8. Bianca del Castana - 08
8. Bianca del Castana - 08
A wry smile tugged at Bianca's lips at Aria's declaration, which might as well have been a victory speech. Just moments ago, Aria had called her arrogant—yet now the one radiating absolute arrogance was none other than Aria herself.
"I'll grant that my carelessness let you land a solid blow, but isn't it a bit too soon to act as though you've already won?"
The instant Bianca finished speaking, a completely different order of Spiritual Energy began to seep from her body. Faced with a suffocating, overwhelming torrent of Magic Power—enough to suffuse the entire space the two of them occupied—Aria found herself reflexively stepping back.
"...Don't tell me you were holding back?"
Bianca smiled radiantly at Aria, whose complexion had drained of color, and answered without a shred of hesitation.
"Isn't it only natural to conceal one's strength? If you genuinely believed there exists some fool of a mage who fights at full power from the outset without first gauging her opponent's strength, well—that's an adorable opinion to hold, I'll give you that."
Bianca snapped her fingers with a sharp click, and the bloodstains that had covered her entire body vanished. Outwardly, her appearance was restored, but her insides were anything but normal—calling them a complete wreck would be an understatement. Aria's killing stroke from moments ago had dealt Bianca a grievous wound.
Her remaining Magic Power hovered around thirty percent of her usual capacity. Even so, she was confident that it would be more than enough to overwhelm the foe standing before her. She had long since completed her analysis of Aria.
"Bind the enemy. Chains of Sorrow!"
Shrrrk—
In an instant, dozens of chains materialized from thin air and hurtled through space to ensnare Aria.
"...What now?"
Crackle—!
Once more, Aria wrapped herself in a shroud of lightning, attempting to evade the chains that sought to restrain her at speeds invisible to the naked eye. Yet the chains Bianca had summoned swam through the air as if possessed by their own will, clinging to Aria with relentless tenacity.
"Hmph!"
The chains were far too slow to chase Aria as she shot across the battlefield at near-supersonic speeds. At the same time, however, their presence undeniably restricted her movements, if only by a hair's breadth.
"Roar of the Seven-Headed Dragon."
That sliver of restriction was precisely what Bianca had been aiming for.
She swept her slender index finger downward and conjured a new spell. It was Double Casting—the very same technique Aria had unleashed only moments before.
Gwoooooh—!
A seven-headed fire dragon manifested before Bianca. Forged from her Magic Power, the fire dragon was a vicious crystallization of sorcery, rampaging like a living beast beneath its master's command to slaughter the enemy.
"Now—try dodging this one, too."
The moment its merciless mistress unleashed the hunt, the seven-headed fire dragon lunged at Aria like a hound loosed from its chain, its heads tracing erratic paths like living serpents.
"Ngh—!"
Her retreat blocked by chains and the seven-headed fire dragon bearing down upon her, a groan tore from Aria's throat as she realized there was nowhere left to flee. Only one path could break through this desperate situation: a head-on confrontation.
"Heavenly Thunderbolt, resound now in this place!"
Cracklecrackle—!
Savage lightning began to coil across Aria's entire body once more. The lightning she had summoned earlier had been for evasion, but this lightning was meant to meet the enemy directly—and destroy them.
"...Here I come."
Aria's entire focus sharpened to a single point: the annihilation of the seven-headed fire dragon and Bianca del Castana.
Graaah—!
The seven-headed dragon loosed a death roar and threw itself at Aria. Even as its blazing fangs rushed to fill her vision, Aria did not so much as avert her gaze. No—she stepped toward the fire dragon and plunged straight into its jaws—!
Kwaaang—!
Aria's lightning-clad hand blade pierced straight through the fire dragon's first head, shattering it to fragments. The blood-red flames scattered like flower petals, dissolving into Phantom Flame.
In the same breath, Aria launched herself into the air and twisted her body. Immediately after, three of the dragon's heads grazed past her by the thinnest of margins.
Whish—
As Aria hung seemingly defenseless in midair, one fire dragon lunged at her, maw stretched wide. Without the slightest flicker of panic, however, she inverted her body in the air and swung her right foot, smashing the dragon's head to pieces. It was one of the self-defense techniques she had learned from the Duke of Estel, who had raised her as though she were his own daughter.
Yet even as Aria destroyed one head, the two that remained closed in on her body. The twin creatures clamped down hard on her left arm and right leg, then transformed into blazing chains that bound her in place.
"...Was this magic designed to restrain the target from the very beginning?"
Plasma flared across Aria's form, and the two dragon heads pinning her burst apart in a heartbeat.
It took no more than a single second. But that single second was all Bianca needed to prepare her next move.
".....!"
Bianca's eyes flashed as she watched Aria. She would not lower her guard again. Once was more than enough experience when it came to underestimating an opponent and coughing up blood for it. Though she had not yet reached the heights of the Winter Witch, the Aria standing before her now was unquestionably a powerhouse.
...And so she would fight with everything she had. She would mobilize all the strength at her disposal and bring the enemy crashing down. That was the courtesy owed to a worthy opponent who had wounded her—and, at the same time, it would stand as a tribute to that opponent!
Bianca stretched her right arm toward the heavens and murmured the spell in a voice scarcely above a whisper.
"White Flame's Lament."
A white dwarf began to bloom at Bianca's fingertips. Dazzling white light spilled from on high. Compressed beyond all limit, the mass that reached criticality resembled nothing so much as a solar flare.
Ruuuumble—
The ground, already half-obliterated, began to boil and bubble under the radiant heat. The surrounding atmosphere ran mad, lashed by the searing temperature. And below, restrained by Bianca's magic and forced to watch as White Flame's Lament neared completion, Aria's expression twisted in growing dread.
"That spell—!"
How could Aria ever forget that spell? Even if she were cast into hell, she would remember it with absolute clarity. That horrific magic, which had tormented her with the nightmare of Kain's absence from forty days ago clear through to this very moment!
"This is as far as you go. You have done well enough. So now—sleep, as though you are fading away."
The instant Bianca swept her finger downward, the miniature sun began its descent. It was already far too late to evade it. Only one option remained.
Answer the strongest attack with an attack just as overwhelming.
...For a single suspended instant, time stopped within Aria's body. Two seconds before the sun fell to earth. Shaking off the visions of death flashing through her mind, Aria summoned the most powerful spell she could wield in this single point in time. All the training, all the effort she had poured into her growth until now—it was for this very moment!
Cracklecrackle—!
The lightning and plasma that had cloaked her entire body converged upon a single point, birthing a destructive brilliance that soon began to reshape itself into an absolute blade of annihilation, as if it meant to cleave all of creation in two. Aria's Unique Magic—the spell she had honed across forty days of bitter resolve for the sole purpose of countering White Flame's Lament. Its true identity was—
"Thunder God's Blade!"
In that moment, two beams of light born to destroy one another crossed paths, and a blinding radiance consumed the world.
Kwaaaaaaah—!
The two colossal forces collided, and a cataclysmic roar resounded. A massive vacuum wave rippled outward in concentric rings, scouring everything in every direction. A wild gale that forbade the very survival of life raged in the aftermath of the impact.
"Aaaaaaah—!"
Aria's entire body convulsed violently as she sustained the Thunder God's Blade. The hit-and-run tactics she had employed against Bianca had drained far more of her stamina and Magic Power than she had anticipated, and White Flame's Lament was unleashing a might far beyond her expectations. She had barely managed to hold herself together as her body threatened to be blown away at any second—but now she had reached her limit. In that fleeting instant, Aria glimpsed her own death.
"...Lord Kain..."
She felt not the slightest fear of death. The only thing that cut her to the bone was the knowledge that she had failed to deliver final judgment upon the woman who had so brazenly deceived Kain. She missed him desperately—the man who had always regarded her with a smile.
"It is over, Winter Witch. This time, there is truly no one anywhere who can save you."
But at that very moment, an answer to Bianca's words came from somewhere.
"...No. There is someone right here."
".....!"
Along with the terse words, a figure materialized right beside Aria. Without so much as flinching, he stretched out his hand toward the pure-white sun that had already reached the tip of Aria's nose. To any observer, it was an act of sheer, reckless suicide.
"...N-no, don't!"
Witnessing it, Aria let out a piercing scream without thinking. She was certain he would be incinerated on the spot in the the raging White Flame.
...But what she feared did not come to pass. The instant his hand met the white sun, the sun veered off course beneath his palm—as though it had received an absolute command that it must not continue—and was diverted far away from her.
Kwooooooh—!
The sun plummeted far from where they stood and then erupted in a cataclysmic explosion in the distance.
It was the result of pushing Flowing Star to its very limits. Flowing Star, able to perceive the Flow of all things and adjust their course, possessed the power to redirect even Bianca's mightiest spell, White Flame's Lament, elsewhere.
...Of course, the one who had accomplished such a feat was far from unscathed. The acrid stench of seared flesh rose from his left arm, and from the fingertips that had made indirect contact with the White Flame, fluid from the burns dripped steadily. His left arm was barely clinging to his torso.
"...How can this be... Lord Kain. Your arm, your arm...!"
Kain moved to reach out toward Aria, who looked ready to dissolve into tears at any moment, to comfort her—but he soon realized it was impossible. His left arm had already refused its master's commands.
"It's all right, Aria. Compared to your life, this is a paltry price."
As Kain comforted her in a gentle tone, telling her that saving her made the loss of one arm not the slightest cause for regret, Aria at last broke down in tears.
"Don't cry. It's truly been a long-awaited reunion. Such an expression doesn't suit you."
When Kain raised his right arm, which still obeyed him, and wiped away Aria's tears, she gazed up at his face with a dazed expression.
"...Why in the world...?"
To her question—why he had barged into the place where she and Bianca del Castana were locked in combat—Kain answered as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"Aria, isn't it obvious that I came to bring you back?"
Kain gently stroked Aria's head with his right hand, then turned toward Bianca, who had been staring at him in a daze.
"And Bianca. The same goes for you. I also came to retrieve you, since you slipped off on a nighttime stroll alone without breathing a single word to me."
Having said that, Kain planted himself between Bianca and Aria as though to bar the space between them, then spoke in a voice of absolute finality.
"Both of you—this ends here. I will not permit any further fighting. And if either of you still feels unsatisfied—"
"Then from now on, I will take your place and keep you company myself."