Chapter 4 - Chapter 4: The Final Battle, Three Twintails.
In Ultimeguil’s headquarters’ hall, another council convened.
“…in summary, allied forces lost in the past twenty-odd days total eight officers and seventy-three Ultiroid combat troops.”
“Hmm.”
“To think they’d be capable of this—the Twintails…!!”
Ultimeguil kept pouring forces into the conflict at an unrelenting pace, but thanks in part to Erina-kaichou’s words finally reaching Aika, Aika had snapped out of her hesitation. Once that happened, Souji and Aika found their footing and repelled every assault without breaking stride.
“Meanwhile, the total Elemera gathered in this world since our arrival stands at zero. Any Elemera briefly secured has been fully recaptured by the Twintails.”
“Then we simply capture the Elemera hosts along with their Elemera and retreat immediately before they can respond.”
One Elemerian slapped the table, nostrils flaring. “That would make it look like we’re afraid of the Twintails—like we’re already in flight!!”
“We cannot keep sitting on our hands indefinitely, either.”
“Having two of them is what makes it difficult. The red warrior goes without saying, but the blue is formidable in her own right—less raw Elemera, perhaps, but no hesitation in her attacks whatsoever. She throws herself into destruction at every waking and unwaking moment.”
It had been twenty days since the invasion began, and at last, a tremor of urgency had appeared in Ultimeguil’s ranks.
Dragon Guildy crossed his arms. His teeth ground together—grrk—just once.
That sound alone was enough to fill the entire room with razor-edged tension, as though every throat in the hall had a blade pressed against it.
Unspoken, the implication was plain: you are useless.
“…the Twintails’ strength is genuine. Sending lesser warriors against them now would only amount to a war of attrition, grinding down our forces for nothing. From here on, only those worthy of the name may seek this holy war. Is there any volunteer?”
“Sir! I will go!”
A young voice answered Dragon Guildy.
No ambition in it, no cunning; just a straight, pure voice. But because it was so direct, it rang with a dangerous, unsettling strength.
The man was like iron heated to the very moment before it melts.
“Oh—Swan Guildy, the prodigy of the Nurse Attribute! No one could raise an objection!!”
Many who had been sweating with anxiety visibly relaxed, relief spreading through the room.
“Heh heh heh—though I’d have thought we need not send someone of your caliber just yet.”
“But our commander just said half-rate warriors are useless.”
The tension in the room dissolved. A sense of purpose began to build.
Dragon Guildy nodded.
“…So be it. But first, a test—to determine whether you are worthy of facing the Twintails.”
Flash—Dragon Guildy’s eyes snapped open.
In the same instant everyone felt a gust of wind sweep through the hall, Dragon Guildy had drawn his greatsword and stopped the tip millimeters from Swan Guildy’s eyeball.
Swan Guildy didn’t move.
“Hm … good nerve. But let us try a little more … bring it forward.”
An Ultiroid entered and knelt before Dragon Guildy with a silent bow.
On the trolley it had pushed in sat a PC and a monitor.
“That’s my personal computer … why is it here?!”
Swan Guildy — who hadn’t so much as blinked at Dragon Guildy’s godlike blade — was visibly terrified.
“Silence! This too is part of the test.”
“Surely not … the Ero-Game Rater … n-no, please…” His teeth were chattering loud enough to hear.
Dragon Guildy moved the mouse in silence.
The cursor drifted across the desktop — and settled on an icon shaped like a twintailed girl.
Swan Guildy’s terror visibly intensified. The others seemed to already know what was coming.
Click.
The mouse button’s sound like a switch being thrown on an electric chair.
After a garish production logo, the title screen appeared.
…It was an eroge. Girls who looked a little young for nursing careers gazed out in nurse uniforms.
Dragon Guildy immediately selected Load.
“This game was released in this world only days ago. I have already completed it fully… pitiful wretch.”
To drive it home, the PC screen was mirrored onto the room’s main display for everyone to see. Swan Guildy let out a tiny strangled yelp.
“Heh heh heh. And this save data … every thumbnail is flesh-colored, I see.”
“Please forgive me! I beg you—forgive me——!!”
“Mm. And yet here—one thumbnail alone, a girl with flushed cheeks … this save data is suspicious.”
He loaded it.
Presumably the protagonist’s room. Two people alone together.
But the girl’s cheeks were merely pink — the scene played through as perfectly ordinary dialogue, then cut away.
“It seems he saved the moment his childhood friend came to his room and the mood between them shifted—hoping they were about to become intimate. And then nothing happened. The next day’s title card appeared, and disappointment——”
“Relatable.”
“Relatable.”
Half the room murmured in unwilling sympathy.
“GWAAAAAAAAHHH.”
Swan Guildy finally lost consciousness and collapsed.
“Take him.”
An Ultiroid lent its shoulder and carried him out.
“Pathetic. Fainting at something like this — and he wanted to face the Twintails. Laughable.”
Yet beneath the words, something in Dragon Guildy’s eyes could only be described as affection for his subordinate.
“I will go.”
He announced it quietly, and the hall erupted.
“Lord Dragon Guildy himself?!”
“You — our supreme commander, entrusted with all authority by the great lord himself — you would go personally?!”
“Enough.”
His cape swept the air as he walked out.
The footprints he left behind felt like they should burst into flame.
There was no word for what his presence conveyed anymore. Monster wasn’t right.
Divine beast. That was the only word that fit.
“As expected of Lord Dragon Guildy—a terrifying man.”
“Naturally. Lord Dragon Guildy is the only warrior in all of Ultimeguil’s history to have endured the five great ordeals—including the Sketail Amazon Zone.”
“What?! That dreadful ordeal where everything you order online arrives for an entire year in clear packaging?! A living legend… I would be dead by day one.”
“With him alone can we hope…”
The monsters stared at the monitor, now showing footage of the Twintails, and pressed their last threadbare hope into his hands.
“—WHY CAN YOU NOT UNDERSTAND?! She has the fragility of an angel who would die of loneliness if left alone, and her——”
“GRAND BLAZER——————!!”
One sweep of the flaming blade, and Rabbit Guildy dissolved into dust.
A month of continuous battles had left me hard enough to shut out even an enemy’s dying words.
…or that was the internal hard-boiled persona I’d constructed for myself, because without it, fighting these weirdos every day would eat me alive.
As part of my strategy to act more like a proper hero … mostly so the media would stop treating me like some kind of exotic pet … I made a point of shouting my technique names out loud. Whether it was working, I couldn’t tell yet. But the frenzy of coverage had gradually started dying down, and TV had instead begun airing ‘helpful’ segments on what to do when you encounter an Elemerian and what defensive items to carry.
“But, man … Ultimeguil’s guys really are all the same, aren’t they.”
A grind isn’t a great thing to say, but that was what battles had started to feel like. Honestly? They seemed weak.
Unless they came at us with something roundabout like Fox Guildy’s illusion dolls, there just wasn’t any factor that made things difficult. When you got right down to it, actual civilian casualties had been zero since (and including) the first battle, so the world was still taking this all pretty casually.
On a Sunday afternoon, I was out in the mountains somewhere—I didn’t know anything more specific than “somewhere in Japan.”
In tokusatsu shows like Kamen Rider and Super Sentai, enemies always seem to cluster around the hero’s home turf for some reason, but these guys could turn up anywhere. They did appear in Japan more often—maybe because we obviously spoke Japanese—but they showed up anywhere in the world.
That had been my biggest worry, and the fact that we could handle it at all was mostly thanks to Twirl’s Spatial Leap Catapult in the underground base plus the personal transfer pens she’d issued us, which had worse precision but let us both deploy immediately the moment we picked up an Elemerian reading. None of them had turned up in the middle of class yet, which I was grateful for … though it was probably a matter of time.
Being out in the mountains today meant no gawkers. At least there was that.
Why did this one come out here of all places?
“…don’t tell me its whole thing was actual wild rabbits.”
I scooped up the Rabbit Elemera Orb and let out a breath — then Aika’s comms came through. She’d been planning to back me up and was rushing over.
“You okay? Is it over?”
“Yeah. Heading back.”
I completely let my guard down and stretched out wide.
Then I glanced up at the sky — and something glinted beside the sun.
“——!!”
A cold shiver ran down my spine. On pure reflex I threw myself into a roll.
The ground exploded behind me. Something had come down at tremendous speed.
“Gh… wh-what the——!?”
I stared into the swirling dust cloud, trying to make out the silhouette inside it.
“…my apologies. I did not intend that as a surprise attack. I simply assumed someone of your caliber would deflect something like that without effort…”
The voice was barely above a whisper, yet it resonated through the whole surrounding area like a roll of thunder. Through the clearing dust stepped an Elemerian with a presence unlike anything I had ever felt.
“…Ah.”
I stopped breathing. One look was all it took — actually, you didn’t even need to look. You could feel it. This beast was on a completely different level.
“My name is Dragon Guildy!! Across every world in all the universe, I have no equal in my love of twintails—this I do proclaim!!”
“Damn it—I’m in a serious situation and this guy still does the same speech——!!”
A massive creature with the face of a legendary dragon, a murderous battle-fury rising from his skin. In the mere seconds since we’d faced each other, I’d felt as though every victory I’d ever won had been retroactively erased.
“…Fool. I told you I would handle it…”
Dragon Guildy stared at the empty air where Rabbit Guildy had been, and the look in his eyes was almost like grief.
“My subordinates’ incompetence has bored you long enough. But they remain dear comrades regardless. I will avenge them — by taking your Elemera!!”
“You attacked us. How do you get to talk about revenge?!”
I snapped the Blazer Blade back into my hand and took my stance.
The heat from the blade stirred a current that set my twintails drifting.
“Indeed! … Come.”
“Wha——!?”
That three-meter body closed the distance to zero in a blink — faster than anything that size had any right to move.
“Hah!”
The greatsword came down. Metal screamed; sparks scattered. I barely caught it, but the impact rattled through my arms like a thunderclap. The blow well exceeded the threshold of the Photon Absorber’s light-film.
It was the first time I’d ever felt pain through an active Tailgear.
“Gh—NGAAH!!——!!”
“You took that full force without a nick on your blade … sturdy, isn’t it. Nothing a human could have made by rights!! It reminds me of the only rival I ever acknowledged…!!”
“You bastard!”
I wrenched my footing back and swung a backhand slash—Dragon Guildy caught it lazily on the flat of his blade.
“Tickles, doesn’t it? Are you trying to play with me, little one?”
This guy—he’s on a completely different level——!!
“Then—let’s pick up the pace a bit!!”
“Whoah!!”
It felt like being cut by dozens of swords at once.
His speed was overwhelming. I forgot to breathe entirely and just kept swinging.
That — the angle of those cuts——!!
Tracking his blade through the exchange, I suddenly realized what pattern its arc was tracing.
“Oh?! You read it already—from only those exchanges?!!”
After a dozen or so seconds of trading blows, Dragon Guildy leapt backward with a jump that shouldn’t have been possible for his size, putting distance between us.
I paused to stare in wonder. “Dragon Guildy … your sword is…”
“Yes—mine is——”
“Red! Are you okay?!”
Aika had gotten Twirl’s message and come flying in, despite my earlier insistence that I’d be fine alone. Tailblue—Aika—was dropping from the sky with twintails streaming, about to touch down——
“’Twintail sword technique.’”
Dragon Guildy and I said it at the exact same moment.
The shock of it must have startled Aika mid-landing, since she stumbled and nearly went down face-first.
“Ah … so today’s one is the Souji type … that seems bad…”
“Yeah—serious trouble!! Watch yourself!!”
Getting up from her awkward landing, just catching sight of Dragon Guildy was enough to make Aika stagger again.
Right—she felt it too. Just from looking at him.
Oh, and—Souji type?
“Tailred. Formidable little girl. Not once in my life has anyone read my divine-speed cuts so quickly!!”
“Don’t underestimate me. I don’t care how fast you are—if the shape of your heart is what drives your blade, of course I can see it coming. I spend every moment of my life thinking about twintails!!”
“Magnificent—from an enemy, no less!! …then taste it for yourself—a blade honed to its absolute pinnacle!!”
His foot hit the ground with enough force to crack it like a gunshot. From that launching power, his slashes truly were what he boasted; absolute divine speed. I swung my sword like a man possessed.
“Gh—ugh——!!”
Like brilliant stars tracing arcs across the night sky to form perfect constellations—Dragon Guildy’s sword-light was etching the Twintails across the earth in arcs of magnificent light.
“RAAAAHH!!”
I barely parried every blade that filled my vision, and broke away again.
“Heh … heh heh.”
He stood in a cloud of rising dust and curled a nihilistic smile.
“WAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!”
Shouldering his massive, jagged-toothed greatsword like it weighed nothing, Dragon Guildy laughed.
“Splendid!”
That armored, scarred body shook the ground just by laughing.
“What magnificent twintails…!! Truly — it is a genuine shame we had to meet as enemies!!”
“…”
That’s my line.
If I had a friend who could talk about twintails like this, with as much genuine joy … I didn’t want to imagine how different things might have been.
“The skill to receive every blow of mine in that tiny frame. The way your strikes flow like a dance … and above all, the twintails in motion, keeping perfect time with every move. This is the first time in an age that Dragon Guildy has had his heart moved by beauty on a battlefield!!”
The fight itself seemed to interest him less than the twintails. This giant of a warrior, this veteran of countless battles.
“Hmm… the longer I look, the more I see. Heh, there is no bottom to it. Following basic form and yet seeming to transform anew with every glance—this is what a first-rate twintail looks like.”
“What kind of judging criteria is that?!” Aika, sidelined, yelled at the two of us.
But that refined eye must have been earned through battles—the deep scars carved into every inch of his body spoke more eloquently than any words about how many brushes with death this man had survived.
“You’re curious about these scars.”
Egh! “I’m not.”
“Heh… rough talk is just a child playing at adulthood. Endearing.”
There’s a saying that love makes even scars look like dimples … but having everything received so warmly somehow made it feel more like being condescended to.
“But look here. Dragon Guildy takes pride in having no scars on his back!!”
“…you’ve never turned away from an enemy. The classic warrior’s honor.”
How predictable.
“Naturally, there is that as well … but the real reason is that I have always kept this back pristine … for the day I at last encounter the supreme little girl, and she washes it for me!!”
“What was the point of every battle you’ve ever fought?!?!”
“As if it were not obvious: to meet, and spend my life with, the ultimate little girl!! And to claim her Elemera with my own hands!!”
“Damn … what a guy.”
I didn’t know whether to be disgusted or awed. He stood in lordly defiance, but his eyes were perfectly clear, without a shadow of doubt in them. And now I knew for certain. These creatures … they were, in the end, simply a different kind of being.
Their definition of love was completely incompatible with ours.
“Spending a life together.’ Even such heavy words resolved through conquest alone, through a one-sided taking of Elemera. For all their intelligence, and their language—they weren’t human.
I’d been half-convinced of it through the exchange of blows. Now I was certain.
There was only one Elemera that could account for this creature’s strength——!
“Blue. I figured it out. The secret behind his power.”
“Oh—sorry, I kind of zoned out. What?”
The sheer crushing weight of Dragon Guildy’s presence had apparently hit Aika hard too. She’d been staring into space.
She’d looked half-asleep for a moment, but that must have been my imagination.
“Dragon Guildy—you are…”
The supreme Elemera. The one that forms the very core of Tailgear.
None of the others had been after it alone. They’d all had some secondary target driving them.
But not this one.
“You’re a genuine Twintail-Attribute Elemerian, aren’t you——!”
“Correct. Twintail Attributes resonate with one another.”
“Resonate?! Don’t be ridiculous—we’re——”
“…’birds of a feather,’ isn’t it? Give me strength…”
A deflated voice cut in from behind me. She sounded more exhausted than anything else.
The moment Dragon Guildy laid eyes on Aika, a sly grin curled at his mouth.
“Something nagged at me from the first time I saw footage of her … but seeing the blue warrior up close, I am certain. The warriors of that world sent you here.”
“What?! What do you mean?!”
“It seems you don’t know. I mentioned it a moment ago; the war in which we were most nearly undone. The lone girl who challenged us in that battle was wearing the same armor as you, blue warrior. Heh. She was burdened with a chest that ill-suited twintails, so seeing you did not immediately connect the two.”
“The same armor?!”
Twirl had said she built the Tailgear to fight Ultimeguil, and to avenge her world that they’d destroyed.
Aika, who’d been insulted in a rather pointed way, hadn’t fired back. She was standing there frozen. She must have been just as thrown as I was.
“But the irony is rich. A world that produces warriors clad in the same armor … and so, the same end awaits.”
Dragon Guildy stilled his killing intent, folded his arms, and began to speak.
“What?!”
“Yes. The Twintail warrior from that time—let us call her Tailblue as well. She, too, possessed fearsome strength, stood against our invasion, and reigned as a guardian of her world.”
“Wait! So you were fighting Tailblue before you destroyed that world?!”
Dragon Guildy nodded. This didn’t look like fabrication.
“Why would Twirl … keep that from us…”
“Actually—it makes sense if you think about it. Even with Tailgear, you couldn’t beat Ultimeguil in the end. The result was visible from the start. If we’d known that—do you really think we’d have kept fighting dutifully?”
Aika was barely shaken. As though she’d been steeling herself from the very beginning.
“From the start, I knew Twirl was hiding something. The reason I volunteered for Tailblue was because I knew Souji would get conned without me there.”
“…Aika…”
I’d thought they were just close—like sisters bickering and playing around. But Aika, you were——
“She was strong. A match in power for you both … But ultimately, that was what killed the world.”
Dragon Guildy swept one arm wide.
“A battle princess repelling the invaders — she became a goddess, acclaimed by the entire world, her twintails adored by all. The Twintail Attribute came to rule that world, precisely as we had always dreamed. Could there be a more perfect hunting ground?”
“…!”
So that was what had been gnawing at me.
Through the Twintails’ activities, twintails had spread across the world—and in just under a month, the number of girls choosing twintails had grown dramatically, the way people imitate an idol’s hairstyle or fashion when they fall in love with them.
I had been glad about it. Twintails stepping out of the margins into the mainstream—that was what I’d been celebrating.
But that meant——
“——You’ve already realized it, haven’t you. Yes—you will also become the world’s savior. And eventually its destroyer!!”
“You’re saying the weak enemies all this time were deliberate…!!”
“Hm. I would not wish to scatter my comrades’ lives needlessly. My beloved subordinates, my students. It would have been best if they’d won.”
They hadn’t. We’d won every battle.
And so…
“The result was that my subordinates inadvertently helped cement the image of ‘an invincible guardian.’ And I confess I allowed it. I am only a general entrusted with command. When an efficient method presents itself, one cannot but use it.”
Wait … now that I thought back, this guy was the one who’d made the worldwide broadcast in the first place!
That initial declaration to the world wasn’t meant to spread fear. It was meant to spread the existence of Tailred. To plant the image of a beloved hero in the minds of everyone on earth.
A warrior defending the world with the strongest Twintail Attribute … and to Ultimeguil, that was actually exactly what they wanted——!!
“Souji. We’ve been used. Both of us. Maybe Twirl wasn’t in on it with them. But she probably went ahead with the same plan anyway in some kind of desperation—dragging another world down the same path. What else was going to happen? Fight the same fight without any countermeasure, the outcome was obvious.”
Aika’s voice was hollow with defeat.
Not rage, not sorrow.
An empty resignation.
“Then why bother explaining everything to us?”
“Because Tailred’s Twintail Attribute is genuine. Crossing blades confirmed it. This little girl loves twintails from the depths of her soul.”
I——
I——
“I would have preferred to fight without any machinations … so this is the least I could offer. So that you would not have to learn everything only after the world had already been destroyed.”
——At last, the fog that had sat in my chest cleared. I felt clean.
“Thank you, Dragon Guildy.”
“What?!” A screech from the sidelines echoed across the valley.
I continued. “This isn’t a consolation prize. It’s the opposite. I don’t have a single worry left!”
Thank god—it turned out to be nothing after all.
“What are you talking about? Fighting is pointless now!?”
“No. It’s not pointless at all. If they’re planning to take everything at once, that means the Twintail Attribute that’s been growing in this world … it’s not just a passing fad. It’s not for show. It’s real.”
I had been scared.
That twintails, always a minority, would be elevated as some trend and then casually discarded and ground underfoot, like so many season-of-the-month anime.
But if these guys had made it their calculated strategy, if they were targeting it—then the girls who’d started wearing twintails, and all the other people who’d started to love them had a real, genuine Twintail Attribute burning inside them. Every single one.
The accelerating fire seeped into my voice. “If I beat you here today, twintails spread further into the world and we win on top of it. All upside, isn’t it??”
“Wh—what?!…”
Dragon Guildy actually stepped back, visibly stunned.
Aika’s shoulders shook—and then——
“Pff … AHAHAHAHAHA!!”
She burst out laughing.
“Ahh … okay. You’re real. You’re not just a twintail idiot—you’re a full-blown genuine idiot!!”
Yeah, probably.
I’m an idiot, so I have no limits on what I can believe in. And helpfully, Tailgear gets stronger the more heart you pour into it, so it works in my favor.
Power welled up inside me.
“Tailred … ultimate little girl with the supreme twintails. In this moment, I am genuinely moved. A will that doesn’t waver even with the world’s end in sight. True beauty shines so brightly you have to look away.”
I leveled the Blazer Blade’s point at Dragon Guildy and said it with my chest out.
“I’ve heard enough about world ends and grand scales. I fight for what I love!!”
“You hold fast to your own conviction——!!”
“Yeah. My twintails are this planet’s——”
“Hahahahahahaha!! That’s quite enough, Dragon Guildy!!”
“WHO IS THAT————————————————————————!!”
The finest moment of my life had a bomb dropped squarely on it, and I screamed loud enough to echo off every tree in the forest.
Laughter that had absolutely no business being here rang through the uninhabited wood. Dragon Guildy snapped again, his voice raised.
“Who goes there?! Name yourself!!”
Dragon Guildy’s gaze went to——
One large tree that stood out from the rest. Halfway up, balanced on a thick branch, stood a girl with white hair.
“My name is the World-Crossing Avenger — Masked Twintail!!”
“BWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.”
In the light of the afternoon sun, that bizarre silhouette knocked all the air out of me and Aika at the same instant.
“You’ve finally shown yourself, Dragon Guildy … I’ve been waiting for this moment.”
“Hmm—the Masked Twintail?!?!”
Dragon Guildy reacted with theatrical shock.
These guys really do give a good entrance its due… She must love that about them.
Standing there cross-armed on a tree branch was already behavior for a person of concern, but Dragon Guildy was dead serious.
On either side of the full-face helmet, two wing-shaped panels spread majestically.
Unmistakably twintails.
The problem was that below the neck, it was just the lab coat, straight white hair, and revealing outfit that was pure, unambiguous Twirl. My Blazer Blade disappeared on its own.
“But for all that menace, I sense no Elemera from you whatsoever … don’t tell me you’re here to reinforce the Twintails?!”
“Reinforce?! What on earth would make you think I need more firepower against you?! I simply could not look the other way while you tried to talk them into submission—so I came! That is all!!”
“How dare you——!!”
“…but it seems my help wasn’t needed after all. Tailred.”
From beneath the mask, I could tell—just barely—that she smiled. A quiet, self-deprecating smile.
No, look, the backup is fine, I appreciate the gesture. It’s just the timing—the timing of the entrance. Even Aika had been waiting for me to finish my line! If anyone photographed my face just now, I’d have to fall on my own sword.
Ignoring every single one of my feelings, Twirl—the Masked Twintail—began to speak with great solemnity.
“Dragon Guildy is correct. When Red first went into battle, I was already there. I had developed Tailgear by then and was wearing it myself. The Elemera conversion technology that became Tailgear’s prototype was deliberately leaked by Ultimeguil.”
“Deliberately leaked?!”
Even Aika hadn’t seen that one coming — her face went blank.
“It was probably only known to senior Elemerian officers … but on the day Red first fought, they weren’t searching for the most powerful Twintail Attribute in this world in order to steal it. The goal was to give that person—the one with the strongest Twintail Attribute—the Elemera conversion technology that formed the Tailgear’s prototype, and set them up as an enemy to fight. The same method they used when they destroyed my world. I was thoroughly used…”
Both Souji and Aika drew a sharp breath at exactly the same moment. The expressionless mask seemed to embody her hollow, self-mocking grief … though the swing between gravitas and slapstick was a bit much, I thought.
“Even if you had never met me that day … eventually, Ultimeguil’s own hands would have turned you into a warrior in Tailred’s place.”
That’s what it was. To Ultimeguil, the world’s strongest Twintail Attribute wasn’t something to steal. It was a seed to plant, a way to grow an entire garden.
“Correct! You … you were the most powerful twintail warrior, who once fought us to the absolute brink!! You’ve traveled between worlds!! But—but why—the boundless, blazing Twintail Attribute you once carried—I can feel nothing from you now!! We never managed to steal it, I’m certain of it!!”
“Because I passed it on.”
“What?!”
The Masked Twintail turned to face Souji, and smiled.
Behind the blank mask, he was sure of it—he saw the smile.
“Dragon Guildy. In those days, I started to notice. Why were the enemies so weak? Why were they so unenthusiastic about stealing Elemera, which should have been a matter of survival? As the world was turning twintail, one color at a time … I was coming to feel the same thing Red is feeling right now.”
No—knowing Twirl, she wouldn’t have stopped at a vague unease like mine. She would have reached certainty. Which meant…
“That’s why I’m sure … there must have been a way to stop it. Something, anything. If only I had acted so my world would lose interest in twintails.”
The thought of that Twirl, separated from this moment by time and dimensions, cut through his chest.
I braced myself. I already knew what she would say next.
“But I couldn’t. I couldn’t bear to let the Twintail Attribute that had begun to bloom in that world be extinguished for nothing. I was afraid to watch the precious little girls who had been inspired by me and made themselves twintails return to their old hairstyles…”
Something seemed off about those words that I knew I shouldn’t miss, but neither I nor Aika could speak into the mood, so I quietly rearranged my face back to neutral.
“That hesitation became a gap in my heart, and Dragon Guildy defeated me. I hid in my base and worked on countermeasures while the invasion advanced … and just like that, the world’s Twintail Attribute was gone. It became a grey world where no one could ever love again…”
The one responsible for that ending listened in silence. As though he were accepting it.
“With every Attribute drained away, the world stripped of its spirit … I alone still had the Twintail Attribute, and my Loli Attribute, remaining. A cold world where I could flip a little girl’s skirt on the street and no one would even react.”
“No one left who could even wear twintails … that’s hell!!”
My nails dug into my palms. Twirl’s pain landed in me as though it were my own. Aika seemed to feel the same—she was going cross-eyed.
“And so I resolved myself to vengeance. Using Tailgear and my battle data, I analyzed the technology Ultimeguil had given us, down to its bones. Fueled by the emptiness of groping a little girl’s flat chest and getting no reaction whatsoever, I completed the Imagine Chaff … and set out to analyzing the technology for travel between worlds, searching for those whose little girls were still full of life.”
“That’s—horrible—it’s too horrible——!!”
At the shocking secret Twirl had just laid bare, Aika grabbed her own head and lurched backward.
Same here. Same here!!
…eh, that ‘horrible’ bit is about what Ultimeguil did, right? Not the person in the tree, right?
“And as a final reckoning … I used my own Twintail Attribute as the core and completed a second Tailgear. That Tailgear is … S—Tailred. Yours.”
“My Tailgear is—so Twirl gave up her own Twintail Attribute for it?!”
He stared at his own hands.
To give up the right to love twintails by your own choice.
It must have been a decision more agonizing than having your own body cut open.
“After that, I entrusted my Tailgear—which I could no longer wear—to Tailblue here. That is all there is. I am sorry for speaking in ways that made you doubt me.”
“…Huh. So this is Twirl’s hand-me-down…” Aika was looking down at her own chest, and a faint, unreadable smile crossed her face. “No wonder the chest part…”
“Tenacity … predecessor Tailblue—Masked Twintail! It seems the defeat today belongs to us! We underestimated your love for twintails—the depth of it!!”
Fair enough.
They’d grown complacent with how easy it was to cultivate their harvest, and had come to underestimate the strength of a human heart. The very creatures born from that heart had somewhere along the way forgotten what the heart was truly made of.
“…I owe you an apology. For suspecting you. I knew—all of it, about you acting behind our backs and scheming—and unconsciously I’d been more cutting with you because of it. But…”
What a lie to begin the day. That has nothing to do with why your hands are fast to violence.
Twirl waved her off. “Oh no I was scheming yes. The stronger Tailred becomes, the more Loli Attribute blossoms in the world alongside the Twintail Attribute. Adorable little girls everywhere, exactly as I’d planned. Ehehehe.”
…that one’s a lie too, Twirl.
The ‘hobby’, the combat utility, none of that matters.
Tailred becomes a little girl because Twirl put something else into it as well; another feeling she wanted to give to Souji.
That’s the reason.
…right? That’s it, isn’t it? Say it’s that. Please.
Aika cleared her throat, wiped her palm on her skirt, and extended a hand to Twirl.
“I’ll take good care of the Tailgear. From here on, I’ll think of you as a friend properly. But that, and what you just said … those are separate things.”
“——Understood. Let’s see who gets publicly acknowledged first. Race you.”
After the handshake, Twirl stepped lightly out in front of Aika, turned with her hair and skirt swinging, and smiled with the afternoon sun at her back.
…Why is she holding a pose in the middle of a breeze.
The edges of the world were starting to white out faintly.
Original work: Twirl
CAST
Twirl: Twirl
Mitsuka Souji: Mitsuka Souji
Evil Vixen: Tsube Aika
Dragon…
…
……
…Hey, now I’m seeing text hallucinations. What game’s ending credits just started?
“Heroine death. BAD END.”
“AHGHYAAAAAAAAAA my pastel watercolor-CG soft-white-out ENDING just became a black screen white text DOWNER finale ——————————————!!”
Those two are really having fun, aren’t they…
I found myself wondering idly whether S and M had their own Attributes. Not that two people in particular had put the thought in my head, of course.
Thinking that thoroughly stupid thought, I bit into the happiness of living in a world where you could keep loving what you loved.
That’s why we—the Twintails—would protect it.
I looked up at the sky and renewed my resolve.
“Whoah!!”
The clear blue sky was smash-cut swapped for a rectangular hologram, just like during the announcement.
First thing in the morning, a craggy beast-face filled my view.
“WAHAHAHAHA!! Twintails!! You may be riding high, but it won’t yet be so easy!! With Lord Dragon Guildy’s ascension, this world is a death march for us too—we’ll claim every last Attribute no matter what!! And toward that end, a powerful reserve has arrived!!”
“…knew they wouldn’t give up.”
“At this point even doing it every single day wouldn’t surprise me anymore…”
Aika stood with her hands on her hips, looking skyward with a pained expression.
“School swimsuit!! The water’s embrace—the garment that surrenders to the mother planet—truly that is the Attribute that carries the planet’s will!! Dragon Guildy’s sworn ally, Tiger Guildy, is here to claim the School Swimsuit Attribute!!”
A new Elemerian, declaring war with great flair.
“Every day… huh.”
I checked the time.
Twenty minutes until the warning bell. To avoid walking in at the same time as Aika and getting teased again, I needed to wrap this up in ten.
“Hey, Aika. Have you picked a club yet?”
“Hm?”
“What about you, Twirl. Any preferences?”
“Huh.”
“Not yet… it’s been nothing but chaos.”
“I want to be wherever Souji-sama is. A room with a lock on the door, after school, a young man and women … ehehe.”
“Well then…”
In reply to the declaration of war, I raised my right arm high, pointing straight at the thing blocking my view of the clear blue sky.
“…What do you say the three of us actually start it. The Twintails Club.”
Twirl tilted her head. “Hmm. What would we do?”
Aika glanced at Twirl—as if to question her answer—and turned to give Souji a bold, fearless smile in return.
“Obviously——”
The red bracelet on his raised arm caught the light.
Back in the present, Dragon Guildy’s army revealed itself.
The strategy talk had been interrupted by the sight of the horizon filling with Ultiroid troops, ranked in formation as far as the eye could see.
A force fit to launch a worldwide invasion.
Anyone who saw this wouldn’t be able to keep pretending everything was fine much longer.
Choosing an isolated spot to start from was probably meant to let the fear build gradually.
“Same as always! One becomes two—nothing changes!! The only difference is how little time it takes for twintails to dominate the world!!”
“Two? That’s not right, Dragon Guildy.”
I grabbed the fallen tree’s trunk and reached for the Masked Twintail’s hand.
“Red…”
“Twintails only work because there’s a head holding both sides together.”
The three of us in a line—Twirl in the middle between us——
“The three of us—we’re Twintails!!”
Now, at last, we were the real Twintails.
“Oh, what a gallant, magnificent little girl … I can’t stop drooling … uwehehehe.”
“Y-you’re right … t-three of us … yeah, Twintails … haaa…”
Hm. The left tail’s enthusiasm was notably low. And the one in the middle, the head, was shooting water at considerable pressure through the gap in the mask, but that was definitely tears … it was tears, I was sure of it.
Total Ultiroid count at this position: 987. Hesitate even a moment and the rest will begin their worldwide advance. You cannot focus solely on Dragon Guildy.
Transmission from Twirl, or rather, the Masked Twintail, who had abruptly retreated to a safe distance.
“Aika. I’ll take Dragon Guildy alone. Can you handle everything else?”
“That leaves me the easier side, don’t you think … but are you sure?”
“Not really.”
Just hearing the number was enough to make my head swim—nearly a thousand Ultiroid. And reinforcements could show up at any moment. She needed to take them all down without a single escape, as fast as possible. Having only one target to focus on might actually make my side lighter by comparison.
“I trust you. …I’m counting on you, Aika.”
“Those are my words. If I set the stage and you lose, I’m posting your face everywhere.”
“Well, nobody on Earth would be able to care, so I guess I can’t lose.”
We bumped fists.
Tailblue launched herself straight at the rear formation of Ultiroid troops.
Dragon Guildy didn’t try to take aim at her unguarded back — arms still folded, he let her pass.
“…so the other one takes all comers alone. Bold.”
I stepped fast, closing into Dragon Guildy’s range.
The height difference was that of a grown man and an infant. Looking up at him—but neither of us flinched, and the stare held.
“…I know you can’t survive without taking Elemera. But wasn’t there any other way? Some kind of negotiation instead of taking by force—or trying to find an alternative.”
“I won’t call one side superior. But in a chain of eating and being eaten, negotiation is simply impossible. We are a different form of life from you.”
“…I see.”
Words that carried an entire way of living, with no need for more explanation.
Fight without holding back. That was what they felt like.
But that … I’d made peace with that long ago. Absurd as these creatures were, life was life.
Running into this powerful enemy in the middle of what had started feeling like routine work might have been a warning. A reminder. Evil, perverted beings contrary to every law of this world just went to show the weight of a life was something to hold in your own hands.
“————Let’s go.”
My resolve pressed into my heart, I flicked the right ribbon.
Heat converged into my palm, spiraling into the shape of a blade.
The Blazer Blade was gripped in my hand again with its full familiar force.
“Hm…”
Dragon Guildy raised his jagged great-sword.
Both right feet hit the ground at exactly the same moment, splitting the mountain path’s stone paving.
“RAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!”
“HRAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!”
Both of us hurled ourselves straight at each other.
“HYAH!!”
Sword after sword like a crashing wall, without pause.
I met it with nothing but sheer will.
Lightning-fast cuts pouring down without rest, every single one deflected—and in one instant’s gap I drove a full-force blow straight into the giant in front of me.
“GNH!”
My sword was blown back along with Dragon Guildy’s, who dug into the ground with his heel to slow the retreat.
“Far stronger than before—it’s as though you are a different person!!”
“Of course it is—you’ve given me a whole new resolve!!”
The recoil of the next strike spun him around, circling to the back.
“What?!”
Dragon Guildy’s reaction came a beat late—and he caught a slash across the back.
“Gah… you—you cut my back——!!”
“You wanted someone to scrub it, didn’t you?! I gave you what you asked for!!”
“Well played!!”
Not flinching, Dragon Guildy resumed his assault.
“Is this your true power?!”
Tailgear runs on the power of the heart.
It wasn’t just his own desire to protect twintails—knowing now that Twirl’s heart had been entrusted to him too, his Elemera was burning brighter than it ever had.
“Then—I must also stake my life!!”
Dragon Guildy drove his sword into the ground, crossed both arms, and breathed in deeply.
“Like Fox Guildy—using delusions——?!”
“Fox Guildy … I have always respected that one’s formidable imagination.”
Dragon Guildy’s eyes lit with an uncanny light, and the battle-fury that had wreathed his whole body began to slowly converge—drawing toward both sides of his head.
“But depending on a puppet is weakness! Manifesting love with the body alone—that is the warrior’s glory!!”
“What?!”
The battle-fury took shape, and twintails began to flow and drift majestically from Dragon Guildy’s head.
The radiance of Elemera—the light of life itself.
Countless rays of light gathered into two streams, and adorned that towering, impossible body.
“Dragon Guildy is—turning twintail?!”
“This is my Final Form—the Twintail Dragon Wing Formation!! With Twintail Attribute released to its absolute limit — an annihilating form that destroys all it faces!!”
Not one shred of awkwardness. Not a trace of shame.
This was nothing so cheap as a shamelessness won by discarding embarrassment — this was a destroying presence that had never needed to question itself for a single moment.
Different caliber. Where does that self-possession come from…?
“Yes. A man’s privilege is not only to love and admire twintails—to become twintails oneself—that is the duty of one who carries the Twintail Attribute!!”
I—I had been told I carried the world’s strongest Twintail Attribute. An Attribute said to rarely take root in men. I wore the Tailgear, and became twintailed myself.
But had I ever felt proud of that? Had I ever stopped being embarrassed??
Even sharing the same Twintail Attribute, the gulf between Dragon Guildy and I in terms of sheer conviction seemed ever wider than before.
It might have been inappropriate—but I felt something close to reverence.
“Come, Tailred!!”
Dragon Guildy’s attacks multiplied in speed beyond anything before.
The enormous greatsword tore up the earth like aerial bombardment with every blow.
Souji drove the flame blade faster in return.
Their sword-flashes were so fast they seemed to solidify and hang in the air.
“Getting inspired by an enemy—guess I owe you another thanks!!”
“The feeling is mine. Watching your radiance, I discarded the rank of commander … as a single, weaponless soldier, I returned to the days when I loved twintails without strategy or agenda, with everything I had!!”
An exchange of sword-light beyond the speed of thought spilled through the air.
The heat and the speed fed each other; the earth around them began to melt.
“But—if you loved twintails that much—you should understand the grief of having them stolen!!”
“I have long grown used to curses!! It is the natural fate of those who feed on hearts!!”
Then here and now — I’ll make you answer for every world you’ve defiled!!
“RAAAAAHHH!!”
One blade of conviction. I pressed through the crossing swords and drove Dragon Guildy back against a great tree.
“How—even now, your radiance grows further still—is your Twintail bottomless?!”
They say the universe itself—the closest thing to endless—is still expanding even now.
The heart is a universe.
Because it has no form, there is no end to see—it grows without limit, without boundary.
“That’s right … my Twintails are … infinite!”
Molten gravel and shattered rock sprayed like sea spray.
Two pairs of twintails raged, swept, and crossed.
In the hell of air turning to steam, an exchange that might never end went on.
Just one sane person—that was all she needed. Someone who’d look at this superhuman death-match and those absurd speeches and share her bewilderment, so she wouldn’t feel so alone.
She really hadn’t expected him to actually become twintails. Stupidity and strength alike. That enemy, it seemed, was the real thing.
“Don’t lose … Souji…”
But the enemy was strong. She’d respected Souji’s will, but the one shouldering the heavier burden was clearly Souji. That said, her own fight was no walk in the park either.
Aika had thrown herself into the midst of a nightmare army, and she was already being pushed back.
Sheer numbers ground at you more than you’d expect.
Usually, her hands moved before her head did. She had all the room she could want to run wild here.
“Mokeeee!!”
“God, you’re in the way … honestly—ever since you lot showed up, his twintail obsession has just gotten worse!!”
“Mokee!?”
Take responsibility—she swept the Wave Lance in a wide arc, picking off enemies swarming from every direction.
“That’s exactly why I’m not going to feel any guilt about using your power to end this faster!! Come on—all of you at once!”
〈Ribbon Attribute〉
The Elemera Orb recovered from Fox Guildy activated. At the same moment, Tailblue’s ribbon-type head armor extended and unfolded, reshaping into two massive wings.
Red stuck to her Tailgear’s own power out of some attachment to twintails specifically, but Blue was more flexible in her approach—regardless of however many complaints she raised.
“Twirl—how many left?!”
“Eight hundred thirty-one…! Plus — the Masked Twintail!!”
“Still so many!!”
No longer the simulated flight of repeated rapid leaps — this was merging with the vast blue overhead. Command of the sky.
Tailblue became a dive-bomber of water-blade strikes, slicing through Ultiroid after Ultiroid.
Like chestnuts bursting in a fire, Ultiroid after Ultiroid exploded up into the sky.
“Mokee!!”
“Mokee!”
“Mokeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!”
Knock one down, another appeared. The nightmare of an endless battle that Souji had worried about was now a reality. And yet Tailblue pressed forward without the slightest flinch, slashing through them head-on.
She hadn’t been the only one entrusted with things that day.
She savored the weight of the bracelet on her right arm, snatched by force from Twirl that day before, and the gear she wore around her.
All of Twirl’s words had taken on a different meaning now.
Souji was cosmically universe-class oblivious, and he hadn’t noticed at all. But those feelings were genuine.
If she were being honest, what Aika had feared wasn’t Twirl’s scheming. It was her sincerity.
Traveling between ruined worlds in despair, searching, searching, spending herself to the very last … and then finding that the one she could entrust her will to was that singularly crazed boy. Feeling fate in it, and falling for him. That was more than enough reason for a woman to lose herself completely.
And yet Twirl—knowing Souji loved twintails—had never once made herself twintailed. Not wouldn’t — couldn’t. Now, having surrendered her Twintail Attribute, she had no easy way to appeal to the boy she’d fallen for … nothing but the blunt instrument of sex appeal.
…or was that reading too much into it?
And come to think of it, Twirl had mentioned her carefully laid-out script had been thrown off from the very start—Aika remembered that now with a rueful smile.
The pain that had shot through her chest watching Souji talk happily about Erina-kaichou.
Twirl must have felt that same thing constantly.
Knowing her rival’s feelings were genuine somehow felt like a weight lifting.
“We’re in the same boat, aren’t we, Twirl?”
She murmured it in barely a whisper, then the next instant drew a full breath.
“…since Souji can’t hear me, I’ll say it out loud…!! You perverts!!”
Her twintails tossed in battle like a mermaid through an emerald sea, in equal measure lovely and fierce.
“Stop trying to grab what isn’t yours!! Do you have any idea how much trouble this hair is?!”
The water-blade thrusts that burst from her lance like sea-spray painted a field of stars across the ground below.
“Ignoring me completely, staring at someone else’s chest the whole time…!!”
By now the Ultiroids, taking hit after hit, were—until the very moment they died—still falling helplessly under the spell of that beauty.
“Who do you think I’ve kept this hair for all this time, you colossal idiot——!!”
No one will ever say I have nothing to be proud of.
You’re an enormous idiot. But.
You’re trusting, and gullible, and reckless enough to make me lose my mind. But.
The you that didn’t hesitate, that day—that threw yourself straight into the fight—you’re my pride.
So I want to stay beside you. Always. I want to stay with you.
“Two hundred remaining exactly, Aika-san!!”
“Break Release!!”
The remaining Ultiroids launched an all-out rush. Tailblue had been waiting for exactly this. She expanded the lance, and released the massive Aura Pillar she’d been drilling and drawing into the earth with every step of her spear-dance throughout the entire battle.
“All together—Aura Pillar——!!”
The remaining Ultiroid were swept up into an enormous torrent of water.
“Execute Wave——————————————————!!”
Lance-blades at full strength blazed out in every direction like a meteor shower, piercing through the monsters one after another.
The droplets sent spiraling by the explosion painted a vivid, many-colored arc across the sky.
“…”
Even as she fell unconscious and crumpled to the ground, Aika wove words in her heart.
For the comrade who was fighting to the death somewhere nearby.
For the strange childhood friend who had loved one hairstyle and nothing else since the day she’d known him.
You owe me for this. For making me carry this Attribute——
The ground was carved in the shape of twintails.
The trails of our sword-strikes had, without either of us noticing, drawn a geoglyph of twintails across the earth.
The stench of scorched earth and a superheated world that offered only death. The mountain forest, the road leading to it—nothing held its original shape. We were surrounded by a furnace of red-hot, molten ground.
“Hah. Hah. Hah.”
My body had reached its limit. I dropped to one knee.
“What a fight … yours is a tremendous power. Far stronger than that girl once was. But perhaps precisely because the enemies before me were too far beneath your level—you could not convert real experience into real growth … the gap in years of battle between us … was what decided this!!”
“Not yet…”
My strikes had been losing their edge for a while now. Slash caught, blade tangled in the jagged teeth of his sword.
“A magnificent battle!! My life’s greatest enemy … and my life’s greatest love!!”
“Ggh——!!”
The Blazer Blade was knocked flying.
It traced a powerless arc through the air, trailing scattered embers, and sank point-first into the ground.
“Farewell——!!”
That decisiveness — not a breath of lingering sentiment — was the fighting philosophy he’d spoken of before the battle began.
Dragon Guildy’s greatsword descended toward my skull——!!
——That’s what I was waiting for.
“Aura Pillar!!”
A brilliant fiery pillar surrounded me.
“Wha?!”
But the Aura Pillar was fundamentally a restraint technique, a support move—it had no defensive capability against external attacks.
Dragon Guildy’s sword was deflected, barely, but the Aura Pillar couldn’t withstand that single blow and shattered.
Dragon Guildy re-centered himself and immediately moved to follow through.
——But.
Through the dissipating flames, in my right hand, I was gripping the Blazer Blade.
“WHAT!? A SECOND BLADE?!”
“‘Twintails’ aren’t just for SHOW!”
Into Dragon Guildy’s shoulder, I drove the glimmering knife, sending him staggering with surprise—that trump card, the second blade, carried every ounce of energy I had left.
“GAAAH!!”
“Break——!!”
Still lurching, Dragon Guildy raised his sword again.
“——Release!!!!”
The Blazer Blade transformed within Dragon Guildy’s shoulder, erupting in flame that spilled out from the open wound.
“Tailred——————————————————————!!”
“Grand Blazer———————————————————————————!!”
A diagonal slash of flame from the shoulder down.
The flame-dragon that scorched a great dragon blazed like a solar flare.
A sun fallen to earth—and not one shade dimmer for it—his twintails basked in that radiance.
“——Beautiful … truly divine hair … divine … form …”
For a warrior who had crossed countless worlds, those eyes had seen much—yet perhaps nothing in a lifetime placed on one side of a scale could equal this sight—this hairstyle.
At last Dragon Guildy, strength spent, lowered both knees to the ground.
“Gh … so … the first blade was a feint from the beginning…”
I rubbed the back of my head. “No, actually, uhm, that was improvised. Spur of the moment … I can’t manage elaborate tactics, but … I have two people to protect. Two swords makes sense for that, doesn’t it?”
When Twirl explained the Force Revon, she’d said: ‘This is not something that grants wishes.’ But the wishes I actually needed—those, it understood.
“M-magnificent…!! Magnificent, Tailred!!”
“…the twintails?”
Dragon Guildy smiled his characteristic nihilistic smile.
“Of course! WAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!”
Laughing like a battle cry, Dragon Guildy began to discharge electricity from his body.
“Felled by a beautiful little girl … yes … this too counts as spending one’s life with her, in its own way!!”
“You’re incurably optimistic, you know that…”
I’m a boy, actually—actually, let’s not say it. It would have spoiled something for him.
An enemy, and a scoundrel who’d accumulated crime upon crime. Yet, there had been something, just slightly, buried within this guy that he couldn’t bring himself to hate.
Maybe I could say that about everyone I’d ever fought. But…
“The next life … we’ll meet again.”
“As long as you love twintails … maybe that will happen.”
The moment I turned his back in farewell, Dragon Guildy detonated in a massive explosion, and was gone.
“Gh—ugh.”
The strength left my body all at once, and I fell spread-eagle on the ground.
Exhausted beyond all capacity, my transformation released itself whether I wanted it to or not. But where my body plummeted lay only molten earth and smoldering fire.
Bad. I knew it in my head, but my body just kept falling.
“Souji-sama!!”
White smoke blanketed the area, and the red heat began gradually to subside. Whatever chemical was used, the speed of suppression was extraordinary.
“Twirl…”
The Masked Twintail was walking over, arm lent to an equally de-transformed Aika.
She was holding something like a spray canister in her right hand, presumably what had put out the fire.
With the scene in this state, no one would be able to approach for a while even once they noticed the battle had been here, but she apparently wasn’t ready to drop the disguise yet.
“Aika—you okay?”
“…alive. I may have overdone it a little.” Despite hardly holding enough voice to answer, Aika managed it.
“She’s just drained and can’t move, Aika-san is. This is the perfect opportunity; let’s roll her on the ground and draw on her chest.”
“…normally if you’re going to draw on someone, it’s their forehead, isn’t it?”
“——ARE YOU CALLING ME FLAT AS A FOREHEAD, YOU——!!”
“She’s still got plenty of energy!! Could you handle the fire suppression instead——!!”
“I’ll suppress your life force——!!”
After a fight that brutal and exhausting, somehow THIS brought them back to normal immediately?
Watching the two of them go at it, something in me was brought close to tears. Of, uh, relief.
“But, Souji, using the Aura Pillar as a shield. How did you think of that?”
“…You used it on Twirl once, remember? I took a direct hit. If even a held-back version hit like that, I thought … maybe.”
“It was my sacrifice that gave you the key to victory!! I’m so happy!!”
“Want me to run the experiment again…?!”
“No thank you!! Aika-san, please try it yourself!!”
She never would have chosen a better successor for the bracelet, Souji thought, watching them. More suited for it than anyone.
“Man, I really can’t move at all right now…”
An enormous grinning face filled my blurry vision.
“Leave it to me!! In times like this, body warmth is the best way to restore energy and vi … I mean, vitality!!”
“Huh!?”
She threw off the lab coat, let Aika drop from her shoulder, and launched herself with full force.
My vision was badly blurred from exhaustion, but—or maybe I was imagining it—Twirl’s skin-colored surface area seemed to be expanding as she fell toward me…
“Don’t strip with just the mask on—that’s terrifying!!”
The crisp thwock of a solid hit and the helpless BWAH of the recipient arrived in perfect unison.
No sentimentality or grace could survive these two idiots.
An irreplaceable everyday that we had protected with our own hands.