Hello everyone who followed this incredible fanfic! It was so much fun going on this journey with you, but unfortunately, we've reached the end... BUT! We have a brand new fanfic to dive into: DanMachi: Inheriting the Legacy of Alternate Versions over on my The_Mikudayo account—written by the very same author!
Hope to see you all there!
The Kirukiru clan. Every single member was an Avatar Blade wielder, just like Amou Kirukiru — a family that turned its own bodies into weapons.
Its Avatar Blade wielders were scattered like shadows through every dark corner of Japan.
When she heard Onigawara Rin and the others solemnly vow to build their own personal guard and retinue,
Amou Kirukiru — who normally sneered at anything weak — found herself, for once, genuinely interested.
After all, she'd always looked down on the whole idea of a so-called "entourage."
To her it was a pointless game the weak played, huddling together for warmth.
Before meeting Kami-sama, the only thing she'd ever trusted was her own body — a body that could shatter anything.
Still. On second thought.
She might call herself the strongest, but in a battlefield like this one, with everyone jostling for the master's favor, if she didn't even have a maid of her own to fetch tea and run errands,
wasn't that already losing to everyone else?
So, if she was going to pick out someone she could trust,
one perfect candidate came to Amou Kirukiru's mind at once.
— At the Kirukiru clan's ancestral home.
The moment Amou Kirukiru arrived, she brushed her loose black hair back from her forehead with one careless hand — and caught movement off to one side. A cold smile crept across her face.
"Come on out."
"You've already caught my scent. No point hiding behind that pillar playing turtle."
As her voice faded, a figure stepped slowly out of the shadows along the ancestral courtyard's covered walkway.
It was a girl who looked a year or two younger than Amou Kirukiru, and bore more than a passing resemblance to her.
She wore her hair cropped short and neat, every inch a tomboy.
Her face carried almost no expression at all, cold and still as a rock.
She had on a snug black leather jacket up top —
a daringly cropped cut that bared her midriff, her flat, taut stomach rising and falling with each breath.
A silver dog-tag chain hung around her neck, and she chewed idly on a wad of pink bubblegum.
She blew a bubble until it popped with a snap, sticking to her lips.
Without so much as a flicker of expression, she rolled the gum back into her mouth with her tongue, her eyes complicated as they fixed on Amou Kirukiru standing at the center of the courtyard.
— Hyoki Kirukiru.
Amou Kirukiru's own younger sister.
After Amou Kirukiru — owner of the strongest Avatar Blade the clan had seen in a hundred years — had walked out on the family,
Hyoki Kirukiru, who had always lived in her sister's shadow,
had naturally risen to become the clan's new strongest Avatar Blade wielder.
"Why did you even bother coming back."
Hyoki Kirukiru stopped where she stood, hands shoved into the pockets of her leather pants.
Even one extra word seemed like too much trouble for her.
But before Amou Kirukiru could answer,
the paper doors slammed open with a bang.
Several gray-haired old men in traditional kimono swept in and surrounded Amou Kirukiru at the center of the courtyard.
They were the elders who held real power in the Kirukiru clan.
When Amou Kirukiru had first stepped out of that mysterious gate of light, they'd been thoroughly startled.
They'd assumed it was some kind of sorcery.
But once they got a good look and realized the intruder was none other than Amou Kirukiru — the disowned daughter who'd once injured the family's guards —
shock gave way almost instantly to fury on their faces.
"Insolence! Amou Kirukiru!"
The elder at the front slammed his cane down hard against the wooden floor.
"You traitor, who threw away the clan's honor!"
"And you dare show your face here so brazenly!"
"Who gave you leave to set foot through this family's gate!"
Faced with the old men's furious roaring,
Amou Kirukiru couldn't have cared less. She dug at her ear with her pinky, looking thoroughly bored.
"Save your breath, old fossils."
Amou Kirukiru yawned, her gaze sliding right past the old men to settle on Hyoki Kirukiru.
"I didn't come back today to sit through a lecture from a bunch of has-beens with one foot in the grave."
"Hyoki." A cold little smile tugged at Amou Kirukiru's mouth as she pointed at the short-haired girl chewing her gum.
"I'm here to take you with me."
"To another world."
The moment those words left her mouth, dead silence dropped over the courtyard.
Hyoki Kirukiru's bubble-blowing stopped mid-motion, her eyes going wide.
"Another... world?"
"That's right." Amou Kirukiru stepped forward, a chilling fervor burning in her eyes.
"I'll take you somewhere you'll finally see what real power looks like."
"Follow me." "Let's build up great deeds together, in service to a supreme god so terrible even the gods themselves tremble before him."
"A god?" At hearing something so absurd,
the elders — already fuming — finally lost what little patience they had left.
"Nonsense!" "You've lost your mind! You've completely lost your mind!"
The lead elder shook with rage.
"Utter, raving nonsense!"
"What kind of nonsense god! I'd wager you've been running around out there with some no-good men so long your brain's gone rotten!"
"Since you've come knocking on our door yourself today,"
"then this old man will remind you of the Kirukiru clan's rules!"
The moment the elder finished speaking —
"Overlord's Will — possess me!"
he stepped forward and drove a fist straight at Amou Kirukiru's face.
But here was the thing: when Amou Kirukiru had left the clan, she'd left it as its strongest.
"Big words."
Amou Kirukiru brought her long, straight leg down in a single heavy stomp against the bluestone flagstones beneath her.
BOOM!!!
A terrifying crash tore through the courtyard's stillness in an instant.
She had survived countless life-and-death battles in Orario's Dungeon.
Been bathed in Divine Blood, and completed three miraculous Rank Sublimations to reach Lv.3!
Add to that her Development Ability, [Hardened Body], purpose-built to toughen flesh into something harder than steel —
and Amou Kirukiru, as she stood now,
had transcended every limit a human of this world could ever hope to reach.
Centered on the spot where her foot had landed,
the unyielding bluestone paving the courtyard
burst into a spiderweb of jagged, terrifying cracks in an instant.
One by one, the elders stared, slack-jawed, at the horrifying crater stomped into the middle of the courtyard.
Their eyes bulged nearly out of their sockets.
Could a human being really make a sound like that with one stomp?!
"M-monster..." someone stammered, teeth chattering.
The dust slowly settled.
Amou Kirukiru stood right where she'd been, still in that same careless pose, her gaze sweeping contemptuously over the elders groaning on the ground.
"Same as always. Not even worth the effort."
Then she turned to look at Hyoki Kirukiru, still standing on the covered walkway — trying hard to keep a calm face, though her expression had already given away just how shaken she was.
"Well?" Amou Kirukiru spread her arms wide.
"Want this kind of power?"
"Come with me." "Leave this dull, boring world behind."
Listening to her sister's condescending, arrogant tone,
the shock in Hyoki Kirukiru's eyes instantly caught fire with anger.
Ptooey! Hyoki Kirukiru spat her gum out hard.
"Stop talking to yourself over there!"
"Don't think you can pick up a few weird tricks out in the world and come running back to boss me around!"
"I'm the strongest Avatar Blade wielder now!"
Hyoki Kirukiru gritted her teeth and dropped straight into a fighting stance!
"Want to take me away? Then let me break both your legs first!"
Watching her little sister bare her claws at her,
the smile on Amou Kirukiru's lips only stretched wider.
As if she were staring at something she coveted, itching to tear it apart with her own two hands.
"Ha ha ha ha! Good!" "Very good!"
"If you'd actually tucked your tail between your legs like a dog and come along quietly,"
"I'd have found it boring, honestly. Thought less of you for it."
"Since you refuse to accept it,"
"then let your big sister here show you a proper dose of love!"
With that — the two sisters...
Meanwhile,
over at the private Aichi Symbiosis Academy,
word that Onigawara Rin, Mary Kikakujou, Hanasaka Warabi, and the others had returned through the portal had already spread through the entire girls' dormitory.
After all, with how often they'd been coming and going lately,
most of the girls at the academy already had a fair idea they'd been visiting some world where gods walked among mortals.
In the ground-floor lounge of the girls' dorm, with its floor-to-ceiling windows,
"Whoa! Sis Rin, did you all really get even stronger?!"
Mozunono Nono's eyes went wide as she clung to Onigawara Rin's arm, stars of admiration shining in them.
"Heh heh. Of course."
Onigawara Rin gave a couple of deliberate coughs, striking a dignified pose like someone who'd seen the wider world.
"The lot of us have all successfully sublimated our ranks — we're at Lv.3 now!"
The moment she said it, a chorus of sharp gasps rippled through the room.
None of them had a very clear idea of what Lv.3 actually meant,
but it sounded impressive enough just from the way she said it!
"And that's not all~" Hanasaka Warabi, not to be outdone, hopped in beside her.
She swept a proud gaze over the three followers under her command.
Touko Tsunemi's ears perked right up.
"We've already been officially appointed by the Guild — the highest authority in the Labyrinth City of Orario —"
"as licensed Constables of Orario!"
"Constables?!"
"So you can practically walk around like you own the place now?!"
At Hanasaka Warabi's words, her three beast-warriors let out cries of astonishment.
Watching their juniors gawk like they'd never seen anything so impressive,
"So, then." Mary Kikakujou let her gaze fall on Ubaragasaki Choka, who was clinging tight to her arm.
"Given how well we've done,"
"Kami-sama told us we can finally bring you all to Orario, so you can receive his Grace."
"Really?! Lady Mary!"
At those words, Ubaragasaki Choka's eyes welled up with tears.
"Waaah... finally! I won't have to be some lonely short-lived nobody stuck in this world, watching Lady Mary and Lady Rin fly off to nest together while I—"
"Pfft—"
Hearing this girl blurt out something so shamelessly forward without a moment's thought,
Mary Kikakujou and Onigawara Rin nearly coughed up blood on the spot.
"Okay, that's enough. Stop imagining things."
"Kami-sama did promise to take you all,"
"but!"
"Tomorrow we're heading out to challenge the extremely dangerous deep floors of the Dungeon, alongside [Loki Familia] — one of the two strongest Familias in the Labyrinth City."
"So you've got at least two weeks left here to get ready."
"And over those two weeks,"
"I want you to make the most of every minute training your bodies and your will!"
"Orario is absolutely not some playground where you get to play house!"
"It's crawling with monsters that could swallow you whole in one bite!"
"If you get over there and start crying and whining, I'll go straight to Kami-sama and have him send you right back!"
Watching the conversation drift further off track, Onigawara Rin's tone turned serious.
At that same moment, in World W-521, Chivalry of a Failed Knight,
in another corner of the bustling city, where neon lights flickered along the streets,
Haimer stood alone at the edge of a skyscraper's rooftop.
The night wind stirred his short black hair as his deep, dark eyes gazed thoughtfully toward some distant point.
"Doing the math, that person should still be active around now, shouldn't she?"
"Though hauling her straight down to the Lower World might honestly be overkill, both in raw strength and pure ability..."
Haimer murmured to himself, his gaze piercing through the neon-lit, decadent city to see the threads of causality hidden within it.
After all, what that woman wielded was a Causality Interference type ability capable of directly manipulating time itself.
One that could shatter the space-time of a targeted area outright.
Destructive power on that level —
if the gods of Orario suddenly saw a mere mortal capable of controlling time,
they'd probably drop their jaws in shock.
"Still, though..." Haimer reconsidered.
"If she's overpowered, she's overpowered. So be it."
After all, as long as it let him accomplish something he'd been looking forward to for a long time,
the gods' opinions on the matter were entirely beside the point.
So Haimer just shrugged, looking utterly unbothered.
As for the person he'd been talking about —
she was, naturally, the future chairwoman of Hagun Academy, currently active as one of the top powers in the world of knight competitions, holding the rank of Third Seat in the KOK League.
— Kurono Shinguuji.
Bearer of the title "World Clock."
Her innate Device took the form of a pair of pistols, one black, one white.
The gun in her left hand governed time's forward flow; the one in her right controlled its reverse.
She also commanded a move the KOK League had declared an absolute forbidden technique — one that, once unleashed, would leave the world with a wound that could never heal: [Space-Time Shatter].
Even as these thoughts turned over in Haimer's mind,
not far from that block, in a quiet, secluded alley lit by the dim yellow glow of a streetlamp,
Kurono Shinguuji had just turned down a passionate confession from an admirer — politely, but without a shred of mercy.
She leaned against a brick wall, a slim women's cigarette held between her fingers.
"At my age... maybe it really is time to settle down."
Kurono Shinguuji tapped the ash from her cigarette.
Her deep black hair was cut short and sharp, a few loose strands falling across her forehead, usually gathered at the back into one small, neat ponytail. She was tall and slender, her figure elegantly curved, carrying an air of refined, intellectual beauty.
After everything she'd been through, now, at last, she was alone.
Kurono Shinguuji tilted her head back to look at the darkening sky, murmuring quietly to herself, exhaustion plain in her eyes.
She'd grown sick of a life spent fighting and killing, long ago.
Every day was another battle.
As long as she stayed on the front lines, holding the League's Third Seat,
conflict would keep swarming her like flies drawn to the smell of blood — it would never stop.
"'World Clock,' huh..."
"Heh. How ironic."
"What kind of World Clock can't even control the time of her own life?"
____
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