A human wall. That was the only way to describe it.
It was the same setup as the shrines and the Yesod-root terrarium, or the room with the relic capsules underneath the demon realms. Large numbers of angels were “sealed away” in them, Raguel visible among them.
“You’re kidding me, Ignora… These many? Most of the survivors…?”
“I’m not kidding. You saw Nyx earlier, didn’t you? I needed them for her.”
“Needed them…! All your comrades except for Camael?! Just for that…?”
“It’s going to take a long, long time for the rest of the Sephirah to manifest anyway. Better to have them sleep for now and awaken them once everything is ready, isn’t it?”
“B-but not like this…! Ahh!!”
Just then, Camael and Satan once again came barreling in through a wall.
“Ow! Damn it! Emi, stop screwing around! And, whoa, what kinda gross room is this?!”
“Graaaahhhh!!”
“Give the hell up, god damn it!!!”
“Shut up! Be a little more mature already!”
Through the giant hole left by the two giant men, Acieth and Eleos rolled in like a gumball, engaged in what could only be described as a catfight—a brutish, unrefined brawl.
“Aaaah, just shut up! Hurry up and finish that already! I gotta get this kid out of me… Shut up!!”
And behind them, Emilia—hands to her ears, and eyes shut tight—just walked in like normal. Behind her, they could see all the carnage and rubble Satan and Camael had caused outside.
“Huh? Where’s this? Ah! Mom, are you okay? The Devil King’s fighting over there!”
But Emilia, her mind full of feedback from the fused Nyx, sounded all but desperate as she spoke, ready to land a few blows of her own against the two giants grappling with each other.
“Well, perfect! This building looked like it fit the bill, so I had him blow the guy in here, and bingo! Ignora! I really don’t think this can go on! Just give it up and surrender!!”
“You ‘don’t think’? You wanna be any less committal—urgh!”
Turning his eyes away made Satan groan, Camael’s broken spear slamming against the side of his head.
“Shut up! I’ve just about had it with all of this! Based on Nyx, I can tell that Ignora’s nothing but a bastard! I don’t know what she wants to do with Ente Isla, but if it results in more kids like Nyx and Lucifer, we’re all doomed!!”
Her words were on a grand scale, but she was referring to something incredibly tiny.
“First you fly in here, then you berate all of us, and now you’re pickin’ on my upbringing, dude?”
“What, Lucifer? Don’t tell me you’re homesick for this?!”
“No way. It’s just, you know, you’re treating this the same as everything else… But anyway, the boss we gotta beat still doesn’t seem too concerned at all. We have her so outnumbered, but…”
“Yeah. Looking at this room, it’s really messed up, but if we put our minds to it, we could easily destroy all of it… No, shut up, you!”
“Huh?”
“There’s another Malchut inside of me! And she won’t shut up! Zip it, damn it!”
Even as Emi spoke, Eleos was scuffling with Acieth, and Satan was trading blows with Camael. But amid all this din, nothing seemed to affect the nameless, faceless angels that lined the walls of this massive chamber. Emi looked up at them, even as Nyx continued her griping. There were young people, old people, but none of them seemed to have the “holiness” of an angel. The only one Emi recognized was Raguel.
“…Raguel…”
His trademark Afro had unfrizzed itself. But seeing him—and Ignora, holding Laila down but not looking too ready for battle—Emilia sensed something.
“Ignora, you… You’ve accomplished your mission? Is that why you’re not trying to resist much?”
“You’re not going to kill people for no reason, are you, Emilia?”
Ignora didn’t answer the question Emilia asked.
“Look at that! That Da’at, taking the form of my own boy!”
“I got a few things to say about that, but what about him?”
“To be honest, it didn’t matter much to me who it was. But he picked him… He picked Lucifer. Nothing could make a mother happier.”
Her words were nothing but a stream of consciousness.
“I suppose children love a grown-up who doesn’t act his age, don’t they?”
“Stop implying all this stuff.”
“After being chased off our home planet, this new planet’s Sephirot recognized us as the valid successors. And the proof of it…lies in that wonderful boy…that he and I had.”
““…””
Urushihara and Emilia were uncomfortable with the term “boy” for differing reasons. They sneered as Ignora continued, trancelike.
“I know that you, a limited number of ‘Ente Islans,’ are angry about what we’ve done to the Sephirot…but it’s not that I want to destroy you all. In fact, we’re using our powers to watch for danger across all of Ente Isla, managing the Sephirot so we may create a planet and people that will never perish. And to do that, we have to show that we are the superior presence on this planet…”
“The superior presence?”
“We protect this planet, and its people. Everything was a battle toward that end. Satanael’s group defied us, trying to stop us…but look! The Sephirot has finally judged us to be correct. It has manifested itself as Lucifer!”
“…Calling someone ‘superior’ over others takes a lot of guts.”
Emilia listened to Ignora’s long speech, more exasperated than surprised by it. Then she asked the woman herself.
“So, what, is that what you’re like?”
“Apparently I am sometimes,” Copyhara tossed out. “That’s why Amane Ohguro was in such a panic. She’s the daughter of the Binah of Earth, right? So seeing me, the descendant of the angels she fought, appear instead of you Ente Islan natives must’ve scared her. The Sephirah of Earth must’ve sided with you because they thought you were on the right side of this argument. But then here I am, taking the form of the angels’ descendant.”
When Copyhara appeared at the Sasaki residence, Amane gathered as many of the Earth Sephirah as she could and laid out a dragnet for him.
“So they saw me as ‘the enemy of their friends.’ They must’ve figured there might be war between two Sephirots. They were panicking, so they all filed in to take me back here—and they had Amane Ohguro watch over me, too, because they were still anxious. So, yeah, Ignora does kind of have a point.”
“…You’re still obliquely implying a bunch of stuff. The Devil King and Acieth are about to get pretty awful with us, so I’d really like to end this conversation already…”
Even as they spoke, Satan and Camael, and Acieth and Eleos, continued to fight. Both appeared evenly matched, which meant neither side had a definitive finisher to break out. It was more of a bar brawl or fracas than a real battle. And while the Devil King and Camael were one thing, Emilia was reluctant to have two young girls like Acieth and Eleos get permanently scarred or bodily disabled.
“Ah, sorry, sorry. What she said—what Ignora said—is generally right. But she’s reading the situation a little wrong. Yes, the Sephirot and Sephirah came to a consensus, and that was Lucifer, the child of Ignora and Satanael. But they didn’t choose an angel.”
The next moment, before Emilia’s eyes, Copyhara pressed a small piece of metal against her hand.
“I’ll lend you my powers for a little bit. If you have a Yesod and Malchut inside you, then it’s a simple story.”
The hand of Copyhara that touched Emilia’s had a small ring on it—the ring with the small Yesod fragment that Chiho Sasaki wore.
“You, the Hero Emilia, have obtained the power your mother pulled out through Chiho Sasaki, whether she meant to or not. And that makes you the strongest in the universe.”
There was no light. It was so different from fusing with Alas Ramus or Nyx, and Emilia didn’t know what to do for a moment—but then all became clear.
“W-wait! No…!!”
“Alas Ramus… Nyx… I’m gonna borrow some of your powers!”
“Three people…!!”
Now there were three different consciousnesses in her mind, alongside her own. That alone was enough to potentially drive her insane, but the next moment allowed her to gather her wits, forgetting about it all.
“Mommy, your right hand.”
Alas Ramus, against Emilia’s will, had appeared as a holy sword. But it wasn’t the usual sort of metal blade. From the tip to the edge of the handle, it was a sword of light—composed of nothing but purple illumination.
“This…”
The sight of a holy sword like none other stunned her…but she had seen this happen once before. She looked back at Raguel, locked inside his capsule. It was almost like he was ensconced up there to remind her of that moment.
“There are lots of crazy coincidences in the world. But that’s all they are. Coincidences. There’s no meaning to them. I was born from the Yesod fragment Chiho Sasaki had, and that’s why I’m giving this power to you. I am the Da’at, and the Yesod, too, and that makes me the one who decides the Sephirot’s future. The one who wants peace for the planet’s inhabitants more than anyone else. And a world where the Sephirot and Sephirah children function correctly once more…!”
But Emilia could tell she had been acting of her own volition. It was what anyone would do to correct a world that wasn’t heading in the direction it was supposed to. A perfectly natural, human thing to do. And even before they attacked heaven, Emi herself had decided to use this power to “put an end” to this.
That was why—at this moment in time before anything had been settled—she didn’t hesitate to test the true value of this holy sword of light.