“Wh-what are you shouting about, Nia?”
“Eh-heh-heh! I always wanted to say that. So? I sound like a girl who gets the job done?”
“…Could we save the jokes for later?” Kotori said, rolling her eyes.
“Aah, sorry. Whoopsy.” Nia scratched her head sheepishly. “I really do have us covered, though. Boy Number Two, you don’t need to worry about the channel or whatever. Can you just go ahead and do it?”
“Hey, what are you talking about?” Kotori demanded. “I mean, sure, we can get back to our world. But if we walk out smack into Westcott, we’re right where we started again!”
“Tch, tch, tch! That’s not gonna happen!” Nia waggled her finger back and forth like the pendulum on a metronome as her lips stretched out into a grin. “Right before I got sucked into this place, I made sure to manifest Rasiel in the world on the other side. Beelzebub and Rasiel are two sides of the same coin. So my Angel should be able to act as a channel to this world, too.”
“…! You mean—” Shido said, and Nia bobbed her head up and down.
“Yup. Unless that guy’s been lying in wait this whole time, the chances of bumping into him are next to none,” she said with a wink.
The Spirits began to squeal in excitement.
“That’s incredible, Nia!”
“Kah-kah! You do manage it!”
“Praise. You are not merely a drunkard, after all.”
“Oh-ho-ho! You’re making me blush.” Nia threw her head back smugly. “Keep it coming.”
Shido raised Sandalphon above his head and turned his eyes on Shido and the others. “All right. So I should do this right now, yeah?”
“Yes, please,” Kotori said, and Shido nodded his understanding before closing his eyes as if to focus his mind.
“Haaah!” With a ferocious cry, he brought Sandalphon down. A wind gusted up around them, and a “tear” opened up in the space sliced into by Sandalphon’s blade, large enough for a person to pass through. “You should be able to get back to your own world through here.”
Shido grinned as he rested the tip of Sandalphon on the floor.
“This Mukuro you mentioned—she’s a new Spirit? Good luck, me. You make sure you save her.”
“…”
Shido’s words resembled Westcott’s parting remarks, and Shido felt his heart leap up in his chest.
“…? What are you doing, Shido? Let’s go.” Kotori looked at the silent Shido with a curious expression as she led the group to the tear.
“Thanks a bunch, Shido. Take care of yourself.”
“You bet,” he said with a smile. “I’ll say hi to all of you on this side, too.”
“Ha-ha! Right, I guess if the characters from that doujinshi are here, that means we’re here, too, huh? Feels kinda complicated somehow,” Kotori said with a wry smile, before waving goodbye and throwing herself into the tear with a strange resolve.
The Spirits also said their goodbyes to Shido before being sucked into the tear. And then after everyone had returned to their world, Shido turned his gaze on Shido.
“Mmkay, you’re the last one, me. Go on and get over there. Kotori and them are waiting for you.”
“R-right…” He turned to the fissure as his double urged him to. But then he stopped.
Shido. The fictional Shido that he and the Spirits had created. And the ideal Shido who specialized in saving Spirits.
Faced with this Shido, a tiny germ of a wish sprouted on the outlying edges of his heart. The decision he thought he’d made. The conflict he should have shaken off. They settled to the bottom of his heart and sat there still like sediment.
“Hey… Me?” he asked, turning back.
“Hm? What’s up, me?”
“…You guessed it before. I’m going to go to this new Spirit, Mukuro, now. But…” He scowled as he haltingly recounted the story of his meeting with Mukuro. How she had rejected him point-blank. How she told him to leave her alone, she wasn’t looking to be saved. And how he hadn’t been able to say anything in protest.
“…”
Shido listened to all this with a serious look and then finally let out a sigh. “Uh-huh… Sounds like you got a pretty difficult Spirit on your hands.”
“…Before, when all those monsters were attacking us, I had this thought. Like, would they be in this situation if I hadn’t sealed their Spirit powers? I mean, of course, I know if I hadn’t, something even worse would’ve happened to them. But…”
He couldn’t really pull together his thoughts. He ran his hands through his hair as he continued.
“…Seal Mukuro’s powers. I’m on board with that. I mean, I really am. If I don’t do it, DEM will attack her again. But I don’t know how I’m supposed to do it… What do you think, me? Do you think this me has got any right to stand in front of her again, when I still don’t know how to respond to everything she said to me? Do you think I can open her locked heart?”
Shido paused like he was thinking this through before he opened his mouth. “If it was me, I’d go. One more time.”
“But Mukuro wants peace…”
“That might be true, but… It’s strange when you really think about it, yeah? The idea that she’s not lonely by herself because her heart is locked. It sounds to me like she’s saying she was so lonely she couldn’t stand it unless she used the power of her Angel to lock her heart, you know?”
“…! That’s…”
Shido was exactly right. If Mukuro hadn’t felt loneliness or sadness or anger right from the start, she would have had no reason to go to the trouble of locking her heart. And no reason to tell Shido about it.
“To be honest, I can’t help thinking it’s an actual SOS from Mukuro. So I’d go. No matter what she said. And…if you’re looking for the key to unlocking her locked heart, I already have it, don’t I?”
“Huh…?” Shido cocked his head to one side, not understanding. But a heartbeat later, he realized what Shido was saying. “…! You don’t mean—”
“Exactly.” Shido nodded, satisfied. “But one other thing. That’s even if you’re keeping this separate.”
He bumped his fist up against Shido’s chest.
“So what do I think? Well, you’ve done nothing but talk about Mukuro. And yeah, you gotta think about her. That’s important. But I mean, if that’s all you do, you’re not going to be able to pick up on some stuff with her. So come on, me.
“What do I want to do about Mukuro?”
“…!”
Shido gasped, his eyebrows leaping up on his forehead. And then after a few seconds of silence, he took a deep breath and let it out again. “…Aah. Right… Right,” he said very slowly.
It was hardly an answer to the question. But the moment the words came out of his mouth, he felt like they lured all the gloomy air filling his lungs out into the open.
Shido grinned. “Good luck, high school student.”
“…You, too, passing high school student.” Shido bumped his fist up against Shido’s and leaped into the tear in space.
✦ ✦ ✦
“…Unh!” Shido regained consciousness to the sensation of his shoulders being shaken back and forth. He let out a quiet groan and opened his eyes a slit. And saw Kotori drawing back the open palm of her hand in front of his eyes.
“…What’re you doing, Kotori?” he asked.
“Oh my. You’re awake,” she said, sitting back. “If you’d been another second, I was going to give you the twentieth slap.”
“…Wait. You mean you slapped me nineteen times?!” Shido cried, pressing his hand to his cheek.
Kotori shrugged with a grin. “I’m kidding.”
He confirmed that his cheek was pain-free as he looked around. This was not the straw house where he’d woken up before, but rather a hallway on the base, with walls and floors crumbling here and there. The other Spirits were all there with Kotori, and Tohka had her hands on his shoulders as if to shake them. Instead of patchwork outfits and dresses, they were once again wearing their usual clothes.
“Honestly… I told you we needed to hurry.” Kotori let out an indignant sniff as she crossed her arms. “What were you dawdling for?”
“Oh… Sorry. But—” Shido pushed himself to his feet and clapped his hands against his cheeks as if to psych himself up. “I’m okay now.”
“…? Okay. Well, as long as you’re ready to do this.” Kotori cocked her head to one side curiously. But then she decided they couldn’t be wasting time here and jerked her chin up to urge them all on. “Anyway, let’s get a move on. Looks like less time than I thought’s passed, but there’s a good chance Fraxinus was attacked, too.”
✦ ✦ ✦
