"Five hundred years? Boring things?"
"What do you mean by that?"
Ei's face was full of confusion. She had the uneasy feeling that Wendi's strange visitor—Su Mo—knew something. Five hundred years ago was when the Khaenri'ah incident happened: the time when her sister and many companions were taken from her. Back then so much was lost—family, friends, even Inazuma nearly fell to the monsters. After that, the burden of Inazuma fell on her shoulders and her pursuit of Eternity began.
Everything changed after that. So now, five centuries later, hearing Su Mo speak like that made Ei both agitated and curious.
"I'm not here to explain that to you. I'm only here to clean the contamination off your weapon. You'll learn the rest later. Hurry up and hand it over—I don't have all day."
Su Mo wasn't interested in explanations. One: she was lazy. Two: someone (the System) told her not to reveal things right now. At first she didn't care—an incomplete shard of memory meant nothing to her—but after learning a few details she agreed to act as requested. And of course she had her own terms; the exchange was made.
Ei's mind raced. You'll learn later? Contamination on my blade? Could she mean…
Her eyes narrowed as she looked at the Musou no Hitotachi (the blade in her hand). The dark traces on the metal had indeed spread since earlier; the smears were creeping, seeping outward. If nothing was done, the whole sword might be consumed by that twisted black mark.
Worse, the blackness gave off an evil aura—deeper, more insidious than Abyssal corruption.
"Ei, why is Musou like that?" Yae Miko asked, alarmed. She, too, remembered that uneasy sensation from earlier.
"Just a quick grasp with my hand—cheap workmanship," Su Mo said casually before Ei could answer.
She only touched it? Miko was stunned. There had been no such feeling radiating from Su Mo herself, yet apparently the slightest contact had left this trace. Where had this girl come from, and what power did she hide?
"…Why should I trust you?" Ei asked. She couldn't hand her weapon—her true weapon, entrusted through sacred duty—over to a stranger. Especially not to someone as inscrutable as Su Mo.
"Fine. Don't trust me—doesn't matter to me. This place isn't mine anyway," Su Mo shrugged.
"Wait—uh… miss? If you don't remove that, what happens?" Miko, recovering her manners with a forced smile, pressed for the consequences. She sensed Su Mo wasn't speaking only about the sword; she'd hinted at something broader. That worried Miko even more.
"You call me 'miss'? You're older than me—no, much older," Su Mo quipped.
Miko: "???"
Su Mo rolled her eyes at Miko's formality and then answered plainly: if the blackness wasn't removed, it would leak from the blade and spread like a plague—polluting the surroundings. With bad luck, it might contaminate the whole world. In short: world-ending risk. For Su Mo, that outcome didn't actually matter—after all, there were no movies or ice cream there anyway; if the world went, so be it.
Miko was speechless.
"Ei, I don't think she's lying," Miko said quietly. "She didn't need to ask to take the sword—if she wanted it, she could have simply taken it."
After a long silence Ei relented. If Su Mo truly had the power, she could have forcibly grabbed Musou. That argument was enough. With visible reluctance, Ei placed her sword in Su Mo's hands.
Su Mo toyed with the blade for a moment—then, in less than a minute, removed the black corruption entirely.
"All done. But…well. You'll know later."
She handed the Musou back and vanished before anyone could ask more.
"She probably meant something about Makoto," Yae Miko muttered once Su Mo disappeared—"maybe Makoto left something on the Musou."
Ei said nothing. She simply looked at the Musou no Hitotachi now restored to its former appearance, and in her chest a quiet thought surfaced.
Could it really be you, Makoto…?
Advance Chapters available on Patreon
patreon.com/pikachu614