Editing Leviathan:Volume 8 Chapter 4 (section)

===Part 7===


Rushalka's fierce attack sent Princess Yukikaze colliding hard against the Monolith, a gigantic black tower.

Under normal conditions, this would have been a finishing move. The heavyweight impact caused even the princess to cry out in surrpise.

"Chii&mdash;!"

After smashing against the top of the Monolith, the white dragon king did not fall to the ground.

She hovered briefly in the air, shook her head to wake up her hazy consciousness and muttered, "Well done, to think you managed to surprise me..."

"Only surprise, huh?"

Asya clicked her tongue.

How nostalgic to see the ground again, and Old Tokyo to boot. Asya decided she needed to find a place to land and picked the roof of a certain high-rise building, two hundred meters above ground.

She looked up towards Princess Yukikaze and the top of the Monolith&mdash;

Neither was harmed in the slightest.

For the princess, it was probably just "a little stunned."

The Monolith was unscathed. There was not even a nick on the black stone material. The structures created by dragon kings and dragonkind were all sturdy beyond common sense.

Even so, the Rune of the Chain continued to keep Princess Yukikaze restrained.

Just as Asya was about to command Rushalka to attack&mdash;

"Ugh... Ooooh&mdash;"

She felt intense pain in her heart.

Due to using magical power beyond her limit during the intense attack just now, she had subjected herself to massive strain. However, if only she held out a little longer&mdash;

"Rushahlka and I!"

''We can do it''. While Asya forcibly subjected herself to self-suggestion, she saw.

"Fufufufu. Your performance has surpassed my expectations."

With a pearly glow radiating from her body, the princess forcibly broke the dragonslaying chain that was wrapped many times around her.

With powerful strength, imperishable protection had broken the chain binding its master.

"O chain user, I, Yukikaze, must praise you a little. A mere greenhorn Tyrannos, to think you would earn a 'not bad' rating from me!"

"Guh...!

Asya stopped flying and landed on the roof of a building.

Rushalka flapped her wings and stayed in the air, facing off against the white dragon king. She was already too exhausted to perform high-speed flight.

Also, Asya noticed.

Princess Yukikaze's severed left arm&mdash;Had already regenerated.

The tainted white dragon scales had recovered their luster, exhibiting beauty akin to white jade...

"The healing art finally took effect, huh?"

Princess Yukikaze commented gallantly.

"Although my right eye still cannot see... Fufufufu, it will recover sooner or later. I shall presently take on the dragonslaying arrow's form with full power."

The white dragon king narrowed her eyes, looking at Asya and Rushalka.

The blinded right eye had definitely not recovered yet. However, how much of a disadvantage would the loss of one eye present to a powerful warrior holding absolute superiority?

"She's definitely too strong for me to fight..."

Absolutely no way of winning. Asya felt that deeply.

Back when she was the Shootdown Ace, people kept praising her extraordinary inborn combat sense. Many people also described her talent as wild instinct.

During the series of attacking and defending maneuvers earlier, Asya had employed all her talent and experience.

The judgment that led her to realize she only had a chance in a quick battle and made the call to attack from afar, the superb skill allowing her to chain diverse attacks together, improvising them into a vicious tide of offense, and the mental strength that allowed her to draw out magical power beyond her limit through sheer force of will.

However, all this added together&mdash;

Still could not hurt a real dragon king.

"A mere Shootdown Ace is still too far from dragon king-class, huh..."

Her childhood friend would occasionally comment how he was not cut out to be a dragon king.

Asya painfully felt the same way.

Europe's former Shootdown Ace possessed a witch's power, battle experience, wild instinct, mental strength, judgment&mdash;Even with so much capability, she still could not surpass the enemy blocking in front of her!

"I don't think I can beat her at all, even if I train for a hundred years, much less ten. I hate this feeling."

Escape was the only option. Both instinct and reason were warning Asya.

Beasts would not continue fighting a war with no chance of winning. Neither would smart soldiers. Asya was approaching her limit.

Even so.

She still could not escape.

"I can no longer shamelessly claim to avenge Haruomi, but at least, I have to connect one attack...!"

"Fufufufu. O chain user, your fighting spirit is not bad. However, it is not fresh enough to make me want to savor it carefully."

"...Kuh..."

"At least, I, Yukikaze, shall bury you with my trump card."

From the ferocious white dragon's mouth came a gentle voice.

The instant Asya looked up in alarm, Princess Yukikaze had already flown high up with great speed, making herself look as small as a seed.

"Technique of assured annihilation!?"

The mystic technique of turning oneself into a dragonslaying arrow to charge in a straight line.

Not too long ago, the princess had used the same move against Rushalka. But right now, her speed, altitude and vigor were clearly different from that time.

Asya stared wide-eyed. Princess Yukikaze was finally serious&mdash;

"Rushalka! Defending is useless no matter how much magical power you use! Run away desperately if you want to live!"

Kyuahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Blue Rushalka cried out mournfully, responding to Asya's reflexively issued order.

Until now, she had stayed near the top of the Monolith&mdash;The air at an altitude of a thousand meters, letting her wings rest.

Right now, she spread both wings wide and started to glide, borne by wind from the ground, spurring her utterly exhausted body to flee.

Perhaps this was foolish behavior, merely postponing death from five seconds later to fifteen seconds later.

However, if she could stall for thirty seconds or so, she and Rushalka would be able to counterattack the princess with a strike during that time...!

'No! Do not flee, Asya-san!'

In that instant, Asya heard her friend's voice.

No, not a voice. They were thought waves coming from outside of Earth.

'Hold your position. Trust us!'

"Orihime-san!?"

The instant she received the thought waves&mdash;

Asya commanded Rushalka to make an emergency stop. For the very first time in her life, she ignored her judgment as an outsanding warrior and changed her mind, choosing to trust her companion instead.

Rushalka swiftly braked, interrupting full-speed flight, thus managing to stop with great effort.

0.1 seconds later, the white dragon king descended like a shooting star. Practically at the same time, something flashed in the eastern sky.

"O miracle of lightning, let Yukikaze transform into the dragonslaying arrow!"

"Rushalka, do not move under any circumstance!"

'I am counting on you, Akuro-Ou, use the flashing cross slash! The princess will definitely descend in a straight line, so just fly over to the spot slightly above Rushalka!'

A second before Princess Yukikaze, turned into the dragonslaying arrow, collided with Rushalka...

A flash of light dashed over from the eastern sky and intersected with Princess Yukikaze.

Juujouji Orihime's partner, Akuro-Ou, had flown over at light speed.

The white nine-tailed fox-wolf horizontally swung the larger blade in her right tail while the smaller blade held in her left tail chopped downwards, thus manifesting the Rune of the Twin Katana.

The two blades drew a cross shape in the air, practically a cross-shaped slash at light speed&mdash;

Orihime had asked Rushalka not to move in order to predict teh princess' path of descent!

"Nu... Ohhhhhhhhhh!"

'A-Akuro-Ou!?'

Kuohhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?

The outcome of the clash between the dragonslaying arrow and the cross-shaped slash was that both sides were deflected.

Wielding the twin katana, Akuro-Ou crashed directly into the ruins of Old Tokyo. Princess Yukikaze calmly stopped herself in the air.

The damage was probably similar to smashing her against the Monolith.

The princess laughed with joy using her dragon body.

"Hahahaha! I, Yukikaze, see it now, the emblem of the twin katana cross star!"

'Ooh. I cannot believe it did not result in a one-hit kill even when I took pains to bluff just now.'

Juujouji Orihime's ashamed voice was heard.

Next to Asya who had landed on a building's roof, shining glowing particles of light appeared, then materialized into the form of the Japanese witch.

The holder of the Twin Katana had probably used teleportation magic to let her return to Earth.

"Orihime-san, so Haruomi is still alive after all...!?"

"Yes, he ended up surviving. He asked me to pass a message to you&mdash;"

"Ohh, what is this!?"

Before Asya had a chance to get details, Princess Yukikaze cried out in surprise.

Stopped in midair, the white dragon king looked up to the sky in great surprise. An excessively giant crystal of light had suddenly appeared in the air over the Old Tokyo Concession.

And it was falling extremely quickly&mdash;!

"A giant meteor!? If something like that crashed into Tokyo...!?"

"Haruga-kun said he was aiming at the princess. There won't be a problem, I hope?"

"Uh, so Haruomi is responsible!?"

Hearing Orihime's explanation, Asya was left speechless.

The rapidly descending mass of light was like a comet crashing to the ground.

It probably hurtled from outside the atmosphere. Estimated speed was more than thirty kilometers per second, which would be a hundred Mach or so. The second cosmic velocity for escaping the Earth's gravity was 33 Mach, so this object had effortlessly achieved three times of that...

Meanwhile, Princess Yukikaze saw the suddenly descending flash of light and was overjoyed.

"I sense it. The Rune of the Bow&mdash;the presence of my fated rival! Fufufufu. I knew it, Haruomi is certainly talented at pleasing me!"

Princess Yukikaze did not even look at the two witches and the two leviathans.

The graceful dragon king flew up in the air. Was she trying to head into space again, to have another duel between the dragonslaying runes of the Arrow and the Bow?

"True, I suppose our level is too low to fight her..."

"Nothing of that sort."

Asya went "hmph" and grumbled unhappily, whereas Juujouji Orihime's radiant smile was reminiscent of summer sunshine.

"It is all thanks to you, Asya-san, for bringing the princess to Tokyo, that Haruga-kun was able to make it in time and prepare that thing."

"What is Haruomi planning to do?"

Looking at the ominous sky, Asya cocked her head in puzzlement.

The mysterious glow was bright enough to illuminate all of Old Tokyo, which used to form the heart of Japan. Next, it was gradually crashing to the ground.

Like an arrow, Princess Yukikaze rapidly shot up towards the light&mdash;

"This really looks like ''Independence Day'' or a 'the sky is falling!' colony drop attack. I've got a bad feeling about this."

"Haruga-kun called it 'Operation Spirit Bomb'."

"Huh?"

"Just now, he was still in space&mdash;it's called satellite orbit, right? Around there, he was shouting dialog like 'everyone, share your spirit energy with me!'"

"......"

Just to err on the side of caution, Asya inquired about the detailed plan from Orihime.

"If anything goes wrong, that move could cause a crisis that destroys the Earth. Is Haruomi simply giving up because the enemy is too strong?"

Asya muttered quietly.