[207] 3. Ra the Eternal (4)
Imir knew the time given to him had run out.
When he slowly turned, his eyes were carved with a bitter, hollow anguish and a burning rage.
If Ra wanted it that way, then so be it.
But his instincts told a different story about Ra. No—he was beginning to see the truth Ra was hiding.
'I have to see it with my own eyes.'
Imir headed for the angelic city of Jebul.
@
Shirone stepped into Ikael's room and looked around.
It was not what he had imagined. The table and chairs, the bed and rug—everything looked like a human's living space.
And yet it did not feel human.
Every object held sunlight. As if sealed off from the flow of time, there wasn't a single petty flaw to be found.
The sensation of seeing perfectly immaculate things was strangely disorienting.
It was a level of fineness a human eye normally couldn't detect.
Still, anyone who stood in that room would feel a purity bordering on obsession.
Shirone picked up the teaspoon on the table and held it to his face.
As he expected, it was unnervingly clean for something made by human hands. He wondered if this was what mortals called a relic.
'Huh? Now that I think about it…'
The most important person— Ikael—was nowhere to be seen. Peope had clearly said she couldn't go outside.
Could she have lied to him?
A terrifying thought sent Shirone pacing the room in a daze. No one was there. Everything was spotless. The perfection was almost frightening.
A beautiful melody suddenly lingered in his ear. Shirone froze and looked up to the window five meters above.
A clear, harp-like resonance came from there.
An angelic vibration.
Like someone in a trance, he moved beneath the window.
Sunlight pouring through began to fall on a shape. When he finally cleared his head, a woman sat on the sill, looking out.
A face no painter could capture for its beauty.
Shirone saw a radiant halo floating above her head. It shone with a brightness and warmth nothing like the fallen angel Ikasa.
As her form became fully visible, wings of light unfolded. The vast luminous wings filled Shirone with a pleasant, almost intoxicating delight.
"Welcome, Shirone."
He knew without doubt.
She was Archangel Ikael.
The first entity of causality—the emblem of nobility the gods cherished most. Such a being stood before him.
Ikael landed lightly on the floor.
Her height—over two meters—was imposing, but it did nothing to diminish the warmth she exuded.
Words failed to describe the sensation. To call her merely beautiful felt like an understatement.
Is this what goodness looks like embodied? If Miro had realized truth in her labyrinthine space-time, then Ikael was the form of goodness itself.
Despite her mature features, Ikael wore a mischievous expression as she scanned the room for a place to sit.
Finding none quite to her liking, she simply dropped to the floor.
Shirone stared, bewildered, as the hem of her skirt settled down. Ikael sat with her calves together and tapped the floor, beckoning Shirone.
"Come, over here."
He felt an irresistible pull and moved close until he was almost pressed against her.
They were close enough that their skin could meet.
Perhaps she had chosen the floor because she wanted him that near.
True to expectation, Ikael leaned in. Her mouth curved as she fixed him with a steady gaze.
When Shirone, embarrassed, lowered his eyes, she finally spoke.
"I wanted to meet you, Shirone."
"Uh? You know me?"
Ikael scratched her brow in mild embarrassment.
Her mannerisms were uncannily human. Considering that even the fallen angel Ikasa embodied arrogant extremes, this was a surprise.
"Knowing or not knowing isn't the point. It's how much you understand that matters. But as you know, that's not something you can explain with words, is it?"
Shirone mustered courage and studied her face. As their gazes met, a sense of unity sent a current through his body.
He looked up at the halo. It was the first time he'd seen it so close.
Light floating above her head was a wondrous sight.
Realizing he'd stared too long, Shirone hurriedly snapped back.
"Ah, I'm sorry."
Ikael shook her head as if to say it was fine.
"The halo is an angel's spirit. Humans enter the Spirit Zone through concentration, but an angel's zone is outside. We call it the Over-Spirit."
Hearing this, Shirone saw the halo differently. It seemed to maintain a continuous, exterior-type separation.
It was literally the angel's mind.
It was everything about her.
Slightly embarrassed, Ikael added, "It used to be brighter. But I committed a fault, and Ra controlled the strength of my light."
"What kind of sin did you commit?"
Shirone blurted the question and immediately apologized.
"Oh, sorry. I shouldn't have—"
"It's all right. Even though I did wrong, I do not regret it."
He felt oddly relieved. Whatever she had done, if she herself felt no regret, perhaps it was not something to be ashamed of.
"Um…"
He hesitated.
He knew it was a ridiculous request. Still, once the thought had come to him he couldn't let it go.
"Ask. You can say anything."
"Just once…"
"Yes?"
"May I touch it—just once?"
Ikael blinked, then laughed as if she finally understood.
It was an unexpected request.
There was likely not a single being in all of heaven who would ask to touch Archangel Ikael's halo.
"All right. Go ahead and touch it."
"Isn't that rude? I mean, what if—"
Ikael waved him off as if it didn't matter.
Shirone relaxed and reached out.
The halo he touched was both light and energy. A pleasant warmth flowed over the back of his hand.
"It's warm."
"That's because you're a warm person, Shirone."
"Hehe."
It was the first comfort he'd experienced since coming to heaven. With her, he felt there was nothing in the world worth worrying about.
He wanted to stay with her forever.
At that moment Ikael's hand moved closer. Shirone flinched back in surprise; she looked embarrassed and offered an explanation.
"Ah… your hair's all tangled."
"Ha ha, I've been running. Actually, there's been a lot going on."
Shirone laughed as he smoothed his hair. He'd only been startled by the idea of being touched unprepared.
Then his eyes widened as if struck by a hammer.
How could he have forgotten the most important thing?
"Ah! Amy!"
Shirone sprang up.
Only now did he think of his friends—proof of how overwhelming the meeting with Ikael had been.
"Help! My friends were taken! They mentioned some elixir of life, that they'll use it to produce Nephilim."
"Oh my. That's serious."
"They treat them like heretics and so on, but they're not bad people. Even if they were, I can't accept them being taken like this."
Ikael fell silent for a moment, thinking.
"Shirone, do you love your friends? Enough to risk your life for them?"
"Yes! Of course!"
Ikael nodded as if that settled it.
"Good. But Shirone, if you want to save your friends, there is something you must hear."
It felt like there was nothing he needed to hear right now.
But it was Archangel Ikael speaking, and he couldn't refuse. Above all, the phrase "if you want to rescue your friends" was decisive.
"A story I must hear? What is it?"
"About heaven. And about a woman named Miro."
Shirone was taken aback. He hadn't expected to hear her name from Ikael.
Adrias Miro.
When he first came to heaven he'd thought she was just another unlocked mind among many.
But the more he learned, the more he realized she was deeply connected to heaven.
He wanted to know who she truly was.
"You know Miro?"
"Yes. I've met her. I like her. Though she would certainly hate me for saying so."
Shirone was shocked. Ikael had met Miro? Especially the claim that Miro disliked Ikael made no sense—by Shirone's experience, Ikael was a good angel.
"It won't take long. So will you let me brush your hair for a moment, Shirone?"
Ikael's halo spread into the shape of a ring.
A brilliant light spun along the ring and a comb of light formed in her hand.
Photon sculpting.
In an instant she produced a tool as delicate as light itself.
No matter how strong an angel's mental power, the nature of light does not change.
This was a device that could only be produced through circuitry far more complex than any Shining Chain.
Shirone realized that all the answers lay in the halo.
It had been the same ring-shaped spread of halo when he felt Ikasa's untouchable aura.
"How did you shape photons like that? Is it related to the halo changing?"
"The light ring can process vast amounts of information very quickly. We call it a halo. It's like the magic circles humans use. The halo spins at light speed, assembling countless concepts."
Ikael used magic circles as an example, but the comparison felt almost inadequate.
It was literally a method of assembling concepts at the speed of light.
Even if dozens of mages attacked it, none could match a single halo's pace.
"Then let's begin. Lie down here, Shirone."
Ikael gestured to her knee. She seemed unable to bear the thought of brushing his hair for long.
Assuming she had a purpose, Shirone lay down as instructed.
After all, where else would he find such indulgence?
With his head on the archangel's knee and the heavens above, Ikael raised the comb and smoothed his hair.
'Huh?'
Shirone felt his consciousness grow hazy.
The more she combed, the more it felt as if chunks of his mind were being pulled away. He didn't want to pass out. His friends had been captured. If he lost his sense of the flow of time, it would be over.
'No. I can't…'
His eyes slid shut.
Ikael studied Shirone's sleeping face and lifted her head with sad eyes.
Many thoughts passed through her mind. Through the comb, she began to seep into Shirone's spirit.
As if reading a fairy tale to a child, Ikael began to speak in a beautiful voice.
"A very, very long time ago…"
4. The Truth of Heaven (1)
The Grand Celestial Hall in Jebul was Kariel's laboratory and the observatory overseeing the world's motions.
Because a special function of the Mecha System had erased the space, as long as the security systems were running there was no way to enter—or even find a trace.
True to its name as a Great Hall, the space was vast enough to hold the entire Alpheas School of Magic.
The overall color was mechanical navy, and tens of thousands of electrical signals flickered across the hemispherical ceiling.
In the northwest, a hologram of a globular star cluster slowly expanded.
At its center floated a gigantic steel sphere more than thirty meters across, with two bands rotating along orbital and axial paths.
Amy and her companions sat in a row near the globular cluster, their wrists bound in steel manacles.
Ikasa, who had abducted the women, had expected them to be reinstated as angels, but under Kariel's silence they were only returned to the Second Heaven.
Since arriving here, that moment had been the only time Amy's group had felt any relief.
Otherwise, everything had been grim.
They'd never imagined an archangel would go so far as to put them in handcuffs.