1

The metal door creaked before breaking into multiple pieces. As the cleaved pieces crashed to the ground, they scattered following a thud.

In walked two girls, one of them holding a sword on her hand.

"Not here either, Amagi."

Uehara cocked her head back while her eyes busily scanned the contents of the room.

Her eyes saw abandoned clothing, scattered makeup, props, and the like. As well as four uniformed people lying on the floor.

Her companion walked past her and crouched in front of one of the downed men in uniform. She supported the body up, revealing to her partner the man's closed eyes and a completely unresponsive body.

"This is horrible," the brunette said, gently putting down the unconscious person.

It was just as Kazuki had said. An unnatural phenomenon that broke the boundaries of Mu and allowed its properties to manifest in the real world.

Uehara marveled at the sword she held. Normally, she would not be able to summon her Armament outside that parallel world, but it was the real thing she held.

It would not be a stretch to say that Mu had invaded the real world, and these people had paid the consequences of it.

Such was the work of the Render of Bounds.

Ms. Sadohara had told them about its capabilities, but Uehara never anticipated it to be capable of affecting such a large area. She had no idea where they were, having been brought to the basement blind, but she knew that they were nowhere close to the stage where Yuki-tan was scheduled to perform.

Despite not being able to see the red sky and the presence of Nullities, the heavy and dreary air of the world remained, and it must have been the thing that knocked these people out.

Her thoughts flashed back to the encounter with Dr. Shin Kagami months ago.

Was this what he wanted? It's never going to work out, no matter what good intentions he had.

She slowly shook her head while watching Amagi go from one person to another, looking for signs of life to no avail. The scene in front of her was what she had been seeing for the past few minutes ever since they got free.

The people in the hallways en route to this room all showed the same symptoms. They were not dead, but considering the comatose state that they were in, they might as well be if nothing was done soon.

She eyed a drawer in the distance, past where the four people have fallen. Wasting no more time, she walked past them and opened it to see two wallets, two ID cards, and two smartphones. She placed the items on a table and grabbed the one with a white case.

She had never felt happier to see the smartphone with a cute cat design and opened it. It was a happy reunion.

Kimura did not lie to them. Their items were really kept here.

"She could have at least gone all the way, though," grumbled her.

While the info about their items and the guard rotation proved to be very important, she did not appreciate Kimura leaving them tied. That hypocrite turned out to be a lot more perverted than one would expect, considering Kazuki's stories of their encounters.

Meanwhile, she eagerly waited for the logo at the upper corner of her phone screen to change.

No dice.

Signal interference was a signature trait of Mu, and after seeing the reception on her phone, Uehara accepted that as long as her trusty sword remained in her hand, the two of them would have to continue on alone without help from their other teammate.

Knowing that person, Uehara was certain that he would have gone into a confrontation with the Nullity by this time. According to him, the Nullity's overall power level and presence equated to a Class A. That's more than a typical Awakener can handle alone.

Amagi walked to her side with a sullen look, prompting Uehara to hand over the second phone, the one with a plain blue case, as well as one of the wallets.

"Any luck?"

Uehara can see her partner's crestfallen expression when she shook her head.

"What do we do now, Uehara?"

The answer was obvious.

"First things first. Let's find our way back up and into the auditorium. Arata could be in big trouble right now."

2

"Almost there!"

With a triumphant declaration to Amagi, Uehara found her way to the back entrance of the Chronodome. Sword in hand, she almost ran into the automated sliding doors before catching her breath and waiting for the doors to open.

Past the doors, the field where hordes of people were would await, and from there, they could find their way to the front entrance and help their friend out.

Or would they?

She caught her breath and focused for a moment.

The Class A readings are gone...

Her realization opened up even more questions than answers. Could a lone Awakener possibly defeat a Class A Nullity by himself? Much less the Render of Bounds?

Something did not add up.

The black-haired girl kept her thoughts to herself as she darted past the doors, running straight into the field, only to find her feet skidding as she grinded to a halt.

"W-what is that?"

The long-haired girl did not need to ask her companion for more clarifications. Uehara stared at the scene in front of her with her mouth ajar.

Instead of the evening sky awaiting them, the whole world above had been replaced with a purple hue. She squinted, and she made out some polygonal lines that crisscrossed and created multiple crystalline shapes.

It felt as if they were inside a dome or a gigantic prism. It looked like it covered the entire area of the Chronodome.

Uehara closely surveyed it even as she and Amagi approached the Chronodome's main entrance. They walked past the wide doors and into the center galleria that served as the structure's enormous entrance bay.

Uehara kept their focus on finding the way to the main auditorium, yet the view outside kept bothering her.

"It's the first time I've seen something like that," Uehara answered her friend right as the doors shut behind them.

"Do you think it's trapping us and maintaining this large-scale Fragment?"

Before Uehara can answer, she felt her ears perk up. Without a second to waste, she quickly turned around and tackled Amagi to the ground.

Both girls toppled over, with the long-haired girl landing on top of the shorter-haired one as they crashed to the carpeted floor.

As soon as she heard the whirling sound that came from somewhere behind them, she knew that she barely made it. A second later and the brown-haired girl underneath her would have been wounded.

"Very perceptive. Impressive."

Following the stoic voice, Reiya Utara stepped out from behind a pillar supporting the entrance hall of the structure. In spite of her words, she had an unimpressed look on her face. Twirling a dagger around her hand, she made a slow walk towards the two girls.

"So my theory was right. The two of you are indeed Awakeners. I was hoping that you would just pass out in that cell."

Getting back to their feet, Uehara eyed the lavender-haired woman intently. This was followed with her hearing the sound of an Armament being summoned.

"Stand back!" threatened Amagi, who now had her bow out.

"Speaking of which, I have to say that your presence here does throw a bit of a wrench to my plans," the manager stopped in her tracks. Her tone had not changed, as did the bored look on her face. "Which of the personal servants set you free? Tell me so that I can make him beg for mercy once this is all over."

"So you're really the one behind this mess. Just what are you thinking?!" yelled Uehara.

"Once the experiment finishes, Izaya will take care of the rest. He and Euphoria will lead the way to a new world."

"Euphoria. Izaya."

Flashbacks of the silver-haired man and his entrance at Tenka Peak played in Uehara's mind as she repeated after the manager. His words sounded clearly in her head, but they brought nothing but unpleasant memories to the girl.

An organization that sought to harness the power of Mu for something, the same action that had lost her someone dear years ago...

"All that Mu crap once again. At the cost of all those people? Just unacceptable!" she shouted.

The manager just raised an eyebrow in response.

"Try me."

An arc of magical knives surrounded her as she made an arch with her finger. Uehara counted around two dozens, and they all circled around their owner, creating an impenetrable defense made of orbiting blades.

Utara then stretched her hand forward with force, and several of those blades headed straight towards Amagi.

Uehara next heard the gasp from her companion.

One.

Two.

Three.

All three blades dissipated as the girl with the sword parried them. She then pointed the sword at her opponent.

"Your madness ends here!"

3

"Arata..."

Yui Kimura clung to life, and her act of forcefully gripping Kazuki's sleeves caught the latter off-guard enough to warrant a short shout.

"Woah, easy there, Kimura! What happened?"

He felt his grip intensify before letting her go in a hurry. Now would be the worst possible time to trigger the bad personality of Kimura. Not that people would see, but it could cause trouble nonetheless.

To his surprise, however, the idol just maintained her hold on his sleeves before averting her gaze..

"I remember now... Arata, I remember everything!" she said in between sniffs. Her body shook, and she continued with pursed lips. "That thing, my family, everything!"

Kazuki, unsure of what to do, simply ran his hand across her hair. "We can talk about that later. Kimura, stay put."

He first looked at the portal before reaching into his pocket to take a look at his smartphone.

No reception.

Walking into the portal and engaging the Nullity in its domain alone could be suicide at this point. However, with no contact with his two fellow Awakeners, there was no other choice.

Running away now was also not an option. Not with the number of comatose people filling the entire auditorium.

He clearly saw that tendril pierce Hikari and many others. Could it be some kind of soul stealing ability? If so, then defeating the Nullity could allow those people to regain consciousness.

He motioned to stand up, having made up his mind.

"Kimura, I would love to hear your story and all, but I have to hurry. I have to save these people before it's too late."

Instead, a weight pulled him down and prevented him from fully getting up.

Kazuki looked at the girl with his perplexed expression. It was met by one that would not take no for an answer. He opened his mouth to protest her condition but was immediately interrupted by a straightforward answer.

"I'm going with you." Yui Kimura motioned to the huge portal.

"But, Kimura—"

"No buts!" said the girl, shaking her head vigorously. "The Render of Bounds and I have a long history. I'm not going to stand by here and let all my fans down."

She let go of Kazuki before fixing her hair accessories and straightening her green vest. Her eyes closed, and she took a deep breath before summoning the staff with a mic at the end.

She proudly held her Armament and faced Kazuki. The turbulent emotions within her can be seen in her facial expression, and she looked worse for wear. Despite that, there was no hesitation in her voice.

"The Render of Bounds is mine. I will settle things once and for all."

She proceeded to walk towards the portal before Kazuki put a halt to that.

"You're kidding if you think that I will allow myself to stand by and regret later."

Without giving her a chance to answer, he gripped Kimura by her fingers and stared her in the eye. "Besides, after what we've been through at the abandoned storehouse, it would be a shame to let it all end like this. I won't allow you to go out there and fight your battles alone anymore. You hear me?"

A smirk slowly formed on his face as he saw the stiff expression on the idol's face gradually soften.

"Please, entrust your everything to me. Your troubles, your worries, your burdens. Everything. Even if it was just this once. We'll destroy that thing and finish this fight together."

"A-a-ah..."

Her jaw dropped, and a luminescent blush formed on the girl's face. All the remaining determination in her face changed into an awkward look that Kazuki found quite cute.

"My sister's a victim of that monster, too. It's not just your fight, you know."

Kimura recovered and gave him a nod. The fire in her eyes returned, and she turned her attention back to the portal.

"Thank you, Darling~"

She winked and gave Kazuki a thumbs up.

4

It must have been several minutes since Kazuki entered the portal and found himself back inside Mu. It was never pleasant to enter this world, but this version of a Fragment was even worse.

As soon as he entered that giant portal, he had found himself traversing a tunnel that seemed to have no end in sight. Each footstep echoed inside the tunnel, and the dark walls that had ominous-looking fluids seemed alive, slowly closing in on them before expanding and repeating the cycle. The closest thing that it reminded him of is if a person's gut were to become a gigantic tunnel.

It was a nightmare for claustrophobic people.

Getting past it led them to this castle-like structure, and traversing the Nullity-filled structure and its many chambers was another stuff of nightmares.

He peered beyond his shoulders, and behind him followed the idol. She panted as she ran, and he could assume it had to do with being used to the place.

Kazuki did not know how his companion fared in these situations, but even he found the air in this place suffocating at times. This was much worse than the Fragments that he had been fighting in for the past few months.

He slowed down his pace, allowing the girl to catch up.

Exhaling, Yui Kimura paused while putting her hands on her knees. Her twintails bobbed around as did the large discs she had on her head. Finally catching her breath, she straightened herself up and leaned against one of the brick walls that had red runic highlights.

"You okay, Kimura?"

'Do I look okay to you? You're going too fast! We also had to fight all those monsters on the way, you know. Besides, you just swung that thing on your arm around while this Ar-ma-ment? of mine was tiring me out." She stammered while second guessing her terms.

"Sorry about that."

As he apologized, he also took this time to lean against another rough wall. His eyes took the chance to examine the large staff that the girl held. By all means, it was supposed to be a staff, but it looked more like a metallic microphone with its chrome color and the object at the tip.

Kimura reminded him of himself much more than his childhood friend did in terms of their first time using their weapon. When Amagi awakened to her power to save him against Touya Satoru, she looked like a natural with the bow.

On the contrary, the idol here initially swung the staff around clumsily, barely fazing the small humanoid Nullities that spawned out of the walls and the floor. Eventually, whether by accident or not, she discovered that the mic end of the staff allowed her to shoot small electric beams.

That can't be it, though.

Kazuki doubted that shooting plain-looking beams was really what the Armament's true ability was. An Armament's special ability would be something connected to a deeper desire within the wielder, and knowing Kimura, she was the last person who would settle for boring beams.

That's not to mention her terrible affinity with it. With each blast, the idol grew more and more tired, as if the weapon was siphoning life force from her with every shot.

Kazuki looked at the ceiling and to a dilapidated staircase in the distance. Looking at the stairs, he can feel its presence.

"We're almost there. Take your time."

As he said that, he fought every fiber of his body that urged him to get a move on. With Hikari's life at stake, he wanted nothing more than to end things against that powerful Nullity. It was not only for Hikari, too.

Shiki. Sana. Everyone else.

God forbid even Uehara and Amagi, should that wretched attack have somehow made its way past the auditorium before the Nullity was sent running into this space.

Thousands of people's lives were at stake, and he guessed that the only way to free them would be to defeat the Nullity.

In spite of everything, he recognized that bringing a tired Kimura to the fight would be more than unwise. It would be better to use this time to get her to rest up.

It felt like the save point right before a major boss battle, which was the exact same vibes that he felt at this point.

To further drive the point home, there was a conspicuous lack of Nullity readings in the area. The same cannot be said for whatever lay beyond the stairs, as Kazuki's hairs stood on end each time he focused his sights on that area.

The stairs reeked of magical power, and his theory was that the Render of Bounds had power so great that it leaked out from an entire floor away.

"Say, you wanted to tell me something, right? Now is as good as a time to tell me while you recuperate."

As he approached Kimura, the idol hung her head and avoided eye contact.

"It's all my fault. The reason why the Render of Bounds is causing this much trouble. The reason why so many people lie comatose now. It's all my fault."

"Huh?"

Kimura's staff trembled along with her hands as she fought to get her words out.

"It happened three years ago. I was in a very bad car accident that made the headlines. Remember the Unity Highway Incident?"

"Oh! Come to think of it, I think I remember something like that. Who would have thought?" Kazuki's voice trailed off.

"The car my family was in was completely flattened. It was a horrible accident that cost several people their lives."

"W-wait a minute. The Unity Highway Incident? The news reported no survivors from that incident! A family of three, as well as several people, were the victims. If I recall, the surnames of people who died were..." It was then that Kazuki's eyes widened, and he stared at Kimura. "Wait a minute... Don't tell me...!"

His gaze was met with eyes full of remorse.

"Indeed, there were no survivors. Or so they thought."

Kazuki cannot believe it. He tried to piece things together, and multiple theories have started popping inside his head.

"Then, it appeared. While while the last of my consciousness floated in limbo and began fading away, I looked to the heavens and cursed my fate. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs in order to go out swinging. Instead of going down quietly, I wanted to go down cursing the fate that brought this on me. Then it began to sink in. I was afraid. I wanted deliverance. Salvation. I wanted to live."

"I did not know whether it was a devil or a messenger of God that came for me. All I know is that in the moment I stared into its eyes, our minds synced. I accepted it, and it gladly entered me. We were one."

She turned her sights back to the ground before continuing.

"Wanting to survive, we clung to each other. Then, my world turned black."

"I woke up in a hospital room, and I can remember the doctors telling me that I was comatose for over a week. Floating in the borderline between life and death. It was really nothing short of a miracle that I even woke up, according to them."

She turned her attention to her bare legs, using one hand to caress them and motion something around them.

"I was not supposed to be able to walk. Nor should my arms be functioning after they have been damaged so much. But when they stressed me out with their talking or procedures, I would lash out violently with unexplainable strength. Nothing held me, and in the off-chance that they injected me with something, I would only get stronger. I only stopped when I, or rather, the being inside me, wanted to."

"I'm more amazed that they did not do anything more drastic. I heard that people in the old ages would have performed an exorcism if you behaved that way. We don't do that anymore, but still..."

Kimura nodded her head and resumed her story.

"Alas, everything came with a cost."

"For as much as the Render of Bounds recovered my life force, it also took the same amount from me. It gave me life, but it also locked my memories for as long as it's inside me and siphoned what it can to sustain itself. I was not aware of it until just now, but my wild, unrestrained emotions kept it going, and the more I grew, the stronger it became. Eventually, it started being able to break away from me."

That explains it.

Kazuki had been pondering about the cause of Kimura's outbursts and its relation to the Render of Bounds.

As someone who released her emotions and expressions through singing, it would make sense that it was during her most passionate singing that the Nullity would be at its strongest.

She was singing in South Quinn Street after being extremely frustrated. She also did so at the beach. Kazuki reckoned that just now, she was at the cusp of complete bliss. He remained quiet as he pieced more of the story together.

A single tear dropped to the ground between the girl's curled up legs.

"Had I just accepted my fate then... Had I just died..." she fought tears as her grip on her Armament tightened. "Then this whole thing would have never happened!"

Kazuki had enough, and he placed both of his hands on the girl's shoulders. He then took a deep breath.

His first instinct would be saying something like "Quit moping and get up!" while berating the normally-peppy idol.

"It's not your fault. Even I would probably have done the same thing you did. Instead of focusing on the past, why not look to the future? After we beat the hell out of that Nullity and rescue everyone's souls, you can shine and bring hope to so many people as Yuki-tan."

Different words had come out of his mouth.

"I assume that what you wanted to do. Although, frankly speaking, I don't think that I have the license to say anything about moving on from the past," he smiled bitterly, remembering his own situation and Bloomenfled's words back in South Quinn Street.

He scratched his head awkwardly before silently congratulating himself for stopping himself from saying the wrong thing on impulse. Then, he realized how awkward he must have sounded.

"Gah! H-how do I say it again? The point is...!"

He looked at Kimura in the eyes intently.

"We all have regrets, but that is just part of life. What we do out of it is what gives life meaning. What we should do is to work hard so that we can prevent further regrets in the future. We will fight, struggle, and grapple with fate until we find that happy ending! Isn't that what your favorite among your songs say?"

Silence.

Kimura's eyes then widened before she burst out laughing. She laughed so much that even more tears began to fall from her eyes and she had to cover her mouth with her hands.

"Hahahaha! W-w-where... Hahaha!" She had difficulty stopping herself. "Tell me which anime or game you learned that from, nerd."

Part of Kazuki wanted to feel irritated at the girl's behavior after he recited yet another cool-sounding quote which he spent time memorizing. However, she's right on the money, and that fact caused Kazuki to laugh himself before he continued.

"Ah, screw you, Kimura," he jokingly said before shifting back to his serious tone. "Well, just remember that if you need someone to carry your burdens with you, I'll be right here. I mean, there's only one person who truly knows how cheeky and bitchy you can be beyond public eyes."

"That last part sounds insulting, you know," grumbled Kimura before she stood up, Armament in hand. "But thanks for listening, regardless. That got a load off my chest. Alright, let's get in there and kick some Nullity ass!"

"Chest? You have those?" wondered Kazuki, visibly raising his eyebrows and looking at Kimura in that direction.

She's obviously wearing her pads today as well.

"Another one of that and we're breaking up!" whined Kimura before storming off, making a beeline for the stairs.

Kazuki followed her, having prepared his heart for the decisive battle.

"We're never in a relationship..." he muttered to himself.