A supporting character in a romance anime? I became a god using a rat talisman.

The air seemed to freeze in that instant.

The hand that Rikka had stretched out in front of him froze in mid-air.

That lively, noisy, and even somewhat cute demeanor vanished without a trace in the blink of an eye.

Instead, there was a chilling gloom.

"What are you talking about... allies?"

"How could there be any danger if you stay by my side? Aren't we partners? I'm... the one who worries about you the most."

"Partners? Ha!"

Kazama Chiba seemed to have heard a funny joke.

"Save your breath. Your acting is terrible. Seriously. Next time you want to play a human, please take a course on Stanislavski's 'An Actor Prepares' first."

Rikka chuckled dryly. "What are you talking about? I don't understand a word you say."

Seeing that the other party wouldn't shed a tear until they saw the coffin, Qianyu explained:

"Because I suspected that my opponent might be a space-type Clow Card, I was a little more cautious. When I was in the elevator, it took 23 seconds to go from the 1st floor to the 6th floor. From the 6th floor to the 8th floor, which is when I noticed the anomaly and started timing, it took 8 seconds."

"This means that the elevator operates at an average speed of about 1.5 seconds per floor. This includes the time for starting and decelerating."

"But just now."

He pointed to the elevator door behind him.

"Going down from the 10th floor to the 1st floor without any pause. It only took 12 seconds."

"I can run up 10 floors in 12 seconds. That's an average of 1.2 seconds per floor. And I hardly felt any weightlessness."

"A full ten stories high. Even free fall wouldn't be that fast. Unless the elevator in this building is equipped with rocket thrusters, it's simply impossible."

"I initially thought it was that Shadow card or some space-related thing playing tricks. Like some kind of space-folding trick."

Kazama Chiba looked at the girl with her head down, a mocking smile curving her lips.

"But just now, I confirmed that it's just a shadow card. It only knows how to throw things at people; it doesn't have the brains or the ability to change the rules of physics."

"Since that shadow puppeteer can't do it."

"So, this means that the anomaly in the elevator must be caused by a second card. A card that can interfere with people's senses and create a time illusion."

"Ha ha……"

Rikka didn't speak. She kept her head down, her bangs obscuring her eyes, making her expression unreadable.

A low chuckle escaped from the "girl's" throat.

The laughter grew louder and sharper, sending chills down one's spine.

"I see... so that's why..."

She looked up.

The face that originally belonged to Rikka Takanashi now wore an extremely eerie smile.

"But what makes you think it's me?"

"Maybe the elevator is broken? Maybe you miscounted? Don't you trust your allies at all?"

Kazama Chiba looked at the guy who was still putting up a stubborn resistance.

"Your biggest mistake wasn't the timing, but the way you showed up."

He pointed to the elevator door behind him.

"I pressed the call button on the tenth floor. The elevator doors opened almost instantly. This means the car was already stopped on the tenth floor."

"If Rikka really did come up to me in the elevator by herself, then before I pressed the button, there should have been an arrow indicating 'going up' on the floor display screen outside. And I should have been able to hear the elevator running."

But there was nothing. Nothing at all.

Kazama Chiba spread her hands, delivering the final, decisive blow.

"The elevator arrived the instant I pressed the button. And then you were standing inside."

“The real Rikka doesn’t have the ability to foresee the future. She couldn’t possibly know at what second I would press the button, let alone have the elevator stopped there in advance to wait for me to open the door.”

"You didn't come up in the elevator. You appeared out of nowhere. Or rather, you were hiding in that elevator car from the beginning, waiting to surprise me."

"Furthermore, although that girl is a bit of a chuunibyou (a person with delusions of grandeur), in a life-or-death situation, she definitely wouldn't ask a bunch of questions like a curious child. Her first thought would be to worry about her older sister."

"And you, all you could talk about was that dark figure. Were you trying to distract me with conversation? To cover up the elevator problem?"

Dead silence.

The girl finally stopped pretending and started clapping.

"Oh dear... I never expected... to stumble on such a boring math problem."

"I was planning to play a little longer."

That thing sighed, its tone filled with regret.

"If you just believed that lie... you could get a sweet, obedient girlfriend who would cling to you. Isn't that the fantasy that you male humans crave most?"

"What a pity, what a pity."

"Since you don't like this script."

"Let's try something more interesting then. Tell me... Kazama Chiba, who do you think I am?"

After pondering for a moment, Kazama Chiba said:

"If it were just a change in space, I might not be able to guess, but if you appear in the form of Rikka, then I most likely know what's going on."

Since it can create visual deception, alter spatial perception, and even perfectly impersonate others, there is only one Clow Card that fits these characteristics.

Kazama Chiba stared at the fake girl in front of her and called out her real name.

The Illusion brand.

Chapter 24 Saving Takanashi Touka

Once the disguise was exposed, the "Rikka" in front of her stopped acting, her body contorted, revealing the true form of the illusion card.

A beautiful woman, yet exuding an eerie aura, clapped her hands lightly.

Like the signal when a stage play ends, the surrounding elevator walls, marble floors, and that nauseating eyeball chandelier, which were still twisting and deforming, all collapsed in an instant.

A cold wind howled in.

That was a gale-force wind hundreds of meters in the air.

Kazama Chiba subconsciously squinted, his clothes fluttering in the wind. He realized he was standing on the edge of a gap that had been violently smashed open.

Upon closer inspection, the glass door to the first-floor lobby was nowhere to be seen.

Less than a meter directly in front of him was a huge, jagged gap.

The steel bars were exposed like twisted snakes, and gravel rolled down with the wind, only to be faintly echoed after a long time.

Outside, it's dozens of meters above the ground.

Below me is the brightly lit night view of Shinsui City.

This is not the first floor at all.

This is a gap in the exterior wall of the high-rise building of Misaki Mori Tower.

If he had believed that fake Rikka's nonsense and taken even one step forward...

He's probably become a mosaic in the flowerbed downstairs now.

"Oh dear, what a pity."

The prankster spread his hands, his face bearing the nonchalant expression of someone who had just failed at a prank.

"You could be free forever if you just took one more step forward. Why be so clever?"

"relief?"

Kazama Chiba stared coldly at her, the sealing staff already raised in her hand.

"Keep that kind of thing for yourself."

A red and black magical glow gathered at the tip of the staff.

He felt no pity whatsoever for the thing that had nearly killed him.

"Before I seal you away, I have some questions for you."

"First, where is Shihua?"

"Secondly, where did the residents of this floor go?"

"Hehehe... What a greedy little boy."

The [Illusion] card blinked.

"The residents... that's the work of that shadow. It stuffed all those noisy humans into the shadow to sleep soundly. Once the seal is broken, they will naturally return to their original positions."

"As for that Miss Tohka, she's over there."

The illusion card pointed to the only room behind him that was still relatively intact.

"She's lying on the sofa having a sweet dream. It's such a sweet dream that I don't want to wake her up."

Qianyu asked, "Why her? There are so many people in the whole building, why did you arrest her but let the other residents go?"

Huanpai smiled knowingly.

"Well... it's a secret. Unless... you kneel down and beg your older sister, maybe I'll consider telling you?"

"Not interested, and I don't care anyway."

Kazama Chiba didn't even bother to dodge. With a blank expression, she recited the incantation and swung down the hand holding the staff.

"Restore your original form! Clow Card!"

The tip of the staff touched that illusory forehead.

boom!