Volume 16

by Reki Kawahara

  The divine instrument, «Twin Edged Wings», was a set of extremely thin, steel throwing knives bent in the middle.

  The knives of approximately forty cen long had no grip to hold them by. Both sides ended in sharp tips and they were thrown by placing that between one’s fingers. The edges that flew while revolving at high speeds could freely change their trajectory and would return to their owner’s hands before received between one’s two fingers again.

  In other words, even normal usage required a level of concentration incomparable to that of swords. He could easily lose his fingers if his focus was disturbed by the slightest bit and he failed to receive the returning edges.

  His evident control over such a weapon could be said to be proof enough of Renri’s capabilities. However, he himself was absolutely unaware of that. His spirit languished at the feeling of inferiority from his incapability to activate the armament full control art.

  As such, Renri had not actually become any more ready for battle despite having killed the goblin with a single stroke.

  Renri repeated his shallow breathing while focused on the cold steel faintly quivering, whirling to a stop at the tip of his extended right hand. He killed, he had finally killed; those words alone resounded in his mind time and time again.

  “…Esteemed knight.”

  Tiezé was the one to break the silence. Tears lightly stained her eyes in the shade of autumn as the trainee spoke in a whisper.

  “Thank you… very much. You did save us, in the end.”

  Warmth spread through Renri’s chest, icy with fear, from those words. That said, he did not have the time to respond. Multiple shadows came directly at them from beyond the smokescreen. Their numbers were likely beyond ten.

  —Impossible. I can’t fight any longer. It was scary enough even against that one goblin.

  The meager courage he gathered from all of himself scattered and vanished.

  His breathing grew shallow. Strength left his legs.

  His eyes swam, seeking a path of escape, and were drawn to the two long swords held in the black-haired youth’s one arm.

  One among them, the sword adorned with a detailed rose inlay on its grip, let out a feeble light in the dim darkness. The blue light, faint yet somehow warm, pulsated just like a heart. The icy dread enveloping his entire body gradually thawed.

  After drawing in all the air his chest could hold, Renri spoke.

  “…The two of you should stay here and protect Kirito-san.”

  “Y… yes!”

  Tiezé and Ronye replied with spirit. Replying with a light nod, Renri left the tent from where the scout tore through. The two goblins leading the approaching enemy soldiers noticed Renri and bared their fangs.

  A flash came from his right hand and a bluish-white radiance ran through the air.

  The throwing knife returned to his fingers just as their two heads fell.

  However, Renri shifted his sight without making sure of that and let loose the knife on his left waist towards a new target. Another two goblins had their life cut away as they crumbled.

  New troops surrounded Renri who had dealt with four goblins in merely four seconds.

  “It’s a knight…”

  “The general’s head!”

  “Kill! Kill!!”

  Bathed in those savage voices, Renri ran forward in order to draw the enemies away from the tent behind. The goblins’ armor rattled as they chased after.

  The orderly lines of supplies tents came to an eventual end. On his immediate left was a cliff wall that rose vertically and a dense smokescreen obstructing the front with goblins gushing out from there, one after another. And behind him were the ten chasing him.

  Having jumped into his own doom, Renri stopped his feet and stretched his two hands grasping onto the two throwing knives towards the left and right before shouting.

  “—My name is Renri! The integrity knight, Renri Synthesis Twenty-seven!! If you wish for this head, then come at me ready to set your life aside!”

  The goblins responded with ferocious roars at that speech that took all of his courage.

  Their machetes swung up as one and Renri let loose both throwing knives concurrently, targeting them who leapt in from both ends.

  The knife in his right hand towards the right. The knife in his left hand towards the left. The two soaring edges traced arcs as they intercepted the frontmost goblins.

  Heads left their bodies, dismembered one after another, before falling onto the ground. Their bodies fell forward, delayed, as dark fresh blood spurt from them.

  Renri caught the two returning knives not by holding them between his fingers but by hooking them around his index fingers. Spinning them at high speeds in order to maintain their momentum, he threw them once more without pause.

  The exact same scene repeated itself yet again. A naive comparison of his normal attacks against Deusolbert’s «Conflagrant Flame Bow» and Fanatio’s «Heaven Piercing Sword» in terms of might would probably result in his victory. The edges of the «Twin Edged Wings» were thinner than paper and as they spun at extreme speeds, they cut through inadequate armor as though they were not present.

  The two consecutive throws downed over ten and even the goblins who knew no fear had their vigor dampened, spooked by the disconcerting manner of death of their allies.

  I can do this— If he held on for a little longer, backup should come from the frontlines where the smokescreen was fading.

  Renri held down the terror from the genocide he committed as he took a third throw.

  However, what arrived at his ears was the noise of twigs fell by a hatchet rather than the prior cutting noises.

  Kakiiin! A shrill sound of impact.

  The two knives returned somehow despite how their courses were violently altered and Renri reached out as far as he could with both hands to retrieve them. Deprived of the composure needed to risk hooking it against his fingers, he narrowly brought the lethal knives to a stop.

  His two widely opened eyes caught sight of a figure, a single goblin, languidly appearing from beyond the smokescreen.

  Large.

  His height did not differ much from Renri whose body was at the physical age of fifteen. However, the bulging muscles covering his entire body and the burning murderous aura emanating from his pair of yellow eyes were wholly different from the other goblins. He wore riveted leather armor, perhaps for the sake of mobility as it appeared light, and a massive hatchet dangled from his right hand.

  “…You’re their general?”

  Renri asked in a soft voice.

  “Yer. Chief of the mountain goblins, Kosogi.”

  The goblin replied calmly and slowly looked about.

  “Ah-ah, that’s one grand display you put on in killing them. To think there was an integrity knight left behind all the way back here. I didn’t expect that at all.”

  It was not just his physique, but his manner of speech, too, completely differed from the other goblins. Despite possessing an intense, seething blood thirst, his high intelligence held that down.

  —Not that it matters. He only got lucky and deflected the Twin Edged Wings once, that won’t happen again.

  Renri crossed his arms before himself and shouted.

  “Your war will end here!!”

  He threw them as fast as he could, with all he had.

  The right edge soared down at an angle as the left grazed the ground as it sprang upwards, accurately flying towards Kosogi’s neck. Still.

  Once again, all that rang out was a shrill, clear metallic noise.

  The enemy general, Kosogi, shifted the hatchet quickly enough for it to turn into a grey blur and splendidly warded off the simultaneous attack from left and right.

  He barely caught the deflected throwing knives.

  —Why!? The Twin Edged Wings should be enough to slice through that goblin’s weapon…!

  Shocked, Renri’s sight was drawn in towards Kosogi’s hatchet.

  Though its make was co
arse like the machetes the goblin soldiers had equipped, the tint of its blade differed. That was not a product of primitive casting. It had a sharp blade with high priority, forged over much time with tempered steel.

  Perhaps having seen through Renri’s astonishment, Kosogi brought the hatchet before his face as he grinned.

  “This? It’s a prototype, but it’s quite well done, right? There was blood spilt in order to steal the materials and methods from the Order of the Dark Knights. But you see… that’s not the only reason why your attacks are being blocked, knight kid.”

  “……Then how about this?!”

  He swung both hands straight up. The throwing knives that soared into the dark night skies vanished from the enemy’s sight and drew a great arc as they assailed from behind. Deflecting this would be—

  “……!!”

  His conviction immediately fell apart. The goblin chief named Kosogi swung the hatchet behind and deflected the knives travelling at extreme speeds without even looking, of all things.

  Renri failed to perfectly catch the returning knives, wobbling unsteadily, and suffered a cut on the middle finger of his left hand. However, the situation gave him no time to even feel that pain.

  “They’re light, kid. And that noise too.”

  Kosogi’s short lines covered every single one of the Twin Edged Wings’ weaknesses.

  The weight of each throwing knife was unbelievably light for a weapon considered a divine instrument.

  That was only natural given its pursuit for only sharpness and rotational energy, but as a result, it could not cut down by force any opponent with a defense of sufficient priority to handle its velocity.

  In addition, the knives that spun at high speeds as they flew exhibited a distinctive noise as they sliced through the air. It was within the realm of possibility for someone who had trained their hearing to predict the trajectories.

  Renri shuddered at Kosogi’s intellect, seeing through that much after watching his attacks only those few times. To think a goblin, a crude, inferior demi-human could—

  “And that’s just a goblin… your face’s speaking, kid.”

  Showing a grin that appeared somewhat depressed, Kosogi whispered.

  “But in my case, I would like to say this. You’re supposed to be some great esteemed knight, right? Some integrity knight capable of facing against a thousand… that’s what I heard, but looks like it’s different for you? That’s why you’re hiding all the way back here, aren’t you?”

  “…Yeah, that’s it.”

  It was his mistake in the first place to make light of the enemy before himself as some goblin. Understanding that, Renri abandoned his bluff and nodded.

  “I’m a failure of a knight. But still… make no mistake. I’m the failure here, not this.”

  He brought the silver edges held between his fingers in both hands before his face.

  The Twin Edged Wings’ weaknesses. The one method to rid it of them would be the integrity knight’s secret art, the armament full control art.

  This divine instrument was said to be once a pair of divine birds who had respectively lost their left and right wings. Unable to fly with a single wing, they joined together and soared higher than any of the other birds could go and flew on for close to an eternity.

  That legend gave birth to a small, stinging wound deep in Renri’s heart without his own notice.

  The one he cherished in those memories robbed from him through the Synthesis Ritual.

  The childhood friend he crossed swords against in the final match of the Four Empires Unity Tournament and stole the life of by accident at the end of that battle surpassing all other.

  He and Renri were truly a pair of birds. They had competed against each other for as far back as they could recall and even after moving to the central capital from their village, they broke through all trials while relying on each other for mental support, reaching that ultimate stage.

  But their wings broke there.

  Even with his memories sealed and him turned into an integrity knight, the gigantic sense of loss in Renri’s heart remained unfilled. Having lost the courage to take up the sword to fight and the joy of connecting, heart-to-heart, with another, Renri could not possibly have called awake those two divine birds soaring with their wings joined.

  But.

  That black-haired youth he met on this battlefield who had suffered more than anyone else and the two swords he held in his arm.

  The warmth light emanating from one of those spoke to Renri in a mute voice.

  Things existed in this world that remained even after one’s life came to an end.

  Those were memories. Recollections.

  Connections between hearts allowed for one’s life to be succeeded by another, and yet another. Without end, as long as the world continued on.

  Renri averted his sight from the goblin general, approaching with an expression certain of victory, and gently lowered his eyelids.

  The young knight appeared as though he had given on everything before his body let loose an abrupt tempest of his spirit as a swordsman. His two eyes flickered open. His two arms, gripping onto the two metal knives, intersected as though to conceal the bottom half of his face.

  “——Fly, Twin Wings!!”

  Those arms swiped horizontally along with that shout. The two soaring streaks of light traced a steep arc and assailed Kosogi from the right and left.

  “You can keep trying… but it’s useless!!”

  The goblin chief brandished his hatchet and deflected the throwing knives with all his strength.

  Shrill, metallic noise accompanied crimson sparks. The two knives bounced away all too easily, but they took off back into the skies without falling onto the ground. Just like two nestled birds, they drew a helix as they intertwined, joining ever closer.

  It was then, when the knives came together.

  “Release… recollection!!”

  Rather than the armament full control art, Renri cried out loud the phrase for the true secret art surpassing it, the «recollection release art».

  A pure white radiance illuminated the valley.

  The two facing metal knives united at their apexes within the light and became one.

  Revolving gently, the knife that had now become a cross glittered bluish like a distant star in the night sky. The divine instrument, the Twin Edged Wings, released.

  Renri slowly reached his right hand towards his other self, still releasing light from far above.

  —Beautiful.

  —Just like me together… with—

  He gripped, tightly, the right hand that he had raised so high.

  The crossed knife began rotating with tremendous force. The noise of it cutting through the air grew steeply before eventually disappearing as it exceeded the audible spectrum.

  Renri leisurely swung down that right hand.

  The Twin Edged Wings slid through space soundlessly as a disc of light towards the goblin.

  “It’s… no use!!”

  Roaring, Kosogi slashed the hatchet at the Twin Edged Wings’ assault from the sky above in a bid to knock it down.

  However, it occurred a moment before the thick steel went up against the ultrathin knife. The divine instrument rapidly altered its prior trajectory and leapt vertically for a moment before accelerating downwards once more after the hatchet swiped through empty air.

  Khh.

  It was a dry, quiet noise.

  A bluish-white streak surged through the middle of Kosogi’s figure, trained to the extremes, in the very next instant.

  “Gaaahh!!”

  Kosogi leapt at Renri with a savage roar. But the right half of his body fell behind the left. He ran a step or two before his body separated fully, crashing towards the right and left.

  On the verge of his death, Kosogi pondered on the cause of his defeat with his excellent intellect.

  Going by his preconceptions, it would mean that puny, budding knight hid bloodthirst and desires
greater than him. However, no matter how hard he stared with his divided vision, he could discern no bloodthirst at all on the knight’s childlike face.

  —Then, what had I lost to?

  Though the desire to know overwhelmed him, that was but a moment before complete darkness engulfed his vision.

  Upon receiving the returning Twin Edged Wings with both hands, they separated without a sound and returned to how they were.

  Renri silently stared at the two knives unstained by even a drop of blood.

  It was not as if his sealed memories came back to him. In the first place, Renri had no notion that his memories were sealed.

  Yet still, Renri affirmed the remnants of memories, sparse as they were, of another person whom his heart had joined with once. He thought that sufficient for now.

  After shutting his eyes for a moment, he flicked his head upwards in realization. There should have been many goblin soldiers waiting behind the enemy general, Kosogi. Yet it was strangely quiet.

  Focusing his eyes beyond the finally clearing smokescreen, Renri noticed countless corpses heaped upon each other. They were all those of the enemy troops who should have been still alive minutes ago. Surprise took him as he wondered who could have done it.

  “…You’re looking a little more like a knight now, aren’t you?”

  Hearing that voice, he flusteredly turned his body about.

  The person trotting in from his right was the apprentice knight, Fizel Synthesis Twenty-eight. Linel Synthesis Twenty-nine was present beside her too. It must have been this pair who took care of the remaining enemy troops.

  He stood stock still, not knowing how to reply, and Linel, with her hair in pigtails, snorted before carrying out an embellished knight salute.

  “Esteemed High Ranking Knight, we await your orders.”

  That must have been part sarcasm, but it was still better than scorn. Renri cleared his throat before asking of the pair.

  “…Are Tiezé and the rest safe?”

  “Yep. They joined up with the supply unit.”

  As Fizel nodded, he let out a relieved sigh and nodded.

  “What about the enemy soldiers who got past?”