As Leo smashed open a fire hydrant with a stick, water gushed out, spraying into the air to form a misty rain.
The Nure-onna was clearly unprepared for her name to be suddenly revealed, missing her last chance to remedy the situation. The water sphere she maintained disintegrated upon encountering the new turbulence, like a malicious variable added to a precisely running computer program.
The figure behind the water curtain was thus exposed.
It was the image of a woman with a serpent's body, her hair wet and dripping, leaving mottled traces on the ground. Her sea serpent-like body stretched out, covered in black scales, with organs resembling the talons of birds of prey growing just below the human face.
The name "Nure-onna" was written simply above her head.
She hissed in anger, "Impossible, how could you possibly see through my true form?"
"Of course, it's thanks to my wisdom and deduction."
Leo shamelessly lied.
"I had my suspicions when it started raining. You had your sights on Uehara since last night, right? That sticky feeling was just like the rainwater from yesterday."
While talking, he positioned himself to exert force, tensing his muscles, and the Nure-onna coiled up, ready to strike like a cobra.
Both were waiting for a chance to strike.
"The Nure-onna has various origins and appearances in legends, such as being considered an incarnation of a sea serpent, a water demoness, or even a type of dragon. Some even think it's a variant of the Siren legend. All these seem to match your ability to manipulate water."
The Nure-onna launched an unexpected attack, not with her claws but with a swing of her tail, which Leo, supported by "Pure Eyes," dodged with strange movements, like a leaf sliding away on water swept by a fisherman's paddle, while continuing to affect the enemy's mentality with his chatter.
"But you stop the rain every time you attack, which puzzled me. It's like you hate the weather you bring, leading me to another speculation."
"In the legends of the Nure-onna, the core element isn't the serpent body but the wet-haired female face that always appears."
Leo jumped onto the slippery serpent body, driving the forked end of a crowbar into it, then leveraged it to pry.
With the Nure-onna's scream, a large patch of bloody scales was forcefully removed.
"I'll eat you first, then drain the shrine maiden's blood!"
"You won't eat anyone. Where were we? In folk tales, some have witnessed 'ghostly-bodied' women by the sea."
"That's your true nature. The rain and the water you manipulate are not under your control but a reenactment of your death scene. You actually fear water, you hate water!"
The Nure-onna roared, twisting her body trying to throw Leo off, but he held on tightly to the crowbar. More damaging was the power of "Exorcist" flowing non-stop into her from the wound he made, with red lines beginning to spread along the serpent body.
"You said you learned human knowledge because you were originally human."
"No!!"
The Nure-onna coiled up, her human face towards Leo, swinging her claws trying to crush this grasshopper-like being.
"The resentful spirit drowned in water on a rainy day, that is the 'Nure-onna.' Your true name has been seen through by me!"
Leo pulled out the crowbar, went straight through the gap between the two claws, and then brought it down squarely on the human face amidst a whistling sound.
The Nure-onna froze, and then, like cracks appearing on porcelain, the face of the drowned woman began to crack from where he struck, extending the fissure along the bleeding serpent body, emitting a glowing light from the cracks.
He withdrew his weapon and jumped down from the serpent's body.
Just like the phenomena he had witnessed before, the Nure-onna cracked along the lines, and the pale human face, the fierce claws, and the terrifying body all turned to ash.
Following the death of the monster, an unprecedented sense of fulfillment washed over him, as if fragments of unknown knowledge had been placed into his mind.
Unlike the previous times, after the monster turned to ash, the figure of a woman emerged as if reborn from a cocoon.
She smiled and nodded at Leo: "Thank you for freeing me from the body composed of resentment."
Leo was stunned, looking down at the "Kind Crowbar" in his hand: "This thing really can send people to nirvana."
The female figure was now gradually fading into light points, as if remembering something, she spoke: "Be careful, the shrine maiden's..."
Then she completely disappeared.
"Well, nobody can finish a sentence in this scene, you might as well have not spoken."
No sooner had he spoken than the ghost sister who should have ascended to paradise reappeared: "Almost reached nirvana without finishing my sentence. I wanted to warn you to be careful of the shrine maiden's uncle, goodbye!"
With a wave, she disappeared again in the same effect.
Lord Buddha sure is easy to talk to.
The two who had initially stayed back came running over, Hoshikawa Aoi clapping loudly: "Yay! A big victory for Leo!"
The shrine maiden ran a few steps and then gasped for breath: "Although my talismans also played a big role, Leo-kun's combat ability is indeed strong. I thought I saw another spirit just now?"
Leo relayed the female ghost's warning about Uehara's uncle to them.
The magical girl fell into thought: "Uehara, who could only see spirits, has been attacked frequently lately, plus the mention of 'shrine maiden'... Yūki, I think this might be related to what we're investigating."
"Speaking of which, with everything happening with Uehara, I haven't had the chance to ask. Who exactly is this mastermind you've been talking about?"
Leo asked.
Hoshikawa shook her head: "I'm not sure. I realized it while fighting at a place called Dolphin Hotel, where someone was using creatures from the Negative Realm as materials, shaping monsters in the form of local legends of Sakura Island."
"Creatures from the Negative Realm are a phenomenon that has appeared around Sakura Island in the last thirty years. We magical girls were born to counter them—if someone wants to embed beings from beyond this planet into our existing worldview, it could lead to a disaster."
Yūki chimed in: "Alright, let's not worry about the future for now. Isn't anyone going to check if Uehara-kun is still alive over there?"
Leo concluded: "For now, I'll just take the guy lying there back home, and we can talk about other things later."
He also wanted to find a secluded place to check what knowledge had been added to his mind.
The other two had no objections.