Chapter 183: The Broken Bonds of Childhood Friends
It had been a long time since Mana had come to this place again—the SEMA branch in Kawano City.
Kurokawa had been waiting there for a long time.
After Adam lost contact and control, Kurokawa was directly appointed by the SEMA headquarters as the highest commander of the operation, as the only ACE-level ability user still active in Kawano City, and took over the entire operation temporarily.
Even after the reinforcements from SEMA and the three major academies arrived, the entire operation in Kawano City was under his command.
Although the operation had ultimately failed, with the protagonist “Hoshimiya Nagi” confirmed dead and the world losing its savior again, no one blamed Kurokawa for this, as no one dared to claim they could have done better than him—such as safely bringing back the “protagonist candidate—Tsukimi Kanade” to the SEMA branch in Kawano City.
The request for a meeting with Mana was also an order from Kurokawa.
Even though Mana got the chance to see Nagi’s body, she still needed to undergo a series of comprehensive and meticulous checks within the SEMA branch to prevent any unexpected incidents, all of which were to be carried out by the “new generation” of ability users, ensuring that an accident like Adam’s would not happen again.
By the time Mana was finally diagnosed as safe by SEMA, it was already evening.
The waning light coming through the windows reminded Mana of her experiences in the “other Kawano City,” and for a moment, she longed to return to that time—
But reality was pushing her step by step toward a cruel future, just like the passage beneath her feet.
Guided by SEMA personnel, Mana was moving toward the basement.
Since Mana had communicated with Kurokawa while being checked, she knew that Nagi’s body was currently in the SEMA branch’s basement, in the room where Kanade and Alice had explained to her—the one containing the “White Spirit’s token.”
At that time, Mana had been transported to the twilight world directly by the White Spirit and had never been to this place. After the White Spirit incident ended and the SEMA branch closed, she lost the chance to visit this place, which was said to hold numerous confidential documents and a giant bell. Back then, she had hoped to see this place with her own eyes, but she never expected that her wish would be granted in this way.
As the thick door creaked open before Mana, Kurokawa and Midrash appeared in the passage, facing a giant glass wall.
The sound of the door opening caught Kurokawa’s attention. He turned to Mana, his gaze first landing on her, but he did not speak. His attention quickly shifted to the SEMA personnel guiding Mana, signaling with his eyes that “he did well.”
The guide slightly nodded and left the underground area as if escaping.
This was understandable.
In the eyes of ability users, beings tainted by Apocalypsis were terrifying, and even though she was already dead, the most advanced equipment of SEMA could not detect any remnants of Apocalypsis fragments or breath within her. Still, there was fear of being in this layer due to the dread of Apocalypsis.
Once the guide left, the entire underground area fell back into unsettling silence.
The only sound resonating in the underground space was the sound of Mana’s footsteps as she approached Kurokawa.
From their earlier communication, Mana had learned from Kurokawa about the entire event’s progression—
SEMA and the three major academies had once paid a painful price to eliminate Apocalypsis.
At that time, one of the survivors of that battle, “Adam Solgrim Yalheid,” was infected by Apocalypsis fragments. After the Ark Academy incident, Apocalypsis returned and secretly took control of Adam, who had fragments within him.
Simultaneously, after the Infinite Academy incident, Kanade’s escape with Nagi allowed “Apocalypsis” to seize the opportunity when the protagonist was isolated. He framed Nagi as Apocalypsis itself by manipulating Adam, thereby organizing a purge against the protagonist.
However, Nagi saw through Apocalypsis’s scheme at a glance. She pretended to be controlled by Apocalypsis, luring the genuinely tainted Adam away from the rest of Kawano City. In the field, through self-sacrifice, she absorbed the fragments within Adam, preventing SEMA from falling completely into Apocalypsis’s hands.
And instead, Nagi herself, controlled by Apocalypsis, began to rampage under its power. To prevent the spread of Apocalypsis’s corruption and to save Kawano City and this world, Kanade, with immense resolve, stopped Nagi and freed her from Apocalypsis’s torment—
This was the sequence of events Mana had come to understand.
Though she would not naively think that what SEMA said was the absolute truth, when she did not see the figure of that young man in front of the giant glass wall, she realized that a part of this explanation was indeed the truth.
“She… has always been the savior of this world.”
It was only after Mana approached that Kurokawa couldn’t help but speak.
Mana understood that Kurokawa’s words referred not only to Nagi’s sacrifice but also pointed to another shocking truth—Hoshimiya Nagi was the reincarnation of the Elemental Sovereign. No, perhaps that conclusion was not entirely accurate; a more precise statement would be that “Hoshimiya Nagi is the reincarnation of the Elemental Sovereign.”
After the death of the Elemental Sovereign, its soul did not completely vanish but, through accidental means, was reincarnated in an infant named “Hoshimiya Nagi” through the ability of Star Authority. She possessed all the contract beasts and powers of the past Elemental Sovereign but retained none of the Sovereign’s memories.
However, it seemed that the spirit of the savior from the Elemental Sovereign had been inherited by her.
Over the past decade since her birth, she had been using the powers of the Elemental Sovereign to silently protect everyone around her.
If Kurokawa and Midrash’s deductions were correct, the “Fox Miko” who once thrived in Kawano City was Nagi herself. When the Star Society planned to offer the lives of beings in Kawano City as sacrifices to Apocalypsis, it was Nagi who secretly stopped everything. And not just in Kawano City; during the Ark Academy period, the plans of the rebels “Otokiri Kurumi,” “Crimson Maria,” and “Nanjou Akane” were all uncovered and thwarted by Nagi, even the Infinite Academy incident as well—
When everyone looks back on everything they’ve experienced, they would realize that there had always been someone silently protecting them from behind.
This was especially true for Mana.
Not only from extraordinary disasters, but that savior named Hoshimiya Nagi had also saved her life from ordinary mortals.
And yet she—
“I’m sorry… I’m sorry…” The once strong and calm Mana finally couldn’t help but kneel in front of the glass wall at that moment.
Her delicate fingers pressed against the thick glass, her knuckles whitening from the pressure as tears filled her eyes and fell through the glass onto the dark-haired girl behind the wall.
The girl, who had always shown a cheerful and lovely smile, now lay in the center of the room on a single bed as if she were asleep. After the examination, she had been changed into a very fitting white dress that was reportedly found in her luggage—an outfit she had longed to wear on a date with her beloved boyfriend. Unfortunately, in the end, she never got to wear it in front of him.
In a daze, Mana thought of Nagi before her as a princess lying in a crystal coffin, waiting for a prince to awaken her.
But unfortunately, reality was not a fairy tale.
A prince’s kiss could not bring the princess back to life.
She had completely left this world—
“I clearly… promised to protect you well… I’m sorry, Nagi-chan, I really… am still that… incompetent person from back then…”
“If only I had discovered it earlier… If only I were stronger…”
In front of the girl who could never again respond to her, Mana once again revealed her vulnerability that was in line with her age, feeling like a child. Yet her precociousness and experiences had forced her to live and think like an adult. No one would ever think that everything she did was merely to shape a reliable image in front of the “sister” she cared about, allowing her sister to rely on her more.
But at this moment, that image she had been shaping lost all meaning. The cruel reality threw this little girl, who had been pretending to be an adult, back to more than ten years ago, back to that isolated and helpless basement, facing once more that mad woman. Darkness and despair enveloped her. The light that had once illuminated and saved her had vanished.
She could only wander again and again in nightmares and darkness.
…
…
Time slipped away without her knowing.
After countless apologies and feelings of shame, and even after her tears had run dry, she slowly leaned against the glass wall and staggered to her feet.
It seemed she had cried out all the tears she could possibly shed in a lifetime while burying her childlike self along with the dark-haired girl before her.
“…Where is Tsukimi Kanade?” Mana’s voice was hoarse yet carried an undeniable authority.
—————–
A sky full of stars hung above.
On the rooftop of the SEMA branch building in Kawano City.
Kanade stood at the railing, quietly gazing up at the stars in the night sky.
He was still wearing the outfit he had fought in, stained with the blood of that girl.
Bang—
Suddenly, the sound of an iron door being forcefully pushed open broke the peaceful atmosphere around him.
Mana stormed out from behind the door, her heavy footsteps echoing in Kanade’s ears.
But he did not turn around; he maintained his posture, still facing the starry sky.
And Mana stood three meters away from Kanade.
It was as though she had never meant to have a face-to-face conversation with the man before her.
The chill of the night air brushed past both of them.
The childhood friends who had been together since they were young stood under the starry sky, a silence spreading between them.
In this long and silent standoff, it was Mana who broke the stalemate first.
She had thought of countless ways to comfort Kanade on her way to SEMA, but after seeing Nagi’s sleeping face, she had discarded all those comforting words from her mind.
The girl she had always cared about was gone, and she no longer needed to play the reliable “sister”—
“I admit I misjudged you back then.”
“……”
“You have no right to be that child’s protagonist.”
“……”
“Let alone the new protagonist of this world.” After finishing her words decisively, Mana turned her head, her crimson eyes trailing a streak of light across the night: “The protagonist of this world—there isn’t just one.”
This was their final conversation in Kawano City.
Kanade, gazing at the stars, and Mana, stepping away from the starlit sky into the shadows.
The childhood friends who had been intimately close since they were young—at this moment, they had completely broken apart.
“…The true protagonist.” Back in the shadow of the building, Mana reached into her pocket, pulling out what she had hesitated to take out all along—a star-shaped insignia.
