As agreed beforehand, the Exhibition was paused briefly to wait for Shushu to return after changing out of her ruined uniform.
After all, the whole point of the event was for Unit Six and Unit Seven to gain a genuine understanding of each other's strengths, which meant every member's presence as a spectator was mandatory.
"Finally my turn. Just watching the whole time gets boring, don't you think, Yuuki?"
Naoki walked into the Club Ginna arena looking thoroughly relaxed, rolling his neck to one side and then the other.
"I didn't take you for a battle maniac, Naoki." Yuuki replied with a wry smile, feeling the shift in pressure around him.
Beside him, Himari wore a considerably more serious expression. Her instincts were already telling her that the opponent in front of her was several times more dangerous than Yachiho.
"All right. Before we start, let me restore both of your stamina. It wouldn't be fair to force you into a fight against me while you're worn down. I want to face you both at your peak."
Having said that, Naoki activated «Pandemonium».
*SRING!*
The inverted cross pattern surfaced in his pupils, and simultaneously, the diagram of the Qliphoth Tree manifested behind him. One of the slots in the diagram flared with light before the entire manifestation faded, leaving only the uniquely glowing pupils in Naoki's eyes.
Nehemoth, «Transience»!
"Don't resist."
Naoki raised his right hand toward Yuuki and Himari. Immediately, a visible stream of pale green vital energy poured into both of them.
"Incredible! Every bit of exhaustion I had is completely gone!" Yuuki exclaimed, feeling the rush of restored strength surge through him. "This feeling is genuinely refreshing, like I just came back from a hot spring vacation!"
"This is..." Himari recognized the type of Blessing being used the moment she felt it. "Wait, this is «Transience», isn't it?"
"Your guess is correct." Naoki answered without any intention of denying it.
"«Transience»? What's that?" Yuuki asked, confused by the sudden shift in Himari's expression.
"..."
Himari was quiet for a moment before answering in a tone that carried something hollow beneath it. "«Transience» is my grandmother's Peach Fruit Blessing. Its ability is to absorb vital energy from other living things, and it can also accelerate or reverse the aging of any living creature, including the user themselves."
Her eyes settled on Naoki with a weight she couldn't conceal.
Her own Blessing, «Learning», shared a fundamental concept with Naoki's «Pandemonium», in that both involved copying other people's Peach Fruit Blessings. And yet why did the gap between them feel like the distance between the earth and the sky?
For Himari, the Blessings she copied were always diminished somehow, never quite as strong as the original, and their effectiveness depended heavily on how compatible she was with each one. Kyouka, on the other hand, had told her that «Pandemonium» copied Blessings perfectly, including the level of mastery possessed by the original owner.
Staring at a difference that glaring between abilities that were supposed to be the same type, Himari couldn't stop the feeling of deep unfairness from pressing in on her chest.
"..."
Naoki lowered his hand, still faintly radiating pale green energy, and looked at the two he had just restored.
"Well then, feeling better?"
Yuuki closed his fist, feeling the power flowing back through every fiber of his muscles, the bone-deep exhaustion from fighting Yachiho gone as though it had never been there.
"I'm fully recovered! I feel incredible, there's nothing holding me back at all!"
In the preparation discussions before the Exhibition, Naoki had proposed something fairly audacious: he wanted to fight each member of Unit Seven one after another, with the exception of Nei, who wasn't a combat type, with the condition that they use Yuuki in his slave form.
Kyouka had flatly refused at first. In her judgment, it was simply impossible for Yuuki to survive a chain of grueling back-to-back fights without collapsing from sheer exhaustion. Naoki, however, convinced them by demonstrating «Transience» and its ability to restore vitality on the spot.
Weighing the fact that fighting someone of Naoki's caliber would be invaluable experience for her members, Kyouka ultimately approved the proposal.
"Ahem!"
Ginna, seeing that everyone was ready, raised her microphone again.
"All right! Since everyone is at their peak, let's begin the match between Nao-sama and the Himari-Yuuki duo!"
Himari extended her hand gracefully toward Yuuki.
Yuuki bowed and was just about to press his lips to the back of her hand to trigger the contract transformation when suddenly...
*WIIUUNG!* *WIIUUNG!*
An alarm siren screamed to life, its pitch cutting through everything.
From outside the barrier of Unit Seven's headquarters, a massive wave of Shuuki could be seen crashing forward in a sudden assault.
"Shuuki?!"
Watching Himari tense up, Ginna drew herself to her full height with her chin raised, looking conspicuously proud in the middle of the chaos that had just erupted.
"Leave it to me!"
The swarm of Shuuki threw themselves against the transparent barrier enclosing the headquarters. The impact triggered the barrier's counterattack properties instantly, and bolts of lightning and destructive energy erupted across the wave of attackers, reducing the advancing Shuuki to dust in seconds.
"Ohoho, this barrier is incredibly sturdy, as strong as a steel wall!" Ginna laughed with complete self-satisfaction.
That wasn't surprising. Nearly every defensive system at every Anti-Demon Corps unit headquarters across the Mato was a product of her collaboration with the Onmyo Agency.
"Tsk. They really had to show up now." Naoki clicked his tongue, visibly annoyed at having his fight interrupted. "Couldn't they have waited just a little longer? At least let me finish one round."
As someone who understood the broad shape of this world's plot, Naoki had already known the peace wouldn't hold and that something far larger than a routine Shuuki attack was coming.
His words proved accurate almost immediately.
From behind the wave of Shuuki that had just been reduced to ash by the barrier, a dark silhouette emerged, radiating a pressure entirely different from anything that had come before it. Rather than snarling like a wild beast, the figure produced a sound that was unmistakably human, clear and composed.
"So this is what you call a barrier?" she asked in a dismissive tone.
Without any warning, she pulled her head back and drove a single headbutt straight into the transparent protective layer.
*KRAK!*
"HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!" Explosive laughter rang out through the air. "This is just a toy! I, Rairen, cannot stop laughing!"
*CRASH-BANG!*
The barrier that Tenka had just praised as capable of holding off a thousand Shuuki simultaneously shattered like a thin pane of glass against the figure who called herself Rairen, leaving a gaping hole through which dozens of Shuuki immediately began pouring into the headquarters grounds.
Only now could the members of the Anti-Demon Corps see the intruder clearly.
Rairen was a Humanoid Shuuki of enormous height and powerful build. Her face was obscured by something resembling a static white mask, unsettling in the way it showed nothing. She wore an eccentric set of battle garments styled after ancient Japanese combat dress, the coloring split sharply down the middle, the left side black as night, the right side clean white.
"ROARRR!!!"
Without needing any further command from Rairen, the swarm of Shuuki behind her charged forward in a frenzied rush, targeting anyone in their path.
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