"Did I kill him..."
she repeated softly.
The next second, fine ice crystals began to emerge on the surface of Zouken Matou's hunched body.
The ice crystals spread and thickened rapidly, climbing from his feet upward, wrapping his entire body in a layer of transparent yet hard ice within a few breaths.
The freezing process was silent, and even the last frozen expression of shock on his face was perfectly preserved.
Long Night Moon snapped her fingers.
"Crack—"
The frozen body shattered at the sound, turning into countless tiny ice fragments, like snow powder blown by the wind, falling rustlingly onto the floor, then quickly melting away without leaving a single trace.
A Magus who had survived for hundreds of years and extended his life using Insect Magic had disappeared completely and silently, not even leaving a speck of dust behind.
As for Kariya, who was lying on the ground...
Long Night Moon walked to his side, crouched down, and lightly tapped the back of his neck with her fingertip.
A touch of deep red halo seeped into his skin.
"You will have a good dream,"
she said calmly, "a very long, very peaceful dream. When you wake up... perhaps everything will be different."
After doing this, she stood up and gestured to the jellyfish phantom floating behind her.
The jellyfish carried Sakura, drifting lightly toward a relatively clean and tidy guest room in the mansion.
(Where is Jack?)
Long Night Moon perceived for a moment and found that Jack was in a room on the first floor of the mansion, seemingly having developed a keen interest in an old-fashioned gramophone and was trying to study its sound-producing principle.
(Never mind, let her explore on her own.)
Long Night Moon turned and walked toward the summoning room prepared by the Matou Family in her memory.
This was a room converted from a basement, not very large, with some obscure magic diagrams hanging on the walls.
In the center of the floor, a complex circular magic circle was drawn with some kind of silver powder, with intersecting lines and dense runes—a typical Heroic Spirit summoning circle.
Long Night Moon stood in front of the magic circle.
"It's about time," she whispered to herself.
Following the "summoning process" extracted from the memory fragments of Zouken Matou, Long Night Moon raised her left hand, the command spells on the back of her hand heating up slightly.
She aimed her palm at the magic circle on the ground and began to chant the rigid incantation—although given her nature, this "ritual" was more of a formality.
"Proclaim—"
The voice echoed in the silent basement.
"Thy body shall be under my command, my fate shall be with thy sword—"
The magic circle began to glimmer, and the silver powder on the ground seemed to come alive, flowing slowly.
"If thou wilt submit to this will and this reason, then answer my call—"
The light grew stronger, and invisible turbulent magic power began to surge in the air.
Long Night Moon's crimson eyes watched the center of the magic circle calmly, though she didn't really have any special expectations.
After all, they had no catalyst, nor had they prepared seriously; it was purely "summoning a Heroic Spirit with empty hands," so it would be normal to summon anything.
"I hereby swear—"
The incantation was nearing its end.
"I am the one who accomplishes all virtuous deeds in the world, I am the one who spreads all the evils in the world—"
The light of the magic circle was now blindingly bright, and the magic fluctuations were so violent that the entire room was trembling slightly.
Theoretically, this kind of "hard summoning" would summon the Heroic Spirit with the highest affinity to the summoner, but Long Night Moon was curious: in this completely strange world, which existence in the Throne of Heroes would "resonate" with her?
"Yet thou shalt shield thy eyes with chaos, and serve me—"
She recited the final sentence:
"Thou, who art trapped in a cage of madness, and I, who hold the chains—"
"Boom!"
A pillar of red light erupted from the center of the magic circle!
It was not the golden or silver light of a normal summoning, but a color as deep red as blood, or like the setting sun of twilight!
The entire room was illuminated in a deep red, and the turbulent magic power almost formed a tangible storm!
Long Night Moon narrowed her eyes slightly.
Within the red light, the outline of a slender figure gradually condensed and became clear.
The light dissipated.
Standing in the center of the summoning circle was a pink-haired girl.
She was wearing pink coral fleece pajamas printed with cute stars and moons, barefoot, her hair a bit messy from sleep, and she was rubbing her eyes in a daze, looking completely lost as if asking, "Who am I, where am I, and why am I here?"
Then, she lowered her hands, blinked those beautiful, sleepy eyes, and looked at Long Night Moon standing outside the circle.
Silence.
Two seconds later.
"Eh...?"
The girl tilted her head, and her pink ahoge swayed along with it.
"Long Night Moon... sister?"
Her voice was soft and sweet, carrying the nasal tone of someone who had just woken up, along with 100% natural confusion.
"Am I... still dreaming?"
System Space
Madam Herta: "..."
System: "..."
In front of the huge screen, the human and the puppet fell into a synchronized silence.
On the screen, in the summoning room, March 7th in pink pajamas and Long Night Moon in a black and red dress were staring at each other, the scene having a bizarre sense of harmony.
The corner of Black Herta's mouth twitched uncontrollably.
She slowly, very slowly, turned her head to look at the System beside her.
The puppet girl with purple-red inverted cross pupils was also looking at the screen; although there was no expression on her delicate face, the data stream surging in those eyes had clearly accelerated by an order of magnitude.
"System,"
Black Herta's voice was very soft, "What did you... just see?"
The System was silent for two seconds, then replied in her absolutely steady electronic voice:
"According to image analysis, Long Night Moon performed a standard Heroic Spirit summoning ritual. The summoning circle responded. The characteristics of the manifested individual are as follows: pink hair, pajamas, barefoot, appearance similarity to 'Astral Express Crew · March 7th' is 99.87%, voiceprint match is 99.92%, and behavioral patterns preliminarily observed match the daily performance of 'March 7th'. Conclusion: The probability that the summoned individual is March 7th is 99.99%."
Black Herta held her forehead.
"Why,"
she asked word by word, "would March 7th appear here? Summoned as a Servant? And look at her—she's the original body, right?! Wearing pajamas! Just woke up! She was dragged here directly from the bed on the Astral Express, right?!"
The System calmly began to analyze the possibilities: "Possibility one: The Heroic Spirit summoning mechanism of this world has experienced an unknown mutation, forcibly pulling in individuals not recorded in the Throne of Heroes. Possibility two: The 'Elation' Aeon Aha intervened and 'adjusted' the summoning process. Possibility three: There is some 'profound connection' between Long Night Moon and March 7th that we have not yet discovered, and this connection was identified by the summoning circle as the 'highest affinity,' thereby—"
Her words were cut off.
On the screen, just as March 7th was asking in confusion, "Am I still dreaming?", a line of colorful, sparkling text suddenly popped out, occupying the bottom right corner of the screen:
[A gift! ( ✧ ω ✧ )]
Next to the text was a cheerful emoji giving a thumbs up.
Black Herta: "..."
System: "..."
The air was quiet for a few more seconds.
"A · ha."
Black Herta squeezed these two words out from between her teeth, her purple-black eyes full of complex emotions.
She took a deep breath, tried to calm herself down, and looked back at the screen.
On the screen, Long Night Moon seemed to have recovered from her initial astonishment.
She was examining March 7th with an indescribable gaze—that gaze carried a hint of subtlety.
And what about March 7th? She seemed to have finally fully woken up.
The girl looked down at her pajamas, then at her bare feet, then looked up at the room filled with magic diagrams, and finally, her gaze returned to Long Night Moon.
"Wait, wait, wait, wait—"
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