That was the only thing that would make sense.
✦ ✦ ✦
“…?”
But at that moment—
What Fiamma of the Right felt first was not anger or fear, but doubt.
The boy’s body should have been reduced to ashes, but it didn’t have a scratch on it.
Far from it.
The immense vortex of light Fiamma had fired had split in twain, scattering to each of the boy’s sides. This was despite the beam bearing such gargantuan energy that it could blow away an entire planet and re-create all legends in Crossism.
It was as if…
It was as if an invisible right hand extending from the boy’s severed shoulder had repelled it—!!
“What…in the…?” muttered Fiamma, reeling.
The words he murmured weren’t enough to keep himself in check—instead, they expanded like a snowball rolling down a hilly road.
“I have absorbed your right hand. So why—why do you still possess that power?!”
There was no answer.
The boy, cheeks damp with his own blood, simply kept looking down.
Toward that right arm. Past the wound, at that which should not have existed.
Zk-zk-zk-zk-zk-zk-zk-zk-zk-zk-zzhhhhhhhhhhhhhh-zk-zk-zhhhh!! An invisible force began to gather.
“…” Fiamma moved only his eyes and looked at what was sprouting from his own right shoulder.
He had certainly taken that boy’s right hand. He’d changed it into his own flesh and blood, and within that should have remained the Imagine Breaker, the singular power that could erase all other powers.
Then…what, exactly, was the power gathering within the enemy standing before him now?
There’s something…
With a crackle, Fiamma felt his lips suddenly drying. He’d finally obtained the Imagine Breaker’s right arm. He’d gone through so many grandiose preparations, and after finishing them all, he’d seized that strange right hand—the final key. With Fiamma of the Right’s power and the boy’s right arm—which he’d dismantled and reformed as a Soul Arm—he could save the entire world at once. That was how valuable his last acquisition was…
But he’d been eclipsed.
He could barely make it out.
He felt such a threat from the huge tempest of energy concentrating at the boy’s sheared-off shoulder that it was causing the color to fade from all Fiamma had gained.
Something transparent…
Fiamma of the Right looked at his opponent’s face again.
He couldn’t catch a glimpse of it, as the boy was looking down, expression hidden.
Fiamma doubted Imagine Breaker was all that resided in that body of his. But he never thought his mind would be so rattled, so set on edge, just from that ability to cancel out any strange power. Even now, he felt a tingling on his skin so keenly that it almost stung. The impact bellowing deep in his gut, like watching fireworks go off from up close, was almost like a clear wall.
Something is there!!
“………”
The boy—Touma Kamijou—slowly looked up.
It wasn’t an exaggerated motion. It wasn’t sharp or fast. It wasn’t unique, nor was it regular.
He simply looked up.
With just that.
Fiamma of the Right sensed all the muscles from his shoulders to his neck tensing.
It was coming.
He didn’t know what, but something was coming—something he needed to be cautious of.
And then.
✦ ✦ ✦
Booommmmm!!!!!!
Touma Kamijou, with his own strength, gripped that invisible something and crushed it.
✦ ✦ ✦
Another power appeared above the immense force steadily collecting at the stock-still Kamijou’s shoulder, opening up like a giant mouth and engulfing the vast store of power all at once. Almost as though chewing it, the air near his shoulder’s gash shimmered like sugar dissolving in water.
That much power.
In an instant.
Into pieces.
“…You…”
A murmur.
Kamijou’s lips moved.
“I don’t know who the hell you are.”
His words were certainly not loud.
Nevertheless, they stung deep inside Fiamma’s ears. His mind was blaring warning signals he couldn’t suppress; if he missed a single movement of a fingertip, or the blink of an eyelid, it could utterly change the situation.
“And I don’t know what the hell you’re trying to do.”
Fiamma of the Right held the greatest power even in God’s Right Seat—and Kamijou wasn’t looking at him.
He didn’t even know what Kamijou was speaking to.
“But…”
Maybe only Touma Kamijou knew.
In any case, Kamijou said:
✦ ✦ ✦
“…you be quiet now. I’ll finish things with this guy.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Slp-slp-slp-slp-slp!! A wet sound rang out. By the time he’d heard it, a right arm was already extending from Touma Kamijou’s shoulder. Having devoured that enormous power, a piece of fleshy body had been newly produced.
He…abandoned it…? Fiamma tried to mutter, but he realized late that no words were coming out.
The back of his throat dried, leaving only a sticking sensation.
He purposely sacrificed all that power to take back the Imagine Breaker…?
He glanced at the right arm he’d taken from the boy.
Even now, Fiamma had the Imagine Breaker’s right hand dismantled and integrated into his own body. But he sensed the light of that power slowly fading from the flesh and blood he’d obtained. The sight made him feel like a concept, a rule, something was stating that two powers of this level couldn’t exist in the world at the same time. It was as though that “rule” were saying the right arm could only retain its true power when attached to the boy named Touma Kamijou.
Fiamma couldn’t afford to lose it.
He wasn’t attached to the Imagine Breaker itself. In fact, he’d planned to expel that absorbed function out of his arm at some point. In the process of drawing power into his body, that ability would only be a hindrance. However, if he assumed the “right arm” itself was rapidly weakening, then maybe even its function as a container to hold Fiamma’s power would be collapsing. That wouldn’t do. Not for his goals.
And then Kamijou said this.
“…I think I’m finally starting to understand.”
“Understand what?”
“I’d thought this was a ridiculous plan. This Star of Bethlehem, World War III, the alliance between the Roman and Russian Churches—all of it.”
Kamijou paused his breathing for a moment.
The words that came out next were thrust at Fiamma in the form of questions.
“Why did the Star of Bethlehem have to be this gigantic? This is a ritual site so you can safely and accurately do your stupid magic, right? But if Fiamma of the Right was really the strongest being, he wouldn’t have had to scrape together all the pieces of churches and temples and whatever throughout the world, would he?”
One by one, Kamijou spoke as though checking items off a list.
“Why did you cause World War III? You said this was to gather the materials you needed from throughout the world and at the same time bring the ‘enemy you need to defeat’ out into the open. But you can interpret that another way. Fiamma of the Right’s power automatically adjusts the strength of his arm based on the strength of the enemy before him. In other words, the stronger the enemy who appears, the more of your power can be drawn out…But why did you want to go that far to force more power out?”
And each and every one of them pruned back Fiamma’s layers with precision, steadily revealing what lay within.
“And why did the Roman Orthodox Church and Russian Catholic Church join forces anyway? Why did you want so much power that you’d open the door to other religious organizations, rather than just the Roman Church with its two billion followers? If Fiamma of the Right really was invincible, if he really was someone who could destroy every last enemy, would he have needed to get underlings? What I mean is…”
Kamijou spoke.
To continue his words that would be fatal to Fiamma of the Right.
“…you were scared, weren’t you?”
Kamijou set his eyes straight on Fiamma as he declared it.