The Asterisk War, Vol. 3: The Phoenix War Dance

by Yuu Miyazaki

  An unpleasant thought arose in Ayato’s mind. The Ser Veresta quivered in his hand, like a person shuddering.

  “S-sis—?” Priscilla must have sensed that something was wrong, too. She stopped a few paces from Irene and stared uneasily, hands clutched at her chest.

  And then Irene started to move.

  Weak, stumbling steps carried her toward her sister.

  Priscilla began to back away, then tripped and fell.

  “Oh, no!”

  “Hey—Ayato!”

  Just as he began to run to help Priscilla, an oppressive heaviness overwhelmed him and Julis.

  “Wh-what’s happening?!” Julis cried as Ayato gasped out loud.

  They were both helplessly pinned with a force that sent cracks through the stage. The pain and pressure would be enough to knock them unconscious if they weakened their focus for even a moment.

  It was the gravitational force of the Gravisheath—that much was obvious. But its range and power were incomparable to earlier. The entire stage was engulfed in purple light, and they could not stand or even speak, as if held by the weight of a mountain.

  Somehow Ayato managed to turn his head to look at the sisters. Priscilla was limp against Irene’s left arm. And in her neck were Irene’s fangs.

  “Ngh—What is going on?!” Julis squeezed the words from her throat.

  “I don’t think that’s Irene. It’s the Gravisheath!”

  “Wh…at…?!”

  While this startled Julis, Ayato trusted his gut feeling.

  The Gravisheath had taken over Irene’s body. The scythe laughed in its cackling rattle and glowed an ominous violet.

  “We have to help Priscilla…!”

  Irene kept on drinking Priscilla’s blood. Even a regenerative could be drained of life if she kept paying the price for the power of an Orga Lux.

  With all his strength, Ayato struggled to his feet and fought his way toward Irene—toward the Gravisheath.

  Horrible, dragging pain tore through his body. This was not just the Gravisheath’s power, but the fact that his time limit had already passed.

  At the most, he estimated, he had another minute. If the seal returned, that would be the end.

  No matter how he cajoled or cursed them, his legs could only trudge along, slow and heavy. He only had thirty or forty more feet to go, but it seemed like hundreds of yards.

  Still, he couldn’t give up now.

  The school crests measured vital signs, and they would declare defeat for any contestant who lost consciousness. Since Irene was still in the match, she might still have a shred of consciousness left.

  That was Ayato’s only hope.

  “Irene—!” He forced out his voice when he was less than ten yards from her.

  There was no response. The Gravisheath snickered in her hands.

  Fifteen feet… almost close enough to strike.

  “Wake up, Irene! Don’t confuse power for the things you treasure!”

  Just a few more steps.

  “Irene! You have to take hold of what’s important with both hands! Which hand has the thing you want?!”

  One moment. For just one moment, light returned to Irene’s eyes.

  The abnormal gravity vanished, and the purple light dimmed. Calm and quiet descended as if someone had flipped a switch on the world.

  But in the next instant, Irene screamed in agony, and a weight even heavier than before crushed Ayato.

  Irene stood slack as a doll, the life draining from her body as Ayato looked on. But still her right hand did not let go of the Gravisheath.

  Or rather—the Gravisheath did not let go of her. Irene was no longer its wielder, but merely a vessel of fuel. And once it had used her up, it would surely discard her.

  Upright with its shaft resting on the ground, the Gravisheath shone ghostly purple and rattled sharply.

  It was a malicious laughter, sadistic and gleeful at the desperation of someone robbed of their last ray of hope.

  The oppressive weight kept him from moving a single finger, but fierce rage boiled up within Ayato. A pure anger toward someone with no respect for others.

  As he clenched his jaw and squeezed the Ser Veresta, the sword trembled in his hands as if to call back to him. Something inside him connected with the Ser Veresta for the briefest instant.

  This is—

  He could not describe it in words if he tried, but in that moment Ayato undoubtedly felt it—the will of the Ser Veresta.

  And what it expressed—if he were to compare it to a similar human emotion—was revulsion. Something akin to loathing directed at the Gravisheath.

  And something else, something it wanted from Ayato… Or rather, a will to test him.

  As if it was telling him, “Do it, if you can.”

  “Didn’t I tell you I hate tests…?” Ayato complained, but poured his remaining strength into standing.

  The crimson light of the Ser Veresta pierced into the purple-stained world. It gradually grew stronger, eating into the violet like a flame through paper.

  The Ser Veresta. The magic blade to burn through everything, against which there is no defense.

  If that was true…

  With a shout, Ayato strained and sliced through the empty air.

  And the purple glow swallowing them was cleaved in half.

  The Gravisheath froze, and its rattling halted. The aberrant gravitational field was extinguished once again—this time, at its source.

  The scythe’s power only dispersed for an instant. But that was all Ayato needed.

  He leaped into range and struck at the Gravisheath from below to send it flying from Irene’s hand.

  Fixing his eyes on the scythe as it spun end over end, he sliced up toward it as it arced past. Then he turned his wrists and pierced it, impaling it against the ground.

  “Amagiri Shinmei Style Middle Technique: Carved-Out Shell.”

  After a moment’s pause, a dissonant screech like scraping glass rang out across the stage.

  How many watching the battle would recognize that sound as the dying scream of an Orga Lux?

  When the screeching faded, a thousand cracks ran through the outer layer of the Gravisheath, and it shattered.

  A few seconds later, the automated voice announced the end of the match.

  “Irene Urzaiz, Priscilla Urzaiz—unconscious. Winners: Ayato Amagiri and Julis-Alexia von Riessfeld!”

  As the loudest cheers yet of the tournament shook the arena, Ayato dropped to the ground, rolled onto his back with his limbs splayed, and let out a soul-deep sigh of relief.

  EPILOGUE

  When Priscilla’s eyelids slowly lifted, the first thing she saw was the person dearest to her.

  Seeing her sister’s smile, both kind and sad, filled her with relief. At the same time, an out-of-place question entered her mind.

  How long had it been? It seemed like forever since Priscilla had seen a true, sincere smile on her sister. Irene had always been a little short-tempered and rough around the edges, but more than that, she had once been a person who smiled all the time.

  “What is it? Does something hurt?”

  As Irene peered into her face with concern, Priscilla gave a small shake of her head.

  She looked around to find that they were in a sickroom—a small, sterile room with white walls and ceilings, with a bed where Priscilla lay.

  This was not Le Wolfe’s medical ward. So was she in the therapy clinic?

  She traced her memory back for a reason she might have landed here and found it immediately.

  That’s right. Irene started acting strangely during the fight…

  She remembered clearly up to that point, but everything after that was foggy.

  “Um, why am I…?”

  “You ran out of prana. I don’t remember much, but I took too much blood from you,” her sister said. She suddenly bowed her head, on the verge of tears. “I’m so sorry—!”

  “Don’t be.” Smiling faintly, Priscilla shook
her head again.

  Things were still vague, but she was sure of one thing—That had not been her sister.

  It must have been…

  “What happened in the match?”

  “We lost.”

  Priscilla had guessed the answer before asking, and her sister answered plainly.

  “Oh…” Irene hadn’t really been fighting of her own volition in the first place, so Priscilla didn’t mind. “What about the Gravisheath?” she asked.

  Irene let out an enormous, dispirited sigh. “It broke.”

  “Huh…?”

  “That stupid Amagiri smashed it to bits.” Irene’s shoulders drooped in a mild show of discontent.

  Priscilla was stunned for a moment, then burst out laughing. “Oh, I see. So Amagiri did it…”

  She pictured the face of the good-natured young man. She would have to think of some way to thank him. Maybe she could start by cooking him an even more sumptuous dinner than last time.

  Then Priscilla worried. “Oh, but—Does that mean you’re in trouble with the student council president…?”

  The Gravisheath did not belong to her sister. It had been on loan from Le Wolfe or, more precisely, from the school’s integrated enterprise foundation.

  “Nah, here’s the crazy part. He let me off scot-free.”

  “Really?”

  “Yup. Except I failed to carry out his orders, so the remaining balance doesn’t change. All that work for no pay.” Irene really slumped then, and she sighed.

  But even while she complained, she looked as if her mind was clear.

  “I got impatient trying to clear the debt… Oh, well.”

  Seeing Irene sheepishly scratching her head, Priscilla looked up at her. “You know, sis…,” she began.

  “Yeah?”

  “I always thought that you should do whatever you think is right. Of course, I’d stop you if you tried to do anything too violent or cruel, but I know that you’ve always looked out for me more than anything.”

  That was how Priscilla had always felt.

  She had tried to do the best she could without getting in her sister’s way. She had believed that was best for both of them.

  Irene must have felt the same way. Because she was kind at heart, she must have assumed that she alone should fight, and she alone should bear the burden.

  But that was no longer enough, Priscilla thought. At least, not to survive in this city.

  It wasn’t enough to simply receive protection, nor to simply protect.

  She had to reach out to take the hand that was offered to her, and use her own legs to stand when that hand pulled her up. She had to return an embrace by squeezing back. A relationship could not be equal otherwise.

  “But now…I want to be strong,” Priscilla said. “If you’re going to fight, sis, I want to fight with you. I don’t want to stand behind you. I want to stand with you.”

  “Priscilla…”

  “You can’t talk me out of it. And someday, I’m going to be stronger than you.”

  Her sister looked at her with surprise, but showed her white teeth in a grin—joyful, and open, and unburdened. “Ha-ha! All right, that I gotta see.”

  For the first time in a while, Priscilla saw Irene smile like Irene.

  In the office of the student council president, an air-screen displayed the end of the day’s match. It was not a live broadcast, but a recording.

  Ayato’s Ser Veresta completely shattered Irene’s Gravisheath, and victory was declared for Ayato and Julis.

  Dirk wore his usual sneer of naked disgust as he watched the scene. “Hmph. Well, that’s about what I could’ve expected,” he muttered to no one in particular and looked away.

  While he had failed to destroy Ayato Amagiri, his efforts were not entirely fruitless. He should have been satisfied with that.

  The loss of the Gravisheath was an unexpected consequence. But since they had managed to retrieve its urm-manadite core, that would not pose a significant problem. And they could expect it to behave itself better in the future.

  He still had uses for Irene and Priscilla. And the connection they’d made with Ayato Amagiri was an unforeseen boon that dramatically increased the breadth of his options.

  But most intriguing of all, there was this.

  Dirk looked again at the air-window, which showed Ayato lying on his back, writhing in unmistakable agony.

  “What’s happening down there? Amagiri seems unable to get back up! Miss Tram, does this mean he took a lot of damage?”

  “Hmm, I dunno. But that mana definitely looks like—”

  As she spoke, magic rings surrounded Ayato and spewed out chains that wrapped around his body. Then, with one intense flare of light, the circles all vanished, leaving Ayato limp and motionless.

  “Huh? What happened?”

  “Amagiri’s prana was incredible before, but now it’s dropped drastically. Now this is just a guess, but maybe that opening ritual of his isn’t for show at all…”

  Dirk turned off the air-screen and snorted derisively.

  He had heard the rumors, but now it was beyond question. Ayato Amagiri could only maintain his strength for a fixed period of time.

  Those at the other schools had probably reached the same conclusion by now. But where they might still harbor some doubts, Dirk had none whatsoever—because he had previously seen for himself the very power that shackled Ayato at the end of the match.

  In any case, once that secret became well-known, it would be more than a little tough for Ayato and Julis to advance in the tournament. They would hit a brick wall sooner rather than later.

  “Was I too hasty, mobilizing the Cats…?” he wondered.

  The Cats had not finished the task he had assigned, and it wasn’t too late to redirect them to a different mission.

  But Dirk shook his head and banished his second-guessing. “No. He’s her brother. No telling what he’s capable of.”

  Indeed, Ayato had—though only for a short time—unleashed a glimpse of the Ser Veresta’s true power. Dirk was skeptical as to whether Ayato could ever wield its full strength, but it didn’t hurt to be careful.

  He kicked up his short legs to rest atop the newly ordered executive desk and sighed heavily.

  Dirk’s plans resembled a spider’s web, with countless interweaving schemes spread out in every direction. If one failed, another one somewhere else would yield some kind of gain.

  This was why Dirk never lost. He never had, and probably never would.

  “If there’s one cause for concern, it’s that brat from Jie Long. It all depends on how much she tries to meddle… And I better have a chat with that Allekant girl…”

  Grumbling and muttering, the Devious King absorbed himself in his complex schemes.

  “A-are you okay, Ayato?” Kirin flew into the prep room in distress and looked anxiously down at him as he lay on the sofa.

  “Oh, yeah. I’m fi—ngh!”

  Ayato, with a damp towel on his head, tried to sit up, but winced at a stab of pain.

  “…You don’t look fine.” Saya poked her head out from behind Kirin, also a bit worried.

  “Of course he doesn’t, after being that reckless. He went nearly a minute over his limit,” Julis said with a sigh, changing the towel on his head.

  The cool sensation felt indescribably good against his overheated body.

  “So, our secret is out,” Julis remarked. “Very, very out.”

  Even though they’d skipped the winners’ interview, by now everyone would know that Ayato had some kind of limitation to his strength.

  But, in a sense, that was inevitable. The secret was going to get out sooner or later. It had just happened sooner than planned.

  The real problem was…

  “We have to think of tomorrow’s match.” Claudia, who had also come to check in on Ayato, pulled no punches.

  “Exactly.” Rubbing circles in her temple, Julis let out another grand sigh.

  The blowback from bre
aking the seal for so long was powerful, and now Ayato would be unable to move for nearly a full day. As long as he remained resting, he would heal quickly, and he might be able to fight from the second day on, but…

  “We don’t have a day to rest before Round Five,” Julis went on. “We have to think of something.”

  “Well, I’ll figure out a way,” Ayato said.

  “Oh, will you?” She glared at him through narrowed eyes and squeezed his arm.

  “Ow—ow-ow-ow!”

  “I don’t know how you can talk like that in your condition,” Julis said, astounded, after she let go. “‘Optimistic’ doesn’t begin to describe it.”

  “I’m not just being optimistic. I know this is serious. But I can’t break my promise.”

  “Your promise?”

  “I’m going to help you, Julis. That’s what I said, and I plan to do it. But I can’t, in this state. So I’ll figure out a way.”

  “Wha—?!” A blush came into her face. Flustered, she turned away from him. “Y-you fool! What are you talking about…?!”

  Saya and Kirin jumped in on the scene.

  “…Okay. Then I’ll help Ayato recover faster,” Saya said.

  “I’ll do whatever you need! I’ll make rice balls!” Kirin added.

  “Excuse me! You two can worry about your own match!”

  As Ayato regarded the three with a pained smile, he suddenly noticed Claudia beside him. Her expression was as soothing as always.

  “If you can make it through tomorrow, you’ll have a day off before the semifinals. You can get your rest then. But…”

  “Yeah. I know.”

  Even if he survived tomorrow, the same thing would happen again and again. That would not solve the problem.

  Ayato exhaled slowly and closed his eyes.

  It was time to deal with these bonds that had been placed on him.

  And that meant he had to deal with his sister’s disappearance.

  AFTERWORD

  Hello. Yuu Miyazaki here.

  Here we are with Volume 3 of The Asterisk War now in stores. To all of you supporting this series, I’m truly grateful.

  Well, I recall, after the last volume, writing about how many more characters there were. I added even more in this volume. And there are still more to come as the story goes on. But all these personalities are necessary to move the story of Asterisk forward, so please pardon the population.