Editing Shinmai Maou no Keiyakusha:Volume 7 Chapter 3 (section)

===Part 5===
Upon the stage, the next representatives of the Moderates faction and Current Demon Lord faction faced each other.

“So my opponent is you huh…”

“That seems to be the case, please go easy on me.”

Naruse Maria looked at the flippant youth with relaxed shoulders in front of her without hesitation. —The Moderates faction could be further divided into two major factions, one of them was Ramsas’ faction which hoped that Mio would relinquish Wilbert’s power, whereas the other side was Klaus’ faction which hoped to use Mio to revive the Moderates faction as the new Demon Lord faction. Maria and her sister Lucia both belonged to Ramsas’ faction, and at first they did not know that Klaus was harbouring Takigawa — Lars. Of course, in terms of the nature of his secret task of infiltrating the Current Demon Lord faction, although Maria was Mio’s bodyguard, she was still only a front-line combatant, and naturally didn’t know about Lars’ existence; as for those who knew the truth about the situation such as the leader Ramsas and other high-ranked members like Lucia, they did not communicate this information to Maria, a sign that they didn’t think it was needed. Hence, Maria did not feel deceived, and because Lars had cooperated with Basara during the incident with Zolgear to rescue the imprisoned Sheera, she actually felt grateful towards him.

''…But.''

Since she was now facing him with the identity of an enemy, those things would have to be a separate matter. After Lars dealt with Zolgear’s matter and returned to the Demon Realm, it seemed as if he had cut off his ties with the Moderates faction; the next time that he reappeared was after the spirits had attacked Wildart city, to rescue Gardo, who had been captured by the Moderates faction, hence there was no room for any excuses. Yet, Maria still wanted to ask

“Did you betray our Moderates faction, and turn over to the Current Demon Lord faction because you have fulfilled your revenge against Zolgear?”

Noel, who had grown up together with Lars had once told Maria about her feelings for Lars, and that there had to be a reason for his move to the Current Demon Lord faction. After Maria asked that question in the place of Noel in order to dispel her doubts—

“Hey hey hey, what’s the point of asking such a question at this point? If I told you that ‘I have my reasons’, will you go a bit easier on me? It’d be great if you could do that, as it’d help me save a lot of energy.”

“………”

Lars shrugged his shoulders as he said this, leaving Maria speechless. It was entirely within expectations. Since the youth standing before her had elected to assist the Current Demon Lord faction in this final showdown, it was clear that he was an enemy. Although Maria was able to understand Noel’s concerns for a friend, her support for Mio was more important than that. —So, Maria clenched her right fist, and the stage began to change at the same time. The location chosen for Maria and Lars — was a forest at night time, moreover—

“Isn’t this…”

“…So it’s here.”

The familiar scenery caused Maria and Lars to murmur at the same time. The place that they had come to was where Basara, Mio, and Yuki had once gotten entangled in a desperate battle. This was the forest in the local public park that was close to the Toujou household. Back then, Maria and the others struggled to finally defeat Lars in a four-on-one confrontation, but they were actually deceived by Lars, because he had already escaped some time ago.

''…I see, so they want us to reiterate that situation.''

Thus, Maria jumped and stretched lightly as she took a deep breath, while Lars remained at ease. When the ring of the gong echoed out to signify the start of the duel — both sides began to move at the same time.

Unlike Mio who pulled away right at the beginning, Maria took on a strategy that was the complete opposite. She approached her enemy with an incredible speed. Based on both of their fighting styles, this was the natural choice. Maria was a power-based melee warrior, so being at a close distance naturally meant that she would be able to make use of her potential; compared to Lars, who was able to manipulate dark spheres of magic, the further the distance was between them, the more disadvantageous the situation would be for Maria. —What was most troublesome was the fact that Lars was able to freely control the quantity, power, size and speed of his dark spheres. Within the range of his magic, he was probably able to control the power and size of his dark spheres, possibly even splitting them. They were capable of both offense and defence, making him highly versatile. However, there was still a way to take away the advantage of Lars’ ability — and that was by shortening their distance. Simply by charging towards his chest, he would not be able to attack freely, and there would also be a danger to himself. Simply put, the method that Basara used to repel him last time was the best solution to dealing with Lars.

—Get as close as possible to him, and then hit him with surprise.

After she became certain of that idea, Naruse Maria put it into practice. Upon seeing her low stance as she rushed towards him—

“—I guess this isn’t very surprising.”

Lars manifested a countless number of dark spheres, and sent them flying towards Maria all at the same time. The barrage meant to delay Maria almost instantaneously moved closer.

“——!”

Maria constantly weaved through the forest in an irregular manner, using the branches as natural cover. She continued moving towards Lars without decreasing her speed, and in the moment that she came within five meters of attacking range, she pounced towards Lars.

“Jumping at a time like this…be careful not to jump into a dead-end, okay?”

Seeing Maria in mid-air with her fist raised, Lars jumped backwards; at the same time as that, he generated a giant dark sphere between them to act as a shield, obscuring her field of view. Stuck in a leap towards that location, Maria was unable to evade; but if she attacked it with her fist, it would definitely result in a large explosion that could blow herself away, and using the swing of her fist to generate a ‘soft strike’ with its shockwave was also unsuitable. Since she was unable to stop or turn back whilst in mid-air, she had no choice but to plunge herself into the range of the explosion. Even so, Maria’s expression remained calm. Just as Lars expected Maria to actively shorten their distance, Maria also understood that Lars would use such attacks. He used a countless number of dark spheres in a volley to delay her movements — even with her premature take-off, he had set up a trap for Maria, but all of this was within expectations. So, Maria thrust out her right fist —

“Yaaaaahhhhhh—!”

But she did not go all the way, she stopped roughly halfway — as if the air was her goal. In the next instant, the air that was compressed burst out in different directions with a shockwave, striking the large dark sphere that Lars was controlling, resulting in an enormous explosion that blew all of the surrounding trees away. But in actuality, the only things affected were the trees to the left and right of the sphere. The shockwaves combined to form a barrier of air, which allowed Maria to resist the impact of the explosion. —That was the technique that had previously been used by that burly demon against her. As the same kind of power-type demon, Maria had also studied it, and practised to turn it into this as a secret weapon.

“Don’t try to run—!”

Maria immediately charged towards the other side of the explosion, where she found Lars standing before her, and so she immediately stretched her leg back, and mercilessly swung her leg towards Lars with a spinning kick. Her target was the right side of his head. Her right foot impacted him with a solid blow.

“……I didn’t imagine that you would use Valga’s technique.”

But, the voice that Maria heard from him remained calm. Lars had simply raised his right arm, and generated a dark sphere on the back of his forearm to block her kick. When she fought against him in the past, Maria’s punch had once broken through his defences, but that was because Lars had been careless. Maria had already grown stronger due to the activities of Basara and the others yesterday, she had absorbed a lot of excitement and pleasure to increase her own power, yet she was still unable to break through Lars’ defences; there was only one reason for this. Lars’ true power was still greater than Maria’s.

“Haah!”

Maria used her right leg as a fulcrum to bend down, and then swept her left heel up to strike against Lars’ jaw.

“—Oh?”

All Lars had to do was move his body slightly to evade this kick. —However, her response time in a melee battle would definitely not be any slower than his. Maria once again used her right leg to hook onto Lars’ right arm, using the strength of her lower body to forcibly pull him down and grab his shoulders, ready to thrust out with a single punch…but—

“!——?”

Maria had temporarily jumped towards his back from above — and at the same time, Lars’ dark spheres moved to a position that was below her original position.

''…He’s actually attacking from this kind of a distance…!''

Maria could not help but curse the oversight of her own thoughts. So long as there was a slight gap, Lars was able to put up a barrier, ensuring that he himself would not be affected by the explosion of the spheres. Maria’s continuous assault of blows had to go on, otherwise it would give Lars the opportunity to defend or counterattack. The last time, it was Maria’s surprise attack which had given Basara the chance to utilise his speed, and a flurry of slashes to repel him; but Maria had no one to rely on right now, so such ideas would be difficult to accomplish.

“Is this okay? —Why did you pull away from the shortened distance that you tried so hard to establish?”

Lars got up and dusted off his clothes as he said so, and at the same time — Maria paid the price for inadvertently letting the distance between them grow. Numerous dark spheres appeared in the air to surround Maria, and soared towards her simultaneously. Originally, if they were approaching Maria, or had already come close to Maria’s back, she would be able to evade them and Lars would be able to defend or evade if facing the correct direction. Maria was currently behind Lars, so such a problem did not exist. And even if Maria used Valga’s move to attack, such a technique could only be blocked from the front, it couldn’t be defended against from the back or the sides. However—

“——!”

Maria punched with her right fist — towards where her own feet were.

Lars clearly saw Maria’s right fist strike the surface of the ground. At the same time, the area of the ground that she had struck offset large amounts of rocks and gravel. —Put simply, debris alone was unable to defend against Lars’ black spheres. However, she stopped her fist just at the very instant that it touched the ground, generating a shockwave which hit the ground and rebounded with debris flying up, causing that rock and gravel to perfectly cover Maria — finally succeeding in blocking Lars’ black spheres.

''…But.''

During this time, Lars’ wasn’t simply standing in a daze, he further widened the distance between them. He took into account their respective abilities, speed and fighting styles; it was a safe distance that was enough for Lars to attack Maria unilaterally whilst remaining outside of her attack range. Just as he was about to make his move whilst he had this advantage, he noticed that the debris surrounding Maria had dispersed along with a burst of pink radiance from the inside. Looking closely, there seemed to be an object resembling a key inserted into the chest of Maria who was floating in mid-air.

“Hmm…”

That key appeared to be rotating in Maria’s sweetly heaving chest, and then made a crisp ‘click’ sound as if something had been unlocked — at the same time, a rose-coloured light enshrouded Maria’s entire body. Lars knew very well what had just happened before his eyes, hence—

“Hey hey…did you seriously think I would be so foolish to allow you to finish that transformation?”

After saying that with a tone of ridicule, Lars unleashed a merciless attack. An enormous dark sphere suddenly appeared over Maria’s head, and then crashed downwards almost as suddenly as it had appeared. Facing Lars’ full-powered attack, Maria simply replied with a leisurely tone

“Of course…this is the perfect countermeasure for those with shallow thoughts.”

In the next instant, as soon as Lars’ black sphere touched the rose-coloured aura surrounding Maria, it shattered into tiny fragments, and then vanished without a trace.

“How could…?”

Seeing this, Lars couldn’t help being startled. And now, Maria had already turned into a beautiful mature succubus.

“—Hoho.”

And right after revealing a soft smile — her figure suddenly vanished. Lars reflexively erected a barrier in front of himself. There was currently sufficient distance, and time to defend—

“Gaaahhh——!”

But in the next instant, Lars was struck with an intense impact, and was immediately sent flying. It was Maria’s fist that had relentlessly bored through Lars’ barrier with no regard, and landed directly onto his body.

After Maria’s punch landed a direct hit on Lars, she immediately started pursuing. Since Lars was unable to react to such a speed, and couldn’t defend against that attack—

''…This will be the final attack.''

Maria sped up and continued forth as she said this to herself. After being pushed away, Lars tumbled across the ground several times, and he only stopped when his back landed against the trunk of a large tree. Maria quickly closed in on him, and leaned her body forward to prepare for a straight left punch at the closest possible distance.

“Hm…!”

But Lars moved sideways and quickly avoided it. Maria’s fist stabbed into the tree trunk behind Lars, causing the mass of wood to immediately crack, the impact from that strike sent shivers down Lars’ spine whilst in mid-air when he jumped to the side. Maria immediately pursued, with both of her fists following prepared. Despite the rapid flurry of punches, each one of them carried remarkable power. It was more powerful than Lars’ barrier, its speed was also greater than his own, and her victory was almost assured. Yet—

“!……?”

Aside from the first punch which had sent him flying, he had evaded all of the attacks which followed.

''…Why?''

Maria thought that she had cornered her opponent, but she was beginning to develop serious concerns. At that time—

“—Ever since you turned into an adult, your strength has certainly increased to an incredible degree.”

Lars had completely seen through the method to avoid Maria’s punches, and calmly said

“But, you currently have no way to control that enormous power. Based on my observations, you have only used this transformation twice. The first time was in the human realm to save Naruse, the second time was after Basacchi eliminated the barrier around Zolgear’s hideout. So, this is the first time that you’ve been able to release your full power as a demon in the Demon Realm, right? Your thoughts are too naïve, despite having such little experience, you thought that you could use this power that you are not yet used to in actual combat and obtain a result from it. Moreover—”

His voice moved behind her.

“In order to obtain victory, you definitely must have absorbed a lot of energy by taking advantage of the time when Bassachi and the others were strengthening their Master-Servant contract, but that has actually backfired on you. Even if you are faster, if your reaction speed can’t keep up with your actions, evading is not particularly difficult.”

“! —Haah!”

Maria immediately sent a backhand swing of her fist towards the source of his voice. But this blind assault caused her a fatal injury. Maria’s fist struck Lars’ dark sphere — the next second, an explosion of light and sound occurred before her. The object that Lars had thrown towards Maria was a dark sphere in the form of a bomb. No matter how much her physical strength was enhanced in this form, her consciousness had not grown powerful enough to respond to or avoid such attacks; coupled with vision and hearing that had become more sensitive than usual, the sudden shockwave blinded her field of vision and deafened her eardrums, overwhelming her.

“—But you know, to be able to stand up like this, you’ve certainly got enough backbone.”

Before Lars’ eyes as he said that with a wry smile—

“Ngh…uh, ngh…!”

The succubus who had been directly affected by the dark sphere and subjected to a severe shock still stood up shakily; her fighting intent hadn’t yet dissipated, and she still clenched her fists with a fierce expression. But her eyes were no longer able to see Lars, and neither could she hear him.

“You really wanted to be the second consecutive win after Naruse…I’m sorry.”

Thus, while Lars said this, he struck the back of Maria’s neck with a chop of his hand. The bigger the body, the easier it was to shake the mind. Hence—

“——”

After that single strike from Lars, Maria powerlessly fell to her knees, and then flat onto the ground where she lay motionlessly.