“The fog!” someone shouted. It was Koyuki, who was now getting back to her feet.
The fog was lifting. The faces of the others grew clearer. Even the first responders, despite getting wiped out earlier, were all there. Several were writhing about in pain with broken arms or legs, but it didn’t look like their lives were in any immediate danger.
Kaguya was the only one who hadn’t yet come to.
What if she never wakes up?
A wave of fear rose from the pit of Azuma’s stomach. They didn’t know the mechanism behind Kaguya’s ability. They had no proof or past examples to go by. What if it had just been luck that she had come back so quickly every other time, and after intervening in so many psyches there was a chance she might never return?
If anything, wouldn’t that be the more likely scenario?
Fifteen seconds passed. He tried calling her name again.
She still didn’t wake up. She was frozen, eyes open, almost as if she was dead. An unfamiliar feeling, like cold lead, began to creep into Azuma’s chest.
“Kaguya!” shouted Koyuki, rushing over. “What—?! Why isn’t she waking up?!”
Twenty seconds. Still, Kaguya remained unconscious.
Rindou tried calling her name as well. And then Azuma again, in desperation.
“Kagu—!”
“Would you pipe down…?” Kaguya mumbled.
She sounded drowsy, like she was waking up from a long sleep, or had just been shaken out of a nap.
“You don’t have to keep shouting my name like that. I heard you already!”
Underneath the clear blue sky, in the heat of early summer, Kaguya Shinohara sat up and took a look around. The first thing she saw was Azuma’s face, causing her to just barely smile.
“Wow, your face. You look good in red.”
“Ha…ha-ha… Well, don’t go getting any ideas. I’m not blushing; it’s only blood,” joked Azuma, feeling the relief deep down in his heart. “But it took you long enough. Did something happen?”
“In a way, I guess. I think I just overdid it, diving in so many times.”
Kaguya glanced around before calling out to a girl collapsed a little distance away.
“Suzume…”
The blond girl slowly turned her face their way—toward Kaguya. She looked to be crying and laughing at the same time.
She must have been the fog hero. Azuma sensed the egg in her throat.
Azuma realized several other people were lying on the ground around him as well. They were members of the First Response squad who had temporarily been turned into skeletons. Whoever had called for help on the radio was probably among them.
And Haru was there. She didn’t seem ready to get up, but it didn’t look like she was injured, either. No one seemed seriously injured—in fact, Azuma was probably in the worst shape out of all of them.
The tension began to slowly dissipate in much the same way as fear after waking from a bad dream slowly turns into relief.
And then, the air turned electric.
There, wafting in the air—the sweet smell of osmanthus.
“It’s not over yet!” shouted Azuma, rallying the others.
They weren’t done. The Goddess was out there somewhere. Their real enemy.
The scent of osmanthus was coming from all directions. It was extremely strong—overpowering enough to make them sick, even without breathing in deeply. But where was its source? Where was it coming from?
Azuma scanned the ground with his eyes. What if the Goddess was buried in the dirt and—?
A shadow appeared.
“Anybody who is still on their feet!” Azuma shouted. As he raised his voice, he felt a hot gush of blood drip down his face, but he ignored it. “It’s above us!!”
All of Charon (apart from Haru), Suzume, even those among the first responders who were still conscious, turned their eyes upward. There she was.
A massive bee, several times as large as the average human adult.
“Is that the Goddess…?!”
“What is that thing…?!”
With the exception of Azuma and Kaguya, this was the first time any of them saw a Goddess’s true form. An insect—and an extremely large one at that. But their astonishment was short-lived.
“Bring it down!”
Koyuki was the first to act. She fired a shot upward using the long-range rifle she was carrying on her back. She didn’t even bother to stabilize it first. The simple physical recoil, as opposed to a Chronos rebound, knocked her back with force.
But it was worth it. The shot blasted one of the bee’s tripartite wings from its body.
A Goddess’s own combat strength was extremely low, so much so that it was hard to believe it could have once been a hero.
Was this thing once human, too?
If heroes eventually turned into Goddesses, that would mean there must have been a time when this Goddess was human as well, although that identity must have been lost long ago.
Strangely, Azuma didn’t feel hatred for the thing. Instead, pity welled up in his breast—it was a miserable, pathetic thing.
As the Goddess bee attempted to flee, everyone except for Haru, who was still in a daze, did their best to attack it.
Rindou leaped forward first and attempted to grab it, but the bee increased its speed suddenly and slipped through his fingers. As it had three sets of wings, losing just one pair must not have been too serious of an impediment.
As the bee continued trying to slip past him, it was met with a volley of gunshots, but the shots weren’t coming from Chronoses. The bullets couldn’t even graze the Goddess, but this concentrated fire from the first responders (normal troops) did succeed in grabbing its attention.
Now that it was open, Azuma leaped forward.
Kaguya, however, still had his gun. He leaped toward the Goddess anyway, covering far more distance in a single bound than any regular person should have been capable of. He knocked the Goddess to the ground with a single kick.
The Goddess was massive, with wings as large to match. There was a loud crash and the ground shook as she struck the earth.
Two pairs of wings left.
If Azuma could tear off just one of them—but how was he supposed to do that barehanded, especially when he was already seriously injured?