Things Left Unfinished in the Main Story
(Author: The appeal of a sequel film is picking those up.)
As the flashes released kicked aside Greysphere's terminals one after another, Keter flew straight toward Riin.
However, with that fierce demeanor, he did not appear to have come to save Mea with the gallant bearing of a savior.
"…That was quick for you. But thanks to your daughter, it's already been settled."
『Yet you are still there. Adyeshach... you are a dangerous existence. I will dispose of you here.』
The sins that the existence known as the Abyssal Qlippoth had engraved into the history of Fairy World were far too grave, enough that the King of the Ten Archangels of Sefirot would come personally to slay one.
To Keter's words, that this alone was sufficient reason to destroy him, Riin himself nodded as though in agreement.
"I don't want to hurt this world anymore either. So I'll accept that fate, but... in exchange, I want you to overlook Greysphere in the world of nothingness."
『An impossible request.』
"I know. Even so..."
"Even so, stop killing."
"Mea...?"
As king of Fairy World, Keter judged the existence of Riin and Greysphere to be a threat.
However, Mea intervened.
Stepping forward to block Riin from Keter's jet-black gaze looking down from atop the Tree of Evil, she faced him with eyes filled with resolve, without the slightest fear.
However, her plea was mercilessly rejected.
『Move aside.』
"...!"
The instant Keter raised his right hand, Mea, who had stepped forward, was thrown away by an unseen force.
With telekinesis, he effortlessly shook off her interference.
Seeing Mea blown away, rolling across the top of the tree, Riin raised his voice this time.
"Stop! I'm the only one you need to judge, aren't I!?"
However, upon hearing those very words leave his own mouth, Riin suddenly caught his breath and realized.
"...I see... So this is how you felt too, Charon, Daat... Was I making you feel this way...?"
He had remembered the words of the two Archangels, who had said that now the only ones connected to Greysphere were themselves, beings of the old era.
For the first time, Riin understood the feelings they had held back then through his own experience.
Actions to keep unrelated people away and stop them from getting hurt.
A devoted heart that sought to offer up one's own body for the sake of a peaceful resolution.
All of these were concepts that neither the Abyssal Qlippoth nor the Abyss possessed.
『…Farewell, calamity of the old era.』
What did he think as he looked upon the stunned Riin? Keter produced the cross-shaped staff, "King’s Cross Scepter," from nowhere and converged light energy at its tip.
Without hesitation, he swung it down and unleashed a light bullet of judgment.
It was then.
"Don't!"
"──Mea!?"
Before she realized it, her body was already moving.
Perhaps it was meant as mercy in his own way; the enormous light projectile had been fired to take Riin's life in a single blow without leaving a trace, and Mea threw herself into its line of fire.
In her haste, she did not even transform into Hod Form, and remaining in her black-haired figure, her non-combat form, she became Riin's shield.
"Meaaa!!"
Stretching out his hand, Riin called out with a voice like a scream.
Within that instant of radiance, too brief even for a blink, Mea turned toward him and smiled. I'm fine, so don't make that face.
"That's right... I'm fine now."
Mea murmured in a calm voice while clasping the brooch at her chest with both hands as though wrapping it within them.
Those were not brave words spoken out of stubbornness so that he would not worry about her, but words from the bottom of her heart. A heart as clear as water rested quietly, calm like a small boat.
Of course, that did not mean she had realized her own death and accepted things as they were. Rather, it was the opposite.
At this moment, she was feeling a rage more intense than ever before.
The calm expression she showed at this time was nothing more than the stillness before a great storm raged.
──And then, the time came.
The torrent of overflowing emotions burst forth from her body with physical force, spreading into the night sky with enough energy left over even after erasing Keter's light projectile that had struck at her.
No one on the ground could have taken their eyes away from that radiance as it resounded.
Before the manifestation of that divine light, Keter's eyes widened slightly, and then Riin muttered with a flabbergasted expression.
"Infinity Burst...?"
Red, blue, white, yellow, green… An aurora-like polar light in which many colors blended together spread from Mea's body and covered the sky above Akebono City.
The halo spreading from her back, drawing two circles, taking the shape of "∞," resembled the ultimate realm of Fairy Burst that Akatsuki En had reached, "Infinity Burst."
However, the auroral radiance she emitted underwent a further transformation; the polar light that had formed the shape of ∞ changed from an angel's eight wings into four richly colored wings, with two wings folded over each other in the front and two in the back.
They looked just like the brooch at her chest, which even now continued changing into countless colors──like the wings of a butterfly.
"Ah..."
What fluttered upon her back were no longer angel wings.
Yet at that moment, Riin was captivated by her appearance, feeling that it was more beautiful than anything else in the world.
What sprouted within his mind for the first time was an impulsive pounding in his chest no different from that of the humans on the ground.
Before his eyes, Mitsui Mea, wrapped in the radiance of the aurora, spread her richly colored wings and spoke to him.
Mea will protect you──
The moment after those words stirred emotions within Riin so strongly that he trembled, a gale generated by the beat of her wings blew Keter away.
──Immediately after it seemed that the battle with Greysphere had settled for the moment due to the descent of Keter, King of the Ten Archangels of Sefirot, everyone on the ground looked up in astonishment at the fierce battle between Mitsui Mea and Keter that had begun in the sky above.
Especially those who knew Mea well, such as Tsubasa and Arisu, tried to go stop her, thinking, "What is that girl doing...?"──However, their actions were stopped by T.P. Eight Olishua.
"Sorry, but for now, please let her do as she likes. After all, it's finally happened... a parent-child quarrel."
Speaking with a somewhat happy expression, she said that to them, then exchanged glances and nodded with the two members of the Mitsui family who had greatly influenced Mitsui Mea's life, especially in terms of education: Mitsui Akihiro and Akatsuki Akari.
Akihiro, because of his position as a commander who should stop her, wore a complicated expression, but as a father, the feeling that he did not want to stop her was probably stronger. Letting out a sigh at Eight's words, he looked at his daughter, who was showing anger for the first time in her life, with eyes that seemed somewhat relieved.
And as for Akari, the comrade who had continued watching over her growth as her older sister──far from trying to stop Mea, she raised her fist and cheered her on with all her might.
"That's it! Go get him, Mea!"
"Oh, as expected of Akarin, you get it."
"Of course I do, Ecchan! ...Well, it's not like the king did anything wrong this time, but the timing is just way too bad... I'd be angry too if I were in her position!"
"Yeah, that's really true."
"I thought you'd be the one to go stop her, Ecchan. Like, 'Stop this pointless fight.'"
"It's not a pointless fight. That there are feelings that can only be conveyed by clashing with one another is something your husband and his friends taught me too."
"Eh!? Really!?"
"Really."
The reunited Eight and Akari spoke back and forth as they watched the battle between the two.
The two of them, both holding the position of "Mea's older sister," seemed to share the same understanding regarding the "parent-child quarrel" unfolding in the sky.
Watching the two of them──especially how casually they addressed each other by nicknames──the Yamikumo siblings, Kakeru and Arisu, muttered while breaking into a cold sweat.
"...Those two are pretty close, huh."
"When did they get so close...?"
As everyone was surprised by the unexpected conversation between the two, whom they had thought had little contact with each other, two lights clashed in the aurora-filled sky above them, so many times that it was impossible to tell which collision it was anymore.
The battle between the two──was almost evenly matched.
──At this moment, Mea understood the emotion of rage for the first time in her life.
Thinking about it, it was ridiculous. That very mouth which had thoroughly preached the preciousness of emotions to Greysphere's fallen angel had itself possessed only a shallow understanding of this emotion.
She had thought being angry was a bad thing. But now...
"We understood each other... we were about to understand each other!"
Flapping her richly colored butterfly wings, Mea’s hair color changed to the blue of Chesed Form, and approaching at a speed fast enough to leave afterimages behind, she swung the thin sword in her right hand with all her strength at the enemy before her.
In response, Keter received her fierce assault with the cross scepter wrapped in white light, with the coldheartedness of someone dispassionately carrying out an everyday task.
Being a battle-hardened king, he possessed not only the overwhelming angelic power contained within him, but also combat techniques cultivated through the vast combat experience he had accumulated more than anyone else. Therefore, even in a single defensive stance, no opening could be found.
──Therefore, Mea repeated attacks driven purely by force.
When she judged that her thin sword could not break through his defense, she switched to Hod Form and deployed a great shield, then used that shield as a blunt weapon and struck him with it.
It was a fighting style completely unlike both her original smart combat style and her beautiful appearance, dazzling and translucent like a butterfly.
Therefore, it was effective.
The heavy impact of the blow forced him to lose altitude, and Mea pressed the attack without giving him a moment to catch his breath.
Keter recovered his posture quickly and, as if launching a counterattack, fired a barrage of light, but Mea completely blocked it with the Hod Shield wrapped in auroral light.
The rainbow-colored scales produced by Mea's wingbeats enhanced the strength of the barrier generated by the Hod Shield.
It was not only her appearance that had changed; the current Mea was clearly enhanced in both output and abilities compared to her normal state.
『...So that is the light you arrived at.』
Seeing Mea in that form, the words Keter spoke with deep emotion──only grated on Mea's nerves even more.
"I'd never have reached this power, even if it took hundreds of millions of years by your side!"
『.….』
The Mugenko, created as a sacrifice to be offered to the king──that was Mea's original nature.
Yet through some twist of fate, she obtained a power that the Keter of the past had never imagined, and raised the banner of rebellion.
The reason was not for her own sake, but to protect someone similar to herself, which made it ironic as well.
However, those circumstances no longer mattered.
What existed in Mea's heart now was not complicated emotions toward her creator, but a simple emotion that every human had felt at one time or another.
She had been able to reconcile with Riin.
In her own way, she had been able to stop the fight with them.
Just when she thought everything would work out, she was simply angry at the father who was trying to ruin everything. That alone was what led her to a new realm.
...No, perhaps that alone became the final push precisely because she had already fulfilled all the other necessary conditions.
Driven by those feelings, Mea threw her emotions at him together with her power.
"You are righteous to the very end... the worst false villain*, righteous to the bitter end!" (tl note: someone who is not actually evil, but rather good, yet presents themselves as evil. It typically applies to criminals who are outwardly treated as antisocial and are wanted by the police, or to people who habitually behave in a way that suggests a bad personality.)
『.….』
She could not forgive him for denying the life that Riin was about to begin anew.
That was why she opposed the King of the Ten Archangels of Sefirot not as Mea of the Savers, but simply as Mea.
Should Riin be destroyed, or protected?
That battle, which would likely become a major turning point in future relations with the holy beasts, was for the most part driven by personal feelings.
As Eight had said, the description that fit it best was indeed a grand "parent-child quarrel."
Even so, the scale of the battle was tremendous, and Mea fought Keter fiercely until dawn, driven by her anger.
Keter surpassed her in both combat experience and raw power, but the one who entrusted herself to those feelings and forced her way through was Mea.
"Everyone carries sins!"
『...!』
"Mea does, and so do you...!"
Among more than a hundred clashes, Keter's expression changed slightly at Mea's words as she pleaded with ragged breaths.
It showed that even for him, who had remained expressionless throughout this battle that had lasted for hours, her voice had reached him.
"That's why forgiveness is necessary...!"
『...!』
The ends of a ribbon extended from Mea's hair, which had turned white, like whips.
"Sefira Tail"──The attack, used for the first time in this battle, launched a surprise assault from outside Keter's awareness, which had been focused on their blade lock.
Split into two directions from the knot of her ponytail, the sharply pointed ribbon tips attacked Keter on both sides.
Keter attempted to restrain them with telekinesis activated in an instant, but that became the only opening he showed.
"Stop getting in my waaaaaay!!"
『...gh...!』
When the radiance emitted by her richly colored wings reached its peak, Mea treated her own body like a bullet and nosedived straight downward from above, charging toward Keter.
The decisive blow was a desperate full-force body slam.
Distracted by the white ribbon, Sefira Tail, Keter was unable to evade the attack, and while colliding with him, Mea grappled him with both arms, and unable to free himself from her restraint, the two of them crashed to the ground together.
──or rather, perhaps once the attack had landed, he had no intention of freeing himself from her restraint in the first place.
The place where the two crashed down, striking the earth with an impact like a meteorite falling, was a lake at the foot of a mountain far from the town.
Slamming Keter's body into the shallow water where half a body remained above the surface, Mea glared at him, her white hair drenched by the massive splash.
Still in the position of grappling with him, straddling him, she faced the king head-on and grabbed him by the collar as she declared in a rapid outburst:
"Well...? Mea wins!"
To a third party, the situation could have been interpreted in any number of ways.
Certainly, it was Mea who literally held the mount*, but both of them had suffered damage from the crash, and both of them still had enough strength left to continue fighting. (tl note: meaning “the superiority” or “the advantage”)
However, in terms of how much strength remained, Keter was still composed, whereas Mea looked as though she was gasping for breath.
Even now, with Mea straddling him and gripping his collar, there still seemed to be some composure in his expression.
Then, for the first time, he opened his mouth.
『As you said... as long as one lives, life bears sins that must be carried.』
"...!"
『However, what you are now trying to bear is a sin that could become a grave sin that even I feared. Do you have the resolve to continue confronting that?』
The question struck at the core of her choice.
Regarding the unknown danger that would arise from accepting Greysphere, an existence that was no one, he would not permit evasive words.
The reality was that forgiving an existence that even the King of the Ten Archangels of Sefirot could not fully protect might expose the world itself to danger.
Keter's words as he asked this were cool-headed, but somehow his voice also sounded as though he was worried about Mea.
Understanding his intent, Mea answered without looking away from his black gaze.
"I do!"
Even so, she wanted to walk the path she believed was right──Mea's eyes spoke eloquently.
『You, who are neither human nor holy beast?』
"That's right... I'm neither human nor a holy beast. But because of that, I'll live as 'that kind of existence.' I'll live, and help Greysphere, and do all sorts of things... and I'll live a life far happier than yours! So..."
In response to his words, which confronted her with a harsh reality, Mea revealed her true feelings without hiding anything, as though making a declaration of resolve.
Releasing the hand that had been gripping his collar, she lightly struck Keter's chest as though appealing to him.
"Don't cut off our possibilities, Otou-san...!"
『...Father, huh...』
Closing his eyes, Keter ruminated the word Mea had spoken within his mind.
Having known the girl she once was, crushed by that cruel truth when he had told her of her roots, he understood very well the meaning of her calling him by that name now.
──Now then, what will you do, Keter?
...Since when had she been here?
Keter glanced sideways at T.P. Eight Olishua, who stood with the soles of her boots in the shallow water and peered over with concern at the situation here──then, as though resigning himself, he spoke.
『Then you shall become king.』
"...Eh?"
Though he had never intended to lose, Keter acknowledged the fact that he had been driven this far by her resolve and accepted his own defeat.
...He had no intention of apologizing now for what he did to her five years ago.
However, if he were to be judged by her as retribution for that, he thought it would be a fitting end for someone like him who had failed to die* so many times. (tl note: “to survive when one should have died”)
Precisely because he had accepted Mea's resolve when she declared that she would continue facing her sins together with the fate of the world, he spoke.
“If you possess that much resolve, then become the new king and guide the world. Inherit my power and open up new possibilities.”
Not through telepathy, but with his own voice, he wove the words.
This was a fact unknown to her, but Keter had continued watching her become stronger and grow over these five years.
The one who had sent Kabbalah-chan, the carbuncle, to her side and ordered her to record Mea’s growth was none other than him.
Now, with those records and after actually fighting her, Keter understood. That he could entrust what came after to her.
“As you are now, you have that qualification. Inherit my crown──Mugenkou Mea.”
“Y-you... from the very beginning... for that...!”
Keter had secretly planned that when the time came, he would welcome her as the new Sefirot of “King” who would take his place.
Now that a new era was about to arrive, he had come to think that an old nuisance* like himself, with his rigid way of thinking, might not be suitable as king. (tl note: more specifically, refers to elderly who cling to past experiences and power, refuse to listen to the opinions of those around them, and thus hinder the smooth functioning and rejuvenation of organizations and society, causing trouble”)
Ever since the time when he learned of Daat's reincarnation and Charon's return.
In that regard, possessing both the power of angel and human, and now having reached a new realm that even he did not know, Keter felt that this girl should be able to open up new possibilities that he himself could not.
That was why... Keter did not hesitate to hand over his power and even his life to her.
However──
“Mea isn't your toy! Don't just impose your own convenience on me!”
“...!”
──Mea did not accept the offer. More than that, she revealed anger to about the same extent as when she had flown into a rage over Riin's treatment.
Keter, who had not anticipated such a reaction from her, widened his eyes in astonishment for the first time.
Wearing a dubious expression, thinking, 『What does this mean...? Does she not hate me...?』he glanced at Eight as though seeking advice──and she was clutching her stomach with laughter while covering her mouth with the silk hat she had removed.
To the frowning Keter, she said,
“Somehow, Keter... even though you've been acting indifferent all this time, you're like a stubborn father who suddenly starts panicking when it's time to marry off his daughter…”
The words she let slip were something Keter could not understand in the slightest… but the moment he heard them, for some reason, it felt as though the anger emanating from Mea suddenly softened.
As for Mea, while placing a hand on the white ribbon tying her hair, she sighed as though realizing something and murmured,
“This ribbon... was your gift, wasn't it?”
『...That’s right.』
Since there was no reason to deny it, Keter affirmed it.
The blue ribbon was from Chesed.
The orange ribbon was from Hod.
And the white ribbon was something he──Keter──had given to her. Woven into that fabric were fibers of the World Tree Sefira; it was a one-of-a-kind item in this world, created solely to draw out her power.
『If you do not like it... then discard it.』
As far as Keter was concerned, it was something he had given as one form of atonement for his sins, and with the hope that Mea would eventually be worthy as a new king… but from her perspective, perhaps it had merely been him imposing his own convenience on her.
To those words, Mea replied,
“I don't want to throw something away just because I don't like it.”
After saying that while shaking her head as though it were a snide remark directed at him and Abyss Zero──she smiled in front of Keter for the first time.
It was a carefree smile illuminated by the sky before dawn, as though she had realized her own happiness.
“I hate you so much, but... I think you're a parent I can be proud of. ...Thanks, Otou-san.”
『...I see...』
Thus, the quarrel between the parent and child who were stronger than anyone and more awkward than anyone came to a close.
...Immediately after this, a being that could be called the 'true enemy' in this incident would reveal itself, and an even greater threat would attack this world──but so long as the bond tying them together, like a ribbon woven from countless colors layered together, remained, there was already no need to worry.
(Author: Phew, good work. With this, things have settled down for now.
Next time is a Certain World Line chapter. The movie version arc will be completed with the epilogue after that.
Afterward, I plan to leisurely post a Side Eight story.)
(Since this one is close to ending, if you have any translation request for me (either translation projects that have been abandoned or entirely new ones), please say so in the comments section.)