"Assassin." You say the name of the girl's class, before you correct yourself. "No. Chiyome. Do you... wish for your curse to be broken?" You lay a hand on the bare shoulder of the girl, who barely responds, though her eyes seem to be pleading with you, half-lidded though they are. You don't know if they're begging for mercy, begging for death, or just hopeful that you truly mean what you say.

But luckily for Chiyome, you truly do, and after ten seconds of physical contact with her, you begin to visualize the aspects that constitute her existence. Working at the speed of thought, you scan through her being in order to find just what it is that you're looking for, while her contract with Orochi is important to break as well, there's only one thing that could represent her contract, and it's the same as her curse. You find it. A black viper, slithering through the conceptual visualizations. Under normal circumstances, the contract would be a different thing from the curse, but this being who this is, it seems the two have become one. Her contract fusing with her curse completely. It's unlikely that even Rule Breaker would've been capable of separating Chiyome from Orochi's control. Makes sense why he was so confident in sending her after you when he should already be aware of your tendency to steal Servants.

---

You'll apply a concept to this snake alright. The concept of 'purification'! What better way could there possibly be to rid a girl of such a horrible curse than to completely purify it with a concept of absolute purification! You grab the snake by the neck, grabbing it with great force as you begin to call upon your ability to apply concepts to living beings and objects. Normally, a change like this wouldn't be permanent, but something tells you that's not going to be the case here. You always seem to have a little bit more leeway when you're already changing something that should be rejected by the world, and what's more, you only just spoke six lines of your Aria a few minutes ago, so the effects it can bring about are very much still active upon you.

The snake thrashes about as it tries to escape your grip, but you aren't actually there, you're more a visualization of yourself conceptually acting within the deepest parts of Chiyome's existence. There's really something very personal about using Truth Manipulation on living beings, as you could use it to easily enter the deepest parts of their hearts, or learn whatever you wanted to learn about them, but you aren't the sort of person to do something like that without permission. At least not on somebody who you don't hate.

With the concept chosen, you begin to impose it upon the thrashing snake that represents the Curse of Orochi, and you watch with satisfaction as the snake begins to change color, from black to white, and then... to gold? You aren't certain just what this might mean, but before you can question it any further, you feel yourself being dragged out of the conceptual world that only you seem to able to reach. You aren't sure if it is a true world, or just how you visualize your own usage of your power, it's more likely to be the latter, but at the same time you wouldn't exactly be surprised if it were the former either.

Part 26