Kazuko’s eyes opened a little, as if she found this surprisingly entertaining. “You can slice through a Yasakani-no-Magatama...? That blade was a gift from a god, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, but... But if that’s true then what...?” Junko didn’t know what to think. Some sort of spell she didn’t understand was at work here.
Kazuko smiled at her. “If it wasn’t, you could not defeat my magic. That’s all.” She raised her hand to summon another mana ball.
“Oh no...!” Junko shot a quick glance at Yoshie. But Yoshie was already moving before the warning came.
“We’re getting out of here Keisu!” Yoshie turned on the chainsaw she was holding and climbed up onto the terrace railing.
“But I dislike fleeing in the face of the enemy...” Keisu seemed reluctant until Yoshie cut her off.
“I’m jumping off the ledge. Protect me.” Yoshie leaned forward off the railing and then disappeared.
“Master!” Keisu leaned off the edge as well. She could see Yoshie falling. “I’m coming for you!” She jumped after her to follow.
Once she saw that they were gone, Junko readied her sword and waited for an attack from Kazuko. But it never came.
“You still want to try this?”
Kazuko wasn’t moving, but was looking down. Someone had grabbed her leg. And it wasn’t just the hand that was wrapped around her leg; the forearm it was connected to was wrapped all the way around it like rubber.
“If you don’t consider it a defeat, you’re not defeated even if you’re dead.” It was Lily Shiraishi. She was lying on the ground a few meters behind Kazuko.
Her clothes were a mess. It looked like she’d been struck many times. Her boyish face was swelled up and bruised from violent punches. But despite this, Lily Shiraishi still had her arm reached out towards Kazuko.
“Yashakuni-no-Magatama.” Without even looking behind her, Kazuko attacked Lily with several mana balls.
“Tch!” Lily retracted her arm and staggered to her feet. But there was no way she could move faster than the mana balls.
“Watch out...!” Junko raced past Kazuko and stood in front of Lily. With a single slash of her blade, she struck the mana balls down.
“President?! What’s going on here?” She asked Lily. Until now she’d acted out of instinct, but she still didn’t know what was going on.
Lily answered with a sarcastic smile. “Eh, as long as you know that the Empress was behind this whole thing, you won’t be too far off. She killed 2V and now she’s trying to keep us from telling the world,” she said.
Of course, Junko believed she was telling the truth. Her face took on a tense expression as she looked at the Empress.
Kazuko just laughed. “That’s not a very nice thing to say,” she chuckled. “But I suppose I’m not being very nice right now.”
Junko furrowed her brow. “...I’m disappointed in you, Empress.”
Kazuko laughed her off. “Sometimes you need to win the throne even if it means disappointing others. Otherwise, peace will always remain impossible.”
“Do you think the people want you to sit on that throne?” Junko asked.
Kazuko nodded. “Did you not hear them just now?”
“Tch...” Junko didn’t know what to say.
“Give it up. She won’t listen to reason. Anyway, more than one person made it outside. What will you do if they tell the truth?” Lily interjected as she staggered to her feet.
Besides her, both Fujiko Eto and Keena Soga knew that Kazuko had murdered 2V. And they weren’t here now.
“Wait, where are Fujiko and Keena?” Junko asked.
Lily grinned. “Keena took her clothes off, you see. And Fujiko split the first chance she got while I was fighting.”
“I see. So that’s what happened.”
Keena could turn invisible. Even with mana-detection magic, there was no way to find her. But she couldn’t make the things she was wearing disappear, so she had to take off her clothes. That was probably the voice she’d heard before.
Kazuko was listening to their conversation, and her eyes narrowed a little when they discussed Keena. But then she just shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I can find the ones who escaped and shut them up.”
Kazuko raised a hand. A sword of light appeared in a blast of mana.
“Ame-no-murakumo-no-tsurugi.”
That was what Kazuko called the two-meter-long sword that appeared out of thin air. The sword of light was shining like a piece of the sun had fallen to Earth. Junko was standing a good bit away, and she could still feel its heat.
“Be careful. That thing’s incredibly powerful,” said Lily, who had seen the sword run 2V’s body through.
“Alright. I’ll focus on having a perfect defense...” Junko tilted her blade just a little to the left as she assumed her fighting stance. It was a defensive stance that could block an attack from any direction.
“That’s not what I meant! Its power is...” Lily screamed.
Kazuko’s eyes narrowed. “It’s too late. I’ll run you both through...” She waved her hand, and the sword of light flew towards Junko.
“Aah!”
The roar as it sliced through the air, and the rumbling of the mana around it, told her exactly how powerful it was. Anything created with mana had a certain maximum limit to its strength. But the waves of power and heat coming from the sword were fiercer than any she’d ever experienced.
“I can’t... block it!” Junko couldn’t move her sword. If she tried to block, it would snap the blade in two. And then it would run through her, and Lily behind her as well.
But instead, the Ame-no-murakumo-no-tsurugi flew past them with a loud roar. It embedded itself into the palace wall behind them, melting the area around the hole it made with its heat. Terrifyingly, when it crashed into the wall it had made almost no noise. In other words, it had melted it away with barely any resistance.
“We’re saved...” Junko sighed in relief. Of course, she knew better than anybody else that she hadn’t been able to dodge. She’d survived because the blade was never aimed at her to begin with.
The sword had gone off course because Kazuko had been knocked off balance. Just before she’d fired it off, Kazuko had suffered some kind of impact that knocked her to her knees. Behind her, Junko could see a small shining hairpiece floating in the sky.
“Thank you...” Junko whispered softly.
The hairpiece was Keena. Just before Kazuko had attacked, she must have slammed into her.
Lily let out a sigh of relief too. But then she shook her head as if to say that they couldn’t let their guard down. “We’re saved... But we won’t be so lucky next time. The Empress loves to hurt people. That’s why she used her mana balls. But since they don’t work on you, she brought out her sword...”
Kazuko was standing up again and shaking her head. She seemed to have noticed Keena’s power. “So you have someone with you who can turn invisible, I see. But since it appears they can’t actually hurt me, they don’t pose a serious threat. Next time, I won’t miss.”
Kazuko waved a hand through the air around her. She was checking that Keena wasn’t anywhere nearby.
“That sword... those balls... what are they?” Junko turned around and asked Lily.
“Magic that only the Imperial Family can use. There’s three of those spells in all. Those two and the one Lily used to control the Liradans.”
“Only the Imperial family...?”
“Being able to use those spells is proof that you’re of royal blood. It’s a symbol of authority.”
“And they’re that powerful...?” Junko was satisfied with Lily’s explanation, but she knew that one more hit and she’d be finished.
“You need to run. I’ll hold her off for a little more,” Lily said. There was no sense of tragic resolve in her expression. It seemed like to her, it was the natural thing to do.
Junko shook her head. “...I can’t run after you’ve said that. And I’ve made a decision of
my own. I left him once because of my feelings. But this time, as long as he’s here fighting, I will be here with him. I don’t want to have any more regrets.”
Junko’s expression was unwavering. Now that she knew what was going on here, she knew exactly what Akuto was trying to do. Akuto was betting his entire being on defeating Kazuko and Zero.
From the look on her face, Lily knew exactly who Junko meant by “him.” She grinned and pulled down the torn brim of her hat as she looked away. “That’s so old-fashioned... But if that’s your situation, then I won’t tell you what to do. You have to win, though, if you want it to matter. You have to kill the Empress,” she said. Junko nodded firmly.
Kazuko laughed as if she’d been listening. “Kill the Empress? That’s an excellent joke, but I’m honestly not sure how to respond to it.” She smiled and raised a hand. Mana gathered there and another sword of light appeared.
Junko could barely bring herself to move in the face of its power, but now that she’d decided to fight, she’d already come up with a way to do it. “I’ll move fast and distract her...!” She raced forward and then jumped, her sword at the ready.
Kazuko turned her head. The girl in front of her had seemed to disappear. And when she finally found Junko again, she’d already jumped to the opposite side. No, if she’d jumped, how could she be over there too?
There were now two Junkos. It was her clone technique; her favorite spell. Another physical Junko, created out of pure mana.
“Iga Ninja Technique: Raging Moonshadow!” Junko created five more clones, all of which began to race quickly around Kazuko.
Kazuko couldn’t focus on any one point. Just when she became sufficiently distracted, the five Junko’s struck at her at once.
“HYAAAAAH!”
The clones were all real objects, made out of mana. They weren’t illusions; each of them had real power. And each of them attacked at a slightly different time. It was an undodgeable attack that was sure to kill its target.
But...
“You made clones with mana, didn’t you? But that won’t work against somebody who can control mana on a detailed level,” Kazuko said calmly, and then waved her hand.
“What?!”
Everyone was astonished. First, the Junko in front of Kazuko disappeared. As she moved around her hand around the room, each of the clones disappeared.
“...Tch!” But Junko didn’t halt her attack. The four clone Junkos had disappeared, but she still slashed her katana at Kazuko’s side. “Raaaaah!” she yelled.
But her yell suddenly stopped. The katana froze in mid-air. Kazuko was turned towards Junko, her blade of light pointing at her face. “This is how you fight with magic.”
“Wha... Impossible...”
“No, this is the inevitable result. If nothing else, you may find happiness in the fact that you were killed by a being greater than a god.” Kazuko smiled.
And then Keena, still invisible, slammed into Kazuko, and her whole body shook. But that was all. Kazuko knew she was there, and knew that she had almost no power of her own.
The Empress lazily waved a hand through empty air. There was a scream and the sound of something being knocked away. The whole time, her blade of light remained pointed at Junko’s throat.
“I won’t be interrupted again. Now...”
“Eek...” Junko’s eyes opened wide in fear.
Kazuko moved to drive the blade home. And then...
Suddenly, all the lights went out in the palace.
Kazuko froze, but she wasn’t the sort of person to lose her senses just because it went dark. Especially since it was the middle of the day, and enough light was coming from outside to see.
“A-Are we saved...?” Junko whispered, and then she jumped back. Kazuko’s sword was losing its form.
“The mana in the air is vanishing...” Kazuko turned her palm upwards, tried using her magic, and confirmed that there was only a small reaction.
“The atmospheric mana itself is disappearing?” Junko wiped away the sweat on her brow and tried to sense the feeling of the mana.
“The energy it’s supplying is also fading...” Lily said.
Junko was beginning to recover her senses. She realized that this was her chance to actually cause some damage. “I won’t hit as hard, but if we both can’t use magic, then maybe I can win!” she shouted as she jumped at Kazuko again.
The Empress dodged with a backstep. “It was Zero who absorbed the mana and energy, I assume. No, the Demon King is probably capable of the same thing.”
Kazuko glanced out the window.
○
“Master, don’t scare me like that. I didn’t know you were perfectly capable of getting down on your own.”
“Of course I am. I don’t do stupid things.”
Yoshie had stabbed the chainsaw into the wall and used it to slow her descent, and then dropped to the ground on her own. Keisu had jumped down after her, slammed into the ground, and had to have Yoshie dig her out.
Now the two of them were watching the battle between Akuto and Zero, as they kept an eye out for pursuers from the palace. Zero was now a giant humanoid machine, covering half the sky. Akuto was in front of him, and seemed to be the size of a toy doll in comparison. But it seemed to Yoshie that the two of them were putting out an equal amount of power.
“It’s strange. They’re so different in size, but the aura they give off is so similar,” Yoshie said.
“But the flow of mana is different. Look...” Keisu pointed at Zero.
In that moment, Zero suddenly spread his arms wide. The sound of them slicing through the air echoed as the compressed air exploded, but that wasn’t all.
“Mana....? Oh! This is...” Yoshie lowered her goggles and looked around. She was able to use them to visualize the flow of mana.
The colored mana spread throughout the atmosphere like a cloud. Though if it were a real cloud, it would be more like a typhoon had descended into the lower atmosphere. The mana was swirling around Zero in a spiral.
“Wooah! This is one heck of a cyclone,” Yoshie whispered. The flow creating the spiraling mana disturbed the atmosphere as well, causing the wind to shake the girls’ hair. Now it was a physical storm, stealing the mana around it.
The cyclone started near the palace, and spread out in a circle, turning off the lights of any building it passed through. On the ground, every mana-powered vehicle stopped, and magic itself ceased to be possible.
“It’s like the end of the world. The last battle between an all-devouring black giant and a fallen angel. A modern armageddon is unfolding before our eyes. We have to watch this. It might be the beginning of a living hell,” she said, grinning within the storm.
○
—So he combined in order to suck away mana?
Akuto understood what Zero was trying to do. He’d dismantled and reassembled all those Liradans so that he could have the processing power to absorb and control huge amounts of mana. But he couldn’t use complicated spells like a human, which meant he’d be forced to rely on brute force.
Akuto’s guess was right. The monster raised its fist and brought it down on him. The fist was covered in a mana storm.
—I wouldn’t survive a hit from that, I guess.
Akuto controlled the flow of mana around him. He couldn’t overpower Zero in a physical struggle for mana, or in a battle over energy to supply to the mana. Which meant that he’d have to finesse things, controlling the mana just enough to divert his foe’s power. It was the same technique that the headmaster of Constant Magical Academy had used before, just applied on a larger scale.
Akuto moved just enough to dodge his enemy’s attack, which was heading towards him at the speed of a small plane. By controlling the mana torrents, he was able to use a minimum amount of power to control a much greater force.
(You won’t be able to withstand me forever. I can absorb the mana around me, but your capacity is limited. There’s no point in forcing yourself.) Zero said, surpri
singly kindly.
(Why are you telling me this?)
(My goal is to control humanity. Not to destroy you.)
(So the Empress isn’t in full control of you?) Akuto asked. He knew for certain that the Empress was trying to kill him. But Zero said otherwise.
(My highest priority task lies elsewhere. It is the preservation of humanity.)
(So you’ll obey any of her orders that don’t interfere with that task?) Akuto said, understanding now.
(That is correct. I want to make this as efficient as possible. I don’t want to waste energy, and I want to decrease the human population, but not to the point where they go extinct.)
It was a strange conversation for two people in the middle of a battle. But the way they were each confirming what they were after while they fought was something that made this battle unique. Akuto was satisfied.
(...If that’s what’s going on, then we are fated to fight.)
(It is a waste of energy. It is impossible for me to disappear.)
Zero seemed satisfied too, in his own way. After he said that, he waved another giant fist.
(...I don’t know about that.)
Akuto followed the fist after it passed him, placed his hand on top of a massive finger, and concentrated the mana there.
“Haahh!” Akuto shouted. The part of the finger that he touched — the second joint of the pinky — exploded, and the end of it began to tear apart and fall to the ground.
Zero drew back his fist and moved away from Akuto. (You used my own mana against me?) Zero said as he looked at the exposed mechanical mechanisms of his finger. Akuto had changed the mana built up in Zero’s body into explosive power.
(This technique doesn’t take much mana at all, and I can use it to overcome our difference in sizes.) Akuto said.
But it also took a huge amount of concentration, too. The mana was Zero’s to begin with; in order to steal away control and make it his own, he needed to be aware of every single particle. Even with his Demon King powers, it was hard to maintain concentration.
Of course, Zero knew exactly what Akuto was doing. (Your body is not a machine. There’s a limit to what you can do.) Zero began to slam his huge fist down on Akuto.
Demon King Daimaou: Volume 9 Page 2