Chapter 161: To Make the World Your Enemy (2)

『──Just a little.』

Once, in a world unlike this one — in the correct history — a certain boy clenched his right fist and spoke those words.

He stood before an external enemy, one who sought to destroy the city and kill his friends.

"I’ll save you."

Even as his strength was fading, that boy — a powerless Level 0 — said those words to a woman hidden deep within the inner sanctum of the global religion known as the Roman Catholic Church.

"Go back... and do it over again."

He tightened his small, ordinary right hand — a hand that couldn’t even beat a delinquent, couldn’t score well on tests, couldn’t make girls like him.

"You big idiot!!"

And yet, he truly did save that foolish woman — the one who had borne false sins and turned the whole world against herself.

──Now then, in this history...?

Final Chapter: I Don’t Know What “Predestination” Means  -  Theory_"was"_Broken.
Episode 135: To Make the World Your Enemy (Part ②)  - Punishment_for_whom?

“You idiot—!!”

“Thank you, Souji-san!!”

As the tornado vanished, Shiren leapt forward, taking Souji’s place before it. Seeing that, Vento glanced aside—and clicked her tongue in frustration.

She hadn’t lowered her guard against the Result Twister. She had even structured the airflow so that if the soundproof barrier lifted, a chain reaction would trigger other gales from all directions. Yet—every single one of those setups had failed.

Technically, it could be explained. Choosing “to cancel or not to cancel” the soundproof barrier and accidentally disrupting a partially active vortex could throw the air currents into chaos, collapsing the follow-up winds. That worked on paper. But if anyone asked whether Vento, a “professional magician,” would make such an error at a critical moment—then the abnormality was clear.

(This isn’t about the process—it’s the result itself that’s being twisted into failure…!!)

Thus, that right hand distorted the outcome itself: the Result Twister.

At this distance, any counterattack risked injuring someone. Souji had made her realize it. She couldn’t use her spells now; any attempt would fail upon activation, and the backlash would strike directly inside her body.

In other words, Vento’s only remaining option was her wind-based defensive magic. But even that wasn’t meant to safely block a physical strike like a punch.

Of course it wasn’t. Her magic was angelic in scale. Anyone striking her with bare fists would have their fingers crushed instantly by the wind itself.

And once she realized that, she couldn’t act without malice.

(Damn it… that brat’s a real nuisance…!!)

Vento released her defensive spell—she couldn’t risk a misfire—and froze at what she saw.

Beyond Shiren, charging forward with a clenched fist, and behind the still-standing Kihara Souji—

“Now then, thanks to Shiren, I can use Solution Number 115,320,001.”

The Doppelgänger had formed a spear from fungal threads.

If Vento tried to counterattack, any magic she used would automatically scale to angel-level power. Avoiding Shiren’s involvement was nearly impossible. Souji had made her realize it. At this range, she could no longer use magic freely. The Doppelgänger had set up a strike that would kill her instantly unless she defended with magic.

(Damn you… you science-soaked bastards…!!!!)

Even in this final, desperate moment, with all options exhausted, Vento resisted. She swung the hammer in her hand, striking at the oncoming Shiren.

“You think I’d break from something like this, you damn pawns of science!?”

“This causality... will twist.”

Before her, Shiren snapped her fingers—

“This is the e—augh!?!?”

—And in the very next instant, a pure white giant spear slammed into her back.

Result Twister.

An extraordinary power dwelling within Shiren’s right hand—its ability was to force failure upon any hostile act that occurred within the range of the sound produced by that hand.

The degree of “failure” depended on how far the action had progressed. If failure occurred the moment an opponent merely intended to act, and the action wasn’t supernatural, their thoughts might spin uselessly without further consequence. But if the failure occurred while they attempted to use magic or psychic power, miscalculations or disrupted energy flows could inflict severe backlash damage.

If the failure happened after the action was physically executed, there was no internal backlash—only an ordinary miss or an attack collapsing in midair. For example, a spell meant to “destroy everything in the area” would simply dissipate harmlessly, though the collapsing energy might still harm bystanders. Defensive measures were still necessary.

However, if an attack born of malice toward a specific individual was forced to fail, that target alone would remain unharmed.

Like Imagine Breaker or World Rejecter, Result Twister did not discriminate between kinds of malice. As long as the sound from Shiren’s right hand reached them, anyone—friend or foe—attempting hostile action would have their actions forced to fail.

At that moment, Kihara Souji, whose every action carried some trace of hostility, had his thoughts forcibly twisted, leaving him frozen for an instant.

And at that moment, the Doppelgänger’s massive white spear—swinging in hostility toward Vento—failed. Instead, it struck Shiren squarely in the back, the very person it was meant to protect.

“W-what…!? This is… a failure!?”

Shiren’s slender body was lifted into the air like a dry twig, flung past Vento, who stumbled as her own attack was simultaneously forced to fail.

It was Vento who was most shocked. The situation was locked. Unless the enemy had committed a critical error, there should have been no possible future in which Vento survived this.

(They… miscalculated the final blow? A failure? …A ‘failure’!?)

Even in that extreme moment, Vento quickly parsed the chaos and understood. This was the effect of Result Twister—a human error born from failing to grasp the full nature of that right hand, which twists causality itself. Or perhaps this entire outcome was the “negative side effect” accompanying the “positive” of wielding such a hand.

“…Aha☆ What’s this, what’s this!? Don’t tell me that girl’s right hand also forces her allies’ attacks to fail!? Aahahahahaha!! You’ve got to be kidding me! What kind of idiot gets killed by her own allies’ attacks!?”

Vento laughed, mockery lacing every word. This should have been a perfect opportunity—a once-in-a-lifetime chance to eliminate an overwhelming enemy. Yet the opponent had thrown it away, crushing their own trump card—the strike that could have broken Vento’s defense. For her, it was an unexpected blessing, and she wasn’t about to waste it.

In this fleeting instant—the fungal interference in the air minimal—Vento could finally unleash her true power. She gathered the air, shaping it into a massive hammer—

“…This causality will twist.”

Snap.

The sound of a finger snap—one that shouldn’t exist—echoed. Her spell was forced to fail.

“Huh… eh?”

Her vision tilted. She realized she was on her knees only when something hot rose in her throat.

“Wha—what the he—gghhaaa!?!?”

A red-black mass spilled onto the brick street, streets that resembled an old European townscape.

When she weakly looked back, she saw a young woman standing there, swaying slightly but still upright—Shiren Blackguard.

“Im…possible…!? You—! You took that hit meant for me square in the back! You didn’t even have the means to defend yourself! That was a lethal strike designed to erase an enemy completely! How are you still standing!?”

“Did I ever once say I intended to kill you?”

Vento’s expression wavered as Shiren replied with genuine confusion, tilting her head slightly.

Even the Doppelgänger and Souji—who had moments ago radiated aggression—now averted their eyes awkwardly.

Vento couldn’t comprehend it.

“What the hell are you saying…!? I came here to destroy science! I don’t care about civilians or noncombatants! I came to crush that hateful thing called ‘science’!! And you’re telling me—that strike, at that perfect moment—wasn’t even meant to kill me!? That it only did this much damage!?”

“Well… since I’m still standing, I suppose that’s the case.”

Even with Vento’s hostility directed at her, Shiren responded calmly, almost casually—as if a small exchange of blows or a little goodwill were hardly worthy of the word “noble.”

As if drawn by that quiet composure, the venom faded from her two allies as well.

“…It’s not like I held back out of pity,” Souji said flatly. “You were close to the line of fire. I reduced the output in case of friendly fire. The spear would still have infected you with fungal possession if it had hit, anyway.”

“Well, ‘nonlethal’ was our Lady’s order, after all,” the Doppelgänger added with a smirk.

The “genre” of battle had changed. It was no longer a life-or-death struggle to protect the city from invaders, but a fight to protect something equally precious—while still guarding the city itself.

No—only Vento had believed, from the start, that this battle was nothing but a grim exchange of lives.

There, Vento realized: Shiren’s right hand certainly had the power to “fail” any action based on malice. But that effect was limited to the sounds emitted from her hand. Vento’s “Divine Punishment Formula” had already been triggered and was still functioning, untouched by failure. Whether the formula was immune because it sustained itself automatically or for some other reason was unclear. One thing was certain:

Shiren wasn’t evading God’s Right Seat’s trump card via her right hand. Then what mysterious technique allowed her to escape the Divine Punishment Formula?

There was only one answer.

“You lunatic…!!!!”

This woman—even after all this, even after her own city had been attacked—harbored not a shred of hostility toward Vento of the Front, one of God’s Right Seat.

There was no trickery.
No right hand that cancels powers.
No mind capable of harming without malice.
No will of some machine with a sealed heart.
None of those unfair tricks.

It was simply an ordinary mentality. Nothing more than the everyday empathy of “the other side must have their own reasons.” And that alone placed her outside the Divine Punishment Formula’s targeting.

Even now, as she swung her fists and drove Vento back, Shiren did not see Vento as an enemy. She continued to feel sympathy for whatever lay deep within her opponent.

Of course, Vento must have had her own reasons for joining the battle. But there was no malice, no true hostility in her actions.

Because Result Twister was indiscriminate.

Had Shiren been charging forward with intent to harm while snapping her fingers, even as the wielder of that right hand, her attacks would have “failed.” Yet her actions had never failed once. Why?

Be-cause—even if they caused momentary harm—she acted with certainty that, in the end, it would lead to saving the other person.

The exact opposite of the previous theory.

It wasn’t that “malice” existed outside a short-sighted causal calculation and thus didn’t “fail.”
It was that “good will” existed within a much larger causal calculation, rendering the intent of the action itself irrelevant.

Then the woman standing before Vento now—

“Don’t… mess with me…”

That simple truth grated on Vento’s nerves more than anything else.

“Don’t mess with me!! No hostility? Good will that even encompasses malice? There’s no way I’m accepting such a ridiculous story!! Do you have any idea what kind of thoughts I poured into weaving this formula… what kind of thoughts I embraced to make the entire world my enemy!!!! I said don’t screw with meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!”

Vento swung her hammer like a tantrum, detonating shards of compressed air midair. The shockwave-born currents assaulted Shiren from every direction.

Shiren didn’t use Result Twister. She must have judged that any further accumulated damage inside Vento’s body could be life-threatening.

Instead, the deadly windstorm veered perfectly aside as Shiren took a single step to the right.

“…It’s not simply that you missed. The ‘air currents’ that form when I move—though slight—distort the flow. All I need to do is slip my body into that tiny safe zone created by the distortion.”

“Don’t you dare… explain my magic with ‘science’!!”

CRASH-CRASH-CRASH-CRASH!! Vento swung her hammer wildly, and with every movement countless shards of wind erupted.

“Hah! This time I’m not even aiming!! I’m just spawning random shards of wind! Whoever gets hurt—that’s none of my concern!! You can’t make me ‘fail’ this!!”

At such close range—for Vento, unable to deploy a defensive formula for fear of “failure”—it was far too dangerous a double-edged sword.

And yet Vento laughed.

By now, destroying Academy City and crushing science meant less than defeating the woman standing before her. Science hadn’t saved her brother. She would never forgive it.

That was why she hated science.
That was why she loathed it.
And she could not forgive herself—the one who had been saved in exchange for her brother. She hated herself. She loathed herself.

—That was why this way of life was a fitting “Divine Punishment.”

“That’s not true.”

Amid the blade-like shards of wind she had unleashed, Shiren spoke firmly.

“Th-at… that’s not what it means to ‘make the whole world your enemy.’ That’s nothing more than an act of grand self-destruction.”

Shiren’s hand tightened into a fist.

The countless shards of wind raining down struck her as well—but the white, colossal arm effortlessly intercepted them all. The water masses controlled by the electromagnetic waves emitted from the UAVs circling Souji absorbed and dispersed the violent currents. That included the very gusts that should have struck Vento herself.

Shiren—without a right hand capable of accepting and dispelling illusions like his—could not become a hero who truly understood Vento’s circumstances, pointed out her distortions, and struck her with a fist of salvation. She could only crush malice. A perfect conclusion, one worthy of being called “true history,” was forever beyond her reach.

She knew she could never reach Kamijou Touma’s level.

But still, since fate had brought her here, she would do everything she could. She could not abandon or compromise—because it was she herself who had met Vento in this history.

In this twisted world, if she didn’t reach out, there was no guarantee that the girl before her would ever be saved.

Even if the path she chose could never reach that “correct” history—even if it severed the route that led there—Shiren would clench her fist without hesitation.

Even if it wasn’t the “right” future, she would hold her head high and declare that the one she forged was the “best” future.

Even if that meant spitting on what others called the “correct” history.

That resolve—
That vivid defiance—was something she could still show to the woman before her.

Just as, long ago, a certain villainous young lady had once shown her.

“This… is what it truly means to make the whole world your enemy!!!!”

THUD!

The tiny girl’s fist crashed into the face of one of God’s Right Seat. This time, the woman did not get back up.

“—Alright, capture complete. Just like you said, I destroyed the cross-shaped seal on her tongue and that barbed-wire hammer… but are we really good now? Feels like she could just casually make a comeback any minute…”

“Most likely, it’s fine. Miss Vento always relied on those two items when manipulating wind. Without them, she shouldn’t pose the same level of threat as before.”

“Hmm. It’d be easier if we could just kill her, though.”

At that carefree remark from Sōji, Shiren shot him a sharp glare.

Sōji raised both hands in mock surrender, a wry smile on his face.

“I know, I know—no killing. ‘Non-lethal’ is the order this time. …Good grief, why do we have to play justice-bound heroes even against invading enemies?”

“Just deal with it. This workplace is still better than hanging around that spiky-haired idiot’s crew.”

Having finished binding Vento securely with fungal threads, the Doppelgänger spoke with a calmness that felt almost enlightened.

Perhaps agreeing with that, Sōji gave a small shrug, glancing at Shiren’s profile as she was already thinking ahead, and murmured quietly:

“Still… to think that is what it means for her to turn the whole world into her enemy…”

It wasn’t exasperation in his tone—something closer to awe bled through his words.

“…Just how immense a foe is she imagining, anyway? That woman.”