Climbing the staircase that seemed endless, she aimed for the top floor.
Senano ran up the iron-and-concrete stairs, breathing hard.
(As expected, continuing to climb stairs while offering a dance is rough…! When I get back, I should review my training menu.)
Even though it was daytime, shadows had settled over the landings, and the fluorescent lights were so dim inside their old glass covers that they looked dead.
Each time the soles of her shoes struck the stairs, the sound rang out sharply, and the echo trailed after it.
But before long, that sound became two, then three.
Soon enough, she began to hear someone else’s footsteps overlapping from behind.
She had no intention of turning around.
To be driven by fear and look back would only waste time.
“Senano-chan, we’re almost there!”
At Shion’s voice, Senano kicked off the ground even harder.
Still, every time she rounded a landing, the same scenery repeated itself.
Peeling wallpaper of unknown age, rusted handrails, floors blotched with black stains.
The view continued without the slightest difference, to the point that she no longer knew how many floors she had climbed.
For a moment, Senano imagined that this scenery might continue forever for the rest of her life, then shook her head.
No matter what kind of tragic ending awaited her, she could not stop moving.
The footsteps behind her now felt as though they were stuck right at her back.
But then, heat wrapped around her as though pushing at her from behind, and the footsteps vanished.
And a few seconds later, at the edge of her vision, a crimson bird flew by with its wings spread.
(Using it like this really drives home just how strong this NARROW is. It can defend, it can forcibly cremate rituals, and it can even be counted as a straightforward means of attack… there’s no room for complaint. Its strength is exceptional.)
And she herself, the one who had been given it, was also an elite.
By satisfying her own pride like that, Senano kept her exhausted body moving.
“We’re here!”
At Shion’s voice, Senano raised her face.
When she stepped onto the top floor, Senano was startled by how ordinary the scene before her was.
It was no different from a completely normal apartment building.
However, at the far end of the corridor…
In a place that should have been nothing more than a plain concrete wall, there was an unnatural window.
The small, one-meter-square window swayed despite the lack of wind, and ripples ran from its center like the surface of water.
Just imagining that something might burst out from it at any moment made Senano shiver.
“So I just have to break that, right?”
“Yeah. I don’t have a NARROW, so could I ask you to do it?”
It happened just as Shion said that and took a step forward.
All the window glass continuing along their right side shook at once with a loud rattle.
When Senano looked, the enormous body of a single snake was filling the windows as though crawling all through them.
Its dull-colored body, covered densely in scales as large as a palm, was reflected in every window.
And in the next instant, small snakes overflowed all at once from every window.
The eyes of the snakes, flooding the floor like a muddy torrent, were all fixed on Senano.
They were not ordinary creatures.
Their scales absorbed the light and gleamed dully like black obsidian, and there were no eyeballs in their sockets.
Instead, something glossy like window glass had been fitted there.
The moment one touched you, you would be dragged into the window yourself.
Each and every snake proclaimed as much, insisting that it was an entrance to another world.
They slithered all around, and the scraping of scales resounded through the area.
“So this is finally the decisive battle, I suppose.”
Saying that, Senano began to dance again.
She dodged the snakes that lunged at her, while those falling from the ceiling were burned away by Hibari.
Even before the writhing darkness trying to swallow her whole, Senano did not lose sight of what she had to do.
Flames traced arcs through the air, burning away snake after snake.
The dance with which she wielded Hibari was both a powerful flaming strike and an exorcistic verse effective against all Aberrant Entities.
Each time the feathers of flame spiraled out and burned the snakes away, they turned to ash without leaving behind even fragments.
No matter how many of them appeared, nothing changed.
“…Two minutes, fifty-six seconds. Not bad.”
At the end of the dance, Senano passed that evaluation.
Everything that had once been snakes had turned to ash and lay scattered around.
An Enri Bearer’s work had no need for drama.
One simply carried out what one had to do, calmly and methodically. That alone was enough.
And it still was not over.
“Senano-chan, break the window!”
At the words that came from behind her, Senano slowly turned around.
Then, with her right hand shaped like a gun, she aimed her fingertip at Shion.
“I’ve loaded one cremation syntax into this. I can burn you to death with this one shot.”
“…Senano-chan?”
“Thanks for the guidance. Too bad for you it was me who came to help.”
“W-What’s wrong?”
“So many things about this are sloppy. If it can appear from the windows, then the first thing it should do is block the way ahead. So why does it keep chasing after us? If it truly didn’t want that thing destroyed, it should have used those snakes to block the way over and over first. What’s the point of having two old guys chase from behind?”
Senano had been suspicious the whole time.
No, more than that, she had already understood that this girl was no longer the same kind of being as herself.
“You’re guiding me, aren’t you? Making it seem as though breaking that window is the right thing to do. But I’m an elite, so I can tell most things at a glance.”
“…What do you mean?”
“That window is being pinned down by a sealing syntax, isn’t it? It’s true that the main body is beyond it. But the part about it dying if that gets broken is a lie. Most likely, the moment that thing is broken, another window will become the door through which that main body comes out into this side. It doesn’t have much power, so it could only make one entrance and exit. But then it got locked down like that and couldn’t do anything about it, so it tried to get me to break it.”
Hibari, circling around Senano, kept its crimson eyes fixed on Shion the entire time.
At its master’s command, it would burn her to nothing in an instant.
“That’s why you advised me not to break the other windows. Even if that window were destroyed, it would mean nothing without another window.”
“…Senano-chan, I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“I see. Then one last thing――the one who sent out the distress signal was a man, right? To my eyes, you look like a girl. Don’t tell me you’re going to say your sex changed. I’ve had enough of that sort of thing.”
“Squad Leader Kareno escaped with me at first. But on the way, he became a sacrifice to the snakes to save me.”
“That’s strange. The rescue request said everyone had been swallowed by the windows. Do you really think a Squad Leader willing to sacrifice himself would fail to mention your existence?”
This was not a question.
It was a kind of execution, one where she painstakingly exposed the other party’s lies and bound them hand and foot with logic.
“From the very beginning, I knew you were involved with the Aberrant Entity. Even so, I let you move freely because I needed certainty. You have to use whatever can be used. Just like you did.”
“…I see.”
Bathed in the daylight, Shion stood there.
Still in her school uniform, she smiled this way.
At first glance, she looked like nothing more than an ordinary girl from their side――and yet something about her was wrong.
“…Even though Squad Leader Kareno believed in me.”
A gentle voice. And yet the sound of it hurt the ears, like fingernails scraping over cracked glass somewhere.
In the next moment, a thin split ran across the girl’s cheek, and a transparent pane like a window showed beneath it.
With a sharp crack, the fissure spread.
Half her face peeled away, and from inside it countless black scales with snake eyes peered out.
It was not flesh and blood. A mass of snakes twined around the inside of window glass was controlling her body.
“Ahh, what a shame. I failed.”
The voice was not coming from her mouth, but from the window inside her.
There, reflected within it, was a smiling version of herself.
The smiling girl slowly tilted her head while still smiling, trying to pull Senano, standing outside, in through the window.
From around her feet, several snakes stretched outward.
They did not seem to be supporting her body. Rather, they looked like strings controlling the girl from within.
The smile did not break, and her eyes had lost all human quality beneath a transparent membrane.
Her true identity was no longer a girl, but a puppet of an aberration, possessed by snakes and made into a medium.
“If this failed, then I’ll just have to ask the next person.”
With that whisper, every wall along the corridor rippled like water, and countless windows appeared.
The labyrinth had revealed its true form.
Arrayed in long rows on both sides were nothing but windows that connected to no rooms at all.
Their spotless glass surfaces reflected none of the sunlight, instead hiding dark waters in their depths.
Even when she turned back, the same scene was there.
The elevator and stairs had vanished, and even the concepts of up and down seemed ready to slip away.
The daylight no longer reached this place, and the corridor gradually filled with a dim bluish darkness like the bottom of shallow water.
Though she had been on the top floor, before she knew it she had been left behind in the middle of an endless corridor.
“…I see.”
With the look of someone who had made up her mind, Senano glared at Shion.
Then, brimming with confidence, she declared:
“There won’t be a next time. This is the end.”
■
(TL Note: Gonna use they/them pronouns for Ei in this instance cause I think its better in this instance since the organization doesnt truly know what Ei’s solid gender is and since we all know Ei get’s switched, it’d just read better as id.)
At the same time, Ei stood alone in front of the apartment building.
Quietly, with eyes that looked innocent somehow, they gazed up at it.
Yet with that one tiny movement alone, the adults’ breathing stopped, and the tension among the people in black clothes sharpened even further.
Facing the apartment entrance head-on stood adults in white coats and suits, holding observation devices.
In their hands were thick record books, or the latest measuring instruments.
Their expressions pretended to be impassive, but their eyes were clouded with anxiety and curiosity as they waited on Ei’s every move.
Each time someone’s pen moved, the unnaturally dry sound of paper mixed with the wind.
Behind them, standing in a circle, were the black-clad Enri Bearers.
Though it was broad daylight, their silhouettes looked like shadows, and inside their coats could be seen sealing tags, daggers, and equipment resembling firearms.
Some had their arms crossed, some had their hands in their pockets, some yawned, but every one of them maintained the position and angle needed to respond in the very next instant.
“…It’s almost time, Ei-san.”
One of the black-clad figures called out from a slight distance.
“Yes, understood.”
Ei turned back and nodded.
Then, after taking a deep breath, they looked at the apartment building once more.
At the same time, the expressions of those waiting behind them stiffened ever so slightly.
Everyone present understood it.
Observation and record-keeping were only nominal purposes, and if that thing were to manifest outside, they would immediately switch to blood and sealing.
『Then please choose whichever you like from wire, mirror, and bride.』
『That’s scary, suddenly springing choices like that on me…』
The person in question, meanwhile, was being forced into a mysterious choice of their own.