Anyway, It's the Cult's Fault
"If I win, become my slave for a day."
Ekaterina's reaction came a beat late.
"...What?"
Lupin's expression didn't change.
"A slave. A slave good for anything."
The one hearing it was the one who jumped. The one saying it, truth be told, hadn't been thinking about much of anything. Come here. I've got a job for you. And what would that be? In the old days, she would have put her on treasure-chest scouting. Nine clones, no less. But time had moved on, and now that Lupin flew with her pigeons, going herself was faster than ordering anyone else around. Who was going to sit and wait while nine clones dawdled about, hunting chests whose locations nobody even knew?
So there was exactly one reason she meant to take a slave. To lock down her claim on Klein.
By rights, Ekaterina of the Rounds should have transferred the girl to a special prison. Make her a slave, and Lupin could snatch Klein away in the middle of that transfer. How? Through a perfectly amicable agreement with Ekaterina. Ekaterina would take the blame, and Lupin would slip neatly out of it. Do exactly as she pleased and answer for none of it—that was the nasty little scheme, and it was very much Lupin.
Then again, she had been enjoying pleasure without responsibility all this time. Where was a habit like that supposed to go? Who had ever held her accountable for the Abandoned Chests? No one. The Secret Chests? Not a soul—the people who built the safes took the fall. The Holy Arks? Obviously none. On that front, the Star Sister who was as good as Lupin's own mother had egged her on with that's my girl, well done, so there was even less reason to feel responsible.
......
...Huh?
Lupin hung a question mark on her own thoughts. Something was off, wasn't it? Starting with the part where she only meant to work the woman as a slave for a single day. Make her a slave for life, and even if she was slow, Lupin could have kept her forever as an automatic treasure-chest farming tool. Wasn't that how games worked—commissions and expeditions, sending the characters you owned out to slowly but surely stockpile materials? And yet Lupin was the one who had said one day. Worse, she was turning down a chest-hunting slave with her own mouth, just because the search speed was too slow. That was, for all practical purposes, a dead loss on treasure-chest production. She didn't even need a scheme like this to secure Klein. Couldn't she just keep steadily collecting chests, and peel off ownership of Klein as a bonus?
But taking back words already thrown out was awkward, too. That would be a filthy, ugly thing to do. She might go around seducing every soul in the world with that ruinous body, but Lupin still carried the pride of a true man. Some things were simply not to be tolerated.
Even as she told herself that, a vague regret lingered, and it bled into what she said next.
"From this moment on, you will have to become my slave. This is an inescapable destiny of destinies. Well... if you so desired, I could extend the term of slavery to two days. No—a month.... Not that you would want that, of course...."
At those words, Ekaterina's chest went tight, as if her heart had been stoppered.
"Brimming with confidence, aren't we? Do you even realize you're facing one of the Rounds?"
She put on a show of leisure and tried to warn that this fight would not be easy. Ekaterina's body, however, was already telling the truth.
You're nervous.
What is she... why is she this sure of herself? Does she actually think she can beat me?
Plenty of people had looked at Ekaterina as if she were garbage. Not one of them, though, had managed to stay bold to the end in front of her. Raw strength, the influence of Geburah—aura of the Sephira—authority, or some other reason entirely: none of them lasted a day. They went facedown, dropped to their knees, or ended up stripped bare on a bed.
Lupin had felt wrong from the very first meeting. Not only had she brazenly caught the Klein that Ekaterina kept letting slip—she was handling the girl like a toy. Shock number one: the girl Ekaterina had wanted most was in someone else's hands. Shock number two: that sharp-tongued little bitch had been dressed up like a proper young lady, and now she glanced about and curled in on herself like a frightened hedgehog. Shock number three: she ought to have been shaking at the mere fact of facing a Round, yet she had boldly declared that no condition had been set for victory. Shock number four: she had made that condition a one-day taste of slavery for Ekaterina. And she still wasn't finished. Shock number five came as an added provocation—if Ekaterina wanted, she would stretch it all the way to a month.
Boom. Boom. Boom. Bombs going off in her head, one after another.
A crazy bitch unlike any she had ever seen. A woman who had gone completely, thoroughly mad.
A girl like this... how good would she taste? If I pinned her, she'd fight back hard, wouldn't she...? The thrill of crushing that...! Nnngh—I can't stand it...!!
But beneath the urge to break her, another thought slowly raised its head. What if she lost, and actually became a slave? Then what? Lupin's absurd confidence had forced Ekaterina to entertain the what-if.
That... I'm a little curious, actually.... Gasp.
Impossible.
Curious?
Ekaterina, who had kept every woman beneath her belly until now, pinned under someone else's hips? And would it stop at being pinned? She would be subjected to every kind of absurd torment. Teased slowly, worked up until she was desperate. The woman might even be a villainess with tastes worse than Ekaterina's own—like recognizes like, after all.
That's absurd. It could never happen.
Ekaterina, who was meant to dominate every woman and reign above them, reduced to a mat someone lay on? An unthinkable humiliation.
"F-fine. Then... shall we begin?"
That restlessness forced her into a show of bravado. As a Round, her skill was already certified. She had no need to display her abilities beforehand.
"As a special service, I'll show you my ability first. Go on—think hard about how you're going to counter it!"
In truth, it isn't easy for ordinary people to spectate a duel between aura Masters. The moment they start swinging sword-aura and sword-force, the whole area is reduced to a wasteland in an instant. There are times, though, when a duel can be watched within limits—precisely when, as today, the aura both sides use is relatively well-behaved compared to other Masters.
First, Ekaterina. Her aura was the clone-body itself. The hands of a summoned clone changed shape and became blades and spears. Each one served in place of a rigid body, and in some ways the art resembled the technique of controlling swords from afar. While other Masters split mountains and cleaved the earth with big, beautiful aura blades, Ekaterina moved with grace and disposed of her enemies in quiet. On top of that, the entrance of her clones was flashy enough to seize the eye. Truly fit for an audience.
Next, Lupin. She was Tassili Maksikov's disciple, a swordswoman of the Shadowless Sword Style. She invested most of her aura in footwork and only charged the sword when she needed it, worrying a single target with relentless focus, so the damage to her surroundings was nonexistent. The speed was so tremendous it sent a thrill through anyone watching. This, too, was suitable for spectating.
...Or so everyone believed, save for a few.
If Lupin felt like it, she could turn the whole area into a wasteland. Should Ekaterina's attacks ever grow threatening enough that she couldn't endure without aura, the place would of course be wrecked by a pigeon tornado. The one mercy for the spectators was that Ekaterina's attacks were looser than Lupin had expected.
"My. You can't even keep up with my clones. How disappointing!"
More precisely, they were so sloppy it almost seemed deliberate. She did summon clones into blind spots—but not true blind spots. She called them out where Lupin's peripheral vision could just barely catch them. Once something was visible, reacting was only natural, so at first Lupin answered with Swift Advance. The bold intent was to cut the clone down before it finished forming and came at her.
But a clone was a rigid body: a concentration of aura on par with an aura blade. She cut with Swift Advance, and the sword jammed in hard, as if she had struck Yegor's aura armor. Pulling it free took time, and when Ekaterina precisely exploited that gap to summon clones and strike from behind, Lupin had to throw her body around more violently than usual.
She tried the main body, just in case, and that too was different from what she had expected. Every time she attacked, a new clone burst out as if slipping free of a body and stopped the blow. These were clone-bodies as well, so they braked her sword all the same. Rather than matching her speed, Ekaterina had simply shut down any opening for Lupin to strike the real body with her blade. It was as if she were saying, While I have aura, this is my world. Don't get cute.
"The Rounds really are different. I'll give you that."
So this was why people wouldn't shut up about the irregular types. The shape of the fight was nothing like a standard aura Master. Ever-changing, appearing and vanishing like a ghost, and every single clone so solid it was hard to break through—only now did Lupin truly grasp that not every aura Master was the same aura Master.
But why? Why were the attacks this loose? That part, at least, nagged at her. Clones that would have been quite threatening if they burst from a true blind spot instead peeked out as if telegraphing the strike, and so they weren't threatening at all. Fight like this and she would lose, wouldn't she? Somehow she didn't look like someone trying to subdue Lupin. She looked like someone itching to throw the match. Once or twice, fine. They had already exchanged more than five clashes, and nothing had changed.
Is there some reason she has to lose? She didn't seem weak enough to miss something this basic.
At that point, she had to ask. The other woman had picked the fight on purpose, and if her goal was to lose, that left Lupin thoroughly uneasy. If she truly meant to sexually abuse Klein, then yes, her skull needed cracking—but Lupin had judged that by gut feeling, so the chance of a misunderstanding wasn't zero.
Kchk.
Once again she drove the Lightning Sword into a clone's rigid body, then twisted clear of the combined strike of the three clones that followed, slippery as an eel, and shot a hand into the air.
"Mind if I ask just one thing?"
"What, you've got so much room to spare you're starting a conversation mid-fight?"
"Not really. There's just something I really need to know."
Lupin sent the Lightning Sword home to its sheath. All she used was iaijutsu anyway, so talking doubled as taking the ready stance of a form.
"By any chance... do you want to lose to me?"
She flinched. Ekaterina's whole body trembled, exactly like someone whose inner thoughts had been caught. Lupin frowned and asked again.
"Why'd this get real? Why on earth are you trying to lose?"
Ekaterina looked away and scratched at her temple.
"I... don't really follow what you mean. When did I ever try to lose?"
That was all the confirmation Lupin needed. To say it again: she might be an idiot, but she could read a face. If she couldn't even do that, she never would have survived three years in a black-company grind where dumping work on you and quiet ostracism were everyday life. So she called for Dmitri at once. What was the point of fighting someone whose only thought was to lose?
"Your Grace! There's no reason to continue this duel—"
In a single breath, a clone-body summoned from a blind spot aimed precisely at Lupin's neck. She reacted as fast as she could, and still a lock of hair at her temple was sheared away.
"What was that for? You didn't look like you had any will to fight properly, so I was about to call it off."
Ekaterina's hands shook as she shouted. Whether Lupin won or Ekaterina won, the outcome had to be decided for certain. Only then could one side or the other be pinned underneath and enjoy a woman's happiness.
"A null result is absolutely forbidden! If you try to void this trial, I'll kill you before that happens!"
For the record, Lupin had never once considered losing this fight. Enemies she could handle with a sword were usually subdued before she even brought out the pigeons.
"Do you want to be my slave that badly? Should I really extend it from a day to a month? Or shall we make it for life?"
Ekaterina nodded—and then, before she even realized it, a flush rose across her cheeks. A chill raced down Lupin's spine.
"What the hell is wrong with this crazy bitch...."
