Aha. Praise Aha! Managed to pull this out now. Ofc still stuck on a 2 drop per week, I'm too busy.
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"Ayane-san?" Shiroko froze. "You sound terrible… Could it be…"
Shiroko had a very bad feeling. She pressed her earpiece and shouted urgently.
"What happened to Serika?!"
"…Please come quickly."
Ayane's voice was nasal, but she didn't continue.
Dan Kuroto raised an eyebrow, seemingly understanding. He looked around and picked out a fully equipped off-road jeep.
"Let's use this jeep to get there."
Hanemi volunteered to get into the driver's seat, while Shiroko, clutching her gun, anxiously sat in the passenger seat. Dan Kuroto hopped onto his motorcycle.
This Rider motorcycle was no less powerful than a regular car; after all, it was a Kamen Rider's ride, and some even had more powerful motorcycles that could automatically transform and travel between worlds.
The sadness and anger in Ayane's voice were impossible to conceal, and even Shiroko sensed something was wrong. The three of them sped silently across the Abydos desert, kicking up two plumes of dust across the sandy landscape.
Following the coordinates and the drone that had been hovering in the air as a guide, the location provided by the mechanical soldier was easily found.
Hanemi slammed on the brakes, and before the car had even come to a complete stop, Shiroko jumped out impatiently. But as far as the eye could see, there was no cell where Serika could be held.
"Where... is Serika?"
Shiroko's voice trembled as she nervously looked around, but she didn't see the scene she hoped for. Instead, Ayane's pained voice came from the drone hovering in the air.
"Shiroko... please... look at the ground."
Dan Kuroto's motorcycle stopped beside him. He dismounted and slowly walked toward Shiroko.
Sand whipped up by the wind, undulating dunes, a halo on the verge of collapse.
Shiroko dropped her gun, stretched out her trembling hands, knelt on the sand, and repeatedly threw the scalding sand backward.
'Serika…'
Her hands moved swiftly, digging down along the halo, soon revealing the longed-for figure.
But as soon as a part of it was revealed, even as she tried to compose herself, Shiroko broke down.
"Move aside, I'll do it."
Dan Kuroto took two steps forward, reached out, grabbed Shiroko's shoulder, and threw her into the sand behind him.
Thrown onto the ground by Dan Kuroto, Shiroko didn't even get up; she remained seated, staring blankly at the shattered halo on the ground.
"Why…"
Hot tears welled up in her eyes and overflowed.
The breakdown wasn't hysterical; it was an even more terrifying calm.
There's a saying: "Nothing is more sorrowful than a broken heart."
Shiroko refused to understand the scene before her, yet stubbornly blamed it all on herself.
Dan Kuroto reached for his Gaschacon Bugvisor, casually scattering a cloud of black smoke that obscured everyone's vision. Then, his arm plunged into the desert, grasping a cold, stiff body.
He pulled it out.
"If those guys at CRT saw this, they'd be furious too."
"But I just feel—disgusted."
Dan Kuroto knelt down and gently placed the girl on the ground. The inhuman torture she had endured was beyond description; from the shattered halo above her head and her lifeless eyes, Dan Kuroto was certain of one thing.
"Has her mind vanished...?"
Being protected by their Halos, Kivotos Students wouldn't die even from the most severe injuries.
With rest and medication, they could recover to normal health.
However, the Halo's protection only prevented death; malnutrition, physical weakness, and mental trauma—equally serious but not fatal—were not covered.
The black-haired girl before them, Serika Kuromi, had completely lost herself after prolonged inhuman torture.
This was something even someone like Dan Kuroto could understand.
Dan Kuroto looked out into the black mist. Shiroko remained seated, stunned. She tried to move, but her legs wouldn't obey, and her hands trembled terribly. Despite the scorching desert, she felt as if she were in an ice cave.
Hanemi remained silent, in a terrifying silence. She too had seen the halo on the ground. After Dan Kuroto released the black mist, obscuring her vision, Hanemi finally understood what it was, and a chill ran down her spine.
'I… that…'
That was the girl who had been kidnapped by their Helmet Gang.
And she herself was an accomplice in making it all happen.
Thinking of this, Hanemi could no longer hold on.
A massive wave of regret and fear crashed over her like a tidal wave, making it hard for her to breathe.
If only she had known it would end like this, if only she had known this fate…
She felt her breath trembling and instinctively reached for the jeep door, slowly sliding down the side and sitting on the sand. Her hands gripped her collar tightly, feeling a suffocating tightness in her chest.
"So that's how you deal with enemies that can't be eliminated."
Dan Kuroto didn't consider himself a good person. Even after being lectured by those meddlesome doctors and understanding the value of and respect for life, he couldn't undo the mistakes he'd made.
But seeing the girl before him, Dan Kuroto felt a strange surge of emotion welling up inside him. This emotional impulse made him desperately want to do something.
Dan Kuroto wanted to activate the Alchemist Player Gashat on his belt and like he had with Ayane, use a healing potion to restore Serika. But his fingers barely touched it before he let go.
"I don't have that power anymore."
The perfect finishing move that healed Ayane seems to have been cast when the Level X Gashat was first created, when its power was at its peak—a miracle perfectly suited to the unpredictable nature of Level X.
But now, Dan Kuroto could sense that even if the Alchemist Player Gashat created that potion again, it would only heal external wounds.
More important than the repulsive wounds on Serika Kuromi's body was healing her broken and scattered mind, something that couldn't be easily accomplished with a potion for treating external wounds.
"Now that things have come to this..."
Dan Kuroto glanced again at the two people outside the black mist.
Both girls were trapped in their own inner demons, and even the girl opposite the drone was in the same predicament, trapped in a self-pitying cycle of sin.
The only way to break this situation was...
"—To demonstrate the power of miracles."