"Lishia is a Saint?"
Aisha and Ren glanced at each other—green eyes and red eyes blinking twice in sync—then both shook their heads almost at the same time.
Ren said, "No way, impossible. That Lishia? No matter how you look at it, she can't be a Saint."
Aisha added, "A so-called Saint should be noble and elegant, full of a sacred aura and intellectual beauty."
That bespectacled girl with thick glasses, braided pigtails, wearing plain peasant clothes, occasionally blurting out a rural dialect, and able to eat nine pancakes in one sitting… that girl was supposedly the Saint of the Order Church? It was only natural that such a thing would be hard to believe.
"Maybe she really is."
While the others, including Princess Nova, doubted this, only Miles held a different opinion.
"Camille, when you say 'Saint,' do you mean Lishia herself?"
"So you noticed too, Miles." Camille gave a mysterious smile.
"Perhaps even Lishia herself isn't aware she's a Saint. To use the technical term, she's a 'Saint Vessel.'"
"Possession, huh."
That matched exactly what Miles had felt during the duel.
When dueling against her Charmer deck, Miles had indeed sensed a more mysterious presence dwelling in Lishia.
"Finding a suitable girl and summoning the Saint's soul to possess her—that's the Order Church's method. Sounds like a cult, right? But in the west, that's considered orthodox."
If summoning a Saint's soul to possess an ignorant girl counted as orthodoxy, then one could only imagine how insane the Church of the Old Dominators hidden in the shadows must be.
Though Camille, existing only as a spirit after losing his host, had no reason to lie, Miles still had questions.
"Why do you know so much about the Order Church? Even things Lishia herself doesn't know?"
That a spirit confined beneath Fusion Academy would know such highly classified church secrets—secrets even kept from Lishia herself—was strange indeed.
At the question, Camille's expression softened with nostalgia. He touched the Millennium Key hanging from his chest.
"She, before she was killed, was a member of the Order Church. When Lishia was born, it was she who summoned the Saint's soul to dwell within Lishia."
"The Millennium Key's previous host, I see."
Looking at the cruciform design of the Millennium Key, it certainly carried a strong religious aura.
With its host a member of the Order, it was no wonder Camille knew so much.
"Actually, you don't need to worry about Lishia. It's been ten years since I last returned to the Order, but the Archbishop himself surely knows she's a Saint. Sending her to Fusion Academy was probably meant to give her a chance to grow stronger. What you should really worry about are the cultists in the dark."
"The Old Dominators?"
"Yes, though not only them. I don't know much about them, however, the one piece of intel I've heard is that their obsession with gods borders on madness."
"Cultists obsessed with gods to the point of insanity… doesn't that make Little Ai, who holds a God Card, really dangerous?"
Ren immediately hugged Aisha protectively. Now the three were stacked like nesting dolls—Aisha holding Miles, and Ren holding Aisha.
"Hard to say. Though the Old Dominators are fanatically obsessed with gods, their worship focuses on Outer Gods and Evil Gods. Especially the Three Wicked Gods, who are said to have power surpassing even the Egyptian Gods."
Aisha frowned. "The Three Wicked Gods? Surpassing the Egyptian Gods? That sounds dubious. The Egyptian Gods are incredibly strong!"
"Rumors always exaggerate. That said, since you hold a God Card, being wary of cultists is absolutely right. That's the warning I needed to give. That's about it."
Rising from the floor and brushing himself off, Camille looked ready to retreat, his task complete.
For a fossilized shut-in who'd lived underground for ten years, this was already a grand excursion.
"Wait, that's it?"
Abruptly, Miles, in Nova's body, raised a slender arm to stop the little green-haired shota from leaving.
"Oh? Miles, is there something else?"
"You came to thank us, didn't you?"
"That's right. I sincerely thank you for defeating Locke Slint. Otherwise, I never would've left the Academy's underground."
"Then, as a reward, can I ask you for something?"
"Ask me for something?" Camille's brows twitched. "What do you want, Miles? Just so you know, I don't have money."
Miles moved Nova's hand and pointed right at Camille's forehead.
Camille blinked, then his young face flushed red.
"M-Miles, you… want me?"
Aisha shrieked. "Ehh?! Is that really what you mean, Miles?!"
Ren looked shocked too, as if realizing something. "Wait, could it be… Miles, your orientation was like this all along? No wonder you always acted uninterested in women!"
Only Princess Nova, within the Millennium Puzzle, stayed calm despite her age, comforting Miles gently.
"Even if that's the case, I understand, Miles. Everyone has the freedom to love—that's what Sally told me."
"What are you all talking about? Listen to me!"
Before he could explain, they'd already plastered a strange label on him.
Regardless, what Miles wanted was simple.
From the moment he first met Camille, he'd been wondering. However, after the underground collapsed, he never got the chance to ask.
"Camille, I want you to tell me how a spirit can appear in physical form like you."
If he could materialize like Camille, free to move in and out of the Millennium Item, then even without a body in this world, he'd be fine.
"Ohhh, I think I get it now."
The blush faded from Camille's face, though a bit lingered.
"I was worried that if I agreed to be with you, it'd ruin my shut-in lifestyle. But so that's not it. Haha, good, good~"
"Miles…"
Having spent the most time with him, Aisha understood best.
Miles had never said it outright; that said, she'd long sensed his desire to be able to move freely like Camille.
Today, that yearning seemed even stronger.
He couldn't accept just being a woman's plaything—he had to fight for more.
"Well, the conclusion is simple. Miles, you can't."
Camille doused his hopes with cold water.
"Why not? You're also a spirit from a Millennium Item. Why can you do it but not me?"
"You don't have a vessel that can independently house a soul, Miles."
He lifted the Millennium Key.
"The reason I can materialize is because the Key itself is my vessel. And why? Simply because my host is gone."
Because his host no longer lived, Camille's soul could manifest.
Miles had considered this possibility before and decided: if it required sacrificing the host, he wouldn't want it.
"In that case, forget it."
Aisha quickly pressed, "So if we found another vessel, like an unused Millennium Item, could Miles materialize too?"
Her concern for giving Miles a body was even stronger than his own, and that moved him.
Camille thought. "Theoretically, yes. If you could find a Millennium Item—or something like it—that doesn't already have a spirit, and transfer successfully, Miles could appear as a free spirit."
"It has to be one without a spirit, huh…"
Millennium Items were rare enough, and finding one without a spirit seemed impossible.
The two missing Items from the capital, the Millennium Eye and the Millennium Rod… maybe they would work.
Even so, they were already lost. What a pity.
"Well, if there's nothing else, I really should go. Staying out too long makes me anemic~"
Thump thump thump—!
Just as Camille was about to leave, hurried footsteps approached outside.
"Aisha-senpai! Aisha-senpai! Something's wrong!"
That recognizable rural dialect—Lishia's voice came before her figure.
And the instant she burst in, Camille vanished, clutching the Millennium Key.
"Lishia, what happened?"
It was Aisha's first time seeing shy, reserved Lishia so flustered. She hadn't even wiped the crumbs off her lips.
That such a girl was really the Saint of the Order Church…
Realizing the truth gave Aisha a surreal sense of dissonance, like what she saw wasn't really what it seemed.
"Arnold, Arnold—"
She was panting heavily, her chest heaving—obviously she'd sprinted all the way to the third floor.
"Slow down, Lishia. What about Arnold?"
"O-okay."
With Aisha's reassurance, Lishia really did slow down. She even licked the crumbs from her lips.
"Arnold's being hassled by some weird woman. At the school gates!"
"Weird woman?"
"Just hurry and help him, Aisha-senpai! She even mentioned you, so you should be able to resolve it!"
Dragging Aisha by the wrist, Lishia pulled her downstairs at a run.
Miles and Ren, curious, followed after.
What kind of 'weird woman' could trouble Arnold enough to rattle Lishia so much? And she even seemed to know Aisha.
On the way, Aisha asked, "Lishia, tell me—what was this weird woman like?"
"Super fierce, super scary! Even Arnold was completely overwhelmed!"
"And? Any features?"
"She had a robe over her uniform."
(￣ー￣)
"Ah, a robe over her uniform?"
Aisha's eyes narrowed. She had an idea.
"And she wore a really weird hat."
" A weird hat, huh?"
Uh oh… this sounded familiar.
"Long gray hair. Really striking."
"That's enough. I know who it is."
At the school gate, sure enough, the weird woman hassling Arnold was Irena.
Clad in a witch's robe, with a witch's hat atop her head, her long gray hair flowing—the narcissistic Gray Witch, Irena.
Though it had been a while, Aisha remembered her differently. She hadn't seemed the fierce, scary type Lishia described.
But now, gripping Arnold, her expression was filled with unprecedented fury.
"How are you going to compensate me? Do you know how much effort it took me to get this back!?"
Arnold snapped back, indignant, "It's just a toy! How could it be that serious? You city folk trying to scam me? I won't fall for it!"
At his words, Irena grew even angrier.
"Toy? You dare call the thing I spent an entire holiday retrieving a toy!? I'm furious! Today I'll skin you alive, brat!"
"Bring it on! Don't think I'm scared of you, you weird woman!"
"Duel—!"
Without warning, the two launched into a duel right there at the gate. Aisha hadn't even had time to intervene.
"When did Irena-senpai return to the Academy?"
Professor Field had mentioned she'd taken a few days off and delayed her enrollment, so Aisha hadn't seen her in the library lately.
Anyhow, more than Irena's return or her duel with Arnold, what caught Miles's eye was the item on the ground.
Though shattered into pieces, within the fragments, he could make out eye-shaped designs characteristic of a Millennium Item… Except the fragments weren't solid gold like a true Millennium Item, but crystalline, transparent instead.
...
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