Editing Apocalypse Witch:Volume3 Chapter4 (section)

===Part 6===

Utagai Karuta knew the current equilibrium would not last forever.

But this was not how he had expected it to end. It happened after dodging a few more slashes, while he was readying his flashlight in time with Aine’s attack.

The pair of red lights vanished within the Warrior Doll’s helmet. The sword given tonfa and handcuff signals had always moved accurately, but now it grew even more mercilessly so.

(''Don’t tell me.'')

Karuta had a bad feeling about this. Like he felt nothing in his net as the enemy slipped right through it. The pressure weighing on his gut was the one felt in the moment your supposedly perfect plan fell apart. He was once more hit by the sensation he had felt back when he clashed with Elicia and Susannia of the Problem Solvers.

In other words…

(''Did it shut its eyes!? Is it attacking based on intuition instead of its senses!?'')

“Aine, watch out!!”

Their bullfighting tactics did not work if he could not blind their opponent with infrared. A direct hit meant death and a blocked hit would get her crushed below the explosive blast.

Since the flashlight would lead it astray, it chose not to look at all.

It chose to trust in its itself while taking a step forward and relying purely on intuition.

It was a simple but reasonable conclusion. For a ''human'' who often functioned on an illogical basis, anyway. But even if the machinery was malfunctioning, would an unmanned drone ever switch off the video feed and radar while soaring through the sky? Could simple circuitry rely on baseless and illogical “intuition” to shoot down a bomb or missile in the empty darkness?

This was different from the decoy Threat that had attacked the Crystal Beach. This armored warrior had a solid core it could believe in. Was the Warrior Doll more a living being than a weapon!?

This time, the reddish-purple armored warrior attacked with its max speed.

Time stopped.

The raindrops looked like round jewels scattered around as time seemed to stop for Karuta. There was nothing he could do this time. He had viewed this as bullfighting. He used his infrared to parry a monster much stronger than him, used that opening to accurately dodge the attack, and coordinated with Aine to strike back. But if the wild bull shut its eyes and charged straight in, waving the large cloth around would do nothing to lead it astray. The bullfighter would have no way of evading it. And it was all over if he was hit here. He would take far more damage than from a charging bull. An unbelievably heavy and hard blade would attack from the optimal angle with supersonic speed provided by the plasma jet. The gruesome results of that destructive power would be worse than a head on collision with a fighter craft.

(Damn.)

This time.

There really was no avoiding it.

(Damn this guy. He’s looking ''so cool''.)

He had to admit it. And as soon as he clenched his teeth, time sped back up.

“!!”

All he could do was collide with Aine’s shoulder as she swung her sword in from the side.

He tackled her out of the way.

He had to laugh since that was not at all the action of a cheap coward. Maybe he had let the Warrior Doll influence him.

With a dull sound, the downwards slash sent his flashlight spinning through the air.

It had cut away something more important than his arm.

He had lost his disturbance weapon. Without the infrared to throw off the enemy’s timing, Aine would be unilaterally worn down by the plasma jet slashes and explosions.

But the armored warrior must have been confused when it reopened its red eyes.

Karuta was worn down and battered, but he had a fierce smile on his face.

(I don’t want to be a swordsman or a military commander. If I tried to be as cool as you, I’d screw it up and leave behind a pathetic corpse. I know I’m not cut out for that, no matter how much I wish I was and how much I regret being who I am.)

“Your attacks are ''too'' powerful.”

The reddish-purple armored warrior must have noticed its careless mistake.

“So on a subconscious level, you assumed the only two options were a hit or a miss and that I was a goner if you hit!!”

It must have noticed how careless it had been to assume this was over after cutting away Karuta’s weapon with an attack.

(But that isn’t my job.)

It had not been meaningless.

He might have let go of his temporary safety, but that was still meaningful if it created a crucial opening.

(Ordinary attacks do nothing to that armor, but you only ever tried to blow Aine away with your plasma jet explosion when she was swinging her blade horizontally in toward your right side. Are your sword’s defenses so unnecessarily tough because you’re actually scared, Warrior Doll?)

And what was it Karuta had said?

''“What you did was wrong.”

In that most dangerous moment when he had abandoned his own safety, he turned toward Aine in the midst of the fierce fighting.

''“But that was my fault too. Listen, Aine. Once this is over, let’s relearn everything from the ground up. We can return to our dorm room, sleep like a log, get some food, and get through those boring classes. But to do that, you need to do everything you can to learn how to survive.”

“Isn’t that right, ''Aine''!!!!!?”

They swapped places.

Crystal Girl Aine slipped past his side and rushed sharply in toward her target with her crystal sword at the ready.

He had ordered her to learn how to survive, so she would have poured all her focus into that.

''Unless something else distracted her along the way.

The Warrior Doll immediately tried to pull its massive sword back, but it had just swung it down. Its attacks carried deadly speed, but that created an opening while it pulled its blade back.

[[Image:ApocalypseWitch_v03_12.jpg|thumb]]

The explosive blast was likely meant to cover for that.

So what happened if it could not use that defense in time?

Crystal Girl Aine twisted around directly in front of it. She forcibly slid herself toward its right side. And she placed her full momentum on her blade for a sweeping horizontal attack.

She was in a blind spot created by having eyes tucked back inside a helmet.

She targeted an obvious seam created when patching together multiple devoured Threats in the customization process.

The crystal sword had been deflected so many times before, but it sank in deep now.

Deep into the armored warrior’s neck.

Yes, Aine’s sword had easily sliced through the tadpoles and this Threat had absorbed components from them.

With a sharp slicing sound, time came to a stop.

The armored warrior’s head slid to the side.

And that helmet-like head tumbled from its shoulders.

Karuta could not cushion his fall as he crashed down into the gym floor. That did further damage when he was already exhausted to the core. He though he heard something breaking in the center of his aching body, but he was not dead yet. And as long as he did not die, the regeneration would kick in. He still could not say if that was a good thing or not, but it did mean he would continue down the path of the devil for a while yet.

Meanwhile, he thought he saw a red light flickering inside the helmet even after it was beheaded during their final clash. Was that another human-like inefficiency it had learned? Perhaps the Threat had learned how to express emotion in that final moment.

Yes, it was watching that boy who had stayed true to his path to the very end, without letting himself be influenced by the armored warrior’s insistence on fighting fair and square.

The path of the devil was still a path.

And he had stayed true to that path which the Warrior Doll would never choose for itself.

It burned that way of life into its eyes.

And to Karuta, it looked an awful lot like the slain monster was giving the victorious human a smile of approval.

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