The time was six in the evening.
It wasn't written anywhere—no announcement, no digital timestamp hovering politely at the edge of the world. It was just a fact you could feel in the color of the city. The sun sat low and heavy, turning every window into a dull orange mirror and stretching shadows long enough to trip over.
From the roofline, Tenguu looked peaceful. Too peaceful.
Ryouko Kusakabe lay flat on her stomach behind the anti-Spirit rifle, the bipod planted, the barrel aligned down into the park's winding walkways. The scope's glass drank in the world and returned it sharpened—every leaf edge crisp, every moving figure isolated in its own clean vector.
A breeze slid over the rooftop, cool against the back of her neck. It did nothing for the heat trapped under her collar.
"Target... visual," she murmured.
Origami Tobiichi crouched beside her, still as a statue. The city could've collapsed into a sinkhole and Origami would've observed it with the same blank patience.
Below them, on the pedestrian path near the trees, a boy and a girl walked side by side.
The boy had brown hair and the kind of posture that said high school. Not military. Not trained. Ordinary. He kept glancing at the girl like he was trying to memorize her expression.
The girl—
Ryouko jaw tightened slightly.
The girl looked ordinary too.
That was the whole problem.
Long purple hair. A school uniform. Hands clasped neatly in front of her at times, or swinging with that strange combination of confidence and uncertainty. No armor. No shimmering territory. No environmental distortion.
No alarm.
No spacequake.
No evacuation.
Everything about her screamed wrong in the most subtle, humiliating way.
Ryouko breathed out slowly through her nose and forced herself to go through the checklist again.
"City monitors report no spatial pressure spike," she said quietly, half to herself, half to the comm. "No registered tremor. No automatic shelter broadcast."
Origami's eyes didn't leave the girl. "Probability this is the same Spirit from yesterday?"
Ryouko let the scope's tracking reticle settle on the girl's center mass. The data overlay updated in faint green text.
"Correlation model," Ryouko answered. "Ninety-eight point five percent."
Origami's head tilted a fraction. "So not coincidence."
"No," Ryouko said, more bitterly than she meant. "Not coincidence."
She adjusted the focus ring, watching the boy's hand shift as if he wasn't sure what to do with it. He looked down, said something, and the girl responded animatedly, pointing toward something out of frame.
They looked like... a couple.
Which made the nausea in Ryouko's stomach worse, not better.
"Permission to engage?" Origami asked.
Ryouko didn't answer right away.
She pulled her attention away from the scope and flicked her eyes across the wider tactical map in her HUD: AST units positioned in pairs around the perimeter, spread wide to avoid panic and collateral. No one was close enough to spook civilians. No one was close enough to intervene quickly if something went wrong.
That was intentional.
That was the trap of it.
If they were wrong, if the girl wasn't a Spirit, then firing here wasn't just a mistake—it was a crime.
If they were right...
Ryouko swallowed, throat dry.
If they were right, then this was the cleanest shot they'd ever get.
"No territory," Origami said, as if reading her thoughts. "No armor. No manifest weapon. She's... exposed."
Ryouko forced herself to speak like an officer and not like a person.
"Stand by. Awaiting confirmation from command."
Origami's face didn't change. "Roger."
Ryouko tapped her comm again. "Unit Alpha to HQ. We have eyes on target. Requesting final authorization."
Static. A breath. Then—
"Hold."
Ryooku clenched her teeth.
"Hold?" she repeated. "We have a confirmed match."
"Hold. The minister of defense is discussing with the minister of safety and discussing the options"
Ryouko's hand flexed near the rifle's receiver. She looked back through the scope.
The boy—Itsuka Shidou, if the file was right—laughed at something. Not a performance laugh. Not a forced one. A small, surprised burst like he didn't expect the world to let him have a moment like that.
The girl's expression softened. She leaned closer as she talked.
Ryouko felt her stomach turn again.
This is insane, she thought. If she's a Spirit, then why is she—
And then she remembered the absence of the quake.
The absence that made civilians stroll through the park like nothing was wrong.
The absence that meant the city wasn't cleared, the roads weren't sealed, and every possible mistake would be witnessed by people who didn't deserve to be part of it.
Another crackle in her ear.
A confirmation beep. "Consensus made take the shot" a voice came out the earpiece
Ryouko toggled the barrier matrix—an offensive shell designed specifically to crack through Spirit defenses.
"Conformation given, take the shot" Ryouko confirmed
Origami steadied and aimed
"Roger"
⸻
The park felt like an ending.
Not the bad kind. Not a dramatic cliff-edge where the sky split open. Just... the natural kind. The kind where the day got tired and folded into itself, and you could pretend for a moment that the world was allowed to be quiet.
Tohka walked beside me, closer than she had earlier in the day. Our shoulders didn't touch, but the space between us was smaller than it used to be—small enough that I could feel her warmth when the breeze shifted.
She pointed toward the train line again as we passed a break in the trees.
"That," she said. "It still doesn't combine."
I blinked. "You're still on that?"
"Yes." She spoke like it was a serious unresolved mystery. "It is long, so it should become something stronger. That is the rule."
"That's... not a rule," I said, and immediately felt my mouth twist like it wanted to smile.
A lazy grin tried to form—slow, stubborn.
I forced it down.
Tohka looked at me like she could tell I was hiding something, then she huffed and looked away. "Then humans are strange."
"On that we agree," I muttered.
We walked a few steps. The silence wasn't awkward. It was... comfortable. That alone felt unreal.
Then she spoke again, softer, like she was testing the words.
"Shidou."
"Yeah?"
"I had fun today."
My heart did the stupid thing it kept doing around her—jumping like it had somewhere better to be.
"I... I did too."
Tohka turned her head and studied me.
"Your face is red."
"It's the sunset."
"It is redder than the sunset."
"Please don't call out my excuses."
She blinked, then—almost imperceptibly—smiled.
And my brain betrayed me.
The park. The sunset. The quiet. The way her voice sounded when she said my name.
I thought, stupidly, about the kind of scene this would be in a manga. I thought about what people did at the end of a date.
And then I realized my eyes had drifted to her lips.
Tohka tilted her head. "Nu?"
Heat slammed into my face like a punch. "N-nothing! Sorry! I— I just—"
I looked away so fast I nearly walked off the path.
Tohka watched me, expression unreadable, then she turned back toward the trees like she'd decided to spare me.
A small mercy.
We kept walking until the path opened into a broader stretch of park—benches, a few scattered people, distant laughter.
Tohka's pace slowed.
She stared at the ground for a moment, then said quietly, "No one tried to hurt me today."
I blinked. "That's... good."
"Yes," she said, and her voice sounded like she was trying to convince herself. "Everyone was kind."
Her fingers curled at her sides.
"That makes it strange."
"Strange?" I repeated.
She nodded once. "It felt... too easy."
My chest tightened. "You think they were pretending."
"Yes." She said it simply, like it was obvious. "Like the soldiers were hiding. Watching."
I swallowed. "Tohka—"
She interrupted, voice still calm but heavier now.
"Every time I come here, something breaks."
The air seemed to shift, as if the world was listening.
"I destroy things," she continued, and her gaze stayed on the orange light between the trees. "Even if I do not want to. Even if I am not angry."
I stopped walking.
Tohka noticed and slowed too.
"I do not understand why," she said. "But it happens.. The destruction. People get hurt. Buildings fall."
Her mouth tightened into something like a smile, but it wasn't warm.
It was thin. Fragile.
"I understand them now," she said. "The ones who try to kill me."
My stomach dropped. "Don't say that."
"It is logical, they just want to protect this.." she replied. "If I did not exist—"
"No!" The word came out hard. But I had to shut this down before it could take root
Tohka blinked, surprised.
I hadn't meant to snap, but the idea of her saying it—saying she shouldn't exist—hit some part of me that didn't tolerate it.
Maybe that was me.
Maybe that was something... else, buried under my skin.
"I won't let you say that," I said, voice lower. "Not like it's some neat conclusion."
Tohka frowned. "Why?"
"Because you're not a disaster," I said. "You're a person."
Her eyes widened slightly.
"And if the problem is that you keep getting pulled back," I added, words spilling out, "then don't go back."
Tohka froze.
"Don't return to the other side anymore," I said. "Stay here. With me."
She stared at me like I'd suggested the sky should fall.
"That is..." She swallowed. "Is that possible?"
"I don't know," I admitted. "But today there was no quake. That means something is different."
Tohka's gaze flickered, uncertainty surfacing.
I pushed forward before fear could stop me.
"I'll teach you," I said quickly. "Everything. How this world works. Where to get food, how to sleep, how to— how to live here."
She stared at me, then said very quietly, "I need a place to sleep."
"I'll figure it out."
"I need food."
"I'll handle it all!"
She blinked again, like she didn't understand why I was saying things so confidently when I was clearly a disaster of a human being.
Then, voice small—almost careful—she asked:
"...Is it really okay... for me to live?"
The question hit like a physical blow.
I didn't hesitate.
"Even if everyone else rejects you," I said, "I'll accept you more than all of them combined."
For a moment, she didn't speak.
Then she looked away, jaw tight, as if she was fighting something in her chest.
I took a breath, then held my hand out.
"For now," I said, trying to smile like it wasn't terrifying. "Just this."
Tohka stared at my hand.
Her fingers hovered.
She moved slowly, as if the air itself might bite her.
"Shidou," she murmured.
Her hand came down.
Our fingers touched.
Warm.
Real.
Her grip tightened—firm, not shy, like she was claiming proof that this was happening.
My breath caught.
And then, like the world couldn't let me have two peaceful seconds in a row, Tohka spoke again—almost bluntly:
"Another joke."
I blinked. "What?"
"The bad one," she said. "The one you said yesterday. I want another."
I stared at her, completely thrown.
"You... want another terrible joke."
"Yes." She looked serious. "It was strange. But it made me laugh."
My chest warmed, embarrassingly fast.
"Okay...." I said, and felt the corners of my mouth lift before I could stop it. "Fine. Fine ready?"
Tohka's eyes sharpened with focus, like this was a combat drill.
I smiled "Why are skeletons so calm-?"
A chill ripped through me.
Not fear. Not anxiety.
Something sharp and instinctive, like ice sliding down the inside of my spine.
My whole body screamed MOVE.
"TOHKA—!"
I shoved her.
Hard.
Her hand tore free of mine.
She fell backward, rolling across the grass in a stunned, angry tangle.
I barely had time to register her face twisting into confusion—
And then something struck me.
It didn't feel like getting punched.
It felt like the world itself had been punctured through my chest.
I couldn't breathe.
My legs buckled.
I looked down, stupidly, like if I checked I could disagree with what had happened.
There was a hole in my uniform.
There was blood.
So much blood.
My mouth opened, but no sound came out.
My hand—my hand that had been holding hers—trembled as it reached out toward where she'd been.
My vision blurred at the edges.
Tohka's voice sounded far away.
"Shidou...?"
I tried to answer.
I tried to tell her it was fine.
I tried to tell her—
My body hit the ground.
The sky tilted.
The sunset became a smear of orange.
And then—
Nothing.
⸻
At first, I did not understand.
One moment, Shidou was in front of me, smiling as if he was proud to tell me a silly totally not funny joke.
The next, he was shouting my name with a voice that cut through my chest, and his hands—his hands—were pushing me away as if I was danger.
I rolled across the grass, breath knocked out of me.
Anger sparked first.
"Stupid—!" I began, because that was what I called him when he did things that made no sense.
But the word died.
Because he did not follow.
He did not stumble after me, embarrassed, trying to pretend it was accidental.
He fell.
I saw him drop to his knees.
I saw his hand reach out, trembling, toward empty space.
I saw the way his shoulders shook like he was trying to inhale and couldn't.
"Shidou...?"
My voice sounded wrong, thin and confused.
I got to my feet too fast, stumbling.
He collapsed forward.
I ran to him.
My knees hit the ground hard beside him.
He did not move.
His eyes were open, but unfocused, like he was staring through me into something I could not see.
"Shidou."
I touched his cheek.
Warm.
Still warm.
But his body did not respond.
His mouth was slightly open, as if he had tried to speak and failed.
I looked down.
And my mind went empty.
There was a hole in his chest.
Not a cut. Not a wound that could close.
A hole.
Blood soaked the cloth around it, spreading outward, dark and thick. It ran down his side, into the grass, staining the earth like ink.
For a moment I could not breathe.
My hand lifted, trembling, hovering over the hole as if touching it would make it less real.
Then I smelled it.
A burnt smell.
Metal and ozone.
The smell of those soldiers.
The AST.
My fingers clenched.
My throat tightened so hard it hurt.
"No," I whispered, though I did not know who I was speaking to. "No."
I touched his face again, harder this time, like I could force him to react.
"Shidou—"
Nothing.
My eyes blurred.
I blinked, and the world became sharp again, cruelly clear.
His hand.
The hand that had reached for mine.
It was covered in blood.
The grass around his fingers was matted dark.
I stared at it.
A few minutes ago, that hand had been warm around mine.
A few minutes ago, he had been alive.
I swallowed, throat burning.
My fingers moved—slow, careful—and I closed his eyes.
It was a strange thing to do.
I did not know why I did it.
It felt like something humans did when they did not want to look at what had happened.
Then I pulled my jacket off and laid it over him.
As if cloth could protect him now.
As if anything could.
The air around me felt wrong.
The park was still there—people in the distance, laughter somewhere far away, a dog barking.
Normal.
Too normal.
I sat back on my heels, shaking.
My chest hurt.
Something inside it cracked open.
I remembered my own words from moments ago.
It's better if I didn't exist.
I had said it.
I had thought it.
And he had rejected it.
He had rejected it so fiercely it had stunned me.
Even now, even with blood under his body, I could hear his voice:
I'll accept you more than all of them combined.
I had believed him.
I had let myself believe him.
Because his hand had been warm.
Because his smile had been real.
Because today there was no quake.
Because I had walked beside him like a person.
Because I had laughed.
And then—
He pushed me.
He pushed me away like he was saving me.
My hands curled into fists so hard my nails cut into my palms.
He had known.
Somehow, he had known something was coming.
He had felt it, and instead of running, instead of saving himself, he had thrown his body between me and the attack.
He had died for me.
The world narrowed.
My breath came in short, sharp bursts.
I lifted my head.
The sky was orange.
Beautiful.
The kind of sky I had wanted to keep.
The kind of sky I had wanted to see again tomorrow.
But tomorrow—
Tomorrow could never be the same.
Because Shidou would not be there.
My mouth opened.
No sound came at first.
Then my voice broke out, raw:
"...Why?"
The word tasted like blood.
Why did humans kill?
Why did they decide I did not deserve to exist?
Why did they take the one person who had reached out to me without fear?
My vision sharpened again.
I could feel it now—eyes on me from above, from afar.
Not the gentle eyes of someone watching a date.
The cold eyes of hunters.
My body shook, then stilled.
Something heavy rose inside me, slow and inevitable, like a tide I could not stop.
A name formed in my throat.
"...Adonai Melek."
The air cracked.
Light surged.
The world warped as if reality itself was being pulled tight around my body.
Power poured out of me in a wave, and the sky above creaked like it was protesting.
The park bent at the edges of my vision.
The trees trembled.
The ground hummed.
And somewhere far away, people screamed.
I stood.
The jacket slipped from Shidou's body and fell to the grass.
For a second, I looked down at him one last time.
His face was peaceful now, eyes closed, as if he could still be sleeping.
As if the hole in his chest was a lie.
My throat tightened until it felt like it would tear.
Then I lifted my gaze to the horizon.
To where the hunters were.
My voice came out low, shaking, full of something darker than anger.
"...You took him."
The air around me ignited, and the calamity descended.
⸻
The bridge of the Fraxinus had a way of turning panic into noise.
Not just shouting—noise like metal being shaken in a box. Boots striking the floor too hard. Chairs scraping. Someone's breath caught between a sob and a command. On the main monitor, the outside world wasn't shown so much as witnessed: a cratered stretch of city and construction yard carved into enormous, brutal slices, as if the earth itself had been punished for existing.
And in the middle of it all—
A girl in a black and purple dress, floating like a judgment.
Her sword was too big to be real. Her rage was too clean to be human.
Tohka moved like a storm with purpose.
AST units scattered. Their anti-Spirit gear flared, shields flashing—then dimmed like dying bulbs. Their lines were broken the instant they formed. Every swing of her blade turned the ground into an open wound. The destruction wasn't wild. It was direct. It looked less like a fight and more like an execution that simply hadn't finished yet.
"Evacuation progress?" someone barked.
"Not complete—! The perimeter's—"
"Sirens are late, there are still civilians—!"
"Aerial reconnaissance?!-where are the aerial units?!"
Kotori Itsuka stood at the center console with a lollipop lodged in the corner of her mouth like she'd decided the universe didn't get to tell her what to look like. Her black ribbons were perfectly tied. Her expression was controlled in a way that felt almost insulting—like calm wasn't an emotion, but a weapon.
Kyouhei Kannazuki was two steps away from snapping. His hands clenched and unclenched, and he looked like he wanted to throw himself at the monitor and fight it.
"She's going to kill them," he said, voice cracking. "She's going to kill all of them, and it'll be our fault—!"
Kotori didn't even glance at him. "All of you Stop screaming, You sound like a monkeys in heat."
"It's for a good reason!" he shouted. "Ursula is dead!!"
Kotori shifted her weight, pulled the lollipop out with a wet click, and then—like it was the simplest thing in the world—kicked him in the shin.
He yelped and folded halfway down in pure indignation and pain.
"Now," Kotori said, voice flat as an operating table. "If you're done auditioning for 'Man Who Panics First,' you can help."
Kannazuki's face twisted. "Kotori—!"
"Her sword is already cutting the ground into ribbons," Kotori replied, eyes still on the monitor. "Either do your job or keep crying. But do it quietly."
A few crew members stared at Kotori like she was made of ice.
Reine sat at her station with her usual drowsy calm, hands moving with minimal effort. She spoke without looking up. "The destruction pattern is stable."
"Stable?" someone snapped back.
Reine blinked slowly. "Consistent. Her movement isn't random. It's goal-driven."
Kotori's mouth tightened for a fraction of a second. Then she spoke again—still calm, still measured.
"Listen up. The AST fired first. They shot Shidou. She watched him fall." Her voice didn't rise. "This isn't 'Spirit rampage.' This is grief turned into violence. She can't tolerate what happened."
One of the crew swallowed. "So what do we do...?"
Kotori's gaze flicked—sharp, quick—to the lower corner of the monitor.
Because there, half buried in shadow and dust, lay the boy.
Shidou Itsuka.
Down. Not moving.
And then something changed.
A faint glow, like embers under ash, crept over his chest. His school uniform blackened further—not burning away in flame so much as dissolving at the edges, peeling back to reveal the wound underneath.
The wound was... wrong.
A hole, a hollowed-out absence in the center of his torso where life should have been. It should have been the end. It should have been a scream that never stopped.
Instead, the hole lit up.
Not bright like a bonfire. Not hot like ordinary fire. This was a quiet, unnatural flame—orange-red and intimate, like a candle held too close to skin. It crawled over the edges of the injury and—impossibly—pulled them together.
The hole shrank.
The flesh re-formed.
The impossible became ordinary again.
Someone whispered, "No way..."
Kotori exhaled through her nose. "There."
Shidou's body jerked on the screen.
A sharp inhale.
A twitch of his hand.
He sat up like a man waking from a nightmare he didn't remember agreeing to.
Kannazuki stared. "He... he—"
"He died," Kotori said, unblinking. "And then he didn't." She put the lollipop back in her mouth. "Congratulations. Our negotiator apparently comes with retries."
The bridge fell into a stunned, sick silence, as if everyone was waiting for reality to correct itself.
Reine's tone didn't change. "The restoration appears complete."
"Complete?!" Kannazuki rasped. "How—why—what IS he?!"
Kotori's eyes narrowed, but she didn't answer that—not yet. She watched the monitor as Shidou, newly alive, looked around like he was trying to understand where the rules had gone.
Then she spoke again—soft, dangerous, decisive.
"Transfer system. Now."
A crew member's hands flew over controls. "Transfer lock is unstable—he's in the combat zone—"
"Now," Kotori repeated.
The Fraxinus hummed, a low vibration that went through the floor and into bone. On the monitor, Shidou's body lifted—weightless for a heartbeat—then vanished from the battlefield like someone had erased him from the page.
Kotori didn't allow herself to relax.
Because Tohka was still out there.
Still swinging.
Still bleeding the world.
And now she had to be stopped before she turned grief into a mountain of corpses.
⸻
I don't remember feeling afraid.
That's the first thing I realize, and it's wrong enough to make me blink.
One second I'm staring at the sky, thinking—very calmly—that the clouds look like torn cotton.
The next, I'm lying on a floor so clean it feels unreal.
White panels. Steel ribs. Fluorescent light. A ceiling that belongs to a machine.
I sit up slowly.
My hands go to my chest on instinct.
No hole.
No blood.
No pain.
Just... warmth. A faint, fading heat under the skin, like the last trace of a flame that already finished its job.
I'm alive..?
I stare at my fingers for a long moment..
A hatch opens. Franxius movement gear
Two crew members appear, both bigger than me, both moving with the urgency of people who don't get to hesitate..
"Negotiator Itsuka," he says. "This way to the ship quickly."
"....Alright..." I hear myself. My voice sounds normal. Almost amused. Like this is inconvenient, not horrifying.
I should be screaming. I should be shaking. I should be on the floor vomiting up terror.
Instead I blink once, then stand.
As I walk, I catch a glimpse of myself in a reflective panel.
My uniform is torn and scorched, but not in a way that matches what I know happened. It's like the world tried to record my death and then got interrupted. The fabric around my chest is burned away, yet the skin beneath is clean.
Like the fire chose what to erase.
I look down at my torso again, curious.
Fire that heals.
That's... stupid. That's not a thing.
But it happened.
And I feel something else too—something thin and sharp behind my ribs. Not fear. Not even anger.
A quiet, focused urgency.
Tohka...
The crew members haul me through corridors, faster and faster, until we burst into the bridge.
The sound hits me like a wave.
The shouting. The alarms. The vibrating hum of the Fraxinus moving through the air. Screens everywhere—some showing maps and numbers, one showing the battlefield.
And on that big monitor—
Tohka.
My stomach drops, but my face doesn't change much. I hate that about myself in this moment. I hate how calm I look while she... while she—
She swings her sword and the earth splits.
AST units fly like thrown dolls.
There's a moment where a soldier's silhouette is framed against dust and light, and then they're gone behind a wall of destruction.
I take a step forward without thinking. I'm led onto the bridge of the Franxius where it sounds like all hell broken loose
Kotori turns to me like she's been waiting for this exact second.
"Oh," she says, lollipop in her mouth. "You're awake."
I stare at her. My little sister. The commander. The devil in ribbons.
"What—" I start, then stop, because my question is too big to fit in my mouth.
Kotori points at the monitor. "AST shot you. Tohka saw it. She snapped. Now she's hunting them."
I swallow.
"So she's... doing this... because of me."
Kotori's eyes narrow. "Yes."
That should make my chest tighten in guilt so hard I can't breathe.
Instead I just... nod slowly.
"Okay," I hear myself say.
Kotori's gaze sharpens at that. "Okay?"
"I mean..." I blink once. "Okay. Then I have to stop her."
Kannazuki makes a strangled noise. "Stop her?! With what?!"
I glance at him, and he looks like a man watching the world end while a teenager talks about fixing it with duct tape.
"I don't know yet," I admit. "But I... I can't let her keep going."
My hand goes to my chest again. Not because it hurts, but because I can't stop checking.
Why am I alive?
I look at Kotori. "Explain."
Kotori's eyes flick away. "Later."
"No—"
"Later," she repeats, and there's steel under the word. "Because if you want the explanation, you'll have to live long enough to hear it."
I stare at her. Then I look back at the monitor.
Tohka's face is too far to see clearly, but I can feel her expression. I can feel the grief like pressure in the air even through a screen.
"She thinks I'm dead," I whisper.
Kotori's voice is quieter now, and for the first time it doesn't sound smug. It sounds... forced. "Yes."
"And she's—" My throat tightens. "She's... gone."
Kotori doesn't deny it. "She can't tolerate it," she says. "So she's trying to erase everything that led to it."
Reine's voice drifts from her station, calm as snowfall. "Her emotional state is at maximum instability. Casualties will increase rapidly."
I look at the screens again. My calm feels like a lie now—like something sitting on top of panic, holding it down.
I step toward Kotori's console. "Tell me what to do."
Kotori's lips curve slightly around the lollipop. "That's more like it."
She straightens. Commander mode. "Fraxinus, move to the battlefront," she orders. "Bring uncertainty within one meter."
I blink. "Uncertainty...?"
Kotori's eyes cut to me. "You're the uncertainty, idiot."
I stare at her, and something in my chest sparks—half annoyance, half gratitude. Of course she'd phrase it like that.
"You mean... I need to get close."
"Yes." Kotori's gaze flicks to the monitor again. "Nobody can stop her by force. Not the AST. Not us. Not with weapons. If we fight her, we lose. If we keep watching, people die."
She leans in slightly, voice dropping.
"There's one way."
My stomach twists. "What way?"
Kotori's expression turns almost... delighted.
I hate that expression.
She speaks slowly, like she's savoring every second of my dread. "You make contact."
"What kind of contact?"
Kotori's smile widens.
I already know. My body knows before my brain catches up. Heat floods my face.
"No," I say immediately. "Seriously...?"
"Yes," Kotori says.
"This is a battlefield!"
"Yes."
"She's having a breakdown!"
"Yes."
"That's not—" My voice cracks, and I hate it. "That's not something you just order!"
Kotori's gaze hardens. "Do you want her to kill Origami?"
I freeze.
My eyes flick to the monitor, down to the ground where an AST girl lies broken among rubble.
Origami.
Even from here I can tell she's barely conscious.
Tohka hovers above her like an executioner deciding whether to swing.
My mouth opens. No sound comes out.
Kotori's voice is sharp. "Do you want her to kill everyone around her? Do you want her to become the monster they've been calling her?"
I swallow.
Kotori leans back. "Then you do what works."
My hands clench and unclench.
The calm inside me cracks, but it doesn't break. It reshapes. It becomes a decision.
"...Fine," I say.
Kotori's smile returns immediately. "Good."
Then she turns her head slightly, voice snapping like a whip.
"Grab him."
"What—"
Two large hands seize my arms from behind.
I twist instinctively. "HEY! WAIT!"
They don't listen. They lift me like I weigh nothing.
"Kotori!" I shout. "I SAID FINE! I'M GOING! LET GO!"
Kotori pops her lollipop out and points toward a hatch on the side of the bridge. "You'll go faster this way."
My eyes widen. "That's—!"
The hatch opens.
Wind roars in like a living thing.
Below is sky.
Just sky.
My brain tries to process falling from an airship and fails.
"I swear to god," I hiss, darkly. "If I survive this, I'm—"
And then they throw me.
The world turns into screaming wind and open air.
My stomach jumps into my throat. My arms flail. The Fraxinus vanishes above me as if it never existed. The city below is a jagged, ruined map.
For a split second, my calm returns.
Not because I'm brave.
Because something deep in me is... curious. It's telling me I should feel apathy to my struggles.
That thought is so wrong it makes me angry.
Then I remember her.
"Tohka!" I scream, voice tearing out of me. "TOHKA!"
The wind steals half the sound, but I keep yelling anyway.
"Tohka! Look up! PLEASE!"
Below, the battlefield shifts—dust and debris swirling. A massive sword rises.
Then—
It stops.
Tohka turns her head.
She looks up.
And even from this distance, I can see it.
Her face isn't the clean rage of a Spirit queen anymore.
It's... wrecked.
Her cheeks are red. Her nose is red. Her eyes shine with tears that haven't had time to fall. She looks like a child who screamed until her throat broke and then kept screaming anyway.
Her lips part.
"Shi—dou...?"
The way she says it—like she's afraid her own voice will make me disappear again—shatters something in my chest.
I can't breathe.
My fall slows suddenly, as if invisible hands catch me.
Ratatoskr's tech—suspension, field, something—doesn't matter. I just know I'm not plummeting anymore.
I reach her.
My hands land on her shoulders.
She's trembling. Not with cold. With grief.
She stares at me like I'm a dream. Like she's waiting for me to turn into dust.
"I'm here," I say, and my voice comes out softer than I expect. "I'm... I'm here, okay?"
"Shidou...?" She says looking at me like I was a miracle
I hold her hand "It's okay Tohka! Look at me... I'm here I'm okay..."
"Here... okay...." She said softly her eyes watering
Tohka's eyes squeeze shut for a second. A sound escapes her—half sob, half laugh, broken and desperate.
"Shid-" she starts
Then she jerks back like she remembers she's supposed to be angry.
Her sword—Halvanhelev—shudders.
Black light cracks through it.
The blade begins to leak something like lightning, punching down into the earth in stuttering bursts, not controlled strikes but panic in weapon form.
Tohka's eyes widen. "I— I can't—!"
The black lightning intensifies, snapping like teeth.
"It's... critical," she gasps. "It won't stop... it has to go somewhere—!"
She looks down.
I follow her gaze.
Origami lies below, crushed and bleeding, barely moving.
My stomach flips.
"No," I say immediately. "No, Tohka—don't—!"
Tohka's breathing is ragged. "I can't control it!"
The sword fires again, black bolts chewing into the ground around Origami like it's trying to erase the whole area.
"If it doesn't release," Tohka gasps, eyes wild, "it will— it will—!"
"It can release somewhere else!" I shout.
"WHERE?!" she screams back, and the sound is raw. "WHERE?!"
My mind flashes—Kotori's grin, her voice, the humiliation of the method.
One way.
One way.
I swallow hard.
My face burns.
Tohka looks at me like she's drowning and I'm the only thing she can grab.
I force the words out.
"Tohka," I say, voice shaking. "K-kiss me."
She freezes.
A blink.
"A... kiss?"
I nodded and blushed "Yeah a kiss" I confirmed
"What's a kiss..?" She said curious
My eyes widened
I try to breathe. "Well it's... when...Lips," I stammer, gesturing at my mouth like an idiot. "You... you bring two lips together—"
Tohka doesn't wait.
She moves forward instantly.
Her lips press against mine.
Everything in my head goes white.
Soft. Warm. A faint sweetness—like the dessert she ate earlier, like fruit and sugar and something purely her. My brain short-circuits slightly.
The sword behind her cracks.
A sharp sound like glass under pressure.
Black light fractures through the blade, spiderwebbing outward.
Then Halvanhelev crumbles, dissolving into particles of light that scatter like broken stars.
Tohka's raiment begins to unravel too—threads of luminous fabric peeling away as if the world is gently undoing her.
She makes a tiny sound against my lips.
Like she's trying to speak mid-kiss.
It's such a ridiculous detail that my brain latches onto it even as everything collapses.
Then her body goes limp.
My arms snap around her automatically.
"Tohka—!"
She's heavy in my hands, suddenly human in the worst way—unconscious, vulnerable, falling.
We drop.
Light trails behind us like a comet tail—her dissolving dress turning into glittering particles that drift upward while we sink.
For a second I think, absurdly, it's pretty.
We hit the ground hard.
I twist instinctively, taking the impact under her so she doesn't slam into the rubble.
Air explodes out of my lungs.
"Pwua—" I choke, the sound involuntary.
For a heartbeat, we're tangled together on the ground—my arms around her, her limp body against my chest, her hair spilling across my shoulder.
Then she stirs.
Her eyes flutter.
She pulls back slightly, confused.
And my brain finally catches up to everything at once—kiss, battle, her dissolving outfit—
"S-sorry!" I blurt, scrambling backward so fast I nearly trip over myself. "Tohka! I'm sorry! I was told— I mean— it was the only way—!"
I slam my forehead to the ground in a ridiculous, full-body apology, almost like my body is trying to apologize hard enough to reverse time.
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"
Silence.
I peek up.
Tohka isn't angry.
She's... staring at her own fingers, touching her lips with a strange expression, like she's trying to understand what just happened.
My heart pounds.
Then she glances down.
Her raiment has continued dissolving.
She realizes—suddenly, sharply—how exposed she is.
Her face goes bright red.
She yelps and crosses her arms over her chest, shoulders hunched.
"D-Don't look, idiot!!"
My face ignites. "I-m not!"
I squeeze my eyes shut so hard it hurts
Tohka huffs, flustered, voice shaky. "You're... you're squinting!"
"I don't know what you want me to do!" I squeak.
There's a pause.
Then warmth presses against me.
Tohka moves closer—close enough that I can feel her breath, close enough that my brain goes blank again for a completely different reason.
I crack my eyes open just a sliver.
All I can see is purple hair, bare shoulders, the curve of her neck—too close, too real.
Tohka's voice is small, stubborn. "Like this... you won't be able to see."
I freeze.
My hands lift slightly, unsure where to put them... then I slowly wrap them around her in an embrace
Tohka shifts again, trying to block my vision with her body like that solves everything.
It's ridiculous.
It's innocent.
It hurts in my chest..
"Tohka..." I whisper.
She doesn't answer immediately.
Her breathing is shallow.
Then she says my name.
"...Shidou."
Her voice sounds weaker than before, like someone turning down a radio.
My calm—my weird, unnatural calm—finally breaks into something gentle, something earnest.
"I'm here," I say quickly. "I'm right here."
Tohka's eyes search my face like she's trying to memorize it before it disappears.
"Will you..." she whispers. "Will you... take me on a date again...?"
My throat tightens.
"Yes," I say instantly. "Yes! Of course. Anytime you want. Tomorrow, the day after, every day—whatever you want, okay? We'll— we'll go wherever you want."
Tohka's lips part, and for a second she looks like she's going to cry again.
Then she asks, softer.
"Then..."
Her fingers twitch against my sleeve.
"...will you tell me... the joke... too?"
Ah..
The one I never got to say.
The one that was supposed to come before the shot.
I swallow.
And I smile—small, strange, steady.
Not eerie this time.
Just... promise-shaped.
"Okay," I whisper.
I lean closer, like I'm telling her a secret the universe isn't allowed to steal.
"Why are skeletons so calm..?" I ask softly.
"Why..?" She tilts her head
"Hehe... Because... nothing gets under their skin."
Tohka blinks once.
Then twice.
Her eyebrows pull together in confusion, like she's wrestling with the idea.
Then realization
And then—
A tiny sound escapes her.
A laugh, faint and fragile, like it might shatter if the wind touches it.
The laughter that came after sounded like candy.
And somewhere the Crew of the Franxius Groaned.
__
Sorry for the slow start I'll start picking it up with the undertale part now. Just had to cut through some of the story and establish some things.