Horizon:Volume 9B Chapter 43

Chapter 43: Faller on the Battlefield

If you can see it

And reach it

What is it

You still lack?

Point Allocation (Understanding)

●

Kani escaped the transport ship in the nick of time.

At first, she thought she should focus the Sasamura blows on a single point, but on the second strike, she realized that was a mistake.

…The ship’s inner armor is malleable!

That would only stretch the point of impact out into a loose cone shape rather than create a hole.

So she changed her plan. She ejected the eight Sasamura spears straight up like a fence surrounding her.

“To cut it away!”

This required some adjustment since the floor was a bit slanted, but she could tell it was working from the very first hit. The eight impacts formed sharp dents that seemed to lift the center point and then she sensed the outside air getting in.

However, the armor had multiple layers. There was also a vital space between the outer and inner hulls. So she hurried.

“Sasamura!”

She kept the barrage going. She broke through the first through third layers in no time. Once she arrived at the outermost layer, the center of the ship’s bottom hull came into view.

She stabbed four spears in next to the main frame’s keel and with the next four…

…I’ll alternate left and right, hitting with two at a time!

She spread the stabbing blades to the sides.

Her speed and accuracy passed through the weight-reduction holes in the main frame.

The impacts thundered out and sparks flew as the outside world came into view.

Her first glimpse down in a while showed the Shibata formation from directly above.

Past the widening tear in the armor, she saw so many transport ships lined up or moving.

Fuwa had planned out their next arrangement and the Shibata team was carrying out that plan.

The battle was not over yet. But…

…I can stop it!

Kani didn’t hesitate to choose a descent.

She left the ship.

She felt the wind on her cheeks and her hair tugging upwards as she kicked off the ship’s hull and leaped straight down.

…I can figure out where to land later!

For now, she had to hurry. She had to drop from the sky.

A lernen figur appeared next to her face, displaying her altitude as 820m and rapidly dropping.

The wind was cold, but she caught the occasional whiff of a metallic or burning tree smell.

She spread her arms some and dropped headfirst.

Her descent spell was only standard issue. She appreciated the reduction in speed it provided, but…

“Cancel!”

She was in a hurry. She belatedly felt a pain in her left shoulder. Thinking back, it hadn’t been moving well and she had been operating Sasamura exclusively with her right hand.

…Neat!

I only need one arm to control Sasamura!

She had the summer training camp to thank for that. She wanted to show it off. She wanted to show it off to everyone so badly.

She didn’t care anymore. No one was waiting for her, but she knew she could help stop the enemy if she showed up.

After near instantly falling over 100m from the transport ship, it exploded.

Yoshiaki’s bombardment had hit it.

Yoshiaki had said she would shoot through the center, but this was more than that.

“Way to go!”

Kani was being supported by people who could do far greater things than she could.

She understood that. And she kind of understood why Fuwa had come here.

Fuwa was an upperclassman and Kani was still an underclassman. It all came down to that. So…

“Here I go!”

●

Mori took instant action.

…I only have an instant to fight back!

Kani was falling from overhead. But she had too much speed. She would have to decelerate before reaching the ground.

So he would wait for that moment and strike.

For that, he hurried below her. He predicted where she would land.

“Fuwa-san, please fall back!”

This was his job. Fuwa was busy setting up new pathways.

…Oh, honestly.

Mori Nagayoshi did not directly fight in the Battle of Shizugatake. And, if anything, he was on Hashiba’s side. I’ll have to declare myself a mercenary after this is over, he decided, but…

“Honestly!”

He had to admit that his dealings with Fuwa, Maeda, Sassa, and the others were a lot of fun. And…

“It was Shibata-sama who made me Mori Nagayoshi!”

Just as he said that, he saw Kani in the sky above.

She was falling fast. But…

“Mori!”

He realized what Fuwa’s shout meant as soon as he heard it.

This wasn’t about Kani. In the sky far above her, beyond the explosion splitting to the sides, a Technohexen wielded an anti-ship cannon with her six golden wings spread wide.

Her wings, hair, and clothing were dyed crimson by fire and blew in the wind as she spoke.

“Don’t interfere.”

A straight-line anti-ship blast pierced through Mori’s head and the rest of him too.

●

Morii: “Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow! That was only my spare, but it still hurts like the devil!”

Fuwaa: “Got you right down the urethra, huh?”

Morii: “G-girls should not talk about urethras! Bad!”

Omaeda: “So, Mori-kun, you can’t stop her anymore, can you?”

●

Kani saw Mori’s god of war rupture and explode below.

Its head armor spit and the shell struck the bundle of artificial muscle within.

It was a brute force strike, but it pierced right through Mori, exited from his crotch, and struck the ground. The jangling of the scattering 500-yen coins sounded all around.

Mori’s god of war looked intact. But…

…The shockwave is coming!

It came.

A shockwave passed rapidly through the god of war from head to crotch. Its trunk instantly swelled out, but the armor containing it would not allow that.

Unable to release the energy by continuing to swell, something else had to happen.

Its arms and legs swelled and expanded toward the ends.

In an instant, its arms and legs seemed to thrash wildly before rupturing.

What had been inside the armor – it resembled flesh and blood – was violently expelled from the limbs. Once the contents began to empty out, the shockwave struck from within.

It exploded.

Mori’s god of war was converted into a mist even thinner than blood spray and it was all swept away by the shockwave expanding from within swept.

It was gone. All that remained were the torn constriction bands flying through the air. Kani let the blast hit Sasamura from below so she could ride it down at a sharp angle. By adjusting the angle seven times like that, she managed to roll down through the air. By the time she was right side up again…

“Dash!”

It felt like so long since her feet had touched the ground. Her enemy was in the center of the clearing up ahead.

Fuwa had already turned to face her.

Kani’s left shoulder ached. She assumed. But she was past paying attention to that. She ran and swung her right hand up from below.

“Sasamura!”

She ejected the first one toward Fuwa.

At a distance of 20m, she couldn’t miss.

●

Repeatedly, power was released between Fuwa and Kani.

The very first strike split all sound while the spear raced out.

The ejection spell did not just use the spell’s power to determine the speed. How long were the acceleration spells placed in front and behind the ejected object to provide it a stable ballistic path like a gun barrel would? And how much power was given to those spells? It all came down to those factors.

And when launching them repeatedly, fuel efficiency had to be considered and the spell system had to be made sturdy if it was to launch during combat maneuvering. The ejected spears also had to be re-stored later on, so this was far more than just a simple acceleration system.

It acted as a cannon and shell and so many details had to be worked out before it would function.

The first shot launched from beyond Kani’s hand was on a direct course for Fuwa.

This short-range, max-speed attack was something she had developed during the summer training camp for use against Mori’s gods of war.

“Two!”

Even as the first flew, she launched a second with even greater acceleration.

With a satisfying sound, the two attacks joined into one and flew toward Fuwa. But Fuwa raised her right hand.

“I’ve seen that one already.”

She launched an insha kotob, which accurately caught the incoming attack dead center.

And devoured it.

The insha kotob multiplied itself to create several layers which each shattered in turn. A heavy metallic sound rang out each time and Sasamura slowed.

And more insha kotobs were added.

Fuwa could stop Sasamura.

But Kani was still running. She stretched her arm out toward the two attacks that were still out of reach.

“Three!”

She struck.

“Four!”

And struck.

“Five!!”

She continued to strike. And once they were in reach…

“Six!!”

Kani shouted as each of the attacks combined into a single line. And she ran past the Sasamura spears.

“Seven!”

With another metallic crash, light scattered like flower petals above it all. But…

“Not good enough,” declared Fuwa.

Several of the insha kotob layers shattered, but the spears had not reached her.

They had been slowed and stopped.

Then Kani raised her voice as she ran.

“One!”

Not “eight”. She raised her right hand again and launched a new attack.

She left the seven combined attacks by her side and launched a new attack straight ahead at Fuwa.

It was on a collision course. But just before it hit…

“It’s no use.”

The new attack was stopped by a new insha kotob released by Fuwa.

“These are automatically ejected. Because this is my ‘land’.”

As if to prove it, the new attack was devoured by another metallic crashing. The flight speed dropped in stages.

The other seven attacks remained next to Kani and they were still losing speed. Seven attacks’ worth of momentum and speed must have been difficult to fully stop even with the staged deceleration, so the single new attack had its speed stopped first.

The one was stopped. The seven were still moving. But something else was still moving too.

Kani ran out ahead.

●

Oh, thought Fuwa.

…Has she figured it out?

It looked like it. But when Fuwa tossed out a few guide line insha kotobs and Kani dodged them all, Fuwa changed her mind.

…Come here.

You said you would come to me, didn’t you? So what will you do now?

“C’mon, give this your best!”

“I will!”

Kani brushed her left shoulder back with her right hand. That kept her broken and unmoving arm behind her. It was an absurd decision, but Fuwa knew Sassa would have done the same. And…

…Her “upperclassmen” intend to fight Shibata-senpai.

So Fuwa knew what she had to do.

She planted her feet firmly and sped up the deceleration of the seven spears. She also launched more guide lines.

“To bring you down!”

She added a new power to Kani’s calculation.

●

Kani ran.

The seven spears continued to decelerate to her right. And the one had been stopped to her left. She moved out ahead to leave them behind.

At the same time, the one on her left reached a complete stop. Based on the previous examples, she knew it would now be strongly deflected.

Just before it was thrown coldly into the sky, Kani spun herself around. Instead of using her injured left arm, she used a midair twirl to reach for the deflected spear with a backhand strike.

“Sasamura storage!”

The spear was deflected with a metallic clang and it vanished into the sky.

…Hurry!

She had no time. Every single moment counted for the timing she needed.

At the same time, Fuwa’s guide lines flew in. There were eight in all, but the number wasn’t the issue. Every single one was a danger. She ducked low, nearly entering a slide, to slip below the eight walls.

She could see her target: the lernen figur pierced by the seven Sasamura spears.

“There!”

As soon as she landed from her spin, she swung her right hand up.

That motion caused something to disappear: the seven spears.

She stored all seven that she had launched earlier and were still being decelerated. And…

“Fuwa-senpai!” she shouted while making her next move. “I will destroy that spell!!”

Kani passed by the lernen figur that had been focused on the seven spears. But in that moment…

“Sasamura!”

She launched a spear toward the deceleration lernen figur that had lost its seven targets. She slammed a new Sasamura spear toward the lernen figur wall that was starting to self-destruct as its safety kicked in.

After launching that one attack along precisely the same course as before, a light shined bright.

The light of destruction.

The deceleration spell was unable to stop the Sasamura spear, so it shattered into light.

The sound arrived only a moment later.

But instead of a metallic clang, it was a bright, high-pitched sound like a wind instrument breaking.

Fuwa’s spell was destroyed.

●

Yoshiaki watched it all from the sky.

“I’ve never known a treasurer who didn’t use a really annoying spell.”

She had fought Musashi’s treasurer at the Siege of Odawara and defeated him.

Below her now, Kani had shattered Fuwa’s spell.

From what Yoshiaki could see, it looked like a consecutive defense spell, but she doubted it really was. “Azuchi” sent her own analysis based on statistics and records.

Azuchi: “I can only speculate, but that spell is likely based on a Mlasi-style balance sheet calculation spell.”

Meaning…

Azuchi: “Fuwa-sama’s primary religion is Mlasi and Mlasi excels at commerce. They have a wide variety of calculation spells, many of which have been specialized for specific tasks, but Fuwa-sama’s spell must be able to lend and borrow ‘power’. Shaja.”

The spell took in power and released it as power. By including a Mlasi asset storage spell, she could accept and absorb any form of power and then return it elsewhere as-is.

She was only using a spell.

The power it released was “paying back” the power that the spell had “borrowed” and stored within itself.

Basically, Kani was fighting against her own power.

The more powerful and accurate Sasamura was, the greater a barrier that spell became. Perhaps she should take pride in the fact that Fuwa needed to “borrow” the power several times over to actually stop Sasamura.

But it had just fallen apart.

The previous Sasamura charge had contained the force of seven spears. And while the spell worked out the calculations, Kani had removed the source of the power and then hit it with something else.

That screwed up the borrowing calculation, so the spell had destroyed itself for safety.

It sounded simple, but was actually very complex.

This had required hitting the spell with a great enough power to delay the borrowing calculation, but if it had been done with just a single attack – no matter how powerful – just the one calculation would have been necessary.

More spears had been added repeatedly, but with gaps between and with great accuracy.

This had required storing the Sasamura spears and then ejecting one immediately afterwards, so it must have been tricky to pull off even with Kani’s speed. The single spear she had launched beforehand had likely been practice to make sure she had the timing right. And after making some last-second adjustments based on that, she had stored the seven and made her additional attack.

Fuwa’s spell had been forced to repeat the same calculations over and over but with the numbers growing astronomically each time.

This had forced the spell to carry out overtime work.

But what if all of that was removed without warning?

And just when it seemed like there was no more work to do, another precise job arrived?

Mlasi spells borrowed divine power just like Shinto and Tsirhc ones did.

God lived up in heaven.

But even a god would have trouble completing too taxing a task. That was why spells and procedures were necessary, but this usage had strayed beyond the spell’s intended usage.

…Jobs not covered by warranty will be thrown out.

So Fuwa’s spell had shattered. If Yoshiaki was going to name that method…

“I would go with ‘Special Attack: Forced Overtime Jab’. You’re not heading home at 5 today.”

AnG: “Can I protest that awful name?”

Of course you can’t.

●

Yoshiaki saw light and sound below her.

The shattering of the one lernen figur did not end the battle.

Fuwa opened several lernen figurs, but Kani sent a single spear into each one and immediately stored them again. The very next moment, she made another attack to each one, destroying them.

Those attacks maintained their speed, so Fuwa had to respond to them.

Fuwa held onto the power she had borrowed from the initial attacks and converted it into defense and attack.

The number of attacks was the same as before, but now Kani was moving ahead. She had to use two spears for each attack, but…

“Go,” said Yoshiaki. She too had increased her skill since the Siege of Odawara. “So I know you can do this.”

●

Kani kept moving while shattering so much light.

…I knew I recognized that!

The balance sheet spell responsible for the receipt and return of power was just like the one her parents had used back home. They used it at the end of each week, month, and fiscal year. During middle school, she had even elected to take a bookkeeping lessons.

This was the same.

It was her broken shoulder that had helped her notice.

When she had charged in, she had thought she would get through, but she hadn’t at all.

She had thought at the time she had run into a wall, but it hadn’t responded like a wall would.

How to put this? Instead of something solid and unwavering…

…It was more like running into myself!

It was like when she was walking down the hall or turned a corner and ran into someone. But when she had noted that she and Fuwa were the only ones here, it had hit her: Fuwa-senpai must be sending my power back at me!

So she had done it.

She had filled in the wrong field, just like she had done so often in her bookkeeping lessons.

You would calculate and calculate and calculate and just when you thought you were done…

“Have you ever realized at the end you were doing it wrong the whole time!?”

“Unfortunately, no, I haven’t.”

That must be why she’s treasurer!

During her bookkeeping lessons, Kani had felt minor despair as she wondered if she could do anything with the calculation she had, wondered how to get the correct figure, and wondered if she even had enough time left to try.

But looking back on it now…

…Thank goodness I was so dumb!

Otherwise she never could have dealt with Fuwa here. Whenever mom and dad saw my answer sheet, they would silently pull out their account book and teach me the right way to do it, but I just proved that those mistakes were a necessary part of my experience! They probably wouldn’t be happy if I told them, though. But…

“I can do this!”

She would do this as an idiot. She figured a smart person could probably manage it too and she knew this probably wasn’t the best way to go about it, but she could still pull it off. So in the end, it all came down to a single phrase.

“I’ll do my best!”

●

The fighters on the battlefield saw light shattering over and over.

“Hey, what is that?”

No one answered. Because they could tell exactly what was happening and the shattering light was always accompanied by a pair of loud noises.

They all watched as an underclassman seemed to dance through the air while wielding her power with just her right arm and an upperclassman responded by raising both hands and writing out countless calculations in empty space.

Their feet had come to a stop as they approached close enough to possibly reach out and touch each other.

“–––––”

They lowered their heads as if bringing foreheads together and laughed.

They bared their teeth in laughter and…

“…!”

The upperclassman took action. She swing her hands.

“Time to make up for my losses!”

She slammed a massive insha kotob forward.

It contained all the slight inefficiencies collected from her opponent’s movements and it was launched from too close to dodge.

The underclassman responded by pulling back her right hand and snapping her fingers. But not because any of her fingers collided or struck her palm. Her fingers flicked the air with enough speed to make a sound.

A moment later, something appeared: a large white and red spear.

The spear collided with the insha kotob wall rushing in toward her.

Everyone gasped at what they saw. Because…

“Just one!?”

The single spear stopped the entire wall of power.

No.

Some of them realized that wasn’t the truth of it. It was those who had only heard the sound – the warriors in the back of the encircling group, where they couldn’t see. They realized the truth while they intercepted the Hashiba forces.

The sound was different.

“Hey...am I hearing this right?”

Before, they had always heard the spear’s ejection followed by the metallic clang of it being decelerated.

But this time…

“The ejection sound isn’t stopping!”

It wasn’t just one. Kani was instantly ejecting the eight Sasamura spears and then re-storing them before their power could be properly calculated. Then she rapidly kept the cycle going.

The one spear so many were seeing was an afterimage. And…

“Ohh!”

The underclassman made her move while everyone gasped.

She spread but also thrust forward her still-snapping fingers.

“Thank you!”

She destroyed it. By sending a high-speed shape into the intercepting power that could be seen as her debt, she managed to overwhelm it before its calculations could keep up.

“Now I’m back in the black!”

With a sound like a wind instrument breaking, all of the upperclassman’s insha kotobs were lost.

The spell had been completely over-saturated, destroying it.

●

Fuwa smiled bitterly.

Her results were scattered all around her. Kani had destroyed them.

…‘Back in the black’, huh?

Didn’t Kani’s parents run a greengrocer? Fuwa could take a guess what kind of shop that was.

And looking at the underclassman standing before her…

“You must be exhausted.”

But she was still standing. She was even trying to keep her shoulders from slumping. But she couldn’t get her head up or raise her arms. Her left shoulder and arm drooped weakly, but the tendons in her right forearm were tensed and occasional tremors ran through the fingers.

She had steam rising from her, but her cooling spell couldn’t keep up.

She had used all her might to run around atop the ships and jump down from the sky and then she had unleashed everything she had all at once.

She probably couldn’t move any longer.

Unsurprising after everything she had done. So…

“I’ll give you this win, Kani Saizou.”

Kani had already thanked Fuwa, so she didn’t need to say anything. But…

“Now to pay your bonus.”

Fuwa tapped Kani’s head and light burst from her body. The ether light changed from red to yellow to white and her petite body gave a quick jerk. And…

“Eh!?”

Kani’s left shoulder still didn’t move, but she looked to her right hand with renewed focus in her eyes and face.

Her fingers were trembling, but she could actually move them now.

“I used the leftover power to give you an exhaustion reduction spell. I’m not nice enough to fully heal you, but you can at least walk now, can’t you?”

“Oh, yes! Thank you!”

Kani thanked her again after all. Then Fuwa noticed the encircling warriors had all turned their backs.

“We, uh, didn’t see anything.”

“I wonder how the on-site treasurer’s battle went?”

“We’ve all been running around in disarray since Mori started that fire!”

You didn’t have to do that, thought Fuwa, but that was just how it was. And someone now stood behind Kani.

“You’re Katou Yoshiaki, right?”

●

Fuwa knew the name of the underclassman who had nimbly descended from the sky.

She and her sister Wakisaka had both fought at Novgorod, but they had arrived after the fighting started. They hadn’t interacted with Fuwa there.

But when it came to combat, Yoshiaki was definitely Fuwa’s superior. Everyone encircling the clearing knew that, so while they didn’t actually aim their weapons at Yoshiaki, they did take stances that would allow them to respond at a moment’s notice.

All that aside, Fuwa was the upperclassman. So she tried to embody the confidence of that position as she spoke to Yoshiaki.

“Should I say ‘long time no see’?”

“Testament. Officially, it has been since Novgorod, I believe.”

Oh, she’s being polite. I’m glad, but maybe that’s only because I just got through fighting Kani. Yoshiaki then tapped on Kani’s back.

“Time for you to withdraw, Kani. You won. With that upperclassman’s spell destroyed, she won’t be able to manage the battlefield. But the Shibata Team has removed you from the fight and has me spending time to get you away. That makes us even.”

Kani nodded.

“Oh, testament!” she said…or tried to before she staggered and lost her balance, forcing Yoshiaki to prop her up from behind.

The exhaustion was affecting her body and mind separately. She looked confused, so the Technohexen tapped her on the back and smiled.

“The drowsiness always hits you a little later.” Yoshiaki turned a sharp look toward Fuwa. “But I should have noticed from above that the pressure used to level the land where you moved the transport ships was too great to have come from a person. You borrowed the ships’ weight and used that to level the ground as they descended. That’s why you were in charge of arranging the ships, wasn’t it?”

“Technohexen always get a bird’s eye view, so there are things you notice that others don’t, huh?”

“Testament. I appreciate the compliment.”

Just as Yoshiaki inclined her head, several cries erupted from the east. The voices came from a good distance away – past the clearing. Most of them were of surprise, but a few of them were…

…Screams!?

Fuwa gasped and turned to find a situation she recognized.

People were fighting, some of the screams came from allies, and the noisy commotion was approaching. It could only be…

“Oichi-sama!”

As soon as Fuwa shouted that name, a pair of silver flashes arrived above Yoshiaki as she held Kani’s shoulders to support her.

Those were swords as long as most people were tall. Oichi had launched an attack from the sky.

●

…She’s so fast!

It wasn’t that Yoshiaki hadn’t been prepared for an attack.

Just like she had reacted to Mori’s gods of war, she had an anti-air detection divine protection active, which allowed her to react far more quickly than the average person.

Oichi only could have slipped past that using her combat skills.

This opponent’s primary weapon was her mastery of ground battles: openings, distances, tempo, and making the first move.

At the same time, Yoshiaki had realized something.

Oichi made her attack from the sky behind her. That was an annoying location for a winged race.

If the enemy was simply coming from behind, she could spread and flap her wings to launch them backwards and herself forwards.

But that didn’t work when the enemy was both behind her and above her.

The enemy’s downwards trajectory could still reach her if she spread her wings or stepped back. And the weight of her wings meant she couldn’t get enough initial speed to escape forwards. And moving to the side would leave Kani in danger.

In that case, she thought. She opened her mouth while sensing the metal weapon behind her swinging down faster than the speed of sound.

“What took you so long, Kiyomasa?”

●

Fuwa saw multiple bursts of sparks.

To the west behind her, she heard her her allies crying out in surprise. She could understand why.

“Katou Kiyomasa!”

Kiyomasa’s unit should have been on the north-south pathway west of here. But she had come running all on her own and intercepted Oichi’s blades. However…

“Hee!” laughed Oichi, sending out several silver arcs without her eyes on anyone else. She was fully in slaughter mode.

…It’s like something from a button mashing game.

From this outside perspective, Fuwa could tell a lot had changed from before. And as Kiyomasa blocked the blows…

“Please stand back, everyone!”

She opened her autonomous shoulder armor and attacked with the two halves of Caledfwlch in her hands.

Several intense sounds burst out while fiery dust flew into the air as if from gunfire. Behind her, Katou Yoshiaki and Kani withdrew. They started on the ground, but by the third step, Yoshiaki spread her wings.

“Kiyomasa! We’re good!”

She held Kani under one arm and launched herself outside of the battle.

A moment later, Kiyomasa’s shoulders split. The 12 pieces of her autonomous shoulder armor opened to form a total of 4 shields that blocked Oichi’s two swords.

With Caledfwlch, she defended against Oichi with six powers in all, the noise of the blows crashing out. Only then did Fuwa realize that Oichi still hadn’t landed. She was using the force of Kiyomasa’s defense to keep herself airborne.

●

Kiyomasa unleashed a series of attacks and defenses.

She had Caledfwlch split in her hands and her shoulder armor opened as far as it would go. She hadn’t been able to respond to Niwa like this since Niwa’s attacks had been too heavy, but she could manage it when only fighting a person.

…My right shoulder’s autonomous movement is active too!

The extra processing provided by Ootani was working well. She normally left defense to the autonomous armor and kept Caledfwlch’s attack-defense ratio at 3:7, but now she had brought that up to 5:5.

That was more attacking than normal, which made her feel bold, but…

“I can’t push through!”

She couldn’t push back airborne Oichi.

As Oichi swung her massive swords, she used the force of Kiyomasa’s defense and attack to send herself back into the air, where she would spin around and attack again.

She kept the attacks coming.

She used her two swords with such great speed she may have been outdoing Kiyomasa’s six simultaneous powers.

But this was strange. Oichi wasn’t unnaturally strong. Her swords were as tall as she was and Kiyomasa understood they were designed more for durability than for their cutting edge, but Oichi would need the physical ability to wield them.

Then Kiyomasa noticed something about how Oichi moved while spinning in the air.

“Is she letting go of the hilt just after attacking!?”

She wasn’t swinging the swords along with her body.

She was more leaving the swords in midair and then rapidly rotating just herself around.

And just before attacking, she would grab the hilts again and drag them along with her spinning body.

…That’s ridiculous!

She was grabbing something stationary while moving at high speed. And so she could give them her momentum. That wouldn’t just hurt her hands. It would be like slamming your hand into a tree branch while you ran.

And if she was then giving them her momentum, the impact would reach her arm and body as well. The way you gathered strength differed between striking something and pushing it and swinging a heavy sword would be closer to the latter.

This method wouldn’t give her muscles time to fully extend, causing them to tear or otherwise damaging them.

But Kiyomasa saw a light.

While Oichi pulled off her intense midair motion and attacks, light shined behind her like an angel’s halo.

Kiyomasa recognized it.

“Testamenta Arma: Caput Fides – Vetus!”

●

“As long as they have faith, the bearer can never die of injury or illness.”

Kiyomasa had seen the records from Novgorod and knew the effect Oichi was using.

Oichi believed in the Testament and her death written there.

As long as her faith in a future where Shibata killed her remained strong, she was immune to all injury and illness.

Just like the right arm severed by Tachibana Muneshige at Novgorod had fully regenerated.

And her full strength showed no sign of stopping.

…Is the Testamenta Arma’s power reducing her exhaustion too!?

While Niwa had supplied a series of heavy attacks, this was a series of swift attacks. The weight behind each attack was less, but the incessant tempo was wild.

This was no dance.

Kiyomasa wouldn’t go as far as to say it was wholly unpredictable, but there was no flow to it. Each individual attack was coldly simple and clean, but she couldn’t tell where the next attack would come from until it was already on its way.

She was only able to react so quickly because of the experience built up within her autonomous armor.

Without that, she would have been sliced up, ending the battle quickly. But…

“I can react!”

She deflected the attacks.

Sparks flew and she sent out her own attacks as if slipping them between Oichi’s.

The blossoming flowers of sparks had the same color, but they had a different shape. At first, they were like dots, but they continued to grow and now they had a tail trailing behind them.

That was because she had begun to close in and lock blades with Oichi.

She moved forward. Her opponent continued to twirl in midair, but Kiyomasa moved within the series of attacks.

“Purge!”

So she could switch between attack and defense, she released her left shoulder armor.

●

That threw off her balance.

Kiyomasa had expected it and was prepared for it, but Oichi had been trying to break that same armor. So Oichi lost what amounted to her footing and she lost control of her actions.

Because her attack found only air.

The attack meant to hit Kiyomasa’s left side spun in a full rotation instead.

If the slash had struck, it would have sliced right through Kiyomasa’s left shoulder which only had her uniform to guard it now.

But she slid herself just a bit aside. The blade passed by beyond her shoulder, failing to hit. Oichi’s other hand was sending another slicing attack, but Kiyomasa struck that with the Caledfwlch in her right hand.

She had guided Oichi into this.

Without the force of both Kiyomasa’s attacks knocking her back up, Oichi couldn’t control her midair position.

With one of her attacks missing, she simply flew to the left.

Kiyomasa launched herself that way too.

Her left arm was a lot lighter without the armor, so she sent that Caledfwlch toward Oichi in the defenseless moment just before she landed.

●

Kani felt a chill down her spine.

Not because of Kiyomasa and Oichi’s offense and defense. Because of Oichi’s strange movements.

…What is that!?

Oichi had not let up her attacks since she leaped in here.

She never once defended. Even the interceptions that looked like defense would have sliced through Kiyomasa’s body if they had made it through.

But that wasn’t what Kani found so odd.

“Oichi-sama!”

Kani asked a question from within Yoshiaki’s arms as the other girl tied a rope to Weiss Fürstin and Kani.

“Um, Big Katou-senpai! Didn’t you do this to me before!?”

“Nope.”

“You did! On the way to Odawara! When you tied me to my futon!”

“That wasn’t the same. My thruster is more powerful now, so we won’t have to do a vertical takeoff like before.”

She’s so strict! thought Kani, but that wasn’t what mattered right now.

“Oichi-sama is going to dodge this!”

Kiyomasa was attacking Oichi while she was defenseless in the air.

But Kani had realized how Oichi would avoid that.

Thanks to the chill she had felt from Oichi’s previous movements.

“She’s going to cut through her own body!”

●

Kiyomasa saw Oichi split apart before her attack reached.

…Huh?

This wasn’t just a cut or a carving.

She was split right down the middle.

Her previous missed attack had sent her spinning backwards quite compactly.

But what would happen if she adjusted the course of the sword that missed so it swung right into the back of her body?

She split.

From Kiyomasa’s perspective, the attack from the back traveled from Oichi’s left shoulder to her crotch.

The sounds of so many sliced bones sounded a lot like rocks colliding underwater.

Then Oichi’s body burst open toward Kiyomasa.

The attack to her back had been so powerful that the force of the blow had passed through her faster than the actual blade, causing her front to swell out and rupture.

Inside her inner suit and uniform, the blade passed through the vertical gap in her ruptured body.

The lightly armored uniform was instantly sliced through and the blade passed on out from her front.

Its path was then blocked by the Caledfwlch that Kiyomasa had thrust forward.

A flower of sparks blossomed.

A moment later, Oichi was smiling past the blade that had sliced through her. Her bangs had fallen over her eyes, leaving only her grinning mouth visible.

“Hee, hah!”

Her high, trembling voice was not hoarse or singing.

She simply sounded delighted.

And Oichi moved.

Using the blade that had blocked Kiyomasa’s attack as a shield, she sent out the other blade. And…

“Hah, hee!”

She landed.

Her right leg instantaneously contacted the ground as if stabbing the foot down.

A moment later, her left leg kicked up at the blade she was using as a shield.

That also knocked up Kiyomasa’s left arm as she tried to pull Caledfwlch back.

…Oh, no!

Kiyomasa’s left shoulder had no armor.

Oichi had been attacking from above before, but the instant she made her quick landing, she sent out a kick from below.

Kiyomasa couldn’t react in time. But…

“Hip armor!”

Her heavy hip armor moved autonomously to guard.

It worked.

A metallic clang deflected Oichi’s attack. And Kiyomasa hurriedly pulled back her left arm and its Caledfwlch.

At the same time, her right shoulder’s autonomous armor blocked the attack Oichi sent in on the other side.

That was when Oichi sent her right hand out in front of her.

It looked like she was trying to grab Kiyomasa, but she wasn’t.

She instead grabbed Caledfwlch’s blade.

Her pale, lithe fingers were instantly severed and flew through the air, but she jammed her wrist onto the blade and…

“Heh, hah!”

She yanked back her arm to launch herself forward.

She can’t be, thought Kiyomasa and for good reason. The large sword deflected by her hip armor was still between the two of them.

Oichi’s body was sliced through.

The hand jammed into Caledfwlch provided the same sensation as when filleting a fish.

It sounded a lot like a bag full of water bursting open.

By the time Kiyomasa realized this had entered Oichi at the same point as when she sliced through herself earlier, Oichi was already right up to her.

Only Oichi’s smiling mouth was visible below her thickly falling bangs.

Her accelerated approach changed the course of the attack launched with her other hand.

Kiyomasa’s right shoulder armor couldn’t keep up with the change in Oichi’s movements. She sent out her right hand’s Caledfwlch, but she hesitated a bit because pulling back her left hand as part of the combo brought Oichi further toward her.

She was all-around too slow.

As soon as Oichi was right up against her, she sent out the large sword in her left hand.

Kiyomasa couldn’t react in time, so…

…I’m prepared to lose an arm!

●

She made up her mind. She would defeat this opponent.

Because…

…Once that’s done, we only have Shibata-sama to worry about!

Not counting herself, they had Kasuya, Yoshiaki, Wakisaka, and Koroku. Kani, Sakon, and Ootani were here too.

It was just an arm. She could always get a prosthetic and, if the cut was clean enough, the arm could even be reattached.

She might not be in fighting shape in time for Honnouji, but…

…Fukushima-sama!

That name came to mind.

It rose from the bottom of her heart.

If that name reached them here, she was certain they could win. And more than that…

“We will win!”

She wanted to win and save the world. And to make sure she could witness that moment…

“Resolve can defeat anything!”

At that exact moment, something flew along a straight line to arrive between her and Oichi.

It was colored white and red.

She could only make out the colors at first due to its sheer speed.

She had never seen this before, but she knew about it. It was…

“Kani Saizou-san’s Sasamura!?”

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