Created page with "{{Incomplete|parts=2|tparts=3}} ==Chapter 2== ===Part 1=== The blade thrust toward the sky. It shot above the destroyed and abandoned city and toward the great vermilion b..."
''“Commander, she’s allowed to illegally fight back!”
The blade thrust toward the sky.
It shot above the destroyed and abandoned city and toward the great vermilion bow that had its back to the moon in the heavens above.
The bow and sword were both colossal.
In Kagami’s mind, combat was no easy task.
No one may have been looking up from the empty city below, but their five hundred meter lengths allowed much more distant people to see them.
To fight, one needed the appropriate skills such as decision-making and a powerful build. On top of that, one had to train and train some more.
The sword accelerated toward the sky and the great bow there. Its first movement after appearing was to ascend in a straight line with its rear accelerators fully activated.
After that, one needed equipment, to maintain that equipment, to learn how to use it, and to continue training with it.
Meanwhile, the great bow showed no sign of evading even though preparatory light was filling the central acceleration cannon. The sword raced onward with the unwavering gaze of someone catching up to a friend and tapping them on the shoulder.
But after spending years of effort and lots of money, one would earn one of two things: victory or defeat. One wrong step and death was even possible.
A girl stood on the sword’s guard.
…''The risk is great.
The armored girl pointed forward as the wind swept back her hair decorations made of light.
However, there was occasionally reason enough to take on that risk.
Beyond the large finger of her power arm, she saw her opponent: a girl in shrine maiden garb standing on the great bow’s upper radome.
“Peace and safety. The acquisition and preservation thereof. Does your attempt to eliminate me come from that desire for stability? …Most notably from the preservation of order, I would assume.”
The sword spoke as it picked up even more speed.
Her question was answered with sparks.
“I have a question, Horinouchi.”
Armored men stood before her. About half of them had collapsed, but the remaining ones were quite skilled.
The bow responded without falling back.
Even now, they were attacking her with giant jitte-shaped weapons.
“What is it, Kagami Kagami!?”
“Who the hell are you!?”
As they spoke, the sword opened up. Sparks scattered from the moving parts rubbing together and the sub-frame above the internal frame activated. By the time the sword split apart and a cannon jutted out, light had filled the rear shell formation area and accelerator.
“I believe I already named myself. But I am new to this place.”
Meanwhile, the light in the vermilion bow also grew.
And…
A voice spoke to that light.
“You are attempting to capture a small creature and you are attacking a newcomer. I too feel a desire to play with an adorable little life when I come across one, so I am not about to hand it over. Is that not how you feel?”
“I had a thought.”
“Is this any time for that!?”
That thought being…
“It is!!” declared Kagami. “I was showing my love for this small animal, but you suddenly attacked us! So you have an obligation to answer my questions about small animals!”
“You have your back to the moon, but that goes for the majority of this fight as well.”
“That’s-…”
So…
“Do you like small animals?” asked Kagami even as the attacks sent sparks flying from the giant sword in her hands. “Aren’t dogs, cats, and even rodents great? Cats are especially ideal. You know the wonderful feeling when you crouch down in front of them and they interact with you, don’t you?”
“When was the last time you looked up at the moon without thinking much of it?”
“D-dammit! So what if I do!?”
“Then,” she said. “I saw it in the newspaper, but it seems people have started playing with their cats by creating frames on the floor for them to climb inside.”
“So what!? I’ve never done that!”
Horinouchi felt emotion welling up deep in her chest.
“That is not what I was trying to say.”
…''This opponent…!
Their weapons were locked together and Kagami lightly pulled hers back and spoke quietly.
It was true she had kept her back to the moon during this battle. After all, she was a sharpshooter. It was best for her to remain above her opponent. But…
“When the cat refuses to enter the frame, you feel like picking it up and putting it inside yourself, but that would just be rude, wouldn’t it?”
“————”
“Kh!”
She saw her shadow falling on a giant building below.
“And when small animals do what we want, we sometimes count it as our own accomplishment. …That is wrong, isn’t it?”
The summer sun was high in the sky. The moonlight deep in that blue sky was weak and meaningless now, but the way her shadow fell meant she had her back to the heavens.
“W-what does that-…”
…''It’s true.
He never managed to get out the word “matter”.
She had not looked directly up at the moon.
His weapon burst into scattering light.
Had that begun with this battle? No, it had not.
In that instant, his servant was tossed into the space his weapon had occupied.
“I made a decision.”
It was a light spirit. The small ball was immediately returned to the spell circle that was rotating in midair. Kagami’s sword had been locked with that man’s weapon, but that weapon was gone now.
''Honestly,'' she thought. ''Did this opponent judge my actions and feel a meaning in them that had nothing to do with combat?
“I see.”
If so…
Kagami spoke as she swung her own weapon through.
“I made a decision.”
“Your weapons are an alternate use of those things you call servants, but as weapons, they are based on your own belief. When faced with a contradiction, they cannot maintain their form.”
She had done so ever since losing something precious to her.
She made a slashing strike. Except this was a sword with a cannon encased inside. The first shot embedded in her opponent’s armor and destroyed it as he was sent flying back.
“I decided I would only look up at the sky once I could do so forever more.”
…''I have to avoid slamming them into the ground.
“Wonderful,” said Kagami. “And when that happens, I may never be able to look up in the sky again.”
She had no intention of killing them.
“…What?”
She had no intention of losing them.
“Listen, Horinouchi.” Without answering her question, Kagami raised her pointing finger. “Let us settle this.”
There was another opponent who would force her hand as far as that was concerned.
But for now…
“Let me ask.”
The shellfire vertically linking the sky began from above.
Kagami watched her opponents’ movements. They quickly stepped forward to suppress her in waves, so she continued attacking as she asked a question.
On the back of the great bow, the spell bowstring was pulled to its limit and then released to strike the shell accelerator’s hammer.
The twang of the bowstring shook the sky and ether light rippled out to a diameter of a dozen kilometers as the shell was fired.
A chorus of ringing much like a shrine’s large bell shot straight down for five hundred meters. Launched by that sound and spraying light, a massive shell was fired.
Kagami held her five meter sword and observed the approaching enemies.
It was shaped like an arrow, it measured over four hundred meters long, and it left the great vermilion bow to pierce the sky.
“These are made of ether. They use a servant and they take training, knowledge, and – most importantly – belief to use. Their biggest advantage is…”
The tip was enough to split the atmosphere and create an explosion of air. The arrow made of ether soared through the resultant vacuum so it could tear into the sword that had nearly approached to close range. Meanwhile, the blade had yet to complete its firing preparations.
She looked to her enemy and their three meter weapons created with the same system. No, her own weapon had simply been created by copying how their weapons had been ejected and given form.
The shell had yet to fully form, but the accelerator was filled with light.
She smiled a bit when she saw no waver in their attack stances.
It would fire as soon as the shell was complete, but the great bow had already launched its attack.
…''Well done.
However, the girl on the sword’s guard did not lower her raised hand.
They were a well-regulated organization. Not only were the soldiers this well-trained, but…
She stared straight at the coming arrow, the great bow, the girl standing on it, the blue sky behind all that, and the moon.
“The biggest advantage of these weapons is that they can be preserved as long as the spell user’s belief is not broken, their life is not ended, and their ether supply is not cut off. And since they are an embodiment of a spell, their ammunition never needs to be resupplied as long as the ether is maintained. These are a type of invincible weapon.”
“I hope it reaches.”
The enemy arrived. The three in the lead slammed their jitte-shaped weapons against her.
She did not command it to reach.
They came from either side, above, and below. A mid-level jab came from directly ahead. None of them left their jitte sword-breakers level. Each individual attacked with a height difference.
“Give me a path, wings raised toward the moon.”
They created a wall.
Just as the great bow’s “attack” would change its name to a “hit”, the figure on the sword swung down her hand.
The key to it all was the one in the center. His jab arrived soonest.
“Fire.”
Whether she moved up, down, left, or right to avoid it, the other jitte strikes would reach her.
The only way to stop this charge was to take out that central man, but that was not easy when he was hidden by a three meter weapon.
The three men were working together quite well. And…
Horinouchi saw Kagami give the order to fire far too late.
…''To the left and right as well.
…''She won’t make it in time!
Two similar groups were rushing in to surround her.
The acceleration pathway was filled with light so it could fire as soon as the shell was formed, but Horinouchi’s own attack was already entering the muzzle.
Behind those groups of three, Kagami saw the remaining men gliding along low to the ground and raising their jitte as shields. Rectangular spell circles taller than the jitte stood out from their surface and had the word “defense” written inside them.
She had won.
Kagami guessed they were determined to prevent any damage from escaping this battle.
When the Magino Frame named Akerindou was fired at full power from close range, it ranked near the very top of any Magino Frame.
In that case…
She had met those conditions here.
“What is the meaning of this?”
Kagami’s attack would be too late and it would be destroyed.
She moved forward.
Horinouchi had won.
The central jab arrived ahead of the left and right jitte strikes, but she did not care.
Part of her was disappointed by that, but she did not know if that was due to conceit or over this loss of the ability to admonish her current state.
She held her sword horizontally and dropped it down from the hilt.
“Break her, attack of Suzaku!”
Before the diagonally lowered sword’s pommel hit the ground, she stepped on it with the heel of her boot.
With that cry, she cast a spell on the arrow. Akerindou helped pressurize it and a further acceleration spell was installed. And this was a direct installation rather than one that affected a certain range.
“What are all of you doing?”
“Go!”
The sword stood up diagonally and the tip tore into the jabbing jitte from below.
It went to break her opponent, but she heard a sound just before it did.
It hit the bottom of the sword-breaker portion. The thick blade struck it and sent a steel sound racing out.
It was the scraping of metal and the scattering of sparks.
It hit and broke it.
…''Is that…?
The jitte was not cut, scraped, or severed. It was simply broken. The sword-breaker portion came off at the base, leaving the jitte in two pieces.
It was the sound of the shell formation system sending the shell into the acceleration pathway.
A metallic sound rang out and the light spirit vanished into the spell circle.
The cold sound came from the very back of Kagami’s sword. Was she uselessly trying to fire her cannon, or…
A moment later, Kagami’s sword reached the armored uniform of the man wielding the jabbing jitte.
“It can’t be…”
The sword’s pommel dug into the ground and the tip drilled into his chest armor from below, just like a pike. The fibers woven below the armor’s hardened plastic snapped and the armor broke. His decelerated body collided with the thick blade.
As Horinouchi spoke, the power came.
“…!”
It was a cannon firing.
His body was tossed upwards because Kagami had kicked up the pommel from below.
The shell raced down the sword’s acceleration pathway.
The hilt rose, making the sword horizontal once more, and she thrust the large sword forward. The width of the blade was thicker than the jitte coming in through the center, but…
Horinouchi’s own shell destroyed the muzzle and seemed to dig into it.
…''This is enough space to escape the attacks on the left and right!
That proved to be a problem.
Kagami stepped forward as if pulled on by the sword.
…''Oh, no.
She made it through.
When it hit, the arrow bent. It was slight, but its straight trajectory was thrown ever-so-slightly off, the pressure focused on the tip, and it swelled out. Needless to say, the vermilion arrow would then demonstrate its penetrative power, but…
Men in armored uniforms swung their jitte on either side of her. She swung her large sword backwards and spun it around to face the gap between them.
“Did she time her attack to counter mine!?”
“Fire.”
If this weapon operated on one’s belief, she knew her thoughts would be able to reach it.
She immediately heard mechanical sounds coming from her hands.
Horinouchi watched as the sword was destroyed.
The movement was slow, so she decided she had not quite gotten the hang of using this equipment. At the moment, the sword began to transform, the blade split down the center, and…
Her attack should have caused it to fall apart and then split apart further down, but it had destroyed its own tip instead.
“The main cannon has appeared, has it?”
The force had come from within, and…
Just as she passed the enemy, she fired the cannon backwards.
…''I was right!
The destructive power did not just tear into Kagami’s sword.
The tip of the vermilion arrow was destroyed and it split apart as if deflected. A blue shell shot out from its center. That was the attack fired by Kagami’s Magino Frame.
…''She’s even created a firing form!?
She had targeted the arrow in the instant it hit as a counterattack.
Koutarou, the young man leading the men in armored uniforms, saw the girl’s shellfire from head on.
“And you slowed the formation of the shell to make a longer and skinnier compressed shell, didn’t you!?”
He heard a tremendous noise and light seemed to explode outward.
The straight line of power was clearly skinnier than the muzzle the arrow had struck.
However…
Kagami’s Magino Frame was an outdated Holy Knight-style and it did not specialize in shellfire.
That must have been why she decided to compress the shell even further and build up even more acceleration.
She had filled the acceleration pathway with light ahead of time so she could charge it up with an additional acceleration spell.
…''And to fine-tune it so she could fire the skinnier shell without losing stability!
Horinouchi did not think she had been conceited.
She had simply fired Akerindou in the formal fashion.
Kagami however had used any means necessary to “get back at” her.
“In that case…!”
Horinouchi did not hesitate.
She set up a barrier, using her gaze to select the empty space between Akerindou and Kagami’s sword. She then cast a spatial stability spell on her own objects in that range.
She did not even think about whether she would make it in time. She simply cast the spell without looking down at her moving fingers.
“Be crushed!”
The spatial fixation also corrected the objects’ shapes to supplement their own indentation.
The spell cast on the arrow returned the swelling and splitting vermilion power to its original straight line.
The arrow tore into Kagami’s attack and attempted to crush it, but Horinouchi saw something in that instant.
That something was Kagami.
The fingertip she had swung down to signal her attack was now pointing straight at Horinouchi.
“Well done.”
In that instant, the two powers between them exploded.
Both shells could not withstand the collision of power and were destroyed. This led to a massive explosion.
“Lady Mitsuru!”
Koutarou looked up at the sky where the two powers collided and collapsed.
Below the moon, vermilion and blue explosions of light were accompanied by intense noise.
Horinouchi’s Akerindou and Kagami’s sword were swallowed up by the explosions, but Kagami’s half-destroyed Magino Frame collided with the other.
The men being healed cried out as they looked into the sky.
“The two Magino Frames…!”
They were intertwined and falling.
The sword’s blade had almost entirely broken away as it stabbed into Akerindou which had lost most of its bow shape.
“Manager!”
A transmission arrived. The spell circle had been sent from the operation room built below the Horinouchi mansion. The Horinouchi family had sent representatives to fight the Black Witch since ancient times. Just like similar families, corporations, and military organizations, it possessed a system to provide backup for those representatives.
One of the maids inside the command center spoke to him.
“Lady Mitsuru’s Magino Frame is falling!”
“I can see that! Where is it going to-…?
“You can’t tell?”
“I-I can tell it’s generally falling to the east of Tokyo Bay, but give me the details!”
While thinking the maids were being overly strict, he recalled that they were former witches themselves. To them, Mitsuru was a memento of the previous generation and their hope.
…''Ah, they’re treating me like the unneeded man!
“A blank!?”
But regardless, he held the position of manager. Not even he knew if he had anything to be proud of outside that position, but he did have his ability as a butler.
It had been a powerful blast. The defense team’s defense barriers had their surfaces washed away and had to regain their light, so the attack was on the level of a ranker. However…
At any rate, he received the requested details.
“Northeast of Tokyo Bay…Old Makuhari!”
The bay was the best place to see the fall and destruction.
A school was located at the center of Tokyo Bay.
As those inside scanned the two Magino Frames falling to the northeast, the school buildings had their shutters closed and a defensive spell barrier was placed in the sky above.
But despite the security measures, a few people were visible on the school buildings’ rooftops.
First, there was the western building engraved with the words “Special Equipment” which was covered by a solar power system.
Next, there was the eastern building engraved with the word “Spell” which was a midair building with no entrance on the surface.
Finally, there was the northern building which was a fully floating honors building.
The people atop or in front of those buildings spoke their various thoughts.
“Horinouchi.”
“So it’s finally happening.”
“Mother, this flower is finally blooming.”
Afterwards, they all returned to their duties. They turned their backs on the falling objects and looked up at the moon in the sky.
A moment later, an extremely massive quake ran through the earth at the northeast end of Tokyo Bay.
The sound resembled a solid impact or a crashing wave and it accompanied the explosion produced by a great bow and a sword.
The battle was not yet over, but…
“Has it been settled yet or not?” someone muttered.
In that moment, new lights appeared across the school.
They were spell circles. They displayed a warning, but that warning indicated a true emergency.
<Warning: Shifting into Fifth Security Mode. The Black Witch’s output has been detected.>
And that was not all.
“I can see it.”
Someone pointed it out from the spell building’s rooftop. The moon in the center of the sky was emitting light.
The Black Witch had been sealed in that moon which was beginning to act.
Koutarou spoke in response to the spell circle warnings opening here and there.
“Everyone, ensure the security and peace of your posts! Observation Team, record your observations of Lady Mitsuru and her opponent!”
“Manager! Don’t we need to observe the moon!?”
“Someone else will record the moon!”
Koutarou had a hunch.
…''What did the Black Witch react to!?
That was obvious. The Black Witch’s heart had been moved by the battle between two witches below. One of those witches was the daughter of her opponent from the previous confrontation, and the
other one…
…''She clearly knows the Black Witch!
The scale of their battle was not unheard of for witches, but it had progressed oddly. So…
“We will record this battle and its result!”
That was enough. After all…
“The Black Witch has shown an interest in the two of them!”
As soon as he said it, a pale light was added to the summer sunlight.
It was a heavenly light.
That light seemed to envelop the moon, it formed a ring of ether, and it took form at the moon’s north pole.
It looked small from where they were, but it was actually large enough to form an angel’s halo over the moon.
“She’s watching!”
The halo spread, formed an ellipse, and circled to the back of the moon.
It almost looked like an eyeball with the moon as the pupil.
There was no escaping that massive gaze.
And that was not all.
Light gathered in front of the moon.
<Warning>
“Manager! The amount of ether detected on the lunar surface is spiking!”
It was obvious what was happening.
“The Black Witch is interfering with the seal! She’s releasing her power!”
The communication officer’s voice filled the air as the light in the sky trembled. The ether light gained a shadow, grew black, and…
“It’s an arm!”
''It really is,'' thought Koutarou. A long, slender black arm crawled out from the moon as if it to connect the sky with the falling wreckage of the two witches.
Destruction and a fall were synonymous.
Horinouchi realized the impact of her landing had vanished and that the Magino Frame had begun to destroy itself.
Akerindou’s great bow was half destroyed and it was losing its acceleration pathway for shells.
She opened a spell circle to check and saw a fatal crack in the Phlogiston Heart. It had not completely broken, but it would be unable to endure the damage and it would fall apart.
…''And my mood feels about the same.
She could not continue to fight like this. That resignation stopped the heating of her heart, but…
“The sky!”
Her Magino Frame’s armor had shattered and fallen and she could see the shards turning to light and vanishing, but beyond that, she saw a colossal eyeball floating in the heavens and she saw a slender black hand reaching its claws her way.
The black hand and arm approaching through the sky trailed black light and she could not imagine how much power it took to create something like that.
…''Is that…?
She knew what it was.
It was a portion of the Black Witch’s power. It had escaped the seal and it had to be more of an illusion than anything else. If it had the physical might something that size would normally wield, it would have disturbed the space between the moon and the earth and the sky would have split open.
That was an illusion. It may have been powerful, but it was not the Black Witch’s true power.
But even knowing that, a different understanding led her heart to tremble.
The Black Witch was focused on her.
She felt a chill because she recalled certain words.
…''I…
I have always kept my back to the moon.
If the Black Witch had wanted, she could have suddenly grabbed Horinouchi from behind.
“————”
“————”
She had been naïve. Or should she say the situation had “corrected” itself. This was the sort of relationship the Black Witch and other witches were meant to have.
The blank explosion blew away the two who had passed her by on either side.
…''Kh.
They had been in the middle of swinging their jitte. They had likely intended to move forward and avoid any follow-up attacks while rotating their jitte around into a defensive stance.
The black arm reached out quickly, earnestly, longingly. Its size had already become clear.
However, the girl had not overlooked that.
“It covers the sky!”
She had attacked their backs. And instead of firing a shell, she had used a compression cannon that primarily fired a shockwave.
The opened hand was as wide as the moon.
Koutarou doubted she was unable to create a shell. She had simply lowered the front-end acceleration inside the acceleration barrel and slammed a high-speed “explosion” at them from behind.
It already hid the moon and the color black spread across Tokyo’s sky.
A shell would have been better.
The massive fingers seemed to envelop everything and only the center of the palm could still be seen from here.
With a shell, she would have had to target one or the other of them. The explosive blast when it was fired may have shaken the other, but that would have been angled away instead of a direct hit.
The fingers had surpassed Japan and were likely darkening the area from the central Pacific to Eastern Europe.
However, a targeted blank blast was very bad. As for how it was bad…
Horinouchi wondered what she could even do.
“Left and right, spread out!”
“Horinouchi!!”
The explosive blast sent their own jitte slamming into them and the two of them flew through the air. Their speed was already past the limits of their armor’s hardening mechanism. Unable to control it, they were tossed helplessly through the air.
She heard a voice.
And they ended up colliding with the two groups trying to surround the girl on the left and right.
She turned to her right and saw someone familiar rushing her way.
“Dammit!” shouted someone from the right group. “I was getting excited surrounding an unknown witch, but all I get is a guy thrown at me!?”
It was Kagami Kagami. The girl’s Magino Form was even more broken than Horinouchi’s, but she directly observed the other girl.
Meanwhile, the guy in question collided with three men who caught him. The sound of armor striking armor was surprisingly light and the same pattern occurred on both sides.
“Is your Phlogiston Heart still active!?”
“Spread out!”
Her voice filled the air.
The three who caught the airborne man moved in unison to leave the center.
“I wish to borrow your power!”
Koutarou immediately saw the group on the right knocked flying.
It happened in an instant.
The girl named Kagami had charged straight into that group.
Horinouchi did not understand what was happening, but she felt an odd sense of trust in the voice she heard.
She had followed the path of the flying man, but something was not right about her immediate reaction.
She had been fighting this enemy not long before. The girl had unknown origins, had opposed her for unknown reasons, and had harmed people close to her.
…''Does that blank cannon not have recoil!?
But they had the same objective.
Koutarou had already seen the answer to his question.
…''And this person…
The sword had jumped backwards from the cannon blast, but she had held it in both hands and pressed it against her right shoulder.
Even now, she did not look away from the moon.
“There.”
Had there ever been someone like this? Every ten years, this world experienced Hexennacht, which might as well have been a ritual sacrifice, yet this girl stared fearlessly into the sky even as the Black Witch’s power approached.
And she had swung it around.
“Horinouchi!”
She had used the recoil for a large rotating swing. She had spun like a top on one heel, but she had also leaned backwards for a splendid horizontal swing.
She reached out her hand, her power arm. She had already arrived right in front of Horinouchi.
“Is that where you are?” she had asked while adding direction to the swing.
“What are you going to do?”
She had planted her other heel to transform her rotation into a charge. As her sword tore through the air, it had accurately followed the soldier who flew to the right.
“That is simple.”
The problem was the three who had tried to catch that man.
Kagami swung her arms outward.
The girl had accurately sent her sword in directly below him, so they briefly hesitated.
“I must strike her!”
That turned out to be a mistake.
Horinouchi knew what Kagami was going to do. She had seen the girl do it several times already.
The sword’s speed allowed it to slip below him as he flew.
The power of this witch named Kagami Kagami was most likely of the craft-style, which used some kind of special technique. The other witches used a ritual process to draw ether from the ley lines and form motors and armor from it.
The thick tip struck the man in the center. He gave up on catching his fellow soldier and held his jitte up to guard.
…''But she can suddenly “grab” the ether and “process” it.
Koutarou heard two low sounds resembling wind instruments.
The word “creation” may have been the closest match, but it was not an impossible technique. Some witches would improve themselves through divine protection and modifications, essentially turning their very existence into a spell.
The sword’s tip pierced the jitte.
However, that all came from their own spells and it reduced and heated the ether they possessed.
It passed through his guard and knocked him backwards. A moment later, Koutarou saw the sword perform a vertical half-rotation.
This girl was different.
It opened up for a cannon blast and the mechanism reconfigured itself faster than before.
There had not been an ether reading from the very beginning. That had not changed even now. Not only was it low for a witch, she had less than a normal person. Nevertheless, she could grab and process ether far more quickly than Horinouchi.
“Spread out!”
“I wish to borrow your power.”
The blank cannon fired as if helping them obey his command.
How could she sound so confident?
The men on the left and right were blown away and the airborne man fell head-first.
Horinouchi did not understand.
There was so much here she did not understand.
But she could trust in herself. She had reached Rank #4 and became the Eastern Japanese representative because she had never allowed herself to be shaken.
''Then,'' she thought. ''I will trust in what I’ve seen.
The girl in front of her could process ether and she could strategize. Horinouchi was not sure she could say this girl was her equal, but their battle had ended in a draw.
So…
“Suzaku!”
The servant must have been exhausted because it was sitting cross-legged in the spell circle on her shoulder.
…Are you really a bird?
She sometimes wondered that, but she let it slide since there was no real meaning in saying otherwise. She felt that was the adult thing to do. Anyway, the Suzaku seemed to have understood what she was thinking.
<Magino Frame: Release Portion of Structure>
<Warning: Releasing a portion of the structure will accelerate collapse of Phlogiston Heart. 15 Seconds.>
“I will lend you my power!”
Instead of leaving her Magino Frame to fall apart, she returned it to ether on her own. That would indeed be a source of power for Kagami who could process ether.
However…
“There’s no time!”
“I am aware.” Kagami smiled back over her shoulder. “You have my thanks.”
Koutarou realized he had made the right decision.
“Manager!”
One of the observers pointed at the opposite shore of Tokyo Bay rather than the black hand grabbing at them from the sky.
“Lady Mitsuru and her opponent’s Magino Frames are fusing!!”
He could see it about twenty-five kilometers away. Despite that great distance, the five hundred meter structure rose tall in his vision.
“Ohh…”
The air shook from the shrine bell-like ringing of Akerindou’s motors and the church bell-like ringing of Kagami’s sword.
The two sounds never joined together. They simply travelled solemnly and separately through the air.
Then the two Magino frames took a single form.
The sword was at the center and the great bow extended horizontally from the guard.
The weapon resembled both a bow gun and a great sword, but it was over a kilometer long.
“Could that…?”
Koutarou started speaking, but then shook his head.
“That cannot catch up to her mother.”
He swallowed the word “yet” and shouted to the others.
“Look!”
He listened to the ringing of the two types of bells and looked into the sky.
The five extended black fingers may have already reached the exosphere. They were beginning to gain a coloration closer to blue than black. The palm seemed to rapidly distort and expand due to the atmosphere’s lensing effect, and…
“After ten years, the Horinouchi family’s strike will reach the Black Witch!”
His shout was immediately followed by the world shaking.
The kilometer long cannon had fired its full power into the sky.
The recoil could not be buffered.
The shockwave of the blast created electrical discharges in the sky over a radius of several dozen kilometers and the ruined buildings to the north and east of Tokyo Bay were swept and blasted away.
As the wreckage flew into the air, stabbed into other ruins, and spread destruction as they rolled, the pressure of the blast itself shook the bay.
The bottom of the bay came into view along the coast of Makuhari on the northeastern end of the vast body of water.
The mud, sand, and the base of the broken manmade islands and reclaimed land were revealed wet in the sunlight and the water swelled outward.
The sound was not that of waves.
The water itself was compressed and seawater twisted and roared up from below the swelling ocean surface. It sounded a lot like the creaking of a ship.
In the center of the bay, Shihouin Academy reacted most quickly to the movement and noise. The academy’s defense system had already activated defense spells, but it now erected barrier walls which rose from the ocean to stop the coming tsunami. While sending warnings to the coast, their defense system sent barriers out as far into the ocean as it could to break the waves. This was only possible due to the relatively shallow depth of Tokyo Bay and the school also contacted U.A.H.J. and an organization founded by influential families such as the Horinouchi family and by the municipal office of reconstructed Yokohama. They cast wide-range spells to stop the waves on the coast and to secure and reinforce the waterways needed to allow the tsunami’s water to escape.
Also…
<Warning: Shockwave will arrive in 7 seconds.>
It felt like a physical blow.
From east to west, it transformed the tsunami into a massive amount of ocean spray.
That was the might of the explosive blast. It split the ocean open as a rapid vibration, turned to rain, and…
“…!”
“…!”
The eastern windows on the coastal buildings shook and some cracked.
However, he flipped around and managed to plant his feet on the ground, even if he was leaning back quite a bit.
But everyone saw a certain sight through those windows or above their lowered heads.
In the center of the heavens above, an attack flew from the skyward-aimed sword bow.
“Oh…”
It pierced through the black hand trying to envelop the entire world.
It flew in a straight line.
As if to show just how defenseless the spread fingers of the black arm were, the shot of light pierced through it up to the elbow.
The destruction came afterwards.
The forearm was the first to scatter. The area a bit above the wrist swelled out from within and burst like splitting bark.
The rest was simple.
As the destruction raced up to the elbow, the wrist and hand were left in the sky, seemingly forgotten. They lost their strength, but they were not forgiven.
The hole in the palm spread from the other side and the fingers thrust outwards at crooked angles.
Then it finally collapsed.
It vanished in an instant.
Pale ether light shaped like an arm scattered in the heavens and finally disappeared.
The destruction from earth seemed to stop when it reached the upper arm, but the arm no longer functioned and that was enough.
It all vanished toward the moon and only the eye ring remained around the moon.
But that too gathered together as if narrowing.
“It’s vanishing!”
By the time the people stood up, threw open their windows or ran from their homes, and cheered, the black sky had vanished.
All that remained was the moon floating in the summer sky. And…
“Where’s the witch’s blade!?”
They all turned toward eastern Tokyo Bay.
By then, nothing remained. There were no rain clouds in the sky, but a salty rain fell. The approach of the tsunami left some of the coastal areas soaked and the receding waves roared through the waterways.
Everyone was seeing and experiencing a temporary change, but nothing remained in the sky or on the earth.
“What was that?”
The next thing they knew, the rain had passed and everything was back to normal.
“Okay.”
Horinouchi checked on the situation as she heard Kagami’s voice and saw the other girl lower her shoulders.
The Magino Frame had vanished and they stood on the roof of an abandoned building. Only the blue sky and white moon could be seen above and the waves below had returned to the bottom of the bay. They were picking up speed, rolling the underwater wreckage and stones around and crashing against the ruins.
The underwater structures moved and crashed together and the ocean produced a kind of white noise as it tried to expel the air it had taken in.
She heard distant sirens from the opposite coast.
Their attack had caused secondary damages.
…''We aren’t that much different from the Black Witch.
But the Horinouchi family, U.A.H.J., and other countermeasure organizations seemed to be functioning properly. The coastal areas were allowing the waves to escape and temporarily accumulate in the ruins and the only obvious damage being reported was broken windows from the shockwave. Of course, some of the shrines and temples near the coast had their ether tanks burst due to the backflow of their ether capacity support systems.
By that time, the arc of light had already drawn a large ring. Just like before, the sword flew in a splendid horizontal swing.
However, Horinouchi was focused on something else. The magic circle containing praise from Koutarou was crushed by the praise coming from the maids in the command center, but she ignored that.
Her new target was the left group.
…''Kagami Kagami.
She transferred her rotation into an attack, a great sound of impact pounded into Koutarou’s ears, and he heard a voice.
She had distinctly heard something during the cannon blast.
It belonged to the girl going by the name Kagami Kagami.
When the black arm had been destroyed and the moon had been revealed, that girl had spoken.
“What is the meaning of this?”
“I finally found you, Shouko!”
Even as she attacked and swept them away, she asked about the battle itself rather than them.
Shouko?
“Why do you need this kind of equipment!?”
Who was that? No, more importantly…
…''Who are you?
Horinouchi did not know, so she focused on what she could see before her.
Kagami asked her question while sweeping away the enemy, competing with them, and pushing them back.
“————”
“This equipment can be reproduced with ether, it can be carried around without worrying about its weight or volume, and it requires no refueling or reloading as long as you maintain your belief and have ether.”
Kagami’s entire body wobbled unsteadily. At the same time, she released her Magino Form and returned to her suit.
What would something like that lead to?
She was falling. No, collapsing.
“If there was a war, it could easily destroy a nation, if not the entire world.”
It may have been exhaustion or the release of her tension, but Horinouchi had also lost her Magino Form.
She now wore her school uniform.
“Wait!”
She tried to catch Kagami by the back and shoulders and found she was surprisingly light. So as not to hold her too tightly, she supported her by wrapping an arm around her.
“You…”
A white and blue dragon servant stood at their feet.
Horinouchi remembered that she had helped with the experiments concerning that servant. She had had high hopes for it, but when the decision had been made to dispose of it as a failure, she had arranged a certain plan after taking the final readings.
She had made sure the lock spell would release if the servant wished to be free.
She could not let it just wait in its cage to be disposed of. That was hypocritical considering how the other servants like that had been treated, but when there was a connection to her…
…''I remember.
After her mother had lost and died, she had heard some people lamenting.
Mankind had meant to seal away the Black Witch, but they had actually surrounded themselves by her cage where they simply waited to be killed.
Horinouchi had not wanted the servant to be in the same situation.
She had been looking down on the creature as she had granted it the right to live and die as it pleased, but she had also had a certain thought.
If she could end Hexennacht during this generation, that would no longer be hypocritical.
And so she had promised herself she would do just that.
But she had not expected the servant to choose the western ruins as its escape route. She had assumed it would go east, away from the danger and the people, but some part of its subconscious may have felt a connection to people. She had sent her tracking spell to the west, so she had ultimately caused Koutarou some trouble.
…''But…
“Wait!”
It may have only been a small fraction, but she had torn into the Black Witch’s power with this girl she had met after all that.
Had she done the right thing? And if so…
…''I…
Wondering what would happen, she looked to the person she could ask.
“—————”
She held her in her arms and looked to her face.
…''“I finally found you”?
There had been no resentment in her voice. It had only contained anger towards something. And it had not been a simple rebuke. It had likely been a mixture of several different thoughts.
But…
But…
“What does this mean?”
“But from the looks of this city, you live in peace. The people are kind and filled with life. …That is a contradiction.”
There was a slight smile on the unconscious girl’s face, but who could say if it was just the relaxing of her muscles as she passed out or if it was an expression of her emotions. Horinouchi still understood nothing.
She moved forward as she spoke.
“Who are you?”
“So I ask you.”
She heard the beating of the air in the distance as Koutarou’s helicopter came to retrieve them.
Kagami Kagami asked her question while striking the enemy before her and opening a path.
===Part 2===
“What are you all so afraid of?”
Music could be heard.
She swung her weapon, fired it, and asked.
The morning air warmed as the sun rose. It may have been summer, but the air was still and calm this early in the morning. And that clear air contained music.
“You have this powerful equipment and you are protecting this city and its people. So why are you weaponizing small lives and keeping them ready for combat?”
“What is this? The American national anthem?”
Why?
A few people in track suits stepped out onto the roof and the girl they found their answered them.
“What fills you with such fear and need for protection!?”
“I’m about to have a match, so I want to focus.”
“Oh, sorry. Are we interrupting?”
The few who had arrived started back inside, but the girl raised a hand to stop them.
Koutarou wondered what this witch was.
“You’ll make things more difficult for me if you do that. As the representative of the special equipment division, I represent all of you, so it’ll be more difficult for me if you treat me differently. After all…”
Should he call her ignorant or foolish?
She swept aside the red hair falling just above her shoulder.
How could she ask why they had developed these weapons and why they worked with the witches to protect the world?
“America represents the world and its strength can reach any part of that world.”
“You can see the answer all around you.”
“Oh, oh. How reliable.”
Yet she was saying she did not understand.
“Yeah, I suppose.”
However, her question was related to their “normal” everyday life, so he felt it had to be the truth.
The girl smiled bitterly and let the music play. The magic circle by her hand contained an acoustic spell which produced the music of a live orchestra.
“Commander!”
The song was the American national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner”.
Koutarou saw the men taking defensive stances in front of him raise their hips while leaning forward.
—Oh, say can you see by the dawn’s early light
“We just received an order to evacuate this area!”
—What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
—Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
—O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
Evacuate.
—And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air
Koutarou understood what that meant: they could not win here.
—Gave proof thru the night that our flag was still there.
…''A witch just has so much more attack power than a male spell user!
—Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
Female spells were active ones that specialized in attack and repelling.
—O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
Male spells were passive ones that specialized in defense and buffering.
“I don’t understand much of the English, but it sure does sound cool.”
Most importantly, the active spells allowed girls to interact with servants.
“I’m glad to hear that. When I first heard my dad performing this, I was too young to know what it meant either.” The girl looked at the others. “But are you all okay?”
Modern times had introduced artificial servants and the performance of male defense spells had vastly improved, but…
“If you’re talking about the pre-summer break assignment, then we took care of yours as well, special equipment representative. But if we aren’t treating you differently, you’ll fail if you fall behind on your homework.”
“That girl is at ranker level! I don’t understand how she could eject just a Normal Device without a servant and then swing it around like that, but she definitely has the ability needed to produce a Normal Form and complete a full Frame!”
“Doing mine for me isn’t treating me differently?”
“But we should still be able to restrain her when working together.”
“In the special equipment division, we take care of each other. No matter where in the world they are or who they are, as long as they’re one of us, we’ll treat them the same. It would be a problem for us all if someone was dragging us down, so we won’t let that happen.”
The rest of the team lifted the corners of their mouth.
“Thanks,” said the girl.
“I forgot to mention it, but we might need to add the word ‘top’ in front of ‘ranker’. Besides…”
And…
The man activated several spells along with the others and switched his armor’s mobile functions to high-speed combat mode. He used his fingers to hit the “allow” button on a few spell circles.
“Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
“Look around you. That girl is fighting us, but she hasn’t done anything that would kill us. Really, she’s just been leading us around.”
“O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?”
“I understand that she has no hostility toward us. However, I have deemed her dangerous because she opposes our regulations for handling servants and she has produced a Normal Device without a servant.”
The special equipment building’s rooftop was covered in a solar power system and the students who had spent the night in the building working had gathered there to get some of the morning’s fresh air. Some light exercise was a daily ritual of the girl’s and more and more people had ended up joining in. Today, she smiled at the front of the group.
And if she did not want any further damage to result from this battle…
“Oh, honestly.”
“She understands we are only fighting due to the obligations of our position.”
She looked back toward the western coast of Tokyo Bay.
“Do you know why she’s fighting?”
A few different areas there were covered in metal scaffolding and the sounds of construction could already be heard.
He did.
The previous day’s large-scale battle and its after effects had put a large burden on some of the embankments and flood gates. They had spells and divine protection, but physical reinforcement would strengthen it all and increase the number of hooks for adding in divine protection.
“Her question.”
“Oh? Are those our first years?”
While clashing with their unit, she had expressed her anger toward how they were fighting here. That was likely her reason to fight.
“Some of them went to help with the construction. They made several ridiculous requests such as making it baroque or like Todai-ji, so who knows what kind of flood gate they’re going to end up with.”
They did not understand why she was fighting and she did not understand why they were fighting.
The girl responded to that with a small smile and stretched a little.
She had asked them, but…
“Now, then.”
“We cannot truly answer that question.”
She pulled her arm back toward her side and then thrust it forward.
“Then what do we do?”
“I’m going to be aiming a little higher, so it’s time I did what I need to do.”
“We endure. Classes are still in session. This is a time of day when any question is sure to receive an answer.”
So…
“An answerer is sure to arrive. A top ranker witch will arrive to answer her question.”
Horinouchi did not like the headmaster’s office.
“Then,” said the others.
It was not a simple sort of dislike; it was a complicated kind. And that was especially true today.
They all stepped back and put some distance between themselves and the non-standard witch named Kagami.
First of all, its location was a problem. It and the other teacher’s officers could have been in one of the school buildings, but they were instead located in the library on the northeast end of the school grounds.
They held their jitte vertically and activated spell circles to reestablish their reinforcement spells.
The library was another problem. It was divided between normal books and reference books, so one category was naturally larger and the library had been built in a pyramid shape to accommodate that. The teacher’s offices were inside that building, so when someone said they were visiting a teacher’s office, a few people would always make a triangular gesture above their head and ask, “You mean here?”
“Who do you think is stronger? Her or our young lady?”
The Middle Eastern witches in particular would insist that it provided “pyramid power” and would therefore keep flowers from withering, so perhaps the headmaster had designed it to keep herself from aging.
“The young lady has no reason to lose.”
The headmaster herself was yet another problem. After all…
“Then,” said the others again. “Is it our job to test that!?”
…''She worked with my mother.
“It is!”
The three witches who had competed for the representative spot during the previous Hexennacht were known as the Three Sages and the headmaster was one of them.
Koutarou swung his hand.
Horinouchi’s mother had ultimately been the representative, but Horinouchi had of course been born at that point and the headmaster was the only person in the school who had known her since she was a child.
He spoke to Kagami who held her sword in a lowered position while surrounded.
She found the headmaster was the only person here that she could not take the initiative with.
“Listen!”
And there was another problem with the headmaster’s office unique to today.
He did not entirely understand his opponent, the situation, or the escaped servant.
…''What in the world is going on?
However, he felt a strange emotion deep in his gut.
She could not help but wonder why she was standing in the headmaster’s office with this person.
…''This opponent.
It was Kagami Kagami.
If she would question the most obvious facts of their situation…
She and that girl in a suit stood facing the headmaster.
…''Will she act as a powerful medicine against all of our problems?
“We have no obligation and no right to answer your question.”
“Does that mean someone else can answer it?”
“Now, then. …Miss Kagami, was it? Did you have a good night’s sleep?”
“It does,” he said. “But you are dangerous and we do not understand your strength. So if someone is coming to answer you, it will be the one ranked 4th in the world.”
Kagami nodded while ignoring the silent glare Horinouchi was giving her.
“Let me say that I am prepared to open the way forward on my own.” Kagami then smiled slightly. “My reason for fighting has finally gotten through to you, has it?”
A woman with glasses sat in front of her. Her semi-long hair was of a foreign color and she appeared to be in her early thirties, but as a witch, her appearance was not necessarily a reliable indicator of her age. However, Kagami did sense an indistinct aura coming from the woman.
She took a single step forward and then a second. The man in front of Koutarou reacted by giving the hand signal for “fall back”.
…''Should I call it a mystical aura?
Koutarou was to arrange to have the area evacuated.
She did not know the rules here. There were some things only she noticed and some things the others noticed as well, so she decided to set aside the headmaster’s aura for the moment.
He was worried about the others, but all of them lifted the corners of their mouths.
“I did. Thank you very much, Lady Headmaster.”
“C’mon, let’s do this. We’re a decent enough challenge for a double-digit ranker.”
“You don’t need to call me ‘lady’.”
“But only when we’re working as a group and only when they’re alone and limited to the ground.”
“You have a thin handkerchief in your breast pocket, so I figured you had once worn a badge there.”
“Still, we can achieve measurable results.”
The headmaster flicked lightly at the handkerchief on her chest.
“We’re the world’s barrier,” said one.
“This is…”
“Yeah,” said another. “We won’t let her through. And if she can, then we’ll accept her.”
She smiled bitterly.
“That’s right,” said a third. “And if she gets past us, it would have to be above. …I wish she was wearing a skirt, but I’m not about to criticize a girl’s fashion.”
“…due to some old mischief.”
“Sorry about that,” said Kagami in her pantsuit and shoes.
Horinouchi gave a blatant sigh, so there must have been a connection there. Regardless, the headmaster opened a magic circle with the hand she had used to flick the handkerchief.
She nodded and began moving with a light step.
The display had a floral shape.
“I am counting on you, gentlemen.”
“Anyway, this is the bill for using our dorms last night.”
She raised her weapon.
“I would expect nothing less.”
“And I am thankful.”
“Now, now. To be honest, some witches are forceful enough to use their spatial teleportation to get out of paying, so I’m thankful you actually answered my invitation. Oh, and one other thing.”
She narrowed her eyes and threw another floral magic circle toward Horinouchi.
Horinouchi tilted her head and tried to avoid it.
Everyone saw a small light in the western sky out the window.
“You don’t need to be that cruel,” said the headmaster with a bitter smile in her voice.
They sat inside a stepped classroom with a high ceiling.
She pulled back her hand and the magic circle stopped next to Horinouchi’s face.
The girls’ turned to the oblong window and some scanned the scene with spell circles. Clapping hands reached them from the teacher’s podium.
“What is this? Headmaster, could you tell me what you want before throwing things at me? It would be a real pain if it was a bomb, you know?”
“Everyone, we have been falling behind lately, so try to pay attention. Even if Shihouin Academy is meant to instruct witches, it’s still a high school. If you fall behind in your lessons, I’ll get in trouble and you won’t be prepared for your written and practical exams.”
“That’s for Koutarou. I had him get me some root vegetable seeds from Mount Kouya a while back and they have produced some lovely flowers, so I can send him back even more than he gave me.”
Some people replied “yes, ma’am” and others silently obeyed and focused on the teacher again.
“Why can’t you send this to him directly?”
However, one girl raised her hand.
The headmaster placed a hand on her cheek, sighed, and shook her head.
“Um, will they be okay?”
“I just have no idea how to communicate with teenagers these days.”
“Just now, a notification was sent out that a location-undesignated S-rank battle has begun in the corresponding area,” quietly replied the teacher. “The people have been evacuated and it seems the cause is being guided to an external area of ruins. This is not a problem.”
It amused Kagami how much Horinouchi’s upper lip twisted, but the girl blushed as soon as she noticed Kagami watching.
“No,” said the girl who had raised her hand. “Um, I was talking about the opponent.”
“Wh-what are you looking at?”
“The opponent is probably a stray witch,” said someone else. “Powerful unregistered witches are usually scouted by U.A.H. or the school. But when Horinouchi is sent out…”
“Oh, I just thought it was interesting that you too can give people looks like that.”
Everyone reached a single conclusion.
“That’s right, Miss Kagami. Miss Horinouchi is a lot cuter than she looks, so please take good care of her.”
“They tend to be disciplined in some flashy way.”
“I will make sure to do so.”
The teacher could only nod in agreement. She pushed up her glasses and finally opened her mouth.
They both ignored the voice yelling “do what!?”, but it still created a break in the conversation. The tension had already faded, so…
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Lady Headmaster.”
A light appeared in the western sky as she spoke.
This seemed as good a time as any, so Kagami folded up the bill, placed it in her breast pocket, and spoke.
“No matter how strong or harsh they may be, our history and destiny suggest it isn’t enough.”
“To put it simply, I have come from another world.”
By the time Horinouchi arrived at the scene, it was filled with wreckage and the wind blew about scattered ether light.
…''She just said something odd!!
These were ruins.
''She’s really done it now!'' thought Horinouchi. ''What even is “another world”? What kind of made-up story is this?
If one travelled a little northeast along the coast of the bay, one would arrive at modern ruins even along the rivers.
But…
Horinouchi found several familiar faces collapsed at the entrance to such a place.
“Yes, that happens sometimes, Miss Kagami.”
“Everyone!”
“Headmaster!? You believe her!?”
They were on a wide road. Long ago, it had apparently continued even further west.
“Witches can come from anywhere. And Miss Horinouchi, how about we move onto you?”
Men wearing shattered armored uniforms stood on either side of the road.
Only then did Horinouchi remember that she had been called here along with Kagami.
Horinouchi had received a report on her way here and the individual described therein spoke up.
It made no sense to her. If it was to inform her that her rank had changed, why summon Kagami as well? That girl seemed to have a way of ruining Horinouchi’s usual pace, but listening to the headmaster made it sound like Kagami was the main topic here, so…
“Oh? A new challenger?”
“By the way, headmaster! Why am I here, too!?”
Instead of simply wearing a suit, the girl’s clothes had a tight style reminiscent of riding clothes. She turned toward Horinouchi.
“Well,” said the headmaster. “Miss Kagami here may not belong to our school, but she still defeated you. I was wondering what do about your change in rank.”
“That movement was quite sudden. Was it an Instant Step?”
…''You’re announcing my demotion in front of the person who defeated me?
She had seen through it.
Her pride did not like that at all, so she spoke up before the others could say anything more.
However, Horinouchi had not let that show in the moment of her arrival. So was this girl bluffing? Or…
“I don’t mind if you lower me to 5th.”
…''Did she see the ether movement of a mobility spell?
That meant a drop in rank.
To make extra certain her approach would not be detected, Horinouchi had travelled the last distance on foot. However, this girl had detected in a way she had not imagined.
She had definitely lost the previous day’s match. It was being treated as a draw and there was probably some truth to that, but…
“Who are you?”
“Kagami is an outside witch with no preparation while I have the training and standards of a ranker.”
“Is there something odd about me?”
Their shells had cancelled each other out at the end of the match, but that was all the proof she needed.
Horinouchi glared at her and raised her right hand to point.
Her own had been more powerful, but Kagami had found a way to respond. Horinouchi had also hurried and responded, but…
“That.”
“I was a step behind. If you look past the result and focus on the flow of events and the momentum, then I was the clear loser. I have no objection to a drop in rank.”
The girl noticed the pure white Normal Device she held.
“Please wait,” said Kagami with a tilt of the head. “I do not care about the ranks. As long as I can defeat the Black Witch, nothing else matters.”
It was a large sword. According to the report, it could fire a cannon built inside it.
“Weren’t you listening?”
However, Horinouchi noticed something strange now that she had seen it for herself.
''How ignorant of the rules is she? Do I really have to say this here? No, I’m pretty sure I said it yesterday too, so has she already forgotten?
“That Normal Device.”
“Only one witch can challenge the Black Witch on Hexennacht!”
“Those guys were making a fuss over it too, but is summoning this thing really so strange? I think they said something about needing a servant to do it.”
Kagami gave the headmaster a questioning look and the woman nodded.
Something seemed off about the girl’s comment, but Horinouchi was mostly mildly irritated by it.
“Allow me to explain.” She placed a hand on her chin. “Yes, that’s more or less how it works.”
…''This is odd.
“That is not an explanation!”
She knew what the girl was saying, but she could not understand it.
“Horinouchi, being too nitpicky is bad for your mental health.”
She did not know what the girl meant by it.
“That is none of your business!”
She was saying she had summoned a Normal Device without a servant, but that made no sense. That was not how summoning a Normal Device worked.
“I see.” Kagami waved a hand back and forth and bowed toward Horinouchi. “So I got in the way of your ambitions. I apologize.”
So…
“That’s called the arrogance of a winner.”
Kagami raised her head with a corner of her mouth lightly raised.
“That is just who I am.”
…''This girl.
While Horinouchi mentally clenched her teeth, the headmaster smiled and clapped her hands once.
“Okay,” she said. “Miss Kagami, your abilities look promising and you don’t seem to have any relatives, so I would like to invite you to join our academy.”
“Ehhhh!?”
“Yes, that seems like an excellent decision.”
“Ehhhh!?”
“Heh heh. I am glad to hear it, Miss Kagami. Yes.”
“Ehhhh!?”
“Indeed. I am glad to have a stable home close to others who understand me.”
“Um, is it just me or are you two completely ignoring me!?”
At some point, Kagami had walked up next to her and she placed a hand on her shoulder.
“Uh… I look forward to working with you, Horinouchi…”
Kagami looked up at the ceiling before looking back at Horinouchi with a smile.
“Horinouchi Manko.”<ref>The kanji for Mitsuru + the feminine suffix "ko" = "Manko", which also means vagina.</ref>
“My name is not Manko!”
She was afraid that would stick.
“Head Butler…or wait, are you acting as manager at the moment? Anyway, Lady Mitsuru has a message for you from the headmaster.”
“Yes, I am acting as the former at the moment. What is the message about?”
Koutarou fixed his suit’s collar. If it was not an emergency, he would have any message inspected at the command center first. It could be an annoyance, but he felt it was safer and took the pressure off of his master when she returned home.
…''It is not good to live a rushed life.
That was his opinion as someone in a position that had served the Horinouchi family for generations. And in the mansion hall, the maid opened a magic circle to perform a double safety check.
“It is thanks for the seeds you provided her. Um…”
The maid summarized the contents.
“She wishes to invite Kagami – the witch who fought Lady Mitsuru – to the academy, so she wants the Horinouchi family to vouch for her. Also, a ranker cannot exactly stay in the dorms and there is an empty room in Lady Mitsuru’s living space, so she wants us to prepare it for that Kagami girl without asking Lady Mitsuru’s permission. Finally, Lady Mitsuru will be showing Kagami around the academy, so she wants you to provide assistance.”
“What does that have to do with thanking me for the seeds!?”
“That was what Lady Mitsuru said it was about when she forwarded the message.”
Before the maid had even finished her explanation, Koutarou had dashed out of the hall.
“I need to hurry to the academy! Check Lady Mitsuru’s movements via GPS! I need to be there waiting for her!”
“Head Butler, what about dinner?”
“I will stop at a convenience store on the way!”
“Then we’ll just do whatever,” said the maids as he left them behind and pulled a car key from his pocket.
He had to hurry. After all…
“The Head Butler of the Horinouchi family must be there before his master needs him!”
“Anyway, school is already out for the day, so I’ll show you around the academy real quick.”
Horinouchi chose the path they would take. If she was to give a simple tour of Shihouin Academy, there was only one real option.
…''Down the center.
They first circled northward from the northeastern library.
“That floating school building to the north is for the honors division. It’s for those with abilities that don’t fit into the other divisions or those with exceptional power. Their lessons are mostly individualized guidance.”
But the two of them did not go there. A flower garden was located below the honors building and some students were tending to it, but…
“The powers of honors witches can be harder to use and they tend to be sharply focused in one direction, but you can think of them as the highest ranked division. However, when you look at the ranker ratios, their exceptional abilities make it easier to hit them with countermeasures, so very few of them make it to the higher levels.”
“But the initial attack works well, doesn’t it?”
Horinouchi could only agree with Kagami.
“Yes. The ones with more difficult countermeasures rise the farthest and they are only ever defeated because of the people who essentially act as ‘sacrifices’ until the countermeasure is ready.”
Horinouchi was one of those who stood atop that foundation. She did not look down on herself or pride herself for that fact. Tactics based on a system always came with rules.
At any rate, she chose to take the southward path. That route would cut across the school grounds from north to south.
It was also a path that she liked quite a bit. After all…
“Horinouchi, I see the center of the school has been made into a courtyard and nature park. Is that how witches do things?”
“Yes. It provides a place to focus your mind, to cultivate catalysts, and for the spirits to rest.”
And when the trees formed a roof overhead, something else could be glimpsed past them.
Tall structures were visible in every direction.
“Shihouin Academy has split its school building into the four cardinal directions. To the south is the general division, to the west is the special equipment division, to the east is the spell division, and to the north is the honors division.”
They passed by a few people. Horinouchi did not know if people were focused on her or if Kagami stood out in her suit, but the people stretched out on the grass and the people sitting in the trees holding brooms all looked their way. But she paid them no heed.
“The top four world witch rankings are each a part of one of those school buildings. I am #4 and essentially the representative of the general division.”
“I see,” replied Kagami. “Then I just have to defeat the higher ranks with you.”
“What?”
“From what I heard, there is also a buddy system. If you join up with me, things should be a lot easier, don’t you think?”
“Stop deciding things for me!”
Horinouchi was reminded of when she had been forced to say goodbye to her mother.
When it came to a battle, one could be lost no matter how powerful they were. Battles between normal witches followed certain rules and someone could step in if there was any danger, but that was not true of a battle with the Black Witch. With the buddy system, one’s mistake could mean losing their partner or vice versa, so…
“I fight on my own.”
Kagami immediately gave a dignified nod and held out a hand to stop Horinouchi.
“————”
Kagami moved only her gaze to look around.
Horinouchi understood.
This was the courtyard. The students who had begun their afterschool training had grown silent and had taken fighting stances.
They were prepared to challenge Horinouchi at any moment.
The previous day’s battle had left her Suzaku exhausted.
…''I could probably summon my Magino Frame, but a full-on battle would be difficult.
However, these students were not about to overlook that. Not to mention that Horinouchi had shot back at the Black Witch. If these other students were to defeat her…
“I take it they are looking for an opening so they can defeat us and improve their rank,” said Kagami without bothering to whisper. “Wonderful. If everyone here can unify their hearts like this, then I look forward to when we can settle this.”
She began to walk in a random direction and tapped Horinouchi on the shoulder.
“Where can I get a good view?”
“To the south. If we pass through the general school building and leave through the front, we will reach a pier.”
“Then let’s go there,” said Kagami with her back still turned. “This is a nice place and I have something to tell you, Horinouchi.”
“Head Butler! The target is moving south! Most likely to the pier!”
“Ehhh!? Wait! Didn’t you just say she was headed west to the cafeteria!? Now I have to make a half circuit of the road around the academy!”
“Quite complaining and get going, Head Butler. You’re a man, aren’t you? If you delay Lady Mitsuru even a second, every last maid is going to greet you with fake smiles tomorrow.”
“Gender equality! I demand gender equality!”
The pier was empty.
Normally, the water-element witches would rest and hold their afterschool training there.
Their ships and floats were absent now, but that had to be due to the previous day.
…''The ley lines in the water must still be disturbed.
Any training on the sea would have to wait until after the water had fundamentally calmed down. That meant the pool was likely crowded. She reminded herself that the pool was located between the general and special equipment buildings, but then…
…Wh-why am I still thinking like a tour guide!?
She looked forward and saw Kagami walking below the setting sun.
She passed through the decorative gate to the pier and walked along the wooden tile floor. Horinouchi followed five steps behind Kagami while feeling the movement of the waves in the soles of her feet.
“I want you to listen to something. Think of it as a nonsense story.”
Kagami began speaking without warning and did not give Horinouchi a chance to say anything.
“Once, in a world different from this one, there were two sisters.”
Only then was there a pause.
Feeling she was being invited to ask, Horinouchi spoke the question on her mind.
“What do you mean?”
Kagami claimed to be from another world. Horinouchi found it hard to believe, but the girl was clearly talking about herself here. And that she had a sister was of course new information.
“How about I give you a better understanding?”
Kagami had her back turned, but Horinouchi heard a bitter laugh and more words.
“There was no magic in that world.”
“…What?”
“You don’t believe me?”
It was not so much that she did not believe her than it was that she did not understand.
If there was no magic, did that mean there was no ether, no spells, and no divine protection? If so…
“What did they use for fuel and on what was the value of currency based? In fact, what kind of civilization could there have-…”
“Sadly, you can chalk that up to a lack of imagination. That world did not look all that different from this one.”
But there still had to have been a major difference on a fundamental level.
Of course, Kagami probably understood that. She spread her arms a little before continuing.
“Because of that and because the younger of the sisters was quite frail, the two of them enjoyed imagining ''a world that had everything''.”
As for how…
“They expressed it in pictures and writing. The younger sister dreamed of being an author, so she began searching through the materials in the back of her mansion.”
“Materials?”
That probably meant she had looked around for history books and other reference materials for writing a book. There were similar people in Horinouchi’s class. In those girls’ case, their drawings and text became spells, but they said it was difficult to balance faithfulness to the reference materials with their own creativity. But in Kagami’s case…
“Their father was a collector and, one day, they found something.”
“What was it?”
“The Book of Creation.”
Kagami placed her hands on her hips after reaching the end of the pier.
“It was not that our world never had magic.”
In other words…
“Magic was deemed dangerous, so all the world’s magic was concentrated into a single book.”
“And that was the Book of Creation?”
All she did was ask questions, but Horinouchi’s curiosity had been piqued.
What if all of this world’s magic were gathered together?
She had never imagined something like that before, but something like it had once been in Kagami’s grasp.
…''I-I’m starting to believe her!
''Well, it’s just a play on words. Yes, that’s how I need to think of it.
But Kagami must have understood what she was thinking.
“You do not need to know what the book contained.”
After all…
“It gave physical form to its owner’s imagination and linked that physical form to itself.”
Kagami noticed that Horinouchi was not reacting to what she had said.
…''Honestly, what a clever girl.
She had likely directly grasped what Kagami was trying to say.
And after taking a few breaths, Kagami heard Horinouchi’s voice behind her.
“It gives physical form to its owner’s imagination? If you had a ridiculous artifact like that, you could become a god!”
“Yes.” Kagami crossed her arms and gathered strength in her hands. “A great many worlds were created.”
''They truly were,'' she thought to herself. ''They were definitely crated in the space one could call “the palm of your hand”.
If one wished for it, countless worlds could be made in any form they wanted and those worlds would be as accessible as the other side of a small door.
Thinking back, it had been an entrancing and dangerous game. After all, to establish the worlds they created…
“Countless lives were created, lived, clashed when they grew in number, reached a mutual understanding, and lived once more.”
But there was more she had to say.
“Due to her illness, the younger sister constantly felt the shadow of death.”
“You mean…”
Yes.
“That may have been why each world obeyed the younger sister’s imagination and was destroyed.”
“Wait.”
“What is it?”
After her question, additional words reached her from behind.
“What happened to the older sister?” asked Horinouchi. “If the younger sister began destroying the created worlds, what happened to the older sister?”
Horinouchi looked to Kagami’s back.
The girl had her arms crossed and her sides slowly tensed at Horinouchi’s question. Strength filled the hands holding her arms in place and it looked like she was restraining her own body.
Kagami began with a sigh.
“The older sister was trapped in the expansion of the worlds and she had some authority over the worlds she created with her sister, although not as much authority as that sister. So she traveled across those many worlds to stop her sister, but…”
But…
“She did not make it in time,” she said. “And so I will defeat my sister.”
With that announcement, Horinouchi understood. She understood Kagami’s questions during the battle the day before, her joy when looking up at the moon, and her anger when firing that final shot.
…''Her younger sister is the Black Witch!?
“Ha ha,” quietly laughed Kagami. “Listen.”
“Wh-what is it?”
“If her imagination of death will destroy this world, then I will stop her and end this even if it means killing her.”
“————”
Horinouchi could not say a thing.
She too had a starting point: ten years before when she lost her mother. She was where she was now because she had chosen her path as a witch to wipe away what she had felt back then and to make sure no one else would ever feel that way.
She did not want to lose anything and she did not want anyone else to lose anything, but…
…''This girl…
She was prepared to lose something out of necessity.
That conflicted with Horinouchi, but Horinouchi was at a loss for words regardless.
That was partially due to what she had been told, but she had also noticed something in Kagami’s words.
Horinouchi did not want to lose anything or for anyone else to lose anything, but…
…''If I kill the Black Witch, that will mean I am losing “her”.
The Black Witch was an enemy. She was both Horinouchi’s enemy and the world’s enemy. Going easy on her would mean a repeat of what had happened to them ten years before.
But Horinouchi’s starting point contained a contradiction all the same.
Part of that came from not knowing the Black Witch’s identity. She had thought of her as something like a natural disaster that could never be defeated no matter what. But…
“Horinouchi.”
Kagami turned around with a smile in her eyes.
“Did you actually believe all that?”
“Wh-what is that supposed to mean!?”
She felt like it had all slipped away from her.
It felt like all of her thoughts had been for nothing and it embarrassed her. She had thought too much about this other girl even though her standard policy was to avoid empathizing with others if at all possible. Her loss would be too painful otherwise, but so much of this information had been completely unexpected.
“Oh?”
Kagami looked behind her.
“You are the one from yesterday.”
“Eh?”
Horinouchi looked back and saw Koutarou at the end of the pier. He bowed.
“Lady Mitsuru, dinner is ready.”
“Whaaaaaat!? Head Butler! It’s still evening! What is this about dinner!?”
“Whaaaaat!? Lady Mitsuru is going to be spending the night in her school residence, and just how long would it take you to make dinner and carry it over to herrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!?”
“D-don’t think I’ll forget this, Head Butler! When you get back, I’ll curse you!”
“I can’t exactly laugh that off when you’re an actual witch!”
Kagami followed Horinouchi as the girl walked back down the pier in a huff.
The butler named Koutarou then stepped between them. He seemed to be communicating with someone using a simple magic circle, but he closed it and bowed.
Kagami bowed back, but…
“Are you fine with this?”
“Are talking about what happened yesterday? While we work with U.A.H.J., our actions are based on different standards.”
“So it is up to Horinouchi? …But it would seem she does not like me very much.”
“That is not true.” He shook his head. “When she is in a bad mood, Lady Mitsuru hides what she truly thinks.”
With that said, his expression changed. He was glancing over at her from the side, but he was definitely looking at her.
“If I and the rest of the Horinouchi Group had been providing backup during that battle, Lady Mitsuru would not have fallen behind.”
“That sounds promising.”
“I am honored you think so. Personally, I would like for you to be Lady Mitsuru’s ally.”
“You get to the point quickly.”
“Yes.” Koutarou nodded. “I am sure you understand, but Lady Mitsuru is doing her best. …That said, progress is being made in the analysis of the compression technology used for unlocking the seal on Hexennacht and, now that the buddy system has been introduced, the other rankers will be pairing up while receiving support on a national level. Lady Mitsuru has been working hard to face all that alone as the head of the Horinouchi family.”
“As the head of the family?”
Kagami had more or less realized that, but it was a difficult subject to openly ask her about.
Realizing she was still soft, Kagami remembered that the best person to ask stood before her. This person could decide whether she should or should not be given that information about Horinouchi.
“Koutarou, this is an awkward question, but what happened to her parents?”
“The previous generation passed away at a young age. Her mother…”
Koutarou gave a silent bow before continuing quietly.
“Her mother was lost as the participant in the previous Hexennacht.”
''So I was right,'' thought Kagami.
Even here, something that should not have been lost had been lost.
But Koutarou was not finished speaking.
“However, I believe she was fortunate that she at least had a chance to say goodbye.”
After stepping off of the pier, Horinouchi realized the other two were still halfway down the pier.
…''They’re probably talking about me.
She felt she was being overly self-conscious, but Koutarou could take his support of her a little too far. She could guess he was trying to recruit Kagami. She felt it was none of his business, but she was also thankful. That was why she did not stop them. Instead…
“Hurry up, you two!”
But as she turned back, she noticed something.
As Kagami stood halfway down the pier, there were powerless tears spilling from her eyes.
…''What?
Everything was a surprise with that girl and Horinouchi never understood what was going on.
“Wh-what is it now?”
But by then, Kagami must have noticed her tears because she wiped them away with a hand.
“Sorry. You may find it rude, but I asked about your mother.”
“Koutarou!”
Koutarou bowed deeply. It was a pose that showed he knew he had been impolite but still felt no remorse. She had known him long enough to know that, so she said what she needed to tell Kagami instead.
“You did not need to do that, but I am not someone to pity.”
“I do not pity you.”
Kagami’s eyes were still damp, but she raised her eyebrows.
“It saddens me that it was in a world we created that you lost your mother and were filled with sadness.” She breathed in. “I have power, so if I had not erred, I could have written a story of happiness for your family.”
When she heard that, Horinouchi realized that Kagami was telling the truth.
…''Ah.
She did not know how much of a product of that girl and her sister they were. Based on what she had said, they had likely only created the overall “world” and had not been directly involved in creating the individuals. Perhaps they had only thought of certain stories that occurred there.
However, if they had done everything right, then Horinouchi would have been living happily with her mother and everyone else.
“But…it’s far too late for that.”
“Yes.” Kagami placed a hand on her shoulder. “It is far too late. And that is why I have something to tell you.”
That was…
“Well done getting through it all, Manko.”
“I told you to stop calling me that!”
She suddenly realized Kagami was smiling. She thought that girl’s expression changed too much, but she too had shown a variety of expressions that day, although more on the exasperation and annoyance side of things.
…''I can’t stand this.
She sighed and let her shoulders droop.
“You don’t have anywhere to eat dinner or to spend the night, do you? Then you can come to my-…”
As soon as Horinouchi said that, Kagami’s expression changed again.
…''What?
A moment later, the hand on her shoulder gave a tug as if pulling her down and it threw off her balance.
She pitched forward and was spun back behind Kagami.
“Lady Mitsuru!”
Horinouchi could not even respond to Koutarou’s call as she straightened back up.
She did not know why she had suddenly been pulled down, but…
…''That sound!
She heard a metallic sound behind her.
When she turned around, she saw something there.
It was a green wall and it was large enough to seemingly cover the entire sky.
“Is this…?”
Kagami’s her right hand was held toward the sky. A defense spell magic circle and a shield of light had formed there. They were quite powerful.
Horinouchi knew what it was that girl was using her full strength to support.
“A Magino Device!?”
Koutarou recognized the Magino Device.
It was an aircraft-type that looked like a rectangular block standing vertically with armor panels covering it.
It was impressive that Kagami could support the five hundred meter device. After all, she stood on a pier, so the earth would not receive the enemy’s weight. She had put together an impromptu reinforcement spell to fill the space between her feet and the bottom of the sea.
…''She is familiar with the battlefield!
With that thought, Koutarou looked up.
A Magino Device had suddenly appeared and made a physical strike.
…''This is…
As soon as he decided he needed to tell her, Horinouchi gave a shout.
“This is the Rank 3 witch from the special equipment division and the American representative. Her name is Elsie Hunter!”
Koutarou had nearly opened his mouth to explain, but when he heard Horinouchi’s voice, he was glad he had not robbed her the opportunity to give her own explanation.
…''I would expect no less of Lady Mitsuru!
He did not lament his wasted effort. In fact, it was more that he had let the chance slip away.
Regardless, even an outsider like him could tell what this was.
“Is a higher ranked witch challenging her to a ranker battle!?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
Far above, a figure stood vertically atop the vertical Magino Device.
The short, redheaded girl wore a Magino Form that resembled a karate uniform.
“I’m Elsie Hunter. …Now, will you accept this ranker battle against me, lower rank?”
''No,'' thought Koutarou.
“Suzaku.”
…''It has already begun!
A small red bird appeared on her right shoulder. It was an information entity. It had a highly simplified form to avoid exhausting itself, but as a spirit, it still corresponded to the Suzaku of the Four Divine Beasts.
The girl had suddenly summoned her Magino Frame and made a press attack using its great weight. Her power devices must not have heated up yet, so fortunately she had not been able to fire any cannons or other projectiles. However, even though she had swung down the five hundred meter Magino Device…
It was the guardian deity of the Horinouchi Shrine that she managed and it had lived there since ancient times.
…''She still doesn’t count this as a battle?
The Suzaku was puffing its chest out proudly. The bird was usually the cool type that did little to assert its presence, but it seemed to be in high spirits today. In that case…
As he asked that, he saw Hunter raise her eyebrows in a smile.
“Let’s go.”
She looked to Kagami who had stopped her Magino Device.
“This is all happening so suddenly again.”
“With the surprise attack and weight, I thought you’d be crushed with this first attack, so I’m impressed you managed to stop it!”
There was no point in responding to the girl. The girl had destroyed one of the defense units that were essentially under her direct control. They could defeat a double-digit ranker, but they had been utterly devastated here. And if none of them were badly injured…
The Magino Device suddenly vanished.
…''She’s equal to a high level ranker!
Hunter had removed the bonds of the ether.
But was it possible for someone this skilled to exist outside the organization at a time like this?
As a massive amount of ether light scattered, she dropped down from several hundred meters up, now wearing her Normal Form. Her Normal Device looked like a miniature pile bunker and it was attached to her arm like a shield.
…''Based on what I can see here, it must be true.
“Here I go!”
That thought made her tremble.
Her first strike pursued Kagami who had prepared to dodge.
She had no choice but to accept reality. Whether it was painful, unreasonable, a great division, or anything else, it was happening before her eyes. So…
“Commander, she’s allowed to illegally fight back!”
In Kagami’s mind, combat was no easy task.
To fight, one needed the appropriate skills such as decision-making and a powerful build. On top of that, one had to train and train some more.
After that, one needed equipment, to maintain that equipment, to learn how to use it, and to continue training with it.
But after spending years of effort and lots of money, one would earn one of two things: victory or defeat. One wrong step and death was even possible.
…The risk is great.
However, there was occasionally reason enough to take on that risk.
“Peace and safety. The acquisition and preservation thereof. Does your attempt to eliminate me come from that desire for stability? …Most notably from the preservation of order, I would assume.”
Her question was answered with sparks.
Armored men stood before her. About half of them had collapsed, but the remaining ones were quite skilled.
Even now, they were attacking her with giant jitte-shaped weapons.
“Who the hell are you!?”
“I believe I already named myself. But I am new to this place.”
And…
“You are attempting to capture a small creature and you are attacking a newcomer. I too feel a desire to play with an adorable little life when I come across one, so I am not about to hand it over. Is that not how you feel?”
“Is this any time for that!?”
“It is!!” declared Kagami. “I was showing my love for this small animal, but you suddenly attacked us! So you have an obligation to answer my questions about small animals!”
“That’s-…”
“Do you like small animals?” asked Kagami even as the attacks sent sparks flying from the giant sword in her hands. “Aren’t dogs, cats, and even rodents great? Cats are especially ideal. You know the wonderful feeling when you crouch down in front of them and they interact with you, don’t you?”
“D-dammit! So what if I do!?”
“Then,” she said. “I saw it in the newspaper, but it seems people have started playing with their cats by creating frames on the floor for them to climb inside.”
“So what!? I’ve never done that!”
“That is not what I was trying to say.”
Their weapons were locked together and Kagami lightly pulled hers back and spoke quietly.
“When the cat refuses to enter the frame, you feel like picking it up and putting it inside yourself, but that would just be rude, wouldn’t it?”
“Kh!”
“And when small animals do what we want, we sometimes count it as our own accomplishment. …That is wrong, isn’t it?”
“W-what does that-…”
He never managed to get out the word “matter”.
His weapon burst into scattering light.
In that instant, his servant was tossed into the space his weapon had occupied.
It was a light spirit. The small ball was immediately returned to the spell circle that was rotating in midair. Kagami’s sword had been locked with that man’s weapon, but that weapon was gone now.
“I see.”
Kagami spoke as she swung her own weapon through.
“Your weapons are an alternate use of those things you call servants, but as weapons, they are based on your own belief. When faced with a contradiction, they cannot maintain their form.”
She made a slashing strike. Except this was a sword with a cannon encased inside. The first shot embedded in her opponent’s armor and destroyed it as he was sent flying back.
…I have to avoid slamming them into the ground.
She had no intention of killing them.
She had no intention of losing them.
There was another opponent who would force her hand as far as that was concerned.
But for now…
“Let me ask.”
Kagami watched her opponents’ movements. They quickly stepped forward to suppress her in waves, so she continued attacking as she asked a question.
Kagami held her five meter sword and observed the approaching enemies.
“These are made of ether. They use a servant and they take training, knowledge, and – most importantly – belief to use. Their biggest advantage is…”
She looked to her enemy and their three meter weapons created with the same system. No, her own weapon had simply been created by copying how their weapons had been ejected and given form.
She smiled a bit when she saw no waver in their attack stances.
…Well done.
They were a well-regulated organization. Not only were the soldiers this well-trained, but…
“The biggest advantage of these weapons is that they can be preserved as long as the spell user’s belief is not broken, their life is not ended, and their ether supply is not cut off. And since they are an embodiment of a spell, their ammunition never needs to be resupplied as long as the ether is maintained. These are a type of invincible weapon.”
The enemy arrived. The three in the lead slammed their jitte-shaped weapons against her.
They came from either side, above, and below. A mid-level jab came from directly ahead. None of them left their jitte sword-breakers level. Each individual attacked with a height difference.
They created a wall.
The key to it all was the one in the center. His jab arrived soonest.
Whether she moved up, down, left, or right to avoid it, the other jitte strikes would reach her.
The only way to stop this charge was to take out that central man, but that was not easy when he was hidden by a three meter weapon.
The three men were working together quite well. And…
…To the left and right as well.
Two similar groups were rushing in to surround her.
Behind those groups of three, Kagami saw the remaining men gliding along low to the ground and raising their jitte as shields. Rectangular spell circles taller than the jitte stood out from their surface and had the word “defense” written inside them.
Kagami guessed they were determined to prevent any damage from escaping this battle.
In that case…
“What is the meaning of this?”
She moved forward.
The central jab arrived ahead of the left and right jitte strikes, but she did not care.
She held her sword horizontally and dropped it down from the hilt.
Before the diagonally lowered sword’s pommel hit the ground, she stepped on it with the heel of her boot.
“What are all of you doing?”
The sword stood up diagonally and the tip tore into the jabbing jitte from below.
It hit the bottom of the sword-breaker portion. The thick blade struck it and sent a steel sound racing out.
It hit and broke it.
The jitte was not cut, scraped, or severed. It was simply broken. The sword-breaker portion came off at the base, leaving the jitte in two pieces.
A metallic sound rang out and the light spirit vanished into the spell circle.
A moment later, Kagami’s sword reached the armored uniform of the man wielding the jabbing jitte.
The sword’s pommel dug into the ground and the tip drilled into his chest armor from below, just like a pike. The fibers woven below the armor’s hardened plastic snapped and the armor broke. His decelerated body collided with the thick blade.
“…!”
His body was tossed upwards because Kagami had kicked up the pommel from below.
The hilt rose, making the sword horizontal once more, and she thrust the large sword forward. The width of the blade was thicker than the jitte coming in through the center, but…
…This is enough space to escape the attacks on the left and right!
Kagami stepped forward as if pulled on by the sword.
She made it through.
Men in armored uniforms swung their jitte on either side of her. She swung her large sword backwards and spun it around to face the gap between them.
“Fire.”
If this weapon operated on one’s belief, she knew her thoughts would be able to reach it.
She immediately heard mechanical sounds coming from her hands.
The movement was slow, so she decided she had not quite gotten the hang of using this equipment. At the moment, the sword began to transform, the blade split down the center, and…
“The main cannon has appeared, has it?”
Just as she passed the enemy, she fired the cannon backwards.
…She’s even created a firing form!?
Koutarou, the young man leading the men in armored uniforms, saw the girl’s shellfire from head on.
He heard a tremendous noise and light seemed to explode outward.
However…
“A blank!?”
It had been a powerful blast. The defense team’s defense barriers had their surfaces washed away and had to regain their light, so the attack was on the level of a ranker. However…
“————”
The blank explosion blew away the two who had passed her by on either side.
They had been in the middle of swinging their jitte. They had likely intended to move forward and avoid any follow-up attacks while rotating their jitte around into a defensive stance.
However, the girl had not overlooked that.
She had attacked their backs. And instead of firing a shell, she had used a compression cannon that primarily fired a shockwave.
Koutarou doubted she was unable to create a shell. She had simply lowered the front-end acceleration inside the acceleration barrel and slammed a high-speed “explosion” at them from behind.
A shell would have been better.
With a shell, she would have had to target one or the other of them. The explosive blast when it was fired may have shaken the other, but that would have been angled away instead of a direct hit.
However, a targeted blank blast was very bad. As for how it was bad…
“Left and right, spread out!”
The explosive blast sent their own jitte slamming into them and the two of them flew through the air. Their speed was already past the limits of their armor’s hardening mechanism. Unable to control it, they were tossed helplessly through the air.
And they ended up colliding with the two groups trying to surround the girl on the left and right.
“Dammit!” shouted someone from the right group. “I was getting excited surrounding an unknown witch, but all I get is a guy thrown at me!?”
Meanwhile, the guy in question collided with three men who caught him. The sound of armor striking armor was surprisingly light and the same pattern occurred on both sides.
“Spread out!”
The three who caught the airborne man moved in unison to leave the center.
Koutarou immediately saw the group on the right knocked flying.
It happened in an instant.
The girl named Kagami had charged straight into that group.
She had followed the path of the flying man, but something was not right about her immediate reaction.
…Does that blank cannon not have recoil!?
Koutarou had already seen the answer to his question.
The sword had jumped backwards from the cannon blast, but she had held it in both hands and pressed it against her right shoulder.
“There.”
And she had swung it around.
She had used the recoil for a large rotating swing. She had spun like a top on one heel, but she had also leaned backwards for a splendid horizontal swing.
“Is that where you are?” she had asked while adding direction to the swing.
She had planted her other heel to transform her rotation into a charge. As her sword tore through the air, it had accurately followed the soldier who flew to the right.
The problem was the three who had tried to catch that man.
The girl had accurately sent her sword in directly below him, so they briefly hesitated.
That turned out to be a mistake.
The sword’s speed allowed it to slip below him as he flew.
The thick tip struck the man in the center. He gave up on catching his fellow soldier and held his jitte up to guard.
Koutarou heard two low sounds resembling wind instruments.
The sword’s tip pierced the jitte.
It passed through his guard and knocked him backwards. A moment later, Koutarou saw the sword perform a vertical half-rotation.
It opened up for a cannon blast and the mechanism reconfigured itself faster than before.
“Spread out!”
The blank cannon fired as if helping them obey his command.
The men on the left and right were blown away and the airborne man fell head-first.
“…!”
However, he flipped around and managed to plant his feet on the ground, even if he was leaning back quite a bit.
By that time, the arc of light had already drawn a large ring. Just like before, the sword flew in a splendid horizontal swing.
Her new target was the left group.
She transferred her rotation into an attack, a great sound of impact pounded into Koutarou’s ears, and he heard a voice.
It belonged to the girl going by the name Kagami Kagami.
“What is the meaning of this?”
Even as she attacked and swept them away, she asked about the battle itself rather than them.
“Why do you need this kind of equipment!?”
Kagami asked her question while sweeping away the enemy, competing with them, and pushing them back.
“This equipment can be reproduced with ether, it can be carried around without worrying about its weight or volume, and it requires no refueling or reloading as long as you maintain your belief and have ether.”
What would something like that lead to?
“If there was a war, it could easily destroy a nation, if not the entire world.”
But…
“But from the looks of this city, you live in peace. The people are kind and filled with life. …That is a contradiction.”
She moved forward as she spoke.
“So I ask you.”
Kagami Kagami asked her question while striking the enemy before her and opening a path.
“What are you all so afraid of?”
She swung her weapon, fired it, and asked.
“You have this powerful equipment and you are protecting this city and its people. So why are you weaponizing small lives and keeping them ready for combat?”
Why?
“What fills you with such fear and need for protection!?”
Koutarou wondered what this witch was.
Should he call her ignorant or foolish?
How could she ask why they had developed these weapons and why they worked with the witches to protect the world?
“You can see the answer all around you.”
Yet she was saying she did not understand.
However, her question was related to their “normal” everyday life, so he felt it had to be the truth.
“Commander!”
Koutarou saw the men taking defensive stances in front of him raise their hips while leaning forward.
“We just received an order to evacuate this area!”
Evacuate.
Koutarou understood what that meant: they could not win here.
…A witch just has so much more attack power than a male spell user!
Female spells were active ones that specialized in attack and repelling.
Male spells were passive ones that specialized in defense and buffering.
Most importantly, the active spells allowed girls to interact with servants.
Modern times had introduced artificial servants and the performance of male defense spells had vastly improved, but…
“That girl is at ranker level! I don’t understand how she could eject just a Normal Device without a servant and then swing it around like that, but she definitely has the ability needed to produce a Normal Form and complete a full Frame!”
“But we should still be able to restrain her when working together.”
The rest of the team lifted the corners of their mouth.
“I forgot to mention it, but we might need to add the word ‘top’ in front of ‘ranker’. Besides…”
The man activated several spells along with the others and switched his armor’s mobile functions to high-speed combat mode. He used his fingers to hit the “allow” button on a few spell circles.
“Look around you. That girl is fighting us, but she hasn’t done anything that would kill us. Really, she’s just been leading us around.”
“I understand that she has no hostility toward us. However, I have deemed her dangerous because she opposes our regulations for handling servants and she has produced a Normal Device without a servant.”
And if she did not want any further damage to result from this battle…
“She understands we are only fighting due to the obligations of our position.”
“Do you know why she’s fighting?”
He did.
“Her question.”
While clashing with their unit, she had expressed her anger toward how they were fighting here. That was likely her reason to fight.
They did not understand why she was fighting and she did not understand why they were fighting.
She had asked them, but…
“We cannot truly answer that question.”
“Then what do we do?”
“We endure. Classes are still in session. This is a time of day when any question is sure to receive an answer.”
So…
“An answerer is sure to arrive. A top ranker witch will arrive to answer her question.”
“Then,” said the others.
They all stepped back and put some distance between themselves and the non-standard witch named Kagami.
They held their jitte vertically and activated spell circles to reestablish their reinforcement spells.
“Who do you think is stronger? Her or our young lady?”
“The young lady has no reason to lose.”
“Then,” said the others again. “Is it our job to test that!?”
“It is!”
Koutarou swung his hand.
He spoke to Kagami who held her sword in a lowered position while surrounded.
“Listen!”
He did not entirely understand his opponent, the situation, or the escaped servant.
However, he felt a strange emotion deep in his gut.
…This opponent.
If she would question the most obvious facts of their situation…
…Will she act as a powerful medicine against all of our problems?
“We have no obligation and no right to answer your question.”
“Does that mean someone else can answer it?”
“It does,” he said. “But you are dangerous and we do not understand your strength. So if someone is coming to answer you, it will be the one ranked 4th in the world.”
“Let me say that I am prepared to open the way forward on my own.” Kagami then smiled slightly. “My reason for fighting has finally gotten through to you, has it?”
She took a single step forward and then a second. The man in front of Koutarou reacted by giving the hand signal for “fall back”.
Koutarou was to arrange to have the area evacuated.
He was worried about the others, but all of them lifted the corners of their mouths.
“C’mon, let’s do this. We’re a decent enough challenge for a double-digit ranker.”
“But only when we’re working as a group and only when they’re alone and limited to the ground.”
“Still, we can achieve measurable results.”
“We’re the world’s barrier,” said one.
“Yeah,” said another. “We won’t let her through. And if she can, then we’ll accept her.”
“That’s right,” said a third. “And if she gets past us, it would have to be above. …I wish she was wearing a skirt, but I’m not about to criticize a girl’s fashion.”
“Sorry about that,” said Kagami in her pantsuit and shoes.
She nodded and began moving with a light step.
“I am counting on you, gentlemen.”
She raised her weapon.
“And I am thankful.”
Everyone saw a small light in the western sky out the window.
They sat inside a stepped classroom with a high ceiling.
The girls’ turned to the oblong window and some scanned the scene with spell circles. Clapping hands reached them from the teacher’s podium.
“Everyone, we have been falling behind lately, so try to pay attention. Even if Shihouin Academy is meant to instruct witches, it’s still a high school. If you fall behind in your lessons, I’ll get in trouble and you won’t be prepared for your written and practical exams.”
Some people replied “yes, ma’am” and others silently obeyed and focused on the teacher again.
However, one girl raised her hand.
“Um, will they be okay?”
“Just now, a notification was sent out that a location-undesignated S-rank battle has begun in the corresponding area,” quietly replied the teacher. “The people have been evacuated and it seems the cause is being guided to an external area of ruins. This is not a problem.”
“No,” said the girl who had raised her hand. “Um, I was talking about the opponent.”
“The opponent is probably a stray witch,” said someone else. “Powerful unregistered witches are usually scouted by U.A.H. or the school. But when Horinouchi is sent out…”
Everyone reached a single conclusion.
“They tend to be disciplined in some flashy way.”
The teacher could only nod in agreement. She pushed up her glasses and finally opened her mouth.
“What’s wrong with that?”
A light appeared in the western sky as she spoke.
“No matter how strong or harsh they may be, our history and destiny suggest it isn’t enough.”
By the time Horinouchi arrived at the scene, it was filled with wreckage and the wind blew about scattered ether light.
These were ruins.
If one travelled a little northeast along the coast of the bay, one would arrive at modern ruins even along the rivers.
Horinouchi found several familiar faces collapsed at the entrance to such a place.
“Everyone!”
They were on a wide road. Long ago, it had apparently continued even further west.
Men wearing shattered armored uniforms stood on either side of the road.
Horinouchi had received a report on her way here and the individual described therein spoke up.
“Oh? A new challenger?”
Instead of simply wearing a suit, the girl’s clothes had a tight style reminiscent of riding clothes. She turned toward Horinouchi.
“That movement was quite sudden. Was it an Instant Step?”
She had seen through it.
However, Horinouchi had not let that show in the moment of her arrival. So was this girl bluffing? Or…
…Did she see the ether movement of a mobility spell?
To make extra certain her approach would not be detected, Horinouchi had travelled the last distance on foot. However, this girl had detected in a way she had not imagined.
“Who are you?”
“Is there something odd about me?”
Horinouchi glared at her and raised her right hand to point.
“That.”
The girl noticed the pure white Normal Device she held.
It was a large sword. According to the report, it could fire a cannon built inside it.
However, Horinouchi noticed something strange now that she had seen it for herself.
“That Normal Device.”
“Those guys were making a fuss over it too, but is summoning this thing really so strange? I think they said something about needing a servant to do it.”
Something seemed off about the girl’s comment, but Horinouchi was mostly mildly irritated by it.
…This is odd.
She knew what the girl was saying, but she could not understand it.
She did not know what the girl meant by it.
She was saying she had summoned a Normal Device without a servant, but that made no sense. That was not how summoning a Normal Device worked.
So…
“Suzaku.”
A small red bird appeared on her right shoulder. It was an information entity. It had a highly simplified form to avoid exhausting itself, but as a spirit, it still corresponded to the Suzaku of the Four Divine Beasts.
It was the guardian deity of the Horinouchi Shrine that she managed and it had lived there since ancient times.
The Suzaku was puffing its chest out proudly. The bird was usually the cool type that did little to assert its presence, but it seemed to be in high spirits today. In that case…
“Let’s go.”
“This is all happening so suddenly again.”
There was no point in responding to the girl. The girl had destroyed one of the defense units that were essentially under her direct control. They could defeat a double-digit ranker, but they had been utterly devastated here. And if none of them were badly injured…
…She’s equal to a high level ranker!
But was it possible for someone this skilled to exist outside the organization at a time like this?
…Based on what I can see here, it must be true.
That thought made her tremble.
She had no choice but to accept reality. Whether it was painful, unreasonable, a great division, or anything else, it was happening before her eyes. So…
