At this mont, it was late afternoon once again, and they were at the exact sa observation deck as before.
"How is it, Shiori-chan? The scenery here is beautiful, isn't it?"
"Yeah~"
Enjoying the gentle breeze blowing across the observation deck, Shido and Yutsuki looked out at Tengu City, which was bathed in the red glow of the sunset, a trace of deep emotion visible on their faces.
Now that he thought about it, this was the exact sa observation deck where he had sealed Tohka.
Shido gently brushed back his slightly disheveled wig, a faint sense of nostalgia welling up in his heart.
On that day, illuminated by the sunset, the breathtakingly beautiful girl with night colored hair had shed her expression of despair and loneliness, revealing an unprecedented, radiant smile.
Suddenly, feeling sothing cover his hand, Shido turned his head and saw Yutsuki shyly looking away.
"H-Holding hands is fine, right...?"
Seeing the brown ponytail sway uneasily left and right, clearly reflecting its owner's nervousness, Shido let out a soft chuckle. He gently wrapped his fingers around her small, delicate hand.
Sensing a palpable aura of relief radiate from Yutsuki, her pretty face flushed a faint shade of red—though whether it was from the sunset or her own embarrassnt was hard to tell.
Tranquility. That was the only word that could describe the feeling between the two of them right now. They quietly held each other's hand, without exchanging a single word, simply admiring Tengu City under the sunset in silence and enjoying a mont of utter peace.
Gradually, ti slipped away, and the veil of night began to fall. Tengu City, which had looked like a serene painting just monts ago, was now brightly lit, giving the illusion of a starry sky scattered across the earth.
"It's night now..."
Yutsuki broke the silence softly.
"Yeah..." Shido slowly let go of Yutsuki's hand. Looking at the now-calm Yutsuki with a sowhat complicated expression, he spoke with slight difficulty, "So, is it ti now, Yutsuki-san?"
Although Shido hadn't removed his voice changer, his tone and deanor made it abundantly clear to anyone listening: he was a man.
Back at the arcade, when she proposed, Shido had declined, using the excuse, "I haven't ntally prepared myself for that yet!"
Even though the crowd of tourists around them had been cheering and urging him to accept, Shido knew it was impossible for him to say yes.
Furthermore, Shido sensed that even Yutsuki herself subtly hoped he wouldn't accept.
Because the person she had fallen in love with, Itsuka Shiori, was nothing more than an illusion woven by Itsuka Shido. No matter what the outco of this date was, the only person she truly had to face was the boy capable of sealing Spirit powers: Itsuka Shido.
This was a daydream, a transient fantasy that briefly fulfilled Guan ng's innermost wish.
And when night fell, it was ti to wake up from the dream.
Yutsuki closed her eyes. After a long while, she slowly opened them, having returned to her usual self. She let out a bitter laugh, "You really are cruel, Shido-boy. Could you not have let enjoy my sweet dream for just a little while longer?"
"A dream isn't reality. You have to wake up eventually, don't you?"
"That's true..." Yutsuki let out a sigh of regret, then smiled as if letting go of a heavy burden. "Alright. Stop looking like such an emo literary protagonist. Weren't you going to seal my Spirit power, Shido-boy? If it's against Shiori-chan's face, I think my affection level should be high enough!"
Shido nodded and whispered to Kotori for confirmation. Kotori stated that although her affection level had dropped quite a bit, it was still well above the threshold required for sealing.
"It's fine..." Shido took a deep breath. Even though he knew the procedure by heart, saying these words out loud himself was still incredibly embarrassing.
"Please... kiss !"
"...Eh?"
Looking at Shido bowing his head and pleading like that, Yutsuki let out a confused sound, then spoke with a hint of displeasure.
"Shido-boy, we are discussing serious business right now. Could you please refrain from mixing in your personal fantasies?"
"No! No! You misunderstand," Shido waved his hands frantically to explain. "This is the necessary procedure to seal a Spirit's power. Didn't you read the files on it, Yutsuki?"
"No... Yuzuru and Kaguya showed up when I was halfway through reading, so I didn't finish it."
Originally, Yutsuki had assud that "sealing Spirit power" involved so sort of special ninjutsu or technique—like the Five Pronged Seal, Evil Sealing thod, or Eight Trigrams Seal from Naruto—and that the affection level was just a secondary prerequisite for casting the jutsu.
To think that the actual thod required a kiss. As expected of a harem ani, the universe is absolutely brimming with pure malice... If I had known it was this thod, I would never have agreed in the first place.
"Shido! Yutsuki's affection level just plumted! It's already dropped below the absolute minimum requirent for sealing!"
At the exact sa ti Kotori's frantic voice rang in his earpiece, Yutsuki looked at him with an apologetic expression and said, "I'm sorry... Shido-boy. Kissing you... is sothing I simply cannot do..."
"Eh? But didn't you already agree to it, Yutsuki?"
Shido's face was filled with complete incomprehension. Yutsuki cast a slightly infatuated glance at Shido's female disguise, but ultimately shook her head, looked down, and muttered shyly, "Because... a kiss... is a sacred vow that can only be made when getting m-married..."
(The Author: "Let explain this point. Even though Guan ng watched ani growing up, because he deeply despised harem genres, he only watched pure, wholeso romance ani. In those types of shows, the main couple usually only kisses at the very end when they finally get together and stay together forever. Because of this, he slowly developed the deeply ingrained core value that 'A kiss is sothing only a man and a woman who are going to get married can do.'")
Hearing Yutsuki's reasoning, both Shido and Kotori were instantly rendered completely speechless.
"Why the hell does she have the maiden like innocence in this specific mont...?"
Kotori groaned in agony, burying her face in her hands.
"Perhaps... we should have told Shin to accept Yutsuki's marriage proposal earlier," Reine said, sounding sowhat dejected.
Because they took Yutsuki's incredibly serious attitude during the proposal into account, they had concluded that actually "marrying" her would severely destabilize the ntal state of the other Spirits living with them. Therefore, after a quick discussion, Kotori had approved Shido's decision to reject it.
"It's way too late to say that now."
Kotori currently felt exactly like a baseball player who had hit a clean single and safely made it all the way to ho plate, only to be called out because he accidentally forgot to step on third base. It was a crushing sense of defeat.
The date (war) to conquer Ryougi Yutsuki had ended in total failure.
Beep! Beep!
"Commander! An extrely powerful Territory reading has appeared exactly one hundred ters away from Shido!"
Right at that mont, Kawagoe suddenly reported in a panic.
"What did you say?!"
Kotori frantically jumped out of her seat, slamming her hands onto the commander's console, her face filled with sheer panic.
...
"I'm sorry, Shido-boy. I understand your good intentions. But please forgive for being unable to accept your request. Take care!"
Seeing Yutsuki bow her head lightly toward him, Shido's heart filled with frustration and self-reproach.
His intuition had been spot-on earlier: Yutsuki truly hadn't wanted him to accept the proposal. However, what he absolutely hadn't anticipated was that Yutsuki was only willing to kiss the person she was going to marry, causing the entire conquest to fail.
Reality was often like this. Even if you desperately calculated every single factor and tried your absolute hardest to do everything perfectly, there would always be unpredictable, uncontrollable variables that ultimately led to failure.
"Wait! Yutsuki..."
Just as Shido opened his mouth to say sothing, Yutsuki's gaze suddenly turned razor-sharp. With a vicious kick to Shido's stomach, she sent him flying dozens of ters away.
"Gah...?!" Letting out a comical yelp due to the sudden attack, Shido crashed into a nearby cluster of bushes, getting thoroughly tangled in the ssy branches. After unhooking his clothes from a branch, Shido yelled out:
"What the hell are you do—"
But he was unable to finish his sentence.
A fierce, incredibly intense beam of light suddenly struck down diagonally from the sky. Carrying a massive destructive force capable of warping the surrounding scenery, it completely engulfed the exact spot where Yutsuki and Shido had just been standing.
Sensing the attack instantly, Yutsuki had sacrificed precious ti she could have used to evade or counterattack, instead using it to kick Shido into a safe zone.
"Divine Astral Dress-Yod."
From within the boiling, scalding smoke, a powerful shockwave suddenly surged outward in all directions, blowing away the thick fog. Standing in the center was Yutsuki, wearing her black trench coat and Tokiwadai girls' uniform, completely enveloped in crackling blue and white lightning.
Her Divine Astral Dress was her strongest and most impenetrable fortress in battle.
Gently dusting off her clothes, Yutsuki locked her gaze onto the distance and spoke with a flat, calm tone: "What a violent way to say hello. I never took the British for being so utterly lacking in manners."
"As expected, an attack of this level isn't enough to finish you off, is it? Hacker."
As the voice rang out, a woman with light blonde hair, wearing a silver-white cha suit nad Pendragon, appeared before Yutsuki.
Ellen Mira Mathers. The strongest Wizard in human history, and the pride of DEM Industries.
"Yutsuki! Hurry up and run! That woman is incredibly dangerous!"
Recognizing the highly dangerous individual who had nearly kidnapped Tohka during their school trip, Shido frantically shouted to Yutsuki.
"Ho... A girl who looks strikingly similar to Itsuka Shido." Noticing Itsuka Shido tangled in the bushes, Ellen narrowed her eyes in slight curiosity. "No, you are Itsuka Shido, aren't you..."
"He has nothing to do with this. Your target is , isn't it?!" Yutsuki's face darkened. Blue and white lightning converged in her hand, materializing into her Angel, Ratziel.
"What? Didn't you suffer enough last ti?"
Hearing Yutsuki's mocking tone, Ellen clenched her fists tightly, glaring at Yutsuki with intense hostility.
"No, I am here precisely to wipe away that disgrace. Last ti, I was careless and fell into your trap. That won't happen again today."
"What overwhelming confidence... Ratziel"
As lightning flared around Yutsuki's body, a massive, blaring sound suddenly echoed throughout the entirety of Tengu City.
Wooooooooo—!
"The spacequake alarm?! ...Yutsuki, what are you doing?!"
Shido's eyes widened in horror, staring at Yutsuki in sheer disbelief. He couldn't understand why she would deliberately bring disaster down upon Tengu City.
"Calm down! Shido," Kotori's scolding voice instantly rang in his earpiece. "Yutsuki didn't trigger a spatial quake! She hacked into Tengu City's early warning system and forcefully triggered the spatial quake alarm!"
Ellen had clearly realized this as well. Glancing at the civilians rapidly evacuating in the distance following the alarm, she offered a word of praise.
"To successfully hack into a city-wide alarm system in such a short amount of ti. I suppose I should say, 'As expected of Hacker'?"
"I simply have no desire to drag unrelated bystanders into our fight." Yutsuki sneered mockingly. "Honestly, making a Spirit do sothing like this. You people at DEM Industries truly have absolutely zero professional ethics!"
"My actions today are driven purely by my own personal will. They have absolutely nothing to do with DEM Industries."
Seeing Ellen spout such blatant lies with a perfectly straight face, Yutsuki rolled her eyes in annoyance.
Imdiately after, without wasting any more breath, the two raised their weapons and charged at each other.
"Wait, you guys..."
Knowing his voice could not possibly reach her, Shido could only stare blankly at the two figures moving further and further away into the distance, clenching his fists in utter frustration.
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