Origami opened her eyes with the strange sensation of her body being pulled by gravity.
She was falling through the sky over Tengushi City.
Realizing that, Origami twisted her body and landed on the steel beam directly below her, then looked around.
"This is..."
The steel beam Origami landed on stood where a building had been before the time shift.
In other words, it was the skeleton of a building that had not been built yet.
"Five years ago..."
Those words meant Origami had successfully traveled five years into Tengushi City’s past.
"[Metatron]――[Maarak]!"
Origami summoned her angel in advance, preparing for the battle against the angel that had killed her parents. Then she flew through the skies of Tengushi City five years in the past, searching for Nankocho.
"Tengushi City’s Nankocho, five years ago."
The instant Origami, having found Nankocho, blinked, a violent blaze swallowed everything.
Fires broke out all over Nankocho, the spacequake alarm blared, and the whole area turned into chaos in an instant. Calling it hell would not have been an exaggeration.
Looking down at Nankocho, now burning because of Ifrit, Origami spotted one person among the many buildings.
"Shido...?"
The boy who had once been her boyfriend, and was now her enemy.
He was lying on the ground in the middle of the inferno.
Origami had barely begun to question Shido’s condition when she noticed a shape watching over him from above.
A distorted figure, as if noise had crept into the world itself, broken and warped like a bug in a game.
"Found... it?"
If that thing wasn’t a spirit, then what was?
"Found it...! Found it, found it, found it, found it, found it...! Finally! I found it!"
Convinced that that spirit had killed her parents, Origami muttered in a voice that sounded almost mad, then shouted the angel’s name.
"[Metatron]!!!"
Because she had prepared [Maarak] in advance, the moment she called the name, several beams shot toward the spirit in front of her.
As the rain of light pierced the mysterious spirit, the figure rippled, then returned to its original form.
Soon after, the spirit noticed Origami’s presence, arrived in front of her, and asked in a puzzled voice.
【Huh? You suddenly attacked me, so I wondered who it was, but. Are you a spirit? And that angel is... [Metatron]? What on earth is going on? I still have this [Sephira]... Hey, who are you? Where did you come from? Why are you attacking me?】
The spirit that had killed her parents asked that in a shameless, playful voice, and Origami’s patience finally reached its limit.
"Haaah!!!"
With a scream that was almost a shriek, Origami fired beams at the mysterious spirit.
The mysterious spirit easily dodged the attack and moved behind Origami.
【Oh? Did you use the power of [Zaphkiel] to reverse time? How surprising. That child lending power to someone else, of all things.】
"[Kadur]!"
When Origami used Kadur, beams shot in from every direction around the mysterious spirit.
Each one had destructive force, but that only mattered if they actually hit.
The mysterious spirit calmly evaded Origami’s beams and backed away.
"I won’t let you get away!"
Origami doggedly chased after the fleeing spirit.
At that, the mysterious spirit let out a sigh and muttered,
【Haa... Looks like my future self must have really earned your hatred.】
Even while dodging, she still had the leisure to talk, which only made Origami angrier. She began unleashing attacks at a faster and faster pace.
And yet, the mysterious spirit still didn’t allow a single hit after the initial ambush.
【Sorry, but I can’t die to you here. I have... a wish I need to fulfill too.】
"A wish...?"
Origami felt a deep surge of rage at the spirit’s words and actions.
After killing her parents as she pleased, she was talking about a wish and saying she had to fulfill it. It was so detestable that anger surged through her.
"You killed my dad...! You killed my mom too, and now you’re talking about a wish? Don’t make me laugh... don’t make me laugh! I said don’t make me laugh!!!"
Perhaps reacting to Origami’s voice, now filled with fury beyond mere anger, the power of her beams began to rise.
Still dodging those beams with ease, the mysterious spirit shouted back as if making a declaration.
"I won’t even give you time to wish for anything! I won’t even give you time to pray! Die having accomplished nothing! Vanish without leaving anything behind! Disappear from this world with nothing but regret in that empty heart of yours!!!"
In response, the mysterious spirit said something that made no sense at all, much like the last time Night had pretended to be Ifrit.
【Your mom and dad? Sorry, but maybe you’ve got the wrong person?】
There was no way.
Aside from Ifrit, the one who had killed her parents was definitely the mysterious spirit in front of her.
That was clearly what her memory of the Nankocho fire told her.
In truth, the mysterious spirit said that because she still hadn’t killed Origami’s parents yet.
But that didn’t matter to Origami.
All that remained in her was the fact that that spirit had killed her parents.
She had come here to exterminate the spirit before it could happen again.
"Haaah!!!"
Feathers of light circled around the spirit and unleashed a tremendous number of beams.
If she moved any more than this, she would clearly be struck by the light, so the mysterious spirit had no choice but to stop moving.
Seizing that opening, Origami maintained the prison made of beams while gathering the feathers of light to prepare another attack.
A fierce radiance formed above the prison of light.
Gathering, compressing, and gathering again, the light condensed to its limit and shot toward the mysterious spirit.
Fiiing-!
KWA-BOOOOM!
The instant the massive beam struck the prison of light, a huge explosion erupted and swept across the skies above Tengushi City.
【That was amazing. I never expected you to handle [Metatron] that well!】
And yet the mysterious spirit had evaded even that strongest blow and was admiring her.
"Huff... huff..."
Having spent most of her stamina on that last strike, Origami glared at the mysterious spirit while gasping for breath.
Even then, the mysterious spirit only spoke her piece as if it were nothing.
【That’s enough to welcome the birth of a powerful spirit.】
"You..."
Origami could not understand the mysterious spirit.
A crazy murderer who killed the enemy trying to kill her, and was happy to see that enemy become strong after killing her parents.
That was how it looked to Origami.
【I’ll graciously accept that strike. All for my wish!】
With that, the spirit stepped back and waved a hand.
【Well then, goodbye! I’ll be taking my leave now.】
"I won’t let you get away!"
This time, Origami aimed for the head and fired, determined to kill the spirit for good.
The attack hit perfectly, but just like when she had first ambushed her, it seemed to do no real damage, and the spirit’s form returned to normal again.
【Since I’ve achieved today’s objective for now.】
The spirit’s body scattered away.
Origami felt anger at the sight for a moment, but then remembered that the mysterious spirit had never once shown any sign of attacking.
That meant her parents’ survival had ended successfully.
"Mom...! Dad...!"
The spacequake alarm had long since ended.
Now, with the expectation that her parents would be alive when she returned to the future, the spacequake alarm suddenly began sounding again.
At that sound, Origami looked down in confusion and saw herself from the past sitting on the ground, stunned, staring up at her, and beside her, traces of the street where something had been swept away.
Seeing that scene, Origami’s breath caught, and she could no longer breathe properly.
Her past self staring up at her, and beside her, the place where her parents should have been had been erased by the attack.
‘An angel...?’
Origami recalled what had happened in the past.
Without a doubt, the spirit that killed her parents had looked similar to an angel.
And Tobiichi Origami’s [Metatron] had an appearance even closer to an angel than Ifrit or the mysterious spirit that had just vanished.
Besides, the mysterious spirit had never actually attacked. That meant the traces below were automatically something she herself had created.
All of that led to one conclusion.
Origami herself had killed her parents.
"Me...? Dad and Mom...?"
Origami shook her head and denied reality.
But her past self forced her to face it.
"I’ll never forgive you... I’ll kill you...!"
Seeing her past self clearly looking at her and speaking, Origami’s breathing became even more unstable.
"I—! I’ll definitely――!!!"
Her past self, vowing revenge against her present self.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa―――!!!!!!!"
The fact that she had killed her own parents with her own hands came to Origami, who had lived her entire life driven by hatred for spirits, as a profound despair.
******
After the call with the commander ended, we asked the people who had come to meet us for permission to rest a little before heading out.
Everyone was probably still exhausted from the fight.
While we were taking that short break, I called the commander on my phone and told her something I had forgotten to mention: that Tobiichi had turned into a spirit.
When she heard that, the commander was shocked and asked what had happened, but I didn’t know anything either, so I just said I had no idea.
While the call was still going on, Itsuka-kun suddenly stared out the window and gaped.
"What the hell is that!?"
"What is it—"
Following Itsuka-kun’s gaze, I looked outside and saw the moon hanging in the night sky beginning to turn black.
Comments (0)
Please log in to leave a comment. Login or Register