“Huh...”
“All three of them really are monsters.”
Setting the Heroic Spirits aside, there was no mistaking it: people were swinging swords and throwing punches, and with every fist and every sword strike, craters hundreds of meters wide were forming in real time, mountains were being sliced apart, and valleys were being carved open.
Watching the footage on the screen, Admiral Norton and Vice-Captain Gawain (feat. that vice-captain because of vice-captain reasons) let out their awe.
Every time the two red dots and the two blue dots crossed, red and blue light flashed, and terrain that should have taken thousands of years to form naturally was being created and destroyed.
A single black dot wrapped in white light and a single red dot moved at high speed, and every time they collided in a burst of red light, the ground was gouged out, shattered, and split apart.
It was a sight that made it hard to believe people made of the same flesh and blood were the ones fighting. It was the kind of scene that would have seemed more plausible if someone had said a fleet was bombarding the area.
And that was only natural, because a range of several kilometers nearby was being literally turned over in real time. The red dot that had been clashing with the black dot wrapped in white light suddenly flashed bright red, and the red dot stretched out in a long line toward the black dot in an instant.
When the red line, roughly several kilometers long, vanished and only a dot remained, Norton, who had been wondering why the result was so quiet compared to all the devastation so far, quickly turned pale when he realized that black line beneath it was the gap where the earth had been “cut.”
No, if it had just wrecked the ground and carved out a canyon like before, he might at least have been able to understand it, ridiculous as that would still be.
But how in the world did you cut the earth so cleanly? And that kind of cleanliness meant not a single bit of force had been wasted. What kind of insane thing were they doing?
“Well, I’ll be damned. Never thought that little kid would grow up like that.”
“Haha...”
“Come to think of it, I once read in some old classic that martial arts masters could stir up wind and clouds with a single blade...”
He glanced at the screen in disbelief, and on the other side, two swords and bare bodies—well, not completely bare, since they were wearing DC Coats, but those had no doubt been blown off at the start of the battle—were cutting down wind and clouds. The nearby clouds had already been blown away, but when he saw that red line from just now literally slice through a cloud farther off, it didn’t seem all that wrong.
Two battles were continuing, writing mythology in real time. Normally, myths required exaggeration, lies, and above all, a great deal of time.
But those two battles were happening here and now, in the present world, without lies.
Myth.
As Norton thought that and watched solemnly, the red light being emitted by the red dot facing off against the black dot wrapped in white light suddenly went out.
“W-What?!”
Startled, Norton stood up, but the moment he saw blue light mixed with a little red burst out from that spot, he sighed in relief and sat back down. Reaching for the cup holder attached to the armrest of his seat, he kept his eyes fixed on the screen while bringing the cup of coffee to his lips and tipping it back. They were orbiting well outside the planet’s gravity well, so it should have been weightless, but the artificial gravity system was working, and the coffee flowed down the throat of the white-bearded man.
But the coffee did not make it down his throat. Instead, it covered the face of his dear vice-captain, Gawain. In other words, he spat it out.
Normally, he would have gotten angry, but he didn’t. The crew around them would have asked what was going on, but instead of a lighthearted question, what burst from their lips was a cheer.
“Woooooah!!!”
[Third Heroic Spirit, n-no core reaction! The knight... succeeded!!]
Red and blue light burst out brilliantly at the same time, drawing a line, and the white light that had been blazing from the so-called Third Heroic Spirit, provisional name Cross Eye Gamma, went out. At the same time came the report that the core reaction had gone silent. In other words, Gamma had been defeated.
Following the white light going out, the glow from the dot that had been blazing with red and blue light also stopped. For a moment, he was seized by concern, but soon he calmed down. Well, it would be strange to keep using wave energy after the battle was over.
“What are you all standing around for! Send out the recovery team already!!”
“Y-Yes, sir!”
Norton’s roar slammed into the excited crew.
Just as the crew snapped back to their senses and moved to make contact, the second myth unfolding on the screen ended in an instant. The dot emitting blue light seemed to increase its brightness for a moment, then blue flashes burst out again and again, and before long the blue dot’s glow stopped.
[B-Beta shot down! Cross Eye Beta has been shot down!!]
The hands of those who had been about to work furiously froze for a moment. What? Beta... too?!
“What about Alpha?! What happened to Alpha!”
[N-Nuclear reaction decrease...? It looks like it concealed its output and fled beyond the planet in the meantime...]
“Good! That alone is enough!”
For the first time since the war began, their words carried a positive tone. Hope that they could win—the hope that had seemed like a mirage only hours ago—suddenly stood right before their eyes. There was no way they wouldn’t be happy. It was nothing short of a miracle.
...And miracles always came with a price.
++++
“Saturday open!”
Sword 1001 Saturday and Sword 1002 Sunday. These two sister swords, like Sword 11 Monday and Sword 12 Tuesday, were made as an homage to Monday and Tuesday.
Similar shape, similar performance, similar durability, similar gimmicks. Aside from the fact that they had guards, it was hard to find any difference between the two sets of swords. The only difference was the gimmick attached to Saturday.
Parking. With a metallic sound, the sword in his left hand broke apart piece by piece. In a form similar to how Sword 680, the Armored Blade, opened into armor, the sword “deployed.”
Without pause, he swung the Sunday in his right hand almost as if slamming it into the deployed Saturday. Boom! With a thunderous crash, the deployed Saturday enveloped Sunday.
Gripping Sunday, which had changed from a longsword into a greatsword, with both hands, he unleashed a horizontal slash packed with red wave energy.
Frey style
Red Flying Sword: Crimson Blossom
The red slash flew out, but as if it were only natural, Gamma raised Barisada and blocked the red sword strike without taking any real damage. At most, Gamma was pushed back by the recoil.
And that was enough. Raising his sword and spreading his legs shoulder-width apart into a formal stance, he poured red wave energy into Sunday, now held in both hands. He forcibly suppressed the red wave energy raging like a runaway colt, then refined and forged it. The red wave energy, refined and refined to the extreme, burst from the tip of the greatsword and formed a thin, long, enormous blade.
“Ha!”
What he pictured was the Knight King of the Kingdom of Kiryu. Come to think of it, was that guy here too? He brushed away the thought that had flashed through his mind, clenched his teeth, and shouted as he brought the sword down.
Heaven Sword
Sky-Splitting Slash - Red
This is what romance is!
++++
-Sky-Splitting Slash
++++
...And he still blocked that too.
“...At this point, could you maybe just die already?”
Damn it! That Absolute Barrier! Barisada sure was being put to good use! That was practically a finishing move, and all it did was put a few cracks in the barrier?!
“Kyaaa!!”
“I’ll take that as a no!”
Gamma, having dispelled the barrier, charged again. Damn it! I’d just burned more red wave energy on Sky-Splitting Slash, and now I’ve only got about a quarter left! Even if the barrier cracked, that thing can just be deployed again anyway! It’s like a ship’s shield cracking and then coming back up once energy is supplied again! Shit!
Finger Sword Technique - Magic Clock
He spun the sword between his fingers to shield his body, while at the same time pulling red wave energy up explosively into his legs to strengthen his kicking power and move behind Gamma.
“Hup!”
Replacing the gravity device with wave energy, he unfolded the Divine Sword. He wasn’t all that good at it, but since the sword was pointed downward while he was unfolding Magic Clock, this was actually more advantageous for him right now. Frey style quick-draw swordsmanship put too much strain on his body, so if he used it in his current condition, he’d be exhausted in an instant.
False Quick-Draw
To perform what was originally a quick-draw technique, he planted the sword tip into the ground. Then, instead of a gravity element, he compressed and released wave energy to the limit, gaining propulsion.
Divine Sword Super-Heavy Quick-Draw
Black Slash
The greatsword wrapped in red wave energy accelerated at a terrifying speed. Huh? No way...
Aw, damn. What a shame. He deployed Barisada and blocked it.
Well, at least he’d learned that he could use a colored wave device to unleash Heaven Sword too, so it wasn’t a total loss. The sword that had been rebounded upward by Barisada was caught again, and he brought it down.
Frey style Thunder
Boom
++++
He swung his sword and cut. He knocked away the fragments of Barisada flying toward him.
Put into words, it was a simple task. Anne had probably done it thousands of times over the past few hours.
Her DC Coat had long since been stripped away, so she was swinging her sword in literal bare flesh, and she worried about Rain.
He was certainly strong too, but the problem was that the enemy was even stronger. Since Cross Eye Gamma had still not joined up, it seemed he was still alive and fighting...
No, this wasn’t the time to be thinking about that. It would be better to finish off the two Heroic Spirits in front of her as quickly as possible and then go help him. Thinking that, she focused again on the opponents before her.
++++
“Tch!”
Damn it, this is hell.
My stamina was starting to run out, and I was low on wave energy too... at this rate, I’m going to die.
If I’d been fighting alongside someone else, maybe it would be different, but this was a one-on-one battle, so cooperating with allies to support each other was impossible. Every mistake translated directly into injury, and that was shredding my concentration at a terrifying pace. I’d already made two mistakes, and my head was soaked in blood.
When I took the first hit, my DC Coat got blown away, and with the second hit, my head was drenched in blood. I was lucky I managed to turn my head just in time; if it had gone in one centimeter deeper, my brain would have spilled out.
The blood running down was a little unpleasant, but that wasn’t the real problem. The real problem was that, because I had to keep fighting so intensely, I couldn’t even get natural hemostasis, and the wound kept reopening from the violent movements, letting blood keep pouring out.
The blood loss wasn’t that severe, but in a situation like this, even that was deadly. Wave energy was running low, stamina was dropping, and my concentration had fallen badly too. Unless some new variable appeared, continuing like this would only end in defeat—and death.
Retreat was impossible too, so the only choice left was to keep fighting. If that was the case, then I’d have to throw a gamble.
Comments (0)
Please log in to leave a comment. Login or Register