Editing Sorcery Hacker:Volume3 Phase03 (section)

===Part 7===

Ayato and Umihiko were both Sorcery Hackers.

But this time, it was Ayato who regained his purity first.

The President clicked his tongue. He had to throw aside Gaugebosonia and shift his focus to his spinning crystal coin before he could make his first move.

Meanwhile, Ayato’s sword moved quickly in his left hand. He stabbed his Linkage Plug into more and more of the golf-ball-sized impactor prototypes strewn across the roof, he operated his crystal tarot cards with his tattered fingers, and he ignited the devices one after another.

They tore through the air with a shrill whistle.

Piercing points more fearsome than shooting stars flew toward Umihiko. Yes, points. They lacked a satellite to carry them, but the impactors were designed to tear away pieces of asteroids. Their damage was lot like a sharp stab or penetration than a heavy blow. Simply having your flesh or organs sharply torn away like that could be fatal. And these piercing hammers glowed orange from the air friction and produced a powerful shockwave that could cause the wound to explode from within.

They left no room for a second chance or rehabilitation.

The barrage carried Ayato’s clear intent to kill the boy here.

“Ha ha.”

The President continued laughing while facing down the approaching barrage.

He laughed as he gripped his Linkage Plug scythe in both hands once more. The giant crescent moon blade stabbed into a sorcery device at his feet.

He flicked the floating crystal coin with a finger.

He created a distortion in the fair odds to manipulate the massive numbers hidden within.

“I knew it!! I knew you were my greatest enemy!! As long as I kill you, no one will stand in the way of my stable future!!”

The device was the thick shield Gark Bryan had used.

Twisting his body would not be enough to dodge this wall-like barrage, so Umihiko forcibly deflected it by hacking the shield’s defense magic.

A less skilled hacker had pushed the greatest hacker to this point.

The impactors had turned to orange streaks of light, but they either crashed into the shield and exploded or were deflected off into empty space. The end result looked a lot like an accident at a fireworks show.

The chaotic dance of light pushed the danger zone toward Ayato as well.

But he did not even shut his eyes against the light. In fact, he crouched low and ran forward to bring himself closer.

Both boys swung their blades, creating glinting lines in the air.

They loudly crashed together.

The tip of Umihiko’s scythe had stabbed through the flat of Ayato’s sword blade.

A Linkage Plug was also a type of sorcery device.

If that was hacked, it was all over.

However…

“I see.”

“Don’t let this surprise you.”

A handkerchief was roughly tied around the middle of the sword blade. That was all it was, but that one layer of cloth could prevent the hack as long as it kept the scythe’s tip from reaching the sword blade.

“Ohhh!!” roared Ayato, gathering strength in his sword.

He used the Linkage Plug sword to knock back the scythe that served the same purpose. Umihiko’s scythe looked formidable, but it wasn’t built for combat. There was a chance its tip could pierce armor or a helmet if its weight was placed behind the blow, but a Linkage Plug wasn’t meant to destroy its target.

Ayato still had his balance, so his sword had the upper hand at the moment.

Ayato’s sword could slash at Umihiko’s feet before Umihiko could regain control of the deflected scythe. Umihiko was already overbalanced backwards, so that would fully topple him over and he would let go of his weapon too.

However…

“Ayato.”

The President leaned backwards while standing on the edge of the circular roof.

He released his scythe blade and let it fall from the tower. They were on the roof of the 101-floor building. Even a single coin would be deadly from that height, so he showed no interest in even the most basic of morals.

Ayato didn’t need to approach him.

He only had to operate his Linkage Monitor crystal tarot cards and send a command to the golf-ball-sized impactors he had hacked. If a horizontal barrage from those pushed Umihiko back a step, he would fall off.

Just then, Ayato’s vision greatly blurred. No, a gust of wind had blown in. As tall as this tower was, that shouldn’t have been possible. This gust had to be artificial.

It had blown up from below.

With a horrific creaking noise, a military sorcery device resembling a serpent as long as a train emerged from below. The movement of its great mass had stirred up the air. That high-altitude guard device had no possible use beyond defending the 1000-esoule<ref>Approximately 1200 meters.</ref> towers by wrapping around them. The tower walls supposedly had randomly-positioned trap areas that made people’s fingers or devices’ legs slip off, so did this thing know how to avoid those? Or was it designed to neutralize the slippery traps with an oil or cleaning agent?

The fangs in its gaping maw could spray high-pressure poison to melt through mana-conducting silver armor and its scales doubled as a scattershot weapon that shot out to create a wall of shrapnel and an explosive blast.

Umihiko had released and dropped his scythe blade so the momentum of its fall would stab it into and hack the patrol device moving along either the tower itself or one of the connecting passageways.

His finger reached for the crystal coin spinning in the air.

The devil in intellectual glasses whispered with his back to the giant military sorcery device which was glaring down at its target.

“Did you forget what it means to be a Sorcery Hacker? We infiltrate the invisible network to manipulate the entirety of our location’s infrastructure. We do not always build up our Linkage Plug level because we want to hack the puny little weapons visible in front of us.”

“Tch!!”

Ayato flicked the crystal tarot cards floating in front of him to change the target of the impactors lying on the roof.

Streaks of light flew both up and down. The entire roof was engulfed in explosive flames and the giant serpent lost its balance as it took damage to the weak areas not protected by its powerful armor: the liquid vial tilt sensors, the synchro-sensors that allowed the many pleated joints to operate together, etc.

Scorching orange, rotting purple.

Lines of several colors flew in wild arcs.

Neither side escaped unscathed.

The train-sized serpent spewed dark smoke while its great body was dragged from the roof by the head that fell off first.

And…

“…”

Ayato was slammed back-first into the floor and then flipped himself over. Once face down, he realized he couldn’t feel anything in his hand. He must have let go of his Linkage Plug sword based on a deep-set habit – so he wouldn’t stab himself with his own blade.

A direct hit from the high-pressure poison jet or even a single drop of spray after deflecting it with an impactor would have done serious damage. And the impactors had to be accurately aimed at a specific point, so they could not have shot down all of the scattershot scales approaching like a thick wall.

Even after everything he had done, he couldn’t reach his goal.

He had a righteous purpose here, but he still couldn’t win.

He heard heavy breathing a short distance away.

It came from President Umihiko Darkavenue.

Had that thing’s appearance been part of the glasses boy’s plan, or had it been unexpected for him as well? After a short but unnatural pause, the President spoke three clear words.

“Pick it up.”

He invited something in.

He pierced Ayato with his words rather than his Linkage Plug scythe.

“I won’t let you be a Sorcery Hacker. So pick up your devil, Ayato.”

Ayato heard a heavy thud.

The dull shine within arm’s reach belonged to a silver sorcery gun.

It was the Queen Astaroth Revolver.

“…”

The black-haired boy’s breathing truly stopped.

His thoughts seemed to burn him in that asphyxiating hell.

He could end the tragedy here. He could remake Teleria’s life into something bright and happy after unwittingly taking all that from her. He could give the President what he deserved for multiplying his misdeeds ten or twentyfold in order to cover up his crimes.

How far was he willing to go for that?

What taboos could he permit himself?

That was the real question here.

Ayato reached out and…

And…

And…

He grabbed his Linkage Plug sword, not the sorcery gun.

He had broken the law.

His past reputation as the strongest Forward was only valid in the cramped confines of the Academy Towers and he was a wanted criminal the instant he set foot into the wider world. He had taken one step down the path of shadows and now there was no escape.

But he could accept that.

Because he believed there were more important rules he had to follow.

So.

Even as each new action seemed to shorten his lifespan, he did not pick up the devil’s revolver. Because this was the path he had chosen for himself!!

The Sorcery Hacker slowly stood up once more. He stood on his own two feet without borrowing power from anything else.

The President snorted.

“You are a fool.”

“You would – huff – never understand.”

They had shared the instant of life and death this long, but those two elites still did not understand each other.

“And if that was all, I wouldn’t care. But because you don’t understand, you mock others for caring and you steal away the things they care for. That’s what makes you a truly lost cause. If you felt even a twinge of jealousy when you saw the shining treasures others had, at least it would mean you understood how important those things are.”

Silence fell.

Ayato and Umihiko remained motionless in the biting wind of the tower roof’s elevation.

There was no signal.

But the Sorcery Hackers still took action at the same moment.

Their footsteps were nearly explosive.

One side use sword and crystal tarot. The other used scythe and crystal coin. They charged toward each other with their hands making intricate movements. They increased their level by hacking the grenade, knife, and other sorcery guns along the way, but they also tore through the air to take the shortest route to their opponent.

They only had one thing to target now.

Sorcery Hackers were not swordsmen or knights. So even though their Linkage Plugs took the shape of bladed weapons, they were never meant to lock blades.

This was the only exception to that.

The Sorcery Hackers worked to hack each other’s Linkage Plugs – their tools of the trade. The winner would gain the greatest honor and the loser the lowest humiliation. It was the ultimate 1-on-1 confrontation.

Yes.

Any Sorcery Hacker would focus on winning this honor that no one would ever recognize.

However…

“Ayato!!”

“?”

In that instant, Umihiko Darkavenue did not direct his scythe toward Ayato.

Almost like he didn’t want their blades to clash.

Almost like he didn’t want to settle things between them and was making a cowardly escape despite all his talk of killing Ayato.

Then the clever, cheating scythe hacked Gaugebosonia as it lay on the roof. Crushing Ayato’s body with its ultra gravity field was the most powerful attack available here and also an option the less-experienced Ayato could not choose.

Umihiko was undoubtedly the superior Sorcery Hacker.

The flick of his crystal coin rang loud.

And a dull boom reverberated across the roof.

“You…”

Time stopped.

The wind carried only President Umihiko Darkavenue’s amused voice.

The powerful stench of blood ruled that place.

Umihiko’s unnecessary action had delayed him just enough for the sword to reach him despite its shorter length.

His crystal coin Linkage Monitor had fallen at his feet.

The battle was over.

“You know…nothing.”

“…”

“Teleria Nereid Aquamarine? Listen, Ayato, read the ancient inscriptions carefully. That girl is hiding everything from you. I promise you her secret will send a chill down your spine. You’ll be too horrified to so much as touch her!! Because, you see, that hideous girl is in fact-”

“''Shut up.''”

There was a dull grinding sound as Ayato twisted his wrist.

This wasn’t even sorcery hacking. Just like a holy man hitting someone in the head with his staff, he was making a weapon out of something not designed for that purpose.

It was the cruel sound of him further twisting the Linkage Plug sword stabbed deep into Umihiko’s chest to intentionally widen the wound.

Hadn’t it been said enough that you can’t be a sorcery-gun-wielding Forward and a Linkage-Plug-wielding Sorcery Hacker at the same time?

Yet President Umihiko smiled thinly without managing to wipe the fear from his heart.

In a pure confrontation between Sorcery Hackers, there had been no way for the less-experienced and less-pure Ayato to win. And when the President had moved his scythe elsewhere, it had been obvious where Ayato’s blade, aimed for that scythe, would end up instead. And even with his target gone, Ayato hadn’t really tried to stop the blade tip as it flew toward the President. Ayato had his right half shredded by the gravity attack again, but when that attack failed to fully kill him, fate had bared its fangs on the President.

A coward avoided direct confrontations and took the easy and more advantageous route.

But when a coward was defeated, they always met a more gruesome fate than someone who fought fair and square.

A fierce smile formed on the President’s lips. And he spoke through that smile.

“She is…in fact…”

Ayato Criminaltrophy whispered quietly, like he was scolding someone’s poor manners at a classy theatre or restaurant.

“''I said shut up.''”

That was the end of it.

Ayato heard something hard rolling along the roof.

“Uh…ugh.”

A groan came from Sibell Wildcat as she convulsed on the floor. As an assassination expert, ''she could make full use of her abilities as long as she had a blind spot.'' While Ayato and Umihiko were glaring at each other, the gym clothes girl had collected the grenade fallen outside the boys’ field of vision, pulled the pin with her mouth, and rolled that single-use sorcery gun without even getting up.

Primary Blaze.

Boosted fire magic erupted in every direction. The merciless blast crashed into Ayato’s side like a solid wall, toppling him over. But the President wasn’t so lucky. He, his Linkage Plug scythe, and his Linkage Monitor crystal coin all flew right over the edge of the circular roof. He plummeted from that 1000-esoule<ref>Approximately 1200 meters.</ref> height. He might as well have been a balled-up piece of paper tossed into the trash.

Time seemed to run strangely slow and Umihiko remained smiling to the end.

Fallen on the roof, Ayato managed to read the lips of that Sorcery Hacker with the darkness lurking deep in his eyes.

''Be honest with yourself.

Those were his final words.

After finding so much success and victory in this wide world, he hadn’t found a single thing that made begging for his life worth it.

A quiet but distinctive metallic clink came from the rooftop. A thin chain reminiscent of a necklace had broken and a mana-conducting silver key now lay near Ayato. Had the blast broken the chain the President wore around his neck?

(Lonely till the bitter end.)

The remaining Sorcery Hacker gave one last snort of laughter before passing out.

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