Simultaneous Incident (4)
Ionas's fist, broken down into particles, reformed in an instant right before Shirone's face.
"Ugh!"
When Shirone turned his head, the air was shoved aside and a sonic boom cracked from beyond the void.
"Still got some tricks."
Shirone took Ionas in with his gaze.
'Ionas of Extreme Disintegration.'
The pale face and silver hair falling to his shoulders made him human enough at a glance. Only the pupil-less eyes and the double rows of teeth would chill an ordinary person.
'Atomic Movement. This one's really tricky.'
He could decompose his body to the extreme and operate at the atomic level.
Attacks born from that weren't mere variations of technique; they were the apex of mutable change.
'It's not just speed.' You can see the arrow and still fail to dodge because each sense's reception time differs.
You can perceive it with eleven senses, but dodging the attack is entirely Shirone's own skill.
"Shall we get serious?"
Ionas, his whole body atomized, unleashed strikes along unpredictable trajectories.
'Miracle Stream!'
A veil of luminous smoke curled around Shirone and, as if hit by buckshot, black holes opened across him.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Light scattered into fragments, and by the time the flashes broke apart Shirone had already put twenty kilometers between them.
"So in the end, you run."
Ionas, moving as particles, circled Shirone with only his face recombined.
"I've always wondered."
The motions of roughly ten quadrillion particles were sensed and integrated through Ultima.
"You're this strong, yet why doesn't it feel like I'm the strongest?"
Within that pattern of ten quadrillion particles Shirone found a single technique.
'Left Punch.'
A strike that could be called a genesis technique brushed past Shirone's side.
'That was by a hair's breadth.'
Creating distance again, Shirone formed and fired about 4,200 photon cannon shots.
"Is that all?"
Ionas's arm moved at an imperceptible speed and batted the photon cannon aside.
From twenty kilometers away, Uriel, who had been watching the battle, said, "He was a strong boy."
No matter how you measure strength, Shirone was the sort of person who made you think that.
"And now he's actually gotten stronger." Mental capacity might be boundless, but humans have bodily limits.
To sense and evade Ionas of Extreme Disintegration was, in itself, near miraculous.
"But in the end, that's all there is."
Rael agreed in silence.
'Actually, Uriel's words are paradoxical. Strength needs nothing beyond strength.'
Still, none of them could deny the nagging question that had crept into their minds.
'Why can't I—or rather, why can we—not feel like the strongest?' Only Ikael knew the answer.
'The McClain Guffin.'
Every top fighter in Heaven shared the experience of being unable to defeat Guffin. From that, when the Guffin's erasure occurred, an ineffable transcendent concept arose.
'Even if it's been wiped from memory, we've already experienced strength beyond it… so why can't we reach the feeling of being supreme?'
"Shirone."
Ikael's eyes were full of sorrow as she looked down at her child fighting fiercely.
'I love you.'
More precious than anything in the universe.
'I'm not fit to be called a parent, but I won't lose you again.'
She would never gamble her child away a second time.
'Now step back. Go home and live happily. I will shoulder the world's affairs somehow.'
Every time Shirone narrowly dodged one of Ionas's blows, Ikael felt her chest tear with pain.
'I can't beat Ionas with this alone. But it's not because I lack skill.'
Something beyond mere strength.
'Simply put… it's not Guffin.'
Even if their minds were equal, Shirone's body was vastly weaker than those born of Gaia.
'Strength on the scale of giants, a spirit that transcends the concept of angels, the fusion of countless Gaia-borns.'
It was because that race possessed all these that the world of the gods had been shaken to its roots.
"Ikael, I'll give you one last chance."
Sathiel said, "Admit the truth about the Guffin's erasure and own your mistake. Then I will recognize your authority."
Ikael clenched her fist hard.
'Do not act on emotion.'
To protect Shirone from Heaven's entire army, the position of archangel was absolutely necessary.
"You know it yourself. Ionas is one of my followers, but in sheer combat power he surpasses me. If I say it, I won't act rashly. In short, if I order you to leave Shirone alone, you will obey." It was a sweet proposition.
If she could bear the humiliation of bowing to the one who'd killed her son…
'No matter.'
Ikael's eyes hardened.
'I came back alive. If I can protect Shirone, I'll crawl to anyone's feet.'
From the vantage above, Ionas's fist struck Shirone squarely in the solar plexus.
"Ugh!"
Even with kinetic energy reduced by over 99.99 percent, the pain of being pierced was—
"I'll admit he's impressive."
Ionas drifted through the void as if on a stroll.
"Humans die from the slightest graze. I'll applaud you for enduring this far in such a body."
Shirone didn't feel pleased.
"You're strong. You might be among Heaven's top ten. So the only reason you lost is me."
Ionas raised his fist right in front of Shirone's face.
"It means you were fighting one of the top five strongest in Heaven—me."
"Haha."
A laugh escaped despite the pain.
"…What's so funny?"
Having lived through the history of Omega, Shirone knew Ionas's place in Heaven.
"Honestly, doesn't it feel a little precarious?" Ionas's eyebrows twitched. "Imir and Ashur are neck and neck, and below them are Uriel, Ikael, and so on—"
Huh…?
Shirone pointed at Ionas. "Still, I'll admit there are times you slip in. Sometimes."
A mere human had no business knowing Heaven's long disputes, but it wasn't entirely wrong.
"Just kidding. Forget it."
Shirone shook off the shock.
"It doesn't matter anyway. You'll never be the strongest."
"Now I see…"
In an instant Ionas shot above Shirone's crown and swung his leg down.
With a scream the air split and the sea six hundred meters below cleaved wide.
'When did he—?'
He'd left the land behind.
Ionas looked up, expecting the wound on the surface to heal instantly.
"You're the archetypal loser. Relying on the strongest to crush me might make where you stand feel a bit shallower, but let me be precise: you and I are on different levels."
"Levels are none of my concern. Who's stronger has nothing to do with you or me. Because—"
When Shirone opened his eyes wide, Miracle Streams were powerfully compressed in both his hands.
"I have to win no matter what." A flash pierced the sky, and the Hand of God descended, bending Ionas's fingers.
An aggressive application of the Ultima system.
'We were hit by that before.'
A mental power strong enough to scatter Heaven's armies across the earth.
"Do you dare act relaxed against me?" Ionas bared his double rows of teeth threateningly.
"It's not relaxation. It's responsibility."
Shirone gazed at the sea.
They were over the ocean, eight hundred kilometers west of the skies above the Zive Kingdom.
'This is a place we can fight.' There was life here, of course, but saving humans was strategically important.
Ionas's triangular prism flared red.
"It's over."
Extreme Disintegration—Atomic Crash.
Particles compressed into fist-sized spheres exploded with light and radiated outward.
'He raised particle activity.'
Ionas, shifting into another class of energy, aimed for Shirone's back with a raised fist.
'They're just humans, after all.'
You can't live if you have your heart ripped out.
'Huh?'
The Hand of God, tracing a circle with thumb and middle finger, suddenly filled the entire sky.
'Damn!'
Only 0.03 millimeters remained between it and Shirone's back.
'Too late.'
Ionas's arms disintegrated into particles and crossed into a face-blocking posture.
At the same moment the Hand of God snapped its fingers.
"Guh!"
The shockwave slammed into all ten quadrillion particles, driving Ionas's body down into the sea.
Splash!
Water leapt and a boiling, roiling column shot up.
"Raaaaah!"
He surged upward—having even broken a sperm whale's backbone on the way—and, water dripping from his view, glared at the heavens.
"Pathetic human filth…!"
Ionas's voice cut off as Shirone raised his hand.
But the reason he was silenced was not Shirone alone—it was the Hand of God above him.
'Don't worry, Ikael.'
As if projecting Shirone's heart, the Hand of God spread its five fingers wide toward the sky.
'They truly are connected.'
On the giant palm, a sphere of light—its size impossible to judge—popped into being.
Ionas, and the archangels watching from afar, were left speechless.
Shirone looked down at the sea and said, "Do you feel it too?"
Hand of God—Photon Cannon.
"This is my responsibility."
He swung with everything he had and the Hand of God drove the photon cannon straight down.
The instant an astronomical mass struck the ocean—
"Uuuuu—"
Ionas's scream was cut off. The sea erupted in a crown-shaped explosion and vaporized.
The scale was so immense every detail played out like slow motion, vivid and clear.
Rumble. Rumble.
Steam filled the air and all that remained was a terrifying roar.
When the Hand of God waved and the view cleared, a vast hole torn in the sea was visible.
'Gone.'
Ionas was nowhere to be seen.
After a moment gravity pulled the seawater back and tangled currents formed a spectacular whirl.
At that moment, Sathiel shut off the lookdown.
"...It's annihilated."
Uriel, Rael, and the maras with transcendent sight were silent for a long time.
The Hand of God's power had forced them to remember times they wished they could forget.
'Is it really not over yet?' Shirone seemed to be saying that the connection was sure and complete.
Rumble. Rumble.
Like a scene made for the gods' amusement, the sea continued to contort and change.
'Two minutes have passed. Is that enough?' After confirming Ionas's annihilation, Shirone turned back toward where he had come from.
Then he spoke in a tender voice to the woman who still watched him.
"Ikael."
Even though the pieces of her heart, shattered after Guffin's disappearance, could never be fully put back together—
"You are not alone."
If they could share memories together, maybe that would be a beautiful life too.
"So—"
With a smile that glittered in the sunlight, Shirone reached out his hand to the distant woman.
"Come with me, Mom."