The Half-Blood's Awakening
Camibarez's counterattack with the sniper spell had certainly been impressive.
But taken as a whole, the match hadn't shifted. Alizarin, still pressing forward with his overwhelming numbers, held the upper hand.
Camibarez was too busy scrambling back and forth just to evade his attacks.
“Hah!”
She leapt into the air to dodge an incoming wave and fired Blood Chaser once more.
This time, Alizarin wasn't caught off guard. He ducked behind a shield of layered waves, and the blood bullet skimmed past his arm and nothing more.
“Agh!”
Shwaaaaa—!
His focus didn't break this time. A crimson wave swallowed Camibarez out of the air and slammed her into the ground.
Her barrier gauge dwindled further and further.
“Haa... haa...”
Barely escaping the wave, Camibarez checked her condition as water dripped steadily from her hair.
The Blood Storm she was preparing kept draining her blood and her mental strength by the second.
Growing anxious, she brushed her fingers lightly across the magic circle drawn on her wrist.
If I release this technique and focus my remaining jet-black on ranged attacks...
“Kami!”
Just then, a shout rang out from the stands, cutting through everything else.
It was Simon.
“Don't get dragged into his rhythm! Think about what you need to prioritize!”
Ah.
He was right.
What she needed to prioritize.
Of course her opponent would seize the initiative when the arena's terrain and timing were on his side. For now, no matter how badly the waves battered her, all she could do was endure.
She started running again, and the crimson waves under Alizarin's control crashed down one after another.
“How does it feel, Ursula!”
Alizarin laughed, flinging both arms wide.
Watching the famed necromancer of Ursula flee helplessly from his dark magic, he couldn't help but revel in his own triumph.
“You know, I wanted to get into Kizen too! Just like you!”
A year ago, Alizarin had taken Kizen's entrance exam as well.
But—
“You have no talent.”
Those had been the interviewer's icy first words at the entrance exam.
“It's unfortunate, given your specialty is blood magic—but you were born with far too weak a ‘blood’.”
The interviewer had failed him outright, and when he collapsed under the weight of the entrance exam he'd spent five years preparing for, Alizarin tasted the kind of despair that snapped a life in two.
“But it was here, in Moiran—the place that took me in—that I got back on my feet!”
At his gesture, crimson water churned up from the canals, cutting off Camibarez's escape.
With her retreat sealed, she had no choice but to thrust both hands forward and cast Blood Wave. Alizarin answered with the same dark magic.
KWAAANG!
“I don't care that my blood is weak! Like the waves of this great lake, I will rise again and again!”
Camibarez's Blood Wave shattered the first wave, but the second, third, and fourth crashed in behind it, and her blood magic was ultimately canceled out.
“You were born an Ursula—you couldn't possibly understand my desperation!”
The fifth wave seized Camibarez's body and hurled her into the wall. She hit with a heavy thud.
The impact registered, and her barrier flickered red. Alizarin clenched his fist, drunk on the thrill of it.
I can win this.
Against Kizen—against Ursula's necromancer, no less.
When I beat you, I'll prove beyond any doubt that my blood can surpass Ursula!
Her damp bangs hung limp over her eyes, hiding them from view.
“...You're right. I can't understand your life. Or your desperation.”
She pushed herself unsteadily to her feet.
“So don't you dare presume to judge the path I've walked, either.”
Vwiiing!
It was finally complete. She tore the magic circle away from her body.
“Don't give me that high-and-mighty talk! You were born with that illustrious Ursula blood and—!”
“Half-blood!”
She roared back, rough and raw.
“That's who I am! Not once, not ever, have I considered Ursula blood a blessing! Blood like this flowing through an ordinary human body isn't a blessing—it's poison!”
Her magic circle activated. Petals of blood scattered in every direction as a scarlet gale howled to life around her.
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!
A whirlwind of blood raged furiously from the center of the arena.
“And still, I will move forward!”
Camibarez brought both arms together and thrust them straight out.
“Because the people who acknowledge me—and the people I want to stay with until the very end—are all right here!”
The Blood Storm roared forward like a living avalanche.
Alizarin squeezed out every last drop of his jet-black, altering his own magic circle to twist the crimson sea into a vortex as well. Five scarlet spirals erupted from all directions.
Five crimson Blood Storms collided head-on with hers.
KRAKOOOM!
Camibarez's Blood Storm gathered momentum. One by one the five scarlet spirals crumbled, and her vortex stretched out unbroken toward Alizarin himself.
'Impossible!'
The situation had reversed.
Now it was Alizarin who turned tail and ran, the red vortex chasing him down, sweeping aside everything in its path.
'Running on foot won't outrun it!'
As he fled, Alizarin dripped blood into the canal. It bubbled and swelled, and a crimson wave rose up.
'Blood Storm!'
The sixth scarlet Blood Storm crashed against Camibarez's—but it burst apart almost instantly and collapsed back into plain water.
'Blood Storm! Blood Storm! Blood Storm!'
Even in retreat, Alizarin kept hurling out Blood Storm after Blood Storm, and each one shattered against the overwhelming force of hers.
“Blood St—... ngh!”
His jet-black was spent completely. Even after spilling more blood, the crimson wave rose only halfway before collapsing back down.
The tenth Blood Storm, now surging toward him, would be his last. Trembling, he lifted his head and prayed with everything he had.
'Please!'
An image of victory over Ursula, the pinnacle of blood.
The image had blurred—because even after clashing his technique nine times against it, that Blood Storm stood there without a scratch.
At last, the first Blood Storm and the tenth Blood Storm met.
KWAAAAAANG—!
They collided, canceled each other out, and shattered together. The vortexes detonated against one another, and a massive shockwave rippled outward across the arena.
“Watch out!”
“Kyaaaaaah!”
It was as if the stands had been dropped into the heart of a typhoon—clothes and belongings went flying as the crowd descended into chaos.
Alizarin twisted the corners of his mouth into a grin.
'I—I blocked it on the tenth try! I did it!'
But his celebration barely began before his head whipped around in alarm. Camibarez was charging straight at his back, eyes blazing.
'She's coming in with combat arts!'
Camibarez extended her arm, and Alizarin, still reeling from the shockwave, braced to defend.
He safely caught her sharply delivered palm strike with his elbow.
'Now for my counter—!'
But—
WHUMP—
He hadn't blocked anything. Alizarin's body, still frozen in his guard, was being hurled sideways through the air.
A technique that struck the opponent and launched them away with tremendous force—the original combat art of Camibarez that even Professor Hong Peng had lavished praise upon.
CRRAAACK!
Alizarin went flying into the far wall and crumpled to the ground, retching violently. His barrier flickered red.
Camibarez retracted her arm from the outstretched palm-strike.
'Huh?'
Her gaze drifted downward.
In the puddle pooled on the floor, she could see her own reflection—drenched in Alizarin's blood.
'Why is there blood on me?'
It couldn't be from the impact just now. Bakta only repelled its target; it wasn't a technique that inflicted internal injury.
Which left only one answer.
'He coughed up blood on purpose... wait—'
Fwiiiing—
The pupils of her eyes, now smeared with Alizarin's blood, began to tremble violently, uncontrollably.
And Alizarin, watching her, staggered upright with a knowing smile.
'Hnngh! It worked! Somehow, it actually worked!'
Just as Simon's SM-1 blood—used to create Cloud—was unique to him, every necromancer's blood carried its own distinct nature.
And Alizarin's PU-4 blood—the very blood the Kizen interviewer had dismissed—was specialized in bestowal and parasitism. He had applied it to control water, and in theory, it could control monsters and people as well.
Of course, he couldn't yet control an actual human being outright.
But by now, Camibarez would be experiencing—
'An effect almost indistinguishable from being hit by every mental curse in existence.'
Her brain drowning in confusion, conjuring hallucinations. Sure enough, Camibarez stood there blankly, her arms hanging limp at her sides.
Alizarin forced his shaking legs forward and sprinted toward the incapacitated girl.
'I have to finish this with combat arts before she comes to her senses!'
He charged at full tilt, wringing out even the jet-black that had just barely recovered, gathering it all into his fist. Then he roared toward her with everything he had.
“—!”
Alizarin's eyes went wide.
It was blocked.
A single tiny finger, extended by her hand, was effortlessly holding back his jet-black-charged fist.
Tremble... tremble...
The force was pushing him back now.
A cold, frozen expression. And the hollow, emotionless eyes of a monster stared straight through Alizarin.
'The atmosphere around her has completely changed—!'
Before the thought could even finish, his world flipped upside down.
His body was flying through the air.
CRASH!
He slammed into the opposite wall once again. Then Camibarez appeared before him with a sharp whip-crack of displaced air.
SMACK!
Before he could even process what was happening, his head snapped to the side.
WHUMP!
This time, pain bloomed in his abdomen. His body pitched forward—and Camibarez, with those vacant eyes, seized his hair and drove his face down into her raised knee with all her strength.
CRUUUUNCH!
His head snapped back. Shock cascaded through the barrier, and blood came gushing from his nose.
The spray splattered across Camibarez's face once again, and her expression turned more terrifying still.
WHAM!
CRACK!
SQUELCH!
One-sided violence unfolded before everyone's eyes. The entire crowd sat speechless, unable to utter a word.
Gripping him by the hair and grinding his face against the stone floor again and again—this bore no resemblance to the Kizen girl they had seen at the start of the match.
It was as if she were someone else entirely.
Bakta, the repelling technique, was now unleashed with Alizarin pinned flat against the ground.
With a crack! his head bounced up like a ball into her waiting hand, only to be slammed back down.
THUD!
CRACK!
WHACK!
Even when his barrier shattered, her movements didn't stop.
Spectators squeezed their eyes shut or turned away. In the stands, Benz's lips trembled uncontrollably.
“K-Kami...!”
That girl who had shyly offered him a handkerchief at the start, smiling that gentle smile—the girl he had fallen for—there wasn't a trace of her left.
“P-please, that's enough...!”
And at that very moment—
A coat billowed out and swept across Benz's field of view.
The exact instant Camibarez was about to smash Alizarin's forehead against the wall—
Flap!
A broad chest blocked her path, and her body went rigid. The black coat, whipped up by the wind, slowly settled down—and at last, her movements stopped.
“You did well, Kami.”
A warm voice murmured at her ear.
“The match is over now.”
“...”
Simon had appeared and wrapped her tightly in his arms. Benz's mouth fell open, and Mayrin went scarlet, clapping both hands over her mouth.
The referee, who had come running to pull her off, hastily raised his arm at Simon's glance.
“Th-the match is over! The winner is Camibarez Ursula of Kizen!”
Simon closed his eyes and tightened his hold around her.
“That's enough now.”
Her hollow eyes shifted, cold and distant. She was staring at the pale nape of Simon's neck.
Ssshh—
Her mouth parted slowly. Sharp fangs glinted, angling lazily toward the back of Simon's neck.
“Don't give in to the nature of your blood, Kami.”
Simon said, firm and steady.
“Show that will inside you—the one trying to take your body for itself—exactly who you are. Show it how incredible you are.”
Simon gently cupped the back of her head.
“The only one who gets to decide what you do with yourself... is you.”
“...”
At those words, life came flooding back into Camibarez's desiccated eyes as if it had all been a lie. Dew gathered in her large, pale-violet eyes.
“Simon...!”
“Yeah.”
Simon held her close.
“You did well.”
He felt the strength slowly draining from the body that had thrashed like a maddened wild beast. Before long, Camibarez was clinging to his back in return.
“...Thank you.”
Jane, who had been preparing a binding curse, let out her breath and smiled, then shot a look toward the other adults.
It meant: keep your hands off my student.
At her gaze, the necromancers hastily lowered their arms, and the medical staff carried Alizarin out on a stretcher.
After examining him briefly, they signaled to the guards that he would be fine.
“Oh, right.”
Simon grinned and looked toward the referee.
“Does barging in mid-match count as some kind of violation?”
“Huh? Oh—no, sir! Since you entered after his barrier gauge was already shattered...”
“Good to hear.”
Camibarez breathed in Simon's scent, and slowly, dependently, tilted her head until her cheek rested against his chest.
She could hear his heartbeat.
And it was—
Warm.