“Papa...!” murmured Rei. The Reincarnator girl wiped away the tears that welled up in her eyes—tears that should not have been able to exist. At this point, the very reality of Rei’s being was ambiguous, constructed by her Skill without a body of her own.
“You’re wide open!” There was no way the boy hero Nefritis would overlook this opportunity. He was under a misapprehension, however—Rei was looking straight at him. The tears she brushed away turned into phosphors, serving as a new source of fuel for her Skill.
“This really isn’t your lucky day.” Rei thrust out both of her arms, and the unseen hands of her Skill followed her movements. These invisible appendages seized Nefritis, trapping him. The hero’s body, which was as hard as bronze...started to creak.
“Wha...?! I thought you were ridiculously powerful before, but...are you even stronger than you were a moment ago?!”
“Yes, I am. After all, I’ve never been this excited before!” she said.
Reincarnators lacked bodies of their own. For that very reason, their condition was tied directly to their mental state and their morale. Dill, a master agitator, had for the first time ever delivered an oration aimed at inspiring the Reincarnators. That fact had moved Rei’s heart more than anyone else’s. The first time Rei stood in front of Dill, he had rebuked her and ordered her to relinquish Sid to him. The very same man was now speaking for her sake—for the sake of the Reincarnators assembled there. As far as Rei was concerned, Dill’s oration was a message directed straight at her. Of course, she understood that his real goal was to make better use of the Reincarnators allied with him, for the sake of victory.
Rei didn’t mind being used. If Dill had expectations for her, she wanted to live up to them. When she became a Reincarnator, she experienced the negation of her own existence down to its very foundation. Now, at this moment, Dill had acknowledged her. She was truly fighting alongside him. The guilt that once held Rei in fetters had vanished. The hesitation she had felt toward using her inexplicable talents—this, too, was gone!
“I’m sorry, but I won’t let you lift another finger. Now keep quiet while I crush you...!” Rei exerted force with both of her hands, and her Skill seemed to gush forth without limit. Her psychokinetic arms, now made visible, were clasped together as if in prayer, keeping Nefritis trapped. Then, they began to exert pressure on him from both sides. There was nothing the hero of the Nectar, who took pride in his supernatural strength, could possibly do to stop this.
One of the other heroes, Achtida with her heavenly locks of hair, gasped in shock and tried to come to his aid. But she could not—Sid would not let her.
“Behold me! Your opponent is me, Orestes!”
Achtida’s beautiful face was twisted in bewilderment as she turned to face Sid once more. She reached for the quiver at her back, where the favor of Prodotis granted from afar gave her an unlimited supply of arrows; from this quiver she plucked out four arrows at once and nocked them all to her bow. She drew back her arm, and her bow stretched to its limit—but by then, Sid was already right in front of her. The youth advanced without fear, and already he was close—far too close for a bow to be effective.
“Achtida!” cried the imprisoned Nefritis. With his urgent expression, his visage no longer seemed like that of a young boy. The hero turned his sharp gaze back to glare at Rei again. “...Let go, little girl. Our playtime is over. I won’t let you lay a finger on my woman...!” Nefritis threw out his arms, and slowly—very slowly—but surely, began to part Rei’s clasped hands! Rei cried out and fought back.
“I’m not playing. I’m deadly serious too!” she cried.
Nefritis snorted in laughter. “How could you be serious? Aren’t you Reincarnators immortal? Knowing you’ll just be revived should you happen to die, how could anything be serious to you? Nothing you wretches do, divorced as you are from death, will ever be anything more than play.”
“You’re wrong!” Tears began to stream down Rei’s cheeks once again. Nefritis’s words echoed the ones Dill had once spoken to her. “Even if we can come back, if we lose what’s precious to us...what’s the point?! I’ve finally found it...something worth knowing more about. Scenery I could gaze upon forever. A promise that lets me look forward to tomorrow! People who are precious to me! The place I belong! Redguard!”
“In that case...just try and deal with me, Nefritis!” The upper half of Nefritis’s body was already free, sticking out from the gap between the psychokinetic hands. His blue eyes were glowing. Finally, the boy hero pushed the hands apart as wide as the span of his own arms and leaped out from between them.
Using Prodotis’s Skill, he created a flaming sword and in the span of one...two...three steps, he was already right before Rei’s eyes. He raised his blade high above his head, then slashed down with it, tracing a burning arc in the air.
With her eyes closed, Rei knelt down on the ground, clasping her hands together as though praying. She did not move. From the hero’s left and right, new psychokinetic hands pressed down on him.
“Kya ha ha ha! You really are a one-trick pony... Wha—?!” Nefritis tried to resist with brute strength like he had before, but then stood still, dumbfounded.
There were more arms than there had been mere moments ago. The palms of the translucent hands—one pair, two pairs, three pairs—enveloped Nefritis in succession, layered on top of each other. Like a budding flower, each successive layer was larger than the last, and new hands continued to gather on top, over and over. The blossom of hands held Nefritis in a deadly embrace, beginning to grind him to a pulp. First, he dropped his sword of flames, and it was seized and crushed. Then came his greaves, his bracers—finally Nefritis’s own bones started to creak as the hands pressed in on him.
“What in the world? After all I’ve seen and done, the one who fells Nefritis, slayer of beasts, shall be this little girl...?! I don’t understand... I can’t understand! This makes no sense! Is this era truly so strange?!”
Even as Nefritis was crushed to a pulp, he looked at Rei, who still stood in front of him, and grinned. It was a boyish grin with a certain amount of charm. “Well...at least I got to see something interesting!” he said.
Rei concentrated fully on her Skill, sweat running down her brow, without stirring from her pose of prayer. There was no one to see Nefritis’s smile. That is, except for one person—Achtida, who had no regard for her own safety.
“Eh...?!” Sid was shocked. His face was drenched in blood—Achtida’s blood. The heroine had not even tried to block his sword, infused with the power of his Skill, and it had run through Achtida’s belly up to the hilt. Achtida was much too frail to be counted among the heroes. Although she shared their skin, hard as bronze, Achtida was not so stalwart as the giant Falaina. The wound she had sustained was mortal. But in exchange, she had bought time enough to loose her arrows to save Nefritis.
The four arrows, fired simultaneously, accelerated as the flames of Prodotis’s Skill erupted behind them. However, there was a discrepancy in their velocities. The swiftest arrow pierced Rei’s shoulder, throwing off the focus she had exerted on her Skill.
The flower of hands that restrained Nefritis started to come apart. A moment later, the rest of Achtida’s arrows struck the hands themselves and exploded. The blast pushed Nefritis out of his prison.
“Achtida?! How could you—what are you doing?! Do you mean to leave me on my own...again...?!” The boy hero was sent flying over the edge of the cliffs of Krios and plummeted toward the rainy Tower Capital. A fleet of helicopters could be seen descending after him like vultures.
“No way...! Are you really happy to leave things like this...?!” Sid asked Achtida, who had fallen to her feet, and looked as if she might expire at any moment. The heroine smiled, however. The title of hero didn’t seem to suit her after all—her smile was troubled but kind. Achtida of the arrows of light, one of the Seven Generals of Krios... Sid knew nothing about her besides these epithets. He knew not why she had gone so far to protect Nefritis. He knew not what she fought for. What meaning was hidden beneath that smile? The heroine was waiting—waiting for Sid to behead her, to deliver the final blow.
“How can I kill you after seeing what you just did...?!”
Achtida, looking all the more troubled, frowned and tilted her head down. Rei was coming, holding one hand against her shoulder. For the most part, her wound had already been filled in by phosphors.
“Λύωᕳλύωαἰφν¤ίδιος❡λύωλύωτραύλισμα∋λύωκλίμα%λύωφάκεκατά⍲σκοπος→λύωσιαγών>...”
The heroine stood back up. She still held her bow and arrow in her hands. She nocked her arrow of flames and aimed it at Rei.
“That’s...that’s not fair. Not like this. Not like this...!” Sid sobbed. He sniffled. All the while, he raised his sword. Neither Rei nor Achtida would back down. At this hour, what were the names of those who slew, and those who were slain?
“I’m... My name is Orestes! Disciple of the hero Aegisthus...!”
With that, Achtida was dead.