If she did have the motivation to climb, there might have been some meaning to her going there. Unfortunately, however, she wasn’t so foolish as to think she could challenge the way the world was put together.

“By the way, Laetitia… I’ve been wondering for a while now, but what is it you’re doing with your manner of speech?” Claudia asked, changing the topic.

“Huh? U-uh, that’s…” The other girl looked away, blushing.

Laetitia usually had a slightly informal, childlike way of speaking. Now, however, her tone was unusually polite, almost overdone.

“Y-yes, well… The other day, I met a certain brother and sister… They were so wise and noble, I thought—well, I thought that they were so wonderful—and that I’d like to be like them, too, if I could, and get closer to them…,” Laetitia explained, fidgeting nervously.

She must have been inspired to change her own character, Claudia thought. Given her somewhat naive way of thinking, that wasn’t particularly unusual, and yet—

“Do you perhaps mean the Fairclough siblings?”

“O-oh!” Laetitia said, her eyes lighting up. “Do you, ah, know them, perhaps?”

“Not at all. I’ve never met them. I have heard rumors, though.”

While they might not have appeared in public events such as the Rondo, it was a well-known fact that there were two siblings, brother and sister, from the famous Fairclough family, both of whom excelled in swordsmanship. Moreover, in spite of their lack of public appearances, there was enough consistency to the rumors about their skills that they did seem to be the real deal.

“Ah, so that last technique of yours… Did you learn it from them?”

“W-well, you could…say that…,” Laetitia replied, scratching at her cheek, her expression somewhere between bashfulness and pride. “A-anyway, they said they’ll be going to Asterisk, too, to Gallardworth, like me.”

Both the Fairclough family and the Blanchard family belonged to the same faction within Elliott-Pound, the integrated enterprise foundation that operated Saint Gallardworth Academy.

“You’ll be going to Seidoukan, right? I’ll look forward to seeing you in Asterisk,” Laetitia said with a defiant grin, very much like the matter had already been determined.

“Hmm… One would think so, wouldn’t they?” Claudia’s answer, however, was accompanied by her usual vague smile.

Things might end up happening that way, or they might not.

For her, it made little difference.

“If I can, I want to be by your side forever,” Saya said shyly in the light of the setting sun.

Ayato, standing across from her, merely stared at her in mute astonishment.

“It’s okay. You can give me your answer later… I just wanted to tell you,” she added, before quickly turning around and rushing back in the direction of the girls’ dormitory.

She quickened her pace, until finally she reached an area out of Ayato’s line of sight. There, she stepped off the path and hid in the shadow of a tree.

Leaning against the trunk, she put her hands together and raised them to her chest with a sigh.

Her face, with cheeks flushed and eyes shut tight, was truly innocent.

It looked like her decision to come out with that confession had been quite the momentous occasion for her.

“Well now, Sasamiya’s more maidenly than she lets on,” Eishirou murmured to himself, high in the branches of the trees above her.

Of course, he had been too far away to clearly hear what they had said. Strictly speaking, he had read their lips.

“But this is getting pretty interesting, huh? I mean, just look at that stupid gaping look he’s making.” He glanced back toward Ayato, who, it seemed, was so astounded that he still hadn’t moved from where he was standing.

Eishirou was hiding in a corner of one of the groves of trees that provided some greenery to Seidoukan’s wide grounds. Autumn might have arrived, but the leaves that hid him hadn’t yet changed color and were still a verdant green.

“Hmm… But not asking him for his response—that won’t do. What on earth was she thinking?” he muttered to himself.

Neither Saya nor Ayato were used to dealing with matters of the heart. From Eishirou’s perspective, there was nothing more irritating than having to watch them fumble their way through their feelings blindly.

There was no mistaking, however, that this would certainly throw a wrench into the plans for Ayato’s relationships with the other girls.

“Well, I guess I’m gonna have to report it to the prez. Maybe I’ll finally be able to see her make a cute little surprised face?” he continued, before shaking his head doubtfully.

He couldn’t even imagine what a surprised Claudia might look like.

“Maybe I’ll give it to the newspaper club instead? But then, the club prez doesn’t really like this sort of thing anyway. And I’m not gonna be able to see her too easily right now, either.” With that, he took his mobile from his pocket, about to call Claudia, when—

“Good grief, so you’re using your techniques for voyeurism, are you?” a low, hoarse voice said from behind him. “I thought you’d grown up a little, but it looks like you haven’t changed at all, Eishirou.”

“!” Eishirou jumped up, spinning around and reflexively pulling out a dagger-type Lux—but he was already surrounded by several figures, all seeming to seep out from the shadows around him. With the exception of their eyes, they were masked and clothed entirely in black, their identities hidden so thoroughly that it was impossible to so much as tell their ages or genders.

Eishirou, however, knew precisely who they were—especially the man with the hoarse voice.

“…Well, if it isn’t my dear father. I didn’t think you’d be here… You look well,” he returned with an ironic smile, trying to ignore the sweat that had begun to run down his forehead.

His father—Bujinsai Yabuki—was dressed the same as the others, the only exception being that his face was uncovered. He was a middle-aged man of medium build, his face so wrinkled that the creases seemed to have been carved into his flesh, his hair combed down flat and smooth, his eyebrows pure white.

“Don’t say what you don’t mean,” the older man said with an affected sigh as he sat cross-legged on the branch behind him. “Don’t think I haven’t heard that you’re still tottering about without a care in the world. It’s disgraceful.”

“Oh? I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Eishirou answered glibly, preparing his Lux as he carefully scanned his surroundings.

“Did you think you could take us all for fools? Despite joining Shadowstar, you’re still taking your own jobs and associating with outsiders.”

“No, no, not at all—that’s not a fair accusation. I mean, I might have made a few acquaintances here and there, but that’s simply for work. Just building up a bit of influence, wouldn’t you say?”

“So the little babe is going to talk to me about work, is he? How pathetic. Do you even realize that it’s precisely because we never serve two masters that we’ve been able to survive this long?”

…I wonder whether you realize that’s why I left the village, Eishirou retorted mentally, his chin resting on his hand as he flashed Bujinsai a fawning smirk.

Eishirou’s clan, the Yabuki, was, in short, a secretive paramilitary organization that specialized in ninjutsu, the ancient Japanese art of stealth, camouflage, and sabotage. Additionally, they belonged to and preserved a bloodline that, under the influence of a sacred piece of urm-manadite that had come to earth long before the Invertia, had long since diverged from the surrounding population. Only two such groups remained in Japan—the Yabuki and the Umenokouji.

“Now, now, you didn’t come all this way just to lecture me, did you? No, you must be here on some kind of job, right?” Eishirou asked, furtively retreating as he took in his surroundings.

The five figures closest to him were probably the Kinoe, the most elite members of the clan. On top of that, he could sense close to another ten individuals lurking somewhere nearby.

“That’s what I’m on my way to find out.”

Jobs were always issued to the head of the clan in person—that was how it had always been.

“So I’m guessing they specifically asked you to bring such a large party?”

“You could say that.”

Today, the clan accepted jobs only from the IEF Galaxy—or more specifically, from its highest executives—who referred to them by the inane name of “the Anglicism the Night Emits.” In a certain way, they were to Galaxy what Shadowstar was to Seidoukan. Shadowstar, however, was permitted to act only within Asterisk, and it recruited from the general student body, while the Yabuki were entrusted with carrying out Galaxy’s secret maneuverings irrespective of where that might take them. In a way, Shadowstar’s activities could be said to comprise a subset of the Yabuki’s, although in Shadowstar’s favor, there were also naturally things that only students could access.

Of course, the foundation wasn’t solely reliant on the Yabuki. It also had its own paramilitary brigades and special forces that functioned under its direct control—in addition to its own intelligence services, which worked tirelessly to gain an edge over the other foundations’ similar branches in endless, secretive feuding.

There was no mistaking, however, that the highest executives—essentially Galaxy itself—viewed the Yabuki with particular esteem.

“Once we accept a job, we carry it out all the way to the end, without letting any personal feelings get in the way. Which is why, before we begin, I want to ask you how you fit into it all.”

“…”

That was enough for Eishirou to ascertain just what kind of job his father was about to be entrusted with. “I see, I see. So Galaxy’s finally decided to take care of the prez, huh?”

“We haven’t received it yet,” Bujinsai answered.

He was no doubt merely feigning ignorance—there was no way he would mobilize the clan like this if he didn’t already know what it would entail.

“But it does seem like that’s the case,” he added, a cold light flashing in his eyes, a dangerous glimmer bordering on bloodlust.

Sensing the sudden chill, so strong and arising so quickly that it was like a blade of ice piercing his heart, Eishirou instinctively leaped away from Bujinsai in order to break through the encircling Kinoe.

“Ugh!”

And yet, as if having anticipated his movements, the Kinoe immediately reached out to him, trying to pen him in.

Eishirou managed to break out of the trap by striking the leg of one of the five Kinoe, sending them crashing, then jumped over another figure and twisted its neck. Leaping away once more, he drove a powerful kick into the back of the neck of another figure, which had been coming toward him from the side.

The remaining Kinoe, however, paid no heed to their fallen comrades. He was getting ready to lash out at another of them with his dagger when a heavy weight slammed into him from the side, pressing him against the trunk of the tree.

“Oh? So you can take down three Kinoe all by yourself now? You’ve been working on your skills, I take it?” Bujinsai noted, impressed, as he stroked his chin.

With that, the three Kinoe whom Eishirou had taken down jumped back to their feet as if nothing had happened, positioning themselves beside him in silence.

They didn’t look to have suffered any damage; in fact, his attacks didn’t seem to have done anything at all. Eishirou knew firsthand just how skilled the Kinoe were, and so while it might take them some time, considering that there were five of them, there was no question that they would be able to subdue him if they so desired.

But that wasn’t the Yabuki’s way of doing things. No matter the situation, their highest priority was to reach the target as promptly and as surely as possible.

Just thinking about it all reminded him how much he hated them.

“Listen up, boy! I know how fond you are of that girl, Seidoukan’s student council president. But you had better not do anything stupid. That’s my warning to you as your father.”

“…Well, thanks.” Eishirou, still being held down with a force strong enough that it risked breaking his arm, could move only his face to glare back at Bujinsai, towering above him.

Casting his gaze as best he could at his surroundings, he could make out several spell charms marked with complex symbols placed here and there to ward off intruders.

How diligent of them… I guess I can’t count on them to let down their guard…

Eishirou, giving up, relaxed his body. Nothing would be gained from trying to resist them now.

“We might have our disagreements, but I do have a certain level of respect for you and your talents. It would be a shame to lose them over something like this. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“In a way.”

Bujinsai could say what he wanted, but Eishirou knew well enough that if he was to get in the way of their mission, his father wouldn’t hesitate to break his neck.

“And so?”

“Haah…” As he watched that cold glimmer return to Bujinsai’s eyes, Eishirou let out a resigned sigh. “I certainly am fond of the prez. But I’m attached to my own life span a little more.”

“That’s a good attitude to have.”

And with that, the force with which he had been held back suddenly abated.

Eishirou rose to his feet, brushing his hand against his clothes as if sweeping away dust.

Bujinsai and the Kinoe had completely vanished.

The evening sun had almost completely fallen beneath the horizon, a forlorn twilight settling over the trees.

“…Tch.” Eishirou clicked his tongue in exasperation and, after a slight hesitation, reached for his mobile.

“I can keep a sense of duty at least, Pops,” Eishirou muttered as he entered Claudia’s number and set the device to voice only.

“…Whew…”

Ayato, wiping at his still wet hair with a bath towel, let out a long sigh as he sat down on his bed.

All he could think about was Saya—and what she had said to him.

He liked her, too, of course, and he knew for a fact that her intentions were honest. However, he had only ever thought of her as an extended family member, never anything more.

“…Or maybe that’s just what I wanted to think,” he murmured to the empty room as he fell backward onto the bed.

Eishirou hadn’t come back yet—although there was nothing unusual about that, considering that there were no classes during the Festa—giving him the perfect opportunity to try to put his thoughts in order.

Having been reunited with her in Asterisk after all those years, it was almost as if she hadn’t changed at all since their childhood, when they had spent almost every passing day by each other’s side.

That had made him incredibly happy.

But if she had asked him to give her an answer on the spot, he would have found himself hard-pressed to know what to say.

Right now, he had a wish that he wanted to see fulfilled: to be able to wake his sister, Haruka, from her unending sleep.

Most of his thoughts were occupied by his drive to fulfill that wish, but given the seriousness of Saya’s feelings, she deserved no less than his full attention.

Saya no doubt knew that as well, which must have been why she had said that he didn’t have to give her his answer immediately.

“Well, I guess I’ll have to take her up on that offer…”

Once he had put everything in order, he would be able to face her properly and give her his full attention.

And in order to be able to do that, he would have to focus first on winning the next match.

“…Right!” He slapped his hands against his cheeks to fire himself up, when his mobile, which he had flung beside him on his bed, began to ring. “Huh? Again?”

It was already past midnight.

He opened an air-window, and Claudia’s face appeared before him.

“Good evening, Ayato. I’m terribly sorry to call you this late, but do you have a moment?”

“Ah, I don’t mind… But is it urgent?”

They were due to have a strategy meeting with the other members of Team Enfield in the morning, so if it wasn’t pressing, they would be able to discuss it then.

“Yes, I’m afraid so.” Claudia’s expression, devoid of her usual smile, was unusually serious.

“…Okay. What is it?”

“Yes, well, you see— Is it true that Ms. Sasamiya confessed to you?”

“Wh-wha—?!” Ayato found himself blurting. “H-hold on a minute! How you do know that?”

“I am the student council president.”

“What does that have to do with anything?!”

She might have been well-informed, but this was something else entirely.

“Putting that aside, I’m also deeply concerned about what kind of response you might have given her.”

“…I don’t have any obligation to tell you that.”

It was, after all, a private matter.

“Yes, you’re quite right. However…we’re still in the middle of the Gryps, are we not? If anything was to happen that might interfere with our teamwork, that would be a cause for serious alarm to us all.”

It was certainly difficult to argue with that.

“As the team’s representative, I have to ask.”

“…That’s just an excuse,” he replied sullenly, glaring at her. If she already knew that much, however, there was no use remaining silent. “I haven’t given her one yet. She said I can give her my answer later, so I was planning to do it after everything’s over and done with.”

“Is that so…?” Claudia fell silent, nodding calmly. “…Ms. Sasamiya really is quite impressive,” she murmured, as if talking to herself.

“Claudia…?” Ayato asked, sensing something out of place in her actions.

He couldn’t put it into words, but whatever it was, it had stirred a deep-rooted sense of uneasiness somewhere inside him.

“I understand, Ayato. Thank you for telling me the truth… Well then, see you tomorrow.” Before Ayato could respond, she flashed him her usual smile, signaling the end of the conversation.

“Yeah. See you then,” Ayato grudgingly replied before the air-window snapped shut, filling the room with silence. “…I guess I’ll have to ask her tomorrow.”

His vague sense of apprehension was still bothering him, but there was nothing he could do about it right then.

He turned his gaze out through the window, toward the cloud-covered night sky. Though so spectacular just a few hours ago, both the moon and the stars were now completely hidden from view.

“Right, it’s supposed to rain tomorrow…”

He pulled the curtain shut in silence, hoping the weather wouldn’t turn out too bad.

“Now, now, let me finish. I might not have a plan or any real options, but I do have an idea.”

“Go on.”

“I’ll need someone else to make the first move.”

Laetitia cocked her head to one side.

She didn’t appear to have made the connection.

“You’ve been dying to have a rematch against Miss Enfield, but there’s someone else who has also been looking forward to a match against her team, isn’t there, now?”

“Ah…!” As he had expected, that hint had been enough for her to connect the dots. “R-right, she might just be willing to ignore the foundations… But are you sure she’ll do what you’re thinking?”

“Come now, I myself offered her no small amount of assistance during the school fair. It’s about time she returned the favor. I’m sure she’ll have no complaints,” he said with a light smile as he reached for the device on his desk. “And besides, if I use the hotline, not even Sinodomius will have an easy time listening in.”

“Oh-ho, so you want to use me, do you? You’ve more gall than I thought, Pendragon.” Xinglou Fan let out a dry laugh as she gazed at the handsome face projected in the air-window.

“My apologies if I offended you, princess.”

In the audience chamber of Jie Long Seventh Institute’s Hall of the Yellow Dragon, Xinglou, having just finished her morning training, was sitting on a chair that was unnaturally large, especially in proportion to her small body.

Hufeng, crouching down beside her with a hand on his knee, found himself praying that his impulsive and uninhibited master wouldn’t stick her nose into something that didn’t concern them.

“I certainly do owe you for the Gran Colosseo… But don’t you think this goes a little beyond that?” Xinglou replied.

Hufeng nodded strongly in agreement.

“Do you think so?” the voice on the other end of the call asked. “The way I see it, Miss Lyyneheym only agreed to participate because she knew I had already done so. You might say that it was thanks to me that you had two top-ranked fighters to evaluate your guardians against.”

“…Hmm, you do have a point.”

Hufeng shook his head in disagreement.

“But I do understand that I’m asking a lot,” the caller went on. “So what do you say about this, princess? I would be willing to invite you to our next official ranking matches—as a spectator, of course.”

“Oh-ho!”

This is bad, Hufeng thought. That was precisely the kind of lure that Xinglou would snap up in a heartbeat.

Official ranking matches, being key elements of each school’s publicity campaigns, were normally held in the city’s various public arenas. Matches between unnamed students, however, tended to take place within the grounds of each school, and so, unless they were broadcast, they could only be watched by students from that school. As such, schools sometimes liked to hide a secret ace away from prying eyes in preparation for the Festa. Xinglou herself was, of course, also involved in such activities.

Moreover, it wasn’t the battles between unnamed students themselves that formed the main attraction of such matches, but rather the fact that they were the perfect place to discover yet unseen talent. Among the Festa’s most die-hard fans, there were those who placed special weight on such matches.

Hufeng could sense a bad feeling welling up inside him.

“And above all, princess, aren’t you looking forward to watching the battle between your favorite pupils and Team Enfield? At this rate, they’re on track to lose the most vital component of their fighting potential. Normally, that might be something to rejoice about, but not for you, am I right in assuming?” Ernest, it seemed, knew precisely how to close the deal.

“Hmm… The Pan-Dora’s girl certainly is the heart of the team. It would spoil the fun to take her out of the picture…”

“As you know, Sinodomius is under the jurisdiction of my academy’s integrated enterprise foundation, so I’m very limited in how I can react to this. Jie Long’s Gaishi, however, is under your direct control. There must be something that you would be able to do about this matter, princess?”

The intelligence organizations belonging to each of Asterisk’s six schools differed in their strengths and structures, but as a general rule, they each operated under the management of their schools’ IEF. Even if the student councils of each school were permitted to make use of their services, that right was only given to them on a provisional basis by their respective overlord, so it was always clear who they truly served.

That said, the situation was slightly different for Jie Long and Allekant.

Allekant, for example, took factionalism to an extreme, so much so that each individual faction employed its own independent intelligence agents.

Jie Long’s intelligence organization, Gaishi, on the other hand, had been personally established by the first Ban’yuu Tenra, and since then had historically been attached to the student council directly, with only tenuous links to their enterprise foundation.

“Moreover, enticements aside, if I’m not mistaken, princess, you aren’t the kind of person who likes to watch on in silence, are you?”

“Hmm, are you trying to fan the flames, boy? Don’t get too full of yourself.” For a brief second, there was something dangerous about her tone, although it quickly disappeared. “But very well. Consider me intrigued.”

Upon hearing this response, Hufeng lifted his hands to his head.

Somehow, he had suspected from the beginning that things might end up like this, but that was precisely why he wouldn’t allow himself to nod along to everything meekly.

“…With all due respect, Master, I don’t think it would be wise to involve ourselves with another school’s troubles at this time.”

“Don’t say that, Hufeng. You’ll be upset, too, if your opponents can’t fight at their full strength.”

“That may be so, but still…”

Team Enfield would be Hufeng’s—Team Yellow Dragon’s—next opponent. As a martial artist, it was, of course, natural that he would prefer to fight them at their best.

However, that was a separate matter entirely. He couldn’t stay silent when another school was trying to induce them into engaging in unnecessary risks.

“A-anyway, you should at least think about it before—”

“No. I’ve decided,” Xinglou said with an innocent smile, prior to sounding a small, clear bell.

Hearing that sound, Hufeng let out a tired sigh. He really was at his wits’ end.

There was no turning back now.

Because before the sound could even fade back into silence, she appeared in front of them.

“HIYA! DID YOU CALL ME, LITTLE XINGLOU?”

Appearing as if out of thin air was a young woman. Much to Hufeng’s chagrin, he was still unable to sense her presence.

She had large catlike eyes, cropped unruly hair, and a short body blessed with a bounty of feminine curves. What was most distinctive of all, however, were the myriad of scars that crisscrossed her entire body, face included, all of which she wore like trophies.

With modern medicine, removing scars was a trivial procedure. In other words, the girl—Alema Seiyng, an operative from the seventh office of the Ryuusei Kyuushi, Jie Long’s student council–operated intelligence organization, and renowned for her vicious nature—had decided to keep the scars on purpose.

“Yes, yes. I need to ask you a favor, Alema.”

“WELL, IF IT’S A JOB, IT’S NOT LIKE I CAN SAY NO OR ANYTHING.”

Alema didn’t speak, per se, but rather, she communicated through text displayed on an air-window floating by her side. The long, collar-like spell charm wrapped around her neck served to seal her voice away.

“Ah, Seiten Taisei. I don’t believe we’ve seen each other since the closing ceremony of the Phoenix,” Ernest said in greeting.

“OH, IF IT ISN’T LITTLE ERNEST. LONG TIME NO SEE,” Alema replied with a vacant smile, waving back at him.

The two were acquaintances of a sort. Alema, being Xinglou’s favorite, was often sent to represent her in her stead whenever she was absent from official engagements.

“HEE-HEE! I SAW YOU IN THE GRYPS. YOU LOOK GOOD. WHY DON’T YOU HAVE A GO WITH ME NEXT TIME?”

“That’s impossible!” Laetitia broke in, forcing her way into the frame of the air-window. “I’ve told you again and again, duels aren’t allowed here at Gallardworth! As the student council president, he of all people can’t break the rules! And why are you acting so chummy with him anyway?!”

“EH, NO FUN.” Alema pouted in disappointment.

Hufeng, however, had nodded along with Laetitia in agreement. He had found himself obliged on occasion to take issue with Alema’s rough-spoken and overly familiar attitude with Xinglou. That said, she wasn’t the kind of person to pay much heed to what others had to say, and Xinglou, it seemed, was more than happy to allow her to keep acting that way.

Alema Seiyng, also known as the Sage of Heavenly Enlightenment, Seiten Taisei, was Jie Long’s former number one—meaning, she had been Jie Long’s strongest fighter up until Xinglou had taken her place.

Xinglou had invited the defeated Alema to become one of her disciples, but the scarred girl had turned her down. Xinglou, however, valuing her talents, still wanted to make her her own, and so she had offered her a compromise.

In short, she became not a disciple, but a member of Gaishi, and in exchange, she had the right to challenge Xinglou to a duel whenever she wished. Being just as much a fanatic for battle as Xinglou, Alema had agreed to this readily, and even now, she challenged her at every possible opportunity.

“SO THE JOB?”

“First things first, Alema. Are you aware that Galaxy brought some people here to Rikka yesterday?”

“HUH? NOPE, NO IDEA WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT.” She shook her head, expression vacant.

“Gallardworth’s Sinodomius noticed them. I guess our people must be taking it pretty easy, huh?” Hufeng said, his voice practically dripping with sarcasm.

Alema merely scratched at the back of her head, without showing even the slightest embarrassment. “THEIR INFORMATION NETWORK IS ON A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SCALE THAN OURS. THERE’S NO NEED TO COMPARE.”

“Yes, that’s fine. More importantly, I don’t feel like letting them have what they want. That’s your job,” Xinglou said, a piercing glint flashing in her eyes.

“HMM… GOT IT. SO GALAXY’S PEOPLE. WHO ARE THEY, EXACTLY?”

“According to Pendragon, it sounds like Night Emit. Their head seems to be with them, too.”

“OH, THIS’LL BE GOOD! THE HEAD OF THE YABUKI IS SUPPOSED TO BE PRETTY STRONG, RIGHT? I’M GETTING REVVED UP!” Alema punched a fist into her free hand, flashing them all a brutal grin.

The flames burning in her eyes were just like Xinglou’s when she got worked up.

“Unfortunately, I don’t know how strong the current head is, although I do remember facing one of their previous ones a few generations back. He…” Xinglou tilted her head to one side, as if trying to recall something, before clapping her hands together in excitement. “That’s it. He put up quite the fight, if I remember correctly. Yes, he really had me on the back foot there. Good memories.”

“WHAT?! AH, I’M LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS NOW!”

“Let me say this. Their techniques are truly troublesome. You would be wise not to take on their head, in particular.”

“AND WHY WOULDN’T I?” Alema retorted, her grin growing yet more fiendish.

“…Well, so long as you take care of the job, I don’t really mind.”

Listening to this back and forth, Hufeng broke into a frown, his headache only growing stronger.

Why was it that only these kinds of people tended to flock to Xinglou?

“…Then it sounds like the matter is settled. Well then, princess, shall I leave it to you for now?” Ernest asked with an uncertain smile.

“Very well. And what do you intend to do?”

“Of course, we’ll do everything we can from our side, too… But if we were able to handle it alone, I wouldn’t have needed to call you. Isn’t that right, Laetitia?” Ernest glanced away from the air-window for a brief moment, turning to his side, as if reminding her of something.

So, Hufeng wondered, Gallardworth must have its fair share of impulsive people, too.

“Oh-ho, I see. That’s true.”

“Well then, we’re counting on you, princess.”

And with that, the air-window snapped shut.

“I’D BETTER GO GET READY, THEN,” Alema murmured, before disappearing just as suddenly as she had appeared.

Though he stretched his senses as much as he could, Hufeng still hadn’t been able to detect her leaving. Grinding his teeth in annoyance, he turned toward his leader. “Are you sure about this, Master? Making trouble with an integrated enterprise foundation now would be…”

“Fret not. So long as the Ban’yuu Tenra is involved, they won’t dare make a move against us. Anyway, the Gryps this time has been rather dreary, wouldn’t you say? Perhaps this will add a little spice to things?” she said with an innocent laugh.

Hufeng let out a heavy sigh. The reason that such people flocked to Xinglou was no doubt because she herself could be just as reckless as they were.

And if that was true, there was every possibility he would accept her confession, in which case—

Julis, having started going down this train of thought, found her eyes spinning around in alarm and put her head in her hands.

“U-um! A-Ayato’s response—wh-what did he say…?!” Kirin, who had remained completely petrified up till now, broke in feverishly, looking as if she might start crying at any moment.

Right, that’s it!

Julis snapped back to her senses and gave a hearty nod at hearing Kirin ask the very question that should have been on the tip of her own tongue.

But when she looked carefully at the younger girl, she could see that Kirin’s eyes were darting in every direction, just like her own had been. She was clearly at her limit.

Moreover, her legs were shaking terribly, as if they might give way at any moment, and her whole body was trembling like a small, terrified animal’s. She seemed to be taking it much worse than Julis.

“He didn’t give me an answer.”

“Huh…?” Julis and Kirin asked in confusion.

“I said he could tell me later. I only wanted to tell him how I felt,” Saya answered plainly.

Julis let out a sigh of relief, but then she immediately rebuked herself.

Why should I be so happy about that…?

Lately, Julis’s emotions seemed to be getting thrown into disorder on a regular basis, like when Ayato had gone to the school fair with Sylvia. It wasn’t a good feeling.

It’s none of my business who he decides to hang around with… Although he is a teammate, so I guess I could say something… Anyway, he’s free to do what he wants, and I’ve got no right to… No, he did say to my face that he wanted to be my strength, so maybe I should… No, no, I can’t complain, but I… Argh!

Once again, her train of thought had begun to take her somewhere it shouldn’t, but she managed to bring herself back to her senses before it could go too far. She swung her head back and forth as if to shake free from it all.

“Whew…” Kirin slumped to the floor. She, too, seemed to have lost all energy. “B-but why are you telling us…?” she asked.

“I just want to play fair with my rivals… Good luck, you two,” Saya said without any hesitation.

Kirin jumped to her feet. “Th-that’s, I mean, I— I’m not…!”

“R-right! Wh-what are you talking about?!” Julis found herself exclaiming, a rush of blood coming to her cheeks.

“If that’s the case, then fine. Whatever you do, just don’t regret it afterward.” Saya nodded expressionlessly.

“Um…”

“Argh…”

Saya’s words seemed to weigh heavily on them both.

N-no, I can’t, I can’t. Calm down…

Julis’s rhythm had been disturbed for a while now.

She took a deep breath to calm her nerves, before turning to Saya. “W-well, I mean, I’m not trying to pry or anything, but more importantly, why did you have to do it right in the middle of the Gryps? I mean, all it would take is one wrong move to sow trouble in the team… N-not that we’re upset or anything, but you know.”

“Yes… Sorry.” And with that, Saya bowed her head to her two teammates. “The timing was due to my own selfishness. I’m sorry.” At that point, she raised her head to stare straight into Julis’s eyes. “Maybe this goes without saying, but I don’t think that any of us would let our feelings get in the way of the tournament. So I thought it would be okay.”

“That’s…” Julis, finding herself in complete agreement with her logic, was at a loss for words.

She was confident that both she and Kirin had the strength of mind to concentrate fully on their upcoming matches without distraction.

Both, she was sure, were able to distinguish between the two issues and deal with each separately. Moreover, both she and Kirin had their own reasons for wanting to win at the Festa, reasons that they wouldn’t let anything get in the way of.

And she knew, as well, that Saya had no such motivation.

Saya was fighting for Ayato. That was no doubt why she was able to bring herself to confess her feelings to him without worrying that any of the others would hold it against her.

“But Enfield is different,” Saya added. “I’m a little concerned about her.”

“Huh…? The president?” Kirin’s eyes flickered with uncertainty.

Julis, however, had wondered the same thing. “There’s no need to worry about her, I think. She might act that way, but there’s no one better than her at looking at things rationally.”

There was no mistaking that Claudia was particularly assertive with Ayato, and Julis couldn’t deny that she had her concerns about that, but as to whether or not she was seriously looking for that kind of relationship with him, she had no idea whatsoever.

Kirin nodded in agreement, but Saya, in contrast, slowly shook her head.

“I don’t think so. I knew it as soon as I saw her. She’s serious.”

“…Oh? What makes you think that?”

“Just my intuition.”

Saya’s answer was incredibly straightforward, but Julis knew better than to take it lightly. “Hmm…”

At that moment, however, the training room doors slid open, and Ayato, dressed in his workout clothes, his forehead beaded with sweat, strode in.

“Sorry. Am I late…? I was doing some solo conditioning and lost track of time.”

His breathing was rough, meaning he had probably run all the way to the training room.

“Good morning, Ayato,” Saya beamed, running up to greet him.

“…! …Ah, Saya. Good morning,” Ayato replied with the same gentle greeting as usual.

Julis, however, couldn’t fail to take note of a brief flash of nervousness darting through his eyes.

“It’s okay—we’re not all here yet,” Saya said. “Here, Ayato.” She handed him a towel.

Perhaps it was just her imagination, but Julis couldn’t help thinking Saya was acting more intimately with Ayato than normal. They might have been childhood friends, so close as to be almost family, but there seemed to be something different in the way she was acting.

“…Right, thanks.” Ayato, on the other hand, seemed only a little awkward as he accepted the towel.

He was probably conscious of Saya’s change in behavior as well. It was clear that their relationship wasn’t moving in a bad direction.

“Uh, I’ll get it back to you once I’ve washed it…”

“It’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”

“I’ll wash it.”

“…I said it’s okay.” Saya pouted, trying to wrest it from him, her body coming awfully close to his.

“Ah…” Saya, seemingly having realized the situation, suddenly pulled away from him. Her expression remained unchanged, but she cast her eyes to the ground, her cheeks turning slightly pink.

That was not the kind of reaction she would have had in the past.

Julis and Kirin watched on from a distance.

“…Wh-what is it, Kirin?” Saya asked, turning toward her. “If you want to ask Ayato something, just say it.”

“What?! I—I—I don’t…” Kirin shrank with fear, her eyes brimming with tears, before she turned toward Julis. “J-Julis, um, d-do you…?”

“M-me?! Ah, right, um… N-no, nothing!”

“Oh… I—I see… Sorry…”

“I-I’m not angry or anything, look,” Julis said hastily, trying to console her. She let out a deep breath in an attempt to calm her nerves, though it didn’t do much good. “…She does have courage, though. We ought to applaud her for that.”

“…Yes.”

What she was aiming for was different, but Julis knew all too well how terrifying it could be to take the first step toward bringing about change.

Saya’s determination was worthy of respect.

“You said we’re not all here yet… But it’s already time, right?” Ayato asked, checking his mobile and glancing around the training room.

They were supposed to be having a strategy meeting to discuss tomorrow’s semifinal match. Their opponents, Team Yellow Dragon, would easily be the strongest team they had faced thus far.

Xiaohui Wu, alias the Celestial Warrior, Hagun Seikun, would be particularly difficult. His martial art abilities would make defeat all but inevitable without an adequate counterstrategy. All his skills, in particular his spearmanship and seisenjutsu, that he had demonstrated in the second round were alarming in and of themselves, but taken as a whole, they made him truly terrifying.

“Right, the president isn’t here yet…,” Kirin said.

“She isn’t normally late,” Julis observed.

In fact, as far as Julis could remember, Claudia had never been late to a meeting.

“Ah, looks like I’ve got a call. Maybe it’s… Huh?” She broke into a frown. The number on her mobile was unregistered.

She couldn’t help but feel a wave of uncertainty as she opened a blacked-out air-window.

It was a voice-only call.

“…! Ah! Thank God! You picked up!”

There was a lot of distortion and noise, but Julis recognized the voice.

“…Laetitia?”

They might have been acquaintances, of a sort, but they certainly weren’t close enough to call each other directly.

“Yes, it’s me. We don’t have much time, so let me get right to the point. Is Claudia there?”

“What’s this about…? Anyway, she isn’t here yet.”

“No, it can’t be…!” The voice on the other side of the air-window was filled with despair.

“What’s going on? If you’ve got something to say to Claudia, why don’t you just call her yourself?”

“I’m calling you because I can’t reach her! Anyway, you need to go look for her now and make sure she’s safe!”

“Safe…? Wait, what does that mean?! What are you talking about?!” Julis could tell from the urgency in Laetitia’s voice that whatever it was, it was no trivial matter.

Ayato, Kirin, and Saya, listening on beside her in silence, were each wearing serious expressions.

“We don’t have time! I’ve only got another thirty seconds before Sinodomius traces this line! Galaxy is making their move!”

That was enough for them to understand the gravity of the situation. “Got it. I don’t know the details, but thanks.”

“One more thing—I need to talk to Ayato Amagiri!”

“To Ayato…?” Julis repeated, glancing toward him.

Ayato stepped forward with a slight nod. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s—”

It had been some time since Claudia had gone to watch the Lindvolus.

“Claudia. I have a present for you,” Isabella said as she offered her a large case.

Claudia glanced toward it in surprise. She couldn’t remember her mother ever having given her a present before.

Even as a child, she had had access to practically inexhaustible wealth, and so whatever she wanted, she had it bought for her. It was far different than the act of gift giving.

“To what do I owe this surprise?” she asked with an artificial smile.

“Your birthday is coming up soon, right?” Isabella answered gently.

“That may be so, but still…”

“Come now, have a look,” Isabella said to her perplexed daughter, before putting the case on the drawing room table and releasing the lock.

“That’s…” Claudia caught her breath as she saw what lay inside.

“Indeed. The Pan-Dora.”

An Orga Lux, like a pair of unborn children in deep sleep. Staring at their activators before her, she felt a shudder run through her body, just as she had felt during the Lindvolus.

Watching Claudia rise up from her chair and pull away, Isabella narrowed her eyes in a sweet smile. “Dear me, Claudia. What is it?”

“…Nothing.”

“Is it what you felt during the Lindvolus? Excellent. That means it has chosen you as its user.” Isabella spread her hands wide as if to indicate that it was a wonderful turn of events.

Claudia caught her breath, trying to pull herself together. “But how were you able to remove an Orga Lux? I thought they were dealt with rather strictly…”

Even if her mother was an executive at its IEF, taking one of the school’s Orga Luxes to give to her own daughter seemed like it would fall foul of far too many regulations.

“Heh-heh. Just who do you think I am?” Isabella asked with a laugh. “As it happens, after what occurred during the Lindvolus, the Pan-Dora was to be sealed away. As such, once it had arrived at Galaxy’s research facilities, I explained the situation, and they allowed me to borrow it. Our researchers are hoping to garner more data from it themselves, so they were more than happy to oblige.”

“It’s an honor to be given such a dangerous item,” Claudia said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

Isabella’s, however, remained unwavering. “Of course, if you don’t want it, I’ll take it back. There’s no need to force yourself. But just so you know, it’s quite rare to be chosen by an Orga Lux, and as far as abilities go, this one is particularly powerful. I thought, perhaps, that it might one day be of some use to you…”

“…”

Isabella might have been her mother, but Claudia found her remarkably difficult to read.

Looking at it analytically, she seemed to want to use her daughter to gather data on the Pan-Dora, which had remarkably few compatible users. That would certainly be of use to Seidoukan Academy, under Galaxy’s management.

And yet, it would be of little use to Galaxy itself, and it didn’t make much sense for someone with her mother’s position to take any special interest in it.

In that case, was it simply a present for her daughter, as she claimed? If it truly did confer upon its user the power of precognition, it would be an Orga Lux beyond compare, so much so that it might even serve to give Claudia, who had yet to decide which path to take in life, some direction.

However, just as Claudia had remarked, it was also an incredibly dangerous item, and almost certainly an unsuitable present to give to one’s daughter. Yet, Isabella might have judged her mature and wise enough to handle it. She had to admit, her achievements certainly might warrant such an assessment.

…Maybe it’s all those reasons combined.

Her thoughts having taken her this far, she made her decision.

Whether it had to do with people or objects, whenever something happened, it tended to be due to multiple competing forces. All the more so for people like Isabella.

Which was why Claudia chose to accept it for the simplest of reasons—because she was happy to receive a present from her mother.

“I understand. I’ll gratefully accept it.”

“Very good. I’m so happy to hear that.” Isabella laughed, before clapping her hands together and calling the servant, as if suddenly remembering something. “Speaking of which, another present has arrived for you as well.”

“Another one?”

Judging by the way she had said it, it didn’t sound like it was from her.

Claudia opened the box the servant brought in and discovered a stuffed toy bear around five inches tall, along with a small card.

“My, it’s so cute.”

“…Who is it from?”

Both the fabric and the stitching were of the finest quality—perfectly matching her tastes—so it only took a glance to realize it was a high-quality item.

She opened the card, completely in the dark as to who could have sent it, only to find an unexpected name written inside.

“Laetitia…?”

“Ah, that young lady from the Blanchard family?” Isabella nodded. “You two get along quite well, don’t you?”

“Not particularly…”

The card contained a message: I’ll defeat you next time, so be ready.

“But you should make sure your father doesn’t see it.”

“…Yes.”

The Enfield family and Blanchard family had seemed to be joined by fate for several hundred years now, ever since the War of the Grand Alliance, and Nicholas, as a direct descendant of the Enfield line, had an innate prejudice against the Blanchards.

And yet, while Claudia wasn’t particularly fond of stuffed toys, she couldn’t bring herself to throw away a present that someone had gone to all the trouble to give her.

“I’ll have to give her something in return. Her birthday was in…February, wasn’t it?”

Given that it was June now, there was still quite a while to go.

“In that case, the Opernball in Vienna is around that time. How about you give it to her then?”

The Opernball had been a treasured tradition of the upper classes for centuries, but it had changed in nature somewhat during the Reconstruction following the Invertia. Perhaps most notably, the age of debutantes had been greatly reduced, no doubt so that the European noble houses could search for suitable partners of superior blood at a younger age.

Today, even the great houses couldn’t survive without associating with the IEFs. As such, bringing people with outstanding abilities into one’s family was simply a matter of necessity.

“…Well, it isn’t for a while, so I suppose I have time to find something suitable for her,” she murmured, glancing back and forth between the stuffed toy and the Pan-Dora. She found herself unable to hold back a smile at just how surreal the difference between the two was.

Her choice to accept the Pan-Dora, however, would end up changing her life completely.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

The next morning, before the sun had even completely risen, a shrill cry echoed throughout the mansion.

The servants rushed into her room, only to find Claudia breathing raggedly, her eyes wide open, her fingers gripping the edge of her bedsheets so tightly that they had turned a pallid white.

The dream was already vanishing like fog in the morning, fading away into oblivion.

Claudia had tasted the cost demanded by the Pan-Dora, the unendurable suffering and overwhelming fear of experiencing one’s own death. The shock was enough to shatter her naive indifference and bring her precocious and slanted sense of self crashing down.

“Oh dear… It looks like it is intense.” Isabella, having appeared beside her almost instantaneously, looked down at her daughter with pity.

Claudia, her mother’s figure in the center of her vision, tried desperately to bring her breathing under control.

“Well then, Claudia, do you still want to hold on to the Pan-Dora?” she asked. Her mother spoke as if she knew this would happen, and yet, there was a touch of disappointment in her voice.

Claudia, however, weakly shook her head.

“Oh?” Isabella raised an eyebrow, as though slightly surprised.

That decision, too, had been for the simplest of reasons—because she refused to give in.

She herself was startled to find that she harbored such childish feelings.

Mustering her strength, she sat up in her bed. “…It was a present. I’ll hold on to it for a while longer,” she said.

Claudia had managed to maintain that mind-set for close to a month.

When one considered that the Pan-Dora’s previous users hadn’t even been able to hold out for three days, her tenacity pointed to an astounding strength of will.

The nightmares, however, had continued mercilessly, night after night, without end, eating away at her heart, steadily breaking her spirit.

Then, one night, when she could no longer clearly distinguish between the waking world and her nightmares, and she had begun to feel as if she was reaching her limit…

It was then that she met Ayato for the first time.

“Claudia! Are you in there, Claudia?!” Julis called out, banging against her door.

There was no response.

They had wasted no time after speaking to Laetitia, heading straight for Claudia’s room in Seidoukan Academy’s girls’ dormitory.

The door, however, was locked, and with no indication that Claudia was inside, Julis found herself grinding her teeth in worry.

“Damn it! How could I have been so careless?”

She hadn’t expected Galaxy to act so soon.

Or rather, she hadn’t given Claudia’s warning the weight it had deserved.

Making an enemy of Galaxy… When Claudia had told them that that would be the likely outcome of her actions, Julis had prepared herself for the worst, but things had been uneventful since the opening of the Gryps, with everything moving along smoothly.

It wasn’t as if she had let down her guard, but she couldn’t deny that she had spent her time focusing on the matches in front of her, rather than considering what Galaxy might do next.

It was all due to Claudia’s strategizing, and yet, Galaxy, it seemed, hadn’t relaxed its efforts to stop her.

“…Julis, step out of the way,” Saya said, activating one of her huge Luxes.

“Wha—?! W-wait, Saya! You can’t use that in here…!” Kirin, alarmed, tried to talk her out of it.

Julis, however, found herself in agreement with Saya for once. “Do it!”

“…Boom.”

A blinding projectile burst out from the weapon with a roar, blasting the door out of its frame.

Other students began to come out into the corridor from the nearby rooms to see what was going on, but Julis paid them no heed, barging inside the room.

“What happened here…?”

Julis glanced around, taken aback by the disastrous scene that lay before her. Inside Claudia’s quarters, everything, living room and bedroom alike, appeared to have been completely ransacked.

For a brief instant, she wondered whether it was due to Saya’s attack on the door, but the damage was far too extensive for that. The sofa lay on its side, the bedsheets torn into shreds, the walls and carpet damaged and broken almost everywhere.

And on top of that…

“…There’s been a fight here, with weapons,” Kirin said sternly as she examined the floor. “I can’t make out any footprints, but there must have been a lot of people… And there’s a bloodstain here.”

“Ngh…!” Julis bit her lip in concern.

Saya tapped her on the shoulder. “It might not belong to Enfield. She could have struck back at her attackers.”

“Maybe…”

But if that was so, why was Claudia missing?

“There isn’t a lot of blood, though. And…I think the president must have escaped, once they came for her,” Kirin, still investigating the floor, said gravely.

“What makes you say that?”

“It’s only a guess…but if Galaxy’s people had succeeded, they wouldn’t have left the room like this. They might have free rein to do what they want here in Seidoukan, but at the very least, they would try to cover it up. But here…”

Perhaps it was because her uncle worked at Galaxy, but Kirin had an unexpectedly well-informed idea of how the integrated enterprise foundation did things.

“Right! So they mustn’t have had time to clean up after themselves…”

“…I see.” Saya nodded in understanding.

Whether it was due to a lack of personnel or time, the fact that they had left the room in this state suggested they had something more important to see to.

“That means…,” Kirin began, turning toward the window.

The glass was broken, but the shards lay scattered across the balcony, not inside the room.

Julis rushed toward it, and sure enough, there were drops of blood on the balcony as well.

“She must have gone this way…”

Saya pulled at her sleeve, scowling at the destruction. “…We need to tell Ayato.”

“Right. He might have found something, too,” Julis agreed, reaching for her mobile. She hoped that Claudia was safe, wherever she might be.

“Right… So what did you want to tell me?” he prompted. If he let her keep going on like that, she might never tell him.

“Yes… Ahem. Very well,” she said, clearing her throat.

Ayato had only suggested the diner in the first place because she had said that she wanted to speak to him in person.

After all, it sounded like they couldn’t afford to talk over the phone.

“I want to find Claudia as quickly as possible as well,” he told her.

She seemed to hesitate for the briefest of moments, before answering: “Then you need to hear this. It might prove vital to save her.”

In that case, she needed to come out with it, Ayato thought.

“…Just so you know, it was Claudia herself who told me this, and she made me promise not tell anyone else. I always intended to honor that promise, but now… Now I guess I don’t have any choice.”

“What is it?”

But instead of answering him, Laetitia asked a question of her own: “Before that, do you know what Claudia’s wish is—why she came to Asterisk?”

“Well… She wants to meet Ladislav Bartošik, the professor who was involved in the Jade Twilight Incident.”

Claudia had said as much during their winners’ interview several days ago, so that should have been public knowledge. Ayato personally, however, couldn’t help but wonder if her real goal wasn’t something else.

“Indeed. I saw her say that during the interview. But you know… That’s completely different than what she told me once before.”

“What…?”

Ayato was about to turn around, when, perhaps sensing this, Laetitia continued: “Let me start from the beginning. She and I used to be rivals, always competing against each other for victory in tournaments throughout Europe… In the end, I wasn’t ever able to beat her, though…”

“Right…”

Laetitia’s voice was filled with chagrin, muffled, as if she were biting on a handkerchief.

“Ahem. Anyway, during one tournament, she was in unusually high spirits. And she told me that she had finally found a wish that she wanted to have granted.”

“She was in high spirits? Claudia…?” Ayato had only known her for just over a year, but he had yet to see that side of her.

“Yes. I was surprised, too. I asked her to tell me, but she wouldn’t say anything more about it. I ended up getting so angry that I made a bet with her that if I won the next match, she would have to tell me everything.”

“…But didn’t you just say you weren’t able to beat her?”

In that case, she must have lost that bet.

Perhaps she had taken offense at those words, as she continued in a serious, quick voice: “R-right, but don’t interrupt! She was clearly acting strange during that tournament. I heard afterward that she had just gotten her hands on the Pan-Dora. She couldn’t use it because of the tournament’s regulations, but still…”

“The Pan-Dora…? Wait, hold on. I thought you said this happened when you were both still kids?”

Orga Luxes were only supposed to be used inside Asterisk. Of course, there were always exceptions, such as when Ayato had gone to Lieseltania, so it wasn’t impossible to take them outside the city, given that the user undertook the proper administrative procedures. Moreover, a winner in the Festa might use their wish to take private possession of an Orga Lux, but even in such cases, ownership would only last for the user’s lifetime, before reverting to the relevant foundation. Giving one to a child who wasn’t even a student at Asterisk, however—that was an extraordinary exception.

“I was surprised to hear it, too… But then, given her mother’s position, it probably wasn’t all that difficult. Even then, the woman was already close to the top at Galaxy. Moreover, I don’t think she had it all the time. They sent it back every now and then for analysis.” Laetitia paused there, sipping from her cup of tea. “Anyway, that’s how it was. She clearly wasn’t in a good way, and the final ended in a draw.”

“A draw…?”

“Neither of us won, and neither of us lost. So after making me promise never to tell anyone, she offered to tell me half of her wish,” Laetitia said with a small sigh. “Her wish—Claudia’s wish—was to dedicate herself fully to her destined partner.”

“…Huh?” Ayato inadvertently let that out, taken aback by what he had just heard. “Dedicate herself? To her destined partner?”

He had no idea what kind of person she had been as a child, but that kind of thing certainly didn’t match the Claudia he knew.

“Well, I was just as confused when I heard it. At first, I thought she was pulling my leg, so I asked her about this destined partner. And she told me that she hadn’t met him yet.”

Ayato could understand why she would think Claudia had been joking.

“But then she went to Seidoukan and rose to the position of student council president… And then, watching her actions, it suddenly all made sense to me. That destined partner she was talking about—it has to be you, Ayato Amagiri.”

“What?!” he exclaimed, spinning around. Realizing what he had done, he quickly turned back to his own table, lowering his voice: “…How did that happen?”

“To tell you the truth, at first, I thought you must have tricked her, but now…”

“I—I didn’t do anything like that…”

“Don’t worry. I’m not that bad a judge of character. I can tell from what you’ve done so far that, if nothing else, you’re not a bad person at heart.” Despite her words, there did seem to be a touch of displeasure in her voice. “Anyway, she put a huge amount of effort—and not just her own—into finding you and recommending you for a special scholarship. You, with no achievements, nothing at all to your name. That was the only time she had ever done anything like that—so I knew right away, it had to be you.”

“…” Ayato remained silent. He, too, had long wondered why the opportunity had come to him of all people.

He had tried to ask her about it the first time they had met. After all, he wasn’t the kind of outstanding student who would be considered a candidate for a scholarship—let alone be offered one. Claudia had said there had been a lot of opposition, but she had pushed through with his candidacy regardless. But in that case, how had she known about him to begin with?

“…This is just a guess, but I think she must have seen you in those nightmares that she has from using the Pan-Dora.”

“The Pan-Dora…? But I thought her memories of those faded away when she woke up?”

He was sure she had said something like that.

“That does seem to be the case. But she must have said something like this as well, that some fragments and impressions remain. What do you think? Even if they are just fragments, would they really be so strong as to completely change someone’s outlook on life?”

In the back of his mind, Ayato remembered something Claudia had said back when they had first met.

“At last… We meet at last.”

She had embraced him from behind, in the middle of the student council room.

Thinking back, her actions then had been completely at odds with her usual self. She had spoken with a fragile, helpless voice—a voice that he hadn’t heard again since.

“Basically, she must have met you in her dreams and fallen for you… Then she decided to come here, to Asterisk, meet you, and dedicate herself to you. That must have been her wish. To be honest, I think it’s a pretty stupid one, but that’s a different matter.”

Personally, Ayato found it somewhat difficult to accept, but when he looked at it objectively, he couldn’t deny that it all made sense.

“But then why does she have to participate in the Festa…?”

If Laetitia’s conclusions were true, then there would have been no need for Claudia to fight in the Gryps or make an enemy of Galaxy.

“Exactly!” Laetitia let out enthusiastically, as if she had only been building up to this point. “She only told me half her wish—so the other half has to be related to what’s going on now.”

“The other half… Do you think it has something to do with Professor Bartošik and the Jade Twilight Incident?”

Ayato couldn’t see much of a connection between the two issues.

“That’s what I want to ask you… Ayato Amagiri, what do you know about it?”

“…Me?”

But there was no way he could know any more about the incident than she already did.

“I hadn’t even heard of the professor until Claudia brought him up,” he answered with a shake of his head—though he knew that Laetitia couldn’t see it.

“Really? You’re not hiding anything?”

“No, I swear.”

“Hmm… Fine.” Laetitia’s voice seemed to be filled with disappointment.

“Anyway, all that aside, you must be one of the most important keys to this mystery. I’m sure of it.”

“Well… I guess so.”

He didn’t feel so sure himself, but based on everything she had said, he couldn’t deny the possibility that she might be right.

“So you need to find her and convince her to give up on it. You’re the only one who would be able to do it.”

“That’s…,” he began, before falling silent, at a loss for words.

Did he even have the right to make her give up on her wish, he wondered, especially given everything she had done to come this far?

“Even assuming that she manages to pull through this, once the integrated enterprise foundations start to do something, they never give up. You understand that, right? In this world, to oppose the integrated enterprise foundations is basically to sign your own death warrant. No matter what that wish of hers is, it can’t be worth more than her life.”

It was clear from Laetitia’s sincerity that she was truly concerned about her. That was enough for Ayato.

“…All right,” he said with a nod.

There probably were wishes that people would be willing to stake one’s life on, he thought. But even so, he didn’t want to lose Claudia over it.

“…In that case, I’ll believe in you. Take this.”

A small silver charm dropped onto the sofa where Ayato was sitting.

“What is it?”

“Claudia gave it to me as a birthday present a long time ago. It’s supposed to bring good luck… Although, it was a pretty unpleasant present.”

“Unpleasant…?” Ayato had no idea what she was talking about.

“Don’t worry about it. Anyway, please give it to her. She can think of it as my revenge, if she wants.”

Ayato stepped out of the diner into a dark, early fall day.

The sun was hidden behind thick clouds, and the damp wind carried a distinctive aroma. According to the weather forecast, rain was expected later in the evening.

“…Anyway, I need to find Claudia,” he muttered to himself as he hurried toward the road leading back to the school.

What could have motivated her to do this? He had no choice but to ask her directly. If, as Laetitia had said, he was one of the keys to the mystery, he had to find her no matter what it took.

Just as he had come to that realization, his mobile began to ring.

He hurriedly opened an air-window, only to be met with an unexpected face.

“Huh? Sylvie?”

“Ayato, I heard what happened. It sounds serious.”

“Ah, yeah. It is… But how did you find out about it?”

“I am a student council president, you know, and here at Queenvale we do have our own intelligence organization, Benetnasch. They aren’t half bad.”

Just like Laetitia had at Gallardworth, it looked like the other schools were starting to catch on to the situation, if belatedly.

“That’s it! Can you use Benetnasch to try to work out where she is right now?” he asked, a glimmer of hope having revealed itself.

Sylvia, however, merely shook her head apologetically. “I’m sorry, Ayato. They didn’t say anything about her current whereabouts, and I doubt they would tell me even if they do know.”

Just as a part of him had expected, the higher-ups at Queenvale also considered the best approach to be to let things play out.

They would, of course, know about Sylvia’s friendship with Ayato, and so there was little chance that they would divulge such information to her.

“But you know, I’ve been thinking about it myself, and—”

But before she could finish speaking, the air-window suddenly went black.

“…Huh? No signal?”

That was not a message he expected to see in the middle of Asterisk. With the exception of certain areas, such as the underground block where Saya had found herself several days ago, there should have been good reception throughout the entire city.

Wondering what was going on, Ayato lifted his gaze to his surroundings and paused in shock. Without him realizing it, the scenery around him had completely changed. The streets were devoid of passersby, and the buildings around him were in a dilapidated state. He was in the redevelopment area.

“How did I…?”

He should have been going in the other direction, back toward Seidoukan, and yet, he had found himself here. Not only that, now that he had stopped in the middle of the street, a thick fog had begun to rise up around him.

It was clearly an atypical mistake.

He put himself on guard, scanning his surroundings, when a ghostlike figure began to emerge from the mist.

“—?!”

“…It’s a concealment technique, one that interferes with the target’s sense of direction. It’s practically impossible to counter if the target doesn’t realize what’s happened to them.”

“Huh? That voice… Yabuki?!”

“Yep, right on the mark.”

The figure continued toward him through the fog, until finally Ayato could make out his roommate’s features. He was wearing a hood, and while his eyes were completely hidden, Ayato could make out a faint smile.

“What are you doing here?”

“Now, now, Amagiri. Won’t you play nice and let me keep you tied down for a while? There’s no need for questions.” Eishirou, his hands in his pockets, stopped just outside the edge of Ayato’s range.

“Let you keep me tied down…? Oh, so that’s how it is, is it?” Ayato asked with a slight scowl. His tone made his point clear. “You’re siding with the school on this?”

“Well, I had wanted to pull back the curtain more dramatically… But I guess it’s too late now.” Eishirou lifted his hood, flashing Ayato his usual friendly smile as he scratched at the side of his head. “You’ve heard about Shadowstar, right? Basically, I work for them. Surprised?” he asked with a quiet laugh.

“…Anyone would be surprised to hear that their friend works for an intelligence organization.”

“You look pretty calm, though,” Eishirou pointed out.

“I guess I’ve known for a while that you’re no ordinary student, Yabuki,” Ayato answered as he reached for his waist. “And I did think it was pretty unusual that you weren’t interested in taking part in the Festa.”

“Hah, is that so…? Looks like I need to up my training.” Eishirou lowered his shoulders, crestfallen. “But still, I’m glad to hear you consider me your friend. I feel like I’ve been deceiving you this whole time.” Eishirou’s head was drooped, but there was a probing glint in his eyes.

“Hmm… Conceal is probably a better way to put it, I’d say. And besides, there are things I’ve concealed from you as well, so I guess we’re both guilty.”

At this, Eishirou stared back at him in silent astonishment for a moment. “I always knew you were softhearted, but come on, this is a bit much…”

“That’s not it. I know what I’m doing. I mean, if you’re my friend, you might let me go, right?” Ayato replied with a grave expression, bracing himself for the worst.

The air around them suddenly became tense.

“Hey, hey! You trying to scare me?” Eishirou asked, unfazed. “To tell you the truth, though, speaking for myself, I’ve got nothing against doing just that.”

“Huh?”

“I’ve got my own problems, too, you know? My heart isn’t in this job,” he said, shrugging his shoulders in exasperation.

“…Is Shadowstar really okay with its people having such a half-hearted work ethic?”

It was an intelligence organization, after all.

“Ha-ha… Of course not. I’m not trying to brag or anything, but I’m kind of the biggest troublemaker Shadowstar’s ever had. I’ve got a bit of a name for myself there, you know?”

“…No, that isn’t something to boast about.”

Even at a time like this, Eishirou didn’t seem to be feeling any sense of tension or nervousness. “You know, it’s different if I get a choice, but I hate being made to do jobs I don’t want to do. And this time, that’s what it is.”

“So you’ll let me go, then, won’t you?” Ayato asked.

Eishirou, however, gave him a broad grin. “Let’s say you do get away. Do you even have any idea where to look for her?”

“Ah… Not yet.”

He didn’t want to admit it, but that was the truth.

“You won’t find her just fumbling around blindly. You know who it is that’s chasing her, right?”

“Aren’t they…? No, more importantly, do you have any idea where she is, Yabuki? Anything at all?”

“Hmm, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t,” he replied simply.

“In that case—”

Eishirou, however, raised a hand, urging Ayato to be silent. “No, no, no. It’ll come back to bite me if I tell you that. Far too dangerous.”

“Yabuki, Claudia’s life is in danger here! Please!” Ayato begged him.

“Well, I do owe the prez, and it’s not like I don’t want to repay her… All right, how about this?” he said, clapping his hands together as if coming across some great idea. “Amagiri, let’s have a match.”

“A match…?”

Ayato couldn’t help but wonder what Eishirou was thinking, and yet, judging from the situation, he must have been trying to lead up to this from the beginning.

“If you win, I’ll tell you where she is. And if I lose, it’ll give me a good excuse to give to the brass… And you know, I’ve been looking forward to this opportunity for a while now.”

“We don’t have time for this, Yabuki…!”

“I guess I can’t tell you, then.”

“Ngh…!”

Eishirou continued to watch Ayato with his usual carefree grin. His eyes, however, were serious. It was clear he wasn’t bluffing—and that he wouldn’t be willing to negotiate.

“Haah… Fine. What kind of match?”

It looked like he would have no choice.

“Let’s see… I don’t quite feel like staking my life on it, so how about we do it empty-handed, no weapons? You win if you can take me down.”

“And if you win…?”

“I’m just supposed to keep you tied down, so let’s just say the longer this thing drags on, the better I can fulfill my job.”

Ayato couldn’t help but feel as if he had been tricked into reaching this position, but there was no turning back now.

“As for the place… How about that building over there?” Eishirou glanced around before pointing to an abandoned building nearby—the sort of dilapidated construction that you could find just about anywhere in the redevelopment area. It was four stories high, but parts of walls and ceiling around the top floor looked to have already given way to the elements.

“Fine. Sorry about this, but I’m not going to go easy on you.”

“Good. Just don’t underestimate me,” Eishirou replied, before disappearing back into the fog.

“All right, then…”

With that, Ayato released his seal and approached the abandoned building.

“Huh…? What just happened?”

In the corridor on the top floor of Queenvale Academy for Young Ladies’ Twin Hall, Sylvia tilted her head in confusion as she inspected her mobile.

She had been talking normally until just a few moments ago, but all of a sudden, she seemed to have lost reception. For a second, she wondered whether it had malfunctioned, but the connection had dropped too suddenly for that.

She could try to work out what had gone wrong with it, but she wasn’t particularly good at using machines, and to be honest, she didn’t know a lot about how they worked, either. Nonetheless, she stood there, playing around with it, trying to get it to reconnect, when—

“…Who were you speaking with just now, Sylvia?”

“Ah! Petra!” She spun around, only to see Queenvale’s chairwoman, Petra Kivilehto, walking toward her.

“No, it’s nothing… I guess it’s not going to work,” she murmured to herself, hiding the device behind her back.

She probably wouldn’t be able to talk her way out of this one, though, she thought, and so resigned herself to facing her elder. “I was talking to Ayato. Is there anything wrong with that?”

“Ah… I already told you not to interfere with this, Sylvia. You might be the world’s most popular songstress, but you understand that even that won’t help you if you go up against the wishes of W&W, don’t you? Not even I would be able to protect you then.”

“I—I know…”

“Then take my advice.”

Seeing no other alternative, Sylvia put her mobile back into her pocket.

She wanted to help Ayato as much as possible, but as far as she could see, there wasn’t anything she could do for him right now.

“But still, the wishes of the foundation…?”

“What are you trying to say?” Petra’s expression, half concealed behind her visor-like pair of glasses, visibly stiffened.

“Nothing. I’m just a little disappointed.”

The life of Seidoukan’s student council president was now in danger because of the will of an IEF. Not only that, but just when she had thought the other foundations were ready to step in and bring a stop to it, they had all decided to stand aside and watch them kill her in silence. She couldn’t help but wish ill upon the whole lot.

“They’re as self-serving as you could get, every one of them…” She cursed them all under her breath.

Petra let out a weak sigh. “You’re still young, Sylvia. It isn’t just the integrated enterprise foundations. As soon as people find a way to better benefit themselves, they all become self-serving. It’s only natural. And in this world, that isn’t considered wrong.”

“I don’t know… Not me, at least,” Sylvia murmured, as if trying to convince herself.

She couldn’t help but think that, in the end, every student at Asterisk was no more than a pawn for the integrated enterprise foundations to profit off of.

Even students like herself, who were afforded more liberties than most others, were simply granted a slightly larger cage from which they couldn’t escape.

“…You know, Petra, this has just reminded me that it all boils down to nothing more than a big charade.”

“There’s no use holding on to that sentimentality of yours, Sylvia. You decided for yourself to become an idol.”

“That might be so…but I don’t think it’s that easy. You understand, don’t you, Petra? You were a student here, too.”

Petra remained silent for a long moment, before answering in a somewhat muffled tone: “…I’ve forgotten. It was a long time ago.”

Liar, Sylvia thought.

There was no point, however, debating it any further. It would be unfair for her to take her anger out on the older woman and would only end up making her feel worse.

At the very least, she could pray for the safety of the one who was willing to stand up and fight. “Ayato… Hang in there.”

It was all but impossible to see inside the abandoned building. There was no lighting, of course, and the fog seemed to have seeped within the walls as well.

No sooner had Ayato stepped inside than he noticed something disconcerting.

I can’t sense anything…

The Amagiri Shinmei style’s perception-expanding technique, the mental state known as shiki, seemed to be completely ineffective here. That, too, was probably due to Eishirou’s concealment techniques.

“This isn’t good…”

But there was no use fretting over it, he told himself.

He glanced across the room, trying to make out his surroundings through the dim fog. In front of him, there looked to be an empty corridor. He could make out a flight of stairs in the back, along with a door hanging from its hinges on the far wall, so damaged that it looked as if it might collapse at any moment.

Relying on the weak light peeking in through the window to guide his steps, he began down the debris-strewn corridor, when something came flying out toward him.

“Ha…!”

He managed to snatch it out of the air before it could hit him. It was a long, slender piece of metal—a bou-shuriken.

“…What was that you said about doing this empty-handed, Eishirou?” Ayato called out into the fog, his voice filled with disgust.

“I am empty-handed,” Eishirou called back. “Unfortunately, it looks like someone’s gone and set traps all throughout the building. I’ve got no idea who could’ve done it, but it looks pretty dangerous. You’d better watch out.”

“You really are shameless…,” Ayato murmured, but there was no use complaining. He would just have to be careful.

He could hardly even make out his own feet, but he proceeded through the building step-by-step, paying full attention to his surroundings.

He had made it almost to the middle of the corridor, when all of a sudden, he sensed a sudden rush coming up from behind him.

“Ngh!”

He rolled forward to evade Eishirou’s knife-hand strike, the attack grazing past him.

“Heh, so you dodged it. Looks like you live up to your name, Amagiri. The Phoenix wasn’t all for nothing, eh?” Eishirou gave a relaxed laugh.

“You as well. I couldn’t sense you at all… What’s the trick?”

“Heh, attacking from the shadows is our specialty. If people could see it, that’d leave us in a bit of a bind, don’t you think?” Eishirou said, before once again fading away into the dimly lit fog. “This whole place is completely under the control of my techniques. You can’t even enter your state of shiki, right?”

“I thought you’d done something… You keep saying technique. Are you a Dante, Yabuki?” Ayato called out, hoping to keep the conversation going so he could detect Eishirou’s location.

“I guess you could say that, in a general sense. It’s more like Jie Long’s seisenjutsu, though. But unlike them, only my clan can use these ones.”

“Your clan?”

“My family’s been involved in this business for a long time. They’ve been teaching me practically since I could walk. My dear father’s taken it to heart that those without talent don’t deserve to live, so I guess you can say it would have been against his nature to go easy on me. You wouldn’t guess how many times I ran away from home…”

The voice was coming from Ayato’s right side. Just as he began to turn around to face it, a low spinning kick knocked him off his feet.

The attack had taken him completely by surprise. Even so, he landed on his right hand, twisting his body through the air, and leaping to safety with a backward somersault.

“Heh-heh, you’d better be careful, Amagiri. Making our voices sound like they’re coming from somewhere else is child’s play for us.” This time, the voice came from directly overhead.

“…Thanks for the advice.”

Ayato finally understood.

Eishirou Yabuki was formidable.

He might have already known the location of their duel, and laid down traps, but the skill of his attacks and the way he moved were exceptional, easily comparable to those of a Page One.

Fortunately for Ayato, Eishirou wasn’t trying to escape, but rather, he was proactively trying to land his own strikes.

If what he said was to be believed, his goal was to delay Ayato for as long as possible. In that case, his best option would be to remain hidden and force Ayato to find him.

Unless that isn’t his goal…? No, there’s no time to worry about that.

Ayato steadied his breathing, trying to concentrate on his surroundings.

No matter how Eishirou tried to hide his presence, Ayato could still sense him just before he tried to launch an attack. That being the case, the real question was how fast he was able to respond.

He steadied the beating of his heart, letting his prana course through his body.

And then—

“…You’re mine!”

“!”

Once again, Eishirou rushed forward from behind with a knife-hand strike—Ayato just barely having enough time to leap out of the way. The attack, however, still hit him in the side, but he did his best to endure it.

He spun around, using the momentum to deliver a strike with the back of his fist into Eishirou’s chest.

“Aha!”

Eishirou parried the strike, deflecting it to the side, before immediately lashing out with a powerful sideways kick. Ayato blocked that in turn by crossing his arms together above his head, before pushing Eishirou’s leg out of the way with his right hand and delivering an openhanded strike with his left.

Punch met with punch, kick met with kick, the sounds of the contest echoing throughout the abandoned building.

They seemed to be evenly matched in both offense and defense, almost as if they had long been sparring partners.

Ayato continued to watch patiently for an opening, when, finally, as Eishirou unleashed a wide-ranging kick, he spotted one.

“…Now!”

“Wha—?!”

And yet—

He’s not there?!

The strike should have been perfectly timed, however, it cut through no more than thin air.

Or more precisely, Eishirou’s jacket was still there, but Eishirou himself was nowhere to be seen.

“A substitute…?!”

“Ka-ha, too easy!”

At that moment, a flurry of blows came speeding toward him out of the fog, striking him in his temples, the pit of his stomach, and his thighs in quick succession.

“Guh…!”

He concentrated his prana in an attempt to defend himself, but the attacks had left those vital areas aching. Moreover, Eishirou seemed to have poured his own prana into his attacks, much like Jie Long’s martial artists. That wasn’t a difficult technique in and of itself, but there was no way it could be carried out so smoothly without a high level of training.

But Ayato couldn’t give up. Without so much as pausing, he immediately unleashed a spinning counterattack of his own in the direction that the strikes had been launched.

“Ugh!”

This time, he seemed to have hit something, although judging by the force of the impact, Eishirou appeared to have defended himself against the full force of it.

“Heh… You’re quick on the uptake, huh?” Eishirou’s voice echoed around him. “Looks like I’d better be a bit more careful.”

What could be more careful than this?

He crouched down, bracing himself so he would be able to deal with any possible attack, when he heard an uncanny sound, almost as if something was breaking apart around him.

He glanced at his surroundings, but there didn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary.

No… Wait… That’s not it!

“…Above?!” he inadvertently called out, just as a web of cracks began to run the full length of the ceiling—and then it came crashing down.

Ayato raced through the corridor as debris of every size imaginable came pouring down toward him, only bothering to dodge the largest of pieces. Chunks as large as his fist struck his body, but he was in no frame of mind to worry about that.

When at last he reached the stairway, he thought he was finally out of the line of direct fire. But his heightened senses suddenly detected a trap being activated.

A volley of bou-shuriken shot toward him from three separate directions. The trap was clearly designed to entrap him in the middle, and it would only really be effective if he was to approach from the direction that he had.

Which meant…

He brought down the ceiling just to lure me here…?!

The debris had come down in such a way as to restrict his movements, forcing him into the snare. He couldn’t help but admire the meticulousness and effort that must have been put into it.

There was no way he would be able to dodge the oncoming projectiles, so he had little choice but to concentrate his prana into his arms and stop them from hitting anywhere vital.

“…Ugh!”

The damage wasn’t serious, but it was enough to bring him to a stop.

And at that moment, he sensed a wave of enmity rushing up from behind.

“It’s over, Amagiri.” Eishirou’s voice, seemingly convinced of victory—cold and calm, and without even the slightest hint of inattention—echoed in his ears.

He may well have been right.

That was, if Ayato hadn’t already predicted his next move.

“Wha—?!” Eishirou’s face twisted in dismay.

No sooner had he appeared behind him than Ayato had already begun to launch a counterattack.

He struck Eishirou’s jaw with the palm of his hand, while at the same time driving his elbow into his chest, before following through with three powerful punches into his stomach.

“Amagiri Shinmei Style Grappling Technique—Divine Thunder!”

“Ugh!”

And with that, Eishirou, his eyes wide open, came crumbling forward.

“Are you all right, Yabuki?” Ayato called out.

“Ouch… Looks like I lost.” Eishirou, his voiced filled with pain, somehow managed to turn onto his back to look up at him.

The sense of animosity that Ayato had previously felt from Eishirou had completely vanished, leaving in its place, rather, a refreshed countenance.

“Tell me one thing, though, how did you know what I was going to do?”

“If I had to put it down to anything, it was just a hunch…”

“Just a hunch?”

“Well, with both of your previous attacks, you came from behind, right? So I guessed you’d do the same thing that time, too,” Ayato replied.

“Argh, so that was it… I guess I messed up!” His tone suggested that he was joking, but Ayato could tell he felt truly chagrined.

“That pride will get the better of you… Or is it just an excuse?” Ayato didn’t know whether to be impressed or dismayed. “Anyway, something’s been bothering me for a while now.”

“What?”

“Did you really go all out? It didn’t seem that way to me.”

“What are you talking about? I put everything I had into it,” Eishirou said with a giddy laugh.

The reaction rang hollow in Ayato’s ears, but now wasn’t the time to argue the point.

“So, Yabuki. Where’s Claudia?”

“Ah, right. The prez… She’s in the harbor block,” Eishirou answered, as promised.

“You mean the one surrounding Seidoukan?”

While the harbor block that surrounded Seidoukan Academy belonged to the school, strictly speaking, students weren’t normally permitted to enter it. Its main use was for storage, making it more or less a warehouse area.

“Given who’s going after her, the worst move would be to let her escape into the city. Even Galaxy would have a hard time hushing it up if anything happened out in public. But then, there are no Festa events today, either, so they’d stand out too much if they tried anything on campus. So that leaves the harbor block. It’s the most logical choice.”

“I see…” Now that he knew where to look, he couldn’t afford to delay any longer. “Eishirou, I—”

“Don’t worry about me,” Eishirou interrupted. “You should be more concerned about your own safety, if you’re planning to go after her, that is.” He flashed Ayato a grim smile. “The people after the prez—Galaxy calls them the Night Emit… But they used to be known as the Yabuki clan.”

“The Yabuki…?” Ayato repeated, sucking in his breath.

“Yep. And the guy in charge is my very own father.”

“To think that a former number one like yourself has fallen so far, relegated to working behind the scenes as the Ban’yuu Tenra’s loyal hound… I really do feel sorry for you.”

“YOU’VE GOT A SHARP TONGUE, OLD MAN. I GUESS IT’S ALL A LIE, THAT SAYING THAT FOLK MELLOW WITH AGE.” Alema, unmoved by Bujinsai’s provocative greeting, continued to grin right back at him.

…Hmph. So she didn’t rise to the bait.

She had a lot of nerve—as perhaps should have been expected from someone who had been Jie Long’s strongest student up until the Ban’yuu Tenra had usurped that position.

“Are you sure you want to do this? Your actions are in clear violation of the Stella Carta. If anyone was to find out, even Jie Long won’t come through this unscathed.”

According to the Stella Carta, students were expressly forbidden to enter the grounds of the other schools without prior permission—all the more so when such students belonged to one of the schools’ intelligence organizations.

That said, from a security point of view, it wasn’t actually difficult to do so, as long as one kept away from the central areas of each campus.

Nonetheless, the schools continued to abide by that rule, to avoid the kind of information war that had erupted during Asterisk’s early years, which had ended up having a deleterious effect on the operations of the Festa. As such, it had become convention for them to go so far as to tip one another off when one of their own students violated it.

For an agent from one school to enter the grounds of another, that alone was enough to incur heavy repercussions.

“More to the point, there’s no benefit here to be had by Jie Long, no matter what you do,” Bujinsai added.

“HA! LISTEN TO YOURSELF!” Alema laughed back at him. “WE’RE NOT LIKE THOSE SPINELESS CLOWNS YOU ALL KEEP. AT GAISHI, WE DON’T HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH BENEFITING IEFS OR SCHOOLS. WE’RE JUST THE BAN’YUU TENRA’S HANDS, DOING AS WE’RE INSTRUCTED. SAME GOES FOR YOU GUYS, RIGHT? WE’RE BOTH PROS, HUH?”

“…Hmph, you’re a boastful one, aren’t you?” Bujinsai remarked with a faint smile. “Still, you look more promising than my idiot son.”

“I’M ACTUALLY PRETTY DISAPPOINTED, YA KNOW? YOUR GUYS WERE PRETTY EASY. I WAS HOPING FOR MORE.”

“I see. So it was you who took them out.”

Alema Seiyng was, after all, the former number one at Jie Long Seventh Institute.

And unlike the major PMCs and elite brigades belonging to the foundations, both of which enlisted only the finest graduates and fighters, the Yabuki clan’s members belonged to a lineage with the power to employ only certain special techniques. Based on individual fighting ability alone, it wasn’t surprising that Alema would be able to defeat them.

But even so, they shouldn’t have been that weak as to fall victim so quickly to only one person.

“…Fine. At any rate, I don’t have time to waste sparring with you,” Bujinsai said just as a row of shadows appeared in front of him on the crane.

From the girl’s position, a melee on this kind of footing would be unwise. The Yabuki had an overwhelming advantage.

“WHAT’S THIS? THERE’S STILL THIS MANY LEFT? I THOUGHT YOU YABUKI FOLK WERE SUPPOSED TO BE JUST A FEW ELITES…? HUH?” Alema tilted her head to one side, her expression one of curious astonishment. “THIS AIN’T RIGHT. YOU THERE—AND YOU…YOU TOO—I’M PRETTY SURE I STRANGLED THE LIFE OUT OF YOU JUST A LITTLE WHILE BACK.”

Four Kinoe had surrounded her. They were each dressed identically, and it was impossible to make out their faces. Of course, there were differences in their statures and builds, but for her to be able to recognize them all so quickly was quite a feat.

“My people are unusually sturdy.”

No sooner had Bujinsai finished speaking than the four Kinoe burst into action, attacking simultaneously from all sides, seemingly without paying any attention to their own defense—just as they had when they had captured Eishirou the previous day.

And yet, Alema, through some miracle, managed to deflect them all.

She leaped from the tip of the crane at her right, brushing aside the black-coated blade that came toward her with her right hand, while at the same time twisting her body around and using her left hand to snatch the bou-shuriken that came hurtling toward her from midair. She then moved to trip over the Kinoe that had come charging at her from in front, before repelling a kick that had come from behind, using her left arm as a weapon in and of itself.

Had her timing been off by even a fraction of a second, she wouldn’t have been able to pull it off.

Alema’s smile was one of pure joy. For her, the Kinoe weren’t enemies.

She struck at the one that had attacked from the front with the palm of her hand, sending it flying through the air, while she placed a fingertip on the neck of the one that had attacked from her right, its body going stiff as it flew into the next crane.

She used her momentum from the kick to launch herself through the air and threw the bou-shuriken in her hand back at its caster without so much as a backward glance, scoring an immediate hit. Landing behind the remaining Kinoe, she effortlessly dodged its attacks and launched into one of her own, digging both hands into its abdomen. An intense shock ran through the Kinoe’s body, which then dropped silently off the edge of the crane.

“Hmm, not bad.”

Bujinsai was legitimately impressed by the complex sequence of attack and defense.

Her skills in the martial arts, polished to a frightening degree, were worthy of the highest praise.

“COMPARED TO XINGLOU, YOU GUYS MIGHT AS WELL BE DEAD WEIGHTS.” Alema sneered, her breathing so regular and calm that it was as if nothing had happened. “I’VE HAD ENOUGH OF THESE APPETIZERS. LET’S MOVE ON TO THE MAIN COURSE.” Alema trained her eyes on Bujinsai, pupils glittering with malice.

The man stared back at her calmly, seemingly disinterested, as he scratched his head. “…You’re strong. There’s no doubt about that. But you are unwise to look down on your elders, girl.”

“OH-HO, WHAT ARE YOU GONNA DO ABOUT IT?” Alema smirked, lowering her body to attack.

“Be grateful. I’m going to give you a lesson,” Bujinsai responded, beckoning with his hand.

“Haah… I wonder how Alema’s doing…?” Hufeng murmured as he watched the drizzling rain from a corridor in the Hall of the Yellow Dragon.

“Oh-ho, are you worried about her? How unusual.” Xinglou, walking in front of him, came to a stop. She turned toward him with an innocent smile.

“It’s not her I’m concerned about! It’s the institute! Don’t you understand, Master? If she slips up, and it can be traced back to us… No, I guess that would still be better than the alternative… If things go wrong, and she gets captured by Seidoukan, it’ll turn into a huge problem!”

“Oh my, you’re a worrier, aren’t you? They’re involved in something shady themselves, so even if something was to happen, there’s little chance they would dare to go public with it. And besides—” Xinglou paused there for a brief second, glancing up at the somber sky. “I have confidence in her strength and ability. As far as martial arts go, she’s no less skilled than Xiaohui.”

“That’s… I’m aware of that, but still…” Hufeng bit his lip in frustration.

In other words, Xinglou viewed Alema with higher esteem than he did himself.

Alema had her own style of martial arts, one that incorporated techniques from various schools and that continued to evolve with each passing day. It arose not from a hunger for strength, but a hunger for fighting in and of itself.

It was no mere story that she had challenged every single student within Jie Long and defeated them all. While she didn’t participate in the Festa, even now, Hexa Pantheon still ranked her within the top ten fighters in all of Asterisk. The fansite’s rankings were determined by ability and were greatly influenced by one’s public exposure. As such, the fact that Alema had maintained such a high ranking, despite having been relegated to behind-the-scenes work for some time now, was nothing short of astounding.

“Are you saying that we don’t need to worry about all this?” Hufeng asked.

“That isn’t what I said.”

“Huh?”

“It grieves me to say this, but she’s rather dim-witted. She’ll probably end up challenging the head of the Yabuki to a duel,” Xinglou replied, before continuing down the corridor.

Hufeng, feeling left behind, hurried after her. “W-wait, Master! Are you saying that she has no chance of winning against their leader?”

“I didn’t say that. There’s a chance she might win,” Xinglou answered carefully. “However… The Yabuki clan, just like Fuyuka’s, is composed of a unique bloodline, inherited uninterrupted generation to generation. The one in whom that blood flows strongest is chosen as their leader. And with stronger blood, he naturally has the most affinity with their techniques. I don’t know how strong the current head is, but at the very least, there’s little doubt that Alema won’t fare very well against those techniques.”

“…And you still sent her, despite knowing that?” Hufeng began, before a sudden, intense pressure bore down on him.

“—!”

The pressure, emanating from Xinglou, seemed to swallow him whole, leaving him unable to so much as breathe.

“…Of course. No matter what happens, it will only make her stronger.” Xinglou turned toward him, glaring with eyes that screamed death. “Listen well, Hufeng, and don’t forget. I, the Ban’yuu Tenra, am here to train you students of Jie Long. She might not be one of my disciples, but she is promising. And I am willing to use any means necessary to accomplish my goal.”

“…I understand,” Hufeng gasped in apology. “F-forgive me.”

With that, the pressure immediately abated.

“At any rate, if she is to fight him, it shouldn’t take long,” Xinglou muttered to herself as she turned her gaze once more to the dark, rainy sky. “Who knows? It might already be over.”

The rain continued to grow stronger.

“Dear me, I wonder if this old body can stand up to this autumn rain?” Bujinsai murmured as he wiped a hand across his brow.

Alema grimaced at the acute pain and cold running through her as the raindrops struck her face. Mustering her strength, she managed to pull herself away from the crater-like impression on the wall of the warehouse, spat out a mouthful of bloody vomit, and rose to her feet.

“Oh, so you can still stand? You look much sturdier than us, that’s for sure,” Bujinsai said, as through truly impressed, stroking his chin.

In his right hand, he was holding a staff-shaped Lux. It was an unusually designed weapon, in which the circular upper part was comprised of glowing light, with a metal disk lodged inside. Alema had never seen such a Lux before, and it was hard to say that it looked particularly practical.

And yet, her opponent was using it to defeat her so one-sidedly. She hadn’t been able to get so much as a single attack of her own in.

Damn it, what’s with this old geezer…?!

She steadied her breathing, summoning forth her remaining prana. The pain grew dull as she felt the strength flow through every corner of her body.

I’m all right. I can still fight.

At that moment, a wave of delight gushed up inside her.

Right—that was all that mattered. Whether she won or lost, that came second. She just had to fight—and keep on fighting. Because fighting was what she lived for.

“Are you out of your mind? How can you smile in your situation? What a nuisance.”

But without responding, Alema instantly closed the distance toward Bujinsai.

She repeatedly thrust with her fingers toward his throat—but to no avail. She moved on to striking with her fists, her palms, her elbows, even the sides of her feet in a midair assault, flowing from one to the next without pause, but none reached their target. Her attacks, all of which had looked at first as if they would find their mark, each fell short.

And to make matters worse, for some reason she couldn’t fathom, she found herself unable to evade his attacks, attacks she should have been able to dodge without any particular difficulty.

“Let’s end this.”

And with that, a slash that Alema should have had no problem brushing aside cut into her neck.

She managed to stop it from digging in too deep, but any more, and it would probably have reached an artery.

Nonetheless, taking advantage of that opening, Bujinsai landed a powerful kick into the pit of her stomach and, as Alema fell to her knees, mercilessly kicked her head backward from below.

It was a powerful blow, enough to send her flying until she landed faceup on the ground.

“Even you, Seiten Taisei, cannot fight forever,” Bujinsai said indifferently as he stared down at her.

“…JUST LET ME ASK YOU ONE THING,” Alema asked, still lying motionless on the ground. “WERE THOSE YOUR STEALTH TECHNIQUES?”

To be perfectly honest, Alema didn’t think there was much difference between her and Bujinsai when it came to normal martial arts.

At the very least, she didn’t feel the kind of difference in ability that always led her to despair when she fought against Xinglou. Nonetheless, their duel had been completely one-sided. There had to be some other factor involved.

“Maybe.” Bujinsai’s response was, as she had expected, completely noncommittal. After a moment, however, his lips curled in a slight smile, as if suddenly remembering something. “Well, there’s no way a kid like you, trained by Xinglou Fan as she is now, would be able to see through them.”

“As she is now…?”

“The story of my great-grandfather fighting that undying monster has been passed down for more than a century. She’s the kind who gets stronger with age but was stupid enough to replace her body with that.” Bujinsai sneered down at her. “She doesn’t even have half the strength now that she did then.”

Half?!

The shock of those words was overpowering.

But at the same time, an indescribable sense of elation began to well up inside her.

Still lying on the ground, Alema broke out into a sudden burst of laughter—albeit a silent one.

“Hee-hee… Ah-hahaha! Ah-hahahaha!”

Bujinsai knitted his brows, looking down at her suspiciously. “What is it, girl? Have you finally lost your mind?”

“NO, YOU’VE JUST REMINDED ME HOW HUGE THE WORLD IS! I CAN’T AFFORD TO DIE NOW, NOT LIKE THIS!” she exclaimed, before leaping up and lashing out with a sudden kick.

He dodged the attack without any difficulty, but that was fine.

“Ngh…!”

Just as Bujinsai stepped backward to distance himself from her, Alema ran up the wall of the warehouse to leap atop a nearby crane.

“…Oh, so you’ve still got something in you, have you, now?” he murmured, as if truly impressed.

“MY BAD, BUT I’VE ALREADY KINDA FINISHED WHAT I CAME HERE TO DO, SO I’LL CALL IT QUITS FOR NOW.”

Her instructions, as given by Xinglou, had been to support Seidoukan’s student council president to give her an opportunity to escape. It was hard to really call it an achievement, but she had immobilized the majority of the Yabuki clan’s assassins. One might say that that was enough.

Her most troublesome opponent might still be left standing, but that couldn’t be helped.

“You’ve finished what you came here to do, huh? You’re still wet behind the ears, it seems,” Bujinsai said, before slowly lifting his arm.

What…?! Alema wondered.

With that, the figures of what looked like several Yabuki clan members emerged behind him, as if seeping out of the shadows.

More figures had emerged from the shadows around the crane, surrounding her.

Reinforcements…? No, they’re—

She should have already defeated the vast majority of them. She might not have had the luxury of finishing them off completely, but the wounds she had dealt them hadn’t been so light that they should be able to encircle her now.

Which meant—

“…TCH, SO YOU’VE GOT A HEALER WITH YOU, I TAKE IT?”

Alema’s eyes caught sight of a long-haired figure waiting behind Bujinsai. She was wearing the same kind of outfit as everyone else, but like the clan’s leader, her head was uncovered. It was readily apparent that, as far as raw strength went, the woman was far below the level of all the other members.

The only reason for bringing someone like that on their kind of mission would be for support, and considering the situation, the only sensible conclusion was that she was a healer.

That said, no healer, not even in the best of hospitals, should have had the power to deal with so many people with so many injuries so quickly. There had to be some kind of explanation, some kind of trick…but she couldn’t afford to try to uncover it now.

“…TCH, SO I’VE BEEN HAD. LOOKS LIKE I’VE LOST THIS TIME. BUT REMEMBER THIS, OLD MAN! I’LL BE LOOKING FORWARD TO FIGHTING YOU AGAIN SOMEDAY!” Alema declared, before launching herself from the top of the crane and landing on one of the warehouse buildings below.

“Hmph! I don’t have time for that!”

The shadows surrounding her wasted no time leaping after her in pursuit. Alema, however, was in no state to be able to deal with them all again.

Well, it isn’t like I don’t have my last resort… Alema thought, before raising her hands to her throat. But I can’t afford to use it without Xinglou’s permission.

That said, it would be too easy to simply run away.

And she wouldn’t be able to show her face to Xinglou if she didn’t at least bring back a souvenir.

Alema wondered what she might be able to take with her as she ran across the rooftop, when her mobile began to sound with a message from an unknown sender. It was a custom-made device, capable of receiving messages only from a select number of individuals, so there should have been no need for anyone to try to hide their identity.

She couldn’t help but be suspicious, but she wasted no time in opening the data.

What do we have here…?

The rain buffeting her as she continued to run, she hurried to mentally work out her present location on the map of the harbor block that had accompanied the message.

If what was written there was true, she might be able to bring back a good present after all.

“…Father, shall I assign more people to the pursuit? I’m a little uneasy leaving only four of us to catch her.”

“No, let her go,” Bujinsai replied to his daughter, Eika, as he watched Alema disappear into the rain.

Just as Alema had surmised, Eika was gifted with an extremely rare talent for healing. With the help of certain special medicines, her abilities allowed her to guide even the most severely wounded people back to full health in a matter of minutes. They were only effective, however, on blood relatives.

Bujinsai had brought not only his daughter, but two other healers on their present mission. Each were priceless treasures to the Yabuki clan.

“Our top priority is to carry out the mission. Fighting her took up more time than I expected.”

It was already approaching evening. They could try to wait until the target had used up all of the Pan-Dora’s precognition stock fighting off the Kinoe in waves, but that would take time, and the longer they waited, the greater the risk.

The harbor block might have been largely automated, but it wasn’t completely unmanned, nor would the barriers that they had set up to keep people out hold forever. It was entirely possible that yet another third party might attempt to intervene.

He had ordered Shadowstar to close off the whole area, just in case, but Bujinsai’s trust for the student-run organization didn’t run particularly deep.

At that moment, one of the Kinoe emerged from the shadows of the wall behind him and whispered in his ear.

“—”

“Good grief…” He couldn’t say that he hadn’t been expecting this, but the report nonetheless wasn’t something he had wanted to hear.

“What’s happened?” Eika asked.

“Looks like a stray rat has crept in. Those kids in Shadowstar can’t even do that much properly.” Bujinsai, after sinking deep into thought for a long moment, let out an extended sigh. “There’s no way around it. Keep only as few Kinoe as necessary on the target and have the rest focus on eliminating this rat and fill in for Shadowstar.”

“Fill in for Shadowstar?” Eika repeated.

Bujinsai shrugged. “It sounds like that rat has some friends holding them down. It could blow up in our faces in the odd chance that they were to get in. I’m putting you in charge. Just don’t put yourself in the line of fire.”

“Very well… But what will you do, Father?”

“Hmph. Isn’t it obvious?” Bujinsai snorted, before seemingly melting into the rain. “Finish the job.”

But that was fine.

“Huh…?!”

Ayato had already started running—straight toward the gaping hole that Saya’s overpowered Lux had burned through the wall of containers.

Ayato had understood from the very beginning that that had been her intention.

“D-damn it!” Silas burst out in panic, throwing container after container in Ayato’s direction.

He was too slow. Ayato dodged them all without even having to adjust his speed—before sensing a sudden thirst for blood and bringing himself to a screeching halt.

At that precise moment, an operative jumped out from the shadows of the containers, speeding toward him with dagger drawn.

“No, you don’t!” Kirin broke in.

Having blocked the operative’s dagger with her Senbakiri, she glanced toward Ayato, flashing him a smile.

“In that case, I’ll just have to crush you both!” Silas screamed, throwing a container even larger than the one he had used previously toward the two.

“Burst into bloom—Amaryllis!”

It, too, however, was soon engulfed in a fiery explosion.

“Julis!” Ayato called out, turning around.

“Go, Ayato!” she shouted back. “If Laetitia was right, you’re they key to all this! You need to go find her!” She flashed him a dauntless smile, while at the same time taking on three separate figures with her sword.

“Sorry, everyone! I won’t let you down!” he called back to her, before speeding off again toward the opening in the wall.

But before he could reach it, the containers opened one after the next, unleashing a swarm of dolls that each leaped toward the hole to block his way. “I told you, you’re not going through!” Silas laughed. “What do you think? I’m not the same person you fought last time! I can control more than three times as many dolls as when we last met! That’s right, I can now use more than three hundred of them simul—”

“…You haven’t changed at all, Silas Norman,” Ayato muttered before plunging straight into the throng of dolls. He didn’t even bother glancing toward his opponent.

“Wha…?!”

“Amagiri Shinmei Style, Middle Technique—Thousand Beaks of Dismemberment!”

He swung the Ser Veresta with all his strength, twisting his body to follow through with his momentum to take down every obstacle in his path. The Lux, capable of burning through everything it touched, cut through scores of dolls one after the other, casting them off in every direction as it opened a clear path ahead of him.

No matter how many dolls Silas threw against him, they weren’t enough to hold him back.

It didn’t take him long to reach the opening that Saya had blasted through the wall. No sooner had he reached it than he passed through without so much as a backward glance.

“H-hold up, Ayato Amagiri! We’re not done here…!”

Ignoring the whining echoes behind him, Ayato raced through the rain-soaked harbor block.

She couldn’t afford to let down her guard, not even for an instant.

If she did, no matter how briefly, the old man in front of her—Bujinsai Yabuki—would cut her down in a single stroke.

“Ugh…!” Claudia used the sword in her left hand to deflect Bujinsai’s staff, which he had swung toward her legs in an attempt to knock her over, while at the same time thrusting forward with the one in her right hand to constrain his movements. Her opponent, however, had already jumped backward, sending several tobi-kunai throwing blades tearing through the rain toward her.

Claudia, having already used her precognition, knew which way to dodge, but she couldn’t stop one from grazing past her cheek.

“Haah… Haah…!”

Her breathing was ragged, her face twisted in pain from the many wounds seemingly burning into every part of her body.

The only reason she hadn’t already suffered a fatal injury was because of the Pan-Dora’s precognition. Its stock, however, was being whittled away second by second by the opponent before her.

I guess I should have expected this from the head of the Yabuki… I knew he was strong, but not to this extent…

The name Bujinsai Yabuki was one that was handed down by tradition, given only to those who had reached a certain level of skill and ability within the clan. As such, there were times when the position went unoccupied.

Claudia had heard, however, that the current Bujinsai had occupied the position for close to forty years now. That being the case, it wasn’t difficult to imagine just how skilled he was.

But I still can’t let him beat me so easily…!

After all, she had already come this far.

Her dream, which she had been holding on to for so long, was now finally within reach. She wasn’t about to let him snatch it away from her.

She mustered her strength, readying the twin swords of the Pan-Dora.

“Hmm… Not bad, young lady. Who could have imagined that you’d make it this far? Even without your Orga Lux, it’s quite a feat,” he said, staring at her as he stroked his chin.

He wasn’t holding himself in a combat stance, but standing, as always, with a normal posture—one that revealed not a single opening.

“But what’s the point of struggling? You must understand that the end is settled, no matter how much time you manage to buy yourself. Or is it that even a person of your talents can’t bring yourself to give up on life?”

Claudia couldn’t help but chuckle at the man’s way of speaking. “I truly am honored to receive such praise from a person of your caliber, Bujinsai… But unfortunately, I think that you’ve misunderstood.”

“Oh?”

“You wouldn’t understand just how much my heart is racing right now. No, there isn’t anyone who would understand. Ah, how long I’ve been waiting for this, how very long…! Not even I could have thought it would be like this…!” Claudia smiled at Bujinsai with all her heart.

“…Good grief.” Bujinsai scratched his head. “First that girl from Jie Long, now you. You’re all out of your minds in this town.”

“Oh dear, are you talking about your son as well?”

“Ugh, you know where to hit hard…” The man smiled back in response, his left hand moving suddenly.

Another one…!

Claudia spun around to dodge the tobi-kunai, lifting her blade to meet her opponent, who had already closed the distance between them.

Bujinsai parried it effortlessly with his staff, jumping within feet of Claudia and then lashing out with the palm of his hand.

“You’re only focusing on defense, young lady!”

“Indeed. My attacks wouldn’t work against you anyway…,” Claudia answered, leaping backward through the air.

Bujinsai’s martial art skills far exceeded her own, putting her at an overwhelming disadvantage.

“Now, now, young lady. Your swordsmanship is clean and sharp. There’s no need to be so modest. How will you know if you don’t try?”

“I know.”

Bujinsai’s staff crashed again and again with Claudia’s Pan-Dora, sending sparks of mana scattering in the rain.

“Someone like me wouldn’t be able to break past the Yabuki clan’s secret Void Tide technique, would I?”

“—!” With his staff locked to her swords, Bujinsai’s narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “…Where did you hear that?”

“And I’ve heard that the barriers you use are another application of this Void Tide,” Claudia continued without addressing his question. “You use your mana to manipulate people’s subconscious actions through combinations of colors and patterns that they have an instinctive reaction toward. It isn’t quite mind control, but it comes close.”

“…”

All in all, it meant that even if Claudia was going to try to attack him, on a subconscious level, her body wouldn’t allow her strikes to reach their target.

The same thing went for defense. If she didn’t correct herself after using the Pan-Dora’s precognition, she would risk being lured right into the line of fire.

“I can’t judge your timing very well, seeing as it starts working immediately and consumes hardly any mana… But that makes sense. As a technique, it dates back to a time when mana was extremely scarce in the world. It’s so weak I can barely sense it at all.”

The effect was just as imperceptible, too.

Genestellas’ heightened levels of mana gave them above-average resistance to mind control techniques, so there was no way that such a small amount would be able to influence them.

This technique, however, played on people’s most primal instincts, meaning that that natural resistance had no effect whatsoever.

“But I suppose if all you’re going to do is strangle your targets in the dark, you don’t exactly need to be able to breathe fire or conjure up demons. I see the logic behind it.”

“…Whew…” When she had finished speaking, Bujinsai let out a long, deep sigh.

Claudia felt a chill run down her spine.

That’s…! I was trying to buy time, but it looks like I’ve said too much…

It seemed that she had opened a can of worms.

She tried to move away from her opponent, but for some reason, her body had turned stiff, refusing to move.

Almost immediately, Bujinsai’s staff slammed deep into her stomach, leaving her voiceless and throwing her to the ground.

As she rolled across the rain-soaked floor like a ball, Bujinsai cast a flurry of tobi-kunai in her direction.

“Ugh…!”

Claudia twisted her body, trying to shake free of the small blades that had pierced her hands and feet, but her movements were cut short when Bujinsai threw yet another volley into her shoulders and thighs.

“Aaaaagh!” she screamed in agony.

The attack might have looked effortless, but his aim was unerring. Claudia could do nothing but writhe on the ground in pain.

“I think I understand why my masters ordered me to take care of you. Your knowledge runs too deep, as if you’re peering into our brains.” Bujinsai spoke quietly, but his voice was filled with a clear sense of unease.

“Heh, heh-heh… You give me too much credit… I’m no god… Ugh!” She forced herself to keep talking, to buy just a little more time.

Bujinsai’s expression, however, remained unchanging.

No… At this rate…

She could feel a sense of panic building up inside her.

Not yet.

She needed just a little more time.

“It’s over. Your precognition means nothing if you can’t move. Now, time to die.”

A wave of tobi-kunai came hurtling toward her forehead, her throat, and her heart.

It was just like he said. If there was no future in which she could dodge his attacks, her precognition was meaningless.

And yet—

“Ah…! I’ve been waiting for you…”

Claudia’s jubilant smile was covered in mud and blood.

A moment later, she was engulfed in a black whirlwind as the silhouette of a figure wielding a giant sword came soaring to her aid.

He was, in short, throwing his whole body on top of him, so it wouldn’t matter too much if Bujinsai managed to interfere with his movements.

“Ngh…!”

If Bujinsai was as knowledgeable about the Amagiri Shinmei style as he appeared, he would probably know how to free himself from his situation, so Ayato immediately moved into his next attack, concentrating his prana into his fist and slamming it down into the soldier’s chest.

“Amagiri Shinmei Style Grappling Technique—Divine Hammer!”

“Koff…!”

Ayato had put so much strength into the strike that the air around him trembled, the shock coursing straight through Bujinsai’s body and shattering the ground into a small crater beneath him.

It was a more advanced version of the technique that he had used against Eishirou, made more powerful by his having poured his prana into the attack.

This should do it…

“—!”

But as soon as Ayato, thinking he had snatched victory, relaxed his guard, Bujinsai’s eyes suddenly snapped open.

Ayato’s body immediately turned stiff, leaving him unable to so much as lift a finger.

A binding technique…?!

Left completely defenseless, Bujinsai drove the palm of his hand into Ayato’s stomach.

“Ngh!”

The attack sent him flying through the air, crashing into the ground before he could have any chance to prepare for the impact.

“Serves you right, you damn kid…!” Bujinsai spat out a ball of blood before wiping at his mouth with his fist.

“Now you’ve gone and done it. I wasn’t going easy on you or letting down my guard, but I suppose some part of me wanted to see what you could pull off. I guess I’ll have to be more careful.” The man’s words, finally shedding their false dispassion, rang with indignation.

“Argh…” Ayato forced himself to move, albeit only slightly, but most of his body remained frozen in place. The best he could do was force himself to his feet, though unsteadily.

“It’s over for you. The immobilization effect hasn’t worn off yet. I’m impressed that you can do this much, but now…,” Bujinsai trailed off, balancing his staff against the ground, and effortlessly cast eight separate tobi-kunai toward him.

“—!”

Ayato was in no condition to dodge them. Barely managing to raise his hands to protect his face, he poured his prana into his body in an attempt to withstand the blows.

If he couldn’t free himself from this binding technique, he was finished.

Continuing to let his prana flow through his body, he glanced between his clenched fingers covering his eyes and caught his breath at the sight of his opponent.

“…I wonder how much you can endure?” Bujinsai murmured, another round of tobi-kunai already clenched between his fingers.

He can’t mean to do it like this…?!

The man intended to engulf him in a storm of steel.

Each and every one of Bujinsai’s endless shower of blades found their targets, tearing into Ayato’s flesh, rasping against his bones.

Ayato gritted his teach, trying to weather the pain, but he could feel his prana decreasing at a frightening pace.

“Haah… Haah…!”

But there was nothing he could do. He couldn’t even get his body to move as he wanted it.

When finally it came to an end, dozens, perhaps even hundreds of the small throwing blades had struck Ayato’s body.

The blades seemed to be composed of some mysterious substance, as they quickly began to soften away in the rain, melting into a puddle of a strange black liquid building up at his feet.

Ayato fell to his knees, letting the strange liquid splash all over him.

His prana had reached its limit. His whole body was covered in wounds.

“…I guess it’s time.” Bujinsai, staring down at him, raised his staff to deliver the final blow.

Bujinsai approached slowly, without revealing even the slightest opening.

This… This is bad…

Ayato’s vision was growing blurred, and though he strove to muster what remained of his strength, he couldn’t bring his body to move.

And then—

“Ayato! Get ahold of yourself! You’ve got more in you than this!”

—Claudia’s voice, strong and clear, came rushing toward him.

Her words were filled with confidence. She wasn’t merely trying to console or encourage him.

And with that, before he knew it, he had brought himself to his feet amid the darkness.

Or more precisely, he was overlooking himself from above, watching another version of him lift himself up.

This is…

Though at a loss, he immediately understood. He had experienced this before.

He was looking at an image—an image of the chains that bound him.

Like last time, there were three locks attached to the chains. The first lay shattered, the second unlocked. And the third…remained clasped shut.

He slowly unfolded his clenched hand, revealing a glimmering key.

He understood it immediately. The key was still incomplete. It needed more.

Even so, he didn’t hesitate to insert it into the third lock. Even if it was incomplete, even if it wasn’t enough, even if, like when he first broke the first lock, it only lasted for a short length of time, if he could just break free now…

“Now then, let’s finish this.” Bujinsai raised his staff toward the stormy sky as he prepared to bring it down upon Ayato’s exposed neck.

It had taken longer than he had intended, but now he would finally be able to clear away this final obstacle. All that would be left would be to take care of the target, and his work here would be complete.

Or at least, that was how it should have happened.

“—?!”

And yet, the strike, which should have sheared its target’s head clean from his shoulders, cut through nothing but air. Ayato, who had been kneeling weakly on the ground, had completely disappeared.

Taken aback, Bujinsai spun around—only to see the boy standing calmly a few yards away.

“When did you…?! No, more importantly…” Bujinsai inadvertently took a step backward, staring at Ayato, who continued to stand motionless in the rain. His face was unreadable, tilted toward the ground, while a powerful force emanated from his body.

His prana had been on the verge of depletion, his body covered in injuries and bleeding profusely, and now he was unarmed as well.

And yet—

I’ve got a bad feeling about this…

A cold sweat began to run down Bujinsai’s back.

He wanted neither to admit it nor to believe it, but his instincts told him he was in danger.

I’m not going to let some kid get the better of me!

Trying to shake off his uneasiness, he cast four tobi-kunai toward Ayato to distract him while shortening the distance between them.

The binding technique was another application of the Yabuki clan’s secret Void Tide ability, intended to put the subject into a state of extreme tension so they found themselves unable to control their body. Its biggest weakness was that the user had to be looking into the subject’s eyes at close range. Bujinsai couldn’t work out why it had stopped working, but if he could just activate it once more, he would be able to finish everything once and for all.

“…”

Ayato, in total silence, moved his body slightly to dodge each of the airborne blades one by one.

Bujinsai, of course, had taken such a possibility into account.

The tobi-kunai had been no more than a distraction—and one that had given him the opening he needed to get close enough to—

“Gah…?!”

Before he could properly react, however, Ayato’s clenched fist slammed into his chin.

I-impossible…! How can he be this fast…?!

He hadn’t even had a chance to use the Void Tide technique.

There was no obvious reason for his opponent’s change. But despite that, his level of skill had undergone an unfathomable transformation.

What the hell just happened…?!

In his confusion, Bujinsai quickly leaped back to safety.

Only then did he realize what he had done—

He had lost sight of the boy.

And at that very instant, his long-cultivated intuition warned him of a fast-approaching source of danger coming from directly behind him.

That’s… That’s our technique…!

“Rending the five vital organs and crushing the four limbs—”

Bujinsai spun around, but the voice continued to echo in his ears.

“Amagiri Shinmei Style Grappling Technique—Nine-Fanged Hammer!”

At that instant, a tempest of nine consecutive strikes slammed into him, breaking both his arms, crushing his legs, and gouging into his liver, heart, spleen, lungs, and kidneys—the final blow delivered with unimaginable force.

“Gargh?!”

His body went flying into the base of a large crane, the shock strong enough to practically impale him on the machinery.

“Ugh… I-impossible! How could this…?”

His broken voice filled with resentment, he could do nothing but watch as Ayato slowly stepped toward him.

It was a strange feeling.

He didn’t feel as if there was any new power welling up inside him, but rather like he had returned to how his body was supposed to be.

He had merely followed his instincts, and just like that, he had overpowered his opponent.

“…But it’s not over yet,” he murmured.

Even having been subject to the Nine-Fanged Hammer, Bujinsai didn’t appear to have lost his will to fight. He probably wouldn’t be able to stop him unless he knocked him unconscious, Ayato thought.

He stepped forward, preparing to deal the final blow—when he suddenly fell to his knees, letting out a terrible scream as an overwhelming pain began to take hold.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!”

His time was up.

Magic rings appeared around him, spewing out fresh chains that wrapped about his body.

“N-no! Not yet…!” Ayato let out a mute curse. But his sister’s ability was too powerful. There was no way he could resist it.

Bujinsai began to smile, an expression of relief and dead assurance.

He cast a fresh tobi-kunai toward him.

In his current state, Ayato could do nothing to dodge it, nothing but watch as the black blade approached, as if in slow-motion. He had fought to the bitter end, but his efforts, it seemed, had come to nothing.

But just before it could reach him—

“Ayato!” Claudia leaped in front of him.

“Claudia!” he cried back, but he was too late.

Fresh blood flowered amid the cold, dark rain.

“U-um… Ayato?”

“Huh? Wh-what is it…?”

“Earlier, I think… I confessed my feelings to you, didn’t I…?”

“Y-yeah…” He nodded.

“M-my thoughts were all over the place… T-try to put it out of your mind…”

“Huh?”

“I… I’d like to do it properly, next time… One day…,” Claudia said, burying her face in her pillow.

“Ah… All right.” Those were the only words that came to his lips.

“…”

“…”

They both descended into silence. After a while—Ayato didn’t know how long—there came a knock at the door.

“Ayato, Claudia. Can we come in?” Julis said, her face projected on an air-window by the door.

Saya and Kirin were standing behind her.

Ayato turned to Claudia. “You’ll have to explain everything to them now, too. And then, after that… Make sure you’re ready for it, because we’ll all give you a scolding together.”

“Yes, I know. But still…” Claudia looked uneasy, but Ayato smiled back at her in reassurance.

“You’ll be fine. They’ll probably say the same kind of thing I did. In fact, I’m willing to bet on it,” he responded.

Finally, Claudia nodded. She seemed to be wearing her usual smile—but no, there was something slightly different about it. “All right,” she answered.

“Phew…” Claudia, finally left to herself in the moonlit hospital room, let out a deep sigh.

In the end, Julis and the others had given her a sound telling-off for upward of an hour.

Saya, in her usual simple and cool fashion; Kirin tenderly—and to Claudia’s surprise, with tears in her eyes. They took her to task for her selfishness and betrayal, but they were also relieved and overjoyed that she had survived. Even Julis, whose fury at hearing the truth had blazed like a wildfire, couldn’t keep a tinge of sympathy from coming through in her voice.

“…I don’t think I’ve ever been so thoroughly scolded before,” Claudia said to herself.

Even so, she was grateful to them. They had all accepted what she had said, accepted her.

“What should I do from here…?” she murmured, echoing what Ayato had said a short while earlier.

The future stretching out in front of her was a terrifyingly blank swath of canvas.

How ironic, she thought, for someone with the power of precognition.

“Well, at any rate, I’ll have to set things straight on that front first,” Claudia murmured, pulling out her mobile from beside her pillow.

How many years had it been since she had called her by her own volition?

After a short moment, the face of her mother—Isabella—appeared in an air-window.

“To think that I would receive a phone call from you. I suppose miracles do happen,” her mother said with her usual perfect smile and gentle voice. “I’ll hear you out.”

“First, I would like to thank you.”

“…For what?” Isabella tilted her head to one side.

“I think that I’ve been able to grow a little, thanks to today.”

Her mother, perhaps believing that she was being sarcastic, narrowed her eyes. “…You might have pulled through this time, but there won’t be any second chances.”

“Yes, I understand that. Which is why…I surrender.”

“…Surrender?” she repeated suspiciously.

“This isn’t a trap, and I’m not trying to trick you. I’m saying that I admit that I’ve lost.”

“You can’t possibly be saying that you’re valuing your life now, after it’s come to this?”

“That’s exactly it… I do value my life. I’m just as surprised as you are.”

“…”

Claudia could feel the intensity of her mother’s gaze through the air-window as she tried to sound her out.

There was little wonder for her to act that way. It was only natural for her to be suspicious, given that the person she was dealing with, usually so obstinate, had raised the white flag so suddenly. Especially so, given that that person had practically already won from a tactical standpoint, albeit not a strategic one.

“Even if I did believe you, do you really think that Galaxy will agree to lay down their arms? It won’t end here, not now that it’s come to this. You’re the one who created this situation, after all.”

“Yes, I understand that, too. Our negotiations can start now,” Claudia said, turning back to her mobile.

“The time for negotiations has long since passed…,” Isabella began, before falling silent.

“I’ve just sent you some data. Please, take a look.”

“This…” Isabella’s eyes opened wide in astonishment.

“Did you think that the knowledge I gleaned from the cost demanded by the Pan-Dora related only to the Varda-Vaos? What I’ve sent you is confidential, of course, information relating to Queenvale and Le Wolfe. Please, think of it as a present.”

“…A present?” Isabella’s eyes glowed. She was clearly already running through how the information might be used.

That was just to be expected. A top executive at an integrated enterprise foundation wouldn’t turn a blind eye to something that might strengthen their organization’s ability to turn a profit.

“From now on, I’ll provide all information like this to Galaxy. What do you think? Is that a good enough position to consider opening negotiations?”

“…Very well,” Isabella said after pondering it for a long moment. “I’ll look into this. Until then, you won’t need to worry about your safety.”

“Thank you. And, Mother…?”

“…Yes?”

“I know this is sudden, but do you mind if I ask why you joined Galaxy?”

Given that her father, Nicholas, belonged to the Enfield family, which had been heavily involved in the Reconstruction in Europe after the Invertia, it made sense that he would work for the foundation. Her mother, however, was the kind of person one could find in any large city and had no obvious connection to the group.

“Why do you want to know?” Isabella seemed to be taken aback by her daughter’s sudden question.

“I just thought it might be interesting, if I was to join Galaxy one day…and take your place,” Claudia said with a grin.

It was just an idle fancy. Being a Genestella, it would be all but impossible for her to rise to the same executive rank as her mother, and she wouldn’t consider for a second, not even as a joke, being subject to any sort of mental adjustment program.

However, putting all that aside, it would be interesting, she thought, if that option was available to her.

“Hee-hee, hee-hee-hee-hee! How delightful! But what on earth has come over you, Claudia?” Isabella said, laughing and breaking out into a naturally happy smile, the likes of which Claudia couldn’t remember ever having seen before. “Very well. If one day you and I can stand shoulder to shoulder…I’ll tell you,” she finished, and with that, the air-window turned black.

After a short moment, Claudia collapsed onto the bed, beaming up at the ceiling. “I see. So she thinks that there is a possibility…,” she murmured, before letting her eyes drift shut in contentment.

The feeling that had taken hold of her wasn’t unpleasant.

“…Ah, yes,” she murmured, opening her eyes. There was someone else she had to thank, and complain to, she remembered, reaching again for her mobile.

“Hello, Laetitia. I don’t suppose I could have a moment of your time?”