The Battlefield of Stars (2)
As he raised his sword, Najin thought.
I can barely hear. Barely see.
Relying on Merlin's whispers and the direction she pointed, Najin set his stance. His half-lidded eyes were fixed not on reality but on the landscape within himself.
Najin sank into himself.
The mindscape condensed upon the blade scattered clusters of light. Golden flashes burst across the pure, unstained white of his sword aura. White and gold wound together around the longsword's edge.
Throb.
Najin furrowed his brow.
Even lifting the sword was a struggle. He could already predict what would become of him once he swung it. He would cough up blood and collapse. Merely remaining upright was already something close to a miracle.
He only hoped that miracle would last a few seconds more.
The hand gripping the sword trembled violently.
Squeeze.
Merlin laid both her hands over the back of his. There was no substance to the touch, yet her feelings came through clearly—worry, anxiety, and, a little larger than either of those, encouragement. Najin found himself smiling without meaning to.
Merlin.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Just with words?
Know that and treat me better, she sighed.
Najin steadied his breath. The trembling in his hands had already subsided. The moment the shaking stopped, he swung.
First Horn: Triumph.
Najin brought the sword down exactly as Alderan would have.
2.
A battlefield upon which countless constellations had descended.
Look up and more than a hundred stars blazed each in their own color. This was a stage where even soaring transcendents were reduced to bit players.
Naturally, Najin—who had not even reached transcendence—had no place here.
Everyone thought so. No one paid the slightest attention to the boy collapsed somewhere in the rear. There was no reason to glance at someone who could not even take the stage. Najin, however, refused to let them ignore him.
Najin's star shone.
The light it produced was pitifully weak beside the starlight of the constellations. One could call it insignificant; it was a young star that had not even formed a proper constellation.
And yet, for all that, Najin's star shone.
A star of pure white light.
That pure radiance drew the constellations. For a brief moment silence fell over the tumultuous battlefield. Mid-swing, mid-thrust, mid-draw of a bowstring—they all stopped and looked back.
Trailing starlight, the boy raised his sword.
A boy who had not reached transcendence imitated transcendence itself.
The instant Najin brought down the sword he had lifted high toward the heavens, sword aura exploded from its tip. Pure white light raced across the battlefield, a golden afterimage streaming in its wake. It swept through the jesters and surged straight toward the Revelry Emperor.
The eyes of every constellation that witnessed the strike went wide.
That was, without question, a blow that had brushed the threshold of transcendence.
Of course, any constellation present could have unleashed a strike more powerful. Not one of them was inferior to Najin. Yet their instincts spoke clearly.
This was different. They could not explain how, but their intuition insisted: that strike, forged of pure starlight, was worthy of claiming the leading role on this battlefield.
"Open it."
Someone muttered.
"Clear the path."
The murmur spoke for them all. Constellations roared and drove the jesters back. Bit players who had been reduced to supporting roles flung themselves at the jesters so the boy's sword aura would not lose speed, opening a corridor for it.
The supporting cast shattered every spell and technique the jesters flung to intercept the boy's aura. Constellations who cherished starlight so dearly spent their own as if entranced, paving the way.
They opened the path, cleared it, swept it clean, and built it anew.
Along the road they made, Najin's sword aura raced.
"How dare you!"
Quixote moved to intercept the blow, but Yuel and Kirchhoff barred his way. Until a moment ago they had been the protagonists of this battlefield; in this instant they yielded the leading role to Najin.
They shoved aside the final obstacles.
The path to the Revelry Emperor opened.
Borrowing Merlin's eyes and ears, aided by the stars themselves, the sword Najin swung finally crossed the entire battlefield and reached the Revelry Emperor.
Crack.
The Revelry Emperor's mask, caught in the sword aura, split apart.
A few severed strands of her hair fluttered in the air. The damage was negligible, nowhere near a mortal wound. Yet what Najin had cut was not only the Revelry Emperor.
Alderan's helmet.
Najin had severed the helmet the Revelry Emperor had forced onto Alderan. The bisected helm fell away. Najin's pure starlight, for a single heartbeat, stripped away the threads she had draped over Alderan's head.
…Under ordinary circumstances.
Alderan Basaglia would never have become a Forgotten One. He had burst his own heart, and Najin had cut that heart. Pierced by pure starlight, he should have met a complete death. That was how it ought to have been.
But the Revelry Emperor had brought Alderan back.
She had stitched his torn heart together with her authority so that he would rise and move as a Forgotten One. To make him a jester, she first had to revive him. Turning the revived Alderan into her jester had been her plan.
A variable had entered that plan.
Najin had cut the Revelry Emperor's threads. What remained in the place where the threads had been was a Forgotten One who had not yet become a jester.
Twitch.
The Forgotten One's hand stirred.
A Forgotten One is one who has forgotten the self, hungering for starlight while endlessly repeating the actions of life. And the actions Alderan had performed in life… were simplicity itself.
Whoosh.
The moment the helmet came off, Alderan's body moved.
Grab.
In the blink of an eye a hand shot out and seized the Revelry Emperor by the throat. Gripping her neck, Alderan Basaglia straightened his bent knees. Holding her by the throat, he hoisted her body into the air.
Alderan Basaglia was a knight.
Alderan Basaglia was the Imperial First Horn.
A knight does not compromise with demons, and a hero of the empire does not kneel before the empire's enemies. Even as a Forgotten One he had not forgotten his duty.
A knight kills demons.
A hero of the empire kills the enemies of the empire.
With Alderan's hand locked around her throat, the Revelry Emperor showed an emotion other than laughter for the first time.
Shock. Terror. And, equal parts, rapture and exhilaration.
Contradictory feelings painted each half of her face. Then throngs of jesters rushed to save their master, pinning Alderan's body, yanking his arms, fastening threads to his flesh.
Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud!
Shaking off every grasping hand, Alderan rampaged among the jesters. With a beast's brutal grip he refused to release the Revelry Emperor's throat. Smashing the jesters who charged him, Alderan Basaglia roared.
Dozens of jesters were not enough to stop him. Without even a sword in his hand he tore them apart barehanded, still clutching the Revelry Emperor's neck, and slammed her into the earth. Boom—the ground cratered.
He did it again. And again.
Even when jesters ripped at his arms and tore his flesh, he did not stop.
Grab, crash, boom!
Even Quixote joined the fray, and at last they subdued Alderan and wrenched the Revelry Emperor from his grasp—yet the struggle had opened a vast gap. Everyone present was a transcendent before they were a constellation. They had reached the realm of transcendence through countless battles.
They did not miss an opening.
"Now."
"Now!"
The tide began to turn.
And the Revelry Emperor—
Freed from Alderan's hand, she brushed the finger marks still printed on her throat. Her mask shattered by Najin, her bare face exposed, she was no longer smiling. She lifted her head and fixed her gaze on someone.
"…"
That gaze was not aimed at the constellations charging her. Nor did it rest on Alderan, thrashing and howling like a beast in Quixote's grip. Farther still, beyond them all, the Revelry Emperor glared at Najin.
The boy who had cut her threads.
A presence outside the stage, one she had never even bothered to notice, had overturned the battlefield. Slowly she dragged a finger down her cheek. Blood stained the tip.
Najin's strike had split the mask and wounded the Revelry Emperor's face.
Only a little—but it had made her bleed.
The first blood she had shed in a hundred and fifty years.
It had been fully a century and a half since her true body behind the mask last took a wound. Toward this new existence who had appeared in Alderan Basaglia's wake—who might become her natural enemy—the Revelry Emperor felt every emotion at once.
Najin's gaze met the Revelry Emperor's.
"Quixote."
She stretched out a hand and pointed at Najin.
"Kill him."
3.
After swinging the sword, Najin collapsed without seeing the result. A pool of blood gathered where he fell. The price for one who had not reached transcendence to imitate it was steep.
Stay… con…!
Merlin's voice sounded impossibly far away. His eyelids kept wanting to close. He strained against the weight, but sleep poured over him like a wave and his eyes shut.
Blink—he closed them and opened them again.
Hey!
Merlin's voice rang loud. Najin realized he had lost consciousness for a moment. Through the haze he saw someone standing before him.
"Are you somewhat conscious?"
Noticing he had stirred, the figure spoke. The voice was familiar—flat, without rise or fall. Yuel Razian's voice. She looked back at him.
Najin could not understand why someone who ought to be deep in the heart of the battle was standing here.
He did not ask, yet she seemed to read the question. Yuel gazed steadily at him and spoke.
"The shape of the battlefield has changed."
She said,
"The Revelry Emperor had intended to reclaim that Forgotten One and flee, but her movements shifted. Every jester is charging straight for you. It seems that demon rather wants you dead."
She pointed ahead.
Countless jesters, eyes aglow, were racing toward them. Constellations barred their path; Kirchhoff and Yuel held the line.
"A demon who is always busy protecting her own safety, always busy minimizing losses no matter the situation… is now trying to kill you even at a cost. Curious."
Yuel swung her sword with perfect indifference.
"My deity speaks. Protect you, it says. There is hardly any need for an order, yet the deity remains as bothersome as ever. Well. Be that as it may."
Every time her blade moved, screams echoed across the field. In a clear voice utterly at odds with those echoes, Yuel continued.
"Magnificent. The one who brought change to this battlefield was not a transcendent, but you—who have yet to reach transcendence. You may take pride in that."
So saying, she looked back at Najin.
"Najin."
He opened his mouth but could not speak. No voice came. Yuel, as if she had never expected an answer, smiled at him. It was the first bright smile she had ever shown him.
A smile of pure, uncontainable delight.
"You always manage to amuse me."
If the Revelry Emperor feared variables and loathed the ones who created them, the woman before him stood at the opposite pole.
A killer who delighted in variables and loved those who produced them.
The Executioner of the Church laughed. She laughed aloud, as if nothing in the world could be more enjoyable. Still smiling, Yuel spoke lightly.
"Rest."
She let her sword hang loose.
"There is much I would like to discuss, but it can wait."
Turning her back on the boy who had leapt onto the stage and played a role far greater than the one assigned him, Yuel swung her blade. Najin had done more than expected. He had accomplished what none of the countless stars gathered here had managed.
The world calls one who reverses the flow of a battlefield a hero. By that measure, Najin was a hero.
And as always, the world thrills to the birth of a hero. The constellations present were no different. They might be called crows, hunters, opportunists now… yet once they too had been heroes.
On a battlefield where a hero had been born, the stars shone.
To imitate a hero.
The transcendents were now imitating the boy who had imitated transcendence. Stars of every color blazing in the sky staked their lives to achieve a great feat.
The sword aura Najin had loosed had not brought victory to the war the way Alderan's would have, yet it had created the turning point that led toward victory.
Clumsily, imperfectly, Najin had lit the beacon of Triumph.
Countless stars were drawn to that beacon.
They tangled Quixote's feet and dragged at him, hurled themselves at his warhorse to unseat him, bit into him even as their own bodies were pierced. Step by step they closed on the Revelry Emperor.
The sight was closer to madness than anything else.
The fire one boy had kindled spread. The flames were devouring the battlefield.
"…"
Watching that scene, Najin slowly closed his eyes. His mind was fogging. He wanted to join their ranks, but no strength remained in him for it.
With a final effort he forced his gaze across the far side of the field. By chance his eyes met the Revelry Emperor's.
No—it was not chance. She had been staring toward Najin the entire time. The moment he looked at her, their gazes locking was inevitable.
Their eyes met.
Muddy eyes stained with every color, and eyes shining platinum-gold, reflected one another.
The Outer Land's ruler who held ten stars, and the boy who had only just set foot in the Outer Land with four, glared at each other. And both of them, by instinct, understood.
That they could never coexist.
That each was the other's natural enemy—beings who could not endure unless one killed the other.
Without fail.
Najin and the Revelry Emperor formed the same thought at the same instant. Their backgrounds and creeds could not have been more different, yet the conclusion they reached was identical.
Without fail—I will kill you.