Editing Ultimate Antihero:Volume 4 Chapter 3 (section)

===Part 6===

“Kuh”

Swung down giant fist of white flame.

Raphael’s approaching speed and fist’s speed were already inhuman, it was now even faster than any kind of bullet.

Be that as it may――, Sumika the heroic spirit dwelling inside Sumika was the gunman extolled by the people in the age of America western reclamation where bullets were flying everywhere.

His perfect reaction even toward bullet shot from the back that was his blind spot and shot dead the enemy back, that legend was reproduced as Hero Skill――<Back Sniper>. Sumika entrusted her body to the alarm warning and was already taking on evasive maneuver.

She fully exerted the output of the <Air Raid>, the wings of light that were like fairy wings attached on her back.

So that she could invoke in a single trigger, before the battle she had finished chanting the acceleration magic beforehand. She used that too and tossed her body backward and evaded the fist of Raphael that launched a hook.

With that momentum she took a large distance.

But,

“KAAH!”

Aiming at the backing away Sumika, Raphael didn’t let her get away and opened his mouth widely, ――firing a white beam.

It was an attack of <Megiddo Flame> not in the shape of flame, but a compressed flame to the degree of becoming light.

That too was not in the shape of a thin laser.

It was a torrent of light to the degree that Sumika’s field of vision was completely covered.

Sumika skillfully manipulated her <Air Raid> without delay against that pursuing attack, inside the cramped battlefield of only 200 square meter, she flew in low altitude at clockwise rotation with Raphael as the center.

Her body was evading from the firing line of the beam with movement as if her body was sliding and grazing on the ground horizontally.

Instantly――

The beam impacted the protective wall towering behind Sumika and blasted it away.

Not just a single protective wall.

Even the protective wall that existed at the other side, even the humans that existed there, altogether.

<Megiddo Flame> evaporated everything until the end of horizon.

“Yahn. I think the firepower is a little bit too strong.”

“Kuh……!”

The black wall that was pierced through in semicircle shape, and the wasteland that was similarly gouged out in semicircle shape.

Looking at the surface of the wasteland that was turned into glass from the excessive heat, Sumika thought.

Just how many thousands of human vanished only from that single attack.

But, Sumika knew that there was no time or anything for lamenting that tragedy.

The girl didn’t falter against the fire power of the <Archangel> and while circling around Raphael,

“HAAA-!”

She fired the remaining three bullets.

However, as expected those bullets also slipped through Raphael’s body and didn’t do anything meaningful.

“Pointless pointlessss! It’s pointless no matter what are you doinggg!”

Raphael was laughing to ridicule Sumika’s wasteful effort while spreading his wings.

And then,

“<{{furigana|Judge Ray|Heaven’s Judgment}}>-!”

The feathers of the greatls spread wings.

Each one became line of light and soared in low altitude as several tens streaks of beam shooting at Sumika.

These beams were different from the one before, they were thin with lower strength.

But they possessed advanced homing ability and pressed on the running around Sumika like living thing.

And then she was soon cornered.

Her movement range was limited by the protective wall standing in her way, she couldn’t took adequate evasive movement and got completely blocked at the corner of the square battlefield.

Arriving at this point, the plan of raising up the protective wall now backfired.

Raphael didn’t let go of this mistake.

The beams of <Megiddo Flame> were rushing at Sumika who was cornered.

It was a desperate situation.

――For an average magician.

But Hoshikawa Sumika was a genius that received the title of the greatest battle strength of mankind as the youngest.

That sagacious brain immediately selected among the sorcery she possessed that should be used immediately and invoked it.

“BENDDD–!”

Dimension element third rank sorcery <Space-Time Bend>.

Sumika twisted the space in front of her using that sorcery.

With that all the beams that rushed at Sumika had their path curved to right below even though they were supposed to go straight at Sumika, and they crashed at the ground around Sumika.

None of them reached Sumika and they stopped at blowing away the asphalt of the ground.

But Raphael too didn’t think that she could kill Sumika who could even imitate <Evil God User> with something of this level.

The <Judge Ray> from the beginning was only to guide the girl to be cornered at the corner.

His true aim was,

“Ahaaa-!”

“――――!”

Just when the beam trajectory was averted, Raphael had crossed inside the rising flame explosion and filled the distance once more.

For him whose spirit status was outstanding, the <Space-Time Bend> didn’t work on him, and no Sumika was caught between the corner and Raphael just as Raphael planned, she had lost her place to escape.

Aiming at that Sumika, Raphael launched an uppercut with the fist of white flame.

The fist was swung from the orbit below with all his strength.

An attack with the full strength of <Archangel>

Defending this with the barrier at the level of human’s magic was only a pipe dream.

Even when Sumika chanted a sorcery in vain struggle with no other way――in the next instant, she was swallowed by a pillar of white light launched from Raphael’s left fist straight to the sky.

When the pillar of light was launched vertically to the sky, a hole opened at the sky of Eihort’s underworld.

A black hole was gouged open at the iridescent sky, inside of the hole one could peek at a mad universe without a single star.

The attack that literally pierced until the heaven didn’t leave a single dust behind in front of Raphael――

“――――”

The next moment, two bullets grazed through the face of Raphael.

The bullets slipped through the back of Raphael’s head and impacted the wall in front of his eye.

Small spark scattered.

Raphael slowly turned behind after witnessing this shot.

And then she saw.

“Hah, ha, aA, hh!”

Around one hundred meter behind him, there was the figure of Sumika who even while breathing roughly still aimed her gun muzzle at him.

If he looked, a path of ice was extending below the girl’s feet from below Raphael’s groin.

Sumika instantly froze a scaffold and slipped through by sliding below the uppercut.

Raphael spitted out “How unreasonably stubborn” toward that vain struggle and began to attack once more.

Sumika who confronted that barely continued to evade using combination of flight using <Air Raid> and sorcery.

Sumika was because of the <Holy Ground>,

Raphael was because of the capability of Sumika as a magician,

The battle where the two sides lacked the deciding factor created a kind of struggle for supremacy.

Yes. The two of them rivaled each other.

That was, ――an impossible scene.

Naturally.

Raphael’s strength was <Demon King class>.

He rivaled the demon who changed the ninety percent of earth surface into scorched earth.

If he felt like it, not just the battlefield, he could destroy even the whole geofront with one attack.

Although his spirit status had dropped, he just had that much power.

Then why couldn’t he finish this fight?

There was one reason.

Because Raphael was holding back, ――not,

More accurately, he was being made to hold back.

And then Raphael also noticed that fact.

(This little girl, she is really insolent isn’t she)

In this battle, from the beginning to the end Sumika was excessively maintaining her low altitude flight.

Even when she was being chased by the beams of <Judge Ray>, she didn’t escape to above even though the space there was wide open, she was flying around grazing the ground. The sliding she did just now was also the same.

Why?

Because Sumika understood.

That the objective of the angels was the human souls of Tokyo life sphere.

Therefore she knew. That the <Archangel> couldn’t pointlessly waste the soul of human.

Sumika integrated that circumstance of the enemy into her tactic and continued to fight by constantly putting herself in a straight line with the geofront.

With this Raphael too couldn’t use large move.

He couldn’t decide the fight with brute force.

His seriousness could exterminate everything until the horizon with one attack just like his first gigantic beam.

Consequently if she fired the same technique at Sumika who maintained her low altitude, devastating damage would be generated at the geofront.

(Really, how insolenttt)

To make the life of the people that she should be protecting as shield.

Raphael was disgusted by that way of fighting that didn’t care of one’s own appearance.

How very ugly.

But at the same time he understood.

A woman that continued to cling to life so tenaciously like this without caring of her appearance, there was no way that she would keep shooting at him like this uselessly without plan.

Exactly because she had hope, that she was fighting by any means, even if she had to throw away her pride.

Then what was this hope could be?

Where did it exist?

Raphael paid attention at Sumika’s right hand.

(This little girl hasn’t used the right gun for even once in this battle.)

Sumika’s shooting was all done from the gun she held in her left hand.

When she emptied the left gun, regardless of how there was still bullet remaining in her right, she would reload the left and continued to shoot bullet that just slipped through him.

It was obviously an unnatural conduct.

Raphael perceived that this was a [bait].

Right now Sumika was trying to rub in the fact that [My attack doesn’t work against you] to him by continuing to shoot meaninglessly.

The trump card remaining in her right was for the sake of hitting him reliably with her last hope.

(――How unpleasant.)

This conceited thinking that she could lead an <Archangel>, an existence that was far above her by the nose.

Those eyes continuously burning in fighting spirit with such conceit as her support. Hope. All of those were unpleasant.

That was why Raphael decided.

He would dye the eyes of Sumika, with one color that was the darkness of despair.




The hope that was the girl’s support. He would let her know how all of those were meaningless.




“――――-!”

Instantly, Raphael took an unthinkable action.

Of all thing, he turned his back at Sumika in the middle of fight.

And then the protective wall at the back. He held his hand toward both armies that should be behind it,

Converged <Megiddo Flame> on that palm――

“It’s enough already. Taking on a fly that is only flying around noisily is just a pointless waste of time. Just fly around wherever as you like. ――Above the corpse of your comrades.”

Firing the flame, ――the moment just before he did it.

“-……!?”

Raphael obtained an impact that resembled a blow, it felt like his chest was gouged in.

It was Sumika’s shot.

But this time for some reason it didn’t slip through Raphael’s body, the bullet was definitely entered nearly into his heart from his back――

“The power of gleaming golden sun  lavish your might and destroy the impurity with hellfire of light!”

In the next instant, Sumika completed her spell.

The bullet that sunk into Raphael’s chest from his back acted in concert with Sumika’s spell and emitted high heat――




“<Ancient Zero>-!!”




The crimson of the fire element fifth rank sorcery exploded from inside Raphael.

Torrent of light burst out, scorching and destroying Raphael’s flesh and bone.

The explosion of light that rivaled even the flame of sun annihilated Raphael’s flesh from this world only leaving everything below his ankle,




――However the holy magic <Last Fantasia> continued and in an instant that was like the blink of eye, foam of flesh spouted up from the surface of the ankle, the flesh kneaded and forming Raphael’s shape once more where he was restored.




“Wha, -!?”

HYAAAAAAHAHAHHAHAHHA――――――!!!!”

“Uh, ――ga, a――――!?”

And then Sumika who had believed in her victory after <Ancient Zero> hit was trampled down by the large foot of Raphael’s enlarged frame.