MEANWHILE, NAGI
Kirara stood in front of me, leaning casually beside the flag as she pulled out another coin, tossed it into the air, and continued playing with it, catching it on her knuckles as it fell.
After telling me she’d been waiting for someone for a while, her eyes settled on mine.
“Now that I can see them up close…
I like the purple glow in your eyes, Nagi-chan.
They’re really pretty.”
“Cut it out, girl.
I really don’t care about anything you have to say.
Just hand over the flag.
Or, well, if you want, we can fight.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Nagi-chan.
My team entrusted it to me.
I can’t let them down.”
A strange feeling ran through my body.
She’s alone protecting the flag, she knows I’m here to take it, and she hasn’t even taken a fighting stance.
There’s probably something I’m missing.
“The hard way, then,” I said, cracking my knuckles and adjusting my gloves.
All I had to do was paralyze her with Chronostasis, grab the flag, and get the hell out of there.
I raised my hand and aimed directly at her.
“Chronostasis.”
The sphere shot toward Kirara…
but halfway there, its trajectory suddenly snapped sideways.
As if an invisible thread had caught it from somewhere else in space, the sphere violently changed direction and struck the flag instead.
I blinked.
What?
Paralyzing a piece of cloth wasn’t going to do me any good, I deactivated Chronostasis before wasting any more energy.
“You did something, didn’t you?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.
“This is part of your cursed technique.”
Kirara smiled in satisfaction and tilted her head slightly, despite having no idea how Chronostasis worked and seeing it for the first time, she was still happy, cause it did not target her.
“If I tell you…
you might actually beat me, Nagi-chan.”
I clicked my tongue.
I reinforced my body with cursed energy and shot forward in a straight line toward the flag.
Kirara made no attempt to stop me until I was just about to reach it.
Then she simply took one step and placed herself in my way.
And it happened.
I felt a brutal pull, as if some invisible force had hooked onto my entire body and yanked me in the opposite direction.
“AAAAAGH—WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!”
The world spun around me.
I was sent flying backward, crashing through bushes and branches before hitting the ground and rolling several meters through loose dirt.
Finally, my back slammed into the trunk of a tree, knocking every last bit of air from my lungs.
Kirara raised one hand.
Chunks of bark, thick branches, and splinters scattered throughout the forest began to vibrate…
then shot toward me like a barrage of guided projectiles.
“Seriously…?”
I jumped back to my feet and, purely on instinct, pushed my Shinkeigan to its limit.
My concentration skyrocketed.
The world seemed to slow down as my eyes forced me to react to trajectories, speeds, and momentum with extreme precision.
I dodged one branch by centimeters, deflected several splinters with my reinforced arms, and shattered the pieces too large to avoid with a single strike of the Basalt Knuckles.
Her cursed technique isn’t simple telekinesis.
It’s…
directional.
And thanks to my long-distance vision, I noticed something.
My sight swept across the entire clearing, picking out glowing marks that should have been practically impossible to distinguish from that distance.
First on Kirara.
Then, several dozen meters away, on pieces of tree bark. Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
Even on the flag at the back of the base.
And…
I lifted my uniform shirt and looked down at my own body.
There, on my skin, was a star engraved in cursed energy.
On me too.
Acrux.
That’s…
a star from the Southern Cross constellation.
I remember reading a book about them.
I looked back at Kirara.
Her eyes seemed to shimmer with those strange, star-like reflections.
Constellations?
“Kirara…
your technique is based on a constellation.”
I didn’t say it with certainty.
I threw it out there like bait, watching for even the slightest change in her expression.
Kirara blinked for barely a fraction of a second.
A small bead of sweat appeared on the back of her neck before she recovered her confident smile.
Confirmed.
I focused again, carefully examining the branches and fragments of bark that had attacked me.
Acrux.
The same one planted on my body.
They were attracted toward me because we shared the same star.
Probably.
Did she put these marks on us when she started touching everyone right before the team battle began?
What a setup.
Looks like I underestimated her.
The flag was pretty far away, but my eyes focused on the symbol over it as if it were right in front of me.
Mimosa.
I activated Chronostasis, and alongside the Roman numerals, the same mark appeared.
I generated a small Chronostasis sphere and tossed it into the air without aiming at anything in particular.
The sphere barely traveled a few meters before violently changing direction and, just as expected, shooting straight toward the flag.
So that’s what happened.
My sphere hadn’t missed, and Kirara hadn’t directly redirected it.
The moment I launched Chronostasis, its energy had been attracted toward the flag because they both shared Mimosa.
Finally, my eyes returned to Kirara.
Gacrux.
The moment I’d approached her, my body had been sent flying in the opposite direction because our stars repelled each other.
That was why she’d planted herself directly in front of the flag and refuses to move from that spot: to make sure I couldn’t reach it.
I spoke aloud so Kirara could hear me.
“The branches had Acrux, just like me…
that’s why they came toward me,” I murmured, putting the pieces together out loud.
“My Chronostasis had Mimosa, just like the flag, so it was attracted toward it.”
“And you have Gacrux.
When I tried to approach you, Acrux and Gacrux repelled each other.”
“And there’s a sequence, isn’t there?” I finally said.
“I can’t move between the stars however I want.
I have to follow a specific order to reach you.”
Her smile vanished completely, and her expression became extremely worried.
Bingo.
I stood still for a few seconds while dust and tiny splinters floated between us.
Detective moment.
I brought one hand to my chin, picked up a blade of grass from the ground to pretend I was smoking a pipe, and began slowly walking in circles.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
“Thinking.
Believe it or not, I consider myself pretty clever and resourceful.”
“I can’t skip the sequence.
“I can ignore it completely.
THAT’S IT!!”
I pulled out my phone and video-called Todo.
I lowered the volume a little so Kirara wouldn’t be able to hear the conversation.
With the way she was standing there, she hadn’t even considered the possibility that I might come up with a strategy to get past her.
Kirara-san, you’re about to witness some proper teamwork.
“What do you want, man?
I’m kinda busy right now,” Todo grunted, breathing heavily.
In the background, I heard the metallic clash of a sword, followed by a clap.
“I need an emergency Boogie Woogie,” I whispered.
“I’m busy with Okkotsu.”
“I know.
I can hear it.
But I need you to swap my position with the punk girl.
Her technique keeps me from reaching the flag because she’s standing right next to it.
You get what I’m trying to do?”
A heavy impact echoed from the other end.
“Mmmm…
I suppose I can always make a little time for you, my great friend.
But I can’t do it if I can’t see your positions,” Todo grunted.
“I need a clear line of sight on both of you.”
I activated LINE’s front camera, stretched out my arm, and backed up until both of us were in frame, with me in the foreground and Kirara farther away.
“Are we taking a selfie?” she asked incredulously.
“Smile.”
In the corner of the screen, I could see Todo backing away from Yuta while holding his phone in one hand.
“I see you,” he said.
“Stay still.”
Kirara finally realized I was planning something and reacted.
“Wait!”
Several branches shot toward me.
I tilted my head to dodge one while another grazed my shoulder.
Kirara suddenly tossed a coin into the air and tried to move herself out of frame, using the attraction and repulsion properties of her technique on herself through the coin.
But she only managed to move two meters, she was still in frame.
CLAP.
The world changed positions.I was standing where Kirara had been.And she was where I’d been.
“Thanks, gorilla,” I said, immediately ending the call and grabbing the flag, which was only two meters away.
The glowing lines of the constellation trembled violently as the configuration was broken.
I could feel the order imposed by her technique fracture as the physical hierarchy between the marks was suddenly altered.
Kirara spun around in disbelief, when she saw me beside the flag, her expression shifted to genuine panic.
“Shit!
He stole the flag!”
She quickly shoved a hand into her pocket and pulled out her phone, intending to warn the rest of her team.
But I was faster.
“Freeze, loser.
You’re staying right there.”
“Chronostasis.”
The sphere struck her before she could finish typing.
Kirara was suspended in time, completely motionless, her eyes wide open and her phone still held between her fingers.
I gripped the flagpole tightly, reinforced my legs with cursed energy, and shot off through the trees toward our base, as I raced through the forest, I pulled out my phone and opened the group chat.
Nagi:
“Eagle is heading to the nest.
Repeat, eagle is heading to the nest.
I’ve got it.”
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