If she were the one responsible for receiving Aozaki Touko, it would surely save a lot of trouble and allow the Clock Tower research to proceed more smoothly.
The Forty-Third Chapter: The Order Given
Umbrella Corporation.
In an underground secret room.
In the sweltering room, the lights burned fiercely. An iron chain hung from the ceiling, suspending a woman in midair. Blood had soaked her clothes red before finally gathering at her toes and dripping down.
"...Who sent you?"
Across from her, Emiya Kiritsugu sat on a wooden stool with a cigarette between his lips, asking coldly. He looked at the young woman as though she were dead meat, showing no mercy simply because she was an attractive woman.
"I don't know... I was only paid to do a job."
The woman weakly raised her head and rasped, "Emiya Kiritsugu, I know you're a magus like me. Then you should know that I accepted an anonymous assignment."
"You don't plan on telling the truth?"
Emiya Kiritsugu sighed softly, then stood and walked over to the woman. He pulled aside the clothing around her abdomen and gently brushed his hand across it, wiping away the damp bloodstains.
"What, are you interested in my body?"
The female magus smiled seductively yet mockingly. "Sure. Whatever position you want is fine. As long as you let me go, I'll cooperate obediently."
"Don't misunderstand. The bloodstains could put out my cigarette."
Emiya Kiritsugu shook his head, then pressed the lit cigarette against the woman's belly. He slowly increased the pressure and ground it in. Her body instantly tensed, and she suppressed her pain as she let out a low groan.
"You have two choices. One is for me to use every method at my disposal to torture you to death. The other is to sign a contract compensating Boss Touko two hundred million dollars."
"You're insane! If I had two hundred million dollars, why would I come steal documents?"
"It doesn't matter. You can repay it gradually through your work."
"I couldn't repay this even if I died!"
"It doesn't matter... If you die, you won't need to repay it."
"Two hundred million dollars is far too much. At the very least, reduce it to an amount people can accept. This is going to kill my motivation."
"No. Sign it, or die!"
"Who the hell would sign this? Isn't this a slave contract?!"
The female magus shrieked in refusal. She had no intention of becoming a puppet in someone's hand for the rest of her life, to be toyed with until she died.
If that was her only choice, she would rather bite through her tongue and kill herself than suffer such humiliation.
"Are you sure?"
Emiya Kiritsugu shook his head coldly, flicked away his cigarette, then drew a pistol from his waist and aimed it at the female magus, about to pull the trigger.
"Wait! It's not like it's impossible!!!"
Seeing that the man really was about to shoot her, the female magus immediately surrendered. "Isn't it just two hundred million dollars in compensation? Fine, I'll sign the damn thing!"
"Mm~"
Emiya Kiritsugu nodded, then turned toward the door and said, "Release this woman, then bring over the two-hundred-million-dollar contract Boss Aozaki left prepared."
As his voice fell, the suspended iron chain began to descend, lowering the female magus who had been exposed to the fluorescent lights for an entire day and night back to the ground. The sound of shackles being unlocked followed.
"I'm not going to submit obediently!"
The instant the shackles came off, the female magus's gaze turned vicious. She pushed off with her foot and charged at Emiya Kiritsugu, but in the next second, tremendous force suddenly struck her abdomen.
Emiya Kiritsugu kicked her in the stomach. She rolled across the floor several times before slamming heavily into the wall.
"You bastard... You're really strong!"
The female magus curled up in the corner, the intense pain leaving her unable to move. She had originally intended to take the man hostage and use him to coerce Umbrella Corporation into helping her escape.
However, it seemed impossible now.
"...That old trick again. Did you think this was a movie? That you could casually take an enemy executive hostage and then swagger away like the protagonist?"
Emiya Kiritsugu shook his head.
"This is just awful!"
The female magus spat bitterly, her expression twisted. If she had not gone through a fierce battle followed by brutal punishment, she absolutely would not have ended up in such a wretched state.
"Another one who refuses to behave?"
A werewolf walked in and glanced at the woman, whose face was contorted with pain. He sneered disdainfully. "Honestly, these fools who don't know their place keep showing up every few days."
There were quite a few people who came specifically to steal documents, but not one had managed to leave safely. Some had been strong enough to sign a two-hundred-million-dollar compensation contract, while others had been turned into corpses because they were simply not valuable enough.
"Who would've known there'd be a pack of werewolves guarding this place?"
Emiya Kiritsugu gave a bitter laugh, then took the contract from the werewolf and tossed it onto the female magus. His tone suddenly turned cold again.
"Sign it quickly. Then we're going on a mission."
"..."
The female magus stared at the contract floating toward her and said darkly, "Even if I have to sign... you could at least give me a pen."
"Use your blood."
Emiya Kiritsugu replied flatly.
"..."
The female magus was momentarily speechless. Then she dipped a finger into her own blood and wrote her name on the contract.
"Hmm... Aoyama Aohana, is it?"
Emiya Kiritsugu glanced at the name she had written and nodded. Then he calmly said, "Let's go. Accompany me to collect some things. The boss will need them soon."
"Collect what?"
Aoyama Aohana covered her stomach and struggled to stand.
"Hmm... Probably some things related to the Norse runes. Preferably things that can effectively aid the research into them."
Emiya Kiritsugu shrugged and turned to leave the secret room.
"The runes... Hasn't that Foundation of Magecraft already declined?"
Seeing this, Aoyama Aohana furrowed her brow, then clutched her stomach and laboriously followed him.
The Forty-Fourth Chapter: An Unexpectedly Mutual Meeting
Kanbuchi City.
Night shrouded the sky like a curtain. The stars gathered into a river across the heavens. The city was empty and silent, as though every trace of humanity had vanished from it.
And at that moment.
A little girl pushed open her front door alone. Without anyone accompanying her, she braved the wind and snow and walked into the distance.
Only a short trail of tiny footprints remained behind.
It was a very strange sight. In such a cold winter, a little girl had gone out alone.
Had this child mischievously left home?
No. This little girl's identity was far from ordinary. She was the heir to the prestigious Ryougi family. Normally, people should have been assigned to protect her closely.
Yet it seemed as though no one was paying attention to her at all.
Or perhaps, in truth, they simply had no way to see her.
"I'm getting closer and closer. This feeling is really amazing~"
As she strolled along the snow-covered road, the little girl in a kimono looked up into the distance. A gentle smile appeared on her slightly childish face, a smile that seemed to embody the most perfect form of femininity.
As she spoke, she continued down the street, gradually arriving beside a park.
"...Aren't you afraid someone will abduct you?"
On a bench in the park, Aozaki Touko held a cup of warm canned coffee and watched the approaching girl with a smile, as though they had known each other for a long time.
"Mm, weren't you the one who asked me to come out?"
The kimono-clad girl tilted her head in confusion. Her adorable, puzzled expression made people want to pull her into their arms and rub their cheeks against hers and kiss her senseless, venting all the affection overflowing from their hearts.
"Mm, I did want to meet you."
Aozaki Touko smiled as though she understood, then took a can of coffee from her Reality Marble and handed it to the girl opposite her, whose cheeks had been reddened by the cold.
"It's so cold. Have a cup of hot coffee."
As she spoke, magic power flowed between her fingers. The coffee, which had long since gone cold, became warm within the space of a breath.
"Thank you."
The girl smiled gently, accepted the coffee, and sat down on the bench. This was her first meeting with the young woman, and they exchanged fewer than ten sentences.
Yet they were already extremely familiar with each other.
"I was wondering... whether I should sneak into your house."
Aozaki Touko tilted her head and watched the girl take small sips of coffee, smiling faintly. "But I didn't expect you to come out and meet me."
"Hmm... You're underestimating your own importance."
The kimono-clad girl spoke in a gentle voice. "If I had regarded you with suspicion from the beginning, what would you have become in the future?"
"You know my future?"
Aozaki Touko was somewhat surprised.
"Rather than the future... it would be more accurate to call it a deduction."
The kimono-clad girl chuckled and tossed away the empty coffee can. At that instant, the entire world seemed to stop, and then an unbelievable scene unfolded.
The environment around them changed in an instant.
It was as though one strip of film had been cut away and spliced together with another.
The original park vanished completely. Row upon row of black skyscrapers appeared across the world, while several autonomous puppets swept the streets.
It was a bizarre yet technologically advanced world.
"This is the world I deduced you would create in the future~"
A gentle young woman's voice rang out beside her.
Aozaki Touko turned her head and saw that the girl had already become a young woman. Her appearance gradually overlapped with the figure in Touko's memories.
"What kind of world is this?"
She asked with interest.
"...Mm, it's a world of puppets."
The kimono-clad young woman spoke with a sigh. "This is the world after you completed the Third Magic and saved humanity. All humans had their souls materialized, but you soon discovered that materializing their souls still could not save the world."
"So, you turned all human souls into supercomputers. Each supercomputer independently calculated a world, allowing each person to become the protagonist of a world where any wish could be fulfilled."
Her gentle words described something astonishing.
Aozaki Touko listened with a strange expression. Looking at the rows of black skyscrapers, she could not help complaining, "It's hard to imagine that I would ever do something like saving the world. It feels vaguely embarrassing. That sort of thing really isn't like me."
"Mm... Your state of mind changes, after all."
The kimono-clad young woman covered her lips and laughed softly.
"Is that so?"
Aozaki Touko was not moved by those words. She narrowed her eyes slightly as she looked at the black skyscrapers, then shifted her gaze to the puppets in the streets, and finally to the sky.
An invisible yet vast will existed there, supreme as a god. It connected all things together, like an eternal and unchanging Heavenly Principle.
Every law in this world was under the control of that will.
It was the future version of herself calculated by the world, an existence akin to God. Everything in this world lay within her grasp.
Mm... She really would become an existence just like God.
"Mm... It seems I'll really be very important in the future."
Before you continue