Mana visited Sano's hospital room to ask about Akira. Mikiya did a background check and found out the tragedy of Sano's life was just bad timing. He was an active and studious member of his university, with multiple published papers, but was a victim of the university's loss of income and was kicked out with no time to prepare. Sano commented Akira always looked afraid of something, but she should be fine if Mana is with her. He looked at the rising moon and told that Akira hated white rabbits. That's all he could say before falling asleep again. Mana then left to call Mikiya.
On his way back to the himorogi, Yukinoubu found Iizuma sending the black lanterns down the river for the ritual. Iizuma is a weird grunt. She wears a blindfold under her mask, is the only person in the organization to call Yukinobu "Yuki-san", and clearly lacks a healthy way to cope with her envy toward the Clock Tower's more privileged mage status. He ordered her to find Rin and Gray, so she started playing her biwa, causing black paper to float around her and fold itself into origami cranes. Despite the similarities, those are not shikigamis, as the Yakou's magecraft system isn't onmyoudou. Her melody ordered the cranes to fly, and they started searching the area.
Gray was using her scythe to cling herself and Rin to a cliff wall. The escape seriously hurt Rin's wallet. After dumping 4 gems into it, she's out of expendable material. All she had left were the really precious stuff she'd rather save. But they succeeded in escaping Yukinobu and now had a chance to infiltrate and rescue Akira without fighting him again. Rin was very concerned about the magecraft using his subordinates. The Clock Tower has simplified rituals for groups, but that kind of Crowd Magecraft that takes effect immediately is a tactic you very rarely find outside of encounters against the Holy Church. Them not using that trump card in Tokyo means they can only do it in their mountain. Gray asked about the Inaba rabbit mentioned in the last chapter and she told the whole story, and how it revealed the identity of the Yakou's god. The name Kuchinawa confirmed it was a Japanese snake god, but that only narrowed the list of candidates down to 4. Ugajin, Mishaguji, Takeminaga, and Oonamuchi. With the Inaba Rabbit connection, they now knew it's Oonamuchi. Oonamuchi's status as the kami ruling the land of the dead also explained Gray's constant comparing it to the Blackmore graveyard. Unfortunately, the mountain didn't have the phone signal to inform Waver. They climbed to the steady ground and came into contact with the origami birds, which sicced a swarm of
chimi on them. Gray fights them alone because her gravekeeper knowledge makes her a perfect counter.
Meanwhile, Ergo and Waver were having a somewhat less easy of a time with their own swarm of chimi. Ergo worried about the other two, but Waver assured him that with Gray's expertise, she might as well be the best person in the whole Clock Tower to deal with chimimouryou.
After some testing with Grim Reaper, Gray figured out that the chimi just mindless attack any foreign body "like the zombies from Flat's video games". She turned Add into the boomerang, threw him to the sky, and made him cast a pillar of shadow to the ground. The chimi all blindly rushed to the pillar, which Gray then burst. It's like a variation on the Baptism Rite. The move isn't as physically destructive as the size of the explosion suggests, but its power to cleanse mana is astounding.
Akane sensed all the chimi in the mountain being wiped out in an instant and got impressed. She recognized she was outmatched and decided the only feasible game plan was to finish the ritual before they got there. At least the biggest threat, Ruolong, was already contracted. Luckily enough for her, Yukinobu arrived.
Meanwhile, inside the box, Ruo could feel himself connected to someone. This contract being possible confirmed that Zis bet him and lost. He's still salty about that. Outside the box, the grunts started chanting the furube, causing Ruo's ribcage to open and his heart to float out of it, with all the blood vessels still connected.
The sun set and the Yakou grunts were forming circles around Akane and Yukinobu, using the same Crowd Magecraft as before to connect their Magic Circuits. It was the day of Akane's metaphorical death as a mage, and she was satisfied with the end she was getting. Akane put on her mask, made a cut in her finger, and let the bloody fingerprint sink into the Black Chest. The area became a black Mirrored Field and Akane's shadow became a 3D shadow of Akira with long hair. Akane ordered Akira to remember, but it wasn't working because of Ruo's Yuepozhou, as Akane noticed by moonlit wings around her. Akane was admired he could still keep that up with his heart pulled out, but he's already restrained by her contract, so she wasn't worried. Under normal circumstances, their divine body was inferior to a Wandering Sea masterpiece, but since Zis lost the bet, Akane can push her Circuits to the limit and order Akira to remember her darkness and eat the demon of the Wandering Sea.
The miasma was denser up the mountain, but chimimouryou weren't occurring anymore, and Add could safely eat the bad air from inside his cage. Gray and Rin got past the place where they fought Yukinobu and saw Ruo's giant wings of light above the mountain. The white wings were being painted black.
Akane's mask split in half as the wings engulfed the box and the tree. Akira ate the remaining 20% of the Divine Body. Akane burned the last of her Magic Circuits for that but she was satisfied. Yukinobu was piloting the ritual now. He'll make the Divine Body absorb Ruolong. He also gave half of the ritual members for Hashibami and Iizuma to stop the Clock Tower mages with. A non-mage yakuza leader entered the ritual grounds to report something to the two family heads. Akane claimed it was not a big deal and that she would settle it alone since she wouldn't be of any use in the ritual anymore.
Waver saw what was happening to the giant wings in the sky and immediately recognized it's Akira eating Ruo. This was only possible if the Yakou's god and Ruo's dragon had an established connection. To explain what linked them, Waver went into a biased tsundere lecture about Iskandar's role in the start of the Human Order. In the last stages of the Age of Gods, he mixed faiths and cultures from Greece, Egypt, India, etc. taking great effect in the state of the gods almost everywhere. This eventually lead to the Chinese gods being imported to Japan, which links to the origins of the yakuza because one of their precursors were Shennong worshippers. The Yakou's god is Oonamuchi, who fits the slot of Chiyou as an imported Chinese god, and Chiyou was killed by Yinglong, a winged dragon. But that didn't mean Ruo's dragon was Yinglong. Waver would have already figured it out the other day if it was that simple. Waver believed the dragon and Ergo's second god were also linked by Iskandar's route. Before he could continue, the two arrived at the scene of a pre-fight.
Rin and Gray were facing off against Hashibami and Iizuma's squad. They were under Yukinobu's orders not to kill if they could help it, but again, Iizuma didn't look stable enough to follow that. Waver and Ergo regrouped before the first skirmish. The two pairs confirmed with each other that the Yakou god was Oonamuchi. Ergo felt Ruo calling and jumped ahead of the enemy crowd, with Rin's cover fire allowing him to safely proceed. The fight started with Gray fending off Hashibami's pair of short spears and Iizuma's reinforced origami birds while Rin prepared
Pseudo-Jewels
Pseudo-Edelsteine
to debut her new
Five Stars in Circulation
Fünf Sterne im Umlauf
power up.
Pseudo-Edelsteine is an application of a magecraft called Projection.
It's a magecraft used to create temporary replicas to be used in rituals and whatnot, and under normal circumstances, the projections don't last longer than a few minutes. Rin knew a ridiculous exception, and a thesis for a new formula titled Shell Projection was published in the Clock Tower, but the popularly known Projection Magecraft is an extremely inefficient category.
However, upon seeing Rin's Jewel Magecraft, El-Melloi II made the following comment:
"You don't even a few minutes. A second should be enough."
It made perfect sense.
If the jewels are going to be spent immediately, they only need to last a second.
There's no need to last a few minutes. And they can be composed with one 100th of the magical energy if they don't need to last. After all, they're nothing more than catalysts to polarize Toosaka Rin's magical energy.
And what she's using right now takes this a step further.
With Fünf Sterne im Umlauf, Rin could quickly switch between a wind drill spell to counter a giant water snake and a lighting rod spell to counter a lighting strike, defeating the Yakou mob with those. Crowd Magecraft was above her power level but she still managed to beat them through spell compatibility advantages. Her new mode is a trick to fight and defeat opponents beyond her league, exactly what Rin asked for in volume 2. Being a dedicated counter-based fighter in the world of magecraft normally doesn't work for two reasons. The first is that your options are limited by elemental affinities. And the second is that even if you are an Average One to have the solution for everything, there's no time to wait for the opponent to cast a spell, figure out what it is, then devise your counter-spell. Fünf Sterne im Umlauf solves that by making its circle of temporary gemstones double as both the telescope and the laser cannon. The mode uses the 5 elemental jewels all preloaded with her spells, so all she needs to do after figuring out what she's against is to quickly swap the lens and pass the metaphorical light (magical energy) through it. Analyze the enemy move through the viewing lens, pick an already active option, and respond immediately. Gray also took a compatibility advantage by turning Add into the halberd and rushing up the staircase, knocking off one of Hashibami's spears. As for Iizuma, well, paper burns, so she got countered by Rin's fire.
The wings were only half black when Ergo got to the ritual grounds. Ergo and Yukinobu exchanged introductions, with Yukinobu immediately recognizing Ergo's connection to Ruo and his brother's mask on his hip. Ergo refused Yukinobu's request to put on the mask. Genma told him to chose when he wears the mask, so he thinks he didn't get the mask to fight Yukinobu with. Yukinobu commented Ergo didn't feel like the same person he saw earlier in the Garan no Dou. Ruolong's best friend claims didn't make Ergo remember anything, but he still felt like his wish to meet and defeat Ruo disassembled and reassembled his identity. And the new him hated the thought of Akira being used the way she was. Genma also asked him to save Akira. Despite this, Yukinobu took Genma's mask for the ritual.
. An oni mask with two horns on the forehead and crescent moons under the eyes. Masked Yukinobu had the mobility advantage with his bunny hops, and attacked with his claws. The ritual participants were chanting a song from Okina, causing the ground inside the Mirrored Field to shake. Every Ruo feather that touched the ground changed into a dark snake. Yukinobu thanked that his mother, his right-hand duo Hashibami and Iizuma weren't there, and covered his body with the snakes.
Akane went to the temple's main hall to receive the visitor she was reported about. The main hall was silent because of two whole barriers preventing the ritual grounds from disturbing the outside. She avoided losing the Yakou's treasure and her wish was about to come true. What could possibly go wrong? She greeted the visitor, Mikiya.
He was dressed in a really formal kimono, informing her that the conversation would be serious and important.
Originally Posted by Hawkeye
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