Apocalypse Witch:Volume5 Epilogue

Epilogue

For the above reasons, the organized usage of Crystal Magic has become unfeasible.

Thus, Second Grimnoah has no further reason to exist. The school shall be closed on the personal decision of the Four Living Gods.

“Nhhh.”

Amaashi Marika raised both arms and stretched her back.

She was wearing a casual T-shirt and shorts.

No longer would she wear a school uniform.

Second Grimnoah was gone, but she had grown accustomed to living overseas and had no interest in returning to Japan. She had traveled through a few different countries since. She might never find anywhere she wanted to settle down. Maybe she was really searching for the school life she had enjoyed on that ship.

But that was not coming back.

Building a Third Grimnoah now would be meaningless. It just wouldn’t be the same without them all there.

“America’s West Coast and East Coast feel so different. I wonder if I would like it more in Hollywood or New York?”

She was still indecisive, but she had ultimately chosen New York. Maybe a big city on the West Coast would have reminded her too much of fighting Anastasia Blast in Silicon Valley.

“Marika?” called her friend Matsuda Imi.

Gyaru-ish Hashizaki Tayori was with her and the three of them remained an inseparable trio.

“You put sunscreen on, I hope? The cameraman won’t be happy if you soak up too much UV.”

“I get it with a video, but this is a photoshoot. I don’t see why it matters if my tan is a little different between shots.”

“I think it’s related to the concept of the photoshoot or something? I don’t really know.”

“I bet it doesn’t matter at all and this is just another way of the adults showing off that they’re in charge.”

While Marika was complaining, Tayori was on her phone communicating with her large family. At least she was doing well.

Yes, a phone.

Marika was all too aware of the solid object in her shorts pocket. She was social media friends with Karuta and her friends, so she could still contact them while they were apart.

“Wait, what is your problem, Sophia-sensei? Why do you look more nervous than Japanese people like us!? This is New York! Everyone here speaks English!”

Marika was answered by a quiet groan.

The woman in a suit looked like someone had dumped a bucket of cold water on her.

“Umm, why exactly am I being dragged around the world and visiting New York? Crystal Magic teacher isn’t even a job anymore.”

“Yeah, but the paperwork and coordination is such a pain, so I wanted a manager or assistant who could handle that for me.”

“Ah!!”

“And like you said, you don’t have a job anymore. This is a pretty nice job to have handed to you, so you need to enjoy it!!”

Matsuda Imi and Hashizaki Tayori had their own conversation while watching Marika and Sophia from a short distance away.

“(Why can’t Marika just come out and say she wants to help her out since she feels responsible for the death of that old man related to her.)”

“(She probably thinks saying it out loud would ruin it. Still, drowning her in work might help distract her from her sorrow.)”

“Imi? Tayori?”

“Yes, yes,” said the two girls, rejoining Marika.

“They’re selling some donuts in wild colors on the side of the road there. Pink, sky blue, and…one, two, three, four, five- wow, seven colors! They have a whole rainbow!!”

“Scarf all of those down and the adults carrying those notebooks around will cry, Marika. You’re going to be filming several days in a row.”

“Don’t worry, Imi. Unlike you, my body sends everything I eat straight to my chest.”

“I will literally kill you, Marika.”

“The cameraman won’t like it if your boobs suddenly grow either. People will assume you got implants.”

So what exactly were these three girls doing nowadays?

First of all, the casual T-shirt and shorts Marika wore apparently cost well over 10 thousand dollars. And it was part of an advertisement deal with the luxury brand, so not only did she get to wear it for free, she got paid for it.

Marika wanted to call herself a world-famous supermodel, but it wasn’t clear what exactly was needed to earn the “super” qualifier. It would be most accurate to say she worked getting advertisement deals with famous companies, taking photos and videos, and setting worldwide fashion trends. At the very least, those three were earning looks of jealousy and envy from supermodels the world over.

Amaashi Marika smiled in the bright sun.

“Being the world’s strongest isn’t enough for me. I want a life that constantly makes me smile☆”

Omotesandou Kyouka had returned to Japan.

She was in the deep part of Kyoto that felt entirely cut off from the flow of time. Her home was so full of Japanese tradition people might mistake it for part of a samurai movie set.

But what kind of place was the Omotesandou family home?

They officially ran shogi and go classes, which allowed them to hold gatherings and get-togethers with the upper classes, but it was most accurate to say they used their connections to build up their assets.

They got people to unwittingly reveal the worries they couldn’t let anyone know about and then swiftly and discreetly resolved them. No one gave a thought to the methods they used. The entrance and exit were clear and everyone was willing to put on a blindfold and walk through the dark tunnel as long as they knew safety and security awaited them on the other side. That was the opportunity they provided for the powerful.

They were an ancient advisor family that had been following the motto of “there is no such thing as a free lunch” possibly as far back as the Heian period. There may have been a time when they were known as onmyoji or exorcists. As long as that performance could preserve their influence and repel their enemies, they would have gladly donned the costume and played their tricks.

Had the Omotesandou family ever actually come in contact with real magic?

Perhaps they had, but it didn’t matter in the end.

They were only interested in the end result. There was no need to shine a light in the dark, narrow tunnel.

“Phew.”

She no longer needed her wheelchair.

The kimono girl calmly sat on the floor.

All the Machiavellian scheming in the student council room had been harmless by comparison. Same for the black-haired bob cut girl and red-haired bun girl who had worshiped her like puppies or Letnahe Kurent who had been sent by the human string pullers. They had at least used real magic. Once you won the magical conflict with them, you could breathe a sigh of relief and relax.

(I wonder what that teacher is doing now. She never could choose between her family and her first love.)

Secretly friending Kiyosawa Hadome on social media would be the standard play, but she wouldn’t be foolish enough to screw up and let her husband see that name on her phone screen, causing her happy family to collapse around her. Unless she actually wanted to live out her own foreign-style melodrama with relationship issues as complicated as the Greek gods. But simply saying goodbye to the man was even more impossible for her. With the human string pullers gone, she had returned to her day job (so she could earn enough money to support her family), so hopefully she wasn’t secretly using the Indian navy’s military satellites to stalk him.

Kimono-wearing Kyouka calmly viewed the wind chimes hanging from the eaves.

Her much-younger brother sat awkwardly across from her.

The wordless pressure radiating from her was too much for Shouka and he couldn’t look her in the eye. The lack of a cushion below him seemed to illustrate the tension between them. Kyouka had stolen it away to giver herself the VIP two-cushion treatment.

“Um, sister?”

“Yes?”

“Did I do something wrong? You’ve been acting like this ever since you returned home.”

“Oh, dear. How strange. Hee hee. If you really do not understand, then how do you know I am so angry? Are you a mind reader now?”

Even if he had been manipulated by the human string pullers, he had still betrayed his sister. She needed to settle the score there.

Shouka shrank down even further.

“Sister.”

“Yes, what is it?”

“I can’t stand this any longer. Could you just get it over with and climb on top of me and slap me a few times?”

“No, I am not going to reward you like that. Why must I defile my soul with violence when I am the victim here? I refuse to grow violent and make myself the attacker here. All I will do is view you with pity, so you can rest easy there.”

“Then what’s going to happen?”

“Nothing at all. I will simply never forget.”

“Ugh.”

“And when I say never, I mean I am taking this one to the grave. Listen, Shouka. I will not do anything other than remember this forever.”

“That’s what I can’t bear! I’m willing to say goodbye to my front teeth, so just give me a good punch! I don’t care if you increase your punching power by holding your phone in your hand!! So let’s put this behind us, okay!?”

“Not happening.”

“Eek! Sisterrrrr!!!”

She looked away from her adorable brother who tearfully clung to her and she stuck out her tongue where he couldn’t see her.

(Curious that smartphone culture has made it here as well.)

But it made sense given how useful those devices were for their purposes.

The upper classes had their unique problems. She had returned to a family tied up with lots of old traditions, so her life would be bound by a number of restrictions from now on. But it meant a lot that she would have all the data necessary to blow off some steam if things ever got too bad.

She was connected to Karuta, Marika, and her former student council through social media, but she still wanted someone who shared this space with her.

“Well, I was the one that refused to turn away from this, no matter how messed up it can be.”

Utagai Karuta had remained in a corner of Southeast Asia.

Once it was shut down, Second Grimnoah had been moored at a giant shipyard. The ship had been based on a luxury cruise ship, but no one was willing to buy it because its excessive size would mean sky-high fuel costs and a difficult time filling all the rooms with customers. So it would probably be demolished eventually.

He sat in the summer sun on a concrete embankment, looking up into the sky.

This was the same dead end where he had once stood with Aine.

The Threat swarms that had covered the sky and Transline who had managed them all were no more. The facility she had called a factory was apparently still around, but it was probably too far away to reach in a human lifetime.

So this was the end of an age.

The Age of Crystal Magic was over.

No one in the world needed it anymore.

That was why Second Grimnoah was no longer a school and Karuta sat all alone on the embankment staring at the retired ship day in and day out.

But he couldn’t keep doing this forever.

Everyone else was starting down their own paths.

He was the only one who still hadn’t moved on.

But he had decided to change that.

He wouldn’t be fighting anymore. He didn’t need to hang onto that modified military flashlight.

He needed some way of signaling a change.

“Aine,” he muttered.

And…

“Yes, Sacri-sama? Did you need something?”

She emerged from his body.

The expressionless crystal girl looked the same as always.

He scratched his cheek in the sea breeze.

“It’s been so long and I can still use Crystal Magic. Does this confirm my theory?”

“Perhaps.”

Transline had been a powerful being who controlled 300 million Threats. The noise produced by her explosion had been intense enough to kill all of the Threats on Earth and keep Crystal Magic from working. The presets of flight and regeneration had failed and Crystal Girl Aine’s very existence had grown unstable and nearly vanished.

But the factory and their power source were still somewhere out in space.

Transline had said she was the one who transmitted the power, which suggested something else out there was generating the power. Maybe a red-hot planet and maybe some kind of artificial facility.

Crystal Magic was a new form of magic that used the conflict between the energy pouring down from space and the energy of the Original Crystal Embryo.

So the defeat of the power transmitter had not been enough to keep Crystal Magic from working altogether. Once the invisible wall of noise faded with time, Crystal Magic had stabilized again.

Aine sat next to Karuta and looked to the shipyard.

If they were going to get a new start, it had to happen here.

If they turned away from the ocean dead end and walked back along the embankment, they would find the whole world waiting for them.

He could walk with the crystal girl again like normal.

“Was there any need to shut down Second Grimnoah when Crystal Magic still functions?”

“You’re looking at it backwards.” Karuta sighed. “Why leave behind a facility that mass-produces world’s strongests when we don’t have anyone to fight any more? Do that and some overpowered Crystal Magician would turn into a criminal intent on destroying the world. I never want to fight to the death with another Crystal Magician. And if that happens, everyone will see us as the new Threat.”

“If you say so.”

“On the other hand, it’s hard to let go of the power and status you already have. In the end, someone had to play the villain and create an opportunity for that to happen. And no one could do that other than the Four Living Gods.”

The human string pullers had been destroyed by the Threat.

And they were unlikely to ever see the Threat again either.

Simplifying the state of the world had its pros and its cons. Without anyone else to fight, the world would likely start to notice how frightening it was for people to wield anything as powerful as Crystal Magic.

For example, Aine’s sword was the most reliable weapon Karuta could think of, but it went without saying what would happen if she started swinging it around for no reason in the middle of a peaceful city.

“Come to think of it.”

“?”

“I have been unstable for a time thanks to the noise produced by Transline’s defeat. That has kept us from completing the task we began back then.”

Aine gently shut her eyes.

Karuta was still searching his memory when she moved straight toward him.

Their lips touched.

His mind went blank.

Come to think of it, she had requested that, hadn’t she?

He was so caught off guard that more than three seconds passed before he managed to react.

“Wait, Aine!!?”

“?”

She quizzically tilted her head.

Her emotions were as much of a mystery as ever. Although she at least seemed to find it embarrassing to be seen naked.

“Sacri-sama, your deepest desire was for days like this, not to continue fighting the Threat as the world’s strongest or to depart on journey into the unknown with the four of us, wasn’t it?”

“…Yeah.”

He wasn’t childish enough to try and deny it.

Besides, Aine was a part of him, so she knew all of the weak and ugly parts of him.

She slowly traced her finger along her own lips.

“This was not a one-time thing.”

“Um, it wasn’t?”

"We must keep at it. Now that I have seen the ultra aggressive desires found in your fantasy, I know I have my work cut out for me if I hope to fulfill all of those desires on my own.”

“Please stop bringing that up! And fantasies are only fantasies!! You don’t have to make them come true!!”

Karuta quickly moved to stop her.

Apparently it was a problem to have someone know you too well.

“So what will you do now, Sacri-sama?”

“I’m not sure.”

The phrase “world’s strongest” had lost its value and he had abandoned the Living God title himself. What could he do now that he was only Utagai Karuta?

How big was this world that he had briefly considered giving up on and leaving behind?

“But first, we have one last problem to deal with.”

“?”

“Remember Omotesandou-san’s final secret? About how the people killed on the first ship don’t actually need more than 7000 years to recover? We need to deal with that.”

“Oh, that.”

Aine stared off into the distance.

Someone was running toward them along the long embankment while hopping and waving her hand. That was Natalena.

“So that is why you remained so close to Second Grimnoah.”

Karuta stood up and made a suggestion while viewing that ship.

He smiled.

It was the smile of an ordinary boy – something he had never shown while he was merely the world’s strongest.

“It’s about time for Gekiha and the others to wake up. Aine, let’s go greet them. We can join the new era after that.”

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