“Lataib,” Mukuro cried, as she thrust Michael, the key Angel in her hand, into empty space and twisted it. As though she had turned a literal key, a “door” opened in the nothingness. The chunks of rock and machinery floating around her were sucked forcefully into it. “Scatter.”
“…!”
A moment later, countless doors swung open around Shido, spewing each fragment that had just disappeared.
A 360-degree onslaught. Around him, Fraxinus’s Territory tried to shift Shido around to evade these missiles, but unlike with the earlier attack, nowhere was safe. The most unavoidable projectiles hurtled straight at him, ready to open holes in his body.
But he couldn’t simply stand there and let it happen. He held his left hand out and shouted, “Zadkiel!”
Instantly, a torrent of icy air whipped up around him and forged a shield of ice. Debris and ice collided and bounced apart. Shock waves pounded at his body.
“Oh-ho.” Mukuro narrowed her eyes slightly. “You manipulate another Angel? You grow ever stranger. Are you truly human?”
“I’d like to think so, but…” Shido looked directly into Mukuro’s eyes and took a deep breath. He envisioned a fantasy as he spoke again. “I simply decided I would spare no effort to reach your side.”
His voice carried on it the power of Gabriel, the Angel of sound. These magical words rattled his ears thanks to the atmosphere of the Fraxinus Territory, and he was granted superhuman powers.
“Ngaaah!” He crouched down in midair and lunged ahead with all his might. Of course, he was hanging in the air. There was no surface to use as a launching point. But the Territory cloaking him detected his intent and propelled his body forward. At impossible speed, he shot toward Mukuro hanging in space.
Then he gasped.
“…?!”
A heartbeat before he would have arrived at Mukuro, he spotted a human figure clad in mechanical armor out of the corner of his eye.
“Sorry. This Spirit’s ours, actually,” the blond girl said dispassionately, her laser blade stretching out to a sharp point.
“You’re—” Shido had seen this girl before. Artemisia Ashcroft, a DEM Wizard and the girl who had attacked the inverted Nia.
Apparently, she’d also been on board Goetia. He had been so focused on Mukuro, he hadn’t noticed her approach until she was upon him.
Her sword was already at his throat. He was cornered. He didn’t know if the flames of Camael could heal a severed neck, and if they could, he highly doubted Artemisia or Mukuro would be so kind as to put his head and torso back together to let that happen.
A true crisis. Every instant felt like minutes. He was overcome by an emotion even more powerful than his panic about his future survival.
If Shido died here, Artemisia would immediately attack Mukuro. Yes, Mukuro was a Spirit. He could easily picture her striking back at Artemisia, and if push came to shove, her Michael could whisk her off to some desolate safe zone.
However, that essentially meant her heart would remain locked forever.
Death, or eternal stagnation. If he lost his life here, these would be Mukuro’s only two options.
“Hah! Not on my watch!” He commanded his body to lift Michael. Naturally, he was nowhere near fast enough to stop her attack. Should she hesitate even slightly, though, he might be able to keep his head attached. If neck and head were still connected, however tenuously, Camael might just be able to keep him alive.
It was a vanishingly small possibility—a plan full of mights and maybes. But it was the most he could manage in the moment.
Artemisia’s laser blade touched his throat. The concentrated magic of the tip tore into his skin, and he smelled the disgusting scent of burning flesh as a shot of fire and sharp pain danced across his nerves.
However…
“…!”
Artemisia suddenly gasped.
“Huh?” Shido reflexively cried. His brain still had him trapped with no escape, and it took him a second to process that his throat was still there to make this noise. An instant later, he saw why.
A blade had shot up from below to push away the sword against his throat.
“Shido, are you hurt?”
Recognizing that voice, his eyes flew open. “Origami?!”
Yes, Origami floated before him, clad in a suit of mechanical armor he’d never seen. It was a platinum CR unit with beautiful, flowing lines. But the parts that covered her shoulders and chest seemed like Western-style plate armor, and the weapon she gripped in her hands was more reminiscent of a long lance than a sword.
“Wh-what are you—?” he stammered.
“No time to explain,” she said, and swept her lance at the off-balance Artemisia.
“Hngh!” the Wizard groaned.
“…!”
Origami and Artemisia both scowled slightly, having taken measure of the other’s power through the overlapping space of their Territories. As their blades clashed, a magical shimmer traced a dazzling arc in the darkness of space.
“Shido!” another voice called, just as he was about to sigh with relief at having escaped immediate execution.
In the next moment, a hand clamped tightly onto his wrist and yanked him away so hard, his arm nearly came out of its socket.
“Whoa?!” he yelped, then quickly saw the need for the painful tug.
Several of Mukuro’s attack beams passed through the space where Shido had been a moment ago. If he’d still been there, gaping like an idiot, he would have forfeited the life Origami had just saved.
“You okay, Shido?!”
“Y-yeah. Thanks, Tohka,” he said as he wiped the sweat from his brow. Yes, it was Tohka who had saved him in that moment of crisis, a limited Astral Dress covering her body, her Angel Sandalphon manifested in her hand. Apparently, she had come with Origami to save him.
Yet he still had no time to breathe that sigh of relief.
Mukuro sniffed indignantly, brandished Michael, and sent debris flying once more. Worse, there was another source of danger. Countless dolls—Bandersnatches—were rapidly approaching from behind to fire on both Shido and Mukuro.
“Ngh! Zadkiel!”
“Haah!”
Shido threw up a shield with Zadkiel, while Tohka knocked aside the Bandersnatch attack with Sandalphon.
Of course, this alone was not enough to stop the onslaught. DEM’s mission was to take the Spirits from Shido and Ratatoskr, and Mukuro viewed them all as enemies. Each and every one of them made it rain Spirit power and magic in the black space for their own purposes.
“…!”
Even in this chaos, Shido was not afraid. To be more precise, other thoughts pushed the terror out of his mind.
“Tohka!” he shouted. “Now’s our chance!”
“Mm!” she responded immediately. “I’ll clear a path!”
Apparently, they had both come to the same conclusion. That was to be expected. When it came to judgment in battle, Tohka was sharper and quicker than Shido could ever hope to be. And they were indeed in the middle of a battlefield. They might have been protected by the Territory, but they were still at the center of a storm of magic. One wrong move could mean decapitation.
This also meant that Mukuro had to deal with the same chaos. In that moment, she was beating back the magical light shooting toward her, guiding it to doors she’d opened with Michael.
If he struck now, he just might be able to get in closer to Mukuro than before.
“Here we go, Tohka!” he shouted.
“Yeah!”
They threw themselves into the shooting stars of light.