Chapter 8

Today marks 5 days until the appearance of Tohka Yatogami. Right now, I'm walking home with Shido.

Over the past few days, we've exchanged contact information, and now, to him, I'm his best friend.

What Shido hasn't noticed is that I've essentially isolated him from the rest of the class. Slowly and imperceptibly,

he now hardly talks to anyone besides me, only having basic conversations with other students.

Even that friend of his who's always on his phone barely speaks to him anymore.

Meanwhile, to the class, I'm seen as a sociable and overall friendly person. Of course, there's no real reason to maintain

conversations with the rest of the class, but it would be strange if I didn't talk to anyone.

As I talk with Shido about the dinner he invited me to, we arrive at his house.

"We're here, Aurélio-kun," I notice that even the way he addresses me has changed.

He opens the door and steps inside, taking off his shoes and placing them by the entrance. I follow him and do the same.

Then, a little girl with red hair wearing a school uniform and two white ribbons in her hair comes down the stairs.

"Welcome home, brother... who is this person with you?" Kotori says, starting in an upbeat tone, then shifting to one of curiosity.

"Nice to meet you, my name is Kuroiwa Aurélio. I'm a friend of Shido-san. You can just call me Aurélio." I still kept the suffix from before,

as I see no valid reason to change how I address Shido when he already considers me a friend.

"And you must be Itsuka Kotori. Shido-san has told me a lot about you." Of course, what Shido has mentioned is only about the Kotori with the white ribbons. He doesn't know about the change she undergoes with the black ribbons.

"So you're a friend of my brother. Welcome... have we met somewhere before?" This kind of question again. Origami also noticed,

but luckily the perception shift seems to be working perfectly, as Kotori didn't express surprise upon seeing me.

"Hahaha, I don't think so," I say with a somewhat awkward laugh. It doesn't matter much; she won't be able to figure it out, so I'll just leave it at that.

"Aurélio-san, you can sit on the couch. I'll start preparing dinner." Shido goes to his room, probably to change clothes, leaving me alone with Kotori.

"Well... do you want to chat a bit?" I say as I head to the couch.

I find this a huge waste of time. With Kotori here, I can't influence Shido, so this dinner is almost pointless.

Fortunately, at least I can advance the progress of Shido's body's transformation. The human body is far too complex; even after all this time, I've only managed to understand 48% of it.

It would probably be faster if I let it happen on its own without being around, but it's too interesting to see how my power interacts,

so I prefer to take it slow I have time, after all.

"How did you meet my brother, Kuroiwa-san?" Kotori asks curiously.

I notice she calls me Kuroiwa, making it clear that she doesn't see me as a friend yet.

"I met him at a store. We had a brief conversation and realized we were in the same class, so when classes started, we became friends."

I give a brief summary that seems to satisfy Kotori's curiosity. Shido comes downstairs and starts preparing dinner.

Kotori seems to lose interest in me and goes to help Shido.

After 30 minutes, dinner is ready. I'm genuinely curious about Shido's cooking; in the series, the Spirits make it seem like it's really good.

We sit at the table and start eating.

"You cook really well, Shido."

"Thanks for the compliment."

I'm a bit disappointed. It's nothing special it's good but pretty average. If I had to say, it's just slightly above average, at best.

There's a decent variety, but nothing extraordinary.

The Spirits probably find it amazing because, for most of them, it's their first time eating something, or it's been a long time since

they last ate, making the food seem better than it actually is.

"Shido-san, it's getting late, and I need to head home."

"So soon... do you need to meet with your parents?"

"Actually, I'm an orphan, but... I just prefer being home when it's really late."

"Sorry, I didn't know." He apologizes, realizing his question was insensitive.

"It's nothing, I don't mind at all, so I'll be going now." I say goodbye to him and Kotori.

Yes, I have important things to do tonight. Kotori clearly won't be able to go to sleep right now.

As I walk down the street for about 30 minutes, I decide that I've gotten far enough and activate my Astral Dress and Angel, while a SpaceQuake alarm sounds.

There's an issue I want to resolve before Tohka arrives.

I notice the AST arriving. Now, besides the AST members, I see many Bandersnatch units. I advance towards them while pondering my problem.

For some reason, my Angel and Astral Dress have a ridiculously high consumption of Reiryoku, but it's clear that only 3% of that is actually

being used—the rest is just leaking.

I don't understand why, so I'm fighting the AST to try and figure out how to stop this leak or why it's happening.

The Bandersnatch units are nothing compared to Nathaniel—I cut through them like a hot knife through butter.

Bang Bang.

The shots are also no concern; they're easily stopped by the armor and barrier. I fly towards the AST members, who are human.

The nearest girl charges at me, sword in hand.

I'm a bit surprised that my Angel was blocked by her sword, but I notice that she redirected the force of the blow instead of directly countering it.

"I see. If you do it that way, I guess you can block it," I say as I release one hand from my Angel and strike her stomach.

My fist pierces through her body, creating a hole, and the blood doesn't stain my armor, which I appreciate.

I notice her eyes have become glazed over; she's probably going to die even if I don't do anything else.

But I'm not the type to leave things unfinished, so I strike her with my Angel, decapitating her as I withdraw my arm.

"It's really strange how I can make these kinds of movements with something as large as this scythe," I think as I move on to the next target.

Before I can reach the next human, a wall of Bandersnatch appears, firing at me. I slice them to pieces and notice that the Reiryoku

consumption remains very high. "Why... it doesn't make sense. I even deactivated my territory to reduce the expenditure."

I step back from the Bandersnatch to think. It must be something wrong with me, not with the Angel or the Astral Dress.

I try to think about other Spirits as I dodge bullets and missiles.

Boom

I consider what normal Spirits have that I don't, and then I have an epiphany.

Something that Spirits have but I don't— it can only be the Sephira or Qlipha Crystal.

I remember that when Nia Honjo lost her Qlipha crystal, she almost died and only survived because she still had some Reiryoku left and received help from Shido.

With that, I form the theory that a Spirit's crystal is like a heart that pumps blood. If it stops, naturally the blood stops circulating,

and if it's removed, the living being dies.

I don't have those crystals because my power came from the Goddess, so it's like there's a void in that place. This means the energy has

a place to escape because there's nothing to regulate that flow.

So, I probably have to do it manually at first and then automate it somehow.

But it's easier said than done. How am I supposed to do something I've never done before without any instructions?

Boom boom

I shield myself from several missiles while slashing the Bandersnatch.

This fight really helped me identify the problem, so I try to observe my Reiryoku to find the energy leak.

Just as I'm trying to figure out where it might be, I dodge a sword strike and notice that it was Origami who approached with the blade.

"Well, look at that, the coward who needs to shoot from behind decided to show her face." She makes an angry expression at my words and charges.

"Shut up, Spirit. You should just die," she says, venom in her words.

"Bold statement... but you're not strong enough to give those words any weight." When I say this, it seems to anger her even more.

I strike with the scythe, but with reduced force because I don't want to kill Origami yet I have future plans for her.

She blocks while redirecting the force, but that was her mistake.

"I've seen that trick before." I change the direction of the scythe while advancing forward, pushing her with my speed and weight.

We crash through a building, and I slam her into the street below.

"Urk..." She doesn't seem too injured, probably because she protected herself with her territory.

I leave her as she is and move toward another AST member. Just as I'm about to strike, I'm stopped by Kusakabe.

"You're really starting to annoy me," Kusakabe was getting a bit irritating, so I decided to give her a gift that she'd remember for the rest of her life.

I completely blurred her vision with perception distortion while reversing gravity, altering its effect within a 5-meter radius.

Since Earth's gravity isn't very strong, reversing it just made it negative, meaning things started to float. But for someone who

can't see properly and suddenly has their sense of balance altered, it's clearly a problem.

I swung my scythe while Kusakabe tried to block, but with her balance disrupted, she couldn't, and I severed her arm.

"ARRRRGH," she screamed in pain, but I didn't give her time to recover and kicked her.

She's still a commander, so even in this situation, she raised a Territory. But it was still my kick, so the Territory shattered,

and her stomach was hit, sending her flying into the building ahead.

I decided to ignore her, as I might have some use for her in the future. That's the only reason I didn't kill her.

I smashed through a few more Bandersnatch until Origami appeared in front of me.

"Why are you ignoring me?" Origami spoke with a voice filled with rage.

What answer would bring out the most hatred from her in this situation?

"Why are you asking? It's simple: you're too weak to even be a problem." Of course, that's a lie. Among all the AST members, she's

the only one who managed to injure me. So I do pay special attention to her, but I can't just kill her here it wouldn't be fun.

"YOU DAMN BASTARD!" She charged at me, full of fury.

"HAHAHAHA, what a reaction, little girl," I said as I grabbed her sword and broke it with my hand, then immediately struck her, slamming her into the ground.

She quickly recovered from the blow and attacked again.

"Attacking like that, you almost seem like a wild animal," I said as I dodged, but then she pulled out a gun and fired. I dodged again,

but I have to admit, I didn't expect that weapon. I didn't see when she grabbed it.

She probably picked it up off the ground when she fell; after all, there are some pieces of equipment that were dropped.

Clearly, she isn't someone to underestimate—after all, she wounded Ellen using an old Realizer.

I rushed at her, striking the back of her head and knocking her out, then threw her at an AST member. I know she won't die just from that,

so I moved on to the next AST member.

I approached someone else who tried to defend themselves with a sword, but that trick is out of style. I shifted the position of my Angel and sliced off their legs.

"AAAAAH," they screamed as I cut again, splitting them in two. Their body fell to the ground as I moved on to the Bandersnatch.

Most of these AST members can't keep up with me or defend themselves, so it's not hard to kill them.

The ground below was filled with Bandersnatch debris and some bodies. I decided to lower my altitude and fly low.

On the ground, I found Kusakabe's arm. I decided to pick it up and cut it into several pieces. The cuts from my scythe are so clean that if

they found this arm, they could reconnect it to Kusakabe, thus ending my gift to her.

I flew about 3 meters above the ground while continuing to smash the Bandersnatch.

But I noticed that there were no more human AST members in the area. "Looks like they retreated."

I decided it was time to leave too. I used up a lot of energy, even though I barely used any powers. I need to fix this issue before having long battles with anyone.

I used almost all the Reiryoku I had to strengthen myself. With the boost from the reinforcement, I accelerated to a speed that the Bandersnatch couldn't keep up with and sliced them one by one.

In one minute, about 129 Bandersnatch were destroyed. My understanding was also heightened by the reinforcement, so keeping count just seemed natural.

As I reduced my energy and deactivated the Angel, I began to fly away to hide and head home.

When all the commotion was over, people started coming out onto the streets. I followed suit and started walking while thinking about

what to do about my energy consumption.

What I gathered from this is that it might be better to replace the function of the crystal with something of my own,

like using my body to do what the crystal did... but how to make my body work in a way that contains the energy?

As I walked through the night, I saw a silhouette on the 3rd building to the right. I pretended not to notice while walking normally.

"Nightmare," who would've thought I'd see her so soon? But I don't have the Reiryoku for almost anything.

Trying to communicate with her now would be a mistake, besides the fact that she's not here for me since she seems to be looking at another area.

I know she's searching for Nia Honjo, but I don't know when she starts that, and besides, that Kurumi in the building is probably

just a clone. I only noticed her because I'm a Spirit too; if I were human, I wouldn't have seen her.

Finding Kurumi isn't that complicated because she always leaves many clones around. I'm sure if I raise a Territory and walk around, I can find a clone.

As I passed by the building where Kurumi was, I suddenly had an idea of how I could stop my Reiryoku from leaking.

Tokisaki Kurumi, she's a Spirit who's not easily detected when she's in the world, even when using her Angel, but that's not what's

relevant. What's important are Kurumi's eyes; she stores stolen time in a counter that's in her eyes.

If I can understand how that works, I can try to do something similar with my body so that my energy doesn't escape.

Determined to follow this plan, I stopped walking, returned to that building, and sat on the ground, raising my Territory that won't be detected, and searched. I saw that she was still there.

I used Reversal on her eye. Reversal requires that I understand what it's being used on. It forces me to have that knowledge.

But the interesting thing is that I don't need her to do anything to acquire that understanding—initially, I didn't see how this fact could be useful.

If I use Reversal but don't do anything, it simply means that it's undetectable. Neither the AST nor the Spirits will know that I'm doing something.

And once it starts, I don't need to be close because Reversal is passive.

Now that I've marked Kurumi's eyes, I'm leaving. It doesn't matter if she didn't notice. If she decides to kill me just because she needs time,

it won't be good—I'm in no condition to fight right now, especially against someone as strong as her.

I got up and calmly left as the knowledge entered my mind. It seems extremely complex, but unlike Shido, whom I enjoy observing,

I don't need that with her, so I keep it active all the time.

I think it will take about a week to fully understand her eyes.

Which will give me an advantage in a future fight against her. "Thank you, Kurumi, this will be very useful," I thought as I smiled at this unexpected fortune.