Editing Failing Witch:Volume2 Episode4 (section)

===Part 21===

Yagoro and Flamberg rushed toward each other, baton and broom crashed together, and then they even slammed foreheads together.

They stomped on each other’s feet, grabbed at hair, and bit at the backs of hands.

Red splattered out.

Their sense of pain had long since vanished.

Their gazes collided and Yagoro understood that Flamberg was thinking the exact same thing as him

''I want to win even if it means fighting dirty.

''This is the one person I absolutely refuse to lose to.

(Heh. You never know what life has in store for you, don’tcha think? I thought the Force’s martial arts training was meaningless for an astronaut, but it does come in handy at times!!)

Flamberg’s lips moved as they locked weapons at extreme close range.

But she was not reciting an incantation.

“Falling through that net wouldn’t have negated the damage of the fall, so how can you get back up? How!?”

Myousou Yagoro grinned, giving a clear view of his bloody teeth.

“This isn’t my first time falling. My pain is my own. If clenching my teeth and enduring the pain will save my student, then that’s what I’ll do.”

“…”

“Don’t underestimate a tutoring contract. It might only be a small part of a long life, but they’ve entrusted me with their precious time. I said it’s a contract, remember? Did you really think I’d break it over a little thing like preserving my own life?”

Flamberg’s knee sank into the center of Yagoro’s gut.

Just as the breath left him, she poured more strength into her broom and swept the tutor boy down onto the bridge.

“But it is all meaningless.”

The instructor used her other hand’s index finger to point at the sky filled with unnatural purple.

“Billions of Dracae fill the sky. I have taken all freedom away from Temple School City. Maleficium exists at the center of the vast lake and it can only be reached with a witch’s broom. The labyrinthine city is one thing, but anything flying even directly on the lake’s surface will be detected and attacked.”

“So no matter what revolutionary theories and inventions Maleficium comes up with, none of it can ever leave the school?”

“Nor can they receive supplies like food and fuel. What exam student will want to starve to death on an isolated island? And even if some of them are suicidal, who can slip past the Dracae to reach Maleficium? Their foolish dreams end here. The 99.9999% failure rate is a thing of the past. This will save 100% of those girls.”

Maybe so.

If the Dracae could really blockade the sky and prevent anyone from using their brooms.

“''But is that really true''?”

“?”

Something crumbled away.

An unnatural gap appeared in the purple sky. First just the one, but then more and more appeared until the entire Dracae swarm vanished.

“The Dracae…?”

“I knew I could believe in her,” said a voice.

It came from Yagoro who could no longer get up under his own power.

“The kid I taught can solve this Dracae problem without my help. She’ll realize she only needs to destroy all the lances. And because I believed in her, I left the core of the problem with her. I wasn’t even worried.”

“…”

“What, did you think this was a battle between Navigate Exam and Wedding Exam?”

This was why he had put himself in harm’s way.

To ensure Flamberg wouldn’t target Viocia and her friends. It was a tutor’s job to give them the support they needed to solve the problem.

In other words…

“This is the city of girls who were blocked by the wall of 99.9999% failure but still couldn’t give up on their dreams. I’m not the star of the show who saves Temple School City from its crisis. That should’ve been obvious.”

“Kh!?”

Wedding Exam displayed concern she hadn’t before.

But instead of her own plans being foiled, she may have been more afraid for the hopeful witches gaining the knowledge and skills needed to reach Maleficium.

“You couldn’t trust in your student’s strength, so you never could have imagined this happening.”

Unflappable Flamberg’s face now crumpled up like a child on the verge of tears.

“I achieved this victory with them by actually trusting my student to the end.”

If this was such a shock to her – if she was still capable of envying another teacher’s relationship with their student – then she might still carry the possibility of taking a second shot at being a teacher.

“Then.” Flamberg Wyrd bit her lip hard and glared at him with bloodshot eyes. “That victory of yours only lasts until I regain control of the familiars. I will once more pierce the lances into the enemy base of Temple School City, imbue them with the appropriate curse, and reclaim my army of Dracae! That will be enough to shatter those girls’ mistaken dreams and save every last one of them!!”

“You dumbass.”

Yagoro still couldn’t get up, but he once more grabbed his baton in a bloody hand.

He could still fight.

He put together the Three Aspects in his head.

Simply defeating her wasn’t enough.

As a tutor, his job was to save his student.

So…

“Trust isn’t a one-way street. When someone trusts in you, you’ve gotta live up to that trust!!”

“You think you are a match for me when you are so badly injured you cannot even stand up? My magic focuses on all the horrific passages from the ATU stories, so crushing and eliminating a single person is a simple task for-”

Flamberg stopped speaking and wobbled to the side.

Her couldn’t even hold her shoulders straight.

She had, after all, been hit by a divine strike and crashed. Even if she cushioned the impact of the fall with defense magic, she had to be torn up on the inside. Since Yagoro had in fact collapsed and could no longer move, it was a miracle the instructor was still on her feet.

Still, she could probably do it.

Her hands were shaking, her tongue refused to cooperate, and she couldn’t use any real magic, but she would settle this even if it meant clawing and biting her target.

There was no happiness at Maleficium, so she would protect the girls’ smiles by ensuring they failed the exam. That was her only objective as she defiled herself and chose to leave the humane path.

(But that won’t work. You can’t let your own feelings influence you to the point you judge things based ''only'' on right and wrong.)

So.

Myousou Yagoro grabbed his baton.

(Don’t become a wicked witch. If you could have kept to that basic principle, you never would have mistakenly thought you had to defile yourself to do the right thing.)

But instead of the grip, he held it tight at the middle.

And he rotated his wrist as if bring it down on its side.

“?”

Flamberg Wyrd had become the wolf, but she hadn’t noticed that was the symbol of the bow built into the gauntlet. That is, the crossbow.

So he was ever-so-slightly faster.

“ATU 0333, Red Riding Hood.”

This was likely the true final attack.

He used his battered body to draw the nonexistent bow before reciting an incantation.

“I call on the hunter! If the wolf is defeated by human hands, then even the greatest tragedy can be stopped and the devoured girl and grandmother can be saved ''entirely unscathed''!!”

Something invisible shot through the air.

The impact soared toward her head.

Like a beast shot between the eyes, Witch Flamberg dropped straight down.