Meanwhile, high above the Vermillion Palace, thousands of feet up in the night sky —
Haimer stood facing into the wind, gazing down at what lay below.
"The reins of power over this world — I'd say I've got a solid grip on them now."
This trip across worlds hadn't just succeeded in suppressing the Dragon Concept lurking inside Stella's body — it had also smoothly won him control over this world's entire power system. All in all, things couldn't have gone better.
"Guess it's about time," Haimer murmured, glancing up at the bright, round moon hanging in the sky.
"Better head back. Lun and the others should be about done with their baths by now."
The moment he spoke, his figure rippled like a reflection breaking on water — a transparent shimmer spreading through the night sky — and then he was gone, back at [Haimer Familia]'s new stronghold in Orario.
Meanwhile, in the long second-floor corridor of [Haimer Familia]'s new stronghold —
the air was thick with the scent of rose body wash, mingled with warm steam drifting in on a light breeze.
Girls fresh from their baths gathered in the corridor one after another, their chattering rising and falling, breaking the night's quiet.
Onigawara Lun was wrapped in a slightly oversized, pure white bathrobe, her fair, delicate skin still flushed pink from the heat of the bath.
She clutched a dry towel in one hand, scrubbing haphazardly at her short black hair, still dripping wet.
Her cute, doll-like face was full of anticipation, her eyes darting again and again toward the closed door at the far end of the hall.
Mary Kikakujou, meanwhile, had pinned her long, elegant golden curls up high.
She somehow managed to make an ordinary bathrobe look like a gown fit for a formal banquet.
Though the robe's collar strained a little against her generous figure,
leaving a small, unavoidable gap that offered a tantalizing glimpse of deep, pale cleavage.
"I wonder what kind of gift Lord Haimer meant," Mary Kikakujou murmured softly.
She twirled a lock of golden hair falling over her chest with pale fingers, curiosity plain in her sky-blue eyes.
Amou Kirukiru walked alongside her, not bothering to join the chatter, her bathrobe not even properly tied — just draped carelessly over her shoulders.
The open robe left her taut, healthy, ivory-toned abs on full display.
Her wild eyes swept over everything around her, brimming with undisguised aggression.
Inaba Tsukuyo still wore her neat, clean red-and-white shrine maiden robes.
She stood quietly by the wall, her long silver twin-tails hanging at her sides.
Her ears gave a faint twitch.
"Lord Haimer's back. He's waiting for us in his room," Inaba Tsukuyo said, opening her eyes.
Just then — creak — the oak door at the end of the hall swung slowly open from within.
Haimer stood just inside, looking at the gaggle of girls before him.
He gave a helpless little smile and waved them in. "Come on in, all of you."
The girls immediately quieted, falling obediently into a line as they filed one by one into the spacious room.
Haimer walked to the center of the room and turned to face them — the core combat strength of his Familia.
"Before I update your Grace ahead of the expedition," Haimer began, "there's a brand-new weapon I need to put in your hands."
At those words, every girl's eyes lit up at once.
After all, whatever their own god was making such a ceremony of unveiling had to be top-grade, precious equipment.
Mary Kikakujou swallowed hard.
Could it possibly be even better than the first-class weapons [Loki Familia] had forged from materials brought up from the deep floors?
Just as the girls were quietly speculating, Haimer gave a soft laugh and raised his right hand, sweeping it casually through the empty air before him.
With a low hum, a portal glowing faint pale blue abruptly formed on the floor of the room.
Beyond it lay a wholly different, strange scene.
"Follow me," Haimer said, turning to the side and shooting the girls a glance.
The girls exchanged looks, but none of them hesitated.
They fell in behind Haimer at once and stepped through the glowing portal.
The instant they passed through the curtain of light, a cool night breeze swept over them, whisking away the last damp warmth still clinging to their hair.
Their view opened up into endless space.
Before them stretched a boundless open grassland, the grass underfoot rippling like ocean waves in the night wind.
The girls all looked up, and a chorus of gasps rippled through them.
Overhead spread a vast, glittering sea of stars.
The stars were shockingly large — close enough, it seemed, to reach out and touch.
"Wow... it's so pretty..." Aihara Enju and Kohina Hiruko tipped their heads back, utterly transfixed.
Onigawara Lun looked around, her face full of curiosity and confusion.
"Kami-sama, where is this place? Is it the world we used to live in?" Onigawara Lun asked.
"No."
"This is a brand-new world."
"What I'm about to grant you is a power called Device."
"'Device'?" The girls all tilted their heads, question marks practically hanging over them.
Haimer then began, in plain and simple terms, explaining the power system native to the World of the Failed Knight.
"Back in the Lower World, the weapons you normally use — whether an ordinary longsword or first-class gear — are still, in the end, just mundane metal."
"Even the finest weapons forged from divine materials have their limits on the physical plane."
"In the heat of battle, they wear down, chip, and eventually break."
"But in this world, there's an entirely new power system." Haimer raised a hand, palm up, as though cradling something invisible.
"Device can take your very soul and give it material form — condensing it into a weapon that belongs to you and you alone."
"It lives and dies with your will."
"As long as your conviction never breaks, your Device will remain unbreakable."
Haimer paused, letting them take that in.
"And through your Device, you'll also be able to unleash Noble Art — techniques that go far beyond ordinary magic."
"Powers terrifying enough to touch and interfere with the very domain of cause and concept itself."
Hearing this, the girls all sucked in a sharp breath.
Manifest their souls into weapons? Interfere with cause and effect on a conceptual level?
Could they really pull off something that defied common sense like that?
"All right, no need to doubt it," Haimer said, watching their stunned faces.
"Let's begin."
With that,
Haimer swept out a hand, and the Divine Power within him, vast as an ocean, poured out in an instant.
Boom! An unseen, immense pressure blanketed the entire starlit grassland.
Haimer poured the potential to awaken a Device straight into each girl.
"Now, calm your minds. Close your eyes."
"Reach for the flame deep within your soul. Grasp it — and then... bring it into being!"
At his command, the girls all obediently closed their eyes.
Following Haimer's guidance, they began carefully feeling their way through the depths of their own minds.
Soon, frustrated groans rose one after another across the grassland.
"My soul... what's it even supposed to feel like?"
Onigawara Lun's brow furrowed, sweat beading on her forehead.
Her hands grasped at the empty air before her, catching nothing.
"This is really hard..." Mary Kikakujou complained too, biting her red lips, her face troubled.
Then — just as most of them were still floundering, trembling with frustration —
"Huh?" A faintly lazy voice broke the quiet of the grassland.
"So this is the true shape of Little Satori's soul?"
Everyone opened their eyes and turned toward the voice.
There stood Nomura Satori, calm and quiet, the hem of her bathrobe fluttering in the night wind.
In her hand, she gripped a katana, jet black from end to end.
From the hilt to the guard to the blade itself, it was a black so absolute it seemed to swallow even the starlight around it.
Faint threads of flowing shadow curled and coiled around the blade.
"Looks like Little Satori's gotten herself quite the power."
Nomura Satori laughed softly, a bright spark of excitement flashing through her yellow eyes.
As her laughter faded, something eerie unfolded.
Beneath her feet, her shadow — stretched long by the light — began to writhe, as if given a life of its own.
It rose upward, then rapidly split apart.
One, two, three — shff! shff! shff!
Several shadow clones, identical in face and form to Nomura Satori and each gripping the same jet-black katana, rose straight up out of the shadow on the ground.
They fell into formation before everyone, standing in perfect unison.
"Waaah!" The sudden spectacle startled Aihara Enju so badly she dropped straight onto her backside in the grass.
"What is that, magic?!" Onigawara Lun stumbled back two steps in fright, eyes wide as saucers.
Watching the scene, a flicker of admiration crossed Haimer's eyes, and he nodded, well pleased.
"Looks like you're the quickest of the bunch to take to this new power, Satori."
Haimer studied the clones that had emerged from the shadows closely.
"If I'm reading this right, your Device's nature is tied to shadow."
"And I'd guess your power isn't as simple as just making clones, either."
At Haimer's approving praise, Nomura Satori smiled and gave her wrist a turn, sheathing the pitch-black katana.
The shadow clones instantly dissolved into pools of black sludge, melting back into the shadow at her feet.
Nomura Satori lifted the wide hem of her bathrobe toward Haimer and dipped into an elegant curtsy.
"Nothing ever gets past you, Kami-sama."
"Little Satori's power really doesn't end there." With that, Satori sprang into motion at once.
Her entire body dissolved into a pool of black liquid.
With a slick sound, she dropped into the grass, becoming a shadow gliding low along the ground.
She swept in a full circuit across the grass, moving at a speed so absurd no one had time to react.
Then, with unmistakable purpose, she shot straight toward Onigawara Lun!
"?!" Onigawara Lun had no idea what was happening.
All she saw was the shadow slip silently around her heels and melt straight into her own shadow on the ground.
She jumped, startled on the spot. The others looked just as baffled.
"What kind of bizarre move is that?"
Tendou Kisara's brow furrowed deeply. "Some kind of stealth ability — hiding inside someone else's shadow?"
Onigawara Lun, meanwhile, felt a chill creep up from beneath her feet like a cold wind.
She clamped her legs together in alarm and clapped both hands over the hem of her bathrobe.
"Satori! You perverted freak! What do you think you're doing?!"
Onigawara Lun shrieked, furious and flustered, her face flushing bright red.
"Get out of my shadow right now! Don't you dare look up!"
But her protests did no good.
A teasing voice — Nomura Satori's — sounded directly inside her mind.
"I never actually went into your shadow, Lun~" Satori's voice seemed to echo straight inside Onigawara Lun's head.
"What Little Satori got into was the shadow hidden inside your heart, Lun."
"And that's not all — while I'm in here, I can see quite clearly that you've been sneaking under your covers late at night to look at certain things."
"Those picture books about Kami-sama they've been secretly selling in Orario's black market lately..."
The moment those words landed, Onigawara Lun froze as if struck by lightning.
She stiffened on the spot, eyes bulging like a pair of brass bells.
"AAAAAH! Stop digging through my memories!"
Finally snapping out of her shock, Onigawara Lun flew into a full-blown panic, stomping her feet wildly, mortified and desperate.
She was terrified this scheming little devil might dig up something even more damning from the depths of her memory.
"Kami-sama! Say something, make her stop! Get this jerk out of me right now!"
Onigawara Lun's voice was already cracking with tears.
Watching her look on the verge of crying, Haimer sighed.
"All right, Satori, that's enough fooling around. Come on out."
Naturally, Nomura Satori was happy to obey the command of the god she admired.
"As you wish, Kami-sama~"
With a light, giggling laugh, the shadow beneath Onigawara Lun's feet gave a twist.
The pitch-black shadow quickly peeled itself away and slid off to the side, soon re-forming on the grass into Nomura Satori's slender, bathrobe-clad figure.
"A shadow power capable of directly interfering with the mental plane — in real combat, that's an absolutely terrifying trump card."
"Satori, your talent really is impressive," Haimer said, unstinting with his praise for the girl of his own Familia.
Nomura Satori dipped her head obediently and answered.
"It's all thanks to you, Kami-sama."
"Also, those clones you saw a moment ago aren't just illusions or projections — they're all real, physical beings."
Nomura Satori then turned to the others and began explaining, on her own initiative, the power she'd just demonstrated.
"Little Satori can command them to do anything she wants, and they can also act completely on their own."
"And Little Satori shares information back and forth with them too."
"And then there's the move I just showed you — wherever there's a shadow, Little Satori can travel through it freely."
"Just like a moment ago — Little Satori can slip into the depths of someone's subconscious, like Lun's, and dig through their memories."
"This time Kami-sama's really given Little Satori an incredible gift again!"
____
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