by Yuu Miyazaki
And it was the truth. She had perhaps one swing of her katana left.
“Would you like…to find out?”
Even if she had only one swing left, she wouldn’t give up without taking it.
Kirin took a few measured breaths, then sheathed the Senbakiri and adjusted her stance.
“A quick-draw attack…?” The man narrowed his eyes with caution. He did not let his guard down for an instant.
“Toudou Style Sword-Drawing Technique—Folded Wing,” she murmured, drawing the Senbakiri.
—Or so it seemed to him.
“What…?”
For the first time, surprise surfaced in his stony eyes.
In fact, Kirin had yet to so much as unsheathe the Senbakiri.
But on reflex, he was already in motion to respond to the feint.
From her perspective, he’d left himself wide open.
The Senbakiri slid out of its scabbard and arced through the air.
Its point cleanly severed tendons in both his arms.
“Impossible…”
The master technique of the Toudou style was the Linked Cranes—unrelenting serial attacks. But the principle behind that technique lay in using the opponent’s sightline, breathing, movements, and mannerisms to manipulate them.
Taking this principle to its practical extreme produced the Toudou style’s sword-drawing attack—a mirage that made the opponent see a sword being drawn while it was still in the scabbard. This was the first time that Kirin had successfully used it in actual combat.
“Ugh…!”
But she had reached her physical limit, and she stumbled to her knees.
Meanwhile, the man still stood, though his arms hung limply at his sides. “An impressive move, but not enough to finish me. I can still—”
Before he finished the sentence, he was engulfed in a maelstrom of light.
“Nope. You’re done.” The shot from Saya’s Wolfdora blasted the man into the wall, which crumbled from the impact. The shower of debris buried him.
Kirin knew that her partner wouldn’t miss the opening. She’d knelt to give her a clear shot and left the rest to her. She had full faith in Saya.
“Kirin, hold on!”
“Miss Toudou! Miss Toudou!”
As Saya and Flora ran toward her and her consciousness faded, Kirin’s thoughts turned to Ayato and Julis.
Right… What happened in their match…?
Overwhelming.
There was no better word to describe his strength.
Ardy roared with laughter. “What’s the matter, Ayato Amagiri?”
Ayato barely dodged Ardy’s hammer, then rounded behind him and swung his sword.
Of course, the attack never reached its target and was absorbed by the defensive barrier.
On top of that, another barrier sprang up to hurl Ayato away, and Ardy swept sideways with the hammer at his airborne body. Ayato reached out to drag his sword against the ground, changing his trajectory enough to dodge the attack.
“Burst into bloom—Primrose!” Julis’s fireballs rushed at Ardy, but they were also foiled by multiple barriers.
“What the hell?!” Julis fumed. “He’s so strong now, it’s just absurd!”
“My feelings exactly…!” Ayato distanced himself from Ardy to regroup with her, then nodded with a pained smile.
Ever since the semifinal, Ayato had thought Ardy’s strength was abnormal.
From his basic specs like strength and speed to the power of his weapons—he was enhanced in every way imaginable. Even if Rimcy’s entire power source had been channeled into him, it couldn’t possibly have increased his power output by this much.
What was even more terrifying was that he was even stronger than he’d been back then.
“He didn’t put up multiple barriers at once when he fought Saya and Kirin!” Julis protested.
Being a fast learner was one thing. This was on another level entirely.
Luckily for them, Ardy was not attacking with much aggression. He seemed to want to enjoy this fight for as long as possible.
“Bwa-ha-ha-ha! Wonderful!” the Puppet crowed. “My body is overflowing with strength! And I can harness it far better than I could before! What joy! What splendor! This is the true power my master has bestowed upon me!”
“True power…?” With that phrase, one possibility arose in Ayato’s mind. “Hey, Julis—what if Ardy had these specs all along?”
What if combining with Rimcy was a way not to make him more powerful, but to unleash power he already had?
“Like with your seal?” Julis asked. “It’s not impossible, but why would they—? Ayato!”
Alerted by her shout, he saw Ardy hold out his hammer like a rifle, with the head pointed at him.
“Take this—my Wolnir Hammerrrr!” Ardy bellowed, and with a boom that shook the air, the head of the hammer barreled toward them.
“Julis, hang on!” Ayato pulled her close and leaped sideways.
After the ensuing explosion propelled them away and sent them tumbling on the ground, they quickly regained their stances—and saw that the entire blast radius of the hammerhead was now a crater.
“That move seems more powerful than before, too…,” muttered Julis beside him.
It was already destructive enough, but now, even if they avoided a direct hit, they might be hurt by the shock wave.
“Bwa-ha-ha-ha! I’m not done yet!” Ardy laughed.
Ardy caught the returning hammerhead with the shaft, and immediately aimed it again.
“That thing can do rapid-fire, too…?!”
“Julis, run!”
The two dashed along the outer edge of the stage. Explosion after explosion chased them.
“Is this a bad time to ask if you have a plan?” Ayato wondered.
“It is, actually! But maybe if we could do something about that barrier…”
They were both racking their brains as they ran, but it would be difficult to overcome such a dramatic difference in strength.
“Hrm. Unlike Rimcy, I’m no great marksman. Can’t seem to hit anything— Oh, wait.” As if a brilliant idea had struck him, Ardy broke into laughter. “Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha! Of course! What if I try this?!”
Suddenly, a barrier sprang up to block Ayato and Julis’s path.
“Wh-what, now?!” Julis cried.
They tried to change direction, but multiple barriers had already materialized to surround them.
“Now you’ll have a hard time dodging!”
As Ardy beamed, his hammer hurtled toward the pair.
“Ngh…!”
“Argh…! Burst into bloom—Anthurium!”
She promptly formed a shield of flame, but the hammer broke through it with no trouble. Ayato jumped in front of her, prana focused. They were swallowed by a concussive wave that felt powerful enough to rip him limb from limb, and his sight went dark for a moment; he slammed into a barrier with enough force that he could hear his bones creak. It felt like someone had stomped on all his organs. “Ngh…ugh…”
And that was after I shifted all my prana to defense…
Wiping the blood from his mouth, Ayato slowly got to his feet. “Julis… Are you all right?”
“More or less, thanks to you…” Julis had also taken significant damage, but she managed to stand with a sardonic smile. “You saved me.”
But they would be unable to withstand another attack like that.
“Oh-ho, on your feet again after that? Impressive!” Even as he showered them with praise, Ardy retrieved the hammerhead when it returned to him, already aiming anew.
Ayato could tell he was gathering power to it.
I’ll have to sacrifice myself and hope for the best—!
Even if he was disabled in taking down Ardy, as long as Julis remained, they would win the match. He doubted he could penetrate Ardy’s barriers even with a suicide attack—but it was better than losing without trying.
And as he steeled himself and adjusted his sword grip—
/>
“Ardy is just dominating down there! Will this final championship match come to a— Huh?! E-excuse me?!”
“Whoa, whoa! What’s going on?!”
Suddenly, a pair of confused voices from the broadcasting booth rang out through the arena.
Immediately after came a voice that belonged not to an announcer—but to someone familiar to Ayato and Julis.
“Er, ahem. Ayato, Julis, can you hear me?” The calm, gentle voice was unmistakably Claudia’s. “Flora is safe. You can put your minds at ease. And—fight to the very best of your abilities.”
It was clear that Ayato, Julis, Ardy, and everyone else in the arena were stunned.
“Hee-hee. Well, then. Sorry for the intrusion.”
“Whaaat?! Th-that was the student council president of Seidoukan Academy just now, wasn’t it?!”
“Uh, yep, looks like. I think that was Miss Claudia Enfield herself.”
The announcers and the spectators were still confused over the sudden intrusion, especially since her statements were meaningless to them all.
Ayato and Julis alone stared at each other and burst out laughing.
“Pfft, ha-ha-ha-ha! That was over the top, even for her!” Julis exclaimed.
“I can’t believe she barged into the broadcasting booth just to inform us,” Ayato said.
True, there was no other way to contact fighters in the middle of a match. Claudia might be reprimanded for violating some Festa regulation, but they knew she had done it for their sakes.
“Well, if she went that far for us, we can’t afford to lose.”
“We have to win for Saya and Kirin, too,” Ayato agreed as he drew the activator from the holster at his waist.
Their friends had done their part, and now it was time to do theirs.
“Hrm, I haven’t the faintest idea what that was about—but all I can do is fight to the best of my ability!” Ardy aimed his hammer at Ayato and Julis, and the hammerhead began spinning furiously. “Wolnir Hammer, firing!”
With a low boom, the hammerhead sped toward them.
But Ayato calmly activated his Orga Lux with its deep red urm-manadite. “…Ready, Ser Veresta?”
A blade of pure white, swathed in symbols of jet-black.
With a single stroke, the enormous single-edged sword cleaved the hammerhead in half, as well as every last one of the barriers surrounding Ayato and Julis.
“Payback time.”
“Can’t you do something, Ernesta?!”
In the private spectator booth reserved for Allekant Académie, Camilla fretted at her partner.
“Wellll, you might think so, but…”
“You know as well as I do that these numbers shouldn’t be rising like this! You have to shut it down, now!”
Compared to Camilla’s intense face, Ernesta looked practically drowsy. “And you know that Rimcy transferred limit control over to him, Camilla. There’s nothing we can do now.”
“There’s still manual override.”
All Puppets were required to have a remote kill switch in case of emergency. Ardy was no exception.
“Oh, stop it. You want me to kill my own baby?”
Using the override, however, would damage the Puppet’s CPU, and there was a high probability of irreparably corrupting the software as well.
“You have to, if it’s necessary. That responsibility is yours.”
“Responsibility, huh?” Ernesta sounded rather put out, then faced Camilla with a slightly more serious expression. “But even now, I have faith.”
“Faith? In what? In yourself, his maker?”
Ernesta only shrugged.
Camilla glared at her for a while, then finally let out a deep sigh and sat back in her seat. “It’s a reckless gamble, if you ask me.”
“Hee-hee, haven’t I told you before? Life is nothing but a series of gambles.”
“All winning streaks come to an end,” Camilla scolded, although she looked resigned.
Ernesta grinned. “I guess they do. But otherwise, it wouldn’t be any fun, right?”
Ayato gripped the Ser Veresta and closed in fast on his opponent.
The robot activated his defensive barriers again to block Ayato’s path, but the youth easily cut through them, one after the other.
“I see. So this output isn’t enough to stop you. Well, then!”
With a battle cry and superhuman speed, Ayato leaped into close range and swung the Ser Veresta up from below. Ardy’s armor was thick, but for the Ser Veresta, which could burn through even his defensive barriers, it might as well have been made of paper.
The timing was perfect. Ardy had no way to defend against the charge.
Or so Ayato had thought.
With a ferocious groan of effort, Ardy used his hammer to deflect the Ser Veresta.
“Wha—?!”
Ayato stared in shock. What was he even looking at? He had just destroyed the hammerhead, and yet—
“Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha! You’d be wise not to underestimate my barriers!” Ardy shouted. “If a single barrier can’t stop you, I can compress them together, and not even the Ser Veresta can break through so easily!”
“So that’s what you did.” Ayato saw multiple sheets of light layered at the end of the shaft where the hammerhead should have been. “But in that case…!”
If Ardy was using his barriers in place of a weapon, then Ayato had nullified his defense.
Just one strike. All he needed was to reach Ardy’s school crest.
“Hyaaaaaaaaah!”
“Raaaaaaaaaah!”
Both fighters roared as the Ser Veresta and the hammer clashed in a burst of sparks.
When Ayato slashed diagonally down with his Lux, Ardy deflected it upward. When Ardy thrust with his hammer, Ayato parried. They struck at each other dozens of times, neither budging an inch.
“Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! This is fun! So much fun! But I’m not done yet! You still haven’t seen my full strength!”
But…
“You’d be wise not to forget me!” With the Aspera Spina, Julis traced a magic circle in the air, and an enormous dragon made of flames took shape. “Burst into bloom—Antirrhinum Majus!”
The fiery dragon spread its wings and lightly took to the air to attack Ardy from above.
Embroiled in the battle with Ayato, the robot had no way to defend himself. He deflected Ayato’s latest attack, sprang back to distance himself, then gripped his hammer to face the dragon.
Ayato was not about to let this opportunity pass. “Amagiri Shinmei Style, Middle Technique—Earth-Piercing Hornet.”
He held his weapon aloft with the blade pointed forward, then executed six consecutive thrusts.
It would be possible for Ardy to deal with Ayato’s attack or Julis’s dragon, but not both at once.
“Raaaaagh! This is not overrrrrr!” He roared even louder, and blue light erupted from all over his body. The tremendous force sent Ayato flying back, and it blew away the dragon of flames, too.
A blue light…?! So that’s what this is…!
Ayato barely managed to regain his balance before landing, and Julis ran over to him. “You all right?!”
“Yeah, I’m fine…but this is gonna be tough,” he replied, keeping an eye on Ardy.
The robot’s howl was relentless, and the blue glow only grew brighter. An invisible force was swirling around him—they could not get close again.
“But what is that…?”
“Don’t you see it, Julis? How similar that is…?”
“What do you mean?”
“I should’ve seen it earlier. No matter how strong those barriers are, there’s no way he should be able to fight the Ser Veresta head-on. The only weapon we’ve seen that could pull that off was…”
Looking astonished as the answer occurred to her, Julis finished Ayato’s sentence. “…the Gravisheath.”
“Right.” Ayato nodded to her. “Only another Orga Lux could defend against the Ser Veresta.”
The S
er Veresta was one of the Runeswords—it burned through everything, impossible to defend against. Irene’s Gravisheath, which they’d faced in the fourth round of the tournament, had been the only weapon that could withstand attacks from the Ser Veresta.
“So Ardy must be using an urm-manadite for a power source,” Ayato concluded.
All ordinary manadites gave off a green glow. Only urm-manadites glowed in other colors. While it wouldn’t be impossible to add color artificially, that clearly wasn’t the case for Ardy’s blue aura.
“But—does that mean Ardy is an Orga Lux himself…?” Julis wondered, chilled.
“I’m not sure. I don’t know if it’s correct to call him one—but we can assume that at least the barriers are generated by an Orga Lux.”
That would explain everything.
Ardy combining with Rimcy was a way to channel the urm-manadite as a power source—or rather, to use multiple manadites to control the urm-manadite’s excessive output. In other words, one of the modules he’d received from Rimcy was a regulatory device.
“Wait!” Julis cried. “Does that mean— Is Ardy going out of control right now?!”
The color drained from her face as she recalled the match against Irene. It was true that the current situation bore a close resemblance to when the Gravisheath ran amok.
But Ayato’s assessment was different. “It looks like Ardy has more power than he can control, but I think—”
Before he finished his thought, Ardy’s roar abruptly stopped. The raging force field vanished, and a sudden calm descended on the arena.
But Ardy’s blue light still radiated freely, continuing to grow in intensity. “…Ha…ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Now I see! This—this is my power! No wonder Master sought to keep it in check!”
“Did he manage to contain it…?” Julis’s eyes went round.
Ayato, however, had vaguely suspected this.
The amount of power that could be drawn from an Orga Lux depended on the compatibility between the user and the urm-manadite. Obviously, Ernesta would have considered this. Ayato speculated that Ardy’s personality had been attuned to the urm-manadite’s.
“Well, as much as I hate to—I think it is time we finished this!”
