The Sun That Rose at Night (3)
"Ariana."
As Mini returned to her normal size, her satellite Ariana followed suit.
"Going."
"Okay."
Mini's scale surged exponentially as she closed on Girshin.
When she finally matched his size, she clenched her fist and struck with everything she had.
Kuuuu!
A tremendous column of air was shoved aside, and with a thud it slammed into Girshin.
His upper body buckled.
"Kruuuuu!"
With their sizes matched, their strength was even; only technique divided them now.
"Pathetic human."
As Girshin swept his sword, the air ignited and a cloud of flame drew an arc.
"Hmph!"
Mini spun smoothly, wrapped her arms around Girshin's waist from behind, and held on.
"Now!"
Ariana, riding Mini, sailed over Girshin's face and landed on his brow.
"Go!" Mini threw her torso back and executed a German suplex.
"Yaaaah!"
As Girshin's feet left the ground and he flipped over toward the earth—
"Phantasm Press."
An apparition of Ariana appeared, grabbed Girshin's face, and slammed it into the ground.
Rumble—
The earth shook and dust billowed out, spreading across the city.
"Uaaaaah!"
Girshin sprang up and swung a fist, but it passed straight through Ariana's apparition.
'It's not a corporeal body.'
It was her avatar technique—Concentric Manifestation (psychokinesis).
"Here, you idiot!"
Girshin lowered his head to search for Ariana, and Mini lunged.
"Holleholleho!"
When Girshin glanced forward again, a dropkick struck his solar plexus.
"Ack!"
He was sent flying by the massive force, and Ariana immediately used her avatar technique.
"Grrrr!" Her apparition tore the peak off a mountain and drove it down onto Girshin's crown.
Thud.
"Ugh!"
All manner of trees, dirt, and creatures poured down onto Girshin's face like refuse.
'What the hell is this?'
An illusion was only a medium to realize force; in truth, she moved things with her mind.
'To lift the mass of an entire mountain by thought—'
Before that thought finished, Mini had slipped a choke on Girshin's neck and twisted.
"Aaaah!"
Girshin was furious.
"Yahoo!"
Ariana's apparition, throwing herself, slammed interlocked hands into the giant's belly.
Paaaarrrng!
People in the city watched, stunned, as if witnessing something unreal.
Shirone was no different.
'This is fascinating.'
"Yahweh, the giants are moving out of the city. If we need to relocate, now's our chance."
Entara's words snapped him to attention.
"Yes. Get people to the cathedral. Mini and Ariana will hold this place. As for me…"
For a moment Shirone flinched.
"Something wrong?"
Entara asked, but Shirone said nothing. He stared at the sky and murmured.
"What?"
The Law was changing again.
At the sun's core, Ikael held Amy from behind and braced her. It was in mental form, of course, but he could protect her to the end.
"Ikael! Don't do that!"
"It's fine. You're not an archangel. If someone must die at the last moment…"
Then it should be Amy.
"Ikael…"
As Amy's sad voice trembled, the divine Law that had been suppressing them loosened.
"Huh?"
When their minds cleared, the two separated and regained their own forms, looking around.
"What happened?"
Amy seemed to understand.
"Shirone did it. He blocked the Law of God!"
They did not yet know Satiel had aided him in the process.
Ikael looked about from above.
"Aah."
Even on an archangelic scale, the artificial structure was astonishingly complete.
Farther off, Shirone breathed a sigh of relief.
"Well done." He couldn't help picturing Gaffin's face.
"Let's go to Shirone."
Amy drew up her embodiment of fire to full strength, and Ikael nodded in approval.
"Then—"
Kuuuuuuuuu!
At that moment Ikael detected, through a signal of light, that the world's Law was twisting.
"Why?"
He didn't leave immediately because the sensation was qualitatively different from a god.
'This is definitely… mind.'
A quantum signal.
It wasn't a good feeling for them, but at least it wasn't cold; it was full of biological variables.
"Amy! Get out now!"
Perhaps because of that, it was even more dangerous.
"Huh? What—"
Amy, asking back, felt it too.
"Aah."
Following a faint pang of nostalgia, she turned and her form was swallowed by a wave of light.
"Amy!"
Then Ikael too was buried in white radiance.
Shirone grimaced.
"Guhk!"
The Shirone Sphere he had just completed was unraveling in reverse.
'Tachyon?'
Shirone had made the sphere, so for it to be undone someone had to directly touch Shirone's cause.
'You think I'll give it up that easily?'
Activating Uroboros, Shirone plunged into a fight to defend his past.
Countless events rose up like bubbles swept along by a wave of causality.
"Ughhhh!"
This was different.
'This thing isn't a god.'
Unlike the god who manipulated causality with cold logic, this had a distinctively human feel.
'No, more than that… it feels like it understands me.'
Having read some of its traits, Shirone threw everything into reversing his past.
Amid collisions of tachyon signals, the Shirone Sphere shimmered like a ghost.
Who would force their way through it?
'Don't be ridiculous.'
I made it.
When Shirone finally found the pivotal incident and drove the sphere through it—
-It should be.
For a moment he thought he heard a voice.
Then….
"Huh?"
A fierce solar wind blasted toward the side where Shirone's planet lay.
Seconds later, the Shirone Sphere's frame, struck by that wind, began to char.
'Miracle Stream.'
Shirone had to muster every defense to keep himself alive.
"Kruuuuuuuuu!"
Intense heat swept him, but the planet suffered more.
"Damn!"
Shirone glanced back at the small star, twinkling like a homeland.
'It'll arrive in about ten minutes.'
At that scale of gust, even if the magnetic field held, living things on half the world would be incinerated.
'They caught me off guard. To attack with solar wind… someone skilled with both photons and quantum.'
"Huh?"
He realized something.
"Amy."
He peered at the sun, but its core was empty.
"Amy!"
Shirone, who had been flying straight for the planet, understood he didn't have to anymore.
'I'm on the planet.'
Shirone vanished.
With that, the simultaneous incidents spreading across the world outside the cathedral ended.
Rumble. Rumble.
On the slope of a mountain still trembling from aftershocks, Tess finally let the tears she'd been holding fall.
"Rian!"
It might have been a trick of the eyes. No matter how much a schema master gathered light, the view wouldn't be clearer than daylight.
But she knew in her gut.
It was a huge, potent blow—the kind that made her certain Imir's attack was finished.
Tess urged her horse.
"We have to go!"
This time even Klump couldn't stop her.
'Is it all going to be this pointless?'
For a swordsman who had reached the realm of the gods for the first time in human history, to end like this—
"I'm coming too."
Wanting to see with his own eyes, Klump spurred his mount.
"Oi!"
Lai watched them ride off.
"Phew."
The fist that struck the ground had been dozens of times larger than the three-meter Imir.
Imir's expression was sour.
"That was fun."
It was the emptiness after the most exhilarating moment in an eternity.
Grrrk.
The massive arm shrank back to Imir's original size.
All that remained where the fist had hit was a grotesquely mangled corpse.
'He's dead.'
That was the thought.
When the blow reached Rian's will, his divine transcendence shattered; when it hit his body, even his conviction broke.
The shredded remains were proof, and in that death, Rian…
'He's dead.'
Imir agreed.
'What a ridiculous end,' he thought as his life flashed past.
'We suffered so much. We were called fools, we fell into hell and endured every hardship.'
They had finally arrived.
'I was finally going to be able to fight properly.'
Yet Imir had crushed him without mercy.
'Come to think of it—'
Rian suddenly remembered.
'I feel like I've heard this before.'
At the oasis Vanguard in the desert, a girl had once divined the future.
'Haha!'
He'd thought she was a fraud.
'It's fine now.'
There's nothing left to do.
'I'm totally smashed. I want to sleep. Damn, how do you sleep after your brain's been smashed?'
Why is he still thinking?
After a moment of thought, Rian gave up and waited for complete death.
He had lived like a flame and was exhausted.
A little while later.
'Ah, why won't I die!'
Irritation flared in Rian.
Would he exist forever as a thought?
'No.'
In truth he knew.
Even though his conviction had been broken, there remained one thing he'd refused to accept to the end.
'Shirone.'
He had failed to protect his lord.
'I am a broken sword.'
-Smille.
'Can I fight again? Bearing the shame of defeat, can I still protect my lord?'
Ozent spoke.
-Smille.
Imir's brows twitched.
"Huh?"
Lines of light began to flow over the corpse, sculpting a likeness of Rian.
The Idea's signal filled with will, and the scattered flesh began to twitch.
"Heh heh."
Imir laughed.
"Uheheh! Uhehehehe!"
Rian's body slowly rose to a standing position.
'In my heart…'
'Build a kingdom of conviction.'
A mind reborn not as a battle-mad swordsman but as a single knight would never—
'—break.'
Yes.
Rian and Ozent spoke at once.
-The Idea cannot be destroyed.
Everything inherited from his predecessors coalesced, and a greatsword settled into Rian's right hand.
"Phew."
When Imir saw Rian's eyes, clear and shining, a chill ran down his spine.
'Remarkable regenerative power.'
It wasn't merely the restoration of flesh.
'Even I wouldn't have returned. Was there anything left after burning everything?'
That was the kind of fight this had been.
"Alright, what now? You don't look like you'll give up."
Rian, his beastliness quelled, was coldly composed.
'This is the last time.'
With Ozent and his Idea integrated, his regeneration would be gone for good.
"I fought enough."
He had no lingering attachment to life, but—
"I will protect."
He had willingly crossed the river of death to protect Shirone, humanity, the world.
"Hoho?"
Imir stroked his chin.
"Noble words—but how? If you can't beat me, you can't protect anyone."
"You're not alone."
"Rian!"
Tess and Klump, having arrived on the battlefield, stared in shock at the plainly living Rian.
"You… are you okay?"
Imir shrugged.
"Heh heh, indeed. Looks like you're not alone. Planning to use a meat shield or something?"
At that moment the space folded, and beyond a boundary line a different landscape opened.
A pure tone crossed the border.
"Transport complete."
Behind her stood all those who had experienced the simultaneous incidents with Shirone.
Nade cracked his knuckles and stepped forward.
"All right, the first one's that dumb-looking big guy? Hey, come on. I'll smash you to pieces."
Imir just stared.
When Miro, Gauld, and even their friends showed no reaction, Nade turned back in confusion.
"What, why—?"