“Rix! You saved us!” Annie cried, clinging to Rix’s waist. “But you have to stop now! Come back! Please! No more of this…!”
“Rix! Stop! It’s over! It’s all over! There’s no need for you to keep fighting! Rix! Can you hear us?!” Serephina grabbed the arm that held Rix’s sword.
All three of them tried to stop him, tried to bring him back to them.
However, Rix didn’t even blink.
He kept moving forward, as if he didn’t have three people hanging on to him, and approached Anna. He dragged his friends along with him.
“Hey! Rix! Quit joking around! You don’t need to take it this far!”
Randy tried punching him.
Annie tried casting Sleep on him.
But no matter what they did, he wouldn’t stop. Rix simply kept walking toward this fatal conclusion.
“Rix!”
Shino cut in front of Rix and clung to him, propping herself against him.
Of course, Rix didn’t react. It proved no obstacle, and he kept walking.
“Come on, snap out of it! Do you really want to go back to being a puppet?! I thought you wanted to become human?! Don’t you want to be happy?! Well?!”
He wasn’t listening. He couldn’t hear her.
But Shino had a deadly premonition about what was about to happen.
If they allowed Rix to kill a person right now, he would break.
And he would never be able to become human ever again.
Because a puppet was something without its own free will, that only mechanically executed commands until completion.
This was a denial of his own humanity.
And it was, above all, proof that he truly was a puppet.
In the world of mages, where words had their own power akin to their own spirit and the contract of those words was enforceable, this was an act that could not be undone.
“Stop! Please stop! You have to stop! Stop, you idiot!”
Just then, Shino’s own screams made her come back to her senses.
…What am I doing?! Just screeching like some common girl?!
Think! I’m the Dusk Demon, aren’t I?!
Time was running out.
Anna was already right in front of Rix.
In just a few seconds, he would reach her—and mercilessly bring his sword down onto her head.
Kill Anna—he had to complete the order he’d given himself.
But when he did, he would never be able to return to his old self—she was dead sure of that.
In the limited time available to her, Shino tried with everything she had to think of a solution.
If you really want to save him, you have to think like a mage! Don’t give up; think!
If Rix is an Ego, like that man…then it’s likely he’s not in control of his own closed-off Sphere!
It’s the worst possible situation—even if it’s opened, he hasn’t realized it, and he can’t control it!
So as the result of a command trigger, his self becomes submerged deep in the bottom of his Sphere, closed off to his own inner world. And he can only wield the light of his sword when he’s in that puppet form, automatically executing preset commands in a kind of trance… There should be no doubt about this!
And right now, he must be deeply submerged in his Sphere—much more so than the time with Gordon.
So then how can I reach Rix and pull him back out from that deep place at the bottom of his closed Sphere? How…? How can I do it…?
Shino thought.
She thought. And thought, and thought, and thought.
And then…time so mercilessly ran out.
“…”
A silence like time itself had stopped overtook the entire area.
Randy, Annie, and Serephina…
…were frozen in place, with their eyes wide.
Because Shino…had placed her lips on Rix’s.
Her arms were wrapped around Rix’s neck, like she was clinging to a dear lover.
She stretched up on tiptoe…and pressed her mouth deeply against Rix’s.
With that, Rix stopped moving.
“…I had a secret weapon at the ready, too,” said Shino.
Eventually, she slowly pushed against Rix’s chest and separated from him.
“According to magic theory…your self was sinking deep to the bottom of your Sphere, which is closed within your inner world,” she explained. “While your Sphere is open, it has an extremely rare and unique condition in which it is contained within your body, unable to expand into the outside world. In order to pull that self out of that sinking condition, that Ego state, I needed to break through that closed-off, self-contained state, even if only for a moment.
“If I did that, I would be able to raise you back up using my own Sphere as a medium. And the simplest way to break through that self-containment of yours…was for you to accept a part of another person into your body. And, well…so…you know? There are many methods in which to do this, but…in this situation, the fastest way was…to…”
Shino’s usual straight face looked flustered as she rushed through this explanation that nobody had asked for… Then…
“…Does it have to be so complicated?” Rix whispered softly. “‘The puppet got kissed by a girl, and he turned into a real human.’ That’s enough of an explanation for me.”
Then he shyly, awkwardly scratched his head.
He had completely come back to his senses.
“Hmph. That’s why you’re so disgusting… Idiot.” Shino crossed her arms and turned the other way.
She was her usual self again—words cold as ice and sharp as a knife.
But that pouting face of hers had taken on a reddish blush, and her eyes were filling with tears.
Then…
“Riiiiiiiiiiiiiix!”
“Rix!”
“You had us so worried!”
“Whoa?!”
…all at once, Rix’s friends clung to him again.
“W-wait a sec! Don’t forget I’m on the verge of death, with a bunch of extremely serious injuries— Gyaaaaaaaaaah?!”
Rix screamed as his friends jostled him.
And so the turmoil of the strange incident caused by the Faith Faction finally came to an end.