A middle-aged man, his face already worn with age, stood before a glass container used for experiments. The calm he should have gained over the years was nowhere to be seen.
Despite the chilled air of the laboratory, cold sweat streamed down his forehead, and his voice trembled uncontrollably with fear.
"N-No, that's impossible. Even the current Kanon might not be able to defeat an Angel like that. A false Angel can only serve a false God. How could it possibly be a true God?
This has to be a coincidence. Yes, a coincidence. It must be that the power that false God is using right now overlaps in some way with the true God's power, which is why Kanon is showing this kind of reaction."
After forcing himself to calm down, Kensei Kanase finally raised his head and looked toward the glass container.
Inside, Kanon Kanase was suspended in fluid. Her seemingly pure and sacred wings had suddenly spread open, and her entire body radiated a holy glow.
His gaze fixed on the three tightly shut slits hidden within her wings, Kensei Kanase continued to reinforce his belief.
"Yes… this is the real Angel. Don't be deceived by a false God, Kensei Kanase. Only by sending Kanon to the God's side can she be safe. Only by being with God can she be happy. Only God can protect Kanon in this world."
At that moment, Kanon Kanase, who had been transformed into a Faux Angel and should have had greatly enhanced hearing, could not hear his words.
Otherwise, given her personality, even after being tortured to the point where her emotions were nearly gone, she would still have tried to comfort her adoptive father.
Kanon Kanase felt as if she were dreaming.
Ever since her adoptive father began his experiments, every time she fell into this state, her inner world had always been pitch black.
But now, for the first time, light appeared.
And as time passed, that light continued to spread, filling the entire darkness in just a few seconds.
Following the source of the light that had broken through her inner defenses, she could only see a figure bathed in holy radiance.
She couldn't make out the figure's face, but it gave her a feeling that was both special and deeply familiar.
It was a feeling she had once experienced from her adoptive father, Kensei Kanase.
But ever since he began the Faux Angel experiment on her, she had never felt it from him again.
Since then, she had only felt that warmth from one other person.
She was deeply grateful to that person. For her, whose emotions had nearly vanished after the experiments began, the time she spent with that person was the only time she felt like a human being.
Looking up at the figure, for reasons she couldn't understand, her left hand slowly rose on its own.
Like Adam in The Creation of Adam, she reached out toward that figure.
"Dad… Daddy…"
…
On Mount Olympus, a burly, bearded, bare-chested middle-aged man sat upon his throne. As if sensing something, he stood up and looked into the distance.
"Are you… really dead?"
…
On Itogami Island, in a corner of a café under Mitsugoshi, a teenage boy sat across from a nun whose expression was dazed, the cross on her chest faintly glowing.
Inside the backpack Cid had set aside, the "Library" emitted a faint light, illuminating the pitch-black space within.
Yet no one noticed.
Even if someone were to open the backpack at that moment, they would only see light appearing out of nowhere inside it.
…
Cid had no idea that the disturbance in Heaven's Biblical God Faction system had triggered anomalies across both Heaven and the world. But just from the overwhelming radiance filling every corner of the Seventh Heaven, he could tell he had caused something major.
Compared to before, the number of golden strands flying in from the horizon had increased by at least a hundredfold, gathering around the giant sphere before merging into it.
At the same time, the white beams emitted from the sphere and sent out across the world had also multiplied by over a hundred times, becoming brighter and more solid.
And this surge wasn't a one-time spike. In just a few short seconds, both types of light increased again, rapidly climbing into the thousands.
"Lord, please, please save my child. She's only nine. She has her whole life ahead of her. She shouldn't die in a car accident."
"Lord, please let me see my parents safely tomorrow. I want to stay with them and make up for all the time I've missed."
"Lord, please bring my husband back to his senses. He's gambled away all our money. The debt collectors came today and said they'll go after my daughter if we don't pay."
"Lord, please let me win this round. I swear, if I can just win back what I've lost, I'll never gamble again."
"Lord, please help me…"
"Lord…"
Perhaps because his consciousness was probing the system through the hand he had placed on the giant sphere, Cid could hear countless prayers directed at the God of the Bible.
These voices flooded into his mind, carrying with them people's desires, longing, humility, guilt, and despair.
If an ordinary person suddenly heard this many prayers, they would most likely be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information and lose their sanity.
Even if they managed to endure it, they couldn't keep listening forever. Otherwise, they might end up like that AI from a movie in his previous life, deciding to destroy the world after seeing too much.
Or they might be moved by certain stories and choose to help, only to be deceived into doing harm instead. The more they learned, the more their emotions would erode, until they eventually became a truly impartial and emotionless god.
But not Cid.
He knew himself well. He was selfish.
Even if a million people died somewhere in the world because of someone's greed, he would only sigh, regret missing a perfect chance to build his "Eminence in Shadow" legend, and then go right back to working toward that goal.
PS: Just to clarify in advance, Cid isn't anyone's reincarnation. The protagonist is simply himself. I personally don't like that kind of setup. The reason for choosing High School DxD and Strike The Blood is just because their settings fit this story and make it possible to create this kind of coincidence.