Inside the factory, gloom and dust permeated the air. Itsuka Shido peered through the jagged crack in the window.
He watched helplessly as the blue figure in the distant sky was struck as if by an invisible giant hammer, spraying a blinding arc of blood.
Then, like a bird whose wings had been easily broken, losing all vitality and buoyancy, she plummeted straight down from the heart-stopping height.
"Thud!"
The dull sound of flesh impacting the hard ground seemed to strike directly at Shido's heart, even from this distance.
His mind instantly went blank, all capacity for thought stripped away by the brutal sight, leaving only a tearing, hollowing agony that spread wildly through his chest.
Even the blue barrier that had been preventing him from leaving had vanished.
"Chinatsu-san—!!!"
He let out a heart-wrenching roar, his body moving before his mind, ready to rush out regardless of the consequences.
"Shido! No! Stop right there!"
Kotori's frantic voice sharply pierced his eardrums through the headset.
"That's Ellen Mathers out there! The 'world's strongest magician'! If you go out now, you're just committing suicide! You can't do anything right now! Calm down!"
Shido's forward momentum stumbled abruptly, forcing him to halt in place.
His fists clenched tightly at his sides; his knuckles were severely white from the strain, and his neatly trimmed nails dug deep into the soft flesh of his palms, causing a sharp pain that was still less than a fraction of the agony in his heart.
Of course, he knew Kotori was stating cold, hard facts. He, Itsuka Shido, a perfectly ordinary high school student without a Realizer or Spirit power, facing the woman hovering in the sky like a golden Grim Reaper.
What could he do? Rush forward to argue? Or use his mortal body to stop the light sword that cut down everything?
It would be no different from a mantis trying to stop a chariot or a moth flying into a flame.
But... "I know... I know it's useless to go out there! I know I might... might die too!"
Shido's voice trembled violently from extreme pain, anger, and helplessness, carrying an uncontrollable sorrow, yet laced with an unshakeable stubbornness that burst forth from the depths of his soul.
"But... but I can't... I can't just stand here and watch! Watch someone... watch Chinatsu-san needing help... while I hide in a corner like a coward... trembling... I can't do it!!! I just can't!!!"
Before he finished speaking, the accumulated emotions were like a burst dam, completely sweeping away the barrier of his reason.
He suddenly lowered his head and, like a cornered young beast, used all his strength to violently ram aside the pile of rusted metal debris in front of him, creating a series of jarring clangs.
He recklessly charged out of the factory door—the boundary separating "safety" and "death"! He fiercely and resolutely cast off Kotori's desperate, tearful cry in his headset, "idiot brother! Come back!" into the dusty, shadowed space behind him.
He burst through the air outside the factory, which was thick with the pungent smell of gunpowder smoke and char, and after a brief blur of vision.
He instantly locked onto the blue figure lying motionless in an extremely unnatural posture on the shattered ground dozens of meters away.
"Chinatsu-san!"
Shido ran frantically, his heart pounding wildly in his chest, threatening to leap out.
The distance shrank beneath his feet, and the blue color and the expanding, dark red stain of blood surrounding her became clearer and more glaring.
Finally reaching her, his knees gave way, unable to support his weight any longer, and he practically slammed to his knees beside Chinatsu, kicking up a little blood-soaked dust.
The sight before him instantly suffocated him; his blood seemed to freeze in his veins.
Just nearby, the discarded megaphone that Chinatsu had "activated," half-buried in the rubble, was still stubbornly operating at the most inappropriate time, playing that passionate and tragic song.
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