Editing Apocalypse Witch:Volume2 Chapter1 (section)

===Part 6===

After home ec, they had gym class.

Instead of Crystal Magic combat, it was a swimming lesson.

“Hm, at least they’re sensible enough to give us some exercise to work off the food.”

“Urp. Ugh.”

“Hm? Senpai, what’s with you? Feeling seasick?”

Alice, whose blonde ponytail made it hard to believe she could be anything but a cheerleader, gave him a puzzled look. She did not seem to consider the fact that he had eaten four meals already today with breakfast, lunch, cooking class, and the teacher’s ginger pork.

She was wearing a school swimsuit. And while Grimnoah was a giant ship floating in the ocean, they were using an indoor racing pool that reeked of chlorine.

For some reason, tanned and silver-haired Riho put her hands on her hips and laughed loudly.

“Wah hah hah! All these healthy girls in swimsuits got you excited, Karuta-senpai!?”

“Um, he’s having trouble answering, so should we take that as a yes?”

“Eh? He’s not an adult, so isn’t he in the clear for feeling that way? Now, any man saying that deserves a summary execution.”

Things were sounding dangerous already. It was unclear where the line between child and adult lay for them and it would likely change based on their mood. Was it Student Council President Omotesandou Kyouka who had said they had to constantly worry about cameras? He decided it would be best to come up with his own line he would not cross instead of leaving that up to the girls.

Alice seemed confident in her swimsuit, but Sanae was the opposite. That glasses girl was blushing and hiding behind the blonde ponytail girl. When Riho moved in from the side, that trio of friends was complete.

“Help us with our warmup exercises, Senpai. Make sure you get all up close and personal with lots of body contact.”

“Okay, I’m definitely defining that as over the line.”

“?”

It turned out Kiyosawa Hadome, the teacher who used his muscles as a weapon, was indeed a gym teacher. 

Karuta was here helping him.

However, the girls did not seem to have much respect for that muscular teacher.

“If Senpai can teach us, why do we need anyone else?”

“This is no laughing matter,” cautioned the man. “This is a pool, so what if there is an accident?”

“Oh, how scary. By the way, what’s with all the muscles? Doesn’t Crystal Magic armor buff your physical abilities?”

(Now that he had managed to settle his stomach some,) Karuta scratched at his head with a hand.

The students seemed to look down on the man, but they were sorely mistaken. Just as Marika had made a point of jogging in the gym, the translucent armor’s boost to your specs did not mean your base stamina was meaningless. You had to use the magic yourself, so you needed a strong body to use it to its fullest.

But they lost sight of that with ''the'' Utagai Karuta standing next to the man.

One was the world’s strongest and the other was not. Anyone would pale in comparison to that. Even though his specs were actually quite good when viewed on their own.

Karuta had not wanted to become the strongest and Kiyosawa Hadome had not wanted to not become the strongest. The only difference was whether or not they had been on the first ship and whether or not they had survived. That was all. The boy himself had fled the ship while abandoning so many friends seeking help.

(Who do they think Utagai Karuta is? This is all so silly.)

To correct their mistake, the boy called over to the students with a bitter look on his face.

It was bad for his heart, but he had to force a tough voice here.

“Listen up.”

“Yes, Senpai!? Pay attention, everyone!!”

The swimsuit girls and boys immediately stopped talking.

The male teacher blatantly clicked his tongue at how they formed a perfect line on the poolside and straightened their backs. He had wanted a line, but this one was not centered on him. Karuta had been trying to take the man’s side, but it had not worked out that way.

He felt intensely awkward, so he felt a need to whisper in the man’s ear.

“(I really am sorry about all the trouble, Sensei.)”

“(I already knew there was nothing I could do. Listen, I will speak up if you tell them anything wrong and I will step in if any of the students are in danger. This is your kingdom and you can rule as you please, but those are the two things I refuse to back down on.)”

He made sure to look Karuta in the eye as he said it, which actually put the boy at ease. This was how a teacher was meant to be. He was stubborn, but it was not about preserving his own pride.

Karuta took a deep breath to focus himself.

He forced himself into his public mode and began speaking.

“Think back to what you learned in cooking class because this is the same. Crystal Magic’s regeneration has trouble with damage coming from something you are missing, so it won’t help you if you drown. And your flight won’t always work the way you want it to. You at least need to learn how to float in the ocean or a river if you’re shot down.”

The tanned silver-haired girl gave a snort of laughter, but it was hard to look tough in a school swimsuit, especially one with her name written on the chest nametag in big black writing.

“That’s child’s play.”

“I said this is if you’re shot down. Are you sure you can manage it with an arm or a leg broken or with a broken rib impaling your lung?”

“…”

“We won’t actually do that to you for class of course, but take this.”

He tossed rolls of waterproof duct tape toward the group of middle school swimsuit students. On the inside, he was afraid none of them would actually reach out to catch them.

After trying it a few times, he found that people preferred to preserve the beauty of a situation.

“Fold up your dominant arm and wrap the tape around your torso to bind it there. For this first lesson, you only have to float on your back. You can buy this tape for cheap at any hardware store, but it will show you how difficult a slight change to your abilities can be.”

In fact, during the First Out Incident that sunk the first Grimnoah, quite a few of the students and teachers had helplessly fallen into the ocean when the giant ship had been sliced apart. They had dressed themselves in next-generation magic while being told they could do anything, but it had turned out they could do nothing at all while they suffered and died. Of course, he was not about to share that with these current students who were filled with hope for their future.

He continued while making sure to keep the emotion out of his voice.

“Form groups of three and have one of you try it while the other two help them if they sink. Swap out who floats every so often.”

Hesitantly, or maybe skeptically, the middle school students entered the pool with their dominant arms taped to them as instructed.

“Whoa, what’s going on!? I’m spinning and spinning and- gurgle gurgle!!”

“Riho, Alice. Help Sanae!”

Before Karuta had even finished shouting from the poolside, the muscular teacher had jumped in. The two girls apparently had trouble rescuing the third from the water, but Kiyosawa Hadome circled behind the glasses girl, supported her back, and lifted her from the water.

“I hope you learned something from this, boy!!”

“I’m sorry, Sensei! Thanks so much!!”

He had no choice but to bow down at a 45-degree angle.

Reality was so uncooperative. Since two other students had trouble rescuing the one, it looked like he needed to give them a float like a swim ring or kickboard next time. He decided he was a failure of a teacher from the moment he had told the students to use this method before he tested it out himself.

Nevertheless, Kiyosawa Hadome did not demand an end to the lesson as a whole.

He took into account who the students were wiling to listen to and who they wanted help from. Even if the boy was inexperienced and did things his own way. The man was such a good teacher he almost seemed dangerous. Karuta really wished he could stop teaching since it was so bad for his heart, but he had no choice but to keep going in his nice and clean public mode.

“If you think of the human body as a large float, then folding up an arm like that will mess with its balance. Which leads to what you saw there. Your usual habits get in the way and the assumption that you can float by going limp no longer applies. You try to float on your back, but you end up tensing one side and flipping over.”

“Ugh.”

“Do you finally get it now, Riho? If she had been alone among the large waves of the real ocean, she would have died. So think about how you can fix that and try it again.”

“Y-you aren’t going to tell us what to do?”

The glasses girl had grown even more timid than usual, probably because she had nearly drowned just now, but Karuta winked at her as he responded. His heart was still pounding, but he had to keep a smile.

“Don’t expect things to be easy on Grimnoah.”

The groups of three began their attempts.

This time, the rescuers were holding kickboards to give to their friend if that friend flipped over and started drowning. Their usual balance was off, so they would flip over if they tried to stay on their back in the usual way. But when they tried to shift their center of gravity in the opposite direction, they would tense up weirdly and they would start to sink. The idea sounded simple enough, but it was much easier said than done. Kiyosawa Hadome (a worrier who cared deeply about his students) jumped in to rescue one of them on occasion, but he had little to do once the boys and girls in swimsuits got the hang of it.

(Now, then.)

“Sacri-sama.”

Aine, whose school swimsuit was inexplicably white, called out to him from the chlorine-smelling water.

“Lonely Natalena cannot find a third partner. Will you help us?”

“I am not lonely!! Um, uh, well, you’re scaring away everyone else by hanging around me! And why are you wearing that weird swimsuit!?”

“If you do not like it, I would be willing to remove it. Shall I?”

“Absolutely not!!” shouted Natalena with a blush.

She must have been surprisingly concerned about how the others saw her. This was a good sign since it meant she was capable of focusing on other things in the middle of her revenge. If she was not stubbornly fixated on it, she could be persuaded.

A different sort of tension snuck into Karuta through his fingertips.

He made sure not to let it show on his face as he made a suggestion.

“Okay, Jane-san. ‘Break’ your dominant hand. Place it over your chest like you’re grabbing your opposite shoulder.”

“Kh.”

He had called her Jane instead of Natalena. Unlike Aine who did not care about such things (since she was not human), Karuta was showing a willingness to go along with her farce.

“Wh-why me? Anyone in our team could do it.”

“We already know the answer, so testing us is meaningless. There is a way of floating like this.”

After grabbing the roll of waterproof duct tape, Karuta whispered in the girl’s ear.

“(Also, binding my dominant hand in the pool might seem like the perfect chance to drown me, but it won’t be that easy. I won’t take your revenge from you right away, so keep at it until you’ve had enough.)”

This time, her small shoulders visibly jumped.

Karuta’s group had worried over how to maintain their desire for vengeance. As Natalena met setbacks, she would wither and be neutralized if she failed to overcome that issue herself. That was not his main plan with her, but he did hope it would happen.

He checked in the corner of his vision and noticed Kiyomasa Hadome (who knew of the “situation” with that girl) giving him a restless look. He really was a good teacher. His lack of popularity with the students had to be some kind of mistake. Karuta wanted to fix that, but his help would probably only hurt the adult’s pride. Human relationships were tricky.

Natalena did not notice any of that as she slowly opened her mouth.

“O-okay. Um, I’ll do it.”

(Is she sticking to her student role here? No, I suppose not. Is she trying to put me at ease so she can try and drown me while my guard is down?)

He pulled off some duct tape with a painfully-loud riiiiip sound.

“Aine, hold her in place to make this easier.”

“Eh? Wait, you’re the one tying me up!? Um, but.”

He was wrapping the duct tape around her dominant arm and torso, so he could not help but apply pressure to her soft skin through her swimsuit. Too much pressure to her chest would obstruct her breathing, so he had to use a delicate touch.

“Nh, kh!”

Still, being tied up by an older member of the opposite sex had to be a rare experience for her.

In a swimsuit at that.

Not to mention in front of all her friends at school.

And by the very person who had killed her sister.

“That should do it. Try taking three deep breaths and tell me if you have any trouble.”

“Sacri-sama, isn’t that an inefficient bondage method? Why did you divide it into an upper and lower band of tape? Wouldn’t it have been simpler to place it all directly over her chest. Nice and tightly of course.”

“Shut up, Aine.”

At any rate, her dominant hand had been tied in place while folded up and pressed against her torso. Now it was time for her to test things out in the pool. After moving hip deep into the water, she glared up at him.

“O-okay, um, here I go.”

“I’ll rescue you if anything happens.”

“I do not want your help!!”

She shouted at him and he nearly yelled back on reflex, but then her entire body flipped around. It was a lot like someone slipping on a bar of soap in the bath and falling backwards. At the same time, a dull impact ran through his legs. But not because she had kicked him.

(She grabbed ahold of me?)

True enough, this was about the only real method of assassinating him in the public eye like this.

''Their battle was playing out below the water.

''She was grabbing at her would-be rescuer while she pretended to drown.

She had one arm bound, but she would still be able to immobilize him using her legs and her left arm. Plus, no specialized skills were needed here. In ocean rescue manuals, rescuers were told not to approach a drowning person from the front, even if they were a child.

Even a drowning amateur had enough strength to kill a professional rescuer. And if she succeeded, she could drown him while making it look like she had merely been a poor victim all along.

However…

“Sacri-sama.”

“Hm?”

“Natalena has locked her legs around your hips, yet her upper body is not floating back up to the surface. Are you sure this gurgling avenger is not simply drowning?”

“Jane-san!?”