"It's easy, isn't it? If I just say that it's the result given by the Oracle, everyone moves about in interesting ways. Everyone carries out your orders, no matter how strange they are. Like, 'Pretend to show no hostility towards the Undead.'"
The moment Shade spoke these words, his face's convulsions stopped.
"Surprised? Murakami heard from Gazer, so he knows it. That's why I've decided that I'm definitely going to kill you," Shade said, picking up a hand grenade that he had acquired beforehand by saying that it was needed for the Oracle's orders. "Even if I take your body, it's not like I can use your abilities or magic. So, I'll be using a method that will definitely kill you. Ah, if you don't have a body of your own, killing yourself takes some time, too."
The reason Shade could only take over a living human's body once was because once he did so, he would fuse with that body and never be able to leave it.
In other words, if Endou Kouya died, Shade would die as well.
He could die. He didn't have a physical body, but he could die just like everyone else!
"I could wait three hours for the false information that I created using Endou Kouya's body to spread across the world, but... I don't want to be the only one left alive when everyone else has died."
Shade pulled the pin from the hand grenade, held it in his mouth and closed his eyes.
"Goo' naah..."
-------------------------------------------
"Jack, Gazer, Mao Smith, Endou Kouya and Shade have gone," Enma announced to his companions.
He was a boy whose entire eyes were black, even the parts that were supposed to be white.
The Eighth Guidance's base... or to be more precise, the battlefield that Pluto and the others had prepared for the decisive battle, was a ruin in Northern Europe.
It was a historical ruin in the middle of what had been turned into a barren wasteland filled with rocks by an ultimate weapon that had been used in a previous great war.
The infrastructure and everything else was dead, and staying here for extended periods of time would normally be impossible. Pluto and the others were using the subway system beneath this desert as their base.
The remaining members of the Eighth Guidance, who surrounded a large table that they had found in the ruins, all directed their gazes towards Pluto simultaneously.
"So, have the others died?" Pluto asked, not moving a single eyebrow despite the gazes of her companions.
Enma, who possessed an ability that told him the names and faces of those who had died, closed his eyes in concentration for a few moments before replying. "No, the names of Amemiya Hirotoand the others aren't there. The others aren't there, either, so they're all still alive."
"Maybe they're fatally wounded but just haven't died yet," said Isis, a black woman.
But Enma shook his head. "They possess advanced magic of all attributes, and are the users of more powerful abilities than ours. They have Magic Items, too. If a few of them are unharmed, the rest of them will recover. Only instant death is certain."
"I see, then I suppose they'll be headed this way right about now," said Valkyrie, crossing her arms.
She was a tall, beautiful woman with long, platinum-blonde hair.
The Bravers couldn't turn back just because one of their allies had been killed. The special forces of every nation were already spreading out around this area.
More importantly, they would take action to avenge their companions. The leader, Amemiya Hiroto, seemed to want to save the Eighth Guidance, which made things complicated, but that wouldn't make him change the plan.
Even if Amemiya Hiroto stopped the plan now, the special forces were already moving. If they ran into Murakami and the others, they would be annihilated. That would mean that the Bravers had canceled the plan that they themselves had suggested, leaving the special forces to die.
Of course, even if that didn't happen, Shade's handiwork would cause the Bravers' reputation to plummet regardless.
Causing the Bravers' reputation to plummet was little more than harassment; it meant nothing in particular to Pluto and the others. Either way, they would be dying soon, and they didn't care about what happened after they died.
However, they thought that it would be good if, after they died, the surviving Bravers suffered. But that was all they thought about it.
"Well then, Murakami and the others will be betraying us soon," said Izanami, a barely human-shaped creature whose sex couldn't be determined, with protuberances the size of babies' heads growing all over its body.
But nobody denied those words. They had already established that Murakami and the others, who had betrayed the Bravers, would betray them as well.
"So, what are we going to do, Pluto?" asked the sweet-looking Baba Yaga, who had her hair in braids.
"Let's see. For now, let's finish eating," said Pluto, pointing at the numerous onigiri on the plates lined up on the table.
They were in the middle of a meal.
They were upholding the Eighth Guidance's rule of all sharing a meal together at least once a day.
However, as Shade had no physical body, he had always just passed some food through the stomach of whatever corpse he possessed, and several days ago, he had gone off to act separately from the rest. And because Mao's stealth fighter had departed earlier than expected today, Jack and Gazer had disappeared partway through the meal.
"Good night, Jack, Shade, Gazer. Let us meet on the other side," Pluto said.
"I wonder about that, maybe Shade is sleeping right about now. At night, he always complained that he couldn't sleep because he didn't have a physical body."
"I wonder what Jack and Gazer are doing? Do you think they managed to say hello to the Undead?"
"Hmm, knowing those two, I'm sure they would be too nervous to be able to say anything."
"Well then, Shade won't have any time to sleep, either. He'll have to introduce those two to the Undead."
The members of the Eighth Guidance ate the onigiri that contained various different ingredients as they shared this conversation.
The onigiri made with the rice that the Undead had apparently said that he wanted to eat while he was alive.
And once they finished eating, they stood up and left the table.
"Well then, may we meet again on the other side."
The final meal together had ended. Now, their lives in this world would come to an end.
"..."
Pluto, who was the last to finish eating her onigiri, turned her gaze to the seat in which Hitomi had been sitting. Hitomi's final prediction bothered her.
"Pluto. You will turn a blind eye to two of them," Hitomi had said.
"I'll turn a blind eye to two of them... not spare them, but turn a blind eye to them, which means either the Bravers or the soldiers, right? It's definitely the latter, isn't it?" Pluto murmured.
Pluto would probably turn a blind eye to two soldiers who would say that they had a fiancé in their hometown, or that they had young children and a pregnant wife waiting for them to return, or simply cry pathetically for their mothers.
Pluto having a long-lost sibling among the special forces... such a situation wouldn't happen.
But it would certainly not be the Bravers.
"Because I would never turn a blind eye to those guys," Pluto said.
Bravers: Endou Kouya, Mao Smith, deceased. Two casualties.
Eighth Guidance: Jack o' Lantern, Shade, Minuma Hitomi the Gazer, deceased. Three casualties.
The anti-Bravers led by Murakami: All nine members still alive.
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