Apocalypse Witch:Volume3 Chapter4

Chapter 4

Part 1

“Oh, what’s this?”

Yamane Deiri expressed his surprise while waiting in midair.

The Sparkle lion’s anti-air lasers had stopped. He stayed on his guard while counting to 10, but still nothing.

Had something happened over there, or was this a trap meant to mess with his timing? He could not let his guard down for a moment since these were lasers. Once you saw the flash of light, it was too late to move out of the way.

“Hirosuke.”

“Oh, looks like the roof collapsed.”

Even at their height, they could not see 30km away with the naked eye at night, but Nekoumi Hirosuke did not hesitate to respond with his crystal armor active.

“That lion isn’t there anymore. M-maybe it fell in a hole?”

“Is this our chance?”

“I doubt it. The Sparkle’s lasers can easily pierce the ship’s walls, so it’s still just as powerful. If anything, this is more dangerous since we can’t use visual information to predict where it’s aiming.”

Omotesandou Kyouka had taught them all to remain pessimistic when there was any uncertainty. The anti-air lasers had stopped, but that was not enough for them to charge in toward the ship.

And…

“Y-Yamane-senpai! And Nekoumi-senpai!! Why didn’t you wake me when it was time to head back out!?”

“And here’s the little kitten in heat.”

“I am not a kitten!!”

Natlena’s face grew red with anger as she flew up to the same height as the high schoolers. Changing the subject had failed to distract her, so the two boys secretly exchanged a glance.

They knew exactly what to do. It was time for the trial in absentia plan – aka shifting the blame to someone who was not present.

Deiri shrugged in the pouring rain.

“What choice did we have? If we let you suffer a single scratch, Karuta would kill us! And your Crystal Magic regeneration doesn’t matter as far as that’s concerned!!”

“Eh?”

Her thoughts froze for a second.

The red on her face was no longer from anger.

“Y-you can’t weasel out of this by bringing up Karuta-senpai!! I can fight and it doesn’t matter what he thinks!!”

Part 2

The roof had broken and artificial rain poured down on the trashed gym. The waxed flooring was probably permanently ruined. Bent steel beams from the ceiling and the flipped-over and unmoving tadpole bodies littered the floor. Those gruesome corpses all belonged to students who had been lazily taking a class and finding their own ways to pass the time.

This was a hellish scene for the humans and the Threat.

The boy bit his lip.

He had failed to claim the side of justice, but the deadly battle was not over yet. If he did not fight and win, he would lose something he valued more than his own life.

He was not going to give up again. He knew he was wrong and he knew no outcome here would lead to a bright future, but Utagai Karuta faced and pointed at the 3m armored warrior that shined a reddish purple.

His battered face looked pale in the chilly rain.

He almost felt like he was following the same path as the Problem Solvers who had come to the Crystal Magicians and gotten killed for it.

“Aine.”

But if it would protect Crystal Girl Aine by his side, he was willing to become a devil here.

“We will win this. Even if it’s wrong.”

The wind roared as the Warrior Doll charged toward him.

There was an absolute gap between them. The Threat instantly closed the distance between them with artillery-like speed and attacked with its sword’s fearsome edge. Karuta could not stop that with his flashlight and having Aine stop it with her sword would only let the “wall of explosive wind” from the plasma jet hit her.

They could not afford to touch it.

But this opponent made that easier said than done.

The Warrior Doll’s sword had a white plasma jet running along its blade, so it could probably slice through a pillar of depleted uranium alloy as thick around as Karuta’s torso like it was made of gelatin or margarine.

A human would die instantly whether they defended or not.

When that armored warrior could use bursts of green light to pull off ultra-high-speed combat, falling back to keep your distance and predicting the path of the blade to avoid it were both unrealistic. Aine’s endurance was an unknown factor, so she could easily shatter from the very next explosion for all he knew.

The reddish-purple armored warrior roared and immediately swung down its long katana at full strength. That weapon incorporated a police baton and handcuffs as symbols of justice and it roasted the surrounding air to produce a terrifyingly sharp edge.

It was over.

And yet…

“Come to me, Aine!!”

For some reason, the blast of wind as powerful as a speeding subway train passed by a mere meter to Karuta’s side. If he had not pulled the crystal girl close with his empty hand, she would have been sliced through.

“Karuta!?” shouted Marika from somewhere.

He and Aine had dodged to the side, but that did not seem like it should have been enough to survive.

The deadly armor could not break the sound barrier if they did not give it enough distance for a “running start”, but it could still silently tear through the wind at subsonic speeds, putting it at the same level as an assassin’s bullet.

Even the greatest expert should have been helplessly pulverized.

Yet the boy had survived.

He held a modified military flashlight. It was hard and heavy enough to use as a police baton, but that was all it could do. And yet it had made the difference between life and death.

“You’re a Threat with red glowing eyes.”

He was not expecting an answer. In fact, he doubted his words even got through to this adversary.

Still, he smiled and waved the flashlight to show it off.

This was not a street fight between delinquents, so why bother glaring at each other from close range? Karuta had faced the Warrior Doll’s red eyes from head on so he could check on this.

He knew that his ability to spit out things like this meant he had fully abandoned justice. He swallowed the bitterness and spoke with the look of a minor villain driven into a corner.

“That means you rely on sight just like the tadpoles and wharf roaches. So this infrared interference will work on you!!”

There was a crackling as if from a bug zapper.

The Threat did not pull back the sword it had swung down.

The excessive amount of energy could work against it at times. The floating rubble provided advance warning of a major attack.

“Aine!!”

This time, the crystal girl pulled the boy toward her. They spun around together to dive behind the remains of a devoured tadpole.

The small rubble around them continued to float and a pure white explosion erupted from the sword longer than the Warrior Doll was tall. Even behind cover, Karuta felt a slight pain running through him like he had a sunburn. A direct hit from that firepower would have burned all of his skin and fused his melted uniform to it with just the emitted heat.

He put on the fierce but pathetic smile of the routed soldier focused only on survival.

That was two attacks survived. He should have died the instant the blade began to move. With first the blade and then the shockwave, he was in fact surviving the 3m giant’s supposedly surefire attacks.

It felt a lot like bullfighting.

He had less speed, power, and weight, but he could still survive by accurately obstructing his opponent and causing it to miss. He would be killed instantly if he screwed up and let that opponent charge him, but his side still had a chance to stick it with their sword in the instant they crossed paths.

The puny human had a chance to challenge a much more powerful monster. The Threat could customize themselves through cannibalism, but if the original lion and the absorbed tadpole had both relied on sight, it gained nothing new. That would not give it new senses that used microwaves or ultrasound.

“You were messing with the Threat’s eyes using your laser unit, right?”

“You only just now noticed? But I cannot switch modes quickly enough for the Warrior Doll. It will approach and cut me down while I am aiming the laser.”

That meant they could not attempt a feint where they occasionally swapped roles. Similarly, he did not have time to bring Aine back into his body to heal her wounds.

They would have to do this as is.

“Aine, leave the assistance to me. Just go at it with everything you’ve got!”

“I am not sure what to say when you are praising your own specs.”

She spun around and rushed out from behind cover to slice at the reddish-purple armored warrior with the intensity of a tornado. The Warrior Doll swung its long sword diagonally. The two swords clashed and Karuta felt a squeezing at his heart while clutching his flashlight behind cover.

The plasma jet did not explode and the armored warrior immediately raised its sword in a defensive pose. Only after a second strike from the crystal sword hit it from the right did the light began to expand again.

(Did it intentionally alter its previous timing!?)

“Hide, Aine!!” shouted Karuta while sending out IR with his flashlight.

Aine rolled back. There was an explosion, but she had managed to find cover behind a severed tadpole leg lying on the floor. Karuta nearly had his lungs scorched because he had been leaning out from behind cover.

(One at a time, huh?)

“Marika, help us out!”

He was answered by a sharp light attacking the Warrior Doll from the side. Marika cut through the air with her rapier device in hand, dropped down just barely inside the massive sword’s range, planted her feet on the wet floor, and sharply shoved her body in even closer.

The extreme maneuver bringing her from long to close range was a lot like a horizontal lightning strike.

But the dull sound that followed came from Marika. The tonfa-like protrusion of the armored warrior’s sword guard crashed into her crystal armor and slammed her down to the wet floor.

“Gah!!”

Tayori and Imi apparently considered joining the fight after seeing their classmate rolling along the floor, but they came to a stop after seeing the rubble around the armored warrior unnaturally float up. That ionocraft effect showed a fearsome amount of energy was gathering within the Threat. Tayori had her hands full simply restraining terrified Imi.

“S-sorry, Karuta.”

“That’s fine.”

That was not just a polite response. As he moved toward the armored warrior from the side, he said one thing more without moving his lips or looking toward collapsed Marika.

“That was all according to plan.”

“…?”

It had all been for the dry crinkling sound he heard now. Any communications using their Crystal Blossoms or phones could be intercepted by the slate pencil urchin and holding a secret conversation right in front of the armored warrior would be the height of folly.

The girl behind him had unfolded a small piece of paper and would now have read the short message it contained:

“Burn their surfaces to weld them together, or continually scorch the air to create suction from the pressure difference.”

Yes, there were plenty more Threats inside and outside Second Grimnoah. After making this much of a commotion, they would have to deal with them as well.

Marika’s Crystal Magic would be able to pull off one or the other methods written on that memo.

Also, none of the Threats except the Warrior Doll had broken through the ship’s walls or doors. Not even the Gestalt. If she fired her powerful sniping laser on the Threats packed into the hallway, she would scorch the air in the small gaps between them and cause a suction effect. That would not stop them forever, but it would help.

The armored warrior’s red eyes followed Marika as she nodded and moved behind a tadpole, but Karuta moved in between. He put on a filthy smile and forced out his voice.

“Do you really have time for distractions, Warrior Doll? Is your anger so weak you can set it aside for other things?”

He held his modified military flashlight and Aine wielded her crystal sword by his side.

He was essentially an amateur mimicking the pros and he was facing an opponent ten thousand times more frightening than a pro bullfighter ever had, but he had still claimed the right to challenge the Warrior Doll.

He took a deep breath.

He gathered his resolve and stepped out from behind the tadpole.

His opponent did not understand his words and no signal was needed.

This time, they were on equal footing.

They glared at each other and then charged straight toward each other.

The strongest human and the strongest Threat bet everything on this.

Part 3

“The Indian Space Force can only input the nuclear launch codes after reaching an ‘independent determination’ that Grimnoah has lost to the Threat. Once that happens, everyone dies. Including my family and the first love you never could forget.” Omotesandou Kyouka reviewed the situation in the floating general airport’s control tower. “They want to launch that nuke no matter what, but they still need it to make some minimal level of sense. So if they lose their ability to gather information, they will be unable to reach a determination and their plan grinds to a halt.”

“How exactly do we do that?” asked the redheaded buns Secretary.

Kyouka softly sighed.

“We can disguise it as military satellite trouble. Figure out how many satellites are passing by directly overhead and jam them. Oh, but make sure it looks like the Threat did it. We saw some sea urchins covered in antennas, remember? You can’t let anyone know the jamming signal is coming from this control tower.”

Letnahe Kurent sighed when she heard that.

They had hit their limit.

She glanced down at her left hand. The ring and watch there were both important to her and she could not betray either one.

(I doubt the official list of satellites is all of them. There will be countless unregistered ones. Even the 30 generator satellites used to power the Pinaka III are officially registered as civilian communication satellites.)

She doubted getting Grimnoah’s plan from Omotesandou Kyouka and correcting its mistakes would be enough to stop the nuclear attack.

The silver-haired and brown-skinned soldier slipped out of the control tower, descended the crude stairs, and pulled out her phone. It was a military model not available in the general marketplace, but she attached another device she pulled from the hem of her tight skirt. She attached it to a completely separate radio with a cable.

Needless to say, she was a member of the Indian Navy.

But allowing something that would benefit the Indian military was meaningless if it also brought great chaos to international society as a whole. Yes, making a nuclear attack on the Threat was acceptable, but she could not let them set a precedent that it was acceptable to make a nuclear attack on other humans just because it accomplished some other goal. Do that and India would be unable to criticize others for aiming nuclear weapons at them.

Someone who killed a person that someone else cared deeply for would earn hatred and mistrust from all the other people who did not want to lose their loved ones. She could not allow death to become an accepted outcome.

So.

(Hadome-kun. Honey!!)

Since two faces came to mind in this crisis, she could not deny her infidelity, but this was the only way she knew how to live. She clicked her tongue and opened the metal door. She pressed her back against the concrete wall while the artificial rain poured down. She manually dialed a memorized number into the phone that was unnaturally connected to a radio.

At this point, she donned a different mask. There was no way to stop the nuclear attack from within the Indian military’s chain of command, so she would have to restrain them with an even greater power.

“…”

She held the electronic device to her ear and waited as it rang five times. She knew the process that would play out. She would be connected to a small online shopping company no one had ever heard of, but by ignoring the voice instructions and entering a secret code, she would reach the true rulers of the world.

However.

The automated female voice did not stop even after she entered the number with her brown finger.

She was not connected to them.

“Your selection could not be found. Please try again from the beginning.”

There was no trying it again.

That had been a secret message from a list she had been given in advance. It meant the following:

This call is being intercepted. Immediately destroy this device and go undercover. We will send you a new method of contacting us wherever you might be.

She heard a slight metallic creaking, so she slowly turned around and then grimaced.

“How?”

“Using the elevator. And yes, I know that isn’t what you meant.”

Omotesandou Kyouka was grinning up at her. She was toying with a mobile router in her empty hand. No, that was an illicit device known as a Quicksand that gathered and analyzed all forms of wireless signal.

The girl had used that to intercept Letnahe’s line to the deepest parts of the world.

(Quicksand.)

It was true that Letnahe’s group had great power. She knew other powers both large and small were trying to discover its identity. She knew that, but…

(That thing can pick up even the frequencies not detectable with the control tower equipment. And if it’s set up to automatically analyze all forms of encryption, then she must not have even needed my help. Was that entire request a bluff meant to draw me in, create a sense of camaraderie, and bring down my guard!?)

“Why now? Whoever I might work for, I assisted you!! I was trying to use their power to stop the Indian Space Force’s nuclear strike so I could save this country!” She was trembling. Not even a child lost at an amusement park would have looked so distraught. “If this fails, you lose everything. This is not the time to be working against each other!! I revealed my secret about Hadome-kun and you talked about your family. You had accepted a woman like me… Whoever we might work for in the end, we both knew we needed to work together right now. So why do this!?”

“Why?” The President was smiling and did not stop smiling. “The greatest threat to us has always been your group since you can take everything from us at any time. What has the Threat actually done to us? Even the Indian military hasn’t done anything to us yet. But who was it that permanently scarred our lives while stifling a yawn and then tried to avoid responsibility for that? This could not be simpler. It is a matter of revenge.”

“…”

Pure nothingness.

Letnahe’s mind went entirely blank. At the same time, tears welled up in her eyes and her mobile watch was beeping warnings related to her breathing and heartrate.

“Then all that about your family still being in Kyoto wasn’t even true?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” The President coolly brushed her long hair from her shoulder. “You propped up the world’s strongest magicians so you could control them and you used a 12-year-old girl’s grief for her sister to set up her as a convenient avenger, so do you really think I would let you know anything you could use against me? Why would I tell you anything other than a mix of truth and lies you can never untangle?”

There was not even hatred on her face.

“Thinking back, your stance was always full of unknowns.” Kyouka produced a metallic sound as she spoke, but it did not come from her wheelchair. “Letnahe Kurent, do you work for the Indian military, for the coalition force, or for the string-pullers toying with all those nations? You acted like you were willing to let a nuclear blast hit Grimnoah, but you were secretly working to fix our plans so the Indian Space Force could not act. You were constantly switching between the professional and the private, but why was that?”

It was a bow and arrow. A very mechanical Western type.

It was not quite enough to call a weapon, but wielding it as a weapon here made it very clear that Second Grimnoah’s Student Council President had no intention of making friends.

And who or what was she aiming it at?

“You made it look like we had gotten to know each other while you shared that embarrassing love story and you made it look like some camaraderie had formed after we recognized each other’s skill, but we both know that was never going to happen. From the moment I heard your name from Natlena Blast, I knew you were one of the utter trash who leaked secrets to a 12-year-old girl to set her up as an avenger and who hoped to drive the four world’s strongests to self-destruction by using that inexperienced avenger as a wedge between us. But Natlena-san failed as a Trojan horse and then you were sent in. That means you had made a second move. Before all that with Kiyomasa Hadome. So what exactly was it?”

Her desire to save Kiyosawa Hadome was convincing at first glance, but the string-pullers as a whole had to have a plan here as well. Letnahe had been trying to save Hadome without defying them. She had not cared what happened to Grimnoah or the Crystal Magicians.

“Your methods have remained the same from the beginning.”

Letnahe clenched her teeth, but the President continued nonetheless.

“You did not expect Natlena-san to succeed when you sent her in. You had hoped the four strongests would fight amongst ourselves over how to deal with her. So this nuclear strike is the same. Is it acceptable to use nukes against the Threat? You wanted to use that issue to create a rift between us that would reduce our power, didn’t you?”

“…”

“It’s easy enough to imagine Grimnoah coming to a temporary stop if you show off that nuclear card you might just play. Did you think we would prioritize a nuclear weapon above the Threat? If that worked, you would be able to place Crystal Magic within the framework of the military and let the adults control the fight against the Threat. …But that is not what happened. We continued to focus on the Threat and you found yourself unable to stop the nuclear strike that was meant to only be a show of force for the adults. Isn’t that right?”

The silver-haired brown-skinned soldier had stopped responding. Everything the girl said worked to tear down her stronghold. She needed to move one step ahead and prepare for the next move instead of figuring out how to recover from the last move. Like taking a shortcut to the side instead of chasing after a fleeing opponent from behind. The bespectacled soldier toyed with the switches in her mind. Her breathing, heartrate, blood pressure, brainwaves, and other values monitored by her mobile watch grew as placid as a subterranean lake.

She switched over to her killing mode.

“In other words, the entire scenario of Letnahe Kurent stopping the nuclear attack out of concern for Kiyosawa Hadome was in accordance with your organization’s wishes.”

Kyouka briefly fell silent there.

She slowly took a breath.

And then she continued.

“Your entire deal is manipulating the current era’s strongest to reap the benefits, so you can’t have all of the strongests wiped out by some silly mistake, can you? So you needed to stop the nuclear strike you had begun. Am I wrong?”

It was a decisive statement.

Letnahe focused even stronger on the switch inside herself.

“You and your organization prioritized your own safety over retaking Second Grimnoah or the Kobe region from the Threat.” The President’s accusation was calm but biting. “You wouldn’t die if we lost here. And you were more afraid that I would gain the clue I needed. So you let it happen. You were willing to accept a loss here.”

Just as all expression vanished from Letnahe Kurent’s face, a thin smile appeared on Omotesandou Kyouka’s.

It could all be summed up as despicable. The group that had taken command of everything to fight by their own rules had never intended on protecting anyone.

“So you were sent in to get close to us by making a show of understanding Japan’s climate and how Crystal Magic works and then intentionally showing off that watch to give a hint of your school days.”

That smile had to be a show of her resolve.

“You thought revealing that untold secret of yours would convince me you had no further secrets. All so you could get us to trip each other up instead of fighting the Threat. That way you could weaken the strongest just enough to tame us.”

That had been the plan from the beginning. Letnahe Kurent had wanted to grab the reins of the Crystal Magicians who were a thorn in her organization’s side because they were so hard to control. Even if people’s lives hung in the balance, she had been willing to make every effort to accomplish that.

“Come to think of it, you talked an awful lot about your illicit love, but I never saw you actually speak with Kiyosawa-sensei. Even though you ostensibly came here to rescue him from the Threat and the nuclear strike.” Kyouka smiled as she pointed this out. “And you expect me to believe you’re placing your private life above your professional duties?”

“…”

“Well, from the moment you realized you could use that old connection, you have proven yourself to be as wicked as me.”

The girl designated as Letnahe’s top priority target smiled.

She bared her counterattacking fangs to get something out of the woman.

“Hello, human string-pullers. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Several strange metallic sounds came from Letnahe’s hand.

Her weapon was a parashu.

It used the legend of the axe given by God of Destruction Shiva, but the magic only used the name and was not actually the legendary axe. In her case, it used the rumble of Shiva’s thunder to destabilize the vibration, strike it from within, and either alter the axe’s path or provide extreme acceleration or deceleration.

A head-on attack from a Gatling gun was no threat to her. And once her target was within the axe’s range, she could use its rapid acceleration to slice through even a bank vault’s door.

Or so she thought.

And yet…

“Gah!?”

It was she who ended up groaning.

This made no sense. Kyouka was smiling in front of her, but a long metal arrow had flown in from the side to hit her in the back of her right hand. There were no hidden attackers around, so it did not add up.

The military flashlight attached to the bottom of the axe’s handle had shattered and the axe itself had fallen to the floor. Needless to say, this opponent was not foolish enough to give her time to crouch down and pick it up.

Then she figured it out.

“Oh, so that’s it.”

“The trick is simple enough, but preconceptions are a difficult thing to shake.”

This voice came from the side as well. She held her injured right hand and moved just her eyes to glare in that direction.

The illusion in front of her had already vanished without a sound.

The President was seated in her wheelchair calmly aiming her bow.

She had chosen not to aim for the left hand wearing the ring and mobile watch, but not for any strategic reasons.

“As you can plainly see, I am in a wheelchair. I can only wield a mere 1% of the power I once had, but even a weak dimensional leap allows me to slow the arrival time of light and sound.”

“The only Regulation 3…”

It was the same as the stars in the night sky. The light you saw twinkling there now had actually been emitted many years in the past. But that was not something the people living on the face of the earth could ever truly experience. They might intellectually understand the concept of a light year, but the light they saw would still feel like the present to them.

Just like people still had a general fear of a school at night in the modern age.

“I can pull off a number of tricks without actually sending my own body through.”

“You distorted the world itself for an illusion lasting only a few seconds? There had to have been other ways of doing that!!”

“Oh? I hear Anastasia did far worse with her God Worshiping Magic.”

There was a hint of sadness in Kyouka’s voice. This was only the dregs of the power she had once been able to use. She had altered the arrival time of light with her mind, but that was only the dregs.

(The reports say she wielded an undulating flamberge back in her prime, but I guess this genius can also master the use of a bow or whatever else she needs!!)

“So what will it be? Spill the beans on the string-pullers and this can be over much sooner.”

“Kh.”

Kyouka smiled in an even more toxic way than before.

“Or would you prefer I tied you to a chair and called Hadome-sensei in to interrogate you?”

“Gaahhh!!”

Natlena roared to upset the timing of the enemy in front of her.

Her brown face was colored more by embarrassment than pain or fear.

She used that moment to kick up the axe lying at her feet and grabbed at it with her left hand. But she was not given time to grasp the shortened grip or pull out a spare flashlight. A second arrow struck the parashu’s thick blade, knocking it from her hand.

“So you would rather die than have that happen? You’re such a wonderful person.”

The President smiled.

She understood how Letnahe felt, which was why she would not let it happen.

Ending this nonlethally showed the absolute skill gap between them.

Letnahe knew the details of the Problem Solver battles fought in secret. There was unconfirmed data saying this girl had used a special handgun in one of those. This genius would not stop just because she had been broken once. She was more than just multitalented or a jack of all trades. Her talent let her add anything to her skillset whenever she sensed she was lacking something. Nothing was quite as frightening as a genius who did not fear failure, did not let their pride get in the way, and would put in endless effort when they deemed it necessary.

“What are you asking me to do?” Letnahe squeezed out her voice while holding her skewered right hand and doubled over in pain. “Criticize me all you like, but you’re not doing anything about the Threat or the preparations for the nuclear strike! You haven’t told anyone about this and you haven’t even let any confusion set in. What gives you the right to put the world at risk at your own discretion like that!?”

“Yes, I am even more wicked than you. And what I am asking you to do is quite simple: tell me everything about the world’s string-pullers you belong to. You want to protect your family and your first love, don’t you? Then you should know which of your loyalties to turn your back on.”

“But…”

“Besides, you don’t even know why I can’t use Crystal Magic anymore, do you? Or rather, why I am still placing a limiter on my abilities. That would mean you’re a low-level member. The agent who visited Karuta-kun before seemed to have some idea about my secret.”

“?”

Letnahe truly looked puzzled by that and she did not even realize that her confusion signaled something to Kyouka.

“Now, then.”

Kyouka crossed her outstretched legs.

Her ankle swayed like a pendulum and Letnahe should have already learned what that sign meant.

“Are you saying I can protect everything I care about even if I betray them here?”

“I am not a good person,” said the demon in the wheelchair. “Which is why I can assure you that I will not take away those precious treasures of yours. For someone as wicked as me, they make the perfect guarantee you will do what I ask, don’t they?”

Letnahe bit her lip.

She realized there was no way to turn this around or even to escape. Which left only one option. She put off treating her injured right hand and slowly took a different action.

She kneeled in front of the President to change her socks.

That was the moment of submission.

The girl who had tamed a wicked woman whispered sweetly with an even larger smile on her face.

“At this point, the two of us are nothing but villains.”

Part 4

Sword crossed with sword.

The crystal sword branched off at the base like a jitte and the metal sword had a protrusion resembling a tonfa or handcuffs.

The wet rubble floated unnaturally from the floor, light flashed out, and a shockwave and deafening boom shook the entire gym.

Karuta and Aine should not have been able to deal with that using just the one sword, but Karuta just barely dodged the sword that the 3m Warrior Doll swung down heavier than a guillotine and faster than an airplane. Aine instead moved in to hit it with her crystal blade.

It was a lot like bullfighting.

The infrared from the modified military flashlight was just as important as the crystal sword.

This was not part of the basic tactics taught in Second Grimnoah’s textbooks. Imi and Tayori were overwhelmed and could not join the fight.

“Don’t relax just because we’re pulling off this tightrope walk, Aine. Its excess energy might make the rubble float up, but we can’t trust that signal too much.”

“I am already aware of that. If it can pull off a feint with that, the mistake would cost us our lives.”

After determining when it would attack, they would work to confuse it first before making their own attack. That Threat could achieve rapid movement with its green thrusters and it could break the sound barrier if it was allowed a running start. That was well past what a human could hope to match, so Karuta would be killed instantly if he could not reduce its movements.

But even that was far from delivering a critical blow.

After he sent in another IR blast to blind the Warrior Doll, Aine slipped past its right-side defenses and sent her blade toward its arm, leg, and torso, but the wounds were shallow. In fact, the sword was deflected with a high-pitched clang, barely leaving a mark on the reddish-purple armor.

It was fruitless.

But they kept at it regardless.

“Pant, pant!!”

Because Karuta knew his life was not the only one riding on this.

This was for Kazamuki Gekiha and the other old friends from the first ship, it was for his classmates from the second ship like Amaashi Marika and Yamane Deiri, and it was for all the people living the wide world outside of Grimnoah. If the world’s strongest fell here, all of that would be lost.

And then there was Aine who shared his fate.

It was all of those thoughts that prevented him from being cut down. Nor would he be crushed by the shockwave or roasted by the heat of the plasma jet. In fact, he moved out ahead of Aine and threw off the timing of a slash he should never have been able to dodge.

He used his flashlight’s infrared to fry the Threat’s eyes and throw off its timing. If possible, he would hide behind one of the tadpoles to avoid the explosions. If not possible, he would spread out a thin sheet of metal foil (which was probably a piece of a Threat) to at least deflect the great heat.

He doubled over and heard some popping sounds inside his body.

But the shockwave that hit him was not the end of it.

“Aine…”

“…”

“Don’t think about buying time for you to move out front. We’ll both go down if we break our rhythm.”

The Warrior Doll would not stop. If they did not head out to face it, it would likely circle behind the tadpoles itself. And if it made the attack, it would be in control.

“What you did was wrong.”

But even with all that going on, he had something important to say. He once more adjusted his grip on his flashlight while hearing the sounds of crystal fragments breaking away.

“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.”

Crystal Magic regeneration would heal any nonlethal wound in 30 seconds. If it was discovered that shattering the healing crystals with another attack would prevent it from ever healing, then the enemy could make a series of rapid-fire attacks, but the Threat had only begun to learn the details of Crystal Magic in the gym here. If they had not learned everything and the knowledge had been erased before it could spread, then he could trick the enemy. He focused on that while wiping away the blood dripping from the corner of his mouth.

Then he had to laugh.

(Nonlethal injuries don’t matter, huh? I’ve really gotten accustomed to staying just outside the line of an injury that would bring my life to an end.)

It almost felt quaint that Imi found herself unable to trust anyone after having her severed leg cauterized. Karuta would just say thanks. Imi’s response was of course the correct one. The more power he gained during his fight against the Threat, the less human he felt.

Those tadpoles who had enjoyed their pointless actions while gaining knowledge had also responded in the correct way. Of course they had screamed and gone wild when they were being sliced to pieces.

“Even if we do defeat this thing, I might only be proving how frightening humans can be.”

“If you say so.”

He had a vague premonition about that while he followed after Aine as she made an attack. The Threat did not seem able to close up its wounds like they could, but its reddish-purple armor was too tough to make a dent in. Aine had sliced right through the tadpoles, but that same sword could not cut the armored warrior.

Neither side could make any real progress.

Karuta and the armored warrior glared at each other while wearing each other down with small wounds.

The armored warrior said nothing, but he could sense confusion coming off of it.

It had gathered every form of justice it could think of to create the greatest attack, yet that was not enough.

The Warrior Doll was radiating irritation with itself for its inability to deliver a finishing blow.

Karuta snorted with laughter. That was awfully haughty for a monster. That anger was a sign of worry and panic over its inability to kill someone it should have been able to kill. Elicia and Yukino of the Problem Solvers had begun to panic near the end and started criticizing the rules of the world for not doing what they wanted.

“Did you…”

His side had a crystal sword and a flashlight.

He staggered up alongside the crystal girl and faced the reddish-purple armored warrior.

“Did you think every action has a purpose behind it? Humans are full of inefficiencies. How we master those inefficiencies is what shapes our lives. Perfect efficiency would make for the most boring kind of strongest imaginable. That would only lead to a dystopia.”

There was no response.

That thing may not have even had a complex enough tongue or throat to speak human language. Even those things were a type of inefficiency.

“But you really should know that.” The boy who got by on trickery grinned and held out his flashlight. “I mean, you’re standing there on two feet, wearing armor, and holding your weapon with needlessly complex hands.”

Again, the Threat probably did not understand human language.

But for whatever reason, its red eyes glowed brighter here.

Like they were burning.

Wreckage larger than the average car defied gravity to float into the air one after another.

“You’re pouring all your strength into the fruitless and meaningless act of revenge. You’re learned everything there is to know about how we humans enjoy our inefficiencies.”

The armored warrior gave a roar and swung its sword down with all its might.

Part 5

How many times had they done this now?

Crystal Girl Aine’s sword sliced through the air. It slipped past the Warrior Doll’s defenses on the right to strike its torso. But that only produced a high-pitched clang. It scraped the surface somewhat but was nowhere close to a critical wound.

She was not made to turn a blind eye to her deficiencies, so she directly faced the fact that this was insufficient.

That boy had been with her since the first ship was still around, so he had to know what she needed to boost her specs.

Everyone had seen it from the beginning.

They had seen it but overlooked it.

Crystal Girl Aine glanced over at one of the tadpoles lying motionless on its back. She had two decorations protruding from her head that might have been horns and might have been hair. Most likely, not even Utagai Karuta knew for sure what they were.

But right now, they squirmed on their own like the mandibles of a stag beetle or ant.

Everyone had to know by now that the girl grew by eating the pure gold needed to construct circuits. And what was the Threat?

A Metal-Derived Autonomous-Origin Higher Lifeform Combat Weapon.

The reaction spread past the two horns and Aine’s entire head produced a straining sound like something was preparing to open wide.

There was a way to grow stronger.

She had frequently mentioned it ever since the First Out Incident that sank the first ship.

The humans had sensed a deficiency in her specs and sought greater strength.

That was the only way she could protect Utagai Karuta.

So…

“What you did was wrong.”

“…”

“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.”

The disturbance inside her stopped.

Instead of the two horns, it was her two lovely eyes that seemed to be watching a nightmare repeat itself.

Karuta had just swung his flashlight. He could blind the Warrior Doll so it would miss, but his weapon could not actually stop that sword colored by a plasma jet. If he did not dodge it, he would be sliced in two. Yet he showed no hesitation.

He trusted Aine.

He was looking to something inside her.

She had already seen the simplest answer, but she had a feeling that was not the answer he was hoping for as he wore his own life down.

The crystal girl’s thoughts surpassed the logical.

She once more considered the boy’s words.

What was it he wanted from her here?

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.

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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