Several attacks formed from Holy Power slammed into the ground. In an instant, the entire street was blasted into ruins. Fortunately, before the fighting started, the Church warriors had already used evacuation talismans to clear out the civilians.
Lying in the rubble, feeling the slime-like softness pressing against his face, Cid looked up at Tsubaki Shinra sprawled on top of him from a certain angle, and felt absolutely nothing.
Just the vice-captain. The boss could suppress her with one hand.
"Cid!"
Coming back to her senses, Tsubaki Shinra looked at Cid pinned beneath her, and her cool, composed face flushed red at an astonishing speed.
Watching how quickly her expression changed, Cid found himself wondering something.
Was this woman in front of him a side character or a protagonist? Forget it, too much trouble to think about. He'd just treat this as payment for the year she'd spent making him work for free.
Grabbing Tsubaki Shinra's hand, he rolled to the right under her stunned gaze, narrowly dodging an attack falling from above, one that would have melted her completely in an instant.
"Huff, huff."
After the two of them rolled together several times, they finally came to a stop. Cid looked at Tsubaki Shinra, who hurriedly climbed off him and then looked at him shyly, and felt speechless.
Nee-san, how do you roll around several times over uneven rubble in the middle of a fight, get back up, and the first thing on your mind is that? Don't you feel uncomfortable at all?
That was what he was thinking, but the moment they stopped, a silent ball of light appeared right behind Tsubaki Shinra, so Cid immediately changed his tune.
"Watch out behind you!"
She was still embarrassed, but the sounds of battle all around reminded Tsubaki Shinra of the situation she was in. So the instant Cid warned her, she raised her guard.
"Sacred Gear, Mirror Alice!"
A huge, ornately decorated mirror appeared. The light projectile was completely absorbed into its surface, then the mirror shattered. At the same instant it broke apart, a powerful shockwave burst out and shot back toward the direction the light projectile had come from.
Tap, tap, tap...
Explosions rang out, followed by a rapid series of footsteps from the direction of the blast. The one who appeared before Cid and the others was a middle-aged man with long black hair tied back behind him in a single bundle, and whose face somewhat resembled Tsubaki Shinra's.
The moment she saw him, Tsubaki Shinra immediately calmed down. The middle-aged man said nothing either. Compared to the other side, where the sounds of battle still rang out nonstop, the silence here felt strangely eerie.
"Do you two have a grudge?"
Looking back and forth between their faces, and taking into account that this middle-aged man's methods were clearly different from those on the other battlefields, Cid could not help asking.
What his body sensed was one thing. What he actively investigated was another.
According to the feedback from his Magical Power radar, the fighting on the other battlefields was fierce, but no one had truly gone for the kill. Only this middle-aged man in front of him was striking at Tsubaki Shinra with attacks meant to cripple. Combined with the resemblance between their faces, it was hard not to make the connection.
"A little, I suppose. But it shouldn't be at the level where you'd try to seriously injure me the moment we meet, Uncle Kiyotora?"
Tsubaki Shinra gave a slight nod and kept her eyes fixed straight on the middle-aged man. Under her gaze, Shinra Kiyotora let out a sigh.
"Under normal circumstances, after the Three Realms ceasefire agreement was signed, if I ran into you, I wouldn't have minded sitting down and chatting with you for a while.
But unfortunately, the situation is special right now. To keep the Shinra Clan from being dragged into this, I can only betray my friendship with your father."
"Uncle Kiyotora, do you think I stole Excalibur?"
"No. I trust your character. Even if you've changed, I still don't believe you're the kind of person who would do something so utterly devoid of conscience..."
Shinra Kiyotora shook his head.
"But I don't trust your master. More importantly, you shouldn't be here. Or rather, I shouldn't have applied to join this mission and appeared here. I should have avoided this situation entirely.
Once it's discovered afterward that your master was involved in this matter, you'll definitely be branded for it. And if that happens, I, as a member of the Shinra Clan who had contact with you, will absolutely come under suspicion too. The Shinra Clan would be put in a very difficult position."
"Uncle Kiyotora, my master couldn't possibly be..."
"I don't trust your master. Come. I'll do my best not to kill you."
A long blade appeared in Shinra Kiyotora's hand, its tip leveled at Tsubaki Shinra.
Letting out a sigh, Tsubaki Shinra knew this fight was not going to ease up just because of the blood tie between them. In fact, precisely to avoid suspicion, Shinra Kiyotora would definitely go all out to defeat her.
"Uncle Kiyotora, can you let him leave first? He's just an ordinary Human. He has nothing to do with this. Isn't it against the Church's rules to drag innocent people into it?"
Pointing at Cid with one hand, Tsubaki Shinra summoned a long blade in the other.
"...I'm sorry, but I can't be sure whether he's involved in this or not. So until the investigation is clear, I can't let him go."
Kiyotora Shinra hesitated, but in the end he still shook his head. He had no way of knowing whether what Tsubaki Shinra said was true.
"Not even for my sake?"
"Even if Kiyotora Shinra of the Shinra Clan let him go for your sake, my identity as a Church warrior wouldn't allow it.
This matter has already grown too serious. Captain Dulio left some things unsaid. So far, only a few thousand people with visible black spots have been found, but what about the hidden cases?
That cursed black spot is too terrifying. There were too many visitors at the churches when the men in black launched their attack, and we never realized the black spots could stay hidden, so we let them go.
Now, after a full day and night of spreading, the black spots have already infected all three cities where those churches are located. At least several hundred thousand ordinary residents living there have been planted with the curse.
Nothing has happened yet only because it still hasn't erupted. But in no more than ten hours, once the sun sets and the suppression of light is gone, those hidden black spots, already in their late stage, will erupt."
Kiyotora Shinra's trembling voice was full of fear, and cold sweat kept pouring from his forehead, as if he could already see some horrifying future.
"Even if every person in the Church who can use Holy Power worked together, it would still be impossible to suppress hundreds of thousands of people at the same time. And worse, the moment that thing makes contact, even Church warriors can be infected.
And once the curse erupts, the residents whose lives are in danger will lose their minds and flee. Are we supposed to attack them to stop the spread, or let them leave and allow the curse to spread further? We have no way out anymore.
If that's what it takes to save them, then even acting against the innocent is a price I'm willing to pay!"
With a loud shout, Kiyotora Shinra swung his long blade, sending several light bullets at Cid. Fortunately, Tsubaki Shinra reacted in time, and a mirror appeared in front of Cid to block the attacks.
But immediately after that, Kiyotora Shinra charged straight at Tsubaki Shinra.
...
So I'm... being ignored?
Watching the two of them start fighting on their own, that thought flashed through Cid's mind.
Well, not really.
As Irina Shidou stepped out from the side, her gaze locked firmly onto him, Cid smiled and met her eyes.
"Cid-kun, to be honest, I really want to know why you're with that group of Devils, but... forget it."
After a long moment of eye contact, Irina Shidou raised the katana in her hand toward Cid, her expression troubled.
"Can you tell me whether you were involved in this? I'll decide whether to attack based on your answer."
"If I said no, would you believe me?"
Irina Shidou did not answer. She simply remained silent and made the katana in her hand emit Holy Light. Only after seeing that the Holy Light showed no reaction did she finally let out a resolute sigh.
"For the sake of the fact that you don't have Devil blood, and because you once took in Xenovia and me, I won't fight you. Hurry up and leave."
Seeing Irina Shidou put away her weapon and turn as if she were about to walk off after saying that, Cid called out to her.
"Um..."
"What?"
Irina Shidou stopped and turned around, sounding impatient as she looked at Cid, but the guilty expression on her face gave away what she was really thinking.
"How about you just knock me out?"
"Huh? Are you serious?"
"Yeah. I'm serious."
Cid nodded. He felt like he could take the blame for cursing hundreds of thousands of people, and deal with that other persona while he was at it.
"No, why? Aren't you afraid we might resort to extreme measures later?"
Unable to understand him, Irina Shidou stared at Cid in confusion.
"I am a little afraid."
"If you're afraid, then why not just leave?"
"Aren't you uneasy about letting me go too? If I just used your kindness and left, then what would you do?
Knock me out, and go fight with a spotless heart."
"You, you, you..."
It was as if Cid's answer had startled her. Irina Shidou stared into his eyes, where countless emotions seemed to flicker, and started stammering. In the end, she pressed her lips together and nodded hard.
"I'm sorry. But I promise you, if the captain and the others really do plan to use extreme measures afterward, I'll risk my life to stop them."
As she spoke, the katana in her hand transformed into a baseball bat, and she strode toward Cid in big steps.
"Don't worry. I've done nothing wrong."
The sound of impact rang out, and Cid fell to the ground.
Okay, the main body's going AFK. Time to take control of the field... wait, why is she here?
...
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"
They kept dodging, avoiding the Holy Power that was as good as deadly poison to Devils. Anything they could not evade, they detonated in midair ahead of time with the Power of Destruction in their hands.
"Jump left!"
A current of air suddenly appeared beside her, and a faint voice that sounded like Cid's brushed past her ear. She had no idea whether she was imagining it, but Rias still instinctively jumped and moved with the airflow.
Boom!
A massive Holy Power blast struck the spot where Rias had just been standing, erupting in an intense burst of holy light. Just having part of her body brushed by its radiance made her skin sting faintly. If it hit her directly, she would either die or be crippled.
"Rias, are you okay?"
By a "coincidence," Sona Sitri narrowly avoided another attack and hurried anxiously to Rias's side, helping up the injured Rias, only to find her face flushed and her eyes watery.
"So this is love."
Hearing that tiny murmur with perfect clarity, Sona Sitri's anxious expression vanished. She looked down at Rias with a blank face.
A love-addled fool like you may as well drop dead. You're getting attacked and you're still thinking about that scumbag.
That was what she was screaming inside, but when she heard the whistling of incoming light bullets, Sona Sitri still could not bring herself to be ruthless. She grabbed her best friend and ran, pulling her behind a building for cover.
"I'm basically fine, but this situation..."
Seeing Sona Sitri's expressionless face, Rias straightened up a little and stopped acting lovestruck. Then she looked toward the other side, where the Devils were, on average, getting crushed one against five, and her expression turned ugly as well.
Holy Power already naturally countered Devils, and the ones they were fighting now were the Church's absolute top-tier warriors. Even if the Church warriors were aiming to capture rather than kill them, the fact that they had held out this long already felt like a miracle.
"Akeno!"
A black streak flashed through the sky, carving a gash into the ground before coming to a stop in front of Rias and the others. The one lying there was Himejima Akeno.
"I'm fine, Rias. They don't intend to kill us."
Akeno climbed out of the crater and wiped away the blood at the corner of her mouth, blood she had coughed up from the impact to her internal organs. Then she looked at Rias with a questioning gaze.
Rias understood. Akeno was asking what they should do now. Keep fighting, or surrender outright.
There had already been a huge gap in both quality and numbers between the two sides. Then that opening lightning strike had taken out more than half of their people, and now they had also lost the high ground. Given the current situation, defeat was all but certain.
Since they were overwhelmingly likely to lose anyway, the question was whether they should surrender on their own, or keep fighting until they were beaten into helplessness and forced to surrender.
If they surrendered of their own accord, the Devils would look weak once news got out, but the fighting would stop, most of their remaining strength would be preserved, and with the Church warriors fighting only to injure them, their personal safety would at least be somewhat guaranteed. But if they refused...
The Church warriors still had a shred of reason left and could hold back for now. But once the first death appeared, whether someone would lose control and start killing would become a real problem...
If they had even a thirty percent chance of victory, surrender would never even enter their minds. But with the power gap this vast, were they really going to gamble the lives of their peerage on that tiny possibility of winning?
"Hah... Rias, let's keep fighting until we draw in the Itogami Island security forces, or until those two decide the outcome. Who knows. Maybe he, the strongest of our new generation of Devils, has some hidden trump card we don't know about."
Letting out a breath, Sona Sitri gave a bitter smile as she looked at the two figures still battling in the sky.
"...Thanks, Sona."
Rias answered with a grim face, then also looked up into the sky.
In this world, swarm tactics were not useless, but most of the time, no one could actually gather that kind of overwhelming "swarm," so battles usually became contests of general against general, king against king, with the top fighters of each side deciding the direction of victory or defeat.
And on the Church warriors' side, the strongest fighter, Dulio Gesualdo, was without question the top-class powerhouse who could decide the course of this battle. On their side, the only one who might be able to face Dulio was Sairaorg, the one known as the strongest Devil of the new generation.
In other words, whether this battle would continue or not would depend on the result between those two in the sky. If Sairaorg won, then they would still have the right to keep fighting. If Dulio won, then surrendering would be the easier choice.
While Rias and the others were each lost in their own thoughts, it seemed the two in the sky had finally reached a conclusion.
Lightning, ice, and blazing fire raged through the heavens. Layer after layer of white shockwaves exploded in the air, and then a large figure came crashing heavily down to the ground.