The Wild Princess
"From now on, you're Gorilla-Catcher No. 1."
Roughly speaking, it meant a sword for catching gorillas.
Getting her hands on a sword and actually being able to use it were two different things. The instant she closed her fist around Gorilla-Catcher No. 1, a rigid mass crashed down into the space where she had been standing, and an unbroken chain of strikes came after it.
Boom! Whoosh, whoooosh, crash! Whoooooosh.
The axe blade slammed down hard. The moment she thought she had slipped it, the spear point crowning the weapon thrust in, and when she dodged that to the side the axe head drew back so the tip of the blade could hook her like a grapnel. Emelin's rear was no safer. The weapon was so monstrously long that its butt came whipping around like a quarterstaff, and because every one of those motions chained into the next on perfect timing, it was a dancing halberd in the truest sense. So this was how the soldiers of Wei must have felt, staring down Zhang Fei's polearm on the bridge.
She no longer had the leisure to wolf down a whole meal between blows the way she had earlier, but she still was not getting hit. This was Lupin, after all—the Lupin who had walked out of an all-out spar with Tasili convinced she could dodge every attack a Master could throw. So this is what it feels like to seize the space itself~. Without even noticing, she was properly learning how to face one.
Only, doing nothing but dodge was starting to bore her. She wanted to attack, too….
The problem, if it was a problem, was the dress. There was nowhere to hang a scabbard, so her left hand had to hold the sheath and her right had to clutch the skirt. Biting the hem was an option, but it was uncomfortable and blocked her view. Better, really, to just free her legs.
The young-lady act is over anyway, isn't it?
It was a shame she had never gotten to show Yegor the social dance that had shocked even him, but she would surely find another use for it later. Thank you for your service these two weeks, feather-trimmed dress. Lupin offered a brief moment of silence for the gown that had suffered alongside her, then waited for her opening.
Emelin mixed her attacks, but she always worked in at least one downward smash. It forced Lupin to commit, which made the next motion easy to chain. After a smash, though, resetting her stance took a fair amount of time. An ordinary person would have struggled to exploit that gap, yet to Lupin that brief, unmistakable opening looked like a chance to turn the fight.
"Hah!"
Thud!
In the instant the axe head struck packed earth and stalled, Lupin finally drew.
She had done nothing but evade until now, so when she committed to a strike Emelin eased off and gave her room. The domain was still fully deployed, and she had aura to spare. There was no need to cling to a follow-up. Emelin jerked her chin, taunting her.
Go on. Try whatever you like. I'll nullify all of it and drive a counter straight through you!
But the situation Emelin wanted never came.
Rip. Riiip!
Lupin wrenched the skirt up and slashed it away, front and back. In a blink the lavish gown became a design the age was nowhere near ready to accept, baring layer after layer of petticoat.
Standards among those raised in the imperial household were stubbornly straitlaced. The moment Emelin saw it, she shouted.
"Wh-what are you doing?! That's obscene!"
"But if I don't, my hands stay tied. And then I can't swing a sword."
That raked Emelin's temper all over again.
From the very start…… is she even fighting for real?
Custom had hardened until even a woman of the martial path was judged deeply rude for failing to wear a dress to a party. But unlike the men, who could simply throw off a jacket mid-party and be ready to fight, a woman's dress offered no such courtesy. Nowhere to hang a weapon or any other gear. Try to run, and your legs caught in the cloth. Cut the hem away, though, and you became a madwoman, exactly like Lupin now. That was why Emelin had adjusted the length of her dress from the start and pinned her carefully curled hair into a half-up style. Her aesthetic was to win without a hair out of place, no matter the circumstances.
And Lupin?
She might not have put on a gown this extravagant because she wanted to. But if she had known a provocation would turn into a fight, shouldn't she have shortened it beforehand? For Emelin, who had only ever faced diligent opponents, the fresh shock was not the first. It was already the third. Or was it the fourth? She could barely keep count anymore. To think she still had not dealt with this ragtag nobody, and was being dragged around instead. If the other Sub-Rounds heard of it, she would be a laughingstock for life.
Not that Lupin cared whether she groaned about it or not.
Lupin hopped in place, running a final check to make sure nothing snagged. The skirt was short now, and the petticoats so light they shot toward the sky every time she jumped, now and then putting even her underwear on full display. And that was not all. Flesh that ought to have stayed packed where it belonged teetered on the verge of spilling out. Only one person failed to notice. Only Lupin. Her chest was where it had always been, and that absurd bust threw a blind spot over everything below her stomach.
Emelin pressed a hand to her brow.
She means to fight looking this vulgar? She isn't even a Shrine Maiden. Has she thrown her sense of shame away…?
The bosom that had been beautiful because the dress held it with elegance was now nothing but provocative bare skin, the kind a thoughtless harlot flashed to earn her coin. Emelin, who had only managed to wear a human face after ten years of training, was furious—and yet the memory of that grueling past rose unbidden, and her chest ached for no good reason. What was she supposed to do with this beast? There had to be a more elegant way to fight.
There were, however, those who screamed in silent celebration at the sight of a half-stripped Lupin.
"I do believe I shall adore Lady Lupin for the rest of my life. White. So it was white."
"Even cold water knows its upper from its lower. From here on, shouldn't we rank the right to approach Lady Lupin according to seniority?"
"Agreed. We ought to hear the Captain's esteemed opinion."
It was the knight order, driven off by the gorilla and watching from a good distance away.
"Enough of that noise. Eyes wide. Don't miss a single moment. Burn it into memory and pass it down to those who come after!"
As one, the knights dropped flat and produced compact binoculars. The sword dance of a peerless beauty was about to begin.
"…Hm?"
"Huh?"
"Ah."
Only then did something else come into view.
"What—! That sword!"
If Grand Duke Rurikovich was the highest authority of the assembly, Grand Duke Romanov was the highest authority of the cabinet. The sword the prime minister had bestowed upon him—ten diamonds set among every jewel imaginable, the hilt gilded besides—was planted squarely in Lupin's hand.
"Shouldn't someone go and stop her? They say that one sword could buy several of the tallest buildings in the capital."
"And can you?"
"……."
"I'm asking whether you can throw your body in between them."
Not a single knight dared answer.
Emelin was Grade 8, close to the latter half of Master. Lupin was rampaging inside that Emelin's domain. Could a mere Aura Expert step between them and offer a word of caution? The moment they entered, the pressure of aura would stagger them—might tear their bodies to shreds.
"This is force majeure. If anything goes wrong, I'll take the responsibility!"
"Damn it! We have no choice but to worship you, Captain!"
"Suddenly—all over again—you are magnificent!"
While the knights put on that absurd little show, Lupin picked up the fallen scabbard and dressed Gorilla-Catcher No. 1. Emelin frowned at the sight.
"You went to the trouble of drawing it. Why sheathe it again?"
"Well…. This is the preparatory motion."
If putting the sword away counted as a preparation, then what followed, by any ordinary reckoning, could only be iaijutsu. Most Aura Users sneered that a draw-cut had no place in a real fight, and there was exactly one sword art that had folded iaijutsu into its practical forms. The Shadowless Sword Style. The art of extreme speed inherited by Sword Emperor Tasili Maksimov.
As far as Emelin knew, Lupin's aura accelerated her to something approaching a spatial leap, so it certainly suited the Shadowless Sword Style. But so what? Could she even channel aura into a blade? Could she break through a halberd wrapped tight in solid aura?
"You can't even handle shaped aura. So how exactly do you plan to land a hit with a sword?"
"Ah. That's a death flag, too…."
"Excuse me. I'm perfectly alive, you know? I'd appreciate it if you'd stop turning me into a walking corpse."
What was she supposed to do? It was true. Maze Rat had already proved it. Well, every aura addict in this world was the same. Only after they had lived through it did they come to their senses—aigoo, my prejudice ran as deep as the Mariana Trench. So she had no choice but to grant them enlightenment.
Her mind made up, Lupin dropped low. The target was Emelin's left thigh. Dmitri had told her to subdue, not to kill. In answer, Emelin set her feet wide and angled the halberd's blade toward the ground.
"Picking up any old sword and swinging it isn't going to cut it."
Lupin tilted her head. She had done just fine so far grabbing whatever sword happened to be lying around, and she was the sort of fool who never once dreamed the Lightning Sword Tasili had given her was a famed blade—though it would have been another matter if the Lightning Sword were a relic. In any case, by Lupin's common sense a different sword did not mean a different result. The advance that followed, and the strike after it, held not a shred of hesitation.
Emelin pushed with her right hand and pulled with her left. The halberd, which had been facing forward, spun counterclockwise and sealed Lupin's sword path. She did not even block blade to blade. She deliberately let Lupin's edge ride up the shaft. Driven all the way along, the blade bounced off the joint between head and haft and caught naturally on the hook. Wind the shaft forward like that, and snap the edge—
Crack!
A sword with no aura on it broke just that easily.
Emelin called out, utterly sure of herself.
"Didn't I tell you? Swinging just anything is meaningless!"
The knights watching from afar swallowed their screams.
"His Grace the Grand Duke's sword…!"
"The Captain's responsibility grows heavier…!"
"Our respect, Captain!!"
The Captain's punishment had not even been decided yet, but the mood was already that of a house in mourning.
The problem came next.
She had lost No. 1. What else was there to do? Lupin had no choice but to take up No. 2 in the very next breath.
"What—! That sword!"
"Marquis Shishev's family heirloom…!"
And once No. 2 was in her hand? She threw the same move again.
Swift Advance
Shadowless Sword Style
Clang. Crunch.
"Aigoo!"
"Ghk—I can't watch!"
No. 2 lost, so No. 3. No. 3 lost, so No. 4. The swords that had been kept in the armory met their ends one after another, and Lupin, too, was starting to get annoyed.
"Why do they keep snapping like this? Did somebody quit halfway through making them?"
Only after she had massacred a full fifteen blades did Lupin finally take Gorilla-Catcher No. 16 in hand.
"This cold, familiar feeling…. Don't tell me?"
The hilt was crude and spare. The scabbard looked ordinary enough, no different from the others, but draw the blade and three characters of cramped old script showed upon the steel.
"You're back! My partner!"
"…Partner?"
The dark-horse duo that had brought down Master Maze Rat. The dramatic reunion of Lupin and the Lightning Sword.
Famed blade of Sword Emperor Tasili Maksimov
Three characters, engraved in ancient script upon the steel
Lupin hugged her praiseworthy sword tight against her generous chest. This one won't break. It was a living witness that had traded blows with Maze Rat, a Master of aura!
"What matters is a heart that will not break…!"
She bit the words off hard and dropped into stance once more. Emelin snorted and tipped her halberd. The same form as before, anyway—
…!
No.
Something was different. If she failed to block it properly, she had the ominous sense that her arm would be torn clean off.
Lupin's sword came surging in. Emelin hastily layered aura over the halberd.
—————KRANG!
A violent vibration climbed the halberd and shook Emelin through. The impact was heavy enough that one wrong instant would have collapsed her stance. It didn't make sense. All that had changed was a single sword. But Emelin, fixed on the blade, naturally took in the ancient script cut into the steel—and the name.
"The… Lightning… Sword?"
In his active years the Sword Emperor had accomplished a great many feats as an adventurer, and the Lightning Sword had never once been absent from them. Lupin, holding it, had nearly overwhelmed Emelin just now. No further words were needed. With a single form, she had all but proved herself the successor of the Shadowless Sword Style.
Emelin's face twisted, as if she had just witnessed a Guai.
