That evening, Shirou and Fujino arrived in the commercial district where the rumors had started.
Rows of buildings, all neatly built to the same height, stood side by side. Their walls were covered entirely in glass windows, now reflecting nothing but moonlight.
Deep within the commercial district stood a building over twenty stories tall, shaped somewhat like a ladder. It was the Fujou Building they were looking for.
Shirou craned his neck.
Sure enough, he saw the girl from the rumors floating in the night sky.
Lonely and sorrowful, illuminated by the enormous full moon, the girl drifted aimlessly through the air.
In that instant, some kind of impulse rose inside Shirou.
Amid dizziness and trance, Shirou felt the urge to leave this place together with that girl and fly off somewhere far away.
"...Shirou-kun... Shirou-kun!"
Fujino Asagami's voice pulled the boy back to reality.
"Ah, sorry. I spaced out for a moment."
"Let's go, Shirou-kun."
Fujino took Shirou's hand and headed toward the Fujou Building.
Even with a living ghost right in front of her, there was not the slightest fear on her face.
She really has grown a lot, Shirou thought.
"Wait, Fujino."
"What is it?"
"Let's stop here for tonight. There's something strange about this building. I'll talk it over with Touko tomorrow during the day, then we can decide what to do."
"Even though we've already come this far?"
Fujino frowned when she heard Shirou say that.
Just as Touko Aozaki had said, Fujino Asagami had become far more perceptive after regaining her senses, and she immediately realized Shirou was lying.
Seeing that she was reluctant, Shirou said, "Can I go to your apartment tonight?"
"...Huh?" The girl looked surprised.
Shirou said, "I heard you're renting a place outside now, Fujino. I haven't been there even once."
"If it's not a bother, could I come over tonight? Is that no good?"
"Of course it's good."
Fujino Asagami smiled happily. "You're always welcome, Shirou-kun."
It was two in the morning.
Fujino Asagami opened her eyes on the bed in her apartment.
She moved her eyes, and what entered her vision was a slightly messy room.
The dining table had not yet been cleaned up, with playing cards and empty pizza boxes scattered across it.
On the sofa nearby, the red-haired boy was sleeping soundly under a blanket.
"..."
Fujino silently got out of bed, crossed the room in the dead of night, and left the apartment.
There were no pedestrians on the late-night streets, only the occasional car passing by.
After walking for about an hour, Fujino arrived once again at the building from the rumors.
This time, with no one to stop her, she entered the Fujou Building without hesitation.
There was no one inside the Fujou Building.
It was two in the morning, and only the pale glow of electric lights shone along the apartment corridor.
Fujino passed through the card-access entrance and stepped into the elevator.
The elevator was empty. Mirrors covered the walls, allowing passengers to see their own reflection.
In the mirror stood a girl dressed in something resembling a church nun's uniform, with a deep light reflected in the depths of her eyes.
Fujino glanced at herself in the mirror and pressed the elevator button for the rooftop.
With a sudden feeling of weightlessness, the elevator slowly began to move, carrying the girl to the top floor.
Her footsteps echoed as she crossed the final corridor and opened the door leading to the rooftop.
In an instant, bright moonlight filled her vision.
Fujino Asagami turned her head, ignoring the beautiful nightscape of the city before her as she searched for her enemy.
"...Found you."
A figure was floating in the air.
She wore spotless, snow-white clothing, and her long hair reached all the way to her waist.
The limbs exposed beyond her white garments were slender, making her appear all the more graceful.
Her fine brows and cold eyes made her look like a creature living inside a painting, no longer bound by lifespan.
She appeared to be in her early twenties, though whether a human age could be used to measure someone so ghostlike was another question entirely.
The woman in white was not hazy and indistinct like a ghost. She truly existed there.
If anything were to be called ghosts, it would probably be the eight girls circling around her in the night sky.
They drifted lightly through the air, as if both flying and swimming.
Their forms were vague and indistinct, occasionally turning transparent.
The woman in white hovered above Fujino's head, while the eight girls moved through the night sky like guards.
Looking at this ghostly scene straight out of a horror movie, Fujino Asagami's lips curved into an alluring smile.
"I actually didn't want to kill you."
The woman's beauty had already surpassed the human realm.
Her black hair, as smooth as combed silk, flowed effortlessly. Whenever the wind grew stronger, the sight of her hair dancing in the air gave off a profound, ethereal beauty.
"Who gave you permission to seduce Shirou-kun tonight?"
The woman in white heard the girl in black murmur and turned her gaze downward.
Their eyes met.
The two did not speak. They did not even share a common language.
Fujino Asagami's crimson pupils took on an iridescent sheen.
At the same time, a bloodlike heat rose from deep within her eyes.
The white garments swayed gently. The woman's slender finger pointed toward Fujino, projecting a clear intent to kill from its tip.
"...Ugh."
Fujino's breathing grew ragged, and the rise and fall of her full chest lost its rhythm.
But that was all.
The woman in white had cast the suggestion, "You can fly," but Fujino overcame it.
By implanting the image of "you are flying" into another person's consciousness, the effect could surpass mere suggestion and reach the level of brainwashing. It was irresistible.
Under an inescapable suggestion, a person would truly attempt to fly. Yet unable to accept that fact, they would fear the sensation of actually flying and flee from the rooftop.
Fujino, however, overcame it with a killing intent stronger than the suggestion. All it did was quicken her breathing and raise her blood pressure.
"..."
The woman in white assumed the suggestion she had just cast had not gone deep enough, so she imposed an even stronger one.
"You will fly."
But it was too late.
Whether any Magus had ever studied the speed of suggestion magecraft was unclear, but one thing was obvious to anyone.
The activation speed of "Mystic Eyes" was the speed of light.
The instant Fujino Asagami's gaze fully locked onto her enemy, the destruction had already begun.
Her eyes shone brilliantly beneath her deep purple bangs.
Her left eye rotated counterclockwise, her right eye clockwise. She fixed the axis on the woman in white's head and left foot, then twisted them apart in one breath.
Nothing happened.
The woman in white still drifted through the night sky, framed by the full moon.
"...Ugh!"
Fujino Asagami staggered and dropped to her knees.
Her fingernails dug hard into the concrete floor.
If she did not do that, she might sprint off and leap from the building in the very next second.
"Haa... Haa... Haa..."
Fujino gasped for breath. Her Mystic Eyes had not activated.
My eyes... the "Mystic Eyes of Distortion."
Shirou-kun clearly said these were the strongest Mystic Eyes, yet they had no effect on the woman before her.
Was it because the enemy was an inhuman existence, something close to a ghost?
That was her natural enemy.
The "Mystic Eyes of Distortion" were eyes that turned the field of vision into a flat plane, a sheet of paper, then destroyed it while completely ignoring the laws of physics.
And yet, as luck would have it, this enemy was a ghost.
It was not that the "Mystic Eyes of Distortion" could not destroy ghosts. Fujino Asagami's Mana-infused gaze could certainly kill a spirit.
The problem was that Fujino Asagami could not comprehend the existence before her.
Humans could not do what they could not imagine.
Fujino's brain could understand "bending a metal spoon," but it could not understand "twisting apart a ghostlike woman," so naturally, there was no way for her to destroy her.
It was frustrating, but that was the difference between her and Shiki.
Because she was a dull girl, without that kind of rich imagination.
"..."
Fujino knelt on the ground, lowering her center of gravity as much as possible while raising her head to stare at the enemy above.
In that instant, a powerful impulse, a suggestion, surged up in the girl's mind once more.
"...I can fly. I can fly."
"I've always loved the sky. I flew yesterday, so today I should fly even higher."
"Flying is free and peaceful, like laughter. I have to hurry over. Where am I running to? The sky? Freedom?"
"Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. Go!"
"Shut up."
Fujino's neat teeth sank into her soft lip.
Amid the endless voices of temptation, she used a murmur, a form of self-suggestion, to drive away her enemy's suggestion.
"I'm strong... stronger than you... stronger than Shiki... I'm the only one worthy of Shirou-kun..."
The hesitation and confusion vanished from her vermilion eyes. The girl had successfully "convinced" herself.
"I'll kill you...!"
A bewitching light flared once more in Fujino Asagami's eyes.
This time, the powerful Mana even shook the air on the rooftop.
"!!"
The woman in white's expression changed drastically.
She gathered even greater power, attempting to assault Fujino with her will.
If their words had reached one another, she was probably screaming this.
"Fall!"
"Distort!!!"
Fujino Asagami screamed until her voice went hoarse.
She endured the double pressure from within and without, her brain feeling as if it were about to boil.
Her gaze fixed behind the woman in white, setting the coordinates for the axis of rotation.
Then, Fujino Asagami activated her Mystic Eyes.
The sky distorted.
"..."
It was a bizarre sight, as if a canvas had been stirred.
The sky spun like a bathtub with the plug pulled out. The woman in white could no longer remain apart from it or maintain her flight. Like a small bird caught in a storm, she was helplessly swept into the center of death.
The woman in white's body did not spray blood like a human body would. It was simply twisted, compressed, and folded together with the sky.
Until her beautiful figure had completely dissolved into the darkness, not a single sound rang out.
"That was a truly unexpected way to break through it... Should I say Fujino stumbled onto the right answer, or does she actually have quite a talent for combat?"
Touko Aozaki's slightly excited voice came from the other end of the receiver, making Shirou frown.
"Fujino isn't your observation subject."
At that moment, he was holding the apartment's landline phone and speaking with Touko Aozaki on the balcony, reporting the results of that night's battle at the Fujou Building.
"Don't be angry. I only wanted to confirm something," Touko said from the other end of the line.
"How did the investigation I asked you for go?" Shirou asked.
"Mm, I found her. Her name is Kirie Fujou. She's a descendant of an old pure-blooded lineage, apparently an expert in prayer. As for her nature, she seems to be someone who lives off curses."
"The surname Fujou might actually come from "Fujō", meaning impurity."
"A conflict between the Fujou and Asakami, two old Priestess lineages, you could say... I never expected to see a Priestess war this close to the twenty-first century."
The mastermind behind the serial jumping incidents was the descendant of a Priestess...
Shirou murmured, "So the 'thing' Fujino distorted really was..."
Touko said, "Exactly. That wasn't the real sky. It was most likely a landscape projected by Kirie Fujou. "
"That's why only the spacetime there was wrong. The difference in atmosphere Shiki sensed was the barrier dividing the inside and outside of the box, a discontinuous surface only human consciousness can observe."
"Fujino couldn't understand it, but she still sensed the abnormality... She used her Mystic Eyes to tear apart Fujoh's landscape."
"..."
Shirou let out a long sigh.
"I can't leave right now. Fujino will be back soon... I'll leave the cleanup to you. Make sure you investigate whether there's anyone else behind Kirie Fujou. I have a bad feeling about this."
"Oh my, how unexpected... I thought that with your personality, Shirou, you would definitely try to find a way to help Kirie Fujou."
Shirou rolled his eyes.
It was precisely because he had thought, "I want to help that girl," in front of the Fujou Building tonight that things had turned out like this.
"I suppose so... That would be far too cruel to Fujino," Touko said with a chuckle.
Shirou said, "Even if it wasn't Kirie Fujou's intention, it's still an undeniable fact that seven high school girls committed suicide because of her temptation... I can't save that girl."
"How upright of you, Shirou-kun... Wait, seven? Wasn't the number of jumpers eight?"
Touko's puzzled voice came from the other end of the line. Shirou did not explain. He simply hung up.
The number of ghosts Shiki and Touko had seen was indeed eight.
However, the spacetime above the Fujou Building was distorted.
In other words, those eight ghosts did not only include the girls who had committed suicide over the past two months. They also included the future.
Kirie Fujou herself, who would soon end her own life by jumping from the building.
Shirou returned the phone to its place, lifted the blanket, and lay back down.
A few dozen seconds later, there was movement at the entrance.
Fujino Asagami dragged her heavy body into the apartment.
When she left the Fujou Building, her eyes had been almost unable to see anything, but her vision had gradually recovered on the way home.
She hurried to the sofa, then let out a sigh of relief.
Thank goodness. Shirou was still sleeping deeply, with no sign of waking.
If Shirou-kun found out she was a bad girl, she might just go mad.
That aside, no matter how many times she looked at him, he was so painfully dear to her...
As she gazed at the boy's sleeping face, the girl's exhausted body and mind, along with her frayed nerves, were soothed.
Fujino Asagami took Shirou's hand and placed it over her heart.
I want to feel more of you, just like back then...
With a blissful, dreamy expression, the girl moved the boy's fingers along the raised curve.