“Whoa?!” my voice reverberated in the warehouse, and I pitched forward, falling on my stomach. Next to my feet, an elegantly curved silver blade was sticking upright in the floor. I had seen this weapon before in the Assault textbook, so I knew what it was. It was a French bayonet known as a yatagan. They were like short sabers that attached to the end of long, narrow, old-fashioned guns.
“L’anse de la Pucelle. Butei, know the humiliation of one made out to be a criminal and placed in shackles.”
On finishing her statement, something white began to radiate outward from the bayonet. Whatever it was, it made crackling noises as I felt it fix my feet to the floor.
I-I can’t move.
“Urgh?!”
I tried to get up, but the white substance had spread to my knees as well.
What is this?! It’s cold. ... Ice …?!
The bayonet didn’t look as if it were specially equipped with anything, and underneath my feet was just a regular linoleum floor.
How in the world is she doing this? I can’t get up. ... My body is being sewn down by ice.
“Those of my clan don the light. Our true form is the rear side of the shadows. We outwit the schemers and excel in our own schemes. And the one thing I loathe above all else—is a ‘miscalculation.’”
Our enemy, still concealing herself in the shadows, ended her sentence, and the emergency lamps in the room suddenly went out. We were now surrounded in complete and utter darkness.
“… N-No! Stop! What are you doing?! … Ngh …!”
I could hear metallic sounds coming from Shirayuki’s direction. The enemy was on the move.
“… Shirayuki!”
There was no answer from her.
What’s going on?! What did she do to her?!
I was starting to go into a panic, but being pinned to the floor with ice as I was now, I couldn’t do a thing. No. It wasn’t just this particular instance. Again, I was powerless to do anything. Far from saving Shirayuki, I had only made matters worse. That was how it had been from the very beginning—ever since I started acting as Shirayuki’s bodyguard. I was unable to assess the situation correctly, I idly just let time go by without making any preparations, and when the time did come for me to take action … in the end, all I did was waltz in here and cause problems for Shirayuki. I was witnessing danger befall upon Shrirayuki, yet was helpless to do anything about it. All I could do was watch the situation take a turn for the worse!
I heard a second bayonet traveling through the air. It was pitch dark, but I was fully aware. It was a blade meant to finish me off! At almost that exact same moment, I heard another blade being thrown from behind me
Clang!
For a brief instant, sparks scattered in the air.
I’m . . . still alive. Huh? What happened just now?
“You can hand the baton over to me now.”
It was an anime-like voice that cut through the total darkness. A light turned on in the corner of the room. It was followed by more lights, coming on one after the other like a row of falling dominos that encircled this warehouse as expansive as a gymnasium. The jet-black darkness was replaced with pure white light.
“There you are . . . Durandal! I’m placing you under arrest on the suspicion of attempted kidnapping of a minor!” cried a girl dressed in Butei High’s sailor uniform, making her appearance after trampling over my back and skull.
“Aria?!” I cried.
“It’s you, is it, Holmes?” Again came the voice of the unidentified girl. She had vanished … along with Shirayuki. She seemed to have been dragged away behind the shelves of explosives. From an open space in one of those shelves, two bayonets flew out at Aria. Aria spun her katana in a circle like the vanes of a windmill, deflecting both of them.
“Throw as many as you like. This is no different from being in a batting cage,” said Aria, holding her katana as if she were getting ready to take a swing with a baseball bat.
The sound of a door being closed caught our attention, and after a short moment of silence. …
“She ran for it.” Aria spun around, and after pulling out the bayonet planted next to me, carelessly flung it aside. She then squatted down next to my head. “Well, I guess even as a idiot, you were a little useful.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“They say a courageous person can make use of barbarians while a wise person can make use of fools, don’t they? There are ways of using you when you’re in idiot Kinji mode too.”
She showed up only to start talking nonsense again. And don’t squat down right in front of my face.
I turned my neck—the only part of me that I could move freely—to avoid getting a glimpse of the inside of her pleated skirt. Straightening out her knees, Aria ran to go check on Shirayuki, but then made a screeching noise with her sneakers as she came to a halt, sending her long ponytails waving in front of her.
“…?” I looked at Aria with puzzled eyes.
Aria took a step back and stuck her katana out in the air. I heard something I couldn’t see get cut in two.
“. . . What was that?”
“Piano wire. To be precise, it was probably twisted nano-Kevlar wire. It was set up at the same height as my neck.
Aria looked around and cut another wire.
“This one was set at the height of your neck. It was perfectly lined up on a diagonal axis so that if you were to run straight through here, your carotid artery would have been severed. She probably intended to kill you with this if the knife didn’t finish the job.”
“S-She’s a cautious one! Attempting to kidnap Shirayuki and laying traps all the while. …”
“But her traps won’t work. My eyes can’t be fooled,” said Aria, full of confidence. She picked up the katana that she threw when she saved me earlier and made her way towards Shirayuki once more. Before very long, she came back and kneeled by my side.
“How’s Shirayuki?”
“She’s not hurt. But she’s tied up. Help me set her free,” Aria said with one of her knees placed on top of me as she used her katana to chip away the ice fusing my limbs to the floor.
“Aria …what have you been doing?! I haven’t seen or heard from you since that day.”
“Durandal was observing Shirayuki from someplace hidden. And I had a feeling she was rapidly closing the distance between her and Shirayuki. But she never dared to attack when Reki or I was around. That’s why I intentionally stopped being her bodyguard.”
“When you disappeared after our fight on the roof of Assault … that was a part of your strategy?”
“Butei Charter, Article Two: Fulfill the contract made with your clients at all costs. I’ll never abandon a mission. Well, I was seriously mad at you when you were sleeping out on the roof, but I thought it would also be good opportunity,” Aria said as she freed my elbow from the floor. “Durandal is one of IU’s top strategists. But since you were only moderately guarding Shirayuki, I was finally able to divert her attention away from me. What are you looking so discontented about? You have some kind of complaint?”
I finally regained the ability to move around, but I didn’t voice my grievances at repeatedly being called an idiot or Aria’s consistently dangerous ways of doing things. Looking at the outcome, she had saved me, after all.
“I don’t … sense the enemy’s presence anymore. Did she escape?” I asked
According the floor plan that I check in my student handbook earlier, it should only have been possible to ascend to the higher levels from here.
“In the event that she has to deal with multiple opponents, she’ll first place some distance between us and work on dividing our forces from afar. She’ll then try to dispose of us one after the other, one-on-one. That’s the strategy Durandal uses.”
I see. … So that’s why Shirayuki and I were separated from each other so skillfully.
“But strategists like that tend to try and erase everything when something unaccounted for disturbs their plan
s. If that’s the case, there’s a possibility she’ll come back again to kill Shirayuki. So first, we’re going to set her free,” said Aria, pulling on my sleeve as soon as I stood up and leading me to where Shirayuki was.
Shirayuki was next to the wall of the warehouse where she was chained up in a standing position. She was gaged with a cloth and making grunting noises with her throat. When I removed the cloth …
“Kin-chan, are you okay?! You’re not hurt?!”
… she expressed her concerns for me, disregarding the predicament she was in.
“I’m fine. What about you …?” I asked as I took the chain that was fastened around her upper abdomen into my hands. The chain was wrapped multiple times around a thick pipe that ran along the wall and had the diameter of a hamburger. The huge locks keeping the chain in place were called drum locks. They were about the size of wall clocks, and three of the dreadful things were clamped onto the chain. Aria and I took out the bump key from our butei handbooks and started working on the locks … but they must have been very intricately made because we couldn’t unlock a single one.
“Kin-chan … I’m sorry … I was told to come here in these clothes without informing anyone … otherwise they would blow up Academy Island and kill you as well . …”
Upon hearing that, something painful welled up again in my heart. Without my knowing it, I had been used as bargaining chip.
“When did they tell you this?”
“Yesterday. … It was when you went to go buy the fireworks for me. I received a threatening e-mail. The thought of you get hurt terrified me. … I had no choice but to do what they said …” Shirayuki said, beginning to sniffle.
“Don’t worry about it now. Stop crying.”
So that’s when it was. No wonder she seemed so strange after I came back from buying the fireworks.
“I have to apologize to you too, Aria. You came to save me even after I did all those horrible things to you . …”
Aria seemed to be bewildered by Shirayuki’s apology, and her cheeks became slightly red.
“I-I’m … just doing my job of protecting you since I accepted this mission. My true goal is to capture Durandal. That’s all. So you don’t need to grateful for anything,” said Aria, but at the same time, was pulling on the chain with all her might as she tried to release Shirayuki. Her words and her actions were conflicting with each other, but I wasn’t going to comment on it right now.
That aside … these chains just won’t come off.
I had a feeling that if we were to use Shirauiki’s superhuman swordsmanship, it just might be possible to do something about this … but the one tied up was Shirayuki. And from the looks of it, her sword was taken away from her. I began to think it would be better to disconnect the pipe running along the wall, but unless we used some heavy-duty equipment, judging by the thickness, it would be difficult to budge. I started looking for any weak links that might be in the chain when Aria asked Shirayuki a question.
“Did you get a look at Durandal?”
“No … she kept herself hidden in the shadows of the shelves the entire time. When she ran out of that door as well, all I could see was her shadow,” said Shirayuki, indicating with her eyes the hatch on the ceiling that led to the upper level. Aria didn’t look at all surprised.
“… It can’t be helped. Durandal never allows herself to be seen.” It would seem all the investigating Aria did on a daily basis had provided her with quite a bit of background information on Durandal. I decided to ask her about something that had been bothering me for a while.
“Aria, that ice back there . …”
I was referring to the ice that had sewn me to the floor. I thought she might have used liquid nitrogen, but that probably wasn’t the case. Back when I was in the Assault division, I had frozen a time bomb with liquid nitrogen before … but it didn’t freeze over like that.
“It’s a supernatural ability,” Aria replied, nonchalantly giving the answer I was hoping not to hear.
“Yes,” said Shirayuki, “in terms of international classification, she’s a class three Stealth. Most likely, she’s a Matsugi (mage).”
Shirayuki’s supplementary explanation brought a frown to my face.
Are you serious . . . ? A magician?
“That can’t be. …”
“It can. These days, first-rate buteis don’t find it surprising anymore. Even our school has SSR, doesn’t it?”
I knew that of course. The logic made sense in my head, but …
SSR. This department Shirayuki was affiliated with was most definitely doing earnest research on psychometry and dowsing and other dubious investigative methods. But SSR was a particularly secretive specialized division at Butei High, and aside from those directly involved, very few people knew much about it in detail. That especially applied to me, someone who longed to be an ordinary person, and always avoided having anything to do with that most unordinary world. I never even heard rumors of the existence of these magical powers, well aside from conversations about video games.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of, Kinji,” said Aria. “From my experience, their abilities aren’t much different from the sort of thing an illusionist or a street performer does. They’re nothing a lead bullet can’t handle.”
“But those are superhuman abilities. She might come at us with attacks we didn’t account for.”
“Oh, stop being such a coward. I hate it when you’re like that. But … you can put your mind at ease. Your training to “awaken” yourself isn’t complete … so you don’t have to fight. I’ll take care of her by myself.”
Suddenly, as if replying to Aria’s proclamation, a deep sound rang out in the underground warehouse. Looking around us, we saw water rushing in from the drain on the floor. The amount of water was increasing so rapidly, that in less than a minute it had practically become a fountain and began creeping its way towards our feet.
“This is seawater,” Aria said, sniffing with her nose like a small animal.
“Yeah. She destroyed some part of the drainage system,” I replied.
From our shoes to our ankles to our shins, the water continued rising.
This is bad.
This place might be as large as a gymnasium, but at this speed, it would probably be completely submerged in around ten minutes. That was plenty of time for Aria and I to climb the ladder and escape from the hatch on the ceiling, but we couldn’t possibly leave Shirayuki behind.
A strategist, huh?
“…She certainly does seem to be strategist, Aria. She discovered your weakness.”
Aria didn’t respond to me. She just stared uneasily at the rising water.
“Discovered . . . ? Discovered what . . . ?” Shirayuki asked, and Aria went red in the face. The look Aria gave me could be easily interpreted as “Don’t say it.” But these were the circumstances we were in. She would just have to forgive me.
“Aria can’t swim. Tsuzuri was saying so the other day.”
“T-That’s not true. I-If I just have a ring buoy . . . !”
“We don’t have a convenient thing like that with us. Aria, you go on up ahead of us.”
“I … I can’t do that! I can’t just run away and abandon you two!
“That’s not it. You’re not retreating; you’re going on the offensive. Go up there and get the key from Durandal. Nothing we can do is going to get this chain off. You realize that, don’t you?”
“… B-But …”
“You have better fighting skills, so you can take her out faster than I can! Go on! We can’t afford to waste even a single second right now!” I strongly urged Aria, remembering the tempo of life back in Assault. Aria continued to stare at Shirayuki with concern, but after seeing the water rise up to her knees, she finally handed her bump key over to me.
“…Alright. But if things start looking hopeless, make sure and call for me, okay?!”
Calling for you wouldn’t help get these chains off.
All three of
us were already aware of that thought. Still, I said, “Got it” as Aria turned her back on us with a mortified look on her face.
The water was continuing to increase at a faster rate, and the chains around Shirayuki weren’t budging at all. There was likely to be five more minutes or so before the warehouse was entirely inundated. I had frantically search underneath the water for any sort of tool that could be of use, but came up empty-handed. The water level was now up to my shoulders. Being shorter than I, Shirayuki was already up to her neck in water.
What should I do …?! What the hell should I do …?!
“Kin-chan … go on,” Shirayuki said, looking at the expression on my face, which showed that I was at a complete loss.
“Don’t … worry about me anymore. I don’t want to put you in danger.” She admirably put on a smile underneath her perfectly straight bangs. Even at a time like this, she was trying to keep me from worrying.
“… Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Hotogi shrine maidens are guardian shrine maidens. It’s our destiny to sacrifice our body and our soul for the sake of another. Kin-chan, go and escape now. Don’t worry about me anymore . …”
“… There’s no way I’m leaving you here!”
Shirayuki tried to reply, but momentarily winced as the seawater finally made its way up to her mouth, and lifting her head up, she drew in a breath of air.
“It’s okay. I … Even if I die there won’t be anyone to grieve. The teachers and the other students might have held me in high regard, but there isn’t anyone who truly loves me. *cough* It’s not me … it’s just the power of a Hotogi shrine maiden that everyone reveres so much … *cough* …” said Shirayuki, lifting her head backwards as far as it could go and gasping for breath.
My toes had also left the floor of the warehouse. It had gotten to the point where I had to swim in order to move around.
“Sh … Shirayuki! Aria’s going to come back with the key any second! Hang in there for as long as you possibly can! Take a deep breath! Clients are obligated to follow the instructions of their bodyguard! I’ll do something about these chai-”
Aria the Scarlet Ammo (novel), Volume 2 Page 12