Master of the Demonic Sword (9)
"Faster! Move faster!"
"Not a single moment is to be wasted!"
The holy knights sprinted through the forest, prepared to lay down their very lives. All around them, the crimson aura that blanketed the woods only deepened its ominous, blood-tinged hue with every passing second.
"L-Lord Sibilik! Look there!"
At the shout, Sibilik—who had been urging the party onward—turned his head toward the front. And at once, his eyes flooded with disbelief.
-Kwaaaagh…!
Black mist erupted from the heart of the forest like an explosion, a darkness so profound it made the crimson aura from moments before seem utterly insignificant by comparison.
Deep darkness, thick as the dead of midnight, settled down around them.
In that pitch-black world, no light could be found anywhere.
Even in the eyes of those warriors who would sooner choose martyrdom than bow to evil, a flicker of fear passed for an instant.
Each of them traced the holy sign and cried out.
"The end of the world…! How can this be…!"
"O Almighty Aten…"
"…Impossible."
Lord Sibilik, leading the holy knights, stammered in open disbelief. "Not even Zgahi was capable of this…! What manner of being has taken hold of Tessak, to bring forth such…"
Gritting his teeth, he steeled himself once more and murmured, "May Aten guide us…"
***
Kallen took a single step forward.
As if in response, the blackened space around him rippled violently. It was a sight that made his very will seem to manifest into reality.
Feeling his vitality draining away with every breath, he clicked his tongue. "…I can't hold out for long."
Muttering so, Kallen stepped toward Garnet once more.
None of the savage ferocity from before seemed to remain in her now. Her eyes were still clouded and unfocused, yet even in that state, she instinctively cowered at the sight of him, her body shrinking back.
"Borrowing the power of a demonic sword, and *that's* all you've got to show for it?"
Watching her, Kallen let out a mocking smirk. "You're barely fit to handle a kitchen knife."
"Grrraaah…!"
At the jeering voice, Garnet clenched her teeth again. As though trying to sweep away the darkness eroding everything around her, she flung her crimson aura violently in all directions—then lunged straight at Kallen, shrieking in a voice that broke and sputtered.
"Di-e…!!"
-Krrrack…!
With a simple swing of his blade, Kallen deflected her attack. Her hazy eyes, still gritted with fury, had at some point come to brim with trembling tears.
"Don't… interfere… hnngh…!"
-KWAAANG!
Black energy exploded from Kallen's sword once more. Caught in the shockwave, Garnet heaved and vomited blood from her mouth.
Answering the words of one possessed by a demonic sword was nothing but a meaningless waste of time. Kallen gave her no opening and pressed his assault without pause.
-Bam! Bam! KWAAANG!
With every strike, jet-black darkness scattered violently through the air around them. Garnet gnashed her teeth in desperate resistance, but she could barely manage to block Kallen's blows at all.
-Crreeeak…
Then, from taking blow after blow in the same spot, a hairline crack began to spider across her blade.
Kallen, who had been driving Garnet back unilaterally, suddenly spun his body and brought his foot crashing down on that very spot.
-CRAAANG!
"Kyaaaaaak!!"
The instant the blade snapped in half, Garnet shrieked in agony. It was a rough, hoarse voice—as if someone other than Garnet were borrowing her body to scream through it.
"Haah… haah…!"
Even panting for breath, Garnet showed no intention whatsoever of letting go of the broken sword. Seeing this, Kallen's brow furrowed sharply.
'Damn it. Has the assimilation already progressed too far?'
The crimson aura bleeding out from the shattered blade was now overflowing in every direction, running utterly rampant.
"This is a tricky one…"
Time was running short. The black mist, as if determined to unleash all its long-suppressed malice, was eroding away the other half of Kallen's body in the blink of an eye. What's more, by now those outside would surely have noticed something was wrong and dispatched reinforcements into the forest.
He needed to wrap things up here before anyone arrived. That was why he had unleashed even the power he'd been hoarding and provoked Garnet—but his opponent's tenacity was no ordinary thing either.
"I knew this was no ordinary demonic sword…"
Forcing the blade to shatter completely wouldn't have been difficult. But if he did, there was a very real chance that the sword clinging to her would drag Garnet's mind down into ruin along with it.
"Try prying it off another way? No, even then…"
Just as Kallen was racking his brain in mounting frustration—
"If tearing it away by force is impossible, then she has to overcome the demonic sword herself… but she's already assimilated this far, so… hm?"
Something struck him. A strange look crossed his face, and he glanced around.
If Garnet's apostlehood had truly progressed beyond all remedy, the ground near the spring should already have been dyed into a sea of blood. Yet the students he'd passed on the way here were merely unconscious—not a single one bore so much as a life-threatening injury.
"…Like father, like daughter, is it?"
Murmuring to himself, Kallen felt the corner of his mouth curl slightly upward. "She doesn't go down easily… In that case…"
An idea flashed through Kallen's mind—the only way out of this situation. And at the same time, it was a dangerous gamble staked on his very life.
If the odds didn't break his way, his own soul would scatter, swallowed whole by the demonic sword as its next meal.
"Well, fine. Let's do it."
Yet Kallen only grinned and nodded. "There's no other way anyway."
Betting that cheap a thing as a life on the table meant nothing to him. A life he had already thrown away held no value to speak of. If something so worthless could break this deadlock, it would be the bargain of the century.
"And besides, I did make a promise to a parent… *sigh*."
Exhaling a sigh of resignation, Kallen closed his eyes once more and gathered his focus.
The black energy that had been spreading endlessly outward shuddered all at once and reversed its flow. Then, spiraling like a whirlpool, it came rushing violently back into Kallen's sword.
"Nngh…"
As he reclaimed the erupted black energy, Kallen groaned in pain. His sword, glowing red-hot, hissed and spewed steam.
His right hand was still stained black, but Kallen calmly slid the sword back into the sheath at his hip.
Then, inexplicably, he simply stepped out in front of Garnet, arms spread wide, completely defenseless.
"Now then, here's a fine, plump quarry for you."
Kallen spoke in his most flippant voice, as if teasing her. "You saw my power just now, didn't you? The greatest threat to your awakening is me. And right now, that threat is standing before you without a weapon in hand. If you're waiting for your chance, it's now or never, no?"
"K-kh, khh…!"
And at that, the eyes of Garnet—who had been moaning in agony, clutching the demonic sword—flashed bright once more.
Watching her drag her feet forward step by shuffling step, Kallen lifted the corner of his mouth and pressed the taunt further. "What are you so hesitant about? Hmm?"
"Grrraaah…!"
"Don't tell me even a defenseless enemy frightens you now? Some demonic sword that is. Can you even be bothered to slice fruit properly, at this rate? Hmm?"
"Hraaaaagh…!"
And then Garnet, glaring at Kallen with savage fury, leapt at him like a bolt of lightning.
Her blade's point was aimed precisely at Kallen's heart.
Kallen only smiled.
Then, as if it were nothing at all, he closed his eyes and calmly surrendered his body to the moment.
-THRUCK!
The cold, heavy sensation of metal bored into his chest. Even through the vicious agony—like a blade carving through every vein in his body—Kallen did no more than furrow his brow slightly.
And then came Garnet's voice, trembling uncontrollably.
"Y-you…?"
Her azure eyes, focus restored, were fixed straight ahead. And at the sight of the half-shattered demonic sword buried in Kallen's chest, an indescribable horror rose up in her gaze.
Only belatedly realizing what she had done, Garnet opened her mouth, stammering, her face drained bone-white. "Wh-what have I… Ah, aaah… Ah…"
"You did well."
And what pulled Garnet back from the very brink of the swamp of despair was, of all things, an exceedingly gentle voice.
Kallen was simply looking down at her, a faint smile playing on his lips. He raised his rough, calloused hand as if it were the most natural thing in the world and began to slowly stroke Garnet's hair.
"You broke free of the demonic sword's grip all on your own. Well done. I'm proud of you."
"Ah, uhh… But…!"
"Don't worry. My heart is perfectly fine."
"Ah…?"
At those words, Garnet's tear-brimmed eyes finally flew wide open.
Her half-broken sword had buried itself in the outer edge, a hair's breadth away from the fatal spot.
Kallen remembered the moment with perfect clarity—the very last instant, when the sword's trajectory had twisted, forcibly, against its will.
"You resisted the temptation right up to the very end. Truly your father's daughter, Nigel's blood through and through."
Looking down at her, Kallen spoke in a low voice. "You've been through a lot."
"Ah, aaah…"
At those words, the eyes gazing up at him brimmed over once more with glistening sorrow. Kallen's few short words seeped into her heart more warmly than any lengthy consolation ever could.
And then Garnet, unable to bear it any longer, crumpled completely.
"Hkk, hnngh… Huaaang…"
Before she knew it, she was burying her face into Kallen's chest and sobbing in great, heaving gasps.
"Hkk… I'm sorry… I never meant for this to happen…! Hnngh…"
"…"
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry…"
Kallen said nothing, only silently stroking the back of Garnet as she poured out her confession.
Then, with one hand, he wrenched out the half-blade of the sword embedded at the edge of his chest and hurled it away.
-KRIEEEAGH…!!
A scream like a soul being twisted apart burst out in every direction, then faded to nothing. The rippling crimson mist, too, no longer left so much as a trace.
Beneath the clear sky, a cool breeze drifted in and brushed against their faces. All that remained there was an old, broken sword.
"Looks like I really did annihilate it."
Its victim had severed the hold upon herself, and its main body had been snapped clean in half—even a Demon God's own grandfather would have had no means of surviving that.
Kallen nodded, finally at ease—and then his body suddenly swayed.
Garnet startled and caught him in a clumsy scramble. "N-no…! Hnngh—?!"
The two of them tangled together and collapsed.
"Mmh. Can't say the view's very good from here."
At some point, Kallen had naturally come to rest his head in Garnet's lap. "My chest feels all blocked up, it's terribly stuffy—cough, cough!"
"A-are you okay?! What do I do…!"
Kallen, wearing a mischievous smile, was just about to spit out another pointless joke—when he suddenly heaved up a mouthful of blood. Garnet, utterly at a loss, looked down at him with a face on the verge of tears.
Now that she looked, blood was streaming steadily from his chest, where the sword had been pulled free.
"Cough… N-noisy…"
Waving a hand as if to reassure her, Kallen spoke in faltering fragments. "F-flask…"
"Yes?"
"My… flask… quickly… at my hip…"
"At a time like this, you want *alcohol*?! Absolutely not…!"
Garnet's eyes went round as saucers and she shook her head frantically. But Kallen only reached out again, urging her on in a voice crawling up from his throat.
"Quiet… it's my… Life Water… hurry…"
"Honestly…!"
Under his relentless insistence, Garnet—crying even as she gave in—had no choice but to hand over the flask.
Kallen took it, twisted off the cap at once, and gulped it down greedily.
-Shaaaaa…
The bleeding from his chest stopped little by little, as if it had never been there at all. And Kallen's one hand—stained pitch-black like dead flesh, in a way Garnet had never seen—regained its original color once more.
"Haah…"
Only then, as if satisfied he would live, did Kallen sigh—his gaze slowly dimming. "Damn it… this time it really was… a close call…"
"Huh? H-hey!"
"You really are… such a handful…"
Kallen's words never made it to the end.
"No, don't!"
At the sensation of his head lolling down, Garnet gasped and frantically examined him. But he had simply fallen into a deep sleep, worn out beyond all measure.
"Ah…"
***
Kallen was walking down a road shrouded in thick fog.
"…Where on earth is this?"
He grumbled under his breath even as he glanced around again and again. Beyond the hazy mist, all that could be seen were the crumbling ruins of a vast, ancient mansion, broken and decayed.
He couldn't begin to grasp where this place might be.
"…"
Even so, Kallen pressed onward, pushing through the fog. At last, the scene of a flower garden came into view, overflowing with red and white blossoms.
At its very center, before a weathered old table, he sensed the presence of someone waiting.
Kallen's eyes suddenly met those of a woman with hair dark as the deepest night and eyes crimson as if drunk on blood.
"I've been waiting for you."
The moment her lips parted, the woman's voice echoed through his mind.
A black dress in a style that fashion had abandoned long, long ago stood in dramatic contrast to her pallid skin. Strangely enough, though he was certain he had never seen her before, she stirred in him an odd, powerful sense of déjà vu—a most peculiar thing indeed.
"…Who are you?"
Kallen asked, a trace of wariness in his voice. The woman parted her lips without so much as a flicker of discomposure.
"Your master."
"…?"
Absurd nonsense he couldn't begin to make sense of. Just as Kallen's face scrunched up and he tilted his head in confusion—
his eyes flew wide open, as if something had suddenly come back to him.
Then he looked at the woman and asked, in a voice that couldn't quite believe itself, "You… don't tell me you're… my sword?"