Operation: Subdue the Maze Rat
"I have already apologized several times. I fail to see what more there is to say."
"I don't feel so much as a hint of remorse."
"Good grief."
"Good grief? Gooood griiief? Remind me which one of us is doing the begging here."
"Ahem. Come now, wait a moment. Let me feel about in my memory a little longer."
Most Aura Users, simply by striving to grow stronger and pursuing the ultimate principle of aura, arrive in time at the rank of Master. Fewer than five percent of all Aura Users ever get that far.
From that stage, the ones who touch the truth of the universe—the ones chosen by aura—break through a rank further still. They become Grandmasters, and in all the world there are only nine of them.
Precisely because Grandmasters are so scarce, Masters desperate to cross that threshold will try absolutely anything. Climbing a mountain for a precious herb that grows once in a decade does not even qualify as eccentric. They will spend decades gathering the dew that beads, a drop or two at a time, upon the bodies of spirit-beasts in the mountains, and then bathe in it. They will sample every aura that exists anywhere in the world and stew their own into a dog's breakfast. Some even pick a fight with a Grandmaster on the theory that crossing blades might teach them something, and more than a few of them do become Masters—neatly sliced into three.
Maze Rat was no exception. For the sake of a single thread of hope, he was bowing and scraping before Lupin, who was vastly his junior, and making a thorough disgrace of himself.
"I was not as courteous to you as I ought to have been. I apologize."
"Wrong. Again."
"This humble one failed to recognize the great hero and committed a grave sin. A crime deserving of death."
"Then die."
"No. No, now see here! Can you not at least give me a hint? I truly haven't the faintest idea!"
Lupin narrowed her eyes to slits.
"Phony Rat... talking back?!"
Then she tipped her chin up, looked down her nose with insolent half-lidded eyes, and tapped her foot against the floor. Tok, tok, tok. She treated him like a moron and flicked her words at him the way one flicks away a tissue after blowing one's nose.
Lupin had never had a girlfriend, but she had, entirely against her will, watched her one and only friend get absolutely walked over by his. Because of that, she could reproduce the performance more convincingly than any act. It was a masterwork of a performance, enough to leave Maze Rat's mind reeling.
And so the game of twenty questions dragged on and on, until one side finally collapsed. It was not Maze Rat, out of mental strength or stamina. Lupin had simply run out of patience.
"Forget it. Just die."
"Now, now! Wait! Just wait a moment, I say!"
"Okay. Final answer. For real this time. I've been patient for a long time, all things considered."
Maze Rat drew a deep breath. His fate hung on this single reply, and with it his chance at becoming a Grandmaster. (It didn't.)
"It is because I was hiding in the treasure chest, lying in wait to stab you. Is that it?!"
Tilt it even a little to the side and it would have been the right answer. And he still can't hit it.
What Maze Rat had just said settled Lupin's certainty. This old man has no idea what he did wrong. Even the killing blow of so what exactly did you do wrong had worn thin. I just want to open a treasure chest....
"Haa......"
Lupin sighed hard enough to sink the earth. It was the sort of night that made her miss her master for no good reason at all. Maaaster always understood at a glance. Say treasure chest, and it was treasure chest. If I went A-B-C-D-E-F, Master was U.
She was pointlessly stirring up her longing for a parent when the irritation spiked—what am I even doing here—and Lupin, unable to swallow her anger, seized the hilt of the Lightning Sword resting in its sheath.
"Lord. Sending one up."
"No. Wait! Very well. Since it has come to this, speak. What is it I did wrong? I am asking whether there was ever a correct answer to begin with."
"For heaven's sake!"
With no other choice, Maze Rat took a proper grip on his sword. He meant to bring Lupin down by force if he had to. If he was going to seize her meridians and drag the truth out of her, that was the only way.
"I had no wish to take it this far. You have brought this upon your—"
The instant he took half a step, Lupin struck. That technique, half a beat faster, split a crack through Maze Rat's solid defense.
"Kh?!"
He blocked it. He did block it. But his stance collapsed badly, and as he hauled back the sword that had been sent flying a long way, Maze Rat's heart dropped into his stomach.
Only now did the asymmetry between an Aura User and a pure stat-build rear its head. Whether he loaded aura into his blade to meet Lupin's techniques or dissolved aura into his legs to chase her, Maze Rat drew on a single generator, and that generator was aura. Lupin's entire body was a generator. Every one of her Growth Values was a generator. They sparked off one another, dividing the work or pooling their strength to get it done—Dynamic Vision, Agility, and Strength unfolding her techniques, while Agility and Endurance together carried the long game of tag.
And Maze Rat was an old man with death not far off. He had trained to cling to an aura that dwindled by the day, but the more he trained, the more sleep and rest he required. Now his rest had been stolen, and on top of that he had burned through an extraordinary amount of aura.
"So that is why you dragged this out...! Sly little wench!"
He sensed the odds tipping against him, and the more they tipped, the greedier he grew for the uncanny power Lupin possessed. What kind of body is that? What sorcery has she worked? If only that. If I could uncover the secret of that flesh alone.
Lupin read the desperation written across his face.
"Oh? Your expression's worse than it was a minute ago."
A sword that carries no aura cannot overcome a sword that does. Lupin had already learned that over the course of several exchanges. But what if the opponent's aura ran dry? What happened then?
Lupin advanced another half step with Swift Advance. Maze Rat blocked this one too, just barely. His stance, though, was now visibly ruined.
"Ghk...!"
As he tried to reset his posture, the world went dark before Maze Rat's eyes. His body lost its balance and lurched, and one knee struck the ground. His aura was a breath from empty.
Riding that momentum, Lupin attacked again. Sightless, Maze Rat predicted the sword's path by sound this time.
Clang!
He succeeded in blocking, but his guard had collapsed completely. In that split second Lupin saw the one line of attack that could finish him, and the means to take it. Bringing the sword that had clashed and rebounded back onto its path, then cutting him with it, would take far too long. But her body was still moving forward even after the blades met. The momentum her footwork had loaded into her had not yet broken. All she had to do was send out her idle left hand and drive it into the gap.
Crack—!
"Kahk......"
Maze Rat's forehead split, and he toppled straight onto his back. It was the moment a technique with no pedigree whatsoever—one Lupin would later name the Swift Advance Strike—was born.
"Whew. Masters sure are stubborn. Sticky, even."
One way or another, she had put Tasili's teaching into practice beautifully: buy time, then aim for the opening. The Lightning Sword, worked to a brutal degree, slid fully home in its sheath at last.
Before she could even taste the afterglow of the fight, a single tear rolled down Lupin's cheek. There was no treasure chest. Not even watermelon math in grade school had taught her that eleven and zero were the same number!
Shoulders slumped, she trudged toward the treasure chest Maze Rat had been lying in, clinging to a threadbare hope that something might have been hidden there, concealed from sight by his torso......
"Huh?"
There was something. In a corner of the great chest sat a bead the size of an eyeball. It was a green jewel easy on the eyes, and within it a white, immaculate energy churned this way and that. A welcome translucent window descended over the bead.
"This stone looks like it's alive..."
A relic!
Secret Chest: 3 / ? (?%)
The count went up, too!
Her emotions, which had been buried underground like a scam coin, punched through the atmosphere and shot into space. Unable to handle the dopamine bursting in her, Lupin abruptly picked a direction and flung herself flat on the floor. It was a full formal prostration, offered to the master who had helped her find treasure chests.
"Ah. That's the stuff."
Lupin got to her feet and this time stretched long and hard. The appetite that had been on the verge of vanishing came rushing back, and every sort of food shimmered through her mind. Whatever she ate tonight would taste as glorious as the finest banquet of land and sea.
"Nnngh. Time to head back to the Association."
She had a feeling she'd forgotten something shaped like a traffic light, but it was probably just her mood.
Red and Blue had reached the surface before they quite realized it. The whole ascent had felt like a dream.
Yegor gripped his sword and thrust it at the sky, and the force of his aura was like a water dragon roaring toward the heavens. Following that aura, the water in the conduit spiraled upward in a whirl. The two of them were caught in the current, hurled aloft, and thrown onto the ground just as they were. Then Yegor made his entrance, riding the waterspout like a seal. If ever there was a hero, it was him, and there was no room for a second.
"You two take the gear and fall back to the rally point. This place might collapse again. I'm going to find Lupin."
The moment he landed, he shook out his wet hair and set down everything but his sword.
"But...!"
Red's hand, reaching to stop him, never touched Yegor's body. A thick, radiant aura wrapped him. Set against the usual film, thin as a translucent membrane, the depth of it was enormous. Judging by aura alone, Red and Blue placed him at Master or above—and among those, a veteran of at least ten years.
"...You. What are you, exactly?"
"Shame. The trip was pretty fun."
Yegor leapt into the surging water without hesitation.
"If we get the chance, see you again."
His body dropped toward the underground like a shot, cutting against the force of the rising water. Red stared endlessly at the place he had vanished, then mumbled, blank.
"The Rounds... he wasn't one of them, was he?"
Meanwhile Blue, rummaging through Yegor's luggage, found no particular clue and dusted off his hands.
"No idea at all."
"So we were the ones being fooled..."
"Let's head back for now. We ought to count ourselves lucky they never found out we're with the Seven Star Corps."
Once they returned to their distant homeland, the North Country, the reports would pile up like a mountain. Lupin and Yegor. Simply having secured advance intelligence on two people with a high chance of becoming formidable enemies made it a considerably valuable expedition.
For one of them, though, it was not satisfying. Not even close. Enough to bring on tears.
"You.... You okay?"
At Blue's question, Red gathered her lips into a pucker. Then, one after another, great tears beaded and ran down her cheeks.
"Hnn. Hnngh. Hk.... I looooved hiiim!!!"
