Oneself (4)
"Junon... why are you..."
"Quiet down and pull your mana out of the circle first."
Junon did not simply shatter the magic circle right away. If he severed the rushing torrent of mana without warning, Mana Down would strike her instantly, and the sudden magical backlash could tear Aris's body apart. That was why he ordered her to withdraw her energy before he broke the array. But she refused to listen.
"...Pull my mana out? Are you insane?"
"Aris!"
Instead of yielding, Aris strained with everything she had, desperately trying to force mana back into the broken flow.
"No."
The children were inside that thing. Students who had stepped forward on their own, determined to prove that what she had taught them was not a mistake. This was her only chance to save even a single one of them. How could he possibly tell her to give up?
"Damn it...! You're really going to be this stubborn?"
"I'm not standing here to bicker with you. So... get out of the way before you get caught in the blast!"
"Are you out of your mind? If you unleash something like that, you won't survive it!"
"I know! I know that! But I... I still have to do this!"
She had to be stubborn. Even knowing full well what it would do to her flesh and bone, she had to deploy this spell. If she could not completely blow this dome off the face of the earth, she would never be able to save those children.
"Tch, damn it...!"
"..."
It was done. The only obstacle in her way lost his footing against the raging storm of mana and was thrown back. At last, the blockage pressing down on her Alpeid Line vanished, and the formula ignited into full bloom.
A lotus bud unfurled in breathtaking splendor, blotting out a third of the massive dome. The bud parted its petals, revealing the brilliant core it had kept hidden, and burst into full, radiant blossom. The blooming petals expanded relentlessly, swallowing the surrounding air in a suffocating wave of light.
This will... be enough.
It was an output monstrous enough to level everything before her into an ash heap. Unleashing an explosion with the absolute peak of her power would surely punch a hole wide enough for at least some of those trapped inside to escape.
A deafening roar tore through the clearing, bringing with it a violent gale that battered the earth. Aris closed her eyes, just as she had done once before. She braced herself for everything that was to come—the crushing recoil of the spell, and the lethal shockwave that would ravage her own body trapped inside its radius.
Yet... nothing struck her.
"...Huh?"
No recoil. No crushing impact. No plunging into unconsciousness.
Nothing came at all.
She had experienced this firsthand during the battle against the Orthoptera swarm; she knew precisely where her limits lay. By all rights, her overloaded body should have collapsed beneath her by now. Sheer exhaustion should have halted her thoughts, and unconsciousness should have claimed her senses before the pain could even register.
Yet the world was not spinning.
She could smell the faint tang of rust from the scratch she had gotten while tearing through the brush, and she could feel the cold, clammy sweat that had trickled down her forehead when she threw herself into position. In other words, she was experiencing none of the catastrophic symptoms that invariably followed total mana depletion.
Aris opened her eyes and tentatively flexed her fingers.
"I'm... completely fine?"
It made no sense. She had just triggered a detonation violent enough to pulverize the entire area, filling her vision with thick, billowing black smoke. Firing something like that point-blank should have caught her dead center in the blast radius, leaving her charred and broken. Yet there was not even a scorch mark on her skin.
It wasn't as though the spell had misfired, either. What was going on? Why? How?
Frantically searching her body for answers, she suddenly felt an unfamiliar weight clinging to her wrist.
"What is this...?"
A bracelet. A strange black bangle she had never put on, let alone carried with her. But as she looked closer, recognition dawned.
A Belshuar Ark.
It was one of a pair of enchanted black bracelets used to share stored reserves of mana or protect VIPs in emergencies. The reservoir within it should have brimmed with power, but right now, it was utterly empty.
Don't tell me... he wasn't thrown back by my mana earlier? He let himself be pushed away just to slip this onto my wrist?
Who else could have done such a thing? There was only one person here capable of it.
Through the drifting black haze, a familiar silhouette emerged. The very man who had fastened the band around her wrist.
"You... what did you..."
"Don't look at me. Look ahead and see what that reckless stunt actually accomplished."
From within the lingering smoke, his finger pointed toward the clearing. Unlike where they stood, the smoke in front had already dispersed. A massive crater had been gouged into the side of the dome, but fibrous tissue was already weaving itself together, rapidly knitting the breach shut. If any students had managed to break out, their voices should have echoed across the field by now. Yet the only presence Aris could sense was Junon standing right behind her. Not a single person had escaped.
"No way..."
She had poured every ounce of her firepower into that blast, yet the dome remained fundamentally untouched. Helplessly, she stared at the barrier, unable to reach the core, unable even to hear a single cry from the other side.
"No, this can't be...! I still have a little mana left. If I just cast one more—"
Shatter!
With the sound of brittle glass fracturing, the delicate circle she tried to form was smashed to pieces. The abrupt shock brought a wave of dizziness that dropped Aris straight to her knees.
"You, what do you—!"
"You still haven't come to your senses, have you?"
"Why do you keep getting in my way?! Why did you suddenly show up and—gah!"
A sharp throb lanced through her shoulder. The moment Junon's hand touched the joint, a blinding pain she hadn't felt until now forced her eyes shut. She assumed she had simply been clipped by a blunt piece of shrapnel during the blast, but as she glanced over her shoulder, the breath caught in her throat. Her shoulder didn't matter. Not in the slightest.
"Do you get it now? Do you see what happens when you try to force everything through sheer brute strength?"
"Why... are you..."
"Even I can't block all of that cleanly."
Her eyes were fixed entirely on his arm. It was drenched in crimson.
The only metallic scent that belonged to her was the shallow scratch on her hand from earlier. The thick, warm fluid dripping down his sleeve undeniably belonged to him.
Which means... the reason I'm unhurt is...
There was no way her body could have escaped the detonation after unleashing all of her mana at point-blank range. Her limbs should have been torn away, her flesh incinerated. She had gone into it fully prepared to lose her life. And yet, she was alive and whole. Because he had intercepted it. Just like that day in the alley when he had shielded her against petals blooming in every direction, he had raised his Mana Shield to take the blow for her.
The smell hit her nose. The sharp, metallic stench radiating from his bared arm. The blood coursed down to his calloused, blistered fingers, soaking into the fabric of his clothes and heavying the air with its coppery odor. It was his blood. The blood that should have poured from her own shattered body was now pooling beneath his feet.
"Ugh...!"
Bile surged up her throat. It wasn't the smell of blood from the outside that made her sick; it was the sickening, festering revulsion spreading through her mouth, her throat, her stomach, and every inch of her being. Who on earth was she accepting help from? Toward someone she shouldn't have been able to look in the eye after the sins of her past, she had let her temper flare and pulled this madness yet again?
What have I done... What have I done?!
She was insane. Utterly, irredeemably insane.
Unable to suppress the churning nausea any longer, Aris doubled over, heaving acid onto the earth. It was a filthy, pathetic sight. Clear, bitter stomach fluid that was far more translucent than the blood soaking his clothes, yet felt infinitely more vile.
"Haa, haa..."
She retched until her stomach emptied, only for another dry heave to rack her frame. She lost count of how many times she choked on the bitter fluid, but eventually, her stomach felt hollowed out entirely. The violent convulsions left her gasping for breath, sapping the feverish heat from her skin until her overheated mind finally went cold.
"..."
Only now did the frantic panic drain from her head, stamped out by cold, biting reason. This clarity was the sole thing Aris had bought by emptying her guts onto the dirt.
"Junon..."
Her mouth was parched dry from vomiting. The ringing, confident voice that used to rally her students no longer came from her lips. Even so, she forced sound past her cracked, trembling throat, letting out a raw, hoarse whisper. There was something she had to say. Right now.
"I... I don't know how to fight with my body. I don't know how to weave through enemy attacks, and I don't have the agility to drive a blade into a vital point."
All she had ever done was cast magic.
"I'm not smart, either. I don't have the brains to teach tactics or strategy."
Far from teaching others, she had never even studied properly herself.
"I borrow other people's minds. I borrow the time other people buy for me. And despite being that kind of dead weight, I let my body move before my head and end up causing disaster... That's who I am."
A half-baked failure whose instincts ran faster than her brain. That was Aris McKenhaim.
"On my own... I'm just a useless fool who can't do a single thing..."
She had only ever succeeded because she was with others. Because she had held the easy, comfortable role where she only had to dump her firepower while leaving the vital burdens to everyone else. That was why she was so helpless now. Despite earning a grand epithet, despite receiving the praise, cheers, and expectations of so many, she was utterly powerless the moment she stood alone. She couldn't even rescue the students being dragged away by monsters right before her eyes.
So, once again, she had no choice.
"I'm begging you... Please, please save the kids inside there..."
Shoulders hunched, she leaned on someone else. On the very man who had taken severe wounds as the price for saving her from being torn to shreds. The bitter shame had made her wish someone else stood in her place—not six times, but seven.
"I don't care what you order me to do later...! Just those kids... I'm begging you, please save them!!!"
Junon. That final, seventh place belonged to him. Even in a crisis like this, he would find a way. Just like before, he would assemble an impeccable formation entirely unlike her own clumsy efforts, minimizing casualties. Even in a situation far worse than this, he would seize that single thread of hope and pull it into reality. Exactly as he had when the Orthoptera invaded.
Aris's ragged, desperate scream echoed across the clearing, fading into a heavy, suffocating silence. Only when teardrops began to fall against her tightly pressed thighs did Junon finally take a measured step forward. Gathering mana into his fist, he struck the surface of the dome with a dull thud.
"It's impossible."
"What...?"
Aris's heart plummeted into her stomach. Impossible? From him? She had believed without a shadow of a doubt that he, above anyone else, could pull it off flawlessly. Her trembling gaze instinctively drifted up to his eyes.
"I called for backup, but Shirakh is broader than you'd expect. By the time they arrive, it'll already be too late. In short, there's nobody else coming."
Then... the kids really can't be saved...?
No. That's a lie. You can do it. Just like when you held off the Orthoptera, just like when you brought Erika back from the brink of death, you can do this!
She wanted to scream it until her lungs burst, even if only a broken wheeze would come out. But before she could speak, his voice cut through the air.
"So get up and follow me. Didn't you say you were going to save them?"
"...?"
"Without reinforcements, doing it alone is impossible. But with two of us—with you included—it's entirely doable. More than enough. So stop wallowing and get on your feet."
He told her to stand. He said it was possible.
"Besides, they're your students. You should be the one saving them, not me. Why are you trying to dump that on my shoulders?"
Speaking in a mild, almost grumbling tone, he rotated his wounded shoulder a few times, testing its range of motion. Without waiting for a reply, he stepped past her and began walking toward the dome. His stride was steady, deliberate, and brimming with the confidence of a man who had already calculated every single variable.
"..."
Reinforcements would not come in time. The force attempting to breach the dome and rescue the trapped students consisted of only two people. Almost anyone in the world would have shaken their head in despair. Yet for some reason, she felt it in her bones: they could do it.
No. In this moment, looking at his back, the question of possibility didn't even enter her mind. It felt like an absolute, established certainty.
Aris was already rising to her feet, falling into step behind the most dependable back she had ever known. Even as a weight of guilt heavier than anything she had ever carried tore at her aching chest, she followed him forward.