Inside the base Cid and Sayaka Kirasaka had once infiltrated, a bloody slaughter of the weak by the strong was underway.
"Doctor, what are you trying to… Ahh!"
"Damn it, Doctor! You actually betrayed Kokabiel-sama! I'll…"
"Spare me, Doctor, spare me! Back when I was guarding you, I never…"
Thick black tentacles pierced through the chests of several screaming Fallen Angels. The black flames clinging to them instantly swallowed their bodies, then returned to Genshirou Saji after burning them to ash.
"Red Dragon Emperor, stay here. No matter who tries to leave, kill them. Above all, don't let them take anything with them!"
"Roar!"
Ignoring the flames and dragon roars that claimed one life after another, the Doctor ordered the Red Dragon Emperor behind her to stand guard and wait for prey. Then she turned to Vritra, who had transformed into Genshirou Saji.
"You come up with me."
With that, the Doctor slowly walked up the corridor. Behind her, Genshirou Saji glanced at the Red Dragon Emperor, who was obediently following orders, and a mocking smile curled at the corner of his mouth.
"I, the great Vritra, am about to carry out a super amazing, thrilling evil plan. Ddraig, you can stay here with that perverted brat whose head is full of Oppai and act as the trash-clearing machine. Two Heavenly Dragons, hahaha…"
After laughing loudly, Vritra quickly turned around, grabbed the unconscious Yuuto Kiba, and followed the Doctor as they slowly headed toward the top floor.
Along the way, a few Fallen Angels and base personnel occasionally heard the commotion and came to investigate or block their path, but all of them were pierced by Vritra's tentacles and absorbed as nourishment.
"Boom!"
When they reached the top floor, a massive black glass dome covered the surroundings. Dense rows of shelves and experimental equipment filled the entire level.
"Bzz, bzz, bzz…"
The Doctor seemed to press some sort of button, and the sound of mechanical gears turning rang out. The irregular black dome in the sky split in two from the center and slowly descended.
Looking out from this floor, the entire building was already engulfed in a sea of fire. Flames and figures kept bursting out through the cracked glass across the building's surface, but almost the next second, those figures were torn apart by a crimson Dragon.
By now, the sun had almost completely set. The last glow of dusk faded toward the ground, swallowed by the sea of flames spread across it. The tremors from the battle up ahead threw the people on the island into panic, while the firelight and terrified screams made the top floor feel even more eerie and chaotic.
Inside the top floor, lit only by the red glow outside, the Doctor stood at the edge, gazing out at everything while casually throwing the surrounding experimental equipment down below.
Reports and books recording all kinds of data were pulled out by the Doctor and tossed to the ground. At her command, Vritra spat black flames and destroyed them.
The black flames consumed the materials. A faint glow filled the top floor, and a tall, slender figure appeared among the bookshelves on the other side.
"What are you trying to do, dressed like that… Sherry?"
A boy's voice sounded. The Doctor's hand, which had been continuously pulling books out and throwing them into the black flames, froze slightly. Along with Vritra, who was breathing fire beside her, she turned toward the slender figure that had appeared at some unknown point.
The boy sat on a desk with his legs propped up, reading a book from who knew where. He looked like an ordinary black-haired boy one could find anywhere, but the Doctor stared silently at him. Even through the gray armor she wore, the stiffness in her body was still clear, and no one knew what she was thinking.
The ordinary black-haired boy paid no attention to the Doctor's reaction. He did not even look at her, simply keeping his gaze on the thick book in his hands. He seemed to have finished a page, and the sound of him turning it rang especially clear.
"You shouldn't be here…"
Speaking in a low voice, the Doctor opened her mask and removed the helmet from her head, revealing a young, lovely, delicate face. Her pink hair, slightly stuck together with sweat, gave her a fresh look, while the beads of sweat and her faint panting revealed her inherently frail nature. She was none other than the friend who had met Cid only yesterday, Sherry.
"Can you tell me how you got here, Cid-kun?"
She threw the helmet in her hand to the ground. It landed with a heavy thud against the firelight outside, while Sherry's eyes sank into the darkness.
"How I got here… Just like in some Magic Swordsman Academy, where there are always a few hidden escape passages that appear when you open a book. Maybe this building has a hidden passage too."
Cid turned another page and spoke in an extremely calm voice.
"So the two people the Fallen Angels told me had infiltrated the base before… one of them was you, Cid-kun?"
"If there wasn't a second infiltration here, then that should have been me. I happened to run into a friend who was almost discovered by you, so I helped her investigate this place."
"…That sounds like a very familiar experience. You really are as reliable as ever, Cid-kun. May I know the name of that friend of yours?"
That was what she said, her watery eyes looking at Cid with a trace of tenderness, but her tightly clenched fists betrayed the unrest in her heart.
"Hmm… I seem to have forgotten her name."
"Heh. Then let me ask a different question. Cid-kun, how did you recognize me?"
Sherry gave a soft laugh at the excuse Cid had found. Perhaps because of the stifling heat from the surrounding sea of fire, she also released the gray armor on her body, revealing her everyday clothes before sitting down in the chair across from Cid.
"Someone once asked me the same question. My answer is still the same. It was obvious at a glance."
As if he had seen something amusing, the corner of Cid's mouth lifted. He glanced sideways at Sherry, then returned his gaze to the book in his hands.
He was not lying. Although he usually seemed to have poor powers of observation, that was only because he was too lazy to search through his own memories.
In theory, once the difference in physical ability exceeded three times, disguises became difficult to maintain. The rhythm of the heartbeat, the speed of movements, the tone of voice. It was like looking through a magnifying glass. One tiny flaw could ruin everything.
And as for him… he did not need any of that. He looked directly at the emotions or brainwaves others gave off. In a sense, as long as he wanted to, he could activate a wide-range mind-reading spell at any time. After all, people made no effort at all to hide the emotions they released.
"You asked me two questions, so in return, Sherry, can you answer two of mine?"
Still looking straight at the book in his hands, Cid turned another page. Sherry merely nodded silently in agreement.
"First question. Why did you do something like this? I remember… weren't you a shy, good girl, Sherry?"
"I'm sorry, Cid-kun. I let you down. Why did I do this… Well, do you remember the day the school was raided by terrorists?"
Though she was smiling, a faint layer of tears had gathered in Sherry's eyes.
"Yeah, I remember it pretty well. After all, that was one of the rare times I was in a bad mood."
Cid nodded lightly and began recalling what he had learned that day. His dark eyes unconsciously shifted slightly to the right.
"Thank you for caring!"
Sherry looked at Cid gently. After thinking for a few seconds, she let out a breath, raised her eyes to the sky, and slowly began to speak.
"That day, I saw Shadow. Beside my adoptive father, who was lying dead on the ground, I saw Shadow. Shadow killed the adoptive father who took me in."
"…I'm sorry."
"You don't need to apologize, Cid-kun. I'm the one choosing to tell you this. In fact, once you discovered my identity, even if you hadn't asked, I would have told you myself…"
"It sounds like it'll be a long story."
"It is rather long. If you don't want to listen, I can keep it brief."
"I rarely apologize to people, so consider it for the sake of that apology. Please tell me as much detail as you can. I'll listen patiently until the end."
Cid pinched the next page of the book between his fingers, avoided Sherry's gaze, and shook his head lightly.
"My mother was killed by an outsider when I was a child, so my adoptive father took me in when I was very young. To me, he was just like my real father. Not only did he support my dreams, but at school, he was also a kind and generous teacher in everyone's eyes. And yet, such a good person…"
Sherry smiled as she wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes, her voice growing slightly emotional.
"Such a kind old man was dragged into the conspiracy of an evil organization. In the end, Shadow pierced his heart and killed him. That's why I hate…"
Cid closed the book and shut his eyes.
"To get revenge, I went to the City of Learning, studied all kinds of knowledge, and threw myself into researching every technique I could, hoping to find something that could kill Shadow. "
"But in the end, I failed. Even if I used only the power Shadow displayed more than a year ago as the basis for my hypothetical enemy, not one of the plans I came up with could stand against him. The difference in scale was simply too great."
"Just when I was close to despair, a friend shared her approach to fighting him with me. That idea gave me hope for revenge again, and my friend said she would handle the most difficult part of the plan."
"Since that was the only hope I had left, I had no choice but to stake everything on it. I poured all my resources into this plan, but in the end, I discovered another problem. How was I supposed to draw Shadow out?"
"If Shadow didn't move according to our plan, then this plan had no chance of succeeding from the very beginning. In the end, after thinking it over and over, I finally came up with a way."
Sherry pressed a button that had appeared in her hand at some point, and a projection panel rose in the center of the top floor. On it were two projections identical to the enormous black and white spheres in the sky.
"If the world is about to be destroyed, will Shadow come out to stop me?"
As Sherry spoke, there was a rumbling crash, and another device appeared on the top floor. Its distinctive black-and-white stripes mixed together, and the flickering light seemed to echo the black sphere and white sphere in the sky.
"Use ultra-high-concentration Light Crystals to reach the deepest part of the Authority of Light, then have someone capable of using both Holy Power and Demonic Power exploit the world's imbalance between light and darkness to fuse the two."
"As long as Shadow still wants to live in this world, as long as he can see the sky and understands what the black sphere and white sphere represent, he will definitely come out to stop me. And if he wants to stop me, he has to come here."
"A brilliant plan. Whether from the perspective of Shadow's nature or his interests, Shadow will appear here."
Cid turned a page with his eyes closed, acknowledging Sherry's scheme.
Logically, he did not want the world to be destroyed. Emotionally, with a spectacle this big, he would definitely come to watch. She really had him figured out.
"Thank you. Then what's your second question?"
"There are a lot of things I want to know, but after thinking about it, I still want to ask this. If Shadow doesn't appear, Sherry, do you really intend to use this curse to destroy the world?"
"…No. Ultimate Chaos is not triggered by a timer. None of the steps can be missing, but the final piece is in my hands."
Sherry spoke softly, then slowly exhaled. Saying what was in her heart made the pressure inside her feel a little lighter.
"Well, Cid, what do you think of what I said?"
In response to Sherry's question, Cid opened his eyes.
"Call me greedy, but can I ask one more question?"
"Of course. Whatever you want to know, I'll tell you. I won't hide anything from you. I don't want you to misunderstand me."
"In this plan of yours, have you caused the deaths of any innocent people?"
Cid closed the book, his black eyes meeting Sherry's directly.
"…I don't know. When I was doing research in the Academic City, the experiments I took part in all used corpses provided by various institutions."
"Later, after I was confined here, the Fallen Angels also provided dead bodies like everyone else, people they had tortured to death. The only live experiment I performed should be when Kokabiel had me install the mind-control and valve controllers on the Red Dragon Emperor… or perhaps I should also count the observation records from feeding the Red Dragon Emperor several tons of aphrodisiacs."
"I see…"
Cid murmured, then stood and tossed the book in his hand into Vritra's black flames.
"Is there anything else you want to know?"
"No."
After answering Sherry, Cid drew the sword he had just picked up.
"After learning all this, are you angry, Cid?"
"Who knows. I'm a very boring person. I've always divided everything into important and unimportant as if it were only natural, and I don't care what happens to things that aren't important."
"Then, to you, Cid, I'm…"
"Not important."
"…That hurts a little. But if that's true, why are you pointing your sword at me, Cid?"
Sherry smiled, paying no mind to Cid's words as she looked at the sword in his hand.
"Even so, I still… feel a little sorry. So I think I have to stop you."
With a gentle smile tinged with apology, Cid raised his sword toward Sherry.
"I'm glad I met you, Cid, but this time, I can't listen to you."
"Vritra, knock Cid unconscious and send him outside. After that, the plan continues."
Sherry smoothed her hair back, looking at Cid as she gave Vritra the order beside her.
"With pleasure!"
Almost the instant he agreed, Genshirou Saji appeared in front of Cid.
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