“And yet, there is still no certainty that it’ll ever hatch…”

…Somewhere, voices could be heard speaking.

“What’s the point in saving a brat like that anyway? You’re power, it’s like… like you’re using your own life force to mess with others’, ain’t it? You go too far with it, and it’s gonna put your own life in a hell of a lot of danger…”

“…Shut up. I-I don’t really understand what’s going on myself, so just zip it!”

“Listen lady, seeing as you still don’t really understand what’s going on, I’m willing to spell it out for you, but… you gotta realize by now that you’re special, right? You’re not some average joe; you’re in a whole different league. So, don’t do shit that’s just a waste of your powers!”

“Is this a waste…? No… Kyou nii-chan wouldn’t have let something like this bother him.”

“The hell…?  “Kyou nii-chan…?” So that’s it. Goddamn, he’s your hero…?”

…People were bickering next to him—that much, he could tell. But there was just one figure reflected in his still-open eyes: a woman, it seemed. She had some sort of pendant on, dangling from her neck and down to her chest.

It… it looked like an… egg.

He felt as though one of the voices was coming from the egg. Oddly, though, it seemed that the accessory and its wearer  were on bad terms with each other.

“Like you can talk. The second thing you ever said to me was ‘Kill me!’”

“Okay, look, that’s different. In my case––“

“Everyone’s got their reasons and circumstances, don’t they?”

“…That something this “Kyou nii-chan” of yours said?”

“So what if it was?! I… I…”

Her body swayed heavily to one side as she spoke, seeming on the verge of falling over.

“…What did I tell you? I knew the recoil from your power would hit you. You and that power are gonna go down together  if you’re not careful. Hurry up and kill me, take in the energy that’s sealed  and make your power whole or sooner or later, or you’re gonna burn out!”

“Shut up… It’s…already done.”

Shakily, the woman stood up and, evidently noticing that the pendant had at some point slipped out, tucked it back into her blouse with a scowl.

And then she walked away, leaving him––Motoki Sanpei––lying there.

He felt a pang of worry. What was even happening to him?

He’d dropped down over the railing because a patrol car had suddenly showed up, taken a severe hit to the head and his back, and then fled into a side alley… So what in the hell was going on now? What had that egg girl done to me?

Why won’t my body move at all? I’m not…dead, am I?

Sanpei came to this conclusion because no matter how hard he tried to thrash around, he would not move—until all of a sudden, in the way a faulty light fixture lights up the moment it’s been repaired, his limbs sprang to life. The alley being narrow enough as it was, this made some loud thuds against the wall, which echoed through the area.

“…………!”

Of course, it had also reached the ears of the police officers who’d been posted at that site to capture Takashiro Tooru. They hurried straight to the source of the sound. And what did they find but a blood-soaked boy on the ground. He was in the process of attempting to stagger to his feet.

“Hey! What are you doing there?”

Without missing a beat, the officers encircled Sanpei in the narrow alley.

Sanpei’s eyes widened, and a meek cry escaped his lips. The officers recognized it well as the reaction of a cornered criminal and became increasingly suspicious that something was up with the boy.

“Don’t move! Stay where you are!”

“What were you doing out here?”

They dragged him out of the alley, bombarding him with questions that more resembled an interrogation than a routine questioning.

“T-the hell would I know? I haven’t done anything!”

The police held him down as he struggled violently. It became apparent that although he was covered in blood, his injuries weren’t severe.

Indeed, brats of his ilk were a dime a dozen. He was hardly public enemy number one. It was hard to look at it any other way, and Sanpei himself thought he had nothing special that could save him. Yet…Sanpei had, by this point, already heard the voice of “Embryo”, and had been put in a desperate situation… Yes, at this stage, he himself had no way of knowing, but this commonplace and slightly crooked 15-year-old troublemaker, Motoki Sanpei, had sufficiently fulfilled the “criteria” to “break through”.

The police officers dragged Sanpei to the patrol car, with the intention of packing him in and taking him to the station.

“S-stop, please! I had nothing to do with this!”

They’d likely contact his home in any case, and he’d get a good beating from his dad. Sanpei flailed frantically.

“Cool it!”

One of the cops wrenched his arm back.

“Gyaaah!” he cried. Then, at that moment…

…Ka-chick.

All present heard the sound of something like a switch being flipped, but there was no tangible source around that it could have come from.

“…………?”

They all glanced around, puzzled. But in spite of the commotion, the sound continued regardless.

…Ten, nine, eight, seven, six…

The sound of numbers counting down entered each of their ears.

“W-what’s that sound?”

“Where’s it coming from?”

Flustered, the police began to lose their calm. But the countdown ticked on mercilessly.

Five.

…But what did it mean, exactly?

“What in the hell is going on here?!”

“I’m covering my ears, but I can still hear it…!”

Four.

Unable to reach a reasonable explanation for being able to hear the strange sound, the police officers had entered a state of panic.

“It…it keeps getting louder…!“

“S-stop it! Somebody stop this sound!”

Three.

It was as if the sound was robbing them of  their spirit, or their sanity. For, indeed, this countdown was…

“Yeeeek!”

“I-it’s all overrr!”

Two.

…like a timer announcing the limit of their equilibrium…

“Uwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh!”

“Aaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeee!”

One.

…like the sound of a bell heralding the end of the world…

“————”

“————”

Zero.

“……Huh? What?”

Sanpei alone was unable to hear the sound; he simply stared blankly as the cops entered a state of panic and fled, crawling away on all fours like dogs.

W-what was that about?

He couldn’t have known, for he’d had no chance to observe his own power.

The feelings within him that cried “It’s all over” and “I don’t care what happens anymore”…… When they welled up, they were transferred to others in his proximity, while he himself so to speak “woke up,” returning to his senses. Of course, the boy in question appeared totally oblivious of this strange power.

As to what extent this power might reach, not even God knew. If he were ever to convince himself deep down that “now everything really was all over”……how great would the panic he transmitted to others—no, to everything around him—be? Perhaps it would be enough to envelop the entire world.

What would happen then to all worlds other than his? …No one could yet know.

“…U-uh, guess I should make tracks,” said Sanpei, furtively departing the scene.

The police officers who’d left their station and lost the ability to speak out of an excess of panic were apprehended a few minutes later by other officers. But just then, a strange sound rang in the ears of the apprehenders.

One hundred…

“What was that?” they wondered in unison—but the countdown was high and the interval, too, was large, so despite the fact they’d been infected, they remained relatively calm; nor was there any particular communication among them about what they’d each heard.

Once they’d taken care of this “irregular” job, they returned to the mission they were originally ordered to carry out, to head out as backup to the arranged site of arrest that “suspected mass-murderer” Takashiro Tooru was being led to.

“…Hey, Tooru.”

As the police officers were on the way to their designated location, Taniguchi Masaki, keeping his hands on the steering wheel, inquired about something that was on his mind.

“How did you suddenly get so strong?”

“Huh?” Tooru raised his head.

“Sword, staff … Whatever you use, you seem to have become a master of it in just a short time… How come?”

“Hmm…” Tooru folded his arms and considered this. “I’m not sure, but…I think it was a good thing that you decked me , Masaki. I think something just sort of…gave way after that. That’s how it felt.”

“Gave way? On such a scale?” Masaki sighed with incredulity. “Then how do you explain all those stiff moves you were making today? It doesn’t add up. You weren’t the same back then. It was really, seriously like you were a total amateur. Was that all an act?”

“No, I’m not capable of pulling off a stunt  like that,” said Tooru, and Masaki agreed.

“I bet… Then, why? Just what happened in the space of a few hours ?”

Masaki’s doubt was natural, but although they’d escaped from the police firing on them, there was a side to him intrigued about mysteries like these, which he would question with all seriousness. On the surface, his placid and gentle nature was what stood out, but on some fundamental level there was a part of him that wanted to dive into the thick of mystery and adventure… It wasn’t clear whether he got that from his father, Shigeki, who was fond of gallivanting across the world, or from his teacher Sasakibara Gen and sister-in-law Kirima Nagi, or whether it was simply something innate, but one thing was certain: in such situations, he was cool and collected, and not in the slightest bit deterred.

However, a personality like that is by no means a fortuitous one. It was, in a sense, like standing at the edge of a precipice. Furthermore, he was the type who put the safety of his lover Orihata Aya, and his friends and acquaintances, before himself—one could say that in terms of his well-being, this was potentially a very dangerous thing.

“Nothing happened, if that’s what you’re asking.” Tooru thought deeply. “How’d I put this…? I feel like I heard a ‘voice’ somewhere. And then for some reason…I started seeing these ‘lines’ over the person I’m fighting.”

“‘Lines?’ What the hell?” chimed in Pearl, who was disguising herself as Honami Akiko, light glimmering in her eyes.

“Over my opponent’s body there are ‘lines’…or that’s how it feels. And it seems that when I trace my sword over those lines, it just sort of automatically takes them off guard and becomes a course for me to strike at their weak point…”

“It ‘seems’? …That’s a vague way of putting it when you’re the one doing it.”

“Hmm… But that’s just the way it feels to me . Though, I just know that that’s what it is. Somehow I’m sure of it.”

A power that lets you see ‘lines?’ …In the back of her mind, Pearl was struggling sure how to interpret this. In terms of practicality, it honestly didn’t have much point. Martial arts like sword-fighting and bōjutsu were of practically no use in modern warfare when you can get the job done with a gun.

Was this guy a bust?

She was certainly feeling that way. Back in the days of samurai brandishing their swords, maybe, but now it was behind the times. There were battle applications, sure, but that was all. And if this was all it amounted to, there were plenty of substitutes.

“So can you…still see them? Are there ‘lines’ over us as well?”

“No, I can’t tell—not clearly. None of you are especially guarded against me, right? My guess is you’re in a state that doesn’t have weak points or anything yet.”

“Riiight…”

That’s funny, considering the person before you could kill you whenever they feel like it, scoffed Pearl internally. It didn’t seem worth manipulating him just to turn him into an enemy of the Towa Organization. They’d likely take him out on the spot.

Eh, at best he can be a decoy for us to gather a little info…

In which case, it was more important to prioritize retrieving “Embryo” itself than this guy. It hadn’t shown up, had it? She wished she’d headed for the real Honami Akiko and her little brother…but she could never have imagined her own luck, because if she had gone there, she’d have surely encountered and been defeated by the “Strongest One,”  Fortissimo.

“This is all over my head, but…basically, you’re happy that you got stronger?”

“Well, I don’t know about that…” Tooru’s face seemed to cloud over. “Can we really say that I’m stronger? …Masaki, what do you think Sakakibara-san would say?”

But although Masaki was the first to ask, he’d remained silent for some time now, simply listening to the two of them talk.

“…………”

“Masaki?”

“O-oh, no I…” He shook his head slightly, clearly shaken.

Indeed…I knew.

I’d heard about these “lines” that Tooru had just been speaking about before. One day, I happened to ask Master whether he practiced anything like kendou. He responded with a low, pensive grumble.

“The sword?” He gave a sigh. “That thing’s too much for me to handle.”

“Huh? But you must have the reflexes and technique for it, easily. And you can more or less use the staff . I bet you could probably put some dan-level fighters in their place, couldn’t you?”

“Why? Is that because you can’t get serious if you’re using a weapon?”

“No, like I keep telling you, I’ve never considered bare hands as the ‘coolest’, and I don’t think using a tool in battle counts as relying on it either. That’s not what I mean. The reason I shy away from swords… It’s because the heights that they can reach  are more or less on a whole different level than martial arts.”

“Hm?”

“In the end, no matter the martial art, and especially in the case of things like sumo and boxing, everyone’s working toward the same goal. You can even see this in sport too, right? Like in athletics and soccer. But the sword… It’s different.”

“Uhh… Then, what is it?”

“Hmm. Er, well, keep in mind that I didn’t experience this personally, so take it with a grain salt, but…back when I was around your age, that’s when I really became an idiot. I started seeking out all sorts of tough guys and I’d barge in unannounced asking them to teach me, half like I was taking on entire dojos . That’s when I met him. The guy was over seventy, I seem to recall…”

“And this is the guy who reached the ‘heights of the sword’?”

“That’s about the size of it. His power was something else. Couldn’t lay a finger on him. Thing is, I didn’t know he was a swordsman, given that we were fighting bare-handed.“

“That’s right. And when I was beaten to a pulp and shamefully admitted my defeat, what do you think he said?”

“…Hmm, that you were inexperienced?”

“He said to me, ‘Why do you believe that you have lost? ’”

“…What’s what supposed to mean?”

“I didn’t understand him either. So I asked. And he said, ‘Surely by virtue of your being alive, there is no winning or losing.’ In other words…that is the sword. It’s not about the type of weapon or what fancy techniques you use. It is ‘the ability to fell your opponent’, and nothing else.”

“…I’m not so sure about that…”

“…A long wooden stick , right? So then…”

“If you’re anal about the definition of a katana, you wouldn’t call it a sword… That’s likely what it’s about. It’s said that the yagyuu shinkageryuu school of swordplay that was famous from the end of the Sengoku era to the beginning of the Edo period ultimately didn’t even have established kata or stances. Such things were dependent upon the opponent, it seems. Long story short, they just had to kill them. And that’s also why the name yagyuu is known for its expert assassins.”

“That’s kind of amazing.”

“It’s beyond amazing. In the end, the sword puts strength and weakness second-place, and killing is everything. I…wasn’t willing to go that far with it. Though if we’re talking ‘sports’ like kendou or fencing, I guess I understand.”

“Hmm…”

“So this guy who’d wiped the floor with me, he also said this: ‘Wielding the sword is the same as finding the chinks in your opponent’s armor’ . And as you pursue this goal, you’ll eventually be able to clearly see those weak points, lines drawn over your opponent. All you have to do then is trace them.’ So it’s not really as if you’re fighting against them, but more like you’re a machine, moving automatically. I take a little too much pleasure in fighting my opponents for me to attain that state… In the end, I’m not fit for the sword.”

“Huh…”

…At the time, I thought to myself that it was just another one of Master’s tall tales blown out of proportion. No, Master himself said he didn’t believe the story he was telling either, so I’m sure that was the case.

But…he found it hard to believe that Tooru had heard such a story. Then what was it exactly that had happened to him…? Could a dormant ability have been awakened within him? But that was… He’d admired Master so much, it would mean…his talent was the polar opposite to the way he’d been going .

How was I supposed to get this across to him?

“…………”

Lost for words, I pretended I was simply focused on driving for the moment.

“Let’s leave it at that for now. We’re almost there .”

I glanced at the rear-view mirror again. It was looking OK—that berserk cop wasn’t following us.

The street itself was silent, devoid of traffic. This was a business district and today was Saturday, so it made sense that most places would be closed. It was vaguely like a ghost town, even.

I’d been driving down nothing but alleys for some time to avoid traffic lights, and now we’d come out at the road that led to the place in question.

“…Huh?”

That was when I finally noticed that something was odd. On the opposite side of the road, between the building blocks, sprawled a vast, wide-open space.

How could there be such a huge open field slap in the middle of the city? No, more importantly, why did the police tell us to come here?

“………”

I slammed on the brakes before we reached our destination.

“Whoa! What’s wrong?” asked Tooru, reeling from the emergency brake.

“This place… Where do you think we are?” Masaki shot back, urgency in his voice. “Why would there be an empty plot somewhere like this?”

“Seems so… So what’s this mean? I can’t see any sign of police around.”

With sharp eyes, Masaki surveyed the area before him. It was a strange space.

There’d usually be a fence surrounding it, but here there was none, and the exposed ground stood plainly out from its surroundings, which were hardened with asphalt and concrete, as if that single spot was the scar from a half-healed scab, forcefully torn off. Materials and scrap and who knows what were strewn about haphazardly, disorderly heaps that further lent it a splintered impression.

“What is it?” asked Pearl in Honami Akiko’s voice. Even though police squads were lying in wait all over, ready to rush them down at once, she didn’t let on in the slightest that she was secretly losing patience, wondering what was taking them.

“Something’s fishy… Tooru, Honami-san, stay right there,” said Masaki, unfastening his seatbelt and leaving the car.

“H-hey!” Tooru tried to follow, but Masaki motioned for him to stop and proceeded alone slowly down the empty street. Hands apart from his body, he showed openly that he held no weapon.

“Masaki…”

Tooru sent Masaki a worried, yet at the same time trusting look. A mere few hours had passed since they first met, but Tooru now thought of the young Masaki as an older brother and trusted him more than anyone.

At the same time, right next to him…

“Tch,” Pearl cussed internally as she watched Masaki from behind.

I really didn’t account for someone who’d be this calm and make such measured actions… Even though he’s just a regular human who hasn’t made contact with Embryo. He hasn’t even “broken through.” At this rate, he’s going to diffuse the whole damn situation. The stage I set for measuring Takashiro Tooru’s ability will all go to waste.

What to do…?

Just as Pearl was considering abandoning tricks and traps and doing something about this herself, it happened. Something she could not have foreseen had been taking place at the same time: the police officers who’d been infected with Motoki Sanpei’s “Countdown” were lying in wait, right by their patrol cars…

“Oh, ohhh…!”

The countdown had already reached thirty-seven. They—infection was rapidly spreading through their ranks, so it was hard to pinpoint the exact number—had begun to tremble, unsure how to deal with the anxiety and tension that was swelling within them and remain on standby awaiting orders. That they did not flee despite this could be ascribed to their responsibility and duty as police officers, but in this situation, it had rather worked against them.

There are only so many actions available to those who resist fleeing though beset by fear… For in addition, they were holding weapons, and were trained on a target at that.

Thirty-six, thirty-five, thirty-four, thirty-three…

“Auuuugh…!”

There was little meaning in asking exactly who started it. But it happened. If someone oblivious about what was taking place were to hear the BANG, it would have sounded to them like a somewhat flat cracker going off in the area. Then the body of Masaki, who was walking forward, shook violently.

A gun shot, a faint light, and an impact—and then droplets of flying red blood from the person shot. It all happened so quickly, in the blink of an eye.

“…W-who just fired?!”

Now that it had begun, those whose counters had hit twenty could no longer do anything to resist.

All at once, they leaned forward. All at once, they opened fire on the parked car on which their guns were trained.

They tore through the fuel tank, and the car instantly went up in flames.

[1] Decided to translate this more literally because it could hold some double meaning. “なにもかもどうにでもあれ” is a phrase that basically means that there’s no point in thinking too hard about anything.

[2] Most probably know this, but Kendo is a Japanese martial art centered around traditional swordsmanship. Still practiced to this day.

[3] Anyone who’s seen enough SoL anime has probably seen one. It’s a bamboo sword used for sparring, typically in Kendo.

[4] The official name for this style is Niten Ichiryuu, or “Two heavens as one style. ” The style uses a katana in the main hand, and a wakazashi in the other

[5] This is most likely the Moon Temple from v5. Timescale of the novel and the fact that there was an “incident” that would be public knowledge points to it. This also means that this novel probably takes place around April