Then the man took advantage of even the smallest opening without hesitation.
I stood far enough from the battlefield, completely concealing my presence. From that position, I observed everything quietly without any intention of interfering.
As long as they were not on the verge of death, I would not step in.
If I kept saving them every time things became difficult, they would never learn how to stand at the edge of the abyss on their own.
The fight lasted much longer than usual.
Their coordination faltered several times. The Curse User skillfully used reflections of light and shadows around the surrounding buildings to obscure his movements. His body seemed to appear and disappear between dark corners, slipping from one shadow to another with unsettling ease.
Several times, his attacks nearly struck vital points.
In the end, the man managed to injure both of them.
Blood flowed from Shizuka's shoulder, slowly seeping through her torn clothing. Meanwhile, Rika's wrist had been cut deeply enough that her grip on her weapon weakened.
The wounds were not fatal.
But they were deep enough to slow their movements… and painful enough to begin blurring their focus in the increasingly oppressive battle.
That was when something changed.
The flow of Shizuka's Cursed Energy, which had previously been stable, suddenly trembled. At first the fluctuation was subtle, almost impossible to notice without careful observation.
However, within a few seconds, the pattern of Shizuka's Cursed Energy began to shift. The flow that had once been sharp and focused gradually became softer and warmer, as if it now carried a completely different nature from before.
A faint pink glow began to appear in Shizuka's palm when she reflexively pressed her hand against the wound on her shoulder.
The gaping injury slowly reacted to the Cursed Energy. The split flesh gradually began to close. Torn muscle fibers reconnected, and the layer of skin tightened as if being forced back into its original form.
All of it happened within mere seconds.
Shizuka's Innate Technique had finally awakened—a healing ability.
I watched the scene without showing any exaggerated reaction. In truth, I was not particularly surprised. In my memory of Shizuka from another world, she had always been associated with treatment and medical care. Her role was often behind the front lines of battle, ensuring that others remained alive.
Because of that, when Shizuka's Innate Technique manifested as a healing technique, it felt perfectly reasonable.
Even so, witnessing such a drastic shift in the nature of Cursed Energy in the middle of a life-and-death struggle was still interesting. Cursed Energy normally followed the nature of its user, but awakenings like this were almost always triggered by the same factor—survival instinct.
This was not a coincidence.
It was the body's response when pushed to its absolute limit.
On the other side, the change that occurred within Rika felt far sharper.
If Shizuka's Cursed Energy had turned warm and soothing, Rika's energy instead tightened like a string pulled to its breaking point.
Rika's eyes, which usually showed nothing more than focus, now radiated a completely different intensity. Her pupils narrowed drastically, and I could feel the concentration of Cursed Energy gathering around her sense of sight.
The change was unmistakable.
Rika's vision was no longer limited to what lay directly before her.
She began to see further.
The opponent's movements, which had previously been difficult to predict, now appeared far clearer within Rika's perception. Even when the Curse User attempted to conceal his position using shadows and reflections of light, Rika was still able to track him.
To Rika, the opponent's body seemed to move more slowly.
Small changes in the shoulders, the tension of muscles in the legs, even the direction of shifting body weight—she could read them all before the attack was actually launched.
Rika's Innate Technique manifested as a high-level visual ability.
Long-distance vision, perception capable of seeing through thin obstacles, and extreme accuracy when determining the trajectory of long-range attacks.
Considering Rika's background as a sniper in the anime I had watched in my previous life, this ability felt like a natural reflection of Rika herself.
However, the awakening of those two Innate Techniques did not immediately turn the situation around.
The Curse User was not a careless opponent.
The moment the man realized the change within them, he almost used that brief transition to launch a lethal strike. His body moved swiftly from the corner of a shadow, attempting to attack before the two of them could fully adapt to their newly awakened abilities.
The situation nearly turned into a disaster.
If Shizuka had not immediately expanded the effect of her healing to close the wound on Rika's body, the outcome might have been very different. A gentle light flowed from Shizuka's palm toward the wound on Rika's wrist, accelerating the recovery of the damaged tissue.
The blood that had been slowly dripping finally stopped.
The muscles that had weakened regained their strength.
Once Rika's body stabilized, she moved without the slightest hesitation.
Rika's hand immediately grasped the Cursed Tool in the form of a knife that I had previously given to her. Her movement was calm—almost too calm for a situation like that.
Rika took a deep breath.
Then she threw the knife.
With the assistance of her Innate Technique, the weapon's trajectory seemed to have already been calculated in advance. Rika's eyes read every possible movement of her opponent, eliminating the small tricks that would normally be enough to deceive someone.
The knife shot straight through the space between them.
The Curse User attempted to dodge with a final feint.
But Rika had already seen that direction even before the movement began.
The knife pierced the most vulnerable point of his body—his neck. The strike was precise.
Death came instantly.
The man's body remained standing for several seconds, as if he had not yet realized what had just happened. Then, slowly, his balance disappeared.
Blood began to flow from the wound on his neck.
His body finally collapsed onto the ground.
I remained silent for a moment after everything ended.
All this time, I had truly believed that they might not possess any Innate Technique. There had been no signs during their Cursed Energy control training. No unusual fluctuations that were noticeable enough to attract my attention.
But it turned out that I was wrong.
Their abilities were not absent.
Those techniques had simply been waiting for one thing—extreme pressure that forced them to go beyond their limits.
On that day, they did not merely survive.
They stepped past a boundary they had never reached before.
...
...
...
Even so, everything that has happened so far can still be considered as going fairly well. There has been no major incident that truly slipped out of control, and most of my plans are still moving along the path I expected.
The calendar now shows October of the year 2000, and that means one unavoidable thing—I have turned five years old.
It has been a year since I have lived in the small body of an orphan in an orphanage in Akiruno City. Now I am five years old and have been living a life that appears normal to others, but to me feels like a role-play that never ends.
If calculated calmly, that time is not actually very long. But living day by day with the awareness of an adult in a child's body makes everything feel much longer.
In a few more months, specifically in the year 2001, I will enter elementary school.
How troublesome.
Pretending to be a normal child is already exhausting. Every movement, every reaction, even the way I speak must always be controlled so that it doesn't appear strange to others. And now I have to sit neatly in a classroom, learning letters and numbers, pretending as if I truly know nothing.
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