Editing Apocalypse Witch:Volume4 Chapter4 (section)

===Part 7===

Barong and Rangda’s destructive force was undeniable.

They had destroyed the solid ring floor like they were tilling the dirt, they had made short work of the snipers hidden in the crowd, and they had torn off Karuta’s own arm.

However.

(Why did she do that?)

Karuta’s mind focused on a single point while time seemed to freeze with him in midair.

He couldn’t give in to fear.

He had to follow the hunch he felt now.

(Why did she say “fast forward” and switch to that vertical rotation? Her best bet was to keep Barong and Rangda protecting her while she slowly approached me. She should have stuck with her basic strategy to kill me. So why did she abandon certain victory?)

Fast forward. That term wasn’t something you would use when enjoying a song or a dance. It was a staticky shortcut used to make up for lost time. She always withdrew to her own world with those large headphones, so why had she focused on the outside world’s flow of time there?

She had said Barong and Rangda were the backup dancers and she was the focus of the dance, so it didn’t matter whether or not she had that tornado-like defense in place.

But was that really true?

Could she have had a more pressing reason?

For example, she had changed tack after he threw his severed arm and covered Barong with blood.

What if she had viewed that as a threat?

That would mean Barong and Rangda were not just backup dancers. He had also noticed how their footsteps wounded so much like tap dancing. Their rotation was like that of a record. They were the band, an indispensable part of a musical performance. She could not allow them to be harmed.

So.

''What if she had switched to the vertical rotation mode to move her musical instruments away from the ring and thus out of Karuta’s reach?

(And is this tomoe nage really going to give you the checkmate you want, Pendet Denpasar? You might just find yourself regretting that decision before long!!)

“Ohh!!”

He twisted his body in midair to intentionally throw himself into the vortex of destruction.

He offered up an arm as sacrifice.

Earlier, he had his arm torn off, but the snipers’s torsos and heads had been sliced through. That suggested he could protect his vitals if he was willing to give up an arm.

This tactic only worked thanks to his crystal magic regeneration.

He heard something soft being torn through, but he did not flinch. That impact had slowed the doll, so he pressed his remaining arm down against it.

This was the four-legged benevolent beast – Barong, the symbol of good.

(So you’re the one I get to fight, huh!? And here I thought I’d been abandoned by everything good and just!!)

If the doll stopped, the song stopped. If the song stopped, the dance could not continue.

But at the same time, stopping Barong was not enough to destroy it. If he let go now, it would regain its ruinous freedom.

However, Barong and Rangda also moved as a set. The wicked witch would follow the same circular path taken by the benevolent beast.

In order to rescue trapped Barong and obliterate Karuta for interrupting their performance, two-legged Rangda rushed in at max speed.

He didn’t need to stick with Barong to the end.

He only had to let go and dodge to the side.

Barong was obliterated like it had been stopped in the tracks and struck by a freight train.

“Pendet.”

“Kh.

“Barong and Rangda work together as a pair, right? Then can you continue your performance with just one of them?”

After destroying Barong, Rangda lost its speed and fell to the floor. It fell, bounced, rolled, and finally came to a stop.

The panicked and fleeing spectators froze in place. Delane was still holding her mic, but she couldn’t say anything for a while. A painful silence settled in over the ring.

The rhythm tapped out by those mop handle legs – the song of good and evil – had come to a stop.

The ringlets girl still wore the large headphones, but her song was missing a part. Her song would sound as unnatural as a band playing without a drummer, so her dance could no longer reach the level of the divine.

Finally, she removed the headphones with one hand and tossed them aside. Dancing was everything in Balinese Hindu magic, so she could no longer perform her supernatural movements without her music and with her rhythm taken from her.

But she had not lost her will to fight.

Karuta also pulled a new right arm from the crystal shards shattering past his shoulder.

There was a future they wanted to se.

There was a truth they wanted to confirm.

So…

“Gahhhhhhhh!!!!!!”

“Gahhhhhhhh!!!!!!”

They both roared and a punch crossed with a kick.

No one could utter a word.

The first to finally speak was Utagai Karuta.

“What did you divine?”

His lips were twisted and his teeth didn’t line up properly. His flimsy barrier had been entirely useless, so Pendet’s foot had smashed into the side of his face.

“Rangda destroyed Barong, ending the divine dance that keeps the world running,” said the half-dazed Balinese Hindu dancer.

The boy’s fist had broken her cheekbone.

Perhaps she had been worried about the world, so she had wanted to put her mind at ease by seeing what kind of good future awaited them.

''However.

She collapsed to the side, but the priestess dancer still finished her thought.

“Which means ''that'' is how the world will end. Not the future I was hoping to see.”

<noinclude>
{| border="1" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" style="margin: 1em 1em 1em 0; background: #f9f9f9; border: 1px #aaaaaa solid; padding: 0.2em; border-collapse: collapse;"
|-
| Back to [[Apocalypse_Witch:Volume4_Chapter3|Chapter 3]]
| Return to [[Apocalypse_Witch|Main Page]]
| Forward to [[Apocalypse_Witch:Volume4_Epilogue|Epilogue]]
|-
|}
</noinclude>