Another Space (1)
When Shagal's attack killed dozens, the survivors hastily came to a stop.
Demons were behind them, and in front of them was a fiend that stabbed without mercy.
"W-why, why—?"
As Shagal approached, those who had risked their lives to resist slowly backed away.
"Why are you killing us? You're human too—!"
Before the sentence finished, a projectile blade mercilessly pierced a woman's abdomen.
"Aaaah!" In that instant, everyone knew exactly which way to run.
The man in front of them was far less human than the demons behind.
"Grrr!"
Baring his teeth, Shagal swung his arm and hurled a huge bundle into the air.
The leather tore, and hundreds of projectile blades spun and rained down like hail.
Pushing off the ground, Shagal lunged forward, taking up a trembling short blade and beginning an indiscriminate slaughter.
Blood spouted from those struck, and the harbor turned into a sea of red in an instant.
"Kekekeke! What an interesting human!"
Though his demonic nature had come from a human, even Della had never faced such pure evil.
As the charging Shagal closed, she bent at the waist and steel claws shot from her fingers.
Her mouth split into a grotesque grin; the beautiful face twisted into a savage beast.
Among the frozen, terrified people, Etella bit her lip.
Not yet. Not yet.
Shagal had reached a level of killing that could hardly be called a technique.
Maybe it had been set the moment Ra Enemi mocked his fate.
It's not madness. It's definitely some ability. A straight-on fight is hopeless now.
They'd fought seven times on the run, and each time Shagal's power had grown.
One chance.
Even if it meant sacrificing everyone here, she had to seize that one opportunity.
"Not bad!"
While Della and Shagal circled each other, demons and people were dying.
"How about this?"
When Della increased her speed, her body seemed to vanish and a storm of wind roared.
In that stretched instant, Shagal couldn't move a muscle.
Heh heh, human anyway—
Della, who had been orbiting her target, suddenly shifted direction and aimed for Shagal's flank.
I'll toy with you to my heart's content.
She extended her razor claws to the limit and swung for Shagal's shoulder.
Huh?
Shagal's pupils slid to the side.
He saw me.
She froze in panic and tried to pull her torso back, but a vibrating hum sounded.
When Shagal moved both his arms, time's seesaw flipped and Della's motion stopped.
The dozens of projectile blades still falling like rain reacted all at once and dove into Della.
Thuk.
Starting with a strike through her collarbone, blades drove in at one-centimeter intervals.
By the time Della's face had become a perfect demon's visage, she had already endured more than seventy stabbings.
"Kyaaaa!"
She staggered back, eyes wide, blood spurting from her body.
"Ugh!"
Shagal charged again.
From experience they knew a powerful demon didn't disappear that easily.
"Ugh! Ugh! Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!"
Stab, stab, stab again.
Half-rolled-eyed and taking blow after blow, Della suddenly saw something strange.
What is that?
Around Shagal's body, something not of reality shimmered grotesquely.
And then, he began driving projectile blades into places that weren't Della at all.
There's nothing there?
Astonishingly, the blades vanished as if they'd struck something.
The other world?
He was killing beings in another plane.
"Kekekeke! Kekekekeke!"
Even as things were being annihilated, it felt pleasurable—Shagal's state was not so different.
Della grabbed Shagal.
"Stab me as much as you like. Wait for me in hell. I'll repay you billions of times then."
Shagal ignored her, spun her around, and kept driving his blade into an abdomen where there was nothing left to stab.
The sensation of flesh tearing as his hand went in.
Like an obsessive maniac, the only thing moving Shagal was that brief tactile thrill.
Consciousness dimmed.
Tia.
As awareness faded, the countless torments that had haunted her in reality dissolved like smoke.
"Tia!"
The last projectile blade, saved for a killing blow, was driven deep into Della's forehead.
With a wet sound, her eyeball popped from its socket…
Now!
Etella's fist aimed at Shagal's flank.
When Shagal turned his head, his eyes were clouded and dark—hardly human.
My master's killer.
And now he was also the murderer of the six thousand people he'd killed while pursuing Etella.
Having used up all his projectile blades, Shagal swung his fist wildly, but Etella was prepared.
She took the blow on her shoulder, twisted, and drove her fist into his ribs.
"Urgh!"
Shagal's face contorted; Etella quickly withdrew and struck again.
One more.
If she could create an interference wave, even a Skima master would have their entrails torn.
"Graaah!"
As Shagal screamed and straightened his torso, a strange light flickered in Etella's eyes.
How—?
Shagal suddenly held projectile blades in his hands.
"Ugh!"
She narrowly dodged, but dozens of short blades began to materialize in the air.
Materialization?
No. It wasn't that.
The uneasy feeling they'd sensed when colliding with Shagal finally took form.
"Arrgh!"
The sight of blades pressing in so tightly there was no room to dodge was chilling.
She retreated with all her strength, but ultimately Etella took a blow to her thigh.
"Ugh!"
Looking down at the blade embedded in her femur, a fountain of red spouted high.
She grabbed the blade's casing with her hand and ripped it out, clenching her muscles to staunch the bleeding.
Tia.
Every time Shagal moved, a heat haze shimmered and countless projectile blades pelted down.
Etella didn't know why.
All she could guess was that Shagal completely believed the projectile blades existed.
Could that be? No matter how much you believe—
Etella realized.
Ah.
The limit of perception.
Shagal had already experienced an overlap of the virtual and the real once because of Ra Enemi.
Just as he believed what he saw existed, the projectile blades existed for him.
This is bad. Now we can't stop him.
After seven fights, Etella's strategy had been to wait for the projectile blades to be exhausted.
But now the number of weapons was infinite.
"Why?"
Etella shouted.
"What do you want? If you want to kill, just kill. Why torment me?"
They had fought fiercely, but she hadn't thought Shagal had never had a chance.
"Because I hate you."
When he realized his life and everything within it had been nothing but a dream.
You're not Tia.
What remains for a human?
"I'll torment you. Until you scream in despair—no, I'll keep tormenting you! Over and over! Forever!"
Everything had been a lie.
The only person Shagal could direct his anger at when he woke was the Tia Etella had been.
"I pity your life. But you've reached an unforgivable state. You've killed too many people."
"Not yet."
Shagal laughed, dark and wet.
"I'll kill them all. Kill and kill and kill, and when I'm the only one left in this world—"
Then.
"You'll understand. What's real and what's false. What my life was."
The chilling thing was how sincere he sounded.
"Go. Go anywhere. I'll chase you. I'll kill everything connected to you. You'll suffer as I did."
Etella considered suicide.
If she killed herself here, would Shagal stop his meaningless slaughter?
No.
Only by ending Shagal's life with her own hands could she serve her master, the sacrificed, and humanity.
While the two glared, the few who hadn't fled weakly rose to their feet.
That slight movement made Shagal's hand twitch, and projectile blades pierced the backs of everyone's heads.
"Kekeke. Kekekekeke."
Staggering, Shagal's shoulders twitched as the scenery around him warped again.
Landscapes and hues not of this world, and faint wails of the dead leaking through.
Etella's eyes flashed.
I see.
The boundary between delusion and reality—Shagal was in a state neither dead nor truly alive.
Etella, who had been glaring fiercely at him, turned and left the harbor quickly.
This is the last time.
Not to run, but to stake everything and settle matters with Shagal.
Don't worry, master.
With the weight of her mission upon her, Etella's eyes burned with a righteous resolve unlike before.
The chase that had lasted all night ended at dawn.
At the summit of the Ardoss Mountains, Etella knelt and began to meditate.
The fresh sound of birds abruptly stopped, and an immense malice settled over the place.
When she slowly opened her eyes, Shagal was rising, heat haze shimmering as he grew even larger than during the night.
"You're under a misconception."
A translucent demonic face flickered intermittently over Shagal's.
"Isn't this the method you used before? If you hide where there are no people, only you will die."
"I wandered through countless places to avoid you."
Memories of endlessly falling downward to fight evil flashed by like a slideshow.
"Beast pens, brothels, sewers… The light of the soul went out, the body grew filthy. The Etella you first chased no longer exists."
Shagal's brow furrowed.
"What do you mean?"
"I went mad for revenge; I hated myself for losing the will of good, but now I've realized."
Etella smiled.
"The true meaning of what my master taught me. Sacrifice. The courage to embrace evil."
"I'll kill you."
Etella was no longer afraid.
"You don't need to chase me anymore. Because…"
She stepped forward toward Shagal with a gentle smile and open arms.
"I forgive you."
"Aaaah!"
Shagal toppled Etella.
"Shut up! Don't spout that nonsense! Die!"
Despite the wild blows, Etella didn't flinch.
Sacrifice, master. Waiting for the end of her life, she watched Shagal—half transformed into a fiend.
"Why! Who do you think you are! You—!" Tia—
Half-crazed, he bit the back of Etella's neck and growled like a beast.
"Grrrr! Grrrr!"
Etella wrapped both arms around Shagal's animal-driven back.
I won't let go.
By crossing that line, good was magnified into evil.
Good and evil amplified each other, creating extremes of feeling no human could reach…
"Aaaah!"
The landscape twisted horribly and began to sink into a hell of living flesh.
In the last moment in reality, Etella, staring up past Shagal's shoulder at the sky, parted her dry lips.
Ah…?
She saw a sky filled with clouds of fire.
The other world.
A soul-purification system where emotions that can't be processed in reality are funneled away.