Discord (4)
Druggy Hakan. Her true name was Hakante Canariel.
She was an alchemist. Not one of those Healing School types holed up in a back room stirring a ladle over a pot—no, she belonged to the Blood School.
The Blood School.
A school of alchemy that used blood as its medium.
Some described them this way: people who had something far more dangerous than blades flowing through their veins. Hakan had heard that once, and she'd laughed out loud as she answered.
"That's a pretty accurate assessment."
Splash.
Hakan flung her own blood into the air.
The moment the scattered blood touched the ground, it vaporized. The blood-mist thickened through the alley like fog. This was a kind of doping agent she had compounded herself—one that wrenched physical ability, including strength and reaction speed, to its absolute limit while plunging the body into a state of frenzied excitation.
It reacted with the drugs she had already administered to the addicts' bodies. The instant they breathed in that doping-laden fog, bloodshot veins flooded their eyes.
Graaaaaaaaaaah!
They howled and charged at Najin far faster than before—so fast the earlier rush could not even compare.
I'd been saving this.
Breathing the same fog, Hakan loosened her shoulders and rolled her neck. The doping agent carried no side effects for her alone. For anyone else, it was a double-edged poison. It delivered explosive power and euphoria the moment it was absorbed… but.
Hakan narrowed her eyes and watched the addicts.
From their bodies came a noisy crackling, popping sound—the sound of flesh beginning to break down. That was the side effect. Enhancement and destruction arrived together. In only a few minutes they would be unable to move at all.
In short, it was a tool for short, decisive battles.
She had originally reserved it for Ivan. But once the boy had shown that light, she could not risk leaving him alive on this street. There was no telling what variables he might create. In the end, that judgment proved correct.
Boom.
Najin kicked off the alley wall and swung. A blade trailing white radiance carved through three bodies in a single stroke. Even with their flesh enhanced by the doping, the addicts never managed to react.
They had borrowed the drug's speed; Najin had borrowed mana to accelerate just as hard.
His accelerated body still felt awkward—at times he seemed to be dragged along by the sword—yet he butchered the addicts with terrifying velocity, advancing in a zigzag that bounced from wall to wall as though performing acrobatics.
Thud, thud.
Every swing dropped severed arms and heads to the ground. The moment the headless corpses began to swell toward explosion, Najin flipped them over and kicked them away. Every motion was astonishingly fast.
When Najin kicked the earth, there was no longer a light tap. He shattered the ground with a heavy boom and sprinted.
Graaaaaaargh!
The addicts hurled themselves at him regardless of how many of their number were cut down. Najin eyed the swarm leaping toward him and, for the first time, sprang backward.
It was not a retreat.
Landing from the long leap, he drove his foot deep into the ground with a solid thud, let the sword trail behind him, and slowly exhaled.
"Hoo…"
The space he had opened was a runway. The addicts, ignorant of that, took a single step toward him.
BOOM!
Najin kicked off.
An instantaneous acceleration the eye could scarcely follow. White sword-ki streaked across the alley like a meteor's tail. The moment he reached what needed cutting, he twisted his waist and swung.
A horizontal cut in a narrow alley—something one should never attempt.
Yet when the blade met the wall it did not bounce; it sank smoothly through stone and emerged on the other side without the slightest catch. The cutting power of the sword-ki had freed him from the constraints of terrain.
Shhhhhraaak!
The long, sweeping arc mowed down every addict blocking his path. Before the bisected corpses could even finish collapsing, Najin kicked the ground and sprinted again.
KRA-KOOM!
An explosion roared at his back. He used even the shockwave as thrust. Ahead waited Hakan. Targeting the commander in a single rush was the best choice Najin could make.
Best—yet he had overlooked one thing.
Najin knew nothing of alchemists.
Najin knew nothing of the Blood School.
Najin did not know how Hakan fought.
A conclusion drawn from the barest scraps of information might be the best available choice, but that did not make it the correct one. The instant he swung at Hakan he saw her smiling at him. It was not the smile of someone cornered.
It was the opposite: the smile of a hunter who had driven her prey into a trap.
…The Blood School.
Those who worked alchemy through blood.
Right now the alley was awash with it. Blood spilled by dozens of addicts. Blood blasted in every direction by their explosions. Blood under Najin's feet, and blood coating the sword in his hand a vivid scarlet.
Because the addicts had drunk the fog and drugs made from Hakan's blood, their own blood carried hers mixed within it.
And therefore every drop of it was the perfect catalyst for Blood School alchemist Hakante Canariel.
Snap.
Hakan flicked her fingers.
In that instant the alley flushed crimson. Using the blood pooled everywhere as catalyst, she activated the simplest and most effective alchemy of all.
Explosion.
KRAAAAAAAAAAASH!
A roar shook the alley. An explosion of a different order from the ones that had burst the addicts swallowed the entire street. Shockwaves toppled walls; boulders crashed to the ground with heavy thuds.
Dust billowed. Hot air seared.
Hakan waved a hand to clear her view.
When the dust settled, it revealed the wrecked alley—and the boy who had been flung clear of it by the blast, still on his feet.
"Huh."
Hakan let out a short, incredulous laugh.
Even after being swallowed by an explosion of that magnitude, the boy still stood on both legs.
Najin leaned on his sword, upright. In that brief instant he must have dragged an arm up to shield his face; one arm hung limp, but his face was unharmed. Those sunset-colored eyes still glared straight at Hakan.
Chilling eyes.
Eyes she had seen before.
Seventeen years ago, the Atanga knight who had sealed her into this city had worn the exact same eyes. A chill ran down her spine; Hakan twisted her lips into a smile.
"Well then."
She gestured.
"Let's see how much longer you last."
The moment you can no longer move… I'll dig those eyes out.
Even after spending so many addicts, Hakan still commanded a considerable force. After all, the plan had been seventeen years in the making.
Now addicts poured toward Najin not only from behind her but from every corner of the district.
And Najin simply adjusted his grip on the sword. The sword-ki rising from the blade did not waver in the slightest.
2.
Hakan had been smiling at the thought of finishing the boy and digging out those unsettling eyes. At some point the smile vanished. Her face hardened.
"…What the hell is this?"
She muttered in disbelief.
She had clearly cornered him.
She had used her hidden card, drained his stamina, and broken one of his arms in the explosion. Even a glance showed the boy's body was far from normal. He was a wreck; it would have been no surprise if he had collapsed already.
So why was he getting faster?
Hakan stared at the scene before her.
Najin was now fighting addicts flooding in from every direction, not merely the front. The situation had worsened. The fight had grown far more grueling with his injuries. Yet he was moving even faster than before.
The boy who had occasionally been dragged along by his own sword, still awkward with his accelerated body, was gone.
In that short span he seemed to have grown accustomed to handling mana; he was pushing his speed still higher, cutting down the swarm pouring in from all sides with even swifter motion.
Ivan, you bastard… what the hell were you hiding?
This was wrong. Far too wrong.
Was there anyone of that age who could move like that—let alone draw out sword-ki? Even Hakan, who knew little of swordsmen's history, found it unnatural.
A body in tatters.
And sword-ki that blazed all the more brilliantly in inverse proportion to that ruined flesh.
The light dwelling in the boy's blade grew fiercer with every passing moment, climbing beyond mere fragments toward the complete form of true sword-ki. Watching it, Hakan barked a hollow laugh.
"This is insane."
That bastard was still growing—right now.
His movements became faster, cleaner, more efficient. He carved a path through the addicts, and the instant Hakan tried to use blood as catalyst for alchemy he threw himself clear of the range.
Slash!
The sight of the boy immediately whipping his sword hard enough to fling off the clinging blood left Hakan silent. That he could react to her alchemy after seeing it only once was not merely surprising—it was terrifying.
His growth was too fast. Far too fast.
His adaptation was too swift. Unnaturally so.
At this rate he would catch up to her.
She held the advantage for now, but every second of delay would let the boy close the gap. She did not want to admit it, yet she knew she had to.
Shhhhhraaak!
The boy's swing opened a path.
Those razor-edged sunset eyes glowed ominously in the shallow dark of the underground city. She was the one who held the upper hand, yet Hakan grew steadily more agitated.
The tide of battle was beginning to tip.
If this continued…
Crack.
In that instant a tiny sound made Hakan narrow her eyes. It came from the sword the boy was swinging. She looked closely.
"Aha."
Hakan burst out laughing.
She had seen it: the fine cracks spidering across the blade Najin swung. With every stroke the fractures spread. She watched them clearly.
A sword driven too hard.
A sword that had taken the full force of the explosion.
The result was a small flaw, and that flaw had destroyed the balance. If he had swung the sword by ordinary means it might not have mattered… but.
Najin was drawing out sword-ki.
Unstable, raw, unfinished sword-ki.
The surging energy was devouring the blade. The sword's lifespan was being consumed at a terrifying rate. The boy who had crossed the line and begun to run was growing at breakneck speed—but only Najin himself was growing.
Najin grew.
The sword in his hand could not keep pace.
Crack!
At last Najin's sword snapped.
The white radiance that had cloaked the blade scattered the moment it broke. The shining boy lost his light along with the sword.
"Kill him."
Hakan gestured.
The addicts rushed the boy who had lost his light. His sunset eyes vanished behind their bodies.
3.
The sword had broken.
With a broken sword, he could not win.
Najin clenched his teeth and rolled. He began to run, dodging the addicts that crashed down on him. But there was nowhere to flee. Druggy Hakan had scattered addicts throughout Ivan's territory; no matter which way he turned, they crawled out of the shadows.
In the end he had to fight.
But how?
He needed a weapon—a sturdy weapon that could withstand his sword-ki, a weapon that would never break. The first realistic option that surfaced was heading to Old Man Hogel's forge.
If the sword is finished, that would be ideal…
Even if it wasn't, he could hold out for a while by fighting with dozens of spare blades, snapping them one after another.
But.
That was impossible.
The path there was far too long, and without a weapon he could never punch through every addict in the way. Right now he was still moving without feeling the pain… yet Najin knew instinctively it would not last.
His entire body had begun to ache, little by little.
At this rate he would lose—and loss meant death.
He had only just crossed the line and begun to run. He could not die in a place like this. Inside his overheated mind Najin hunted for a way out.
…Draw the sword.
And then—
You can draw it. Draw the sword.
A voice rang in his ears.
It was the same voice that had tormented him for the past thirteen days. Najin had always resigned himself to it, yet the longing he had never quite released still lingered at the edge of his hearing.
…Yes. There was one.
A sword that would never break.
A masterpiece of masterpieces that could endure his sword-ki.
But that is…
Something a piece of trash from the underground city like him must never touch. The moment he laid a hand on it he would die. It was an object that must never be seized—and he had no guarantee he could even draw it.
He must not gamble on something uncertain.
He must not… and yet.
Najin realized he was already racing toward the plaza. The soldiers who had guarded the sword were nowhere to be seen—perhaps they had fled—and the cloth that had veiled it must have been torn away in the chaos, for the holy sword stood fully revealed.
A holy sword gleaming platinum.
A star-sword with thirteen stars carved into its blade.
The instant he faced Excalibur, Najin's eyes flooded with platinum light. Starlight. The moment he met the starlight he had so desperately longed to see, the boy smiled without thinking. It was not a sneer or a bitter laugh, but a pure one.
The star he had yearned for so long.
The moment he faced a star that shone brilliantly even in the dark underground city, his mind went pure white. Worry, anguish, the thought that he must not break the taboo—all of it was swept clean away. What filled the emptied space was pure desire.
"I'm going to die anyway."
One way or another, he would die.
If he did nothing, the addicts would catch him and kill him.
If he was going to die either way—
If he was going to crawl along the bottom and die at the bottom—
"I might as well try for it."
Najin kicked off the ground.
The boy who had crossed the line and begun to run no longer thought of what would come after. Looking only at the present, he sprinted toward the holy sword.
He had no certainty he could draw it… yet—
I can draw it.
No.
He was certain.
He had the certainty that he could draw the sword.
The intuition that had never once betrayed him until now was screaming that he could. Trusting that intuition as he always had, Najin reached for the sword buried in the stone.
Hakan, who had chased him into the plaza, saw it too. At the sight of the boy stretching his hand toward Excalibur she burst out laughing.
So in the end, cornered and broken, he had gone mad.
Even with talent, did he really think he could pull that free? That holy sword which had not been drawn for hundreds of years? The boy's arrogance drew a sneer from her.
But.
The moment the boy's hand closed around the holy sword—
Hakan could no longer laugh. The mocking curve of her lips fell open; her eyes went wide. Her face flooded with shock.
Gong… gonggg…
A majestic peal of bells echoed.
With the reverberating knell a vast wave of force exploded outward from the boy. Addicts struck by the wave were hurled backward and toppled; the trembling ground stole Hakan's balance and dropped her onto her backside.
From the ground she watched.
The holy sword beginning to shine the instant it was seized by the boy's hand. The legendary holy sword that had begun to sound a sword-cry more immense than anything else.
Excalibur.
The sword that, because it had never been drawn from the stone in hundreds of years, had been regarded as mere legend—was now being dragged into reality by a single boy.
Crack!
The holy sword began to rise from the stone.