Chapter One Hundred Twelve: To Part the Heavens Like Lightning
WHEN I came to, I realized I had fallen on something soft. That something let out a strangled toadlike croak as I sat up.
I was astonished.
The sound of cars. The crowds of pedestrians coming and going along the crosswalk. Towering buildings climbing into the sky. Shining traffic lights.
“This is…Shibuya…?” I mumbled in a daze.
I looked down at myself. I was dressed in a black school uniform with a red scarf—a typical high schooler’s outfit.
Memories crashed into my mind like an avalanche. I had been wearing the same uniform when my previous life ended.
The passersby gave us bizarre looks, yet they walked on with brisk strides, swerving around us in an almost artistic motion. The humans of Tokyo were used to the unexpected, and three strange youngsters lying in the middle of the street weren’t anything worthy of pointing their cameras at or even a second of their attention.
“No way… No way, how—how could this…” The woman lying below me was squirming against the asphalt as hysteria crept into her voice. “Tell me I’m dreaming…! No way, why—how— I never wanted to come back to a world like this, why, why?!”
It was Lilly. Next to her, Alexei, identical to his form in the other world, was sitting on the ground in a daze. “What in the world happened to us…?”
The traffic lights began to flash.
I frowned. “We need to move.” Relying on the memories of my past life that had suddenly surged back with clarity, I grabbed their hands and stood up, then somehow managed to tow everyone to safety from Shibuya Crossing.
The other two caught their breath as they sat on the sidewalk. The pair looked like a couple that was still feeling the effects of alcohol they had ingested the night before, which wasn’t too uncommon on the streets of Shibuya. Far more out of place was the high school girl who was dragging such a couple around in broad daylight, and I noticed people staring at me.
“Why… Why did you do this…? How could you do this to me?!” Lilly grabbed me by the collar as she screamed. She had lost her neon pink hair. It had been replaced with a disheveled blonde, and her features were that of a Japanese woman.
I saw my reflection in her eyes—for some reason, I still looked like Sai Cutrettola. I had died and reincarnated, so perhaps I didn’t have a body left in the world of my past life.
“I did this to protect my world, Lilly,” I said in a firm voice.
She spat before yelling her throat hoarse. “I had to come back here for a reason like that?! This is a nightmare!”
I could understand her despair. She had been fed up with every aspect of her life and sought relief; she’d believed herself free of her burdens in the foreign world she had escaped to. And then she had been forced to come back. It must feel like hell.
But I thought it a good outcome. She had to pay for all the things and people she had destroyed during her rampage in the other world, and a voluntary death as the Saint wasn’t a fitting punishment.
She tore at her hair and shrieked, “I’ll die right now! Watch me, I’ll die right here!” And she ran.
“Lilly!” Alexei chased her. He seemed to recognize her despite her new appearance.
I called out to him. “Alexei.”
He nearly stumbled as he stopped, whipping his head around. “What?!”
“You are willing to follow her, I see.”
“Isn’t that obvious?! I don’t know what’s going on, but that’s my woman!”
He sprinted at full speed toward the delirious Lilly. His running form was that of a knight who had drilled himself thoroughly, and an indescribable emotion suffused my heart.
He had been cold and indifferent to me—I would never forget the pain caused by his fists and my sorrow when he hadn’t believed my innocence. But initially, he had been a diligent man who’d climbed to the post of Holy Knight Commander with his sweat, blood, and tears. And even after forfeiting that post, he had likely never ceased his training.
“May you…find happiness in this world as well,” I whispered.
I watched them until they disappeared into the crowd. Once they were gone, I found myself at a loss. “Oh, what do I do…?”
I stood there in my uniform feeling utterly adrift. I turned to stare at my reflection in a display window. Sai Cutrettola looked different from who I had been in my previous life, yet with my black hair and eyes, I wouldn’t attract attention in twenty-first-century Japan. I certainly look like I belong here, but… I glanced at my palms then up at the sky. I came to a realization:
“As a lone high school girl without a name and absent from the civil register…what do I do now?”
The gravity of my situation slowly sank into me. I might be in major trouble. I had used up all my abilities as the Wagtail Priestess; in Japan, I was a powerless girl with no magic.
Then, abruptly—
“Sai!”
—the sky tore in two above my head.
An angel soared toward me from the other side of the opening. He’d hurtled through a “sky” made of glass, and the sharp fragments pierced his body as he stretched his wings wide and swooped down.
I reached my arms out toward the angel and screamed, “Emperor Haruka! Here!”
He found me in the crowd and his eyes widened. Bleeding gashes littered his body, and his white silk robes were shredded. He flew to me and gathered me into his arms—then ascended back up to the gap in the “sky” that had nearly finished mending itself.