[New Chaldea – Maintenance Access Corridor C, 9:20 a.m.]
Faced with Sion, who looked like she had crawled up from the depths of hell, Steve's brain began working at a speed that could put a quantum computer to shame.
He knew that in this situation, any emotional excuse would be useless.
Before a genius alchemist of the Atlas Institute, only unassailable physical laws and rigorous logical chains could offer even a faint glimmer of hope.
"Calm down, Sion! This is purely a physical phenomenon!"
Still pinning Ritsuka against the wall, Steve spoke rapidly, as if chanting a spell. He desperately wanted to run, but the oil on his shoes kept him from moving.
"First, look at the reflection on the ground. That's characteristic of leaked low-viscosity industrial lubricant. It instantly lowers the coefficient of friction μ to below 0.05."
"According to Newton's First Law, the moment Ritsuka's static friction was lost, she experienced inertial displacement backward."
"As the closest observer and possible intervener, I had no choice but to apply a pulling force in the opposite direction, in order to prevent the gravitational potential energy from converting into kinetic energy that would send her crashing into the high-pressure pipes behind her, causing irreversible physical injury!"
He took a deep breath and fixed Sion with a determined, academic stare.
"However, since I was also on the same low-friction plane, my center of mass shifted out of control in accordance with the law of conservation of momentum."
"The pose you see now may appear to be a suggestive configuration as defined by sociology, but in essence, it is nothing more than a dynamic equilibrium state between two bodies in a low-friction environment!"
"In other words… this situation is entirely beyond our control! It's nothing but the cruel manifestation of physical law!"
This barrage of specialized terminology and astonishing reasoning rained down on Sion like bullets.
In Sion's usually expressionless eyes, something flickered for a brief moment.
"Coefficient of friction… conservation of momentum…"
She muttered under her breath, and the suffocating killing intent seemed to freeze for a heartbeat.
"If that's the case… it is true that… the possibility of an accident cannot be ruled out…"
There's still hope!
Steve was elated.
As long as I can steer the conversation into an academic debate, I can survive this!
But at that decisive instant that would determine his fate…
To make his argument seem more convincing, Steve instinctively lifted the hand braced against the wall in a "see, I'm not lying" sort of gesture.
And in doing so, he forgot that the cursed lubricating oil was still there.
The moment he slightly shifted his center of gravity, the oil under his feet seemed to come alive. His supporting foot slipped outward once more.
"For the love of—!"
Steve barely had time to swear before his body pitched forward uncontrollably—straight toward Ritsuka.
To keep his balance, the hand he still had around Ritsuka's waist moved upward by pure instinct, searching for a new point of support.
And then—
Pafu.
An indescribably soft and springy sensation pressed into his palm.
It wasn't the hardness of the wall, nor the coldness of the pipes, but rather…
The young, vibrant fullness of a girl's chest.
Time seemed to stop once again.
And this time, the silence was even more complete—and utterly despairing.
Steve's hand was resting squarely on Ritsuka's breast. Her chest wasn't exactly majestic, but it was perfectly shaped.
By sheer inertia, his fingers unconsciously… squeezed.
"Kya…?"
Ritsuka made a sound like a duck being stepped on.
Her face turned so red it looked like it might start bleeding; steam might as well have been pouring from her ears like a locomotive.
"Ah!"
Steve jerked his hand back at a speed that would shame a Servant, as if he'd been electrocuted.
Cold sweat instantly broke out on his forehead, and his heart felt like it was going to explode.
It's over.
It's all over.
Before this divine intervention, all physical explanations and logical justifications were completely obliterated.
This was no longer a misunderstanding.
This now clearly qualified as sexual harassment.
There was no way to explain it, no matter how he tried. There was no excuse.
His life as a Servant was about to come to an end.
"A-ah, Sion… If I said this was a macroscopic collapse phenomenon caused by the uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics… would you believe me?"
Steve made one last, feeble attempt at resistance as he awkwardly turned his head.
But what he saw was no longer Sion.
No—she was no longer the Sion he knew.
Standing there now was a demon god wreathed in boundless darkness.
The shadow behind Sion writhed violently, as if countless black tendrils were twisting and stretching within it.
A terrifying wave of magical energy surged down the narrow corridor like a storm and began to reverberate.
In other words… TATARI, the Dust of Osiris.
In the world once known as Tsukihime, it had been called the materialization of nightmares.
In this timeline, Sion had not fallen, but due to her extreme emotional fluctuations, her latent abilities as both a vampire and an alchemist had unexpectedly triggered a similar phenomenon.
From within that warped shadow, an enormous, hazy phantom emerged, roughly the size of a pharaoh.
As the shape gradually solidified, a huge metallic claw and countless Philosopher's Stones, like grains of sand cascading from a machine, became ever clearer.
That was the Bird of Hades.
The ultimate weapon designed to calculate everything and convert all of humanity into specimens of Philosopher's Stone.
"Heh… hehehe…"
Sion laughed.
It was not her usual clear, bright laughter, but a sharp, deranged sound, like fingernails scraping across a chalkboard.
"Physics? Quantum mechanics? Hahaha…"
When she lifted her head, the light of reason had vanished completely from her violet eyes, replaced by two rapidly spinning crimson vortices.
"I don't need them… I don't need any of them."
"They can't be calculated… There are always too many variables… I'll just destroy everything instead."
"If I turn Mr. Steve into a puppet who only listens to me… If I get rid of all those annoying interferences… then the world will be at peace. Isn't that right?"
The moment she finished speaking, countless jet-black ether threads shot out of the shadow behind her like venomous snakes, streaking straight toward Steve and Ritsuka!
"Oh crap, she really went full villain!"
Steve's survival instinct hit its peak.
Abandoning all pretense of gentlemanly manners, he plunged his hand into the four-dimensional pocket hanging at his waist and yanked out a pink door.
The Anywhere Door.
"Ritsuka! Hang on tight!"
He roared, grabbed Ritsuka's wrist—she was still in a total system error state—and yanked her behind him like a chick being dragged by its mother.
"Do you really think you can escape that easily?!"
Sion let out a sharp scream, and the black threads suddenly accelerated, sealing off every possible escape route.
But the reason the Anywhere Door was considered a cutting-edge tool from the future was precisely because its activation method was fundamentally irrational.
Click.
The doorknob turned, and at the very last moment, the pink door swung open.
"Get out through here!"
Without hesitation, Steve hauled Ritsuka through the doorway.
The instant he stepped over the threshold, he twisted his body to slam the door shut behind them, then casually stuffed it back into his pocket.
Whoosh!
Just as the countless black threads were about to reach the doorframe, the pink Anywhere Door shimmered—and vanished without a trace.
BOOM!
Having lost their target, the black threads crashed into the empty wall, instantly shattering the metal pipes and masonry there to dust.
Smoke and dust filled the corridor.
Sion stood in the middle of the wreckage, her hand still outstretched.
There was no one in front of her.
Only the small pool of lubricating oil, still slick and shining with cold light, remained behind, as if mocking all that had just transpired.
"They escaped…"
Sion's voice was terrifyingly low.
She slowly pulled her hand back.
The dark shadow behind her gradually faded, but the suffocating pressure did not lessen at all.
She turned and looked up at the security camera mounted on the corridor ceiling, a twisted smile curving her lips.
"It's all right, Steve."
"No matter where you run… to the end of time, or beyond imaginary numbers themselves… Trismegistus II…"
"I will find you."
"And then… we'll be together forever…"
…
Thud.
Steve and Ritsuka tumbled out of thin air like a pair of rolling gourds and landed on something soft and grassy.
"Cough, cough… That was close…"
Steve scrambled to his feet, brushed bits of grass off his clothes, and surveyed the empty surroundings with lingering fear.
"We were one step away from being turned into specimens… Sion in that state is scarier than any beast."
"Steve…"
A faint voice spoke up beside him.
Steve turned and saw Ritsuka sitting on the ground, knees hugged to her chest. Her face was as red as a ripe apple, and she was glaring at him with a mixture of shame and resentment.
"So… did it feel good?"
"…Huh."
Steve froze.
He looked down at his right hand. It felt as if the tingling sensation from a few minutes ago still lingered there.
This was a question that could very well determine whether he lived or died.
If he said "yes," he'd be a perverted lecher. If he said "no," he'd be insulting a woman's charm.
Thus, in that moment, this savior of extraordinary intellect made the wisest choice available.
He simply lifted his gaze to the unreal blue sky overhead and said, in the most profound tone he could muster:
"Ritsuka, listen to that… The wind is so loud here… Maybe we should figure out where we are first, don't you think?"
"…Don't you dare change the subject like that! You idiot, Steve!"
…
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