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Calling Card (Psyren x FSN -Nasuverse): Arc 3 – Chapter 17

Chapter 17



It draws a blank no matter how many times I try to recall the name.

I haven’t heard or seen it before. But it does sound like a name that would belong to a Magus. That’s a clue towards unraveling the mystery of why we were being dragged into the future, and I can get more information by playing on the assumption that we were sheltering her from these dolls.

But, out of the corner of my eye, I spot Gotou tensing to move. His fists clenching tight meant he was ready to attack. Better stop him first.

Gotou, I’m trying to get more information. Don’t attack until I say so.

His head twists in my direction and his mouth opens to speak. For a moment, I worry he’d say something careless. But he catches himself, turning back to the enemies in front of him and keeping his eyes on them. ‘If you tell them anything, Nemesis Q will kill you.’

I’ve got that handled.’ Ideas on how to lead the conversation were already filling my head. How hard could it be to fool a couple of dolls? Really, the biggest problem was that eventually the fighting would resume and we’d be outmatched as things stood, unless Ayako hurried up with the mission or my Mind Jack reached her.

He scowls but doesn’t say anything else. Now for the Homunculi.

I address the one with the halberd since she seems to hold more authority. ‘I’ll consider your terms since we have non-combatants here and I don’t want more unnecessary deaths. But not unconditionally. What guarantee do I have that you’ll abide by the terms of surrender if we submit to them?

“We only desire Atlasia, who has evaded us since the Day of Rebirth,” she said. “Should you surrender her we will promise you both safety and shelter.”

Presuming that’s the day everything went wrong from context, Atlasia must be a survivor from then. If that’s the case then she’s the ticket to figuring out what happened and how to change this future. Considering the timing right after Nemesis Q gave us that mission to kill the worm, and the fact that time moved faster in the future… it couldn’t be so simple, could it?

One of ours was a Burst-user that was torn to pieces and killed, looking like he was mauled by a vicious animal. From what she told us, you killed him and the other three that surrendered. There’s not much of a reason for us to stop fighting if that’s what we have to look forward to in the end.’

“She’s deceived you,” the halberd-wielding doll claimed. “While the Outriders faction’s sub-leader does have prejudice against this country’s people, the Burst-user escaped with Atlasia as his allies bought time. As members of Akshayavat’s Life Propagation faction, our primary duty is to protect the Terraformer so that once its work is done life can flourish once more. Should you surrender her to us, you have it on our Master’s honor that you will be brought in alive and unharmed.”

So that’s what happened. Nemesis Q sent the other group to protect someone who survived from the beginning, but they failed and died. Their failure meant that we were called in ahead of schedule to save this Atlasia. Most likely they believe that the Drifters have been training under her tutelage and becoming a threat.  It was only a hypothesis, but it made sense—


…Wait. Why were they being so patient in waiting for me to make a decision? The longer the questioning continued, the easier it would be for their target to get away. Even if we agreed to the surrender. Unless…

My head turns in Gotou’s direction just slightly, but my eyes pull to the corners where I can spot something just at the edges. Of course, they were planning an ambush all this time through their hive mind.

Gotou, it’s ambush! Take out the halberd one!

An electric current surges through my body as I send the warning out and fighting begins anew. In an instant I move two-fold, flinging the makeshift knife towards the ambusher in the distance while kicking off the ground into a side-roll in time to avoid the halberd sweeping around to hack off my legs. I then bounce back up as she closes the distance faster that Gotou could.

My foot lashes out. The kick catches her in the stomach and her body buckles before she’s sent back several meters, bouncing off the ground violently a single time. Then she digs her halberd into the weathered asphalt and uses it as a brake, coming to a stop and using it to support herself.

Grk… ugh!” A blood-tinged cough follows, leaving streamlets flowing down the corner of her lips. It joins with the crimson from where her flesh had been torn and uniform ripped from the contact with the ground as her legs quaver.

I… I didn’t use Rise. I didn’t have time to activate it. So how did that same doll that had been giving us trouble before suddenly get knocked back by me?

Wait… that sensation from before. What if that was my PSI at work? Slowing down my perception was an abnormal stopgap in the first place, but if our powers got stronger over time maybe it finished adapting. Yeah, that had to be it. That sensation I felt had just given me a longer-lasting Strength-Rise effect. If that was the case…

My head snaps up as the homunculus attacking at long-range lays down cover-fire to give the one I’d hit time to recover. Gotou barely manages to throw himself out of the way and into an alley while I hop back and to the sides, putting a great deal of distance between us in time for something to land by my feet with a thump.

It was a male homunculus. Or rather, his corpse. The knife I’d thrown had beautifully pierced his skull and destroyed his brain. Unlike the Taboo, these dolls needed their brains to operate on a higher level of intellect. So he’s dead, the clatter of steel arrows spilling from his quiver being the last sound he ever makes.

Without glancing up, my empty hand reaches up and my fingers find their way around the grip of a bow before I even realize it. I just knew that it was there from how his body fell. But a bow needs two hands to use, so my broken arm frees itself from the sling and I scoop up three arrows to use.

There’s no pain as I nock an arrow, even as my broken arm draws back the string until it’s taut.  Is that part of my PSI as well? It’s really…

No time to worry.

No, I shouldn’t dwell on it. My body is moving great and my instincts are bordering on pre-cognition. If those are caused by my PSI, I shouldn’t question it right now or try to slow down my perception of time. I don’t want to risk losing these benefits or interfering with the Mind Jack while it was still seeking out Ayako.

I can sort everything out later after I kill these dolls.

I loose the arrow as I escape another flurry of ranged attacks and fire it towards the caster-homunculus. Her arm comes up and a ring forms, stationary like a shield. The arrow disappears as it enters the center, but the rim of it shrinks.

Does that mean there’s a film of some kind within it? Does it work somewhat like Ayako’s power in that it destroys what it touches at the expense of itself? Or is it something like disintegration?

Either way, I can work around it. My hands nock the second arrow as I run towards her while Gotou emerges from the alley to take on the halberd-user. The shots close in to keep me at bay, but she’s slower than me. Worse, she’s easy to read.

There’s a pattern to her attacks. A maximum radius and rate of fire she’s maintaining to face me. It’s almost as if I can predict them, allowing me to slip past them and close the distance.

“Look out!” Gotou shouts.

I look back to see that he’s failed in distracting the halberd-user and she’s on my back, chambered to swing for my head as the caster tries to get some more space between us.  I slide to a stop and duck down as her blade comes scything for my head. At the same time, I flip the arrows in my grasp around to use them as a stabbing implement, thrusting for her head.

She pulls back to avoid being killed, but my leg sweeps out to catch hers and she ends up falling backwards. While she catches herself into a back-roll quickly, she’s too late to distract me further.

I nock an arrow mid-spin and fire it towards her companion. She naturally raises her arm and conjures another ring of destruction to eat it. But she doesn’t see the third arrow I’d fired right afterwards until it was too late.

Predicting the rate at which the rim would shrink, I fired it just over that point for a kill-shot. The arrowhead pierces her skull as a result, the momentum throwing her head backwards and leaving the corpse to fall backwards. One down.

But I don’t have time to focus on the clean kill though. The other one is coming for me again, using her halberd like an axe to bring the blade down with enough force to split solid stone. It’s predictable though, so I manage to get off-line by twisting my body and then—

A flash of steel sends me staggering back. There’s a knife in her hand, the other still on the halberd. She’d kept it concealed until now, so I didn’t see it until it was too late. And it was stained with blood.

She’d cut my throat. She’d cut my throat!

It’s shallow.

That thought enters my mind as Gotou shouts, but I dismiss it. The lack of pain meant I couldn’t even tell if it had been one of the major arteries she’d sliced. I had to draw back, leave the fighting to Gotou and keep my heart rate slow to avoid bleeding out.

It’s only at that moment I realize that I can’t move my body at all.

Instead, my body moves on its own as she comes for me again. Her killing thrust is faster than before, forcing the use of the bow as a makeshift shield to try to keep space between us. It’s cut into two by the knife as my body then rolls out of the way and then starts bounding backwards.

She comes for me with the halberd again, but my body twists and my leg flares out to kick the halberd-wielding homunculi in the chest. She blocks with the shaft of her weapon, but the impact struck where it had been previously bent by Gotou’s blow. As a result, it breaks apart and she’s sent her stumbling back as Gotou finally catches up.

“Raaaggh!!” He leaps over me and smashes the ground where she was standing, forcing her to deal with him as it sets in that all this time it hadn’t been me moving and acting with such precision.  Someone or something else moved my body even better than I could, like a puppet dancing on the strings of a marionette.

If I had to guess in relation to Magecraft, they’ve taken control of my nervous system. Since my own mental commands were being ignored, it inhibited those as well. So the only thing I had control over was my thoughts and nothing else—I was a prisoner in my own body.

The Homunculus, now deprived of her polearm’s lower-half, still fights on against Gotou with ease. He’s too slow so she’s landing several cuts on him with the knife, his strengthened flesh being parted by opposition with strength equal to his. In the end, she manages to drive the head of the halberd into his thigh to pin him into place before thrusting the knife towards his throat.

“Agghhh!!” He screams as he brings his arm up. There’s a scraping sound as the knife goes into the arm and comes to a stop. With his face twisted in pain, Gotou’s scream of pain turns into a roar as he brings his other fist around.

She blocks it with her arm, but I can hear the bone breaking as the blow knocks her away. At the same time, her grasp on the halberd’s neck jerks it out. The blood that comes from it as he falls over makes it clear he’s going to bleed out in minutes at best.

Realizing the same, the Homunculus goes for me again. She throws the blade towards my body with a spin that probably would have sawed clean through me if it connected. But the puppeteer moving my body must’ve had some form of precognition because my head was already moving so that it missed as I was forced to lunge.

She grabs the other half of the shaft as a bludgeoning weapon and uses it to knock away my outstretched arm. I can hear the bones breaking but not feel any pain as my other fist comes around and smashes her face in to send her staggering backwards. Even so, the blood from my neck continues to fall relentlessly.

Damn it. At this rate, even if we kill the homunculus, we might bleed out in the end and there’s nothing we can do about. Was I… was I going to die like this?

Some puppet on strings to be thrown away?

A fool being played by someone else again until the bitter end?

No, I just need a little more time.

I need more time for—that’s not my thought.  The ambush, the cut’s depth, disregarding my PSI, not questioning the shift in my abilities—those weren’t my thoughts. I should have guessed that you can interfere with mind, violating it as I dance to your tune.

I’m trying to help you! You’re trying to change the future, I’m just—

I don’t care anymore. I don’t know how you’re controlling me. I don’t know where you are either. But I’m no one’s puppet.

Never again.


Electricity floods my mind. My blood feels like its bubbling in my veins. The world blinks in and out as static fills my existence as the PSI does its work. I don’t know what I’m doing, so I focus only on redirecting my PSI towards any solution that it can make work. I just want control of my body back—consequences be damned.

It’s agonizing. Blood pours from my mouth and nose and eyes as I collapse to my knees. The pain is too much, my body feeling like its burning within my skin and the world is wavering around me.

I can barely register the homunculus getting back to come for me again, only to be stopped as something invisible binds her at the arm. Her mouth moves but whatever’s being said doesn’t reach my ears before Gotou throws himself forward despite his leg’s injury.

The last thing I see before my consciousness fades is his face twisted in disgust and pain as he smashes in her face with his fists and drives it into the ground, crushing her skull…


…The world swelters as awareness returns to me. My throat feels dry and barren. My head feels like it’s in a haze too. Everything’s so hot and heavy.

I force open my eyes. It takes herculean effort to do so, but the ceiling of the temple comes into view when I do and the blur settles. This is the room where we’d began our trip to the future. I made it back somehow.

Ugh. Then the stench of sweat reaches my nose and I cringe. Disgusting. At least that explains what the heavy feeling is. The futon I’m in has been laced with sweat. I try to throw it off, but my body isn’t responding.

“Ng-ngh!” I struggle for a bit to no avail. The best I can do is twitch my nose and facial muscles. Don’t tell me that removing the control Atlasia had over my body did permeant damage!

Damn it! I thought the Student President had a healing power, so why didn’t he heal me!? “Nrhh…haaa…”

Okay. Okay. I’m not going to panic. I just need to reach out to him or someone else first of all to let them know I’m awake. So I close my eyes and take a deep breath, focusing on my PSI through the haze.

A tugging sensation swaddles my brain as the Mind Jack is woven from the energy draping it. It spools out from the back of my head and phases through the floor to appear within my sight. Then I send it out, visualizing that pompous and uptight face, the glare of the lenses shadowing his eyes ever so slightly.

The cord extends silently, passing through the wall and out of my view. Hmm… it’s at least easier to make the Mind Jack than before, when I was at the mall. Not as easy as in the future, but still to a noticeable extent. That being said, I don’t think it’ll be able to make it very far so if he’s not on the mountain then I’m just wasting—

Have you woken up?

That’s the Monk’s mental voice. He must’ve spotted it then. I redirect the Mind Jack towards him and feel it connect. ‘Yes. Where’s your brother?

Footfalls prelude the sound of the door sliding open and he appears within my vision. Then he settles for speaking with his mouth to expedite things.  “He’s at the school. You’ve been asleep for over a day now, and we do have to keep up appearances.”

Over a day?  Damn it. Leaving aside school, because I have bigger problems now, I didn’t come up with a suitable excuse for Sakura since I didn’t expect to be down this long. She’ll ask questions and if they tell her the wrong thing she’ll probably go get Tohsaka involved.

What did you tell my sister?

“Mitsuzuri said she’d make up a suitable excuse, so I left it to her.” He took a seat across from me. “You’re lucky that she managed to complete the objective when she did though. Both of you really would have been dead if not. When Issei told her that, she took it pretty poorly while the others were with the kids you recruited from your school.”

Because of course he did, the tactless oaf. Not only did he fail to heal me properly, but he compounded the guilt on her and undid my earlier effort. So more damage control later on. ‘What happened to my body?

“Issei said that your nervous system had suffered severe damage. Sensory nerves, motor nerves—he stated that they had basically been fried and that it was a miracle your brain and the nerves that handle the unconscious things like keeping your heart pumping were still intact. He managed to regrow them, but said that your body has to readjust to the sensations and functions. If it’s anything like when I’ve lost an arm before, it’ll probably be a few more hours before you can move at all, and a few more days before everything feels as close to normal as possible.”

Fantastic. Just fantastic. It’s going to be a pain to deal with this, but at least it’s temporary. That’s something.

“What happened there?” He asks with a tone lacking the usual casualness from before. “Gai mentioned that you tried using Telepathy with the Soldier Taboo and that afterwards you were fighting like a different person entirely. He also mentioned that they wanted someone and that they were part of an organization, but he couldn’t recall the name well.”

Not surprising, given he’s about as smart as a gorilla.

I take a deep breath before telling the Monk, ‘My body wasn’t under my control. The person the Taboo were after took control of it before we were ambushed. The way they were manipulating it leaves me to believe that they had either wide-scale Clairvoyance or some form of precognition. But it wasn’t perfect. They ended up getting my throat slashed, so I willed my PSI to get control of my body back. The next thing I know, I’m waking up here.’

I don’t bother to try and keep the disdain out of my mental voice. It was simply too hard, given she had the audacity to take over my body and read my mind. I let Ayako trying to do so slide, but only because it was her.  I’m not so nice as to risk my life for or spare some stranger—Nemesis Q’s intentions be damned.

Once we got enough information to affect the past, she was dead.

But I keep that line of thinking to myself. ‘She’s the reason that we were sent on this mission prematurely in the first place. The Taboo were hunting for her specifically because she survived the Day of Rebirth, as they called it. I think she knows why the world was in that state.’

His eyes narrow as he lowers his head, deep in thought. Probably questioning the validity of my words. Not surprising given how many trips he had gone through without that knowledge beforehand, risking his life towards bettering the future through survival. Yet I managed to figure it out in an instant.

Still, he doesn’t dismiss it. He can’t on the off-chance that its right. Not if it’s a chance to save the others and the future. “Can you give me the reason you think that?”

I give him my working theory. The other group of four had likely been dispatched to stave off the pursuers after the person who took control of my body. They met with resistance and were slaughtered to a man, with the guy who they all knew being the one meant to return to the past and inform us. He died from his injuries before he could get back, but bought enough time for her to flee into the city.

Then we were called in. Not just us. But a swathe of people who had calling cards. They were bait and potential soldiers, meant to buy time and get us into position.

“It sounds plausible,” he admits before looking up. “And if it is true, then we can bring this all to a close soon. But there’s still something I’m not certain of that leaves me with doubts.”

And that is?

“How did you know that there were three others with Tatsumi?” he asks. “The number of Drifters chosen each time can vary depending on the circumstances, so we can’t really give an exact number unless we’re in contact with one another. That’s part of why we group up and jump into the future at the same time.”

…I can’t give him an answer. Because I didn’t know. We only know that one guy died in this mission because of his sister. So the only way for me to know the exact amount of that group is if that knowledge had been planted into my mind.

That person wasn’t just controlling my body. She was inside of my head and masqueraded her thoughts as my own until I got injured and put the pieces together.

“I’m concerned that this trip may have had more implications than we realized,” he continues. “This person having all the answers we’re looking for right after his group had died supposedly defending her, so why didn’t Nemesis Q just drop you into her lap so she could tell all of you everything and then pull you back when the goal is the change that future?”

…Damn. Damn, he’s right! There has to be something we’re missing; some reason Nemesis Q didn’t do just that. If she had been reading my mind, she must’ve known about our mission. Nemesis Q didn’t kill me for it, so it had to be okay with her knowing of the mission since her knowledge could change the future.

So why not let us meet together?

Likewise, if she really was in that city all this time then she had to notice us when we were going about saving people. So why did she wait so long to try and run interference? Why didn’t she approach us before the homunculi arrived and why didn’t Nemesis Q direct us towards her the moment we dropped into the city? What was the point in wasting so many potential assets as a diversion that would attract more attention in the end when Ayako is more than capable of dealing with the threats? Why send us after the worm?

The only reason I can think of was if the meeting between us would have been disastrous somehow. Nemesis Q isn’t something I can understand, but that person had some kind of precognition with how she was manipulating me—even if it not perfect. Did she foresee that the meeting would be disastrous enough that she turned me into a goddamn answering machine to parrot her thoughts as my own?

Now that I think of it, those homunculi didn’t tell us why they were after her to begin with. Only that wanted her badly enough that their faction was willing to spare us, if they weren’t lying. If she’s been around since the Day of Rebirth, it’s entirely possible that she knew and prepared for it—or could have been responsible for it as well somehow.

This Atlasia could be as big of a threat as Akshayavat. And, even if not, whoever was chasing her killed a group of near-Veteran Drifters. There was no doubt in my mind we’d be deployed soon to run interference since we were sent there this time.

At this rate, we’d meet the same fate as them.


Calling Card (Psyren x FSN -Nasuverse): Arc 3 – Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Why are homunculi here?

That question turned over in my head again and again after Gai and I retreated back inside of the building while Ayako went to deal with the Taboo. Nemesis Q’s declaration had riled everyone up to an extent, which meant that everyone else was moving about now. Fortunately, I managed to pull myself together before we walked through the door, so at least I entered under my own power.

Still, I wasn’t really in the mood to deal with anyone, so I let Gai handle the crowd-control while I sat off to the side and went over the information I could recall. I had studied for the Holy Grail War, so I knew about the Einzbern a bit. They were a family that created the Holy Grail, while the Tohsaka’s provided the land and the Matou provided the control system. They were always guaranteed to have one of their own in the war, and while that albino brat was on the short side, the other two resembled the one Ayako had just pointed out to a greater extent.

Homunculus were artificial beings that looked humans, born complete from the start and lived short-lives within a narrow timeframe as a result. We don’t know how far we are into the future, though it must be far ahead given the drastic change in landscape and the advance weathering on the structures. But the most likely reason for the world being in this state is because of something to do with the moonlit side of things with their presence. The fact that homunculi can be found working to some extent with the Taboo also means that their creators likely share some sort of alliance, which means that the ones responsible have a potential army of artificial creatures under their beck-and-call.

Why though?

I try to drown out the noise of the people around me to answer that question. They were all eager to go back to the Present. To go back home.

The Salaryman was pacing back and forth, anxious. I could tell he wasn’t coming back, so I’ve already written him off. Couldn’t care about the three idiots sitting near the front either, who still thought it was a movie or game or something. They’d learn or die. And I still wasn’t sure what the deal was with the creep with scraggly hair that was now sitting on the counter.

The Track Trio were sitting off by themselves, talking and remaining in their own world. Well, Makidera was doing a lot of the talking anyway. The others were just listening to her go on about what she would do with her power, intending to use it to give her an edge on the track. Not that I’m against it—after all, if you’ve got to be stuck with doing this you may as well use the power how you see fit. However, I get the feeling that the Student President would object to that.

As for the others in the backrooms… they’re Gai’s problem.

I close my eyes and turn my thoughts inwards, questioning again how the world itself was even allowed to get this badly ruined. Let’s assume the current situation was some Magus’ scheme went off the rails… or, more terrifyingly, planned. I don’t see how it would lead to any family attaining the Root of All Creation, so I want to believe it was more accidental than anything. But there were supposed to be organizations to prevent this sort of thing.

So, what happened to them?

Ummm…” Before I can think on that dour topic further, Saegusa’s voice reaches my ears. I crack open an eye to see that she’s standing in front of me. She’s not looking directly at me, instead her gaze is to her fingers that are in front of her stomach, clasped together.

“What is it?”

“You, um, looked pale. So I thought I’d ask if you were okay?”

“I’m managing.”

“That’s goo—” Her words turn into a startled shout as the ground shakes again, no doubt due to the Taboo still running around. She ends up half-falling into the seat across from me on the opposite couch, leaving the table between us.

The rumbling settles and she sets her hands on the table and takes a moment to calm herself down. “…S-So, do you think that Mitsuzuru-san will be able to deal with it on her own, if both you and Gotou-san are here?”

I shrug. “That worm thing isn’t only big. It was spitting out some kind of digestive fluid that melted the ground, making it easier for it to go through. There’s no telling what that would do to us if we made direct-contact with it, and she’s the only one who can deal with it at range.”

Now that I think about it, what was the purpose of that thing? If it was artificially-created, it had to have been done for the sake of being useful—logically speaking. Considering half of Fuyuki was covered in that sand it leaves in its wake, and it works on the manmade structures too… terraforming, maybe?

“I… see…” She’s fiddling with her thumbs now. The girl is clearly uncomfortable talking to me, and with the situation in general, so I don’t see why she feels the need to push herself by dragging it out. “I hope she’ll manage soon.”

“I’m sure she’s working as fast as she can.” More so considering the homunculi lingering about. If they were anything like the ones in that castle though, Ayako could take them easily from what I’ve seen of her fighting… at least, if she didn’t see something too traumatic in my head.

I know what kind of effect it has on me, and I have exposure to it. Before getting dragged into this, I doubt she’d witnessed anything as horrifying as human nature at its worst. She’s probably going to tell the Veterans what she’d seen, so I’ll need to think of a more fitting excuse for her and the others by the time we get back.

“Ah—I didn’t mean to be rude or anything!” Saegusa hastily tacked on in response. A nervous reaction more by habit, considering I didn’t showcase any anger or annoyance in my voice. “I’m just worried about things back home. It’s been almost an entire day here, so it must’ve been at least a little while back in our time. Someone must’ve found our bodies and taken us to the hospital, so our families must be worried we won’t wake up…”

“As long as you’ve got insurance, you can frame it as trying too hard during practice as an excuse and then check out right away. If you don’t have insurance, then just foot the bill to me and I’ll take care of it.”

The money isn’t a problem for me, all things considered. And better to handle something as trivial as that than having her worried when I needed her to survive. The more of us, the better off we’ll be—whatever power she gets out of it.

“All of us are insured, but thank you for the offer.” She tries to smile meekly with her head still angled down, looking up to me with those brown eyes of hers. “Still, I hope it isn’t too late in the evening. I don’t want them to be up late worrying about me, and I did promise to make Kouta-kun whatever he wanted for dinner…”

Her smile falters as she trails off and looks back down at the table. “It’s still hard to believe that this is our future. I never really thought much about what it would be like since I was focused on the present and taking care of my brothers. But… this’ll be their future one day, won’t it?”

“That’s what we’ve been drafted to try and prevent.”

“I understand that. But…” She sucks in a sharp breath and closes her eyes tight before she can start to cry. “Umm… your sister… if something happened to you, what would happen to her?”

I sit upright as the pieces fit together.  She wants some kind of reassurance from someone who actually knows what’s going on. That means either me or Gai. And while Gai might be more sociable, he doesn’t have a sibling.

Worse, considering she overheard what happened to Kitano, she has some clue as to what it’ll be like for those who are left behind if she dies. “So, you’re afraid that if you die here it’ll affect your entire family, right?”

She nods her head meekly. “I… I don’t want my brothers to have to live in this sort of future. So, I want to change it for them. But, I’m afraid that if I die here… if I die then I won’t be able to help them, or see them. I’m… I’m scared.”

From how she acts and what she says, I gather she’s basically a dutiful daughter who looks over her siblings. Her family dynamic is completely different from mine, so that’s not something I can really relate to. Then again, it’s not like she needs to know that.

“Saegusa, that’s how you’re supposed to feel,” I tell her. “There’s no shame in not wanting to die because you’ve got other priorities. After all, I wouldn’t be here if I had that same option.”

I don’t think any of us would, barring those who felt like playing the hero just because they could. And heroes tended to die young. I didn’t have any intention of doing that if I could help it.

“You can think on all of that once we get back,” I continue. “But right now, your focus needs to be on simply surviving. If you try thinking on everything else, you’ll collapse under the pressure and be no good to anyone—and that could cost someone else their lives. Understand?”

“I… I’ll try.” She nods her head slowly and smiles again, which only further affirms that she’s like a puppy. “Thank you, Matou-san. You really are a nice person.”

Not nearly as much as you think. It’s really more that we can’t have her breaking down now or in the future. Either way, she’s satisfied with the conclusion and gets up to leave.

One problem down. Now back to this mess of a future. The easiest way to deal with it is to find out as much as I could about the ones responsible and… then what? I had no way of proving any of it, and even if I did bring it to someone who could do something, which was a stretch since the Matou had no connections to those places, there was no guarantee they would—not to mention we’d probably end up being turned into lab-rats.

Which means we’ll just have to kill them ourselves. Not a surprise. What good were powers like Ayako’s if not for that purpose? What was the point of conditioning us to kill things that looked human like the homunculi if not to ready us to kill the ones responsible?

Nemesis Q’s tools of war. Cruel, but to the point. The Veterans and Ayako have no delusions about they’ve become, so if I can get the proof I need then they’ll act on it to bring this nightmare to an end and get on with their lives. In other words, his most-effective weapons were already in place and battle-hardened—they just need a direction to be pointed in.

And outside of an actual magus or myself, how many would recognize homunculi for what they were? That had to be why Nemesis Q dragged me in. But, assuming that was the case, why did it not summon actual magus into the future to deal with it?

What am I missing?

I try to think on it further, but my train of thought stalls when the building shakes again. It’s not only closer in time to the last time, but somewhat more violent as well, knocking Saegusa onto the ground and leaving the others more startled than before. Just how long would the building last at this rate?

BANG! The door to the backrooms opens and the red-haired guy… Inui, I think he was called, emerges. He appears pale as he looks up at the ceiling before fixing his eyes to the front door and, not quite running, but hurrying over to it.

“It’s not safe to go out—” He’s out the door before I can even finish. Tempting as it would be to let him go, I rise to my feet and reach out telepathically to the person who should have been watching him and the others in the back. ‘Gotou, what happened?

I have no clue,’ he states as he peeks his head out of the door. ‘I thought he was a little bothered by all the shaking, but after that last one he got this look on his face and took off. It reminded me a bit like you when you first came up to the temple.’

That could be a pain to deal with if that’s true. Still, we didn’t block off the exit so it’ll be troublesome if he gets picked up by one of them. Plus, last quake had riled up more than him. The Salaryman looked like he was ready to bolt next and, as much as I hate the thought of playing counselor for other people when I’ve got problems of my own, I’d rather deal with one person than a group.

I’ll go bring him back inside before he gets spotted. Keep everyone calm.’ Leaving out as he plays babysitter again, I walk down the corridor and find Red Hair just past the mouth.

He’s leaning against the wall with one arm outstretched, having finished vomiting when he spots me. He brings his hand to his head and shakes it. “I just need a minute, okay?”

“Look, I can tell from a glance that something about being in the building while its shaking triggered you, but you’ve got to come back inside.”

He naturally gets defensive. “I—”

I cut him off. “I’m not going to pry into whatever happened, but we spotted other Taboo following along with the worm and they’re stronger than me or Gotou, which is why we’re inside. If they spot you while Mitsuzuri is thinning them out, everyone is as good as dead.”

He looks down at the ground at that, silent in thought as clenches his teeth. Then he exhales sharply, straightens himself out, and turns towards me. But instead of taking a step forward, he takes one back as his gaze falls on something behind me.

I stick my head out of the corridor and into the streets to look in that direction.

Then my heart and lungs stop.

…Two homunculi are there. Both females with short white-hair and ruby eyes, dressed similarly to one another. One is hefting with ease a halberd that a grown man would struggle with, while the other is seemingly unarmed but has a robotic stare that seems to peer into my soul.

Just like the two from the castle.

The moment that thought comes to mind my stalled heart hammers at my chest as the world starts to warp. Blood pounds in my ears. Sweat beads on my face. Limbs go numb and tingle. It’s starting again. “Ah…ahhh…”

The unarmed one extends her hand out in our direction and my instincts start screaming for me to move. But I can’t feel my arms and legs. They’ve gone numb from the fear. I’ll die if I have another panic attack here and now, so I have to do something. But I can barely move anything except my mouth and teeth—


A sickening and wet sound of meat being torn joins pain flaring through my body as blood fills mouth. But it also brings clarity of mind, driving away the warping of the world. I spit out the blood and chunk of my inner mouth that I’d bitten off in desperation and fight through the pain to focus on my PSI so that—

Time slow.

—I can slow down my perception of time long enough to assess the situation. We were spotted and Ayako said they had some kind of hive mind so… well, hiding is out of the question. They all know we’re here now, meaning if Ayako hasn’t killed the majority off we’ll be overwhelmed soon.

Right, so I better call back Ayako. I can’t broadcast since I don’t know the distance and the atmosphere will erode the message, so Mind Jack it is. I don’t know the energy cost, but as long as it’s set to find her then it’ll seek her out and she’ll probably be able to deal with this at range.

But right now, I need to do something about these two before they kill us. The one pointing towards us has fired some kind of ring of Burst energy towards us while the one with the halberd is getting ready to move from the way her legs are positioned and her grip on her weapon.

I shift the Rise energy from my mind to my arms and legs to—

Time normalizes.

—grab Red Hair by his arm with my good hand and pull him behind me as I lunge forward. He falls down the small set of stairs leading down the corridor while I get out of range of the flying ring that’s roughly a foot around. It hits the building where he would have been and everything within that foot diameter abruptly gets destroyed—hollowed out entirely to reveal the interior of the club that we’d taken shelter in.

I can hear screams coming through. Did it go all the way through to the back? Did it hit someone? I can’t waste time wondering that, so I broadcast in that general direction. ‘There are two enemies! Get into the backrooms and keep your heads down!

Then I send out the Mind Jack to find Ayako. The sensation of the cord being woven from the energy permeating my body and then flowing out feels grating. But becomes a secondary concern as I use Sense-Rise in time to hear a footfall by the mouth of the corridor—

Time slows.

—and, under my lengthened perception of time, I see the other one has already made it to the entrance, coming out of a leap. Damn, she’s faster than I thought to have crossed the distance in that span of time. Was she one of the stronger ones that Ayako mentioned?

I reach into my sling for the blade of Ayako’s naginata resting against my injured arm to do something when my sharpened sense of hearing picks up the words “Straße gehen” coming from the one at range. Shifting my gaze in that direction shows she’s launched another ring of destruction. A larger one that forces me to leap to the right as—

Time normalizes.

—time goes back to normal and the ring erases the section of asphalt I was standing at. The meter-sized diameter gap runs between me and the armed homunculus that disappears down the stairs, out of my view. Damn it, I won’t be able to reach her before she gets into the building to kill them all.


The sound of metal being struck rings out and a white figure is sent flying from below and into the air. It’s the homunculus, rebuked by some great force considering the dent in her steel halberd being held horizontally in defense. She ends up somersaulting backwards before landing in a roll and getting back to her feet in front of me as Gotou emerges from below.

I grasp the makeshift handle of the naginata-turned-knife and pull it free, cutting through the cloth that makes up the sling for my broken arm. There’s a slight pain as the arm falls free, though not as much as the pain in my mouth. But I ignore them both as I bring the knife around for the chance to cut off her head.

She twists her body and hands, bringing the section of her halberd that was dented around to intercept it. The blade slides off it with a grating sound, deflected. She then leaps back as I flick my wrist and bring it around from the other side, removing herself from danger and staying there for a moment to assess the situation from her end.

I try to speak, but the blood pooling in my mouth nearly chokes me. So I broadcast my demand to her as I spit the blood out in front of me. ‘Where are your masters hiding, Homunculus?

A slight shift in her expression shows she heard me and her eyes glance over to the Mind Jack flowing out of my back. But her expression goes flat as Gotou rushes towards her. She jumps into the air as the German aria from the other one reaches my ears and I see the incoming attack, flying towards us in the blind-spot created by the armed doll being in front of me.

It’s slower than the last one but bigger, covering enough space that Gai will be caught in it as he lands. He might be able to strengthen his body to shrug off blows from physical attacks, but against that Burst attack it was too big of a gamble to risk. So I intercept him with a lunge that leaves us both falling in the center of the street just in time as the sidewalk and a segment of the building behind us were destroyed.

We get back onto our feet, only to find that they aren’t attacking us again just yet. The ranged one has her arm outstretched to fire again, but she hasn’t muttered a word. The one with the halberd is holding her weapon off to her side, resting the butt of it on the ground.

“Where is Atlasia?” she demands of me in a firm tone, standing maybe ten meters away. “If you surrender her location, we will spare your lives.”


Calling Card (Psyren x FSN -Nasuverse): Arc 3 – Chapter 15

Chapter 15

“You shouldn’t have read her mind like that, Shinji. It’s one thing to do that to a potential enemy, but some things are private.”

In the silence of the room only the two of us occupy, Ayako chides me while wrapping the splint around my arm after I explained what I had seen in the woman’s memories. Being lectured was not something I wanted to deal with, even under normal circumstances. But I tolerate it in silence with my back resting against the headboard of the surprisingly comfortable bed, which only needed a good dusting despite years of disuse.

Part of that tolerance is because it was Ayako doing it, who gets a pass for a variety of reasons—one of which being that she was significantly stronger than me. The other part is that she’s controlling the distribution of both the pain-killers and sleeping medicine. Both of which I need right about now. It just isn’t smart to get on her bad side there.

Well, at least Gai isn’t here to strain my tolerance. He’s stuck on babysitting the other survivors at the moment as they eat our food. In all honesty, I still think we should have minimized what we’d given them. Or at least reserved the majority for us, since we’re the ones who had to do the fighting.

But no. Ayako had him divvy it out to them all equally while I held my tongue for the reasons above. Hopefully Nemesis Q will pop up and declare the mission done before we starve.

“As for what happened, if I had to take a guess, the fact that you actually experienced her emotions is probably due to your abilities being amplified while in the future. Instead of overloading your senses like before, you probably ended up diving too deep before you knew what you were doing. Stick with what you’ve been doing for now, and we’ll test your limits when we get back, okay?”

“Fine.” I didn’t plan to experiment at all to begin with here. It was only because they had pressed me that I even used the Mind Jack in the first place. I have no desire to risk drowning in someone else’s misery when I have my own to contend with.

Ayako nods, both in satisfaction at my response and her own handiwork as she finishes tying off the splint. “As for your arm, Issei will have to see to it after we get back. If you had a few trips under your belt then your Rise might be balanced enough so that you’d heal faster. Then again, at least we have that option. The others won’t be so lucky if they get any serious injuries.”

“Speaking of them, what will we do with them? We can’t feasibly train them all with how far away they live in the past.”

Ayako brings her hand to her chin and closes her eyes as she mulls it over for a moment. “Makidera, Himuro, and Saegusa will work under us, but the others… most likely, we’ll see about having the Veteran who was helping Tatsumi’s group take over teaching them the basics. At least until Neko and the others set something up for them in the long-run.”

“If those guys and this Veteran are in contact, why didn’t he inform anyone of what happened before we got called back? We could have been walking into whatever killed the last group and had been clueless until it was too late.”

Her hair sways as shakes her head slowly and she opens her eyes. “He’s a far more distant teacher than Neko and the others, under the belief that holding their hands is pointless since everyone develops differently over time. I think they actually had a fight about that once, so he usually doesn’t contact us first. It may even be possible that he didn’t know that they were dead.”

That’s… going to complicate things in the long run. Ideally, it would be best if at least a third of them survived so we didn’t get called in to deal with another group’s mess like this. But if this guy is that neglectful, then I suppose our Veterans will have to manage somehow.

Ayako rises to her feet and stretches. Given that she’s removed her coat and torn her shirt for the makeshift splint, it displays more of her lower abdomen than proper.  “You know, you weren’t actually all that far off on what you told Tatsumi’s sister.”

I look off to the side before she accuses me of sneaking a peek like before. “How so?”

“He was in the camp of people who believed they were doing something grand to save the world. That we were chosen and given this power to do so. It was oddly optimistic coming from a guy near his thirties, but considering the circumstances he was reliable.”

He sounds more annoying than anything, but there must be something to it if Ayako speaks highly of him and he had more than a few trips under his belt. “What exactly was he capable of?”

“He created bird constructs out of either Trance or Burst Energy depending on the situation. The ones that were Trance-made could pass through solid objects and be used as scouts by looking through their eyes. The ones made of Burst could take on different properties to attack Taboo, like becoming fire or electricity, or made big enough to be ridden on. He was also capable of paralyzing people and Taboo with a glance to a certain extent, but his ability with Rise was horrible.”

In order words, he basically creates familiars to fight and spy for him. Between that, the paralysis that was likely similar to a Mystic Eye of some kind, and his Rise being horrible, he likely fought at range or acted as support. “He sounds like he would have been useful to have around for gathering information.”

He was.” Her tone shifts, becoming softer as her fingers curl up into fists. “And yet, Nemesis Q didn’t go out of its way to help him. It deemed him useless, otherwise it would have called me in and I could have done something. But no—instead it sends us on a recruitment drive to replace the losses, not even considering that the last thing Tatsumi would have wanted was for his sister to be pulled into this after seeing him like that.”

I can’t really say anything to that. If someone dies here, my guess is that their soul doesn’t return to their body in the past. They simply drop dead to all those unaware. For his body to be in that condition meant that whatever did it closed the distance and tore him apart just as he was being called back.

The silence stretches as Ayako stews on the loss of a comrade until she releases the tension with a deep breath and walks over to the door. “I’m going to go check on the others now. Get some rest.”

“Just remember to cover up or you’ll give the wrong impression to those survivors.”

She looks down to see her exposed midriff in mild surprise. Had she actually forgotten about that in light of everything? Either way, a telekinetic hand grabs her jacket and pulls it to her as the door shuts after her.

And just like that, I’m alone with my thoughts in the room. The previous conversation drags them back to that woman whose mind I delved into and the flood of emotions from when she saw her brother in that state. It was a poignant sorrow that still ate at me, unlike the fear-tainted terror for oneself that came from witnessing or being the target of a human malevolence that wafted off the memories from the grail.

It felt… pure, in a way. Such a raw emotion that made my chest ache and sucked all the hope from me. She had truly loved her brother and his death had stricken her in a way that I really couldn’t relate in terms of grief.

My father was drunkard and my mother had been disposed of shortly after she’d given birth to me. As for the Old Worm, I had Gilgamesh put him down without a second thought after he refused to acknowledge me. None of their deaths moved me in the same way that her brother’s brutal death had sank her heart, and as tempting as it would be to just separate it as a woman being emotional, the question lingers in my mind for a moment too long and a stray thought comes up:

Would Sakura grieve for me like that if I died here?

…A whisper in the back of my head tells me that, as forgiving as Sakura was, our relationship was far too tainted for the sorts of depth they had. Even if a part of her did grieve for me out of misguided compassion, she would undoubtedly feel some sort of satisfaction in it. Even if she’d deny with all of her heart, she would feel some vindication or justification for my death.

After all, I’ve done her wrong in ways that literally haunt my nightmares now and Sakura was still human. Rational and irrational, all humans bore the seeds of evil within them. Even the kindest person.

If they didn’t then they couldn’t be considered human.

And, upon drawing that dreary conclusion, I down the pills and lay down on the bed.


Shinji! Wake up!’

“—ggh!?” I awake startled. The horrors clawing at the fringes of my fraying consciousness retreat as the world bleeds in unfocused. Tears run from the corners of my eyes, stinging as a blurred shape gains definition.

My first sight of the day is Ayako’s eyes intensely peering into mine. She’s bent over from next to me, her fingers digging into my shoulders from the bracing grip she had. Her lips are pressed thin as her voice touches my mind again. ‘Are you awake now?’

Yauu—” Pain claws at my throat when I try to speak. I switch to Telepathy as I sit upright. ‘How long was I screaming?’

“A while now.” The tension in her body slowly melts as she releases me and reaches over to the nightstand for the half-finished bottle of water that I had been drinking before I went to sleep. She hands it over and continues to talk. “You wouldn’t respond when we tried shaking you awake, and I had been calling for you telepathically for a while now. What was that about?”

I wait until the water eases my throat before I answer, since I didn’t think she’d let me screaming for that long go unanswered. “I suffer from night terrors on and off.”

A frown forms on her face. “Since when?”

“A few months ago, after I was hospitalized. There’s nothing anyone can do about it, so I just take sleeping medicine and move on.”

“Even if you say that, it’ll be a liability on any mission where we’ll be here long enough to need sleep,” Ayako points out as she flops down on the side of the bed next to me. “We may actually have to gag you in that case.”

“I’d prefer it if we just got back to our own time period f—” My words die as the building rattles. The walls and ground shake enough that we can feel it, with dust falling from the ceiling and sprinkling down upon us.

Gai asks the obvious question. “Was that an earthquake?”

Ayako rises to her feet and heads towards the door. “I’ll go check. You two stay here and keep an eye on the others. If they notice the shaking they might start panicking, but just assure them that they’ll be fine until I get in contact.”

I watch her leave and then sigh, knowing it wasn’t over. It’ll probably come up again, so now I have to think of an excuse for the nightmares. What did they have me hospitalized for again? I try to think of something when I notice Gai staring at me, hand on his chin in thought.


“Does these nightmares have something to do with that freak-out you had on the mountain?”

“…Drop it, Gotou,” I warn him, crushing the now-empty bottle in my hand. “There’s nothing anyone can do to help me, so there’s no point in bringing it up.”

He shrugs but doesn’t say anything, so I guess he gets the point.

Then the walls start shaking again. It was more noticeable than before this time. If it gets worse then we’ll have to abandon this building or risk being buried if it collapses. But the shaking feels like its reminding me of something. I think I’m on the verge of remembering it when I feel Ayako’s voice touch my mind.

Gotou, Shinji, get out here now.’

Gai heads towards the door, catching from her tone that these aren’t just earthquakes.

I take my time since there’s not enough alarm or urgency to indicate we’re under attack. Still, it can’t be good and I don’t have the full use of my arm that got broken yesterday either. If it came down to a fight, I’d be at a disadvantage.

Well, my ability allows me to work without needing to be close either way. So I can babysit the survivors if need be while they handle the fighting. If whatever it is they’re dealing with is tough enough to kill them, we’re all dead anyway since nothing I can do would change the outcome.

Just to be safe, I grab what’s left of her naginata from the nightstand and slip it into my splint. The flat of the blade is angled so that it doesn’t cut the cloth or skin, but I can grab what’s left of the handle if needed and use it as a makeshift knife. That done, I head out the door after Gotou.

Inside of the corridor, I see that the shaking did wake the others up. Since there were only so many room and beds, it was easier to station those who knew each other into the rooms together and let them sort their own business out, though we made some exceptions. That Kitano woman who was the sister of the guy Ayako knew was instead paired off with the Nami girl.

Of the survivors who were in the corridor, one was that tough guy who caused problems, one of the three girls from the high-school group, and Himuro. The latter in particular stands with her arms crossed and the same stern face she normally has as she questions him, no doubt on behalf of Saegusa, whose head is sticking out of the opened door to their room.

I leave him to it as I open the door to the bar section. Given the number of people and the number of rooms, some of them had to sleep out here using the sofa. The three idiots were among them, along with the Salaryman, Red Hair, and the creepy guy.

Only the latter was awake though, laying on the bar counter with his head propped up by his elbow. He gives me a lazy wave before covering his mouth to yawn. Then he closes his eyes as though to just listen to his surroundings.

I brush it off as just being weird behavior on his part and head out the front entrance. The rubble blocking the entrance has already been pushed aside. I take a step forward only for the ground to shake again, costing me my balance and leaving me to brace the wall with my good hand until it stops and I can clear the corridor to reach the street-level.

Up here.’

Ayako’s mental voice guides my eyes upwards, to an adjacent building. She’s standing on the rooftop, her gaze set out in the distance. I can’t quite make out her expression without enhancing my vision with Rise-Sense, but when I do I find her lips fixed into a frown and eyes narrowed.

Gotou comes out of the building then and comes to a stop next to me. He doesn’t bother with using Telepathy and just shouts, “What’s going on?”

There’s a large Taboo here that’s knocking down the buildings. It’s taken out a good chunk of the city ruins already.’

Ah, that’s what I was forgetting. I knew something was knocking down buildings at the edge of the city, but not what. Since it wasn’t important at the time and I’d just gotten through having my arm broken, I pushed it aside.

Shinji, connect us and I’ll try to send a mental image of it.’

I create two Mind Jacks connected to the base of my skull and send them both out. They connect. Immediately, Ayako starts sending what she’s seeing through it to me and I pass that information to him.

Her vision is sharpened, as if she’d zoomed into the distance. A building is falling down, concrete and steel collapsing in a domino as something moves within a cloud of stone dust while upturned asphalt and earth marks a trail. A shrill, inhuman roar follows as her vision sharpens even more to focus on the figure in detail.

“It looks like a giant worm,” Gotou says aloud, as to not interrupt the information transfer from me to him.

Calling it a worm is something of an understatement. It’s long enough that each segment was the length of a train car, with round protrusions that leaked some kind of acid that allowed to eat through the ground easily. The head was bulky, with a helmeted front serving as the pilot that allowed it to plow through whatever was in its way and direct them over to the sides for the acid to dissolve.

I also notice that argent sand is left behind in its wake. The same kind that covered half of Fuyuki during the last trip. If it did work like a giant earthworm, was it decomposing solid materials and then leaving the sand out as excrement of some kind?

I don’t have long to think on it before my consciousness is abruptly ripped from my body. The next thing I know, I’m getting an aerial view of the worm tearing apart another block. Every single person we saved is floating around with us as well as Nemesis Q stands in the air above us and looks down on us.

“Send me back home!” yells the Salaryman towards Nemesis Q with a frantic look in his eyes. It sets off a chain reaction as the other start voicing their complaints and desires. I can even hear some threats towards the thing, which probably wasn’t all that smart considering we were currently out of our bodies by its power alone.

Though I don’t think it cares at all considering it remains unmoving with its arms folded behind its back. If that’s the case, could I float a Mind Jack towards it to see if I can understand it… no, it’s a stupid risk right now. Not worth it.

“It won’t respond to any of it, so don’t waste your breath,” Ayako tells the survivors. The pure disdain in her voice makes it clear that her hatred of it hasn’t quelled since the last time it appeared before us, at the end of the last mission. “Just wait for it to give us the mission.”

It takes them all a minute to settle down despite her telling them too. Understandable, given the source of their current problems was right in front of them. But once they do, Nemesis Q finally moves, pointing a long finger down to the ground.

Drifters—” its voice echoes in my mind as the Taboo continues to writhe around. “—destroy the Taboo to clear this round. Receive the power to change this future.

So it wasn’t meant to be a recruitment mission after all, but an extermination one. The recruitment was simply due to the loss of the other Drifters who were likely supposed to do this in the first place. Two birds, one stone.

“You can’t expect us to really fight that thing!” one of the high-school girls shouts.

“That’s right!” another one backs her. “We just want to go home!”

Nemesis Q continues to not care now that the mission has been given. It merely waves its hand and a falling sensation overcomes me. My consciousness rejoins my body back on the street not a second later and it takes a moment to get used to having weight again. Once I do, I start to think on the assignment.

The others who hadn’t been exposed to Nemesis Q outside of their dreams are likely even more disoriented. An opportunity to leave this nightmare behind was in front of them, but they couldn’t do anything about it while they were powerless. Really, only one person here could kill that thing.

I look upwards to where Ayako stands and send a simple question through our connection. ‘Can you kill it?’

Yeah, but not with the bolts. I’ll need to use an arrow, which means charging time and trading off my Rise and Trace. And since I can’t just guess how dense it is or where the core is, I’ll need to make it powerful enough to level enough of the surrounding area that the blast crater could pass as a lake—’

Her thoughts still as her attention turns to a silhouette in the dust cloud thrown up by the collapsing building. Her vision sharpens even more as the cold wind blows and thins the obscuring veil to reveal… no.

No, it can’t be.

Damn it, it’s a Soldier-class Taboo,’ Ayako sends through the line. ‘One of the weaker ones, but having one here means more are around too.’

She’s wrong. That’s not a Taboo. The moment I lay eyes on it, I know what it is.

I know because I’ve seen it before in the past.

It was months ago. At that castle, in that courtyard, I witnessed the hair that was as white as untouched snow in winter become heavy and dyed with the blood of its owner. I’ve seen those eyes that resemble rubies without any flaws become clouded as the head they were attached to fell onto the ground and stared up as the sword-propped corpse it was cut from. Gilgamesh had once said that humans would be naturally incapable of such features that were so pristine that they couldn’t have been left up to chances through genetics.

No, it was made through artificial means. A tool that was just a magic circuit sculpted into a human shape. It was a…


A shuddering breath leaves my mouth as the forest comes into my view. Becomes my world as I run through it aimlessly. I’m not thinking about anything other than trying to reach the edge.

Not now.

I can’t feel my right arm.  It was such as small stab from Lancer’s weapon, yet it robbed me of an arm that dangles uselessly. Not only have my chances of becoming a magus have been lost, but my defective body has become crippled too.

Not now!

I can only laugh as the pain hurts like nothing before as I come to a stop against a tree, at the edge of clearing that spreads out in front of me. Then Gilgamesh appears before me, mocking me for taking an injury he should have been protecting me from. He has the still-beating heart of the albino brat in his hands and says the words I never wanted to hear again.

“There’s another Master right here who can serve as an anchor, correct?”

No. No! N—

Squelch. Splosh.

…A wet, piercing sound reaches my ears. I look down to see his arm is inside my stomach. The heart is inside of my body. “Ah…? Ahh… ghh?”

Then the agony of still-beating heart after violating my body blossoms anew. The black mud fills every cell with liquid curses—hatred distilled that cursed me for my very existence. It warps and stretches, swelling without breaking as it boils inside the decaying and expanding flesh.

It hurts, it hurts, it hurts!

Countless worms squirm, writhe, expand the flesh and blood vessels to become a lump of meat that grows from my center and back. They won’t stop spreading. They won’t stop violating me.

Ith—urts, ithu—rts, ithur—ts, ithurts!

They invade my chest, breaking open the rib cage with a crunching sound and swallowing my heart. They invade my throat and rob me of air to strangle me from the inside out. Only a garbled choking sound would leave my mouth as the world swirls black and red.

And then the visions come.

A woman being ██████ with a █████ in front of her child. A corpse being ███████ for all to see, ████ wretched between their teeth as the people watch in glee at the desecration.

██████████ shows me nothing but horrors.

██████████ shows me the horrors born of man.

The evils of man. Their sins. Their wretched desires. Their base nature.

██████████ basks in it as ██████████ straps me to the throne overseeing it and I’m ██████████████ unable to ████████████████ as ████████████████ laughs!


HHAAAAAAHHH!!” I gasp as my vision clears. I’m staring into the ashen sky from the ground with Ayako’s face hovering above me a second time. She looks pale this time. “Haaaaahaaaa… hahaa…haaa…

“Are you back?” she asks.

I open my mouth to speak but words don’t come out. I try to send a message through the Mind Jack, but we’re no longer connected. I can only nod and make a croaking sound.

She closes her eyes and shudders before looking up towards Gai. “Take him inside and watch the others. I’ll go deal with everything.”

“Wait, didn’t you say you don’t know how many of those Soldier-class Taboo are around?”

“Yeah, I can’t be sure.” She rises to her feet and looks out to the distance. “They’re like roaches. If you see one then there’s more. But they’re weak enough and if I kill enough of them I should get a clear shot eventually.”

“Then I should go with you at least.”

She shakes her head. “These kinds are like scouts and are stronger than ordinary humans, but after a trip or two strength stops being the problem and their numbers do. Most of them don’t really speak or have personalities, but they’re capable of thought enough to plan tactics out and have access to the base-level PSI just like us. It doesn’t grow in strength, but pitting a newbie against them would just end up with you being overrun eventually… though there are exceptions, where one will be stronger than the others and stand out, I can handle one of those easily.”

“Even so, you need all of your energy for the shot, don’t you?” he asks. “Can you deal with them alone and have enough strength to do that?”

She glances back to me and then looks away. “It can’t be helped. Shinji isn’t the type to fight up close even if he wasn’t injured, and you haven’t had to kill something that looks so human before, so you might hesitate and these guys will take advantage of it. I’ll just have to try and conserve my energy until I find an opening and kill the worm.”

Then she leaves without another word while I can’t bring myself to move. But I caught that look in her eyes. The gleam within it that came from witnessing something so horrifying that you can’t forget it.

The reason the connection between us was severed was because she rejected. She saw something so horrifying that she instinctively severed it with all her might to try to get away from it. The fact that Gotou still has his and is mostly fine means it must’ve been something done on her part to see the memories, but that doesn’t matter—only the fact that she had seen something does.

But I can’t worry about even that now. My thoughts are on a single thing. A single question I can’t help but wonder the answer to:

Why is a Homunculus here?


Chapter 14






I blink. “What now?”





























“What’s wrong?”





















“Right, um…”








“Mine felt like a silken cord,” Himuro adds.

“A kimono sash for me,” Makidera claims.







“That’s right, Miss…?”

“Tamaki Kitano.”





















He was smiling even wider.














His lips purse thin, but he nods and stops struggling.






