She settled back into her seat.
Su Yuzu watched Soga Yura across the table — lashes lowered, eyes cast down as she tended to the grill.
The girl's movements were clumsy. As the eldest young lady of the Soga family, Soga Yura clearly didn't do this sort of thing for herself very often. Still, she hadn't fumbled badly enough to actually char the meat into something inedible — so that was something.
Soga Yura grilled with what could only be described as earnest focus.
"Sister thinks the anomaly in Tokyo Bay is connected to that girl... is that right?"
"I went through the reports sent from Imperial Capital University to Keigunen Private Academy — the ones on Saint Michael's holy radiance."
"Twelve years ago... the radiance Saint Michael left behind did show some subtle fluctuations."
"Yes." Su Yuzu hesitated a moment, eyes on Soga Yura. "The day we encountered the Beast."
"Is that so?"
Soga Yura gave a small nod in confirmation.
"Actually — does Sister know? That girl who appeared in your memories... I met her once already, a little over half a month ago."
Su Yuzu watched Soga Yura suddenly look up, a flicker of anxiety creeping between her furrowed brows.
"Yuzu — you already met her!?"
Reading Soga Yura's reaction, Su Yuzu confirmed that her sister hadn't known. She hadn't known that on that day, during the skirmish with Feng Ke, Su Yuzu had been sent to the Investigation Bureau's police station alongside that very girl.
Su Yuzu gave Soga Yura a brief account of what had happened that day.
"I... see."
"What about Sister?" Su Yuzu looked at her. "When did you meet her?"
"On our birthday."
Su Yuzu's mind went immediately to the graph she had seen — the line tracking the decline in the power of Saint Michael's remaining radiance.
Was it connected to that girl?
Ever since her awakening — or rather, her second awakening — every time she had crossed paths with that girl, Saint Michael's residual power had not declined.
No.
Something felt wrong about that.
If it truly were connected to her, the result should have been the opposite.
"Then..."
"Does Sister know her identity?"
A girl whose appearance had not changed in twelve years.
And that self-deprecating remark in Soga Yura's memory — the girl's offhand admission that she was no longer quite human — had been quietly, wordlessly revealing her identity all along.
Soga Yura gave a small nod.
"Actually, from that day on, I've been searching for information about Kirishika-nee-san... that is, about that girl."
In the memories she and Su Yuzu did not share.
The one Soga Yura called Kirishika-nee-san had walked alongside her for a very long, very dark, and very lonely road.
On that twisted, lightless path where despair pressed in from every side, the girl's presence had been nothing like the gaze Su Yuzu had glimpsed in Soga Yura's earlier memory.
She simply followed behind Soga Yura, without a word.
Only when the darkness grew so deep that Soga Yura felt herself about to tumble into the Abyss would she reach out and grip Soga Yura's hand — tight.
At the end of that darkness... was a girl curled into herself, her tears long since cried dry.
"She is..."
"The girl beside the Seat of Evil — Kirishika... isn't she?" Su Yuzu spoke before Soga Yura could.
Soga Yura looked at her and gave a quiet nod.
"The true rule-type ability user of the Seat of Evil's era."
"A rule-type ability user who possessed the power to erase all things."
Su Yuzu thought of the girl in the film — the one who had shed her wedding dress, climbed into the Seat of Evil's heavy armor, and descended with him into the sea as he was on the verge of full Aberration, walking together into death.
That film... was actually a documentary?
Thinking of it that way made it feel achingly sad.
Su Yuzu suddenly felt she understood why Kirishika had seemed so wicked, and why the look she turned on Soga Yura had held such unconcealed longing.
Unwilling to watch her lover fall into the Abyss.
She had chosen instead to use her own hands — to erase the Catastrophe from her lover's body, erase the power within her, and walk with her into death.
And then one day... she had woken at the bottom of the sea.
She, who had believed herself to possess nothing but the rule-type power of Erasure — had come to rest upon a Throne.
The one who could not bear to watch her lover fall into the Abyss had herself become the Abyss.
And her lover... had long since left her behind.
Simply mapping the Seat of Evil and Kirishika onto herself and Soga Yura — the thought alone was enough to make Su Yuzu's throat close up until she could barely breathe.
Kirishika had given her a chance to start over.
She would not allow that kind of tragedy to play out again between herself and Soga Yura.
If it came to it... even if she became the Abyss itself, she would protect Soga Yura. Without fail.
"I believe the anomalies in Saint Michael's remaining radiance are connected to Kirishika-nee-san."
"I think so too."
"There are some things... Kirishika-nee-san may not have made entirely clear back then."
Soga Yura's gaze drifted unconsciously to the ring at Su Yuzu's throat — the one that descended into the Abyss.
That was the Holy Relic Kirishika had exchanged with her all those years ago.
Traded for Soga Iori's "Dreamless Regret"... for the Holy Relic - Live. Guardian of the Fate Twins.
There were things Soga Yura still wanted to ask and set straight.
"Alright~"
"Let's leave that for now."
Soga Yura set down her tongs and stood. She slid open the door of the private room — and Sakura Mai was already waiting outside, tray in hand, carrying a jug of clear yuzu juice.
Su Yuzu watched Sakura Mai take a seat beside Soga Yura.
Soga Yura had just opened her mouth — "Sakura..."
There were things Soga Yura had decided she no longer intended to keep hidden from Sakura Mai.
Next to Yuzu, Sakura Mai was probably the person Soga Yura trusted most... among the very few she did.
"You don't need to tell me." Sakura Mai filled both Soga Yura's and Su Yuzu's cups with yuzu juice.
She refused her.
"Everyone is entitled to their own secrets." She glanced at Soga Yura and Su Yuzu with a look that was, somehow, not quite ordinary — and her hand moved instinctively to her chest, where the pulse of the Sword of Erasure lodged there stirred faintly.
Both Soga Yura and Su Yuzu had once drawn the Sword of Erasure.
That knowledge only deepened a resolve that had already been forming in Sakura Mai — who had always thought of Soga Yura as a little sister.
"Oh, Sister Mai——" Su Yuzu steered the conversation elsewhere.
Su Yuzu had always had this nagging feeling — ever since the Tsukimisato incident, the way Sakura Mai looked at her had been ever so slightly... off.
That doting in her gaze... it left Su Yuzu with something almost like guilt every time she pressed confirm on the Develop button.
"Yuzu?"
"Sister Mai, could you look into Saint Michael for me?"
"What?"
"There are some secrets... I wonder if Sister Mai is aware of them." Su Yuzu paused a moment. "Raptor's older sister — Kujou Iruka — is actually a rule-type ability user as well."
Sakura Mai's expression immediately went blank with shock. From that reaction, Su Yuzu knew — Sakura Mai had not been aware.
"Wait——!?"
"Wait——!?" Both Soga Yura and Sakura Mai suddenly realized the same thing at the exact same moment.
"If Kujou Iruka is a rule-type ability user, then Saint Michael—!?!?"
"Exactly." Su Yuzu nodded. "They all belong to the same era."
"And in any given era... there should only ever be one rule-type ability user."
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