The Final Stage
“Light shall turn away from no one.”
A clear, unyielding voice cut through the taut air, and what unfolded before me was a dazzling golden radiance.
Clang—!
With a sharp metallic screech that tore at the eardrums, Ricotta’s rapier struck the barrier of light and rebounded.
A sacred wall unfurled in a semicircle right before my nose. Beyond it, Ravne stood with both hands clasped, holding on for dear life.
“Ugh…!”
A thin moan escaped Ravne’s lips.
Just as she strained merely to block Ricotta’s sword strikes, Basil’s longsword came crashing in from the side with terrifying force.
Clang-clang-clang!
Under the successive impacts the golden curtain screamed. Cracks spiderwebbed across its surface, and a bead of cold sweat slid down Ravne’s pure-white cheek.
She would not last much longer like this.
I steeled my resolve and stepped outside the barrier.
Then I met Basil’s descending longsword head-on with my own blade.
Kang—!
“Saya?!”
Basil’s eyes flew wide with shock.
A heavy jolt raced up my arm and left my wrist tingling, yet I looked straight into his eyes and spoke in a low voice.
“Basil, don’t just pile on attacks together. Watch where Lady Ricotta’s sword is pointing first.”
“Huh…? What?”
“You’re the one who creates her next opening. Lady Ricotta is strong on her own, but she only becomes perfect when you’re with her.”
Even as he caught my blade, Basil could not hide his bewildered expression.
It was the face of someone who could not understand this bizarre situation—being guided by the very person he was fighting.
And Ricotta did not miss the sight.
“So you still have leisure for idle chatter.”
Her body became a silver afterimage as she shot toward me.
Shushuk!
Shuaaaak!
Speed and weight of an entirely different dimension. A ferocious assault poured down that bore no comparison to when she had faced Ravne.
I swung my sword desperately to fend her off, yet her rapier snaked in with cunning mockery of every defense I raised.
Seogeok—!
“Kh!”
The blade that grazed my side tore my training clothes and spread a searing heat.
With the next strike she precisely knocked the sword from my hand.
Tung—!
A cold sensation touched the nape of my now-weaponless neck.
Victory and defeat were clear.
One thrust would end it.
Yet the tip of her blade did not so much as twitch.
I slowly raised my head and looked at her.
Those unwavering eyes that had always pursued only their goal trembled the instant they met mine.
And that turmoil traveled straight to the tip of her sword.
The blade pointed at my throat quivered—faintly, almost imperceptibly.
Hesitation.
I did not let the opening slip.
“In this exam I am neither your helper nor your benefactor—only an enemy. Do not hesitate. Thrust.”
“…How insolent.”
“If you don’t… this is what happens!”
I drove straight into her arms.
“!”
Startled by the sudden move, Ricotta instinctively stepped back.
But there was no longer any safe space behind her. The all-devouring boundary of annihilation had drawn right up to her nose. Her foot stepped into empty air and her body tilted.
“Lady Ricotta!”
In that instant Basil hurled himself forward.
He shoved Ricotta with his whole body, pushing her back inside. In exchange, his own form was sucked beyond the boundary line.
“Basil!”
Just before Basil’s body scattered into countless blue motes of light, he offered Ricotta a faint smile. His final expression seemed to say, “It’s all right.”
“…You foolish idiot.”
The voice that tore from Ricotta’s lips trembled ever so slightly.
…Done.
I had thought Basil would move exactly like that.
No—I had believed it.
A man who put others before himself.
Someone who would throw his body without a second’s hesitation the moment a comrade was in danger.
It had been a dangerous gamble, true.
But the result… was perfect beyond measure.
I crowed inwardly. Mutual sacrifice, and the deepening of feeling that came with it.
This was the very moment the narrative of protagonist and heroine I had so desperately wanted was completed.
Ricotta, who had seemed briefly flustered, no longer wavered.
Every hesitation and confusion vanished from her ash-gray eyes, leaving only cold, hard resolve.
She tore her gaze from the empty air where Basil had vanished and leveled her rapier at me with eyes far more venomous and chilling than before.
“Saya… I have learned something. This time I will not falter.”
Her blade once more streaked toward my heart.
Yet again it never reached me.
“I told you, didn’t I? I will not allow Saya to be hurt.”
The one who stepped in front of me was Ravne.
There was no time to dodge the oncoming sword, no leisure to gather mana.
She abandoned every calculation
and instead made her own body a shield, taking Ricotta’s blade full on.
Pook—
“…Ravne!”
The rapier pierced her chest.
Yet Ravne did not retreat a single step. Her eyes smiled toward me.
Then, small and firm, she whispered,
“At last… you are looking only at me….”
With those words, Ravne’s body too scattered into blue motes of light.
On the battlefield now, only Ricotta and I remained.
Just the two of us.
Upon the final stage that had shrunk as far as it could go, Ricotta regarded me in silence.
In her eyes there was no longer anger, nor hesitation.
She slowly opened her mouth.
“Now it truly is only the two of us left, Saya.”
Her low voice rang across the empty battlefield.
Within it lay neither a victor’s composure nor pity for the defeated—only pure heat directed at the one who had stood against her to the end.
The boundary of annihilation now left only a small circle centered on us.
So it has come to this after all.
Ricotta before me was also worn from the prolonged battle, yet those ash-gray eyes held a light far deeper and more dangerous than before.
Basil’s sacrifice had stripped her of hesitation and, in its place, carved in a resolve of steel.
She adjusted her grip on the rapier. Its tip pointed at me without a single tremor.
“The games until now are over. Raise your sword! I will teach you what a true blade is.”
As I picked up the sword that had fallen to the ground and took my stance, Ricotta’s body kicked off the earth and shot forward.
A silver afterimage traced a cold trajectory through the air.
No more probing, no more mercy—an all-out charge meant to end everything.
Before that overwhelming presence, I let out a soft laugh.
“As expected, the finale of this stage had to be you, my lady. With everything I have left, I will answer that blade.”
My lungs burned as though they would burst, and the arm into which I had driven the Trigger Needles had gone almost numb, yet my mind was ice-clear.
Her sword tip aimed at my heart without the slightest waver.
Everything of the ducal house known as the Sword of the Empire condensed into one perfect, beautiful stroke of annihilation.
I intended to burn everything remaining in me and answer her perfect attack with a brilliant flame of my own.
At last, the distance where our breaths nearly touched.
Tuk.
On the final stage, only one person remained.
Midterm Exam Final Victor: Ricotta
When consciousness returned amid the scattering motes of light, the first thing that flooded my senses was sound.
A colossal roar that tore at the ears.
At that noise I slowly opened my eyes, and the familiar ceiling of the great auditorium filled my vision.
Kugugung…!
The space at the center of the platform where we had stood closed with a final reverberation, and the enormous magic circle the faculty had deployed lost its light and faded away.
Even the last survivors remaining on the battlefield had all been summoned back to reality.
“Ricotta! Ricotta! Ricotta!”
Every cheer was directed at one person alone—the final victor.
The students chanted her name as though they had rehearsed it.
Ricotta stood more lofty and radiant than ever. She accepted the praise pouring upon her as if it were only natural, her posture flawless.
Then Professor Oliver approached the platform. A rare, faint satisfaction lingered in his blue eyes.
“An excellent victory that will become the goal of every other student from now on.”
Direct praise from the famously cold-blooded head of the Magic Department.
“You honor me too highly, Professor.”
Ricotta bowed with the impeccable etiquette of a noble. Yet her ash-gray gaze was fixed not on Professor Oliver, but elsewhere.
Behind that composed expression, her eyes doggedly pursued me—the one who had fought her to the very end.
That was the moment. Amid the students’ murmuring, new voices began to break out.
“That girl who caused the scene at the entrance ceremony? She survived until the end?”
At first it was only whispers mixed with doubt and surprise.
Problem child.
Person of interest.
That had been the academy’s evaluation of me until now. But the eyes of the students who had watched the battle inside the subspace were different.
“When she fought Lady Ricotta at the end I thought I was going to stop breathing!”
“She jammed some weird needles into her own arm and then flew around like crazy! I’ve never even heard of anything like that!”
“Honestly, wasn’t it kind of cool? She’s the only one who ever pushed Lady Ricotta that hard.”
One voice joined another, and at last they swelled into a great wave of cheers.
Their gazes no longer saw me as a “problem child.”
What they saw was a challenger who had not yielded an inch against the absolute powerhouse Ricotta and had resisted until the very last moment.
Their conversation naturally flowed to the climax of the exam—the hair-raising instant when I had nearly shoved Ricotta beyond the boundary.
Ricotta had been the victor, yet they had clearly witnessed that the supporting player who made her victory most dramatic was me.
At last someone shouted a name that was not Ricotta’s.
“Amazing! Saya!”
At first it was a small voice. But like a spark leaping to dry kindling, it spread through the entire great auditorium in an instant.
“Saya! Saya! Saya!”
“Ricotta! Ricotta! Ricotta!”
The cheers of the auditorium split in two.
One side still chanted the absolute powerhouse Ricotta; the other chanted the dark horse no one had expected—me.
I stood there for a moment, dazed by the sight.
A backdrop for the protagonists’ narrative, an extra meant only to bind their relationship more tightly.
That had been my role.
And yet now,
the spotlight of the stage was pouring down upon me.