“All this, and still nobody? Is that even possible?”
“Hmm… It is weird, yeah… I can’t see how it’s possible at all…but should we bust up the final three while we’re at it? I don’t think it’ll be a problem…”
“Well, I sure have no problems, and judging by the holy swords, Alas Ramus and Acieth are okay, too. I think we’re good, dude.”
Copyhara, content with watching all this wanton destruction from a safe distance, seemed awfully casual about it.
“And me, I am the very perfectly fine. Let us do the more of it, Maou!”
Acieth, inside Maou’s mind, was out for blood.
“…All right, then. And maybe it’s a bit late to ask, but what’re these shrines for anyway?”
“Ignora said they were sense-canceling anchors,” Laila replied.
“Anchors? How so?”
“They function as a sort of blindfold to the Tree of Sephirot, giving it the wrong idea about the world’s condition. I heard a long time ago that the capsules were constantly pumped with holy energy to convince the Tree that the planet and its people still require supernatural force.”
“Pumped with holy energy?”
“Yes. That’s what I heard before Satanael split heaven up. The device wasn’t done yet, but that was the plan at the time anyway.”
“…So it’s deceiving the Tree…? Why would they do that…?”
Maou’s head was full of intertangled bits of data about heaven and the Sephirah, but none of the pieces seemed to quite fit together. He couldn’t come to a conclusion.
Amane, who had silently watched the shrine demolitions from the side, chose that moment to speak up.
“I think I have an idea of what’s happening…and I think their scheme succeeded, right at the point of no return.”
“Huh?”
She wasn’t looking at Maou. Her eyes were sharpened upon Copyhara. And he, fully aware of what Amane was looking at, had his own eyes on Emi.
“Yeah. It worked, all right. But she made all that work moot. Didn’t she, Emilia?”
“Huh? Me?” said Emi, blinking at the sudden accusation. Amane gave it a disinterested shrug.
“Don’t ask me. It’s all somebody else’s story. All my relatives come from different situations, y’know.”
“No doubt. Anyway, let’s get the last three shrines broken up. I think that should make something happen. No more half-measures, okay, dudes?”
At Copyhara’s signal, the less-than-satisfied group somewhat reluctantly sprang into action, destroying shrines five, nine, and ten. They demolished their bulb-like exteriors, and for the first time in centuries, millennia, or even tens of millennia, the Sephirot of Ente Isla was fully exposed to the atmosphere.
At that moment, the exposed roots began to quiver—and once they did, the entire Tree of Sephirot began to change rapidly. The group’s ears were greeted by high, soft sounds playing in staccato, like bubbles popping. They were coming from the edges of the Sephirot’s branches.
“It’s gotta be the first spring in ages for this guy. As much as it’s been saving up, it’s gonna come in an instant.”
Above Copyhara’s head were groups of flower buds—small, but growing in all their countless numbers, in just the hour or so since all the shrines were destroyed.
“Now all the other siblings will be born. But the order’s all messed up.”
“You mean the Sephirot’s flowers?”
“Yeah. They’re finally blooming. Without them, there’ll never be any fruit.”
“Huh? Fruit? The Sephirah, you mean? Why do you need flowers?”
“With Malchut and Gevurah, I think they ripened early in order to protect the Tree. Keter didn’t make it in time.”
“There’s an order to them?”
“Except in extraordinary circumstances, Malchut is the first to wake up. Then, depending on what’s going on around it, either Keter, Gevurah, or Yesod will open its eyes first. Malchut functions as a vessel, and based on what the vessel needs the most, you’ll either have Yesod’s astral energy, Gevurah’s defensive traits, or Keter, the sword of the Tree. By the look of things, it’s decided to put defense way up high for now.”
Hearing it described as the Tree’s “decision” seemed to throw Emilia a little. She looked down at her holy sword.
“Well, no point thinking about it now. Trees are living things, too.”
This Tree was the “parent” of the Sephirah children, those bright, incredibly diverse personalities. A little bit more mystery wouldn’t change the overall picture.
“But still nothing’s happening?”
By this point, Maou’s group had essentially captured the Tree of Sephirot. If the flowers were going to bloom and give birth to Sephirah children, Maou’s original mission of getting Alas Ramus’s family back was as good as accomplished. By this point, the group wondered if they had to fight Ignora and the angels at all.
“Does the other side even want to defend this? Like, what’s the point any longer? It’s not like we need to keep prodding them if they don’t.”
Urushihara was an open book as always. Ashiya immediately shot him down.
“No, my liege. If we know the location of the enemy’s main base, we should attack it at once. We do not know how long the Sephirah need to grow, or how long it takes for them to become like Alas Ramus and the others. Better to quell any anxieties for the future while we can.”
“…Yeah. What a pain, though.”
“You really think so, don’t you? It’s kind of off-putting, dude.”
“Look, dude, if you have the same face as me, it’d be a lot easier if you thought the same way, too.”
“With you, it’s probably something like, ‘Ooh, I don’t wanna fight my mom,’ right?”
“Me? Not something like that, no.”
Copyhara, capable of reading minds, visibly winced.
“Watching them banter is kind of funny, isn’t it?”
“I don’t find it one bit entertaining. But what are we doing now?”
“Ashiya’s right. We gotta dive in and attack. They needed to build all this crap to milk the Tree or whatever, and it’s all destroyed now, so we can leave it be. It’s not like they’re gonna destroy the Tree because they couldn’t achieve their goals.”
“Yeah… But after all that effort, this seems beyond anticlimactic…”
And perhaps the sheer silence of the heavens was what made Ashiya notice.
“…! My liege!!”
Everyone moved at almost the same time as Ashiya’s warning. With the whine of solid metal, a large spear was now planted in the wasteland around Sephirot, its blades spread out in a trident.
“Camael!”
“No! Not him! That’s…!”
A vast number of figures—angels, apparently, dressed in just as much armor as Camael was—floated in the sky.
“The Heavenly Regiment. Camael’s troops are kind of special. Don’t write ’em off, or you’ll pay for it.”
“I know. Suzuno got her ass kicked once by them!”
Once, Camael had attacked Chiho’s high school in Sasazuka. When he did, he’d brought along just three of his Regiment—but together with Libicocco, who was more directly fighting her, they had managed to render Suzuno helpless. Considering that Gabriel’s three Regiment soldiers were no match at all for Suzuno while the archangel was hijacking the TV signal at Tokyo Tower, the difference in fighting power between his and Camael’s troops was clear.