Shirou and the Demon Goddess / Going Fishing for That Woman...

Why try to restore the shattered ground? Why try to bring the dead back to life? After all, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions—natural disasters and man-made calamities—all result in death. This is anything but ordinary!

What a meddlesome god! Completely unnecessary! They're just like those demons.

That's why Kamisato Shiro Shōryū despises Shirou's ideals, thinking he's completely abnormal and just like those self-righteous demons. He doesn't need a world where all of humanity is happy; he just wants to be an ordinary person.

So when Shirou appeared before him, Kamisato Shiro unhesitatingly used the Ideal Banishment to exile Shirou.

"Hey! How can Shirou come back?" Mikoto Misaka couldn't help but ask.

"If you don't have a single, unwavering belief, you can't come back! This world doesn't need that kind of god." Kamisato Shiro chuckled lightly. He only respected those who possessed truly steadfast beliefs. As for the life or death of gods who hadn't even made the right preparations, he didn't care at all.

In the dimly lit space, Shirou landed on the ground, his feet firmly planted on the earth. This new world, unexplored before, was surprisingly not deserted.

Shirou walked forward and soon saw a large gatehouse with red walls and vermilion tiles, tall red pillars. Walking through the gatehouse, there was a long corridor with red lanterns hanging all around and various antique decorations, such as the nine sons of the dragon, the unicorn, and the phoenix. It was just like an ancient Chinese palace.

Colorful kites can be seen flying in the courtyard, but there aren't many people around.

"Excuse me, is anyone home?"

Shirou could sense that these creations were not originally in this world, but were created not long ago.

"There's no one here, only Your Majesty."

Suddenly, a figure jumped out from behind Shirou.

Shirou turned around and saw a petite, black-haired girl with long, thin braids hanging down in front, tied with one white and one black magatama. She wore a short white cheongsam with long, gold-trimmed sleeves that concealed her hands, but the hem was only the length of a miniskirt, split in the front and back. The chest was also slit in a heart shape, half-concealing a pair of purplish-pink pigeons, and the back was decorated with a golden yin-yang symbol.

Although the girl was a beautiful woman with a pretty face, her whole body was a bloodless purplish-pink color. She had an innocent and bright smile on her lips and curiously moved her face closer to Shirou.

She appears to be a zombie girl, wearing a hat that looks somewhat like Mongolia style, with a talisman pasted on her forehead. However, her temperament is not gloomy; instead, she has a faint air of otherworldly grace, seemingly leaning more towards the category of a zombie-dissolving immortal.

"Hey, are you the new guy who was sent to New World?" the girl asked with a smile.

Shirou looked at the creature that resembled a zombie girl and realized her identity: a demon god. In the world of True Magic Index, she was an existence that transcended the limits of humanity in the realm of True Magic and reached the realm of gods.

"Wait, you call this place New World?"

"Hmm! This is the sacred place that I offered to the 'Empress'. This place is magical; no matter how it's damaged, it will always return to its original state!" the girl replied with a smile, casually flicking her sleeve to the side.

"Look! Baby comes out! It grows long! It grows big! And then!"

A large, red-handled, golden-ended staff emerged from the girl's fingertips, instantly growing larger and longer into a colossal pillar. She lifted it with her slender arms, then leaped up and slammed it heavily into the ground towards Shirou.

Bang!!!

Chapter 1128 Shirou and the Demon Goddess

Shirou stared blankly at the girl leaping high into the air for a moment, then used Instant Transmission at the last second to dodge her club. Because she had no intention of killing him, he might have actually been hit if he hadn't been warned beforehand.

Meanwhile, the ground behind Shirou was smashed in two, creating a crater a hundred meters deep, stretching for miles, a cataclysmic event! The flat ground outside the palace turned into a basin, and the flying debris formed mountains in two other places.

However, after the girl put the precious stick away, the cracked area began to heal in a short time, and then it returned to its original appearance.

"Hahaha!!! How about that! Everything's back to normal~! In a place like this, we can play around however we want without any problems, isn't that great! I'm already thinking of building a house here as a vacation home." The girl said with a hearty laugh. She had long sensed Shirou's strength and felt no remorse for her reckless behavior.

"Mmm." Shirou turned his head away and answered casually.

"You didn't even look at it!"

"No, I can sense it even without looking," Shirou replied.

If you have to blame someone, blame yourself. Why didn't you wear underwear under your cheongsam? Where would people look?

"Hmm, is that so? Well then, whatever. So what are you planning to do here?" The Empress was very easygoing and didn't delve into the matter, simply putting the question out of her mind and walking outside.

"I need to go back to my original world; I have important things to do."

"No, we can't go back. Her Majesty is a demon goddess, and she has tried every possible method, but there's still no way. However, this place is quite nice, so everyone is quite satisfied. It truly is an ideal place."

"This is still a problem," Shirou, rubbing his face with a headache.

Demons are beings who, through the realm of True Magic, transcend human limits and become beings with the same power as gods. They can be said to be extremely similar to Creator God like Shirou, capable of changing the rules of the world with a single thought, even altering the laws of physics.

However, compared to Shirou, the demons possess power but are not stable. They can control all laws, reverse the expanding universe, make 1+1 equal to 3, make a meter stretch or shrink, and make a gram increase or decrease in weight, and so on.

Imagine if the rain fell like candy and cookies, and the tap water came out like cola—what would the world be like? Don't underestimate the capriciousness of the demons; more importantly, while they can easily change things, they can't properly restore them.

When we act recklessly, we do things on a whim, but if we ask them to restore them to their original state, they might have forgotten what they were originally like because they were having too much fun, or they might have overlooked some kind of deviation in the details. Even a small change can have a huge impact on the world.

The Demon God possesses such immense influence that he can freely control life and death, manage all elements in the world, and manipulate time and space at will.

Whether to create or destroy the world is entirely up to them. Destroying the entire world and then recreating it, making unwanted things not exist in the first place, is commonplace for demon gods.

In terms of combat power, demon gods are also transcendent beings, capable of destroying the world with ease. When necessary, they can even erase the sense of friend or foe and the reason for fighting, making it extremely difficult for them to encounter enemies.

In other words, the enemies of a demon god can only be those who are also demon gods, or beings of the same level. There is only one world, and only demon gods who can distort this world and seize its limited resources can become its enemies.

In the world of A Certain True Magic Index, to avoid excessively distorting the world, the demons generally live in a hidden world, a phase different from the original world.

Because its own mass exceeds the capacity of the world, if one wants to enter the world without destroying it, one must pay a price: divide oneself into tens or hundreds of millions of parts in order to enter the real world.

In the A Certain Magical Index storyline, Aleister entered this world because he, the chairman of the board, destroyed the hidden world.

However, this world is quite good, because even if the world is distorted, it will return to its original state once contact is made. The demons are very fond of this kind of world.

After all, beings of their level can create anything, so they no longer have any extraneous desires like conquering the world. What they really want is a world that can accommodate them and allow them to live as they please.

Therefore, they call this place 'New World,' a paradise belonging to the demons. For them, whether they go back or not doesn't really matter, but Shirou can't do that.

On the other side, atop a building near the plaza where refugees were being housed, Kamisato Shiro was walking toward the white portal of light opened by Shirou.

"Wait! What do you want to do?"

"Of course, we should destroy what we don't need! These portals, those passages connecting to other worlds, are all unnecessary!"

Let the world just function naturally and normally. Of course, if anyone tries to disrupt this world, I will take action and deal with them. Don't worry, we are companions in the same world, so we won't be banished through that passage.

You can go back anytime.

"Are you telling me to abandon Shirou and go back alone?" Mikoto Misaka glared angrily at the man and asked. It was true that she hadn't known Shirou for very long, but when Shirou met her, he kindly advised her, took her shopping in Shibuya, helped her find Kuroko, and even bought her Gekota! All of this was out of friendship; she and Shirou were already friends, and she wouldn't abandon her friend.

"Please think carefully. Even if you defeat me, I have no way to bring that Goddess back here. You still have family, friends, and loved ones in your original world, right?"

At this moment, Shokuhou Misaki stepped forward and stopped Mikoto Misaka, saying, "Yes, yes, let's call it a day. I originally came here for sightseeing. It would be terrible to go back without doing anything. So, it's okay if we go back after we've had enough fun, right?"

"Yes, of course, it's so good that you understand me. The passage is right there, you can go back anytime you're done playing. That's how ordinary female students should be." Kamisato Shiro nodded in agreement.

"Thank you, you're such a gentleman. Goodbye then." Shokuhou Misaki with a smile, leading a reluctant Mikoto Misaka downstairs.

Chapter 1129 Going to hook that woman

Shokuhou Misaki pulled Mikoto Misaka along as they walked out of the building.

"Wait! What are you doing?! Shirou has disappeared, and the world hasn't been repaired yet!" Mikoto Misaka asked, pressing down on the blonde girl's shoulder.

"It's too heavy, it hurts!" Shokuhou Misaki slapped Mikoto Misaka's hand that was holding her down, pointing her finger at the girl's nose and saying, "Even if you beat that person, it won't change the outcome. He wasn't lying; his ability only teleports people away, it doesn't have the ability to pull them back."

"So what should we do now?" Mikoto Misaka asked.

"Let's go to the Mountain Stone Kendo Hall that Mr. Shirou mentioned. He should know someone there." Shokuhou Misaki walked to the plaza, found a driver, and asked him to give them a ride.

Knowing that Kamisato Shiro Shōryū would sabotage the passage, Artoria sent Aqua and Emilia back first. Then she contacted Sakura and Bazett, asking them to come over.

At this moment, over at Shincheonji.

"Hey, Shirou, why don't you stay here too? We can be neighbors. We've got nothing to do during the day and night, we can fight together!" the lady said with a smile, inviting Shirou.

She really likes Shirou, or rather, Shirou possesses many qualities that attract girls.

Outwardly, she is humanoid, just like the Empress. There are no strange growths or extraneous things growing in any unusual places. Her body is also very flexible, and her inner self is very pure. At such a young age, she has reached the same level as the Empress, and may even surpass her.

"No, I have to go back." Shirou shook his head, refusing the girl's invitation.

The world has not been fully repaired. Although the cracked earth and destroyed houses have been restored and the people who died in this battle have been resurrected, the memories of everyone have not been erased.

Shirou originally planned to gently make everyone think it was a dream while they were asleep, so that they could continue their lives as before after waking up.

In the current situation, people will follow along with a fear of the unknown, the fear that some Superman and monsters might appear and kill them.

Ordinary people are as fragile as ants in the face of those monsters. Houses that took thirty years of loans to afford can collapse with a single push from them.

People who have experienced such a thing will probably never be able to escape the shadow of that nightmare for the rest of their lives.

Moreover, there are many visitors from other worlds who need to be sent back, and the girls are still waiting for him at home; he hasn't had a proper chance to say goodbye to them yet.

In any case, from any perspective, Shirou has to go back.

The lady stared at Shirou with her big eyes wide open, pouting her little lips.

She is a Corpse-Dissolving Immortal who mastered all the spells of the Daoist system thousands of years ago.

Her shadow can be found in many stories of Chinese mythology, in those magical treasures and elixirs of immortality. Although she appears carefree and innocent, she actually knows more than anyone else.

She understood Shirou's determination, so she didn't waste her breath trying to persuade him further.

"Then you'll have to give up your other ideals. Only those who hold onto a single thought in their hearts—that is, absolute faith—can overcome the Ideal Banishment. The higher one's abilities, the more greedy one becomes, and the more ideas one has. That right hand was originally created as a safety device for us demon gods. I just didn't expect that kid to be so angry. Well, although the result is that we found such a good place," the Queen explained.

Like Imagine Breaker, the Ideal Banishment is also a tool to restrain the Demon God.

Imagine Breaker can nullify the arbitrary alterations made by demons. Ideal Banishment can banish demons from the world.

The Ideal Banishment has no effect on those whose will is so firm that it never wavers. They are either simple-minded fools with no sense of direction, or they are fanatics, madmen, or saints who are extremely fanatical.

"Hmm, absolute conviction, I probably can't do that." Shirou shook his head and gave a self-deprecating laugh.

That level of attainment was once reached only by the White God, but the outcome was not good. In the end, through the sacrifice of the special individual Shirou, he regained his human emotions and chose to dissolve himself.

After all, absolute conviction, to some extent, also means an unwavering stubbornness that won't change its mind no matter what problems it encounters. If one only wants people to be happy without listening to their true thoughts, the happiness one ultimately obtains is probably not genuine.

Meanwhile, at the Mountain Stone Kendo Hall, Sakura and Bazett arrived and discussed with Artoria and the others a plan to rescue Shirou.

"Fortunately, Senior has now obtained the Divine Power of the White God, so his safety is definitely not a problem. However, he hasn't returned yet, so it seems he has truly been banished to a very remote space," Sakura calmly analyzed.

"Yes, we need to find Rin now, right?" Artoria nodded slightly and replied seriously.

"Yes, if it were my older sister, she would definitely have a way." Sakura nodded.

"So what should we do? Tell me the location, and I'll bring her here even if I have to tie her up," Bazett said, clenching his fist.

"No need for all that trouble. Just spread the word that the kendo dojo is recruiting challengers and the prize is 100,000 yen," Sakura said.

"Is that alright, Master? I'll cover the expenses, and I'll also take care of the people who come. Please!" Artoria looked at the Old Man Yamaishi, seeking the host's opinion.

"We're counting on you too!" Sakura and Bazett bowed in return.

"Hmm... I trust your abilities, Ria, but is 100,000 yuan enough?" the Old Man Yamaishi asked, squinting his eyes.

"Yes, that's enough for you, sister," Sakura replied with a sweet smile. For Rin Tohsaka's spendthrift nature, no amount of money was ever too much, since she couldn't keep it anyway. And no amount of money was ever too little, because she was always short of cash.

"Huh? Really? All I have to do is spread this message? Okay, I'll post it online then." Mikoto Misaka asked uncertainly, easily hacking into various forums and pinning the message.

"Okay, thank you for your help, Mikoto- chan. Just let them out, okay?" Sakura nodded.

"I'll also send some people out into the streets to spread the word." Shokuhou Misaki's eyes lit up as she shook the remote control in her hand and said with a smile.

"Yes, thank you, Misaki-chan."

After doing all this, the girls sat quietly in the dojo for less than ten minutes.

With a clatter, a disciple rushed in, shouting:

"Master Artoria! That woman is here! The legendary demon who's challenging the dojo!"

"She actually took the bait!" Mikoto Misaka exclaimed in surprise. How greedy must she be?

Chapter 1130 Rin Tohsaka 'Shirou

Rin, who originally intended to cause a ruckus and make a fortune at the mountain dojo, unexpectedly encountered so many familiar faces.

The others quickly explained to her what had happened.

"Oh, I see." Rin Tohsaka shook her ponytail and nodded knowingly.

"Sister, you can do it, right? Bring the senior back!"

"Well, thanks to him obtaining Divine Power, the power I can use has greatly increased. Although it might take some effort, summoning him back shouldn't be a problem. I already have a plan," Rin Tohsaka said, resting her chin on her hand as she pondered seriously.

"Rin, what are you planning to do?"

"First, let's find a suitable Magecraft workshop and summon him back. At least we can get back a part of his body," Rin Tohsaka said calmly. If it's just a part of his body, not his whole body, even if his ancestral magic fails at a crucial moment, it won't matter, right?

Anyway, Shirou very strong now, and even just one cell would be enough to revive him, so bringing him back to this world wouldn't be too difficult.

"Bazett, go get a live chicken to draw blood. Let's go to Shirou's room and draw the magic circle," Rin Tohsaka said.

"Huh? Are we using a spell circle to summon Servant?" Bazett asked, puzzled.

"Ah, that improved version is enough."