When the view cleared again, both the body of their friend and the golden girl had been completely disintegrated, leaving nothing behind.
The purpose of sacred magic was, at least at its core, purification, so both of them could tell whether something had been destroyed or purified by their attacks, avoiding the cliché where they believe the enemy was eliminated only for them to later appear and humiliate them with some line about how weak they are.
Knowing this, the two looked at each other and smiled, the kind of smile someone gives after surviving imminent death, before approaching the place.
This resulted, obviously, in both of them being pierced by the same metal as their companion, dying without ever realizing that they had only destroyed a decoy created to make them waste their attacks.
As for the other two remaining four winged angels, having used mana constantly to attack just like the two winged ones, they had less power left. And although they still had more than most, they did not trust themselves to charge powerful attacks to kill her, much less defeat her using weak and fast attacks.
Thus, upon seeing their companions die, the first instinct of both was to flee.
"Everyone retreat!" one of them ordered, hoping to use the chaos of the escape to hide.
He even descended to the ground and ran, blending in among the two winged angels who could not fly due to fatigue.
But he had barely taken a few steps when a strand of golden hair slithered across the ground like a snake, ignoring everyone else, and grabbed him by the leg.
Although he tried to free himself, to his misfortune Golden Darkness was faster, transforming the previously weak but agile hair into its rougher but extremely resistant and deadly form. No matter how much the four winged angel tried to escape, he was bound by strong chains that dragged him across the ground straight toward his death.
The other had it even worse, or perhaps better since he died quickly.
Unlike his companion whom she chased with her hair, Golden Darkness appeared directly in front of him without giving him any chance to escape, instantly transforming her other ponytail into a blade, a kind of giant axe that did not even give him the opportunity to dodge.
Golden Darkness killed him and, without any emotional fluctuation, turned around to use that same blade to cut the other angel in half.
All the other angels saw their five leaders, the most powerful among them, being massacred with ease and immediately fled without thinking about anything. They only used everything they had to move faster, a fallen companion becoming just another shield to protect them from the golden demon behind them.
However, the truth was that Golden Darkness never chased them, she was simply sitting on top of an artifact, the same one that everyone had ignored during their escape and which had created the massive amount of sacred energy they had felt earlier and its source, watching them all with neutrality, not truly caring about their lives or their deaths.
Lala and Yuuji, right below her and beside the artifact, simply watched them flee.
Lala looked at them with disinterest while Yuuji thought about how incredible it was that only Yami had caused such a situation.
Although I suppose she is not called Yami yet, Yuuji remembered.
Once everyone had disappeared into the distance, Lala stopped paying attention to them. She took the artifact similar to the Tesla coil they had beside them, the one responsible for collecting all the sacred energy from the attacks within its range, and stored it in her D Dial.
"Why do we not use one of those to deal with an army of angels?" Yuuji asked, not wanting to complicate things when there was a simpler solution.
But Lala shook her head.
"Impossible. It can only absorb one type of energy, so a different attack would destroy it, and it is also weak against physical attacks. A smart angel could throw a rock at it and, with their strength, destroy it immediately.
Also, the absorption limit is not very high. A group of six winged angels would overload it quickly, not to mention that God who commands them" she explained.
Yuuji nodded in understanding and dropped the idea. It was not necessary anyway since the plan was progressing perfectly, he had only asked out of curiosity.
"Are we leaving already?" Once the device disappeared, Golden Darkness landed on the ground with absolute silence and asked in a monotone voice.
"Yes, let's go" Yuuji nodded.
After that, both of them followed Golden Darkness's directions about where Leviathan's army was located in order to head there. With Yuuji flying thanks to his ability, Lala using one of her inventions, and Golden Darkness turning her hair into wings, they reached their destination in only half a day.
In total, almost a full day had passed since Yuuji and Lala traveled there.
In reality, although they said they had arrived, they were still several kilometers away, something necessary if they did not want to be detected by the demons.
Lala and Yuuji waited there while Golden Darkness moved forward stealthily to confirm the situation.
Meanwhile, Lala began doing her strange things, or complex things depending on who you ask.
First she took out a kind of metal stake that automatically drove itself into the ground without any force being used. From it five pieces of fabric emerged and positioned themselves on their own, forming the shape of a circus tent that later turned metallic, preventing Yuuji and anyone else from sensing anything inside it.
Inside, she placed the artifact similar to the Tesla coil from earlier and connected a kind of transparent tube to the lower part.
Once she connected the tube it began to work, extracting something from the coil. However, although it seemed to transport sacred energy, it was not exactly that.
It was more as if the energy stayed inside the coil and Lala was only extracting the sacred part, although Yuuji was not even sure something like that was possible.
After a while, while Yuuji watched her quite entertained, he remembered something.
"So? How are you?"
"Me?"
"Yes. You."
"Why?" Lala asked, genuinely confused, before her eyes widened as she remembered something and then quickly fell again.
"Ah, I had forgotten" she said in a completely different tone from before.
"So, the movie you watched, was it really so sad that you are like this?"
"Movie? Ah! right, movie. Yes, it was... very sad" Lala nodded in confusion before remembering her earlier excuse.
Her hands gradually began moving slower as she worked.
"So... do you want to tell me what the movie was about?" Yuuji said tentatively.
Although he felt that somehow he was about to get into a lot of trouble, he was not so insensitive as to ignore her.
Lala reacted with surprise to his words and remained silent for a few seconds.
"...I suppose that is fine" she said weakly after a while.
"So... the heroine of the movie is, was, a very sad person.
She was born very curious you know, always curious about everything and liking to have fun no matter how. But her father, a king, wanted to chain her down by marrying her to someone she did not love, the princess did not want to lose her freedom so she ran away to another country.
There, by chance, she met a boy who saved her while she was being chased, and she fell in love with him.
The princess immediately got engaged to him, and immediately her life changed completely, it became many times more fun than before.
She, who before hardly had any friends because everyone treated her with respect due to her position, made friends who treated her with affection.
Her boring days turned into fun with her friends and her new home, she felt as happy again as when she was a curious and carefree child."
"It sounds like a happy story so far" Yuuji said. "So I suppose the but comes now?"
"Yes" Lala nodded with a forced smile. "The princess's fun life did not last forever.
One day, out of nowhere, the boy told the princess that they should break their engagement.
Of course, the princess does not want to break up with him, if she does she will be alone again like before and following her father's orders all the time.
But the princess cannot do anything, what can she do if they want to abandon her again after all? Should the princess not already be used to it? Is she a fool?
Yuuji, what... what do you think the princess should do?" she asked at the end, almost crying.
Yuuji listened to the entire story, keeping inside all the surprise at realizing what they were actually talking about, and seriously considered Lala's question before answering with complete honesty.
"I think it is stupid."
"W-what?" Lala was so surprised that the tears she had been trying to hold back stopped completely.
"Tell me, why did Rito, I mean, the boy break up with the princess? Did he give any reason?" Yuuji asked.
"The boy said that he does not actually love her. That he is a selfish person, that thanks to the princess his situation improved, so he did not dare free her, but he realized that in the end both of them would get hurt, so he decided to let her go."
"That sounds very... very much like that boy" Yuuji murmured, avoiding saying Rito before asking, "So the princess knows what the boy is talking about?"
"Of course she does!" Lala reacted immediately. "How could she not, after growing up seeing people interested in her every day and learning to read the emotions of others toward her... how could she not know that he does not truly love her?
But it does not matter, even if he does not love me, at least he likes me... even if it is only a little, as long as I can nurture that little until it becomes a lot, the princess will not lose her current life. He can even be with the other girl he loves if he wants, the princess will not say anything."
"You know... are you sure the princess loves the boy?" Yuuji asked while continuing to listen with interest and feeling that everything aligned less and less with the original plot.
No matter how he looked at it, after hearing her talk, Yuuji was increasingly sure that Lala did not love Rito.
"Yes? Why do you ask?" Lala said, confused.
"You said that the princess does not want to break up with him because she would lose the life she appreciates so much, that she would even be willing to let him be with another girl as long as she can keep her current life.
But you never said it was because she loves him, which surprised me. So, are you sure?"
"Y-yes? I think so" Lala hesitated.
"No, I think you are wrong and misunderstood the movie.
In reality both the princess and the boy are in that relationship out of selfishness.
Both of them like their current life, which is the result of their relationship, much more than the previous one, so they decided to stay together.
But it is impossible to continue like that forever without someone getting hurt, in such a situation I think the boy's decision is not only correct, but also incredibly brave."
"Brave? He is just a fool who does not love the princess" Lala complained.
"No, think about it.
I do not know what the boy's situation is, but if it improved only thanks to the princess then freeing her means his situation will worsen. Now he will have to do it on his own.
Meanwhile the princess ran away from the start and meeting the boy was only a coincidence, right? So in reality she is just a big fool who is afraid of losing something she is not actually going to lose.
Her friends will not leave her just because she is no longer the boy's girlfriend, and if she already ran away once before then what does it matter whether she stays there with a fiancé or without one?"
"I is that so?" Lala was shocked again, not knowing what to say.
"Yes, although of course it is only my opinion."
"Maybe... the movie makes more sense like that?" Lala murmured. "I have to think about it... ah! but the princess is definitely not a fool."
After that Lala did not speak again and focused on her work, although her mind seemed to be elsewhere.
Yuuji simply watched her silently without saying anything, but inside his mind was in chaos.
System, what the hell did you do?
[Me? What did I do?]
'Do not joke. Rito and Lala are the protagonist and the heroine of To Love Ru. Do you expect me to believe they broke up without any kind of interference?'
[I do not know what happened. I did not intervene, host. Why do you always think I interfere?]
'Who else then?' Yuuji complained.
'Even if it does not affect them too much, and for some reason it even seems better this way, this affects the later plot a lot. This can only bring chaos.
And you love that, do you not, System? If it was not you, then who?'
Yuuji felt that trouble was definitely coming in the future. As much as he agreed that Rito breaking up with someone he does not love and Lala not staying with someone she does not love out of selfishness was the right thing, that did not mean he actually wanted it to happen.
After all, at least ninety percent of the plot comes from the two of them interacting, so without their relationship Yuuji is trapped in a world with aliens and other supernatural beings without having any idea what will happen next.
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+15 chapters in advance on Patreon.
p-atreon.com/IAMME26
(just delete the hyphen)
80 power stones = 1 extra chapter (cumulative)