[438] The Day of the Full Moon (2)
Rebel First Command.
Commander Krud stood outside and stared at the full moon.
Every time that moon rose, he remembered a unit vanishing. The memory stirred a coil of vengeance in his chest.
"For the fallen comrades, I will win—no matter what."
"You seem troubled."
Krud turned his head.
After confirming Sein was approaching, he looked back at the moon and spoke.
"Not really. There've been no reports of angelic patrols so far. Looks like this full-moon night will pass without incident."
Sein's gaze followed Krud's.
"I see."
Krud turned, as if remembering something, and asked, "How's your work going? Is the research finished?"
Sein had been watching planetary motions day and night to nail down the precise coordinates needed for God's punishment.
"To some extent."
"Astronomy. What use is that to lowly creatures under the sky? Especially in wartime."
"It's meaningless for now. But soon, it will be the only thing that matters."
Krud raised an eyebrow. "I don't follow."
"I can't reveal it yet. In any case, it won't be bad for the rebels. At least we won't be the only ones getting hit."
'Some kind of suicide tactic?'
That was as far as Krud could guess from research into planetary motion. Even Gaoldna and Sein had been baffled when they'd heard Shirone's method.
"Loyalty!"
Kanya stepped out of the barracks and saluted.
Rena and their father Witcher stood beside her.
Witcher, who had left heaven after his wife died, now worked as a military technician teaching maintenance to the Mecha unit.
Krud returned the salute. "All right. What's the matter at this hour?"
"Ah… it just felt a bit stifling staying in the barracks."
It wasn't proper for a soldier like Guroi to take a late-night walk with his family, but Krud didn't scold him. Any rebel had the right to feel uneasy on a full-moon night.
Kanya asked Sein, "Any news from Shirone?"
"Gardrak visited a few days ago. It seems to be progressing smoothly."
Only a few at First Command knew the story of how Shirone, using Nephilim power, had turned Second Command inside out. Like the other officers, Krud hadn't been pleased by Shirone's transfer to Second Command, but he didn't show it.
That wasn't what mattered now.
"Come to think of it, I don't believe Laisis truly accepted Shirone."
Sein turned. "You said there was friction. A difference of opinion about biological experiments?"
"On the surface. But even in war you don't throw away half your forces over biological experiments. What she did then violated not only Mecha norms but Nor common sense."
"You mean she went too far? What did she do?"
Krud's face twisted with cruelty. "Laisis—"
Kriiieeeng!
A tearing cry split the sky and swallowed Krud's words.
"Grrrhn!"
An airwave slammed into Krud; he grimaced. Kanya and Rena clutched their heads and dropped to the ground.
Witcher, pinning his two daughters with his arms, looked up at the sky where electricity arced in a dome.
"Ultrasound. It collided with the magnetic field."
Sein's face was expressionless as he flashed his iron-wheel eye and looked up.
Something reflecting moonlight streaked through the sky.
- Search algorithm complete.
Babel shut off its search mode and transmitted the results of scanning all of Purgatory to Kariel over wireless.
- Magnetic field detected. Target probability: 92.7%.
To Sein's naked eye there was nothing but dense forest, but the program detected that 0.3% of the landscape matched the exact structure of another scene.
An artificial patch—a copy pasted over the scenery.
Rebel headquarters.
- Switching to attack mode.
Babel's optics flared red.
- Strike authorized.
Babel broke the sound barrier and flew straight in; as it entered the command post's airspace, Sein cast Mass Teleport.
Kwaaaaang!
A massive crater, thirty meters across, formed where Babel plunged into the ground.
Emergency sirens screamed through the command post and lights flashed on in the barracks' east wing.
"Damn it! What the hell is that?"
Krud gritted his teeth and started toward the crater when a woman in dark regalia clicked up and strode across its rim.
Kanya's voice trembled. "I-it's a machine?"
- Eliminate the citizen.
A short command dropped into Babel's program.
* * *
Infinite Judicial Luminous Wheel — Valhalla Action.
Ikasa's innate ability, Valhalla Action, inverted cause and effect.
When she desired something, the result would be made real on the condition that she later repaid the time and effort required by that action.
For example, if she wished to go from point A to point B, she could arrive instantly across a distance that would normally take ten seconds. But if there were obstacles between A and B, she had to pay the cost of bypassing or destroying them.
If destroying the obstacle was the only way to reach B and that would take five minutes, then after arriving at B Ikasa would be incapacitated for five minutes and ten seconds to fill the cause.
Calculating that causality was the core of Valhalla.
Like pressing one side of a balloon and making the other swell, if she set desire A then result B would automatically follow.
Desires beyond Valhalla's computational ability simply would not manifest.
If she wished, "I want to enter that rock," it would be impossible—there's no space inside a rock in the first place. But if some space existed inside the rock by any means, even if Ikasa didn't perceive it, the wish would be realized.
This implied Valhalla's calculations were influenced not by pure mathematical truth but by an Akashic-record-like totality that encompassed parts within the whole.
Likewise, a wish like "I want to slit that man's throat" is impossible to realize. Valhalla can't compute a human's future actions, so the desire can't reach 'action.'
"Just remove Shirone."
Ikasa's eyes, staring into the swelling cloud of dust, held cold murderous intent.
She wanted reinstatement as a seraph, and Shirone wasn't only a personal target—he was someone who absolutely had to die.
She knew Kariel was making questionable moves inside heaven, but from Ikasa's position—having committed grave sins twice—capturing Kariel was one of the only ropes she could grasp.
"They're almost back."
Twenty-two minutes and forty-two seconds.
Under normal causality, that was the time it would take Ikasa to bring down an entire mountain with only her fists.
Even considering the full-moon night, the power was almost celestial.
While those twenty-two minutes and forty-two seconds passed, the rebels on the ground poured everything into clearing the dust cloud.
They tried to blow it away with group magic Mahagart, but the haze from an entire mountain collapsing didn't lift easily.
Shirone and Plu had barely escaped before the cliff fell and remained on alert where they stood.
Plu took a phoenix from the Kubrick cube, twirled it, and applied the Dawkins Algorithm to the Spirit Zone—a function that makes the body automatically react when an object breaches the Spirit Zone above a certain speed.
Shirone drew Armand and activated Diamond Armament, and Plu immediately noticed the change.
The ragged robe looked brand new, and the artificial brain glowed with a blue light like the Ultima System seen on Babel.
"What happened?"
"We integrated with the Ultima System."
Plu considered what that might mean, then set it aside. It wasn't relevant right now.
"Does it give any combat advantage?"
She wasn't sure. They'd never fought with Armand after integrating with the Ultima System.
"I don't know. It went from shared thought to integration, so how it will function…we'll see."
At last the dust cleared and the bright full moon flooded the ground with light.
The revealed scene was grisly.
The command post's cliff had been shattered—there wasn't a single intact pillar—and Nor bodies lay scattered beneath the rubble.
The result of a single ambush.
It was precisely this kind of ability, one that destroyed common sense, that made the citizens fear the angels.
"That's…!"
Shirone's eyes widened at the silhouette hovering in the sky. At the same time, memories he'd rather forget surfaced.
'Ikasa.'
The fallen angel who had forced him to watch Amy, Tess, and Arin being taken helplessly.
Her movements—too fast even to track with the eye—still sent chills down his spine.
"Shirone, what's wrong?"
"I've seen her before. She's a fallen angel."
She was far beyond an ordinary seraph, and that didn't make the odds of survival feel any better.
Ikasa folded her arms and descended.
An ominous vibration made the rebels' hearts race.
"Hohoho, you should've come out when you were told. Did you think you could defy me, vermin?"
Her words entered minds through angelic power. One of the surviving officers shouted, "Focus on me! Counter with group magic!"
The officer prepared the massive spell Aruope.
Among magics that manipulate the essence of air, it boasted supreme cutting force.
Dozens of mages connected Spirit Force to the officer, and Ikasa sneered.
"Fools."
She moved.
Her motion resembled an electron existing as probability in space.
She appeared like an afterimage before the dozens of soldiers and felled them all with the fist attached to her delicate wrist.
From low mages to officers, the rank pyramid collapsed in an instant and the coup was over in a flash.
"Ugh!"
Blood spurted from the officer's mouth as Ikasa's fist drove deep into his abdomen.
"Ha ha ha! Killing humans is fun, after all!"
Ikasa was strong.
To one who could topple a mountain in around twenty minutes, dozens of human mages were nothing—even without Valhalla Action.
But she was faithful to the concept of origin, and Shirone understood precisely what her luminous wheel did.
'An equivalent exchange of cause and effect.'
The Ultima System detected that exact sensation.
Having wiped out the rebels, Ikasa turned her head and electricity ran down Shirone and Plu's spines.
The fallen angel's eyes burned with the desire for vengeance.
"Shirone, do you know how long I've waited for this day? Back then you scurried away like a rat."
"I haven't forgotten what you did."
"Hoho! Really? You couldn't even move a finger and lost the women. Think you're different now?"
Shirone flared his nostrils and lowered his stance.
"Be careful, senpai. That angel's luminous wheel seems able to invert cause and effect."
Plu had seen the rebels being slaughtered and understood quickly.
"Fall back to defense. We need to buy time. There should be rebels still alive underground."
Ikasa puffed her cheek and laughed.
"Pfft! Want to know why I hate humans? They're all delusions of grandeur. Thinking distinctions like Human1, Human2 mean you can accomplish anything."
She kicked off the ground and charged. When her fist swung before Plu, the air trembled.
Plu's upper body bent like a willow against the gale of attacks.
Though the Dawkins Algorithm was active, the pain in her spine felt like it would snap; she couldn't hold out long.
"Ugh!"
Ikasa's left hook struck, and Plu flew like she'd been hit by a clothesline. She slammed the phoenix into the back of her hand just before impact to cushion it, but the shock was still unbearable.
"Hohoho! Struggling is a bug's trait!"
Ikasa laughed and turned—when a massive tentacle mouth sprang up and clamped over her face.
The tentacle arced skyward, bent in an arch, and then drove Ikasa's body vertically into the ground.
Kwaaaang!
Ikasa lay face down, her face still buried in the tentacle, blinking.
'What is this?'
A blow to the back of the head that left it numb. A speed that allowed no reaction.
It was a strange, heavy strike that could not be dismissed as a mere surprise attack.
"You insolent—!"
Ikasa slashed the tentacle with the edge of her hand, rebounded, and charged Shirone.
"Danger!"
Plu shouted, but what followed was nothing like they expected.
Shirone dodged Ikasa's brutal blows by twisting his torso.
'I can see it! Ikasa's attacks are visible!'
If Armand amplified the user's physical abilities, now Armand itself had become Shirone's body.
Everything possible in the Diamond Armament state moved as easily as if his fingers were controlling them.
"Human filth? I am an angel's body!"
Ikasa drove a decisive blow. The instant her fist reached its target, Shirone's body spun.
A heavy tentacle burst from his robe and cracked Ikasa across the cheek, sending her body skewing horizontally.
Kwaaaang!
She smashed into a pile of collapsed command-post debris; Plu stared in a daze.
Faster than before, Ataraxia was building up right in front of Shirone.