The Asterisk War, Vol. 10: Conquering Dragons and Knights

by Yuu Miyazaki

  Copyright

  THE ASTERISK WAR, Vol. 10

  YUU MIYAZAKI

  Translation by Haydn Trowell

  Cover art by okiura

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  © Yuu Miyazaki 2016

  First published in Japan in 2016 by KADOKAWA CORPORATION.

  English translation rights reserved by Yen Press, LLC under the license from KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo, through TUTTLE-MORI AGENCY, INC. Tokyo.

  English translation © 2019 by Yen Press, LLC

  Yen Press, LLC supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact the publisher. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Yen On

  1290 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10104

  Visit us at yenpress.com

  facebook.com/yenpress

  twitter.com/yenpress

  yenpress.tumblr.com

  instagram.com/yenpress

  First Yen On Edition: June 2019

  Yen On is an imprint of Yen Press, LLC.

  The Yen On name and logo are trademarks of Yen Press, LLC.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Miyazaki, Yuu, author. | Tanaka, Melissa, translator. |

  Trowell, Haydn, translator.

  Title: The asterisk war / Yuu Miyazaki ; translation by Melissa Tanaka.

  Other titles: Gakusen toshi asterisk. English

  Description: First Yen On edition. | New York, NY : Yen On, 2016– |

  v. 6–8 translation by Haydn Trowell | Audience: Ages 13 & up.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016023755 | ISBN 9780316315272 (v. 1 : paperback) |

  ISBN 9780316398589 (v. 2 : paperback) | ISBN 9780316398602 (v. 3 : paperback) | ISBN 9780316398626 (v. 4 : paperback) | ISBN 9780316398657 (v. 5 : paperback) | ISBN 9780316398671 (v. 6 : paperback) | ISBN 9780316398695 (v. 7 : paperback) | ISBN 9780316398718 (v. 8 : paperback) | ISBN 9781975302801 (v. 9 : paperback) | ISBN 9781975329358 (v. 10 : paperback)

  Subjects: CYAC: Science fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Science Fiction / Adventure.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.M635 As 2016 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016023755

  ISBNs: 978-1-9753-2935-8 (paperback)

  978-1-9753-0429-4 (ebook)

  E3-20190507-JV-NF-ORI

  Contents

  Cover

  Insert

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1: The Highest Disciple

  Chapter 2: The Semifinal

  Chapter 3: The Celestial Warrior and the Keen-Edged Tempest

  Chapter 4: Clairvoyance

  Chapter 5: Lamina Mortis

  Chapter 6: Lifting the Curtain

  Chapter 7: Team Lancelot

  Chapter 8: Team Enfield

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  Yen Newsletter

  CHAPTER 1

  THE HIGHEST DISCIPLE

  The Room of the Black Tortoise in Jie Long Seventh Institute’s Hall of the Yellow Dragon:

  A vast, dimly lit space filled with row upon row of stone pillars—it was among the Ban’yuu Tenra’s—that is, Xinglou Fan’s—favorite training areas. The ceiling towered high into the distance, the earthen floor compacted firmly by the feet of its users. The room was lit only by the gentle lights installed on each of the stone pillars, making it impossible to see just how deep the space actually was.

  In the middle of that hall, two figures were squaring off.

  The first was Xinglou Fan, the master of the Hall of the Yellow Dragon; the other was her highest disciple, Xiaohui Wu.

  “Pò!”

  “Hmm…!”

  Xiaohui stepped forward, lunging out with a powerful strike, strong enough that, had it made contact, it ought to have thrown the body of his small opponent flying across the room. Xinglou, however, effortlessly dodged the blow.

  Even so, Xiaohui didn’t waste so much as a moment before spinning around, lashing out again with a wide kick.

  Xinglou leaped over the strike, but at that moment, just as Xiaohui put his fingers together in a kuji-kiri gesture, countless needlelike barbs erupted out of the ground around her, tearing into her body still suspended in midair—or so it had seemed. In the blink of an eye, however, she had completely vanished, as if into a shimmering wall of heat.

  “!”

  The next moment, the figures of five separate Xinglous appeared out of nowhere around Xiaohui, lunging toward him from every direction.

  Even so, his expression still betrayed no hint of emotion as he braced himself for the attack.

  Her kick, however, was so powerful that it caused a small crater to explode at his feet and left the air trembling around them. And she didn’t stop there; she leaped into the air once more and followed through with a series of further strikes, flowing from first one blow to the next.

  “…!”

  Xiaohui withstood them all, not yielding an inch, before countering with a kick of his own that managed to throw Xinglou higher into the air—

  But no. Xinglou, it seemed, had by her own accord leaped yet higher in reaction to the strike.

  She muttered something as she glided down, and a barrage of burning fireballs materialized around her, crashing toward him.

  Xiaohui dodged them all—so easily, it seemed, that his movements should have been impossible for a person of his large frame—before using one of the stone pillars as a launching pad to throw himself into the air as he lunged at his opponent.

  Xinglou moved to meet his attack head-on.

  “…No matter how many times I watch them, I still can’t really believe it…”

  “It’s beyond words…”

  Shenyun Li and Shenhua Li, watching the bout from across the hall, let out sighs of admiration.

  “Tell me about it.” Cecily Wong nodded in agreement. “Their martial arts are one thing, but the power of those seals and incantations—and without having to resort to using charms or anything like that, either… They’re both really something, right?”

  If Cecily, who led the Water sect, thought as much, there could be no doubting the two fighters’ skills in seisenjutsu.

  “But shouldn’t we get them to call it off? We do have a match coming up later today…,” Hufeng Zhao pointed out to the other members of his team.

  Today was, after all, the day of the semifinals. True, they still had practically half of that day to go before it got underway, but it wouldn’t do for Xiaohui to end up getting injured before it had even begun.

  “HAH, YOU REALLY THINK YOU CAN GET IN THE MIDDLE OF THOSE TWO? I’D LIKE TO SEE YOU TRY.” Alema Seiyng laughed silently, her words projected in a nearby air-window as she leaned against one of the room’s many pillars with her arms crossed.

  As far as Hufeng was concerned, Alema’s attitude was as irreverent as ever, but seeing as she wasn’t technically one of Xinglou’s disciples, he couldn’t really complain.
>
  “…Why don’t you go back to your room and get some rest?” was all he could respond with as he tried to find a diplomatic excuse to convince her to leave.

  In fact, it was no exaggeration to say that her bandage-wrapped body was completely riddled with injuries. That had been the result of the job she had carried out for Xinglou just the day before, so she hadn’t really had any time to rest and recover.

  “HAH, ARE YOU WORRIED ABOUT ME? I GUESS I WILL—ONCE THEY’RE DONE,” she quipped with a grin. Her grit was nothing short of incredible.

  “By the way, Alema,” Cecily began.

  “Yeah? What is it?”

  It was clear from the casual way in which they spoke to each other that the two were on good terms.

  “How long have you been able to watch master and Elder Brother train with each other?”

  “WELL, I’M FREE TO COME AND GO AS I PLEASE, RIGHT?”

  The members of Hufeng’s Team Yellow Dragon had only recently been granted permission to observe Xinglou and Xiaohui’s training matches. Alema, on the other hand, appeared to have been able to do so for a while now. Hufeng felt more than a touch of jealousy at that fact.

  “It’s just that, doesn’t something seem different?” Cecily continued. “She doesn’t look like her normal self, you know, when she’s training with Elder Brother…”

  “AH, THAT…” Alema frowned.

  “Ah, we also thought—”

  “—that something was up.”

  The twins turned toward Alema.

  “She always looks like she’s having fun when she trains with us, right? But I don’t know, maybe it’s different when she’s with Elder Brother…?”

  “Isn’t it just that she can’t afford to let her guard down, seeing how strong he is?” Hufeng replied.

  Cecily bit her lip, as if she couldn’t accept that answer. “You can’t be serious, Hufeng? You’ve seen her—she always smiles whenever there’s a new challenger wanting to become a disciple, no matter how strong they are. If strength even comes into it, isn’t she the type to just get more excited the stronger her opponent is?”

  “Well… I guess so.”

  There was no arguing the point. Xinglou would probably be the happiest person alive if she could square off against someone stronger than her—the question was more that Hufeng doubted whether such a person existed.

  “Well, in that case, why…?”

  “…MM, THIS IS JUST WHAT SHE SAID, IN PRAISE, I GUESS. BASICALLY, ‘HE’S MY GREATEST FAILURE.’ OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT,” Alema said uncomfortably, averting her gaze as she scratched at her head.

  “Her greatest failure…?”

  That didn’t make any sense.

  Out of all her disciples, Xiaohui ought to have been her greatest masterpiece. As much as Hufeng hated to admit it, neither he nor Cecily, nor any of Xinglou’s other disciples for that matter, could compare.

  “WELL, I MIGHT HAVE SAID TOO MUCH. ANYWAY, IT LOOKS LIKE THEY’RE FINISHED, SO I’LL BE OFF.”

  When Hufeng glanced back toward the two, their bout did indeed seem to be over. The floor was gouged out in places, and several of the stone pillars lay collapsed, strewn around the room—but despite all that, neither Xiaohui, nor, of course, Xinglou, looked to have suffered any sort of injury.

  Hufeng let out a sigh of relief.

  “Huh?! Alema?!” Cecily called out.

  Hufeng spun around at the sound of her voice, only to find that Alema had already disappeared. She must have run off just as they had all turned their attention to Xinglou. As always, he had been completely unable to sense her departure.

  “Oh-ho… Here you are,” Xinglou greeted them, Xiaohui following along behind her.

  At that moment, they all fell to their knees in obeisance.

  “Master, Elder Brother, what a wonderful performance,” Hufeng, as their representative, replied.

  Xinglou flashed him a knowing smile. “Nonsense, Hufeng. You were all busy talking toward the end.”

  “Ugh! Th-that’s…!”

  Hufeng had no idea how she could have realized that, but there was no use trying to deny it.

  “Fret not. Truth be told, there was little to learn from today’s bout.”

  “M-master…?” Hufeng shook his head vehemently.

  Xinglou merely sighed. “It’s just a worn-out routine.”

  “…”

  He glanced toward Xiaohui, who merely stood behind their master expressionlessly. Hufeng could only wonder what he could be thinking.

  “More importantly, today you will be facing those children from Seidoukan. I’m looking forward to it. Don’t disappoint me.”

  “Of course not, master. We won’t lose.”

  “We’ll be sure to give you a match to be proud of.”

  The twins, their heads bowed meekly, were as cavalier as ever.

  “Hmph. I’m not interested in whether you win or lose. What matters is how you perform.”

  “Of course, we understand that. You haven’t given us any crazy orders this time, so without any restrictions on our strategies, we’ll definitely be able to make it a match to remember,” Cecily boasted. While maybe not to Alema’s extent, she, too, wasn’t the kind to shy around their master.

  “Oh-ho, then I shall look forward to it. Ah, Xiaohui, come and see me before you go.”

  “…Very well,” Xiaohui replied, his head bowed.

  With a passing glance toward him, Xinglou clicked her fingers, vanishing as if she had been, from the very beginning, no more than a cloud of smoke.

  “I’m terribly sorry for what happened. I’d like to apologize to you all once again,” Claudia said, head bowed, as her team members arrived at their prep room on the day of their semifinal match.

  The four other members of Team Enfield glanced toward one another at this extraordinary show of contrition.

  Ayato had been expecting Julis to come out with two or three more minor complaints in addition to those that she had delivered the previous night, but at this sight, all she could do was let out a nervous cough and put her hands to her hips. “W-well, it’s over and done with. Anyway, are you up to it?”

  “I think so. The healers at the hospital really are amazing. And we haven’t faced any penalties, either,” Claudia replied with a light laugh.

  Treatment from healers certainly was effective, but teams that relied on it during the Festa normally incurred some manner of penalty for doing so. In particular, if the injuries had been incurred during a Festa match, participants who received such healing could be disqualified from further competition.

  Nonetheless, for someone to even receive such treatment, their life had to be in danger anyway, so in such cases, there really was no other choice.

  “That said, I can’t say that everything is perfect…”

  The wound in Claudia’s chest was completely healed, but her other injuries, not to mention her fatigue, still remained. It would be an exaggeration to say that she was in prime fighting condition.

  “But still, I’m more worried about all of you. None of you overdid it yesterday, did you?”

  To be fair, while she might not have been at her best, he could say the same thing about himself and the others.

  Ayato had squared off in a bitter contest against Eishirou’s father, Bujinsai, while Julis, Saya, and Kirin had fought against both Shadowstar and the seemingly close-to-immortal members of the Yabuki clan. None had received any serious injuries, but the ordeal had left them all exhausted.

  Julis and Ayato were in particularly bad shape. Julis had gone all out with her abilities, while Ayato had been forced to break his seal. It wasn’t as bad as the first time he had done so—he could still move around, even if his body felt heavier than usual—but he didn’t know how well he would be able to fight in the upcoming match.

  “Well, we’ll just have to do what we can,” he said.

  Saya, standing beside him, nodded. “Right. What matters now is working out how to win today. So, Claudia… We
need a strategy.”

  “Unfortunately,” Julis cut in with a downcast note to her voice, “we’re probably going to have a hard time standing up to Team Yellow Dragon like this.”

  “I understand. In that case…”

  “Ah! Um, before that…” Kirin, who until that moment had been waiting in silence, timidly raised her hand. “C-Claudia, is the… Is the Pan-Dora…?”

  At that question, they all turned toward her. Yesterday’s attack by the Night Emit—indeed, even the dream she had so catastrophically sought to make reality—could be traced back to that Orga Lux, the Pan-Dora. All five knew that.

  It wouldn’t be at all surprising if she was to want nothing more to do with it—in fact, that would be the most natural course of action.

  But Claudia merely shone with a composed smile as she unsheathed the Orga Lux’s activators from their holders at her waist. “Yes. I don’t blame this darling at all. And if we want to win, we’re going to need its abilities.”

  “If that’s what you think, I won’t try to argue with you, but still…” Julis looked as if she wasn’t particularly convinced.

  To be honest, Ayato thought the same way. No matter how extraordinary its abilities, the Pan-Dora was simply too dangerous.

  “Ah-ha, there’s no need to worry,” Claudia said with a soft laugh. “Given what’s happened, I won’t blame you if you don’t believe me, but for now at least, I want to try to understand how to get along better with it. I still don’t believe that I’ve been quite capable of drawing out all its power.”

  “…What do you mean?” Saya asked. “You think the Pan-Dora has another ability?”

  Claudia shook her head. “It’s just a feeling, that’s all.”

  “Come on. Stop playing around,” Julis interjected.

  “Anyway, there’s no need to worry about me. Even if something was to happen, I have all of you here to help me.”

  Claudia may have tried to pass that off as a joke, but Ayato knew she was trying to hide her embarrassment. She had changed, it seemed.

  “However, and I’m terribly sorry about this, but I only have around sixty seconds left in my precognition stock. I ended up using quite a lot of it to evade the Night Emit… So I only plan to use it to avoid attacks. That goes for our next match, too, of course.”