Chapter 184: A Colorless Future

It was as if the world itself were showing signs of collapse.

The “fracture” that appeared in the sky wasn’t a flat, black-and-white distortion—it was a true rupture, revealing a glimpse of something pitch-black within. It looked as though a crack had torn straight through the fabric of the world.

"…Aleister…!! Don’t tell me you had something like this hidden away all along…!"

Standing beside Shiren, Reicia trembled in quiet horror.

Shiren’s movements, bound by Mizugokoro’s shackles. Reicia’s summoning. The “Fallen Angel” plan using Kihara’s Grimoire. Even after all that had failed, the “Fallen Angel Ritual” still activated. And when every card seemed spent, Kihara’s brainstem and the army of “Five Over” units appeared.

He had unveiled one strategy after another—and now, this. Even with their side’s overwhelming numbers, they couldn’t afford to relax. The sheer reminder of how formidable their enemy was sent a chill down Reicia’s spine.

Meanwhile, Aleister smiled quietly—

"……What the hell is that?"

He said it flatly, a bead of sweat running down his temple.

"Huh???"

For a brief moment, the air froze. Then Shiren, half-snapping, turned toward him.

"What do you mean, what? Isn’t that your doing!? The scheme you planted behind Kihara’s Grimoire—the one you used Reicia-chan for! The one you were buying time for—and that was supposed to be your final card, wasn’t it!?"

"No, I haven’t the slightest clue what that is. Actually, I thought it was something you awakened—some new ability, perhaps? That ‘fracture,’ right?"

Up until now, Shiren had unconsciously defined the “worst-case scenario” as Aleister activating a plan they couldn’t possibly counter.

But that wasn’t it.

The true worst-case scenario… was a phenomenon appearing out of nowhere—something no one could understand.

What was that thing?

Was it something that benefitted Aleister? Something that benefitted them? Was it harmless if left alone—or would it bring destruction to Academy City? Could it even be destroyed at all?

They didn’t know a single thing.

And neither did Aleister’s side. That was what made it terrifying—because neither of them understood it. Would Aleister choose to eliminate the unknown fracture out of caution, or ignore it to deal with the enemies before him? That uncertainty meant Shiren’s group couldn’t focus entirely on it either, no matter how ominous the anomaly felt.

And just as Shiren hesitated—

"Ahh, looks like we’ve finally run out of time."

A strangely clear voice echoed from right beside her.

"!?"

She spun around on instinct—and there she was.

A familiar woman with wavy blonde hair—the “Witch.”

But her appearance was completely different from when Shiren had seen her that morning.

Her Tokiwadai Middle School uniform was gone. In its place was a chaotic marble-patterned nightdress in shades of gray and dark gray. Her arms and legs were covered in white-and-black dress gloves and tights that bled into the same marbled pattern near their base.

The pointed hat she’d once worn like a joke was gone, and her apparent age had shifted—she now looked like she was in her mid-twenties.

"T-That outfit—"

Shiren’s words caught in her throat. Then she realized something terrifying.

Time—everywhere except herself—had stopped.

"I told you, didn’t I? The first omen you should fear isn’t Reicia-chan’s absence. It’s my appearance itself. My appearance is the biggest omen you should be worried about."

The “Witch” was no longer confined to mirrors or illusions—she had manifested in the real world.

Her presence carried an eerie sense of dread, like a massive meteor faintly visible beyond the clouds—a herald of distant ruin.

"What… is happening right now?"

"Oh, that crack? It’s exactly what it looks like. A ‘fracture in the world.’ In other words—the world itself is starting to break. If left alone, the rupture will spread, and the world will collapse. So no, you can’t just ignore it."

The “Witch” declared the catastrophe with terrifying ease.

Aleister Crowley—the greatest enemy they had faced—was not the true source of this crisis.

He had indeed been the puppeteer behind everything: the one who tore Reicia and Shiren apart, the one who triggered the runaway “Divine Contract: Near-Death Promise.” But as everything up to now had shown, the world did not move solely according to Aleister’s will.

If anything, his actions were merely part of a greater distortion—a current warped by the contract’s uncontrolled flow.

"………………"

As Shiren frantically tried to make sense of it all, the “Witch” looked at her with quiet sorrow.

"It’s no use anymore. The fact that I can manifest in the real world means the time limit is truly near. For now, I’m only here by linking through this ‘frozen-time realm’... but once it reaches this point, I have no choice but to become myself. That’s why I came—to make sure you have time to say goodbye to Reicia-chan properly. That’s the decision I want you to make."

"No… no! There’s still time! How can we erase it? There must be a way to close that thing! Touma-san and the others are here—we can leave Aleister to them! Reicia-chan and I will deal with the fracture! We can still make it! I’m not giving up yet!!"

Without a moment’s hesitation, Shiren answered the Witch’s final, grief-tinged warning.

The Witch smiled faintly, almost in tears.

"…Yeah. That’s exactly what I thought you’d say. Alright, then. I’ll follow the regret still lingering inside me—the part of me that’s still Shiren. I’ll give you one last bit of help. I’m just one of your possibilities, so I can only affect you…"

Then, softly—

The Witch traced her finger through the air, drawing a line between Shiren and the fracture.

In that instant, Shiren’s body lifted gently off the ground, pulled toward the dark rift.

"Wha—"

"To the bottom of the fracture. I’ll take you there. You already know how to destroy it, don’t you? So I’ll give you this push. It’s better this way—for you."

The Witch vanished.

Time, which had been frozen, began to move again.

"Wait—! Please, wait! Reicia-chan is still over there—!"

Shiren reached out, but the Witch was gone.

Her desperate hand barely grazed Reicia’s outstretched fingertips—

And then, Shiren was swallowed by the fracture.

Final Chapter – I Don’t Know What “Predetermined Harmony” Means  -  Theory_"was"_Broken.
Episode 155: The Colorless Future – Monochrome_World’s_End.

——It was a monochrome world.

At a glance, it looked no different from the streets of Academy City’s Seventh District.
Student dorms lined the sidewalks. Trees stood neatly along the roadside. A two-lane road cut through the area, and a crosswalk stretched over the asphalt. High-rises loomed in the distance.
Everything appeared exactly like the familiar everyday scenery she knew—except for one thing: there was no color. That single absence made the world feel wholly alien.

“Where… am I?”

Shiren murmured, forgetting for a moment to speak in her usual refined tone.
It was a casual utterance—but that alone already signaled something wrong.

As seen in the case of Mental Out being unreadable, the thoughts and language of reincarnators differ in expansion parameters from this world’s structure.
Trying to interpret them here would be like forcing an image file open in a text editor—what comes out is meaningless gibberish.
Shiren’s words were no exception. The only reason she’d been able to maintain her noblewoman act until now was because that difference in parameters had been normalized by the Divine Contract: Near Death’s Promise.

Of course, Shiren herself was completely unaware of that fact.

“According to the ‘Witch’… this place is supposed to be inside that ‘Rift.’”

She looked around. Despite the ominous talk of “the world’s collapse,” the scenery was strangely tranquil—too tranquil, in fact.
No signs of life. No other presence besides her own. Even the leaves on the trees stood perfectly still, as though the wind itself had vanished. Not a single sound disturbed the silence.

The Witch—in the bad ending Shiren and the others once reached—had said this: “You probably already have an idea of how to erase that ‘Rift.’”
Shiren had no such idea now, but that only meant the clues were within reach. If the Witch had gone so far as to help her, then entering the Rift was without a doubt the fastest path toward resolving it.

(…There’s no point doubting the Witch’s motives now. She’s helped me before. And if she really is what remains of what we once were, then she’s working toward the happy ending too.)

Shiren stopped wasting energy on fruitless suspicion and focused instead on preventing the “collapse of the world.”
But why was this collapse happening in the first place? She didn’t know. Judging from the Witch’s words, the Divine Contract: Near Death’s Promise seemed to be involved somehow—

And right as she reached that conclusion, Shiren sensed it. Something didn’t fit.

“Divine Contract: Near Death’s Promise… a constitution that constantly generates distortions in history, and smooths those distortions out by balancing them with others.”

It had been Kihara Amata who’d pointed that out, and Shiren had accepted it because it matched her experiences.
But now that she reconsidered, something about it felt off.

By its very nature, Near Death’s Promise ensured that Shiren’s actions would never create history-altering events. That was likely why Aleister had left her alone all this time—her interference, bound by the contract, posed little threat to his “Plan.”

But then—how do you explain what happened today?

The invasion of the Right Seat of God.

Until now, Shiren had thought of it as “the events I avoided all happening at once.” But that explanation didn’t hold up. Yes, incidents like the arrival of Vento of the Front or Acqua of the Back were destined to occur regardless—but Terra of the Left had never invaded Academy City, had she?

And beyond that, the aftermath of their assault didn’t balance anything—it threw everything off.
If the Roman Orthodox Church had been worn down this much before “Britain: The Halloween,” that incident would unfold completely differently. The European balance of power would shift, the Third World War would take another path, and Gremlin’s movements would change in turn.
Even before all that—even before Aleister had stepped out into the open—the timeline had already diverged so drastically that Coronzon couldn’t possibly act according to “proper history.”

To top it all off, Kamijou Touma had already clashed with Aleister.
At this point, history had passed the point of no return.

The world’s history had transformed—irreversibly.

The small distortions that once arose and were quietly corrected under Near Death’s Promise could no longer explain what was happening.
Even the bad ending the Witch had called “burned into the world’s logic,” where Shiren and Reicia perished—wasn’t that itself a deviation from the supposed rules?

(…What if—)

A hypothesis formed in Shiren’s mind.
One she didn’t want to believe.

(What if all this isn’t caused by Near Death’s Promise at all—but by something else entirely?)

——“The True Outside.”

The world Shiren had come from wasn’t A Certain Magical Index, nor was it one governed by this universe’s thread-like theory of time.
It was a separate existence—an outer world.

If that was the case, then maybe everything stemmed from her very arrival—from the moment she reincarnated into this world from that “True Outside.”

“…Come to think of it, the moment I was reincarnated, the world and the ‘Outside’ must have already been connected. For my soul to pass through, there had to be some kind of corridor linking the two worlds. Otherwise, I shouldn’t have been able to reincarnate at all—I should’ve been left wandering outside the world forever.”

『A Pathway—or perhaps, a Hole.』

One way or another, since Shiren had indeed reincarnated into this world, there must have been a “hole” large enough for her soul to pass through.

And yet, until now, no one had ever noticed it.
But what if—what if that hole in the world had remained open this entire time?

If the hole had healed naturally, like a wound closing on a living creature, there would have been no problem.
But what if its nature was the opposite? What if, instead, the damage spread outward from that single point like cracks in glass, tearing the world apart?

“Even though Divine Contract: Near Death’s Promise was functioning, history still began to warp… Could that distortion have been the effect of the hole? If that’s the case—then the entire world might fracture, spreading outward from a tiny breach in its outer wall!”

That must be the “Rift.”

And maybe—just maybe—the reason the “Witch” had sent her here was precisely to deal with that hole.

As soon as her thoughts reached that conclusion, Shiren had already begun to see the answer.

“…It’s simple, really. If the world is breaking apart because of a hole—then all I have to do is fill it.”

Just like patching a small tear in a balloon with a strip of tape.
If she could cover the hole in the world with something, she could at least prevent its immediate collapse.

And the hint had already been given.

There was someone, wasn’t there?
A certain girl who had once branded herself into the world as one of its laws.

“The ‘Witch’… she became an ‘otherworldly law’—so that she could prevent this catastrophe.”

Naturally, Shiren arrived at that conclusion.

It wouldn’t be entirely wrong to say that the Witch’s birth had been caused by the runaway effect of Divine Contract: Near Death’s Promise. The transformation into the Witch had, after all, been triggered by that contract’s collapse.
But that wasn’t her true purpose. The real meaning lay in the aftermath—the ability to burn oneself into the world as one of its fundamental laws.

By becoming a law of the world itself, she could fill the hole that had been torn through it.

“…I see.”

Shiren nodded softly to herself.

So that’s what she’d meant by, “If this incident occurs, I will definitely become the Witch.”

The trigger for the world’s collapse had been the rampage of Divine Contract: Near Death’s Promise.
If that happened, the world’s breakdown would inevitably begin.
And the only way to stabilize it was to let the contract go berserk completely—and burn oneself into the world as an otherworldly principle.

No matter how it played out, the final impact on the world always balanced to zero—fitting for a catastrophe born from Near Death’s Promise.

The Witch had simply failed to find a way to stop the collapse without letting the contract run wild before time ran out—and so, she became the Witch.

Now that Shiren had reached that same conclusion, she finally understood what the Witch had meant when she said, “For you, this outcome will probably be more convenient.”

“And… this time, Reicia doesn’t have to be sacrificed.”

The rampage of Near Death’s Promise—and the mending of the world.

True, if she carried it out, Shiren herself might cease to exist as the person she had been. Her essence would be twisted beyond recognition.
But that had nothing to do with Reicia.

In the past, Shiren’s Witchification had dragged Reicia down with her because their reunion had been happening in parallel.
This time, however—thanks to the Witch’s intervention—Shiren was acting alone. That meant there was no risk of Reicia being caught in it.
Only Shiren would become the Witch.

Of course, she was currently using Reicia’s physical body, so that much couldn’t be helped.
But with Academy City’s level of science, a physical issue wasn’t necessarily irreversible.
The Witchification, however—was. Between the two, the choice was obvious.

(…Reicia would never approve of this kind of decision.)

Shiren thought quietly.

“Shiren alone will drive Divine Contract: Near Death’s Promise into a rampage, and use it to fill the hole in the world. In exchange, the existence known as Shiren will become something entirely different.”

That choice—an act of solitary self-sacrifice—completely contradicted the path she and Reicia had walked together until now.

But if it meant saving the world, then this was the only way.

(…I wish I could at least tell her beforehand. Sorry, Reicia-chan.)

If Reicia were here, she would insist on searching to the very end for a way for both of them to survive and save the world.
It was a beautiful dream—but chasing that ideal could lead to failure, and that failure could mean the world’s end.

And right now, Shiren had no clue how to save the world without a sacrifice.

To gamble the world’s survival on such a faint hope—to risk everything for a future she couldn’t even imagine—was nothing short of selfishness. The worst kind.

That’s why.

That’s why—

“…I’m sorry, Reicia-chan.”

Shiren made her decision.