Touji Shidou made the first move. Dozens of phantasms surged in unison, each acting with lethal intent to crush the lone man. Massive Holy Swords swung, blades lunged to pierce his vitals, and gun barrels leveled at his brow—each a finishing blow for any ordinary human. Even for a seasoned warrior, facing such overwhelming numbers in a confined space was enough to induce paralyzing terror.
But Masaomi Yaegaki didn't flinch. He threw himself directly into the encirclement. In this narrow basement, attempting to flee would be a death sentence; standing still was an invitation to be skewered. His only path forward was to carve one out with his own strength.
"I only have one shot at this," he whispered.
The trump card he had received from Kanata was ready. The timing was the only concern. Using the Sacred Gear dart would nullify the illusions affecting him, but it was a single-use consumable. Once the "Erasure" was triggered, the aura connecting it to the main Gear would be spent, and the dart would vanish. Against a normal Holy Sword replica, it would be more than enough to reset the accumulated "dream" factors to zero. But against a Holy Sword in rampage mode, that zero would be pushed back to one hundred percent in an instant. If he used it too early, it would be worthless.
Still, the warmth radiating from the small spear was a comfort. It reminded him he wasn't alone. He wouldn't waste the power his friend had entrusted to him. With a short, sharp exhale, he swung his blade at the illusions of his mentor.
One, two... Masaomi parried and countered, utilizing every ounce of his skill as an Exorcist. Touji's phantasms had discarded all defense, acting as pure instruments of execution. Masaomi cut through several, only to see them vanish like mist. Worse, the number of enemies never seemed to decrease. He dripped sweat as he tracked the lethal silver flashes hiding within the blind spots of the illusions, reacting with a precision born of desperation.
He lost count of how many phantasms he had cut down. He had survived dozens of near-death exchanges. Grazes from blades and bullets had already left multiple wounds on his body. Blood from a scalp wound threatened to blind his left eye; he wiped it away aggressively with his sleeve.
I can still do this. He ducked beneath a strike aimed at his throat and sliced through the torso of the figure in front of him. As that illusion dissolved, he felt a flicker of aura from the small dart in his sleeve—the same signal that had warned him of the bullet earlier. Masaomi reflexively twisted his body and leaped backward.
In that heartbeat, a silver edge whistled past, taking several strands of his hair with it. He had avoided a lethal lunge that had been hidden behind the very illusion he just dispelled. Seeing the shock in his mentor's eyes for a split second, Masaomi knew he had found the real one. He tried to follow up, but a mass of phantasms released waves of holy energy, momentarily blinding him. By the time he parried a real bullet with his sword, the true Touji had already vanished back into the crowd of copies.
But that exchange gave him the timing he needed. Touji wasn't swinging wildly. He was using the swarm to create a single, perfect opening. Despite his overwhelming advantage, the Church warrior remained perfectly rational, chip-chipping away at Masaomi's stamina and focus until he could deliver the checkmate.
Without a way to clear the room or an overwhelming physical edge, Masaomi was trapped in a silver cage of attrition. Eventually, his strength would fail, and the hunter would claim his prize.
"You really are strong..." Masaomi muttered.
It was borderline bullying. Against a human who only had his sword, Touji had built a perfect counter-strategy. He was a demon of efficiency, crushing every attempt at resistance. His movements told Masaomi one thing: Give up, and the end will be painless.
Masaomi knew that if Touji saw even a spark of resignation in his eyes, he would end his life before Masaomi even felt the pain. It was his mentor's final mercy.
"Even so... I'm going to surpass you."
A defiant, war-hungry smile broke across Masaomi's face. Give up? Not a chance. This was the man he had spent his life chasing. This was the wall he had to climb. This was the "father" whose acknowledgment he craved more than anything!
He wanted to win. He wanted to overcome his mentor's best. And once he did, he was going to stand over the defeated Touji and talk for hours about how wonderful Cleria was—he was going to brag until his voice gave out. He was going to live his life with her, laughing all the way. He would throw his happiness in the face of the "Righteous World" that told them they couldn't be together.
He would use a "Reasonless Hope" to crush "Reasonless Despair" and forge a miracle with his own hands.
"You still won't yield?" a phantasm asked, its voice bitter.
"Never!"
Masaomi spun and cut the illusion down. He parried a volley of strikes with minimal movement and countered with god-speed. Again, the bodies melted into light particles, and new ones emerged.
"It's useless, no matter how many times you try."
"I don't know about that. Aren't you reaching the limit of that rampage mode, Touji? I might just outlast you."
"…Bold words."
Touji's eyes narrowed, and the storm of blades intensified. A slash opened on Masaomi's cheek, and a bullet grazed his right hand, but he refused to drop his sword. He was at his limit, but so was Touji. He just had to wait for the moment his mentor went for the finishing blow.
***
As he swung his sword in a trance-like state, Masaomi remembered the Sacred Gear. The way it had saved him twice now couldn't be a coincidence.
If he hadn't known he was being manipulated by illusions, he would have been shot by the second, hidden bullet. If he hadn't moved reflexively earlier, he would have been skewered. The timing had been too perfect.
"…Partner-boy, was it?" he whispered.
He felt a faint crimson aura—something only he could perceive. Masaomi didn't know much about Sacred Gears. He knew they were "mysterious powers held by humans," and to someone like him who relied on raw skill, they seemed like convenient tools.
But he had been saved by this one. He remembered the way Kanata talked to the spear, as if it were a person. Consulting a mass of metal was absurd, yet the boy did it with total sincerity.
Kanata had said he had no other talents, but Masaomi realized now why the boy was so humble. To Kanata, the power didn't belong to him; it belonged to his "Partner." Masaomi sensed that for the boy, this crimson spear was a "special existence." And in this moment, he felt he could trust that existence with his life.
His mentor was a man with a decade more experience. If Touji went for a kill, it would be at a moment Masaomi couldn't possibly perceive. He couldn't trick a man who knew his style better than he knew it himself.
"To fight the unreasonable, I have to discard common sense," Masaomi thought. "Precedent doesn't matter. I have to trust the path I've chosen."
It was a reckless gamble. A crazy thought. But his heart told him to believe.
"I'm weak, I'm a mess, and I'm a fool, but I'll stand up with everything I have. If we all work together, I know we can watch the 'Ten-Match Series' and laugh together!"
Kanata was right. Masaomi was weak too. He was a fool, struggling with everything he had. And he knew that alone, he couldn't reach that final step.
"Hey, Partner," Masaomi prayed. "If you can hear my voice like you hear his... please. Help me."
Help me reach the future where I can laugh with Kanata and Cleria.
It was the most absurd bet in history—placing his life in the hands of a borrowed object. People would think he had finally lost his mind. But in response to his words...
The crimson dart pulsed with a brilliant, answering light.
***
"You really are... incredible," Touji said. It was a sincere compliment. By all rights, the match should have been over. The strikes he was certain would land were parried; the bullets he was certain would hit were dodged. Even surrounded by dozens of phantasms, Masaomi was performing beyond any calculation.
Touji felt a mixture of pride and frustration. He had taught the boy everything. He had assumed that if he got serious, the fight would be short. But even using his ultimate trump card and reaching his physical peak through illusions, he couldn't finish it. Masaomi's resolve had pushed him into a realm beyond his limits.
But while the boy hadn't taken a decisive hit, he was bleeding out. His concentration was that of a "Sword Demon," but his human body was failing. Touji checked the glow of the crystal in his pocket—his own time was running out. The next strike would be the last.
He funneled every bit of his experience as a Church warrior into this final move. He traced Masaomi's habits in his mind and commanded the phantasms to tighten the noose. They looped through a cycle of engagement and disengagement, precisely locking Masaomi's movements. Then, the opening appeared.
Masaomi parried one illusion and prepared to counter, but a second phantasm lunged from his right. His focus flickered for a fraction of a second, his breathing stuttering. He twisted to handle the new threat, but the movement pulled his eyes away from the real Touji. He was out of position to block.
Touji didn't hesitate. He exhausted his remaining strength, dropping into a low, predatory stance. A perfect strike from the blind spot. Masaomi's muscles were overextended; he couldn't dodge. His sword was committed to the wrong arc.
The Holy Sword leveled into a horizontal thrust, carrying the speed of a projectile. Touji lunged to pierce the boy's heart.
"Actually, Touji... wires weren't the only thing Smith was into."
"What!?"
Instead of the sound of rending flesh, a heavy, metallic clack rang through the basement. Shards of metal sprayed between the two men.
"He told me, 'Dual-wielding is the peak of romance!' and he forced me to practice it with him. It was a nightmare."
Without even looking, Masaomi had drawn his scabbard with his left hand and slammed the side of it against the Holy Sword's blade, forcing it off course. The divine edge only tore through Masaomi's clothes. Touji was paralyzed by shock.
Masaomi held the scabbard—the same one he had used as a boomerang earlier. The impact had shattered the metal chape at the end and bent the frame, but it had done its job. Masaomi couldn't parry with his sword, and he couldn't dodge, so he had used the reinforced scabbard to bat the incoming blade away.
Even for a master, parrying a Holy Sword with a scabbard from a blind spot was an impossible feat. A millisecond of error would have meant death. It was a miracle of timing.
Touji tried to recover, desperately trying to trigger more illusions to hide his vulnerability. He funneled more power into the sword, the stress making blood leak from his mouth as his brain protested the overload.
But he didn't find a cage of phantasms. He found Masaomi's black eyes, fixed on him with predatory focus. The "Sword Demon" wreathed in crimson aura didn't see the illusions; he saw only the target. Masaomi raised his blade.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!"
Touji was forced into a direct clash. He couldn't understand how Masaomi had bypassed the illusions or what the crimson aura was, but he swung with everything he had left.
The stalemate lasted only a second. The warrior who had failed his finishing move vs. the demon who had bet everything on this counter. The weight of their respective wishes decided the outcome.
A sharp crack echoed, growing into the sound of a catastrophic rupture. Shards of white steel and light particles sprayed into the air as the Holy Sword was sheared in half. The remaining momentum of Masaomi's strike carved through Touji's shoulder.
"Gack...!"
Touji's eyes bulged. His sword was in pieces. Blood erupted from his shoulder. He had lost his "other half." The rampage mode provided power, but at the cost of the blade's structural integrity; Masaomi's strike had hit the exact breaking point.
They stood panting, blood dripping onto the stone between them. The phantasms vanished instantly. The Sacred Gear's aura faded from Masaomi's body as the dart spent its energy.
Silence returned. Masaomi stood trembling with the high of victory, yet he kept his sword leveled at his mentor, who still gripped his broken hilt.
"Touji... I win."
"…I see. To think you'd actually snap a Holy Sword. In a duel between swordsmen... I must concede. You win, Masaomi."
Masaomi spoke with a heavy, steady voice. Touji acknowledged the defeat, clutching the remains of his weapon. Masaomi felt a surge of accomplishment, but he kept his face stern.
"Lower your sword."
"You beat your master. You should be happier. Besides, this is just a useless piece of scrap now."
"You've conceded the duel, but you haven't surrendered as a warrior of the Church. You taught me that a warrior only yields when their spirit is broken. And your spirit is still standing."
"..."
Touji offered a thin smile but didn't drop the hilt.
"I... I don't want to kill you," Masaomi said.
"Don't want to kill the man who came to kill you? You're soft, Masaomi. An enemy will gut you for that kindness."
"I know. But I'm selfish. I've decided to follow my own path. I want to defeat you, but I don't want you dead. I don't want anyone to die. Not Cleria, not her servants, not you, and not our comrades."
Masaomi knew it was a naive, foolish dream. But he had made his choice. He would kill if he had to protect what he loved, but he would struggle until the very last second to avoid it.
"…Why do you look like you're about to cry?" Touji asked.
"Because you're so damn stubborn," Masaomi shot back.
"I don't want to hear that from the boy who went blind for a girl. …But maybe you're right."
For a moment, the air of their old relationship returned. But then Touji's voice turned cold again. The temperature in the room dropped.
"I told you. I will bring everything I am as a warrior to bear against you. I will use the Church's darkness, any dirty trick... I will break your heart. This is pure obsession now. But you'll have to see it through to the end."
"…Fine. Then I'll just keep surpassing you."
Masaomi leveled his blade for the final time. He didn't want to kill, but he was prepared to incapacitate him. Even without a sword, Touji was dangerous.
Touji gripped the broken hilt with his left hand. A few light particles began to dance—the last dregs of the replica's power. Masaomi knew it wouldn't be enough to fool him now.
Both men were at their physical limits. The loss of blood and the strain of the rampage mode meant the next exchange would be the final one. Masaomi lunged.
"…I really didn't want to use this move," Touji whispered.
Masaomi didn't slow down. Touji stood perfectly still. As Masaomi prepared a blunt-force strike to knock his mentor out, a small cloud of light particles obscured his vision for a split second. Masaomi didn't care; he could still sense Touji's presence. He swung—
"Masaomi?"
"Huh!?"
Masaomi's blade stopped inches from the target. Standing before him was a woman with long grey hair, wearing a white blouse and a maroon skirt. She looked at him with gentle, familiar eyes. It was Cleria Belial. The woman he had sworn to protect.
No. This isn't her. He knew it. The eyes were hollow, the presence artificial—it was a crude, desperate illusion. But his body reacted before his mind could override it. He couldn't bring himself to slash through her image. His hesitation was total.
And for an elite warrior, that hesitation was a death sentence.
"Gack—!?"
Touji's right fist slammed into Masaomi's jaw with the force of a hammer. The last of the light particles scattered, and the phantom of Cleria vanished. Masaomi's brain rattled. He was blown back, his knees buckling as he hit the floor. His sword skittered across the stone, out of reach.
His consciousness flickered. He tried to stand, but his limbs were leaden. He retched, his vision blurring. Even so, he clawed at the floor, refusing to stay down.
I didn't let my guard down... he thought. He had been focused until the very last millisecond. But Touji had weaponized his very soul against him. Masaomi might have been prepared to cut down his mentor, but he couldn't cut down the image of the woman he loved. If he were the kind of man who could, he wouldn't be on this path to begin with.
"I used your kindness," Touji said, his voice thick with self-loathing. "I used your love. Even if your mind knows it's a fake, the heart isn't so easily convinced."
"Touji... you..."
Masaomi gripped his fist in the dirt. He knew the Church used psychological warfare against monsters. He had been taught those very tactics. He wanted to call it cowardly, but against a man who had chosen to become a monster to protect the "World," it was just a cold reality.
Touji grimaced, the pain of his wounds and the backlash of the sword finally catching up to him. He hated the victory he had just stolen. But his conditioning as a hunter won out. He drew a deep breath and stepped toward Masaomi's fallen sword, intending to end the fight once and for all.
The two warriors approached the end of their saga—
"MASAOMIIIIIIII!!"
A scream tore through the room, shattering the flow of fate. The voice paralyzed both men with pure shock.
"Is that... Cleria!?" Masaomi gasped.
"Impossible... how is she here!?" Touji demanded.
For Masaomi, she should have been safe with Kanata. For Touji, she was supposed to be a locked-away hostage. They both spun toward the entrance.
"PFFFT!!"
"GACK!!"
Both men simultaneously sprayed blood—for very different reasons.
***
"Touji! I won't let you hurt Masaomi anym—... wait, what?"
"…My word. Talk about effective," a hamster noted from her shoulder.
"Um... was this... was this the right choice?"
"It's perfect. Everything is going according to plan."
Cleria Belial stood at the entrance. She looked at the two men, who were already bleeding from their wounds but were now suffering from additional, violent nosebleeds and coughing fits. Her cheeks twitched in concern.
Lovestar sat on her shoulder, staring at the absolute destruction of the serious atmosphere with a distant, dry look in his eyes.
Masaomi was currently on the ground, clutching his nose as if trying to stop a leak. Touji was doubled over, clutching his stomach and hacking up blood. Cleria walked between them, nervous but determined. She reached down and picked up Masaomi's sword, clutching it to her chest.
"Is it... is it my time?" Masaomi wheezed. "An angel... a beautiful angel in white is standing before me..."
"Masaomi, wake up! If you lose any more blood, you'll die! Also, I'm a Devil!"
"A white... God of Destruction..." Touji groaned, his eyes glazed with trauma. "The Nurse-Titan... marching toward me again..."
"I'm not a Titan! Touji, what are you seeing!?" Cleria cried.
Masaomi was leaking pure "pathos" from his nose at the sight of the woman he loved in a nurse costume. Touji, meanwhile, was suffering a severe relapse of his "Magical Girl-induced" stomach trauma. Lovestar had used a "Ham-shous" transformation spell to weave an outfit out of mana for Cleria—a pink-laced, white nurse uniform complete with a cap and garter belts. It was the ultimate "romance" aesthetic, designed to stimulate a man's heart... or, in Touji's case, his PTSD.
Mephisto, being a Devil, had chosen the most ruthless psychological attack possible to create an opening.
"The Ally of Love, Justice, and Hope! Magical Girl Milky☆Catastrophe! I'm here to smash your stubborn heart and this world to pieces with the power of love and other stuff! ☆ Intro sequence complete! Nice to meet you in person, I'm Milky Red!"
"…What?" Touji managed.
"Now, have a greeting! MILKY... THUNDER... CRUSHERRRRRRR!!"
"WHAT!?"
Kanata appeared out of thin air behind Touji, striking a desperate pose while shouting his intro at lightning speed. He had entered the room under invisibility while Touji was distracted by the "White Reaper" (Cleria). Without a pause, he thrust his magical wand forward, releasing a surge of maximum-output lightning magic.
Touji's brain was in a state of complete system failure. The hostage had escaped, she was dressed as a nurse to trigger his ulcers, and now a boy in frills was shouting about magical girls while shooting lightning at him.
Yet, his instincts moved. He dodged the lightning bolt by a hair's breadth, his cold logic deciding that the boy was the greater threat. Cleria wasn't a fighter, but this "Magical Girl" had real power.
Magical Girl magic was powerful but required a "performance" factor that made it terrible for stealth. As the Great Satan Girl had once said: "If you don't sparkle, what's even the point!?" Thus, Kanata had to reveal himself and finish the chant to get full power.
But Kanata and Lovestar had anticipated the dodge. They never intended for the bolt to hit Touji directly.
"The Exorcist's obsession is deep, and his logic is flawless," Lovestar noted. "If it were just Milky Red, you would win even in this state. The law of the jungle is absolute."
Touji watched the lightning pass by him, confident in his evasion.
"But," Lovestar continued, "people who admit they are weak and refuse to stop struggling are dangerous. To beat the strong, they'll kick the laws of the world aside and reach for a miracle from a direction you never expected."
Masaomi was the first to realize it. His eyes widened as he saw the alignment of the room. Cleria was standing in front of him, and Milky Red had fired from behind Touji. They were all in a straight line.
Touji realized it too late. The bolt he had dodged was heading straight for Cleria—the Emperor's cousin, his only bargaining chip. The lightning was powerful enough that a direct hit would be lethal to someone in her weakened state.
Touji knew he couldn't let her die. Even if it wasn't the Church's fault, he couldn't report that a "Magical Girl" reinforcement had accidentally team-killed the hostage. He gritted his teeth and lunged toward Cleria to shield her. If she collapsed, he had to be the one to catch her.
"Now, Cleria!" Kanata shouted.
"Right!"
Cleria didn't flinch. She stared at the incoming lightning with courage, trusting in the signal Lovestar had given her. She threw herself toward the magic.
I won't just be protected anymore, she thought. I won't let Masaomi die for me.
As the lightning was about to strike, a pendant at her neck—a Christmas gift from Masaomi, enchanted by Kanata—erupted with light. A pillar of water manifested, reflecting the incoming magic. The water swallowed the lightning, creating a swirling vortex of electrified spray.
"…Huh?" Touji stopped, stunned.
He recognized the pendant. It was a protection charm Masaomi had commissioned from Kanata. It was a passive-trigger ritual designed to activate when the wearer was in danger. They had used Kanata's own "attack" to trigger Cleria's "defense," creating a trap that Touji had walked right into.
"I can't use grand magic in this form," Lovestar chirped, beginning a "Ham-ham-ham" dance. "But I can certainly manipulate this much water."
The electrified water vortex suddenly developed a will of its own, lunging at Touji. The warrior's mind could no longer keep up with the cascading absurdities.
The nurse uniform relived the trauma. The lightning misdirection drew him in. The water pendant provided the ambush. And now, the ancient Devil was providing the finishing touch. The "Unison Spell" of the weak had reached its mark.
"This is our finishing blow!" Kanata screamed.
The electrified torrent swallowed the Church warrior. And with that, the final battle of the Kuoh Town conspiracy reached its conclusion.
***
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