by Yuu Miyazaki
“Mr. Amagiri!” Kirin cried out. “Are you okay, Mr. Amagiri?!”
Magic circles appeared around him, once again shackling his power.
He fell and Kirin hurried to catch him in her arms. The indescribable softness of her embrace made him shy, but he was powerless to pull away.
“…So you can fight at full strength for only five minutes?”
“Yes, for now. Well, I think I could go for longer if I pushed it, but even then I probably wouldn’t last ten minutes,” Ayato said with a weak smile, leaning back against the place he had carved out in the pillar.
He and Kirin decided to wait there for help. Not that there were any other realistic options, since Ayato could barely move now and Kirin could not swim.
They weren’t getting reception on their mobile devices, which was no help, but Ayato was sure that someone would notice that something was wrong if enough time passed. Even Eishirou would have to notice if Ayato didn’t make it back from morning training. Or so he hoped.
“I guess if I use a lot of prana, that shortens the time limit. I was fighting for less than five today.”
“Oh…I see…” Kirin hung her head sadly.
“Is something the matter?”
She looked up at Ayato with her face on the verge of tears. “Why do you fight if this is what it does to you, Amagiri?”
“Wha—?” The question caught him by surprise, but he had already found the answer earlier. “There’s someone I want to help.”
Yes. That was what he had to do now. The thing that he wanted to do.
“Is that Riessfeld?”
“Well…yes.”
When she saw Ayato nod in answer to the question, Kirin dropped her gaze, looking disappointed somehow.
“Th-then, is it true that you, um, you…l-like her?”
“Huh?!” Another question he hadn’t expected. This one made him fly into a panic. “N-no, that’s not why—! Um, of course I think she’s a great person, but, uh, it’s not…really…”
“Wha—? Then wh-why…?” Kirin began to press blankly, only to think better of it and suddenly stop. “No, never mind. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked such a weird question.”
She bowed, looking a little bit glad somehow.
“Maybe I still have…”
She murmured something under her breath. Ayato couldn’t quite hear it.
“N-no, it’s fine, I don’t care, but— Achoo!” As the tension dropped from their conversation, Ayato let out a splendid sneeze.
“Oh—are you all right?”
“Well, we are soaked through, so it’s pretty cold.”
“Yes. The towel also got wet— Choo!” Evidently, Kirin was also cold.
Probably because it was underground—or more precisely, underwater—this place was very cool despite it being the middle of summer. At this rate, they could get thoroughly sick before being found.
“We should probably dry our clothes…”
“Y-you’re right…”
They glanced at each other, then went quiet.
Ayato couldn’t get himself to suggest that they take their clothes off. Saying that might immediately brand him as a degenerate. On the other hand, simply removing his own clothes would have a rather aggressive connotation. And as someone who had trespassed into the girls’ dormitory, he couldn’t possibly…
“Uh, um…” Kirin interrupted his thoughts by tugging at his sleeve, with a face that could not possibly become any redder. “Well, it… It’s not good for us to be in wet clothes, so…”
“Huh?”
It seemed like steam might spout from her ears. Kirin looked down.
Then, after letting her gaze wander on the ground for a while, she spoke, her voice so faint it seemed to disappear into the air. “W-would you…turn around for a bit, please?”
They decided to dry their clothes on Kirin’s katana. She propped it up across the carved-out pillar like a laundry pole, and they hung their clothes on it.
Two feet and four inches in length. It felt like a shame to treat a masterpiece of the great swordsmith Shinkai Inoue in this way, but there was nothing else to use. (The sword was called the Senbakiri, Ayato learned. It meant “to cut like a thousand paper cranes.”)
The ballast area was not only cool but humid. It would take a while for their clothes to dry. The heat from the Ser Veresta might have sped things up, but he feared that using the Orga Lux as a makeshift dryer might offend it—and in any case, having just broken his seal, he would have to wait some time before he could activate his sword again.
Ayato and Kirin sat in silence, back to back.
They could not bring themselves to undress completely, so he still wore his shorts and she wore her underwear.
Ayato could feel the pounding of a heart so loud he thought it might burst, but he couldn’t tell if it was his own or Kirin’s.
“Um…Miss Toudou?”
“Y-y-yes?!”
Ayato tried to make some sort of conversation to lighten the mood, but Kirin was rigid with tension and even her voice was stiff.
But somehow that let him relax him a little.
“About what we were saying before… Can I ask you the same question? Why you fight here?”
“M-me?” Kirin hesitated, the question catching her off guard, but then, after a moment’s reflection, she spoke evenly. “The reason I fight… I might have mentioned it before, but I’m fighting to save my father.”
“Right. Your father is a Genestella, too?”
“…Yes.”
The children of Genestella were not always Genestella, but the probability was much higher. Parents who were both Genestella were around ten times more likely to have a Genestella child than two parents who were not.
“But now, my father is incarcerated. As a criminal. And I want to save him.”
“A criminal…?”
It was true that the integrated enterprise foundations could grant any wish to the champion of the Festa, even if that wish involved bending the law—freeing a convicted criminal, for instance. And in fact, there were more than a few instances like that, Ayato had heard.
“But he didn’t do anything wrong! He was just trying to protect me!” In her outburst, Kirin began to turn around, then caught herself and quickly faced away from him again.
“Protect you? What happened?”
“Five years ago, someone tried to rob a store, when my father and I were inside. He saved me when the man tried to take me hostage. And my father—my father ended up killing the man. But he didn’t mean to.”
Kirin’s voice was heavy with frustration and regret. Ayato could hear her grit her teeth between her words.
Five years ago, she would have been eight—still just a child.
“And the man wasn’t a Genestella, was he?”
Kirin shook her head.
Everywhere in the world, Genestella were at a social disadvantage. In some cases, this meant their human rights were curtailed. This inequity was particularly marked in cases where Genestella caused harm to ordinary people. Even if it was in self-defense, the law would always treat it as excessive force. And if the other party died as a result, harsh sentences were the norm, even if the victim was the one who had committed the crime.
Some went so far as to suggest that the IEFs had deliberately engineered this inequality. After all, the system clearly worked for their profit.
“The robber didn’t seem to realize that I was a Genestella. If he had, he probably wouldn’t have chosen me as his hostage. But I had a knife pointed at me. I was so scared, I couldn’t do anything.”
Even Genestella children had tremendous strength, but without considerable training, an adult with a weapon still posed a real threat to them. It was understandable that young Kirin would have been helpless. “And then your father acted to save you,” Ayato said.
“Yes… I was already in training at the time. Thinking back on it now, it would have been easy to apprehend that man myself. But I’m spineless
, I’m such a coward…” She sniffled. “So now my father is in jail. He still has decades to serve. But the one who told me how I could save him was my uncle.”
“That’s why you came here?”
“Yes. My uncle never got along with my father, and he hates Genestella. He probably resents that he wasn’t chosen as the heir of the Toudou school, even though he’s the older brother. But still, he chose to help me—and maybe it was out of his own interests, but that doesn’t bother me. I have no choice now but to depend on him.” Kirin’s voice trembled, holding back tears, but her words were clear and firm.
Still, something about what she said bothered Ayato. What was it?
“My uncle is very capable, actually. He got the IEF to keep the press from reporting the case, and he said he even arranged a different identity for my father so that the Toudou family wouldn’t take the fall.”
“Whoa…”
That did surprise Ayato. It sank in just how wildly the power of the IEFs surpassed that of any nation or law.
And now that he thought about it, he had never heard about the head of the Toudou-style school being arrested. Under normal circumstances, that would have been big news, considering the scale of the style’s popularity.
“He’s that good at handling me, too. He got everyone talking about my skills as soon as I came to the school. He chose my opponents, gathered information on them, and advised me on my strategy. He knows the best times for me to duel and the most efficient way for me to build up my record.” Kirin’s back shuddered. “If I just do as he says, then I don’t need to—”
Her words had begun to flow like an internal monologue, repeated over and over. Ayato flatly cut her off. “You’re wrong, Miss.”
“Wrong…?”
“Even if you know where you want to go, it isn’t by the path you chose. So it’s not going to work. Sooner or later, you’ll get stuck.”
Ayato knew that she had to find out for herself what she was supposed to do. If she didn’t get to choose how to do it, someday she would burn out. And he didn’t want to see that happen to her.
“Well, I’m not really one to talk,” he said sheepishly. “I only just figured it out myself.”
Kirin was quiet for a while. When she spoke, it was in a low, shaky whisper. “But…I can’t. I can’t do this alone, I just—”
“It’s okay.” Ayato turned around to softly pet her head.
“Oh…”
“You’re not alone. At least, I’ll be here for you. If it’s the path you choose, really choose for yourself, I’ll help you.”
“A path I choose…,” Kirin whispered as if to confirm it to herself. Then she stared earnestly at Ayato.
He thought he saw something sparkle deep in her eyes, but it was barely for a moment. He could have imagined it.
“Oh—but when we fight, that’s a different story, okay? It’d be patronizing to go easy on you… Well, not like I really have that option against you, anyway.” Ayato held her gaze with a shy smile.
“You’re strange, Mr. Amagiri,” Kirin said, wiping away her tears, and her shoulders shook with laughter.
“Julis tells me that, too… All the time, actually.” Ayato scratched his head.
“But you’re really cool,” Kirin whispered faintly.
Her voice was too soft for him to hear. But… “Wait—um— Ack! Miss Toudou?!”
“Huh? Oh— Eep!” she squealed.
They finally realized then that they were facing each other.
Having caught an eyeful of Kirin’s precociously shapely body, Ayato turned away again in a panic. “S-s-sorry!”
“N-no, that’s… I—I’m sorry!”
As they stuttered through their flustered apologies, their backs to each other, they heard voices calling from above.
Help was here at last. Ayato let out a sigh of relief.
Then he heard Kirin’s hesitant voice from behind him. “Um… You did it just now, too, but you—you pet my head a lot, Mr. Amagiri.”
“Huh? Oh, I’m sorry. Does it bother you?”
It probably wasn’t something that many people would do to a teenage girl, he thought.
But Kirin shook her head. “No, my father used to do that.”
She sounded happy somehow.
CHAPTER 7
DETERMINATION AND DUEL
Kouichirou Toudou had been in a foul mood since the day began.
It was all because of the emergency report from Seidoukan Academy telling him that his niece had gone missing.
By the time he arrived at the scene in a rush, Kirin had already been found safe. Though he breathed a huge sigh of relief, he was fuming at the time he’d had to take to deal with such an incident.
The Seventh Division Educational Research Office was at the Galaxy corporate headquarters in Otsu, Japan’s present capital city. Kouichirou’s own operations, however, were based in the Asterisk branch office—an arrangement that, needless to say, made it easier to manage Kirin.
Kouichirou summoned Kirin to the back of the school building as usual and spoke to her with unconcealed disdain. “Honestly. Don’t make me worry like that.”
“I’m sorry, Uncle.” Kirin obediently bowed her head.
“Hmph. Never mind. Now, about your next duel…”
“Before we get to that, Uncle, may I ask a question?”
“What?”
“You just said you were worried about me—but was it about Kirin Toudou, your niece? Or about Kirin Toudou, the tool?”
Kouichirou was taken aback for a moment, but he quickly recovered, staring down at her with a cruel smile twisting his lips. “What a stupid question to ask this late in the game. You know perfectly well—what I need from you is your strength, nothing else.”
“I see…” Kirin looked down sadly.
Kouichirou could not bear to lose her. But that was because of Kirin’s value as a tool to advance his career, and only that. He had not a shred of affection for her; on the contrary, he even found her repulsive.
He still bore a grudge against her father, Seijirou, for succeeding to the head of the Toudou-style school instead of himself, the elder brother. His birthright was taken from him just because his brother happened to be born with special powers. He was not about to forgive Seijirou for that.
Kouichirou had devoted himself to the Toudou style from an early age. With his years of hard work and perfected skills, he should have been more than worthy of the succession. He understood, of course, that the Toudou style of today had many Genestella students and that corresponding strength was required of instructors.
But he was simply unable to accept the very existence of Genestella.
Those are not people. They’re just monsters.
Why should he lose what was rightfully his because of them?
And so Kouichirou had severed ties with his parents and taken a job affiliated with Asterisk.
He found satisfaction in being paid to make a spectacle of those monsters devouring one another. Ironically, Kouichirou had a talent for discerning the relative strengths of Genestella through various data points. And since his skills in that area were respected, his career had made steady advances.
And one day, by chance, he acquired the finest tool he might hope for—Kirin. That was the only time he had ever had cause to thank his younger brother for anything.
Among the Supreme Executive Committee of Galaxy, the Department of Integrated Entertainment Operations took the most interest. If he used Kirin effectively, Kouichirou thought, he could show off his skills to the upper echelons of the company.
He had already submitted a plan to that effect, and in fact, it was progressing smoothly. Now was the time to build a reputation, so he had her duel many well-known students. Later, however, he planned for her to duel less and less. Her rank itself had to maintain its own dignity.
His ultimate goal was the Lindvolus, coming up in two years. With her strength, Kirin would be invincible, as long as he chose her opponents wisely. If
she were to win the Lindvolus undefeated, Kirin would receive the highest evaluation, alongside his own management skills.
They would need a special strategy against the Witch of Solitary Venom, but they had two years to come up with it. There was plenty of time. If need be, she could wield an Orga Lux. Of course, since he had advertised her prowess as the top-ranked student who was neither a Strega nor an Orga Lux wielder, they would have to wait some time to do so…
Kouichirou paused in his ruminations and his expression darkened.
“By the way, I hear you were with the Ser Veresta user—what was his name? Ayato Amagiri?—when you were attacked.” He clicked his tongue, remembering that annoying brat. “I caught wind of a rumor that he got into an altercation with Allekant not long ago. It stands to reason that the incident today was related to that. You stay away from him. I don’t want you getting involved in any more trouble.”
Access to the official details was above his pay grade, but he was smart enough to know that there was something behind the technological cooperation agreement between Seidoukan and Allekant. And that boy was involved somehow.
“I’m afraid I must refuse,” Kirin said firmly.
“What was that?” Kouichirou doubted his ears.
Kirin had rebelled against him several times before. But never before had she stared him so directly in the eye while doing it.
“All right. I’ll hear you out.” Kouichirou glared at her, keeping his irritation in check.
“Ayato Amagiri has taught me something important. And I think I have many more things to learn from him.”
“Things to learn from him?” Kouichirou snickered, then let out an exasperated sigh. “Enough nonsense. All you have to do is what I tell you. You don’t need to think about anything else.”
“No, I—”
Kouichirou did not let Kirin finish, striking her cheek with the back of his hand.
He did not hold back his strength. There was no need to. But Kirin stared back at him, unflinching, standing her ground.
He raised his hand to hit her again. But instead of following through, when faced with the strength of the willpower in her eyes, Kouichirou found himself taking a step back in awe.
