Editing Saijaku Muhai no Bahamut:Volume 8 Episode 5 (section)

===Part 5===

One of the Servants, a corps of Heiburg, Gerdaf revealed his true color and pressed hard on Lux.

The enemy’s scheme to stain Celis’s dignity and drove it onto the ground, and then killing her by making it to look like suicide.

In order to stop that evil scheme, Lux drove Bahamut flew inside Academy’s ground.

The Drag-Ride Gerdaf wore was the special equipment type EX Drake.

The four legged Drag-Ride freely used jump. It would then change trajectory midair and avoided pursuing attack.

Originally Bahamut’s mobility should be superior, but due to that superb escaping technique, Lux found it difficult to catch him.

「How long you’re planning to chase me huh, hero-sama! A lot of Abysses are appearing at the other side right now. Are you feeling like to let those spoiled girls of the Academy died to defeat me!?」

Gerdaf cackled loudly while taking distance. At the same time he was using Circular Edge to obstruct Lux.

With the end of the campus festival, the inside of the Academy was dark with few watch fire. Lux too couldn’t display his maximum speed.

On the other hand, the enemy used his radar to detect the obstacles like the booth and stage that hadn’t been cleared away and grasped the terrain. He was nimbly weaving through the gaps.

The Drag-Rides of Lisha and others of Syvalles and the Seven Dragon Paladins were sealed because of Chaff Slime’s thin membrane covering the hangar. The majority of them couldn’t move and were ordered to stand by.

It seemed that it was only the vice captain Singlen who didn’t trust the new kingdom and moved the storage location of his Divine Drag-Ride, but it appeared that he was heading outside the Academy in order to defeat the Abysses that were gathering from outside.

His aim was the protection of the important people from various countries who were staying in the government office building at the first block, in order to raise his own achievement.

Singlen who was attempting to stand at the top as Drag-Knight was trying to build up achievements while raising his World Rank and obtain support from the influential people of various countries.

In order to stop Singlen who was envisioning the establishment of a ruling class by Drag-Knight, perhaps Lux ought to head over there too.

But,

「I won’t be misled anymore. Even if everyone else won’t recognize me, I’ll still fight for the sake of everyone who believe in me!」

The phantom of Fugil that coiled around him.

Lux accelerated Bahamut as though to shake it off.

‘Chih’ Gerdaf clicked his tongue and changed his trajectory. He changed route toward the courtyard where there were several Abysses at there.

He wasn’t cutting off his own path of escape.

When Lux and the Abysses were connected in a straight line, he erased his figure using EX Drake’s camouflage.

「He aim to make me clash with the Abyss──, no」

Lux immediately cut down the two Kraken approaching him from the front.

But, Gerdaf scattered Circular Edge aiming at the slight opening that was created the moment Lux attacked.

The circle shaped blades that were tinged with purple light rotated.

They were fired toward Lux and approached from many directions once more.

「Kuh……!」

Lux was lacking in defense method. Even when he tried to guard using his large sword, he could only deflect around half each time.

The joint of his armored arm was targeted. Strong impact also ran through Lux’s body.

The rotating blades clung to the armor for a fixed interval, weakening him with certainty.

「Aa──this is the best. This sensation of making sport of someone powerful who is far more skilled than me, this is why I cannot stop doing this job.」

*Slurp* The sound of licking lips and laughing voice could be heard from the darkness.

But, Lux ignored even the pain in his whole body and flew once more to catch Gerdaf’s figure.

Lux finally entered the sword range, but Gerdaf fired his Circular Edge once more. The blades didn’t aim at Lux but scattered to left and right.

「……-!?」

Lux was taken by surprise for a moment, but he immediately noticed the enemy’s aim.

Lux who almost caught up with the enemy changed direction and quickly flew at the direction where the round blades were fired.

There were the figures of two girls running to evacuate there.

「Kyaaah!」

「Howling Howl!」

Lux immediately fired the vortex of shockwave and shifted the orbit of the round blades.

But, the students received the after wave from the impact the round blades emitted and they were sent flying for several ml from that spot.

Lux immediately took stance in front of the girls and became shield to cover them.

But, Gerdaf who predicted that took distance from Lux once more and leaped toward the direction of girl dormitory.

「HIYAHAHAHA! How cool. That’s how the prince of justice got to act yeah!」

Gerdaf’s mocking laugh echoed inside the darkness.

‘Calm down’──Lux told himself.

Gerdaf’s blunt provocation was an opening move.

Till the end it was a tactic to agitate Lux and exhausted him.

He had to assist Celis who was battling Divine Eclipse, but he couldn’t leave behind this Gerdaf to go and help her.

But, that rare armament Circular Edge was troublesome.

The current Lux didn’t happen to have the technique to slip through that simultaneous attack that was hiding an atrocious performance within.

The only technique that could possibly do that──was incomplete.

「Hah, don’t try to keep up your outer appearance. That duke daughter of four great nobles is also the same. I hit her many times at inconspicuous spots, several spots like her arms and legs were even bruised, and yet! She tried to hide her own failure and didn’t told anyone!」

『Let’s go, Lux. I can fight.』

「────」

But at that moment. Lux recalled the words that Celis muttered calmly and his emotion shook intensely.

Lux didn’t notice at all when they were fighting together at the skill exhibition battle.

Celis bluffed saying she was all right because she didn’t want to hold Lux back.

But, it wasn’t because she didn’t trust Lux or even because she didn’t want to expose her own failure.

「What does someone like you understand about her resolve-!」

Along with his rage, Lux pushed his body forward and flew while making his large sword to roar.

「Nuuh!?」

The slash that was unleashed from that intense acceleration caused Gerdaf to back away in terror.

He took the tactic to make Lux clash with the Abysses that were called here by Sacred Eclipse, but Lux’s movement surpassed expectation.

Multiple Krakens reacted to Lux and manipulated their tentacles to assault Lux.

Lux deflected the attack using Howling Howl, and when a gap was created he forcefully pushed on and cut apart the enemy standing in his way.

By fighting the same Abysses consecutively, Lux grasped their trait, predicted their movement in less than ten-odd seconds, and made it possible to attack using Reload on Fire.

「Celis-senpai was fighting like usual even with her injury. She fought so naturally that no one even noticed, not me, not everyone else. And then, even after the fight ended in a draw and failure, she didn’t make any excuse!」

That wasn’t because she was fixated with her pride as someone from the four great nobles or even because she feared getting reprimanded.

The two days period of the campus festival.

For some reason, Celis was hiding all that time while trying to support Lux.

It wasn’t because she didn’t want to face him or because she had done something to feel guilty about.

「It was so that I won’t get unnecessarily worried. Everything was her fighting for my sake.」

He wasn’t under the wrong impression or anything, Lux didn’t try to understand Celis’s feeling.

His life at the imperial court in the era of the old empire.

He was looked down as a 『man』 who was positioned the farthest from the imperial throne succession right. There was no one who properly evaluated him then.

Even after he became hated by the common people and abandoned, where he lost his mother in an accident, it was still like that all along.

Since the time he parted from his childhood friend Philuffy and betrayed by his eldest brother Fugil who he thought as heartening in his heart, Lux’s heart was broken somewhere.

At the innermost depths of his heart, he was keeping away other people from himself except of those who had been close to him from the beginning like Airi or Philuffy.

The legendary Drag-Knight the Black Hero──or perhaps, the ruined prince of the old empire.

Or else perhaps, as the grandson of Wade who was Celis’s teacher.

There were people who were genuinely feeling worried and concerned for Lux himself, without caring about those backgrounds of his. But Lux was unconsciously walling himself toward those feelings.

That was why Lux didn’t understand Celis’s feeling.

「I am──a big idiot. I haven’t changed at all since that time I failed at the revolution. It was just as Nii-san said. I didn’t understand anything, nothing at all.」

「Hah……! Just what the hell you are moaning! Do you finally got a screw loose in your head?」

Gerdaf kept up his guard toward Lux who was hot on his heels and approached him in high speed while taking even more distance.

He had already made Lux fought in Bahamut enough already, Lux should be exhausted right now.

If he didn’t finish off his opponent soon, he would be blamed for his failure and got killed by his master.

Thus, Gerdaf was going to deal the finishing blow. It was at that timing it occurred.

──*PAAN!*

That instant when Gerdaf glared, a streak of flash was fired suddenly from the sky above──the sniping from a rifle shot through the shoulder of EX Drake he was wearing.

「──WHAAT-!?」

The shot that was fired from unexpected direction caused Gerdaf to look up to sky with horrified look.

It wasn’t the work of the student Drag-Knight who arrived nearby Lux.

What was floating in the shadow of dark cloud that covered the moon was an unknown Drag-Knight under the cover of darkness.

Gerdaf reflexively let out electromagnetic wave from his EX Drake and investigated the unidentified Drag-Ride.

Unit name verdict – Divine Drag Ride 《Zahhak》.

Pilot──Analysis uncertain.

(Who, is that……!? This guy, is it a Dragon Marauder newcomer!? No──wrong!?)

The moment of agitation caused a lapse in attentiveness.

Lux didn’t let go of that slight opening.

「──Reload on Fire」

Using compression of time, the Drag-Ride’s speed was accelerated by several times over. Consecutive slashes were unleashed in super high speed from that.

His barrier was cut up without even any time for defense, countless slash lines were carved on his body.

He immediately fired Circular Edge to protect EX Drake’s armor, but Lux evaded them and ran his slashes on his flesh arms and legs.

「GU, GAAaAAAH!?」

The after wave from the impact that pierced the armor caused Gerdaf to raise an anguished shriek.

He was still alive, but his four limbs already couldn’t move. He rolled on the grass.

「Nugu, uUUuUUU……! This is, this is impossible!?」

Lux pointed his great sword at Gerdaf who was groaning in pain before he turned his gaze toward the sky.

It seemed that Noct tried to back him up using her Drake, but the attack just now wasn’t her work.

It might be his other comrades──Lux thought, but no one came to mind.

Above all else, the Drag-Ride that performed the cover fire has vanished completely from that place without any trace behind.

「…………」

After a moment, Lux stopped thinking.

He looked down on Gerdaf who was prostrating on the ground and then he slowly changed the direction of his gaze.

At slight distance away, Sacred Eclipse──the human shaped Ragnarok of the beginning and the end, and then Celis who was clad in Lindwurm were fighting.

「Celis-senpai……」

『Yes. I was unable to assist her but, I told Celis-senpai properly. Lux-san’s feeling, toward Celis-senpai──』

Unnoticed Lux had arrived at the location of the Sacred Eclipse, the last place where Gerdaf was leading Lux toward in order to crush him.

Over there were the figures of the last remaining clones of Sacred Eclipse and Celis who were acting a mortal combat against each other.

–

It reached Celis’s ear through the Dragon Voice.

The defect of Lux who was unable to accept someone’s good will honestly.

That was why, Lux was unable to understand Celis’s worry that was derived from her fondness toward Lux which Celis herself didn’t understand.

That confession was conveyed to Celis through Noct’s Drake and now she knew Lux’s feeling.

「I’m sorry Lux. I avoided you all this time──」

Celis smiled powerlessly, then she also confessed her own mistake.

「I am really weak. No, while I said that I trust you, I couldn’t have the courage to entrust even my weakness too to someone else……」

She was the daughter of a great feudal lord who had existed since the old empire era.

Her true nature was exactly because of her position as the daughter of a duke who was one of the four great nobles.

At the old empire at that time which had the tendency of male chauvinism, woman was treated as unnecessary.

Celis’s mother could only give birth to female successor.

In order to protect her mother from the cold gaze their relatives turned toward her, Celis imposed to herself the duty to become an existence that was stronger than anyone, who wouldn’t shame the name of noble.

「Thanks to Lux, I was able to convey my true feeling to everyone in the Academy. I could accept taking off my mask of persisting in my aloofness and refusing male. But──」

Celis fixed her posture with a somewhat lonely smile.

「But, I was unable to go as far as exposing my weakness. As the eldest daughter of one of the four great nobles, I who said that the position as a noble is irrelevant was adhering to it without noticing. That was why, I caused trouble to you all.」

It was also the same with how she became unable to look at Lux’s face around the time of the campus festival.

Also with how she was unable to report about the wound on her own body before the skill exhibition battle.

「Even so, Celis-senpai, you──protected me.」

Lux quietly objected at Celis’s words that she muttered self-depreciatingly.

She became embarrassed to look at Lux face to face, she couldn’t show herself to him, she was hesitating.

Even so she continued to fight without running away or keeping him away at distance.

「You were hurt for the sake of me who was unable to notice everyone’s feeling.」

The imperial family and the people of the old empire era who abandoned and betrayed Lux.

And then Celis, who tried to protect and watch over Lux from the shadow even while resolving herself to stop being an aide of Seven Dragon Paladins.

He thought that she was really clumsy, and serious.

And then, he also thought of her as a proud and strong person.

She didn’t think about how she wouldn’t be able to do something, she chose an even harder path by her own initiative──but, she was fighting without losing against loneliness.

It was exactly because Celis held such feeling that Lux himself could realize his own defect.

「Thank you very much Celis-senpai. Thanks to you──I can still fight.」

「Is that so……then, I cannot lose, I too──」

Celis muttered that and took her stance once more.

At the same time, the cannon muzzle installed on her shoulder fired a compressed light bullet.

The wide range destructive blast special armament, Starlight Zero.

The small light bullet that was slowly floating in the air burst open *kaat-* along with a flash.

A space with a diameter of a few dozen ml was scattered away along with an impact that shook the ground.

「GU, OooOOO-……!」

The number of the propagating Sacred Eclipses was decreased by quite a lot, but parts of Sacred Eclipse that was scattered to right nearby gathered in high speed and began to receover.

The immortal Ragnarok that repeated regeneration from splitting itself.

Even if it was attacked with unlimited attack with Lux’s hidden technique, End Action, it would regenerate midway from a part of its body that was cut off and resurrected completely.

But, if it was fired with Starlight Zero with maximum strength that was exploded in even wider range, this time the damage would reach even the students who were evacuating inside the building.

Then, there was only one method that could be taken.

It was by examining the trait of the fighting strength they were wearing, the armaments and Divine Raiment of their Drag-Ride and comprehending their own strength.

Celis immediately derived the plan to deal with the enemy using the thinking of maneuver tactic that she polished together with her physique.

「──Break Purge – On」

She grasped her Sword Device and lightly sent her thought into it to activate the basic technique that she once learned.

She purged part of the armor she wore and left behind only a part of it.

She left her special armaments, the cannon muzzle of Starlight Zero, and the defensive armor that deployed the barrier.

Furthermore she even purged a part of her back wings that were the vital point of her mobility, transforming her Drag-Ride to a form that was specialized for attack.

The removal of armor using Break Purge was essentially a basic technique to decrease the burden to oneself, but if it was carried to the extreme it could be transformed into a hidden technique.

Depending on the situation, the unnecessary armor part could be cut off except the part for accomplishing the objective.

In this mode where the Drag-Ride’s output was wrung out and focused to one point, it was a double-edged sword that could corner oneself into extreme danger if the user didn’t accurately grasp their own strength and the enemy’s strength.

But, this technique could be handled if it was by the current Celis.

She believed that with the addition of Lux’s strength, this method was the best to defeat the enemy.

「Noct. There is something I want you to transmit while you continue keeping yourself camouflaged like that.」

『Yes. What is it? I will give assistance as much as I can.』

To Noct who said that, Celis told her that she wanted her to clear out the people from the surrounding area.

At that moment, the presence hiding inside the bush moved with a leap.

「Omen of annihilation and lamentation confirmed. Granting thou salvation.」

「──!?」

In a moment, Lux and Celis opened their eyes wide at the sight that they didn’t expect.

Sacred Eclipse that revived and recovered its human shape in the form of a girl stabbed its fingertip into the dying Gerdaf.

The body of Gerdaf whose whole body was already carved into a state that was impossible to recover from──.

Black pattern spread out from the spot that was stabbed, his four limbs was healing from their wound in the blink of eye.

Both his eyeballs were tinged with the redness of fresh blood, his upper body was dyed with the blackness of marble pattern.

「Ruin’s secret medicine……the true identity of Elixir, don’t tell me──」

「Was it the liquid that Sacred Eclipse has!?」

The moment Lux and Celis returned to their senses, Sacred Eclipse leaped back and took distance from them.

At the same time Gerdaf who achieved recovery from the devi transformation raised a howl like a beast.

「Hihihihi……HyaHAHAHAHAA!」

Gerdaf who became nonhuman distorted his lips in an arc shape and laughed monstrously.

「This is lucky, if Sacred Eclipse crush you all for me, then I can fulfill the mission from my master. With this the new kingdom can also be shredded into pieces. Aa, I can see it, the despair of those left behind when you two dieeed」

The devil transformation by Elixir invaded human’s mind and amplified their malice.

In other words, this must be the true essence of the man called Gerdaf.

Due to his hard life where he was toyed by misfortune, he came to curse people’s happiness and existed with the creed of making other fall.

The evildoer Drag-Knight who supported the master of Heiburg who held immorality as righteousness.

「I won’t allow anyone becoming happy from doing the right thing. This me won’t recognize such thing, Black Hero. You show off hypocrite, be betrayed by your own benevolence and get exposed at human’s malice, then despair──and die!」

The pair of eyes that were crimson like fresh blood snapped open, then Gerdaf started to move.

When the moonlight shined down from the gap between clouds that covered the moon, the incarnation of malice drove his EX Drake and leaped with terrific momentum.

–