by Yuu Miyazaki
He immediately recovered, however, snorting in disgust to cover his display of weakness. “That’s hilarious. You want to disobey me? And what will you do then? You want to fight your way to the top without my help?”
“Yes, that’s my intention,” she replied promptly.
Kouichirou burst into laughter. “Do you have any idea how stupid you sound? You really believe you can do that? Listen to me. You only made it to the top rank with my management. Yes, you’re strong, I won’t deny that. But don’t take Asterisk so lightly. Even if you could do it alone, how many years would it be before you could make your wish come true?”
As he ranted on, Kouichirou regained his composure.
Right. This spineless, dull-witted niece of mine can’t do anything without my help. She might be acting tough now, but she’s just a child, through and through. If I threaten her a bit, she’ll snap like a twig.
“Don’t you want to save your father Seijirou as quickly as you can? Then be a good girl and obey me. I can lead you to become grand champion of the Festa in three—no, two years. Could you do that alone?”
“No, I don’t think I could,” Kirin said, dropping her head slightly.
Kouichirou nodded in satisfaction. “You see? You understand that yourself. So—”
“But I don’t think I could do it your way, either.” Kirin raised her gaze resolutely and again stared straight at Kouichirou, as if she might pierce his eyes with hers.
“What was that?”
“To use your words, I don’t think I’m the only one taking Asterisk lightly, Uncle. This is not a place where someone who can’t even move forward with his own strength can hope to find victory. I realize that now.”
“You little brat! What do you know—?!” Kouichirou’s voice shook with rage. “I’ve seen hundreds of students here, since before you were born. You think you know everything, when you’ve been here for just a few months?!”
“…There are things one can learn only by experiencing them for one’s self.”
At her reply, something snapped inside of Kouichirou.
He raised his fist and brought it down with all his strength. But this time—
“I’m sorry, Uncle.” Kirin stopped his hand before it could reach her. “I’m grateful for your help. I mean that. But I’ve decided to fight my own way. Because if I don’t…I know that someday I’ll regret it.”
With that, Kirin released Kouichirou’s hand, turned her back to him, and walked away.
Kouichirou stood in stunned silence as he watched her go, but then frantically called after her. “W-wait! What are you going to do on your own?!”
Kirin stopped and turned to face him. “Well, to start,” she said with a thin smile, “I think I’d like to have a duel.”
“A duel?”
“Yes. With an opponent of my own choosing…and by my own will.”
The next week, in Seidoukan Academy’s largest all-purpose arena, students filled every last seat.
Unlike the training room that Ayato and Julis had been using, the stage here was surrounded by a proper defensive barrier. Barriers that could withstand Lux attacks required very bulky equipment and expended enormous amounts of energy, and Seidoukan Academy had only three such facilities including this one.
It was usually reserved for official matches, but now, two people stood facing each other in the center of the stage.
“This was a rather forward request. Thank you for accepting, Mr. Amagiri.” Kirin bowed in her usual polite manner.
The expression on her face seemed more at ease somehow.
“Sure, it’s no problem… But why a duel? And why with me?” Ayato, in contrast, wore a strained smile.
“I thought it was absolutely necessary for me to take my first true step forward in this city.”
“Your first true step?”
“Yes.”
Ayato exhaled and shrugged his shoulders. “Okay. But as I told you before, if we’re going to do this, I won’t hold back… Well, it’s not like I did before, either.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Kirin said with a faint smile, and readied to draw the Senbakiri.
Ayato backed away a few paces and activated his Lux.
“You’re not using that Orga Lux?” Kirin said in surprise.
“I can’t keep up with your speed using the Ser Veresta.” The sword-type Lux that Ayato held was less than half the size of his Orga Lux. “I’d never hear the end of it from Julis if I lost the same way twice. I have to try something different.”
“Something different… That’s exciting.” Kirin drew the Senbakiri in one smooth motion. The blade of the katana shone under the stadium lights with a sleek gleam.
“Well, should we get started?” Ayato asked. “I don’t really care for showy stages like this, but now that all these people are here, I’d feel bad if we made them wait.”
Kirin laughed softly. “I feel the same way.”
In the arena’s VIP seats, Julis and Ayato’s friends all sat together.
“You didn’t need to set up the big stage for this…” Julis sullenly side-eyed Claudia, who was seated next to her.
“Oh, I thought it was only natural for such an anticipated match. Miss Toudou is our top-ranked fighter, after all, and Ayato gave her a good fight. Who wouldn’t want to see the rematch?”
“But still…,” Julis muttered, then looked fretfully at Ayato.
She didn’t think he would have agreed to the duel if he had no confidence in his chances of winning. Even so, she had a mountain of things to worry about—whether Ayato could keep his time limit a secret or the possibility that he might suffer a serious injury that would affect them later…
“…Don’t worry so much, Riessfeld,” Saya said from the row behind her.
“You can say that, Sasamiya, but he’s up against the school’s number one. It’s impossible not to worry.”
“He’ll be okay. No problem,” Saya declared. She apparently had a good deal of faith in Ayato.
Of course, Julis believed in Ayato as her battle partner, but she understood that Saya knew him much better from the time they had spent together. Julis found that irritating, for some reason. Her face pinched up in frustration.
“But looking back at their previous match, Kirin Toudou’s skill with the sword is substantial,” she said. “Did you watch it?”
“Mm-hmm. I watched it.”
The first duel between Ayato and Kirin had been widely viewed on the Net. There was probably not a single student interested in the rankings who had yet to watch it.
“Toudou is strong. Possibly stronger than Ayato, if we’re talking just about swordplay,” Saya went on, expressionless as usual.
“Well, then—!”
“But it’s fine. Ayato has fought a much stronger opponent many times.”
“What do you mean? Who?” Julis twisted around to face Saya.
“Haru—his big sister,” she replied tersely.
Julis made a small growl. “His sister was that strong?”
Saya nodded once.
“Well, he seems to have some plan,” Lester cut in from his seat next to Claudia. “He’s not going to lose that easily.”
“What do you mean, Lester? Do you know something that I don’t?”
“Maybe. He asked me to get him a Lux. I let him borrow one of my spares.”
“A Lux? Why didn’t he just go to the Matériel Department?”
“That would take time with adjustments and all. If you need one quick, it’s easier to just ask someone you know.”
“Huh. So he asked you, too.” The surprised voice came from the row in front of Julis. It was Eishirou, who had also been in a prime viewing spot for the first duel.
And just as before, he had set himself up in the front row, camera in hand.
“You mean he asked you, too, Yabuki?”
“Uh-huh. Ooh—it looks like they’re getting started.” As soon as Eishirou said that, everyone turned their gazes forwar
d to the stage.
In the center of the arena, an explosion of prana burst from Ayato’s body. All at once, the crowd went wild.
“Here I come!”
Kirin made the first move. She closed the distance between them in a single leap and in a flash brought her katana down diagonally.
Ayato, who had been holding his sword low, swung high to deflect. It was a sharp strike coming at him, but he had more raw strength. He was confident that he would have the advantage if they were to lock swords.
Knocked upward, Kirin’s katana immediately drew an arc in midair to strike down with a backhand. Her speed was nothing short of extraordinary. Ayato blocked by holding his sword sideways, but in the next moment the point of the Senbakiri was lunging at his right forearm. He pulled back his arm to dodge, and Kirin took the opening to step forward with her right leg and slice in a rising arc.
It was a relentless serial attack—and Ayato was forced to fight completely on the defensive.
He was not at such a great disadvantage in speed. In terms of how fast they could strike, the two fighters were almost equal. But Kirin’s attacks connected from one blow to the next with a terrifying fluidity. She allowed no space for a counterattack.
She could never fight this way if she waited to see how her opponent responded to each attack. The opponent’s line of sight, distance, breathing—she instantaneously used every factor to direct the fight her way. She eliminated every option the opponent might have except for the one that was most favorable for her…
“Ngh!” He groaned. Ayato knew all that, and he still could not escape it.
To leap outside her engineering would be to leap into certain death.
Even so…the only thing to do is try!
As Kirin rushed at him with superhuman speed, Ayato left himself open to the blow.
The pain was searing, like a red-hot poker held against his side, but he ignored it and slashed at her chest. But she twisted, easily dodging the attack.
Marveling anew at her reflexes, Ayato took a large leap back to reestablish the distance between them, and let out a deep breath.
The wound to his side was relatively shallow, since he had concentrated his prana there. If he’d failed to do so, it would have resulted in an injury serious enough to decide the match.
Kirin, for her part, regarded Ayato with genuine admiration. “You’re amazing, Mr. Amagiri. It was like cutting at a thick sheet of steel.”
“If nothing else, I’ve got a lot of prana to use,” he quipped.
But that was not a defense he could use indefinitely. However much prana he had at his disposal, it would have little effect unless he concentrated it with the exact same timing as the attack. That would become more and more difficult as the opponent became more accustomed to the maneuver. And besides, he would run out of prana in short order if he applied it to defense constantly.
“And that was the first time someone escaped my Linked Cranes,” she said.
“Oh, so that’s the famous Linked Cranes. I’m honored to experience it firsthand.”
The Toudou style was said to be “like folding a paper crane,” in particular because of the precision of the combination attacks used to corner one’s opponent. The esoteric master technique, the Linked Cranes, was the embodiment of this style.
Both the Amagiri Shinmei style and the Toudou style allowed for matches with other schools, so Ayato had been able to watch several up close. The Toudou style had students all over the world, and here in Asterisk there had to be at least a few who were confident in their swordplay.
But he had never seen a Toudou fighter who had reached the level of wielding that master technique—except for the girl in front of him now.
“Nesting, Flowering Tachibana, Wings in Flight, Waves on the Blue Sea—there are forty-nine combination techniques in the Toudou style. Linked Cranes is the technique that achieves the perfect attack combination by incorporating all of them.” Kirin lowered her stance slightly and held her sword by her side, ready to strike. “The Linked Cranes have no end—I will finish you with the next one!”
A wave of force swirled out from her like a maelstrom and slammed into Ayato.
She knew of his time limit. If she moved to prolong the fight, she would have far greater odds of winning.
She knew that—but she showed no signs of doing so.
She really is a good, honest girl…
She was younger than Ayato, but her skill with a sword was as good—or better. He wondered how hard she had trained to reach this level and how fierce was the resolve behind each swing of her sword.
Even as he was deeply moved by her character, Ayato held his sword vertically in front of him and focused his will.
The rationale behind Kirin’s technique—the Toudou-style technique—was excellent. A style specializing in one-on-one combat matched up favorably against the Amagiri Shinmei style, which was designed for survival on the battlefield.
And yet…
“Then I’ll meet you with all the might of the Amagiri Shinmei style.” Ayato heightened his prana.
From her sideways stance, Kirin leaped into Ayato’s range in a single breath and slashed straight across with the Senbakiri. He held up his sword to defend, but she turned her wrists and swung down from above.
Kirin had already resumed the Linked Cranes. All she had to do now was to keep slicing away until her opponent’s defense wore down.
Because it required the user to go on an incessant offensive, the Linked Cranes drained stamina rapidly. But with the intensity of her training, Kirin was able to continue executing the technique for nearly an hour. And until Ayato had done it moments ago, no one had been able to escape her Linked Cranes.
I’m going to end it this time—!
Before, she had been able to strike only at his side, but this time she meant to go for the school crest. Even Ayato would not be able to protect that with his prana.
Of course, it was significantly harder to aim for the tiny target that the school crest made, but as time went on, the Linked Cranes also wore down the opponent’s mental stamina. Sooner or later Ayato would leave an opening in his guard.
And when he does…
Kirin brought her katana down to clash fiercely with Ayato’s sword Lux—and with a flash of light the sword exploded into pieces.
“What—?!” Startled, Kirin shielded her face from the blast and repositioned herself with a backstep. The explosion was small and lacked force.
Just before it, Kirin had noticed that Ayato’s prana was concentrated in his sword, but…
Did he try to execute a Meteor Arts move and fail…?
Meteor Arts required thorough calibration of the Lux and the ability to delicately manipulate one’s prana. If a substantial amount of prana was poured into the manadite core all at once and the weapon could not withstand the concentration, it would explode.
But it was hard to believe that Ayato would make such a mistake at that moment.
Then was it on purpose to escape the Linked Cranes…?
That may have been an effective option, but to Kirin it seemed like an act of desperation. Without a weapon, he had no way to defend against her strikes.
All this went through her mind in the blink of an eye. She repositioned the Senbakiri.
But then—
“Amagiri Shinmei Style Spear Technique: Ninth-Cloud Hornet!”
Three sharp spear strikes emerged from the smoke of the explosion to rush almost simultaneously at Kirin.
“A triple strike…! But—a spear technique?!”
Caught off guard, Kirin deflected the attacks to the side and righted herself to look ahead. Ayato stood there enshrouded in smoke, holding a spear-type Lux in both hands.
“Did that surprise you? Well, it’s a loan from a friend, so it is a little big for me,” Ayato said with a faint smile, then immediately thrust out with the spear again.
Kirin recovered quickly, ordered her breathing, and stepped forward to meet the strik
e with her sword.
As Ayato had said, the spear was quite large for his stature. The shaft was well over six feet long, and the gleaming spearhead was big enough to cover his face. But he wielded the spear with a practiced, natural hand and used its length effectively to keep her at a distance.
“Yes, that was a surprise,” Kirin said. “But—a trick is just a trick!”
She calmly gauged its striking distance; then just when he had extended his reach to its fullest, she deflected the shaft upward.
He may have had considerable skill with the spear, but it was undeniably a step below his swordplay.
Kirin slid closer in front of him, depriving him of the advantage of a long weapon. But just as she was about to slice upward at his school crest, she was met with another shock.
Ayato abruptly let go of the spear and drew a third Lux from a holster inside his jacket. He activated the new weapon—this time a short-sword Lux.
“You can’t possibly—!” she exclaimed.
“Two tricks work better than one!” Holding it backhand, he parried Kirin’s attack and used the momentum to spin his body one full revolution. “Amagiri Shinmei Style Kodachi Technique: Warrior’s Reaping!”
“Ngh!” Acting mainly on reflex, she turned her katana and blocked the attack head-on. Ayato’s dagger sent sparks flying and she felt the heavy impact in her arms.
She was at a disadvantage in sheer strength. Knowing that, Kirin decided on an all-or-nothing gambit.
She relaxed her arms just for an instant, letting Ayato’s kodachi press closer. The blade of light came slicing at her school crest, but there was too much blunt force behind his attack. Twisting herself, she barely evaded the strike, then swept down on the blade from above.
The short-sword fell from Ayato’s hand. He did not have time to draw another weapon.
Just as Kirin became certain of victory, Ayato extended his arms to grab her by the collar.
“Amagiri Shinmei Style Grappling Technique—”
“What—?”
