Editing Apocalypse Witch:Volume4 Chapter1 (section)

===Part 6===

The tournament stadium shook violently.

Something had clearly exploded.

No one had time to protest that someone had jumped the gun. The audience was having trouble deciding what to make of this, so they raised their voices in shouts that weren’t quite cheers and weren’t quite screams. Sword-wielding tournament staff was positioned around the stands to erect barriers to protect against stray shots, so they activated their pointy and translucent crystal armor, floated up into the air with their magic, and adjusted their viewing angle to try and see inside the cloud of dust.

“What happened to Karuta!?” shouted Amaashi Marika on the second-level aisle after pushing past the cheerleading squad that had reflexively stopped their dancing.

The match had already begun, but that did not mean she had no way at all of passing information on to Karuta. Transmissions made through their crystal blossoms were likely being monitored, but there were still plenty of ways of sending him data on Hetepheres, like a flashing light or rhythmic clapping.

But she couldn’t even do that now.

After all, there had been an ''explosion'' in the ring. There was nowhere to hide there and Karuta couldn’t use the preset barrier very well, so he would have been hit by the brunt of the blast.

“…”

Was it possible?

Could it be over already?

“…………………………………………………………………………………………………”

Marika felt a weight in the pit of her stomach.

It had all happened so fast her feelings couldn’t keep up.

No, she was already in denial. Her mind was full of unreasonably optimistic ideas like “the world’s strongest wouldn’t die that easily” or “''the'' Utagai Karuta couldn’t be killed like that”.

In a tear-jerking success story, he would have made it well into the tournament. He might not actually win, but he would at least meet a shocking loss or die in some dramatic way in the final round.

But reality didn’t work that way.

She knew all too well how cruelly unpredictable reality could be.

The strongest would be safe?

Who made that a rule? Who was it that had looked up from the bottom, thrown the established rules into chaos, and ultimately killed all five of the previous strongests?

They had known the surprise rule change had been implemented maliciously, so why had they just gone along with it? Why had they just assumed that he would get through at least the first round safely!?

“Miss Marika.”

“Hm? What do you want?”

“Miss Marika, we need to complete the task Sacri-sama left with us. You cannot obtain any valuable information on Hetepheres Men-Nefer by standing here. Weren’t we planning to sneak into her waiting room container? There is no one there now.”

“And what good is that information if Karuta is gone!? He was right in front of her when she blasted him with magic ahead of the bell!”

“Perhaps so.” The inhuman crystal girl tilted her head in confusion and smoothly provided an explanation. “''Yet I am still functioning as normal.''”

“…Wait.”

Yes. That was right.

Aine looked like a skinny girl, but she was not an independent being. She was a variation on the crystal armor used by crystal magicians, so she could not exist if her magician were gone.

Which meant…