Anten had not lied to Dauma.

At the very least, she told him the truth as she knew it, even if she had not told him everything just yet about Simon or Renare. Nothing had been omitted out, except for one tiny detail that she had been quite ashamed of.

“Ech… eww…”

The staff’s blast had pushed her straight through the dorms, where she had landed in one of the communal toilets as she had stated, but what she did not wish to tell Dauma was that she had in fact been flung headfirst into one of the unwashed toilet bowls, forcing her to get a mouthful of dirty water and other unmentionable things.

She had spat it out almost immediately afterwards and tried to clean her mouth off, but she still could not get the disgusting taste out of it, much to her displeasure.

However, after she ended her mental call with Dauma, she knew that having a dirty mouth was the least of her worries for the time being. What mattered at that point was getting ready for Simon’s next attack.

“Damn it, this is not good…” she muttered as she looked over her body to check on the extent of the blast’s damage and assessing how strong it had been for her.

While it had not caused any grievous injuries such as a big hole in her chest or something much worse, it was incorrect to say that it had not hurt her in the slightest.

The massive force, combined with the subsequent heavy impact as she crashed through the dorms, had broken a few of her ribs and caused quite a bit of bruising on her torso, creating a large reddish-blue stain that hurt quite a bit.

It was something that she could normally heal in a few seconds flat through simple concentration, which she did as soon as she had settled down, but the fact of the matter remained that a power that she had never faced before had resulted in such an effect on her.

If this is what his staff can do, who knows what else he can do to me?

“Nngh…” she groaned as she stood by in the toilet, afraid to even go outside to check if he was coming.

She had to find out the full extent of Simon’s full power, and whether she could withstand it or not. If she could not, she would lose, and she did not want that to happen again.

Focus, Anten. You have to reason with him, find out what happened, and fix the problem. That is the only way he would spare us. Don’t be so hasty. If that happens—

“BOOM!”

However, before she could finish her planning, the intact toilet wall close to her suddenly exploded into pieces, forcing her to stop her train of thought and spontaneously react to the change.

“…”

There was no mistake about it, she had not seen wrongly. The young man who stepped through the broken wall, looking suspiciously like a copy of her, was indeed Simon Bailey himself, the prodigy of the Church of Enlightenment.

The only things that set the two of them apart, besides the clear gender difference, was the staff in his hand and the Particle prominently clipped on his chest by his scarf.

“Hoo…”

Alright, I need to start things off slow. Don’t act aloof, that’s what went wrong in the Garden before. I have to make him trust me again.

“So… I see you have been given the Goddess’ Gift. That’s great, isn’t it? Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted?” she kept her cool and spoke in as calm a tone as possible to him.

“…”

“I know you’re angry. I know I lied to you about who I was. But please know that I didn’t intend to mean any harm to you, Sister Renare, or the rest of the Church. I don’t want to be your enemy. Just know that I’m truly sorry for what I did to you.”

“… impostor.”

“Huh?”

“YOU IMPOSTOR!”

In response to her attempted apology, Simon had thrown his head back and simply roared, his inhuman echoey voice bouncing off the remaining toilet walls and causing the tiles to reverberate and shake.

“Ah!”

As the vibrations, combined with the shocked surprise she felt when she had heard him roar, caused her movements to falter a little, he drew his staff on her, ready to fire once more.

“Damn it!”

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Anten instinctively gulped as soon as she saw his action. She had already counted herself lucky that the dorms had been vacated in favor of the second trial, but if she was flung away by another blast, the potential that she could get even more hurt or possibly create more collateral damage to any nearby people was incredibly high.

And so, before the staff could fire, she hurriedly ducked out of its path by moving behind the toilet cubicle wall, before going down to the grimy tiles and staying there, waiting for his response.

“Tch.”

She heard him click his tongue in annoyance and the shadow below the wall begin to move as she patiently bided her time, waiting for him to move back into view through the open door such that she could strike.

Please take the bait…

“… hmph.”

However, right as soon as he started moving, he stopped again. She could hear a clear shuffling, as though he was doing something behind the wall. Then, out of the blue, the staff reappeared directly in her line of sight.

“Uhhhh!!”

She quickly let out a yell and shot up from the floor as she saw the tip of the staff poke through the opening below the cubicle wall, shining brightly again.

Have to… get away!

Even though she knew she would be getting into more trouble if she let herself be visible again, she hopped upwards to get out of the stall using the cubicle walls with agile speed as the staff fired again, sending another beam along the floor, and disintegrating everything in its path, although only for a few feet.

“You sneak!” Simon shouted as he tilted his head upwards in response, spotting her in a split second before bending down to pick up his staff again.

Now or never, Anten!

“Hahhhhhhh!”

Continuing to head upwards until she hit the ceiling, she used her hands to push away and shoot herself down back towards him, forcing him to abandon his action and switch to defending himself before they contacted each other.

“Gah!”

“Nngahh!”

The both of them, with their combined weights and momentum, smashed through the toilet floor as they began to wrestle each other, with Simon at the supposedly disadvantaged bottom.

Crashing through several levels until they came to a stop at the bottom floor, Anten stubbornly held onto both of his hands, preventing him from grabbing his staff that had fallen beside them as well. As he continued to struggle, she hooked her legs onto his waist, preventing him from escaping her grasp.

“Brother Simon!” she pleaded desperately, “please stop and listen to me! This doesn’t have to get any worse!”

“Grr… grrhh… you don’t mean it!”

“I do! I mean everything that I’m saying right now! I swear to you, I’m not lying anymore! If you would just be calm, I can tell you everything, about who I really am and what I’m here for!”

“…”

At that answer, Simon suddenly went quiet, and his squirming stopped, much to her surprise.

“… Brother Simon?”

The only thing from him that was still making noise was the ever-present hum of the Particle he had, pulsating and glowing without pause. To her, he really seemed to be contemplating her words very carefully this time around instead of acting on impulse first as he had been doing before.

Did I actually…

“… no.”

“Huh?”

He had begun to speak again, this time with serious conviction as he glared into her eyes with simmering anger.

“It doesn’t matter what you say. It doesn’t matter what you do. All of your actions and motivations don’t matter to me anymore. You lied, and that fact is unforgivable to me. You can say the truth, sure, and I can believe you, but what if you lied to me again? Sister Anten, you’re just a filthy impostor. You never made any sense to me, and I don’t think I can ever make sense of you even if you try to explain it. You and I will never understand each other, that much I know.”

“Brother Simon…”

“So, no matter what, I will continue to hold true to my beliefs, and I believe that you have to die. So, please, just kill yourself, or I’ll have to do it for you.”

That was his honest request to her. No deception and no sugarcoating, just a pure and solidified belief that had completely overtaken his sense of morality, saying what he wanted from her.

“I… I can’t agree to that!”

“Then, suit yourself.”

With that answer, the Particle grew even brighter in intensity, and with a single tug, he effortlessly escaped her tight grasp before grabbing onto both of her shoulders with the same, if not much greater strength than what she had just used on him.

“Ghg!”

Before she had the chance to escape, he placed both his legs together on her waist and pushed, letting go of her shoulders at the same time.

“Gahhhhhhhhh!”

The strength of the kick promptly sent her flying back up and away from him, through the open holes leading to the toilet and beyond that, all the way until she reached the roof, which she quickly crashed through.

As she exited the top of the dorms forcefully, he took the opportunity to recover and retrieve his staff before he readied his wings and followed closely after her, not intending to give her a chance to do the same.

In an instant, he had passed through the roof as well and into open sky, zipping to a spot just above her and pointing his staff downwards until it made direct contact with her stomach.

He would not miss his next shot. This was it; she was going to get sent straight back down to the ground, and unlike the last time, he would not be ceasing his fire until it was all over.

“Die!”

However, in the second before he could do so, his staff was split cleanly into two halves.

And it was not just his staff either. His entire body had been completely bisected in the middle by something he did not see, but that was still incredibly sharp and powerful.

“Guh!”

Instinctively dropping all his plans and instead focusing all of his efforts on healing the mortal injury as quickly as he could, his attack was averted and both Anten and him landed on the roof, a fair distance away from each other.

“Uhh… huh?”

Getting the chance to take a breather from the non-stop tension at last, Anten was slightly shaken, but she quickly switched to a look of relief once she saw who it was that had saved her.

“Aw man, and here I thought we were done with the fighting. Are you alright?”

With her giant scythe in hand, Yuu landed next to her fully dressed in her Reaper garb, watching Simon closely with suspicion as he unnaturally put the halves of his body back together by himself.

“Yeah…” Anten replied, “I might not have done this correctly, sorry.”

“Hm.”

The spirit girl sniffed, setting the top of her weapon down on the roof and letting it trail behind her as she slowly began walking towards him.

“So, what’s the plan, angel lady?”

“Same plan as before,” Anten responded as she stood beside her, with her bow and arrows already created in her hands, “we must take the Particle, but we can’t kill him.”

“I think… that’s going to be hard.”

“Grr…”

At the same time, having healed his body up perfectly with no scarring to be seen, Simon growled as he stood up and fixed his staff before subsequently forming his sword in his other hand once again.

“… nnn…”

It was two against one, and yet Anten found herself reluctantly agreeing with Yuu on her point.

No matter what would transpire, it was certainly going to be hard for the both of them to win, let alone make their plan succeed.