Their bodies remained pressed together for around ten seconds.
Because Touko had told him this was part of the flight spell, Shirou did not dare move carelessly.
Taking full advantage of being sick, Touko Aozaki pushed even further, going so far as to...
It was almost as if she were greedily devouring him. This went on for another ten seconds or so.
The two Aozaki sisters were completely different in this regard.
When Aoko kissed Shirou, she was very passive and shy, the exact opposite of her usual personality.
But once that switch was flipped, the Magician became incredibly passionate and uninhibited.
Touko, on the other hand, was clearly the forceful, proactive type, launching aggressive attacks without hesitation.
Yet if her partner took even the slightest initiative, all that earlier momentum would vanish, and she would become gentle and adorable, like a lover asking to be spoiled.
"...♡"
At last, the Grand Puppeteer was fully satisfied. With a dazed expression, she let go of his shoulders.
"Hehe. Thank you for the treat. Now that I'm satisfied, I can sleep peacefully later."
"Wasn't that way outside the scope of the spell?"
Shirou blushed as he wiped the moisture from the corner of his mouth, grumbling in dissatisfaction.
Touko gave Shirou a seductive wink, then broke into a wicked smile. "You were obviously satisfied too, weren't you, Shirou?"
Not at all, the young man muttered.
"All right, time to go, Shirou."
Touko Aozaki removed her glasses and switched back to her serious personality.
"If that wasn't enough for you, then after Shirou comes back from defeating the evil Magus, I'll personally keep you company."
"I'm not doing anything like that with you."
As Touko traced Runes onto Shirou's back with her finger, she said, "Our enemy this time is Souren Araya. His target is most likely Shiki Ryougi. As we speak, Shiki may already have encountered him... If that's the case, Shirou, you do bear some responsibility, you know?"
"Huh? Why?" Shirou asked.
Touko's tone was cold. "Why did you hide what happened with Fujino from me? If you had told me sooner, I might have discovered the mastermind behind this whole series of incidents earlier."
Shirou froze for a moment. "Oh, so you know about Fujino."
"With an incident that big, it would be stranger if I hadn't heard anything. You may have covered it up on the surface level of society, but how many years do you think I've been a Magus? I do have my own internal channels."
Touko said calmly, "After all, those five young men had their arms and legs snapped by Fujino while they were still alive... They were lucky to survive."
...
...
Several nights earlier.
"Aaaaaaaaaah! Help me! Aaaaaaaaaah!"
The men's screams rang out one after another through the alley.
Under Fujino's gaze, human arms began turning on their own, their joints twisting out of shape.
Their elbows bent close to ninety degrees, then twisted forward.
With a horrifying crack, broken white bone pierced through skin, and blood sprayed across the ground.
"Aaaaaah! Don't kill me, don't kill me, don't kill me!"
The men dropped to their knees at the same time and wailed. Before an absolute power they could not understand, they had lost all will to resist.
Fujino Asagami stared coldly at the men begging for mercy.
"Why did you lie? You know Shiki, don't you?"
"Y-yes! We know Shiki! Don't kill me, eeeeeeeeeek!"
"See? You really do know her."
Bathed in the moonlight spilling into the alley, Fujino Asagami wore an extraordinarily bewitching expression.
"Lying even though you're adults. How disgraceful... I'll have to give you an even harsher punishment."
"No, no, no! Don't kill us!"
The men pleaded desperately, but Fujino had entered a state of excitement and could no longer hear their voices.
Even the girl herself had not realized it.
She was smiling.
That smile was too beautiful, too dangerous. It was the expression of a killer immersed in the act of murder.
From the age of four or five until seventeen, Fujino had been deprived of pain for more than ten years of her life.
During that time, she had lived like a walking corpse, completely unable to feel any real sense of being alive.
Later, with Shirou's help, Fujino gradually regained her sense of pain.
The girl had thought happily, Now I can finally live like an ordinary girl too.
She could not.
Because of her long history of excessive medication, even after Magecraft treatment restored her sense of pain, Fujino still felt unable to adjust.
No. Perhaps the problem had never been the loss of pain in the first place.
Fujino had once heard Touko say that humans possessed a phenomenon corresponding to the root of their existence.
It was not karma from a past life, but the cause that made a person human, their most primal impulse.
Magi called this chaotic impulse an "Origin."
Then what was the "Origin" that made Fujino Asagami Fujino Asagami?
What sort of impulse could truly make the girl understand that she was a living human being?
Ever since regaining her sense of pain, she had been thinking about that.
And tonight, Fujino unexpectedly found the answer.
When she saw strong men kneeling before her and begging for mercy, when she saw their bodies twist according to her will.
Fujino felt a joy she had never known before.
A sense of superiority, and the reality of being alive.
I'm sorry, Mother... It seems I'm not the kind of good girl you thought I was.
Fujino gasped heavily, her well-developed chest rising and falling violently.
If just breaking a human arm feels this good, how happy would I be if I twisted a human neck...!?
No longer satisfied with merely breaking the men's arms, she set the axis of rotation on one man's head and began twisting him apart from the center of his body.
"Don't kill anyone, Fujino."
"...Eh?"
Fujino Asagami's heart stopped.
In a daze, she heard the voice of the boy she regarded as her salvation.
"Don't use your power to kill people, Fujino."
Shirou had once said that during a lesson on using her Mystic Eyes.
"Mm, I know. I won't use this power to kill anyone."
Fujino nodded obediently. "Killing people is wrong. Shirou-kun, I promise you, no matter what happens, I will never use this power to kill."
"That's not what I mean."
"?"
Fujino frowned in confusion. Then she heard Shirou speak with a serious expression.
"I want Fujino to live like an ordinary girl. I want you to obtain ordinary happiness. So don't kill anyone, and don't step lightly into our side of the world."
"...!!"
Fujino could no longer remember how she had reacted when she first heard Shirou say that.
But the girl felt she would never forget that memory for the rest of her life.
Looking back, that was when Fujino Asagami truly began to like Shirou.
Before that, it had only been the admiration of an innocent girl.
Why... Why did I forget what Shirou said?
"Ugh...!!!"
Fujino Asagami clutched her head in pain.
Only ten minutes later did she finally regain a small measure of reason.
Looking at the blood all over the ground, she remembered breaking the men's arms and assumed she had just killed five people.
In reality, she had not.
When the men saw Fujino clutching her head in agony, they seized the chance to flee the alley.
Souren Araya watched the entire scene, quite surprised that Fujino had managed to suppress the urge to kill within her.
But he did not point out the truth.
Not only that, the reason those five unlucky men had approached Shiki and Fujino the previous night was because Souren Araya had arranged it from the start.
Although Fujino failing to kill them had been somewhat outside the Magus's expectations, the result was still acceptable.
He had obtained Fujino Asagami as the pawn he needed to awaken Shiki's Origin.
Souren Araya appeared before Fujino.
...
...
She remembered everything.
Fujino collapsed to the floor, her eyes wide and blank.
That night, I didn't kill anyone...
I kept the promise I made to Shirou-kun...
"Oh? Looks like you remembered everything. Too late, though... I'll be taking Shirou for myself."
With her foot planted on Fujino's shoulder, Shiki Ryougi leisurely swung down the knife in her hand like an executioner at the scaffold.
After experiencing something that had come infinitely close to killing once before, Fujino could feel it now.
There was no murderous intent in Shiki's movements.
In other words, even if Fujino did nothing, Shiki's knife would stop at her neck.
She was only trying to scare her. That was exactly the kind of nasty woman she was.
It was just another loss in a duel against Shiki.
Over the past few months, Fujino had lost to her countless times in their sparring sessions, so this was nothing.
No.
I don't want to lose...
I don't want to lose. I don't want to lose. I don't want to lose, I don't want to lose, I don't want to lose!
I won't let you think you're stronger anymore!
I won't let you think you're closer to Shirou anymore!
In Fujino's mind, a panoramic view of the entire first floor lobby appeared, seen from directly above.
What is this?
She did not understand that she had suddenly awakened Clairvoyance. Her mind was filled only with the question of how she could defeat Shiki.
If she set the axis of rotation directly on Shiki, Shiki would definitely sense it with her abnormal danger perception. There was no point in doing that.
After thinking at high speed, Fujino reached her conclusion.
She could not win.
I'm no match for Shiki at all. Our madness isn't even on the same level...
If I want to beat Shiki, then I need madness at least close to hers.
"..."
Watching the blade approach her, Fujino Asagami fixed the axis.
After obtaining a godlike overhead perspective, her attack range had increased by a hundredfold compared to before.
Even so, the things she could actually use to attack were very limited. For example, the one she had just fixed.
Fujino Asagami bit her lip, finally overcame the fear in her heart, and then...
"Twist!"
She broke both her own shoulder and Shiki's ankle at the same time.
Shiki Ryougi let out a muffled groan, lost her balance, and fell to the floor.
Ignoring her fractured collarbone, Fujino Asagami scrambled awkwardly up from the ground, gasping for breath.
I won...? I beat Shiki?
The girl stared in disbelief at Shiki Ryougi, who had fallen nearby.
"Tch... you crazy woman."
"If I don't go that far, I can't beat you, Shiki-san."
Fujino gathered her courage, glared at her, and said, "I'm going to tell Shirou-kun everything that happened today, exactly as it happened. I'm looking forward to seeing how he reacts when he learns you attacked me. Just wait for Shirou-kun's lecture."
"You're seriously going to tattle...? You demon!"
Fujino smiled.
For the first time, she had seen Shiki look humiliated.
After resting briefly, the two helped each other up from the floor.
Shiki Ryougi's left foot had been twisted and broken, while Fujino had completely lost feeling from her left collarbone all the way to her fingers.
I hope it doesn't leave a scar, Fujino thought.
Although both of them were extremely unwilling, in their current state, they had no choice but to support each other and leave the apartment.
When they reached the entrance of the lobby, a black figure blocked their path.
The shadow, almost easy to mistake for a black stone monument, belonged to a man dressed in a pitch-black coat.
His monk-like form seemed to reject even the moonlight, leaving behind a shadow deeper than the night.
"..."
The instant Fujino Asagami saw Souren Araya, her consciousness froze. Like a puppet whose strings had been cut, she could not move even a fingertip.
Shiki Ryougi was not much better.
She had not noticed the man until he was this close, only five meters away. Even she could hardly believe she had only sensed an enemy at such a short distance.
More importantly, Shiki could not see any lines of death on this man.
"To think a strange friendship would be born..."
Souren Araya said quietly, "How ironic. I had hoped you would prove somewhat useful to me."
He walked toward the two girls with steps full of openings.
Shiki stared at Souren Araya with a fierce willpower unlike anything she had shown before.
Her brain overheated from it, and most of her consciousness blurred.
By desperately observing her opponent like that, she finally saw it.
She could see a hole at the center of his body. The lines circled around the same place like scribbles, and in the end, they looked like a hole.
Fujino warned nervously, "Shiki-san, he's..."
"I know you."
Shiki glared at Souren Araya, remembering fragments of what had happened on that rainy night two years ago.
"Yes. I never expected it would take two years for us to face each other again like this."
Souren Araya slowly raised a hand to touch his temple.
On the side of his head, running from his forehead toward the left, there was a straight scar.
It was a deep scar carved there by Shiki Ryougi two years ago.
"I am..."
Just as the monk was about to give his name, new footsteps rang out through the first floor lobby.
Souren Araya turned to look.
Once he saw who had arrived, his brow furrowed deeply.
"I should have set up a labyrinth at the entrance. How did you get in?"
"It was only a Bounded Field that cut off space. Did you really think that would stop me?"
The red-haired boy spoke as he walked into the lobby.
Joy appeared on Fujino's face as she called out the name of her savior.
"Shirou-kun!"