Don’t be scared. I still have a trump card up my sleeve. Flum thinks that I can’t use Prana Shaker. Rischel, scraping up the floor with the blade of her axe, brought her axe up to block the attack. Sure, I can’t fly, but I can still make a mark on a spot that’s a bit of a distance away. So even if it’s just a scratch, that’ll work. If I put it on her chest, I can blow out her heart and win!
Their weapons clashed. Then prana burst forth, and tiny blades would scatter from Rischel’s axe—or at least, that’s what should have happened.
“Reversal!” However, the reality was that there was no weapon impact. Rischel’s axe had been cut in two by Souleater.
“Ah, I figured if I hit it hard enough, it could break.” In the end, that axe was created with the power of Origin. Even if it was made to be denser and more durable, Flum’s sword was still imbued with the power of Reversal, and with her arms strengthened with prana, and attacking from above, the axe wasn’t something Flum couldn’t destroy.
“Ah, ah, uwaaaahhhh!” Flum had beaten her opponent, looking down on her. Rischel’s pride wouldn’t allow her to admit it though, so she threw a tantrum and went on a rampage. Rischel swung her left arm, which was attached to the broken axe, and, in a nasty move, filled it with prana, and grazing Flum’s abdomen with an incomplete and irregular slash.
“Pendulum, kill this bitch!” Flum’s abdomen exploded and her intestines scattered about. Flum, without panicking, calmly searched for the location of the Origin core based on her previous movements. The next time Rischel looked…
Huh? Why can’t I slash anymore? Souleater had gone for the Origin core buried in her left thigh. She had a similar experience earlier. It was an inexplicable phenomenon that could only be described as “time flying by.”
“As a price for using that power, your number of weak points increases. I found it, the Origin core.” Faced with this phenomenon, Rischel was stunned, but she reacted in a manner that was superhuman and jumped backward. It seemed like that was not Rischel’s will itself, but rather, the will of Origin residing in the core that resulted in that action. However, even if she tried to dodge it at this point, it was already too late.
“Prana Shaker Reversal!” For some reason, what was unleashed from that was a flying slash. Both of Rischel’s legs were severed and the core that was embedded in her was shattered.
“A, gah, agghaaaaa!” She suddenly let out a scream of agony. The power of Origin left her body, and so she began to change back, accompanied by intense pain. Her body was probably trying to change back to its original form, however, because she had mutated too much, she was stuck in an incomplete state. With about half of her face returned to human form, Rischel looked at Flum, sweat and blood pouring.
“Guhhh… What…did you do to me…?”
“You stopped moving every time you used Justice Arts. That’s a negative effect of using the Origin core, isn’t it?” Apparently, Flum didn’t know the cause herself. Rischel closed her eyes, frustrated. She spread her arms wide and showed no sign of resistance; her spirit must have been broken.
“Hey, Flum… What did I do wrong…?” Rischel leaned toward Flum, as if wanting to depend on her.
Flum coldly snapped back, saying, “Everything.” Rischel closed her lips somewhat tightly. But surprisingly, even though Flum was going to push her away, she continued speaking.
“Or that’s what I would have liked to say. But I think there’s room for sympathy for you, for the fact that your parents didn’t love you, that you were only praised by others for murder, and that you lived in a world destroyed by Origin.” Flum had memories as Flum Watermoon in her, so she remembered that conversation with Rischel, too. Flum also clearly remembered her wicked deeds in her previous life, too. In short, her words of sympathy were merely a prelude to casting her aside.
“But it’s different now that you entered the body of this person.” Flum’s voice got slightly lower. The sickeningly sweet, optimistic time was over. That was what it was signaling. “The original owner of that body, that girl was loved by her parents. And even after this new personality emerged in her, they were worried that you were sick and tried to cure you. And what did you do to those people? You killed them and destroyed them. You did that for your own desires, to an innocent, happy family!” No matter if she tried to represent it as justice, or lamented about a past life, Rischel’s actions in the present day were nothing more than murder for pleasure.
“If you had been able to talk to the original owner of that body and hear about the love she shared with her parents, then maybe your desires, too, of ‘wanting to be loved’ and ‘wanting to be recognized and accepted by others’ could have been fulfilled. But the moment you made the worst possible choice, the choice to kill, your future was completely ruined. Don’t you get it? You were the one who invited unhappiness and despair! If you don’t recognize that, then you’re just running away by putting it under a convenient label, like justice. And that kind of justice only increases the number of victims. You can only call something like that a curse!”
Rischel couldn’t say anything in return. That was because she had known better than anyone that those parents truly loved their child. That’s right. I…was jealous of that. The Rischel of this world respected and loved her parents. And they even said that they would’ve accepted her past life self. I killed those people. Just to make myself feel better.
If the concept of destiny existed in this world, as was the case with Flum and Milkit meeting one another, then perhaps, in Rischel’s case, her destiny was to meet the original “Rischel” of this world and her parents. If that were the case, then that meant she did something that couldn’t be undone. Even someone like this Rischel would regret that, reflect on it, and want to atone. However, Flum couldn’t care less about that. Up until this point, all Flum was saying was just to make her realize all of the mistakes she had made.
“Hey, how can I—” And then this was where Flum’s personal feelings came into play, and there was only one conclusion that she could reach.
“You’re the scum who hurt Milkit, so you can just die.” She brought her black sword directly down the middle of Rischel’s face. In that sense, it was a merciful, instant death. Rischel’s body was split cleanly down the middle and her innards spilled out. Flum had no intention of mourning her death, so she swung her sword to fling off the blood that was sticking to it and then sheathed it. Then after erasing the very existence of Rischel from her mind, she raced over to Milkit who was waiting for her in back.
“It’s over, Milkit.”
“Master!” As soon as Milkit saw Flum, she rushed over and threw herself into her arms. She must have been holding that back all of this time.
“Master, Master! This time it’s really you, Master! Master!”
“I’m sorry to make you feel lonely. I’m here.”
“Masterrrr…!” Her emotions laid bare, she cried and cried. Flum felt both sorry for Milkit and love for her as she held Milkit close to her chest. Right now, they just wanted to feel each other’s presence. They each knew that the other felt the same way, even without words. Which was why they held each other tightly, filling their hearts with the real feeling of “You’re here” using all five of their senses. But the battlefield wasn’t reading the room. Suddenly, the entire fortress shook violently, and the two of them almost lost their balance.
“Uwaah! Milkit, hang on tight!” Milkit was supported by Flum, so they didn’t fall, but that was still a big shake. “What was that just now? Or, wait, more importantly, what’s the situation right now? I understand that this place is a city called Tokyo, and that it’s floating in the air thanks to power of Origin cores.”
“That’s exactly right. The church is using this so that they can occupy the Demon Lord’s castle.”
“So you all came to this place to try and stop that…but you can’t break the cores without me, right?”
“Actually, something called a Reversal core was created, so we can break normal cores.”
“Oh okay, Flum Apricot, guess you’re relieved of duty…” Flum understood that this was a happy thing, but she felt a little sad. In response, Milkit hurriedly spoke up to try and smooth things over.
“I don’t think that’s true. It’s a tool that only a very select few people can use, because even though you have the Reversal core, you can’t really do anything with it unless you’re capable to delivering a powerful blow.”
“So I guess that means only people like Eterna and Gadhio could use it, then… Wait, so does that mean that the tremors we felt earlier were from Origin cores breaking and the fortress coming to a stop?” At that moment, a voice came through Milkit’s communication device.
“This is Neigass. Confirming that all of the reported cores have been destroyed.”
“Yep, all busted up!” Flum was shocked as she looked at the cube that Milkit took out of her pocket.
“Whoa, Sara’s voice came from that cube thingy!”
“This is, um, in the royal capital… It’s a communication device, that I received from Satuhkie.”
“That cardinal, huh. He’s fishy, but I guess he’s an ally after all. When I met Henriette before too, she said something meaningful. I wonder if they know about my past life.”
“I think that’s highly likely.”
“I see… Well, that’s certainly important too, but it’s Sara! Sara! Oh, and I could hear Neigass’s voice too. Does that mean we’re fighting alongside the demons?!”
“Yes, quite a few things happened.”
“Sounds like it’s a long story. Okay. I’ll worry about that later.” The situation seemed to be extremely chaotic, more so than Flum had thought it would be. But one thing was for certain: This fortress needed to be stopped. Flum decided to put off understanding the finer details and focus on the battle.
“Then what the heck is going on? All of the cores have been destroyed, but this fortress is still floating?!” However, while Flum and Milkit were talking, the state of the battle seemed to be getting even more complicated.