Cracks Beneath the Festivities
The whole affair had started with an idea of Simon's.
What if we put Loraine and Serne on the same team? I was hoping the two of them might get along a little better at this Dark Festival.
Simon had said it purely out of a wish to see them reconcile, but when Fitzgerald heard it, he fell into serious thought.
Strategically, that's not a bad idea at all. I'll bring it up with the department representative later.
For this Dark Festival, Fitzgerald had been deeply involved in arranging the events and fine-tuning the schedules for the second-year Summoning students.
Of course, the final say belonged to the class representative, Hector—but even he trusted Fitzgerald's data and analytical instincts.
So at that evening's meeting, Fitzgerald raised the matter directly.
As I understand it, Serne has been withdrawing from event after event, and it's become a problem.
Hector, who had already been racking his brain over exactly that issue, scowled deeply.
What exactly are you getting at?
I propose we pair Loraine and Serne for tomorrow's three-legged race.
The three-legged race was a simple, classic event. Two people stood side by side, bound together at the inner legs, and ran. And since this was a race held at a necromancer's academy, the use of dark magic was permitted.
However, given the nature of a 'race,' flight magic and riding summoned beasts were forbidden. Directly attacking or cursing your opponent was off-limits as well.
Hector, as you well know, the only person who can control Serne is Loraine. She's been working hard for this Dark Festival, so she'll find a way to drag Serne to the starting line.
And so, today.
Loraine had actually succeeded in hauling Serne—holed up in her dorm room, sleeping in—out to the stadium.
But the atmosphere was anything but friendly.
"Why aren't those two running?"
"...A falling-out, maybe?"
The spectators murmured among themselves.
The race had already begun, and students from every other department were in full sprint—yet Loraine and Serne stood radiating icy hostility, each staring off in the opposite direction.
GoooOOOOOoooh!
An unbearable, suffocating bloodlust swirled around the two of them, a vortex no bystander dared to step into.
The referee, flag in hand, shuffled nervously closer.
"S-Students, you really need to start the race now..."
At those words, Serne's eyes flared viciously. The referee shrank back instantly and shut his mouth.
"The referee is right."
Loraine spoke up, retying the loose strand of straight hair that had slipped from her tie.
"Let's start."
"And why would I do that?"
Serne shot back in a voice full of thorns.
"Because you're a student."
Loraine didn't budge an inch, glaring right back at her.
"How does being a student make running a school event a question of why?"
"You honestly think I'd run some childish little race like this?"
"What is with you, every single time?"
Loraine's simmering frustration was finally reaching its boiling point.
"What could you possibly have to complain about? What could possibly displease you so much? You won't even follow the school's legitimate directives—all you do is cause trouble and make everyone around you suffer!"
"Oh, so now I want to know what your problem is."
Serne let out a hollow laugh—ha—and looked Loraine dead in the eye.
"Because of a treaty from the past, I was dragged to Kizen the moment I turned seventeen. The reason is obvious, isn't it? Take the heir hostage so the Ivory Tower can never defy Kizen again. That's the scheme. And you expect the person they dragged here to cooperate nicely?"
"..."
Loraine's fists clenched around the hem of her jacket.
"A hostage? That's absurd! That's nothing but your own paranoid interpretation!"
"Do you really believe that? Look at history."
Serne raised her index finger and pointed it straight at Loraine's eyes.
"No kingdom on this continent has ever sent its heir to a rival nation's palace of its own free will. They send them because they're forced to—and the reason is always the same: hostage, prisoner, or slave. After winning its disputes with the Ivory Tower, Kizen imposed a treaty requiring the Tower's heir to be educated at Kizen, by force. A school is such a convenient pretext, isn't it? Don't you agree?"
Loraine's arm shook with anger.
"Is that so? Vermund is dead! You're not just an heir anymore—you hold real power, practically equal to the Master of the Ivory Tower. And yet you didn't take the throne. You stayed at Kizen by your own will! If you truly believe you're a hostage, why are you still here? Why stay at this school and keep acting like this? Everything you say is one walking contradiction!"
Serne lifted her chin.
"I have my reasons for staying at Kizen. And no, my goal isn't studying, and it isn't grades. Does every student have to chase grades above all else? Within the frame of this school, I will do exactly what I want to do—nothing more."
"You really are—!"
"S-Students..."
The referee approached, his face drained white.
These two were the heirs of Kizen and the Ivory Tower respectively. Every single word out of his mouth had to be weighed like a knife's edge.
"If you d-don't start, under the regulations I'll have no choice but to d-d-disqualify you..."
Loraine's expression hardened. When she turned her head, she could see, far off in the stands, her Summoning Department classmates and seniors.
Every last one of them wore the face of a funeral.
"N-no! We'll start! We're starting now!"
Disqualification was the one outcome she absolutely had to avoid. Loraine moved her feet.
"Serne, we have to go—now!"
"What? I already told you, I'm not—!"
Their bound legs lifted at the same time—and their hearts were not in the same place. Within moments, both girls wobbled, lost their balance, and toppled face-first onto the field.
"..."
"..."
Fair and square, faces planted in the dirt, the two of them snapped their heads up at the exact same instant.
"What was that?!"
Serne shrieked, eyes blazing like an axe-wielding fury.
"You're one to talk—what do you think you're doing!"
Loraine yelled back, equally frustrated.
And then the two of them were at each other's throats, howling.
"What are those two doing?"
"HAHAHAHA!"
Laughter rippled through the stands all around. The Summoning Department students in their seats, on the other hand, couldn't have laughed if their lives depended on it.
They're actually laughing at that.
Good for them, pretending it's not their problem.
The fallout and the cold war that would erupt afterward would fall, as always, entirely on the shoulders of everyone around them.
While the two heiresses who would one day carry the future of the Dark Alliance brawled in the middle of the track, the ordinary students had already finished their second lap.
A strange rhythm took hold: students would run hard, stamping jet-black beneath their feet, then slow down just a little as they approached the stretch where Loraine and Serne lay sprawled, craning their heads away desperately until they'd passed—then speed right back up. Over and over.
"...You. Four-eyes, you little—!"
Up in the stands, Hector had seized Fitzgerald by the collar and lifted him clean off the ground. He was so absurdly strong that Fitzgerald's entire body floated up like a feather.
"This isn't how it was supposed to go!"
"My prediction was accurate."
Even mid-chokehold, Fitzgerald calmly pushed his glasses up.
"From the start, the core of the plan was simply getting Serne to the event—her whose contribution to the team was, without attendance, exactly 'zero.' Whether the two of them actually performed afterward was left to fate."
"You got a mouth full of holes, I swear—!"
"Hector! Restrain yourself!"
The faction students wrestled him back. Hector sucked in a sharp breath and flung Fitzgerald carelessly to one side.
Last place in the women's bracket is a heavy blow. We have to make up for it in the men's events somehow...
"Oh—it's the president!"
Just then, Simon, having finished his own event, came sprinting into the stadium. He closed the distance in a single breath, grabbed the fence, and peered into the arena with gleaming eyes.
Loraine and Serne, legs bound together, lay sprawled in the very middle of the track.
Oh no! They fell!
Strictly speaking, they hadn't made it a single step past the starting line—but to Simon, who had only just arrived, it looked exactly like two runners who had given it their all and taken a hard fall.
He shouted at the top of his lungs.
"You've got this! Loraine! Serne!"
Simon's voice rang out across the stadium, and at the very instant the two girls were about to grab each other by the hair, their heads whipped around in unison.
Simon?
From far away, Simon was waving, a bright grin on his face.
"Don't give up yet! You can do it!"
Looking at Simon—blissfully ignorant of the situation, cheering with pure, unguarded sincerity—both girls let their hands drop at the same time.
"Hm~"
With a small sniff, Serne finally rose, brushing the dust off her gym uniform.
"Fine. Now I'm in the mood."
"...Since when?"
"I told you, didn't I?"
Still brushing sand from her hair, she reached into that pale-gold mane and drew out a single feather.
"I do exactly what I want to do."
Wuuuum!
In the blink of an eye, her feather decomposed into the form of a magic circle. It was a circle of staggering complexity—enough to make anyone's eyes go wide. A matrix packed edge to edge with formulas, its structure shifting and reweaving at blinding speed.
Sha-rack—
The recalculation completed in a heartbeat, the circle compressing down and returning to the form of a single feather. Serne placed it on the ground at her feet.
"What are you planning?"
Loraine asked, eyeing her with suspicion. Serne said nothing, merely giving the rope binding their legs a light tap—whereupon the rope's material turned soft and pliant.
"With your abilities sealed, you're worthless trash—but that body of yours still has its uses, doesn't it?"
Serne turned around. Then, as if embracing her, she pressed her whole body flush against Loraine's.
Loraine's face twisted with disgust.
"Don't call a person a 'body.' So—what's the plan?"
"Your head really doesn't turn, does it? Step on that feather. With everything you have."
Loraine looked distinctly unimpressed, but if she didn't want to be disqualified, cooperation was her only option.
Left with no choice, she braced one hand against Serne's waist.
"Hold on tight."
Her immense jet-black poured forth, concentrating into her legs. Hopping on a single leg, Loraine strode over to the fallen feather and stomped it with every ounce of her strength.
THWAAA-KOOOOOM—!
With the sound of a shell leaving a cannon, both of their bodies shot forward at blistering speed.
"Whoa!"
"What was that just now?!"
Serne pulled the next feather from her hair and flicked it ahead to the exact spot where Loraine's foot would land. Loraine crushed it beneath her heel and leapt again.
THWAAA-KOOOM—!
To the spectators, it looked as though the two girls' bodies were teleporting—vanishing from one spot, only for a raging gale to sweep in a moment later and shake the trees along the stadium to their roots.
"Whoaaah!"
"Gwaaaah!"
Students were constantly being swept off their feet and tumbled away by the enormous gusts the pair kicked up. At this sudden turn of events, the Summoning Department students—who had given up on the race and sat slumped in despair—snapped their heads up.
"No way—!"
THWOOSH-KRAKOOM—!
They were crossing half the stadium with practically every single leap.
"Wait, isn't flying or teleporting against the rules?"
"It's fine! That's clearly high-speed leaping! Look! Even the referee isn't raising his flag!"
Serne's high-level leaping magic—and the one stomping it was Loraine, with her mountain of jet-black and her peerless athleticism.
Wherever her black-stamped foot fell, the ground cracked—cracked—splitting into great fissures.
"They've overtaken the leading team!"
"Good heavens! How many laps behind were they?!"
Suddenly, the finish line was in sight.
The referees stood on either side of the finish line, gripping it between them, and the first to come hurtling toward it were the students of Dark Dynamics.
FwoooOOOORSH—!
They had prepared booster magic adapted from the jet-black flame circle, and they held the lead.
Flames burst from the palms stretched out behind their backs as they pushed off, one leap at a time. Their breathing was flawless.
"We've got it!"
The student on the right shouted.
"First place is ours!"
The student on the left grinned. And in the very moment they made their final leap, chests thrust forward with all their might—
THWAAA-KOOOOOM—!
Along with the gale, a mountain of dust erupted skyward. The two students were flung outward as if rebounding off something and crashed to the ground sideways.
And then—
They saw them: a black-haired girl and a platinum-haired girl, descending just before the finish line.
Standing side by side, the two of them crossed the finish line together at a leisurely, unhurried pace.
"Winners!"
The referee raised both arms and bellowed the declaration.
"First place—Loraine and Serne of the Summoning Department!"
At the jaw-dropping come-from-behind victory, thunderous cheers erupted from every direction.
As the two of them waved to the crowd with all the grace of high society, their eyes turned, in perfect unison, toward a single spot.
The stands. There was Simon, jumping up and down, celebrating the victory with their classmates.
"You two were amazing!"
Simon waved, beaming. Watching him quietly, Serne bent down and undid the rope binding their legs.
"Let today be the last day I'm ever tied to you."
Loraine laughed as if sighing.
"Seconded."
The same moment.
On Roke Island, at a seaside food stall.
Tap. Tap.
Someone walked toward the stall, footsteps pressing into the sand. The stallkeeper, busily preparing for the day's business, looked up brightly.
"Welcome, welcome! What can I get—"
The stallkeeper's voice died in his throat.
"Uh... uh?"
His pupils were shaking wildly.
As if something had gone terribly wrong.
Or as if he had just seen something that must never be seen.
Clack.
The footsteps of the one who had been passing the stall stopped as well.
"You there."
Tap. Tap.
The figure walked back toward the stall.
"Can you see my face?"
"Th... th... that is! Hk—!"
Sensing the killing intent, the stallkeeper cried out desperately.
"Someone! Somebody over here, help! A monster! There's a monster of a person—!"
But no one heard.
Not the vendor running the stall next door, not the festivalgoers passing mere steps away.
As if the two of them alone had been cut loose from the rest of the world.
Only then realizing his life hung by a thread, the stallkeeper screamed, trembling all over.
"I saw nothing! I didn't see anything at all! P-please, spare me!"
"..."
Beneath the hood, a face smiled.
"That's right. You couldn't have seen anything at all."
Thud!
Blood spattered high into the sky.
And amid all the festival's heat and revelry, a crack was quietly, slowly, beginning to spread.