Editing Apocalypse Witch:Volume3 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 8===

(Ah.)

She held her breath.

She was curled up in the darkness holding her injured friend and soaked with sweat and with the slime or machine oil from that sea anemone thing.

The slightest movement would get them noticed and subsequently eaten. Which was why ''Amaashi Marika'' held her breath.

(Ah, ahhhh. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!???)

He was here.

Utagai Karuta of all people was here.

She could tell because she was peeking out from an empty classroom’s sliding door. That blue-haired girl was actually a sea anemone Threat that used high-level mimicry to perfectly blend in with its surroundings. This time, it was her childhood friend who had fallen for its trap.

The blue-haired girl was only a lure.

When it targeted you, you could not resist it, just like how an angler fish would cause a part of its body to glow to lure prey into its mouth. Your willpower was meaningless because that girl-shaped lure trapped humans on a mechanical or structural level.

Its effects were as absolute as those of a narcotic. The boy was kneeling in the empty hallway and pantomiming holding something in his arms. An inhuman Threat was right there in front of him, but he showed no sign of caution.

All because of that blue-haired girl.

(The Gestalt.)

That was the name Marika’s group had come up with for that Threat that showed its target hints of what they longed for. But this was not the primary thing they hoped for while influenced by optimism or their memories. No, this showed them their secondary hope after they compromised and prepared themselves for what could be. It told them not to hope for too much. It showed them a harsh “reality”. It read the unvarnished thoughts within its prey and displayed them for that prey.

For Marika’s group, it had targeted Matsuda Imi and she had indeed had her right leg bitten off at the base of the thigh. The thighbone was said to be the thickest and sturdiest bone in the human body, yet it had bitten through there in a single attack.

The attack had seemingly used electricity to tear right through her barrier and sever her leg.

When faced with that (image of a) naked girl with fluttering blue hair, you would forget all about your current situation and just stand there until you were swallowed whole by the giant sea anemone that made up all your surroundings in every direction. Marika and Tayori had worked hard to tear the tens of thousands of tentacles away from Imi, but that was not a fundamental solution.

Firepower was not enough to defeat it.

When it was camouflaged, it was indistinguishable from their surroundings and one of the three would be drawn in once the blue-haired girl appeared. Strength or weakness did not even come into it – they could not even begin an actual battle.

So they had waited and hoped for help to arrive.

They had their phones and Crystal Blossoms, but they had remained silent and desperately fought the icy loneliness that threatened to slowly crush them like the water pressure in the deep sea.

Better equipment could maybe change things. They could build a bomb with the tools aboard the ship and they could maybe redefine the entire battle by rigging that up with a sensor or remote detonator. They could maybe escape and prepare for a real battle. They could maybe find a way to do damage while never actually standing directly before it.

Yet the Gestalt had chosen Utagai Karuta as its next target after he arrived to help them. He had followed the invisible handprints that glowed when exposed to a laser. ''It had perfectly mimicked the very signs that Amaashi Marika had left for him'' in order to guide him along a complex path leading directly to the most dangerous point.

Marika’s stance was a simple one: she would protect what she wanted to protect. She was willing to sacrifice her own life for that and she did not care if she had to destroy the world in the process.

“Tayori.”

“No, Marika.”

“Take care of Imi. I have to save Karuta.”

“You can’t. Didn’t we decide it’s all over if we draw the Gestalt’s attention?”

The hallway was already growing red and distorted.

It looked a lot like a carnivorous plant covering a radius of several meters. The giant sea anemone had become something like a man-eating sunflower, but Karuta was so overwhelmed by emptiness and despair that he remained collapsed on his knees at the center of it. He could no longer avoid it from there.

The countless tentacles wriggled around him and a glowing light filled them from base to tip. Their bright blood-red coloration became a green even more vivid than a plant’s leaves.

They heard a sound like a mass of air bursting.

They had seen this underwater. The sea anemones changed color once they were charged with energy. And they could wield that offensively instead of just passing it to the other Threats as fuel.

''There was not some rule that said Marika would always make it out okay.

''But in the exact same way, there was not some rule that said Karuta would always make it out okay either.

If the path needed to survive was cut short by even a millimeter, anyone would have nowhere left to go and would die. That was true of the good, of the evil, of a great scientist who had made the discovery of the century, and of a sickly little sister. The value people had decided someone had did nothing at all to influence whether they lived or died.

That was now a mass of electrical energy.

If the tens of thousands of tentacles surrounded him, he would not just have a limb severed – he and his weaker barrier would be entirely obliterated. Just like the filament burning out in an old light bulb. There would be no room for a tear-jerking miracle.

(I need to give a reason.)

The back of her mind had numbed over, but the girl still clenched her teeth hard.

(I need to create a reason why Karuta can survive!!)

With the words “power up”, she drew a rapier-like device out of thin air.

And at the same time…

“Aine.”

Still motionless, still holding something imaginary, and still defenselessly exposed to the Threat that had destroyed cities, states, and countries, the boy whispered with his eyes not focused on reality.

Yes.

He spoke to Aine, the inhuman girl who had therefore not reacted to the lure meant to lead humans astray.

“Do what you think is best. Don’t wait for my permission.”

The crystal girl and the lure girl tilted their heads in unison.

A moment later, Aine’s katana sliced through the air and mercilessly severed (what looked like) the lure girl’s head.