Beowulf was careless.
This beast—he had completely let his guard down.
He had gauged my strength during our first gamble and deemed me insignificant, and that assessment hadn't changed even now.
Being pulled in by the gravitational force of Bansho Ten‘in was nothing to him—merely a minor nuisance, like being stopped on the street for a survey.
If he felt like it, he could have sent my head flying. If he felt like it, he could have crushed my torso into a pulp.
But he didn't.
Instead, he laughed as if mocking my best effort, and in that moment of hubris, I was able to decisively make contact with his physical body.
And his arrogance would undeniably be his undoing.
“Human Path: Soul Absorption.”
A technique I had never used before—the extraction of the soul.
The moment I activated it, a sensation like liquid fire erupted in my hand.
Whether it was a feral instinct overriding his arrogance or just raw reflex, Beowulf's arms mutated into something bestial in a flash. However, instead of swinging them at me, he found himself frantically clawing at ’something‘ located near his own heart, trying to hold it in place.
“Wa-Wait. What the hell is this?!”
I didn't answer.
Rather, I couldn't answer.
My palm felt as though I were clutching the sun itself, a searing agony that threatened to incinerate my nerves. The magical energy I had painstakingly stored for emergencies was being drained at a rate that would leave me empty in seconds.
Betting everything on this single move, I used my remaining right hand to latch onto Beowulf‘s shoulder, activating the Preta Path‘s Seal Absorption to forcibly drain his prana.
“You bastard! You dare try to steal my mana…! Guh, damn it! Why… why won't it let go?!”
The energy within me fluctuated wildly as I violently siphoned Beowulf‘s magical energy. My body was becoming a battlefield, a tug-of-war for a soul.
Despite the burning pain in my hands, I couldn't let go. If I released his soul now, he would surely reclassify me as a ’dangerous enemy.‘ No longer an arrogant predator, he would hunt me down in earnest as a true killer.
Fortunately, perhaps because my conceptual control over the technique was superior, Beowulf‘s soul began to migrate toward me inch by inch. His leisurely expression vanished entirely, replaced by a desperate, strained mask as he resisted with every ounce of his monstrous strength.
“God damn it! Let go! Just… let go!”
My hands were charring.
It wasn't just internal pain; the tips of my fingers were turning coal-black. A soot-like erosion was spreading past my palms, creeping toward my wrists.
But as my hands were destroyed, Beowulf‘s soul was being yanked from his flesh. He had reverted to his form as a small boy, struggling with pathetic desperation.
Suddenly, with a sickening *schlick* sensation, Beowulf‘s grasp on his own essence slipped. One of his phantom hands was sucked into the extraction vortex. The boy turned pale, his face contorting into an expression of sheer terror he hadn't shown until now.
“N-No. Please! I don‘t want to die yet… Please, save me! I was wrong, I—”
“…Go to hell.”
I squeezed out those final words and ripped the soul completely from his chest. The remainder of Beowulf—his face, his limbs—was absorbed into a golden, fist-sized orb of soul-matter.
I placed the orb gently on the ground and looked at my arm.
The right arm that had used Seal Absorption was more than fine—it was overflowing with energy. But the left arm, which had directly gripped the soul of a Phantasmal Species, was utterly ruined, reduced to little more than a charred husk of meat and bone.
“…Haah. I‘m actually going to die.”
It wasn't a joke; I felt like the end was near.
Every nerve in my body screamed from the prana overload. My Rinnegan throbbed with a dull, heavy ache—I imagined this was what it felt like to overuse a Mangekyō Sharingan.
My left arm was the worst. Normally, a burn like that should have been excruciating, but because it was completely incinerated, I couldn't feel anything at all.
“Well, at least I can still move.”
Even if Touko Aozaki was a monster, taking on two targets at once would have been impossible for me. Even with my arm like this, if I could suppress her, I could probably scavenge one of her high-end prosthetic hands to replace it later…
—*BANG!*
In that instant, a sensation far different from the previous pain bloomed in my chest.
It wasn't the twitching of nerves or muscles. It was the distinct, sharp feeling of something piercing through my skin and meat directly.
A red glow flickered on my charred left arm, and I felt a hollow wind passing through the center of my chest. I looked down slowly. There was a small, clean hole right where my heart should be.
I looked up. Touko Aozaki stood there, a handgun in her hand and a smirk of supreme confidence on her face.
“…Indeed, I miscalculated. But no matter how impressive your hidden variables are, I suppose you didn't expect a simple method like this?”
“Touko Aozaki!”
As I collapsed, Aoko caught me. Simultaneously, Alice launched a formidable spell toward Touko. A golem resembling a massive, multi-legged structure manifested, followed by a charge of hundreds of flying forks, knives, and gingerbread men.
…Wait, am I actually dying now?
I tried to circulate the prana I had stolen from Beowulf, but my shattered heart showed no sign of repairing itself.
Yeah. This is definitely death.
“You came to save us.”
“…What?”
Aoko placed a hand gently on my head, her voice carrying the weight of a heavy resolve.
“I won't let you die. Not today.”
* * * * *
The sight was less ’beautiful‘ and more ’divine.‘
Her dark brown hair turned white before awakening into a brilliant, crimson red. In that moment, she looked like a sage who had completely transcended the mundane world.
“…Thanks for putting up with us for these past two weeks. I‘ll be borrowing that past for a moment.”
The Fifth Magic: Blue.
Unlike the Second Magic, which deals with parallel worlds, she was demonstrating the pinnacle of Magecraft—no, Magic—that manipulated entropy itself.
The field was full of Alice‘s Ploy Kickshaw—the strange golem of iron bridges and water, dancing gingerbread men, and flying cutlery—but all of them faded in the presence of that single girl with flowing red hair.
“Hear me, primate of all things. I declare, in the name of ’Blue‘ which represents Order. Everything shall be righted; Order shall be overthrown here and now.”
It looked as though she had compressed her very existence, allowing multiple versions of herself to move within a single body simultaneously.
Touko‘s attacks struck an ’Aoko‘ that wasn't there, or they missed entirely as Aoko dodged by existing in the timeline and outside of it at the same time.
That ability—a mixture of Laplace's Demon and Maxwell's Demon—showed exactly why Magi sought ’Magic.‘
It was neither omniscient nor omnipotent, but it was so close as to be indistinguishable. It was a power befitting an Overman. That was True Magic.
“Incredible. So that is Magic… How does it feel to have touched the Root?”
“…Nothing special. But I‘m sure of one thing: if I leave you alive, you‘ll just do this all over again.”
The old school building was completely demolished. Soujuurou and Alice, leaning in the corner, waited to see what she would do.
After all, Aoko was the one who had defeated Touko. The final decision belonged to her.
“Aoko-nee. Can you wait a second?”
* * * * *
Crimson hair, overwhelming magical energy, and a bloodlust so thick it was suffocating—completely different from the kind girl I knew.
But that bloodlust was directed solely at Touko Aozaki.
“…Karma.”
“Are you going to kill her? Touko Aozaki?”
“…Yes. You know as well as I do, Karma. This woman is the type who wouldn't hesitate to take your parents hostage to get what she wants.”
“…”
“You might be disillusioned. But Karma, this is what it means to be a Magus. You kill those who threaten you. That is the world of Mystery. So turn your head away. This is for your own sake.”
“Stop it, Aoko-nee.”
To be honest, I agreed with Aoko a thousand percent.
It‘s best to eliminate threats. Usually, I‘d let things slide, but someone who attacks my family deserves to be put down.
However, this woman—Touko Aozaki—is someone who does not die even when killed.
“Killing her is pointless.”
“Karma, this isn‘t a philosophical debate. Chains of hatred and all that—it's all useless talk. You have to pull the enemy out by the roots so this doesn't happen again.”
“That's not it… Even if you kill her, she‘ll just come back to life.”
The two of them, who seemed ready to argue with me, froze and stared in surprise. Even Soujuurou, who was still supporting a pale-faced Alice, and Touko Aozaki herself looked at me in shock.
“Your puppetry is truly exceptional. You‘ve set it up so that when you die, your memories are transmitted to another puppet, right?”
“…What?”
Alice frowned, looking as though she had just heard something impossible.
“A normal person couldn't do it. The cognitive dissonance and identity crisis would cause their ego to collapse, and the body would follow. But you, with your near-perfect puppet-making and your mindset that ’as long as the memories continue, it‘s still me‘—you solved it. Am I wrong?”
“H-How… How do you know that?”
“…Is that important? You‘ve seen my eyes.”
“I see… those eyes. They must be Mystic Eyes. Ridiculous. For a Phantasmal with three thousand years of Mystery to be taken down by some unidentified Mystic Eyes… Are those the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception or something?”
Well, the person with those eyes is someone you‘ll meet later…
“If that's the case, it‘s a headache,” Aoko muttered. “I can't just let her go. Even if I curse her, it‘s useless if she just swaps bodies.”
“…If I do it now, I could probably curse her soul itself. Since it‘s a curse from a ’future me,‘ she wouldn't be able to undo it.”
As Aoko moved toward Touko again, I stopped her.
Aoko, realizing that I didn't intend to let Touko off scot-free, made a path for me. I knelt down so I was at eye-level with the leaning Touko.
“Strictly speaking… calling your ability ’immortality‘ is a bit of a stretch. But from your perspective, it‘s undeniably effective.”
“Indeed~ Kill me, and another ’me‘ wakes up. Pointless. Even if you curse my soul… give me three years, and I‘ll have it broken. And then, I‘ll return the favor.”
Having lost her glasses, her sharp, fierce gaze swept over Aoko and Alice before landing on me.
That final gaze lingered for a long time. It was a promise that she would never forget this humiliation.
“As expected of a Grand-ranked Puppetmaster. Such pride… Though, that assumes you‘ll have those three years.”
“What?”
Instead of answering, I hovered my hand over her head.
“My power is the Cycle of the Six Paths. The Deva Path is the attractive force you saw earlier. The Preta Path drains physical and life energy. And the Human Path… it‘s a bit special. It has the power to pull out the soul of the living.”
“…So that's how you took down Beo?”
“Here‘s the problem for you. You have backup puppets hidden in safehouses around the world, and you resurrect by transferring memories. I have zero interest in understanding your insane psyche, but from your standpoint, you don't die.”
“…”
“What do you think? Are memories a part of the soul, or not?”
“They are part of the soul. If the soul is damaged, memories become distorted or lost, often leading to idiocy. Or the person loses their purpose and goes berserk.”
“Correct! Then I wonder… what happens if I start tampering with your soul?”
“…What are you trying to say?”
I was sure of it now.
Touko Aozaki was cornered.
Beowulf was neutralized. Every trick she had was sealed by Aoko‘s Fifth Magic.
Even her resurrection was compromised because of me. She had no way out.
…So, should I kill Touko Aozaki right now?
“Touko Aozaki. I‘m going to make you an offer you can't refuse.”