by Yuu Miyazaki
“That’s…” Ayato had no idea how to respond.
“We’ll have to change our strategy. It doesn’t look like aiming for its weaknesses will work. We’ll have to—”
But before she could finish, Sylvia suddenly fell silent.
“Sylvie?”
Even when Ayato called out to her, she showed no reaction.
Ayato had never seen her wear that kind of expression before. Her amethyst-like eyes were frozen wide open, her lips trembling with fear. Her usual joy seemed to have been painted over with shock and confusion, as if she had lain eyes on something that she simply couldn’t bring herself to believe.
Ayato followed her gaze toward the highest level of the arena.
Is that the special viewing room…?
“I’m sorry, Ayato. I’m going to have to retire,” Sylvia said with an evasive smile, before holding out her Lux. “You should take this.”
“Huh? H-hold on! Sylvie?!” But by the time he could call out after her, she had already taken off toward the entrance gate.
“Wh-what’s this? Has Sylvia Lyyneheym given up midway?” Eishirou’s perplexed voice resounded through the stadium, a stir erupting through the stands.
Sylvia, however, paid them no attention, disappearing through the gate.
“What’s going on…?” Ayato strained his eyes, trying to make out whatever it was that she had seen.
It was the special viewing room. On the other side of the glass, a shadow in the shape of a woman seemed to be looking down at him.
The moment he saw her, a chill ran down his spine.
She turned at once away from the window, but it was enough to leave him trembling.
What on earth was that…?
It wasn’t fear.
It was a more primitive response, an urge to flee, to put as much distance as he possibly could between himself and a completely incompatible form of existence.
If he had ever encountered anything like it before—
It’s almost like when the Gravisheath took over Irene’s body!
A roar of laughter, filled to the brim with malice and bringing with it a sense of dread, had taken hold of him.
If Sylvia was going to confront that figure…
“This is bad…! Sorry, Ernest, I’m going to have to retire, too!”
“What?! What’s going on?” Ernest called out after him, but Ayato had already taken off in the direction of the gate.
Before he could reach it, however, Baiqin put itself between him and his goal, as if to block his escape.
At that moment, Irene’s ferocious laugh flooded the area. “Oh no you don’t! Thought you’d underestimate me, huh? You piece of trash!”
She was smiling savagely, her shoulders rising up and down with her heavy breathing. She must have returned to the battle without Ayato’s having realized it, delivering a punch to the pit of the guardian’s stomach so powerful as to leave a huge impression of her fist in the wood-like substance.
Hufeng, off to the side, stood dumbfounded.
But even so, the blow didn’t seem to have slowed the guardian in the slightest.
Baiqin reared itself up yet again, turning its hollow eyes toward Ayato.
It seemed to want to stop him specifically from leaving.
“…Sorry, but I’m in a hurry. I guess you won’t let me through, huh?” Ayato doubted that the guardian would listen to him, but he had to try.
Letting out a short sigh, Ayato crouched low, readying himself with the blade-type Lux in his right hand and Sylvia’s rapier-like Lux in his left.
Baiqin stood still for a long moment, watching Ayato’s movements, before bringing its sword down with its right hand the instant he came within its range.
Ayato parried the attack, then twisted his body to dodge a swipe from its left hand.
Using the momentum to keep moving, he slipped under its guard, and—
“Amagiri Shinmei Style, Dual-Sword Middle Technique: Hell Spider!”
Attacking slantwise from the left, slicing from the right, twisting his body, thrusting from the right, attacking again slantwise from the left, slicing from the right, spinning around once more, before delivering a final powerful thrust from the right—Ayato lashed out with seven consecutive attacks, all aimed at precisely the same spot: the imprint left by Irene’s fist.
“…”
This time, at last, it worked.
The last thrust pierced the guardian’s torso.
As Ayato pulled the blade back out, Baiqin fell motionless to the ground.
“Well, what do we have here? Contestant Amagiri has defeated one of the guardians! And…wait, what? It looks like he’s left the stage! Not even I know what’s going on anymore!”
Ayato hurried after Sylvia, ignoring the echoes of Eishirou’s bewildered voice.
“He really is something…”
Ernest couldn’t help looking on with admiration at Ayato’s swordsmanship as he turned to take on Heihu alone.
And Kirin Toudou, also from Seidoukan, was supposedly better still.
When it came to close combat, however, Jie Long’s Hagun Seikun was probably the strongest—if one left Xinglou out of the equation, that was.
But there was something in Ayato Amagiri’s fighting style, a brightness that the other two students lacked: the brilliance of someone who had learned to control their innermost fears.
Ernest, dodging Heihu’s attacks, couldn’t stop himself from grinning.
“Well, now that everyone’s shown the crowd their skills, it wouldn’t be fair for me to keep holding back,” he said to himself, easily meeting Heihu’s downward attack, their weapons locking together.
The guardian must have put all of its power into the strike, but Ernest’s arm didn’t budge an inch.
“Looks like I’ve gotten a little rusty, relying on the Lei-Glems all the time. This should be just like the old days.” He let out a hearty laugh as he began to push the guardian’s spear away from him.
There was no doubt about it.
She hadn’t been mistaken.
It was her.
Sylvia ran through the corridors of the Sirius Dome.
Because the area leading to the special viewing room was closed to the general public, there was no one to call out to her in pursuit.
She turned the last corner to the room when she saw her silhouette at the end of the passage.
“Ursula!” Sylvia called out her name.
But the figure continued down the passage, without so much as pausing.
Closer now, she tried calling out again. “Wait! Ursula!”
At last, the figure came to a halt and slowly turned around.
Her face was half covered by the hood of her robe, but that was enough to be sure.
There was no way that Sylvia could have forgotten it.
“It is you, Ursula…” Sylvia smiled, trying as hard as she could to keep her emotions from flooding out.
But—
“Who are you?”
“Huh…?” Sylvia’s smile froze in place at the coldness of the words.
“Ursula…?”
There was no mistaking that the voice, the face belonged to the woman Sylvia knew.
But then she noticed something.
They were the same but different. Something about her was unmistakably different.
“I see… You know this body, don’t you?”
Sylvia, unthinking, took a step backward, her flesh creeping at the sound of the woman’s words.
“Who…are you?”
“I have no need for names.”
A sudden wind swept through the corridor as a black light began to emanate from inside the woman’s robe.
The wind lifted up her hood, exposing her face.
Her face was undoubtedly that of Ursula Svend, but her eyes were empty, reflecting nothing. Instead, the necklace strung around her neck throbbed with a pulsating darkness, as if glaring at her.
“Wh-what…?!” At that moment, Sy
lvia reeled from an intense pain that struck between her eyes.
It was so strong that she almost lost consciousness. She fell to her knees, unable to keep herself standing.
Some nauseating presence was fumbling through her mind, turning everything upside down as it sifted through her thoughts.
“…I will have to erase your memories.”
Don’t tell me…! Mind control…?!
“Don’t resist, unless you want me to break something. Not that I care.”
“Ar— Argh…!”
Normally, mind control was supposed to have little effect on Genestella—and besides, the Ursula that Sylvia knew wasn’t a Strega.
Then what is this?!
“Ugh…!”
Sylvia pushed back with all her strength, leaping backward and breaking loose from the black light.
That alone was enough to ease the pain that had been sweeping through her body.
The effective range of whatever that ability was must have been quite short.
“You’re a stubborn one. And overflowing with prana, I see.”
“…I’ll ask again. Who are you?” Sylvia glared, but the woman payed her no heed.
“What would you do if I told you?”
“That’s… I…”
“You already know that I can’t give you the answer that you want. So why do you insist on knowing?”
Sylvia could only clench her fists at those cold, emotionless words.
“It doesn’t matter. Humans are fickle creatures. Such a waste.” The woman stepped forward.
Sylvia drew backward, drawing her Lux from her waist—and hesitated.
If she hurt Ursula…
But that momentary hesitation was enough to dampen her movements.
“How naive.”
At that moment, the black light descended upon her.
“Arghhhhh!”
“You won’t get away this time.”
The pain shooting through her head was of a completely different quality than before.
She couldn’t even think properly.
“…Here’s one.”
Sylvia could only look on in agony as she felt something incredibly dear to her being snatched away.
No! Not that!
Someone… Anyone…
“Help…me…!”
Just before her eyes could erupt with tears—
“Sylvie!”
Someone called out her name, and the black light that had been assailing her completely dispersed.
“Ugh, you cut off my power…?” A tremor ran through the woman’s voice for the first time.
Sylvia, released from the clutches of that terrible pain, sinking perhaps into relief at having been able to protect what was so precious to her, felt the strength seeping from her body.
Her consciousness receded. Just before she could fall flat on the floor, someone’s gentle arms wrapped around her.
“Are you okay, Sylvie?”
“Ah…?”
When she opened her eyes, she clearly saw Ayato’s worried face focused on her.
Even she could hear her heart pounding.
“Y-yes… Thank you, Ayato…” She averted her gaze, unable for some reason to look him in the eyes.
“What on earth was all that?” Ayato, holding her in his arms, was still on alert, the Ser Veresta ready in his free hand.
“The Blade of the Black Furnace? I see… Ayato—”
But before she could finish speaking, the black light again descended toward them.
Sylvia’s body stiffened, but the pain that she had felt before didn’t come.
Instead, the black light wrapped itself around the Ser Veresta’s urm-manadite core, as if trying to consume the blade’s red glow.
As the red glow dimmed, the sword’s pure-white blade blurred, before finally losing its shape completely and dissipating into the air.
Mind control…? Against an Orga Lux…?
“You live up to your reputation.” The woman laughed, her gaze fixed on the Ser Veresta. “That was quite a struggle, but now it’s time to rest.”
Ayato, stunned, stared at the hilt of the Ser Veresta for a moment, before deactivating it.
“…I don’t know who you are, but it looks like I’ve met all kinds of people today,” he joked, sweat running down his brow as he activated his blade-type Lux.
“Oh, so you won’t retreat? You have quite the spirit. I can see why the Ser Veresta chose you to wield it.”
For the third time now, the black light began to swell.
Ayato, however, far from faltering, began to look for a weakness in the woman’s defenses—
“What the hell was up with Ayato? Running off the stage all of a sudden like that…”
“…I’m more worried about that idol. Something about it all didn’t feel right.”
“Uh, but you know, he did look really serious, so maybe something happened…?”
Several people, it seemed, were making their way up the corridor.
“…Tch.”
The black light swelled up, covering the entire corridor in darkness.
“Wha—?!”
They were suddenly surrounded by a darkness so profound that Sylvia couldn’t even sense Ayato’s presence beside her.
“I’ll warn you now, girl. Don’t ever think about getting involved with me again.”
“—!” Sylvia bit her lip, unable to respond to that voice echoing through the darkness.
When the darkness finally faded into a murky haze and they could begin to see in front of them again, the hooded woman had disappeared.
“…Did she run away?”
“…It looks like it.”
“I see,” Ayato said with relief, his back to the wall as he continued to hold Sylvia in his arms. “To tell you the truth, I was already at my limit.”
At that moment, a tremendous amount of mana began to encircle him as several magic circles opened up simultaneously.
“Is that your seal…?” Sylvia asked, remembering the rumors that had been circulating about him during the Phoenix.
Apparently, the seal placed on him only let him use his full power for a limited amount of time.
But given that Jie Long’s contestants had tried to take advantage of that and failed, everyone thought that he’d managed to overcome that weakness…
“Well, you know… Matches are one thing, and I didn’t think this event would—” But he couldn’t finish his sentence before crying out in pain. Chains spewed from the magic rings building around him, wrapping around his body.
“A-Ayato?! Are you okay?”
“Y-yeah… I think so. It’s not as bad as last time…” Ayato flashed her a courageous smile, but his whole body was dripping with sweat.
“That mana reaction—”
“Ah, Ayato!”
Hearing the sounds of footsteps running up behind them, Sylvia breathed a sigh of relief.
The airship was painted a pitch-black, from the balloon all the way to the propeller.
Its owner used it only a few times each year, and then only on moonless nights. Though registered to a certain millionaire, that owner’s true identity was the student council president of the Le Wolfe Black Institute, Dirk Eberwein.
It was already past midnight, and the airships available for tourists seeking to enjoy the night scenery had long since closed up shop for the day.
“So? You must have some trouble to report, showing your face again after all this time,” Dirk, leaning back on the cabin’s sofa, spat out. “Don’t let me stop you if you want to kill yourself, but don’t drag me into it. Got it, Varda?”
The woman sitting across the table from him—Varda—shook her head. “This isn’t my doing. Madiath’s the one who gave me this body. If you have anything to say, talk to him.”
Madiath, sitting to her right, gave an exaggerated shrug. “She had no relatives, according to our information. Even after coming to Asterisk, she didn’t seem to be particularly close to anyone. S
o if she did know anyone, it must have been before coming here.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. Of all people, that someone had to be the world’s most famous songstress?” Dirk took a deep gulp from his already dry glass, crunching the ice between his teeth. “And you, you’re telling me you didn’t even recognize her? Just how ignorant are you?”
“I have no interest in those kinds of things. And besides, it’s hard to tell one human from the next.”
Her way of speaking, as if she had nothing at all to do with the matter at hand, only added fuel to Dirk’s anger.
He understood well enough that she was that kind of being, but that fact didn’t change his enmity toward her.
That said, there wasn’t anything in this world that Dirk could really say that he did like.
“Fine. It doesn’t look like there will be a fuss over it. Lucky for you, huh? And she’s got no way of tracking you down, so why don’t we just leave things alone?”
“I’m not particularly attached to this body, though.”
“…Give me a break.” Madiath sighed. “There aren’t many humans with whom you have a high compatibility rating. We can’t just procure more on a whim.”
“You really can’t access any of her memories?” Dirk sneered.
“I wouldn’t say that. But that would mean coming into contact with this body’s consciousness, and if I did that, she could wake up. I don’t want to take that risk.”
“Hmm, that’s inconvenient,” Madiath said, before putting his hands together as if to announce the end of that conversation. “Well, it’s been a while since we’ve had every member of the Golden Bough Alliance in the one room. So let’s move on to more important matters, shall we?”
“…Fine. But how many times do I have to tell you to quit using that shitty name? It makes me feel like puking. In the first place, all we’re doing is helping one another out to see the plan through. It isn’t a damn alliance.”
“As cold as usual, I see. I quite like the name.”
“So? How’s the plan coming along?” Varda asked bluntly, completely ignoring Dirk and Madiath’s exchange.
“Relatively well, I should say. The groundwork, at least, is progressing smoothly,” Madiath responded.
“Still can’t do anything about the labor shortage, though,” Dirk added.