What Kirishika meant was already plain enough.
An age can hold only one rule-type ability user.
And when a rule-type ability user falls into the Abyss, that fall is precisely the awakening of a "Throne."
Perhaps… there had never been any "Seat of Evil" to begin with.
From the very start… there had only been Kirishika, fallen into the Abyss.
Kirishika—
From the very start, she had only ever been the "Seat of Evil's" longing for the spotless white self she had once been.
From the moment she put on that heavy, lightless armor, the armor no one could be allowed to see behind—
Kirishika, Lady Godmother of the "Holy Royal Court," was already dead.
What survived… was only the "Seat of Evil."
The justice she carried was pale and humble, and for the sake of that justice, even the "Seat of Evil," sunk into the depths of the Abyss, still chose to draw her sword and wipe out every… every high-ranking Aberrant and Catastrophe Beast in this world that threatened humanity.
And then… after her blade had cut down the last of them, the "Seat of Evil" looked at the Aberrants who drew their own swords, wanting to bring her down.
She looked at their eyes—flinching, trembling, terrified.
For a dizzy moment, every one of them seemed to become the islanders cowering before her.
The weapons in their hands were no longer Catastrophe crystals that not even the gods could bend, only shatter.
They were only the plainest, most fragile hoes and sickles and hammers.
Perhaps… only in that moment did the "Seat of Evil" realize that her eyes had long since gone red with killing, that she could no longer tell an Aberrant from a human being.
The "Seat of Evil" who wished to scour away the Abyss had, in the end, taken on the shape of the Abyss herself.
She stood upright upon her "Throne," gazing down on all living things.
The Saintess who would save the world had become, at last, a Demon King of evil karma.
And that girl in the white gauze dress who had always stayed at her side, who would silently stop her whenever madness took her, faded away like smoke.
The armored Demon King took off her helm and bowed her head.
She could no longer tell whether these two blood-soaked hands were sheathed in armor, or were only the soft young hands of a girl.
In the end… she chose to walk, step by step, into the sea.
She chose to bury herself.
It was as if an unseen girl in a wedding dress watched that figure sinking step by step into the Abyss, then stripped off the gown that hung on her like fussy, heavy shackles, and threw herself into the pitch-black water, slipping down into that ponderous armor.
Embracing that frail body.
Embracing… herself.
In that moment she was neither the "Seat of Evil" nor Kirishika.
She was a flower blooming out of the utmost evil.
A small white blossom, spinning as it sank into the sea, drifting quietly down into eternal sleep.
Until… twelve years ago, when the awakening of another "Throne" called her up out of that slumber.
Su Yuzu suddenly remembered something else.
What Kirishika had told her… that back then she had left the "Godmother's Laurel" behind in the "Holy Royal Court."
At the time, Su Yuzu hadn't caught the strangeness buried in those words.
A "Holy Relic" is the crystallized remnant of will left behind by a high-Sequence Esper, Aberrant, or Catastrophe Beast after death.
In other words—
The precondition for a "Holy Relic" to appear is, almost without exception, death.
So how could a Kirishika who was already dead have left the "Godmother's Laurel" behind in the "Holy Royal Court"!?
The answer seemed obvious now.
The dead Kirishika.
The newborn "Seat of Evil."
The crystallized will born from the death of who she had been—she had left it in the "Holy Royal Court."
A Holy Relic left behind by the death of a "Throne."
No wonder the "Godmother's Laurel" had become the single most sought-after Holy Relic of this age.
No wonder the "Godmother's Laurel" possessed such overwhelming power, with no side effects whatsoever, an ability so unreasonable it verged on being a rule of the world itself.
Because… the owner of the "Godmother's Laurel" had been, from the beginning, the rule-type ability user of that age.
And more than that… following the thread further, a great many things suddenly straightened themselves out in Su Yuzu's mind all at once.
Twelve years ago, that figure brimming with wicked air.
Kirishika, stepping out of the white mist on bare, pale legs, her red-gold slit pupils moving back and forth between Soga Yura and Su Yuzu.
When she watched Soga Yura sniffling and sobbing, that strange expression flowing through the depths of her eyes had looked like envy.
Because… Kirishika, or rather the "Seat of Evil," truly had been envious.
The "Seat of Evil," who craved a false phantom double, saw beside this generation's "Throne" a twin who was real, solid, and looked as though she had been cast from the very same mold—how could she not envy that?
Whether as Kirishika or as the "Seat of Evil," there had never been anyone on her Throne but herself.
But Su Yuzu… Su Yuzu had Soga Yura beside her.
And more—when Kirishika deliberately made things hard for them, placing the power only within Soga Yura's reach, trying to make Soga Yura live through the same deepest darkness she herself had once endured, trying to make Soga Yura shrink back—
That small, tender-aged girl had carried nothing but concern for her Little Sister.
Chasing the trembling cries of her Little Sister at the bottom of an endless Abyss, she walked alone through boundless darkness.
That kind of darkness… even now, Su Yuzu felt herself flinch from the memory of it.
Yet that little crybaby of a Soga Yura, pitiful and sniveling the whole way, had somehow been strong enough to walk straight through it.
Twins like that… how could Kirishika, how could the "Seat of Evil," not envy them?
Heaven really is unfair.
She had the power to destroy all of that beauty.
But she was the "Seat of Evil," and she was also Kirishika.
The Godmother of the "Holy Royal Court."
The Godmother of the "Holy Royal Court" who, even after falling, could turn her blade on her own kind first rather than on humanity, on nothing but willpower alone.
A Godmother… how could she ever turn that blade on a child?
Stroking Soga Yura's head, Kirishika looked at Su Yuzu.
"Herewith—"
"The contract is formed."
—
Kirishika gently gathered Su Yuzu into her arms.
Her smile looked far more grown than her face did.
Aberration freezes a woman's beauty at its most perfect moment.
By now Su Yuzu understood exactly what state the Kirishika in front of her existed in.
She was a hollow shell, stripped away from the whole.
And what had been inside that shell… twelve years ago, she had already handed it over to Su Yuzu.
What had awakened and now wandered beneath the deepest abyss was the power of the "Seat of Evil."
The personality that belonged to the Abyss—the side of her that stood for the Demon King.
In the game… after the players borrowed the power of Saint Michael to bring down Kujou Iruka, they would just barely have gained the strength to meet a Sixth Sequence Aberrant head-on.
That was exactly when the Sunken Throne was supposed to awaken.
But now… holy light spilling faintly between her fingers, Su Yuzu gazed out toward the sea.
Because of her own reckless meddling, the order of the major Events on the world's timeline had been thrown into disarray.
Kujou Iruka had yet to appear, and the Sunken Throne had already awakened.
A mess of her own making. Only she could clean it up.
Within the Tokyo metropolitan area, Lyudmila—or rather, Saint Michael—looked toward the bay, hands pressed together at her chest as she prayed for Su Yuzu.
"You have to come back safe."
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