“Ah…?!” He immediately lowered his head. Or to be more precise, the arms that were holding him up off the ground where he lay turned to jelly, and his head dropped with a thud. “Wha—?”
The blade cut through where his head had been a mere heartbeat earlier.
It had to have been too far away to actually strike him…right?
“…Ah—”
Shido’s eyes flew open as he turned to look behind him. The houses and shops, tree-lined streets and signposts had all been bisected at the same height from the ground. A moment later, he heard the destruction—a rumble like distant thunder.
“Eek…?!” Fear beyond his comprehension made his heart sink.
I don’t get it.
What he did get, however, was that if he hadn’t ducked just now, he would have been downsized like the world behind him.
“Th-this can’t be real…!” Shido retreated as though his weak knees were being yanked back by an invisible force. He had to get as far away from this place as he could—as fast as he could.
However.
“You too…huh?”
“…Nngh?!”
The voice he heard from above sounded exhausted.
His vision caught up with his thoughts a beat later.
Standing before his eyes was a girl who had not been there a moment earlier. It was…the same one who had just been in the center of the crater.
“Oh,” Shido said without thinking.
She was around his age, maybe a little younger. Black hair down to her knees, a face that was sweet yet imposing. In its center were eyes that shone with a curious glow—like crystals glittering under rainbow lights. Her outfit was also strange. Shido couldn’t tell if the material was fabric or metal, but either way, it was shaped into something like a princess’s dress. The seams and trim down the skirt were made of a mysterious film of light without any kind of physical substance.
The young woman’s hands gripped an enormous sword that was maybe as tall as she was.
An unusual situation.
A peculiar appearance.
A unique existence.
Any one of these was more than enough to capture Shido’s attention.
And yet… Ah.
None of these external factors was the real reason he was so captivated by her.
Instantly, Shido’s eyes were glued to this girl, making him forget his fear of dying and even the concept of breathing. That was how beautiful she was. She was almost aggressively beautiful.
“Wh-who…?” Shido stammered, stunned.
He knew this might be sacrilegious—and that he might be divinely punished for it.
The girl slowly lowered her gaze.
“My name?”
Her voice was pure honey, decadent sound waves traveling through the air.
“I don’t have one,” she admitted, sounding somewhat distressed.
“—Nngh!”
It was then—he met the girl’s eyes for the first time.
At the same time, the face of the nameless young woman grew gloomy, like she might burst into tears at any moment. She readjusted her grip on the sword.
The faint sound of this movement revived fear in Shido’s heart. “Hey… Stop! Stop!” he cried out desperately.
The young woman only looked down at him curiously. “…What?”
“Wh-what are you doing…?!”
“Killing you quickly, of course,” the girl stated, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The color drained from his face.
“Wh-why…?!”
“Why…? That’s obvious, isn’t it?” Looking down on Shido wearily, she continued, “I mean, didn’t you come to kill me, too?”
“Huh?” Shido’s jaw dropped to the ground. “…Of course not.”
“…What?” She stared at him with a mixture of surprise, suspicion, and bewilderment. It didn’t take her long to shrug and look away from him, tilting her face up to the sky.
Following her lead, Shido moved his gaze upward.
“Wha…?!” He gasped, eyes widening an impossible degree.
Several people in strange outfits were flying through the sky—and the weapons in their hands were launching things that looked like missiles at Shido and the girl.
“Wah—Aaaaaaaaaah?!” he shouted involuntarily.
A few seconds later, however, he was still there, very much alive. “Huh?”
The explosives had all stopped several meters above the girl, as if held back by an invisible hand.
She sighed languidly. “…You never learn. All this is futile.” The unusual young woman raised her free hand and clenched it tightly. The missiles folded in on themselves, crumpling, and exploded on the spot.
The scale of the blast was frighteningly small, as though the girl had absorbed the power of the weapons.
Shido could tell that the people in the sky were flustered, but they didn’t stop attacking. They kept launching missiles at her.
“Hmph,” the girl sighed, looking as though she were about to burst into tears—the same look as when she had turned her sword on him earlier.
Shido’s heart pounded even harder at this sight than it had when he nearly lost his life to her blade.
The whole thing was bizarre.
He didn’t know who the girl was, nor who the people in the sky were. But it was somehow clear to him that the curiously dressed young woman possessed greater power than the fliers.
This called a vague question to mind.
Why would someone so strong make that face?
“…Go away. Get out. Disappear…once and for all!”
She turned the sword, which shone with the same strange light as her eyes, up toward the sky. The swing came down—with marked sorrow and with exhaustion.
The air whistled.
“…Wh-whoa…!”
A shock wave shook heaven and earth. The attack shot into the sky, extending out from the sword itself. The people flying above dived to the sides to escape a direct hit.
In the next instant, a beam of unbelievably powerful light flashed from another direction, this one aimed at the girl.
“…Ngh!”
Shido covered his eyes on instinct.
This luminous ray was abruptly severed, like it had hit an invisible wall in the air above the girl. Like fireworks in the night sky, the light scattered and bounced away in every direction.
And then someone dropped down behind him.
“Wh-what the—?! It just keeps coming!”
He still had no idea what was going on. All of this seemed like a daydream of the nightmare variety. When he looked up at the person now standing to his rear, his entire body seized up.
He had to assume she was wearing some manner of machine. She was dressed in a bizarre bodysuit with large blasters on the back, and she was carrying a weapon shaped like a golf bag in her hands.
The reason Shido froze in place was simple. He had seen this girl before.
“Origami…Tobiichi?” he murmured the name Tonomachi had told him that morning.
The young woman with the extremely mechanized look was his classmate—Origami Tobiichi.
She glanced down at him.
“Shido Itsuka…?!” Origami shouted his name as if that were an answer to his question—no change at all in the blank expression on her face, but there was just a hint of surprise in her voice.
“…Huh? Wh-why are you wearing—?” Shido began, knowing it was a stupid question even as he started to ask it. Too many things were happening all at once, and he didn’t even know where to start unraveling the mysteries.
Origami quickly looked away from him and turned her attention to the girl in the dress.
That would make sense.
“Hmph.” Just as she had before, the girl swung the sword in her hand at Origami.
Origami immediately kicked off from the ground, dodging the attack. Then she used the momentum to bear down on her opponent at lightning speed. In the blink of an eye, a blade of light materialized at the end of the weapon in her hands. She brought this sword down on the girl with everything she had.
“Mm!” The girl frowned slightly and stopped the blow with her own sword.
An intense shock wave rippled out from the point where their blades had crossed.
“Hey… Unh. Waaaaaaah?!” Crying out pathetically, Shido curled into a ball and made it through the chaos somehow.
Origami bounced back, so there was some distance between the two girls again. They glared at each other silently, weapons raised, ready to go at any moment, with Shido stuck in between them.
“…”
“…”
The situation was explosive. The battle threatened to start again at any moment if there was even the slightest trigger.
“…”
Shido was on tenterhooks. Sweat pouring down his forehead, he started wriggling along the ground to try and get away, want desperately to be anywhere rather than there.
At that moment, the phone in his pocket suddenly chirped, informing him of an incoming message.
“—!”