Date A Mysterious Being

Chapter 27 - Death

“Huh…?!” Yoshino cried out softly as she did battle with the AST Wizards, dancing through the air on Zadkiel’s back.
She had condensed the water out of the air and formed it into icicles, and just as she was about to launch these at the Wizards, she was overcome by a strange sensation, as if a thin membrane set up around her own mind had been pulled away. Or as if a tree in her head had been yanked up by the roots.

“What was that… Huh? Huh?” A heartbeat later, she looked around with wide eyes.
What on earth was she doing?
Her head was filled with this fundamental question.
No, she did understand what she was doing. She had materialized her Astral Dress and her Angel Zadkiel and was fighting the AST.

But…why?

“Unh…” Her head throbbed when she had this thought.
Yoshinon inside Zadkiel also raised a curious voice.

“Huh? Yoshinoooo. What are we doing here?”

“Y-you, too, Yoshinon…?”

“Yeah. It’s, like, there’s a big hole in my head or something. I remember watching everyone onstage at the Tenou Festival… But. But. But.”
Yoshinon started to stammer strangely and wriggled its enormous body around like it was itchy.
Yoshino opened her eyes wide at this sudden movement. “Wh-what’s wrong, Yoshinon?”

“Mm, nah, it’s just I felt this different weird thing from the other weird thing…”

“Weird…thing?”

“Yeah, yeah. I dunno. It almost feels like, maybe my power being sucked away?”

“…?” Yoshino cocked her head to one side curiously. But they couldn’t have a leisurely conversation about it. The reason was simple. Wary of Yoshino and Yoshinon after they suddenly stopped attacking, the members of the AST all began to fire their Gatling guns at them.

“Eep!”

“Wh-whoa!”

Yoshino held her breath, and Yoshinon glided through the air, avoiding the rain of bullets at the last second.
But of course, the attack didn’t end there. Another group standing by to the rear turned laser cannons on them.

“Good! Fire!” a woman who appeared to be the captain cried out, and the Wizards pulled their triggers.
But a heartbeat faster than they were, a ferocious wind swirled down around the AST members.

“Ngah?!”

The absurd energy of it, a large-scale typhoon compressed into a few meters’ space, tossed the AST members and their Territories in all directions. The magical light released from their laser cannons stretched out into the sky or down to the ground, where there was no one to hit.

“Kah-kah! Light! So very light! This is what it means to fly. Although, well, an attempt to defend against a blow of our Raphael would perhaps be a crueler tale!”

“Question. Are you injured? Yoshino? Yoshinon?” The girls who brought about the wind flew lightly through the sky to Yoshino’s side.

“Kaguya… Yuzuru!” Yoshino shouted, and the sisters clad in the same maid uniform as Yoshino nodded firmly in response.
But even after being hit with that compressed hurricane, one shadow still came to attack the Yamai sisters. A girl in a suit different from those of the other AST personnel— Origami. She brandished her laser claw and charged toward the twins.

“—!”

But Origami was already seriously battered. Kaguya blew a compressed mass of air at her, which hit her squarely in the stomach, and Origami doubled over.
Yuzuru gently held up Origami’s body when it started to drop helplessly toward the ground. “Confusion. Master Origami. What on earth…”