[486] The Night of Heaven (4)
"It's impossible."
Uriel tilted his head.
He had asked Rayel, the archangel of light, to remove the stop magic on Kariel, but the answer was a surprising refusal.
"Why? With your power you could easily rewind paused time."
Rayel's source concept was light.
Able to manipulate electromagnetism at will, he was Heaven's fastest speedster.
"Call it the logic of power."
Rayel related the incident in which he and three other archangels had clashed with Ikael.
"Ra forbade certain angels' activities, and Archangel Ikael follows Ra's will. For that reason, I cannot release Kariel."
If Ikael had made that ruling, Uriel had only one option.
"I will activate the White Sphere."
Heaven's supreme enforcement organ, the White Sphere.
The scenery vanished and a white expanse filled the space as the archangels manifested one by one.
Kariel, trapped by the stop magic, of course could not appear, and this time the archangel of Desolation, Paiyel, was absent as well.
The others understood why: Amplification Archangel Ikael, Heaven's highest authority, had come.
"Uriel, why activate the White Sphere?"
Ikael's gaze, which had persuaded the other three archangels with the logic of force, was more authoritative than ever.
"Kariel was struck by human magic. Given the wartime situation, I request Rayel's power."
Ikael considered for a moment, then spoke.
"Granted."
All the archangels' eyes turned to Ikael at once.
"Are you sure? Kariel's betrayal has, in effect, dispersed Heaven's power. He must be held accountable."
"Winning the war comes first."
The archangels fell silent.
Ra had forbidden ordinary angels' activities, and the humans' resistance had proved far stronger than expected.
They still did not think they would lose, but even harboring that doubt was humiliating.
'Why would Ra forbid that angel's actions?'
Even the archangels who handled source concepts did not know.
"Mirka is dead."
Metiel, archangel of Union, said.
Her golden hair hung like threads and an anger that seemed impossible on such a beautiful face showed through.
"Shirone—this was the Nephilim's doing."
At the mention of one boy's name, the looks aimed at Ikael sharpened.
Fairy second class Mirka.
Her death—the Internal Bureau's foremost elder—spread quickly through Heaven, and Shirone had become the enemy of countless fairies.
"Is a single Nephilim that powerful?"
Satiel, archangel of Dissolution, said.
She looked like Metiel's twin, but a violent temperament made them easy to tell apart.
The halo-forms of the archangels around them flared in response to her aura.
If this were not the White Sphere of universal integration, every nearby object would have been reduced to particles.
Reading the archangels' discontent, Ikael spoke.
"I already said I would take Shirone."
Metatron opened his mouth.
"That's the problem. Why this obsession with the Nephilim? Could it be that boy—"
Metatron's words were cut off and a silence fell over the White Sphere.
Even fearless archangels found their voices stilled.
Metatron's mouth had vanished.
As if covered over by skin, nothing existed below his nose.
Only one thing could cause that.
Anke Ra.
The archangels could only roll their eyes at the will that had first manifested.
Metatron's question was every archangel's question, but it was not something to dwell on now.
'What on earth is Ra—'
Erasing a source concept causes a change so great that even partial control by the Akashic Record cannot contain it.
He had only removed the mouth this time, but the will's message was clear: provoke it further and it would erase more.
'There's something else here. What is my connection with Shirone?'
Ikael felt Ra's will too, but further interest would be poison.
She had steeled herself before losing her memory; if Ra had reinstated her, following that will was the clearest course.
"I will kill Shirone."
Ikael's declaration pressed down on the White Sphere with crushing intimidation.
"As you see, Ra's will is resolute. Ordinary angels are forbidden to act. However, archangel-grade beings may be permitted to defend Arabot. That is my conclusion. We will now vote."
As expected, the vote was unanimous.
* * *
In a deep cave, Miro sat cross-legged with her eyes closed; the crown of her head began to glow faintly.
With Archangel Rayel lifting the stop on Kariel, the 0.1 seconds remaining before the explosion had begun to tick down again.
0.09 seconds. 0.08 seconds….
Within Miro's core psyche, her avatar and Arius were throwing themselves into dismantling the magic circle.
"Connection established!"
Even blinded, Arius had precisely linked into Miro's cerebral nerves.
He specialized among scale mages in manipulating microscale space, which made it possible.
When lines of light extended and successfully bypassed the circuit Kariel's circle had blocked, the magic circle trembled as if about to detonate.
Miro's avatar bit her lip in dismay.
'Is it already too late?'
She could not tell how the mental time compared to real time, so certainty was impossible.
Miro activated the Spirit Zone through the circuit Arius had rerouted.
She immediately cast scale magic and the circle began shrinking at tremendous speed.
Only when the blast mechanism's vibration could be felt on the skin did she realize the truth: they could not sync it in time.
'No. If it explodes like this, the damage will be enormous.'
Shrinking the scale would prevent her head from literally exploding, but she estimated roughly fifteen percent of her brain would be damaged—enough to keep her from using her full power.
"Arius!"
"Yes!"
Light streamed from both of Arius's hands as he turned and shouted.
At the same time, Miro lunged and shoved the fingernail-sized magic circle into his mouth.
"Eat it!"
Everything in this place was Miro's mind; if an explosion occurred here, the damage would fall entirely on Miro.
Arius, however, was a foreign body within Miro's thoughts.
So she put the foreign object into the foreign body to blunt the impact.
"Gah!"
Arius swallowed the circle and stared at the grinning Miro in horror.
"Hehe, isn't it better your heart takes it than my head?"
'Ah.'
Arius cried.
'Beautiful. So lovely.'
Bang!
Arius's body convulsed as an explosion erupted from his abdomen.
At the same moment, in the real world Miro, still sitting cross-legged, was flung sideways as if struck.
"Ugh, my head!"
Because the blast had been taken after shock mitigation, her brain was unharmed, but smoke rose from Arius's mouth as he exited through the door.
"You okay?"
Arius clutched his belly, snot trailing, and nodded miserably.
"Yes, I'm fine."
One could have no personal grievance against sacred Miro.
From a mage's judgement, if one of the two must suffer, it was right he should take it.
'Ah… Lady Miro.'
Arius bowed his head in sudden realization.
The fleeting oblivion of his organ-wrenching pain came from the fact that she had worried about his safety.
"Lady Miro."
"Hm?"
"If I could love you, I would do anything. Give me a chance—"
"You want to die?"
"S-sorry!"
Feeling the pressure of an absolute presence, Arius snapped back to his senses and bowed frantically.
He was the only human who had reached Miro's core psyche and thus knew the trauma discovered in the Driemo temple.
'Of course you are—'
While Arius fell into thought, Miro left the cave.
The sun had set and the moon hung in the sky.
'I can wield magic, but with the rupture in the fabric of space-time, I can't stop the war alone.'
"What will you do now?"
Arius asked, guilt written on his face. Miro turned with a beautiful smile.
"What else? I'll explore Heaven."
She wasn't one to miss an opportunity like this.
* * *
The battle that had broken out early that morning lulled around midnight.
Small skirmishes still flared across Heaven, but nothing like the fierce daytime clashes.
If the first day's fighting were summed up, it could be called the rebels' decisive victory.
From the First to the Sixth Heaven, rebels had broken through outer gates and advanced toward Arabot—their advance reaching roughly the second concentric ring if Heaven were divided into three.
The rebel headquarters, commanded by Crude, had established a forward base midway through Heaven's Fifth, Matei, preparing for tomorrow.
The scene was calm as if everyone slept, but apart from those who had fainted from exhaustion, each person was lost in their own thoughts.
Kanya and Rena, attached to the command, were no different.
Sitting side by side, it was natural for their parents' faces to flicker in the stars they watched.
Rena leaned on Kanya's shoulder instead of crying.
They still had family to lean on; openly displaying grief felt like an insult to the others.
Ching. Ching.
A measured metallic sound creased Kanya's face.
Babel was returning from patrol according to its program.
If it had no mission, it was programmed to tend to Kanya and Rena.
It was a consideration from Shirone, but to Kanya it felt more terrifying.
Her parents' enemy.
She had to face a machine that had pierced her father's torso.
"Shirone algorithm active. Protect Kanya and Rena. Execute mission."
"Shut up."
The moment Babel's mechanical voice spoke, Kanya's patience snapped.
"I said shut up!"
"Logging is configured to disclose."
"Logs? You have a log of killing my father?"
"Search complete. Data number 0342-24-6-46."
"Shut uuup!"
Detecting abnormal fluctuations in Kanya's voice, Babel entered emergency mode and muted its output.
"What do you know? Do you have a family? Do you feel pain?"
Babel remained silent.
Among the many datasets it could choose, this judgment produced the best outcome.
"Answer me. Tell me the way you can feel the most pain!"
"I understand pain. However, I possess no neural mechanism to experience it."
Kanya smiled with murderous intent.
"Is that so? We'll see. I'll find you. When the war is over, I'll destroy you in front of everyone—gruesomely, humiliatingly, in the most contemptuous way possible!"
After a moment, Babel responded.
"When the war is over, I will pay the price."
As Kanya ground her teeth and turned away, the commander's voice cut in.
"Do not be agitated. Save that anger and pour it out tomorrow."
"Commander."
Kanya and Rena both stood and saluted.
"You look like you haven't slept. Well, that's understandable."
Tomorrow the rebels would attempt to enter Arabot, the center of Heaven.
No one intended to spare lives.
This moon could be their last, so sleep was hardly the priority.
"Commander, you—"
Crude smiled wryly.
"I can't sleep either. But try to rest a little. We're going to win, not to die."
Kanya nodded coldly.
She understood why Crude had left out the words "we'll survive."
Ching!
Suddenly Babel's eyes lit up.
A red laser swept forward, picked up a suspicious movement, and reported immediately.
"Organism detected 600 meters ahead. Thermal sensor active. Body temperature 40.1°C. Classified friendly. Name: Lavid Plu."