Pia Identification (3)
After lunch, Shirone walked the corridors of Delta Headquarters, lost in thought.
'I'm uneasy.'
It wasn't that he doubted Ikael or Ashur's abilities, but this was a matter that concerned the future of humanity.
'There's nothing to do but trust them. We need to start drawing up a proper strategy with Tormia now.'
Just as he was hoping the wizard would arrive, Satiel came up from the end of the corridor.
"Shirone."
Their relationship was strained.
"Where is Ikael?"
Shirone kept his mouth shut, but Satiel could guess he wouldn't answer.
"You know as well as I do. Ikael and I have things to settle. Tell me where she is, and I won't lay a hand on you. I might even help."
"Why?" Shirone asked.
"Because there's still some shred of feeling left for me? Or because I've already killed once before?" Satiel's eyes hardened.
"Say whatever you want. I don't regret my decision. Even if I could go back, I'd do the same."
"I know—you had no choice." Her face didn't change, but she couldn't stop the radiance of her holy light from trembling.
"The only archangel who sided with the Gaians. When Gauphin chose Ikael, your sense of betrayal was—"
"What are you trying to say?"
"Because it's irreversible, one mistake can doom everything. But now it's reversible. I'm alive now, aren't I?"
The air vibrated.
Satiel's vibration was a solemn, otherworldly wave.
'Reversible?' Shirone wouldn't honestly have said it didn't shake him, but they'd come too far.
'The road back will be just as long.' He was exhausted, and what drove her now was a will that had stilled into duty, even freezing anger into stone.
'Gauphin.'
If it could be undone—
'Even so, Gauphin won't come back. He took everything. Ikael stole everything that belonged to me.'
Shirone called out sharply.
"Satiel."
His voice rolled through the holy light like thunder. Satiel frowned.
"What do you want from me—"
At that moment a rank-2 Mara, Galio, appeared beside Satiel.
"We've located Ikael!"
His eyes spun like whirlpools, carrying an extreme-grade decomposition resonance.
"You found her?" Satiel turned to him in alarm. Shirone still couldn't make sense of it.
'How?'
If Galio had locked onto a position, Ashur's signal must have been disrupted.
"Ikael!"
A vicious look returned to Satiel's face, and without hesitation she shattered a window and flew out.
'Simultaneous incident—'
Shirone, planning to use Amy's perception to get there, bit his lip.
"Ugh!"
Because two people cannot occupy the same space, their signals were clashing.
"Blitz!"
As he shouted, the brain-dragon Blitz generated a neural discharge and bowed on his knees.
"Have I been summoned, Messiah?"
"Right now—"
Just as Shirone was about to give orders, hundreds of flashes burst beyond the window.
Ordinary angels.
"Follow me."
Shirone vaulted out the window and twelve apostles followed.
Aruta and Amy didn't move—already deep in their sparring.
'They're coming.'
A phantom Aruta threw a straight punch; Amy twisted to counter.
'Failed.'
Amy's head exploded.
In thousands of simulations, the number of times she had successfully countered was zero.
'I can't win.'
Even if Uriel's rank-2 Mara would obviously be no weak thing, his blow transcended the category of Mara.
'I'm going to die.'
Shirone clutched at the faltering energy and forced himself steady.
The reason Aruta couldn't finish the attack was that Amy still had a sliver of a chance to counter.
'The moment she wavers, it's over.'
Only an absolutely precise balance—without the slightest error—kept her alive.
'There's no way to evade that strike. The power is strong enough to make you certain of it.'
Cold sweat trickled down.
"Ugh—"
He stifled a cry as time kept slipping by.
In the weakening flow of power, Aruta found an opening in Amy.
'It's come.'
Insight born of a lifetime's understanding of Mu guided his body.
'This ends it.'
Aruta pushed off the ground and charged; Amy felt her consciousness slip away.
"Ah—!"
Her mind went pale blank and an unavoidable blow barreled in.
With no thought left, even the notion of death could not form.
'Therefore—'
She was already no different from dead, and Aruta's strike carried that meaning.
At the boundary where the world reverted to nothingness, Amy heard a voice that was not hers.
Mahabanya.
It was the sutra Nane had chanted by her side the first time she opened the realm of fire and lost consciousness.
Her awareness reopened and her crimson eyes flared.
'Immortal Function.'
Having even forgotten her own existence, she became pure flame in her natural state.
Aruta's fist was almost on her, but distance no longer mattered.
'Ignition.'
Crimson flames wrapped Aruta's arm, dove down his throat, and burned out his insides.
"Krrgh—!"
Before he could register pain, his body vaporized and a massive vortex of fire erupted in that spot.
"Ahhhh!"
Amy wept, overcome.
'So this is it.'
Shirone understood her heart, and the meaning Nane had tried to convey clicked into place.
'Burn it all.'
The conflagration spread like an obliterating blast, wiping the area clean.
At its center a beautiful body, wholly turned to flame, rested with eyes gently closed.
Realizing Aruta had been annihilated, Uriel slowly withdrew the foot that had been aimed at Ikael.
"Rise." Because he hadn't intended to kill, Ikael rose with measured movements.
"I thought I'd thought so much I couldn't think anymore... perhaps that was my mistake."
"Uriel, that is the heart," Ikael said.
"Thought is merely thought. All angels think according to the laws of the cosmos. But you did not follow Satiel."
That was why Ikael had placed her hope here.
"Because you have a heart. Your will can change things. Isn't that why you came to me?"
"Yes. To annihilate you."
"That anger is a heart too. But you hesitate. That means you haven't thrown your heart away."
Gauphin had taught her.
"When you can cast everything aside, you will find the path. Until then—"
A thunderous sound rolled down from the sky.
"Ikael!"
Satiel, who had come with countless angels, was plummeting at terrifying speed.
"I'll kill you!"
She landed and lunged, fist raised, but Uriel produced the Bliss Staff.
"What—"
Caught off guard, Satiel tried to brake, but her fist drove into the Bliss Staff.
A deafening roar burst out and a massive shockwave swept the ground around them.
Satiel widened her eyes.
"What are you doing?"
"...Ikael was talking with me."
"Then what are you doing? I am the archangel in command. If you do not obey my orders, I will judge you a traitor." Uriel looked up.
Hundreds of ordinary angels activated judicial light rings and readied bombardment.
He turned back and said, "Then so be it."
"Ugh—"
Satiel unfurled a judicial light ring and Uriel's holy light spread into a ring as well.
Light spun between them and another powerful shockwave radiated out.
Satiel was flung back; Uriel swung the Bliss Staff and cast Ragnarok.
"Is this the only way to satisfy you?" Even as lightning cracked, Satiel gave orders without intent to halt.
"Kill Ikael!"
Kraaaaaaash!
A white bolt of lightning struck above Satiel's head as hundreds of angels bombarded the ground.
The angels' battle erupted.
Collisions of higher-order concepts—far beyond human or Mara fights—shook the earth.
The twelve apostles, flying at tremendous speed, shouted to Shirone at the front.
"Messiah!"
"On it."
Shirone grimaced at the sight.
The angels' battlefield resembled a cosmic-scale catastrophe.
"I'll handle this. First confirm the wizard's status. And if possible... Ikael and Amy too."
"Understood."
Blitz bowed, understanding the Messiah's intent, and the remaining apostles scattered in every direction.
Meanwhile, Ikael stood surrounded by hundreds of angels, holding off their attacks.
"Revered Ikael."
Even if he wasn't the archangel, Ikael remained the origin for all these angels.
"Why have you forsaken us?" An angel-form Zariel bound her feet with an infinite hexagonal construct.
The restraint, imbued with the concept of cosmic void, could not be broken by any physical force.
"Hmph."
Her body, having opened Ataraxia, embodied a concept that transcended limits.
She shattered the shackles, stepped forward, and thrust out a slender arm. Her fist stopped before Zariel, and angels charged in from every direction.
"Strike," Zariel said.
Seeing his holy light set on self-annihilation, Ikael felt her chest wrench.
'Those who have lost their origin.'
In the hollow, empty eyes of the angels rushing at her, she saw that void.
'Because of me.'
Ikael hesitated.
'No—I mustn't. I already made my decision. I will fight for Shirone.'
Thoughts flashed, but the angels' assault closed in far quicker.
Shirone dashed at nearly the speed of light.
"Ikael!"
In a scene that seemed to freeze time, a streak of flame flared up.
'What—?'
At the same instant, Amy arrived in front of Ikael, her crimson eyes burning.
'Crimson gem.'
A sunlike sphere of fire was born and dominated the entire radius where the angels stood.
"Guhk!"
Shirone shielded his eyes with Hand of God and grimaced at the searing heat.
"Amy?"
The flames took Amy's form, but this Amy was on an entirely different level than the one he knew.
'This is not a mere phenomenon of fire. This is an idea.'
To command the signal of fire itself was to have mastered an avatar art.
The fire-sphere faded, and Amy returned to human shape and looked back at Ikael.
"Are you okay?" Ikael, unable to answer, stared blankly ahead.
"Krrrgh—"
Countless ordinary angels, engulfed in flame, sat on the ground with their wings of light melted away.