I don’t know if I’m allowed to feel this way.
-!!!
Crack-!
"That kind of thing isn’t enough to kill me."
It’s fun.
It’s exciting.
It was definitely rude and impolite to everyone else, but I couldn’t hide the exhilaration I was feeling.
Facing an enemy whose attacks were hard to even react to was just too much fun.
-!
The Hollow summoned branches from all directions and swung its sword straight at me.
Every direction was blocked, so I couldn’t avoid the Hollow’s sword. But so what?
Clang-clang-clang-!
I met its blade with mine, gripping tightly and holding my ground.
Then the Hollow generated light bullets around itself, trying to blast me away along with the branches.
"Kuh!"
If I stayed like this, I’d die and be stuck unable to do anything for a while.
But even that was enjoyable, so light bullets like that couldn’t interrupt this feeling.
"Hikinon."
〔Ah, got it!〕
I activated Hikinon’s electricity and raised an ice shield.
Ratatatatatat-!
Light bullets flew in from all directions.
There was no need to deflect each one individually with the ice shield. Once they hit it first and turned into lumps of ice, they would collide with the other light bullets and vanish together.
-!!!!
"What, pissed off?"
With its attack blocked so uselessly, the Hollow tried to cut me down with even more force, sword and all.
Not only that, it also tried to summon branches under my feet.
"Sorry, but that’s not happening."
Crack-!
I forced strength through my whole body, shoved the Hollow back along with its sword, and moved one step forward.
Then branches formed right behind me.
Maybe it had instinctively realized swords weren’t enough anymore, because now it was trying to restrict my movement and kill me with branches.
The Hollow, with nothing left but instinct, was fighting in a more calculated way.
I didn’t know whether that was because it was originally Ren, who was an intelligent girl, but one thing was certain: it was a pain in the ass.
Even so, I kept fighting the Hollow.
"First, the upper line."
I kicked off the ground, closed in on the Hollow, and swung the greatsword of the Hollow Slayer at its neck.
Clack-!
But as expected, the attack was blocked by the Hollow’s sword.
Still, it didn’t matter.
"Middle line. Lower line. Thrust."
The offense had already shifted long ago.
I kept pressing it without giving it a chance to breathe.
If it looked like it was about to summon branches, I would step to the side and attack again.
There would be a split-second opening in that process, but I kept chaining my attacks so the enemy couldn’t even recognize it.
-…!
Even while barely blocking my attacks, the Hollow lashed out at me with its hair.
At the tip of it, dark red flames burst out and swallowed me, finally forcing me to retreat.
"Not bad."
Was it because of the influence of Gael’s soul? Its attack pattern felt like a mix of Ren and Gael.
The branch summons, and that hair attack just now too.
Normally it would have been a cloak swinging around, but on that side, the hair seemed to have replaced the cloak.
-!!!!
As I stepped back, a sign made of white leadstone appeared beside me.
The Hollow emerged above it and swung its sword at me, so I ducked to avoid it and tried to counterattack.
Slash!
"Kuh!"
The moment I tried to retaliate, branches shot upward and severed my arm.
Thanks to that, before the Hollow Slayer’s greatsword could fall, I shoved it into my inventory and avoided losing my weapon.
But there was no way the Hollow would miss that opening.
-!!!
"Gah!"
It let out a grotesque roar and butchered my body.
"Hii!"
"Hieta!"
"Hikinon!"
Through the fountain of blood spraying everywhere, I heard the voices of the others calling out in concern.
Sorry to say it to them, but I was still fine.
"Nice!"
Now I couldn’t even hide the exhilaration in my voice as I bit down and shattered a Goddess’s Blessing in my mouth.
Crunch!
The Goddess’s Blessing broke apart inside my mouth.
My mouth was wrecked, and my throat was even pierced by shards of glass, making blood spill out.
But...
'It’ll heal anyway.'
In an instant, the Goddess’s Blessing restored me, and the severed hand and carved wounds regenerated.
"All right, now we’re getting started."
Saying that, I grabbed the Hollow’s sword as it swung at me, with enough force to make it seem like I was about to snap it in half.
-!!
The Hollow tried to pull its sword free, but it couldn’t.
"Come on, let’s see which one of us dies first!"
I yanked on the Hollow’s branch-made sword and threw it off balance.
Then I let go of the sword and immediately equipped the Hollow Slayer’s greatsword.
Thud!
I drove the greatsword into the Hollow’s chest as it toppled toward me, its balance broken.
-!!!!
Whether it was actually feeling pain or not, the Hollow screamed and tried to retreat, but it couldn’t.
"Where do you think you’re going?"
I twisted the greatsword to keep it from getting away.
-!!!
Unable to pull back, the Hollow let out a bizarre scream and tried to spew something from its body.
"Oh, shit...!"
The skull-shaped humanities Gael had spewed out when he collapsed.
The Hollow was now recreating that, unleashing a massive number of dark red light bullets packed with spirit power and souls around itself.
Boom-boom-boom-boom!
Thick smoke billowed up as the light bullets hit my body and exploded.
Because of that, it became hard to see, and I ended up losing the sword in my hand too.
Step, step.
Footsteps echoed from within the thick, acrid smoke.
Tap!
Then the sound changed, as if it were leaping.
Whoosh-!
And at last, the Hollow appeared directly above me.
It was bringing the tip of its sword down at me.
But I hadn’t come unprepared either.
"Welcome."
The moment the Hollow unleashed those light bullets, I spread Hikinon’s ice shield and absorbed them in an instant.
And all the absorbed light bullets had turned into sharp lumps of ice, floating around me right now.
In other words, from the moment the Hollow approached me through the smoke, it had exposed itself to my counterattack.
-!
Ratatatatata-!
Dozens of ice chunks shot toward the Hollow.
Unable to block them all, the Hollow’s body gradually began to get pierced by the ice chunks.
Pshk-!
The first place hit was its right shoulder.
Unfortunately for it, the sword was in its right hand, making it harder to defend against the other ice chunks.
Pshk-!
Next was the left thigh.
The Hollow’s mobility weakened, making it harder to dodge the ice chunks.
As more and more ice chunks pierced its body, by the time the smoke cleared, the Hollow was covered in so many that it looked like a hedgehog.
On top of that, some of the ice chunks had struck the Hollow Slayer’s greatsword embedded in its body, driving it in even deeper, so the Hollow’s appearance was beyond pitiful now.
"Phew..."
Thanks to the ice chunks stuck in its body, the Hollow had stopped moving as if it had fainted, and I took a breath and drank Estus to recover my stamina.
“……”
Then I looked down at the Hollow and pulled the Hollow Slayer’s greatsword out of its chest.
Swoosh-!
Black blood splattered everywhere.
It was completely different from ordinary blood, black as pitch, spraying in all directions and dirtying my face too, but I didn’t feel bad about it.
In Dark Souls, I’d been covered in worse filth than this before, and more importantly, I knew exactly whose blood this was.
It was the blood of the girl who had tried to kill Itsuka-kun and the rest of us, and yet loved Itsuka-kun more than anyone else.
The girl who had chosen the role of villain and, driven by her desire to reach her goal, had ended up becoming a monster in the end.
The girl who was born first from the being that created Rinne and Mayuri, their older sister: Ren.
"...I pity you, Ren."
Looking at the fallen Hollow, I muttered that.
I didn’t know whether I had the right to pity her, but even so, I did.
She had said she was born from the hatred of the Spirit of Origin, and that she had been trapped in the cracks of space-time for a long time.
It was only natural for her to feel hatred toward the spirit that had given birth to her.
Though trying to kill Itsuka-kun and the rest of us in the process was definitely wrong.
Still, after having her spirit power sealed by Itsuka-kun, she was turned into a monster by the Dark Soul she absorbed from me.
And now, to meet her end with her whole body pierced through—wasn’t that truly tragic?
So I pity Ren.
"So now, I’ll give you rest."
Holding the Hollow Slayer’s greatsword, I lowered the tip and drove it straight into the Hollow’s, no, Ren’s neck.
Rumble-rumble-rumble-!
Then the barrier created by Samael trembled, lost its shape, and collapsed, bringing us back to reality.
"H, Hieta!"
"Are you all right!?"
The others ran over and worried about me when they saw that.
Meanwhile, Itsuka-kun, Rinne, and Mayuri’s gazes turned toward Ren.
As the Dark Soul was absorbed back into my body, Ren shed her grotesque form and returned to her original beautiful appearance.
"Ren..."
Ren lay there with her eyes closed, sleeping peacefully as if she had truly met death.
"Ren!"
Itsuka-kun cried out her name and spilled the words he had been holding in his heart.
"You should have told me why you did all this...! You should have told me why you loved me! And yet, why are you leaving like this!"
Itsuka-kun shouted through tears.
Rinne and Mayuri were crying too, grieving the death of their older sister.
"Shido..."
"...Is it really over like this?"
At Natsumi’s careful question to me, I gave a heavy nod.
Since I had stabbed her in the neck myself, there was no chance Ren would come back to life.
As proof, Ren’s body was already turning into particles and slowly disappearing.
"Big sis..."
"Ren, you stupid older sister...! What were you thinking, just going and dying like this!"
As the disappearance started from her toes, Rinne and Mayuri poured out their feelings to Ren.
Fsssh...
In the end, Ren’s body vanished completely.
The three of them stared at the place where Ren had been, now utterly gone, and cried endlessly.
With them crying, the others couldn’t say anything in the somber atmosphere.
I also kept silent, when something appeared before my eyes.
'...This is.'
A window appeared in front of me.
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