Blazing holy-white flames unfurled from Su Yuzu's waist, like the pure white wings of an angel.
The flames burned away every trace of filth from the girl's body.
Bare, delicate white feet walked across the surface of the sea. All that remained was a fine silver chain around her right ankle, a tiny charm dangling from it, resting against the joint.
The silver ripples that spread beneath her steps now carried an added effect: holy-white fire, roaring and unfurling as it burned.
It had been exactly like this in the game.
Once you obtained the "Saint's Blessing" and entered the boss fight against Kujou Iruka, you could choose to activate it.
Activating it gave you the right to fight Kujou Iruka head-on, and it layered seriously cool visual effects onto your attacks and your movement.
Of course—
There were also tentacle-monster players who chose not to use the "Saint's Blessing" at all and went toe to toe with Kujou Iruka raw.
Rolling back and forth, eating Kujou Iruka's Sure Hit arrows on invincibility frames.
Then grinding her health bar down, slow as cutting meat with a blunt knife.
At the same time… as a game that was, by definition, still an eroge.
Using the "Saint's Blessing" forcibly swapped your outfit for the Saint's costume.
Which was to say, the spotless white Grecian gown Su Yuzu was wearing right now.
Collarbones and arms almost entirely bare, and with every step she took she had the distinct feeling the line of her thigh and the color of her skin were showing through.
And beneath it, nothing at all.
Su Yuzu had once rotated the camera to check… and yes, it really was just the one gown.
Walking in it, she could feel the air moving over both legs.
But something more urgent right now… Su Yuzu looked at the countdown in the upper right corner of her vision.
[00:29:57]
The "Saint's Blessing" lasted only half an hour.
Su Yuzu could feel it: the radiant power of Saint Michael that blanketed the entire Tokyo metropolitan area was plummeting fast, all of it converging on her.
In the Healing-type dormitory building of Keigunen Private Academy.
Lyudmila gazed out toward the bay, and it was as if the same holy-white fire burned in her eyes.
The Saintess looked calm, praying quietly for her faith.
Out at the bay, Su Yuzu could almost feel the girl's embrace.
Behind her, Saint Michael's radiance gathered into the shape of an angel, and the gentle curve of the angel's lips was Lyudmila's own. She wrapped her arms softly around Su Yuzu's shoulders.
Leaving a road of holy-white flame behind her, Su Yuzu picked up speed, until at last she broke into a full sprint.
She tore toward the main battlefield.
Tsukiyomi Fuya had of course noticed the disturbance behind her.
The woman held her position in midair, and she no longer looked anything like her usual elegant self. Crimson flowers of blood had bloomed across her white short dress and her cream wool coat.
Tsukiyomi Fuya's brow was tightly furrowed, her expression bordering on outright agony.
She was not a character forged by long years on the battlefield.
Ordinary. At the end of the day, the Tsukiyomi Fuya who wielded this power was only a researcher.
Even just now, she had been telling herself, over and over.
"The Tokyo metropolitan area is behind me."
"The city is behind me."
"Millions of lives are behind me."
"And… Little Yuzu is behind me."
Only that let Tsukiyomi Fuya force her wounded body upright again and keep standing in front of that swarm of "Beasts" and their domain.
And inside the battlefield where Tsukiyomi Fuya fought the "Beasts," there was another figure Su Yuzu had never expected to see.
Ms. Unohana…
Unohana Chiyo, swinging a naginata, supported by Tsukiyomi Fuya's power, moved across the sea's surface as though it were solid ground.
That alien Catastrophe Domain, heavy as crystallized metal, might as well not have existed where Unohana Chiyo was concerned.
She wove between the mermaids like a woman walking through an empty field, looking, if anything, more at ease and more unburdened than Tsukiyomi Fuya.
The naginata smashed spray out of the water.
Both Tsukiyomi Fuya and Unohana Chiyo stared at Su Yuzu's arrival with a mix of shock and alarm.
"Yuzu?"
"Little Yuzu!?"
Both of them had been about to say "go back, it's dangerous here, leave it to your teacher / to your senior"—and then they felt the sheer pressure of the radiant power pouring off the girl.
The interesting part was that the power did nothing to hinder their movements. It reinforced them.
Tsukiyomi Fuya could even feel the arrow wound punched through her shoulder knitting shut.
"This place… just leave it to me—"
Su Yuzu watched the numbers ticking down in the corner of her vision and knew she had no time to waste at all.
In the game it had simply been the dungeon's time limit mechanic.
Once a player activated the "Saint's Blessing," failing to intercept Kujou Iruka within the allotted time counted as a failed assault.
But at a moment like this, it curiously ended up serving exactly the same function.
The flames forced the Catastrophe Domain open by brute strength, that alien thing like crystallized metal splitting apart.
Su Yuzu swung the Sword of Erasure at the school of mermaids, and at the other Catastrophe Beasts lurking behind the massive waves—bodies far larger than the mermaids', far more dangerous, far harder to deal with.
When it came to clearing out small fry, the Sword of Erasure's efficiency was second to none.
Only… Su Yuzu knew that the root of this crisis wasn't the endless army in front of her. It was what hid behind them—the commander that had awakened from the deepest abyss.
That… "Throne."
This seemed to be the first time Su Yuzu had ever met another "Throne" head-on.
Even if she wasn't complete.
Thump, thump—
Thump, thump—
Su Yuzu thought she could hear a heartbeat.
She gestured for Tsukiyomi Fuya and Unohana Chiyo to leave.
But how could the two of them, worried sick for the girl, bear to put any real distance between themselves and her?
They hung back roughly a kilometer behind her.
For Tsukiyomi Fuya, a pseudo-celestial body, a kilometer was a distance she could close in an instant.
They thought it was far enough. Su Yuzu knew better—they hadn't gotten away from the danger at all.
But it was already too late.
Su Yuzu had no attention left to spare for anyone else.
The Catastrophe Domain that the roaring holy-white flames had torn open was already growing back, repairing itself.
The sea, which had been heaving with enormous waves, went utterly still.
Even the thick, piled-up black clouds—so heavy that a storm felt one breath away—seemed to draw back with it, revealing the moon behind them.
Moonlight spilled over that too-quiet water and turned it into a stage.
The greatest theatrical production in this world was about to begin here.
On one side, a former ruler who had once stood at the summit of the world and had since been stripped of a part of herself—the "old King."
On the other, a newborn sovereign whose wings were barely grown, who owed her right to stand before that old King entirely to Saint Michael's blessing. The true master of this era.
Rain began to patter down through the gaps in the cloud layer, as though the curtain had finally risen on the play.
As the rain fell, Su Yuzu saw pure black metallic crystal spreading and growing across the surface of the sea at terrifying speed.
The image was so familiar. It looked exactly like her own thorns bursting into growth.
Metal crystals in a Widmanstätten structure grew wild and savage, six-fold symmetrical like snowflakes, building themselves into a "Throne" that took shape again right in front of Su Yuzu.
From within that dense metal jungle, dark golden vertical pupils hidden behind heavy armor locked onto Su Yuzu.
"You will…"
"Kneel—!"
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