And yet — that wasn't all.
Satomi Rentarou's gaze locked onto the unfamiliar man standing at Tendou Kisara's side.
Black hair. Black eyes. Features so flawlessly sculpted they looked like the finest masterpiece a god had ever produced.
His entire bearing radiated a pressure so oppressive it made Rentarou's eyes want to slide away.
He had never seen this man before in his life.
But his instincts screamed at him —
This is the one.
This man is the one who changed Kisara-nee.
Kisara-nee had always been extreme, yes. She had always been shouting about revenge. But she had limits. She had a good heart. She would never — could never — carry out a massacre like this.
It had to be this man. This stranger who had appeared out of nowhere and exploited Kisara's vulnerability, exploited her hatred, and twisted her into whatever this was.
When people cannot accept that someone close to them has changed, they almost always find an external villain to blame. As if defeating that villain will reset everything. As if the familiar person will simply come walking back.
The real Tendou Kisara had limits.
So — the only explanation that made sense was this.
"It was you!"
"You bewitched Kisara-nee!"
"You're the one who turned her into this!"
"Take your filthy hands — "
"Get them off her!"
"You — "
"You BASTARD!"
Satomi Rentarou's teeth ground together so hard they clacked. The fury blazing in his eyes had all but incinerated every last scrap of rational thought.
And so —
BOOM —!
With a howl that tore itself raw from the depths of his throat — Satomi Rentarou moved.
From the very first instant, he came in swinging for the kill.
His right leg — the prosthetic limb forged from black super-metal — drove into the marble floor with a thunderous stomp.
CRACK.
The explosive force was terrifying. The solid marble entryway beneath his foot shattered on the spot, shards rocketing outward like bullets in every direction.
The massive recoil launched him forward like a cannonball leaving its barrel — splitting the air itself in a single instant, streaking through the swirling firelight as nothing but a dark blur.
Fast. Impossibly fast.
Carrying the absolute, unstoppable momentum of a man who would shatter every obstacle in his path, he charged straight at his target — that damned black-haired man.
"Give me back — "
"Give me back the Kisara-nee I know — !!!"
Satomi Rentarou's roar shook the air, veins standing out like ropes on his neck.
Riding the full momentum of his sprint, his right fist clenched tight — the black prosthetic gleaming with a cold, merciless metallic sheen in the firelight, the miniature hydraulic system inside it screaming into overdrive, emitting a shrill mechanical whine.
[Tendou-Style Combat Arts — Type 1, Form 3 — "Rokuro Kabusegaeshi"]!
The fist split the air with a howl.
The air directly in front of the blow was compressed so violently it detonated with a teeth-grating sonic crack.
This was the definitive killing strike of the [Tendou-Style Combat Arts] that Satomi Rentarou had always prided himself on. By combining the instantaneous burst of the prosthetic's internal combustion engine with the unique force-transmission techniques of the Tendou style, it gathered the total power of his entire body into a single devastating point.
Struck at full force by that blow — fueled by unchecked rage — it was enough to pulverize solid rock. Enough to punch clean through the frontal armor plate of a main battle tank.
Never mind a flesh-and-blood human — even a Stage IV Gastrea taking that hit head-on would end up with every bone in its body shattered.
And yet.
A dark blur — faster, harder, and more ruthlessly decisive than Satomi Rentarou himself — cut through the space between them like a bolt of black lightning cleaving open the night sky.
Too fast.
So fast that even Satomi Rentarou — whose dynamic visual capture system had been surgically implanted — registered nothing but a distorted smear of black across his field of vision. His brain didn't even have time to process the frame.
And yet that figure was already standing directly in front of him.
A black sailor uniform skirt flaring out. Long hair whipping wild in the scorching wind.
"Stand down!"
The order arrived like a shard of ice — bone-deep cold.
That black figure's wrist snapped once. No flourish. No hesitation. The longsword in her hand met Satomi Rentarou's killing blow with an unstoppable forward surge.
CLANG——!!!
The shockwave detonated. The dull concussive impact sent visible ripples radiating through the surrounding air. The blast wave erupted outward from the two of them as its epicenter — sending burning debris, shattered stone, and even the pools of blood on the ground flying in every direction, scattered meters away in an instant.
"Ngh—?!"
Satomi Rentarou's pupils slammed to pinpoints.
It felt like he'd driven his fist into an immovable mountain of iron.
No — harder than iron.
The horrifying counter-shock transmitted through the bones of his arm and flooded his entire body in an instant. His internal organs felt like they'd all been wrenched out of position at once.
His whole body launched backward through the air.
SCREEEE——!!!
Satomi Rentarou wrenched his body around mid-air, firing the thruster in his prosthetic to correct his trajectory, and dug his feet into the ground in a desperate attempt to brake.
The soles of his shoes screamed against the ground, trailing wisps of smoke. The mud and blood beneath his feet gouged out two deep trenches from the sheer friction — and even then he slid back seven or eight full meters before his spine slammed into a stone lantern with a hollow thud, finally bringing him to a halt.
"...Gah — "
"Cough, cough — "
Satomi Rentarou coughed violently, tasting something coppery and sweet at the back of his throat.
But he had no time to think about that.
His head snapped up.
His eyes locked — with iron fury — onto the figure standing in his path.
What he saw was — Tendou Kisara.
Still in her black Miwa Girls' Academy sailor uniform, skirt settling around her, those long, straight legs exposed. That lustrous black hair, now flecked with crimson, lay plastered against her cheek.
Slowly, Tendou Kisara raised the cursed blade Yukikage — pointing its tip directly between Satomi Rentarou's eyes.
It was the standard opening stance of the [Tendou Drawing Arts] — the foundational guard-and-counter position.
But her eyes.
She was no longer looking at the childhood friend she used to worry about.
She was looking at an enemy.
"Kisara-nee?!"
Satomi Rentarou's pupils shook violently. He shouted in disbelief, his voice cracking.
He didn't understand. Why? Why was she blocking him?
Had she truly, completely, gone over to that man's side?
"Rentarou. I will not allow you to touch Kami-sama with those dirty hands of yours."
Tendou Kisara lowered Yukikage slightly, its tip angled toward the ground, settling into a stance that balanced offense and defense in equal measure.
Her voice was permafrost. Completely without feeling.
— Kami-sama.
That single title. Like a hammer blow directly to Satomi Rentarou's forehead.
His mind went blank for a full, stuttering second.
Then the picture snapped into place all at once.
So everything that had just happened — all of it — was connected to this mysterious man.
But that was exactly the problem.
"Kisara-nee! Snap out of it!"
"He's using you! He's a monster!"
"Look around you! Look at all of this!"
"This isn't you — where did the real you go?!"
"Wake UP! It's me — Rentarou!"
"We grew up together! We've lived side by side for over a decade — "
"And you're telling me you don't even trust me, but you trust this stranger who came out of nowhere?!"
Staring at the Tendou Kisara now facing him with drawn blade, Satomi Rentarou felt genuine, desperate panic rising in his chest.
He wanted to charge over and physically shake her awake.
This confirmed it. She had been brainwashed. The word "Kami-sama" — she was actually saying things like that now!
This only hardened the suspicion burning in his chest. Because how else could the Kisara-nee who was scared of bugs turn into this cold, stone-faced lunatic talking about gods and divine authority like she'd lost her mind?
And yet.
Faced with Rentarou's desperate pleas.
Tendou Kisara only looked at him with cold, flat eyes.
Disappointment flickered through them.
The disappointment of someone looking at a person beyond saving.
"The one who isn't thinking clearly is you, Rentarou."
"Right now I am clearer-headed than I have ever been in my life."
"But you — you've always been like this."
"Selfish. Self-righteous. Convinced the world should bend to your sense of justice."
"You think I'm only 'normal' if I stay the way I was before? Is that it?"
"What — just keep swallowing the humiliation? Pretend nothing happened?"
"Keep getting ground down and shamed by the Tendou family, watch the people who murdered my parents walk free, and still hold my head up for the sake of 'the greater picture'?"
"Drag this broken body through the mud, and still show up to school with a smile, work my part-time job, play the well-behaved victim everyone expects?"
"If in your eyes, the 'real' me is that woman — the one who wore a mask every day, surviving in the crack between hatred and compromise — "
"Then — "
Tendou Kisara's gaze went sharp as a blade's edge. The killing intent rolling off her erupted outward without restraint.
"That version of me is already dead."
"She was killed — by you, and by this rotten world, together."
"If you still want to lay a hand on Kami-sama — "
"Then try it."
Tendou Kisara's blade shifted — just a fraction.
Moonlight and firelight crossed on that edge, and a fierce, desolate gleam reflected back like a slash wound.
"I will treat you as an enemy. And I will cut you down."
"You — "
Satomi Rentarou's jaw clenched shut.
He didn't believe it. He refused to believe the gentle Kisara-nee he knew would actually kill him.
That man had to have done something — some kind of manipulation, some kind of control.
If he could just take that man down — just take him down —
"Kisara-nee, since you won't listen to reason — "
Satomi Rentarou drew a long breath. His prosthetic arm began to hum back to life.
"Then don't blame me!"
"I'm going to beat some sense into you!"
BANG!
The ground fractured again.
Satomi Rentarou charged forward once more. This time, he held nothing back.
When it came to Tendou Kisara, he had already mentally prepared himself — if she was truly past the point of no return, he would deal with her himself. He had made that resolve long ago.
The full arsenal of [Tendou-Style Combat Arts] techniques poured from him in a furious, relentless storm.
Type 1, Form 5 — "Tiger Pounce Perfected"!
Type 1, Form 8 — "Flame Fan"!
Type 2, Form 4 — "Hidden Zen: Blooming Petals, Upper and Lower"!
Fist shadows crossed. Leg winds howled. Each strike carried the force to shatter stone. Each strike drove straight for a vital point.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
And yet.
No matter how ferocious Rentarou's offense. No matter how sharp his angles.
Every single strike was deflected, neutralized — or outright repelled — by Tendou Kisara and that blade of hers, with a casualness that seemed effortless.
Every collision sent a wave of violent counter-shock hammering back up Rentarou's arm, the connection point of his prosthetic aching dully with each exchange.
A few rounds in.
"Ha — ...ha — "
Satomi Rentarou heaved for breath, shallow cuts already scoring his body in several places.
"Tendou-Style Combat Arts — Type 1, Form 3!"
Seeing that Rentarou still had no intention of stopping —
"Hopeless fool."
Tendou Kisara's gaze went ice-cold.
And then — in the space between one breath and the next — her figure simply vanished from where it had been standing.
She took the initiative.
For someone who simply refused to understand, words were a waste of air. Only the sword could sever the delusions from the mind.
[Tendou Drawing Arts — Zero Form]!
The heart of the Drawing Arts lay in concealment — in the absolute silence before the draw — and in the explosive, singular burst of that one instant.
Satomi Rentarou's pupils contracted to the size of needlepoints in an instant.
His mouth talked tough. But his body was honest — faced with a strike that could genuinely kill him, his instincts had already taken over.
"Tendou-Style Combat Arts — Type 1, Form 3 — 『Rokuro Kabusegaeshi』!"
Satomi Rentarou immediately raised his super-prosthetic right arm into a guard block, while simultaneously coiling power into his left fist, sinking his body weight slightly — already preparing to launch a counter the instant the guard connected.
This was his ingrained tactical habit.
Use the prosthetic's indestructibility to eat the hit head-on, create an opening in the opponent's follow-through, then close the distance and finish it with superior raw power.
This approach had worked against powerful martial artists before. It never failed.
And he was certain — Tendou Kisara knew this about him.
They had trained together for over a decade. He knew every technique of hers the same way she knew every technique of his — and Tendou Kisara, more than anyone, should understand the hardness of his right arm.
So if she was attacking head-on, she would have to adapt. She'd go for his lower body — or attack from his left blind spot.
His mind raced, running through hundreds of possible variations in a single heartbeat, locking in his counter-preparations for each one.
And yet.
Reality had always been crueler than imagination.
"Is this really all you've got?"
Tendou Kisara's voice sounded — cold and level — directly beside his ear.
Not from the front.
From —
Behind. And to the right.
What?!
Satomi Rentarou's pupils shrank to needlepoints.
When — ?!
The frontal charge — the image burned into his retinas — had been nothing more than a ghost image. An afterimage.
Or rather.
A deliberate opening she had carved into his perception on purpose.
Because Tendou Kisara knew him too well.
She knew Rentarou's ingrained counter-and-defense mindset when facing a powerful opponent. She knew his over-reliance on the defensive capability of his right prosthetic arm. And she knew — with perfect precision — that before he threw a punch, his right shoulder would dip with a microscopically subtle pre-motion.
This was the price of ten years living under the same roof.
To Tendou Kisara, every habit Rentarou had in a fight, every blind spot, every rhythm of every breath — it was all as clear as a diagram drawn on white paper.
The foundation of [Tendou-Style Combat Arts] was Type 1 — boxing — and Type 2 — kicking. But Satomi Rentarou had leaned so heavily on his prosthetics that the rest of his body had fallen behind.
"Too slow."
"And every move is an opening."
Snap.
A slender, powerful hand — moving with precision — caught the one flesh-and-blood limb Rentarou had: his left wrist.
Then — using his own momentum against him — she twisted.
Tendou Kisara's body traced an impossible arc through the air, her black pleated skirt flaring wide.
Her knee came up hard.
"GUH — !!!!"
Satomi Rentarou's eyes shot open wide enough to fall out of his head.
Agony erupted from his stomach.
— Tendou Kisara's knee strike. No mercy. No hesitation. Driven directly into his solar plexus with everything she had.
A surge of acid and blood foam sprayed from his mouth.
The pain folded him in half like a cooked shrimp in an instant, every ounce of the power he'd been building scattering to nothing in that single blow.
But it wasn't over.
Tendou Kisara's body pivoted, her black pleated skirt cutting an arc in the firelight.
That slender right leg came crashing down with an audible rush of parted air — slamming into the side of Satomi Rentarou's neck.
THUD!
No drama. No contest.
Satomi Rentarou didn't even make a sound. He simply flew sideways — spinning through the air in a long, heavy arc like a sack of broken debris — and crashed down into a pile of burning wreckage in the corner of the courtyard.
CRASH!
Sparks erupted. Dust billowed outward in a cloud.
The entire sequence had flowed like water — so fast it was dizzying to follow. From first contact to finish: less than three seconds.
A complete and total one-sided beatdown.
Even armed with prosthetics capable of punching through tank armor. Even with the real combat experience of someone ranked in the several-thousandth tier of the IP rankings.
In front of Tendou Kisara — Satomi Rentarou was as helpless as an infant who had just learned to walk.
"Ha — ...ha — "
Satomi Rentarou dragged himself out of the wreckage.
Half his body was blackened from smoke. His face was a ruin of blood and grime.
But.
The shock in his eyes burned more savagely than any wound.
"No — that's — "
"How is this — "
"How do you know my movements this well — "
He had lost. Lost completely.
And he couldn't understand why. When they sparred before, the results had always gone back and forth. His prosthetics were the finest cutting-edge technology had to offer.
So why.
Why had he been crushed this badly.
Looking at Rentarou's face — still frozen in disbelief — Tendou Kisara slowly lowered her leg and settled back into her stance, looking down at the boy struggling in the blood-soaked mud.
"That is the answer, Rentarou."
"Because I know you too well."
"These past ten years — every time you left the house, I worried whether you'd come back alive."
"Every time you trained your fists, I was there watching."
"Every habit you have. Every opening stance. Every shift in your center of gravity — I saw all of it. I memorized all of it."
"Because you were my partner. The only family I believed I had in this world."
"I was always afraid that if I didn't know you — if our coordination ever broke down — you would die."
"But what about you?"
"Rentarou. Did you ever try to truly know me?"
"Just now — that guard you put up — "
"You were preparing for the 『Tendou Drawing Arts — Type 1, Form 1 — Dripping Water Becomes Ice』, weren't you."
"But do you know?"
"That technique — three years ago, when the pain in my kidney made it impossible to generate full force, I abandoned it entirely."
Satomi Rentarou went rigid.
His body froze mid-motion, suspended there.
Those words — like a blade driven straight into his chest.
He didn't know her?
How could that be possible?
They had lived side by side for ten years. Every single day.
And yet —
Looking at the effortless composure with which she had neutralized every technique he possessed.
Satomi Rentarou found, suddenly, that he had nothing to say.
Did he truly know her?
Or had he only ever known the version of her he assumed existed?
The Kisara-nee who needed his protection. Who needed him to look after her. Fragile and yet strong — the one he'd built in his own head.
But —
Even so. Even so!
"Then what does it matter?!"
Satomi Rentarou's roar burst out of him — part rage, part attempt to drown out the confusion fracturing his mind.
"No matter what you become — you're still Kisara-nee to me, the one I know!"
"Give her back to me — "
"GIVE HER BACK — !!!"
The prosthetic thruster kicked to full power.
Black flame roared from his heel.
Satomi Rentarou launched himself skyward — riding the booster's acceleration, his right fist carrying annihilating force — clearing Tendou Kisara entirely, going straight past her at the black-haired man standing behind.
If he couldn't beat her — then he'd go straight for the source.
"If I can just kill him — "
"If I can just kill him — "
Close. The man was right there. Right in front of him.
He still hadn't moved. Not a single step.
He had him.
A flash of triumph blazed in Satomi Rentarou's eyes.
And yet.
When his fist was less than a meter from Haimer's face.
"As I thought."
"You still don't understand anything."
A quiet sigh.
From behind him.
And then —
WHOOOM —!
Satomi Rentarou's vision blurred.
And then.
He saw something — a black object — suddenly detach from his body, carried by its own momentum, spinning and tumbling through the air.
The cross-section was mirror-smooth. The internal hydraulic lines and precision gear structures were clearly visible from the cut.
That black metallic surface caught the firelight and threw back a cold, eerie gleam.
It was — his right hand.
"Wh — "
Satomi Rentarou's pupils dilated to their absolute limit.
His balance gone, he collapsed to the ground with a heavy crash.
"How — is that — possible — "
"My hand — my hand — "
Satomi Rentarou looked up in disbelief at the severed arm lying alone in the pool of blood.
How.
That fast —
That super-metal — hardness capable of shattering even the carapace of a Gastrea —
Cut like it was tofu?
Satomi Rentarou looked back in stunned disbelief.
What he saw:
Click.
A flick of the wrist.
The longsword slid home into its scabbard.
Tendou Kisara looked down at Satomi Rentarou struggling in the mud below her, from above, without expression.
"I told you."
"I would not allow you to touch Kami-sama."
"Kisara-nee — "
"Why — "
"Why would you go this far — "
"Aren't we family — "
Even now.
Satomi Rentarou still couldn't accept it.
Tendou Kisara had truly tried to kill him.
"Family?"
"That blade just now."
"It should have taken your neck."
"But I didn't let it."
"Because of the debt I owe — from ten years ago, that night when you threw yourself into harm's way to save my life, and lost an eye, a hand, and a leg in the process."
"I spared you because of that. Consider it repaid."
Tendou Kisara paused. Her voice dropped lower.
Ten years ago.
The night the Tendou family massacre happened.
The young Satomi Rentarou had lost an eye, a hand, and a leg protecting her.
That debt had once been a chain wrapped around Tendou Kisara — one that made her feel guilty every time she faced him, made her compromise, made her always step back.
But now.
With the swing of that blade just now.
The chain was severed.
"One arm."
"Your life."
"Consider it repayment for what you gave me back then."
"From this point on — I owe you nothing, Rentarou."
"Between us, the bond is broken. The debt is settled."
"If there is a next time — "
"If you dare show Kami-sama disrespect again — "
Tendou Kisara's thumb pressed lightly against the blade's guard, easing it a single inch from the sheath.
A sliver of cold light breathed out into the air.
"I will kill you."
"And one more thing."
"The truths you have been hiding from me all these years — I know all of them now."
"If you continue down this path."
"Every last thing — every emotion, every breach of trust — "
"One day."
"I will make you give it all back. With interest."
The words fell.
BOOM —
Behind her, the burning estate finally gave out. A massive crossbeam collapsed with a thundering roar. A cascade of sparks shot skyward like a column of fire.
As if the whole conflagration had been waiting for this exact moment — to write a final period at the end of a bond ten years false.
Satomi Rentarou stared at her blankly.
His mouth opened. But he found there was nothing left to say.
Only tears. Mixed with the blood and filth on his face, sliding down in silence.
It was over.
All of it was over.
—
The gap between them.
Was not even in the same dimension.
After all — the reason Tendou Kisara was called the foremost among the Initiators was not simply the title of "Tendou who kills Tendous."
It was because her raw talent was extraordinary beyond measure.
Sword Aura — nascent stage — capable of swinging a blade and severing objects ten meters away.
Capable of cutting down a Level 4 Gastrea with nothing but a sword and a mortal body.
Her personal ability and innate talent had already touched the absolute ceiling of what a human being could reach through flesh and willpower alone in this world.
And once she arrived in Orario.
Once she received God's Grace and shattered the shackles of a mortal body —
Tendou Kisara would only grow stronger still.
And beyond that.
Know when to cut and cut clean.
In that regard — Tendou Kisara's character had truly grown into something formidable.
As for Satomi Rentarou, collapsed in the dirt.
Haimer had no particular interest in sparing him a second glance.
Since Tendou Kisara had chosen to leave him alive as a closing of accounts — Haimer respected her choice without question.
And besides.
There were other matters that required attention right now.
With that thought, Haimer turned. His gaze passed over the still-burning Tendou family estate and settled on a shadowed corner at the far end of the courtyard.
The area was nothing but fire-blackened ruins — a few broken stone columns standing alone, casting warped, twisting shadows in the firelight.
It looked completely empty.
But.
To Haimer's eyes.
Two particularly vivid soul-flames had been burning there for quite some time.
"Since you're already here."
"Why keep hiding?"
"Enjoyed the show?"
Haimer addressed the shadows in an even, unhurried tone.
"Oh my, oh my?"
"So we've been spotted, have we?"
"How expected of a Kami-sama."
A laugh floated out from the darkness — rich with theatrical flair.
And then.
Footsteps.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Two figures stepped out of the dark — and into the light of the fire.
The one in front was a man — tall and lean, impeccably straight-backed. He wore a blood-red tailcoat. Atop his head sat a tall black top hat, and his face was hidden behind a white mask painted with an unsettling, grinning visage. White gloves covered both hands.
He looked exactly like an actor stepping off a stage at the end of an opera performance.
— Hiruko Kagetane.
A product of the original 「New Humanity Creation Plan.」
Mechanized Soldier, Serial Number 134.
In the original timeline of this world, he was the nemesis Satomi Rentarou would not have encountered for another year yet.
But now — because of Haimer's arrival in this world — the gears of fate had begun turning ahead of schedule.
And behind Hiruko Kagetane.
Followed a small figure.
Short blue hair. Wearing a blue dress.
In each hand, she held a pair of super-engineered short swords — each one longer than she was tall.
Crimson eyes. A blood-hungry smile playing at the corners of her lips.
— Hiruko Kohina.
Hiruko Kagetane's daughter — and his Initiator.
A Cursed Child bearing the Mantis Factor.
____
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