The moment Nagami's body was completely erased, a deathly pallor spread across Takamiya Mio's face—like a blank sheet of paper drained of all color.
Nagami couldn't resist the result of being erased, but during the process, he had still managed to push back a little.
It hadn't changed the outcome, but it had forced Mio to burn more of her energy.
Using that level of power came at a steep cost, even for the wielder.
Her chest heaved with ragged breaths. Her arms hung limply at her sides.
Lips pale and dry.
Even her breathing had lost its rhythm.
Exhaustion hit her like a tidal wave, overwhelming her all at once. Her long hair, once flowing gracefully behind her, now clung to her back in a disheveled mess.
She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and began to stabilize her condition under the altered laws of the neighboring dimension.
"…That was troublesome."
Though her words carried a hint of praise, Mio replayed the entire battle in her mind.
They had called it a "test," but both of them had known better.
Neither treated it lightly.
Or maybe… it only counted as a test if she couldn't defeat him.
In any other case, that word would've been a lie.
"As expected of someone from another world…"
There shouldn't be anyone in this world who could fight her one-on-one to this extent.
"Well, at least this means there are no more surprises around Shidou."
In the original story, the only one who could go toe-to-toe with Mio was Westcott—who only managed to do so by stealing the power of Demon King Mio after her inverse transformation, using ancient Spirit Magic.
In essence, it had been Mio fighting herself.
Without her love-struck obsession with Shidou clouding her mind, Westcott wouldn't have stood a chance—ancient magic or not.
Time passed.
Dust slowly floated and settled.
The ground, torn to shreds by their battle, had somehow restored itself completely.
The deep, seemingly bottomless crater they had created had vanished as if it never existed.
In this world, Takamiya Mio was god.
For someone like her, restoring all of that was child's play.
A victorious smile appeared on her delicate face, like a general returning through a triumphal arch.
But then her smile froze—like plaster hardening mid-air.
"Yeah, now that was the power of a god," came a clear voice from behind her, light and casual. "Can't really complain about dying after that."
Mio's eyes widened.
She whipped around, stunned.
"No way. How—how are you still alive?!"
The Nameless Angel.
A being capable of erasing anything from existence by attacking its very root.
A force that ignored all laws, all defense, all meaning.
There was no surviving that.
"There was no surviving it," Nagami replied, shrugging like it was no big deal. "I absolutely, without a doubt, died once."
His tone was matter-of-fact, almost breezy.
"But who said dying means you can't come back?"
You use cheat skills with true damage? Cool. I've got infinite continues.
We're both shameless—so who's laughing now?
It's just like the song Loser:
Idiots watch idiots dance
(踊る阿呆に見る阿呆)
And us idiots laughing from the sideline..
(我らそれを端から笑う阿呆)
Who says you're the only Idiot here?
"Revival…" Mio's brows furrowed slightly.
Her expression grew serious as she looked him over.
It was an unexpected ability—but not unthinkable.
In truth, time-based powers were even rarer than resurrection.
If someone like that existed, then revival wasn't too far-fetched.
What truly shook her wasn't the existence of the power.
It was the level of it.
This angel didn't just erase physical forms.
It removed beings from the root of reality.
Even a resurrection ability should've been completely nullified by such erasure. And yet, here Nagami stood.
But Code was never a simple thing.
Its deepest origin came from the C's World—a concept from the Code Geass universe.
Essentially, it represented the deepest layer of sentient thought and memory.
To nullify it, you wouldn't just have to erase a person.
You'd need to wipe out all sentient life—and destroy the very world of C itself.
And "sentient" here didn't just mean humans.
So unless someone could literally end all of consciousness… this kind of erasure wouldn't stick.
Maybe the true Honkai God could do it.
But the current world of Honkai Impact was still in its "trial" phase.
There's no way the full consciousness of Honkai would step in just to wipe out Nagami.
The only real threat was a berserk version of Honkai from the second collapse.
"So yeah," Nagami said with a cheerful smile, as if explaining the fine print of a villain's monologue, "if you want to make sure I stay dead, all you have to do is wipe out every human on Earth. Oh—and don't forget your precious Shidou while you're at it."
Mio's cold gaze narrowed, and she said nothing.
"Exactly. Not gonna happen."
Nagami clapped his hands together lightly, rolled his shoulders, then casually hopped down in front of her.
"I'd say this little 'test' is over, wouldn't you?"
He gave his final verdict.
"You can make me vanish for a while, sure. But you can't kill me. And as long as I'm around, your plan to restore Shidou's memories and live with him forever? Yeah, that's never happening."
"If I really wanted to ruin your day," he added, tone sharpening slightly, "I could make sure he never even gets the chance to remember you."
In the pitch-black depths of Nagami's eyes, a crimson bird spread its wings, ready to take flight.
He locked eyes with Takamiya Mio, staring into her clear, silver-blue irises.
"I do have some psychic abilities, you know…"
Already upset by Nagami's taunting grin right in her face, Takamiya Mio's expression darkened even further.
This shameless threat, paired with his utterly clingy, pain-in-the-neck personality...
'Who's supposed to be the final boss again?!'
"....Fine. I'll cooperate with you."
Grinding her teeth and glaring at the smiling Nagami, Mio pressed a hand to her forehead, her voice taut with restrained fury.
It was as if a translucent film across the sky began to retract.
The strange monochrome world around them faded, and the vivid colors of reality returned.
Sunlight poured down from the heavens, sweeping away the last of the shadows in every corner of the city.
"How long… was I out?"
During death, he'd had no perception of time or the outside world.
And now, they weren't even in the same place they entered the alternate dimension from—they had left Tenguu City entirely.
"So... are you coming with me to find your precious Shido?"
Nagami glanced sideways at Mio, wearing that same smug, punch-worthy squinty-eyed smile.
"… "
Even though she knew it was pointless to try, Mio still felt a strong urge to smack him with a few rounds of Bud Cannon.
A burst of radiant spirit energy shimmered around her, and her Astral Dress dissolved along with her youthful appearance.
What now stood before Nagami was a woman who looked to be in her early twenties.
Pale as if chronically ill, with heavy dark circles under her eyes, her hair tied back carelessly—this was Murasame Reine, dressed in a Ratatoskr uniform.
Though Reine and the "Phantom" were technically extensions of Takamiya Mio, their relationship wasn't like Tokisaki Kurumi's multiple clone-consciousnesses.
It was closer to what Nagami shared with C.C.—one soul, many bodies.
Unlike Nagami, however, Mio could fully recall and reabsorb those fragments, becoming whole again.
Before confronting Nagami, she'd already sensed he was from another world, so of course she hadn't come unprepared.
She had already reabsorbed both Reine and the Phantom, restoring herself to full strength before facing him.
And that decision had clearly been the right one. If she'd come as an incomplete version of herself, Nagami might have actually killed her.
"You should've just come to me at the start of your plan."
Reine's tall, slender figure began to blur, her body distorting as if covered in mosaic pixels.
"Oh—and don't forget you promised to help make Shido immortal."
Tossing the words casually over her shoulder, the Phantom walked toward the direction where she sensed Ratatoskr's presence.
It seemed she intended to remain by Itsuka Shido's side in the form of Murasame Reine for the time being.
"No problem, no problem~ Immortality's actually not that hard to arrange."
The simplest way would be to restore the sealed spirit powers of Tohka Yatogami and Yoshino, turning Shido back into a normal human.
Then, Nagami could simply buy him a "Fated One" bond item.
That would barely cost him any points.
Once Mio handed Shido a Spirit Crystal, the Fated One's power would let him bypass all aptitude checks and forcibly become a true male Spirit.
Oh ho… come to think of it, Shiori might be a better fit~
A Spirit's lifespan wasn't eternal, but it was certainly long enough to keep Mio company for centuries.
Given a Spirit Crystal, this was by far the cheapest way to grant someone immortality.
"I hope it really is as easy as you make it sound."
With that final line, the Phantom vanished completely.
Nagami glanced at the spot where she'd disappeared, then slowly melted back into the shadows.
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