Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu

  This girl was wearing extravagant black-red Sakura Island clothing, and her dark-purple hair reached her waist, which was a different length of hair compared to Yukari's.

  However, Seiji's female spirit told him that this was indeed Yukari!

  "The young lady's combined together with her mystical connection… or, it might be more accurate to say that it's possessed her."

  "How did they combine?"

  "I don't know."

  "Is it possible to separate them?"

  "I don't know that, either."

  "Then, what should we do?" Seiji furrowed her eyebrows.

  "Wake her up and try communicating with her… Although I feel that communication won't be so easy. It's highly likely that she'll attack you on sight when she wakes up."

  "Should I defeat her?"

  "I don't know what the correct action to take in this situation is, so I can't give you any appropriate advice. You should decide this on your own," the female spirit told him.

  Seiji fell silent upon hearing this.

  If the mystical connection had combined with Yukari, that meant harming it would equal harming Yukari. In that case, he couldn't use any overly powerful attacks against her.

  One workable method might be to defeat and suppress her with as little injury as possible, then attempt at communicating with her.

  One more method was to…


  "Is it possible to wake Yukari herself up?"

  "Yes, but I feel that would be quite difficult to do so."

  "…I have to try," Seiji sighed.

  Having to fight a friend who lost her sense of self in order to wake her up? This was an overly dramatic type of scene that he didn't really enjoy.

  But, he didn't really have any other methods available to him that he could think of in such a situation.

  Seiji didn't want to harm Yukari. He definitely wouldn't do that to her unless he was absolutely forced to do so in order to defend himself. So, if she really did attack him immediately without even attempting to talk things out, he decided that he could only go on the defensive while attempting to call out to her.

  After making his preparations, he slowly walked towards Yukari.

  The girl on the spiderweb slowly opened her eyes, sat up, and turned to look at him.

  When Seiji exchanged glances with her, he saw that her face was the exact same as Yukari's, apart from her eyes—her eyes were completely blood-red and had no pupils.

  Those were the same eyes as the large spider monster from earlier!

  The purple-haired girl instantly disappeared from the spiderweb.

  Something flashed under the moonlight.

  Seiji suddenly swung his wooden sword, slicing at something in midair!

  *Shing!* …He managed to slice through the thin threads of spiderweb that were aimed at him.

  More spiderweb strands were quickly shot in his direction. These spiderweb strands glinted sharply under the moonlight.

  Seiji dodged those that he could, and sliced through the ones that he couldn't.

  These spiderwebs had greater slicing ability than even a metal sword! If any normal person was hit by even one, that person would probably be sliced apart.

  "Yukari!" he shouted as loudly as he could while defending himself. "Don't lose to such a thing! Don't be controlled by her! Wake up!!!"

  There was no response.

  An endless stream of spiderweb silk kept coming for him.

  *Smack!*

  Seiji was finally hit by one strand. Luckily, he had cast [Mana Barrier] on himself beforehand which was able to block the attack.

  Seiji continued shouting.

  However, there was still no response. Instead, his opponent's attacks became stronger and stronger.

  *Smack! Smack! Smack!* …


  It was going to be no good if he only defended himself, as he was gradually getting overwhelmed.

  "Yukari, I apologize."

  Seiji backflipped in midair, and sliced out with a wave of sword energy towards the shadows in the forest to his right!

  His wave of sword energy was destroyed by the spiderweb strands.

  He sent out even more waves of sword energy.

  His continuous waves of sword energy clashed fiercely in midair against the spiderweb strands!

  This stalemate between attacking and defending continued for several seconds, until a white long whip suddenly attacked from the darkness!

  *Boom!*

  Seiji dodged this whip's attack as it crashed into the ground, making a loud sound as it smashed a large amount of cluster amaryllis flowers to little pieces.

  The broken flower petals flew everywhere, looking just like droplets of blood.

  The black-red clothed purple-haired figure rushed out from the shadows, twirling around at a high speed while viciously swinging her whip at him!

  *Boom!!* *Smack!*

  Seiji blocked this attack with his wooden sword, but he was sent flying from the impact and crashed into a large tree. Luckily, he managed to hold on to his sword.

  [Evolved Mana Barrier]!

  Seiji sensed danger, so he borrowed power from his bonded spirit to cast a stronger version of his defensive spell, causing golden light to appear all around him.

  This decision of his turned out to be a correct one.

  That was because a white whip immediately came snaking at him and viciously struck his side!

  The thick tree was snapped in two by the tremendous force, and Seiji was sent flying from the impact once again.

  If he hadn't protected himself with [Evolved Mana Barrier] in time, he figured that perhaps he wouldn't have gotten off so "lightly" as just being sent flying.

  He adjusted his position in midair to see the purple-haired girl now wielding a white whip in each hand…


  *Swoosh swoosh!* The two long white whips suddenly transformed into countless spiderwebs that shot in his direction!! The spiderwebs were so thick that they even blocked out the moonlight.

  [Bullet Time], activate!

  [Evolved Body-strengthening technique]!

  As Seiji was midair and unable to dodge this, he cast another evolved spell and managed to wield his Kapok tree bark wooden sword at high speed in order to break through the spiderwebs aimed at him, safely landing on the ground.

  The purple-haired girl paused in her movements slightly, apparently not expecting him to be able to defend against this attack of hers.

  However, the next second, she continued attacking without saying a word.

  "Yukari… wake up!!"

  Seiji did his best to resist as he shouted.

  Defend… counter… defend… counter… defend… counter…


  Seiji grit his teeth as he withstood a furious flurry of attacks and continued shouting towards Yukari.

  Even if it seemed like it was fruitless, he still did his best to persist.

  That was because he believed in Yukari: she had to be doing her best to fight in her own way as well.

  That girl definitely wasn't the type to let herself be controlled by something so mysterious. As long as she possessed any willpower left, she would definitely resist!

  "I think that it's enough for you to have persisted to such a degree already." Some minutes later, the female spirit talked to Seiji again. "You should be able to tell now that you're unable to wake up that young lady through this method. Perhaps injuring her slightly will make it easier to wake her up…"

  "No," Seiji refused.

  "Why?"

  "Because I feel… although I really want to go on the offensive as well, only defending for all this time, I can feel that Yukari's trying her best as well."

  "It doesn't appear to me like her movements have changed in any way…"

  "That's why I said that it's only something I feel!"

  As they talked, Seiji sliced through another wave of spiderweb strands.

  "I don't know why I have such a feeling, and I also know that it won't be good if things continue like this. Perhaps it's the right thing after all for me to start attacking and going all-out, but… I still want to believe in her until the end!"

  The female spirit fell silent for a moment.

  "You're an idiot." She sighed.

  "That's right, I agree with that assessment as well. Feel free to laugh at me."

  "I won't laugh at a man who has such firm resolution. Go ahead and struggle as you wish until the end, heehee…"

  "In the end, didn't you still laugh after all?" Seiji's cheek twitched slightly.

  At this moment, the purple-haired girl suddenly glowed red and her movements unnaturally slowed down. It appeared just like the scene of a character in a video game who was suffering from lag.

  'It's having an effect!?'

  Something flashed in Seiji's eyes.

  "Yukari, do your best!!" He began cheering her on.

  Yukari had woken up long ago.

  Seigo's voice woke her up.

  After being woken up from a hazy state, she was astonished to discover that he was defending against "her" own attacks, and that he was shouting towards her.

  Yukari tried controlling her own body. However, she failed and couldn't feel anything from her body at all. She had no clue what she should do.

  She was quite worried when she saw that Seigo was being attacked continuously and put into multiple perilous situations.

  She wanted to shout out to him for him to no longer worry about her.

  She wanted to see him counterattack… for "herself" to be defeated. Even killing "herself" was fine with her as that might release her from this.

  However, he didn't do any of that. He only adamantly continued defending himself and countering her attacks.

  'This definitely won't be good if things continue like this.' Yukari felt pained for him as she watched.

  Even though she didn't know what she could do, she could only try her best.

  'Stop… stop… stop… stop… stop… stop…


  'This is my body! Stop!!'

  She began to feel hatred for "whatever" it was that was controlling her body to attack him.

  "Stop controlling me! Just what are you supposed to be!? Get the hell out of my body!!!" she angrily roared in her heart.

  At this moment, whatever it was that was controlling her received an impact, and its movements slowed because of it.

  Yukari recovered the feeling of being able to control her own body.