Editing Apocalypse Witch:Volume4 Chapter1 (section)

===Part 10===

Somehow, he had made it through the first round of the deadly Catastrophe.

Night had fallen and he wanted to get away from anywhere as public as the arena. But he wanted to get some advice for his future plans before he climbed into bed and slept like a log. After using his phone to say as much, Kyouka gave him a location to meet up at. It was near the gym.

“They say that is the Southern Cross Meteor Shower.” The student council president was looking out the window. “It should continue for a while. The first wave alone has more than ten thousand and the total amount is supposed to be over 300 million. Most of them will burn up in the thermosphere, though.”

“Where has all that stardust been floating?”

“Maybe further out than Pluto but closer than the Oort cloud. And since it will continue for a while, this should be the top night event since there aren’t any matches to watch. Well, it technically continues through the day, but we can’t see it thanks to the sunlight. Ha ha. Woof, woof.”

“?”

Omotesandou Kyouka was acting weird.

Come to think of it, wasn’t she the one who had been the most excited about the decoy astronomical observations they used to sneak into the outskirts of Silicon Valley for their battle against Anastasia?

However, the ship itself had no light restrictions, so this did not make for a proper astronomy event. The deck had to be covered with couples waving around penlights meant for concerts. Karuta’s only thought on the matter was “Oh, so that’s why those timelapse apps are trending in the app store.” Ordinary videos didn’t get good images of the starry sky.

“Your life could really use more romance, Karuta-kun.”

“Hey, don’t diss my entire life just because I’m not into your hobby. …Anyway, what did you want to talk about?”

“They lost it,” said Omotesandou Kyouka in her wheelchair.

His wounds had all been regenerated, but he still felt like something was straining inside his body. He clenched and unclenched his fist and rolled his shoulder around.

“Who lost what?”

“Her family lost Pharaoh Khufu’s mummy after removing it from his pyramid long ago. They apparently hid it a little too well and its location never made it to the current generation. That’s why she wanted the authority of the world’s strongest to perform a largescale search in secret.”

“…”

Hetepheres had called him powerless and a fraud.

Maybe that was a reflection of how she felt about herself. Maybe she had been relieved to find someone so much like herself.

She had been willing to sacrifice her life in her struggle to acquire the title of world’s strongest. Every single contestant had their own reason for that and Karuta had to crush those hopes and dreams if he was to survive.

He scratched his head which felt much heavier than usual.

“I want to take a shower and get to bed. At least the regeneration means I can relax without fearing any muscle pain or lasting effects from my injuries.”

“Oh? But you still have several jobs left as one of the world’s strongest.”

He put on a “what now?” look as someone approached him.

It was the toxic little girl named Cinderella Queen (which was obviously only a stage name). She looked even less developed than Natalena. A high schooler like him was bad at judging the ages of kids more than a few years younger than him, but he guessed she was around 10.

She moved with the air of someone accustomed to making herself look nice. First, she bowed with the meteor shower out the window acting as a backdrop.

“Hee hee hee. Nice to meet you, Mr. Strongest. Congratulations on clearing the first round. And you have my personal thanks for that as well. I know what I said during the match, but if you lost in the first round, we’d have trouble keeping people interested for the rest of the tournament.”

“You’re welcome, I guess.”

“Still, it would be pretty boring if you went on to win the whole thing. It’d be a lot more dramatic if the jackpot built up from the 5.5 billion people betting against you all of a sudden paid out, so I’d appreciate it if you could cough up some blood and lose in a shocking upset.”

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” cut in a new voice.

A beautiful woman maybe a little older than Kyouka approached, but this young woman in glasses had a puppyish vibe to her.

“She doesn’t mean any harm when she says these things. She’s still just a child, so I would greatly appreciate it if you would forgive her.”

“Hold it, assistant!! This is the crucial scene where I overpower this talentless fighter with my powerful entertainment aura, so don’t ruin the whole thing by interrupting. My fans will be discussing this moment for years to come and I’d just feel bad for them if they had to see your sad face every single time they revisit it!”

“Is that any way to speak to your own sister? You’re the one whose constant problematic statements, unplanned adlibs during live broadcasts, and attacks on the program sponsors got you fired by your entertainment agency, forcing you to work as a free net idol. And you could never keep this up without me working as your manager, so I would appreciate some thanks.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m thankful or whatever.” Cinderella Queen grinned in a way that looked much too mean for such a small child and then she turned back toward Karuta. “Now, you, Karuta, ''you'' I really am thankful for. You see, I pushed the envelope in ways the bigshots in the TV industry weren’t comfortable with and they canceled me for it, forcing me onto the internet instead. But now that you murdered the old strongests, I’m actually making a comeback in the TV industry. Remember how you destroyed that giant TV station when you killed Elicia in Southeast Asia? The losers who thought they could keep me down got the boot after that☆”

“…”

Karuta’s group had been very careful to avoid any civilian deaths during that dinosaur battle, but it sounded like some important people had lost their jobs over it. …And at least one person had made a comeback.

People’s interests tended to gather around the world’s strongest.

Still, he couldn’t believe such a small child was caught up in all that.

This Cinderella wasn’t just a storybook princess who found happiness. If necessary, she was willing to throw her Prince Charming under the bus to get ahead. Cinderella Queen winked and grabbed her black and yellow leather skirt to perform a perfect curtsy, but when she spoke, her tone was too provocative to just call it mischievous.

“I’m counting on you in the second round as well, Karuta. I need you to win it and give me unprecedented stream viewership numbers.”

“Is that all you wanted to say?”

“Oh, and this is more than just a magic combat tournament. Well, the students are including some aspects of a sports festival and cultural festival, but that isn’t my point.”

“?”

“My point is the tournament is only during the day, so we’re holding a dance party tonight and ''that girl over there'' got all dressed up for it. Heh heh heh. Yeah, you want to look your best if you’re going to step out into the spotlight☆”

He looked over to see the crystal girl not looking her usual self.

This was not her usual combat outfit, which was technically a dress but eliminated any sleeves or collars that an opponent could grab onto, was formfitting, and had bold slits in the skirt for easier movement. Her one-night-only party dress had the long skirt of a fairy tale princess. She also wore her hair up, which showed off the nape of her neck and made her look quite a bit different.

“Sacri-sama,” whispered Aine.

He wasn’t sure what nuance that “Sacri-sama” was meant to carry, but she did seem to be waiting for a response.

If Cinderella Queen had set this up to take the initiative against him, then she was cleverer than he had given her credit for. She made things difficult in a way different from the Problem Solvers.

Aine held out her small hand, so he saw no choice but to take it.

Cinderella Queen laughed and sent them off into the gym.

“Hmm, I know this was a surprise and you didn’t have time to change, but it doesn’t look right for the guy to still be in his school uniform. Or does a school uniform count as all-purpose formal wear? Well, either way, have fuuuun☆”

They stepped through the door to find dazzling lights.

It was well done for something thrown together so quickly. The floor was covered with low pile carpet and heavy chandeliers hung from the ceiling, giving the place a very different look. The main dance floor was in the center and tables of food were lined up along the walls. The concert band that had been playing during the match was up on the stage.

This was not a mandatory event, but there were still a lot of people in attendance. It helped that there was no strict dress code and people could use the free food as an excuse if they were too embarrassed to actually ask anyone to dance. Some middle school girls were shrieking in delight and pointing at Karuta and Aine, so he had to hope they weren’t the type to spread rumors to the entire school overnight.

The two of them began dancing to the soft classical music like a needle placed on a record.

“I didn’t know you knew how to ballroom dance,” he said to Aine.

“When it comes to coordinated movement, the two of us are second to none. Also, I just have to follow your lead.”

“Sorry. I’ll apologize in advance for when we inevitably fall down together. I swear I was born with two left feet. I will do my best not to step on your skirt, but I doubt I can do much more than that.”

“Activating relaxation mode: <Hee hee hee. Now, boy, you need to relax your shoulders more. I’m not going anywhere, so just take your time while I give you some hands-on lessons.>”

“Hey, the monotone voice kind of ruins that, you know? You really have been acting weird all day. But in this case, I get the feeling you were basing that dialogue on something.”

“I prefer to crawl into small spaces when I sleep, so three days ago on June 10 12:34 local time, I crawled under your bed and discovered-”

“Huhhhhhh!? N-no, that’s not possible. There couldn’t have been anything there! I tend to use the internet for that these days, so unless that’s been there for a while, I don’t see how…ah!?”

“…”

He realized how badly he had put his foot in his mouth when Aine glared at him with her cold, emotionless eyes. But that had also eliminated the pressure of having to ballroom dance. But instead of removing a weight from his shoulders, it was more like he had cut out a hunk of flesh with a knife to get rid of the pain from a simple scrape.

Two of the world’s strongests held each other close as they continued their private whispered discussion.

“Do not worry. I have studied up on human biological functions, so I am aware humans have an abnormal fixation on viewing the surface area of the opposite sex.”

“I’ll admit we like it when they take off their clothes so we can see everything, but it’s not the surface area that matters. I mean, I’m not about to start skinning girls and creating a collection of their flayed skin. Oh, crap, thinking up that idea only makes me sound worse, doesn’t it!?”

“?”

Come to think of it, hadn’t Aine started showing embarrassment about being seen undressed or in a swimsuit ever since the Crystal Beach incident? But he still felt like there was something off about what she was learning.

Karuta was famous(?) for moving like a cursed doll in dance class, but trying to match the rhythm of classical music was unusual for him since he normally listened to rock or techno on his phone. But if he focused too much on keeping the rhythm, he felt like he would bump into one of the other dancing couples.

While he was struggling with that, Aine whispered to him with no emotion on her face or in her voice.

“Today was full of surprises.”

“Yeah, we were focused on that one match all day long. Who set this up? If we don’t find them soon, they’re going to end up strangling us somewhere down the line.”

“…I was worried.”

“?”

He just about came to a stop with confusion on his face.

Aine, the girl who would sever his arm without a moment’s hesitation if he ordered it, had been worried?

“I could not let my guard down for a moment all day because I never knew when Miss Marika would go on a rampage. If you had lost or died, we might have seen a deadly early summer laser light show.”

“Aine, excellent work keeping her under control. You can never predict what Marika will do when she’s about to snap, so restraining her with nothing but your words might just be the most superhuman thing you’ve ever done.”

“Well, I am not human in the first place,” she replied. “You will be fighting alone again tomorrow, won’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Next time…”

Just as he pulled her crystal hips toward him, she pressed her forehead against his chest. Those horns(?) kind of hurt.

“Next time, I will make myself useful. Even if I cannot be by your side.”

“…I see.”

He smiled a little.

Evidently, she wasn’t aware that she had already accomplished that goal.

Karuta would again be the only one risking his life in the ring tomorrow, but he knew he wouldn’t be alone.