“You’re the one who found him and interrogated him. The only reason we fell for the trap is that Kazuko is better at this than we are. If anything, given how much they outnumber us, this is less a trap and more a completely normal situation.”
“You’re right. Now we just have to hope the guys in the moon manage to miraculously seal Zero at just the right time,” Lily whispered. Then she raised her hand high and shouted, “Charge!”
At her signal, the priests who’d been hiding in the gaps between the capital’s buildings rushed out and charged the garrison. Fujiko raised a hand as well, and the demon beasts started to stir. The operation had always called for a small number of people, and had only been intended to take place on the grounds of the garrison. When the priests arrived, they stuck to the plan and headed for the inside from the courtyard. Using the demon beasts hadn’t been part of the plan, though. They were summoned to deal with the Liradans outside.
“It’s like the perfect example of a losing battle,” Lily said, but still she followed after the priests as they broke down the sealed entrances to the building.
“You need to have more faith in Akuto. Now let’s go.” Fujiko took her place next to Lily.
The battle in the front courtyard of the garrison had turned into the particular strain of melee fights you see between skilled magic-users. Against an opponent of equal magical strength, mana balls and bullets were mostly useless. There were shouts and the sound of clanging swords, but the scene itself seemed to resemble some ancient battle, as the soldiers on the very front lines got right in each other’s faces and began to shove at one another.
“If we don’t hurry, they’ll shoot us from above!” Lily yelled. Indeed, a rain of rifle shots and mana balls was coming down on them from above.
The priests were relying on foreign body armor and helmets for their defense instead of mana. Both the helmets and the armor were meant for rifle bullets, and couldn’t do much more than partially deflect a direct hit. They’d have to use their own mana to create barriers, which meant they couldn’t use it on the battle in front of them.
The priests began to be pushed out of the gate they’d just broken through.
“Gah! Get out of the way!” Lily screamed, as she jumped up high from the rear and stuck out her fists. Instantly, they stretched out and struck at the knights at a speed faster than a bullet.
The knights put up mana barriers of their own, but Lily’s punches were direct attacks, and thus easily pierced their barriers and slammed into their abdomens and faces. The knights wore armor on their heads and chests, too, but Lily’s fists didn’t care. The knights were blown back as if they’d been hit by a truck.
“This is how you fight the knights,” Lily said, as she slowly walked down the path the priests made for her to walk. The knights began to back away in fear.
“Don’t let her scare you!” They heard the voice of somebody that was probably a commander, and the knights began to form into ranks. They attacked Lily from all directions, but she dealt with it without even breaking stride.
“Secret technique: Knight Slayer!” she shouted as she stretched out an arm to grab a knight and used him like a club to beat the others. The knights’ bodies violently shook within their heavy armor with each strike, knocking them out one after another.
“I said, don’t let her scare you!” the commander screamed again, but the knights were too shaken.
“But Sir, she’s taking us all down!” one of them yelled.
Lily laughed. “You didn’t know? I hate knights. Especially the ones who go around questioning people in town. They really piss me off. I got so sick of seeing them that I started punching them every time I saw one. And eventually they started calling me ‘The Long-Handed Demon.’ Having such a lame nickname just ticked me off more, so now I go around punching any knight who uses it, lately.”
The knights began to falter after seeing how she looked and hearing her speech.
“S-So that’s the one they talk about...”
“The one who attacked a knight garrison and wiped it out just because she was in a bad mood. ‘The long-handed demon’... Agah!”
“I just said I’d punch you if you said that!” Lily said as she punched the gossiping knight, and then kept walking forward. “Just make way. I’m off to find this self-proclaimed empress and punch her in the face.”
“How dare you mock the Empress!”
When they heard the Empress’s name, the color returned to the knights’ faces and they took on serious expressions.
“Good. You’re taking this seriously now. But my job here hasn’t changed. Get in here!” Lily began to charge and the battle became a brawl.
Her power and brawling experience were overwhelming. The knights couldn’t even get near her as she approached the garrison door. Since there was nothing for her to help with, Fujiko called up a mana screen to see how her demon beasts were doing. What she saw frightened her. “Hurry. The enemy’s changed their plan!”
“What?”
“They’ve started to let citizens inside!”
“Huh?!” Even Lily didn’t know what to make of that.
“We’ll have to pull the demon beasts back. The Liradans are pulling closer and using civilians as shields!” Fujiko bit her lip.
“I’m sure you wouldn’t mind letting the civilians die, but Akuto Sai wouldn’t like that, I bet,” Lily said. “Which means you’re not going to just kill the civilians. Of course, if you did, I would’ve kicked your ass. It doesn’t matter either way, though. We just need to punch their boss’s lights out!”
The resistance after that was incredibly fierce. The remaining knights tried their hardest to keep Lily from making it inside, but Fujiko pulled back her demon beasts to battle them. Demon beasts swarmed the garrison, suffering tremendous casualties. But when the smaller ones made it inside by the sewer ducts, they were able to collapse the knight’s defenses.
“Using insects is so vulgar,” Lily said as she stepped over a fallen knight to get inside.
The knights had formed their shields into a tight wall that had blocked her punches, but the tiny insect-like demon beasts had gotten inside their armor and made the wall collapse.
“How dare you call something created by Akuto’s mana waves vulgar...” Fujiko said, and then reconsidered. “Actually, I don’t really like them myself...” She made shooing motions with her hands as she sent them further inside. The knights had no way to stop the bugs from getting inside their armor, and their resistance quickly collapsed.
“They certainly are making our lives easier, though. The power Akuto is lending us is spreading fear and despair to everyone around us.”
“...But it looks like it’s usefulness is about to end.”
The bugs were trying to go inside a certain door, only to run out from below the gap between it and the floor a moment later. There was a terrifying presence inside.
“We’ve already lost once. To be honest, I’m pretty scared,” Lily whispered.
“If it were me, I would run away. Or would you like to run away together?” Fujiko said jokingly, but her voice was shaking.
“Shaddup. I’ll go alone if I have to. Come on, let’s go!” Lily shouted, as if shaking off something, and slammed her fist into the door. “I came to say hello!” Lily knew that she was faking it, but still, she walked into the room with exaggerated motions.
“You came to have me crush you again?” said a voice from inside.
The room turned out to be the Knight Commander’s office. The furniture was imposing, but not elegant. It was clearly a place of work. Kazuko was sitting there on the sofa alone, quietly drinking tea and eating dried plums. But the sense of tension in the room wasn’t just Lily’s imagination.
“They just failed to seal Zero on the moon,” Kazuko said.
At first, she thought it was just a bluff, but when Fujiko looked at the information her demon beasts were sending in, she saw that the Liradans were still active. Zero was still al
ive.
“...She’s right. It’s long past the original mission completion time,” Fujiko whispered. According to the plan Akuto had given them before he left, they should’ve been long done by now.
“Who cares if that’s true? I’m here to kick your ass, and you’re right here,” Lily clenched her fists.
Kazuko didn’t even stand up. “Correct. But if I defeat you, there will be no one left to oppose my rule. The Demon King’s still on the moon, and he’s not coming back.”
“What...?” Lily’s face showed her confusion. Fujiko was too shocked to speak as well.
“Now, I’d rather not waste my time, but I’ll fight you. Otherwise, you’ll start destroying everything in frustration again.” Kazuko stayed seated as she began to summon her mana balls, the Yasakani-no-magatama, around her.
“We don’t have time to screw around. Let’s follow the plan,” Lily said to Fujiko.
Fujiko gave a start, and then nodded. “Akuto isn’t dead yet, of course. The demon beasts are still just fine...”
“Which means the two of them must still be fighting on the moon. Now it’s time to ring the gong,” Lily said as she jumped left.
In that instant, an evil light had appeared in Fujiko’s eyes as she flung several mana balls at Lily. “I’m afraid I’ll have to make the first move. I’m the type who gets upset if she doesn’t have the initiative.”
“I don’t like that self-righteousness!” Lily shouted as she slammed a fist into one of the mana balls. The balls were slow, but she needed to use her full power to knock them away.
“Tch...! This is the exact same thing that happened last time...” Lily muttered as she glanced at Fujiko, who nodded, then leapt to the other side and fired a mana ball at Kazuko.
Kazuko stood up to dodge, and then smiled at both of them. “You think it will go better for you if you attack me two on one? The whole point of the Yasakani-no-magatama is that they can fight multiple foes,” she said as she began to make the mana balls around her rapidly spin.
“Don’t be in such a rush. I’ll show you what’s changed,” Lily said as she finally knocked down the first mana balls and then got around to Kazuko’s left side.
Kazuko was watching with interest. There was a smile on her face as if she was curious to see what would come next.
—Kazuko was genetically altered in the womb, but was born a twin. That’s what’s ruined her mind. And that’s her weak spot.
Lily remembered the information she’d been given.
—When she sees someone who looks like her, she’ll focus her entire attention on it, and cease to pay attention to anything else...
Fujiko mentally repeated the same information to herself. There was a reason she’d been so cruel and bizarre when she killed 2V.
Lily and Fujiko gave each other the signal and moved at once. Lily ran to get behind Kazuko, and Fujiko ran towards her front.
“...I told you, I can deal with two people attacking me at once.” Kazuko’s mana balls began to move around as if they were living creatures with wills of their own. But...
“Bring out the images in the depths of memory...!”
Fujiko focused her concentration and used her black magic. It was a spell forbidden by law, that caused its target to see whatever you wanted them to see. What Fujiko showed her was an image of Kazuko herself. More specifically, she created a copy of Kazuko next to her, that matched every move Fujiko made.
“What...?” Kazuko eyes narrowed. Her smile disappeared and a look like madness came into her eyes. “Haaah!” she screamed and summoned a sword of light. It was the wrong spell to use here, as it was too destructive. The sword was pointed right towards the fake Kazuko.
“That’s all the opening I need!” Lily relaxed her right hand and let it fall open. Normally, she always balled her hands into fists. But now she let the fingers straighten out as she hardened them with mana. They began to shine with a piercing light.
“This isn’t a punch. This is a killing blow!” she screamed as her arm shot out.
Normally her arm shot out straight, but this time it was bending. The arm itself twisted like a screw, sending the fingers at its end rotating rapidly. They were moving at a deadly speed — if they hit, it would be fatal. This was a technique that wasn’t appropriate for a brawler like Lily.
The rapidly spinning arm slipped past the balls defending Kazuko, and headed right for her exposed back. Kazuko’s full attention was on her target in front of her, and she wasn’t focusing on her back at all.
“We’ve won...!” Fujiko jumped back to avoid the overwhelming power of the sword of light, and grinned.
“Woooryaaah!” Lily spun the arm faster, and put enough magical power into it to turn an ordinary person into mincemeat.
But just as the fingers were about to touch her back, Kazuko’s expression suddenly changed. “Fooled you.” She smiled and dispelled the mana-intensive sword, then dodged Lily’s attack with a spin and slammed a mana ball into her arm, knocking it aside.
“Impossible...!”
“No...!”
The two of them fell silent.
“Haha... It was a good idea.” Kazuko smiled.
“So that was an act?” Fujiko asked.
Kazuko shook her head. “No. It’s true that I lose control whenever I see my own face. That’s why I always smile. So that even if I happen to see myself in a mirror, I won’t try to destroy it,”
“Then why...?” Lily whispered.
Kazuko still smiled. “Hahahaha! The thing is, once I killed my dirty little sister, I started to calm down a little. Experience is important, no matter what it is you’re doing. If you stay in your room all day you never learn anything.”
“You bitch...” Lily grit her teeth. Meanwhile, Fujiko was getting ready to run.
Kazuko gave a sweet little cough, and then fired her mana balls. Lily blocked with her fists, but one of them moved in front of Fujiko and knocked her back into the room.
“It’s time for your punishment.” Kazuko sat back on the sofa with an elegant flourish, and increased the number of mana balls she used to attack Lily and Kazuko.
“D-Damn it...!”
“I-I can’t die here...”
Lily resisted, but just like before, the mana balls were too powerful. She was struck again and again until she fell to her knees. The strikes continued mercilessly, blasting her again and again until she could barely keep herself up.
Fujiko was already writhing in pain after the first strike. She was motionless except for the occasional twitch as the attacks continued.
“Nobody’s going to bother us now, so I’m going to keep this up until you die,” Kazuko said calmly and coldly.
Kazuko had made her own plan, confident in her overwhelming power. She’d wanted to lure out Lily and Fujiko, and she’d succeeded. But once again, she was interrupted.
Kazuko turned to look at the door. Standing there was Hiroshi, no... Brave, wearing his suit. “Why are you here?”
“Stop it! Let them both go!” Brave shouted.
Kazuko’s smile only deepened. “Oh, you think you can tell me what to do? I can see your suit’s almost out of energy. I have the VPS fields deployed here. You saw them. That’s why you didn’t join the attack, correct?” The mana attacks grew more violent.
Brave walked forward. His energy was gone; he could maintain life support, but he couldn’t fight. “Stop... please.” He lowered his head.
The nature of Kazuko’s smile changed. “So now you’re making requests?” she said contemptuously.
—Idiot... I told you to stay out of this...
Lily’s mind began to fade. She remembered when Hiroshi had come to talk to her before the mission. He’d been upset about the fact that he could only fight with a power he’d borrowed from others.
“Am I going to be kept out of the fight because of the VPS fields again?”
“There’s nothing we can do about it. It’s a weak point of the suit. It’d be great if you could
fight without the suit, but you’ve never been in a real battle without it.”
“Then I’m totally useless on my own?”
“That’s not what I said. But you’re used to fighting with a power somebody else gave you. When you’re fighting as Brave, everything you do is only possible because of something you borrowed from someone else. If you don’t become a hero on your own, there’s no point.”
“But I’m not... I can’t... I’m weak. I’m pathetic.”
“Even if you’re weak, or pathetic, if you’re fighting to protect somebody and you’re not doing anything wrong, you’re a hero. Well, just try and think if there’s anything you can do. See if there’s a way you can protect her without your suit.”
—And this is Hiroshi’s answer, huh?
Lily felt her chest tighten up.
Brave had gotten on his knees in front of Kazuko. “Please. Don’t kill them.” He was pressing his head into the floor and begging.
“Oh my... Are you counting on my generosity? The only time you can make a request of an empress without a gift is in fairy tales.” Kazuko laughed.
Brave continued to speak without lifting his head. “Of course, I’ll serve Your Highness the rest of my life. I’ll put an end to what’s going on here. The demon beasts have lost control. I will hunt them and then make a speech to the crowd.”
“And in exchange, you want me to let them live? But you know, they’re still going to jail.”
“I understand that. But I still beg for your mercy.”
“I see. Then prove it. First, destroy the demon beasts, and then make the speech that I was going to make for me,” she ordered, and then waved her hand to tell him to leave. The mana balls stopped. When he saw this, Brave stood up.
“You... idiot...” Lily looked up at him with blackened eyes and moaned in pain.
Hiroshi’s actions were indeed courageous. If the rebellion didn’t die here, there was still hope. There was still a chance that Akuto and the others would be able to do something. And even if they failed, if he pretended to be loyal to Kazuko, he’d have more chances to save people in the future.
—So that’s how he’s going to be a hero, huh?
Demon King Daimaou: Volume 9 Page 10
