Editing Sorcery Hacker:Volume2 Phase04 (section)

===Part 2===

Did everything have to link back there?

Even the final incident, in which Ayato had shot a friend and abandoned the Hexajinx name, had happened at the Academy Towers. He had suspected there was more to that case than met the eye and looked into it, but when he had never found anything conclusive, he had decided the pressure keeping the Academy Towers silent was coming from an external source.

Had he been naïve?

Had his initial investigation been insufficient?

Since the case had occurred there, maybe he should have just assumed anything further would be found in that location or organization.

But he had not expected the Student Council Executive Committee.

And a teacher at that.

The shooter with the devil’s revolver had mentioned the Academy Towers as well, but that may have been no more than a bluff.

However, this no longer felt like simple conflict between individuals or friction between factions. If the Student Council was involved, he had to assume this came from the Academy Towers as a whole.

But if so, why?

Ayato’s good friend had holed up in a school building and he had shot the other boy.

What further meaning could be found there?

In that space where the chilled air escaped through the holes lazily patched up with thick sheets, he turned his back on the construction equipment to think.

“Um.”

But while he was lost in thought…

“Um!”

He might not have survived if Florence had not been with him.

A sweeping horizontal attack flew by with the sound of scraping metal and he just barely moved his head out of the way in time. He had only managed to focus back on reality in time due to Florence’s voice. Otherwise, he would have been decapitated just like Leonardo.

He heard bewitching laughter and a sweet breath oozing with a toxic ripeness very different from Florence’s voice.

[[Image:SorceryHacker_v02_BW08.jpg|thumb]]

It was Jennifer Evening.

“Oh, what a shame.”

“You were hiding inside the construction equipment!?”

“If you had only continued to ponder the grand plan surrounding you, it would have been so easy to catch you off guard.”

The slicing attack had come from within one of the machines used to roll up the thick sheets. Had she been hiding within the empty space inside one of the rolls?

That representative of the teachers wore intellectual glasses contrasted by the wild state of the blonde hair spread out behind her. She controlled the top of the Student Council. She was a barrier of power that no child could hope to surpass. That woman in her mid-twenties licked her lips. Instead of a blue blazer like Ayato wore, she wore a tight skirt suit colored beige and chocolate brown. In her hand, she held the weapon that had supposedly fallen into the ocean from the roof of the train running along that never-ending stone bridge.

“The Queen Astaroth Revolver!?”

“You can’t help but notice that first, can you? I hate to admit it, but it is more well known.”

But Jennifer shook the weapon in her left hand to emphasize it instead. It was a skinny, rapier-style sword. Ayato was impressed she managed to use that to slice through that machinery from within, but then…

“Wait. What is that?”

“You don’t know? Really? What a shame. It really does deserve more respect. Especially after I went to the trouble of hacking it for my own purposes.”

There were a few ultra-secure systems that not even Ayato Criminaltrophy could hope to break.

For example, there was that unnatural night butterfly.

There were the two swords worn by that Minotaur who claimed to be a prince – the Butterfly Effector. Wielding those was proof one belonged to the bloodline of the Selected Kingdoms Combined Royal Family of the Static Continent and not even Ayato had been up to the task of breaking that lock.

Yes, they were supposed to be unhackable.

But what was that there that Jennifer Evening used to draw a circle in the air with a flip of her wrist?

“This is Fermiliquidio, the freezing blade. At only ''fifth in line to the throne'', I suppose this is all you’re going to get.”

(She hacked it!!!???)

Hadn’t Striker Henrietta mentioned that the 5th prince favored Laguntreat and would secretly vacation there from time to time?

This woman had the Queen Astaroth Revolver and Fermiliquidio.

That explained it.

That explained how Leonardo Halleys, the greatest Ransacker of all time, had been eliminated so easily!!

Ayato did not have time to discuss the finer points of how exactly she had hacked Fermiliquidio. He knew Leonardo’s head really had been removed from his body, so he knew Jennifer could use that devil’s revolver and the 5th’s sword. His only option was to turn around and cover Florence’s small body.

When Jennifer swung the sword along a diagonal path, it produced an oddly light slicing sound.

A liquid appeared along the path of the sword, but who could have imagined it existed at less than 200 embers below freezing<ref>Approximately -220 degrees Celsius.</ref>?

It was like a sharp reef tearing through a ship’s hull.

It was a symbol of death.

Like a cruel crack opening in the air, that fearsome ultracold quantum fluid burst out toward Ayato.