"Gulp—"
Seeing "Silence" again—just like three years ago—made Alicia feel a pressure she couldn't swallow down.
It wasn't only Alicia. Every girl from the Astraea Familia who had once stood opposite "Silence" felt that familiar weight return.
"Oh? The look is exactly the same as three years ago."
Loki strolled up to the puppet with keen interest, observing it at close range before sighing in appreciation.
"Indeed."
"The appearance really is almost identical to what she looked like three years ago. Only… 'Silence' suffered constant illness. Her condition was worse, her face paler with that sickly tint."
Astraea had seen "Silence" as well, so she could speak to the details. The puppet before them was already very close—save for the obvious fact it was a puppet, not the person herself.
"As for the rest, it's as you said—you don't have an accurate grasp of 'Silence's' true strength."
"Descriptions help, but when 'Silence' came to Alicia three years back, she held back—by a lot. Even their firsthand memories can't pin down what her ceiling looked like."
The implication was clear: perfectly restoring "Silence's" power was nigh impossible.
Unless "Silence" came back to life and showed every last bit of her strength to Tsunayoshi—which was the least realistic part of all.
"As for her abilities, the city's understanding of 'Silence' is incomplete."
"To truly know her data, we'd at least need to speak with Hera directly."
"Appearance alone won't cut it."
Tsunayoshi nodded.
"That's exactly right, Lady Astraea. Without specific ability data, the 'Silence' I build is mostly a shell."
"But if we know the three categories of magic she used and her ability scores, I can fuse what I know of Finn and Riveria to break down a simplified Lv.6 profile."
He snapped his fingers, dismissing the earlier, hollow shell—and reconstructed her using his combined model of Finn and Riveria.
"Silence" reappeared. Her closed eyes lifted by a fraction, and the presence that spilled out pressed on every chest.
"!?"
The weight of it bleached the faces of Finn, Gareth, and Riveria.
It was the same pressure they'd felt in the Great War years—and it was coming now from a "Silence" Tsunayoshi had made.
Not Lv.7—this was the pressure of a Lv.6 deconstruction.
"Short-verse sound magic, short-verse imbuement magic, and a long-verse, transcendent, purely offensive magic."
"A single strike capable of killing one of the Three Great Commissions—'Leviathan'—with destructive power tentatively sufficient to obliterate over half of the Labyrinth City."
"Add in that kind of imagination…"
The manifested "Silence" began to collapse before she'd even stabilized for a few seconds, drawing a soft sigh from Tsunayoshi.
"My visualization skewed again—or there are abilities of hers we still don't know, and the missing pieces crashed the construct."
"Removing the final, transcendent finisher, though…"
Her form re-knit. This time the puppet held far steadier—and the intimidation it radiated surpassed the earlier, unstable state.
But Tsunayoshi still shook his head.
"At the end of the day, this is a puppet with abilities similar to 'Silence,' rebuilt through my power."
"Some of her strength came from experience."
"I don't possess that breadth of battle experience, so I can't 'imagine' enough of it to load into her."
"She's strong enough as a puppet—but too showy for you to spar against casually."
"Also, while she's a valid challenge target, I don't recommend fighting her."
"This puppet can't 'hold back' with the same delicate control that 'Silence' had."
The puppet vanished—and in the blink of an eye reappeared behind Alicia, a hand-knife poised at her throat.
"—!"
Alicia's mind blanked, though the corner of her eye still caught the hand at her neck. She swallowed, eyes wide.
"Th-This… is that 'Silence's' strength?"
The puppet withdrew, drifted back to Tsunayoshi's side, and adopted a harmless, placid air.
"I'd love to say 'yes' to protect your feelings," Tsunayoshi said, "but I need to splash some cold water."
"This is a Lv.6 configuration built after discarding 'Silence's' strongest finisher."
"What you just felt wasn't 'power' so much as her baseline state."
He would have preferred to soft-pedal it, but if they didn't understand the gap, there was no point to building the puppet at all.
"Harsh as it sounds, if 'Silence' had wanted to kill you three years ago, you wouldn't have managed to resist."
"The fight would have ended in an instant."
"Exactly like the result you saw just now."
The gap really was that big…
Alicia drew a deep breath. No matter how she tried to steady herself, she couldn't quite keep the discouragement off her face.
Their so-called resistance three years ago had been just that—'Silence' playing along.
Only now did Alicia understand it might not have been a little mercy, but a spar more akin to a child's game. Otherwise, as Tsunayoshi said, it would have ended instantly. Their "resistance" had been a joke. In truth, they'd never had a chance to resist.
Even so, Alicia gathered herself inside that discouragement and adjusted.
"Tsunayoshi, we still choose to challenge her."
"Whatever happened three years ago, we have an unfinished fight with her."
"But… tune her down. Right now, we really can't win."
She chuckled weakly, lowering her ask a notch.
Even this incomplete "Silence" would be brutally hard to handle.
They would challenge "Silence," yes—but the power needed to be scaled back.
Lv.6 was still too high.
(End of Chapter)
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