Kirito took advantage of this brief interval to burst forward. He completely ignored the fourth knight and charged at Fanatio, who was still chanting his Perfect Weapon Control.
Make it in time! Eugeo prayed.
“Enhance—!” Fanatio shouted.
“Yaaaah!!” Kirito bellowed.
He swung back his sword, still at a considerable distance. Normally it would never reach from this far, but the blade promptly let off a pale-green light—the Aincrad-style attack Sonic Leap. Like Vertical, it was a single downward slice, but this one had a charging power that covered over twice the distance in an instant.
Kirito leaped like some hunting animal, trailing colored light, as Fanatio held out the tip of his rapier. But no matter what he did with it, such a slender tool could not completely block the impact of an ultimate technique. The Gigas Cedar blade was even heavier than Eugeo’s divine Blue Rose Sword. When combined with the tremendous speed of Kirito’s attack, three of those little rapiers together would shatter easily under its force.
The black swordsman reached the peak of his jump, and just as he started to swing the sword forward, the rapier glinted in the knight’s hands. Or more accurately, the entire body of it flashed, and then it stretched forward at incredible speed.
The slender beam silently punctured Kirito’s left flank, continued onward through the air, then exploded at last against the ceiling of the Great Hall. All of this happened in a single moment.
The shock of his pierced stomach threw off the trajectory of Kirito’s attack, causing the brunt of its force to hit nothing but air and merely glance off the plume of Fanatio’s helmet.
There was hardly any bleeding from the wound, so it didn’t seem like much of a danger in terms of his life value, but Kirito immediately fell to a knee as he landed. Eugeo looked closer and saw that there was a faint trail of smoke rising from the edges of a little hole in his shirt.
So it was likely a fire-based attack. Yet the light that shot from Fanatio’s sword was so white, it was nearly blue. Eugeo had never seen fire that color before.
Fanatio turned with almost detestable grace and pointed the tip of the rapier at the prone Kirito. It let off a soft hiss, and another beam of light shot out. If Kirito hadn’t immediately leaped to his left, it would have caught his leg. Instead, the beam pierced into the marble floor and exploded again. When the light faded, there was a melted red hole in the spot.
“No…way…,” Eugeo grunted, though he didn’t even realize he’d done it at first.
The materials used to build the cathedral were the same excellent marble as the Everlasting Walls that divided Centoria, judging by the pure color and smooth sheen. It wasn’t the kind of stone that would melt from a simple fire. Even Deusolbert’s Conflagration Bow only succeeded in burning the carpets and tapestries.
So if Fanatio’s Perfect Control arts were fire-based, they were easily far greater than Deusolbert’s. It was possible that Kirito’s life was already in dire condition from the earlier shot.
Clutched in the grips of cold fear, Eugeo could only watch as Kirito continued to leap around irregularly. Fanatio’s sword flashed and blasted after him, gouging stone with each volley.
The most frightening part of the technique was that it operated instantly, with no preparatory period of charging or thrusting. From Eugeo’s location, it was impossible to tell when the casually pointed rapier would emit the beam of light. It was similar to Eldrie’s Frostscale Whip in terms of its range, but that one seemed positively cute compared to this.
Fanatio continued pressuring Kirito, gliding after him. It was only Kirito’s honed primal instincts and excellent reflexes that helped him evade the fourth, fifth, and sixth beams.
It was the seventh that finally brought an end to the deadly game of cat and mouse.
The beam sizzled through the air and caught Kirito on the top of his right foot in midair. He lost balance and fell hard on his shoulder. Even then, he lifted himself up immediately, but Fanatio was there, training the point of his weapon below that black head of hair.
“Ki…!” Eugeo started to shout, but then he realized the numbness in his throat and mouth was finally subsiding for good. He thought he might have enough voice to execute the sacred art.
He summoned strength into his gut and began to recite the commands, quietly enough that the knights couldn’t hear but loud enough for God.
“System Call…”
Kirito would be able to get out of his predicament on his own. There was only one thing for Eugeo to do, and that was to recite his Perfect Weapon Control and have it ready to go when it was needed.
Fanatio held his deadly sword directly before Kirito, drawing out the silence, and then muttered, “…For a hundred years, the commander has scolded me for a bad habit of taunting in these situations…but I must admit, it is so pathetic. Why do those who fall before the might of my Heaven-Piercing Blade always look so foolish? I am certain that you, too, are wondering about the nature of this attack that defeated you so easily.”
The four knights working under Fanatio finished their healing, and they fanned out behind Kirito at a distance, brandishing their swords one-handed. That made escape more difficult, but it also looked like Fanatio’s speech might last a while. Eugeo focused his entire mind on chanting, taking great pains not to make a single mistake.
“Sinner though you may be, if you lived in Centoria, then you must know what a mirror is,” Fanatio prompted Kirito, who looked baffled by this sudden leap, despite his obvious agony.
A mirror?
Eugeo had seen them before, of course. Not back home in Rulid, but the rooms in the elite disciple dorm at the academy each had a small one. It was a curious item that reflected light far more vividly than water or metal plates, but Eugeo hadn’t spent much time looking in it. He didn’t like his weak-willed appearance.
Fanatio kept the sword trained on Kirito in case he moved, and continued, “It is an expensive item made by pouring molten silver into a case of glass, so few outside of Centoria will have seen one. A mirror can reflect the light of Solus with nearly perfect results. Do you understand me? Any place that receives both Solus’s light and a reflected beam from a mirror is made twice as warm. One hundred and thirty years prior, our exalted pontifex summoned all the silver coins and crafts in Centoria, then ordered the glassmakers to fashion one thousand great mirrors from them. It was an experiment in creating a weapon that did not require a sacred arts chant to execute. A thousand mirrors, arranged in a semicircle in the cathedral’s courtyard, could focus all of Solus’s midsummer strength into one point and produce pure-white flame. Within minutes, it could melt down a rock the size of a person.”
Weapon…White flame…?
Fanatio’s statement didn’t exactly add up in Eugeo’s mind. But he could sense instinctively that this plan of the pontifex’s was just as horrific as making children kill each other in order to test resurrection arts.
“Ultimately, the pontifex decided it was too elaborate to utilize in battle. But she did not want all the work to go to waste, and so she had those thousand mirrors bundled and strengthened and honed down into a single sword: the Heaven-Piercing Blade. Do you understand me, sinner? It was the power of Solus itself that pierced your stomach and foot!”
Eugeo was so stunned by this proud speech, he nearly slipped up at the end of the chant.
So the white beam of light was Solus, amplified by the power of a thousand mirrors.
An attack with heat elements could be fought off with ice elements. But how would one defend against an attack of pure light? And as far as Eugeo knew, no art that used light elements as its base had any direct attack power to speak of. An illusory light spell could be eliminated by one using darkness, but not even ten or twenty layers of darkness could withstand a beam of that power.
Eugeo continued with his recitation largely automatically, resisting the sense of panic driving him, and finally reached the end. All he had to do was finish with Enha
nce Armament, and the Blue Rose Sword would unleash its hidden strength. Now he had to wait for Kirito’s signal.
Fanatio had said all he wanted to say and pushed forward the rapier he had pointed at Kirito’s head.
“Kirito, do you understand now the full power of the sword that will take your remaining life? Before you die, repent for your sins, pledge your faith to the three goddesses, and beg for forgiveness. Then the purity of the ghostly light will wash your sins clean and guide your soul to Heaven. And now I bid you farewell, young, foolish heretic.”
The Heaven-Piercing Blade flashed, surging with the beam of light that would pierce Kirito’s heart and end his life.
At that exact same moment, Eugeo heard, “Discharge!”
Before the light erupted from the tip of Fanatio’s sword, Kirito smacked his hands together and shoved them forward. Right in front of his palms was a silver-colored sheet.
But it wasn’t just an ordinary metal plate. It was perfectly square and flat, and in it, Eugeo could see a reflection of Fanatio’s helmet.
Just before Kirito had brought his hands together, Eugeo had glimpsed two different-colored elements gripped in his fingers. In his right hand was a steel element, used to throw needles or create temporary tools. And in his left hand was a crystal element, an essence of glass for fashioning cups or building barriers that were hard to see. By combining the two and forming them into a flat surface, he had created…
…a mirror.
The spear of superheated light hit the magically created mirror and instantly turned the silver into orange.
Tools created from sacred elements were naturally short-lived. It might look like the same knife, but one forged from proper ore would last for decades, while a tool crafted from steel elements would run out of life and turn to dust in mere hours. This mirror was no exception, and it clearly wouldn’t last against the Heaven-Piercing Blade’s incredible power.
Sure enough, the mirror only held up for a tenth of a second. The liquefied mixture of glass and metal sprayed outward, and 80 percent of the beam’s power proceeded toward Kirito.
He made use of that instant, however. By tilting his body to the left just enough, it singed his hair and a bit of his cheek as it passed him.
The other 20 percent of the beam reflected by the mirror bounced sharply back at Fanatio’s helmet.
Despite the stunning turnaround, the second of all Integrity Knights yanked his head aside with similarly quick reflexes. But the winglike plumes on either side of the helmet did not escape damage. The light penetrated the left wing, obliterated the fastener that held it down—and then the entire helmet fell off in two halves, front and back.
The first thing Eugeo noticed was the volume of hair that burst free.
It was just as black as Kirito’s, yet the shine of it was far richer. The long, wavy locks, which must have required a lot of upkeep, shone in the midday sun from the Great Hall’s window.
Wow, for being a knight, he’s kinda…, Eugeo started to think, and then Fanatio raised a hand to block the light and shouted, “You dare see me, you knave?!”
Unlike the metallic, warped voice that came from the helmet, this one was clear and high-pitched.
It’s a woman?!
In his shock, Eugeo nearly discarded the sacred arts he had in waiting. He clamped his lips shut and tried to focus on holding the spell in. But part of him couldn’t avoid staring at Fanatio’s back.
She was as tall as Kirito, if not taller, but seen in this new light, the curve from back to waist was indeed too delicate. And yet he had never doubted that Fanatio was a man until that point.
They’d already met Alice Synthesis Thirty and the children Linel and Fizel, so there was no reason to assume there weren’t plenty of women among the Integrity Knights. And at the academy, nearly half the students were girls like Ronie and Tiese. Many of those students wound up to be Integrity Knights, so it shouldn’t have been a surprise that the second-in-command was a woman.
Eugeo was puzzled by why he was so thrown for a loop, until he realized that Fanatio’s mannerisms and attitude were extremely masculine. So perhaps Fanatio’s current rage wasn’t about the revelation of her face—but her femininity.
Even Kirito looked completely shocked, one knee on the ground and burns on his face.
Fanatio glared at him through the fingers of her left hand and said, “And you…you look at me the same way, sinner? Even a traitor and rebel against the Church claims that he cannot fight me seriously once he knows I am a woman?”
Despite her strangled cry, her voice was as pure and beautiful as an instrument played by a master musician.
“I am not human. I am an Integrity Knight summoned to earth from Heaven…and yet you men mock and slander me as soon as you learn I am a woman! And not just my fellows…but even the general of the dark knights, the very manifestation of evil!!”
No, you’re wrong. Neither I nor Kirito is mocking you, Eugeo thought.
Between the garrison at Zakkaria and the academy, he had fought against many women. Many were better than he was and had bested him in combat. In none of those battles did Eugeo fight at less than his best because they were women, and he held an equal regard for the skilled, no matter their sex.
But what if it wasn’t a fight with rules for victory and defeat, but a true battle to the death? Could he actually destroy the last of an opponent’s life without hesitation?
The breath caught in Eugeo’s throat. He’d never had to consider this question.
Just then, Kirito launched himself up into the air. It wasn’t a fancy technique of any kind, just a slash from the upper right. It was so fast that Eugeo could barely see the blade moving. It was practically a miracle that Fanatio was able to block it in time, given her distress. An earsplitting clang ripped through the vicinity, sparks briefly illuminating the faces of the two combatants.
Fanatio caught the sword on the rapier’s guard, but the momentum of the attack drove her several steps back. Kirito did not let up any pressure on the knight as they clashed hilt to hilt. Bit by bit, Fanatio’s purple-armored knee began to bend.
Voice low, Kirito said, “I see. That’s why you chose that sword and that move. So that you could fire those shots and keep anyone from finding out you were a woman…Isn’t that right, Miss Fanatio?”
“You…y-you wretch!!” she shrieked, pushing back on her sword.
At great pains, Eugeo tore his eyes away from the combatants to look at the four knights surrounding them, who did seem slightly unnerved. Perhaps even some of them were unaware of Fanatio’s true identity. He had no idea about the two paralyzed girls to his right, though.
Kirito and Fanatio continued their deadlock, soaking in the attention of all present. In terms of personal and sword weight, Kirito had a clear advantage. But once she pushed back on equal footing, Fanatio exhibited a tremendous force of her own that did not seem to come from her physical arms.
Through gritted teeth, Kirito tried rattling her again. “…Just so you know, the reason I was so shocked earlier is because your spirit got so weak as soon as the helmet broke. You hide your face and your swordfighting style…I’d say you’re the one who’s most obsessed with your femininity.”
“Sh-shut up! I’ll kill you…I swear I’ll kill you!”
“That’s the point of this fight. And I’m certainly not going to let up just because you’re a woman. I’ve lost to girls plenty of times already!”
Even from just what Eugeo knew, Kirito had lost to Sortiliena, his tutor disciple at school, plenty of times. But the way he was speaking now, it didn’t sound like he was talking about training and practice duels. It sounded like he had engaged in real, actual battles against swordswomen and lost…
Kirito abruptly swung his right foot forward and swept her leg. Her balance lurched, and the two blades gave off sparks. He pushed the jet-black sword forward with one hand.
But the Integrity Knight flashed her hand with impossible speed, and the rapier d
eflected the side of the black sword like a living creature. With his thrust pushed aside, she had time to recover her balance and take a step back for distance.
Kirito countered just as quickly. He plunged in close, practically ramming her, to keep the gap small. Given the way she could produce that light beam without any preparation, fighting at a distance was a nonstarter.
A swordfight erupted at point-blank range and lightning speed.
Most shocking of all to Eugeo was that for all of Kirito’s blinding combination attacks, Fanatio met every one without faltering. Her shining rapier moved here and there and everywhere, dispatching every strike of the black blade that just kept coming. Whenever the slightest opening presented itself, she threw in two or three jabs in a row. Neither was using any ultimate techniques, because neither had the time to take the proper stance.
None of the sword schools in the human realm possessed anything like the combination attacks of the Aincrad style. Even the veteran Integrity Knight Deusolbert wasn’t aware of them. That would mean that Fanatio’s combos were something she came up with herself. Surely, the reason for that had something to do with what Kirito had said earlier.
The Heaven-Piercing Blade defeated foes without letting them approach. The combination attacks ensured that if she couldn’t use Perfect Weapon Control, she could continue attacking, even if the first blow was blocked.
Fanatio was terrified of fighting at ultraclose range and having what was underneath her armor revealed.
But why…? Why would she go to such lengths to hide her own nature?
Eugeo watched their battle in stunned rapture as he considered these questions. The other four knights were in the same state of mind—they were all watching with their greatswords lowered.
Wow…
What a truly brilliant battle.
Even at such close range, both combatants kept their feet still and traded furious storms of slashes and thrusts, dodging and deflecting as necessary. It felt like he was watching shooting stars clash, reflecting and vanishing. The impact of steel on steel was so quick and constant that it began to resemble a kind of percussion performance.
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