Seraphim is a Bystander

Human or Seraphim
A new chapter begins! It's been a while, but we're back to Sera’s perspective!

 
While walking through a shopping district in town, I stumbled upon a Japanese sweets shop and—unable to resist—rushed inside and discovered one of my absolute favorites.
“Excuse me, one mitarashi dango, please.”

“Sure, that’ll be 150 yen.”
“Okay~!”
I manipulated nanomachines to make the payment electronically.
Good thing I had “borrowed” some of Aoi’s allowance and grew it through stock trading...!
Wowww—it’s probably been 5 billion years since I last had mitarashi dango! Back in my previous life (maybe?), this was my favorite food!

“Sou, thanks for waiting~”
“Ku!”
After thoroughly petting Sou, who had been waiting patiently at the entrance, I looked around for a place to sit and eat. I quickly spotted a bench nearby.

I took a seat on the bench placed next to the shop entrance, pulled out the mitarashi dango, and stuffed it into my mouth.
As I bit in, the chewy texture, the gentle sweetness, and the mild saltiness spread throughout my mouth.
“Mmm~! So gooood~!”
What a lucky find! I’ll definitely come back when I have time.
While I munched happily with my tiny mouth, a few people seemed to be drawn in by the sight and entered the shop one after another—but I didn’t pay them any mind.
After finishing the last ball on the skewer, I grabbed Sou’s leash.

“Alright, Sou, let’s go!”
“Auu!”
With a small yip and a nod, Sou and I set off after setting the destination in the map app.
Our destination: the Virtual Combat Division.
I wanted to run performance tests on this new body Ichijou-sensei had made for me.

So… let’s talk about why I, the alternate personality of Aoi, am freely walking around like this.
It all started a few days ago—shifting perspectives for a moment.
As usual, I was reading a book while watching over Aoi when my eyes caught sight of the ID card Ichijou-sensei had given me—one that could verify my identity.
A thought struck me.

…Wait, doesn’t this mean I can move around on my own?
If I can bring things into reality, doesn’t that also mean I can bring things out?
Once the idea popped into my head, pulling it off was child’s play with my specs.
In my mental world, I created a copy of myself—modeled in form and function after me—and set it up as a terminal that could house my consciousness.
I wasn’t planning to do anything extravagant, so I only enhanced cognitive and physical abilities. To blend into this world more easily, I gave the copy a mild supernatural ability as well.
From there, it was simple:
Wait for a time when no one’s looking, extract the copy from inside Aoi, and hide it away. That way, I could move around freely—not as Sera, Aoi’s alter ego, but as an independent being called Sera.

Because I split my consciousness and anchored part of it in the copy, I could share information and sensations between both bodies. And in emergencies, I could fully transfer out of Aoi and into the copy to unleash full seraphim abilities for a short time.
During summer break, while Aoi’s parents were out, I switched places with him and pulled the copy I had created in my mental world into reality.
“Ohh…! Perfect—well, not quite perfect.”

The duplicate standing before me was supposed to be a male body.
But… it had a distinctly feminine form.
When I use Aoi’s body, I retain a touch of his appearance, so I come off somewhat androgynous.
But this copy? It had no trace of Aoi. It looked exactly like my seraphim self as a ten-year-old girl—pure perfection in that form.
“Ugh… Why does that damn god only put effort into the most pointless things…”
I’d tried to recreate my former body—my pre-reincarnation self—and bind my spirit to it, but the attempt had been rejected.
So I was forced to use the seraphim form as a template when creating the copy.

And that brings us back to the current me-in-Aoi’s-body who had that whole train of thought.
“Haaah… Seriously, having a boss with weird tastes is such a pain… You get me, Sou?”
“Kuun…”

While walking, I spoke aloud to Sou, who whimpered softly with a troubled look.
Right? You get it, too, huh, Sou?
Oh, and about why Sou is here with me—simple: I had Aoi perform a little perception suppression and send him over to this side.
Strangely enough, he resists when Aoi or Aoi’s parents try to put on a leash, but when I create and attach one myself, he behaves like a good boy.
You better listen when I say, "No misbehaving!"

“Kuun…”
Even as I ruffled his head and stared into his eyes, Sou let out another pitiful whimper and just let me do as I pleased.
…Then my eyes fell on the garbage bag left from the mitarashi dango I’d eaten earlier.
It’d be a hassle to carry it all the way to the Virtual Combat Division…

Oh! Why not use the “supernatural ability” I’d been gifted?
I scanned my surroundings. No eyes on us—good.
I pointed my palm at the trash bag. Then, focusing my energy—what this world would call supernatural power or spiritual energy…
“〈Destruction〉.”

With a gentle motion of my hand over the trash, it instantly disintegrated into particles so tiny they were barely visible, drifting off on the breeze.
“Nice! It worked!”
“Kyuuun…”

Right now, my only real capabilities are this Destruction power, boosted physical and cognitive abilities, and that’s it—but looks like I’ll manage!
…Sou is still making that sad little noise, but he’s cute, so I’ve decided to stop worrying about it.