I Sealed Sukuna’s Finger#348+349: Divide, Sayaka: Will There Be Another Chance?

Bokue Keikain hadn't embraced her for some sappy shonen manga moment—trying to awaken Kanon Kanase's consciousness through the power of friendship or familial bonds or whatever.

What he needed to do was twofold: restrain Kanon's movements to prevent further attacks, and more importantly, locate the device inside her body that was forcing her into this angelic state.

At least from what he'd seen two days ago at the chapel behind Saikai Academy, Kanon clearly couldn't control her own spiritual circuits, let alone freely activate her angel transformation.

And judging from these two encounters, when Kanon transformed, it wasn't so much another consciousness controlling her body—it was more like consciousness itself being overtaken by raw power, leaving only instinct.

The instinct to plunder others' spiritual circuits.

If this continued, Kanon's personality would be completely devoured, leaving only a shell possessed by angelic power.

"Bokue, watch out!"

"Bokue...!"

Just as Bokue had restrained Kanon, cries of alarm came from Sayaka and La Folia below, accompanied by the whistling of something cutting through air.

Hmm?

Sensing something amiss, Bokue glanced back and down. The magical cannons that had fired earlier hadn't collided with his barrier—instead, they'd curved around like controllable tentacles and were now racing back up.

Aimed directly at his back.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

In an instant, six concentrated beams of high-density magical power converged on a single point. The violent explosion in the sky shook both sea and earth, flames instantly engulfing both figures.

"Checkmate."

On the armored transport ship below, Kensei Kanase sat slumped on the deck, gazing upward. The red flames reflected in his round glasses as the corners of his perpetually tight lips finally curved upward slightly.

"Though she hasn't reached the stage of true ascension through divine calling, the energy intensity of pseudo-angel transformation far surpasses ordinary human power. The gap between you is already the difference between mortals and gods. If Kanon wished, you couldn't even touch her, let alone defend against her attacks. You're not even in the same dimension anymore—"

Pride comes before a fall, as they say. Before Kensei could finish his triumphant speech, his smug expression froze on his face.

At the same moment, with a casual wave of the youth's hand, the explosion's smoke that should have taken time to dissipate vanished instantly. What appeared before everyone's eyes was Bokue Keikain, completely unharmed.

And equally unharmed—Kanon Kanase in his arms.

Under the brilliant sunlight, a thin golden barrier surrounded them both. The exact same defensive technique that had protected the entire island last night.

The most basic defensive barrier in Onmyodo.

"What... h-how is this possible?!"

Kensei's mouth fell open in shock.

He'd remained emotionless even when Bokue had called him a human trafficker, but this time he was genuinely shaken to his core.

"This... this is impossible! How could you block an angel's attack? Absolutely impossible! Your powers aren't even in the same dimension! Your defense couldn't possibly work against Kanon's attacks!"

"Is that so?"

Bokue's voice drifted down from above.

He held Kanon in his embrace, magnetic field power circulating around him in slow, regular rhythms like celestial bodies in a cosmic system—radiant and warm. From below, he looked like a second humanoid sun in the sky.

He glanced down at Kensei, golden light flowing through his eyes like a solar core.

"If we're really discussing whose power ranks higher, I honestly couldn't say."

With that, Bokue gently placed his palm on the silver-haired girl's head.

[Magnetic Field Rotation!]

[Matter Reconstruction!]

Without any dramatic display, the control chip in the silver-haired girl's brain instantly dissipated under matter reconstruction, transforming into blood matching Kanon's type and flowing into her circulatory system.

"..."

Without the chip's control, Kanon—who'd been filled with killing intent moments ago—finally stopped.

Held in Bokue's arms, her silver-blue eyes still swirled with chaos, but the murderous intent had been replaced by confusion.

Still consciousness overtaken by power, huh...

One glance told Bokue everything.

Kanon's situation was like a noob playing a MOBA game with scripts, except the script was so powerful it completely took over the game. The noob couldn't even fight the script for mouse control—couldn't even click to walk around safely.

Looks like I'll need to purge the angelic power from Kanon's body...

Bokue thought to himself.

But he didn't have any power-draining abilities himself. The only option was to take a risk and try... something he'd personally experienced before.

It was the only way, especially since Bokue had no idea where that person was right now.

So Bokue once again embraced the consciousness-lost Kanon, stroking her hair as if soothing a small animal while closing his eyes and focusing, attempting to activate the power called "Divide."

[Divide!]

As the golden magnetic field around him pulsed, the six-winged silver-haired girl in his arms trembled as if most of her strength had been drained, her arms falling limply to her sides.

But this wasn't over. The former Kanon couldn't even control two wings, and now she had six. Just counting wings alone, that was at least triple her previous power.

He had to continue!

[Divide!]

[Divide!]

[Divide!!!]

The continuous halving rapidly diminished the angelic power within Kanon—from full to half, then a quarter... an eighth... a sixteenth...

Until finally, with the angelic power approaching zero, the wings behind the girl became translucent and ethereal, then shattered and dispersed with a crisp "pop."

❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁

At the same time, in the Vatican Church of Northern Europe—

Michael, performing routine maintenance on the faith system, suddenly let out a soft "huh," blinking as if his eyes were tired, then rubbing them.

"Hmm~ Did I see that wrong?"

He could've sworn he'd just seen the number of angels in the faith system fluctuate for a moment before immediately reverting.

Was there a new bug in the maintenance?

<><><><><><><><>

Back on the beach, as Kanon's angel wings completely dissipated, Kensei collapsed to his knees on the armored transport ship's deck. His mouth hung open as if he'd aged twenty years in an instant.

"How... why did this happen..."

The lab-coated middle-aged man kept muttering to himself.

"It shouldn't be like this! This isn't how it was supposed to go! Why did it fail?! Kanon should have ascended to become an angel, answering the divine call to heaven!"

"You're noisy. Guess I was so focused on draining Kanon's angelic power, I forgot about you."

Floating above, Bokue glanced down at the man who'd clearly descended into complete madness.

With just that single look, golden flames ignited across Kensei's body, reducing him to ash in the blink of an eye. The fire also vaporized the scattered remains of that couple who'd threatened to turn La Folia into a biological weapon.

Only after finishing this did Bokue slowly descend from the sky.

On the ground, the two girls immediately rushed forward as they saw him descending, both expressing their concern.

"Bokue, are you alright?"

"Bokue... are you hurt anywhere?"

Compared to the silver-haired princess's directness, the War Dancer was slightly more subtle.

But the worry in Sayaka's eyes showed her concern was no less than La Folia's.

After all, they'd watched Bokue take six magical cannon blasts head-on.

"No, I'm fine. Don't worry about me."

Bokue shook his head.

"Then... what about her?"

Sayaka finally turned her attention to the silver-haired girl in his arms, carefully reaching out to check for breathing.

"How's Kanon doing?"

"She's... fine too. Just exhausted and hasn't regained consciousness yet."

Bokue's tone remained unhurried.

"Since Kanon's consciousness was completely controlled by the angelic power inside her, I had to drain all of it first. Emergency treatment, basically."

"Drain?"

La Folia tilted her head curiously, making a grasping gesture with her hand.

"Like those energy-draining techniques from TV shows?"

"Mm... something like that."

Bokue thought about it seriously before answering.

"This way, the angelic power in her body isn't strong enough to forcibly override her consciousness anymore."

He'd basically copied what Vali had done to him with the White Dragon Emperor's Divine Dividing—except Bokue's power was so overwhelming that he'd nearly made Vali explode, almost causing complete physical collapse and death on the spot.

"I see. Thank you, Bokue."

La Folia smiled slightly.

Vroooom—!

Just then, white waves suddenly appeared on the distant sea surface, accompanied by a speedboat's horn.

"That boat... more pursuers?"

La Folia reacted sharply, frowning as she looked toward the sound.

Bokue also glanced over, but unlike the silver-haired princess's wariness, his expression was completely relaxed.

Even Sayaka seemed to realize something, her brows relaxing with a hint of disbelieving anticipation and joy.

"No, wait! Could that be—"

"Big Brother! We're here—!"

The girl's cheerful voice carried across the waves like a soaring dove, reaching the three on the beach.

Without question, that voice belonged to Nagisa.

She leaned halfway out of the speeding boat's side, waving energetically toward the beach. Meanwhile, in the cockpit sat a certain Sword Shaman, sitting ramrod straight with both hands gripping the wheel tightly.

"Yukina and... Miss Nagisa?"

Sayaka covered her mouth in surprise.

"How did they find us here?"

"...Who knows."

Bokue said this, but he'd already guessed the answer.

In barely thirty seconds, the speedboat racing at full throttle reached the beach.

Yukina had barely stopped the boat when Nagisa leaped down from behind, running straight to Bokue for an unabashed, tight hug.

"Long time no see, Big Brother~ Did you miss Nagisa?"

"It hasn't been that long..."

With Sayaka and La Folia watching, Bokue could only pat the girl's back like an actual big brother.

But this earned a dissatisfied huff from Nagisa.

"You left yesterday! That's already two whole days! There's a saying—'one day apart feels like three autumns.' Three autumns is three years, which is 1,095 days. Not seeing each other for 1,095 days, and if we keep calculating by 'one day equals three autumns'..."

"Then you'd be stepping on air to reach Heaven."

Bokue cut her off before the numbers could balloon further.

After all, with Nagisa's personality, she might well end up saying something like "do it three trillion times and I'll forgive you."

Even a True Ancestor's body couldn't handle that kind of abuse...

"So how did you two rent a speedboat anyway? You're both underage, aren't you?"

"About that..."

Nagisa didn't answer immediately, instead looking toward Yukina, who'd just disembarked and joined them.

The Sword Shaman still held the boat keys. Seeing everyone looking at her, she froze slightly.

"Um... actually, Nagisa said she could sense Senpai's location. And I was a bit worried about Sayaka and Bokue-senpai working together, so I used my Lion King Organization authority to rent a speedboat. But now it seems..."

Yukina's eyes gradually narrowed as she spoke, looking past Bokue and the others to the beachfront mansion standing nearby.

Without question, this was obviously someone's handiwork.

Yukina's narrowed eyes were meant to complain about Bokue creating a villa while supposedly on a rescue mission, but as they say, the speaker has no particular intention while the listener reads meaning into everything. To Sayaka, it looked entirely different.

The War Dancer girl's cheeks flushed red as memories of everything that had happened on the island over these two days and one night flooded back. She waved her hands frantically.

"Well... how should I put it, um... it was fine! Bokue only had a small accident at first due to some misunderstandings, but everything after that was no problem. You can absolutely rest assured about that, Yukina... Besides, it was only two days. Now all the problems are solved and we're preparing to head back... Yeah, that's about it..."

As she spoke, Sayaka's heart suddenly trembled slightly.

Right, just as she'd said—time to go back.

So afterward... would there be another chance for such "accidents"?