Date a Live:This is not the date I wanted! Chapter 190 190: Five Years Ago, Four Spirits in the Fire

Flas as red as blood burned silently in what was once a familiar world.

Streets, houses, flowers, and grass were instantly reduced to ruins and ashes under the scorching fire.

Amidst the ruins of the cracked streets, a girl knelt on the ground with lifeless eyes.

In front of the girl was a bottomless, massive crater. It looked as if a satellite weapon from a sci-fi movie had fired a giant pillar of light from the sky, crashing and striking the ground right in front of her. Even an adult would likely be too terrified to make a sound.

But for the girl, it wasn't just that.

Just seconds ago, at the exact spot where that crater now was, the girl's parents had just escaped from a burning house. They were smiling with relief as they stumbled towards her.

However, in that instant, living lives were turned into tiny fragnts by silent violence.

As if unable to accept the reality before her, the girl widened her eyes in disbelief. It took several seconds before she finally grasped reality. Cold sweat poured down her body, and she gasped for air as if she were having an asthma attack.

(Ah... ah... ahah... ah...)

Amidst endless sorrow and despair, the girl, letting out hoarse roars, looked up and caught a glimpse of a glowing, girl-like figure high in the sky.

The girl's reason told her that everything, absolutely everything, was caused by that figure.

—Unforgivable! —Absolutely unforgivable! —I will kill you! I will kill you!

I will definitely—kill you with my own hands!

_______________________

"—!"

In a comrcial suite at the Imperial Hotel in Tengu City, Tobiichi Origami woke up with a start.

(It's been a long ti since I had that dream.)

She wiped the sweat from her forehead and took a few slow, deep breaths until her heart rate returned to normal. Origami looked the sa as always, her doll-like face showing no emotion.

Getting up from the slightly unfamiliar bed, Origami stretched her body a bit. Then, following her usual routine, she took out her Raizen High School uniform from the closet and strapped her favorite gun to her inner thigh.

Although there was no need to go to school anymore. She had just joined DEM and hadn't been issued official ID or a uniform yet. Her superior, Westcott, wasn't overly strict about uniform consistency. As for Ellen, who she had fought alongside before, she gave Origami a certain degree of freedom to act independently after confirming her strength was sufficient to assist her.

Although she was a bit concerned about losing sight of Ellen midway while carrying luggage up the escalator after the elevator broke down a few days ago... Origami's experience told her not to delve into that issue.

After changing her clothes, Origami took out a Calorie Mate energy bar from her suitcase to briefly fill her stomach.

"Next, I should organize my luggage."

To avoid exposing her whereabouts, the Realizers used as security and traps in Tobiichi Origami's original apartnt had been completely dismantled. The furniture and personal items from the apartnt had also been temporarily moved to the hotel's storage room.

Although this wasn't a base for long-term residence, considering there were many invaluable personal items among her belongings, Origami, who had no faith in the hotel's security system, was installing the security system she usually used in her room.

Tear gas, Claymore mines, pinhole caras, infrared sensors, electronic signal jamrs, Territory emitters...

After skillfully installing these devices in every corner of the room one by one. Origami carefully locked the door. She pulled out a large suitcase from under the bed, entered the password, and took out a display cabinet equipped with a temperature regulator and anti-oxidation devices from a hidden compartnt.

Then, the girl opened the display cabinet and took out a gym uniform she had swapped with a certain boy during P.E. class. She pressed it against her face and took a long, deep breath.

—Beautiful world!

After a few silent minutes passed, having enjoyed the items in the display cabinet one by one, Origami carefully put them away. It might have been an illusion, but a trace of satisfaction could vaguely be felt on the girl's expressionless face.

It might not be apparent now, but a long ti ago, Tobiichi Origami was just an ordinary little girl.

Her best subject was math, her worst subject was language arts. Her favorite food was baked cheese stew. Her least favorite food was celery. Her future dream—to beco a bride.

Although she was more outstanding than children her age in both studies and sports, that was all she was.

However, all of that changed in the fire five years ago.

The existence that killed her parents and took everything from her—Spirits.

After learning the truth about what she saw that day, Origami began studying and physically training to an abnormal degree.

There was only one reason. The Spirit she saw that ti. Origami was going to find out the truth about her and kill her with her own hands.

For the young Origami, she didn't know the specific thod to kill her. Therefore—she continuously and desperately trained herself. It was all so that when she found her parents' murderer one day, she could take action imdiately. Because of this, she treated herself as strictly as a demon or a rakshasa, constantly honing her body and mind.

Her best subject was everything. There were no subjects she was bad at. She absorbed all the knowledge and skills she could master, completely crushing the word "impossible."

She basically stopped caring about food preferences since that day. She only consud nutrients that could build a strong body; she paid no attention to anything else.

Her future dream—also changed to the sole task of killing that Spirit.

Using bone-deep hatred as fuel, she drove herself hard like a rakshasa, constantly advancing in a non-ordinary world.

Finally, to gain the power to kill Spirits, Origami ca to DEM.

"..."

Looking at the packaged 'Golden Photo Album' in the cabinet, filled with various cross-dressing photos of a certain boy, Origami unconsciously thought of the original owner of this album—the Spirit known as the most dangerous to humanity, Ryougi Yutsuki.

[Please... do not do anything that would make Shido sad.]

Recalling the girl's request to her back then, Origami pursed her lips slightly.

Unlike Origami, who treated Itsuka Shido as a kind of emotional dependence and comfort, the girl's tone only held pure care and concern for her family.

"Shido... I will absolutely never hurt him."

As if trying to convince her own heart, Origami answered herself in the quiet room.

"But, I will absolutely never forgive the Spirits!"

_______________________

"Data on the fire from five years ago? What do you need that for, Yutsuki-nee?"

In the Fraxinus airship, Kotori widened her eyes in surprise hearing Yutsuki's request.

"Uh, how should I put it? There's sothing I'm curious about."

"You don't an about Tobiichi Origami, do you?"

"Mhm."

"As I thought."

Seeing the other party nod without denying it, Kotori sighed as expected. Yutsuki herself had absolutely nothing to do with the fire five years ago. As for why Yutsuki suddenly took such an interest in this matter, Kotori could only think of Origami joining DEM recently.

"Sorry, Kotori-chan, for making this kind of request."

"It's fine. Don't worry about , Yutsuki-nee."

Kotori waved her hand to show it didn't bother her.

Five years ago, Kotori received a Sephira Crystal from the mysterious Spirit Phantom and beca a Spirit. At that ti, her Spirit power went out of control, plunging Tengu City into an unprecedented massive fire, and Tobiichi Origami's parents died in that fire.

Initially, Tobiichi Origami treated Kotori as the enemy who killed her parents. But after Shido told Origami that another Spirit was present at the ti, Origami chose to believe Shido's words and gave up on hunting Kotori.

But honestly, whether it was Kotori herself or Phantom who killed Origami's parents five years ago? Shido and Kotori themselves didn't know.

"If we could really find out so new information from five years ago, it would be a relief for too. But you know, Yutsuki-nee, we only have the video footage intercepted from the TV station five years ago, nothing else."

Yutsuki smiled bitterly. She had previously asked Kotori and Shido about Origami. The intercepted video footage was very blurry. Aside from seeing a strange pixelated blur next to Shido and Kotori, no further information could be gained.

"Mhm, I know. So, what I want to check this ti isn't Ratatoskr's data, but DEM's."

"DEM's?"

"When I interacted with Origami a while back, she once tried to ask if I saw any data about five years ago when I hacked into DEM."

Hearing Yutsuki's words, Kotori frowned slightly, chewed on the lollipop in her mouth, and nodded thoughtfully.

"True, the phenona caused by my rampage back then were too obvious. It wouldn't be strange even if DEM imdiately realized it was the work of a Spirit and made so records. So, did DEM use information from their investigation five years ago as a reward to get Origami to join them?"

"Well, the conditions DEM offered were probably more than just that, but that was probably one of them."

Yutsuki shook her head. They also had DEM's data. Even though Origami couldn't join Ratatoskr because their goals were different, it was impossible for her to join DEM, an organization conducting various inhumane experints, just for that information.

(Though the other reasons aren't exactly hard to guess, either.)

Yutsuki thought with a bitter smile.

"Anyway, I want to look at the DEM data I gave you before, to see if I can find any clues about the truth of the fire five years ago."

Since her powers were sealed, Yutsuki had handed over all the data she obtained from her hacking to Kotori. Just like a school principal hasn't read every book in the school library, the sheer volu of that data ant even Yutsuki herself didn't know if the data she stole contained the information Origami wanted.

Kotori nodded in understanding and began giving orders.

"Understood. Maria, restrict the search scope to files created five years ago relating to the Tengu City fire."

[Order received, comncing search.]

Following Maria's response on the screen, the main screen in front of the bridge changed to a "Searching" standby screen.

Soon, Maria found a docunt matching the criteria. Receiving the file, Reine began trying to analyze the data.

"Reine, how is it?"

Kotori couldn't help but ask nervously.

"Hold on... cracking the password... done."

Looking at the data displayed on her screen, Reine remained silent for a mont, then slowly nodded.

"Indeed... this is a spirit wave analysis report regarding Tengu City five years ago. Looking at the results of the report... there were indeed multiple Spirits present at the scene."

Multiple? Hearing this word, Yutsuki frowned in deep thought.

"Can you specifically determine which Spirits were at the scene back then?"

"I'll try..."

Saying that, Reine tentatively began analyzing the spirit wave data attached to the docunt. Then, she shook her head sowhat apologetically.

"Sorry... Although spirit wave data was indeed detected, the version of Spirit power detection back then was completely different from now. Plus, Kotori's Spirit power rampage heavily masked and scrambled the other spirit waves, making it impossible to separate and compare them."

"Is that so... Well, you tried your best, Reine. Don't worry about it. Although we didn't discover the truth from five years ago, confirming the presence of multiple Spirits is already a huge gain."

Kotori shook her head and comforted her.

However, Yutsuki didn't seem satisfied with this answer.

"Ratziel."

With Yutsuki's whisper, the dark blue longbow appeared in Yutsuki's hand accompanied by electric sparks.

"Yutsuki-nee? What are you trying to do?"

Seeing Yutsuki suddenly deploy her Angel, Kotori panicked slightly.

"Don't worry Kotori, I'm fine. I just want to try and see if I can parse these spirit waves and figure out whose they are."

Hearing Yutsuki's words, Reine realized.

"Mhm... that's a blind spot... With Ratziel's calculation power, which exceeds current technological levels... it's not impossible to achieve this."

"I see."

Kotori relaxed slightly and let out a sigh of relief.

"Don't scare , Yutsuki-nee. I thought your Spirit power suddenly started flowing backward."

"Haha~ Sorry about that."

"It's fine. Then I'll leave it to you."

Nodding gently, Yutsuki began commanding Ratziel according to her thoughts.

[Understood... Comncing task execution... Executing spirit wave separation.]

As a dark blue light flashed, the bowstring of Ratziel extended into several thin threads resembling wires, connecting to the Fraxinus's computer.

"How is it?"

Kotori couldn't help but ask sowhat nervously.

"It works."

Yutsuki answered affirmatively.

As Reine said, the reason this data was hard to analyze was due to the blurriness of the information itself and the fact that Kotori's Spirit power back then was mixed with the Spirit power of other Spirits, making it indistinguishable. For modern technology, it's as difficult as determining the color of the clothes worn by a person in an early black-and-white photo. However, for a Spirit's miracle, which surpasses human common sense, it can accurately complete the ambiguous parts of the data by deducing from the preceding and succeeding parts.

The ti it took wasn't short, but it wasn't too long either. In about ten minutes, Ratziel analyzed and translated the spirit wave data, completing the comparison with the Spirit profiles in the database.

[Analysis complete, comparison successful. Target 1 — Efreet]

[Analysis complete, comparison successful. Target 2 — Phantom]

Seeing this, no one was surprised. Kotori beca a Spirit by receiving a Sephira Crystal from Phantom back then. It was only natural that Kotori's spirit waves were present. Although the official database didn't have Phantom's Spirit power data, Yutsuki, who had t Phantom once, had used Ratziel to scan Phantom. The separated spirit waves were mixed with a very minuscule reaction similar to the high-density Spirit power wall that blocked Yutsuki's scan back then.

[Analysis complete, comparison successful. Target 3 — Nightmare]

"Tokisaki Kurumi..."

Yutsuki and Kotori couldn't help but widen their eyes.

If the previous two pieces of information were expected, then this one was a real jackpot.

"Could it be that she is the one who killed Origami's parents?"

"Well... we can't be sure yet. However, the spirit wave reaction was near Minami-Kacho, and the location where Origami's parents died was also in that area."

Yutsuki frowned slightly. Indeed, compared to Kotori and Phantom, Kurumi was a Spirit with an established record of killing people, and she just so happened to be at the scene of the incident. The possibility of Kurumi being the murderer of Origami's parents was indeed quite high.

(But, I feel like sothing isn't right...)

Yutsuki knew that although Kurumi was indeed a murderer, she was definitely not a homicidal maniac. Parents who could make Origami love them from the bottom of her heart and determine to fight to the death to avenge them couldn't have been bad people. Logically speaking, Kurumi had no reason to kill them.

[Analysis complete, comparison failed. Target 4 — Unregistered Spirit.]

Then, just as Yutsuki was thinking this, Ratziel discovered a fourth Spirit from five years ago that no one had noticed.