing was significant. Nine knew that he was doing this so that she wouldn't be forced to move.

Grabbing the errant head by the top and bottom of its jaws and holding it back with sheer strength, Valkenhayn threw a reprimand over his shoulder as he withstood the incredible weight.

"If you've got the time to give me lip, why don't you finish the teleportation? This thing seems to be in a good enough position!"

"!"

He was right. The Black Beast had thoughtlessly charged straight at Nine, which meant that it was practically in the center of the magic circle. It was never going to put itself into a more ideal position than this. Nine hurried up, closing her eyes and focusing her consciousness on her task. She blocked off all the noise around her and wove her magic with great haste.

Jubei and Hakumen leaped onto the scene, simultaneously cutting off the head that Valkenhayn was holding back from either side. They heard an unpleasant ripping sound as the giant head fell clear of its neck and onto the ground, scattering into a massive cloud of seithr, but a new one would surely grow in its place soon.

Before that could happen, however, the magic circle that spread as far as the eye could see was bathed in purple light as it activated.

"Here we go!"

No sooner had Nine shouted out a sharp warning than the magic circle began turning like a cog wheel, shooting out ever stronger light. Several heartbeats later, the Black Beast teleported away along with the great crowd of soldiers and mages around it, as if something had plucked them all up between its fingers.

When the teleport ended, they were standing on a gently sloping plain, the forest containing the Kaka village visible in the distance.

She wasn't sure when the sun had set, but Nine finally realized that night had fallen when they reached their destination. A full moon hung in the sky and a generous quantity of moonlight shined down on their surroundings, ensuring that they could see whether they had magic lights or not.

The nearby city had already been trampled by the Black Beast some time ago, but this plain alone seemed to have been left untouched by both seithr and the creature, so they were surrounded by lush greenery. Only six of the people present had seen why exactly that was the case with their own eyes.

Below this plain, and in fact directly below the spot they had set as their teleportation destination, there was a vast cave. Within it was a spacious natural room full of strange, beautiful, sparkling crystals and air that was remarkably different from that of the rest of the planet. It was a place devoid of seithr, and more than that, it was a place that suppressed seithr. The air in that underground cavern below the plain was so fresh and light that even the soldiers, who had no special knowledge of such things, could tell.

And that air being so perfectly clean meant that, for the Black Beast, it was practically the same as a human being in a room without oxygen.

The creature's massive body that didn't quite fit in with reality, seemingly having come from a nightmare, landed on the plain. The moment it did, it started moving in an awkward, distorted manner, as if it had been entangled in invisible strings.

Its countless heads tried to go on a rampage, but the creature had lost the smooth movements that it had had moments before, its snake-like necks thrashing about in pain.

Hakumen had made the right read.

Now free from her role as the teleportation coordinator, Nine looked up at the Black Beast right next to her, spread her arms wide, and created as many balls of lightning as it had heads.

"Now... be a good boy and accept your fate!"

Zig-zagging through the air, each lightning ball struck true and slammed into one head apiece, making sounds on impact loud enough to split eardrums as the Black Beast roared.

Jubei had started running as she was doing that, and he had one of the heads in his sights. He drew a line with his claws as he ran along its long neck, and as soon as he jumped over its massive head, he sliced open the monster's throat with the Musashi blades he was holding with his mouth and one of his tails.

Musashi glided through it like it was butter. Jubei adjusted the tips of the swords with a subtle movement and cut up the Black Beast's neck like he was carving a captivating pattern into its body.

Following in Jubei's wake, Valkenhayn leaped in with a roar. He slammed a rock-hard fist into the head, still staggered from Musashi's strike. Even without a weapon, his merciless fist smashed through the seithr, slamming the head down into the ground. He followed it up by swinging a wolf leg down onto the beast's brow with all the weight of a blunt weapon, and the head shuddered irregularly like it was seeing stars.

Jubei jumped in again toward the stunned head and used one blade and both claws to slice it to pieces.

Countless particles of seithr fell like torrential rain.

By the time the rain of black mist cleared, whether it was alive or dead, the black head was lying motionlessly on the ground.

In that moment, the atmosphere changed all across the plain.

We can fight it. We can win.

Jubei and Valkenhayns' flurry of attacks was so brilliant and encouraging that it made everyone think that.

Even more troops that had been lying in wait at the teleportation site joined the fray and began sweeping away the seithr.

Leading the charge was the Kaka clan, with Suzukaka at their head. Their inhuman athleticism allowed them to truly lay waste on the battlefield. Many members of the Duodecim were present in this force as well, launching a hail of magical attacks from behind and slowly but steadily peeling away at the beast's seithr.

But even though the Black Beast's seithr was being repressed, it wasn't just going to take this lying down.

Shaking pesky humans off like they were flies around its massive body, it spat up seithr, blanketing an entire column of troops in black in an instant. It howled at the moon like it was venting its hatred, so loud that it made those who heard it want to cover their ears. It snatched up and devoured anyone who stopped moving when they heard that sound, completely erasing their existences from this world.

Even if it couldn't regenerate its wounds anymore, it still had the seithr that was teleported with it and the seithr of its own body. Narrowly dodging the sword-like masses of seithr swinging around her as she jumped back, Nine furrowed her brow in hatred.

"Even after all that, we're just equal now?"

They hadn't closed the gap in power: they had just narrowed it.

"Are you all okay, everyone～?"

From within the army that had just charged into the fray came Trinity, calling out to Nine, Jubei, and Valkenhayn and running toward them. Terumi followed behind her, then finally Hakumen fell from above and landed in their midst.

He looked at everyone around him.

"We won't last long. Cut down every head, then wait for the signal from the inside."

Hakumen gave his orders without hesitation or doubt. So saying, he sprang high and grabbed onto one of the beast's necks.

The neck bucked and heaved, trying to shake Hakumen off, and a different head opened its mouth wide, trying to devour him along with its own fellow head. Making another jump to get above the head, Hakumen swung Ookami down.

His massive slash rent the air and severed the seithr. The wave from his slash cut through its throat and he followed it up with another strike, this time burying the blade directly into it and slicing the head right off.

Innumerable specks of seithr sprayed out across a wide area, but they disappeared as the air purified them. If the seithr disappeared, then the Black Beast wouldn't be able to regenerate.

"Alright...!"

Jubei followed in his wake. He cut into the beast like he was grabbing a snake by the neck with both claws, then spun in the air to slide Musashi easily through it. He could have diced it into cubes if he had wanted to, and he used that sharpness to fell another one of the Black Beast's heads.

The beast howled again. It seemed to be directing its desire to kill every living thing in the area at the untainted air. It spit out a burst of seithr that fell over the entire area like a rain of needles.

"I'll handle this...!"

Trinity rushed forward with an uncharacteristic confidence. She thrust her long, thin staff into the ground. With a clear ring of the bell, she cloaked the entire area that the seithr was going to land on with a layer of metal, instantly creating a roof.

The seithr was unable to break the thick layer of metal reinforced with Trinity's defensive magic, and Trinity returned it back to the thin air it had come from when all the needles had been blocked.

Nine was already poised and ready by the time the instant roof went away. She assaulted the creature with countless rays of light wreathed in lightning all at once. The lights relentlessly targeted a single head, exploding on its black-and-red face one after the other. By the time the mind-boggling number of lights had finally been spent, there was nothing resembling a head left.

While that was happening, Valkenhayn had turned into a wolf and broken into a sprint. He sprung forward to meet one of the crook-necked heads, fangs bared, but he changed back into a human just before the massive thing was about to swallow his wolf form whole, leaving only his limbs in their lupine shape.

"Taste this!!"

Bellowing vigorously from deep in his belly, he simultaneously slammed a punch and a kick carrying all the power a beastkin could muster into the seithr of the creature's jaws. Below him, Trinity cast her magic and bestowed his strikes with even greater power than they already had.

He was already as tough as a rock, but now he also had the hardness of steel. Valkenhayn's cataclysmic punch pierced so deep that it buried his arm up to the shoulder and burst out of the creature's forehead.

A seemingly endless chain shot out into the action, slicing through the air as it entangled another head. The chain was Terumi's Geminus Anguium: Ouroboros. Moving like a real, living creature, the chain wrapped around the black head and constricted it, and the Black Beast bucked and writhed mightily as it tried to shake its infuriating restraints off.

The chain only dug in all the deeper, though, seemingly warning the thing against trying to resist. Appearing out of thin air, another length of chain with knife-like fangs at the end ran the head straight through in one go before slicing it from top to bottom, like it was dissecting the thing.

Many certainly died as the Black Beast struggled, but nevertheless it was losing more and more of its sinister heads before their very eyes.

Six turned to five, three turned to two.

Finally, the last head was left looking down at the ground from on high, its eyes burning with rage and blood lust. Holding the tip of his blade low and dropping his hips deep, Hakumen took his stance.

Just as he leaped forward and brought Ookami down on its final neck, the Black Beast suddenly came to a halt.
===Part 6===
In the world of endless darkness, the silver-haired girl crumbled to her knees. Celica reflexively tried to run to her side, but Ragna held his arm out to stop her.

Unable to stand back up, the girl turned her pitiful, resentful eye up at Ragna.

"How could you... Ragnaaa... why? Why are you being mean to Nu?"

The girl kept on repeating the words, 'how could you, how could you’ as she sobbed.

Ragna walked to her side... and raised his arm. He wasn't going to console her: he was lifting his sword above his head.

"I'm not trying to be mean."

Ragna whispered quietly to her one more time before he ran his sword through the blue-and-silver girl, looking like he was shaking something off of himself as he did it.

That was the end.

Her dainty body quivered and started to crumble, from her fingertips to her toes. Her body broke apart like a clay doll returning to the earth... and only her face with its one red eye wide open remained by the end. Eventually, that too disappeared. She melted into the surrounding darkness, vanishing without a trace.

"...The Black Beast's heart is done for. The rest is up to the masked bastard."

Turning his back on the girl who disappeared, Ragna walked back to Celica as he returned his sword to his hip. His face looked relieved, but it also seemed to be hiding remorse.

"Ragna..."

Celica didn't know how best to say what she was thinking. She hesitated a little, but she only had one thing in mind, so in the end she just went with it.

"Thank you. You always, always come to my rescue."

"I wasn't really trying to save you just now. Our goals just happened to line up perfectly this time."

Ragna gave a little scornful laugh as he told her that he didn't know why she was thanking him.

A smile broke out on Celica's face when she saw that mannerism of his.

"Aw, no need to get embarrassed."

"Huh? Come again?"

"It's alright, I get it. You act like a big brother, but you're really just shy."

She clasped both hands behind her back and peaked up at him mischievously as Ragna shrank away and darted his eye around, his face uncomfortable.

He scratched his white-haired head with his left hand, which was a bit of a bad habit of his. Suddenly remembering something, he wheeled back around to face Celica.

"I... really gotta leave now."

His words came out as a deep sigh.

Celica was about to cock her head to one side in confusion... but she had a hunch about what he meant, so instead she put on a smile.

"I don't know the details, but you mean you have to go back to where you came from, right?"

She had gotten a vague sense about that the last time they had reunited inside the Black Beast. She had thought that she and Ragna were probably not going to be returning to the same place. Just like Celica had to go home to Nine, Ragna had somewhere he needed to return to as well, somewhere different.

Ragna gave her a firm nod in response. Celica forced herself to smile wider, but she couldn't stop her eyebrows from drooping, revealing her true feelings.

"That makes me feel kinda lonely, since I waited so long for this."

"Yeah. Looks like... I'm really making you wait for me."

"Huh? Do you want me to keep on waiting?"

"I'm not telling you to. In fact... I can't tell you to."

Celica sensed a hidden meaning behind Ragna's words and his all-knowing face, but she had no idea what it was.

Whatever Ragna wasn't saying wasn't important to Celica right now.

"Will we meet again?"

Her voice lit up.

For a moment, Ragna was taken aback, but then he broke out into a laugh.

"Yeah, we will. I came here to fulfill my promise to you, after all."

Celica's eyes shone with vitality. Her cheeks turned a bright peach color and the genuine, full-faced smile that she couldn't manage before bloomed on her lips.

"Oh, jeez. Hearing that makes me so happy."

She folded both hands over her chest and squeezed tight, like she was trying to keep the words she had just heard safe.

"Wow. We're gonna see each other again, huh? How about that. I really thought this was gonna be the last time."

"H- hey, just so we're clear, I don't know how far down the line that's gonna be for you. At the very least, it ain't gonna be tomorrow or the next day."

Ragna stuck his arm out as he rushed to stop her from getting her hopes up. He couldn't guarantee it was going to happen on some specific date. It might be years, even decades.

Celica understood what Ragna was trying to say well, but she shook her head, her ponytail swaying.

"That's alright. I don't mind waiting for you, Ragna. I found you a lot faster than I expected this time too, although I was sure I'd see you sooner or later."

She was thinking that the time when she would get to see him again would come faster than she anticipated this next time too. Instead of worrying about how things would turn out, she was just happy with that thought.

Where had the lonely, miserable girl who had been on the verge of crying as she laughed from just moments ago gone? With equal parts exasperation and admiration, Ragna shook his head.

"You're incredible. I really respect you."

Ragna put his hand on Celica's head with a little thud.

"Welp... guess I gotta head back before the Black Beast's body completely disintegrates... but..."

Ragna swiveled his head around, scanning the area before scratching his cheek. No matter how hard he looked, they were surrounded by nothing but blackness.

With a hint of shame, Ragna finished his sentence.

"...how do I get out of here?"

"Huh? Wait, you... don't know how to get back home!?"

As Celica burst out in shock, Ragna's expression grew increasingly more sullen.

"Gimme a break, I was in a hurry."

He mumbled an excuse before ruffling his hair, trying to think of a solution.

Suddenly, they smelled an aroma that they couldn't believe would be in a place like this.

It was the smell of roses.

They knew exactly who had just arrived from that scent alone, and Celica looked around for the scent's owner. Just as Celica turned her back, a small silhouette appeared behind her.

It was a girl with two long, golden twintails and a big ribbon. The current master of the castle of eternal night, the Alucard Manor: Rachel Alucard.

Ragna's temper flared the moment he saw her.

"Dammit, rabbit!"

"I don't have the time to waste on disciplining you for your every uncouth outburst. Do you not want to return to where you came from? I will connect the dimensions for you, so make haste and leave."

Rachel waved her small white hands like she was shooing him away.

While Ragna was getting all bent out of shape by her haughty attitude, Celica asked her an honest question.

"Rachel-san, you can connect dimensions?"

"...Of course I can. Although more precisely, it's less so that I am able to do it and more so that it can be done from here."

Rachel looked at Celica through the corner of her eye, seeming to take in everything about her from her head to her toes as she replied. Celica thought that she had sounded a little reluctant to tell her.

Rachel twined her lovely, silky golden hair around her fingertip, then let it go, her red eyes taking in her surroundings all the while.

"The interior of the Black Beast has a very close relationship with the cauldrons, you know."

She turned to face Ragna, her palm pointed out at him, and a rose-red magic circle appeared beneath his feet.

"I'm going out of my way to perform such an advanced technique as interdimensional teleportation for you, so you ought to show some gratitude... Mr. Manservant-from-the-future."

"Who's the manservant!? Screw you!"

Ragna looked so mad he might bite her, but he stayed on the magic circle. Celica remembered that they were pressed for time, so she stood next to Nirvana and gave Ragna a smile tinged with sorrow.

"...Hey, Celica. When we meet again, don't be a stranger."

Ragna raised his hand in a casual wave as he disappeared from the world of monochrome blackness.

The moment he was gone, the ground started shaking beneath Celica's feet. Nirvana supported Celica's body just before she lost her footing, but now they were surrounded by an unpleasant noise, almost like a sandbag being turned inside-out and spilling its contents all at once.

The sound grew louder and louder.

"Wha- what's happening!?"

"Isn't it obvious? ...The Black Beast has been defeated."

The sand-like noise she was hearing was in fact the sound of the Black Beast losing all of its seithr and crumbling to bits.

"You people are really such a handful."

With a single dignified sigh, Rachel waved her palm through the empty air. A sudden wind blew from who-knows-where, reinforcing Nirvana's shaky footing.

From within the wind, Rachel summoned a faintly glowing magic circle with herself at the center. The sound of the collapse was coming from so close now that it was practically in Celica's ear, but Rachel teleported them all outside of the seithr before they could sustain any damage to their minds.
[[Image: BB_PS4_239.jpg|thumb]]
The moon was watching over them when they arrived.

The previously verdant plain had been completely trampled in the furious battle and turned into a wasteland. The wind raged across the jagged earth, and all that remained was a small, black clump of shadow.

It was about as big as an adult man, so perhaps calling it 'small' wasn't quite accurate. The black clump looked so transient and insubstantial that it seemed like it would disappear if you shined a light on it. Compared to its previous insurmountable size and hopelessly intimidating presence, it now looked so feeble that it actually inspired pity.

It was the only fragment of the Black Beast remaining.

It was the final, sputtering breath of the monster made of pure seithr.

It rolled into the shadows of the plain, looking like it might disintegrate at any moment, and stared out in confusion with one deep red eye.

Standing right in front of that eye was a shadow in white, Hakumen. Jubei and Valkenhayn stood right behind him, Trinity and Nine were a few paces away, and Terumi was way in the back.

Looking at that scene from behind the fragment of the Black Beast, it seemed to Celica like it was something happening on some distant, foreign world. Nirvana stood right behind her, silent as ever, and Rachel quietly watched for what was about to happen.

The air was heavy with all the scattered seithr, but the weight Celica felt pressing down on her chest was certainly not just because of pollution.

Hakumen whispered something imperceptible as he slowly raised his nodachi high. The white blade flashed brilliantly as it caught a white ray of sunlight.

Without a sound... the blade fell.

It severed the head of the vaguely humanoid clump, the final piece of the Black Beast.

The moment its head hit the ground, tears ran down Celica's cheeks.

It was dead. That fact made her so sad.

So, so very sad.

She couldn't hold back the pain in her chest. She crouched down where she stood, shoulders shaking as she quietly wept.

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