Tokisaki Kurumi and Ellen traded dozens of blows, while the transformed Tohka stepped in to block Ellen’s attacks.
Before long, the transformed Tohka leaped back, and Ellen immediately shifted her stance.
“Pierce through! [Lance of Longinus]!”
The pack on Ellen’s back shifted to her arm, pointing upward.
A laser fired toward the transformed Tohka.
The range was so vast that the yellow beam seemed to swallow the entire sky.
Soon, the horizon was choked with smoke from the blast.
“Tohka! Tohka!!!”
Assuming the transformed Tohka had been hit, Shido kept shouting her name toward the sky.
“Well, well.”
Contrary to Shido’s worry, the transformed Tohka was perfectly fine.
Silhouetted against the moon, she raised her weapon and spoke. “So, you weren’t just all talk.”
“I can’t allow that!”
Seeing her unscathed, Ellen rushed the transformed Tohka and swung her sword.
But Tohka blocked the attack with a single hand. Barehanded, no less.
“...Wow.”
Watching her stop the strike so effortlessly, I let out an admiring sound without thinking.
Just how durable was the transformed Tohka’s body?
If I tried to block that attack with my bare hands, losing an arm would be the best-case scenario.
“...<Nahema>.”
The transformed Tohka glanced at the sword she had caught, muttered something, and swung her own weapon.
So that was [Nahema].
Wait, hold on. Why was it pointed this way...?
“It’s coming at us!!!”
The moment I saw the dark violet slash from [Nahema] heading our way, I raised my greatshield and stepped in front of Shido and [Diva].
It was annoying to have to protect [Diva], but if I didn’t, Shido would be caught in the blast too, so I had no choice.
“Ghk...!”
The aftermath of the slash slammed a powerful shockwave into my greatshield.
“Is everyone all right?!”
“Y-Yeah! Thanks!”
“Hmph! I would have been fine even without you, you know?”
Right. [Diva], I wasn’t exactly expecting gratitude from you anyway.
Boom
“Sorry. You saved my life, Ellen.”
“I couldn’t have you dying here.”
As the shockwave faded, a pile of rubble beside us burst apart, and the voices of Isaac and Ellen echoed from within.
“Tch. So they were still alive.”
From the way they spoke, it seemed Ellen had protected Isaac with her [territory].
“How’s the [Princess]?”
“She’s nothing like she was before. I can see why she’s AAA-rank.”
After putting us through all that, they were still chatting away so casually.
“...Sorry, but we’ll be taking our leave. If you survive, let’s meet again. Takamiya... no, Itsuka Shido.”
And then Isaac boldly announced that they were running away.
But calling Shido "Takamiya" like that... Isaac seemed to know something about him.
“Wait! You know me?!”
“No, I don’t. I don’t know a person named Itsuka Shido.”
With that, Isaac and Ellen truly vanished.
“Those crazy bastards...!”
My blood pressure shot through the roof.
Those assholes had stirred up this whole mess and dumped the cleanup on us.
“So you’re the only ones left.”
“...Damn it.”
And the problem was, the transformed Tohka was still here.
The biggest headache of the entire situation.
From the way she spoke, as if seeing us for the first time, it seemed this version of Tohka didn’t know us. That only made her more frightening, as I had no idea what she might do next.
“Hold on. Weren’t you two acquainted?”
“...Sigh. I don’t know either.”
I really didn’t know.
Why had the pure Tohka turned into this?
“No, more importantly, weren’t you beheaded? How are you alive?!”
“Well, I’ve got a special constitution, and I also have the ring Hieta gave me—”
“Damn it!”
While Shido and [Diva] were bickering, the transformed Tohka sent another dark violet slash our way.
The instant it happened, Shido and I blocked it with our greatshield and [Sandalphon], respectively.
“...So that really is [Sandalphon]. Why do you have that angel?”
“Tohka! What the hell happened to you? Do you not recognize us?!”
“Tohka...?”
Even after Shido shouted at her, the transformed Tohka only tilted her head and muttered her own name.
“Me?”
That one question left Shido looking shocked.
No, he was definitely shocked.
He had realized for certain that this wasn’t the Tohka he knew.
[Shido! Hiki! Can you hear me?]
“Commander?”
While Shido was still flustered, the commander’s voice came through the intercom I’d forgotten I was wearing.
[The building finally got blown apart, so the jamming’s cleared up. What the hell happened?]
I told the commander everything that had happened so far.
Then Shido, having regained his composure, asked whether this was also a result of spirit waves backfiring, and whether there was any chance of sealing her.
[No, probably not. And I can’t say anything about sealing her right now either.]
Murasame-san’s denial came through the line.
[More importantly, with Tohka’s current affection level, it’s impossible.]
“Then what the hell are we supposed to do?!”
[You’ll have to draw out Tohka’s consciousness. If you do that, her affection level should naturally return too.]
Just as the commander said, if we could return Tohka to normal, we’d be able to seal her again.
The catch was that we first had to somehow calm her down in that state...
“What are you muttering about?”
Watching us contact the commander, Tohka prepared another attack. “Whatever. I’ll just kill you. That woman doesn’t seem to have much power left, either.”
And with that, another slash came flying at us.
Seeing it, I switched my equipment and took my stance.
“Hup!”
When the slash entered range, I swung the Moonlight Greatsword and neutralized it with a blade of magic.
“Oh... So you’re not all weaklings.”
And then she sent another slash...
“Damn it, how many times are you going to fire that thing!!!”
I shot down the incoming slash once more with a magical blade.
Why was she just waving a sword around and spamming ranged attacks like this?
If that’s what she wanted, she should have brought a ranged weapon!
“Shido! I’ll handle the slashes! You draw out Tohka’s consciousness!”
“Got it!”
Shido answered and rushed toward Tohka at once.
“Come on, Tohka. Let’s go home and eat. If you admit you were wrong now, I’ll make your favorite dishes for all three meals today.”
“What nonsense.”
The transformed Tohka calmly sent out another slash.
I tried to neutralize it with another blade of magic, but I swung too early, before the Moonlight power had finished charging.
“A—ghk!”
“Aaaagh!!!”
As a result, the slash hit us and sent us flying backward in a pathetic heap.
“...You were all posing so hard a second ago, and now look at you. How embarrassing.”
[Diva] looked down at us with a contemptuous stare as she spoke.
“Shut up! People make mistakes, all right!”
“Hmm~ One more mistake and you’ll die.”
“Then do something too!”
She was doing nothing herself while standing there giving advice from the sidelines, which made me a little irritated.
“Honestly, expecting anything from a man. Pathetic.”
“Huh?!”
Did she think it was okay to say that when our lives were on the line?
“I’ll help you spe-cial-ly.”
As she said that, [Diva] spun around once in place, and several pipes rose from the ground around her and the transformed Tohka.
“I’ll give you pathetic fools, who are throwing your bodies on the line for Tohka, one chance. I’ll slam my defensive voice into Tohka from all directions.”
[Diva] added that she didn’t know how long she could hold out, so we should try that method while we had the chance.
“...You’ve changed a lot, haven’t you?”
What was this? The [Diva] I knew would never help a man without making a huge fuss first.
“Did you really have to say that?! Are you going to do it or not?!”
“Of course I am. Thanks.”
Changed or not, I wasn’t stupid enough to refuse help when it was offered.
“Then here I go.”
With those words, [Diva] used her angel to bind the transformed Tohka.
In the meantime, Shido approached the transformed Tohka, and I followed one step behind him.
“What is this? Annoying.”
The transformed Tohka muttered and seemed to tense her body.
Then, when [Diva]’s voice weakened because even she had limits to her lung capacity...
“Hup!”
She broke free with brute force and shattered all the pipes around her.
“Hmph. What a ridiculous trick. Trying to bind me? Know your place!”
The transformed Tohka sent a slash straight at [Diva].
Right now, [Diva] seemed to have exhausted herself and was slumped on the ground; she didn’t look like she could dodge it.
She would take that slash and might die from it.
“Damn it!”
No matter how much [Diva] had messed up, this wasn’t the kind of mistake that deserved death.
More than that, even if Tohka had changed, I didn’t want to turn her into a murderer.
So I immediately twisted my body and threw myself into the slash aimed at [Diva].
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