Chapter 5

QREST: Quantum lamellaR Expansive System Terminals. Pronounced like the word crest, as in insignia or peak, these devices were first released in 2028 and immediately changed people’s lives. Just 0.3 millimeters thick and 5 centimeters in diameter, QRESTs were multilayer, thin-film computers. Capable of flexing, expanding, and contracting, they could be worn almost anywhere on the body. And because QRESTs were powered by bioelectrical energy, there was no risk of batteries ever running out. When connected wirelessly with the companion earpieces, which were worn in both ears and doubled as both speakers and earphones, and with the eyelenses, which were worn in both eyes and doubled as cameras and displays, QRESTs allowed for truly ubiquitous networking. In many ways, QRESTs represented the fusion of humans and smartphones. Their popularization revolutionized all aspects of life, including daily activities, business, and even computer gaming. The virtual QREST screen, which could be freely adjusted to fill any size within eyesight, eliminated the need for physical monitors and led to the release of many augmented reality (AR) games, wherein information was overlain on items and locations in the real world. However, gamers had long since despaired of ever receiving a truly immersive (fulldive) VR gaming experience. Even with QRESTs, many hurdles to VR gaming still remained. In order to allow players to move around freely in a virtual world created by the QREST earpieces and eyepieces, there needed to be a way to restrict the movements of their actual physical bodies while still imparting stimuli related to touch, depth, and equilibrium. It was IO-Tage, a telecom company headquartered in the United States, that finally broke through that hurdle. The Caliculus. It involved placing a person within a capsule-shaped device and using hybrid ultrasonic and electric field biomedical communication protocols to simultaneously read motor commands from the brain and deliver sensory nervous signals. Using the Caliculus, IO-Tage also developed Actual Magic, the world’s first fulldive VRMMORPG, and announced they would be opening large-scale amusement centers featuring Actual Magic as well as other attractions in major cities around the world. Nozomi City, a smart city located on the eastern foot of Mount Fuji with a population of around 140,000, was chosen as the first location for Japan. The center built in Nozomi City was named Althea, and its grand opening was held on May 13, 2031. Seven hundred and ten residents of Nozomi City were invited to the event, including forty-one sixth-grade students from Yukihana Elementary School. The event commenced at 11:30 AM. After an orientation led by a woman who worked at the center, the guests were split into groups of eighty and led to their respective playrooms, where they soon entered their capsules. The guests were both delighted and astonished by Actual Magic, a fulldive VR game achieved through a combination of QREST and Caliculus technology. Once the clock display in Actual Magic reached 3:00 PM, the play session came to an end, and the 710 players left Althea with new and lasting memories as well as expensive launch event gifts… At least, that was what should have happened. “Augghhh!!” Yuuma Ashihara was unaware that a broken scream had escaped his lips. He was currently sitting in a heap in the middle of the walkway in Playroom 01, having stumbled backward onto his rear end as his classmate, Sumika Watamaki, trudged toward him, step by awful step. Sumika had been the undisputed beauty of Yuuma’s class—no, of the whole school. Her face had been perfection. There was no trace of that beauty now. In fact, she didn’t even look human. Beneath a curtain of soft black bangs, her face appeared pale and sickly in the orange glow of the emergency lights—but it had no eyes, no nose, and no mouth. They had vanished. Not gone, as if lost in some terrible accident, or gone as if obscured by something. Gone, as in there was just flat white skin where her eyes and nose and mouth should have been. At first, Yuuma thought it might be visual overwriting from his QREST. But current-generation eyelenses still produced a slight noise where altered images met actual vision. There was nothing strange like that about the outline of Sumika’s face. And besides, Yuuma had Accept All turned off for visual information. Unless… Maybe everything Yuuma was seeing now was fake. Maybe he was still inside the Caliculus, staring at a virtual world created entirely by his QREST. Suddenly, as if to deny Yuuma’s wishful thinking, Sumika Watamaki began walking faster. Her flat white face was growing closer. The mysterious detached arm she held in her right hand dangled back and forth, splattering fresh blood from its severed end. I don’t want to see what happens if she gets any closer! Yuuma thought instinctively. Summoning all his willpower, he attempted to scramble back to his feet, but his legs wouldn’t obey. Sumika was less than five meters away at this point. Her face, as smooth and white as a boiled egg, began to change. A small slit appeared toward the bottom of it. The slit then opened vertically to a width of about five centimeters without a sound. Well, at least she has a mouth, Yuuma thought in a daze. But wait. Why was it still spreading? It looked like it was about to reach her ears. The giant slash of a mouth that now bisected Sumika’s doll-like face was lined with rows of small and very sharp-looking teeth—no, not teeth. Fangs. Yuuma had swallowed his scream earlier, but now it began seeping out in staggered yelps. His stomach flipped, and every hair on his body stood on end. Her blood-spattered white pleated skirt and long silken hair—the envy of every girl in school—whipped back and forth as the thing that had once been Sumika Watamaki continued marching straight toward him. Yuuma never doubted that this was Sumika and not some other creature attempting to impersonate her. He realized now what had made him so sure: the faint scent that invaded his nostrils. It was Sumika’s perfume, a blend of fresh citrus and milky sweet notes. He had smelled it a thousand times before as he passed Sumika’s desk in class. And this smooth-faced monster now had the same scent. I didn’t have a crush on Sumika. I really didn’t… But I respected her. Sumika represented something…more. Yuuma couldn’t help himself. He whispered her name. “…Watamaki…” Sumika suddenly crouched low, as if ready to pounce. “Arggghhhh!” Someone screamed. Not Yuuma—someone else. They charged past him on the right, straight toward Sumika. Sumika furiously swung the arm she was holding at this person. Yuuma remembered reading once that the weight of a human arm was about 6 percent of a person’s total body weight. Assuming the arm belonged to a sixth-grade boy, whose average body weight was around 40 kilograms, 6 percent of that would be…2.4 kilograms. Child’s arm or not, that was still a lot heavier than, say, a full two-liter bottle. Heavy enough to do some serious damage… All those calculations ran through Yuuma’s head in the blink of an eye. It was as if time were frozen. Whoever was attempting to save him was about to have their skull cracked in half by a severed arm. Yuuma waited for the sound of the blow. But it never came. Instead, whoever was now facing off against Sumika blocked the arm using a long, thin rod that they wielded in both hands. From where he was lying, Yuuma could make out only the person’s silhouette. They turned slightly and shouted at Yuuma. “Yu, run! Get outta here and call for some grown-ups—anyone!” Yuuma finally recognized who it was. It was his best friend, Kenji Kondou—Kenk. Yuuma had assumed that Kenk had long since escaped the playroom, but he was still there. And he’d come to Yuuma’s rescue, just like he had so many times before, since they were little. “Kenk…,” Yuuma groaned hoarsely. He planted both hands on the floor and began to push himself to his feet. But he wasn’t trying to run away. He was trying to come to his friend’s aid. Yuuma still didn’t know what was going on. However, there was one thing that he did know—or had decided, at least, in his own mind—and that was that this was no virtual world. It was the real, raw world. And if Yuuma didn’t start acting like it was real, either he, Kenk, or both of them were going to wind up dead. As dead as whomever that arm had once belonged to. This newfound sense of determination seemed to do the trick. This time Yuuma’s legs obeyed his orders, and he managed to stumble back to his feet. Yuuma scanned the floor around his feet, spotting a metal pipe maybe fifty centimeters long—probably from one of the broken Caliculus capsules. He quickly scooped it up. It was light, possibly aluminum, and not nearly as long as he would have liked, but it was still a lot better than nothing. Kenk’s own metal pipe looked a lot stronger. He was still standing between Yuuma and Sumika and had somehow managed to hold off her onslaught. In addition to the gruesome makeshift club she was wielding, Sumika was also raining down blows with her left hand, which sported a set of razor-sharp claws. How Kenk had managed to withstand her attacks so far with just a measly pipe for protection was a mystery. Either way, Yuuma doubted Kenk would last much longer. Kenk might have been big for a sixth-grader, but he wasn’t particularly athletic. He didn’t have any experience in kendo or martial arts, either. “D-don’t worry, Kenk! I’m coming!” shouted Yuuma, gripping his aluminum pipe tighter. “What are you doing?!” Kenk shouted back, his voice sounding strained. “Get out of here, Yu…!” “I’m not leaving you behind!” I never thought I’d say a line like that in the real world, Yuuma thought as he inched forward, hugging the left wall. Sumika was situated toward the inside of the walkway, so Yuuma was hoping this position would keep him out of range of any swings from her arm-cudgel. Yuuma knew that was game thinking, but game thinking was the only thing that was allowing him to place one foot in front of the other at the moment. With rapid, shallow breaths, he managed to shuffle another five, then six meters forward, circling around behind Sumika. She was completely defenseless from this angle, just as Yuuma had predicted. In fact, from the back, she looked almost no different from the original Sumika. Same lustrous black hair. Same surprisingly narrow back and hips. Same long, slender legs. The tip of the aluminum pipe Yuuma was holding was sharp and jagged, as if it had been broken off with tremendous force. If Yuuma could just stab Sumika in the torso with it, as hard as he could, that would surely be enough to stop her attack. No, more than that… It would seriously injure Sumika. It might even kill her. Yuuma had already crouched forward, preparing to make a running charge. Suddenly, he froze. Kill her…? Kill Watamaki…? No. That thing isn’t Sumika Watamaki anymore. I don’t know what happened, but Watamaki’s a monster now. She’s already killed one person and torn off their arm, and she’s going to kill me and Kenk next. Unless… Unless… “Yu! Hurry up and run!” Kenk hollered. He was nearly at his breaking point. Yuuma glanced past Sumika, catching sight of his friend’s face, and his eyes went wide. There were countless scratches across Kenk’s face, chest, and arms, with rivulets of blood streaming from where he’d been cut. His favorite nylon hoodie, which he was still wearing, had been hideously shredded in multiple places. Blocking the blows from Sumika’s arm-cudgel apparently took all his strength—he didn’t have enough energy left to completely avoid the swipes from her clawed left hand. None of Kenk’s injuries looked too serious, but Yuuma doubted he would last much longer. Sumika was attacking with inhuman strength and speed. It was a miracle that Kenk had managed to defend himself against her monstrous flurry of blows for this long. Yuuma couldn’t abandon his friend now. Even if that meant killing Sumika. “No! I’m not running!” Yuuma shouted back at Kenk. This time he dashed forward. Sumika was only three meters away, but the distance felt almost insurmountable. With each step, she grew closer. Her back was still turned; Yuuma caught a glimpse of her white shirt peeking out from beneath the hem of her short jacket. That was where Yuuma chose to aim, thrusting with the sharp tip of the aluminum pipe— Sumika’s black hair cascaded through the air, carrying with it a whiff of her sweet perfume. Yuuma’s arms betrayed him, shrinking back before he could deliver the final blow. As if sensing his momentary hesitation, Sumika suddenly whipped around, her hideous club spinning in a savage arc. Yuuma barely even saw it coming. “Nrk…!” Yuuma was struck on his right shoulder with incredible force. He careened helplessly through the air before colliding, spine first, with a metal frame supporting one of the Caliculus capsules. The pipe he had been holding fell to the ground with a useless clang before rolling away. Sumika continued her spinning motion, sweeping the arm back around to hit Kenk next. It sent him slamming against the wall on the opposite side of the walkway. Yuuma’s right shoulder and back felt like they were on fire. All he could do was double over and gasp in pain. Soon, inches from his face— “GGHGHH…” —Yuuma heard monstrous wheezing. Summoning the last of his strength, Yuuma lifted his head and peered upward through swollen eyes. Everything was blurry, but he could still make out a pale white face slowly drawing near. A gaping mouth and countless fangs. And superimposed over it, the memory of Sumika Watamaki’s beauty. Yuuma could see it now—her beautiful smile, her shimmering pink lips. They were so close… “Yu…!” Kenk yelled. But Yuuma could no longer hear anything. “GGHGHH…” Not his friend’s voice or the creature’s hideous breathing. He just stared wide-eyed, nearly blind, and waited. The moment Sumika’s lips were about to brush his face— “Flamma!!” A new voice boomed in the darkness. Sumika jerked her head up as if she’d been slapped across the face. The voice shouted again. “Sagitta!!” There was no mistaking that voice. Yuuma had heard it a thousand times since he was born. No, a million times. It was his twin sister, Sawa! But the words she was speaking were words of power for elements and forms, like the ones used to cast spells in Actual Magic. Why was Sawa using words of power from the game? This was the real world—what good would that do? Before Yuuma could finish that thought, however, Sawa chanted the third and final word of power—the activation. “Ignis!!” A burst of dazzling orange light suddenly flared to life in the corner of Yuuma’s left eye. The Flame Arrow that shot forward was around thirty centimeters long. It struck Sumika in the left shoulder with a whoosh. She was knocked backward, flipping head over heels several times before skidding to a halt. The magic arrow penetrating her shoulder continued burning brightly for a few moments before it disappeared, leaving behind a cloud of foul-smelling smoke. Yuuma didn’t understand what had just happened. He tore his gaze away from Sumika, where she still lay on the ground, and to the left, toward where the arrow had come from. There was someone standing there, in an open Caliculus capsule, just a few meters away. Yuuma could only make out a person-shaped shadow. Whoever it was, they were out of range of the emergency lights. But Yuuma knew immediately from the silhouette that it had to be his twin sister, Sawa. Something was different, however. Sawa should have been wearing the same school uniform as all the other Yukihana Elementary students. The outline of this silhouette was oddly close-fitting. There was also something strange sticking out from her back on each side… Something that almost looked like tiny wings. “Sawa…?” Yuuma’s voice was weak and broken. The figure immediately turned its head and spoke in a commanding voice. “Yuumy, start Actual Magic now!” It was Sawa’s voice, but Yuuma didn’t understand what she was saying. The fulldive VRMMORPG, Actual Magic, could be activated only while inside a Caliculus capsule. He’d actually tried to start up the client program installed on their QRESTs while still in orientation, except all that happened was that an error message appeared. But Sawa wouldn’t have told him to start the game for no reason. Not under these circumstances. Besides, she only ever called him Yuumy when the stakes were high and she forgot herself. “O-okay…,” Yuuma replied, the word barely escaping his lips. He swiped his palm across his field of vision from left to right, opening his virtual desktop and displaying around twenty icons for apps installed on his QREST. The newest icon was displayed in the bottom right—the icon for Actual Magic. Two concentric circles and a pentagram. Yuuma tapped it, still in shock. The icon sparkled to life, transforming into blue flames, and then—it disappeared. “Wha—?” Yuuma panicked. Did he just uninstall it? A moment later, however, something unexpected happened, and another startled cry escaped his lips. “Ah… Ahh…?!” Yuuma’s left arm felt like it was on fire. Rolling the sleeves of his shirt and jacket up past the elbow, he could see his arm glowing blue. A complicated pattern of circuits, almost resembling a crest, had appeared in dazzling blue light where the QREST attached to the back of his hand. Yuuma wondered if something had gone wrong with his QREST’s multilayer thin-film array. He instinctively tried to remove it. QRESTs were just 0.3 millimeters thick but were flexible and durable enough to be repeatedly attached and removed. However, no matter how many times he ran his fingers over the back of his hand, he couldn’t seem to find the edge of the membrane. The blue light, as well as the pain—like being branded with hot metal—continued to grow stronger and stronger. Yuuma stopped trying to remove the QREST and balled his left hand up into a fist, clutching it to his chest with his other hand. All thoughts of Sawa’s strange appearance, or of Sumika or Kenk, who still lay in a heap on the ground, flew from Yuuma’s mind. All he could think of now was finding some way to stop the pain. But the light and pain didn’t stop; they just continued to grow, bubbling and spilling over, as if his QREST were mocking him— That was when Yuuma looked at his hand again. The circuitry pattern on his QREST, which was still pulsating with vibrant blue light, should have been only about five centimeters in diameter. Instead, it had spread from his hand to his wrist and was now creeping up his arm like some sort of living creature. “Aughh…?!” Yuuma exclaimed in shock, squeezing his wrist in an attempt to stop it. The pattern, however, continued to swell and grow. Once it had reached near his elbow, it began encircling both sides of the arm before finally stopping. The blue light grew fainter, and the burning pain finally started to recede. Yuuma stared open-mouthed at his QREST, which now resembled something more like a flashy tattoo. This couldn’t be happening. QRESTs were just thin-film computers. Electronic devices. There was no way they could grow larger or change shape on your skin. That wasn’t possible! Yuuma scratched at his arm repeatedly in instinctive denial. But the QREST substrate, which usually came off so easily, refused to budge no matter how hard he clawed at it. Did it…fuse with my skin…? Yuuma stared at his arm in amazement as he continued to run his fingers up and down the QREST. “There’s no time for that now, Yuumy!” shouted Sawa, a sense of urgency in her voice. A creaking sound came from the other direction almost simultaneously. Yuuma raised his head in surprise. There, just meters from where he stood— —was Sumika Watamaki, already pushing herself back to her feet. Her left shoulder, where she’d been hit with the Flame Arrow, was hideously burned. The viscous-looking black fluid that seeped from the wound was trickling down her arm and dripping onto the floor. The injury looked terrible, but the fact that Sumika was able to take a direct hit from one of Sawa’s spells and remain standing was proof that she was no longer human…or at the very least, no ordinary sixth-grade girl. Hold on… Yuuma tripped over his own thoughts. “Spells…? Magic…?” He twisted his neck around awkwardly to stare at his sister, who was still standing inside the Caliculus capsule. Sawa had just used magic. Honest-to-goodness magic. The same basic fire spell Flame Arrow she’d cast countless times while still inside the game. But they weren’t inside Actual Magic now. This was the real world, where Yuuma had lived for eleven years. A world ruled by the irrefutable laws of physics, where magic and miracles did not exist. Yuuma glanced to the right, spotting Kenk. He had been knocked aside at the same time as Yuuma but was still lying in a heap on the other side of the walkway. Yuuma couldn’t tell if he was out cold or if he was just too stunned to move. He didn’t see any blood, at least. Yuuma then turned his gaze forward again. Inhuman black fluid continued to drip from Sumika’s left arm. She was holding the unidentified severed arm in her right hand. Her face, now only a mouth, remained fixed in Yuuma’s direction. He realized there was something else floating over her head. Something that hadn’t been there a few seconds earlier. A long yellow bar. Not something physical or tangible. It appeared vivid and clear, even amid the gloomy darkness. It was an HP bar, projected there by his eyelenses. The design was exactly the same as the HP bars from Actual Magic. It even included the name Sumika Watamaki displayed underneath. Usually HP bars were blue. The fact that Sumika’s bar was yellow meant that over half her health was already gone, whether because of Sawa’s single Flame Arrow or because her hit points had already been low to begin with. If the display was to be believed, then Sumika could certainly die. …What does that make me…? With his gaze still fixated on Sumika, Yuuma fearfully flicked his eyes to the upper left, toward the corner of his vision, where his own HP and MP bars would be located. The name that was displayed there was Yuuma Ashihara. That wasn’t the name he had used in game. It was his real, actual name. The font and design of the HP bar, however, were exactly the same as in Actual Magic. Was this still the game…? Were they in Actual Magic…? Maybe this is all part of the grand opening…a messed-up surprise that the developers had planned all along? Yuuma was having trouble processing things. Sawa, however, seemed to sense what he was thinking. “Yuumy, this is real! If you die now, you die for real!” she shouted sharply. Yuuma knew immediately that his twin sister wasn’t lying or playing a prank. This truly was the real world. But there was magic. And HP bars floating over their heads. No, no… Strange as all that was, none of it could compare to the idea that Sumika Watamaki—sweet and gentle Sumika Watamaki—might actually be a bloodthirsty monster. Something unthinkable must have occurred. Right now, however, they needed to find a way out of this mess. Sumika was clearly planning to kill Yuuma. And once she had finished him off, she would go for Kenk and Sawa next. Yuuma couldn’t let that happen. For his best friend’s sake, for his sister’s sake—and for Sumika’s sake. Yuuma gathered his strength and stood back up, keeping his eyes fixed on Sumika as she continued to creep closer. His right shoulder, where Sumika had clobbered him with her arm-cudgel, and his back, which had collided with the frame of the Caliculus, both throbbed painfully, but he was still able to move. “Yuumy!” Sawa shouted from behind him. “It’ll take fifty seconds until I can cast again! You need to do whatever you can to get her HP down into the red by then!” “Wh-what do you mean, whatever I can…?!” “Don’t worry—now that AM is running, your stats have all increased. Grab that metal bar over there! It’s to your right!” “My right…?” Yuuma glanced down toward his feet, as he was told. There, at the edge of the walkway, was a steel bar about fifty centimeters long. He dove forward and scooped it up. It looked like a broken-off piece of one of the Caliculus’s support frames. This was much heavier than the aluminum pipe that had been sent skidding away earlier. It wasn’t a pipe, either; it was a solid flat bar with a severed end that was sharp like a sword. The steel bar felt like it weighed roughly one whole kilogram. With his normal strength, Yuuma would have never been able to swing around a piece of metal like that. Holding it now in both hands, however, it almost felt like an extension of his own arm—just like the equipment in Actual Magic had felt. Yuuma still wasn’t sure what Sawa had meant when she said his “stats” had increased, but at least now he could put up a fight. A fight…? Against Watamaki…? Yuuma told himself again that it wasn’t Sumika anymore. Just then… “AUEGGHHEEE!!” Sumika dashed forward with a monstrous roar, hurtling herself straight at Yuuma. She swung the severed arm high into the air and then brought it crashing down toward Yuuma’s head. Earlier, a similar blow had sent Yuuma flying helplessly through the air. This time, he was able to block it with his metal bar. The impact was incredible. A sharp pain raced down Yuuma’s injured right arm… “Ahhh…!!” …but Yuuma didn’t buckle. He let out a cry of fury, like no sound he had ever made before in the real world, and countered hard, knocking Sumika back and causing her arms to flail to the sides. Hardening his heart against what he was about to do, Yuuma brandished his metal bar and struck Sumika on her already burned shoulder. “NRRGGH!” The dull thud of the strike, and Sumika’s scream of agony, echoed in Yuuma’s ear. She staggered backward once more as another tenth of her HP disappeared. As a monster, Sumika’s STR was outrageous. Her DEF, however, didn’t seem to be very high. Another blow would probably be enough to land her in the red. About half of the fifty-second recovery time Sawa had mentioned had already passed. He could probably get one more hit in by then, and then Sawa could use Flame Arrow while Sumika was still stunned to land the final blow— The final blow…? Am I trying to kill her…? Yuuma’s own voice screamed back at him in his head: What else are you supposed to do?! If you don’t kill her first, then you and Kenk and Sawa are all going to wind up dead! Still, he hesitated. Did they really have to kill her? Was that the only way? And then what? Once they killed Sumika, would everything just be over…? “AUGHH!!” Sumika screamed. She seemed to smell Yuuma’s hesitation. Regaining her footing, she hurled herself at Yuuma, brandishing the arm-cudgel in her right arm and swinging with her left claw. Yuuma was no less hesitant than before, but his body seemed to react for him. This time, instead of blocking the club, he dodged it by leaping to the right and then leaning back hard to stay out of reach of the claw. Yuuma immediately followed up by swinging the iron bar like a baseball bat. The heavy metal hit Sumika squarely on her left side. Yuuma could feel an unpleasant crunch, as if her ribs had broken. “GYAGH!” Sumika coughed in pain, and inky black fluid sprayed from her mouth. She was tossed through the air, landing on her back and bouncing once before lying still. Her yellow HP bar shrank by another two-tenths, turning crimson red. “Yuumy, move out of the way! I’ll finish her with my magic!” shouted Sawa. Yuuma stared at Sumika, who still lay collapsed on the ground. “Sawa, wait!” he shouted back. “We can’t kill her!” “What are you saying?! If we don’t kill her, she’ll just keep attacking us!” Sawa had a point. Sumika Watamaki was a monster now. There was no way for them to turn her back. Not at the moment, at least. But as he was hitting Sumika with that last blow, an idea had popped into Yuuma’s head. How was he able to swing the iron bar around so easily? Yuuma knew he wasn’t much to speak of in the strength department. But that didn’t matter now. Because he was running Actual Magic, just like Sawa had told him to. But of course… Strength wasn’t the only thing that mattered in AM. He had magic, too, just like Sawa. “Tenebris!!” Yuuma shouted the word, letting go of the iron bar and holding his left hand out straight in front of him. The QREST circuitry pattern, which stretched from the back of his hand to just below his elbow, glowed a vivid light blue. A ball of indigo light appeared before Yuuma’s palm. “Y-Yuumy…?!” Sawa cried from behind him. Yuuma prayed she would trust him. He spoke the next word of power—the spell’s form. “Capere Anima!!” The ball of indigo light changed shape, transforming into a giant hand. Surprisingly, Yuuma’s vision began to cloud over. It was as if the magic hand were sucking his energy away and draining the strength from his body. His right knee buckled, and he sank to the ground. Yuuma gritted his teeth and willed himself to keep going. If he failed now, Sawa would probably kill Sumika in order to protect him. He didn’t want to make his sister do that. The targeting reticle appeared. Yuuma’s vision swam. He moved his left hand, lining up the crosshairs with the collapsed Sumika. “Ignis…!!” Activation. The final word.