Skirmish (5)
His body was a wreck. Excalibur’s regenerative power could not keep pace with the injuries, and without Merlin’s emergency treatment he would have been sprawled on the ground, unable to move at all.
Before he had become a transcendent, he would have died a hundred times over. But not now.
He could still hold on.
He could move a little farther. A few steps still remained before the absolute limit. At that realization Najin twisted the corner of his mouth upward. After the battle with the Revelry Emperor, he had never fully confirmed how far his body could go.
But right now…
He could feel it—where the limits of his body truly lay. Recognizing that threshold, Najin planted the foot he had lifted. Thud. He drove it into the earth, steadied his breathing, and then—
He kicked off the ground and ran. He dropped his stance so low his head nearly scraped the floor, center of gravity forced to an extreme, and poured on speed.
That man Siegfried—he had run like this, hadn’t he?
Najin mimicked the movement. The finest textbook in existence stood right before his eyes. The one who handled a sword better than anyone in this world, the one who possessed the most outstanding physique, had already demonstrated the form. Perfect imitation was impossible, yet approximation was not.
Acceleration. In a single breath Najin closed the distance.
With Siegfried between them, Bedivere’s eyes met Najin’s. No words were required.
A whirl, then a sharp crack!
Bedivere’s spear shaft smashed into Gram. Using the recoil he leapt far backward, trading places. The instant the opening appeared, Najin thrust his sword.
Siegfried’s back, while his gaze remained fixed forward, stood empty. Toward that back Najin drove his accelerated blade. The sword shot forth, rending the air—
Clang.
It was blocked with absurd ease. As though eyes grew on his spine, Siegfried swung without even turning and caught the attack. There was not the slightest exaggeration in the word “caught.”
Shockwaves scoured the surroundings, yet Siegfried’s body did not so much as quiver. The Gram in his grip never trembled. In the end it almost looked as if nothing had happened at all.
“······.”
As though unharmed, Siegfried turned his head and fixed Najin with his stare. From the face dyed black by the Abyss that had swallowed him, only the two eyes still blazed.
Eyes that seemed ready to drag a man under.
The moment their gazes locked, Najin felt a cold dread.
His spine prickled. Instinct screamed louder and more raucously than it ever had. Terror made his jaw tremble, upper and lower teeth threatening to chatter.
Grit.
He would not look that pathetic. Clenching his teeth hard, Najin moved at once. Siegfried moved with him. In that instant Najin had to swallow the hollow laugh that tried to escape his lips.
…I can’t see the future.
Nothing could be predicted.
The very specialty that had let Najin endure against powerful foes, the gift that had kept him from falling behind anyone—
Dynamic vision and reaction speed.
Both were meaningless here. The opponent possessed speed of a similar order. Worse, the opponent could move far faster still.
Najin turned his eyes away from the invisible future.
Looking only at the present, he moved his body. Trusting instinct, he swung. Into the path Gram carved as it came like lightning, he slotted Excalibur.
Clang.
His body lifted into the air. Shockwaves flung his sweat- and blood-soaked hair backward. Wind pressure battered his face, yet he refused to close his eyes.
He watched, and he moved.
Even within the stretched sensation of time, Siegfried moved with terrifying swiftness. Whether raindrops or fragments of the burst dead, a dark-crimson rain was falling… and Siegfried’s sword outpaced every falling drop.
Sizzle.
Rain that touched his body evaporated. Rain that touched his blade split without a sound. The sword aura that had coiled around Gram for a thousand years elevated the already deranged cutting power of the weapon still higher.
Gritting his teeth, Najin moved.
To smash the flat of the blade aside and alter its trajectory the way Bedivere had done was impossible for him now. That feat belonged only to Bedivere, whose monstrous strength had been legendary even among the Round Table.
Instead…
In Najin’s hand rested Excalibur. Even Gram, which carved every famous sword into scrap, could not sever Excalibur. Najin’s eyes darted, reading the path Gram traced.
In that fleeting instant the trajectory bent, curved, reversed. Chasing it, the whites of Najin’s eyes flooded with blood.
Ka—aaaaang!
His arms went numb. Every collision made his body creak. He felt the pressure of something colossal crushing downward.
Strength of a truly insane order.
Far from winning, he could not even grasp how to face it. Was this thing ever meant to be defeated? The absurdity of the opponent invited the question. Even so, Najin had no intention of yielding ground.
This was a wall he would have to surmount later.
A wall he would soon confront again. Even if victory was impossible now, he had to adapt to these movements as thoroughly as he could. From this day forward he would fight beings of this caliber.
And…
Najin watched. Bleeding, he still watched.
The way Siegfried swung his sword. How he moved his body. How he operated Gram, a blade that functioned in a manner so similar to Excalibur.
That greatsword, nearly three meters long, would vanish without warning and reappear with a crack of thunder. Even that process Siegfried had elevated into part of his art—archetypal and, at the same time, beautiful.
The most perfect swordsman in the world stood before him.
One who unfolded a sword more complex, more difficult to read, and more beautiful than any Najin had ever witnessed. Najin could now steal even the ultimate techniques of transcendent beings, yet even to him Siegfried’s blade remained inscrutable.
No matter how many times he saw the same motion, he could not comprehend it.
Breathing, footwork—simple elements, perhaps—but the trajectory Siegfried’s sword drew was beyond imitation.
Still Najin refused to stop watching.
So that someday he might reach that place.
Blood burst. Flesh was carved open and bone snapped. Even while watching Najin’s entire body being butchered, Merlin remained silent.
She gazed at the scene unfolding before her eyes.
Najin swinging his sword with clenched teeth, Bedivere matching his movements in support, and the constellations providing cover from afar. At a landscape that summoned the past, Merlin bit down hard on her lip.
Siegfried.
Arthur’s rival, and a figure who had always squabbled with Merlin herself—something like a bad friend. The image of Siegfried, who among knights obsessed with honor and pride had run wild without the slightest concern for appearances, flashed before her.
Uncouth, arrogant, foul-tempered, caring only for himself—
And yet Siegfried had been their comrade.
A close friend to whose back they could entrust themselves even while grumbling.
He had possessed neither ideal nor grand cause, yet at the journey’s end Siegfried had made a choice more heroic than anyone. That the result of that choice was this form filled Merlin with bitterness.
…But that feeling can wait.
Swords crossed. Magic fired by the constellations was sheared apart by Gram yet still struck the earth. Within this space, mana accumulated steadily, layer upon layer.
Merlin calculated the flow.
Even in an exchange that forced only their side to bleed, the current built with quiet diligence. And that certain moment drew near. Calculations complete, Merlin’s eyes narrowed.
Merlin.
Najin’s monologue rang in her ear.
I’m going.
Steadying his breath, Najin shifted stance. Bedivere adjusted his grip on the spear shaft. The constellations who had been charging Siegfried likewise changed strategy.
This was no longer an attack meant merely to endure.
As though determined to end the opponent, they scattered ultimate techniques without hesitation. Amid the onrushing arts, Siegfried cut them all down with terrifying ease.
Sword aura spanning dozens of meters, sword aura that dismantled whatever it touched, strikes as though a thousand blades fell at once, a sword that had once delivered victory to the Empire, Aurora, a finishing blow that had slain dozens of witches—unique magics that countless constellations had spent lifetimes forging—
All of them were severed.
Gram cut the very cohesion of mana itself. Mana that lost its cohesion simply dispersed into empty air.
———And Merlin.
She had read every current. She classified the multicolored mana supersaturated throughout the area, calculated it, and finished preparing to claim it as her own.
Now.
Merlin materialized. The sword strike that immediately shot toward her was barely intercepted by Bedivere and Najin forcing themselves into its path.
Within the slowly flowing time—
She raised her hand. Following her fingers, the mana of the entire area convulsed.
Not raw natural mana, but mana already refined by the hands of constellations. They were instruments, each of different form and color. Mages spent entire lives studying only a single instrument.
Merlin was different.
Using her fingers as a conductor’s baton, she tuned dozens of instruments at once. What had been discordant individual voices followed her gestures into harmony.
Using Excalibur and Najin’s body as the medium, Merlin unfurled her circles.
Ten rings.
The moment the vast magic circle expanded, her short hair lengthened. For an instant another form overlaid her flesh—the appearance she had worn in the days when she reigned as the witches’ nightmare.
Hair nearly white, trailing bluish radiance, the woman who had drowned the host of stars. The existence who alone had slaughtered hundreds of stars arrayed against her.
She hated the Witch of the Abyss.
Yet she had resembled the Witch of the Abyss more than anyone alive.
The cold eyes of the mage once called nightmare by the witches fixed upon Siegfried. Magic completed in less than a single second shone.
Sorry, Siegfried.
I cannot finish you as things stand. The end you wished for has not yet come. But I promise you this, Siegfried—the day you desire is not far off.
Before long you will be able to meet the end you seek.
So Merlin monologued.
Therefore, just a little longer.
Wait for us just a little longer.
Flash.
The ten circles rotated and scattered azure radiance. Time, which had been crawling, recovered its proper speed. In the fleeting instant when Siegfried prepared his next attack—
Snap. Merlin flicked her fingers.
She did not particularly like this magic, and because she disliked it she had given it the following name.
"Narak."
⟨ Inevitable Fall ⟩
Cast at roughly eighty percent of her true body’s power, the magic swallowed the entire area. First sound vanished. Then light vanished. Oxygen thinned. Every scrap of mana filling the space evaporated completely.
What replaced all of it was water.
An unfathomable abyss engulfed Siegfried. No matter where one looked, the sky could not be seen. The stars, too, were gone. Only pitch-black darkness remained.
Siegfried experienced the fall.
He was dragged into the abyss where feet could find no purchase, into the unknowable bottom of an endless sea.
…If one measured pure class alone—
Siegfried and Merlin stood equal. Both were constellations of identical stature. The only difference was mage versus swordsman. The matchup disadvantage of facing a sword that cut all things placed Merlin at a disadvantage.
There was no gap in their rank.
Though it was said that Siegfried could accomplish everything Merlin could, the reverse held equally true.
“······.”
From afar the mages who witnessed Merlin’s magic were struck dumb with astonishment. Unable even to voice admiration, they fell silent. Even constellations who had reached the extremes of magic and transcended could neither comprehend nor dare to counter what they saw.
A magic that violated every common sense they possessed was unfolding there.
“Ah······.”
Among them, only one person recognized that magic.
Lapis.
She who until recently had been a witch knew it well.
Narak—you called it an inevitable fall, did you not?
With that single spell seventeen witches had drowned at once, without even mounting a proper resistance.
I will return those words to you exactly as they are.
If you burned humans to death, then I will drown you slowly.
Because Lapis had watched that scene from close enough to touch, she could never forget it even if she wished. At the terror engraved into her bones her body trembled. She trembled—yet—
At what happened immediately afterward, Lapis’s eyes flew wide.
Fwit.
A single line was drawn through Narak.
———Slash.
With Lapis’s eyes she could not understand what followed. She only registered that a single streak of light fell and the entire area was dyed pure white.
Najin, who saw it from close range… saw more than she did.
A technique presumed to be something on the order of Siegfried’s ultimate art. From the depths of the abyss that swallowed even light and sound, a flash erupted and swept the surroundings.
What the hell is that…
It was a technique that made Najin doubt his own eyes, yet understanding and analysis were not tasks for this place, right now.
Because right now Najin had something he needed to do.
He simply conserved his strength. He steadied his breath so he could launch himself at any instant.
Chaaaaaaaaaaak!
Immediately afterward the aftermath of the technique scoured the area. Narak was carved into fine fragments. Cut and cut again, the unfathomable abyss was swallowed by sword aura. Amid water droplets scattering in every direction, Siegfried revealed himself.
He, too, was far from unharmed.
His body, crushed by water pressure, was gouged deep. One arm was half-shattered. His tattoos blazed scarlet as they worked to recover the damage, yet the speed remained sluggish.
What Najin had demanded of Merlin was only one thing.
Induce Siegfried to unleash a major technique.
Merlin had fulfilled that demand perfectly. By deploying a magic from which escape was impossible without an ultimate art, she had drained Siegfried’s stamina and accumulated injuries upon that body.
Therefore—
Now.
For Najin, this moment was the chance.