"Letting harmless kaiju go free — plenty of Ultramen have done something like that, haven't they?"
Hinako Shimizu perked up and asked with a smile. Her voice had regained its light, cheerful tone, as if she were trying to convince herself.
"You're right. Ultraman Jack, Ultraman, Cosmos, Ultraman 80... they've all done something like that, sparing harmless kaiju out of compassion."
Amamiya Rin's words carried a deeper meaning.
Ultraman Jack, the First, Cosmos, Ultraman 80... they were Ultra Warriors like that. But... never mind. There was no need to tell Hinako any of this now. It didn't matter if she wanted to turn Tsuneki Hisayuki into a Baltan.
Amamiya Rin silently sealed away his inner voice.
"Hinako..."
At his grandfather's urging, the Seven-Tailed Red Fox raised its head and met Hinako Shimizu's gaze.
It tried to read something in those golden eyes, but couldn't make out the feelings of this childhood friend. Those eyes were too bright — bright as twin burning flames, impossible to look at directly, let alone see through.
Though it wanted to plead for its grandfather's life, it knew full well that as a Giant of Light, an Ultra Warrior, Hinako would never let its grandfather go.
With one last look at Hinako Shimizu, the Seven-Tailed Red Fox's body sank beneath the surface of the lake.
The water's surface felt like a soft membrane, cradling its body before slowly rising over its limbs, torso, and head. Its form gradually turned transparent, like ink diluted by water, and it vanished from this world.
"Hinako Shimizu! Must you hunt us to the last?! If I die, the water dragon's seal breaks, and all of Ebisugaoka dies with me! Is that what you want — to become Ebisugaoka's eternal criminal, all for the sake of your precious justice?"
Turning back, the Nine-Tailed Black Fox stared at Hinako Shimizu and demanded coldly.
Its remaining tails fanned out behind it, every hair standing on end, as demonic power surged wildly within it, wreathing its body in a visible haze of black flame.
"Eternal criminal? If I let your crimes go unpunished, that's when I'd deserve to be nailed to the pillar of shame. As for the water dragon of Ebisugaoka — I already told you, once I've destroyed you, I'll go there at once."
Hinako Shimizu said calmly, her spinning ice axe hovering at her side, its blade shimmering with cold silver light, like a hawk poised to strike its prey.
"Whether I suppress it with Ultra Willpower or find some other way, I won't let innocent people be persecuted in the name of sacrifice, and I won't let the people of Ebisugaoka suffer at the water dragon's hands!"
Before she'd even finished speaking, the ice axe was already moving.
A sonic boom tore across the lake's surface! For an instant, the whole Sanctuary seemed to fall silent, every sound swallowed by that single crack.
A visible ring of white shockwave spread outward from the axe's path, as if someone had drawn a straight line across the water. Wherever it passed, the once-calm lake tore open into a trench deep enough to see the bottom, walls of water surging up on either side, and the still-churning waves were ground into fine mist the instant they touched that silver light, dispersing into a haze of white vapor in the air.
The Nine-Tailed Black Fox neither dodged nor defended — not because it couldn't, but because it saw no need to.
Its four legs stood firm on the water's surface, head raised high, its blue-green slit pupils staring straight into the oncoming silver light.
"Hahahahahaha...!"
Facing this lethal force head-on, it burst into mad laughter — a laugh rough and unhinged, carrying the resolve of one ready to take its enemy down with it.
"Then let this old one see it — without my clan's suppression, just how will you protect Ebisugaoka!"
In that instant, the entire space of the Sanctuary began to shake violently. Bolts of lightning struck down one after another from the sky, each one tearing through the darkness to reveal a deeper void beyond. Fierce winds poured in through the cracks, howling like wailing ghosts. It felt as though the end of the world had come.
"Tenzui! You have no reason left to exist! Crumble! Water Dragon —! It's time to awaken!"
A flash of silver light — the ice axe swept across the fox's neck.
The roar cut off abruptly, sliced clean through mid-throat.
As jet-black fox blood sprayed out, the massive black head, along with half its neck, was cleanly severed and fell away.
The head bounced twice across the water's surface and rolled far away, its blue-green slit pupils still wide open, that mad grin still hanging on its lips.
At the very same moment, the heavens and earth themselves convulsed!
"BOOM—!!!"
The Sanctuary began to collapse!
Countless cracks spread outward in every direction from beneath the Nine-Tailed Black Fox's corpse, each one widening madly, as if some giant hand were tearing the space itself apart. The edges of the cracks flickered with an ominous red glow, revealing a bottomless void beneath. Violent turbulence poured out from within them, churning the lake into chaos — pillar after pillar of water shot skyward, only to dissolve into nothing in midair, not even a droplet falling back to the surface.
The sky, too, began to crumble.
That boundless darkness shattered inch by inch like broken glass, great slabs of black peeling away from the dome above to reveal an even deeper void beyond. The falling fragments caught fire in midair, turning to crimson flame, tracing brief streaks across the sky before flickering out and dissolving — not even ash remained.
It wasn't only the Sanctuary. As the lake's surface shattered completely and the sky peeled away entirely, the shrines, mountains, approach paths, stone lanterns, and villages of both the Front and Back Worlds began, in that same instant, to dissolve into nothingness.
Everything vanished like pencil marks erased by a rubber, disappearing bit by bit from the edges inward.
Rinko Nishida and Shu Iwai in the Front World, Igarashi Sakuko in the Back World, and even Amamiya Rin and Hinako Shimizu within the Sanctuary — all of them felt, at the same moment, a strange sensation of falling.
The feeling was like falling from a great height, or sinking into deep water — as if consciousness itself were being pulled uncontrollably out of this realm. Every sense blurred: light, sound, touch, all of it twisting and distorting, as though returning to the world governed by gravity.
After some unknown span of time, the sensation of falling vanished, and Hinako Shimizu felt a heavy, solid sense of reality return.
She opened her eyes and stood there, dazed, staring blankly into space.
Everything around her was far too quiet, a stark contrast to the roaring and shattering of moments before.
Her vision was slightly blurred, as if veiled by a thin mist. The light around her was dim and warm, and the air was thick with the scent of incense and wood.
No — it wasn't mist. It was the white threads hanging from the brim of her shiromuku headdress, draped over her eyes.
Hinako Shimizu looked down and found herself still dressed in the heavy white shiromuku, the white cotton headpiece covering most of her face, its hanging threads swaying faintly in the candlelight.
In her ears came the low chant of the Shinto priest's ritual prayer, unhurried and measured, carrying the solemn rhythm particular to such ceremonies. A bronze bell swayed gently, ringing out crisp and clear, again and again, echoing through the quiet worship hall.
Everything seemed perfectly normal — the worship hall of Tsunekiyoshi Jingu, the wedding still underway. Everything looked just as it had before.
But just now...
____
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