Pleek! A remarkably large chunk of the blade broke off and fell to the ground.
Magenta Scissor grinned, and, fixing the direction of the scissors, opened and closed them with even more ferocity. She’d given up on targeting the main body of the avatar and was now trying to destroy the sword first. Sparks flickered and scatted like the sword was being held to a grinder, and the center of the two-handed blade grew visibly scarred.
It’s going to break! Haruyuki gritted his teeth.
A cloud of dirt exploded upward at Takumu’s feet. The massive blue body charged forward impossibly fast for such a large avatar. Repelling the invisible blades with the battered sword, he closed the distance from Magenta to five meters in an instant.
Whakeeen! The opening and closing of the scissors stopped.
Takumu’s sword was jammed in between the two blades.
Here, Haruyuki finally understood Takumu’s strategy. He had been intently waiting for the moment Magenta started to target his sword. As long as her sights were fixed, he could close the distance between them by simply charging forward. And then, if he could get the real scissors to bite down on his sword, Remote Cut could no longer be activated. Of course, Takumu could no longer move his sword either, but being a kendo practitioner, he knew ways to continue an attack when locked sword to sword.
“Ngh…Aaah!” With a roar, Takumu took another step in. Both hands, still gripping the hilt, slid under the scissors and slammed hard into Magenta’s chest—into the crimson eyeball parasitizing her there.
He didn’t quite smash it, but taking a blow with the full weight of a heavyweight avatar behind it, the ISS kit closed its upper and lower lids tightly, shooting dull-black sparks. Perhaps some of the damage splashed back onto Magenta herself; the body covered in reddish-purple bandages shuddered and reeled back. The hands gripping the scissors relaxed slightly, and not letting the moment slip away, Takumu pushed his sword up with all his might.
The large scissors, the origin of Magenta’s name, flew out of their owner’s hands and danced high into the sky. Takumu swung his sword into the overhead position for the first time in this fight and let out a loud battle cry.
“Eeeaaaaah!!” The dizzyingly fast slash attack overtook the falling scissors from above, cutting the lethal black weapon in two right in the middle. The separated blades shattered into countless fragments and scattered in all directions.
Taku! You did it! Haruyuki yelled in his mind.
The mental strength to keep the Incarnate sword materialized when it—and he—were so battered. The fortitude to wait and watch for the chance to turn it all around in a unilaterally defensive battle. And then, the explosive power to turn the tide in an apparent deadlock. Haruyuki felt Takumu was more powerful than he was in all these ways, but his joy was much greater than his frustration. Even as he kept his guard up and his eyes on the enemy camp, he started to do a tiny fist pump on his friend’s behalf.
“Watch out!!” Chiyuri cried from behind him.
For a moment, he thought an enemy he had overlooked was about to send a Dark Shot their way, but that wasn’t it. Chiyuri was calling out to Takumu. Magenta Scissor had fallen faceup in front of him, seemingly still stunned from the direct hit to her ISS kit, but her right hand held a black aura.
Takumu also noticed the dark swirling mass and tried to yank his sword up again. But he was the slightest bit too late. An ebony beam jetted out of Magenta’s hand without any advance notice.
“Ngh…!” Takumu abandoned his attack and tried to defend against the beam with his sword. Although he somehow managed to deflect its trajectory, the nihilistic stream grazed the side of his helmet, scattering particles that resembled fresh blood.
But what was more serious was the damage to Cyan Blade. Defending against the Dark Shot from extreme close range had caused yet another large chunk to fall off, and the overlay was disappearing. Takumu gave up on a counterattack and leapt back.
Magenta stood up and took aim at Pile with her right hand as she protected the eye on her chest with her left.
“She…Without the technique name, a Dark Shot…” Haruyuki groaned. In the battle four days earlier, Magenta Scissor had needed to shout the name of the Incarnate technique to activate it. Which meant she had also evolved her abilities in this short time. While he was impressed on the one hand, Haruyuki couldn’t stop himself from muttering. “…Why, though…?”
Why, when she had such ambition—the passion to set her sights ever higher—why would she devote it to the spread of the ISS kits? Why was she so driven that she would sacrifice even herself to realize a world in which all duel avatars had the same techniques, in which individuality lost all meaning?
Facing off against Takumu as she was, Magenta naturally couldn’t answer Haruyuki’s questions. Instead, she moved her left hand quickly, gesturing instructions to her comrades. The seven that Black Lotus and Blood Leopard had engaged in combat after breaking through enemy lines, and the six waging long-range war with Haruyuki’s group all moved to the east side of the park, coming together in a tight formation. Magenta pulled back from Takumu to join them.
Neatly lined up in a double horizontal formation, with the back row centered on Avocado and the front on Magenta, the ISS kits radiated such enormous force that it was like the Burst Linkers had come together to make one super-massive duel avatar.
But when Haruyuki turned his gaze on each of the individual avatars, he saw Magenta was the only one uninjured. The other thirteen had taken damage all over from Kuroyukihime’s swords, Pard’s teeth and claws, Niko’s gun, and Utai’s flame arrows. And because Avocado had defended against Niko and Utai’s long-range attacks with his body, his soft armor was riddled with bullet holes and burns.
Rather than pursuing the collected enemy army, Kuroyukihime returned to Haruyuki and the others and gave instructions in a cool voice. “Everyone’s health gauges, except for Magenta’s, are basically less than half. We’ll pull together here and fire on the enemy army assault, and then wipe them out in one go with all our Incarnate techniques.”
“…Okay!” Haruyuki shuddered slightly.
Kuroyukihime and Pard hadn’t been struggling with their attack on the enemy’s left flank. Even as they were distracted by the Incarnate Dark Shots that kept coming from all directions, they still managed not to concentrate the damage they did on any one individual, instead uniformly bringing down the enemy army’s health. Niko and Utai had done the same. And the four had avoided all Incarnate techniques while they did this, in order to reduce even a little the risk of calling Enemies to the scene.
What made something like this possible was the actual power of four high rankers, including two kings, but it was also because of the monotony of the enemy attack. Although the power contained in each blow was formidable, as long as you knew you were only facing the same attack over and over, handling it was simple. Even Haruyuki, who may or may not have finally been stepping out of newbie territory, had been able to repel single Dark Shots with near certainty.
Magenta. The fights in the new world you want likely would be fair. But they probably wouldn’t be duels anymore. He clenched his hands at this fleeting thought and got into position.
The enemy knew at this point that Fuko and Akira would completely repel a simultaneous launch of Dark Shot, so there were likely no more long-distance attacks coming. They would finally come to settle the victory with an artless, all-out assault.
The clouds rolling along the horizon covered the massive evening sun of the Twilight stage, and the world was slightly obscured. A few seconds later, a red sunbeam poured down onto the battlefield through a break in the clouds.
Taking this as a signal, both sides moved. Still in their double-line formation, the Magenta army charged, making the ground shake. The Lotus army pulled into a V formation with Kuroyukihime at the tip, ready to welcome them with fire. Fourteen fists were wrapped in dark aura, and eight arms shot forward with overlays of various colors, only missing the yell
ow-green of Lime Bell. The total, localized activation of the Incarnate System sent bolts of pale lightning racing through the air.
However.
Just as the two armies were on the verge of their final clash, they were forcibly interrupted.
Rrrrr! Without warning, the ground began to ripple. Together with a roar that threatened to tear heaven and earth asunder, the intense vertical shaking thrust Haruyuki upward, and he reflexively spread his wings and reached out to support Kuroyukihime on his right and Takumu on his left. The Magenta army being in the middle of a charge was an additional catastrophe; they all tumbled into one massive tangle of arms and legs. The perfect chance to attack—but without the mental leeway to have the thought, Haruyuki looked around, dumbfounded.
There were no earthquakes or terrain effects in the Twilight stage. Which meant the tremor was due to something other than a stage attribute. But it couldn’t have been a duel avatar ability, either. Shaking the indestructible earth of the stage on this massive a scale was simply impossible, no matter how large the avatar.
In which case, it could only have been the work of an Enemy, but in each direction, there was nothing but grass and a string of chalky temples.
“……Ah……Ah……!” A hoarse cry escaped Haruyuki’s throat the instant he noticed it:
There was something.
In front of Midtown Tower, soaring up on the south side of the battlefield. There was something on top of the gentle hill. Almost entirely transparent but as big as a mountain: something. Unaware even that the shaking had stopped, Haruyuki simply stared at the thing.
Cracks radiated outward from the hill, with the destruction reaching even the tower wall to the rear. Most likely, the sudden, massive earthquake of a few seconds ago had its epicenter in that place. But had it really been an earthquake? The source of the tremor hadn’t come from below the ground, but rather above—from the sky? In other words, perhaps the sudden shaking had been the shock wave from some massive thing—for instance, a super-large Enemy flying down from a distant height—hitting the top of Midtown Tower?
The moment his brain had made it this far, the something on the hill shifted slowly. The outline drawn by the distortion of the red sunlight spread out to either side…almost like wings.
He had seen this curious silhouette before—humanlike, birdlike. It was without a doubt the shape he had seen from the roof of Roppongi Hills Tower ten days earlier.
This was the Legend-class Enemy, Archangel Metatron.
“…Kuroyukihime.” Haruyuki squeezed a thin voice out of his blocked throat. “Metatron’s on the ground.”
“Wh—?”
Kuroyukihime’s arm shook in Haruyuki’s hand. Fuko, Akira, Niko, and everyone else all stared soundlessly at the hill to the south. After a moment, Magenta apparently noticed something going on with the Lotus army and looked back, hands still pressed against the ground. She, too, froze on the spot.
In the silence, the massive, invisible body casually took off from the top of the hill. Go back to the Tower, Haruyuki prayed in one corner of his numb mind. But the fantastic archangel slowly, ever so slowly, started toward them, as if sneering at this desperate prayer. Because it was so impossibly large, he couldn’t get a sense of how far away it was. The transparent wings covered the entire sky.
“Everyone, retreat!!” Kuroyukihime shouted hoarsely, breaking free of the spell.
Haruyuki let go of his friends, whirled around, and began to run with his comrades. Three steps, four, five, and the ground shook once more. Metatron had landed. The shock wave was milder than the first one, but it was still forceful enough to sweep all of their feet out from under them. From the ground, Haruyuki looked over his shoulder and saw the grass flattened over a broad range not more than a hundred meters away. In precisely the midpoint between here and there, Magenta and the others also stood stock-still, dumbfounded.
Metatron’s transparent wings emitted a hazy light.
The laser.
They wouldn’t make it.
If they took a direct hit here…
The completed thought sparked in Haruyuki’s brain and stirred his avatar. And not backward, but forward: “Run, everyone!!” he shouted and flew.
Skimming forward just barely above the ground, he crossed his arms in front of his body. Kashk! The armor of his forearm opened, and a transparent, light-guiding rod protruded from inside. When he touched down again, he didn’t have time to think about why he chose a spot right next to Magenta Scissor and her gang.
A circle of light shone in the center of Metatron’s round head. And then an intense glow, like a manifestation of divine will, jetted out silently. Haruyuki’s field of view was dyed a uniform white. The evening of the stage, a screaming voice he could faintly hear—it all melted into the light and disappeared.
He couldn’t see anything.
He couldn’t feel anything.
His avatar had no doubt been completely evaporated. There was no way he could have succeeded. Reflecting Metatron’s laser with this stopgap ability, when even the Green King could only defend against it for five seconds…
To begin with, Haruyuki hadn’t managed to learn Theoretical Mirror, an absolute resistance to all light techniques, but Optical Conduction instead, the effects of which weren’t nearly so definite. And yet, he had been so convinced that the technique he’d learned would work on Metatron, he had dragged his Legion members into this reckless mission. He had promised to protect them all, but he couldn’t even withstand the terrible light for a single second. Not only would his avatar be burned up in it, but even his soul, and his very existence would be extinguished. Perhaps he would never be able to go anywhere again…
—No.
In a corner of the snowy-white world, he could see something. Green like an emerald, long and thin like a sword, it was—a health gauge.
In the Unlimited Neutral Field, you couldn’t see other people’s gauges. Which meant that this was Haruyuki’s—Silver Crow’s—gauge. About 30 percent of it had been shaved away, but it definitely existed in the top left of his field of view.
He was still alive.
The instant he became aware of this, all sensation came flooding back to him. Light. Heat. Roaring. Pressure. The light-guiding rod of his crossed arms was shining intensely, shredding the unprecedented stream of energy in all directions. What had whisked away part of Haruyuki’s gauge was not the laser itself, but the molten earth. The deflected laser had transformed the grassy field into a sea of flames, heating Crow’s legs red-hot up to just below his knees.
The instant he caught a glance of this, he became aware—belatedly—of a ferocious pain magnified to twice that of the normal duel field, but he gritted his teeth and endured it. If he shifted or lost even the tiniest bit of ground, he would be beaten back by the relentless pressure and be evaporated this time, for sure.
“Hng…Ngh!!” A moan slipping out of his throat, Haruyuki desperately braced his legs. He didn’t know how many seconds the laser attack would go on, but he would defend against it, right up to the end. Absolutely. He would not think negative thoughts again. He would not give up or say it was impossible. He would protect them: The comrades who had believed in him and come to this battlefield with him. Rin Kusakabe, fighting her own battle in the real world. And Ash Roller, the first friend he’d made in the Accelerated World.
But almost as if to sneer at this resolve, his feet slipped slightly. It wasn’t just the grass; even the ground was starting to melt in the intense heat. If he used his wings, he could escape the conflagration, but the instant his feet left the ground, he would most likely lose his balance and be swallowed up by the laser. His only choice was to batten down the hatches where he was. Would Metatron’s attack end first or would his feet lose their grip and take him down?
Zzsh. He slid backward again. The laser attack had already been going for more than five seconds, but it showed no signs of stopping. The longer he stood against it, the more the earth melted and sapp
ed his health gauge and his footing. The soles of his feet had essentially lost all sensation of contact with the ground. He tried desperately to hold his position, but in the thin magma spreading out over the surface of the earth, his body leaned back bit by bit. He mustered every inch of power and balance he could to resist the pressure of the light. He couldn’t fall now.
“Unh…Aaah…!” Crying out once more, Haruyuki mustered a little bit more strength at his edges to endure another second. But no matter how determined he might have been, the surface of the earth did not get the message; its melting did not stop. Burning bright red, his feet were essentially floating in the viscous liquid. His avatar inclined even farther. The laser reflected by his arms grew in strength, as if triumphant.
Is this it?
No, one more second.
At least until. Everyone. Escapes to…a safe…distance…!! Rather than giving up, Haruyuki shored up his resolve.
And then someone’s hands were supporting his shoulders from behind.
Taku? Chiyu? Or maybe Kuroyukihime?
Dashing this fleeting thought was a voice in his ear.
“I’m here holding you up. You just focus on reflecting!”
That slightly husky voice. Magenta Scissor, who he’d only just been fiercely battling.
In what was basically an unconscious choice, Haruyuki had landed in a position that covered Magenta and her army when he took on the laser. Nearly ten seconds had passed since then. Magenta and her crew could have run a fair distance in that time, so why was she right behind him? And why was she helping him?
But he didn’t have the brainpower to spare at the moment for such questions. There was an echo of great pain in Magenta’s voice. Her feet were also being swallowed up by the magma. She probably wouldn’t be able to support him for all that long.
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