novelThe Faceless God (3)
| ← Ch.054 | Ch.056 → |
Beatrix and Damian were able to be shut out skillfully.
The remaining problem was the Einherjar called Eleonora.
"Soaring wings, glaring eyes, invading word-destroying conflagration―manifest the authority of the god right here, as the agent of the civilization charge ahead deeper and deeper! Deep Invasion ArmamentDeep Striker!!"
Lotte invoked Prometheus' level 5 magic.
The armament this magic summoned covered Lotte's shoulders until her back completely, a multi-purpose large-type thruster system. It was installed with an arms container and enemy searching unit.
The thruster unit spewed out flame, Lotte soared into the high-altitude sky forcefully.
Search-and-Destroy mission―the special role she received from Kazuki that was neither vanguard or rearguard, Lotte thought of it proudly.
Lotte equipped the enemy searching unit on her head. Across the goggles, the magic power swirling in the battlefield was visualized and displayed.
Her role was to sense the enemy who attempted to chant high level magic like Mjollnir and run interference.
Using the enemy searching unit she observed the magic power, the state of the enemy from the sky, and choose the person that was kneading huge amount of magic power to attack. That was what Kazuki requested from her, [Search-and Destroy Mission].
Lotte was glaring at the battlefield from the sky.
Beatrix was in the state where she couldn't produce large magic power thanks to Kanae and Mio's great efforts.
Damian brought forth a huge magic power, but Hoshikaze-senpai also produced magic power equal with her opponent, it was an even battle. The target was not these two.
Lotte directed her caution to the remaining sole Einherjar, Eleonora.
―On the surface Koyuki was confronting Eleonora.
"We are?gir's, lend me the fear of the unknown bottom of the ocean! The raging waves toying with the small people, to me... The Sea That Reflects the Light of the SkyHimingl?va!"
"O water's surface that sways from my singing voice, manipulate the small wave and gather them into a large tsunami! Coming from beyond and washed away to the unknown...Tidal Wave!"
The Diva that Eleonora was a believer of was the sea god of Norse Mythology, ?gir.
Koyuki too simultaneously drew out the power of the sea.
Eleonora and Koyuki both summoned enormous sea waters. Both of them controlled the sea waters and crashed tsunami against each other. Tsunami and tsunami were colliding and smashed against each other violently.
At the same time with that Koyuki was chanting her spell.
"Glacier Wind!"
"Tenkuu Battou Rengehou!!"
Not only Koyuki, matching her, Kazuha was also raining down countless Sacred Treasures.
"Highly Surging WaveHefring!"
When Eleonora gave that command, the sea water Eleonora summoned was manipulated according to her will, becoming a gigantic wall. It obstructed Koyuki's chilly wind, freezing the surface of the ocean water but it didn't reach Eleonora.
The Sacred Treasures that Kazuha summoned were caught up in the sea water too and their momentum was killed.
"Striking WaveUnnr!"
When Eleonora commanded it, the lump of sea water was torn to pieces and turned into water bullets flying at Koyuki.
"O rejection of absolute zero, protect my body and become the armor of isolation! Water Chamber BarrierFreeze Barrier!"
Koyuki immediately froze all the bullets using defensive magic, making them ineffective.
"...Unnr!"
Eleonora's offense was not stopping at just that. The water bullets were coming consecutively.
At that moment Koyuki couldn't make it in time with her defensive magic. Just then, the phantoms of the swordsmen that Kazuha summoned covered Koyuki and were exterminated....She was helped by her comrade!
It was impossible for Koyuki to not recognize the excellent skill the opponent had in manipulating the sea.
However, Kazuki said to her to not fight solo. There was no need to harbor any sense of defeat. It was fine to cooperate with this senpai from the Sword Division called Kazuha to defeat this enemy.
While Eleonora was protected by a body of sea water that used for offense and defense, she began to chant a high level spell.
"When the opponent's sea get hit it scatters, we're going to shave it all! Let's speed up our attack!"
Koyuki lined her shoulders with Kazuha and called out.
"I know even if you don't say it!"
Kazuha too was creating Sacred Treasures one after another and rained them down. However even with the two of them together they couldn't break Eleonora's wall of sea. If it kept like this then she would finish chanting the high level magic first.
―The flying Lotte decided her target of attack at that moment.
"Blitzkrieg!"
Using Prometheus' level 4 magic, Lotte equipped a lance on her left hand.
To further support the impact of the charge, the thruster system's weapon container was opening, a machine arm was fixed on Lotte's left arm.
With the lance positioned firmly, the thruster unit spouted up fire with its energy in full throttle. Lotte swooped down while her body was receiving that fierce acceleration. Exceeding mach speed, Lotte's defensive magic power was removing the air resistance. Not even noticing such a trivial thing, she changed into an enormous meteorite.
"Prometheus...Blitzkrieg tacticsBlitzkrieg!"
Eleonora noticed it and looked up to the sky. And then when the approaching enormous weapon entered her eyes, she became lost for words.
Aiming for a part of the sea wall that Koyuki and Kazuha's magic whittled off and became thinner, Lotte's spear pierced through. While the heat of the electricity evaporated the sea, the super accelerated enormous mass smashed down the barrier of sea water in one attack. Even after piercing through everything, Lotte's charge didn't lose its momentum. The violent lance charge blew away Eleonora to the wreckage of the school building a few dozen meters away.
"Mission complete desu!"
Eleonora was crashing into the rubble, when she sensed that the spell Eleonora chanted was breaking, the shortstop Lotte left behind a happy voice and withdrew back to the sky.
"Kaguya-senpai, please return to your senses!"
"Senses? I'm fine though."
Toward Kazuki's shouts, a flat voice like a doll's replied.
...It's no good. Headmaster Otonashi was also like this but, the human's mind that Nyarlatoteph made abnormal with his magic didn't have any symptoms of self-awareness at all.
The Kaguya-senpai that he dearly missed was so coldhearted, like she was a completely different person.
Kazuki made up his mind to fight, preparing his katana he ran ahead.
Right now in this situation it was fine even if he ignored Nyarlatoteph. In front of Germany's Einherjar, the guy was supposed to be unable to reveal his true colors.
Those Einherjar were pinned down by his comrades.
No one was obstructing him, he could confront Kaguya-senpai alone.
"O shapeless mute shadow, become a fish swimming in the darkness filled with obstructive thoughts. Origin of nightmares, materialism vicissitudes, respond to terror and hope and eat...Deep Specter!"
Kaguya-senpai summoned a Deep Specter.
The shadow under Kazuki's feet shined with the violet color of magical power and turned three dimensional like it was swelling up. It was a shadow monster possessing a big mouth like a shark's, it opened its mouth and came to bite Kazuki.
However the shadow monster was, so to speak, just a lump of magical power. Kazuki was able to Foresight its movements.
Slipping through the attack of the shadow monster, he drew near Kaguya-senpai!
"Not hesitating even though cursing thee also hurt me...shared pain is my joy! Cry and scream toward the mirror projection! Suicide Black!"
Kaguya-senpai was covered with a dark haze. If this haze was faced with an attack, that attack's [pain] would be reflected entirely to the attacker as if that attack reached the body.
Kazuki unhesitatingly drew out his Iai.
'ZUBAA' The slash scraped off Kaguya-senpai's magic power. [Suicide Black] didn't have any substantial protection effect. However to Kazuki who swung his sword down, the illusion of pain was sent back to him.
Kazuki was hallucinating the pain of his own Iai draw cutting his belly diagonally up to his chest.
An intense pain of steel blade digging into his internal organs. It felt completely like his insides were scorched.
Kazuki immediately shut out his sense of pain using the Trance that he learned from Lotte. The sharp pain was dulled like it was wrapped by a silk floss, decreasing to the degree he could endure it.
There's no way I'll lose to this kind of pain...!
Kazuki paid no concern to the pain and let loose a second slash. A diagonal slash starting from Kaguya-senpai's shoulder scraped off her magic power. Kazuki received even more hallucinations of pain but the pain was abating and he endured. Endure!
"O God of Death's whispering voice that awaited the visitor for a long time, resound deeply and widely, dye the dream with agony! Resound o evil voice of sadism! Ultra Violence!!"
With fast chanting, Kaguya-senpai was singing the magic for doubling the sensation of pain.
This was the devilish combination that Kaguya-senpai and Asmodeus took pride in.
"UOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!"
Kazuki screamed in a loud voice. Endure it. He was able to keep his sanity thanks to Lotte.
In the previous fight the tremendous pain was doubled. But this time what was doubled was only the reduced pain in the degree that he could endure. Just barely, it was really just barely that he could endure it.
"O desire lurking in the sea of the heart, passing through the sinful flesh this hand reaches out to that hand! O avatar of violation, entangle according to my desire! Desire Tentacle!"
From the shadow under Kazuki's feet, this time tentacles were created and reaching out. Capturing the opponent who was in agony then after sealing his movement she would chant high level magic. That was Kaguya-senpai's basic tactic.
But the me right now can still endure the pain! Possessing a will of steel, Kazuki Foresighted the timing of the tentacles creation, dodged, and then he cut away the tentacles.
At that moment the Deep Specter came to assault him. While enduring the intense pain, Kazuki must also deal with the monster of shadow. This guy's attack was...a physical attack!
"Seusenhofer!"
Kazuki blocked the bite of the monster with heavy armor. Most of the armor was broken apart with one attack, but Kazuki was mostly unharmed.
"Barrett!"
The flame bullet dug into the monster, the monster was destroyed with the addition of multiple layers of slashes.
Using that opportunity, Kaguya-senpai was chanting her spell.
Judging from the scale of the magic power―a large-scale attack magic. A magic of Asmodeus that he had never seen until now. Probably it was around the border of level 4 or 5. Its attribute was...freezing!
Even if he attacked with his sword right now, he wouldn't make it in time to obstruct Kaguya-senpai's spell chanting!
Then he would weather it using defensive magic! ...Using defensive magic that had good affinity against freezing attribute!
"Blooming flower of blood tearing apart the skin, eternally echoing scream...sinking the betrayer, awaken the hell right here! Grand Lotus Freezing HellCocytus!"
"Freeze Barrier!"
The space that surrounded Kazuki and Kaguya-senpai was wrapped in a pure white cold wave. If this cold wave touched human skin, the skin would immediately get torn apart from the cold, making red flowers blooming in profusion inside this white space.
However Kazuki's whole body was enveloped by the mermaid's divine protection toward cold attribute.
As expected it couldn't protect from Kaguya-senpai's attack magic completely, the Freeze Barrier was soon smashed up, but Kazuki managed to reduce the damage from cold drastically.
"...Even though this wide-scale magic with no place to escape was my only counter-measure against Otouto-kun and Kana-chan."
The Hayashizaki-style was able to Foresight all uncomplicated offensive magic and dodged them. However large-scale offense magic that you couldn't evade even if you try was the Hayashizaki-style's natural enemy.
However the current Kazuki was not just a swordsman. He was a magic swordsman.
"Not only sword but also Foresighting magic, then choosing defensive magic with superior attributes to use. I see, so this is a magic swordsman, Hayashizaki Kazuki's new possibility..."
Kaguya-senpai whispered admiringly. This was something that could only exist solely due to the presence of the Hayashizaki-style's Foresight and King of Solomon's 72 Pillars Omni-magicBasilleus Goetia.
"Senpai's offensive magic was prevented completely!"
Kazuki proclaimed such while slashing with his katana. However Kazuki too, since the opponent's body was covered with Suicide Black, he couldn't use a powerful offensive magic.
Using a katana he could only whittle away Kaguya-senpai's magic little by little.
And then Kaguya-senpai kept chanting her spell in defiance of some of the impact of the smashed magic.
"Five stars shining in the interstice of life and death, around pillaged by the whim of the god of death, become the clay doll of unspeakable misery! ...Neighboring Death Extreme RingNear-death Roulette!!"
Summoning the human's five-senses stealing sycthe, Kaguya-senpai aimed for the timing of simultaneous striking when she swung the sycthe. Kazuki dodged with paper-thin difference, so that only his own katana can manage to hit senpai.
While enduring the hallucination of agony, dodging the sycthe that he absolutely mustn't get hit with was an extremely difficult work. His mental strength was grinded down steadily.
"Deep Specter!"
Even during those exchanges Kaguya-senpai summoned the Deep Specter again. Not only the scythe, Kazuki must also escape from the assault of this shadow monster.
"My wicked thought is filled with curses, I beseech for thy agony... I have no shame of my wicked thought! Feel Pain!"
A bullet of curses flew at Kazuki!
This bullet too, if he couldn't avoid it then the illusionary pain would be doubled by Ultra Violence!
While enduring the illusionary pain, dodge...dodge...dodge! Everything was dodged with a paper-thin gap.
He never fought a Magica Stigma as strong as Kaguya-senpai in a one-on-one fight like this. Even the attack of the scythe, the assault of the monster, if he got hit by even one it would have become a fatal wound.
On top of the thin ice where not even slight mistake was allowed, Kazuki continued to dance.
Even so if he didn't defeat Kaguya-senpai, there would be no chance of victory in this battle!
"It's useless. Senpai's attacks...all had been sealed."
What supported Kazuki that continued to dodge using his sharpened concentration was only a single determination.
That was a certain single―faith.
"All had been sealed?"
Setting up her scythe, Kaguya-senpai talked expressionlessly.
"...Even though I have Guernica?"
Asmodeus's level 9 magic, Guernica. If the opponent was not in the class of materialized Diva then the hated opponent would die instantly without question, a flame of hell.
The strongest magic that propped up senpai as the strongest. A magic that represented senpai. Yes, as long as the opponent couldn't deal with this magic somehow or other, no matter how much the opponent elaborated counter-measures against her other magic he wouldn't be able to win against Kaguya-senpai. However―
"Senpai's Guernica won't work against me though."
"Why?"
"I like senpai, and senpai also likes me. The illusionary pain is scary. That sense-stealing scythe is also scary. The Deep Specter is scary too. However from the start I didn't fear senpai's flame of hatred for even a second."
[Compared to the period when you couldn't believe in Amasaki Mio's positivity level, you have grown considerably. ]
Leme's telepathy echoed inside his head.
Kazuki remembered that time when Mio was dying inside his arms. Not believing in the feelings of the other party and because of that he hurt his very important person, he didn't want to do that.
"...I wonder if it's not just too much hubris."
Kaguya-senpai whose emotions were sealed by Nyarlatoteph's magic directed a cold voice to Kazuki.
"I couldn't use Guernica against Otouto-kun you said? I am not that sweet you know?"
"Wrong, senpai is a kind person."
From here on is not a fight between me and Kaguya-senpai.
It is a fight between Nyarlatoteph's mind manipulation and the strength of the bonds between me and senpai.
"I...must defeat you. There is no other method left to defeat you other then the very best....I have no hesitation."
Senpai started to chant a long spell.
"Then I'm going to...accept everything of Kaguya-senpai as you are right now."
Kazuki sheathed his katana, he awaited Kaguya-senpai's magic while striking a daunting pose.
The time flowed in an instant and an eternity. He could hear the sounds of fighting of Beatrix and Mio and all the others, but even all of that gradually moved far away from his consciousness, Kazuki and Kaguya-senpai were shut inside the silence.
Kazuki's mind recalled his memories with Kaguya-senpai. Kaguya-senpai who kindly came to him who was assaulted with feelings of alienation in the Magic Division. The sweet aroma that tickled his reasoning when she embraced him. Kaguya-senpai who was embarrassed with her Magic Dress. Tempting Kazuki due to Asmodeus' side effect and then crying in shame from the embarrassment, that kind of senpai.
I...love Kaguya-senpai!
Inside the time when they looked hard at each other, the magic was finally invoked.
"O chest scorching thought, paint the scene of hell in this world...thy are the demon king of wicked desire, o incarnation of deep-seated delusion inviting tragedy, following this wish...paint out the world. Guernica!"
...There was no uneasiness whatsoever! Kazuki awaited with conviction.
At Kaguya-senpai's side, Asmodues was floating.
"This is baad, Kaguya."
"...Eh?"
"There is no feeling like that inside you, y'know?"
Leaving behind those words to the dumbfounded Kaguya-senpai, Asmodeus vanished.
And then nothing happened.
A color of surprise mixed out into Kaguya-senpai's face who was expressionless throughout all of this.
"That kind of...why..."
While whispering, a crack entered that expressionless face. [Emotion] was invading Kaguya-senpai's mask. Like she was being released from the hypnotism.
"Why, I can't fight like this...?"
Kaguya-senpai murmured like she couldn't believe it herself.
The shock finally came this late. At this late hour, evidently senpai had understood this situation that she had left herself behind.
"Why am I...fighting Otouto-kun?"
The flame of hell burned using Kaguya-senpai's hostility as fuel. If Kaguya-senpai harbored even a little bit of hostility, then it would be just like when Kaya's life was stolen before, where something like going easy or control couldn't be done.
But conversely if she couldn't find any hostility even after turning her heart upside down at every nook and corner, the flame of hell wouldn't come out. Identical with how flame was not going to burn if there was no oxygen.
It was absurd in the first place, Kazuki thought. The current Kaguya-senpai who held a fabricated sense of duty with her emotions suppressed by magic, how would she chant something like an attack magic that was fueled by emotion?
The backlash from doing such an absurd thing that ended in failure woke up Kaguya-senpai from her hypnosis.
For Kaguya-senpai to fight despite holding not even a little bit of hostility, that realization opened her eyes.
Color returned to Kaguya-senpai's pupils.
"Even though I don't want to do this kind of thing...why..."
The fake sense of duty was peeled off, what was laid bare were intense regret and feelings of guilt.
The original emotions of the kind Kaguya-senpai were overflowing all at once.
"Even though I don't like that kind of thing ...why did I do such things without mercy, there is no reason I can do that...why...Why!?"
In the sadness and confusion, Kaguya-senpai raised a voice that was tinged with a shriek.
Sensing that Kaguya-senpai had no will to fight anymore, Kazuki approached her. Kaguya-senpai twitched in fright and looked hard at Kazuki.
"O, Otouto-kun...I...did a really cruel thing..."
Senpai's voice was trembling pitifully.
"Senpai, haven't I said it before? I like senpai very much. I won't turn to hate senpai just because of something like this so, please look forward and don't cry okay?"
Kazuki said so to prevent Kaguya-senpai from crying, but in the blink of an eye tears were pooling in senpai's eyes.
"Sorry...I'm sorry...!"
"I said it's okay to not apologize already."
Kazuki hugged Kaguya-senpai who was bursting into tears.
"I, no more...I don't want to do something like this anymore-...!"
"Senpai was seeing a bad dream. But it's okay already. Just like how senpai protected me who is her kouhai, from now on I will protect senpai too."
"But, even though, I am the student council president..."
"Even if senpai is the student council president, it's okay to not bear the burden by yourself alone."
"But, I am the strongest magician after all..."
"Right now, I had already beaten senpai."
"Is it...okay for me to rely on Otouto-kun...?"
"Because I like senpai very much."
Those words didn't lose its glow no matter how many times he said them.
With every single word, Kazuki unraveled the things that were binding Kaguya-senpai's heart.
Kaguya-senpai hugged Kazuki back. He could feel the dearly missed sweet aroma and the soft sensation.
Kazuki brushed senpai's head comfortingly.
"...It feels go~od."
Senpai let out a voice ecstatically.
"I already...want to become Otouto-kun's little sister..."
Released from the heavy pressure, somehow Kaguya-senpai let out a strange talk.
A large heart mark came flying, the fight between Kazuki and Kaguya-senpai was over.
| ← Ch. 054 | Ch. 056 → |