Bonus: The Dishonorable Stigmata – Part ①

"DAAAAAAAASHAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!"

With a scream that was somewhere between a shriek and a war cry, Hamazura’s body flew several meters through the air—landing without even a single bounce.
That made it his third flight of the day.

──The place had already become something that could only be described as a battlefield straight out of a joke.

God’s Right Seat — Acqua of the Back.
Level 5 — Mugino Shizuri.

Their clash had long surpassed the limits of humanity; the era of “getting hit by a stray bullet and dying” was already ancient history.
Now, simply existing here meant death. The world had transformed into that kind of place.

“Damn it!! This is the worst!! What the hell are we supposed to do in a battlefield like this!? Actually, calling us ‘civilians left behind’ would be more accurate, wouldn’t it!?”

Having miraculously crash-landed in a debris-free area, Hamazura shouted in frustration.
Frankly, it was a miracle he was still alive at all.

Mugino unleashed beams of annihilation, and Acqua dodged them at supersonic speed. The resulting sonic booms from his evasive maneuvers could blow a person away like paper.
When Mugino defended against counterattacks of ice shards with her rotating light shields, the clashes caused massive steam explosions. Anyone caught in those would be roasted alive.

No matter how you looked at it, this battlefield was pure death.
Hamazura thought anyone who could keep fighting here had to be insane.

“This has to be more powerful than a steam oven! Let’s get the hell outta here, Frenda!! Losing a powerless Level 0 like me won’t change the outcome even a millimeter!!”

“…No, you’re wrong, Hamazura. Look.”

Panting, Hamazura ducked behind cover and pleaded desperately, but Frenda simply shook her head and pointed toward the battlefield beyond their hiding spot.

──The current situation at Celest Aquarium could be summarized as follows.

The main battlefield centered around the front entrance of the Celest Aquarium—the glass-covered high-rise lobby.
The fight itself was dominated by Mugino Shizuri and Acqua of the Back. Mugino used her “Meltdowner” beams and explosive propulsion to maneuver, while Acqua wielded an icy club and fought at supersonic speed.
It looked like a one-on-one duel.

That said, Mugino was slightly on the defensive. The stray attacks she couldn’t control were intercepted by Kinuhata, who blocked them just in time—but only barely.

“What’s wrong, esper? You don’t look too well.”

“Damn you, that smug face of yours pisses me off! I’ll burn that poker face right off your skull!!!”

The difference lay in stamina.
Physically, Mugino far surpassed normal humans—but she was still only human. A hard hit could knock her out, and losing a limb would be fatal.

Acqua, on the other hand, was a Saint. Unlike Mugino, who forced her body through calculations to keep up with supersonic combat, Acqua’s natural combat world already existed at that speed.

That difference in “base capacity” showed in stamina consumption.

In short, Academy City’s Number Four was being cornered—visibly and steadily.

“How the hell…!? Mugino fought Reicia evenly! Sure, she lost, but she was close—she could’ve won! She’s one of the seven Level 5s! How could she be losing so badly she can’t even close the gap!?”

“…Magic Side,” Frenda said, cutting into Hamazura’s anguished words.
She had already seen enough to understand what that meant.

“The ‘God’s Right Seat’ guys we’re seeing now—they’re the peak of another world entirely, not Academy City’s. If I remember right, they’re the top four among the one billion followers of the Roman Orthodox Church. …How many students does Academy City have again? A few million?”

“…That’s literally several orders of magnitude apart…”

The difference in hierarchy was overwhelming.
If a Level 5 was a genius among 2.875 million, then the members of God’s Right Seat were geniuses among 250 million.
The ceilings of their respective worlds existed on completely different scales—and that gap was showing right now.

“Sure, there’s probably not much we can do. But at this rate, Mugino will be completely overwhelmed. And once that happens, Acqua’s fangs will definitely reach Shirai too.”

“If we die trying to stop him, what’s the point!?”

“…Besides, Acqua already sees us as enemies. Once he’s done crushing Mugino, he’ll eliminate us next to avoid interference. Even a dumbass like you should understand what happens once we lose the protection of a Level 5.”

“…Goddammit!!”

Hamazura cursed, half out of despair.

“Then what the hell do we do!? What can a powerless Level 0 even do on a battlefield where just standing around gets you killed!?”

“…I do have one idea,” Frenda said, raising a trembling finger and forcing a strained smile.

“Don’t worry. What I love most is tripping up arrogant strong types like him—and laughing in their faces afterward.”

It was a smile completely detached from sainthood—
the grin of a villain.

Final Chapter: I Don’t Know What “Predetermined Harmony” Means  -  Theory “was” Broken.
Bonus: The Dishonorable Stigmata >>>>Celest Aquarium All-Out Battle — Part ①

“Acqua of the Back may be a monster who even overwhelms Mugino, but that doesn’t mean he’s completely without openings.”

Frenda said that while watching the raging battle before them.

Hamazura frowned, puzzled by her phrasing.
“What do you mean? From where I’m standing, he just looks like a perfect, unstoppable monster.”

“For example—he can’t control steam.”

“…Huh?”

“Since earlier, every clash between him and Mugino has caused steam explosions, right? And yet he hasn’t made a single move to use that steam. That alone means there’s a reason—he can’t control it.”

In fact, whenever Mugino’s attacks reduced the amount of water or ice Acqua had on hand, he would simply replenish them by producing more. That worked well enough, so it hadn’t affected the flow of battle—but the need to replenish proved the limitation existed.

“And while he can generate water and ice from nothing, it’s not on a large scale. If he could, he would’ve flooded the whole area from the start and washed us away.”

That much was logical.
Even with the current balance, he was already pushing Mugino back. If he had more power in reserve, he could have used it immediately to end the fight. Acqua of the Back wasn’t the type to hold back out of courtesy.

And given those premises, a certain hypothesis began to take shape.

“Which means… there must be a way for Acqua to control even more water than this.”

As she spoke, Frenda pointed toward the Celest Aquarium, the massive glass-domed water complex.

“Here’s the reasoning. If he’s strong enough to push Mugino while still keeping some reserve power, there’s no reason for him to stay here and drag this fight out. He’s not an esper—he can’t track people like Takitsubo can. Logically, he should’ve withdrawn by now and gone after Shirai and the Board Chairman directly… but he hasn’t.”

“…Wait, don’t tell me—”

Picking up where Frenda left off, Hamazura muttered, his voice tightening.
“The Celest Aquarium… it’s packed with water tanks. You’re saying he’s staying here because he wants to turn all that water into his own weapon…!?”

Even now, Acqua was strong enough to surpass a Level 5 esper.
The idea that such a monster still had room to grow stronger was terrifying—but it also made sense.

Most of Acqua’s allies had already been defeated. If he planned to continue his mission alone against Academy City, he would need every possible advantage. From that perspective, his fixation on this battleground aligned perfectly with his strategic logic.

“And if that’s true,” Frenda continued, “then our earlier assessment—that this is a hopeless fight where even Mugino will be crushed—might be completely wrong. For him, it might be the opposite. Acqua could actually be the one under pressure, thinking ‘I need to power up fast, but this woman won’t go down as easily as I thought.’”

“…Now that you mention it, Mugino doesn’t look as pissed as I’d expect. If anything, she looks like she’s… smirking?”

“Well, uh, yeah—Mugino’s serious face when she’s fighting for real is something I’d rather not see again, so let’s not talk about that too much…”

Frenda continued, wiping cold sweat from her forehead.
“Anyway, if that’s how it is, then what we need to do is clear. If he gets stronger the more water he can use—then all we have to do is reduce the amount of water Acqua can control. The less water, the better Mugino’s odds become.”

“Specifically how?”

“Let’s see… for example—turning the whole place into a sea of fire?”

She didn’t hesitate.
Frenda reached into her pocket, pulled out a hexagonal bomb, and threw it at Acqua in a perfect side-arm motion like a baseball player.

Of course, Acqua immediately noticed—but that was already part of Frenda’s calculation.

“I came prepared with plenty of bombs that ignite flames water can’t extinguish!”

The instant she shouted, the thrown bomb detonated.

──Little Napalm.

In simple terms, it was a scaled-down version of a napalm bomb designed for anti-personnel use. Its built-in fuel spread in a controlled direction upon ignition, and the resulting fire couldn’t be extinguished with water. It required special chemical fire suppressants used for oil-based blazes.

From a humanitarian perspective, there was only one way to describe such a weapon—
pure evil.

"...! Well done, Frenda!"

"Don't start getting cocky… Make sure you think about me too, the one responsible for fire defense!!"

As expected, the flames didn’t discriminate between friend or foe—they also licked at Frenda and Kinuhata. But in the first place, using fire as an attack was perfectly suited against Kinuhata.

For someone who manipulates nitrogen like Kinuhata, defending against flames was easier than taking a breath.

"...I see. So the plan is to use flames that water can’t extinguish to heat my water and weaken me."

In practice, it worked. The flammable oil clinging to Acqua’s ice staff gradually ate away at his weapon, and the flames scattering around steadily sapped his stamina. To deal with it, Acqua had no choice but to divert some of his water reserves from combat to extinguishing the fires, giving Mugino a chance to gradually regain the upper hand.

"Hah… what’s wrong, Right Seat of God? You don’t look so good!"

With Mugino’s booming laughter, a massive arm radiating the brilliance of extinction swung back powerfully.

Acqua barely dodged it at the last moment and realized something about his own condition. Even though only a short time had passed since the battle began, his breathing was growing labored.

Of course, Acqua, a Dual Saint, wouldn’t normally be fatigued from a fight like this. Even surrounded by flames, this level of heat was trivial for someone who commands water.

So what was the issue?

—Surrounded. By. Flames.

"...I see… oxygen deprivation."

Acqua, while being the Right Seat of God, was also a mage capable of using conventional magic.

That meant he had prepared all kinds of defensive spells for infiltrating Academy City, a stronghold of ‘science.’

For example, anti-toxin measures. The “Mercy of the Holy Mother” synergized particularly well with recovery from fatigue, so Acqua carried several types of blessings. One of them even provided resistance to carbon monoxide poisoning, secretly nullifying Frenda’s intended strategy of “quietly incapacitating him via CO poisoning.” But the fundamental problem remained: there was no way to supply the lost oxygen.

"No… I have nothing to retort."

Facing Mugino’s beastly laughter, Acqua responded unexpectedly calmly.
He admitted the simple fact that an unseen fang, hidden behind the flashy attack, had been closing in on his throat. On his profile, there was a subtle bitterness—almost self-mocking.

"To be honest, I can’t deny that I felt the rude impatience of wondering 'how long will these pests stall me?'"

Then, with a sincere expression, he continued:

"I apologize for my rudeness. And—let us crush them with full force."

At that moment, the enormous ice staff in Acqua’s hands—over two meters long—vanished.

"N… What!?"

Mugino’s expression stiffened for an instant at this reckless act of letting go of his own weapon. But in the next moment, a vision of a girl crossed his mind.

A girl who had mastered the technique of removing what had just been created, bringing about a completely new result.

"Dammit… she’s controlling the airflow!?"

By the time he realized it, it was already too late. The vacuum created by the disappearing ice staff caused the surrounding air to rush in all at once. The resulting gale brought fresh oxygen to the oxygen-deprived Acqua. And for Acqua, that alone was enough.

"I’ll acknowledge your craftsmanship. But let me teach you this— I am the Right Seat of God."

In the next instant, a new ice staff of equal length, over two meters, appeared in Acqua’s hands.

Rrrrkkk-ggg-gang!!! The deafening sound scattered around as Acqua swung the staff faster than the speed of sound.

"I’ve struggled enough… so I’ll share the spoils."

The ice staff gouged the ground, which was covered in flammable oil, flinging debris toward Mugino.

Mugino was taken aback. From the earlier battle, she knew the pain of a napalm projectile all too well. She immediately deployed the Atom-Breaker Meltdown Arms to turn the incoming debris and napalm into charcoal—but that was exactly part of Acqua’s plan.

Boom!!!!

Something streaked past, narrowly grazing Mugino’s defenses at high speed.

"……Huh?"

The situation hadn’t changed.

Mugino, Kinuhata, even Frenda and Hamazura hiding in the shadows—none of them had been harmed by that strike. For a brief moment, no one understood what had just happened.

That is, until an urgent transmission came from the waterfall basin.

"Everyone!!!! Big trouble… Acqua’s thrown ice spear… it destroyed the aquarium’s water distribution facility!!"

At those words, everyone drew a sharp breath.

In other words, Acqua hadn’t just avoided the oxygen-deprived hell that threatened him in an instant… he had even carried out an attack against Shiren and the others, his original target.

As if to say that any interference with 'items' was utterly meaningless.

"You…!! You’re supposed to be fighting us!!"

"I do not know what mistake you are making, but I have no intention of engaging in a simple power contest. What we are participating in is an all-out battle for the fate of the world… Do you have the resolve for that?"

"……!!!!"

The resolve to bear the weight of the world.

The casual way Acqua spoke carried an extraordinary gravity—something no mere human skulking in the ‘darkness’ of Academy City could ever express in a lifetime.

After a brief glance at Mugino, momentarily stunned by his intensity, Acqua shifted his gaze sideways—to Frenda and the others.

"…However, your quick thinking just now gave me a sense of danger. For the time being… I suppose I should crush that side first."

"……!! Damn it, Frenda! He’s looking at you!! Run!!"

As Hamazura instinctively tried to shield Frenda with his own body from the approaching Acqua, the next moment arrived.

Goggiinnn!!!!

Something hurtled at supersonic speed and scooped them out from Acqua’s lethal strike.

"──Whoa whoa, that was rough. You alright, 'Item'?"

It was a pair of white wings.

The boy who possessed these mysterious wings—stretching and flowing like liquid—descended to the ground with a frivolous smile.

"……An angel. I see. Academy City really does develop some tasteless toys, doesn’t it."

"Shut up. I know full well how tasteless it is."

Standing beside him were a boy wearing Saturn-ring-like headgear, and a girl clad in a red dress.

"……Fine then. From here on, we’ll cooperate as well."

Yobou Banka.
Gokusai Kaibi.
And Kakine Teitoku.

The organization they belonged to was known by people as…

"The 'School'."