I Became a Spirit in Date A Live, but I Refuse to Date

"Shi... Shido..." Tohka and Lingmeng's faces were filled with grief.

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

Tohka turned to 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 sprang 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.

The girl kneeling there was Origami Tobiichi. Origami had never imagined that the bullet meant for the Spirit would strike the person who mattered most to her: Shido Itsuka.

Worst of all, the person who had pulled the trigger was Origami herself!

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

"Tohka... you're not thinking of...!" 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, you'll never be able to turn back!"

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

"Mm... I know. Don't do to others what you wouldn't want done to yourself."

"Then why..."

"But I still can't stand letting her take Shido's life and get away with it!"

Tohka pulled free of Lingmeng's grasp and slowly looked up at the sky.

No. It really was impossible after all—

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

But now Shido was dead. Ah, of course it was impossible. This world still rejected her, and it had chosen the cruelest way to do it.

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

In an instant, the impossible dress wrapped itself around Tohka once more, forming her majestic Astral Dress. The sky creaked and groaned around her.

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

"Mm... I'm sorry, Lingmeng. I don't think I'll ever be able to live in this world again."

Tohka managed a strained smile. Then her face hardened, and she stamped her foot against the ground.

"Sandalphon!"

A throne bearing a massive sword appeared beside Tohka's feet. She drew the blade and took it in hand.

Once more, Tohka stood as a Spirit, clad in the Astral Dress and wielding the Angel known as the ultimate shield and the ultimate spear. As though they, too, raged at Shido's death, they made the world tremble...

Should She Bury Him or Cremate Him on the Spot?

The moment Tohka took up Sandalphon, she soared into the air and flew into the distance at incredible speed.

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

Sword in hand, Tohka reached the elevated platform across from her in less than the blink of an eye.

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

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

Cracks spread across the throne Tohka had summoned with her Angel. It shattered into fragments, which wrapped themselves around the blade.

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

"Get ready to atone for Shido!" Tohka roared, effortlessly swinging the gigantic sword at Origami and the woman.

The blade flared with blinding light, which raced across the ground. An explosion followed an instant later.

"Wha—!"

"—Ngh!"

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

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

Aboard Fraxinus, the crew stared at the huge screen showing Shido's apparently lifeless body, their voices rising in panic.

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

But while the rest of the crew panicked, Kotori, Reine, and Kannazuki showed little reaction.

"I know. Stop making such a racket. What are you, monkeys in heat?" There was no trace of grief or urgency in Kotori's voice as she twirled the stick of her candy.

"It wasn't elegant, but as a knight, I'd say he barely passed. If Tohka had been killed back there, the outcome really would have been disastrous."

The crew stared at Kotori in shock. Their expressions practically screamed, That's your brother! He's dead, and you don't care?

Below her, Reine showed little reaction either, silently monitoring Tohka and gathering data. Beside Kotori, Kannazuki's cheeks flushed, and drool ran from the corner of his mouth.

"Ahh... there's a hole that big in his body, and he's still twitching. Amazing. He must... he must be someone extraordinary, right? But if he dies like this, it'll all have been for nothing."

Kannazuki spoke in a disturbingly perverse tone. Kotori responded with—

"Hah!"

"Gah!"

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

Ignoring the blissful look on Kannazuki's face, she addressed the crew.

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

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

"Ah, so Tohka's lost control? I can't just stand by and watch her kill someone. At this point, I'll have to stop her even if it exposes me as a Spirit!"

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

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

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

Strictly speaking, Shido was the only friend she had in this world. She had never imagined their friendship would end so soon.

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

"Should I find somewhere to bury him? Or cremate him right here?" Lingmeng rubbed her chin, then said,

"I'll cremate him here. Japan's short on land, so burying him would just take up space. I can make an iron box for his ashes."

"Good, that's settled!" Lingmeng was about to conjure a ball of fire and toss it onto Shido when something incredible happened...

Blue flames suddenly sprang up around Shido, burning over the place where the bullet had struck him.

"What the hell?! I haven't even lit the fire yet! You don't have to be that eager to get cremated!"

The sudden flames startled Lingmeng, and she hurried back a few steps. Before long, though, she realized something was wrong.

"Wait... those aren't ordinary flames. That's... 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! Don't tell me he's a Spirit too? No way, right?"

While Lingmeng was still puzzling over it, Shido's body suddenly began to thrash on the ground.

"Hot, hot, hot..." Shido patted out the flames with his hands and woke up.

"..." Lingmeng fell silent.

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

Shido looked down at his abdomen in astonishment. The huge hole that had been there had miraculously closed after the flames passed over it.

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

Noticing Lingmeng standing there with her mouth agape, Shido turned to her.

"...He's come back from the dead! Shido's a walking corpse!?"

Lingmeng shouted. What she had seen defied everything she knew. She had watched a huge hole get blown through Shido's body, only for it to heal a moment later. It was unbelievable!

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

The crew aboard Fraxinus were stunned. Kotori, however, smiled calmly.

"Finally."

"Commander, this is..."

"I told you. Even if Shido dies, he can come right back to life!"

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

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

"Yes! Initiating transport!"

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

"Oh, right. Bring that girl named Qian Lingmeng aboard too."

Kotori spoke up just seconds before Shido was due to be transported back.

The crew didn't know why Kotori wanted that, but they obeyed.

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

The Seal Succeeds

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

"What are you talking about? Of course I'm Shido. Anyway, what happened?"

Shido frowned at the ground around them, torn apart as though a giant sword had hacked it to pieces.

"Right, where's Tohka..."

As Shido spoke, light suddenly surrounded him, and he felt his body begin to lose its weight. Beside him, Lingmeng was experiencing much the same thing.

"This feeling... spatial transport?" Lingmeng murmured. She could easily have broken free if she wanted to, but she decided to let it happen.

"Well, I won't resist. Let's see where it takes me."

As soon as Lingmeng finished speaking, the elevated park vanished, and she found herself inside Fraxinus.

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

Kotori sat in the commander's chair with her legs crossed, looking down at Lingmeng and Shido.

"You know me?" Lingmeng was puzzled to hear Kotori say her name. She had never met the girl before.

"Yeah. Shido told me about you."

"Shido did? Then who are you?"

"Uh... she's my little sister."

Shido scratched his cheek awkwardly as he explained.

"Huh? Didn't you say your sister was dead? She looks alive and well to me."

Lingmeng looked surprised. Shido and Kotori fell silent.

"..." ×2

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

Kotori jumped down from the commander's chair and marched up to Shido.