Chapter 22

"Sh-Shido..." Tohka and Lingmeng looked stricken with grief.

"Lingmeng... this isn't real, is it? Shido's just asleep... right?"

Tohka looked at Lingmeng, her voice trembling.

Lingmeng only shook her head. "I don't want to believe it either, but it's true. Shido is already..."

"H-How could this happen?" Tohka suddenly seemed to remember something and scrambled to her feet. "Right! Where's the person who attacked us?"

Tohka looked toward the direction the bullet had come from. Sure enough, a girl was kneeling in the distance.

That girl was Origami Tobiichi. Origami had never imagined that the bullet meant for a Spirit would strike the person most precious to her: Shido Itsuka.

And worse, the person who had pulled the trigger was none other than Origami herself!

"So that's the one who killed Shido..." Tohka glared across the distance, her fists clenched tight.

"Tohka... don't tell me you're going to...!" Sensing what Tohka intended, Lingmeng frowned and grabbed her hand.

"No! You can't kill anyone! Tohka, have you forgotten what Shido told you? If you take another life, there'll be no turning back!"

Tohka merely smiled at Lingmeng's rebuke and laid her left hand over Lingmeng's.

"I know... Treat others as you'd want to be treated."

"Then why..."

"Because I still can't forgive that person for taking Shido's life!"

Tohka pulled free of Lingmeng's hand and slowly raised her eyes to the sky.

No. It still won't work—

For a moment, Tohka had believed she might truly be able to live in this world. With Shido and Lingmeng beside her, she could overcome any hardship.

But Shido was dead now. Ah, so it really won't work. This world still rejected her, and it had chosen the cruelest possible way to show it.

"I'm going to avenge Shido! Aaaaaah!" Tohka screamed at the sky. "Divine Raiment, Number Ten!"

The wondrous dress instantly wrapped around Tohka once more, forming her majestic Astral Dress. At that moment, the sky creaked and groaned.

"Tohka... have you really decided to do this?" Lingmeng asked, her expression torn.

"Yes... I'm sorry, Lingmeng. I don't think I can ever live in this world now."

Tohka managed a pained smile. Then her face turned solemn, and she stamped hard on the ground.

"Sandalphon!"

A throne holding a Greatsword appeared beside Tohka's feet. She drew the blade and took it in hand.

In that instant, Tohka the Spirit appeared once more, clad in the Astral Dress and wielding the Angel known as the strongest shield and the strongest spear. As if enraged by Shido's death, she made the world tremble...

Should I Bury Him or Cremate Him on the Spot?

The moment Tohka seized Sandalphon, she shot into the air and flew toward the distance at tremendous speed.

"Aaaaaah... How dare you, how dare you, how dare you..."

Greatsword in hand, Tohka reached the platform across the way in less than a blink.

Before her stood a dumbstruck woman and Origami, kneeling on the ground with vacant eyes.

"It was you... You killed my dearest friend, Shido Itsuka, didn't you?" Recognizing Origami's face, Tohka raised Sandalphon to the sky and roared, "Sandalphon—Last Sword!"

The throne Tohka had summoned alongside her Angel cracked. Then it shattered into fragments that wrapped around the blade.

At last, the Angel became an enormous sword more than ten meters long.

"Prepare to atone for killing Shido!" Tohka roared. She lifted the Greatsword with ease and swung it at Origami and the other woman.

The blade blazed with light, sending a searing slash racing across the ground. An explosion followed the next instant.

"Wh—!"

"Ugh!"

Origami and the woman barely evaded the attack, but both were badly hurt. They cried out in alarm: one effortless swing from Tohka had split the platform beneath them in two.

"Commander, Shido's heartbeat, body temperature, and pulse... they're all continuing to fall! What do we do?!"

Aboard Fraxinus, the crew stared at the big screen, where Shido appeared to have collapsed for good, and panicked.

Shido, their secret weapon, was apparently dead, and Tohka had gone berserk. The situation could hardly have been worse.

But while the rest of the crew panicked, Kotori, Reine, and Kannazuki barely reacted.

"I know. Stop making such a racket. You're not monkeys in heat!" Kotori said, twirling her lollipop stick. Her voice held no grief or urgency.

"It wasn't particularly graceful, but as a knight, he barely passed. If Tohka had been killed just now, the outcome would have been truly disastrous."

The crew stared at Kotori in shock. Their faces seemed to say, That's your brother! How can you be so calm when he's dead?

Below the Command Seat, Reine simply kept monitoring Tohka and gathering data. Beside Kotori, Kannazuki's cheeks flushed, and drool ran from the corner of his mouth.

"Ahh... with a hole that big in his body, he's still twitching. Incredible. He must... he must be someone extraordinary. But if he dies now, all that effort will have been for nothing."

Kannazuki spoke in a distinctly perverted tone. Kotori responded with—

"Hah!"

"Ow!"

Kotori kicked him hard in the shin and rose from her seat.

Ignoring Kannazuki's blissful expression, she addressed the crew.

"All right, get back to work. Shido won't die that easily."

"..." The crew fell silent. Though some doubted her, they returned to their stations.

"Ahh, has Tohka gone berserk? I can't just stand here and watch her kill people. At this rate, I'll have to stop her even if it exposes me as a Spirit!"

Lingmeng stood where she was, watching Tohka fight the AST members in the distance and muttering to herself.

"Well, the AST should hold out a little longer, right? Before I help them, maybe I should lay Shido to rest."

Lingmeng looked down at Shido. Sadness and regret flickered in her eyes.

Strictly speaking, Shido was her only friend in this world. She had never expected their friendship to end so soon.

Now that Shido had kicked the bucket, Lingmeng felt that, as his dearest friend, she ought to take care of his remains.

"Should I find somewhere to bury him? Or cremate him right here?" Lingmeng rubbed her chin, then made up her mind.

"Cremation it is. Land is scarce in Japan, after all. Burying him would just take up space. As for the ashes, I'll make an iron box to keep them in."

"Right, that settles it!" Lingmeng was about to conjure a fireball and toss it onto Shido when something unbelievable happened...

Blue flames suddenly sprang up on Shido's body, burning around the place where he had been shot.

"Holy crap! I haven't even lit the fire yet! Why are you burning already? You can't be that eager to be cremated!"

The sudden blue flames startled Lingmeng, and she hurried back a few steps. Before long, though, she noticed something strange.

"Wait... these aren't ordinary flames. Is this... Spirit Power?!"

Lingmeng's eyes widened in shock. She wasn't imagining it. The flames surrounding Shido were unmistakably made of Spirit Power.

"But why would an ordinary person like Shido have Spirit Power? That makes no sense! Could Shido be a Spirit too? No, surely not?"

While Lingmeng was still muttering in confusion, Shido, who had been lying there like a corpse, suddenly began to thrash.

"Hot, hot, hot..." Shido patted out the flames on his body and woke up.

"..." Lingmeng fell silent.

"Huh? Wasn't I just shot? Why am I completely fine?"

Shido looked down at his abdomen. To his astonishment, the gaping hole that had been there had miraculously healed after the flames washed over it.

"Lingmeng... what happened just now? Wait, where's Tohka?"

Noticing Lingmeng staring at him openmouthed, Shido questioned her.

"...Oh my god! Shido's come back from the dead?!"

Lingmeng shouted. What she had just seen defied everything she knew. She had watched a huge hole open in Shido's body, only for it to heal in the next instant. It was unbelievable!

"C-Commander! What's going on?!"

Everyone aboard Fraxinus looked stunned. Kotori, however, smiled calmly.

"So it's finally here."

"Commander, what is..."

"I told you, didn't I? Even if Shido dies once, he can come right back!"

Kotori licked her lips as she watched the crew's shocked faces.

"All right! Bring Shido back immediately! He's the only one who can stop Tohka now!"

"Yes! Initiating transfer now!"

At Kotori's order, the crew began operating the Realizer used for transport.

"Oh, and bring that girl named Qian Lingmeng along too."

Kotori spoke up suddenly, just tens of seconds before Shido was due to be transported back.

The crew didn't understand why she wanted that, but they obeyed.

"...Understood! Qian Lingmeng has been added to the transfer list!"

The Seal Succeeds

"Shido... you are Shido, right?" Lingmeng asked nervously.

"What are you talking about? Of course I am. More importantly, what happened here?"

Shido frowned at the ground around him, which looked as though a Greatsword had hacked it to pieces.

"Wait, where's Tohka..."

As Shido spoke, light suddenly surrounded him, and he felt his body grow weightless. The same thing was happening to Lingmeng beside him.

"This feeling... spatial transfer?" Lingmeng murmured. She could have broken free of its hold with ease if she wanted to, but she decided to go along with it.

"Well, I won't fight it. Let's see where it takes us."

No sooner had Lingmeng finished speaking than she found herself aboard Fraxinus instead of in the park on the platform.

"Hey, welcome back, Shido. And you too, Miss Qian Lingmeng."

Kotori sat in the Command Seat with her legs crossed, looking down at Lingmeng and Shido.

"You know me?" Lingmeng was puzzled that Kotori knew her name. She had never met the girl before.

"Yeah. Shido told me about you."

"Shido did? Then you're...?"

"Uh... she's my little sister," Shido explained, scratching his cheek awkwardly.

"Huh? Didn't you say your sister was dead? She looks perfectly alive to me!"

Lingmeng looked surprised. Shido and Kotori both fell silent.

"..." Both of them stared at her.

"Shido, you idiot! What on earth have you been telling them?!"

Kotori jumped down from the Command Seat and marched up to Shido.