But despite all that resolution, that determination, the thin purple film was keeping him from Administrator’s skin. Meanwhile, she clearly hadn’t predicted Eugeo’s actions, as she was arching her back away from him and breathing heavily.
There was rage in those gaping mirror eyes now. Eugeo added his left hand to his right, trying with all his strength to push the dagger through.
“Yaaaaah!”
The needlelike point pierced barely a single milice into the shining protective layer—and then the sacred writing that formed the barrier exploded into bright light, blasting Eugeo and Administrator backward.
“…!!”
He tumbled through the air as though slapped by an invisible giant’s palm, but even as it knocked him completely off the bed, Eugeo was able to achieve two things simultaneously.
He got a fresh grip on the chain holding the dagger before it could fall out of his grasp, and the moment that his back hit the floor, he reached out with his other hand to grab the sheath of the Blue Rose Sword, which was right next to him.
Even with the heavy sword weighing him down, his backward momentum continued, rolling him along the floor until at last his back smashed against one of the giant windows that separated the room from the world without.
“Nng…”
Wincing against the pain, Eugeo raised his head and looked to the center of the room.
The hanging canopy sheets around the bed had all been blown clean away, exposing the circular bed. On the far side of it stood a silent figure. Like Eugeo, she’d been blasted backward by the explosion of the barrier, but the only damage she seemed to have received was the swaying of her long hair. In her left hand was the shining prism she’d taken out of his head.
The sheer purple cloth she’d been wearing hadn’t withstood the impact, however. But Administrator didn’t show the slightest bit of concern about her nakedness. She reached up with her free hand to smooth out her long silver hair.
Then she sat from a standing position, as though there were an invisible chair behind her, and crossed her slender legs. She moved silently through the air, not breaking her posture, until she stopped about ten mels away from where Eugeo lay prone on the south edge of the room.
From atop her invisible throne, the pontifex placed her fingers against her chin and stared at Eugeo. He was unable to move or speak. Eventually the silver-eyed young woman grinned and said, “I was just wondering where you hid that tool of yours…I suppose it was the doing of the little one in the library, wasn’t it? She filtered it out of my senses. In the time since I’ve seen her last, she’s gotten rather crafty, hasn’t she?”
She chuckled deep in her throat. “But too bad. I haven’t just been sleeping on the job, either. Her mistake was crafting that weapon with a metallic element. No metal-based object can harm my skin anymore. Not an ogre’s machete nor a fine sewing needle.”
“Wha…?” Eugeo grunted, still lying on the floor.
No metal weapons could hurt her? If that was true, then not only was Cardinal’s dagger powerless, but so was any other kind of sword. Assuming the strange purple film that had rebuffed the tip of his dagger earlier was that protective sacred art, he couldn’t begin to guess what precise art it was, in order to undo it—to say nothing of the fact that Eugeo himself did not have the skill for it.
He palmed his weapon, which was small enough to hide there, and stared up at the floating pontifex, unable to do anything else.
The naked woman whispered, “You poor thing.”
“…”
“I made a promise to you. All you had to do was give your everything to me, and I would love you back. And when the eternal love you always wanted, the eternal rule, was nearly in your grasp, you chose to do this.”
“………Eternal…love…,” Eugeo repeated, hardly knowing what he was doing. “Eternal………rule……”
She nodded, playing with the Piety Module she’d just pulled from his forehead. “That’s right, Eugeo. If you give your all over to me, the thirst that has tormented you your entire life will be quenched. The troubles and fears you’ve been grappling with all this time will go away…This is your final chance, Eugeo. Use the sword in your left hand to shatter the toy in your right. Then I shall forgive your sins with the bounty of my love.”
“…”
From his prone position, Eugeo looked first at the Blue Rose Sword, then at the copper-colored dagger. Then he looked up at Administrator and said, “Love is ruling and being ruled…? The only one I feel pity for is you, if that is the only way you can describe it.”
“…”
Now it was her turn to have no response.
All it would take was a swing of her slender hand to call down a high-level sacred art that would eliminate his life value in an instant. But Eugeo continued talking.
“I’m certain…that you must’ve felt the same way. Starved and searching for love…but never finding it,” he continued, but on the inside, he was reflecting.
Maybe I was a child who never found love from his own parents. But even if that’s true, I have loved many people in my life.
Old Man Garitta, the previous carver. Sister Azalia from the Church. Selka the apprentice sister. Grandfather, who told me stories of the past. My elder sister, Celinia, who cared for me when I was little. Vanot and Triza Walde from the farm. Their twin daughters, Teline and Telure. Golgorosso, who helped train me. Miss Azurica, the dorm manager. Tiese, who filled my life with smiles for the short time that she was my page. Ronie, who was the page of my partner.
And Kirito.
And…Alice.
“You’re wrong, you wretched soul.” Eugeo stared into those mysterious rainbow eyes of Administrator’s, emphasizing each and every sentence. “Ruling is not loving. Love isn’t transactional; you don’t give it to get something in return. You give it continuously and selflessly, like water to a flower…That’s what love is.”
Administrator listened, a faint smile playing around her lips again. But there was no honeyed sweetness there anymore.
“…What a shame. I was going to forgive the little criminal who betrayed the Axiom Church and rescue his soul, and this is what I get in return.”
And to Eugeo’s breathless awe, the silver-haired young woman floating in the air changed from human to god.
There was no change to her appearance. But her unblemished white skin filled with a kind of bottomless force, a holy aura. Something in the air spoke of unfathomable power—that of a simple twitch of a finger capable of tearing the greatest warrior or arts caster to pieces.
“Eugeo…are you under the impression that I need you? That if I really want you to be my knight, I wouldn’t dare take your life?”
There was no discernible emotion in her smile. All he could do was clutch his dagger even harder and bear the incredible pressure suffocating his body.
“Hee-hee…I don’t need boring little boys like you. I’ll suck out all your life, convert your body into a tiny jewel, and lock you away in a box. That way, even after I file away today’s memories, at least I’ll feel something when I look at it,” she gloated, crossing her legs as she sat on her invisible chair.
It wasn’t a bluff. If she decided she would do it, it would happen without pause.
He couldn’t run away now, even if there was actually a way out. It’d take far too long for the levitating disc to take him down to the next floor. If he could somehow break the window behind him, all that awaited him outside was empty air until he hit the ground hundreds of mels below.
Besides, Eugeo’s fate had been decided the moment he’d used his Perfect Weapon Control on Kirito and Alice down below. He had to stick Cardinal’s dagger into the pontifex, even if the act killed him.
She was protected by a barrier that rebuffed all metal weapons. But he got the feeling that it wasn’t as absolute in power as she said it was. When he had used all his strength to push in the dagger, it looked like the barrier itself had exploded. He doubted it was the e
nd of the sacred art, but perhaps the dagger could reach her body right after a blast.
“Oh…are you still going to try something?” murmured Administrator, staring down at her prone foe. “How very thoughtful of you to keep trying to entertain me to the bitter end. Hmm, maybe it would be a waste to kill you and turn you into a jewel. Perhaps I could force-synthesize you, like I did her…it’ll just take a while.”
Despite the desperate circumstances, something in what she said stuck in Eugeo’s ear. “Like…her…?”
The silver-haired woman smiled and nodded. “That’s right. The one you’re so infatuated with: Thirty. She really didn’t want to say the words, so I had the automated senate facility undo her protection. It took several days. I was asleep, so I didn’t see it for myself, but I’m sure it was torturous. What do you think? Would you like to try undergoing the same thing…?”
“…Thirty…? Alice…,” he hissed.
As usual, he understood less than half of what Administrator was saying, but he could tell one thing.
Eight years ago, after she’d been tied up and taken to Central Cathedral by force, Alice had undergone a harrowing process to become an Integrity Knight. She hadn’t given in to the demand to say the Remove Core Protection command the way that Eugeo had, and as a result, they’d had to pry open the door to her mind by force. Surely the wounds that Eugeo had suffered along the way were nothing in comparison to that.
No, he couldn’t run away now.
He couldn’t allow himself to fall without striking back at Administrator.
“……”
Eugeo clenched his teeth and pushed himself up with trembling arms, getting to his unsteady feet.
He stared back into those silvery eyes, which were losing their mirth, wrapped the chain of the dagger around his right wrist, and grabbed the hilt of the Blue Rose Sword with the same hand. The familiar white leather clung to his palm. He drew the blade and tossed the sheath aside.
In the light of the moon from over his shoulder, the weapon shone pale and bright.
Ten mels away, the girl seated in the air narrowed her eyes in response to the light. When she spoke, her tone was noticeably more chilling.
“So that is your answer, boy. Fine…then I will at least ensure that your end is not painful.”
She raised her right hand and pointed her index finger at Eugeo. Clearly, the pontifex did not need to speak the command words aloud to use sacred arts. But there were still two steps that had to be taken to use any kind of attacking art—
—the creation and processing of elements. Whether heat, ice, or some other natural force, even the greatest master needed at least two seconds to create the elements and give them a shape.
So by the time she started to move her finger, Eugeo already had the sword propped up near his shoulder.
Light-green color infused the Blue Rose Sword. Pale-blue dots appeared at the end of Administrator’s finger.
“Yaaaah!”
This would be his final swing, Eugeo knew, as he launched himself off the ground. The last ultimate technique.
The Aincrad-style charging attack Sonic Leap.
In his ears, he heard Kirito’s voice: Listen, Eugeo, these techniques will move our bodies for us. But just letting it do all the work isn’t going to cut it. You have to become one with the technique and speed it up with your legs and arms. If you can do that, your sword can hit the enemy before the breeze itself.
How many times had he practiced it? How many times had he failed and wound up with his face planted firmly in the grass?
And how many times had Kirito laughed with delight…?
Eugeo’s sword flashed the color of fresh green shoots and cut through the air so fast, even the sound couldn’t keep up.
Administrator’s smile vanished. She spread the fingers of her right hand. The ice elements, which were just about to be shot like needles, burst as they touched the Blue Rose Sword. Then Eugeo’s most powerful technique smashed against Administrator’s palm—or more accurately, the thin purple barrier about five cens in front of it.
He was buffeted by a shock far greater than the one earlier.
The purple barrier did succeed at blocking the accelerated Sonic Leap, but the fine layer of tiny sacred script that composed it rippled and shook.
If he kept pushing with all his might, the barrier should explode, as it had a few minutes earlier. He just had to resist it somehow and use the dagger hanging from his wrist to stab her this time. His body could disintegrate after that was done.
“Break…through…!!” he snarled, throwing all his strength into the still-glowing sword.
“…!”
The pontifex said nothing, but she certainly wasn’t smiling anymore. Colorful light swirled deep in her narrowed eyes. Her extended fingers were all bent and strained.
She wasn’t attacking with her left hand, because it was still holding the Piety Module. If she wasn’t discarding that despite her insistence that she would kill him, it meant that she hadn’t given up on making him a knight or that she had some other use for him.
But it was pointless to consider that now. All that mattered was completing this final attack—whether or not it required the very last drop of his strength and life.
“Rrraaaahhh!!”
He unleashed a bellow from the very pit of his stomach—and then, once again, something he never could have predicted happened:
The Blue Rose Sword began to sink into the purple barrier.
The wall itself was not gone. But the tip of the sword was indeed cutting—no, slipping through—the layer of sacred script that was supposed to rebuff all metal.
It wasn’t a trick of the eyes. Even the mirrors on Administrator’s face were gaping.
The situation abruptly changed.
Administrator stopped attempting to hold back Eugeo’s sword and suddenly leaped back. The barrier retreated with her, and without the surface holding it in place, the Blue Rose Sword swung downward with a slicing whoosh. The moment the edge touched the ground, a gash several mels long opened in the thick carpet.
He couldn’t tell what had happened. All he knew was that if he stayed where he was, her attack art would hit him. His limbs felt heavy after summoning all that power, but he promptly bolted into action regardless.
This time, his enemy was faster. As she pulled back, the pontifex generated fresh elements and sent them hurtling at Eugeo. By the time he was in his technique stance, green lights were flying right at him.
On instinct, Eugeo broke the stance and used the Blue Rose Sword to block his body. The wind elements burst with a flash, and the ensuing gust of wind pushed Eugeo against the south wall again.
Fortunately for him, she had forgone the step of shaping the elements. If she’d turned them into blades of wind rather than just dispersing the energy in the motes of light themselves, he could’ve easily lost a limb.
But not all his luck was good. Rather than slamming into the flat glass windowpane, this time Eugeo’s back struck one of the large pillars that connected the windows. It was designed with a massive standing sword motif, and Eugeo smashed into the side of the blade before falling to the ground. If that had been the naked edge, it might have maimed him, even though the sword was only decorative. Maybe that made him lucky after all, but the pain was enough to drive the breath from his lungs.
I have to move. It’ll be real sacred arts next time, he told himself, lifting his upper half off the ground.
She had retreated to the other side of the bed; the only thing he could see in the darkness was the shine of her silver hair. She was far away enough to be out of range of his Sonic Leap—but it was an easy distance for a sacred art. If he didn’t get off the ground, he would die.
“Nnh…hrrg…”
Somehow, he got to one knee. But there was no strength to push off with. He tried and tried to stand, but the leg only trembled and refused to obey.
No. Not yet. I can’t give up now. Why did I even come back t
o this room, then?
What have I been living for all this time?
“Grr…raaaahh!”
Eugeo pressed his back against the golden sword decoration and used his Blue Rose Sword as a support to get to his feet. He could tell that the previous impact had cut him as well as buffeted him, because there were droplets of blood spattering on the floor below.
It must’ve taken well over five seconds for him to get up, but for some reason, Administrator wasn’t attacking. She just floated in the darkness twenty mels away, holding her silence.
In time, he heard an utterance so quiet that it would have been inaudible if not in the midst of absolute silence.
“……That sword…Ah, now I see…”
Eugeo glanced down at his blades, uncertain of what she meant. The Blue Rose Sword was thrust tip down into the floor. Hanging from his wrist was the little copper dagger. Which of the two was she referring to?
His intuition told him this was a crucial distinction, but before he could reach an answer, the quiet that filled the top floor of Central Cathedral was broken by neither Eugeo nor Administrator.
“Ah, ah, aiiiieeeee!!”
It was coming from a circle in the floor about five mels away that was now sinking out of sight—the platform to the floor below. The voice was louder now that there was just a dark portal in the middle of the carpet.
“H-h-help meeeee, Your Holiness!!” wailed the voice, which clearly belonged to Prime Senator Chudelkin, who had gone down to the ninety-ninth floor earlier. Administrator proceeded forward through the darkness in silence and stood at the edge of the bed.
“…What is it about him that grows more childish with age? Perhaps it’s nearly time to reset him,” she muttered, shaking her head. Eyeing her with caution, Eugeo stealthily backed away toward the west wall, putting distance between himself and the hole.
The disc was sinking but not very fast. It would take most of a minute for it to descend all the way to the floor, then rise again with Chudelkin atop it.
Alicization Uniting Page 5