The first thing I felt when I saw Vice Captain Yanagishita was terror.
Her form was horribly indistinct. At first, it looked like wings had sprouted from her back, the crowned Vice Captain taking on an angelic shape. But upon closer inspection, she resembled a white angelic statue—only for her silhouette to blur the next second, transforming into something like a black humanoid figure. And when I focused on that figure, I could somehow see the night sky through it.
In short—she was impossibly vague, without any fixed form.
One moment, she seemed enormous; the next, tiny.
“Magnificent,”
the humanoid figure spoke in Vice Captain Yanagishita’s voice.
“So radiantly beautiful… This is an angel’s body.”
She seemed able to see her own form clearly. Maybe human eyes just couldn’t perceive it properly.
Rabbi once said angels were higher-dimensional beings. The Holy Grail’s power must have summoned her true angelic body from heaven itself.
“I see,”
Vice Captain Yanagishita murmured—and in that instant, even her faint outline vanished.
This wasn’t like her usual abilities.
It wasn’t her disappearing—it was my eyes. I couldn’t see her, nor anything around me.
“Huh? W-what—?”
As I panicked in the sudden darkness, her voice whispered right by my ear.
“This is amazing. I can take away your senses.”
I swung my umbrella toward the sound. Of course, I hit nothing. Blind as I was, I must’ve looked utterly ridiculous.
“Next—smell and hearing.”
Sound vanished.
Then, probably taste and touch too.
I—
Had lost all sensation of my own body. I couldn’t tell if I still had hands, or if I was even moving them. Pitch black. No sound. No feeling. Not even a sense of my own outline. Just my consciousness, adrift in a void.
It was terrifying.
Nothing, no matter where I reached. I couldn’t even scream.
Like I had ceased to exist. No way to measure distance, no way to perceive anything.
The loneliness was crushing. If this lasted even an hour, my mind would shatter.
Then—a voice by my ear.
“I’ll give your hearing back.”
Vice Captain Yanagishita.
“Next, I’ll restore your body’s senses.”
The moment she did—
Pathetically, I screamed. While deprived of all sensation, she must’ve broken the bones in my left pinky and ring fingers. A searing pain surged through me, the visceral awareness of my own body being damaged.
“This is so satisfying,”
she mused as I writhed.
“See how fast I can move now? Shirakawa’s nothing compared to this.”
Not that I could see, blind as I was. Just the sound of wind being sliced.
“I can even reach heaven. I feel it.”
Thunder rumbled.
The sky had been clear earlier. Yet now, rain tapped against my face—falling through the holes in the factory roof.
“I could probably destroy the world if I wanted. Not that I would, ahaha!”
The Holy Grail’s power had her high.
“C’mon, look at this! Look!”
From there, she tormented me relentlessly.
Between sensory deprivation, slashes that burned when sensation returned, sudden weightlessness followed by crashing down—
my body was soon reduced to a ragged mess.
“This feeling of omnipotence… I’ve never known anything like it,”
Vice Captain Yanagishita said.
“I’ve always thought—in the end, humans are so limited. Nobody gets to be special. Didn’t you say something similar? That everyone lives by following someone else’s orders?”
I had told Captain Shirakawa and Vice Captain Yanagishita that once.
“Exactly. I realized it younger than you. That’s why I always watched with cold disdain as fools acted special and full of themselves.”
But— she continued.
“Now, I am special. Beyond anyone’s reach. Not just humans—not even demons, not even Shirakawa, can touch me. I control everything. Wealth, intelligence, creativity—those are beneath me. I’ve transcended all axes of existence.”
Hey— the voice from that higher plane called to me.
“Impressive, right? Scary, right? Don’t you worship me? Don’t you celebrate me?”
To her euphoric gloating, I replied:
“……So lame.”
“Huh?”
“Super lame.”
“Why?! Why?!”
She was still brimming with confidence.
“Is this sour grapes? How is this lame? I’ve reached where everyone dreams of being! Why won’t you just admire me? Congratulate me?”
“As if I could.”
“Why not?! Why?!”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
Not bravado. Not bitterness. I said it with absolute conviction:
“You have no class — You are not elegant.”
Words from the depths of my soul.
“Doing something amazing and desperately showing off? That’s tacky. No matter how strong you are, you won’t earn respect or praise. Just cringe.”
“You dare—?”
Footsteps approached. Still blind.
“Earlier, I hurt you while you couldn’t feel pain. Now, I’ll let you fully experience it.”
A cold, razor-sharp edge pressed into my stomach—piercing skin, sinking deeper. Her sword. I felt every inch as it slid through, even the moment it exited my back.
I didn’t scream, but a low groan escaped me.
“Weaklings should cower before the strong. Tremble. Submit.”
She drove the blade deeper. But—
“So you felt like this when you were weak, huh?”
I grabbed the sword with my left hand.
Still blind, but now I had sensation back. I could move.
“Strong or weak—class matters. You betray. You torture. You’re crude. That’s why you lose. No class means no victory.”
Holding the sword, I swung my umbrella at where her head should be.
A metallic clang. Something hit the ground and rolled.
Seconds later, my vision returned.
Vice Captain Yanagishita stared in shock—fully human again, clear-edged.
I slammed my umbrella into her face.
I was done. Couldn’t move.
As Vice Captain Yanagishita staggered back, she yanked the sword from my gut.
Blood pooled in the factory’s center.
The sky had cleared. Sunlight streamed through the broken roof, illuminating the helicopter wreckage like some ancient ruin.
A scene fit for angels descending—
But my ending credits weren’t rolling yet.
“God, you’re persistent,” she said.
The umbrella strike hadn’t done much damage. She stood effortlessly. And—
Somehow, the Bureau Director and seven loyal captains had gathered inside.
All staring down at me with boredom.
Hurry up and die eyes.
“Yeah, well. That’s how it is,”
Said Vice Captain Yanagishita.
“Your struggle? Meaningless. We win.”
Sword in hand, she advanced. I had no strength left.
But—
“I win.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Deputy Yanagishita—acting all cool like this? Fake ‘victor’ vibes? Bad habit.”
I grinned.
“I know. You’ll never truly win. People who rely on the Holy Grail—who think it’s their only path—will never earn Victory’s smile. True victory comes from your own heart. Your own hands.”
Hanging from a helicopter, stabbed through the gut—I’d looked pathetic. But somehow, I’d earned the right to win.
“We’re taking this. Look—”
Her fallen crown rolled toward the factory entrance—where a figure stood, radiating arrogance.
I know.
Allies who exit the story midway always make their grand return at the sweetest moment.
That being said—
“Aren’t you just hogging all the best parts~?”
Okinawa.
A ship floating on the open sea.
Inside a heavily sealed container, a woman was impaled by a spear. Her face was hidden beneath her hanging hair. Her arms were bound by chains, suspended in a posture eerily similar to that of a certain revered figure who was pierced by the same spear two thousand years ago.
The woman’s lips moved.
“I’m… done for…”
She muttered deliriously, her voice gradually shifting.
“No, seriously, I can’t take this anymore! It’s too much!”
Before anyone realized, it had become a man’s voice.
“This wasn’t part of the deal! What kinda crap is this ‘¥2,000 an hour’ pay? Not worth it at all!”
Her form began to change too.
“Let me outta here already!”
She had definitely been a woman at first.
But now, she no longer resembled the proprietress of a British shop.
What emerged from the transformation was—
A small-time trickster who deceived others by shifting forms.
Abe, the shapeshifter.
READ THE ORIGINAL TRANSLATION AT GADGETIZEDPANDA.COM
“Why the hell are YOU here!?”
Vice-Captain Yanagishita’s face twisted in shock.
Because the individual who was supposed to be detained in Okinawa—Her Majesty—was standing right there.
The Bureau Director and the other captains reacted instantly, drawing their weapons as the fallen angel Lucifer made her sudden appearance.
“Why am I here? Surely you’ve all heard the old saying.”
Her Majesty’s voice was calm.
“Older immortals are crafty.”
The Holy Grail, now reduced to a mere crown, rolled to her feet. Slender, pale fingers picked it up.
“Hmm.”
Her Majesty lifted the crown toward her head.
“This was indeed once my power. How nostalgic.”
The coronation of the fallen angel Lucifer.
The Bureau Director and his captains moved immediately. Blades and firearms were raised as battle-hardened warriors closed in, ready to strike.
But—
“Kneel.”
The moment Her Majesty spoke, the toughest of the captains dropped to his knees, eyes wide with shock.
Unfazed, Her Majesty strode leisurely toward me.
The captains lunged to intercept.
Her Majesty uttered only words.
“Bow.”
“Lower your heads.”
“Prostrate yourselves.”
“Make way.”
The Bureau Director, Vice-Captain Yanagishita—all of them knelt.
As they parted, heads bowed, Her Majesty walked through the center.
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