by Yuu Miyazaki
A burst of light passed over Julis’s ducked head.
She had managed to dodge this first attack, but Kevin, who had leaped upon one of Laetitia’s outstretched wings to escape from it himself, now came descending toward her with sword outdrawn.
She brought around the three remaining units of her Rect Lux to meet his attack, but Kevin deftly maneuvered his huge black shield to brush them all aside.
His alias, Gareth the Black Shield, wasn’t just for show.
In contrast to his extravagant appearance and frivolous personality, his fighting style was particularly slow and cautious.
“Splendid, Glühen Rose! What an ardent attack! What do you say, won’t you join me for dinner one of these days?”
“I’m afraid I’m just not interested in dandies!” Julis called back, a lance of flame taking shape as she waved her rapier through the air—her Longiflorum technique manifesting at point-blank range.
“Whoa…! That’s a shame!” he responded as he parried it with his sword, before rushing forward to slam her with his shield.
Julis grimaced as the impact threw her backward, but she wasted no time before climbing back to her feet.
“It looks like the princess prefers straitlaced guys like you, Leo!”
Julis jumped backward as Lionel’s keen-edged great spear shot in front of her.
“This is no time for banter, Kevin! We’re in the middle of a match!”
So that shield bash was a diversion…
She wouldn’t have time to dodge the oncoming spear.
She concentrated her prana on defense, but just before it could reach her, two swords flashed in front of her to brush it away.
“Claudia!”
“Julis, cover me!”
Taking note of Laetitia’s brilliant wings, again about to come crashing down from above, Julis activated her trap.
“Burst into bloom—Epiphyllum!”
A huge orchard-shaped flower appeared over their heads, holding Laetitia’s wings at bay.
And just in time, too.
She didn’t have time to relax, however, as Kevin and Lionel were closing in on her and Claudia from either side.
“I’m sorry about this, but we’re not going to let up!”
Julis and Claudia stood back-to-back, ready to meet the two oncoming young men with her recalled Rect Lux units and the Pan-Dora, respectively.
Their two opponents rushed them in an attempt to catch them in a pincer move.
“Urg…! What do we do, Claudia?!” Julis cried out. “This is going from bad to worse!”
“Even so, we can’t afford to lose another one of us…! We’re just going to have to keep going!” she called back through clenched teeth, when all of a sudden, the Pan-Dora began to glow.
As Lionel’s spear rose high into the air, Claudia pushed herself off from Julis’s back, catching Kevin’s blade between her own twin swords.
Her movements were as graceful and deliberate as those of an acrobat.
She must be using the Pan-Dora’s precognition!
But she couldn’t have had much stock left.
“Burst into bloom—Livingston Daisy!”
Like Claudia had said, all they could do was keep going.
Julis put the vast majority of her technique into covering her and holding Laetitia in check. After all, if even one of them was defeated, the rest would soon follow.
Julis’s role, as the team’s support, was to assist both the vanguard and the rearguard—in other words, to ensure that the team could keep operating as a whole.
“Claudia, now!”
“I know…!”
She boosted her prana, focusing her attention on controlling both the spiraling flames of her Livingston Daisy technique and the three units of her Rect Lux.
“Ugh…!” Claudia managed, somehow, to stop Lionel’s spear by catching it between her twin blades.
Julis intensified the power of her technique in an attempt to support her, but Kevin immediately moved to intercept it.
These two make for an unpleasant combination!
Lionel’s and Kevin’s combat styles couldn’t be more different, and yet, fighting together, their coordination was odiously precise. Lionel’s spear had both a long reach and a significant strength behind it, making him the perfect choice for blocking an opponent’s counterattacks, and was all the more terrifying given that the coarseness of his style was nonetheless without flaw.
Kevin, on the other hand, was focusing on landing a steady stream of attacks with his greatsword and shield before breaking away to safety, but he was so precisely in sync with Lionel that she couldn’t capitalize on those openings.
And most vexing of all—
“There’s more where that came from!”
Along with that cry came three brilliant wings, forcing her to dodge out of their path while at the same time trying to stick close to Julis.
Distance meant nothing to those wings of light.
Team Lancelot’s entire strategy was based, it seemed, on the careful integration of offense and defense.
If, somehow, she could take Laetitia out of the equation, they might have a chance at victory.
But I won’t get close to her like this…
Kevin, the opposing team’s support, moved perfectly, quickly correcting himself whenever he came close to slipping out of formation. On top of that, Laetitia wasn’t the kind of Strega who was too reliant on her abilities. Even if Claudia was to engage her in close combat, she was the kind of fighter who could stand her ground.
In the previous Gryps, there had been several minor weaknesses in her stance, but she looked to have improved considerably since then.
Even if Claudia could face her individually, it wasn’t a sure thing that she would come out on top.
All in all, in terms of their members, Team Lancelot and Team Enfield were very similarly structured.
Both teams had their own skilled swordsman armed with an Orga Lux, a rearguard that took time to prepare its moves but was capable of annihilating its targets if they scored a direct hit, and versatile supports skilled in both offense and defense.
Which left them with only one major distinguishing factor.
In other words, Claudia.
Her original reason for fighting in the tournament might have been made irrelevant with the events of the previous days. But after all, she was the one who had invited the others to join her in the first place, so she had a responsibility toward them to do everything she could.
“—!”
At that moment, Percival fired off a barrage of bullets of light toward her.
She threw her body out of their path but found herself coming face-to-face with Lionel. Laetitia’s luminescent wings closed in behind her, cutting off any route of escape.
Finding herself caught in a desperate situation, she wasted no time before activating the Pan-Dora’s precognition to search for a way out.
She only had twenty seconds of stock left.
She hadn’t wanted to spend more than thirty seconds of that stock in the battle against Team Yellow Dragon, but there was no point complaining about it now. She would just have to be frugal.
As she poured her prana into the Orga Lux, the world became drained of color.
It looks like Julis is holding Kevin down, so that leaves…
She began to peer into the future, when a more pressing concern reared its head.
“I suppose this isn’t the time to be stingy…!”
Seeing no other alternative, she ended up burning most of her remaining stock.
When her surroundings burst into color and motion, she wove her way past both Lionel’s spear and Laetitia’s wings of light—all but soaring across the stage as she readied the Pan-Dora to strike.
By the time Ayato recognized his mistake, it was already too late.
Ernest had struck out with a low thrust with the Lei-Glems but quickly followed through with a much deeper attack. As he tried to leap over it, the whit
e blade passed through his shins.
The first thrust had been no more than a feint—his real goal was no doubt to upset his footing.
The Lei-Glems, with its ability to make physical contact only with its intended target, gouged straight through the ground beneath him, sending cracks and fissures spreading out in every direction.
“Agh…!” Ayato tried to brace himself as he landed but ended up losing his balance, just as the glint of Ernest’s blade came rushing toward him.
Before it could reach him, however, Claudia came flying out of nowhere, laying into Ernest with a surprise attack, causing him to come to a sudden halt as he turned to meet her.
That was the opening that Ayato needed to correct his posture before rushing to Claudia’s aid.
“Thanks, Claudia!”
“Not at all…! But I should warn you that I’ve used up most of my stock!”
The two, now with a numerical advantage, struck Ernest with everything they had. Their opponent’s defense, however, was formidable, while he was clearly concentrating his counterattacks on Claudia.
“Ugh…!” Being an Orga Lux, the Pan-Dora was immune to the Lei-Glems’s filtration ability and capable of resisting his attacks, but the difference in skill between their two users was obvious.
Claudia, realizing she couldn’t hold out against him, backed away.
“My apologies, Miss Enfield!” Ernest said with a laugh. “But I don’t think you’re quite fit to take me on.”
“…I don’t need to be told that, Ernest.”
“Claudia, I can handle it from here!” Ayato called after her. “Please help Julis!”
She continued to glare after Ernest for a short moment but soon seemed to remember her role in the match and sped off to support Julis.
“Now then, let’s get back to it!” Ernest grinned, launching into yet another fierce attack.
He held his glimmering blade upright and, the next second, thrust it directly toward Ayato’s chest. No sooner did Ayato dodge it than he came again from below, along with joint ranged attacks from both Percival and Laetitia. It took every ounce of his concentration just to pull through unscathed.
“Haaah…haaah…!”
Sensing an opportunity, he lashed out with a powerful strike of his own, forcing Ernest to retreat backward.
Neither chased after the other, each staring at their opponent as they evaluated their next move.
Ayato’s breathing was ragged. Without letting down his guard, both hands gripped tightly around the hilt, he raised the Ser Veresta upward, all but pointing it directly into the sky.
Ernest, on the other hand, didn’t appear even the slightest bit perturbed. It was obvious to anyone who looked that he would hold out long after Ayato was driven to exhaustion.
Nor could anyone mistake the difference in ability between the two.
Ernest was strong.
If the only thing that mattered was raw power, then Xiaohui, armed with his seisenjutsu, would no doubt come out on top—but in any real contest, Ernest, thanks to his expert swordsmanship and Orga Lux, would likely be insurmountable, even for him.
“Ah… Very impressive, Ayato.” Ernest laughed, invigorated.
Ayato couldn’t stop himself from asking a question of his own. “I’ve been wondering this for a while now… Why do you think so highly of me?”
Xinglou was somewhat similar in that respect, but from his own perspective, both of them seemed to be overestimating him.
At this, Ernest looked back at him in surprise for a second before rushing him with blade lowered.
“Isn’t it obvious? You have something that makes me want to challenge you, as a swordsman!”
“What’s that…supposed to mean?!”
Ayato blocked the blade tip from reaching his chest, but the most formidable part of Ernest’s technique—how he would turn that lunge into first one arcing slash, then another—was yet to come. It was similar, at least at a superficial level, to the Toudou style’s Conjoined Cranes, but whereas that technique was based on a thorough mastery of its individual forms, Ernest’s skill was such that he seemed to be creating new forms to drive into every available weakness.
“Ha-ha! Yes…I suppose that isn’t a particularly convincing response!”
Ayato desperately tried to keep his legs from giving way as he used the base of the Ser Veresta to block an oncoming strike aimed directly at his torso.
“So let me rephrase it! You’re my ideal opponent!”
“Ideal…?!” Ayato parroted as he blocked an oncoming thrust from above, their swords locking together.
He might not have had the same amount of physical strength as Ernest, but he wasn’t so weak as to allow himself to be pushed over.
“There’s something inside you, something dreadful. You’re able to hold it back, thanks to your training and sheer willpower, but I can see it… You’re just like me!”
“—!”
Colorless sparks danced around them as the Lei-Glems clashed against the Ser Veresta.
“And yet, you’re fighting so freely, wielding that sword as if nothing holds you back. To tell you the truth, I’m a little jealous…!”
Ernest’s eyes began to burn with a powerful flame.
A sudden chill ran down Ayato’s spine, and he jumped backward to escape.
Just as he did, Ernest’s gleaming sword sliced through the air where he had been standing.
He can do that just by twisting his body and turning his wrist?!
“Unlike yours,” Ernest said as his blade carved through the air, “my techniques unfortunately don’t have names… But they’re rather effective, don’t you think?”
Ayato felt his flesh turn cold as something inside him began to writhe.
It was the still-incomplete key he had used to release his power, albeit briefly, when he had fought against Bujinsai.
At the time, the key had still needed more, but he could see it now. It had almost taken shape.
All it needed was a little more…
When—
“Ayato! The third wave!” he heard Saya calling out.
Ayato moved to throw himself to safety as Percival’s Amalthean Goat released a flood of golden light, but Laetitia’s brilliant wings emerged from the ground to block his path.
“Uh-oh…”
Thanks to his heightened senses having entered the state of shiki, he didn’t need to look up to know that those wings had managed to box him in.
He would have no difficulty carving an opening with the Ser Veresta—the only question was whether he could do it before the flood reached him.
Which left only one thing to do.
With a tremendous roar, he swung the Ser Veresta downward, cutting straight through the wave of golden light.
That light might indeed have been capable of robbing its target of consciousness should it make contact with them, but the Ser Veresta, Ayato judged, would nonetheless be able to cut through that ability, just like it had the Gravisheath’s.
Even so, the Amalthean Goat was more powerful than he had been expecting.
He couldn’t tell whether it was the Orga Lux itself that was so powerful or whether Percival was simply that good at channeling it. In either case, the Ser Veresta managed, somehow, to divide the flood, but Ayato had to brace himself lest the force of the torrent send him tumbling and swallow him whole.
All the while, the Ser Veresta, as if urging him to hurry, was demanding yet more prana.
Sorry, but I need you to hang in there…!
It was over in just a few seconds. Even so, he had poured so much prana into withstanding the rush that it had felt like an eternity.
“Now then—my apologies, but I think it’s time to finish this!” called Ernest, having circled around to his right as he lunged forward.
Don’t tell me…?!
It was a strategy that Ayato himself had used only once before.
Ernest was directing the Lei-Glems not toward him, but at the Ser Veresta
.
Both weapons were, of course, Orga Luxes, and so, in principle, neither should have had the power to destroy the other. Yet, in its current state, having exhausted so much energy defending against the Amalthean Goat, the Ser Veresta was significantly weakened.
Ernest, too, must have realized that.
The second that pure-white blade came into contact with the body of the Ser Veresta, a shrill, earsplitting shriek coursed through Ayato’s head. He had felt the thoughts and desires of the Orga Lux on numerous occasions in the past, but never before had he experienced anything like this.
Cracks coursed through its exterior, its urm-manadite core losing its luster.
“Ser Veresta…!” Ayato called out, when its blade suddenly melted away.
“Ayato! Get back!” Julis cried as she came flying down on a pair of fiery wings, weapon drawn.
“No, you don’t!”
“Ah!”
Laetitia’s glowing wings launched toward her from the side, sending her crashing to the ground.
“Now then, you can’t stop this empty-handed!” Ernest shouted as he struck.
“—!”
He put his whole body into the attack. His timing was so perfect, as was his speed, that no one in their right mind could have even hoped to dodge it.
And yet, at that moment, Ayato felt something inside him snap open with a click.
“…Hmm. It’s about time.” Madiath, watching the match from the Sirius Dome’s special observation lounge, let out a satisfied sigh.
His Lamina Mortis mask lay strewn casually on the desk beside him.
“It looks like it was worth giving him that little extra push last night, after all.”
“What does that mean?” Varda, sitting beside him, tilted her head in his direction. “What does this have to do with that?”
“There are three parts to the seal that Haruka placed upon our friend Ayato Amagiri, each of them lifting only when certain conditions are cleared.”
“…What’s the point of something like that?”
“My guess would be that she had her own way of showing her love for him. But if you really want to know, you’ll have to ask her yourself,” Madiath continued with a shrug. “Anyway, it seems that the third seal could only be released when his accumulated strength exceeded her own. In other words, it looks like he’s finally overtaken her.”