Editing Apocalypse Witch:Volume4 Chapter3 (section)

===Part 4===

He had been naïve.

He had been naïve to even assume their attack on him hadn’t already begun.

A true strategist had their target trapped before that target even realized what was going on. No Jorogumo set up her web in a location that already looked dangerous.

The setup for Round 3 had begun back in Round 2.

No one could avoid a trap they had already stepped in. He would just have to continue on with it latched onto his leg.

“No one knows the truth at this point,” said Omotesandou Kyouka over the phone. “Delane herself kept saying ‘it seems’ or ‘looks like’ when reading off the news, so I will start by working to put out this fire. We don’t know how deep Machibula’s trap goes, so making a flustered denial now might actually hurt us in the long run.”

She paused for a moment.

“Karuta-kun, just to be absolutely certain, you didn’t do this, did you?”

“Of course not!! This entire event is meant to eliminate the global social unrest brought on by people’s wavering trust in crystal magic, so winning through blatant sabotage would defeat the entire point of winning!”

He hung up.

He knew Kyouka didn’t actually suspect him. If she thought this was really that dire, she wouldn’t have done it over the phone.

(Still, I still have a problem left to deal with.)

“Sacri-sama?”

He didn’t answer Aine as he returned to his classroom.

The classroom itself was full of challengers attempting the “free to eat” curry with “in-meal purchases”, so he gathered everyone in the neighboring classroom they were using as a kitchen.

“Yamanen, Hirosuke. Can we hold a strategy meeting now? I need everything you have on Machibula Delphi! Immediately!!”

“I mean, if you want…”

They seemed deflated.

Yamane Deiri hesitated to speak and glanced over next to Karuta.

He had obvious suspicion and distrust in his eyes as he viewed Crystal Girl Aine. And that awful friend wasn’t the only one. It had spread to the girls he didn’t normally hang out with. He had to assume the suspicion had spread throughout the class.

He consciously took a deep breath and made sure not to snap back in anger as he slowly opened his mouth.

“I didn’t order her to do that.”

“We don’t doubt that. Unless the tension got the better of you or anything as pathetic as that, we know everything you do is based on logic. It would’ve been weird to rig who you fought in the third round when you had your second round match to deal with. If you panicked and did something stupid, you would’ve sabotaged that mercenary guy instead.”

The footage looked an awful lot like Aine had fired her laser, but Yamane Deiri did not suspect Karuta.

And that logic matched what Karuta was thinking now. The morning semifinal match had ended as soon as the bell rang. If he won his own match today, that would be his opponent in the finals. But he had to focus on today for now. If he couldn’t defeat Machibula Delphi, then that other person didn’t even matter. Coming up with a plan for the finals was meaningless if he lost the semifinals.

So what possibility did he need to consider next?

“Could someone have made themselves look just like her with special makeup? If we peeled away that Aine’s face, would we find the stubbly face of a phantom thief? To be blunt, that would be quite a feat. I won’t say it’s impossible, but it’s as unrealistic as trying to claim a closed room murder was done by someone using the ultrasound weapon an alien gave them.”

“Sure,” interrupted gyaru-ish Hashizaki Tayori. “But aren’t there some other more realistic possibilities to consider first?”

She had been spending a lot of time in the infirmary to look after a friend, but that was the tone she took when taking a peek into the classroom. But not because the class’s gloomy atmosphere had gotten to her. She had arrived at the same answer even with a more detached viewpoint.

She had been skipping classes to be with her friend in the infirmary, but that was why she wanted to eliminate any possibility that might harm another classmate.

Kindness for one person could become a harmful weapon for another person.

Tayori pointed straight at Aine from a short distance away.

Karuta noted that short distance was just out of sword range as the gyaru-ish girl made her suggestion.

“Could Aine-chan have done it on her own?”

“She would never start a battle without being ordered to.”

“Then,” said Yamane Deiri with no tremor in his voice. He sounded like he had been waiting to say this the entire time. “''Could she be acting on an order from someone other than you?'' That’s what I’m getting at here. Can you tell me it’s absolutely, positively not possible, Karuta?”

Yes.

That was it.

It didn’t help that no one could actually explain why Aine obeyed Karuta’s orders so faithfully. Not the teachers who understood the theory behind crystal magic and not Karuta who was a part of her.

From a human perspective, so many of her actions were unbelievable. She had sacrificed her own arm on his command and she had sliced through his body because he had told her to.

Was she acting on some kind of trust, was something forcing her to do it, or did she just mechanically obey?

And.

If Utagai Karuta himself couldn’t explain how his commands worked, then how could he say for certain a third party couldn’t intervene and hijack her? Did he really understand the crystal girl that well?

“…”

Marika did not take either side. She just crossed her arms and leaned against the wall in her heavily customized waitress outfit.

She would do anything to protect Karuta.

But that did not mean she would always take Aine’s side. If she learned Aine’s presence would tear the Four Living Gods apart from within, would she try to save Aine or would she cut Aine away to protect the other three? That was impossible to tell from the outside.

Karuta and Aine had not been together the entire time after lunch that day, so she could have gone off and done something on her own.

“W-wait a second,” interrupted Nekoumi Hirosuke (who would always side with the little girl). “You keep saying Aine-chan did this, but if she did, would she really leave such obvious evidence behind? There’s an ''etiquette'' to these things, like wearing a mask or changing your clothes.”

That might sound reasonable at first.

But…

“If a third party is controlling her, why would they care if it gets out she did it?”

“Uh.”

Yamane Deiri’s thorny comment silenced Hirosuke.

Of course it did. If she was meant as a disposable pawn, why bother looking after her? If she had been hijacked, she wouldn’t do anything to protect herself. That blatant and unnatural lack of even the most obvious defenses made it all the more suspicious.

Hirosuke hadn’t meant any harm. He just couldn’t bear to watch everyone turning on Aine like that. But a poor defense could sometimes lead to even harsher criticism. If your counterattack didn’t push back the attack, it would only add fuel on the fire.

With accusations from a central figure among the boys and the girls, the students’ vague suspicions were growing to a solid conviction. Karuta knew this was bad, but he couldn’t think of any way to stop it.

He was the world’s strongest.

But his schoolmates still accepted him because they had seen his weakness during the battle near the Port of Kobe. And that came back to bite him here. He could not take control of this situation by raising his voice.

In this class, Utagai Karuta only had a single vote.

They had him outnumbered.

“I am always with Sacri-sama. I have not accepted any commands from anyone else.”

“That’s exactly what you would say if you were being controlled, Aine-chan.”

Gyaru-ish Hashizaki Tayori remained calm even as she drove someone into a corner.

Yamane Deiri, on the other hand, looked disgusted with himself as he said what he knew needed saying.

“''You could have been ordered to never mention what you did and to not let it show on your face no matter what you might be thinking on the inside.'' I don’t think you’re a bad person, Aine-chan, but one command like that and we can’t trust a thing you say.”

She was shut down by a hypothetical.

Both her thoughts and any attempt to prove her innocence.

A “what if” was convincing everyone that this was a trap laid by Machibula.

With a computer virus, you could run a full system scan with your security software, but this crystal girl was an irregularity even among crystal magic. Her very existence was an inhuman black box, so there was no known way to prove her safety.

There were no ''standards'' they could rely on here.

With no endpoint to reach, their suspicions would lead to a never-ending cycle of checking and rechecking. Just like a clean freak washing their hands so much they harmed their skin.

“I’m sorry, but this is the only thing that makes sense.” Tayori pushed on, probably deciding to make herself the villain here. “Aine-chan’s sabotage benefited Machibula and the blame will fall on her next opponent, Utagai-kun. She’s trying to play the victim, but Machibula is the one who comes out on top from this.”

“So let’s have our strategy meeting, Karuta. I’m willing to whisper in secret to help you. But I want to know one thing before we start: ''is Aine-chan safe?'' No one knows her better than you. Is there any chance everything we say here will be passed right on back to Machibula?”

“Sacri-sama,” muttered Aine.

Utagai Karuta slowly shut his eyes and took a deep breath.

He calmly reviewed the situation here.

(Is there any way for someone to take control of Aine? Or at least to make it look like they did? Either way, Machibula Delphi definitely has ''something'' set up. It started yesterday and it was all planned out. It must give her a major advantage, but what is it?)

He had to look to his own crafty nature.

This was not something Yamane Deiri or Hashizaki Tayori could do. It was separate from one’s ability to use crystal magic. He had to remember who he had been back when he was hunting down the Problem Solvers.

A cornered rat will bite the cat.

But where had Machibula bitten him?

(If she only wanted an easy way through Round 2, she wouldn’t need to place all this suspicion on Aine. And if she only needed to divert suspicion away from herself, she could have made the inspection and maintenance staff into the villain. Why did she bring Aine into this? And how does she benefit from it? Think. Aine isn’t her opponent; I am. So why take aim at her?)

This had people suspecting he and Aine had cheated, but he doubted Machibula was only trying to get them arrested to prevent their match. Like he had said before, she had to actually fight and defeat a crystal magician to earn the title of world’s strongest. If he had to forfeit, it would only look like she had run from a real fight.

Aine was his greatest trump card and this distrust was pushing her away from Karuta, but that was meaningless in the match itself. Aine couldn’t fight in the match to begin with, so unless Machibula was planning to attack Karuta outside the ring, Aine was never an obstacle to begin with.

Which meant…

“The most likely option is she’s trying to make things awkward with my allies and turn the audience against me. She hopes to rattle me enough that she can take the initiative before the battle even begins.”

That was all.

It was about the same as trash-talking him. She couldn’t even be certain it would have any effect at all.

Utagai Karuta gnashed his teeth. He could feel a great heat burning in his gut. It infuriated him that a part of his mind was whispering to him that he would have done ''the same thing'' if their positions were reversed and that this was exactly the sort of cheap and ugly move he had used to defeat the Problem Solvers.

But.

That bitterness also revealed to him a way to strike back. The situation could hardly be worse, but he had found ''something'' in this short time.

Unlike with security software, there were no standards to rely on here?

Nonsense. There was a bottom to be reached here.

He placed his hand on the crystal girl’s head. The two hornlike things hurt.

“Sacri-sama?” she muttered, staring up at him with that emotionless look.

“Don’t worry. No one is controlling you and I know how to prove it.”

He had to recall the conditions at play here.

If Aine was somehow being controlled by Machibula Delphi, she would be working toward Machibula’s benefit. So if she tried to do something that would ruin Machibula’s plans, she would either stop or correct that action, no matter how unnatural it looked.

And again, Machibula needed to defeat Karuta during the official match.

“Listen, Aine. I have a command for you. A command that will save you,” said Utagai Karuta.

He kept his hand on her head like he was calming a lost child.

And he gave the command without hesitation.

“''Chop off my head.''”