Apocalypse Witch:Volume5 Chapter4

Chapter 4

Part 1

Utagai Karuta opened his eyes.

He briefly felt separated from gravity and that wasn’t just his groggy head failing to fully wake up. For one, the bed was too fancy for him.

He felt something soft next to him.

Student Council President Omotesandou Kyouka was curled up in the same silk bedsheets as him. Her head was turned to the side and she was giggling.

“Good morning, Karuta-kun.”

“Were you watching me sleep? Don’t you have anything better to do?”

“Hee hee. I didn’t plan on it, but I found it to be amusing.”

How was that amusing?

She saw the same thing every day.

“Ugh.”

He sensed motion from the other side of the bed. That had to be his childhood friend Marika. Rather than waking up, she appeared to be caught in a light doze and tempted to fully return to sleep. She suddenly grabbed him from behind, bringing a smooth, soft warmth to his back. She held him like a small child with a big stuffed animal, but it was probably a subconscious thing. He heard her breathing settle back into sleep again.

Crystal Girl Aine was staring down at him from above.

His head was resting in her lap.

“Sacri-sama, it is time to wake up.”

“Yawwwn. Aine-chan, do we really need a time to take up?”

“You are the one who said we must follow a schedule and maintain a daily routine or we will grow undisciplined.”

She was right about that.

He extracted himself from Marika’s grasp, rubbed his sleepy eyes, and slowly got up.

He felt a dry wind.

The sea breeze carried a faintly salty scent to his nose.

“Phew.”

He set his feet on the floor.

The wind led him from the bed to the balcony and Crystal Girl Aine followed without a word. She may have wanted attention too.

They were in a seaside cottage that would have fit right in at a tropical resort. There were no walls, giving them direct access to the ocean. The building itself was built over the ocean instead of on the beach. A narrow wooden bridge provided a route back to land.

And the sea was dark.

It was absorbing the colors of the starry sky visible through the reinforced glass dome overhead, so the colors of space were mixed with the bright morning sun.

There was no blue planet here.

They were on an artificial planet in a different planetary system. The 50km enclosed space had been given to them as their world. From the outside, it may have looked a lot like a bunch of grapes. Each transparent dome was a few kilometers across, they each contained a different environment such as a snowy mountain or a jungle, and they could choose whichever kind of resort they wanted. The concepts of up and down existed within and the seawater did not just float up into the air. They had been told that was because the giant star the artificial planet orbited had its gravity intentionally amplified. The gravitons that created gravity still could not be mechanically produced, but increasing the activity of the naturally-produced ones could alter the apparent values. Karuta imagined it as something like how a microwave oven heated food by causing the moisture inside to rapidly vibrate, but he couldn’t say anything for sure when this was all done by the Threat’s mysterious technology.

That said, none of it felt as cold and mechanical as a spaceship. On the white sandy beach, palm trees and hibiscus flowers swayed in the artificial breeze, colorful butterflies and beetles lived there, and plenty of fish and birds ate them.

Remember the silk bedsheets?

All the necessary lifeforms were here, including the silkworms needed to make those sheets. The cycle and pyramid were complete.

Transline had not given them a spaceship or an artificial planet. Even if it was mechanically created, she had given them a proper “world”.

The entire ecosystem humans needed to live was present in this enclosed space.

Something else flowed by outside the dome.

Their orbits were all independent, but it felt like the artificial planets had been clustering together a lot lately. That showed just how many lifeforms Transline was collecting from here and there. All those pure nurseries were positioned around and constantly revolving around the shining star providing the center of their artificial planetary system. There was one each for every category: carbon, sulfur, oxygen, metal, plant, animal, etc.

They still hadn’t interacted, but Karuta’s group had discovered an airlock for docking hidden among the grass and flowers at the very edge of their artificial planet.

This might be an unnatural nursery, but it was also a perfect world with no chance of conflict.

Humanity’s ugly conflicts were nowhere to be found here. Nor the merciless slaughter at the hands of the Threat. Karuta and the others didn’t need to worry about being deceived, lied to, used, or abandoned by anyone.

They didn’t even need to be the Four Living Gods anymore.

They could finally relax and stop forcing themselves to be the world’s strongest.

They may have finally returned to being human.

“Karuta-kun.”

He heard a voice from behind.

He looked back to see Omotesandou Kyouka casually holding a bedsheet up to her chest while walking toward him on her own two legs. But if she had taken the sheet, what would he see if he looked to the bed where Marika had gone back to sleep? He already knew the answer. That childhood friend had a bad habit of stripping naked and crawling into bed when she felt sleepy.

He heard the faint sound of a machine operating.

The older girl’s legs were supported by black metal. That was what they had once called the Threat.

Kyouka had tried and failed to walk using a powered suit while on Earth, but it worked better with their help.

The Threat accurately reproduced her elegant movements.

“Karuta-kun. I’m glad you decided to get up, but what about some breakfast?”

“If someone will make some…”

“Oh, c’mon. Don’t be shy. Just come out and ask me to fix you something.”

“Your cooking is always so sweet it takes real courage to eat it first thing in the morning.”

They could use the phone on the wall to have any food they wanted brought to the seaside cottage. Made by black metal hands, of course. And that wasn’t all. The cottage remained so clean because Threats a bit larger than a backpack were constantly cleaning it for them.

Perhaps it was wrong to continue calling them the Threat.

Not after being taken in and cared for by them.

Part 2

They could have chosen that future.

They only needed to nod their heads in response to Transline’s suggestion.

They would have been given a happy life where they wanted for nothing.

But.

If they could do anything that irresponsible, they never would have avenged their friends and become known as the Four Living Gods.

Karuta swatted aside the outstretched hand.

Transline remained frozen in place with a puzzled look on her face.

He shouted at the top of his lungs before she could think anything at all.

He had made his choice.

He grabbed the modified military flashlight from his hip, gripped it tight, and held it at the ready.

“Back to the fight, Aineeeeeeeee!!!”

“Yes, Sacri-sama.”

The crystal girl produced a high-pitched sound as she readied her sword.

Maybe this would drag a lot more people into the fight.

Everyone might resent the world’s strongest for failing to do their job.

Nevertheless.

He could never choose to let 5.5 billion people die, their complaints silenced forever, while only the four of them survived!!!

Marika and Kyouka smiled a little.

They were implicitly saying this was the only real option they had.

“Oh, dear.”

Finally.

Transline spoke after an obvious delay. But this delay was brimming with a confidence that she would never lose to mere humans even if they got the jump on her.

She had been rejected.

But her face displayed neither displeasure nor anger.

She was smiling.

“Yes, you are the superior humans known as the Four Living Gods. You must have more fight in you than you know what to do with. But perhaps that is what makes you what you are. Hee hee!!”

That was all it took for something invisible to pierce every single one of Utagai Karuta’s cells at superluminal speed.

“Gah?”

He couldn’t breathe.

He floated in the zero-g space, unable to even hold a hand to his chest. His mind was only able to comprehend that he had been hit by something devastating. But even after being hit, he had no idea how to see it coming or how to dodge it.

With a violent zapping sound, sparks erupted from the floor and wall behind him. Something had harmed him and damaged the space station’s delicate equipment just by being emitted. It apparently didn’t matter that this was a large orbital facility designed to defend against the high levels of radiation found in solar winds and cosmic rays.

Even a specialized spacesuit or environmental suit wouldn’t have helped.

(What about my flashlight?)

Still having trouble breathing, he flipped the switch on and off with his thumb.

It was a miracle the device still worked.

Transline.

That monster would slaughter any lifeform or machine that opposed her, except now she was doubled over trying to endure something. But that something was likely a pleasurable or joyful urge rather than anything related to fighting.

Simply put, it was the desire to show off.

Or maybe she simply wanted them to admire her.

“Hee hee. Ee hee hee. Sorry, that was inappropriate of me. It only slipped out, I promise. Hee hee. Oh, dear. I can’t seem to restrain myself. You intend to fight? Against me? Why would you go out of your way to choose something so suicidal? Huff, puff. Oh, no. Not even taking deep breaths is enough!! This is just so amusing I can’t stop laughing. Pff, hee hee. Hee hee hee ha ha gya ha ha ha ha ha!!!”

“Karuta!!”

Amaashi Marika swung her rapier device.

But not at Transline herself. She sliced through a nearby wall, tearing it away. It stuck out to cover Karuta, Aine, and the rest like an umbrella.

Countless sparks burst out like pouring rain.

The wall was made to block radiation, but Karuta still felt the tingling pain in his skin growing at an accelerated rate. They weren’t going to last long.

Then the woman’s ticklish voice arrived from beyond the umbrella.

“Oh, how fun. Pff, hee hee. I would love to join in this game☆”

Several metallic sounds followed.

Karuta had a very bad feeling about this, so he peeked around the edge of the shield to find something unusual. Glass tubes thicker than relay batons were shooting from all over Transline while she remained doubled over in laughter. They were probably some kind of vacuum tube, but it wasn’t clear what they were used for. Karuta had thought of vacuum tubes as outdated tech, but he was pretty sure they were still used to produce microwaves in things like microwave ovens. So were these used to create and send out that kind of energy? Whatever the case, he could tell this indicated some kind of mode change. She had some reason to not keep them out in the open all the time, so she had kept them inside her body until now.

Two transparent horns grew atop her head and she raised that head.

A pair of glass or crystal objects grew from the metal lifeform.

(Are those like Aine’s horns?)

He doubted she would explain it for him right now.

Her cold and beautiful face was distorted by laughter.

“Hee hee hee. Ah ha ha!! Let me join the fun!!!”

Most likely, that was her only reason.

She was not motivated by a vast conspiracy or a nasty grudge.

He heard something slice through the artificial air. Transline’s slender arm did not carry a sword or a spear. To Karuta, it looked like a long, glowing whip.

“Ma-”

That weapon concentrated down all of the energy used to move 300 million Threats.

“Marika!? You need to dodge this!!!”

“?”

Pausing out of confusion was a definite mistake.

The childhood friend’s silhouette suddenly collapsed. Specifically, her empty hand was lopped off at the shoulder. She had been sliced through along with the wall she was using as a shield.

No, Transline hadn’t even done that intentionally.

Let me join the fun.

She was like a small child. She had only innocently wanted to do the same thing the four of them had done a moment before. She was only trying to attack the wall and peel it away.

Immediately afterwards, the space station’s wall was roughly sliced to pieces.

Rather than cut a hole in the wall, it was more like she sliced the entire station in two. There was nothing Karuta and the others could do while floating in the zero-g space. The artificial air flowed out with a sound like air leaving a balloon and they were blown toward the newly created exit.

Karuta felt dizzy.

This wasn’t a perfect vacuum, but the rapid change in pressure was too much for his body to deal with.

“Sacri-sama.”

“Stopping Marika’s bleeding takes top priority!! Apply pressure, tie it up, and do whatever it takes for her to last 30 seconds. The bleeding is going to be weird in zero-g and we can’t let her die before the regeneration is complete!!”

“I will obey, but she is coming.”

“!!”

He heard the air being sliced through.

There wasn’t just one anymore. She wasn’t just wielding them in her hands either. Several glowing whips extended from her lower back. They glowed like lava, so he got the feeling they would blind him if he viewed them for too long. A single hit from one of those had been too much for the giant space station. If she swung them all around at once, they would probably turn the entire location into space debris.

If Karuta hadn’t reflexively aimed his modified military flashlight and activated its dazzling infrared laser, they might have all been sliced through.

“Hee hee hee hee. If you’re willing to boast like that, you must have the strength to back it up, right? I’m happy, happy, so happy!!! I have finally found the superior units I have been looking for – the world’s strongest I have dreamed of!!”

With Marika’s makeshift shield gone, the invisible attack battered all of Karuta’s cells again. The piercing pain was less like a burn and more like a laceration that tore his skin like a stocking. He felt a rough sensation followed by the exposed part of his skin crystallizing.

No matter how beautiful Transline might be, she was still a Threat made of metal, so she did not care at all if she was thrown into the vacuum of space.

“Excellent. Truly excellent!! Now, entertain me more, more, more!! Kee kee ee hee hee. Okay, world’s strongests!?”

She laughed while swinging her glowing whips and filling the air with energy.

The attack…was coming!!!

“Karuta-kun!!” shouted Omotesandou Kyouka.

Karuta still had his injured childhood friend in his arms, so he gave up trying to resist and let the blowing wind carry him. He heard a deafening sound of scattering sparks as the many whips filled the space and forcibly tore through the ceiling and floor.

He would have been burned through too had he stayed where he was.

But simply following the course of the wind would get them thrown out into space.

“Let it…happen,” said Marika, holding her shoulder wound with her remaining hand. She moved her pale lips to speak. “Our barrier preset can forcibly stop an assault rifle bullet. Maybe we can’t handle it alone, but that should change if we gather together and combine our barriers.”

Yes. During their aerial battle against Susannia of the Problem Solvers, Karuta had received the blessing of Marika’s magic while holding onto her hips.

“But we’re in outer space. Will it really work the way we want?”

“Aine-chan can’t use the barrier and yours is really weak, but mine and the 3rd year’s should be enough. Remember, Crystal Magicians can fly through the ordinary atmosphere at Mach 2 or 3. We know the barrier is airtight, so this should…work!!!”

They flew from the station together.

Well, Karuta couldn’t bring himself to commit to that and grabbed onto a metal railing to slow down, but Marika cut it away with a laser.

Transline’s attacks poured in a moment later. The chaotic dance of light filled every part of the sliced space station. They burned through walls and burst outside of the station. They could no longer hear it, but the unrealistic visual of the kilometers long station being sliced apart was overwhelming enough.

Transline placed a hand on the wall and looked out through an opening in the collapsing station to watch them float away.

Her mouth was moving, but her voice didn’t reach them and they weren’t sure what she was saying or laughing about.

Aine must have read her lips, so she relayed it to them.

“She is saying, ‘oh, how wonderful. You are so adorable. I love you so much.’ ”

“I shouldn’t have asked.”

“That’s a haiku. Except no seasonal word.”

She was just messing with them at this point. Except she probably hadn’t done that on purpose.

Karuta, Aine, Marika, and Kyouka were gathered together. If they let go now, they would probably be separated forever.

And even with their barrier active, their air wouldn’t last forever.

There was only one possible destination for them.

The giant blue orb in front of them. The red lights they saw were due to the conflagrations larger than any slash-and-burn farming or forest fire.

“Do we really have to head down there? Do you have any idea how many thousands of degrees the thermosphere is!?”

The barrier alone wasn’t enough to protect them from that. If it was, they never would have needed to fear the light spears that Yukino Arakawa of the Problem Solvers had sent down from orbit.

“Sacri-sama.”

Karuta heard a sharp stabbing sound as Aine jabbed her sword into something black. It was a water bear larger than a car. That was one of the Threats that had been clinging to the outside of the space station. It must have been floating nearby after Transline sliced away its footing.

Aine did not hesitate before moving her sword to peel away its black armor.

“You can see their shells are not all that tough. Given the strength of their armor, I doubt the Threat bunches broke through the thermosphere by force. Even if they were willing to accept some losses, they likely also have an energy field similar to our barriers to protect them.”

“So if we use this?”

“We should have greater odds of surviving reentry than if we attempted it without.”

A few pieces of information immediately appeared in Karuta’s head.

At Iceland’s Crystal Beach, Aine had messed with the decoy Threat’s wiring to make them fire.

The Armored Warrior occupying Second Grimnoah had not originally taken that form. The lion-shaped Sparkle had devoured the corpses of the tadpole ones, taking in the other Threats’ powers and devices to transform.

“We can do this.”

It had all been hell.

But they couldn’t look away. They could make use of all those past experiences.

“We can do this!! We just have to build on what we’ve already seen!!”

“Aine-chan,” said Kyouka. “Karuta-kun may be super excited, but if you really can tear off and reuse Threat parts, try and grab us some rocket and booster parts.”

“If you say so.”

“Remember, this geosynchronous orbit is 36 thousand kilometers from the surface. Crystal Magic flight can only carry us at Mach 2 or 3, so it would take us more than 10 hours to get back. I doubt what little oxygen we have in here would last that long.”

“Yikes,” said Marika. “I get the feeling we would either dry up in space or pop like balloons. And I’m not sure Imi, Tayori, and the others down there could last nearly half a day.”

“So we need something to accelerate us,” continued Kyouka. “Mach 25 to 30 would be best.”

Super excited Karuta felt a chill in his stomach. He quickly asked Aine to do what Kyouka said.

The Four Living Gods held hands and formed a ring like a skydiving team.

Yes, Marika’s arm had already regenerated.

That meant they had been exposed to the vacuum of space for more than 30 seconds and still lived. They weren’t about to trust Transline, but it was very strongest of them. Their hardiness was reaching the level of germs and mold that rode a rocket or shuttle into space.

Could they even be called human anymore?

That thought gave Karuta a self-deprecating smile, but then the crystal girl spoke softly to him.

“Sacri-sama.”

“?”

“Your previous fantasy mode was transmitted into my mind through the Crystal Blossom. Do you really want to be a tropical king living out an explosively adolescent dream without even a swimsuit to be found?”

“I resisted the temptation all on my own, so can we not do this!?”

His childhood friend wasn’t going to overlook this, so she gave him a skeptical look.

“Explain yourself, Karuta.”

“Miss Marika sleeping in the nude is true to life, but Miss Kyouka doing the same and accentuating her chest size with the bed sheet does not seem to match her psychological profile. Were you ignoring everything about her except her chest size so you could use her as an easy source of boobs for your fantasy? Was this at all influenced by seeing them jiggle around when they were freed from gravity onboard the elevator car?”

“Karuta-kun☆”

“Please nooooooo!!!”

The station was in geosynchronous orbit at an altitude of 36 thousand kilometers.

But they had the flight preset plus the rockets and boosters stolen from the Threat. If Aine and Marika went all out, they could set a course in zero-g and travel at high speed.

Their destination was the giant blue planet spread out below them.

Part 3

Natalena Blast clearly saw the moment of impact.

The blue sky grew distorted.

The first thing to hit Second Grimnoah was a massive shockwave. But not because a mass of Threats had struck the surface. The space elevator’s wires were tens of thousands of kilometers long. If they suddenly snapped, they would respond like a stretched rubber band cut by scissors. The two halves would fly up and down. When they tore through Earth’s atmosphere, just how much friction and how great a shockwave would they produce?

The 600m ship sank down a few meters and all of its more than 1000 windows shattered.

“Gahh!?”

Natalena was slammed back first not into the floor or wall but into the ceiling.

But she didn’t have time to groan in pain. She was actually thankful she had been thrown away from the window, sparing her a body full of glass shards. By the time she had activated her crystal armor and used the flight to balance herself and avoid colliding with the floor, the next phase had begun.

The horizon was blurring.

No, that wasn’t it. Something black was wriggling there. But they weren’t approaching the ship. It was more accurate to say they were spreading out from their landing point. It just so happened that a portion of them were heading toward Second Grimnoah.

But even that meant thousands.

The giant spider crab, water bear, and blue-ringed octopus Threats could not be allowed to reach the ordinary people who couldn’t even fight back.

“All Subcategory and Main Category students capable of aerial combat, please gather on the side decks. Do not get too close to the Threat. Maintain a safe altitude and bomb them from above. Their numbers alone will overwhelm us, so the loss of any of our fighters would be too much of a burden for Second Grimnoah to survive.”

Was that Letnahe Kurent’s voice speaking over the ship’s speakers?

The Four Living Gods were gone.

Everyone’s efforts had failed to reach them. The world’s strongest Crystal Magicians had made up their own minds. The Threat pouring down from the sky regardless felt like a mockery of those four’s self-sacrifice.

Sacrifice.

That word was lodged in the back of Natalena’s mind. Her soul refused to let its meaning sink in.

She did her best to ignore the fact that they pushed those four to that decision just as much as anyone else.

She couldn’t muster the strength to fight without letting the anger course through her body.

She flew from the broken window onto the side deck wearing a combination of her summer uniform and crystal armor. A lot of students were already there and she shouted a question after spotting some familiar faces.

“Um! Wh-where do we start!?”

“How should I know!? Everywhere, I guess!?”

They were as confused as she was. Yamane Deiri’s response seemed incoherent at first, but it was the most accurate possible answer. It didn’t matter if the Threat were good or evil. The simple fact was humanity would never have peace unless they exterminated every last Threat.

Normally, Karuta and the others would have instructed everyone here.

Natalena flew from the side deck.

The space elevator’s wire was no longer there in the sky. It had snapped near the bottom, so it had launched skyward like a stretched rubber band cut by scissors. It had flown with such speed it had formed a vertical contrail in its wake.

“Um, is that safe? How many tens of thousands of kilometers was it? And how many tons? Um, what if it falls back to the surface from way up high?”

“I-it’s probably fine. Carbon nanotube wires are thinner than paper, so they should catch the air and float slowly down.”

“Phew. That’s a relief, Nekoumi-”

“Now the smokestack part meant to protect it from the elements is a different story. That was only 30 thousand meters long, but it had to weigh tens of thousands of tons.”

“-senpaiiiiiiiiiii!!?”

Natalena twisted around in midair and dodged falling pieces of rubble, each larger than a school building. She was glad there was only ocean below them.

Yes, ocean.

The open ocean provided no cover for them to take shelter behind. Since they had previously launched so many beams of light it had looked like a planetarium’s star projector, the Threat had to have deadly weapons similar to anti-air lasers.

A Crystal Blossom transmission from Matsuda Imi reached everyone indiscriminately.

“Found them! They’re at the base of the space elevator. The artificial float looks like it’s sinking, but that’s the epicenter of the Threat swarm!!”

“The closest population center is the island we’re stopped at for the Port Day. That’s about 10km away, which might as well be nothing.” Hashizaki Tayori’s voice remained calm even now. “But the Threat might be even more trouble if they dive into the ocean than if they attack an island or city. Our aerial observations and bombings can’t reach the bottom of the ocean and we’ve seen the Threat operate underwater before. If we lose track of them here, we won’t know where they’ll attack and we won’t be able to touch them until they make that attack.”

Natalena heard explosions up ahead.

Imi and Tayori had left ahead of the others and had already started their bombing. Natalena also wanted to concentrate their firepower on any Threats with lasers or other anti-air capabilities.

However…

“Wait a second. The Threat swarm landed at the base of the space elevator, right?”

“The bombing takes priority. We can’t let them escape into the ocean.”

“B-but we need to check for survivors! I know the float is already sinking, but someone might still be alive!!”

“We’ll be taken out if we don’t eliminate the laser beam ones right away!! Besides, anyone there was part of the human string pullers! They’re the ones who sent Karuta and the others into the vacuum of space to die!! Why should we care what happens to monsters like that!?”

Yamane Deiri shook off Natalena’s request and flew even higher. He was preparing to join the bombing. And the divine name sealed inside his Crystal Blossom’s tiny printed circuit was Kagutsuchi. He specialized in flamethrowers and napalm.

The ground or the sky?

Natalena was briefly unsure which to attack.

But she ended up letting it happen. A large quantity of flammable and explosive materials flew right past her on their way down to the surface.

Flames blossomed on the badly damaged artificial float, enveloping the many Threats there. The fiery blossoms covered a strip of the artificial island following Yamane Deiri’s course through the sky.

“Ah, ahh. Ahhhhhhhhhh.”

A wordless voice carrying flat resentment arrived over a Crystal Blossom transmission.

Natalena grimaced.

Was that Sophia Firenze’s voice? The man she had wanted to protect even if it meant making an enemy of the entire world had to be in that burning world below Natalena now.

But she didn’t have time for sentiment. She felt a pull on her hand from the side just before green light streaked through the spot she had just been flying through.

Nekoumi Hirosuke shouted in the young girl’s ear.

“Th-this isn’t over yet!! The Threat’s attacks can reach us at this altitude!! We’re screwed if we don’t take them all out!!”

“Tayori here. I’m going to make an additional bombing run from west to east at an altitude of 3000. On the count of 20, I want everyone who can join in to take a different line!”

Were those the student council members assisting the gyaru? Several Crystal Magicians drew out a large cross and even more explosions blasted the surface, even tearing through the black smoke there. Something must have bent because a last-ditch laser beam flew off in the wrong direction and sliced off the peak of a mountain on a different island.

The Threat’s numbers were falling.

But how many human lives had Second Grimnoah’s bombing taken?

They had done the right thing. But what did that matter?

The Four Living Gods had been holding back the ugliness produced by humankind, but with them gone, it now struck Natalena’s young heart directly.

How had it been for her sister Anastasia?

Had this pressure finally broken her? Or had she found a way to enjoy it?

“…”

Was there any real meaning to this?

If other Threat swarms were falling all across the planet – Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere, Western Hemisphere and Eastern Hemisphere – then the 1000 Crystal Magicians from Second Grimnoah could never protect all 5.5 billion people no matter how hard they fought. And even if they managed to protect this corner of Southeast Asia where they just so happened to be, the rest of the Threat would approach from every other direction after slaughtering 99.9% of humanity. When hundreds of millions of Threats flooded them, they would eventually find they couldn’t keep up.

“W-we might be lucky we can still focus solely on the Threat.”

“Why’s that, Nekoumi-kun? Afraid someone might launch a nuke?”

The 5.5 billion population was at risk, so it was unusual no nuclear weapons had been used yet.

They doubted they had human good will or good sense to thank for that.

With so many Threats pushing in all at once, the military and governmental chains of command may have collapsed in a panic. Launching a nuclear weapon required an intricate process. The leader of some country out there might be screaming that suicidal command, but the launch process would never complete if the command never reached the nuclear technicians operating the actual machinery. The long fiber optic cables would have already been torn to shreds.

“Nukes, huh? So would you rather be killed by other humans or the Threat?”

“Yamane!! Enough pessimism. If you think your Big Sis Imi enjoys helping you out with stupid problems, you are sorely mistaken!!”

That said, they couldn’t stop either.

Only Crystal Magicians could fight the Threat. Even without a feasible long-term plan, the ordinary people within reach would be slaughtered if they didn’t help them.

For better or for worse, they were not that strong. They would be losing resources and narrowing down their chances, but they couldn’t bear to abandon people they could see needed help.

“Yamane-senpai, and everyone else too!! Look 5km southeast of the float! There’s a fishing boat!”

“Are you kidding me!? The area around the elevator is supposed to be off limits! I bet they’re part of the human string pullers’ defense force disguised as a fishing boat!!”

“No…” muttered Natalena after spotting something.

A different part of the horizon was squirming now. Whether they were the giant spider crab type or the blue-ringed octopus type, another clump of Threats had fallen to the surface and begun to expand in every direction.

In other words…

“Another swarm has fallen in that direction!! And there isn’t just one fishing boat, so I bet they were driven off of the land and tried to escape out at sea!!”

The bombing stopped as if in shock.

That may have been a mistake.

A green laser beam sliced through the sky. It came not from the elevator base below them but from the middle of the residential zone of a different island. A flight group in identical summer uniforms had arms and legs covered by crystal armor blown away and they fell from the sky.

They could have struck back from this distance, but the Threat was in a city this time. This time they wouldn’t be putting the human string pullers at risk. They had no idea how many perfectly ordinary people were in that city.

Matsuda Imi gave some advice.

“Drop to lower altitude!! They’ll keep sniping us if we don’t use the horizon as a shield!!”

Natalena obeyed. They needed to help their shot-down schoolmates regardless.

But descending brought them to the partially-sunk artificial float that had formed the base of the space elevator. It was crawling with all sorts of Threats.

There were a few broken crystal statues there.

Those were the students who had been shot down earlier. Even with an arm or a leg vaporized, they should have been able to avoid death using their regeneration, yet that hadn’t happened.

Natalena grimace when she set foot on the burnt ground to avoid the deadly laser beams.

“Are they playing dead!?”

Some nearby rubble rose up.

The giant shape responsible was a Threat with long legs much like a giant spider crab. The interior edge of their pincers glowed an unnatural orange.

Giving up on the long term and fighting from moment to moment left Natalena and the others with no chance of winning. Their odds would have been 50/50 with just one swarm of tens of thousands. With another swarm in the same aera, the pure numbers were enough to overwhelm them.

Nevertheless.

Natalena Blast had known death was coming eventually, but it had suddenly arrived right in front of her.

(Ah.)

She froze up.

The flow of time seemed to slow. Everything that had happened raced through her mind. It may have been more about recalling her regrets than trying to find a way out of her predicament.

What had she done to Utagai Karuta?

She had shouted about revenge and vengeance, sent violence his way, and vowed to kill him without even trying to learn what a harrowing path he had taken to reach that point.

She hadn’t done any better when they were retaking Second Grimnoah from the real Threat. He had taken the most dangerous path, taken on the dirty work, and emerged both battered and victorious, but she hadn’t managed to carry any of that weight for him.

She had been fully left out of the Catastrophe, so she hadn’t been able to stop that martial arts tournament that might as well have been a public execution.

She had been so selfish and thoughtless.

She had been so narrow-minded and short-tempered and she hadn’t even apologized.

She was always causing him problems.

Even in the very end, she hadn’t been able to save that upperclassman being crushed below such a great weight.

(Maybe I deserve to die.)

That was when the world’s strongest shot down from the heavens and pierced through the giant spider crab more sharply than a lightning strike.

That enormous thing suddenly sank straight down. Its black metal shell shattered and threw off sparks while its long legs sprawled out. The orange light slowly vanished from its motionless pincers.

Natalena doubted her eyes.

She couldn’t believe what she was seeing play out in front of her.

Then the flow of time returned for the small girl.

Everything felt so normal again that she couldn’t help but cry.

“Damn, are you sure you had those calculations right!? The landing obliterated my right leg!!”

“I very kindly decelerated you with my flight preset, so you have no right to complain. That was a freefall from the upper atmosphere, remember? Besides, Karuta, you can regenerate, so tie up the wound and wait 30 seconds. You’ll be fine.”

“Also, Omotesandou-san is kind of heav-”

“I will find a wheelchair somewhere now that we are in gravity’s grasp once more, but any careless comments out of you, Karuta-kun, and I will never forgive you.”

“Mhh.”

“Don’t you get upset too, Aine!! I haven’t caused you any trouble, so can you please act like it!?”

The ugly, oppressive atmosphere from a moment earlier was nowhere to be found.

The Four Living Gods’ presence seemed to give new color to the world.

“Sen…pai?”

She was afraid the slightest move would cause this to break apart.

But she couldn’t just let it pass her by either.

That would be no different from before.

She needed to touch him, push him, hit him, and confirm his presence.

Otherwise she couldn’t believe his warmth was really there.

She could not lean on him without placing a burden on him.

Tears fell from her eyes.

“Karuta-senpai!!!”

The boy slumped atop the squashed Threat looked her way and smiled.

Just like always.

Utagai Karuta had been like this from the very beginning. His stance hadn’t changed since he first fought Natalena aboard Second Grimnoah.

Don’t kill her.

He had stayed true all this time to the thing he had shouted when they first met.

“Ahh.”

“A lot has happened, but don’t you worry. This will all be over once we defeat the Threat. That hasn’t changed.”

“Wahhhh!! Ahhhhhhhhhhh!! AHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!?”

How?

Not only were they spreading across the entire planet, but it wasn’t clear they could even defeat the Threats in this area.

Could she accept him ignoring those basic facts because he was the world’s strongest? She knew the limits of Crystal Magic, but even she felt like she could rely on him unconditionally.

His words carried that much weight.

Meanwhile, he looked up into the sky and said something more.

Even checking that his broken leg had recovered was secondary to him.

“More importantly, don’t let your guard down, Natalena.”

“?”

“We’ve come to help, but that isn’t the end of it. We’re the world’s strongest Crystal Magicians, so we need to keep fighting until the end!!”

The giant spider crab roared.

Aine’s colder-than-ice sword gave a flash to silence it before it could do anything and the laser attack from a blue-ringed octopus in the distance missed its mark.

Powerful but invisible infrared shined from a modified military flashlight and dazzled the blue-ringed octopus’s vision before it could fire.

Natalena heard a cracking sound.

Aine had stabbed her sword into a water bear’s thick metal armor, peeled it away, and stuck her skinny arm within. She pulled out a giant coiled something. It may have been some kind of linear cannon that magnetically launched shells because she rested it on her shoulder even though it was thicker around than her own torso.

The explosive blast became an invisible wall.

And with the roar of firing, the distant blue-ringed octopus was blown away by a metal shell.

More than that, a horizontal line was torn into the float’s ground between them.

Almost like it was creating an embankment to keep the Threat swarm away.

“Karuta!!”

The Crystal Blossom at his chest vibrated.

He was receiving a Crystal Blossom transmission from Amaashi Marika, also of the Four Living Gods.

“I’m flying above you right now. There are so many Threats they’re blotting out everything else, but what are our priority targets!?”

Karuta looked around, searching for something out of place within the black swarm. The pitch black wave looked like overwhelming numbers pushing in without fear, but keeping your cool and observing them calmly showed the group frequently contacting some specific units.

It helped having some advance information on this.

(Transline is a central figure to them because her job is to transmit power to them as a pipeline. That means they highly value energy and nourishment. They aren’t equipped with perpetual motion machines.)

“Marika, look 3000m to one o’clock from me!! The sea anemone ones serve a supply role where they exchange energy. If you see any more like that from the sky, blast them all with your laser beams!!!”

Several beams shot straight down from the sky. Marika was soaring through the sky faster than Mach 3 and shot the specified unit when she passed above it.

Destruction blossomed 3000m away.

Nevertheless, Karuta felt something hot on his right cheek. The blast must have thrown a sharp Threat shard all the way here.

And this did not end with the destruction of just the one Threat.

As soon as the sea anemone one exploded with a giant flash of light, the swarm around it began to convulse. Aine used her lasers to snipe the giant spider crab and water bear ones when their movements slowed. Some of the convulsing ones stopped moving altogether.

“Ksh!! Destruction confirmed. Ksshh -ooks like you were right! Ksshh!!”

Powerful noise ran through the Crystal Blossom transmission that was supposed to be immune to jamming or interception.

They had already experienced this when fighting the real Threat near the Port of Kobe. After defeating the Armored Warrior, who contained a massive amount of energy, something invisible had been radiated in every direction. That had shorted out the Threats spread out across the ocean nearby and rendered them inoperative like a powerful microwave or EMP attack.

Transline was the same.

Except she seemed to accidentally let it out when she laughed.

In other words…

“We don’t have to fight them all?” said Natalena Blast in a daze.

This was real hope.

With 1000 against 300 million, everyone could tell there was no chance of winning, but this changed all that. The mere presence of the Four Living Gods changed the world around them.

“So if we concentrate our attacks on the units that supply energy and that triggers a chain reaction from supply unit to supply unit, we can eliminate an entire Threat swarm with invisibly-linked destruction, Senpai!?”

Who knows where she found it, but the student council’s bob cut girl brought over a wheelchair.

“You go to so much trouble for me.”

“It is no trouble.”

“You can criticize me, you know?”

“That is not my job.”

Once she was elegantly seated once more, the president asked the girl a question in her usual calm fashion.

“If we send out every member of Second Grimnoah, we will not get a second chance. If we want a chance to recover after a failure, we need to have unnecessary personnel fall back and set up a rotation of fighters. Can you do that?”

“Of course.”

The president brushed the hair from her shoulder and cut right to the chase.

“We need to assume any plan that looks safe has a landmine just waiting for us to step on it. Remember, there are 300 million of them. We cannot win if this stretches out into a long-term battle.”

Those four’s presence had changed the world.

Everything literally looked brighter and more colorful and the previous weight was nowhere to be found.

Second Grimnoah really had been built for them.

Letnahe could not use a Crystal Blossom, so she called them on the phone.

“I have picked up a new reading on sonar. A new Threat group is headed your way. This group is probably distinct from the island and peninsula groups we have already seen. I have reports of a major Threat migration from the coast guard in northern Australia!!”

They already had their hands full. If another Threat army joined in, they wouldn’t just be forced onto the defensive – they would collapse altogether.

But Natalena Blast saw a thin smile on Karuta’s face as that merciless report came in.

Like a war god.

Like a fighter god.

It wasn’t even about the divine name sealed in the Crystal Blossom’s small printed circuit. He may not have felt the need to rely on that anymore.

“Glad to hear it.”

A pointy crystal broke off of his cheek.

Fresh skin appeared below and his smile grew much more aggressive.

“Second Grimnoah only has 1000 Crystal Magicians, but the Threat is sending 300 million down across the entire planet. You seem to think that means we can’t fight this war, but that’s where you’re wrong.”

“Um, Senpai?”

“If one area shows significant success against the Threat, the surrounding Threats have to head there as reinforcements. Which means fewer Threats in the areas we can’t reach.”

“Oh,” gasped Natalena.

He viewed the world differently.

He wasn’t just fighting the enemy in front of him. He wasn’t wasting the small fighting force they had left because he couldn’t bear to sit idly by and watch people be killed. Nor was he trapped by a self-destructive desire to accept death as long as he got a good fight in first.

He was looking at the entire world.

He was looking to the ordinary people who weren’t strongest, weren’t special, and couldn’t fight.

“We just have to avoid losing and remain the world’s strongest! That’s all it takes!! The ripple spreading from this one drop can go on to save the entire planet!!!”

Some might say it wasn’t possible.

Just like the Threat highly valued energy and nourishment, Karuta’s group could only keep fighting for so long. They might be fine now, but if the battle stretched on, the exhaustion would get the better of them and they would fail to push back the 300 million Threats.

“Not necessarily.”

“?”

“The more densely packed the Threat, the easier it is to start a chain reaction. And if we want to defeat all 300 million at once, we just have to focus on the unit managing all of their energy and nourishment. The more we do that, the wider and deeper the damage from that invisible radiation. I’ve already given the answer, Natalena.”

The boy looked up into the blue sky and gave a shout.

“Get down here, Transline! You’re the strongest Threat, so if we defeat you, this all ends!!!”

Part 4

Transline didn’t even need to descend to the surface.

She had easily torn through the kilometers-long space station at the top of the space elevator. The only habitable area was now a pile of debris floating in space, but that didn’t matter to her.

“Hee hee.”

She was laughing the same as always while staring down at the blue planet.

That was enough for invisible energy to leak out of her, which made a nearby Threat spark and cease to function.

There was no air here, so her voice did not reach anyone beyond herself.

“I asked you to let me join the fun, world’s strongests. You didn’t think a mere 36 thousand kilometers was enough to invalidate our promise, did you?”

She reached out her lithe hand.

She was the core of the entire system. She was not designed for direct combat, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t fight.

Her role was to transmit power. So how could she convert that energy into a deadly force?

Crystal Magic was not the only strongest power.

She had one too.

(I could use a laser beam, a linear gun, or a high-frequency guillotine missile. Using a microwave cannon to cook them like they are inside a giant microwave oven could be fun.)

“Well, when you want to know your opponent’s abilities, it is always best to go with the standard choice that comes to mind first.”

Destroying the world was no more than an ordinary benchmark test to her. That was in fact why she had sent all the previous Threats to Earth.

The vacuum tubes across her body filled with heat and glowed with a pale light.

A green glowing orb swirled past her outstretched palm.

A Threat incapacitated earlier (that was shaped like a whip spider, which are so creepy you probably shouldn’t search for an image of them) had its armor glow red from heat before the entire unit began to melt like a piece of hard candy in a flame.

“If something this basic annihilates them, then that’s all they were worth. I can search out another world’s strongest afterwards.”’

Countless vacuum tubes grew from her elbows, knees, back, and head as her smile deepened.

“Hee hee. Ah ha ha!! So prove your worth, Four Living Gods!!!”

Green destruction pierced straight down from heaven to earth.

The attack was designed to reach the planet’s core. If the Original Crystal Embryo had chosen to interfere with her hobby and way of life, she would have eliminated it with this.

It shouldn’t have been possible to dodge.

And their barriers were meaningless against a direct hit from this. The attack would pierce right through the target, the crust, the magma below, and finally reach the center of the planet.

And yet…

“…”

Her smile vanished.

Transline froze in place with arm still outstretched.

Something wasn’t right.

“What is this?”

Part 5

It was true Utagai Karuta could not have defeated Transline.

She could supply enough energy to power a total of 300 million Threats, so her power was immense. No human technique could ever hope to defend against that. Even a combination of all the barriers belonging to every last one of Second Grimnoah’s Crystal Magicians would have been pierced through to slice Utagai Karuta apart.

Fighting the normal way would never work.

But he was the world’s strongest. It was wrong to assume he would only fight the normal way.

“Sacri-sama.”

“I…know!”

There had been hints of this already.

Before atmospheric reentry, Crystal Girl Aine had stolen Threat parts to steal their abilities. She had concluded her barrier wasn’t enough and improvised.

She had done it again once on the surface. She had stolen a water bear’s weapon and used the linear cannon to blast a blue-ringed octopus from a distance.

Aine could steal Threat parts and make them her own. She could expand her own functionality.

But was that all she could do?

What if no such restriction existed?

What if she could steal powers and abilities that didn’t come from the Threat?

Then couldn’t she do this too?

“Omotesandou-san!!”

“Yes, leave it to me. I have the knowledge and techniques of a Regulation 3!!”

Student Council President Omotesandou Kyouka was the only Main Category Regulation 3 still alive. But for some reason, she had lost her ability to use that power after the fall of the first ship.

But that was fine.

Karuta too was a student of the Crystal Magic school.

The older girl smiled thinly.

“We’re both Second Grimnoah Crystal Magicians. I was simply further along in the process, but knowing your skill, I know you would have reached Regulation 3 eventually, Karuta-kun. So what if that happens a little sooner than intended?”

If something could absorb Kyouka’s knowledge and techniques and link them with Karuta’s healthy body, they could reproduce the godlike abilities of a Regulation 3.

They just needed a host to bring together the Four Living Gods.

They just needed to link themselves through Crystal Girl Aine.

“Kh!!”

Karuta felt a hot pain at his chest.

It came from his Crystal Blossom.

He wouldn’t necessarily fully understand just because someone who understood it gave him a quick explanation. To make matters worse, his Crystal Blossom’s original setup had been full of errors. For example, he couldn’t activate any crystal armor and he was forced to share the presets of flight, barrier, and regeneration with Aine. If the way he used his power or the route and strength of that power were well off of average, then what Kyouka taught him might not work.

He grimaced, but another girl stepped up alongside him.

“Don’t worry.”

It was his curly twintails childhood friend – Amaashi Marika.

She lent him the powerful directionality that could send chaotically raging power along a single path.

That was her very nature due to her singlemindedness that could seem downright violent at times.

“I’m the standard version of the strongest, don’t you think? I can help boost your strength, so don’t worry about a thing.”

The pain in his chest vanished.

The power stabilized.

Karuta and Aine stood side by side and shared the same sword like a newlywed couple facing their wedding cake.

They held the sword up toward the heavens.

“Sacri-sama.”

“Right.”

Of course, Aine’s katana was not meant to be used primarily as a laser sniper rifle. The close-range sword was the main weapon and jitte-like branch was only a support device.

They couldn’t expect to hit a target 36 thousand kilometers away in geosynchronous orbit.

But that didn’t matter.

“This is…our…”

Karuta and Aine activated magic so powerful it threatened to shatter the crystal sword from the inside.

It took the reverse route of the blast Transline had launched earlier.

They were the Four Living Gods, so the four of them joined their voices as one.

“…world’s strongesttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt!!!”

Let’s review some definitions.

Regulation 1 could glide over the ground or sea, Regulation 2 could fly high in the sky, and Regulation 3 had the power to manipulate dimensions themselves.

So with the power of a Regulation 3, they could slice through the dimensions to cut down any Threat!!

Part 6

Something flashed from the blue planet.

The battle was probably over from the moment Transline saw it.

“Ha ha.”

As usual, there was a smile on her face at that moment.

She heard a sparking sound.

She looked down to see a hole larger than a fist in the center of her chest. In the vacuum of space, she wouldn’t hadn’t heard a thing even if it happened a centimeter away. The only sounds she could hear were the vibrations traveling through her own body.

That meant the sparking had come from her.

The barrier in between and her own armor hadn’t mattered in the slightest. A Regulation 3 was someone who had mastered Crystal Magic and they could tear through anything, along with the dimension it resided in, and toss it out into an unknown dimension.

“I was right after all.”

She was tearing apart.

The hole in her chest was widening.

The vastness of her power meant it didn’t take long for her to break apart once something got that ball rolling. Not even she could stop it.

“Hee hee. No matter how much you celebrate your own prosperity, there is a limit a single species can never pass. Just like a natural crystal is surprisingly fragile to external impacts!! Ah ha ha! In that sense, I was right! I wasn’t wrong!! It was the combination of the carbon-based humans and the silicon-based…whatever that was. They had to intentionally accept that impurity into their group to achieve this flexibility as a lifeform! In moderation, even a burden or impact can trigger growth. You can’t just focus on perfect cleanliness in your precise factory!! Hee hee hee, gya ha!! This is the form the future must take!!!”

That was as far as she got.

The bright light escaping her began an explosive expansion.

Her beautiful feminine silhouette vanished in the light that soon enveloped everything.

Part 7

Something fell from the sky.

It was a collection of junk. The dragonfly, ladybug, and other winged Threats that had attempted aerial combat had lost power and started dropping.

That wasn’t all.

All the wriggling movement around Karuta’s group ceased like a switch had been thrown. Had they simply lost power, or had they lost all purpose without anyone left to give them orders?

Young Natalena took a nervous look around. The look on her face said the silence scared her more than all the noise had.

“The Threat…has stopped?”

To learn what had happened over a wider area, the blonde girl diverted a portion of her attention to the Crystal Blossom transmissions and then frowned.

She heard only static.

A massive explosion had occurred outside of the atmosphere. The radiated microwave and EMP energy may indeed have been negatively affecting various forms of communication. It would be surprising if Transline’s defeat didn’t cause some sort of problems.

But this had to be more than that.

Karuta glared overhead.

“So Crystal Blossom communications aren’t working either.”

“Senpai? Um…”

“Natalena, use any other method – flashing lights, semaphore, or whatever else you know – and tell everyone flying up there to land immediately. If they don’t, they’ll fall from the sky once they lose their power. I have my doubts even their regeneration will work.”

Meanwhile, Natalena noticed a further change.

It started as a quiet, cracking sound. Marika was the only other one nearby with crystal armor out and Natalena watched as her rapier device blurred, shattered, and disappeared into thin air. But that wasn’t all. The crystal armor itself slowly peeled away from her body and vanished.

The same happened to Natalena. This had never happened before. Not even the broken shards remained.

Something unusual was underway, so she widened her eyes.

“W-wait a minute. What’s happening here!?”

“Crystal Magic comes from the conflict between the power pouring down from space and the power of the Original Crystal Embryo. So what happens when one of those powers goes away?”

Natalena Blast could not answer.

Because she saw the answer before she could give it.

Crystal Girl Aine.

Yes, that was right.

Amaashi Marika’s rapier device, all the students’ crystal armor, and everything else that came from Crystal Magic had disappeared. It didn’t just leave their skin and it didn’t just shatter. They couldn’t use their flight or even communicate with their Crystal Blossoms.

So what would happen to Aine?

No one could answer that.

Natalena Blast had been shouting in alarm before, but now her breath caught in her throat. Saying the words felt like they would turn her suspicions into a horrific truth. Maybe everyone here was imagining it all? They had never seen this phenomenon before, but she still gasped at the conclusion she reached without real proof.

And finally…

It was of course Utagai Karuta who spoke.

“Aine.”

“Yes, Sacri-sama?”

“Let’s go for a walk.”

There was no response.

But that was just coincidence. Aine was still there.

For now.

But for how long?

The cracking sound coming from within the crystal girl was quiet, but it was not stopping. Something was happening inside her. Fear weighed on Karuta’s chest with definite color, shape, and weight. There was no turning back time. Marika, Kyouka, Natalena, Deiri, Hirosuke, Imi, Tayori, and everyone else didn’t stop the two of them.

They had saved the world, but it ended here.

There was nothing beyond this point.

Part 8

Utagai Karuta and Crystal Girl Aine walked side by side.

Anywhere would have worked, so they slowly walked toward the nearby concrete embankment running alongside the ocean.

They said nothing.

That may have been normal for Aine. She generally never said a word unless he spoke to her first.

She stuck to that even now.

Her outlines wavered and blurred as a cracking sound came form her. Someone whose existence relied on Crystal Magic was vanishing as she broke apart from the inside.

“Aine,” called Karuta.

“Yes, Sacri-sama?”

She could still respond. Just like always. That should have made him happy, but he couldn’t help but see it as a final resistance on her part.

“Sorry about all this,” he continued.

“You have done nothing requiring an apology.”

The embankment was not a road.

It would end eventually. It didn’t lead anywhere, so they would eventually reach a dead end. From there, they would only find the sea, which felt like a symbol of death.

There was nowhere to go.

They couldn’t get around this one.

Utagai Karuta bit his lip. He was trembling. Aine’s outlines began to fade, but she tilted her head like she always did.

“Ahhh.”

He couldn’t take it anymore.

Maybe it helped that no one else could see him. All the emotion rushed into his chest at once.

Why did everyone call him the world’s strongest?

He was entirely powerless here.

“Ahhhhhhhhh!! Gahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”

He clung to her.

He fell to his knees and clung to her flat chest to confirm she hadn’t shattered into nothingness.

But the most desolate sound he had ever heard had not stopped.

“No. How is this fair!?”

“Sacri-sama.”

“We fought the 300 million Threats and defeated Transline even after she offered us a path to an unacceptable peace!! We worked so hard to keep everyone alive, so…so why does it have to end like this!? Why does eliminating the Threat have to take you from us!? The world won’t let us have anything, will it!!?”

The Problem Solvers had trampled everyone in their path as the lonely elites at the top.

Riho, Sanae, and Alice had burned with rage when someone they cared deeply about was taken from them.

The Armored Warrior had its dreams and ideals about humanity shattered.

Even the human string pullers had stooped to such depths because there was something they wanted to protect.

But.

But.

Who said Utagai Karuta’s pain and anger were in any way inferior to theirs?

“Sacri-sama.”

The crystal girl called to him just as briefly but more strongly than before.

“Crystal Magic is a half-baked phenomenon created from the conflict between the energy pouring down from space and the energy of the Original Crystal Embryo. It is like the sparks produced when two electrodes collide. You knew that from the beginning.”

“…”

She was the partner who had stayed by his side this whole time, accepted his weaknesses, and never gave up on him.

Why couldn’t he save her?

Why couldn’t he think up some way?

“I knew this was coming because the Original Crystal Embryo at the center is also supported by magic. But I could not abandon the 5.5 billion remaining on Earth. Wasn’t that our choice as the Four Living Gods? So I fought until the very end. I thought you felt the same.”

Yes, he had.

He had thrown out the fantasy of seeking happiness for just the four of them!!

And he had held some fundamental doubts about their Crystal Magic from the moment they decided to settle things with the Threat!! But still!!

“I thought a miracle would happen.”

“A miracle?”

“No, I had no reason to think one would. No, I didn’t have anything prepared. But. But you worked so hard. There are 5.5 billion people alive now because of your power! So can’t the universe throw us a bone just this once!?”

“All of our battles should have taught you that hoping that things will turn out all right ‘just because’ never solves anything.”

Miracles did not happen.

For better or for worse, if you wanted to win, you needed to find a path to victory yourself.

Nothing remained to support Crystal Girl Aine.

She had been summoned as an error when the Crystal Blossom was activated before a god’s name was sealed inside. Utagai Karuta knew more about her than anyone, but not even he could find a way to support her here.

“Is there anything I can do?”

He raised his mess of a face.

She was as expressionless as ever even as cracking sounds continued to come from her. She remained faithful even now.

He wanted to pull something out of her. Maybe he could only extract her mind, but he wanted to permanently preserve it somewhere.

So.

“No one can deny that you saved this world. 5.5 billion people owe you their lives. So you can ask anything and I mean anything. Is there anything at all I can do for you?”

“Then I do have one meaningless and selfish request before I leave.”

She placed her small hands on his shoulders and whispered something in his ear. He looked surprised at first, but he finally nodded.

He shut his eyes.

She stood up on her toes and stretched upwards just enough to cover the space between their lips.

That was all.

He felt nothing on his lips as her outlines fully vanished from the world.

The Crystal Blossom at his chest shattered and the wind carried it away.

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