Three girls sat on the battered old bench.
The girl in the white dress, her legs and feet completely bare, swung them lightly back and forth.
Together they gazed out at the distant line of the surf.
Soga Yura carefully wrung the seawater out of Kirishika's skirt, then rinsed the girl's legs clean.
For the little rabbit, who could control water, it would have been simple enough. For Soga Yura, forcing the water out of the fabric with "Domination" turned out to be just a little bit difficult.
And while she was manipulating that small amount of water, another thought drifted into her head.
For Saotome Yukina, a Hydrokinetic… water. In her eyes, was water as glaringly obvious as mental power was in Yura's own?
Then… what Mai had just…
All at once Soga Yura found herself thinking about something excruciatingly awkward.
And herself, back then. And Lyudmila, standing at that little rabbit's side… including the very first time Lyudmila and Yuzu met.
Nobody else knew what Lyudmila had been doing while the Holy Light spilled out of her in glorious cascades. But Yura could see it.
Who would have guessed the Saintess of the "Holy Royal Court" could be bullied that mercilessly by Yuzu.
All of it… had it all been laid bare before that little rabbit's eyes the whole time?
She had simply gone on pretending she'd seen nothing.
Which was, in fact, exactly the case.
The little rabbit had only ever been working hard to save everyone's dignity.
Of course—
what had stunned the little rabbit most wasn't Lyudmila at all. It was that Superintendent from the Investigation Bureau.
She played rough. Really… really kinky.
Every time the little rabbit got home afterward she'd bury her burning face in her teddy bear and roll around on the bed.
So that explained it. Why the little rabbit picked up such bad habits in the future, and why certain deeply strange items kept turning up among Su Yuzu's Favorability Gifts.
"There are some things we'd like to ask you…" Soga Yura said, looking at Kirishika, who had squeezed herself in between her and Yuzu.
The girl braced both hands on their thighs and stared up at the distant sky in open admiration, watching streak after streak of drifting light slide down from the heavens.
Watching that artificial, dreamlike meteor shower, she said, "What a wonderful ability."
"Like a mage out of a Western fantasy game."
"Tsukiyomi-senpai's ability is Celestial Body Simulation," Su Yuzu explained.
It wasn't classified information.
And she also knew that if you wanted something from Kirishika, you had to give the girl what she wanted first.
Soga Yura's gratitude toward Kirishika was boundless. Su Yuzu's was not quite the same.
She was grateful too, of course — Kirishika had saved her life. But in Soga Yura's memories, Kirishika was the one who had tempted her with a contract, exactly like one of those sickening little creatures from some hopeless magical girl anime.
So Su Yuzu still held a certain wariness toward her.
Even if… Su Yuzu touched the "Godmother's Laurel" at her throat.
The blossoms on Kirishika's flowering branch had opened even more brilliantly since Kirishika herself appeared.
"That's my 'Holy Relic,'" Kirishika said without the slightest reservation, looking at Su Yuzu. "After I died…"
"A crystallization of longing, born from my devotion."
She spoke of her own death so easily, as though death were nothing more than a dream.
"Though it should have been left behind in the 'Holy Royal Court.' How did it—"
"The previous Saintess brought it to the Tokyo metropolitan area," Su Yuzu explained.
"The previous…" Clearly it was something else in that sentence that caught Kirishika's attention.
Only then did Su Yuzu remember that the girl in front of her had been cut off from society entirely, existing like some kind of ghost. She nodded gently. "The previous one."
"The Saintess of the 'Holy Royal Court,' Saint Michael, broke her own wings and sacrificed her Word of Command to shut Kujou Iruka out of this city."
"And she left behind an enormous Word of Command."
"For nearly twenty years, that Word of Command has been protecting this city."
"Oh, right… Kujou Iruka was the 'Throne' of the last era."
Something like water trembled in Kirishika's eyes. "That does sound exactly like the sort of thing those foolish children of the 'Holy Royal Court' would do."
"It does…" Su Yuzu nodded, thinking of Lyudmila, who really was a bit too easy to bully, and of the god Lyudmila carried in her heart.
Kirishika's description of them as foolish children was not wrong in the least.
Unlike the church of so many other settings, which had all but become shorthand for villainy, the "Holy Royal Court" of this world — masochistic tendencies and all — was, undeniably, made up almost entirely of good people.
All of them martyrs who chose to walk into death for the sake of humanity's hope.
"Although Saint Michael didn't die completely… because of her Holy Relic, she still lives here, in a certain form."
"Then Little Yuzu mustn't bully her the way she bullied this child, all right?" Kirishika bent down to stroke the fine silver chain around Su Yuzu's ankle, then looked up at her.
Su Yuzu, who had been holding onto her wariness right up until that moment, found her expression turning distinctly awkward.
Only now did she remember.
The Holy Relic Kirishika had left behind was called the "Godmother's Laurel."
She had once been the Godmother of the "Holy Royal Court."
How exactly was Su Yuzu supposed to say it — that your Saintess and your future Saintess had both already been thoroughly, comprehensively bullied by her?
Fortunately, Kirishika showed no intention of pursuing the matter.
Or rather… she had already seen straight through how wicked Yuzu was.
"Little Yuzu, and little-little-little Yura, what is it you want to ask me?"
The corner of Soga Yura's eye twitched, but she swallowed her irritation and asked quietly, "We wanted to ask about the sea…"
"She's awake," Kirishika said calmly, watching the water.
Her gaze seemed to pierce straight through the waves and down into the deepest abyss.
"The one the world calls the 'Seat of Evil'… she's awake."
"She's incomplete, and the first thing she wants upon waking is desperately, urgently, to complete herself — to stand upon this earth once more in the form of the 'Seat of Evil.'"
"Complete herself?" A sudden worry crossed Su Yuzu's face as she looked at the girl beside her, still idly swinging her legs.
"The 'Seat of Evil's' target… is Sister Kirishika?"
Aside from that white dress, the only thing on the girl was a single necklace, glinting in the night.
Su Yuzu recognized it.
That was Sister Iori's Holy Relic — "Dreamless Regret."
A Holy Relic that concealed its bearer's presence, that hid the very fact of the bearer's existence.
Was that how Kirishika had been hiding from the "Seat of Evil"?
And besides… complete herself?
"Of course not." Kirishika tilted her head toward Su Yuzu, and her smile spread wide, genuinely delighted.
"I'm nothing but an empty shell."
She reached out and pressed her palm gently against Su Yuzu's chest.
"Her target—"
"is right here."
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