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Owari no Chronicle:Volume12 Prologue

2026-10-27T03:55:25Z

N-Ch:

==Prologue: Beginning of the Festival==
[[Image:OnC_v12_0011.png|thumb]]
''It begins in a dark place

''But in a lively manner

''So people overlook it

The winter sky grew dark as evening approached.

Below that sky was a large expanse of land. Roads ran across it, woods and roadside trees grew on it, and it was divided up by white buildings and lawns lit by the setting sun.

It was a school, but this school was as large as a city.

That school was decorated with countless colors.

All of the school buildings were covered in colorful hanging banners that said “2005 Year End Festival”.

School would have ended by this time, but the windows into the classrooms were still bright and the desks and chairs inside were being used to make cafes or theatres.

Several stages were set up in the large schoolyard and countless booths lined the roads.

The booths made all sorts of different sounds and some were turning on electric lights for the night.

Someone looked out over those countless colors and sounds.

The person had climbed to the second floor landing of the emergency staircase on a school building on the north end of the schoolyard.

The student council’s festival stand was being built on that landing. The one who had arrived up the emergency staircase was a boy with sharp eyes. He held a bucket of plaster and a small animal resembling a boar sat on his head.

As he climbed the stairs, he looked across the schoolyard and let out a white breath.

“So the year end festival has begun without issue. Today is December 20. Seeing as the negative concept activation could destroy the world in five more days, this truly is the final festival.”

“Sayama-kun, I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad omen.”

That sighing comment came from a uniformed figure with long-hair who sat at the top of the stairs waiting for the boy.

She had a gray laptop on her lap and she was checking through the contents of the binder next to her.

“Have you gathered your things for going to Kansai?”

“Not to worry, Shinjou-kun. I do not own much in the first place. After we stop by the Tamiya house, I will still have plenty of time to gather everyone for a meeting before leaving. More importantly…”

Sayama set down the bucket and looked to the festival stand being constructed on the landing. A girl in a track suit was working on it.

The track suit had the name Kazami stitched into it and she turned around with a hammer in hand.

Her gaze asked him what he wanted and he looked back and forth between her and the stand.

“Are you sure you do not need any help on the student council’s consultation stand?”

“Hm? No, we can handle it. Kaku has other business too, but Harakawa’s here. The two of us can handle it.”

Hiba quickly stood from the other side of the stand and frantically spoke up.

“I-I’m here too? You can handle it with me too!?”

“Why is that a question?”

“And you’re really just in charge of getting drinks.”

“Wow, these upperclassmen are a whole new kind of mean!!”

Hiba shouted back in anger and Harakawa’s gloved hand poked out from behind the stand.

The hand patted Hiba on the back.

“Don’t worry about it, Hiba Ryuuji. Paying attention to them will only drive you insane.”

“Y-you’re right, Harakawa-san! They’re the crazy ones! I’m perfectly normal, right!?”

“I didn’t say that.”

Hiba leaned on the emergency exit railing and began staring into the sunset, but Harakawa ignored him and stood up.

He looked annoyed.

“Don’t you two have business at the Tamiya house? Get going.”

“We will be going very soon. Harakawa, Hiba boy, we will be having a meeting in the Kinugasa Library afterward, so do not forget Heo-kun and Mikage-kun.”

“I won’t,” assured Harakawa before reaching for the front panel leaning against the back wall. “But thinking up a countermeasure against Top-Gear really is a pain.”

He took a breath.

“I’m sure Japanese UCAT is trying to hide it, but American UCAT has heard that we were sent blood samples from Toda Mikoku and Nagata Tatsumi of Top-Gear. And that the tests confirm they’re the ‘female version’ of you and Hiba.”

Sayama nodded. After a pause, so did the others.

As Harakawa had said, those samples had suddenly arrived by mail the other day and that had finally pushed the Gear reservations and other UCATs to action.

Top-Gear really was the opposite equivalent of Low-Gear.

As they thought about that fact and the fact that they had been sent the blood, someone spoke.

It was Shinjou.

And she suddenly lowered her shoulders as she did.

“This really is a pain. …Those samples had to have been a message from Top-Gear signed in blood. They were saying none of this is over.”

Kazami nodded in agreement with Shinjou.

She inhaled some of the cold air of that winter evening and lowered her shoulders too.

“You’re right about it being a pain. But that’s why we have to do something. If we don’t look into the past and figure out what’s true, we’ll have no choice but to go along with whatever Top-Gear says.”

This had all started a month and a half ago.

The Army’s attack had destroyed most of Japanese UCAT and revealed the existence of Top-Gear.

The Army had been defeated and many of its members, including Hajji and Jord, had been captured, but Toda Mikoku, the other Top-Gear survivors, and about fifty others had escaped.

Team Leviathan had never heard of Top-Gear, but it was a problem that Japanese UCAT had been hiding the existence of a highest Gear and hiding its destruction.

For one…

…''First, the Gear reservations have shut us out as they try to decide if they should accept the Leviathan Road when it was carried out with so much hidden.

And for another…

…''The foreign UCATs are trying to place all responsibility on Japanese UCAT.

All movement from the Gear reservations had vanished, but the foreign UCATs had not fallen in step. Japanese UCAT had been forced to recover while receiving the protection of American UCAT.

Team Leviathan had prepared for the school’s year end festival at the same time and this was the day the festival began. But…

…''The foreign UCATs called Ooshiro-san and the others to a meeting three days ago.

Ooshiro, Diana, and Roger would apparently be going to an American UCAT underground meeting room in Yokosuka to explain the current incident and to explain everything about Top-Gear.

The meeting began this night and the activation of the negative concepts was approaching fast as well.

“Apparently, the foreign UCATs are furious. But Sayama and Shinjou, you two are leaving tonight so you can use this chance to complete the Leviathan Road with 8th-Gear and look into Shinjou’s mother’s past in Sakai, aren’t you?”

Shinjou nodded at Kazami’s question.

Shinjou must have been interested in the nearly-complete festival stand because she watched Harakawa attach the front panel as she replied.

“I wanted to go a lot earlier. It’s an overnight trip, after all. But Roger-san asked us to wait until he could secure a safe route using American UCAT’s special division.”

“True,” said Sayama. “And besides, if the other UCATs knew before the meeting that we were contacting 8th, they would use it to attack us even more. Also, 8th’s Concept Core is in Izumo UCAT, but 3rd-Gear’s automatons and Miyako-kun have borrowed the third basement on down and refuse to let anyone else in. With Miyako-kun there, I am not worried, but we may have to negotiate with 3rd again.”

“Right,” agreed Shinjou.

Kazami looked a bit worried, so Shinjou smiled at her.

“Well, it’s probably a good thing the meeting is happening now, since we only have five days until the world is destroyed. We can start tomorrow morning after confirming that Ooshiro-san and the others have finished persuading the other UCATs.”

“Yes,” said Kazami with a nod.

Her eyebrows were slightly lowered in resignation, but she was convinced. She then looked to Shinjou.

“———?”

Curiosity filled her gaze.

She used the hand not holding the hammer to point at the laptop Shinjou was typing on.

It was likely unrelated, but she decided this was her only chance to ask.

“Hey, I’ve been wondering… What is that?”

“Eh? Oh.”

Shinjou was clearly unsure if she should tell her, but after a pause, she blushed and gave a troubled smile.

“A novel I’m writing for fun. Did I never tell you about it?”

Realizing why Shinjou was blushing, Kazami smiled bitterly but shrugged.

“Don’t be so embarrassed. Have you forgotten I write my own songs? You get used to it.”

“D-do you?”

“You do,” assured Kazami. “Are you going to sell it at the festival? The library committee is having a doujinshi sale.”

“They are?”

“They are.” Kazami smiled. “There are some about you two.”

“Wh-what kind of doujinshi!?”

“Ha ha ha. Shinjou-kun, I gave them permission to use our likenesses. They are selling a compilation of the newspaper club’s serialized novel ‘When You Can Hold Back No Longer’ as well as quite a few fan-works. …Doesn’t it seem like the people are supporting my reign?”

“Well, um,” Shinjou started to say something and hung her head. “Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if the world was destroyed.”

“Now, now, Shinjou-kun. You must not be so negative. …Should I cheer you up?”

“No, thanks.”

Sayama briefly stiffened at her rejection, but after a while, he hung his head, averted his gaze, and looked outward along with Baku.

“You have been so cold lately, Shinjou-kun.”

“That’s because you get so fired up over the weirdest things!!”

“Calm down, calm down.”

He crossed his arms and looked across Kazami, Hiba, and Harakawa, who was reaching out for someone to hand him the next part for the stand.

“Whatever happens, the negative concept activation is in five more days. The other UCATs, the reclusive Gear reservations, and Top-Gear will all make their moves. …And you know what we must do, don’t you?”

Kazami was the one to answer him.

She reached for one of the stand’s supporting beams leaning against the wall and handed it to Harakawa.

“That’s simple. If any Gears reject the Leviathan Road because it was carried out with Top-Gear’s existence hidden, we have to restrain them.”

“Do you think any Gears will do that?”

“If they don’t do anything after holing up for so long, they’ve only wasted their time. A few of them are sure to step forward. …We’ll beat them down, so you two go investigate the past. Got it?”

She looked to Shinjou.

“You’re the only ones who can look into Shinjou Yukio’s past, right?”

Shinjou exhaled before answering Kazami.

“Right.”

She nodded with her eyebrows slightly lifted.

She understood what Kazami meant.

Shinjou Yukio was her mother and she was said to have betrayed Low-Gear and defected to Top-Gear.

“My mom was researching a concept creation theory and she had to have had something to do with the negative concept activation that destroyed Top-Gear, so if we learn more about her, we can approach the truth of Top-Gear’s destruction.”

She looked around and saw the others with their eyebrows a little lowered.

''They’re trying to be considerate,'' she happily noted. ''Sorry,'' she added.

“You don’t have to give me that look. I don’t think my mom was a bad person.”

Wanting to change the subject, she set down her laptop and stood.

She approached the nearly-built festival stand she had been curious about.

“To sum up, Team Leviathan will be using truth as a weapon against Top-Gear. We’ll look into what our parents did, look at the past from the proper viewpoint, get rid of any lies, correct what needs correcting, and stand on equal footing with Top-Gear.”

When she finished, Sayama gave some light applause and smiled.

“An excellent answer, Shinjou-kun. You understand exactly what we want.”

“Heh heh.”

She laughed happily before hearing Sayama speaking from quite close by.

“Yes, yes.” He started with two deep nods. “I too must use my last resort.”

“Okay, let’s calm down.”

She did her best to smile and he suddenly turned toward her.

“Calm down? Are you panicking over something, Shinjou-kun?”

“I was more directing that at you. And…what is your last resort?”

The others also looked concerned and were clearly wondering what this idiot was talking about now.

But Sayama spoke as if he had not noticed. He spoke in his usual, dangerous tone of voice.

“Well, you see, I have an absolute method of stopping Top-Gear no matter what kind of righteousness they claim.”

“Eh?”

He was saying he had a way to ensure victory against someone, no matter how right they were. But…

“Wait a minute. Low-Gear was the one to destroy Top-Gear, so can we really do something like that?”

“We can, although it will require treading on some thin ice. …But to get it all started, how about you take a look at this festival stand?”

She had no idea how the stand could be involved, but if Sayama said it was, it had to be.

She turned to look at it.

“Sayama-kun? I’ve been wondering. What is this strange stand?”

She gave it another look. The stand formed a sealed wooden box with three holes in the front.

The holes were just above waist height, the central one was large enough for a face to fit, and the two on either side were large enough for a hand each.

“It looks like the bottom of a guillotine.”

She tried sticking her head and hands in and found it was dark inside. She could see Hiba and Harakawa reinforcing the inside and she saw Kazami enter from the side.

She noticed a surface for writing near her hand.

She wondered what it was and heard Sayama speaking.

“This is the student council’s consultation stand. Someone might wish to consult us with something confidential, so they stick their head and hands inside so they can privately write and consult with us.”

“I see. …And what is this?”

Suddenly, she heard a quiet metallic sound coming from her waist which stuck out from the stand.

She also felt the cold air reaching her from the waist down, so she realized what was happening to her.

“W-wait, Sayama-kun! Why are you removing my belt and pulling down my pants!? Th-this has nothing to do with that last resort you were talking about!”

“What are you talking about? Of course it does.”

“Just so I know, how is it connected?”

He answered nonchalantly.

“If I am to do anything, I must be filled with excitement.”

“You’re horrible!”

Meanwhile, she felt cloth being peeled away and more skin being exposed to the air.

“Wah!”

She tried to pull herself out, but her head and hands were stuck in the holes.

“Ah! Wait, Sayama-kun! I-I can’t get out!”

“Shinjou-kun. …If you wiggle around like that, your butt will change shape and all my work to make a plaster cast will be for naught.”

“''That’s'' what the plaster was for!? And why are you trying to make a mold of my butt!? K-Kazami-san, stop him!”

Kazami and the others glanced her way but immediately resumed working on the stand.

“Well, it’s just their usual flirting.”

“Harakawa-san, is there something wrong with me if this feels a little dirty to me?”

“Don’t ask about the obvious, Hiba Ryuuji.”

''Wow, they’re horrible too,'' thought Shinjou just as Sayama reached for her underwear.

“Calm down, Shinjou-kun. We are about to leave on an important trip. It is only natural to celebrate the occasion by making a mold. Now, I will start by rubbing butter on your butt.”

“Please use your brain before you speak!”

She tried to kick back at him, but she could not with her pants around her knees.

“Ah, darn. I-I can’t kick right.”

“Ha ha ha,” laughed Sayama. “It would seem a one-legged kick is impossible. Just so you know, your embarrassed butt is quite cute, Shinjou-kun.”

She found she could kick if she used both legs at once, so she did so.

She felt the blow land and heard something tumbling down the stairs beyond the stand’s wall.

Shinjou took a breath, rested her head on her hand inside the stand, and sighed.

“Honestly, what am I supposed to do with him?”

“Just be glad everything’s the same as always.”

She glared at Kazami for that comment and the other girl smiled bitterly.

“Don’t get mad. I’m actually kind of jealous.”

“Hm? …Why?”

Kazami shrugged.

“Kaku would have been here, but he was called out.”

“By who?”

“Well.” Kazami looked up at the stand’s ceiling. “Boldman.”

That name belonged to the man who could be called 6th-Gear’s representative, so they all stopped moving.

Kazami scratched her head and faced her again.

“Sounds pretty dangerous, doesn’t it?”

Something reverberated through the air.

It was not just a sound. The sound was only a portion of it.

Wind, motion, presences, shadows, and strength all formed a great harmony of reverberation.

And that reverberation shook something.

That something was a school lit by the setting sun.

The schoolyard and courtyards were empty.

However, two people stood at the leading edge of all those reverberations. The school had been transformed into a space of reverberation.

The two people jumped high into the sky, leaped from rooftop to rooftop, jumped down to the ground once more, and even ran up the walls using the windowsills as footholds.

When their paths intersected, a great metallic crash raced out.

When they moved apart, wind wrapped around them.

Their movements produced reverberations.

That abandoned space had become a battlefield of reverberations.

One of the two dropped to a courtyard between buildings.

He was a well-built boy. He wore a white shirt and gray school pants.

His hands wielded a large white sword as tall as he was.

He sank down as he landed and several pieces of paper floated around his waist and legs.

The papers had patterns written on them and they bent or stretched to receive the shock of his hard landing.

“!”

A few of them burst.

The tearing of paper added to the reverberating battlefield.

But the boy smiled at the loss of the papers.

“Okay. Those do a great job of absorbing the shock. Doctor Chao and the four brothers left us a great parting gift.”

He gathered so much strength in his crouched legs that the thighs of his pants swelled out from within.

He was preparing to run.

At the same time, green words appeared on the white sword’s console.

“Can you keep going, Izumo?”

“And then some!”

With that expression of confidence, he bared his teeth in a smile and looked up into the sky.

A moment later, something fell right in front of him. It was the other person creating this battlefield.

Izumo called out the man’s name.

“C’mon, Boldman!”

His words were soon followed by a great reverberation of destruction.

<noinclude>
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| Back to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume12 Preface|Preface]]
| Return to [[Owari no Chronicle|Main Page]]
| Forward to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume12 Chapter 1|Chapter 1]]
|-
|}
</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Chapter 38

2026-10-27T03:44:24Z

N-Ch:

==Chapter 38: Understanding of Goodbye==
[[Image:OnC_v11_0547.png|thumb]]
''Our hearts are drifting apart

''I have no way of knowing it for sure, though

Mikoku ran through the forest.

She was traveling south. She had made sure she could cross the mountain and reach the road to the south within five minutes if something did happen to Hajji.

The truck for the men controlling the dolls was there and it could be used to evacuate.

The current situation required their help.

She had stayed behind as the rear guard and she was making a wide circle to draw away anyone pursuing them. Her winding route would cause the enemy to lose track of the rest of her comrades.

She simply ran and ran without making a sound on the dried leaves or breaking a single twig underfoot.

…''Hajji was defeated?

But even if he had been defeated as the Army’s strength, the Army’s ideals and the rest of their strength remained.

Nevertheless, Mikoku clenched her teeth.

“If only I were more powerful…”

Her job had been to protect Shino and secure their aboveground escape route.

She had done that, but she had also allowed Sayama and Kazami to enter the building.

She knew the others would say it had been an unforeseen situation, that her job had been to protect Shino, and that she had not been asked to keep anyone out.

…''But I could not catch up to them.

In their race to the building, she had not caught up to Kazami and Sayama.

Sayama was her fake.

She felt like she had lost to an imitation.

She had been unable to catch up and that imitation had defeated Hajji.

''Why?'' she belatedly asked herself. She had much more training, she likely knew how to handle a weapon better than him, and she was the only one with the ability to regenerate.

But that ability was meaningless when she could not even catch up.

She only knew that the boy had not been looking at her.

''Why wasn’t he?'' she wondered as she ran. ''Why was he not looking at me?

Why would someone pay no attention to their back on the battlefield?

“Mikoku!”

That voice from behind made her tremble.

It was Shino.

The girl gasped for breath and approached with her white dog.

“You idiot.”

Mikoku twisted her eyebrows but also breathed a mental sigh of relief.

If the Army’s military might had not gotten through, it meant UCAT survived.

The coming battles would be political ones and individual ones. UCAT would have to settle things with the representatives of the reservations and of Top-Gear as well.

To put it another way, they would have to begin the true Leviathan Road that was held under the whole truth.

And Mikoku could remain with Shino until those battles were over.

…''What should I do?

She could be with her, but she would eventually have to say goodbye.

If she mentioned that, Shino would resist it.

But Mikoku could not continue living as they had without saying it.

Not saying it would mean living a lie.

…''So would it be better to leave her now?

The evacuation truck was up ahead. They only had to climb this hill and descend on the other side.

Would it be best to take Shino there, put her on the truck, but not get on herself?

After distancing Shino so much, should she start distancing herself?

But then…

“Mikoku.”

Shino ran alongside her.

She worked desperately to keep up and her footsteps sounded loudly on the dried leaves.

She turned to face Mikoku and forced a smile.

“I’m glad I can be with you here.”

Mikoku gasped when she heard that.

…''Sorry.

She had pushed Shino away for so long.

She had told her not to fight, to stop training, and that she was inexperienced, but all of that was better directed at herself today.

Even after all of those outbursts, Shino was trying to remain by her side, so she made up her mind.

…''I will be the one to leave her.

She would be able to contact Tatsumi and the others, work separately from them, and try to rid herself of this reliance on Shino.

So she ran with Shino to climb the hill, descend it, and reach the site of their parting.

Once Shino was inside the truck, she would close it from outside and say she was sorry this had to happen now.

…''That is what I will do.

That decision lightened her heart.

She thought of the footsteps next to her as a precious thing instead of a natural one and she matched her breathing to Shino’s.

Shino’s breathing was dangerously erratic, but that worry would end here too.

“…!?”

Suddenly, she heard something.

It came from above. Something was falling through the branches and toward them.

She looked up and saw her enemy in the darkness between the branches and leaves.

It was the sword god.

The man named Atsuta had his eyebrows raised.

“You think I’m letting you escape!?”

He rapidly dropped down and swung his Cowling Sword, so Mikoku used all her strength to strike back with her own sword.

She opened her mouth, but it was not a cry of focus that came out. She spoke to the surprised girl next to her.

“Get back, Shino! Hurry up and escape!”

Her shout shook the forest, but she soon heard something unexpected.

It came from Shino’s mouth as she remained stopped next to her.

“Why!?”

Mikoku turned to Shino and found the previous fake smile was gone. A natural teary expression had taken its place.

That was the girl’s reaction to Mikoku’s attempt to distance her.

“Why do you push me away!?”

She wanted to say that was not it.

She wanted to say that was not what she had meant. She wanted to say she had meant this battle was dangerous.

…''I do not want to push you away!

Shino had to understand, but she was unable to restrain herself in this tense situation. Her emotions had reflexively exploded from her.

But none of this should have been happening here.

Immediately afterward, three things happened.

First, Atsuta’s dropping Cowling Sword struck Mikoku’s sword.

Second, the force of that impact shattered the worn-down Cowling Sword’s cowling.

And third, the concept contained inside the Cowling Sword was emitted in an uncontrolled state.

“!?”

A moment later, one of the hills in the mountains of Okutama was destroyed and collapsed.

Countless sounds of impact rang through the moonlit forest.

They were the sounds of black wings striking the trees.

The trees would spin through the air and fall back into the forest. Susamikado flew face up into the trees and created a canyon in the forest.

It stopped after knocking over a few trees, it was covered in damage, and it had several deep cuts in its armor.

White smoke rose from its body and a single footstep sounded about ten meters in front of it.

A white god of war stood taller than the surrounding trees as it stepped on the earth and stone.

A girl stood on the white god of war’s right shoulder.

She wore a long sword on her back and she brushed up her black hair.

“You definitely didn’t make this easy.”

She wiped some sweat from her brow and smiled.

“Despite what happened afterward, Hajji still said what he needed to say. I wonder what’s happening on the Gear reservations right now. Are they perhaps refusing to speak with UCAT? After all, this completely overturns the basic assumptions of the Leviathan Road.”

She had the white god of war slowly raise its two swords to chest height.

“But your negotiations weren’t a complete waste. You did gain some cultural exchange and trust. But it is now time for atonement…and for our righteousness,” she said. “Not that it matters for you. Our battle will end here.”

Typhon swung down the sword in its left hand.

A moment later, Susamikado shot up into a sitting position.

The blade in its right hand raced up to catch the blade.

But Typhon’s actions remained calm. It stopped its left sword to hold Susamikado’s blade in place and swung down the other sword in its right hand.

Susamikado had no way of blocking this one.

“Farewell, fake.”

Her words struck Susamikado.

In that instant, Susamikado’s blade extended. No, Susamikado actually extended its swing to the right.

The black blade moved into the forest.

The forest was made up of trees and the blade chopped down one of them.

It intentionally kept the blade diagonal and the tree forcefully bent into a shallow V shape.

The cut top half fell toward Typhon.

“That is useless!!”

Typhon knocked away the falling tree with the left sword it had raised for defense.

It also took a step.

Its right leg stepped forward to swing down its right sword.

The tip of the right blade entered the left side of Susamikado’s chest.

It stabbed in below the collarbone and a bit toward the side.

“…!”

The horizontally-oriented blade slid into the gap below the collarbone armor.

Without the armor, a god of war was nothing more than a collection of frames and components.

The blade stabbed through to Susamikado’s back as easily as through tofu.

But Typhon did not stop there.

It tried to use the output of its right arm to pull the blade inward. That blade was caught between the collarbone and chest armor, so Typhon was trying to use that parting line as a guide and pull the blade to just below the neck.

“Miki! You’ll regret doing this!!”

Tatsumi ignored Susamikado’s shout.

Typhon pointed the bottom of its right arm toward the sky and moved to make the cut.

In that instant, Tatsumi heard a distant metallic sound. It came from the Japanese UCAT building to her right.

She turned in that direction and saw two enemy gods of war standing on top of the destroyed white building.

One was a silver god of war and the other was a maid god of war created from a mass-produced 3rd model.

Tatsumi saw the silver one lifting the maid one overhead.

The maid god of war was extended horizontally while the silver one was in a javelin-throwing pose.

At the same time, a shout came from the girl in a white armored uniform standing at the silver god of war’s feet.

“Here we go!!”

With that, she swung both her arms to move the silver machine.

It performed a quick throw.

The maid god of war held its arms up in an X-shape as it broke through an explosion of water vapor.

After the sound of the air exploding, the god of war flew toward Typhon like a shell.

It had controlled its inertia and gravity to transform itself into a light shell. If it returned its weight just before impact, it would have the same effects as a massive shell. The impact would likely smash its frame and internal components, but…

“Do you not care!?”

Typhon let go of its right sword and held out its right shoulder.

This was a defensive pose meant to endure the impact.

The moment the impact reached its shoulder, it would catch and eliminate that force.

Catching and negating strength was Tatsumi’s specialty, so she would do exactly that.

She moved Typhon a bit to the left and away from the flying maid god of war. That way, she could redirect the god of war and immediately slice through Susamikado.

Or that was her intention anyway.

“Eh?”

Instead, a tone of question escaped her lips.

She then heard a light metallic sound like an empty can falling to the ground.

She saw the maid god of war fly up into the sky.

''Strange,'' she thought. ''My timing should have been perfect.

But for some reason, the maid god of war had been knocked into the moonlit sky. And like an empty can at that.

“Why?”

She had great confidence in her skill, so this unexpected outcome stopped her.

She only froze for an instant, but at her level, that was enough of an opening.

She heard the answer to her question from up ahead.

“She didn’t remove the inertial control. She knew this wouldn’t work, so she acted as a decoy!!”

There was a reason that plan had successfully surprised Tatsumi and created an opening.

“Miki, you think everyone is attacking you!!”

The black blade raced toward her.

As he piloted Susamikado, Hiba realized his blade had hit nothing.

Typhon had jumped back using its six wings.

If it made a counterattack now, this was all over.

“———!”

So he let go of the blade and threw it.

Typhon deflected the thrown black blade just as Susamikado’s right hand grabbed the sword stabbing into its chest.

Hiba forcibly pulled the sword from his own shoulder.

“…!!”

He instantly pulled it out, rotated it around, and grabbed the hilt.

He held it forward, but…

“She’s gone?”

The white god of war and Tatsumi had vanished from the split forest.

“Ryuuji-kun, up above!”

He looked up and saw Typhon in the center of the dark sky. It had its back turned, showing him its wings.

From its shoulder, Tatsumi turned just her head to look his way.

“Sorry, but it’s time I left.”

Typhon flew further up into the sky. A white line traveled south and divided the starry sky. That was the contrail produced by Alex’s wings.

Typhon spread its wings as if guided by that line.

Back on the ground, Susamikado stepped forward without moving its left arm. It looked up into the sky like a child being left behind.

“What good is leaving!? The Army lost!”

“Yes, the Army did. But only as a military force and not as Top-Gear.”

Hiba saw a bitter smile in the sky.

“But what about politically? And…what about us as individuals? Can you truly say that you defeated us?”

“Well…”

“The world will no longer forgive you and our war is not over. Even as you attempt to atone, you fakes will have to deal with your real versions from Top-Gear.”

The white wings fully opened.

“Let’s have some fun next time, too. Then, our battle can determine who is real and who is fake with no room for gray.”

“Miki!!”

Susamikado called out and tried to spread its wings to pursue.

But the left wings refused to move. The second base moved, but the first base refused to stand up from the machine’s back. It only produced the sound of components locking together and whirring fruitlessly.

“…!!”

Meanwhile, Tatsumi faced forward into the night sky containing that white line.

“Later.”

She flew.

The full power of the six white wings took their owner away in an instant.

All that remained was the noise of the enemy tearing through the air to leave.

Lights dotted the dark forests of Okutama’s mountains.

That white color attempting to resist the darkness belonged to the streetlights along a riverside road.

A single light tore through the darkness as if to assist those streetlights in their resistance.

It was a car’s headlights.

A black limousine traveled quickly up the mountain to reach the Akigawa region.

The driver was a young man with short hair. He wore a black shirt and a blue suit and he spoke into the limousine’s hands-free phone.

“Sister, I’m on my way back there. Has anything strange happened while I was away?”

“Hm? I-I-I-I didn’t do anything. More importantly, Kouji, did you see the young master?”

“He only needed a suit, so he asked me to leave it with the guard. He said he still has work to do but he’ll need a change of clothes afterward.”

“Hmm. Then I guess he won’t be back at the dorm until morning. …Then, Kouji, buy me some ice cream at the convenience store on your way back. I want the experimental flavor of Garo Garo-kun.”

“Yes, yes,” said Kouji as he ended the call.

He reached for the gear stick and prepared to accelerate.

“!?”

He reacted on reflex when he noticed something odd up ahead.

He avoided it.

He moved the hand on the gear stick to the hand brake and yanked it up.

The back end of the car rotated to the right and he ignored the screeching of the tires as it turned.

“There.”

After the car shot into the right lane and faced the opposite direction, he pressed on the accelerator.

He used the acceleration of the spinning wheels to cancel out the motion vector pulling the car backward.

Once it trembled and came to a stop, he neatly parked the large limousine on the shoulder of the descending side of the road.

He then opened the door and stepped out.

Once out in the chilly night air, he looked behind the car.

“Who is that?”

Someone was collapsed in the center of the road.

It was a girl wearing some kind of thick black outfit.

He could see her chest rising and falling as she breathed, but her clothes were covered in mud for some reason.

This was a mountain road, but the upward slope was covered in concrete and the other side was a large valley. He looked up the slope but only saw a forest filled with dry leaves. Also…

…''There are no footprints leading here.

And yet the girl’s feet were covered in mud.

He frowned as he looked at her military-style boots.

“…”

Her right leg took a sudden bend inward at the inside edge of the shin.

“It’s broken. Did she fall from above?”

He did not know, but the process of elimination left that as the only possibility he could think of.

He looked around to see if anyone else was around, but…

“No one. I can’t even hear anything moving.”

He lowered his shoulders and looked back at the girl.

He did not know what was going on, but he could not leave her here now that he had found her. He touched the hair covering her face as he wondered if he should call for an ambulance.

The face he found below the hair was one he recognized.

She was the guest who had stopped by near the end of the morning. She was the one who had suddenly left.

His confusion left him as a question.

“Who are you?”

But the words that escaped his lips received a response.

The collapsed girl gave a quiet answer as she let out a breath.

“Shino.”

A moment later, she fully lost consciousness and her head slumped limply down.

“My name is Tamiya Shino.”

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| Forward to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Chapter 39|Final Chapter]]
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</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Chapter 37

2026-10-26T01:47:06Z

N-Ch:

==Chapter 37: Restraining a Great Sin==
[[Image:OnC_v11_0513.png|thumb]]
''Your heart is screaming

''For you to fulfill it

''For you to show it off

''“It” being your attack on the past’s hesitation

Kazami followed the shortest route indicated by the automatons and raced down the stairway to the sixth basement.

Sayama would be facing Hajji down below. She did not know the exact situation, but they had made a promise.

…''So that idiot can definitely pull this off!

“G-Sp2, second form.”

That was the cannon form. If Hajji had his back to her and she saw Sayama and the others were in danger, she would fire.

With a shot from behind, Hajji could even die from the impact if he was unlucky.

And if she did kill him, she would have to live with that fact.

But she did not hesitate. She had decided to stop him if he was going to harm Sayama or Shinjou.

Her eyebrows rose in thought as she ran.

…''This is the job of an upperclassman.

Once the bottom of the stairs came into view, she spread her wings.

Her body floated up and her footsteps vanished.

“…”

She needlessly spread her arms to grasp at the air and she slowly fell through empty space.

“Then let me ask you something, negotiator.”

She heard Hajji’s voice beginning the negotiation.

When she heard Hajji, Shinjou looked to Sayama’s back in front of her.

He had removed the coat of his dark blue suit, so she could see his vest. His lowered left arm had a gash near the elbow of the shirt and the forearm was stained red.

…''Is he okay?

His back answered her with silence.

She could only look in the same direction as him. There, she saw Hajji in his black armored uniform.

The man turned his powerful gaze directly toward Sayama.

“I will ask you about the seven sins I mentioned earlier, plus one other question. That makes eight,” he said. “And no matter how you answer, I will be taking the Concept Cores after the eight questions. Fortunately, 7th’s Concept Core seems to be here too. That is terribly convenient. Yes.”

Sayama crossed his arms at the man’s low voice.

He nodded and Shinjou heard him speak.

“I see. Eight questions is quite a lot of trouble, Hajji-kun. So please hurry it up. And to help…”

She saw him arch his back and jerk his chin toward Hajji.

“Ask your questions, Hajji-kun. I shall answer them all at once after I have heard all eight.”

Hajji did not immediately respond to Sayama’s suggestion.

He kept his spear prepared in his right hand.

He had a single thought: There had to be a reason for that suggestion.

…''This boy said he would answer all of them at once after hearing all eight.

What was his reason for speeding things up with a single answer instead of a conversation of question and answer?

After all, it was in Sayama’s best interests to stall for time here. That would allow his allies to arrive.

But he had requested that Hajji quickly make all his requests so he could answer them all at once.

…''Why? Why rush this?

Sayama was a negotiator and he had dealt with several Gears’ representatives.

…''And this conversation is being broadcast to every UCAT and reservation.

Both of them had to be careful what they said, so Hajji thought about why Sayama would rush this.

“…”

His sight found the answer.

He spotted it on the boy’s crossed arms.

Sayama was holding his left arm to hide it, but it was wet with blood.

Hajji could tell he had lost a lot of blood.

…''If we alternated between question and answer, he would need to think about and discuss each question individually.

But if he heard all eight questions first and gave his eight answers in a row, there would be much less discussion.

…''So he is shortening this due to his bleeding.

''I see,'' thought Hajji. ''That is not a problem.

It was also safer for Hajji to finish the negotiation quickly and make off with the Concept Cores.

And even if Sayama was bleeding badly, Shinjou behind him was unharmed.

Abram was on the verge of collapsing, but he did indeed stand in front of the metal door.

In that case, Hajji decided it was best to avoid any unnecessary work.

“Fine then. I will ask my questions.”

He took a breath and began to speak, beginning with number one.

“First, how do you justify your Gear causing the time of destruction?”

That question received a response. Shinjou shouted at him.

“Th-there’s no way we can justify that! We weren’t the ones who made this world!!”

Hajji did not say anything back.

Instead, Sayama nodded and tilted his head back toward her.

“Listen, Shinjou-kun. It is still Hajji-kun’s turn to speak. We must not interrupt him.”

“…Uuh.”

She reluctantly nodded and hung her head, so Hajji sighed and spoke to Sayama.

“I thank you.”

“Then can I say that you owe me one?”

The boy smiled bitterly and Hajji did the same. He also sighed again.

“Then I retract my thanks. I can’t have you thinking I owe you anything.”

Before Sayama could say anything, Hajji asked the next question.

“Second, how do you justify killing your neighbors by destroying the ten Gears?”

The Leviathan Road would accomplish that, so Hajji knew it was a relatively meaningless question.

But the larger the number of sins in his list, the worse an image it gave his enemy. And those in the Gears who still did not approve of their allegiance with Low-Gear would still want to continue with that question.

''It is an important question,'' he thought as he continued on.

“Third, how do you justify killing your mother by destroying Top-Gear, which is the mother of us all?”

He did not stop there.

“Fourth, how do you justify killing your other selves? And fifth, how do you justify causing a disaster in your own world and killing unconnected residents of Low-Gear?”

At that point, Hajji looked to Sayama.

The boy was expressionless. He silently stared back with his arms crossed.

He looked like he was thinking, yet he also looked like he was not.

But giving him time here would only allow him to come up with a satisfactory answer.

On the other hand, the questions had been prepared from the beginning. And over the course of ten years.

…''Acting self-important would only irritate those who have lost so much.

So Hajji formed his words. As the spokesman for those who had lost so much, he used his mouth like a speaker.

“Sixth, how do you justify covering up these sins? And seventh, how do you justify hiding your sins and yet attempting to bring the ignorant survivors of those Gears under your control through the Leviathan Road!?”

Hajji raised his voice and inhaled.

In front of him, Sayama remained expressionless and had not spoken since quieting Shinjou.

Hajji shook his head a bit, cracked his neck, and looked at Sayama again.

“Now, time for the eighth question. But let me warn you first. …A slight misstep in answering this question will be a grave error indeed.”

He held his spear below his arm and made sure Sayama, the others in front of him, and anyone behind him were not moving.

“What do you think of this?”

He pulled a black stopwatch from his pocket and placed a finger on the button.

“Outside of the concept space, over a thousand bombs have been hidden throughout Tokyo’s major stations, shopping districts, and regional residential districts. If I press this button, they will all detonate.”

Faced with this sudden demand, Shinjou’s eyes opened wide while Sayama remained expressionless.

“Surrender. If you do not, I will press the button.”

Shinjou gasped.

She gulped, forced down a breath, and somehow managed to speak the word in her heart.

“S-Sayama-kun!”

That name produced a slight smile.

But not from Sayama. It came from Hajji.

…''Kh.

Her frustration nearly escaped her as words.

She wanted to swap places with the man using Yonkichi’s concept, but that required him to take hostile action against her.

He was not making any kind of attack.

Instead of fighting, he had taken hostages.

“Th-that’s not fair!”

“Not fair? Which do you think is higher? The number of people who will die in the bombs I have set up around Tokyo or the number of people who died in the Great Kansai Earthquake ten years ago? And with that in mind, let me ask something else. Will you repeat your past mistake or will you prove that you have learned from that mistake?”

Hajji held the stopwatch up at chest height.

“Can you think about that tragedy from ten years ago? Your parents died then, didn’t they?”

As if to answer, Sayama’s back swelled up before Shinjou’s eyes. He had taken a breath.

…''What are you going to do? Do you have a plan?

Hajji said people would die if they did not surrender.

She doubted Hajji was lying. If he triggered the bombs, he could simply say it happened because UCAT had not learned from the past. It would not hurt him in the slightest.

Hajji gave a weary sigh and held the button up as he spoke.

“Listen, Sayama. Please… Please do not make me press this button.”

He tilted his head.

“What is your response as Low-Gear’s representative?”

“…!”

''He got us,'' thought Shinjou as she bit her lower lip.

This was all being broadcast to the UCATs and reservations around the world.

And they would all know what Hajji was saying.

…''If he presses the button, it’s our responsibility! And it will make UCAT out to be completely selfish and evil!

She wanted to do something and she gathered strength in her right shoulder where Ex-St rested.

But then she heard Sayama speak.

He also languidly cracked his neck.

“I see. Fortunately, Hajji-kun, it would seem the two of us have reached a consensus. So let me give you my answer to your ‘don’t press the button’ competition.”

That answer was…

“If you want to press the button, go right ahead. It is none of my business.”

For a moment, Hajji did not understand what Sayama had said.

Once the words traveled to his brain via his ears, he rolled them around in his mouth a bit and finally…

“You fool!!”

The word “disappointment” appeared in his heart.

He raised the stopwatch and began to squeeze the finger on the button.

…''I’m sorry. If they had changed from a decade ago, this wouldn’t have happened!

He had to prove to the Gear reservations and the other UCATs that UCAT had not changed.

It had to be in a way that no one could deny and no one could forget.

His enemy had agreed to that. All that remained was for him to sully his name as the one who actually performed the bombing.

“…!”

He moved to press the button.

But just as he did, Sayama spoke.

“But I am surprised, Hajji-kun. …I never thought you wanted to kill the people of Low-Gear this badly.”

“!?”

Hajji reflexively stopped the finger he held on the button.

He frowned and looked to Sayama in doubt.

Meanwhile, Sayama bent back to look down on him.

“What is the matter? Don’t you want to press it? If that is what you want, go right ahead.”

Sayama spoke with a smile on his lips.

“But let me say one thing. …I do not want you to press that button. Also, your actions here are the actions of the entire Army. Do you understand what I am saying?” He took a breath. “You are pressing that button even though I am saying I do not want you to. Are you perhaps finding any flimsy excuse you can to fulfill your own desire to kill the people of Low-Gear?”

“No!” Hajji shouted back on reflex. “I care for the people of Low-Gear!”

“So you claim. …But either way, you intend to find some reason to press that button, don’t you? …It all sounds like excuses to me. Even a pig can claim to care for people.”

Hajji’s cheeks twisted at Sayama’s words, but the boy slowly tilted his head and continued speaking.

“You are a surprisingly disgraceful man, Hajji-kun. Please think about this carefully.”

He slowly used his chin to point at the explosive switch Hajji held.

“As for that button…listen. You decide whether you will press it or not.”

“What do you mean by that!?”

“Is it really that surprising? Isn’t it obvious? Neither of us trusts the other much. And looking at this as a part of our negotiation, it is even more obvious,” declared the boy. “Simply put, the truth behind your words and actions only exists inside you until you let it out. In. Other. Words.”

Sayama gently shook his body and posed on the last three words.

He then smiled and continued.

“If you want to kill, then show it by killing. If you do not want to kill, then show it by stopping.”

“This negotiation is about your surrender! Are you going to abandon those innocent lives!?”

“Look in the mirror and say that again. …I fight in place of those innocents and I am negotiating as their representative, so on a fundamental level, I cannot use them as a bargaining chip.”

He looked directly at the man.

“But I can say one thing as their representative: Please do not kill them. And I can say one other thing as the one who fights on their behalf: I cannot surrender.”

He raised his left hand and pointed at Hajji.

“If you insist on using those innocent people as a bargaining chip, I can say something else from my position.”

“What is that?”

“It is simple. This is not the give and take of negotiation. It is death or defeat. You are asking me to see value only in the survival of the innocent people. But their survival should not even be a question. So I must establish a clear give and take on my end.”

He spoke clearly.

“You and your Army will be killing a large number of innocent people, so I demand that you surrender, retract all seven of your accusations, and immediately cease all acts of agitation toward the Gear reservations. That is my equivalent demand assuming you use those innocent lives as a bargaining chip. And…this is a negotiation you suggested in the first place!!”

“…!”

“If you gave no thought to this while taking these hostages, I can only imagine you truly wanted to slaughter this world’s people with no resistance whatsoever!!”

Shinjou’s eyes opened wide as she looked to the back in front of her.

Sayama was turned slightly to the side as he strongly pointed at Hajji.

“I will now give my answer to your seven questions.”

That answer was…

“How do you expect us to answer that now, you moron?”

“…!!”

Shinjou saw Hajji bare his teeth. The strength in his shoulders was near bursting and Shinjou switched Ex-St to standby mode without thinking.

But Sayama kept the words coming without fearing Hajji.

“Listen. You have no proof of any of these supposed truths. Top-Gear? What are you talking about? The real us? Who is that? A false world? Never heard of it. Are you going to compare the DNA lurking inside these ‘true’ versions of us with the lively genes residing inside us? If you do not at least do that, you may have some credibility, but it is still a gray zone!!”

“Enough lies!” roared Hajji as he turned his strength into words. “You are bluffing! Can you not imagine the lives on the other end of this button!?”

“Oh? You are still being rather rude, but at least you are finally willing to acknowledge bluffs. Excellent. Now, let me tell you something. In this audiovisual age, people’s imaginations are only triggered by what they can see or hear right in front of them.”

Sayama took a breath.

“You claim there are lives on the other end of that button? All I can imagine is you deciding to move your finger and then pressing that button! It all comes back to your will! Do not blame the button for the killing!”

He shook his head toward Hajji before continuing.

“Also, you spent an entire decade putting together these questions, yet now you are demanding an answer in the middle of a battle with no time for evidence, examination, or discussion!? We have no way of determining whether there are any traps hidden in those questions. After all, we are just as foolish and ignorant as you have said!! What if rushing our answer here ends up harming some other Gear!? That would be a terrible problem!”

…''Wow. Dragging the other Gears into this really isn’t fair.

Shinjou did not speak her thought out loud. She simply opened her mouth in surprise.

She let out a breath and spoke her true thoughts to the back striking a pose in front of her.

“Sayama-kun, I thought rushing to an answer was the only thing you knew how to do.”

“Heh heh heh. Shinjou-kun, it only looks that way because my mind works so quickly.”

“Is that so?” she said, sounding unconvinced.

At the same time, she heard Hajji’s voice.

“I see.”

She looked up and saw he had lowered his tensed shoulders.

His expression had cooled and he threw the stopwatch to the floor.

“So you refuse to have a serious conversation, is that it? Then let us say that the Army tested you and you did your best to avoid the issue. With that said…”

He used his right hand to support the spear held under his arm.

…''Here he comes.

She had predicted this. After hearing the answers to his eight questions, he would come to steal the Concept Cores.

Based on everything that had happened, he likely intended to attack them and break through the door.

…''He is coming.

She nodded and searched through her armor’s waist pocket with her left hand.

Once he ran forward and swung his spear to break through, she would swap places with him using Yonkichi’s concept. That would point him in the direction she was facing now.

It would only last an instant, but turning around would create a large time lag.

It would create an opening to attack.

And she looked to Sayama in front of her.

His unclosed left hand hung limply at his side and blood from the elbow covered the fingers.

“…”

Just as a drop of blood fell to the floor and splattered…

“!!”

Hajji gave a roar and moved.

In a kneeling sniping pose, Kazami had a hand on G-Sp2’s trigger.

She targeted Hajji with one eye closed.

…''I have to stop him!

But her eye saw something other than Hajji’s back.

For some reason, she saw Shinjou’s surprised face instead.

“Eh?”

Her instincts found the answer faster than her thoughts.

Hajji had used a fighting tactic she specialized in, so she reflexively called out.

“Above!!”

She did indeed find Hajji in the place indicated by that word.

The bottom of his armored uniform spread out near the ceiling above Sayama and Shinjou.

He was jumping over them all.

He had made it look like he was taking on the two of them and then he had abandoned the fight.

…''Is he settling the battle between the Army and UCAT instead of this personal confrontation!?

He jumped high, kicked off the ceiling, and landed behind Sayama and Shinjou.

Those two turned around, but it was too late.

He was already running down the corridor. The only thing in his way was Abram who could definitely be called badly injured. Abram would be an obstacle, but he had no chance of winning now.

…''So will he steal the Concept Cores!?

Panicking, Kazami aimed G-Sp2, but Shinjou and Sayama were in the way.

Thinking of gaining a line of fire down the far left or right, she stood up and flew straight down the corridor.

At the same time, Sayama and Shinjou finished turning and began to run.

But they were too slow and Kazami was too far away.

“Kh.”

About halfway down the corridor, Kazami moved to the left side and slid down onto her right knee. She took up her sniping position again.

She felt heat in her right knee because even her defensive stocking could not completely hold off the frictional heat.

But the panic in her stomach was even greater.

She held up G-Sp2, but…

…''I’m not going to make it!?

Sayama and Shinjou were not going to catch up either. With only a few steps left, Hajji raised his spear in his right arm.

His target was Abram who stood in front of the metal door to the Concept Core storage area.

But Abram had several injuries and was in no state to fight.

So he said nothing, spread his arms to protect the door, and stared Hajji in the eye.

The two men prepared to clash.

But just before they did, someone shot out of the small corridor to the side.

Kazami opened the left eye she had closed for aiming and she trembled. She recognized the person who moved between Hajji and Abram.

She cried out the individual’s name in a trembling voice.

“Lady Arnavaz!?”

As she ran, Shinjou was stopped by the arm Sayama suddenly held out to the right.

He stopped moving as if he had stopped breathing and he looked to Hajji’s back ten meters ahead.

Shinjou slowly caught her breath in order to remain silent.

“Sayama-kun?”

After her question, she saw it.

Hajji had stopped his raised spear.

“Eh?”

For some reason, Arnavaz had rushed out in front of him and he had stopped moving.

Sayama nodded as if to answer Shinjou’s silent question.

He slowly gulped for once.

“I do not entirely understand, but it seems Arnavaz-kun has taken command of the situation.”

“D-did you know this was going to happen?”

After a pause, he shook his head.

“I had heard footsteps approaching from behind, so I had assumed someone would intercept Hajji-kun even if we let him go. But I never thought it would be a civilian. I was careless.”

Shinjou gulped just like he had.

…''No one predicted this situation.

Just as she wondered what to do, she heard a voice from up ahead.

Of the three unmoving people, the voice had come from Hajji.

“Shahrnavaz.”

Shinjou frowned at that name.

Hajji had spoken his sister’s name.

…''What does this mean?

With confusion in her eyes, she faced forward while holding her breath.

Hajji took a slow breath.

He knew very well who the woman before him was.

She was Arnavaz. The blind woman was the last princess of the Sahan family in this world’s Middle East.

She had agreed to marry into Abram’s Mesam family in order to revive her family.

Abram had chosen UCAT over the Mesam family and the Sahan family had been destroyed.

''However,'' thought Hajji.

“Blind girl. Arnavaz of Sahan. I have already spoken the truth. Your husband, Abram Mesam, is a fake merely using the name. He is Sarv, the killer of my sister.”

He took a breath.

“Do you not believe me?”

With her eyes closed, she shook her head at his question.

Seeing that, Sarv who was going by Abram closed his own eyes behind her.

Hajji sent a sigh of understanding toward the floor.

“Princess of Sahan, please move out of my way. As the great general of 9th-Gear and the leader of the Army, I can no longer condone the killing of civilians. …And if you act as his shield, some might claim UCAT used civilians to shield themselves.”

“No.”

Arnavaz frowned and shook her head.

“I will not move.”

Those words triggered a certain emotion deep inside Hajji’s gut.

The emotion forced its way up and escaped his throat as words.

“This man…has been deceiving you all this time!”

“I am aware of that,” she said as if double-checking. “I am blind, so I must trust others to survive. And the Abram Mesam I had heard of was a man of medicine and known as a Fereydun. And yet…”

A small smile escaped to her lips.

“The man who came for me was a large warrior with thick, hard hands. Not even my brothers could compare. …I immediately knew he was not the same person.”

“Then…!”

“Yes.” She nodded. “But he held the hands holding the sword I had prepared for him, he got down on one knee, and he asked for my forgiveness. He even trembled when facing me. He was just like a child afraid of being scolded.”

She took a breath.

“The desert family of Sahan is a proud family. The last daughter of Sahan had to show forgiveness to one who trembled and asked for it. Also, I am blind, I must trust others to survive. And he answered my trust in kind and has given me a blessed life ever since.”

“But that is a life built on lies!!”

“I am aware of that. He is not Abram Mesam. Nor is he the Fereydun who saved lives on the path of medicine. But…”

Her unseeing and unfocused eyes turned toward Hajji. Her eyebrows were raised.

“He is my Fereydun. That is not a lie.”

And…

“What are you to me?”

A moment later, Hajji raised his tightly-held spear.

“!!”

He raised his eyebrows and twisted his face as he used the spear to knock Abram and Arnavaz to the right.

Abram held Arnavaz to protect her, but they both still fell on the small stairway.

“I…!”

With that shout, Hajji returned his spear from the right and prepared to slam it into the metal door.

But just as he began to attack, he noticed a power striking his right shoulder from behind.

He looked back and saw a boy in a vest.

“Listen. I will show you a world of pain.”

Hajji turned around on reflex.

“Oh!!”

He launched a spear attack on the boy from directly above.

But as he turned, the boy’s movements entered his field of vision.

The boy bent his raised right arm and prepared his stance.

His right knee was already rising.

His left foot was planted solidly on the corridor floor.

The force of that step sent his right leg straight up and toward Hajji’s jaw.

There was no avoiding it, so it struck.

Hajji’s body was knocked upward from the jaw.

“!”

He cried out just as a blow hit his chest.

The boy had raised his right fist, rotated it back, and then slammed it straight into him.

After the kick to the jaw had stretched him upward, the fist had struck the center of his body.

His sternum was smashed and his entire body creaked.

He heard the boy ask a question.

“Was that painful enough?”

Shinjou said a single thing concerning the scene before her.

“He did it…”

But she quickly tightened her grip on Ex-St again.

Sayama was quickly correcting his posture in front of her.

He could not move while lowering his hips to sink down.

But Hajji had not given up.

Shinjou had definitely heard his sternum break. More than the pain, he would be having trouble breathing without the bone supporting his muscles.

But he used all the air remaining in his lungs to attack.

He turned his left eye toward Sayama. That was the eye socket that seemed to contain pure darkness.

Shinjou did not know quite what it was, but her instincts told her it was dangerous.

“N-…”

She tried to shout “no”.

But in that instant, she saw Baku raise his front paws from Sayama’s head.

In a split second, Shinjou saw a battle in the past.

Inside a forest, she saw an unfamiliar boy’s back and a werewolf beyond him.

Back then, she had hesitated and not pulled back the firing anchor.

“…”

She had been afraid of hitting the boy.

She had been afraid of killing the werewolf.

But…

“But!”

With a voiceless yell, she woke from the past.

[[Image:OnC_v11_0541.jpg|thumb]]

“———!!”

Shinjou fired Ex-St.

She did so without doubt, fear, or hesitation.

…''That way I won’t misuse this power!!

The white light shot straight toward the left side of Hajji’s chest.

The blade-like blast entered between his collarbone and upper chest and it left through his back.

“…!”

He bent back from the impact and the gaze of his left eye was fired toward the ceiling.

Cracks instantly ran through the ceiling and it noisily shattered into pebbles.

But Hajji was still moving.

“Oh!”

That strike had been powerful enough to blow away a god of war, but he frowned below the scattering fragments of the ceiling, bared his canine teeth, and desired to clash with Sayama.

He held his spear close and sent it ahead of his body.

Sayama was not wearing any armor, so its blade was plenty capable of piercing straight through him.

But Shinjou simply opened her mouth.

She raised her eyebrows and shouted to the boy who crouched down in front of her.

“Don’t lose!!”

Pushed on by Shinjou’s words, Sayama took action.

He raised his right arm as he stood.

…''I need to remember the basics.

He calmed himself, ignored the power and shouting in front of him, and gathered his footing.

He pulled his right foot back and pressed it solidly against the floor.

Supported by that, he placed his left foot a bit forward and to the left.

As soon as that left foot fell in place, he twisted his left heel outward, raised his left knee, and raised his hips.

That movement flowed into a rightward spin of his entire body. He twisted his hips, twisted his stomach, and launched his left shoulder clockwise and forward.

He sent his elbow out from that shoulder and gathered strength in what lay beyond it.

That was his left fist.

He launched a straight left punch with all his might.

The technique was obediently performed. His body had chosen this technique first to handle the emergency situation.

As soon as he clenched the fist, it filled with pain.

This was his phantom pain.

A voice reached him along with that false pain. It was a bestial roar attempting to crush him from above.

“You dare oppose me!? A child who did not even know the reason for his mother’s death will oppose me!?”

The beast’s words filled his chest with pain. It was the usual creaking pain.

The pain tried to rule his body and his entire body was briefly filled with an explosive chain-reaction of pain.

But the person he cared for the most had just asked something of him.

…''Don’t lose.

She had not been referring to his creaking body.

She had told him not to lose to the enemy before his eyes.

In other words, she was not even thinking about this pain.

Why had her cry of support not taken this pain into consideration?

…''That is simple.

He reached his conclusion.

…''Because this pain is only natural!

His entire body moved. It was filled with the phantom pain and the creaking pain.

“But this twisting and this pain are who I am!!”

His left fist flew.

He forcibly launched it out from his shoulder and into the side in front of him.

It struck.

“…!”

The attack smashed the bones of his fist, but it had done equivalent damage to his opponent.

Through his fist, he could feel the sound of impact racing across his enemy’s entire body.

It even reached his right leg drawn back for support.

He had fully thrown the punch.

Despite the blood, the torn flesh, the broken bone, and the creaking pain, he had sent out a powerful strike. In only a split second, he put his entire body into his resisting enemy.

“————”

He swung his fist and stopped it.

The full force of the strike filled the surface of his fist and knocked his enemy from his feet.

The reactionary tremor reached him, spread throughout his body, and caused him to shake.

The bell of emotion rang inside him and he thought.

…''Ahh.

His heart felt like water.

…''And it is threatening to overflow!

A moment later, his enemy crashed into the metal door behind him.

Ex-St’s attack must have already damaged it because, after briefly stopping the man, it filled with cracks and shattered.

The sound of metal spread through the darkness.

The Concept Core pallets sat illuminated in that darkness.

They looked like gravestones.

And the enemy lay collapsed and motionless on the floor, staring up at them.

Meanwhile, Sayama looked to his left fist and took a breath.

He let out the deep breath and dripped sweat as he opened his mouth.

“…”

But no words came out.

''Oh, no,'' he thought as he finally realized he was still leaning forward in his punching stance.

He quickly straightened up, faced upward, and brought air into his lungs.

He inhaled.

He then felt heat on his back. It was the soft warmth of a human body.

It was shaped like someone important to him.

It was Shinjou.

He took another breath as she approached from behind and wrapped her arms around him to support him.

He opened his left fist overhead and felt a real, non-phantom pain.

“Everyone.”

He slowly spoke as he grasped the air and closed his eyes.

“Cry out in joy!!”

With those words, he felt all strength leave his body.

He had fallen unconscious.

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| Back to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Chapter 36|Chapter 36]]
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| Forward to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Chapter 38|Chapter 38]]
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</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Chapter 36

2026-10-26T01:43:52Z

N-Ch:

==Chapter 36: To the One Waiting For You==
[[Image:OnC_v11_0487.png|thumb]]
''I will go

''And protect what matters to me

Racing footsteps and sounds of impact passed through a windowless white corridor.

The gunshots, clashing swords, shouts of anger, demands to identify oneself, and everything else could not stop the running footsteps.

The unstoppable footsteps belonged to a boy in a dark blue suit.

He had a small animal on his head as he ran down the corridor.

Three men in armored uniforms appeared from both sides of a fork up ahead and they opened their mouths.

“You’re Negotiator Sayama Mikoto, aren’t you!? Stop him!”

“Let me just say that it is impossible.”

Sayama answered just as they raised their submachine guns.

A moment later, he pulled a red sphere from his suit pocket.

—'''Only truth fills the world.

Only two sets of gunfire sounded. The center man was unable to fire his warning shot.

“!?”

He looked down at his unmoving fingers.

Sayama cut through the center of the two streams of fire targeting him and charged toward the third man.

He stepped up to the central man and jumped upward.

“The truth is surprisingly boring.”

He slammed his right heel into the base of the man’s neck.

The man in black armor’s breath burst from his mouth and the two on either side pulled out knives for close-quarters combat.

“Damn you! Are you going to put up a futile struggle!?”

Despite the blades on either side of him, Sayama made rhythmic steps after landing.

“A futile struggle? What on earth do you mean? All I am doing is going to meet Shinjou-kun. Could you not get in my way? It would be a tragedy if I was late for my two minute promise. …After all, it would make Shinjou-kun sad!”

“Damn you! What matters more to you!? Settling the world’s problems or a date!?”

“You fool! Do not combine two unrelated issues!!” Sayama pointed at the man as he shouted. “Besides, going to see Shinjou-kun is obviously more important than settling the world’s problems!! Listen. I am the negotiator. If I do not go meet her, the negotiation cannot even begin, so logically settling the world’s problems has a lower priority level than Shinjou-kun. …Do you see a problem with any of that!?”

“W-wait. Wait just a second. The…the concept here prevents anyone from lying, doesn’t it?”

“Of course. And if you understand, then open a path. Getting in my way as I visit Shinjou-kun is the same as getting in the way of settling the world’s problems. And doesn’t the Army claim to want to settle those problems!? What you say and what you do simply do not match up. I demand that you make a more appropriate decision!”

Sayama sighed and walked past the men who were lost in thought.

He turned right at the fork, ran down it, and said one thing more.

“Of course, nothing says it has to be Hajji who settles the world’s problems with me.”

“Damn you!!”

Once the men caught on, they raised their guns behind him, but he ignored them and ran toward an intersection up ahead.

He soon heard gunshots and saw bullets flying past him.

Except the bullets flew from up ahead and continued on behind him.

He heard three groans of agony behind him and passed through the intersection.

A few dozen automatons hiding in the right and left corridors raised their skirts and curtsied as he passed.

“Testament. Sayama-sama, we will assist you as you-… Wh-why are you ignoring us!?”

“Ha ha ha. Sorry. I’m in a bit of a hurry. I used up too much time back there.”

One of them began running alongside him.

“#8-kun? How is the old man?”

“Testament. He is needlessly full of life. More importantly, take this.”

She held out an orange backpack. It was clearly filled with something and Sayama gently checked on the contents when he took it.

When he did, something poked its nose out at him.

“Sayama?”

It was a 4th-Gear plant creature. After confirming it was Sayama, the creature looked at the scenery flying by on either side.

It also lifted its body of grassy fur and began expelling air.

“You must have been very tired, Sayama-sama. As this is an emergency situation, we automatons held a mental meeting and decided to borrow 4th-Gear’s power as a cure-all medicine. Please enjoy having your excess heat drained as you run.”

“I will.”

Sayama put on the backpack and the plant creature exhaled oxygen while happily swaying its body.

“Shinjou… Promise, promise!”

“Yes, I made a promise with Shinjou-kun. I am glad you understand.”

He had a feeling #8’s expression suddenly changed as she ran alongside him.

…''?

Confused, he touched the red sphere in his suit pocket.

He removed the truth-enforcing concept and turned to #8.

He stared at her usual expressionless face, but…

“What is the matter, #8-kun? Did something sad happen to you?”

“No… No, not at all. Automatons do not have the emotion of sadness.”

She faced forward as she answered as if the question was a needless fear.

But one of the few dozen automatons suddenly spoke up from behind them.

“You have to tell him, #8! UCAT Director Ooshiro treated her like a dog! And she appeared to cry!”

“I-I did nothing of the-…!!”

She realized her outburst might as well have been a confirmation, so she lowered her eyebrows a little.

“I am sorry you had to see that.”

“I do not mind. And excellent work on the dog roleplaying. But you have nothing to be embarrassed about. Unlike me, everyone else is into some crazy thing they want to tell people about but do not know how.”

She nodded and faced forward with her usual lack of expression, so Sayama asked her something else.

“Is there anything I can do for you now?”

“No, a maid can never ask anything of her master. A maid’s job is to assist with her master’s work to an extent that does not qualify as directly helping.”

She closed her eyes and faced him again. When she opened her eyes, they contained a slight smile.

“Give us a job, Sayama-sama. I have determined that is the best possible thing you can do for us.”

“Testament. An excellent answer. And so let me say this: Help me reach Shinjou-kun in the most dashing and stylish way possible. This is a job that only you can do. And…”

He faced forward.

“If you do that, I will thank you for it.”

“Don’t you mean Shinjou-sama and you will?”

“I will be the one taking Shinjou-kun’s thanks. You must not steal someone else’s due.”

She briefly paused at that answer.

“…”

“Did I say something odd?”

“No,” she said.

She bowed as she ran and slowly lowered her hands behind her.

He saw her smile and open her mouth to speak.

“I have determined it is an honor. Not only are you giving me a job, but you are thanking me as well.”

“Oh? Are you that certain you will receive my thanks?”

“Testament. I have determined it is certain. After all…”

She swung her arms forward which sent black metal components spilling out of her sleeves, skirt, and apron.

Up ahead, several people in black armored uniforms were blocking off the corridor. She quickly assembled a heavy machinegun aimed at them and she finally finished her sentence.

“Yes. After all, a maid who does not fulfill her master’s demands is nothing but a mere woman.”

Gunfire rang out and Sayama raised his speed with a smile. He also checked his watch.

“Fifty-eight seconds left!”

Sayama ran.

He moved straight down the artificial white structure, kicked off the wall at the turns, and practically fell down the stairways.

The enemy was numerous, but he had comrades to run up and fight back.

He felt like they were welcoming him back as they fought alongside him.

He had only been gone for a single day, but…

…''It feels so nostalgic.

Kazami and Izumo were likely fighting. Hiba, Mikage, Heo, and Harakawa would be fighting their opponents without giving up despite how tough those opponents were.

Kashima was probably coming to and the automatons and other units would be fighting to clear a path.

Everyone welcomed in his race and they all illuminated his destination.

“Very good.”

He muttered to himself as his footsteps shook his body.

“I have no objection to being the center of the world.”

He was now certain that he was the world’s central point.

He now realized he had taken things too easy before. With the violent husband and wife, the slightly perverted man of metal, and the flustered yet nihilistic mechanical dragon, there had been less reason for him to fight himself.

At the very least, he felt they had ended up relying on each other.

…''But this is different.

They were not relying on each other. They simply felt it was natural for the others to do their job.

They could do what they wanted without having to rely on someone else.

After all…

…''Our pasts demand it all.

Each of them was ordered on by their own heart.

So if his teammates opened a path for him, that was what they wanted to do.

It was not an effort or pain, so he must not apologize to them. They had not given up or called it quits.

It was better to thank them instead.

But the greatest reward would be to fulfill his own job.

“We need strength. We need the strength to resist and protect.”

He opened his mouth as he ran.

He took a breath.

“Our Gear needs the strength to resist our own evil.”

He jumped down an open stairway ahead and slowly raised his left hand. He kicked off the steps and spun around as he dropped down the stairs. The sign on the next landing said BF5.

He was one floor away and had twenty-three seconds left.

Realizing that, he thought.

…''How about we fight, everyone?

“And Shinjou-kun.”

…''I…

“I am here to be a true villain.”

If their opponents knew their sins and were telling them to die, he would defiantly throw atonement back at them. That was the role of a villain and UCAT hoped to help that villain.

So he did not hesitate to open his mouth and begin with a single word.

“Everyone!!”

His first call functioned as the starting point of his next words.

Those next words were the ones only he could speak.

“I will say it now. …The surname Sayama indicates a villain!!”

UCAT personnel were fighting with the black army over the control room for the lift on the fifth basement. They also heard a voice come from the speakers.

“After sixty years and ten years, let us finally hold the true negotiations here.”

In the fifth basement’s large storage area, Ooki raised her head to listen as she wrote out healing charms.

“Listen, everyone! Begin the attack! Pour your voice of resistance into your magazines and blades and pour your voice of anger into your armor and shields. Tonight, we shall express ourselves like that as we negotiate. …And listen carefully, everyone!”

Tsukuyomi listened to the communicator as she drew her overheating Heavenly Moon Bow in a corridor.

“Ahead, ahead, go ahead! These people are using the past to tell us to die, so grab them by the collar and give them a blow to show them that we’re still full of life!”

Susamikado flew above the forest and avoided Typhon’s homing bullets while listening to Sayama’s voice.

“I, Sayama Mikoto, use my authority as Team Leviathan’s representative to announce that we shall begin the Leviathan Road anew here, that we will not give in to any power, that we were wrong but will correct ourselves, and that we will carry this through to the end no matter how much disgrace it brings us!”

<nowiki>#8</nowiki> and the other automatons fired down the corridor while memorizing the words they heard via their shared memory.

“Now, I have my orders for you all. Do not die until I have completed the negotiation. At the very least, survive longer than me. After all, I will not die. And with that established, I give another order. God once said to return the favor when people do things for you, so…”

Izumo fought and thought of his partner while listening to the words of his dumb underclassman.

“So if they are telling us to die, do the same to them!! But in exchange, do not kill them. Let them live so we can let them die. Our mercy will obey the laws of conservation and be returned to us by the enemy!! Did you hear that? Make sure to let each and every one of them live!!”

Thunder Fellow flew almost as high as the clouds while listening to the order arriving over his own communicator. He repeatedly accelerated to avoid the surging waves of missiles flying in from behind, but the voice gave no thought to those circumstances.

The owner of the voice took a breath.

“Where is your answer?”

Kazami heard the question as she ran further below the white building.

She saw something of herself in the boy who had collapsed once but had gotten back up to run and she slowly opened her mouth.

She had a single answer. She only had to lift the ends of her eyebrows, smile with the corners of her mouth, and say it.

“Testament!”

All of their strength heard those answers that were equivalent to their wills and thoughts.

Testament.

In the seen, unseen, reachable, and unreachable battlefields, innumerable overlapping voices returned that holy thought.

It was a holy thought, but it now applied to the side of evil.

It was a contract.

Tes, tes, tes. We make the contract here.

The countless contracts washed over their bodies and set all their strength in motion.

The movement was especially striking on the surface where countless powers were visible.

A white wave crashed into the black wave and broke apart.

“Oh!”

They pushed and worked to overpower them.

They had powerful wills and spirits, but the fact remained that their numbers had been worn down too much already.

Even if they continued to fight, none of them were sure how it would turn out.

At that moment, large doll #2 was attempting to charge at the white group, but it was suddenly destroyed.

“!?”

Everyone opened their eyes wide, thinking it was an explosion, but they soon heard something else.

A great sound of metal being struck came from above and every part of the giant metal doll was thrown to the ground.

All of the power and noise produced wind as it collided with the asphalt runway.

Nothing remained above the surface.

It had all been crushed.

Everyone glanced around, wondering what had happened.

They soon heard a man’s voice speaking English.

“Roger, Roger. What do you think of this battlefield? This looks nearly over, so did we make it in time or not?”

“Testament. Colonel Odor, according to my memory, the battle still has a ways to go. In Japan, they have a final weapon known as the bamboo spear that outdoes even self-destruction, but they have yet to use it here.”

“What? A bamboo spear? A bamboo spear, you say? Have they developed ecology into a practical weapon!?”

“Testament.” Roger nodded. “They use it for camouflage, they cut down bamboo grass during the summer for small interceptor missiles, and they add on charms covered in magic spells that borrow the power of zen.”

“How frightening! What a frightening collection of Eastern culture this country is! Is Heo’s brain safe here!?”

The voices came from the east end of the runway.

Two men, Odor and Roger, stood there with two female forms accompanying them.

The tall one was Diana and the other one was Brunhild.

Behind them, transport trucks raced through the canyon.

This was American UCAT. Odor commanded them in his suit and he brought a hand to his chin as he looked across the black and white forces.

“What is it? What is it? Aren’t you going to continue? Or do I need to give you a signal? We were delayed dealing with the crashed mechanical dragons, but I will hit you with a few dozen times the odor to make up for it.”

The rumbles of engines shook the ground and the headlights formed a backlight for the woman and the girl. Diana opened her mouth toward Brunhild who held a black cat.

“It would be best if 1st-Gear’s inspector did not take part in this battle, Little Brunhild.”

“What are you talking about, Little Diana? I’m not here to fight the Army.”

Brunhild faced forward as she quietly spoke.

“My battle with you during the mock battle with 2nd-Gear never had a clear ending.”

“Shall we settle this with one point per person?”

Brunhild shook her head.

“Shooting a black one is one point. Shooting a white one is a one point penalty. How about that?”

“Why are you assuming you’re going to be shooting us too!?”

They ignored Izumo’s shout and walked forward. The two men did as well.

Odor gave a deep, powerful smile and raised his right hand.

“Fine then. Fine then. If you do not win here, we cannot demand an explanation from you, so American UCAT has no choice but to support this poor tiny country’s UCAT for the sake of the whole world’s justice! So let me add my voice to the chorus of my mother tongue: Testament!!”

“What is this testament nonsense!?”

Someone cried out in an underground space.

It was Hajji who wielded his steel spear in the center of the long corridor labeled BF6.

Abram’s defense-oriented stances and movements had moved Hajji around and away from the metal door he had set as his goal.

Angry about that, he sent his spear forward, received Abram’s desperate and continuous jabs, and had piercing holes opened in his side and his left and right femurs.

“No matter how many of you shout in unison, it will not bring back the worlds you destroyed!!”

Hajji used his right arm to knock Abram’s spear upward.

“So I have something to tell your villain! Our past cries out with an accusing righteousness!!”

“You won’t let us die? You’ll let us live? Let us live!?”

On the surface, Mikoku moved about to protect Shino near the forest.

Her opponent was a sword god. A single strike of his weapon easily tore apart the earth for several meters.

She was repeatedly cut, but she continued to fight without withdrawing.

The sounds of their sword strikes overlapped as she listened to Hajji’s raised voice.

“Simply laughable! That very same conceit is what led to destruction sixty years ago and ten years ago! You only speak of evil to hide the righteousness you are too embarrassed to show. But that is false righteousness. You are merely fooling yourselves with your own conceit, false world!!”

A civilian truck and trailer were stopped in the mountains of Okutama. It belonged to the Army.

Young men controlled the dolls from inside the trailer. They had been tasked with removing the dolls’ limiters. Once the limiters were removed, the dolls could only continue moving for five more minutes.

But the back door suddenly opened and another man entered.

The young men turned around and were shocked to see who it was.

“Manager!”

He said nothing and began maintaining the different devices. He was trying to extend that limit of theirs by eliminating the waste in the machines’ outputs.

Small sounds came from the different controllers and Hajji’s slow voice reached them.

“Think about it. It is fake. It is all fake. If everything walking through this world, everything moving through it, and the world itself are all fake, then even your holy words and your sincerity are fake! The heavens and the earth, the sky and the land, the abysses and the depths of the sea, the wind and the light, and everything else in this world are asking to be denied!!”

Tatsumi kept Typhon attacking and raised both her hands.

She raised Typhon’s wings and fired bullets of light.

She almost flew into that light in her pursuit of Susamikado and she listened to their leader’s voice.

“But listen. This is now the only place left to hold our thoughts and this world’s residents have committed several sins. I will now list those seven sins for you!!”

Thunder Fellow managed to move up behind Alex, so Alex did his best to forcibly rotate and shake off that enemy.

But their difference in weight allowed Thunder Fellow to catch up and open the mouth of his main cannon.

A moment later, Alex purged all of his additional accelerators.

“!”

Water vapor exploded out and the pressure dropped Alex’s speed.

His accelerating foe shot by overhead and it was his turn to pursue that enemy from below.

As he did, he heard Hajji reading off the charges.

“Listen to Low-Gear’s sins.”

They were…

“First, they were the cause of the time of destruction! Second, they killed their neighbors by destroying the ten Gears! And third, they killed their own mother by destroying Top-Gear! Fourth, they slaughtered their other selves! Fifth, they damaged themselves by causing a disaster in their own world! Sixth, they covered it all up to avoid the issue! And seventh, they tried to bring the world under their control while hiding their own sins!”

Jord got up from the hole smashed in the corridor wall and realized she was surrounded from both corners of the corridor.

She smiled bitterly, swung down her arms to produce weapons from her sleeves, and listened to Hajji’s voice.

“Cry out, everyone! Open the gate to genesis by sounding the trumpet of judgment on these seven sins!”

Whether underground or on the surface, every part of the black army cried out.

“Judgment!!”

Their voices joined as one and called out seven times.

Judge, judge, judge, judge, judge, judge, judge.

Here, we apply holy judgment to the seven sins.

“Be destroyed, sinners! The only vindication for you lies in the afterlife!!”

With that shout, Hajji stepped forward.

He instantly sent his spear into Abram’s body and the man rose up into the air.

“————!!”

And he rotated his metal spear to send it directly into the man.

Hajji knew this was the end.

His enemy was defenseless in the air. His enemy’s arms were extended backward from the impact and he could not move them forward in time to defend or attack.

Hajji was confident he could kill the man.

His spear tip shot forward.

“!”

But he heard a voice just before he did.

It came from Shinjou who stood in front of the distant metal door.

“Abram-san!!”

At the same time, Hajji saw Abram’s lips mouth the word “sorry”. Abram also moved one hand that had been knocked backward.

He was not using it to attack Hajji or to defend.

With a snap of his wrist, he threw his spear toward Shinjou far behind him.

He attacked Shinjou.

And Hajji heard a voice.

It resembled his own voice. It ''was'' his own voice and it meant a concept was activating.

—'''Everything is reversed for an instant.

Hajji saw Abram vanish from before his eyes.

Instead, Shinjou was there. Tension filled her face as she held Ex-St up as a shield.

“…!”

But she completely caught Hajji’s spear with her weapon, so the damage sent her through the air instead.

“!!”

The tip of the spear raced across Ex-St’s surface and tore into Shinjou’s armored uniform as she flew.

But Hajji was looking at Abram beyond her.

…''Even after all this, I still didn’t defeat him!?

He clenched his teeth at that thought and ran.

He checked his watch.

“You still have thirteen seconds until your two minutes are up, Shinjou, but I’m sorry to say that it’s over for you here. I am indebted to both Yukios, so I will make it a painless end.”

Hajji pursued the hurting girl flying back from him and prepared for a second blow.

She was doubled over in the air and he took the final step to reach her.

But in that instant, someone moved between him and the girl.

He recognized the person.

“It can’t be!”

Before Hajji’s eyes, a boy circled around and blocked his way. He also spread his arms as if to hide the girl from Hajji’s view.

The boy wore a vest, but his shirt sleeves looked bright in the lights.

Hajji had brought his spear low to strike the girl, so he used it on the boy instead.

If he continued running and plunged the spear into the boy’s stomach, it would all be over. The color staining his white shirt would be the color of true life filling this white space that claimed to be righteous.

He instantly made up his mind, but something else happened even more quickly.

Something like a wall shot toward him from below.

“———!?”

He realized it was a coat, but where had it come from?

The boy’s arms had been spread, but his hands had been empty.

The only possible answer was the feet.

When charging in, he had spread his arms to draw Hajji’s focus. By kicking up the coat he had placed on his feet, he could slow Hajji’s reaction.

And it worked.

The coat covering his face confused Hajji.

He shook his head to knock it loose, but it wrapped around him as if embracing him.

''Why?'' he wondered just as an impact reached his shins.

He was knocked up into the air.

After sweeping his enemy’s feet out from under him, the boy saw that enemy bring his right hand to the floor and rotate around.

The man swung his spear, it grazed the boy’s left arm, and he felt pain.

But he did not care.

Without bothering to check on the pain, the boy turned around.

What mattered was the girl, not the enemy. With that in mind, he raced backward.

…''That coat will not be easy to remove from his face.

A 4th-Gear creature was clinging to the back of the coat.

If the plant creature was cut, it would only become two smaller creatures, so he had asked if it was willing to use that advantage to help. It had agreed.

But this only bought some time.

The boy knew that very well, so he pursued the girl.

His gaze was raised nearly to the ceiling and he saw the girl’s parabolic arc enter its fall.

He reached out toward the falling girl.

He could not reach her, but she would be hurt if she fell with that much momentum.

So the boy kicked off the floor, extended his hand, extended his fingers, and managed to grab the edge of her armored uniform.

“…!”

He breathed out as he forcefully pulled her toward him.

Her limp body almost seemed to jump into his arms.

He secured her and shook her slender body with the arm grabbing her shoulder.

“Are you okay!?”

His feet seemed to tear into the floor as he stopped. She did not answer him, but she did move.

Her eyelids opened a little and her gaze turned toward the boy.

Her sweaty face, disheveled hair, and slightly teary eyes faced him. And…

“Eh?”

Her eyes fully opened.

Her black eyes reflected his expressionless face and he stopped his feet when he saw it.

He lowered her to the ground, supported her back, and smiled bitterly.

“What is your name?”

She hesitated before answering.

“Shinjou… Shinjou Sadagiri.”

“Is that so? Then Shinjou-kun, Sayama Mikoto has come for you just as you wanted.”

“Yes…”

Shinjou nodded blankly, but tears soon filled her eyes and her face twisted.

“Yes!!!”

Sayama laughed, tightly embraced her, and finally came to a complete stop.

He turned toward Hajji who stood five meters behind him.

“But I must apologize, Shinjou-kun. I broke my promise. …After all, I arrived three seconds too early. …Isn’t that right, Hajji-kun?”

Hajji snorted back at him.

He threw the coat and the plant creature to a corner of the corridor and stared straight at Sayama.

“So you’re here, foolish negotiator. I hope you and your obsession with yourself fall into the depths. Yes.”

Sayama laughed at that and brushed a hand through his hair.

“Ha ha. I will surely fall whether you hope for it or not. But there is no limit to how far humans can fall. So let me say this.”

He pointed at Hajji.

“You are about to lose to a fool and become a super fool.”

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</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Chapter 35

2026-10-25T02:20:31Z

N-Ch:

==Chapter 35: Word of Expectation==
[[Image:OnC_v11_0459.png|thumb]]
''Listen, idiot

White wings and bullets intersected in a white corridor.

The bearer of the wings, Kazami, was no longer running.

Driven on by and ducking below the stream of bullets, she quickly glided through the air and performed rotating acrobatics.

She advanced swiftly and spun around as if flying.

She took instant leaps using the acceleration of her wings.

She turned by rotating around the weight of her spear.

Those two methods allowed her to practically fly through the narrow corridor.

She moved quickly, but she moved in perfect curves.

Even when she changed direction, rotated around Jord, attacked, or reached a wall, she did not slow.

She moved left, right, front, back, up, and down. She moved nimbly back and forth the corridor like a constantly swinging pendulum.

She maintained her speed and none of her movements were wasted. But…

“My attacks aren’t reaching her!?”

She fired while wrapped in wind, but none of the shots affected Jord.

Jord’s defenses went beyond simply ''seeming'' like nothing was happening.

…''There really is nothing happening to her!?

Her body did not waver in the slightest and she did not brace for impact.

She remained perfectly casual.

Kazami attacked the thinner parts of her clothing and even her exposed face or head, but none of it worked.

Thinking this was impossible, she reached into the pouch at her waist and pulled out the blue sphere that had been Ikkou.

—'''Attack power is infinite.

Trusting in the voice she heard, Kazami attacked Jord from behind again. But…

“That isn’t gonna work.”

Jord moved a thick arm behind her and the machinegun it held spewed bullets.

“…!”

Pursued by the sound of the bullets hitting the wall, Kazami flew backward to put some distance between them.

She pulled up her legs and raised her speed to distance herself as much as possible from the approaching bullets.

“…”

She managed to escape the movements of Jord’s arm and gun.

She looked up and saw Jord still had her back turned.

Viewing that as a sign of confidence, Kazami leaped down the center of the corridor and rotated around using G-Sp2.

She made a U-turn.

This brought her back on a path toward Jord and she asked G-Sp2 a question.

“What do you think happened there?”

“I don’t know.”

''I guess you wouldn’t,'' she thought. ''What is this defense of hers?

…''It’s different from Kaku’s.

Izumo’s could be described as “sturdiness”, but Jord’s was more like an outright “negation”.

It was simply too powerful.

…''Is that because she’s a 10th god?

She had heard about a Gear called Top-Gear just a moment ago, but ignoring that one, Jord belonged to the highest of the eleven Gears. It would make sense for her to have powerful conceptual defenses.

But all of the concepts and concept texts Kazami was familiar with had a single effect.

This gave them a great functional advantage, but they always had some kind of weakness.

''In that case,'' she thought as the setup for her denial while raising her wings for a midair dash.

…''Am I done for if I can’t figure out her concept?

Repeated attacks, attacks from behind, and even infinite attack power were no use.

She realized this all came down to knowing her opponent.

“————!”

And she flew.

By the time she let out a short breath, she had already passed by Jord’s back on the right.

The woman rotated her right arm down to bring it back up behind her.

The bullets tore through the floor and then toward Kazami.

“!”

But her rising arm was stopped by her shoulder blade, so she could not bring it all the way up.

Kazami kicked off the air and took a safe route over Jord.

That was when Jord made her next move.

She raised her left arm over her shoulder to intercept Kazami.

But instead of firing the rifle at Kazami, the bullets tore into the air to her upper right.

Kazami’s path over Jord’s back would take her through the path of the bullets. Meanwhile, Jord’s right arm shot up.

“…”

And more bullets tore into the air to her upper left.

Gunfire and bullets crossed and Kazami’s path was sealed off by an X of bullets.

But she continued flying regardless.

She twisted her body so she was facing up. She thrust her navel toward the heavens to slip above the crossing bullets with a Fosbury flop.

“…!”

The bullets grazed her wings and light scattered from them.

“…!!”

But she cleared them.

She instantly twisted further to take an upside-down position and immediately launched an attack.

Even as she moved away, three strikes shot out of G-Sp2.

By making the final blast especially strong, she launched herself away from Jord.

“!!”

After feeling and hearing all three hit, she looked over at Jord, hoping to find some clue to solving the mystery.

She learned three things.

“Kh!”

After passing by, Kazami landed five meters from Jord.

She spun to face Jord and landed in a crouching start.

She lifted her hips higher than her shoulders and raised her wings while recalling that one instant.

She had confirmed three things.

First, Jord had turned toward her and smiled as she passed by.

Second, there was a fresh scratch on Jord’s cheek.

And third, there was a small wrinkle in the corner of Jord’s eyes.

…''That means…

First, Jord’s smile had been a challenge to figure out the secret behind her defenses.

Second, Jord had been injured for some reason.

And third, Jord worked to look younger in addition to her natural long lifespan.

The second fact was especially meaningful.

…''She doesn’t have perfect defenses.

Something had given Jord that slight injury, so Kazami could damage her if she used the same method.

But what had caused that injury?

And as she thought about that method and completed her crouching start, she also realized she could not let her guard down with Jord.

The third fact she had noticed was proof of that.

“You still try to look young at your age?”

Kazami gathered strength in her shoulder blades which controlled the wings.

“You think you’re tricking everyone else, don’t you!?”

She flew as she shouted.

The flapping of her wings extended her body, her legs moved her body forward, and speed reached her soon thereafter.

She advanced.

She seemed to move in fast-forward as she arrived above Jord with her spear raised overhead.

“…!?”

But she could not swing the spear down toward the two rifles raised from below.

And as Jord raised her arms and bent her back, she quickly crossed her arms in an X-shape.

On top of that, she rotated on the spot.

Her heels sounded on the ground as she turned to the right and fully covered the area directly above herself.

There was no way for Kazami to attack.

“Shi-…”

She swallowed the rest of her curse and cut through the ceiling with her raised spear tip. She then moved away to put some distance between them.

She flew straight for the floor and landed.

She forcibly flipped her body around and faced Jord again.

She was not about to leave her back to the woman or show any other opening.

She kept a low stance. Her body was almost parallel with the floor and her chest nearly touched her shadow.

Her bangs swayed with the momentum of her turn, but she had settled into her stance before they swayed back.

It was an abnormally low crouching start.

She moved her right leg far back and pulled her left leg up next to her chest.

She spread her arms to the sides with the spear tip held backward in her right hand.

Her wings were spread upward.

She could launch herself at any moment and she only needed a single breath to gather her strength.

And so she inhaled.

She took in a single breath and stopped.

A moment later…

“…!!”

She shot forward and up.

There was not much she could do in so short a time.

She rotated forward while tightly holding the backward-facing spear.

She used all of her strength to perform a forward flip and carried the spear like a shoulder throw.

The spear tore into the ceiling and the sound of destruction exploded out.

But the attack did not hit Jord. As Kazami swung the spear downward, it proved too short and swished through the empty air above the woman’s head.

So Jord laughed.

“You’re never going to hit if you run on pure momentum.”

“This worked just fine!”

Kazami was not looking at Jord; she was looking at the ceiling.

She had torn a straight line through that ceiling and she had a single reason for doing so.

“The collapse of the ceiling will hit you, won’t it!?”

Before, Kazami had seen a scrape on Jord’s cheek.

It had likely come from a flying fragment of the surrounding walls or ceiling.

Jord could not be damaged by attacks made with weapons.

…''So won’t she be damaged by an attack from something other than a weapon!?

While flying over Jord’s head, she had used her raised spear tip to make a shallow cut through the ceiling.

From there, only a single powerful strike was needed.

With that…

“Break loose and cascade down, ceiling!!”

She smashed the ceiling and instantly flew past Jord.

First, the ceiling panels broke apart. Next, it was the plumbing and wiring.

But above that was the great pressure of the concrete surrounding the underground floor.

An artificial stone wall two to three meters thick filled the area above the ceiling.

G-Sp2’s cutting power had slice through that.

“I did my job.”

That message appeared on its console just as a rapid wind tore through the ceiling.

“!!”

The ceiling exploded.

The sound of splitting stone continued on and on as the building materials came crashing down. Dust surrounded them while sparks and pebbles rained down, but the true threat came afterward.

“Fall, chunks of rock!!”

Just as Kazami shouted from the air, a great piece of concrete crashed down into the corridor.

It was far from being small and far from being alone. More and more gray chunks several meters across fell to the floor and easily stabbed into or broke that floor.

But Kazami did not care.

She spread her wings, forcibly decelerated, and landed on her right tiptoe.

As soon as her foot reached the ground, she heard an especially large piece of rock fall behind her.

It was a block of the concrete that surrounded the corridor and that concrete was about three meters thick. She did not know the size of the piece that had broken off and fallen, but the sound suggested it weighed more than a ton.

Even if Jord had divine protection like Izumo’s, she would not escape something like that unharmed.

“Okay.”

Kazami turned back toward the collapse.

Dust rose below the hole covering several meters of the ceiling.

She saw smoke spreading out with a sound much like sand, but she kept herself ducked low.

She saw a form appear within that smoke.

“It can’t be.”

She took a defensive stance, but quickly realized it was only a piece of concrete two meters tall.

At the very least, Jord was not visible from here.

Kazami breathed a sigh of relief.

She lowered G-Sp2 in her right hand.

“Ah.”

And she finally brought her left hand to her forehead. While she was at it, she also frowned.

“I guess that was Kaku’s grandma. Maybe I went a little overboard.”

''What should I do about this?'' she wondered while looking up at the giant pieces of stone with a sigh.

That was when she heard a voice.

“Too bad.”

It was Jord’s voice.

Before Kazami could stiffen, Jord stepped casually out from behind the especially large piece of concrete. Not only that…

“You’re completely unharmed!? Did it not hit you!?”

“Don’t be stupid. Of course it hit me. Do you really think I can avoid every last one of these with so many of them falling at once? A woman needs to be solid. …At least solid enough to repel something like this.”

Kazami looked to the giant stones filling the corridor and realized Jord was telling the truth. Some of them had directly hit her.

But Jord was completely unharmed. Her clothes, face, and hair were untouched.

Not only was she unhurt, she did not have a single stain on her.

Kazami gasped and Jord’s expression changed when she saw that surprise.

She smiled so Kazami could see.

“You thought I couldn’t be hurt by weapons, did you? It’s really too bad. You were so close.”

Jord moved both her hands, but she was not holding a weapon in either one. Instead…

“Oh, c’mon. Where are you even looking? The floor’s what matters.”

Kazami looked down and saw two grenades rolling down at her feet.

''Not good,'' she thought just as she realized what Jord’s concept was.

…''Her concept is…

A moment later, a large explosion shook the corridor.

A twelve square meter room had light purple carpet on the floor and two sofas facing each other across a table. A large TV and a bookcase filled with books were by the wall.

The room could be seen as a living room or a parlor.

Three people sat in the room: a married couple and a man.

The husband picked up a cup from the table and held it out toward the man sitting across from him.

“Izumo-san, please drink some. My wife’s tea really is delicious.”

“Hm? Oh, sorry. I know I’m stopping by at a ridiculous hour and, well, I thought I would just say hi real quick. But…how should I put this? Sorry for the trouble, Kazami-san.”

Izumo Retsu took the white cup and brought it to his mouth.

Just as he took a sip, Kazami’s father gave a straight-faced comment.

“It’s actually super sugary.”

Retsu began to choke, but he may have been too stubborn to just spit it out because he looked away and held a handkerchief to his mouth.

After about three seconds, he forced it down.

“Khahhh! I won!”

“Well done. I should have expected that from you, Izumo-san.”

Kazami’s father applauded and sounded truly impressed, but Retsu sounded out of breath when he replied.

“Well, sorry you had to see that. …But why would you give me that?”

“You know how you give saltwater to an unwanted guest? Well, you’re the opposite, so I decided to take the opposite approach.”

“Sorry about that. There is no stopping my husband once he sets his mind to something like this.”

“Y-yes, I can tell from the TV shows he makes. Like…what was it? That five-minute show that airs every morning where you show up at politicians’ houses unannounced. It was ‘What Kind of Screams Do People Make When You Jab a Finger in Their Ass?’, wasn’t it?”

“Oh, Ass Scream? Lately, the higher ups have been pressuring us about editing it a little, but the viewers love it because they get to hear the real voices of the politicians. That’s why I was thinking of visiting the one’s pressuring us starting tomorrow. That way, we can hear ''their'' true voices.”

Kazami’s father lifted his right hand and his wife pulled some cigarettes from below the table.

He took one and turned to Retsu.

“Mind if I smoke?”

“Go right ahead.”

“Then I will.”

He pulled a completely different cigarette from below the table and lit it. This one was as thick as his arm.

“Ahhh. …You don’t seem surprised, Izumo-san. This disturbs most people.”

“Well… To be honest, I’ve gradually grown to enjoy all this.”

“Yay!”

The married couple exchanged high fives and then turned back to Retsu.

“Sorry. To be honest, Chisato and Kaku-kun were here last night.”

“Oh? Both of them were? That I didn’t know.”

“You’re lying about that, aren’t you?”

Retsu was left speechless when Kazami’s father leaned forward and pointed at him.

But the other man only leaned further forward, placed his open hand next to his mouth, and whispered to Retsu.

“I just wanted to say that.”

He straightened back up and smiled. Retsu smiled bitterly and drank some of the sugary tea.

“Is this how you control people in your projects?”

“I’m nothing special. …I only got into it because I like to stand out and I like to gossip. Do you know what my debut job was?”

“Wasn’t it managing your wife who was your classmate?”

“No, no.”

He grabbed a remote control from the table.

It belonged to the video player and he played a recording on the TV.

“When I was in college, a crime documentary I made and sent in was actually used. It was about the murders of the couple who ran a local set lunch store.”

A staticky video of a winter street appeared on the screen. A reporter wearing glasses walked next to the fence of a large house. His expression was terribly serious, but…

“Ha ha. Why do I have an afro?”

“Kazami-san, I thought you didn’t record your work?”

“The me in this tape can die for all I care. I followed the case purely out of curiosity, my viewpoint got distorted, and I never got anywhere near the truth. This is a shame I need to leave a record of. And…”

He stared at the screen.

“The couple who ran that store had a strong connection to IAI. And not just a connection. For some reason, they were treated like employees. They even had company IDs. But their daughter didn’t know and neither did anyone else. If anyone did…and this is just my instinct talking…”

The TV displayed a house across from a ramen shop.

“It would have been the old man named Sayama who lived in this house. He also had a connection to IAI for some reason.”

“What if I knew the answer to all that? I am IAI itself, after all.”

Kazami’s father turned toward Retsu.

He looked directly at the other man without saying a word. He stared at the slight smile on Retsu’s face.

Afterward, Kazami’s father suddenly smiled as well and shrugged.

“That’s too boring. And not fair on my part. Our connection comes from my Chisato’s explosion of pheromones as such an intensely wonderful girl, but I would be using her feelings if I used that connection to get an answer out of you.”

“Oh, then my apologies.”

“No need to apologize. This just shows how great my daughter is.”

“I’m jealous of how well your family gets along. I really am. Mine is so cement-like.”

Kazami’s father laughed at that.

“C’mon, Kaku-kun’s a good boy! After all, the only thing on his mind is letting my wife and me see a grandchild as soon as possible.”

“Ha ha ha. That idiot really is a positive-minded sexual criminal, isn’t he?”

“But what’s wrong with being honest about yourself? …You know my wife used to sing, right? It was apparently brought up a lot in school when Chisato was a kid, so she never sings in front of us. …The things parents most want to see are what the kids tend to keep between themselves.”

He scratched his head and gave a bitter smile.

“Well, for how strong-willed our daughter is, she tends to withdraw into herself a lot.”

“That’s part of being a good girl. Only if they know their own worth, though.”

“I’m not so sure she does. …Two years ago, she apparently hurt some other girl’s leg while competing for a regular spot in the club. It was the naginata club. And when I asked her why, she said she had felt she didn’t belong in that regular spot, so she swung in a random direction to create an opening and lose. But her opponent charged right in at that random direction. What do you think of that?”

Retsu crossed his arms at the question.

After a while, he gave a troubled smile with lowered eyebrows.

“She must have thought she was the only one in the wrong there. …But what did you tell her?”

“I told her only to attack when she really would hit. …And she’s done a good job of following that. I think she instinctually knows she’ll only hurt herself if she does anything she isn’t fully committed to.”

Retsu laughed and crossed his arms again.

“What a wonderfully energetic girl. My son has a pretty weak body and it seems my wife had a lot of trouble because of it.”

“Yes, but he seems to have gotten a strong mind out of it. He’s managed to pull Chisato along with him and allowed her to enjoy her life.”

Kazami’s father continued from there.

“Earlier, she must have solved some trouble she was having at work…no, in her life. She sent an email saying she would be here tomorrow. …Will you stop by too, Retsu-san?”

“No, I should be far too busy at work tomorrow.”

“Is that so?” Kazami’s father smiled and looked to Retsu. “But Chisato really is enjoying her life with Kaku-kun. She still worries about things, but she has someone to discuss it with. This is what you call true entertainment! Isn’t that right?”

He showed off his teeth in a smile and raised his cup for a toast.

“She’s probably enjoying herself now too. She must be on a stage she feels she can perform on.”

Dust ran through the corridor for the second time.

It was made by Jord who had been covered in the first wave of dust from the ceiling.

The explosion from her grenades had destroyed the floor and smashed the walls.

The building materials were terribly damaged. It looked like too much damage even for grenades.

“Well, she did up their attack power to infinite.”

Jord’s hair blew in a wind mixed with waves of smoke. She sighed and looked up.

“Is this all the bearer of 10th-Gear’s Concept Core can do? …How boring.”

She spat out a “keh” of disappointment toward the floor and took a step forward.

She had no active interest in what the Army was doing, but she felt she should put in some more work since she had come to help.

Hajji should have just about reached the Concept Cores by this point.

She had blown away G-Sp2’s bearer, so she needed to retrieve 10th’s Concept Core from within.

The Concept Core of 10th-Gear was the source of the world tree’s power and of the gods’ power. The 10th-Gear reservation was controlled by an inferior copy, but Jord was certain it would be a richer place with the real thing.

Hajji would probably tell her to hand it over, but she could always confront him too.

“That’s right. 9th-Gear’s great general versus a member of 10th. What kind of battle would that be? I doubt I would escape completely unharmed.”

At that point, she heard a voice through the spreading smoke.

“You are ''really'' full of yourself, aren’t you?”

The voice was accompanied by a visual form.

It was a girl with raised eyebrows, a white spear in hand, and white wings on her back.

Jord frowned and came to a stop as the girl spoke.

“You aren’t like Kaku. He only pretends to think so highly of himself…but you’re different.”

The smoke cleared and scattered to fully reveal her form.

She was five meters away and the white spear had transformed. The stabilizing wing for flying was raised in the back and shimmering heat came from the back end.

But no one rode the spear that had taken its flight form.

Kazami was completely unharmed as she held up the spear, so Jord frowned again.

“Did you use the regeneration of 10th-Gear’s Concept Core?”

“Sorry, but G-Sp2 isn’t that kind to me anymore.”

The girl smiled bitterly with sweat on her brow and she expelled a breath that held some small bit of strength.

“Did you forget? The attack power in here is infinite. Just as your grenades exploded, I used G-Sp2’s short range super acceleration to break the sound barrier.”

“You hit the infinite explosive blast with an infinite shockwave?”

“Yes. They use that method during actual rescues, don’t they?”

Kazami lowered G-Sp2 and shrugged.

“G-Sp2, first form.”

The weapon began its transformation.

Jord frowned as it powered down, but Kazami ignored her and removed the shield from below the spear tip.

The action was awfully calm for a battle and G-Sp2 must have found it odd too.

“Is it over?”

But Jord saw Kazami smile at the weapon’s question.

“No, we’re just about to win.”

''Impossible,'' thought Jord, but G-Sp2 reacted differently.

A “♪” mark appeared on its console. It seemed to unconditionally trust Kazami that they would win.

The girl then began to move.

She mounted the long narrow white shield on her left arm and casually walked over to Jord.

Jord raised her arms to fight back and pulled handguns from her sleeves.

All attack power was made infinite in this space, so there was no point in using larger guns.

Jord took aim and shouted out.

“Do you really think you stand a chance!?”

But her question did not reach its target.

Kazami instantly arrived right in front of her.

“…”

Kazami almost looked bored as she tapped her right shoulder a few times with the spear shaft resting there.

“Are you mocking me?” asked Jord. “Do you think that spear can break through my defenses after you shut down its power?”

Kazami did not answer.

Instead, she suddenly looked to the right.

She ignored Jord and looked at the empty wall there.

She was in the middle of a battle, and yet she left herself entirely defenseless.

But just as Jord gasped at the action, Kazami swung G-Sp2 with all her strength. The weapon moved from the girl’s right shoulder and into Jord’s left cheek.

“———!!”

An instant later, Jord realized she had flown to the right and slammed into the wall.

The impact shook the air.

Feeling a solid hit for once, Kazami looked down at her right hand.

She could tell G-Sp2 was also shaking a bit from hitting their opponent.

“It stings,” said the weapon.

“It does,” agreed Kazami as Jord stood from her kneeling position by the wall.

“Why you…!”

Jord spat a broken tooth to the floor and held her left cheek as she stood.

Her entire body shook with rage.

She already stood powerfully in front of Kazami with her large chest thrust outward.

The handgun had vanished from her right hand and a white shotgun had left her sleeve in its place.

“It’s time you were blown to pieces!!”

Before shouting, raising her weapon, or even speaking, Kazami took action but without gathering her strength.

She spoke to G-Sp2 in her right hand.

“Do you think our attack will hit?”

“I don’t know.”

“Neither do I.”

With a quick snap of the wrist, she swung the shield in her left hand to strike the center of Jord’s gut from below.

The woman doubled over and crashed into the ceiling.

The building materials crumbled as they stopped her. They wrapped around her and refused to let go.

As she hung down embedded in the ceiling, the shotgun fell from her hand and her lips twisted in anguish.

“You…”

“Yeah, how should I put this? It looks like I’m the one that gets to see you cry.”

Kazami tilted her head at what she was doing and at the result. She also looked up at Jord.

“Your concept isn’t a defensive power. Instead of thinking about what put that scratch on your cheek, I should have been thinking about why it was put there.”

She rested G-Sp2 on her right shoulder and shrugged.

“You’re ''Betrayed Expectations'' Jord. You gave the answer yourself. In other words, your concept betrays other people’s expectations. Anytime someone thinks they’ll hit or thinks they’ll do damage, it’s negated.”

She tapped the tip of her right foot against the floor along with her next two words.

“And. So. If I wanted to hit you, I just had to believe it probably wouldn’t hit. The scattering fragments scratched you because they were an attack without a will behind it.”

Jord began to slip out of the ceiling.

She was going to fall, but just before she did, she bared her teeth and asked a question.

“But how can you attack without thinking you’ll hit? A technique like that requires serious mental focus, so why would some random girl know how to-…”

“That’s simple. I did the same thing two years ago. I attacked while thinking it wouldn’t hit and that I would lose…but I did hit. I’ve gone back over that moment countless times over the past two years.”

She smiled a little.

“But now I think I know why my attack unintentionally hit the other girl. She must have been trying to lose as well. That’s why she came straight toward my attack.”

''I really am weak,'' she realized again.

At the time, she had been trying to escape the pressure of being a regular and she had been so focused on herself that she had assumed the other girl’s injury was entirely her fault.

She had not tried to be with someone else.

…''Thank you.

She thought about that girl who was now in another class and apparently the captain of that club.

''If it hadn’t been for that incident, I never would have met Kaku.

…''I don’t stand a chance against her now.

''Thank you.

“I’m glad I’m so weak.”

She smiled and spoke just as Jord fell from the ceiling.

Seeing that, she closed her eyes.

''Now I can’t even see Jord.

She spread G-Sp2 and the shield to either side and began to spin around. She spread her wings and spun and spun like she was dancing. She spun until she was dizzy.

''It’d be a miracle to hit her now.

“Now, then.”

With those words, she held a single expectation in her heart. She thought of the unlikely and she thought of her opponent as she smiled and spoke to Betrayed Expectations Jord.

“Die.”

A moment later, her super swing of G-Sp2 hit something.

It was an unexpected lucky hit.

<noinclude>
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| Back to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Chapter 34|Chapter 34]]
| Return to [[Owari no Chronicle|Main Page]]
| Forward to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Chapter 36|Chapter 36]]
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</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Chapter 34

2026-10-25T02:06:46Z

N-Ch:

==Chapter 34: False World==
[[Image:OnC_v11_0409.png|thumb]]
''But

''No matter what anyone says

''This remains absolutely certain

The corridor was long and narrow.

It was about fifty meters long and pure white except for the BF6 written on the wall. One end led to a rising staircase and the other to two large metal doors with a smaller rising staircase to the side.

That straight space had become a straight battlefield.

The battlefield was supported by a single individual and countless individuals.

The single individual was a girl.

The black-haired girl wore a white and black armored uniform and she kneeled down by the two doors.

The white cannon resting on her shoulder aimed at the other end of the corridor and she fired countless bullets of light.

Several spare barrels hung from her waist and her eyes stared straight down the corridor from below her sweaty brow.

The sound of her firing resembled a spray of water.

She was firing on the countless individuals who decorated the other end of the battlefield.

They all wore black armored uniforms. Some were men, some were women, some were young, and some were old.

They relied on their thick armor and fired back, but a single shot from the white side was enough to blow them away.

“Dammit!!” shouted one of them while crouched down. “We need to make a path for General Hajji, so why can’t we gain any ground!?”

At the same time, they were all struck by white glowing bullets spread out across the corridor.

The solid sound of bodies being struck rang out again and again.

The ones still waiting back in the stairway were tackled by their comrades who were knocked backward and they were left unable to move while holding those comrades.

The girl sighed and began swapping out the smoking barrel.

She spoke quietly to herself with a serious expression.

“Don’t worry. He’ll definitely be here!”

A voice answered her.

“Who do you think is coming, Shinjou? Who can make it through this veritable sea of enemies?”

The voice was accompanied by two sets of footsteps walking down the small staircase to the side.

Shinjou did not turn around and twisted the scorching barrel while feeling its heat through her glove.

“Sayama-kun will be here, Itaru-san. I know he will. It’s so obvious that we didn’t even have to make a promise.”

“Oh? That’s quite the blind trust you have there. The bell of madness is ringing in your head, isn’t it?”

She answered his sneer with a snort of laughter, but then…

“Itaru-sama. There is blood.”

…''Blood?

Assuming he had been hit by a stray bullet, Shinjou turned to look at him.

And she really did see it there on the handkerchief Sf had held to his mouth.

“Itaru-san, you…”

She had heard rumors of him coughing up blood, but this was her first time to actually see it.

He must have noticed her look because he clacked his metal cane against the floor.

“Interesting, isn’t it? I’ve lost so much color, but the blood I cough up is still nearly red.”

“Th-that is not interesting! You need to get back to the fifth basement!”

Meanwhile, footsteps rang down the corridor.

Shinjou quickly finished replacing Ex-St’s barrel.

Just as she tightened it to cock it, several people appeared crawling along the corridor.

She fired regardless.

Ex-St’s bullets could react to her will and track her targets. If her will remained strong, she could hit them even when they hid behind cover.

The sound of her firing shook the corridor and smoke raced back and forth.

Even while hiding behind her large weapon, some bullets grazed her armor and body.

The blue defense philosopher’s stone pendant from the development department was constantly shining brightly.

But she had no reason to stop firing.

As she kept shooting beyond the smoke, she let out a shout.

“Look! This isn’t interesting or anything, so hurry back, Itaru-san! It’s dangerous here!”

“No, this should be very interesting. After all, I’ll get to see regret fill your face before long.”

“Eh?”

She frowned as her gaze raced along beyond the smoke.

She saw the enemy past the smoke, but she saw nothing she would regret.

“Wh-what do you mean? What will I regret?”

“I’m obviously not going to tell you. And there is one other interesting thing. This one you should find interesting too,” he said. “After all, your mother suffered from the same illness I do.”

She felt her hair stand on end at his words.

But new people in black armor descended the stairs, so she focused on firing.

However, Itaru’s comment had shaken her enough to affect her aim a little.

She heard him laughing, then coughing, and finally spitting something out.

“Aim straight, Shinjou. Aim straight for your regret. And I’ll tell you something else you’ll find interesting. …Do you know what this doors behind us leads to?”

“T-to the storage area for the Concept Cores UCAT has.”

Shinjou answered while trying to get her bullets to start hitting again.

But she sensed motion next to her. It was Itaru shaking his head.

“That’s one of the doors. Do you want to know where the other leads?”

“The other?”

The word “foreboding” appeared in Shinjou’s heart.

So she closed her eyes and raised her voice as she fired. It was a tone of rejection.

“I don’t want to know!!”

“Then I’ll tell you.”

Her eyes opened wide and Itaru’s voice filled her surroundings.

“The other door next to me leads to the true sixth basement that we sealed ten years ago. It only reached the prototype stage and was never completed, but it was a concept creation facility.”

Shinjou quietly repeated that term as she fired. Her lips slowly moved to form the words “concept creation facility”, but she immediately shook her head.

“Th-that’s impossible!! You can’t create concepts!”

“But two such facilities were created. One in the past and one just over a decade ago. The organization that formed the basis of the Army had likely completed one…by modeling it after Babel.”

He paused.

“Listen. Babel is a storage space for the negative concepts, but it was originally a tower meant to control the creation and erasure of concepts. It is a concept laboratory…a place to work toward becoming a god.”

“Th-then why was UCAT trying to do that? …To oppose the Army? Because the Army was trying to create concepts, UCAT also-…”

“No,” answered Itaru with some slight irritation at her continued questions. “Listen. That is not what UCAT was trying to oppose. And the reason UCAT’s concept creation research was never completed lies elsewhere.”

That is…

“It was because the person who formulated the concept creation theory left UCAT. That person’s name was Shinjou Yukio.”

“…!? M-my mom!?”

She turned around and shouted on reflex as if to say it was not true.

“I’d heard my mom was part of UCAT! If she left, then where did she go!?”

Itaru was not the one to answer her shouted question.

The answer came from the wall.

A console box was located by the metal door on the left wall. It was the communication terminal that also controlled the door.

Its monitor displayed a certain Arab face.

“Hajji. …It’s been ten years since last I saw you.”

Itaru muttered to himself as Hajji smiled on the staticky monitor.

Only one side of his mouth rose and revealed his teeth.

“Now, then.”

Hajji took one step back in the monitor and spread his right arm.

He was inside Japanese UCAT’s headquarters on the second basement.

In the center of that room, he lowered his right arm and gave a smiling shout.

“The communications system has already been opened and this footage is being sent to all the world’s UCATs and each Gear’s reservation. I am Hajji, leader of the Army and former general of 9th-Gear. I have something to discuss with you all.”

He took a breath.

“Let us check over our answers about this world.”

Many people had evacuated to the large storage space on UCAT’s fifth basement and they were all looking and listening to the terminal on the wall.

Among them, Ooki tilted her head at the words coming from the communication terminal monitor and speakers.

“Check over our answers? Is he saying we have something wrong about this world?”

“This may be unnecessary, but let me introduce the usual theory concerning the creation of this world.”

Hajji snapped the fingers of his right hand.

An instant later the screen changed to show a large white circle in a black space.

“This is about the creation of the eleven Gears, isn’t it?” said Ooki.

The white circle burst, the circles indicating the ten positive Gears radiated outward, and a large red circle appeared.

Everyone tilted their heads at the completed diagram of the eleven Gears and Ooki tilted hers even further and frowned.

“If he’s saying we have to check over our answers…he must mean there’s something wrong with this,” she muttered. “Hm? But how is it wrong?”

In UCAT’s headquarters, Hajji had displayed several moving circles on the two-story monitor. He then pulled a recording ROM from his pocket.

He held the ROM down to a dog.

The dog took the ROM in its mouth, wagged its tail, and entered a nearby terminal.

After watching the tail vanish inside the machine, Hajji turned to face the terminal with the camera.

“Can you tell someone has altered the data on the creation of this world? Hm?”

He waited a few seconds after that tone of question.

After a few breaths and time to blink, he let out one last deep breath and looked up.

He smiled into the camera.

“Let me tell you just how it has been altered. It was changed to say the world was made up of only eleven Gears.”

He paused for a breath.

“But what if there was another Gear? A twelfth Gear?”

“Impossible!!”

That shout came from the underground space of Izumo UCAT. The voice belonged to Gyes who was preparing to head out within the underground hangar for 3rd residents.

She tore her eyes from the terminal on the wall and looked left and right, but Moira 1st, 2nd, and 3rd were all frowning. Moira 1st shook her head a bit.

“I have never heard anything about that.”

However, a voice next to the wall answered 1st. It came from Miyako who held a chewing gum cigarette in her mouth.

“Then we’ll need to hear his explanation of this.”

As if responding to her icy tone, the terminal filled with black.

Just like before, a large white circle appeared in the center of the black.

Moira 3rd responded when she saw it.

“How is that any different? That splits into the ten Gears, right?”

Sure enough, the white circle split apart and ten small circles radiated outward.

But one thing was different from before.

“The fragments of the broken circle…”

When the ten Gears split off, fragments scattered throughout the black.

While the ten circles left, the fragments were pulled together into a large pile of wreckage near the center.

It looked like they were forming another circle.

The battle continued beneath the night sky.

As white and black clashed, the black army cried out.

“Look at the truth!! Look at what you forgot ten years ago!!”

While under attack, the white army saw large doll #2 suddenly spread its arms.

Lightning-like light raced between its hands.

“…!”

An image was displayed in the air in front of the large doll’s chest.

The midair projection showed the creation of the world that Hajji described.

As the ten Gears scattered, a blue circle appeared in the empty center space and grew larger.

“Think about it,” said Hajji’s voice. “Would such a massive concept really break apart so cleanly when it burst? And why would the negative Gears be in the center of the world? Just watch.”

The blue circle formed at the center of the ten Gears. That circle represented a Gear large enough to counterbalance the other ten.

“The chaos that gave birth to the world shattered, but the fragments gathered and formed a single Gear once more. This Gear was the remains of the mother Gear and it regained the pieces torn away by the other Gears via evolution and replication.”

Hajji turned to the monitor.

“In other words, this Gear inherited everything about that original Gear and possessed concepts equivalent to the positive concepts of the other Gears. It became the ultimate Gear and it belonged in the center of all the other Gears. …You could call it Top-Gear.”

With those words, a plus-sign appeared in the large blue circle.

“Top-Gear…”

The white army was left speechless in the face of that term, but soon…

“Lies!” someone shouted.

“Yeah!” agreed someone else. “My father is from 2nd, but I’ve never heard anything about a Top-Gear! And what about this Gear!? How do you explain its existence!?”

“Don’t you find it odd?” asked Hajji as if as an answer.

He held his right hand toward the large screen behind him where the white circles of the ten Gears circled the blue circle.

“Pulled by the massive amount of concepts held by Top-Gear, the ten Gears revolved around it. But that would not cause the Gears to collide with each other. So why do you think those collisions occurred?”

On a road through an Okutama forest, a control and communications terminal on the side of an abandoned god of war cargo trailer sent its words and images into the deserted space around it.

The screen showed ten red circles appear next to the Top-Gear circle. These ten circles were negative concepts.

“Do you understand now? These ten negatives gathered to form a single Gear.”

Hajji’s voice filled the empty air.

“When the positive Gears settled to create Top-Gear, a massive negative Gear was created to act as the opposite of the positive concepts. In other words, it was a negative copy of Top-Gear. It was the lowest Gear made as a reverse copy of Top-Gear which created all else. …That was Low-Gear.”

[[Image:OnC_v11_0423.jpg|thumb]]

The images on the monitor began to move.

The ten Gears were drawn to the negative Low-Gear and their orbits grew unstable.

Low-Gear’s red circle began a quick and tight revolution around Top-Gear’s circle and the ten Gears rapidly approached Low-Gear before moving away again.

The ten Gears would occasionally graze Top-Gear too, but it was far less common than their intersections with Low-Gear.

“Do you understand? Low-Gear’s creation threw off the balance of every other Gear and created the possibility for every Gear colliding at the time of destruction which triggered the Concept War in the first place. The higher Gears that fought fiercely in that war had to have noticed. There were times when they would choose Low-Gear as a battlefield and destroy a part of it, but later they would find it completely unharmed,” explained Hajji. “But you would not have known this. While Low-Gear is an inferior reverse copy of Top-Gear, it also looks a lot like it. During 9th-Gear’s destruction, I intended to escape to Low-Gear, but I was approached by that world’s anti-Concept War organization and picked up by them.”

Hajji smiled on the monitor no one was watching.

He then explained their identity.

“That was the combat organization that preceded the Army. It was the true UCAT that existed in Top-Gear. …And did you know this, Low-Gear? All of you are fakes created as reverse copies of Top-Gear.”

And…

“Top-Gear was destroyed by Low-Gear. …It happened on December 25, 1995. I’m sure some of you are familiar with that battle that occurred in the other Osaka.”

On the moonlit forest ground, white and black giants moved about.

As they knocked over adult cedar trees and tried to break the other’s armor, the girl on the white giant’s shoulder smiled and asked a question.

“Do you understand now, Ryuuji? Do you understand why I am your enemy and why I am using the surname Nagata?”

“You can’t mean…”

The white giant answered by sending out its right sword.

A black sword blocked it and the white giant pushed forward.

“You are the false version of me! In Top-Gear, the Nagata family played the role of the Hiba family and you are Low-Gear’s reverse copy of their eldest daughter.”

“Th-then let’s get along! We’re both another version of each other, aren’t we!?”

“Yes, but your father and your world destroyed my family and my world.”

Tatsumi piled on repeated strikes and Hajji’s voice came from Typhon as it flapped its wings.

“Only five residents of Top-Gear survived: Shino, Mikoku, Alex, Tatsumi, and Shinjou Sadagiri. Of them, Mikoku, Alex, and Tatsumi have false versions in this world.”

Hiba listened to Tatsumi’s quiet voice as Typhon flew up and raised its sword.

“You are reversed inferior copies of our existences, so your sex and other things are reversed. Due to discrepancies between our histories, your ages often don’t match up and it isn’t uncommon for family names to no longer match after a number of generations. I don’t know if it’s due to Low-Gear’s inferior copies of the concepts, but you do end up corresponding quite closely to us.”

Hajji spoke as if in Typhon’s place as it flew down.

“Tatsumi’s fake is Hiba Ryuuji. Alex’s fake is Heo Thunderson. And Mikoku’s fake…is Sayama Mikoto. Except for Shinjou who joined UCAT’s side, these survivors are the ‘true’ humans who deserve to inherit the original world. They deserve to inherit the entire world, not this inferior copy.”

Harakawa frowned as he piloted Thunder Fellow through the night sky.

Hajji’s diagram of the twelve Gears was displayed on the cockpit console.

He ascended and clenched his teeth.

“Is this why you’re calling us evil?”

The answer over the communicator was in Alex’s voice as the mechanical dragon pursued them.

“Yes, it is because you are a false version of our mother world. And as a fake, you destroyed the ten Gears which are direct children of that mother.”

“Please stop!”

Heo’s voice was almost a scream as they rose into the sky. She used a tone of rejection.

“Then…then what was that battle in Osaka!? Why did our parents die!?”

“The rest is simple. I will explain it all in order.”

Hajji’s face appeared on the monitor.

“9th-Gear’s King Sarv realized that Top-Gear existed, as did some in 10th-Gear. Low-Gear took them in, so they opened a gate to Top-Gear after destroying the ten Gears. And they made a treaty. They agreed to settle things between the two Gears before the time of destruction in 1999,” explained Hajji. “That treaty was signed by Sayama Kaoru, instigator of the Leviathan Road and father of Sayama Asagi who later destroyed Top-Gear.”

After knocking some people in black armored uniforms down the white corridor, Kazami noticed the accompanying footsteps had stopped and trembled.

“Sayama!?”

She shouted his name while clearing the corridor by striking her enemy with the tip of the shield removed from G-Sp2.

She turned around and saw Sayama’s pale face and slowed pace.

His hand was on his chest and his brow was coated with sweat, but…

“I am fine. I am perfectly fine.”

His voice shook slightly, but Kazami ignored it.

“Yes, I wasn’t about to worry. Come with me. The headquarters is right up ahead.”

She raised her eyebrows in a smile and turned her back.

She ran down the corridor and heard someone forcing strength into their footsteps behind her own.

…''This might be bad. If he hears anything too bad, he could even collapse.

She thought about that possibility, but Hajji’s voice filled the corridor regardless.

“According to the research done by someone cooperating with us, this is the truth. When Low-Gear was still immature, the people of Top-Gear feared the negative concepts would leak out, so they created Babel in Low-Gear as a storage facility that could destroy them if need be. But as time passed, that was eventually forgotten.”

“Until it was discovered by Kinugasa Tenkyou who had noticed the Concept War in his research of mythology,” muttered Sayama.

Kazami then heard him shout a question.

“Is Babel…no, is Low-Gear itself a spare storage room for the negative concepts?”

“Yes. …And Kinugasa Tenkyou realized Top-Gear existed after entering Babel, so he never told anyone else how to enter the tower and gave this Gear the name Low-Gear. …Isn’t that right?”

Hajji’s explanation left even Kazami speechless.

…''If that’s true, it would place Low-Gear under Top-Gear’s control.

She clenched her teeth and gathered strength in the hand that held G-Sp2.

She opened her mouth and forced out her words.

“But Top-Gear was destroyed. …How can you say all this when you lost?”

“Good question,” replied Hajji. “In 1995, Top-Gear was steadily preparing for the final confrontation. Low-Gear must have seen them as a threat and attacked them on the night of December 25, 1995.”

Kazami frowned again. That attack would be the battle Sayama and the others had seen in Baku’s dreams, but…

“So that battle was…”

“We do not know much because we were out on the front lines fighting back, but we know how it ended. …Top-Gear had planned to join with Low-Gear after the confrontation, so a certain person was attempting to create copies of Low-Gear’s negative concepts. However, Low-Gear overloaded the incomplete negative concepts which destroyed Top-Gear. …The side effects of that passed through the gate and caused a disaster in this world too.”

She listened to the voice.

“That disaster was the Great Kansai Earthquake.”

“…!”

She ran on and saw the metal door to the headquarters ahead.

“Sayama! We can stop Hajji from speaking!”

Listening to the weak footsteps running behind her, she dashed down the white corridor.

She saw Kashima collapsed next to the metal barrier.

…''Sorry. We’ll have to wait to help you.

Hajji was inside and broadcasting his message, so she flapped her wings to accelerate and collided with the metal door.

She slammed G-Sp2’s tip into the barrier.

With a great roar, she and then Sayama charged into the headquarters that the broadcast was coming from.

But once they got a view of the headquarters, they both cried out in unison.

“Oh, no!!”

Shinjou stopped firing down the long corridor and blankly hung her head.

Her mind was filled with Hajji’s words and the words of her teammates that had mixed into the broadcast.

Hearing about those past events told her what she had seen in those dreams of the past.

Some of her teammates had “real” reflections of themselves.

But there was one thing she did not understand, so she raised her eyebrows and her head.

“W-wait! You claim I’m a survivor of Top-Gear, but that doesn’t make sense. Mikoku-san and Tatsumi-san are normal girls, aren’t they? So why is my body like this?” she asked. “And my mom was from Low-Gear. If I’m a survivor of Top-Gear, does that mean my dad was from there?”

Itaru answered her from the wall. He coughed and then spoke.

“That’s simple. …You are the daughter of Shinjou Yukio and the true Shinjou from Top-Gear.”

“You mean…” Her surprise had dulled her mind, but she tried to think the best she could. “I’m the child of the ‘real’ Shinjou and the ‘fake’ Shinjou?”

Itaru was not the one to answer her. Instead, a voice echoed from the other end of the corridor.

“Precisely.”

The person descending the stairs wore a black armored uniform and carried a spear in his right hand.

It was Hajji.

“!”

Shinjou frantically got up and raised Ex-St without hiding her surprise.

“I thought you were broadcasting from the headquarters!?”

Sayama and Kazami stood still in the headquarters.

They saw Hajji on the large screen before them and all the other monitors, but…

“He tricked us. He pretended to be here when he’s really down below!!”

They both turned toward the room’s exit, but a voice was broadcast throughout the entire building using a transmitter located somewhere.

“Long time no see, Shinjou Sadagiri. Although it seems you do not remember me. Yes.”

It was Hajji’s voice.

The console in the headquarters indicated the signal came from the sixth basement.

Shinjou and Hajji were there.

Shinjou stiffened in surprise but kept Ex-St aimed at Hajji.

She gulped down a single breath and gathered strength in her legs.

“Is what you’re saying and what Itaru-san just said true?”

“Perfectly true. You would not exist otherwise.” Hajji shrugged. “And you heard that man, didn’t you? Your mother was Shinjou Yukio. Your father was her positive-side opposite, a man whose name is also pronounced Shinjou Yukio. You are their child and your body is a combination of the negative world and positive world.”

Shinjou removed her hand from the trigger and held it to her chest. She slowly lowered it below her navel.

“I have this body because I was born between those contradictory worlds?”

“Yes. That is why I wanted for you to inherit the world. After all, your mother Yukio was the only person to nearly complete a concept creation theory. Not to mention…”

He smiled.

“She is the only person to betray Low-Gear’s UCAT and defect to Top-Gear in search of the true Gear. She cooperated with us. …So how does it feel to learn the truth of your birth?”

Shinjou felt the temperature of her blood drop at the word “defect” and Hajji laughed before continuing.

“Listen, Shinjou. You have been fighting all this time and firing all this time. And every last one of your attacks has been directed at the people of the true UCAT that protected the world your mother desired and in which you were born.”

“You’re lying! Saying it like that isn’t fair!”

She denied it, repeated “he’s lying” three times in her heart, and then shouted her reasoning.

“Besides, why would my mom want to defect!?”

“Ha ha. Because Top-Gear called for her, of course. She was building up a concept creation theory, so they asked if she could create Low-Gear’s negative concepts. …Do you understand what I mean?”

She slowly answered in a questioning tone.

“Top-Gear was trying to create a place for the people of Low-Gear?”

“Yes. Just as I explained earlier. …But because she left, Low-Gear’s attempts to create concepts to use against Top-Gear never left the theory stage and they instead destroyed Top-Gear by overloading the negative concepts Top-Gear had created to take in Low-Gear. …And now the time has come to pay for what you have done. The side effects of that event activated the negative concepts inside Babel and you are attempting to stop that by releasing all of the positive concepts through the Leviathan Road.”

He continued speaking.

“But if you do that, all of the negative concepts will resonate and repel each other. …Top-Gear possessed all of the positive concepts, but it was unable to oppose the overloaded negative concepts and was destroyed. That means the positive concepts cannot contain the negative ones. Yes. …Low-Gear will be destroyed.”

“Th-then the Army is…?”

“Yes. We are looking at this in reverse. By eliminating the positive concepts, the corresponding negative concepts will be annihilated too. To do that, we must open the doors of Babel and use the concept creation facility inside.”

He asked her if she understood.

“Low-Gear is trying to become the ruler of the world by doing what Top-Gear failed to do and what led to Top-Gear’s destruction. But that is a gamble. They have hidden, forgotten, or altered the fact that the negative concepts will resonate with the released positive concepts and be released themselves. They are falsely claiming that gathering all of the positive concepts and working together is enough to contain the negative ones.”

He took a breath.

“Even though Top-Gear – Low-Gear’s superior – tried the very same thing and was destroyed!”

In UCAT’s second basement, Hajji’s voice filled the headquarters and a new quiet voice joined it.

It was Sayama’s voice.

“I must go and stop this one-sided speech.”

“Yes, but at this point, people might think we’re silencing the truth.”

Kazami asked her worried question as if testing him.

She held G-Sp2 and Sayama nodded toward her.

“Some probably will, but he is saying whatever he wants without allowing for a rebuttal. That is not a negotiation,” said Sayama. “And someone who refuses to understand is exactly who we should negotiate with.”

Kazami’s eyebrows had begun to lower, but they moved back up when she heard that.

“Oh?” She stepped up next to him. “Then let’s go. …No, we have to go. Then you can show me.”

She turned her back on the large screen showing Hajji’s face.

“You can show me how you will crush that righteousness of his because I have no idea how to handle it.”

“I will.”

Sayama’s eyebrows twisted as he too turned his back on the large screen.

Kashima slept in the entrance to the headquarters. Most of his left ribs had been broken and a few had punctured his lung, but his defenses as a military god and the protection applied to his lab coat had kept him alive.

It was possible this would have some lasting effects, but the most they could do for him now was place him a more comfortable position. They had also called for help, so they would leave it to whoever showed up.

“We need to go, Kazami. Things are dangerous down below.”

“Right,” she agreed and took the first step.

But then Hajji spoke from the screen behind them.

“Oh, and I have a present for the child of Top-Gear’s destroyer.”

“What?”

Sayama expressionlessly turned back.

He saw the false image of Hajji give a twisted smile.

“Sayama Mikoto? You think your mother attempted a double suicide, don’t you? But let me tell you the truth. After the final battle in ’95, your mother attempted to rejoin UCAT with the Georgius she had in her possession. And when she did…”

Sayama felt his eyebrows rise sharply.

And then Hajji’s voice reverberated through his entire body.

“The Army was still not completely unified at the time and a radical group attacked her. From what I hear, she protected her child from a blade by placing Georgius’s case on top of herself and covering her child with her own body the entire time. She was killed, but UCAT arrived in time to protect her child.”

He smiled bitterly.

“They could not make the incident public, they had failed to protect her, and the rescued child must have passed out and did not remember the crucial part, so UCAT went with the police’s conclusion and announced that Sayama Yume had attempted a double suicide with her child.”

A groan escaped Sayama’s clenched teeth.

Hajji’s laughter escaped the speakers.

“Ha ha! But do not worry, Mikoto. I have already taken revenge for you in accordance with our military regulations. I eliminated the criminals. Will you thank me? Hm? And it is an interesting incident. After all, your mother saved you, but you misunderstood that act and have hated her ever since. Ha ha! Truly fitting for the villain of a false world…for a false villain! Even your hatred is false! Your own petty misunderstanding has created who you are today!!”

Sayama heard something like a small stone breaking.

He knew what it was and Kazami was looking at it wide-eyed.

“Sayama, your tooth!”

He had clenched his teeth so hard that the right canine had broken. The flavor of blood flowed into his mouth and…

“Sayama!”

He fell to his knees and collapsed to the floor with his hand on the left side of his chest.

Baku frantically jumped down and poked at his collapsed cheek with his front paw, but he felt no pain from any of that.

All of the pain was in his chest.

The word “pain” itself filled him and instantly dyed his mind in darkness.

Kazami rushed over to Sayama after he fell face down.

She shook him, but his tightly shut eyes would not open.

…''This isn’t good.

The word “panic” appeared in her mind as Hajji’s loud laughter filled her ears.

“Well, Low-Gear!? Do you see your crimes now? Not only are you an inferior copy of Top-Gear, but you destroyed the other Gears, destroyed Top-Gear which is the ‘real’ version of yourselves and the mother of us all, and even caused a great earthquake in your own world!!”

His laughter rang through the air.

“All of you in the Gear reservations, did you hear the truth Low-Gear has been hiding from you? You should have left your Gear’s concepts with another Gear! In that Gear, the peoples of all Gears could have lived without the negative pain found here. But the fakes were so concerned with their own lives that they broke the treaty they themselves had formulated, destroyed their alternate selves, and damaged their own Gear. …And then they hid it all!!”

He raised his voice.

“What is the Leviathan Road really!? Are they not negotiating for ex post facto approval of their actions while hiding their true crimes!? The activation of the negative concepts and everything else is the direct result of their destruction of Top-Gear ten years ago! And they have failed to reveal that fact while negotiating as the supposed victors of the Concept War! And all while using some ignorant fools as their negotiators!!”

The black army cheered on the moonlit runway.

They gave roars of admiration and earnest desire.

“You are the worst Gear that killed your other selves, destroyed the greatest world, caused a disaster in your own world, and covered it all up for your own safety!”

The black army clashed with and pushed back the white army.

“We of the Army will be destroyed here along with you! And we will place Top-Gear’s survivors as the negotiators afterward.”

Hearing that black soldier, a white soldier trembled and shouted back.

“Are you trying to steal this world!?”

“Steal it? No. We’re returning it. Returning it to the children of Top-Gear who can inherit all of the Gears. …Listen. This may be the only land left, but the inheritors still live. That’s why we’ll die here, why you’ll die here, and why this world will be given to its rightful owners. It will be given to the children of the true world who we have raised for the past ten years!!”

To support the shouting black army, Shino held her philosopher’s stone next to the forest.

“Please understand.”

She closed her eyes.

“Please understand!”

She wrinkled her brow and the white army’s movements shrank while the black army’s momentum grew.

The bloody black soldiers gave a long war cry as they cut down the white army with their full strength.

“Oh, that was such a rich world and the people were all so kind. And I believed them. They said they would be the survivors of the Concept War and that the peoples of all Gears – including Low-Gear – could live in their world without worrying about concepts. …I truly believed that!!”

“But…but then all of you…!!”

As they collided, a few of the black scattered while a great number of the white scattered.

Their cries of anger roared through the night sky.

“Be destroyed!!”

But someone responded to that.

It was a quiet voice. It was a trembling girl’s voice.

It was Shinjou’s voice.

Her awkward words sounded like she had completely forgotten a battle was underway.

“No.”

She took a breath and her voice was emitted by all of the communicators.

“I don’t want that.”

At the end of the long corridor, Shinjou lowered her head and spoke while pressing the talk button on the communication terminal.

“No matter what anyone says, I don’t want that.”

She shook her head and inhaled.

“I don’t know anything about that.”

“That is a child’s reasoning, Shinjou. Let me tell you something. …It’s true your mother married a Top-Gear man and betrayed Low-Gear, but she must have been one hell of a traitorous woman. She was the one that informed us that Top-Gear was working at creating the negative concepts.”

“…”

“She used a method Top-Gear didn’t know about to inform Sayama Asagi in a letter. She said that they might become enemies, but that they should both do their best.”

Itaru took a breath before continuing.

“Your mother manipulated both Low-Gear and Top-Gear, Shinjou.”

She did not nod.

“I see.”

She finally nodded, hung her head a little, and held Ex-St in her arms.

“That’s fine.”

“What is fine, Shinjou?”

“Well,” she said. “My mom didn’t write her true feelings in her letters. Not in those letters she wrote with a weak smile on her face. …But the people she cared about would have known that and they would have known she was the kind of person to actually smile when she was happy!”

So…

“Even if that’s what the letter said, the people she cared about would have understood! They would have known she was giving a weak smile of resignation!!”

She shouted out, but Hajji roared back at her. It was a blunt rejection.

“That is an assumption!!”

He slammed the bottom of his spear against the floor as if to say he knew what Shinjou Yukio had been thinking.

The loud sound caused Shinjou’s withdrawn body to tremble and he opened his mouth to speak.

Miyako crossed her arms in front of the underground communicator.

Gyes and the Moirai watched her silently frowning.

But she listened to Hajji’s words.

She listened to his shout of rejection.

“Shinjou Yukio thought she could reconcile Top-Gear and Low-Gear’s differences, but she lost everything. Once Low-Gear realized Top-Gear was growing stronger with her concept creation, they made a preemptive strike! As the representative of those who were destroyed, it is my duty to destroy the positive concepts held by UCAT and rid the world of the negative concepts!”

But his next words were spoken in an entirely different tone of voice.

It was a quiet, almost soothing, and yet powerful tone.

“Listen, Shinjou. I don’t think your mother would have wanted this. Hm?”

Miyako reacted to that.

She bit through the chocolate cigarette in her mouth.

“Shinjou,” she said while turning her wrinkled brow up toward the ceiling. “Say it. Tell him. That idiot thinks he knows someone because he’s known them for a long time, but tell him you can get to know someone more than enough even in a very short time.”

She took a breath.

“Show what you’re made of and tell him!!”

Shinjou raised her head at Hajji’s words.

She glared at him with her eyebrows slightly raised and he shrugged his shoulders.

“How about it, Shinjou? Will you stop fighting for your mother’s sake?”

“No,” she said clearly. “Because I know my mom.”

Hajji frowned slightly. It was a look of pity.

“I see. But how much do you actually know her? All you saw were some old records, right? You don’t have a single memory of actually speaking with her, do you? What do you have besides assumptions?”

“B-but she was always trying to look strong while hiding who she really was!”

That was…

“Just like I used to!!”

She took a powerful breath and spoke toward the floor.

“Is an adult who says harsh things right by default? Is the most powerful Gear right by default? Is the real one right by default? Is the weaker one that managed to win wrong by default? Is the one that tried to deceive someone wrong by default? Are they really? And if so…is it wrong to survive?”

Her voice rose to a shout.

“If so, has everything I’ve been thankful for been wrong!?”

“Oh?” Hajji responded from the other end of the corridor with his spear on his shoulder. “That just sounds like a girl on the side of evil refusing to admit she was wrong. …After all, the crimes of this Gear are an original sin they have borne since before their birth. They merely expanded that intrinsic sin ten years ago.”

“Then I’m fine with being wrong. I’m fine with looking wrong to others. We’ll work to do something about ourselves and make ourselves right. We’ll lie and, but as we keep doing that, we’ll gain forgiveness bit by bit, confess our wrongdoings bit by bit, and better ourselves bit by bit.”

And…

“That is why we have villains in this world!!”

She took a breath and spoke even louder.

“Sayama-kun, can you hear me? Right now, I want this world’s righteousness. I want a righteousness that doesn’t exist yet. So you become the villain. You play the part of the evil that does exist and guide us into the future I want!!”

In the headquarters, Kazami listened to Shinjou while trying to shake Sayama awake.

“Sayama! Listen! Shinjou’s calling for you!”

But he must have been unconscious because he did not move.

Regardless, she continued shouting to him.

“Sayama!!”

She heard Shinjou’s voice.

She began with an exhausted and bitter laugh.

“Sayama-kun, you’ll come for me, won’t you? Thank you. …But you’re probably exhausted, so I’ll fight for now. I’ll work in place of the villain, so come here as soon as you can.”

“Sayama! Wake up… Wake up already! Shinjou’s asking for your help!”

“And you know what, Sayama-kun?”

Kazami thought to herself as she listened to Shinjou.

…''There’s no point in me hearing this!

She practically squeezed Sayama as she shook him, but his pale face remained motionless.

And she heard Shinjou’s quiet voice.

“Um, Sayama-kun? I learned something while listening to this Hajji person. …It’s about something long ago and about something I just told you about yesterday.”

She paused for another “um” before continuing.

“It’s about right after I lost my memories and was taken in by UCAT.”

She took a breath and seemed to hesitate briefly.

“Itaru-san told me someone would come for me someday, but no one ever came for me and I cried and cried. That was nine years ago. …And you know who it was who was supposed to come for me?”

“Sayama!”

Kazami shouted his name just as Shinjou gave her answer.

“It must have been you and your mother! Do you remember what you told me a long time ago? When your mother took you out that last time…”

Kazami made sure to carve Shinjou’s words into her heart.

“She said you were going to meet someone important. …That’s what she told you when you left, wasn’t it? So…I might be wrong, but I still believe it. So come meet me. I’ve been waiting for you to come for me. …I’ve been waiting for nine years!! So…”

So…

“So I’ll call for you! I’ll call the name of my precious villain!!”

Kazami raised her fist just as Shinjou gave her cry.

“Sayama-kun!!”

A breath later, a new voice came from every communicator connected to UCAT.

It was a boy’s voice.

“Did you call for me?”

He took a deep breath before continuing.

“You called for me, didn’t you? Thank you, Shinjou-kun.”

The owner of the voice slowly took another breath.

He took two breaths and spoke slowly as if savoring his words.

“And now that you have called my name, I will race to your side, Shinjou-kun.”

Shinjou stared wide-eyed at the corridor terminal, but she soon smiled.

She nodded and tears drops from the corners of her eyes.

“Will you come for me, Sayama-kun?”

“Yes, I will.”

Sayama’s voice answered in confirmation.

“Of course I will make my way to you. And…I am sorry, Shinjou-kun. It is my fault that you were left alone for those nine years.”

He continued speaking from there.

“Are you listening?” he began. “Are you trying to fight right now, Shinjou-kun?”

“I am,” she said before taking a strong breath.

She immediately let out the breath and tightened her grip on the cannon in her left arm.

“That Hajji guy is on the other end of the corridor.”

“Is that so?” he asked. “Then, Shinjou-kun.”

He continued.

“Two minutes. Please wait just two minutes.”

In the headquarters, that boy trembled as he stood in front of the monitors that no longer displayed anything.

He placed his left hand on a terminal to support his shaking body and placed his right hand on his chest.

“Yes, just two more minutes.”

He slowly inhaled and sent more words to that girl.

“Just two more minutes. I will reach you after a total of nine years and two minutes, so keep fighting until then. If you do…”

He nodded.

“In two minutes, I will absolutely, certainly be there to protect you.”

Shinjou smiled bitterly at what she heard.

''He hasn’t changed,'' she thought as she said one last thing.

“You can push yourself.”

She removed her hand from the terminal’s talk button.

She faced forward and at Hajji down the corridor.

“Eh?”

The metal spear was already right in front of her.

“!”

She back stepped in surprise, but Hajji pursued with spear in hand.

“Two minutes? I’m not waiting that long. No.”

He stepped forward as he spoke.

“After all, I have not been waiting nine years. I have been waiting ten years for this day.”

Resignation filled his voice as he thrust the spear forward.

Shinjou did not have time to avoid it, but…

…''I’ll do something!

She only had to last two minutes.

“I’ll do something!!”

Just as she raised her voice and tried to think of something, she saw someone’s back move between her and Hajji.

It was Ooshiro Itaru’s back.

“Hey, Sf. Your master’s about to be injured. Aren’t you going to stop it?”

“Tes,” replied Sf’s voice. “Because this is what you want.”

A moment later, Itaru’s back shook as Hajji’s spear blade struck him.

“Itaru-san!?”

She shouted to Itaru as he crumbled to the ground with the color red staining his chest.

Hajji took a step back to put some distance between them and Sf ran forward to support Itaru.

Shinjou gasped and saw a bitter smile on Itaru’s lips, so she frowned.

“Why? Why!? Why would you do that, Itaru-san!?”

“You want to know?”

“O-of course I do!”

“Then I won’t tell you.”

He spoke forcefully, but the bitterness left his smile. This was a smile Shinjou had never seen him make.

He then doubled over and coughed up quite a lot of blood.

It was too much to contain in his hands.

The red color covered Sf’s apron, but she said nothing, held his shoulders, and pulled him back.

She then looked up at Hajji with a sharp gaze.

“Do not worry about my master. Please continue.”

“That’s right. Yes. …And I am satisfied that I was able to defeat one of Top-Gear’s destroyers.”

Immediately after he spoke, Sf held her right hand out toward Hajji and produced a handgun.

She gave the man an expressionless look past the gun.

“I have determined that comment is not what my master desires. …He himself desired to receive your attack and protect Shinjou-sama, but he does not wish to be dishonored by you. Tes?”

“I will answer with ‘tes’, proud automaton.”

“Tes.”

Sf bowed and made the gun vanish with a wave of her hand.

She glanced over at Shinjou and pulled Itaru’s unmoving body over to the stairs.

“Shinjou-sama.”

She took a breath.

“One minute and forty-five seconds to go. …Please forgive us for taking up so much of your time.”

Hajji reacted to her words by laughing.

He showed his teeth as he laughed in resignation.

“A wonderful job buying some time. But Shinjou, I’m sorry to say it doesn’t look like you are going to last the remaining minute and forty seconds, does it?”

He emphasized his question with a “hm?” as Shinjou raised Ex-St.

But an even more obvious answer came from beyond Hajji.

That answer came in the form of a person located far away.

He was just stepping down from the distant staircase.

It was not Sayama. The person who had arrived too soon was a large man whose white armored uniform was in tatters.

He was covered in blood and unsteady on his feet.

“Sarv… You’re still alive?”

“Sarv is dead. Abram still lives. That is all there is to it.”

Abram looked to Shinjou and nodded.

“Shinjou, fall back to the metal door behind you. And Hajji, will you help me buy some time? Or does 9th-Gear’s general prefer to run from an injured opponent?”

Hajji snorted and turned to Abram.

Shinjou stepped back, but Hajji was no longer focused on her. He spoke to Abram.

“Why do you support this world so much? Hm?”

“That is a simple matter.”

Abram used his shaking hands to hold his metal spear under his arm.

He stared straight at Hajji with his one eye and twisted his lips up into a smile.

“Yes, a very simple matter. Because the villain will be here in another minute and a half.”

“Do you really think he can make it here? The Army has been positioned all along the way here.”

“Anyone can answer that question. …Anyone from Low-Gear anyway.”

Abram took in a breath and puffed out his chest.

“Attention, all UCAT personnel!!”

Abram’s voice filled the sky, the building, the ground, and everywhere else.

“The fake field operations director of this fake world has an announcement!!”

The pilot of the blue and white mechanical dragon in the sky listened to the voice while quickly rotating out of the way of an attack.

“You may not believe me and you may want to give up on this world, but…”

The pilot of the black god of war made repeated sword strikes in the forest and listened to the voice coming from the communicator in the machine’s head.

“Just a minute and a half more! Please keep fighting for another minute and a half!”

The wielder of a large white sword defended from the ground and listened to the voice coming from the building.

“After that, the villain will begin the negotiations! He will determine whether those of us on the side of evil should be destroyed!!”

The voice rang out.

“So don’t give up until then!!”

As Kazami heard the voice in the corridor, she looked to Sayama who ran alongside her.

He was panting and holding his chest, but the sweating had stopped and his complexion had improved.

Baku was swaying happily on his head.

But Kazami looked to Sayama’s head itself.

“Are you okay?”

He glared back at her.

“Is that anything to say after punching someone? What if the blow ends up making me go crazy?”

“In your case, I think it would make you go normal.”

She laughed quietly and pulled a cellphone from her pocket.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Hm? Emailing a friend. I didn’t get back to my dorm yesterday, so I didn’t set the machine to record the documentary my dad appears in. It’s called ‘The Zoo’s Grand Panda Breeding’. …Have you heard about it? It’s about a panda couple named Lew-Lew and Ewd-Ewd.”

“Won’t your father record that? It is his job after all.”

“My dad’s hopeless. He claims recording it will steal his soul.”

“Thank you for telling me about that odd rule.”

Meanwhile, Kazami decided to send an email home while she was at it.

She sent “I’ll be back home tomorrow”.

''It’s not that I’ll “probably be back”. I will be back,'' she thought. ''I’ll work to make sure I get back.

''I kind of feel like talking with them, so maybe I should bring Kaku with me and spend the night.

With that thought, she put her phone back in her pocket and looked over at Sayama.

She felt like laughing when she saw him running in his suit, so she did.

“I never thought I’d end up running alongside you.”

“It is an unexpected turn of events for me as well, but this is not the first time. We did the same in the battle with 1st-Gear. And Kazami, I know it is a little late to repeat myself, but can I say much the same thing I did back then?”

Kazami nodded as she spotted the reason for his comment up ahead.

Seeing her nod, he did the same thing as back then.

He lowered down and launched his body forward.

And without turning back toward her, he spoke.

“Kazami. As you are now, I can leave this to you.”

A woman stood in their path. The large woman wore a white combat coat.

She looked to Kazami instead of Sayama.

“Oh? I was waiting for the Izumo descendant, but this is interesting too. I’ve heard all about the girl named Kazami who bears G-Sp2, the weapon with our Concept Core sealed inside.”

Sayama cut past her, but she ignored him and swung her arm.

“I am Jord of 10th-Gear, I am Betrayed Expectations Jord, and I am Izumo Kaku’s grandmother. …How about you take me on? You wield our world itself, so I need to make sure you have the necessary resolve.”

“Oh?”

Kazami’s eyebrows rose as she stopped and faced Jord.

“Is that so? But I’m sorry. Kaku doesn’t talk much about the 10th reservation, so I’ve never heard of you. Also, I was just accepted by my stupid underclassman, so I’m feeling really embarrassed and feel like going on a rampage to hide it. …I’m not going to hold back, so I hope you have some resolve too.”

Jord narrowed her eyes.

“Ho ho. Well said. Well said indeed. You’re a good girl. I haven’t met a good girl like you in a while. …I can’t help but want to see you cry.”

She swung her arms and machineguns slid out of her sleeves and into her hands.

She held the grips just as Kazami raised her wings and held up G-Sp2.

They fired and charged in simultaneously.

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| Back to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Chapter 33|Chapter 33]]
| Return to [[Owari no Chronicle|Main Page]]
| Forward to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Chapter 35|Chapter 35]]
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</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Chapter 33

2026-10-24T05:05:06Z

N-Ch:

==Chapter 33: Released Gathering==
[[Image:OnC_v11_0379.png|thumb]]
''Break through the wall

''Brush off the obstacles

''Do not allow the gouging power to face you

Loud footsteps and the blowing wind filled a white corridor.

The writing on the wall said BF2. The person producing the rushing footsteps wore black and dragged the color red behind him.

His weapons were a steel spear in his right hand and the destructive power of motionlessness in the gaze of his left eye.

Everyone who got in the way of his swift pace was either knocked to the ground or broken and blown away.

His left arm did not move thanks to the large split in his left shoulder.

But there was no blood flowing from the wound. Before any blood could flow, it was blown into the air by his actions.

Someone following behind him called out his name.

“General Hajji!”

Hajji ran.

He knew they were following and he knew this was all according to plan.

Most of them would return to the surface and only he and a few others would reach the sixth basement.

They knew the layout thanks to the information Shino had gained that summer.

They would take the corridor to the sixth basement on the way there, but they would use the fifth basement on the way back. They would break through the shaft on the eastern end of both floors, use the Concept Cores to bring the fifth basement’s lift up to the surface, and have Alex take them away.

The Concept Cores from 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, and 9th were kept below UCAT. If they stole those, the Leviathan Road could not be completed and controversy would break out over the unfairness of some Gears having their Concept Cores stolen and some not.

And to do that…

…''We have to reach the back of the sixth basement.

That would mean their victory. After all, Hajji’s vision could stop and destroy all things.

…''If I take the Concept Core pallets hostage, no one can touch me.

''But,'' he thought while looking up. There was something he had to do before continuing down.

“I must reveal UCAT’s crimes.”

That was the true reason for this fight. He had to inform every UCAT and every reservation of what Japanese UCAT had hidden ten years ago.

There was a place for him to do that.

He saw a large pair of explosion-resistant doors in front of him. They had the words “Japanese UCAT New Headquarters” written on them.

No soldiers guarded them and there was no interception system. The doors only brought their thickness and sturdiness to the table.

Hajji gathered strength in his left eye and prepared to send a powerful gaze toward the door, but…

“!”

He suddenly moved to the right.

The blood scattering from his left shoulder revealed something that had not been there before.

This new form suddenly appeared to his left beyond the spray of blood.

“Oh, damn. How am I supposed to tell Natsu-san I got blood on my lab coat?”

The man wore glasses and he sounded troubled. Hajji turned toward him and smiled.

“2nd-Gear representative Kashima Akio? Are you the line of defense here? You are, aren’t you? Hm?”

Kashima was mentally sweating as he confronted Hajji with his back to the explosion-resistant door.

…''If only Atsuta was here.

Atsuta had gone to the surface with a prototype Cowling Sword.

Tsukuyomi had been the one to place Kashima here. She had guessed the enemy would not come to the new headquarters because they were after the Concept Cores down below.

She had not wanted to put anyone with a family on the front lines.

“That sure backfired. …I never thought the final boss himself would show up.”

“Are you happy? You are, aren’t you? Hm?”

Kashima did not nod. The enemy was injured and his weapon would be powerful if it was a concept weapon.

He was worried about the gaze weapon in his left eye, but Kashima had a technique to make his way behind the man.

…''I can use the Art of Walking.

Hajji had seen through the Art of Walking just now due to the sharpness of his instincts.

Kashima had tried to make him careless by making the area look deserted, but he had realized it was odd for the place to be deserted.

This time, there would be no tricks. Neither one would be careless and they would both be sharply focused, but that was why the Art of Walking would work here.

They were five meters apart. Both of them could cover that distance in an instant.

And it was easy for Kashima to read Hajji when he was bleeding and breathing heavily.

He knew the Art of Walking would work.

Even if the man shifted or adjusted himself, Kashima could instantly reactivate the Art of Walking.

So with no signal, he began the technique that would settle this.

“————”

He used it as he began to walk. The key to the Art of Walking was Hajji’s right eye. He used that as the opening to shift away from Hajji’s senses and he circled toward Hajji’s unusable left shoulder.

He moved quickly as he circled around the man.

If he reached out his hand and simply touched the man with his palm, Hajji would be blown away because he was not a god.

Kashima saw Hajji facing straight forward and away from him.

Kashima knew he could defeat the man, so he stepped forward and raised his right hand to attack.

Suddenly, Hajji moved his own right hand as if to hold Kashima in check.

“!?”

He assumed this was an attack with the spear, but it was not. Hajji pulled something from his sleeve and dropped it to the floor.

The small black object fell clumsily down and solidly bounced.

…''A stopwatch?

Just as Kashima wrinkled his brow beyond his glasses, Hajji opened his mouth while looking in the wrong direction.

“Kashima, I do not know where you are, but you can see what I just threw, can’t you?”

He could, but…

“That is my sympathy. Yes. And Kashima, let me ask you one thing. …How is your family doing?”

''Why is he asking that?'' wondered Kashima with a frown.

Hajji continued with a deep smile.

“Kashima Natsu and Kashima Harumi. Your wife did not have work today and it’s probably about time your daughter is being put to bed. Yes. A wonderful thing. A truly wonderful thing. Yes. And with that said…did you call home before this battle?”

He did not answer. Answering would disturb his movements and possibly break the Art of Walking himself.

But Hajji continued.

“I sent them a small package. Yes. It is labeled as a prize. …Your wife will likely wait to open it until you return home. And yet if she did open it, she would find out what is inside. Yes.”

And…

“You know what that stopwatch means, don’t you? …Three more seconds now.”

Hearing the number of seconds started up Kashima’s emotions.

He clenched his teeth as he tried to choose between victory and his family.

“Kashima. …You are a wonderful military god. Yes. After all, you hesitated.”

Hajji looked right at him. His hesitation had likely created a seam in his Art of Walking.

“That hesitation means you might have chosen to abandon your family. Wonderful. Truly wonderful. Yes. …I am sure your family will hate you as they are blown to pieces.”

“You…!!”

Kashima swung his right arm, but Hajji’s face had already moved right up to him.

“Kashima, let me tell you something interesting. Yes, I’m sure you will find it very interesting indeed.”

Kashima realized the spear tip was digging into his left side.

“Now, here is that interesting thing: Everything I said there was a lie. Of course it was. I would never do anything so cruel. So…so rest easy. Rest easy and be defeated.”

A moment later, intense pain slammed into his stomach like an impact.

“————!!”

He was knocked back and pinned to the wall behind him. At the same time, he heard Hajji’s voice spoken through a bitter smile with teeth bared.

“I’m quite jealous. After all, your family is alive and well.”

Kazami flew high in the sky.

Below her, she saw a few giants, a crowd of dolls, and persistent people.

Her target was one of those giants, large doll #1.

It spoke and seemed to have different motivations from the Army.

Deciding it would be her enemy after her late arrival, Kazami looked to the moon and performed a gentle vertical half-rotation.

She knew the others were sure to defeat the Army. No matter what doubts they might have, they would accomplish that.

“Even if they tremble, fear, hesitate, or show any other weakness.”

None of that would get in the way of the power they held.

She flipped upside down in midair and stared at the large doll one hundred meters below.

“Are you ready!?”

With that question, she flapped her wings downward.

In an instant, the power of the wings of light seemed to launch her more than they made her fly.

She continued on.

She broke through the wind and fired G-Sp2.

But large doll #1 deflected it. It knocked the light away using the corner of the crowbar it held. The metal surface of the corner was torn away, but it did not break.

…''How did it react to that!? Does it have some kind of reflex assistance system!?

The enemy roared in response.

“We made our weapons based on your data! Your attacks aren’t going to work that easily on us!”

She continued to descend and the large doll swung a fist up as a counterattack.

She was on a collision course. If she dodged too far out, it could correct its aim. If she dodged too close in, she would be unable to eliminate her momentum and crash into the doll.

A hit was the only option now, but Kazami found a solution.

“G-Sp2! Let’s win this!!”

She accelerated. She flapped her wings and quickly closed in on the fist.

“G-Sp2!! Third form!!”

G-Sp2 transformed during her ultra-high speed descent.

“I’ll blow it away,” displayed the weapon.

A moment later, she poured on even more acceleration.

She targeted the metal fist swinging up toward her.

Hitting it would lead to a single result.

“You’re going to hit!?” said the man’s voice. “You won’t escape that unharmed!!”

“That’s not my intention!!”

She locked the accelerator on full and shrunk down her body.

She held the spear tip out front and charged on in a straight line.

A back wearing a work uniform and a leather jacket trembled in the waiting room of Okutama Station.

The old man leaned back in a wooden bench and looked up toward the ceiling, but he was actually looking at the inside of his sunglasses.

“You idiot.”

The inside of his sunglasses showed him wings of light flying down with the moon behind them.

But the sunglasses also showed several red and green lines indicating the enemy’s predicted attacks.

It calculated out the enemy’s target, path, and destructive force.

The winged girl would destroy the large doll’s right arm, but the impact would crush her.

…''I’m getting the far better end of this deal.

The old manager thought this was the most worthless kind of death in war.

She was destroying herself without even defeating her opponent.

…''And this won’t help my mood either. Is this the kind of fight you want, UCAT?

''But one thing’s certain,'' he thought. ''Her death won’t remain.

If the Army won, this battle would be seen as an evil thing and those who died would be denied by history.

“Just like my family.”

''So I guess this is fine,'' he thought while moving his fingers to accelerate the large doll’s rising fist.

''This will make her the same as my family. She won’t be able to save anyone, but she’ll be denied and forgotten.

“I shouldn’t have thrown out the alcohol,” he spat out while preparing to close his eyes at the instant of impact.

But then static ran through the sunglasses.

“!?”

That meant something unpredicted had occurred and the predictive displays had gone haywire.

The enemy had done something.

…''But what!?

He then saw the wings of light throw her body out from the falling spear.

“————!?”

The spear-user was planning to send only the spear into the fist.

''You idiot,'' he thought. ''If you don’t throw away your life, the attack won’t be heavy enough.

The predictive readings returned to the sunglasses. Without the weight of her riding the spear, the attack would lose its stability and weight. The calculations said the piercing blow would stop halfway through the fist and not even destroy the arm.

But the old manager saw the wings of light flap in the sky.

…''Are you running!?

No.

She used all of her previous momentum to fly even further down.

She flew to the surface below the large doll before the spear hit.

In her fall, she twisted around to face the heavens, spread a hand, and shouted.

“G-Sp2! Come, my power!”

Kazami cried out.

She flapped her wings, transformed her fall into a power dive, and shot past the rising metal fist.

As she fell and accelerated, she twisted around and raised her right hand toward the heavens.

She spread the hand like she was trying to seize the moon, gathered her strength, and opened her mouth toward heaven.

“Come!!”

G-Sp2 reacted to her word.

It suddenly trembled in its accelerated fall and the light on the back end grew to raise its acceleration.

This weapon contained a dragon and it moved straight toward Kazami’s open hand.

It would pierce through everything in the way. In this case, that was large doll #1.

The metal doll was over ten meters tall, but it was penetrated from top to bottom in an instant.

It was a single strike.

“————!!”

Countless metallic sounds occurred so quickly that they blended together.

G-Sp2 broke through the raised metal fist and out the bottom of the stomach.

Kazami had just landed below the open hole.

She raised a hand as she stood and G-Sp2 flew into it while surrounded by shimmering heat.

“You called?” it asked.

Kazami smiled and nodded. She spun the weapon in her fingers and stood it on the ground.

The sound of the back tapping on the asphalt was accompanied by the exploding shockwave produced inside the giant body overhead.

A great roar filled large doll #1 and metal could be heard tearing apart.

Next, the giant metal doll split into two halves.

Its anguished cry was the creaking of its motors before it lost power and began to tilt to either side.

After the tilt grew too far, it began to utterly collapse.

Below, Kazami looked up and ignored the downpour of scattering parts.

The metal rain let up and the moon was revealed in the clear sky.

A voice came from the collapsing metal giant.

“Wait. What were you going to do if that didn’t work?”

“What does it matter when it did work? This is what it means to do my best.”

“But my family protected me!”

''Oh,'' thought Kazami. ''This person must be a lot like me.

So she answered while looking up at the sky.

“They cared about you. …Do you really need a reason for or proof of that?”

“…”

“If so, then go look in a mirror. No matter how much the current age denies it and no matter who denies it, you’ll find some evidence reflected there so long as you don’t get rid of yourself.”

She lifted G-Sp2 high.

The metal legs falling to either side were blown away by the strike and scattered in the wind.

That was all, so she sighed.

“Okay.”

''What to do next?'' she wondered.

But a sudden shadow appeared overhead.

…''Eh?

She jumped left on reflex.

An instant later, a giant black metal object crashed in the spot she had left. It had been sent there from the east.

“Susamikado!?”

Kazami trembled at her own voice. She only knew one thing that could take down UCAT’s strongest god of war.

“Typhon!?”

She saw a white form approaching from low in the eastern sky.

It was fast.

“Wow,” she said when she realized the sound did not precede its arrival. “This isn’t good. It’s supersonic!”

She tried to call out and warn everyone of the impending shockwave, but it was too late.

The white giant was moving faster than sound and it was already almost within arm’s reach of them.

The large-scale shockwave easily tore up the surface of the ground, so if that happened to the people behind Kazami…

“————!!”

She reflexively thrust G-Sp2 into the air.

She used all her strength in the hope of splitting the shockwave as much as she could.

“Oh!!”

She slammed it forward, but her wish was not granted.

The white god of war suddenly changed course. It moved to the southern forest on Kazami’s right.

Immediately afterward, it rotated around and flew up into the southern sky.

It ascended.

“Eh?”

Why had it not taken advantage of that perfect opportunity?

She quickly found the reason.

Something was racing along the runway from the east.

It was a motorcycle and a god of war.

The motorcycle’s driver had swung a sword. This had created a blast of light that struck the white god of war from behind and knocked it to the south.

Meanwhile, Kazami saw something unbelievable coming her way.

A boy stood on the back seat of the motorcycle and he held a giant god of war overhead.

The god of war’s armor was painted to resemble a maid uniform.

The god of war lay horizontally with its arms spread to the sides as if flying. Kazami frowned and called the name of the boy supporting the god of war’s stomach from below.

“Sayama!? What is that idiot doing!?”

Her gaze then moved to the boy driving the motorcycle.

When she saw him raising a large white sword that had somewhat changed form, her expression crumbled a bit.

“There he is showing up at the perfect time. He really is a boy.”

Sayama felt the wind.

Ahead of the strip of asphalt were a group of black dolls, two large dolls fighting Sibyl’s white god of war, Susamikado collapsed next to them, and Kazami.

Beyond them were a white army struggling to regain its footing and a black army working to defeat them.

Sayama felt Izumo turn the motorcycle toward Kazami.

Baku emulated him as he looked up at Violet who he held with both arms.

“Violet-kun, are you about ready? It is time.”

“Yes, sir. Motorcycles sure are fast. …And are you sure I’m not too heavy?”

“With your control of inertia and gravity, you are perfectly light.”

“R-really? Oh, but was it indecent to ask that?”

“Don’t worry, god of war girl. Judging by my attempted wife, being a little indecent is just right.”

“Ha ha ha. So does ‘indecent’ mean ‘uncivilized’ in the Izumo dialect? You learn something useless every day.”

Sayama raised Violet in a throwing stance.

“Now, Violet-kun, it really is time. But here is one piece of advice. When flying like this, you clench your fists and hold them out in front of you.”

“Y-yes, sir!!”

The god of war did as instructed and Sayama threw her forward.

A powerful wind surrounded her as she flew.

The black dolls turned toward the noise and frantically prepared their shields, but it was too late.

She slammed head-first into the dolls and began sliding on her stomach once she landed on the asphalt. She had already cut off her inertia, but her speed remained and she knocked everything out of the way as a giant mass of metal.

But…

“Ah, n-no! I can’t stop!!”

The white army and Kazami had initially looked up, thinking reinforcements had arrived, but once they realized the reinforcements had no way of stopping, they reacted the same as the black army.

“Waaaah!!”

They ran about one hundred meters back at full speed.

Violet tore up the asphalt but finally came to a stop after sliding those hundred meters with them.

“Ow, ow, ow,” she said as she got up and brushed off her armor. “S-sorry about that. All I ever do is mess up.”

Everyone glared at her and a path had been created behind her. The central line of black dolls was gone and the black army had frantically moved back, so a wide path had opened up.

The motorcycle drove down it with Sayama standing on the back seat with his arms crossed. It circled in front of Violet and came to a stop.

Sayama glanced over at Kazami who was still glaring and then he kicked Izumo’s back in front of him.

Without turning back, Izumo lightly waved his right hand up and down to say he understood.

“Well, there’s a lot to say.”

[[Image:OnC_v11_0399.jpg|thumb]]

Sitting on the motorcycle, Izumo looked to Kazami who stood to his left.

She hesitated and did not immediately return his look.

“…”

Finally, she met his gaze.

Her eyebrows lowered and twisted, she bit her lip, and she clearly did not know what to say.

“Wh-what’s that look for? …Is something funny, Kaku?”

“Well,” he said while crossing his arms and giving a deep nod. “I was just thinking I could expect some fresh kissing and a lot of other things from you every day.”

Kazami grew pale and Sayama tilted his head from behind Izumo.

“What do you mean, Izumo?”

“Ha ha ha. That’s simple. Chisato’s going to be working to make sure I don’t get tired of her.”

“W-wait a second, Kaku. When did you wake up?”

“Around when you started with ‘it seems I…’ ”

“I see.”

Kazami sighed, approached Sayama, and gestured for him to leave.

He hopped down from the motorcycle and Izumo scooted forward so Kazami could sit there.

And then…

“If you’d woken up, then get up!!”

A kick not even Sayama could see sent Izumo flying from the motorcycle.

He slammed into the asphalt more than he rolled along it and he frantically got back up.

“Y-you idiot! I was seriously injured not long ago!!”

“Not anymore, you’re not. Your arm was remade good as new and you’re alive and well.”

After those words, the motorcycle crashed into him. She climbed up on top of the motorcycle that had fallen on top of him, hopped up and down, and spoke to the cries of agony coming from underneath.

“I was… I was so desperately worried. I was even crying. So ''why'' in the world would you think it’s okay to joke about that!? I’m…I’m ready to…”

She started to cry, connected the clutch, and spilled tears with the accelerator on full throttle.

“Wahhhhhhh!”

“Are you crying or wearing me down with the tire!?”

“Ha ha ha. This is indeed the kind of flirting you will never grow tired of,” said Sayama. “And to think it is going to escalate further each and every day.”

Suddenly, they heard a certain sound in every direction.

A wave of metallic sounds reached them as people raised their guns and blades.

This audible intent to kill caused the white group to face their surroundings.

The three sections of the white army saw the color black surrounding them.

In that black, a girl with long hair stepped forward from the west. Her eyes met Sayama’s when he turned around.

“Well? What are you going to do? This is still a hopeless situation for you.”

Susamikado was finally beginning to get up, but Typhon was waiting in the sky and two large dolls remained unharmed on the surface.

The large dolls rotated the crowbars they held in their hands and held them up like scythes.

When those were swung down, it would remove at least a few people from their ranks.

But without watching them all tense up, Mikoku gave a shout.

“This ends here!!”

Those words were followed by a metallic sound.

However, it did not come from the crowbars. Before those metal scythes could reach them, a long pillar of light shot from the ground and into the giant dolls’ backs.

Mikoku and the black army gasped as Izumo pushed the motorcycle out of the way and stood up.

He held V-Sw over his shoulder as it contained the light and he smiled toward Kazami who had moved to the side.

“Fine, it’s my turn now. And Chisato, you go take that speech-loving idiot into the building.”

“M-me!?”

She looked surprised, so he reached his left hand out to her.

He spread his fingers, dropped the hand on her head, and rubbed it as if messing with her hair.

“Get going.”

She drew back her head from his hand but finally responded.

“You don’t leave me much choice.”

She peeled off his hand and turned toward the wall of black with G-Sp2 in hand.

“Sayama, let’s go. We’re pursuing Hajji. And it’s your job to stop him.”

“Oh? Why must the handsome negotiator trouble himself with that filthy physical labor?”

“Shinjou’s on the bottom level.”

“We must get there immediately! I cannot contain myself a moment longer!!”

Kazami sighed, turned her back on him, and faced the black army.

“Sayama, there was a lot I wanted to say to you.”

She squeezed her spear and raised her wings.

“But I really don’t even care anymore.”

She left those words in the air as she shot forward and smashed the wall of black.

Mikoku ran.

She had many comrades, she had the black dolls, and the wall blocking the enemy’s way was thick.

She was currently running through that wall.

She was moving beyond it and toward the white building’s entrance.

The girl named Kazami had just attacked to create a path for her and Sayama to reach the building.

Her comrades were of course trying to stop them. She could hear their footsteps, see them preparing their weapons, and see the wall growing denser.

But some people could neutralize a wall like that.

Hajji could, Jord could, and Tatsumi could.

“As can Concept Core wielders like her!!”

She ran onward while wondering if she fell under that category as well.

She just had to pass a few more people to reach the other side. If she ran diagonally to the entrance, she could pursue them as they approached the building.

She was certain this would work.

The enemy had to push through a greater number of people than she did.

If she caught up with them and started a fight, she would win. No matter what kind of attack they used on her, her regeneration ability would allow her to win. Once they attacked her and thought they had won, she could get in a fatal attack of her own.

…''And that will remove Hajji’s enemies!!

Her strategy would work. The Army would correct the world and the last remnants of the Concept War would vanish.

…''And I will part ways with Shino.

She shook off that sudden dark thought and gathered strength in her legs to run even faster.

But that was when she heard something to the right.

It was a strange sound.

She heard it along with flesh being struck, bones breaking, cries of pain, cries of surprise, the blowing wind, and loud footsteps.

It was the sound of a broken barrier.

“Did they already make it through!?”

Instead of thinking that was too fast, she was simply filled with disbelief.

But she saw the movement that proved it had happened.

Something flew through the air beyond the crowd to her right.

They were men wearing black armored uniforms. Some had been blasted into the sky by an uppercut or smash and others had dodged, but it was clear they had allowed something to get through down below.

And then more people sprayed outward.

On the edge of the human wall and in the position closest to the white building, a dozen or more people in black armored uniforms were blown away.

They flew into the air with their limbs sprawled out as two people ran through on the ground.

One was a girl with white wings raised and the other was a boy in a dark blue suit.

For some reason, Mikoku was seeing them from behind.

…''Strange. Why am I seeing their backs!? I should be ahead of them!

That meant they had breached the human wall faster than she had.

How had they been faster than her when she had an absolute advantage?

The answer was clear.

…''They truly were not thinking about anything more than breaking through.

“Kh!”

Mikoku ran while reminding herself Hajji had left this battlefield to her.

If the enemy made it through and pursued Hajji, it would be her responsibility.

They were around a dozen meters apart and she worked to fill that gap.

“…!!”

She could not speak, so she inhaled, filled her lungs, and raced across the asphalt.

But suddenly…

“Mikoku!!”

She heard a voice from overhead and wind reached her.

She looked up to see Typhon. The six white wings were moving to crush the smaller wings and the boy on the surface.

…''Is she going to stop them!?

Just as Mikoku hoped it was true, more wings flew in from behind.

These were four black wings and they crashed into Typhon.

“Mikage-san and I are your opponents!!”

The black god of war used all of its thrust to collide with the white one and send them both into the white building’s second floor. The building materials exploded and the white and black gods of war disappeared beyond the building.

That left Mikoku and her two enemies.

“They’re pulling away!?”

''Why?'' she wondered with clenched teeth.

But she remembered that those two had not turned around when Typhon had arrived overhead.

It was like they had known Susamikado would intervene.

''Why?'' she asked again. ''Why can’t I catch up to them?

“Ohhh!”

Her feet raced along to throw her body forward.

“!?”

But those feet suddenly slammed into the ground and came to a rapid stop.

She trembled, tensed her shoulders, and forced open her clenched teeth to shout.

“Who is getting in my way!?”

A white sword was stabbed into the asphalt ahead of her. It was buried down to the hilt.

Someone had thrown it to stop her pursuit.

The orientation of the hilt allowed her to predict the direction from which it had been thrown.

She turned toward the south side of the white building.

She remembered there being a path leading around back there and that some of their men had gone that way to take the lift leading down.

But those men were nowhere to be seen. Instead, she heard a voice.

The voice was singing a strange song.

It was a rap beginning with an “oh”.

“Oh, really? Really? Re-re-re-re-really? China’s capital ain’t Hong Kong, it’s – oh, yeah! – Be-Be-Be-Be-Beijing!”

She heard someone hitting nearby metal objects like a drunk.

“Be-Be-Be-Be-Beng-ji-ji-jing-jing-jing – ohhhhh, yeah! Menchegeda!!”

With that sound, someone twisting and dancing jumped out from behind the building.

The young man wore a white combat coat and held a microphone wrapped in ribbons.

He nimbly performed two cartwheels and a moonsault and he raised his hands as he landed.

His song and actions brought everyone to a stop.

All focus was on him and he opened his mouth at the center of it all.

“Oh, thank you! Thank you all so very – apyaaahh!!”

He threw three splendid kisses with both hands, took a satisfied breath, and gave everyone a smile.

“Now, time to get chopping.”

“Who the hell are you!?”

The entire black army yelled at him and the entire white army held their heads in their hands.

In front of those two opposite actions, the young man brushed up his short hair.

“What, do you idiots not know the artist who brought all of America to tears? Okay, morons. I’ll say it in plain Japanese, so listen up. I’ll start with something simple. I may have already shaken America, but you know what’s going to happen when I make my debut?”

He raised his right hand and pushed on the empty air with each word.

“All! Of! America! Will! Bow! Down! To! Me! And naked at that!! What do you have to say about that!? In other words, my name is…”

However, he was not the one to finish his sentence.

That was done by Shino who held her blue philosopher’s stone southwest of the runway.

Her eyes opened wide when she saw him and she gave him a simple name.

“The rapist!!”

With that shout, the battle resumed.

<noinclude>
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| Back to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Chapter 32|Chapter 32]]
| Return to [[Owari no Chronicle|Main Page]]
| Forward to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Chapter 34|Chapter 34]]
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</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Chapter 32

2026-10-24T04:57:01Z

N-Ch:

==Chapter 32: Hitting the Ground Running==
[[Image:OnC_v11_0361.png|thumb]]
''What is right?

''What is wrong?

''What should we desire?

The colors black and white moved in the night.

The movement formed a battle on the runway in front of UCAT’s disguised building.

The dark black was devouring the white as if that were the rule of the night.

The white army had formed three large groups. This was due to the attacks from the east and west contained by the asphalt walls on either side of the runway.

A black force remaining on the ground attacked the white from the west. The black force was led by a sword-wielding girl whose long black hair swayed as she fought.

The main force of black dolls and the three large dolls attacked the white from the east.

The large dolls moved out front and the normal dolls fired, defended, and attacked from the sides to wear down the white.

A girl near the forest southwest of the runway protected that black force. She had a white dog by her side and a powerful blue light escaped from between the hands held up to her chest.

She would occasionally close her eyes and speak quietly as if to confirm her power.

“I’m sorry… But please believe us.”

This prevented the white army from opposing the black army too strongly and left their counterattack weak.

They did fight, but they were eventually crushed, brought down, and unable to move.

The battle filled the sky as well.

A blue and white mechanical dragon fought a blue and red mechanical dragon.

A black god of war fought a white god of war.

To prevent each other from descending to the surface, they would approach, clash, move away, and evade. But all the while, the white army grew smaller below.

At first, reinforcements had come from the lift behind the white building, but the black army had reached that area already.

No more reinforcements were coming.

However, someone in the white army was still fighting.

A woman with golden hair dancing in the wind stood on the runway’s asphalt wall.

It was Sibyl.

She moved her arms in her white armored uniform and the silver god of war on the runway copied her movements.

The god of war moved toward one of the large dolls charging down the center of the runway to the east.

It wore black armor and said “#1” on the shoulder.

Sibyl sent the silver god of war directly toward large doll #1. It swiftly drew its two swords and sent out multiple attacks.

Meanwhile, #1 defended with what it held in its hands.

They were crowbars forged from long and thick metal panels and bars. It held the short nail-pulling end in a backhanded grip and used the long handle to deflect the god of war’s swords to the left and right.

Sparks flew, but the tough pieces of metal completely deflected the thick swords.

“Kh.”

Sibyl shrank down and glared at the large doll.

She moved her hands and raised the god of war’s attack speed.

“What are you trying to accomplish!? Do you refuse to let the world have peace!?”

Surprisingly, her shout actually received a response. A calm man’s voice came from the large doll’s chest.

“Peace? …Listen, young lady. I don’t care about that.”

Amid the sounds of clashing swords, #1 moved as if prying its body forward.

“But you know what? Back during that world war, you all were so busy with the Concept War that you didn’t save my family from the air strike. With your power, surely you could have saved one little city or at least a single person.”

The sky was dyed in the colors of night.

Below the moon, a man walked along the side of a quiet road through the forest.

The elderly manager wore a dark brown leather jacket over a white work outfit.

He wore work gloves, but his fingers would twitch a bit every so often.

He also wore black sunglasses.

The inside of the sunglasses displayed video footage.

The monotone coloration showed what looked like a large road, an army of people in white armored uniforms, and a silver god of war standing to protect them.

When he moved his gloved fingers a little, the vision displayed in the sunglasses moved.

While looking at the predicted movement of the god of war and deflecting the sword strikes, the old manager spoke.

“It’s true no one would’ve believed you if you’d told them about the Concept War, but if you had that power, you could have saved so many lives during that world war.”

“Well…”

He heard the other person’s voice from the small speakers attached to the ends of the sunglasses.

“Don’t bother, young lady. I already know your answer. After all, you’re trying to put even the Concept War behind you. You’re trying to say it was wrong and leave it at that. But you know what?” he said. “There’s an idiot whose time has stopped ever since a similar war. I survived because I was protected, so I have a question for that answer of yours. If war is wrong, what does that say about me since I was given life there? And what does it say about my family that gave me life there?”

''Is there no answer to that question?'' he wondered.

The people who had worked with him in that factory were not with him here. They were inside a large truck hidden in an Okutama mountain forest. Those dozen or so young men were remotely controlling the maid dolls, controlling the large-scale concept space producer and concept space communicator, and removing UCAT’s communication jamming and concept barriers.

The old manager was only controlling large doll #1 and Hajji had instructed him to move away from the others. That way he could forget everything that had happened and return to being a resident of this world.

UCAT was about three kilometers behind him. Another kilometer on this road would take him to Okutama Station.

If he threw away the sunglasses and controller gloves at the station, he could cut all ties.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

The blonde woman displayed in the sunglasses frowned.

He then saw light on the road up ahead.

It was a motorcycle.

Was it a local or a street racer racing through the mountains of Okutama? The motorcycle drove down the road spotted with a red anti-skid material and with small pillars down the center line to prevent anyone from driving recklessly.

''That’s some decent speed,'' judged the old manager based on the sound of the engine.

It was most likely a new motorcycle. One that had only just been broken in. Instead of setting the muffler to show off by making as much noise as possible, it was made to trap and store up power inside the engine.

The old manager began controlling large doll #1 with just his left hand and pulled a small bottle from his pocket using his right hand.

He twisted open the cap with his fingers and poured the brown liquid into his mouth.

“…”

The motorcycle passed by.

By the time he turned around, the tail lights were already vanishing down a distant corner.

…''That really is fast.

He threw the bottle behind him and raised his right hand.

A moment later, he heard the bottle shatter and focused on the opponent he could see ahead of him.

“Now, young lady. It’s time you quieted down.”

Sibyl saw large doll #1 suddenly curl up its body a little and step forward.

Instead of deflecting her attacks in defense, it was moving in to strike.

So Sibyl slammed both her swords into the curled up back.

However, the doll swayed and the swords struck its shoulder armor.

With a sound resembling spilling stone, its shoulders burst open and exposed the internal components.

…''I will attack its shoulders again before it can charge in!

But two tremors ran through the ground before she could have the silver god of war pull back its swords.

It sounded like stone being struck. Wondering what it was, Sibyl looked down.

She saw the narrow tips of the silver god of war’s feet.

“The crowbars!?”

Those tools had been slammed into the ground to pin the god of war’s feet.

…''Not good!!

She needed the proper footing to swing the swords. If the god of war’s footing was unstable when it attacked, it might be able to hit, but it could not reach the enemy’s core.

A moment later, large doll #1’s left fist flew in a mountain-like arc.

Its target was the god of war’s face.

Sibyl quickly tilted the god of war’s upper body to the left.

But an instant later, the large doll’s right fist slammed into the god of war’s left side.

“!?”

“The left was a feint. Think about it. Your god of war is just a puppet too. The head is mostly just for show, so the real target is the source of its power in the torso. …Of course, I can’t blame you for treating things with care.”

The parts between the armor on the silver god of war’s left side broke and the internal wires and frame were exposed.

Large doll #1 then threw its right fist again.

Sibyl reflexively had her god of war raise its arms to protect its body.

Immediately afterward, the large doll’s left fist shot up and slammed into the god of war’s jaw.

“You just said you wouldn’t target the head!”

“The torso is still my main target. But if I hit the jaw up like that…”

She knew what he meant. The silver god of war leaned back and up, but it could not be knocked away with its feet pinned to the ground.

But the upward hit left it defenseless and exposed its stomach to its opponent.

Large doll #1 prepared its attack toward the stomach. It pulled back its right arm a bit and twisted its body. Even if Sibyl tried to stop it, the fist would break through the god of war’s stomach.

“…!”

Just as she cried out, a straight line of light collided with the large doll’s back.

It produced a solid sound like rock breaking.

“!!”

The large doll stumbled from the impact, shifted to the left, and shook.

It turned around, but it was too late.

By that time, the wings that had fired the white blast had already landed in front of Sibyl.

Sibyl blankly spoke the name of the one who owned the white wings and white spear.

“Chisato-sama.”

Disbelief filled her voice and the girl shook her head toward the sky to fix the hair after the wind had blown it around.

“Sorry I’m so late. But answer me one thing, Sibyl.”

“Wh-what is it?”

Kazami smiled in the light of the moon and her own wings.

“Do you need my help?”

Sibyl thought about what she meant before giving her answer.

She shook her head and spread her arms at shoulder height as if measuring something in the air.

“I do not. I have things thiiiis much under control.”

“I see.” Kazami’s smile grew. “But I want to help all of you. I want to give you an easier time of defeating your enemies.”

The wings audibly turned their back on Sibyl.

They then lifted up in preparation to take off.

Beyond the wings of light, large doll #1 prepared to fight again and all of the black dolls in that third of the battlefield looked to Kazami.

All of the hostility poured onto her, but she did not waver. She gathered strength in her shoulder blades to support the raised wings.

“Everyone, sorry I’m late. I won’t make any excuses or any kind of formal apology. After all, this is your battlefield and my battlefield is somewhere else. But I will make sure to remember the injuries caused by my delay and help out a little here to confirm just how much I want to be with all of you and just what I can do.”

“Of course,” said Sibyl with a nod.

The silver god of war moved and pulled the crowbars from its feet.

Sibyl then threw them toward the opponent in front of her.

The large doll’s metal hands audibly grabbed the crowbars. It quickly rotated them in its fingers to take a defensive stance.

The other large dolls faced her in similar stances on either side.

Despite the enemy’s preparations, Sibyl smiled slightly.

She watched the wings in front of her tense up even more than before.

“Can you fight?”

“That’s what I came here for. …But it looks like everyone is trembling. It’s probably a mental concept or something, but what were they told to make them tremble like this?”

“The enemy claims to have righteousness on their side.”

“Oh? How silly. Such silly nonsense using such silly reasoning. If our opponent is righteous, does that mean it’s okay for us to die? My dad mass-produces righteous allies of justice and evil organizations, but hijacking busses of kindergartners and telling people to die is a job for evil. The righteous are the ones that defeat those people.”

And…

“No one who was raised watching those heroes could be evil.”

“But they are claiming righteousness ''and'' telling us to die.”

“Then their righteousness must be death. In that case, they need to return to death and take their righteousness with them. And if they really are in the right, that just means we need to bring out our secret weapon as the evil organization. …We need to call in our idiot who truly claims to be a villain.”

With that, Kazami waved her left hand and pulled a fist-sized black sphere from her pocket.

“Mitsuaki-san, help us out.”

As soon as she spoke, everyone there heard a high-pitched sound of destruction.

“That was the sound of a concept being destroyed!”

Sibyl shrank back at the magnitude of the sound and saw the black-haired girl by the forest growing pale.

She frantically checked on her blue philosopher’s stone, but the mental concept stone was no longer glowing.

Sibyl wondered what had happened and Kazami’s back answered with a bitter smile in her voice.

“A concept that forces understanding can be negated by a concept that cuts off understanding. …Nothing to worry about now, right?”

Kazami’s voice and the release from the great mental pressure let everyone fighting there take a sigh of relief.

They breathed, gathered their strength, and turned expectant gazes to Kazami’s back.

“Sibyl, let’s fight until the villain who seeks life arrives to fight these heroes who seek death. That’s the job of a fighter and the general of an evil organization. …And according to my dad, unhappy endings are kind of popular lately, so it’s entirely possible we’ll win. So…”

Sibyl saw the wings flap and the bearer of that light floated slowly but powerfully into the night sky.

“Until then, it’s my job to use myself as a power of protection!!”

With those words, the giant dolls moved and the wings of light soared swiftly.

A truck and trailer were stopped on the road running through an Okutama forest.

The large pallet in the trailer had the IAI logo on the side.

To the north of the road was a cement slope and to the south was a forested slope leading down into a valley.

The white truck and trailer were completely abandoned in the night.

No one could be seen in the driver’s seat or near the trailer.

However, someone quickly approached the trailer.

And they approached it from above.

Above the cement wall next to the trailer was a mountain slope and a forest.

The approaching person forcefully jumped out from the elevated forest.

It was a boy wearing a dark blue suit.

It was Sayama.

“————”

He flipped in midair and possessed great speed. His current trajectory would drop him into the valley beyond.

So to lower his speed, he pulled something out of the bag on his back.

It was a sheet.

Specifically, it was a sheet printed with a life-sized image of Shinjou in her underwear.

He grabbed both ends of the sheet and let it catch the air.

It could be heard fluttering in the wind as it grew round from the pressure of the air and lowered his speed.

“Toh.”

A quick noise escaped his mouth as he let go of the sheet.

He flipped again, kicked off the roof of the trailer, and rolled along the ground to stop his fall.

He negated the last of his momentum by standing back up and he reached his hands overhead.

The Shinjou printed sheet fell into his raised hands.

He spread the sheet out toward the heavens as if to show it off to the moon.

“Heh heh. You stopped me there, Shinjou-kun. You were wonderfully flexible. But I will be seeing the real you soon, so let us leave it at that. I cannot wait, I cannot wait, I cannot wait. I said it thrice!”

''Yes. I counted and made no mistake, so I must be plenty calm,'' he told himself as he turned around.

He looked to the abandoned truck and trailer. They were facing west which would take them to UCAT.

…''This was abandoned on the way to UCAT.

“So did something happen that required abandoning the truck to reach UCAT immediately?”

He guessed the Army had attacked.

But if they had abandoned the truck…

…''Did they not want to get the cargo caught in the battle?

“No. That is not it. You cannot find such cowardly thoughts in UCAT.”

He smiled a bit as he spoke to himself.

He approached the trailer and recognized the shape of the pallet.

The same pallet had been on the trailer that Tsukuyomi had driven to Kanda during the summer.

This was the large pallet used to carry a god of war.

The pallet was still sealed and not opened. He had a good guess as to why.

“It cannot be sent out quite yet. Or could you call it a savior to appear when they’re in a pinch?”

He received an answer from the pallet’s external communicator.

“Is that you, Master Sayama?”

He recognized the voice, so he tilted his head.

“Violet-kun? Why are you holding a moon viewing out here?”

“Oh, um… Yes, sir. It seems the Army has attacked, but, uh, the automatons are evacuating because apparently a dog will get in your head.”

“Hm, even if you do not mean that literally, things must be tough if people are making dog jokes.”

“Yes, sir. But that danger was removed just a moment ago. #8 seems to have reconciled with the dog. I was wondering when I should head out, but I wasn’t sure if I should or not.”

“I do not mind. I know just how earnest you are about combat.”

“Really? Then, um, I’ll head out. …Please don’t laugh.”

Violet’s voice was immediately followed by the rumble of destroyed metal.

Sayama saw the top of the cargo pallet fly high into the night sky.

It was supposed to slide open, but it had been pushed upward until it popped off.

Next, a blue and white god of war stood from the pallet.

It nervously brought its hands to its cheeks.

“O-oh, no. What did I do? And, um, where did the cover go?”

As if to answer her, the cover fell from the sky and stabbed into the ground.

The hunk of metal was fifteen meters long and five meters wide and it skewered into the ground just five centimeters to Sayama’s left.

The white metal panel made a tremendous noise, pierced through the asphalt, and shook the air.

Sayama nodded and placed a hand on the cover vibrating next to him.

“Luckily, the item in question fell right over here. Make sure not to lose it again. But what is with that body?”

“Yes, sir,” replied Violet’s god of war as it stood, crouched down, and pulled out the cover. “I’m very clumsy, so I kept destroying my spare bodies and we eventually ran out. I decided to use one of the 3rd gods of war destroyed in the summer battle until a replacement can be made.”

Violet grabbed at the armor that was colored blue and white like a maid uniform and she crouched down.

She twisted around to show off the white writing written with a brush on her back armor. It said “Miyako Is Life” and “Fierce Battles Are the Best”.

“Does it suit me?”

“Yes, I think it would suit no one better than you.”

“O-oh, c’mon, Master Sayama. You’re too good with words.”

To hide and put up with her embarrassment, she crouched down and beat on the asphalt with her left fist.

Sayama watched her fist as it rapidly crashed down just thirty centimeters to his right.

“I have been feeling a sort of natural sense of danger for a bit now, but it seems things have developed into a fierce battle over there. Can you help out some?”

“Oh, yes, sir. I can’t fly, but I can control gravity and inertia. …If that’s enough, I’ll help.”

“It is plenty, Violet-kun. Let us go to the people who await us.”

As soon as he said that, he felt a small force on his left leg. It was a faint tugging.

He wondered what it was.

“Baku? Did you pick up on my scent?”

Baku said nothing and quickly crawled up his leg and to his shoulder. He then circled around to the back of his neck, climbed to his head, and lay down in his hair as if to say that was his spot.

Sayama smiled bitterly at the familiar weight.

“Excellent. Let us go together to meet Shinjou-kun.”

But Baku was not the only one to arrive.

A light from the east illuminated the two people and the animal. The thick light was accompanied by the sound of an engine and a horn.

“Hey, outta the way! This rental’s hard to control, so how about moving!?”

Sayama turned a bitter smile toward the driver of the approaching motorcycle.

He gave an exasperated shrug.

“Are you stupid? Cutting past me or blocking my way is disrespectful.”

Sayama spoke with his hands in his suit pockets and the motorcycle headlight shining directly on him.

“Isn’t that right, Stupid Izumo.”

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| Back to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Chapter 31|Chapter 31]]
| Return to [[Owari no Chronicle|Main Page]]
| Forward to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Chapter 33|Chapter 33]]
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</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Chapter 31

2026-10-23T03:50:10Z

N-Ch:

==Chapter 31: A Small Amount of Truth==
[[Image:OnC_v11_0327.png|thumb]]
''There is so little of it

''Because it is so important

Hajji was so very close to the white building that had lost its upper floors.

The front entrance was not open.

But they did not need to get in through there. They could always shatter the lobby glass, break a window, or blow a hole in a wall.

But the enemy was numerous and reaching the building would not be easy.

''But,'' thought Hajji.

…''A stalemate on the battlefield is interesting too!

“———!!”

He cleared the center of the roundabout in a single leap on his way to the white building.

He was surrounded by the white army, but he was already on the move.

As soon as he landed, he knocked aside the three men in white armored uniforms standing in front of him.

His steel spear bent, split their clothes at the chest, smashed their armor, and sent them flying.

Three impacts rang out in quick succession and the three of them bent back and flew through the air, clearing the way ahead.

''Originally, I was going to say it here,'' he thought. ''I was going to tell them we would forgive them if they withdrew.

But he did not say it.

Instead, he spun on his heel and used the rotation to knock away the approaching enemies.

He rotated a full three hundred sixty degrees.

The next sound was that of the men forcefully charging his way being flung away from him.

But he faced forward without even glancing in their direction.

“So you’re here.”

Hajji powerfully raised his spear overhead as he spoke.

A moment later, the metal spear shaft deflected something upward.

He knew what it was it had deflected: a spear tip someone had sent his way.

He also knew who had done it. In fact, he could already see the person swinging a spear down in front of him.

“So you’re here, Abram Mesam! And is it just me or are you not using B-Sp? Hm?”

“That weapon should not be used on human opponents.”

“I see,” said Hajji with a nod.

And immediately afterward…

“Do you think you have room to go easy on me!?”

He deflected Abram’s metal spear toward the heavens.

Abram jumped back and Hajji leaped after him.

Abram landed first, gained solid footing, and jabbed his spear forward.

“!”

Hajji twisted around in midair.

He dropped his right heel on the back of Abram’s spear tip.

He timed it exactly right and successfully kicked Abram’s spear tip down and into the asphalt.

The metal loudly smashed the stone.

Hajji landed while holding down Abram’s spear tip with the bottom of his foot.

He also used his momentum for a spear strike on Abram’s face.

The attack pierced through the wind.

This was enough to gather the attention of the others fighting around them.

Some called Hajji’s name and some called Abram’s name.

Carried by those voices, Hajji’s spear flew straight for Abram’s face.

Abram turned to the side to avoid it.

The spear tip grazed his cheek as it flew past him.

Abram then did something one normally never did in armed combat.

He let go of his spear.

“…!”

He grabbed Hajji’s spear with both hands and pulled while also sending a kick toward Hajji.

“Nh!”

Hajji forcefully doubled over.

However, the kick never reached him.

As if pushed by the wind caused by the kick, he bent backward.

“…”

And he too let go of his spear.

He stepped back and stomped on the spear tip below his right foot.

The tip acted as a fulcrum, so the spear stood up and stopped right in Hajji’s waiting hand.

By that time, Abram had turned around the spear he had stolen and begun an attack.

Hajji blocked the attack and continued blocking.

He blocked four and then five attacks. After the number grew to eight and then nine, he did something else.

He smiled.

But this went beyond the corners of his mouth rising. He opened his mouth wide and bared his teeth as if to bite at something.

“Ha ha! It’s been a long time since I’ve smiled like this!!”

Pushed on by his own words, he powerfully deflected Abram’s spear with the back end of his own.

He no longer hid his smile behind a hand.

The look on his face was of pure joy.

“I hate to admit it, but it’s you! It has to be you! Yes, you are my enemy!!”

Abram did not answer.

Those fighting around them answered in his stead. They found small openings in their own battles and sent their gazes and voices toward those two.

Cries of their two names repeated again and again.

As everyone watched on, the two spears trailed white threads of water vapor and their feet and attacks shook the earth and wind.

In just an instant, the two of them moved several dozen meters. In an even shorter amount of time, they sent out countless attacks and sparks.

Their armored uniforms flew behind them and the soles of their shoes left their tread patterns on the asphalt.

The area in front of the white building had become a combat space no one but them could enter.

Hajji heard voices calling his name.

He heard voices calling his enemy’s name.

''It’s been so long,'' he thought. ''It’s been sixty years since I was cheered on like this.

…''Wonderful.

“Wonderful!!”

With that cry, he drew out all his strength.

He fought.

He heard a sound.

He did not hear it with his ears.

It was the pulse of the battlefield.

The sound did not truly exist.

His heart knew this sound.

It showed him the battle.

It showed him the lies, the truth, his opponent, and himself.

It began with footsteps.

The pounding boots rang loud.

The footsteps reverberated through his entire body.

The sound of the wind stimulated his emotions.

The sound of a blade cleared his surroundings.

The sound of guns pierced through the area ahead.

And he heard the pounding of his heart.

That pounding became a voice.

The voice asked him to settle this.

The impacts as they clashed, the bright sparks, the sharp will to fight, and the pressure of being a leader all filled him with joy.

“But Abram, how about we bring this to an end?”

He attacked again and again and listened to the many roars of impact.

“Can you trust the voices that support you?”

Abram did not answer that question, but he replied in a different way.

He began a ferocious offensive.

“————!”

Metal collided, Hajji was pushed back, and he could not help but fall back.

He raised his eyebrows and saw Shino watching worriedly in the distance. Mikoku purposefully had her back to him where she fought to the south. Jord was looking his way as she fought.

He felt as if they were all asking him what he would do.

He knew exactly what he would do.

This attack led into his opponent’s special attack. He had been on the receiving end of this left and right barrage about sixty years ago.

He had continued to defend and decided to wait for the other man to grow tired, but a sudden attack had come from below.

That was when he had lost his eye. His frantic counterattack had taken the other man’s eye.

He believed he was more skilled, but something bothered him.

…''Back then, I panicked and attacked.

He had defeated thousands or even tens of thousands of opponents, but a single unexpected attack had filled him with fear.

Skill did not come down to a simple matter of victory or defeat. They had received equivalent damage, but…

…''I lost that fight.

Hajji shifted from defense to offense. He moved quickly and sought nothing more than a swift and accurate strike.

“Ohhh!”

He cried out and their attacks clashed. In that instant, a memory resurrected in the back of his mind.

It was coming.

He sensed the same attack from below as in the past, but…

…''No!

He shook free of the past and moved on reflex.

Up above.

He sank down and held his raised spear over his head.

An intense impact rang through the raised spear shaft.

It was a heavy strike that seemed to drive him into the ground, but he withstood it.

He clenched his teeth, endured, and confirmed something a moment later.

…''I just broke through that unpleasant past!

He held the spear up in a short grip like it was a sword. He swung down the tip like a sword blade to slice Abram’s head in two.

But that was when he noticed something.

Abram’s metal spear was still bending as it pressed down, but the man let go of it with both hands.

Abram made a split-second decision.

Inertia had bent his spear, so he could not immediately pull it back. Instead, he let go of it.

He then grabbed the spear Hajji had a short raised grip on.

“…!”

He grabbed the spear shaft and forced it down. He poured all of his weight and strength on it.

Hajji’s hands seemed to be bringing his own blade down on himself.

It was a single-edged blade, but the area near the point was sharp enough to cut if it was lowered in a straight line.

With a scraping sound, the eyepatch covering Hajji’s left eye was cut through in an instant.

It also split his left shoulder and sent a flash of cutting light from his chest to his waist.

The blade found flesh.

The slicing sound filled the air, the spear left Hajji’s hands, and the black army cried out as if gasping.

“General Hajji!!”

But Abram faced Hajji without turning toward the others.

He picked up his own spear and looked to the man who had fallen to his knees.

…''So it ends here.

At that very moment, Hajji’s collapse suddenly stopped.

Abram noticed that Hajji had fallen into a sitting position before collapsing.

To keep the cut shallow, he had leaned backward while escaping downward.

Blood flowed from the slice in his black armor and his left arm was not moving, but he got up.

“You’re too soft. …Didn’t I tell you to finish someone off when you defeat them?”

Abram looked Hajji in the eye. In ''both'' eyes. The right eye was black and the left…

“It exists…but it doesn’t, does it?”

Hajji spoke as he got up from the ground.

“This is a copy of the concept held by Shahrnavaz…by Zahhak who you destroyed. The concept sealed inside the holy spear Barmayeh was the bright flame of motion, so the concept inside Zahhak was the deep darkness of stillness. Everything seen by this eye is brought to a stop, but it all breaks to pieces because it can’t endure it.”

He gave a brief pause.

“Receive the gaze of Shahrnavaz who was always watching you!!”

Abram leaped back just as an impact covered his entire body.

Shinjou heard Hajji’s shouted words as she took the elevator to the third basement.

She was worried about Abram, but a question occurred to her as well.

“The gaze of Shahrnavaz who was always watching you?”

The way he said it suggested he was close to this Shahrnavaz person.

But what did that have to do with Abram?

…''It can’t be.

She frowned and glanced over at Arnavaz.

The woman stood perfectly still and said nothing with her eyes closed. She faced forward just like Shinjou and almost seemed to be ignoring the girl.

Shinjou hesitated, but pulled a photograph from the basket in her hand.

She unfolded quietly it so Arnavaz would not notice and looked to the people of an older era.

She saw Sayama Kaoru, Hiba Ryuutetsu, Siegfried, Thunderson, Rhea, Toshi, and Chao. The man facing the other way in the far back was likely Kinugasa. And…

…''Director Abram is…

As she searched through the photograph, an unexpected voice reached her from the side.

“I’m sure he is in that photograph.”

“Eh? Oh, um, sorry!”

“Hm? There is nothing to apologize for. …That is a photograph of the early days of UCAT, isn’t it? My Fereydun from before I met him should be in there.”

“Yes,” agreed Shinjou.

There were quite a few people there in addition to Sayama’s grandfather and his group. A well-built Arab man stood in front of everyone’s luggage and she assumed he was Abram.

But Arnavaz continued speaking while still facing straight forward.

“He was known as a hero. He was a doctor, he had bad eyes, and he was far too skinny to fit the image of a ‘hero’, but he was still a true hero who saved many lives as he worked endlessly for the people.”

“Eh?”

Shinjou gulped, looked to Arnavaz, took a breath, and looked back at the photo.

Her stiff body saw someone in the photo that matched Arnavaz’s description.

At the side of Sayama’s grandfather’s group was a skinny Arab man.

He had short hair, he wore a brown coat, and his glasses were looking up toward the sky.

…''If that’s Abram, then he’s a completely different person from the current Abram.

Then what was the current Abram?

She was dumbfounded and Arnavaz stood next to her.

The woman continued to face forward, she said nothing, and her expression remained calm.

…''Why?

“Arnavaz-sama, you’ve noticed, haven’t you?”

She did not answer Shinjou’s question, but she did speak.

“Things are so noisy up above.”

Noise seemed to answer her words.

It came from the battlefield beyond the large shaft overhead.

Abram jumped back and Hajji realized he had escaped the range of his vision.

However, his armored uniform was torn and the right knee he had bent for his jump had failed to escape and shattered.

The air between them also shattered, creating a vacuum wave.

Hajji’s gaze did nothing more than stop everything in its range, but stopped objects were brittle.

If the air was stopped, it solidified and the faint movement of the surrounding air would push, bend, and finally break it.

Abram was blown further back by the vacuum wave and Hajji forcefully stood to pursue.

The spear he had held had returned to his enemy’s hands.

He picked up the spear Abram had abandoned in midair and that was originally his.

Instead of running, he made a single quick leap to close the distance with Abram.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw people looking at him after hearing his words about Shahrnavaz.

He noticed that most of them wore white and he decided that was perfect.

Before revealing the whole truth, he would break down a ridiculous falsehood.

“Listen. Listen carefully!”

He brought his right leg forward and swung his spear up from below.

“This man is going by the name Abram, but he is actually Sarv, king of 9th-Gear!!”

He felt the blow land as he spoke.

“9th-Gear once joined with 3rd to invade Low-Gear. During that mission, the king was betrayed by the politicians, separated from his comrades, and badly injured by a spy.”

Abram was knocked to the right with the sound of breaking bone.

“Everyone thought he was dead, but he actually survived thanks to the medic that all of you originally referred to as Abram! And…”

As Abram flew through the air, Hajji circled behind him in a single step.

He also twisted his body and swung his spear.

“The real Abram died during the battle that destroyed 9th-Gear, but for some unfathomable reason, this man took on his name!! To fully take over the man’s identity, he even married his fiancée!”

Hajji hit Abram’s back with a horizontal strike.

“Your original fiancée, my sister Shahrnavaz, was made into Zahhak and then killed by you! And after betraying me, my sister, and our world, did you forget all about your past and wish to live in happiness!?”

Abram flew toward the white building’s entrance and Hajji ran after him.

“It is time you lost!!”

Hajji launched his spear tip toward the giant man’s back.

The metal blade sank halfway into the armor on his back just as his body crashed into the disguised building’s front entrance.

The large glass door turned pure white in an instant.

The impact to the entire surface of the bulletproof and explosion-resistant glass utterly destroyed it.

As if opening a hole in the spray of glass, Abram’s body tangled with the door frame and flew inside.

He did not stop even after breaking through the lobby counter.

His giant body and his white armored uniform broke through the cement storeroom wall in the back and disappeared.

The building shook from the continued destruction and more crashing sounds continued afterward.

As he listened to all that, Hajji raised the spear in his right hand.

He looked to the expanse of darkness leading underground.

“The entrance to the truth has opened!!”

He looked behind him and to Shino.

She stood away from the fighting on the distant southern grass and she squeezed the blue philosopher’s stone hanging from her neck.

She closed her eyes and hid the growing blue light with her hand.

“Please believe us.”

As soon as he heard her speak her compulsory will, Hajji discreetly took a breath.

The chilly wind entered his lungs, strength returned to his eyes, and he spoke his words.

“Listen, UCAT.”

After making sure his voice was working normally, he spoke in his usual tone of voice.

“The truth I just revealed is no more than a preview. Realize that you are fools who were tricked into being led by an old enemy. Yes.”

He said “listen” again as those in white stiffened as if scolded.

This was the power of Shino’s philosopher’s stone. After seeing Abram’s defeat, her will could more easily reach them.

Fully aware of that, Hajji spoke.

As he did, he saw the three large dolls walking along the distant east end of the runway.

“Don’t worry. Defeat isn’t a bad thing. Just die and you won’t have to think about any of that. Yes. …But we will never forgive you even if we see you lose. You understand nothing and yet you think you’re in charge of this world, don’t you? Hm? Therefore…”

He swung down his raised spear forcefully enough to hear it slice through the air.

“The main force will come with me. Let us go change this world. And everyone else… Mikoku!”

Mikoku turned around and he gently narrowed his eyes toward the surprised black-haired girl.

“Protect Shino while taking care of the fools here. You don’t want to leave behind any regrets. Isn’t that right? Hm?”

“…!? Father! I will head down with you!”

“No.”

He shook his head and gave her a smile with clenched teeth.

“Didn’t you hear me? Don’t leave behind any regrets. So secure our escape route, Mikoku. This is a fierce battlefield and the enemy will be pushing in from outside. So you protect the entrance so none of them can get in and also protect Shino. …How about it? Can you do it?”

She no longer protested.

Instead, her shoulders drooped and her eyes closed.

But a moment later, she trembled and filled with strength once more.

“You won’t listen to anything I say when you ask multiple times like that.”

She opened her eyes and turned her sharp gaze his way.

He looked her firmly in the eye and had an honest thought.

…''She’s gathering too much strength, but that might be just right for now.

''Don’t force yourself,'' he thought but did not say.

He simply smiled and did not hide it with his hand.

“Will you do it, Mikoku?”

“I will. I cannot disobey an order from our leader.”

She finally nodded.

Next, she held her drawn sword in her right hand, raised the blade for him to see, and opened her mouth.

“Get going, father. And good luck. I will be waiting here, so hurry back.”

“I will.”

He used the same words she had and turned his back on her.

He used his hand to instruct his unit to follow.

“I’ll be going. …It’s time to have some fun filling you all with regret.”

A white corridor said BF4 on the wall.

Three people ran down the center of the long white passageway.

Two were a young and old man both in a lab coat and one was a maid with red hair.

The young man opened his laptop toward the maid.

“You see, Japanese UCAT’s underground area is currently being split in three using concept space corridors. It splits up the pathways the enemy can use and makes it easier to intercept them. And this is Harumi sleeping this morning. …Did you see it? Then, #8, your role will be…”

“Testament. Kashima-sama, after I escort Ooshiro-sama to the fifth basement, I will join my fellow automatons because the enemy’s dog ghosts might be able to reach our brains even underground.”

Her voice was calm and Kashima nodded in understanding.

“I see. But where are those dog ghosts now?”

“The one that possessed #100 transferred to one of us on the third floor. We captured that one when it was wandering around after the explosion. However, the dog possessing 101st learned from that experience and has managed to escape even when its host was destroyed. We do not know where it is.”

There was a possibility of the automatons betraying everyone, so they were all closing themselves in a concept space.

<nowiki>#8</nowiki> then looked to her right hand.

That slender hand was latched onto an ear and that ear was connected to Ooshiro.

The old man was flopping around like a fish as she dragged him along the floor.

“Ah, ow! This really hurts, #8-kun! What on earth did I do wrong!?”

She thought for a moment and quickly returned her expressionless gaze to him.

“Testament. You are alive.”

“Living is a crime now!?”

“Ooshiro-sama, living is not a crime, no matter what I might think. …And I have determined your current state is better than dying while enjoying yourself on the fifth floor. It was fortunate for you that you were so hungry you snuck down to the cafeteria. Now, please hurry. …And Kashima-sama, will you be heading out to fight?”

“Yes, I will be defending a point along the route. I just hope no one too powerful comes my way. Also…”

He smiled bitterly.

“The one who really likes to show off has already gone outside.”

<nowiki>#8</nowiki> nodded at that.

Those two ran and Ooshiro was dragged until they finally reached the intersection where they would part ways.

Once they stepped out into it, Kashima alone turned to the right.

“I’ll be defending up above. You work hard too.”

“Testament. But telling me to ‘work hard’ is meaningless. 3rd’s automatons always do their very best.”

“My apologies.”

Kashima smiled, bowed, and turned his back. His pace soon grew to a run.

<nowiki>#8</nowiki> returned the bow and continued down the corridor while half dragging Ooshiro.

The path ahead continued down to the fifth basement.

A group in white armored uniforms approached from up ahead. They were armed with anti-tank rifles. When they saw Ooshiro being dragged, they stopped, saluted with a smile, bowed, and laughed.

“Tch. He’s still alive.”

“How can he be so shameless?”

“Why does #8 have to be with someone like him?”

“I-is that really what you should be saying when you see me!?”

The men ignored him and continued on.

As they disappeared behind them, the white corridor grew completely empty.

A slight sound could be heard overhead.

The corridor shook along with it and Ooshiro looked up at the ceiling.

“Hm. From the sound of that, I’d say they’ve gotten in. What do you think, #8-kun?”

However, #8 did not say “testament”.

She expressionlessly let go of his ear and gave a different answer.

“Woof.”

As #8 barked, a handgun came from her right sleeve and assembled in midair.

She then pressed the muzzle against Ooshiro’s unmoving forehead.

She targeted a vital point from point-blank range.

Ooshiro looked up at her with the end of the round cylinder pressed against his forehead.

She looked down at him with a blank look on her face, so he pressed his index fingers against his cheeks and tilted his head.

“Oh, #8-kun. You sure do love your jokes.”

A gunshot rang out.

The gunshot echoed down the corridor and a hole appeared in the wall.

The hole was created by the handgun held by the maid automaton named #8.

Ooshiro had been her target, but he had dodged the bullet by sliding his upper body to the side.

He went on to quickly hold his palms out toward her.

“Nwah. That’s a harsh response for my cute mannerisms, #-…”

She pressed the handgun against the left side of his head next to the ear and another gunshot rang out.

The bullet should have penetrated the side of his head, but he crouched down to avoid it.

“W-wait a second, #8-kun. If you’re going to act like a dog, at least wear dog ears.”

She pressed the muzzle against the top of his head and suddenly fired.

But he stood up while bending half a step backward to evade.

However, her gun kept coming.

“Ah, wait. Is this, um, really what happens when an automaton is being controlled!?”

She answered his powerful question, but not in words.

“Woof, woof, woof.”

Multiple gunshots sounded and they did not stop.

She pulled the trigger, repeatedly altered her aim, and produced constant noise from the full-auto slide mechanism.

Ooshiro continued to dodge by raising his hands, stretching, sliding to the side, getting on the ground, and even striking a pose with his arms wrapped around either side of his head.

Once the number of fired bullets reached the capacity of the magazine, he stuck his right thumb out toward her.

“All right! Now you won’t have to shoot me!!”

Her rebuttal was to pull a fresh handgun from both her sleeves.

“Th-that’s not fair!! And one in both hands!?”

“Woof!!”

Bullets flew from both sides now.

Gunshots and sparks blossomed again and again with her skillful manipulation of the guns.

The muzzle flashes illuminated Ooshiro like a strobe light as he performed a high-speed dance.

“Yeeeeaaaahhhhh! It’s a one-man show time!!”

He scattered sweat, spun around, and struck a pose, but he spun again when more bullets flew his way.

She soon ran out of bullets, but she used gravitational control to bring in a new magazine.

He continued to spin and dance while she provided more gunfire with skillful speed.

“Uuhhh!!”

Her eyebrows rose and she tried to shoot him from a variety of angles all while never letting up.

Suddenly, two people arrived from the end of the corridor that Ooshiro and #8 had come from.

Ooshiro spotted them while dodging.

[[Image:OnC_v11_0353.jpg|thumb]]

“Oh, Arnavaz-kun and Shinjou-kun! …Um, Sh-Shinjou-kun! Could you help me?”

He was dodging bullets and dripping sweat as he asked, but Shinjou only tilted her head.

She seemed confused and she looked back and forth between him dodging and #8 firing.

After a while, she stared at #8’s furrowed eyebrows and spoke.

“Oh, I get it.”

She lowered her shoulders and sighed toward Ooshiro.

“You did something weird to #8-san again, didn’t you?”

“Ahhh!! You don’t believe me!? If these hit me, I’ll die!!”

“I see. …But I’ve wondered for a while if you’d really die if a bullet hit you.”

“Sh-Shinjou-kun! That’s just rude! Of course I’ll die if a bullet hits me!”

“You’ve never even tried it, so stop making things up.”

“If I tried it, I’d die!!”

Shinjou frowned and looked away.

She then sighed and pulled on Arnavaz’s hand.

“Arnavaz-sama, we need to hurry. Everyone is waiting.”

She put on a fake smile, pulled on the woman’s hand, and passed by behind #8.

Ooshiro continued moving around amid the gunfire and he clapped his hands below the right leg he had raised to dodge.

“#-#8! C-can you seriously wait just a moment!?”

Shinjou had begun to leave, but she turned back and angrily glared at him.

“This is your punishment for making her mad. I think it’s in your best interest to be scolded every once in a while.”

“I get hit all the time, but this is different!!!”

But Shinjou ignored him and continued pulling on Arnavaz’s hand. Arnavaz turned back and bowed, so he bowed back and had a bullet graze the top of his head.

Shinjou and Arnavaz disappeared down the corridor, but the sounds of gunfire remained.

Suddenly, #8’s expression changed and her eyes began to focus once more.

“Woof. …Oh, Ooshiro-sama. I greatly apologize. I have successfully created an isolated sector in my brain and regained control of my mind- woof! …But it is still not perfect.”

“Th-that’s great, but can you stop firing!?”

“Testament. I have determined that is impossible. …Woof. I had to enclose my mind in an isolated sector to secure that territory in my head. If I leave that sector, control of my mind will likely be fully taken. That is how dense this dog ghost is. Explaining the details of the systems involved would be lengthy, but I would like to prove my innocence in this matter.”

“I don’t care about your innocence, so just do something already!! If you don’t, there are going to be some tears! From me!”

She frowned while continuing her skillful usage of the guns.

“Why do you always make light of automatons and make such irregular statements?”

“Th-that doesn’t matter! You can tell me this later!”

“Testament. But I cannot stop. That said, there is one way, Ooshiro-sama. Why not try letting one shot hit you? The dog ghost might give up or regret having shot something so detestable.”

“Just to be clear, you’ve been aiming right for my head for a while now! A single hit will kill me. M-more importantly, how many bullets do you have left? Surely you don’t have any left up your sleeves.”

“No, but just to be sure, I prepared some in my skirt and beneath my apron, so I can keep this up for another three hours. …But I must admit it is a shame that I must kill you.”

“Don’t be so certain that’s going to happen!!”

His shout was followed by three sounds.

Two were #8’s handguns running out of bullets. And the other…

“Did you just hear a strange sound from my back? Something like a dry branch breaking?”

“Testament. I have determined it was a ‘crick’ sound. …Woof.”

Ooshiro could no longer move while she swapped out the two handguns’ magazines.

She used gravitational control to cock them and pressed them both against his forehead.

“I have determined this is unfortunate. However, it is the presence of unfortunate things that makes the future seem so very bright.”

“Don’t twist this into a positive light!!”

She ignored his shout and squeezed her fingers.

But just before she did, he cried out again.

Instead of screaming, he shouted a certain special word telling her not to move.

“Stay!!”

No gunshot filled the corridor.

With the guns still pressed against his forehead, Ooshiro looked left and right and then at the person past the guns.

He looked at #8 who had stopped moving.

“…#8?”

“Woof.”

She did not move, but it seemed the dog was still inside her.

He thought about why she had stopped and found the answer in about five seconds.

He lightly clapped his hands and said another word to her.

“Sit.”

<nowiki>#8</nowiki> looked utterly confused as she quickly crouched down to the ground.

She stopped with her hands out front and her knees raised, just like a dog.

She looked up at him, stuck out her tongue, and panted. If she had a tail, it would probably have been wagging.

“I see. …This must have been a well-trained dog.”

He gave an impressed nod and #8 frowned.

“Ooshiro-sama, how long are you going to have me sit here?”

He slowly crouched and sat down while holding his back.

“That’s a very good question. You’ve been pretty mean to me after all.”

“Ooshiro-sama.”

Hearing his teasing tone of voice, she frowned and the dog ghost made her bark.

The bark was telling him to stop sitting down and start petting it, so he nodded.

“Do you want me to pet you? Hm?”

“No, I do not- woof.”

Hearing her bark, he reached out and pet her head.

“Good girl, good girl. You’re so cute, Dog #8. You don’t disobey me or bite me or anything.”

As he continued to pet her, #8 looked down and spoke in a low voice.

“Ooshiro-sama, I must request that you remember this.”

“Hmm. Are you sure you want me to remember this? For example, what if I did this?”

He held a hand in front of her face and she completely stopped moving.

She frowned, stared at his hand, and started to turn away, but…

“Nn.”

She squeezed her eyes shut and turned back toward him.

Next, her trembling tongue slowly stuck out from between her lips.

“Kh.”

She licked his hand once, twice, and then thrice.

Ooshiro nodded.

“You really are a dog.”

But as soon as he said that…

“Ee.”

A trembling tone escaped her throat as she backed away a bit and hung her head.

He watched in confusion as she gave a large frown in her canine sitting position.

“Hyah.”

A sudden drop of water spilled from her open eye.

Ooshiro frantically scratched his head and tried to soothe her.

“Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. I guess I went a little too far. …You automatons don’t like anyone but your master to touch you, right?”

“Testament. I do not have control of my body, so it could not obey my rejection circuits. That caused an error in my head which I do have control over, so this was merely an activation of my sight device’s cleaning function. It was in no way caused by an emotional response.”

She forced her head up, returned her expression to normal, and slightly lowered her head again.

“With an automaton, such a drop of water is not a tear, so do not worry about it.”

“I see,” said Ooshiro as a sudden thought came to him. “#8-kun, I just had a thought. Do you mind?”

He picked up one of the handguns she had dropped and held it out toward her.

She tilted her head and sniffed it, but he pulled it back and…

“Go fetch!”

He threw the gun down the corridor.

The dog literally left her body.

It was a black hound with a collar mark around its neck.

It was over eighty centimeters tall and it ran out in front of #8’s widened eyes.

Its footsteps were audible, but it had no shadow. It picked the gun up in its mouth, gave the same bark that had come from #8’s mouth, and turned back toward them with the bottom of its feet skittering on the floor.

It returned to them with the gun in its mouth.

“Ah.”

After coming back to her senses, #8 lifted her hand to eye level and realized she could actually move her hand.

“I have determined this is good,” she said expressionlessly.

She wiped the corner of her eye and sat more normally on the floor.

The dog returned next to her, but she had already sealed off her brain.

She took the gun from the dog and it gave another happy bark.

A tremor reached them through the ceiling as the two people and one animal gave a sigh from the floor.

<nowiki>#8</nowiki> held the bottom of her apron against the corner of her eye and then pet the dog next to her.

“If Shinjou-sama is here, then Sayama-sama will not be far behind.”

“Do you really think so? And we probably shouldn’t tell Mikoto-kun that you cried.”

“I do not mind. Although that seems wholly unrelated to what I said. Anyway, they are still fighting up above and Sayama-sama would make it here even if the Army took control of the surface. That is an absolute truth.”

“I see,” said Ooshiro. “Well, I’d like to evacuate before he gets here, so could you carry me?”

He held a hand out to her and then spoke with a refreshing smile.

“Okay, shake. …Woof.”

<nowiki>#8</nowiki> expressionlessly slammed her hand into his face.

<noinclude>
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| Back to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Chapter 30|Chapter 30]]
| Return to [[Owari no Chronicle|Main Page]]
| Forward to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Chapter 32|Chapter 32]]
|-
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</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Chapter 30

2026-10-23T03:45:18Z

N-Ch:

==Chapter 30: Meeting Distance==
[[Image:OnC_v11_0285.png|thumb]]
''Everyone says

''I can finally see you again

The battle began with black approaching white.

The runway acted as the stage. It was an asphalt corridor with two meter walls on either side.

A black army ran down that fifty meter wide path in a dense formation.

In all, there were around one hundred and twenty people in black armored uniforms.

Different colors of dogs ran along with them.

Their boots clattered across the ground, the barking of the dogs filled the night wind, and they all traveled west.

Their goal was the white building one thousand two hundred meters ahead.

“Hurry,” someone muttered even though they were already running full speed. “If we don’t hurry, the end won’t come.”

Someone else cried out in response.

“We have to end this!”

They all trembled and cheered. They sank down and accelerated further.

“We have to end this world and make a new one!!”

Strength filled their cheers and they tore through the wind.

They ran.

They never stopped running.

By running, they worked toward what they desired.

On the other hand, the white army was slow to react. The automatic dolls had been hijacked and left motionless.

Some attacks were coming from the white force, but it was still scattered.

This contrasted with the concentration and speed of the attacks from the black force.

Light shot to the left and right from the black army.

That light reached the people leaving the forest or station by the runway and it reached the anti-air defense field generators.

“…!”

Explosions filled all of those areas.

There was no fire, but countless sounds and pillars of smoke shook the ground and air.

As countless forms were blasted into the air, a five-man team split off from the black army to the left and right.

In the lead, Hajji turned toward them, raised his eyebrows and sounded like he was giving a casual greeting.

“Are you going so soon?”

The man in charge of the first unit on the right turned toward him.

“We’ll be going on ahead.”

The one in charge of the first unit on the left did the same.

“So will we.”

They scattered to the left or right.

“It’s time to fill them with regret!”

They cleared the side walls in a single bound and were met by explosive blasts and gunfire.

The black unit jumping to the right was intercepted by a group of automatons attacking from the side.

Mid-jump, they protected their bodies and heads with their right arms and began firing on the automatons with their left arms.

Their battle began on the grass lit by the flames of a distant burning prefab building.

The automatons seemed to spin around as they ran and jumped. They aimed their machineguns via perfect synchronization between their arms and eyes. They used a smart system that automatically aimed in the direction they were looking.

Their firing was so accurate that they did not waste a single bullet.

The black unit attacked from midair and the automatons attacked from the ground. And they fired.

Between the gunfire and flying sparks, the black unit clacked the heels of their boots together as they began to fall.

With a sound, rolling balls appeared on the bottom of their feet. All those balls did was spin, but…

“…!”

They only had to use the thrusters sticking out from their back armor to achieve great mobility.

As the five prepared to land, shimmering heat rose behind them.

“You can only use the thruster for thirty seconds!” shouted their commander. “Use it intermittently and carefully!!”

“You’re the worst one at using it, commander!”

“That’s why I get such good results!!”

They landed and bullets washed over them, but they let their armor deflect them.

“Our armor is thick! It’s heavy and overheats quickly, but everything ends here anyway. More importantly…”

The momentum of landing pushed the commander’s legs forward and he almost fell onto his butt, but instead…

“Outta the way, dolls!!”

The shimmering heat behind him burst open and his body quickly rose up.

They shot across the grass in an instant. Wind wrapped around them as they shot forward in a gouging arc toward the people returning from the northern forest. Those people were a mix of automatons and other UCAT personnel.

“We’re only interested in fighting the people of Low-Gear!”

The five black armored men tried to slip past the automatons, but the maids ran after them, turned around, and aimed their machineguns.

“We are already a part of Low-Gear.”

“I see. I apologize then. That’s a shame to hear, though.”

A maid jumped over the men’s head and continued forward.

This maid was the hijacked 101st.

She jumped high into the air, looked down on the stopped automatons, opened her mouth with the moon behind her, held a machinegun in her right hand, and held a combat knife in her left.

“————!!”

She howled.

The heavily armored men with prosthetics charged onward as if to catch up with the canine howl.

The black army was now one thousand one hundred meters from the white building.

The running black army saw a white building up ahead.

As they ran against the wind, a small figure remained in the center.

It was Shino.

Shiro ran at her side, she controlled the dogs with the philosopher’s stone at her chest, and she looked forward past the others.

…''Mikoku.

Where was she? She was probably near the front, but Shino could only see the color black from where she was. The most she could make out was Hajji due to his height.

…''Where is she?

They had been in different trucks and she had only caught a glimpse of the girl’s back when they had formed up.

They had not spoken much at all for the past few days.

The last time they had spoken was three days before. Shino had brought up today, Mikoku had told her to stop talking about that, and they had gotten into an argument.

But once the battle was over, they could return to their normal lives. And that normal life would be even better than before because she would no longer need to feel guilty about the surrounding world.

…''But…

She was filled with a vague anxiety.

…''Does Mikoku think the same thing?

She had wanted to ask her even if only to have something to talk about together.

But there was something she wanted to say even more. It was a bad feeling that formed the foundation of her anxiety.

“When this fight is over…”

She muttered her fear in her heart.

…''When this fight is over, will she stay with me?

At the moment, Mikoku was definitely out toward the front. She had her back to Shino and Shino could not catch up. Shino raised her speed as if trying to reach the girl she knew was up ahead.

At that moment, she caught a glimpse ahead from behind those in front of her.

The information dogs running ahead on the runway suddenly shook.

“There are land mines!!” she shouted.

But that was not all.

The view up ahead changed slightly.

As everyone tried to stop, something previously unseen was revealed in front of the white building.

The objects appeared as if a shroud had been removed from the scene.

“Cannons!? Were they hidden with optical camouflage!?”

There were two metal cannons measuring four meters long. They had a caliber of 88mm. Not even a god of war would escape a direct hit unharmed.

They were positioned in order to block the asphalt corridor.

But Shino knew those around her would not slow down.

…''Let’s go.

As soon as that thought filled her heart, she heard a voice.

“I’m not afraid.”

Everyone cried out, sped up, and rushed forward.

They continued forward and the enemy responded to the sound of their pounding feet.

Two shells tore into the air.

The black army was one thousand meters from the white building.

The white army heard the sound of shellfire as they gathered in front of the white building.

It was a great roar.

The shockwave rushed out, struck the air, and shook the building’s windows.

The two horizontal shots reached their ears as a single deafening sound.

The cannons fired explosive shells.

Then again, the metal shells were fired at greater than the speed of sound, so a human body would be smashed to dust before they even exploded. They would only detonate once they struck a prosthetic body part with thick armor.

“!!”

Eight hundred meters ahead, two white explosions rose into the air.

The sound carried into the sky, but as they watched the smoke flutter and scatter in the wind, someone spoke aloud.

“Wait.”

They had all noticed something odd and they expressed it in words.

“Why did they explode at eight hundred meters? Shouldn’t that have happened further back? They haven’t entered the kilometer long minefield yet.”

“Well…” said someone else trying to find an answer.

However, the answer revealed itself from beyond the smoke. It seemed to throw the smoke off of itself.

First, there was a large woman wearing a black armored uniform like a coat.

Next, there was a girl wearing a tattered black armored uniform.

[[Image:OnC_v11_0295.jpg|thumb]]

The large woman threw aside her black armor as she walked and she spoke to the girl next to her.

“Of course it’s gonna explode if you stop it with your sword. Stop it with your body instead of wasting a perfectly good weapon.”

“Does it bother you that much to fight alongside someone so young, Jord?”

The girl skillfully removed her shoes as she walked.

“Let us make a game out of this.”

“Fine, Mikoku. I’m nice, so I’ll play along. And the rules are right in front of us. Do you understand?”

“I do. …It is a simple game: Who can reach the other side of the minefield first? It’s an eight hundred meter dash. Or is it an obstacle course because of the shells? …But I am young, so I will do it barefoot.”

Jord began running even as Mikoku spoke.

“Th-that is cheating! That is a false start!”

Without looking back, Jord poked at her head with her right index finger.

Mikoku began to run as well, but she did turn back.

She saw the troubled look on Hajji’s face and shouted to the others.

“We will make a path to the entrance, so run, everyone. And let us all charge right in!”

Additional shellfire sounded as if answering her and multiple explosions came from Jord up ahead.

The black army was seven hundred meters from the white building.

The advance of the black army could not be stopped.

The woman and girl smashed the shells and the ones who jumped to the left or right stubbornly drew the gunfire.

There was no reason for the black army to slow as they ran down the center.

They simply had to continue on.

When they finally arrived within six hundred meters, a noise seemed to envelop the runway.

This was the rumbling of new boots running their way.

They all saw units of UCAT guards returning from the surrounding areas.

The footsteps came from the eastern end of the runway, the southern forest, and the northern forest. Approximately one hundred people arrived from each of those directions.

Those from the north and south came to crush the two small black units fighting there.

The ones from the east pursued the black army from behind.

Mikoku and Jord continued smashing the shells and literally racing across the minefield, but the two small black units drawing fire to the north and south were in serious trouble.

The white force arriving from the north first attacked the hijacked automaton named 101st.

“If possible, don’t hit her head!!”

The other automatons could not attack, but the men fulfilled their request.

Those in white armored uniforms ground their teeth and used their gunfire to smash the bones of the growling automaton.

Their bullets pierced her maid outfit and split her limbs and torso.

“————!”

She fell to the grass, but by that time, the hundred-strong force of white gunmen was already turning to the men in black armored uniforms.

The horizontal downpour of bullets acted as multiple weights to push back and destroy those heavily-armored prosthetic-enhanced bodies.

“What…”

The group in white shouted out as they ran forward.

“What are you hoping to accomplish!?”

The group in black shook from the impact and smiled despite not even having time to attack.

But behind them, the black army was only five hundred meters from the white building.

The small group in black spoke as they heard those footsteps and gunfire.

“Did you hear that!? They asked what we hope to accomplish. You all know what to do about that, don’t you?”

“Yeah.”

The five-man unit was surrounded by gunfire and filled with pain, but they opened their mouths.

“Ha ha!”

They laughed. Even as they curled up to ensure their bodies did not fall apart, they let their loud laughter carry across the ground as if it were an attack.

Immediately afterward, gunfire sounded.

One of the men in the black unit had his arm armor blown off.

He lost his balance and was blown backward by a bullet to the side of the chest.

He rolled along the ground and ended up sprawled out there, but…

“Ha ha… They don’t get it. They really don’t get it!!”

“What don’t we get!? Or… Do you really think you can win here!?”

“We can win.”

He sat up but took a bullet to the gut and collapsed forward.

He lay face down and trembled, but that was because he was laughing so hard.

“Ha ha. You’re going to lose. That’s a foregone conclusion. You’re going to regret defeating us. …And that regret will be your loss and make you disappear. So go ahead and feel regret, lose, and disappear.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. How could regret make us lose and disappear?”

“Do you know why the blank period was created?”

No one could answer that question.

The main black force was now within four hundred meters of the white building. Shellfire and gunfire shook the air to stop them and the fallen man in black armor stood up.

“You don’t know why it was created, do you?”

Despite his question, no one allowed him to continue.

Gunfire rang out in his direction, his armor was blasted away, and it all reached him as solid impacts.

But…

“Ah, such wonderful pain. Such wonderful shaking. …It’s all proof that you fear the past.”

Bullets hit him and sparks flew, but he did not go down. He cut the sense of pain in his prosthetics, removed their power limiters, and affixed a smile on his bloody face.

“Let’s end this together, allies of justice. That’s probably the happiest outcome for this world.”

One man in white swapped out his submachine gun’s magazine and asked the other man a question.

“What’s the point of hiding your reason for this!? Why hide it!?”

“Weren’t you listening? We need to fill you with regret. Telling you comes much, much later. Once most of us have been defeated, Hajji will tell you.”

“Why…then? Are you here to die? If the past you’re talking about is that serious, why not tell us now so we’ll surrender!?”

“That wouldn’t bring enough regret. …You need to defeat more and more and more of us. Then, when you think you’ve won, we’ll tell you just how wrong you’ve been. Now, gather your strength and defeat me. Prepare for your future worry! Otherwise, my defeat will be meaningless!!”

His cry was punctuated by gunfire from behind the white force.

Only after several people collapsed did they turn around.

Their eyes opened wide when they saw who stood there.

“An automaton?”

One of the automatons following them had her machinegun aimed at them.

One of the men in white frowned toward her.

“W-wait. There weren’t any dogs over here.”

“Woof.”

After a single gunshot, that man collapsed.

A cool breeze blew in and the gunfire stopped.

All that remained was the sound of white armored uniforms striking the ground and the smell of smoke rising from the muzzle of the automaton’s machinegun.

The black army had arrived within three hundred meters of the white building, but no one here could move.

Unable to breathe, they saw a sudden tremor run through the automaton.

Her eyes refocused and she gave a look of surprise.

“Eh? Um, what was I just doing?”

No one should have been able to answer her, but one person did.

It was a man in a black armored uniform with thin smoke and shimmering heat rising from different parts of his body.

He spat bloody saliva to the ground and smiled.

“You know mad dogs are contagious, right? Well, it turns out they can infect others via shared memory.”

“You can’t mean…”

“Oh, but I do. I’m sure you automatons won’t want to hear it, but those information dogs have gotten used to your shared memories and are running around working for their master. …Look.”

With those words, some light appeared.

The red light rose from the third floor of the disguised Japanese UCAT building.

An explosion rose into the air.

The exterior of the disguised Japanese UCAT building’s third floor was blown away by the color scarlet. It was the color of flames.

The third floor was being used to store the combat materiel to fight back against an attack.

That area midway up the building’s white wall was blasted into the sky with the sound of an explosion and the color of fire.

It was burning.

The black army was two hundred meters from the white building. As they continued to approach, the fourth and fifth floors of the building went dark and all of the windows spewed smoke into the sky like upside-down waterfalls.

Next came the destruction.

First was the noise. The noise of shaking wind, of crumbling building materials, of something still exploding, and of human cries of pain and fear.

With the support of the third floor gone, the fourth and fifth floors crumbled downward.

The building collapsed.

The fourth and fifth floors remained intact, but they tilted and crushed the north end of the lower floors and finally collapsed northward under their own weight.

Everyone heard the glass and other materials dumped to the ground.

The ground shook, dust made of building materials rose into the night sky, and smoke rose from the top of the disguised Japanese UCAT building that was now only two stories tall.

A man in a black armored uniform watched it from the north end of the runway and broke the surrounding silence with his laughter.

“Ha ha. You will lose through your regret, but you’ll also lose for real. Disappear from this world, UCAT.”

The men in white moved quickly in response.

The black army was now one hundred meters from the white building.

However, the reinforcements from the east were catching up, so the men in white here let out a shout while pulling their triggers.

“Then we’ll make sure nothing remains! Not even the regret you speak of!!”

“You should probably talk to them about that.”

Without bothering to avoid the bullets, the man in black armor pointed a trembling hand to the east.

The white reinforcements were running down the runway from the east. They were the guards who had returned from the surrounding areas.

However, other figures were approaching from even further back.

They were all feminine, they were all the exact same height, and they all had the exact same face.

“Automatons in black maid outfits?”

“No, they aren’t automatons. They’re just dolls. …There are three hundred of them. This is the army to announce the end.”

As if responding to those words, the group in black maid uniforms began to run.

Their approaching footsteps were light, but they sped up and reached a sprint.

At the same time, they prepared the weapons they wore on their backs.

Some had metal shields, some metal spears, and some metal bows and arrows.

The black maids split into three groups of about one hundred each.

Two groups approached the white forces on the left and right sides of the runway and one pursued the white force chasing after the Army on the runway.

They were already firing arrows which seemed to scream as they tore through the wind.

At the same time, the rear third of the Army’s main force split off.

They turned around to pin the approaching white force between them and the dolls coming up from behind.

They let out war cries as they clashed.

The three groups of white reinforcements all had an enemy to face, so they could not pursue the Army’s main force.

The Army simply had to rush in at the white building now.

Due to the minefield on the runway, the white army had no choice but to set up a barricade at the runway exit and intercept them there.

One side ran and the other side waited to receive them.

As soon as the battle settled into that arrangement, the man in black armor narrowed his eyes and laughed again.

“Ha ha. My role ends here.”

He collapsed onto the ground behind him.

Strength left his eyes as they looked up into the night sky. Smoke rose from explosions and began to hide the moon.

“I guess you can find light anywhere.”

But his eyes did see light.

It was an aircraft dropping down from the heights of the heavens.

A blue and white mechanical dragon was performing a power dive toward them.

An instant later, the blue and white dragon broke through an explosion of water vapor on its straight path for the ground.

It was after the black maids to the east.

It dropped through the night and sounded like it was tearing a hole in the wind.

At the same time, the Army’s main force completed its race down the runway.

The distance between the two sides had reached zero.

The arrangement of the battle changed from the black charge to the white interception.

Thunder Fellow made a midair transformation to his close-quarters combat form and opened his mouth as he dropped down.

As the light of his main cannon built in the back of his mouth, he first looked to the west.

A familiar building was in an unfamiliar state there.

When he saw the white building with smoke rising from it, a voice came from his external speakers.

“H-Harakawa, the disguised building was-…”

“Don’t panic, Heo. Panicking won’t turn it back to normal.”

In the cockpit, Harakawa aimed the main cannon west. He wanted to fire on the Army’s main force while they were still relatively high up, but…

“I can’t! UCAT’s interception team is too close.”

“We can still aim for the black dolls down below!”

“Right.”

He nodded and spun them around so they fell headfirst.

They were approximately one thousand meters above the ground.

From the falling cockpit, he saw a river of brand new asphalt cutting east to west through the dark grass.

That was the runway.

It was so large that it did not seem to approach even as they fell so quickly.

But Harakawa calculated their speed from the fall time and altitude and then opened his mouth.

“Heo, once I fire, twist your entire body and land. Jump west from there, accelerate in midair, and fly above the disguised building at supersonic speeds. Got that?”

“Eh? Why should we fly above the building? Shouldn’t we help the others?”

“How can we join that mess of a fight in something so big? We need to blow away the burning part of the building with a shockwave and then secure UCAT’s back entrance. The lifts on the sides of the runway aren’t running to prevent anyone from getting in that way, but I’m pretty sure there’s a lift for sending out gods of war and the like in the back too. From what I’ve heard, the god of war belonging to that Sibyl woman was sent out through there during the battle with American UCAT.”

“…”

“What is it, Heo Thunderson? Do you have anything to add?”

“No, um… I was just thinking that you’re pretty reliable.”

“That has no bearing on our plan. Plus, you’re imagining it.”

He realized the main cannon was pointed straight down and they were already less than three hundred meters from the ground.

An explosion of recoil would reach them when firing the main cannon, but he had learned the close-quarters combat form could withstand it back when they destroyed Black Sun’s additional twin fuselage wings.

“I’m going to fire! Heo, focus the armor forward!”

“Oka-…!? Harakawa!”

Harakawa did not question her shouted response or the fact that the armor did not move.

Heo always had a reason when she failed to carry out her job and called his name.

He instantly realized he needed to fire the main cannon in a hurry.

“Rotate the armor to the rear!!”

He raised their downward acceleration and fired the main cannon.

“Go!!”

He had made the right decision, but he was too slow.

Thunder Fellow’s armor pointed toward his waist and the back of his legs to defend against an attack from behind. A moment later, something from the northern sky hit his waist.

It was a weak blast, but the red light had flown straight in from the side.

It was a solid hit.

“!?”

To protect Heo who had no idea what had happened, Thunder Fellow closed his rear accelerators on his own.

The internal heat instantly turned the accelerator shutters bluish white, but they blocked the red light and prevented it from reaching the internal components.

The blast still blew away a few panels of armor and blasted Thunder Fellow into the southern sky.

The main cannon was thrown off target, but there was no stopping it now.

It fired.

The white light hit the eastern end of the runway instead of the black dolls.

It then swept along the ground and its scorching heat diagonally chopped down countless trees in the southern forest.

The great force of the white light as it swept along the ground and forest was enough to tear the grass and trees from the ground.

And a moment later…

“!!”

The earth and forest struck by the main cannon blasted into the sky like a series of geysers.

Dirt, crust, and trees flew over two hundred meters into the night sky.

As that destruction instantly rose up like a wall, Thunder Fellow rapidly fell.

He entered a leftward tailspin and fell toward the southern forest.

“Kh!”

In the cockpit, Harakawa’s vision followed Thunder Fellow’s motions.

“Get up!”

He forcibly lifted the nose toward the sky, but it would not fully pull up.

The spin ended, but the downward momentum remained and Thunder Fellow slipped quickly toward the ground while tilted on his side.

“But we can pull this off somehow!!”

While the ground approached from the left, Harakawa opened the closed left side accelerators and used their full acceleration.

He tried to kick the aircraft forward as it prepared to crash into the ground, but the close-quarters combat form had weak acceleration.

Harakawa tried to point the nose up and to the right, but the momentum down and to the left was still stronger. The resultant trajectory was an arc that would tear into the forest to the left.

At this rate, they would crash into the trees and come to a stop.

…''Just like this morning!

Suddenly, he heard what sounded like Heo taking a breath.

“Don’t worry!”

A moment later, Thunder Fellow’s body floated.

His body went through a series of jumping motions as his legs kicked off the ground.

His back left leg forcibly kicked to the right along the ground speeding by below. His rear rose and his nose sank down.

He used that motion to bring both front legs to the ground and then kick upward.

He began to run.

Once he started accelerating and racing forward, he could no longer fall.

The mechanical dragon cut past the people fighting south of the runway and drifted just above the forest.

Branches and leaves struck the left-side armor and scattered, but that was all.

He ran straight forward just a few dozen centimeters above the trees.

“We can do this!!”

Heo’s joyous voice was immediately followed by a sound from the ground behind them.

Several large blasts were striking the ground one after another.

“Is this what hit us before!?” asked Harakawa.

This was their enemy.

Something was pursuing them from the sky behind and firing horizontally on them.

Just as Harakawa wondered who it was, it charged in from behind.

It was a mechanical dragon.

It was painted red and blue with points of white added and its sharp face was turned their way.

“Ha ha ha! Mechanical Dragon Alex, the Ally of Justice, has arrived!!”

The mechanical dragon named Alex opened his mouth.

Red light had already gathered in that maw of metal.

His voice rang out during his high-speed flight just above the forest.

“Special Attack! Censure Beam – Alex Breeeeeaaaaath!!”

Thunder Fellow determined the time lag just before the red main cannon was fired and used his leg strength to fly up into the air.

After a beat, the color red shot by below.

It tore through the forest and destroyed the spare disguised building in the distance.

Just as the roar passed by below his stomach, Thunder Fellow let the wind wash over him and faced upward.

“!”

He changed to his normal cruising form.

He made full use of his rear thrusters and began a vertical ascent with torque-filled acceleration.

Power built up for just an instant, but the literal moment of acceleration arrived immediately afterward.

Thunder Fellow flew toward the heavens.

The forest visible below instantly grew to an ocean of trees and Harakawa clicked his tongue within the intense Gs of acceleration.

“Dammit. What was with that enemy!? But we should have lost him. That stupid mechanical dragon looked like a non-transforming type, so he can’t accelerate right after firing his-…”

Reality betrayed Harakawa’s words. The blue and red dragon rose from below, calmly lined up to their right, and then reduced his acceleration. He was saying that his acceleration was even greater than theirs.

“Impossible!”

But Harakawa saw the answer to his confusion.

Alex’s back, chest, and waist were covered in additional accelerators and additional tanks filled with rocket propellant.

“Whether it’s firing your main cannon or whatever else, do you leave it all to brute force!?”

“Justice must have strength!”

Alex immediately continued with anger in his voice.

“But you have exactly the kind of skill I would expect of the evil organization’s generals. After all, you dodged my Alex Beam!”

“U-um, wasn’t it Alex Breath? Also…”

“What is it, girl?”

“Of course we’re going to dodge your attack when you shout its name in advance.”

“Don’t be silly!!!”

Alex sternly rejected that idea. He clenched his front right leg into a fist that trembled with great strength.

“You clearly know nothing of the world, girl. Did the evil organization strap you to a chair, put a headset on you, and brainwash you!? Listen, girl. I will give a logical explanation. It is true that your opponent can avoid your attack when you shout its name, but why must an ally of justice make a surprise attack by not announcing his special move? Even a war begins with a declaration of war!”

He raised his front right leg.

“That is why an ally of justice must train hard! He must develop an attack that cannot be avoided even when you shout its name and strike a pose! He must develop an attack that is sure to hit, no matter the situation!! That is what makes a true special attack! But you just avoided mine. Not only does that mean that you are an excellent foe, but it also means- …Hey, wait! Where are you going!? Our discussion of justice is not over yet!”

Thunder Fellow turned his back on justice, spun around, and descended.

Their opponent wanted to fight from relatively close range, so there was no point in switching to his high-speed cruising form that focused on top speed. They would need to use normal cruising form or close-quarters combat form, but Alex had greater acceleration with his additional accelerators.

But they had an overwhelming advantage when it came to durability and tight turns and Alex’s own weight would affect his movement up or down. They also had an advantage when it came to stopping in midair because they were lighter.

If the enemy was pursuing them, they could build up speed, come to a rapid stop, and let him shoot out in front of them.

That was their plan.

But as Thunder Fellow began to drop, he heard a voice from overhead.

“Oh, I get it! You’ve realized you don’t stand a chance, so you are trying to run. …Then take this!!”

Strange intro music played in the sky above. It was filled with static as if it had been taken from an old cassette tape.

“New Special Attack! Explosive Destruction – Alex Ciiiiiircus!!”

Harakawa saw Alex transform overhead.

No, this was not a transformation. Most of the armor panels on the top of his body opened and missiles appeared underneath.

If they were fired, the attacks would pour down like a waterfall. Even if they avoided them all, the damage to the surface would be devastating.

“You idiot! Your own people are down there too!”

“You don’t understand, boy. Missiles avoid the just!!”

He prepared to fire, but an attack stopped him right before he did.

A white line had flown in from the southern sky.

“!?”

After the strike to his stomach armor, Alex covered the missiles with his armor and immediately ascended.

“Ambushing is a cowardly act!”

He directed his voice to the south and Harakawa looked in that same direction.

He saw a black form with wings. On its shoulder was a girl holding a giant cannon.

“Hiba and…Shinjou!!”

Susamikado entered the dogfight.

Or rather, it forced its way into it.

In the windy sky, Alex rose above Susamikado and opened his upper armor again.

“Begone, ambushers! …Special Attack! Countless Explosions – Alex Missiles!!”

A flower blossomed in the sky before Susamikado could react.

The radiating flower was made from the propellant smoke expelled by hundreds of guided missiles.

All of the missiles immediately curved toward Susamikado, twisted around, and shot forward like salmon swimming upstream.

Susamikado accelerated. It curved upward to prevent Alex from escaping and chose a path that brought the missiles after itself.

The light missiles burning their propellant were faster than the giant flying with its metal wings.

A few of them collided with each other and exploded, but most of them drew hundreds of lines through the air, trailed smoke behind themselves, and pursued the black wings.

“Kh!!”

Susamikado repeatedly flapped its wings and twisted its body.

Its speed and position looked like it was falling into the heavens as it rotated to face the approaching missiles.

A moment later, the pursuing missiles were hit by something and exploded.

This was due to Shinjou on Susamikado’s shoulder.

Ex-St rested on her shoulder and her fingers were placed on the weapon’s side trigger.

“This isn’t easy when it isn’t Tiger Star!!”

Susamikado avoided the missiles at uniform speed while Shinjou brushed her fingers across the trigger to scatter intercepting shots.

The white shots flew overhead, to the left and right, and down below. They struck the approaching missiles and destroyed the warheads flying forward as if to strike them.

She shot them down.

Their bodies and their trails of propellant smoke twisted and they blossomed with flames as if to decorate the sky.

At the front of it all, Susamikado flapped its wings to accelerate and kicked its feet to control the wind. When a missile flew into a hard-to-target spot, Shinjou would twist her own body and sometimes even rotate all the way around.

They had destroyed over half of the pursuing barrage, but countless others broke through the fiery explosions.

But Shinjou continued to fire. Her sweat flew into the sky, her clothes whipped in the wind, and she moved about.

Similarly, Susamikado created explosions of air behind itself to accelerate.

It was under strong enough Gs that not even Mikage’s gravitational control could negate it all, but she made sure to provide perfect gravitational protection for Shinjou.

In the weight of those Gs, Susamikado swung its body around to avoid the missiles and forcibly swung its left hand toward those approaching warheads.

Amid the surging noise of the wind, Shinjou ran out to the end of that extended hand.

As if stepping out onto a stage, she spun around and ran atop the hand while firing into the entirety of the heavens.

“…!”

She opened her mouth, closed one eye, and used her kinetic vision to locate and fire on each and every warhead.

A chain of fiery explosions filled her entire vision as a wall of flames.

Most of the guided missiles were damaged and burst.

Next, Ex-St’s barrel let out a sound like it was exhaling and white smoke burst from it.

The barrel had overheated and burnt out.

But the enemy had not been eliminated. Several white lines of smoke broke through the flames and flew their way.

Their numbers had dropped below triple digits, but this was the final pursuit. Like snake heads rising to strike, they spiraled and trembled in their approach.

Shinjou instantly took in a breath. She held Ex-St in her left hand and turned around. She also swung her body to the left and held her right palm forward.

“Bomber!!”

Susamikado matched her movement by swinging its right hand.

“Keravnos!!”

A deafening noise came from its right arm.

A concept space expanded around the arm’s exterior and Keravnos’s parts appeared in their disassembled state.

First, the rear attachment arm, bottom frame, and five shock absorbers appeared. Next came the acceleration thruster, attachment arm, and upper counter heads to hold in the guiderail.

Five spears of light appeared and the eighteen metal bolts jabbed into the other parts to bring it all into shape.

The harmony of metal fitting together rang through the sky.

“————!!”

A swing of the arm struck the empty air. A three hundred meter wide blast of lightning instantly shot from the tip of Keravnos. The missiles struck the lightning and were smashed to pieces.

Countless fiery explosions filled the light.

It looked like a wall of light.

Seeing and hearing all that, Shinjou gave a relieved smile and waved a hand toward Susamikado’s face.

“I’ll leave the rest to you.”

She took a light step and jumped down from Susamikado’s shoulder.

Hiba said nothing and neither did Mikage. They understood. Thunder Fellow was below and they all knew he would catch Shinjou.

So Susamikado immediately faced the mechanical dragon several hundred meters overhead.

“Nnn! Not once, but twice!? This time, I will not go easy on you!!”

“Sorry, but isn’t that the villain’s line?”

“Hm? Ryuuji-kun, what do you mean?”

“You saw that rerun last night, didn’t you? Y’know, that robot anime Getterman about the three villains who use a combining robot powered by Dyna Rays to destroy the underground people. Last night’s highlight was ‘Eye, nose, and mouth!’.”

“Hm. Boy, you seem to know a bit about justice!”

“No, not that much. …More importantly, you should probably look to the east.”

Alex did as Hiba suggested.

Susamikado also checked in that direction where it saw around a dozen flickering lines of air.

“So American UCAT’s mechanical dragons have arrived. After that, their transport planes and trucks should bring soldiers to-…”

Hiba never finished speaking.

Fire blossomed in the night sky.

A dozen flames appeared at the front end of the flickering lines of air.

“The mechanical dragons…”

They had all been shot down at once.

Why was obvious at a glance.

At some point, a white form had appeared in the sky where those twelve dragons had been.

The giant god of war had six white wings.

“Typhon,” muttered Mikage.

But that was not all. Below Typhon, a group of three large figures was visible on the Okutama mountain road leading to UCAT.

Instead of gods of war, they looked like black armor placed on a giant doll framework.

“Dolls?”

A slight tremor entered Hiba’s voice and a female voice reached him from Typhon’s shoulder.

“That’s right. They’re remote-controlled dolls. I’m not controlling anything other than Typhon, though.”

“Miki…”

“C’mon, Ryuuji-kun. Didn’t I tell you I’m going by the name Tatsumi here?”

Tatsumi smiled and raised her right hand toward him at shoulder height. Typhon responded by flapping its wings and drawing the twin swords sticking out from its shoulders.

Tatsumi smiled and Hiba asked a question through the wind and to that smile.

“What is the meaning of this!? Why are you going by the family name of Nagata!?”

“That may be your mother’s maiden name, but it is also my real name. And…you will soon see why I insist on using it. Hajji and the others will make their way into UCAT before long.”

“The field operations division led by Abram is at UCAT. Do you really think they can get inside?”

“Just watch. Hajji is about to make a bit of a speech. That should get them inside. And after that, he will give a second speech. …That speech will tell the whole truth.”

With those words, Typhon accelerated. It quickly approached and the three dolls walked along the surface.

“Not long now until you know the truth and reasons behind all those mysteries. Why are we here? Why are we enemies? What are you? What happened in the past? And…on which side does righteousness fall?”

Just as Typhon raised the swords in its hands, she spoke with a smile.

“Don’t die before you get to hear it.”

The sound of the collision was the ring of metal.

Below the night sky, a brawl of gunfire and clashing swords had begun in front of a white building that had lost its top.

A group dressed in white armored uniforms fought a group dressed in black armored uniforms.

They were defending or targeting a single thing.

That thing was the white building’s entrance. The lobby beyond contained a staircase and elevators to the underground area.

The evacuation of noncombatants was complete, the elevators had been stopped, and the stairs were shuttered off, but the black army pushed onward as if to say they could manage despite that.

Many had fallen, but they pushed on all the harder for each and every one that did.

The white army leaving the building to meet them was almost entirely made up of those who had been on the first two floors.

The main entrance to the underground area was closed and the large lifts on either side of the runway were still sealed off by their explosion-resistant hatches. The enemy had appeared so close by that they could have gotten in through the hatches as they opened.

But there was one place that underground reinforcements could reach them from: behind the building.

An underground elevator for carrying materials was located between the building and the vegetable garden.

The elevator lift was approximately five meters square. It was large enough to carry a standing god of war.

After completing their preparations, a unit led by Sibyl and her god of war had risen from the deepest underground area.

The gunfire and shouts beyond the building told Sibyl the battle was still underway in front of the building. She smiled and turned toward the men in armored uniforms who had come with her.

“You defend this place while I head out front. A god of war should help intimidate the enemy near the entrance. …And Abram-sama should be out front.”

As soon as she said that, a roar passed by overhead.

She initially thought it was the wind, but two aircraft had already flown by into the western sky.

…''Thunder Fellow is in a dogfight with the mechanical dragon known as Alex!

Thoughts raced through her head, her eyebrows raised, and she filled with relief.

She was relieved that Team Leviathan was fighting and that the rest of them would be gathered here before long.

And her prediction was soon proven at least partially correct.

Two people approached from the direction in which the building had collapsed. One was Shinjou holding Ex-St and a wicker basket while she supported the other person.

“Arnavaz-sama!?”

Arnavaz was dragging her right leg.

Shinjou then noticed Sibyl.

“Sibyl-san! Arnavaz-sama is hurt! She was in Abram’s room on the fifth floor.”

“I’m glad she isn’t more hurt. That must be because the collapsed portion mostly maintained its shape.”

Sibyl gave a look of relief as she and the others welcomed in Arnavaz and Shinjou.

“Are you hurt too, Shinjou-sama?”

“No, I’m fine. Thunder Fellow carried me here, but I’m more worried about them. They’re being chased by a strange mechanical dragon. …Also, there’s this.”

Shinjou lifted the wicker basket along with Ex-St.

The basket contained Baku and…

“It seems this photograph is from the early days of UCAT. Heo gave it and Baku to me because she said they weren’t safe with her, but what do I do with them?”

As she spoke, a low sound like fluttering cloth would occasionally reach them from the sky above.

Arnavaz trembled at that sound of explosions.

“The sky is roaring.”

“Testament. Do not worry, Arnavaz-sama. Abram-sama is fighting. …Shinjou-sama, you head underground with Arnavaz-sama. Ooshiro Itaru-sama has ordered that we fortify the sixth basement.”

“The sixth basement?”

“Testament. That is the Concept Core storage space and…I do not know the details, but it is said to hold a sealed concept space facility. It is most likely from the blank period.”

Shinjou opened her eyes wide but soon raised her eyebrows and corrected her expression.

She then asked a question.

“U-um, what about Sayama-kun? Is he still not back?”

“Unfortunately, he has yet to arrive. Nor have Chisato-sama or Izumo-sama.”

Shinjou’s eyebrows twisted at that.

Arnavaz must have noticed the change to her mood because she turned to her.

“He will certainly be here.”

“B-but…”

“Yes,” said Arnavaz. “He is your Fereydun, isn’t he? Then he will be here to take your hand.”

She held Shinjou’s hand between her wrinkled hands.

She did not say much and she only supported her hand, but after a while, Shinjou’s expression changed with the distant gunshots in the background.

She took a breath, slightly raised her eyebrows, and nodded.

“You’re right,” she said more to herself than anyone. “He’ll be here and he’ll try to show off when he arrives. That’s just the kind of idiot he is. …Ah!”

Her surprise came from something in her hand.

Baku suddenly poked his head over the edge of the basket, jumped down to the ground, and ran off.

He ran toward the front of the building that had become a battlefield.

“I-it’s dangerous over there!!”

She reached out a hand but could not reach him. Baku did not even look back as he vanished around the corner of the building.

“Ahh.” Shinjou took a few steps and her shoulders shook. “Wh-what do I do?”

“Testament. You can only hope for his safety, but I have determined his dangerous journey is only one-way. He has likely caught Sayama-sama’s scent from somewhere nearby.”

Shinjou turned around with a look of surprise and Sibyl smiled.

“Please head underground, prepare the equipment you need, and defend from there. We will fight here to ensure Sayama-sama can reach you.”

Still smiling, she raised her hands and had the silver god of war do the same.

“Head out!!”

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</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Chapter 29

2026-10-22T03:43:08Z

N-Ch:

==Chapter 29: The First Step==
[[Image:OnC_v11_0259.png|thumb]]
''That walk is swift

''That walk is strong

''That walk never ends

Hajji opened his eyes in the darkness.

The surrounding darkness confused him. He did not know where he was.

He only knew he was sitting on something that shook and he was surrounded by shadow.

…''Where am I?

He then remembered he was inside a moving vehicle.

He was on the way to UCAT for the attack that night.

He checked his watch and found less than an hour had passed since they had gathered in front of the Takao factory.

He shrugged his drowsy shoulders in annoyance and he heard a woman speak in front of him.

“You sure are calm. You seemed to be having a pretty good dream.”

He saw a large woman in a white combat coat. It was Jord.

She smiled bitterly, but he gave no response and looked around to check on the situation.

The back of the transport truck had been transformed into a hangar and men and women were standing silently along the left and right wall. They were accompanied by another three trucks that would also be filled with pre-battle tension.

In the night, he heard the wind blowing across the truck and the tires racing along the road.

In front of him, Jord opened her mouth to break the silence.

“It certainly is strange to be fighting alongside you. …10th and 9th never got along and, if it hadn’t been for all of you, my friend and daughter wouldn’t have died so soon.”

“I see. I’m sure you’re just angry, but I suppose I’ll ask. Yes. What was your friend’s name?”

“Aley.”

Hajji covered his mouth with a hand and lowered his eyebrows.

“That would indeed be my fault. Yes. A real shame.”

“Well, it was technically due to 9th-Gear’s politicians. 9th-Gear’s king took a holy spear containing half of 9th’s concepts to Low-Gear and died there. That didn’t leave enough power to activate Zahhak.”

“When I returned, I tried to stop Zahhak’s activation for that very reason, but the palace had a connection to an underground organization in 10th-Gear and they stole Thor’s Hammer to use the 10th concepts it contained to help activate Zahhak. Yes, that was quite the commotion.”

''That must have been a tough time for the politicians too,'' he thought.

…''And after Thor’s Hammer was brought back and Shahrnavaz gave up…

“She combined with Zahhak as its brain to protect me from the false accusations of abandoning the king.”

“What? Did you say something?”

“No, nothing. Nothing at all, Jord. That has nothing to do with anyone but me. Yes. …But a group with no one controlling it is always a problem no matter what time period you’re talking about. Isn’t that right? In the early days, a lot of people in the Army tried to randomly take revenge on UCAT.”

“So you purged your own followers, leaving you with the group you have now?”

“That’s right,” said Hajji.

The truck shook as it turned left and tilted up a slope. It was a long slope leading up a mountain.

“I see. So we’ve started to cross the mountain leading into Okutama. Not long until the battle now. …With the people here and the doll unit coming later, we should be able to reach the center of Japanese UCAT.”

“But how do you plan to eliminate the concepts?”

“I have a way. Yes. And I know where they can be destroyed.”

“Where they can be destroyed?”

“Yes.” He nodded. “I’ve only ever heard of it, but the person who explained it actually saw it there. They said we could ‘do whatever we wanted’ with the concepts if we go there. …And I’m sure UCAT would end up there if they did complete the Leviathan Road.”

“Where is that?”

“Why do you want to know? But either way, I will end up talking about that tonight. You can look forward to it if you like. …More importantly, all of you need to think about what to do afterward. The concepts of the other worlds will no longer belong to UCAT. Your concepts that support your reservations will be the only ones left.”

As he spoke, the floor shook vertically.

Everyone in the back of the truck lowered down and held their weapons close.

Meanwhile, Hajji continued.

“Once the concepts are taken from UCAT and destroyed and once UCAT itself is defeated, the different Gear reservations will have to adjust from being protected and ruled by UCAT. This will reset the world. I suppose 4th and 8th will fall under 10th’s protection.”

“Are you trying to create a new world?”

“No, we will return Low-Gear to its original form. Once the Gears are no longer held hostage through the Concept Cores and reservations, they can hold proper negotiations with Low-Gear. Yes, that would be for the best. Everything will return to a blank slate and continue from there. We only need to crush UCAT and disappear ourselves.”

The truck sped up and everyone prepared their weapons.

Once the speed lowered and the truck came to a stop, the attack would begin.

As the truck descended to its destination, Hajji held his own weapon and formed a slight smile.

“We are not creating a new world. We are creating what can be called the true world.”

Kazami gathered her things in a moonlit room.

She put her half coat on over X-Wi and held G-Sp2 with a bag wrapped around the tip.

“It’s dark,” said the spear’s console.

“Bear with it. I’ll remove it once we get outside.”

She extended a hand toward the corner of the room where two fist-sized spheres floated.

One was blue and the other black.

They swayed as her hand reached them. They almost seemed to be hesitating.

But soon the blue sphere seemed pulled in toward her and the black one followed.

They flew to either side of her and into her half coat’s pockets.

She started to close the pockets, but smiled bitterly and stopped.

“Why do inorganic things seem to like me so much?”

She looked across the room.

The baby was no longer on the chair. She had returned it to its original place before the concept space vanished.

V-Sw leaned against the wall. The armor-covered sword’s shape had changed somewhat.

Its console flashed randomly and Izumo slept in the bed next to it.

Izumo’s left arm stuck out from the bed. The solid cast on the elbow had broken and a fairly pale left arm grew from there. It was a newly made arm.

“Was that the healing power of 10th-Gear’s world tree and the power of destruction and regeneration of 6th-Gear?”

Some things felt a little off inside her own body. Some areas seemed to be moving a little better as if they had been modified.

She looked over at V-Sw and G-Sp2.

“You forgave me just once for not understanding you and losing because of it, didn’t you? But the next time I lose will be for real, so that won’t happen again. Isn’t that right?”

“We are strict.”

She smiled a little at that blunt response and looked at Izumo who seemed to be sleeping.

“Thank you. I would have died if you hadn’t protected me. And I need to thank the others too. I need to thank them for being with me.”

She slowly lowered her head and placed her lips on his.

After some damp time passed, she moved away.

“I’m going on ahead. And remember. From now on, my heart will not go with you. Even when we’re walking side by side, remember that I will be hoping to go with you. And…”

And…

“I think I’ll try to have more confidence in myself. No matter what anyone says and no matter how much I worry over what my actions lead to, I’ll always try to do my very best.”

She smiled.

“So I’ll always be fresh.”

She looked at V-Sw and the words written on the white sword’s console.

“See you later.”

“Right.”

She nodded, stepped out the door, and entered the hallway.

She hesitated for a moment but began to run.

The head nurse looked her way from in front of the nurse station.

“Oh, are you really okay? It seems everyone is rushing over here.”

“I’m fine, so please tell them to head back. I’ll go meet them myself.”

She held up G-Sp2 with the bag over it.

The head nurse’s eyes stopped on the weapon and finally seemed to realize it had been repaired. She looked surprised and smiled.

“Do your best.”

“I will.”

Just before she started down the stairs, Kazami spotted someone in front of the nursery window.

…''It’s that child’s mother.

The woman looked at her just like before.

“Are you heading out? And with some big tool?”

“Yes, well… It’s for a bit of a part-time job.”

“Is that so?”

The woman tilted her head but gave a genuine smile.

“The head nurse told me something odd just now. She said you saved my child.”

“I’d say it was the opposite actually.”

“Eh?”

“Oh, and sorry. …I took his first kiss. But I had a reason for it, so don’t get the wrong idea.”

Kazami bowed and the woman looked down at her in utter confusion.

But when she looked back up, the woman tilted her head.

“First kiss? Um, I’m not quite sure what you mean…but my child is a girl.”

“Eh?”

Kazami dropped her head forward and looked the woman in the eye.

“…”

She swallowed her voice and let out a deep laugh.

She doubled over, came to a personal understanding, and suddenly looked up.

She nodded toward the mother of the child who had helped her out.

“Thank you very much.”

As soon as she raised her head again, she ran down the stairs.

She skipped one step, then two, and desired to continue on and on.

…''How strange.

Why did she feel so lighthearted and elated?

Her heart felt like wind. It would sometimes blow violently along, crash into a wall, and smash to pieces, but it would also rise into the air as it freely went where it pleased.

This had to be a time for that positive side of the wind.

“Yes.”

As she descended the staircase, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a letter. It was the letter of advice Brunhild had left.

It was a little late for that, but she opened it anyway and found a single line of writing.

“I’m sure an idiot like you will win regardless, so I’m not going to write anything.”

“Well, of course.”

She quickly jumped down the circling staircase.

She ran outside and into the moonlit night wind.

A band of light shined below the night sky.

The light illuminated a long strip of asphalt in a valley between mountains.

It was a runway.

The asphalt covering the three kilometer runway was brand new.

In exchange for the new asphalt, thick walls two meters tall continued along either side of the runway. They were barricades made using the piles of the old broken asphalt.

The top of the barricades had been made roughly flat and a few figures walked along them.

They were automatons wearing UCAT combat maid outfits and philosopher’s stones that allowed them to remain active in the outside world.

They carried machineguns at their waists and they constantly monitored their surroundings with their sight and concept senses.

There were so few of them on patrol because their individual senses could cover a wide area, but they would be replaced by other maid automatons quite frequently. This also helped provide a change of pace since they would otherwise be inside all the time.

They were deployed to more areas than just the runway. Some were in the southern and northern forests and some were in the front of the 1st-Gear reservation to the west.

They patrolled in groups of two, but they did not communicate with their voices.

They handled everything through their shared memory.

“This is 56th Iris on patrol with #57. Nothing to report at the southwestern edge of the southern forest.”

“Testament. Please return. #93 and 94th Camellia are next, so they will take your place.”

“Yes, sir. …What are you working on there?”

“Currently, we are opening up most of the camouflaged building’s third floor and piling up the equipment and explosives in case of an attack. The cafeteria will act as a base and this will be the storage area. To prevent an external attack, the defense shutters have a concept saying ‘—You cannot enter here’ applied.”

“Yes, sir. This is using a lot of special equipment, so I have determined it must be tough. I hear Lady Miyako took command of Izumo UCAT’s mass-production of reflection concept philosopher’s stones to oppose the thought compulsion concept that girl used when she visited UCAT.”

“Testament. Those arrived by air a while ago and have been carried to the third floor. I have determined they will be helpful.”

The automatons used their shared memory to transfer what they saw as data.

Large concept barrier emitters were set up at the four corners of the runway.

The devices had six barrel-shaped metal objects arranged in a circle, they each created an area of gravitational control around themselves, and they prevented large machines from flying. Their effective range was approximately five kilometers. As soon as an unregistered philosopher’s stone reading was scanned approaching through the air, the reading would be taken inside the concept space and sent straight down.

The automatons covered the ground and the barrier emitters covered the sky.

Just in case, a prefab station was set up by the runway. Light still came from the prefab building located next to kneeling gods of war hidden by covers. If anything happened, the god of war pilots could immediately board them.

Negotiations were underway to have other countries’ UCATs help with security, but American UCAT’s Yokota branch had decided on its own to rush over in an emergency. If anything happened, their mechanical dragons would arrive within ten minutes.

In truth, Japan had wanted American UCAT to remain in Japanese UCAT permanently, but the other nations’ UCATs had put a stop to it so that the United States would not gain such an advantage. Unfortunately, that had led to the other nations’ UCATs hesitating to help with security now.

They were currently planning to have a meeting on the subject come November.

The automatons were aware of all this and they had their own thoughts on it.

“Yes, sir. This world has yet to unify itself,” said one.

“Testament. That means world peace is reliant on our work here.”

Happy to be given work like that, they continued to move.

Their vision could see through the darkness and see heat.

However, one could easily hide from that using concept camouflage.

Their greatest advantage was their ability to detect faint philosopher’s stone readings while only being the size of a human.

The Army’s weapons would be altered with concepts.

During day or night and even when hidden by cover, their eyes could pick up on readings that normal sensors would miss. The effective range of their senses was approximately two kilometers.

Just in case, they formed groups of two. On top of that, the automaton guard groups were given patrol routes that overlapped.

The humans would use sensors and their own eyes from the runway and building and the automatons would make long range patrols.

If they sensed a philosopher’s stone reading, they could send word over their shared memory and immediately have others sent in.

And they worked diligently.

They continued to share a number of words and reports.

“Yes, sir. But is it really efficient for half of us to use ‘yes, sir’ and the other half to use ‘testament’?”

“Then what should we say instead, #93?”

“Why not take the start of one and the end of the other for ‘yestament’ or ‘tes, sir’?”

“I have determined that does not change very much.”

“Yes, sir. 101st Lotus here. Then how about the start of both or the end of both for ‘yestes’ or ‘sirtament’?”

“That is an excellent decision, 101st. How about we see what #8 thinks? …#8?”

They all listened to #8’s unedited thoughts.

“Listen, Ooshiro-sama. How many times do I need to tell you? You are not going to trick me by pretending to pass out again.”

After a while, the automaton that had asked for #8’s opinion spoke again.

“Everyone, I have determined #8 is enjoying her job.”

“Yes, sir. 101st Lotus here. I will add ‘waiting for #8’s response’ to my remaining tasks. …Oh.”

“What is it, 101st? Did something happen?”

“Yes, sir. I spotted a puppy and a black dog. They are wearing collars, so there is nothing strange about-…”

But her voice vanished. The supervisor automaton waited several seconds which was a very long time for an automaton.

“101st Lotus, #100? What is the matter? …I can still detect your presence.”

She received a response via their shared memory, but it was not in words.

The response was as follows.

“Woof.”

The automatons mentally tilted their heads at the voice they heard and they all mimicked it.

“…Woof?”

After a while, the one who had given that response, 101st, spoke.

“Oh… S-sorry about that.”

“Of course…but are you okay? If there is a problem with your memory functions, you can go in for maintenance.”

“I’m fine. I think it was just a moment of confusion and we were on our way there anyway. Send in our replacement.”

“Your replacements are #75 and #77. They just left, so you should be able to see them from there.”

Sudden noise reached them from 101st’s location.

It was gunfire.

Immediately afterward, static ran through their shared memory.

The supervisor shouted out in response to the static.

“#75 and #77’s functions are dropping! They have been shot!! This is an enemy attack! Determine the enemy’s location!”

After receiving that shared thought, all of the automatons outside headed southwest.

But when they got there…

“101st Lotus here. …Nothing to report.”

“This is #98 in charge of the southern area. I have arrived as well, but there is nothing to report. …Eh? …Kh!”

That voice was accompanied by more gunfire.

After another pause, the supervisor spoke without knowing what to do.

“#98 and #99’s functions are dropping…”

The automatons below the night sky saw something in the southwestern forest. Their thermal vision saw 101st and #100 aiming their machineguns toward the southern area #98 and #99 had been in charge of.

“Why?” one of them muttered.

At the same time, brief silence filled their shared memory.

They all performed high-speed scans on each other and confirmed their settings.

All of the automatons had been given a certain setting as a family.

“We cannot destroy other automatons of our type and only 1st through 3rd can remove that setting from themselves.”

But the footage arriving from the vision of those on the runway showed 101st and #100 firing their machineguns to the southeast. More gunfire reached their ears.

“This is 108th Sasanqua. We are under attack from 101-…”

The voice cut off there.

This left a single fact.

The automatons with the numbers 101 and 100 were being controlled by some kind of power.

However, none of them could act. They wanted to stop the two of them, but their settings prevented them from destroying their fellow automatons.

But then how could those two destroy them so easily?

They could not find an answer. To change that, they all spoke to the supervisor.

“Send out UCAT!!”

But before they received a response, another voice reached them.

It was 101st’s voice.

“Woof.”

Their minds froze up when they heard that mimicked dog bark again.

And then they heard it a third time, but that was followed by another voice.

“Ahem. Can you hear me, automatons? Well? Hm?”

“…”

The automatons’ minds ground to a halt.

They did not recognize this voice at all.

“…”

The automatons could not move.

There were three reasons for this.

First, how had someone else cut into their shared thoughts?

Second, they had no idea how they were supposed to react to this unexpected turn of events.

And third, they could not determine what was going to happen.

What were they supposed to do?

All of them decided they had to tell someone other than themselves about this.

But they could not.

Their thoughts and their shared memory were being locked down by someone else. Their shared memory used machines as an intermediary, but unlike Low-Gear’s artificial intelligences, theirs were true artificial thoughts.

It should have been impossible for anyone else to intervene.

That was why their automatic thoughts determined this was some kind of misunderstanding.

However, they also wondered if this could possibly be a misunderstanding.

This was affecting every single one of them, so that left two possibilities.

First, the same misunderstanding had occurred in all of them simultaneously.

Or second, someone had interfered with their shared memory with a method that exceeded their own abilities.

In order to reject the latter possibility, the 3rd automatons decided that no one could exceed their abilities.

And it was also possible to assume a common misunderstanding could occur in all of them at once because they were built on common standards.

Ergo, this supposed fact was actually a misunderstanding on their part.

All of their artificial brains instructed them to ignore the misunderstanding and continue with their work.

But one thought inside them said their conclusion was wrong and the thought process began anew.

Their thoughts looped thousands, millions, and even billions of times. The doubt in their minds was opposing the fundamental decision-making part of themselves.

But their thoughts never reached a definite conclusion and the infinitely looping thoughts left the automatons motionless.

But just before they all froze up, a certain automaton added in a new thought.

“We are excellent.”

The 3rd automatons knew what it meant to be excellent.

They had been taught that during the Leviathan Road battle three months prior.

An excellent individual could admit their own defeat, would continue trying to win despite that, and would try to stay at the same level as both winner and loser.

And a doll that could admit to her own mistakes and inexperience was treated kindly by her master.

A certain memory returned to the automatons. It was the memory of one of their own losing and being carried by a human.

That confirmed for them that they could lose and admitting that fact led to a single conclusion.

“3rd’s automatons are excellent. It is unthinkable for all of us to reach the same erroneous conclusion!”

One of them shouted those words. It was weak and not quite a cry, but the one speaking out against her own control had been given an obedient personality.

“So this is the truth! Our minds are being invaded by someone!!”

With those words, all of the automatons came to their senses.

They broke free of their infinitely looping thoughts and awoke.

“…!”

Someone was interfering with their shared thoughts.

And this was not a misunderstanding of a single unit. It was a phenomenon occurring in every single one of them.

Something supposedly impossible was happening.

This was a contradiction, but it was also a fact.

And that fact reached them in the form of words.

“Well done. Yes. An excellent recovery. I would expect nothing less of a product of the Gear of dolls!”

The dolls hearing those words as fact shouted back as one mind.

“Who are you!?”

The individual units had yet to fully recover from the contradictory thoughts, but their artificial minds put up their guard and they stopped moving while speaking to the intruder.

“We demand you free the compromised units!”

“I can’t do that. No, I definitely can’t do that.”

The voice answered without delay and continued before they could say anything more.

“Unfortunately, we have taken control of two automatons. Yes, I’m truly sorry. I really am, but that’s why I would like it if you did not resist. Yes.”

“Who are you?”

“Is saying I’m Hajji of the Army enough? We’re on our way there as quickly as we can. So could you form a wall and wait for us? Well? Hm?”

The tone of voice was awfully calm for what it was saying.

And 56th Iris sent out a quiet thought from the southwestern area.

“Emergency report.”

She continued.

“We are under attack!! There are one hundred twenty-one of them and a great number of small animals. I have determined the animals are dogs! But…they are thermally and conceptually identical to real dogs and yet I cannot hear a single pulse from the entire group! These dogs are made from high-density information, so I have determined control of 101st and #100’s artificial brains was taken by them!”

56th’s next words were muffled by gunshots.

“Hurry! Even as we hesitate, the enemy is-…”

Her thoughts cut out and something else could be heard instead.

An alarm blared from Japanese UCAT and a large group of footsteps filled the southern forest.

“…!”

Countless enemies ran into view from that forest.

They were a kilometer and a half from UCAT’s disguised building.

The enemy was too close.

All of the automatons had that same thought as they began to move.

The time they had spent frozen had been devastating. The fact that automatons from 3rd had been “hijacked” had slowed everything down.

Japanese UCAT’s night guards had sensed danger in the automatons’ silence and they had come charging out, but even that had been too slow.

The enemy had already left the forest and reached the runway.

“…”

It would take too long for the god of war pilots to leave the station and start up the gods of war.

They had all expected an attack by mechanical dragons or gods of war. They had thought an attack too quick to react to would destroy the UCAT building or grounds and then the Army would come pouring in.

But the Army had begun on foot.

More and more people in black armored uniforms appeared from the forest.

They cut across the lawn next to the runway that contained the station and barricade and they ran toward the runway.

They climbed over the barricade and looked west to see a straight shot to the white building.

They only had to make a run for it.

They had a great number of dogs running at their feet and they were led by an elderly Arab man with a black turban around his head.

101st and #100 accompanied him on either side.

The blowing wind was the sound of late autumn and the elderly man spun his weapon in his hands.

It was a Cowling Spear with a sword-like blade attached.

He held it under one arm, crouched low, and stared straight at the white building.

“Now, let’s get this started.”

The automatons did not move, but he did.

He moved forward and took the first step of a run.

“This will bring the end, so…don’t hold back.”

As soon as he spoke, the battle with the advancing black forces began.

A light traveled west toward Okutama starting from a road near a hospital in the mountains.

The light took the form of wings and flew straight up into the night sky.

Two people on the ground looked up at the wings of light.

They stood in front of a vending machine below a streetlight in front of the hospital.

One was a gray-haired woman in a black suit and the other was a well-build elderly man in a white suit.

The woman took a sip from a can labeled “Black Coffee – Extra Bitter”.

“What do you think of tonight’s events, President Izumo?”

“Well, I do want to know what my stupid son is doing sleeping. Don’t you agree, Diana-kun?”

The man, Izumo Retsu, drank from a coffee can printed with a giant abstract image of a professional wrestler.

“But…how should I put it? The Izumo family has always been really lucky with women. Two goddesses in a row and now an angel who can tame a dragon, even if she seemed hopeless for a bit there. Did you see that, Diana-kun? You did, didn’t you? She took care of her opponent so quickly it even shocked me a little. Now that’s what I’m talking about!”

“Are you not going to greet her?”

“Eh? No, it’s best to just hide and watch these things. …And I knew she was going to win anyway.”

“Why would you think that? She almost died.”

“Well…”

He looked up into the whiteness of the moon, but suddenly stopped.

“No, I can’t. If I said anything here, it would sound so cool I’d make myself blush. Ha ha. Give me a break here, Diana-kun.”

“I see you haven’t changed.”

“That’s not really true. I don’t like to admit it, but I’m a lot different from a decade ago. After all…”

He nodded and crossed his arms while still holding the can of coffee.

“I really don’t like to admit it, but…I’ve aged ten years in the past decade.”

“…”

“You don’t get mad like you used to, Diana-kun. That makes this a lot less fun. How about it?”

“I’ve simply learned how to hide it inside. …How to hide everything inside.”

Diana shrugged and turned toward the hospital.

“Are you going to go see the Izumo boy?”

“That idiot will live on even if I don’t. And he can come to me. I need to make sure I don’t die before then, so I have a lot of work to do.”

“Everyone from the Izumo family is a real pain to deal with.”

“There are other problems, too.”

“Eh?”

Diana tilted her head, so Retsu elaborated with a bitter smile.

“You see, the 10th-Gear reservation contacted me personally. Annoyingly enough, a god named Jord who’s also my mother-in-law seems to have left the reservation.”

“You mean…?”

“She said she’s joining the Army. See, I told you there are other problems. The Army is coming.”

Diana gasped and Retsu narrowed his eyes and looked up at the moon.

“I think I’ll go see just how far my mother and wife’s protection can reach. Just how powerful are the feelings of those two who so loved this world’s moon?”

He held the can up toward the moon.

“And if they end up losing…well, destruction can be amusing too.”

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| Forward to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Chapter 30|Chapter 30]]
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</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Chapter 28

2026-10-22T03:35:06Z

N-Ch:

==Chapter 28: Sound of Soaring==
[[Image:OnC_v11_0217.png|thumb]]
''The sounds of running echo into the sky

Sayama woke.

Instead of darkness, he initially saw the night sky.

He had a body and the sensation on its back told him he was probably lying on rocky ground.

When he gathered strength in his body, each part reacted and moved accordingly.

He heard running water. It was flowing swiftly but had not reached the level of raging rapids.

After hitting Nijun with the flying kick, he had likely fallen into the river below and washed up on the bank downstream.

He then noticed that what had saved him from drowning was caught on his left arm.

Just before hitting the water, he had pulled it from his bag and filled it with air.

“The Shinjou-kun body pillow cover.”

He tilted his head over and saw the float made from the cover had soaked up the water and lost the air inside.

“Shinjou-kun.”

He sat up and held the cover up in both hands.

“It would sound dirty if I said I got you wet, wouldn’t it?”

He lowered his arms, checked his watch and found it was ten at night. A fair amount of time had passed since he had jumped down.

Wondering what had happened to Nijun and considering the possibility that he had been swept away, Sayama called out to him.

“Nijun-kun.”

He received a response.

“Yes?”

It came from behind him and from very near his defenseless back.

However, Sayama knew this had already been settled, so he asked a question without turning around.

“Do you have something to tell me?”

“Yes, although it may be too forward of me.”

“What is it?” asked Sayama.

After a hesitant pause, Nijun answered.

“Could you…compete with me again in negotiation?”

“I see.” Sayama nodded and brought a hand to his chin in thought. “It is true you have a lot to bargain with, but I have nothing. Are you sure you want this?”

This answer also took some time. After a thoughtful silence that lasted the span of about five breaths, he answered in the affirmative.

“Yes. If I can defeat you, it will mean that I overturned this world in at least one way. That would be the greatest honor as someone from 7th-Gear.”

“I see. That is an excellent way of viewing this. Then let us begin right away. As for our bargaining chips…”

“How about my Concept Core and a hint concerning the past? …And I will ask a single question. If you cannot answer it, it will mean your loss.”

“I see,” said Sayama again as he watched the river flowing through the night.

After a short pause, Nijun spoke quietly.

His question reached Sayama with the sound of flowing water in the background.

“Can you make me lie while under the effects of my concept?”

“In other words, you want me to make you tell a lie without stopping the concept?”

“Yes.”

Sayama thought about the man’s words.

Gyes of 3rd-Gear could not lie and he had once made her do so during a negotiation, but this was different. The man would be unable to speak as long as he was aware it was a lie.

…''Then how can I make him tell a lie?

He thought while watching the flowing river.

Suddenly, a certain fact came to him. It was a way of expressing a lie.

And so he slowly raised his head and looked into the night sky.

“Nijun-kun, how about I try one thing? I am going to test just how much you understand your own concept.”

He asked a question.

“Nijun-kun, have you ever lied?”

“Yes.”

“An excellent answer. Now, Nijun-kun. If you have lied, then tell me what it was you said. But if you have, in fact, never lied…”

He spoke clearly.

“Then remain silent.”

Nijun responded to Sayama’s question.

“…”

With silence.

But that silence itself meant that he could tell a lie here.

It was a contradiction.

Based on the defined conditions, that answer was not possible. It rejected the concept space.

“!!”

As soon as that answer was made, the world changed with the sound of shattering glass.

The world expanded.

Sayama saw the surrounding air begin to move and the river current pick up speed.

Unable to withstand the self-contradiction, the barrier of the concept space had broken. The man who had created the space had accepted the contradiction.

As the night wind washed over the river bank, Sayama smiled bitterly and rested his head on his hand.

“That was a simple contraction, but even that was enough for you to overcome the ability of your fixed concept. I would speculate that your Concept Core does not include a concept to handle self-contradictions because it is only a fourth of its original size. …So, are you satisfied with that?”

He received no response.

He waited a while longer and still received no response, so he removed his head from his hand.

“Nijun-kun?”

He turned around, but Nijun was nowhere to be seen on the slope leading from the river to the forest.

Something else was there instead.

“The Concept Core.”

A ten centimeter red ball of light floated at Sayama’s eye level.

That was Nijun’s true form. It was one of 7th-Gear’s Concept Cores.

Sayama reached out toward it and spotted writing below the scarlet light.

Hiragana characters were written in the river water on a torn piece of a white coat. They had clearly been written in a hurry.

“Yukio.”

That was all it said.

He assumed it meant Shinjou Yukio, but the writing ended before saying anything else.

Most likely, everything had ended when Nijun reached that point.

…''Why? No, what was he trying to tell me about the past by writing the name Yukio in hiragana?

And before that…

…''Is he saying the reading of the name is important? Or is the name Yukio a clue to something?

Thinking was not enough to find an answer, so he stood and shook his head.

“Well, whatever. I need to hurry back. I am worried about the others.”

He reached out for Nijun’s Concept Core and it slowly circled to his right side.

The Concept Core could not speak and it had nothing but memories, but it still seemed willing to go with him.

He nodded and looked up at the crimson sphere.

“Good. Now, let us go. I wish to descend the mountain in a hurry, but I would like your help in that. I believe your main ability is physical enhancement.”

He lowered his body in preparation to run downstream.

“I am worried about my teammates down below, Nijun-kun. I want to know if they were successful.”

With those words, with the crimson Concept Core, and with a new mystery, Sayama began to run along the river bank.

Wind wrapped around his speedy form and not even his footsteps could keep up with him.

Kazami was inside Izumo’s hospital room.

The room was dark. The only light was from the emergency lighting, X-Wi on her back, and the moonlight outside the window.

In those dim lights, Kazami sat on the floor and ate.

Her eyes would occasionally dart to one of two places: Izumo who slept on the bed and the baby who slept on the chair next to the bed.

She dug through the food in the bag Sibyl had brought while trying to be as quiet as possible so as not to wake the other two.

The rice balls filled her empty stomach. The ones containing tuna mixed with soy sauce mayonnaise had likely been made by Heo. She thought the ones containing a dried plum were from Mikage. That would explain why all of the dried plum ones were of a uniform size.

The salad was all wrapped in vegetables boiled in consommé to help her eat it faster.

The fried chicken was extravagant breast meat. The French fries in the same bucket had a lot of chili pepper on them, but it was so dark she had only discovered that upon eating them.

She had a feeling she would regret this from a calorie and weight perspective, but this was the reward she got for continuing to live.

''Now then,'' she thought as she set the thermos of sports drink to the side and sighed.

She reached for Brunhild’s letter.

…''Ways to fight the four brothers, hm?

Just as she began to open the letter, her crossed legs knocked over the thermos which made a loud noise.

“Ah.”

Soon, crying filled the darkness.

The baby had reacted to the sound.

To a child that did not understand the outside world, all things were either relief or surprise.

Panicked by the crying, Kazami approached the baby without righting the thermos.

She stood and quickly picked up the baby from the chair. X-Wi reacted to the movements of her shoulder blades as she crouched and the wings of light enveloped the two of them.

Inside the protective cage of pale light, Kazami hurriedly held the child to her chest and gently shook its small form back and forth.

“Um, uh, what am I supposed to do? Stop crying, stop crying… You can’t even understand me, can you?”

Even she could not believe what she was saying, but then she realized something.

You were not supposed to shake a baby.

…''You just end up scaring it.

She was trying to comfort it, but it was nothing more than a never-ending shaking for the child that did not know what was happening.

“In that case…”

''Um,'' she hesitated. ''Like this, maybe?'' she asked herself with her eyebrows lowered in confusion as she moved her own body.

She rocked back and forth along with the baby.

It was a slow, gentle motion like a boat rocking on the waves.

“…”

She did not let the child shake alone. She too rocked in the imaginary waves.

After a few repetitions, she got the hang of the balance needed to rock like that.

This was different from running around and she was not used to using her muscles like this.

The next thing she knew, the white wings were swaying and waving along with her. Their movement was a bit behind her own, so when she moved right, they moved left and vice versa.

At some point, the crying stopped.

The baby’s eyes were opened and looking at something. Most likely, that something was the light enveloping them.

Next, the baby’s mouth opened.

It opened its mouth in an “ah” shape and squirmed.

Kazami somehow knew what it was trying to say.

…''Are you hungry?

She slowly crouched down and managed to keep a gentle hold on the child surprisingly easily. She picked up the thermos lying on the floor.

The top was open and some had spilled, but that was not a problem.

…''It would be best for the mother to do this.

She realized the baby could not drink directly from the thermos, so she silently apologized to the parents.

“…”

She gave the drink to the baby by mouth.

Instead of drinking the warm liquid from her mouth, the baby almost seemed to suck it out.

She held the child’s face up to straighten the throat and let the drink into its mouth.

After removing her own mouth, the child expelled some air from its stomach.

…''Wow. It’s just like I’d read.

She was surprised and she belatedly blushed at what she had done. Soon, the baby’s mouth opened again.

However, it should have had enough to drink.

“In that case…”

When she realized what the child wanted, she hesitated. She timidly looked around and listened for any noises before hiding the two of them with the wings and slowly opening the front of her shirt.

She forcibly lowered her bra to expose the skin, and wiped her breast with a cleaning charm Sibyl had left for her.

After that, she only needed to bring the child to her while rocking back and forth again.

“Nn.”

She smiled bitterly at the ticklish sensation and the bitterness soon vanished.

…''What am I doing?

With that thought, she stood up.

And she sang. She opened her mouth in the moonlight and light of her wings.

“Silent night, holy night

Where today all the might

Of his fatherly love us graced

And then Jesus, as brother embraced

All the peoples on earth

All the peoples on earth.”

As she sang, the embarrassment vanished. After all…

…''I’m half-naked, holding a child, pretending to breastfeed, and singing.

She could not think of anything more embarrassing.

She suddenly glanced to the bed through the gap in the wings. Izumo slept in that bed.

…''A woman holding a child and a man sleeping in a bed at a hospital.

She laughed quietly as she wondered what that looked like.

She looked down and found the child had fallen asleep. That made her smile a little.

“Thank you.”

That was all she said as she wrapped the baby in a cloth and placed it back on the chair. She created a makeshift bed by placing bags upside down on the armrests to make sure the baby would not fall off.

''Now then,'' she thought as she looked to Izumo’s left arm on the bed and the two weapons leaning against the wall. Her eyebrows rose, she pressed her heels against the floor, and strength filled her knees.

“I’ll be going.”

She grabbed the maglite from the side table, picked up Brunhild’s letter from the floor, and moved to leave the room.

She opened the door and stepped out into the dark hallway.

As soon as she did, she felt a great stillness.

…''This isn’t just a lack of sound!

This was the silence just before something began.

She quickly looked around, but there was nothing to see. Not down the hallway, not near the smashed nurse station, and not through the emergency exit’s window behind her.

…''Then where is something coming from?

Thinking about it in reverse led her to the answer.

…''Somewhere I can’t see.

She instantly remembered that the enemy’s attacks could break through walls. That meant he could surely hit her from…

“The first floor!?”

She started back into the room, but at that moment, a line of power raced along the hallway from east to west. It shot by behind her as she turned toward the room’s door and it sliced through the wings of light along its path.

“!!”

As her wings scattered from the impact and she approached the door, the entire hallway exploded from below.

Ikkou looked up at the destroyed ceiling.

The sound of the explosion passed by and dust flew through the air.

He saw some few remaining floor tiles through the straight line cut in the ceiling.

There was still about thirty square centimeters of floor around Izumo’s hospital room, but the shockwave must have knocked the door down because it was gone.

Ikkou heard several sounds in addition to the stony noise of crumbling pieces of the ceiling.

He heard the breathing of a baby as it opened its eyes and did not know what to do. He heard Izumo’s breathing in his anesthetized sleep.

And he heard the weak but panting breathing of Kazami.

…''So she survived.

However, that breathing suddenly stopped and he heard a wet sound shortly thereafter.

He recognized it as someone coughing up blood.

…''Based on that coughing…

“I still need to finish her off.”

He looked to his right hand which held an Azure Dragon Sword with a fresh blade.

He made a gentle leap using only the motion of his ankles. He moved up in front of Izumo’s hospital room as if climbing a staircase and he landed on the small bit of remaining floor.

Kazami lay face down on the hard floor.

She was not sprawled out or doubled over. Her right arm was extended forward, her left arm was lying weakly outward, and she unfortunately had no idea which way her legs were pointing.

She let out a breath and coughed up some blood. Her breathing was erratic and her body was trembling, but her mind was faintly aware of herself.

She first saw the floor. She then looked forward and saw the shadows cast by the bed and chair.

Her vision was blurry and she guessed it was due to tears.

She wanted to know why she was in this state, so she dug through her memories.

The answer was simple. Just before the explosion, she had produced new wings with X-Wi.

…''And I tried to block the door as a barrier.

Izumo and the baby were inside. If she had done nothing, the blast would have reached the room.

That was why she had taken the impact along with the door and the door had slowly collapsed into the room.

“Kah.”

As she breathed, something spilled from her throat.

She could not breathe properly and she thought the shock had torn a lung.

She tried to move regardless, but her entire body trembled and she could not gather her strength.

She tried looking around, but she realized her vision was shaky due to a concussion.

Even so, she noticed a haziness beyond the tears covering her vision.

It was dust.

The dust from the explosion was noticeably blocking the light from her back.

X-Wi was still functioning and desperately trying to create its wings, but the small shadows of the floating dust prevented the wings from fully solidifying.

And the dust would also weaken the maglite’s beam.

…''This isn’t good.

She tried to stand, but her body would not move.

She felt no pain. She simply felt hot and unsteady.

She could feel her right arm that extended forward and was dyed a dark color from the wrist down.

“…”

She thought nothing about it. Her body was at least intact.

She placed her right hand down, grasped the floor with her palm, and pulled herself forward like she was climbing a wall.

She thought about using her left arm too, but she gave up when she found she could not move it past the shoulder.

She twisted her hips forward and finally managed to forcibly crawl along.

Even that small movement elicited a wet-sounding breath from her mouth.

…''What am I doing?

She could not fight in her state. Nor could she escape.

Yet for some reason, she crawled.

When she thought about it, it had been a stupid thing to do. If she was taken out, she could not protect the child or Izumo.

…''Why did I try to protect the door?

She did not know. It had been the only thing to come to mind at the time.

…''That only made the situation worse.

But she still crawled. She dragged her body forward along the floor. She simply moved while thinking that might bring some kind of answer into view. Soon, she approached a leg of the bed.

“…”

She coughed up a clump of blood and finally started feeling pain.

There was an undeniable something deep in her gut. She felt a cold sense of loss as if something important had left her.

…''Now I’ve done it.

''Am I done for?'' she wondered.

“I’m sorry.”

She formed those words of apology from her breaths that did not quite constitute a voice and she continued from there.

She gave the reason for her apology and why she could no longer protect them.

“I’m…weak.”

She had fled her club activities long ago, but she had thought she was stronger after joining Team Leviathan.

What had she said when Sayama had ordered them to disband the day before?

Hadn’t she asked why they had to disband when they were so strong?

…''What was I saying? And look where it’s gotten me.

Without the others, she could not do anything, she had lost her weapon, and she was about to lose someone important to her.

Had Sayama understood this?

“You idiot.”

Instead of acting tough and full of herself, she should have backed down there.

She should have done as he said and stayed put at home.

“I’m sorry.”

She felt something with her crawling fingers.

It was the former proof of her strength. It was the bottom of G-Sp2.

She had crawled to the wall and the chill of the broken spear seemed to reject her.

She tried to give a self-deprecating laugh, but she gave a bloody cough instead.

She muttered another apology and could tell tears were spilling from her eyes. But she opened her mouth again.

“I finally know just how weak I am.”

With something still caught in her throat, she took a deep breath filled with the dust floating near the floor.

“I’m weak.”

So…

“That’s why I wanted strength.”

She grabbed G-Sp2.

She went on to muster her strength and roll onto her back. The wings of light spread along the floor on either side and her hazy vision looked up at both the ceiling and the moonlight entering through the window.

Her position was the same as Izumo’s and the baby’s. She wondered if she would share in their dreams if she closed her eyes.

“I’m sorry.”

She just about said she could no longer protect them, but a sudden fact came to her mind.

“Oh. That’s right.”

She nodded and thought about this realization.

…''I want to protect them even if I have to crawl to do it.

She came to understand her previous actions and her thoughts turned to the boy who slept in a position much like hers.

…''I think I know why he protected me now.

The moonlight filled her teary vision and she spoke quietly.

“You did it without even thinking, didn’t you?”

…''Can I act full of myself when it’s for something important?

With that question, she began to cry.

“Thank you.”

And she continued.

“I’m sorry.”

She choked and the coughing stopped. Something deep in her throat was preventing her from even breathing.

To fight the trembling that had replaced the coughing, she tightened her grip on G-Sp2.

She apologized in her heart in countless ways.

…''G-Sp2, I kind of understand why you broke now.

''It was because I was stupid.

''You flew in to protect me. You didn’t simply come because I called for you.

…''Sorry.

''I tried to be understanding and I thought you were afraid in that incomprehensible world.

''But I was wrong.

''Kaku, V-Sw, and you all had strength and so you weren’t afraid.

''I was the only one that was afraid. And that fear made me misunderstand the power that had come to protect me.

''That power was supposed to keep me from fearing, but I only saw it as a way of winning.

''And so I trembled in fear without even winning. If I hadn’t been afraid, I may not have won, but I wouldn’t have given up or screamed.

“I was weak, so I only wanted strength.”

She apologized under her breath yet again.

Something left her throat, spilled into her cheeks, and spewed from her mouth and her body suddenly felt lighter.

Cold breath reached her lungs, but her body refused to move at all.

''Ah,'' she thought when she grasped her situation. She then clenched her right hand and spoke.

“I’m sorry, G-Sp2. But if I do ever become your master again, I won’t fear this time. So if I do become your master again…”

She spoke in a quiet breath that no longer qualified as a voice.

“Will you become a power that will never leave someone as weak as me?”

With that question, all strength left her body.

She could no longer move. Her vision clouded over and only her ears seemed to function.

She heard a small metallic noise.

A brightly-lit windowless corridor was filled with people moving one way or the other.

Men in lab coats rushed or even ran past walls with BF2 printed in black.

A few men rode a transport pallet moving down the transport rails along the center of the wall’s surface. All of them carried weapon storage pallets of different shapes.

“Outta the way! Outta the way! We’re transporting the anti-7th-Gear equipment!! If you don’t open a path, Director Tsukuyomi will fire her Heavenly Moon Bow into your ass from point-blank range!”

The development department members saying that were kicked to the ground by Tsukuyomi who stood behind them.

The transport pallet continued down the corridor while ignoring the cries of the fallen men, but…

“Ah, stop real quick! …Kashima! What are you doing walking down the corridor like that? I know you know a 7th-Gear concept space was detected.”

Next to the stopped transport pallet, Kashima was walking toward the development department.

He stopped when he noticed Tsukuyomi, but he opened his laptop and tilted his head.

Tsukuyomi frowned and stepped off the pallet.

“Hey, Kashima. Are you skipping work to watch videos of your daughter again?”

He turned toward her, wrinkled his brow, and pushed his glasses up his nose.

“How rude, Director Tsukuyomi. You seem to be mistaken about something, so let me be very clear. Videos of my family are what motivate me to do my work. In fact, you could say they are a new nutrient named Vitamin V. Simply put, those videos are a part of my job.”

“Yes, yes, yes. We can discuss that further when assessing your pay. Anyway, why aren’t you doing anything? You’re in charge of G-Sp2 and V-Sw, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but both of them are inside the concept space in question, so there’s nothing I can do.”

“Then come help us. Besides, you’re the one that left V-Sw and G-Sp2 in the hospital room because you said we didn’t have to fix them. …And now Kazami doesn’t have a weapon in there.”

“About that.”

Kashima glanced down at his laptop’s monitor, frowned, and looked back at Tsukuyomi.

“Director Tsukuyomi, one quick thing, if you don’t mind. I’m having difficulty judging something here. …Do you understand what this means?”

He showed her the computer monitor.

“Why aren’t you playing a video of your daughter or wife?”

“If I watch them too much, the family nutrients are less effective. Anyway… Wait. Why are you giving me that look when I try to have a serious conversation? Please stop that.”

“Don’t blame us when you make it so unexpected. …Now, please continue.”

“Okay, it’s about the two graphs on the monitor here. I’m following G-Sp2 and V-Sw’s states in real time using their communicators that can surpass a concept space’s boundaries.”

Tsukuyomi looked at the monitor that had a window opened in the top half and one in the bottom half. Both windows showed several numerical values and a rising graph.

“What? They were both destroyed, so why is their energy rising?”

“That isn’t all. Let me show you why I left those two weapons in the hospital room.”

Amid the surrounding noise and footsteps, he moved his fingers to revert the graphs to the past.

The graphs now displayed the readings from the previous night when Izumo had been taken to the hospital.

“What is this? Are you sure the sensors aren’t broken? This says the values never dropped.”

“I inspected the sensors, but they’re working just fine. I even replaced them just to be sure, but nothing changed. This means G-Sp2 and V-Sw may have been badly damaged, but they weren’t broken.”

“What…does that mean?”

Kashima nodded and hesitated before continuing.

“I can only guess, but perhaps the weapons only see their cowlings as an outer shell. It comes down to the fact that they’re Concept Core weapons. Unless the actual concept inside them is destroyed, they can never be truly ‘broken’.”

Tsukuyomi frowned and Kashima shrugged.

“It’s not even worth it with those machines. Neither of them thinks they’re broken even in that state. They think they can still fight.”

“Why would…the Concept Cores think that? And why are they still broken on the outside?”

“That’s simple. Most likely, they’re waiting for their masters to want to fight again. Those broken-looking exteriors want a persistent master.”

Kashima stuck the monitor out toward Tsukuyomi. The graphs displaying the two weapons’ states had already surpassed forty percent power.

“Do you understand what this means? …They’re ecstatic. Those masses of power known as dragons are overjoyed that the one to use their power is waking up. Is there anything we need to do? …And now that we’ve settled that, it’s time for a Harumi video. I’ve got a new one today!”

Tsukuyomi kicked Kashima to the ground and loaded him on the transport pallet.

Ikkou saw something after reaching the open door in a single bound.

It was light.

White and black light of unknown origin came from Izumo’s hospital room.

The center of the two colors of light came from the back wall of the small room.

They came from the two giant pieces of wreckage.

With a boy sleeping in the bed to the side, a bloody girl lying on the floor below, and a baby further to the side, the two wrecked weapons scattered shaped fragments of light around themselves.

More and more light appeared like bird wings, leaves, or spraying water.

The light was either white or black and the two colors swirled through the air on the right or left.

The light produced an infinite number of sounds. There were high sounds, low ones, mid-level ones, short ones, and long ones. They all mixed together to produce a humming tune or a pulsation.

Amid that light and sound, Ikkou saw something floating into the air.

It was countless red drops.

…''Blood?

Kazami’s blood rose from the floor and Izumo’s blood rose from the bedclothes it had soaked into.

At the same time, a powerful pulsating noise filled the air.

The deep pulse that shook one’s body came from the two weapons.

As the weapons produced light and sound, they pulsated and changed the cloud of blood droplets along with the light and sound. They became bird wings, leaves, or spraying water.

The two weapons’ identical spirals eventually overlapped and decorated the room with a double helix pattern.

The weapons’ pulses accelerated like a human heartbeat and sounded louder and faster.

Light raced through the outer surface and inner core of G-Sp2 and V-Sw.

G-Sp2’s was a bluish-white light and V-Sw’s was a red light.

As the light raced from the sealed Concept Cores, it filled the cracks in the weapons and corrected their shapes.

Their blades were formed anew, their handles grew smooth, and their cowlings were purified to white.

Their shapes changed. They maintained their original functions, but grew more angular and solid.

Finally, Ikkou saw light slowly grow in the weapons’ consoles.

“We won’t lose now.”

With a metallic noise, the cowlings slid on their own to finish creating their new forms.

At the same time, the spiraling light coloring the room changed to a spray.

The room filled with light and swallowed up Izumo and Kazami.

“…!”

Seeing that, Ikkou used all his strength to thrust his Azure Dragon Sword into the light.

The second floor of the hospital exploded in the night.

However, the explosion did not occur in the eastern end which contained the hospital rooms. It was in the western end.

Building materials and dust seemed to bounce out of the building more than they were blasted out and two objects followed.

One was Ikkou using a broken Azure Dragon Sword to guard.

[[Image:OnC_v11_0245.jpg|thumb]]

The other was a light rising straight up from the explosion.

The light was a giant spear.

The light emitted by its tip trailed behind it in the night sky.

That glowing dust washed over someone who was already wrapped in light.

Specifically, in wings of light.

In the moonlight, the bearer of the spear spread her white wings and slowly took in a breath.

“————”

She began a power dive toward the enemy below.

Kazami did not understand anything.

She did not know what had happened, what she was thinking, or what she was doing.

Even so, she found an answer to that last question.

…''I’m fighting!

As soon as she landed in the moonlit backyard, she used her wings to charge toward Ikkou who had also landed.

Not even the wind could keep up with her.

Ikkou swung his Azure Dragon Sword, but she did not care.

After colliding with him and making her next attack, she thought.

…''Why?

She made attack after attack and slid quickly through the air to arrive behind her enemy.

…''Why can I move again?

The Azure Dragon Sword broke, but a new blade formed by the time she had raised her spear.

…''Why was I forgiven?

She evaded, spun around, and used the motion to make a jab with the back end of the spear.

…''Why am I still alive?

Her hair fluttered and her sweat flew.

…''Why?

She did not know, but she did not know two things for sure. She had been given forgiveness that she would never receive again, and…

…''I can protect.

“I can protect them.”

She knocked away the Azure Dragon Sword with the back of the spear.

“I won’t freeze up in fear anymore. I won’t stand still and tremble anymore. Because…I won’t think I’m strong anymore.”

Despite being knocked back, the sword was forcibly swung down at her. However, she did not hesitate to hold the spear below her arm.

“So lend me your power. Lend me the power I need to protect someone!”

She used the wings on her back to step forward with her entire body behind the spear tip.

She accelerated.

She cut through the wind and slipped below Ikkou’s blade.

The spear tip sank into the chest of his armored uniform and smashed his bones.

He was thrown back from there.

“————!!”

With a great sound of impact, his body flew backward.

She brought her feet to the ground and stopped herself. She swung up G-Sp2, spun it in her fingers, and held it under her arm again.

“Sorry…”

Her wings vibrated and produced noise.

“But it seems I’ve become a bit of a better person.”

Even as she spoke, Ikkou spread his legs and landed. The soles of his shoes slipped back along the dry dirt of the backyard and he raised his Azure Dragon Sword again.

“Ha ha. You regained your energy quick-…”

Before he finished, Kazami had circled behind him.

He gasped and shook in surprise, but this was nothing to be shocked about.

It was simple. As long as she used her wings and swung her body, she could circle around faster than him.

However…

“Such speed,” he said.

“Oh? This is my average speed…when facing an enemy anyway.”

“Oh? So I am your enemy, am I?”

“Yes,” she replied.

She raised her eyebrows and pushed the spear tip into Ikkou’s back.

“Or at the very least, you aren’t my teammate.”

She poured all of her strength into a point-blank range strike.

The sound of impact shook the air, but the sound of flapping wings accompanied it.

Ikkou was launched parallel to the ground, but Kazami caught up and calmly made another attack.

“You turned your blade on people I care about. While it is my fault they got hurt…”

The additional hit sent him flying even faster, but she used her wings to soar above the ground and line up alongside him again. She attacked from the side this time.

“You are still an enemy for not stopping your blade.”

She struck him from below to launch him up into the air at a right angle.

He flew around a dozen meters into the sky, but she circled above him in an instant.

With the light of the moon behind her, she pressed the spear tip against Ikkou’s back as he reached the peak of his ascent and briefly stopped.

“Yes, you aren’t my teammate. After all…”

She sent him flying straight down.

However, she accelerated down after him and struck his back again as she caught up.

“My teammates are elsewhere. I may not have any strength…”

She hit him yet again to accelerate him further.

“But they still want me on their team.”

''Yes, that’s right,'' she thought. ''Let’s go form a team.

''Not a team prepared only for the Leviathan Road, but a team that will last forever.

''We won’t think we’re strong anymore. We’ll gather together to become strong.

''As long as we keep that in mind, we won’t let our guard down.

“And we won’t lose!”

She activated G-Sp2’s second form and fired the cannon down.

After a direct hit on Ikkou, the ground and the light exploded.

This left a crater ten meters across and the sound filled the entire area.

The hospital building shook and the reinforced glass bent and broke.

With the rising wind washing over her from below, Kazami rested G-Sp2 on her shoulder fifteen meters up in the air.

“You’re still alive, aren’t you?”

“You can tell?”

Ikkou stood in the center of the crater.

He was surrounded by shimmering heat, his armored uniform was in tatters, and his hair was a complete mess.

But the light in his eyes had not faded and his weapon was unharmed.

He faced to the side and spat a dark clump to the ground.

“Well done, Kazami-sama. I suppose that would be around sixty points.”

“I’d like another forty beyond that.”

He laughed and sighed.

“It will be too late by the time the battle ends, so I will take this time to tell you of the past we know.”

“The past?”

“Yes, my brothers promised to give you the Concept Core and some information on Japanese UCAT’s past if you defeat us.”

He looked up at her with a sharp look in his eyes.

“Just once in the past, someone took data on our Concept Cores after realizing we had them.”

“…? Just once? Who was it!?”

“Well,” he said. “Someone who was attempting to find a just way to rule the world.”

“What?” she asked.

She did not know what he meant. Was there such a thing as a just way to rule the world?

However, he continued speaking.

“It is fine if you do not understand. I am sure the Army will tell you soon enough. And I have no time. …Kazami-sama, let us prepare the stage for our battle.”

“Sure, but how?”

“How about this?”

Ikkou held something overhead. It was a fist-sized black sphere.

“This is my brother Mitsuaki’s Concept Core. It arrived just now. You know what his concept does, I assume.”

Kazami gulped a bit.

That concept prevented her from understanding anyone else. That had been the trigger to her previous loss against Ikkou.

The man opened his mouth with a smile in his eyes.

“Then let us begin. Working together is the best part of being brothers!!”

With that shout, a voice reached Kazami’s ears.

—'''There is no mutual understanding.

Those words robbed Kazami of all her senses.

After Ikkou opened the concept space, he took a certain action.

He sighed.

The breath contained some blood.

He spat out the clump of blood and wiped his mouth.

…''My end is coming soon, too.

Mitsuaki had been defeated and there was no response from Nijun or Yonkichi either.

“Give me a good answer.”

He looked up while trying to catch his breath and he saw Kazami sitting motionless in midair.

Her eyes were closed as if in quiet thought, so Ikkou prepared his Azure Dragon Sword.

He prepared an iai strike from below and to the left.

He then spoke to this opponent who could not hear him.

“I will now make the greatest attack I can muster. You can block it if you like and you can deflect it if you like. Either way, I will die satisfied. This is…”

He let out a bitter laugh.

“This is in exchange for all the trouble I have caused you.”

He twisted far to the left, took a deep breath, held it, and sank down a bit.

“…!”

He suddenly moved. He sent his right heel forward, and pushed his body up with his left knee.

“————”

He raised his right elbow forward, reversed his wrist while stretching his entire body upward, and stood on his right leg while swinging up the Azure Dragon Sword.

The instant he moved, the blade broke the sound barrier.

…''This will work!!

His body’s movements linked together and there was no shaking or wobbling in the blade’s path.

There was no hesitation in this attack. He swung it through its entire moon-like arc.

“Ohhh!!”

Surrounded by exploding water vapor and enduring exploding wind, Ikkou used his vertically stretched body to look up at his enemy.

The moon was visible behind the spear-wielding and winged girl.

And a certain sound reached his ears.

It was a song.

Even during the battle, he heard a song in the girl’s voice.

Kazami sang in the moonlight.

She sang the same hymn as when holding the baby: Silent Night.

As she closed her eyes and sang with no excess information reaching her, her unheard voice rode on the wind and filled the world.

In her hands, G-Sp2 resonated with the song and vibrated like a tuning fork.

And the song’s vibration in the wind reached her skin.

She could not see the world, but the world came to her. It returned her voice to her.

The earth echoed, the building resonated, and the night sky fell silent, but all of that was the world’s response.

…''Why was I so tense?

She could not understand others in this world, but there were things she could learn as her own voice returned to her.

She had been unable to do this the day before. Both when faced with this concept and when faced with Sayama’s order to disband.

But she was fine now.

She had learned something.

She knew why she had been so angry about Sayama’s order.

…''Back then, I felt like my efforts weren’t being recognized.

''But I was wrong,'' she realized while singing below the moon.

Nothing anyone said could change how much she had fought or that she had protected the Leviathan Road.

So her job was to do her very best to protect the others and accomplish something.

If she did that, her efforts would be recognized without her having to point them out.

Sayama must have known that after fighting alongside them so many times.

But he must have sensed their carelessness.

After growing strong, they were relying on their strength, forgetting their original intentions, and losing sight of what they needed to do.

If they merely wielded their power, they would grow intoxicated on that power and end up filled with fear.

He had hinted at this by having them disband, but that was likely because of the approaching battle with the great power of the Army.

…''But I’m weak and my lack of confidence made me lose hope.

And to hide her weakness, she had relied on her power, but that had made her fear that power, lose, and fail to protect what really mattered.

She needed to trust in something other than strength and she had understood that in the past.

…''Yes, it used to be more than just words. I really did understand.

Once, she had tried to protect Sayama and Shinjou and led a werewolf to take his own life.

She had worried over that and her decision had been to leave flowers for him and to never forget it.

At the time, she had not tried to justify her actions to anyone. She had not tried to use the werewolf’s death as proof of how much her teammates mattered or how hard she had worked.

She had received the sin as the sin it was.

She was stubborn, but she had tried to grow stronger.

But after gaining more teammates…

…''Why did I get so full of myself and grow soft?

If she stayed like that, her teammates would not want her around.

And that was why she had a new thought.

A teammate was someone to share her joy with as they fought and protected each other.

And they were someone to notice the flower she silently set down and line up their own flowers next to hers.

She had people who would understand without her having to say a word.

…''So I just need to do everything I can.

She smiled bitterly when she suddenly remembered snapping back at Sayama.

''I’m such an idiot,'' she thought as the bitterness left the smile.

…''But it’s partly that idiot’s fault for always choosing the most eccentric way to express something.

That had not turned out well. She thought about having a word with him next time, even if Shinjou was with him.

After all, he was a stupid underclassman and he was doing what she had once done.

Long ago, she had injured someone during her club activities and quit the club.

But after meeting Izumo and beginning to fight, she had heard about a certain strange first year student.

The boy had gone to karate competitions, but after injuring his left hand, he had quit karate altogether.

As a replacement for karate, he had searched for a place to get serious and he had ended up alongside them.

There was one thing she had wanted to ask him eventually: Aren’t you ever going to clench your left hand again?

…''But I’m glad I didn’t say it.

If she had said that when she didn’t realize how weak she was, it would have shown how little she understood.

…''That’s right.

''I’m sure he’ll figure it out on his own without me saying anything,'' she realized.

“Yes.”

So she stopped singing and nodded to herself.

“Let’s go. It’s time we formed a team again.”

She could hear where her enemy was, so was that enough to say she knew where he was?

Ikkou launched a straight line of shockwaves toward her.

She responded with a strike from her spear of light.

She was filled with an inappropriate curiosity about who would win.

But…

…''Ikkou-san, you’re thinking the same thing, aren’t you?

She also knew what G-Sp2 had to be saying: This is fun.

So she took a midair step and dove straight down.

The silence of the attack below was her path to him.

To resume fighting, she prepared to crush him.

<noinclude>
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| Back to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Chapter 27|Chapter 27]]
| Return to [[Owari no Chronicle|Main Page]]
| Forward to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Chapter 29|Chapter 29]]
|-
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</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Chapter 27

2026-10-21T04:26:06Z

N-Ch:

==Chapter 27: Waking Light==
[[Image:OnC_v11_0191.png|thumb]]
''In that moment when I awaken

''I just hope it is not too late

Something stirred in the darkness.

It was a stir of awakening.

A bed sat in the center of a room dyed in the colors of night and a girl next to the bed lifted her head from the blanket.

She wore a half coat with the name Kazami stitched inside the collar.

She sat up while still wearing the clothes she had come here in.

Her half-opened eyes turned to the clock on the bedside table.

“It’s only eight?” she muttered. “I hate not being able to sleep at night.”

She stretched her back in the darkness.

She looked to the head of the bed and saw Izumo’s face.

His eyes were still closed in sleep and she smiled a bit at the peaceful look there.

But…

“…”

Her eyebrows lowered when she saw the wrecked weapons leaning against the bed and Izumo’s left arm.

She hung her head and brought a hand to her eyes.

“I’m not even crying anymore.”

She unsteadily rose to her feet. She had to make a request for each night she spent in the hospital room and she had to call her parents.

Talking in the room would disturb his sleep, so she stood up.

“Ah.”

No strength reached her knees and she almost fell.

She grabbed the railing on the foot end of the bed to support herself and she sighed.

Wondering if something had happened, she looked across the room, but her behavior had not changed it at all.

She slowly gathered her strength again and left the hospital room.

She opened the door to the hallway.

“That’s bright.”

She had been in the dark for so long that even the hallway’s small fluorescent lights seemed too strong.

It took several seconds for her eyes to adjust.

After waiting that long, she saw a hallway with hints of the dim night remaining in the corners.

The fluorescent lights on the second floor hallway’s ceiling were kept low enough to not disturb the people’s sleep.

Kazami looked left and right.

To her right were several more hospital rooms and an emergency exit with a maglite available.

To her left were a single hospital room and a lobby. Beyond the passageway to the southern building, she saw the nurse station counter and the hospital ward beyond that.

She would head to the nurse station to make her request for spending the night and then call home in the lobby because cellphones were forbidden in the hospital. She tried to remember if she had a 10 yen coin to use in the lobby’s red phone.

Once she started thinking, the thoughts kept coming.

There was a bath toward the front of the hospital. She had declined to use it the day before, but…

…''I really should use it today.

''No, no,'' she corrected herself while shaking her head. ''Try to remember why you’re here.

Another thought suddenly came to her.

…''What on earth am I doing?

She wanted to stay by Izumo’s side, but what would that accomplish?

She thought about it, but…

“No.”

She was not sure what that word of rejection was directed at, but she had made up her mind.

She faced left and started toward the nurse station.

“?”

She noticed something sitting next to the room’s entrance.

It was a large green bag. It was larger than a shopping bag and looked more like a travel bag. She checked inside.

…''A change of clothes.

It also had a box of rice balls and other food.

She crouched down, dug through it, and found a few letters.

The topmost one was from Sibyl.

“Chisato-sama, I have brought you a change of clothes and a set of towels.”

…''Why does she know my size?

The next one was from Mikage.

“Heo made dinner, so I brought you some. It’s fried chicken and rice balls.”

…''Are those two getting along?

She looked to the next letter which was from the development department.

“This may be presumptuous, but here is a high resolution DVD of Harumi to cheer you up.”

…''I don’t have anything to play it with.

She then read a letter attached to a box.

“If you are bored in the hospital room, play with this. It’s the full action figure ‘Ooshiro in Action’. It comes with a secondary pained expression and a posing stand that sticks into the crotch, so it’s a great deal!”

…''I should probably throw that in the incinerator.

She found a letter and a giant case at the bottom.

“…”

After picking it up and checking what it was, her movements, expression, and breathing all ground to a halt.

“Anti-7th Combat Instructions by Brunhild.”

The white case below the letter took up most of the bag.

…''That’s X-Wi’s transportation case.

She gasped at the presence of those two things.

She stiffened and took deep breaths to slowly relax her body.

“Sorry.”

She closed the top of the bag, gently tapped the hard cloth a few times, and closed her eyes.

“Sorry.”

She stood and turned her back on the bag.

She walked down the corridor to the nurse station, raised her head, straightened her back, and opened her eyes.

When she realized how loud her footsteps were, she finally let out a breath.

…''I can’t.

Seeing that bag seemed to tell her what everyone wanted.

…''On the surface, they talk about letting me rest or cheering me up, but deep down, they’re preparing me to fight.

''That was too well put together,'' she sighed.

She shook her head and brushed a hand through her pretty dry hair.

“I can’t.”

''I’ll probably never be able to do it,'' she told herself.

All she felt was guilt toward G-Sp2 and remorse toward Izumo.

Even if G-Sp2 was repaired and Izumo was healed…

…''I can never return to the way I was.

Her guilt would cause her to step back from it all.

''Ahh, ahh.'' She forced an exasperated sigh in her heart. ''I haven’t changed at all.

She had once gotten someone hurt in an athletic club.

Her opponent had been the type to do everything by the book while she had been the type to treat it like a real battle. At one point, one or the other of them was about to be made a first year regular and that was when it happened.

She had tried to lose on purpose to give the regular spot to the other girl.

…''And that ended up injuring her.

It was not that the other girl had not managed to avoid her attack. Instead, the girl had mistakenly charged in. That girl always did everything by the book, but for some reason, she had strayed from the standard at that moment.

The girl had told her not to worry about it and all the others had said it was just a part of the match.

However, Kazami had withdrawn. Instead of simply handing over the regular spot, she had left that place altogether.

If she had not met Izumo, she had a feeling she would have continued withdrawing from everything.

''And now the exact same thing is happening again,'' she mentally sighed.

…''This must be the kind of person I am.

She left that self-analysis in her mind and raised her head in front of the nurse station.

“Um…”

She called out, but there was no one behind the counter.

Just as she started wondering why…

“Oh, over here, over here,” called a female voice.

She turned to the right, saw a door open in the back of the nurse station, and saw the head nurse step out.

The woman had a connection to UCAT and she had not left her post. Kazami tilted her head and looked at the door the woman had left.

It had a placard saying Nursery.

That was the room where all the newborn babies were kept.

Hospitals were usually a place of illness and injury, but that was the one place filled with life.

That fact relieved Kazami, but she soon recalled why she was here.

“Um, I would like to make a request for spending the night.”

“Okay, wait just a second. I need to settle things over here.”

…''Over here?

Kazami tilted her head and the head nurse shrugged.

The woman beckoned her over and gestured for her to stay quiet.

Kazami both wondered what this was about and wanted to get the request over with, but she prioritized the former and walked past the nurse station.

The hospital nursery was located next to the nurse station and on the eastern end of the building. Dark glass covered the hallway wall from waist height to the ceiling, so Kazami could see inside.

She saw an oblong room with infant beds lined up along the hallway side.

The white beds resembled cradles and a small child slept in each one.

There was a door labeled Nursing Room on the back of the room and a woman stepped out of it.

She wore white pajamas and held a baby.

She smiled and nodded toward Kazami for some reason.

Kazami did not know the woman, but she nodded back because she had a feeling she knew why the woman had nodded.

The woman laid the child in a nearby bed and moved out into the hallway.

She walked up next to Kazami but did not look at the girl. She kept her eyes on her own child and the other children sleeping beyond the window.

“They’re so cute, aren’t they?”

“Oh, yes.”

As she answered, Kazami realized her thoughts were not the same as this woman’s.

The sleeping children brought the words “defenseless” and “innocent” to mind, but beyond that…

“I can’t seem to put my thoughts in words.”

“Is one of them yours?”

“Ah, no. I’m here for someone else.”

She frantically corrected the woman and started wondering what she looked like to her.

The woman faced her and smiled.

She said nothing and the smile felt genuine, so Kazami said nothing either.

“…”

Feeling uncomfortable, Kazami faced forward to look away from the woman’s smile.

The woman nodded, bowed toward the head nurse, and walked past Kazami.

Her footsteps echoed through the hallway and the head nurse entered the nurse station.

While thinking she should go make her request, Kazami looked into the nursery.

…''Even I was like this once.

And…

“Will I be able to have something like this?”

But she suddenly came to her senses and shook her head.

…''Don’t do that.

This was no time to think those happy thoughts. Izumo would have to go through rehabilitation for his left arm after this and they would only start discussing that after all of that was over.

She had a feeling she would back out when it came down to it, but she had another thought as well.

…''I don’t even have the will to fight anymore.

As she muttered that in her heart, she peeled herself away from the nursery window.

She turned left in order to reach the nurse station counter, but then she heard a voice.

—'''Attack power is at its maximum.

A voice resembling her own rang in her ears and all light vanished around her.

“!?”

Kazami knew what had happened.

A concept space had opened around the hospital and that had cut off the external power.

However, the hospital’s own emergency power allowed the emergency lights to activate.

Faint light illuminated the hospital.

The people were gone. The nurse station and the hallway were both empty.

However, Kazami could hear someone’s presence.

She heard footsteps.

Someone was climbing the staircase past the nurse station.

The dimly lit staircase circled around on its way up and she saw someone turn that corner. It was Ikkou wielding an Azure Dragon Sword.

“…!”

Kazami began to run on reflex.

She moved west because Izumo was sleeping in the hospital room to the east.

She ran toward the eastern building to draw Ikkou after her once he reached the hallway.

She had to try to run since she had lost to him once and she was unarmed. She would lure him toward her, run away, escape the concept space, and call for help. No one might come to save her, but UCAT could not ignore it if Izumo was in danger.

…''That’s what I’ll do.

As she turned toward the far end of the western ward, the nursery briefly came into view.

In that moment, she caught sight of something beyond the glass.

It was a child.

The previous child was sleeping in front of her.

It had accidentally entered the concept space.

…''Why!?

Suddenly, the child opened its eyes, looked into the empty space for a moment, and noticed the darkness surrounding it.

“————”

It began to cry.

Kazami hesitated and closed her eyes to ignore the baby’s cries. She prepared to start running.

“Oh? A child ended up in here? What an interesting accident.”

The voice from the staircase settled everything for her.

“…!!”

She turned the other way and charged into the empty nurse station.

She turned around and ran through the half-open door to the nursery.

“Honestly.”

Frowning, Kazami threw her body around to rush toward the voice she heard.

“I can’t believe this!”

Once she entered the dimly-lit oblong room, she quickly found the source of the crying.

She ran over to the bed and hesitated, but…

“Fine.”

She shook her head once and picked up the baby and the cloth it was wrapped in.

…''This is a special kind of cloth used for babies, isn’t it?

While panicking and thinking that at the same time, she inhaled and made a beeline for the exit.

She pushed the door open with her shoulder.

“I feel like I’m stealing the baby.”

She frowned, cut across the nurse station, and ran toward the counter’s eastern exit.

But she heard a voice from the staircase leading down to the first floor.

“Kazami-sama, why are you taking away the child I was just about to place under my protection?”

It was Ikkou’s voice.

The voice allowed her to judge his location and he seemed almost done climbing the stairs.

…''That means I can’t escape easily.

She shouted back at the man to erase the unease in her heart.

“You want to know why I’m taking the baby with me? Because I can’t trust your protection, Ikkou-san.”

She was ashamed of the tremor in her voice. She had not been like this in the past.

She ran between the work desks and searched for a weapon with her empty hand.

…''How am I going to escape?

She could not move east because Izumo’s room was that way.

But going west would require circling around the counter and running into Ikkou as he climbed the stairs.

…''There’s a passageway to the southern building between the nurse station and lobby, isn’t there?

''Is that where I should go?'' she wondered.

However, a voice and form cut off her thoughts as they appeared in the stairway entrance in front of the nurse station.

It was an elderly man wearing a white armored uniform.

His hair swayed where it was tied back and he held an Azure Dragon Sword.

“Are you on your way back to Izumo-sama’s room?”

His words brought a tremor to her spine.

But the tremor was not because he was implying Izumo was a target.

He was saying something else.

…''If I don’t want him to kill Kaku, I have to fight!?

She gulped and faced the counter’s exit.

She ran.

She chose not to look at Ikkou anymore. The sight of her enemy was nothing more than unnecessary pressure for her now.

But the senses she had gained after fighting so many battles told her some things without looking directly at him.

“An attack!?”

She did not turn around, but she knew an attack was coming. After all…

…''I can’t hear anything.

No matter what kind of attack, he would build up his strength in order to release it.

That moment of focus created a unique silence. It was a clear but stagnant silence.

As soon as she felt that tense stillness in her skin, she leaped forward.

Still holding the child, she jumped toward the counter itself instead of the exit.

“I can jump over it!”

At the same time, exactly what she had predicted raced toward her from behind.

She heard a slicing of air that resembled a flute and heard something ricochet off the surface of the wall.

After a quick moment, she landed and ran eastward.

“…!!”

Something exploded behind her.

Kazami heard the air burst.

She heard desk drawers and frames bending and breaking, the fluttering of scattered documents, and concrete in the ceiling and elsewhere splitting apart.

“The passageway to the southern building!”

The passageway had been utterly destroyed when the side wall of the neighboring nurse station was smashed through.

She could not reach the southern building now.

As she listened to the sounds of breaking rubble, she ran through a three-way junction and the lobby.

Once she reached the eastern hallway, she realized the lights on the ceiling had gone out.

…''Did the power fail?

As if to answer her, only the battery-powered emergency lights on the walls were functioning.

Only the floor was lit now.

Her pace threatened to slow as darkness fell over her, but something supported her.

“————”

The small form in her arms moved.

Her heart raced a little at the touch from a power she could not control.

…''That’s right.

She nodded.

“That’s right.”

After using both her heart and body to agree, she continued to run while holding that life in her arms.

Ikkou’s voice approached from behind.

“Kazami-sama, how is Izumo-sama doing?”

The voice was only a few steps behind her, but she told herself it was okay. She did not sense that pre-attack silence.

She continued to run toward Izumo’s hospital room and a single thought filled her panicking heart.

…''I have to do something.

She felt that thought was going to vanish, so she repeated it even more strongly so it could not escape.

…''I have to do something!!

Her body was frightened, her mind was backing down, and her experience told her she would lose.

But she had those words in her heart.

''I have to do something,'' she said again.

Suddenly, she heard a silence behind her.

…''!!

She moved in an instant.

She turned around. To distract her from her fear, she gathered more strength than necessary and practically threw her body around.

Five meters behind her, Ikkou was raising his Azure Dragon Sword in his right hand.

His attack would arrive an instant later. It would likely be wrapped in a shockwave and could easily slice the building in two.

Kazami responded by throwing what she held in her right hand.

It was a utility knife she had grabbed from a desk in the nurse station.

The blade was drawn out as far as it would go and she threw it by grabbing the back end between her fingers and almost pushing it forward.

She did not have time to take aim, so she used all her strength to chuck it toward the center of Ikkou’s torso.

Immediately afterward, she saw the knife produce an explosion of water vapor.

…''Eh?

''Have I always been that strong?'' she wondered as the knife broke the sound barrier.

The reason for this was simple. Ikkou’s concept had set the attack power to its maximum.

However, the knife could not endure its own shockwave and it shattered.

It destroyed itself.

Fortunately, that proved effective. The small shockwave that spread from the explosion of white water vapor forced Ikkou to defend.

“…!”

As the vibration of the air washed over Ikkou, Kazami arrived at Izumo’s room.

However, she did not stop there. She ran past it and pulled a silver case from the bag sitting in front of the room. She opened it with one hand and tossed the case away while holding onto its contents.

“X-Wi!”

She had the baby in her left arm, so she could not wear it over both shoulders. Even so, she placed the strap over her right shoulder and activated X-Wi.

—'''Light possesses power.

The concept voice accompanied a wing growing from only the right side of her back.

A moment later, silence came from Ikkou as if to stop the expansion of that light.

After that brief silence, she heard a single footstep. He was rushing toward her.

…''He’s close!

While running toward the emergency exit at the end of the corridor, she flapped the wing on the right side of her back.

The wing of light produced wind.

“…!”

She used X-Wi to make a great leap forward.

It was a low jump that sent her skimming just below the ceiling.

As she flew, she twisted her body around and performed a half rotation.

She stood on the ceiling and faced backward.

The wing flapped as if scratching at the air and she took a large step back.

She faced forward while doing so and saw Ikkou running along the floor overhead.

He was almost directly below her and he was swinging the Azure Dragon Sword up toward her.

“That was fast!”

“This is the average speed among my brothers.”

With those words, his sword flashed by.

Ikkou swung the blade toward the one-winged girl flying overhead.

She was moving back in a straight line and did not have time to evade.

She had no weapons and the shockwave would reach her even if the sword itself did not.

He regretted hitting the child with the attack as well.

…''It would have been better if I had used it as a hostage.

It was a sad turn of events.

…''And yet another boring outcome. Not even defeating Izumo-sama will change that as he is still asleep.

Even as he swung the sword, he felt this was an awful outcome.

The tip of the sword raced through the air, gained a burst of speed, and began to produce its shockwave.

“…!?”

But the Azure Dragon Sword’s blade suddenly shattered.

It had not destroyed itself. The blade had struck something before it had produced the shockwave.

It had struck something Kazami held.

With the sound of shattering glass, metal fragments scattered as specks of light.

''How?'' he silently asked. ''She was unarmed, so how did she break my weapon?

He looked up and saw Kazami past the scattering shards of his blade.

She quickly moved back along the ceiling and did indeed hold a weapon in her hand.

That was the weapon his blade had hit.

“A fluorescent light!?”

“That’s right. Thanks to X-Wi, light is power.”

She answered while gliding backward along the ceiling and she threw the broken fluorescent light toward him.

“Didn’t you do that experiment in science class? Fluorescent lights glow white for a while even after turning off.”

“I never received a compulsory education.”

“That’s too bad. You wouldn’t understand how hard it was to learn the times table then.”

“The same goes…for Izumo-sama!”

Ikkou approached. He hit a switch on the Azure Dragon Sword’s base and a new blade was created.

Kazami looked at it as she backed away.

“A second blade!?”

“Unfortunately, there is still more I must shave away!”

He ran and took a powerful step to approach her.

To match her flight, he raced along the floor. To match her retreat, he advanced. To match her interception, he attacked.

The pursuer and the pursued clashed.

Their movement came from their speed and they both released attack power.

Ikkou swung his Azure Dragon sword and it broke. Kazami fell back, removed a fluorescent light from the ceiling, and slammed it into his sword.

Their weapons crossed paths at high speed and destroyed each other again and again.

The swordfight raced down the hallway.

The sounds decorating the fight sounded like sudden bursts of brass instruments.

The roaring wind blew away all of the fragments.

Ikkou smiled and shouted out as he ran along the floor.

“Not bad, Kazami-sama! I would rate this at about fifteen points!”

He saw her expression past the bursting light. Her eyebrows were raised and her teeth were clenched, but he revealed a smile regardless.

“Aren’t you having fun, Kazami-sama!?”

“Not in the slightest!!”

''I see,'' he thought as he ran.

However, he was certain this was about to become much more fun. After all…

“Then please look behind you.”

She looked back in surprise and saw what was there.

“The emergency exit. This means there are no more fluorescent lights. How will you handle this ending?”

With those words, he broke Kazami’s final fluorescent light.

The Azure Dragon Sword’s blade also shattered into fragments of light, but he swung the sword up regardless.

Once the new blade grew from it, this would become a surefire attack.

An instant later, he saw the wing of light flap and bring the girl down to the floor.

She had turned her back on him.

He also saw her hand reaching for the emergency exit door.

“Do you really think you can escape!?”

“Do you really think you can win!?”

With that question, Kazami turned around.

She thrust forward her right hand as she did so, but it was not holding light.

However, it was holding something.

“Buildings like these keep maglites in the emergency exits. Didn’t you learn that in disaster training at school?”

Kazami switched on the maglite.

Light raced down the dark hallway.

The directional light was supposedly powerful enough to be seen from five kilometers away.

It instantly shot down the hallway and struck Ikkou’s body.

He caught the light on the Azure Dragon Sword, but it knocked him into the air and sent him flying.

The light pursued him as he flew through the air and it accelerated him down the hallway.

The light instantly passed by the nurse station, the nursery, and the corridor to the other building.

“!”

The Azure Dragon Sword broke.

The wall of light continued on and struck his entire body.

“Ohhh!!”

And that was not all. The dust created from the shattered fluorescent lights and steel blades were pushed by the light and acted as reflectors.

What began as a mist of light fragments quickly grew in a chain-reaction explosion.

Countless explosive sounds could be heard racing down the hospital’s second floor from east to west.

The front end of the light explosions destroyed the western emergency exit and made their way outside.

All that remained was the vanishing light, shimmering heat, wind, and…

“I doubt that’s enough to defeat him.”

Kazami turned off the maglite and lowered her shoulders in front of the eastern emergency exit.

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| Forward to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Chapter 28|Chapter 28]]
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</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Chapter 26

2026-10-21T04:22:55Z

N-Ch:

==Chapter 26: Road of Shadow==
[[Image:OnC_v11_0163.png|thumb]]
''Relativity only works

''When two parties are involved

Yonkichi held onto the large pantograph on top of the bullet train and looked into the sky.

Black wings descended through the wind and clouds that shined white in the moonlight.

It was Susamikado.

The god of war dropped straight down, but it was trying to land behind Yonkichi.

He stood on the fifth car from the front and seven more cars continued behind him.

The black form made a soaring arc through the sky and caught up with the final car.

But instead of slowing, it came toward him.

The metal wings were no longer used for attitude control and it wielded a black sword in its right hand.

It intended to strike as it passed by.

Susamikado approached with growing acceleration and shifted its path slightly outward to cut Yonkichi down.

“!”

And that was precisely what it did.

The six meter black metal blade flew toward him with surprising accuracy.

The sword sliced through the air so its tip would catch on him.

He was currently on a train’s roof.

That was a narrow area.

The pantograph took up the center and the sides contained only empty air.

No matter how he evaded in this narrow space, Susamikado could likely slice him in two after a correction to the sword’s movement.

He could always reverse their positions using his fixed concept, but that would slice Susamikado in two on top of the bullet train.

“And there are passengers on the train.”

He had used that as a shield so they would not fire on him from above, but now they were using it to restrict him.

''Well, whatever,'' he thought while choosing to dodge the approaching black line.

He leaped into the air behind him.

He powerfully yet nimbly kicked off the train roof and instantly reached a height of ten meters.

The blade continued after him.

The god of war partially raised it overhead, but…

“…”

It only grazed Yonkichi’s shoes.

He spread his arms and prepared to land as if keeping up with Susamikado’s forward movement.

He flipped around and faced the front of the train just like Susamikado.

Finally, he landed.

His feet set down above the roof. He stood on the high-voltage line running above the pantograph.

He ran along the thick power cable while Susamikado flew to the left of the train.

He raised a hand, but not in greeting. This time, it was a farewell.

…''Now I will end this.

He lightly trod on the thick high-voltage line and ran both quickly and…

…''Delightfully!

He raced along the cable while skipping at the same speed as the bullet train below.

“Wonderful.”

He muttered to himself as he looked to Susamikado.

“My usual tension has grown a hundredfold.”

The god of war was beginning to fly into the sky ahead of him.

“My usual thoughts have grown a hundredfold.”

It was moving away to prepare for its next attack.

“My usual movements have grown a hundredfold.”

But it was too late. He was already looking at the black giant’s back.

“My usual enjoyment has grown a hundredfold.”

Yonkichi thought as he raised his right hand toward its back.

…''If I had my left arm, I could keep my hands on my hips as I skipped!

“It’s a shame, but let’s do this without any strange speech patterns.”

As he lowered his right arm, a giant red artificial arm appeared along its outer edge.

Its target was seven meters away. Susamikado was spreading its wings as it began to fly into the sky.

“Great Sage Attack!!”

That space exploded.

Everything within five meters was bent, crushed, and smashed to pieces.

That power of destruction burst where Susamikado’s back had been.

However…

“!?”

Yonkichi saw the god of war vanish from the air.

He saw something else in the night sky instead.

“Hiba-sama and Mikage-sama!? Did you break the combination before the attack landed!?”

Before he could finish asking, Hiba did something unpredictable.

To move her away from the explosion of destruction, he shoved Mikage to the bullet train roof.

The reactionary force pushed him away and the Great Sage’s power expanded in the opened space between the two of them.

Despite the explosion, the two of them were unharmed.

However, Yonkichi saw Hiba falling to the ground on the left side of the train.

At their speed, he would never survive the fall and he was too far from Mikage to be taken inside Susamikado even if Mikage summoned it.

''It’s over,'' realized Yonkichi. Mikage might land on the train, but Hiba was done for.

Or so it should have been.

Instead, he heard Mikage land on the edge of the train roof and immediately turn to the back.

“Right.”

She made a powerful leap toward Hiba as he fell into the dark forest rushing by.

However, she would not reach him.

Even if both of them reached out toward each other, they could not fill the approximately five meters between them.

That was why Mikage opened her mouth.

Her eyebrows were slightly raised and the cry that left her mouth was similar to calling someone’s name.

“Susamikado.”

That was precisely what appeared before Yonkichi’s eyes.

He saw the god of war’s back.

Its arms were spread, but it did not immediately take Mikage inside.

It caught her on its right hand and reached out its body.

…''To catch Hiba-sama in its left hand.

It awkwardly copied the movements of Mikage’s outstretched arm.

“You can move it without combining now!?”

Mikage had her back to him and did not turn around.

Instead, the black god of war’s wings moved in preparation to turn toward him.

The right hand carried Mikage to its opened chest and Hiba jumped from the left hand to the chest.

The boy turned his strong gaze to Yonkichi.

His earlier decision to push Mikage away and everything else had been perfectly natural for the two of them.

“But you have forgotten one thing.”

From Yonkichi’s point of view, the combination process left an opening. He had proven that this morning.

…''It is sad that they forgot that.

As he rapidly skipped along the high-voltage line, he tried to grab Hiba as the boy jumped for Susamikado’s chest.

He kicked off the power cable and stuck his left foot forward.

“Acho!!”

He made a flying kick with enough force to knock Hiba, Mikage, and Susamikado away.

But as he did, he saw Mikage move out of the corner of his eye.

She moved to embrace Hiba from behind to take him inside the god of war, but she also opened her mouth with her head hanging down.

“Shinjou.”

As soon as he heard that name, something struck Yonkichi from behind.

“!?”

The impact seemed to smash his entire body and he noticed white light behind him.

He wondered what this was as he was blasted forward through the air.

He fell into a tailspin and saw Shinjou lying down on the roof of the rearmost train car.

Ex-St rested on her back and she aimed it toward him.

…''I see. So that’s why they passed by the final car during their first approach.

They had let Shinjou off and prepared for this plan.

They had had a single plan from the beginning.

They would intentionally break the god of war’s combination and then recombine to lure him into attacking.

It was meant to keep him from using his position-swapping concept.

That was when Shinjou had fired Ex-St into his back.

She would not have brought the weapon to Sakai, so Hiba and Mikage had to have carried it to her from UCAT.

They had predicted this situation.

…''Ha ha. I certainly had no intention of using my fixed concept during that attack.

''I was careless,'' he realized while laughing at himself and flying ten meters above the ground.

…''I interfered with their combination this morning, so I wanted to do it again.

“You did well to use that against me.”

As he spoke in midair, he heard another voice. It was Mikage’s.

“You took this too lightly.”

In his rotating vision, he saw Susamikado down below. The combination was complete and the machine was raising its wings.

It flapped the wings and the massive giant flew up from the bullet train’s roof.

The right fist carried by its initial speed acted as the leading edge of its acceleration and it broke through an explosion of water vapor.

“I’m insulted that you did not take this more seriously. You need to follow Ryuuji-kun’s example. You could learn from what he always says.”

Her voice accompanied the blow.

“He says he takes everything seriously and so he isn’t playing around when he peeps!”

The metal fist launched Yonkichi’s body into the night sky.

Shinjou saw Yonkichi fly high into the heavens.

The train carried her below his one-armed body and he arrived just below the moonlight in the sky.

…''That looked like it hurt.

But then she realized something, so she looked up at Susamikado.

“Mikage-san! Go get Yonkichi-san! He has to tell us about the past!”

“U-um, Shinjou-san? Is it just me or have you been ignoring me and only talking to Mikage-san?”

She had never really noticed it before, but now she intentionally ignored him.

She made sure the wind on top of the train did not blow her away, she held down her hair, and she looked up into the sky.

That was when she saw something appear around Yonkichi’s body.

“Is that…the Great Sage!?”

The Great Sage’s right arm formed an L-shaped guard in front of his chest.

“That was fast,” said a voice from Susamikado. “It got in the way of the blow, so he was knocked away but not actually hit.”

…''So he’s almost entirely unharmed?

Shinjou prepared to fight again as Yonkichi spun around while supported by the Great Sage’s hand. He moved directly toward her with the moon in the background.

“…!? Shinjou!! Here we go!!”

She knew what Susamikado meant. Yonkichi was descending right in front of her.

…''He’s targeting me!

But she could not move. If she carelessly stood, she would clearly be blown away by the wind.

And so Susamikado flapped its wings to save her.

The speed provided by its wings covered the distance from first to last train car in no time. On top of that…

“Keravnos!!”

The black launcher attached to its right arm with a metallic sound.

Keravnos used the Concept Core and there was only one reason for Susamikado to use it.

…''To blast Yonkichi-san and the Great Sage as they fall.

They could not defeat him without going that far.

Shinjou nodded as she built her resolve.

…''Let’s win this.

She quickly rolled along the vibrating roof and aimed Ex-St into the heavens. The weapon had a long back end, so she had to press the back against the roof before she could reach the trigger.

A square of faint pale green light appeared next to the gun barrel portion and it displayed Yonkichi.

The red crosshairs moved inside the light and centered on the man.

If she pulled the trigger, she would hit him, so she prepared to do exactly that.

But something else happened first.

“Please wait! If he uses his concept, it’s all over!”

Shinjou gasped.

…''!

If their positions were reversed here, she would be exposed to two separate dangers.

She would be hit by her own attack and she would be flung high into the sky.

Yonkichi shouted down from the moonlit sky.

“Ha ha ha! You would be wise to stay still! Doing anything now would be dangerous!”

“You’re right.”

Shinjou nodded, but she raised her eyebrows and stared at Yonkichi’s smile through the sight.

“But dangerous is fine by me!!”

She pulled the trigger.

White light shot out and the recoil pressed her against the train roof.

A moment later, she heard a voice.

—'''The world is reversed for an instant.

She suddenly found her back was not pressed against anything.

She was over one hundred meters in the air.

The concept had swapped her position with Yonkichi’s.

During the floating sensation that preceded a fall, Shinjou quickly observed her surroundings.

Above her was the vast bluish-black sky and below her was the night scenery.

…''Wow.

[[Image:OnC_v11_0177.jpg|thumb]]

In the center of the night scenery, she saw a line of lights traveling east.

That was the bullet train.

A man lay on his back on the roof of the last car.

A pair of giant arms extended to either side of his body and a certain power shot from him and toward Shinjou.

It was light. Specifically, it was the destructive light she had previously fired from Ex-St.

While illuminated by the white light she herself had fired, she heard Yonkichi’s voice.

“I’m disappointed that it had to end this way, Shinjou-sama.”

She slowly began to fall and she replied through the wind of acceleration.

“You’re right.”

As soon as the words directed at the standing man vanished into the sky, the light struck her.

The light exploded, the sound of impact was intense, light sprayed everywhere, and something shattered.

However, the destruction had not been caused by Shinjou.

Something had moved between her and the light.

The object that had taken the light for Shinjou and been destroyed was…

“Our sword!!”

Susamikado spoke with Hiba’s voice as it flew above the train and Yonkichi quickly turned defensively toward it.

“You can’t mean… You planned that far ahead!?”

''There’s no way we could do that,'' thought Shinjou with a bitter smile.

All she had done was trust her teammates.

…''When Susamikado prepared Keravnos, Mikage-san called my name and said “here we go”.

She had trusted there was meaning in that statement and fired without hesitation.

She nodded as the light and black fragments washed over her and she aimed Ex-St into the sky.

She fired once toward the moon.

The intense recoil created downward acceleration and she dropped straight toward the train.

Meanwhile, three winds blew through the air.

The first was Susamikado on the front of the train as it tried to catch up to Yonkichi and swing Keravnos around.

The second was Shinjou as she descended toward the back of the train with Yonkichi between her and Susamikado.

The third was Yonkichi. He spread the Great Sage’s right hand to stop Keravnos and spread the left hand toward the roof where Shinjou was landing.

They all moved.

Having arrived from the front, Susamikado aimed Keravnos at Yonkichi.

Shinjou fired Ex-St diagonally downward once and then landed. She then aimed the long cannon at Yonkichi.

However, Yonkichi opened his mouth just before they attacked.

“I’ll use my fixed concept!”

Following his words, all three winds came to a stop.

The three of them had taken up their positions.

“This is a dangerous situation, Yonkichi-san.”

Susamikado’s Keravnos and Ex-St were trained on him from either side and he had the arms of the Great Sage held out toward both opponents.

Whoever moved first would attack and whoever attacked would have their position swapped using the fixed concept.

At point-blank range any attack would be a direct hit.

If they were swapped out, there would be no avoiding the attack.

Understanding that, Shinjou made a firm statement with sweat on her brow.

“Now, what should we do?”

The wind blew and they moved eastward despite standing still.

The moonlight covered the train and Yonkichi held the Great Sage’s arms toward the enemies to his left and right.

“This is quite an odd situation.”

He faced forward instead of at either opponent. He stared out at the trees of the mountainous region ahead and into the black sky.

“What will you do if I use my concept? Even if you both attack at once, you will be hit by each other’s attacks and I will remain unharmed.”

So…

“It would be best for Mikage-sama to attack me. Susamikado may be able to withstand Keravnos or Shinjou-sama’s Ex-St if she is swapped out.”

“Um, why has everyone been ignoring my presence?”

Yonkichi ignored the boy.

He then opened his mouth and began with a sigh.

“Let us begin.”

Immediately following those words, Shinjou’s voice reached his ears.

“I won’t shoot you.”

He frowned, turned toward her, and found her smiling at him.

“I can’t shoot someone who’s helped me out so much.”

“Oh? I am most grateful. That means I will not have to harm you. But in that case, the only one who can hope to defeat me is-…”

“I won’t either.”

His frown grew when he heard Mikage’s voice.

…''You have to be joking.

He faced Susamikado and gently raised his left hand toward the black god of war.

“Oh, if Mikage-san won’t, then I won’t either.”

Hiba was clearly serious, but then who should he watch out for?

…''Probably Mikage-sama.

If Shinjou fired, he would swap out their positions and she would be defeated.

They could also attack at the same time, but Shinjou would never survive Keravnos.

But if Mikage fired, it was possible Susamikado’s armor could protect it enough from Keravnos to keep going.

Even if they fired simultaneously, Ex-St would not be enough to destroy the god of war.

Thinking about what would happen afterward, Mikage required the most attention.

With that thought, Yonkichi began to look back at Shinjou.

But as he did, he heard someone fire.

“!?”

The sound came from Ex-St and he saw the light approaching.

Meanwhile, Susamikado remained motionless.

…''It was Shinjou-sama!? They used Susamikado as a feint!?

Shinjou was not even wearing an armored uniform, so she could die if he swapped positions with her now.

“You foolish girl!”

Even as he turned toward her, he used his concept.

He sensed wind in his ear as he turned, but it did not matter.

He hurriedly activated the concept before the light reached him.

—'''The world is reversed for an instant.

They switched places.

Yonkichi stood where Shinjou had been.

He saw Ex-St’s solid light flying away from him and he saw Shinjou beyond it.

But…

“!?”

For some reason, he saw wind past Ex-St’s light and behind Shinjou’s shoulder.

The wind was black.

…''Susamikado’s hand!?

The black god of war’s hand had already grabbed Shinjou’s shoulder.

It pushed down from above and knocked her onto her butt.

Her hips dropped down and Ex-St’s light took out a few strands of her disheveled bangs on its way to Susamikado.

Just as he thought it would hit, Yonkichi noticed something else.

The tip of Keravnos was thrust past Shinjou and toward him.

“…!?”

As soon as Shinjou had fired, the god of war had moved to pull him down and fire Keravnos on Shinjou. The wind he had felt in his ear had been its movements behind him.

The end of the black launcher would hit him at the same moment as Ex-St’s light hit Susamikado.

He had to choose between a direct hit from Keravnos and a direct hit from Ex-St.

The answer to that was obvious: Ex-St.

And he acted accordingly.

—'''The world is reversed for an instant.

With those words, he and Susamikado switched places.

Ex-St would hit him now, but he knew he had won.

He had been hit by Ex-St once already, but it had not been a fatal blow.

And this time, he had the Great Sage ready.

If he used it to guard, he could defend against Ex-St. After that, Keravnos would hit Susamikado and both Shinjou and the god of war would be in a direct line ahead of him.

If he used the Great Sage’s spatial explosion, he could eliminate both of them at once.

“I will win!”

Victory.

That was what he desired. He knew this would be no fun unless he won.

He had lived the last sixty years doing nothing. And in those sixty years…

…''I have never given Chao-sama any good memories.

Chao had tried to apologize to them at Hossawa Falls.

He had wanted to say she had nothing to apologize for, but their relationship was not one that let him.

…''So I will win!

''I will win and prove that you did create something wonderful. You sometimes speak of your former companions from old UCAT, but I will prove that we are superior to their descendants.

''I will prove that your creations raised in Low-Gear are stronger.

…''That is…

“That is the pride we can give you as residents of Low-Gear, not of 7th-Gear!”

So…

“Do not apologize to us!!”

With that shout, Yonkichi’s position completely changed.

Ex-St’s light was directly in front of him now.

It would hit him, but that was part of his plan. He could block it using the Great Sage.

…''I can win!

Convinced of his victory, he looked to see Keravnos strike Susamikado.

“…!?”

But it was gone.

For some reason, Susamikado did not exist in his old position.

Nor was Keravnos which had been on its arm.

“What!?”

As he shouted, he saw what existed in its place a few meters beyond Shinjou.

There were two people there.

Hiba and Mikage took each other’s hands and slowly tried to land on top of the train.

The boy landed on the moonlit train before the girl whose blonde hair whipped in the wind.

She landed soon thereafter. Guided by his hand, she turned toward Yonkichi.

Yonkichi then realized what had just happened.

“You broke the combination just before the switch!?”

He also realized something else.

He realized what it meant for the god of war combination to be broken in the middle of swapping places.

What had been one object had become two and its weapon had been sealed away.

So in the moment Ex-St’s light hit, he saw two things. First, his Great Sage was sealed to match the sealing of Keravnos. And second, just as Susamikado had divided into two…

“My body will also split!”

He felt the intense pain caused by his entire body being sliced in two.

“…!”

With the pain and the loss of his weapon, their positions fully swapped.

Yonkichi was made into two people and the two that Susamikado had split into desired to become a single person.

“…!”

Susamikado and Keravnos appeared behind Mikage and Hiba without being called.

Yonkichi’s concept automatically activated the god of war’s combination in order to fully swap out the positions of the two sides.

“You even used your combination process as a weapon!?”

As he spoke, the blast from Ex-St struck him in the chest.

“…!”

The light exploded, a sound much like smashing rock filled the air, and damage spread through his body.

He had been using the Great Sage for defense, so he had been left defenseless.

On top of that, his body destroyed itself in its attempt to divide in two.

His body burst and the sound literally pierced his bones.

''Pathetic,'' he thought.

He had been so badly destroyed by an attack from Ex-St which he had taken so lightly.

In a breath, the end drew near and he could tell something was on the verge of spilling from his body.

He felt like his heart had been left exposed and the wind was washing over it.

However, he still moved. He raised his right arm that was still barely attached at the shoulder.

“Great Sage!”

The giant red arms appeared on either side of him.

They were already over ten meters long and held high.

He targeted Shinjou and Susamikado who were lined up in front of him.

He had to make this one strike. He had to win.

…''Chao-sama!

He had been given the strongest individual combat ability of the four brothers, but at the same time, he had been made the least intelligent.

He thought that was meant to create a balance between the brothers. If he was too strong, his brothers would have nothing to do.

…''The one thing I can do on my own is achieve absolute victory in an individual battle.

If he could not even do that, what good was he?

So he raised his crumbling right arm.

The arm broke and turned to sand in mid-swing.

Even as he heard the sand spray into the air, the Great Sage continued on.

This was his final attack.

This was his greatest strength as a 7th-Gear combat life form. This was the concept and strength created so he could oppose gods of war and defeat mechanical dragons.

The ones to overcome all that were the two to inherit the power of 3rd-Gear and…

“Shinjou-sama, listen!”

He let out a shout because he felt he had to. He had promised to tell them of the past, so he had no choice but to shout to them here.

“You are the child left by Yukio-sama during that battle in Osaka!!”

Shinjou’s eyes opened wide, but then her eyebrows rose and she closed her eyes.

“Thank you!”

With those words, lights arrived from both Ex-St and Keravnos.

He watched as the twin lights struck the Great Sage, he watched as the Great Sage was pierced through and ripped away, and a single thought filled his heart.

…''What a delightful turn of events!!''

He felt some regret mixed with amusement.

For so long, the four of them had thought they were so strong that they needed to restrain their own power and they had never doubted that strength of theirs. This had led to a certain thought.

…''That this world is boring.

''Yes,'' he said in his heart.

…''It is boring.

This world was boring, but…

…''It is filled with such entertaining people. There are some that not even we can defeat.

How far could those people go? Did they even have a limit? And…

…''Can I help raise them to even greater heights?

He felt he had done something that would make Chao proud.

Their presence had further strengthened the descendants of her companions.

That was something Chao could not do and something no one else could have done.

That was worth being proud of.

…''And I used my own actions to help myself enjoy this boring world!!

He gave a bitter laugh in his heart.

…''I am the kind of idiot who changes his mind too easily.

But…

“That counterbalances my power, gelge!”

With those words, the Great Sage exploded and his entire body burst.

The last thing he felt was the night wind blowing in from the east.

The wind was blowing.

It continued to blow without ever ceasing.

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| Back to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Chapter 25|Chapter 25]]
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| Forward to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Chapter 27|Chapter 27]]
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Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Chapter 25

2026-10-20T03:50:24Z

N-Ch:

==Chapter 25: Beyond Understanding==
[[Image:OnC_v11_0125.png|thumb]]
''If you are there

''Your hand will reach

This was a space that lacked understanding.

One’s eyes could see, their ears could hear, and their senses of taste, smell, and touch worked, but they could not understand any of it.

Everything existed, but the information on its existence did not get through.

Heo stood in that world.

…''Um…

The faint repelling force on the bottom of her feet was the internal sensation her feet being pressed on by her own weight.

That alone was certain.

She shrank down because it felt like only the bottom of her feet existed. It felt as if lifting a leg would divide her existence in half.

“What do I do?”

She could speak, but she would receive no answer.

Her eyes could see around her, but they gave her no information.

Nervous, she shouted a name.

“Thunder Fellow!!”

She wanted that cry to get through.

“…”

But there was no response.

Even after several seconds, she was not swallowed up by the machine.

If she was, she would feel it in the repelling force she could feel, but it never happened.

Calling for the blue and white mechanical dragon was no use.

…''Does that mean he really is someone else?

That thought sent a chill down her spine.

She and Harakawa could not fight on their own. And from what Sibyl had told her in the hospital, Mitsuaki had a scroll concept weapon. It had been sealed below Izumo UCAT, its origins were a mystery, and it could bring out a world.

…''According to the report, the automaton named Gyes was hit by a small sun bullet.

That was when Heo felt something on the right side of her skin.

It was heat.

She felt heat in her skin just like after a trip to the beach, and that meant…

“That small sun is flying in from the right.”

She knew she had to avoid it. She had to escape to the left, right, front, or back.

“…!!”

But not knowing anything about the world around her left her frozen in place.

Was there an obstacle in her way? How was she supposed to fight after escaping? She knew nothing and her anxiety locked up her legs, but that was exactly why she cried out.

“Harakawaaaa!!”

A moment later, she felt a force down below.

Just like with the sensation on the bottom of her feet, she could tell something was holding onto her right ankle.

…''Eh!?

Before she could ask what this was, some kind of force struck her.

A white building stood below the night sky. It was a wide hospital.

However, there was something odd about this hospital.

It was empty and there was a large hole filled with shimmering heat in the second floor of the southern building.

The walls had melted and the scorched hole had been torn open from the ground level. The hole continued through the second and third floor ceilings and into the emptiness above the roof.

Everything behind the hole was melted, torn away, or simply gone. The edges of the hole still glowed with a scarlet light and the shimmering heat rose thickly into the sky.

A single person looked up into the hole and shimmering air.

He was an elderly man in a white coat standing in the front parking lot. He held a thick scroll below his arm and his hands remained in his white coat’s pockets.

“I suppose my concept space is a little too much of a handicap. Only my brothers and I can continue as normal inside it.”

Mitsuaki turned around as he spoke.

“Perhaps I should go help Brother Ikkou. No, I should remove this concept space first.”

A moment later, he froze in place.

He had heard a sound from the hole in the hospital’s second floor that the small sun fired from the scroll had produced.

Something was moving.

…''It can’t be.

“How did she avoid it? It should have been a direct hit.”

He turned around, looked up, and saw two figures standing up on the edge of the hole in the second floor.

He muttered the names of the two who were filthy, injured by a few fragments, yet alive.

“Heo-sama and Harakawa-sama!!”

Harakawa judged the extent of his injuries from the pain he felt.

The pain was not too bad, but he could not let his guard down since any pain on the surface would be canceled. Still…

…''I don’t feel my pulse anywhere in my body.

Confident that he had not had an artery cut, he got up.

He felt pressure in his arms.

It was the pressure of the weight produced by holding Heo.

“That was close.”

When speaking with Brunhild at school, they had discussed a few plans for the four old men’s concepts.

Mitsuaki’s concept prevented you from understanding anything beyond yourself, but any pressure inside your body was treated as “yourself”.

The first countermeasure was to get down.

When on the ground, it was harder for bullets or other attacks to hit.

…''Plus, you can’t fall over and you can feel your entire body as it presses against the ground.''

From there, they could crawl forward while feeling around by hand. The heat had warned him of the small sun, but he had been lucky enough to reach Heo’s ankle the very next moment.

It was also pure luck that he had been able to quickly stand and tackle her to the ground.

He touched the girl in his arms to confirm his relief.

The feeling would also be reaching her as pressure.

…''I hope this is enough to calm her.

He spoke silently to himself while touching her with his finger. After confirming it was a large part with his palm, he pressed his finger down.

He used the pressure of his fingertip to write on her body.

In this world of no mutual understanding, he wrote words into her body to get his thoughts across to her.

“C-a-n-y-o-u-h-e-a-r-t-h-i-s?”

He continued writing.

“H-e-o-T-h-u-n-d-e-r-s-o-n.”

Heo’s pulse was racing.

She did not know what exactly had happened, but she knew Harakawa had saved her.

[[Image:OnC_v11_0133.jpg|thumb]]

She had been unable to avoid the enemy’s attack, but he had somehow reached her, embraced her as if to cover for her, and knocked her to the floor.

She could feel his presence from the sensation of him holding her in his arms. It was a welcome sensation.

But when he had approached her feet and stood up to push her down…

“U-um…”

She brought her hands to her cheeks and shouted at the boy who could not hear her.

“Harakawa! Wh-why are you sticking your head up my skirt!?”

When he had stood up at her feet, his head had gone right up her skirt. On top of that, he had wrapped his arms around her hips and pushed her to the ground.

“No. Wh-what are you doing…a-at a time like this?”

His hand was currently groping around at the skin between the waist of her skirt and her underwear.

The way his finger searched around almost seemed to be writing something.

His finger moved complexly below her navel and even poked at her navel as if dotting an “i”.

She squirmed on the floor and his finger wrote a straight line down.

“Ah, n-no! Not in front of your mother! We’re in the hospital, Harakawa! My chest is one thing, but it’s too soon to go there!”

His finger continued down her skin as he pulled down her underwear.

“Nooo! Not here!! And not like this!!”

Partially due to her struggling, his finger quickly pulled her underwear all the way down to her knees.

…''Did you hear that, Heo Thunderson?

Harakawa’s questioning thoughts were cut off by a sudden knee to the jaw.

“Gwah! Wh-why are you struggling, Heo!?”

But speaking would not reach her.

He felt around in the air and his left hand found something. He pulled on it to bring her close and realized it was her shoulder.

But he felt the hand on her shoulder quickly rising and falling.

He also felt a bit of heat.

He wondered why and his thoughts reached a certain emotion.

…''Did that last attack scare you? Did you knee me because you’re panicking?

Realizing that, he decided he had been in too much of a rush to get his thoughts across.

He hesitated for a moment, but wrapped his arms around her again, felt around for her hand, and found it.

“Sorry. I was in too much of a hurry. We definitely have an enemy here, but know this.”

He squeezed her hand.

“It’s going to be okay.”

Heo felt Harakawa take her hand, pull her close, and wrap his arms around her.

…''Ah.

It surprised her a bit, but she breathed a sigh of relief at the strength in his arms.

This was his usual self and she felt his usual strength, so she figured out what had happened during his previous offense.

…''He must have been scared and he panicked.

''In that case, I can forgive him,'' she decided. ''That’s the mature thing to do.

She felt heat fill her cheeks as she sat up on the floor.

That was when she realized something: Her panties were gone.

…''?

They must have come off when she had kicked Harakawa away.

…''W-well, it’s not like anyone else can see me right now and I can find them right after this ends.

She placed a finger on what she thought was Harakawa’s chest. She moved in close and realized how she could get her words through to him. She had seen this in a romance movie a long time ago. The characters in the movie had been lying naked in bed, but…

…''She wrote his name with her finger.

“Harakawa.”

In the movie, the guy had replied in kind.

Soon, her wish was granted. He used his finger to write a message on her tightly held right hand.

“Are you okay?”

“Y.”

“Thunder Fellow?”

“N.”

He stopped writing after that answer.

She assumed he was trying to figure out why she could not call in Thunder Fellow, but she was wrong.

She quickly realized the real reason why he was not responding.

She felt heat.

This heat was larger than last time, but it came from slightly below just like before.

“Heo.”

He called her name via writing.

“I can’t call in Thunder Fellow,” she quickly wrote on his skin.

She then gave an abbreviated explanation.

“He’s someone else.”

However, he immediately replied.

“N.”

“Why!?”

She reflexively trembled and shouted out even though it would never reach him.

“I tried and it didn’t work! He really is someone else!”

“Call him.”

As if responding, Harakawa continued to write and the movements felt irritated.

“He isn’t someone else.”

After all…

“He’s you and…”

And…

“Us.”

As soon as she realized what that final word meant, the second heat arrived.

She took action. In order to endure her worry and strengthen her thoughts, she wrapped her arms around Harakawa, clung to him, and closed her eyes.

…''Yes. That’s right.

She trusted in the words he had spoken to her.

…''Thunder Fellow isn’t someone else. He’s the power that was given to me.

She opened her eyes and faced that unseen world and all the unseen things it contained.

…''He’s the power that connects us.

So she cried out the name of that power, the name of the great power they always possessed.

“The family of thunder unhesitatingly speaks its desire for the power of the evening star!”

She understood why he had not responded when she had called his name before.

She had been calling for someone outside of herself.

But now her dignified voice was directed within herself.

“Come forth, Thunder Fellow!!”

A moment later, it appeared.

The thirty meter blue and white mechanical dragon broke through the empty hospital’s southern building as it was summoned behind Heo and Harakawa.

First, the wall behind them dented in and filled with cracks as if a giant fist had punched it.

“…”

A wave of destruction ran through the wall as if pushing in on the center of the cracks.

The destruction and appearance happened simultaneously.

With a sound of breaking and a shaking of impact, the hospital broke under the weight of the mechanical dragon.

It was destroyed.

The dragon was now piercing straight through the center of the three-story building.

The first floor had been crushed and the third floor had collapsed with its support gone.

As the piles of debris were further smashed, Thunder Fellow observed his surroundings.

He could understand nothing, but the vibrations of rubble pouring on his armor allowed him to predict the situation.

Low-Gear’s laws of physics were simple. The movement of all objects had a cause and an effect, so if one could perfectly read the movement of all objects, they could predict where everything was, what it would do, and where it was going.

Similar to using sound for sonar, Thunder Fellow calculated the strength and direction of the rubble hitting him down to the last pebble and used that to view the world.

This was much like making predictions based on all the sounds one could hear.

However, Thunder Fellow pulled it off.

He made the calculations in an instant and predicted the locations of the two things that mattered most: Heo and Harakawa.

They were approximately one meter in front of him and two meters down.

He raised his canopy, swept aside the falling rubble with his atmospheric defense and gravity barrier, and spoke.

“It has been a day since I last saw you, Heo and Harakawa. …What happened?”

The two climbed into the cockpit.

“Do you need my help?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, we do!”

He heard their voices through their synchronized senses.

He closed the canopy and used the vents to expel the dust that had gotten inside.

He lifted his body and raised his head from the rubble of the crumbling hospital.

“Thunder Fellow, please turn to the right! The enemy is to the west!”

“Why are you so sure?”

“The previous heat attack came from that direction. More importantly, Yui said we had a visitor just before we entered the concept space. …And she could only see outside the window.”

“Understood.”

All of Thunder Fellow’s senses and all of his predictions also told him that was the enemy’s location.

“I am predicting our surroundings using my tactile devices and I will send those predictions to all of your senses in real time. That is the only power I can give you. After all, my body and weapons have already been given to you. So fight. 5th-Gear’s power does not wish to be stopped. Use your acceleration, speed, and flight to teach a lesson to the dragon standing on the earth. Teach him that simply standing on two feet is no different from standing still.”

Thunder Fellow determined this was no longer a problem.

“This is my first battle with another Gear, so please win.”

Harakawa’s senses returned to him.

He saw light and darkness.

He was wearing his uniform and he sat in Thunder Fellow’s cockpit as the hospital crumbled around them.

However, a few things were not right.

First, he knew he was injured, but he could not see those injuries on his skin. Second, the world outside the canopy was limited.

…''The horizon is too close. No, the world doesn’t even reach the horizon.

He realized what was happening.

“Thunder Fellow, are you showing us a predicted world you calculated out?”

Beyond the falling rubble, he saw a few cars in the parking lot, but he could not see through their windows. Also, the vending machines along the road had no sample cans beyond the plastic covering them.

Thunder Fellow had predictively constructed this world with the bare minimum of information and he was transferring it to their senses.

It felt off, but he had no time to worry about it.

“If I can see this much, it feels real enough!”

The hospital collapsed slowly in his vision thanks to Thunder Fellow’s synchronization.

They would be trapped under it soon, so…

“We need to escape!”

He grabbed the two roll bars and tried to stand up.

But he was stopped by a voice.

“Harakawa!”

After combining with Thunder Fellow, Heo cried out with panic in her voice.

“The ocean!!”

He just about told her that was impossible, but Thunder Fellow and the hospital were struck by a wave several times the building’s height.

“!?”

The wall of water instantly swallowed up the dragon and hospital.

The rubble mixed around in the water, accumulated, and tried to snag Thunder Fellow on the bottom.

The water pressure and current tossed them around and the outside of the cockpit filled with a dim green with almost no visibility.

…''Damn! Which way is up!?

He could see a light in one direction in the water, so he forced Thunder Fellow through the swirling water. He shook the dragon’s body and rotated once to blow away the surrounding sand.

“Go!!”

He pointed the nose toward the light, grabbed the roll bars, and leaned his entire body forward.

After a slight time lag, the dragon began to move forward.

A deep rumble and vibration seemed to rise from the bottom of his gut.

He kept the course straight.

Thunder Fellow shot forward and thus up. He parted the water so quickly that a path of vacuum appeared behind his giant form, but the surrounding water pressed in on that path and produced an underwater explosion.

A radiating shockwave ran behind him and shook the sea.

His own shockwave caught up to him and washed across his armor, so he accelerated.

The speed came in an instant.

The blue and white mechanical dragon shot from the sea and into the sky.

The black sky he saw was dotted with light. It was an endless night sky of twinkling stars.

However…

“Where are we?”

After flying into the night, Harakawa saw a black sea below and that expanse of water seemed to continue endlessly.

“Harakawa, I cannot calculate the extent of the sea.”

“Impossible. We’re in a concept space, aren’t we? It should have a limit.”

He looked around again, but he could only see the night sky and ocean.

“Where’d the hospital go? This is like a mythical flood or something.”

“I-I was thinking the same thing. And Harakawa, about the sky…”

Drawn by Heo’s weakening comment, Harakawa looked up in the night sky.

He saw the color black.

The vast sky was dark. Countless stars covered that black celestial dome, the moon was so close he felt like he could reach out and touch it, the valleys on Mars’s surface were clearly visible, and Jupiter’s Great Red Spot was facing their way.

“What is going on? Why are the heavens so close?”

Not only did they appear to be in arm’s reach, but the planets looked small enough to hold in his arms.

“What is going on?” he asked again just as the ocean below vanished.

Next, he heard Mitsuaki’s voice.

“This is the power of my concept weapon. This scroll tells the story of a certain world. You passed the sun earlier, remember?”

He could not tell where the voice was coming from, but he understood what the man meant.

This attack had begun from the moment they had avoided the initial projectile of heat.

“That sun was the beginning. From there, the enemy is brought inside the concept weapon.”

“We’re inside the scroll?”

“Correct, Heo-sama. You are inside a false world drawn inside a hanging scroll. That is preventing my concept from reaching you, though.”

Hearing that, Harakawa spoke quietly.

“So this is like those unreasonable miniature garden worlds from old stories?”

“U-um, Harakawa? I’m glad you can observe this so calmly, but how do we get out?”

He faced forward and saw something coming.

However, it was not anything concrete.

“Darkness?”

“That is correct, Harakawa-sama. I am close to fully opening the scroll. And the story depicted on this scroll begins with the ‘good morning’ of creation and ends with the ‘good night’ of destruction. You have the privilege of seeing it all. But before it is fully opened…”

A bitter laugh rang in their ears.

“You were supposed to escape. But…oh, dear. It seems it is already fully open. Too bad. …Now please be destroyed along with that world.”

The darkness approached head-on.

It was noticeable because the stars were vanishing and the density of the black was growing.

The dark curtain up ahead was swallowing and eliminating the stars.

Mercury had looked so large, but it was devoured and then the comets circling the heavens were swallowed up by the black.

Space was silent and so Thunder Fellow made a suggestion.

“Harakawa, Heo. Would this have more intensity with sound? I can simulate the sounds based on my predictions.”

“No, thanks,” answered Harakawa.

“Oh, I kind of want to hea-… Sorry, I won’t say it again.”

“That’s the spirit, Heo Thunderson. But we don’t have time. We need to think about what to do.”

As he spoke, Venus was devoured, so he clicked his tongue.

“Is running away our only option?”

“That would be difficult, Harakawa.”

He frowned at Thunder Fellow’s comment.

“What do you mean? If we’re just running, all we have to do is fly. Isn’t that your specialty?”

“Harakawa, Heo. Listen carefully. …There must be an exit to this concept space.”

“An exit? Doesn’t that mean we can escape?”

“No. Based on the readings I have been receiving, this world is only thirty centimeters wide and a meter long.”

That made the world only as large as an unrolled scroll.

“Are you saying the inside was expanded with concepts, but the exit is still only thirty centimeters?” asked Heo.

“Yes,” answered Thunder Fellow. “A thirty centimeter exit exists somewhere in this space. Finding that would mean our victory, but…”

He briefly hesitated.

“I was not made to function in space. I can fly using gravitational acceleration, but turning will not be easy and, without the necessary oxygen, you will have almost no air to breathe when flying in a vacuum. I am currently running in a short-term underwater mode, but it truly is only a short-term solution.”

He spoke to Harakawa.

“If it comes to it, I will ensure the purpose of my existence by cutting the cockpit’s oxygen supply and preserving Heo in a state of suspended animation. I will shut off all functions save her combination with me.”

Harakawa replied to the proposal with a bitter smile and a shrug.

“I see. That’s a good decision. I have no complai-…”

“I do!!”

Heo’s shout filled the cockpit. It was enough for Harakawa to freeze in place.

“Thunder Fellow! Please remove my combination!”

The dragon did not reply no matter how many times Heo called out to him.

Meanwhile, the darkness approached the sun and all of the light dimmed.

As darkness fell, Heo’s angry and exhausted shouts continued.

“You can’t.”

Harakawa heard her tearful voice in that darkening world.

“Don’t leave me behind and go somewhere else because of me.”

After all…

“We’re all together. I am, you are, and the others are.”

Those words brought sudden movement to Harakawa’s heart.

…''Teammates, hm?

“Hey, Heo.”

He called for her, but it must have been too sudden because she did not reply.

“Can you hear me, Heo Thunderson?”

“Eh? Oh, y-yes! What is it?”

He nodded at her question and spoke slowly as if checking on what was inside his own heart.

“You already know the answer.”

“Eh?”

“My mom asked you why you would go to the battlefield. I think I know what you asked yourself about that: Why am I here? It sounds like a line from a youth dream journal, doesn’t it?”

“W-what’s wrong with that? And, um, what about it?”

''You still don’t get it?'' he thought while grabbing the roll bars.

He had once asked himself a certain question.

…''If we’re still fighting 7th-Gear after disbanding, why are we so focused on the name Team Leviathan? I know why now.''

“Because we don’t want to be alone.”

“Eh?”

“Do I have to say it again?”

But it was a simple and definite thing.

“Heo. Heo Thunderson. You already know the answer to this question, so I’m only going to give it to you once.”

“What question is that?”

“Why are you where you are? Why did your parents and my parents fight? The answer is simple and it isn’t because of strength or duty.”

He smiled bitterly as he spoke.

“It was because you and they didn’t want to lose what was important, no matter what. Isn’t that right?”

“…!”

“You can put it in your own words later and I’m not saying it again, so don’t forget it, Heo Thunderson. Now, I’ll tell you one other thing.”

“Wh-what is that?”

“Escape from here isn’t impossible, so don’t cry, Heo. And you know how to escape. If you realize that and tell Thunder Fellow, we can make it through this.”

“But…!”

He squeezed the roll bars in his hands and faced forward.

The approaching darkness had fully swallowed the sun. They were surrounded by darkness, but he did not care.

“It’s gotten dark, but that’s perfect. We won’t have to see any fakes.”

Strength gathered in his body and he thought about the best time to take off.

“You already have the answer, just like your former self. …Long ago, in the very beginning, you had sensed the answer. You knew where to find the exit in this strange, confusing world.”

Mitsuaki stood alone in the nighttime parking lot.

The wind blew. It was the west wind of late autumn. It descended from the Akigawa Valley far to the west, it had gathered the scents of Hinohara and Itsukaichi, and yet it retained the aroma of the forest and rivers.

The man enveloped by that wind was illuminated by a single color.

It was the scarlet of fire.

The thick scroll in his hands was burning from the tail end.

“It is powerful, but it takes time to activate. And the destruction on the inside causes the automatic sympathetic destruction of the actual object.”

Over half of the scroll had burned by this point.

''It is over,'' he thought.

He generally played the support role out of the four brothers. He was powerful enough, but he was not as skilled with a weapon as Ikkou, he did not focus on strengthening is his body as much as Nijun, and he had not been given a tool like Yonkichi.

However, he did not hold it against Chao.

…''Everything is in balance.

His fixed concept was enough to leave his opponent almost entirely unable to act.

If he had any real offensive power, there would be no need for his brothers.

He had only switched from support to attack now because he had acquired such a powerful concept weapon during their attack on Izumo UCAT.

“I wanted to know what would happen if I fought with my own power, but…”

He had successfully eliminated what could be called 5th-Gear’s strongest mechanical dragon.

The burning flames were proof of his victory.

He had expanded his fixed concept to rob his opponent of their freedom and then he had spread out the scroll’s internal space to envelop them.

The initial small sun had fallen out when he was spreading out that internal space.

With how long it took to activate, it was hard to use as a weapon, but he had succeeded using his concept.

…''I did it.

“But,” he began with a tilt of the head. “It was not very beautiful.”

Linking technique to strength for a victory was the true essence of a support role.

However, the battle was over.

Only a quarter of the scroll remained and the fire was shrinking.

“I defeated a 5th-Gear mechanical dragon.”

He felt he had won, but at the same time…

…''I won too easily.

The reason for his lament was simple. Since he had won so easily…

…''I might be even stronger.

How far did his skill go?

Wouldn’t he only be able to say he had fun with no regrets once he reached his absolute peak?

“…”

He looked at his left hand which did not hold the scroll. The palm was white and cracks were forming in it. The hand still felt soft, but it was being destroyed in a way in which such physics did not apply.

“Is it over?”

He looked up at the moon in the night sky.

That was when a voice reached him from the hospital.

It came from the single window on the second story that contained light.

“Mitsuaki-san, was my child not good enough?”

“He was not, Yui-sama. Unfortunately.”

“I see,” replied Yui with an exaggerated shrug. “I thought that might be the case. …Or maybe not.”

Mitsuaki frowned at that.

A moment later, he felt heat in his right hand.

“…!?”

He saw a mass of fire at the end of his hand.

The scroll had yet to be completely destroyed, but it was spewing scarlet flames.

With the sound of something fluttering in the air, the heat of the burning paper burned his hand.

“What!?”

His right hand exploded.

Harakawa saw the night sky appear in an explosion of light.

In only an instant, the world rapidly grew and expanded before his eyes.

Below the sky of the real world, he saw the hospital’s parking lot.

“Thunder Fellow, activate your optical camouflage! The concept’s been deactivated!”

He saw smoke. It looked black in the darkness and it was wrapped in what looked like a mist of bluish-white light.

“I can guess that the enemy’s concept weapon was destroyed,” announced Thunder Fellow.

“Th-then we…” began Heo.

“Escaped,” finished Harakawa.

Harakawa had Thunder Fellow crouch down because Mitsuaki would be inside the smoke spreading out in front of them.

Another attack could come at any time.

On top of that, his mother and others were inside the hospital behind them.

He gripped the roll bars while planning to use Thunder Fellow as a shield if there was an attack.

However, he heard Mitsuaki’s voice from beyond the smoke.

“This is… This is a surprise. How did you escape that universe?”

“That was easy.”

Harakawa continued squeezing the roll bars as he spoke.

“You fired that small sun like a bullet at the very beginning, right? It had to have been fired from the scroll, so the exit from the scroll would be along its path. We just had to work out its trajectory from the angle Heo had felt the heat in and then compare it to the shape of the universe that Thunder Fellow had calculated out. We didn’t even have to fly to the ends of the universe. The exit was right next to us.”

“You certainly took your time in leaving for it being right next to you.”

“Yeah,” he answered with a frown. “Once we knew how close it was, a certain idiot felt calm enough to say the stars in the distance were pretty and Thunder Fellow stayed still so she could watch them for a while longer.”

“S-sorry. …Oh, but I did manage to wish three times on a shooting star.”

“What did you wish for?”

“I can’t say, I can’t say, I can’t say.”

He ignored her and faced forward. The smoke was clearing and the attack would come once it did.

The moment came suddenly.

“There!”

If he desired to attack, Thunder Fellow would respond.

However, he saw something unexpected.

Mitsuaki was damaged.

“Ha ha ha. What is the matter, Harakawa-sama?”

The man laughed, but he had lost not only his right shoulder but most of the right side of his body.

The wind blew across his body which had broken from the right collarbone to the right hip.

The surface of the break was white and hard and the smile turned their way was stiff.

“It would seem fighting truly is not my thing. I thought I was familiar with the weaknesses of my equipment, but I had not fully grasped how they would affect an actual battle.”

“You probably would’ve won if it hadn’t been us.”

“I am delighted to hear it. However, it also proves that I cannot defeat you.”

His smile grew.

“But this is not over yet. I am not enjoying myself yet. After all…”

He sank down. He lowered his hips, which caused the base of his right leg to shatter.

“…!”

Just as Heo gasped, he prepared to leap on his one leg.

“It seems Yonkichi promised to tell you about the past, so I will tell you one thing. …The ones once known as the Five Great Peaks were Diana, Hiba Ryuuichi, Sayama Asagi…”

He paused.

“…James Thunderson, and Alberto Northwind.”

“What!? Why is my dad on the list!?”

“That was a temporary command structure quickly put together with Asagi-sama as the leader and the other four below him. If you wish to know more…search elsewhere. Now, I will go fight how I fight best! I will help my brothers!!”

The remaining smoke was blown away and Mitsuaki jumped up into the sky and vanished.

A great roar traveled westward and vanished into the night sky.

“H-Harakawa! He must be headed to where Kazami is!!”

“I know that, but we’re injured too. And about what he just said…”

Harakawa opened the canopy and looked up into the hospital window and his mother’s eyes.

However, Yui waved her hand.

“I can’t tell you that. If you want to search for the answer, you’ll need to travel down the Leviathan Road.”

“I see. So it gets back to the Leviathan Road, does it?”

He sighed and belatedly realized that his body was covered in the heat of injuries.

Heo must have realized it too because the back seat split to the left and right and Heo appeared from below.

She held her skirt down while climbing over the front seat and running toward him.

“U-um, Harakawa…”

However, her expression froze when she looked up at him.

“Ah,” she said while staring motionlessly at him.

Just as he wondered what this was about, he heard his mother’s voice from the hospital’s second floor window to the left.

“Dan, I was meaning to say something, but…check your head.”

''I don’t think I’m injured there,'' he thought while lowering his head a bit to use the inside of the canopy like a mirror.

He saw his face but found he was wearing something white on his head.

It was not his usual bandanna. It covered his head and it had two large holes in it.

“Is this…?”

“Wh-why are you wearing my panties on your head!?”

“How should I know!?”

He grabbed them off and heard his mother on the second floor.

“Dan, I won’t get mad, so just tell me. What did you do to Heo-san?”

“I didn’t do anything.”

He saw Heo cover her cheeks with her hands and seriously shake her head.

“D-don’t lie like that! You stuck your head up my skirt and pushed me to the ground. I told you to stop, but it wouldn’t get through to you. …And after you attacked my belly button and stomach, you pulled down my underwear! Just because you were lonely in that world of no understanding is no excuse!”

“I was not lonely!!” He shouted as his mother glared at him. “What’s with this world of false accusations and no mutual understanding!? Is this some new concept!?”

A nighttime city was filled with streetlights and the lights of people working.

A single figure flew above that bright city.

The black winged figure traveled east at an altitude of about three thousand meters.

The ten meter metal giant was wrapped in wind as it flew.

A girl stood on its right shoulder near the back. She grabbed at its back armor with both hands and her orange jacket fluttered in the wind.

“Wow, this is fast. We’ve already passed the peninsula I saw to the right, so are we above Nagoya now?”

“I think so. Are you cold, Shinjou-san?”

It was Mikage who answered Hiba’s question and she sounded like she was tilting her head as she did so.

“She should be fine since Susamikado’s gravitational control is covering her to a certain extent.”

But Hiba replied with a scolding tone of voice.

“Mikage-san, only she can tell whether she’s cold or not.”

“Right. Sorry, Shinjou and Ryuuji-kun. I don’t give people rides very often.”

“It’s fine,” said Shinjou with a bitter smile at their exchange.

At the speed they were moving, she would normally be blown off by the wind. That was not happening, so Mikage had to be holding her in place.

“But does that mean you’ve given people rides before?”

“Yes. Sometimes I take Ryuuji-kun’s mother to go shopping. Especially on mornings with a really good sale.”

“And no one notices?”

“Not as long as I land in the woods too quickly to be seen and immediately remove the combination. But my control wasn’t good enough once and the eggs broke and some kind of internal connection in his mother’s back slipped out of place, so I don’t do it much anymore.”

“Y-yeah, it’s best if people don’t always take the easy route.”

“Right,” replied Mikage.

Shinjou sighed and looked down at the night scenery moving by at tremendous speed.

However…

“?”

One light was different.

It was moving slower than the rest.

A long line from east to west was traveling east just like them.

“That’s a bullet train. Is it the one I was supposed to take?”

“Probab-…”

Hiba trailed off and he asked something else a moment later.

“What should we do?”

It took Shinjou several seconds to realize what he meant.

However, she quickly grasped it all and spoke.

“He’s here.”

A man stood on the roof of the train traveling down below.

The one-armed elderly man wore a brown leather flight jacket and a white work outfit.

It was Yonkichi.

He raised his one hand in greeting as his clothes flapped in the wind.

“What should we do about this guy who’s acting like someone in an ’80s tokusatsu movie?”

“Hm? Isn’t this kind of thing popular now?”

“Ha ha ha. Shinjou-san, it’s no longer the Showa era.”

“Eh?”

She frowned, but then heard Mikage speak.

“Let’s go, Ryuuji-kun, Shinjou.”

“Are you sure, Mikage-san?”

Mikage nodded as the four wings slowly expanded behind her.

“We lost once,” she said. “So it’s time we won once.”

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| Back to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Chapter 24|Chapter 24]]
| Return to [[Owari no Chronicle|Main Page]]
| Forward to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Chapter 26|Chapter 26]]
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</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Chapter 24

2026-10-20T03:47:02Z

N-Ch:

==Chapter 24: Resumed Reunion==
[[Image:OnC_v11_0099.png|thumb]]
''Why?

''You ask

A sloped road ran between a cement-covered slope and a row of dark houses.

The road was lit by scattered streetlights and someone ran down that road.

It was Shinjou with her long black hair swaying behind her and her backpack bouncing up and down on her back.

The sound of her shoes on the ground was light and some hesitation would occasionally show itself in her pace.

She stumbled a little and smiled bitterly.

“Am I too worried?”

Not long had passed since she had collapsed and passed out in the orphanage cafeteria.

She had woken in the infirmary, changed clothes, and received a variety of things from the director. Afterward, she had been overcome by weariness.

She had known she could not, but she had given in to the exhaustion, slept, and found it was 9:30 when she woke.

The bullet train had already left, but the bleeding had stopped and she knew she could move.

She had asked the director to check the train schedule and had learned the next train to Tokyo was a 10:22 sleeper train from Shin-Osaka Station.

She had called and learned that train was full, but another one with an opening was leaving Osaka Station at midnight.

After asking for a reservation on that train, she had left the orphanage.

She had said goodbye to the director, called to thank the woman at the church who had helped her, and even remembered to call Sibyl and Hiba at UCAT to tell them she would not be back until the following morning.

When leaving the orphanage, she had made a promise that she intended to keep.

“I’ll come back to visit sometime.”

She wanted to visit again soon.

That was partially to see the documents she had not managed to see today, but…

…''What will Sayama-kun say when he finds out?

Sayama’s father had also been an orphan who was taken in by his grandfather.

She guessed Sayama’s grandfather had owned orphanages like this one across Japan.

…''For the children who lost their parents in the war, in the Concept War, or during post-war retribution.

As she walked, she looked down at the white plastic bag in her left hand.

It contained the sweets the director had given her. They were meant to serve the guests at the orphanage’s cultural festival in November, but the woman had said it would be wrong not to give her anything.

“Sakai’s famous ‘Xavier Watches Over Us’.”

The box had a picture of sweets shaped in a realistic depiction of a saint.

She felt like it was looking at her, so she looked away and noticed the IAI logo on the corner of the box.

…''What is that company doing?

But then she took a breath.

“Heh heh.”

A laugh escaped her lips.

…''What will Sayama-kun say?''

When she told him she had found her mother and that her girl side was working now…

“Will he rejoice and praise me?”

But then doubt filled her expression and her shoulders drooped.

“I’m sure something bad will happen. He’ll probably want to make a poster or body pillow to commemorate the occasion.”

''It’s possible he’s already made that kind of thing,'' she thought. ''He’s probably outdone anything a normal person could imagine.

“But,” she said while bringing her right hand to her cheek. “If my actual body is working, he won’t have to rely on weird, perverted replicas.”

Her imagination continued from there, but her face grew red and she sped up.

To distract herself from her own imagining of the future, she recalled a certain fact.

Sayama had given her an envelope.

“He said he wanted me to read the letter once I found my past, didn’t he?”

She reached into her bag and quickly managed to pull out the envelope.

Still walking, she returned the bag to her back and opened the envelope while listening to the rustling of the plastic bag in her left hand.

She pulled out the first of two white pieces of stationery.

She unfolded it and read the beginning of the text.

“Dear Shinjou-kun. Ahh, you are as stimulating as the ripples covering the sea at night.”

She thought for a moment and skipped past the first page without reading it.

But after another moment, she sighed.

“I guess that’s being a little insincere.”

His intentions were good and she enjoyed this taste of his idiosyncrasies after so long.

More importantly, she was in a good mood after what had happened today.

''So how about I read it?'' she decided while looking back down at the text.

“Your smile is like a morning cup of coffee. It is a little surprising, it is not sweet, and yet it is so charming and – perhaps due to the caffeine – makes my heart race. In fact, I am having difficulty restraining myself. Ahh, I want to fill you with cream. Are you excited? There is no stopping it now-…”

''That’s it. I’m stopping.

''No, I’ll read it, but I won’t expect anything from it this time. It’s probably going to be something crazy.

…''And when did he write this anyway? We’re always together.

She nodded, picked up the second page, and lowered her gaze to it.

“Now, let us bring an end to the complicated part. No, perhaps a little more.”

About three lines of nonsense punctuated with exclamation marks followed, but she skipped past it.

That left only about fifteen lines.

…''Why didn’t he just write this part first?

As she wondered that, she read the text.

“First, I will tell you something that has been bothering me, Shinjou-kun. There is a possible connection between my family and the Army.”

…''Eh?

Before that question even formed in her mind, she had started reading on.

“My mother’s family apparently ran a store that sold set lunches. It was located in what is now an empty lot behind the Tamiya house.”

But…

“Soon after entering Taka-Akita Academy, her parents were murdered. The criminal was supposedly never caught, but both of my parents said the issue had been ‘settled’. Could we perhaps speculate that my mother’s parents were also involved with UCAT and the organization that preceded the Army targeted them? And could the same be said about Shinjou Yukio’s parents?”

She had never heard this about his mother and she had a guess as to why he had chosen to inform her with this letter.

…''If he told me directly, it would worry me.

''I’ll assume that’s why,'' she decided.

Meanwhile, his opinion on her mother was the same thing she had felt while looking at the documents in the orphanage.

She continued reading the letter.

“My father apparently lived in an orphanage with a connection to my grandfather. That old man must have wanted to raise more underlings for himself because he owned a few orphanages and hid that fact from me. It would seem the rights to them were left with the old man back at UCAT and he is also hiding it from me, but I had an inkling of the truth after years of living as that ape’s grandson. According to my grandfather, he adopted my father because, ‘he was full of himself, stupid, and selfish, so I knew I had to set him straight.’ To me, it always sounded like he was describing himself.

“But what about Shinjou Kaname’s granddaughter? Who arranged to have her sent to an orphanage and who controlled that orphanage? My grandfather would not leave his friend’s grandchild just anywhere. …Although I am sure you have already found that answer.”

After reading that far, Shinjou realized most of this information matched what she had discovered.

However, she had a question about it that also applied to the information about her own mother.

…''Is this information really all that important?

She knew it was important to Sayama since the past brought him so much pain and she knew she needed to share that pain with him.

But as pure information, how important were the contents of this letter?

“…?”

She tilted her head and continued reading.

“There may be a connection between our parents. And if so, that leaves a certain mystery. First, let us assume my mother’s parents were killed by the Army’s predecessor. We do know my parents were part of UCAT and Toda Mikoku of the Army told us yours were as well. In that case…”

She read the next line.

“My mother’s maiden name was Toda.”

“!?”

She wrinkled her brow in a frown and her thoughts matched the next line Sayama had written.

“What does that mean?”

That was exactly her question.

“Shinjou-kun, my mother fought against the Army, so why does a girl in the Army have her family name and why does she know you? It could be a coincidence and there are still some unknowns, but I will write my current answer in invisible ink.”

She noticed a circle around a blank area on the bottom left of the letter.

An arrow pointing to the circle said “Place your lips here and say ‘Come forth, oh answer’.”

''Why go to so much trouble?'' she thought. ''He’s included another weird concept, hasn’t he?''

But she did want to know his answer, so she silently placed her lips on the letter.

“Come forth, oh answer.”

She looked back at the paper, but…

“Nothing’s appearing?”

When she tilted her head and stared at the paper, she noticed small writing along the left edge.

“Ha ha ha. I tricked you, Shinjou-kun. That circle only contained a kiss of my own. I still cannot find an answer, so I gave you an indirect kiss of apology. Good night, Shinjou-kun, and sweet dreams.”

“Good night and goodbye!!”

She threw the letter down to the ground, but quickly picked it back up.

After an annoyed sigh, she realized she had stopped walking.

“Ah.”

She frantically began moving her legs again.

She put the letter back in her bag, muttered “Honestly, Sayama-kun”, and thought about the mystery he had given her.

…''What does it mean that his mother and Mikoku-san have the same family name?

But something interrupted her thoughts.

“Oh, Shinjou-san. Wait.”

For some reason, she heard Hiba’s voice from the right.

However, she had just spoken to him over the phone, so he could not possibly be here.

She had to be imagining things.

…''But why I am hearing Mikage-san’s stalker instead of Sayama-kun?

Her thoughts were interrupted again.

“Wait, wait. It’s me, it’s me.”

Like a true stalker, even an illusion of his voice refused to go away.

She waved a hand to the right and hurried down the slope.

“U-um, Shinjou-san!?”

A visual illusion of Hiba appeared in front of her, so she threw a backhand blow with her right fist.

The illusionary strike hit, she heard an illusionary sound, she felt an illusionary impact, and the illusion gave an illusionary scream and illusionarily rolled around on the ground.

''What a persistent illusion. But this should bring it to its illusionary end,'' she thought as she began to walk again.

That was when she heard Mikage’s voice from the left.

“Shinjou.”

“Eh? Mikage-san? Why are you here?”

She turned to the left and saw the girl wearing her armored uniform.

Mikage gently brushed aside her hair in the moonlight.

“To come get you since you said you can’t ride the bulletin train.”

“Bulletin? Oh, you mean the bullet train. But, um, what do you mean you came to get me?”

“We used Susamikado, but the address was hard to find and it slowed us down.”

Even if it had “slowed them down”, not even twenty minutes had passed since the phone call.

However, Shinjou recalled something from about a month before. During the battle with 5th-Gear’s Black Sun, Gyes’s god of war had taken them from Izumo to Okutama in less than an hour.

Gyes’s god of war did not have a specialized propulsion device for aerial movement, so…

“Susamikado would be able to travel even faster…”

“Right. Sorry. We happened to spot you while we were wandering around overhead.”

Mikage held out a hand.

“Let’s go.”

“Eh? Are you sure? And why come get me all of a sudden? I can get back on my own.”

“I had a dream of Ryuuji-kun’s father and the others fighting. But all of the people he was fighting with are gone now…”

She remained expressionless as she spoke.

“I started wondering if we would lose each other someday.”

“…”

Shinjou was speechless, but Mikage continued with her hand still held out.

“So I thought it would be better if we weren’t teammates. If we might lose each other, it would be easier if we never had each other in the first place.”

Mikage smiled.

“But you’re working hard, aren’t you? And so are Sayama, Heo, and the others. …I want to work at it too. That way I can become a better and better person even after my evolution ends. So…so let’s gather together. If I can still get even better after my evolution ends, then Susamikado can get even better too.”

She took a breath.

“So I won’t let Kazami be like that. I won’t let anyone ruin all of her work…and I won’t let us lose each other.”

Shinjou reflexively took Mikage’s hand when she heard that.

Strength gathered in her eyebrows and she returned Mikage’s still gaze.

“You’re right.”

She knew there were people she could never meet, but she still squeezed the fingers holding Mikage’s hand.

''This must be my answer to Team Leviathan disbanding,'' she thought while also thinking of her mother.

“You really are right. We haven’t lost each other yet, so it isn’t too late. So…so let’s go gather together to make each other stronger.”

If they could do that…

“We can get stronger and stronger!”

“Right,” said Mikage with a squeeze back.

Shinjou realized she wanted to speak with Kazami.

She knew Sayama had not really meant it when he had told Kazami they were disbanding.

He had not been telling her to leave Team Leviathan.

…''Please realize that.

The rest of them had a part of their past supporting their involvement in the Leviathan Road and Kazami had to have something similar. What was it that made her want to fight?

Shinjou knew Kazami had worked so hard on those deadly battlefields despite being a normal person and she knew Kazami always scolded them and tried to lead them so they would not give up.

When Shinjou and Sayama had first met, it had been Kazami who had saved them from the werewolf.

Kazami had worried over the death her shot had led to, but she had never let it show.

…''I know that she belongs on Team Leviathan.

So…

…''Find your reason for being with me.

Shinjou nodded, but then realized something.

“Huh? Where’s Ryuuji-kun?”

“Sleeping over there.”

She looked in the indicated spot and found the collapsed illusion. It had yet to get up.

“Reality can be harsh.”

Mikage tilted her head as if she did not understand.

A girl moved quickly through a white hallway.

A small creature sat on her short blonde hair and she wore an orange flight jacket over a dark blue school uniform.

The chest of the jacket swayed as she walked and it contained the name Heo Thunderson.

Her footsteps were light as she passed the nurse station on her way to a hospital room.

The young nurse inside lowered her head, took a bite of a chocolate snack called a Strawbcookie, and spoke.

“Do your best with him.”

She held up her right arm in a triumphant pose.

Heo had been raised in the United States, so she was not quite sure what the gesture meant in relation to doing her best with Harakawa. She gave up on understanding and simply took it as support.

“Y-yes. I’ll do what I can.”

“If anything comes of it, we’ll take care of you here.”

''Wait, I think I do know what she means,'' realized Heo as she hurried back to the hospital room.

She knew she could not run, but she could not let the drinks Harakawa had asked for get cold.

…''I need to hurry without rushing.

It seemed Harakawa’s mother, Yui, was stable now.

Ooki had told Heo the woman had collapsed, but Harakawa had not contacted her.

She had wanted to contact him, but she had not worked up the courage.

She had been afraid he would tell her not to come with him.

After some hesitation, she had made her way here, but it had taken about two hours by train and foot.

It had been past eight by the time she had arrived and Harakawa had been in the hospital room.

He had briefly explained Yui’s condition and said this happened all the time.

He had said nothing more and Yui had continued sleeping.

Heo and Harakawa had remained in silence until past nine when Harakawa had handed over his wallet.

Now, Heo was walking down the hallway with drinks.

Having something to do had calmed her heart a little. At the very least, it was far better than sitting in silence while thinking about the fact that she had come uninvited.

She reached the room with the cans clanking together in her arms.

She heard someone speak from inside and focused on it, assuming it was Harakawa.

“Heo-san. Hurry on in while he’s using the bathroom.”

It was Yui’s voice and it was surprisingly steady.

''Didn’t she collapse?'' thought Heo while walking through the door.

She prepared to say “You’re feeling better, aren’t you?”, but…

“…”

She swallowed the words when she saw the color red.

The color Heo saw was small.

It was nothing more than a red stain on the handkerchief Yui held over her mouth.

However, it stood out in the white hospital room filled with white light.

Heo quickly ran over and prepared to say something, but Yui stopped her with a hand.

“Don’t worry. I only coughed up what was left in my throat.”

“B-but!”

The woman forced down Heo’s panic with a smile and a nod. She then held out a hand.

“More importantly, could I have something to drink? My mouth still tastes like salt and iron, so I don’t want to talk much.”

Heo tensed her shoulders and hesitated, but she opened a can and held it out.

“I bought Maximum Coffee’s tea flavor like Harakawa asked…”

Yui first tossed the bloody handkerchief in the trashcan to the side of the bed.

Next, she drank the contents of the can with some blood still on her lips.

It almost looked like she was simply pouring the can into her mouth and she consumed about half of it.

“Kwaah! Now, that was good. …Oh, sorry. Did I scare you?”

When she smiled, she was back to her normal self.

Relieved, Heo tensed her shoulders and shook her head.

She then sat on the bedside stool Yui gestured to.

She set the two remaining cans on the side table and realized something.

“Wait. Is this why he asked me to buy three drinks?”

“You really are slow, Heo-san. Heh heh. That boy knew I had woken up. He probably wanted to force the troublesome part onto someone else.”

She sighed and leaned back against her pillow.

“You want to hear about my condition, don’t you? To make up for how rude he was, I’ll tell you some extra things he doesn’t know about. For example…”

Yui slowly brushed aside the hair on her shoulders.

“My illness was caused by the secondary damages of the Great Kansai Earthquake. …Officially, at least.”

“…!”

“Surprised? I’m glad. Dan always looks so displeased when I mention my illness, so I never tell him much about it. But I think it’s about time I told you some things.”

She reached for the window and cracked it open.

The cold night wind slowly entered the room.

She exhaled into that fresh air and faced Heo.

Her narrow eyes were smiling.

“Are you going to make an old woman drink alone?”

“Oh, um, no.”

The can Heo grabbed was an IAI carbonated nectar called Nectar Pepper.

She liked its odd flavor, but everyone at school had said she had strange tastes when she said she liked it. She did not know what kind of jokes the people at UCAT would make, so she had yet to come out about that there.

While she enjoyed the odd flavor, Yui looked at the can.

“You are a unique girl, Heo.”

“…Sorry for making you choose your words so carefully.”

“It’s fine. Letting your unique side out like that is much better than that boy who is always trying to crush that side of himself. How about you become my child?”

Heo shrank down and shook her head and Yui smiled bitterly.

“Yes…you’re right. Deciding that for myself would be wrong to Maria.”

“…!?”

Heo quickly turned around when she heard her mother’s name and she saw Yui’s spread palm.

It avoided Baku and brushed through her hair.

The woman rubbed her head and spoke from beyond the ticklishness.

“My illness isn’t much. …It’s just that my organs will fail. Do you understand what I mean?”

Heo thought about the question while the woman rubbed her head.

“You mean your organs switch between failing and working?”

“Yes, but the timing is unstable. So if I’m too active, it could lead to damage that would affect them even when they aren’t failing. That’s why I’m in the hospital.”

She kept her hand moving as she spoke.

“I won’t get any worse, but I won’t get better either.”

“It…can’t be cured?”

“No, it can’t.” Yui sounded cheerful. “And even if it could be, then you and that boy would stop worrying for me.”

“But,” started Heo before looking at Yui’s face and stopping.

She had seen the small smile on the woman’s face. It was her usual smile.

“Let’s just leave it at that. …Also, there’s one other person with this same illness. Do you know who that is? He has white hair and…I guess he’d be middle-aged now. The needle was pointed more in the negative direction for him, so his condition only gets worse and worse.”

She did know who that was.

She knew him as the man who rarely made an appearance despite being Team Leviathan’s supervisor.

If he had the same illness as Yui and his case was even worse…

“Wh-why?”

She grabbed Yui’s hand and looked straight at the woman’s smiling face.

“What kind of battle happened on the night of the Great Kansai Earthquake? What kind of battle left you and him like this and killed my father?”

“Why do you want to know that?”

“Well…”

She had nothing to hesitate about and the words came out before she could even think about what to say.

“Because I’m where I am now because of that battle.”

Heo spoke aloud what she had been wondering about lately.

“Team Leviathan disbanded and I was told to learn about the past if I wanted to know why. But when I investigated the past, I found I didn’t know much of anything. So many pieces are missing. …But I know one thing for sure: Everything that happened led to me being here.”

She took in a breath.

She left this to her thoughts and her moving mouth and she relied on the nod Yui gave her.

“I am happy that I can be with the others, but I don’t know why I’m here. …My mom protected me from Black Sun, my great-grandfather fought, and Black Sun made a mistake for his people, but what did my parents do?”

“Heo-san?”

Her head had started to drop, so she raised it.

She saw Yui slowly look outside the window.

“I’m not very good at talking with people anymore, am I? …That’s because my friend said she didn’t like someone who talked too much.”

Heo followed Yui’s gaze and saw something white sitting on the windowsill.

It had flown inside and landed.

“That’s one of the cranes my teacher makes with origami.”

“I’m glad to see Diana is doing well. And here I was hoping to earn some points with my son’s future wife.”

“Eh?”

Heo blushed and Yui turned back toward her and took a sip from her drink can.

“Is Dan important to you?”

“Y-yes.”

The woman rubbed her head.

“Do you want to be with him?”

“Y-yes.”

She rubbed her head again.

“What will you do if the two of you have a child?”

Heo could not just say “yes” to this one, so she thought about it.

…''What does she mean?

Was it a simple question? Yui had just mentioned “earning points”, so Heo felt she should give the best answer she could and she wanted a reliable answer that would put the sick woman at ease.

…''Um, uh, uh…

“F-first I would get insurance and then I would pay into an annuity! And I would buy a house and I would save up money in the bank!”

“Calm down, Heo.”

“Okay.”

Heo felt dejected and Yui gave a troubled smile.

“This may be hard to imagine, but what if there was a battle that could destroy the world? And what if you had an important family at the time?”

“I would want to protect that family.”

“Now, what if you were one of the people who could fight in that battle?”

“…”

“I think the answer you want lies there, so try thinking about it.”

Heo could not reply.

After all, she was simply imagining.

She had no family, so she could not answer a question based on that assumption.

However, Yui rubbed her head again and Heo trembled.

“Wh-why? I didn’t answer you.”

“This is ''because'' you didn’t answer. Reflexively saying you would fight sounds cool and makes it look like you understand what that means…but it takes this all too lightly.”

She heard Yui’s voice from beyond her hand.

“We all hesitated back then, but we went in the end. If you easily gave an answer, it would mean all our worry was for nothing. So it’s okay if you aren’t sure yet, Heo.”

“O-okay.”

After another rub of her head, she was asked another question.

“But are you not getting along with Dan? The two of you were being so quiet.”

“Oh, that… I came here today without telling him.”

“Did he say anything about it?”

“No.”

She gave a nervous shake of her head and she saw Yui smile and nod.

“Then you’re fine. He didn’t leave the room, right? That means he knew you would come even if he didn’t call for you. He thinks that’s normal and doesn’t see a problem with it. And regardless, you are still by his side. …Are you going to eat dinner after this?”

“Y-yes. And after dinner, I…um…think I’ll have him massage my chest.”

The hand on her head stopped and the woman paused before speaking.

“You mean have him grope your breasts?”

“Y-yes. Well, no, not quite. He’ll also be rubbing stuff on them. Um, uh, he said you taught him a way of making them grow. He said he would use honey and sugar to stimulate them and then some herbs.”

She received an immediate reply.

“I did ''not'' say that!”

The door behind her burst open and Harakawa stormed in. His eyebrows were raised and his finger was pointed at her.

“Heo Thunderson! What kind of hallucination did you have a front-row seat for this time!?”

“Ehh!? B-but we arranged it and everything. In the bath!”

“Wait, Heo Thunderson. …You’re making some kind of massive misunderstanding here.”

“Y-you can’t talk your way out of this one!! I almost lost a lot of blood from what you said!”

His betrayal had left her on the verge of tears, but she realized Yui’s hands were supporting her shoulders from behind.

“Dan, try to be a little quieter. …And, Dan. Can I say one thing?”

“I’m innocent here. As long as you understand that, you can say whatever you want.”

“Fine, Dan. …Go get some insurance. And make sure to pay into an annuity and a savings account.”

“Please believe what your son is telling you!”

“What’s wrong with this? And if you don’t mind, then why not help out some? You would like that, wouldn’t you, Heo?”

Heo was unsure what to say.

She looked at Harakawa, but his frown was telling her to say no. She had no choice but to sigh and answer.

“That would be too much trouble for him.”

She tensed her shoulders as she spoke. For some reason, this made his face grow paler and paler.

Behind her, she heard Yui’s smiling voice.

“No one can win against you, Heo-san. I can see why Thunder Fellow would stick with you.”

“You know about that?”

“Yes, but you all will learn even more from here on. That creature on your head…Baku, was it? He wasn’t there in our time. But with him, you should be able to learn about us and about yourselves. So…”

Yui gave Heo’s back a gentle push.

“Go. You have a visitor.”

Neither of them asked who it was and they heard a voice that resembled their own.

—'''There is no mutual understanding.

Heo reflexively stood just as she lost all sensation from the outside world.

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| Back to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Chapter 23|Chapter 23]]
| Return to [[Owari no Chronicle|Main Page]]
| Forward to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Chapter 25|Chapter 25]]
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</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Chapter 23

2026-10-19T02:57:23Z

N-Ch:

==Chapter 23: The Second Battle==
[[Image:OnC_v11_0069.png|thumb]]
''Leap

''Run

''And fall

The darkness of night filled a forest.

That forest covered the surface of a mountain.

The moon was bright and the sky was bluish, but the pale light of the moon could not penetrate the forest.

The light was stopped by countless layers of branches and leaves, so only shadows fell below.

The bottom of the forest was a dark, steep slope.

Something moved along that slope as if falling.

It was two sounds.

They were both sets of footsteps, but they were complete opposites in one aspect: the space between steps.

One set had five seconds between one footstep and the next.

The other set sounded continuously like a high-tempo performance from a percussion instrument.

The two sets of footsteps used these different intervals to race down the dark mountainside.

Occasionally, a great sound of impact would mix in with them.

The clear and harsh sound would be absorbed by the forest and the footsteps would begin anew.

The one producing the set of footsteps with the long interval spoke while quickly racing through the dark forest.

“Ha ha ha. Keeping up with me at this speed puts you on Hiba-sensei’s level, Nijun-kun.”

The one with the shorter interval replied.

“You’re not bad yourself to move faster than me, Sayama-sama.”

The two of them laughed, rushed forward again, and produced another solid sound.

A break in the forest briefly revealed the sounds.

Below the night sky, a boy in a suit the same color as that sky appeared in the lead.

He was literally leaping.

He would throw his body very nearly horizontally, the bottom of his suit coat would flip up, his tie would flutter upward, and a few tufts of his hair would dance in the wind as he seemed to glide along the surface of the forested slope.

Some faint sweat had emerged on his brow and his sharp gaze was focused on the ground below.

However, it could not exactly be called the “ground”.

This was a rocky area.

The many years of wind and rain had eroded the forest’s dirt until countless stones larger than a human were exposed.

The boulders were piled up in a steep slope down toward a valley instead of forming a cliff wall.

From above, it did almost look like a precipice in the forest.

However…

“…”

As Sayama continued his gliding movement through the dark forest, his eyes were focused on that series of rocks.

“When traveling in a place like this, the easiest path is straight down, Nijun-kun.”

Even as he spoke and felt the wind of his rapid descent, he lowered his right leg and bent the knee.

A stone approached below that bent leg.

An instant later, he fired that right leg out from his leaping body. Instead of hitting the top of the boulder, he kicked off the front surface.

He leaped upward and forward so he left the slope.

He never fully landed; he only kicked off the stones like a wall.

But that was enough.

His downward inertia would carry him toward the base of the mountain.

If he did actually land, he would be unable to absorb the inertial weight and damage his leg or trip.

He only had to make sure the speed of his fall did not exceed the speed of his kicks. To do that, he turned his body and adjusted the angle of his jumps as he fell.

Each time he kicked, he would twist his body to make a slight feint and alteration to his trajectory in order to throw off his pursuer. He would also spread out his clothes as an air brake.

He faintly heard a flowing river beyond the wall of stone and earth to his right.

However, he could barely hear it even during the silent night.

It was likely over one hundred meters down below.

As he leaped, Sayama turned back in midair.

“Are you coming, Nijun-kun?”

Someone pursued Sayama as he raced down into the valley.

It was Nijun running through the darkness with the color white flapping around him.

He was an old man in a white coat, but…

“I see you are using a path a normal human could manage. You four really are perfectionists.”

“I am a diligent worker, after all. And I am the best of my brothers when it comes to improving physical ability.”

Nijun raised and lowered his legs while taking the idea of “running” to its extreme and he dashed along a narrow path between the stones.

Charms were floating near the bases of both his legs. They were glowing a bluish-white and discharging some kind of lightning.

“These are divine travel charms. They increase the speed of one’s legs. With these, I need not bother with your acrobatics. I can use the same path as a normal person…”

He added a charm to each hand.

“And still catch up!”

Several charms were floating all around his body, so it looked a lot like armor of acceleration.

Sayama saw the man loudly kick off the ground and sprint. He instantly raced through the narrow mountain path, made each meandering turn on a single heel, and even quickly climbed up or down any chains prepared for hikers on that path.

Whenever he changed direction, his body would break through a thin wall of water vapor.

This produced a sound.

The air roared in response to his acceleration.

He was fast, but Sayama also twisted around.

“I see. Very interesting. But I want to make you try even harder.”

Sayama kicked off the ground, but this time he leaped higher, stronger, and more downward than before.

“Let us see if you can keep up with the same level of speed I used against Hiba-sensei.”

“Ha ha. It is an honor to be treated on the level of 3rd’s destroyer!”

“Yes, you are on the level of a mountain ape.”

Sayama smiled slightly and let gravity pull him down for even longer.

He fell.

As he dropped down through the rocky forest, he spread out his arms to use his suit for speed adjustments and attitude control.

The wind produced by his fall blew up from below. It felt like all the air stored in the depths of the planet was being thrown at him.

…''Ha ha.

He gave a laugh of joy in his heart.

“Are you having fun, Nijun-kun? Look, you’re falling behind. You said you wanted to enjoy yourselves, but was that desire not enough to keep up with this world?”

“Oh, you’ve said it now.”

Nijun altered his posture. He had stood tall as he ran before, but now he leaned forward, bent his elbows at right angles, and swung his arms.

This produced tremendous acceleration.

He instantly broke through a wall of exploding water vapor and did not stop.

He raced through the meandering path between the rocks so quickly it looked like time-lapse footage.

“Ohhh!”

He let out a roar and did not let up on his acceleration even as a mist of overheating rose from his body.

“Continuation brings strength!!”

Sayama heard that shout and saw Nijun charge down the mountain toward him.

The man rotated his right arm.

“Sayama-sama! Prepare yourself! To be blunt, I might kill you!”

“Ha ha ha. That is blunt indeed. I like it. But…”

Sayama kicked at the ground just before Nijun caught up.

“I believe you will be seeing nothing but darkness.”

With that, he leaped out into the darkness.

He leaped down the steep slope spread out before his eyes.

After Sayama leaped into the darkness ahead, Nijun entered the forest covering that steep slope.

The forest continued, but this was a very steep spot midway up the mountain. Sticking a hand out to the side was enough to touch the ground.

To someone running down from above, it was nearly a straight drop.

However, Nijun saw his enemy in the darkness. That enemy showed no fear of the steep angle.

As Nijun ran between the rocks, Sayama soared through the air about ten meters ahead.

His dark blue clothing was hard to make out in the dark forest, so Nijun held a single charm in front of his eyes.

“A dark travel charm to assist my vision.”

The charm glowed and grew transparent. It resembled a panel of glass and the outer edges shined a bluish-white.

The charm remained fixed in front of his eyes and it showed the scene before him sans the darkness.

He saw Sayama truly leaping through the air.

The boy kicked off the rocks and kicked off the right or left cliff face to match the corners of the mountain path. Whenever the path moved sharply downward, he would kick off an outcropping of the right or left cliff face from below, spin around in midair, and fall down along with the path.

His movements resembled those of a snowboarder.

His jumping technique transferred his falling speed into mobility and sent him on through the darkness.

His vision would be no different from a normal person’s, so there was only one way he could see through the darkness like this.

“Have you memorized this mountain?”

Had he learned where to step while training in the mountain with Hiba Ryuutetsu?

…''No.

Nijun corrected himself. Sayama had been running like this ever since leaving Kinugasa’s house.

The boy knew the path all the way to that house he had only visited once. He was replaying his memories of the way up to tell him where to step on the reverse route back down.

It was only natural that he had chosen to take the lead.

If he had not, they would not have taken the path he knew.

“I see.”

Nijun began to run even faster.

The wind from behind could no longer keep up and a delayed surge of air appeared several meters behind him.

The rocky ground behind him crumbled and was blown away, but he did not slow.

He pursued Sayama as the boy spun about in midair on his falling pathway.

He heard the boy laugh.

Sayama kicked off a thick root on an almost perfectly vertical portion of the left slope and he turned toward Nijun.

“That is a nice pace, Nijun-kun.”

Nijun did not reply. He no longer wasted any of his breath on a conversation.

“…!”

He ran. He accurately slipped between boulders, did not skip a single one of the steps made from dirt covering tree roots, and focused entirely on running.

He was catching up.

Seeing a chance, he threw an open-hand jab toward Sayama’s back.

Sayama twisted in midair and avoided it.

To respond, the boy prepared to throw his left fist.

In that instant, Nijun activated his fixed concept.

—'''Only truth remains.

Sayama’s left arm stopped.

Sayama had thrown his left arm to prepare for his real attack, but it stopped.

He had not stopped it himself and it had not hit anything.

The motion had simply stopped.

“What?”

“It is simple, Sayama-sama. My concept prevents the creation of any and all lies.”

Sayama saw Nijun swing his right arm toward him.

A charm flew from that hand and he clenched his fist.

It was an acceleration charm, so the man’s arm was wrapped in acceleration and seemed to shoot forward.

The fist struck the arm Sayama had raised in defense.

A tremendous sound filled the air.

“…!”

Sayama was in midair, so he was blown backward.

…''He looks slender, but that was quite a powerful blow!

Sayama flipped around as he flew and attempted to correct his position.

However, Nijun caught up to him, so he tried to swing his body leftward and away.

“…”

He could not move, but Nijun laughed as if that motionless was perfectly normal.

“Ha ha. You cannot make any feints in this world. All fakes, tricks, and deceptions are made impossible! …This should be a fatal blow to your favorite tactics.”

Nijun threw his fist and Sayama guarded.

The man’s right fist hit the center of his crossed arms, but he could not stop the force of the blow and his arms struck his chest.

His breastbone creaked and his entire body flew backward a moment later.

As he trembled from the impact, Sayama saw Nijun continue to move.

The man sent an acceleration charm to his right elbow and quickly raised his right arm once more.

He sent out another charm and approached for a re-accelerated strike.

The charm activated, the used charms scattered like feathers, and he pursued Sayama.

“…!”

He sent a chain of attacks.

Charm after charm flew and impact after impact reached the boy in midair.

The fifth hit knocked his guarding arms upward, the seventh struck his chest, and the eighth drove into his gut.

…''!

He felt the crushing of his flesh and the creaking of his bones.

A light appeared from his chest.

It was the blue philosopher’s stone pendant that the development department had given him for defense.

However…

“How impudent.”

Nijun reached out his right hand and tore the pendant’s chain.

Just as the blue vanished into the darkness, Sayama began to move.

He reached out both arms and wrapped them around the right arm Nijun had used to grab the pendant.

He instantly stretched his hands to the man’s shoulder and chest. He grabbed hold of the man with one hand deep inside the white coat.

“Success!”

But despite Sayama’s shout, Nijun forcibly tore him away.

That eliminated the connection between them, and…

“…!!”

Sayama swung his right leg through the air. This was the beginning of a real kick and not a feint.

Nijun leaped and quickly pulled back his right leg for a straight kick in response.

His counterattack could easily rupture an internal organ if it hit.

The attacks flew and Nijun’s was faster.

However…

“Well done!”

Sayama continued swinging his right leg regardless and his kick flew toward its intended target.

That target was the rapidly approaching sole of Nijun’s shoe.

It hit.

Nijun felt his vision waver.

The visual footage from his eyes told him his speed had slowed slightly.

This was due to an accurate kick to the sole of his right foot as he kicked it straight out.

“…Kh.”

As he finished his kick, he realized that very kick had launched Sayama far from him.

…''Damn!

Sayama had not used a feint. From the very beginning, he had intended to jump back by kicking off of Nijun’s kick.

Mistaking it for an attack and kicking back instead of ignoring it had been Nijun’s error.

…''That was because we had just finished exchanging attacks.

He had assumed there would be no feints or lies.

But attack had not been Sayama’s only option.

Nijun had been outdone under the effects of his own concept.

Soon, Sayama was five meters away in the darkness.

However, there was a hole beyond the darkness the boy had jumped into.

The forest ended and that hole gave a view of the night sky and a path up to a ridge.

The ridge was a water divide.

Both sides of the steep slope had been worn away and a stony path only wide enough for one person continued for about fifteen meters.

The ridge was sloped downward, but the angle was very shallow.

Another forest awaited beyond the ridge.

Nijun realized that Sayama could not build up his speed along that fifteen meter tightrope of rock.

To ensure he did not sprain his ankle when he landed, he would need to slow down before leaving the forest.

…''If I catch up to him there, I can make up for kicking him away!

If he collided with Sayama once the boy slowed down, even an open-hand jab could pierce through his body.

Knowing his victory was assured, Nijun spoke aloud to the boy in the air ahead of him.

“Prepare yourself!”

He threw a flying kick toward Sayama’s back.

However, Nijun saw something other than the boy’s back up ahead.

He saw empty air.

“He dodged it!?”

''Where is he?'' he wondered before finding his target in an instant.

He was up and to the left. Sayama had kicked off the slope, flipped around, and arrived far above Nijun’s head.

Was he trying to leap all the way across those fifteen meters?

“What?”

He just about asked how that was possible, but the boy’s movements stopped him.

Sayama maintained his momentum as he ran up the left side of the cliff and kicked forcefully off the highest point.

“We have arrived in my home ground now. Yes. I would always come down from above and this water divide is where Hiba-sensei would catch up and throw me off the cliff.”

So…

“I developed a means of jumping over this water divide while watching my mountain ape teacher down below.”

Sayama leaped as he spoke. He used all of his accumulated acceleration and all of his strength to leap from the top of the eight meter cliff, cross the water divide, and reach the forest on the other side.

“During the day, the wind up here is too strong to make a stable jump, but I should be able to make a decent flight during the night. …I thank you for giving me this fun opportunity, Nijun-kun.”

Nijun ran out below the night sky as he listened to Sayama.

He used all of his jumping strength to soar high in a flying kick pose, but it was still too low. He would never reach the boy in a suit soaring overhead.

“Are you having fun, Nijun-kun?”

Sayama spread his arms as if to cover the night sky and his suit coat spread out in the air. He swung his arms like a symphony conductor, swayed his body, and used the slight wind for attitude control.

Nijun clenched his teeth.

“I,” he began with a tremor in his voice. “I am so jealous.”

“Yearning for something is a truly enjoyable thing, Nijun-kun. …As is being yearned for.”

Nijun landed before he could respond.

He was in the center of the water divide. A great impact reached his legs as they slammed into the rock and sent stone fragments flying, but 7th-Gear’s combat life forms were made sturdily enough to survive falling from the sky. He would not break from this.

A moment later, he leaned forward and accelerated.

He ran straight across the water divide.

As he ran, he felt mocked. The boy had taken the lead this entire time, had taken advantage of his fixed concept, and was now flying by overhead to avoid him.

So…

“This isn’t over!!”

Nijun ran.

Just as he was about to reach the forest past the water divide, he finally caught up to Sayama who leaped overhead.

Sayama’s trajectory would take him about five meters into the forest and he likely intended to kick off the rocky area there to begin his acceleration anew.

Nijun raced forward to arrive ahead of the boy and launch a counterattack.

He knew this would settle the battle. His heart cried that it was over.

…''Is it over already?

To be honest, this ending disappointed him. He had used his full speed and had his fixed concept used against him, but it annoyed him to say that he had never actually been in any danger.

He wanted to use his full strength and yet lose.

He did want to give this world the Concept Core. He had seen this world with Chao and his brothers in the approximately sixty years since his birth and he did have a general desire to hand it over.

He had enjoyed his life, but it seemed that was far from what the people of 7th-Gear had desired.

For those people who had become gods by perfecting mankind, anything normal or average was nothing new.

They had been the greatest and ultimate human race.

They had fundamentally surpassed all others in martial arts, physical durability, and speed.

Their lives would never be in any danger even without using any concepts.

That was why they felt no despair. If they despaired anything it was having Nijun’s body destroyed for nothing. It was having the Concept Core destroyed without accepting this world as entertaining.

That time was drawing near. He had been aging regardless, but the burden of all the powerful charms he had used this night was accelerating the strain in his body.

…''I beg you.

Nijun silently pleaded to Sayama as he ran and leaped through the forest.

…''Give us a meaningful ending.

“We want to know that our power is not enough in this world.”

That was their desire.

“That is the sort of world 7th-Gear yearns for!”

He leaped into the darkness of the forest as if leaving his words behind.

He switched from running to leaping in order to reach Sayama’s landing point.

His goal was a flat rocky area at the base of a tree facing a cliff.

He landed in an instant. His legs absorbed the shock and he took a step.

He turned toward Sayama who was now approaching from behind.

He had one chance and that chance was this very instant.

He would launch a counterattack on Sayama who flew this way to kick off the rocky area.

The boy soared through the air with his suit coat spread out behind him.

He had already passed below the tree branches on his way down, so he could not grab a branch to throw off the timing of Nijun’s attack.

Nijun had a single possible attack: a reverse roundhouse kick thrown as he turned around.

“…!!”

He rotated his right leg backward, raised the heel, and swung it like a log.

He used a charm to accelerate this reverse roundhouse kick.

If it hit, inertia would bend Sayama’s body around it and rupture his organs.

He sent his strength racing toward the falling boy and his right leg soared through the air.

“…?”

But that was all.

His rotating leg cut through empty air and turned him back around.

The strike had not hit Sayama.

''Why?'' he wondered, but he found his answer when he looked over his shoulder.

He saw Sayama, but the boy was not standing right in front of him or standing on the ground.

For some reason, he was standing motionless in midair.

Sayama looked down at Nijun from midair.

After the roundhouse kick, the man was wide open.

“You were too low to grab a branch, so how?”

The answer was simple.

Sayama showed off his raised left hand.

The hand held something in the darkness.

It was a rope.

The old rope dangled down with the end in tatters.

This was the rope he had once used to hang Hiba Ryuutetsu.

However, simply grabbing that rope could not have stopped him. Either his grip would have lost to inertia and it would have slipped from his grasp or the old rope would have snapped.

But Nijun seemed to have realized what Sayama’s answer was.

“You used that rope to make a feint?” he asked blankly.

“Yes,” confirmed Sayama, satisfied that the man had given a good answer. “The feint was stopped, so I stopped as well. I once hung Hiba-sensei with this rope, but it proved surprisingly useful. I am glad I checked on it on the way up.”

He stood in midair holding the rope and he tilted his head while looking down at Nijun.

“What a curious concept,” he began. “What just happened here? Did I make a feint or was my feint stopped? Perhaps this is what you call a paradox. Regardless, I was lucky that it acted in my favor.”

With that, he swung his body and let go of the rope.

He jumped down.

He landed on the rocky area directly in front of Nijun. They were within arm’s reach of each other.

As soon as he landed, Nijun took action.

He must not have had time to activate a charm because he began a left roundhouse kick from the pose his reverse roundhouse kick had left him in.

As he did, Sayama sank down low and muttered something.

“Too slow, Nijun-kun.”

The boy spread his suit coat and Nijun shouted the name of what surrounded the edges of his exposed vest.

“Acceleration charms!?”

Inside the suit, the charms Nijun had been using glowed and floated on the back of the waist and the sides.

“But how!?”

“Oh, that one is easy.”

''What a pain,'' thought Sayama as he answered and sent the bottom of his suit fluttering behind him.

“Lies do not work in this space, correct? So I blatantly picked your pocket when grabbing at your arms. I even gave a clear announcement of my success.”

“…!”

Nijun’s eyes opened wide in surprise, but he had clearly not trained enough if this was enough to shock him.

''How about I give him some training right now?'' thought Sayama as he sent his body toward the man at high speed.

“Listen.”

He swung his right fist and struck Nijun’s gut.

Without stopping the impact or acceleration and without stopping Nijun’s body from rising into the air, Sayama stepped forward.

“Nijun-kun, you do not trust me enough. That is why you have failed. …It is truly regrettable. So to deepen our understanding of each other, how about we have some fun together?”

With that, Sayama grabbed Nijun and leaped into the empty air behind him.

He jumped straight off the cliff.

“Sayama-sama!?”

“Is something the matter?”

He casually replied in the empty night air, kicked Nijun downward, and looked in that same direction.

A ravine lay below.

It was at least a few dozen meters deep and it was too dark to see the bottom.

Nijun fell face up along the cliff face and Sayama slammed both his feet down on the man’s stomach.

He jabbed his heels into the man, pressed down, lowered his hips, and spoke.

“Nijun-kun. There are three kinds of fun I have never had a chance to do in these mountains.”

Their falling speed increased, the cliff face raced upward beside them, and they fell into a space the moonlight barely reached.

As they fell, Sayama held Nijun down with his feet and raised three fingers on his left hand.

“First, I have never played a multiplayer handheld game with Shinjou-kun in the mountains.”

As for the second…

“I have never played shiritori with Shinjou-kun in the mountains.

He continued on to the third.

“And the third, Nijun-kun? I have never surfed in the mountains.”

The instant he finished speaking, Nijun’s upside-down form slammed into the cliff face.

“…!!”

Sayama rode on Nijun as they fell down the cliff face.

His body tried to bounce off the rock, but Sayama held him down with his heels and forced him to slalom.

The boy surfed down the cliff face and he shouted into the darkness down below that was now straight ahead.

“Ha ha ha. No wave is bigger than this. …Well? Are you having fun now!?”

He raised his voice.

“Answer me! I am trying to provide entertainment!”

Nijun thought as his back slid down the cliff face.

…''My concept is no use here.

He held his breath and bounced up off the rock.

…''My strength and techniques are of no help.

He was pressed back against the cliff and he was surfed on.

…''My body will not last much longer.

He would likely be destroyed before reaching the bottom of the ravine.

In that case, he had to make up his mind now.

And so he moved. He squeezed out the very last of his strength and tried to resist.

“Sayama-sama! I cannot let you enjoy this more than me!”

He forced his body up and kicked off the cliff face.

He pushed Sayama up and toward the cliff and threw himself down toward the empty ravine.

They instantly moved five meters apart and that gap slowly continued to grow.

“Ha ha! How about that!? You can’t keep it up from this far away!!”

Nijun saw Sayama place his feet on the cliff face and begin to run down.

But Nijun spoke to the boy who had outdone everything he had.

“I am the one that will determine my end! I will outdo you here!! You may have twisted everything in your favor as Team Leviathan’s negotiator, but I will outdo you in the end!”

Nijun brought a hand to his neck.

He pulled back a hand for a karate chop and prepared to bring about his own end.

This was his way of outdoing Sayama.

But would this ending send the Concept Core to Low-Gear?

…''Will I be satisfied with an end that ruins Sayama-sama’s plans?

Once he finished thinking, he heard a voice.

Sayama’s clear voice reached him from above.

“Are you sure that will not be a lie if you say it again?”

Nijun tried to respond by saying he was having fun.

However…

“…”

He found himself unable to speak in this space of no lies.

And he heard Sayama speak instead.

“Okay,” the boy began. “I will be right there to finish this.”

''Impossible,'' thought Nijun. ''He can’t reach me even if he jumps now.

But he heard Sayama continue to speak as they both fell.

He began with a question.

“How about I sum up the situation, Nijun-kun?”

The man listened to him.

“You were lying about trying to kill yourself, weren’t you?”

And…

“You wanted me to let down my guard. Then when I approached you, you would use your other hand to cut me down. That was the truth here, wasn’t it?”

Nijun realized what Sayama was doing, so he opened his mouth.

He hesitated but managed a loud voice.

“You saw straight through me!! This suicide attempt was a feint!”

A moment later, his body stopped for just an instant as he fell a bit away from the cliff face.

His momentum from jumping away was gone, so he simply fell.

The feint disguised as suicide had been rejected.

The very next moment, he saw Sayama fall from above while surrounded by new acceleration charms.

He twisted his body and sent his right leg toward the man’s chest.

Nijun prepared his hand to strike back and make his previous statement the truth.

…''Is this the end?

“Ah,” he muttered. “Such fun!!”

With that shout, he fell into the darkness and swung a rapid karate chop toward Sayama.

At the same time, he remembered what Sayama had said before plunging into the depths of the forest.

…''You will be seeing nothing but darkness.

He laughed in his heart. It was a loud laugh and he hoped that it would reach his brothers.

He laughed louder and louder.

He had never stood a chance from the very beginning.

And so he spoke from his heart.

“This world is what I have yearned for!!”

As his shout came to an end, their attacks crossed and his entire being fell into darkness.

<noinclude>
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| Forward to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Chapter 24|Chapter 24]]
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</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Chapter 22

2026-10-19T02:55:25Z

N-Ch:

==Chapter 22: What Taught Her to Smile==
[[Image:OnC_v11_0053.png|thumb]]
''Because you hoped

Alone in the cafeteria, Shinjou stood motionless below the cold lights.

She took a breath and muttered to herself.

“What do I do?”

She knew the answer. She knew exactly what to do, but she needed those words to get her started.

She began to answer those words with her actions.

First, she placed the album in her hands on a nearby table and set the notebook and letters on top of that.

She sat in the chair and took a breath in front of all that writing.

She stretched out a hand, but hesitated as that hand approached the letters.

“It’s too soon for that.”

She picked up the notebook instead.

She gave a silent bow and gently flipped through it.

…''Research on mythology?

She had expected a diary or something similar, but she had been wrong.

She felt a mixture of disappointment and relief as she readily flipped through the pages.

That girl had grown up with a connection to the Bible and these were the records of her research on the world’s mythologies.

She summed up that most mythologies contained the symbols of dragons and divine tools and she had labeled a hand-drawn map with the spread of different mythologies and their points in common.

It had apparently been a summer research project for her third year of middle school and the final page contained a grade of A+ in faded red ink and a list of sources in Shinjou Yukio’s own handwriting.

“World Mythology Encyclopedia 1 – 11 by Kinugasa Tenkyou.”

Shinjou felt a small tremor in her spine when she read that name.

This girl had been the granddaughter of Shinjou Kaname and assisted by Sayama Kaoru, so what had she thought and hoped for as she read those books in the Kinugasa Library?

Shinjou did not know, but she felt as if she could sense something there. Something she could not put to words welled up within her.

…''It feels like a flame.

She had similarly thought her heart was burning when she had found this place.

After all, it burned bright, blew through her, and quickly grew.

Pulled by that heat in her thoughts, she closed the notebook.

“…”

She reached for the letters.

The action was much like reaching for the next book in a series when one wanted to know what happened next.

It was a casual and natural action and that was exactly what helped Shinjou realize how she felt.

“Yes. I want to know more.”

Hope filled her cheeks with slight heat as she looked at the first envelope.

She did not immediately look inside. She wanted to look at the outside more and more and make it all feel more important.

She checked the date. It was about half a year after the girl had entered high school.

The stamp was an old type not seen anymore.

The address was written in round handwriting using a ballpoint pen.

After making sure there was nothing else on the front or back, she finally gave permission to her curiosity.

She pulled out the letter.

She looked down at the folded and slightly faded paper and she closed her eyes.

“Please let me read you.”

With that said, she unfolded that first letter.

She found a photograph held between the folds and many words.

''“It has been a while.”

Shinjou’s eyes raced along the paper.

''“I have finally gotten used to living in the dorm. Do you see the boy and girl with me in the included photograph? I am not sure if I should call them my friends, but they are always with me.

''“There’s a lot of interesting things about those two, but I will leave it at that since I am not sure if I should talk about some of it yet. At any rate, I very much enjoy being with them.

''“However, I will tell you this much. Tragically, the girl lost both her parents recently. It was apparently a strange sort of murder, but her situation reminds me of when I lost my parents. Apparently, she is moving out of her house and it will be torn down.

''“But this means she will be my roommate now. Things are sure to be livelier, but I have never shared a room with someone my own age. I don’t know what is going to happen, but I am looking forward to it and I hope her parents can rest in peace.”

Shinjou checked the photograph.

Shinjou Yukio’s hair was a little longer and she stood below a cherry tree with a pair of classmates.

She was smiling.

And Shinjou recognized the boy and girl standing on either side of her.

…''Those are Sayama-kun’s parents.

She slowly breathed in and read the letter again.

What Shinjou Yukio was unsure if she should talk about was probably Sayama’s father.

That meant she had Sayama Kaoru’s son by her side.

…''I wonder if Sayama-kun’s father had realized the truth?

She was not sure.

Even if she had realized they both had a connection to Sayama Kaoru, mentioning it could damage their relationship.

…''And she wouldn’t want to damage that relationship like that.

Yukio may not have told Sayama’s father that she had been supported by Sayama Kaoru.

Shinjou nodded and reached for the other letter. She checked the postmark on the envelope, but…

“There isn’t one?”

There was not. The letter must have been delivered by hand.

Instead, the back of the letter inside contained a date: January 10, 1989.

''That’s sixteen years ago,'' she muttered in her heart while unfolding the letter.

The flowing handwriting in ballpoint pen began in the same way.

''“It has been a while.”

The words continued.

''“I have been unable to send a letter for a few years now. I apologize if I worried you.”

“Eh?”

Shinjou’s question was directed at the individual named Yukio who she had come to know through the various documents.

…''She didn’t seem like the kind of person to cut off contact like that.

She tilted her head, but the next words seemed to answer that confusion.

''“About two years ago, I moved to a new workplace and was unable to contact you from there.”

…''Eh?

Where had she gone and what had she been doing there? What had her previous workplace been?

The writing seemed to wash away those questions.

''“I am where I want to be now. I am in the best possible place for me.”

Shinjou held her breath and continued reading those words that rejected all complaints and protests.

''“Yes, there are people here who need my ability. The job is not exactly difficult, but please know that I am doing my best to work toward peace. And I am making use of what I learned. I worried a lot about the future, but I finally got married. I apologize for waiting so long to tell you, but I wasn’t sure how to bring it up. My child is doing well. She was born on December 25 of last year and she is sleeping next to me now.”

“…!?”

Shinjou’s entire body shrunk back when she saw the word “child”.

…''W-wait a second.

This was too sudden.

Things had jumped too far ahead from the words “workplace” and “job”.

''Um,'' she said as she began to think.

If Yukio was her mother, she would have been in UCAT.

That was what Mikoku had told her when they had met at Izumo UCAT a month earlier.

…''My parents were in UCAT.

Yukio claimed to have moved to a new workplace and that she was working toward peace in her job.

…''Did she join UCAT? And does that mean…she’s my mother?''

Was she?

Shinjou did not know. She had to read on to find out.

However, she had read similar things so many times now, but none of it had told her what she wanted.

…''But this time…

She breathed in.

She tried to fill herself with strength using that breath, but something else filled her instead: shaking.

Her body shook, her shoulders shook, her arms shook, her fingers shook, and the letter shook.

As everything trembled, she focused her mind.

She only had a single chance to read something this important for the first time.

She cleared her mind as if casting aside her body and read the letter to leave no regrets.

She slowly read the words aloud.

“Director, I had considered letting you or our Daddy-Long-Legs name her, but in the end, I did it myself.”

Shinjou breathed in and made sure the words she spoke were carved into her mind.

“I want my child to be an energetic, thoughtful, and hardworking person like Yume, one of my first friends. But I don’t want this child to be exactly like her, so I gave her a different name. Yume’s name includes the character for ‘life’, so I wanted to give my child a name that will bear, raise, and protect life.”

The words practically spilled from Shinjou’s mouth and she finally reached the name.

“That name is Sadagiri.”

She stopped breathing, but her eyes continued moving.

…''That name hides the character for “life” within it and I hope it will allow her to face her destiny and cut through any evil that threatens her.''

A broken breath escaped her throat.

Something trailed down her cheek.

She lowered her head and whatever it was fell from about halfway down her cheek.

She did not know what this tear meant. Why was she crying when she was not sad?

Regardless, the tear urged her to read the final line.

“This child has some difficulties regarding her body, but I am sure…”

She took in a shrill breath.

“I am sure she will grow into a wonderful child.”

Her voice no longer formed proper words.

“…!!”

She reflexively stood up.

The chair toppled behind her as she rose, opened her mouth, and leaned forward with her hands on the table.

“————”

She inhaled. She felt like she was swallowing something to endure it, hold it inside, and control herself.

She wrapped her arms around herself.

She tightly held herself and the letter as if to confirm everything about herself.

As if to confirm that she was here.

She trembled and bent over, but she still managed to open her mouth.

“…Mom.”

She spoke a word that she had always used as a mere noun and never to address someone.

Unsure if that word would actually reach anyone, she raised her voice.

“Mom…”

There were still things she did not understand, like her family name and what Yukio had done in UCAT.

However, she knew one thing for sure and she spoke that one thing.

“Mom!”

''My mom was probably in that Osaka battle too,'' she thought while squeezing her own body.

''I’ll probably never be able to see her again,'' she added.

Regardless, some records remained.

Even if she could never meet her, Shinjou Yukio had existed and there were records of her laughing, worrying, and being with others.

Most of the photographs were when she was younger than Shinjou, but that did not change the fact that she had existed.

And Shinjou had someone she could tell this to. She had someone to speak with about her mother.

…''I…

She informed that person in her heart.

…''I really do have a mom.

“She hoped that I would grow into a wonderful child.”

''Thank goodness,'' she thought.

She repeated that sentiment again and again and took a breath.

With that breath, so much from the past seemed to transform into relief.

“…”

And as she filled with that relief, she felt a certain sensation.

As she stood on her trembling legs, she felt something gently moving down the skin of her inner thighs.

“…?”

She almost felt like something had fallen from her leg, so she bent over.

She looked down at her feet and at the inside of her lower legs visible below her skirt.

“Blood?”

For an instant, she did not know what that blood was.

But a decision in her mind led her to speak aloud what was happening to her.

“My body is developing as a girl…”

The relief in her heart had changed her body’s pain and worry into something else.

She was filled with countless conflicting feelings like surprise and relief or tension and relaxation.

…''Now both Sadame and Setsu’s bodies are working.

She collapsed to a sitting position and felt her mind sinking into darkness.

Her body continued embracing the record of her mother as she sank down to the floor.

“Mom…”

She weakly spoke as she spilled to the floor with a teary smile.

“I’m glad I’m who I am.”

It was night and both the moon and stars were visible in the vast night sky.

This was not the city night. This was the blue night sky of the mountains.

A single light was visible below it.

The light was located in front of an abandoned house and storehouse built on land cut out of a mountain slope.

A white light shined in the center of the unmaintained yard.

It came from the handheld fluorescent light held by a boy in a suit.

It spread and illuminated both Sayama and his surroundings.

It was silent, so the only sound was the autumn’s night breeze blowing from the west of the mountain.

That high altitude wind would likely become a north wind before long and it was cold yet not entirely dry.

The wind carried the scents of the forest and it swayed in front of Sayama.

Someone stood in front of him.

“You came a long way, Nijun-kun.”

Sayama raised his light so it covered the other person.

The figure that was illuminated starting with the feet was an elderly man with long white hair and a white coat.

It was Nijun.

He lifted his coat a bit in the gentle breeze.

“How do you like the red shirt under here, Sayama-sama?”

“Wearing red at night is most stylish, Nijun-kun.”

Sayama swung his left hand forward to point at the man with a snap of the sleeve.

“But are you here to keep me from sleeping with my Shinjou-kun body pillow?”

“You can go to sleep if you want, but you know what will happen then, don’t you?”

“Yes,” he confirmed with a perfectly serious expression. “I will be in a state of bliss. After all, I will be using a Shinjou-kun body pillow. I cannot use that in the dorm, so-… No, I have Shinjou-kun herself in the dorm, so-… No, no. I can have Shinjou-kun dress up as a pillow and-… No, no, no…”

“Sayama-sama, please focus over here again.”

“Ah. You just interrupted my imagination, didn’t you!?” shouted Sayama. “The crime of imagination interruption warrants a direct punishment!!”

“Calm down,” said Nijun while holding out his palms. “You can see her as soon as you leave the mountains, can’t you?”

“Yes, you are right.”

He suddenly swung his right hand.

The light flew upward. The thrown fluorescent light illuminated the area like an especially bright star.

Below it, Sayama slowly shrank down in preparation to move.

“You need to learn that being made to wait can be fun too, Mr. Stylish.”

“I have waited long enough already. That is why I had already made my way here last night.”

Nijun still had his hands held out to calm Sayama, but a moment later, paper appeared between all of his fingers.

They were charms.

“These charms were sealed inside Izumo UCAT. They temporarily strengthen the human body, but they were sealed because the backlash can be harsh enough to destroy the body afterward. However, they could not bear to get rid of such a powerful tool because they thought they might need it in the future.”

“Let me guess, my father made them. That man clearly did not know how to restrain himself.”

By saying that, he weakened his chest pain, even if only a little.

The light began to fall toward the ground between them.

Just before it landed, Sayama asked a question.

“Why did my father need something like that?”

“Testament. For a battle. He had a battle to fight.”

Nijun placed the charms in his hands under the opposite arms.

“That battle ten years ago was the last one we could enjoy!!”

With those words, the light struck the ground and broke.

Using the resultant darkness as their cue, two bursts of speed collided.

<noinclude>
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|-
| Back to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Chapter 21|Chapter 21]]
| Return to [[Owari no Chronicle|Main Page]]
| Forward to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Chapter 23|Chapter 23]]
|-
|}
</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Chapter 20

2026-10-18T05:00:10Z

N-Ch:

==Chapter 20: Lesson in the Dark==
[[Image:OnC_v11_0011.png|thumb]]
''After you are taught

''And after you learn

''What have you gained?

A small room was filled with blue light.

The room was bell-shaped and had a diameter of about five meters.

The walls and floor were made of stone cut much like bricks and it had no windows.

The room was underground.

It had a single entrance and led nowhere else.

It appeared empty except for the desk in the center.

A bookcase sat on the desk, but it held no books.

There was a pen holder that doubled as a paperweight, but it held no pens. And yet a clear inkbottle sat next to it.

A boy stood in front of the desk and the items on it.

He wore a suit with the name Sayama stitched inside it.

He looked around the room and behind him.

“There is nothing else here.”

He had solved the riddle in the Kinugasa residence’s storehouse and he had reached this room by taking the staircase that had appeared.

The stairs into the darkness had continued down for about twenty meters before arriving at this room.

He had not noticed any tricks in the staircase passageway.

…''So is the Kinugasa Document in this underground space?

He looked around again, but there was still nothing.

“This is supposed to be a study, so what is this?”

As he muttered to himself, he pulled a document from his pocket.

It was the Georgius Development Plan. His father had written it, but the project had been abandoned before completion. He read one line printed on the cover.

“Written based on the Kinugasa Document acquired at the Kinugasa residence.”

The supposed Kinugasa Document should have been here.

Had his parents taken it back with them and had it since been thrown out or sealed away?

“I can reject that boring possibility. If my parents had taken back what they found here, would that have included every last pen and every last book in the bookcase? And if they did, would they leave the paperweight behind? No, they would not.”

He vigorously swung his arm up and pointed in an arbitrary direction.

The cloth of the suit gave a nice snapping sound as he posed and spoke.

“There is something hidden here. Yes, the shy truth is hiding in this very room.”

He laughed and brought a hand to his forehead.

He breathed a sigh of self-praise before continuing.

“I am in an excellent mood today, I sound magnificent even as I speak to myself, and just one problem faces me here: Where have the contents of the study gone?”

He stretched his empty right hand toward the inkbottle on the desk.

He picked it up, checked the ink from the side, and found about half of the black ink was gone.

“This is the answer.”

He flicked the bottle’s lid with his thumb and it opened with the sensation of scraping across dry dirt.

The sticky smell of ink reached his nose.

He gently shook the bottle to ensure the ink rippled.

“The entrance to the truth is not here. In other words, the truth is hidden. Hidden by this fake ‘empty study’.”

So…

“How about I look at it in reverse? ''What if I try to hide the fake with what is real?'' Using the real ink I have here!”

He swung his right hand.

The contents of the inkbottle splattered around him.

He heard the scattering droplets and the speed of the ink caused it to burst into a mist.

The black danced through the blue-lit room.

“…”

And the world melted away.

As the spraying liquid filled the room, the room itself was peeled away, starting from the top.

The empty walls were stripped away from top to bottom and they revealed…

“The truth.”

A moment later, he saw bookcases and a floor overflowing with an ocean of books.

Even the floor he stood on was a layer of books.

He then saw a document sitting on the desk in front of him.

A pen sat on it and the title had been quickly written out.

“Georgius Development Plan!! By Kinugasa Tenkyou!”

As soon as his reading of the title filled the room, something welled up from the bottom of the bell-shaped room.

“…?”

A sense of expansion rose from below the floor, almost like heat.

''Something is coming,'' he thought as that something floated up into the air.

It was writing.

Black writing rose from anywhere and everywhere: between the pages of the surrounding books, from their covers, from the papers scattered around the room, or from below those papers.

There was hiragana, katakana, kanji, the alphabet, numbers, symbols, the lines of ruled paper, periods, and commas. They all floated around the room as if they had been granted freedom.

It was all writing.

Sayama could no longer see across the room.

Soon, that writing began to move.

First, it moved right.

It formed a gentle wave, but a breath later, the surface of the writing was swaying back to the left.

Soon, it moved right again.

“…!”

The right-moving and left-moving writing split and…

“It’s rotating!?”

As if to answer Sayama’s doubt, the tens of thousands of characters began rotating around the room either to the left or right.

The writing quickly rotated in opposite directions above the sea of books. They intertwined, split apart, spun, split some more, and raced along.

He looked up at it all and the writing showed no sign of stopping.

Like an astronomical model, the writing formed several rings that rotated inside the room, intersected, and continued spinning.

One ring slowly flashed yellow, one ring remained black as it intersected with another and sent sparks flying, and one ring glowed silver while ticking like a clock’s seconds hand.

In the center, sudden curiosity led Sayama to raise his hands toward the astronomical model of writing.

He touched a spot where left and right rings intersected.

He wondered if he was being careless, but he was touching information.

His physical fingers passed right through the rings of writing.

“…!?”

An image flashed in the back of his mind.

The information expressed by the writing had been given form and replayed in his brain.

A scene played for the information in the right ring and the information in the left ring.

“…four-way barrier is apparently the only option. 10th’s dragon will apparently pursue the refugees. I’ve heard something similar will eventually happen with 2nd-Gear, but first, 10th’s divine dragon will arrive as if making a demonstration. Kaoru-kun has nearly completed the technique for constructing a four-way barrier, so he is a step ahead of the 2nd-Gear engineers developing the celestial seal. However, one thing is lacking. For the barrier to function properly, someone must make a decree in the center. I am sure he will volunteer for that, but that will mean someone else must fill his normal position and I do not think I will last long if I…”

“…only natural. There is a mystery about Low-Gear that only some residents of 9th and 10th have noticed. It seems they occasionally invade Low-Gear, but when they return, they often find that invasion was for nothing. Why is that? That will surely be discovered after my death. So before sealing the divine dragon, I will ask a certain question while I can still push myself: Why did I name this world Low-Gear? And I have a message for the later generation: If you wish to know the identity of Babel, you must seek the truth of this world…”

“…!?”

Sayama quickly jerked back his hands.

The information had been directly carved into his mind and not even his racing pulse could help him process it.

…''What was that? What was I just told?

For one…

“There is a mystery about Low-Gear?”

And…

“The identity of Babel?”

What did that mean?

The first record had likely been about the seal for 10th-Gear’s divine dragon.

His grandfather had created the seal used to obtain 10th-Gear’s Concept Core and Professor Kinugasa had predicted his own death in the process.

But the next record was the problem.

Sayama had his own guesses as to what Babel was.

But…

…''I must seek the truth of this world?

What had Kinugasa Tenkyou known?

And when his parents had presumably seen that record…

…''Did they learn something? Or did they know something?

He shook his question-filled head.

This was not the time.

He had come here to check the Kinugasa Document on Georgius. His mother had left Georgius with him and his father had tried to create it yet abandoned it, so he had to know what it was.

For that reason, he firmly faced forward. That was when he noticed something.

A single ring floated in the center of his vision.

The thirty centimeter ring of writing floated above the Kinugasa Document.

Bluish-white dots raced across its surface and slowly rotated.

“So this is the embodiment of the knowledge inside the Kinugasa Document.”

He no longer hesitated to reach out.

As if watched over by the massive amount of information circling around him, he touched the information he was searching for.

“…”

As soon as he grabbed it, it fully expanded in the back of his mind.

He saw the embodiment of the knowledge related to Georgius.

Sayama knew.

He did not see it and he did not hear it. He simply knew it as knowledge.

The only other way to describe it was as a memory. The knowledge entered his brain via his memories.

…''What is this?

It arrived.

He could tell that something greater than his five senses had reached him.

Why was the letter “a” pronounced “a”? Why did people read a string of letters as a sound and a meaning? What filled his memory now was “pure” information that preceded those questions.

Georgius was poured into his mind and memories like that.

He became aware of the information in his mind as he translated it into words.

The images he saw were instants of the past displayed on the screen of his memories.

He first saw a yard beneath a clear sky.

The gravel-covered yard had crops growing in the back and beyond that was a field full of rapeseed, a forest, and a mountain range continuing downward.

This was the yard of Professor Kinugasa’s house.

The gaze viewing it was inside the house. It sat next to a tea table in the living room.

Only a right arm was visible and that arm was resting on the documents sitting on the tea table.

His thoughts reached Sayama’s memories and Sayama’s language comprehension translated them into words.

“Here I will record the results of my examination of the concept weapon made to restrict any and all concepts.”

That weapon’s name was…

“It is commonly known as Georgius. It takes the form of two gauntlets, but I currently only possess the right one. I acquired it in a certain place, but I lost the left one in the process. The one who will later create and use an identical concept weapon will surely learn at one point that I possessed this one. And I must state this here: Georgius must not be made.”

The scene changed to the inside a dimly-lit wooden building. The room contained rows of washing stations by the window as if in an art room or a workshop. Thick wooden work desks lined the room and Sayama’s gaze sat at a desk piled with documents.

Someone walked around the pile of documents and into view.

It was a young man in a lab coat. When Sayama saw the slender man with long hair, a name filled his mind.

“Shinjou-kun?”

Except he did not look all that much like her. He was taller and bonier.

But the smile he made as he gave a greeting did remind Sayama of hers.

…''Is this part of my Shinjou-kun withdrawal symptoms?

He tilted his head and the gaze’s owner handed a document to the young man.

The young man took it and suddenly looked to the side.

Someone had entered the room.

The young man looked a bit surprised to see the person, but then he smiled and opened his mouth.

His mouth moved to call someone’s name and the movements were much like those Sayama often saw. There was no sound here, so he could only read the vowel sounds.

…''Ah – ah – ah – un.

''I see. So this is the National Defense Department,'' he realized as someone’s thoughts reached his mind.

“Georgius is a machine built to capture its user’s willpower so it can either amplify or destroy that world’s positive and negative concepts. In other words, it is an amplifier for and weapon against all concepts.”

There was a pause as if for a breath.

“As Georgius must not have its power disturbed by any concept, its foundational component must be a power that is not bound by concepts. That is, it must be given an operational mechanism that works under all concepts and can ignore or overcome those concepts.”

Sayama mentally frowned at what the thought said.

…''Ignore or overcome all concepts?

Did something like that really exist?

“If it does, it cannot be light or heat,” he muttered. “It could not be anything bound by the laws of physics. Something that exists even in absolute nothingness.”

A story suddenly came to him.

That story said the world had once been in a state of chaotic darkness where everything was formless.

“Let there be light…and there was light.”

He thought it was wrong to use those words to say light was the strongest thing of all.

What was it that had ignored the chaos and created the light?

“A will.”

As if in response, the scene before him changed.

He was now on a mountain ridge with an excellent view and his vision was walking with around ten other people.

One was the young man who resembled Shinjou and he was falling behind.

A young man in a military coat split off from those moving on ahead and walked back to that first young man.

The owner of the gaze smiled as he watched them.

A voice reached Sayama’s mind.

“A will. We can say that the appearance of every concept involves what we can call that concept’s will. And it is possible to seal a will inside a machine. 3rd-Gear’s gods of war and 5th-Gear’s mechanical dragons are proof enough of that. However…”

The scene changed again. This time to a destroyed city.

The gaze stood between buildings that crumbled and sent smoke into the clear sky. The water being used to put out a fire flowed into the street and the owner of the gaze looked west with a few of his comrades.

A blue truck arrived while weaving between the people weakly placing scrap wood out in the road.

“But that means Georgius’s final necessary component is a person. A person must be broken down and their will must be transferred inside, along with their flesh and blood, to give Georgius its own existence. That will create a weapon with a mind of its own. However, the will that enters Georgius must be perfectly synchronized with the weapon. To prevent even an instantaneous error or time lag, their entire body and sense of judgment must be made into Georgius. …However, this will erase their personality and transform their will into nothing but a component.”

And…

“That is why the creation of Georgius must not continue.”

The scene changed to the underground study Sayama stood inside.

However, this gaze still was not his own.

…''Is this still the past?

As if to confirm that, the gaze spoke from in front of the desk at the center of the piles of books and bookcases.

“Nevertheless, I possess the negative Georgius. Due to a promise I made, I cannot reveal where it came from and the positive Georgius that goes with it has been lost. But in the distant future, it should reappear. I hope that both of them will be held by their proper owners. …For that reason, I will later seal the negative Georgius in a place I know very well. To ensure no one foolishly seeks to create a similar item, I will leave only this document here.”

The voice paused as if to breathe.

“I pray that there is no conflict over the use of Georgius.”

Sayama was suddenly knocked away by the words of the gaze, by those words his own mind was creating.

He fell into darkness. He fell into the shadows that led back to reality and the present day.

But he had seen the answer. He knew what Georgius was.

On top of that, he had gained two new mysteries.

First, there were indeed two pieces to Georgius and one of those was hidden somewhere.

Second, his parents had come here for Georgius, but…

“Georgius is made from a human being. What fight made that necessary?”

That would be the battle during the Great Kansai Earthquake.

…''Was that so great a battle that they wanted to destroy concepts!?

Before he could answer his own question, the scene before his eyes changed.

Realizing it would be the underground study, strength filled his gaze. He knew he had returned to the normal world.

“…!?”

But he was wrong.

He saw the blue sky and the mountains in front of him.

…''Where is this?

He looked into the clear sky.

He saw a white fence and the top of a forest beyond that.

This was a narrow viewing platform built on an elevated cliff in the Okutama mountains.

He sat on a wooden bench and his vision was quite low to the ground.

…''What is this?

He knew the answer and he spoke that knowledge aloud.

“Is this my mother’s attempted double suicide!?”

Sayama realized there was a lunch to his left. A large red box contained sausage, pasta salad, croquettes, apple slices, and other colors of food. A large blue box contained rice balls.

He felt the usual pain in his chest.

Without him telling it to, his vision looked down at the lunch.

This was his past self. This gaze belonged to a version of himself much different from now.

The gaze turned around to look at a parked wine-red sedan.

Beyond the car was a two-lane road. The wall-like slope covered by a cement embankment showed the road had been carved out of the mountainside.

The gaze turned back and looked to someone sitting beyond the lunch.

It was a short-haired woman wearing a blue shirt and a long white flared skirt.

She looked back at him with a smile and a tilt of the head. She tilted her head instead of looking down on him.

“What is it, Mikoto? What’s the matter?”

Sayama’s mind and body froze with fear at the voice he heard.

…''Kh.

The pain felt like having his lungs squeezed, but…

…''This is…

“Nothing!”

His past self in the dream happily spoke the same word he forced from the depths of his throat: nothing.

“Let’s eat already,” said his other self.

“Go ahead,” said his mother. “Yes. I actually put real effort into this one.”

His hand quickly reached for a rice ball.

Do these have hamburger meat in them?

Yes.

Aren’t you going to eat any, mom?

You’re eating too fast, Mikoto. I can’t keep up.

C’mon, eat. …You can eat dad’s portion too.

…''Show some tact, child.

But despite his thought, he saw his mother smile.

He had not thought anything of the smile at the time, but he now knew what it meant.

He gave a long mental sigh and wiped away his unseen sweat.

…''Why am I seeing my past? Does my subconscious have a humiliation fetish?

He could make a guess. When the information on Georgius had left, the information inside his own mind must have been partially dragged out.

But if he allowed that information to be fully drawn out…

…''This past may be externally stored in writing and vanish inside me.

That would erase one of the memories that plagued his chest.

…''How about it?

If he erased the memory, he would have an easier time in the future. Most likely, his mother would no longer give him chest pains and he would not worry Shinjou as much.

This was probably his one and only chance at this.

…''This may be a sort of reward.

This may have been thanks for making it this far and attempting to learn what was written here.

As he thought through it logically, he saw a certain moment begin.

This was the final moment.

“…”

The owner of the gaze, that young Sayama, held a thermos lid his mother had given him.

It contained orange juice chilled with ice and the young Sayama rejoiced that it contained three whole pieces of ice.

“Mom, I can see the bottom through the i-…”

As soon as he turned around, he saw darkness.

That darkness made his mind gasp along with his past self.

He caught a brief glimpse of the blue sky and then something blue covered him. It was his mother’s clothes and body.

Something that kept him from breathing was pressed down on him by something heavy.

That weight prevented him from moving or breathing.

He tried to say so, but it was so sudden that his lips only trembled and refused to move properly.

“M-…”

He heard his young self’s voice.

“Mom!!”

His body used up all of its air for that shout.

A moment later, his vision grew bright and the blue cloth of his mother’s clothing lifted slightly.

“…!”

He saw his mother’s face.

With the blue sky in the background, the ends of her eyebrows were lowered as if to say nothing could change this but not to worry about it.

…''Why are you smiling!?

“Don’t worry.”

He heard his mother’s faintly shrill voice.

“Next time you call for me, it will surely be in a new world.”

Her hands rose toward his face.

“…!!”

She leaned toward him, he took a breath, and he passed out.

At the same time, his present self fell into darkness. He fell into pure black where nothing could be seen.

But even as his vision grew dark, the pain in his chest did not vanish.

The pain felt like his heart was being squeezed and he could not fight it no matter how much strength he gathered.

A weight emptied his mind until he could not even think about the pain.

And as the pain filled his entire body, he thought.

…''When I later woke in the hospital, I learned that my mother had killed herself with a blade.

He had heard a fair bit of speculation. Some wondered if his mother had thought he had suffocated when he had passed out. Others wondered if she had known he was not dead but had been unable to go through with killing him as well.

All he knew for sure was that he had shed no tears for the mother inside that coffin.

His only thought had been “Why?”

About a decade had passed since then.

During those ten years, the pain had grown and he had tried to forget.

And now a chance had come. If he did nothing now, he could part ways with this memory and its pain. The memory itself would be drawn out of him.

It would become a written record and it would be stripped from his brain in the process.

He had recalled that final memory of his mother countless times, but it would instead spin round and round in that astronomical model.

…''And I will have an easier life.

That was fine. It would be good for the Leviathan Road, good for his own future, and good for Shinjou.

But even as he thought that, he heard a voice.

“A terrible idea.”

The voice rejected his thoughts.

“Don’t you think, Shinjou-kun?”

When the voice called the name of the one most important to him, he realized it was his own voice.

…''Why?

The answer was simple. Even as his memory was drawn from him, he was waking up.

His subconscious – that undeniably honest part of himself – was speaking to him.

“Doesn’t it sound like a terrible idea? After all, Shinjou-kun is searching for the past and she would never think to erase the result, regardless of what that result is. And Kazami will never forget that Izumo was injured. The same goes for everyone else. They will never erase the loss of their loved ones. …So will I alone erase it?”

He spoke back to his own question.

…''Yes, but I am me and they are them. What is wrong with it?

“Is that so?” he asked himself. “Will I be able to bear it if I have lost my own past? When Shinjou-kun is embracing her past even as she so beautifully grieves, will I not be there with her? Do you know what that is called?”

…''Why not call it a privilege? A privilege earned by reaching this place?

He heard a bitter laugh.

“Coming here was my selfish decision. No one will give me a privilege for that. That is called…”

…''Cowardice.

His mind answered his subconscious.

After a pause, his subconscious spoke.

“Do you understand? No, I know you understand. After all…”

Both Sayamas spoke at once.

“I know myself better than anyone else in the world. And the one who knows me second best is Shinjou-kun.”

After another pause, both conscious and subconscious suddenly shouted out.

“Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled…carrots!! Damn, you kept up wonderfully, other me! That’s me for you!”

Confident that his mind had gathered as one, he thought.

“Yes,” he began. “I had forgotten, but I am a human who stands above god. So no matter what handicap or past I may hold, I can continue upward, unlike the common people below me. …Ergo, I need no helping hand. Having Shinjou-kun help me through the pain is my greatest happiness.”

“Then hurry,” said his subconscious. “Your past is being dragged out.”

Sure enough, his surroundings were filling with light.

He was waking.

If he did nothing, he would fully wake and he would likely find that final memory of his mother rotating in a circle.

He had to stop it.

…''But how?

The answer reached his body.

Someone placed their hand on the back of his left hand which he could not clench into a fist.

He did not know whose hand it was. Did it come from his memories, was it his own hand, or was it an illusion?

Regardless, he spread his unseen hand in the darkness. He held it before his eyes, spread the fingers, and thrust it into the blackness as if clawing at it.

“I heard that a will can overcome all else.”

He was alone.

“I will likely always be alone.”

Even if someone stood by his side…

“We will never fully overlap. After all, only I can do that.”

But he mouthed the name of the person he cared most for.

“Nevertheless, I want to be with you. …Surely that will lead me to my answer. That will tell me why I had Team Leviathan disband.”

His mind nodded and gathered strength in his left hand.

“I no longer have any reason to deny the past or to reject my pain. So cry out in pain, my body. Enduring that is what allows me to rise above all others. And as I do, I will go ahead. I will set an example for all those dragging around the pain of the past and will tell them this: If I am worth following, then go ahead. Yes, that is my role!”

He cried out.

“The surname Sayama indicates a villain! …And that villain has a single desire. If all is chaos and I stand above god, then it is not light that I desire. I desire…”

Strength filled his right hand.

He still doubted he could throw a punch, but he managed to fully clench the fingers in the darkness.

All five fingers constricted into a fully-formed fist.

He felt the memory clenched inside that fist and he raised his voice.

“Let there be strength!!”

His mind struck the darkness before his eyes and he had a thought.

…''What is Shinjou-kun doing right now?

<noinclude>
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| Back to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Preface|Preface]]
| Return to [[Owari no Chronicle|Main Page]]
| Forward to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume11 Chapter 21|Chapter 21]]
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</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 19

2026-10-18T04:55:04Z

N-Ch:

==Chapter 19: Annihilating Betrayal==
[[Image:OnC_v10_0493.png|thumb]]
''I want to hear what you have to say

With his rucksack on his back, Sayama looked around from the entrance of the storehouse.

He could see a collection of shadow in the center of the floor about three meters ahead.

The shadow appeared to be two meters square, but its shape was not clear.

Sayama guessed it was something hidden by concept camouflage.

He then turned away from the pale bluish shadow and looked to the open metal door behind him.

“ ‘Know that the entrance to the truth is not here…!’, hm?”

He crossed his arms in thought and wondered if that text was the key to revealing the shadow.

…''But is it truly not here?

If that visible shadow could be described as “not here”, then the text was exactly right.

But since it was visible, there had to be something there.

“Then I need to investigate.”

He raised his head and began looking around inside the storehouse.

He checked everywhere he could reach: the walls, the floor, the grooves in the floor, etc.

He touched it with the gloves he wore and even tapped around with a hammer he pulled from his bag.

However…

“There is nothing odd here.”

He walked outside.

The moonlight had grown stronger and the air he breathed felt colder.

The owl had stopped hooting.

All he heard was the susuki grass rustling in the breeze.

The word “tranquility” entered his mind as he walked along the storehouse’s outer wall.

The western wall that faced the mountain slope had crumbled, but there was nothing there.

He checked the other three sides as well, but…

“Nothing out of the ordinary.”

He took a few steps away from the storehouse.

He brought a hand to his chin and wondered if there was anything odd about the small building at all.

…''There is not.

The opened door caught his interest, so he returned.

He entered the storehouse’s darkness through the entrance and placed a hand on the metal door that was pressed against the left wall.

He tried pulling.

“Oh?”

It moved smoothly. It squeaked a little, but he could move it with no more resistance than the weight of the metal itself.

He slowly pulled it as if bringing it to himself.

Closing the door more or less drove him outside.

The hinge was located at the center of the door’s edge and the building’s connector stuck out at an angle. If he continued pulling, he could open the door outside the building as well.

That was likely a way of securing space near the entrance when carrying items into the storehouse.

Sayama stopped the door when it was horizontal to the entrance.

The storehouse looked better with the door temporarily closed like that.

It had no lock. Instead it had a hole for attaching a padlock.

After stopping the door, he took a few steps back.

…''It would have been like this originally.

However, that was all. The storehouse had shown nothing out of the ordinary and this change had simply brought it to its natural state.

“…?

''What does this mean?'' he wondered.

…''It is not “here”? Then is it “there”?

In that case, where was “here”?

“Is it where one would see that text with the door in its normal closed state?”

Was “here” the inside of the storehouse?

In that case, “there” would be…

“Not inside the storehouse?”

With that question, he turned around.

However, he only saw the abandoned house and the gravel yard.

The yard contained nothing but gravel and plants that had withered during autumn.

It looked like something could be hidden within the susuki grass, but he had already decided crops had been grown there.

As for the house, he had already seen everything in there. There had not even been anything below the floor.

“In that case…”

''Where is it?'' he wondered as he gently pushed open the metal door and stepped back inside the storehouse.

He meaninglessly paced to help himself think, but he suddenly looked up and opened his mouth.

“…”

He stopped walking and smiled bitterly.

He was acting exactly like someone asking for a hint.

However…

…''There is no one here but me.

After reminding himself of that, he spoke.

“This would be somewhat different with Shinjou-kun, Kazami, Izumo, or any of the others here. We could split up, search around, and bounce ideas off each other if we did not find anything. …Izumo especially can say the most nonsensical things, but I can guide him to the correct answer as he tries to explain what he meant. And no matter what Shinjou-kun says, it inspires ideas and many other things within me.”

But he closed his eyes.

“But that is a kindness I cannot rely on now.”

He was alone. He did not even have Baku on his head.

He nodded, opened his eyes, and quickly sat on the dirt floor.

“In other words, I must remind my weak self that I am alone.”

Sitting, he released a relaxed breath.

Suddenly, he realized he was not alone after all.

This realization came from the left side of his chest.

He felt a pain as if someone had jammed their fingers inside his chest.

As he held his breath and trembled with sweat covering his body, he knew he would not be alone.

His gaze turned to the ground.

There were slight differences in height within the dust accumulated where not even the wind could reach.

These were old footprints that he had not made.

“These are…”

He knew who had been here before and the pain in his chest told him the answer.

This was a past he would never be free of as long as he lived.

“Traces of my parents.”

“I see,” muttered Sayama.

…''My parents faced the same riddle as me.

The footprints traveled around the storehouse and then back outside.

He followed them out.

He closed the door and reentered the night.

He was a little short of breath as he stepped out below the starry sky.

“What do I do now?”

He crossed his arms, inhaled the surrounding night air, and felt the pain in his chest weaken.

He had a single problem to consider: the text written on the storehouse’s door.

…''The entrance to the truth is not “here”.

''Then where is it?'' he asked just as he noticed a change.

“The door is opening?”

He turned toward the movement of air behind him and found that the metal door was indeed opening inward.

“?”

He placed a hand inside the storehouse, pulled the door back, and stopped it in the center position.

It wavered but finally stopped.

He took a few steps away and the door engraved with the words “Know that the entrance to the truth is not here…!” stayed in place.

“…”

But then it began to move. It slowly moved back inside the storehouse as if the wind were pushing it.

''Why?'' he wondered.

“Or must I shout ‘Why…!?’ with a door like this? At any rate, what is going on?”

He tilted his head, observed the door, and noticed the trick.

The door was slightly tilted.

It was not really a trick at all. The door was simply made to open inward.

The tilt was weak and it would not make it any more difficult to open the door in the opposite direction.

…''Is it supposed to be a simple automatic door?

Sayama sighed, raised his handheld fluorescent light, and illuminated the inside of the storehouse.

He pointed the light into the darkness and observed the shadow in the center of the floor as he stepped inside.

“The entrance is not here. ‘Here’. As opposed to ‘there’.”

He muttered to himself as he thought and he found some of the dust had gotten wet and become part of the dirt.

''My parents must have done the same thing,'' he thought while crouching down to observe the ground.

''Should I perform a more thorough examination?'' he wondered.

“…”

All of a sudden, the top of his rucksack opened just a bit.

He was leaning forward, so the bag’s contents spilled over his head and forward.

This included a compass, some portable food, a whistle, and…

“Oh, no! The second Shinjou-kun life-size poster!”

That alone he managed to catch before it reached the ground.

He took a breath and lowered the bag to the ground.

He gathered the fallen objects and prepared to place the rolled life-size poster in last.

“…”

But he looked up instead.

…''It can’t be. No…

“It is!”

He cried out and frantically put the rucksack on his back.

“What a… What a simple problem. It was so simple that I was about to lose tears, blood, and other bodily fluids over it.”

He stood, placed the bag’s straps over his shoulders, and hurried to the answer he had reached.

It was not “here”, so he moved “there”.

There being…

“The storehouse’s door!”

He faced the metal door that was opened all the way to the storehouse’s inner wall.

He shined the white fluorescent light on it, but that only revealed the same text as before.

However…

“The opposite of ‘here’ is ‘there’, but the scale of those words depends on the context. They could refer to the near and the far, but ‘there’ could also refer to a conceptually unreachable place or somewhere separated from ‘here’.”

Yes.

“Life-size posters can be hung on the inside of a door because the parents who stand out ‘there’ may open the door to ‘here’ in the child’s room, but they will not close the door behind them. The living people ‘here’ in this world may catch a glimpse of ‘there’ in the afterlife, but they cannot live there themselves.”

As he spoke, Sayama reached for the door and began to close it. And he did so from inside the storehouse.

However, there was nothing on the inside of the door. It was just a door.

…''But that is the way it should be.

“The answer was already written on the other side.”

He closed the door.

However, the door moved forward. It moved outside and beyond the storehouse.

“It is not opening ‘here’. It is opening beyond the divide between ‘here’ and ‘there’.”

He looked past the opening door, but did not find the night.

He found…

“The inside of a storehouse?”

He saw some other space that should not have been there.

After opening the door from inside the storehouse, he saw the inside of a storehouse.

Another one existed there.

It was a square space of less than ten square meters and the dirt floor was elevated to keep water out.

And in the center…

…''A staircase.

He saw the entrance to a staircase leading underground.

The staircase’s ceiling descended along with it, so it formed a sort of tunnel.

The entrance was two meters square, making it the same size as the shadow on the “here” storehouse’s floor.

…''Did my parents reach here?

Pain filled his chest and his breathing grew erratic.

However, strength filled his thoughts and he set foot into the “there” storehouse.

He glanced behind himself and frowned at what he saw.

“The night.”

He had been in the storehouse, but he was now outside.

He was surrounded by the moonlit yard and the abandoned house.

The world around him was unchanged. Only the inside of the door had changed.

He nodded and turned his back on that unchanged world.

“Here I go.”

He mouthed someone’s name and stepped forward.

He made his way toward the past and the dark depths of the earth.

A dark road sloped upward.

The left side was lined with homes and the right side was a cement-covered slope.

The road was new and it had a sidewalk, but it did not have many streetlights. The slope surrounded by houses and cement was lit by both the streetlights and the light escaping the houses.

Stars filled the sky, so the people had already returned home and the houses were filled with light.

Someone walked through those manned lights and those unmanned lights.

It was Shinjou on the sidewalk. The bag on her back bounced up and down as she climbed the slope.

…''I need to hurry.

The old woman at the church had given her the orphanage’s address and that address was at the dead-end at the top of this hill.

The cement-covered slope filled the right side, so the orphanage would be on the left.

It was currently 6:30 PM and the bullet train back to Tokyo left at 9:18. She wanted to leave Sakai by 8:30.

“Can I finish this in only two hours?”

No.

“I will finish it!”

This was not for the people who had helped her. She simply wanted to find the answer and tell those people she had done it.

So she hurried.

A variety of information reached her from the houses she passed: the sounds from a TV, a crying child, a knife chopping something on a chopping board, something frying in oil, the smell of cooking fish, and the strong smell of curry and meat.

These were all household things she had not experienced, but…

“What will I find?”

If she did find information on Shinjou Yukio…

“Will I find that I might have experienced things like that at one point?”

Her question filled the air.

Hearing that question to herself, she extended her body and took in a breath.

“…!”

She began to dash.

She ran.

The top of the cement slope on the right came into view. It seemed the top of the hill was flat. There was a park surrounded by trees there, perhaps for the residential area on the left.

However, the park was dark. There were no lights inside.

…''Why is it so dark?

She remembered what Kazami had said on the way to the Seto Inland Sea that summer. The Great Kansai Earthquake had caused a large-scale fault which had cut off the power supply to some regions.

And the orphanage she was heading to did not have a phone line.

She tried not to grow suspicious and continued running.

Her footsteps echoed off of the happy houses and the concrete slope.

That echo vanished from the slope first because it ended at the top of the hill.

She looked to the park on the right as she ran by and she saw a cul-de-sac of trees and a gate ahead on the road.

There were three houses left before reaching the old gate.

Noticing the gate was open, she took in a hopeful breath and picked up her speed.

She had only two houses to run past now.

She took another breath while swinging her arms and moving forward. She practically threw her body forward.

There was only one house left to pass now and it was completely dark.

She passed the old, empty house and reached the gate.

She stopped, exhaled, bent forward, and exhaled again with her hands on her knees.

“…”

A moment later, she took in a deep breath and looked up.

The open metal gate had a white plastic nameplate on it.

It said Soukou House.

That was the name she had been given, but she did not find a building beyond the gate.

“Eh?”

She only saw the broken edge of a cliff and the city’s lights.

She saw the evidence of people’s lives filling the expanse of darkness below the cliff.

The specks of light from houses and streetlights dotted the vast darkness beyond the gate. They showed where the roads were and where the residential areas were.

The orphanage that should have been there was not.

In its place, she found the gap of a cliff and the lights of the city at the bottom of the hill she had run up.

She looked beyond those lights and saw a massive black expanse.

It was the Seto Inland Sea.

She saw more light in the distance beyond that darkness, but that was likely the light of Shikoku.

The light people sent into the night began directly below and continued into the great distance.

However, Shinjou belatedly spoke the name of what should have been here instead.

“Where’s the orphanage?”

Her voice was weak and her gaze dropped to her feet.

The ground ended after dropping about a meter past the open gate.

Below that, she saw darkness.

There was nothing there.

No, there was something at the bottom of the night’s darkness.

“The remains of the collapse that took the orphanage.”

The remains of a collapse covered an area three hundred meters long and about as wide.

It spread out in a fan shape starting from where she stood and it continued down to the city below.

“Tertiary…damages?”

Her lips spoke what she was afraid to even think in her heart.

“After giving up being a church and focusing on being an orphanage, there must have been a collapse from tertiary damages.”

The orphanage that should have sat beyond the gate was gone.

“Are the building and all the documents at the bottom of the collapse?”

As soon as she spoke those words, she found her vision dropping.

Her knees gave out and she fell to her butt.

“…”

She did not even have the willpower to complain.

She sat on her skirt on the cold asphalt. She lowered her hands as if clawing at the asphalt, but she did not even feel the pain in her nails.

“No…”

With her upper body supported by the bag on her back, she spoke toward the great empty space before her.

“It can’t be…”

There was nothing there.

She had assumed she would eventually find the answer if she continued searching. After all, Shinjou Yukio had been in Sakai.

She had pursued the woman, she had overcome a number of difficulties, and she had finally reached this place. However…

“It’s not here?” she muttered while facing the remaining entrance and the night sky beyond it.

She shook her head and forced an expression she thought was a smile.

“It can’t be.”

Her voice was cheerful.

“This is just a joke, right?”

She laughed and beat the asphalt with her right hand as if she found this funny.

However, the action only tore at the asphalt with her nails.

It changed nothing.

After the span of five breaths, she lowered her head and spoke from beyond her lowered bangs.

“It can’t be…”

She breathed in.

“It can’t be!”

Her shoulders suddenly began to tremble in anger and she placed her fingers on the asphalt.

“This isn’t right! I chased after her and hunted her down and I thought I would find the answer here…but now you’re telling me there is no answer!?”

She breathed in.

“That can’t be…”

She let out an extended shout and began to cry.

She wailed into the night sky. She leaned back, opened her mouth toward the heavens, and raised a voice of protest.

But she was beyond that empty house, so there was no one to hear her cry.

So she cried and cried with no one to interrupt her.

“No…”

She slammed her palm against the asphalt and clawed at it as if to fight this outcome.

“No… Why isn’t it here?”

She thought of someone important to her and wondered why he was not here.

…''Liar.

“You said you would be by my side when I cried!”

As soon as she shouted, something enveloped her from behind.

It was light.

The light was nearly scarlet and it brightly illuminated her.

She almost felt struck by the light and she drew back in surprise.

However, she used her surprise to bring strength to her body, wipe away her tears, and look back.

The light came from the park’s entrance.

The gate at the entrance was open and the arch above it held a sign.

“Soukou House?”

That was the name on the sign.

“…!?”

She looked past the gate.

It did not lead to the dark remains of a collapse and the city beyond.

She saw the park ground illuminated by the scarlet light and…

“A new white building.”

The building had a square roof measuring thirty meters across and a single triangular black bell tower.

Also, a middle-aged woman in white stood at the building’s entrance.

“Oh? What’s the matter? Why are you sitting out there?”

“Ah…” said Shinjou while trying to stand.

As she did, she heard a song.

The slightly muffled sounds of an organ reached her through the building’s walls.

She then heard children singing.

“Silent Night.”

“Yes, we are practicing for Christmas. If something is troubling you…”

Shinjou heard the woman’s smiling voice mixed with the song.

“Why not tell me all about it?”

<noinclude>
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| Forward to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Afterword|Afterword]]
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</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 18

2026-10-17T03:33:25Z

N-Ch:

==Chapter 18: Something Important to Me==
[[Image:OnC_v10_0471.png|thumb]]
''Try looking straight at it

''You will no longer be able to see it

Water could be heard in the darkness.

The flowing water was falling. It fell from high up in the air and crashed into the rocky area down below.

It was a waterfall.

The moonlight was obstructed by the rocks, so it did not reach the waterfall. The moonlight did illuminate the stony basin and a sign in the nearby rest area gave the waterfall’s name: Hossawa Falls.

This was deep in Hinohara, west of Akigawa and one mountain south of Okutama.

Geographically, it was part of the Akigawa Mountains directly south of Okutama and the waterfall in those mountains continued dumping water despite the darkness.

A single color moved within that darkness and the background noise of the falling water.

That color was white.

That color which opposed the darkness stood up within the rest area next to the waterfall.

It was a girl in a white coat that had the name Chao sewn on the inside.

“Honestly, why are you running so far away, Yonkichi? That’s just pathetic.”

“I have no excuse, ges.”

The second voice came from below the falling water.

Someone was inside the waterfall’s basin.

Only Yonkichi’s upper body was exposed.

That upper body was missing its left arm and the darkness left only a wavering shadow visible as the water poured on top of him.

“I am washing away the pain, ges. The breath of nature in this clear stream will heal the dragon’s wound, ges.”

“You really are the same as 7th’s people. You raise your natural healing by ‘washing the wound’ and ‘not showing the wound’. It’s like possessing your own disinfectant or healing charms. …They used hot springs and open-air baths for their exhaustion just like us, though.”

“In that case, Low-Gear is not much different, ges. Our version is simply stronger, ges.”

Yonkichi collapsed within the basin and Chao heard him kicking his feet in the water.

“I had dyed my hair to stand out from my brothers, but it looks like that will end soon too, ges.”

“Don’t push yourself, you idiot. If you had messed up just a little, you would’ve lost your entire body, right? Soak in the pure water and get healed. …Anyway, how were those kids?”

It was not the man in the waterfall basin who responded.

A male voice came from behind her.

“I will go tonight.”

''Is that Mitsuaki?'' she thought as she turned around.

She frowned at the old man in a white coat standing within arm’s reach of her.

“You shouldn’t stand behind a lady.”

“Are you sure you have not let your guard down, Lady Chao?”

“Pretty sure, yeah.”

She raised her right hand to show off the green scroll in her slender fingers.

Mitsuaki frantically checked his pockets and realized what he was looking for was not there.

As if showing off, she spun the stolen scroll in her hand.

When she raised her right arm, the quickly rotating green tube wrapped around her arm like a living creature.

As she waved her arm, the scroll moved from her right shoulder, spun around her neck, and rotated all the way to the end of her left arm.

The sound of rustling cloth and the sound of her catching the scroll in her left hand filled the darkness.

“The environmental manipulation concept weapon ‘Cosmos Comic – #1’. It was originally meant to stabilize the environments of the reservations, but it was so powerful that it was made into a weapon and then sealed. …Do you remember who made it?”

“Sayama Asagi.”

“Yes. He made Ikkou’s Azure Dragon Sword too, I believe. …Are you going back to Team Leviathan with that?”

“Yes. We have yet to settle things with them. However, we are giving some thought as to who we choose to fight. Kazami-sama and the others are almost entirely out of the fight.”

After a pause, Mitsuaki continued.

“Even so, we will not hold back. We will make sure they all join the fight.”

Chao threw the scroll back to him with a snap of her fingers.

He opened the left side of his white coat and the spinning scroll fell right into the inner pocket.

Chao then frowned at what he had said.

“I don’t approve of bullying the weak. Kazami’s probably been crying this entire time.”

“Lady Chao, do you remember Kazami-sama’s first battle?”

“Her first battle?”

“Yes.” Mitsuaki smiled. “A single normal person ended up inside the concept space and the main forces of 6th and 10th were headed her way. It was Izumo-sama…and us who rushed out to save her.”

“Oh, right. That did happen.”

“She could have run away. As a normal person, 6th and 10th would not have viewed her as an enemy. …But Sibyl-sama was also on the truck transporting G-Sp and X-Wi. Amid the fierce fighting, Kazami-sama hid Sibyl-sama in a safe place and then rejoined Izumo-sama on the battlefield. There, she helped him restrain the prototype Vritra that 6th had activated in an attempt to self-destruct,” explained Mitsuaki. “And yet when we originally rushed to the scene, we had thought there was no saving her.”

“So why did she lose so easily this time when she’s trained so much since then?”

“That is the real question. All I can say is that there is a difference between who she used to be and who she is now.”

He turned his back and faced the darkness.

“This is far from entertaining. The girl we once underestimated and who made us rethink our opinion of her is now perfectly in line with our original underestimation of her. …How very boring.”

He began to walk and a voice reached him from the waterfall basin.

“Brother Mitsuaki.”

“What is it, Yonkichi?”

“Will I ever see you again, ges?”

“You know that as well as I do. …And one other thing.”

On the fifth step, just as he was about to vanish into the dark forest, he stopped.

Wondering what this was about, Chao watched him as he spoke without turning around.

“As #37 on his list of things to do before disappearing, Brother Ikkou pissed from the top of this waterfall while humming.”

“I-I can’t believe him, ges!!”

Chao could only laugh bitterly as she heard the man kicking in the water.

Mitsuaki vanished into the darkness and she looked up into the sky.

However…

“All I can see is the ceiling.”

She was in the rest area, so she only saw the inside of the cement roof.

After a self-deprecating laugh, she limply sat in the seat made from a cut log.

“Lady Chao?”

“Don’t worry about it, Yonkichi. I played with Mitsuaki’s scroll, remember? That was enough to wear me out a little.”

She raised her right hand and used her body to hide it from the waterfall basin behind her.

Her fingers were trembling ever so slightly.

…''Pathetic. My lifespan is just about at its limit, too.

“Hey, Yonkichi,” she called out. “We’re all acting without restraint now, aren’t we? …Or were we too restrained until now?”

“What are you trying to say, ges?”

Her self-deprecating smile changed to a bitter one.

…''There’s no way I can tell you what I’m trying to say if you ask like that.

The bitter smile grew.

“Something you wouldn’t understand, Yonkichi. If only I had given your brain some of your Great Sage’s power.”

“…”

She thought about the past. She thought about when she had created them in 7th-Gear so very long ago.

It had been fun, but she had never thought about it ending like this.

She had thought she had known and understood it would, but…

…''Can I say I was young and stupid as an excuse?

“Yonkichi, you might be the most like me.”

“…”

“Your injury has mostly closed up, hasn’t it? So go to the place you will find most entertaining.”

“No, it hasn’t closed up yet.”

“What happened to the ‘ges’?”

“I-it hasn’t closed up yet, ges. I need to rest a little while longer, ges.”

“I see,” she said with a nod.

She gently rotated her body atop the log seat.

Her moving gaze looked outside the rest area.

All she saw was the dark night, but…

…''Everyone is watching this darkness right now. Even if they don’t realize it, they are enveloped by it.

“What are you doing and what will you do?”

…''Ikkou, Nijun, Mitsuaki, and Yonkichi.

Those thoughts in her heart did not form words, but she spoke something else aloud.

“Shinjou, Kazami, Hiba, Sayama, and the others.”

The sky had turned black, but the starlight was bright enough to cast shadows on the ground and create areas that were darker than others.

One of those darker areas was an eastern slope near Mount Kumotori, Tokyo’s tallest peak.

A large area of land had been created by digging down into the slope and the remains of the slope cast a large shadow on that land.

However, a single light existed inside that large shadow.

A small fluorescent light came from within the abandoned house at the bottom of the shadows.

It was an old Japanese-style house with an earthen-walled storehouse to the northeast.

The roof had a hole and the sun had faded the house’s wood until it was gray.

The sliding door for the southeastern entrance had fallen to the ground to rot, but the faded nameplate said “Kinugasa”.

Through the entrance were a dirt floor and a hand-pump for drinking water to the left.

The house had three rooms: the living room with a sunken fireplace, the parlor with a broken floor, and the bedroom. The rooms were divided by sliding screens that had yellowed with age and sliding doors that had lost their paper.

All of the rooms were faded, but color was beginning to fill the living room.

A white fluorescent light on the floor illuminated the flesh color and other colors printed on a piece of paper.

It was a poster.

A voice spoke in front of the poster.

“Heh heh heh. There is no need to restrain yourself any longer, Shinjou-kun.”

A boy spoke and hummed to himself as he hung up the large B2 poster on one of the living room’s sliding screens.

His suit coat lay over his shoulder and the name Sayama was stitched inside the collar.

He was in the process of hanging the fourth poster.

The poster he spread in his arms depicted a girl in a beige dress. She stood below the summer sun and she must have been spinning in the wind because her long black hair gently danced behind her.

Seeing the smile on the girl’s face, Sayama gave a deep nod.

[[Image:OnC_v10_0481.jpg|thumb]]

“That is Shinjou-kun for you. You could almost forget what a dreary room this is.”

He held the poster up horizontally and attempted to peek up Shinjou’s skirt.

“No, I suppose that would not work. But leave it to Shinjou-kun to make me try. …Is this what you call an enchantress?”

He thumbtacked this poster next to the school uniform, pajamas, and swimsuit ones he had already hung along the wall.

…''Magnificent.

However, he spotted something. His eyes stopped on the corner of the poster he had just hung up.

“Oh, no. The corner is bent by five millimeters! And after I went to so much trouble to make sure not to bend them. …Such a shame. I must give myself a fierce objection. I must ask for an apology. I am sorry! …Good. But what would Shinjou-kun think if I told her I had bent the corner of a poster made from a secret photograph of her?”

He sighed, brought a hand to his forehead, and envisioned her scolding him.

After exactly a minute, his vision came to an end.

“Being scolded is delightful as well. …Should I have her strike me too!?”

Hearing his voice ring throughout the house, he came back to his senses.

“Hm.”

He crossed his arms in front of the four posters and tilted his head as he questioned himself.

“I am not sure what to say. I seem a little out of control today. Have I always been like this or is it a symptom of my Shinjou-kun withdrawal? No… I drank that miraculous powdered Eround Tea earlier, so it could not be the latter. In that case…”

…''Is it those drugs from last night?

Ryouko had given them to him, but why had he taken them himself?

“It had to have been to protect Shinjou-kun from myself as I tried to give them to her.”

…''I see. So this excitement comes from those drugs.

''You cannot fight a drug, so I have no choice but to continue like this,'' he concluded.

He then recalled his job.

“Oh, no. I completely forgot. …I need to put up the life-size poster.”

He unrolled the poster to reveal a nude Shinjou with back turned and a large public bath in the background.

He looked at her face as she tried to decide which washing station to use.

“The instructions say your mother will not notice it if you hang it on the back of your door, but that is meaningless since this is for my own personal use.”

For the time being, he hung it on the sliding screen leading to the next room.

“Good,” he muttered before opening the sliding screen.

The next room had originally had a tatami mat floor, but that floor was gone.

It had fallen away, leaving a large hole.

“This room is no different from before.”

This was an abandoned house.

Sayama looked down at the collapsed and darkened tatami mats below the floor and he looked up.

He saw the dark sky through the hole in the ceiling.

He had checked under the floor when he had entered the house. He had hoped to find some trace of his parents, but he had found nothing.

He had concluded that the house was a completely normal building.

''But that is strange,'' he thought. If this was Kinugasa’s house…

…''Where did he do his research?

The documents Roger Sully had given him said what his father had called the Kinugasa Document had been found in Kinugasa’s residence.

As Sayama looked around the place, he suddenly turned to the yard.

Beyond the missing sliding door, he saw the white storehouse to the northeast.

“That thing is sturdily built.”

So if there was a study or lab here…

…''It would be in the storehouse.

He had yet to set foot inside there. He had been planning to do so after preparing for the night.

“I have to hurry.”

He nodded and returned to the room. He sat while looking at the line of Shinjous hanging on the sliding screens.

“That leaves one last thing to prepare.”

He unrolled a blue sleeping bag on the floor and placed something next to it.

“A Shinjou-kun body pillow cover. Not even the Buddha himself would have thought to place this on his sleeping bag.”

He quickly placed the pillow cover on the sleeping bag and spread it out.

This created an image of Shinjou in her pajamas that had actual volume to it.

“Splendid.”

He gave a few impressed laughs, but soon began to tremble.

He let out a gasp and brought a hand to his forehead.

“But now I cannot hug her while inside the sleeping bag! This is what you call a structural flaw! The best word to express this situation is ‘careless’!”

…''Oh, god.

He unrolled another poster sitting behind him and revealed an image of Shinjou looking angry.

He thought to himself as he viewed that expression.

…''Shinjou-kun truly would be this angry if she knew of my carelessness.

''I must be more reliable. Is there no way of solving this problem?

He thought and slapped his knee when he finally found an answer.

“I only need to turn it inside out and put it inside.”

He politely thanked the angry poster and set it aside.

He removed the cover from the sleeping bag and turned it inside out, so Shinjou was on the inside of the bag-like cover.

Nodding, he placed the cover inside the sleeping bag.

He glanced toward the storehouse outside.

“Perhaps I should test it out before entering the storehouse.”

With a dignified nod, he removed his shoes and excitedly stuck his feet inside the sleeping bag.

He stuck his hands inside, drew his head inside, grabbed the zipper in his teeth, and pulled it closed.

The top opening of the cover had sunk down, so he pulled it up and closed it to form a cloth log.

He was now fully inside from head to toe.

He breathed a sigh of relief, but then…

“Oh, no. It is too dark to see Shinjou-kun! This is what you call a situational flaw! The best English word to express this situation is ‘goddamn’!”

He tried to get out, but he was so perfectly wrapped up that the cloth worm only squirmed and bent.

Also, the movement twisted the cover tightly around him.

“Nwah! Y-you’re squeezing me, Shinjou-kun!? And so roughly. Ahh! But this is also quite entertaining!”

In an abandoned house in the starry mountain night, a blue sleeping bag writhed in the brightness of a small fluorescent light. Grunts came from the sleeping bag and it fiercely arched upward, but it simply would not come off.

“Calm down. Calm down, me! If you do not escape this enjoyable hell, you will become a pervert. And it will interfere with the investigation!”

The stuffed sleeping bag hopped up with its back muscles and forcefully stood. It then stretched its back, struck a pose with its chest proudly thrown forward, and briefly shrank down in preparation for a leap.

A moment later, the dark blue sleeping bag jumped straight up.

“Toh!”

And…

“The force of landing should make it easier to remo-…”

His feet landed on the angry Shinjou poster and slipped.

He fell.

The action created a perfect half arc backward.

The log-like sleeping bag forcefully rotated and the back of the head crashed between two floorboards.

A dull sound came from the sleeping bag that had been physically unable to prepare for the landing.

But the voice that escaped it was not a grunt or a groan.

“Heh.”

As soon as that breath leaked from the sleeping bag, the floorboards beneath the head broke and the broken portion sank down like a seesaw.

The sleeping bag writhed as it slid down the tilted floorboards.

“Ahhh, Shinjou-kun! I am falling! I really am falling? Continue just like this!”

The shouting sleeping bag vanished into the darkness below the floor.

Nothing remained and silence fell.

As if that silence was its cue, hooting began in the nearby forest.

It came from an owl.

The hooting continued as something crawled out from below the edge of the abandoned house.

It was Sayama.

“I still have work to do, but I ended up playing quite intensely.”

He stood and brushed the dust from his hands, knees, and shoulders.

He reached to the living room floor, grabbed his shoes, his rucksack, and a few other items.

“Now that I have had a break, it is time to get down to business.”

He put the rucksack on his back, held the handheld fluorescent light in one hand, and expressionlessly turned around.

He now faced the storehouse.

It almost seemed to be waiting for him as it was illuminated by the pale moonlight.

Sayama left the house and observed the white moonlit storehouse.

It was about four meters tall and he estimated it was a little less than ten square meters inside.

Its white walls had crumbled in places to reveal the straw and earth inside.

“If Professor Kinugasa had a study, it must be in here.”

He began to walk and observed the large yard as he approached.

Gravel was laid out in front of the house to keep the undergrowth away, but there was nothing else save the camellia trees placed on the other side as a windbreak. Sayama guessed there had originally been a garden, but he did not bother confirming that now.

He approached the storehouse.

He also double-checked that the surrounding mountains were the same as in the photograph Moira 1st had given him.

“The storehouse’s entrance is…”

He found it.

The gravel path starting at the house’s back entrance led to a rectangular entrance on the south.

The entrance sat open and the metal door opened inward.

Sayama saw a dimly-lit space inside.

…''If the door is open, does that mean the inside has been exposed to the elements?

The situation was definitely worse than when his parents had come.

He knew there was no point in rushing now, but he still quickened his pace toward the entrance.

A single footstep sounded as he unhesitatingly set foot inside.

“?”

There was nothing there.

“…?”

Nothing at all. He only saw…

…''The dirt floor and white walls of a storehouse?

He swallowed words of disbelief and looked around the inside.

However, he truly did not find anything except for damp air.

He illuminated each surface with the fluorescent light in his hand, but he found nothing but filth on the ceiling, walls, and dirt floor.

“…”

Whoever had made it must not have wanted water getting in because the floor was built high and thick grooves had been dug along each wall and leading to the entrance.

The farther from the entrance, the more dust was piled up on the floor.

But that was all.

Sayama frowned at the fact that there was nothing here.

However, his expression suddenly changed.

“I do not believe it.”

He frowned, narrowed his eyes, and looked around the room.

“…”

That was when he noticed something.

He had found something one would not notice at a glance and would seem like an optical illusion if one stared.

A large square shadow existed in the center of the storehouse, but it was much paler than a normal shadow.

“It is two square meters, but what is it?”

He reached the answer almost immediately.

…''Is something being concealed with a concept?

This was not optical camouflage using colors. This was conceptual camouflage.

What was here?

He looked around again and noticed some words.

There was a message inside the storehouse.

It was engraved on the inward-closing metal door.

Words had been carved into the metal surface.

“To he who comes here.”

Sayama carefully read the engraved words aloud.

“Know that the entrance to the truth is not here…!”

Sayama gulped and expressed his surprised thoughts.

“He even engraved the final ‘…!’! Kinugasa Tenkyou knew what he was doing…!”

<noinclude>
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| Back to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 17|Chapter 17]]
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| Forward to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 19|Chapter 19]]
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</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 17

2026-10-17T03:30:06Z

N-Ch:

==Chapter 17: Reason for Agreement==
[[Image:OnC_v10_0453.png|thumb]]
''One two three

''Even if you can count out the time

''You still cannot hear your own bell

The sky above was bright and filled with a white light.

Below that sky was a structure of white sand.

It was a castle. The building was a square with sides exceeding several hundred meters and it stood twenty stories above ground.

Its sand was fixed in place and it sucked water in from underground, stored it like a sponge, and wet the surrounding gardens and land.

A kilometer long road extended from the front of the castle. The brick-paved road had manmade rivers running along either side. Something that emitted light swam through the gently-streaming rivers and wings of shadow flew through the white sky.

Shimmering heat rose from the road between the rivers.

A single gaze walked through that shimmering and toward the castle.

The gaze was situated high, but it barely moved up and down as it walked.

Clothes of wrapped white cloth were visible below the gaze.

The arms sticking out of those clothes were thick and the right hand held a spear. The spear was at least three meters long.

The walking gaze approached the castle without speaking a word. However, a sudden voice reached it from the right.

“Brother!”

The voice came from the shade of a tree on the side of the manmade river.

The gaze turned toward it.

A woman wrapped in orange cloth stood below the tree.

The gaze stopped and waited as she smiled and ran over.

“Shahrnavaz, should the future queen really be out here? Hm?”

“What about you, brother? Why doesn’t 9th-Gear’s general have anyone accompanying him?”

“That’s fine. That’s fine, Shahrnavaz. I have the power to move an army. If I don’t do my best to hide that fact in everyday life, the politicians will get scared. Isn’t that right?”

“But the people in the palace are complaining about that. They say the current general is unreliable.”

“Ha ha,” the owner of the gaze laughed and showed off his teeth in a smile. “Unreliable? Yeah, that’s probably true. After all, I haven’t shown them how reliable I can be. Talks have begun with 3rd about a joint attack on Low-Gear now that they’re causing a little trouble, but the palace has not seen that yet. …Incidentally, traveling to all these different Gears feels like the pilgrimage I took as a child. Yes.”

“C’mon. Can’t you worry about him a little bit and show off for everyone? The rumor in the palace is that you didn’t give him any kind of bodyguard because you have no intention of protecting him.”

“Is there any need to protect him? Hm? Sarv is the king and he is even more powerful than me.”

“I’m not so sure.”

“Shahrnavaz, you are supposed to say ‘of course he is’. Or do you want to be burned at the stake? Hm?”

Shahrnavaz smiled bitterly at that.

She then slowly looked behind the owner of the gaze.

The owner of the gaze also looked back.

The road and rivers were cut off by a stairway.

The land below the stairway was filled with buildings.

It was a city. The houses and other buildings were made of sand and they formed complex rows. Countless dark trees with white leaves were growing among them. The long reflections of light within the city were rivers.

The expanse of the city filled their vision to the left and right and it continued all the way to the horizon.

White smoke was rising here and there within the city and the vehicles people rode reflected the light of the sky.

All of that continued far into the blurry corners of the city.

However, a single form was visible beyond it all.

It looked like a wall at the end of it all.

Something far wider and longer than the vast city sat atop the horizon. More than walling off a side of the city, it seemed to wall off a side of the entire world.

The owner of the gaze spoke the name of that being that resembled a dark shadow.

“It took millennia to build the world dragon Zahhak. Once it absorbs the concepts of the other Gears, it will become the great world-changing dragon that fills this world with all the other concepts.”

“Yes, Sarv resumed development after it was abandoned over a thousand years ago. That is our world’s project. It is currently sitting at standby with half of this Gear’s concepts inside. However, it seems trouble with developing the brain is going to make autonomous function impossible. It can manage simple environmental circulation, though.”

“That is enough. If we no longer need to worry about water, 9th can develop even further.”

“Yes,” agreed Shahrnavaz. “He looked at what 9th-Gear did in the past and predicted that the remnants of the other Gears would continue to attack this world even after those other Gears were destroyed. For example, what happens if 5th’s mechanical dragons regain their memories? Right now, he is working to stop the palace from attacking 10th using an underground force in 10th. He says we should attack Low-Gear first.”

“He wants to rid them of their defiant spirit with a crushing defeat and to solve the mystery of Low-Gear, doesn’t he?”

“Yes. That mystery that has long been spoken of that lowest Gear.”

The owner of the gaze nodded at his sister’s words.

“If you gather records on that lowest Gear, you will occasionally find some odd reports. Sometimes when a location there is reused as a battlefield, the previous destruction of the location’s string vibrations will have vanished. That opens the possibility of Low-Gear healing string vibration damage.”

“I do not know what it means either, but Sarv says he wants to speak with you in private because he has a theory about it. He says we are facing great possibility and great destruction.”

“Great possibility and great destruction?” he repeated.

Shahrnavaz nodded and looked him in the eye.

“I do not know what he meant, but he also said Zahhak would help gather everything in the name of righteousness. And he said he needs your help.”

“Hm.”

The owner of the gaze clearly did not understand, so Shahrnavaz smiled. She took a step back, leaned forward, and looked up at her thinking brother.

“Well, once you and Sarv return from Low-Gear, Zahhak’s brain should be complete. Then the palace won’t be able to complain. …Sarv’s been having a tough time. He said going to Low-Gear and searching for that ‘possibility and destruction’ would let him avoid speaking with the palace.”

“I see. Then I need to bring him back safely. Yes. …For that and for your official marriage.”

“Oh, my,” said Shahrnavaz with a smile.

She turned back toward the gaze but then looked to the city.

“I would like peace for a wedding gift. You all will probably be destroying a lot of Gears from here on, but promise me you will take in those Gears and bring about peace and understanding in the end.”

“Didn’t I tell you that fighting is my job? Hm? And once the fighting is over…”

“You will retire and go somewhere to disappear, right? If he heard that, I’m sure he would stop you.”

“This way is fine. If I stayed, the people would expect me to take an important position and take part in politics. However, Sarv is my only king. …After all, he is the man who did not lose when he fought me in the duel between royal representative and military representative. That’s a world of difference from those politicians who weaseled out of it by calling it an outdated tradition.”

“He may not have lost, but he didn’t win either.”

“He did win.”

The owner of the gaze looked away from his sister and into the white sky.

“When you stopped the duel, you stood in my way. The sister of the greatest military family protected the man with the greatest royal position. I only have the greatest military position, so I can’t beat that. Isn’t that right? Hm?”

He took a breath.

“Once we return from our trip to Low-Gear, the people will recognize the strength in Sarv that only I have seen. And if that continues, the people will eventually realize he is exactly the sort of person who should make me his subordinate.”

Hearing that, she spread her arms forward.

“I hope you’re right. He said you were the only one he could not defeat, but men like to talk big. …I hope you can imagine what it is like to be the one waiting for your return. So please return safely. If you don’t, who knows what the palace will start saying.”

“I will return safely and I will make sure he does as well.”

The owner of the gaze spoke to her and to the city she almost seemed to be embracing.

“I promise you as the general of 9th-Gear. I promise you for the peace of all Gears. But…what is this secret truth of Low-Gear that Sarv wants to talk about?”

“I don’t know, but I think it is important. So go hear him out. After all, I am his only ally in the palace. Go save him. Go save my hero.”

“Your hero, hm? That’s what you called him when you stood in my way, wasn’t it?”

“I am glad you gave in during that duel. That is what brought the military and the throne together.”

The brother narrowed his eyes at his sister’s words and he stared into the vast city filled with people.

“So this world is ruled by a hero. But if he is a hero, then what am I? Hm?”

His sister laughed at his question.

“Good question,” she began. “I will tell you when you return from Low-Gear. If you protect my hero and bring him back…”

Her words vanished into the sky.

“Then what ''will'' you be in my eyes?”

Below the dull sky of early evening was a gray factory.

It was located at the entrance to the Takao Mountains, the trees around it were beginning to grow red or yellow, and the pale sunlight of early evening poured down on and seemed to surround the trees and factory.

A clearing had been dug down behind the factory.

A color there reflected the sunlight.

That color was silver.

The reflective silver came from the sword swinging through the air near the center of the clearing.

The sword was wielded by a girl with long hair. She was sweating despite the late autumn chill and she repeatedly stepped forward and sliced through the air at tremendous speed.

At first, her lips had moved to count each time she stepped forward and struck, but the numbers had vanished once she exceeded three digits and only the action remained.

The racing silver line in the center of the clearing was always the same.

The girl moved.

Those movements remained steady even as her surroundings changed.

As the sun began to set, the direction of the reflected sunlight shifted.

That light had rotated around the embankment surrounding the clearing.

A man slept on that illuminated grassy embankment.

It was an elderly Arab man in a white coat.

The reflected light caressing his face finally reached his eyes.

“…?”

He frowned and opened his one eye.

When he looked into the sky, he gasped, almost as if the sky before his eyes was an unfamiliar sight.

But after a short pause…

“…Hm.”

He stood up, did not bother to brush the grass from his back, and slowly faced forward where the producer of the silver light continued moving without rest.

“Mikoku.”

After his call, the light shook.

It continued moving despite the disturbance.

“What is it, father? I am trying to focus for tonight.”

“Is Shino not with you?”

“Shino…went to the Tamiya house. She thinks I have not noticed.”

Her tone was weak and she continued even though Hajji said nothing.

“Part of me thinks this is for the best. We will be separated eventually, so maybe it is best if that separation begins now.”

“I see.” Hajji nodded, crossed his arms, and thought for a moment. “Where are Tatsumi and Jord?”

“Are you changing the subject?”

He smiled bitterly. He brought a hand to his mouth and showed the smile only in his eyes.

“I am. Yes, I am, Mikoku. I was following your lead since this practice is meant to point your heart away from dark feelings.”

“I am simply rethinking my inexperience from last night. It was that inexperience that prevented my sword from so much as reaching ‘Betrayed Expectations’ Jord.”

“Not true.”

Hajji sensed her confused gaze, so he gave a firm nod.

“Her concept provides a special kind of defense. Yes. None of your attacks will affect her unless you see through that trick. Training is not enough. You must change the way you think.”

“Are you saying even I could defeat her if I changed the way I think?”

“Yes.”

“Then,” said Mikoku. “My mind is inexperienced. And I can still say this training is for tonight.”

“Are you sure it isn’t for Shino?”

She did not answer.

She only continued sending the silver light around, so Hajji shrugged.

Soon, she spoke again.

“As I already said, Shino went to the Tamiya family. And she thinks I have not noticed.”

Her tone seemed to be testing him to see what he would say in response.

And so he gave his response.

“I see.”

That was all.

Mikoku reacted by relaxing her shoulders a little even as she swung the blade. Her mouth opened a bit.

“But I suppose that is for the best.”

“What is?”

“Shino will be alone eventually, so it is best if she leaves us now and learns how to enjoy herself on her own.”

“I see,” said Hajji again with a hand over his mouth. “And you are willing to make her hate you to ensure that? Hm?”

Mikoku did not immediately reply. After a pause, she closed her eyes.

“That is fine.”

She opened her eyes immediately afterward and began on a new topic entirely.

“Jord is asleep to prepare for tonight, but why is she fighting?”

“Oh, that’s simple. Yes. I do enjoy talking, so I guess I’ll tell you.”

He removed his hand from his mouth and looked up into the sky.

“She was originally part of 10th-Gear’s royal family and she has lived since the Concept War era. With that said, let me ask you something, Mikoku. Do you know why she would use concept weapons modeled after Low-Gear weapons?”

“You mean it isn’t just because they suit her?”

“She is a 10th-Gear royal, so she would normally use 10th’s weapons.”

“Oh.”

Hajji stood up and brushed off the grass on his butt.

“She chooses this world’s weapons because she wants to harm this world with its own weapons. …She is ‘Betrayed Expectations’ Jord. She lost her husband during the Concept War and the result of the fighting betrayed her every expectation, but weapons do not betray your expectations. Yes.”

He looked up to the thin clouds remaining in the evening sky.

He knew very well why Jord was fighting.

…''This world is hopelessly insufficient compared to the Gears we lived in.

It lacked knowledge, technology, power, land, nature, and so much more.

And so very much had been corrupted.

“In 10th-Gear, spirits lived in the air, so air without spirits feels like a vacuum to a 10th resident. On top of that, the vacuum is filled with all of the exhaust built up over this world’s history.”

“Right,” said Mikoku as she swung her sword. “I heard the mother and grandmother of Team Leviathan’s Izumo were from 10th-Gear and that their lives were shortened by Low-Gear’s polluted air.”

“Yes. That is why they rarely leave the reservation. And all of them wonder why they had to come here after surviving 10th-Gear’s destruction.”

Hajji then said something else.

“Jord’s friend married a man of this world during the Concept War.”

“…!”

Hearing that gasp of surprise, he spoke.

“Do not stop your blade, Mikoku.”

“B-but you are talking about the Izumo family’s-…”

“It is a common story, Mikoku. Yes. One thing gods and men have in common is the inability to understand what goes on in others’ hearts.”

''You understand what I mean, don’t you?'' he silently added as Mikoku wordlessly began to move once more.

Her movements were steady and undisturbed.

“Yes, we cannot understand it. That is why Jord does not understand. And she certainly never expected the next person to marry a man from Low-Gear to be…her own daughter.”

“…”

Mikoku gasped again, but her blade remained in motion. Satisfied with that, Hajji turned his back on her.

He placed a hand over his mouth.

“Her friend helped destroy 10th-Gear and married the destroyer. That friend went on to live in this world and die because of it. However, the friend’s husband died as well, so it should have been over.”

He took a step forward and up the grassy embankment.

“But when her own daughter decided to marry that friend’s son, her expectations were betrayed yet again. Yes. Her daughter visited the reservation after having her child, but Jord apparently never again allowed her daughter to see her.”

“And…?”

“And her daughter died just like her friend.”

Hajji finished climbing the embankment while listening to the regular sounds of the sword slicing through the air behind him.

“It seemed her grandson chose to live in this world, so she expected nothing of that boy. He had decided to live in the world that had taken her world, taken her friend, and taken her daughter, so she saw no reason to expect anything of him.”

“Then why is she fighting?”

“Well,” said Hajji as he turned to the right and toward the factory. “Probably because she wants to make sure her world and this world disappointingly betray her expectations.”

“…”

“She wants to send a message by crushing her grandson and the 10th-Gear Concept Core which could be viewed as the world that was stolen from her.”

He took a breath.

“She will be saying that everything they stole from her was below her and thus not what she expected.”

Mikoku replied with only a slight disturbance in her swinging sword.

“You mean she wants to laugh off what she had protected and believed in and view them as disappointments? She wants to say what was stolen from her in the past was not that big a deal?”

“Only Jord can decide how she feels, Mikoku. It is not our place to decide for her. Right?”

As he spoke, he began to walk.

The disturbance was gone from Mikoku’s blade, so he decided he could bring her to battle and she could fight without her feelings influencing her actions.

He could not lose Mikoku, Shino, or the others in the battle that night.

Mikoku had powerful regeneration, but it was not perfect. If the blue philosopher’s stone in her chest was destroyed, she would die.

…''It is powerful, but it almost seems too simple for something made by her.

Hajji thought as he walked along the embankment. That philosopher’s stone was the final one made by Mikoku’s mother.

She had been an expert in philosopher’s stone creation and he did not know the details about that one. If it did have some hidden power, he had been unable to draw it out.

If there was something there, Mikoku herself would likely find it after tonight’s battle.

…''What did I actually accomplish?

''Jord probably wonders the same thing,'' he thought while hiding the bitter smile on his lips.

He then heard Mikoku’s voice from back and to the right as she swung her sword.

“Father, thank you for keeping me company during this busy time.”

“Oh, what’s this, Mikoku? Are you trying to make it rain? Hm?”

“I am never thanking you again!”

He heard her click her tongue and he laughed as he continued walking. ''This is best,'' he thought. ''This is how we usually act.

But her voice reached him again.

“Father.”

“What is it? Hm?”

“Well.” She swung her sword. “Um… You seemed to be having a pleasant dream earlier. Who was it of?”

“Oh.” He scratched his head. “That’s a good question. I forget. It was a dream of an old, old era. After all…”

“After all?”

“That was a dream of a time when I too wanted to be a hero. …That makes it pretty old, doesn’t it?”

Mikoku replied while steadily swinging her blade.

“Then what are you now? Filled with betrayed expectations?”

He replied while looking up into the sky.

“That’s another good question.”

He weakly muttered the words and watched the scarlet sky as he walked.

Finally, he spoke some quiet words into that scarlet-colored sky.

“I will think about that during tonight’s battle, Mikoku.”

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| Back to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 16|Chapter 16]]
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| Forward to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 18|Chapter 18]]
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</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 16

2026-10-16T04:49:03Z

N-Ch:

==Chapter 16: Dry Desire==
[[Image:OnC_v10_0427.png|thumb]]
''To thirst for something

''Is nothing other than the joy of dryness

Beyond the thin clouds, the sun was beginning to set.

At the bottom of a cleared slope in the mountains were a long runway and a white building.

Behind the building was a green space.

The area past the freight elevator could be called a vegetable garden, a flower bed, or a farm.

The separated space continued up onto the slope and it contained flowers, trees, and other plants. The words “colorful” and “multi-purpose” perfectly described it.

Four individuals stood near the plants growing in a vegetable garden.

Two had human forms and two were plant creatures walking alongside the other two.

One of the human forms was a short girl with a small animal on her head. She wore a blue armored uniform and an orange jacket.

The other was tall and wore an armored uniform with a long skirt.

The short one was holding the tall one’s hand in one hand and a basket in the other.

The basket contained picked plants and herbs wrapped in rubber bands.

“Heo, are you using those for the massage as well?”

“No, these are for dinner tonight. Do you like fried chicken, Mikage?”

“Yes. I like the skinny ones.”

''Does she mean the legs?'' wondered Heo.

She then glanced down at the piece of paper inside the basket.

It had some notes written in English shorthand.

…''I’ve asked about UCAT’s blank period all around here.

After Diana had left for some kind of work, Heo had wandered around UCAT.

It was partially to familiarize herself with the facility and partially to take a walk with Mikage. On the way, she had spoken with people close to Team Leviathan or the people around those people.

…''For example, I got some information from Development Department Director Tsukuyomi.

*Her husband died in the secondary damages of the Great Kansai Earthquake.

*For some reason, Nagata Tatsumi has a Cowling Sword made by her husband.

Even after being told that, Heo had said nothing about the Cowling Sword she had seen in her dream.

…''Until Sayama makes a decision, it would be best not to take any careless actions.

That was her decision.

She had more notes based on the other people she had asked about UCAT’s blank period.

*I’m interested, but I don’t know anything about it since I joined after the blank period. → 28 people.

*I assume some kind of unspeakable scandal happened. → 11 people.

*Maybe the Army knows something about it. → 3 people.

*I’m interested…in you, Heo-kun. → Turned him down.

*I assume some kind of unspeakable scandal happened…and I assume it was caused by UCAT Director Ooshiro. → I kind of agree.

*Oh, thanks for coming. Come on in and I’ll give you some candy. Yes, yes. Just step inside for a little bit. → Contacted the authorities.

A lot of the information was probably useless, but she could decide which that was if she focused.

To sum it all up…

“Everyone is interested in the blank period.”

“I wonder why,” said Mikage. “It has nothing to do with the people here now.”

Heo casually nodded, but a question came to her.

…''The past shouldn’t have anything to do with Team Leviathan either.

The team was limited to the present, so why did they need the past?

“That’s a good question. Why is everyone so interested in a past that shouldn’t have anything to do with them?”

She tilted her head, but no answer came to her.

They began to walk and the two plant creatures followed. They were helping to lower her fever from her exhaustion and injuries, but they were not expelling much air anymore.

“Feeling good?” asked one.

She was almost fully healed.

…''And so is Mikage.

Mikage was still not steady on her feet and she would occasionally come to a stop as they walked.

Whenever that happened, Heo would turn around to find her looking at some flowers or a face-shaped stone someone had laid out as a decoration.

…''Is this what it would be like to have a little sister?

Heo thought that was a little rude as she walked with Mikage and the plant creatures.

This was not her first time to walk through this place, but it was her first time to use it for herself. Also, before Diana had left for some business in the city, she had said Heo could plant something here too.

What would she plant here?

Unable to find an answer, she asked Mikage.

“Mikage, what would you plant here if you could?”

“I would grow Ryuuji-kun. …He’s always saying he wishes he was taller or smarter. He’s especially insistent that we would be in equilibrium if he was taller.”

She looked to one corner of the slope.

“That would probably be a good spot.”

“P-please don’t get me involved in a crime. And I think burying a person is a bad idea for a number of reasons.”

Heo felt a tug on her hand and saw Mikage had stopped walking.

The girl looked to a narrow, deep hole to the right. Heo read the sign to the side of the hole.

“For Ooshiro only. (Keep your chin up)”

“Keep your chin up? So stay positive?”

“L-let’s not think too much about that. U-um, the next herb is…”

Heo looked forward and saw Diana’s flower bed.

“What did she plant?”

She looked down in interest and found a few plants with long leaves. The sign said “If you’re going to pull them up, use a dog”, but Heo did her best to ignore it.

…''That’s just a joke. She’s joking.

She stopped the plant creatures from trying to pull up the plants and she sighed.

Mikage patted her shoulder from the side.

“Heo, taking everything so seriously will only wear you out.”

“Yes. I don’t think I’m quite used to this place yet.

“Ryuuji-kun said letting it influence you feels good. He happily said he was soaking in it.”

“Oh, I see.”

Heo reached a strange understanding and straightened up to refresh her mood.

Suddenly, Mikage’s hands reached to her sides from behind.

She gave a ticklish shriek and strength filled Mikage’s hands.

“Heo, you’re bending your back.”

“Oh, thank you very much.”

Mikage nodded but still seemed dissatisfied with Heo’s posture because she corrected a slight bend.

While bending Heo to the left and right and back again, Mikage asked a question.

“Did you know your grandfather’s father?”

“Eh? Oh. No, I didn’t know my grandfather’s fath-… I didn’t know him all that well.”

“I didn’t know my mother very well either. Ryuuji-kun saw her in Baku’s past, but I’ve only seen a photo. …Even so, I’m glad I saw the photo. She was smiling.”

She paused for a moment.

“But seeing her move would have been even better. Ryuuji-kun told me about what he saw, though. He says she was beautiful and noble…and that her panties were white.”

“D-do I lose if I question that? I do, don’t I?”

“Heo, you can’t rush this. You’ll eventually be able to win.”

''What does that mean?'' wondered Heo with a calming sigh.

Mikage removed her hands from Heo’s sides and placed them on her shoulders instead. She resumed moving her back and forth.

“Ryuuji-kun’s grandmother said his grandfather was friends with your grandfather’s father. She said they would always lend each other magazines of naked girls and she would hit them with a metal bar.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, but you know what? Ryuuji-kun’s grandparents won’t say anything about his father. Did your grandfather’s father ever till you about your parents?”

Heo gasped at that question.

She had been asked exactly what she wanted to know.

And so she answered.

“No.”

She tried to say “but I want to look into it”, but Mikage spoke before she could.

“I want to look into it.”

Heo reflexively turned toward Mikage.

Mikage stopped speaking with her arms slightly raised. She looked at Heo with a frown.

“Do you want to as well?”

Heo realized she had tensed up and that she was giving a flustered expression. ''I can’t do that,'' she scolded herself. ''All she did was say what I wanted to say.

…''I’m acting like those words belong to me.

She was certain Mikage had to have been thinking the same thing for some time.

“Sorry, Heo. Did I steal your words?”

“No, it’s fine. Whoever says it first gets to say it.”

She frantically shook her hands back and forth. She tried to smile brightly, but Mikage gave an even better smile.

“But Baku controls the past and he chose you, not the person who said it first. Just like American UCAT began pursuing you first, but it was Harakawa who got you. And…sorry, Heo. I might know about your father.”

“Eh?”

“Yes. I’ve been sleeping somewhere in UCAT for a long time. From about sixty years ago to about ten years ago. I only woke up on the night of the Great Kansai Earthquake.”

“…”

“Ryuuji-kun’s father took me and left me with Ryuuji-kun. He told him to look after me but ‘if you’re a man, don’t do anything sexual to her until she grows up’.”

“Sounds like his father was a lot like him.”

“Yes. But I was asleep, so I don’t actually remember it. Also…”

“Also?”

“Miki is in the Army. Ryuuji-kun’s father apparently found her at the earthquake site before he died. She was with us when I woke up.”

It took Heo several seconds to realize who Miki was.

Once she did, she gulped.

“You mean Nagata Tatsumi, don’t you? I heard she is an important member of the Army. …So you used to know her?”

“Yes, but it makes me wonder. She might have had some connection to Ryuuji-kun’s parents. This might be a coincidence, but…”

Mikage looked Heo in the eye.

“Nagata is Ryuuji-kun’s mother’s maiden name.”

“Eh?”

“I think it’s just a coincidence,” said Mikage before falling silent.

However, there was likely more to what she had said.

What would it mean if there was a connection? To find out…

…''We need to look to the past.

They were learning more about their grandparents and Heo’s great-grandfather. Sayama’s investigation may have had him following his parents’ footsteps, but the house belonged to a leader of his grandfather’s generation.

On the other hand, they had almost no information on their parents’ generation.

…''What happened then?

She knew the Great Kansai Earthquake had happened, but the past she had seen that morning had shown a battle in an empty Osaka that was likely a concept space.

The adults who would know what had happened – including Diana – were refusing to speak.

…''Why?

Why were they so tightlipped about that battle?

She thought they would talk about it if they had not done anything wrong, but she did not want to think Diana and the others had done something wrong.

…''Which is it?

She wanted to know.

Knowing could put her parents, Diana, and the others in the wrong, but she still wanted to know.

“You want to know, don’t you?”

Heo spoke aloud as if asking herself.

“That way you can face what happened without avoiding the truth.”

She reached for Baku on her head, hoping he would show her the past.

However, he parted her hair and sank down as if hiding.

His little paws reached below her hair and tickled her scalp.

“Uhya hya!!”

Her shoulders stiffened and she frantically swallowed her shout.

That was when a small form stood from beyond the rice growing to her left.

It was an old woman in white. It seemed she had been looking after the flowers on the other side.

She turned toward the building in preparation to return and she gave a quick bow toward Heo and Mikage.

''What a beautiful person,'' thought Heo. She was aged, but her expression was perfectly clear and void of needless strength. That fact delayed Heo’s realization that the woman had dark middle eastern skin.

Heo frantically bowed back.

“H-hello.”

The woman’s expression froze when she heard that. A hint of tension and surprise could be seen on her face.

“Maria?”

That female name put that same expression on Heo’s face.

The plant creature at her feet expelled gas as if converting her emotion.

However, the old woman gave a bitter smile of sudden realization.

“Sorry. Your voice reminded me of someone I used to know.”

Heo was about to say she did not mind, but she found herself saying something else.

“You knew my mother, didn’t you?”

“Your mother?”

“Yes…I mean, testament. My mother’s name was Maria Thunderson, my father was James Thunderson, and I am their daughter, Heo Thunderson.”

The old woman responded by circling the rice plants and approaching. She repeated an “oh” sound of surprise and joy again and again and she finally reached a hand out toward Heo.

[[Image:OnC_v10_0441.jpg|thumb]]

“Their daughter is-…”

She tried to touch Heo.

But there was sudden motion behind Heo.

Mikage quickly moved in front of her.

She took a forceful step forward to move the old woman away.

Heo watched and listened as the other girl spoke clearly in front of her.

“No. And sorry. But Heo named herself and I will name myself. …I am Hiba Mikage. According to Ryuuji-kun, I am the best in his eyes.”

“U-um, Mikage? I don’t think you need to be so cautious about her.”

“I do. You do not know this place as well as I do and Harakawa would be unhappy if something happened to you. So I will protect you. …Like I wasn’t able to this morning.”

Strength filled Mikage’s back with those last words.

Seeing the girl acting to protect her, Heo realized she had been wrong earlier.

…''How could I think of her like a little sister?

Mikage had much more resolve. Heo placed her hands around the hand hanging by Mikage’s side. She then faced the old woman.

“Um, sorry, but you heard her.”

“Yes. And, Heo. I need to protect you because your chest has yet to evolve.”

“W-was that comment really necessary?”

The old woman laughed.

“Ho ho. Such good friends. But this is simply amazing. To think I would meet a Thunderson child and a member of the Hiba family. Not to mention hearing the name Harakawa after so long.”

Still smiling, she bowed.

“I am not a member of UCAT. I am simply borrowing a place to live here. Ho ho. I am Arnavaz Mesam. Field Operations Director Abram Mesam is my husband and my Fereydun.”

“Ah,” said Heo in slight surprise.

She knew of the field operations director. He would sometimes show up during training. He was a large man who had looked dangerous to Heo.

…''But he’s married to someone like this.

''What a rude thing to think,'' she scolded herself. To change her train of thought, she asked about one thing Arnavaz had said.

“Arnava- Lady Arnavaz? Um, what do you mean by Fereydun?”

“It means hero. Abram was a hero in our country. He traveled the path of medicine, saved people, and…yes, he is my Fereydun.”

Heo realized something while looking the old woman directly in the eye.

She realized why the woman had mistaken her for her mother.

The woman was blind.

And as soon as she noticed that, something moved atop her head.

It was Baku.

He raised his front legs as if greeting Arnavaz.

Mikage stood on parched land.

…''?

She had been in a vegetable garden and the sky had been cloudy, but she was now on a vast stretch of parched land and the sky was a clear blue as far as the eye could see.

She looked around and saw a few people wearing different colors of cloth.

Beyond them was a large structure with a square roof and dry color.

The wall around the structure had crumbled in places.

The trees inside the wall had few leaves and not much grew in the large yard visible through the entrance.

The building itself had partially crumbled.

There were quite a few cracks in the sun-covered southern wall.

There did not seem to be anyone inside.

The people standing in front of the withered and dying building were all women.

They wore blue, brown, or yellow cloth that covered everything but their faces.

They stood motionless below the sun which was almost directly overhead.

All they did was stare out into the dry field.

They seemed to be waiting for something to arrive.

''What are they waiting for?'' wondered Mikage as she looked behind her.

That was when she realized she only existed as her senses of sight and vision.

…''Oh.

Baku was showing her the past.

She looked down at her hands but found nothing. She only had a faint sense of their existence, much like when inside Susamikado.

Behind her, she found sand dunes.

It was an ocean of sand covered in dry hills.

After observing the scenery, she turned her vision back around.

“…?”

She realized she stood in a position lower than the dunes or the building.

She looked at her feet and found cracks running through the parched ground.

…''Was there water here?

She did not fully understand, but she grasped that the building was so dry because the water that should have been here was not.

Without water, one grew thirsty, so she wondered if the people were trying to move elsewhere.

…''It must be tough.

With that thought, she approached the women.

She tried to walk and her vision moved.

Interestingly enough, she moved faster than her legs normally carried her.

“If only I could always move like this.”

While moving at an ideal pace and speed, she looked to the people standing before the building.

She realized her previous prediction had been correct.

The people had gathered clothing and other luggage at their feet so they could move out.

However, one of them had no luggage at her feet.

The woman standing in the center wore white, hid her face with a hood, and simply clasped her hands in front of her waist.

An older woman in red spoke from her right.

Mikage could not understand the words, but their meaning reached her.

“Lady Arnavaz, you won’t be coming with us?”

''Arnavaz?'' wondered Mikage with a mental tilt of the head. ''This woman completely hidden by white cloth is Arnavaz?

“…”

She peered into the hood, but she could only see the woman’s nose and mouth.

''She has a beautiful face,'' she thought.

The woman in red closed her eyes a little while facing Arnavaz.

“I sent a message about today’s closing of the Sahan house, but there was no response. That man learned medicine at the city’s university as the prince of the Mesam family and he is called a hero for the people he has saved, but he has abandoned you for fifteen years since promising to marry you.”

The woman took a breath and faced the dry and empty building behind her.

“And I had hoped he would save the Sahan family.”

“This is fine, Shahina.”

Mikage heard Arnavaz’s voice and saw the white hood shake slightly.

“The people of the desert are the people of the sand. We live like the scorching heat of day and we die like the calm chill of night. This just means Sahan has reached the night. He is known as a hero, so telling him to marry the blind princess of a house nearing the night must sound like telling him to lose his light and go to sleep.”

She spoke quietly.

“The marriage proposal was made by my late father and he merely accepted. It would be wrong to expect anything of-…”

“Come with us, Lady Arnavaz.”

Arnavaz was cut off by Shahina, the woman in red.

“We cannot live as we have, but we should be able to rely on your connections as head of the family. That man, Abram, has apparently cast aside his position as heir to the Mesam family, so an engagement from fifteen years ago is no longer valid.”

“Are you asking me to use convenient words to throw out my honor as a bride?”

“Clinging to that honor will not bring him here! You even gave us all of your belongings as a severance payment, so…”

“A blind woman does not need colorful clothing. I have been so spoiled that I do not know how to cook, so I do not need the furniture either. And I cannot live alone, so I do not even need money.”

Arnavaz raised both hands.

The cloth fell back to reveal her white hands which held something.

Mikage circled in front of her to see what she held in each hand.

Her left hand held a faded letter on the verge of falling apart.

And the right held…

“Your family’s sword? Lady Arnavaz!?”

“When this letter from him arrived fifteen years ago, time stopped for me. My brothers died in war to the west, so I inherited this blade upon my father’s death two years ago. Now, it is the key to restarting my time.”

She looked up and Mikage saw her face.

…''Such a beautiful face.

''But a scary one,'' she thought.

In this dream, Arnavaz was still young, but her expression had a slight downward bend and a hint of shaking tension.

…''You need to take it easy.

However, the words would not reach the past even if she spoke them aloud.

Arnavaz spoke with her unseeing eyes turned toward the sky.

“A contract in the left hand and a blade in the right. God will surely inspire the daughter of Sahan with a song. Inspire her to advance through Sahan’s night and face the morning.”

She lowered her head and hid the short sword and letter inside her clothes.

“I was a weak child and everyone thought I would be the first to die, yet I have outlived them all. I can do nothing, so why did I outlive my brothers who went to school and found their own places in the world? If there is a reason, it would have to be for this blade.”

“Lady Arnavaz.”

“Now, go. You have left this house, but I will never leave Sahan. I am the final Sahan. But it is your duty to bring prosperity to other lands just like the water that left Sahan’s land.”

She took a breath.

“I am all that remains of the Sahan family. My darkness is now mine alone.”

As her words rang through the air, Shahina closed her eyes.

After a while, the other women closed their eyes as well.

They slowly bowed their heads toward Arnavaz.

Soon, they all produced a slight wind. It was the wind of turning their backs on and walking away from Arnavaz and the mansion.

The final wind, the red wind of Shahina, paused to turn back.

“Lady Arnavaz, I pray that god blesses you and you meet that man.”

Mikage could not tell if Arnavaz nodded or not.

Her vision quickly grew dark and she fell into darkness.

However, she had a thought.

…''She’s the same.

Mikage was a survivor of 3rd-Gear. Her parents were gone and she had survived by abandoning 3rd.

However, Mikage had never thought the things Arnavaz had.

…''Because the people around me are so nice.

Another thought occurred to her.

Despite this past, Arnavaz was living a different life now.

She had reason enough to turn that sword on Abram, yet she was living with him and smiling as she tended to the flowers.

…''Why?

Mikage then remembered what Sayama had said.

“Search for your own past.”

What did that mean? Did she have a past like that?

What if she did?

“…”

''I want to know about it,'' she thought. ''I might be able to change like Arnavaz.

Arnavaz had grown kind even as she carried this past with her.

So if Mikage learned of her past, would she grow kind too?

And if so…

“Would I actually be able to say something if I saw Kazami crying again?”

She carved in her heart the desire to search for the past.

And as she repeated that desire to deepen the carving, she woke from the past.

“…”

Heo opened her eyes and found the evening vegetable garden.

She saw Arnavaz in front of her, the shadows of the vegetables, the forest, and the evening sky.

A faint wind blew as Arnavaz narrowed her eyes in a smile.

“I just felt like I had a dream of a familiar voice.”

“Y-yes. That was from Baku and it was your past. I’m sorry, but we saw it too.”

Arnavaz shook her head.

“That is an important thing that really did happen. It is not something to hide.”

“You’re not like Ryuuji-kun. He says the important parts are best when slightly hidden.”

“M-Mikage, I think he was talking about something else.”

Mikage tilted her head and Heo began to panic because she did not know how to explain it.

However, she was interrupted by footsteps running from the white building behind her.

“Eh?”

She turned toward the person running over.

“Ooki-sensei?”

“Yes!” said Ooki just before tripping and falling over what grew from Diana’s flower bed.

The buried object came half from the ground and the leaves wrapped around her leg for some reason.

“Oww. What kind of plant is this? I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Ahhh, Ooki-sensei! You aren’t supposed to pull it out!!”

Ooki only tilted her head, so Heo removed the plant from her hand and reburied it. She thought she saw something like a human face, but she ignored it and patted down the dirt with the provided spade.

“So what is it, Ooki-sensei?”

“Oh, r-r-r-right! It’s an emergency, Heo-san! You need to listen.”

“What is it?”

Heo was worried and the answer she received made her gulp.

“Are you listening?”

After trying to calm her down, Ooki gave the answer.

“Harakawa-kun’s mother has collapsed!”

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| Back to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 15|Chapter 15]]
| Return to [[Owari no Chronicle|Main Page]]
| Forward to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 17|Chapter 17]]
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</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 15

2026-10-16T04:40:22Z

N-Ch:

==Chapter 15: A Place with a Voice==
[[Image:OnC_v10_0397.png|thumb]]
''You can make it, you can make it, you can make it''

''What do you call the idea

''That you can make it because you have broken

A dark space had a stepped floor and thick bookcases.

It was the Kinugasa Library.

The library was filled with students. They were checking out reference material to help prepare for the school festival. Most of them were using encyclopedias, dictionaries, or maps, but a lot were checking out novels while they were at it.

The crowd was centered on the bookcases and people who had just arrived or were checking out moved between them.

The tables were being used by people using materials that could not be checked out or…

“People who are chatting. Heh heh. Doing something other than festival preparations is its own kind of joy.”

Brunhild spoke at the lowest point at the center of the stepped floor.

Sitting across from her were Hiba in a track suit and…

“Harakawa? Why are you carrying a chainsaw?”

“Because you dragged me here before I could put it down, art club president. Plus, it’s a jigsaw, not a chainsaw.”

Harakawa placed the jigsaw on its side on the table.

“I’ll be blunt. I’m not interested in this.”

He crossed his arms.

“We lost once already. We were injured and injured him. I never had much of an obligation to the Leviathan Road, so I’d like to withdraw from this one.”

“For the sake of that dragon girl?”

“For my own sake. I’m supporting my own livelihood, so my own safety is the most important thing for me to keep living.”

“Fine, we can leave it at that. …And stay here, Harakawa. If you’re supporting your livelihood, it means you’re only here cutting lumber because you have nothing better to do. So how about you put that time to better use?”

Brunhild waved her left hand and placed it on the table.

They were surrounded by the sounds of footsteps, rustling school uniforms, and flipping pages. There were a lot of sounds, but they were all quiet and Brunhild’s finger tapping on a book joined them.

“This is one of the books on legends that Professor Kinugasa put together. There are a lot of dragons in 7th-Gear’s Chinese mythology, but not many stories include four dragons. I found it almost right away, but those four brothers are…”

“The four dragon brothers that protect the four cardinal directions in Chinese mythology?”

“Stealing my line is a serious crime, Hiba Ryuuji. Go buy me some coffee later.”

The bird on her head chirped and she nodded.

“And some bird food.”

“Th-that’s your duty, Schild-san!”

“Stop fighting it, criminal. And be quiet in the library. …But even if what you did was wrong, what you said was not. Chao may have created those four brothers as an homage to the four dragons. …And now they are our enemy.”

“Your enemy maybe,” said Harakawa. “But not mine.”

“Who was it that tore off Yonkichi’s arm? If it wasn’t you, then go tell Heo Thunderson that she was the one to tear off his left arm since it apparently wasn’t your doing.”

After that, Brunhild looked down a little and expressionlessly opened the book.

“But this does not give much information. It only shows the patterns of the four dragons’ names. One of those gives their names as Goukou, Goujun, Goumei, and Goukitsu in Japanese. The ‘gou’ refers to a long period of time. However, if you remove that because so much time has yet to pass and you replace it with a number indicating the order of creation, you get their names.”

“What good does that do? Are you going to tell their fortune using their names?”

“Knowing your opponent’s identity is the best way of understanding them and no longer fearing them. Even a terrorist becomes nothing more than a target to be attacked once you know their name, right?”

Harakawa raised his eyebrows a little, but Brunhild ignored him and lightly tapped the opened book again.

“It seems none of them have attacked Shinjou. Izumo and Kazami were defeated by the eldest and third brother while we dealt with the youngest, so maybe the second brother went to Sayama.”

“In that case, I wouldn’t want to be Sayama-san right now.”

“I wouldn’t want to be him ever. And we should celebrate this. His presence means we only have to deal with three of them.”

“I am not dealing with any of them,” said Harakawa.

Brunhild looked up and smiled.

“Who ever said you would be? Don’t be stupid. I only told you to stay there. If you don’t want to look too pathetic, second year, then just sit there quietly.”

Harakawa clicked his tongue and rested his feet on the table.

Brunhild frowned.

“Are you trying to point the soles of your shoes at me?”

“You aren’t going to scold me for putting my feet on the table?”

“I do that in my dorm room…and I make sure to point the soles toward the world outside the window. I’m on an entirely different level from you.”

“Oh, how moving. …Now, tell me this, art club president. Do you have a chance of winning?”

He asked in a challenging tone, but Brunhild calmly answered.

“We do.”

Harakawa watched and listened.

The girl in front of him was expressionlessly speaking about the coming battle.

“We have a way to fight, but you all are the ones who will do the fighting. They aren’t even thinking about me. So let me tell you one thing: First and foremost, you had better make up for my
injury.”

“Your honesty is refreshing. So what’s next?”

Brunhild nodded.

“They have a number of concept weapons and fixed concepts, which are concepts they can activate in the space around them. You remember that, don’t you? We don’t know what Nijun’s is, but we don’t need to worry about it since Sayama will handle him.”

“L-let’s worry about it a little, Schild-san.”

“Then go follow Sayama into the Okutama mountains. Unfortunately, this world only rewards concern if you show it in your actions.”

At that point, a tall old man in a vest walked over while carrying a stack of returned books.

“Nein, do not forget the many people that are concerned for you.”

“I haven’t, Siegfried. I have simply decided not to worry about Team Leviathan. Even if you do, they will do what they are going to do without even noticing. …That’s why giving them a nice kick in the rear when they fail is more effective than worrying.”

Harakawa saw the librarian’s shoulders shaking in bitter laughter.

“Do you know what that ‘nice kick in the rear’ is usually called, Nein?”

“If you say it’s ‘cheering them on’, I’ll grab your arm and claim you abused me. After all, saying that is akin to mental abuse. Now, a proper answer would be to call it instigating them.”

Brunhild turned a sulky look toward Harakawa.

“You don’t actually know why Sayama had Team Leviathan temporarily disband, do you? But I have a hunch. Kazami and Izumo should realize it before long too.”

“Kazami-san will find out why? …And she’ll return to the fight?”

“The silly girl was crying, wasn’t she? That’s her punishment for getting carried away. But punishments always have an end. If she wants to fight when that time comes, she will come to understand what Sayama meant,” said Brunhild. “And to prepare for that, we need to gather information on those four brothers and work out as much of a battle plan as we can.”

“Then show us your strategy, art club president.”

''We’re finally getting to the main point,'' thought Harakawa.

“The fixed concept that took out Heo and me was ‘the world is reversed for an instant’. It most likely takes all attacks, direct or projectile, and returns them to the attacker by swapping positions. Plus, the switch only lasts an instant. Even if you try to attack yourself…”

“If Yonkichi does not use his fixed concept, you will hit yourself, right?”

Brunhild looked up at Siegfried.

“How long are you going to stand there watching us?”

“Until my legs start moving.”

“That side of you is exactly like my sister.”

She looked annoyed and shrugged.

“Listen,” she said to Hiba and Harakawa. “Imagine that reversing concept is in effect now.”

“Eh? S-so if I grope my own chest, I would be groping your- I’m sorry! I won’t say any more! And please don’t give me that pitying look, Siegfried-san! Do not change the channel.”

“No, Hiba boy. I was not giving you a pitying look. I was realizing how much like your grandfather you are.”

“Th-that’s the same thing. And how are we anything alike!?”

Everyone ignored him.

Brunhild turned to Harakawa and he looked straight back.

“What if I punched you?”

“The fixed concept would make you punch yourself.”

“And if I punched myself?”

“I would immediately remove the fixed concept and you would punch yourself.”

He just about said there was no winning, but she swung her right hand.

A piece of paper flew through the air. It contained a word meaning “sever”. And…

“There are two of them: one for my neck and one for yours. …What about this?”

Brunhild saw Harakawa’s eyebrows rise and Hiba gulp.

“If I activate both papers at once, I can sever your head whether you swap our positions or not. There is no escape.”

“Wait, wait. Are you planning to commit sui-…”

Before he could add “cide”, he wrinkled his brow and said something else.

“Thunder Fellow or Susamikado wouldn’t be decapitated by that.”

“Right. Yonkichi lost his arm when Thunder Fellow charged in because the mechanical dragon is tougher than him. You just need to hit him and yourself with an attack you can survive but he can’t. Got it? Our enemy is not invincible. And just as we found where his name comes from,” she said. “There are likely other methods as well. And methods for the other brothers. Also, you all need to reach the same place as Kazami. You need to be asking why Team Leviathan needs to disband when you were working so well together.”

Harakawa and Hiba remained silent.

However, Hiba crossed his arms like Harakawa was doing and finally formed a bitter smile.

“This is kind of strange. Team Leviathan has disbanded, yet here we are discussing how to fight for the Leviathan Road.”

“Oh? But it’s because you have disbanded that you can include an inspector like me in your discussion about fighting another Gear.”

“That’s just the official reasoning. In a way, you’re more suited for Team Leviathan than us, Schild-san.”

“Now that’s just cruel. It sounds like you’re bragging about being chosen.”

“We weren’t chosen.”

“Then let me put it this way: You managed to reach that position. Meanwhile, I can only call out to you from the opposite shore. Sayama has gone on ahead while Kazami has fallen behind because she is so busy shouting and crying that you all need to go together. However, those of you that have fallen behind still don’t understand what that means. You don’t understand the meaning behind Team Leviathan’s existence.”

“The meaning behind its existence? You mean it isn’t to complete the Leviathan Road?”

“Exactly. But…”

She paused and leaned forward a little.

“You have been doing well, but all that fell apart just because you were ordered to disband. You have great strength, but you lost. Why do you think that is? …What does Team Leviathan need to do well no matter what happens?”

“Well…”

“You don’t know, do you? Silent second year, you’re not saying anything because you don’t know, aren’t you? On the other hand, Kazami fought back because she didn’t want to know. …But that means she does know.”

Brunhild took a breath, leaned back in her chair, and gave a self-deprecating smile.

“So watch Kazami. She’s a possible scenario for your own future. If you watch her, you will either see her give up or continue on. And if you all will decide to continue on, then help put together a plan that lets Kazami go ahead as an example for you.”

“You aren’t going to fight, Schild-san?”

“Of course not. Fighting is a pain in the butt and getting all of you moving is exhausting enough. Now, let’s put together what information we have on the other brothers.”

She sat up in her chair and smiled, but a large hand was placed on her head.

It was the hand Siegfried was not using to hold the books.

“That is a good decision, Nein. But you told one lie.”

He rubbed her hair and walked away as he finished speaking.

“Place your dominant hand on the table and show it to them. It’s wrapped in a bandage, isn’t it? That is more than enough reason not to fight. There is no need to hide it.”

Her cheeks grew red and she tried to turn back toward him, but he had already removed his hand and left.

She groaned as she settled back in her seat and Hiba muttered a few words toward the floor.

“Everyone has someone they can never beat, don’t they?”

A paper with the word “stab” written on it stabbed into Hiba’s forehead.

The cloudy sky cleared out to the west and the sunlight broke through.

The light hit a broad, shallow slope filled with pale yellow.

The yellow was susuki grass.

Short susuki grass with drooping heads covered the entire area.

The susuki grass field was surrounded by forest and the trees kept out most of the wind.

The broad slope contained one color other than yellow.

It was the bluish black of a suit.

That suit was worn by Sayama as he parted the chest-high susuki grass.

“It should be somewhere around here.”

Approximately twelve hours had passed since he had entered the mountains. With his rucksack on his back and a short machete in hand, he had reached a certain ridge.

His hair was a little disheveled and his shoes were dirty. He had worked up a sweat, so the cheeks of his slender face somewhat drooped.

However, his eyes were filled with strength.

…''I am glaring.

He was aware of it.

“It is because I am starved for Shinjou-kun.”

''I need to bear with it,'' he told himself as he pulled a handheld digital recorder from his pocket.

“N-no, Sayama-kun! Not here!”

…''Yes, even Shinjou-kun agrees.

“In other words, this is not the place. I must go elsewhere.”

He looked around, but only forest surrounded the slope. He could see nothing else.

He did see the sun above the forest, but…

“It will set in another three hours. I must plan for the worst case and find a campsite before then.”

He had already entered an area of the mountains he had never visited before. Unless he was returning the way he had come, moving at night would be too dangerous.

Even after traveling so far, he had not run across Nijun, but he was certain the man was pursuing him.

''Just in case, a safe campsite would be best,'' he decided.

The mountain past the southwestern forest was Mount Kumotori. He could see the forest covering its peak and the path leading to it.

His current position had an altitude of around one thousand nine hundred meters.

The sun hit the slope now because it was on the western side of the mountain, but the autumn’s west wind would blow through once evening arrived. The sun warmed it now, but it would be better to circle to the eastern side to spend the night.

With a possible attack from Nijun, it would be best to choose a spot with a good view.

…''In that case, I should choose somewhere near the top of the eastern slope.

Settling on that, he began to speak.

“Shinjou-kun.”

He realized he naturally began by calling her name.

''This is not good,'' he thought as he walked.

He climbed the susuki grass slope with a self-deprecating smile.

“When we are reunited, I will tell you the path my parents once took was a sunny autumn slope.”

Would she be impressed? Would she be so moved that she began to strip?

“No, that is only a delusion brought on by my Shinjou-kun withdrawal.”

''Calm down,'' he thought. ''Just now, she told me to go elsewhere, so I must bear with it for now. I truly heard that voice. It was no illusion.

''So I need to stop conveniently imagining things,'' he added.

''And it is a crime to make her conveniently lewd in my delusions,'' he told himself.

…''But if that happens in person, it will show mutual understanding.

He nodded and stood on the ridge atop the slope. He placed his hands around his mouth and shouted to the other mountain.

“In person truly is best!”

“In person truly is best.”

…''Oh! Nature is showing its understanding. Viva the mountains!

Satisfied, he looked down the shadowy slope to find a spot perfect for a camp.

“…”

He found one. And it already had a house.

Only about three meters down, someone had dug deep into the slope.

That created a wide area of flat land. That thirty square meters used gravel to isolate itself from the susuki grass and an old tile roof rose up to just below Sayama’s feet.

…''Is this it?

The house below seemed to have three twelve-square-meter rooms and an earthen-walled storehouse to the north.

Several of the faded roof tiles were missing and the roof had a hole to the south.

The wooden walls had also baked in the sun and the shaded areas were covered with moss. All of the windows had fallen out, the back entrance’s sliding door had come from its frame, and it lay weathered and broken on the ground.

How long had it been since the place began to rot?

“…”

Sayama pulled a photograph from his pocket. It was the photo of Professor Kinugasa’s house that he had received from Moira 1st below Izumo UCAT. He could not tell the house’s shape from above, but he could check the positions of the surrounding mountains.

“This is it.”

…''Thank you, #8-kun.

He silently thanked the automaton who had calculated out the location.

He placed the document back in his pocket and breathed in.

“This… This is the same air that my parents once breathed.”

That thought brought pain to the left side of his chest. He pressed his right hand against his chest, but even tensing his body could not oppose the distortion within his ribs. He could only frown.

“…”

He stood still for several seconds.

After three or four breaths, he let out a slow, trembling breath and clenched his left fist.

Strength gathered in his eyes and he turned them toward the house below.

He observed the old roof tiles, nodded, and prepared to say “How about I go?”.

“Shinjou-kun.”

But this time he did not reject calling that name. Instead, he rejected something else.

“No, this is not a question.”

He changed his wording.

“I will go, Shinjou-kun. That way I can stand beside the one who desires the past so she can find her parents and who does not fear facing that loss. I will stand beside those who have accepted all that they have lost.”

The wind blew from behind him. This was the west wind of autumn that told him the warmth of the sun would soon vanish.

…''Did this wind wash over my parents as well?

He walked forward to circle around the slope and reach the house.

The wind seemed to push him from behind and the vanishing warmth of the sun seemed to support him.

“I will go. That way I can convince myself I am worthy of leading the others. Just as I asked Kazami and the others, I too must accept that I am suitable for Team Leviathan.”

He walked.

“I too wish to overtake the past, Shinjou-kun.”

Darkness was falling over a city.

It was a sloped city.

Most of the people who lived there worked in the low seaside urban district during the day and returned to the mountainous residential district in the evening.

The people aboard the streetcars, busses, and trains went from wearing school uniforms to suits.

A set of eyes inside a certain building watched that flow of people through the city.

It was a small white building that looked more like a warehouse than a residence.

It contained a tall wooden room with two columns of long wooden benches.

Beyond the benches was a podium, showing that this was a church.

A girl faced the darkening city through one of the windows on the side wall.

She wore an orange jacket and had long black hair.

She was Shinjou.

She lowered her head toward the black phone and table set prepared by the church’s side wall.

In front of the window to the city, she held a pen and memo pad in her hands and the phone receiver between her head and left shoulder.

“I see. So you didn’t find anyone like that? …No, thank you very much. I know I was asking a lot. …Yes, thank them for me as well.”

She gave a small smile.

“Yes, that’s right. If I find my mother, reporting that would be the best thanks of all, wouldn’t it? …Yes, please do if you find anything. I will move on to the next place. Bye.”

She hung up.

She crossed out three of the church names she had copied onto the memo pad.

She sighed and took in another breath.

She faced the white wall and tall window.

The residential district was located at the top of the slope. Further down, she saw the lights of the shopping district and plenty of people walking on the sidewalks.

She looked away from the window and down to the black phone and documents.

The documents were covered in checks from the pen in her hand.

She had been calling churches and orphanages to see if they had any records of a Shinjou Yukio.

All of the checks were X-marks. A circle would mean success, but she had yet to draw one.

She was disappointed, but she had another thought while looking around.

…''It feels so strange to be here.

This was a church.

It was a gathering place that doubled as a local volunteer office.

It was the closest one to the volunteer office at Sakai’s port that she had managed to contact by phone.

An old woman had answered the phone and she had told Shinjou to visit when she had heard the situation.

Shinjou had started running and had arrived at this church after several minutes.

When she had knocked on the white door, an old woman dressed in black had answered the door and asked what she needed.

Shinjou had clearly answered as follows.

“I am looking for the church orphanage that held someone named Shinjou Yukio from the sixties to the seventies. Shinjou Yukio might be my mother, but I’m having trouble because the documents were lost in the earthquake. …Please help me. I have a list of the current orphanages and I thought a church might know which ones are church orphanages. I am not asking for anything more than that.”

“How soon do you need this?”

“Before ten tonight. I need to leave by then.”

“That is quite sudden. Why the rush?”

“A friend was…in an accident, so I need to go help.”

“I see.”

The woman had nodded and pulled a thick book of documents from the office.

It had not contained the name Shinjou Yukio.

The old woman had said she had transferred to this job after the earthquake and that she would help Shinjou while using it as a chance to greet the other churches.

“Please let me see your list. We can divide up the work. You use the phone in the sanctuary and contact the places you can reach that way. I will contact the places on the list I am familiar with and some acquaintances who are well-known in areas not represented on the list. I will get an answer from as many places as I can contact today.”

Shinjou had frowned at the resolve in the woman’s voice.

“Why are you going so far to help me?”

“What a silly question. If you could stay here longer, you would undoubtedly find the answer on your own. The only reason you cannot do that is because you need to go help your friend, so you have done nothing wrong. And not blessing someone who has done nothing wrong would be cruel indeed. Now, leave your list and go. This is a sloped city, so a lot of work awaits you once you find your destination and must run there.”

About five hours had passed since then.

They had split up the list and took hourly breaks for tea and reporting on their progress.

The old woman had accurately contacted orphanages by region while Shinjou went through the list page by page.

The woman was on the final region. She was likely in the back room calling someone with a connection to the city’s port.

Shinjou was steadily working on the list in her hand, but…

“…”

She had just finished checking the entire second-to-last page.

Every single one of them had been dead ends.

If the list on the final page did not turn up anything…

…''What will I do?

She would have to rely on the old woman using the phone in the back room.

“I hope that doesn’t happen.”

She was drawing close to knowing if she could find her past or not.

She was certain that records of Shinjou Yukio existed, but she still did not know if she would find them or not.

She remembered what she had felt at the port.

…''The past is being overwritten by the present.

While wondering if that was true, she looked out the window in front of her.

The sloped city was dyed in the colors of the sunset and there was a gap in the center of the residential district.

That land on the slope received plenty of sun, but it was still empty.

Having walked past it on the way here, Shinjou knew what that gap was.

She had wondered what it was while running by, but she had seen a sign.

“An area of high risk for tertiary damages.”

The earthquake itself caused the primary damage and the fires and such caused by that were the secondary damages. In the Great Kansai Earthquake’s case, the tertiary damages were later collapses caused by land loosened by the earthquake.

That gap was the area where such collapses were likely. Normally, construction would be done to fix the land, but the administrative delays and fear of causing more damages had likely prevented that work from being done.

…''So will that land stay like that forever if it doesn’t collapse?

The land would not recover on its own.

It was a wound on the slope. Not only that, it was a wound that had yet to open but would eventually open.

Even after a decade, the scars of the earthquake remained.

“The past simply vanishes.”

Shinjou looked up suddenly as she realized her mind was too externally focused.

This was no time to be engrossed in the city.

She knew she had to continue calling.

To do so, she adjusted her position in the chair and flipped to the next page.

“Let’s see,” she muttered while revealing that final page.

She looked at what was printed there.

“…Eh?”

That final page contained a list of addresses, but they were all crossed out.

Those lines told her these entries were excluded.

She realized what the final page of addresses was.

…''A list of the orphanages, churches, and volunteer offices that they know are no longer running.

She guessed that the municipal office had only included this page to be considerate. If she had only been given a list of contactable places, she might have searched for further places to contact.

…''So this lets me know not to waste my time on places that are no longer running.

She had simply overlooked its inclusion.

She had flipped through the entire list a few times since receiving it, but she had not actually read through it all.

She had been afraid to check too carefully because she had feared it would give her an answer she did not want.

''Oh, no,'' she thought. ''Why?'' she also thought.

“…”

She stood up from the chair for no real reason.

Several emotions and thoughts filled her mind.

The people outside the window were moving, but she did not see them.

All she saw were the few sheets of paper.

“Um…”

Panicking, she checked through them again.

However, everything but the final list was already checked.

She opened her bag and pulled out her change of clothes, a map, some valuables, her binder, and the envelope from Sayama.

“There’s no more.”

The words escaping her mouth meant two things.

First, there were no more pages to the list.

Second, there were no more places for her to check.

And those two facts led to only one conclusion.

…''There’s nothing more I can do?

It was so sudden.

She had thought there was plenty more she could do, so this felt like a sudden stop.

She was unsure how to react.

“Kh.”

While wondering what to do, she loaded her things back in the cold bag.

She grabbed the change of clothes, the map, and then the binder and envelope.

The binder was black and the envelope white. Her eyes reflected those two colors which contained her thoughts and Sayama’s will.

The contrasting color and the feelings held within brought her back to her senses.

That was when she first realized a certain fact: She was barely breathing.

“Ah.”

When she finally released the air from her lungs, she felt like she was falling.

That was only an illusion. In reality, it was nothing more than her shoulders drooping and the bottom of her gut relaxing.

…''I’m nervous.

She still wondered what to do and something else arrived to replace the tension in her lower abdomen.

It was pain. The pain she always felt at the end of the month quickly grew due to her stress.

She gently twisted her body and grabbed the table to put up with it.

Her lowered eyes fell to the list from the municipal office.

There was nothing more she could do with it, but…

“It isn’t over yet.”

To endure the pain, she inhaled as if crushing the dull pain in her gut.

“This church’s manager is still making calls.”

A moment later, the last door on the opposite wall opened and loud footsteps filled the room.

“How did it go? I just finished.”

The old woman’s voice seemed to drive the words “it’s over” into her back.

Shinjou hesitated.

She wanted to ask what the woman had found and if she had found any records of Shinjou Yukio. After all…

…''I didn’t find anything!

So she turned around. She gathered the documents from the table, held them to her chest, and looked behind her.

The slender old woman stood there in her black dress. The fairly strong eyes below her gray hair looked straight back at her.

“How did it go, Shinjou-san?”

“U-um, well…”

She just about asked the woman how it had gone for her, but…

“I didn’t find anything.”

Her voice turned into a trembling sigh.

''Oh, no,'' she thought. ''Didn’t I prepare for this again and again?

Hadn’t she mentally rehearsed for this possibility countless times?

She was only searching for someone who might not be her mother. She would eventually find an answer and she even had someone helping her find that answer today.

Nevertheless, she held the papers close, took in a breath, tried her best not to cry, and let words spill out in place of tears.

“I-I didn’t find anything. …No matter where I checked, I couldn’t find anything!”

“I see.”

After letting out a trembling breath, she breathed in to replace it.

She coughed once, her entire body trembled, and she breathed in again.

“U-um…”

''Sorry for making you see this,'' she thought.

“That is fine,” said the woman. “This just shows how important this is to you.”

Shinjou could not agree with or deny those words, so she chose to remain silent.

“I also could not find any records of a Shinjou Yukio.”

Those sudden words caused all air to vanish from Shinjou’s throat.

''Eh?'' she thought, but only after another thought.

…''What did she just say?

What did that mean? Had she not checked in the right way? Had she been lied to?

…''No, that can’t be!

''I need to trust her,'' she thought.

She prepared her heart that had grown empty with surprise and she spoke quietly.

“Does that mean…Shinjou Yukio was not in Sakai?”

“I do not know that. However…”

The woman smiled.

“There was one blessing.”

“A blessing?”

“Yes,” she replied.

Shinjou did not know what she meant. She had been told there were no records of Shinjou Yukio and yet she had been told there was a blessing.

“Someone who used to run our diocese told me of a church orphanage that moved after the earthquake. However, it welcomed in a great number of people as it did so and gave up being a church. It became a normal orphanage.”

“You mean…!?”

Her heart instantly flared up like a fire.

A question burst from her like heat from the flames.

She reflexively took a strong step forward.

“Where is that orphanage!?”

“Here.”

The woman moved the counter to hold out a piece of paper with an address and orphanage name.

“Luckily, it’s just what you are looking for. It apparently has no phone, so get running. But learn its name first.”

The woman spoke from beyond the paper.

“It was known as the Holy Soukou Institution, but it is apparently known as the Soukou House now. It looks like a church at first glance and…”

She took a breath.

“I hear they often sing hymns there.”

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| Back to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 14|Chapter 14]]
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| Forward to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 16|Chapter 16]]
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Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 14

2026-10-15T02:37:51Z

N-Ch:

==Chapter 14: Forming Thoughts==
[[Image:OnC_v10_0355.png|thumb]]
''They won’t overlook it anyway

Shino sat in a large room.

The western end of the room opened onto a yard with a pond.

The other three sides were covered by sliding screens and a table for about ten people sat in the light of the cloudy sky.

She sat perfectly still on a cushion with her shoulders stiffened.

Behind her, a white dog sat on the large stone step up from the yard.

A bone sat on a plate in front of the dog.

The white dog sniffed at the bone.

“Shiro! Not yet! Not until they say we can!”

Shino had sensed Shiro’s movements and he corrected his posture.

About twelve square meters in front of her, the screen slid open just a bit.

The slight gap closed again and she heard whispering voices from the other side.

“B-brother! Brother! Who is that girl? Who is she?”

“You don’t know? You really are stupid. Listen. The president said she was bringing in a newcomer, remember? We need to be nice to her. She’s been taken in just like us brothers.”

“Wow, brother! You sure are kind! I can see why you’re called Take the Prayer Killer!”

The girl lowered her head as she heard a few more whispering voices.

“What is going on?”

She had a blue stone and a red pendant hanging from her neck and she reached for the blue one.

Just as she prepared to say she was leaving, a young man’s footsteps and voice reached her from the hallway.

“Okay, okay. We have work tonight, everyone, so go get some rest. And this guest seems to be a friend from the young master and Setsu-kun’s school.”

“Got it!”

Several voices answered and a variety of footsteps, dragging sounds, and metallic noises moved left down the hallway.

There had apparently been far more people than voices.

The girl raised her head and let go of the blue stone.

The sliding screen opened and a young man walked in with a tray of snacks. He wore a black shirt and a gray suit.

“These persimmons were grown in our yard, but I’m not sure if you’ll like them. Or do you not like persimmons in general?”

“No, I like them.”

He crouched next to her and placed a few plates in front of her. They contained persimmons, pears, youkan, and a few rice cakes.

“My name is Kouji and this is my family’s house. What is your name?”

“Oh… It’s Shino.”

He nodded and stood up with the empty tray in hand.

“I see. And what brings you here today?”

“Um…”

She hesitated and he sat across the table from her.

It had been his sister who had mistakenly thought she was a friend of Sayama’s, but she was unsure if she should say so.

She was basing her decision on whether she should do anything unnecessary during such an important time.

She had been seen in UCAT during the summer, so if the details of her visit reached Sayama, he would think a member of the Army had come to visit him.

…''Should I say I don’t know him and that this man’s sister was wrong?

If so, it could all end as that sister’s mistake.

Then she could leave as quickly as possible and leave behind as little evidence of her visit as possible.

That was why she tried to say this was a mistake and she had simply not had a chance to say so.

But…

“…”

Once she opened her mouth, she realized something.

…''But in that case, how do I explain stopping in front of their house?

The answer to that question quickly came to her.

“Um, to be honest, I was just worried about the sibling argument I overheard.”

Kouji’s expression changed at that.

“Oh?”

His eyebrows rose, he removed the lid of the teacup in front of him, and gestured for her to do the same.

“Then I apologize. Were you in the middle of a walk? And are you not a friend of our young master, but a simple passerby who my sister invited in?”

He gave her all the help she needed, so relief filled her.

If she expressed that relief, the man would likely assume he was right, so she breathed a sigh of relief and brought a hand to her chest.

“Y-yes, that’s right. I just so happened to end up here while going for a walk. I’m not a friend of your Sayama.”

“I see.”

Kouji took a sip of his tea, lowered his gaze a little, and made a sudden comment.

“How did you know that our young master was named Sayama?”

''Oh, no,'' gasped Shino.

…''He was testing me.

A tremor ran down her back and she turned her senses toward her surroundings.

…''Ah.

A few of the sliding screens to the front and sides were cracked open. Shiro showed no sign of moving behind her because he had noticed a presence in the yard, not because she had told him to stay.

The whispering she had heard before and the obvious sounds of people leaving had been intentional.

…''Did they want me to think everyone had left?

Kouji sat across the large and thick ebony table.

If she was going to move, she would have to head for the unseen sliding screen beyond him or rush out into the yard.

She felt scorching impatience race along her spine.

''Oh, no,'' she thought again, but it was no use because she had already failed.

She could only struggle or surrender.

She could not choose the latter, so she had no choice but to choose the former.

There were two ways she could struggle: physically struggle or negotiate to keep the damage to a minimum.

She took a breath to calm herself and chose to continue negotiating.

…''Um…

Kouji had set up a single trap for her: why did she know who Sayama was despite not being from his school.

“Well…”

She tilted her head.

“Sayama of the Tamiya family is well known.”

“I see.”

Kouji nodded as if he had accepted that.

But Shino decided he had not truly accepted it and it was just for show. She used that decision as an excuse to herself and clenched the hand held to her chest. It wrapped around the blue stone hanging from her neck.

…''I’m sorry.

“Please believe me.”

She lowered her head as she spoke and blue light escaped from between her fingers.

The philosopher’s stone answered her request by releasing its power. Its concept could control people’s wills.

“…”

This would affect the thoughts of the people around her without them even noticing.

Its use could permanently affect their string vibrations, so its influence would sometimes remain for a long time.

She knew this was wrong and that it was a terrible thing.

…''But I can’t afford to fail now.

She had to use this power because of her own mistake. Reminded of her own inexperience, she swore to never have to do this again.

She then looked up.

A moment later, she heard sounds from around her.

A slight movement of wind brought the sounds from beyond the sliding screens, above the ceiling, and below the floor.

“See, brother! I told you a beauty would never betray us!”

“You really are stupid. I knew that from the beginning. I was just testing you.”

“Wow, you’re amazing, brother! You’re like a prophet!”

The same voices that had previously moved away in the hallway were now moving away below the floor. Shino’s back trembled again.

…''Amazing.

She faced forward and looked at Kouji.

She had assumed he was suspecting her and only pretending to have accepted her explanation.

“Eh?”

But that accepting expression remained intact.

''Ah,'' she silently gasped.

After all, if his expression had not changed…

…''The idea that he was pretending to trust me was only my imagination.

He had not doubted her.

“…”

The truth before her eyes made her gulp.

Her own suspicion had led her to control his unsuspecting mind.

…''No.

Had he left the suspicion to everyone else and simply tried to hear what she had to say?

And yet she had used her philosopher’s stone on a normal person just because he had asked one little question.

She felt the heat of her impatience grow icily cold.

…''How could this happen?

They lived in the same world, they were both human, they were from the same generation, they wore the same sort of clothes, they ate the same kinds of food, they breathed the same air, and they experienced the same time, but something was different on a fundamental level.

But this time…

…''I went out of my way to do something different.

Hadn’t she wanted to be the same as them?

Unease filled her mind because she had suspected someone else for no good reason.

…''When did I turn into someone who would do that?

''I can’t do that,'' she told herself while lowering her head.

“Are you okay?” asked Kouji.

She tried to answer, but she ended up biting her lip and holding in the words.

After all, his mind was under the influence of her philosopher’s stone.

…''It isn’t really him that’s concerned for me.

She forced strength into her shaking legs and stood up.

“Sorry.”

Without raising her head, she started toward the passageway along the outside of the house.

While making sure he could not see her lowered face, she turned her back so he would not feel any more insincere worry for her.

“Excuse me. I will be leaving.”

“Oh, if you leave that way, the path through the center is a little-…”

“I know. I turn at the corner to head inside, turn left because the right is a dead end, and open the third sliding screen to reach the entrance, right?”

She heard Kouji stand.

“Why do you know our house’s layout?”

She turned toward him and forced a smile with the yard and cloudy sky behind her.

“You should know tomorrow… Or at least, I should be able to accept it.”

That was all she said before waving a hand upward.

“Shiro, we’re leaving.”

She heard Shiro running in the yard. She also heard the guard dogs begin to move, but an information entity like him could hide and move quite quickly.

''It will be okay,'' she told herself while touching the philosopher’s stone on her chest.

“I’m sorry.”

''Apologizing is all I ever do,'' she thought while deciding to never return.

If she was gone, the contamination of their minds would mean nothing.

…''I just have to never come back. I hope they can forget me.

She could not erase their memories, so she did not go that far.

“Please do not worry about me.”

She spoke to the stone and turned her back on Kouji.

She began to walk along the path to leave the Tamiya house and enter the cloudy sunlight.

She moved quickly and spoke quietly while looking up into the white sky.

“Farewell.”

A certain space was filled with white steam.

The thirty square meter space was surrounded by walls and white smoke rose within it.

The words “Healing Bath – Green (Pseudonym)” were written on one wall.

The other three walls contained mosaics depicting the final chapter of Tomorrow’s Realtor, a hot-blooded shoujo manga. Below those were the washing areas and mirrors.

True to the name on the wall, below the steam and surrounded by the washing areas and mirrors was a ten square meter area of hot water that had been turned green.

The water was divided between four large tubs lined up in two row of two.

The people in the back left tub were looking at the mosaics on the three walls.

There were three people in all.

A girl with long blonde hair sat in the center of the tub that included a green healing concept. A girl with short blonde hair and a woman with long gray hair sat on the stepped portion by the edge, soaking up to their waists.

The short-haired girl and the small animal on her head looked up at the final panel of the mosaics. A man in a suit was letting out an emotional breath despite having turned pure white.

“That’s amazing, teacher. At the end, the yakuza boss shouts ‘Get it up! Get that apartment building up!’ and he decides to buy up all the land.”

“Yes, Heo, I was moved too. And next week, they’re beginning the period drama manga 24 Hours in the Life of the Forty-Seven Ronin. It’s full of classic scenes like the one where Ooishi Kuranosuke thinks about quitting, comes back to his senses because he doesn’t want his comrades to die, and has to be held back by the others.”

Heo thought to herself while listening.

…''She really knows a lot about this.

She looked at the long-haired girl whose head was sticking out of the water in the center of the tub.

“Mikage, you’ll make yourself pass out if you stay there.”

“Right. But I found one.”

“Eh?”

Before Heo could ask what she meant, Mikage pulled something up from the bottom of the tub.

It brought a lot of water with it.

“A plant creature?”

It was a 4th-Gear resident.

Its body was fairly long, its legs were fin-shaped, and it shook its head as Mikage lifted it up in her arms.

“Cold,” it said.

“Right. Sorry.”

Mikage sank back into the water so only her head stuck out, but the plant creature was with her this time. It wiggled its long body to swim and bring Mikage toward Heo and Diana.

More interested in the approaching creature than Mikage, Heo reached out her hand.

Just as she was about to reach it, the water swelled up below her hand.

“Eh?”

Mikage held onto the one creature as she sat next to Heo, but another one poked its head up below Heo’s hand.

It poked at her palm with its nose and Baku hopped from her head to the plant creature’s nose.

Heo wondered what they were going to do and the creature swam along while tossing Baku into the air with its nose.

Baku did not resist and instead enjoyed pretending to swim through the air.

The two creatures seemed like a good match.

Heo spotted a few more plant creatures playing by tossing a bucket back and forth with their noses.

They began passing Baku as well and he flew about along with the sprays of water the plant creatures created.

…''Wow.

Heo began to applaud and she realized Diana was looking at her with a smile. Having such a familiar person watching her made her blush a little.

“U-um, what is it?”

“Heo, are you having fun?”

Heo then remembered why she was here.

That morning, they had fought Yonkichi, lost, and been caught in a landslide.

Thunder Fellow had canceled their combination, so she had not been damaged by the landslide. However, the earlier tumbling that had knocked over the trees had been a different story.

The armor had displaced and buffered against the impact, so she had not been badly injured. Still, she had gained some bruises and scrapes. UCAT had quickly retrieved them and the morning had been spent healing them and examining them. She had taken healing medication in place of lunch and Diana had brought her and Mikage here.

Hiba had broken some ribs, but he had not been otherwise injured because the house had ridden atop the landslide. He had been given charms to set the ribs in place and heal them and then he had left for school.

Mikage was almost entirely unharmed because Hiba had protected her, but…

“Is Harakawa okay?”

He had apparently been bruised and whiplashed like her, but it seemed he had skipped out on his treatment early.

To her left, Diana laughed quietly and swept her damp hair backward.

[[Image:OnC_v10_0371.jpg|thumb]]

“How about we talk, Heo?”

She nodded and lined up next to Diana who was smiling with a towel wrapped around her.

“You saw Harakawa leave, didn’t you, teacher? Was he mad?”

“Why do you think he was?”

“Because I didn’t take the battle seriously enough. And that’s why-…”

“If he was angry with anyone, it was with himself.”

“Eh?”

Heo tilted her head.

“There’s something else you’re even more interested in, isn’t there?” asked Diana.

“Wh-what is that?”

“Well.” Diana nodded. “You have Baku with you and he showed you the past, didn’t he? …Do you have anything to ask me?”

Indirectly connected via the bathwater, the teacher asked her student a question.

“Don’t you want to ask about the Great Kansai Earthquake?”

“Yes.”

Heo lowered her head and gave a small nod.

…''I want to know about my past and what led up to it.

What had happened to her parents?

What had happened in the city of Osaka?

What had happened in this world?

She wanted to ask all those things, but…

“Will you answer me, teacher?”

“To be honest, I can’t. We all decided to keep the events there a secret. But…”

Still facing forward, the witch crossed her legs in the water and rested her head on her hand.

“I can’t stop you from investigating it. And if you do find the truth, then I can only say that the past wanted to be known. But what about the past do you want to investigate?”

“I want to know what my parents were fighting in Osaka and why they were fighting.”

She pulled up her right knee and wrapped her arms around it.

“I’m thinking about why Sayama said Team Leviathan should disband. After all, I don’t know what that reason is. It hasn’t been long since I joined Team Leviathan…no, since I started fighting. But if I learned why my parents fought…”

“You think you could accept why you belong on Team Leviathan?”

She nodded.

She remembered the thought she had on the night when she had seen Black Sun vanish in the sky.

…''I want to be like them.

“That is why I think I will investigate it. I will investigate and find the truth. I believe doing that will lead me to the reason I want.”

“Do you know how to do that?”

“You won’t answer even if I ask and I doubt Team Leviathan’s supervisor would either.”

“No, Itaru is probably the last one who would tell you. In which case-…”

Heo cut off Diana with words of her own.

“There are some people who look like they will tell us.”

She raised her right hand from the green water and that hand’s fingers had bandages attached.

The scrapes on her arm were vanishing, but some traces of the pain remained in her. She spoke as if to ensure she did not forget that pain.

“Those four brothers.”

Those four wished for a fight. In all honesty, she did not like the idea of fighting someone who, even for a short time, had been an ally, but…

“We have to fight them.”

“No, you don’t.”

Heo turned toward that opposite invitation and found Diana’s smile.

“At the very least, I doubt your parents would want you to say that you have to fight.”

She thought about what that meant, but she shook her head with the ends of her eyebrows lowered in a smile.

“Thank you, but I have another thought. If Team Leviathan had not disbanded and the others were with us, we might have been able to sort out the reason for that fight.”

To help her gather her thoughts, she reached out her hands as if grasping at the air.

“Um… This morning, I hesitated and got hurt, but our opponents are fighting to eliminate their grudge. That’s why these injuries were caused by my hesitation, not by their grudge. Now that I know that, I want to test myself.”

She took a breath.

“I’ve never really fought someone, so I want to fight these people who wish to fight and I want to see if we can both find the answer we want.”

“And if you find an answer you don’t want?”

Heo smiled a little.

“If I am not prepared for that once we face each other, I think I will apologize to them and run away. I will apologize for being so inexperienced. Harakawa and the others might get mad at me, but it’s better than finding an answer I don’t want. And both Thunder Fellow and I are quite fast.”

“You are,” agreed Diana while rubbing her head.

The steam between her hair turned to water and weighed down that hair.

“In that case, you should focus on healing your wounds.”

“I will. While they heal, I plan to make dinner for tonight. Once I finish with that, Harakawa and the others should be finished at school. And if we leave then…”

“The brothers will attack, right?”

“Yes. To look at it positively, the past we want will be coming to us. That’s the opposite of Sayama and Shinjou who have to go search out their past. So if there is something we need to search out…”

She hesitated and felt she was going too far in saying this.

“It would be a battlefield and a way of defeating the past.”

“Herrlich.”

Heo looked up at Diana’s word of praise.

She turned to her left and saw the same smile as when the woman had taught her long ago.

A moment later, she was embraced and had her head rubbed just as back then.

“An excellent answer, Heo. Heo Thunderson, daughter of Maria Thunderson and James Thunderson, and my student. An excellent destiny comes to those who can give an excellent answer. And the time for investigation is nigh. Rest, heal your wounds, and calm yourself until then.”

“B-but…”

“Heo, it is crucial that you do not rush this. Rushing and wasting time is no match for a single excellent answer. You already gave an excellent answer, so now you only need to prepare for it. …I know. How about you take a walk through UCAT until you go to meet him? It is filled with strange animals, so it is quite an amusing place.”

“U-um, teacher.”

“Hm? What is it, Heo? Are you still trying to rush this?”

“I can’t breathe.”

“Oh, dear.”

Diana let go of Heo who had been buried in her breasts. Heo frantically breathed in and felt her cheeks flush. She then thought about what Diana had said.

“But…is this really okay? We may have to fight, but I already made Harakawa mad by being so inexperienced this morning.”

Diana turned toward her with a smile.

“You’ll be fine, Heo.”

She looked past Heo to Mikage who sat to Heo’s right.

“Isn’t that right, Mikage?”

“Right. You will be fine.”

“But…”

Heo turned around and saw Mikage stretching the plant creature’s cheeks outward.

The girl turned her clear blue eyes toward her and opened her lips.

“You will be fine. You and Harakawa just don’t understand each other yet. You don’t understand your pasts, what it means to fight, or some other things. …But that just means that you have to learn those things, so you’ll be fine.”

Mikage continued.

“The one that isn’t fine is me.”

“R-really? B-but Hiba has fallen for you so hard he’s practically melted into a puddle on the floor. To me, it looks like he’s a pathetic monkey.”

“Yes, but…lately we haven’t been taking baths together. What about you, Heo?”

Heo frantically shook her head and tensed her shoulders.

“I’ve…never even thought about doing that.”

“Then you have a lot to look forward to.”

Mikage released the green creature into the water and waved as it looked reluctantly back at her.

“Lately, I’ve evolved.”

She brought her hands to her chest.

“The black lines are disappearing and color has filled in a lot of places. …I’m getting closer to being complete.”

A blue stone was embedded in Mikage’s chest, just below her neck. ''That must be the philosopher’s stone that brings about her evolution,'' thought Heo.

…''She’s becoming human.

But the girl who was halfway between automaton and human smiled with the ends of her eyebrows lowered.

“But you know what? I’m a little scared.”

“Of what? If you evolve and become human, you can be with Hiba, right?”

“But I won’t change anymore.”

The answer to her question made Heo gasp.

Once she was human, she could no longer “become human”.

“What if Ryuuji-kun gets bored of me because I won’t change anymore? And what if my body isn’t what he was expecting? …That’s why I don’t want to let him see me. I used to let him see how different I was, but now…the thought of being different scares me.”

“D-don’t be. You have an excellent body and I don’t think Hiba will complain.”

“I don’t know what Ryuuji-kun likes and he might not tell me even if he had a complaint.”

“That’s-…” began Heo, but she swallowed the words.

This was not something for her to decide. It was Mikage’s issue.

However, Mikage smiled and narrowed her eyes.

“I doubt I am exactly what he wants. But that’s why I plan to have him tell me if he’ll accept me and praise the parts of me he likes. If he does, I think some of my fear of being seen will go away.”

''Oh,'' thought Heo as she thought about the mixture of hope and anxiety filling Mikage’s heart.

“Mikage, do you know what that mixture of hope and anxiety is called?”

“You mean this desire to show off what I really am and yet also to hide what I really am?”

“Yes.”

Heo thought and tried to express the idea as accurately as possible.

“It is called shame… Ow! T-teacher, why did you just grab my chest from behind!?”

“Heo? You are an excellent student, but you sometimes overthink things.”

However, Diana’s hands did not leave her chest and they moved as if to tickle her.

“Hm? Heo, did you just say ‘ow’?”

“Y-yes. What about it?”

Heo looked over her shoulder and saw Diana’s smiling face.

“Pain is a sign that you are growing and the skin is tight. You are going to get bigger.”

“Eh? R-really?”

Mikage looked at her from the right and applauded.

“You have room to evolve too, Heo. That’s good. You still have a chance to gain what you lack.”

“Why doesn’t that make me happy?”

“Heo, answer me. Does the Harakawa boy like girls with large breasts?”

“Eh? P-probably. He always treats me like a child. …A-and I found some American dirty magazines in the back of his closet! He tried to claim Hiba asked for them, though! All of the girls in them were as big as you, teacher!”

“Heo? Mine are natural, so don’t put me in the same category.”

Heo obeyed. She did not entirely understand, but apparently people were proud of that after getting older. ''So I need to do my best,'' she told herself.

Meanwhile, Diana was still holding her chest while embracing her from behind.

“Now, you need to massage them a lot. That loosens up the skin and flesh, so it can more efficiently grow underneath. In other words, it helps your breasts to get bigger.”

“Really?”

“Have I ever lied to you?”

“Maybe not lied, but you do have a habit of making oddly persuasive arguments like this.”

Diana responded by resting her smiling chin on Heo’s left shoulder and nodding.

She removed her left hand from Heo’s chest and held something in front of the girl.

“Is this a UCAT cellphone?”

“Yes. I thought this might happen, so I had it waterproofed. Now, Heo, this is necessary for you to recover your energy and that is necessary for UCAT as a whole. We are the only ones here, so listen to what I have to say.”

Diana’s voice reverberated through the bath.

“Confess to the Harakawa boy (Point Allocation: Your Life Plan).”

Harakawa was cutting wood for a festival stand on the school roof.

He was operating the jigsaw while holding the lumber on the block with a foot.

Sawdust scattered like spraying water, but he did not care since he wore sunglasses and used his bandanna in place of a mask.

After cutting the fourth piece, he looked around.

He stopped the jigsaw and heard hammering.

The rooftop was the closest work area for anything they could not bring into the classroom.

He also saw people from several other classes crouching or standing as they worked.

To make sure they did not have to use Ooki’s idea of a rest area for people to sleep in, his class had come up with a mobile ethnic café called the Angry Locals. They had managed to reuse the frame from their spring festival stand, so they had not needed to use Sayama’s place.

…''It’s still a pain either way.

If he stayed at UCAT, everyone would annoy him about what had happened in the morning, but he would have nothing to do at home. His mother would complain if he visited her in the hospital without bringing Heo and his job at Yokota did not start until the evening.

Feeling he had no choice, he had gone to school.

He wondered what Heo was doing back at UCAT.

…''I doubt the others will leave her alone.

The night before, she had said quite a lot after seeing that photograph of her great-grandfather. It had been like she thought talking was actively bringing her closer to the past.

''But that isn’t how it works,'' thought Harakawa.

He had not told Heo about his father. When they had visited his grave a month before, he had simply said the man died during the Great Kansai Earthquake.

Thinking back, his grandfather had belonged to the American military, so he may have been part of UCAT too.

Sayama had said to search for their pasts if they wanted to know why Team Leviathan was disbanding, but Harakawa did not understand why that was necessary. Heo seemed to think it was worth looking into, but Harakawa did not like taking action without knowing why.

That was why he did not want to actively pursue the past.

…''But what is this about?

A thought had occurred to him before the battle with Yonkichi.

He muttered to himself with the jigsaw hiding his voice.

“If we can still fight, disbanding or not makes no difference. …So why are we so hung up over the name Team Leviathan? And why did the treasurer protest?”

Even as he cut the lumber, he could not find the answer to his question.

…''If I look into the past, will I find the answer?

“Will I find why we are Team Leviathan?”

He finished cutting the lumber. It fell in two pieces and he stopped the jigsaw.

…''What does it all mean?

He muttered in his heart as he picked up the wood and his eyes met those of a girl painting a panel red.

“Harakawa-kun. You look like a hero in a battle between schools.”

He was holding pieces of lumber while wearing sunglasses and a bandanna mask.

“Then I’ll use this as my costume for the year-end festival in winter.”

“This school sure has a lot of festivals. Doesn’t the year-end festival begin on the twenty-first immediately after the closing ceremony?”

“Those in the dorms – especially the third years – tend not to be around during the third term. The year-end festival was supposedly started for the third years to have some fun for the last time, but at some point the first and second years joined in.”

“Well, we can prepare for it while the exams are being returned, so the timing works out. Speaking of the third years, what are that famous president and aggressive treasurer planning to do? You’re on the student council along with Sayama-kun, right?”

That reminded Harakawa of something. First, he had become the vice-president’s aide at some point. And second…

…''That really depends on the president’s injuries and whether the treasurer can recover or not.

He activated the jigsaw and pressed it against a piece of lumber sitting on a chair.

“I haven’t heard anything. That’s a problem those two will settle on their own.”

“Oh? Quite the cool hero, aren’t you? …Now for a hotter topic of discussion. Since you’re living with your girlfriend, are you going to bring her to the school festival or the year-end festival?”

He pushed the jigsaw too hard and sliced straight through the chair along with the lumber.

The seat split in two, the metal legs clattered to the ground, and everyone’s focus turned to him.

“Wow,” said the classmate in surprise. “That sure got a reaction. I need to tell everyone the rumors are true.”

“Wait. Don’t go around spreading crazy rumors.”

“But you make food for her every day and she’s sleeping over at your place, right?”

He lifted the stopped jigsaw, removed his mask, and brushed up his disheveled hair.

“Listen. Heo is still a kid. She’s a long way off from my tastes.”

“Wow. Just Heo? No honorifics or anything? And you’re underestimating girls, Harakawa-kun. We change day by day.”

“Is that so? I’ll remember that. Thank you very much, classmate who is more mature than me.”

He reached for a new piece of lumber, but the cellphone in his pocket rang. Everyone looked at him and the classmate girl spoke.

“Go ahead. Your girlfriend is calling.”

“It is not-…”

He checked the number, but it was not from Heo. Relieved, he answered.

“This is Harakawa.”

“Oh, H-Harakawa? I-it’s Heo.”

''What is going on?'' he wondered while clicking his tongue and running to the landing of the emergency staircase. He ignored his classmate’s call of “good luck” behind him.

“What is this? Why are you calling from someone else’s phone?”

“Eh? Oh, I’m in UCAT and…um…I borrowed my teacher’s phone.”

“I see. So what is it? Tell me what you want, Heo Thunderson. I am very busy.”

He reached the emergency staircase, but he continued down because people were working there too.

Once he reached the second story landing where the student council often gathered, the working students vanished, so he leaned against the railing.

“What is it?”

“Oh, right. Um. You see? This is hard to say and I’ve been keeping it to myself before, but…uh…”

“Again, what is it?”

He heard her gulp and it was obvious she was trying to say something.

With Diana to her left, Mikage to her right, and the plant creatures all around, Heo sat motionless in the bath.

She could blame the heat of the bath for her racing pulse.

She could blame the heat of the bath for the warmth in her face.

She could blame the heat of the bath for the excitement in her heart.

…''I-I am not nervous.

She gathered her resolve and began by saying “um”.

However…

“If you don’t need anything, I’m going to hang up. You’re trying to heal, right? Focus on that, Heo Thunderson.”

“No, um, this is part of my rehabilitation.”

“Talking with me is? Or are you trying to make some kind of decision?”

“Y-yes.” She nodded and made up her mind. “Um, Harakawa. I, uh…”

She had something she needed to say. As soon as she opened her mouth to say it, Diana leaned in excitedly and her breasts pressed against Heo’s left back and shoulder. The sensation brought a new idea to Heo’s mind and it escaped her mouth.

“Do you like breasts!?”

Harakawa frowned at what Heo asked over the cellphone.

Alone on the emergency exit landing, he removed the phone from his ear and tilted his head while staring at it.

…''Did her injuries from the battle this morning make her go insane?

''No, wait,'' he thought. ''Not even Heo would ask that so openly if she meant it sexually. She’s shy about things like that. For some reason, she’s been blessed with the luck to end up naked quite a lot, but she doesn’t want that kind of thing herself.

There was a reason he had so readily suspected her of asking something like that.

…''I’ve been surrounded by so many openly stupid people of late.

Heo was not like Izumo, Sayama, Hiba, or the others. She had a habit of jumping to the wrong conclusion or overthinking things, but Harakawa knew she was generally a smart girl.

He had also been rejecting her a little lately. That day in particular, he had left for school without waiting for her to wake from her treatment. He decided it would be wrong to simply doubt her.

“Okay, let’s settle this problem, Heo Thunderson. Think carefully. …What exactly do you mean?”

“I-I mean exactly what I said. Um… Do you like…breasts?”

…''Exactly what she said? So I’m supposed to take it literally?

''Has she gone insane or been infected by the Team Leviathan disease?'' he wondered while holding the phone up in the sky for fear of being infected himself.

…''But wait.

He frowned and groaned a little as a certain memory came back to him.

…''I asked her to make fried chicken for dinner.

This was Heo, so she was probably taking Sayama seriously and using UCAT’s facilities to investigate her past. She needed to adapt to her surroundings, so she may have decided to make dinner for the others as well.

That dinner would be fried chicken.

''In that context, breasts would indeed be my preference,'' he thought while nodding and bringing the phone back to his ear.

“Heo, Heo Thunderson. Listen carefully.”

“What is it?”

“Well.” He nodded. “You’re talking about tonight, right?”

“Eh? Th-the night? …Yes, I suppose it would happen at night. You could say that. It’s definitely too soon to start during the daytime.”

“I see.”

He nodded again. Some of what she was saying sounded strange, but that was likely an after effect of her injuries. At any rate, it seemed she really was talking about the fried chicken for dinner.

Also, he often heard about people having to cook as part of their rehabilitation. Experiencing a familiar flavor could bring back one’s memories or senses.

“Um, Harakawa?” she asked.

“Yes, I’m fine, Heo Thunderson. Sorry, I was lost in thought for a bit there. …And yes, breasts are the way to go. Thighs are a close second,” he said. “But breasts are definitely the best.”

The three girls leaned forward in the bath for no real reason and they exchanged a glance.

“The Harakawa boy is surprisingly open with his sexuality.”

“Ryuuji-kun likes them too, so do all guys like big breasts?”

“Heh heh. Mikage, that is normal from a biological standpoint. A preference for small breasts goes against one’s biology.”

“T-teacher, I have a feeling it isn’t that cut-and-dried an issue.”

“…? Heo, is someone there with you?” asked Harakawa.

“Eh? No, there isn’t.”

She pressed the phone against her ear.

“A-anyway, Harakawa. About breasts… How much do you think is enough?”

“Good question. …Two is usually good for me.”

“Y-yes, two would be good. That ''is'' the standard number. B-but what about size?”

“Most anyone would be happy if they’re big enough to grab in both hands and take a big bite.”

Diana tilted her head.

“Take a big bite? The Harakawa boy certainly is crude. …And he doesn’t seem to understand this isn’t an issue of ‘most anyone’! We’re talking about Heo’s breasts, so his opinion is what-…”

“T-teacher, calm down and please don’t get so excited about my breasts. Also, I think he’s only being so crude because the battle this morning messed with his brain.”

“Right. Ryuuji-kun is sometimes like that every morning.”

“I see. Heo, then you say something to make up for what he lacks.”

“Okay.” Heo motivated herself. “U-um, Harakawa. When you ‘take a bite’, uh…”

“But even if I say ‘big’, more than three hundred grams is probably too much,” he said.

“That’s awfully specific.”

“Now, Heo, do you know how to prepare them?”

She almost asked what he meant by “prepare”, but she recalled what Diana had said about her breasts growing and how to prepare them for that.

“By massaging them?”

“I can help you if you want, but it would be best if you did it yourself. Do you know what to put on them?”

“U-um… I’m not really sure about that.”

“It doesn’t have to be too specific, but remember this. …Start by drizzling some lemon juice on them.”

“A-a liquid!? Does that give vitamins for the skin!? Does it help the collagen!?”

“It’s necessary, so don’t make fun. …Now, for the next step, you’ll need salt, pepper, and a little bit of sugar.”

“Y-you need salt and pepper to massage them!? And sugar too!?”

“Yes, if you rub that into them at the start, they’ll be a lot more flavorful when you bite into them.”

Heo pictured it in her head and started to feel dizzy.

…''So this is the world of adults.

''Mother, father, great-grandfather, I just took three steps at once up the stairway of adulthood.

She almost collapsed, but Diana and Mikage supported her.

“Heo, Heo. Stick with it. Just a little further.”

“That’s right. If you put in the effort here, I’m sure it will make Harakawa happy.”

“O-okay. I’ll do my best.”

The plant creatures sticking their heads out from the water absorbed her excess heat and expelled oxygen. The bath turned into a jacuzzi, but the creatures seemed unable to keep up because they appeared troubled as they looked back and forth.

“Lots and lots! But…too much?”

Confident that everyone was supporting her, Heo took a breath, adjusted her grip on the phone, pressed it to her ear, and spoke as if it was a challenge to be overcome.

“H-Harakawa? In other words, I massage the flesh with the salt and pepper?”

“Right. And once you’ve rubbed that in, you add a beaten egg and massage it in as well.”

“A-an egg!?”

“That’s right.”

She felt something below her nose.

The towel Diana had been wearing pressed against her nose.

“Don’t worry, Heo. Not far now.”

“Anyway,” said Harakawa. “The rest is the same as normal. My mother actually uses some herbs as well, but you have to get the details just right with those and I don’t really remember the specifics. Maybe I’ll ask her sometime.”

“O-okay. I-if this massage technique comes directly from your mother, I’m sure it will be enough to satisfy you. I’ll do my best.”

“I’m not sure why you’re putting so much effort into this, Heo Thunderson, but don’t get too worked up, okay?”

He suddenly asked about something else entirely.

“Heo… Are you planning to investigate the past?”

“Eh?”

She looked up, exchanged a glance with a plant creature that raised its head, and tilted her head along with it.

“Why are you asking? Last night, it seemed like you didn’t want to be a part of that.”

“I would rather not if I don’t have to. I’d probably end up saying something that threw cold water on your fun.”

“No! P-please be a part of it!”

The words seemed to flow out of her gut.

“I don’t want anyone but you to help! I’d be happy with whatever you might say, so you can say whatever you want. I might cry if it’s too harsh, but…but I know you’ll support me, so…”

“Sometimes I have to translate what you say to make it understandable, Heo Thunderson. Anyway…”

She heard him sigh before continuing.

“I’ll be there at around five. Have dinner ready and your wounds healed by then, Heo Thunderson. There’s something that’s been bothering me.”

“What is that?”

“It’s a ridiculous question about what exactly Team Leviathan is.”

He hung up there.

She thought about his last words as she listened to the dial tone.

…''He’s been thinking about the same thing.

She nodded in her heart, but another question came to her.

…''Wh-when should I massage my chest?

Should she do it on her own or ask for his help once he arrived?

Those two options quickly sank deep within her.

“…”

“Ah, Heo!? Are you okay, Heo?”

She did not have the energy or wherewithal to answer, so she simply passed out and sank into the bubbling water.

After hanging up, Harakawa sighed and leaned back against the landing’s railing.

“Well, at least you have plenty of energy, Heo Thunderson.”

She had said no one else was with her, but that was a blatant lie since she had borrowed the German inspector’s phone.

He was having a lively day as well, so he had no complaint about that.

He glanced over at the wall covered in the sand that blew up from the schoolyard.

“…?”

Suddenly, the light hit the wall just right and he thought he saw writing.

…''What?

This would be the work of the people who came here often, so it had to have been Sayama’s group. However, he had eaten lunch with them here a few times, but he did not remember anyone mentioning the wall.

In that case, who had written in the sand on the wall and then hidden it?

…''Was it Sayama?

With that thought, he tried to see if there really was writing there at all, but…

“Oh, Harakawa-san!”

The emergency exit opened and two people stepped out. One was Hiba with a bandage on his cheek and the other was…

“The art club president?”

“That’s right.”

The usual cat was missing, but she had the bird on her head and she gestured him over.

“Come with me. I have something to discuss. We need to come up with a way of defeating those four brothers.”

<noinclude>
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| Back to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 13|Chapter 13]]
| Return to [[Owari no Chronicle|Main Page]]
| Forward to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 15|Chapter 15]]
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</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 13

2026-10-15T02:34:08Z

N-Ch:

==Chapter 13: The World’s Expression==
[[Image:OnC_v10_0327.png|thumb]]
''It is hidden

''And it is trampled on

''It then flatly vanishes without bending

The sunlight was shifting to afternoon.

The sky was clear and the air was still.

The westering sun was accompanied by the scent of the ocean as someone ran down an asphalt slope.

It was Shinjou.

Her long black hair danced while tied back in a ribbon, the bottom of her orange jacket swayed, and the bag on her back and her skirt hopped up with each running step.

“I need to hurry.”

She held copy paper with the Sakai municipal office’s stamp on it. It contained the information on volunteer centers and churches she had received at that municipal office.

She saw a mountain to the east and the city and port bordering the Seto Inland Sea to the west.

A faded sign for tourists was set up halfway up the slope. It indicated that Sakai’s port was located down below.

About two hours before, she had received quite a bit of information at the municipal office.

…''But a lot happened before that.

She had arrived in Osaka in the early morning.

She had left the night train at Osaka Station and looked up at a train station’s route map for the first time.

It had also been her first time to check with a station attendant despite standing right in front of the proper platform and her first time unfolding her map despite being on the right road.

…''I don’t know anything about the world and I’m really not used to traveling.''

By the time she had finally managed to reach the Sakai municipal office, it had been just before nine in the morning. The office had yet to open, so she ate a light breakfast at a nearby café and then faced the morning congestion inside the office.

…''I went there to get a list of orphanages or churches.

According to the document in Izumo UCAT, Shinjou Yukio had been left with an orphanage church in Sakai.

She had asked for city documents from before the earthquake, but she had received a certain response.

“There is no complete documentation from before or after the earthquake.”

…''You’re kidding.

These were records for something as large-scale as a city and yet they did not exist.

This was mostly due to the old municipal office burning down, but that was not all: The landscape had changed during the earthquake, a lot of people had left the city, a lot had come to the city, and a lot of documentation had simply stopped being updated partway through.

The city’s newer documents were updated much more frequently because the government had decided to fully digitize everything in 2002, but the old paper documents were barely even treated as documents anymore.

Shinjou recalled the explanation given by the woman at the municipal office.

“Things like real estate and banks were linked with other information and completed in order to preserve the bare minimum of the old information needed to keep everything running. But…there’s some information that we can get by without, right? We wanted to put the people at ease and recover as quickly as possible, so we got the office back up and running even if it meant abandoning a fair bit of information. After all, the sooner the office was back to normal, the sooner we could bring back public order and the city administration.”

“…”

“The people who lost their houses in the large-scale landslides abandoned their destroyed land and moved. A lot of people did the same with the houses they lost in fires. There is documentation for the people who did report the loss, but the city bought up the land of those who lost everything or the land that is too dangerous to live on. There was so much confusion at the time that a lot is still unknown. Even now, people will find their old land was mistakenly registered as their neighbor’s.”

The woman had sighed and apologized.

…''That could normally never happen.

It had happened so easily because the situation had needed to advance even if everything was not perfect.

The problem was how to compensate when it did happen. That was the most effective way of using your time and effort and this city still had no time or effort to spare.

In another decade or two, they would likely have become a city that could immediately answer Shinjou’s question.

Shinjou did know one thing.

According to the research she had done before the trip, a quarter of the city’s population of eight hundred thousand had arrived after the earthquake.

Numerically, that was two hundred thousand people.

In ten years, a full quarter of the city had been remade, including the residents themselves.

“Those people came here to help with the trouble that still remains. The office was in such a rush back then that we couldn’t handle everything. …Just the other day, some people came from another prefecture after finally deciding to visit their relatives’ graves.”

As she spoke, the woman had made the list of churches.

There were about forty of them.

“There are probably street corner churches and ones using prefabricated buildings left over after the earthquake. The places that registered or moved when the phone lines were down often didn’t bother writing down their phone number. And during the phone number changes the year before last, the areas with phone lines cut by the faults were given entirely new numbers, but…”

“But the change might not have been recorded here?”

“That would normally never happen, but we’re still dealing with the disaster. So…”

The woman had handed over a few pieces of copy paper.

They contained a few phone numbers, addresses, and group names.

“These are the earthquake volunteer offices. I don’t know if they’re still running, though. We made sure they could work without having to register their activities with the city.”

Shinjou had taken that list and was now hurrying along.

She had a reason to hurry. After leaving the municipal office, she had eaten lunch at a café and called UCAT.

…''Ooki-sensei was the one to answer.

The woman had insisted nothing had happened and that everything was fine.

''That was a lie,'' she thought. ''Something happened.

…''She would normally unintentionally say something that made me worry.

However, Ooki had immediately said everything was fine and that nothing had happened.

Something must have happened to Heo, Harakawa, Hiba, or Mikage after the phone call the night before.

Pain suddenly filled her stomach.

This intermittent pain had begun in the morning and it was the same pain she had at the end of every month in place of a period. Perhaps due to her worried stress, it was especially bad today.

Even so, she ran. She needed to quickly finish this personal business and return. She intended to return on the bullet train the following morning.

…''I can complete today’s tasks as long as I have the time. I will eventually find Shinjou Yukio.

That fact eliminated the pain in her stomach.

She was pursuing someone who might not even be her relative, but she would limit that personal business to this one day. Heo and Ooki had both told her to do her best, so she would do what she could.

However, today was the only day for that.

She would use this one day for herself, but then she would return to her proper place and act alongside those who were with her.

And once that proper place was safe, she could act for herself once again.

A late-night bullet train could reach Tokyo this same day.

With that thought, she let out a breath.

“This one is the largest volunteer office. I’ll start there!”

The address was near the entrance to Sakai’s port. Apparently, the largest volunteer office had existed there from the earliest stages in order to process the relief goods. It was at the top of the list she had received at the municipal office.

If she went there, she would be able to gather the broadest range of information.

Her running feet took her down the slope to the port.

The sea air seemed to sting her skin and smelled somehow nostalgic. This was the scent of the Seto Inland Sea she had experienced during the summer.

The road reached a T-intersection. The road continuing right and left was wide and something came into view beyond the guardrail across that road.

“The sea.”

She saw the back of the port’s wharf beyond the slope’s T-intersection.

She was in an elevated area, so she was able to look down on the Seto Inland Sea.

The sea almost looked black and it reflected the pale late autumn sun like a fish’s scales. She saw the lines of ships parting those scales and realized the sight before her eyes was much larger than she had thought.

…''It’s so big.

She looked down and saw the wharf was brand new.

She recalled what Kazami had told her on the helicopter ride to the Seto Inland Sea during the summer.

“Back then…”

After the Great Kansai Earthquake, IAI had provided large-scale support for a recovery.

They had built an artificial island and all of the transportation routes – whether by land, sea, or air – had run from there.

The coastal port would have been remade at that time and then officially built even later.

The city had been made new, but that new city filled Shinjou with a certain emotion.

…''It scares me.

The old things were disappearing. One day, those things would suddenly vanish and something new would take their place.

A quarter of the city’s population was made up of people who had arrived after the earthquake. They would of course know about the earthquake, but…

…''They don’t know what actually happened beneath their feet or in the places they can see.

''I’m the same,'' she thought, but then a memory of the past came to her.

She remembered the Firebombing of Tokyo.

While in Shinjuku during the Leviathan Road with 2nd-Gear, she had seen the moment in the past when the city of Tokyo had been burned away.

The city and so much else had been lost then and replaced later.

The Concept War was similar.

Many Gears had vanished and the survivors were being replaced here in Low-Gear.

Thanks to her classes, her textbooks, the newspapers, and the TV news, Shinjou knew this country had fought a war.

She had looked through quite a bit of historical information in the library since she had started attending school.

Even so, she did not know what was buried beneath her feet.

Even so, she did not know if the scenery around her was the same as it had once been.

Even so…

…''I don’t know my father or my mother.

She had already thought about this after the dream of the past Baku had given her the day before.

In the dream, Sayama’s parents had rushed though the burning city of Osaka.

…''But what were they fighting?

The remains of their battle might lie beneath her feet as she walked through this city that had been destroyed in an earthquake.

…''And are my parents down there, too?

“————!?”

She shuddered and woke from her thoughts.

She wanted to cling to someone, but that someone was not with her. And she only realized that because…

“I’m trying to cling to him.”

He was not here. Everything was back to the way it had been.

It was the same as when she had been alone in UCAT for so long.

“But it’s different now.”

She had somewhere to return to, so she could go outside. She had someone to cling to for support, so she could leave him for the time being. She had no parents, so she was searching for them. It was all perfectly natural. And so…

“Here I go.”

She faced the T-intersection and her gaze settled on the ocean beyond it. She trembled a bit from the unease trying to control her, but it was weak enough that she could still move.

“Here I go!”

The road to the right continued down the slope to the port’s entrance.

She began to run to the bottom of the slope while watching the Seto Inland Sea rise to her left. She ran to the port and her goal.

The firmness of her footsteps on the asphalt helped her control the tremble in her heart.

…''It’ll be okay.

It would take time, but she could continue pursuing Shinjou Yukio.

In the same way, she would eventually find her parents.

Suddenly, something rose up from the left side of the slope.

It was a green two-story prefabricated building. It had a large gray storehouse behind it.

“!”

The prefabricated roof was covered with stacks of plywood panels and on top of blue sheets and lumber.

The green corrugated iron wall had the words “Great Kansai Earthquake Sakai Port Relief Office” written in black spray paint.

“…!”

Shinjou sped up.

She was now racing down the hill more than she was running.

Eventually, her legs could not keep up and wide gaps appeared between footsteps.

She was almost leaping as she made her way down the slope.

She circled around the guardrail and into the open area at the port entrance.

Beyond the people running transport vehicles and forklifts, she saw the wharf that was now level with her.

She heard cranes moving, vehicles beeping as they backed up, many different voices, and countless engines.

The smell of salt water was strong.

However, she ignored it all.

She moved left as if reversing her downward momentum and she threw her body toward the prefab building.

The building was less than ten meters from the port entrance.

She imagined knocking on the door, giving a greeting, and entering to walk across the somewhat soft floor. She pictured a man or woman like the one at the municipal office.

“…Eh?”

Her imagination stopped there.

And that was not all that had stopped. Her legs, her momentum, and the strength in her gaze had all stopped as well.

She simply faced forward.

She looked to the prefab building in front of her.

“It’s…closed?”

Shinjou saw a closed door.

Beyond the glass on the upper half of the aluminum sash door was a curtain faded to white by the sun.

No light could be seen beyond the curtain.

“…”

Her feet suddenly moved and brought her closer.

She stepped up on the block used in place of a front step.

“Excuse me…”

She called out and knocked on the door.

The glass shook and the corrugated iron wall audibly bent a little.

She waited a few seconds, but there was no response.

Unable to endure the silence, she spoke.

“Um.”

She lightly knocked on the door.

“Excuse me.”

She knocked.

“I have a question!”

But there was no response. All she heard was the shaking of the door and the bending of the corrugated iron.

After those sounds of her own creation vanished, she listened to the surrounding noises once more.

She heard the moving cranes, the beeping of transport vehicles backing up, people’s voices, and running engines. Those sounds of the city permeated her from behind.

Her silhouette was reflected in the window with the somewhat dulled sunlight in the background. It was reflected in the darkness beyond the curtain.

“Um…”

With that weak call, she peered inside.

There was nothing there.

No, there was something. Blue sheets were laid out on the plastic floor, plywood panels were piled up, and a few folding chairs were stacked on top of those.

She also saw color on the ceiling.

…''Chains of colored paper?

They must have been celebrating something because several chains of colored paper were still hanging from the ceiling.

That was all. She could see nothing else.

“…”

She took a step back and found nothing there.

She completely forgot she had been standing on a block.

“Ah.”

She fell onto her butt.

Looking up at the door from the ground, she noticed something.

A piece of paper had been stuck on the inside of the door’s glass in front of the faded curtain.

Still sitting, she looked at the paper that had also faded. She read aloud the large writing printed off from a word processor.

“Exactly nine years have passed since the earthquake and we are entering the tenth year. We have long received support, but the time for widespread material relief efforts has ended. We believe it is now time for local support, efforts of the recovering city administration, and moral support.”

…''When we opened this office, we decided we could not continue running it for a full decade. Not because we could not keep it up but because we could not allow the earthquake to take a full decade of our lives from us. We were determined to take back our lives before a decade had passed.

“We lost so very much, but the people in temporary housing have all been moved to permanent homes and the city’s population was reported to have surpassed the pre-earthquake number last year. We are viewing that as a sign that we have truly retrieved our lives, so we have decided to close up before entering the tenth year. From now on, local areas will handle their own problems. We would like to thank all of you for the support you have provided us for so long. We are praying for the happiness of those lost in the earthquake, those lost in the recovery, and those who live on.”

The date it gave was the end of the previous year. After that, it gave contact information said to have been valid through March of this year, phone numbers of local volunteer offices, and the phone number for the municipal office.

And that was all.

…''What is this?

She knew.

The municipal office was still dealing with the aftermath of the earthquake, but the large-scale disaster relief stage had already ended.

After ten years, the land had been restored, houses had been built, the city had been made into a place for people to live once more, and the population numbers had returned.

The main issue in the current stage was administrative troubles.

“…”

Still sitting on the ground, she suppressed the emotions welling up in her heart.

While restraining her heart, doubts filled her mind as words.

…''Is the past being replaced by the present?

She did not know what had been below her feet or in the places she could see around her.

It had all been replaced with new things.

“And even if you try to remember the past and record it, the memories feel fresh yet you can’t go that far.”

She would eventually learn about the past, but that was a long time from now.

By then, she would have nothing left connecting her to that past.

Part of her thought that was fine, but she also shook her head.

“I’m standing in the divide between the past and a new era.”

As she muttered those words, something thin and hard fell onto the back of the right hand she had placed on the ground.

She looked down and found the envelope Sayama had given her.

He had given it to her while saying he was leaving her with a piece of his past and it seemed to have slipped from the opening of her backpack.

…''The envelope makes itself known as forcefully as its sender.

Feeling like she was being embraced by the one who had left it with her, she picked it up.

If she let this break her, she would never be able to read it.

''Right,'' she thought while gathering strength.

Suddenly, a man called out to her from the wharf.

“Hey! That place isn’t running anymore! You should head to the municipal office!”

“R-right!”

She stood up, turned around, and found a man raising his hand in a group of men walking between warehouses. The gesture seemed to be telling her to keep trying.

She bowed and turned around. She grabbed the backpack, put the envelope away, and pulled out another document. It was the list of volunteer offices and churches.

She looked down at it and took a deep breath.

“Calm down.”

She had run all the way here, but now that she thought about it, she had been in too much of a hurry.

She could only think the anxiety and hope of her first trip alone had mixed together and excited her.

She was nervous, but she could do what she needed to do.

Before she returned to Tokyo the following morning, she wanted to grasp a part of her past that would otherwise be forgotten. That way she could use that part to drag out the past when she eventually came here again.

…''I need to think.

She put the bag on her back and began to walk with the papers in hand.

“How can I most efficiently check all of them?”

The sky was a little bit cloudy.

A girl and a white dog walked through the faint shadows cast on a road.

They were Shino and Shiro.

While walking along the wide sidewalk, Shino checked the sign hanging below the street’s traffic light.

…''Akigawa.

This had been a long walk.

She lived in Hachioji to the south of Akigawa, but the cities were only directly connected by road and several mountains divided them. She had taken the train, so she had been forced to travel through Tachikawa or Haijima station.

This walk could be called a short trip.

She saw no problem in bringing Shiro with her. He cast no shadow, but it was an overcast day.

He was an information being, but he generally treated the walls and ground as solid to match Shino.

He would always “hide” somewhere on the trains out of concern for her.

Whenever she passed through the ticket gate, he would vanish and he would reappear by her side once she left the ticket gate.

He had learned to hide after she had tried to take him with her and gotten into an argument with the station attendant.

She did not know how it worked, but it was probably completely normal for him.

Currently, he was allowing himself to be seen as she walked alongside him.

She had passed by the municipal office earlier and she was now walking right into the wind blowing down from the north.

A long wall continued to her right.

“That’s Taka-Akita Academy, isn’t it?”

She always saw those buildings when she came to Akigawa. In fact, one could say the facility was Akigawa itself.

A group in white approached from up ahead.

…''?

She reflexively grew defensive, but she realized it was a group of girls in white track suits.

A female teacher drove a car behind them while shouting to set their tempo.

“C’mon, you have to help prepare for the festival and you still have normal classes until midday.”

“Ah, I wish we were in Ooki-sensei’s class. They have a self-study day today.”

The teacher gave a bitter smile as she responded to the student’s exasperated comment.

“C’mon, you delinquent students. Don’t you know Ooki-san goes to the trouble of teaching supplementary lessons? Of course, that’s to make up for how often she’s late.”

Laughter spilled out and the entire group picked up speed.

That was for a PE class, so they were likely running a long distance. Shino waited for the footsteps and voices to approach.

“————”

She and Shiro watched them pass by.

Most of the students had their heads drooping and were weakly leaning forward as they propelled their bodies in the same direction. Shino imagined they were sick of running.

A few of them softened their expressions as they looked at her and Shiro, but…

“C’mon, quit looking to the side. You’re gonna trip.”

''What’s wrong with that,'' thought Shino while watching them pass by.

But at the same time…

…''That may be true.

She did not know what a life like theirs was like.

She had never lived a life like theirs.

She could not live a life like theirs.

They lived in the same world, they were both human, they were from the same generation, they wore the same sort of clothes, they ate the same kinds of food, they breathed the same air, and they experienced the same time, but something was different on a fundamental level.

…''How long will this last?

“Shiro, let’s go.”

When would she be able to call herself a “normal” person?

She recalled what Hajji had said.

…''When we crush UCAT and wipe out the last remnants of the Concept War.

She began to walk into the blowing north wind with Shiro by her side.

She walked beside that wall she could never enter.

“Shiro, Hajji told me something. The Army’s attack tonight will change tomorrow morning. The morning will change in some fundamental way that the rest of the world doesn’t know about. Nothing else will change, but the victors known as UCAT will vanish and the world will belong equally to everyone.”

She rubbed Shiro’s head while walking alongside him.

“People want to avenge the past or avenge what was lost, but with the target of that vengeance gone, they will have no excuses left and will have no reason left to fight. …It may take time, but we will all be able to live together in the same world, as identical humans, in the same generation, while wearing the same sort of clothes, while eating the same kinds of food, while breathing the same air, and while experiencing the same time.”

She looked down at the dog’s walking feet. They scraped on the asphalt, but he did not cast a shadow.

“Will I be able to live with you too, Shiro? Even if nothing else changes, if the rulers vanish, then eventually…”

They reached the wide main entrance, but she did not peek inside the school.

She turned her back, crossed the road, and continued on.

Shiro must have remembered the way because he walked on ahead.

It was true she had taken Shiro this way a few times before. She would sometimes come here without telling anyone else. Hajji seemed to have a hunch, but Mikoku only thought she was going to some distant place for fun.

…''Should I really be doing this?

They had all been given some free time because this was the day of the attack, but Mikoku was training on her own to make up for losing to Jord the night before.

On the other hand, Shino had come here. She was using her free time for herself.

…''But all I’ve been doing is thinking.

“Sorry, Shiro. We can go to the usual central park later.”

He turned back toward her and gave a small bark.

She felt like he was trying to cheer her up, so she smiled.

She walked between the houses lining the road and saw thin clouds in the sky.

The clouds were supposed to clear by nightfall, but she wondered if they really would.

She also had another thought.

…''What will happen once the attack is over?

Whether they won or lost, a lot would change.

…''But one thing will return to normal.

“Mikoku.”

The girl would no longer have to tell Shino not to fight.

In fact, Shino would be the one telling Mikoku they no longer needed to fight.

She could not wait for that to happen.

She wanted all the fighting to end and for Mikoku to not be so upset all the time.

“…”

She slowly came to a stop.

At the same time, she heard an electronic chime and a voice behind her.

“The festival committee will now announce the beginning of today’s school festival preparations and would like to give some warnings. Let’s see… First, when riding a bicycle, motorcycle, or car onto school grounds, make sure your license is displayed in a visible place. Second, ‘I couldn’t resist any longer’ is no excuse for making the preparations in the nude. And third, if anyone else tries to sell stimulants at increased prices in the cafeteria, the committee’s purge division will…”

Shino simply sighed without even turning toward the voice.

“Ahh.”

She began to walk away from the sounds behind her and the people creating them.

“It will all be over soon and then I can be with Mikoku and the others.”

She had waited for so long, but that wait would end tonight and she would have all her answers by morning.

She briefly closed her eyes and nodded.

…''If I…

“If I had been like Shinjou-san, I wouldn’t have had to wait for the new world,” she muttered. “If only I had been someone irreplaceable.”

She looked up and faced forward.

There, she saw what lay in front of Shiro as he sat and waited for her.

It was a large house surrounded by a long fence.

She walked toward the wooden gate and saw a nameplate that said “Tamiya”.

“I came here again…”

Her voice sounded both resigned and exasperated.

A moment later, a female voice reached her from beyond the gate.

“Like! I! Said!!”

The tone of protest made Shino gasp.

She wondered what was going on and the voice traveled through the gate once again.

“Honestly, Kouji. Why are you such a stubborn boy!?”

A young man and woman faced each other in the Tamiya family yard.

The woman wore a blue kimono and the man wore a gray suit.

The man spoke to the woman whose eyebrows were raised.

“Fine, fine. Just calm down, my sister. Besides, you shouldn’t be calling your brother a ‘boy’ when he’s past twenty.”

“Then I’ll level you up to a stubborn man. Or I could say you were ‘born stubborn’ to make it rhyme.”

“Ha ha ha. They may be spelled the same, but they don’t actually rhyme. …Anyway, you need to spend some time in the storehouse thinking about what you did. I can’t believe you would give the young master some of our special drugs.”

“But he and Setsu-chan are like family. What’s wrong with giving them some of our drugs?”

“Those are for business! They’re for the guests in the confinement room down below. Just because mom and dad are on a hot spring excavation tour in the hopes that Mount Aso will erupt doesn’t mean you can just take some.”

“But, but, but. Won’t this help advance their relationship? Do you really not get it, Kouji?”

The woman, Ryouko, sighed while striking a pose like it had started to rain.

“They’re going to be apart for a little bit, so they’re just using some drugs to excite themselves and get them through the rebound. There’s nothing wrong with this. And if it goes well, it means I was their Cu-Cu-Cu-Cupi-…”

“Cupid. You can’t even say that right?”

“I-I just stuttered a little. I don’t remember raising a man who would gripe about something so trivial! …And if you don’t like it, try saying some profound thing yourself!”

“I’d really like a peaceful everyday life.”

“That’s definitely not happening.”

“Why is that the only time you give a serious answer!? …And you’re the reason it isn’t happening!”

After Kouji shouted, his shoulders drooped.

“Anyway, sister, I would also like to say I wasn’t raised to be like that, but don’t forget that a large part of my personality was formed by cleaning up after your mistakes.”

“Wh-what? Are you saying it’s my fault you’re like this?”

“About eighty percent your fault, yes.”

“You mean you have eighty percent of a sister complex!? Oh, you poor thing! You’re definitely dangerous!”

“Calm down one hundred percent, my sister. How in the world did you reach that conclusion?”

“Don’t try to deny it!” Ryouko pointed at Kouji and raised her voice. “There’s nothing wrong with having a sister complex. With a sister this attractive, it isn’t something to be embarrassed about. After all, even the single and unemployed son of Ishii-san who lives cattycorner of here has been spying on me with binoculars!”

A second-story window on the house diagonally behind Ryouko quickly closed, but they heard someone stomping up the stairs followed by screams and sounds of impacts in one room on the second story.

Ryouko sighed toward the ground.

“Well, with as many pheromones as I produce, I guess I can’t blame you for having a sister complex. You can have one if you want. After all, I’m the one that finds it disgusting, not you.”

“I’m going to ignore that misunderstanding and how you destroyed peace in the neighborhood, but you are amazingly individualistic, sister.”

“Yes, but Kouji? Did you really see your sister like that?”

“Yes. About four times a year, I would tell myself I didn’t want to turn out like you.”

“You made a quarterly habit out of it!? …You’re the worst, Kouji. Instead of just thinking things again and again, you need to make actual changes in your life.”

“Then can I go on a trip? Maybe one that lasts three years?”

“Fine, but make sure to clean my room first. And once you get back, you’ll have to clean the three years’ worth of messiness. And that isn’t mandatory; it’s an order.”

“Those are the same thing! And what kind of sister makes her younger brother clean her room!?”

“Now you’re ignoring our familial bonds? You really are the worst! I’m not putting up with this.”

She turned around, slid the gate’s latch to the side, and pulled it open.

She opened it with all her might and looked over her shoulder at Kouji.

“I’m going to work and you can’t stop me! I’m going to get rich and use all my money to show you who’s better! I’ll slap you with a pile of cash and make you cry.”

“I’m sorry, sister, but all of the money you earn goes right into the company vault.”

“A-are you embezzling it!? …Huh?”

Ryouko saw a girl and a dog through the gap of the opening gate.

Seeing the surprised look on the girl’s face, Ryouko’s own look of surprise changed to a smile.

“Oh, my.” She placed a hand on her cheek. “Are you preparing for the school festival? You are, aren’t you? Are you from the young master’s class?”

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| Back to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 12|Chapter 12]]
| Return to [[Owari no Chronicle|Main Page]]
| Forward to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 14|Chapter 14]]
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</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 12

2026-10-14T01:39:31Z

N-Ch:

==Chapter 12: For a Conclusion==
[[Image:OnC_v10_0299.png|thumb]]
''I was told to be hurt

''I was told to be destroyed

''What is the answer?

Hiba rode the destruction of the land.

He had assumed Yonkichi’s actions would lead to some kind of attack, so he had used all his strength to avoid it.

It could have been an impact, a slash, or a projectile.

Thanks to his two losses during the summer, he took an evasive stance before even seeing the enemy’s attack.

That decision proved wise.

The entire space within three meters around him was destroyed.

It was almost an explosion.

As the bursting air knocked him away, he spun around and took a landing pose.

…''What was that!?

He could tell it was some sort of spatial strike. In the instant the space was compressed and made to burst, that space was acclimated to the surrounding space. That caused anything in the bursting space to burst along with it.

He understood the idea behind it.

…''But how does he do it? What does he use?

He landed with those questions in mind, held a hand up to block the whirling wind and scattering fragments of the ground, and looked forward.

The second attack was coming.

“…!”

He forcefully leaped backward again to leave the three meter range of destruction, but…

“This one’s bigger!?”

That instinctual decision led him to increase the force of his leap. He flew a full five meters back.

A moment later, the bursting space closed right in front of him. The range had been five meters instead of three.

…''Does this mean he still isn’t going all out!?

Everything split and burst before him.

The wind and torn ground caused him to frantically pull back.

He watched the air explode and corrected his fighting stance.

…''But what do I do?

He clenched his right fist, but he doubted it could do much against this destructive power. And their previous battle told him the old man had a slight edge when it came to a pure exchange of attacks.

His enemy had the advantage in power, skill, and speed.

“Calm down.”

''If I think about it, there has to be a way,'' he told himself.

And so he cleared his mind of all idle thoughts.

…''I will empty my mind!

A sudden image of Mikage in the nude appeared in his mind.

…''And I will stay positive!

He decided this image was a message from the god of beauty that he needed to stay positive. As long as he had no other idle thoughts, nothing else mattered.

But…

…''Mikage-san hasn’t been letting me in the bath with her recently.

It had started two weeks before. She had said she wanted to practice bathing alone and had not let him in. His mother must have supported Mikage’s independence because she had tried to stab him with a spear through the peephole he had tried to use.

That meant his only images of Mikage in the nude were images of the past.

…''But that’s fine too. Imagination!!

At that point, he suddenly realized he needed to focus on the battle, so he gently crossed his arms in front of his face to clear his mind.

“Stop throbbing, my heart. Stop throbbing, my heart!”

“Are you really taking this seriously, puru?”

“I don’t want to hear that from you, Mr. Puru!! Are you listening? Please listen, ma’am!”

With that shout, Hiba suddenly took action.

There were a few ways to overcome a difference in power, skill, and speed.

One of those was to take the initiative.

He would find an opportunity and take advantage of it. It was also called taking the enemy by surprise.

His opponent’s attacks affected a range, but that range started at three meters.

If he made his way within three meters of the enemy, that enemy could not use that power for fear of hitting himself.

Hiba took a low leap and jumped again without slowing down.

He was not running; he was making consecutive leaps. He approached Yonkichi without letting his initial speed drop.

Once he arrived within five meters of the man, Yonkichi reacted by raising his left arm and clenching his fist.

“…!”

He swung it down.

The three meter area around Hiba, a six meter sphere of space, burst.

It bent, compressed, and eventually exploded.

The sound rang clearly, but Hiba was alive.

He had not been torn apart or broken and he continued to fight.

He had approached his enemy.

He was in the air.

He was falling from approximately five meters over Yonkichi’s head.

“——————”

The principle behind this great leap was simple.

His enemy’s attack took a spherical form, so if he jumped up and spread himself out over the curve of the sphere, the force of the explosion would throw him upward.

The enemy had set the center of the sphere close to the ground in order to hit him, so half of it had been buried.

He jumped over it.

The speed he had built up while approaching maintained his forward momentum even as he rode the blast radiating from the sphere.

This was what it meant to predict what would happen next.

And he continued fighting.

In the air, he twisted his body and made a dropping savate kick.

He did not simply drop his heel. Doing that would send his center of gravity into the ground if he landed. It was all over if the enemy evaded.

But with a savate kick, he could twist his body around and keep moving when he landed. The impact of landing could be transformed into a rotation. The attack was harder to read since it did not move in a straight line and people’s plummeting opinion of him would rise if he won here.

Hiba used this attack as a way of killing four birds with one stone.

However, he saw something in front of him.

Yonkichi had moved his left arm. However, the man did not raise his hand.

…''He pulled back his hips and formed a fist!?

If he created a spatial explosion here, he would be caught in the blast too.

Nevertheless, he moved.

A sound similar to an impact but with some flexibility added in came from behind Yonkichi.

The ground sank down behind him but not because something had gouged into it. Something had appeared there and crushed it.

Hiba knew a similar phenomenon occurred when Mikage summoned Susamikado, so he knew what was appearing.

“A god of war!?

Hiba saw bluish-white light behind Yonkichi that resembled an electrical discharge.

At the same time, the objects producing the spatial explosions appeared behind his arms.

They were giant arms.

The two red and yellow arms were at least three meters long and they resembled both armor and muscle. They rose alongside his arms while copying his movements.

“I will take this a little more seriously, puru. This is the reproductive offensive shell known as the Great Sage, puru. It is a collection of the greatest byproducts of 7th-Gear’s bodily modification techniques and this is my first time to use them outside of fights with my brothers, puru.”

Instead of simple spatial compression, he sent out a straight-line three meter uppercut.

The attack was much like the movement of a pile driver.

“!”

Meanwhile, Hiba temporarily lost all understanding.

He had trouble with unexpected actions. He had lost before due to that weakness and it was happening again.

…''I can’t let that happen!!

He woke his mind as if clinging to a thought.

More on reflex than conscious thought, he used the crisis response abilities and physical abilities built up inside him.

He twisted his upper body, swung his arms, and raised the speed of his savate kick.

He swung his right leg as if pouring it down on the fist that shot toward him like it had teleported.

…''My heel.

It hit the middle finger of the giant fist. His heel struck the base of the finger and he placed the sole of his foot on it.

“…!”

He absorbed the force, bent his ankle, bent his knee, lowered his hips, crouched down, spread his arms for balance, and even lowered his head.

He took all those actions in an instant to absorb the coming impact with his entire body.

He stored the force of the rising Great Sage fist’s movement in his body.

That fist reached the end of its movement and stopped.

With nowhere else to go, the force inside Hiba’s body threatened to explode, but a moment before, he jumped diagonally backward into the sky.

He stopped the force building inside him by leaping accurately in the direction of the giant fist’s path.

He more flew than jumped.

He had a high initial speed and Gs pressed down on him to send him down into the darkness.

…''But it’s better than taking all this as damage!

After jumping around a dozen meters, his speed suddenly vanished. His blood flow quickly rose to his head and his mind cleared.

He had reached a face-up position in midair, so the sky lay before his eyes. That sky was shifting from early morning to morning and it contained some faint clouds.

“…”

He bent backward so his head pointed down, so he saw the upside-down mountains and then what lay below.

About five meters down were the open-air dojo and the house.

“Mikage-san.”

“Right.”

The tall girl that replied awkwardly ran into the open-air dojo in a yukata.

Hiba rotated his body to land in front of her, spread his arms as he stood, and spoke with her.

“Susamikado!!”

It came.

The wind spiraled behind them and a black giant almost ten meters tall appeared behind Mikage.

It was Susamikado.

The black god of war’s frame, power source, sensory devices, etc. linked together and armor appeared over them all.

The bolts to hold its black body together audibly fit in place, Mikage was lifted by gravitational control, and she was taken inside Susamikado.

“Too slow, puru.”

Hiba realized Yonkichi’s voice came from behind.

…''!?

The appearance of and combination with Susamikado happened in a mere instant. He should have been able to board 3rd-Gear’s greatest weapon without leaving an opening, but Hiba realized something in that split-second.

…''Our enemy is 7th-Gear!

3rd-Gear could not fight without the power of a god of war, but this higher Gear had managed that.

Yonkichi interfered using pure speed.

Hiba turned around and saw the man riding the Great Sage’s extended hand.

The Great Sage’s shoulders were linked with a backpack-like curved component and shimmering heat rose from behind it.

Yonkichi extended his right hand forward from atop the giant palm.

His hand held Mikage and his grasp prevented her from entering Susamikado.

Her eyes opened wide and she turned toward the man.

“Now, then.”

Still riding the Great Sage’s right palm, Yonkichi casually raised his left hand.

That was when something strange happened.

The Great Sage’s left hand grew. It inflated like a balloon and yet appeared to remain just as solid. The giant arm grew to about ten meters long.

“Ever-changing and absurdly powerful. That is the ultimate form of 7th-Gear,” he said. “Oh, I forgot to say ‘puru’.”

The Great Sage’s even greater left arm punched Susamikado.

With the sound of breaking glass, the god of war doubled over and floated up in the air. Mikage had yet to combine with it, but she was swung up into the air due to being under its gravitational control.

Red warning lights appeared across Susamikado’s body to inform them of errors. It then vanished so it would not be influenced by anyone but its master.

That left Mikage alone in the air.

She had not actually been struck by the blow, but she had been thrown by its momentum and she flew toward a closed rain shutter on the house.

“Mikage-san!”

Hiba hurried, but he would not make it in time.

Even so, something helped him: an attack from Yonkichi.

The old man jumped down from the Great Sage’s hand and slammed his right fist into Hiba’s side.

Hiba’s breath was forced out from his mouth and nose and he heard a sound from his side.

The counterattack sent him flying through the air toward Mikage.

In exchange, three of his ribs were broken.

The pain had not yet reached him, but it would once he took in a breath and his blood circulated. But first…

“Kah.”

Something that was not quite a breath burst from his mouth.

He then stopped breathing. Once he caught up to Mikage in the air and held her in his arms, he found she had passed out.

He embraced her.

…''The house.

They slammed into it, but the impact was surprisingly soft.

“!?”

He was stopped by something that felt more absorbing than flexible and his back slid down to what felt like the ground.

An instant later, the sky above grew dark.

He was seeing the ceiling. He saw the old ceiling panels of the house.

He had slid after landing and only stopped once he hit a cabinet inside.

“Ow.”

The pain arrived. Simply inhaling felt like fingers digging into his left side.

He frowned as the pain filled the core of his being like the inside of his muscles were being directly twisted. Only then did he realize that someone had opened the rain shutter and laid out a futon for them to land on.

“Harakawa-san!?”

Harakawa walked past Hiba who lay motionless with Mikage in his arms.

He was leaving the house with something like a large log over his shoulder.

He clicked his tongue toward Hiba.

“Sorry, Hiba, but it took some time getting Heo ready.”

“S-sorry.”

Heo was wrapped in the Swiss roll of a blanket over Harakawa’s shoulder and she lowered the head sticking out the back. As the contents of the Swiss roll, she turned toward Harakawa who was moving outside.

“Wh-what are we going to do, Harakawa?”

“It’s a pain, but we need to drive that guy away. Can’t you see what’s happening here?”

“B-but if we attack with Thunder Fellow, that puru guy will be…”

“He isn’t holding back either, Heo Thunderson.”

“B-but!”

“He knows the past of our parents that you want so much. Is that not enough motivation? If not, then what do you really want?”

Harakawa felt the Swiss roll’s contents shake and hold its breath.

“Listen, Heo Thunderson. This is our duty.”

“I’m sorry.” The Swiss roll’s head turned weakly toward him. “B-but how are we going to fight?”

“That’s the question,” he said as he stepped outside.

Hiba was collapsed, a portion of the house was destroyed, and Ryuutetsu was out at the field with his wife.

…''This is like something from a shounen manga.

Yonkichi was approximately eight meters away. The Great Sage was back to its original size, but its backpack had not vanished. It had moved quickly enough to interfere with Susamikado’s appearance, so Harakawa doubted they had time to board Thunder Fellow.

But…

“Heo, does Thunder Fellow understand our situation?”

“Eh? Yes, it seems he can see the outside world a little.”

The Swiss roll tried to turn toward him, but it threw them off balance. ''This isn’t as easy as the delivery job at Yokota that I’ve been keeping alongside my UCAT work,'' thought Harakawa as he left the side of the building.

“U-um, Harakawa. You’ve been grabbing my butt through the blanket for a while now.”

“Enough false accusations. I can’t tell where I’m touching through the blanket and I haven’t been infected by Team Leviathan enough to want to do that right now.”

“What is the deal with Team Leviathan anyway?” sighed Heo.

Harakawa suddenly thought about that question from a different perspective.

…''What is it really?

Sayama had temporarily disbanded it, but did it make any difference when they were still fighting like this?

And if not, why had Kazami protested so much when Sayama had made them disband?

“…?”

However, he could not quite grasp what exactly he was asking.

After all…

…''Why are they so concerned with what is nothing more than a name?

He felt as if that was where he would find the reason Sayama had them disband.

“The past, hm?”

…''What about the past gives such meaning to the name Team Leviathan?

However, he decided this was not the time to think about it.

He stopped thinking, stood in the yard, and faced Yonkichi who was in the center of the open-air dojo to the west.

“Listen. Unlike Susamikado, Thunder Fellow is intelligent. If you try to interfere while we’re boarding him, he can decide on his own to crush you. So…”

“So you’re telling me to leave, puru?”

“No. I’m telling you to get lost.”

Harakawa spoke to the contents of the Swiss roll supported by his shoulder.

“Heo, I warned him, so summon Thunder Fellow.”

“Eh? B-but how am I supposed to do that? He has trouble appearing when he doesn’t sense me in danger.”

Harakawa wordlessly stripped away the Swiss roll.

Having lost its support, the blanket fell across his right shoulder like a cloak and the contents exposed her flesh-colored body with her stomach resting on his shoulder.

“Ee,” she shrieked. “N-noooooo!! Thunder Fellowwwww!!!”

Yonkichi did not interfere with Thunder Fellow’s appearance.

Harakawa had already explained why. The mechanical dragon had a personality so interfering would be the same as placing himself in front of his enemy.

Wind wrapped around Thunder Fellow as he appeared in the parking area made from a dirt clearing in front of the house.

He was only eight meters away and he filled their vision like a mountain or a wall.

It only took an instant for the blue and white dragon to open the cockpit and let the two humans inside.

“…!!”

After a moment, he let loose a mechanical roar.

He was over thirty meters long, how much he weighed was anyone’s guess, he had appeared already in his close-quarters combat form, and shimmering heat rose from the accelerators on the back of his body.

If he charged forward, there would be no escaping his speed and size and there would be no defending against or enduring his weight and solidness.

However, Yonkichi stood still without running.

He saw Thunder Fellow hold his head and reluctantly speak.

“H-Harakawa! That was just mean!! I don’t want anyone but you to see me like that!”

“Relax, Heo Thunderson. The microbes in the bath are always watching.”

“How could you say that?”

The voices stopped.

Yonkichi saw Harakawa moving inside the cockpit. He grabbed the roll bars sticking out on either side and leaned his entire body forward.

…''Not bad.

''That Harakawa boy was one of the last to join Team Leviathan, but he knows how to commit to a fight,'' thought Yonkichi.

…''But can he keep that balance with Miss Heo with him?

He did not have time to add the “puru” to his thoughts.

He then saw something happen in what could only be called an “instant”.

Thunder Fellow’s limbs pulled up and the mechanical dragon fired a wave of shimmering heat behind him.

“!”

He charged forward.

In only eight meters, steam exploded in front of his nose.

Wind expanded in a ring and the house’s roof tiles floated up a little before being blown away.

However, Yonkichi calmly watched the high-speed charge and realized what Harakawa was after.

His senses were synchronized with Thunder Fellow’s so he could make minor adjustments to his course even at this speed.

And Thunder Fellow was flying just a bit left of Yonkichi’s center line.

If the man did not evade, he would be killed instantly. Even if he did, he would be badly injured. And if he used some special method to completely avoid it, it could lead to an escape.

Yonkichi knew what Harakawa had to be thinking.

…''He expects me to use a special method of dodging.

Even if he expanded the Great Sage to more than ten meters, he could not hope to match the mechanical dragon named Thunder Fellow. To prove that, Harakawa had opted for a direct charge instead of a cannon blast.

…''An excellent decision.

''But,'' thought Yonkichi.

As his reflexes saw through the speed, he paused briefly and then spoke.

“Fixed concept…activate.”

A moment later, words filled the air.

—'''The world is reversed for an instant.

The result showed itself immediately afterward.

Thunder Fellow’s thirty meter form struck something and was blown away.

With a rumbling sound, armor fragments flew and Thunder Fellow pitched forward.

“…!?”

Harakawa and Heo gave confused voices as they crashed into the forest beyond the open-air dojo.

Their momentum broke through and knocked over the trees, armor fragments scattered from the parts that were bent, and the mass of destruction that was Thunder Fellow smashed the forest.

The forest covered a rising mountain slope, so the toppling mass of metal tore into the dirt for about five seconds before stopping.

After that, the mountain crumbled away for about one hundred twenty meters.

Yonkichi saw birds fly from the forest.

“Now, then,” he muttered. “Does this make you angry, puru?”

He turned to his right.

Someone stood behind him there.

“Brunhild-sama.”

The girl wearing a school uniform stood less than a meter away with a small bird on her head.

Brunhild did not understand.

Thunder Fellow had suddenly been knocked away during his charge, so she could assume something had attacked him. What she did not understand was why Yonkichi was no longer in the open-air dojo.

“Why are you here?”

She frowned toward the white flight jacket which she had found right in front of her after leaving the house.

She was in front of the house where Harakawa had opened the rain shutter to the room the girls had been staying in.

“Isn’t this near where Thunder Fellow was?”

What had happened? As she tried to find the answer, the black cat walked up and spoke to her.

“The world was reversed, Brunhild. So…”

“You’re a sharp one. …Yes, I reversed Thunder Fellow’s position with my own.”

The old man smiled at them over his shoulder.

[[Image:OnC_v10_0321.jpg|thumb]]

“I reversed them at the moment of impact, so Thunder Fellow collided with himself.”

“Then I just have to do this.”

Brunhild threw a piece of paper too quickly to see the movement of her hand.

She threw it toward her own neck and it had a certain image written on it.

“If I add the final dot for the word ‘sever’, it will slice off your head instead. Isn’t that right?”

“Care to try?”

“Are you provoking me?”

“I am stopping you. That is why I asked that. …Care to try?”

Brunhild’s frown grew. She pulled a pen from her pocket and brought the tip to the paper on her neck.

Just as she began to pull it across the paper, the bird flew from her head and a voice reached her.

“Don’t, Brunhild!!”

The black cat jumped up from the ground to keep her hand from moving.

…''Eh?

Her finger moved the pen and activated the paper.

A moment later, the paper’s severing power activated.

However, it affected her and not Yonkichi.

“!?”

…''Why!? I thought a reversing concept was in effect!?

The unexpected outcome left her unable to move, but the severing power was obstructed by something else.

That something was the black cat.

She had instinctually twisted away from him as he jumped toward her, so she had avoided the severing power. Instead, the black cat’s back jerked in midair.

Before she could say anything, the cat fell into her arms.

She held him there, but he was completely limp.

He was so soft she was not sure where to hold him, a pink line ran across his back, and something red appeared on his fur there.

“Wait…”

The question “Why?” entered her mind.

Wasn’t this a reversed world? And why had this happened to the cat?

The cat lifted his head a little in her arms.

“Good…bye.”

“From that, I take it you’re fine.”

She did not hesitate to jab a finger into his stomach and he bent backward.

“Ow ow ow ow! Now my stomach ''and'' my back hurt!! And Brunhild! Aren’t you going to thank me!?”

“You lost your chance when you worried me with that cheesy act.”

“Oh? So you were worried?”

“Just go to sleep.”

She stuck a hemostatic paper and sleep-inducing paper on him and faced Yonkichi again.

“I get it now. The world is reversed for an instant. In other words, you get to choose when that instant is. If you don’t create an instant of reversal, the attack continues as is, but if you do, the attacker attacks himself.”

“So how about it? Will you fight me, 1st-Gear Inspector?”

“Was fighting those four not enough?”

Brunhild looked over toward them. Inside the house, Hiba was unconscious yet still protectively holding Mikage. In the forest, Harakawa was lying face down inside Thunder Fellow’s cockpit.

Yonkichi glanced toward them as well.

“Do you really think that was enough?”

“Then look at your left arm.”

Yonkichi did so and they both saw that something was missing.

“…My arm.”

It had vanished all the way up to the base.

His eyes opened wide when he noticed, but Brunhild only casually held the cat.

The bird flew back to her head as she spoke.

“You didn’t notice that Hiba and Mikage got a small attack in on you when you knocked them away? The damage was so small you probably didn’t even feel it, but it caused you to miss the timing of your ‘instant’ just a little bit. …Quite a heavy price to pay for underestimating them.”

“Ha…”

Yonkichi took in a breath and looked at his left shoulder. Flesh and bone could be seen there, but it was not bleeding.

His structure as a living weapon had likely sealed off the blood vessels automatically.

Brunhild then heard his voice.

“Ha ha!!”

His breaths repeated the syllable “ha” again and again.

While laughing, he brought his right hand to his forehead, bent back, and held his stomach with the Great Sage’s hands.

“Now this is entertaining! It’s not much, but it is certainly entertaining! It is enjoyable! This is so wonderfully enjoyable, brothers!!”

Brunhild heard his laughter and words travel into the sky.

“When four of them work together, the people supporting Low-Gear can entertain one of us at least a little bit!”

With that, he twisted his body.

“I never expected to lose my left arm! I am both surprised and astonished! I am a little confused at the moment, but you know what? This is oddly entertaining. …Thirty points!”

“Then I assume taking off your head would be worth one hundred points.”

Yonkichi did not agree with Brunhild, but he did smile and reply.

“Your prize then would be the Concept Core and the past we hold.”

“Is that so? But why do you want to die so badly?”

“Die? That may be the case, but we have no time.”

“No time?”

“Yes,” he replied while glancing toward Hiba and Mikage’s collapsed forms and Thunder Fellow in the distance. “We four brothers age as we lose interest. And if we die before accepting this world as entertaining enough to leave the Concept Core to, that Concept Core will be destroyed.”

“Then the best option would be for you all to enjoy yourselves and die.”

“Yes,” agreed Yonkichi with a look into the sky. “I had thought there was no chance of that, but it seems some hope remains. I fought with no explanation this time, so I assume the next encounter can be more serious. However, I do not want to be seen as going easy on you, so I will leave you with this.”

His smile deepened and he swung up his remaining right arm along with the Great Sage.

“Goodbye.”

As soon as he clenched his fist, destruction burst overhead.

It covered a radius of one hundred meters. The center burst in the forest beyond the open-air dojo and it almost looked like the earth’s crust was breaking.

Simply put, the ground collapsed.

“————!?”

The Hiba dojo, house, open-air dojo, and forest were all broken to pieces, thrown about, and crumbled.

In an instant, everything gathered into piles.

Only the morning wind remained.

Only that wind which told of the change from early morning to morning.

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| Back to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 11|Chapter 11]]
| Return to [[Owari no Chronicle|Main Page]]
| Forward to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 13|Chapter 13]]
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</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 11

2026-10-14T01:24:03Z

N-Ch:

==Chapter 11: Flow of Human Will==
[[Image:OnC_v10_0283.png|thumb]]
''Where does regret come from?

''From within?

''From without?

A room was lined with small tables and chairs.

Windows covered the room’s southern wall and the almost gray light of morning was partially blocked by the giant logo-covered stickers on those windows. The stickers contained a simplified drawing of a mountain bandit leader.

“The Japanese fast food chain Most Valiant Burger. IAI sure runs some strange places. I’m also not sure I approve of calling a rice sandwich a ‘riceger’.”

Those complaints came from a woman in a white coat sitting alone by the window.

The tray on the two-person table held two rice balls wrapped in paper (a new product), a cup of consommé, and lightly pickled asparagus and lettuce.

The woman looked a little like an Asian girl and she rested her head on her hand and stared out the window despite the food in front of her.

She could see the city in early morning. The roundabout in front of the train station contained nothing but a single car and some parked buses. Very few people were in evidence and no motion could be seen.

“I wonder if they’re having an exciting time of it.”

Just as she released the contents of her lungs, she heard a female voice.

“May I sit with you, Doctor Chao?”

Chao looked up at the woman who sat down across from her.

“Diana? How did you know I was here?”

Diana wore a black suit and a large black scarf and she nodded while setting down her tray.

She brushed back her long hair and settled down in the chair.

“You underwent a similar process to me, so I released some paper birds and asked them if they spotted anyone like me around Okutama.”

Diana rested her right elbow on the table and showed off the raised palm.

She held a five centimeter crane created from folded black paper.

She closed her hand and the crane vanished before she opened it again.

“I see.” Chao crossed her arms. “The philosopher’s stone reading is weak, so I thought I’d be fine as long as an automaton didn’t find me, but I forgot about you. …So what are you going to do, descendant of Zonburg? Report me to UCAT?”

“Oh, dear. Is that what you think of me? I am nowhere near that boring a woman.”

Diana hummed as she lifted up a wrapped rice ball. She held the overflowing contents in with the bottom of the wrapper and bit in.

“The tuna scrape riceger special is so good. I’ve recently taken a liking to using wasabi as a topping.”

“The seaweed and Chinese pickles are enough for me.”

“It has plenty of fiber, doesn’t it? But it’s a shame the coffee here is cofftea.”

Diana wiped her lips with a paper napkin and drank some corn soup from her cup.

After a sip, she spoke.

“I hear those four old men are on the move.”

“Are you going to stop them?”

“No, I will leave that to anyone with too much time on their hands and their appropriate opponents. I have other plans.”

“Plans?”

“Yes. After I finish my work at UCAT tonight, I am meeting an acquaintance in the city. I also need to find some books for Heo there. I need to give her some books on Japanese culture, bizarre Japanese festivals, and anti-pervert self-defense.”

“I see.” Chao nodded and grabbed her riceger while looking out the window. “But you know what’s happening and why, don’t you?”

“Testament,” replied Diana. Still smiling, she turned toward Chao. “Those four old men were created as the temporary bodies for 7th-Gear’s Concept Core and they will return to their Concept Core form once they accept an inheritor. And if they do not…”

“They will vanish along with the Concept Core when their lifespan runs out. When I created them in 7th-Gear, the 7th-Gear sages planning to become the Concept Core instructed me to make them that way. They were not gods. They had simply reached the ultimate form of mankind, so they would only be bored with a world they could not accept. That is why I made them age as they lost interest in this world.”

A bitter laugh filled the restaurant.

“Those four have lost interest right on time. This world may have changed quite a bit after the war, but it still failed to interest them. I think it was during your generation that their aging slowed,” explained Chao. “But their aging accelerated during the last ten years. And around when we received 5th-Gear’s Concept Core, they came to tell me something.”

“That they’re so bored they want to go try some things out for themselves?”

Diana’s gaze dropped, she took a bite of her riceger, and she brought a hand to her mouth.

“Ah, that bite had a lot of wasabi.”

“How about you decide whether you’re having a serious conversation or eating?” asked Chao as she took a bite of her own rice. “Besides, I’ve been feeling a little emotional lately. Hanging around me will only put you in a bad mood. …I know it’s not like me, but I’ve been thinking. Why did I even create those four?”

She watched a bus leave the roundabout outside the window and she listened to its engine and the other background noises.

“At the time, I was invited to 7th-Gear, shown the ultimate in bodily modification techniques, and even heard they could create artificial humans using the Concept Core as a basis. I was simply delighted and the 7th-Gear people were happy to see my delight. But,” she said. “Did I make them only so they could die?”

“…”

“Diana, do you ever plan to have kids?”

Diana shrugged at the sudden question.

“I like fried chicken, so I think the stork hates me.”

“I like grilled chicken, so I think I’m the same. But I do wonder. What are parents thinking when they have kids? Do any parents have kids just so they can die?”

She gave a quiet laugh and ate her rice while still looking out the window.

She took a large bite to create a pause and then swallowed.

“I knew what was going to happen to them when I made them. And I was happy to do it. But back then, I never imagined how I would feel about it now.”

“What would you have done if you had known that then?”

“Well…”

Chao stopped moving, closed her eyes, and gave a self-deprecating look.

“You’re cruel, Diana. Wishing for something I couldn’t have done only brings frustration.”

Chao turned around to face Diana and crossed her legs.

“Those four are strong. Will Heo and the others be okay? Kazami and Izumo didn’t put up much of a fight.”

“If Heo and the others die, that’s just the way it is. But even then, it doesn’t mean those four were born to die. …They were born to do something, but they simply chose to die on the way there. That is how I view it.”

“And where did that idea come from?”

“Ten years ago, a group of people chose to die together just as they had eaten, lived, and spoken together. I chose not to and they disappeared from my life. But even though they passed away, they are still crying and laughing, talking and falling silent, and walking and stopping. I try to think that I have no reason for sorrow since this merely means I can no longer meet them.”

Diana held the cup of corn soup in both hands and quietly looked out the window.

“If we can create a continuation to the act of dying, I believe my friends will return. But those four old men are trying to create an ending. And that ending will act as the final destination of 7th-Gear’s Concept War.”

“Yes. They are trying to fight and enjoy themselves as the people of 7th-Gear. This is likely their first and last chance to build up their experience, reveal their identities, and enjoy themselves with the greatest power possible. They most likely want to have fun and win…but even if they win, it is over for them,” said Chao. “They are probably thinking that they were born to die. And if the purpose of their existence lies in their deaths, why were they not allowed to die immediately after their births? …They probably resent me for knowing that when I created them.”

“That is something only they can know. …But that is exactly why I hope they can enjoy themselves until the end arrives. I hope Heo, the Sayama boy, and the others can satisfy them.”

Diana took a sip from the cup and smiled.

She directly faced Chao with that smile.

“But it is my students who will be victorious. Not those four old men.”

She took a breath.

“The Sayama boy once said he would never admit defeat no matter how many times he lost and that he would win in the end. …Crazy, isn’t it?”

She smiled bitterly, but Chao did not nod.

But she did speak and reach for another wrapped riceger.

“I see you don’t cry anymore, Diana. When you first came to Japan, you would always get mad for others and cry.”

“Testament,” quietly agreed Diana.

She opened a new wrapper and brought the rice to her mouth.

“…”

She tried to eat the entire riceger at once and Chao glared at her.

“Your snake-like eating hasn’t changed, though.”

“D-don’t compare me to a snake. I am the Mother Cat.”

“Oh?” Chao pulled a cigarette from her pocket. “I’m finally feeling a little better. Mind if I smoke?”

“No, go ahead.”

Diana pulled lipstick from her pocket, wrote two words on a napkin, and placed it in front of her.

“ ‘Get lost’? What’s this? Are you picking a fight with me?”

“It is for the smoke, Doctor Chao. …Anyway, talking about those four really is reminding me of the past. For example, there were others who desired victory to bring something to an end ten years ago and before.”

“That there were. …And there are people who want that now too.” Chao lit the cigarette in her mouth. “The Army. We know very well what they’re thinking, don’t we? They’re a collection of the remnants and crimes of the Concept War. They wish to destroy the victorious survivor that is UCAT but also to eliminate themselves. That way they can create a peaceful world with no victor.”

“Only a group small enough to vanish could come up with an idea like that. They’re willing to use any dirty method of winning. All that matters is eliminating their enemy and themselves,” said Diana. “So they will simply do evil without even being a villain. The more evil they are, the more the later world will know of the evil committed during the Concept War, so that later world will avoid conflict once they vanish. …They think the people of that later world will be able to appreciate peace.”

“Be careful, Diana. My four may be attacking now, but the Army is definitely coming. And meanwhile, Team Leviathan has disbanded and both Kazami and Izumo are out of the fight.”

“I know that.” Diana nodded and raised her eyebrows a little. “But those four are the more pressing problem for now. …I will keep it a secret, so can you tell me what they’re going to do?”

Chao exhaled some smoke and it reversed direction toward her and the wall once it arrived above the napkin in front of Diana.

“Ah, that pisses me off. I’m not telling you now.”

“O-oh, come on. I just want to know a little. Oh, I know. How about some dessert? The youke, a fusion of youkan and cake, is something like kintsuba.”

“How are you supposed to pronounce that?”

“Youke.”

“…Well, whatever. Ikkou is maintaining his weapons and Nijun is pursuing Sayama. Mitsuaki works more behind the scenes, so he should be with Ikkou. And Yonkichi… He’s pursuing Heo and the others.”

Diana’s expression stiffened at that last fact.

“Yonkichi is?”

“That’s right. Surely you know that he’s the strongest of the four brothers when looking at a one-on-one battle. …Now, how will this turn out?”

Chao blew smoke upward and it gathered like a cloud up near the ceiling.

“Those children are always playing the fools, but they’ve finally realized what they need to do and will give this their all. They helped you all ten years ago, but their strength and determination are entirely different now. They will be asking the question that was always kept hidden inside them.”

Chao looked to Diana with the smile of those four’s parent.

“They will win. They are the ones asking, so their strength as they ask will be greater than all else. Can’t you hear them asking, Diana? The question should resound on and on forever. They lost the world they were born in and they were born to accept this world and die.”

She took a breath.

“So they will ask why they are alive. And they are completely serious. …That nonsense doesn’t suit them at all, does it?”

Yonkichi fought in the outdoor dojo next to the Hiba family house.

He wore a filthy white work outfit below a white flight jacket.

That was his usual outfit.

The sky was changing from white to blue and the Okutama air was becoming the clear air of morning.

That was the usual state of the world. Low-Gear was no different from normal.

It was a weekday, so the people would be waking up, eating breakfast, and living their lives by going to school, going to work, or completing housework.

''But,'' thought Yonkichi.

…''I am different from normal.

Normally, he was not dodging fists in the morning.

Normally, he was not dodging kicks in the morning.

Normally, he was not breaking free of throws in the morning.

Normally…

…''I am not fighting Hiba’s grandson in the morning.

This was not normal. He was certain he was currently doing things differently from others. He was the only one in the world who…no, he and his opponent, Hiba, were the only ones feeling this.

It was a wonderful thing.

…''We were born to test this Gear and to die. Fulfilling that is the will of 7th-Gear, which you can call our father, and it is for the sake of Chao Sei, the mother who responded to that will.

But his brothers had said something else.

…''We do not know if that is correct.

Their lifespans were reaching their end. They were losing interest in this world that lacked change, so they wanted to hurry up and die. If they died, they could fulfill the meaning of their birth.

''But,'' thought Yonkichi as he deflected Hiba’s fist with an arm and slammed his elbow into the boy.

…''My heart wishes for entertainment before then.

He remembered what his brothers had said.

…''We can think about that while performing the test.

And if they did not completely lose interest before the end came, they could say Low-Gear had more value than simply bringing their end.

They would draw out all of their ability, use it without hesitation, watch their surprised opponent, smile whether they had won or lost, and reach their own highest point.

…''Then we will accept Low-Gear.

''But,'' he thought again.

Hiba ducked to avoid a kick and tried to sweep away Yonkichi’s supporting leg with a horizontal kick, so Yonkichi jumped straight up to evade.

“But…”

Down below, the rotation of the horizontal kick prevented Hiba from moving.

Yonkichi dropped his heel down on the boy.

He was confident it would hit.

His reason was simple: Hiba’s actions were far too easy to predict.

The boy was used to god of war combat, so his actions appeared compact but actually used wide motions.

He quickly rotated those large motions to prevent his opponent from seeing through them.

He was like a miniature typhoon.

If you knew where his center was, he was nothing more than swinging arms and legs. Hitting his weak points was easy.

And Yonkichi did exactly that.

His dropping heel traveled straight toward the top of the head.

Hiba’s balance was fixed due to the rotation of the horizontal kick, so an attack from directly above would slam him into the ground and prevent the damage from slipping away.

This attack would knock him unconscious. The pain in his head would keep him from even drinking anything properly for the rest of the day.

His heel hit.

“!”

With the sound of bone being struck, Hiba was knocked into the ground while rotating.

Yonkichi used the recoil to flip backward and land on the hard ground.

“But this is boring, as it does not allow me to reach my highest point.”

He saw Hiba doubled over on the ground and not moving, so he corrected his posture and turned his back on the boy.

He faced the house.

Someone stood in front of the broken entrance to one room.

It was a short old man wearing a dark samue.

Yonkichi bowed toward him.

“Will you be opposing me as well, Ryuutetsu-sama. To refresh my mind, I will add a new speech quirk, puru.”

“I’d rather not fight someone who speaks like that.”

“It is best to ignore it, puru. But more importantly…”

Yonkichi let his arms dangle next to him and turned his body toward the other man.

“Will you be fighting me or not, puru?”

“No, that’s no longer my role. I’m about to go check on the field with Toshi.”

Ryuutetsu pointed to his left.

Yonkichi turned to look and found where he had previously knocked Hiba Ryuuji to the ground.

He also saw the boy slowly standing and shaking his head.

…''But that was a solid blow.

Hiba brushed a hand through his hair and finished standing. He made a gentle hop to plant his feet on the ground and began stepping forward and back. He started slow but quickly gained speed.

His eyes were trained directly on Yonkichi.

“During the summer, I was taught something by an upperclassman even more perverted than me and another upperclassman who I can never hope to match when it comes to acts of perversion. I was taught that I don’t prepare my defenses and that I think I’ve won too soon.”

He spat onto the ground next to him and the spit was colored red.

“When you jumped up, I remembered when I lost to them. …I lost twice, but I won’t lose a third time. I’m taking this seriously.”

“I see, I see.”

Yonkichi nodded toward Ryuutetsu and faced Hiba again.

Instead of letting his arms dangle, he held them forward at slightly above shoulder height.

His elbows swayed, he pulled on the sleeves, and he lightly spread his arms with the wrists and hands sticking out.

“Then I too shall take this a little seriously, puru.”

“A little seriously?”

He clenched his fists while nodding to Hiba’s question.

A moment later, the air exploded, a large portion of the hard dojo ground burst, and Hiba was blown away.

The battle had begun anew.

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| Forward to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 12|Chapter 12]]
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</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 10

2026-10-13T03:49:47Z

N-Ch:

==Chapter 10: Sounds of a Visitor==
[[Image:OnC_v10_0249.png|thumb]]
''Come

''For I have called for you

''For my very being is calling for you

The color of the night sky began to change.

The bottom of the sky to the east was growing bright.

The entire eastern sky was already lit by something rising from below the horizon, so some purple was spreading like a wave.

The sky’s color change was the preparation or foreshadowing of the breaking dawn.

The air remained still and did not produce any mist.

The final night dew sank down, but that was all.

The faint light from the east revealed the silhouette of the land.

The shadows were formed by a forest.

A mountain was filled with darkness, a valley was steeped in the color black, and a narrow yet swift river could be heard flowing between them, but trees covered it all and hid them.

The thick and massive mountains and forests were nothing but trees and slopes.

Nothing moved in this predawn hour. The nocturnal animals had sensed the morning and gone to sleep, but the diurnal animals had yet to wake.

Nevertheless, something did move through those mountains and forest.

It was a boy in a suit with a rucksack on his back.

It was Sayama.

He walked up on a mountain ridge while moving through the forest at running speed.

There was a path there. The wind and rain had naturally worn down the dirt on the ridge, so stone footing had been exposed. A mountain path along the ridge used that footing.

The Okutama mountain range was vast, but a path ran along that ridge of the primary mountains. It was currently just before November, so Okutama was approaching winter. To maintain the power lines, water pipes, and other utilities running along the ridge, people had traveled on the side paths straying from the ridge and the unnecessary underbrush had been cut away.

Sayama had traveled through most of these places back when he had been training, but his current goal was even higher.

…''A little to the north.

Mount Kumotori, Tokyo’s tallest mountain at approximately two thousand meters, was to the west. He was about seven kilometers east of it after climbing to Nippara from the south.

His destination was near Nikengoya Ridge northeast of Mount Kumotori.

If he used the hiking trail to Kumotori, it would take about half a day.

He had entered from the Ootaki mountain trail to the far west, but he had considered taking a more direct route from a more remote trail.

Most notably, he could have reached the base of Kumotori by road if he had circled around to the Saitama side.

However, he had decided against that.

He was familiar with tall mountains.

He had only climbed the Tokyo mountains of Akigwawa or Okutama, but even then, he could still come down with mild altitude sickness if he climbed a two thousand meter mountain deep in the Okutama mountain range with no preparation.

If he rested with proper posture, he could recover from altitude sickness, but that would prevent him from moving much for an entire day.

Climbing the mountain would be simple, but when thinking about the descent and what came after that, he decided not to rush things.

Traveling along the Nippara mountainside added several kilometers to his journey, but it also allowed him fuller breaths and the amount of oxygen in his blood gradually changed as he walked and took brief breaks.

''This is perfect,'' he told himself in the dark forest.

“Long ago…”

…''I climbed a mountain without this planning or consideration for altitude sickness.

That had been during his training days.

As part of that training, Hiba Ryuutetsu had chased him around with a large machete for three days. He had rushed up the mountain then, but that had kept him from moving the following day.

Afraid of an attack during that time, he had set a trap.

It had been a popular variety of trap.

When someone approached, a rope would wrap around their neck and lift them into the air.

For bait, he had used a porn magazine found in a Mount Kumotori cabin. He had doubted it would work, but only three hours later, it had caught Ryuutetsu and the old man had swayed back and forth while struggling.

Sayama distinctly remembered the heart-to-heart conversation between teacher and student then.

“M-Mikoto, you’ll pay for this one! I wouldn’t walk anywhere near a cliff if I were you!!”

“Ha ha ha. I filled this area with the scent of raw meat, so try to rest in peace once a bear eats you. Is that what you call a bear-ial? But do not worry. I will tell Toshi-kun that you were bravely eaten by a bear.”

It had been a conversation of mutual consideration. His preparations for luring in a bear had been flawless, but Ryuutetsu had beaten him back to the dojo and dinner had been a pot of some strange tough meat.

Thinking back, he decided he should have finished the man off himself instead of leaving it to something else. ''That naïveté led to the loss of a piece of nature,'' he realized. ''I need to treat nature more carefully.

“This is that same tree.”

He stopped below a familiar tree. The thick tree that towered above him in the darkness was the one he had once hung Ryuutetsu from. The rope was probably still there up above.

''It is all so nostalgic,'' he thought just before a sound came from his pocket.

It was an electronic tone, but it did not come from his cellphone. He had left his phone and wristwatch in his dorm room after having Team Leviathan disband. The sound in his pocket came from the timer on a pocket watch.

He checked it and found the glow-in-the-dark paint on the hands pointing to five o’clock in the morning. The LCD screen at the bottom indicated half an hour had passed.

…''Time for a break.

“And given the time, I should eat an early breakfast.”

He nodded and came to a stop.

He sat below the old hanging tree and lowered his rucksack.

The most noticeable item in the bag was his change of clothes. A mountain-climbing suit and underwear were folded and placed inside. Next was two liters’ worth of water bottles, but he also had a straw-shaped filtration device because that was not enough water for this trip.

He thought while pulling out and eating some portable food and drinking some water from a bottle.

…''I would normally still be asleep at this time.

The watch said it was 5:10. In another hour, Shinjou would wake him or he would wake her.

…''Have I really been living such a happy life for more than half a year now?

He had not had that before. He had always gone to sleep alone and woken alone.

That solitary lifestyle had returned to him here.

“It feels so lonely, Shinjou-kun.”

He suddenly stood up.

The eastern sky had grown a little brighter and he could see the next mountain range from the ridge.

He placed his hands around his mouth.

“Shinjou-kuuuuun!!”

After a few seconds, his shout returned to him.

“Shinjou-kuuuuun.”

He focused his ears on the echo and nodded several times. Okutama’s nature also desired Shinjou.

For that reason, he pulled a portable digital recorder from his pocket and pointed it toward the dimly-lit Okutama mountains.

“Ah! N-no, stop! Don’t touch my butt! Don’t pull down my underwear! My butt!”

He placed a hand next to his ear and waited the few seconds for the reply.

“Ah. N-no, stop. Don’t touch my butt. Don’t pull down my underwear. My butt.”

The echo returned in a milder form.

…''Such deep meaning.

''Can you hear this, mountain trees, the earth, and all of nature? This is what I once did not have.

Nodding at that, he sat back down.

“But what I have with me now is not the real deal. And that includes myself. That is why I am taking this solitary journey and why I have given myself an assignment. …I will make myself the real deal.”

He shallowly closed his eyes and thought of an important person.

He then brought his right hand to his chest and muttered to himself.

“Around ten years ago, I lost my father and was almost killed by my mother.”

He frowned and strength gathered in the hand on his chest.

The usual pain filled the depths of his chest there.

The pain seemed to disturb all of the blood circulating his body. He had not felt this definite pain for a while, but…

“…”

He took a deep breath and forced it down.

He gently raised his left hand and spread his fingers in front of his face.

“I trained my body in order to sweep away that past, but this broken left fist…while it can hold a weapon, I unfortunately still cannot clench it into a fist, Shinjou-kun.”

He smiled bitterly.

He swung his left fist toward the tree behind him.

“…”

But without him telling it to, the fist slowed down and stopped before reaching the tree trunk.

On a subconscious level, he feared that phantom pain.

He sent a bitter laugh into the sky.

“How pathetic. Shinjou-kun, you understand the issue in your body and are attempting to mature, but I am simply dragging around my chest pains and left fist without changing a thing.”

He then muttered a rejection of that.

“No, this is my only chance. After all, you are sure to find something in Sakai. And whether you find success or failure, you will continue forward. If I am to be the one to accept you back, I must reach that same level. …And this is my only chance. I am alone now, so I can settle my past without worrying anyone else.”

He carved those words into his heart.

…''I will pursue my parents’ footsteps.

He told himself he would no longer look away from the truth. He could not afford to do so anymore.

It was necessary for the Leviathan Road.

It was necessary to no longer fear his own pain.

It was necessary to reach the same level as the one he cared for.

…''It is necessary for everything about me. And…

“And this is how I will gain my past. …But what about Kazami and the others? Will they be able to use the past to rethink their current selves?”

He opened his eyes and faced forward.

At some point, the sky had grown very bright. With the darkness gone…

“Questioning myself like this feels rather embarrassing.”

He smiled bitterly and the smile only grew.

''Why was I speaking to myself for so long?'' he wondered.

…''I used to be much better at restraining myself when I was alone.

“I have grown weak,” he muttered happily. “I have grown weak, Shinjou-kun. After meeting you and living with you, I have grown weak. I have simply been hiding it from you…no, you have simply not tried to notice it.”

He put away his things and placed the bag on his back, but brought a hand to his chest.

He thought of the past as he faced eastward. He could no longer see anything but mountains in the distance.

…''It was in an unseen place beyond those mountains that my mother almost killed me.

He thought along with the pain in his chest.

…''Why do I feel this pain?

“That is a simple matter.”

He recalled something. It was the same thing he had recalled to escape Atsuta’s Art of Walking when battling 2nd-Gear.

Long ago, his family had been whole and had smiled.

His father had been very reliable and his mother had been kind and gentle.

He had not shared this memory with anyone since losing them.

…''Why?

''Why did you die?

''Why am I still alive?

He did not need to worry about it. He was happy now and there was no need to question that happiness.

But the reason for his chest pains and the phantom pain in his fist was there.

…''Why?

He had asked himself that a long time ago. Since Shinjou had arrived and since he had grown serious, he had hidden that question, but he stood with it in his heart once more. He held his chest and frowned.

“I will go find the answer. Father, mother, I will follow after you, surpass your unseen forms, and continue on with only a quick glance toward you. And wait for me, Shinjou-kun. I want to be with you again, but only after I can survive without you. If I can do that…”

He held his chest as he began to walk once more.

“The world’s greatest happiness will be mine.”

The world was broken.

The night sky blazed red and a city crumbled and burned.

Something walked along a wide road in the collapsing city that sent sprays of fire into the air.

It was someone with no form. It was nothing but a gaze.

The gaze weakly climbed the tilted asphalt and reached the peak.

“…Eh?”

Only then did the gaze realize it was in a burning city.

“Eh? W-wait. Um, when did I end up here? All I did was secretly strip naked in the futon and go to sleep. Don’t tell me that made me turn invisible.”

Heo, the owner of the gaze, quickly looked in every direction.

However, her wandering gaze stopped when it spotted something in the scenery: a collapsed traffic light.

The traffic light’s base had crumbled when the asphalt had tilted and its lights had gone dark, but the sign below it gave the place name.

“Osaka Castle?”

She faced forward.

A building was gently tilted toward the broken road Heo stood on.

Beyond it were the remnants of an elevated roadway and a river.

Beyond those was a small mountain.

The mountain was formed from the accumulated rubble of a collapsed structure.

It was dark and cracked and the light of a fire leaked out from within.

That was when Heo first felt the wind.

It felt more like a scorching rush of air than a hot wind.

As the racing wave of heat washed over the trees lining the street, their leaves instantly turned to ash.

Even the metal street signs, store signs, and traffic lights instantly lost their paint and bent like melting hard candy.

…''What is this?

It was the hot gusts of wind produced in a disaster-stricken city.

Heo then realized what exactly she was seeing.

…''The Great Kansai Earthquake.

This was thanks to Baku. The small creature had taken a liking to her at the hospital before arriving at Hiba’s dojo and he was showing her an image of the past.

The night after the Black Sun battle, Heo had seen her great-grandfather’s past in a dream.

''This is the second time,'' she realized while looking around.

She saw a mountain and sea of destruction and it all matched what Sayama had described.

Her father had died here and so had Harakawa, Hiba, and Sayama’s fathers.

They were likely the reason she was having this dream. The night before, they had looked at the photograph of her great-grandfather and the others that Brunhild had brought. Mikage’s mother had also been in the photo and they had discussed it.

The photograph had contained a few dozen people in front of a mountain range. In addition to the main force of old UCAT, it seemed to include their families and the people with normal posts as well. They had not known who anyone was outside of Chao and their own relatives, so they had been forced to discuss it and use the process of elimination.

The man with pale hair in the very front had been Hiba’s grandfather. Next to him was Hiba’s grandmother Toshi and next to her was Thunderson. The man in a military uniform on the left of the back row had been Sayama’s grandfather. To the right from there had been Chao, a man who was probably Izumo’s grandfather, and then Ooshiro’s father. There were a few Arabs in the photo, but they had concluded Abram was the biggest one and not the man who looked more like a doctor or a cook.

Behind them all, a man had been sitting alone on a raised tree branch and facing the mountain range in the background. The hair on the back of his head suggested he was an old man and his left arm had been missing.

…''That was Professor Kinugasa Tenkyou.

She wondered what kind of person he had been and Sayama was currently working toward that answer.

They were simply seeing an image of him cut out of the past.

It was likely their thoughts then that had led Baku to show her the past now.

But she belatedly began to worry about Harakawa.

None of his relatives had been in the photo and he had remained silent the night before.

Sayama had said to search for their pasts…

…''But what about Harakawa?

He said nothing about his relatives. He never said what had happened with his father or grandfather.

However, his father’s grave was near her father’s and his father had also died in the secondary damages of the Great Kansai Earthquake.

…''He’s the same.

Heo nodded in her heart.

“Sayama said he saw his parents and some others entering the city.”

In that case…

“Were my father and Harakawa’s father there too?”

As soon as she asked that, someone suddenly appeared next to her.

A man landed on the top of the tilted asphalt with such force that she was afraid they would collide.

He had a medium build, he wore a combat vest, and his long black hair blew in the wind. He wore a Japanese sword scabbard on his back and held a drawn Japanese-style Cowling Sword in his hand.

He had laughter on his lips and he let out a shout while looking around.

“Ha ha ha! If you’re a man, then come at me! If you can take me on, I’ll admit you’re powerful!!”

Speed fell upon the surrounding area in response.

Five figures appeared after apparently jumping down from the surrounding collapsed buildings. They maintained a distance of ten meters while forming a circle around the man.

All of their black leather combat coats swelled out to an odd extent and they held blades that resembled machetes and were over a meter long.

They had artificial bodies and wielded cowling blades.

The man looked across the five men who looked up from below the raised asphalt.

“So the challengers look up at the ruler from below, hm? Then let me tell you something: A true man does not look up at or down on anyone.”

The man had been standing next to Heo, but the next thing she knew, he had leaped toward one of the artificial body soldiers in front of him.

She heard him speak as he did so.

“I’ll do this head-on. The position of the Five Great Peaks may have been quickly created just for this battle, but I’ll fulfill my role. I’m the temporary manager of Japanese UCAT’s Independent Action Division. The name’s Hiba Ryuuichi.”

That name surprised Heo.

…''Eh?

Once her confusion caught up with the facts before her eyes, Ryuuichi was already rushing toward another soldier to the right.

Her vision could not keep up. All she managed was seeing the first man Ryuuichi leaped toward suddenly fall to his knees.

That first man collapsed almost without warning.

Ryuuichi then tried to hit the man to the right with a backhand sword strike, but the four remaining men, including the one being attacked, took action.

The targeted one intercepted while the other three chose to attack.

Ryuuichi’s target ran right to put some distance between them and swung up the machete in his right hand. The mechanically-enhanced arm lifted the flat blade to slice Ryuuichi’s body in two from below.

The remaining three used the rising asphalt in the center as cover and prepared their left arms.

Thick metal tubes protruded from below their hands. The caliber looked the same as a machinegun.

…''Are they going to defeat their enemy without worrying about the one being targeted!?

That meant their enemy was worth enough to sacrifice one of their own.

However, Ryuuichi still took a step toward the artificial body soldier swinging the large machete.

He moved to cut down the man. Even if he dodged the blade, the bullets were coming, so Heo gasped.

But with a carefree voice, Ryuuichi placed a foot up on the machete blade.

“Eh?”

Heo watched the movements of his feet.

…''It’s like he’s climbing a staircase.

He placed his feet on the quickly rising blade, his hips floated up, and he lifted his body.

The blade was moving too quickly for Heo to see, but Ryuuichi’s movements looked awfully slow.

He stood on top of the rising blade.

He caught its strength, shrunk down his body as the blade rose, and…

“!”

The other three men began to fire once they realized what Ryuuichi was doing.

The bullets flew, but the mechanical arm raising the machete was faster.

A moment later, Hiba Ryuuichi used the momentum of the machete to leap back toward the other three.

He flipped through the air above the flying bullets, gunshots, Heo’s consciousness, the three men trying to raise their guns, and everything else.

The artificial body soldier with the machete was struck by his comrades’ bullets and was blown away.

However, Heo tried to view all of Ryuuichi’s actions this time. She looked up, turned around, looked down, and saw the man’s long hair flowing behind him as if in the wind.

He landed behind the other three. They were in a line and he was behind the farthest left one from Heo’s perspective.

That leftmost artificial body soldier turned to the right and threw a backhand blow with the machete in his right hand.

The central soldier responded by leaping backward while making a similar backhand blow with the blade in his right hand.

The rotating backhands approached Ryuuichi from either side.

Then, the rightmost soldier made an attack to make absolutely sure. He spun around and fired his machinegun between the other two attacks.

The sound of slicing wind mixed with gunfire.

…''There’s no way he can avoid this!

But Ryuuichi reacted to it all.

He had his back to Heo and thick blades were arriving from his front left and back right.

As he stood up after his leap, he suddenly threw his body to the left.

“…!?”

Heo just about cried out that he was going to be hit, but his movement changed once he arrived right next to the arriving blade.

He slipped to the right in order to jump over the blade on that side.

…''Oh.

She understood the idea behind his evasive action.

In the intersection between the two blades, there was nowhere to evade.

But if he moved toward one or the other, a gap would open up.

By using that gap as space to move and by buying some time before the blades met, he could jump over and evade the right blade.

However, the created space was less than ten centimeters.

And that was not the only problem. The blade would try to move into the opened space.

…''So he has to move even faster than the blade.

Beyond Heo’s unease, Ryuuichi’s body spun around.

He flipped quickly to the right without ever placing his hands on the ground.

He used the height difference between the two blades to twist his flipping body through.

A few tufts of hair were cut away and the bottom of his combat vest was split.

…''His flip isn’t strong enough.

His body was slipping through, but he wasn’t rotating quickly enough.

Knowing he would be cut in two, Heo tried to close her vision even though she had no eyelids.

But in that instant, Ryuuichi placed a hand on the left blade even as he flipped.

He caught its strength and gently wrapped his palm around the blade.

“!!”

He quickly rotated over the right blade and shot away from the left blade.

He made it through.

“Wow,” said the voice of Heo’s consciousness.

…''But the machinegun.

The bullets were still coming.

''He has no way to avoid them,'' she thought.

Immediately afterward, she heard his voice.

“Don’t make me go to so much trouble!!”

He swung his sword horizontally as he landed from his side-flip and he rotated his body as he did so.

However, he lacked the necessary reach. The sword’s blade was long but not long enough to reach his three enemies.

Nevertheless, the attack reached them.

“!?”

Light raced along the path of the sword. The pale light shot through the air like a swift wave.

…''It even reached the roadway and surrounding buildings!?

The elevated roadway’s supporting columns were nearly five meters thick and the buildings over twenty stories tall, but the horizontal cut ran straight through them.

The sound of an explosion rang out.

The men with artificial bodies had their torsos cut through at the waist and the buildings were sliced through as easily as tofu.

The elevated roadway slid down from above the cut and the buildings collapsed as if sinking inward.

The reverberating sound resembled a waterfall.

Everywhere the cut had reached crumbled in the same way.

And by that time, Ryuuichi had already sheathed the sword on his back.

He had won.

He raised his head while surrounded by the sounds of buildings crumbling to the ground, of scattering metal fragments, and of motors racing fruitlessly.

“You did a good job, Tsukuyomi Arihito.”

But even after the man had overwhelmed his enemies, Heo saw him frown and looked up into the sky.

…''What is he looking at?

She looked up as well, but she saw something else first.

“Ah.”

It was a blue mechanical dragon.

It resembled American UCAT’s mechanical dragons, but it was a little different. The shapes of the components were not quite as streamlined and she could sense its age.

The dragon wrapped wind around itself and passed by at extreme low altitude in a split-second.

It was moving quickly, but Heo saw a certain image as strongly as if it had been burned into her retinas. She saw the person sitting in the cockpit.

It was a man wearing a blue armored uniform.

“Dad!?”

After it passed by, she turned to see it shaking its tail.

The sky reflected the burning color of the city and the blue dragon grew more distant. And as if pursuing that dragon, a group of gray mechanical dragons flew up from the shadows of the burning city.

Heo saw the blue dragon tear through the sky in a rising arc. The gray dragons descended in an opposite arc and they crossed paths in an instant.

“———————”

The gray dragons became blooming flowers of red light in the sky.

Repeated explosions rumbled like distant thunder, but new gray dragons ascended to pursue the blue one.

That was when Heo saw the stars in the sky.

…''Eh?

She realized she had not seen those stars until now.

The fire may have been creating thick clouds in the sky because there was a clear division between where the stars were visible and where they were not. Heo’s attention was entirely stolen by those stars that seemed horribly out of place.

…''And yet I didn’t even see them before.

She tried to look up into the sky, but that was all she managed.

She realized the surrounding scenery was twisting and growing dark.

The past was ending.

Realizing that, she tried to gather her thoughts on what she had seen.

“So was my dad fighting in a mechanical dragon?”

…''Why? What was he fighting for?

She only knew that a battle had occurred in Osaka on the night of the earthquake and that her father had died there.

Sayama had said that battle was likely fought with the group that preceded the Army.

…''Then why was this hidden?

There was no one there to answer that question, so her mind fell into the darkness without knowing.

She was waking from the past.

Heo sprang up from her futon.

“…!?”

The scene entering her eyes was too incongruous with what she had seen a moment before.

She was in a dimly-lit room.

…''This is a room in Hiba’s grandfather’s house.

She saw Mikage curled up in a futon, Brunhild sleeping in a yukata with her futon pushed off of her, and a basket sitting by her own pillow.

When she saw the small creature sleeping on its back in the basket, Heo came to her senses.

She felt her pulse race through her entire body and she trembled.

She remembered a certain fact concerning Baku: Other people would see the past he showed you.

…''Harakawa!

He was sleeping in the neighboring boys’ room. If she opened the sliding screen dividing the rooms, she would find him.

She wanted to hear his opinion and she wanted to compare her thoughts with his, so she jumped from her futon, opened the screen, and entered the next room.

The identically shaped room contained two futons. Her impatient mind realized it was so dark because the storm shutter was closed, but that was all she noticed.

“Harakawa!”

Someone sat up within one of the futons.

It was Harakawa. He pulled a hand from his yukata pocket, placed it on his chin, and turned a puzzled look her way.

“Heo Thunderson, what are you-…”

She relaxed a little when their eyes met.

She almost leaped toward him as she ran the short distance and climbed on top of his pushed back blanket.

The shock and unease from her dream produced a series of words from her mouth.

“U-um, it happened again while I was asleep. It was the second time and I thought I was used to it, but I tried to cry out but couldn’t and, um, everything was so hot and falling apart, so…um…”

“Stop confessing whatever nonsensical dream you had and calm down, Heo Thunderson.”

She felt his hand in the hair on the back of her head. He almost seemed to grab her scalp as he pressed her face into his chest.

…''Ah.

It surprised her, but she also managed to calm down.

She smiled a little as the blanket tickled her skin and she took a deep breath to calm down further. The past she had seen played back in her head.

…''That was…

Her father and the others had been fighting.

Despite her close connection to the man she had seen, she did not know why, she did not know who else had been there, and she did not know what had led to all that. All she knew was what Sayama had said.

…''UCAT fought a battle during the Great Kansai Earthquake.

“What does it all mean?”

“I don’t know either, Heo Thunderson. After all, I’m a newcomer. And so are you. Also, don’t make so much noise. You’ll wake Hiba.”

“Eh?”

She looked to the other futon and saw Hiba wiggling back and forth inside it.

“Nnn, ahhh! The car! The car! It’s so round!!”

“Harakawa, he’s repeating a joke and he’s become completely unintelligible.”

“Don’t nitpick how other people’s brains work, Heo Thunderson. Also…”

She felt his hand loosen on her head, so she looked up and found his eyes right in front of her.

She tilted her head at close range.

“What is it?”

“Look behind you for a second.”

She twisted her shoulders and turned her head backward as instructed.

[[Image:OnC_v10_0277.jpg|thumb]]

Confused, she saw Harakawa’s futon blanket and something skin-colored and round on top of it.

She tried to figure out what that was.

“A butt?”

“That’s exactly right, but why are you naked, Heo Thunderson?”

Once he pointed it out, she realized she was indeed naked.

The phrase “how could you?” reached her mind before the phrase “what have I done?”.

“————!”

She gave a wordless scream and grabbed a nearby object to hide herself. That object happened to be the blanket covering Harakawa.

But that meant…

“Hey, wait. Don’t climb into my futon!”

“B-but you’ll see me naked! I’m unprotected!”

She hid between Harakawa and the blanket as if clinging to his body and she looked up at him.

He frowned as he lay below her with their bodies almost overlapping.

“What’s the point of hiding?”

“S-sorry, but can I borrow this blanket to go to the next room?”

“And leave me in the cold?”

“U-um, then I’ll, uh, warm you up myself.”

“Think about what the words mean before you use them, Heo Thunderson.”

Heo hung her head and nodded.

He sighed.

“Well, just get going. It sounds like Hiba’s still in his disturbing dream world, so I don’t think he’s noticed.”

“S-sorry. I’ll find a way to thank you later.”

“Then you take dinner duty today.”

He sat up a little and patted her head a few times with a look of exasperation.

“But make it something exciting. Things have been gloomy around here lately, so make some fried chicken or something and we can all eat it together.”

“Oh, okay. I know a good spice recipe, so that’s fine.”

She began to stand up, but then she felt a gaze on her from the side.

She looked over and saw Hiba. His head was poking out of his futon and he was rubbing his eyes sleepily.

“Oh, good morning, Harakawa-san and-…”

He trailed off and his expression froze.

''Eh?'' thought Heo as the boy looked directly at her and Harakawa.

She was lying naked on top of Harakawa and they even had the blanket placed across them.

…''Um…

Just as she prepared to explain the situation, Hiba jumped to his feet.

“H-has the Eros Road to the Eros World finally opened in the real world!?”

“Calm down, Hiba Ryuuji.”

“Wh-where’s the entrance!? I want to… I want to dive into that other world! L-like this!!”

“I said to calm down, Hiba Ryuuji. There is no entrance to anywhere like that.”

However, Hiba twisted around and pointed both his index fingers toward them.

“Th-then what do you think you’re doing there!? Damn, I’m so jealous!”

“You’re supposed to keep one of those opinions a secret, Hiba Ryuuji. Just to be clear, this is a misunderstanding.”

“B-but Harakawa-san! I’ve caught you red-handed, you immoral person!”

“H-he is not immoral!!” shouted Heo. “H-he is a very straightforward person! I’m sure he needs more than a kid like me! He would probably only be satisfied with an adult who can only be described with the word ‘boing’. That’s right! Boing! Boiiing!!”

“I get the feeling you’re rejecting a part of my personality here, Heo Thunderson. And don’t use so many sound effects.”

“But!”

Heo rose up to protest, but that caused the blanket to fall off of her.

“————!”

Just as she swallowed a scream and frantically pulled the blanket toward her, she heard a sudden sound.

Something was banging on the storm shutter from the outside.

She could only think of one reason to cause so much noise at a time like this.

“A pervert?”

“I-it isn’t me, probably! I-it really probably isn’t me, right!?”

After Hiba’s desperate denial, Heo heard another sound.

This one was of destruction.

But it was different from the sounds in her dream. It was the sound of wood splitting and breaking.

…''Eh?

Her question was followed by a wind that chilled her even through the blanket.

“What is going on?”

She poked her head from the blanket and looked.

The wind was coming from where the storm shutter had been, but it was now entirely open and the early morning light and wind came in.

The twilight outlined the faint silhouette of a man.

He was a skinny old man with long black hair.

“My name is Yonkichi,” he said in inappropriately old-fashioned speech. “I take it you are awake.”

Heo heard those words and felt Harakawa’s arm wrap around her waist.

…''This is…

She knew what was happening. There was only one reason he would pull her close and try to protect her.

And Yonkichi gave that reason with a bitter smile of resignation.

“It is time to fight, ladies and gentlemen.”

The word “fight” reminded her of the dream and she gasped.

However…

“Why do we have to fight?”

“Because it is fun. For us, anyway.”

“B-but what about for us!?” she replied from below the blanket.

“Well,” said Yonkichi with a nod. “Your first reward is the Concept Core, but it would seem Sayama-sama has yet to inform you of the second reward. As one of the four brothers, I will explain it once more. When you defeat us, we will tell you a little of what we know of the past.”

Heo heard what she most wanted at the moment.

“We fought in that battle in Osaka, so if you defeat us, we will leave you with a small piece of that memory. Yes, the memory of the past that created the current UCAT and your current situation!”

Heo sucked in a breath.

…''What do we do!?

She knew they had an enemy and she knew they would gain something by defeating that enemy.

…''But…

However, Yonkichi took action with no concern for her thoughts.

He raised his right arm without losing the bitter smile.

“Now, get up!”

Before his short sentence had even ended, a corner of the house exploded.

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| Forward to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 11|Chapter 11]]
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Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 8

2026-10-13T03:46:10Z

N-Ch:

==Chapter 8: Troublesome Visit==
[[Image:OnC_v10_0207.png|thumb]]
''You cannot reach them

''You cannot reach them

''You end up distancing yourself

A white automatic door slid open with a rumble to reveal the area beyond.

A paper with the word “open” on it was placed on the door which led to a room.

The white room gave a view from four stories up and an old man sat at the large desk inside.

The man wore a lab coat and glasses and he quickly looked away from the computer when he saw who had entered the room.

“Ah! I-I wasn’t doing anything inappropriate, Brunhild-kun! I certainly wasn’t enjoying a self-made 18+ game while I worked on it! After all, it’s still in debug!”

“There’s more than enough reason for you to die, Ooshiro, but make sure you answer my question before falling into an eternal sleep that is anything but peaceful.”

Brunhild wore a school uniform, had a small bird on her head, and was accompanied by a black cat at her feet. Ooshiro reacted in two different ways: He brought a hand to his forehead and he spoke with a sigh.

“Ahh, sorry, Brunhild-kun. Could you ask one thing of me at a time? What do you want first?”

“You’re right. First, fall into eternal sleep.”

“I thought your question came first!”

He spun around while shouting and a set of knuckles struck him from the side.

He rose into the air before falling back to the floor while #8 continued cleaning the window next to him.

“Testament. That reaction was directly from the manual. I do not detect the slightest problem. I am emotionally stable.”

“Th-that was a really solid hit! #-#8-kun, are you prepared to take responsibility for this!?”

“Testament,” she replied while pulling a cellphone from her pocket. “Internal line #259? I have some burnable trash awaiting disposal. I take full responsibility for-…”

“I don’t want that kind of responsibility!!”

“That’s right. Wait just a second, doll. My business comes first.” Brunhild crossed her arms. “Besides, burning him isn’t enough to get rid of him. The air currents will carry the rising smoke and pollute the world. When it rains, all of us will be soaked with Ooshiro rain.”

“Testament. I have determined that would be dangerous. I was too careless. I will take responsibility and find another method for disposing of him. …Anyway, what do you need, Brunhild-sama?”

“Well, I hear Team Leviathan disbanded and Izumo and Kazami were injured.”

“That is not entirely accurate.”

Brunhild raised an eyebrow and the cat tapped on her shin, so she kicked it.

“What isn’t accurate? Are Kazami and Izumo okay?”

“Testament,” replied a voice from the corridor.

Brunhild looked over her shoulder and saw someone in a white combat coat enter the room.

“Sibyl? How are Kazami, Sayama, and the others?”

“Testament. Sayama-sama has left for Professor Kinugasa’s home in the Okutama mountain range and Shinjou-sama has left for Sakai. Chisato-sama is unharmed because we arrived shortly after Izumo-sama protected her.”

“Then…”

Both Brunhild’s eyebrows rose slightly and Sibyl closed her eyes.

“Izumo-sama’s left forearm and hand were completely lost and he has yet to regain consciousness. Neither of their weapons have shown any signs of life even after some simple repairs. Also…”

She opened her eyes and looked directly at Brunhild as if that were all she could do.

“Chisato-sama refuses to leave Izumo-sama’s side…and she will not speak with anyone else or even look them in the eye.”

The light in Sibyl’s eyes wavered.

“Ah,” muttered Brunhild with a frown just before Sibyl looked up to the ceiling.

“Wahhhhh! Chisato-sama won’t speak with me! I know I’ve been focusing on Mikage-sama more recently and I know I haven’t been keeping up with her diet notebook, but this is too much! What’s wrong with a little fat!? What’s wrong with a soft body!? That only applies to Chisato-sama, though!”

Sibyl ran out into the corridor in tears and Brunhild glared after her.

<nowiki>#8</nowiki> turned her back to resume cleaning the window. Ooshiro faced his computer and made comments of “good” and “yes” which Brunhild decided she would rather not know any more about.

Those two were clearly intending to ignore Sibyl, so Brunhild nodded toward Ooshiro in particular.

She then took in a breath, opened her mouth wide, and shouted into the corridor.

“Ooshiro made Sibyl cry!!”

“Whaaaaat!?”

Several dozen confused replies came over the broadcast system, soon followed by the sound of a group posing.

“Let’s go, everyone! It’s eavesdropping time!!”

“It’s eavesdropping time!!!!”

Suddenly, all sound vanished from Japanese UCAT save a voice in the corridor.

“Wahhhhhh! Chisato-samaaaaaa!!”

Once the echoing crying settled down, Ooshiro frantically stood up.

“B-Brunhild-kun, how could you lie about this!? Something bad is going to happen to me!”

Meanwhile, an unseen judgment was given.

It began by trapping him.

The external defense shutters closed over all the windows to keep the prey from escaping.

She had been cleaning the windows, so #8 briefly looked at the inside of the closed shutter.

“I have determined cleaning the outside of the windows will be harder now.”

With that, she stuck the detergent container and rag between the window and shutter and used gravitational control to clean it from the outside. Ooshiro gave an impressed nod but then turned toward Brunhild in sudden realization.

“O-oh, no! I can’t escape!!”

“Why not escape through the floor like usual?”

“You’re right! I can do that!! …Secret Technique: Floorboard Reversal!!”

With that shout, he stomped on the floor with his right foot.

This activated a mechanism in the floor and one of the floorboards audibly hopped upward.

He peered down and found a Japanese UCAT combat personnel aiming a rifle up at him.

The metal barrel and the red laser point extending from it were trained directly on his forehead.

The man wore a gas mask and Ooshiro wore his glasses, so the two exchanged a glance through their respective lenses.

“————!”

Ooshiro frantically stomped the floorboard closed on top of the soldier below and someone started banging from below.

He jumped up and down a few times to force it down and then pulled instant glue and self-defense gas spray from his pocket. He glued the floorboard to the ground and stuck the gas spray nozzle into the remaining gap.

“Take this! It’s our new product ‘My Breath – Yakiniku, the Morning After’!!”

After the sound of spraying, a shout of agony came from below the floor before vanishing.

Ooshiro continued spraying for a full five seconds after the resistance ended and then he stood up.

“Hm. That was a close one.”

He stepped from the sealed floorboard and onto another one.

This time, the mechanism opened a portion of the ceiling.

A man in stealth equipment dangled upside down from the hole.

Ooshiro reacted by jumping up to close the ceiling while grabbing “It Tingles!”, a stun gun that could be locked in the “on” setting, and alley-ooping it into the closing hole.

The ceiling closed just as someone could be heard writhing in pain on the other side.

Ooshiro sighed and landed in a light crouched pose.

This time, part of the wall opened.

“————!!!”

He closed that hole, but more and more opened in the floor, ceiling, walls, and back of his locker, so he had to close all of them.

After seeing him toss one of his socks into a hole in the floor, Brunhild sighed.

“This is almost over. We didn’t know each other long, but we made plenty of awful memories. Farewell.”

“B-Brunhild-kun, you really are cement-like to the core! You old cement lady!!”

She had been about to leave the room, but she stopped.

He clapped his hands behind her.

“Yeah, you heard me! I’m younger!! Younger!!”

She stomped hard on the floorboards while turning around, five holes opened in the floor at once, gun barrels poked out of them all, and Ooshiro closed them all with a body press.

“B-Brunhild-kun!” he said from the floor. “What would happen to UCAT if I was shot!?”

“They’d probably mourn the loss…officially at least. A few seconds later, they would celebrate the monumental event.”

She ignored him as he pretended to cry, rolled around, and hit the wall.

“Well, I’ll be going. Kazami and the others are at the hospital, aren’t they?”

“Yes,” replied Sibyl who had returned to the corridor while rubbing the corners of her eyes. “But all of them except Chisato-sama should be leaving for Hiba-sama’s dojo soon. They were planning to spend the night there. But Chisato-sama…”

“She’s going to stay with Izumo. That’s fine. …I just have something to give the ones who can still move around.”

“Something to give them?”

Brunhild nodded, reached into her uniform’s pocket, but did not pull her hand back out.

“Siegfried found something in the Kinugasa Library that Team Leviathan should see. …It isn’t anything much, though.”

With that, Sibyl finally stopped her tears and looked over in surprise.

Happy with that, Brunhild opened her mouth with the chirping bird providing background music.

“Ooshiro, let me tell you something. A tremor is approaching here from below, so why don’t you escape through the corridor?”

Ooshiro stopped hammering nails into the floor and gave her a thumbs up.

“N-nice one, Brunhild-kun! I’ll put you in my game!! It’s a life mahjong game titled ‘I am the Riichi!’ and the tagline is ‘Always play the wrong tile in life!’. How about it!?”

Brunhild hesitated. She could not decide what spell to blast him with or if she should first attack with the black cat to buy time for a large-scale destruction spell.

But Ooshiro suddenly froze in place.

A slender hand had grabbed his shoulder from the side.

“#-#8-kun? Explain this hand.”

“Testament. I have determined it is my right hand. And please wait a moment, UCAT Director.”

She spoke with her usual expression and with the footsteps of heavily-equipped soldiers racing down the corridor.

“I have yet to fulfill my responsibility.”

The nighttime scenery outside the window moved to the east.

Beyond the faint light of a city was a dark plain and above that was only darkness.

The dark plain was the sea and the darkness above was the night sky.

The window moving along that scenery belonged to a night train.

Someone stood in the shop located in the rear car of the Osaka-bound train. Shinjou was bent over a bit by the window and held a gray phone receiver.

The ends of her eyebrows lowered a little.

“Okay, Heo. So is Kazami-san okay?”

A nervous voice answered her from the receiver.

“Y-yes, but Izumo’s left arm was…um…how should I put it? It’s like from a movie?”

While listening to the extent of his injury, Shinjou recalled Izumo’s divine protection.

He must have been fighting within a concept that rendered it meaningless.

“They were fighting those four brothers who are always with Doctor Chao, weren’t they?”

“Yes.” Heo hesitated a little, but finally continued. “But how weird are they compared to the rest of you? I-I can use that to decide how cautious to be.”

“I’m not sure I like how you put that… But using Ooshiro units, they’re probably about a fifth an Ooshiro.”

“Eek! W-we can’t handle that.”

“Don’t worry. Harakawa-kun is with you, right? If things get dangerous, you can always run away.”

“Yes, but can I really rely on Harakawa?”

“Why not? Is that a problem?”

Shinjou heard movement on the other end as Heo covered the receiver with a hand.

Heo then took in a breath and whispered.

“U-um, well, you see? I made him mad earlier.”

“…? Why?”

“Well, uh… He was feeling around inside me and…”

“Inside you!?”

“Yes. He had me sit in the seat, grabbed the thick rod, said we had to perform a test, and even took records. Then he told me it was time to combine.”

“Th-that really is taking it seriously…”

“Oh, but it didn’t hurt. It tickled a lot and made my heart race, but, uh, as I sat there in a daze, I realized people were watching. …But Harakawa said he wasn’t doing anything wrong, so I think he meant he would take responsibility for whatever happened.”

“Y-you two certainly are progressing at a Western rate. …Harakawa doesn’t say much normally, but he sounds really intense.”

“Yes. But part of me wonders if I’m reading too much into it.”

“I-I don’t think so. If he’s taking it that far, he’s definitely committed!”

“But then why did he get mad at me?”

“Well…”

Shinjou thought and remembered an answer she had seen in a magazine.

“Oh, I know, Heo! You need to work to make him happy too! Like, um, embracing him or wrapping your legs around him while you do it.”

“B-but I’d crush him into mincemeat if I did that then.”

''Harakawa-kun is surprisingly delicate,'' thought Shinjou.

“Th-then…y-you can vocally tell him how much you like it.”

“Vocally? You mean like sing? My great-grandfather taught me how to yodel.”

“Singing like that would make you a pervert. So, um, well, this is hard to say, but…you can just say how you feel or what you want him to do.”

“Oh, that I can manage. Nice advice, Shinjou. I’ll do my best.”

Shinjou nodded and breathed a sigh of relief.

…''I somehow managed to give some advice as her elder.

And as if responding to her thoughts, another sigh of relief reached her over the phone.

“I’m glad I could discuss this with you, Shinjou. You gave off a scent of knowing a lot about this kind of thing.”

“I’d really like to know where you learned to speak Japanese like that, but…well…you should be fine.”

She smiled bitterly, wondered if they had both managed to relax, and looked up to see a train station passing by out the window.

The train was passing through Izu near Atami.

…''I’m going so far away.

That thought produced words hoping for the opposite.

“Are you sure I shouldn’t head back? The train is stopping at Nagoya for a bit, so I could get off and take a night train or taxi back.”

“Harakawa said you don’t have to come back since we can’t contact Sayama to have him come back. He said the two of you are like a set even when you’re apart.”

“I need to have a word with Harakawa-kun next time I see him. …But does that mean he actually trusts Sayama-kun?”

“It’s hard to say. The nuance was more on not knowing much about the Leviathan Road and so not intruding too much.”

…''What a rational view.

She thought that was a lot like Harakawa, but she did not want to say so in front of Heo.

But if Harakawa felt that way, Hiba would likely agree as his underclassman.

“Then I’ll continue on to Sakai. Call me if something happens there.”

“Sure. Oh, come to think of it, there was just an explosion on the fourth floor of Japanese UCAT.”

“An explosion? The fourth floor would be Ooshiro-san’s room, wouldn’t it? In that case, you don’t need to worry about it.”

“R-really? But it was an explosion.”

Shinjou heard a confused pause, but that only showed Heo’s inexperience with UCAT. She would adapt after half a year and then she would watch the explosions like they were nothing more than fireworks.

Heo steadied her tone.

“Anyway, I think we’re going to do what we can here to look into our pasts. After all, I don’t want Team Leviathan to disband right after we joined. …But if we do find our pasts, Sayama really will reform the team, right? So we’ll do our best. And…”

“And?”

“I’m personally curious about it because my parents would have been there.”

“…”

“Those were the people who protected us, so I want to know what kind of battle they had. …I’m proud of my parents.”

“Yes, you can think about your parents that way, but make sure you don’t think that way about some of the people in UCAT now.”

“R-right. But even with them, the records show them seriously working on their jobs.”

“It would be kind of amazing if they were getting worked up over perverted things in the middle of battles.”

''Then again, I’ve seen a few people who do exactly that,'' thought Shinjou, but she decided to keep it to herself.

At any rate, Heo had a lot of hopes for UCAT. Shinjou heard a lot of things she could not say herself and it made her happy.

There were a number of issues, but Heo was likely a suitable person for searching the past. Shinjou also wanted to know about that past battle, but she did not want to intrude because she did not even know about her parents.

And so she spoke.

“Okay, Heo. As your senior in Team Leviathan, I have something to tell you even though we disbanded: Pursue the past. As someone who doesn’t know much about UCAT, your unique viewpoint will probably lead you to understand a lot we couldn’t. …And I bet a lot of people will let their guard down around a beautiful blonde girl.”

“I don’t think that last point was entirely necessary, but I’ll do my best!”

After a quiet snort, Heo spoke up again.

“Oh, but don’t force yourself. You take your time in your search too.”

“I will, and thank you for going along with that troublesome and twisted orator who loves riddles.”

“Yes, and…I do want to become one of you.”

“Eh? H-Heo, you already are one of us.”

A bitter laugh answered Shinjou’s frantic reply.

It was a self-deprecating laugh and Heo’s voice followed.

“Thank you very much. That’s all the more reason to think about all this. If Team Leviathan can reform, that’s when we can truly become one of you. That’s why I want to think about my parents, my great-grandfather, and…”

Shinjou heard the breath as Heo silently muttered another name.

“I want to do my best to pursue those people.”

“Good, but remember to discuss it with Harakawa-kun and the others after you think about it, okay? Even if you find your own answer on your own, you can’t find the answer to bring us all together without the others.”

“Then we’ll only get the true answer once you and Sayama return, right?”

Shinjou noticed a smile in the girl’s tone.

''She’ll be fine,'' she decided before giving her parting words.

“Okay, then let’s do our best. And take care of Kazami-san and Izumo-san.”

She set down the receiver while realizing that true answer was more dependent on Kazami and Izumo recovering than on her and Sayama. The telephone card was ejected with a hole near the “ten remaining” spot.

…''That was a pretty long conversation.

She looked out the window and saw the shadows of a giant mountain.

The train had entered a mountain range. According to the Japanese map she had seen in class, passing through these mountains would take them through Hakone and into Shizuoka. That would bring them closer to Toukai than Kantou.

The distance to Osaka and Sakai was shrinking.

…''What’s going to happen?

With that silent thought, her eyes turned to the darkness between the mountains.

She then realized that she had no one to discuss her thoughts with now that she had set down the phone and now that Sayama was not with her.

“…”

She held her trembling shoulders and started walking from the shop car.

She made her way to where her bed was.

If she slept, she could escape these feelings and doubts.

Quiet footsteps moved through a dimly-lit lobby.

The lobby’s white walls and long waiting room seats were illuminated by emergency lights. Across from the seats was a long counter covered by a curtain.

Signs saying prescriptions, accounting, etc. lined the counter.

This was a hospital lobby.

The footsteps slowed to look at the signs on the counter.

The large window beyond the seats was meant to let in the sunlight, but it now reflected the one producing the footsteps.

A slender girl with short blonde hair walked west through the lobby.

She was moving toward the three people on the western end of the waiting room seats.

One was a girl with long blonde hair who sat in the seats.

Another was a boy with a red bandanna around his forehead who sat next to the other girl.

The last one was leaning against the column next to the seats.

“Harakawa, I just spoke with Shinjou. It sounds like she’s going to continue on to Sakai. Um, uh…she doesn’t want to leave behind any regrets.”

“That’s probably best for her. But, Heo Thunderson, the nuance of that expression is a bit off.”

“Eh?”

She tilted her head and stopped walking while the long-haired girl tapped on the shoulder of the boy next to her.

“Ryuuji-kun, are we leaving?”

However, it was not the boy who answered.

“Hiba is asleep, Mikage.”

Heo felt herself smile as she said that.

…''Good.

A lot had happened that day, so she was glad and relieved that she could smile at least a little now that the night had arrived.

She saw Mikage tilt her head and poke Hiba’s cheek. After four pokes, the boy moved with his eyes closed. He lowered down, twisted around in annoyance, and generally moved like an inchworm.

“Ahh, M-Mikage-san. No…stop… The fish meat!!”

“Harakawa, there’s something I want to say and it’s threatening to dynamically burst out of me, but should I say it?”

“Don’t worry about it, Heo Thunderson. Worrying about it won’t fix him.”

“You’re probably right,” she said while Mikage further tilted her head.

“Ahh, Mikage-san. No, no. Don’t suck out the center of the fried egg!”

Heo was unsure what was so arousing about that, but for whatever reason, Hiba bent backward, his back jumped up, and he fell behind the seat.

''Ah,'' thought Heo just as she heard what sounded like a rock hitting the ground.

The dull sound reverberated throughout the empty lobby and Hiba’s legs trembled as they stuck up from the back of the seat.

Finally, he spoke from the floor.

“Ah! Wh-why am I in this pose? Wait, don’t tell me this isn’t the wall, but…the floor!? In that case…is this a concept attack!?”

“Hiba Ryuuji, I know you’re quite happy right now, but get up right this instant. That’s an order as your upperclassman.”

Hiba sat up on the white floor with a confused look, checked on his surroundings, and finally looked Mikage in the eye as she tilted her head.

“Did Shinjou-san say something?”

“Oh, um, she’s still going to Sakai. But, uh…”

Heo hesitated, but she decided to say it.

“Is your head okay?”

“O-of course it is! Just being in the blonde genre doesn’t give you the right to be so rude! I’m surrounded by strange people and you might think I am too by association, but they haven’t infected me yet!”

''That’s a lie,'' she declared in her heart with a full smile on her face.

…''But if they haven’t infected him “yet”, that means it’s only a matter of time.''

“Anyway, Kazami won’t leave the hospital room, so how about we get going?”

As soon as she asked that, Heo saw a quick change on Hiba’s face.

For just a split-second, his eyebrows lowered.

She knew what that meant. She knew all too well why they were here and what it meant to leave alone like this.

And Harakawa gave voice to that meaning.

“The treasurer won’t leave the room and there’s nothing we can do to help, so let’s head home. …No, let’s get to Hiba’s grandfather’s place like we planned. It’s close to here and close to UCAT.”

He crossed his arms and looked up at the white panels on the ceiling.

“The president was sedated with some drugs. I don’t know the details about his arm, but I hear they’re talking about constructing a prosthetic and his arm is supposedly fixed in place with some strange technique that won’t actually heal it. …And the treasurer is looking after him even though he’s asleep.”

Heo felt Harakawa had intentionally chosen the phrase “looking after him”.

He was being considerate to them and to Kazami, but in truth…

…''She simply refuses to leave him.

When Heo and the others had arrived at the hospital about an hour earlier, Izumo was already being taken to the hospital room.

Heo had seen the bed carrying him to the individual room and she had seen Kazami. Kazami had been calling his name and shouting something else while clinging to the bed.

…''And she was crying.

When they had left UCAT, Sibyl had just returned from rescuing the two of them and she had informed them that Izumo’s life was not in danger. She had noticed the concept space, left before anyone else, and intervened as Ikkou and Mitsuaki tried to attack.

That had been just after Izumo’s arm had been smashed.

With a pale face devoid of expression, she had told them the following.

…''I doubt there is anything you can do to help at the hospital.

She had to have seen Kazami crying even more than they had.

“…”

Heo remembered how Kazami had not even tried to look back at them.

She remembered Kazami calling Izumo’s name as if to get him to notice her.

She remembered the trembling in Kazami’s voice as she shouted “I’m sorry”.

Kazami was safe and Izumo was injured because he had protected her.

''It’s a lot like when I lost my mother,'' thought Heo.

She remembered when that had happened, but how had it been compared to Kazami now?

Izumo had not lost his life, so were Kazami’s cries…

…''An overreaction?

Heo wondered that, but she shook her head. They were not an overreaction.

…''It might just be that I’m overly emotionless.

Plus, it was not that Kazami had nearly lost Izumo.

…''It was only pure luck that she didn’t lose him.

With that in mind, the overlap between Heo and Kazami was being protected by someone important to them.

But Kazami had power while Heo had not.

Nevertheless, Kazami had been protected and someone important to her had lost a part of his body.

Why was she apologizing to Izumo even though he could not hear her?

…''It’s just like I used to be.

She was apologizing for a simple reason.

“To lighten the feeling of guilt.”

“What are you muttering about, Heo Thunderson?”

“Eh?”

She looked up and realized the others were looking at her.

She frantically shook her hands back and forth and formed another smile.

“Oh, s-sorry. We’re going to Hiba’s grandfather’s dojo, right?”

“That’s right,” said Hiba as he stood up with a smile.

Heo realized he too briefly looked up at the ceiling like Harakawa had.

She then walked past him as he took Mikage’s hand and helped her to her feet.

Harakawa reacted to her footsteps by moving from the column and continuing on toward the hospital entrance.

She moved to his left and hesitated, but…

“…”

She took his left hand and held it tightly.

He received her grasp with a slight toughness and warmth, but that was all.

She looked up, but he did not turn back from his half step ahead of her.

She felt anything she said would be rejected at the moment, so she remained silent and tightened her grip on his hand.

…''Now that I have the power of Thunder Fellow and my teammates in UCAT…

What did it mean for her to lose or partially lose someone important to her?

Part of her wanted to make sure she never knew, but another part thought about Kazami who now knew. It was because Kazami had power that she had apologized for allowing the damage.

…''What’s going to happen?

What would happen to Kazami and what would happen to Heo if she found herself in the same situation someday?

While thinking about that question with no answer, Heo realized something.

Harakawa’s hand was squeezing back now.

“…”

She nodded and made sure Hiba and Mikage were following.

“Shouldn’t we hurry? It’s getting late, so Hiba’s grandparents are probably already asleep.”

“No, my grandfather stays up late. He likes to watch late-night shows without my grandmother knowing. I think today’s is Mountain Hermit Squadron Tengumen. It’s about a group of naked men with tengu masks on their crotches who destroy the evil of the world. They’ve lived in the mountains so long that they don’t know how society works and that’s used for social satire. Last time, Red was arrested after trying to get into the train station without buying a ticket, so this episode is about the others going to rescue him. The title is ‘Assault! Bring Tears to the Power of the State!’ ”

“I’m going to be staying in a house that gets that over the airwaves?”

Heo was worried now.

Suddenly, her grip on Harakawa’s hand felt him stop moving.

She looked up in confusion and saw him looking forward with a frown.

She followed his gaze and saw someone there.

“Wh-who are you!? Why do you have a black cat with you and a bird on your head? Are you a friend of UCAT Director Ooshiro!?”

“I-I don’t think it’s possible to be more rude than that! I am 1st-Gear Inspector Brunhild Schild. I don’t believe I ever spoke with you properly even during the party after the 5th-Gear battle, but this is a good opportunity. Make sure you remember me, so you won’t be that rude ever again.”

Brunhild stood in the entrance with her arms crossed and faced the other four.

She then looked up at the ceiling along with the bird and cat.

“Is Kazami still feeling down?”

“Y-yes. She isn’t meeting with anyo-…”

“Hah. I’m not going to do that. Looking at a loser might infect me with their loser-ness. More importantly…”

To cut off any further comment on what she had said, Brunhild quickly pulled something from her pocket.

She held out a paper cylinder.

She flipped the cylinder around, grabbed it again, and pulled it open.

With the sound of escaping air, she pulled something out.

“A large photograph?”

“Siegfried found it while organizing the Kinugasa Library. After the National Defense Department, the old Japanese UCAT was formed. This is a group photo during a trip taken to Kansai so their main force could get to know each other better.”

She spread it out in her right hand and revealed a black-and-white photograph of a mountain ridge somewhere.

The faded gray image showed a number of people in a row with the sky in the background.

“And Ooshiro gave me this.”

Brunhild picked up something lying at her feet.

She held out a wicker object with her left hand.

“It’s just a bucket, but look closer. You can kill some time with the creature in here.”

Heo saw something stand up on the edge of the bucket.

It was a small creature that resembled a boar.

Brunhild smiled and opened her mouth beyond the bucket.

“It’s Baku. He doesn’t seem to like me, so can one of you look after him?”

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| Back to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 7|Chapter 7]]
| Return to [[Owari no Chronicle|Main Page]]
| Forward to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 9|Chapter 9]]
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</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 7

2026-10-12T04:51:19Z

N-Ch:

==Chapter 7: Victorious Treachery==
[[Image:OnC_v10_0173.png|thumb]]
''And the cry turns to static

The nighttime battle in the mountains began with the sound of breaking metal.

As Ikkou swung his sword diagonally downward, Izumo defended.

Kazami saw him forcibly twist the motorcycle’s accelerator.

The large-displacement Kawasaki obediently responded to the sudden “full speed ahead” command.

The back wheel skidded a bit and pushed the bike forward.

While the back wheel pushed forward at full speed, the front wheel lost and rose up.

As if assisting the motorcycle’s standing motion, Izumo swung up the hand holding the accelerator.

The rising vehicle was knocked toward Ikkou as if it had been kicked away.

Izumo then wrapped his right arm around Kazami’s waist and kicked off the seat to jump backward with her.

…''Wow.

Izumo forcibly rotated around once and entered a low landing stance. She spun with him and her vision pointed in the same direction as his.

That was the front.

The front wheel rose like a snake’s head and the motorcycle crashed into Ikkou.

Or more accurately, into his sword.

With the sound of scraping metal, the motorcycle was split in two along a horizontal line.

A silver line ran from left to right through the center of the seat.

The vehicle was made from plenty of metal, various components, and a thick frame, but it was all bisected as easily as tofu.

Kazami thought to herself while watching the heavy metal pieces collapse to either side.

…''Is this a dream?

About a month before, she had been given a similar dream while fighting Roger of American UCAT.

In that dream, the motorcycle had been split apart by a strange power.

But that had been a false dream.

This was not.

“So you’re an enemy.”

With that comment, Izumo removed his right arm from her waist.

His eyes were looking past the motorcycle on the ground. They were trained on Ikkou.

“Come.”

The unusually low tone to his voice worried Kazami a little.

“Kaku.”

She called out to him, but he did not turn toward her.

Another voice then supported her worry.

“Now, how about I show you my brother’s fixed concept? Mitsuaki.”

Ikkou’s words were followed by a voice resembling the one produced by her own throat. This was the voice of a concept.

The voice spoke to another world that rejected the current one.

—'''There is no mutual understanding.

With the sound of shattering glass, the world transformed.

After hearing the concept text, Kazami lost everything.

…''Eh?

She understood what the concept meant. She could no longer comprehend any information the external world sent her way. It was a version of 2nd-Gear’s Art of Walking that encompassed the entire external world and could not be broken.

She understood the idea, but…

…''It can’t be broken?

She could see and she could hear, but she could not understand what was happening around her.

She could see Ikkou standing beyond the wreckage of the motorcycle.

She could see him holding the Azure Dragon Sword.

However, she could not understand what it was she was seeing and hearing.

“Is this…!?”

Her ability to comprehend how she felt about her surroundings was completely lacking.

…''What about Kaku!?

Wanting to know what he was doing, she turned left, but then she gasped.

Why she gasped was simple: She could not grasp that he was to her left.

He was to her left. She could see him there.

Nevertheless, she could not find him. Normally, seeing him would provide her with the information that “he is there”, but that information would not reach her.

As she turned left toward him, her gaze continued right on past him. She had already turned to the dark night behind her.

…''I don’t know where he is.

She could not tell if he was there or not. To sum it up…

…''We have no mutual understanding.

This was a world of only her own information.

She had nothing to compare to, so she could not even conclude that she was wrong.

Suddenly, her memories called forth a similar fact. Something much like this had happened recently.

…''When Team Leviathan was ordered to temporarily disband.

She rebuked herself for thinking about that now, but she could not stop her thoughts.

“I can’t understand it, I can’t find a solid answer, and the world is absolute.”

…''What can I possibly do!?

While asking herself that, she still decided to move.

But that was when she heard a voice. However, it was a voice that’s very existence she could not comprehend.

While desiring her next action, she heard that incomprehensible voice.

“Can you not move?”

She heard it, but she did not know what it said.

She faced forward. She knew the enemy was most likely there. She turned to face not an enemy she could see but one she could predict was there.

But just as she tried to step toward that enemy…

“…”

She could not move.

No. The truth was she did not want to move.

She knew why.

If she stayed there, she could at least know where the enemy and Izumo had been at first.

…''But if I take even a single step, I won’t even know where I am.

The thought of losing her own reference point made her shudder and panic.

She knew she had to move, but her body was trapped by the fear of not knowing where she was going.

The pressure in the bottom of her feet told her the ground was below them.

“But I don’t know where the enemy is!”

If she lifted a foot, she would no longer even know the ground was there. Like carelessly taking a wrong step on a staircase, she might not know where to step and miss the ground altogether.

Then she would fall and not even be able to stand.

…''Dammit.

Her anger formed words.

“Why? Why did it all have to end up like this!?”

She felt urgency in her gut due to a variety of things and she let out the thoughts that could not reach anyone.

“Why!?”

“What is the meaning of this?”

White light leaked out of the small building of Okutama Station.

The white-walled building resembled a mountain cottage and Sayama crossed his arms in front of it.

He spoke to what lay beyond his gaze and beyond the shadows formed by the light extending from the open building.

“Doctor Chao, why are you waiting for me here?”

He looked at Chao and his eyes narrowed in on the slender face of that girl-like woman.

Chao then spoke with her mouth twisting into what might have been a smile.

“Well, there’s a lot I’d like to say. But are you sure this is a good idea? Are you really heading into the mountains unarmed when someone could attack?”

“Okutama is my home ground, I am familiar with the land, and I have not forgotten…”

He thought while he spoke. Due to Team Leviathan’s temporary disbanding, he had not brought any UCAT products with him. Besides what he had borrowed from the Tamiya family, he had brought a few other necessities. For example, the handheld digital recorder with an edited compilation of Shinjou’s voice, his Shinjou album, a full set of Shinjou goods, and…

…''With my imagination, I have more than enough!

He nodded and spoke to Chao with a relieved look.

“I have not forgotten anything.”

“I’m not sure what that was about, but I’m glad to hear it.”

She glared at him and he tilted his head.

“But,” he began. “Why have you shown up just before my delightful mountain-climbing trip? Do you have something to say concerning the current cultural exchange between my former teammates and the four old brothers?”

“Oh? You’re pretty sharp.”

Chao had a smile in her tone, pulled a cigarette from her white coat’s pocket, and placed the paper cylinder between her lips.

“Well, it wouldn’t have been too hard to figure out if you gave it some thought. Four brothers of unknown origin were working underneath me, the person in charge of 7th-Gear.”

She raised her head which indeed held a smile. It was a pale smile with the eyebrows slightly lowered.

“I’m guessing the reason no one else figured it out was that they couldn’t bring themselves to believe it. But you seem to be different, grandson of Sayama. You will take us on, won’t you? Let’s see, right now you’re…”

“Team Leviathan has been freely disbanded.”

“So should I call you the main force of Japanese UCAT?”

With that, she removed the cigarette and exhaled smoke.

The smoke spread through the air, but she opened a hole by breathing out her next breath and the two of them faced each other through it.

“You actually saved us by catching up before those four reached their limit. And that’s why you need to be tested to see if Low-Gear is worthy of receiving 7th-Gear’s Concept Core.”

“Can you not accomplish that via the Leviathan Road?”

“This is the Leviathan Road, grandson of Sayama. This is the same negotiation you have brought to the other Gears. The only difference is that 7th-Gear is taking it to you this time. Yes, just like before.”

“Just like before?”

Chao smiled bitterly at Sayama’s question.

“That’s right. On September 29 of 1945, people from 7th-Gear invaded the Izumo Company, but they left without killing anyone or destroying anything. Do you know why?”

“A simple question: because they were curious.”

''What a boring question,'' thought Sayama as he answered and stepped forward.

After approaching through the darkness by one step, he adjusted the bag on his back.

“Doctor Chao, you have altered your body to extend your life, but when was that done? Based on your apparent age, was it done during the Concept War so you could battle 7th-Gear? And it was most likely done using the 7th-Gear techniques you had acquired at that point. Am I wrong?”

Even as he asked, he continued speaking.

“Based on the four brothers, I can guess 7th-Gear excelled at techniques to strengthen the human body. And as the Divine States-World Interaction Theory places it in China, I can also guess it was the world of the sage gods. They had mastered everything they could as people, so they attempted the final task they had left. In other words…”

An old man’s voice continued from Sayama’s right. It was Nijun’s voice.

“They gathered together the ultimate power they had gained through their various forms of training. They combined the individual sage gods’ powers and created the ultimate of the ultimate.”

“And that is the four of you?”

Nijun, the old man in a white coat, appeared from the darkness, but he did not nod.

Instead, Chao blew out some smoke.

“It was funny. When they invaded again, they completely cornered us, but they rejoiced when they saw the human modification facility I had built below Japanese UCAT.”

“They had found someone in this boring Gear who understood them. 7th-Gear viewed their human modification techniques as entertainment, so it must have been a shock to them. They realized the people of this ridiculous Gear could ‘enjoy themselves’ just as they could. Doctor Chao, that was why they invited you to 7th-Gear, wasn’t it? And as for you four brothers…”

Sayama turned to Nijun.

“The residents of 7th-Gear created the ultimate power by combining with their Concept Core. Are you that Core’s borrowed form after it was split in four?”

He took a step back from Nijun as he spoke. He turned to the side to prepare for a fight, but Nijun quietly shook his head.

“Sayama-sama, people will notice us here and I am the shyest of my brothers.”

“I see,” said Sayama while maintaining his defensive stance.

…''What is the situation?

Chao was there and some of the other brothers might have been there too.

He told himself not to let his guard down while Chao waved her right hand back and forth.

“Don’t be in such a rush, grandson of Sayama. We’ve waited for sixty years. While modifying those four on the other side, I spent an even longer time in a space that seemed to distort time. …So we can wait a little longer. Oh, I know. How about until you’ve had time to look around in the mountains? We can do this once you come down.”

“In other words, you plan to interrupt me while I am happily descending the mountain with thoughts of Shinjou-kun in my head?”

Still ready for a fight, Sayama glared at the other two.

“I am willing to do it here. How about you?”

His question was answered by a movement from Chao.

She took a step to the side to move from his path away from the station and she shrugged.

“I stand on the side of 7th-Gear since they invited me as a guest. I’ve sent in my letter of resignation along with theirs. …But I won’t interfere. I’ll just watch on and make sure they can do this properly.”

With that, she put her hand in her white coat’s pockets.

“And since you’re going mountain-climbing, let me give you a piece of meaningless information. The only two who went to Professor Kinugasa’s home looking for documents on Georgius were your father and your mother.”

“My mother? Why?”

“That’s simple. She was helping your father. She was the one that actually found Professor Kinugasa’s documents. Do you know why they needed them?”

“Was it for a battle? Perhaps a large-scale one in Osaka?”

Sayama’s words received a whistle in response. Chao sent the noise into the sky.

“Nicely said. I can’t tell you anything else, so if you want to know more, go play with those four. …Listen. If you defeat them, they will give you the Concept Core and some information on the past. After all, those four brothers fought in that Osaka battle.”

“!?”

“Those related to the Leviathan Road are forbidden to reveal the past, but this is a special case since we brought the fight to you. That rule no longer applies. Even if it’s only a few fragments of information, you should come to understand quite a bit.”

As she spoke, Nijun swayed in the corner of Sayama’s vision.

The old man was about to vanish so he could wait in the battlefield he would share with Sayama.

“…!”

Sayama immediately began to move.

He took an instantaneous step that flowed into a right roundhouse kick.

It was a demonstration for the opponent and a feint meant to keep the man from escaping.

If the man was not planning to fight now, it meant he was not prepared.

That meant Sayama could not let him escape. The suddenness and the distance between them precluded a clean hit, but the feint of a kick was the first step to reach one.

“…!?”

However, Sayama both saw and realized that his own body would not move in the slightest.

…''What?

Confusion filled his motionless body.

Even as a feint, he had poured all his strength into the kick, but his body remained in the defensive stance from before.

He could not move.

…''What is this?

“That is Nijun’s concept. Sayama, he might just be the worst possible opponent for you.”

He heard Chao speak, but Nijun was nowhere to be seen.

As he wondered when the man had vanished, Chao’s voice filled the chilly night air around him.

“Let us enjoy this, grandson of Sayama. And I hope your teammates do the same. 7th-Gear desired a satisfying destruction after fulfilling their own enjoyment. Once they reached the climax of their happiness, they wished to welcome in the end and entrust themselves to the next generation.”

And…

“Can you accept 7th-Gear’s happiness? Can you lead those four brothers to destruction not through a harsh battle, but through enjoyment? Can you use these battles to give them a happiness that exceeds that of 7th-Gear which left everything to me and was destroyed?”

Her questions resounded and hung in the air, but finally silence washed over their surroundings along with a warm night wind.

Sayama heard dried leaves scattering across the small space in front of the station building.

His eyes looked to his own shadow on the asphalt and Chao beyond it.

“Quite a one-sided proposition. But either way, I have no objection to enjoying all things, but making it obligatory will cost you.”

He looked up to a place a bit lower than the heavens. The mountains of Okutama formed a darkness even deeper than the night.

After the span of a breath, he spoke while staring into that darkness.

“I just hope my former teammates can enjoy it.”

“Will they be okay? According to Hiba’s grandson, Kazami and the others aren’t accepting your temporary disbanding of Team Leviathan.”

“Even I am half in doubt about it.”

As he spoke, Sayama walked forward. His leather shoes produced steady footsteps and he arrived next to Chao.

“But I believe it is necessary. If you will delightfully and happily oppose us, then the reason I had Team Leviathan disband will become all the more obvious.”

Chao asked a question as he approached.

“Do you mean you are implicitly telling them to back off now because it is dangerous? Are you telling the members of Team Leviathan to leave the front lines because the battle is about to grow even more dangerous?”

Sayama gave his answer while walking past her.

He smiled ever so slightly.

“…”

And then he gave his parting words.

“Farewell, Doctor Chao.”

He passed by her and continued walking. He made his way into the Okutama mountains and to the path that would take him forward.

He did not bother turning back toward the late autumn wind.

Kazami could not move.

She was in a space where she could not know what to do.

Part of her said she had to do something and another part of her told her to give up because she could not do anything, so she was left unable to choose either option.

The word “impatience” filled her heart.

She could not comprehend anything in her field of vision and nothing that entered her ears held any meaning to her.

All she could understand was herself.

…''But…

If she did not understand her opponent, she could not fight.

She saw someone else step out of one of the RVs blocking the road. It was a short-haired old man in a white coat, but she did not know who he was or even that he had left the RV.

A meaningless voice reached her.

“Brother Ikkou, how is my fixed concept working?”

“Mitsuaki, it is a little short on fun, but it is very effective. It is incredibly hard to use.”

“Then what will you do? This is plenty fun for me.”

“Well, to increase my fun, why not give Kazami-sama and Izumo-sama a single chance.”

[[Image:OnC_v10_0191.jpg|thumb]]

“A single chance?”

Ikkou nodded at Mitsuaki’s question.

At that point, something appeared from the northern sky beyond the mountain.

They were two lines of light.

Each light had a weapon at the front: the white spear named G-Sp2 and the white sword named V-Sw.

Those weapons were very familiar to Kazami.

“…”

But she could not understand what was flying their way.

At the same time, her own senses brought a question to mind.

…''Shouldn’t G-Sp2 and V-Sw be arriving about now?

How long had it been since she had shouted the name of that trustworthy weapon?

She raised her right hand and waited for a sensation in her palm.

She could not comprehend light or sound in this world, but she could faintly feel the sensation of the ground below her feet.

She was not feeling the repelling force of the ground itself. She was feeling the pressure as the skin on the bottom of her feet was pressed into her flesh by the ground.

Because she could only understand herself in this world, she could easily understand the sensations of her own body.

She would feel something in her palm because something had flown into her hand.

The moment after that was her chance to attack.

She remembered where her opponent had been the moment before entering the concept space. She had not moved a step, so there was not much to mislead her.

Once she had her weapon in hand, she could run across the unseen ground and attack the enemy’s estimated location.

''That’s enough,'' she thought.

“!”

In that instant, what she wanted reached her hand.

“G-Sp2!”

Her reflexes immediately accomplished everything.

She felt G-Sp2’s handle slip into her hand. Its speed had not dropped, so G-Sp2 must not have been able to comprehend her either. She forced it to a stop by squeezing her right hand around it.

It was hers now.

The brief friction heat in her palm made it feel like she had grabbed fire, but she did not care. The sense of heat was reassuring in this sensationless space.

She forcibly spun G-Sp2 around to ensure it was there.

She pointed the tip forward as if thrusting it.

“…!!”

And she ran.

She ran across the visible yet unseen ground to reach the enemy she could see yet could not locate.

Her first step felt a little low, so she raised her hips on the second step. That second step felt tilted to the right, so she steadied her footing on the third step.

She ran.

She raised G-Sp2 in order to swing it toward where she estimated the enemy to be.

That location was a bit to her right.

There was one reason she had chosen the right.

…''Kaku is on the left.

He had held her on the right when getting off the motorcycle, so he would be on the left.

She knew he would have called in V-Sw, but he lacked the same burst of speed she had. That meant she would be out ahead of him.

If she charged in on the right and drove the enemy to the left, she would be sending them right in Izumo’s attack.

She was certain he was thinking of the same cooperation.

…''Yes.

She agreed in her heart, nodded with her body, and continued to soar onward.

She stepped forward to attack with the speed of her run and poured her entire body into jabbing the spear tip forward.

G-Sp2 would not know what was going on as she held it.

…''Sorry. This must be scary.

''I’ll explain later, once we leave this incomprehensible concept space.

''So bear with it until then,'' she pleaded. ''Don’t worry. We’re strong.

Then the moment she had hoped for arrived.

She collided with something.

Starting with a pressure in her hand, the impact spread throughout her body.

A sensation like breaking through a wall spread from her hand to her arm, her arm to her shoulder, and her shoulder to her entire body. Soon, she shifted to press her entire body weight forward.

Something had stopped the spear tip.

It had been blocked.

''By what?'' she wondered, while also thinking, ''We’ve won.

Their enemy wielded only an Azure Dragon Sword. With the skill to slice apart a motorcycle, he could likely stop her spear with just the sword tip, but it was still just an Azure Dragon Sword.

It could not defeat G-Sp2 which contained 10th-Gear’s Concept Core.

Kazami instantly operated the console.

“Change to your second form.”

When G-Sp2 had flown to her, the shield portion had already been attached below the tip, so the cannon form could be quickly completed. If she fired while their blades were locked, she could easily destroy the Azure Dragon Sword.

And meanwhile…

…''Kaku will arrive and attack the defenseless opponent.

“Fire the-…”

“Are you sure, Kazami-sama?”

She heard a voice but did not understand its meaning.

She could feel the movements of G-Sp2 transforming in her hands and it would soon finish.

Afterward, she only needed to hit the firing switch.

“Kazami-sama, are you having fun?”

The incomprehensible voice arrived again.

“Then allow me to provide even more fun. Mitsuaki, please release your fixed concept. I wish to show them my fixed concept and the concept weapon we stole from Izumo UCAT.”

A moment later, Kazami heard a voice.

—'''Strength is infinite.

Finally hearing a voice from the outside world surprised her.

Having gone for so long without hearing anything caused the concept text to sound all the louder.

And that was not all.

“Eh?”

The world around her changed.

Comprehension returned to the incomprehensible world.

Kazami saw the darkness around her and a small light.

The darkness was the night that filled the sky and the light was the white streetlight illuminating the area.

She stood on the asphalt and she held a long white spear.

The spear had transformed to its cannon form, but the pointed tip had been blocked by the Azure Dragon Sword.

The wind blew.

“…”

The cold air traveled up into the night from behind her. That wind that seemed to well up from the ground gave her a chill and she narrowed her eyes.

Only then did she grasp the situation.

“Why?”

A word wrapped in dazed confusion escaped her lips.

Ahead of her, Ikkou held an Azure Dragon Sword in his left hand. That was the sword that had stopped G-Sp2, but…

“Two of them!?”

The fact before her eyes answered her question.

Ikkou also held an Azure Dragon Sword in his right hand. The thick metal blade reflected the light and…

…''It blocked V-Sw.

Izumo stood to her left. His eyebrows were slightly raised and he tried to press V-Sw against the Azure Dragon Sword.

However, Ikkou remained motionless. He was holding back their full strength with the weapons he held in a single arm.

As she wondered how, he tilted his head.

“Hm,” he muttered. “This is Rowless, the concept weapon I stole. Don’t worry. It is a weak weapon. It is made with simple steel, but it easily breaks. To make up for that, it can reproduce itself nearly infinitely.”

Izumo snorted at the old man’s explanation.

“For being such weak Azure Dragon Swords, they’re sure stopping our weapons easily enough, Ikkou-san.”

Kazami nearly nodded in agreement, but she realized she could not agree.

…''He isn’t blocking us with the Azure Dragon Swords.

Ikkou had no strength gathered in his arms.

“Kazami-sama seems to have noticed. This is thanks to my fixed concept that activated just now.”

The concept text had said strength is infinite.

“Inside the concept space I control, all weapons have their strength set to infinite. These small blades and your weapons all have identically infinite attack power. And…”

And…

“If they have any power in reserve, it will be drawn out.”

Kazami heard two sounds.

They were high-pitched groans coming from the weapons in her and Izumo’s hands.

G-Sp2 and V-Sw almost seemed to be screaming.

“W-wait! What is it, G-Sp2!?”

“————”

The color green filled G-Sp2’s console and a single value appeared there.

“Eighteen percent.”

The percentage increased along with the machine’s loud scream. It reached nineteen, twenty, and then jumped to the thirties too quickly to count.

“G-Sp2!?”

The weapon shook as if writhing in agony. The irregular shaking formed waves as if the individual shakes were synchronizing and the entire device seemed to jump up.

V-Sw was doing the same and Izumo was operating the console in a frantic attempt to restrain the sword’s vibrations.

But they would not stop. Both shaking weapons emitted voices loud enough to echo off the surrounding forest and they gathered wind around themselves.

They almost seemed to be entering their third forms on their own.

They were out of control.

To obey the will of the Concept Cores, the weapons drew out their power to the very limit. That power had constructed an entire world and the force that usually restrained them was releasing it with no attempt to stop it.

…''Wait!

The console’s value jumped to the forty percent range.

A chill ran down Kazami’s spine. During the battle with 5th-Gear the month before, she had measured an output of thirty-eight percent. That had only partially produced 10th-Gear’s concept dragon, but it had still covered around a dozen kilometers in the sky and devoured the 5th-Gear mechanical dragons like nothing.

She now saw an even higher number in her hands.

It had easily reached and exceeded the power she could draw out herself.

She shuddered.

“W-wait!”

The vibration in her hands had grown to the level of an impact.

A moment later, G-Sp2 and V-Sw both transformed.

They revealed their third forms.

“…!?”

But Kazami looked past G-Sp2 as it rose up in front of her.

Ikkou kept his two blades pressed against the rampaging G-Sp2 and V-Sw’s blades.

Firework-like sparks scattered from the points of contact and lit up the area.

Light began to leak from the gaps in G-Sp2 and V-Sw’s cowlings. They could not contain their own power inside.

…''Not good!

She cried out in her heart at the same moment Ikkou spoke.

“Isn’t this fun, Kazami-sama, Izumo-sama?”

“Wh-what are you talking about!? If they go off here, you’ll be blown away too!”

“You are bearers of power. Don’t you find it fun to be able to use that power at its maximum?”

She did not understand what he meant.

Power was dangerous. Knowing that fact was one of the duties of those who fought.

…''How can you enjoy it?

She instantly pulled G-Sp2 back. She wanted to remove the restraint of the Azure Dragon Sword and then think.

…''I need to defeat this enemy before they explode!!

Her initial burst of speed would decide everything, so the moment after pulling G-Sp2 back, she thrust the tip toward the enemy’s gut.

It was a swift attack.

The light leaking from the tip and the gaps of the cowling trailed behind it like mist and formed a straight line.

The white light raced toward the enemy’s gut.

“I see you still do not understand.”

Ikkou swung down the Azure Dragon Sword in his left hand.

The steel sword collided with the spear that bore a Concept Core and attempted to pierce him with that light.

“Trying to attack with a weapon that is not yet even halfway to infinite? How boring.”

With those words, one of the weapons was destroyed.

That weapon was the large white spear.

The destruction greatly resembled shattering glass.

Kazami first saw a point about halfway up the spear tip swell out a bit.

A moment later, the white external cowling split and burst almost all the way to the handle. The inner frame was covered in squeezing cracks and it expanded before bursting as well. The thirty centimeter protective cylinder guarding the Concept Core was released the instant the impact hit and it prepared to be ejected outside.

“It hurts.”

That message appeared just before the console blacked out and the protective cylinder was contained by the part of the external cowling that had not been fully destroyed.

However, the destruction did not end there.

Kazami felt pain in her hands. The pain resembled grabbing a handful of thumbtacks.

The handle she held was also covered in cracks.

“Wha-…?”

When she turned around, she saw the third form’s foot pedal bend and then break and she saw the vertical tail wing shatter like a glass panel hit by a stone.

Finally, the entire white cowling burst like a firework.

G-Sp2 had been destroyed.

“!?”

Even as the fragments tore at her hands and skin, Kazami watched.

She saw G-Sp2 stop as if it had lost a battle of strength.

“You’re kidding…”

She blankly stared at the mass of metal remaining in her hands.

She waved it a little, but it simply felt heavy and lacked the life of a weapon.

She noticed that the protective cylinder inside the tip had left its proper spot.

10th-Gear’s Concept Core was held inside that.

With it removed, the console was silent and its owner could feel the weapon’s weight once more.

Would G-Sp2 return to normal if that cylinder was restored to its proper place? Would the weight vanish, would words appear on the console, would the damage disappear, and would it be able to fight again?

Kazami subconsciously reached for the protective cylinder.

Only once her hand touched the metal cylinder did she realize her hand was covered in blood.

She also realized it hurt.

“Ah.”

She finally remembered what she was trying to do and what the situation was.

When she looked up, she saw a raised Azure Dragon Sword.

Ikkou was swinging the left blade toward her.

“—————”

''It’s over,'' she thought. ''I can’t avoid it. The weight left in my hands is too much.

More importantly, her legs suddenly refused to move.

Her experience told her where the sword would arrive: ten centimeters below her neck.

With the speed and thickness of the blade…no, while inside this concept space, the sword would slice her in two.

''At least it won’t cut my face apart,'' she thought in her horribly calm yet somehow lacking state of mind.

She would be cut through.

But just before she was, three things rushed in front of her.

One was a large white sword.

Another was Izumo’s body.

And the last was his voice.

“Oh…”

That vowel sound extended on and on as his giant body moved between her and the blade.

V-Sw collided with the Azure Dragon Sword and loudly shattered.

Simply put, he had saved her.

But Ikkou did something else.

He had already swung the Azure Dragon Sword in his right hand.

“…”

The second sword silently came from the left like a cold wind.

The blade’s trajectory and length could reach both Izumo and Kazami who he was trying to protect.

It would slice through her below the chest and him above the waist.

''No,'' she thought.

But not even she knew what that word in her heart meant. She could not say if she was stating that it was over for them or if she was protesting the situation.

She simply thought the word “no”.

And then Izumo took action.

He sent his weapon crashing into the Azure Dragon Sword. He used the most primitive weapon provided by the human body: the fist.

What happened when two infinite weapons collided?

Kazami saw the answer.

Both of them were destroyed.

The Azure Dragon Sword burst to pieces like a spray of water.

“Kaku!!”

Starting from Izumo’s left fist, cracks ran halfway up his forearm and the arm was smashed to pieces.

A dark spray was thrown into the night air.

Kazami heard a scream and guessed it was Izumo’s. The loud scream seemed to extend on and on.

But as she listened, she realized something.

The voice she heard did not belong to Izumo who collapsed before her eyes.

…''That’s my scream.

“Ahh!”

Her cry resounded through the night sky.

<noinclude>
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| Back to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 6|Chapter 6]]
| Return to [[Owari no Chronicle|Main Page]]
| Forward to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 8|Chapter 8]]
|-
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</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 6

2026-10-12T04:42:35Z

N-Ch:

== Chapter 6: Resentment’s Beginning ==
[[Image:OnC_v10_0153.png|thumb]]
''Howl and bite

''Test the strength of your fangs

''And…

Sound filled a lit room.

Eleven fairly solid tones came from the clock on the wall.

That sound reached the girl sitting in the large kotatsu at the center of the room.

She had long black hair, her upper body was lying on top of the kotatsu, and her eyes were closed.

She was asleep.

The television in front of her was turned off and its dark screen reflected her face.

Once the clock fell silent, only the girl’s steady breathing could be heard.

That was when the blanket on another side of the futon rose and a dog exited.

The large white dog was almost a meter tall and he slowly crawled out from the kotatsu and circled around next to the girl.

He then barked.

His voice reverberated throughout the room and the girl frantically sat up.

“Kyah! Sh-Shiro! Don’t bark. You’ll disturb the neighbors.”

She raised her eyebrows while scolding the dog and moved her left hand to hit him. However, he must have known she would not actually do so because he only stared at her hand as it stopped partway.

The dog did not move and she frowned at the motionless dog’s expression.

“Did something happen?”

She strained her ears but could not hear anything.

She brought her left hand to her chest where a blue stone pendant and a red cloisonné pendant hung at her neck. She wrapped her fingers around them both and slowly stood.

The floor creaked a little below her feet.

The sound deepened her frown and she pressed a button on the TV remote sitting on the kotatsu.

Light raced across the black screen, color filled it, and sound came from it. The sound belonged to a late-night show.

“Now! It’s once again time for the World Execution Show!! Today’s challenger is Incester Sisconsky who was arrested for his feelings toward his little sister! He’s already warming up here in the Illinois Central Prison stage! Now, how are you feeling as you face one hundred fifty lashes with a metal whip while completely nude?”

“I’m gonna do my best!!”

“Okay, that’s the spirit! If you can win here, our sponsor US-IAI will give you a year’s supply of their new potable bath additive ‘Dashi of Me’! Now, this is a good time for an ad break!!”

The girl had started nodding along, but the ad for the potable bath additive brought her back to her senses.

She quickly moved to the wall while using the loud TV to hide her footsteps.

A thick white coat hung on the wall.

It was for training. For the most part, it was entirely white, but the name Shino was sewn on the inside of the collar in orange.

She put her arms through the coat’s sleeves and fastened the front.

“Shiro, come.”

She opened the wood and glass door on the south side of the living room.

There she found a dark hallway and the entranceway beyond it.

…''It’s cold.

This space led outside and its air was cold and still.

Shiro stepped out into the hallway first as if to lead the way and protect her.

Slight cautious tension filled the dog’s back.

…''What is it?

Shino was alone in the house at the moment, but the fact that Mikoku was not here bothered her even more.

Mikoku would normally head out first, but she had gone to the factory tonight and she was not back yet. Hajji had apparently gone to get her, but he had not returned either.

…''Maybe I should have gone too.

But she doubted she could have gone even if she had wanted to.

If she had, Mikoku would have said something.

Lately, Mikoku hated it whenever Shino was involved in the fighting.

It had started as warnings not to accept any of the Army’s missions, but it had lately shifted to scolding her about taking part in the following day’s attack or even going to help prepare at the factory.

Mikoku was also trying to keep some distance between them.

…''Why?

Shino guessed Mikoku was trying to say that she would protect her because fighting was her job.

She did think that was very like Mikoku, but…

…''Why can’t I take part in a fight that will influence the world I’ll be a part of?

She had never asked that question.

She had a feeling Mikoku would be unable to answer if she did. Even if she knew the answer, she would be unable to give it. That answer was something very close to her true thoughts.

…''And she has trouble being honest.

But that fear would vanish with the ending of the following day. Shino was one of the backup members for the attack. Mikoku had begged Hajji to change his mind, but Shino had done all her work just fine since summer, so there was no room for complaint.

“It’ll be okay.”

She muttered to herself in the dark hallway so both she and someone in her heart could hear.

“I can manage on my own.”

She nodded and followed Shiro down the hall.

The word “chilly” seemed to gradually crawl up from the bottom of her feet.

Her feet did produce footsteps down the hall, but the television in the living room drowned them out.

“Now, it’s time to introduce today’s executioner! Let’s see, he belongs to the Illinois Central Prison, he’s ranked third in the World Execution League’s heavyweight class, and he’s gained the skill of a master in his thirty years of using the metal whip. Let’s hear it for Markovic the Butcher!!”

After some cheers and entrance music, cries of Incester or Marko echoed from the audience. Out of the corner of her eye, Shino saw a shirtless macho man wearing a triangular black mask, but she reluctantly stepped entirely out into the hallway.

She walked the seven steps to the thick front door.

“…”

Shiro arrived ahead of her and raised his tail while lowering his head.

Shino stood behind as if hiding and focused her ears.

“Now, Markovic is going in for the attack! He attacks! He boldly attacks! He targets the crotch! The crotch! Three quick lashes to the crotch! And when the challenger shrinks back, he strikes the jaw from below! The challenger is completely on the defensive!!”

“Ahhhn! I-it hurts! But it feels so good!! Should I just go ahead and die!?”

She was curious about what was happening there, but she instead focused her ears on the door in front of her.

Someone was there.

She could not see anyone in the patterned glass to the side of the door, but she sensed a presence. Someone was hiding right behind the door.

The door did not have a peephole, but she could check on the intercom’s LCD display that used the security camera below the entranceway roof. However, she did not want to create an opening by reaching for the intercom.

And so she asked a question instead.

“Who is it?”

Her voice filled the nighttime hallway and reached the door.

“It’s me, it’s me,” immediately replied a voice. “It’s me, it’s me!!”

“I-if this is some kind of scam, I don’t want any!!”

“Just open up. Are you going to leave a helper from 10th-Gear out in the cold autumn night?”

Shino then remembered that Hajji had said something about bringing back a guest before heading to the factory.

…''But why would 10th help us?

And something else bothered her as well.

“Hajji isn’t with you?”

“He said he had something to discuss with the factory manager and it isn’t appropriate for a woman to hang around while men speak. Of course, that means us women need to turn our anger toward those men when we speak.”

And…

“You’re Shino, right? Open up. I’m carrying some pretty big luggage right now.”

“Luggage?”

[[Image:OnC_v10_0161.jpg|thumb]]

“It’s the girl named Mikoku. She’s stubborn, so I had to kill her about seventeen times. That must have exhausted her because she went right to sleep.”

Shino acted on reflex when she heard that. She ran past Shiro and to the door.

“You have Mikoku!?”

She opened the door to the night, but she did not find what she had expected.

Instead of the darkness of the night or the shadows of the neighborhood houses, she saw a large woman in a white coat and the muzzle of a gun.

The cold steel pressed against her forehead left her speechless.

“This is the end, Shino,” said the woman beyond the gun. “You are very kind, but that is exactly why this is the end. Remember this. On the battlefield, that kindness of yours will give you the final push toward death.”

The gun lightly pushed her and she took a cold and heavy step backward.

Only then did she get a good look at the woman.

She was a large woman that Shino had to tilt her head back to see. Above her thick body and past her coat’s collar was the face of a hooked-nosed middle-aged woman. The woman’s blue eyes were turned toward Shino.

“Oh? You certainly look like a good girl. You are one, aren’t you? You’ll live a long life. If you can stay alive, that is. But to do that, you need to follow the rules of good girls. Make sure you do that.”

With that, she held out what was in her left hand: Mikoku in her work outfit.

Mikoku’s limbs and hair dangled limply down.

However, Shino found herself unable to react to this sudden guest, what that guest looked like, and what that guest said.

…''Um…

While hesitating over what to do, Shiro arrived at her right side.

The dog peered at Mikoku’s face and poked at her forehead with his nose.

“Nn…”

Mikoku gave a troubled groan but did not wake. The woman lifted her up and away.

“Oops. It’d be a shame to let the dog wake her. Shino, get me some food. I’m starving and I need carbohydrates.”

“Who are you?”

“Jord, a survivor of 10th-Gear’s gods. …I’m ‘Betrayed Expectations’ Jord. You can call me God or Jord-chan or whatever. What I want to be called changes on a whim, but never call me ‘old lady’. That’s the rule. Got it? Now, let me in, Shino. And food. Get me some food.”

Shino nodded, tapped Shiro’s neck, and returned to the hallway.

Jord passed through the door as if shaking her large body.

“Oh.”

Mikoku struck the door frame and Shino gave a quick “ah” at the dull sound.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m not made for precision.”

“B-but…”

“It’s fine, so keep quiet. I don’t like kids who get worked up over trivial details. If you’re going to scold me, then I’ll have to scold you for staying up so late. But I won’t do that, so you don’t say anything to me. And get me some food. No complaints about that, right?”

Shino thought about it. She was worried about Mikoku’s head and Jord was overly pushy, but she did not detect any hostility in the woman.

It made a lot of sense once she thought of it like quieting an animal by giving it food.

“Then come in. And please remove your shoes.”

She stepped back into the entranceway and Jord smiled.

The corners of her mouth bent up, her eyes closed, and there was not a hint of sarcasm or ulterior motive behind the smile.

“Good. Children are best when they’re honest, Shino. I’ll be coming in then.”

Jord bent her thick upper body in a bow.

Shino had not expected the sudden action, so she was late to bow back. She made up for it by waiting a full three seconds before straightening back up.

When she hesitantly raised her head, Jord was closing the door behind her. She hung Mikoku’s back collar on the doorstopper and sat down in the entranceway.

“Ahh.”

The floor creaked and the movement seemed to stir up the air.

As she watched Jord remove her military boots one at a time, Shino confirmed her decision that the woman was not a bad person.

“Jord, why are you fighting UCAT?”

“Sticking your nose into a woman’s secrets isn’t a good idea. I have my reasons. Just remember that. You have your own reasons, right? It isn’t good to ask for someone else’s reasons without explaining your own. And I like good girls, Shino.”

Jord sighed.

“I also don’t approve of children staying up this late. Hajji needs to be more thoughtful. What is he doing?”

“Oh, um, but…”

She started to bring up Mikoku, but cheers from the living room cut her off.

“I can’t believe what I’m seeing. The master is using the flexibility of the metal whip to strike his target’s crotch from front to back. And it forms a compact blow filled with the consideration of a true master!”

“Ah! No! Ow! That really-…! Hwah! Hwaaaaahh!!”

Jord glared in the direction of the realistically dubbed screams and cheers.

“I don’t approve of that either.”

Shino ran for the living room to change the channel.

Below the night sky, a mountain range was steeped in deep darkness.

The mountains were covered in forest and a narrow river and road ran through them.

The road had white streetlights at distant intervals.

Past the guardrails of the spottily lit road was a drop of around a dozen meters and rocky river bank. The river itself could not be seen in the darkness, but the loud sound of rushing water indicated its presence.

A single sound and light moved quickly through the light, the darkness, and the sounds of the river.

The sound was a motorcycle engine and the light was a headlight.

The large-displacement motorcycle was an old Kawasaki and two people rode it.

The driver was a well-built boy who wore a brown mountain jacket to fight the cold. He gently tilted the large motorcycle to either side as he took the corners.

The one clinging to his back was a girl in a blue half coat.

The banking motorcycle and the wind blew her short hair about as she looked forward over his shoulder.

She was looking at the sky visible past the mountains and forest ahead.

Despite being night, the sky was tinged with purple thanks to the lights in the mountain.

She sighed and opened her mouth.

“IAI’s lights are still on. Did UCAT order them to keep the lights on to help defend against a possible attacker?”

“Probably. This is starting to feel pretty serious. What do you think, Chisato?”

The two of them, Izumo and Kazami, both looked to the brightness in the sky.

They would occasionally pass below a streetlight and the sky’s light would become difficult to make out.

“It doesn’t look like anything’s happening. And they have Hiba, Mikage, Harakawa, Heo, and everyone from 2nd there, so they should be fine even if there is an attack.”

“Are you worried?”

She paused before answering his question and she leaned against his back as she did so.

“I am worried.”

She felt the wind as a chill in her ears.

“I just can’t accept why Sayama would tell Team Leviathan to disband. …What about you, Kaku? Aren’t you worried with everyone splitting up at such a dangerous time?”

“I’m fine as long as you’re with me.”

“Oh, my.”

Kazami removed her cheek from his back and smiled bitterly.

She was about to express her gratitude, but then she felt his back press against her cheek once more.

However, he had not leaned back. She had been pushed forward.

“Kaku, why did you brake?”

“There’s a checkpoint up ahead. And isn’t that…?”

As the motorcycle slowed down, she looked past his back and indeed saw a checkpoint.

A “no entry” sign had been set up and two large white RVs blocked the road.

A red warning light lit up everything there.

She then noticed that the RVs were UCAT’s disguised security vehicles.

…''It’s a UCAT checkpoint?

“Looks like they’re being really cautious about an attack. What a pain.”

Kazami agreed with Izumo.

However, she recognized the person waving the red warning light in front of one of the RVs.

“Ikkou-san?”

She called out from the motorcycle that was now moving at a walking pace and Ikkou looked up.

“Oh.” A narrow-eyed smile formed below his gray hair. “Sorry about the trouble. It’s just that things have been quite dangerous recently.”

“Thanks for going to the trouble. …Are the others still on the other side?”

She pointed toward the bright sky past the mountain and Ikkou nodded.

“They should be. That’s why we were forced out here.”

“Ah.” Kazami shrunk down and lowered her head with a troubled look. “Sorry. And it’s so cold.”

“No, no, no. Do not worry about it. We have the UCAT director’s approval for this job.”

Ikkou lowered the warning light and lifted the “no entry” sign. He then placed the sign in the gap between the two RVs blocking the road.

“Hey, Ikkou-san. Why are you blocking our way?”

Kazami answered Izumo while hitting his shoulder.

“You idiot. It’s a checkpoint, so even we need to show our IDs.”

“That is not why,” said Ikkou.

He circled behind the RV on the valley river side and opened the trunk.

He pulled something out and rested it on his shoulder.

“Two meters long. This is short for an Azure Dragon Sword.”

He approached as he spoke and the solid footsteps of his leather shoes rang through the night air.

The slow sound of the footsteps was joined by light in the Azure Dragon Sword’s blade.

Kazami had a sudden thought about the scene before her.

…''Huh?

“W-wait a second, Ikkou-san. What is going on?”

“You cannot tell?”

With that question, he arrived within three meters of them.

His sword’s maximum reach was two meters, so he only had to take a step forward to be in range.

Kazami understood that much, but…

…''Eh?

She could tell a forced smile had appeared on her lips, but not even she knew what it was meant to hide.

She only knew that Ikkou was slowly raising the Azure Dragon Sword.

“Hey! Chisato!”

Izumo’s voice brought her back to her senses.

She felt like a sudden adjustment had come over her vision.

An attack was coming and it was coming from someone she knew, someone who had helped her for so long, and someone who had even saved her.

…''Wh-why!?

When doubt prevented you from moving, it was called hesitation.

And as she hesitated, she saw Izumo’s large back lower down as he prepared to move.

When she did see him move, she finally realized it was okay for her to move as well.

…''But what for?

She knew the answer. It was only a possibility at this point, but it was likely true.

“Chisato! They were the attackers!!”

“Yes, I must apologize, but it was the four of us.”

Once she realized that fact, she recalled the information on the attackers.

First, the men who had attacked Izumo UCAT had been covered in black, but one had wielded an Azure Dragon Sword.

Second, Gyes had said she knew them, but the match was not yet sufficient to make a public announcement.

…''But…

“Wh-what is going on!? Why would Doctor Chao’s four brothers attack us!?”

“It is a simple matter. You could call us the illegitimate children of 7th-Gear. In other words, we ourselves are the Concept Core.”

So…

“How about we continue the Concept War?”

With those words, Ikkou made his attack.

He prepared to lower the raised Azure Dragon Sword along a diagonal path and it was clear what that path would do.

…''He’s trying to slice Kaku and me in two!

He was serious. That confused Kazami, but she opened her mouth regardless.

“I can’t accept this!!”

She raised her right arm toward the sky.

“G-Sp2!!”

Her shout traveled high into the sky.

“Come!! We need to put a stop to this nonsense!!!”

A moment later, Ikkou’s sword raced through the air.

A slicing sound followed.

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| Back to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 5|Chapter 5]]
| Return to [[Owari no Chronicle|Main Page]]
| Forward to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 7|Chapter 7]]
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</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 5

2026-10-11T01:55:18Z

N-Ch:

==Chapter 5: Feeling of Separation==
[[Image:OnC_v10_0129.png|thumb]]
''When they do not know where someone is going

''Those who do not want to go anywhere

''Will ask them

From waist height up, a small room was surrounded by a transparent windshield.

The room was a cockpit and a boy sat in the long forward seat.

He had reddish-brown skin, unkempt hair, and a black work outfit.

When he touched the console indicator, it displayed several waves.

“Can you match it, Harakawa?” asked a voice.

“Yes, leave just the ones around here, Thunder Fellow.”

Harakawa touched one of the waves and all of those without similar amplitudes vanished.

The display zoomed in and all of the waves approached a central wave.

“It’s like a radio,” said a girl’s voice behind him.

He turned around and found a girl in a blue armored uniform. She was getting up from the secondary seat and held a compact vacuum cleaner.

When he saw her smile and shake her short blonde hair, he only nodded.

“We’re trying to match the communicator to Low-Gear. …First, remove the ones with concept readings.”

“Understood,” said Thunder Fellow.

The waves overlapped and Harakawa heard a new voice.

“…kawa-san, can you hear me!? Honestly, do you have any idea how indecent it is to be closed inside a transparent room with a girl? I’m so happy to have such an indecent upperclassman!”

“Are you stupid, Hiba? No, wait. You are stupid, Hiba. …Heo Thunderson, don’t you start blushing.”

He turned toward Heo who returned to cleaning the secondary seat with a troubled look.

Harakawa averted his gaze to look out the windshield.

There, he found a dark space.

It was a storage room and hangar for a variety of equipment located on Japanese UCAT’s fifth basement. The area had been left open ever since American UCAT’s attack, so the different departments were using it for storage and emergency work. It was also used for some large concept weapon experiments.

The thirty meter blue and white mechanical dragon named Thunder Fellow stood in the center of that floor and Harakawa sat inside the cockpit located in his head.

Heo had called in Thunder Fellow so they could check over his different parts.

After the attack on Izumo UCAT, Harakawa and Hiba had brought Heo and Mikage to Japanese UCAT. They were there as guards and also because they felt it was best for Team Leviathan to stick together.

It was currently eight at night, but Kazami and Izumo would soon be arriving for the next shift. After that, they planned to spend the night at Hiba’s grandfather’s dojo.

…''That way we can rush here if anything does happen.

They would also avoid putting themselves in danger by acting alone.

It had been Kazami’s idea. She had wanted to be as cautious as they could in case of a possible attack.

…''It almost feels like she’s doing it out of spite over Sayama’s decision.

Harakawa wondered what would happen.

…''I just don’t understand why Sayama ordered us to disband or why the treasurer is so mad.

He had joined Team Leviathan a month ago but had not taken part in a single battle since. Nor had he undergone any large-scale training.

That left him unable to feel uneasy or hopeful about the current situation.

Heo on the other hand seemed overly hopeful about having teammates for the first time.

Having the word “disband” thrown in the face of that hope seemed to have shaken her, but Sayama’s comment about searching for their pasts also seemed to have motivated her.

On the way here, she had clearly wanted to say something.

Mostly likely, she wanted to ask what Sayama had meant and whether Harakawa would help her search for her past, but she had not managed to get the words out.

“But what do I do if she does say it.”

“Eh? D-did you just say something?”

“No. It isn’t my problem, Heo Thunderson.”

''Serious people always get the short end of the stick,'' he silently complained. ''Sometime soon, she’ll probably clench her fists in anger and ask if I’m seriously thinking about my past. And at the same time, she’ll have already decided for herself whether I am or not.

In Harakawa’s case, his “past” was his father.

He thought about that father while messing with the instruments.

…''He was a sniper, so he must not have ever messed with a mechanical dragon like this.

He had heard his father had died after being sent by the US military to assist with the Great Kansai Earthquake. He had always thought the man had done something unnecessary and gotten himself killed without a single thought for his family, but according to the past Sayama had seen, some kind of battle had occurred in Osaka.

…''And my mom must have been there too.

He had not told her about his job at UCAT and he had not asked her to explain why she knew about UCAT.

She was still hiding UCAT’s existence and he was unsure whether he should bring it up or not. Heo must have realized how he was feeling because she had not asked his mother either.

But based on what Sayama had said, he was certain his mother was hiding something about his father’s death.

Would she tell him the truth if he asked?

And would learning that help him learn why Team Leviathan should disband?

While wondering that, he quickly checked on his surroundings.

A black giant stood to the left. Even as a giant, it was only as tall as Thunder Fellow’s shoulders, but it was seven or eight times the height of the boy standing at its feet.

The boy was Hiba and he had a cellphone to his ear.

“Sounds like it’s getting through, Harakawa-san. Is it for you, Mikage-san?”

The black giant standing next to him nodded and raised its right hand with a creaking movement.

“Yes. I can hear him.”

Harakawa looked up at the black giant looking down at Hiba.

“She can use it without you?”

“She can a little bit now and she might be able to use it even more later. Also, Susamikado evolves whenever she does, so by the time she can use it on her own…”

“Susamikado and I might be able to move even more than now.”

The hint of joy in Mikage’s voice told Harakawa something.

…''They’re really strong.

He then grabbed the roll bars on either side of his seat.

“How about doing some movement tests?”

As the technician replied, Harakawa moved the machine. He had been designated as Thunder Fellow’s pilot, but he did not often have a chance to pilot him outside of battle. Heo was not combined with Thunder Fellow, so he could perform a low level test of the machine’s intrinsic movements.

He heard a slight mechanical sound as he tilted Thunder Fellow to the left.

Urged on by his silent surroundings, he spoke.

“Come to think of it, Sayama and Shinjou should be arriving at the station about now.”

Heo was closer, but Hiba was the one to reply.

“Yes, they were traveling on foot, so they should be getting there about now if you include some preparation time in their dorm room. I just hope they aren’t attacked.”

“They’re going to the Okutama mountains and Sakai. I doubt they’ll be attacked in either place, Hiba. More importantly, do you know why Sayama said Team Leviathan should disband?”

“No, not at all. He might think we’re lacking. He’s so skilled himself that we might be falling behind in his eyes.”

“That makes a surprising amount of sense,” muttered Harakawa. “I see you also view this differently from our angry treasurer.”

“Well,” said Hiba while scratching his head. “That’s because we think about things differently. Personally, I’ll probably always think I have room to improve.”

“I see,” muttered Harakawa. “So everyone’s different.”

He moved his hands across the console to rearrange Thunder Fellow’s motors.

“That’s something I don’t understand. I guess Heo wouldn’t either. We’ve only been a part of this for a month and that isn’t enough time to know how powerful we are or how much we can do.”

“Harakawa-san, I think you and Heo-san are the most powerful members of the group.”

“I’ve never fought an official battle with the rest of you, but do you understand my situation, Hiba? Thunder Fellow’s power was left with Heo. I’m just the hired driver, so I don’t feel at all powerful.”

“Are you okay with Harakawa just being someone you hired, Heo?” asked Mikage’s voice.

Harakawa clicked his tongue in his heart. Working in a group was a pain because it required a lot of corrections to his standard policies.

But at the same time, he had a feeling Mikage’s question got right to the heart of the issue, so he looked over his shoulder.

He wanted to see the expression of the girl cleaning the secondary seat.

However…

“?”

He could not see her because the back of his seat was in the way.

He lifted himself and almost wrapped his arms around the seat to see her.

“Why are you lying down, Heo Thunderson?”

“Ah…”

She gave a weak voice while bent in half. Her right arm held her stomach, her left arm was held between her thighs, her face was dyed scarlet, and her breathing was rough.

“Do you have a fever, Heo Thunderson?”

“According to my thermal vision, she does,” cut in Mikage’s voice.

“No, um, uh…”

“Are you okay?” asked Harakawa while leaning over toward the secondary seat. As he did so, he stuck a hand on the seat’s right console.

“Hyahn!!”

Heo twitched and beads of sweat fell from her skin.

“?”

Harakawa quickly removed his hand from the console and heard Thunder Fellow speak.

“As time has passed since I was summoned, my synchronization with Heo has risen.”

“In other words, when I touch the controls to move you…”

He frowned and Heo answered while panting.

“I-it feels like you’re touching my stomach or-… When you use the power output system, it feels like you’re gently stirring me up below my navel. B-but I know you wouldn’t do anything bad, so…um…”

She sounded troubled.

“I thought I would just put up with it.”

“What are you talking about, Heo Thunderson? Stop putting up with it and begin the combination.”

“W-wait a minute! You’re mixing her up inside her stomach and forcing her to combine! What are you two doing in there!?”

“Shut up, Hiba.”

Harakawa scratched his head and sighed.

“Honestly, we just can’t seem to settle down without Sayama and the others. Are we going to have to look into our pasts after all?”

Sayama stood in a nighttime train station.

It was a transfer station with four platforms stretching east to west. Its name was JR Haijima Station.

He stood between the platforms second and third tracks.

He was next to the barrier surrounding the stairway leading underground.

The barrier was waist height and a white cup sat on it. The cup held a special drink.

…''Hot Eround Tea Z.

He crossed the arms of his gray mountain-climbing suit, nodded, and looked up.

Baku was not on his head like usual. After announcing the temporary disbanding of Team Leviathan, the creature had been returned to UCAT.

He had probably been left with Ooshiro.

Sayama himself would soon be in the mountains of Okutama.

…''But this means a long time away from Shinjou-kun.

It would normally be a two day trip, but it would actually come out to three days because he was leaving at night.

For him, it felt like a final farewell.

Haijima Station’s second and third platforms were both divided between an upper and lower platform. One line led to Oume and Okutama and the other to Tachikawa and Tokyo. Both of their trains would arrive in a few minutes and they would have to say goodbye.

Shinjou was currently changing in the bathroom.

A number of ideas had occurred to him about that, but he had decided not to do anything.

Doing anything would take time and he did not want Shinjou to miss her train.

That was the situation this time, at least. Next time could be a different story.

He had to resist now. They would do it next time. He was certain of it.

…''I will let this desire build up inside me.

He nodded and felt unsatisfied by the lack of weight on his head.

He then turned to the Eround Tea Z.

It was for Shinjou. He felt it was a cheap item for a farewell gift, but nothing could have been more appropriate.

…''Simply wonderful.

He gave a few satisfied nods at his own thoughts but then had another thought.

He would be away from Shinjou for about two days.

Could he really spend their last moments together with only vending machine tea?

He brought a finger to his forehead, thought for about three seconds, and reached a conclusion.

“Adding a few drugs should help.”

He pulled out three white pills that Ryouko had given him. They were secret Tamiya family drugs and the old-fashioned pills had a plum blossom symbol on them. He lined them up from left to right in his palm.

“A drug that makes you lewd, a drug that builds up mental excitement, and a drug that makes you honest to yourself.”

Ryouko had said they would “give Setsu-chan everything he needs”, but Sayama was not so sure. Regardless, he put the pills in the tea and slightly shook the cup.

He saw no change in the tea’s color, just as Ryouko had promised, and he wondered if they were for her work.

He was impressed by the Tamiya family’s skill.

“Sayama-kun, what are you doing?”

He turned toward Shinjou’s voice.

She wore a rucksack on her back, Sadame’s hairstyle, a jacket, and chinos.

Noting that her outfit’s color scheme was brown, he reached for the paper cup.

“Shinjou-kun, have some-…”

“Oh, I already bought my own.”

She showed him what she held in her hands.

She had a paper cup in each hand and she held out the left one with a smile.

“Here, thanks for waiting for me. This one’s for you. You like coffee, right?”

Sayama looked at the cup next to him and the one in Shinjou’s hand.

Shinjou also looked at the two cups, frowned, and tilted her head.

“Will you drink mine?”

He nodded, but Shinjou tilted her head again.

She used her chin to indicate the tea next to him.

“Then what about that?”

“Won’t you drink it, Shinjou-kun? I bought this tea for you.”

“Eh? Oh, that’s that IAI tea, isn’t it? Heh heh. …In that case, you can drink it.”

“No, it was made especially for you.”

“Really? Heh heh. Why was a tea made especially for me without anyone telling me?”

“Ha ha ha. To surprise you, of course.”

“Ha ha. I see. …Well, it was definitely a surprise!!! I’m just glad you didn’t use my photo!”

“Of course not. While I want to give you a public debut, I could hardly bear to have you defiled by the gazes of the masses. …Now, how about a drink, Shinjou-kun?”

She sighed and held up the cup in her left hand.

“Sorry, but I’m already drinking the cocoa I got for myself.”

“Why not trade for my tea?”

“Why?” she asked with an emotionless smile. “I thought you didn’t like cocoa.”

…''I need a reason.

It came to him in a flash of insight.

“I want to drink something you already drank from.”

“Stop recreating something straight out of a sad elementary school memory!!”

She pulled back the hand holding the coffee.

“Honestly, I won’t give you this until you drink that tea.”

''I cannot have that,'' thought Sayama as he reflexively drank the tea.

Only after setting down the cup did a certain thought occur to him.

…''Was it safe for me to drink that?

As he pondered that, Shinjou held out the coffee with a troubled look.

“Here. …And I feel a little bad about wasting your considerate offer.”

“That is nothing to worry about, Shinjou-kun. After all, you put the money in the vending machine and pulled this coffee out by hand. It is sure to taste far better than my tea.”

“Is there something wrong with your brain?”

Hearing that, he thought back on what he had said. He detected nothing strange about the logic, tone, or ideas behind his words, but it was possible he could no longer judge his own behavior due to the drugs.

That was why he asked a certain question.

“Shinjou-kun, it is possible there is something strange about me right now. What do you think?”

“I don’t really see anything different from normal. …Isn’t this your usual pace?”

“No, Shinjou-kun. Please give this serious thought. Right now, I should be… Lewd! Mentally excited! And honest to myself!!”

“How is that any different from normal?”

“Heh heh heh. It is all much more intense than normal.”

“Right, right.” She nodded with a smile. “Listen, Sayama-kun. When the original values are infinite, there’s no way to measure an increase.”

“Hm, someone with infinite lewdness, excitement, and self-honesty? What a troublesome person.”

“They really are. …And I’m talking about you!!”

Hearing that, Sayama checked who she was shouting at.

The shout traveled through him and to the office worker sitting on a platform bench behind him. The middle-aged man in a suit was focused on a red handheld game system as he waited for a train in the chilly air.

The sounds suggested he was playing a popular puzzle game. It was a former Soviet game where blocks representing rebels fell down and piled up. When the space was filled with no gaps remaining, the blocks were considered captured and thus vanished. The most points were earned by leaving a vertical gap open and sending a long red block into it. The game was said to include dangerous ideas and it often interfered with people’s work or education.

…''So he is the infinite man.

''People are not always what they seem,'' accepted Sayama before turning back to Shinjou.

She was glaring at him, but he changed the subject.

“Now, the trains should be arriving soon. It is a shame we have to part ways for so long. I will be praying for your safe return from Sakai.”

When she heard that, she lowered her eyebrows and smiled.

“My safe return? You’re making too big a deal of this.”

“After that attack today, we cannot let our guard down. It is entirely possible we will be attacked.”

She gasped and he took a sip of the coffee.

“Delicious. I can feel the touch of your skin. I wonder what beans they used.”

“I only remember it was an IAI brand and it said ‘Mito-made Ground Beans’,” she answered. “Anyway, I should only have to rely on the municipal office, but what about you? You’re heading into the mountains at night.”

“I have been everywhere a few hours into the mountains of Okutama as part of the Hiba Dojo’s nighttime training, but my destination is even further in than that. If I entered the mountains during the day, night would have fallen by the time I reached unfamiliar territory.”

And…

“#8-kun has determined the location of Professor Kinugasa’s home based on the report photograph we found in Izumo UCAT. Using that, I can ensure I will return safely, Shinjou-kun. I always try to choose the best possible method.”

“Oh, right… I know you try to do that.” She lowered her head while holding her paper cup in both hands. “But I’m still worried. You might not be able to find Professor Kinugasa’s house and even if you do get there…”

“I will be following in my father’s footsteps. But do not worry about my chest pains. Leaving you puts me in the same position as before I met you. I am very fortunate to have you with me, but I will now return to my normal self without you. That is all this means.”

He smiled bitterly.

“Even so, my wonderful memories contain my life with you and how you have helped me. I will likely desire that fortune to help with more than just the chest pains. I will yearn for it when I eat, sleep, or am feeling bored.”

“You casually say some really embarrassing things.”

She let out a relaxing and far from unhappy sigh.

They then heard a train beginning to move. It was the one they had arrived on which had been stopped on the first track. It was preparing to return to Itsukaichi and Akigawa.

The Itsukaichi Line connected to the Oume line coming from Tachikawa and its departure meant one thing.

“Our trains will be here soon, Sayama-kun. But…um…this may be sudden…”

She leaned back as if placing her rucksack on the stairway barrier.

“I think you should apologize to Kazami-san and the others when we get back. I don’t think they have the slightest clue why you’re trying to have Team Leviathan disband.”

“Why should I apologize?”

Shinjou gave a meaningless nod while looking to the third track.

She took some time to carefully choose her words.

“You said to search for our pasts. In my case, I think that’s linked with Shinjou Yukio. With the others, that probably means pursuing the truth of the Great Kansai Earthquake that we saw in that dream of the past.” She kept her eyes on the third track’s platform. “But Kazami-san doesn’t have any connections to the past. That’s why what you said might be a little mean to her.”

“And so I should apologize for giving her a riddle she cannot solve? Is that what you are trying to say?”

He nodded.

“I see. If she, you, and the others still do not have the answer once I return, I will make a decision.”

“A decision?”

He immediately answered her.

“It is a simple matter. Anyone who does not have the answer will be removed from the Leviathan Road. That is all.”

Shinjou’s eyes opened in surprise at Sayama’s declaration.

However, he calmly looked directly at her.

“Do not worry. I am certain you will understand.”

“B-but…that’s way too sudden!”

“That is why I did not reveal this back in the Kinugasa Library. It would only have brought suspicion and distrust.”

He reached a hand toward her shoulder, pulled her toward him, looked up a bit, and pointed to the distant stars in the sky.

“Even if I am not very persuasive, what I am about to say is very meaningful, so please listen carefully.”

“What is the point of that pose?”

“It is a meaningless yet persuasive pose, Shinjou-kun.”

“You’re already contradicting yourself, Sayama-kun!”

“Calm down,” he said. “Now, are you listening? I told everyone to think about why we should disband, but to be honest, that is a riddle for myself as well. …I will also be searching for my past. To find out how we ended up in this situation, I will be pursuing the father I would rather not know about.”

So…

“If I return from Okutama and was unable to pursue my own past, I will be forced to accept that I am lacking.”

“!?”

Shinjou gasped, looked at him, and frantically spoke up.

“I-is the reason for disbanding that important for us?”

“It is. It is very important for our future. And that is why I have a request. …Listen, Shinjou-kun. I want you to find that reason and I want your help in reforming Team Leviathan.”

Her eyebrows shot up at the word “reforming”.

He was staring at her and she stared back.

“Sayama-kun. …Are you saying you don’t actually want us to disband? Are you actually focused on having us reform afterward?”

He did not answer, his expression remained unchanged, and the silence continued.

They were finally interrupted by unwanted external movement.

They first heard noise from the second and third tracks and then headlights reached them.

In an instant, wind and countless lit windows intersected on the upper and lower tracks of the platform.

As soon as the wind intersected, Sayama grabbed her shoulders and turned her toward him.

She felt his lips on her forehead.

“We can continue from there after we return, Shinjou-kun. …Being patient now will make it even more exciting. And while you should be fine, I will leave you with one piece of my past.”

“A piece of your past?”

“Yes.” He pulled a white envelope from his pocket. “If you think you have found your answer in Osaka, look at this. It contains a fact about a certain individual that is a mystery even to me. Once you find your answer, you should be able to read what it says properly.”

“This is information on someone from your past, isn’t it?”

She nodded, took the letter, and looked strongly up at him.

“Testament. I hope I get to read it. I’ll do my best to make sure I can.”

She did not know what the letter said, but she could sense his trust. She felt she would come to understand something once she opened it and she nodded again to show her trust in that fact.

“Okay. I promise I’ll remember. When I find my past, I’ll read the past you’ve left with me. And…”

She looked at him with her eyebrows slightly raised. Her gaze met his sharp one and she poured her thoughts into her words.

“You make a promise too. Promise you’ll come back and see me again.”

“Why do you want me to promise that?”

“Well…” She lowered her head to hide the troubled look on her face. “It’s kind of pathetic, but…um… A long time ago, when I was still alone, Itaru-san told me someone would come for me someday. But my mom never showed up and neither did anyone else. I cried and cried, but I finally stopped once I realized the word ‘someday’ was just meant to comfort me.”

She forced a smile to feign cheerfulness and said one last thing.

“Make sure you come back, Sayama-kun.”

She clearly saw him nod and he even gave a slight smile as if telling her to calm down.

“Do not worry, Shinjou-kun. I will keep that promise and return to you. So…”

He grabbed her shoulders and turned her toward the train on the third track. He seemed to be telling her to leave.

She responded to that intention by nodding and starting to take her first step.

“Mh?”

But he suddenly gave a quiet groan.

''What is it?'' she wondered while looking back.

She found him frowning.

“I apologize for interrupting this moment, Shinjou-kun, but something is bothering me.”

“Eh? Wh-what is it? You mean that envelope?”

After she turned toward him and tilted her head, he brought a hand to his chin and spoke in a heavy tone.

“Listen, Shinjou-kun. While you are away from me, you will find yourself in a certain situation for the first time.”

Just as she tried to ask what that was, the doors of the upper and lower trains opened and people poured out onto the platform, but Sayama continued regardless.

“Will you be able to check on your body without my help during both day and night!?”

He spoke quite loudly.

The other people waiting for the train, the people leaving the train, the office worker playing a handheld game, and the conductor leaving the conductor’s compartment all froze in place.

Motionless silence filled the entire station and everyone focused on the two of them.

At the center of that silent focus, Shinjou was unsure which option to choose.

1: Hit him. → I have a feeling he would view it as skinship and enjoy it.

2: Run away. → He would probably chase after me shouting the same thing over and over again.

3: Give up. → Mankind must not submit to the unreasonable.

As her thoughts quickly heated up, he held out his hand.

That hand held a piece of paper.

“Here, Shinjou-kun. This is a photo of my speech during the general student meeting the other day. Taking hidden photos of yourself is a very difficult task. …This item was born from how superior you make me feel, but when you are working at a certain task during the day or night, feel free to use it if your imagination is not enough.”

He took a breath and patted her shoulder twice with a reassuring smile.

“Do not worry about me. I can get by just fine with my imagination.”

“If your imagination is that good, then don’t create these embarrassing situations!!!”

She chose Option 4: Tighten the necktie in front of her as much as she could.

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Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 4

2026-10-11T01:47:26Z

N-Ch:

==Chapter 4: Night of Guests==
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''Tonight, they visit

''Tonight, they come

The chilly night air filled a certain space.

That large and dark space was inside an old fifty square meter prefab building.

The smell of oil lingered in the air and it had a slight industrial bitterness to it.

A deep hole covered almost the entire cement floor and the bottom was too far down to see.

The factory contained only a single light: a fluorescent desk light sitting on the round table in the balcony-like space in front of the southern office.

Next to the desk light, a filthy radio-cassette player played a tape of pop music.

Next to the table were an electric stove dirty with paint and two people.

One of the people was an elderly man in a work outfit and the other was a girl.

The man spoke quietly while reading a horse racing newspaper.

“Mikoku, this is the last song, so turn the tape around.”

“Not only does it not play CDs, but it does not have auto-reverse either? Why not buy a new one?”

“It’s an old companion and having some flaws makes it cute.”

The old manager reached for the table and grabbed a cigarette.

“It’s nice being able to smoke around you.”

“Does Shino complain that it is bad for your health?”

“She doesn’t say anything, but that’s exactly why I can’t smoke.”

He placed it in his mouth and lit a cheap lighter with just his right hand.

“The two of you haven’t been getting along lately, have you?”

“We get along fine,” said Mikoku while hiding her expression from the faint white light and holding one knee in her arms. “I only want her to stop fighting.”

“You know you both just want the best for each other, right? She’s not an enemy, so you need to actually talk to her about it.”

Her silhouette nodded at those words, but the old manager filled the air with some cigarette smoke and his voice.

“But I’m sure that isn’t happening anytime soon.”

He inhaled and gathered the smoke in his mouth.

“You’ve always had trouble telling people things. You’re afraid of being rejected or disliked by the people you care about, so you just avoid talking about it. But…”

He added “I know I’m meddling, but hear me out” before continuing.

“Doing that means you’ve lost, Mikoku.”

“I have not los-…”

“Shino-san wants to win alongside you. The enemy is opposing us through combat, so why are you so busy pushing your allies away? It doesn’t make sense.”

Those words silenced Mikoku and the old manager gave a smoky laugh. His shoulders shook in the darkness.

“You’re such a child, Mikoku. You’re a poor excuse for a girl. …You should really learn how to cook. That’s a skill you’ll need if you plan to live alone for the rest of your life.”

“No one here can cook either.”

“Yeah, and that’s because Shino-san always brings food for us. The others all left for Hachioji when they heard you were coming today.”

“So that’s why they always look so displeased when I show up.”

“Forgive them. They’re still young and inexperienced. They don’t know how to treat a girl. …Then again, the city’s a much better place to celebrate finishing our work on all the equipment we need.”

The old manager exhaled a long stream of smoke.

The expelled smoke stretched toward the giant hole in the floor. Alex had once filled that hole, but several other forms stood there now.

They resembled people and they formed ten columns and thirty rows.

“With those remote-controlled mass-produced dolls, this factory’s ten workers can run an entire army.”

“Whose decision was it to make them all female?”

“I thought it would help teach those young guys how to handle a girl. …But to be honest, we didn’t have enough materials to make them male. They’re based on 3rd knowledge and we didn’t have time to develop a male frame. …We also have a secret weapon hidden in the cargo hold.”

He gave a bitter smile.

“I feel bad for taking Alex’s spot. We should’ve used the big underground room below the front clearing. …Of course, that’s in use now too.”

“We don’t have room to spare with the attack so close, do we?”

Mikoku’s silhouette muttered in the darkness.

“It’s already tomorrow. The Army will finally attack Japanese UCAT.”

''The decision to move tomorrow certainly came suddenly,'' thought Mikoku.

However, their preparations were steadily progressing and the enemy was nearly done gathering the Concept Cores. The conditions were right.

…''I just don’t think it’s time yet.

Shino, on the other hand, seemed to have been waiting for this moment.

''That may be the difference between someone who will gain their role there and someone who will complete their role there,'' thought Mikoku as the old manager spoke to her.

“But apparently UCAT was attacked today. Tatsumi mentioned it when she stopped by, remember? Two people in black showed up at Izumo UCAT.”

“And yet the Army has not been doing anything recently. …Is some other organization opposing them?”

“It’s hard to say,” muttered the man.

Suddenly a noise reached them from behind.

“…!?”

The two of them quickly turned around.

The loud noise came from the intercom on the wall next to the office entrance.

The electronic tone was set loud enough to be heard over factory machinery and the old manager scratched his head and sank back into his seat.

“You answer it, Mikoku. I can’t even taste the cigarette when things are this loud.”

“Sure.”

Mikoku nodded, stood from her chair, and turned around.

She picked up the receiver and wondered who it could be. It could have been Shino, worn out from the weight of all the food she had brought for dinner.

Whoever it was, it had to be someone from the Army if they had reached the factory within the concept space.

“Who is it?” she asked into the receiver.

A slightly withered yet powerful female voice responded.

“Hey, there. You’re under attack, so open up.”

Mikoku had no idea what that meant and she did not recognize the voice.

And what were they talking about?

…''We’re under attack?

Her disbelief made her hesitate and the old manager’s voice reached her from behind.

“Who is it? Is it Shino-san?”

His question was the way things should have been, but the voice from the receiver was definitely not Shino.

“…?”

She tried to say something, but she was cut off by the same withered yet powerful female voice.

“Oh? No response? I don’t like kids who do that. I don’t like them at all. So sorry, but I’m going to take this into my own hands. …I assume you have no response for that either.”

Mikoku tried to say “wait”, but she was cut off again.

“Don’t respond only when it’s convenient. Don’t block out what you don’t like.”

Those words were accompanied by red light, a great sound that pierced through Mikoku’s body, and wind.

It was an explosion.

The factory’s four-layer steel door bent in.

“…!?”

And it was destroyed.

…''Wh-

She did not even finish her thought.

Instead, she began to move. Before the old manager could finish standing in surprise, she ran toward the scattering metal fragments of the door.

She dashed straight toward the attacker as if her body desired a fight.

A conditioned reflex sent her flying toward the explosive flames spreading from the factory’s entrance.

Her hand grabbed the Japanese sword in a cloth wrapping leaning against the table, her feet kicked off the floor, her body tore through the explosive blast, and her skin felt the heat and light of the flames.

“Who are you!?”

She spoke the thought that had finally caught up to her and she shot outside.

She charged forward to strike the attacker waiting there.

A dinner table was a table carrying food.

If it was surrounded by smiles, that was even better.

A particular table contained a lot of food with plenty of variety.

Four people sat around it, two male and two female. Three of them smiled and one had a harsh look.

Of the three with smiles, the man facing the harsh look spoke.

“What’s the matter, Chisato? Izumo-kun is here for once, so don’t look so upset. You’re ruining the good looks you got from your mother. Now, why are you angry? You can tell your papa…yes, it can be our secre- Actually, mama is smiling this way, so how about telling your papa and your mama!?”

Kazami responded to the question by stabbing her chopsticks into the top of the pile of croquettes sitting in front of her father.

It was a direct and forceful jab.

After the red chopsticks pierced into the light brown croquette, she lifted them and pointed the tip between her father’s eyes.

“Sorry, dad. It’s nothing, so don’t worry about it. And if you insist on worrying…”

She stabbed the chopsticks into another croquette on the way back and placed the skewered food on her plate.

With the two croquettes unable to move, she slowly poured some dark sauce on top.

The sauce splashed a little, but the dark liquid stained the croquettes as if they had spewed it out themselves and it spread out across the plate.

She skillfully lowered and raised the chopsticks to tear the two skewered items in two.

With the two croquettes split in half, she carefully wiped the oil off the chopsticks.

“Something unpleasant happened today. Do you understand, dad?”

She noticed her father had paled a little as he looked at her, so she tilted her head and grabbed the 500 mL can of beer set in front of him.

“What’s wrong, dad? Aren’t you going to eat?”

She pulled the can’s tab, the sound of carbonation escaped, and a glass approached from the side.

It was Izumo’s.

She sighed toward the glass and poured the can into it while wondering if he was trying to be considerate.

She heard the foam and the pulsating sound of the flowing alcohol.

“Kaku, we have work at IAI after we eat, remember? Don’t you have to drive your motorcycle?”

“We’ve probably got the night watch. I’ll be sober enough by then.”

“Right, right. Izumo-kun’s a real man. A young guy’s glycogen has to be able to handle that much. But I won’t lose! Mama, bring papa a beer too! I’ll do my best!”

Kazami’s mother immediately pulled out a five liter beer she had waiting below the table.

It made a deep sound as she placed it on the table and she spoke to her husband.

“I want to see a little of what you can do, papa.”

“Ha ha ha. A little of what I can do? Is this only ‘a little’, mama?”

She next pulled out a fifteen liter beer she had waiting below the table.

The sound it made when it was placed on the table was more or less an impact and she spoke to her husband again.

“I want to see a lot of what you can do, papa.”

“Dad, I think you should hurry up and admit defeat.”

“Oh? But Chisato, he can easily handle this. When he married me, he drank my papa under the table. And you know my papa is from a very influential family, right?”

Kazami silently swore she would never ask for details about that.

She noticed the foam rising to the top of Izumo’s glass, so she quickly stopped pouring and sighed quietly enough that no one else could hear. She decided to change the subject both to be considerate and to save her father.

“By the way, what’s your next job, dad?”

“Well, while working on the Christmas concert, I’m thinking about doing a Christmas TV special. Since it’ll be the end of the year, we can have a debate about the more unfortunate. It’ll be called ‘Why Are They Still Alive? – A Discussion on Unmarried and Unemployed Men in Their Thirties’.”

“Sorry, but I think you’re taking the word ‘unfortunate’ in a dangerous direction there.”

“Hmm.” He brought a hand to his forehead. “Are you still too young for that one? O-oh, I forgot to mention. I’m also working on some educational history anime for the December theatre. There’s ‘Dr. Guillotine’s Invention’, ‘Fight, Mr. Gatling!’, and because it’ll be Christmas ‘Santa Claus Loves the Color Red’. All three are uncensored and full of great lines like ‘Your ear is next!!’ ”

“Dad, did the pamphlet say those would leave the audience in tears? Just not in the way you would expect?”

“Ha ha ha. Of course. You may not remember, Chisato, but when you were little, I brought you to a historical theatre anime I helped produce. It was called ‘Magical Girl Sta☆Lin’ and it was about a magical girl who fought for everyone’s equality.”

“Did you? …That title definitely stands out.”

“Yes, and just like in history, she purges her magical nation and dies alone. You were really sad and wouldn’t stop crying, but were you so sad that you forgot all about it?”

“I’m pretty sure I was suppressing the trauma!!”

She shouted back, but her mother brought a finger to her own nose.

“Chisato, you’ll disturb the neighbors.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“When the stress builds up in your heart, let it out by consulting someone, not with anger. Okay?”

Kazami nodded and lowered her head with the beer can in her hands. She also glanced over at Izumo.

…''Why is he so focused on eating the croquettes?

She noticed her father had had begun attacking the croquettes now that he was freed from that hell of beer and Izumo was apparently competing with him.

Seeing that, she brought the can to her lips.

She tilted the can and then tilted her head back to chug the contents. She told herself she would wait until after she finished drinking before deciding whether to talk about it or not.

There was a lot she had to say, but one was the most important.

…''Sayama’s selfish announcement about Team Leviathan disbanding.

She could not tell her parents about UCAT, but she could alter it to be about where she worked part-time. Or she could make it be about her band or a group like that.

While thinking, she audibly gulped down the alcohol and heard her father speak.

“Izumo-kun, did something happen to Chisato recently?”

“It seems like it, dad. I think she’s feeling hesitant about marrying me.”

She was shocked by what they said, how politely they said it, how they addressed each other, and the tone they said it in. She expressed that shock by slamming the can down on the table while almost choking.

“Wh-what kind of nonsense are you talking about, Kaku!?”

“It’s coming out your nose, Chisato.”

She frantically grabbed a tissue from the table and blew her nose. Meanwhile, her mother brought a hand to her cheek.

“I’m sorry, Izumo-kun. Chisato has a hard time coming out and saying things.”

“I know, mom. She always uses her fists before her words.”

She gave a demonstration.

But after knocking him away, she realized that put their household belongings in danger, so she immediately grabbed his collar and pulled him back.

“W-wait just a second, Kaku!”

“I-I will if you will.”

“Just listen to me.”

He smiled as she held his collar.

“Oh? You have something to say? Fine. Speak, Chisato.”

''Ah,'' she thought when she heard that.

…''He tricked me into this.

“Fine then,” she said while facing forward.

There, she found her parents leaning forward with their heads resting in their hands.

“Y-you don’t have to wait so expectantly.”

“But it makes me feel a little happy and a little sad to see the two of you fighting like a married couple already.”

“I’d like it of you showed a little more sadness,” said Izumo. “Especially toward me.”

Her father ignored him.

“How long has it been since Chisato consulted us about something instead of just asking questions? Has it been since that middle school cooking class where her food numbed the other girls in her group and they buried her up to her neck in the sandbox?”

“That was when she started practicing how to cook, wasn’t it?”

She was annoyed that they remembered that, but Izumo looked oddly happy as he listened. She had no idea how to react to the ticklish feeling that sight gave her, but she still decided to speak.

“Um, at work…”

“Is your boss being mean to you, Chisato!? Now I’m mad! I’ll hijack tomorrow’s TV special debate and retitle it “24 Hours of Observing and Mocking My Daughter’s Mean Boss’! …Gah!”

She was slow to throw the plate, so he managed to say a fair bit.

She told herself to be quicker next time.

“We had created a group to make our work easier. We had just gotten some good new members and it looked like we could really get some work done, but then the guy at the center of the group suddenly said we should disband. …And our work is just about to get a lot busier too.”

“So were you wondering why you should disband when you have so much work ahead of you and you have all the people you need? Is that it, Chisato?”

Her mother gave a small smile as she asked and Kazami nodded.

Unsure what to do, she began using her chopsticks to chop up the croquettes that were soaking in the sauce.

“After ordering us to disband, he named me as the leader for the time being. …But in his mind, we really have disbanded. And yet we’d gathered the best people for the job.”

She gave a sigh that almost sounded like a laugh and she gave an exaggerated shrug.

“If there’s something we’re doing wrong, we can fix it, but he didn’t give us anything like that. We don’t know the reason behind this at all, but he doesn’t seem to care. …Then what did he think of those of us who had gathered together for our job? Does he think we’re so lacking that we couldn’t even understand his reasoning?”

“Well, what are your coworkers to you, Chisato?”

“Well… I can trust them, they’re skilled, they use all of that skill, and they’re fun to be around.” She hesitated. “So even if some things were painful or troubling, I put up with it. …I put a lot of effort into this.”

“But it sounds like it was different for him.”

Her mother’s words rang clear in her ears and she raised the head she had lowered at some point.

She saw the usual small smile and that smile opened to speak.

“You can’t accept it, can you? You worked so hard and you gathered plenty of people and strength to work with you, but it was all brushed aside as worthless and you weren’t even given a reason. All your efforts to help that leader were treated as worthless.”

Kazami simply nodded, but then she felt that was not enough.

“All this time, we had…”

While speaking, she recalled everything since meeting Izumo and joining UCAT.

She had gained G-Sp2, she had completed several missions, and she had eventually been placed in Team Leviathan. She had then shot the werewolf in that Okutama forest to save Shinjou and Sayama and that had led to the present.

…''Why am I working such a dangerous job?

She had wondered that countless times, but she had been trying to ensure she never had to do so again.

…''After all, only I can do this.

She had worked to make sure she could say that, she had nearly died several times, and she had also saved lives.

Then she had gained teammates. She had even saved Sayama in that forest.

But for some reason, he had ordered them to disband.

Despite knowing how dangerous it was, he had chosen to act alone instead of working with the others.

It felt like he was saying their strength, efforts, and everything else were meaningless.

“Why won’t people recognize all the effort you’ve put into some things. Our job had just gotten to be so much fun, too. Am I really that useless?”

At the very end, Sayama had said to look into their pasts to find the reason for the disbanding.

But they all had different pasts. Sayama and the others would investigate their pasts by following in the footsteps of their parents who had been in UCAT, but Kazami was a normal person with none of that. She had no relatives with a connection to UCAT, so her connection had first appeared during the attack by 6th and 10th two years ago.

…''He isn’t saying everyone can stay but me, is he?

Was he saying the rest of the fight would be too hard without a past giving her a reason to fight?

“What is he thinking? Was I just being patronizing? Should I have stuck with a dry attitude?”

While muttering her worried questions, she realized how timid she was being.

She looked up and found her parents quietly looking her way.

She had a feeling she only spoke because she could not stand their silent gazes and she knew she was complaining more than consulting with them, but she quickly spoke up regardless.

“Wh-what am I supposed to do at times like this? Do you know?”

“Well,” began her father before pausing. “There’s not much you can do, so just do whatever you want.”

“Eh?”

Her father placed a croquette on his plate.

“This is your problem, so if you don’t know what you should do, how can we? But if you have some kind of idea, we’ll support you even if it seems hopeless. Unfortunately, you don’t seem to have any ideas. …That’s what’s happening here, Chisato. You still haven’t reached the same place where he suggested you disband.”

“I haven’t reached the same place as him?”

“Right. He has an idea, but you have nothing to oppose that idea. Simple, isn’t it? If you had an idea to oppose his decision to disband, you would be able to understand why he made that decision and you could find a way to solve this. And…” He split the croquette. “Whether you can understand his reasoning is entirely up to what you hold inside you. It depends on whether the answer exists inside you as a past experience.”

“You sound a lot like him.”

“Really? Then he must be an amazingly cool, gentlemanly, smart, and wonderful person!”

“Kyah! Papa, you’re unbelievably overconfident!”

“Ha ha ha. Just unbelievably leave it to me, mama! Your croquettes are so lovely that-…”

His words came to a sudden stop when he placed the croquette in his mouth. He also stopped moving.

His frozen expression gradually grew pale and then red. The woman sitting next to him began clapping.

“Papa just got tonight’s winner! Too bad, Izumo-kun.”

“Dammit, I’ll make sure I win next time!!”

“U-um, mom, dad? We were kind of having an important discussion here. So, uh, does this family have a rule that absolutely everything must end on a joke?”

As soon as she asked, her father shot to his feet and ran from the table.

Izumo tilted his head and grabbed a safe croquette but still made sure to split it open and check what was inside.

“What was in that one?”

“I copied what Chisato made during her middle school cooking class. Has she ever made it for you, Izumo-kun?”

Izumo slowly turned a glare in Kazami’s direction.

“Chisato, you don’t need to go digging through too many of your past experiences. I think the latest version of you is the best.”

“You don’t have to choose your words so carefully!!”

Mikoku did not hold back.

She understood how inexperienced she was in combat, so she did not have room to hold back.

She immediately went all out.

She leaped through the center of the explosion and wind that blew through the factory entrance and she pulled her Japanese sword from its scabbard.

She launched herself from the dark factory and into the dark night.

The night air reached her skin and the bitter-smelling smoke enveloping her was swept away.

The yard was quite large.

…''And the enemy is…

She found them.

“!”

Someone in white stood in the center of the one hundred square meter clearing.

She first thought it was a UCAT armored uniform, but it was simply a white combat coat.

A woman wore the white outfit.

She was tall and well-built and a long braid of brown hair dropped down along her back. Mikoku judged her to be in her late forties.

To make herself hard to target, Mikoku ran along a gouging arc to circle in from the right.

“Who the hell are you!?”

“Do you really think a woman is going to answer to that?”

The woman swung both arms up and forward and something came from her sleeves.

“Handguns!?”

“What a boring idea. Now I want to hear you cry.”

The objects that came from her sleeves resembled hammers.

Attached at the ends of the white-painted metal staffs were fifteen centimeter cylindrical warheads made of white metal.

Mikoku gasped as she charged in.

“Panzerfausts!?”

“They’re for more general use than that sword of yours. They were made so even women and children could use them.”

The woman pressed the firing switch on the staff portion.

A jet of smoke must have shot from the other end hidden up her sleeves because her coat swelled out. At the same time, Mikoku heard the warheads launch.

After a bursting sound, she saw the two warheads fly toward her from only two meters away. The two explosives flew quickly while trailing a clockwise spiral of white smoke.

“…!”

It was so sudden that she missed her time to evade.

The two warheads spiraled as they approached, so she could not move in between them.

If she focused on one, she would be able to avoid just that one, but that would leave her in the path of the other one. And so she continued running.

“…”

She did not hesitate.

She moved to avoid the one arriving on the right. As soon as she evaded it, the clockwise spiral path of the left one would bring it right into her gut from the lower left.

She knew that, so she only just barely avoided the right one. It whizzed right past her ear.

But if she had not made such a tight evasion, she would have fully exposed her to the other shot.

Meanwhile, the left one arrived.

Its clockwise spiral sent it toward her from the lower left, but she took action.

She took a step forward and toward the warhead.

She made the step with her left foot and it turned her to the side.

She immediately moved her sword to her left hand and held the back of the sword forward.

“…!”

She swung the sword as if scooping something up from below.

With a crash of metal, her blade tip struck the bottom surface of the flying warhead.

She used the curve of the blade’s back to scoop it upward.

“Kh!”

To keep the spiral trajectory going, she rotated the warhead with the back of the blade pressed against it.

She rotated her entire body, felt the weight and momentum of the warhead in the tip of the blade, and changed its direction without interrupting its proper motion.

After a single rotation, she looked like an athlete performing the hammer throw.

“This New Year’s gift is a little early, but take it!”

She used her sword in place of a ballista and threw the warhead back at the woman in white.

It flew toward the woman with its initial acceleration and the centrifugal force of its rotation still intact.

A moment later, the warhead Mikoku had avoided landed and exploded behind her.

The blast, noise, and light rushed past her and supported her forward acceleration.

And while launching herself forward, she saw the woman swing her arms down.

More weapons came from her sleeves.

This time, they really were guns.

But these were white-painted heavy machineguns that were two-thirds her own height.

…''What!?

Mikoku was less surprised by the appearance of the guns than she was by something else. The explosive warhead was still flying toward the woman after she had thrown it back, but the woman smiled and held the heavy machineguns beneath her arms.

“…”

It hit.

The blast was more like a collision of wind than an actual explosion. After the first explosion behind Mikoku, the blast from near the woman’s chest struck her from the front.

With the sound of tearing paper, Mikoku’s cheek split open. The air had struck her with enough force to create a vacuum. She also felt chilly tearing on a few other parts of her skin, but she did not care.

She saw the red flames and the smoke swell into the sky.

The sound of the explosion seemed to belatedly race across the world.

An instant later, Mikoku visually confirmed that her opponent was still alive.

“How?”

Despite her question, the truth before her eyes said it all.

The woman in a white combat coat took a step toward her as if casting off the black smoke.

The woman was completely unharmed.

Her hair, face, smiling teeth, and expression were untouched. Not a hint of soot could be found on her clothes.

Her weapons were the same. The two muzzles were unharmed and facing Mikoku while the woman pulled their triggers.

The lingering notes of the explosion vanished into the sky along with the smoke.

A moment later, Mikoku realized her right arm was gone.

She felt no pain, but she did feel heat in her shoulder. The impact shook the core of her body more than her shoulder and the word “reverberation” entered her mind.

Still, she forced herself to keep running. If she ran normally, the reverberation in her body would pull her down and more of her body would be lost, so she leaped leftward with all her might.

The sound of the gunfire arrived afterward and it quickly swept in from the right without waiting.

“…!”

Before she had even finished her jump, Mikoku kicked off the ground and ran.

She sent the sand of the clearing flying backward as she raced onward.

On the second step, she could tell something was spilling from her right shoulder and that part of her body grew cold.

She could not stop the strength from leaving her.

…''But what kind of defense is this woman using!?

If it was concept protection, it was quite powerful. After all, her warhead had destroyed the factory’s door which had its own concept protection. So if she was unharmed by the same blast…

“Are you some kind of monster!?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m a god.” The woman turned toward Mikoku with a smile. “All of my power is divine. Remember that, little girl. I am armed with God Panzerfausts and God Machineguns. Also…”

She tossed aside the machinegun in her right hand to switch weapons.

That was the perfect opportunity.

Mikoku’s sword had a concept applied for the coming battle with UCAT. It was a refined version of the popular “slice and pierce” concept and it was made to cut through the gaps in defense concepts.

This opponent’s defense concept had withstood that explosion, so it could fully defend against a force radiated across an entire surface.

But how could it handle strikes to a single point?

The opponent would be defenseless while switching weapons.

…''And if she has absolute confidence in her defense, she will let her guard down!

The difference between confidence and negligence was paper thin, so Mikoku charged in to transform the woman’s confidence into negligence.

She moved forward.

Her missing right arm affected her balance and swinging her entire body to swing her left arm and sword could easily destroy that balance.

That was why she went for a direct jab by swinging her left half forward.

She targeted the spot where the defense concept field would be weakest. That was not the gaps in movable parts that normal armor had. Concepts had no thickness, so they were distributed evenly without folds. However, she still knew one place where it would be weaker.

…''The center of the chest where it already activated!!

The woman’s warhead was made to destroy defense concepts, so her own defense concept would have been annihilated by the blast.

That was why Mikoku charged in.

She stepped forward in the instant the woman swung down her arm and launched her attack just as the woman raised her arm again.

She threw her left leg forward.

As soon as she landed, she rotated her heel outward to rotate and build up momentum.

As if extending her bent left elbow, she sent the sword tip in to the center of the woman’s chest.

Its path was an almost perfectly straight line.

“!!”

The timing of the attack could not have been better.

And an instant later, she saw the blade shatter.

“…!?”

As soon as it touched the woman’s white coat, it broke with the sound of shattering glass.

Cracks did not even have time to form. It immediately shattered all the way to the base.

…''Why?

Her questioning eyes stared at the sword that was now only a hilt.

The sword’s guard shook and then fell from the end of the hilt.

But Mikoku did not watch it fall.

The woman in front of her raised her right arm as if to scratch her own face.

She went on to reach into her back collar and pulled out a weapon.

It was a shoulder-fired anti-tank rocket launcher.

“I apologize for that other one. It was pretty old. Would this suit a modern girl better? I studied this world to create this God Anti-Tank Rocket. Nice, isn’t it?”

The rifle-like object had a thin diamond-shaped warhead on the end.

Mikoku saw it press against her chest. She felt its cold surface and its weight.

“Some people in black attacked Izumo UCAT today. Was that you!?”

“Attackers in black? Don’t know anything about that. What kind of idiot would do that? …Just to clear your suspicion, I’ll tell you who I am. I’m a god of 10th-Gear. You can call me ‘Betrayed Expectations’ Jord. I accepted an invitation from Hajji, so I’m here to help the Army. But once I set off some fireworks for my welcoming party, some idiot ran out and attacked me.”

“Your welcoming party!?” shouted Mikoku. “Why would you attack us like that!?”

“You don’t know?” replied the woman named Jord. “It’s the end of October, so it’s time for the ‘Beat or Treat’ festival. Happy Halloween and all that. Then again, it’s my first time taking part.”

Mikoku heard a voice.

“You’re a girl, aren’t you? Then wear something more appropriate to the occasion.”

What she experienced next was not defeat. She experienced having her entire body blown to pieces.

<noinclude>
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|-
| Back to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 3|Chapter 3]]
| Return to [[Owari no Chronicle|Main Page]]
| Forward to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 5|Chapter 5]]
|-
|}
</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 3

2026-10-10T03:39:58Z

N-Ch:

==Chapter 3: Lone Defiance==
[[Image:OnC_v10_0077.png|thumb]]
''Do you grow defiant

''Because you have lost?

''Is it a smoldering resentment?

In a large dark space, the ceiling could not be seen overhead and the four walls were only visible due to the faint illumination.

The vast space was several kilometers long, but it was not filled with darkness.

The color of illumination filled it without any actual light.

Shadows fell from the ceiling, but the shadows were the only darkness in the thoroughly illuminated space.

That illumination was dim, but it was even across the entire space.

Two new shadows appeared in that space filled only with the shadows from above.

The shadows produced two sets of footsteps and the sound of metal jabbing into the floor.

The former were the footsteps of a man and girl wearing black. The latter was the sound of the man’s metal cane.

As the metallic sound continued, the man spoke to the girl following behind him.

“Well, Sf? What do you have to say about this space?”

“Tes. It is approximately three kilometers long and five hundred meters wide. I believe it is located approximately three hundred meters underground.”

“Hah. What a dull answer. Don’t you have a subroutine for giving stupid answers to your master’s questions?”

“Tes. I have determined such a subroutine would displease you. Our time together is to be harmonious, so it would not be a desirable function.”

“Sf, from what I’ve seen, our time together always angers me.”

Itaru gave a dubious look and Sf nodded toward his back.

“Tes. Your blood pressure never rises above average. A high average, but average.”

“Tell me what I’m supposed to do if I have questions about that decision of yours.”

“Tes.” Sf nodded again with her usual expressionless look. “Itaru-sama, try to grow up. …Of course, that is something I cannot understand as an automaton.”

Itaru silently faced forward and quickened his pace and Sf followed with long strides.

Her voice rang out along with their overlapping footsteps.

“But what is this place? I can guess it is some sort of storage room, but that is all.”

“In that case, Sf, try telling me where we are.”

“Tes.” She nodded for the third time. “This is the sixth basement of Japanese UCAT. It should be beyond the bottom of the massive pit in the fifth basement’s large storage room. It is an unknown location and we passed through a concept barrier, so my reference point may be a little off.”

“No, you are correct. German UCAT’s coordinate measurement system did an excellent job of grasping our location. …To be clear, I’m not praising you here.”

“Tes. Do not worry. I am fair in my work and I take pride in my own functionality. Therefore, praising me for another’s work or simply for being an automaton would be an insult to all machines.”

And…

“However, I am not to let you do any unnecessary work and that means you will never receive praise. …Ergo, you are unworthy of praise. That was your own request.”

“Hah. So I’m worthless, am I? That’s the highest praise you could give me. Every so often, the heartless expressions of a machine can tell the truth.”

“Tes. I will interpret that as praise of my word choice.”

Itaru slowed his pace, looked over his shoulder, and clearly frowned toward her.

“What kind of nonsense is that? …Follow me.”

“Tes. That praise far exceeds the upper limit I had set for myself.”

She jogged to catch up and fell into step just behind him.

“Where are we going, Itaru-sama?”

He stopped without replying, but that was because they had arrived at the center of the large space.

The space was empty, but…

“Is this…?”

Sf frowned as she looked into the surrounding emptiness.

Her lifted gaze saw countless representations of objects in every direction.

They were collections of shadow.

Those faint shadows had a shape only visible when straining one’s eyes, but the space was filled with countless cubes measuring several dozen meters across.

As Sf looked overhead and slowly rotated on her heel, Itaru spoke.

“This is the center of the concept space where the string vibration density is highest. That is why the truth of this space is visible here. Tell me what you think those giant shadows are, Sf.”

“I have determined they are rooms. It is a floor that was purged and sealed inside the concept space.”

“They were not purged. They are merely not allowed to exist.”

“Not allowed? By who?”

The master did not answer his maid’s question. Instead, he let out a weary sigh.

“My generation’s UCAT is here.”

“…”

“Ten years ago when it was sealed here, I never thought things would turn out like this. It’s ridiculous, Sf. Our place is now nothing but a storeroom.”

Before he finished speaking, Sf spotted a certain fact.

Ten manmade objects sat on the floor that had been empty before.

“Those are the Concept Core storage pallets.”

They were large white pallets meant to transport something. Like giant bento boxes, they could be fully sealed and they all had different sizes.

The farthest and second farthest to the left were only about three meters across, but the third was as large as a god of war transport pallet and the fourth was a half cylinder like a plastic greenhouse.

The fifth was the largest at over fifty meters across, the sixth was about the size of the first two, the seventh was a car-sized pallet divided into four blocks, and the eighth, ninth, and tenth were the about the same as the first.

Sf glanced across the pallets that had suddenly appeared before them.

“The string vibrations shook…and then settled. I have determined that which was hidden has revealed itself. I also detect 1st, 2nd, and 9th concepts.”

“That’s right. Gram, Yamata, and B-Sp are here. They have a will of their own, so they must have come to greet us along with their concealed storage space. They can feel it,” he said while looking at the pallets. “They can sense the gathering of their comrades who once created worlds and fought them and they can sense the ones that desire them. And…they wish to see the answer.”

“The answer?”

“You don’t know what I mean? Remember the Army? If they are going to make their move, it’ll be now. They will attack just before the Leviathan Road is completed by acquiring 7th’s Concept Core. I assume they intend to defeat Team Leviathan, steal the Concept Cores gathered here, and perhaps take hostages so they can demand any Concept Cores they lack. …It’s quite simple.”

“Tes. It is a simple sort of terrorism. But where is the crucial 7th-Gear Concept Core? Also…” She looked across the white pallets before her. “Are the Concept Cores not allies of Team Leviathan?”

“You will understand before long. But to put it simply, these Concept Cores want to hear the Army’s side of the story too. For now, I’ll just say this: They want to know the foundation of the Army’s righteousness and where they have taken that righteousness.”

When she heard bitterness in his voice, Sf turned to look at him.

He had a smile on his face and that smile bared his teeth while he looked directly ahead.

“Sf, did you hear about the attack on Izumo UCAT?”

“Tes. I hear Gyes-sama is working on an estimated criminal profile.”

“That’s going to have an interesting answer, but it’ll probably take a few hours to reach it.”

Sf frowned, but Itaru did not elaborate. The bitter smile on his lips said something else instead.

“The Army and a mysterious attacker are both on the move, but do you know what? That selfish Sayama sent my old man the paperwork for disbanding Team Leviathan. And tonight, he’s apparently entering the mountains to look for Professor Kinugasa’s house. Meanwhile Shinjou is taking a trip to Sakai to track down Shinjou Yukio.”

He slammed his cane against the floor and the noise echoed throughout the empty space.

“He has to know this is no time to leave, but Sayama is fixated on this information from the past. Why do you think he has chosen to leave the safety of Shinjou and his other teammates even though it could very well put himself and them in danger? Do you know, Sf?”

“No, but I do not need to know,” said Sf. “No matter what happens, they will carry out the Leviathan Road. There is no need for me to give the answer in their stead. I have determined their answer belongs to them and it is none of our business.”

“Hah. In other words, we should keep our mouths shut and watch what these selfish kids do?”

“Tes.”

She nodded and took a step forward to stand by his side.

The ten white pallets were lined up in front of her and she opened her mouth in front of those containers that were each meant to hold a world.

“I have determined there is no need for us to guess at the answer to their resolve. After all, they will find that answer themselves. And until they do, we can rest easy, make no attempt to understand their actions, and make fun of them.”

“Are you trying to turn your master into a sarcastic person?”

“Tes,” she agreed while gently turning toward him left and bowing. “I have determined there is a reason for your actions, so please be derisive of all things, show bitterness to both the heavens and the earth, and let loose the ultimate sarcasm that can eat through both steel and flesh.”

She took a breath and closed her eyes while still bent in a bow.

“Once they learn the reason why, I have determined everyone will pour their thanks onto you.”

“H-hold on. Disband!? Why would we do that?”

A girl’s voice filled a dry library.

It was Kazami’s and it was accompanied by hurried footsteps.

She circled behind the others who sat around the table as she made her way behind the boy standing on the opposite end of the table.

By the time she arrived, he had already turned his expressionless face toward her.

Kazami stood in front of Sayama and ignored how Shinjou’s shoulders trembled next to him and how Baku’s fur bristled on his head.

“Listen, Sayama. What do you mean Team Leviathan will disband?”

Everyone else moved back at her sharp tone of voice, but Sayama remained unfazed.

She then began to think. Was she questioning him head-on because she thought it was her duty or because she personally felt angry with what he had said?

…''It doesn’t matter.

She decided she would be asking him either way.

“Harakawa and Heo joined a month ago and we’ve gathered plenty of power with a god of war and mechanical dragon on our team. We can fight at our best no matter who challenges us. So why do we have to disband just as the enemy is arriving!?”

“I think you may already know half the answer, Kazami.”

For an instant, she did not understand what he had said.

''Eh?'' she thought as he brought a hand to his head.

He grabbed Baku, placed the creature on the table, and turned his usual expressionless look back toward her.

“I will leave Baku behind. With Team Leviathan disbanded, he is not mine to take. I will be pursuing Professor Kinugasa out of my own interest, so I hope someone else can take care of him.”

“Wha-…?”

As he spoke and ignored her protests, her thoughts ground to a halt.

She could not believe anything she was hearing.

She only understood that Sayama was trying to act on his own.

…''And he has no intention to discuss it or to stop.

It felt like he was saying he would win if he remained in motion.

The term “ex post facto approval” appeared in her mind. Her dislike of the term led her to speak out of reflex.

“You can’t just decide this for us! There’s more to Team Leviathan than just you!”

''Oh, this isn’t good,'' thought the rational portion of her mind as she grabbed his suit collar and pulled him toward her.

“Ah.”

Hiba started to move in, but Mikage stopped him.

“She needs to say this.”

Pushed on by those words, Kazami faced forward.

Past her pulling arm, she felt Sayama’s existence as a weight.

“You have teammates. This is the place where you can get serious, there are people who need you here, and the enemy is coming. Why are you trying to have us disband!?”

[[Image:OnC_v10_0089.jpg|thumb]]

“As I said, half of the reason is already obvious.”

“Not to me it isn’t! You need to say it plainly!” She took a breath. “I thought I was going to die countless times, but I kept going! I even saved your life! Remember when I shot that werewolf in that Okutama forest!?”

She had been troubled by the fact that the werewolf had taken his own life, but…

…''Are you saying my pain, that werewolf’s death, and the fact that I protected you and Shinjou were all meaningless?

“Who do you think you are? If saving you then was meaningless, then there’s no hope for us.”

However, he did not immediately reply to her thoughts. It was only after a long pause that he did so.

“This is not something that can be explained in words, Kazami.”

It was his usual calm voice and his words brought a certain thought to her mind.

…''Oh.

That may have been true for him.

…''Why would you choose now to say something like this?

It was true she might not understand it.

…''But can’t you at least try to explain it? We’re not the same as you.

They had been through a lot together, even if for a short period of time. If they at all saw each other as teammates…

…''We’ve worked so hard, so can’t you give some kind of explanation?

“And how can you say that? Is it that hard to trust the relationship we all have?”

Sayama did not answer her question.

Kazami felt his silence solidifying her course of action.

To her, the Leviathan Road and what she had gained here were important.

…''But has everything we’ve done been pointless to him?

She then asked her final question.

“I don’t want to sound patronizing, so let me ask about the most important point again. If you don’t give me a proper answer, I ''will'' hit you. Why should Team Leviathan disband at this crucial time of all times?”

“I do not feel like saying.”

She stopped moving or even breathing as he spoke.

“Speaking with you has told me that you are immersed in the reason for this, so you would never understand even if I did explain it to you. You would only think you understood.”

Those words led her to tighten her left-handed grip on his collar.

She swung back her right arm and Shinjou’s eyes opened wide next to him.

“S-stop! You’ll cave his skull in!!”

''I hope I do,'' she thought while swinging her right fist. She wanted to wipe that never-changing expressionless look off of his face.

“Stop it, Chisato!”

But just before she hit, Izumo’s voice seemed to steal the perfect moment from her.

And it all ended in an instant.

Arms passed below her arms and lifted her up.

“Ah.”

Her feet rose from the floor as if she were weightless. The hand holding Sayama’s collar let go and flailed around, but she could not struggle with her wings without X-Wi on.

“W-wait, Kaku. Put me down. This is embarrassing.”

“I won’t, Chisato. If I put you down now, it won’t end well. We’ll all end up feeling bad.”

Izumo’s voice reached her from near her shoulder blades.

She suddenly realized that Hiba, Mikage, Harakawa, and Heo stood beyond Sayama and Shinjou.

Hiba was frowning and Mikage was tilting her head with her usual look.

Harakawa on the other hand was resting his head in his hand and looking off in another direction. Heo was clinging to his sleeve with a pale face.

Heo’s hand held his sleeve so tightly that it had turned white and he continued ignoring it all even though she was tugging so hard. Seeing that was a shock to Kazami.

…''Oh.

The word “sorry” appeared in her mind and it led her to relax.

She felt Izumo sigh into her back.

“Hey, stupid Sayama. Can I ask you something?”

“What is it? Keep in mind that I will only answer serious questions.”

“Ha ha ha. Think back over everything I’ve ever said and go hang yourself, you idiot. …Now, are you listening? You may not be telling us your reason for this, but it’s not some stupid reason, is it?”

“I see.” Sayama frowned as if to say this was an unexpected question. “What would make you ask that? When have I ever said anything stupid?”

Shinjou expressionlessly elbowed him for that.

He curled up and held his side, but Shinjou ignored him and turned toward Kazami with the ends of her eyebrows lowered.

“Sorry. …But I’m pretty sure Sayama-kun wouldn’t give you his reason even if you killed him. And I also think all of us, myself included, will understand eventually.”

She spread her arms and got the words out quickly as if to fill the empty space.

“H-how about thinking of it like this? Team Leviathan isn’t disbanding, but Sayama-kun and I will leave just as we had planned. During that time, we will have nearly disbanded regardless of what you all think, so…”

“So while the two of you are gone, we should think about why he says we should disband? And if we haven’t found the answer by the time you return, we really will disband?”

It was true Team Leviathan could not function without those two and would have essentially disbanded. So if they realized why he wanted them to disband, they could join back together once those two returned.

…''But this is a dangerous time.

Kazami brought a hand to her forehead while Izumo still held her in the air. She understood Shinjou’s compromise, but could they really leave Team Leviathan unable to function right after an attack? From a strategic standpoint, Sayama was their commander and Shinjou their gunner. Kazami could fill the role of gunner with G-Sp2’s second form.

…''But who will be our commander?

“Kazami.”

She turned toward Sayama’s voice.

He pointed at her while standing up and removing his hand from his side.

“Listen,” he said expressionlessly. “In that case, I nominate you as Team Leviathan’s temporary negotiator.”

“What!?”

“You take command. And whether you are fighting, eating, or sleeping, allow anyone with a problem to consult with you.”

She was about to protest, but a sudden high-pitched voice cut her off.

“I-I think that’s a great idea!”

It was Heo.

She stood up in her gray uniform and drew back a bit as everyone turned toward her. The hand on Harakawa’s sleeve did not loosen, but she blushed.

“U-um, well, as a new member, I am reluctant to admonish a superior, but…”

“Why are you following that part of Japanese culture, Heo Thunderson?”

“B-but Harakawa!”

She was half in tears as she spoke to Harakawa who was still turned away.

“We finally got to join together, but there’s a bad atmosphere hanging over us right now! And, um, Kazami was about to hit Sayama’s insane head with her killer ape punch that can KO a gorilla!”

She took a deep breath while ignoring the various glares she was receiving.

“I-I don’t think it’s right to act like thisp!!”

She stumbled over the final word.

Only after shouting out did Heo realize what she had done.

…''Oh, no.

She had tried to say something difficult in Japanese and had ended up stumbling over the word.

There was nothing wrong with that in and of itself. She would occasionally do it at school, but the girls in her class said it was cute. However…

“…”

Cold sweat poured down her back as seven silent gazes bore down on her.

''Oh, no,'' she thought again.

…''I showed weakness in front of them.

''But will I be okay? Will they overlook me because I’m the youngest?

Whenever someone showed weakness, they receive an attack from a world void of sense. That seemed to be the unwritten rule of this group. The boy named Hiba would often run off to buy cans of coffee and Heo assumed that was because they were taking advantage of some weakness of his.

''I have to do something,'' she thought and that led her to take action.

“U-um, uh…” She forced a smile. “I-I think we should try to stay positive. Okay? Okay? Isn’t that right?”

The others exchanged a glance and finally nodded.

“Yes,” said Sayama while crossing his arms. “I apologize, Heo-kun. We should have been more composed. Yes.”

He gave a deep nod and Heo sighed in her heart. It looked like she was off the hook.

Sayama then gave a serious look to Izumo who still held Kazami.

“Izumo, Heo-kun is exactly right. Don’t you agreep?”

''Oh, no,'' calmly thought Heo as she saw Izumo nod and rub his head against Kazami’s back.

“Yeah, she may have a point. We were getting a little harsh with each other. Isn’t that righp?”

“Ha ha ha ha ha. Izumo, I am glad to see you are an understanding manp.”

“It’s all thanks to Heo. This conversation is really turning out nicelyp.”

Seeing Heo fall silent, Shinjou frantically spoke up with a troubled look.

“S-Sayama-kun, Izumo-san! Don’t be mean to Heo like that! She’s a yankee girl who still isn’t used to this foreign culture, so her Japanese isn’t the best!”

''Are you trying to kick me while I’m down?'' wondered Heo while tugging on a sleeve.

“Harakawa. What am I supposed to do when-… Why won’t you look at me!?”

“Don’t drag me into this, Heo Thunderson.”

She just about called him mean, but she was cut off by someone clapping their hands. The sound came from up above.

She looked over and saw Kazami frowning with her hands together.

“Okay, okay, okay. I’m sick of this, so let’s get it done with. Sayama and Shinjou will go on their trips as planned and return with whatever information they find. Meanwhile, we will think about Sayama’s riddle and any of you can consult with me if something happens. …That sums it up, right? But what if a representative of 7th approaches us for the Leviathan Road?”

“Tell them to wait until I return. It is only a trip into the mountains of Okutama, so it should only take me two days and one night. Until then, you can kill time by thinking about the reason for disbanding,” said Sayama. “But if they wish to fight, the battle will not be a part of the Leviathan Road. Think of it like the battles with the remnants of 6th and 10th in the past.”

“Okay, okay. Got it. …In other words, how to handle it is up to us. But,” she said while sharpening her gaze toward him. “I still haven’t accepted what you said.”

“And you never will as long as you are asking me. …Look to yourself for the answer.”

He gave a pause for thought before continuing.

“Oh, I know. I do have a hint for you: The answer is something even Shinjou-kun and I have. In other words, search for your own pasts. That is what this is about.”

“Our pasts?”

“Yes. All of our pasts are different, but they will undoubtedly lead you to the reason I ordered for Team Leviathan to disband. …However, I do not expect you to understand at the moment because, right now, you do not desire your past.”

Heo saw Kazami wrinkle her brow and turn away. She seemed to be saying he was only giving excuses and therefore was not worth listening to.

After that, silence ruled their surroundings.

Shinjou gently held Sayama’s right arm and gestured toward the library entrance with her chin.

…''They’re leaving, aren’t they?

As if answering her thought, Shinjou turned toward them. Her eyebrows were lowered, but she looked satisfied.

“I won’t say I’m sorry any longer, but we’ll be leaving for a bit. I’ll be thinking about this while I’m gone, so let’s compare our answers once I get back.”

“Nn,” said Mikage with a nod and Shinjou smiled.

But after a short pause, Hiba stood up and lifted his bandanna with a serious look.

“Um, uh, can I say one thing? I’ve been wondering something.”

When Heo asked what it was, he turned to Izumo.

“Izumo-san, is it just me or have you been groping Kazami-san’s breasts for a while now?”

His question left everyone dumbfounded and Izumo made a small movement.

His arms crossed each other as he held Kazami and he adjusted their position so they pointed toward the others and lifted Kazami’s breasts from below.

“This is my new invention. I call it the X-Grope! Eeeeeexxxxxxxxx!”

As soon as he shouted the technique’s name, both of Kazami’s elbows crashed into his face.

<noinclude>
{| border="1" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" style="margin: 1em 1em 1em 0; background: #f9f9f9; border: 1px #aaaaaa solid; padding: 0.2em; border-collapse: collapse;"
|-
| Back to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 2|Chapter 2]]
| Return to [[Owari no Chronicle|Main Page]]
| Forward to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 4|Chapter 4]]
|-
|}
</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 2

2026-10-10T03:38:04Z

N-Ch:

==Chapter 2: Unknown Beginning==
[[Image:OnC_v10_0047.png|thumb]]
''The sun and the moon, words and thoughts

''None of them can be seen

The long hand of a clock audibly moved.

That black hand arrived at the number twelve and the shorter hand reached the number eight.

Only one gaze turned to that clock high on a white wall. It belonged to a young woman sitting in an office chair in front of a wide white desk.

“Eight at night, hm? You get no sense of time underground like this.”

She sat in a small room with shuttered windows along the wall in front of her.

The room itself was long widthwise, so there was not much room between the desk and the wall behind her. In front of her was a desk with a console attached, a PC she used as control equipment, and three monitors.

One of the monitors displayed a progress bar giving the percentage of some work. The text above the bar said “Currently sealing concept in philosopher’s stone. D-don’t touch!”

“I still can’t get used to how they do things here.”

The woman who commented on the monitor wore a lab coat over an open-necked red shirt.

Attached to the breast pocket of the lab coat was a photo ID giving the name Tsukuyomi Miyako. The top of the ID had a blue line saying “Trainee”.

She flicked the ID and opened the collar of the lab coat.

Next, she pulled something resembling a cigarette from her pocket and stuck it in her mouth.

“Plum flavor, hm?” she said with a frown.

She then stood up and the chair moved out of her way and tilted its head. She lightly patted the chair’s back as if soothing it and turned to the clock.

But she continued to frown.

“Odd. Why haven’t the Moirai shown up to call me for dinner yet?”

She just about called out to Gyes who would be waiting outside the closed entrance to the room, but she stopped. The combat automaton who could hear her voice through the soundproofed door had only just returned from Tokyo. Miyako didn’t know if she could even get exhausted, but it would be best to be a little considerate here.

…''After all, I hear things were pretty exciting over there.

Gyes’s travel pay had been 750 yen an hour, but the automaton had raised it to 780 in a phone negotiation on the way back.

Miyako thought that level of meddling was for the best.

She then began to walk, quickly arrived at the door, and pressed the open/close button labeled “strong”.

The door flew forcefully open and the corridor came into view. It was actually wider than the room.

An instant later, Miyako saw Gyes in front of her, but the automaton was doing something odd.

She rotated backward while flying right to left down the corridor.

“…”

The sudden turn of events left Miyako confused and her frown grew.

She thought about the situation, but thinking about anything too complex was not her forte. When arguing, her seminar professor had told her to write out a bulleted list to simplify her points. He had been arrested for some blatant hidden cameras the other day, though.

At any rate, she thought about the situation.

*I’m looking at the corridor and Gyes just flew down it.

*Gyes just landed.

*Can I maybe get out of doing my thesis paper since my professor was arrested?

*The wind is moving and something’s coming from the right.

Her thoughts ended at that last point and she heard a voice that sounded a lot like her own.

—'''There is no mutual understanding.

“What?”

She understood this was a concept text, but she had to think about something else first.

…''Something’s coming from the right.

But she did not understand what was coming from the right.

She looked down the corridor and saw that someone was arriving from the entrance there. But…

“…?”

She could not understand. It was not just that she did not know who was coming. She could not even comprehend what was coming.

Shocked, she shouted out.

“Gyes!?”

She turned the other way where Gyes was standing up.

However, she could not understand that either. Gyes was standing, but she did not understand what that meant.

“Huh?”

What she did understand was why she could not understand.

…''I don’t understand what she’s trying to do!

Gyes faced Miyako’s general direction, swung her right arm, and gave a shout. Miyako could hear the words and see her expression. The automaton’s eyebrows were raised and the look in her eyes was sharp.

“Lady Miyako! Return to your room!!”

She heard the voice, but she did not understand what Gyes was trying to convey.

In the same way, she understood that something was coming from the other end of the corridor, but she could not sense the intention behind it.

This space was completely lacking the ability to read another’s intentions.

It was a space where one could never have mutual understanding with another.

…''This ain’t good.

Human thoughts were generally created in response to movements in the external world, so what would happen without that?

She thought and reached a conclusion.

“What a pain,” she said while giving a bitter smile that would reach no one. “It just means you have to get by without looking to others.”

She pulled a stone from her pocket. It looked a lot like pumice made from hardening a blue powder.

“I’ll be doing this whether you like it or not. Someone ordered this for the New Year’s party, but I can use it as an additional text here.”

With that, she crushed the stone between her fingers.

Blue light scattered, the space shook, and a voice reached her ears.

—'''You and I are cherry blossom classmates.

A moment later, she sensed a single thought within that previously empty space.

It was Gyes.

She saw the automaton looking at her in surprise.

“Lady Miyako!? Classmates!? I could not possibly be so bold!”

“Stop being so awestricken. This concept creates a perfect understanding between two individuals with some kind of common factor. …But it only lasts the length of one song. Assume this only lasts about five minutes, Gyes.”

Miyako produced a footstep as she took a step back and reentered the opened door.

She looked back and saw two figures approaching while wrapped in white waves of water vapor that resembled wind and mist.

They wore black jumpsuits and black masks. They both had the builds of slender men, one was unarmed, but the other held a giant Azure Dragon Sword.

Miyako could not see their faces and she could not grasp their intentions. She could not even tell if the weapon one held was dangerous, but she spoke to Gyes.

“Gyes, you were knocked down the corridor just now, right? That means you were hit by an attack you couldn’t tell was coming. We can’t sense their intent to attack, so we’ll be completely defenseless. However, you don’t look damaged. Do you have some way of defending against this?”

“Nothing is impossible for 3rd-Gear’s automatons. How many times must I tell you that?”

“But is losing impossible for you?”

She showed her teeth in a grin and Gyes gave a quick troubled frown.

“For now, let me say that ‘losing’ is not in my language function’s dictionary.”

“Then let me put it another way: Do it. Get them, Gyes. Get them.”

Miyako crossed her arms while thinking there was no way they could lose.

“A ton of concept texts are stored down here. If they’ve made it this far, they could have already stolen some concept weapons from the sealed storage room. In fact, that’s probably where they got that sword. That means they’re thieves. They definitely are. So get them, Gyes. Don’t let them escape.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now that’s an exciting response.”

With the chocolate cigarette still in her mouth, Miyako faced the two men in black whose intentions she could not grasp as they approached while wrapped in wind.

“I can’t see this enemy, so you show me what you can do. You have until the cherry blossom song ends.”

A large space filled with books was known as a library.

It had a stepped floor and the plate at the entrance said Kinugasa Library.

It was lined with bookcases, but it was now filled with the darkness of night save for one small area.

The area devoid of darkness was near the bookcases by the counter.

Light filled a large whiteboard on the wall behind the checkout counter. The light came from the small projector on the counter and the whiteboard acted as the screen.

A young man in a lab coat stood on the other side of the counter by the projector.

He pushed his glasses up his nose and scratched his head.

“As a representative of the development department, I, Kashima Akio, will be giving you a lecture on the formation of the eleven Gears.”

His words were directed at the eight people sitting at the table awash with faint light near the counter.

Half of them were boys and the other half were girls.

Kashima had a certain thought when he looked to them.

…''Things sure have gotten lively around here.

The eight were Sayama, Shinjou, Izumo, Kazami, Hiba, Mikage, Harakawa, and Heo.

…''What a complicated group.

As they were at the school, Shinjou was wearing her boy’s uniform, but she would be a girl at this time of day.

Izumo and Kazami appeared normal enough, but they were plenty strange. Hiba had brought Mikage along for this lecture, but her legs were still not working perfectly and he had grabbed her butt while supporting her earlier.

Heo was America’s temporary inspector despite being so young and Kashima had heard Harakawa was a figure fanatic.

''This really is a diverse group of kids,'' he thought.

And before they had taken their seats, Sayama had mentioned something strange.

It was about a dream of the past that Baku had shown them.

Kashima had not interfered because it was a Team Leviathan issue, but it had apparently been related to the secondary damages of the Great Kansai Earthquake that had supposedly killed Sayama’s father and others.

…''But he says it might have been a battle with the Army instead.

Kashima did not know what that meant and neither did the children here.

They only knew there had likely been a battle, many of their parents had died there, and UCAT had hidden the records for some reason.

Sayama had said not to tell anyone else about it because that could lead to further information being locked down.

''They expect to reach the truth eventually,'' Kashima told himself.

But he had something else to do right now, so he crossed his arms and nodded.

“Now, I would first like for you to look at what I will display here.”

“Manager Kashima, what was that deep expression you got when looking at us just now?”

“Nothing, Kazami-kun. It just means I have my own thoughts.”

He ignored Kazami’s glare, pulled his laptop from his coat pocket, and connected it to the projector.

The projector’s light prepared to display the laptop’s screen and the eight at the table held their breath in anticipation.

A moment later, the six square meter whiteboard displayed a video of a small child. A woman held the baby in a small yard and the baby said “ah” while reaching for a red flower on a trellis.

Kashima turned to them all.

“See how cute she is?” he said calmly. “No, wait. Please don’t throw things at me. Definitely not a full drink can. At least not that.”

He ducked below the counter to avoid the flying objects and sighed.

…''Students these days need to learn to keep their cool.

Once they stopped throwing things, he stood up and found Kazami waiting with a dictionary on standby. She sighed and spoke in annoyance.

“Listen, Manager Kashima. I know she’s cute and all, but…”

“S-so you do understand!? …Wait. I said not to throw things.”

''They really do have short fuses,'' he thought while seeing them all glare at him.

…''How can they do that when she’s so cute?

“Well, we can skip past the important part if you want. Let’s get the trivial lecture over with.”

“Your sense of value seems a bit off, but please continue, Manager Kashima.”

He nodded and pressed a button on the console.

…''I wonder if it would be all right if I played at least one more Harumi video.

''I do have a good one I’ve been saving,'' he thought. ''That one I took with the waterproof camera in the bath is to die for. Come to think of it, that would be Harumi’s first all-nude exhibition and Natsu-san joins us in the bath later. That was a lot of fun, but should I go for that one here?

However, he abandoned the idea when he saw Kazami preparing a second dictionary.

“Now then,” he said while displaying a black space on the whiteboard. “The eleven worlds formed within this black empty space. Please watch.”

He looked to the darkness on the whiteboard and a single color suddenly appeared. It was a large aqua-blue circle.

“A circle,” said Mikage.

Hiba patted her head and praised her like she was a baby.

''He might be able to understand what makes Harumi so great,'' thought Kashima.

When he pressed the next button, the color on the whiteboard increased.

Smaller white circles were drawn inside the large aqua one.

There were ten white circles and they all had a plus sign inside.

This is how the Gears were formed according to my predecessors. First, a parent factor that included the ten positive Gears existed in empty space-…”

“That’s a lot of boobs! …Ah, I-I’m sorry, Chisato. I just thought someone had to say it.”

Kashima ignored the sounds of impacts that followed. He pictured his wife’s breasts in his mind and felt the boy needed further training if he was still saying those things out loud.

“Anyway, this large aqua circle is the parent factor and the ten small white circles with plus signs are the child factors that became the ten Gears. In other words, they’re the Gears’ Concept Cores.”

“In that case, would the parent factor be the Primary Concept Core that is created when all other Concept Cores are gathered?” asked Sayama.

“You can look at it like that. But this did not simply create a Gear.”

“Why not?” asked Shinjou. “It looks like a Gear that has gathered all the concepts to me.”

“If it was, it would have been a perfect Gear with only positive concepts. It would not have been destroyed.”

“Oh,” said Shinjou and Kashima lightly tapped the whiteboard.

“That is why we view the parent factor as ‘chaotic’. It included elements of all ten Gears, after all. And this is what happened to that chaotic parent factor.”

He pressed a button on his computer and the aqua circle containing the ten white circles suddenly broke.

Everyone gave comments of surprise as the ten white circles flew outward on the whiteboard.

“As you can see, the parent factor burst from oversaturation and the ten positive concepts were sent outward. Some researchers say the big bang that created our universe occurred at the same time.”

The ten circles started to move away, but something held them back.

At the center of their radiating paths, a new color formed in the darkness where the parent factor had been.

It was a black circle with an outline even darker than the surrounding darkness.

As that circle grew larger, the ten surrounding white circles slowed.

A symbol then appeared inside the black circle. Once the circle reached the same size as the other ten, a minus sign appeared. In fact, ten minus signs appeared inside it.

By the time the ten minus signs formed within the black circle, the ten white circles had completely stopped moving away.

Next, another change came over the footage. The ten plus-sign circles and the minus-sign circle had been drawn as two-dimensional circles so far, but they now changed to three-dimensional spheres.

[[Image:OnC_v10_0061.jpg|thumb]]

The eleven spheres floated in a dark background much like an atomic model. The black sphere sat in the center and the ten white spheres with plus signs inside began to orbit around it.

They circled it.

Each of the ten Gears took its own path and began its circular orbit. They would occasionally cross paths and occasionally dive toward the negative sphere as if something was pulling them in. When that happened, they would break through the sphere and then return to their original orbit.

“This is the primary theory at the moment,” said Kashima. “The force of the parent factor’s explosion and the repelling force it created were what formed the ten negative Concept Cores in the space between the ten positive Concept Cores. Those are what became Low-Gear, which holds all the other Gears in place.”

Shinjou raised her hand, so he nodded toward her and she tilted her head.

“Why do the orbits of the Gears sometimes change suddenly so they dive into Low-Gear and head back out again?”

“It’s thought to be caused by interference between the Gears. As the Gears overlap, the Concept Cores change a little and take on an unnecessary burden. That burden acts as a weight that briefly pulls the world into the negative direction. However, falling into the negative removes the burden and it quickly recovers to its original orbit. And then…”

As he operated his computer, the ten white spheres indicating the Gears orbited and occasionally broke through the black sphere of Low-Gear before returning to their orbits.

However, those descents grew more frequent. Again and again, their orbits shrank and grew tighter.

“Eh?” said all the students.

All of the white spheres dove toward the black sphere at once.

The movement stopped and a single number appeared on the screen: 1999.

“That was the time of destruction that should have happened. All of the Gears would have overlapped and interfered with each other more than ever before. That would have thrown off the balance of Low-Gear and its negative concepts, so the Gear would have destroyed itself. Then, the other Gears would have repeatedly collided with each other until only the Gear with the most concepts survived.”

Sayama was the next to speak and he crossed his arms along with Baku on his head.

“And that caused the Concept War, correct?”

“Yes. And now that Low-Gear has survived, all of the negative and positive Concept Cores are gathered in the one Gear, which preserves the balance. But the negative activation is affecting that balance which will send us too far in the negative direction and destroy us.”

“I see.”

They all nodded except for one who tilted her head.

It was Shinjou again and she raised her hand.

“U-um? Something about that seems odd.”

“What is it?” asked Kashima with a bit of expectation in his voice.

“Why can we exist in a negative Gear?”

''So you noticed,'' he thought while nodding at her question.

“A good question. Despite this being a space of only negative concepts, a world was created while taking pieces of the other Gears’ cultures. It has no special abilities, but the people can live and it has since accepted in the other Gears’ positive concepts. And for some reason, the positive Concept Cores and the negative Concept Cores can both exist in Low-Gear at the same time.”

“Why is that?”

Kashima puffed out his chest proudly as he gave his answer.

“We don’t know. We have yet to reach a conclusion on that. We can come up with a number of reasons just like our predecessors, but there is no clear explanation. …From a concept point of view, I think it’s best to just say that’s how this world works.”

He went on to end the program that displayed the formation of the eleven Gears. Credits containing Kashima’s name in every field began to scroll with images of Harumi and Natsu in the background.

“That was short, but how about we end the lecture here?”

As soon as he said that, a sound filled the quiet library.

It was the ringing of cellphones. Seven of them to be exact.

The cellphones of each member of Team Leviathan except Izumo were ringing.

Sayama’s was the first to stop and he pressed the phone to his ear while slowly looking across the others.

Finally, he spoke.

“Attackers have appeared at UCAT’s Izumo branch?”

Gyes performed her combat maneuvers.

She ran swiftly forward and looked at the opponent there.

She had two enemies. Both were slender men who wore black and hid their faces behind masks.

She could see them, but she could not perceive them well.

There was an intention behind every active action of something with a will of its own. Anyone who viewed it would subconsciously sense that intention and react accordingly. That was where the idea of feints and intimidation came from.

However, this enemy had cut off that intention with a concept preventing mutual understanding.

That meant she could see their actions but could not understand them.

…''It’s like a strengthened version of 2nd-Gear’s Art of Walking.

The Art of Walking was a type of martial arts and could thus be broken, but this was a concept and thus could not. On top of that, this concept prevented one from understanding anything else in the world and the opponent was just a part of that.

“—————”

An attack was coming. Or at least, there was a high probability one was.

The man on the right which Gyes decided to designate as Black 1 swung his two meter Azure Dragon Sword from the right.

…''Is something coming?

Gyes tried to use her prediction to perceive her opponent’s actions.

He swung the giant blade horizontally toward her body, but the meaning behind that action simply did not reach her brain.

She did not view it as dangerous.

Whether they were optical, thermal, or acoustic, all of her sensory devices were functioning, but she could not read the intentions behind the man’s actions.

And that was why she received the attack without even thinking about dodging.

The blade reached her stomach and the steel curve sank into her red suit.

It would easily slice her slender body in two.

But just before it did, she reacted.

“———!”

She reacted in two ways.

First, a smile formed on her lips.

Second, her mechanical reflexes activated.

She had directed her reflexes inside her own body.

She poured every last bit of her thoughts into the less than a hundredth of a second that the blade touched her suit.

The enemy’s sword drove into her suit and applied a slight pressure to it as it cut through.

The inside of the suit pressed her shirt into her artificial skin which caused a distortion in the skin even thinner than the nano scale.

She understood that extremely tiny distortion of her skin as it was her own information.

Whatever may have happened to her understanding of the outside world, she could understand a reaction within her own body.

And her body was telling her something was contacting her artificial flesh.

Only now did she grasp that she was in danger and that she was under attack.

She could not see it or hear it, but she could feel it in her skin.

…''But I have determined that is enough!!

Her mechanical reflexes and athletic ability allowed her to move with the blade still touching her stomach.

She moved back to match the swing of the blade.

It was more of a leap than a back step and more of a rotation than a turn.

She quickly spun and matched the speed of the horizontally swung Azure Dragon Sword.

She rotated on her heel and swung her body to dance with the blade against her stomach.

And only then did she achieve her true goal.

The force of the blade’s swing reaching her body through her skin allowed her to calculate the estimated location of her enemy.

Her mechanical calculations reached the answer in an instant.

“There!!”

She pulled a sword from her sleeve and jabbed it right toward that unperceived location.

The tip of the blade easily broke the sound barrier.

With the sound of a bursting paper bag, it produced an explosion of water vapor and wind.

As for the enemy on the other end of that blade tip…

“!”

Gyes saw him avoid the blade and move back, but she could not understand that either.

She only knew he had evaded it because she did not feel the recoil of a hit as she swung.

…''Kh.

She now knew this enemy could evade such a quick attack.

That meant he was an automaton or had reflexes on that level.

''Who could it be?'' she wondered.

“It can’t be.”

She suddenly reached a certain answer.

She knew who this was and what Gear had created the opponent before her, even if it was a Gear she had had almost no contact with during the Concept War.

“In that case…”

She knew who stood before her.

“!?”

She felt heat on her skin to the left.

This was something fired by the man to that side.

This heat told her there was a sun there.

Not fire, not flames, not a torch, and not even an inferno.

This sphere of heat was known as a sun.

It was big enough to fill the large corridor and it was moving at the speed of a thrown ball.

The mass of heat that was a small sun should not have existed in this world, but it flew straight toward Gyes.

It was relatively slow, but its heat was massive. Simply touching it would likely be enough to destroy her entire body.

But Gyes had no way of avoiding it. That was partially due to its size and heat, but it had more to do with Miyako’s room being right behind her.

She could not avoid it. As the shield and weapon meant to oppose the enemy’s attack, evasion was not an option.

That meant it would hit, but that was also when she grew convinced of this enemy’s identity.

“You are-…!!”

She shouted toward the enemy standing unseen beyond the sun.

At the same time, the mass of heat before her suddenly broke apart.

With nothing more than the sound of a cement block breaking, the sun crumbled.

It had been destroyed by someone who had arrived behind her. And just by touching it.

Gyes gasped at the destruction of the sun.

“———!?”

The light’s destruction took less than a second and the world dispersed at the same time.

The concept space had been eliminated.

The light vanished, the world of no mutual understanding vanished, the heat vanished, and Gyes’s sense of danger returned.

The spray of hot light scattered like feathers and the Moirai ran down the corridor beyond it. They all looked panicked, but they had likely been unable to move within that concept space.

…''I can leave Lady Miyako to them.

With that thought, Gyes turned toward the one who had smashed the sun as it approached her.

“Who are you?”

Her question was directed toward a man.

The man was in his prime and nearly two meters tall. His hair was swept back on the sides, he was well-built, and he wore a white suit.

Once she noticed his appearance, Gyes commented before he could answer her question.

“That is quite a loud outfit.”

“Oh, well, I don’t really see what’s wrong with it. I thought you might agree, Gyes-kun, what with that midriff-exposing suit and all.”

The man’s casual comment led her to look down at herself. Due to rotating along with the strike of the Azure Dragon Sword, her scarlet suit and shirt were missing from the below the chest and down.

It did not look good, but she determined it had improved the ventilation and heat radiation. She then gave a questioning frown and asked her question again.

“Who are-…?”

“Oh, well, hm. I’d heard we had intruders, so I was hiding back there with my knees trembling.”

Gyes frowned even further because “back there” was the stairway down to the third basement.

“But that area is off limits.”

“Hm? Do you want to know why I came from there by any chance?”

“Not really.”

“Yes, yes. Good, good. Not asking any unnecessary questions is for the best. You know what you’re doing.”

The man crossed his arms and nodded several times while refusing to listen to her.

The next action came from Miyako. She exited the door behind Gyes and looked both ways to make sure it was safe.

“Gyes, is it over?”

“Yes, sir. This man here saved me.”

Hearing that, Miyako frowned, looked at the man in the white suit, and tilted her head.

“Hey, old man. This area’s for authorized personnel only. Saving Gyes is fine and all, but you shouldn’t be here.”

“If it’s fine, it’s fine, right? Isn’t that how it works, Tsukuyomi-kun?”

Miyako’s confused frown grew more at the fact that he knew her name than at what he said.

Finally, she tilted her head again and clicked her tongue toward the floor.

“Who are you? And do you have a thing for looking up people’s names? Hey, Gyes. Have this guy leave. Oh, but don’t forget to thank him for saving you.”

The man showed off his teeth in a bitter smile and Moira 1st called out as she ran up.

“L-Lady Miyako! That loud person is actually IAI’s president, Izumo Retsu! He is also Japanese UCAT’s assistant director!!”

Gyes and Miyako both looked back at Retsu.

As he stood in the center of the corridor, he nodded at Moira 1st’s explanation and raised a hand toward Miyako and Gyes.

“Hi.”

“Don’t just say hi! What’s the head of this place doing here?”

“Oh, well, hm. Can’t I just say that’s a secret? I’m not real good at explaining things. I did save you, so I’d like it if you’d let me go without too much trouble. …How about it?”

“Fine, fine.”

Miyako nodded and put her hands on her hips, but she also frowned and glared at Retsu.

“But you’re telling me as much as you can, old man. Who were those men? And…”

Her shout asked the question Gyes had wondered earlier.

“Is something bad happening with the Leviathan Road!?”

Inside the unlit Kinugasa Library, eight people were gathered around the central table.

They were Sayama and the other members of Team Leviathan.

As their leader, Sayama set down his cellphone in front of the others.

That black phone had been issued by UCAT.

They all looked down toward the silent cellphone, but Sayama alone raised his head.

“Now, then.”

His words broke through the silence and gathered the others’ gazes.

With their focus on him, he expressionlessly formed words.

“It seems the attackers have been driven from Izumo UCAT. However, it also seems some powerful healing charms and a few prototype weapons that were sealed there after their development were stolen.”

“The one piece of luck is that no one was hurt. Still…”

Kazami stood in front of Sayama and crossed her arms and Shinjou gave an uneasy look from Sayama’s left.

“Were the attackers from the Army?”

“If so, this means they did not harm their opponents and fled after nothing more than stealing some concept weapons. …That is not like them.”

“But,” hesitantly began Shinjou before continuing. “But if they weren’t the Army, who were they?”

“Whoever they are, there is one thing we now know: We are targets for attack. That is for sure.”

He looked away from Shinjou and toward the others.

“We possess the nine Concept Cores excluding 7th’s and a few of those are being used as weapons. That means we are the ones with a god of war, mechanical dragon, and other weapons that far exceed the level of modern technology.”

They all nodded after a moment.

After that and an exchanged look, Kazami spoke up.

“But doesn’t this seem dangerous? And Sayama, it seems especially dangerous for you and Shinjou to act on your own. No, this doesn’t just go for the two of you. Thinking about Team Leviathan and the rest of UCAT, wouldn’t it be best if you didn’t go to Okutama and Sakai?”

After a breath, she shrugged a little.

“As for that dream of Baku’s you mentioned, there might be some records in the Second Reference Room, so why not check there for now? You shouldn’t head out too much.”

Shinjou understood what Kazami was saying. As their comrade, she did not want them moving around.

And she had likely chosen to be the one to say it because of her position as an upperclassman among them.

Sensing that intention, Shinjou brought her chin to her chest.

…''Hm, is it really that dangerous to move around like that?

She brought a hand to her mouth and looked up at Sayama’s face.

“Kazami-san’s right. It would be dangerous if the Army attacked, wouldn’t it?”

She looked up at him while asking and found he had crossed his arms at some point.

He gave an expressionless nod, but…

…''Eh?

Something was off. She could tell he had some other thought.

His crossed arms and nod showed his understanding but not his agreement.

…''He must have his own thoughts on this incident and how we should handle it.

Kazami’s suggestion had been meant to bind them together. She was saying they should stay together and combine their great power to face the coming troubles. Everyone should have agreed without issue.

…''But what is Sayama-kun thinking?

She saw him turn his eyes toward her.

His expression had changed, but the slight change on his lips was so subtle only she would have noticed it.

It was a small smile that seemed to ask her if she had noticed.

But he soon wiped the smile away and looked forward.

Shinjou did the same as if following the vanished expression.

Everyone was there. These were the comrades they had gained in their past fights.

They had strength, they had their own reasons, and they all helped each other.

And Sayama spoke expressionlessly to them all.

“This is indeed an excellent time for an attack. The only remaining Concept Core is 7th-Gear’s. Also, tonight’s attack might very well have been a warning to tell us what would happen if Shinjou-kun and I leave here. …And that is why I have an announcement. Effective immediately…”

His voice filled the library.

“Team Leviathan will disband.”

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| Back to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 1|Chapter 1]]
| Return to [[Owari no Chronicle|Main Page]]
| Forward to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 3|Chapter 3]]
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</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 1

2026-10-09T02:12:33Z

N-Ch:

[[Image:OnC_v10_0024-0025.jpg|thumb]]
''I want to be with you

''And so…

—''He who does not accept that is alone

==Chapter 1: Your Usual Self==
[[Image:OnC_v10_0027.png|thumb]]
''Have I grown lazy?

''Am I a pleasant person?

As evening approached, the colors of the sky faded but did not yet turn scarlet.

In this vague time of day, the air contained a slight chill and a single sound could be heard traveling below the sun setting in the west.

It was a motorcycle engine.

The large black motorcycle drove north in the left lane of a road with a long wall to the east.

Riding it were a large boy with a brown coat and a girl with a beige half coat.

The name Izumo was sewn inside the collar of the boy’s coat as it waved in the wind and the girl’s coat similarly said Kazami.

Kazami held a white convenience store bag in her left hand and her right hand held Izumo’s shoulder.

“Kaku, a lot of the leaves have fallen here too.”

The trees lining the road all had their branches exposed and the fallen yellow leaves flew up like a wave as the motorcycle passed by.

Kazami was focused more on the trees than the walking people.

“Will nothing but the evening dew cover them before long?”

“Don’t get so realistic, Chisato. More importantly, were you able to buy it at the convenience store?”

“Yes, they had the usual coffee, ‘Blue Mountain – Human Mountain Range’.”

“You can be really picky.”

“You’re the one that told me about it.”

“My interest in coffee came from my mom, so I’m technically just the messenger.”

That silenced her for a moment, but she finally spoke.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t say that,” he replied while speeding up.

The racing motorcycle turned the early evening air into a chilly wind.

Kazami glanced at her watch and saw it was 4:00 PM.

…''Has everyone started going all-out with the afterschool festival preparations yet?

They only had about a week to go and Kazami was planning to perform in a band, but something else was more important.

“The next Leviathan Road should be coming up soon, right? We need to keep up our training. With Harakawa and Heo, we actually have some air support, so we can do things differently now.”

“But how long will that last?”

“Eh?”

Through the wind, she heard his back reply to her confusion.

“The negotiations are complete for the Concept Cores of 1st-6th and 10th. UCAT already has 8th and 9th, so 7th is really the only one left.”

She understood what he meant, so she shrugged a little.

“Yes, this Leviathan Road should mostly finish it. …I guess there won’t be any more large-scale battles.”

“Is there at least a small part of you that thinks that’s a shame?”

“Eh? No, I, um, I’m a normal person, so of course I wouldn’t-…”

“There’s a part of me that thinks that.”

“That was mean,” she muttered before carefully choosing her words. “I suppose…I do think it’s a bit of a shame. I’m proud and happy to have such powerful comrades. And we put so much effort into gaining this power and into fighting.”

While saying that, some nostalgic memories came to mind: when she had quit her sports team for a certain reason and when she had trembled upon entering her first battle.

It had been over half a year since the werewolf she had shot to save Sayama and Shinjou had chosen his own death.

She had worried about a lot, but she felt it had been her duty as an upperclassman not to let it show.

She wondered if the new additions who had made things so much more fun were her reward for that.

That was why she asked him “Right?” and felt them speed up while he nodded back.

“A lot really has happened. …But there’s another problem, Chisato. There’s still the Army.”

“Oh, right. Will they really show up, though? Well, it is true they seem to appear around Shinjou a lot.”

“But she refused them when they asked which side she was on, right? …So they’ll show up. After all, the Leviathan Road is essentially over once we get 7th’s Concept Core. But if they stop us now, they can both keep us from completing the Leviathan Road and steal all the Concept Cores besides 7th’s. If it was me, I would make an all-out attack during the Leviathan Road with 7th-Gear.”

“You’re right,” she muttered while leaning against him and letting him feel her nod.

…''The time to settle this is coming.

She did not know what the Army’s goal was, but it seemed they knew some kind of truth and were opposing UCAT based on that truth.

And based on what she had heard from Shinjou about the girl named Mikoku and the information Ooshiro and the others had let slip…

“The Army was created shortly after UCAT’s blank period. Just like the current UCAT.”

“Do you think there’s a connection between UCAT and the Army?”

She had trouble choosing her words, but she still answered.

She used her cheek to send a nod of confirmation into his back and he continued after a pause.

“I think so too. And I think they have more information than we do. Part of me wonders what we should do if it turns out righteousness is on their side.”

“I-I seriously doubt that.”

“Why?”

“Because Low-Gear is acting as the villain and completing the Leviathan Road by accepting the evil we did to the other Gears. That means we’re already facing the righteousness of each Gear. What other righteousness could there be?”

Her answer was meant to eliminate her unease over that unlikely possibility and Izumo’s reply came in his usual carefree tone.

“You’re right about that. The Army’s supposed to be made up of remnants from the other Gears. If that’s true, their righteousness can’t be any greater than what we created in our negotiations with the Gears.”

“See?” she said while noting that only applied if they finished facing the righteousness of all the Gears. “If there is righteousness beyond that, it would have to be something that precedes the righteousness of the Leviathan Road or the other Gears. It would have to be a kind of righteousness that says the very act of negotiation is evil. And the only example of that I can think of would be the righteousness of terrorists who refuse to compromise.”

…''What else could it be?

As she tilted her head, Izumo’s words reached her.

“You might be right,” he began. “But either way, the Army is probably prepared to fight. They’re a smaller organization than UCAT, but they’re specialized toward crushing us. Gyes said they have almost nothing to use as bargaining chips, but that means this won’t come down to negotiation.”

“This is starting to smell bloody.”

Kazami tried to grasp this unseen enemy.

“But even if the Army proclaims their own righteousness, they have nothing to negotiate with afterward. Their righteousness is nothing more than the reason why they want to defeat us; it doesn’t justify anything. In that case, let them come for a fight. We’ve grown plenty strong as well.”

“I-I thought my future wife was only violent, but she’s started having dangerous thoughts, too.”

“Shut up,” she said while sending a light punch into his back.

She then smiled bitterly and warmth filled the wind.

The motorcycle was slowing as they approached the entrance to Taka-Akita Academy.

“But,” she said as inertia gently pressed her against his back. “We should probably be on our guard. I feel bad doing that to Sayama and Shinjou, though.”

“Doing what to them? Oh, because they’re heading out tonight?”

Sayama was going to Okutama to search for Professor Kinugasa’s house.

Shinjou was going to Sakai to pursue Shinjou Yukio.

“As their comrade, I think they should show some self-restraint. I feel bad, but I think we should stop them from leaving and instead go ahead with 7th-Gear’s Leviathan Road. It would be safer if we stayed together instead of splitting up.”

Izumo said nothing and that silence urged her to continue.

“Manager Kashima is visiting the school tonight, right? It’ll be pretty late, but he wants to use the Kinugasa Library to give us a lecture on the formation of the eleven Gears. I’ll tell Sayama and Shinjou then. I’ll probably have to bow down to them, but looking at the big picture, I think that’s for the best.”

“Hold on. If you start rationalizing why you’re going to bow down to someone, it’ll turn into a habit.”

Izumo sounded fed up with this, but Kazami smiled bitterly.

“I’m just going to ask them to keep things like normal. Normal is best in busy and dangerous times like this. When we’re all together like normal, we’re unbeatable, right?”

The wind twisted and the scenery rotated to the right.

She could not see directly ahead due to his back, but the trees on either side changed and they entered the school grounds.

She heard hammering, shouting, and grinding in the distance.

This was their usual school and their usual everyday life.

Scarlet began to fill the light behind them and she saw the color dye his back.

The evening sun slowly began to sink below the horizon.

A certain color spread through the bottom of the night.

That color was a light. It was a red light. Specifically, the red light of flames.

A fire as large as an ocean flickered as it ruled a large portion of land.

And that fire flowed. Even if a building stood in its way, the fire would flow like a river along that rectangular path, cover it, and envelop everything.

The city burned like kindling.

The sound of overheated burning passed between the buildings again and again. The scorching wind was blasted into the blazing sky and released.

But that was not all.

All of the city’s structures had cracks running through them. The larger ones looked like similarly sized blades had cut through them and the smaller looked like they had threads running through them.

The city’s elevated highway and the high-rise buildings were slowly but surely collapsing.

The electronic sign on a certain building was still active.

It gave the date and time as 12-25-1995 4:32 and the temperature as 68 degrees.

From the center of the breaking and burning city, a certain structure was visible to the north.

It was a castle.

The castle’s main tower had an aqua-colored tile roof.

It was Osaka Castle.

Even that giant castle surrounded by white walls had not escaped its destructive fate.

The castle’s collapse began with cracks in the lower wall. With the sound of splitting rock, horizontal cracks ran through the wall and the area above and below the cracks tilted and collapsed either outward or inward.

The giant castle collapsed like a bellows being pressed together. Once that process reached a certain point, the weight of the upper structure caused a landslide to the west.

The entire castle toppled over as if sliding down.

The top of the main tower remained relatively intact, but it was torn apart as it slid atop the avalanche of the collapsing castle.

By that point, most of the buildings in the city had been reduced to rubble.

The elevated structures, the high-rise buildings, the streetlights, the street signs, and everything else that supported the city were gone.

All that remained was the wind, heat, and the dark sky that looked down upon it all.

“——————”

Someone could be seen there.

They were running through the deserted and destroyed city as if rushing into it.

That person was not alone and not all of the people there were running.

There were countless people and they traveled both along the surface and through the sky.

This power that managed great numbers was known as a military force and their advance was swift.

Some wore white and black armored uniforms, some wore black and white ones, some wore blue and white ones, and others wore a few other color combinations. They would leap across several dozen meter areas of destroyed ground as they ran and similarly colored forms flew above.

In the lead was a young man wearing a white and black armored uniform. His features could be described as sharp and he was accompanied by a woman in an identically colored armored uniform.

The short-haired woman said something to him with a pale look on her face.

“—————”

Her words formed a question, but the young man did not verbally reply.

He simply shook his head.

A voice came from overhead and he looked up toward it. Far above, a woman in a black armored uniform rode a broom.

Similarly, mechanical dragons flew into the sky in a dispersed formation. They were moving to intercept something coming from up ahead.

Then, a man ran up from behind the young man and woman.

Instead of an armored uniform, he wore a vest modified into a mountain climbing jumpsuit.

His waist-length hair fluttered in the wind and he drew the long sword on his back as he ran.

As he did, he gave a parting remark about moving on ahead.

However, the others could not hear what he had said.

Nevertheless, the sharp-featured young man replied with a silent look.

That was all, but it was then that the young man faced straight forward.

He turned his harsh gaze forward to look at the crumbling city and at the sky. He then took a breath and spoke.

He spoke the words that would bring an end to this feast of destruction.

His voice called in something active to take the place of the passive collapse.

“Go ahead!!” he shouted.

Shinjou woke.

She did so because something suddenly grabbed her butt.

A tight grip latched onto both the left and right side.

Despite the unexpected situation, no question filled her mind. The very action itself had already led her to the answer.

“S-Sayama-kun!? What are you doing!?”

She shot up from her face-down position and cried out, but that was when she truly woke up.

…''Huh?

Her brain and body could not keep up with her waking.

While sitting on all fours with the blanket over her like a turtle, she looked at the head of the bed before her and then at her surroundings.

The clock said it was six in the evening, the room was dimly-lit, and only a bit of light came in through the window.

“Um…”

She spent seven seconds unable to remember why she had woken or why she had been asleep at this time. Once blood reached her brain, she understood what she was seeing, but it took another dozen or so seconds for her memories to return.

Her recovered memories chose the question with more temporal locality: why she had woken.

…''Um, I think it was because something grabbed my butt.

Indeed something had. And still was.

Wondering what was going on, she looked behind her and found the blanket over her back. For some reason, that blanket was supported even further back than her own body.

It seemed there was something behind her.

“That’s you, isn’t it, Sayama-kun?”

“Ha ha ha. What are you talking about? I am only a modest butt spirit. Your butt was simply so wonderful that-…”

She kicked the spirit and it descended to the floor, blanket and all.

…''I see. Now I know why I woke up.

And now that she had knocked the blanket to the floor…

“It’s cold in here.”

November was arriving soon and the room was nearly dark at only six.

However, she could hear a number of intermittent sounds outside.

They were the same sounds she had heard during May. She heard nails being hammered and transport carts rolling down the pathways.

…''They’re preparing for the school festival.

''That’s right,'' she thought. ''The day the festival preparations begin is…

“The day I leave for Sakai.”

A black binder and a night train ticket sat at the head of her bed.

That was why she had been asleep at this time. She was taking a sleeper train to Sakai late this night. The train left Tokyo at eleven, so she had wanted to take a nap ahead of time.

It had been before the athletic festival in October that she had decided to visit Sakai.

She wanted to pursue the woman named Shinjou Yukio who was the grandchild of Shinjou Kaname, a member of the National Defense Department.

She felt the woman was a stranger. The age fit for being her parent, but she was female. If she had gotten married, she would have taken on her husband’s surname.

But she had a reason to pursue her despite that: the hymn titled Silent Night.

…''She most likely knew the song that was my only memory.

They had a few points in common: the surname, their lack of parents, and that song.

That was enough to give her a curious desire to pursue the woman.

And as far as her schedule was concerned, she would soon become much busier with the student council and UCAT.

That made this her only chance.

All she knew was that Shinjou Yukio had been taken in by an orphanage church in Sakai after she had lost her parents.

Shinjou had done some searching online and had found a few different churches, but all she had learned was that none of them had existed during the sixties when Shinjou Yukio had been born.

Most of the earthquake volunteer websites were no longer functioning. She had emailed and called the places with reduced operations, but had not learned much of anything.

She could not think of any other way to draw information to her while remaining in Tokyo, so she would travel to Sakai and visit the city’s municipal office and the local volunteer office. That would likely be the quickest method.

In truth, she felt it would be easier to ask Sayama, Ooshiro, or the others for help.

…''But this is my problem. Also…

“Sayama-kun said he was going to search for Professor Kinugasa’s house in Okutama.”

He would be entering the mountains at night. She thought that was irrational, but he was an irrational person. She doubted he would be able to restrain himself and she was almost certain stopping him would make him even more likely to go.

And then…

“Are you simply going to ignore me, Shinjou-kun?”

The floor spirit spoke to her, so she ignored it. She was fairly certain a 1st-Gear teaching said listening to the voices of evil spirits would allow them to drag you into space-time.

…''Well, that doesn’t matter. But…

“Huh?”

She felt like something important had happened just before the spirit had grabbed her butt.

…''I had a dream before that woke me in surprise.

The word “dream” triggered her memories.

The dream had been of the city of Osaka burning.

It was obvious why she had had that dream. Baku was here and Sayama was with her too.

When she realized that dream was something that had actually happened, she shuddered and took in a breath.

She then remembered the people who had run through the center of crumbling Osaka in the dream.

“Sayama-kun!”

She flipped over, got down from the bed, and ran over to the blanket curled up on the dark floor. She ignored the chill of the floor on her bare feet as she did so.

“S-Sayama-kun, were the people running in that dream your…?”

“They were likely my parents.”

“R-right. Then that was Osaka, wasn’t it? Based on the date given on that electronic sign and your parents’ presence, was that a scene from the past when they went to help with the Great Kansai Earthquake?”

She assumed he would agree, but his response was not that, yet not quite the opposite either.

He used a vague wording that was unusual for him.

“Was it really?”

Shinjou tilted her head at that question coming from the blanket.

“Eh?”

Her tone of confusion must have reached Sayama because he peeled away the blanket to reveal himself.

He wore white pajamas and Shinjou sat down nearby when she saw the paleness in his face.

“Oh, are you okay? Does your chest hurt?”

“Yes,” he admitted.

He gave a look that was both relieved and expressionless, but the lack of light kept her from seeing it properly.

Instead of moving away to turn on the lights, she approached so as not to miss the look on his face.

“Thank you,” he said. “I was in a lot of pain and I found myself relying on you. You helped a lot.”

“Do you really think that’s the part of me you should be relying on?”

“No, but you were asleep. I wanted to avoid interrupting your peaceful sleep, so I decided to use a part of you far from your brain. …Did I do something wrong?”

“Butt spirits sure are making awful excuses these days.”

Despite her words, she gave a silent sigh of relief.

Sayama would often keep silent about anything related to his relatives, especially his parents. This was the same, but she was glad that he had come to her when he was in pain.

…''Even if his method couldn’t have been more wrong.

“Anyway, to get back on topic, why do you think they weren’t on the way to help with the earthquake?”

“Well,” he said while crossing his arms with his back against the side of the bed. “Simply put, German Inspector Diana-kun and the mechanical dragons were zooming along through the sky. If anyone from Osaka had seen that, their utter astonishment would have led them to give one hell of a tsukkomi.”

“I sense a bit of a prejudice about people from Osaka there, but you’re right.”

“Yes. We may be used to those crazy scenes, but it makes no sense for those things to exist in the real world. And you do not need swords or other weapons for earthquake relief. Also…”

He crossed his arms even tighter and raised his eyebrows a little.

“Not only were there were no normal people in that Osaka, but Osaka Castle was half-destroyed in the Great Kansai Earthquake, yet it was completely destroyed there. …In that case, the answer is simple. A concept space covered the entirety of Osaka and a battle occurred there. In other words, it is possible the secondary damages that killed my father did not actually exist and some other event occurred instead.”

“You mean…”

Sayama looked to her with a small smile on his pale face.

“Their enemy was likely the predecessor to the Army, which is now plaguing us. They fought that organization in Osaka…and my father and many others died. The one piece of good fortune is that it occurred in a concept space. Creating the space only requires a few percentage points of the world’s child string vibration, so the destruction inside is not what caused the Great Kansai Earthquake in reality.”

And…

“The Army will probably arrive before long, but there is something we must complete in a hurry before that. You and I will be separately pursuing our pasts, but there is something else we must do first.”

“Hm? There’s something we have to do before our trips?”

When he heard her question, Sayama gave a sigh of confusion while still looking pale.

“Yes. I have already sent a proposal to the old man. We can discuss it more once I check on the current situation. …And listen, Shinjou-kun. I have a request.”

“Wh-what is it?”

He closed his eyes and suddenly collapsed toward her.

“Eh? Ah, wait! Sayama-kun!?”

“My apologies. It seems I saw too much of the past. I am about to pass out, so could you lend me your lap until I come to? After all, we are leaving on our trips after Manager Kashima’s lecture on the Gears’ formation. I want to touch you while I can.”

With that, he went limp and laid on her lap as nothing but weight and flesh.

She frantically held and supported him, but he had already lost consciousness.

“Sayama-kun.”

She gulped and slowly spoke to the pale face on her lap.

“You just said something very important, you know? If your father and the others died in a battle with the Army’s predecessor instead of in secondary damages from the earthquake, it would completely overturn the reason for and meaning of UCAT’s blank period.”

Of course, even if that was true, the battle occurred in Low-Gear after the Concept War came to an end. It had nothing to do with the other Gears. Even so, something still bothered her.

…''But in that case, why did Ooshiro-san and the others make the blank period in the first place?

And…

…''What is it Sayama-kun said we have to do before our trips?

“What could it be?” she asked herself without expecting an answer and while brushing a hand through Sayama’s bangs.

She wiped away the sweat on his forehead and lowered the ends of her eyebrows.

“And you know I was taken in by UCAT right after the Great Kansai Earthquake, don’t you?”

After pausing to take a breath, she slowly asked a question.

“Does that mean I was taken in during that battle?”

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| Back to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Prologue|Prologue]]
| Return to [[Owari no Chronicle|Main Page]]
| Forward to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 2|Chapter 2]]
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</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Prologue

2026-10-09T02:10:55Z

N-Ch:

==Prologue: Beginning of the End==
[[Image:OnC_v10_0011.png|thumb]]
''That is something

''That swoops down

''In the very places that refuse to accept it

There was a sound.

It was a low electronic tone sounding four times to indicate the hour.

But that sound was not the only one permeating the air.

Another higher-pitched sound continued without end: a set of footsteps.

Those footsteps traveled down a white corridor. The windows of that corridor showed the early morning from four stories aboveground.

A woman was walking down the corridor. She had red hair, a slender body, and a maid uniform. Her right hand held a box of food.

She and the footsteps both stopped in front of a certain room.

The white door contained a placard with the handwritten words “The Holy and Incredible Ooshiro Kazuo’s Room”.

When she saw the placard, the woman tilted her head and lowered the box to the floor.

“I have determined this requires correction.”

She pulled a magic marker from her chest and rewrote a portion so it now said “The Wholly Incorrigible Ooshiro Kazuo’s Room”. She replaced the rewritten placard and then straightened it.

“Well done. I have determined that was an excellent job.”

She pressed the button next to the door to open the door.

“?”

But it did not open.

She tilted her head in confusion and turned to look at the button.

She noticed a piece of paper stuck next to it which contained a cartoonish drawing of Ooshiro giving a thumbs up.

“Make a weird noise and the door will open!” the drawing said.

<nowiki>#8</nowiki> corrected her posture and tried to decide what to do, but the concept of “weird noises” did not exist within an automaton. Any noise an automaton made had the approval of their accurate decisions.

No automaton’s decisions would approve of something “weird”.

While trying to figure out what to do, she realized she had forgotten something.

As was the custom near the end of the month, the rooms were to be cleaned today and some preliminary preparations were needed for that.

That was why she faced the closed door and spoke through her shared memory.

“#23, spray insecticide into the room in front of me.”

“Tes.”

While determining that she was satisfied with how #23 responded without question, she picked up the box from the floor with her right hand.

A moment later, she heard something from beyond the white door.

“Nwopei!!”

The automatic door opened and a transparent gas entered the corridor like shimmering heat.

Beyond the door, #8 saw a large white room.

Below the fluorescent lights on the ceiling, Ooshiro was dancing within the shimmering gas.

…''I have determined this is perfectly normal.

She passed by the intensely dancing old man in a lab coat who was holding his throat.

“Ooshiro-sama, I have brought your dinner.”

She visually confirmed the contents of his large desk. It was normally filled with toys, but today it actually had a space cleared in the center. He had likely been doing some kind of work.

…''But what?

She remembered that a lot had happened in the month since the battle with 5th-Gear.

He was likely trying to put everything in order after that.

She then thought about the people involved in that incident.

The 5th-Gear Concept Core half held by Black Sun had been taken into Thunder Fellow’s Vesper Cannon. Heo had become a temporary inspector and her guardian Odor was living in Yokota UCAT along with Roger.

Violet had been destroyed at the Kanda Laboratory, but she was apparently having a new body made. Her body had been a poor match in the first place, but the idiosyncrasies that had given her actions had led to her skill in combat. A standard 3rd spare body could not recreate those idiosyncrasies, so the automatons she had protected were helping create a new body for her below Kanda.

…''I have determined she is a fortunate unit.

<nowiki>#8</nowiki> had been able to see Gyes again during that incident, but the other automaton had returned to Izumo UCAT that morning. #8 had yet to meet Miyako, Gyes’s master, so she wondered what kind of person she was.

Team Leviathan was preparing for the next negotiation. The older members like Kazami and Izumo were occasionally training with the newer members like Hiba and Heo and it seemed they were improving.

As for Sayama and Shinjou…

…''They say they will be leaving for their respective destinations tomorrow.

Sayama was going to the mountains of Okutama to follow in the footsteps of Professor Kinugasa and his own father who had also pursued the professor. His destination was the home Professor Kinugasa had supposedly left behind.

Sayama had a photograph of the building from a newsletter he had brought back from Izumo UCAT. #8 had been the one to calculate out the general location of the building based on the background in the photograph and GPS data.

After thanking her, Sayama had asked if there was anything he could help her with, but she had no personal hopes of that sort. If he had asked if there was anything she wanted him to do, that would have been a different matter.

However, a maid automaton did not ask for that kind of thing herself.

“…”

Shinjou on the other hand was visiting Sakai in order to pursue the woman named Shinjou Yukio.

Chances were good she was not Shinjou’s relative and this was not a Team Leviathan job.

That was why she wanted to do this before the next Leviathan Road began.

…''But the Army is preparing to make their move.

The attacks by the Army had grown sporadic.

Recently, activity had ended in the distribution routes for their overseas sources of money.

This meant the Army was going to make a major move before long.

Thinking about the state of the Leviathan Road, UCAT had already gathered the Concept Cores for 1-6 and 8-10.

The only one requiring new negotiations was 7th, so a lot thought this would be when the Army attacked. Quite a few requests had come in for transfers from the standard division to the field operations division and from the field operations division to the special division.

But even though a lot was in motion…

…''I did not think UCAT Director Ooshiro had much work for today.

Wondering what he could be doing, #8 looked to the side.

“…”

Ooshiro’s dance was approaching its climax.

“Ooshiro-sama, how long do you intend to continue dancing?” she asked with a frown. “Do you not want your dinner?”

“Ah, w-wait, #8! D-d-d-d- you have any idea what is happening to me!?”

She looked at him, placed the box on the desk, opened it, and produced a container.

“You appear to be dancing.”

“Nwah, you’re just the worst! L-listen. I-I c-can’t br-brea-…peh peh peh peh.”

“Ooshiro-sama, you need not try so hard to speak. I know what you are saying.”

“R-really!? Then you know what I just said?”

“Nwah, you’re just the worst! L-listen. I-I c-can’t br-brea-…peh peh peh peh.”

“Not what I literally said! What I have a feeling you don’t understand is what I meant!!”

He held his throat and rapidly jumped up and down.

From that, she estimated what it was he wanted to say.

…''I see.

“Testament. I have determined you are dancing for joy because you are having difficulty breathing.”

“Why do you insist on defying me at every turn!?”

“Ooshiro-sama, please calm down. …Your logic is falling apart. I have determined this is entirely unrelated to whether I am being defiant or not. Let us simplify the problem before continuing: What seems to be the problem?”

“The person right in front of me!!!”

She contemplated his pointing finger. While it was possible he could be referring to her, that was unlikely as he had said “person” and not “automaton”.

Based on that conclusion, she turned around to find the person who must be behind her.

She found a window with its shutter closed, but she saw their reflection in the glass.

She took a step back and Ooshiro was now pointing at his own reflection in the window.

She tilted her head.

“But I already knew that. I am a little disappointed.”

Ooshiro collapsed to the floor and #8 took a step back from his sprawled-out form.

After all, he had taken upskirt photographs of her in the past. He had claimed his shoe was untied, but he had been wearing sandals. Based on the manual Diana had given her, #8 had successfully used the ends of her arms to apply pressure to his sides and transport him about three meters diagonally upward.

…''But ever since then…

“Why was I put in charge of you, Ooshiro-sama?”

“D-do you not like it?”

She replied to the voice from the floor while cleaning off the desk. She dumped the plastic models, dolls, and manga in the trash can.

“I have not determined that. Your room has a high tendency toward entropy and always having a job is a happy thing for a maid automaton. Also, the manual I was given said my primary job is to transport you into the air using various parts of my body. This gives me plenty of opportunities to fulfill that job, so I would call this an excellent workplace. However…”

She continued while bending all of the DVDs piled up on the desk and using them to neatly fill the trash can with no gaps.

“The exact same events repeat too often, so I have recently been unable to stimulate my memory device. I have determined it is a poor environment for an automaton to grow.”

“I-I’m being plenty stimulated right now. Especially as a living creature! S-see? I’m growing faint and I think I have a delightful urge to vomit!”

“Testament. I have determined you are hungry. I had some odd jobs to complete, so I completely forgot about you as your priority level is set extremely low. Your dinner is about eight hours late, so I brought you a large serving of the cafeteria’s new ramen rice. Please eat.”

“Ramen rice? They have that? So it’s a new dish?”

“Testament. Hot ramen noodles are placed on top of a plate of steaming rice. I chose the flat noodles as they seemed to have the most volume.”

“All those carbohydrates are going to make me fat!!”

<nowiki>#8</nowiki> glared down at the old man who was rolling around on the floor.

“Why are you so selfish?”

“I have a feeling you aren’t even listening to me, #8-kun!”

“I have determined you are imagining things. My auditory devices are functioning perfectly as always,” she said. “Also, I forgot to mention it, but in preparation for today’s cleaning, I had insecticide sprayed in your room. If you have difficulty breathing, I have determined you should leave the room.”

“Th-that is why I’ve been suffering all this time!”

She looked back down at him when he said that.

“Why would you dance instead of telling me something so important?”

“#-#8-kun? I just realized what we lack is communication!”

“A maid automaton does not desire casual communication with her master.”

“H-how can you say that when you casually scorn me all the time!!”

“Casually? Even if I have ever scorned you, it would have been after careful thought.”

“How much thought?”

“3rd’s artificial intelligence is perfect, so approximately a split-second of thought.”

“That’s the same thing! That’s the same thing as doing it without thinking!”

She determined he was the sort of person who would never understand even if she stated it plainly.

Deciding to simply leave his food on the desk, she removed the wrap from the ramen rice and set down the containers for the arbitrary toppings she had brought for him: marmalade, chocolate chips, and mint.

Upon closing the box, she suddenly realized what Ooshiro had been working on today.

“Ooshiro-sama, what are these documents on the corner of your desk?”

“Riiiice! Riiiice! That lovely silver sushi riiiiice!!”

<nowiki>#8</nowiki> followed Entry 11 Part 3 of the manual and pressed the end of her leg against his side for just an instant to make him hang in midair for approximately two seconds. Her job was to transport him to the air. What happened afterward was none of her business.

He slammed into the wall, bounced off, and stood up.

“O-ow!! #-#8-kun! I think kicking me is a bit-…”

“Ooshiro-sama, that is irrelevant, so please answer my question. I apologize, but it is a question about one of your few actual jobs. When I checked your desk, I noticed-…”

“Oh, you mean the new figure I bought? That’s Full Transformation Magical Girl Gomes Trigger!”

<nowiki>#8</nowiki> broke Gomes Trigger into four pieces and dropped them into the trash can.

“Ahhhh!!”

The door opened and then closed at that weird cry, but she did not care. Without a thought to how nosy she was being, she gathered the documents from the corner of the desk.

She commented on the first five documents.

“Why are these letters of resignation addressed to you? Is someone planning to leave during this busy and dangerous time when the Army could attack at any moment?”

Ooshiro did not react. After his previous shout, he had inhaled and crossed his arms and he was now staring at her in that pose.

He was showing his teeth in a smile and #8 made a certain judgment about that expression.

…''Is he testing me?

Meanwhile, she reached for something else on the desk.

It was a schedule for Team Leviathan’s actions and it was written by Sayama, but the actual schedule was summed up in a single sentence.

“What is this? It makes no sense. Don’t tell me Sayama-sama plans to…”

Just as she prepared to say aloud what Team Leviathan was scheduled to do, she realized something.

Ooshiro had passed out while still standing and smiling.

…''Did the insecticide get to him?

If he died, she would be the one to discover his body. She would be thoroughly questioned, but she wanted to avoid that since she was so busy. That was why she grabbed his collar and dragged him over to the automatic door.

However, it would not open. A weird noise was necessary.

''Oh, no,'' she thought just before grabbing and twisting the ear of what she held in her hand.

That produced a weird noise and the door opened.

She finally dragged him out into the white corridor. While making her way to the medical room, she thought to herself.

…''Is Sayama-sama scheduled to stop by today?

He was not. Both he and Shinjou would not be visiting UCAT because they had to prepare for their trips on the following day.

“…”

Kashima would be visiting their school that night to give a lecture on how the Gears had been formed. After that, Hiba, Mikage, Heo, and Harakawa had their training and examinations.

“But by then, that item on the schedule will have already taken effect.”

She guessed that it had been Sayama’s request to keep this a secret. But…

“What is going to become of Team Leviathan and the Leviathan Road?”

And…

“I simply cannot understand what you are thinking, Sayama-sama.”

Her gaze turned to the dark night beyond the corridor window.

<noinclude>
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| Back to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Preface|Preface]]
| Return to [[Owari no Chronicle|Main Page]]
| Forward to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume10 Chapter 1|Chapter 1]]
|-
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</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume9 Chapter 36

2026-10-08T04:39:10Z

N-Ch:

==Final Chapter: Where the Wind Reaches==
[[Image:OnC_v09_0501.png|thumb]]
''It is not an easy place to notice

''It is not an easy place to leave once you do notice it

''It is everywhere

The broad blue sky looked almost transparent.

The ground below was covered by the yellow and red of sand and rocks, but those colors were joined by an artificial gray.

The sandy wasteland contained a long runway, a few buildings, and a group of warehouses.

Those manmade structures had a distinct smell, but that faded toward the end of the runway.

A single person stood at that midway point between man and nature.

It was a tall young man with the sleeves of his flight suit rolled up. His blond hair was brushed back and his blue eyes looked up at the identically colored sky.

However, a male voice suddenly called out from behind.

“Oh, James Davis. You actually came back?”

“Don’t make it sound like you doubted I would, Richard Thunderson.”

As the young man named Davis turned around, a bottle was pressed against his chest.

“You can celebrate your return with this. I swiped it from Lord Northwind’s room, so drink it and throw it out here.”

The second young man had the top half of his flight suit removed. His skin was tanned and his blond hair was cut short.

“So how was your wife?”

Thunderson asked with his eyebrows slightly lowered and Davis shrugged.

“Not good.”

But he must have thought that was not enough because he forced a smile and continued.

“Even the doctor told me I need to be there when she gives birth. She’s apparently going to have twins.”

“Well that part’s good news at least.”

“But her family won’t stop telling me to leave the kids with them if anything happens. …They aren’t bad people. In fact, I’d say they’re good people, but still.”

“Their only daughter was stolen away by a flyboy with no known relatives. You should have expected this.”

“You’re right.” Davis looked up into the sky. “She told me she would call me when the kids will be born and she told me to keep flying until then.”

“…”

“Don’t fall silent, Thunderson. It’s creepy.”

“Then am I supposed to give my thoughts? Should I call it a tearjerking story?”

In that instant, a shadow passed by overhead.

“————!”

The shadow instantly flew by from east to west and left something behind: wind.

“!!”

That wind stirred up the wasteland, tore into the sky, and wrapped its arms around the two men.

By the time its embrace left them, they were already looking into the western sky.

Thunderson clicked his tongue.

“Damn that kid Curt! I thought I’d dealt with him by putting him and Lyle in Team A with you, but he’s been fighting back by flying almost as recklessly as me.”

“Sounds like I need to give you a warning before moving on to him.”

“Oh, c’mon. Do you really think a man who hasn’t held the stick for three months now can give me a warning?”

“Hmph.” Davis crossed his arms. “I’ll have you know I flew a civilian piston engine everyday while I was gone.”

“Well that would be why your wife’s family doesn’t like you, you idiot. …C’mere.”

Thunderson began walking down the runway and toward the hangar.

He looked over his shoulder with a smile.

“Curt doesn’t know, so he just used up his training time for the week, but we’re bringing out the new models today. Both Team A’s and Team B’s. We’ll be the first to pilot those two craft we put so much into.”

“And those will be the prototypes we test from now on?”

“Right. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Remember how I said I don’t really know what the point of this fight is? Well, that’s why I like having events like this and other opportunities to fly.” He stopped smiling. “While the others are out fighting a war, we’re working out the kinks of the new craft and creating the final prototype that will most likely determine the design direction American UCAT’s air force takes from now on.”

“You sure are selfish.”

“For taking part in this fight without knowing why?”

“No.” Davis held up the bottle he had been given. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

Thunderson’s serious expression crumbled into a bitter smile.

“You’re right. I shouldn’t get so depressing with a man who just returned from the world below. …How about we hide that in Essert’s locker to give him a scare. That idiot showed off his reverse spin cornering in the 90R when taking Lord Northwind into town last week, so Lord Northwind pinned him to the window.”

“Sounds like there’s no one worthwhile in your team either.”

“Yeah, and that’s why one of them died.”

“I heard. Hughes, right? That makes two with Ohara.”

Davis began walking in long strides to catch up with Thunderson.

“Let’s do our job right. Let’s make sure we won’t feel ashamed to anyone. After all, the sky is a place to be sought, not a place for shame.”

“I agree with you on that one.”

“Right,” said Davis while opening the bottle.

Thunderson frowned while watching him take a swig.

“Are you planning to make the first flight drunk? Where’d you learn a bad habit like that?”

“You’re the one that gave me the bottle. And besides, I said I’ve been piloting a civilian piston engine for three months, remember? Ever heard of a grassroots race? You drink a bottle after each circuit and the first one to vomit has to go land. How about it?”

Thunderson instantly took the proffered bottle.

He brought it to his mouth and gulped down even more than Davis had.

“I discussed it with my wife,” said Davis as he watched Thunderson tilt up the bottle. “If they are twins and one of them is a boy…we’re thinking of naming him Richard.”

Thunderson spat out the drink and Davis watched him hold his nose and tremble.

“I’m glad to see you’re excited enough to give a full-body celebration.”

“Don’t be stupid. What kind of joke is this?”

“It’s simple. This way, I won’t feel any guilt if I have to physically discipline him.”

Davis laughed loudly and from the gut. The laugh carried up into the sky.

“I told my wife he would surely grow up to be a man like you. One who rejects others, acts superior to everyone else, and believes that he’s always right about everything, but at the same time, truly hopes he’s wrong.”

“That’s about the worst kind of person you can be.”

Thunderson clicked his tongue, threw the bottle into the air, and watched the sunlight reflect off of it.

“Then if you have a daughter, I’ll tell her what an idiot her father is. And I’ll tell her to name her own kid after her father. That way, the idiot germs will assume he’s already infected and avoid him.”

“That sounds wonderful. But if I have a daughter, I’m sure she’ll take after my wife. She’ll be a liar, but one who’s always thinking about others.”

After the sound of the shattering bottle, Davis’s voice continued.

“I am so very happy right now.”

As the two of them approached the hangar, two forms left it.

Trucks were pulling out two mechanical dragons that had tires protruding from their landing legs.

The two dragons of blue and white waited beyond the shimmering heat rising from the runway.

“Hey,” said Thunderson while putting his flight suit the rest of the way on. “I’m sure your wife is happy too.

“Yes. And that is why I will go meet her where our happiness coincides.” Davis raised his right arm. “Now, let’s go.”

They were off to their own battlefield.

Heo saw a dimly-lit space.

“…?”

She felt like she was dreaming. Two men stood below the blue sky. One had the same surname as her and the other had the same surname as the great-uncle she had first met that day.

She felt like she was dozing and she did not understand the dream she was having.

…''But…

She thought the two men seemed to be having fun.

She then lifted her head from what she was using as a pillow.

She looked around and found a large room faintly lit by emergency lights.

This was Japanese UCAT’s cafeteria. All of the tables had been removed and countless people were lying on the floor.

All of them slept with blankets over them and the blue and white armored uniforms were mixed together indiscriminately. Some creatures made of plants slept next to everyone and they slowly expelled oxygen.

Everyone had eaten, drank, and celebrated here until they grew tired.

Before going to sleep, she had decided she would live with Harakawa from now on. He had complained, but her great-uncle had said he was too busy to look after her and the negotiator boy had played a certain recording for them. The recording was the boy’s proof that Harakawa was deeply obsessed with figures.

Her great-uncle had not looked happy, but she was sure Roger would smooth things over. After all, he and the negotiator boy had apparently planned together to ask her where she wanted to live.

She had also desired to continue working with the Leviathan Road, so she had received the role of temporary inspector from American UCAT.

As Harakawa had been linked as Thunder Fellow’s pilot, he was given a temporary position in Japanese UCAT.

She looked around now and saw the group who had visited Harakawa’s house sleeping nearby.

She also saw someone moving between them: Harakawa’s homeroom teacher.

The woman walked around and fixed any blanket that had fallen out of place. At the moment, she fixed the blanket covering a girl and her black cat. That was the girl who had shown up partway through the party and harshly questioned everyone as to why she had not been called.

Heo began to get up in order to help, but the woman noticed and shook her head with a smile.

Heo accepted the refusal because her body still desired sleep.

As she pulled up her blanket in order to go back to sleep, she heard a song.

Someone was singing in their sleep nearby.

She looked over and found a girl sleeping in a sitting position. She wore a white armored uniform and her long black hair swayed as she slept and sang to the negotiator boy who slept with his head on her lap.

Heo also saw a small animal within arm’s reach on the boy’s head.

She could hear the song because the girl seemed to be singing it as a lullaby for the boy.

“Silent night, holy night

Long we hoped that He might

As our Lord, free us of wrath

Since times of our fathers He hath

Promised to spare all mankind

Promised to spare all mankind.”

The faint song that almost sounded like humming replayed in Heo’s heart.

Her mother had sung her that song long ago.

“…”

She silently pulled the blanket over her head and lay down to rest.

Only once she placed her head back on what she was using as a pillow did she realize it was Harakawa’s arm.

She gave herself over to him. She brought her head to his arm, placed the blanket over that, and curled up as if clinging to him.

For some reason, that action made her feel as if she understood why her parents and other relatives had fought.

Her new life would begin the following day.

That reminded her that her great-uncle had given her two things before leaving for the base.

They were contained within an envelope above her head. One was the paperwork needed to transfer to an Akigawa city school and the other…

…''A photograph of the North Star.

She had been delighted to see he and Diana were safe and he had given a troubled look when she had hugged him.

She wondered if she would be troubling him more in the future like she would with Harakawa.

She also wondered if he too had been thinking about the dragon which had disappeared toward that star.
[[Image:OnC_v09_0512-0513.png|thumb]]

She closed her eyes without knowing the answers, but her thoughts turned to the parents who had protected her, a number of other people, and even Black Sun.

…''Thank you.

She breathed a sigh of relief, pressed against Harakawa, and fell asleep.

And as she did, she wondered if she could one day become like them.

“My first promise.”

<noinclude>
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| Back to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume9 Chapter 35|Chapter 35]]
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| Forward to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume9 Afterword|Afterword]]
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</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume9 Chapter 35

2026-10-08T04:37:19Z

N-Ch:

==Chapter 35: Black Guidance==
[[Image:OnC_v09_0445.png|thumb]]
''I want to be praised

Heo managed Thunder Fellow’s body and Harakawa piloted it in a clash with their enemy.

That enemy’s firepower surpassed their own.

That enemy’s physical strikes surpassed their own.

That enemy’s armor surpassed their own.

Nevertheless, rejection filled Heo’s will.

Their speed was greater.

Their mobility was greater.

Their will was greater.

Nevertheless, questions filled Heo’s will.

Why did that enemy fight?

What did he seek?

And what would be his answer?

''Let’s go,'' she thought.

''Let’s fight,'' she thought.

''Let’s find that answer,'' she thought.

She currently had the body of a high-speed cruising mechanical dragon.

She was attacking a black dragon that was heavily armed.

White lightning and black shots crossed paths, the former hit and were deflected, and the latter grazed by and tore away armor.

However, Thunder Fellow found an instantaneous opening and circled above Black Sun. From the sky behind Black Sun, he accelerated straight toward the front of that black dragon.

He passed above the twin-fuselage wings that looked like buildings. Even at the speed of sound, it would take almost two seconds to travel across those six hundred meter wings. And Black Sun was also accelerating, so Thunder Fellow’s relative speed was dropping.

With her senses sped up five times over, the coming approach would last a few dozen seconds for Heo.

The sound of wind echoed off Black Sun, but Thunder Fellow left even that sound behind. The blue and white mechanical dragon no longer hesitated as he flew across Black Sun’s right wing.

He had a plan.

Black Sun’s main body was a black mechanical dragon measuring three hundred meters long and it existed in the rear center of the twin-fuselage. It was guarded by the protective field of that twin-fuselage and by its many cannons, so it would not be easy to approach.

However, there was an instant at which Black Sun’s main body was defenseless: when the main cannon on the bottom of that main body was fired.

If Thunder Fellow fired his main cannon at that moment, it would reach his enemy.

During their first meeting, his light had been blocked by the main cannon’s acceleration light created between the twin-fuselage wings.

But what if he passed those and fired at extreme close range?

…''We can do this.

They needed to fire the main cannon and to do that they needed to circle around and face the enemy.

That was why Thunder Fellow traveled over the twin-fuselage wings and fired.

Twin bolts of lightning tore into the armor panels as he traveled ever forward.

It all happened at high speed.

The cannons on the twin-fuselage wings responded with their black light.

The attacks were all at close enough range to leave no room for evading a shot after it had already been fired.

To avoid them, Thunder Fellow needed to predict the attacks by the direction Black Sun’s cannons pointed and whether they contained black light or not.

Making those predictive evasions was Harakawa’s role.

His reflexes forced the high speed cruising craft all over the place and Heo felt those movements as movements of her own body.

…''We can do this!

Black Sun’s attacks were numerous, but they were no different from his normal attacks. Once Harakawa memorized the cannons’ timing, he could take them out one at a time and destroy the twin-fuselage wings.

However…

“Black Sun’s heat level is rising!!” warned Thunder Fellow.

At the same time, Heo saw the area above Black Sun – the area they were flying through – transform into an area of destruction.

Every cannon was firing continuously.

In an instant, Black Sun’s top surface became a temple filled with thousands of black pillars.

However, those “pillars” were cannon blasts supported by Black Sun’s massive firepower. This attack’s true form was countless massive swords of continuous light that ignored the heat radiating from them.

“…!”

But rather than as swords, everything before them rushed toward them as pure attacks.

Heo gulped, but spoke with strength in her voice.

“Harakawa!”

“It’s like having a group of thugs pick a fight with you, isn’t it!?”

The tension in his voice belied his light words.

But Thunder Fellow began to move nonetheless.

He no longer had time to fire his lightning attacks, so he emitted swords of light from his wings, pushed past or cut through the approaching black blades, and continued forward.

“…!!”

Even so, his armor was torn away in several places all over his body.

Several of his swords of light broke, but each time they did, they were pulled out and produced a tremendous cut.

Metallic sounds sliced through the black forest made of black pillars. His speed never dropped as the few dozen seconds seemed to stretch on infinitely.

Heo felt pain because her senses were the same as Thunder Fellow’s.

…''But this is drawing out his true ability!

She did not reject the pain. She simply gave Harakawa permission and squeezed out all of her own strength.

All she could hear were the surrounding sounds of clashing light and darkness and a voice.

“Can’t we open a path with our main cannon!?” asked Harakawa.

“No. It is only for a slight moment, but I must stop in the instant of firing to cut off the reflux of power. If I do that, we will be destroyed. Also, you know when we must fire the main cannon, don’t you?”

“Hah,” laughed Harakawa within the shaking of shockwaves. “You’re going to blast that thing’s main body once we get through all this and circle around in front, right? The instant he fires his main cannon is the instant the inside of the twin-fuselage and his own front armor are removed. Also…”

Harakawa trailed off and Heo found that odd, so she asked him about it.

“What is it?”

“Oh, it’s just that I saw something strange just before we were shot down when facing Black Sun the first time. It was…” He hesitated again. “Something that shouldn’t have been there.”

“H-Harakawa. Did the tension of the battle make you go crazy?”

“We need to have a talk after this is over, Heo Thunderson.”

As she listened to him, one of their light swords broke on a black pillar that was quickly swung toward them on the right side.

The sword shattered with the sound of breaking glass, but it produced enough of a gap in the attacks for the mechanical dragon to slip through.

The same cycle repeated again and again.

Nevertheless, the dragon kept at it. He was almost at the end and the pillars were growing less dense.

But it was still a balancing act until he truly did reach the end.

Heo thought she heard Harakawa groan, so she quickly spoke up.

“Um, Thunder Fellow? Do you have any other good weapons? Y’know, um, something you would see on that Captain Nuclear cartoon that’s popular in America.”

“I do not know what you mean.”

“Why are you watching that environmental destruction cartoon?”

“I-I was trying to be considerate, so why are you two being so serious!?” she shouted.

“My only other weapon is the Vesper Cannon. The only other thing would be too dangerous to use now.”

“There’s something else?”

“There is, but it is not a weapon. It has also never been tested and a test activation would be too dangerous now that the battle has begun.”

“But…”

Just as Harakawa began to reply, Heo felt something odd.

It was a sound being sensed by Thunder Fellow’s entire body. The auditory devices located across the dragon’s body were picking up something unnatural.

There was a hole of silence behind them.

“Harakawa! Something’s coming from behind!!”

A moment later, something shot through all the black pillars behind them.

The front-facing sub-main cannon at the base of the twin-fuselage had fired on them.

Black Sun’s plan had been to surround them with the countless black blades and then fire this piercing shot.

“What a cheap trick!!”

Heo made up her mind in an instant and left all of her sensory acceleration with Harakawa.

And in exchange, Thunder Fellow took action.

What Heo saw him do was not what she had expected.

Harakawa swung Thunder Fellow’s left blade to the left and shut down the right blade.

Shutting down the blade meant to protect their side should have meant being hit on that side, but Heo did not wonder why he had done this.

…''Please take care of this!

Her only decision now was to trust him.

A moment later, lightning raced from Thunder Fellow’s right side and it was directed straight down.

A cannon was located there and the lightning blast gouged out the dome-shaped weapon and blew it backward.

And as the black spear of an attack approached from behind, it collided with the wreckage of the destroyed cannon.

That weakened it and she heard Harakawa raise his voice.

“Let’s turn this around, Heo Thunderson!!”

Black Sun watched the movements of the blue and white mechanical dragon.

That enemy’s left sword strike broke through several of the black pillars sticking up toward the sky.

The enemy then flew into the gap this created on the left.

But the enemy could not avoid everything. Even if he broke through the pillars on the left, the bases had not been broken and the interrupted blast would recover quickly.

And he could not cover all of the black pillars coming from the right.

On top of all that, there was the sub-main cannon blast from behind. It had been weakened, but it was still plenty powerful as it struck the blue and white dragon that closed its rear thrusters for defense.

But despite the hit, the dragon somehow managed to endure.

He purged most of his armor and opened various parts along his body to allow the excess heat and force to escape. He had lost armor and gathered heat, but he still flew into the empty space on the left.

That meant the space between the twin-fuselage wings.

Black Sun had been waiting for this. His prey had entered within range of his main cannon.

He had already prepared his main cannon to fire, so the eight black pillars between the wings had gathered strength and the cannon below his body was wrapped in black heat.

But the blue and white had done the same.

While almost tumbling in between his wings, the enemy had rotated around and white light had already gathered in that enemy’s mouth as he prepared to fire his own main cannon.

Both dragons faced each other and they adjusted their power in just an instant.

They would fire at almost the exact same time, but that was acceptable from Black Sun’s point of view. Their base power outputs were different, so he was guaranteed to win in a collision between their main cannons.

He had already scanned the output of the other dragon and he knew the time it took that dragon to fire its main cannon thanks to the child craft he had sacrificed. On top of all that, he had altered his calculations to include a slight increase in ability as the blue and white dragon continued to fight.

The calculations were flawless.

The blue and white dragon would fire its main cannon, but the black main cannon would swallow up that white light.

That was the expected outcome, but the other dragon’s dragon cannon fired too suddenly.

The cannon’s light had converged and finished its firing preparations slightly before Black Sun’s had.

“…!?”

Black Sun saw what should have been impossible as the blue and white dragon fired a scattering beam of white light.

That was when he saw someone inside the cockpit in the enemy’s head.

In fact, he saw two people.

Just before firing his main cannon, the other dragon had released the power taking them inside him. He had gathered every last bit of power into his main cannon and finally accelerated that power.

“——————”

Black Sun saw the white light spreading out before him, but he was certain of one future: his victory.

His sight devices saw a black form fly in front of the approaching white light.

It was the final midsized mechanical dragon.

The white light scored a direct hit, but it could not penetrate all the way through the midsized dragon. Its armor broke, the light tore into its underside, and that light reached its back, but the dragon continued to move.

Black Sun ordered the child craft to seize the enemy.

And it did exactly that. It poured everything into its unharmed wings, slipped between the twin-fuselage wings that contained black pillars of lightning, and collided with the blue and white dragon.

A metallic sound rang out like a bell as the midsized dragon carried out its duty despite beginning to fall apart.

Its three hundred meter body desperately grappled with the thirty meter dragon.

The girl in the rear seat of the enemy’s cockpit had vanished. She had combined with the mechanical dragon once more.

An odd sensation came over Black Sun when he saw that. It was the same as the familiar scent.

Had he once known that kind of thing?

But he ignored it because the girl was a human of this world, not of his world.

The blue and white dragon moved its legs in an attempt to break free of the black midsized craft’s bonds, but it was no use.

The high-speed cruising dragon lacked close-quarters combat ability and he did not have a transformable frame, so there was nothing he could do. He might have stood a chance as a close-quarters combat model or a standard cruising model that could move its legs more, though.

Black Sun fired his main cannon.

A great roar rang out and black light filled his vision.

“———————”

The midsized dragon gave one last cry to say it had completed its mission.

A corridor was filled with white light.

The north wall contained a bathroom, a bath, a kitchenette, and the landing of the stairs down to the next floor, but all of them remained dark.

The south wall contained a counter with a large space behind it and several rooms with white wooden doors.

The label on the counter said “Nurse Station” and the neighboring rooms had the names of patients on the doors.

This was a hospital ward.

One of the wooden doors to those rooms was open.

It was the door labeled “Harakawa Yui”.

The room inside was dark and the light attached to the bed was the only illumination.

Someone in light purple pajamas stepped out into the corridor as if emerging behind the door.

It was Yui.

Her hair was damp and she had a white bath towel over her shoulders as she walked to the nurse station. Her slippers made little noise, but they sounded plenty loud in the silent hospital.

The baby room which contained the newborns was located beyond the nurse station.

The baby room’s wall was made into a window and two young women were peering through that glass wall.

When Yui saw them, she wondered if they were new mothers looking to their children inside.

As she walked past the nurse station, someone called out to her.

“Yui-san,” said a young nurse.

After spending so many years here, Yui treated this nurse as her junior and the nurse treated her in kind.

The nurse grabbed some karinto from a glass container.

“Want some?”

“No thanks. I already brushed my teeth.”

Yui shook her head and the nurse smiled bitterly.

“Taking a walk?”

“Oh, yes. I was having trouble sleeping. I had a guest today, after all.”

“Your son, right? Um…”

The woman trailed off and it likely had to do with her son’s appearance, but Yui replied with a tone that said she did not mind.

“He takes after my husband more. …And I’m proud of that. But today I had someone else visit.”

“Someone else? You mean that teacher who always trips and can never find the stairs when she leaves?”

“No, not her either. …I guess you could call her my son’s girlfriend.”

“Oh?” The nurse drew back with a smile, placed the container on the desk, and held her hands together. “Well, congratulations. If anything comes of it, have them come here.”

After saying that, the nurse gave a quick “ah” of realization.

“What is it?” asked Yui with a tilt of her head.

“Well, today’s garbage day.”

“Oh,” said Yui with a strongly bitter smile. This happened occasionally, so she knew what the woman was trying to say. “You mean the apple skin, right?”

“Yes. After cleaning, Tama-san always shows me the apple skin when you do that. It doesn’t matter how often I say not to pull trash out in front of people.” Her bitter smile grew stronger as well. “Peeling it in a single continuous strip isn’t easy. And you do it with a one centimeter width, too. But…”

“But?”

“There were two today, weren’t there? Was the other one by your son’s girlfriend?”

“Oh? Why do you think that? It’s my special skill.”

“Well,” she looked up at the ceiling for a moment as she hesitated whether to say it or not. “One of them was even thinner. It was so thin it shocked Tama-san and stopped the head nurse from scolding her like usual.”

“And which one do you think was mine?”

The bitterness left Yui’s smile as she looked to the nurse.

The nurse met her gaze for a moment.

“Well…”

“Let me tell you something interesting. I gained that skill while competing with an old friend. The men we worked with liked fruit, so we had plenty of opportunities. That friend of mine was incredibly good at it and I still haven’t reached her level.”

“Is there really a monster like that out there?”

“There was one here today, wasn’t there? And this girl worked even faster than my old friend did.”

Yui turned to the right in order to return to her room.

“Yui-san, weren’t you going to take a walk?”

“I feel better now. Our talk helped me relax. I’m sure it will work out now. Oh, and one other thing.”

She rested her elbows on the counter and showed her teeth.

“Can I have a karinto? I can always brush my teeth again.”

Black Sun saw the explosive flames in the sky.

Smoke and flames remained in the dark sky between the large twin-fuselage structure added to his wings.

That was both the final remains of his army and the remains of his enemy.

The wreckage was smashed to pieces and melted and now the wind would simply blow the smoke away.

His sight devices had already turned his thermal and gravitational vision to the west, but he still made sure to record the final attack with every one of his sight devices.

And due to the trailing smoke, his optical vision required the longest time to record.

Finally, the wind cleared away the smoke.

There was nothing there.

Black Sun saw nothing but sky all the way to his destination in the west.

He diverted more power to his accelerators, closed the armor panels that he had expanded for defense, and deployed some small airplane-like wings. He also stored his main cannon in his underside as he slowly moved forward.

This world’s characteristic stars could be seen in the dark sky overhead, but a question came to his mind.

This world – the planet he was on – had a satellite. It circled the planet at a set interval and the sun gave it the illusion of waxing and waning as it did so, but was it visible in the sky tonight?

Black Sun turned his optical sight up to the night sky and saw a circle of white light.

However, this was not the satellite he was looking for.

This was the light of an attack. It was the gathering light of the blue and white dragon preparing its main cannon to fire.

“…!”

Black Sun immediately changed his vision to a scan of the enemy.

This was definitely the previous mechanical dragon, but his form had changed.

Somehow, his pointed high-speed cruising form had become a close-quarters combat form with larger legs.

“—————!!”

The beast’s roar descended from the sky and his entire body collided with Black Sun.

An intense sound filled the air as heavy metals crashed into each other.

With a deeply lasting impact, the other dragon’s four arms dug into Black Sun’s back at the base of his twin-fuselage wings.

This intense landing had enough force to break the framework of a transforming model, but Black Sun’s upper vision told him his enemy was unharmed.

The blue and white mechanical dragon on top of him had the thick frame of a non-transforming model.

He did not understand.

He considered the possibility that there were two enemies, but the boy in the pilot’s seat was the same as before.

He simply did not understand.

And as soon as this inexplicable fact filled him with confusion, the enemy fired his pre-prepared white main cannon into Black Sun’s back.

The direct impact of the explosive blast was of course a problem, but the shockwave that spread from that point of impact tore up his armor to quickly open a hole of destruction. The second and third shockwaves tore into the inside and outside of the additional armor and smashed the connections between the main body’s wings and the twin-fuselage wings.

“—————!!”

Black Sun made an instantaneous decision.

He purged it all and cast it aside. He cast aside the twin-fuselage wings, additional armor, accelerators, and everything else he had added onto his main body through evolution.

Black Sun’s three hundred meter form shot backward as if stripping off an empty shell.

He was the same size as the midsized craft modeled after him, but his power, armor, and firepower were all superior to theirs.

He quickly put half a kilometer between himself and the purged twin-fuselage and he made a decision.

The enemy’s identity was a mystery, but he simply had to defeat that enemy.

For a weapon, he had the main cannon which had evolved below his main body where he held it in his legs. Its power would drop without the pressurization of the twin-fuselage, but it was still powerful enough to pierce through the sky. More importantly, he would not have to wait as long to fire it.

Currently, the enemy was trying to remove his legs that were embedded in the back of the falling twin-fuselage.

In its close-combat form, it could not fly freely enough to nimbly evade the main cannon blast.

And so Black Sun immediately fired.

His goal was simply to pierce through both the enemy and cast-off twin-fuselage wings and to make those wings explode.

The black light raced out and first pierced into the twin-fuselage wings. The black structure still retained some of the residual power from its job as a pressurizer and it shook as it was pierced through during its fall.

“!”

A massive explosion scattered black smoke and red flames through the air.

The great noise reverberated through the sky and the air trembled as if from an earthquake.

The great voice of the explosion was numbingly loud, but Black Sun did not let his guard down. He made full use of his vision’s scanning ability and worked to detect his enemy.

Sure enough, he saw the enemy rising to the heavens on the other side of the blossoming flames.

“…!”

The blue and white mechanical dragon was unharmed. Shimmering heat burst from his rear accelerators as he attempted to circle around overhead to reach Black Sun.

The enemy had changed form again. The muscular body of the close-combat form had grown pointed and his four legs were spread out as wings. Looking at his framework, he was clearly a non-transforming normal cruising mechanical dragon.

Based on the timing of his flight, the enemy had to have quickly transformed from the close-combat form to escape the explosion.

This meant the enemy could transform despite being a non-transforming model.

That should not have been possible.

However, Black Sun grasped the enemy’s trick, the enemy’s evolution, and the enemy’s will.

“—————”

Black Sun changed his line of thinking: The enemy had chosen a different path of evolution than he had.

When he had lost to the enemy army, he had chosen to evolve an army to support himself.

But this enemy had desired to become a powerful single unit rather than strengthening that army.

Black Sun understood that this was a dangerous enemy.

And so he accelerated his lightened body to the western sky where he detected that familiar scent.

He could not allow the enemy to obtain the weapon there, so he accelerated in order to destroy it first.

As they approached Black Sun from above, Harakawa saw the dragon begin to race away.

“Is he trying to run!?”

“No! He is after the Vesper Cannon! He wants to destroy the weapon that can truly defeat him!”

“In that case,” muttered Harakawa while shifting from a descent to a pursuit of Black Sun. “Heo.”

He called her name, but it was so sudden that she was unable to reply.

“Are you listening, Heo Thunderson?”

“Oh, y-yes! What is it?”

He could see Black Sun’s back accelerating away up ahead. The dragon’s speed was enough to leave them behind in their normal cruising form, but Harakawa spoke calmly.

“It’s time to run. We can see the goal line and so can our opponent.”

“Right!”

Harakawa felt Thunder Fellow take in a slight breath. The breath gathered strength in his gut as if making up his mind.

And then he heard Heo’s voice.

“Let’s go, Harakawa, Thunder Fellow. It’s time to move the legs that stopped so long ago.”

Harakawa nodded, closed his eyes, and muttered the words that would set it all in motion.

“On your mark.”

He felt Thunder Fellow prepare and take in a breath as if drawing a thread taut.

“Get set.”

And he shouted.

“Go ahead!!”

From a crouching start, Heo kicked herself forward and began to run.

Her fellow runner was Black Sun and he had already taken a false start, but she did not care.

She had long ago learned that victory would come to the true sportsman who played fair.

And even if he had cheated to get ahead, that cheating would mean nothing once she lined up alongside him.

When she took the first step, she changed to a running stance.

However, she did not say anything. She had begun to focus on nothing but running. Just like breathing, she changed to her running stance so naturally that she did not even notice.

In this case, her running stance was her high-speed cruising form.

They had used this system earlier in order to escape the midsized black dragon and avoid Black Sun’s attack.

It was the untested system that Thunder Fellow had been hesitant to use.

Heo now saw it activate and change her current body.

It began with a single action: a dismantling.

Scraping sounds reverberated from her entire body as she broke it down.

Every part making up her body – the head, torso, legs, tail, wings, armor, and everything else – had their bolts removed.

Gravitational control removed tens of thousands of bolts which floated in the air as the blue and white dragon’s body split away from the primary frame that formed the core of his body.

That steel-colored primary frame was normally hidden inside, but it was now exposed.

That frame was currently a normal mobility type. It revealed the dragon’s figure as a spine with connectors for the four legs, various types of armor panels, and the metal bones of the legs.

However, that framework was swallowed up by empty air and vanished. It had entered Thunder Fellow’s concept space.

The sound of colliding metal was the first thing to arrive in its place.

Next, a long, narrow, and pointed gathering of steel was ejected from that space.

This was the primary frame for the high-speed cruising form.

The blue and white mechanical dragon had swapped out his framework at the most fundamental level.

He did not transform and he did not have a fixed form; he would remodel himself.

As his head, torso, legs, and wings floated in midair, they pressed against the frame. And they were placed differently from the normal cruising form. The front legs would be in the way during flight, so they were placed below the torso as ballast for stability. Next, the legs extended backward with no intention of ever having them set foot on the ground. Lastly, the tail was placed on the very back like an airplane’s tail.

Transformations were restricted by the movement range of the frame and other parts, but Thunder Fellow was different. He completely dismantled himself and completely altered the parts’ locations with no concern for their original connections. This allowed him to use the optimal positions for durability, air resistance, and power connections.

He had decided to use this system in order to escape the midsized dragon earlier.

It had succeeded and, during this third use, the moving parts let out cries of joy at achieving the shortest and most efficient cycle.

The temporarily separated wires reconnected along the shortest routes and his new form allowed him to bring forth his most happy power.

With a soft sound of metal, everything was set in place.

That was when tens of thousands of bolts gave a harmony of connection.

The countless metallic noises sounded like the tones of brass instruments.

All of that happened in an instant to give Thunder Fellow a high-speed cruising form.

“Complete.”

And that gave Heo her running stance.

She took the first step, accepted the power Harakawa sent to the rear accelerators, and kicked off the air behind her.

She accelerated.

The great force lifted the front of her body, but she bent her spine a little to hold herself down. She then took the next step like a spring extending forward and launched herself further ahead.

Rather than just lift her knees, she also thrust them forward.

She ran.

She did not move her legs in vain, she did not build up too much momentum and lose her balance, and she did not allow the position of her hips to rise or fall. She simply continued moving her body forward and raising her speed.

Repeating that was known as sprinting and the wind it created was known as a gust.

Her focus narrowed her vision down to a single point ahead of her.

Her increased senses had yet to be reinstated after avoiding the attack earlier and she was not looking at anything in particular as her surroundings rushed by her so quickly. She simply watched the darkness of the night, the overhead wiring of the railroad down below, and the black form not far ahead of her.

At the moment, all she had to do was overtake that dragon which had once been a friend of man.

The sound of her breathing and her pulse were all she could feel.

She did not hear or feel her surroundings.

Hearing and thinking had already left her understanding.

[[Image:OnC_v09_0473.png|thumb]]

The word “wholeheartedly” no longer applied. She had emptied her heart and mind as she ran.

She understood nothing, but…

“————”

She had wanted to run here.

This was where she had wanted to run for so long. Running here would give her an answer to everything she did not understand.

And so she ran through all the unknowns. She ran toward the goal line that lay ahead.

“…!”

She accelerated and threw her body forward.

Harakawa simply leaned forward.

They had already passed through the city, left the outskirts, and flown into the mountains.

Slowly but surely, Black Sun’s form was growing closer to the upper right.

Thunder Fellow’s acceleration had already brought them through an explosion of water vapor and several streams of mist wrapped around the front ends of the dragon’s various parts as he tore through the atmosphere.

The same was true of Black Sun to the upper right. Waving lines of water vapor were wrapped around the large black dragon as he accelerated westward.

Harakawa thought about where Black Sun was headed.

Sayama and his own mother had said IAI contained an organization named UCAT.

That was likely the dragon’s destination deep in the mountains of Okutama.

Down below, the Oume line left Ikusabata which told him how much farther to Okutama.

“About fifteen kilometers!”

At that point, he saw light to the upper left.

Black Sun was accelerating and that speed pushed his giant black form forward.

…''That bastard!!

Even if he was powerful, he still had air resistance and his own weight to deal with. Thunder Fellow should have had an overwhelming speed advantage over that three hundred meter dragon.

“Did he wish to evolve again after his experience fighting an enemy faster than any before?”

Black Sun’s wish had been granted, even if he still did not know the identity or past of his opponent.

But that was true of them as well. They had known nothing.

“But that’s different now. Listen, Thunder Fellow,” said Harakawa. “Return my senses to normal and give it all to Heo’s running so she can live up to the past.”

He received no response, but everything around him gave the answer.

His vision was now linked with their actual speed.

“…!”

But he was not afraid. He simply leaned forward to pour on more acceleration.

Without even a moment’s hesitation, he took in the power supplied by Heo. ''That’s enough,'' he thought in a world moving too quickly for him to see. ''This is your will and your power.

As if to prove that this was her full strength, the world sped up even more.

Only Black Sun was visible to the upper right due to his similar speed.

The giant black form was growing closer. Amid the dense flow of the world around them, the ever-accelerating Black Sun slowly lined up alongside his vision.

But then Black Sun accelerated even further.

“How many more gears does he have hidden away!?” shouted Harakawa.

But then he heard a voice.

“—————”

It was the quiet sound of someone’s mind leaking into the cockpit.

As Heo ran, the mind she was no longer aware of gave off a quiet noise much like radio static.

It took the form of a song.

It was a hymn Harakawa would hear at the base or the hospital on Christmas Eve.

And it was the song his family had sung the night his father had passed away.

Had it been the same for her?

“Silent night, holy night.”

They split the coming wind with a bursting sound.

“Long we hoped that He might.”

They accelerated as if kicking their body forward.

“As our Lord, free us of wrath.”

But Black Sun gave another blast of acceleration.

“Since times of our fathers He hath.”

Black Sun slowly began to pull away.

“Promised to spare all mankind.”

But Harakawa recalled a certain fact.

“Promised to spare all mankind.”

He remembered when he had timed Heo on the one hundred meters. She had said her personal best was thirteen seconds.

Her time at the fifty meter line had been in the upper half of six seconds. She could never have gotten thirteen seconds at that pace.

But he had said something back then.

“Heo Thunderson.”

He said it again even though she could not hear him.

“You’re the type that does better on the second half!”

And that proved accurate.

The mechanical dragon body that had already accelerated so much suddenly shook as if jumping up, but Harakawa knew what that meant.

“Are we beginning to accelerate!?”

That was exactly what happened.

In just an instant, it looked to Harakawa like they had launched Black Sun backward.

They overtook him and their intense series of accelerations did not stop there.

Their speed continued to rise and he simply leaned his entire body forward. He felt like he was leading her, like he was standing on the goal line and calling her toward him.

They continued on.

The ground below was dark as they entered the mountains.

He felt a presence approaching from behind and saw Black Sun’s nose out of the corner of his right eye.

There was a lot he wanted to say: things he did not understand, things that angered him, and much more. However, he gathered all that into a single cry.

“Win this, Heo Thunderson!”

A moment later, they reached the goal line.

The tape they were meant to break was made of light.

Harakawa recognized the band of light from his time on the base.

It was a runway’s signal lights.

But as he shifted his balance backward to slow Thunder Fellow, he realized it was not working.

At this rate, they would pass right over UCAT.

And he knew why: Heo was not granting him permission to pilot.

“Heo!?”

He received no response. Not from Heo anyway.

“It is no use, Harakawa. She has passed out.”

After the continuous tension of the battle and her victory in the race that followed, everything she had been holding onto must have shattered and turned to exhaustion.

He was sure he could wake her and Thunder Fellow could resuscitate her, but there was no time. They would travel the three thousand meters of the runway in only a few seconds at their supersonic speed.

…''What do I do!?

He thought and let go of the roll bars on either side.

“…”

And then he found the answer.

Black Sun realized his loss had turned to victory.

Beyond the band of light and beyond the wreckage of his child craft, he found the familiar object. He knew he would be in constant danger if he did not destroy that.

The enemy had arrived first, but for some reason, that enemy was not making a move to collect it. After all, he was not slowing down.

Black Sun had been planning to ram the enemy in the moment he tried to collect it, but he now scanned the enemy.

That was when he realized the enemy had lost control.

Based on the enemy’s course, he would pass over the building behind the cannon.

Even if he slowed down now, he was moving too fast to collect the cannon. He would either crash into the building or destroy the cannon due to the difference in relative speed.

Black Sun calmly chose to fall in behind the enemy.

And he prepared his main cannon.

However, his sight devices captured a certain movement: The false humans were frantically moving about on the runway down below.

But there were more than just people there.

He also saw a group of automatons and…

Sayama stood on the ground between the runway and the white building with a cellphone to his ear.

“It is fortunate you remembered I had called and that your phone has a callback number, Harakawa!!”

He hung up just as the blue and white mechanical dragon was about to pass by overhead.

“Here they come, everyone! Are you ready!?”

“Testament!!”

Sayama looked around as everyone around him replied.

On the runway and in front of the building were people in white armored uniforms, people in blue armored uniforms, automatons, and plant creatures.

Sayama raised his voice toward them all while waving his left arm sideways at shoulder height and then raising just the forearm.

“Begin!!”

As that word carried through the air, gunfire shot up from the surface.

It was a volley of signal guns.

The flying bullets and beams all shot toward Black Sun who pursued the blue and white dragon.

Their quick approach ended in an instant and both clear sounds and sparks filled the air.

And a response came from the sky.

Black attacks poured down like rain. Straight-line unguided shots flew toward the shooters.

“!”

But the close-range attack unit struck the black light with their armor and weapons.

Their swords shattered and their armor split, but they let out spirited cries.

Their defense had been a success. They were not unharmed, but no one had been lost.

However, it was not over yet.

The wind moved. It was a large and gentle wind.

The wind came from the Vesper Cannon which sat in front of the building.

The forty meter cannon was being lifted up.

And this was done by a black giant named Susamikado.

Susamikado used both arms to lift the Vesper Cannon overhead. The wings on its back expelled heat to maintain its balance while shimmering heat shot out around it.

“Ryuuji-kun!”

“We can do this!!” replied Hiba as he lifted the cannon.

He tossed the Vesper Cannon into the air for just an instant and adjusted his grip from below. He pointed it up at a sharp angle as if preparing to throw it like a spear.

And then Susamikado flapped its wings.

“Oh!”

While holding a cannon several times longer than itself, Susamikado forcibly spread its wings.

It floated up slowly and heavily, but it rose several meters.

A force that could no longer be called wind exploded in the space between the ground and its wings.

However, the god of war’s body and the weapon would not rise any further. They came to a stop and started to fall.

“Dammit!” shouted Hiba. “Is there nothing to help with this!?”

“Ryuuji-kun!” said Mikage’s voice. “We promised to take a bath together if this went well, remember!?”

“I’d forgotten about that!!”

He forced it. He used the acceleration of the wings to power the throwing motion and scorching wind burst from the motors across his body.

“!!”

And he threw it.

The cannon flew into the center of the sky and toward the nose of the blue and white mechanical dragon flying there.

But its acceleration was still not enough. At this rate, the dragon would run into it with too much relative speed.

In that instant, an orderly female voice came from the front of the building.

“Get ready!!”

It was #8. A total of more than sixty automatons in maid uniforms were lined up in front of her.

All of them were holding hands.

“Launch it!!”

With that command, space seemed to bend. A massive gravity lens was created at the center of the ring of sixty maids and it flew upward as a gathering of pressure.

It was directed toward the Vesper Cannon which had been thrown into the air.

The gravity lens surrounded the cannon with a roar and launched it as if it had been hit with a racket.

“—————!”

There was only one possible destination for the flying cannon: the same direction as the blue and white mechanical dragon meant to receive it.

Thunder Fellow caught up to the Vesper Cannon that flew ahead of him.

His entire body dismantled.

He then placed his body around the Vesper Cannon’s mount instead of his primary frame. A normal mechanical dragon could not hold the long cannon because their frame got in the way, but he could truly become one with it by removing his frame and holding it in his arms.

The bolts gouged into the gaps of the different parts.

“…!”

The dragon and cannon connected together and Harakawa gave a shout from the cockpit.

“Heo!”

And again.

“Can you hear me, Heo Thunderson!?”

“Ah…”

A groan of awakening filled the cockpit, soon followed by a gasp.

“U-um, I…”

“You only passed out. The battle isn’t over yet, but…you did well.”

Silence answered his final comment, but then…

“Th-thank you.” She sounded hesitant. “But, um, sorry. It was all so amazing and I’d never felt anything like that before, so I passed out.”

“It isn’t time yet for the nonsensical post-victory interview. …The lonely dragon is on his way.”

Black Sun had not given up and Thunder Fellow’s voice gave proof of their fears.

“He has already begun gathering power in his main cannon. We can connect and charge up at the same time, but I do not know if we will make it in time. And I am sure Black Sun knows that. He will build up power to just barely fire first and divert all other power to aid his attack.”

Black Sun moved forward to line up alongside them.

He was less than one hundred meters away and continued to move forward.

“Is he approaching so we can’t even make a low-power shot!?”

A moment later, Black Sun drew his swords. Long black swords appeared from each shoulder.

“He cannot fire on us either if he approaches,” shouted Thunder Fellow. “Charge up using the Vesper Cannon’s power! Until then, fight back with my own power!!”

The large and small mechanical dragons soaring high in the sky began fighting with gunfire and extreme close-quarters combat.

They exchanged bullets and sword blows while taking repeated evasive actions.

They attacked each other from a position that prevented the other from moving away but close enough to threaten a collision.

The white blades were stopped by the black blades and the black blades were avoided by the blue and white dragon.

That blue and white dragon flew about as a torrent of black gunfire shot his way and avoided it all by reducing the surface area the attacks could hit. At the same time, he put away his swords and fired blasts of lightning, but the black dragon deflected them into the sky with his black blades.

The two dragons approached, clashed, fired, flipped their bodies around, and took a spiraling course through the sky.

Sounds of metal, of firing, and of bursting light intersected many times over and carried through the air.

The dragons were followed by shimmering heat and trails of white clouds created as they tore through the atmosphere.

They swung their entire bodies, accelerated their slashes, repeatedly fired, and evaded.

And a mixture of all those actions repeated at incredible speed.

Both of them let out cries and both of their paths through the sky intersected.

“Let’s…let’s end this!!”

It was like taking your partner’s proffered hand.

It was like supporting and rotating your partner on a turn.

It was like facing your partner and pressing your cheeks together.

“Please remember the people who meant so much to you!!”

The avoided gunfire tore through the sky and air, the blocked gunfire sent countless sparks flying through the sky, and the broken swords scattered in a spray before being replaced.

They rotated as if exchanging places, they did not let up on their attacks or evasions, the black dragon had its back to the sky, the blue and white dragon had its back to the earth, and a moment later they exchanged positions once more.

The only thing that remained unchanged was that they were both soaring.

The two dragons roared and danced through the night sky. Their attacks and evasions were the quick and unfaltering steps of that dance.

When they defended, they would strike back. When struck back at, they would defend. There was no time lag. They passed back and forth an embodiment of the word “attack”.

But their dance came to an end.

The long cannon on the bottom of the black dragon finished gathering black light.

That was when the unseen space that was their destination closed.

A change came over that space.

It moved upward as if to create a way to escape.

Sensing that, the black dragon lowered his speed to move outside the dancing movements of the blue and white dragon.

The blue and white one responded by changing his course and rising into the sky.

They moved apart so they could both fire. After ascending and coming to a gentle stop, the blue and white dragon suddenly began to fly in circles. And these circles spiraled down toward the black dragon whose back was to the earth.

White light surrounded the long cannon on the bottom of the blue and white dragon, but it was still weak.

Nevertheless, he fired.

A straight line of light tore down from the heavens and toward the earth. It ripped apart the air and created a bursting ring of wind while continuing to target the large black dragon down below. And as if to strengthen his aim, the blue and white dragon accelerated.

He moved to slam his entire body into the black dragon.

The black dragon looked up into the sky to face him.

“—————!!”

With a great roar, he fired.

A roar ran through the earth. The trees of the mountains far below were tossed up as the mountain surface shook and it almost looked like the mountain itself swelled up.

The recoil of the blast smashed the earth within a dozen or so kilometers of the black dragon.

The black light containing all that force spread out as if to envelop the entire sky, but it soon converged once more.

The concept cannon pierced upward toward the heavens.

The descending white light was easily swallowed up.

This would end everything.

But the moment before the blast struck, something was destroyed.

The power diving blue and white dragon broke apart.

But this was an intentional dismantling.

“…!?”

Two objects descended through the black light piercing vertically through the center of the night sky.

One was the cannon held by the blue and white dragon.

The other was the blue and white dragon itself sans primary frame.

However, their falling speed was too great. Before the blue and white dragon could reattach its framework, it had passed by the larger dragon. Not only that, but it had already fired. Even if it grabbed the falling cannon once more, it would take time to recharge.

The cannon- and frame-less mechanical dragon passed by the black dragon’s side.

Wondering what had happened, the black dragon tried to turn around.

As he did, he caught sight of a point in the sky.

In the center of the heavens, he saw a single star directly to the north.

But he also saw a silhouette in front of that star.

It was a human boy’s silhouette.

This boy stood on the black mechanical dragon’s nose.

Harakawa stood on the giant black mechanical dragon’s nose.

He was gasping for breath and the tension of this gamble ruled his body.

Using the cannon as a diversion, they had dismantled Thunder Fellow both to evade and to use the dragon’s gravitational control to send Harakawa here.

It had gone well, but…

“I saw it when we first faced each other, but you probably didn’t since it’s right between your giant sight devices.”

Harakawa reached out a hand toward something white sticking out from between Black Sun’s eyes. It was shaped like a shaft and he gave its identity.

“A spear. …Heo’s great-grandfather most likely got this attack in on you.”

He grabbed it. Most of the shaft was shaped like a battery pack and there was something like a trigger near the tip. For some reason, Harakawa’s surname was written on the side of the white shaft: Northwind.

He found that odd, but pulled it out nonetheless.

As soon as he raised it overhead, Black Sun turned the light in his sight devices toward the boy.

The small cannons on his shoulders also aimed at the boy.

But Harakawa had no reason to be concerned. He pulled the trigger and felt a power in the tip of the spear slice through the wind. It was a great invisible piercing power that almost seemed to be made of wind.

“Remember this!” shouted Harakawa. “The north wind will pierce even the dragon!!”

With a clear sound, he slammed the long extending blade between the great dragon’s eyes.

“And remember what it is you are meant to do!!”

With a squeezing resistance, the blade penetrated into Black Sun’s head.

“…!!”

And after thrusting the blade down to the base, the spear broke. Whether it had overloaded or completed its duty, the white shaft shattered like pottery and scattered into the sky.

“————!”

Black Sun let out a great cry.

As that cry shook his body and reached his ears, Harakawa leaped into empty air.

He passed between the wings and armor panels on the black dragon’s back and said farewell to its giant form.

As the wind rushed past him in his fall, he saw the darkness of the earth down below, but another color filled the center of that darkness.

Thunder Fellow waited to catch him in the open cockpit down below and white light filled the cannon he held.

The sign of the conclusion could be seen from Japanese UCAT’s runway.

The Kanda Laboratory had altered the concept space to remove it from the city center and instead stretch it almost to satellite orbit far beyond the stratosphere.

The darkness filling that concept space was pierced by a single white line rising upward.

Everyone saw that white light break through the black mechanical dragon’s chest and out his back.

And another light was visible as well.

That light came from the girl and boy standing in front of the white building.

They were Shinjou and Sayama.

Shinjou tugged on Sayama’s sleeve as he looked into the western sky.

“What is it?”

“Um,” replied Shinjou after making sure everyone else was focused on the west. “About this.”

She extended her left hand. That hand wore Georgius which was wrapped in light.

She frowned and tilted her head.

“What does this mean? Why can I wear it?”

“I do not know and it seemed the old man did not either. All I know is that my mother left Georgius with me and that only the two of us can use it, Shinjou-kun.”

Sayama reached into his pocket and pulled out the papers Roger had given him.

“I still cannot read a single word of the conceptually hidden contents, but I can read the cover now. How about you?”

Shinjou looked down at the cover.

It gave Sayama Asagi’s name as the primary developer, but it said something else as well.

“The research and development was based on some abandoned documents found in the Kinugasa residence?”

She turned toward him in surprise.

“What does that mean? Had Professor Tenkyou started to create Georgius?”

“I plan to find that out for myself. Just as you will pursue Shinjou Yukio, I will follow in my father’s footsteps.”

He then pointed at another point on the cover where a stamp had turned black when the copy was made. The black letters of the stamp said “Project Suspended”.

“It is also worth knowing why we hold in our hands the product of a project that was suspended.”

Shinjou grew pale but slowly nodded as if to support his words.

And then the people around them gasped.

“Look,” said a surprised voice. “Black Sun is rising into the sky.”

Black Sun remembered everything.

The blow into his head had fully activated his self-preservation functions. Similar to having his life flash before his eyes, it drew out all of his knowledge and experiences. This told him there was no saving him and…

…''I remember.

Black Sun’s mind grew clear and his memories returned.

“…”

And once he knew everything, he chose to rise into the sky with his fatally wounded body.

He moved toward the night, toward the sky, and toward the heavens so that he could look out over this world. From those heavens, he could confirm that this world would never be his and that it would never belong to the people he knew.

It would show him that the people who might praise him were no more.

The large black dragon rose.

He moved his wings and lifted his breaking body in his desire to move ever upward. After countless evolutions, he had gained powerful weapons, sturdy armor, and great speed, but this ascent was all he could manage now.

''It’s ending,'' he decided. ''No, it was already over.

He had destroyed his people.

Even if it had been to keep them from suffering and even if he had been ordered to do so, he had still destroyed the world he was meant to protect.

He had trapped himself in the shell of “malfunctioning” and believed in the justification of his actions.

That had come from his refusal to accept that the people were gone and his refusal to accept that his world had been destroyed.

He had lost before the battle had even begun.

Yet he had once more taken a great number of lives and done what he should never have done.

The earth grew smaller down below.

He could see an island. Unlike the islands of the planets he had protected, it was a long, narrow archipelago.

The ocean surrounded it and another large island lay beyond that.

He belatedly realized that everything would grow dark because he was on the night-side of the planet. The planets he had once protected had had the same natural phenomenon.

The people who had created him had often asked how the world looked to him as he flew.

He had always replied that it had planets and it had people.

“…”

He could see the cities of this land too. They could be seen everywhere as dots of light.

The cities of this world’s people could be seen even in the darkness of night.

And he also saw the end of the planet. The horizon formed an arc and he visually confirmed that this world was a round planet.

He altered his vision to amplify the light so he could see everything.

Once he did that, he saw a blue planet.

''It is the same,'' he concluded. ''It matches how I always described the world to the people.

The people had always looked satisfied with that answer and they had praised him. They had told him to do his best which was only natural for a machine, but he had viewed it as an expression of praise and he had used it to judge how well he had completed his job.

He recalled his own creator.

That creator had been a man in glasses. The man had once brought his wife and daughter to the hangar for a periodic inspection.

The young girl had seemed afraid of his appearance, but she had run after him when he had flown from the hangar. He remembered how she had raced along the ground, waving at him and apologizing for being afraid. He had intentionally slowed so he could pretend to race her, but he remembered ultimately turning his back.

There had to be similar people in this world. Compared to the people of his world, they were indeed fake, but they were the real people for this world.

''I am sorry,'' thought Black Sun while admitting to his error. ''I did something unforgivable.

Even if he wanted to make up for it, his body was already broken and falling apart.

He could not even stop his own destruction and make up for his mistakes. His only remaining option was to inform the world of his loss so its people could rest easy.

He would tell them that he was no more.

He did not think of himself as a failed creation. He felt that he himself had chosen failure. Because his own compassion had led him to lose sight of his reason for existing, he had chosen a path of failure.

But…

“…?”

He saw something rising up after him down below.

The blue and white mechanical dragon was rising up in front of him.

The other dragon’s movements and heat distribution showed it had no intention of fighting and he could not have fought back even if it had.

So for a short time, he slowed his ascent and stopped.

As he watched, the other dragon set up an atmospheric protection field and opened the cockpit in the head.

Two people sat in that cockpit: the boy who had made the strike to his head and the girl who had combined with the dragon.

The girl looked up at him while standing on the seat with her shoes off.

''Why?'' wondered Black Sun. ''Why do you look on the verge of tears despite winning?

He was the one who had tried to take everything from her and from this world.

But that was over now. Black Sun named himself to the victor so that a record of his loss would remain and so that everyone would know who was responsible for it all.

“I am Black Sun.”

He transmitted his voice and it played from the other dragon’s cockpit.

When she heard the name, the girl lightly held her own body, took in a breath, and spoke.

She spoke her own name.

“————”

Black Sun heard the name.

It meant happiness in the language of his own world, and…

“…”

''Yes,'' thought Black Sun. ''I am glad I did not destroy that dragon. I am glad I was able to hear that name.

He recalled his own mission. It was the same as his brother craft White Creation: to protect the people and through that…

…''To guide the people to happiness.

That was something he could no longer do after all the lives he had taken.

Nevertheless, a result had survived to stand before him. This was a survivor of the answer that had destroyed him.

He was reunited with the answer of the people he could never meet again.

He did not understand.

He had been unable to fulfill his mission, so why was he able to hear that answer?

Why had he received this answer through his own destruction?

He did not know.

But he accepted his end. The end of his body and the end of his mission.

He would never again destroy another. And to prove it, he opened his chest and pulled out the Concept Core half. He used his gravitational control to pull out the thirty centimeter ball of bluish white light and sealed it in a gravity shell so it could be safely touched.

Finally, he gave it to the girl who had inherited the world he knew.

She hesitantly accepted it in her hands.

“U-um!”

Without waiting for her to finish speaking and without listening, Black Sun looked up into the center of the heavens.

There, he saw a star. It was the same solitary star he had seen from the surface.

He began to ascend as if to take that star for himself. He moved to leave this world and reach a place where there was nothing to protect but also nothing to harm. He made his way toward a place where he could watch over everything that had been lost because of him.

Was the girl below waving to him?

''One who has inherited the happiness of the world I was meant to protect, I wish happiness on you and your world.

“——————”

Black Sun cried out. He gave one last roar of joy.

And he continued his self-destructive ascent. He regretted everything he had done, but he felt he had fulfilled the very first mission he had been given.

And he decided that was the one and greatest happiness he had received from the people.

At 10:12, all of those in the concept space saw a light born in the sky near the North Star.

The light was far too small for the name Black Sun, but it was sharp and bright.

That was Black Sun’s signal to say they had reached the goal.

Afterward, the light slowly and quietly vanished.

All that remained was the wind blowing in from the north. That unseen wind blew roughly through the night.

<noinclude>
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</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume9 Chapter 34

2026-10-07T03:12:38Z

N-Ch:

==Chapter 34: White Guidance==
[[Image:OnC_v09_0427.png|thumb]]
''Let loose the unattractive contents of your heart

''Someone else will find them attractive

An intense battle was underway on UCAT’s runway.

Their main force of mechanical dragons was down to only two, the black god of war was on its fifth and final sword, and the red god of war only had a single blade left.

Metallic sounds rang out without end and they were joined by the sounds of hard objects being split and of bursting gunpowder.

One could also hear people shouting out special attack names, a man talking about his wife and child, and three people punching a fourth.

As these sounds repeated, the situation began to turn in the people’s favor.

In the center of all the movement, a group was firing their weapons. The gunners would surround an individual enemy and then disperse once more.

As they could use their communication devices, each group making close-range strikes could request the assistance of the gunners.

And when the dragons tried to fly and use their quick mobility, the gods of war or mechanical dragons would attack them before they could.

The wreckage of enemy and ally littering the runway functioned as barricades against the dragons as they swooped down.

The Vesper Cannon was simply placed in front of the disguised transportation building, but the black dragons glided so quickly that they would crash into the building if they did not go in for a landing. And it had already been proven that their weight and inertia would cause them to skid even if they did land. That forced them to land much farther back on the runway, but the barricades of wreckage blocked their way and they would be individually surrounded even if they made it past those barricades.

Of the shooters who unloaded bullets while surrounding the enemy, one looked down on everything else.

It was Kazami who held G-Sp2 as a cannon.

…''This seems to be working well.

This formation had been Sayama’s idea.

She could no longer see him anywhere, but he had apparently entered the transport building to gather the automatons from the purged space.

Shinjou was usually by his side, but she was now exchanging Ex-St’s red hot barrel to Kazami’s right.

“It’s not often you aren’t with that idiot.”

“And it’s strange to see you without Izumo-san.”

Izumo was currently attacking with V-Sw and commanding the northern group.

Shinjou looked in that direction and raised Ex-St without bothering to wipe the sweat from her brow or the soot from her cheeks. She had already attached the new barrel and the exhaust of the initial cleaning burst from the back.

With metallic sounds and wind surrounding her, Shinjou faced Kazami.

“Unlike with 3rd, everyone is nearby, so I can relax more. Ryuuji-kun and Mikage-san are here too.”

She gave a small smile.

''She’s changed a bit,'' thought Kazami when she saw that smile.

She wondered if Shinjou had gotten over what had made her cry the other night and thought about inviting her to go shopping without Sayama.

…''I’m like a mother-in-law.

She smiled bitterly while realizing that stupid underclassman would cause some kind of commotion but settle everything in the end.

…''If I leave it to him, will I never have to feel that unease I felt in Roger’s dream?

That dream had made her realize again what the scariest thing in the world was. It was no one’s fault and it was a scene she had been able to see because of who she was. And it was also the scene she least wanted to see.

She had learned how that felt two years ago when she had first learned what it meant to fight, but she had recently started to forget.

She also realized that everyone fighting here had some similar thing.

She had only heard about it secondhand, but she thought the former residents of 5th-Gear must have as well.

“Right.”

She nodded and held up G-Sp2, wondering where she should fire the Concept Core blast.

As she did, she heard a voice from the barricade created by a destroyed black mechanical dragon to the east.

“Hey! Something’s headed this way on an odd course!”

She saw it. She had good eyes, so she could identify it as six small mechanical dragons approaching in the night sky.

However, their course was indeed odd. They were not invisible as the previous ones had been and they showed no intention of stopping at the other end of the runway. Instead, they continued to accelerate.

“They’re using themselves as shells!”

This was a last resort for the enemy. They would give up on stealing the Vesper Cannon or protecting themselves and instead use their own bodies as shells.

It was a sort of suicide attack.

“Idiots.”

The gunners had their hands full surrounding their individual targets. The close-range attackers were all quite powerful, but there was no way they could intercept these black dragons charging in at full speed.

Then what should they do? Kazami knew the answer.

…''I can do it.

And so she yelled to Shinjou who was running to her position.

“Shinjou! Take care of my position too!”

“Sure! But what are you going to do!? You can’t catch up to them even if you fly with X-Wi!”

“Are you looking down on your upperclassman, Shinjou? Just leave it to me. I’ll show you what I’m capable of.”

With that, Kazami began to run toward the barricade to the east.

As she did, Ooki turned toward her while carrying around the green creatures as the commander of the fatigue-elimination unit.

“Oh, Kazami-san! If you’re going somewhere, how about letting these little guys suck the bad stuff out of you?”

''That makes it sound like you’re going to bleed me with leeches,'' she thought while waving her hand horizontally.

She continued on toward the sky visible beyond the barricade.

She began with a slow step but soon built up speed while running between the surrounding people who continued to fight. As her feet began to move faster, she held G-Sp2 under her right arm.

—'''Light is power.

X-Wi expanded and Kazami heard Sibyl’s voice from the forest.

“Chisato-sama! They are seventeen seconds from the point of no return on their approach!”

Everyone understood what that meant, so they shifted their focus to her without stopping their attacks.

She ran down the center of the path of focus created by all the attention gathered on her.

''This feels nice,'' she thought. ''I really like to stand out, don’t I?

So to stand out even further, she spread her wings wide but did not flap them. She raised the wings toward the heavens and kept them there while she ran low to the ground and faced forward. She faced the sky and the six shapes approaching there.

“G-Sp2, that’s our target.”

“I see them.”

“Then it’s time for your third form. You can go that far, can’t you?”

“I can go anywhere.”

After that, Kazami operated G-Sp2’s console while running.

A transformation soon began.

Before her eyes, the firing grip jutted out on either side at the base of the tip to form a T-shaped handle.

The tip had formed the cannon’s muzzle, but that tip now closed.

Instead, the bottom end opened, foot pedals extended on either side at the base of the bottom end, and a triangular armored panel sprang out as if to form the tail of an aircraft.

The completed form looked like a wingless airplane.

The same white light used for the cannon began to leak from the open bottom.

After checking on that light, Kazami flew with a single flap of the wings on her back.

“————”

She placed herself in midair, used the handle as a grip, and placed her feet on the foot pedals.

She was already clinging to G-Sp2 and she spread her wings to the side rather than flapping them again.

This created a vehicle with G-Sp2’s output as the thruster and X-Wi as the main wings.

“You can call this the Gungnir Jet!”

[[Image:OnC_v09_0435.png|thumb]]

She twisted the accelerator and her falling speed was slowed by the light blasting downward.

The force of her fall and her ascent reached equilibrium at thirty centimeters above the broken runway.

She twisted the accelerator in her right hand and the white light reflected off the ground and brightly illuminated her and her surroundings.

The sound of squeezing metal came from G-Sp2 and it began to shake, but she ignored it while using her left hand to lower her goggles over her eyes and leaving everything to G-Sp2 by twisting the accelerator as far as it would go.

“Let’s finish this before the goggles leave a mark!”

She reached the night sky in an instant.

“…”

Kazami broke through the wind and suddenly found the mountains spreading out below her.

Before she could exhale even once and before she came back to her senses, she saw a band of light down below.

The three thousand meter runway now looked no longer than thirty centimeters.

…''Wow.

A trail of light remained from one end of the runway to her current location and that line of light continued to grow.

That meant G-Sp2 was still accelerating.

Her wings were vibrating from the wind, mist wrapped around G-Sp2’s tip, and her pulse began to race. The console in front of her gave a numerical reading on the output, but it was still hovering around twenty percent.

She recalled that G-Sp2 lost almost all sense of self in this state.

She could not speak with it unless she forcibly turned its focus toward her.

Two years ago, she had reached thirty-two percent.

…''And today is the second time.

She saw the enemy ahead in the sky. The self-destructive dragons outnumbered her several dozen times over.

She passed by them in an instant.

A moment later, she controlled G-Sp2 in a forceful way that could not quite be called braking.

She removed her feet from the foot pedals, kept her hands on the handle, and threw her body into the air as if on the horizontal bar.

“…!”

She faced the heavens and swung G-Sp2 around.

It was a forced action. While her legs rotated through that extreme high altitude air, her heart pounded in her ears. She began to sweat, but the wind blew even that away in an instant.

Her wings were unable to withstand the wind and shattered, but as those snowflakes of light landed on her back, she found herself looking into the western sky.

And so she twisted the accelerator.

“…”

She received enough intense acceleration and instantaneous power to feel like the night sky was drawing closer.

As G-Sp2 reversed at a sharp diagonal angle and re-accelerated, she dangled alongside it.

With her back pointed down, she followed the horizon out of the corner of her eye and spotted the lights of Saitama.

But at that point, she finally sensed the noise.

Once she realized she could hear the wind, she relaxed a little.

She looked down over her shoulder and saw the six dragons there.

While listening only to the blowing wind, she shrank down with her back still pointed to the ground. The wind washed over her as she gathered strength in her shoulders and abs and brought herself closer to G-Sp2 which flew in a crescent moon arc.

She slowly brought her feet toward the sky, placed them on the foot pedals, and reclaimed her position embracing G-Sp2.

“…!!”

And she immediately kicked the foot pedals up toward the heavens.

The recoil pointed the tip down and toward the enemies below.

She twisted the accelerator and charged forward.

She created new wings on her back, held them in close, and performed a power dive from directly above the enemy force.

“Listen, G-Sp2. There’s a story behind your origin.”

She whispered while falling and operating the console with her right hand.

“You were originally named Thor’s Hammer and you were created to end a civil war in 10th-Gear. You were stolen by 9th-Gear which had temporarily assisted the resistance force within 10th, but Kaku’s grandfather took you back. However, you were then modified into a divine spear and made into both the most powerful weapon and the storage device to absorb the concepts from 10th’s world tree.”

And…

“But you contained the genes of Zahhak, the violent dragon of 9th-Gear. That created a concept dragon that devoured the world tree, but you were successfully sealed in this world.”

Izumo had told her this. The story included his grandparents. He did not often speak of them, but his grandmother was a resident of 10th-Gear and she had apparently betrayed 10th and given his grandfather the divine spear after the creation of the concept dragon. Kazami did not know the details, but…

…''All of that was passed on to create who Kaku and I are now.

She wondered if they would ever be able to inherit all of it.

''We will someday,'' she told herself while facing forward and looking to the earth at the bottom of the sky.

She saw the shadows of the forests and mountains and she saw the group of mechanical dragons flying westward in front of those shadows.

Nevertheless, she calmly made her final preparations by punching seven letters into the console.

“G-U-N-G-N-I-R! Gungnir!”

She pressed the button on the grip.

“Let’s go, G-Sp2. Semi-barrel open – start!”

The bottom end of G-Sp2’s aerial mobility form closed and stopped the jet of light.

Now that the light had nowhere to go, it began to leak from the closed cowling on the front end. As the light spilled out like sand, it rose like smoke and drew several overlapping lines in the sky.

Before she could let out a single breath, the internal pressure caused the front end to shake, but she kept the grip button pressed and refused to let go. It was a lot like making a pet wait for its food.

Down below, the mechanical dragons could be seen so close she felt she could reach out and touch them.

A moment later, she saw the output reading reach thirty-eight percent.

“Ragnarok open. Time to fight back.”

With those words, she fired G-Sp2.

A dragon plunging headfirst suddenly appeared in the night sky.

The one-horned dragon was made of white light and it seemed almost as large as the night sky itself.

And yet the dragon had yet to show its full body. It was unclear whether it actually had a neck or not, but what looked like the beginnings of one extended down toward the surface as if breaking through the night sky. All that could be seen was a face with a giant gaping maw and that neck-like area extending back twice that length.

But that was enough.

The dragon stretched its head down with a great sound of wind that seemed more like the entire world groaning.

It did not stretch far, but for such a massive dragon, it was enough to reach the surface.

Its jaws devoured its airborne food.

That food was six objects flying down below like small black fish.

They could not escape because the dragon’s great size was a weapon in and of itself.

Fangs and a tongue of light crushed that food from above as if the sky itself was falling upon them.

This caused an explosion that rivaled the white light, but…

“—————!!”

The massive jaws closed.

And that was all.

The light dragon head faded away as it descended to the earth.

It simply vanished as if to say its presence had not been particularly impressive.

The light obeyed the darkness and faded away, but an afterimage of the dragon remained in the sky for a few seconds.

Afterward, nothing remained of the “food”, not even the explosion or their wreckage.

However, something new had appeared.

It was a sound arriving from the eastern sky.

It was a solid sound and it was not alone. Metallic sounds repeated again and again as if communicating with each other.

They were the sounds of a battle fought between those flying this way at tremendous speed.

The repeated sounds of high-altitude fighting approached without hiding the noise caused by the colliding power.

All of those on the battlefield began to notice the sounds and look to the night sky. This included the automatons treating people’s injuries, the people having their injuries treated, the plant creatures extracting their exhaustion, and the girl who had fired the dragon of light into the sky.

They all looked to the east and someone spoke.

“It’s coming.”

“Black Sun is?”

“No,” said someone else. “The answer. The time has come to settle things with 5th-Gear which cast aside their own humanity, with the machine that went mad with anguish after trying to protect the people, and with the one who has inherited it all.”

Black Sun had not overlooked the enemy approaching from behind.

He knew what was happening because the screams of his child craft had reached him several times now.

When a child craft was ordered to die, it would send a report on the completion of its mission when it died. But when one was simply destroyed, intense static was sent back.

For a machine, being destroyed before completing your given job was the same as having the very meaning of your existence denied.

And the bearer of that denial was approaching in a straight line.

He remembered this enemy. He had met it in its invisible form just after rising from the ocean.

Black Sun remembered the shape of that wind.

Its shape was familiar, but not because he had seen it earlier. His sealed memories were pointing to the existence of some record of the past as if it was leaking through.

Those sealed memories told him he had met this enemy before.

However, he had a goal: reaching the familiar scent in the west. That was likely the weapon that had once defeated him.

And so he hurried westward. He also sent three midsized mechanical dragons back toward the pursuing enemy as his final guards, but he soon noticed something strange.

As soon as he accelerated forward, static reached him.

Specifically, two bursts of static reached him.

“…?”

His rear sight devices spotted the reason for the static: lightning.

Bolts of lightning raced through the sky behind him and produced two enormous explosions.

Black Sun found this “familiar” as well.

He was oddly certain that he had only ever met one mechanical dragon that attacked like that. He was also certain that the large dragon made as his pair was more offense-oriented and extremely dangerous.

It had carried a large cannon before, but it did not seem to have one now.

''But why?'' he thought. ''Why do I remember this despite having no memories?

He did not know.

He had been made to protect the people, so why had he fought such a dangerous dragon?

Why had he lost that battle, why had he lost his memories, and why had he chosen to evolve?

Why was his urge to seek out those familiar scents so very strong?

And beyond those questions, beyond his destination, and beyond his victory, were the people waiting for him? If he created a world where he could protect the people, would they praise him?

The people were gone now and he did not know why, but he thought they had to exist somewhere. He was meant to protect the people and he existed, therefore the people he was to protect also had to exist. That was the logic behind his thoughts.

Beyond the barrage of lightning, he saw a familiar yet forgotten form.

It was a small blue and white mechanical dragon.

This enemy was small but dangerous. He wished he could eliminate that familiar feeling along with his lost memories. That would rid him of these unnecessary thoughts, but he could not forget what he could not first remember.

At that point, Black Sun reached a certain answer.

He found the reason for his evolution.

“…”

It was this enemy. He prefaced that high-probability conclusion with the qualifier “most likely” and raised his internal priority of this enemy.

He set the familiar scent in the west and the familiar scent pursuing him at equal priority levels.

Here, he entered combat mobility mode for the first time.

He would intercept this enemy. Even as he hurried to the west, he would intercept the past.

Black Sun ordered the final midsized dragon to ram the enemy while continuing to evade the lightning and he accepted his own intent to fight.

He consciously approved of that intent and his entire body responded. The armor panels opened up to expose every primary cannon, secondary cannon, and even sub-secondary cannon and his motors sent out lubricant and made full use of their radiators.

Finally, he raised the power output supplied by the one thing he had certainly brought from his own world: the Concept Core half.

As long as he had that, he had half of justice on his side.

Its power circulated through his entire body.

“All cannons at full power. Enter overdrive mode.”

Black Sun began to move in order to defeat his enemy.

<noinclude>
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</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume9 Chapter 33

2026-10-07T03:09:28Z

N-Ch:

==Chapter 33: Announcement of Acceleration==
[[Image:OnC_v09_0405.png|thumb]]
''To not recognize that which was lost

''To recognize that which was lost

''To discover which is stronger

At 9:41 PM, several small enemy craft were sent ahead to Japanese UCAT in the mountains of Okutama where the lights of the city center could be seen to the east.

Those small craft tore quickly enough through the eastern sky to call their approach “sudden”.

But instead of showing themselves, they used their optical camouflage concept.

That left their visual form unclear and left only the sound and movements of the wind to indicate their presence as they flew straight down toward UCAT’s runway.

Six roars and four times as many sprays of broken asphalt filled the air. Their weight and momentum tore up the asphalt as they slid across it, but they stopped about halfway down the runway.

Still invisible, only their footprints appeared.

A cannon sat on a pallet in front of the white building at the end of the runway.

All of the footprints turned toward the motionless blue cannon and the leading set took a step toward it.

The asphalt broke and earth trembled.

In that instant, an old man ran out of the southern forest next to the runway.

He spread his lab coat as he ran onto the runway and the words “Manly Spirit” were written in ink on the inside.

He raised his thumb toward all of the invisible enemies and spun around.

“Ha ha ha! Well done making it this far! But your luck ran out the moment I showed up!”

He pointed randomly into empty air as a substitute for pointing at the invisible enemies.

“Get them, everyone!!”

His words reverberated across the runway, but that was all.

“…”

The old man fell silent while still pointing into empty air. He waited for some kind of response, but tilted his head after a few seconds.

“Huh?”

He pulled back his pointing hand, stared at it, pointed again, and looked around him as he spoke again.

“Get them?”

He looked around yet again but still saw nothing.

He checked in the forest behind him, but there was no one there.

He peered deep into the forest with a puzzled look and he crouched down to peer even deeper. He turned to the runway as a feint and quickly turned back around, but still saw no one.

“How strange,” he said while still looking into the forest.

Then something touched the tip of his extended pointer finger.

“Oh, there you are,” he said with a smile.

But once he faced forward again, there was still nothing there.

And yet his finger was touching something. It was touching something invisible.

He gently poked what existed in that seemingly empty air.

“Oh, you’re hiding. …Don’t. Be. So. Shy!”

His final word rose to a shout and he turned around and began to run.

He drew out his full strength from the very first step.

A moment later, a great pressure of air quickly began to run after the fleeing old man.

They raced onward.

The “manly spirit” old man ran out ahead with a great rumbling and smashing of asphalt pursuing him down the runway. He tested out a few different running styles and settled on an intense and girly style.

“Emergency!!”

His shout reached the forest and finally something began to move.

A group of white and blue burst from the northern forest on the opposite side of the runway.

At the lead was a boy in a white armored uniform.

“The enemy fell for our ‘natural’ decoy! Listen! Blow them away without worrying about the decoy!!”

The boy yelled instructions, ran onto the runway, raised his left hand, and looked up into the sky.

“Go ahead!!”

Gunfire filled the air and direct attacks continued after that.

Light exploded on the runway.

“————!!”

Light weapons, heavy weapons, and other projectile weapons struck the invisible enemy from the right using light, explosions, and even large slashes.

The explosive pressure of the direct hits shook the air, the forest, and the sky.

And those armed with close-range weapons charged directly into the blast.

A sword unit led by a boy with a large white sword and a reinforced armor unit from American UCAT both charged right in. They practically slammed their entire bodies into the right sides of the small mechanical dragons that had explosive blasts rising from them.

The attacks hit with countless sounds much like ringing bells.

Fireworks scattered and the colliding force had nowhere to go but up into the sky.

Amid the lingering light of the attacks, the small black dragons’ optical camouflage concept deactivated. They could no longer afford to use any output on that.

They sank down against the attacks from the north and thus from their right and they prepared themselves to fight.

An instant later, they had taken the stance to fire their secondary cannons and swipe with their claws.

But that was when all of those who had approached for close-range attacks took the exact same action: They ducked down.

The small black dragons saw that the firing unit was already preparing to fire again from the forest to their right.

Two girls in white armored uniforms stood in the center of that firing unit. The one with short hair held a white cannon that resembled a spear and the one with long hair rested a cannon almost the size of her body on her shoulder.

“Gather your will power!!”

They fired.

The two blasts rivaled a dragon cannon and they were joined by the rest of the firing unit’s attacks.

“Begin the primary attack!!”

By the time that was over, the boy in command gave a shout and a powerful attack came from the sky.

It took the form of several dragons and a few giants.

There were two giants: a black one and a red one. The black one wielded a sword in both arms while the red one had no shoulders and instead raised six swords. The dragons descending around them were all blue.

They fell directly toward the small black mechanical dragons that had lost control as they tilted to the left.

Giant blades were swung down and the lights of dragon cannons were fired straight down.

The six black dragons cried out and a great rumbling filled the air.

But within it all, the boy in command did not even look to the enemy.

He alone was not looking at the enemy before his eyes.

He instead turned east as an old man ran up behind him.

“M-Mikoto-kun! Deceiving the elderly is wrong! Are you even listening!?”

“I am not, so do not worry.”

The boy even ignored the explosions, light, and wind of the battle as he looked east.

“The second wave is coming!” His voice cut through the others’ cheers. “Sibyl-kun! How close is Black Sun!?”

“Testament.”

A girl with a peaceful expression stepped from the forest with a cell phone between her head and shoulder and a laptop on one hand.

“Black Sun is currently traveling above Haijima and he will arrive in another twenty minutes,” she said. “Also, Sayama-sama, the mechanical dragon of unknown affiliation I reported on earlier is eliminating Black Sun’s child craft while approaching Tachikawa.”

“Unknown affiliation, you say? Let me take care of that.”

He pulled out his cellphone and pressed a button. After a moment, a voice came from it.

“Who is this!? I’m kind of busy right now!”

“I will try to make this as polite as I can, but may I ask a question, you bastard? Japan or America? Choose one.”

“Japan, of course! That’s where I live!”

The call suddenly ended and Sayama muttered “what an impatient person” before addressing Sibyl.

“The affiliation of the mechanical dragon is up to Heo Thunderson, but her protector seems to side with Japan.”

“W-wait! I cannot approve of that argument!”

A middle-aged foreigner in glasses cut through the group of blue armored uniforms, but Sayama spoke back to him.

“It is all up to her, Roger-kun. But…” He gave an exasperated sigh. “I cannot believe she would choose to fight when she can simply quit. This will only wear her out.”

Despite his words, he had a smile on his lips as he looked back up into the eastern sky.

A small disturbance of air could be seen along with the lights of Tokyo.

That was the enemy’s second wave and Sayama slowly raised his left hand while staring at it.

“Everyone.”

A total of eight disturbances could be seen in the eastern sky.

Everyone there prepared for a fight when they saw them, but Sayama spoke calmly as he stood in front of them all.

“Listen, everyone. The conclusion awaits.”

They all quietly nodded and Sayama continued with his back to that motion and sound.

“We have seen the past and solved the mysteries of the present. And now a girl who represents our world is making her way between a human who has forgotten he is human and a machine that has forgotten himself.” He took a breath. “So what is it we should do? Protect her? Cry for the dragon who cared for his people enough to become a villain? Or simply watch over this battle? What do you say!?”

He turned around and all of the white, blue, and others gave their answers.

They all stomped one foot into the ground and shook their heads.

Someone gave their answer.

“We are the power to end all conflict.”

“We are the spirit to brighten all futures.”

“We are those who learn of all grudges yet continue forward.”

“Yes,” replied Sayama.

He looked to Shinjou, Kazami, Izumo, the combined form of Hiba and Mikage, and to all the others with great power and spirit.

“I am the one who does not hesitate to advance into any and all ill will!”

Meaning…

“Let me say it here: The surname Sayama indicates a villain! And let me say this as well: We will save this caring villain and arrive in the same place as that girl and the others!”

They all nodded and Sayama continued.

“Our duty here is to protect her and drag all the lost memories back into reality!” he shouted. “Listen, everyone. Light the beacon of the showdown and teach this caring villain that this battle is not for those that were lost! Teach him it is for those who will move forward and gain more from here on! Hit him with your fireworks to teach him that we are the bearers of reality and that everything has not come to a stop!! Now, everyone!”

He took a breath.

“Where is your answer!?”

“Testament!!”

Both those that were human and those that were not replied with that binding word.

And Sayama used that as a stepping stone for his next loud words. He swung down his left arm and looked to the disturbances of air approaching in the eastern sky.

“Go ahead!!”

Thunder Fellow flew toward the sky above the north entrance of Tachikawa Station.

The station building stood eight stories from the surface and stretched from east to west.

The north entrance had a large bus roundabout with a terrace and those were surrounded by the city’s buildings.

When arriving from Kunitachi to the east, the only paths away were the roads stretching north and west from the roundabout.

The northern road had four lanes, but the ninety degree right turn would be impossible at their speed.

The western road continued straight on, but it was a narrow road with only two lanes. Also, the multi-tenant buildings lining that road on either side created a canyon, but the canyon gently curved to the northwest which prevented them from seeing what lay ahead.

Flying along the roads in front of Tachikawa Station’s north entrance would mean taking that unknown western route, but Thunder Fellow did so regardless.

He had decided that traveling through the buildings would make them harder to detect from the air. And if the enemy did not aimlessly overlook them, this would give them more chances to fight back.

Lastly, Harakawa was the pilot and he of course knew the streets of Tachikawa.

That was why Heo left the decision in Harakawa’s hands and Thunder Fellow accepted her eagerness.

The blue and white mechanical dragon used all of its current power to soar toward the roundabout north of the station.

Its great speed naturally created a shockwave. The side of the parking deck attached to the eastern end of the station was blown away and the panels making up its walls flew through the air.

The windows of the opposite multi-tenant building burst from a strike to the side and the glass shards and tenants’ counters and chairs were blasted into the air.

As Thunder Fellow continued past all that, three small mechanical dragons caught up overhead. They took steep dives to make up for their insufficient acceleration using the speed of their fall and they tried to shoot the blue and white dragon’s back.

However, Thunder Fellow avoided the black light by moving further down.

He was approaching the large terrace covering the roundabout.

He was only about forty meters to the north entrance and terrace, which would take approximately 0.1 seconds to travel at the speed of sound.

The leading two black dragons moved toward each other, tilted a bit so their undersides faced each other, and chose to pass over the terrace.

Thunder Fellow, on the other hand, could only continue straight due to the enemy up above. The last black dragon calmly remained behind to finish him off and dragon cannon light began to gather in its mouth.

His blue and white body was about to crash into the side of the terrace, but just before he did, he lowered even further.

He chose the path below the five meter ceiling of the terrace.

He folded up his tail that functioned like an airplane’s tail, pulled up his legs that were used for landing, and launched himself into the darkness below the terrace.

The wind roared and the pursuing dragon missed its time to ascend.

The black dragon collided with the terrace and embedded itself deep in the metal floor.

The intense sound of impact shook the air and the inertial force lifted the terrace a little.

“!”

Ultimately, the black dragon’s body was sliced in two.

The crushed top and bottom halves of its body shot above and below the terrace and its various components and oil were thrown into the air.

The two small dragons pursuing from above the terrace did not turn around.

In only an instant, black light wrapped around the secondary cannons at the base of their front legs. They moved to either side of the pillar in the center of the terrace and they tilted away from each other to view what lay below.

They intended to attack the blue and white dragon the instant it left the terrace.

And after what felt like only a few moments even to their mechanical dragon senses, the time came.

Something flew out from below the west side of the terrace and the two small black dragons fired their secondary cannons on it from either side.

As they continued to fly toward the narrow western road, they watched the destruction of their target.

They both scored direct hits.

Four blasts of black light instantly exploded as if letting out a scream. The explosion struck the ground, bounced back up, and launched their target high into the sky.

The black dragons confirmed its destruction.

But at the same time, they realized they had fired on the wreckage of their comrade.

It was the bottom half of the small black dragon that had been bisected by the terrace.

“…!?”

The blue and white dragon had sent the wreckage ahead of him below the terrace. He had likely thrown it with his gravitational control.

The small dragons momentarily stopped once they realized the truth and that was when something shot out down below them.

It was the blue and white dragon.

Thunder Fellow had drawn his swords. He flew as if running through empty air and let loose his acceleration while piercing the small dragon on the left as if using iai.

The two swords broke through both lungs of the small dragon that was even larger than him.

And he did not stop here.

He accelerated with his enemy still held in place by the swords.

Both of them had tilted ninety degrees to the left, but Thunder Fellow let his acceleration do the talking and chose to exit the roundabout from the west while carrying the black dragon with him.

That took him to the canyon of buildings, but he did not care.

He brought himself and the captured dragon toward the southern buildings, staring with the Daiichi department store next to the station building. He moved in at a shallow diagonal angle that would scrape against the front of the building.

He collided and the expected sound of destruction reverberated along the road.

The manmade stone and glass making up the building greeted the dragon with the sound of everything scattering. The contents of the large bookstore, model shop, and other tenants were thrown into the air, but the dragon maintained his speed with more acceleration and the force of his inertia.

“—————!!”

Thunder Fellow used the forty meter black mechanical dragon as a surfboard to slip across the side of the buildings. The gentle corner taking the canyon of buildings to the northwest acted like a rising jump for him. He ignited his afterburners and rode the wave of destruction with the screams of the surfboard as his background music.

The one surviving black dragon fired as it approached the corridor, but it was too late. Most of its shots hit the wreckage of the buildings or the black dragon being used as a surfboard.

Thunder Fellow continued to ride the largest wave of destruction of that long autumn night and of the entire year.

But soon, a temporary break in the buildings arrived. He was approaching an intersection.

To jump over that gap, he withdrew his swords.

“!”

And he kicked off the surfboard and into the air.

The black board had already been mostly destroyed by its comrade’s attacks, but as soon as it shot out into the quick gap of the intersection, it crashed into the building on the other side.

After a rumble filled with the sound of shattering glass, the small black dragon exploded.

And that was all.

Thunder Fellow had already jumped to the center of the corridor using his kick off the dragon.

That sharply angled jump brought him to the side of the last black dragon that had accelerated to catch up.

And he had not put away his swords.

The two light swords easily sliced the black armor in two.

He had won, but in that instant, he quickly broke away from the black mechanical dragon.

An instant later, black light pierced into the back of that dragon and out the front.

The instantaneous explosive blast pushed Thunder Fellow onward and he saw a formation of black dragons pursuing him from behind.

“…”

He accelerated while emitting a groaning sound that resembled grinding one’s teeth.

More attacks arrived from behind and he began to hear the windy sound of the enemy’s approach.

The sounds and attacks of a literal army slowly grew closer, but…

“Go.”

A voice reached him from the roof of the multi-tenant building at the end of the corridor of buildings.

The hoarse voice spoke in English.

Thunder Fellow looked forward without letting up on his speed. The buildings came to an end and two people stood on the roof of the one building that acted as an entrance to the vast sky.

One was a woman holding a paper broom and the other was a slender old man in a suit.

Odor removed his suit coat on the windy roof.

The battle had left the coat in tatters and the bandages around his arms were mostly gone.

He kept his annoyance over losing those bandages from showing on his face as he spoke.

“Go. Go, Heo Thunderson. This is our battlefield.”

He looked past the blue and white mechanical dragon and to the pursuing black dragons.

The blue and white one quickly approached and Odor felt a thought reach him in the instant it passed by overhead.

“Thank you.”

He nodded at the girl’s thoughts.

But the thoughts left behind a question as the dragon began to leave.

“But why?”

“That is simple. That is simple, Heo Thunderson.”

He answered the dragon that had already left and thus could no longer hear him.

He threw aside his coat and rolled up his shirt sleeves to reveal his arms sans bandages. The arms were covered in countless scars.

As the passing wind struck the building, he raised his bare left arm.

It was of course scarred and the scars were all from scrapes and abrasions made by someone else.

But that was not all. Diana’s eyes opened wide when she saw something else.

“Honey, what is that?”

He had some special scars on his left arm.

These were from cuts deep enough to reach the muscle. They were clearly whiter and glossier than the others and they protruded from the rest of his skin more as well.

Most notably, these scars formed letters and Diana read them in the wind.

“Richard.”

“That is my real name. That is the real name of the odor. I was constantly called an odor and constantly scarred in the place that took me in, but I gave myself these scars above all the others so that I could trust in my own name,” he said. “Richard. Richard Davis. My father named me after his friend. And now, a girl who carries my father’s blood and has inherited everything from that friend desires help in her fight.”

He turned east toward the approaching black army before continuing.

“Diana. Diana Zonburg. Can I ask one thing?”

“What is it?”

She gave a sigh containing a hint of relief and he spoke with his back turned.

“Our marriage. Let us revoke our marriage. Now that I have spoken the truth I never revealed even to Richard Thunderson, I will accept that girl. I had thought Odor was past having any family, but now…”

“You have a relative to watch over your death instead of me?”

“Yes. Yes, Diana. So we will now part ways and-…”

He stopped when Diana stepped up next to him.

“Unfortunately, that is not possible. I simply can’t help with something that would make that girl sad.”

She formed the largest smile she could.

“And how can I leave you now that I’ve seen such a cute side of you?”

He said nothing in response. He simply raised his left arm and prepared his fingers.

“I did not want to use this! I did not want to use this because it is terribly exhausting!”

He snapped his fingers toward the black dragons flying over a kilometer away.

Heo felt an earthquake.

She wondered how that was possible while in the air and she realized the shaking reverberation came from behind her.

She looked behind with the rear sight devices and saw something unexpected. The city of Tachikawa they had just flown through seemed to have grown quite a bit shorter than when she had seen it before.

…''Was that…?

She understood what this meant. The station area had been so bright before, but all that artificial light was gone and they were replaced by sparks and explosive flames in the surrounding sky.

“Thank you.”

“Thanking people is important, Heo Thunderson, but looking where you’re going is also important.”

''Eh?'' she thought as she looked up.

The ground flowing by down below was the railroad stretching west from Tachikawa Station. It was no longer an elevated railroad and it ran straight through a residential district.

When she looked far above that railroad, she saw something else.

“What is that?”

It was a giant black shape so large that it almost looked like a storm cloud.

“Thunder Fellow, what is that?”

“I am sorry. I do not know. But…”

“But it’s our enemy, right? An enemy who was kind and had many friends but who was led to sadness by those very facts,” said Harakawa. “Our ‘enemy’, hm? To be honest, a mere student really shouldn’t be saying something like that. But Heo Thunderson and Thunder Fellow, I don’t think this is anything special.”

“What do you mean?”

“The way I see it, there’s a world where this kind of thing is as normal as breathing. It may be on a whole different level from the small battles in my everyday life, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a small thing on the level of breathing.”

“Harakawa.”

Heo narrowed her mental eyes. Hearing him speak from the heart for once made her smile.

“Then let’s go and breathe, Harakawa. Fortunately, there’s one thing I was taught a long time ago.”

“And what’s that?”

“How to breathe when running.”

Surely…

“I think Black Sun will be my very first rival in reaching the goal line.”

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| Back to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume9 Chapter 32|Chapter 32]]
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| Forward to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume9 Chapter 34|Chapter 34]]
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</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume9 Chapter 32

2026-10-06T03:52:03Z

N-Ch:

==Chapter 32: The Sky’s Guidance==
[[Image:OnC_v09_0379.png|thumb]]
''Fly

''Fly through the sky where no one can find fault in you

The nighttime battle began with stillness.

A single white line flew west through the geographic center of Tokyo from Chofu to the Kunitachi and Tachikawa region.

At an altitude of approximately one kilometer, the individual specks of light down below were just barely distinguishable and a blade tore through the black sky as a white line.

That blade was a blue and white mechanical dragon.

The wall of the atmosphere shook it, but it occasionally made a quick hop off an air current as it tore westward through the air.

Ahead was nothing but the night air soon to be parted by its pointed nose and the sound of the subsequent wind was all thrown back behind it.

The color black could be seen on the empty expressway cutting east to west down below.

The color came from the scorch mark of a giant explosion.

The blue and white dragon noticed the remains of something large covering the expressway and littered across the surrounding field as well.

It shook its body just once, as if bowing toward the other smaller scorch marks.

“…”

And it flew on.

The path from Chofu to Kunitachi curved a bit to the right and thus to the north.

The concept space corridor must have been visible to the dragon because it changed course as if jumping to the side.

Some clouds floated up ahead on its new northwestern path. They were located low and had been created when the early autumn wind combined with the night air. The city’s heat and the night wind had produced the clouds.

The clouds glowed a pale blue in the starlight and the blue and white dragon flew above the expanse of clouds that looked a lot like an island in the ocean.

As it flew above, the clouds split and were blasted away behind the shimmering heat of the accelerators.

The spray of scattering clouds vanished in the wind and the dragon tilted a little to the right. It did not change direction; it simply tilted.

A blade extended from its right wing and this blade was formed from white light. The dragon had raised the convergence rate of the optical weapon on its forearm to form this blade which was as long as the dragon itself. This was the dragon’s light claw.

The tip of the blade sliced through the clouds. The dragon’s light claw tore into the clouds like a hand reaching into the water in a moving boat.

However, the mechanical dragon soon closed that right claw. It allowed the light to rotate through the air just once before tilting to the left and similarly slicing the cloud with its left blade.

It was testing its weapons.

The left blade easily split the clouds before being stowed away.

The blue and white dragon raised its nose enough to increase its altitude and to look up into the night sky.

There, it saw the stars.

It was a moonless night. Even with the city lights down below, the stars of the heavens were bright this far up in the sky.

However, a change came over the clouds lit by that starlight: A wave ran through them.

A spray of clouds shot up approximately three hundred meters to the right.

As that spray of clouds shot high in the sky, it moved up alongside the dragon. But instead of settling down, the spray of clouds slowly rose higher.

In an instant, something shot up above the clouds as if it had jumped.

It was a black mechanical dragon. It was three hundred meters long, so it was a midsized one.

The midsized dragon flew in an arc.

“…!”

And with a cry, it dove back down into the sea of clouds.

“!”

The spray of clouds moved directly in front of the blue and white dragon.

Light gathered all across the midsized dragon’s location and that light was dark even to eyes adjusted to the darkness.

It had already prepared to fire every single one of its secondary cannons.

The midsized black dragon did so and black lines flew toward the blue and white dragon.

“Harakawa!”

Harakawa heard Heo’s voice fill the entire cockpit.

She had joined with Thunder Fellow to control the machine’s output and he was in charge of the controls.

The mechanical dragon was simple to pilot. Once he sat in the seat, some kind of power held him in place without a seatbelt. Then he only had to grab the roll bars sticking out on the right and left.

…''And tilt my body along with the seat.

The mechanical dragon moved using the balance of its entire body. When driving a motorcycle, one tilted the vehicle to the left or right on corners and leaned forward when accelerating. This was similar.

They were in the sky, so he could move in three dimensions, but he had picked up the horizontal alignment by flying just above the clouds earlier.

For more detailed actions like drawing those swords of light, he simply had to think it and Thunder Fellow would read his intentions and accurately reproduce the action.

All he needed now was experience.

A barrage of black light flew in front of them while they were five hundred meters from the midsized mechanical dragon.

Given their relative speeds, this was a close-range shot that was guaranteed to hit.

However, he saw the light with his eyes which were linked to Thunder Fellow’s mechanical sight and he even received its predicted movement patterns.

There were sixty-four bullets of light coming from both the left and right and thirty-two coming from both the top and bottom. The number coming from the left and right was higher, but forty-eight of those on the left and right and sixteen of those on the top and bottom were from eight-way scattershot cannons.

Harakawa was not afraid of that scattershot. For fear of destroying itself, the midsized dragon did not shoot any directly behind itself.

The scattershot bullets fired on the left and right spread out vertically like a fan and those fired on the top and bottom spread out horizontally. That formed a wall of bullets on all four sides to limit Harakawa’s actions.

“But the area behind you is still wide open.”

The bullets that flew through the corridor created by the four scattershot walls were straight shots from small cannons.

Those small cannons were installed all over the midsized dragon, so the dragon’s smaller movements caused them to vibrate. When moving about quickly, those cannons could fire plenty of bullets but could not aim properly.

Harakawa slipped through the black lines of the flying bullets and continued forward.

He avoided a few of those extreme close-range shots by letting them slip below the wings and a few more by raising the dragon’s body above them.

But when he raised the dragon and exposed its belly, a single shot was fired from almost straight ahead and toward the dragon’s underside.

He could not evade this one.

He was sure of it, but he still grabbed the right roll bar.

“…!”

He threw his own body to the right and Thunder Fellow moved in kind.

The dragon side-flipped through the air with the tip of its nose at the center of rotation.

They successfully evaded the enemy’s bullet which slipped below Thunder Fellow’s back. The dragon twisted his body to stabilize his flight, poured power into the accelerators, and regained the speed lost by the side-flip.

“H-Harakawa, moving like that makes me a little sick.”

“Then hold on tight, Heo Thunderson. Not that I want to do that too often myself.”

He sighed while continuing to evade.

He could pull off some surprisingly absurd actions. He had thought the dragon was like an aircraft, but it was apparently not.

He realized that a dragon was a creature that could move freely through the sky.

The wings that caught the wind were meant to stabilize its body without using any kind of power and the accelerators were simply meant to supply speed, so he found he could fly in any direction that came to mind.

…''I see.

As soon as he thought that, the enemy’s tail approached.

It was slowing down and Thunder Fellow explained why.

“It is stabilizing itself to increase the accuracy of its attacks.”

“That idiot. What good is a dragon if it slows down?”

“Agreed.”

“U-um, I hate to interrupt you two guys when you’re getting along, but we have to do something about this.”

“I know that. Thunder Fellow, do you have any weapons? You’ve got more than those swords, right?”

“I completed the modifications a moment ago and the limiters are under Heo’s control.”

“Eh?” said Heo.

Below the dragon, light began to gather at the end of its folded front legs.

“These are tracking shots. I have enough power to perfectly handle the cooling.”

After a moment, Heo spoke again.

“Um, Thunder Fellow? Do you know the enemy’s weakness or equipment?”

“We have yet to see-…”

“We have seen it. We saw the wreckage of an identical black dragon on the expressway…along with the wreckage of some blue ones.”

Harakawa listened to her quiet words.

“Those people were fighting for happiness, so I don’t want it to be for nothing. If you have any memory of that wreckage, I want to use that as a clue so we can fight alongside them.”

“Understood. I will scan my memory and use that data to estimate the enemy’s weaponry and a method of defeating them.”

Thunder Fellow then called Harakawa’s name and the boy nodded.

“Let’s do this, you two. Let’s win this and then thank them for guiding us to victory.”

The midsized black mechanical dragon created a corridor of bullets behind it and lowered its speed.

It stabilized all of its rear-facing small cannons by fixing the positions of its folded back legs and tail.

It fired toward the blue and white dragon flying inside the barrier formed by the four directions of scattershot.

Thirty-two beams of black light tore through the air and toward Thunder Fellow, but he showed no fear.

He accelerated further and dove into the dancing black lines sweeping through the sky.

“!”

The force of his acceleration compressed the air in front of him until it burst.

With a sound like a paper balloon popping, he flew through a white explosion of water vapor and continued forward.

He forcefully raced through the black lines.

He flew right, up and to the left, down, up and to the right, and finally straight ahead to leave all the black lines behind.

And all the while, he fired his own attacks.

He fired white glowing blasts of lightning from the base of his wings.

The twin lightning strikes flew in arcs as if to slam into the enemy and more were fired in quick succession.

The lightning blasts sounded like tearing paper as they roasted the air and tore into the back of the black dragon without slowing down.

The lightning targeted the small cannons turned toward Thunder Fellow.

While firing again and again, the blue and white dragon continued to move. He took constant evasive actions, but instead of focusing entirely on that, he also fired repeatedly into the enemy’s weapons.

His goal was to destroy the enemy’s weapons on the upper left side to create a safe space.

With sounds of destruction, black fragments flew into the air.

“…!”

The black dragon roared. It might have been a roar of protest, of pain, or of rage.

Its left leg had been damaged. The large armor panels covering the base of the leg had been torn away.

But before those several meter pieces of armor had flown very far, they struck the four scattershot barriers.

But that was all. The cannons located there spewed smoke and fell silent.

With the midsized dragon’s left side trailing smoke, Thunder Fellow flew to that side.

But the black dragon took that opportunity to make a forced maneuver: It descended.

“—————”

It let out a bestial cry and quickly lowered down.

The scattershot barrier above also descended, so that ceiling dropped toward Thunder Fellow.

The lower scattershot barrier blew away the expanse of clouds below and Thunder Fellow made a certain decision as the wind roared and dropped down.

The blue and white dragon accelerated.

He moved forward, hopped up a bit, and turned toward the left side of the base of the enemy’s tail.

The scattershot cannons creating the upper barrier were located on either side of the tail’s base and he targeted the left one.

Positioning himself to fire on the cannon meant moving into the enemy’s line of fire.

However, there was a small gap. At the base of the dome-shaped scattershot cannon, there was a one meter space between the actual cannon and where it was attached to the armor.

That created an opening.

Once he arrived within three hundred meters, Thunder Fellow shook his body to the left and right just once in order to align his position.

And from there, he quickly moved forward. His attacks did not slow as the wind roared around him.

“…!”

Countless lightning blasts shot out, his charge never stopped, and the enemy’s armor peeled away and into the sky.

However, the scattershot ceiling was dropping quickly.

Nevertheless, the blue and white dragon did not give up on breaking the enemy. It poured lightning blasts into the source of that light that was difficult to see.

The attacks continued at a fast pace.

Lightning strikes could be heard tearing through the air and they joined into a single long bolt of lightning. Countless explosions of light filled the lightning’s destination.

The barrier walls lowered and the nighttime cityscape grew larger below the lower wall.

“!”

A moment later, the upper left side of the midsized dragon exploded.

The scattershot cannon had been destroyed and half of the scattershot ceiling disappeared along with it.

The ceiling was not completely gone, but the sky had opened up.

The blue and white dragon accelerated toward that starry sky.

This upward acceleration was known as an ascent.

He used all of the functions provided by his high-speed cruising form to fly up toward the heavens. On the way, he slipped below the wreckage of the scattershot cannon and arrived above the midsized dragon.

But that black dragon did not give up.

Thunder Fellow saw it open its back and fire a barrage of arcing black homing bullets.

Even if the attack tore into Thunder Fellow, most of it would hit the black dragon itself.

It was prepared to destroy itself for this attack and the blue and white dragon did not choose to evade.

He flew between the black dragon and the black barrage that reached the top of its arc and started dropping back down from above.

An instant later, he chose to descend.

As if allowing the black barrage to pursue him, he pointed straight down from directly above the midsized black dragon.

He made a forced downward acceleration.

Below him was the defenseless opened back of the other dragon.

He continued on.

While dropping and raising his speed, he opened his mouth.

The white light of his dragon cannon could be seen inside that mouth.

“———————”

The sound of the blast resembled a crashing wave.

The pillar of light was more than twenty meters across and it pierced through the midsized mechanical dragon’s back and out its stomach.

And after ending the attack, Thunder Fellow forcibly twisted his body around and slipped past the other dragon’s side. He swiftly moved from the top to the bottom.

With his gaze almost grazing along the empty cityscape on the surface below, he corrected his trajectory to fly forward. Behind him, he heard the black barrage hit the midsized dragon.

The repeated strikes and explosions of light shook the wind.

“…!”

One especially loud explosion surpassed the blue and white dragon for just an instant, but it was drowned out by the city being destroyed in the machine’s fall.

A few components flew past the blue and white dragon while trailing smoke, but he overtook them again.

And that was all.

He changed his course and flew up into the night sky.

There, Thunder Fellow accelerated and lightly waved his wings up and down as if in thanks.

He was pointed toward the North Star visible in the sky and he saw the lights of Kunitachi and Tachikawa.

A number of shadows were visible in those two cities that the JR Chuo Line ran through.

Those shadows were the black child craft which had already formed up to intercept him.

Thunder Fellow did not hesitate.

He flew straight into that group of shadows.

Diana ran along the railroad.

She was on the Tachikawa end of the elevated portion of the Chuo Line between Kunitachi and Tachikawa. Tachikawa’s station was about three hundred meters away.

The nighttime cityscape to the north and south could be seen on either side of that line which ran east to west.

Both Tachikawa and Kunitachi were prosperous around the station, but the rest was filled with residential areas and parks.

She could see a long way through the city.

Above the lights of empty houses, she saw dark shadows in the sky.

They were black mechanical dragons. A formation of a dozen or so of the small child craft flew through the sky. They were lined up at set intervals to form both rows and columns.

But Diana was not fighting them.

Her opponent was a different group of small dragons prepared elsewhere.

And the group she was fighting had just as many as in that aerial formation.

“What a pain!”

She let out a bitter smile and two small mechanical dragons flew toward her from the northern sky to her right.

Black Sun had prepared these small dragons for them.

Only ten minutes before, she had come here with Odor and the others to confront Black Sun and they had set up a defensive line. She had filled the width of the concept space with a paper barrier in preparation for a direct confrontation.

However, Black Sun had prioritized continuing west.

He had rammed his own child craft into the barrier and sacrificed them to open a path.

Odor had sent impact after impact into the giant machine, but Black Sun had ignored them, even as his armor was smashed.

She remembered what Odor had shouted then.

“Are you running!? Are you running, Black Sun!?”

Black Sun had accelerated as if turning his back and he had chosen to continue west even as American UCAT’s mechanical dragons had fired on him and Diana had sent paper attacks at him.

He had left it all to his child craft.

That was just how much he desired the west.

The Vesper Cannon was in the Okutama Japanese UCAT building to the west.

That cannon had once shot down Black Sun. White Creation and the other dragons had joined with it so it could evolve into the cannon needed to defeat the similarly evolved Black Sun.

Black Sun feared that simple cannon that had no one to use it.

''That’s right,'' thought Diana. ''He understands.

“The bearer of the weapon to defeat him is headed this way.”

Just as Odor had said, Black Sun was indeed running. He was running from what pursued him.

And that told Diana what she needed to do.

“I can help those pursuing and those waiting up ahead by drawing the enemy to me and defeating them!”

Strength filled her gaze as she looked to the sky to her right.

The two small dragons descending from the night sky were getting close.

Their roar filled the air and she estimated they had arrived within a kilometer of her.

She responded by pulling paper from her pocket and throwing it. The paper flipped around once in the air.

“!”

And the face of one of the swiftly flying mechanical dragons exploded.

Rather than a traditional explosion, the word “pressure” burst and produced a great sound of impact.

The direct hit shattered the armor on the dragon’s face and bent it backward in the air. It was thrown off course and it crashed into a residential area of north Kunitachi before it could slow down.

However, the other dragon was still alive. Wind wrapped around it as it flew, but…

“!?”

A sudden attack from the upper left slammed into it.

A metallic sound rang out as proof of the hit and the black dragon flipped around before its back crashed into the elevated railroad.

“Oh, dear.”

Diana made a small jump.

At the same time, the elevated railroad was blasted to the side with the sound of breaking stone.

The Chuo Line had one track on the top and one on the bottom and it was made from a metal bridge and a concrete base, but the impact of the dragon created a large curve to the south. The ripped-up metal bridge and the creaking and splitting concrete base expressed just how much force the impact had contained.

Everything obeyed the impact and bent to the south.

At the leading edge of all that, the small mechanical dragon had been bent into a shallow V-shape along its back, but it soon reached the limit of its flexibility.

With the sound of a metal can falling to the floor, its body fully bent.

That was the end. Its body split open at the belly and the metal motors and circulators were exposed to the northern sky. White smoke rose from the framework that still desired to move.

“—————!”

And as a roar escaped its mouth, it exploded.

At the same time, Diana fell. She no longer had the elevated railroad to stand on. The curving railroad’s concrete base had been ripped up from the ground and the entire structure had shifted about five meters southward.

“Oh, dear. Oh, dear.”

She brought a hand to her wavy silver hair and instantly pulled out a paper broom.

She tossed it into the empty air below her feet.

“There.”

And she stood on it.

It stopped her fall like a bridge fixed in midair.

She looked around in search of the one who wielded the power that had knocked aside one of the dragons charging toward her.

“Honey?”

She called out but could not find him. She simply heard a sound and saw repeated showers of metal sparks in the western sky toward the station.

He was there and he had likely had the same idea as her, but he had helped her on top of that.

She narrowed her eyes, looked up in the sky, and saw some new opponents flying in an arc through the night sky.

There were three of them, but that was not all. The sound of the railroad’s destruction had disturbed the aerial formation of black mechanical dragons.

The dozen or so small dragons were looking down at her, but she smiled back at their gazes and movements.

“It’s not polite to stare too much at a woman’s face, you know?”

With that question, she stuck both her hands in her hair.

All of the presences in the air responded with motion.

Their first action was either to prepare to accelerate and charge in or to prepare to fire on her.

A moment later, she saw flames bloom in the night sky.

There were seven fiery blossoms in all and the wind had already passed through by the time they appeared.

Diana visually confirmed what had created those flowers.

“Is that…?”

As she spoke, the sound finally reached her. She heard seven metallic sounds of the seven mechanical dragons being sliced in two, the seven muffled explosions, and the single gust of wind that tore through them all and continued into the western sky.

She heard the sound of something flying through that lonely sky.

She heard the westward flight of a blue and white mechanical dragon.

Heo clung directly to their speed in the night sky.

Her five senses had combined with Thunder Fellow. Oddly enough, her senses felt the same as always despite her limbs and face no longer being human.

When she reached out and touched her face, she felt her arm bending like normal and the normal sensation of her fingers. However, her vision saw the mechanical dragon’s front leg bend and touch the armor of its face with its sharp claws.

Thunder Fellow commented on that fact.

“I am applying a two-way conversion to your senses, so there should be no difference from normal.”

She did not entirely understand, but she appreciated the lack of unease over having changed form. In fact, the flow and chill of the air that Thunder Fellow would always be feeling felt ticklish to her. His frame was exposed and only surrounded by a bit of armor, so…

…''It feels like I’m naked.

But at the moment, her body was swiftly soaring through the sky.

She could not see Harakawa who was piloting, but she could speak with him.

And her entire body could feel the effects of his piloting.

…''We’re moving so fast.

Her senses were based on Thunder Fellow’s and thus accelerated to a certain extent, but it seemed most of the sensory alignment was allotted to Harakawa who needed more processing speed as he piloted.

Currently, he was set so his senses were compressed to about ten times their normal speed while Heo’s were closer to five times.

Their speed was approximately one thousand two hundred kilometers per hour, but it felt like one hundred twenty kilometers per hour with Harakawa’s sensory speed and two hundred forty with Heo’s.

Her eyes could not keep up.

When high in the sky, the ground was so far away that their flight felt slower, but now…

“W-we’re flying into the city!!”

She saw the city flying by so close below her that she felt she was going to trip over it. She saw the elevated railroad cutting by from left to right in the distance and she saw a few black forms in the sky overhead.

For some reason, the railroad seemed to bend toward them, but the next thing she knew, they seemed close enough to reach out and touch it.

In an instant, Harakawa desired to draw Thunder Fellow’s swords.

Heo gave permission an instant later.

As soon as she did, swords of light shot out on the left and right and she felt them hit something.

Seven somethings, to be exact. Three on the right and four on the left.

They would reach the railroad in an instant.

Heo heard explosions behind them, but she also heard Harakawa’s voice.

“This is just a series of one-shot battles. Thunder Fellow, you need to get a little more meat on your bones. You’re built too much like a racecar. I wish you were built so it was easier to evade.”

“I’ve heard American UCAT’s mechanical dragons can transform. Can you not do that, Thunder Fellow?”

“Look at your own body, Heo Thunderson. The frame is almost entirely built along a single axis to mount the engine. It’s a slender build for a high-speed cruising form.”

“The transformation mechanism was eliminated during the evolution process,” explained Thunder Fellow. “The transforming type switches between high-speed, high-mobility, and combat forms to obtain the benefits of each. This gives them the greatest ability to approach the enemy, but…”

“But?” asked Heo. “But what?”

“They are considerably less durable. The primary frame is delicate and the armor must be made thinner to allow clearance for the moving parts during transformation. It is a good design for attack, but it cannot protect those inside.”

And that was what Thunder Fellow wanted least.

“So reinforcing the frame would make it too heavy and less flexible?” asked Harakawa. “Is that why you made a fixed high-speed frame to ensure the enemy couldn’t leave you behind?”

“That is the basic idea.”

“I see,” said Heo.

That was when Heo spotted someone in the quickly moving scenery. Diana Zonburg stood on the elevated railroad passing by below.

“Teacher!?”

The woman’s usual smile was looking resolutely up at her.

They immediately passed her by.

Heo’s vision was already over a residential district in northern Kunitachi and they began to curve toward Tachikawa Station. It all happened at such high speed that she felt meaningless fear at the speed itself.

However, she managed to regulate her breathing.

…''We are fighting.

The organization named UCAT was fighting to protect the world. Diana, Roger, the people she had passed by in Okutama, the boy named Sayama she had spoken to on the phone, the pilots of the blue mechanical dragons, and many other people had been fighting in the past, were fighting in the present, and would continue to fight in the future.

“…”

She took a breath. Cold air entered Thunder Fellow’s air cooling system and it chilled her body and mind.

She clung to their speed so she would not be tossed around and she focused on herself once more.

She was using too much of her strength. Harakawa was controlling her body, but she was defending herself against those quick movements. She was desperately clinging to their speed so she would not be thrown off no matter what he did.

“Um,” she called out to check on something. “Are you okay, Harakawa?”

“Yes. I feel like we’ll be blown away if I make the slightest mistake, but I’m getting by.”

“You mean…I’m hard to ride?”

“What are you saying, Heo?”

That question made her wonder if she had said anything odd, but she did understand one thing. Just as she had suspected…

…''I’m not holding on.

If anything, she was the one being embraced. She was the one producing the speed, after all.

''Um,'' she began in her mind. ''Is Harakawa embracing me? But if I asked him, he’d probably get mad.

And so she changed her question.

“Uh, Harakawa? Is this fun?”

He raised their speed and accelerated through the sky.

They were approaching the area north of Tachikawa Station, but she no longer felt the fear from before.

“I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t. It’s been a while since I got to go all out like this.”

“Is that so?”

Heo gave a sigh of relief. She was happy to find he did not hate this weapon of speed she had become. And so she mentally embraced him back as he sat inside of her body.

“It’s fun for me too.”

“I’m glad to hear it, Heo Thunderson. …And Thunder Fellow, I have a request.”

“What is it?”

“Slowly lower my heightened senses to only five times normal. I’ve gotten the top score in my club’s traditional ‘beat the traffic camera’ contest four terms in a row, so send the extra processing power to Heo.”

“Eh? But, um, I don’t need that much!” she protested. “I’m fine at the same speed as you.”

She was certain that she could leave this to him.

Instead of clinging on to endure it, she had to embrace him back and entrust herself to him.

When they had passed by Diana earlier, she had recalled what the woman had said back at the base.

…''A true woman must help a careless gentleman make his way and she must have the consideration to let him take the first step and lead the way.

''I haven’t made it that far, though,'' she added with a bitter smile in her heart.

“Let’s go, Harakawa.”

“We’re already on our way, Heo Thunderson. On our way to where the answer lies.”

His instruction to accelerate reached her. It felt like a push on the back and she interpreted it as being embraced from behind. She answered with speed and by embracing his existence within her.

A slight limiter had been placed on their output thus far. It had corresponded to the fear in her mind, but it vanished now.

Thunder Fellow lit the afterburners he had yet to use.

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| Back to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume9 Chapter 31|Chapter 31]]
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| Forward to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume9 Chapter 33|Chapter 33]]
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</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume9 Chapter 31

2026-10-06T03:47:28Z

N-Ch:

==Chapter 31: The Human Dragon’s Will==
[[Image:OnC_v09_0331.png|thumb]]
''Say goodbye

''Split apart

''And understand

Harakawa heard someone crying.

It was the quiet sound of someone sobbing while desperately trying to stay quiet.

As that voice reached his mind, Harakawa wondered why he was hearing it.

His thoughts asked to playback his memories and that brought his other senses rushing back.

He had apparently passed out.

…''Twice in one day. That’s pretty sad.

He opened his eyes, but he was surrounded by the color black and wondered if he had gone blind.

From what he remembered, he and Heo had been riding an invisible dragon which had instinctually faced the enemy while saying it did not understand anything.

…''And it was shot down.

He thought they had only avoided the black dragon’s final attack because Heo had woken. When she had given her cry of rejection, their dragon had hesitated.

And that hesitation had avoided a direct hit. Still, they had been knocked away and their excess flight speed had taken them eastward.

“And we fell in the ocean. So is this the ocean floor?”

He then felt something move on his chest. It was Heo and she was clinging to his T-shirt.

“Hey, Heo Thunderson. Please don’t drool on my clothes.”

“I-I didn’t do that.”

She tried to sound defiant, but her voice shook. She apparently tried to get up, but she also apparently did not have it in her to leave his arms.

He was definitely sitting in something. The seat had him almost lying down and it felt like the one’s he had seen in the base’s F-16s. When he stretched out his legs, he could feel them reach the bottom of something like a table.

He turned his head to either side. His vision was still filled with darkness, but his eyes seemed to have adjusted because he could sense a bit of light.

“…?”

He removed his right arm from Heo and reached toward the light source. He found a soft cloth material.

“Ah, w-wait, Harakawa! Just because it’s dark d-d-d-d-doesn’t mean-…!”

“Stop getting worked up over misunderstandings, Heo Thunderson. Now, about your necklace…”

The faint light was enough to see Heo raise her head in confusion.

The stone necklace she wore was wrapped in light. Blue light.

“This thing isn’t radioactive, is it?”

“I-It can’t be. My mom wouldn’t leave me something dangerous.”

“It is a philosopher’s stone,” said a voice.

Harakawa recognized it as the dragon’s voice and he looked around.

“A philosopher’s stone? …No, that doesn’t matter. Where are you?”

“I am here, but I am not with you. That is all I know.”

With that, the voice fell silent as if this was not its place.

Even after the span of a few breaths, the voice did not continue. Whether relieved or worried by that, Heo tilted her head.

“U-um, what was that voice?”

“Your savior apparently. It has no name, but it’s a dragon. Crazy, isn’t it?”

It was too dark to see each other’s expressions, but he still wondered what look was on his face.

“This invisible dragon saved you when those guys in blue attacked this afternoon and when you fell from the transport plane just now.”

“Um,” began Heo while further tilting her head. “Harakawa, did you hit your head?”

“Can you really say that after all the nonsense you asked me to believe, Heo Thunderson?”

“B-but it was only a demon that was with me. There wasn’t an attacking dragon and a saving dragon. Why did we start talking about an invisible dragon? And does that mean the darkness around us is the bottom of the ocean we can see through the dragon’s body?”

“That’s the only explanation I can think of. You remember falling, don’t you? Well, look around you. We’re most likely in the cockpit of a completely invisible dragon. Right now, we’re at the bottom of the ocean just like you said. Or if we’re unlucky, this might be Tokyo Bay’s famous toxic sludge.”

“Th-then if this really is a dragon…and it really is with me to save me…”

He could feel the movement of her chest as she gulped a bit.

“Was it this dragon that killed my mom?”

''It couldn’t have been,'' thought Harakawa.

Thinking back on its two appearances today, the dragon had always appeared to save Heo. And in the sky, it had thanked him for protecting her twice. That had likely been because he had protected her before the dragon could.

But the dragon gave a different answer to her question.

“It was.”

As the voice quietly filled the cockpit, Harakawa froze in place and Heo shrank down.

She took a new breath and prepared to say something, but Harakawa asked a question before she could.

“Is that really true?”

“It is.”

His question and the dragon’s response stopped Heo. The strength gathered in her body grew to a tremor.

“…”

Something was about to burst from her, but just before it did, the dragon spoke.

“I contain reproduced 5th-Gear concepts. He was evolving and repairing himself, but he sensed that faint signal and pursued it. That was when I first awoke, but…”

There was a slight pause.

“I did not make it in time. By the time I appeared and drove away Black Sun who did not know what he was, Heo’s mother had already passed away. …That is the same as killing her. She was attacked by an enemy pursuing me and I did not save her in time.”

“But…”

Harakawa could tell Heo had lowered her head.

He decided to let her speak because he thought this at least was necessary.

“But…that can’t be. You mean…without you, my mom wouldn’t have died?”

There was no need to ask. It was true. That was why the dragon was apologizing and making no attempt to excuse it.

She then pressed her forehead against his chest.

“No…”

Her trembling body breathed in again and opened its mouth.

“Please leave. You don’t have to come save me, so please leave! You’re a machine, aren’t you? Then throw a switch and leave! Besides, how can you even save me!? You couldn’t stand up to that black dragon just now! That’s why my mom died, so…so…!”

She let out a shout.

“Give it back…”

Her voice fell apart. It lacked the strength and volume from before and it was filled with uncertain trembling.

“Please give it back. You don’t have to save me, so please give it back.”

''I definitely don’t have to ask what “it” is,'' sighed Harakawa.

The answer was “everything”.

And then the dragon replied.

“I am sorry. …I do not know.”

“You don’t know what?” slowly asked Heo. She raised her head as if speaking to Harakawa. “What are you saying you don’t know, you machine that lets people be killed?”

“My role. I exist and have functions, but I need a name to recognize my existence and to give me an objective. Without that, I cannot use my functions toward that objective.”

Harakawa spoke to the voice and tapped Heo’s back to give himself time to speak.

“You didn’t have a name when you were made?”

“I have records indicating I once had one, but I cannot speak that name. That name belonged to what I once was, but I have remade my former self.”

“So all you can use are functions brought by the slight remnants of memory from when you remade yourself?”

…''Is that why he says he knows but does not know?

All of his memories were classified as someone else’s. His appearance to save Heo must have been a sort of instinct that had permeated his being while being remade.

Harakawa prepared to ask if he truly intended to protect Heo, but someone else spoke before he had a chance.

It was Heo.

“Of course you have a name.”

She forcefully sat up by removing Harakawa’s arms and raising her upper body.

“It’s ‘demon’, isn’t it?”

''I’m glad it’s so dark,'' thought Harakawa when he heard that. ''This way I don’t have to see the look on her face.

“So my name is Demon?”

“Yes. I…I am giving you that name, so please leave and never show yourself to me again! If the demon is gone-…”

“Heo.”

She stopped when he called her name. In the pale blue light on her chest, her silhouette curved up like a cat and Harakawa spoke while looking at that shadow.

“Are you listening, Heo Thunderson?”

“Y-yes…”

Her voice fell and some of its energy vanished. Relieved by that, Harakawa tried to keep as much emotion out of his voice as possible.

“Unfortunately, this is not the demon.”

“B-but…!”

“The demon that killed your mother is something else. This one only showed up a little late.”

He heard a gasp and felt a tremble of shock from the butt that sat on his stomach.

“Listen,” he said. “Unfortunately, Heo Thunderson, his objective is to protect you. Not to protect your mother. And another thing, Heo Thunderson. Your mother tried to save you, but failed and died. That is why he appeared. The demon was attacking you, so he had to make sure it did not kill you.”

“Th-then…”

“Enough of that. Think ahead before you speak, Heo. Now listen. You are blaming this dragon for your mother’s death, but what if you turn that idea around? Your mother died because she tried to protect you. If she had left it to this dragon…no, because he did not make it in time…”

He hesitated, but he said it.

“If your mother had left you to be killed by the demon, she would not have been killed.”

He continued to speak and felt he was almost telling himself this.

“Heo, what would you do even if he did give everything back? After all, once your mother died, you were the one that chose to be demon possessed. You did not try to deny it and you only chose to run away. Wouldn’t something similar have happened even if your mother was with you? While that was the beginning of your unhappiness, you are the one that chose to continue on in that unhappiness without rejecting it. Am I wrong, Heo Thunderson?”

After he said that, all motion vanished.

After a while, he heard a breath, but he was unsure if it was his own or Heo’s. That was just how focused he was on the faint silhouette in front of him.

The few seconds that passed felt much more dense and slow than usual.

“Why?”

“The answer is simple. I do not know, Heo Thunderson.”

He brought oxygen to his lungs while focusing.

“Isn’t it the same for you? You don’t know either, do you, Heo?”

“That’s not true. I finally heard the truth. I know why my mom died, I have someone to let my resentment out on, and I never want to see them again.”

“And do you think they’re completely in the wrong?”

“Of course I do.”

Harakawa said nothing. He simply sat up without making a noise and took another gentle action.

“Ah.”

He hugged Heo and his arms around her body told him a certain fact.

“Don’t lie, Heo Thunderson.”

“…”

Silence filled the cockpit until he heard sobbing from his chest.

“But…”

He heard her speak, but he silenced her by holding her even tighter.

…''You vaguely realize it, don’t you?

Even if she did not know about this dragon or the demon, she knew what path she was choosing.

She had chosen to reject it, but that very action of choosing had made her worried about the one-sided protection of the organization named UCAT.

''What a selfish girl,'' he thought. ''She doesn’t realize it herself and makes everyone around her deal with it.

Just as he realized she was like a cat, he smiled bitterly in his heart and tapped her back.

“Hey, can you tell me one thing? Why do you protect Heo? If it was your choice, then how did you meet her?” he asked. “If someone left you to her, that person is the one behind all this. Heo, do you remember anything? Was there some kind of ritual a long time ago?”

“Eh?”

Heo moved a bit. With her face pressed to his chest, she turned to the side and looked up at him.

He saw tears reflecting the blue light. As inexpressible thoughts filled him, he heard her quiet sobbing voice.

“There was nothing like that. Nothing more than my parents giving me the name Heo. …I can’t speak for when I was a baby, though.”

“Heo is correct,” said the dragon. “I have no memory of such a ritual. But…that is why I will open my memories. The memories of a me I do not know. I will show you those memories using the circuit allowing you to hear this voice.”

The dragon said one last thing.

“To use a word I know, this is a memory of a ‘promise’.”

Shinjou thought the pasts Baku showed her were a lot like dreams.

She felt like she had dozed off, but her eyes soon focused, she sensed light, and color filled her world.

Blue slowly filled her vision.

It was the sky.

It was a vast blue expanse filled with clouds, but there was one odd thing about it.

“There’s no land.”

She looked around in all three hundred sixty degrees, but everything was blue as far as the eye could see. The only land she saw was…

…''Floating islands?

Some objects floated here and there in the sky.

They literally were floating islands. Broken pieces of crust drifted through the sky like the wreckage of a larger piece of land.

Most of them were clumps of rock and it was difficult to tell their size with nothing else in the sky to compare them to.

She moved her vision closer and found one was a narrow slab of dark stone that measured a kilometer long. Clumps of plants with triangular leaves were attached to the top of the slab.

…''This is 5th-Gear, isn’t it?

Shinjou suddenly found a manmade object.

…''A building?

Gray and green land floated in the sky about a hundred meters below her.

It was around a hundred meters across, the gray was artificial pavement, and a similarly colored square building was located on top of it. The area behind the building was filled with bluish-green plants with long, narrow leaves.

Among them, she saw a certain shape and colors.

The shape was a dragon and the colors were blue and white.

“Xolotl 3.”

She saw someone pushing through the dense foliage in front of the mechanical dragon.

The person wore something like a scuba tank on his back and a half-face helmet on his head.

“That’s Thunderson-san, isn’t it?”

His breath was visibly white around him and the speed at which the breaths scattered suggested a strong wind. However, the scattering breaths spun around as if hitting a wall a meter away from him.

Gravitational control or something similar must have been protecting him from the air pressure and wind.

After some hesitation, Shinjou waited until the proper timing and had her vision jump down.

Her mind fell for only an instant and she landed on the lower surface with no sound or sensation of impact.

It was a gray and smooth paved road. It had a curb and the edges had a slightly raised area much like a sidewalk.

''This must have been a world that thought about people’s safety,'' she thought.

She moved her vision forward and found what looked like a house.

It was a short, square building. It was about twenty meters across on each side, three meters tall, and windowless. However, it had round fist-sized lenses on a few spots on the walls.

The entrance was located a level lower. There was a slope at the front of the building that led to a rectangular seam on the wall at what was likely the basement.

…''It’s like a shelter.

After that thought, she heard someone breathing. Someone was catching their breath to her right and on the other side of the building.

It was Thunderson, the man wearing the tank.

“Xolotl 3, I’ve made it to the front.”

Xolotl 3’s voice came from near the man’s shoulder.

“I am sorry, Thunderson. If I went, I would likely destroy it.”

“It’s fine. This is part of the investigation process. …And you’re curious about this building, right?”

“Yes, in your manner of speaking, I am ‘curious’. In my manner of speaking, I feel it is worth investigating. There might be a weapon or something else there which is sending out a faint signal. Ever since I was born in these skies, I have been ‘curious’ about it, but I am too large to enter.”

“That’s a dangerous kind of curiosity. But Xolotl 3, are you sure I should be going in here?”

“You have my spare sensory device attached to your shoulder, so I will see whatever you see and hear whatever you hear. …So please enter. I am curious. I was born as a machine, so why am I curious about the ground and why have I always come to rest here between battles for thousands of years?”

“I see,” said Thunderson before hesitating.

But he soon grabbed the meter hanging from the tank on his back.

“I’m going in. But our translation concept is weak, so tell me if anything is labeled as dangerous.”

His look of resolve was turned straight forward and he made his way down the slope to the basement entrance.

His footing was confident and the sound of his military boots soon arrived at the entrance.

The door was two meters tall and three meters wide.

“I see our standards are the same. I’m opening it.”

The door opened by dropping down.

''Huh?'' thought Shinjou as he looked at the upper edge of the door. A space opened along the width of the fallen door, but the bottom of a new type of door panel soon replaced it from the other side. She could tell the metal was somewhat flexible, but she did not know how it worked.

Wind blew in front of her. The difference in air pressure at such a high altitude caused the air inside to burst out.

Most of it was dust. Dirty brown smoke mixed in with the wind and danced about and a torn paper-like fiber followed.

“That isn’t good. This could destroy the whole thing.”

Thunderson rushed into the door and Shinjou did so as well.

She heard the door close behind her as she followed the man inside the building.

The entranceway was a three square meter space.

The walls themselves emitted pale beige light. The hallway floor was black, but the spots the man stepped on glowed bluish-white and that glow spread in ripples shaped like his footprints.

The hallway continued both right and left, but Thunderson checked right first.

“Can you see this, Xolotl 3? The right side has been destroyed.”

The right half of the hallway had melted. No, it had technically not melted.

“It looks like the metal lost control. It must have broken at an early stage of the destruction and just melted into a clump.”

The metal forming the hallway’s walls was crushed as if someone had slammed a bar into it from the left wall.

The gaps in the collapsed walls gave a glimpse of the piles of objects from the rooms bordering the hallway. Some of the objects appeared to be made of wood, but whatever had covered their surface had crumbled like sand.

It had all been worn away by the passage of time.

“There is nothing to see there. Go left, Thunderson.”

“Sure,” replied the man.

The left end of the hallway had also collapsed, but he headed for the one intact door.

Shinjou realized something from the softness of the lighting coming from the walls.

…''This was a home. There weren’t any weapons here.

She then noticed Thunderson had vanished.

The door down the hallway was open, so he had entered that final room and left her alone.

She was belatedly hesitant to enter someone’s private room. She was unsure it was appropriate for someone who had only ever lived at UCAT and a student dorm.

But that thought was blown away by the beige light shining from beyond the door.

She relied on the illusion that the light was warming her nonexistent body and she set foot in the room.

“Ah…”

The room was almost ten square meters. Thunderson stood in the center and the gray dust on the floor was up to his ankles. The room was unfurnished, but the dusty walls had lines on it as if objects could be pulled out from them.

The room looked empty, but it did contain something.

The gray dust on the floor revealed a shape there.

…''A cushion?

There was a shallow rectangular bulge on the floor. It rose further on one end as if to lay one’s head on and there were dividing lines on the wall at the end. The lines were in the perfect place to look at while lying on the floor.

…''Was something like a TV kept in the wall there?

Shinjou thought about whoever had lived here.

A book or a device with similar functionality had likely been within arm’s reach. This was near the kitchen, so they would have been able to keep snacks and drinks around.

She saw a few other bulges in the dust covering the room.

Thousands of years had passed in 5th-Gear since Black Sun had destroyed the land and the people had been destroyed. This house seemed to have retained some atmosphere, but the resident or residents would have been long dead.

However, Shinjou suddenly remembered what Sayama had said just before she had been shown the past.

…''There are still questions about the fall of the 5th-Gear’s people?

She wondered what those could be, but the scene around her gave no answers.

The dust looked like gray snow and it only revealed the past through the weathered wreckage hidden below.

She then saw Thunderson pick something up from the dust.

It looked like a B5-size glass panel.

But it was actually a piece of paper encased in a clear sheet that resembled glass.

The paper contained color. The colors were those of reality. Or rather, the colors of a photograph depicting reality.

“…”

The photograph showed a girl, a man, and a woman.

They looked human. Their skin was very nearly white and their slenderness seemed to be their primary characteristic. Overall, they resembled the long-lived race.

Shinjou thought the girl standing in front looked fourteen or fifteen. The identical blonde hair on all three suggested the girl was the daughter of the man and woman behind her. Blue eyes with a hint of green smiled in the center of the photograph.

Thunderson moved his fingers to brush the dust from the photograph.

“Xolotl 3. Do you know who these people are?”

“No, I do not.”

“Then do you know why you are so curious about this place?”

“No, I do not. But,” said Xolotl 3. “To use your manner of speaking, this is a ‘calming’ place.”

That comment was followed by a sudden noise.

It came from the wall. The dividing lines Shinjou had seen before extended outward and lit up.

It became a screen.

…''Is this…?

The screen displayed the same man standing in the photograph. What looked like a factory was visible behind him. It was a large factory that seemed to extend forever and countless machines were moving about. Mechanical arms were carrying drive wheels and metal frames that looked like pieces of a giant skeleton. Other machines were welding them together.

With that in the background, the man used his blue clothes to wipe a black liquid from his hands.

“Sorry that————the periodic letter. It’s just been———————.”

The sound and video would skip. Instead of filling with static, the video partially blacked out and then the scene changed. It was still in the same factory, but the background was different. A transportation pallet was now visible and Shinjou recognized what it carried.

…''Xolotl 3?

“This is the experimental——————the separation isn’t going well. In addition to the pilot, someone else must combine with it, but their body and memories—————and can’t be recovered. The other units are similarly————————, but once this is complete, —————help Black Sun that you love so much. Once he and White Creation are protecting our world together, we can rest—————”

The video skipped again, but the location did not change. The man and his fellow workers stood in front of a mechanical dragon that looked a lot like Xolotl 3, but was not quite the same. All of them looked exhausted, none of them had shaved recently, and their clothes were filthy, but they were all smiling. Some were even waving at the camera.

But the image suddenly changed and Shinjou’s confused mind was shown something else.

The factory was being destroyed. As the ceiling collapsed and sparks flew everywhere, the same glasses-wearing man stared into the screen with a tense look on his face.

“Can you————? We were hit by a chemical———————. It was a concept bomb————————by 9th. —————headed to your planet too.”

Before Shinjou could wonder what was going on, an alarm sounded in the footage and the man closed his eyes.

“I’m sorry. Black Sun is undergoing maintenance, but——————asked him to take care of everything. If all of you are suffering, and it doesn’t look like we’re going to make it in time———————the planet. —————sure it will trouble Black Sun, so————”

The man opened his eyes and looked directly into the screen.

“Do what you can until the last moment. —————and tell Black Sun to find happiness.”

That was all. The video ended and the screen went dark.

And as black filled the screen, Shinjou took a dazed breath.

That had given the truth behind Black Sun’s destruction of 5th-Gear.

…''Does that mean…!?

“Could Black Sun not stand seeing the people suffer and die from another Gear’s chemical weapon, so he went out of control and destroyed them himself!? All to keep them from suffering!? And did he come up with his own reason for doing it because he didn’t want responsibility to lie with the people who asked him to do it!?”

But…

“Did a few people combine with the incomplete mechanical dragons to survive the chemical weapon?”

When they did, they lost their memories and began to battle the rampaging Black Sun.

And it was all because they had cared for each other and yet lost everything.

Shinjou then saw Thunderson look away from the black screen and open his mouth.

“Hey.”

“What is it?”

“Do you remember when you were born?”

“No,” replied Xolotl 3. “But I do remember it was very ‘sad’. I opened my communications and heard what my fellow mechanical dragons had to say and they were the same. It was a reaction to losing some kind of support and losing any objective.”

“Then, Xolotl 3… Who are you?”

“I am Xolotl 3.”

“Then tell me this, Xolotl 3. How is this read?”

He looked down at the photograph in the glass panel he held.

Something was written on it. Shinjou could read the meaning of the characters written in something like bluish-black pen, but she did not know what sound the writing represented.

But she heard Xolotl 3’s answer.

“It is a name. The first word means ‘to’ and the following word is the name of the girl in the photograph.”

“And that name is?”

“In the sounds of your world it would be ‘Heo’,” explained Xolotl 3. “It means ‘happiness’.”

As Shinjou’s nonexistent body stiffened, Xolotl 3’s voice continued.

“Why are you crying, Thunderson of the family of thunder.”

“Because I understand now,” he said. “You are human, Xolotl 3. Even if you do not understand, this girl and I do. This girl who was meant to have happiness understands and so do I. And about Black Sun…was he your friend?”

“Then…let us decide.”

Thunderson frowned.

“Decide what?”

“We will continue on and settle things with Black Sun. He will likely flee to your world as usual, but repeating that process will only wear us down.”

So…

“We will pursue Black Sun and then our entire army, White Creation included, will settle this in your world.”

Thunderson’s shoulders shook and he spoke to the camera-shaped sensory device on his right shoulder.

“With the Concept Core gone, 5th-Gear will be destroyed while you do that!”

He placed the photograph on the floor, gave a quick nod toward the three people in the photograph, and left the room. And he did so at a run.

He reached the entranceway, opened the door, and left the house.

The blue sky was now visible beyond the slope up from the basement.

A swarm of dragons had appeared. Shinjou saw mechanical dragons filling that blue sky. A white one measuring over three hundred meters long was in the center with hundreds of miscellaneously colored dragons flying around it.

Wind blew with a refreshing sound.

She then heard a voice from the giant six-winged white dragon overhead.

“One with the name of the family of thunder, will you fight with us?”

“Why… Why are you asking me that?”

“We are made to fear and prevent the destruction of 5th-Gear, so we cannot pursue Black Sun when he leaves 5th-Gear. That is why we wish for orders. As machines, we wish for a human to control us.”

The white dragon was likely White Creation. He slowly lowered his head and the dragons floating around him did the same.

“I am a machine, but you referred to my fellow dragons as human. You called them humans who have chosen to forget that they are human. …And you are a human that has not forgotten that he is a human.”

“…”

“I want to give you full authority over 5th-Gear and I want your help in defeating Black Sun.”

“Why?”

“I believe I have already stated why I chose you.”

“No,” said Thunderson before his visibly white breathing stopped.

After a moment, he took a step up the slope to widen his vision.

“Why are you fighting? This will destroy your Gear.”

“I was given a single command from my original creator,” said White Creation while the dragons lowered their heads as if nodding. “I am to guide the people to happiness. What we cannot stand more than losing our own peace is to see people’s happiness destroyed, no matter where those people might be. That is why we will destroy Black Sun. We will destroy our foolish and yet kind brother who destroyed our people and our world because he could not stand seeing them suffer.”

“That’s quite a pushy sort of happiness,” said Thunderson while slowly looking across the heavens and the earth that floated in the sky. “And you’re asking me to become a villain for that? I have to be the villain who ordered the destruction of this world?”

He took a breath, closed his eyes, and gave one last resigned comment.

“So the time for my resolve has come.”

After hearing that, Shinjou felt a sudden floating sensation.

She was waking from the past and slowly returning to the present and to reality.

Heo was curled up in the arms that supported her in the darkness.

Her senses shifted from the past she had seen like a dream and back to reality.

She felt the pulse, breathing, and heat of Harakawa who she was pressed up against.

“Is that what my name means?”

“I do not know,” replied the dragon. “But my previous self fought along with the one he chose as his pilot and scored a fatal wound on the enemy, but I too was destroyed and unable to fully defeat that enemy. The enemy fled to the ocean to prepare for a future rematch and it seems we wished to combine with a single weapon along with White Creation. That being the Vesper Cannon that I once possessed.”

Showing those memories may have established some connections within him because he continued to speak.

“And at that time, White Creation chose me as the bearer of the weapon they became. I was to completely remake my destroyed body and rest until I was needed.”

Hearing that, Heo opened her mouth and wondered how loud her voice would sound in this dark stillness.

“And why did you help me?”

“I believe it was a promise. When falling into my personal concept space, my former self made a promise with my pilot. If a child needing protection was born to the family of thunder, that child was to be given full authority over 5th-Gear and the name of happiness.”

She listened to the voice.

“As the protector of 5th-Gear’s happiness, I promised to protect that child as thanks to the one who cried for our people.”

She was left speechless, but strength gathered in Harakawa’s arms around her shoulders and back and she sank into that strength.

…''How can I find a way to reject this thing that caused what I called a demon?

But…

“I was given my name by my parents.”

She did not know why, but her parents had hoped she would be happy and that she would be protected.

…''Why did they make sure only I was protected when they were the ones that fought?

And it was hard to believe that Black Sun, that demon, had cared about people.

There was so much she wanted to say that she had difficulty sorting through it all.

And just as she tried to figure out what to do, she heard a new sound. An electronic tone rang loudly in the silent and dark space.

“A cellphone. That’s the one the treasurer gave me, isn’t it?”

Harakawa spoke, removed a hand from her back, and stuck it in his own pocket. From the movement of the air, she could tell he had placed a cellphone against his ear.

“Treasurer?”

“It is I. It seems Kanda has finally opened the communications line, so feel free to send your praise…to me.”

After a quiet electronic tone, the sound vanished. Harakawa had hung up and put the phone in his pocket.

“Looks like the bad dream isn’t over yet. I’m going back to sleep for a bit.”

“U-um, Harakawa. Was that the voice of that crazy person who came by yesterday?

As she asked that, the phone began to ring again and Harakawa gave an annoyed sigh.

“What is it, idiot?”

“Heh heh heh. Did you hear that, Shinjou-kun? Harakawa does not know his place.”

“Stop making things more confusing than they have to be, Sayama, you idiot! Now what do you want?”

Heo strained her ears in the darkness and listened to the voice coming from the cellphone.

“Sorry, Harakawa, but I do not actually need you for anything. See, that is what you get. …However, I would like to speak with Heo Thunderson-kun who is with you.”

Heo looked up and felt like Harakawa was looking at her, so she tilted her head in confusion.

“Listen, Sayama,” said Harakawa from beyond the phone. “Heo said she has nothing to say to you and that you need to just go die.”

“I-I did not say that!”

“Oh, I am glad to see you are doing well. …Now listen, Heo Thunderson-kun.”

Heo listened to the boy named Sayama.

“We belong to the Japanese UCAT that functions separately from the American UCAT that is protecting you. And currently, I have demonstrated my greatness by gaining America’s approval to rescind that protection as compensation for my victory.”

She did not know what he meant by rescinding her protection.

“Eh?”

She gave voice to her confusion, but that did not stop the boy.

“Listen,” he began. “That means you will no longer be protected by America or anyone else if you do not wish for it. So live as you wish here in Japan, using the money and connections you possess. If you wish to return, either pay for the plane ticket yourself or flee to the embassy. Understand?”

“W-wait a minute.”

“Waiting will change nothing, but if you have something to say, I will listen. …What is it?”

Heo thought.

She tried to approach the phone to better make herself heard, but her forehead hit something hard. Harakawa had been thinking the same thing and held the phone out toward her.

“Ow, ow,” she said while holding her head, but she took the phone and gathered her thoughts. “U-um, well…”

She thought and pressed the cellphone against her ear.

“So my words will actually get through to you?”

“If they would not get through to me, they would not get through to anyone else in the world.”

“I detect a structural flaw in that logic,” commented the dragon.

Heo felt the dragon was exactly right, but she spoke regardless.

“Then why?”

“Let me ask you this instead. Why do you ask that?”

“Well…” she began.

“We are about to go fight what is likely the enemy that has pursued your past. …But it has nothing to do with you.”

“Wh-what? How can you say that?”

“Then why did you accept their protection that would take you to a place wholly unrelated to this fight?”

He did not stop there.

“This is a negotiation. To be honest, I would like your help. If you have already had the basics explained to you, you understand what I mean by that, right?”

[[Image:OnC_v09_0363.png|thumb]]

“Yes,” she answered with a nod.

She understood from the dream the man named Roger had given her. The world would be destroyed soon and her great-grandfather had been left with full authority of the world known as 5th-Gear.

But it seemed there was more to the story of that authority.

“You have inherited 5th-Gear’s authority from your great-grandfather. That includes the right to owning the Concept Core. As proof of that, your name is a 5th-Gear word, your dragon is a 5th-Gear human, that dragon is there for you, and the weapon made for that dragon contains the Concept Core. In other words, your great-grandfather and parents have given you the ability needed to act as 5th-Gear’s representative.”

“Th-then you’re telling me to use that power to help you?”

“I never said that,” replied Sayama. “To be completely honest, your help would be appreciated. After all, the destruction of the world would rob me of a land to rule over and that would be quite a problem for Shinjou-kun.”

“Th-that would not be a problem for me at all.”

“Ha ha ha. No need to be shy, Shinjou-kun. …Anyway, are you listening, Heo-kun? There is a lot going on and I would like your help, but everyone around me has chosen to gather here of their own free will. I could use a variety of threats or enticements to call you to me, but that is not our way of doing things.”

“B-but if the world would be destroyed without my help…”

“Then let it be destroyed. A world that cannot move a single girl’s heart deserves nothing less.”

And…

“But we will do whatever we can to fight it and we are more than willing to do so. We have a lot of spare time on our hands and we will not give up no matter what. That is all.”

“Then…”

“That is what we offer in this negotiation. We will not protect you and we will not let any other organization protect you. We will not provide you with order or peace of mind. We stand in a place where we look at the unadorned facts that the world is headed for destruction and Black Sun, who went mad for the sake of the people, flies through our skies.”

He took a breath.

“You have power, but power is nothing if it is never used. I would like your help, but there is no point if you yourself will not use your power. So if you ever want to break through the goal tape yourself, just say so. That delinquent boy will show you the way. But do not cheerfully trust us, Heo Thunderson. We may be comrades with the same goal, but we are not some clichéd group of friends. We are simply a group of people facing in the same direction. If you are fine with that, then come visit us.”

That was all.

With an electronic tone, the call ended. The complete lack of parting words left Heo speechless.

Sayama looked around his surroundings with the lights washing over him.

The blue armored uniforms and the blue mechanical dragons stood on the broad runway and the white uniforms stood by the white building.

They were all staring intently at him, so Sayama first raised his left arm forcefully enough to produce a sound from the fabric of his suit’s elbow.

“What are you doing!? Black Sun’s army is on its way! As that phone call proved, Kanda has given us free use of our communication devices! Report!!”

“Testament,” said a female voice from the white building.

Sibyl had stepped out of the entrance with a bandage around her right arm.

“Six minutes ago, the American UCAT forces remaining in Chofu engaged Black Sun’s advance unit. Communications suddenly cut out two minutes ago. Currently, a group led by American UCAT’s inspector has left Yokota to intercept them near Kunitachi.”

“If that interception fails, when will Black Sun’s advance unit arrive here?”

“Most likely, around 22:00. That is approximately twenty-five minutes from now.”

That immediate declaration produced noise from everyone there. But instead of gasping, it was the noise of weapons being prepared.

Sayama was satisfied by those overlapping sounds of steel and the fact that those in blue were also preparing. He then looked across the table and at Roger who was fixing his suit collar.

“I am impressed by American UCAT’s response to an estimation based on the assumption that your inspector will be defeated. I would like to continue this as equals.”

“Testament,” replied Roger while narrowing his eyes and turning toward his fellow American UCAT members.

But he stopped and instead reached a hand toward the table and to the philosopher’s stone on Baku’s neck.

“This is a defense concept. …You really got me there.”

“You yourself did quite well to read the letter at the end.”

“Testament. When did you realize the truth?”

Sayama replied without hesitating to lose himself in the curious look in Shinjou’s eyes.

“That is a simple matter. When you read the document during our chat last night, I wondered why he never once mentioned his precious great-granddaughter. And today when I heard Heo Thunderson had been saved by something invisible, I made a guess that she had inherited something,” he explained. “I decided Richard Thunderson must have already known his great-granddaughter would be fine on her own. …And that knowledge had most likely come when she had lost her mother.”

Sayama pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. It was the article about the death of Heo’s mother that he had received via Moira 1st.

“When asked why her mother had such a peaceful expression in death, some speculated a family member had been the culprit. However, that expression was proof that the Thunderson family had chosen the proper happiness.”

He felt a sudden pain in the left side of his chest.

He knew why. His own mother had attempted a double suicide with him.

…''What expression did she have?

As he thought that and held his right hand to his chest, something supported that arm.

The slender arm and slight strength were Shinjou’s, so he nodded toward her and relaxed.

“5th’s destruction and Black Sun were a simple matter as well. …A truly excellent machine will obey its people.”

He looked forward once more and saw Roger pushing his glasses up his nose.

“I see. It would seem I had grown a little too close-minded.”

This time, he really did turn around to prepare for the interception of Black Sun.

However, Sayama saw a new document that had appeared on the table.

“What is this?”

“Something I was asked to hold on to and bring here. Asked by your grandfather.”

Sayama frowned and felt his pulse quicken as he looked at the first page of the document. He read the title aloud.

“Georgius Development Plan.”

And the author.

“Sayama Asagi!?”

The pain arrived. His body cramped around the left of his chest and felt like it was breaking.

“Sayama-kun!”

Once he heard Shinjou’s cry, he gathered strength in his back and stood back up. He bore with the instant of pain threatening to bind his body.

“So you did hold an important position during UCAT’s blank period!”

“No, I was nothing more than a soldier. Among them, anyway. And once it was all over, I was given this as someone who was close to him. This is the development plan for the left and right Georgius, which are needed to end the Leviathan Road.”

“Left and right?”

“Yes. We were unable to use them. Most likely, the only ones who can are those with the surname Sayama and those with the surname Shinjou.”

Not only did Sayama stiffen upon hearing that, but Shinjou did as well.

She took a step forward and asked a question.

“But… Why my surname too!?”

“That is as much as I can tell you. I do not have the authority for anything more.” He waved his hand with his back still turned. “It may be that this negotiation had already been decided long ago. Your grandfather said the Leviathan Road cannot be ended without Georgius. If that is true, only Japanese UCAT can stop the destruction of the world.”

Roger began to walk and his footsteps on the asphalt grew more distant. As if pursuing that sound, Sibyl looked up with a cellphone to her ear.

“Everyone!”

She was frowning and her voice rang loudly.

“We have lost contact with the interception unit in Kunitachi.”

Harakawa heard a pulse and breathing in the darkness.

The quiet sounds came from the girl curled up on top of his chest.

She was not moving and the dragon carrying them said nothing.

How much time had passed?

He did not bother counting the breaths that functioned as an hourglass, but finally he heard a quiet voice.

“That’s horrible.”

It was Heo and she seemed to be testing the volume of her voice.

“How can he tell me to do whatever I want when the world will be destroyed without my help?”

Harakawa was not sure if he should say anything, but he decided to correct her.

“That idiot really means it. He and everyone around him are crazy. They all think they can do something, but if they can’t, they think that’s fine too. So even if you don’t help them, they’ll stupidly and optimistically assume they can get by somehow or other on their own.”

“Really?”

“That idiot said he ''wanted'' your help, right? If he really ''needed'' it, he would have said so. They can say that kind of thing because they all have the power to do something.”

“But Harakawa, you aren’t telling me to help you or that you need me.”

“Why would I? I’m not trying to do anything as crazy as them.”

“But…you still came for me.”

“…”

After he fell silent, a familiar question reached his ears.

“Why?”

She asked it again.

“Why did my parents, my great-grandfather, those strange people, and you do what you did?”

“How should I know? I might have a guess, but how should I know?” he said. “And let me tell you something, Heo Thunderson. There are definitely things it isn’t nice not knowing, but there are also things you can be perfectly happy not knowing.”

He recalled that the protective charm from his mother had taken the attack by the dragon’s claws for them. And he recalled when he had taken a certain girl into his room.

“There are things like that, aren’t there?”

The girl in his arms did not move and she held her breath for a moment.

However, he noticed her pulse had risen a little.

“There is happiness inside you that you don’t understand, but will you refuse to trust it just because you don’t understand it?”

“Well…”

“Answer me, Heo. Heo Thunderson. You said you do not know why everyone made the decisions they did, but there are things you can trust even if you don’t understand them. Whether you understand it or not, the fact remains that many people have protected you all this time. …And the same goes for you.”

He took a breath while noticing how everything he had to tell this girl needed to be said to him as well.

“Do not lie about the happiness inside you, Heo Thunderson.”

“Why?” She looked up. “Why do you do have to say that?”

“Because that is my happiness.”

He knew she would probably protest. She would probably ask him what exactly he meant which was not a question he wanted to answer.

And so he sealed those words inside her. And he used his own lips to do so.

“…”

Her body stiffened a bit.

“…”

But after a few seconds, the two parted and let out a breath. A moment later, Heo spoke.

“U-um, uh. Th-that was my first time…just now.”

“Calm down. I’m sure one of your parents beat me to it.”

“D-don’t ruin a girl’s dream like that…”

Her words fell apart toward the end, but in place of the tears and shaking from before, she gave a bitter laugh.

Her shoulders shook and she gave a ticklish laugh.

“That’s right,” she said while slowly sitting up.

“What is?”

“Trusting. It isn’t easy, but there is some truth there.” She gave another small laugh. “Like the fact that you pursued me and kissed me even after I pushed you away like that.”

“Wait.”

He had an oddly bad feeling, so he reached out and grabbed her again.

He then realized her body was trembling again even as she tried to sound confident.

…''So she was just faking it.

He heard her voice again.

“Please support me if anything happens.”

“If I feel like it.”

“Sure,” she said with a laugh. “Um, dragon?”

“What?” replied the voice.

She took in a large breath, exhaled, and spoke.

“I think I will pursue Black Sun.”

“But I…”

“You don’t know your name, right? And you need a name for your functionality. To be honest, I still don’t understand you very well and I don’t really think we can become friends,” she said. “But we have the same objective, don’t we? So…”

She said it.

“Thunder Fellow. You are a companion of the family of thunder, so how about that for a name?”

The voice said nothing in response.

Instead, a light appeared.

“Ah.”

The cockpit’s ceiling, sides, and front lit up.

A table stuck out below the pointed windshield in the front and a console window covered the table. Similar consoles appeared on the sides.

The cockpit had no control column or steering wheel, but a pair of roll bars could be seen on either side as if to support someone leaning in the seat.

As the light from the cockpit left through the windshield, color could be seen appearing on the dragon’s body. Or rather, the armor had stopped hiding its form.

The dragon half buried in sludge had a pointed form with blue and white armor.

Harakawa looked around and saw a second seat further back that looked like a bed.

“Lie there, child of happiness. When you are taken in and combine with me, the output limiters will be put in your control.”

“Wait, wait. Are you sure that’s a good idea? What if she loses her memory or there’s some other side effe-…”

“That was already fixed based on my previous self’s experiences. …I will protect her. I promise.”

Harakawa saw Heo nod in his arms.

“Let’s go so we can stop that lonely dragon named Black Sun.”

Her eyes were red from crying, but her expression showed she had accepted her power.

And so he sighed, lowered his shoulders, and let go.

“You really have gotten motivated. Just do whatever it is you want.”

“There is something for you to do as well, Harakawa,” said the dragon.

“What?”

Harakawa frowned and Thunder Fellow continued.

“After seeing you protect her twice before I could, I took the liberty of linking your nervous system to my control system when taking you onboard earlier.”

“Wait, wait, wait a second. What do you mean linked?”

He then realized something about when the giant black dragon’s main weapon had hit them.

…''Everything seemed to happen really slowly.

“I will concentrate on the neurotransmission of my own body, you will pilot my body, and Heo will both support you and use her mind to release the limiters of my body. When I evolved, I gained a number of functions I have yet to use, but…”

This powerful voice was the dragon’s true will.

“If we do this, we can draw out my full power.”

At 9:37 PM, Black Sun and its army clashed with the American UCAT mechanical dragons deployed at Kunitachi.

They had smashed most of those to pieces and continued westward after shaking free of the few remaining ones.

Yokota Air Base was west of western Tachikawa and the Showa Memorial Park, but it had no equipment left and all of its remaining forces had evacuated underground.

Black Sun sent some leading child craft along the surface to destroy anything that could attack, but they were all sent on even further ahead by the time Black Sun himself reached the base.

There were no more enemies left.

All that remained was the familiar scent that was growing stronger. It was a powerful concept reading to the west and it smelled of the weapon that had once defeated him.

Black Sun pointed that direction and slowly accelerated.

However, he detected a new scent.

In the sky even further east of the defeated enemies was some other familiar scent.

“…”

Black Sun had eliminated his negligence, so he sent some child craft into the sky behind him. He sent enough to defeat all of the enemy forces that had appeared thus far.

And at the same time, an automaton in control of the concept space creation device terminal near Tokyo Bay saw something strange.

Something slowly rose from Tokyo Bay which was supposedly empty.

It resembled a sword.

It was a thirty meter metal structure colored blue and white.

The automaton’s sight saw the water gently split above its tip as it hovered into the air.

It was a mechanical dragon.

The automaton determined this was an unidentified mechanical dragon that was different from the black ones. It was approximately five kilometers away and her scan via ultra-long distance vision showed its form was similar to the high-speed cruising form of the full transformation models. However…

“Its frame is not made to transform?”

That meant it was a non-transformation model.

“I have determined it is limited to high-speed mobility.”

A red light ran between the blue and white armor like a pulse.

That acted as a signal.

The dragon bent its body and rolled around as if dancing in the air above the water.

“!”

It suddenly shot up into the sky.

It happened instantly. All it left behind was wind, a spray of water, and a white line of water vapor that revealed its path.

The automaton’s gaze followed the white line that cut westward through the night sky.

She moved her sight devices, turned her head, and spun her body around to follow it.

“…!?”

But she was not quick enough. All she saw was the white line.

By the time she completely turned around, that line had already vanished into the western sky.

That left only the sound.

The windy roar of supersonic speed shook her body as it arrived from behind and passed by overhead.

She had no idea what had just happened, but one thing was clear.

“It is in pursuit. The blue and white mechanical dragon is pursuing Black Sun. And…”

She spoke the estimation based on her probabilistic decisions.

“It will most likely catch up.”

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| Return to [[Owari no Chronicle|Main Page]]
| Forward to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume9 Chapter 32|Chapter 32]]
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</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume9 Chapter 30

2026-10-05T03:50:48Z

N-Ch:

==Chapter 30: Preemptive Truth==
[[Image:OnC_v09_0303.png|thumb]]
''Make your will known

''Both when you have something

''And when you have nothing

Light illuminated the night with the dark mountains in the background.

On the asphalt between a long runway and a white building, a long meeting table cast a shadow by the roundabout in front of the building.

Three people cast shadows with the table between them.

One was a foreigner in a suit.

The tall man faced the other two through his glasses. One was a boy in a suit and the other a girl in a white shirt.

“Now, Sayama and Shinjou. You may have only just returned, but I would like to receive an answer.”

The boy in a suit, Sayama, turned a sharp gaze toward him.

“And what do you mean by an answer, Roger-kun?”

“As I have already said, I refer to the cessation of the Leviathan Road with 5th-Gear.”

Roger reached into his pocket as he spoke.

All those in white armored uniforms by the building prepared their various weapons, but Roger ignored the many metallic noises and removed his hand from his pocket.

Shinjou stated what he now held.

“An envelope?”

“Testament. The letter inside contains the instructions Mr. Richard Thunderson gave us. He provided us with the full authority he received from 5th-Gear and it is our reason for stopping the Leviathan Road.”

Roger placed the white envelope on the table and then returned his hand to his pocket.

He then pulled out a small black device.

“May I activate this tape recorder? I would like to record your answer and everything leading up to it.”

Roger placed the tape recorder on the table.

The old recorder made a hard clunk as it reached the table and the recording switch was already activated.

The only sound was the quiet one of the tape spinning.

Roger pushed his glasses up his nose, looked first at everyone gathered by the white building, and then turned to the boy before him.

Sayama had a sharp yet expressionless look in his eyes, but Roger faced it with something completely different.

He smiled and narrowed his eyes.

“According to our investigation, the Leviathan Road’s negotiator has recorded conversations for his negotiations. I thought I would save you the trouble while also leaving proof for future use.”

“You seem to be slightly mistaken.”

“And how is that?”

“That is not for my negotiations. It is my hobby.”

Next to Sayama, Shinjou’s knees collapsed underneath her as if the strings supporting her had snapped.

But she quickly recovered and grabbed at him.

“S-stop that, Sayama-kun! This is being recorded!”

“What are you talking about, Shinjou-kun? I merely avoided leaving a misunderstanding in the records of someone such as myself whose name is sure to go down in history.”

Shinjou smiled and nodded twice before turning to Roger.

“Can you delete that?”

“I cannot.”

This time, she fully fell to her knees.

Sayama and the small creature on his head glanced over at her, but soon returned their gaze to Roger.

“Well then,” he began. “How about we begin?”

Hearing Sayama speak, Shinjou looked up while sitting on the ground.

''Begin?'' she thought. ''What is there to discuss?

…''They have that letter.

Her question drove her to stand and she saw Sayama with his arms crossed and head slightly tilted.

“Could you take out that letter and read it once more?”

“Why? I believe its contents are already known.”

Sayama reached his left hand into his pocket.

Those in blue armored uniforms on the runway aimed their weapons at him.

The metallic sounds of weapons being prepared reached him, but Sayama did not care and he did not remove his hand from his pocket.

“Roger-kun? You discussed Mr. Richard’s transfer of authority before producing the tape recorder. That leaves a certain possibility.”

Shinjou realized what he was trying to say, so she said it in his place.

“He was trying to record us accepting the end of the Leviathan Road without recording the part about the transfer of authority? But then…”

“Yes. It is possible the transfer of Mr. Richard Thunderson’s authority is false. This document may have been a fake even as it was read yesterday. That might be why he tried to record our promise without leaving any records of the falsehood.”

Sayama looked up at Roger with his hand still in his pocket.

“But surely you were not attempting such a poor trick. Right, Roger-kun? As previously stated, producing a fake would be an eternal embarrassment. …Still, I would simply like to go back over the document.”

“That is a lot of suspicion against the truth-loving American UCAT.”

Roger’s line was meant to leave a record of his discomfort at being a target of such suspicion. In other words, he would not hold back if he was proven right.

But Sayama ignored the enemy’s attempt to hold him in check.

“Read it. I want this tape recorder to record that these are the words of Mr. Richard Thunderson. Oh, and one other thing.”

Sayama finally pulled his left hand from his pocket.

“To aid my hobby, how about we each record this conversation?”

He placed a handheld recorder on the table and it was already switched on.

If Roger was now unable to read the contents of the envelope, it would mean those contents were false and he could not allow them to be recorded.

Meanwhile, the envelope remained on the table and Roger did not touch it.

“Let us make a bet, negotiator.”

He brought his hands into his suit’s sleeve and pulled out a small metal case.

“I have not shown it to you, but you could call this my weapon. It contains a concept to show others a false reality, but I will set it aside. I have no need for it here.”

Shinjou looked at the case and at Roger with an upturned glance.

“How do we know you haven’t already used it?”

The answer came from her left.

“Do not worry,” said Gyes. “I have been watching and that case is the only philosopher’s stone reading around him.”

“I see,” said Shinjou with a nod.

It was possible even Gyes’s statement was part of the false reality, but she would have stopped the man if he had actually tried something. She would not have allowed him to even move an arm.

Roger then nodded and pointed at the case he had placed on the table.

“In my dreams, you will wake once you realize that it is a dream.”

As Roger spoke, Sayama slowly reached over to grope Shinjou’s breasts.

His fingers seemed to check the elasticity and shape and he nodded.

“Not even a dream based on my memories could replicate this sensation! Ergo, this is reality!”

An uppercut shook the body of the boy who had groped her. He and Baku on his head turned toward her.

“Wh-what was that for!?”

“Did that wake you up?”

She pointed toward Roger who was looking back with a blank expression.

“That is an unusual method of checking.”

“It is quite normal for Shinjou-kun and me. We do it all the time. …This is being recorded, right? We. Do. It. All. The. Time. Oh, how delightful! That is all. …Now, let us set aside such complicated things and continue with the simple negotiation.”

“…”

“What is that glare for, Shinjou-kun? But it too is wonderful. Anyway, Roger-kun, you raised your bet by setting aside your weapon, didn’t you? You are saying the contents of the envelope are real, so if our doubts are proven wrong, we cannot forget the good faith you showed us.”

“That is one way of looking at it,” agreed Roger.

However, Sayama continued as if it were perfectly natural.

“Then we shall raise our bet as well. That bet being on our doubt. …If you are telling the truth and all of 5th-Gear’s authority truly lies with American UCAT… Oh, I know. I will go right ahead and say it.”

Sayama did not hesitate.

“We will give up all rights to the Leviathan Road.”

Roger heard what Sayama said.

…''Is he stupid!?

The boy’s confidence came from his certainty that the document was a fake and that certainty was entirely based in the timing at which Roger had produced the tape recorder.

…''But the letter inside the envelope is real.

The signature was in Thunderson’s handwriting and it was stamped with his official seal. If a 1st-Gear concept was used, it could be conceptually proven to be written by him.

In truth, the timing of the tape recorder had been a gamble on Roger’s part.

He had a single job as Odor’s aide.

He was to act as negotiator instead of Odor who was a terrible speaker.

He had known he would be facing the Leviathan Road’s negotiator during this visit to Japan. Odor had volunteered to command the attack on Japanese UCAT and the battle against the black dragon and Roger had received only one order from him.

…''I am to use whatever means necessary to get Japanese UCAT to accept Thunderson’s instructions.

The instructions were real, so the outcome was already determined. Even if Sayama attempted to cheat in some way, they had been taken directly to this table on arrival and they had not spoken with their comrades in the building behind them. Forming up on the runway and creating an obvious stalemate had been a method of forcing Sayama and Shinjou to step in as mediators without having a chance to discuss anything.

That had worked well.

The automaton in a red suit that controlled the god of war they had flown in on did not appear to be a maid type, so she would be unable to communicate over their shared memory. Also, the concept space communication facility in Kanda was not yet up and running and the shared consciousness of the 4th-Gear resident with them could not communicate over such long distances.

They had been brought to the negotiating table without gaining any information or discussing anything within the concept space.

Roger’s victory was assured, so he had decided to play a bit of a game. Since he could not lose, the point of the game was to see how his opponent would react.

He had expected a clever opponent to guess that Roger’s victory was unshakable and either back off or negotiate for a decent compromise.

Roger was willing to admit the value of an enemy commander who would retreat when the situation called for it. Depending on how things played out, he had even considered placing Japanese UCAT as second-in-command as American UCAT led the effort to release the concepts.

…''But I never expected him to be this reckless.

He had fallen for the tape recorder trick and then clung to that one point so much that he had raised his bet to giving up the Leviathan Road.

Raising the bet had likely been meant to intimidate Roger. He thought Roger’s card was a fake, so he was making an implied threat.

…''He is telling me to back off while I still can.

At that point, Roger gave a bitter laugh. And not just in his heart.

Sayama and Shinjou gave him puzzled looks, so he contained the laugh and replied.

“My apologies.”

He then decided to reveal the answer. He reached out toward the envelope to remove the letter.

“Wait just a moment, Roger-kun. You have not given your bet.”

Sayama’s arms were crossed and his sharp gaze looked up at Roger.

“Surely you do not think your bet of a single weapon is equivalent to the bet I just made.”

''I see,'' thought Roger as he withdrew his hand. ''Yes. Even if I know I will win, I should play the game properly.

As he tried to come up with a bet, Sayama opened his mouth again.

“But I am feeling generous, so how about I raise my bet even further. How about this? If American UCAT truly has full authority concerning 5th, I will also transfer a full set of Japanese UCAT facilities to American UCAT.”

“A full set of your facilities?”

Roger looked up and saw Sayama. Shinjou was looking at him with a look of utter shock.

“What is it, Roger-kun? I do not particularly enjoy having men stare at me.”

Sayama raised his right hand such that a noise came from his elbow and he hid his face behind that hand.

“Oh, my apologies. I forgot that America is a country that respects freedom and any number of preferences. It was rude of me to speak out against your preference. …However, I have already devoted myself to Shinjou-kun, so give up.”

Roger averted his gaze and did his best to ignore everything the boy said.

Sayama exaggeratedly swung down his hand to send wind down on the table, but he did not look down at the envelope as the wind reached it.

And so Roger continued to ignore him while bringing a hand to his forehead and thinking about what to bet.

But…

“Oh, wait a moment, Roger-kun. It seems my hospitality as a Japanese person was lacking. It also seems I have not said enough, so let me raise the bet even further. …If full authority over 5th-Gear lies with American UCAT, I will also transfer you the rights to everything developed by Japanese UCAT.”

“Wait,” said Roger on reflex.

…''This is odd.

Where did this boy’s ridiculous confidence come from?

Roger knew his victory was assured, so he had proof that the boy’s confidence was nothing more than a bluff. However, this level of confidence was too much.

As he thought, he heard a voice. Still expressionless, Sayama tapped a finger on the table as if he were nervous.

“Roger-kun, one thing. Just one thing. Can you answer me a quick question?”

“What is it?”

“It is a simple matter, Roger-kun.” Sayama gave one hard flick of the table. “Let us say the letter in that envelope is real, but we had brought a truth that completely overturns it and we had a way of swapping out the contents of the envelope. What would you say then?”

“That is not-…”

He trailed off before saying “possible”.

Sayama’s handheld recorder had disappeared from the table.

No, it had not disappeared. It was being hidden.

“Some slight optical camouflage is distorting the light around the recorder, Roger-kun. 5th-Gear’s dragons use optical stealth and Miyako-kun created a handheld version to show everyone an example to help fight back against it. So just watch.”

A small creature had appeared on the table next to the envelope at some point.

It was Baku. Its legs were sprawled out as if sleeping, but it had supposedly been on Sayama’s head just a moment before.

“I placed him in my sleeve while covering my face and placed him here when I lowered my hand. I set the optical stealth philosopher’s stone on the recorder when I flicked the table afterward. …Now, what has happened to the contents of the envelope?”

Roger knew what Sayama meant.

He was saying he could have switched out the contents at any time.

…''But that is not possible.

Even with an invisibility philosopher’s stone and even if he had the skill to move Baku without Roger noticing, Roger would have noticed if he had tried to tamper with the envelope.

Roger let out a breath to calm himself and pushed his glasses up his nose.

“If you did swap out the envelope’s contents, that fact will remain in the recording.”

“Then let me say this: I swear on the god of freedom and justice that I did not swap out the envelope’s contents.”

…''I see.

Roger looked to the envelope and then Sayama while he thought. The boy was doing everything he could to overturn the situation.

However, he would have had to tamper with the envelope to alter its contents.

Roger’s own eyes told him that had not happened and so he concluded there was nothing to worry about.

But then…

“Oops.”

For some reason, Sayama tripped toward the table and it was clearly done on purpose.

Roger sensed danger in how Sayama held his hands out toward the table.

“Don’t move!!”

As Roger shouted, help came from an unexpected place: Shinjou.

“W-wait. Are you okay, Sayama-kun?”

She frantically held him from the side to stop his fall.

He was stopped and lifted up before he hit the table and he thanked her.

“Thank you. It seems my overwork is catching up to me.”

''A blatant lie,'' thought Roger as he sighed and lowered his gaze.

He then noticed something new on the table.

“…”

It was a piece of paper. The folded copy paper had text printed on it.

However, Roger could not read it because an information restriction concept had been applied to it.

…''That is a 1st-Gear concept used by all UCATs these days.

At that point, Roger recalled that 1st-Gear had joined the enemy.

…''They have writing concepts, including those more complete than we have ever seen.

Sayama spoke while looking down at the fallen document.

“Oh, dear. I dropped an important document from my pocket. I need to be careful. After all, if this document were written with 1st-Gear’s writing concepts, it could affect other writings. It would be a disaster if its writing replaced any other documents it happened to fall on.”

The boy’s words made Roger tremble in his heart.

…''Can he rewrite the text inside the envelope using a concept?

''Impossible. Do not worry,'' he told himself. ''I have never heard of such a concept.

…''But at the same time…

Japanese UCAT had won over 1st-Gear, which was the center of writing concepts.

[[Image:OnC_v09_0317.png|thumb]]

“Roger-kun, why are you being so quiet? Are you tired? I can imagine you are. After all, your single decision here will decide the future of Colonel Odor and the rest of American UCAT,” said Sayama. “You cannot let a careless assumption or reckless decision based on ignorance bring harm to American UCAT. With some things, simply saying you did not know is not enough. …Being a negotiator is not easy.”

“…”

The boy was laying on the pressure.

Roger understood that and he understood he had no way of knowing whether a 1st-Gear writing concept had been used or not.

So partially as a way of brushing aside that pressure, he picked up the unreadable paper that had fallen to the table. And he did so before Sayama could reach for the table himself.

Roger slightly disturbed the air as he held out the paper.

But Sayama did not immediately take it. After a pause, he nodded and did so.

“Thank you for collecting that for me.”

“No need to thank me. We prepared the table, after all.”

Sayama nodded again, opened the document, read through it, and opened his mouth.

“Would you look at that. This says full authority over 5th-Gear will be left with American UCAT!”

“!?”

His words intensified the silence of the surrounding area.

Wondering what had happened, everyone stood up and audibly prepared their weapons, but Sayama continued loudly.

“Just kidding!!”

His follow-up statement made everyone immediately wilt.

All strength left them and they sat down, but they then turned even more focus in the negotiators’ direction.

With all that attention reaching them, Sayama looked across the white building and runway before shrugging.

“It seems you all need to work on your sense of humor.”

Next to him, Shinjou peered at the paper in his hand and frowned.

“This…isn’t what was in the envelope, is it?”

“Now, now, Shinjou-kun. I did not swap anything out. I would never divert everyone’s attention by pretending to trip and then have Baku conceptually swap out only the text,” he said. “Even so, Baku is quite attached to me. Look.”

He raised his right arm so Baku could see and the creature copied the action.

Sayama then took another action: He moved as if tripping onto the table.

Baku copied him by collapsing toward the opening of the envelope before him.

…''The creature is moving to pull out the contents with its front legs!

Sayama then gave an expressionless comment.

“If Baku were given a philosopher’s stone to hide his movements, he would make a top-class spy.”

''It can’t be,'' thought Roger as he looked down at Baku.

The creature sensed his gaze and turned around.

Roger then saw a blue philosopher’s stone on a pendant around Baku’s neck.

“Wh-what concept is that!?”

“It looks good on him, doesn’t it? That is simply a decoration for a pet, Roger-kun. Giving him a philosopher’s stone with a spying concept is unthinkable. …And let me tell you three things, Roger-kun.”

“And what might those be?”

“First of all…”

Sayama raised his index finger and Baku copied the action.

“Surely you are not doubting me after I have repeatedly insisted I did nothing.”

And…

“Second, let us raise the bet further, Roger-kun. If full authority over 5th-Gear lies with American UCAT, Japanese UCAT here in Okutama and the rest of UCAT throughout Japan will assist American UCAT’s actions free of charge.”

Also…

“Third, it would seem you are having difficulty finding a good idea for raising your end of the bet. I am much like a god, so I can make bet after bet like this, but you seem unable to find an answer with your level of authority. To help you, I will request a bet that I know you can grant.”

“What is that?”

“It is simple. I can make some guesses based on your age, your skill with the Japanese language, and the fact that you were sent here. So if that envelope does not grant American UCAT with Mr. Thunderson’s authority…”

Sayama turned his sharp eyes toward Roger.

“Tell me everything you know about UCAT’s blank period.”

Roger gasped at Sayama’s request.

That final request was something he had to avoid at all costs.

Therefore, he needed to open the envelope and read the contents to provide the answer.

…''Because it is true that Mr. Thunderson transferred all of his authority!

However, the boy was suspicious.

Roger would definitely win this negotiation. The document inside was real, so his absolute advantage could not be shaken.

But a risk arose from a “what if” scenario. What if the document had been switched out or rewritten?

This was being recorded. In fact, he had been the one to record it.

And at the beginning of the negotiation, Shinjou had asked, “He was trying to record us accepting the end of the Leviathan Road without recording the part about the transfer of authority?”

If the document turned out to be a fake, it would support Shinjou’s suspicions.

He could accuse them of switching it out, but the real one was unlikely to return after it fell into enemy hands and just how many people would believe him?

Only he and Odor knew that the document was real. No one else had actually seen it for themselves.

An inspection with a 1st-Gear concept could determine who had written it, but it was all over if the enemy had a way of escaping that and 1st-Gear was likely to side with the Leviathan Road anyway.

…''It all falls down to “what ifs”.

He knew for a fact that he was in the right, but for some reason, he felt like he was making a gamble. He was right, yet he was gambling.

He began to wonder where everything had gone wrong. Hiding the recorder with the optical camouflage philosopher’s stone, placing Baku near the envelope, and dropping the paper from his pocket had all been small things.

Any one of them could have been ignored.

But what if they carried everything in a different direction when put together?

“…”

Roger frowned for the first time in this negotiation.

The enemy was asking him to break his silence on UCAT’s blank period if he lost.

…''But…

“Can you not do it?” asked Sayama as if tempting him. “Then why not accept the Leviathan Road? Do that…and at the very least, we will be stuck investigating the blank period on our own. After all, I have recently started to think it is related to the Leviathan Road.”

That was something Roger could not do. His higher ups in American UCAT had already decided they could not accept the Leviathan Road.

But at the same time…

…''I cannot break my silence on the blank period.

''I simply cannot,'' he realized. ''No one remains with the authority to tell the whole story of that time.

Roger brought a groan up in his throat.

“…”

But he looked up into the sky and forced it back down.

His gaze moved up the white building in front of him. The building had lights installed here and there.

On the roof at the very top, he saw the white edge he had been pushed from the previous night and he saw two figures standing there.

One was a gray-haired middle-aged man in a black suit and the other was a gray-haired woman in a maid uniform.

The middle-aged man looked down with a cane in hand and he pushed his sunglasses up his nose.

His mouth moved and formed words. Roger could not hear him, but he was able to read his lips.

“Put your mind at ease, Roger Sully.”

Those words were the final push.

Roger forcefully lowered his gaze toward Sayama’s expressionless face and raised his eyebrows.

“American UCAT trusts in our own justice and freedom.”

He reached for the envelope.

“Those two virtues will guide us to the truth! And thus the truth is on our side!!”

He pulled out the letter, opened it, and read it aloud.

“ ‘If I, Richard Thunderson, die or go missing, I leave all authority I hold at the time to American UCAT. September 15, 2005.’ ”

Roger realized the document was still the real one.

Shinjou doubted her ears when she heard Roger.

For an instant, she could not understand what he was saying. After all…

…''We…lost?

Sayama had used so many tricks and said so much, but the contents were real.

She asked herself what was happening, but she honestly could not find an answer.

Roger had completely won and all the bets Sayama had made would be passed over to him.

She must not have been the only one confused because there was no reaction from the white building behind her.

And oddly enough, those in blue up ahead also failed to react.

It was as if they doubted their own victory.

Even Roger frowned as he looked at the letter.

At that point, Shinjou heard a sound. It was the loud, dry, and repeating sound of clapping.

And it came from Sayama.

He was expressionlessly clapping his hands toward Roger and the sound echoed off the white wall of the building.

“Well done. Well done indeed, Roger-kun. Even if the enemy has laid a trap, American UCAT will persist and use their justice and freedom to reach the truth. That makes you a follower of the truth and a foolish yet brave challenger. And that is what has carried you to this result. That result being…”

He made his declaration.

“Your loss.”

Roger doubted his ears when he heard Sayama.

For an instant, he could not understand what the boy was saying. After all…

…''Our…loss?

Sayama had used so many tricks and said so much, but the contents had been real.

He asked himself what was happening, but he honestly could not find an answer.

He had completely won and all the bets Sayama had made would be passed over to him. So how did that constitute his loss?

He must not have been the only one confused because there was no reaction from the runway behind him or the white building in front of him.

Even Shinjou frowned as she looked to Sayama from the side.

“It is a simple matter,” said Sayama. “Before entering this concept space, we were pursuing Heo Thunderson. And before leaving Shimane, Kazami gave me a certain piece of information during her periodic report. She said a delinquent classmate of mine seemed likely to head out to retrieve Heo Thunderson.”

“What about it?”

“This afternoon, American UCAT was stopped by that delinquent boy while trying to secure Heo Thunderson. At that time, the two of them were snatched up by Black Sun or something similar and taken into the eastern sky.”

That was true, but they still did not know what it had been. If a dragon was assisting people, Roger wanted to say it was a survivor of 5th-Gear, but that conflicted with what Richard Thunderson had said.

…''He said White Creation and the other dragons combined with the Vesper Cannon and that Xolotl 3 is no more.

But Sayama continued speaking.

“What if there is a survivor of 5th-Gear and that dragon has been left with Heo Thunderson along with full authority over 5th? And couldn’t you say Richard Thunderson wrote his instructions with that in mind? He said that if he dies or goes missing, he leaves ‘all authority I hold at the time’ to American UCAT. Why did he not specify his ''authority over 5th-Gear''?”

“You can’t mean…”

“All of 5th-Gear has already been transferred from Mr. Richard to Heo Thunderson via that mechanical dragon! ''Mr. Richard’s authority is no longer 5th-Gear’s authority.'' He only left you with his records and assets so you could protect Heo Thunderson!”

The boy took a breath.

“Take Richard Thunderson’s authority, American UCAT! We on the other hand wish to speak with Heo Thunderson who he left 5th-Gear’s authority with in the form of a mechanical dragon!”

Roger struck the table at Sayama’s shout.

The sound of his clenched fist rang loudly through the air and Baku was knocked into the air and flipped over, but Roger paid him no heed.

“That is simply untrue!”

“Have you checked?”

“There is no need. The mechanical dragons of 5th-Gear gave Mr. Richard Thunderson full authority and he told us they are no more. You claim another mechanical dragon exists, but why would that be!? How can a mechanical dragon exist when none exist!?”

“Then listen,” said a voice.

It came from Sayama across the table and Shinjou tensed her shoulders next to him.

“I have many questions concerning 5th-Gear, including that transfer of authority. Even when it comes to Black Sun and the fall of 5th’s people, there are just too many uncertainties! We must answer those questions before we continue!”

Sayama turned to Shinjou who looked surprised by his words.

“This is a gamble, Shinjou-kun. Will my optimism win or will America’s pessimism win?”

“What do you mean it’s a gamble, Sayama-kun? And what questions are there about Black Sun or 5th’s destruction?”

He did not immediately reply. He first looked away from her and toward Roger.

But he did not stop there. He looked across everyone present.

“A mechanical dragon flew into the sky after saving a girl and the delinquent boy who tried to protect her. And now, that delinquent boy is again trying to save her. If the girl answers, that dragon is sure to appear once more.”

He took a breath.

“Listen, great nation that wields the justice of adults and provides the freedom of protection and order. That dragon stands in a place of truth. A place of truth sought by a demon-possessed girl and a delinquent boy.”

Sayama lowered his gaze to the creature sitting next to the letter Roger had placed back on the table.

Baku had already raised his front legs in preparation to bring forth the past.

<noinclude>
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| Back to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume9 Chapter 29|Chapter 29]]
| Return to [[Owari no Chronicle|Main Page]]
| Forward to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume9 Chapter 31|Chapter 31]]
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</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume9 Chapter 29

2026-10-05T03:47:36Z

N-Ch:

==Chapter 29: The Wind’s Guidance==
[[Image:OnC_v09_0281.png|thumb]]
''The sound of the wind does not stop

''The movement of the wind does not cease

''The will of the wind…

On the right of the screen, Heo saw something charge onto the runway and approach.

After the explosion of the mechanical dragons, a seemingly impossible fact brought her feelings rushing back.

“Harakawa!?”

She stood up and ran.

She almost fell as she ran along the floor that was tilting while the transport plane prepared to ascend and she slammed her shoulder into the wall containing the door.

It hurt, but the sensation brought her to her senses.

Her feelings came back and her mind fully snapped into focus. She could not believe what was happening outside, but she had a single element that helped her to believe it.

“Harakawa!” she shouted while opening the door.

It was cold. The room’s air immediately rushed out and into the cargo hold in the back of the transport plane. The cylindrical space had rails embedded in the floor. It was five meters tall and ten meters back to front.

And a single boy stood in the center of that space: Harakawa.

…''How?

How had he entered this concept space? How had he gotten aboard the plane? And…

“Why…are you here?”

“How should I know!?”

His shout made her jump.

This was something not even he knew.

…''But I feel like I know. Is that feeling wrong?

She stepped out of the door. The room was placed within the cargo hold as a package, so its entrance had a height difference with the floor of the cargo hold.

By the time she descended the three aluminum steps, the tilt to the floor was gone.

She stopped about three meters in front of him.

He took in a breath and raised his head to look at her.

In that moment, an announcement filled the cargo hold.

“Emergency! Ksshh…from the east-…”

It cut out there.

A moment later, Heo’s reflexes and kinetic vision were unable to keep up with everything that happened.

The next thing she knew, the color black filled her vision.

…''Eh?

That black was dotted with the color white.

She was seeing the starry sky.

…''Why can I see that?

And the stars were not all she saw in the sky.

Below them were the clouds illuminated by the night scenery and below those was a black shadow. That shadow was a large airplane.

Once she recognized it as a transport plane, she mentally tilted her head. Hadn’t she been riding that plane?

However, the transport plane’s shape was different from before.

The cargo hold area at the “belly” of the plane had thick black lines through it. They resembled a cat scratch, but they were large enough to tear into the cargo hold.

''Oh,'' realized Heo. ''I fell from those holes.

And…

“!?”

A flower bloomed in the sky. It was the fiery blossom of an explosion, but she could not hear that explosion.

All she heard was the static-like wind of her fall.

Her mind grasped the fact that her transport plane had been destroyed and she realized what by shortly thereafter.

To her right, she saw the color black sitting motionless between the surface and the night sky.

That stillness was the ocean far to the east and the starlight in the sky there dimly illuminated something.

…''Those are…?

They were black dragons.

The visual information gave her an instinctual understanding of just how many of them there were and a chill ran down her spine. There was more than just one or a few of what she had thought were demons.

…''There are dozens of even the big ones.

And at the center of the army of black dragons was a giant twin-fuselage form. That black form was noticeably larger than the others.

''It can’t be,'' her mind thought while denying what she was seeing.

Her focus was on the sight before her far more than on the fear of falling or the chill and pain of the high-altitude wind.

However, a response to her denial arrived from the east.

One black dragon in the lead suddenly rose from below.

“…!”

Its size, the fact that it was made of metal, and the air resistance were all meaningless to this black dragon.

As she fell, the black dragon passed by from below, but it turned back at the same speed. It completely ignored the laws of physics as its front right leg tore through the air and swung its claws toward her.

Heo opened her mouth to let out a meaningless scream.

“Don’t cry!” said a voice.

“Harakawa!?”

Her cry was swept away by the chilly wind, but it still received a response.

Her mind had been completely focused on the black dragon, but it now turned toward the boy who was falling with his arms spread toward her.

She clung to him so forcefully she practically collided with him.

He held her in a forceful grip that was a little too tight, but she responded by clinging to him with all her might.

She would not let go.

And then the dragon’s arm arrived.

She saw Harakawa turn his gaze toward that dragon. The look in his eyes showed he was not even considering the possibility of losing or faltering.

It was the same look she had seen in him all this time.

A moment later, the dragon’s claws swept in.

Heo heard an intense metallic sound and lost consciousness.

Harakawa saw the black dragon’s claws approaching.

And then they arrived.

“!”

A metallic sound filled the air and his body was knocked away as if tearing into the air.

But something was not right.

“…?”

He was still alive.

He felt the inertia of being knocked away and the impact of air from having his falling trajectory forcibly altered.

However, he was still alive. He felt nothing out of place in his bones and his body remained intact.

…''What?

His plan had been to only save Heo. He had simply been trying to do something to save her.

But both he and the slender body in his arms were alive.

As he grew increasingly confused by his own survival, something flew up and away from them. The air resistance caused the small object to separate from them as if it had been placed in midair.

It was Harakawa’s bracelet of stones that his mother had given him. It had broken, almost as if it had taken the damage of the impact in their place.

…''A protective charm.

He did not really believe what his mother had said. In fact, he was more skeptical than anything. But the broken bracelet’s string had snapped, so it left his arm and scattered through the sky.

The only thing he knew for sure was that they were alive.

And then the black dragon returned.

Beyond the roar of the wind, it dropped down from above.

Harakawa held Heo in his arms. She seemed to have lost consciousness as she clung to him and entrusted herself to him.

But he could feel the warmth of her body in his arms and that was all that mattered.

He did not believe they would be so lucky a second time, so he held her and tried to turn his back on the black dragon.

And in that instant, he heard a certain sound. It was a high-pitched and short electronic tone, much like when a radio was being tuned. It had a wavelike pattern and occasionally cut out, but it seemed to be trying to convey something.

''What is that?'' he wondered as it grew shorter and its intermittence grew faster than a pulse.

“——————”

Something like a voice reached his ears.

Someone was there.

They might have been nearby, behind him, or anywhere. At any rate, that existence spoke as if expressing itself.

“I thank you for protecting her twice.”

…''!?

Before he could ask anything, it arrived.

Below him and behind Heo’s back, it appeared.

…''Wind!?

Something large and invisible appeared.

He had seen it once before that afternoon when the men in blue armored uniforms had pursued them. He recalled what had appeared as wind back then.

“A dragon!?”

Before he could receive a response, Harakawa and Heo were enveloped by that wind.

A moment later, a metallic noise rang out for the second time.

The night filled a row of mountains with bluish-black darkness.

But that darkness did not reach the valley between two of the mountains.

Light existed in place of the darkness. That bright light currently illuminated a long strip of asphalt at the bottom of the valley and a white building to its west.

Something resembling a giant bladed weapon sat on the partially broken asphalt of the runway. It was colored blue and white and it was approximately fifty meters long.

It was the Vesper Cannon.

People in blue armored uniforms surrounded that long dragon cannon on the runway and people in white armored uniforms stood in front of the entranceway to the white building.

The two sides made no attempt to approach each other. They watched each other cautiously and stayed on their guard, but a single color could be seen between the blue and white: a crimson that reflected the lights.

That color came from a red giant with no arms past the shoulders and Gyes in her red suit.

A few meters from her was a long table for a meeting that had three people around it: Sayama in his suit, Shinjou in a white shirt, and…

“Roger-kun, was it?”

Sayama’s voice was directed past the table and to the indicated individual.

The man wore a three piece suit and he expressionlessly pushed his glasses up his nose.

“I never thought you would return using the flight capability of a god of war. This was not in my calculations.”

“I suppose I should say ‘testament’. All I did was find a way to shorten the three hour journey from Haneda to forty minutes even with the runway destroyed in the battle. Also, I wished to draw everyone’s attention. Of course, I intend to have Gyes-kun paid for her work as this was official business.”

“I see,” replied Roger while placing a hand on the table before him. “We just received word that Black Sun’s army is estimated to arrive here in another thirty minutes.”

“And what will you be doing with that time?”

“To be blunt…” Roger made sure his voice would reach both Sayama and the white building behind the boy. “I recommend that Japanese UCAT abandon the Leviathan Road and transfer all control to the World UCAT Alliance.”

“Do you really think we can do that?”

“Testament. And do you think you can continue with the Leviathan Road?”

Roger removed his hand from the table, lightly crossed his arms, and looked up into the night sky.

Behind him was a group of tents surrounded by men in blue armored uniforms.

That was their temporary base camp.

Some members of Japanese UCAT were inside the tents. Mikage was sitting in a seat and folding origami, Hiba sat next to her with a bandanna around his head and while muttering something about turning off a machine, and an old man was shaking the metal cage he was trapped inside.

Sayama looked across them all before answering.

“They seem to be having fun.”

“Testament. I truly did not expect them to look so happy. Needless to say, they are under our protection as long as they are in our custody. Is that okay with you?”

“It is and I do not view them as valid bargaining chips either.”

Sayama readily made that judgment and Roger nodded.

“Then let us get back on topic,” said the man. “Listen. None of 5th-Gear’s people still live and the same is true of the mechanical dragons they built. About sixty years ago, those dragons all transformed into the Vesper Cannon, but at that time, they left all authority with a single individual: Mr. Richard Thunderson.”

And…

“In the instructions left before his death, Mr. Thunderson left all of those rights with American UCAT. Do you understand what that means?”

“I do,” answered Sayama while brushing his right hand through his hair. “You are saying as follows: If we wish to continue the Leviathan Road with 5th-Gear, our negotiations must be with American UCAT. And American UCAT refuses to accept the Leviathan Road. …Isn’t that right?”

Shinjou gasped when she heard that and Roger replied by uncrossing his arms, placing his right hand on his chest, and bowing.

“Testament. Do you see any room for negotiation, Leviathan Road negotiator?”

Harakawa was in the night sky.

From there, the lights on the surface looked like grains of sand.

However, three things about the situation were odd.

“…”

First, they had been attacked by that black dragon just a moment ago, but they were still alive.

Second, he was holding Heo in the sky, but they were not falling.

And third, he was sitting in an invisible seat and he could see the sky in all directions.

“We’re flying…but where to!?”

Instead of fading into the sky, his shout was reflected back from quite close by. That fact let him guess that he was inside some small space. He was inside a moving space that was surrounded by invisible walls.

But even as he grasped that and calmed down, the situation continued to advance.

Whatever it was he was sitting in was accelerating to the east and the sky ahead was filled with black shapes darker even than the night.

It was an army of black dragons.

The biggest shape of all sat in the middle like an island and he was being brought toward it.

“Hey! Can you hear me!?”

Harakawa held Heo’s unconscious form close to free his legs and he kicked at the space in front of him.

He could not see it, but there was definitely something like a table there.

The recoil of the kick pushed his back against the invisible seat and he began to look around.

“Show yourself. What do you think you’re doing!?”

Just before this strange space had taken them in, he had heard a voice. The male voice had sounded like it was coming over a radio.

He did not fully understand, but Harakawa guessed that someone was controlling this space. He looked forward at the group of black that they were approaching and that was approaching them.

“Are you going to fight!?”

After that shouted question, he felt a slight shaking. The invisible seat he sat in and the air of the space had vibrated a little.

It was almost as if something had noticed its hesitation and grown afraid.

Harakawa frowned at that shaking and he placed his feet on the invisible table he had kicked as if guarding against the black dragons approaching from the front. He braced his legs against that front surface and…

“Hey.”

He spoke to the fear he had sensed.

He spoke to whatever was flying toward those black dragons despite feeling fear.

“Who are you?”

He did receive a response.

“—————”

There were no words, but he heard a breath. And so he spoke again while tensing up as the details of the black shapes grew visible.

“Who are you and what’s your connection to Heo?”

The name he included in his question seemed to act as a trigger. As soon as the girl’s name filled the air, Harakawa felt the same hesitant and fearful shaking as before.

“I do not know.”

Awkward yet fluent words reached his mind rather than his ears.

He did not understand any of what was happening, but he shook his head to throw out the trivial questions. There was something else he had to say here.

“You don’t know, but you’re still going to fight!? Can you win against all of them!?”

The voice did not reply, but they accelerated.

Directly ahead was a twin-fuselage form. It looked like two flying aircraft carriers facing them. In the center, a draconic form used the twin-fuselage like wings.

It was a giant black mechanical dragon.

As they approached it, the surrounding dragons took action. They flew in front of the larger dragon to protect it.

In response, whatever was carrying Harakawa and Heo flew straight forward.

''Are you suicidal?'' thought Harakawa, but he realized what was happening a moment later.

…''Are you going to avoid them!?

It was not quite on the level of a motorcycle, but the movements of what carried them seemed to be controlled by balance rather than by a steering wheel or rudder.

Unlike simply turning a steering wheel, the body of a motorcycle was banked to tilt the weight on the front and back wheels as it raced along the road. Whatever was carrying them flew through the sky in much the same way.

It flipped its body around to slip between the smaller black dragons approaching from the front.

“…!”

It almost seemed to dance as it bounced its body off the air and continued on.

Its movements helped Harakawa realize the length and shape of this craft.

It was…

“A dragon!?”

“I do not know.”

He heard that voice and the blowing wind, but he heard neither with his ears. The sound of the wind reached his mind along with the speaker’s voice.

“I know nothing. I know that, but I do not know.”

“Not even your name? And can you not show yourself!?”

“I have no name. That is why I do not know. And…I cannot show myself. Not while I fly through the sky like this.”

“Not while you fly through the sky like this? You mean…”

Harakawa looked around him.

Something invisible was located past Heo who was taking the gentle breaths of sleep.

This voice belonged to what was located there. However, it was invisible and it had not shown itself.

…''Is this some kind of anime?

However, the sights around him and the sound of wind did more than enough to tell him this was real.

As the invisible dragon flew about, it struck the air with the sound of a breaking wave. And the impacts had enough force to shake the seat.

But even as the wave-like sound of the wind continued, the wind dragon raced onward. Faster than the coming dragons, it slipped past their claws, evaded their tackles, and accelerated as if pushing them backward.

It made it through.

It flew in front of the largest black mechanical dragon. It was less than two hundred meters from the tips of the enemy’s twin-fuselage wings.

And just after arriving so close, Harakawa saw light.

Light had appeared only a few meters in front of them. That was likely the location of their dragon’s mouth.

With the sound of bursting wind, a blast was fired from the invisible mouth.

The dragon fired while still accelerating forward.

The white light instantly spread to ten meters thick after being fired and flew on at that width.

The dragon continued firing for two seconds.

The light had actual weight and it formed a giant pillar directed at the black dragon located at the center of the twin-fuselage wings.

And the dragon carrying them flew after the light.

It shot forward to make up for the acceleration lost from the recoil of the blast and it tried to fly between the wings.

But then the large black mechanical dragon fired.

The first sign of that attack appeared in the space between the twin-fuselage wings.

Those wings were nearly six hundred meters long and black lightning appeared in the thirty meter wide gap between them. And that lightning seemed to form a mesh.

The collection of black light between the twin-fuselage wings tore into the white light.

That white pillar of light was unable to pass through the gap. The black mesh wrapped around it, pierced through it, and tore it to pieces.

“…!”

Finally, the pillar burst and scattered.

It all happened in an instant. Once the white light had scattered like snow in the wind, only the black lightning remained.

After eliminating the white light, the black lightning quickly expanded and formed eight shaking pillars of light that seemed to connect the twin towers that were the wings.

Next, even more black light was added.

At the very back, the black dragon opened its body downward.

This revealed a long cannon that extended straight out from the armor covering the bottom of the dragon.

The cannon resembled a blade and it extended until it was longer than the dragon itself.

Meanwhile, the dragon carrying Harakawa and Heo simply accelerated in a straight line.

“Hey!”

“I am sorry,” said the voice. “I do not know. I do not know. I want to know, but I do not!”

The wind dragon slipped past a black pillar of light that trembled and moved like a whip.

It slipped past a second and third and once more gathered light in the air where its mouth was.

But that was as far as it got.

Harakawa realized that Heo had woken in his arms. She shook as if her pulse was being expressed in her motions and she reflexively raised her head.

“…!?”

She looked at him, but after only a moment, she faced forward. She could see them soaring between the black metal twin-fuselage wings and she could see the black dragon up ahead.

“N-…”

Her eyes opened wide and her voice rang out. With no hesitation whatsoever, she gave a cry of rejection.

“————!!”

Harakawa held her tight in an attempt to restrain her trembling voice. She struggled with more strength than he had expected from a girl and restraining her back and forth shaking was the most he could manage.

Soon, the end arrived.

An attack came from the front.

It was a blast of black light.

Tokyo was deserted inside the concept space.

In the city center, some automatons had left the Kanda Laboratory to maintain the concept space creation terminals.

A few of them watched the battle in the sky above the Chiyoda region.

The large black mechanical dragon with its twin-fuselage wings was fighting some invisible opponent.

As the concept space communication facility had yet to be completed, they could not inform the rest of UCAT what they were seeing.

However, they could make scans from their multiple viewpoints and send those to their fellow automatons via their shared memory.

Something invisible had attacked Black Sun.

Black Sun had fired its main cannon.

Even with what was likely a low power shot, Black Sun’s main cannon had an effective range of 20.1 kilometers.

The invisible object had avoided the blast at close range, but it had fallen in the eastern sky.

The estimated location of its fall was the center of Tokyo Bay.

It had almost certainly fallen into the ocean and sunk.

After they informed the others of all that, something shook the sky.

“————!!”

A giant beast gave a cry estimated to be of joy and it lasted for a full three minutes and eighteen seconds.

With the trailing notes of that joy still ringing in their auditory devices, all of the automatons connected to their shared memory and gave a single report.

“Black Sun is advancing to the west.”

<noinclude>
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| Back to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume9 Chapter 28|Chapter 28]]
| Return to [[Owari no Chronicle|Main Page]]
| Forward to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume9 Chapter 30|Chapter 30]]
|-
|}
</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume9 Chapter 28

2026-10-04T07:01:22Z

N-Ch:

==Chapter 28: Her Guidance==
[[Image:OnC_v09_0267.png|thumb]]
''Wait without calling out to them

''The past is already calling out

''To the path that can only lead to the present

Three colors were displayed on a twenty inch screen.

The colors were divided into three horizontal bands. From bottom to top, they were gray, dark green, and black.

The gray at the very bottom was asphalt, the green on top of it was grass, and the black at the top was the night.

It was an image of the night sky at the end of a runway.

A face was reflected in the glass screen. The face belonged to a girl with short, blonde hair and an orange work jacket who was standing in a small room.

The outside sound reached the small room.

That sound was loud and it had no single source. It simply washed over the entirety of the room.

The girl faced the screen while listening to it and her eyes focused on the bands of color there.

“I have to say goodbye to this country, don’t I?”

The girl named Heo muttered to herself with her gaze fixed on that screen.

Not long ago, she had heard a strange voice and the city visible in the screen had gone silent. Before, car headlights had moved back and forth between the dark green and black bands, but that movement was gone.

She knew this was known as a concept space.

She also knew that only UCAT and their enemies could create these spaces.

However, Diana had said Black Sun, her demon, was gone.

“What else is there?”

She saw something on the screen moving along the grass from the right and lining up.

They initially looked like blue dogs taking a walk on the grass, but she shook her head to eliminate that illusion. The two blue forms lined up on the green band were in the center of the twenty inch screen and their faces were about the same height as the screen.

She could not be sure without any other objects to compare them to, but they were likely the same size as the airplane.

…''Mechanical dragons.

Her great-grandfather and her real great-grandfather had taken part in their initial development as test pilots and American UCAT had continued to research them after the Concept War. Now, they were American UCAT’s greatest weapons.

It had been identical machines that had defeated Black Sun.

American UCAT supposedly owned sixty-eight of them and six of those would escort her through the concept space’s skies until her airplane left Tokyo.

She thought about the fact that she was being protected.

“…”

She remained silent.

But then the sound surrounding her changed. It rapidly grew and the entire room shook.

The airplane was preparing for takeoff.

The shaking of the room moved from right to left and the room itself almost seemed to float, but the sound grew even louder and the airplane’s brakes would not allow it to advance.

The airplane had to build up a lot of power so it could rise into the air and fly forward. To accomplish that, the engine’s roar grew to what sounded like a scream and suddenly…

“…”

It began to move.

The low, heavy sound of the air pressing in reached Heo from the left as she watched the screen.

At the same time, everything was pulled to the right.

The screen began to scroll from left to right. Everything in that visible world began to move.

''Ahh,'' thought Heo. ''It’s already time to say goodbye.

She had already known she was leaving by the time she had been brought to Yokota Air Base within the concept space. She had known she would leave her past life and begin a safe and protected new life.

The sound of the engine blasted through the room as if it had been released.

At the same time, the blue mechanical dragons stepped forward after a short delay and prepared to fly.

“…!?”

But there was an explosion.

Heo did not understand what she was seeing on the screen in real time.

The blue dragons had been following along in the scrolling gray, above the scrolling green, and below the scrolling black, but something had happened to the farther away of the two.

“It exploded!?”

Next, the closer one also exploded as it prepared for takeoff.

…''Eh?

She had no idea what was happening, but she saw the number of colors grow. Red was added to the gray, green, and black.

And this was the red of flames.

“…”

She took in a breath, brought a hand to her necklace, and took in another breath.

She tried to express her disbelief yet could not form the words, but a new color arrived in their place.

No, this was not a new color. More of an existing color was added: black.

A black form flew from the sky to the left and landed on the green band.

Heo saw that the black was a mechanical dragon.

But it was not alone. She saw four identical black dragons descend to the green. They were almost half again as big as the blue dragons and they raised their heads and roared into the sky once they landed.

The machines’ bestial cries reverberated throughout the night sky.

This chorus was great enough to drown out even the engines of the transport plane racing down the runway.

''They’re demons,'' thought Heo. ''A pack of demons is here.

…''But why?

“Why!?”

Harakawa charged into Yokota Air Base.

Oddly enough, the gate was unmanned. No, the absence of people had begun when he had heard an odd voice while climbing the hill in Fussa that began at the Tama River and while approaching Route 16 in front of the base.

He had turned around in confusion, but the president and treasurer’s motorcycle had vanished. They had likely started toward Okutama on the Oume Highway before reaching Route 16. Currently, all the cars on the road were empty and unmoving. A few had driven up on the curb or gotten into multicar wrecks.

Nevertheless, everything was empty and there was no sign of the police.

He was curious about the watch the treasurer had given him and that he had done with it as she had instructed. His cellphone had yet to ring, but the watch had vibrated just before everyone had vanished.

And he heard another sound.

Some engines were running on the large runway to the east of the base.

Before vanishing, the president had said Heo would be onboard the transport plane he found here.

“Why are you telling me this?” he had asked. “Will Heo join you if I’m with her?”

“That’s not what this is,” the president had said. “We’re giving her the right to choose where in the world she will be. Isn’t that what you want? Or do you plan on controlling what she does? You don’t, do you?”

The boy had acted like he understood Harakawa, so it had not been worth discussing with him.

And so Harakawa twisted the accelerator and tore through the wind.

The unmanned gate was already behind him and the broad, straight path ahead of him was filled with scarlet light. The transport plane’s idling had reached its limit and it was about to start moving.

…''This is ridiculous!

“What am I going to do!? The hatch is closed and it doesn’t have any windows. So what am I going to do? Screw this up and I could even lose my job here.”

He twisted the accelerator.

“Who cares!?”

After instantly passing between half-cylindrical storage buildings and then between the line of trees and fence beyond that, he could see a straight line of grass and asphalt cutting across from left to right. A green transport plane was facing right and thus eastward on it.

He saw the plane had begun to move.

“…!”

He then saw two objects arrive on the grass to his left.

They were giant blue beasts. It took him a second to recognize them as dragons and his motorcycle had already shot out from the line of trees by then. He crossed the auxiliary road in an instant and raced across the grass.

The tires started to spin, so he lowered his center of gravity to press them down and continue forward.

At that point, the two blue dragons exploded.

“What?”

The answer to his question arrived from the eastern sky.

He saw multiple black dragons.

There were four of them and they tore apart the grass as they landed. Their weight ripped up the lawn as they slid to a stop and they all roared toward the sky before that motion ended.

Their voices shook everything.

Harakawa did not know what was happening, but he did not hesitate. He pointed the handlebars toward the transport plane, leaned his center of gravity forward, and squeezed the accelerator.

Based on the plane’s speed and course, there was no preventing it from taking off at this point. Stopping the engines would only cause it to crash into the barriers at the end of the runway.

Its only option was to fly and thus his only option was to pursue.

His motorcycle’s engine roared and he could feel that vibration over the roaring of the black dragons.

“Go!”

The motorcycle charged onto the asphalt of the runway and instantly caught up to the transport plane arriving from the left.

However, the plane was moving more quickly.

He decided the sidecar was in the way, so pulled the release lever located between it and the motorcycle. However, it was still connected by the spare hook.

“Forgive me!”

He squeezed the accelerator and the front wheel rose. The force of that motion tossed the sidecar backward and unhooked it, but he could no longer even hear it tumbling.

The only thing in his mind was the fact that he could catch up more easily without the excess weight.

He opened his mouth, inhaled, and leaned on the handlebars to push down the raised front wheel.

He saw the speedometer for a split second and realized he was moving at one hundred thirty kilometers per hour. A fall at this speed would kill him instantly.

The raised wheel reached the ground and the stabilized motorcycle accelerated as if trying to tear into the back of the transport plane.

“Why you…”

The plane almost seemed to be running away and the wind it blew backward seemed intent on rejecting him.

“Don’t underestimate a delinquent!!”

The gears connected and Harakawa raced forward.

He continued on and gradually caught up, but what would he do then? And what would he do about those black dragons?

The answer came from an unexpected place. A voice reached him from beyond the roar of the plane in front of him.

“An excellent answer.”

The plane shot by the figure that had spoken.

Someone stood on the runway as if waiting for him. Despite the wind and noise, not even her hair was blowing.

…''That’s the woman who was with Heo.

The tall woman had wavy gray hair, wore a black suit, and bent her eyes in a smile.

“So how about I give you a reward?”

She pulled a felt-tip pen from her pocket. It was a red one and she drew a diagram with quick movements of her hand. Specifically, she drew a flower symbol on the transport plane’s rear hatch as it passed by her.

“Open up.”

And exactly that happened.

The rear hatch suddenly opened while completely ignoring the presence of its actuators. It looked a lot like an animal opening its mouth.

At the same time, the plane lost its balance, raised its nose, and took off.

“That was fast!” shouted Harakawa as he made a split-second decision.

He stood up on the motorcycle’s seat and jumped toward the hatch as it floated up in front of him.

“Don’t get bit,” said the woman as he passed by her.

Before he could wonder what that meant, the hatch closed and swallowed him up.

The transport plane flew up from the runway and shrank into the eastern sky.

The ones on the surface watching it leave were the giant black machines and…

“Oh, honey. You’re too late to see her off.”

The woman standing on the runway gave that comment as she turned around.

Her gaze landed on a skinny elderly man standing in the center of the runway.

A blue stone hung from the string wrapped around his hand and he rolled up his suit’s sleeve.

“Okutama. Okutama is in Roger’s hands. More importantly, Diana.”

“What is it, honey? Or would you prefer I called you Colonel Odor?”

“Diana, Diana. I am currently on the job. And I do not recall asking you to offer any unnecessary services.”

“Unnecessary? Is that what you really think?”

Her eyes narrowed and she brushed her right hand through the long hair behind her.

“You need to be more honest. We’re all thinking it. That girl needs to be protected more than anyone, but she also wants it less than anyone.”

“Diana, Diana. You’re just guessing.”

“No, I am not. It’s called women’s intuition. Also…” She tilted her head and lowered her eyebrows a little. “Why are you so intent on forcing relief onto that girl? …Is it because of those scars you once gained on your arm?”

Odor did not answer. He instead loosened his tie and raised his right hand.

“Pathetic. A pathetic story.”

Diana saw him slowly move his gaze throughout the area.

There were smoking and flaming piles of metal on the grass. They were the wreckage of the blue mechanical dragons.

“If… If I had ignored my orders and come out here more quickly, I would not have let this happen. The same goes for those in Tokyo Bay and at the place called Chofu. …Diana, can I ask you one thing?”

“No wife would refuse her husband’s request.”

“Most of all… Most of all, it would anger me if any more life was lost. And I am worried about Heo. So, my wife, please do more than care for me as I die. Please take me to the battlefield, my wife who is the world’s greatest witch.”

“Testament.”

Diana removed her hand from her hair.

It now held scraps of paper made into a cylinder and rectangular strips.

“This is a broom. Its performance does not quite live up to the original 1st version, though.”

She swung the broom to the left.

That was when the great pressure of wind arrived.

It came from a black mechanical dragon.

The dragon measured over forty meters long and it tried to knock Diana away with its nose.

“!!”

A strike from the broom knocked it to the side.

A heavy metallic sound shook the air and the black dragon fell to the side, but it quickly hopped back up with almost feline movements.

The other black dragons reacted by growing more cautious. There were eight of them now, but…

“What should we do about this, honey? Do you want them all for yourself or are you prepared to praise your wife?”

“Then… Then how about you help me? These must be the enemy’s scouts. The main unit is likely flying this way more slowly. Even if the transport plane carrying Heo Thunderson has concept stealth, they will still show interest if they visually locate it. …I want to hurry.”

Odor raised his right arm and four blue mechanical dragons approached in combat form from down the runway behind him.

Diana spun her broom around and held the paper handle under her arm while watching their movements and the gazes of the black dragons.

“Then how about we dedicate the beginning of the fight to avenging our fallen comrades? We can dedicate the middle of the fight to the enemies being crushed and we can dedicate the end of the fight…” She smiled toward the black dragons. “To perfect happiness. How does that sound?”

<noinclude>
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| Back to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume9 Chapter 27|Chapter 27]]
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| Forward to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume9 Chapter 29|Chapter 29]]
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</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume9 Chapter 27

2026-10-04T07:00:07Z

N-Ch:

==Chapter 27: Beyond the Forefront==
[[Image:OnC_v09_0247.png|thumb]]
''There is only one foremost point

''But how far does the empty space continue past that?

Motion filled an underground space made of concrete.

The motion came from a confused mixture of a hot wind, a cold wind, and a wind of bullets that pierced through both other winds. Soon, new movement created yet another wind.

This wind was known as a whirl.

The whirlwind filled a broad floor filled with pillars and it had four points of origin.

Three of those were expressionless automatons. They wore white maid uniforms and each held a different item: one a shield, one a spear, and one a bow. The shield doll always stood in front, the spear doll came next and took action whenever the enemy approached, and the bow doll stood in the back and continually fired arrows while the enemy was more distant.

The last of the wind’s points of origin was an automaton in a black maid uniform. Her name was Violet and her glasses acted as a windshield for her vision as she pursued the enemy with a submachine gun in her right hand.

She ran by a concrete wall that said B2F.

This construction floor was used to develop gods of war and other machines and it was also used to prepare various items for transport, so it had relatively few partition walls.

Violet leaped to the right in the center of that floor and she spun around by digging her toes into the floor upon landing. She ran along with the wind toward the other three dolls.

The three wielding shield, spear, and bow circled the floor while keeping the shield maid toward the center at all times.

When approaching or falling back, the shield would move forward and hide those behind her. When Violet approached, the spear would suddenly attack from the right or left of the shield.

When more distant, the bow would fire again and again whenever Violet tried to get anything but a head-on angle.

The way the three maids circled the floor in a line bound Violet’s movements.

“Um, I have determined this is a pain.”

Her bullets would be deflected by the white elliptical shield, but if she tried to catch her breath afterward, either the tip of the spear would target her chest from the side of the shield or a steel arrow would target her legs from a distance.

She had no choice but to keep moving, but…

“Ah, the excess heat is affecting my movements.”

Automatons only breathed for show. Their joints were simple sockets and their body parts were only connected by the steel wires that took the place of muscles and the conductive wires that functioned as nerves. Each body part had to expel its heat on its own.

That meant extended periods of motion would make them begin to boil on the inside. Combat automatons had a humanoid structure partially to increase the durability of their joints, but it was more about allowing the water cooling effect of perspiration and circulation.

But Violet could not do that. If she relaxed her joints and the bases of her wire cylinders to expel the heat, the enemy would immediately take advantage of her slowed movements.

And from the look of the three enemies…

“Um, those are simple combat models, aren’t they?”

She could tell by viewing them with her thermal vision. Their joints had the same simple structure as her own, but the internal parts that moved the steel wires were kept in the torso or gathered together as much as possible.

For example, the parts to move Violet’s shoulders were installed in her shoulders and upper arms to improve her balance. Simply put, it was a twin engine system. Meanwhile, the enemies’ were only located in the shoulders. They had a single engine system. That prevented them from making more subtle movements, but it was lighter, simpler, and easier to maintain. And by making them lighter, they could be installed in locations better protected by their armor.

Also, having fewer heat-producing parts made it easier to position the openings to expel that heat.

“…!”

An arrow flew toward the right side of her face, so Violet accelerated left to avoid it.

As soon as she kicked off the floor, the shield was right in front of her.

She was not going to hit it, but she did not want it to block her vision, so she accelerated further to the left.

As she did, the spear flew toward her from the left.

The strike would slice her torso in two, but she could evade by jumping and almost flying into the air to the left.

However, the heat built up inside her interfered. The overworked motors spun in vain.

“I can’t avoid it!?”

An instant later, Violet chose to evade without relying on the movements of her limbs.

She chose the one function she excelled at: gravitational control.

The three enemies also possessed that function, but she knew their power was only on an independent level.

Violet side-flipped to the left by reversing up and down.

In the short moment that she cleared the blade and rotated to a midair handstand, she prepared her submachine gun. Below her, the ones hiding behind the shield were now in view.

She only had to fire.

But in that instant, the spear tip suddenly jumped up toward her despite having just been swung in a different direction.

“!?”

The movement completely ignored inertia, but the cause was simple. The shield doll standing near the spear tip had struck it from below and the bow doll had struck the back end of the spear from above.

The spear shot up while using the center doll’s grip on it as the fulcrum and it moved directly toward Violet’s torso.

“Nn.”

Just before firing the submachine gun, she slammed it against the silver line arcing toward her.

With the sound of shattering glass, the submachine gun broke to pieces.

But Violet used the recoil to jump away from her enemies.

That action and use of her gravitational control had brought her internal heat to its limit.

She had lost her primary weapon, so she only had a combat knife, a handgun, and a hand grenade.

And just as she landed, she spotted a single figure in the floor’s entrance.

…''Nagata Tatsumi!

Her arms were spread in front of her and she had something like rings on all her fingers.

“Can you see these? A gaudy kind of fashion, isn’t it? This is the Army’s special remote controller.”

Tatsumi’s voice coincided with Violet’s landing and Violet realized what she was truly up against here.

“We didn’t have the technology or spare time to create artificial intelligence, so we created dolls that could take the place of soldiers. I’m here to test those out a little.”

Violet and Tatsumi faced each other with the three dolls in between them.

Violet’s hips were lowered from landing and she pulled her knife from her apron as she slowly stood.

She had an awful lot of heat stored up in her body. The oil of her circulatory system had lost its viscosity and she could sense air bubbles inside it.

She knew she could not win at her current level of output, but…

“…”

A method for accurately expelling that heat suddenly occurred to her.

She looked up in surprise, but she also knew she could not let the enemy catch on.

And so she quickly looked to Tatsumi through her glasses and spoke the words needed to trick her.

“Um, in other words…”

She made the appropriate statement for the situation.

“You fight by controlling dolls? But then where is their will to fight?”

“Oh, how scary. But your will is also artificial, so I could also ask where it is.”

Tatsumi’s response told Violet the girl had not noticed her chance of victory.

At that point, a few more figures appeared at the top of the stairway that led down to the next floor.

They were Violet’s fellow automatons. There were around five of them, but their unit characteristics were not suited for combat and Violet could predict this was not an enemy that could be overwhelmed by numbers.

“Everyone, stay back. …You are recording the data of this battle, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” replied Tatsumi with a step to the right.

Two new individuals came into view behind her.

One was a girl and the other was a large dog.

However, Violet noticed something odd with her thermal vision. The girl and Tatsumi had a normal human heat distribution, but the dog was simply tinged with faint heat. It had no real form.

One of her fellow automatons explained why.

“That is the data stealing girl named Shino.”

Shino bowed and hid behind Tatsumi whose hands were still raised.

“The dogs have already begun devouring the data here. During the summer, we acquired most of Japanese UCAT’s weaponry documents and internal diagrams, so now we just need to get our hands on the information related to the large-scale concept space creation device and concept space communication device.” She smiled. “Even if Japanese UCAT creates their own battlefield, we will be able to alter it and communicate within it. Also, we will have further strengthened the weapons we made with your information and we will possess maps of your facilities.”

With that, the three dolls prepared to resume the fight.

In case of possible damage, Violet’s fellow automatons took a step back toward the stairway.

And Tatsumi continued to speak.

“Now, help me buy some time and give me some data while you do. How much can you automatons fight and how skilled am I with this remote control?”

Violet began to move before Tatsumi had finished speaking. She took the first step toward her victory.

First, she swung her arm to throw the knife.

“!?”

The shield doll moved to block the knife, but the weapon had a bit of gravitational control in it.

The steel blade could be heard piercing through the top of the ellipse.

While watching the three enemies and the shaking knife, Violet spoke to her fellow automatons. Even as she did so, she felt bad for receiving help from units whose primary skills were those of maids.

“U-um, did you bring my personal storage box?”

“Yes, sir. It’s right here.”

“Th-then prepare one of #4 and three of #5.”

“Yes, sir,” they replied.

She saw they were holding a pink storage box by the staircase and she was a little worried they might have dropped the potted plant that had been sitting on it.

…''But they are better at taking care of flowers than me.

She calmed herself down and spoke to Tatsumi.

“U-um, excuse me.”

“Yes? What is it? I’m guessing you’re stalling to help cool down, but you won’t have enough time to expel much of your heat. In that case, I suppose I’ll hear you out before I destroy you.”

Violet nodded and held her right hand forward with the index and middle fingers raised.

“Thank you for giving me your time. …I was born and raised in 3rd as a maid automaton, my identifier is 13th, and my name is Violet. My occupation and Gear were lost and I found myself in Japan of Low-Gear, which lies beyond all concepts. Eventually, I found myself here in Japanese UCAT’s Kanda Laboratory. I serve Lady Miyako, the successor to 3rd-Gear, but this is the place that has taken me in and protected my king.”

She lowered her raised fingers and pointed at her opponent.

“I am a named automaton. It was for precisely this sort of situation that I was given a name and thus made a proper individual. Our flowers do not bloom upon death. An automaton blooms in a more reserved fashion but still repays her debts of gratitude. In exchange for her name, an automaton will fulfill her work even if it means to wither away. So…”

She leaned forward and took a first step of acceleration.

“Let us see if the spirit of the unit given the flower name Violet can be crushed by mere dolls!”

She ran and took her second step.

“Oh?”

She stepped on an empty cartridge and fell head first to the floor.

Shino saw the automaton named Violet trip quite spectacularly.

This was her first time seeing an actual automaton and was also her first time seeing one tripping.

It happened so suddenly that she was left dumbfounded.

…''Can automatons be clumsy!?

This was a new discovery. She had to tell Mikoku when she saw her next.

But Mikoku was being cold to her recently. She would not hang around Shino during training and she always tried to warn Shino away from any missions she took.

…''She doesn’t think I’m capable.

Shino brought a hand to her chest and to the cloisonné pendant Mikoku had given her as a souvenir of Kurashiki.

Just as she lightly touched the red half circle of pottery, Tatsumi turned from Violet and toward her. Tatsumi looked a little dumbfounded, which was rare for her.

“She’s just like you.”

“I-I don’t trip like that!”

“True. You would have fallen – wham! – right onto your butt. Wham! Wham!!”

“Y-you don’t have to repeat it! More importantly, hurry up and…”

She was going to say “finish her”, but she stopped herself because that was not something to say so casually.

She nodded to solidify her awareness of that fact and Tatsumi’s eyes narrowed.

“Yes, that’s for the best. For you anyway. You need to fear those words.”

“Eh?”

As she looked up in confusion, sweat fell from her forehead and to her cheeks. However, this was not due to nerves. It came from the heat trapped in the underground space.

Tatsumi then turned back to the fallen automaton. Her fingers moved a bit to put the three dolls in motion.

They turned their shield toward the enemy and crouched down. The way the rearmost doll held her bow showed her intent to safely settle this with a projectile.

However, Shino continued to feel the heat and it almost seemed like the room temperature was rising.

…''Tatsumi-san told me about this, didn’t she?

When indoors, highly sealed automatons like the 3rd variety had a tendency to overheat.

This one named Violet should have reached her limit, but even while collapsed on the ground, her joints and other parts remained closed and thus were not expelling any heat. It was all still trapped inside her.

Shino saw Tatsumi’s doll draw its bowstring. Shino turned toward the target of the coming shot and realized a certain fact.

Violet had scattered empty cartridges while firing her submachine gun, so they littered the floor. It was stepping on one of those that had made her trip.

…''That means the cartridge rolled beneath her foot.

But Shino noticed that the cartridge located where she had tripped was crushed flat.

It had clearly not rolled and that led to a single conclusion.

…''She stepped on the cartridge, pretended to trip, and intentionally fell?

She wondered why and found the answer in an unexpected place.

Shiro, the ghost dog standing to her right, suddenly lay down as if it had nothing to do.

It placed its belly on the floor.

“Don’t tell me…”

Shino turned toward Tatsumi’s back. Tatsumi was moving her fingers in order to fire the arrow.

“Tatsumi! This is dangerous! That automaton is expelling her heat! She’s lying on the cold concrete so it absorbs all the heat from her body!”

A moment later, wind blew.

The arrow was fired and a form raced forward to strike back. That form belonged to an automaton.

Violet ran.

She saw Tatsumi frown and saw the bow doll’s hand let go of the arrow.

She jumped to the right to avoid it.

The enemy had crouched down to defend against a possible attack from the floor, but that meant they could not immediately stand up and react.

Violet leaped with a single footstep and circled around to the right.

With the handgun in her right hand, she fired into the shield to prevent the doll from moving it.

The repeated sounds of metal striking metal rang out and the shield was stuck down at waist height. If Violet continued circling around to the side, she would win.

However, she saw Tatsumi narrow her eyes and smile.

A moment later, the doll holding the spear swung that spear sideways and struck the doll in front of her with the shaft.

“!?”

The doll was knocked right and thus toward Violet.

And that shield automaton used that movement to keep up with her.

The three of them rotated and the wind blew, but Violet remained at the leading edge of that wind.

She had only expelled enough heat for this swift movement. She would have to settle this in only a few seconds.

She ran in an arc toward the wall near the staircase in the right corner.

However, the three dolls kept up with her as they rotated with the shield at the front.

Violet continued running regardless, fired her handgun, and gave a silent instruction just before reaching the wall.

“#4 and #5!”

Before that shared thought had finished, the objects flew toward her.

With unparalleled control, her fellow automatons threw her a handgun identical to the one in her right hand and three magazines.

As soon as the magazine of her current handgun ran out, she ejected it. In the same motion, she directly slammed one of the airborne magazines into place and caught the other handgun with her left hand.

She now had two guns and two spare magazines flew toward her as well.

Just as she was about to receive them, the shield doll stepped forward and toward her.

But by the wall, Violet took a step and reached toward the airborne magazines.

“Here I go.”

She used her gravitational control to launch the two magazines above the three dolls.

At the same time, she accurately fired both handguns into those magazines.

“Um, everyone!”

“Yes, sir!!”

The automatons waiting by the stairway instantly scanned the destruction of the magazines, calculated out the movements of the scattering fragments and bullets, and sent the result back to Violet.

Violet repeatedly fired her handguns toward the ignition portion of the bullets from the two scattering magazines.

The tips of the bullets she was firing had a simple gravity ram attached. These were normally meant to increase the penetrative power, but they had a different use here.

She was firing at the back end of all the bullets scattering in midair in order to ignite them.

With no barrel, the bullets did not have a stable flight, but several dozen rounds still rained down from close range.

“…!”

The three dolls trembled in the shower of impacts and noise.

However, Violet knew this much was not enough to have any real effect. The bullets ripped holes in the upper surfaces of the dolls and they calmly turned to face her with the shimmering of their internal heat rising from the holes.

But it was too late.

Violet had already turned toward the three of them while rushing just past the wall.

At her speed, a collision was unavoidable, so the shield was placed forward to stop her.

Next, the spear would be thrust past the left side of the shield to hit her in the chest.

Violet accelerated and pushed on her own back with her gravitational control.

“…!”

She reached the shield before the spear and she had one goal: the grip of the knife she had thrown into the shield earlier.

She stepped on it and jumped.

An instant later, a high-speed strike pierced through the spot she had just left.

Once again, the bottom of the spear tip was struck from below to knock it up toward her.

Violet had expected all of this, so she threw herself forward in midair. She flipped halfway around and shifted her gravitational control once she was truly upside-down. She set her gravity so the ceiling was the floor.

Her feet landed on the ceiling and she turned to the right in order to avoid the pursuing spear.

The spear slipped past her and continued rotating around and Violet almost seemed to follow after it as she stepped back along the ceiling to circle behind the three dolls.

That was when another attack arrived: the bow and arrow.

The bow doll had struck the back of the spear downward to begin its rotation, but she had swiftly nocked an arrow afterward. She was just barely fast enough, but if she fired straight up, it would hit Violet.

Or it should have.

What Violet did in response was truly simple.

She swung her right elbow back and rotated her body.

Her extended elbow struck the shaft of the spear that had rotated past her.

As the spear was swung down, it struck the bow doll diagonally from the neck to the waist.

The sound of the doll being sliced sounded a lot like splitting bamboo.

It was a very clear sound and the bow doll began to collapse with the arrow still pointed upward in her bow.

But Violet did not overlook that. She jumped down from the ceiling, flipped back around, and reset her gravitational control so the floor was the floor.

And as soon as she landed, she supported the collapsing bow doll from behind. She did so by supporting the hand holding the bow and the hand holding the arrow and pointing them forward.

After landing on the floor and supporting the bow doll, she faced forward and saw the spear and shield dolls.

She re-nocked the arrow and fired it.

She targeted the center of the chest and the steel arrow accurately pierced both dolls.

“…”

With a metallic sound, the arrow hit the back of the shield, launching it forward from the doll’s hand and into the wall.

The empty metallic sound tumbled down the wall, but Violet had already turned her back on it.

She did not have much movement time left and her only remaining weapon was a single grenade. If she detonated it in the entrance to the stairway leading upwards, her job would be complete. And due to fighting by the wall, Tatsumi would have had to move out of the corridor to keep the dolls in her field of vision. There was no longer any way for her to escape the grenade.

When Violet faced forward and began to run, she saw that Tatsumi was indeed in the same entrance as before.

The girl was smiling, but her shoulders were lowered.

“Oh, dear. It looks like I shouldn’t try this kind of thing without more practice. I need to rethink some things.”

But she continued to face Violet.

“How about you hurry up and throw the grenade? Or will you show me a more automaton-like fighting style? In other words, approach us with the grenade in hand to defeat us even if it means your own destruction. That is the truly scary aspect of an automaton that can be good-as-new after some repairs. Am I wrong?”

“…”

Tatsumi had seen through her intentions. This was what Sayama had done to Violet during the battle in Kurashiki. Despite being a human, he had ignored any fear of his own destruction and focused entirely on eliminating his opponent.

…''You must ensure victory.

As an automaton, she did not need to fear damage. She had intended to teach Tatsumi that, but…

“Too bad. Now, let me tell you how we view things.”

Tatsumi brushed her fingers across each other as if massaging them and that simple action removed all ten rings. She then held them in her right hand.

“Do you know what we do when a doll breaks?”

“…?”

“Girls will feel a little sad and place it as if it is going to sleep, but we will then receive a new doll. And as for the old doll…”

She crushed the rings in her grip.

“We throw them out with the burnable trash. …Come, Shino. You should have the data by now, so let’s get home.”

With those words, Tatsumi leaped toward the stairway.

''I won’t let you escape,'' thought Violet as she ran forward, but she suddenly felt something pressing on her back.

…''Eh?

She then felt herself floating, but after that…

“!?”

She was thrown forward too quickly for her sense of balance to keep up.

By the time she realized the three dolls had exploded, she had slammed into one of the concrete pillars supporting the ceiling. By the time her entire body’s framework was crushed, the explosive blast arrived like a wall of sand.

She could no longer hear anything in the impact, but she could tell from where she hit that the pillar had broken.

Her auditory devices informed her that the ceiling had cracked and started to collapse.

The information her artificial brain received about her body did not tell her that she could not move her body. It instead told her that her body was no longer there.

To avoid any confusion caused by the destruction of her body, her artificial consciousness rapidly closed down.

But just before it did, Violet made a prediction and sent it out over her shared memory. She said the enemy had likely escaped with most of their information, that the upper floor of the Kanda Laboratory had likely collapsed, and…

…''Those new dolls.

They likely intended to eventually control Typhon like that.

“And…”

She informed her fellow automatons that she had completed her job and that they should continue with their jobs.

After all, they had unknowingly allowed Black Sun to approach outside.

And so she told them to assist in the fight against 5th-Gear.

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| Back to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume9 Chapter 26|Chapter 26]]
| Return to [[Owari no Chronicle|Main Page]]
| Forward to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume9 Chapter 28|Chapter 28]]
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</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume9 Chapter 26

2026-10-03T04:04:55Z

N-Ch:

==Chapter 26: Running Destination==
[[Image:OnC_v09_0221.png|thumb]]
''Your heart tells you to go

''And your voice wants to say something

''“I’m going”

A small room of about eight square meters had an arched roof.

The floor was orange carpet and the walls were covered in wallpaper made of a fairly thick white cloth.

The only furnishings were a sofa and bed affixed to the ground, a television embedded in the wall, and some shelves.

The lights embedded in the ceiling created shadows in front of the door and at the edge of the bed.

Both of those shadows were cast by a person, both of whom were female.

A tall woman in a black suit stood in front of the sliding door and a short girl sat on the edge of the bed.

“Okay, Heo. I will be leaving now, so are you sure you’re okay?”

“Y-yes. I can see what’s going on using the TV, Mrs. Diana.”

“That’s right,” replied Diana with a smile. She placed a hand on the door behind her. “Don’t worry. We just received word that Black Sun was destroyed, remember?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Heo nodded and remained sitting without even removing her jacket.

Seeing that, Diana tilted her head while still smiling.

“You don’t believe it?”

“It’s not that. I see no reason for them to lie about it. It’s just…that means there was a battle.”

“Yes, and it seems many lives were lost.”

Heo hung her head when she heard that and Diana continued speaking.

“Feeling sad is a good thing, Heo, but if you are going to actually say something, say thank you. They were fighting to create happiness, not to make people sad.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Despite the sinking tone of Heo’s reply, Diana narrowed and bent her eyes.

“But you probably won’t really understand that until later, so think about this again once you are more certain of your safety and have grown up. …Perhaps after you have children.”

“B-but I’m still a long way from getting married.”

As Heo tensed her shoulders, blushed, and waved her hands back and forth, Diana laughed a bit.

“It’s better for girls to be cute like that instead of looking sad, Heo.”

“Ah,” said Heo upon realizing Diana was comforting her.

She relaxed her body and let out a sigh.

“Thank you very much.”

She lowered her head a bit while giving her thanks, but she had formed a small smile by the time she looked up again.

She asked Diana a question in a bright voice that sounded a little forced.

“What about you, teacher? Mr. Roger told me you are married.”

“I don’t have that kind of relationship with my husband. The two of us once investigated a small organization’s source of income in the United States. We ended up fighting that enemy and, after about a month of fierce fighting, we found we had a lot in common.”

Heo’s eyes opened wide, but Diana only continued with a smile in her voice.

“We promised each other to singlehandedly bear the death of the other if they die first.”

“What… What kind of person is he?”

“Well, he rejects others, acts superior to everyone else, and believes that he is always right about everything, but at the same time, he truly hopes to find he is wrong.”

Diana’s words almost seemed directed at herself and they left Heo speechless.

Heo mouthed the words to herself and sighed.

Diana’s shoulders fell a bit as she heard that air escaping the girl’s lungs.

“Do you have someone like that?”

Heo’s shoulders tensed when she heard that question and the movement brought noise from the stone necklace around her neck.

“N-no, I don’t.”

“Heo, you know you can’t lie to me.”

Heo looked up and faced forward.

At some point the door had opened and the transport plane’s cargo hold lay behind Diana.

Heo’s room was inside a protective barrier placed inside the already concept-protected transport plane. This was a special plane that masked any concept signal when transporting concept-altered items. This guest room had been put together especially for Heo.

She felt the chilly breeze blowing in from the door. And…

“Heo.”

She heard a voice that seemed to break through the great noise of the airplane’s jet engines.

“If you had tried to stay in that apartment, I would have taken you here by force if necessary.”

“Is that because…that’s your duty?”

Diana retained her smile as the wind blew at her hair and Heo asked a sudden question.

“What is all this? I was given an explanation, but I still don’t fully understand. Great-grandfather and you belonged to the organization called UCAT…but were my parents part of it too? Did you all fight in deadly battles?”

“Yes, and that is how things ended up how they are.”

That simple answer was accompanied by no change of expression.

Heo was momentarily dumbfounded, but her words exploded out soon thereafter.

“Why!?”

Diana did not reply, so Heo continued speaking. She rose a bit from the bed and her eyebrows shot up a bit as she did so.

“I just want to live a normal life. Is that not what my parents or great-grandfather wanted?”

“But it is because of them that you are who you are. They are the ones that protected the happy life you want and people like them will support it in the future.”

“But…” Heo’s expression crumbled and twisted. “But I want a normal life. Why does everyone have to go out and fight? This…this kind of problem will fix itself if you give it enough time!”

Diana took a step back without saying anything more.

“Teacher!”

Heo called out, but Diana stepped out the door.

Heo reflexively stood up and tried to run after her, but…

“…”

She shrunk back and came to a stop. She had seen a smile in the darkness beyond the closing door.

Diana’s narrowed and smiling eyes looked directly at her through the vanishing gap of the door.

“Heo.”

The smiling mouth opened as the door reached the halfway point.

“Let us return to a previous topic. …You are an excellent student, Heo. After all, you did not sell yourself short at that apartment. Yes, a true woman must help a careless gentleman make his way and she must have the consideration to let him take the first step to lead the way.”

“Eh?”

“Just wait, Heo. The north wind that carries the dark clouds with the lonely star has not abandoned the family of thunder. And Heo, as your teacher, let me give you one answer ahead of time.”

“Eh? Oh, yes, ma’am.”

Diana’s smile grew at her student’s confused reply.

“About your previous question, it is not just time that is needed to resolve your problems. You also need…”

The smiling eyes and voice were joined by the sound of the door closing.

“Resolve. This will be on the test: Point Allocation (Your Life). Got that?”

Relaxation filled the air in an underground portion of the Kanda Laboratory.

However, this was not in a figurative sense.

In a large open space with B3F on the concrete wall, automatons were relaxing the various components of their bodies to let out the excess heat built up from overwork.

B3F was partitioned into a number of blocks and it was normally used for development research and to gather all the philosopher’s stone readings in eastern Japan. Now that American UCAT had requested the use of the large-scale concept space creation device, the entire floor and its philosopher’s stone detectors were being used for that singular purpose.

As a result, the American UCAT forces had taken damage, but the reading determined to be Black Sun had stopped.

Currently, a slight change was being made to the concept space during the time before it naturally vanished.

The concept space corridor running through the Fussa region had been bent to incorporate Yokota Air Base.

That way they could fully protect Heo Thunderson’s transport plane until it took off and entered Tokyo airspace.

Six mechanical dragons had been waiting in Yokota to intercept the black mechanical dragon, so their job was now to escort that past hero’s descendant until she reached the very edge of the concept space.

After setting all that up, the automatons announced their success over their shared memory.

“Mission complete. As is to be expected.”

They showed some reserved celebration and loosened their joints to let out the heat caused by raising their reaction speed.

The air around them grew hot.

The large-scale concept space creation device was located at the back of B3F. Technicians were gathered around the machine which contained multiple ten meter thick cylinders of different sizes which were held in place on each side by a key-shaped shield.

Those technicians were making adjustments to the machine and they had stopped trying to resist the heat coming from it. Most of them were wearing T-shirts and shorts. To cool themselves off, they had prepared buckets of ice, kiddie pools, and even anti-tank water guns, but they were still finishing up their work.

After this, they only needed to retrieve the concept space creation device terminals set up on the Chuo Expressway, national routes, and other roads. After that, they would need to negotiate with American UCAT about securing Okutama’s safety.

Apparently, American UCAT had settled for a ceasefire with the Japanese UCAT counterattack unit there.

At the same time, they did not know what to do with the Vesper Cannon that Japanese UCAT had used as a diversion. One of the automatons intercepting the optical communications spoke over the shared memory.

“They do not know how to load the Vesper Cannon on their mechanical dragons. The top of the cannon sticks out as a single long, narrow panel, so a mechanical dragon cannot climb on top of it and use its legs to grasp it from below.”

The automaton in charge of making drafts, #27, had secretly calculated out some estimated data, so they had been able to compare the new information on the Vesper Cannon’s size with American UCAT’s mechanical dragons.

“For a mechanical dragon to hold the Vesper Cannon from above, I have determined its legs would need to be nearly twice as long as theirs. At the same time, the mechanical dragon mount on top of the Vesper Cannon is about three meters, the same as American UCAT’s mechanical dragons.”

Also, their estimated data said the mount was so thin that it would not attach well to the mechanical dragons. Even if they could attach the Vesper Cannon, the mechanical dragon would wobble back and forth on the mount and lose all sense of unity. If it tried to fly with it, it would almost certainly lose its balance.

“The mechanical dragon needed for the Vesper Cannon would have legs twice the standard length and a body half as wide.”

That estimation allowed them to predict the desired mechanical dragon.

“That is impossible.”

The automatons exchanged questions while relaxing their bodies.

“Why is it impossible?”

“Because of the frame strength. The thinner the body, the thinner the frame. It could not support its own weight like that. A mechanical dragon specially made for the Vesper Cannon would be necessary, but such a dragon would be unable to fly or walk.”

“But if it could not function on its own, they would have built the Vesper Cannon into it from the beginning, right? In that case, there must be a mechanical dragon that overcomes all those problems. It must have been created to fight Black Sun.”

That comment came from 31st “Daisy” who was from 3rd-Gear.

However, someone suddenly gave another opinion.

This was 78th “Gentian” who was also from 3rd.

“But that mechanical dragon did not fight Black Sun. When Black Sun was putting up so much of a fight and was ultimately shot down, would that mechanical dragon really ignore the Vesper Cannon and do nothing?”

It was a simple idea that could be viewed as a thought or a complaint. However…

“…”

Her idea created something among them all.

It was a high-speed series of thoughts brought by their experience and it was similar to a human having a “hunch”. They connected their minds to function as a single thinking machine and they thought on a certain question.

…''Why was Black Sun defeated even though the mechanical dragon meant to fight it did not appear?

They thought and they all suddenly gave off a lot of excess heat and jumped up.

“I have determined this is dangerous!! Calculating back arrives at a single conclusion.”

That being…

“If the Vesper Cannon’s user has not appeared, that must not have been Black Sun!!”

The automatons’ shout reverberate through the underground space. A moment later, they all switched back to making individual decisions and began to move.

Those who controlled the machine moved back to their posts, those who measured readings turned back to their screens, and those who operated computers reached for their mice. A hot wind moved among them and their movement produced mechanical noises and the rustling of clothes.

“Open the optical communications! Ask them to check on the concept readings in the supposed Black Sun’s reactor to see if it truly contains the Concept Core!”

“We just received a transmission from American UCAT! Black Sun contained…a large weakened concept! The only obvious reading from 5th-Gear’s Concept Core inside the concept space is the one in Okutama! Which means…”

Amid the silence, a shout filled their shared memory.

“The defeated mechanical dragon was not Black Sun!”

A moment later, they all looked in a single direction.

A map was displayed on the ceiling so it could be seen from within any of the partitions.

It was a map of Kantou and it was synced with the radar displaying the status of the operation.

“A large philosopher’s stone reading has appeared. It is off the coast of Chiba and moving toward Tokyo through the ocean.”

An actual voice slipped from the mouth of one of the automatons.

A red dot had appeared in the blue ocean to the right of the green map of Kantou.

And…

[[Image:OnC_v09_0233.png|thumb]]

“This reading is much larger than the previous Black Sun and two…three…four…many more readings have appeared around it! There are six of them and they are each the same size as the defeated mechanical dragon!!”

Confusion swept across that underground space and an alarm began to blare.

“Send out an optical transmission!! This is an emergency! Also, activate the experimental concept space communication device!”

“B-but the alpha test still hasn’t been-…”

“That does not matter! Contact the cellphones of all UCAT personnel inside and outside the concept space! This is no longer a problem for just American UCAT or just Japanese UCAT!”

“Testament… Ah!?”

“What is it!? Did something happen!?”

“Just as I was going to contact American UCAT, the optical transmission facility was destroyed.”

After a breath, a pause that should not have occurred for an automaton, she continued.

“W-we have an intruder!”

The ceiling display instantly changed to Kanda’s underground security camera footage divided between one hundred eighty screens. The footage of individuals with a proper ID signal and those not displaying anything were then eliminated.

It finally zoomed in on a single screen which displayed a few unidentified individuals.

Four figures could be seen walking down an underground corridor.

Three of them approached with a girl behind them and those three were…

“Automatons?”

“They are unidentified. The echo scan of their joint movement sound does not match any UCAT-made model.”

They then saw the face of the girl.

“Nagata Tatsumi!!”

As if responding to their voice, she looked directly at the camera and waved.

An instant later, the camera footage blacked out.

One of the technicians spoke in the now-silent space.

“Are they here to steal information on this concept space creation device and the concept space communication device?”

The man almost sounded angry and he started toward the stairs with a wrench in hand and while wearing nothing but a black bathing suit. He was not going to let the enemy approach. However…

“Um, please wait. I will intercept them. This kind of work is my specialty.”

A dignified voice filled the air and a short figure appeared in the central passageway.

She raised her bespectacled head and spoke quietly to the others.

“I am 13th ‘Violet’ of 3rd. If anyone wishes to help, please respond with ‘yes, sir’.”

Below the starry night sky was a large schoolyard. To prepare for the athletic festival, it was divided by straight and curved lines for sporting events and by the spectator seating.

The clock on the school building to the north said it was 8:40 PM and the festival lighting was shut off.

However, a single figure stood in that schoolyard.

It was a boy. The dark-skinned boy had a bandanna over his wavy black hair. Instead of a school uniform, he wore black jeans and a black leather jacket that was a little much for early autumn. But below the jacket, he only wore a black T-shirt that looked like it would leave him feeling chilly.

He faced forward where a motorcycle with a sidecar was stopped past the edge of the schoolyard.

“Since that was fine, they must be almost completely ignoring me.”

The eyes hidden by his sunglasses looked down at the straight white line at his feet.

He looked back up and his gaze followed the line for the several dozen meters to the goal.

But when he began to walk, Harakawa stepped over the line and outside the course.

“…”

He then looked up into the sky.

…''Should I drive around on the motorcycle to distract myself?

The small radio in the sidecar said there was some lightning in the sky on the Chuo Expressway near Chofu. The announcer said to be careful as that meant a sudden thunderstorm was possible.

''In that case, it might be best to travel south along 16 until I reach Yokohama or maybe Shounan.

“Yeah, I think I’ll do that. …There’s nothing to worry about.”

…''That idiot said she would be fine.

“She said she would do her best in her new home.”

He sighed, told himself that was the last time he would think back to that, and walked toward the motorcycle.

He did not understand that girl.

She would start crying at the slightest provocation, but she also did not like making others worry.

She would readily say the most unbelievable things, but she would look confused when someone tried to believe her.

She would say she was better off alone, but she was afraid to be alone.

“She’s such a liar.”

…''And she’s such a little kid. You can always tell when she’s lying.

She was probably the only one who had not noticed.

When Heo Thunderson lied, she would shrink down. She would stiffen her shoulders as if trying to make herself disappear and as if she did not like having to lie.

If being able to lie without being found out made one an adult, then she was a child.

Harakawa recalled his most recent memory of her.

He recalled her slender shoulders when she had said she was fine and that she would do her best in her new life.

“You liar!!”

The sound of his own shout brought his feet to a stop.

He then took in a breath as if he had just remembered something and he shook his head.

…''Why am I so mad? Ignore it like you always do. You need to protect your normal life.

''You put so much distance between you and tried to drive her out, didn’t you?'' he told himself.

But another fact remained and that fact would not leave his heart.

“You’re the one who took her in because you couldn’t ignore her.”

He already had his answer to what had started this.

He lowered his gaze, but there was no longer a line at his feet.

He checked and found his stopped feet had already reached the goal. He had indeed reached this spot while walking along the outside of the course.

“…Dammit.”

His back was turned to the straight line he could see when he looked over his shoulder.

“Dammit.”

He gathered strength in his shoulders and walked forward.

And he thought.

“Dammit!”

He did not have a shift at the base today.

“…Dammit!”

But wouldn’t it be perfectly normal to stop by the base since he had some extra time?

“Goddammit!”

He was low on money this month, so couldn’t he ask for an extra shift?

“Yeah, that’s right!”

He arrived at the motorcycle. The black vehicle was stopped along the ninety degree corner leading to the academy’s main gate.

…''I’m just going. I stop by the base all the time.

He placed one leg over the motorcycle’s seat and sat down. The sidecar was empty.

He then recalled the final moment. What had Heo said when she had left?

…''A bookstore, hm?

He could guess his mother had told her. Heo had simply believed it and mentioned it without knowing at all how he felt, but…

“Is that something to say to me so proudly, Heo Thunderson!?”

He jammed the key in the ignition and turned it.

He put back on his sunglasses and took a breath.

Just then, sudden shadow and light appeared from the left.

“…!?”

Before he could erase his look of suspicion, something stopped next to him.

It was a large motorcycle with two people sitting on it.

“The president and treasurer?”

That was all he said before looking away from the two who had a giant cloth bag attached to their motorcycle.

The treasurer wore a track suit and gave a bitter smile from the back of the motorcycle.

“Oh? You don’t have any questions for us? Even though we’ve been watching you since you got here?”

“When I thought about it, I realized you’re the same breed of eccentric as Sayama. I would end up regretting anything I asked you.”

“Hold it right there, second year. You need to watch how you speak to your upperclassmen.”

“Then let me tell you something,” said Harakawa while putting on his riding gloves. “In the language spoken in the country of the father I hate so much, people address both their elders and little kids with the word ‘you’.”

“ ‘Yoo’? What’s that mean, Chisato?”

The president turned around with a frown and the treasurer punched him upward.

While Harakawa ignored that normal turn of events, the treasurer held the head of her swaying partner.

“Harakawa, take these.”

She held out a black watch and a cellphone. He noticed she wore an identical watch but the president did not.

“Why do I have to wear the president’s?”

“Just put it on. It’s a magic tool to bring you closer to Heo Thunderson. I’ll tell you how to use it on the way. After that, do as you wish. We have work to do at Okutama, so we’ll have to leave partway there. We’ve already contacted Sayama, so he might have something to tell you.”

“I see.”

With that, Harakawa squeezed the accelerator.

He moved forward and toward Taka-Akita Academy’s northeastern gate. That was near Akigawa’s northeastern end which was not far from the neighboring city of Fussa. It was almost a straight shot to Yokota Air Base.

“Ah, wait! C’mon, Kaku!”

He heard a blow behind him and then the light began to pursue.

But despite the movement from behind, Harakawa only accelerated further. He shot past a school building and down the gravel road through the row of student dormitories.

He could hear the tires tearing across those stones.

…''What am I even thinking of doing?

Still, there were a few things he did know. The night before, she had started to cry and stopped running on the one hundred meter track. And today, she had lied so he would not worry and yet had given him her support.

He had said nothing and had done nothing for her. So if he was going to make it…

“Honestly.”

He squeezed the accelerator tighter.

“This isn’t like me at all.”

“Harakawa!”

The light behind him caught up and raced alongside him. He heard the treasurer call out his name, but Harakawa did not respond. “Someone else” spoke instead.

“I’m not Harakawa right now. After all, I’m doing something that isn’t like me at all.”

“Eh?”

Hearing that tone of question, he pushed his sunglasses up his nose to hide his eyes and opened his mouth.

“Right now, I’ll use the surname of the father I hate so much.”

“Your father’s surname?”

“That’s right,” he said into the oncoming wind. “Dan Northwind. That’s my name if I take on my father’s surname.”

''It'' flew into the sky. That sky covered a burning city and a harbor.

It was over eight hundred meters long as it flew through that sky. Its main body was only three hundred meters, but it had evolved additional armor and twin-fuselage wings that greatly supported its body. This was its perfect battle equipment that it had not possessed ten years ago or the night before last.

It traveled into the western sky with its greatest fighting power.

When it had entered the bay, it had noticed some kind of concept space instantly stretch out and envelop it.

Leaving that space would be easy, but the scene visible below and the information from the child craft it had sent on ahead told it the concept space contained enough power to destroy one of the child craft.

It rode an updraft and thought on the fact that a wild beast attacked the weakest enemy first.

But it was not a wild beast. It knew it was a machine meant to protect mankind.

The false humanity existed outside the concept space, so what was this fighting force inside the concept space?

It decided this world must have machines built for the same purpose as it.

That fact seemed familiar.

It had lost its memories, but something it retained allowed it to recall the slight vestiges of a memory.

It had once fought opponents like this. That enemy had come as an army and it had once lost to them. The enemy army had been nearly destroyed, but the result of that fight had been put off until later.

“…”

It ascended, wrapped itself in wind, and accelerated.

The large black mechanical dragon decided to fight them. Was it for the conclusion of that battle it did not remember? Was it for the lost people it did not remember? Or was it simply because it had evolved to fight?

It did not know, but it did know it sought something.

It sought many things.

Why did it desire to fight?

Where were the people it was meant to serve?

Why had it lost its memories and why did it wish for those people despite losing its memories?

Why?

“…”

The black mechanical dragon stopped thinking.

It could simply crush any problems one-by-one and find the answers. The first step was eliminating the enemy that was trying to get in its way.

It wished to hurry. Its additional twin-fuselage was an extension of its wings and that closed slightly to point all of its rear accelerators backward.

It continued on.

The air was now a wall of great pressure, but it knew that breaking through that wall to continue forward was known as flying.

A group followed in the sky behind it.

They were all black mechanical dragons.

Countless dragons appeared from the sky and the sea and they were divided between two general sizes: the small forty meter ones and the midsized three hundred meter ones.

There were six of the midsized ones and not even the large one could determine how many small ones there were.

This was an army of black mechanical dragons.

''This is evolution,'' it thought.

In the past, it had been powerful yet alone, and that was why it had been cornered and sunk.

It had chosen the very same method its former enemy had used to defeat it. It had duplicated its own parts to create companions.

Each of the child craft it sent out to gather information obeyed their imperfect instincts and sought the enemy.

As a result, the enemy had destroyed one of those midsized craft.

Twice now, it had seen the false humanity that was its enemy.

Both times, it had removed this additional armor to approach the nostalgic scent it had detected.

The first time, its evolution had been incomplete and it did not entirely remember the incident, but it recalled that the incident had happened in front of a small building in a grassy field. A woman had tried to protect the building from it, but it had sensed the familiar scent within the building and had injured her with its claws while trying to move her out of the way.

It did not think that woman was its enemy, but it did not entirely remember what had happened afterward.

The second time had been two days ago. It had found a man wielding a spear within a small concept space.

It did not know if it knew that man, but when it had brought its claws to the man, something had begun within it. It was as if lost functionality had restarted and the hands of a clock had begun to move again.

It had been confused.

It had been so confused by the unexpected development that it had fled. It had escaped to the northern ocean it lived in. When it had detected the nostalgic air on the way back, it had left the issue to a midsized child craft.

The child craft had been attacked and that had told it a new fight was beginning. There was a nearby enemy that gave off the familiar scent of a destroyed world.

It more or less knew how powerful that enemy was. When the previous child craft had been destroyed, that child craft had sent back an analysis of the enemy’s power. Even the enemy’s primary weapons had only barely managed to destroy the midsized craft.

However, it erased that prediction. After all, its former enemy had destroyed it.

This time, it would utterly destroy its enemy and it would destroy the false humanity that filled this world.

It did not care if it became the only thing in the world. It only needed to continue evolving, increase its army, and envelop the entire world. If it did that, it was possible the humanity it knew would eventually return.

Once that happened, would the people praise it for completely protecting the world using the machines they had created to protect people? Would they praise it for building all that up on its own?

Would they praise it and say that was a truly happy thing?

“————”

It opened its mouth and roared.

And as it roared, it recalled the name its child craft had heard during the previous battle: Black Sun.

If it became a sun in this black sky, would humanity return? While wondering that, it set Black Sun as its own name.

While letting out a cry of joy at having a name, it felt a great familiar sensation to the west.

<noinclude>
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| Back to [[Owari no Chronicle:Volume9 Chapter 25|Chapter 25]]
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</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume9 Chapter 25

2026-10-03T04:00:19Z

N-Ch:

==Chapter 25: Desired Sky==
[[Image:OnC_v09_0199.png|thumb]]
''Fun

''This is fun

''It is so much fun here

The blue mechanical dragons of American UCAT sought battle over Tokyo Bay.

Six of the twelve ascended and they formed three-craft units named A and B. Units C and D where in charge of attacking from the surface.

When a dark form entered the nighttime bay from the east, Unit A approached from the northern sky and Unit B from an arc skimming just above the southern water’s surface.

The large black mechanical dragon was moving slowly. It traveled west at an altitude of approximately five hundred meters.

The commander of Unit A spoke up while approaching it from the upper left.

His voice did not travel over electromagnetic radio. To lessen the burden on the large-scale concept space creation device in Kanda, the concept space contained no concept allowing electromagnetic communication.

Kanda was also developing a concept space communication device which would allow the use of radios even with all sorts of concept jamming in effect, but it was still in the experimental phase.

For that reason, they used optical radios that transmitted signals using the rapid flashing of small lights.

And so the flying mechanical dragons spoke with those voices of light.

“Cross over.”

While Unit A was approaching from the upper left, Unit B was approaching from the lower right and their commander spoke up in response.

“Testament.”

The six dragons had transformed into their aircraft forms and they twisted toward the black dragon in groups of three.

Unit A flew from the upper left to lower right of the large black mechanical dragon.

Unit B flew from the lower right to the upper left.

A moment later, Units C and D launched a preemptive strike from the harbor. To support Units A and B’s attack, they were drawing the black dragon’s attention just before the attack.

The simultaneous attacks sounded like a single explosive noise.

The ground unit had also prepared some tanks.

The six mechanical dragons on the surface fired their dragon cannons from their mouths and the tanks fired several hundred concept-modified steel shells into the air.

They hit.

The clear sound of impact was joined by overlapping shockwaves. Armor-piercing, heat piercing, and other special concept shells struck the black dragon’s nose and shoulders.

“————!”

A continuous roar filled the air and explosions lit the sky.

That was when Units A and B crossed paths.

The unmoving lights of concept space Tokyo colored their intersection.

They flipped past each other at about six hundred meters in front of the large black mechanical dragon.

The commanders fired their dragon cannons, the second-in-commands fired their air-to-surface missiles and let inertia carry them, and the third member of both units primarily scanned everything around them to pick up the effects of all the attacks in real time.

By the time the intersecting attack ended, the six blue dragons had passed by the black one.

They scattered.

The three members of Unit A scattered toward the ocean below and the three members of Unit B scattered into the sky above. They flew in swift arcs to avoid being attacked and they gathered into groups of three once more.

While they once more began to pursue the black dragon, Unit A’s commander spoke up.

“How’s the enemy?”

He looked to the black mechanical dragon that flew through the sky with explosive flames wrapped around it like a cloud.

“Slight damage to the armor. An invisible defensive field surrounding it deflected even the dragon cann-…”

The voice coming from Unit A’s third member vanished.

Everyone saw something red in the position his dragon had been.

Due to their relative speed, that something seemed to be slowly tumbling and breaking to pieces. It was the wreckage of a blue mechanical dragon and the flames of an explosion.

It had been hit by some attack none of them had seen.

And the enemy had targeted the third member which had not attacked it.

They all felt a chill and realized something.

A wild beast would always attack the weakest prey first.

And a wild beast would make an example of the weak to rule over the others.

Unit A’s commander made a split-second decision and shouted out.

“Unit B, break! You too, ground unit! The enemy might be scanning the data from our attacks! Get away from the weapons that had the least effect!”

The people he was addressing responded.

And they did so with bright explosions.

One appeared in the sky and eleven rose up from the wharf in the distance.

Those were the third member of Unit B and the tanks on the wharf.

Smoke rose while wrapped in flames, but not so much as a scream was heard. When using electromagnetic communications, destruction brought static, but here there was only the fire.

But then each unit commander received a communication. It was the last information the third members of Units A and B had managed to get off as they broke apart and sank. That information gave the identity of the enemy attack.

“Black light?”

That was something that should not exist. It was an optical weapon that could not be seen at night.

The black mechanical dragon had fired from all of the cannons hidden over its body. It had most likely fired from its mouth as well.

And then it accelerated. Its body shrank down for an instant and it extended in the next instant.

“…!”

It let out a cry and moved forward to the harbor where more weak prey was gathered.

“Pursue!”

The remnants of Units A and B merged into a single four-craft unit and pursued the black dragon.

While facing the burning harbor, that black dragon used its acceleration to shake off the flames surrounding it.

Once it was visible again, Unit B’s second-in-command described what he saw.

“It’s unharmed.”

He gasped as he said it, but Unit B’s commander replied.

“No. Our third told us there was light damage to the armor and that’s more than anyone managed sixty years ago. We don’t know how much it can accelerate, but we do know we can draw its attention and damage it.”

Lights flew up from within the flames on the harbor.

They belonged to the mechanical dragons of Units C and D as they drew arcs through the sky on a direct path to the enemy.

But all of the blue dragons saw the black one lower its head a little while still raising its speed.

“…!”

Its dragon cannon fired from its mouth like a waterfall of black light.

But it was not targeting the mechanical dragons that were arriving from the harbor.

“Damn that thing!!”

The attack swept across the harbor in an instant.

It pierced through the moored cargo ships being used as barricades like they were made of paper.

The black light roasted all the equipment, weapons, and everything else prepared on the wharf and the impact blasted them into the sky.

The sound of spraying water rushed from left to right.

And it was after a slight delay that the explosions and destruction from shockwaves arrived.

That too swept from left to right while blasting rubble, wreckage, and pillars of water into the sky.

The pillars of destruction easily reached three hundred meters. Afterward, the cars from the cargo ships and fifty meter square warehouse roofs poured down like rain.

Beyond all the damage, no cover remained. There was only a thick sea of tall flames.

And the city was visible past those flames. It was empty as this was inside the concept space, but that nightscape had been created by human hands.

The black mechanical dragon accelerated toward those nighttime lights.

As it continued on, the blue mechanical dragons pursued and Unit A’s commander transformed. The legs narrowed its wings, the head extended out, and the entire body grew longer and more slender.

“All units, transform into high-speed cruising form and continue the mission. Pursue the-…”

He changed his wording.

“Shoot down the enemy.”

Movement filled an underground space.

A white corridor had the characters B2F on the wall.

This was the underground portion of Japanese UCAT. The corridor ended at a large explosion-resistant door which said “New Headquarters” in black, block letters.

However, the door was opened, so those two words were split to the left and right.

Inside that place which functioned as the new center of Japanese UCAT, a voice proclaimed what was occurring there. The Japanese voice sounded exhausted and out of breath.

“Is this the final battle!?”

With that, gunshots raced across the room. Those inside the headquarters wore blue armored uniforms and those rushing inside wore white uniforms. A few of each were knocked aside by the gunfire, but the remaining ones chose a clash.

The white fired and continued running while the blue returned fire.

None of them evaded.

“You idiots!” shouted the middle-aged commander at the head of the white group. He spoke in English. “We intercepted your optical transmissions, so we know Black Sun has appeared in Tokyo Bay!”

He received a response in Japanese.

The American UCAT commander shouted back while firing a submachine gun from the top-level terrace.

“Our job is to protect this place no matter what happens! If you don’t like that, then change it!”

“If you understand that much, then prepare yourselves!”

The two of them ran toward each other, faced each other, and prepared their weapons. They then shouted a single word in unison.

“Testament!”

They both fired their submachine guns one last time.

They were only three meters apart and gunfire filled the air as they simultaneously pulled the trigger at such close range.

The man from Japanese UCAT held his gun in his right hand and covered his face with his left. The bullets were deflected by his elbow and gouged into the ceiling behind him.

However, the man from American UCAT did not. He tried to raise his armored arm to protect himself, but he found it would not move.

He checked and saw his uniform’s actuator had been warped from the previous gunfire.

At first, he frowned at the unexpected turn of events, but he instantly realized the bullets flying toward the center of his chest had some kind of concept effect.

“Mock bullets!?”

Once he realized that, he smiled.

He showed his teeth of as if to say this was just perfect.

“Is being this naïve your way of doing things, you yellow apes!? But I will praise you for this!”

He prepared himself to be hit and closed his eyes.

But in that instant, a female voice reached him.

“I have determined that is enough.”

A hand swept in front of the bullets and took the hit in his place.

The sound of something cracking brought everyone to a stop, but the owner of the arm moved their hand.

“This is not a problem. I can move it with my gravitational control.”

When she brought her hand to her chest and bowed, someone muttered her name.

“#8.”

“Testament. I decided to intrude a bit as I owe a debt to American UCAT.”

“Owe a debt? But thanks to the automatons’ shared memory, I’d heard they destroyed you.”

The commander lowered his submachine gun that was out of ammunition and frowned. Meanwhile, #8 shook her head while wearing the shirt and jeans that American UCAT had given her.

“No, unfortunately. After I sent the identity of Colonel Odor’s technique over the shared memory, I entered sleep mode, but after that…”

She looked across everyone and showed off her arm with the bullets embedded in it.

“It seems Colonel Odor caught me as I fell.”

“Then you saved him because…?”

“Testament. I command the automatons, so I saved the life of someone on a similar level. However, this body is only the one I had left in the warehouse, so we are now even. If you wish to enjoy the rest of the battle, please do. In that case, I will work to serve all of you.”

She took a breath.

“Otherwise, please return to your normal jobs. And in that case, I will still provide my assistance. That is my duty as an automaton.”

The battle above Tokyo had already shifted about twenty kilometers back from the front line at Tokyo Bay.

The black mechanical dragon traveled along the concept space corridor continuing to the west.

It may have realized that was the shortest path, it may have thought nothing constituted an obstacle for it, and it may have been able to smash through any wall if it slammed into it, but it chose to simply hurry onward.

The black dragon’s target was the Concept Core inside the Vesper Cannon located at Okutama.

That was the power of its world and it flew based on a sense of smell that resembled a homing instinct.

It simply continued west along the path formed by the concept space corridor.

Pursuing its giant form were the blue mechanical dragons.

Those blue dragons were all less than a tenth the size of the black one. While the black one calmly used its wings to accelerate, the blue ones narrowed their bodies and sliced through the air to pursue.

The number of blue dragons had fallen.

There were only five now.

Unit C had been completely wiped out, Units A and B had their commander and second-in-command, and Unit D only had its second-in-command. Even though those five remained, none of them were undamaged.

However, the same could be said of the black dragon.

Its armor was cracked or even damaged in places.

Unit C had done that damage. Near the intersection of the Chuo Expressway and the Inner Circular Route that made a circuit of Tokyo’s city center, Unit C had made an attack while using the raised highway of the Shinjuku region as cover.

The result could be seen in the present situation.

The black dragon’s speed had not dropped. In fact, it had risen, as if to say its prey was close.

The pursuing blue dragons flew below the dark sky and above the abandoned expressway.

Among them, Unit D’s second-in-command spoke.

“Dammit. Damage to the transformation structure is keeping me from deploying my cannon. If only we could have closed off the end of the concept space, we could have focused our attacks on it.”

“We can’t do that,” replied Unit A’s commander. “If it managed to break through the wall and into the real world, it would spread chaos across the globe. We need to use the time and distance given by this long concept space to finish it off while it’s drawn by the bait.”

He continued.

“D2, testament. You can withdraw. …Everyone else, continue.”

With that, Unit A’s commander, A1, accelerated at the head of the blue group.

“We will now begin stage two of Operation Thunder Dragon.”

As they flew above the expressway, the land near Chofu lay below them.

They saw factories and paddy fields. The collection of lights to the southwest was the area around Keio Chofu Station. A few department stores and buildings were gathered there, so the level ground contained lights and the shadows of structures.

A large area of shadow was located near there.

That was Chofu Airport.

The black mechanical dragon cut past that light and shadow at a height of six hundred meters.

One of the blue mechanical dragons had left, so four remained: A1, A2, B1, and B2.

A1 and B1, the two commanders, flew up into the sky on the left and right. And…

“Hey,” said B1 to A1. “Before entering the concept space, you saw the footage from Yokota, right? Y’know, of the great-granddaughter of that past hero.”

“Yeah, the girl the colonel is protecting. The one who’s been called demon possessed for so long.”

“Will we really be able to tell her she doesn’t need to worry about that anymore?”

“Don’t worry,” replied A1. “The colonel may be scary, but he was worried about us, remember? And we said to leave the front line to us. If we can say that to someone like him, there’s no way we can’t do the same with a girl.”

As they spoke, the two dragons flew in two arcs to reach the sky above either side of the black dragon.

The black dragon then shook slightly as the cannons across its body opened.

That was when light struck it from behind.

A2 had remained behind and fired its dragon cannon.

However, the attack from behind was blocked by the black dragon’s defensive field and armor.

The light broke and scattered, but the black dragon was slowed ever so slightly.

A voice filled their cockpits. It was A1’s voice.

“Transfer all data control to B2. We need to focus on piloting.”

“Testament.”

With those words, A1 and B1 shot toward the black mechanical dragon from above.

A1 did not transform. While still in high-speed cruising form, it flew toward the black mechanical dragon’s back as if dropping down headfirst.

The roar of wind enveloped the craft and it bent and creaked under the stress.

However, A1 ignored that and accelerated toward the center of the dorsal fin-like armor on the black dragon’s back.

In that instant, the black dragon opened up its back.

It revealed a series of cannons. Just as the records from sixty years ago described, sixty-four holes opened on its back as the giant muzzles of cannons.

Black light was already gathering inside them.

In the very instant before they fired, A1 let out a shout.

“Fire!!”

With that, two types of light appeared.

One was the black light fired from the black dragon’s back.

The other came from a completely different direction.

In the darkness to the southwest, a tracer round flew from the ground at the Chofu Airport.

The light of the shell revealed a group of ground vehicles including tanks.

The shell struck first.

Light and noise covered the black mechanical dragon’s left side and it gave a cry.

It had opened the armor on its back and the armor panels it had moved out of the way were folded up in a number of places on its back. That meant it could not bend its body to escape the damage.

“————!!”

A creaking sound filled the sky and both A1 and B1 took control of themselves.

On their current path, the black light rising from below would pierce through them, so they slipped aside as if moving from the black dragon’s back and to its sides. They then transformed to normal flight form and immediately continued on to combat form.

While transforming, the frame, armor, and spread limbs received the full force of the pressure from the air.

The air slammed into their underside with a sound much like cloth being struck.

The two mechanical dragons used the recoil and air resistance to twist around. They pointed their heads down as if circling around the black dragon on either side.

Like that, they managed to evade the barrage of black light rising toward them.

And they immediately dropped down and really did slip past the black dragon on the left and right.

“————!”

They continued down toward the expressway flowing by down below.

The black barrage they had evaded curved around in the sky above and pursued them down below.

The black attack split into thirty-two shots on either side and rapidly closed in on the two dragons.

But the dragons hurried down to escape them.

To support them, a second shell from the southwest struck the black dragon in the face.

A roar filled the air and flames rose from the hit, but…

“!”

A dragon cannon shot from the black dragon’s mouth and to the land in the southwest.

It hit and the straight line swept across the dark airport.

With the sound of distant thunder, the formation of combat vehicles was scattered by explosive flames.

All of it was destroyed beyond recognition.

But despite that destruction, A1 had successfully avoided the attack after it.

It slipped past the black light pursuing from overhead and reached the asphalt rushing past at high speed.

Just before colliding with the ground, A1 spread its combat form limbs and slammed itself into the expressway.

The metal smashed the asphalt and the great inertia of its speed caused the blue dragon to slip forward with sounds of destruction.

All of the cockpit’s consoles immediately turned red because the damage to every part of its body quickly entered the red zone. It was surprising that a transforming mechanical dragon had lasted even this long.

“This isn’t over yet!”

A1 continued to move. It forced its body up, which broke its front, right leg.

Echoing destruction filled the air, the dragon tilted upward, and it faced straight up.

Just before taking that standing pose, A1’s nose targeted the black mechanical dragon’s belly.

And it transformed.

It shifted to normal flight form, purged the parts that did not survive the process, and threw all of its strength into acceleration.

It floated up for an instant before beginning to sink back down under its weight, but then…

“Go!”

The blue dragon slipped past the black barrage coming from overhead and forced itself to ascend.

Its front, right leg fell off and one shot of black light smashed the secondary cannon on its shoulder.

However, it did not stop.

It shot past the black dragon’s left side and circled around into the sky.

It twisted around and pointed down.

The black mechanical dragon’s back lay there. The series of cannons there contained no light after having fired the previous barrage and the armor had been removed to expose those cannons.

Light was gathering in the blue mechanical dragon’s mouth.

But even with this dragon cannon, the enemy’s defensive field meant a straight-on shot was needed.

And so A1 made a half rotation to point its head straight down.

It made a single downward acceleration because it was unlikely it could withstand any more than that given its level of damage.

The black dragon responded by slowly gathering black light in those cannons again and by opening a few new areas of armor. Small cannons jutted out to fire back at the blue dragon.

However, something else did not allow that counterattack.

To interrupt the black dragon’s preparations to fire, a great impact shook the entire dragon and caused it to float up a bit.

Something had crashed into it from below: B1.

A1 could not see from its location, but B1 had likely collided with the black dragon’s belly and was now clinging to it. It then began tearing into the armor panels with its legs.

“…!”

B1 roared and white light sprayed from the black dragon’s belly.

B1 had fired at point blank range.

The black dragon clearly twisted its body, let out a cry, and shook its wings.

A moment later, a few colors other than white spread from its belly: red and black.

The mixture formed explosive flames of destruction.

B1’s roar and white light had vanished and it went without saying what had become of them.

However, A1 did not hesitate.

While facing downward, it accelerated into a power dive that far outdid gravitational acceleration.

And then…

“…!?”

A disturbance came over A1’s movement. It shook and strayed a bit from its downward path.

That was when it saw what remained in the sky behind it where A2 and B2 should have been.

“Were they shot down!?”

Only two trails of smoke remained in the dark sky there. The wreckage was likely on the expressway far behind.

The shaking of its body had come from the loss of B2 which had been handling its central control. Inside A1’s cockpit, Unit A’s commander switched over to full manual control. That meant he could not use the targeting system, but…

“I can aim by sight!”

With that shout, he finished switching everything over.

However, the slight time lag proved fatal. The lessened acceleration had allowed black light to gather in the cannons down below. They were not fully charged yet, but it was enough to fire.

“Dammit!”

As if to drown out his shout, the black barrage rose with the density of a wall.

He would be shot down.

But in that instant, another blue form descended next to A1 at even greater speed.

“D2!? I ordered you to withdraw!”

“Well, you see, the damage to my craft’s transformation structure has me stuck in high-speed cruising form.”

The man continued speaking before he could be stopped.

“Go on ahead. …And make sure you and the others get the praise of that demon-possessed girl.”

The pointed front end of the blue mechanical dragon designated D2 charged into the black barrage.

It was less like a direct hit and more like an inevitable strike that destroyed D2.

The blue dragon broke apart and its pieces scattered everywhere, but it still created a path. There was now an empty gap in the wall of black.

D2 then crashed into the cannons on the black dragon’s back.

In the same way, A1 charged through the opened path in the barrage.

The black mechanical dragon’s back lay directly before it.

The black light was gone and D2’s collision had opened a hole in the cannons.

The black dragon’s internal framework and steel moving parts were visible.

That was A1’s target.

It transformed in an instant. In combat form, it accelerated toward the black dragon’s back despite its missing front, right leg. Just before hitting, it fired a full blast of its dragon cannon.

And it collided with the larger dragon’s back.

A flower bloomed in the sky near the Chofu Interchange on the Chuo Expressway.

It was a giant red flower with a core measuring over three hundred meters.

Its petals were made from explosive flames and the sound of its blooming sounded like a bestial cry.

That flower bloomed in the night sky, but it soon scattered.

Seeds trailed flames and flew through the sky as the flower scattered, but those seeds were the pieces of a black mechanical dragon. Giant pieces of framework and armor fell to the earth and smaller pieces sliced through the wind and scattered everywhere.

The great rumbling arrived later. One great roar acted as proof of the destruction and a chain of scattering fireworks sounds followed.

Once the wind swept the smoke from the air, only one thing remained: the lingering reverberation of destruction.

Nothing concrete remained.

The black mechanical dragon had been destroyed.

<noinclude>
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