> そう、式を閉じこめるのならコンクリート詰めにでもすれば良いんだ。あくまで少女の腕力しか持たない式を閉 じこめるというのなら、単純に鉄の壁に囲まれた密室を用意するだけでいい。

> That's right, if you just wanted to imprison Shiki, you could have just put her in a concrete cell. To imprison Shiki, who in the end only has the strength of a girl, you can simply trap her in a room with walls of iron.

> Now is your blunder obvious, Alaya? It might actually have been better for you to trap Shiki in a concrete cell. Matter with form takes its toll harder on her when she weaves entropy, and is the reason she uses a weapon. Though I doubt even a material prison would have kept her for long.

> --- You may be right.

> You see, that Opposing Power refers to the 'Restorer of Direction' which is at once our greatest ally, and our greatest enemy.

> We don't want to kill humans. We want to live in peace.

> This planet that we live on doesn't want to die either, it wants to live for a long time.

> The Opposing Power is like that. The collective unconsciousness of all those who belong to the whole of the dominant species, their desire to see that the world continues to exist. It is the fundamental wish of the human species that has gathered and taken form, the Counter Guardian that we call the Opposing Power.

> Okay, let's take an example and say an extraordinary person A has conquered the world. He is a just person, and his rule has been exemplary. Within the limits of human morals that is. But in the case that you don't look from one person's point of view, and person A's actions are taken as evil by the whole of the dominant species, in short a cause for extinction, the Opposing Power will be realised.

> This is the collective body of the unconscious desire of all members of the dominant species including A to keep the world as it is in existence. To protect the race this existence that composes the species appears without anyone realising, and without anyone noticing, destroys the existence called A. The representative created by the maelstrom of humanity's unconscious mind is also a part of that unconsciousness and is not picked up.

> Even so, it's not to say that a formless consciousness becomes a curse and kills A. The Opposing Power generally hides within a human who can become a link, then drives out A who is the enemy. The person who has become the link has enough power to topple A, but no more, in order that they cannot replace A.

> Receivers who can accept the Opposing Power comprised of the whole of the dominant race's will, humans with special channels like that are few and far between. History calls them heroes and praises them.

> But in modern times that title isn't being used. Civilisations progressed to the point where it has become quite simple for humanity to destroy itself. If some company's chairman invested all his money into expanding the amount of logging in the Amazon rainforest, the world could end in a year. See, the Earth is in danger wherever and whenever. There are countless numbers of people who are being incited by the Opposing Power that save the planet without anyone knowing it. There is one hero per age. Such a thing as saving the world is no longer enough to get you called a hero.

> Also, in the case that A is too powerful to topple with a human's power, the Opposing Power becomes a natural force and destroys the area including A. Long, long ago, the sinking of that continent was due to this bastard too.

> If you talk about it like this it seems like some guardian of humanity, but this thing has no human emotions. There are times when it blocks acts that would make everyone happier. The aggravating thing is that in the end this nuisance is the representation of humanity itself. Although we can't comprehend it the Opposing Power is the ultimate form of the dominant race. Time and time again in the past, this thing appeared in front of mages who attempted a particular experiment, and the mages were all massacred."

> “Perhaps. It’s only a theory, a metaphysical rule of the universe. It’s the ‘consensus’ I always talk about, humanity’s greatest ally, and a mage’s most constant enemy. We have no ill will towards people, and only want to live in peace. Unfortunately, reality feels the same way. The combined will of all the people form into a consensual paradigm which tends to restore reality to a stable state, to combat things that logically shouldn’t exist…like the Art and mages. Sometimes, when the consensus is so focused, it coalesces, and becomes a literal manifestation. It can cast its hands into fate to move otherwise normal people in positions that would topple great men. Humanity’s swirling consensus itself is its unseen protector, and the people it channels its will into were the ones we called heroes, though it’s not so easy to have the same result now in the plurality of our world and the ease with which we can fuck ourselves over without knowing it. The Deterrent influences people all the time, saving us without us knowing it. But don’t mistake it as having any empathy for humans. It’s only loyalty is to the consensus, and it doesn’t take into account something like human happiness, where there seems to be no consensus at all. We can only be sure about two things: it is humanity’s representative will, and it will eliminate the paradoxes of the world, the mages and their experiments with the illogical Art.”