Ryouko's tightly clenched fist finally loosened slightly due to the latest command coming through the communication channel, her palm already soaked with cold sweat.
"...Command confirmed. All units maintain current posture, monitoring target [Heavenly Judgment] with the highest priority. If the target exhibits no active attack behavior, strictly prohibit any form of provocation or engagement, and wait for its natural 'Lost'."
"Repeat, strictly prohibit engagement, wait for 'Lost'."
"Hoo—" Ryouko silently let out a long breath of stale air that she had been holding for a long time, and her taut nerves relaxed slightly. This was already the best command she could have hoped for under the current circumstances.
She immediately relayed the order to all team members, her voice carrying undeniable severity:
"Everyone heard that! Maintain the perimeter, and do not make any movement that could be interpreted as hostile! If She doesn't move, we absolutely do not move! Understood?!"
"Understood, Captain!" The team members responded one after another, their voices also carrying the relief of having a heavy burden lifted.
However, after a brief silence, an uneasy question still arose in the channel, the voice filled with youthful panic:
"Captain... what if... what if She actively attacks us? What should we do?"
This question was like a massive stone, pressing down on everyone's hearts once again.
The muscles on Ryouko's face twitched, and ultimately, she couldn't even manage a bitter smile.
She gazed at the white-haired figure seated in the void far away, her eyes containing only a nearly numb calmness.
She replied in an unusually flat tone, devoid of any inflection:
"If She attacks..."
She paused, as if stating a fact as objective and cruel as a law of physics.
"...Then pray. Pray that Her attack didn't target you, and pray that the one She targeted... is the teammate next to you."
These words were so cold that everyone who heard them shivered.
"And then,"
Ryouko's voice was still calm, yet carried a despairing heaviness.
"If you are lucky enough not to be vaporized by the first strike, step over the 'corpse' of your teammate, who may already be reduced to debris, and continue charging toward Her."
"Use your fastest speed, burn all your strength, and charge toward that 'goddess' like a moth drawn to a flame."
The channel fell into a deathly silence, broken only by the faint static of electricity.
"Cap... Captain... isn't... isn't that just sending us to our deaths?" another voice asked, trembling.
"Sending you to your deaths?" Ryouko finally showed a hint of reaction, but it was a deeper sense of helplessness.
"Running away is also death. No, perhaps it's a quicker, more meaningless death."
Her gaze seemed to pierce through space, seeing the tragic state of the industrial area that had been reduced to scorched earth last time.
"Think about the last battle. Given the destructive power She displayed, if She wished, the entire Amamiya City... would be nothing more than a sand dune that She could wipe off the map with a casual wave of Her hand."
"You want to run? Do you think... we can actually escape?"
The desperate truth was laid bare, and no one questioned it again.
All the AST members could do was grip the weapons in their hands tighter, transforming their unvented fear and powerlessness into a more focused, and more humble, "surveillance" of the white figure... Below, at the window of the half-destroyed school building.
Itsuka Shido had just finished his conversation with Tohka.
Although the process was convoluted, even disastrous, he seemed to have finally made Tohka reach an Understanding that he was not an enemy and had extended a date invitation.
As Tohka's figure gradually faded like a phantom and finally disappeared into the air—She had "Lost."
Shido's heart was filled with complex emotions: regret over not communicating better, sympathy for Tohka's situation, and confusion about the future.
Subconsciously, he raised his head, looking toward the focal point high in the sky that drew all the firepower and attention.
As if by telepathy. (Or rather, Chinatsu had always kept a sliver of her attention on him.)
The moment Shido looked up, the white figure seated on the throne of the void slightly tilted Her head.
Golden eyes, like two cold stars, crossed the spatial distance and precisely "glanced" at him.
That gaze was still devoid of any emotion, so indifferent it was like looking at an inconsequential object.
Then, under Shido's gaze, Chinatsu's beautifully sculpted lips parted slightly, seemingly saying something silently.
The distance was too great; Shido couldn't hear anything, nor could he read Her lips.
But that brief mouth shape was inexplicably imprinted in his mind.
(What was She saying?)
Before Shido could think further, Chinatsu casually raised Her hand and lightly waved it at the air beside Her.
A portal, its edges flickering with purple electric light and its interior profoundly dark, seemingly connected to the endless void, silently opened beside Her.
Without any hesitation, as if merely leaving a place She had grown tired of, She gracefully stood up and stepped into it.
After Her figure disappeared, the portal rapidly contracted, finally turning into a tiny speck of light that vanished completely into the air, as if it had never existed.
At that exact same moment, Shido felt a soft glow envelop him, and the familiar sensation of teleportation washed over him—Fraxinus was retrieving him.
High in the sky, only a group of AST members remained, looking at each other, still daring not to relax their guard, along with the lingering, heart-stopping remnants of oppressive power that had not yet fully dispersed from the air.
And before Shido was completely teleported away, the only thing replaying in his mind was Chinatsu's silent glance back, and the final lip movements that seemed to have been directed at him.
(...What exactly... did that mean?)
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