After saying goodbye to Shido, Mikoto called Kotori.
"What exactly is going on, Kotori?"
"Ahaha... You found out, huh?"
After boarding the airship, Mikoto learned the whole story from Kotori.
"Hah... A double date is one thing, but a triple date? What the heck is that idiot Shido doing..."
She thought it was just Kurumi, Tohka, or Yoshino—just one of them. To think it was multiple Spirits at once. Knowing the truth, Mikoto let out a helpless sigh.
"Well, I'll give Shido a good scolding afterward. For now, there's nothing we can do about it."
Kotori smiled wryly and looked at the screen, which showed Shido rushing over to Tohka's side.
"Yeah, it's a date with Spirits, after all."
If Shido was on a date with normal girls, Mikoto felt she would be incredibly, incredibly angry. But a date with a Spirit was absolutely not a normal date. No matter which promise he canceled, the consequences wouldn't just be a drop in affection or a slap in the face.
"Do you want us to send you back?"
Seeing Mikoto's understanding, Kotori also let out a sigh of relief. Even though she was a Spirit too, her mature mindset really helped a lot.
"No. If possible, please let stay on standby near the teleporter," Mikoto said with a serious expression, looking at the screen where Kurumi was waiting for Shido.
"There's a break room right next to the teleporter. I'll leave it to you."
Kotori understood what Mikoto ant. A Spirit who had killed ten thousand people... even though they didn't know what she was planning, they had to consider the possibility that Shido could be in danger. If an ergency happened, Mikoto, waiting near the teleporter, could back him up imdiately.
The break room had glass doors, allowing her to see the teleporter operating. About every twenty minutes, Shido would appear inside it, either panting exhaustedly or just collapsing onto the floor.
"Shido, really..."
Mikoto smiled wryly, and after Shido disappeared again, she returned her attention to the book she was reading.
___________________________
"Phew... Even though it's a date, Shido-san seems very busy."
Sitting on a park bench, Kurumi sighed and said.
Itsuka Shido. The boy she had briefly t on a rooftop five years ago. However, from the looks of it, he had absolutely no mory of her.
"Well... I suppose that makes sense. After all, the Shido-san I t was from five years in the future." Kurumi chuckled.
eting a future version of soone five years ago—if she told anyone that, they would probably treat her like a chuunibyou or a madwoman. But Kurumi was the one exception.
Zafkiel. It was the Angel that controlled ti, and the ultimate spear of the Spirit of Ti, Tokisaki Kurumi. The twelve Roman nurals on its clock face each possessed a different ability. However, this seemingly almighty Angel had a massive restriction: it consud high amounts of energy. Manipulating ti required draining Kurumi's own Spirit energy (Ti).
The Twelfth Bullet-Yud Bet. Its power was to send the target into the past. Depending on how far back in ti the target traveled, the amount of Spirit energy consud varied. If she wanted to travel back thirty years, it would require the entire Spirit energy (Ti) of a Spirit. Furthermore, the longer the target stayed in the past, the more Spirit energy was drained.
During the great Tengu City fire five years ago, the boy nad Itsuka Shido appeared before her. And it was Kurumi herself who used the power of the Twelfth Bullet to send him to Tengu City at that exact ti.
What was the reason? Kurumi herself wasn't entirely sure. Although she had briefly contacted her future self through Shido, because her future self had very little ti left in that tiline, they had to keep the conversation short. In the end, all she knew was this: her future self sent Shido and a certain Spirit back to the world of five years ago to prove that history could be changed. As for the result... it ironically proved that history possessed a certain degree of self-correction.
Refusing to accept her failure to change history, the future Kurumi resisted this corrective force by having Shido find her past self (the Kurumi from five years ago), hoping to shoot the future Shido with the Twelfth Bullet once again and completely alter a certain event in history.
[...Very well. Allow to offer my ager assistance.]
Changing history was also Tokisaki Kurumi's greatest wish, so naturally, she helped Shido.
As for the result? Did the boy nad Itsuka Shido successfully change history that day? The current Kurumi didn't know. Perhaps she would only regain the mories of the original tiline on the day she actually fired the Twelfth Bullet in the future.
"Did you successfully change history, Shido-san?"
Kurumi looked up at the sky and smiled, its aning unclear.
Receiving spoilers from the future made her reunion with Shido a very delicate matter. But it didn't matter. Since history had a self-correcting force, she would just go with the flow. A few days ago, a certain entity told her about a human who possessed Spirit energy—Itsuka Shido. And so, Kurumi knew... the ti had co.
For Kurumi, whose ultimate goal was to fire the Twelfth Bullet and return to thirty years ago, Shido—a boy holding multiple portions of Spirit energy—was a target she absolutely could not let go. She didn't know why her past self (before changing the world) had helped him instead of devouring him, but right now, Kurumi was dead serious.
Devour Shido and take his Spirit energy for herself. First, it would prove that history could be changed. Second, she would gain enough Spirit energy to travel back thirty years.
Even if she failed, it would just be another proof of history's self correcting force. In that case, her plan to return thirty years to the past would just require a more careful approach.
The only miscalculation was...
"Phew... I really shouldn't have let that '' out."
The Eighth Bullet-Het. Its effect was to create clones of Kurumi from different tilines. Considering that her past self from five years ago had the strongest impression of Shido, she judged that letting that "Kurumi" interact with him would be the most effective strategy.
However...
"I didn't expect Shido-san to take '' to a place like that. How careless of ."
After all, it was her from five years ago. The mont she entered the black magic shop, she went completely out of control. Because she simply couldn't watch it anymore, Kurumi took advantage of the mont her clone stepped into the shadows of the shelves to swap her out imdiately.
"Well... no matter what happens, Shido-san will eventually beco mine."
Whether it was dark history or the corrective force of ti, Kurumi's goal would not change.
Feeling a bit thirsty, she stood up and walked toward a vending machine in the corner of the park.
[?]
As she approached the vending machine, an unpleasant sound echoed from a dark corner nearby. A group of boys were aiming toy guns at a newborn kitten.
"Honestly, and I was in such a good mood... Can I leave this to you, ''?"
Not wanting to ruin the good mood from her date, Kurumi sighed and spoke to the shadow beneath her feet.
"Yes, leave it to , ''."
Instantly, the shadow beneath Kurumi's feet expanded and swallowed her whole. Another girl who looked exactly like Kurumi—Tokisaki Kurumi—erged.
"Oh my, my. May I join you?"
The young girl smiled as she walked toward the boys in the corner.
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