"Hehe~"
Weaving through the buildings late at night, the girl in a black and red dress—Tokisaki Kurumi—couldn't suppress the smile rising on her lips.
In order to find the escaped Second Spirit, she had been lurking in Tengu City, using her clones to gather information.
Originally, Kurumi thought that with her clones's information-gathering abilities, she would find the target quickly. But she didn't expect that after a month, she still hadn't found any trace of the Second Spirit.
It was as if she had vanished into thin air. If she hadn't occasionally sensed the Spirit power fluctuations when the target used her Angel, Kurumi would have almost suspected the other party had already left Tengu City.
Every ti, she was just a little bit short. The Second Spirit was indeed in this city, but the problem was that the other party seed to understand the deploynt and patterns of her clones, always managing to avoid Kurumi's eyes and ears.
Even though she was only one step away from achieving her goal, this step had been stuck for a full month. Kurumi's frustration could easily be imagined.
However, an unexpected breakthrough suddenly appeared. The Second Spirit she had been searching for actually took the initiative to contact Itsuka Shido and Ryougi Yutsuki.
When she heard this news from her clones, Kurumi was so surprised she couldn't close her mouth.
"Honestly, I accidentally owe Shido-san and Yutsuki-san a favor again. Really, what should I do if I hesitate when it's ti to eat Shido-san? How troubling~"
Despite her words, Kurumi's face at this mont was filled with excitent and joy.
Flying through the late-night sky, the bottomless darkness concealed the colors of the girl's Astral Dress, failing to attract anyone's attention.
"Arrived~"
She whispered softly in her heart. Kurumi landed in the hallway of a high-end apartnt building. Door number 1801—Honjou Nia's room.
Silently sinking into the shadows, Kurumi passed through the security door without any obstruction and entered Honjou Nia's bedroom.
At this mont, Honjou Nia was lying on her back on a large bed piled high with manga, staring blankly with a dazed expression.
And above her, a massive leather book floated leisurely.
Rasiel, which records all information of all creation in the world—the omniscient Angel.
Having learned of Nia's ability from her clones, Kurumi's gaze couldn't help but burn with intensity.
If she had this Angel, even if Nia didn't know about what happened thirty years ago, she could still obtain the truth she desired.
"...No good, this is no good."
Seemingly after weighing her options, Nia exhaled in self-loathing and closed the pages of Rasiel.
"—My, my. A rare Angel and you're not going to use it?"
"...! Who!?"
Hearing Kurumi's voice, Nia suddenly sat up from the bed, disregarding the mountain of books collapsing around her like an avalanche, and looked around warily.
Slowly erging from the dark shadows, Kurumi politely lifted her skirt and gave a lady-like curtsy towards Nia.
"Nice to et you,Nia-san. My na is Tokisaki Kurumi, a pleasure to make your acquaintance."
"Tokisaki Kurumi..."
Keeping a vigilant distance from Kurumi, Nia repeated Kurumi's na and touched Rasiel with her hand.
In an instant, the massive book suddenly flipped open, displaying lines of text that Kurumi couldn't understand.
At the sa ti, Kurumi noticed a slight change in Nia's expression. She understood that the other party had already used her Angel to investigate her information clearly.
(Is it an Angel that can only be used and understood by the user themselves...?)
Realizing this, Kurumi abandoned her plan to use force to extract a confession and revealed what she considered to be a very friendly smile.
"Next~ I presu Nia-san has a concrete understanding of my identity, so a detailed self-introduction isn't necessary, right?"
"Uh..."
Wiping the cold sweat from her forehead, Nia looked at the Spirit brimming with killing intent before her and couldn't help but swallow.
Judging from the information provided by Rasiel just now, whether in terms of brutality or combat power, the enemy before her could crush ten small fries of her level as easily as crushing an ant, with absolutely no ability to fight back.
(Calm down. In terms of an information war, I still hold the advantage here. I absolutely must not let her think I'm an easy target right now.)
Taking a deep breath to relax her tense body slightly, Nia asked, feigning composure:
"Breaking into soone else's room without knocking late at night. What exactly is your business here, the most evil Spirit-sama?"
Hearing Nia's words, a slight smile curved on Kurumi's lips. Simultaneously, Nia's heart rate instantly spiked close to its limit.
"Good question. I'll get straight to the point. This ti, I would like to ask you,Nia-san, to use your Angel to help grant a small wish."
Hearing that she wasn't here to kill her, Nia instantly felt relieved, and the heavy stone hanging in her heart finally dropped.
"You an, you want to investigate so information from ?"
"Exactly."
Kurumi nodded gently. Although Nia really wanted to just agree and have her leave quickly, just to be safe, she stroked her chin and muttered, pretending to have so scruples.
"Mhm... I guess I owe it to you that I was able to escape, so considering it returning a favor is fine. But let be clear first, I'm a pacifist. I won't leak any highly dangerous information."
"Rest assured about that. It's an extrely personal wish. I promise you, this information will not cause a war or bring misfortune to people."
"Oh?"
Hearing this, Nia actually beca a bit curious.
Adjusting her mood slightly, Kurumi gently parted her lips and asked aloud:
"Therefore, please tell . —The 'Origin Spirit' who appeared in this world thirty years ago. The reason and cause for her appearance, her exact coordinates and ti of appearance, her abilities, and—the thod to kill her."
————————————
December 29th, 5:00 AM.
This was a ti when ordinary people were still sound asleep. In the dim and quiet town, bright lights were shining in a room next door to Itsuka Shido's house.
"Page twelve... is done."
Setting aside the draft in his hand for a mont, Shido rubbed his sore eyes and placed a cooling patch on his forehead. A can of energy drink ant to keep him awake went glug glug down his throat into his stomach, alleviating the gradually rising sleepiness.
Slowly stretching his back, Shido surveyed the situation in the room.
"Ugh... the pitch-black tears staining the pure white holy land?!"
"Shaken. The ink seeped under the ruler."
"No problem...."
"For this minor issue, it can be fixed. Give those two pages to to handle later."
"Shido, bring the finished drafts over to my side."
In a spacious room filled with a massive amount of manga tools, Origami, Kaguya, Yuzuru, and Natsumi were intently working on the A4 papers in their hands. Not far away, Yutsuki was sitting in front of a desktop computer, her fingers typing on the keyboard at a speed that practically left afterimages.
After the manga competition with Nia was finalized, Kotori swiftly gathered everyone to prepare the manga together.
First was drawing, which is the necessary foundation for manga. After a brief test, Shido, Kaguya, Yuzuru, and Origami all demonstrated decent drawing skills. Unexpectedly, Natsumi's drawing skill was so high it bordered on professional level. According to her, she used to imitate manga artists when she was bored in the past.
Therefore, Kotori decided to have Natsumi as the main artist, with the Yamai sisters,Origami and Shido acting as assistants to draw the manga.
As for Yutsuki, although her drawing skills didn't et the passing mark, she stated she had prior experience with creative writing. So she was put in charge of the story's script and proofreading the dialogue.
Although he was a bit curious about what Yutsuki's so-called creative experience actually referred to, after noticing the smile hiding daggers on Yutsuki's face, Shido wisely swallowed his question.
"Here you go, Yutsuki, the manuscript for page twelve."
"Received. I'll handle the typesetting and proofreading on this end. Shido, go help Natsumi and the others."
Taking the manuscript without looking up and putting it into the scanner, Yutsuki swiftly operated the computer to work.
Not wanting to disturb the highly concentrated Yutsuki, Shido kept his footsteps light and left.
"Completing a sixty four page manga before the thirtieth... This is hell."
This was the conclusion everyone reached after assessing the situation based on Yutsuki's script. After all, making Nia fall in love with "Shido" within a complete story was the absolute minimum requirent.
Thinking slightly about the workload he still had to face, Shido's facial muscles couldn't help but twitch.
(No, this is just the beginning. Don't say such discouraging things.)
Pinching his thigh hard, Shido took a deep breath, adjusted his mood, and walked over to Natsumi's desk.
"Natsumi, I'm here to take the manuscripts that need revising."
"Mhm, Shido. Pages fourteen through seventeen are already placed over there."
Natsumi nodded slightly and then continued drawing fiercely.
So fast. Shido couldn't help but marvel secretly.
In the entire drawing process, Natsumi's burden was actually the heaviest. After all, from designing the storyboards to the rough sketches and the cover line art, she completed everything alone. If she didn't do this, discrepancies in the story flow and art style would occur, which would be quite fatal for a manga.
Picking up the manuscripts, the completion level of every single page was extrely high, without a trace of being handled sloppily.
But in exchange, the energy Natsumi needed to consu was understandably imnse.
"Are you okay, Natsumi? If you're tired, you can go rest for a bit first."
"I'm fine."
Pausing her pen slightly, Natsumi shook her head. She gripped her hand into a fist to stop the trembling, then resud holding the pen, starting to draw beautiful lines on the manuscript paper again.
"I probably won't be of any use when it cos to the real deal. So at the very least, I must do this small task... After all, it's rare for to have a place where I can be of help to everyone."
"Natsumi..."
"When I received everyone's help and gained a place where I belong, I was actually truly, very happy... To be able to work together with everyone to accomplish sothing is sothing I couldn't even dream of before... Rather than feeling tired, right now I feel incredibly fulfilled. Moreover, it's a rare chance to draw such an excellent script, so I have to perform at a corresponding level."
Rarely, Natsumi's words carried a bit of spirit.
"Don't worry, idiot Shido. I'll help you completely crush that stubborn old fossil nad Nia!"
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