Curtain

Though the boy was smiling, there was no mirth in his eyes. It was hard to imagine seeing something like "dignity" on the face of a soft, adorable twelve-year-old boy. It was probably just a child throwing a tantrum.

"You came here in your true form. Have you decided I'm no threat, Merlin Solomon?"

Michael's expression was calm. Or rather, the fact that Merlin had come here alone was what was truly surprising. The Burial Agency had never cared about fair play; if they could gang up on someone, they would never fight one-on-one.

Most of the time, Merlin appeared as an adult wearing priestly robes, an image formed by his left arm. Only a handful of people knew the boy was his true form, and Michael was one of them.

"You could put it that way."

Merlin nodded without the slightest modesty. As one of the oldest Progenitors of Dead Apostles, a being who had once followed Crimson Moon, he certainly had the confidence to say so.

"I came with goodwill. Surely you can offer me at least a cup of hot tea?"

"There."

Michael irritably tossed him a can of black tea he had bought from a vending machine earlier. "Make do with it. This is all there is."

"Oh? Canned black tea? That really is rare."

Merlin studied the aluminum can of tea in his hand with interest, like a child who had discovered a new toy. He pulled the tab open and took a small sip, showing no suspicion that it had been poisoned.

"This tastes awful. This is not black tea at all."

The picturesque boy's face furrowed. Mana surged through his hand, vaporizing both the tea and its aluminum can.

"Make do with it. This isn't your castle, and I'm not your servant, The Crown."

Merlin said nothing. The two simply sat there in silence, looking in the direction Aozaki Aoko and Alice had left earlier.

"I've read the book you wrote. The theories in it are interesting. You have value. Join the Burial Agency, and you can survive as well."

Merlin broke the silence. Such an important matter sounded as simple in his mouth as deciding what to eat for dinner. Though the Burial Agency was a blade for slaughtering Dead Apostles, it did not reject Dead Apostles joining its ranks. It had truly learned from its enemies in order to defeat them.

"My theories actually received The Crown's approval. I'm truly flattered, but..."

Michael could not help but laugh. "Do you really think I'm no threat?"

Merlin remained silent. Faced with the incomparably mysterious The Fool, he truly did not have absolute confidence.

"All right, let's take a step back. The fact that The Crown came here alone means you don't want the Burial Agency involved, right? Or perhaps there's something you want from me, something you don't want the Holy Church to know about. But I don't recall possessing anything that valuable."

Michael spoke with ease and leisure. Even with one of the oldest Dead Apostles before him, he did not seem affected in the slightest.

"I need that potion. You know which one I mean."

Merlin replied, his voice soft yet carrying an air that brooked no refusal. "The alchemical potion that can suppress the urge to drink blood."

The smile on Michael's face froze, though it quickly returned to normal. His expression remained unchanged, but a raging storm had arisen in his heart.

While absorbing mana, the starlight within his body also fed him fragments of knowledge. The potion capable of suppressing the urge to drink blood had been created by combining that knowledge with alchemy. It could greatly suppress a Dead Apostle's bloodlust.

He had only used this potion on a few test subjects and had never made it public. How did Merlin know about it? Could someone within the organization have betrayed him?

In an instant, countless thoughts flashed through Michael's mind, and the smile vanished from his face. Other potions would have been negotiable, but he absolutely could not hand over a potion that suppressed bloodlust to Merlin.

After all, one of the potion's crucial ingredients was his own blood. Michael had no desire to be captured by those ancient Dead Apostles and turned into a "blood slave" for producing blood.

Merlin said nothing more. For the princess within Thousand Year Castle, he was determined to obtain the potion that suppressed bloodlust. As the fifth member of the Burial Agency and the twentieth of the Dead Apostle Twenty-Seven Ancestors, he might look like a soft, adorable little boy, but he possessed pride uniquely his own.

If he had not developed some interest in the theories proposed in Michael's book, he probably would not have wasted so many words on someone who did not even possess the strength of an Ancestor. He would have already taken it by force. What did mystery matter? Without sufficient strength, everything was empty.

Michael did not doubt Merlin's determination in the slightest, but he had never been one to wait helplessly for death. So what if his opponent was an ancient Progenitor of Dead Apostles?

"My apologies, but I've never heard of such a potion."

Michael spread his hands, replying with apparent sincerity.

"So you refuse."

Merlin spoke each word slowly. Invisible mana surged from his body, filling every corner of the space.

"What a pity."

The wind suddenly began to move. It was a powerful airflow created by the flow of mana, nearly making it impossible to breathe. An ancient Progenitor of Dead Apostles who had lived for thousands of years was not something a young Dead Apostle like Michael could compare to.

Snap—

Michael snapped his fingers, but the passage to the Sea of Imaginary Numbers did not open as he had expected.

"Did you think I would come unprepared?"

Merlin raised his middle finger. A new ring rested upon it. This Mage's Garment disrupted the stability of the passage between the Sea of Imaginary Numbers and the real world. If Michael tried to force his way into the Sea of Imaginary Numbers, the turbulent currents would likely grind him into a lump of meat paste.

"So you really did decide I'm no threat."

Michael looked up toward the ceiling. He knew that high in the sky, Merlin's right foot—the demon known as the King of the Sky—was circling there, ready to unleash its most powerful strike at any moment.

It was a godlike fantasy, a miracle belonging to someone not of this era. It was far stronger than the Golden Wolf Beowulf and could even contend with Ancestor-class Dead Apostles.

As a former child of God, Merlin had permanently lost his limbs while still human, but he himself possessed high-level spirit invocation techniques. He had means similar to materializing fantasies: imitations created with human wishes as their blueprint and colored by Merlin's own longing.

Among the many demons he had summoned, four replaced the four limbs he had lost. Every one of those four demons possessed the highest order of mystery, each with power capable of rivaling the Dead Apostle Twenty-Seven Ancestors.

And Merlin was also an ancient Dead Apostle who had once followed Crimson Moon. Even some Heroic Spirits summoned in the Holy Grail War would probably not be his match.

This really is troublesome...

Facing such overwhelming power, Michael sighed deeply within his heart. He forced open the Imaginary Pocket and took out the Tear of the Goddess.

That simple action alone left Michael's arm a mangled, bloody mess. Cracks crisscrossed the arm bone, which was as hard as alloy, making it seem as though it could snap at any moment.

"Exponentia Forum (Spell Countermeasure)."

He chanted the brief incantation. The Tear of the Goddess in his hand burst forth with blinding light, resembling an azure sun.

The light grew increasingly dazzling. At its peak, the sun shattered—and with it shattered the ring on Merlin's hand, the ring capable of disrupting the connection between the Sea of Imaginary Numbers and the real world.

"This is... magecraft?"

Merlin frowned slightly, rubbing the finger that had lost its ring. He could not understand how Michael had destroyed it.

"It's not such a shallow technique."

With the ring's interference gone, Michael's lips curved upward slightly. Vast mana gathered in his palm, mana particles converging into the shape of a ribbon and scattering specks of light.

"Wait!"

Merlin naturally recognized the magecraft Michael was casting. If it was successfully completed, he would have to search the entire world for Michael's location. Finding this fellow again would not be easy.

Blue light flared brilliantly, illuminating every corner of the room. It flooded everything like a tide, and when it receded, only an empty room remained.

Both Michael and Merlin Solomon had vanished from the room.

"What happened?"

Aozaki Aoko gazed toward the hospital from afar, undisguised worry on her face. Powerful mana had erupted there, only to vanish in an instant, after which the place fell into dead silence.

"It's all right. I believe in Mikaeru-kun."

Alice Kuonji comforted Aozaki Aoko, but from the tight line of her lips, her heart was clearly nowhere near as calm as she appeared.