by Yuu Miyazaki
“They’re fighting in the second match, right? Then we still have some— Hmm?” Julis began, waving a round fan at herself, then looked suspiciously at something up ahead. Ayato followed suit to find an unmoving mass of people.
They could hear a faint clamor and angry yelling.
“A fight? Is that why we’re not moving…?” Julis said.
Things certainly didn’t seem peaceful, especially with the people trying to flee upstream.
Ayato and Julis nodded at each other and waded forward.
Emerging at the front of the crowd, they saw a girl standing in the middle of the street, surrounded by several men. They all wore Le Wolfe uniforms, and Ayato almost instinctively entered a fighting stance—considering that the last time he’d encountered this situation, he’d been attacked—but then he noticed several male students already on the ground. This seemed to be a real fight, not a trick.
But the girl was clearly in another league. The men wielded Luxes, but she beat them with her bare hands. Despite the heat, she had a scarf wrapped around her neck, whipping about in the wind of her movements.
“That girl— She’s the Vampire Princess, Lamilexia” Julis said.
“Huh?” The alias sounded familiar to Ayato.
The third-ranked fighter at Le Wolfe—the one Julis had named as the most troublesome in this Phoenix.
Her name, as he recalled, was…
“Irene Urzaiz,” Julis finished his thought. “What does she think she’s doing at a time like this? She can’t possibly be in her right mind.”
Julis had every reason to be astonished. During a Festa event, there was a total ban on duels in the city. This was, needless to say, a provision established for the safety of visitors.
Dueling was allowed within barriers, but this meant the only legal venues were the stadiums in use for the Festa. In practice, the only fights allowed during the preliminary tournaments were the official ones.
And if dueling was banned, brawling, of course, was out of the question. A Festa participant would be subject to considerable penalties, possibly even ejected from the tournament.
“Man, you guys are annoying. ‘Settling old scores’? What century are you from?”
In no time, Irene had all but taken care of the men. Of nearly ten opponents, only one remained.
“Sh-shut up! It’s a matter of pride!” the man barked at her, even as he clearly wanted to turn and run.
“You really are a cheap bunch, getting so worked up ’cause I wrecked a casino or two. And all because you were cheating. Besides, if you get too outta line, won’t that little fatso be mad at you?”
“I don’t give a shit what the prez thinks! We got our own way of—”
“Ugh, shut up already.”
Before the man could finish his sentence, Irene’s roundhouse kick landed squarely on the side of his head. She watched with cold eyes as the man crumpled soundlessly to the ground. She let out a long sigh.
Her movements were not those of someone who had been trained in martial arts. They were fluid and bestial.
“Hey! What’re you dipshits looking at?!” Irene shouted at the spectators—until her glare paused on Ayato. “Huh?” She peered sharply at his face. “Ooh, if it ain’t the Murakumo. Nice. That saves me some trouble.”
Irene grinned, revealing a pair of pointed fangs.
So she knows who I am, he thought.
She strode over to Ayato to appraise him. It was unclear what she wanted, but he didn’t sense any enmity from her, so he let her look.
Finally Irene laughed through her nose at him. “Heh. So this is the guy…”
“Exactly what business do you have with my tag partner, Lamilexia?” Julis interjected, and less than cordially.
“The Witch of the Resplendent Flames, huh? My business ain’t with you. Stay outta this.”
“I don’t think so. A fighter brawling during the Festa—in the middle of a crowd of tourists, no less—is too dangerous to ignore.”
Irene’s eyes narrowed. “Those guys wanted to pick a fight with me. Wasn’t my idea.”
“Even so, to accept a challenge in a place like this is absurd.”
The tension between them threatened to turn from uncomfortable to ugly. This doesn’t look good, Ayato thought. “Um, hey, Julis…?”
“Oh yeah? Then why don’t you show me how you’d handle it!” Irene drew a Lux from her hip holster and activated it.
Ayato and Julis both jumped back and fell into stance.
The weapon took shape as an enormous scythe, longer than Irene was tall. There was something sinister about its purple blade, an uncanny air clinging to it.
“Ooh, better reactions than I thought,” Irene taunted. “Guess I shouldn’t judge books by their covers.”
“So that’s…the Gravisheath.” Ayato gulped.
It was the notorious Orga Lux in the possession of Le Wolfe, known for its ability to manipulate gravity. Unusually for an Orga Lux, it yielded a high compatibility rating with anyone, allowing it to devastate the Festa in the past.
There were few, however, who had wielded it with much skill. Whether Irene could do so was still unknown.
“Let’s go, Ayato.”
“…Yeah.”
Neither wanted a duel here.
“So, you’re the type to turn tail and run. Pretty smart.” Irene laughed high and cruel, then her eyes lit with a vicious gleam and she readied the Gravisheath. “If you can, that is.”
She emanated a chilling thirst for blood that choked the air around them, as if a momentary lapse in concentration would spell the end.
The crowd surrounding them watched in total silence. And then—
“Heeeeeeeeeeeey!” came a jarring call. “Are you getting into fights again, sis?! After I told you and told you to stay out of trouble?!”
A savagely furious girl emerged from the crowd. Her braided hair was the same color as Irene’s, and there was a clear resemblance in her features as well. She also wore a Le Wolfe uniform.
“Gah! P-Priscilla…!”
“I let you out of my sight for one second… How did this even happen? You better have a good explanation, Irene!”
“Well, uh, see, it’s just…”
As Ayato and Julis blankly watched the exchange, the girl noticed and bowed to them. “I’m so sorry my big sister’s causing you trouble!”
“Oh, well… It’s nothing…” Julis, all the fight taken out of her, could only give an awkward reply.
“You apologize, too, Irene.”
“Wh-why do I—?”
“Just say it!”
“Ugh. Fine.” Berated into submission, Irene reluctantly dipped her head in a chagrined bow. “Sorry. Now get out of here.”
“Seriously? You have to apologize and mean it!” Priscilla put her hand on Irene’s head and forced it downward alongside her own in a show of contrition. “I’m so sorry. I’ll give her a good talking-to.”
Yanking Irene away with her, she disappeared into the crowd.
Ayato and Julis, as well as the spectators, were all left momentarily speechless.
“…Oh, so that was Irene Urzaiz’s tag partner, right?” Ayato said.
“Um, yes, I suppose. She called Irene her big sister, so she must be.”
They were still rather stunned, but when they checked a mobile device, they found the face of the second girl.
Priscilla Urzaiz, Irene’s younger sister and tag team partner. But beyond her name and photo, there was hardly any data on her.
“Anyway, why did you talk to her like that just now?” Ayato demanded.
Julis averted her face to feign innocence. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Come on, don’t play dumb. You know you didn’t have to provoke her like that.”
Irene might be the hyper-aggressive type, but the situation might not have become so volatile if Julis hadn’t intervened.
Julis gave up with a sigh and leaned in to murmur in Ayato’s ear. “You really d
idn’t notice?”
“Huh…?”
“Irene said, ‘My business ain’t with you.’ Even though I was the one who confronted her. That can only mean she had some particular reason to go after you.”
“Okay, but… It’s not like we’ve met before.”
It was nothing strange for Irene to know who he was. If she had files on him that was only natural; he was ranked first at Seidoukan. Other contestants would have taken note of him.
But now that Julis mentioned it, there was something more behind the way Irene had spoken to him.
“People at Le Wolfe will use whatever means they can to accomplish their goals. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had some illicit scheme up their sleeve.”
“I dunno…” Ayato would have liked to say that Julis was overthinking—but that was the scary thing about this city. She may not have been.
“I wanted to see if she would give away anything more, but… Oh, well. I didn’t think she’d actually want to start a fight. That was my fault.” Julis bowed, sincerely apologetic.
Ayato waved it off. “No, no, it’s fine—” Then he remembered. “Oh no! We’d better run, or we’ll miss Saya and Kirin’s match!”
He checked the time to find that they didn’t have very long.
“You’re right,” Julis agreed. “Let’s get to the arena.”
Just as they were about to head to the Procyon Dome, they noticed another hubbub slightly up ahead.
“What could it be now—? Oh, that’s not good! It’s the city guard!” Julis frowned.
Ayato could see two men in unfamiliar uniforms wading through the crowd toward them. “The city guard? So that’s Stjarnagarm?”
That was the peacekeeping organization that acted as a police force in Asterisk. He had heard about the city guard, but it was his first time seeing them in person.
“This is no time to stand around gawking! Let’s get out of here!” Julis took his hand and pulled him away from the guards.
“Wait, it’s not like we did anything wrong…”
“I hate to say it, but the city guard are not the understanding sort. Who knows how long it’d take to explain this to their satisfaction.”
Ayato looked around at the men sprawled on the street. True. This would not be easy to justify.
“I guess you’re right,” he sighed.
The city guards were approaching from the direction of the Procyon Dome, so they had no choice but to distance themselves from their destination.
“Hey! You two—Stop right there!”
Without a glance back toward the authoritative shouts, Ayato and Julis blended into the crowd and escaped down an alleyway.
“Time’s up.”
“So it is…”
Saya and Kirin each let out a small sigh and rose from the sofa in their waiting room at the Procyon Dome. The two girls had waited for Ayato and Julis to fulfill a promise of moral support, but there was no sign of their friends.
“I wonder if something happened to them…?” Kirin worried, just as Saya’s mobile received an incoming call.
“Sorry, Saya! Something came up and we’ll probably be late…”
It was Ayato. Was he whispering for some reason, or were they imagining it?
Kirin peeked over Saya’s shoulder at the air-window.
“…The match is starting,” Saya said.
“Yeah, we know… Sorry.” The tiny image of Ayato hung his head.
“Fine. Waiting room after the match. We’ll hear your excuse then.”
“Okay. Well, good luck! You, too, Kirin.” Ayato nodded to her.
“Thank you!”
The air-window turned off.
Good luck. Those simple words were enough to turn Kirin’s mood around completely. Moments ago she had looked so glum, and now her head was high with determination.
“…Doesn’t take much for you, does it?” Saya remarked.
“Huh? Wh-what do you mean?” Surprised and flustered, Kirin flushed crimson.
Saya tapped her on the back and walked out of the room.
“Oh, wait—wait for me!” Kirin hurried after Saya as she ambled down the hallway. “Whew. You certainly like to do things your own way, Saya.”
“I get that a lot.”
Kirin caught up with a forced smile, but Saya was as unreadable as usual, showing not a hint of excitement or anxiety. Being the timid type herself, Kirin envied her composure, although it did nothing to quell the butterflies in her stomach.
Still, there was something comforting about that, too, for some reason.
“And here we are! Walking up to the stage are Kirin Toudou, the former top-ranked student at Seidoukan Academy, and her partner, Saya Sasamiya!”
They went through the gate to take the stage, where dazzling lights and an overly enthusiastic announcer’s voice greeted them.
“Toudou is just thirteen, but she climbed to first place in her first month at school! Although she lost that rank a short while ago, her abilities are beyond question! But I gotta say, seeing her for myself, she has a rare sangfroid to her—so small and yet cool as a cucumber…”
“Nana, Nana, c’mon. I think you got it backward. That little one is Sasamiya. And the nervous one next to her is the former top dog.”
“Whaaat?! You mean that’s a high schooler? For real? Uhh… Ahem. Sorry about that, everyone!”
“I told ya to look through the files. Seriously.”
The announcer and commentator at this arena seemed to have a good deal of personality.
“…How unpleasant,” Saya said, flat and sullen, as Kirin giggled nervously.
Saya looked at the two students standing opposite them onstage.
One was a frail-looking young man with long hair tied at the nape of his neck, and the other was well-built and bald. Their school crests depicted golden dragons—indicating that they attended the Jie Long Seventh Institute.
Jie Long was the most eccentric of the six schools of Asterisk, with two defining characteristics. One was the widespread use of their own mana-wielding technique, known as Seisenjutsu; the other, a complete dedication to perfecting the martial arts.
Although there were many separate martial arts styles within Jie Long, including some that specialized in the use of weapons, the school’s name connoted a high caliber of unarmed combat. Of course, unarmed fighters were generally at a disadvantage against those using weapons, but this was also the only way to directly convert prana into an attack. These attacks, compounded by their finely trained martial arts prowess, gave them peerless might in close-range combat.
Indeed, of the two students in front of Saya and Kirin, only the bald one held a massive falchion-shaped Lux. The long-haired one stood unarmed.
“They’re both unranked, but they seem quite capable,” Kirin said.
Being the largest of the six schools, Jie Long boasted many skilled fighters outside of the Named Cults. They could not be underestimated.
“We’ll work it out,” Saya said. Still calm, she activated her Lux with practiced ease.
A massive, inelegant gun materialized in her hands, setting the crowd to murmuring. They were apparently impressed by its height relative to hers, but in truth, this was relatively small for her arsenal. Still, it was almost as large as she was.
“Um, that’s your…”
“Type 34 Wave Cannon, Ark Van Ders, improved model.”
Saya had over ten Luxes, and Kirin had seen them all at least once. This was only natural when they were fighting together as a team. Some of Saya’s weapons, however, were frankly just startling.
“…Which one do you want?”
Kirin blinked in confusion for a moment, until she figured out that Saya was asking her to choose her adversary. “Huh? Oh, hmm… I don’t mind.”
“Then I’ll take the big one.”
“Understood.” That meant Kirin’s opponent was the long-haired one.
She steadied her breathing and deliberately drew her katana an inch from its scabb
ard.
“Phoenix, Block L, Round One, Match Two— Begin!”
The very moment the announcement ended, Kirin leaped into range.
As if he had predicted her move, his fist shot out toward her. But he was too slow. Kirin ducked and sliced up toward his chest from a low stance.
The fist met the flat of her blade and brushed aside the attack. At the heavy impact, Kirin let out a startled cry. A barehanded blow powered with prana really was something else. Without weapons in his way, his agility allowed for few openings to attack.
…And yet, this was tepid compared to Ayato’s movements.
Turning the katana with her wrists, Kirin slashed downward from an upper stance. Her opponent twisted to dodge with a grunt, but he was clearly off balance.
He unleashed a kick, quite fierce considering he was on the defensive. Kirin evaded it effortlessly and swept the Senbakiri straight across.
As she felt the unmistakable sensation of cutting through a solid object, her opponent’s school crest announced his defeat.
Kirin let out a breath of relief and swung her sword a final time to shake off any debris, then turned her back to the man dropping to his knees. The announcer’s excited voice filled her ears.
“S-so fast! You’d expect nothing less from Seidoukan’s former star. That confrontation barely lasted moments, with Toudou coming out on top. The fight was decided in no time!”
“Yo, Nana! The fight with shorty over here is getting interesting, too!”
Kirin turned toward Saya’s own bout.
“Whoa, you were not kidding! This is also quite the heated contest—These partners are not to be outdone! And get a load of this! I thought from her equipment that Sasamiya would be sticking to long-range combat, but wow-ee… She is going all out in close quarters!”
Saya was indeed fighting at close range. As the bald man brought down his falchion, she parried the blow with the Ark Van Ders. Then she counterattacked with the barrel as if it were a club. The massive firearm in tiny Saya’s grasp already made for quite a sight, and the way she swung it with one arm was beyond astonishing.
On top of that, she was not simply flailing it around. With her parries and well-timed counters, it was immediately clear she had been trained in close combat.