1

“Did you feel that?”

Noticing the slight twitch in Ms. Sadohara’s hands, Kazuki looked back to check on the girls.

It was an eerie feeling that something hit him like a powerful blow. However, their van was simply at an intersection stoplight. He glanced and caught a whiff of Ms. Sadohara staring ahead, her tired eyes still focused towards their direction: Elysium.

Amagi nodded.

“I-is that what you’re telling us about?” nervously asked Kimura.

In contrast to the calmer brunette, Kimura’s fingers twirled around her long twintails, locks of hair that crossed neon green and pink

In a slightly unrelated way, Kazuki felt it was appropriate for her to wear that wig and hairstyle today. If what Ms. Sadohara told them was true, what they faced now was technology similar to the one used in her concert months ago.

Those were drones that erected a barrier around a venue, fooling ordinary people with a visual illusion from the outside and repelling those that dared approach the Chronodome. Inside, the area’s spiritual power was unleashed, creating a domain with draining conditions not too different from Mu.

Minus the Nullities, thankfully.

“You know,” Ms. Sadohara started, putting her hand on the gear stick just as the light turned green. “It scares me at times how quickly the Ishida Conglomerate takes leaps and bounds in their technology.”

She pulled on the stick with greater force than usual as the van accelerated past the streets of Melissa Road.

“As someone who dabbled in science and research before, I can’t deny that seeing it fires up some competitive spirit in me. I have always enjoyed working with Yoshihiro and the companies under their banner, but now that they seem to have taken great interest in Guren’s ambitions…”

Her voice trailed off while the three teens looked on in solemn silence. The car picked up speed quicker than it normally did. With Melissa Road mostly being devoid of traffic at night, they were able to quickly reach the area near Elysium.

A purplish haze came into view as they neared the place. It covered much of the horizon that they can see, giving perspective to how big the research complex was.

To others, the purple haze – a spirit barrier – would have created the image of Elysium on a normal day. The fact that they’re seeing the haze enveloping a huge area ahead was just a proof of their spiritual awakening.

Eventually, the main gate to the complex came to their view, along with many guards and vehicles standing watch.

Not only were there vehicles, they were flanked with a few units that looked like machines. Standing a bit taller than an average person, they stood in guard carrying what looked like hammers, while others carried scary-looking rifles.

“What are those?” commented Kimura.

Ms. Sadohara slowed down her pace and took the van around.

“Wow, that’s a lot of them,” Amagi stared through her side of the window, looking at the staff and the machine soldiers that were guiding the few people in the vicinity away.

“Wait, they even got mecha? That’s pretty overkill!” complained Kazuki.

“It’s something they’ve been developing quite a while now,” nonchalantly answered Ms. Sadohara. “The future of warfare and weapons development, they said. To think that they’ll unveil them now…”

“Really insane.”

“Yeah, I know,” Ms. Sadohara shook her head. “I know we talked about getting inside through a hidden passage, but a part of me wanted some action and barge in a while ago. Not anymore. We’re not dealing with that.”

“Why did I know you’d just get the urge to charge in?”

Ms. Sadohara smiled but did not give her answer immediately. She stayed quiet as Melissa Road’s tranquil nighttime streets flanking them once more. While going on this detour, Ms. Sadohara’s stiff grip on the steering wheel loosened, and she reclined a bit, all while taking a brief look at the lampposts.

With the coast mostly clear, she smirked.

“Maybe it’s our budding chemistry, hehe. They say destined partners have it in them to know what each other’s thinking. Perhaps it’s implying something.”

Kazuki wanted to put his palm on his forehead. That’s not something they needed right now, but he can’t say that he didn’t expect it out of Ms. Sadohara.

“Hey,” grumbled Kimura, her voice apprehensive. “Ain’t you too old to be hitting on Darling, even lowkey like that? A joke or not, don’t you think I didn’t see what you implied.”

“And aren’t idols bound by an unwritten rule of purity?” retorted Ms. Sadohara.

“Oi, now’s not the time to bring that u-“

“Hmph! It’s an exception if it’s Darling! Besides, we haven’t really done it, you know? Yet.”

Kimura then reached out, trying to put one hand around Kazuki’s neck, as if pulling him closer to her.

“H-h-haaaa?” gasped Amagi, her face red and her eyes wide.

“Nothing of the sort will ever cross my mind!” shouted Kazuki before pulling Kimura’s hand away from his neck. “Focus on the important matters, would you? Especially you, Ms. Sadohara.”

He calmed down after a bit before looking sideways and staring at the counselor. “I don’t do this often, but Kimura is right. I think people like me and Shizaki are out of your age range.”

“For the record! It was Shizaki who offered all his services to me. I just asked him to come stay with me at school, and he went all out. The groceries, cleaning my office, the paperwork, everything! Just straight up said he wanted to devote his whole life to me for saving his mom.”

“You’re helpless. Without a sense of modesty, too,” Kazuki shook his head.

“Simply the worst,” followed Kimura.

Amagi sighed.

“Aaanywaaay, guess that did the trick.”

“What trick?”

“See? You didn’t realize it, but time just flew by, and before you all realized it, we’re here.”

“Here?”

Kazuki barely had time to process the new surroundings before the van came to an abrupt stop. Before anyone can complain, Ms. Sadohara shushed everyone before slowly turning the vehicle towards an unfamiliar path.

The high-rise buildings that towered over them both sides were a sight to see, but what made Ms. Sadohara stop was something else.

“W-wait, were these here before?” Kimura asked, leaning her face against a window.

At quite a distance from them were the people wearing the same security uniforms as the ones near Elysium. With some of them supported by the hammer-wielding robots, everyone looked in high alert.

“You really don’t pull your punches, eh, Yoshihiro?”

The van continued skirting the streets. A few security robots and people gave them a passing glance, but none sprang into action.

“As long as we don’t set them off, we’re good, I guess.”

“You seem quite unsure of that, Ms. Sadohara.” Pulling herself away from the window, Kimura leaned back with a worried expression.

“Not like I’ve seen these things before. I’ve heard about the research, but to actually see them in person is something else. Fighting them now is not to the best of our interests. On the bright side, if I had to make a guess, these machines are still premature and hurriedly rolled out, all to help Guren and Euphoria out.”

While they talked, the van had gone away from the district and was near the tail end of Melissa Road.

Melissa Road marked the border of Shiroki City, and eventually, the toll gate that led to the road to Kasugaya City came into view.

Kazuki did not know if the other girls were clued in on it, but he knew very well that it’s a city that had a place in Ms. Sadohara’s heart… and Uehara’s.

Their entrance to Elysium was somewhere in the midst of the city outskirts they’re in now, and whether it was by chance or by design, they can never know.

An emergency passage, as Ms. Sadohara described it. Designed to carry out escapes in case things went to hell in the research complex, which it did those years ago.

Near what looked like a small abandoned warehouse were a couple of guards. However, instead of the city guards that were in high alert, these guys were seated around a table with bottles. They were chatting and relaxing in a prone state, while one of them lazily waved a flashlight around.

“Gotcha. Looks like they did know about this entrance, but they didn’t commit to defending it as much,” whistled Ms. Sadohara, who stopped the van several meters away from the guards. “Time to get off, everyone.”

“W-wait, now?!” complained Kimura. “How will we deal with them?”

“Let me handle it,” said Ms. Sadohara. She loosened the buttons on her coat to reveal more of her tank top.

“I got this,” she said following a wink.

 

2

It took longer than expected, but eventually, the group consisting of Izaya, Uehara, and Sana made their way to the clearing deep inside Elysium.

Together, they looked at the ruins at the other end of Elysium. What was once a vibrant section of the research complex that Izaya had many memories in had been reduced to foundation pillars, some carrying semblance of the flooring that once was.

But it was mostly a large piece of arid land now, measuring about the size of a moderate stadium. An empty wasteland of sorts, all things considered.

By far, it was the part of the complex that had been demolished the most. In what seemed to be a twist of fate, it looked eerily similar to the ancient city that characterized Shiroki City’s Fragment. With the purple hue from the barrier clouding the sky above, it looked like a recreation of the unpleasant dimension.

In the middle of the wasteland was a memorial with a plaque at its base, and Izaya headed straight for it.

“How have the preparations been?” he asked, approaching Dr. Kagami. The doctor was tinkering with something on his laptop which was placed on a portable desk.

He looked at him, a visor covering half of his face.

The doctor’s Armament took the form of a visor that had little combat capacity. However, its ability, Pandora’s Box, more than made up for it in terms of utility. It allowed him the capacity to read and see mental and spiritual waves in the air and manipulate some of them to their will. Its full capacity was not known to Izaya, but he knew full well how those aberrations can affect one’s mental capacity.

The visor continued lighting up in various colors as the doctor addressed Izaya.

“Yes. We have synced everything perfectly,” he put the laptop on top of his arm before showing Izaya an intricate map of Elysium’s compound. A wireframe map of it showed numerous dots congregated in where they were, and various colors, looking like heat signatures radiated all over the place. “I have also confirmed all the coordinates for signatures coming from Mu.”

“We’re also ready to go, Lord Izaya.”

The eager words came from Reiya Utara. Strutting forward, she adjusted her trenchcoat before summoning her Armament, a levitating set of daggers that orbited her. The stern-looking woman, however, eyed the two girls who came with Izaya.

Her eyes narrowed at the sight of the anxious Sana and the apprehensive Uehara when Izaya calmed her down.

He scanned the area with his eyes, and after seeing that he had a lot of space, smiled.

“This should be big enough.” He nodded. “Everyone stand back.”

While the two obliged, the third member of Euphoria, Touya Satoru, sat in the distance, seemingly disinterested with the events transpiring.

With everyone out of the way, Izaya beckoned to Sana and eagerly waited for the girl to step forward. First, Uehara guided her forward.

The black-haired girl gave Sana a comforting nod and pat before letting her go on her own. With each nervous step that the little girl made, Izaya could feel his heart throb in anticipation.

Facing him was a girl who had eyes that shook. She had been struggling to maintain her composure the whole trip, and her face seemed to indicate her fading in and out of consciousness. But he knew why it was so and why her symptoms only worsened upon stepping into Elysium.

With each second he wasted, he would be extending this girl’s suffering. Izaya steadied his resolve and summoned his Armament, his ever-trusty rapier.

He pointed the weapon at Sana. Despite locking with the girl’s frightened eyes, he had no hesitation inside.

“Sana, please trust me,” he pleadingly mouthed.

In response, Sana recoiled and fell on her back, but Izaya had already made the lunge towards her. The rapier’s sharp tip inched closer to the girl’s neck. She screamed and instinctively put her hands up.

It all happened in a flash.

Feet frozen in place, Izaya was launched several meters back by an unseen force. He maintained his base, and planting his boots on the ground prevented him from falling on his back. Nonetheless, he looked at the girl with intrigue in his eyes.

“Lord Izaya!”

Utara was the first to come running. The woman sprang into action, throwing her knives at Sana with zero restraint.

Her Armament, all six of them, went homing towards Sana. Alas, before they can reach the girl, they hit an invisible wall, one which quickly rebounded the blades back at their sender.

“I said stay back!”

Izaya had a tone of exasperation as he masterfully swatted Utara’s knives away with his rapier, protecting her. Sana let out uncontrollable shouts, and with one last gasp, fell with her back first onto the floor. From within her, the cloud of miasma emerged and swirled into an undefined shape.

“S-sorry, Lord Izaya. I was—“

“It’s fine. Now, go back as I told you to.”

Utara retreated, with Dr. Kagami staring at her direction from the distance. He narrowed his eyes, keeping the swirling cloud as the only thing in his sight.

“In case you’re raring for something to do,” he addressed Euphoria and Uehara. “You mind keeping those guys company?”

He had sensed it before anyone else, but just as he finished saying that, cold, freezing air ran amok, enveloping his body in an assault to the senses that he hadn’t felt in a while.

He only had to hear the chirping and screeches before knowing that minor Nullities had appeared. An awakening had triggered the breaking of the boundaries between worlds, causing the Nullities to spill out en masse.

Such was the power of an Ascended One, and the one inside Sana was about to come out. Fortunately, it had been dealt with numerous times, and it had barely recovered to its full strength with how quickly they forced it out of Sana.

“Sayaka, you take care of Sana! Everyone, to positions! Take care of those Nullities, and leave the Magna Arbiter to me.”

After a nod, Uehara quickly sprang into action, grabbing onto Sana and pulling her away from the midst of the action.

Both Utara and Satoru followed, fighting off the humanoid and insectoid Nullities off with the knives and the tentacles respectively. For good measure, Satoru also unleashed Setsura. The ghastly woman emerged from his back before dicing up more Nullities.

“Pandora’s Box!”

Meanwhile, Dr. Kagami pressed his visor Armament on the side.

“They’re everywhere. This entire area encompassed by the barrier has been infested by Nullities. This…” he stuttered. “This is just like how I envisioned it.”

When Nullities approached him, the lights coming out from his Armament changed, and the hostiles were quickly pacified. However, more of them appeared from the side, and one took a swipe at him, barely missing its mark.

Before it can rush him down, a knife – one of Utara’s Armaments – was struck right through its chest.

“A world where the strong get steeled for the trials ahead, a world that provides a more beautiful path for the future with people molded by adversity. You did it, you really did it.”

Dr. Kagami failed to hide the smile upon seeing part of his goals start to come into fruition.

“We’re nowhere near the main event yet, Dr. Kagami!”

Izaya then cut down a Nullity trying to ambush him without even batting an eye.

 

3

“It’s been bugging me for a while already.”

“Hmm?” asked Ms. Sadohara in response to Kazuki’s question. “About how easy it was to get past those guards? Weelll… Men have pervy stuff on their minds all the time. So it was very easy for such an attractive woman like yours truly to set those fools up. But then, if even Kimura here was able to knock them out, it’s more telling as to how drunk they were, or how mesmerized they were with me.”

“No! Not that!”

Ms. Sadohara chuckled while the two girls behind them sighed.

“Didn’t you say this place was in the process of being demolished? Really surprised to see everything so intact.” Kazuki looked around, partly curious but mostly in awe at the passages the group were in the midst of crossing. “It looked so modern, so advanced. So well-maintained.”

“This doesn’t look like one of typical hidden tunnel networks at all.” Kimura followed, her curious eyes darting from one corner of the route to another.

True enough, the place did not look like a typical emergency tunnel. It was devoid of the usual rock formations that made up tunnel walls, with everything patched up by tiles.

It was well-lit, and every one of their steps echoed as they ran across the marble floors. It looked more like a shiny, high-tech office than something to be used as an emergency exit or a bunker.

Not that Kazuki’s in any mood to complain, as the place’s quality made everything easier for him, Ms. Sadohara, and the two girls trailing them.

“Well, leaving this passage intact should make things easier for whoever ends up purchasing the lot should that happen, so they had the foresight to not wreck the place or create a blockade. Worked out fine for us, so I’m not complaining.”

“I’m more worried about the barrier,” said Amagi. “Ever since we crossed the barrier, I had the feeling we’re being watched.”

“The security cameras should still be active, and so should the shutter doors. But without the main lab to oversee everything, we should be fine.”

“Shutter doors?”

“Ah, we haven’t been to the depths of the underground passage yet. Deeper inside, the path forks into several directions, leading to different parts of the research complex. Some of them into rooms with panels that control shutter doors. I’d say it’s a pretty cool security mechanism in case someone tries anything funny and attempts to get away through this path.”

“Won’t that backfire on us?” asked Kazuki. “You know, now that you mentioned it, I’m pretty sure you jinxed us all.”

“Who’s there to pilot it? There’s no one here. Since we’re inside an artificial rendition of Mu anyway, you can even use your Awakener ability to sense people. But I’m pretty sure Euphoria’s all clumped together and heading straight to where my lab once was.”

Liking that idea, Kazuki stopped, and so did the girls. It’s been a while since he had to use this ability, and it felt extra weird to do it while essentially being in the real world. However, Kazuki did close his eyes, and after a while, he confirmed that numerous signatures were indeed together in the distance.

“What?!”

All of a sudden, he opened his eyes upon feeling the cold grip bite his skin. The two girls’ reactions told the same story, and they all instinctively stood around each other in alert.

“Sounds like we got company.”

Ms. Sadohara brought out her gun from underneath her lab coat. Just then, Nullities emerged. En masse.

“Wha-?”

Kazuki stepped back in shock to see a horde of the humanoid Nullities headed their way from down a hallway. Meanwhile, new ones, Nullities shaped like insects and birds emerged from above, having come from the walls.

“These are all low class Nullities, but there’s too many of them,” he said before giving a glance at both Amagi and Kimura.

In unison, the three of them summoned their Armaments to prepare for battle.

“Guess we’ll have to fight our way through.”

Pulling the trigger to her gun, Ms. Sadohara let out a powerful shot.

 

4

“Guh!”

Izaya fell to one knee, a hand clutching his chest. With a firm grip, he tried nursing the wound on his chest, one caused by a beam from the being that materialized from the swirling cloud of shadows.

“I let my guard down.”

“Lord Izaya!”

Having seen the sequence of events from her periphery, Utara called for her leader before getting an outstretched palm as a response.

“Focus on holding the other Nullities at bay,” coughed Izaya before getting up.

This was not his first time going up against an Ascended One. Even if the Magna Arbiter had been drastically weakened through the numerous confrontations it had against Awakeners, it remained a powerful being that should be taken seriously.

In trying to protect Sana and his comrades, he had let his guard down and taken a beam to the chest as a result.

Izaya took a deep breath before finding relief in his wound closing. That would had been a dangerous attack, one that would have pierced right through his heart, had he not imbued himself with the power of another Ascended One.

“Bring it, Magna Arbiter!” he cried, brandishing his rapier.

The great Nullity, a humanoid being of darkness flanked with wheels with eyes, responded. “Haughty human. I was a fool for believing in Sana and her words about the goodness of humans.”

“The Ascended One associated with memories and growth, huh? You’ve come a long way from the primeval mess you were at Fuyusato Academy, both in logical thinking and speech. That’s what evolution means to your kind, right?”

The eyes that lined the interlocking wheels blinked before all at once opening. The wheels spun wildly as the Magna Arbiter levitated.

“Enough of this talk,” it responded in its hollow voice. “I will not forgive you for betraying Sana like that!”

“Betray?” chuckled Izaya. “I’m here to save humanity, and no Ascended One will be enough to stop the fire in my heart. I will defeat you, obtain your power, and put an end to the cruel reign your world has over mine!”