Archangel of Savage Light

by Reki Kawahara

  “Dammit.” Cursing, Niko tried desperately to rally, but the vehicle tilted farther and farther to one side with each breath, leaving Haruyuki and the others on the roof unable to stand and scrambling to grab hold of the armor plates. If the trailer fell onto its side, more than a few would get pulled in and take some fairly serious damage.

  Niko was probably thinking the same thing. From the speakers came a regretful voice. “It’s no use. I’m gonna send it back for now! Everyone, get ready to jump off! …Enhanced Armament, release!!”

  Simultaneous with the voice command, the trailer, on the verge of toppling over sideways, started to break apart. It hadn’t been destroyed, but rather returned to storage on Niko’s orders. The ease of bringing it in and out was a significant advantage of Enhanced Armaments, but once it was released, it couldn’t be summoned again until a cooldown time set for each armament had passed.

  The disassembled laser guns and missile pods and all the other parts faded and disappeared, melting into the air. The team members on top lost their foothold and Niko was ejected from the cockpit, all of them thrown onto the steel bridge’s surface.

  “Aaaah!” —Chiyuri.

  “Whoa!” —Takumu.

  Haruyuki instantly deployed his wings. He scooped up Lime Bell with his right hand and Cyan Pile with his left before carefully decelerating in midair and setting them down on the road surface. The others managed to land without difficulty or damage on their own. The deft grace displayed by even Utai, a total long-distance type, was no doubt because of her experience with Fuko throwing her mercilessly through the air.

  The commander of the mission, Kuroyukihime, had no sooner confirmed they were all okay than she was shouting in a stifled voice, “Raker, go! I’ll hold things down here!”

  “Understood. I’ll leave this to you then.” As if pushing back a momentary hesitation, Fuko nodded and jumped into the wheelchair she had summoned at some point. The silver wheels glittered faintly, and then her elegant Enhanced Armament set off like a rocket toward the altar a hundred meters ahead. Her speed—accelerating using Incarnate—far surpassed normal running. The tracks left on the surface of the bridge burned red, thin trails of smoke rising up.

  In the previous mission, Sky Raker’s role had been to catapult Haruyuki, but this time, she was charged with rescuing Aqua Current on her own.

  Master, we’re counting on you! Haruyuki shouted in his mind as he took just a moment to watch the wheelchair race off. Up ahead, Current had already stepped down from the altar and broken into a run. Only a few seconds before they made contact.

  Then.

  Haruyuki heard a sonorous voice directly in the center of his mind. Or he felt like he did anyway.

  —Tiny transient creatures.

  —For what purpose do you disturb my sleep?

  Reflexively, he flung his head back. His eyes were drawn to those of the Super-class Enemy cruising through the sky—almost covering it—glittering like sapphires. For a moment, he braced himself, thinking that attack was finally coming, but he was wrong.

  A cold halo gushed forth from the eyes of the massive dragon, in which he could feel an unfathomable intelligence and will.

  Suddenly, Haruyuki’s entire body stiffened—no, froze. A snowy-white frost fell onto Silver Crow’s metallic armor, and he could no longer move even a fingertip, much less his wings. Panicking, he flicked his eyes from side to side, but the others were similarly frozen.

  He didn’t have to think back to the strategy meeting; this was a completely unknown attack. He had been aware their advance information wouldn’t necessarily cover all of Seiryu’s abilities, but it was entirely unexpected that they would get hit with such a powerful technique to hinder movement. Not only could Haruyuki not move, he couldn’t even speak—meaning it was impossible to break the ice with a special attack. And the frost cage showed no sign of shattering, no matter how much he pushed against it.

  Above them, Seiryu barely bothered to give its new ice sculptures a cool glance before it turned its head, as if having lost interest. Turned—toward the west side of the bridge and the altar there.

  Looking as far to the side as he possibly could without shifting his head, he saw the figures of Fuko and Akira about to touch hands. In their plan, once Sky Raker had recovered Aqua Current, she would use Gale Thruster and escape to the sky. She would then ascend to an altitude of three hundred meters, near her flight maximum, overtake Seiryu, and land on the other side of the bridge.

  But that strategy was possible only as long as the attack team continued to draw Seiryu’s fire. Recharging Gale Thruster’s energy gauge took a long time, so if they were beat back shortly after taking off, it wouldn’t just be Akira; Fuko would also end up in Unlimited EK on the far side of the bridge.

  Almost as though tracing Haruyuki’s fretful line of thinking, Seiryu open its jaw wide.

  The Water Breath attack. If they took a direct hit from those super-high-pressure water jets—essentially diamond needles—Raker with her thin armor, and probably Current as well, would not be able to avoid instant death.

  …I will not let you do that!!

  Once more, a shout echoed in the back of his mind. But this time, it was not the Enemy, but rather the intense willpower of Utai Shinomiya—Ardor Maiden, shrine keeper of the conflagration—shooting forth.

  A ring of red flames expanded out from her body to envelop them all. The fierce heat instantly melted the frost that bound their avatars. An Incarnate technique—wait, no, not a technique. The overlay from the manifestation of a powerful imagination had itself turned into flames.

  Naturally, a fine tuning of that temperature seemed impossible, and at the same time as they melted the frost, the flames sliced away a tiny bit of Haruyuki’s health gauge. But he forgot both the heat and the pain. Freed from his icy state, Haruyuki thrust his right hand into the air with all his might.

  “Laser Lance!!”

  “Radiant Beat!!” Niko’s voice rang out at exactly the same time.

  The lance of light from Haruyuki’s right hand and the fist of fire from Niko’s shot upward, striking Seiryu’s lower jaw while it was just about to shoot its Water Breath. The damage they did was paltry, but they succeeded in closing its mouth with the impact, just barely interrupting the attack. White water vapor spurted out from the gaps between fangs clamped forcibly together.

  And then a pale-blue light flashed ferociously right in front of the altar:

  The firing of the boosters.

  Aqua Current in her arms, Sky Raker ascended, carving out a brilliant arc in the night sky. With an intense acceleration befitting her nickname of ICBM, they immediately plunged through the black clouds of the Century End stage and dyed them blue for an instant before disappearing.

  “…All right!” Haruyuki quietly cried out, clenching his right hand into a fist.

  Although they had been in danger several times already, this was an infinitely smoother rescue than Ardor Maiden’s had been. But given the team they were fighting with, Haruyuki could say that the success of the first half of the mission was a foregone conclusion. The problems started now—Whether or not Fuko and Akira could safely escape to the other side of the bridge while the rest on the ground occupied Seiryu’s attention. It would all be for nothing if they came out of this with another person sealed away while they were pulling out.

  “Good! Everyone! Fall back!”

  At Kuroyukihime’s instruction, the group started running to the east, all the while keeping the Enemy overhead in their field of view. Despite the fact that they had so far defended against the God Seiryu’s specialized attacks three times, it still silently twisted its long body above them, maintaining its hate at a fixed value. Or so it looked.

  …Is it letting us get away? Maybe the Four Gods have personality differences…Fiery Suzaku was easily angered, but watery Seiryu is surprisingly calm…Or something?

  This thought suddenly popped up in Haruyuki’s mind as he ran.

  It
was immediately after this that he heard once more what seemed to be the Enemy’s voice. A voice that was quiet like the calm surface of a pool, reminiscent of a woman somehow, and cold like the polar regions.

  —I tire of this sport.

  —Small ones, may you fall into a long sleep in our garden.

  The God pulled its long tail back as forcefully as it did when it knocked the armored truck over. But Haruyuki and his friends had already put more than twenty meters between themselves and the Enemy. No matter how he looked at it, they weren’t close enough to be hit by a direct physical attack.

  The tail was brought down so quickly, it blurred, and what it hit was not the seven Burst Linkers, but rather the iron bridge itself. Gwaaaan! The howl of the impact roared through the air, and the hard plates of the bridge heaved and surged. The shock wave rippling outward instantly swallowed up the running Burst Linkers and made even the hovering Kuroyukihime stagger.

  No one fell, but for about half a second, they were all immobile, stunned. Not letting this chance slip away, Seiryu’s horns glittered brilliantly, calling up ominous sparks in the black clouds above.

  “Ngh…” Takumu intently braced both legs and threw his upper body back. But an instant before the missiles that served as lightning rods could be launched, several streaks of the accumulating electrical energy turned into purple lightning and shot out of the sky.

  —No!

  Reacting instinctively, Haruyuki vibrated the wings on his back with everything he had. They had to at least prevent everyone there from being struck by lightning. While Seiryu’s specialized attack Thunder Blast did do damage, it also contained a de-buff that caused the entire body to go numb; a direct hit rendered the target unable to move for a period of time. According to their plan, Cyan Pile’s Splash Stinger was supposed to knock the lightning off course, but if their luck was bad and someone did take a direct hit, then the others were to pick up the slack until that person recovered. But if they were all paralyzed, then of course that wouldn’t work. In the worst case, they might even all be wiped out in the next attack.

  —Better just me than that!

  With his wings, Silver Crow was the only one who could jump after being thrown off-balance by the shock wave. Mustering all the propulsive force he could to take off, he threw both hands out, and the five bolts of lightning shooting down from the sky were all drawn to Crow’s metallic armor.

  “Ngah!”

  The instant the bolts struck his body, a pure shock that went beyond the sensations of heat or pain pierced Haruyuki’s consciousness. The world was dyed solid white, and he could no longer see the stage or the Enemy. All that existed within his field of view was his own health gauge. It had been basically full, but it was now dropping with alarming speed. Given that his armor was silver, the most conductive of the metals, Crow had always been weak to electrical attacks, but even allowing for that, the force with which his gauge was decreasing was impossible. No, this was on the level of instant death damage—

  “Citron Caaaaaall!!”

  From off in the distance, he just barely heard the resolute voice of his childhood friend. Glittering green particles danced through his vision and burned white. The steep drop in his health gauge slowed and stopped just barely before it disappeared completely. Then it jumped back up to the right, and he returned to the state he’d been in before being hit with the lightning bolts. Lime Bell’s special attack, Citron Call Mode I, had rewound Silver Crow’s status a few seconds and healed the damage—or rather, made it as though it had never happened.

  He’d avoided sudden death, but that didn’t take away the stunning shock of the lightning, and Haruyuki dropped out of the sky, white smoke trailing from his entire body. Cyan Pile’s sturdy arms caught him and grabbed hold tightly. The bolts of lightning Haruyuki hadn’t been able to completely draw into him had apparently all missed the mark.

  “Pile!” It was, of course, Black Lotus yelling. “Keep running! Everyone else, cover Pile!”

  Doing as he was told, Takumu started to run, still with Haruyuki in his arms. Blue eye lenses shone ruefully on the other side of the face mask in front of Haruyuki. “Sorry, Haru. I was supposed to be taking care of the lightning.”

  “It’s…oka…not so ba…” Haruyuki somehow managed to make his numb mouth move.

  Then, in the sky above, Seiryu lurched forward. Chasing after the seven Burst Linkers, it raised its tail up high once more. It was going for another hit with the attack-plus-shockwave combo.

  “As if we would fall for the same trick twice!” Kuroyukihime’s voice was uncompromising.

  Haruyuki hurriedly lifted his head, wondering what she was planning to do. He saw her plunge the tip of her right leg into the bridge as a pivot to whirl around and charge at Seiryu behind them.

  “Y…you can’t, Kuroyukihime!” Haruyuki cried, finally able to move his mouth again, and jumped out of Takumu’s arms without thinking. Staggering, he spread his wings and was on the verge of taking off when a small palm stopped him.

  “Trust her,” Niko murmured. “She’s your parent.”

  With no choice, he put a halt to his flight and followed the dashing path of the Black King with his eyes. Ahead of her, the tail of Seiryu high in the air disappeared, leaving a blue afterimage.

  The blow, moving so swiftly it couldn’t be seen, would knock her feet out from under her, and that was if she managed to avoid it. And even if she did defend against it, the Green King himself would have been hard-pressed to take a blow from this tail unscathed when it was so powerful that it flipped Niko’s tank with one hit.

  But Kuroyukihime spread out the swords of both arms boldly toward the tail closing in on her, so fast that it couldn’t be seen.

  Haruyuki gritted his teeth, fully expecting the slender, black-crystal avatar to be blown away like a doll.

  Kuroyukihime wrapped both her swords around the tail, almost as if to hug it gently—even though that tail concealed so much power it could have been called the ultimate physical attack.

  —Death by Embracing!

  Klink! A beam of light flashed, and all sound disappeared from the world. Haruyuki silently watched the slow-motion replay as the giant whip that should have shattered the Black King slipped right through her.

  No, that wasn’t it…Black Lotus’s Terminate Sword had cut Seiryu’s lapis lazuli scale-covered tail clean in two, about a meter from the end. This was the insta-kill technique Lotus had once turned on the level-nine Red Rider, the first Red King, to push him to total point loss with a single blow. It was the technique that backed up her nickname of World End.

  As the tip of the tail fell to the ground, a blue pillar of water shot up into the sky and scattered.

  Here, at last, Seiryu exploded with an angry roar. Writhing in the sky, it dug at the air with the claws on its four limbs. Perhaps in response to the God’s quaking rage, the cloudy sky was filled with the rumbling of thunder.

  Having succeeded in taking out the tail shock-wave attack, Kuroyukihime whirled around and dashed toward Haruyuki and the others, shouting, “The tail will regenerate soon! We have to get to the other side of the bridge before it does!!”

  Haruyuki had already whirled around and started to run by the time her voice reached them. It was still another three hundred meters to the border between the iron of the bridge and the ground’s asphalt. In a normal duel, he would have been on the other side before he even knew it, but in this situation, the distance seemed ten times that long.

  If Silver Crow flew with two people in his arms and Blood Leopard ran with someone on her back, they could increase the speed of their retreat, but that was a last resort. They had to save Crow’s special-attack gauge to deal with Seiryu’s most powerful and brutal attack.

  Kuroyukihime joined them again soon enough, and the seven ran as a single group once more. The heavyweight-type Cyan Pile was using a technique to accelerate by shooting the pile of his right hand at the ground in order to keep up with them all.


  Even without turning around, Haruyuki knew by the sensation of the air around them that the massive angry dragon was hot on their heels in pursuit. Most likely, it would get one more major attack in. If they could make it through that, they’d be able to get to the other side of the bridge.

  Now that they didn’t have to worry about the tail’s shock-wave attack anymore, Takumu would definitely be able to block Thunder Blast. And Utai’s Incarnate flames had melted the unknown freezing attack. If Niko summoned her Enhanced Armament again, that should defend them from Water Breath if that was what was coming next. The problem was…

  —Our wound shall be healed with your lamentations.

  —Sacrifice your many glories to us.

  The voice reverberated deeply inside his mind. Holding his breath, Haruyuki looked back over his shoulder and saw it.

  Seiryu’s front leg was held high, a black sphere growing in the center of the four talons. Semitransparent, the object wobbled and swayed into an irregular shape, like a heavy liquid pushed into a sphere by some minuscule source of gravity. Purple sparks flickered and crawled across the smooth surface.

  “Here it comes!!” Kuroyukihime shouted, her voice tense. “Level Drain!!”

  Seiryu was finally activating it. Of the God’s great many specialized attacks, this one was enormously powerful and perhaps its most brutal. A divine blow that beat down the former level-seven high ranker Aqua Current to level one in a single battle.

  Haruyuki took a deep breath and pushed back his fear. “Leave it to me!” he shouted. “You guys keep running!” He spread the silver wings on his back and kicked hard against the bridge surface to take off. As he flipped around to face Seiryu once he had gained a little altitude, he heard voices coming at him from behind:

  “Haru, be careful!” Chiyuri cried.

  “Don’t go flying in the wrong direction!” Niko warned.

  He gave a thumbs-up in response and then cleared his mind.

  The jet-black sphere was launched with a wet pop from the Enemy’s talons. The ball flew along slowly at first, but the instant it caught Haruyuki in its sights, it accelerated rapidly and came charging at him.