Editing Apocalypse Witch:Volume1 Chapter2

Utagai Karuta was curled up on a corner of the sidewalk with his back to the road.

The police were no longer here. They had probably withdrawn to the barricade. The sidewalk and road were both filled with men and women. It was like a flood of human flesh. They carried makeshift torches made by wrapping bandages or old rags around metal bats and lighting them and they shouted angrily as they smashed the windshields of cars parked on the road and of store windows that did not have their shutters down.

(Elicia managed the world’s garbage disposal facilities, so her defeat has apparently drastically reduced the price of first-generation resources like iron and aluminum that used to be as valuable as gold or platinum. So did they lose their jobs or something?)

That was Karuta’s analysis, but he was wrong.

This is what they were shouting:

“How are we supposed to get over our fear when we don’t know what the Threat even is!?”

“The government is only keeping it a secret to spread fear and confusion so they can increase the defense budget. You’re making a mockery of our tax money!!”

“Release the information! The real information!! We have a right to know!!”

Youths were setting fire to the piles of trash bags and entering the buildings through broken windows. Cash registers were thrown out onto the streets and boxy ATMs were dragged out and pried open with crowbars. Sweat, perfume, smoke, rotting garbage, and what was that? Many different smells mixed together and raw anger blotted out all else.

Karuta contacted Marika and Kyouka in annoyance.

“They claim to want information on the Threat, but I think they’re mostly here for the looting or to blow off some steam. ''Maybe'' a tenth of the people here seem to be protesting out of legitimate outrage. I bet a lot of people had their savings go down the drain after Elicia’s defeat. Omotesandou-san, was there no sign of this coming!?”

“In hindsight, there was. The Problem Solvers will never announce that one of them was defeated, not even to the ordinary police officers. Because it would damage their reputation as the strongest. I thought security was oddly strict, but I guess there were some suspicious activities besides our own.”

“There are a ton of people here too,” said Marika. “I’m just thankful they still haven’t reached the point of dragging people out and beating them up.”

“Marika, you’re a girl, so watch yourself among all those rioters.”

“Oh, you’re worried about me? …Kyah!?”

“Marika!”

“Just kidding. Ah ha ha!”

She was laughing innocently, but his heart had skipped a beat. He doubted any of these people would know they were responsible, but if they really had lost their savings due to the collapse in the iron and aluminum markets, then they might want to attack Karuta’s group for causing that. Sweat soaked his brow while his carefree curled twintails childhood friend whispered in a conspiratorial tone.

“But doesn’t this seem like the perfect opportunity? The rioters are taking out all the cameras with their bats and spray paint. With the usual surveillance network not working, we might be able to get close to the Palace of Westminster where that Problem Solver waits.”

“I doubt it will be that simple.”

Karuta was still concerned, so Marika argued her case.

“It would damage the G21’s reputation if they called off their international summit over some simple rioting, so they’ll stay there and so will the Problem Solvers guarding them. Yukino can’t escape right now. See, it’s the perfect opportunity.”

“…”

He too had considered it in a corner of his mind.

Could they take a shortcut while the police and the surveillance network were focused on the rioters? Or could they guide the rioters toward the Palace of Westminster? He was sick of this cheap idea of justice that was more of an excuse than anything. Almost everyone he knew had been crystallized and shattered before his eyes and his body seemed to burn with a desire for vengeance, so he found that kind of justice was more distasteful than wax food samples.

But could they really control it?

And what would happen if they could not?

“We have to do it,” said Student Council President Omotesandou Kyouka. “Our feelings about this are too strong to restrain just because we ran into some unexpected trouble, right?”

“Right.”

He slowly exhaled and stood up from his curled-up position. He was unsure if he should follow or fight the flow of rioters, but he decided to take a different route to the Palace of Westminster while the police were focused on those rioters. Of course, he was using them either way.

With that thought, he nonchalantly slipped off of the frenzied major road and into a small alleyway.

That was when it happened.

A light spear fell from the sky.

“……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………”

He had no idea what this meant.

It had hit on the next major road over, a mere 20m away from him.

It was more sudden than a lightning strike and brighter than a spotlight.

A cascade of people filled the sidewalks and street there and one section of them was mercilessly vaporized. Human bodies were instantly converted into a spray that splattered over the surrounding road, walls, and survivors, creating a living hell of intense heat and pain as if boiling water had been thrown around.

This attack had been powerful enough to split the school’s escort ships in two.

A diameter of ten meters was torn away and the twenty meters around that was covered in a scorching hell. The unbelievable heat melted the asphalt and the stone walls of the centuries-old buildings glowed red like an oven.

Screams erupted from all around.

The many garbage bags flew through the air like popping popcorn and the heat robbed them of their shape as bags before they hit the ground. Crushed candy boxes and toilet paper tubes burned as they spread out through the air. So many trailing light sources fell on the city like the burning arrows pouring down upon a besieged castle.

No one would have known what happened and would not have known where to run. It devolved into a panicked shoving match that caused a dominos-like chain reaction spreading out from the landing points.

“What…?”

Karuta dizzily pressed his back against the alley wall.

“What in the hell!?” he roared before his confused mind finally remembered how to feel pain.

His entire body was covered by an itching pain as if he were being pricked by thousands upon thousands of needles.

He looked down to see his clothing was unnaturally swelling out from within. He touched his face to find it felt oddly rough. Was that a problem with his cheeks or with his fingertips? Whatever the case, his entire body had been injured and the crystallization was healing him. This had broken right through his weakened preset barrier.

If something else hit him now, it was all over.

If his body parts were torn away along with the healing crystals, he would lose them forever.

He would lose any chance at recovering.

“Pant, pant!!”

He lost control of his breathing at the thought.

And during that hellishly-long 30 seconds, it happened again.

The night was swept away.

The attack lasted ten full seconds, but it was further away this time. He could take a more objective view of how strange that light and heat was. It was like viewing the sun stretched out like a sugar sculpture.

“I saw it too!” said Marika with a fair bit of panic in her voice. “Yukino is using her light spears on London!! All to silence the rioters!!”

“The rioters are bringing down their defenses and preventing her from locating her real targets: us,” said Kyouka. “She must intend to annihilate them along with us if they insist on getting in her way.”

The crystal fragments fell from Karuta’s body with a dry cracking sound.

His limbs and face were fine.

They were all healed up.

“But how…how can she get away with this? This is the site of the G21 summit, so there’s a ton of reporters around! Not to mention the normal people can take videos with their phones and upload them! Is Yukino Arakawa committing social suicide for this!?”

“She may be playing the villain.” He was not sure what the Student Council President meant by that. “And since the Problem Solvers regularly battle the Threat, they can just say London was annihilated in an attack by the Threat. They can claim to have done their best to rescue the people of London but ultimately failed to save everyone.”

“But…but that’s absurd…”

“She can get away with it. Remember that no one knows what the Threat is or any details about the God Worshiping Magic used by the Problem Solvers. People are only aware of the end result: cities and countries erased overnight. So in the worst case, can’t they just lie about who was firing those light spears?”

“…”

He was truly speechless.

What did this mean? Did it not matter at all to Yukino Arakawa if there were witnesses of her committing mass murder? Could she escape all responsibility by calmly saying the Threat did it, she had nothing to do with it, and it was a shame what happened to London? How convenient a world did those strongests live in!?

“Sacri-sama, this could be an opportunity.”

“?”

“Yukino attacking the rioters is proof that she does not know where we are. That means we can safely approach the Palace of Westminster and catch her off guard.”

“But!!”

“Nothing else we do can stop her from firing those light spears. If your goal is to reduce the total number of deaths, then I recommend taking the shortest route to defeating Yukino.”

Even now, the world was intermittently switching between night and day.

The heat would last anywhere from a few seconds to a few dozen seconds, so how many lives were being lost each time?

He clenched his teeth so hard he thought they would break.

But he could not come up with anything cleverer than Aine’s cold answer.

“Dammit!!”

He pressed his back against a wall near the alleyway entrance and scratched at his bangs with a hand. He started to turn away from the main road filled with screams of fear and anger.

But he stopped.

A lot of people had fallen in that pandemonium of light, heat, and shoving, so the survivors were desperately trying to remain in that category by crawling below or climbing over the others.

He saw someone there among the rioters who had been demanding information on the Threat be released.

A small girl was sitting on the ground with a handmade sign. She must have come here with a parent or older sibling.

Utagai Karuta had crossed those piles of shattered crystal statues. While the other students wearing the same uniform had fallen, he had pathetically crawled behind those statues to escape the dinosaur. This was not his first time doing this, so he should have been able to do it again no matter how painful it was.

Except he had seen the messy writing painted on that handmade sign: “Tell us what happened to my big brother and the others at Grimnoah!”

He slammed his forehead against the alleyway wall.

His barrier meant he felt almost no pain, but memories of the Ocean Crystal Magic Academy returned vividly to his mind.

He could taste the fish and chips he had made late at night in the kitchen with some help from an exchange student in order to learn if British food was as bad as they said.

He could not do it.

He had hit his limit.

“Aine. And Marika too. Change of plans.”

“Yes, Sacri-sama. What should I do?”

“You two take the shortest route to defeat Yukino Arakawa. Stop her from firing those light spears as soon as possible to keep the damage to a minimum.”

“I’ll do that, but what about you?” asked Marika.

“I…”

He pulled the modified military flashlight from his blazer pocket and took a deep breath.

“I will draw her attention. Yukino has completely snapped, but if she knows where her target is, she won’t have a reason to indiscriminately attack the rioters. If I keep her focused on me, fewer of the ordinary people will die, so I’ll approach her in as noticeable a way as I can manage!”

“Sacri-…”

“This isn’t a debate, Aine. Just do it!!”

That last command was not just directed at the others.

And there was one other thing he had to do before he got started.

“Hey!”

He shouted from the entrance of the alleyway and the girl’s shoulders jumped. He did not care if he scared her and he did not need her trust, so he simply told her what she needed to do.

“Get inside immediately! Any sturdy building will do!!”

It looked more like she was running from him in fear than heeding his warning. She made sure to take the sign with her as she frantically stood up and ran toward a shop made of stone and metal.

She would be safer there than in the open outdoors.

But their fate still counted on what Karuta himself would do next.

He would not let them be targeted. No matter what.

(Okay.)

He once more turned away from the main road and ran further into the back alley. However, he was not abandoning the people who had come here to protest. Quite the opposite. If he was going to draw the attacks toward himself, he needed to stay away from them. Getting them caught in the attack too would be meaningless.

Gathering Yukino Arakawa’s attention from a distance was easy.

She was using the city’s security network to search for her target’s location.

Which meant…

(I just have to start taking out every camera I come across!!)

He reached into one of the scattered garbage bags and pulled out a half-full drink bottle that’s contents had turned to sludge. Then he only had to splatter that across the lenses peering down at him. While he did that three or four times, he felt a great pressure bearing down on his stomach.

The oddity would be reported immediately and an area with the security down would likely be seen as dangerous.

Focus would shift from that horrific main road to this back alley.

(I’m just getting started!!)

“Oh?”

In her nun’s habit given large slits in the sides, Yukino Arakawa smiled in amusement on the building rooftop.

Her smartphone’s screen displayed a warning.

Cameras in one area were being destroyed one after another. She doubted this was just the rioters doing it on a whim. The spread of the damage was too quick for that, so it felt a lot more like someone was specifically targeting her “eyes”.

So…

(Could you not bear it any longer? In that case, killing some more civilians to rub it in your face might be amusing.)

She considered that detour, but decided to focus on her main target.

She raised the staff in her other hand and sent a command up to satellite orbit.

“Now, let’s brighten this dark screen with a light spear.”

A blinding light spear crashed down from the heavens.

“Gwaaaaaaaaaaahh!?”

Karuta had known there would only be a few seconds of lag between taking out the cameras in an area and Yukino finding it suspicion, so he took off running to put as much space between himself and that location as he could. Nevertheless, something like a blazing wind slammed into his body. He had escaped a direct hit, but the fearsome heat had expanded the air and formed an invisible wall.

The blow to his back shattered his barrier.

He rolled along the filthy alley.

Strange cracking sounds continued on and on as crystals covered most of his body. The thirty second countdown began. Another attack before then and it was all over. The healing process would be stopped, everything would be torn from his body, and he would die. That was plainly obvious to him.

“Pant, pant!!”

He checked behind him from the ground and saw both walls of the alley were orange and melted. The piles of trash had become pillars of fire reminiscent of giant fir trees burning down in a forest fire. The alley surface had melted like a sugar sculpture and it had collapsed down to create a large hole. That may have connected to the sewer or the subway.

“Kh.”

He slowly got to his feet.

He scattered crystal fragments across the ground as the healing completed.

He resumed running.

They had feared Yukino could search for them using thermo images taken by a satellite, but he was starting to think that was not a concern. The heat here was so high that the entire area would be blotted out with white. She could not use that to see if her target had survived.

(I only have to focus on the surface cameras.)

He clenched his teeth while taking out a few more security camera lenses with a drink or a spray can to draw the light spears toward him. He once more felt a sunburn-like pain in his skin.

The slight lag was working out for him, but the more cameras he took out, the more data she would have to predict his route. If her prediction was accurate enough and she fired where she expected him to be, he was done for. He would be vaporized before he could even feel the pain.

“Ha ha.”

He was running around and barely avoiding death, but for some reason, there was a smile on his face.

He had no idea what it was he wanted to do, but he felt like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders for the first time in a while.

“Ha ha ha ha ha! Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!”

He had attended Ocean Crystal Magic Academy Grimnoah.

He had learned Crystal Magic that used a Crystal Blossom via a printed circuit board smaller than a stamp.

He had trained to combat the Threat that put the world in danger.

In the end, what had he really wanted to do?

He no longer had that right. His days at that school and the future he had envisioned for himself had been stolen by the Problem Solvers and his group had sullied it themselves when they used Crystal Magic against Elicia after she had already surrendered. But the remnants of that dream had remained there somewhere in his heart.

However, that thought was interrupted.

Even if he outsmarted them and protected the civilians, the great evil of the Problem Solvers was still out there. And one part of that evil, the demon named Yukino Arakawa, was making her next move.

The night sky shined bright.

He knew this had to be another light spear, but instead of cowering in fear like an animal, he used his rational mind to send himself running even a step further before it hit.

But something unexpected happened.

“…?”

The light did not gather together.

The brightness in the night sky endlessly expanded instead of taking the form of a spear.

A chill ran down his spine.

It almost looked like a giant suspended ceiling of fiery heat dropping down to crush the city of London!

Blinding light erupted out.

It covered a diameter of more than 10km directed north from the center of London. The light and heat were so great it seemed to swallow up the entire city there.

Yukino Arakawa laughed on the rooftop just outside of its range.

Her short black hair blew in the night wind and she spoke with staff in hand.

“Scattershot mode.”

Night turned to day. No, it was more like a video that turned out entirely white because the exposure was set wrong.

A sunburn-like pain covered Karuta’s entire body. And it did not end there. The pain increased endlessly. He knew he could not stay here, so he slipped below a car parked on the curb.

His fingers were moving oddly.

Pointy crystals stuck out from all over his body like distorted scales.

(What’s happening now!?)

The attack continued for more than thirty seconds before night returned. He clenched his teeth at the pain, waited for the healing to complete, and checked on things outside. After a thirty second interval, white light filled the world once more.

“Kyah!?” screamed Marika.

“We did not see this phenomenon before,” said Aine.

“But we can survive brief exposure to this,” he said. “Can she switch between a focused and wide-angle version? Or…”

The next attack came, but when he took a closer look, he realized the blinding light did not fill the entire space.

It was more like a polka dot pattern or a mesh.

Countless light spears were piercing the city of London at a set interval. There were tens, hundreds, or even thousands of them and the space between that mesh of attacks was roasted by the residual heat. It was like how a grill efficiently heated food.

“Is this a scattershot!? She doesn’t just have the one satellite weapon. How many weapons are staring down at the planet!?”

“Sacri-sama, the light spears appear to be firing on the same coordinates each time. She likely scanned London’s terrain and calculated the optimal layout for evenly cooking everything with the radiant heat.”

“Thousands of attacks she can fire simultaneously with the added bonus of roasting an entire city if she scans the terrain?” said Marika. “I see. I suppose you would need something like that to count as one of the world’s strongest.”

“But, Marika, as convenient as this is, it isn’t immediately effective. She must be waiting for me to screw up, which means she’s lost track of me.”

“Argh, maybe it would be easier to travel along the subway tracks.”

“Sacri-sama, this much damage is within acceptable bounds for me. I can continue as is.”

“Pretend it’s hurting you. You’ll stick out like a sore thumb otherwise.”

He crawled out from below the car in between shots.

He had not expected this at all back then, so it was pure luck that he had told that girl to escape indoors.

And he had learned something. The attacks and the pause between attacks both lasted about thirty seconds. Once he knew that, this scattershot mode was no threat. By running into a boxy smoking area or a building with its windows smashed by the rioters, he could take shelter while making his way toward the Palace of Westminster. When he ran across a rioter writhing on the ground, he did his best to shove them underneath a nearby car.

“I’m not…”

He gasped for breath and felt sweat unpleasantly soaking his body, but there was a thin smile on his face.

“I’m not afraid of you anymore, Yukino Arakawa.”

The hunter ran through the dark city of London which had been transformed into a fiery hell.

He was drawing ever closer to the Palace of Westminster where his prey awaited.

“I think you screwed this one up,” said another one of the Problem Solvers over the phone.

Yukino Arakawa calmly responded from atop the building rooftop.

“What makes you think that?”

“You had to destroy London? Sure, these things happen. But there’s a G21 summit being held here and some of the people in attendance will know about the God-Worshipping Magic we use. They’ll know who did this and you won’t be able to pass this off as the work of the Threat.”

“Hee hee. Don’t you worry.” She laughed and tapped the bottom of her staff against the rooftop below her feet. “Once I am done, I will raze this building as well. I just have to eradicate anyone who knows the truth of the Threat and the Problem Solvers, right?”

“We’re talking about multiple heads of state here.”

“Why would that matter? More importantly, have you managed to contact Anastasia? I cannot blame this all on the Threat without her approval.”

“Well, I’m willing to bet she’ll go along with this. She wouldn’t want the framework of the Problem Solvers to fall apart over something this stupid.”

“Is that so? In that case…”

“But.”

“?”

“It looks like you were a little too slow.”

The voice speaking over her phone sounded disappointed.

Yukino felt a chill down her spine and attempted to analyze why that was, but it was too late.

She turned around to find a boy in a supposedly eradicated purple blazer standing on the same roof as her.

“…”

He said nothing.

His shoulders rose and fell as he caught his breath, he held a military flashlight that looked plenty heavy to use as a blunt weapon, and he slowly – very slowly – walked toward her.

Yukino Arakawa’s cheeks tensed somewhat.

Once he was this close, she could no longer use her light spears. They were so powerful she would destroy herself in the blast too.

This was checkmate.

Even if she did not like the result, the time for games had ended.

So with staff in hand, she spread her hands toward the approaching boy. Almost like she wanted to say they should abandon their plans for a picnic and head home early since it was raining.

She made a suggestion with a truly reluctant smile.

“Okay, I surrender. You win.”

She sounded like someone throwing their cards on the table because they ended up one card short of a winning hand.

She sounded like she was only going to lose a few stacks of chips.

“Let’s end this here. This is a fairly good deal for you too. I am one of the Problem Solvers, so I have a lot of pull with the world’s governments and I can get all of your past crimes wiped from the record. You’ll be pardoned! Yes, pardoned for everything! You can return to ordinary society without worrying about a thing! Wow, isn’t that incredible!? You can get off scot free, you lucky devil☆”

“…”

The boy did not respond.

He had not spoken a single word since arriving.

“And as a special bonus, we will stop pursuing you. I promise and swear it. I mean, you were looking for a way out after starting this and getting in way over your head, weren’t you? You were stuck on the path you had set for yourself. I mean, how long were you going to keep doing this revenge stuff? Did you really think you could keep getting away with it? It’s important to know when to quit while you’re ahead and the last train is about to leave as far as that is concerned. I have your ticket right here. I’m compromising quite a bit here, so you should really be thank-<span style="font-size:200%">'''blwehhh'''</span>!?”

Something exploded in her nose.

By the time she realized he had smashed the soft cartilage with a full swing of the military flashlight, she was already rolling along the rooftop.

The fiery pain caused her to let go of the staff and hold her face with both hands. She felt something sticky and a warm liquid dripped from between her fingers. An iron flavor spread through her mouth.

Her eyes opened as wide as they would go and she crawled on all fours while trying to figure out what was happening while her mind went blank with confusion.

Then scorching rage exploded in her mind.

“Y-y-you!? You hit a woman in the fa-<span style="font-size:200%">'''gwelgh'''</span>!!!!!!”

He did not speak a word.

Not a single one.

Instead, he swung down a second blow. This time to her jaw. Or was it her cheek? All she knew was that she felt a bone in her face breaking, her teeth no longer fit together right in her mouth, and her face’s skin felt unnaturally stretched. Now she really sensed danger. She knew she was in trouble. This boy had shut down all attempt at communication. He was not treating her like a fellow human being. He looked down on her with cold eyes like she was no more than an insect as he determined where to hit her next and then mercilessly swung down that heavy flashlight.

“Wait, no-”

A storm of blows awaited her. She did not even have time to think about standing up. She curled up, protected her head with her hands, and simply endured it the best she could. Her anger at this unreasonable situation was ultimately overwritten by the fear of having her understanding of the world no longer apply. Her body was enveloped by a feeling closer to heat than pain as she incessantly repeated the same word in her heart.

''Why?

''Why, why, why?

''It’s wrong to hit a woman in the face. And it’s definitely wrong to use a blunt weapon to do it.

Yes.

''All I did was unilaterally attack a useless school, slaughter all the teachers and students, and use my power as one of the Problem Solvers without bothering to listen to any of their screams or cries for mercy. That was a mere 700 people. Not that I actually counted. The escort ships? What, they count too??? Then that’s even more reason I can’t be blamed for missing one. Why does this have to happen to me just becomes one of them survived!?

“Ah, ahhhh, ahhhhhhhhhh.”

There was one thing here Yukino Arakawa did not realize.

And since she had never once lost – at least to another human being – that was hardly surprising.

The Problem Solvers always won crushing victories in any conflicts between humans. Her opponents had always grown utterly fed up with war, so when she brought up the possibility of a ceasefire or making peace, they would jump at the chance and accept even the worst terms. Yukino saw war as something she could switch off as easily as a lightbulb. She was always the one that decided when it ended.

But not this time.

This was entirely different.

This was a quagmire of a battle that would never end once it had begun. It would continue until one side or the other was dead and there was no room for compromise or negotiation.

She had never experienced this since victory was always assured for her.

And that had led her to push the snowball down the hill without realizing what it would mean.

So…

“…”

Every last part of her mind was trapped in a vortex of pain she had never before experienced and in the fear that she might lose.

She was fundamentally different from this boy whose loss was all but guaranteed but would try to tear out his enemy’s windpipe with his teeth even if his arms and legs had all shattered.

''She could keep moving, yet she stopped.

While battered, bruised, and curled up in the fetal position, all she did was tremble. The purple blazer boy grabbed her black hair and mercilessly yanked her head up. He looked her in the eye and crouched down to speak.

“Work with me. Tell me everything you know about the Problem Solvers, about why you attacked our school, and about the Threat!! I have no reason not to kill you, so if you don’t want to die, you’ll have to give me a reason yourself! Got that!?”

It was like a switch had been thrown.

Suddenly – truly suddenly – a lightbulb went off in Yukino Arakawa’s head.

This boy did not want to kill her. He was inspiring so much fear and dispensing so much violence and he had driven her a step away from death, yet he was acting like he had done nothing wrong. She could tell from the look in his eyes that he did not actually want to do this. He did not want to take revenge. He was using the Problem Solvers’ actions as an excuse to fight and playing the victim to take the next step guilt free.

Was she going to lose to this?

Was she going to let him use her to have his happily ever after?

Before she had even taking this fight seriously?

When she still had not just her teeth but her arms and legs too???

Something ignited deep in her gut.

“!!”

She reached out a battered hand and grabbed her giant staff that was lying nearby. The blazer boy immediately tried to grab her wrist, but it was too late. And this was not a tool used to hit people.

“To hell with that. To hell with all of that, you garbage heap!! Don’t act so smug just because you briefly delayed getting fried! If you want to be blasted that badly, then today’s your lucky dayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!”

“Wait, you idiot! You’ll hit yourself too!”

“I don’t give a crap! Blowing myself up with my own attack is a hundred times better than losing to some asshole acting like he’s some blameless victim!!!!!!”

He tried to steal away the staff but gave up on that and collapsed away from her instead.

“I beseech thee, Lugh, Celtic God of Light!!”

While sprawled out on the rooftop, Yukino Arakawa saw a point of glittering light in the night sky.

And a moment later, a light spear capable of slicing through an escort ship vaporized its own wielder.

Pain exploded from his body like he had been sprayed with boiling water.

“Ah, ahhhhh, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”

He could tell his body was covered with distorted crystals.

His weak barrier was no use at all. He rolled and writhed on the roof. He forced himself to think of the pain as a good thing since it meant he was still alive. This pain was caused by vaporized Yukino Arakawa. He had been burned by the steam that had been her flesh.

More than half his body was covered by pointy crystals.

He was hit by the stench of human flesh being cooked.

Yukino’s last form of resistance clung to him with a feeling like melted cheese. He desperately tried to tear it away, but his dominant hand’s elbow and shoulder would not move. They were completely locked by the crystals.

He could only wait until the preset effect had healed his full-body burns. An intense feeling of disgust caused the core of his body to stir like an active volcano, but forcing himself to move during the healing process would be like opening a chrysalis or cocoon from the outside. If he carelessly ruptured it, he might never return to normal again.

He moved just his left arm as much as he could to wipe off his face and body and rid himself of the source of the pain.

It felt like being bitten by the corpse of the person he thought he had killed.

After thirty seconds, the crystals that provided him new skin fell away.

“Pant, pant, gasp.”

He rolled over, tried to catch his breath, and rubbed his eyes.

It happened again.

They had died again. They had disappeared before his eyes. Yukino had chosen death herself instead of one of his partners dirtying their hands, but the death still stung in his heart.

At any rate, this was two down.

The danger of the light spear was gone too. The people of London no longer had to suffer and the city would not be wiped off the map to cover up the evidence.

“Hey.”

A girl’s voice reached his ears while he thought about all that.

It belonged to Marika, his childhood friend with the curly twintails dyed strawberry blonde. She had activated her Crystal Blossom unit and descended onto the rooftop from the night sky.

“Were you trying to save her like last time?” she continued.

“…”

“Your decision to act as a diversion had nothing to do with revenge either. You were throwing away your own life to ‘go the other way’ and save the rioters who got caught in this mess, weren’t you?”

He gasped and looked up.

There were tears in Marika’s eyes as she bit her lip.

“No fair.”

She threw aside her crystal rapier and gently got down on her knees.

She lay down on top of the boy while he lay collapsed on his back and she pressed her small face against his chest.

[[Image:ApocalypseWitch_v01_09.png|thumb]]

“No fair!! We said we were going to fight together to protect everyone, we said we were going to take revenge on the Problem Solvers for that, and we gathered everything we needed to do it! So why do you keep going back and forth on this? We thought for ourselves and figured out a way to hunt down the Problem Solvers, so why do you keep giving yourself an out as insurance? Don’t leave us behind like that… Don’t leave us behind here!!”

“Sorry.”

Still lying face up, he wrapped his arms around her back, held her close, and rubbed her head.

“I’m sorry, Marika.”

“You won’t leave me behind again? You won’t leave me all alone in this dark world?”

“No.”

He slowly inhaled and exhaled before continuing.

“I’ll join you in hell.”

Not everyone was aware what exactly was happening there.

At a point four or five kilometers northeast of the Palace of Westminster, an eyepatch woman stood on a rooftop in the City district, a business region filled with modern buildings. She was a beautiful Western European woman, but she wore a brightly colored kimono.

(I lost the connection. Does that mean she really did get herself killed?)

“I beseech thee, Susanoo, Wakoku God of Violence.”

With that thought, she pulled three dice from her kimono’s sleeve and casually tossed them. The multiple upward-facing surfaces acted as a general guide as an enormous sword suddenly appeared out of thin air. It truly was more than 100km long. When standing upright, that absurd length was enough to reach the bottom of the thermosphere and to be mistaken for a space elevator. That massive weapon was far too much for a human to wield.

“Well, not that it matters.”

Four or five kilometers was just about to the horizon. Sending out some paper balloons equipped with cameras would be enough to expand her field of vision, but she could not rely on tricks like that with the giant sword taking up both her hands.

However, she knew the target had to be somewhere around the Palace of Westminster. And it did not really matter ''if that was not entirely accurate.'' If she made a vertical slash with this sword, it would blow away everything in the vicinity. Of course, that would also destroy all the buildings and take all the lives along the line to that point, including the G21 heads of state in the target building, but she did not care.

She had already agreed to do this.

Yukino Arakawa pissed her off, but that woman’s suggestions had always been clever.

So…

“Sayonara, Yukino-chan. I’ll crush them along with your corpse!!” she shouted.

A blazing red trail similar to a shooting star and a contrail of disturbed air accompanied the absurdly long sword as she swung it down in both hands.

But something happened before she could complete its hemispherical course downwards.

A gunshot rang loud in her ears.

There was a gaping, volleyball-sized hole in the center of her chest.

“…Oh…”

The sword was supported by her magic power, so it vanished into thin air.

The eyepatch woman lost sight of when to die and slowly turned around while coughing up blood.

“Ah???”

She heard a metallic squeaking.

A sexy girl with long black hair had arrived on the roof with her at some point. The girl sat in a wheelchair and held…was that a handgun??? But something was clearly out of the ordinary. Instead of the magazine being inserted into the bottom of the grip, it was inserted in front of the grip like with a submachinegun or assault rifle. Also, it was far too big. The magazine was the size of a thick metal detachable disk drive.

“Excuse me, lady, but I assume you are Jessie Marcus who controls South America? Oh, perhaps it was rude of me to skip all the formalities like that. How careless of me. But I do not need to explain why I am killing you, do I?”

Her voice was calm but also contained a hint of charm that seeped into you.

And it was mixed with a toxic intent to kill.

“This uses 12.7mm rounds. Those are generally used for heavy machineguns or anti-materiel rifles. Shrinking this down to a handgun size was not easy, but that lets me carry it wherever I like by hiding it on my lap.”

“…”

“Oh, you look surprised. Did you think a girl in a wheelchair couldn’t fire such a large bullet? It is true it might break my wrist to fire this one-handed. Or maybe it would flip the entire wheelchair over. But surely you must know the answer. Or did you do all that without knowing? I, Student Council President Omotesandou Kyouka, have already lost 58% of my body. I am like a dented-in doll that cannot maintain a human silhouette without supplementing my internal structure with my own Crystal Blossom.”

“––––––”

“After all, I had to do my duty as Student Council President after your rampage. I used my Crystal Magic to ''accelerate the time limit of the sleeping teachers and students by a rate of 10 thousand.'' All at the cost of a single body: my own. There is actually a good chance they will recover in less than a year.”

Then why had she not told Karuta and Marika that?

The answer was simple.

Whether it would take ten thousand years or a single month, a moment’s carelessness would reveal that cave’s location to the Problem Solvers and take away those teachers and students’ lives all the same.

Those five had to be killed to prevent that. So to preserve the other two’s burning desire for revenge, she had decided it was best not to tell them about the possibility of a more positive and hopeful future.

That was her plan.

Knowing might make them relax and trigger doom for them all, so she could wait until later to reveal that happy surprise.

“Firing such a large caliber gun in a wheelchair was something of a gamble, but I am willing to learn when it means a new way to kill you five. And I was bored stuck in this chair anyway.”

How had this happened?

The woman moved her mouth, but no words came out.

So the Student Council President continued giving the answers.

“The trick when setting up security cameras is to use as few as possible to eliminate all blind spots. The most common method is to place two cameras in opposite corners of the coverage area. When they are staring at each other, they each eliminate the blind spot below the other.”

So the Problem Solvers had done the same.

They placed the light spear in one corner of London and the giant sword in the opposite corner. Together, they could cover the entire district.

“Besides, the two of you are very similar. You both have surefire attacks with an extremely long range. Once you have our location, we are as good as dead. On the other hand, the motion is so large and the lag between attacks is so great that you do not want anyone approaching you. In that sense, it was not hard to realize the two of you would be covering for each other.”

They had held the Problem Solvers in place with that note that essentially claimed responsibility for the previous attack and announced another was coming. They had also decided to take out as many Problem Solvers as they could manage on the site of the G21 summit.

So Kyouka had known this would happen.

Just as they relaxed after defeating their primary target, another nightmarish attack would arrive.

So she had needed to take things a step further to save her partners.

But to put it another way, if the those two were positioned at opposite corners to cover for the other if anything went wrong, this was their biggest chance. They could easily work out where another of the Problem Solvers was hiding in London. And once something happened to Yukino Arakawa, the owner of the giant sword would be entirely focused on Yukino.

“To be honest, I don’t care what your name is, I don’t care what kind of person you are, and I don’t care what that giant sword of yours really is. I imagine it is uses weight-based magic that makes it feel light for you but heavy for your opponent, but, again, I really do not care. Only one thing matters to me: was that magic used to destroy our school?”

And that meant she would neglect to focus on everything except for Yukino.

It would create enough of an opening for a girl in a wheelchair to arrive this close.

“Are you familiar with the disgraceful idea that British cooking is bad?”

The Student Council President once more aimed her customized handgun at the eyepatch woman who still stubbornly refused to collapse.

She did not announce checkmate.

“People say their desserts are nothing but sugar and butter and their dinners are only flavored with salt and oil, but they are enjoying those things wrong. The food here is not made to be eaten on its own. The desserts are meant to be eaten with tea and the dinners are meant to be eaten with whisky or brandy.”

This was not over yet. She could keep going. The further she went, the more she could savor the flavor of revenge. Her entire body trembled at that fact.

[[Image:ApocalypseWitch_v01_10.png|thumb]]

“I thought there was no need to insist on revenge if it meant reducing my body to this. I thought I would stop at some point before straying as far as personally taking someone’s life. But really, this is the same as British cooking.”

Yes.

She could preserve her pure desire for revenge even with the more hopeful estimation of when the teachers and students would recover.

That true exacter of revenge made a bold announcement with that extra-large gun in hand.

“It’s strange, really. My heart balks at the thought of killing, but when I eat it with some revenge on the side, it goes down oh so smoothly. Yes, I fear I could get hooked on this☆”

Another resolution was reached.

With no one to interrupt, she indulged in more and more and more revenge until she was practically drowning in it.

Ocean Crystal Magic Academy Grimnoah.

Yukino Arakawa had a single thought about that.

“I think that old man has the wrong idea about this.”

All the world’s resources and assets had to be focused on the Problem Solvers if they were to combat the Threat, so they had developed a project to eliminate anything that would interrupt that. Whether it was a physical presence or an online one, once it grew large enough, people would naturally start to gather. So they had to crush those things.

That was the idea anyway, but…

“He wants us to give a speech at the opening ceremony of their Catastrophe event? For real? All he’s done is gather a bunch of needless talent, so their classes are entirely pointless.”

“But he is completely serious about this.”

The shadow cast at her feet changed form and spoke with a refined male voice.

That was Lugh, Celtic God of Light.

“Some people think an elite few geniuses will crack under the pressure of everyone’s lives bearing down on their shoulders and they have a tendency to bring mass-production systems into the military field. Of course, the problem is that his attempt to help you is only taking your position from you.”

“Are you saying that old man is a danger to us?”

“Perhaps. But to be honest, I’m jealous. Fighting on the side that is doomed to fail is a warrior’s honor. I know I shouldn’t say this when I’m the one lending you this power, but always standing on the side of certain victory causes you to fester.”

“We cannot afford to be picky.”

“Fair enough.” Her shadow calmly scratched its head. “But anyway, the idea of a magic academy is pretty nice even if we ignore the whole Crystal Magic thing. Again, I shouldn’t say this when I’m lending you this power, but God-Worshipping Magic is so powerful that you can’t really practice using it. If someone developed a way to efficiently teach it, I might be saved from seeing the unsightly result of people borrowing my power and losing control the very first time they use it.”

“You need not worry about that,” said Yukino in a voice much kinder than the people she knew would imagine from her. But she was not announcing that she would create such a magic education system. “I am the strongest working with you now, so as long as I stay with you, you do not need to think about what will happen with the next one.”

“Yeah, well, you say that, but…”

“But what?”

“Well, um, uh, man, I’m really not sure how to put this.”

“If you have something to say, then just come out and say it. You are a god, aren’t you? Then you do not need to hold back with a mere human.”

Yukino wore something like a nun’s habit with bold slits in the sides, but her religion was not the monotheistic one symbolized by the cross and a holy book.

She only folded her hands in prayer to the god who had taken her to a higher stage.

That was why she felt no hesitation at all when it came to wielding that tremendous power. It was the ultimate performance that showed the world that she was connected to a god who loved her.

Even if that performance meant burning away her own body.

It was the same as exchanging rings and going on a honeymoon.

Sometimes you wanted a physical symbol of it all.

“Wh-what are the others doing?” asked her shadow. “Like Jessie of the giant sword.”

“She is the same as ever. It is hard to tell if their compatibility was devastatingly bad or devastatingly good because she is still developing into a complete berserker with no apparent distinction between her and Susanoo. Of course, that might be one way of bringing yourselves together.”

“So she just wants to fight and doesn’t care why, huh? I’ll admit I see the appeal.”

“Lord Lugh, surely you are not showing an interest in another human woman.”

“Course not.” Her shadow wagged its finger. “Bloodthirsty fights to the death are a warriors’ honor, but that isn’t something you enjoy along with the woman you’ve fallen for. The one thing I couldn’t stand to do is push you toward certain death.”