Editing Apocalypse Witch:Volume2 Chapter1 (section)

===Part 7===

“Are you ''trying'' to test my patience!?”

“N-now, now, Kiyosawa-sensei. Isn’t that enough?”

“Do not spoil the boy, Firenze-sensei!! Besides, a mistake of this magnitude would not have occurred if you were not using a student as an unlicensed assistant when you are supposed to be leading the class yourself! Then there wouldn’t have been a victim and no one would have been at fault either!”

“W-wah, wah!! I-I will hold him back, so you run away, Utagai-kun!!”



Achievement Unlocked: A girl who loves her beauty sleep so much she gets taken to the infirmary twice in one day!

Achievement Unlocked: A super thirsty girl who latched onto her Senpai’s hips with her swimsuit crotch and refused to let go!

“I want to die.”

Natalena Blast brought a hand to her forehead after getting up from the infirmary bed in her damp school swimsuit. Her face was deeply colored by gloom. That was not what you wanted to be saying first thing after waking up. What nickname would she have once she returned to the classroom? What would things be like on their class’s social media group? Those thoughts may have been spinning endlessly through her mind.

Utagai Karuta quietly watched the girl from the folding chair next to the bed.

A lot had happened.

That muscular teacher was almost too good a person since his anger was over Natalena being made a victim and Karuta being placed at fault by the situation. He began thinking about asking Omotesandou Kyouka to make a statue of the man. His deeds needed to be commemorated on the front bow. Although doing so might enrage him.

But Karuta hid all of that inside and smiled toward the girl.

“Are you awake?”

“Kh.”

“First you fall asleep in your gym clothes and now in your swimsuit. The school doctor actually laughed when I brought you in.”

“You did both of those to me.”

“I will admit that lesson could use some retooling. And I apologize for that. But I thought it would have been inappropriate for a guy like me to change you out of your swimsuit while you slept. Or would you have preferred I did?”

“~ ~ ~!!!???”

She belatedly realized her situation and blushed so bright he thought her face would burst into flames.

“Y-you.”

“Yeah?”

“What are you trying to do here? Thinking back, you were weird from the beginning. If you had left me there, I would have died and this would have been over. But you went out of your way to save me. You have no reason to let me go free like this.”

He had no answer for her.

In a way, she may have been right.

There were several obvious missing pieces in Natalena Blast’s revenge story. A 12-year-old girl would have trouble faking her identity on her own and it was a mystery how she had learned that Anastasia used Anubis. There was probably a string-puller out there who had supplied her with that information. But did they have to keep Natalena alive to locate that person? They might be able to track them down without her, or they might be able to use her death to rattle them.

So what was he really doing here?

His explanations were just an excuse and his real reason came down to emotion. Then what exactly were those emotions?

He bluntly confessed the answer.

“I don’t want anyone to die.”

“What?”

“Not again. I don’t want to be the killer or the killed. I can tell you that both options suck. You see on TV and online that people can grow endlessly cruel when they’re winning the war and that people can do any ugly thing if they’re backed into a corner, but that’s not true. Some people are cut out for it and others aren’t. With a certain kind of person, they can pull out all the stops and truly enjoy it to the end ''as long as they can justify their actions''.”

He spat out the words, but who was he referring to there?

The 5 mass murderers who had used God Worshiping Magic? Or the Crystal Magic avengers who had gone around the world pursuing those 5?

Small hands gripped tightly at the edge of the blanket, small teeth bit at a lovely lower lip, and words too immature to call a curse left those lips.

“You won’t get what you want.”

“Probably not.”

“You don’t want anyone to die? ''You''! You killed my sister!! My…my one and only and irreplaceable sister!! You took her from me!”

He said nothing.

It was not that he could not say anything.

He stood in a position where he could chop off the powerless girl’s head at any moment if he did not like what she said, but he chose not to. He was one of the world’s strongest and he used that authority to preserve the life of this girl who would normally have died by now.

He imagined how he would have felt in a similar position.

What if Anastasia had saved his life on a whim and said she would spare his life as long as he stayed in her castle?

(I would have dealt with it.)

He had once been an immature avenger too. For better or for worse, he had been blessed with others who shared his goal, their carefully-thought-out plans had worked out thanks to some coincidental luck, and they had managed to complete their vengeance.

So.

(I would have managed even if I was kept like a bird in a cage and even if I was placed in a position where I would starve to death without her kindness.)

He did not need any special profiling skills or polygraph equipment to know.

Not here.

The answer seemed to slip smoothly into his mind.

He had been down that path himself, so the killer intent directed his way allowed him to accurately predict something here. And obvious killer intent was only seen as praiseworthy among delinquents. With an avenger and someone hoping to stop them, such an obvious sign only made you easy to read.

(She’ll never back down on this, even if she can only survive on the crumbs her enemy drops below the table. This is the one thing she will stick to no matter what.)

“I, Natalena Blast, will tear your life to shreds. You killed my sister yet have the nerve to act like a mere observer, so I ''will'' kill you in your sleep!!”

“Is that so?”

She probably meant every word, but he sighed before responding.

“''Don’t push yourself too hard, okay?''”

“Stop making fun of me!!!!!!”