Editing Apocalypse Witch:Volume4 Chapter3 (section)

===Part 7===

An air-compressing boom rumbled across Second Grimnoah’s side deck.

The color black danced about. This wasn’t just three or four people. Where had they all been hiding? Thick chains jangled as a group in tattered black dresses used the watertight door levers, side deck, railings, and anything else as a foothold to run three-dimensionally through the air.

But they did not collide with pursuing Karuta. The side deck was a straightaway less than a meter wide, so it was not suited for group combat. They were moving to escape his pursuit. The group of slaves was guiding away fluffy blonde-haired Machibula Delphi in a white priestess outfit that made her look like a goddess.

“Priestess, hurry!!”

“Oh, dear. Kildna, what is happening here? I thought I was to remain ignorant of all this dirty work.”

Karuta operated the same way, so he knew schemers could never win without trickery.

He would eliminate her Orpheus’s Orchestra and drag her into the ring where she couldn’t escape. Then he would defeat her in accordance with the rules.

Only then would he have earned the right to bow down to Aine and let her hit him.

He flicked his crystal blossom and spoke into it. He was free to use that magical communication outside of the tournament matches.

“Yamanen! How goes the evacuations!?”

“You’re good to go. There shouldn’t be anyone on the side deck. The outdoor café was already closed along with the cafeteria and the teachers hired someone interesting to help: Athabaskan Rio Grande.”

Karuta couldn’t believe his ears, but it was apparently true.

“That nervous Sophia Firenze-sensei apparently begged him to help. I know mercenaries don’t really take sides, but that is one tough guy. He’s already out of bed after you gave him such a beating yesterday. But I guess I couldn’t say no either if a young female teacher came and tearfully begged me to help. Ga ha ha!!”

Karuta wasn’t trusting enough to think the enemy of his enemy was his friend. The old strongests had taken that path from him. But he felt like he had just found a brief moment where he could try to trust in human goodness. He had a feeling that mercenary wasn’t doing this just for the money. It sounded like Karuta and the others had something that had tugged at Athabaskan’s heartstrings, so he had decided to help them out while they fought to help out Aine.

“Which is it, Yamanen? Are you into Sophia-sensei or Letnahe-sensei?”

“What kind of fool limits himself to just one kind of hot teacher?”

Orpheus’s Orchestra may have noticed what they were after. The black dress girl named Kildna ran down the outdoor passageway lined with dangling lifeboats while pulling on the radiant priestess’s hand with one hand and urging the other slaves along with her other hand.

“Go, go!! We will guide the priestess, so you all buy us time!!”

Greek mythology was one of the best known around the world, so the ancient magic developed there had to be powerful. Multiple wires sliced through the air. They held guitar-like string instruments known as a kithara. No, these devices were made to resemble the instrument, but they were actually used to send out several steel wires.

However…

“Sh!!”

Karuta held his hand out to the side and snapped his fingers.

Just as his opponent’s attention was drawn to that side, he sent a hook in through her blind spot in the other direction.

A tempo later than normal, the black dress slave forced her arm up to guard the side of her head, but he used that moment to slam his knee into her unguarded side.

(Do you have any idea how much that brown teacher beat me up? Of course, I was prepared to either knee you in the side or grab your neck chain to headbutt you, so you couldn’t have avoided it either way!!)

The impact lifted her from the deck and the blow to her diaphragm kept her from breathing as she fell to the deck and convulsed, but Utagai Karuta simply stepped over her and continued on. True to their name as an orchestra, most of their weapons were based on musical instruments, like a wire reel lyre or crotales that resembled giant pliers. Some of the apparent wires must have actually been macaroni-like fibers because some kind of glowing beam would occasionally fly his way. That beam had to be the weapon used to frame Aine by bringing down the waiting room.

Greek astrology was known around the world, but he didn’t feel a great pressure pinning his feet to the ground like he had when facing the Problem Solvers.

They were no match for the crystal magic that had defeated the old world’s strongests.

A blinding beam flew over Karuta’s shoulder and blew away the black dress girls who had been blocking his way to buy time, dumping them over the side deck railing and into the ocean.

Yes, Karuta wasn’t the only one pursuing Machibula.

“Power up!!” roared multiple voices as crystal blossoms shattered and cutting-edge crystal magicians emerged onto the side deck with spiky crystal armor adorning their summer uniforms. They kicked off the floor, the walls, and sometimes even the ceiling. They were all furious at what these people had done to their precious ''classmate'' who was not just a device.

Karuta leaped at the lever for one of the lifeboats and shouted to his classmates.

“Listen, Yamanen! Don’t kill anyone!!”

“You sure are forgiving after what they did, Karuta. A little girl committed harakiri in the middle of the classroom!! Someone had to play the villain there, but I’m still ready to bow down to Aine-chan and let her stomp on me!”

“That sounds more like a reward to me,” said a panting Nekoumi Hirosuke (who had stayed on Aine’s side from beginning to end), but he was best ignored.

“I agree that we’re getting back at them for what they did to Aine, but that’s why we can’t cause any deaths that could be blamed on her! They could use that as a ''way out''!!”

“Tch, understood. I can’t be causing even more problems for the person I’m risking my life to apologize to.”

That was a major handicap for Yamane Deiri who specialized in flames and explosions, but he accepted it.

Karuta’s group was currently running aft down the 600m ship. Machibula and her protector slaves were a good ways down the side deck, but there was no chance of losing sight of them.

After producing her crystal armor and rapier, Marika floated up off the side deck. She did not user her supersonic speed to fly up ahead of their targets because she was afraid of any invisibly-thin wires in the way. Even with the preset barrier, relative speed and wires were a nasty combination.

She had changed back into her summer uniform and she thrust her rapier device out ahead of her like a wire cutter.

“They don’t seem interested with the heliport at the top, so where are they headed?”

“Let’s assume the worst. The most dangerous target to the stern is the main engine room. A single engine is a 2000ton behemoth. They’re also connected to a ton of fuel, so blow up that massive diesel engine and it might kill us along with the ship.”

“That’s dirty of them.”

“She can’t win her match, but she still wants to return home with the trophy of having killed the Four Living Gods and become the new world’s strongest. Why wouldn’t she start cheating? Blowing up the ship is probably meant to take out me or Omotesandou-san since we can’t fly. She might not get credit for the Catastrophe, but she still gets something out of this. And this is a home game for us, so we don’t need to hold back against those pieces of shit. So let’s capture them and keep them from reaching the goal!!”

The slaves out front were falling to the laser fire from out at sea, but the lasers were not shooting through their heads and hearts. The lasers instead targeted the thick watertight doors behind them, creating a welding-like flash of light that knocked them out like a stun grenade at close range.

One black dress girl gave some kind of hand signal and then curled up before Karuta could do anything more. Almost like she was trying to protect herself from some kind of powerful blast.

“What, do you have some trick left up your sleeve!? You’re just Greek astrology. How’s the morning horoscope supposed to defeat crystal magic, a collision between two pure forms of magic!?”

Yamane Deiri sounded exasperated, but Karuta froze.

Yes. That was right. Crystal magic was the strongest in the field of magic. They had eliminated ''their greatest rival'' to make sure of it. But who ever said Machibula would limit herself to pure magic?

He needed to think back and recall the avengers who had persistently pursued the Problem Solvers and created a bloodbath out of them. When a cheater was outmatched, why would they ever play fair?

A moment later, Yamane Deiri was blown away in a deafening boom.

Karuta saw something sparkling in his spinning vision, but were those small crystal shards? He also saw his now one-armed friend slammed hard against the metal wall next to him.

The sound of the boy’s shattering barrier only reached him after the fact.

All the ceiling lights shattered and the nearby metal door bent with a disturbing sound.

“Gahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”

This wasn’t Greek mythology. It wasn’t even magic.

Karuta’s paper-thin barrier had been easily shattered. He had a concussion and couldn’t even stand up, but he still used his trembling fingers to grab Yamane Deiri’s collar where the boy had collapsed nearby. He clenched his teeth and fought the urge to vomit while he crawled along the floor, pressed his cheek against the floor, and dragged his unconscious friend behind a lifeboat hanging nearby. The friend’s severed arm had already crystallized on the floor.

He heard a deep rumbling coming from the vast ocean past the side deck’s railing.

“The Chrisbart electric battleship.”

The ship’s gun slowly turning their way did not use traditional explosives. That main gun was a set of three 45cm railguns. The cutting-edge 300m ship was also equipped with anti-air lasers, wirelessly powered motor missiles, and anti-missile EM weapons.

It was known as an electric warship because it specialized in converting electric energy into deadly force. The power generation unit and the various electric weapons had grown so large it had brought the extinct classification of battleship back to the battlefield. Its long-range precision strikes from more than 1000km away had shaken the theory of aircraft carrier superiority that had ruled naval warfare for so long.

That was the cornerstone of Second Grimnoah’s escort fleet. But that massive ship was now aiming its horrific main cannon at the side of its supposed master from only 500m away.

This explained it. Karuta raised his voice while removing his friend’s belt and fastening it tight around his now armless shoulder.

“When did they attack and hijack that ship!?”