The spirit, Tokisaki Kurumi, easily dodged the torrent of souls I fired at her.
“My, my~ Attacking a girl out of nowhere? I thought you were a knight, Hii-san~?”
“I don’t count women who kill people as women.”
I reset my stance and prepared to unleash the torrent of souls once more.
“The same attack again~?”
As if. I immediately switched weapons, equipping the estoc, and followed up with a lightning-fast thrust.
Slash!
The sharp blade sliced through the air as it shot forward. Tokisaki blocked the thrust with the gun in her hand.
Clang!
The sound of metal striking metal rang out, and the blade trembled. That vibration traveled straight into my arm, causing my hand to shake. I forced the trembling to stop and threw myself backward.
Bullets flew precisely into the spot where I had just been standing. When I looked at the gun Tokisaki was holding, there wasn’t a single scratch on it.
“What a joke. Is that made out of spirit power too?”
Feeling a surge of absurdity in my chest, I attacked again. I set my stance, lunged forward, and thrust. Tokisaki must have assumed it was the same strike as before, because she casually blocked it with the side of her gun and spoke.
“That won’t work~”
“Will it now!”
With a shhk, my blade pierced Tokisaki’s shoulder. Blood seeped out. Tokisaki’s face stiffened in surprise.
“How...!”
The attack I used wasn’t a normal strike, but a weapon art. I had used the estoc’s special ability, [Thrusting Stab]. The effect of [Thrusting Stab] was simple: it pierced through the opponent’s defense to land the hit regardless. Even if she blocked with her gun, it meant nothing.
Tokisaki grimaced from the pain in her shoulder, kicked me away, and retreated. She tried to fire again, but with her injured shoulder, there was no way she could aim properly. The arm holding the gun trembled faintly.
“Why don’t you just give up? That arm looks unusable already.”
“Don’t decide that on your own!”
She must have used her ability. White hands rose from the ground beneath her feet, supporting her aim and erasing the penalty of her injury.
Hup!
I rolled aside to dodge the gunfire and pulled a greatshield from my inventory, equipping it instantly. The bullets slammed into the shield, never reaching me.
“This is a bulletproof shield, you bastard!!!”
With that, I immediately triggered the weapon art [Shield Bash] and charged her. Thud. Something hit my shield. Naturally assuming it was Tokisaki, I moved the shield aside—only to hear a voice from behind me.
“I still have one shot left.”
“You’re taking this one too, huh.”
With a burst of gunfire, dozens of bullets poured out, and my body collapsed limply to the ground.
“Aaaagh!!!!!”
Then came Itsuka-kun’s scream. He must have seen me get gunned down.
Turning my unmoving head as far as I could, I looked toward Itsuka-kun and saw him trying to run.
“Not so fast~”
White hands rose from beneath Tokisaki’s feet and grabbed his ankles, sending Itsuka-kun sprawling. I wanted to help, but my body hadn’t finished regenerating, leaving me paralyzed.
“Damn it...”
As I cursed inwardly, watching Tokisaki approach Itsuka-kun, her body was suddenly slammed around in midair before crashing violently into a nearby tree.
“Are you all right, big brother!”
“Mana?”
The one responsible for the attack appeared before us. Takamiya Mana had arrived.
“By the way, I don’t know why the [Knight] is here.”
Takamiya-san’s gaze turned to me. I wasn’t sure if she was AST, but perhaps because she hunted spirits, she recognized me.
“After ruining my secret meeting with Shido, now you’re turning your attention to the knight, too~?”
Tokisaki, who had been knocked down, struggled back up. She tried to act relaxed, but her voice sounded strained, likely from the aftereffects of fighting me.
“Shut up, [Nightmare].”
Takamiya-san snapped her fingers, and a pack-like device emerged from her shoulder, firing lasers. Tokisaki dodged them instinctively, but Takamiya-san waved her fingers in the air to manipulate the beams, piercing Tokisaki’s stomach.
“Ghk...”
Tokisaki collapsed, bleeding heavily. Takamiya-san walked toward her, and Itsuka-kun tried to intervene.
“Don’t! You can’t kill her!”
His shout was meaningless. Takamiya-san raised her sword high and brought it down toward Tokisaki’s head. Or rather, she tried to.
“What do you think you’re doing, [Knight]?”
I had blocked the strike. I could hear the grinding of metal against my longsword as I held back Takamiya-san’s attack, but I ignored it and cast [Miracle: Great Heal].
Warm light wrapped around me, and every wound within the area began to knit shut. Tokisaki’s eyes widened in surprise at my action, while Takamiya-san prepared to attack again.
“Why...”
I heard Tokisaki mutter. Honestly, I didn’t know why I’d blocked the attack or why I’d healed her. I just did.
“My body just moved on its own.”
That was all. She was a murderer, yes. But the look in her eyes when she killed me had been something else—something like self-reproach, or fear. Even if that wasn’t the truth, that was how it felt to me.
“Are you done talking?”
Takamiya-san glared at me, viewing both me and Tokisaki as enemies. She snapped her fingers again, firing lasers. Tokisaki vanished into the shadows, and I dodged the attack with a quickstep.
Takamiya-san apparently had no intention of killing me; unlike her attack on Tokisaki, she didn’t manipulate the lasers to pursue me.
“So why did you interfere, [Knight]?”
“Shouldn’t you be worrying about your brother first, Takamiya Mana-san?”
When I spoke her name, her eyes widened slightly. It seemed she didn’t know that the [Knight] was Higakieta Hai.
“[Knight]. How much do you know?”
“That doesn’t matter. More importantly, why were you so calm while trying to kill someone?”
“Because she won’t die anyway.”
As expected, based on what I’d seen in the video, it seemed she had killed Tokisaki several times already.
“Tokisaki Kurumi is a special spirit. No matter how many times you kill her, no matter what method you use, that woman just shows up somewhere else as if nothing happened and starts killing people again. Besides, weren’t you already dealing with her after seeing that?”
Her words hit the mark, leaving me speechless. She was right—I had seen Tokisaki kill people, and that was why I had gone to confront her.
Seeing my reaction, Takamiya-san narrowed her eyes for a moment before continuing.
“Anyway, that’s why I kept killing her. I chased her relentlessly, over and over and over—”
“Enough!”
Itsuka-kun, who could no longer stand listening from the sidelines, exploded.
“That’s not something you just get used to! It just means your heart’s been worn down!”
At his words, Takamiya-san staggered back for a moment, then reached out and pushed us away with a barrier.
“...Hieta. Are you okay?”
“About what?”
“You died, didn’t you?”
I explained my blessing and curse of immortality to Itsuka-kun—the ability that kept bringing me back no matter how many times I died, and the burden of not being able to die even if I wanted to. After hearing my explanation, Itsuka-kun’s expression grew even darker. After a long silence, he spoke again.
“But Hieta. How are you so calm?”
“...You mean about seeing the corpse?”
He gave a small nod. Just as he said, there had been more than just blood there; there had been a corpse—or rather, the foot of someone I couldn’t save, someone already dead.
I couldn’t easily answer his question. How was I supposed to put it? That I was used to killing? Though, to be exact, I wasn’t even sure if it could be called killing. After all, could those who had lost all reason and craved only souls really be called human?
After thinking about it for a while, I answered.
“Maybe because I’m a little used to it.”
“Used to it...?”
“You see, I’ve been through countless battlefields. Death is ordinary there, so I got used to it.”
“I see...”
That was the end of our conversation. We walked on in silence.
“Shido! Where did you go!”
“What on earth happened?”
I don't know how long we walked, but once we reached the city, Tohka and Tobiichi spotted Itsuka-kun from a distance and rushed toward him. Tohka’s gaze immediately dropped to Itsuka-kun’s hand.
“Are you hurt!”
Itsuka-kun’s hand was red and swollen, likely from when he fell. While Tohka took his hand to examine it, he looked down, startled, then slapped her hand away and stepped back.
His eyes were trembling slightly, as if the sight of his own injury had brought the earlier scene rushing back to him.
“S-sorry. Did it hurt?”
“No... Sorry!”
Itsuka-kun grabbed his own hand and started running in the opposite direction from Tohka and Tobiichi. I chased after him until he finally stopped. He didn’t stop running until he was far away from where he’d met Tohka, and then we were recalled to the [Fraxinus].
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