The Star Girl and the Crimson-Eyed Knight
Knock, knock.
"Master, it is time for you to leave."
The voice came from the other side of the door.
I had just finished morning training and was changing to head out for the Sword and Magic Festival when Lucy arrived to tell me the hour had come. These days, she and Liliana took turns serving as the manor's living alarm clock, and today was Lucy's turn.
Still dressing, I spoke toward the door.
"I'll be out in a moment."
The door creaked open almost as soon as I answered, and Lucy was waiting on the other side. She looked as she always did — black leather from throat to heel, silver hair falling long down her back. And yet something about her felt different today.
"Are you ready to leave?"
"Yes. Time's getting tight. Let's go."
"Yes. Today's plan... I sincerely hope it succeeds."
"Obviously. Everything will be fine, so don't worry."
"Um... and when you return..."
"Hm?"
Lucy trailed off and fidgeted, stalling for a long, awkward stretch. It was a look I almost never saw on her, and I was still trying to make sense of it when her cheeks flushed and she spoke in a voice so small I nearly missed it.
"Tonight... would you hold me again?"
"..."
Her lips pressed faintly together. Beneath that shy face, a deep valley of bare skin showed. Her wide, childbearing hips kept twitching as if the request itself embarrassed her.
...Out of nowhere?
For a second I just stood there, thrown. She understood perfectly well how important today's plan was. A confession like that, at a moment like this, should have made no sense — until I actually thought about it.
Last night I had told her I'd brought Elda on board. More women gathering around me... that had to be what was eating at her. I had already been planning to push things forward with Lucy once the festival ended, just to put her mind at ease. Apparently she had found the courage first, right before a fight that actually mattered.
Even so — asking me to hold her tonight...
She had skipped every scrap of dating nonsense and gone straight to the point, innocent and lewd in the same breath, and the blood in my body answered before I did. Those almost vulgarly enormous breasts swaying while she made a request like that — what man alive could have said no?
I wanted to take her right there. Unfortunately, I had somewhere else to be. I crushed the heat rising through me and pulled her into my arms.
"Ah..."
"Of course. I promise. When I get back, I'll hold you all night long."
"Thank you..."
I let myself savor the soft, abundant give of her breasts before I released her. She bowed, her face so red it looked ready to burst.
There was nothing to thank me for. If anyone should have been grateful, it was me.
This isn't a death flag, is it?
Take the lines by themselves and I sounded like a husband promising to come home from a war.
Well, shit.
"Master?"
Lucy tilted her head, watching the grim look that had settled on my face, clearly wondering what I was thinking. Those calm eyes of hers found mine, and the useless tension bled out of me.
Time to go.
The semifinals would start soon. Luke was probably already at the arena, and had been for a while. Come to think of it — after that sparring match in the forest, was this the original novel's final boss facing the protagonist at last?
No. Not anymore.
The Behirit Divelion who had been the original's final boss was gone. I was myself. So I would do this my way. As someone who had once been a fan of that story, the least I could do was enjoy a match against the hero.
I gave Lucy a playful smile, stroked her hair, and set out for the arena.
The arena where the Sword and Magic Festival matches were held. Tens of thousands of spectators, gathered from every corner of the Empire, held their breath for the semifinals about to begin.
Both swordsmen stepping into this round were genuine contenders for the championship. A hush settled over the vast colosseum, and from a corridor, waiting for her entrance, a girl's soft lips parted and a sweet voice slipped out.
"At last. This moment is here."
The star girl tightened her grip, nerves humming through her fingers. Eileen Starrail turned shining eyes on the stage waiting at the heart of the arena.
Sir Conrad, her opponent in the second round, had been no easy fight — but she had kept her pace, thinking of the Grand Duke, and she had won. Now came the hour of proof. A chance to show him, standing right there in front of her, how far she had come.
A roar went up the instant she stepped onto the stage, a wall of sound that rattled through her ribs. The crowd howled as if this were already the final, pouring their voices onto a first-year from the Imperial Academy whose talent had already outshone her age.
Eileen stood in that storm of cheers and waited. Then, from the opposite corridor, the masked knight appeared.
Step. Step.
The air itself shivered with every stride he took. The pressure rolling off him barely seemed like it could belong to the same species. Licht. No — Grand Duke Behirit. A Sword Master, his identity hidden, climbing onto the stage of the Sword and Magic Festival.
"...?"
A question mark bloomed over Eileen's head the moment she saw his eyes through the mask. Because the Grand Duke was smiling with them — a soft, easy crinkle, tucked behind the visor. A man who almost never smiled, wearing a look she had not expected. She could not guess why. But that harmless expression loosened something in her chest before the match had even begun.
Did he smile on purpose? To put me at ease?
She tilted her head, studying him. She did not know. One thing, though, she knew without any doubt: the Grand Duke meant to enjoy this duel.
Could she enjoy it too?
I'll just give it everything I have.
Looking at the man standing before her, Eileen carved her resolve into the star she carried in her chest.
A little time passed. Both of them put on their Protective Artifacts and faced each other across a measured stretch of stone.
"..."
The crowd felt the current running between the two fighters and went so still they seemed to begrudge even the sound of their own breathing. In that moment, only the star girl and the crimson-eyed knight existed, each of them wholly inside the other's world.
Their gazes held. Behind the mask, the Grand Duke's serious expression melted once more into a smile of the eyes. Those red, jewel-bright irises curving into thin crescents were beautiful enough to send a shiver down the spine.
Then he drew his longsword, easy and unhurried. The gong that marked the start of the match rang out —
and he was gone.
Fast!
He had not even manifested his aura, and he was still as fast as Professor Elda. Where would the attack come from? Eileen flung her mana wide, hunting for him by sense alone.
"?"
Something was wrong. His presence was nowhere on the stage. Then instinct slammed a warning through her.
Above!
She had no idea when he had moved. The crimson-eyed knight was already over her head, longsword crashing down. Eileen poured starlight aura into her blade and wrenched it up to meet him.
The collision detonated through the arena.
"Kh...!"
"You noticed. I'll give you credit for that."
"Thank you...!"
"Try blocking the next one as well."
He vanished on the heels of his own warning, a blur of displaced air. She whipped her head toward the flicker of his presence and saw him, as if the world had slowed, driving his foot down into the stage.
That technique. The one from before!
A single step of that nameless art had put her on her knees last time. Not this time.
A vast, rolling boom shook the entire arena as the Grand Duke's raised foot came down. Mana surged toward her in a single crushing wave — and Eileen poured every drop of her own into her feet, sealing him out before his power could take hold of her.
Sparks of disrupted mana hissed across the stone.
"Oh?"
He sounded genuinely impressed, as if he had never seen that technique stopped before. The wonder lasted only a breath. Then the sword strikes came, a tide of them, crashing one after another.
Boom. Crash.
There was no aura in those blows, and still every parry went off like an explosion spell. Each cut found a weakness with terrifying precision. No feints. No games of bait and switch. Just a calm, relentless offensive, every motion aimed at taking her apart.
"Hah... hah..."
The longer the Grand Duke pressed, the thinner Eileen's breath became. She was swinging a blade bright with starlight aura and still could do nothing but defend. And yet, strangely, the more she blocked, the more she began to find something inside his attacks.
There was no waste in him. A thrust at the heart came only as far as it needed to, accounting for how she would move, and stopped at the exact depth that would have pierced. When he went for the arm that held her sword, he never forced the hit — he cut with the next strike already in mind.
Once she understood that, his attacks grew clearer by the second. Understanding sharpened her defense. And Eileen realized what was happening.
She was getting used to him.
The moment she could see the sword, her eyes lifted to his face. Behind the mask, the Grand Duke's crimson gaze was curved as if he were genuinely pleased. Without meaning to, Eileen smiled back, quiet and small.
Ah. So that's it.
Now she understood what it meant to enjoy a duel. Wielding a sword could be this joyful. On a stage where no one else in the world could interfere, where only the two of them existed, the star girl and the crimson-eyed knight danced, speaking to each other with steel.
That time belonging to them alone stretched on — until Eileen's expression broke.
"Nnh..."
His blade had grazed across her chest and sliced through cloth and bandage alike.
...No.
If this went on, her secret would be laid bare before tens of thousands of people. It was a matter that touched her family's decision itself. She had to stop her identity from coming out. She had to — and still she did not want this to end. She wanted to keep dancing with him.
Time, however, would not wait. The Grand Duke had noticed something was wrong; the smile had left his eyes, replaced by a question. The end of the match was coming into view, and Eileen bit her lip as if she could hold the moment in place by force.
Then his sword cut the last of the bandages bracing her chest.
"!"
Nothing else mattered now. She had to keep tens of thousands of spectators from seeing what she was. Her breasts, crushed flat for so long beneath those bindings, were a heartbeat from spilling free —
A rush of air.
"?"
"Use this."
The Grand Duke had stopped his assault. He pulled off his coat and threw it to her. Had he realized she was a woman? Eileen wrapped herself in the garment, and he spoke again.
"I didn't think you'd care that much, but I understand. Everyone's different. You might not want people seeing you with your clothes torn to shreds."
"Ah..."
Such gentle consideration. He thought she had frozen up because her clothes were ruined.
...I'm glad he didn't find out.
And yet, strangely, the relief was thinner than the disappointment underneath it.
Why do I feel this way?
Eileen's eyes went wide. The feeling bewildered her. No one outside her family was supposed to know her secret. So why did she want to tell the Grand Duke? Why, ever since she had met him, had living as something other than a girl begun to feel like a loss?
Ah... so that's what this is.
She clutched the coat — it still held his warmth — and gave a small, private nod. She could no longer pretend she did not know. Not her own heart. Not the truth she had been lying to herself about.
Grand Duke... if you learned the truth, how would you look at me?
Fear, anticipation, and a fine trembling washed through her all at once. Even so, she could not put this feeling out. She would keep this precious ember alive. She would tell him her secret — not now, but soon. And with that thought held close, Eileen took into her sight the crimson-eyed knight looking down at her, his gaze as gentle as a hand.