She leaped forward—like a fencer beginning a match, her sword pointed straight ahead of her. The target was Camael.
“Devil King! Get back!!”
That, too, was a warning Emilia gave because she wanted to.
“Ngh… Ah! …Huh?”
When the Acieth-fused Satan smashed Camael with everything he had, not even that was enough to destroy his armor. Now it was like a knife slicing through tofu. The sword of light slipped right through, with no resistance at all. But no blood gushed from the wound; no bits of broken armor flew away from it.
“E-Emi, what are, you…?”
Satan’s eyes opened wide at this sudden bout of violence.
“It’s fine… This is fine… This should end it all… The astral energy…in humans, that Yesod controls…flowing through me, the one she’s bonded with the most… With this…”
It happened immediately.
“Wha-ah…”
In terms of time, it was around three seconds. Camael, after overwhelming Satan in a clash for the ages, suddenly fell to his knees, shaking. The sword of light was already pulled out of him.
“H-hey, Emi…”
“Watch.”
Emilia didn’t move. She was looking down on the fallen Camael, sword down, defenseless.
“Wh-whoa, watch out! He’s still…”
Emilia sadly shook her head at Satan’s warning.
“No. It’s already over.”
“Huh?”
“N-no… This can’t be…!! Sata… Laila… Satan… Ngh!”
“Wha—?!”
Satan’s eyes flew open in surprise. With a muffled scream uttered by Camael, white light began to burst from his body, head to toe, before disappearing. Then, with a blast like all the holy force in him being expelled, Camael’s body shot into the air and then fell limp. The crimson armor vanished, and all that remained was a silver-haired man in the prime of his life, dressed in a toga and lying on the ground. There wasn’t a single drop of holy energy, or spirit, or stamina left in him.
“N-no way… That…”
Satan wasn’t the only one shocked by this. Eleos, still grappling with Acieth, suddenly stopped. Acieth, not getting the message, lunged at her from behind and landed a blow to the back of her head—but Eleos was so shocked by these events, the pain didn’t even register.
“Hey! Come on! This battle, it is not over yet! C’mon!!”
“Wh-why…? We’ve been separated…”
“Huhh?! Separated?!”
“Camael…is no longer Camael. The power I instilled in him is lost… What did you do…?”
The sight of Eleos acting so absentmindedly flustered near her enemy puzzled Acieth. Emilia gave her a sad look.
“Don’t you see, Eleos? …When the people of a world watched over by the Sephirah truly mature… When they can truly protect themselves…the holy force and the demonic force leave them.”
Emilia lifted her blade and pointed it at Raguel’s capsule.
“The answer was already before us. That astral blade, the one that removed the miracle housed within his soul. The blade of Yesod light banished his holy force.”
“Raguel, and the purple blade of light… Ah!!”
Satan shouted, eliciting another exasperated look from Emilia.
“Tokyo Tower? Chi, against Raguel?”
As Satan recalled, when Gabriel and Raguel had hijacked the Tokyo Tower transmitter, Chiho—controlled by Laila—was the one who had defeated Raguel. When he was struck with an arrow made of purple light, he was drained of holy energy and unable to fly. It was a “fall” for the angel—and Satan and Emilia knew someone else that term applied to.
“Wait. Do you mean…?”
“When we go back, we’re gonna have to stop by Ente Isla and have that guy take an eye exam. If it was Satanael who broke the Yesod, there’d have to be lots more fragments than the ones Laila and Gabriel know about.”
The angel of judgment, the one who could emit purple beams of light from his eyes that made angels “fallen,” was no doubt breezily working in Hatagaya right now. There was a Yesod fragment in those eyes, in all likelihood.
“The Yesod had made up its mind long before any of this. But it was in fragments…its roots cut off and crushed. It couldn’t execute the role assigned for it until now.”
“…So we’re gonna have to go on a fragment hunt after this?”
“Yes. I don’t think collecting them all would make Alas Ramus and Acieth go away…but I think we’re going to be busy for a while.”
“Okay, you guys get the gist now?”
Somewhere along the line, Copyhara had come out of Emilia’s mind, carrying Nyx in his arms.
“Yes. Loud and clear.”
“We chose them. And all that means is we recognized that they were the human race we needed to protect. And the ‘human race’ we have recognized for Ente Isla…”
Copyhara and Emilia’s eyes turned toward Ignora, still holding Laila down.
“…will someday all lose their miraculous powers.”
“…What…was…that?”
Ignora groggily gazed at the fallen Camael.
“Can I ask you one question, Copyhara? Has Camael lost his immortality?”
Copyhara had a clear answer for that.
“Immortality is a scientific breakthrough, discovered by Ignora’s team based on hints taken from our distant brothers and sisters. It is not a miraculous power, like holy or demonic force. Thus…we don’t know.”
“Oh. Well, that’s too bad,” Emilia jeered. “Then we’re gonna have to let them live, won’t we? To see if they’ve lost it or not.”
“What a scary Hero you are,” Copyhara replied.
“No… That’s a lie…” Ignora croaked. “Camael? No—Malchut! Da’at! Didn’t you choose us…?”
“Weren’t you listening?” Copyhara said. “Yes, we did. And that’s why this happened.”
“L-Lucifer…”
“Finally calling me by name, huh?”
Too stricken to keep Laila down, Ignora took a step—only to find Urushihara waiting for her, grabbing her with a bear hug.
“Lucifer, you…”
“You know, I kinda like the life I’ve had. But when I recall the past, there’s something that struck me about it…”
“Wha…?”
“Knowing that I wasn’t loved… That actually hurts a lot.”
“L-Lucifer…”
“Mom only cared about research. Dad was all about politics, and saving the people. And unfortunately for me, they only saw me as a way to prove they were right. I think I have the right to be a little upset.”
“Lucifer, that was…!”
“But I’m grown up now and all. I know you were both dealing with really important stuff. But that’s that, and this is this. Both of you locked me up in one of those capsules for so long—Mom for her immortality research, Dad so she couldn’t take me back. No matter what kinda rationale you had for it, to me, it wasn’t much more than abuse.”