Volume 14, 24: Two Battles

Volume 14, Chapter 24: Two Battles

I understand

I really do

So

Please

Sayama stood in a large field located high in the sky.

There was green grass below his feet.

A white open-air bell tower was located at the far end of the field.

There were trees on either side and the pallets sealing the Concept Cores sat beyond them.

This Concept Core creation facility was made from Noah’s residential area.

It was located on the roof at the base of the Leviathan’s wings.

The sky was cloudy, but the field was somehow brightly lit.

Sayama felt Shinjou’s presence behind him and he saw his enemy in front of him.

Mikoku wore a black armored uniform and the automaton had white wings.

There was no wind and the sounds of battle no longer reached them. He asked a question within that silent green and white.

“You are not made of salt, I take it?”

Mikoku gave a small smile.

“I am not in the habit of giving salt to guests.”

“Guests, are we?”

“Yes. Everyone is a guest.”

Sayama listened as she continued.

“After all, everyone will be leaving me.”

“I see,” he muttered.

Before he could think of what to say, the most natural words left his mouth.

“I will make you cry.”

Mikoku’s expression quickly changed to one of slight surprise.

“Was that your emotion?”

“No. I have something to teach you. That is all.”

Sayama drew Mukiti’s wooden sword from his waist.

“Both sides have a single condition for victory. For us, it is to use the Concept Cores to preserve the seals of heaven and earth until 10:30. That will reject the Leviathan’s positive concepts as fakes and prevent their creation. Your plan to release the immortality concept and create a new world will be stopped and we will win.”

“Ours is the opposite. We must defeat you to stop the seals of heaven and earth before 10:30. The Leviathan can complete its positive concepts and renew the world.”

Sayama nodded.

“Basically, it comes down to which side is still standing come 10:30.”

He held the wooden sword up in both Georgiuses and the weapon seemed to waver.

It was a watery mist.

Mukiti’s body was escaping the wooden sword and creating a transparent blade.

That blade would freeze and break through anything around it.

At the same time, a dragon of heat stood up around Shinjou.

“Sayama-kun.”

He heard her voice.

“You’re aching, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” he replied.

Mikoku was drawing a sword up ahead.

Noah was spreading her wings behind the girl.

Noah was surrounded by freezing and blowing water vapor as well as shimmering heat and gravity.

Mikoku could swing her blade and Noah could produce any kind of attack, but…

“Shinjou-kun.”

Sayama removed his right hand from his wooden sword.

“Take this.”

He tossed her the right Georgius.

“Ah,” she said as she caught it. “U-um, but this…”

“No need to be embarrassed. …We will fight together. That is what this means, Shinjou-kun.”

He then prepared to fight. He faced Mikoku and Noah with his water sword raised to the left.

“Is there any need to name ourselves?”

Mikoku responded by shaking her head.

In that instant, the four of them began to move.

There was sound.

It filled the wide places on the battlefield, the narrow places, the center, and the corners. It was everywhere.

The clashing of power naturally produced sound.

There were voices as well.

They were the singing voices of automatons. In addition to Noah herself, the dolls, gods of war, and mechanical dragons on the battlefield were singing along with their leader.

They sang throughout the battlefield.

“Listen. Please listen.”

Their voices continued.

“In this world of rapid creation and destruction,

“The one and only invariable rule is the irreversibility of destruction.”

They sang loudly.

“The worlds began as only one.

“But the great numbers they created brought only more destruction.”

Their voices reverberated around them.

“Birth is the error leading to destruction.

“Growth is the syntax leading to destruction.

“And destruction is the absolute endcode.”

They cried out.

“This world has an ending.

“This world has no birth.

“This world will continue to end.

“It cannot continue to give birth.”

It grew to a roar.

“The sky.

“The moon.

“The stars.

“The sea.

“The earth.

“The wind.

“The flowers.

“And even light, sound, and the wills of mankind.

“If anything will not be destroyed, please tell us.”

Their voices seemed to split apart.

“At a random point of this world of destruction.”

As if they longed for something.

“I am living.”

No.

“I am searching for the answer.”

They were longing for something.

“And I am always aching!”

Shinjou fired without end.

She supported the overheated barrel with the Georgius on her right hand.

That negative Georgius provided a certain power to the shimmering serpent protecting her.

…The power of the opposite!

That opposite power reversed the dragon’s heat and cooled the barrel.

“Weird” “Diet” “Ticked” “Duel” “Leave it to me”

During the high speed battle, the game of shiritori being played on top of Ex-St never stopped.

But the speed with which they wrote out the words told Shinjou that Wanambi was building momentum.

Their target was Noah.

Shinjou was shooting down every single bullet and attack that Noah fired.

She would not allow anything to interfere with Sayama and Mikoku who fought between her and Noah.

She switched between straight shots and scatter shots with the C button.

Normal shots used the A button and a blast using all of the built up energy used the B button.

Her shots tore, tore, pierced, and scattered.

Whenever Noah targeted her, she would evade.

She took the smallest dodge necessary. She never made any exaggerated movements.

She spotted the enemy bullets and spun around, allowing those bullets to pass below her skirt and shoulder armor guards.

But none of those counted as a hit.

…If it doesn’t hit you, you don’t lose a life!

It took experience to have an instinctual understanding of something that seemed so obvious.

She continued playing.

What is the most fundamental and beautiful type of play-through? she asked herself.

She knew the answer.

“A one-coin victory!!”

She fired.

Noah responded by deflecting the white cannon’s attacks with gravity barriers.

And that was not all.

When Noah swung her arms, spheres of light appeared.

The bluish-white spheres of lightning were three meters wide, she continually threw them to either side, and they quickly surrounded the green battlefield.

There were sixty-three in all.

Noah then held her right hand forward.

“Begin targeting!”

Shinjou realized red reticles had appeared on the grass at her feet.

An attack was coming. The sixty-three lightning spheres were going to fire on her.

“————!!”

Shinjou did not hesitate. She fired and did so while rotating Ex-St behind herself.

She destroyed the closest lightning sphere behind her, creating a hole in the lightning formation.

…That gives me a safe zone!!

She aimed Ex-St toward the approaching bundles of lightning while jumping through the gap behind her.

She took a back step.

Her sights were already turned toward the bundles of lightning targeting her.

Moving behind the lightning spheres restricted the enemy’s angle of fire. The closest one and the next eight on either side could no longer fire on her.

The enemy could use a total of forty-six lightning cannons.

Shinjou fought back.

And as she fired, the bluish-white light shattered.

The light sprayed up into the sky.

She could only hear her own breathing as she rapidly tapped the A button.

Then Noah began to move. To throw off Shinjou’s aim, she had the sixty-two lightning spheres circle around her like a folkdance.

But even as they rotated, Shinjou followed them. An acceleration charm burst.

“Speed up!”

She ran to the side while looking up and letting the flowers of gunfire blossom.

She did not let any of the approaching light escape. If she missed any of that lightning, she would be destroyed.

And she had a single way of destroying it.

…Rapid fire!

Rapid fire was her only option now.

The tapping sound of the A button had stabilized. The button had passed an endurance test of more than one hundred thousand presses, so it was not going to be destroyed as it swept aside such a puny number of attacks.

So with more-than-wholehearted focus, Shinjou entered a realm void of hesitation and cessation and she produced the song of continuous fire.

This was a world of battle. It was the last level of the many worlds.

“…!”

Higher. She would lift herself higher. She would lift herself to the top of this world’s high score list.

“Right!”

Shinjou held Ex-St at the ready as she spun around.

She destroyed more and more as she fired through each and every lightning sphere from one end to the other.

Her shots pierced through every last one and they exploded.

She ran through that chain of explosive light and toward Noah.

Noah looked up in surprise.

“!?”

The chain of lightning struck her.

It crashed into her and sent her flying.

The wings on her back shattered, she bent backwards, and she trembled.

“————!!”

But Noah continued fighting.

She forcibly swept aside the lightning with her gravitational control, let it surround her, and…

“This is not over yet!! Over!”

She produced a shimmering of heat directly above herself.

It was a size bigger than the balls of lightning and a vertical line of them appeared on either side.

“Altogether, the Leviathan’s spare energy reaches 256! …Here I go!!”

She swung both arms toward Shinjou.

At the same time, the shimmering spheres audibly vanished.

It sounded like splitting stone and something more came from Noah’s hands.

“This is the same as the convergence of the Leviathan’s main cannon!”

The distorting power wrapped in lightning was fired toward Shinjou.

“Over!!”

The twelve meter wide attack was equal to the dragon cannon blast that had annihilated Japanese UCAT.

Shinjou was faced with that great power, but…

“…!!”

She raised Ex-St again, dug her feet into the ground, and…

“Bomber!!”

A great white light almost seemed to explode from the barrel.

“Goooo!!”

The straight white light intercepted the distorting power.

She had built up plenty of energy during the earlier rapid fire. And…

“Wanambi!”

She saw Wanambi wrap around Ex-St.

The energy released from the cooled cannon surpassed the word “momentum” as it simply fired its white light.

But…

“Do you think a human can stand up to a dragon, Shinjou Sadagiri!? Over.”

Sure enough, the trembling white light was pushed back by the distorting power.

The ammunition belts of distortion above Noah’s shoulders were rapidly consumed.

And that pushed back on Shinjou’s white light all the more.

A reaction sphere appeared where the light collided and split.

The white light and the black distortion mixed together and formed a massive spherical field of energy.

That field grew to five meters in an instant and continued to grow toward Shinjou.

And it did not end there.

Pure-white forms arrived from either side of the field.

One was a mechanical dragon and the other was a god of war. They were Seraph No. 0 and Lords No. 0.

Shinjou gasped when she saw them to the left and right.

“What!? No fair making this a mid-boss rush!!”

“But they are a part of me. Seraph No. 0 and Lords No. 0 are both my power,” said Noah. “Over.”

The mechanical dragon and god of war aimed their main cannon or sword toward Shinjou. Wanambi could transform heat into himself, but he was busy cooling Ex-St. If Wanambi moved away, Noah would immediately push in on Shinjou.

But the situation changed.

The pure-white god of war and mechanical dragon were blown away.

“!?”

The pure-white mechanical dragon was hit by a red, white, and blue mechanical dragon colliding with its side.

The pure-white god of war was hit by a white god of war falling from the heavens.

Who were they? Mikoku shouted their names as she fought Sayama.

“Alex…and Tatsumi!?”

“That’s right.”

The answer came from the figure standing on Typhon’s shoulder while Lords No. 0 righted itself in midair.

It was Tatsumi.

She lightly clenched her trembling hands and her face was pale, but she still faced her enemy.

“No interference, okay?”

Shinjou nodded.

While continuing to fire white light from Ex-St and while trembling, Shinjou shouted toward Noah.

“I am your only opponent!”

“Then let us end this. Over.”

Noah rearranged the distorting ammunition belts reaching up toward the heavens.

She arranged them into four stacks.

“Double the power. Over.”

With the distorting cannon doubled, Shinjou was pushed back by the reverse flow reaching her through Ex-St.

The reaction sphere, the energy, the pressure, and everything else were pushing her way.

“…!”

Sayama and Mikoku carried out a rapid swordfight within the light.

This was their third clash.

Neither of them was sure if they should call the score one-to-one.

The first time, Mikoku had tried for a draw, but Shino had gotten in the way.

The second time, Sayama had won the battle, but Mikoku had kept the war going.

Then what would happen this third time?

Mikoku no longer saw a draw as an option.

She would either win or lose.

And she threw her sword forward to receive that answer.

Distorting power was racing through the air.

A white cannon blast joined it.

Noah and Shinjou were fighting.

No, everyone was fighting.

The entire world was trying to stop what she wanted.

…Do they not want this?

Mikoku wondered about that.

To bring the entire world back to life was to renew the world.

The world would briefly disappear.

“Do you not want that? But what about it do you not like?”

She threw her sword forward and felt Tokyo’s illumination below.

“Do you not like the idea of losing everything the world has inherited? Or do you not like that the world will disappear and you too will disappear?”

If it was the latter…

“You are only worried about yourself.”

The words she sent out with her sword strikes were answered with a voice and another sword.

“Then…I have one thing to ask you.”

Sayama raised his eyebrows as he threw his water blade toward her.

“You claim you never want to feel sad again. So aren’t you too only worried about yourself?”

“What other option is there!?”

She launched her sword.

Her skill with the blade was greater.

“I think with emotion and you think with reason! You reach for your reason even as you ache, but that pain is the proof of your inconsistency!”

She chained her slashes together, crouched down as she moved forward, and viewed the surrounding situation.

Noah and Shinjou were fighting, but…

“Look! Shinjou is obviously being pushed back! Yes, Noah has no emotions. She truly is my opposite! But Shinjou is different. She is as inconsistent and contradictory as you.”

She deflected Sayama’s water sword upwards.

She stepped forward and stayed low.

“Contradictions makes anything possible!? No! It only leaves everything incomplete!!”

Her sword ripped at Sayama’s body.

But that attack only tore a shallow gouge from his stomach to his chest.

His quick evasion came from his martial arts background.

Mikoku had not stepped in close enough because she had been facing him in the realm of sword fighting.

And as they showed off their strong points and weak points, the reaction sphere created from Noah and Shinjou’s power whipped up the wind and created lightning overhead.

The flashes of white light illuminated them again and again as Mikoku pursued Sayama.

She continued forward as he back stepped away.

“If you asked me whether emotion or reason is more powerful, I would tell you either one can be! It comes down to which one has been mastered more thoroughly!!”

And…

“I am merely transforming this inconsistent world into one where our emotions can rest easy! What is wrong with that!?”

“Then let me say this!”

Sayama swung his blade, but it was not even worth blocking since his hips were not behind it.

However, he did stop her attack with it.

“I will make you cry!”

“So what!?”

Sayama responded to her questioning attack by swinging his body. He deflected her strike with a compact movement of the water blade.

“Let me tell you an old story! Once, a boy lost his parents and became hopelessly full of himself! The lecherous old man the boy was left with would always say the same thing whenever the boy did something: ‘I will make you cry’!”

“What does that-…?”

“Do you still not understand!?” shouted Sayama. “Emotions can be dealt with so long as you cry!!”

“Is that your idea of reason!?”

Mikoku ran and slammed her blade against his. Their foreheads collided as they tried to push each other back and Sayama gave another shout.

“You are trying to run away before you have finished crying! You are trying to run away from this very world!”

“But Shino died!!” roared Mikoku as she stared Sayama in the eye. “Whether I try to run away or stay, Shino is still just as dead! She died!”

Mikoku used all of her strength to knock Sayama away.

She then crouched down and raised her sword on the left.

She prepared it like a baseball bat, but she leaned and ran forward as if to run into him herself.

She was using everything at her disposal to beat him down by force.

“Answer me if you can! This world is an inconsistent contradiction of both emotion and reason, but what does that accomplish!? All it brought was death! Isn’t that right!? And you…”

She knew she had to say this.

“You lost your parents, so you should already understand this!!”

For an instant, all movement vanished from Sayama’s body.

He was aching.

That is your flaw, thought Mikoku as she saw him stop save for a faint tremor.

He attempted to hold two incompatible things within himself and he was tormented by the harsh reaction.

He could not endure it, no matter how strong a front he put up.

So she sent out her sword.

She first knocked Sayama’s wooden sword up from below.

The blow hit.

With a solid sound, the wooden sword flew through the air, Sayama’s arms were shot upwards, and his body bent backwards.

Mikoku pulled back her weapon as if drawing in her body.

Her body had twisted from the left to the upper right, so she pulled it back to the lower left.

She would drop her blade across Sayama’s arching body.

Mikoku spoke as she saw Noah and Shinjou’s battle continuing in Noah’s favor.

“Farewell!”

“Sayama-kun!?”

Shinjou was briefly distracted by Sayama and Mikoku’s battle.

“Do you have time to look away? Over.”

Pushed by Noah’s words and the pressure of the reaction sphere, Shinjou’s feet slid back over the grass.

She was worried about this battle and about Sayama.

But…

…It’ll be okay!

She shouted the words to help convince herself.

“It’ll be okay!!”

Facing forward meant facing her enemy.

She spoke while holding her ground so she would not be blown away.

“Um!”

She watched the four ammunition belts being consumed above Noah’s shoulders.

“If you think that’s enough to win, then this will be easy!!”

Shinjou opened Ex-St’s console. Information on Ex-St’s current state appeared in front of the transparent floating image that functioned as a sight.

It was badly overheated, but that was not what she was interested in.

“Bomber stock.”

She displayed the number of charged shots she had stored. A maximum of seventeen could be stored at one time.

“I currently have sixteen plus the one I’m firing right now.”

“—————”

Noah frowned slightly, but Shinjou did not care.

“How much fighting do you think I did on the way here? You two were just watching, but we ran, endured, and cried out so many times. So…so…”

She gave a shout.

“I, Shinjou Sadagiri, will now fire all of my bomber shots!!”

Such luxury, she thought. I can’t believe I have the luxury of making an attack like this.

In a quick succession of shots, she would use up everything she had built up.

…You don’t get to fire sixteen in a row very often.

So she prepared her finger and breathed in.

“I only have one chance at this!!”

She began.

She stepped forward as if pushing on the reaction sphere that was already ten meters across.

“Here goes!!”

She activated some acceleration charms and leaped forward.

Her attacks were energy. The greater the distance, the more they would be weakened, so she knew the most effective method.

“A point-blank rapid fire barrage!!”

She used her leap to push in on and shake the reaction sphere and to fly toward Noah.

She began her rapid-fire barrage at the same time.

Mikoku and Sayama’s battle was also approaching its conclusion.

Mikoku and Sayama.

Noah and Shinjou.

The two pairs synchronized their movements.

Mikoku realized Shinjou had flown up overhead.

Her target was Noah, not Mikoku.

But if Shinjou was moving so much…

“Noah!?”

She received no response.

No, something even more important than an answer occurred before her eyes.

Sayama moved in response to her sword.

“————!”

He suddenly swung his body as if tearing it away from her.

…He escaped the pain and moved!?

This had all happened in an instant. It was too soon for him to recover.

Mikoku had watched his mock battle with 2nd-Gear where Sayama had recovered from this pain from the past, but it had taken time, it had left him shaking, and it had been far from perfect.

But this had been much faster and he was not trembling in the slightest.

He jumped up, fell back, and dodged her dropping blade.

“You have got to be kidding me!!”

Shinjou saw Sayama use his own will to shatter the pain from the past.

Unlike during the battle with 2nd-Gear, he knew the meaning of the past.

He knew his feelings would never reach the past and he knew the many things that would never return. That was the source of his pain and it had grown even deeper than before, but at the same time…

…You understand it now, don’t you?

“After learning so much, you understand what our parents were thinking,” shouted Shinjou as she fired. “It might make you sad, but you’re glad you understand what exactly it was we lost, aren’t you!?”

Sayama eloquently replied with his movements.

As Shinjou fired, he gave a shout and moved forward.

“Precisely, Shinjou-kun!!”

Mikoku took a defensive stance as Sayama approached.

He brought his right knee forward and spread his arms back like wings as he charged in toward her.

“Toda Mikoku! The new world you desire only exists in the past!”

“I will regain what was lost! Of course it exists there!”

“Then are you going to give up on yourself!?”

She heard his voice as he raced forward.

“What was it you inherited from the others? Wasn’t it a life in this world!?”

She held her sword low and shouted her true thoughts back at him.

“Are you trying to say this world is a richer one than the eleven that were lost!?”

“Of course!! After all, this world was made by those of us who have inherited everything that came before, so it must have more than the eleven worlds that led the way!”

Sayama quickly filled the gap between them.

“To inherit something is not just to gain the past. It also gives you the right to continue on ahead! The present exists as a contradictory combination of the future and the past, Toda Mikoku! Thus, we are attempting to move forward, but you are not even inheriting the past. You are giving up on the present to become the past!!”

“But that is what our emotions want!”

Mikoku threw herself forward as she shouted back at him and she swung a quick sword strike from below.

“If desiring that contradiction leads to pain, then it is safer to immerse yourself in the unchanging past!”

“Then let me say this!”

Sayama leaned forward as he approached.

“Earlier, you mocked my simultaneous suppression and desire for this pain as inconsistent, didn’t you!? But let me say this: emotion and reason can coexist! After all…”

Sayama’s left leg suddenly kicked her rising blade aside.

“Wha-!?”

The action was only possible given his great speed.

And when he kicked his right leg forward, Mikoku knew it would hit her. She had no time to dodge it, but she did hear his voice.

“I ask you!”

His kick landed.

Mikoku bent backward and was knocked from her feet, but her sword did not leave her right hand.

Her body was shaking from the impact. Her consciousness had almost left her and she could not breathe.

But the philosopher’s stone in her chest told her that she could continue to fight.

She had a certain power.

That high-speed regeneration instantly adjusted her body.

Pain filled her. It felt like her entire body was being squeezed.

But that was precisely what she had inherited.

…This is my power!

As long as she had this, she could continue to fight.

…Yes.

“I cannot lose!”

That was when Sayama attacked again and spoke the same words as before.

“I ask you!!”

On a count of 1 2 3, he attacked from the left.

“It is both emotion and reason.”

He reversed his body to make a right smash.

“Yet it is neither.”

He was fast.

“It produces both resignation and hope.”

A sequence of heavy blows reached her.

“It can never end, yet it can be ended.”

Her body floated upwards, but an instantaneous adjustment allowed her to hear his voice.

“It is a human virtue, yet it can also be called a mistake.”

An attack from the right rang through her body.

“It is contradictory, yet it is also perfectly logical.”

She bent backwards.

“It is everything and yet it is the one thing at the base of both emotion and reason.”

He spun his body to build speed for a right hook while also preparing his left fist down low.

“Do you know what it is!?”

Mikoku instantly realized the answer, but she was not going to answer with words.

The answer would be shown by this battle’s outcome.

“If what you speak of truly exists, then prove it through the outcome here!!”

As if answering her cry, her body ached and adjusted itself.

She straightened her backwards-leaning body and swung the sword in her right hand.

“Not even your Georgius could break my power, remember!? In that case…”

She launched her attack toward Sayama who raised his left fist in front of her.

“My emotions are an unbreakable power!!”

She did it.

It was an excellent sword strike. The strike seemed to follow the sword’s own wishes. She felt like it was flying forward on its own and she was merely placing her hand alongside it.

If this did not slice through him, something was clearly wrong.

But then she saw it.

She saw the beginning of an answer overhead.

Shinjou moved through the air.

She had heard Sayama’s question while she shot her rapid fire blasts toward Noah.

She knew the answer to his question.

So she proved her answer.

In a single second, that bearer of the rapid fire blasts would settle this battle.

That was known as an instant kill.

“!!”

Pushed by the rapid fire, the reaction sphere crashed into Noah.

Noah endured it with a gravity barrier, but it suddenly surpassed her limits and slammed her onto the grass.

“————!!”

An explosion rose into the sky and the Leviathan shook.

“Sayama-kun!”

Shinjou took action to solidify her proof of Sayama’s answer.

She gave the answer to his question.

What Mikoku saw happened in an instant.

Before she could swing down her blade, a silver light flew forward from behind her.

It looked like a coin.

…A chip?

A hand caught it in front of her.

It was Sayama’s.

His left hand was raised to attack and his right hand caught the chip.

He then swapped out the chip for the one in his positive Georgius.

“The negative one!?”

Both Georgiuses had finished warming up due to the repeated strikes of Mukiti’s wooden sword and Shinjou’s cannon blasts. By swapping out the chips, he had filled Georgius with the conflicting power.

“The positive in the negative and the negative in the positive. This is Georgius’s true form!!”

As soon as he completed his shout, Georgius emitted a powerful light. It was a black and white light.

“!?”

The two powers flew with tremendous speed.

And they slipped below her sword.

“I will give you the answer! What is it that is made up of emotion and reason, that produces all things, and that allows even contradictions? It is something everyone has.”

Sayama and Shinjou’s voices rang out in unison to give the answer.

“It is the power of one’s will!!”

It reached her.

“Remember this! Both emotion and reason are but a single part of a thinking mind!”

The counterattack exploded in Mikoku’s chest.

Mikoku had been hit by one half of Georgius.

Because it was incomplete, it brought forth a certain result.

On the skin below Mikoku’s shredded collar, the contradictory fist shattered her philosopher’s stone.

Instead of just splitting, it shattered into a spray.

She bent back from the impact, and…

“Ah…”

The shattered stone loosened its form and, in a desperate attempt to survive, fused with another color hanging from Mikoku’s neck.

It fused with the blue philosopher’s stone Shino had left behind. The blue light combined, formed a ball, and became one.

Afterwards, Mikoku was unable to stop the impact that had struck her body.

“…!!”

She was slammed into the ground.

Shinjou saw the conclusion.

She breathed a sigh of relief while pressing the chipless Georgius to her chest.

In front of her, Sayama was gasping for breath and grabbing Mikoku’s arm.

“Come. You have inherited more of the past than anyone else. …If you can see nothing but the past, then we will help you to not give up on yourself and to create a new world here.”

Shinjou listened to what Sayama told his other self.

“After inheriting so much of the past, I am sure you will find somewhere where you can get serious.”

Shinjou smiled bitterly when he mentioned getting serious.

So she ran over to him and elbowed him in the side.

“You have to search for that too, don’t you?”

He smiled bitterly.

“I saw some of the answer during this battle. …I saw a hint in the idea of creating a new world here.”

“Eh?”

Shinjou looked surprised, but Sayama raised a finger in front of his nose to ask her to keep it a secret.

She frantically nodded and he whispered in her ear.

“It is a lot of fun to think about what kind of world I would find fun. I do not know what that would be, but I get the feeling it will be both difficult and fun to create.”

Shinjou felt a look of joy fill her face, so she helped Sayama get Mikoku back to her feet.

“If you do decide to do something, will you invite me first of all?”

“Of course. I will need you to write about it.”

She nodded and looked around. The entire area was silent.

According to the bell tower’s clock, it was 10:29 and that reminded Shinjou of something.

“We won.”

She picked up Mukiti’s wooden sword from the ground, but…

“No. We have not truly won yet, Shinjou-kun.”

Sayama suddenly spoke to her.

She turned toward his low but sharp voice and realized he was not looking her way.

He was looking one thing in particular. A doll, Noah, was standing on the grass.

She was injured and broken. Her hands were clasped in front of her waist and her head was somewhat lowered.

She showed no intention to attack.

But Sayama spoke.

“Noah-kun, this is not over yet, is it?”

“Eh?”

As soon as Shinjou expressed her surprise, Noah lowered her head a little and spoke.

“Testament.”

That word was a confirmation, but Shinjou did not understand what she meant.

…W-wait a second!

“What do you mean it isn’t over yet!? Isn’t the battle over!? We completed the seal!”

The creation of the positive concepts inside the Leviathan would have been stopped.

What more could they fight over?

It happened a moment later.

“!?”

Shinjou felt a pulse.

It was not her own. The pulse shook this space itself.

This pulsating tremor of the very world shook the heavens and earth equally.

She looked up in surprise and found Noah looking her way.

“Do you understand? The Leviathan still holds the activating negative concepts. Over.”

Noah closed her eyes and spoke expressionlessly.

“Find a solution! If you do not…!”

The pulse sounded especially loudly.

“This world will fall to the negative side just as Top-Gear did! Over.”

With those words, Shinjou and Sayama were blasted into empty space.

She knew why. Noah had forced them away to safety as the Leviathan evolved to yet another combat form.

By the time she caught on, it was too late.

She was already in the sky. As it grew more distant overhead, the Leviathan began to spread out its curled up body.

Pieces of armor measuring several hundred meters were stretching out and remaking the great dragon’s body.

…I can’t believe this.

Just as Sayama had said, there was more to that great dragon.

…What’s going to happen!?

She heard Noah’s weak voice.

“The Leviathan will now imprison the uncontrollable negative concepts…”

Shinjou never heard the automaton say “over”.

That meant Noah had lost control of the Leviathan.

The positive concepts had been meant to oppose the negative concepts, so stopping their creation had allowed the negative concepts to rapidly eat into Noah’s interior.

“It’s lost control!?”

Shinjou saw the color white rising through the sky.

It was wings.

The angels fighting in the sky and on the surface had been summoned back to their home.

The color white returned to heaven while paying them no heed.

They would receive physical adjustments from the Leviathan, master of the negative concepts.

Shinjou had a thought as she and Sayama fell toward the others below: The world has decided what it intends to do.

“But the world itself will still be judged.”

Shinjou breathed in and shouted toward the white light gathering in the heavens.

“We’re about to judge whether this world can remain or not!”

It was 10:30 PM.

Once the negative concepts inside the Leviathan realized that the positive concepts binding them would not grow any further, they rapidly began multiplying like living creatures.

They took control of their host, the Leviathan, and they used the Leviathan’s thought circuits to gain crude thoughts of their own.

This created a will. Its duty as the negative was to desire the annihilation of anything positive.

A contradiction allowance concept was restraining it, but once its activation surpassed that, the world would pass its critical point and be annihilated.

And the Leviathan knew two things: it was trapped in a small space and there were those who would oppose it.

It also lacked the power it need for a complete activation.

So the Leviathan gave its children new orders and gathered them inside.

That heavenly host was immersed in negative concepts.

To fight back, UCAT prioritized maintaining the seal while also settling on a certain plan. This plan would allow them to fully strike back against these ten powerful negative concepts.

“Operation Leviathan Release.”

That was the plan’s name.