Aihara’s mind goes wild.

  He no longer pays attention to his surroundings or his body. He is fighting only the creature of Kiyomori.

  He tears its arms off. They grow back.

  He rips its head off. It grows back.

  He crushes it. It regenerates completely.

  Their fight seems to have no end.

  Aihara: “Haha, this is the kind of fight I wanted. This is exactly what I needed. You know, I haven’t been active for a long time.”

  Aihara throws many stones into the air and uses them as projectiles. Every shot hits and injures the creature so badly that one would think it could not get back up—but it does. Every attack is answered with regeneration.

  The creature becomes slightly smaller and paler.

  Aihara: “[My attack worked?!]”

  Aihara approaches the creature and pierces its chest with his arm. He rummages around inside.

  Aihara: “Pretty soft!”

  He throws the creature into the air and notices its connection to the cocoon that has been behind it the whole time.

  Aihara approaches and touches the cocoon.

  Aihara: “Is there someone in there, Kiyomori?!”

  He throws the cocoon into the air as well and uses that movement to split it in two. Suddenly, he is wrapped in multiple black claws and pulled upward. The cocoon falls back to the ground.

  The creature has dragged Aihara with it and tries to impale him with its other claws.

  Aihara: “You have to be faster if you want to kill me!”

  Aihara shakes his head and destroys the claws holding him. He remains standing in the air as if there were a thin bridge beneath him that no one can see. The creature develops wings to stay airborne as well.

  Aihara: “An aerial battle?!”

  The creature shoots spikes from its wings. Aihara snaps his fingers and shoots them all into outer space.

  Aihara: “I could do the same to you, but I think even that wouldn’t kill you!”

  The claws reach for Aihara again but are all deflected—not by his ability, but by his arms. He grabs one claw and throws it into another or breaks one with both arms.

  Aihara tears out a few strands of his hair and lets them rotate and compress in place.

  Aihara: “Everything has destructive power if it has enough momentum! Even a single hair of mine can break the laws of physics!”

  He fires his five hair projectiles. Only two hit, but they completely destroy the creature’s body. As expected, it regenerates, but the other three have a different target. They fly down toward the tribunal building to hit the cocoon.

  Aihara: “What happens to you if I destroy that cocoon?”

  Both of them dive downward explosively. The creature enlarges its wings to create stronger wingbeats.

  The wings are constantly broken by Aihara and healed by the creature. This continues until they reach the roof.

  The three hair projectiles are almost at the cocoon. Before they pierce it, the creature exhales. It is a powerful breath that reaches the three projectiles. They crash to the ground and shatter.

  The creature immediately checks whether the cocoon is unharmed. Aihara hovers briefly above the ground when an arm suddenly grows out of the creature’s back and slams him down. He lands deliberately on his back to protect his legs.

  The creature makes many noises, all filled with rage, hatred, and bloodlust. It approaches the Aihara lying on the ground and binds all its claws into a single claw. Only one curved black streak lunges toward Aihara’s throat.

  Just before it reaches his throat, it stops. Aihara holds his right hand in front of the creature’s face.

  Aihara: “Kinematics! The science of movement! I manipulate movement!”

  The creature is forced to its knees. Aihara now floats above it.

  Aihara: “Your body is connected to that cocoon! Do you have to be connected to it, and does the cocoon have to be connected to you?! Or both at the same time?! Let’s find out!”

  With his arm still extended toward the creature, Aihara floats forward. The cocoon is now completely defenseless and vulnerable to an attack from Aihara. The creature manages to turn its head toward Aihara’s body.

  Aihara: “Cold!”

  Aihara’s entire arm is frozen. The grid on the creature’s face opens, and its breath freezes everything—even the air itself.

  Aihara: “Cold! Ah, you want to freeze my movements! Clever beast!”

  Aihara uses the creature’s breathing movements and makes his entire body vibrate. He deliberately prevents himself from bursting and only shakes his organs.

  The cold breath hits him again, but this time his feet are frozen to the ground.

  Aihara: “I can’t move!”

  Aihara laughs at his situation and tries to escape with violent trembling. The ice is too firmly anchored to the ground.

  The creature comes closer and breathes directly into Aihara’s face. His entire upper body freezes.

  Aihara can no longer move. He is completely encased in ice. Almost the entire roof is covered in ice. The temperature difference between the roof and the inside of the building or the surroundings is immense.

  The cocoon opens. Smoke pours out of the opening, freezing the ground around it even more. The cocoon is torn open from the inside, and a person emerges. The creature returns to the shoulder of its master, Kiyomori Taira, who has undergone an evolution.

  Kiyomori: “Wow, this feels like being reborn. How long was I gone?”

  He sees the frozen Aihara and the destroyed roof.

  Kiyomori: “You did a good job.”

  He strokes the creature’s head and walks toward Aihara. He looks different. His hair is blue, and his wings are covered in feathers and much thicker than before. His body temperature is far higher than that of a human, and from his hips emerge two polar bear heads that share the body of a snake. A cord runs along his leg and leads to a large pouch behind him.

  Kiyomori: “If even my flesh defeats you, how do you plan to defeat me? I assume you have to be able to move yourself to manipulate the movement of others.”

  ???: “Are you giving up so easily? Your blood is me. I am victory. Use me properly.”

  That mysterious voice again in Aihara’s head.

  Aihara: “Who are you?”

  ???: “Your blood.”

  Aihara: “I don’t quite understand what you mean.”

  ???: “It’s so simple. I am your blood. The blood that allows you to be a true magician.”

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  Aihara: “I’ve never seen you! Who are you?!”

  ???: “Your blood. Your source of power.”

  Aihara: “Hello. Who are you, if I may ask?”

  ???: “I am also your blood. I am the blood of all of you. Of everyone who belongs to you.”

  The ice around Aihara cracks. It breaks.

  Kiyomori: “I thought you had to be able to move?”

  Aihara: “My heart wasn’t frozen. That moves too, doesn’t it?”

  Kiyomori: “Did someone find himself again?”

  Aihara: “Seems like it.”

  Kiyomori: “Do you like my transformation? I designed it specifically to make it hard for you to fight me.”

  Aihara tries to manipulate Kiyomori’s heartbeat but feels none. Not only the heart—Kiyomori has no organs at all. He has only bones and blood vessels, and to manipulate the circulating blood, Aihara would have to be much closer.

  Kiyomori: “See that pouch back there? That’s where my organs are. Or at least they were. They fused into a single, motionless mass. One organ for everything.”

  Aihara: “That explains the lack of a heartbeat.”

  Kiyomori: “Exactly.”

  Aihara: “But I don’t just manipulate your movements. I also make my own.”

  Aihara kicks a stone and pierces Kiyomori’s left leg. No reaction. The stone returns and pierces the right leg as well. Still no reaction.

  Kiyomori: “I don’t feel anything anymore. My body no longer works like a human’s.”

  Aihara: “I can imagine that… Hey, you took your time coming to your father. Would you be so kind as to take care of this?”

  Kiyomori: “Who are you talking to?”

  Before he notices, Kiyomori is pierced by a gigantic sword. He looks back, but no one is holding the hilt.

  Kiyomori: “Did he move the sword here? But who was he talking to? One of his children?”

  Kiyomori pulls the sword into himself and wraps himself in his wings. His two polar bear heads search for the new enemy.

  Kiyomori: “My polar bears have a good sense of smell. They’ll find him quickly.”

  Suddenly, he hears two liquids dripping. He looks down and notices he is standing in blood. He looks at his two polar bear heads. They are gone. Blood flows from both places. He spreads his wings and releases a frost wave. He freezes Aihara completely again.

  Kiyomori: “Who’s there? If you are one of Aihara Sakiko’s children, then show yourself and fight like a real mage or mage!”

  Suddenly, his head is pierced by a sword. He is forced to the ground. He manages to turn his head slightly and looks upward. He sees a person in silver armor. Long blond hair and piercing blue eyes.

  Kiyomori: “Who are you?”

  ???: “I’d like to call myself Artus or Lancelot, but unfortunately my name is Zackory Sakiko. You’re right—I’m not a magician. I’m a knight. A traditional and powerful knight.”

  Kiyomori: “Zackory Sakiko…? You’re Aihara’s oldest child, right?!”

  Zackory: “Unfortunately, yes. Even the oldest child.”

  Zackory thrusts another sword into Kiyomori’s head so he can no longer see.

  Zackory: “Aihara, you can kill him now.”

  Aihara: “You’re supposed to call me Father. How did you even get here?”

  Before Aihara was frozen:

  Keiko: “The summoning circle should be finished now.”

  Since she was thrown out of the tribunal, Keiko has worked only on this circle.

  There is a knock at the door.

  Keiko: “Who’s there?”

  She opens it, and a snake judge enters.

  Keiko: “What do you want here?”

  The snake judge explains what happened at the tribunal and that the Taira family is currently fighting the Sakiko family.

  Keiko: “The summoning circle is more necessary than I thought. I just need to find the fourth one. She hasn’t responded yet.”

  A small beam of light emerges from the circle and leads toward the snake judge.

  Keiko: “What… This circle searches for and summons people of my choosing. If a person I am looking for is nearby, then—”

  Keiko: “You liar. You could have told me that you were with us the whole time. That means I can summon everyone.”

  Keiko makes a hand motion, and three people emerge from the circle, wrapped in light.

  Keiko: “Your family needs you. Go and find them and save them. Immediately.”

  The three people from the circle and the snake judge immediately set off toward the others.

  Keiko: “Just like I told you, Aihara: the children will save you.”

  Zackory: “That’s the story of how I got here.”

  Aihara: “Keiko… Well, at least you saved me.”

  Aihara floats toward Kiyomori, who lies blind on the ground.

  Aihara: “I know an attack you cannot defend against if you adapt to it.”

  Aihara touches Kiyomori’s head and rips it off.

  Aihara: “If I can’t kill you, then I’ll send you to a place where you can truly adapt.”

  He also takes the organ pouch and throws it into the air several times.

  Aihara: “A little movement and a bit of distance and—”

  After six throws, neither Kiyomori’s head nor the organ pouch comes back. Aihara has gathered enough kinetic force to shoot Kiyomori into outer space. Normally, something like this would not work in a fight, but due to the many throws and the calm situation, it has become possible.

  Aihara: “We won’t be seeing him for a while.”

  Zackory: “We should return to the main hall.”

  Aihara: “The tribunal is still ongoing?”

  To Naki’s fight:

  Dorothy: “You cannot deny the truth.”

  Naki: “Shut your stupid mouth.”

  The fight between Dorothy and Naki has turned into nothing more than a chase and Naki’s screaming. He still does not want to accept what she told him.

  Dorothy: “Oh, I will tell everyone. Oh yes, and then you are finished.”

  She swings through the hall on her yellow paths and dodges all of Naki’s attacks.

  Naki: “Aaaagh!”

  With a leap into the air, Naki hits her. He slashes her with his sword from her right thigh to her left shoulder.

  Dorothy falls to the ground but is not dead yet. She supports herself with her paths, but the side effects of the mysterious injection are slowly beginning to show.

  Dorothy: “This is not over. I will ruin you.”

  She wraps herself in her paths, creates a hole in the floor, lets herself fall through it, and disappears.

  Naki: “Wait—”

  ???: “Let it go. I no longer sense her presence. She is gone.”

  Naki turns around in surprise and sees a man standing there. He is smoking a cigarette and leaning on a large shovel.

  Naki: “Brother Milko. What are you doing here?”

  Milko: “Don’t worry, I’m not a ghost or anything. We were summoned to help you, but as expected, you don’t need help.”

  Naki: “She escaped…”

  Milko: “It doesn’t matter. As long as you were winning, you lost no honor.”

  Naki: “I wasn’t thinking about that at all.”

  Milko: “You should. Honor is very important for a man. Someone without honor will live a miserable life.”

  Naki rolls his eyes and briefly forgets the possibility that Najun killed Shinoa. Worse is the fact that her brother is standing in front of him. Shinoa and Milko are full siblings, just like Najun and Naki. Their mother was Slavic and gave Milko a Slavic name, but Aihara wanted to give Shinoa a Japanese name if she had to be born.

  Naki avoids eye contact with Milko and pretends to inspect his sword for damage.

  Milko: “Let’s go to the main hall. The verdict will be announced.”

  To Saku and Kogiri’s fight:

  Kuro behaves like a beast and swings wildly while Saku and Kogiri try to keep the damage as low as possible.

  Kogiri’s whip is close to breaking, but it ensures that the mutated Kuro does not destroy as much as he otherwise could.

  Kuro: “We will kill you!”

  Kuro grabs Saku by her long, beautiful pink hair.

  Saku: “Ow!”

  ???: “You don’t grab girls like that. Didn’t your mother teach you?”

  A green bolt cuts through Saku’s hair and strikes Kuro.

  Kogiri: “Who are you?”

  ???: “Amara. As an employee, you should know that.”

  With another lightning strike, Amara kills Kuro. She electrocutes him until his skin is almost black and his entire body is covered in bruises.

  Saku: “Are you insane? My hair… my beautiful hair. You will pay for that.”

  Amara: “Relax. It’s just hair.”

  Saku: “It’s not just hair. It’s a part of me. A part of Saku.”

  Amara ignores her complaints and jumps down to the ground. She puts on her headphones.

  Amara: “We are supposed to go to the main hall.”

  She unintentionally speaks louder than necessary because of her music.

  Saku is still angry and does not move from the spot. Her beautiful kimono had to be sacrificed, and now her hair as well. Kogiri picks her up like a princess and follows Amara.

  At first, Saku protests, but in the end she wraps her arms around Kogiri and quietly cries in his arms. The loss of her hair and her kimono is too great.

  To Najun’s fight:

  Kiyomata: “I wonder what you are experiencing right now.”

  The terror hand implanted in Najun’s head causes a horrific experience. Najun is supposedly seeing a world full of chaos and suffering. The roots of the stone are tightly connected to the brain and put it “under drugs.”

  Kiyomata: “This will be difficult to remove. I can’t believe I ruined Najun Sakiko’s life.”

  In the middle of his vision, Kiyomata is touched on the shoulder.

  Kiyomata: “Huh?”

  His shoulder is touched by a snake judge.

  Kiyomata: “Did you get lost here? You are not supposed to see this.”

  Kiyomata signals Hydra to release Najun and kill the snake judge, but before he can start his treacherous attack, he is teleported to a foreign place.

  Kiyomata: “Where am I…?”

  Kiyomata finds himself in a gray world. In front of him is a path leading to a throne. The snake judge sits on it and stares at him so intensely that Kiyomata feels the gaze through the snake mask.

  Along the edges stand many strange-looking creatures. They have round heads and large mouths with gaps between their teeth and crooked fangs. Their bodies are sky-colored and swollen.

  Kiyomata takes a step forward, and whispers reach his ears.

  Creatures: “You are weak. Defeat suits you. You will be a nobody.”

  They whisper terrible things to him. Normally, this would not affect him, but here the words pierce straight into his heart. The farther he goes, the heavier the words become. He sinks lower and lower until he lies completely on the ground.

  Kiyomata: “[What is happening? I was just in the tribunal hall, and now I am here. What are these creatures? Why do their words have such an effect on me? That snake judge… who is that?]”

  Back in the real world, Kiyomata kneels before the snake judge. He drools and is in a trance-like state.

  The snake judge laughs quietly and turns toward Najun. He lies on the ground with the terror hand on his face. The snake judge removes her mask and cloak and throws them aside. She stretches.

  ???: “These clothes are really uncomfortable and completely ugly.”

  The snake judge is actually a girl. She wears a blue school uniform. The skirt is very long, and the top is wide and loose, almost like a baggy shirt. Her long brown hair is completely messy and slightly dusty.

  ???: “I really need a shower.”

  She tries to remove the terror hand from Najun, but when she touches the mysterious object on her little brother’s face, he opens his eyes. He trembles, and his eyes move wildly.

  ???: “Najun, calm down. It’s me, your sister Noiji.”

  She lets go of the terror hand, and the trembling stops. He closes his eyes again and continues to “sleep.”

  Noiji: “So you can’t just rip it off. Oh, my poor little brother. Why do things like this always happen to you? It should have happened to me.”

  She hugs Najun tightly and carries him piggyback.

  Noiji: “Damn it. I have to bring both of them to the main hall, but I can’t carry both at the same time. Hm… then wait here for a moment, Najun. Your big sister will be right back.”