He kept sealing their powers in order to save the Spirits. But in doing so, hadn’t he taken possible futures from them? He felt the confidence in his heart crack. Had he actually done the right thing? Was “saving the Spirits” just his own ego, as Mukuro had said?
“Oi, oi. It’s not like you to struggle with that stuff in a place like this, now is it?” a voice suddenly said, out of nowhere, and it seemed that the speaker had seen into his heart.
“Huh?” Shido said, baffled.
“Err?” the wolf murmured dubiously. “What? That voice…” Still hoisting Yoshino up in one hand, the wolf sent its gaze racing around suspiciously, looking for the owner of the voice.
For the split second when its eyes were not trained on Yoshino—impossibly, in that moment, a line raced across the wolf’s arm.
“…?! Wha—?!” It stared at its arm in disbelief. “Wh-what the—?!”
“Eek…!” Yoshino’s small body dropped toward the floor together with the wolf’s severed arm.
“Whoops!” A boy dashed forward and gently caught her before she hit the ground. “You okay, Yoshino?”
“Huh? Uh. Um…” Yoshino looked up at the boy’s face in confusion. She wasn’t the only one, either.
“Uh?”
“Wh-what’s going on?”
The Spirits and Shido gaped at the boy. Naturally. Whatever else, the sword he held was without a doubt Tohka’s Angel Sandalphon.
“Now then, villains. I’ll keep you busy,” he declared. “Me, the protector of the Spirits—Shido Itsuka.”
The brave face that made this declaration was definitely that of Shido himself.
“Wh-what?! You?! Showing up out of the blue, talking all tough!” The wolf looked down at its severed arm and glared at Shido.
But in the next moment, Shido drew Sandalphon and neatly sliced the wolf’s massive bulk in two.
“Ah… Aaaaaauuuugh?!” Shrieking with the pain of death, the split wolf turned into a page torn out of a book and fluttered to the ground.
The remaining villains gasped.
“Wh…! The wolf is—?!”
“You… Who are you?!”
The two witches shouted, a tremor of fear in their voices.
Shido yanked the corners of his mouth up into a grin. “Just a passing high school student,” he responded, before kicking at the wet floor and swinging Sandalphon as he lunged toward the villains.
Battling the witches’ magic, he easily cut through the demon’s metal bat and kept going to cut a hole in the demon itself. Like the wolf, the demon let out an earth-shattering shriek and changed into a ripped-out page.
But Shido did not stop his steady advance. Nimbly and yet powerfully, he manipulated Sandalphon like one of his own limbs as he slashed and hacked at the assembled villains.
Shido gaped, stunned at the sight. “Wh-what is going on…?”
“Shido!” Tohka and the others came running over to him. “Are you okay? You’re not hurt?!”
“Y-yeah… I’m fine. But what on earth is…?” Baffled, he turned his eyes back toward the fight with the villains unfolding before them.
“That is definitely you, huh?” Kotori’s brow was similarly furrowed. “You use some kind of avatar technique or something?”
“No, pretty sure I was never the apprentice of a ninja,” he replied slowly, still staring at the battle.
“Hmm?” Nia put a thoughtful hand to her chin. “So, like, maybe boy number two is a character in this world?”
“Huh?” He frowned dubiously yet again. There was indeed a certain logic to what she said. But in that case, a different question came to mind.
And that was only right. This was a fantasy space where stories mixed together. So long as Shido wasn’t featured in a story, the character Shido shouldn’t exist—
“Aaaaah!” Natsumi abruptly shouted.
“Wh-what, Natsumi?”
“…I—I know…” With a trembling finger, she pointed at the Shido clashing with the villains. “I…know who he is!”
“What?” Shido said eagerly. “Really?!”
“R-really. I mean… We all know him! That guy—that Shido, we drew him last month!”
“…!!”
Shido and the Spirits all gasped, their eyebrows shooting up.
Now that she mentioned it, right. There was that. The story he thought didn’t exist. A story with Shido Itsuka as the hero.
Last month, they had concocted a plan to make Nia weak in the knees after she’d insisted that she could only love two-dimensional characters. And that plan had been to draw a manga with Shido as the main character and get Nia to read it.
“B-but,” he protested. “That was a doujinshi! The hero of that story coming to save us now, I mean, it’s just too pat!”
“Nyuh-uh.” Nia shook her head slowly. “I told you, boy. There are no walls between creations. So long as the story exists, it’s possible for it to be a part of this world. And all the artists who drew that particular story are assembled here now. You couldn’t ask for more of a connection to lure the character out!”
Dressed as her own manga character, Nia continued somewhat excitedly.
“Not to mention, boy number two both is Shido Itsuka and is not Shido Itsuka. That Shido Itsuka was drawn for the doujinshi. He was created to save Spirits and make me weak in the knees in the process!”
“B-by which you mean?”
“Appeal. We request an explanation.”
The Yamais cocked their heads to one side, and Nia threw her hands up into the air.
“Meaning!” she shouted. “That is the super-cool, super-strong boy you all dreamed up!”
Shido unsheathed Sandalphon and slaughtered the last villain standing, an enemy from Nia’s manga.
“Phew…” He casually pushed his hair back and walked slowly over to Shido. “’Sup. You okay, me?”
“Y-yeah…,” Shido replied, baffled by the use of the pronoun that was normally not used for other people. “You really saved us. Thanks…me.”
“Ha-ha! Calling each other ‘me’ like this, we’re like Kurumi, huh?” Shido said with a laugh.
It was like looking in a mirror. Shido offered a pained smile at the strange sensation.
“But…what a car wreck this is, huh? I guess us being here in this world is the work of Westcott?” Shido said, gaze sharpening slightly.
“…Yes.” Kotori nodded firmly, still disconcerted by the fact that there were two Shidos. “You get it, so no need to waste time explaining. You got any ideas about how to get back to our world? We have to get back as soon as possible.”
“Oh yeah.” Shido nodded nonchalantly. “You let me handle that.”
“Huh?!” Kotori let out a cry of surprise. But of course she did. Shido was so casual about the fact that he held their fate in his hands. “Y-you can get us out of here?”
“Uh-huh.” Shido indicated Sandalphon in his hand. “This world was created with the power of an Angel. The power of another Angel should be able to break it down. Our existence might be fictional, but the Angel I can use in this world is the real deal. However, all I can do is make an exit out of this world. Which means there’s a good chance you’ll walk back into your world and straight into Westcott.”
“Wha…?!” Kotori’s eyes flew open, a shiver of fear coloring her face. “That’s… So then, what should we do? We have to get to Mukuro right now if not sooner.”
“I figured this might happen!” Nia shouted abruptly.