Inside, Nakajima went mad with regret.

Why didn't I warn her more seriously last night? If I hadn't made such a half-assed phone call and instead told her everything, this never would have happened. I killed Shirasagi Yumiko!

Not only did he never think that Loki would have attained the knowhow to materialize himself, but he also never thought that Ohara might kill Yumiko. But here Loki's sinister body was here in the Assiah world and the innocent Yumiko had been killed.

And he just looked on, powerless.

Reflexively biting down in his lip, Nakajima noticed a faint scarlet light in his peripheral vision and jerked up his head. Loki's body had spread out to the entire CAI room, and the classroom looked like a jungle of protoplasm. Pink tentacles pulsated and twisted, grabbing hypnotized students, pulling them inside Loki's body where they were consumed one by one. However, the red light that had caught Nakajima's attention lay beyond the carnage. By the entrance of the room the atmosphere was permeated with red, and shook like an aurora.

There's a dimensional warp! It can't be--a demon other than Loki....!? But as Nakajima's attention was drawn away, several stentacles wrapped around his legs.

"Loki, what are you doing to me!?" Nakajima could not believe that Loki would attack him, and was shocked in surprise to his very core.

"I bet you thought you were safe so long as you were in charge of the computer. But this woman can serve as your replacement easily enough. Now that I can appear in the Assiah world, not only are your abilities no longer useful--they're a liability." As if to back up Loki's statement, Ohara laughed inside his body.

Nakajima immediately grabbed his handheld computer and entered the command to summon Kerberos. From the liquid crystal display, a white mist wafted into the room.

"Go, Kerberos!"

As if in response to Nakajima's cry, the mist rapidly solidified, and as if impatient to fully take form, assaulted Loki.

"You are a beast of the demon world and yet you side with the human!?"

Flame-like breath burst forth from the fang-lined maw, and Loki let out a cry that shook the very earth. Deftly dodging an attacking tentacle as it gave forth a slimy sound, the demon beast Kerberos bit down at its base and tore it off of Loki's body. Loki's purple blood gushed out and melted the linoleum tiling on the floor. With the two demons letting out roars like thunder, cracks shot up the plate glass window, and the ceiling and walls started to cruble. Despite fighting fiercely, Loki refused to drop Nakajima.

"Kerberos, over here!"

As Kerberos lept through the air in response to Nakajima's cry, he was finally caught by a tentacle that wrapped around his body. However, his tail split into half and became two serpents which raised their heads and tore off the tentacle grabbed onto him. Freed from Loki's grasp, Kerberos leapt at the tentacles restraining Nakajima in an attempt to save him.

As if to thwart the beast's effort, Loki bent his tentacle and smacked Nakajima's head to the floor. The impact was almost enough to crush his skull, and Nakajima's consciousness wavered as fresh blood poured from the split in his forehead, his field of vision becoming drenched in red. With his vision distorting, the ferociously fighting Kerberos seemed like a far-away illusion.

So this is the pathetic fate of the magician...

As his consciousness faded and he prepared to die, memories of those strange illusions from before spontaneously appeared in a corner of Nakajima's mind.

What were those? The woman from them called that man that looked just like him "Izanagi." Did it have any connection to the story of Izanami and Izanagi from Japanese mythology?

Even if I knew, what difference does it make now...?

Muttering to himself, Nakajima closed his eyes as if in acceptance of his fate.

At that moment, unbeknownst to anyone, the heart of the seemingly dead Yumiko started to beat faintly.

Yumiko, Yumiko! A kind voice was calling her name.

Who are you? Is that you, Mom? Yumiko asked instinctively in her mind.

As if recognizing that she had awakened, the voice cut off briefly, then started to speak again in a kind voice.

Stand up, Yumiko.

Yumiko did not hear the roars of the demon beast nor the sound of the classroom being destroyed. In fact, she had no sense of the terrible experience that she had had at all. All she could hear was the voice of the woman. Timidly opening her eyes, Yumiko realized that the voice was coming from the red aurora in the warped area in the air.

Through the aurora, the mirage of a peacful countryside was visible. Blue rice paddies with not-yet-ripened seeds. Rolling hills covered in summer grass. And groups of giant boulders, simple yet mysterious.

Yumiko had seen that scenery somewhere before.