Marina and Maria's bodies were finally completed, and we spent our days in perfectly ordinary, perfectly normal peace.
This time, it was for real.
"Umm...."
Or maybe not.
For some reason, my head felt a little sore today.
I had no idea why.
"Marina! I told you not to steal my pudding!"
"Who said it? Life is all about timing!"
"Hehe~ Yep, you're the senior villain, huh."
"......"
With my head spinning and aching, I looked over at the two of them fighting over pudding in the living room, while Ren watched and giggled as if she found it amusing.
I couldn't help thinking that this definitely might not count as normal.
No, but still, those two had been an AI for a ship and a virus meant to breach that ship, and the other one was someone who had worn a mask and driven us to the brink of death.
Seeing them act like that, I couldn't really get used to it.
Come to think of it, last time Marina secretly ate cookies Maria had bought, got caught, and Mayuri scolded her for it.
"Uuugh...!"
In the end, tears spilled from Maria's eyes as she couldn't hold back any longer.
"Ah."
The moment Marina realized she'd gone too far, her body stiffened, and she cautiously approached Maria.
"H-Hey... Maria?"
The moment Marina reached out toward the tearful Maria.
"I finally got you."
As if she had never been crying at all, Maria's tears vanished in an instant, and she snatched Marina's wrist and started tickling her instead.
"Kya-hahahaha! M-Maria! S-stop...!"
"Marina. This is revenge for my pudding."
Leaving Maria to mercilessly tickle every part of Marina's body behind me, I picked up my bag and turned toward the front door to head to school.
"Oh? Off to school?"
"...Yeah. I'll leave those two to you, Ren."
"Leave it to me."
Ren still hadn't returned to her original body, so she was in a childlike state, but even if she only looked that way, she'd probably lived the longest out of anyone staying in the spirit mansion.
So I left the bickering Marina and Maria to her and stepped out into the entryway.
"Hey, Hi. Those two are fighting again, aren't they?"
"...Yeah, pretty much."
"It's their daily routine, isn't it? Hehe."
As the two waiting for me outside said, those two had often fought ever since they got used to having bodies.
The main reasons were Marina teasing Maria, or throwing a fit when she lost at a game and refused to admit defeat.
Now that I listed it out, Marina really was a total handful.
"I can kind of understand it, though...."
Even Mayuri said it like that, so this wasn't just my opinion.
Well, now they could live in the real world with actual bodies.
I decided that if they were having fun, then OK.
"Still, I do wish Ren would come to school too...."
"Her body still isn't back to normal, so there's nothing we can do."
The Fire Keeper looked disappointed that Ren couldn't come to school.
With Ren's current appearance, it seemed [Ratatoskr] had internally marked her as absent due to illness.
Apparently Ren was also officially enrolled at school, just like Rinne.
I figured it was probably because Itsuka-kun had made a wish.
"Besides, I really hate that we have gym class today...."
"Ahaha, yeah, I get that."
Mayuri didn't like gym class very much.
I guess it was because of the season, and she said it was cold.
Come to think of it, I didn't seem to feel the cold very much.
Maybe because I had spent so long rolling around in the world of Dark Souls, I couldn't feel pain anymore, and now I couldn't even feel cold.
Just as I was thinking that, a sudden chill ran through my body.
"...Ghk!"
"Hi?"
"Hero?"
My head started spinning even more.
The headache came crashing down harder than before.
"Hey, Hi!"
"Hero!"
The two voices rang dully in my head, and I couldn't make out what they were saying.
"Get a grip...!"
Then even my vision went black, and I lost consciousness.
******
"...!"
"......!"
I woke up as my consciousness surfaced from the surrounding commotion.
"Hi!"
"Hero, you're awake."
"Hi, sa...!"
"This is..."
The place where I had woken up seemed to be [Fraxinus]'s infirmary.
Thanks to having slept, the pounding in my head had eased, and the headache and dizziness were gone, but maybe because I'd just woken up, the ringing in my ears hadn't faded.
"...You're awake, Hiki."
"Commander, what on earth happened?"
What had happened for the other spirits to gather here too?
As I wondered that and asked the commander, the answer that came back wasn't from the commander at all.
"My body is... hot..."
"I- Itsuka-kun!?"
"Papa...!"
Itsuka-kun was lying on the bed near the one I was in, breathing in ragged gasps.
On top of that, when Rio called his name in tears, Itsuka-kun weakly patted Rio's head to calm him down.
"...I'll explain."
After confirming that I was awake, Murasame-san projected something onto the huge monitor in the room.
The screen was full of things I couldn't understand.
To begin with, I wasn't exactly familiar with this stuff, and there was no way I could know what it all meant.
However, Maria, who had originally been [Fraxinus]'s AI, and Marina, who had been developed to hack [Fraxinus], seemed to understand it very well.
"A drastic contraction of the path."
"Which is causing interference in the circulation of spirit waves...?"
"...Both of you are right."
At Maria and Marina's words, Murasame-san nodded.
"In other words, the spirit power inside Shido is overheating."
"I see. The spirit power that has lost its place is giving Shido that extraordinary power..."
"Extraordinary power?"
"...Ah, Hiki, you mustn't have known because you fainted this morning."
As for what this extraordinary power was, after I fainted and was brought to [Fraxinus],
Itsuka-kun had apparently shown incredible physical ability during gym class while in a dazed state.
"In the process, Hiki was the first to faint. After all, you're sealing more spirit power than Shido, and because it's connected to Shido, that power is being passed on to him."
In other words, my fainting had been a warning sign that Itsuka-kun was turning like this.
"At this rate, Shido might go berserk while carrying the spirit power of all thirteen spirits and part of Hiki's soul."
"No, that's a huge fucking problem..."
If Itsuka-kun really did go berserk as the commander said, then I could just stop him.
But all I could do was subdue him; I couldn't solve the berserk state itself.
And if part of my soul was being faintly transmitted through the path, no one knew what would happen if he went berserk.
If things went wrong, Itsuka-kun could wipe out the entire area.
"How do we save Shido!?"
After hearing about Itsuka-kun's condition, Tohka grabbed the commander's shoulders and shook her.
"Papa, is he going to die...?"
Rio was on the verge of bursting into tears, thinking Itsuka-kun was going to die.
"R-Rio. That's not going to happen."
"That's right, Rio. Just like Rinne said, Shido isn't going to die, right?"
In the midst of this chaotic scene, with Rinne and Marina trying to reassure Rio, Rio came up to me, tugged on my sleeve, and said,
"Uncle... Papa, save him..."
"......"
At the sight of Rio tearfully asking me to save his father, Itsuka-kun, I couldn't bring myself to speak.
Because this wasn't the kind of thing I could do anything about.
Rio probably wanted me to save him from the fate of death with the power of souls, just like I had done for Rinne, Mayuri, and himself, but in this case there was nothing I could do.
So I stayed silent, looking at the tears streaming from Rio's eyes.
"...A kiss should solve it."
"A kiss...?"
Murasame-san proposed a kiss as the solution.
"...All of you need to kiss god and widen the path for spirit power. The time limit is midnight tonight."
"So you're saying we seal Itsuka-kun in reverse."
"...Yes."
The method seemed weird, but then again, it was Itsuka-kun who had the ridiculous ability to seal spirit power with a kiss, so there was nothing strange about it.
"...The problem is."
Not until Murasame-san added one more sentence.
"...Since Hiki is also receiving spirit power, and your soul has flowed into him, Hiki also has to kiss god... too."
"W-What...!"
At Murasame-san's words that I had to kiss Itsuka-kun, everyone except the tearful Rio froze.
No, what the hell are you talking about?
"So, you're saying I have to kiss Itsuka-kun?"
"...Yeah."
At Murasame-san's answer, avoiding my eyes, I couldn't keep my mouth shut this time.
You're telling me to kiss a guy right now.
How is that supposed to make sense!
"...It might be hard, but. Good luck?"
"!!!!!!"
Whether this really was the only way or not, Murasame-san's words of encouragement to me, unlike her usual blunt tone, made me let out a silent scream.
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