by Yuu Miyazaki
“Now then, since I’m the only one among us who has experience with team battles, allow me to explain. The Gryps is a team competition, and as you all know, each team must be composed of five members. However, it’s extremely rare for team members to be in perfect coordination. Training, of course, takes time, but that isn’t always effective… Ah, but Gallardworth would be an exception on that count, I suppose. After all, that’s what they specialize in.” Claudia was standing directly in front of Ayato, holding the Pan-Dora ready.
Kirin, likewise, standing at Ayato’s side, was holding the Senbakiri in front of her, following Claudia’s explanation carefully.
“Well, all it takes is one Strega or Dante, or even an Orga Lux wielder, to turn a match around,” Julis added, her arms crossed.
There was no mistaking that acting independently could be more effective in certain situations, such as when dealing with abilities that acted over a wide area.
Claudia nodded. “Yes, but it isn’t all that common for all five members to fight separately. If one person were to go off on their own, the other team would probably group up against them. No, depending on the situation, strategies for the Gryps usually involve employing a vanguard of two or three members fighting in unison. And we won’t be able to do that unless we’re able to coordinate with one another.”
“…In other words, the Gryps is essentially just an extension of the Phoenix?” Saya asked, standing a little apart from the others. She looked mildly bored.
“Exactly. We have to first learn to fight alongside one another individually as tag-team partners, and then we can build on that to put together a number of coordination patterns involving three or more of us at any one time. Of course, we could try to reduce the training time by selecting only one of us to be in charge of those coordination patterns…”
“No,” Kirin interrupted. “That would be too much of a risk if something were to go wrong during the tournament.”
Ayato was of the same opinion. They would be far better off if they could respond to a wider range of possibilities, even if it meant they would need to spend more time training.
“In that case, let’s spend the next three months, up until the end of the school year, getting used to fighting in pairs. Depending on how things stand, we can start practicing as a team after that. But that said…” Claudia paused with a light smile before beginning to channel her prana throughout her body. “I would like to have a little practice bout. What do you say?”
Claudia separated them into two tag teams, setting Ayato and Kirin against Julis and herself. Since Ayato was already used to fighting alongside both Julis and Saya, and given that the situation was the same between Saya and Kirin, the grouping seemed reasonable enough. Saya had picked the short straw and would have to sit the practice match out.
“Let’s do our best, Kirin!”
“Y-yes!” Kirin answered nervously.
Not only was this her first time with Ayato as her tag-team partner, but she was also the team leader.
Both groups had selected their leaders based on what they might expect to happen in the Gryps. Kirin was the leader of their team, and the opposition’s was Claudia.
Claudia let out a soft laugh. “Let’s see what they can do, Julis.”
“You don’t need to remind me. We don’t get to try this very often. Do you mind if I use that?”
“Of course not. We should be able to get some good battle data from it.”
Julis and Claudia whispered back and forth with each other for a long moment, no doubt deciding on their strategy. When they were finally ready, Julis took a step back.
“Team A versus Team B, practice match—begin!”
Given that it was only a practice match, they had left the team names as the defaults, so their school crests opened the match with an unusually bland starting cue.
Ayato exchanged looks with Kirin, and the two of them advanced toward Claudia from either side.
Since Claudia was both the leader and the vanguard, it made sense to ignore Julis and go straight for her.
“Haah!”
“Yah!”
Ayato attacked from the left, just as Kirin moved in from the right.
“My, my…!”
Claudia met both attacks with the twin blades of the Pan-Dora, her expression grim. It couldn’t have been easy blocking not only Kirin’s Senbakiri but also Ayato’s attack, with only one hand to each. And of course, Ayato’s weapon was the Ser Veresta. Though they were both Orga Luxes, there was no mistaking that the Ser Veresta was gradually pushing the Pan-Dora back.
“This is…harder than I thought!” Claudia exhaled, before relaxing all of a sudden and twisting out of the way, a parry to Ayato’s attack.
But at that moment, Kirin flowed straight into her next strike.
“Ugh…!”
Claudia managed to repel her, but the effort left her completely open.
Ayato was about to cut straight through the school crest on her blouse with the Ser Veresta when—
“!”
—he sensed a sudden foreboding and leaped back just in time to dodge the three blades of light that thrust down into the ground where he’d been standing.
“A-Ayato! That’s…!” Kirin, having dodged a similar attack, stood wide-eyed in shock.
“Phew… You took your time, Julis. I’m no match for the two of them together, not without using the precognition. I’m afraid I can’t afford to waste it on a practice battle, but it looks like I wouldn’t even last ten seconds without it.”
“Sorry. It looks like I can’t control all six of them together yet,” Julis said, the blades of light that had struck the ground rising into the air.
Ayato had thought at first that it was one of Julis’s abilities, but that didn’t seem to be the case.
“Don’t tell me that’s the Aspera Spina…?”
The three blades hovering in the air, as if being manipulated by invisible threads—no, the six blades, counting the three that had attacked Kirin—looked just like Julis’s rapier-like Lux, the Aspera Spina. But—
“No. This is the Nova Spina, my new sword.” Julis grinned, brandishing a seventh blade in front of her.
“Is this the new Lux model you mentioned?” Saya, who until then had been watching the match in silence, seemed uncharacteristically interested in it.
“Yes. This is one of the new Lux models jointly developed between Seidoukan and Allekant, a Rect Lux.”
“A Rect Lux…”
“The rapier that Julis is holding is like the mother, capable of controlling numerous children. You need to be highly skilled at processing spatial information to use it, though,” Claudia explained, taking care to put some distance between her and her opponents.
“I see… It looks impressive, but I don’t think it’s well suited to you, Julis,” Ayato said, glancing toward Kirin.
Kirin seemed to pick up on what he meant. It might have been their first time fighting alongside each other as a tag team, but the both of them being sword users, there were certain things that could be left unsaid.
Kirin was still holding the Senbakiri toward Claudia, but she wasn’t letting down her guard toward Julis, either. She might have been taken by surprise the first time, but now that she knew what to expect, she would no doubt have little difficulty meeting the next attack. In that case, Ayato would be free to focus on the team’s leader.
“Oh? What is that supposed to mean, Ayato?”
“Just what I said. You already have countless long-range techniques at your disposal, even without weapons. I guess it just doesn’t seem all that original.”
Perhaps he had said it a little too provocatively, but those were his honest impressions. Gaining a new technique that was similar to those one already had didn’t provide much of an advantage.
Julis, however, broke into a dangerous grin before shaking her head. “You don’t understand, do you? Well, I guess I’ll just have to show you, won’t I?”
And wit
h that, she leaped ferociously toward Kirin.
“Ah?!” Kirin exclaimed in surprise.
She can’t mean to engage her in close combat…?
Ayato, too, was taken aback.
Thanks to her training with Ayato and the experience she’d gained fighting through the Phoenix, Julis’s skills at close-range combat had increased dramatically over the past few months. At first, she’d barely been able to follow Ayato’s movements, but at her current level, she would probably be able to respond to them, at the very least.
But even so, she still wasn’t an even match for either him or Kirin. Claudia had judged her own close-range combat abilities as being one step behind those of Ayato and Kirin, so going by that logic, Julis would have to be lagging by at least three steps.
Be that as it may, Kirin was his team leader. He couldn’t afford to let Julis reach her.
“Oh, I don’t think so!”
Claudia appeared out of nowhere, stopping Ayato from putting himself between Kirin and Julis with a perfectly angled slash.
“—?!”
He managed to dodge the strike, but Claudia continued to lunge out with one attack after another.
He didn’t need to cross swords with her to see there was no particular form to her fighting style. Rather, she seemed to be employing a wholly unique mode of fighting that deviated from the established styles she had previously learned.
Ayato might have had the edge in techniques, but Claudia’s twin swords were managing to outmaneuver him by the raw number of attacks. She might not have been able to land a strike on him, but she was certainly making it difficult to counterattack.
“This is her debut, Ayato. Do try not to get in the way.”
At that moment, Julis leaped within Kirin’s reach.
Though clearly surprised, Kirin readied herself to meet the attack.
“I’m coming, Kirin!” Julis cried, aiming her rapier straight for her opponent’s school crest.
But just before the blade could reach her blouse, Kirin deftly brushed it aside, without so much as breaking a sweat.
Right, that kind of move won’t work against Kirin.
In one uninterrupted stroke, Kirin followed through with her counterattack, slicing clean through Julis’s school crest. Or so it looked.
But it seemed that the attack had been stopped with just a fraction of an inch to spare by one of Julis’s remote terminals.
“…It’s not over yet!”
Kirin didn’t wait before continuing into her next move. She sliced first upward from below, then downward from the right, then directly from the front. It was a perfect sequence of consecutive attacks, the sum of all Kirin’s techniques boiled down into one move—the Toudou School’s ultimate technique, the Linked Cranes. Even Ayato couldn’t defeat it.
“…Impressive!” Julis gasped. She was using all six of her remote terminals to defend against the onslaught.
“How…?”
The Linked Cranes wasn’t the kind of technique that could be parried by sheer numerical advantage alone. Ayato knew that from experience. Julis was somehow responding to the unbelievable speed of Kirin’s attack.
“Hee-hee-hee… Do you understand now, Ayato?” Claudia laughed, her swords locking against his. “The best thing about these Rect Luxes is their speed.”
Claudia’s feints managed to check Ayato’s movements, all without getting close enough for him to counter.
If they were to engage seriously head-on, Ayato would probably win, but if she were to keep feinting, there wasn’t much difference in their respective levels of ability.
“Normally, Julis wouldn’t stand a chance against Kirin in close combat. Their physical characteristics and training are too different, after all. Even if she wanted to block against Miss Toudou’s attacks, she wouldn’t be physically up to the task…”
“…!” Ayato suddenly realized what Claudia meant.
“That’s right. Rect Luxes are controlled by the user’s mind, not their body. Which means that she’s able to respond much quicker than with a traditional Lux.”
“…I see. I guess I should take back what I said a minute ago!” Ayato pushed back against Claudia, taking advantage of her momentary surprise to put some distance between them.
He glanced back toward Kirin. She had likewise separated from Julis.
“Phew… I wasn’t expecting that. To think that you would be able to defend against the Linked Cranes…”
“Kirin!” Ayato called out. It would probably be best for them to pull back and revise their strategy.
Kirin, however, gave him only a brief glance, an embarrassed smile rising on her lips. “U-um, Ayato! Could you just stay there for a minute and watch?”
“Huh?”
He had no time to argue before she fixed her breathing, preparing to launch another attack against Julis.
“Oh? Let’s see what you can do!”
“Here I come!”
The Senbakiri glistened as it carved a perfect arc through the air.
Julis blocked it again with one of the remote terminals.
Kirin, however, continued on to her next move without pausing.
“Here goes!”
“What?!”
Just when he thought Julis had blocked the attack yet again, Ayato saw that Kirin’s wrist was twisted in the opposite direction. She must have changed the flow of prana.
The terminal that had blocked the Senbakiri was unable to withstand the impact and swung through the air, off-balance.
If it were just an unbalancing technique, Julis might have been able to respond to it. But then the off-center blade came into contact with one of the others. As Kirin drove in another attack, the two blades began to interfere with each other. All six were suddenly flung across the room.
“Wh-what?!”
Given that each of the remote terminals were controlled by thought, it would probably be difficult to keep them under control if their movements were thrown off simultaneously by one’s opponent.
“This is it!”
Kirin wouldn’t let this opportunity fly by.
The Senbakiri flashed toward Julis’s exposed school crest.
But just when Ayato thought the match was settled, a dark shadow appeared between the two.
“Phew… That was close.” There, having blocked Kirin’s attack with her twin swords, was Claudia.
“No…!” Ayato cried out. It had been his job to keep her in check, but in the brief instant in which he had turned his attention to Kirin’s attack, she had slipped right past him and inserted herself into the battle.
“Sorry, Claudia.”
“It’s nothing to worry about.”
“I—I know that!” Julis snapped as she brought the six remote terminals under control, surrounding Kirin in a pincer formation.
“Blossom—Semiserrata!”
A magic circle appeared above Kirin, a huge flame gracefully unfurling its petals
A trap?! When did she set…?
“Argh…!”
Even with her exceptional reflexes, Kirin barely managed to avoid the descending flames.
But just before Ayato could leap to her defense—
“Checkmate.” Claudia, one step ahead of him, sliced clean through her school crest with the Pan-Dora.
“I-I’m so sorry, Ayato! I shouldn’t have told you to hold back…”
“No, I should be the one apologizing. It was my job to keep Claudia busy… Sorry!”
With the practice battle over, Ayato and Kirin stood bowing their heads to each other in shame.
“Now, now, you two. It was only a practice bout. And besides, the way you two were working together, it’s hard to imagine that it was your first time as a tag team,” Claudia said.
“No, I should say the same for you. Maybe I should have expected as much from old friends,” Ayato replied.
Julis frowned. “It isn’t like we had some kind of advantage just because we knew each other as kids. I just left most of the
coordination to Claudia.”
“Indeed. I think I have a good grasp of everyone’s battle styles, so I should be able to put them together into a strategy.” Claudia spoke casually, but judging by her performance in the practice match, Ayato had no doubt that she was telling the truth.
“…By the way, Julis… Based on that fixed ability, can that new Lux transmit prana?”
“Oh, that’s Saya for you. So you noticed?” Julis nodded toward Saya, who was staring intently at the Rect Lux.
“Um, what do you mean?”
Ayato hadn’t even noticed Julis laying the trap, but maybe that had something to do with it, he thought.
“This Rect Lux is able to spread my prana into the remote terminals. As you all know, normally fixed abilities require a lot of advance preparation, but with these terminals, I can lay them all much quicker.”
“That’s…impressive.”
If that was true, they should be able to employ a much wider range of tactics in battle.
Moreover, the Rect Lux seemed to be able to compensate for Julis’s relative weakness at close-range combat, so its most pronounced effects would no doubt be on her own skills.
“Hmph… Why does only Julis get a power-up?” Saya puffed out her cheeks, her gaze still fixed on the weapon.
“I don’t think that’s it,” Ayato muttered.
“Huh?” Saya finally raised her face. “What do you mean?”
“It might not be a power-up, exactly, but I think Kirin’s skills have definitely improved.”
“Wha—?” Kirin’s body trembled, perhaps taken by surprise at the sudden praise.
“That technique you used to break through Julis’s defenses… It was the Reverse Rakshasa, wasn’t it?”
“N-no, it’s less like using and more like copying, I’d say… I was so impressed when I saw you use it during the tournament, so I practiced it in secret… I tried to use it in Lieseltania, and it seemed to work okay… B-but I’m still not very good at it…! Um…I wanted to show you, though…” Kirin trailed off incoherently, her face having turned scarlet.
The Reverse Rakshasa was one of the Amagiri Shinmei style’s Master Techniques and especially effective at taking advantage of the flow of attacks by multiple opponents to turn them back against their users. Ayato was of course surprised that she could have learned the technique just by watching him and practicing it by herself, but what was even more astonishing was that executing it normally required the user to be in the state of shiki.