Hiromichi Rokuhara had always seemed like a sullen young man. That hadn’t changed, but there was something clearly different about him now: he had wings.
Black wings, like those of a crow, had sprouted from his back, giving him a demonic appearance.
He was standing on the empty window frame. Across from him, protagonist Ryoma Takei sat slumped against the wall, with Yuichi and Natsuki standing next to him.
Yurika was near the entrance, to the left of Hiromichi from Yuichi’s point of view.
Ende was sitting in a seat in the back of the cafe, surveying the room before her, and Mutsuko Sakaki was standing in the window frame next to Hiromichi.
“Hey, I don’t think your ward is having much effect. People have been coming in the whole time...” Yuichi muttered. It was a trivial complaint, but perhaps he needed to get his mind off of the sight before his eyes.
“Well, the ward that I cast isn’t a spell type of thing,” Ende said. “It’s more like a use of public authority, which means that it won’t stop your typical rule-breaker types from getting in.”
Yuichi had to admit that Mutsuko was unlikely to heed a police cordon. She’d already done more than a few arguably illegal things in the past.
“But a ward was never going to work on him and Mutsuko anyway... after all, I invited them here.”
Ende slowly began walking towards the two as she spoke. Then she turned in front of Mutsuko and Hiromichi and spread her arms wide.
“This is my next plan. I was trying to think about how to beat Yuichi Sakaki, and the conclusion was simple: get Mutsuko Sakaki on my side, and make them fight. Pretty effective, right?”
“Uh, what?” Yuichi burst out.
Mutsuko was siding with the enemy?
The premise seemed so unreal, it was making his head spin. His sister might say and do ridiculous things, but he’d always believed she would never betray him, at least.
“Knock it off, Sis,” he said. He spoke quickly, flustered. “This is a joke, right? I beat that protagonist guy, so let’s go home... Oh, by the way, I did that one thing, the elbow strike into kata-guruma throw that you thought up? I wish you’d been here earlier. I won’t get many other chances to do it...”
“The question was how to get Mutsuko on my side, but then, conveniently for me, you seemed to have some kind of falling out on your own.” Ende continued, seeming to enjoy her monologue. “I brought up the subject, and she agreed to it readily.”
“Hey! While we’re here, let’s recover that other Divine Vessel! Then we’ll have almost all of them!” Mutsuko pointed straight at Yurika.
“What are you doing, Sis?” Yuichi yelled.
“Huh? Does the person who whined about not wanting to take part in the war have something to say to me?” Mutsuko asked bluntly. “It’s none of your business, so why don’t you amscray?”
Yuichi, panicked, turned his attention to Hiromichi. “Hey! Why are you working with my big sister? You’re in the same class, so you must know how crazy she is!”
“She said she’d help me, so why should I refuse? We’ve made a lot of progress in collecting Divine Vessels together.” Hiromichi didn’t seem to mind at all, and Yuichi had no response to that.
“Ende!” he shouted instead. “I thought Ryoma was your big plan! What the hell is this?”
“You know, most plans need a backup,” Ende said. “If one arrow misses, just fire another. It’s common sense.”
Yuichi then turned his eyes imploringly to Natsuki.
He honestly had no idea what to do anymore.
“It’s fun watching you panic, but shouldn’t you be protecting Maruyama?” Natsuki asked.
“Th-That’s right. We can’t let him get her Divine Vessel!” Yuichi couldn’t pretend like the situation had nothing to do with him now, and he also couldn’t just let Yurika be assaulted.
“You there!” Mutsuko called. “We don’t want a fight, so just hand over the Divine Vessel and I won’t hurt you! Although if you want a fight, we’re raring to go!”
Yuichi thought about pointing out the contradiction there, but Mutsuko was ignoring the Divine Vessel host Hiromichi and apparent puppetmaster Ende to further the story on her own.
“What, you weren’t planning on killing me when I let my guard down?” Yurika readied her sword.
Generally speaking, in the Divine Vessels War, killing your opponent was the right answer.
You could just steal someone’s Divine Vessel, but a vessel with a still-living host couldn’t take a new one, so you couldn’t use its power. Besides, letting someone live meant they could come back after you again.
Apparently annoyed at Mutsuko taking over the conversation, Hiromichi spoke up. “I don’t need your pitiful power. I already have everything I need. Now, why don’t you hand it over before we change our minds?”
Yurika winced in pain. She seemed to be thinking she didn’t stand a chance against Hiromichi.
Yuichi had come to the same conclusion.
The wings on his back... they were probably the Divine Vessel used by the tengu. They enhanced a person’s ability to fly through the air.
If the guy attacked Yuichi, there wouldn’t really be a problem; he could probably both dodge and strike back. But if he went after Yurika, there wasn’t much that Yuichi could do for her, and Yurika probably wouldn’t be able to fight back on her own.
“Give me a break! You think a righteous hero like me is gonna lose to villains like you? Take this! Brave Slash!” she snapped.
It was the same move she had used to take Alberta’s head off before. Yurika held her sword aloft and then slashed it at Hiromichi.
The invisible slash whistled through the air, but Hiromichi remained unfazed.
“Hey, I told you, that stuff won’t wor—”
“That’s right! Rokuhara is invincible in a superpowers battle!” Mutsuko interrupted enthusiastically. “He can nullify abilities and also steal them! He’s a total cheater!”
Hiromichi seemed to have wanted to say something, but Mutsuko had interfered. Apparently she was a total loose cannon now that she was on the enemy side.
Yuichi picked up a nearby chair and threw it at Hiromichi.
There were three of them, but Hiromichi was probably the only fighter among them, so taking him out was Yuichi’s first priority.
Hiromichi had been about to take flight, but the chair hit him first and he collapsed.
As that was going on, Natsuki rushed over to Yurika while Yuichi charged at the three of them.
Hiromichi wasn’t an experienced fighter to begin with, and on top of that, he was flustered. Yuichi was beginning to think he would be easy to restrain regardless of his abilities. But things quickly took a turn for the worse.
A fourth figure had appeared at the window.
Yuichi normally wouldn’t be so careless — which may have been an indication of just how flustered he was.
Yuichi barely blocked the giant fist that had appeared from behind Mutsuko, but it still sent him flying. The distance between them opened up again.
“Sakaki...” Natsuki moaned.
Yuichi quickly looked in her direction. “Takeuchi!”
Both Natsuki and Yurika were on the ground.
A drone hovered in the air above. The original one was still hovering near Mutsuko’s side, suggesting she must have prepared multiple ones.
The fact that they’d both been knocked out so easily suggested the drone had used a taser, or perhaps knock-out gas.
“You really ought to pay attention!” Mutsuko called.
As if in time with Mutsuko’s voice, the bearer of the fist from before climbed in through the window.
It was the wooden man, a practice tool that Mutsuko had developed. It was a simple humanoid form made up of logs, but it was extremely powerful — powerful enough to have taken out the oni Ibaraki when he’d tried to peep on the girls in the bath.
“Damn!” Yuichi knew from experience just how much of a threat it was.
The wooden man slid closer to him. Yuichi knew that there were wheels behind its legs, and it basically moved by skating.
It swung its arm wide, striking indiscriminately as it came for him.
This was really bad. Unlike a human, the wooden man barely telegraphed its movements at all. Its joint construction and range of movement also differed from those of a human; in other words, it was extremely unpredictable.
Yuichi used his natural perception and reflexes to dodge the attacks, but it still had him on the defensive.
“Hmm, just as I thought,” said Ende. “When Mutsuko’s on our side, Yuichi’s movements lose their brilliance... Well, bye. We got the right arm and the rib, so we’ll be going now. I guess next time we meet will be the final battle? The Evil God’s resurrection will take place in his sacred territory. You can ignore it if you want, but if you do, Hiromichi Rokuhara might get a pretty evil wish granted.”
“Hey, you! Wait!” Yuichi shouted.
While dodging the wooden man’s attacks, Yuichi watched Ende and the others go. They were walking leisurely away with the right arm and the rib in their possession.
Attempting to hurry, Yuichi just hit the wooden man with everything he had. If it was just a machine, that should be enough to break it.
But the wooden man was a training tool; it had to be sturdy, and it used a mysterious balance algorithm that Mutsuko had cooked up to restore its balance instantly.
The wooden man had always been ridiculously strong, prompting Yuichi to think that rather than using it for training, they would be better served sending it to fight in his place.
“And I still hate its stupid face!” he shouted.
The wooden man’s face was a truly half-assed portrayal, just three round holes for eyes and a mouth.