No Stars in Sight (1)
Stars were nowhere to be seen.
No matter how he looked up at the sky, the stars remained invisible.
“······.”
To the boy, the sky was nothing more than the ceiling of the underground city, and the stars were merely the ore lamps studded into that ceiling. A false sky, false stars—yet the wish he made was true.
The boy wished upon the stars.
Dreaming of stars in a place where none could be seen.
Najin had faced many powerful foes.
In truth, most of the time he found himself fighting opponents stronger than he was. After clashing again and again with beings of a wholly different caliber, he had learned a few hard lessons.
First: never open the distance.
The moment you gave ground, you lost every means of attack while the enemy could still hurl strikes that ignored tens or hundreds of meters. The fight then became one-sided, and only your side bled.
So grit your teeth and close the distance instead.
Staying close was still the better chance of answering them.
Second:
Bring forward whatever small edge you hold over them.
In his case that edge was almost always dynamic vision and reaction speed.
Najin had confidence in both. Even against Transcendents he rarely fell behind; more often he seized the advantage. Creating variables through precise foresight and pure reaction—that was his specialty.
He was a Sword Seeker, yet he had long since left behind the stage that name could properly describe. Against a Transcendent who had only just stepped into transcendence, victory was something he could reasonably expect. Against those who had spent long years at that height, the story was different—but still.
So what of the one he faced now?
Mordred’s clone.
A body fashioned from a heart torn free of the true form, and one that Mordred himself was piloting. Now that they had left the city of the Abyss and the distance from the true body had grown, the clone was unmistakably weakened.
Weakened… yet…
Even so, it still possessed the strength of a Transcendent. The original was simply that overwhelming. Perhaps that was only natural.
This was once a being who had sat at the Round Table.
A thousand years ago he had crossed the continent at Arthur’s side, fought the monsters of Kamran, and already stood at the absolute peak more than a millennium past. At the end of that journey Mordred had fallen—but the fall had not made him weaker.
A Reverse Star. An inverted constellation.
By overturning every story of his own life he had become something entirely new. Viola, once devoured by Ladon, had done the same. So had the Star of Laughter when it became the Star of Contempt. So had the lighthouse that illuminated the Abyss, the one Najin had seen underground.
Not denying oneself, but reinterpreting.
Depending on the angle of view, a story could become anything at all. How, then, had the Knight of Treason reinterpreted his own life to become a Reverse Star? Najin felt no great curiosity about the answer.
What was certain was only this:
Whiiiiiiiiish!
Right now that man existed for one purpose alone—to kill everything connected to Arthur.
Kaaaaang!
The instant he caught Mordred’s attack after the clone had raced along the cliff face, Najin’s brow furrowed. His body shuddered at the collision of blades. Something inside him gave a sickening crack.
He did not want to open the distance, yet he knew at once he could not simply stand and take another blow like that.
It’ll break.
He tore free the foot he had driven into the rock. He did not fight the shockwave of Mordred’s sword. He let it take him and leapt hard backward.
Like a body caught in a tidal wave, like a man hurled by a storm, Najin shot away like a cannonball. The only mercy was that there was nothing behind him to strike—this was a cliff. As he rocketed skyward he forced his eyes wide open.
A pit of thick darkness.
Yet in that darkness he saw a flash of crimson eyes. Instantly Najin twisted in midair and swung. Platinum sword-light peeled a thin layer of the abyss’s gloom away, but—
Chaaaaaaak!
A blade of dark-crimson aura erupted from the dark and swallowed his light whole. The moment he caught the projected sword-aura, he nearly lost his grip. His arm shook. It felt as though someone were hammering his entire body with a sledge.
Boom.
Mordred had already closed the gap. The instant the long-range sword-aura struck true, the clone was right in front of Najin’s face. Those crimson eyes locked onto him.
Bloodshot, beast-like pupils.
Then Mordred swung. Blades met with a heavy clang; half the aura sheathing Najin’s sword scattered at once. One more clash like that and the blade itself would be cut through. Gritting his teeth, Najin flung himself backward again.
Carried on the force of the impact, he re-summoned his aura while still airborne. He did not want distance—yet the enemy forced it on him. And when that distance opened, what came next was—
Najin’s eyes flew wide.
The entire world turned red.
The future he foresaw was black, and it was red.
The dark-crimson light of Clarent, the Sword of Demise—the blade that had written the final period of Arthur’s story—flashed. Najin jerked his head aside on pure reflex.
Fssht.
The strike skimmed just above his skull. He did not look back, yet he knew exactly what had happened where it landed.
The cliff face split on a diagonal.
The vast wall of rock was collapsing.
As boulders rained down, Najin could not even manage a dry laugh. Was that thing really weakened? He had no idea how to fight it. And of course Mordred had no intention of giving him time to figure it out.
Thud.
Stepping on the falling rubble, kicking off the cliff, repeating the sequence again and again—
Thud. Thud. Thud!
Mordred charged like a beast.
The Sword of Demise gleamed with murderous light,
as if to say: your story ends here.
2.
He was driven back, and back, and back again.
Every time he caught a blow, Najin’s body creaked and the damage stacked. Each clash of blades sent a shudder through his entire frame; his heart throbbed with pain.
He was losing ground.
With every collision of steel came the sound of something breaking inside him, and his body was flung through the air. Out of the bottomless pit, up the cliff face, all the way to the entrance of the landfill.
“···Kh!”
Wind slammed into him. High in the sky, Najin looked down. The whole underground city lay spread beneath him—and far below, rising at terrifying speed from the pit, was Mordred.
Najin twisted in midair.
Ramming.
The technique that had always opened his path, that had even carved a fleeting opening against Transcendents.
Crack.
Mordred tore straight through the Ramming with his bare body and closed on Najin, as if to say no mere storm could stop him. Toward the figure that had punched through the tempest, Najin swung.
Without his feet on solid ground he could not unleash the ultimate forms of the Triumphant Sword, but the fundamentals were still available.
The Imperial basics.
Mordred did not even bother swinging in reply. He simply sneered and caught Najin’s blade bare-handed. Still gripping the sword, he drove Clarent toward Najin’s throat. The moment Najin tried to raise the Spear of the Cross-Star in defense, Mordred’s body spun.
“Ghk—urk!”
Mordred’s foot slammed into Najin’s gut.
The sound of flesh splitting open was audible.
Bones shattered; for a dizzying instant it felt as though a hole had been punched clean through from belly to spine and his organs were spilling free. Najin’s vision blacked out for a heartbeat.
KRAAAAAANG!
The impact that hammered through his body finally dragged him back to consciousness. Sparks burst in front of his eyes. He had plummeted on a diagonal from the sky and come to a stop only by embedding himself in a building.
“Cough, kh, hhhk······.”
Najin spat blood and forced himself upright.
His body refused to obey.
Whether it did or not made no difference to his opponent. With a body that could barely move, Najin rolled across the ground. Using both arms and both legs he kicked off the earth like a beast and clawed free of the wreckage.
An instant later the building he had been buried in shattered into rubble with a deafening crack.
“You’re no better than a beast. Where did you throw away the dignity a knight is supposed to possess?”
Mordred’s sneer reached his ears.
Najin looked forward from a hunched, broken stance.
There stood Mordred, feet planted on solid ground, laughing at him.
“You claim you pulled Excalibur.”
Mordred walked closer.
“You claim it selected you? Laughable. What do you even know about Excalibur? Do you have the slightest grasp of that sword’s worth—its true value?”
The Knight of Treason advanced.
“The blade itself is worthless. It only gained value because Arthur held it. The one who forged a merely shining sword into a holy sword was Arthur and no one else.”
He burst into laughter.
“A finished sword. A finished story. Do you truly believe that scribbling your name into a tale that already has its period will make it yours? Not at all. Not even close.”
A light swing—crack.
Najin had to pour every last scrap of strength into blocking even that casual stroke. Watching him tumble across the ground, Mordred sneered again.
“How is this a king? How is this a hero who saved the world? How is this the model for every knight?”
As though toying with him—
yet closing in with the clear intent to kill him for certain. Najin clenched his teeth.
—Najin.
And then—
—You don’t have to draw it. Just grip Excalibur and raise your mindscape. Even the hilt is enough.
Merlin’s voice. The moment he heard the words of the one who had been preparing something all this time, Najin obeyed.
He seized Excalibur.
It still had not been drawn, yet with the hilt in his hand he pulled his mindscape upward. Mordred’s eyes went wide—not looking at Najin, but at the space beside him.
“Well, well. Who do we have here.”
Mordred pointed past Najin’s shoulder.
As though greeting a welcome face.
As though facing a being he could never forget.
“The open-eyed blind man.”
Najin turned. Merlin stood there as always—yet not as a mere phantom. She had descended to this place with a real, physical presence.
At Najin’s wide-eyed stare she gave a bitter little smile.
The explanation was complicated. By borrowing the starlight sealed inside Excalibur, Merlin had temporarily unfolded Najin’s mindscape into the real world—the same way a Transcendent creates their own stage. She had simply stepped onto that stage.
It was a miracle made possible only because Najin had reached the realm of Blooming and could scatter his mindscape in his immediate vicinity, and because this place was the underground city whose landscape already matched that mindscape.
Even so, the space was no larger than the area immediately beside him—room for a single person to stand.
And because she was drawing on his power, the force she could wield was nowhere near her true self; it fell short even of a Transcendent’s.
The price?
Immense. Unspeakably so.
Merlin had planted her spiritual body inside Najin’s mindscape; what she had drawn out now was her mind itself. The slightest damage would wound that mind—might even leave her a broken husk.
She had accepted that risk and revealed herself.
Because she could not leave Najin to die.
Because she never wanted to lose anyone again.
She would not simply watch, the way she had back then. Even if it meant perishing together in this place, she would not remain a bystander. Merlin glanced back over her shoulder.
Then she smiled.
Najin took the hand she offered and managed, barely, to stand. Watching the two of them, Mordred laughed—a beast-like sound that echoed through the ruins.
“Pathetic beyond words. Merlin—is that truly the king you chose? Do you honestly believe he will carry you beyond the Abyss?”
Merlin’s gaze left Najin and settled on Mordred.
“Shut your mouth.”
Her eyes, so different from the look she gave Najin, were cold and utterly frigid. She regarded Mordred the way one regards vermin. Space itself rippled around her body.
Two who had once belonged to the Round Table—and one who still did—faced each other.
As Merlin flicked a finger toward the filthy traitor, Najin stayed silent. Bleeding, his vision blurring, he lifted his eyes to the sky.
Stars were nowhere to be seen.
Only the ore lamps embedded in the underground city’s ceiling flickered faintly. It felt exactly like returning to long ago—to the very beginning. In the midst of that powerlessness, a memory rose unbidden.
The first wish he had ever made.
The wish he had whispered while gazing at a false sky and false stars.
His starting point.