Blood Whirlwind
"A-an explosion? What on earth just happened?"
"Th-the undead!"
Having blasted his way into the building with Corpse Explosion, Simon immediately opened his subspace and unleashed skeletons and zombies on the Hoopa warriors. The undead needed no line of sight to attack a human, and in an instant the battlefield dissolved into total chaos.
In the meantime, Simon's arm reached toward Meilin.
"I'll get you out now."
Shwick!
Overlord's blade sheared cleanly through the ropes binding Meilin's arms and legs. Freed, she rubbed the wrists still striped red with rope marks and stared at him with a strange expression.
"?"
The moment Simon gave her a puzzled look, her face flared scarlet and she yelped.
"Why couldn't it have been Lord Pion instead of y—!"
Simon blinked.
"Where did that come from, all of a sudden?"
Flustered, she turned red all the way to the nape of her neck.
"No, I meant the other way around! No, no, that's not it either! ...I'm just saying thank you for saving me."
Simon couldn't make heads or tails of her stammering, but he caught the thanks at the end and gave her a smile.
"Kghm-kghm! Quite the grand entrance you made there."
A loud voice rang out through the haze of dust. This time it was Rick's.
"Rick? Turn around. I'll cut your ropes."
"I'm good."
The ropes binding Rick's arms slipped loose and dropped into his waiting hands—he'd used Enchant on them. He made short work of the ones around his legs as well, then rose to his feet with unhurried grace amid the swirling dust.
Meilin pointed at him with a trembling finger.
"Wh-what the hell! You could've undone the ropes yourself this whole time?"
"? Obviously."
"There they are!"
Just then, a Hoopa warrior burst through the hazy visibility, sword raised, charging with a battle cry.
Rick let out a sly little chuckle and pulled the rope taut between his two hands.
"Can't see you anymore, buddy!"
Rick flung the rope. It had been knotted into a lasso, and in a heartbeat it coiled around the man's neck and snapped tight.
"Ghk—!"
His face twisted in agony, the warrior dropped his sword and clawed at the rope. That was the moment Rick yanked it hard, reeling the man in, and drove his knee up into his chin.
Crack! The man's eyes rolled back and he crumpled to the floor like a puppet with cut strings.
"Rick! One more coming in on your left!"
Even as he called the warning, Simon was kicking off the wall and launching himself through the air like a martial artist, shattering a Hoopa warrior's head with a spinning heel kick.
"Wow, you could beat me to death and I still couldn't fight like you. Still—"
"GRAAAAAGH!"
One of the maddened Hoopa swordsmen raised his blade. Rick drew a sword from his subspace and feinted a proper fencing exchange with the man—then quietly tossed the lassoed rope around his legs instead.
Whoosh!
Ducking the sword swinging down at his face, Rick slid clean between the man's legs and hauled the rope with all his strength. The warrior, already tipping forward off balance, crashed face-first and came dragging along the floor after him.
"The weak have ways of dealing with the weak."
As Rick snapped his fingers and muttered this, a remote Enchant activated in the lump of scrap iron clinging to the ceiling. It tore free of the rafters and came down squarely on the man's head.
THUD!
Rattle-rattle-rattle!
As the dust billowed up, Rick collected the rope and slipped out of the settling debris.
"Do not panic!"
Wichasha shouted.
"Special Admission No. 1, Simon Polentia, is here! The other two may be let go or killed—seize only that one!"
It had never been Rick or Meilin that the Hoopa tribe wanted. It was Simon.
Kizen was such a colossal organization that abducting two first-year students would likely not so much as make it blink.
Capturing a Special Admission No. 1 student, however, was another matter entirely. Beyond the sheer symbolic weight, he was the student Nephthys had personally brought in—one whom Kizen itself had pinned its hopes on and was actively backing.
If they could lay hands on that boy, both Kizen and Nephthys would have no choice but to come to the negotiating table in earnest.
"Take him down!"
The Hoopa warriors surged toward Simon in a concentrated wave.
As Simon, looking weary, reached to draw out Overlord, Meilin stepped forward.
"Leave this to me."
Her magic circle, installed overhead, was complete. Closing her eyes, she raised both arms as if stretching, crossing them overhead—and the circle blazed with magnificent light, revealing its full, dazzling form.
Vuuuuuuum!
Then, with the graceful motion of a swan descending, she swept her arms down. It was like watching her perform the Almacarina on a theater stage.
"Get the hell out of my sight! You insufferable bastards!"
Her two arms swung toward the enemy.
<Cruel Blizzard>
KWAKWAKWAKWAKWA!
A blizzard reinterpreted through the Jet-Black Elemental system. Jet-black snow came pouring down from the magic circle and began to sweep away the charging Hoopa warriors.
"Ulp!"
Those massive, hulking warriors were buried and tossed about by the black squall. Snow falling indoors out of nowhere sent everyone into disarray.
"Everyone, calm yourselves!"
Wichasha grabbed a nearby cauldron, hoisted it overhead with monstrous strength, and hurled it at the ceiling. The cauldron blew through the rafters and shattered the magic circle along with it.
The instant the circle was cancelled, Meilin staggered, feeling the Jet-Black rushing backward through her.
Simon rushed over, caught her shoulders, and steadied her.
"The snow's stopped!"
"Now! Get in there!"
Taking advantage of the opening, the Hoopa warriors came pouring in, plowing through the field of black snow.
Even through her pain, Meilin stretched out her right arm—but Simon took her wrist, lowered it, and shook his head as if to say it was fine.
Simon's expression was calm. Almost relaxed.
"?"
Several Hoopa warriors, sensing that something was off, halted mid-step.
'Th-the wind... it's red?'
Wichasha noticed the anomaly faster than anyone and shouted.
"Blast it! Right this instant—!"
Already too late. As the red wind thickened with blood and whipped into a gale, the legs of the tightly packed Hoopa warriors left the ground all at once.
"Wh-what is this?!"
"GWAAAAAAAAAH!"
Whooooooosh!
A crimson whirlwind erupted out of nowhere inside the hall. Every Hoopa warrior within its radius, along with the building's wreckage and scattered belongings, was caught up in the vortex and flung skyward.
Red blood, spinning with the whirlwind, scattered in the shape of flower petals and slashed across the Hoopa warriors' skin. Agonized screams burst out from every direction.
"Wh-what is this?"
Meilin asked, her voice shaking. If they'd been even a few steps farther forward, the two of them would have been swept up as well.
"Who could do something like this?"
"Who do you think?"
Simon smiled and pointed with a fingertip. Through the collapsed stretch of wall, Camibarez was staggering in, gasping for breath.
"...Haa, haa."
While Simon's crew had been storming the place, she had been preparing this wide-area blood-flow spell the entire time. Drenched in crimson, she raised her palm.
"Please fall. I won't take your lives."
With those words, she clapped her palms together. The blood-red whirlwind burst apart with a BANG!, and the warriors caught inside it went flying in every direction.
Their bodies punched one after another through the wooden walls and hung there, limp. Some sailed clean out through the roof or sprawled unconscious into the dirt floor.
Nearly twenty fighters neutralized in a single stroke. Wichasha's expression turned harder than stone.
The tide of battle had completely turned.
Thud. Thud.
Simon and the other three youths walked forward, red neckties fluttering.
There was nothing about them that could possibly be read as teenagers. With such an overwhelming gap in power, the Hoopa warriors—who had lost every shred of their will to fight—found themselves backing away without meaning to.
"Th-this is why you never touch Kizen!"
"It's not just the professors! Even the brats are like this—!"
Tap.
"Now then."
Simon came to a stop and looked at Wichasha.
"Are you prepared to pay the price?"
"..."
The corner of Wichasha's mouth curled upward in a long, slow arc.
"I asked myself how the Kizen everyone speaks of so reverently could hold such fame—and now I see where it truly lies."
He shrugged off the ornaments draped over his shoulder and threw them to the ground, then seized the lion pelt from his head and cast it down as well.
"I ask: do you know the Kizen professor Hong Peng?"
It was the second time today Simon had been asked that question. But beside him, Meilin flared up and snapped back first.
"How dare a nameless commoner mongrel with no pedigree speak her name so carelessly?"
"I and Hong Peng come from the same grasslands. Before that woman joined Kizen, we clashed often. The record stands six to six."
GUUUUUGUGUGUGU!
A colossal tide of Jet-Black began to pour out from his body.
"I ask: do those who merely receive Hong Peng's teachings believe they can defeat me, who fought that woman with my life on the line?"
He lowered his stance slowly, resting both hands on his knees.
Simon, too, clenched his fists and dropped into a stance—and suddenly Meilin and Camibarez strode out in front of him.
"?"
Simon turned to them, puzzled.
"Simon! Get back!"
"This one's after you."
Meilin spread her right hand open, and Camibarez curled her fingers around her palm like a gun.
BOOOOOM!
Wichasha slammed a foot against the floor and came charging. The instant he moved, Camibarez fired a Blood Bullet.
Ting!
Wichasha flicked his arm and batted it away from his face with ease. In the next breath, a magic circle unfolded from Meilin's palm.
<Wall of Ice>
SHAAAAAA!
A barrier of ice spread wide across the front—and Wichasha swung his fist.
With a CRASH! more than half the wall shattered, leaving a gaping hole. Simon grabbed Meilin and yanked her hard backward.
Whoosh!
"Kgh!"
The massive arm that punched through the ice seized the empty air where she had stood—by a mere hair's breadth.
GRINDDDDDD!
Then, rather than pulling his arm back out, Wichasha simply ran sideways, splitting the ice apart as he forced his way through.
"Just as your friends said!"
He came barreling into Simon's flank like a stampeding bison.
"I only need to take you, and my purpose is fulfilled!"
Simon watched the fist thundering toward him with cool composure—and tilted his head. With a horrifying crack of displaced air, the punch carved through empty space.
'He dodges that?! Just like that?!'
Simon's body kept rotating with the motion, a spinning heel kick already swinging in. The instant Wichasha raised his arm to guard his face—
Twang!
He couldn't move. The line's tension held him fast. At some point Rick had slipped out behind him, looped a cord around his right arm, and anchored it to the wall.
Beside Rick's smirk and the V-sign he flashed, the sole of Simon's shoe came swinging into view.
CRUUUUNCH!
Wichasha's nasal bone caved in, blood surging up as if it would burst from the pressure. His body buckled sideways.
"Ghhk!"
This time, Meilin's left arm moved.
Her specialty—dual-casting with both hands. Ice flowed out from the circle she'd held in reserve on her left hand, snaring Wichasha's recoiling body and locking it fast to an ice chair.
And through that opening, Camibarez drove in, eyes blazing red.
Pop.
A small, adorable fist touched Wichasha's midsection. He stared down at it—what is this?—and his eyes went wide.
The blood smeared across her knuckles had drawn a blood-flow magic circle on his abdomen.
She clenched her fist tight once more and thrust it straight at the circle.
<Blood Impact>
KWA-BOOOOOM!
The moment the circle on her fist met the circle on his stomach, a colossal explosion of blood erupted, blasting Wichasha through the very ice that held him and launching him away.
KUUUUUUM!
He hit the far wall, and a deafening detonation rolled out beyond sight.
"NICE!"
Enthusiastic cheers burst out from all of them at once.
Simon and Meilin high-fived, while Camibarez let out a long breath—haaah—and lowered her arms neatly to her sides.