If the war ended, the Evil God would revive and the world would end. It didn’t feel real, but Yuichi couldn’t afford to take it lightly.
“I know I asked, but should you really be telling me all this?” he asked.
“Well, to be honest, the main body and I aren’t connected that directly. I act on my own prerogative. And from a personal perspective, I like you quite a lot.”
“Even though letting me go could end up halting your resurrection?” Yuichi asked.
“If it happens, it happens. There’s always next time. Our lifespans are longer than humans’, so we’re quite patient.”
“Fine.” Yuichi had determined that he wasn’t lying.
I wonder what Sis and the others will do...
Yuichi was just thinking about what to do next when his phone suddenly rang. The number was unfamiliar, but he answered it anyway.
“Sage Mutsuko has gone mad!”
It was the voice of Chiharu Dannoura.
“...I don’t recall giving you my phone number.”
“It cost me a pretty penny,” Chiharu said. “The swine... they knew that I was desperate!”
“You bought it?!” Yuichi shouted. “Who’s putting my phone number up on the market? Who did you buy it from?”
“I may not tell! If you wish to know, you must prostrate before me and lick my boots!”
“Why are you giving me commands?”
“On second thought, having you lick my boots would be quite disgusting... perhaps you should not do it after all.”
“I wasn’t planning on it! So what do you want, anyway?”
“Ah! Sage Mutsuko came after me and demanded that I hand over my Divine Vessel! She wished me to hand over my Apocalypse Eyes! My Apocalypse Eyes, I tell you!”
“Huh? ...Oh, no! I forgot you had a Divine Vessel!” It had taken Yuichi a few moments to remember, the result of his trying to forget everything about the Divine Vessels War before.
“How can you say that?!” Chiharu yelled. “Have you forgotten our passionate first meeting?”
“Oh... uh, I’ve actually been trying hard not to think about you. So I’m sorry... I knew my sister was collecting Divine Vessels, and it didn’t even occur to me to tell you.”
“But how?! How could you forget your beloved?!”
Yuichi felt genuinely sorry. If Hiromichi was close to amassing all of the Divine Vessels, he probably should have let Chiharu know. If hers hadn’t been stolen yet, he could have warned her. He’d also forgotten that Chiharu was the only person he knew that could detect other Divine Vessels through resonance.
“So, what did you want?” Yuichi asked.
“Um... help, please?”
“What’s with the normal speech all of a sudden? And doesn’t calling her ‘Sage’ indicate respect? Why don’t you just do what she says?”
“The fact that she has sent a Crowman-like figure to attack me makes me a bit suspicious of her motivations!”
“Crowman? Who the... oh, Rokuhara, I guess... Where are you now?”
“The zoo.”
“Why were you going to a zoo alone at this hour?”
“Why do you assume I am alone?” Chiharu demanded. “You know that I have countless animals in my service! I am an animal lover, and thus I regularly check the zoo at night to see how they are doing!”
“So you’re on the run all by yourself, right? I’m impressed you can escape Rokuhara, though...”
The wings the guy had gained from the Divine Vessel should grant him very swift flight. It would be hard for most normal people to give him the slip.
“Yes,” Chiharu said. “I used a Dannoura-style Smoke Curtain Art to blind him, then used a Dannoura-style All-Direction Strike to send arrows flying in all directions, then used Dannoura-style Pickup Line Escaping to run away! They all appeared effective, so I believe I have held him off!”
“Um, what about the other people at the zoo?”
“Are you familiar with the legal term ‘emergency evacuation’?”
“You’d better start thinking of ‘official apology’ and ‘out-of-court settlement.’”
“’Twas a joke! The reason I came here is because this zoo’s popularity had been abruptly declining! I am likely the only one here at the moment!”
“This is no time to be joking. The zoo is in the next town over, right? I don’t think I’ll be able to make it in time... Okay. Just give up. Hand over the Divine Vessel and they’ll leave you alone.”
Chiharu’s Divine Vessel might be the last one, but there was nothing he could do about that.
“What?! You expect me to simply hand over my Apocalypse Eyes?” she screamed.
“If you don’t want to, that’s up to you,” Yuichi said. “You’re free to fight them to the end if you want.”
“But how am I to give my Divine Vessel away? It is an ability I came upon without realizing it. I do not know how to expunge it!”
“Given past experience, the vessel will be expelled if you’re unconscious. Can you knock yourself unconscious?”
“Yuichi Sakaki! How could you ask a young maiden such as I to render herself helpless before an enemy? Do you actively seek cuckoldry?!”
“I actually have no investment in that whatsoever, but... Hey. Can a person take out their Divine Vessel of their own free will?” Yuichi asked Nergal, assuming he would know best how the Divine Vessels worked.
“You can,” said Nergal. “Just wish for it. But even in that case, it still can’t be taken by a new host as long as the original host remains alive.”
“He says you just need to wish for it to leave you.”
“Indeed? HRRRRRAGH!”
“Shut up! Don’t shout into the phone!”
“It is out! It truly is out! It dropped from my eye in a startling moment!”
“Give that to them, then.” Yuichi hung up.
He was pretty sure that they wouldn’t kill her if she handed over the vessel. Chiharu’s power was the ability to see numbers over a person’s head. The numbers seemed to indicate something, but the ability still wasn’t especially useful, so he doubted they would go out of their way to get it.
“Incidentally, Hiromichi will now have all of them,” Nergal said.
It seemed Chiharu’s Divine Vessel was the last one.
“Okay, that figures,” Yuichi said. “But the Evil God won’t revive immediately, right?”
“Correct. There’s still a ritual to be held in the sacred territory, which means there’s still time for you to act.”
“You make it sound like you don’t want him revived.”
“That’s not true. The resurrection of my true form is my highest priority. I just don’t see any need to rush it; I prefer to take it easy.”
Yuichi thought that Mutsuko wouldn’t be in any great hurry, either. It was just a gut feeling, but he couldn’t imagine she would try to do it sneakily in the middle of the night.
He decided he’d wait until tomorrow to investigate the school.