A domain?
The privilege of Espers at the Fourth Sequence or above—or of Aberrants.
In the battle between Su Yuzu and the "Seat of Evil," those Catastrophe Crystals sprawling across the sea, that savagely growing erosion metal, were the manifestation of the Seat of Evil's domain.
But right now—
The Seat of Evil's domain had been shattered.
Kilometers away from the front line where Su Yuzu and the "Seat of Evil" met head-on, Tsukiyomi Fuya and Unohana Chiyo stared blankly upward.
"Purgatory." It was not an exaggeration in the slightest.
Behind Su Yuzu, the entire sky seemed to be burning.
The gloomy black clouds that had packed the heavens were, under the power gathered between the girl's palms, catching fire like so much kindling and roaring into flame.
Seen from below, the whole sky had become a searing ocean of fire like the surface of a star, flame and radiance rolling over one another, the spilling glare like tongues of fire leaping off the sun's face.
A solar prominence came crashing down from the vault of heaven.
Under that kind of heat, the Seat of Evil's domain was collapsing at terrifying speed.
The metal domain with its Widmanstatten pattern split, crumbled, and sank into the sea.
Before the sun, metal—Catastrophe itself—seemed nothing more than a joke.
The wound on Tsukiyomi Fuya's shoulder tore open again. She took Unohana Chiyo's hand and pulled her back in a hurry.
Her condition was bad.
She could not even apply her power directly to Unohana Chiyo anymore; the most primitive method was all she had left to get the girl away.
They were too close to that battlefield, a battlefield that deserved to be called the end of all things.
Beneath their feet, the vast fields of Catastrophe Crystals frozen in place by the erosion domain were breaking apart like a receding glacier and sinking into the seabed.
But… they had no choice but to stay that close.
Neither Tsukiyomi Fuya nor Unohana Chiyo could bring herself to leave Yuzu alone out there.
She looked back at the girl who blazed brighter than the noonday sun.
For reasons she couldn't name, a feeling rose in Tsukiyomi Fuya—something like destiny.
Just as Su Yuzu had once thought… in Su Yuzu's eyes, Senior Tsukiyomi Fuya was the moon in the night sky.
She chased after the stars, and the stars wheeled around her in turn.
And now, in the moon's eyes, it seemed the sun had finally been found.
Black crystals cracked and sank beneath the waves.
The swells they threw up rolled toward the sky, forming pillar after pillar of water rising between sea and heaven.
Add to that a sky burning like a blazing sun.
Sea and sky looked as though they had traded places.
The earth underfoot was falling into the sun by its own gravity—the sort of image that belongs only to the last day of the world.
And that image… nearly twenty years ago, someone had seen it before.
When Saint Michael snapped off her own wings to intercept Kujou Iruka.
That had been Saint Michael's strongest power.
*
On the distant shore, Soga Yura gazed out at the sea with worry written all over her.
Beside her, Kirishika, far calmer, was thinking of the hymn that had circulated through the Holy Royal Court for ages.
"And a thousand years hence—"
"The Eighth Throne is released."
"The sun stands overhead, the day at its zenith."
"…"
She lifted her head toward that burning sky, a sea of fire like a star's surface, and thought that Lady Witch's prophecy had been remarkably apt.
As Lady Godmother of the Holy Royal Court, Kirishika had never once doubted the truth of the hymn.
That was how completely she believed in Fate.
It was why she had thrown herself into the sea without a moment's hesitation.
It was why… the first time she laid eyes on a weeping Soga Yura, she had so cheerfully decided to bestow power on her.
Kirishika watched the girl in that scorching sea of flame, a figure lonely and small as an ant.
"We are all the same—"
"Nothing but tick marks on the great clock of an age."
"From the moment of birth"
"the ending is already decided."
"…"
But before Su Yuzu, the "Seat of Evil"—propped up on her broken sword, kneeling on one knee before a metal throne like a crystal of snow—was something else entirely. Her gaze on Su Yuzu was ferocious.
The "Seat of Evil" disbelieved in this thing called Fate more than anyone alive.
Inside the gentlest of godmothers hid the most rebellious of beasts.
"So I was wrong—"
The pitch-black Throne behind her was already sinking away, yet the "Seat of Evil" leaned on her endlessly regrowing greatsword and tried to stand under the roasting of a star.
She had been wrong.
The girl in front of her was no brat who could only steal other people's authority.
On the contrary—
it was as if every authority in existence had been kept in reserve for her.
She could be crueler than that man-devouring cursed sword.
Before her, that man-devouring cursed sword was only a well-behaved little cat.
She could be more arrogant than the "Godmother's Laurel."
Before her, the proud "Godmother's Laurel" was only a young lady with a slightly high opinion of herself.
And she—she was the ending that ought to hold Domination over the world.
Behind those crimson eyes lay the corruption of an entire world; it was only that she had, with her own hands, fastened a pointless chain onto that savage beast.
And now she had merely—out of a small flicker of pride—let loose the tip of the iceberg of that beast's burning fury.
Even so… the "Seat of Evil" raised the sword in her hand.
The bent, broken blade regrew, inch by inch.
Under the sun's roasting, even a "Throne" seemed to be coming apart, let alone the sword she held.
And yet the shattered iron sword still struggled, slowly, slowly, inch by inch, to push out new clusters of crystal.
With everything she had, the "Seat of Evil" dragged up the regrown greatsword.
She swept it upward at Su Yuzu with all her weight, then brought it down in a chop—just as she had once brought her blade down against the thing called the Abyss.
She didn't believe.
Not in the girl's majesty, not in this so-called Fate.
She lifted the defiant edge high.
In the blazing light and heat.
The "Seat of Evil" could no longer even hold her armor together.
That craggy yet beautiful black armor, all the elegant lines of a killing machine, was melting away, and behind the lava-like runoff a pair of resolute, dark-golden vertical pupils showed through.
The "Seat of Evil" looked far more childlike than Su Yuzu had imagined.
She looked even a touch younger than Kirishika, who was busy slacking off back on shore.
Just like… that silent girl in the movie, the one hidden under the armor.
So it was true—
The Flowers of Evil was actually a documentary?
And besides… going by the rule that the higher an Aberrant's rank, the less fabric they wear, the "Seat of Evil" was dressed with unexpected breeziness.
Apart from a palm-sized scrap of lace barely covering anything vital, there was only her left shoulder and arm, and her slender right leg, wrapped in matching black fishnet sleeves and stirrup stockings.
Facing the greatsword in that seemingly delicate girl's hands, Su Yuzu spread her arms wide.
She meant to give the "Seat of Evil" the respect she deserved.
The "Seat of Evil" didn't understand.
The next second—
On that scorching solar surface, a black shadow appeared.
Superheated gas coiled into an enormous vortex, a dark spot like a sunspot.
In light and flame that intense, no one could have recorded a single scrap of data.
The strongest technique Su Yuzu had unleashed had turned into nothing more than a stage curtain.
A painted backdrop.
The "Seat of Evil," swinging her sword at Su Yuzu with fearless courage, looked at the girl before her, who had shed everything, the bare and exquisite lines of her body laid open—and felt a shrinking dread rise up from somewhere deep inside.
Not the dread of facing a strong enemy.
But the instinctive flinch of a "frail" girl standing before a terrible hunter.
And there was nowhere left to run.
"You look—"
"like you'd really… really taste good."
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