Editing Seirei Tsukai no Blade Dance:Volume2 Chapter8 Draft (section)

===Part 1===

"Ug..."

"Kamito!"

"Kamito-kun"

The boy woke up to the sight of two girls leaning other him.

"...Claire, Fianna."

"Great, you're awake."

"You're too rash... idiot."

...It seemed that he overused his divine power and fainted.

After getting up from the cold ground, Kamito looked around.

The dim, flickering glow of the spirit crystal was illuminating the darkness. 

The tunnel had collapsed and it seemed that the path was completely blocked by the fallen earth and sand.

"Both of you, are you injured?"

"No, we aren’t... how do you feel?"

"Ah, I just overused my divine power. What, have I worried you?

"Id-Idiot, I wasn’t concerned or anything!"

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"Ouchhhh!"

Claire landed a clean hit exactly on his wound with her palm. Kamito writhed in the intense pain.

"...Come on, what are you doing?"

Fianna sighed in frustration.

Kamito held his hurting shoulder as he surveyed his surroundings.

"Are the others safe?"

"Yes...although they don’t feel well. For now, I've given them some emergency treatment."

When Fianna raised the light crystal up, the forms of Ellis and the others lying on the ground could be seen.

...Their condition could hardly be described as 'safe'.

Rakka and Reishia were still unconscious and in critical state after being poisoned.

Ellis seemed to be conscious, but it looked like she was in no condition to walk.

Next to Rinslet, who was sitting against the wall, Fenrir was licking its master's wounds.

"Jio Inzagi. What on earth happened to him?"

"Fianna released the spirit that was sealed in the crystal. He was swallowed by the pillar of light and disappeared...Although, I don't think he's dead."

"Was that a spirit crystal...?"

When Kamito turned towards Fianna, she nodded with a "Yes".

"But to think it could hold someone so strong—"

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That spirit possessed such destructive power that it even managed to force back Thanatos and collapse the tunnel.

Without a doubt, it held a very high rank.

However, Kamito never heard of the existence of a spirit crystal or anything else that could seal something so powerful.

"Blood Stone—a treasure handed down in the Ordesia royal family."

"...?"

"You don’t know about it? It's common knowledge for elementalists."

Claire sighed in astonishment while Kamito frowned.

"It can't be helped, I'm not a noble and I'm unfamiliar with things like that."

When Kamito said that, Claire shrugged in disappointment before giving an explanation.

"Blood Stone isn't ordinary. It can seal a part of a high ranking spirit's power within a special spirit crystal that was mined at the sacred ground of Astral Zero. Of course, it isn't something that money or influence can buy you. It is national treasure, after all." 

"Is that so..."

Although she was banished from the royal family, Fianna was the former second princess of the Ordesia Empire. The moment she was admitted into Areishia Spirit Academy, she might have been made to hand it over in the screening. <!--アレイシア精霊学院に編入する際、選別にわたされたのかもしれない。-->

"I had tricked the stupid palace guards and pilfered it from the royal family's treasure hall. But I also switched it with an imitation, so it's alright."

The princess puffed her chest out.

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"Ah, I thought it was like that... Hn?"

At that moment Kamito finally noticed something out of place.

It was... Fianna's pushed out chest.

...Small. It had obviously decreased in size.

(That reminds me, just now Fianna...)

She was hiding that spirit crystal—Blood Stone between her breasts.

Although it wasn't such a big thing, how did she manage that?

"Ug... D-Don't look..."

Fianna, who noticed the direction of Kamito's sight, bashfully crossed her hands in front of herself. 

"Kamito! Fianna had been deceiving us all this time!"

Claire pointed at the princess accusingly.

"Deceiving?"

"That's right; this girl is a fake-breast princess!"

"..."

Kamito slowly turned towards Fianna with a deadpan look,

"...Uh, is that true?"

"I-it is, they're pads... is that wrong?"

The princess' cheeks reddened, and she quickly turned away.

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"No, it's nothing worth getting furious over, but... why did you do it?"

"...To protect the Blood Stone. No one could steal it if it was between my breasts. Moreover, I heard b-boys all like big breasted girls, so..."

From the start, her purpose for coming to the academy was to ensnare Kamito and make him her comrade.

...That reminded him, she had been approaching him and pressing her breasts against him at random, did she actually need them for that?

"No, there are also boys who like girls even if their breasts are small."

"Eh?"

For some reason, Claire's ears twitched when she heard his words.

"Ka-Kamito, what you said just now... is that true?"

"Yeah, after all, everyone has different tastes when it comes to opposite sex. Well, personally, I think that compared to having none, having some is better... Ouch!"

Without a warning Claire hit him with her whip.

"Y-You, you...!"

"No, I just talked about my personal tastes. There are also many boys out there with other preferences—"

"Uuu!"

Tears filled Claire’s eyes before she bit her lips.

(Anyway, that soft feeling was from the pads?...)

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...He completely missed it. As expected, the technological level of the imperial capital shouldn’t be taken lightly.

"Although it was my plan to use that Blood Stone at the «Blade Dance» as a trump card."

She muttered, lowering her tone and clasping her hands in front of her breasts.

Rather than being small, they were normal for a girl of her age.

At the very least, they weren't deplorable like Claire's—

"Uh, what?"

"...No, sorry. It was nothing."

Flustered, Kamito looked away from Claire, who was glaring at him sternly through her tear filled eyes.

“Ahem”, he coughed and turned towards Fianna.

"Why did you bring this crystal anyway?"

After being released from the stone, the spirit and the sealed part of its power would instantly return to Astral Zero. It could not be used again.

Therefore, elementalists didn't normally use crystals. After all, most of the time, it was a lot more effective to use magic and contracted spirits in a blade dance. 

"..."

When he asked that, Fianna looked downwards and calmly sighed.

"Well, it'll get exposed eventually anyway, so I'll tell you guys right here and now."

"...?"

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Kamito and Claire exchanged glances at Fianna's unusually serious expression.

"—It happened four years ago, I lost the ability to use my contracted spirit."