Chapter 160: To Make the World Your Enemy (1)

Snap!

The sharp crack of Shiren’s fingers split the air, and with it, the colossal atmospheric "wall"—a force so immense it could have wiped the city from the map—shattered into countless fragments in an instant.

That said—

"Even if I forced it into 'failure,' it wasn’t negated like Imagine Breaker would!! Stay alert!! The after-effects of that 'failure' are coming!!"

And sure enough, her warning proved true. The broken wall scattered in every direction, unleashing murderous gusts of wind that tore across the battlefield.

The Doppelgänger’s massive alabaster arms shielded the surrounding city from devastation, while Souji dispersed the backlash with some unknown branch of "science."

Amid that chaos, Shiren charged straight ahead—without so much as raising a guard.

"Wha—She’s weaving through this storm…!?"

"Ev-en if I ha-ve lo-st my a-bi-li-ty, I am a spe-cia-list in air-flow ma-ni-pu-la-tion!! As long as my cal-cu-la-tion ca-pa-ci-ty re-mains in-tact, I don’t need any pow-er to con-trol winds of this le-vel!!"

It wasn’t her ability itself but her skill in applying it that carried her this far. Like so many of Academy City’s "heroes," Shiren’s mastery of air currents had long surpassed mere ability development—it had become an "extraordinary talent" in its own right.

"────!!!!"

The distance closed—five meters. Just as contact became inevitable, Vento moved. Even after her previous full-force strike had been nullified by some unknown effect, she recovered instantly, her adaptability as sharp and merciless as ever.

With a metallic clatter, the chain and cross hanging from her tongue swung through the air as Vento shouted:

"Didn’t I tell you!? Don’t underestimate God’s Right Seat!! Don’t you dare think mere wind compares to my power!!!!"

The raging torrents suddenly found direction, drawn to her command. The storm coalesced into countless wind-spears, all aimed squarely at Shiren.

But Shiren had already foreseen this. In other words—

"This causality—will twist!!"

Crack!! The wind-spears froze in midair, then shattered apart. At the same instant, Vento’s body convulsed, doubling over violently.

The failure of magic.

The backlash struck her in full, the penalty so severe that even her defensive wind barrier flickered and collapsed for a single heartbeat.

Shiren seized the opening.

Thud!! Her right fist smashed into Vento’s cheek.

The strike landed with crushing force, hurling Vento a full meter backward.

She did not rise.

The woman who had already disabled a tenth of Academy City’s defenses now lay sprawled on her back, silent and unmoving.

Final Chapter: I Don’t Know a Thing About Predetermined Harmony  -  Theory_"was"_Broken.
Chapter 134: To Make the World Your Enemy (1)  -  Punishment_for_whom?

"...I see."

Still staring up at the sky, Vento murmured quietly.

Of course, something like this wasn’t nearly enough to crush her fighting spirit. Even if Shiren’s fist had slipped past her spells and landed cleanly, it wasn’t the same as Kamijou Touma’s punch. His Imagine Breaker was one thing—but physically, he was still a high school boy. Shiren, by contrast, was just a middle school girl. And unlike that battle in the Imaginary Number District, Vento wasn’t weakened this time. Expecting her to be knocked unconscious so easily was absurd.

That was why Shiren kept her right hand raised in guard, aware of the allies backing her up.

Vento snorted at her caution.

"So that spell—no, that was an attack failure? The key is your right hand, huh? That’s a pretty—"

Whoom!!

A wall of storm winds burst around Vento, a whirling barrier between her and Shiren.

Shiren didn’t call on Odd Result Twister. It was obvious this barrier carried no offensive intent—it was just a shield. Misusing her power here could give Vento more clues about its conditions, and Shiren wasn’t about to hand that advantage away.

"What a cheeky trick, esper."

When the barrier vanished, Vento was already standing tall again. She wiped the blood from her mouth with the back of her hand, her eyes fixed on Shiren’s right hand.

"Your ability… it makes attacks fail, doesn’t it? But it doesn’t look like it works indiscriminately."

That gaze sent a chill down Shiren’s spine.

Vento of the Front.
First seat of God’s Right Seat.

As a "reader," what Shiren remembered most vividly was Vento’s involvement in the original events—the version who had fallen into Aleister’s trap in the Imaginary Number District, crippled by its suppression, her Ten Commandments spell neutralized by Imagine Breaker, her winds weakened, her psyche shaken after seeing Fuse=Kazakiri.

That was why Shiren had believed: if she prepared counters to the Ten Commandments and added Level 5-class esper power, they might not be able to defeat her outright, but they could at least protect the city. With Kihara’s support, even suppression seemed possible.

And in truth, Shiren’s analysis wasn’t wrong. With Doppelgänger and Kihara Souji here, pinning Vento down and minimizing collateral damage was within reach.

But she had overlooked one thing.

The Vento she knew had been battered, handicapped, and unstable.

This Vento carried no such weight.

The true Vento of the Front stood before them now—the same one who had refined and expanded the secret spell Rosario of Time for use with the Holy Spirit weapon Queen of the Adriatic Sea.

Though limited, that spell could even be wielded by ordinary magicians. Meaning that even after joining God’s Right Seat, she had the skill to dissect and reconstruct the Roman Catholic Church’s most hidden sorceries.

Which meant one thing: the woman facing them now had not yet been cornered.

"──!! Souji!!"

"You really push people hard, don’t you!?"

Bzzzzttt!!

From the UAVs floating around Souji, arcs of purple lightning tore through the air. One of their counters, prepared to handle Reicia’s black-and-white blade, Jagged Edge—the Anti-V Arms, an anti-esper weapon system. Yet the lightning bent harmlessly around Vento.

"What!? How does that even work!? Her power should just be manipulating airflow…!?"

"This is magic, scientist!!"

To control wind is to control the atmosphere.

And to control the atmosphere is to control the distribution of water molecules within it. Shift that balance, and the path of electricity itself could be bent aside. That was the scientific explanation—but Vento hadn’t calculated any of it.

The attack simply twisted away and failed.
The atmosphere arranged itself so.

Science had no clean words for it.

Magically, it was said like this: A wind barrier inspired by the divine gale that swept away the Great Flood, capable of repelling all disaster.

"And now—"

"Tch, this causality will twist!!"

Snap!! Shiren flicked her fingers.

But—

"So that finger snap is your trigger, huh?"

The winds only swirled harmlessly around Vento.

Odd Result Twister could only force hostile interference into failure. Air that merely circled its caster carried no malice, no impact. There was nothing for her right hand to "break."

(…! Damn it, I walked right into it…!)

Shiren’s mind reeled, but she forced herself back to focus.

Odd Result Twister was easy to analyze. Its activation was obvious, its effect distinctive. That made it easier to counter than most powers. Imagine Breaker had been overcome again and again. World Rejecter, far more lethal, had its weakness seen through and exploited by Kamijou.

This was no different.

But Shiren had learned from those precedents.

(So what if Odd Result Twister’s trick has been exposed? In that ‘correct history,’ Touma-san fought with a right hand far harder to use than mine. And more importantly—I have allies I can rely on! Like I’d let something this small shake me!!)

She raised her right hand into guard once more.

Vento smirked, her body tense despite her mocking words.

Yes. Even if the trick was out, Odd Result Twister was still a threat. Vento knew finger snaps were the key, knew harmless currents wouldn’t fail—but that didn’t erase the fact her sorcery had already been undone once.

"That right hand of yours… It’s like when the Apostle Peter cast down the magician Simon. To make desperate efforts and refined techniques fail—it’s a pretty arrogant power, don’t you think?"

Whoooom!!

Multiple tornadoes roared to life, encircling Vento.

Individually, they weren’t hostile—they were just ordinary tornadoes. But—

"But… once the trick is… known… countermeasures… become easy…!!"

Her voice began to fade, as if swallowed by the air itself.

Shiren blinked in confusion—then a massive impact slammed her from the side.

"You fool!! Why are you spacing out!? That magician—she’s manip-u-lat-ing air to block out sound!!"

The Doppelgänger’s white mycelium had struck her, pushing her out of danger. Shiren was knocked back, caught, then flung skyward by another tendril.

Boom!!!

A hole wide enough to swallow a human torso tore open in the mass of white fungus—right where Shiren had stood.

If she hadn’t been moved, she’d be dead.

The sight drove the reality into her throat like ice, locking it tight.

"Hah, I see now. By controlling the air, you can manipulate the way sound reflects, can’t you? From the perspective of airflow manipulation, it’s practically a superior version of Reicia’s Jagged Edge. In that sense, it’s hardly surprising you can do it."

Souji floated alongside Shiren, who drifted upward on the Doppelgänger’s mycelium, a swarm of UAVs circling around him.

He was probably using electromagnetic repulsion to levitate. But to Shiren, the principle was incomprehensible. And if you couldn’t understand the principle, then science and magic didn’t feel so different at all.

"So? What do you think? At this rate, your right hand doesn’t look like it’ll work on her."

"No… it will work."

Shiren’s reply was calm, in contrast to Souji’s almost playful tone.

"Odd Result Twister doesn’t require an attack to strike me first. Even once an attack is released, if Odd Result Twister touches it, I can still force it to fail. Vento knows that too—that’s why she erased sound around herself, so she can ‘nurture’ her attack within it. Tornadoes aren’t direct attacks, so Odd Result Twister—which only forces hostile interference to fail—doesn’t apply."

The tornadoes themselves carried no intent to harm. And because of that, Odd Result Twister couldn’t touch them.

That was precisely Vento’s plan: to create a soundproof barrier of tornadoes, then cultivate her spells inside that safe space where Shiren’s hand could never reach.

"…But something about that feels wrong. If the tornadoes are being used as a shield to prepare attacks, doesn’t that still count as hostility at the root?"

"That depends entirely on the caster’s perception. If someone could harm others without harboring even a flicker of malice, then my right hand would be powerless. Vento sees the tornadoes as nothing more than protection from me. That intent doesn’t register as ‘malice.’"

It was the same loophole Aleister had exploited against Reicia. From the outside, her actions were undeniably destructive—but because Reicia herself didn’t recognize them as hostile, she could bypass Odd Result Twister.

In that sense, Shiren’s right hand ironically resembled Divine Punishment. But unlike that spell, her ability didn’t discriminate by race or species. So long as the attacker recognized their hostility, Odd Result Twister would always force their strike to fail.

"But either way, unless we deal with that soundproof cage of tornadoes…"

The Doppelgänger, guiding Shiren with her "False Possession," cut in with a grim warning.

And as if to prove her point—

Shwooom!!

Another compressed spear of wind burst out from within the barrier.

Only thanks to the mycelium’s manipulation and the Anti-V Arms’ mobility could Shiren dodge. At this rate, though, they were locked firmly on the defensive.

Frustration slipped into her voice.

“Doppelgänger! How in the world have you managed to hold the line against this until now!?”

“By sheer numbers. I filled the battlefield with my mycelium, limiting the air she could control. With less atmosphere to command, her attacks weakened. But without the firepower to pierce her defenses, it was only a stalemate.”

Now, with Shiren and Souji fighting alongside her, that option was gone. If she flooded the space with mold, her allies would be caught in it too.

Instead, Shiren’s Odd Result Twister offered reliable damage against Vento, while Souji’s tech raised the odds of breaking through her defenses.

“At present,” Souji drawled, “the only card we’ve got that can definitely crack her defenses is Shiren’s right hand. Neutralizing her spells directly seems fastest, wouldn’t you agree?”

As he spoke, one of his UAVs suddenly veered off course. It locked onto one of the four tornadoes around Vento and charged full-throttle.

“Wait—Souji, what are you…!?”

Even if they were "only interference," those tornadoes were part of a spell on the level of an angel. There was no way a UAV could disrupt them. Sure enough, the drone was swallowed instantly, shredded apart. Vento didn’t even glance at it as she shaped her next spear of wind.

“Ohh, impressive force. Even as ‘mere barriers,’ their power already surpasses conventional weaponry. I’d hate to imagine what would happen if one of those hit me directly.”

Souji spoke in his usual detached tone even as he twisted away, evading a retaliatory spear by a hair’s breadth.

Invisible and fast, the wind spears forced Shiren into a deadly timing game—she had to see them before she could react. Dragged into such a contest, Odd Result Twister’s advantage was halved.

She clenched her teeth.

“If only… if only we could erase that soundproof space! Then I could nullify her attacks directly…!”

“No, no,” Souji said with a thin smile. “I’d say that’s no longer necessary.”

And then—

Without warning, Souji broke formation. Instead of following Shiren and the Doppelgänger’s evasive movements, he dove headlong toward Vento.

Shiren’s eyes widened. Of course, Souji had no means of piercing her defenses. The four tornadoes circling her were still active, strong enough to shred a UAV like paper. Recklessly charging in could only end one way.

“What are you doing!? Souji, that’s suicide! Just brushing against those tornadoes could tear you apart! We need to regroup, check your equipment—”

“…No. You’re wrong, Shiren. That bastard… ha, so that’s what he’s after.”

The Doppelgänger spoke, clearly grasping his intent.

And as if to confirm, Souji said it himself:

“True enough—what I’m doing is reckless. I’m throwing myself into the same tornadoes that just tore a drone to shreds. Anyone can see what’ll happen one second from now. …Yes, anyone. Including Vento, watching from the front.”

He let the words hang like bait.

“…Ah.”

Shiren finally understood.

Odd Result Twister’s effect hinged on the attacker’s recognition of their hostility. Even if an act was objectively harmful, if the caster didn’t realize it, her hand could not twist it away.

But what if you forced them to realize?

“Tornadoes with the destructive force to tear a UAV apart… and someone diving straight into them. If she sees that and still chooses not to cancel her spell—that’s hostility, isn’t it?”

So easily.

With a cruel grin, Souji had sown malice into her heart. Even though Vento couldn’t hear him through her silence, he still spoke the words, almost like a curse:

“This is what it means to be a Kihara. If you think malice only comes from inside yourself, you’re dead wrong.”

And with Souji’s words backing her, Shiren snapped her fingers:

“──This causality shall be twisted!!”

Snap!!

The sound rang sharp and clear.

And in an instant, the soundproof wall encircling Vento vanished without a trace.