The Masked Ball

Vulkan turned the thought over.

Asha is gone.

She had flung herself into the subspace where Hestia was sealed, and vanished with it. He wasn't worried. The spell Marin had laid—the one that let them feel each other's condition—whispered that she was safe.

Then what about Hestia?

Honestly, he didn't know. Asha would be with her, so the odds of safety were high. But their enemy was Black Wolf. A standoff of mere minutes had been enough for Vulkan to take the measure of their strength.

A little weaker than us, probably.

A different answer from Asha's. He had felt Black Wolf's power, and the power of his people, as threatening as hers—yet where Asha judged an enemy by information, Vulkan trusted his gut. And his gut said this:

Black Wolf. He looks every bit as strong as Asha... and yet, somehow, he feels manageable.

He couldn't have explained it. He didn't know the reason. Thinking harder didn't help. Only the feeling remained—that one wrong tap, and you might die.

Even so, a little weaker than his own side or not, Black Wolf's strength was tremendous.

Probably level with those so-called ten strongest in the world. Maybe above them.

Hestia had been taken by ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠people like that. For now, the safest path was to do exactly as they said.

...So it really does come down to killing myself.

He was steeling himself for it when confusion flickered through his eyes. Come to think of it—

...I only have one life.

He had one thing to give, and the number of people he needed to save had just become two. While he fretted and pressed them with questions, Black Wolf tossed the words out as if they were nothing.

"Fight, and I will release her."

He fights. Hestia goes free. ...And if it goes well, Asha too.

Clever, Vulkan.

Pleased with himself, he hauled the shield he had driven into the ground back into place.

"My opponent?"

"...I will choose."

Nahan hesitated, looking faintly hard done by, then turned his head toward Luna.

"Take him, Persona."

"Okay, Captain."

Emerald light settled, calm and deep, in her eyes.

The corners of her eyes bent by force.

Step. Step. Step.

Feet that had been planted came free and carried her toward the man with the shield. One last step, and the two of them stood face to face.

"The terms?"

"You fight. Until I tell you to stop."

"Understood."

Vulkan nodded and dropped into a stance. Luna only turned her head to look at Nahan.

"Captain. Approve the release."

Nahan read the unease in her eyes, nodded, and approved the release.

She must have grown stronger over the last few days. The rank that had been wavering between S- and S was fixed, now, at S.

Luna's mana, once a passing breeze, went still as the eye of a typhoon and took hold of everything around her. Masks rose with it—dozens of them, each carrying the feel of her mana, hung in the air at even intervals like pieces in a gallery. Once every mask had taken form, she stepped lightly back, then bowed from the waist with the easy gesture of a host opening a performance.

"I will begin."

Bright, and razor-clear with killing intent. A voice clinging to the chance to live.

"...So you were hiding your strength after all."

Whatever Vulkan had sensed in her, his face grew a shade more grave. Nahan watched the two of them glare as if each meant to kill the other, and thought:

Should've done it this way from the start.

There had only ever been a description attached to the name Vulkan, and something about it had snagged at him. Now, at last, he understood it completely.

Anyway.

He said nothing, and dropped his gaze.

It glowed blue in a corner of his vision—a bad ending that would complete the instant the two of them collided. And beside it:

The key that would open the second skills of Black Wolf and Yellow Dragon.

Looking forward to it.

He had scraped by well enough on the passive and the first skill alone. One more, and things would get considerably easier. Buoyed on that quiet anticipation, he missed the mutter slipping from Luna, lifted his hand, and dreamed of a life that might be a little better than this one.

"Fight with your life on the line."

The words fell like a signal.

"Crushing Charge."

"Masked Ball."

The impact detonated between them, and the battle began.

"Crushing Charge."

Vulkan's first skill—one the world itself had assigned him, though he would never know it.

The skill that stood for him best—simple, and brutish—fired toward Luna.

There was hardly a windup. That huge body shot forward in a straight line, and the edges of the broken shields in either hand swept in as if to take her head from her shoulders. Had she not released her power, it would have been the fastest, strongest blow of the fight, and she would have died before she could react. She registered it by a hair and dragged the corners of her mouth up by force.

"Masked Ball."

Luna's first skill. The Masked Ball.

In plainer words: she turned the souls she had collected into masks, stored them, and scattered them around herself so they could be worn. Vulkan was already on top of her. Luna snatched one mask from the air and put it on.

A soft shimmer. The robed body went half-transparent, and by the time Vulkan reached it, she was already gone.

The crash of his missed blow shook the hall. The instant he understood, he hammered his right hand upward and drove it into the ceiling. A grinding crack ran through the stone. His arm bent as if it would snap, raking along the ceiling, and at last it held. His body stopped.

Just now... that was my equal. Or above me.

A beast's instinct caught the mask's power, and he weighed two choices. Charge? Or open the distance? It was only a thought. His body was already in the middle of the lunge.

Fight. Hestia lives.

He threw away even his own life and death, held Hestia's in his reason alone, and emptied his head clean. A charge. A change of direction. Another charge. Weight pitched forward, he drove for the throat the way a predator springs, and the edged shield stabbed at every vital it could find. As a shield-warrior he had kept some scrap of reason. Now that the shield was a weapon, he fought like a beast on the hunt.

"...Captain."

Dalan had been watching the fight. Before he left his place, he asked, carefully, "Should we not help?"

At the worry in that voice, Nahan's sight widened again.

...As expected. He was still a long way from standing as their equal.

"Wait."

He had been staring at the battle in a daze. Only then did he pull himself together and read what was actually happening.

"Your little tricks run ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠long!!"

"......!!"

Luna spent everything she had dodging the blows that could kill her, and she took the ones that followed. Fatal wounds she slipped by a hair. The small ones kept adding up.

Dalan's right.

Vulkan's strength was SS-rank. Luna's was the same, but hers was a forced, temporary growth dragged out of a skill, and a limit would come. If the fight kept its present shape, Vulkan would kill her soon.

And yet—why?

The survival instinct Nahan had whetted since his previous life began handing him a conclusion that had nothing to do with what he was seeing.

...Why does Vulkan look like the one in more danger?

A chill of déjà vu. The anxiety of making a mistake because he didn't know something that mattered. He ought to trust the situation in front of him, and his survival instinct kept offering the opposite. There wasn't time to think it through.

"This is the end!! I'll kill you, Black Wolf!!"

Vulkan stomped Luna's instep flat and swung the shield's edge at her, pinned where she stood.

If Luna dies, I die too.

The thought finished, and Nahan turned his head toward Dalan—and in that same instant Dalan let out a breath, as if a headache had just arrived, and muttered.

"Oh dear. We're late."

Late?

"If we end up killing the hero already, things will be rather troublesome from here on."

The hero dies? Not Luna—Vulkan?

Startled, Nahan turned back as if nothing were wrong, and faced the two of them again.

"...No. I'm not dying."

A soft shimmer. In time that seemed to have stopped, Luna reached out and closed her hand on a single ash-gray mask. Unlike the neat ones, this looked as if something hacked to pieces had been stitched back together. Plainly ill-omened. The moment she set it on her own face—

Dark crimson force poured out, and every movement around her stopped. Inside it, the only one who could still move was the caster. Luna herself.

Step. Step. Step.

Her foot was already free. She came up beside Vulkan and held out her hand.

"...I should."

As if something had him, Vulkan drew the shield from his left hand and offered it to her. She took it as if it were the most natural thing in the world and laid its edge across his face.

A searing rip. The wound opened along the blade, and blood ran down along the wound. The shield, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠moving slowly, came to rest at last over the carotid in his neck.

A slack, empty smile. Eyes bloodshot red, Luna forced the shape of one and asked in a sorrowful voice.

For my sake.

"...I should."

Vulkan's thick neck began, slowly, to tilt toward the sharp edge of the shield. Blood welled. Skin split, and a vivid line ran down.

In that same moment Nahan's fading mind snapped back with his survival instinct.

I have to stop this.

Luna. Vulkan. Hestia. Not one of them could die. If Luna died, he died—and if the others died, there was no telling how the future would change. But his body would not move, as if sleep paralysis had him.

What the hell am I going through all this for...!! Damn it, move...!!!

He was screaming it on the inside, clawing for any way out, when the windows rose.

With the deep-blue window, a black one and a golden one rose as well.

...With this.

I checked the new skills, and I didn't have to think long. I activated one.