by Yuu Miyazaki
“Do you have a partner for the Phoenix yet?”
She flinched, making a tiny sound of chagrin, which was enough of a reply.
Ayato sighed in relief. “Um…how about me?”
“What?”
“My integrity isn’t impeccable, but it’s not too spotty, either. And I’m no worse than average at thinking on my feet, I think. As for a strong will and noble spirit, you might have to let those slide…”
“So…you want me to compromise on all of my standards?” Julis gave him a small astounded smile. “I appreciate the offer. But don’t put yourself through that. You won’t be able to fight in the Festa at your usual strength, and I’d rather not watch this happen to you after every match.”
“Oh, I don’t mind at all,” Ayato said bluntly. “I told you. The thing I have to do—it’s to help you, Julis.”
A blush began to color her cheeks. “But, you see, really, you can’t just…”
“Are you embarrassed? Your face is bright red.”
“Shut up! I am not! And stop looking at me!” She smacked him lightly again.
It didn’t hurt, but this time she kept her hand there, covering his eyes.
They were silent for a moment.
“Julis…?” Ayato tried, but there was no reply. Instead, he felt a hint of tension come into the hand that rested on his face.
“Do you…really mean it?” she said in a low, trembling voice.
Her usual tone brimmed with confidence. This was entirely different. It was a voice filled with uncertainty, frail to the point of breaking. The voice of someone who was afraid of holding out her hand to someone and of accepting a hand held out to her.
But that’s totally normal, Ayato thought. Anyone would be afraid, stepping out onto a new path. It was only natural.
And maybe this was the real Julis—a normal, perfectly ordinary girl. But here she was, an ordinary girl, trying so dauntlessly and nobly to live true to her own convictions. Wasn’t that admirable? Wasn’t it beautiful?
So Ayato gave her the clearest answer he could. “Of course I do.”
I won’t regret this. And I’m going to make sure she doesn’t, either.
Not this time.
“You really are an odd one,” said Julis.
Her hand lifted from his face, and he saw her smiling against the sky of glittering stars.
Their light caught in a droplet at the corner of her eye. He reached up without a word and softly wiped it away.
EPILOGUE
Silas Norman dragged himself desperately through the back alleys of the redevelopment area.
He had managed to break his fall by gathering the remains of his dolls into a sort of cushion, but of course that did little to actually prevent injury. He did not know how many bones he had broken, but there was plenty of pain, shooting through his body like lightning.
Still, he could not slow down.
He knew they were looking for him—Shadowstar, the special operations unit under the direct command of Seidoukan Academy’s integrated enterprise foundation. No matter what it took, he must not let himself be captured. They would use any and all means necessary to extract all the information he had. And after that…
“Damn it! Why won’t they pick up!?”
He had to get himself into Allekant’s protective custody as soon as possible, but the mobile device he had for the purpose of contacting them was of no avail.
“If I’m captured, they’ll be in trouble, too…!” he spat.
“Aren’t you overestimating your own value a little bit, Mr. Norman?”
Silas yelped in surprise as a golden-haired girl stepped from the darkness to block his path.
“P-president…!”
In each hand she held an eerie-looking sword. The motif on the guards resembled eyeballs, and when held out as a pair, the swords called to mind the eyes of a terrible monster.
It was the Orga Lux Pan-Dora. Silas had never seen the notorious weapon in person, but rumors of its power had reached him.
“Poor boy,” said Claudia. “To them you were no more than a pawn to be sacrificed.”
“How about a deal, Miss Enfield?” he said in a rush.
“A deal? With me?”
“Everything—I’ll tell you everything I know! And in exchange, I want you to guarantee my safety! Hand me over to the disciplinary committee and not Shadowstar!”
She cocked her head. “And why should I do that?” she asked curtly.
Silas gloated to himself. I still have a chance if she’s willing to negotiate.
“Shadowstar would get rid of me in total secrecy,” he explained. “But if the disciplinary committee got involved, all of this would have to be public record. Then you could use me as a chip against Allekant…!”
“Hmm…” Claudia closed her eyes in thought.
Taking that as a good sign, he went on. “We’re alike, you and I. We think of others only as pieces in a game. The fools around us might criticize us for it, but using the pieces you have to their highest advantage is simply how you win the game. I know you understand that!”
“I see… You do have a point.”
Silas’s expression brightened at her words. I knew this Claudia was a pragmatic girl. That sort of cleverness is so easy to manipulate.
Claudia, however, smiled sweetly. “But there is one big difference between you and me, Mr. Norman.”
“Huh…?”
“You seem to fancy yourself the player in control of the pieces, but I think of myself as a piece, too. The game isn’t any fun otherwise, in my opinion.” She let out a giggle as if she really were enjoying herself. “Now, I could publicize this case for some political leverage, but it’s more beneficial for me to deal with it secretly and let Allekant owe me one.”
His face twitched and his knees shook. With a long, furious howl, Silas used his last trump card. He drew the knife hidden in his clothes and hurled it at Claudia. She could not dodge it from this distance. The timing was perfect, he thought, completely self-assured.
“Oh, dear—surely you must know about my little one’s power.”
Claudia sent the knife flying with her blade as if she’d already known the attack was coming. It was no use.
As he was about to take a step back, the knife embedded itself into the ground at his feet. Silas cried out in fear.
“There’s no need to be afraid. You’re still of some value to me. For the time being, anyway.” Claudia wore her usual smile, but her gaze was icy, detached.
Silas couldn’t move.
“Farewell,” she said in a clear voice, and the twin swords danced.
Silas saw an uncanny glint in the eyes on the hand guards, just as blood began to spurt from all over his body.
“So this…this is the Pan-Dora…”
His knees buckled and he collapsed on the spot.
It was a pair of magic swords that granted the power of foresight—one of the most potent Orga Luxes in the possession of Seidoukan Academy.
Silas’s school crest snapped into pieces. As his consciousness faded, he felt someone approach.
“Oh, man. You didn’t kill him, did you?”
The boy, who seemed to seep out from the shadows behind a streetlamp, spoke to Claudia in a cheery tone that was rather out of place with what he’d just witnessed.
“Don’t worry. You can toss him into a holding cell for a bit. I’ll leave the rest to you at Shadowstar, but please be sure to get out what information he has.”
“But of course. That is our job, after all.” The boy looked at Silas lying on the ground and shrugged, barely interested. “What happened with the other two?”
“I just heard from Julis. Everything went well.”
“But you don’t look too happy about it.”
“Oops… I guess I’ll have to work on my poker face, if you can tell.”
“If you were going to regret it so much, why didn’t you go with them?” the boy asked, exasperated.
“Things a
ren’t so simple. I have the duties of my office to uphold.”
“Oh, is that it?” He smirked.
Without the hint of a break in her smile, Claudia thrust the point of a blade in front of his eyes. “Do you have orders to look into my affairs, Eishirou Yabuki?”
“No! None at all!” The boy shook his head in panicked denial, but there was something clownish in his mannerisms. “I was speaking out of pure curiosity. I just wondered if it was right to leave everything to them, that’s all.”
Claudia let her shoulders fall. “Well, there’s nothing for it now,” she murmured with a sigh. “I’ll let Julis have this one. The main event is just beginning.”
Absorbing the report in a dimly lit laboratory, the girl rested her hands for a moment and let out a tiny sigh.
“Well, I guess it’s time to pull out. I got plenty of data, and he actually did a good job ambushing all those students.”
She had countless air-windows open around her, displaying a constantly changing array of numbers and plots.
“Oh, but maybe that’s just because my pretty dolls were so good!” She laughed aloud in high spirits and pulled up an optical keyboard. “I like the halfway-clever ones—so easy to manipulate!”
With an indomitable smile on her lips, she continued her work.
Her industrious gaze focused on two dolls in quiet slumber.
AFTERWORD
FROM THE AUTHOR
Hello, everyone. I’m Yuu Miyazaki. I’m just a novice, so this is my first serialized volume, but it’s good to meet you all.
I hope that you liked The Asterisk War: Encounter with a Fiery Princess.
As you can tell from the title, it’s a story from the “school battle” genre.
In a world changed by a mysterious disaster called the Invertia, students from six schools vie for supremacy to make their dreams come true—well, that’s the plan, anyway. In this volume, you only see the school where the main characters go.
And yet, even with just one school, there are so many intertwining characters with their own circumstances—and I’m talking about doing six schools. It seems like I might have bitten off more than I can chew. I almost want to tell myself to be more cautious and write something more in line with my abilities.
But now that the story has gotten started, no excuses! I’m going to do all that I can to chew what I’ve bitten, so I hope that you decide to join me for the ride.
Incidentally, I’m one of those people who loves tabletop RPGs, but my favorite part is reading about the worldbuilding in the rule books. You know, things like “Here are the legends about the gods worshipped in this region and their devotees follow these precepts” or “In this country, the such-and-such industries are flourishing, and their customs are like this.” Just these tiny pieces of information, but it really sets your imagination flying.
In tabletop RPGs, the players have total freedom to make their own story. That means that there has to be a foundation from which to build a story, no matter which parts of the worldbuilding the players focus on and how they interpret them. You could call this detailed information the seeds of a story. Of course, the players have the right to build their story while paying as little attention as they want to those seeds. But personally, I prefer worldbuilding where there are as many of those seeds as possible.
That’s the kind of worldbuilding I hope to establish in The Asterisk War. Ayato is the protagonist, but there are many other students living in this city.
The illustrator for this volume is okiura. I remember being just amazed at his first rough sketch of Julis. “Awesome!” I yelled.
I’m truly indebted to him, because this is a story that places a large burden on the illustrator. He has the task of designing the uniforms, crests, characters, and weapons for all six schools, which really adds up to six times the usual amount of work. I’m so, so grateful to him.
In particular, for a majority of the Luxes and Orga Luxes, I incorporated aspects of okiura’s designs into my writing. He’s contributed lots of other ideas, too, and I can’t thank him enough.
Many, many people have helped me since this project started.
First and foremost, my editor, Iwaasa. I want to thank him for his countless pieces of great advice, from the detailed settings to the backstories of the characters. Without him, this story would never have seen the light of day. (He was also the one who suggested including the map of the city and the glossary!)
I also want to thank Shimizu and Shouji of the editorial staff. And Okada, who gave me the first words of advice—it’s thanks to her that this story has settled on its current trajectory!
I also want to thank the chief editor Misaka and everyone else who is involved. And above all, from the bottom of my heart, I’d like to thank you, the readers who picked up this book.
I look forward to seeing you all in the next volume.
Yuu Miyazaki
August 2012
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
-Light novel-
THE ASTERISK WAR, Vol. 1
YUU MIYAZAKI
Translation by Melissa Tanaka
Cover art by okiura
© Yuu Miyazaki 2012 / okiura
First published in Japan in 2012 by KADOKAWA CORPORATION. English translation rights reserved by Yen Press, LLC under the license from KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo, through TUTTLE-MORI AGENCY, INC. Tokyo.
-Manga excerpt-
THE ASTERISK WAR, Vol. 1
Ningen
Original story: Yuu Miyazaki
Character design: okiura
Translation by Melissa Tanaka
Lettering by Morgan Hart
© Ningen 2014
© Yuu Miyazaki 2014
First published in Japan in 2014 by KADOKAWA CORPORATION. English translation rights arranged with KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo, through TUTTLE-MORI AGENCY, INC., Tokyo.
English translation © 2016 by Yen Press, LLC
Yen Press, LLC supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
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ISBNs: 978-0-316-31527-2 (paperback)
978-0-316-39857-2 (ebook)
E3-20160804-JV-PC
