Showdown with Rahe, Captain of the 7th Division (4)
Villain No. 13 demanded three days of absolute obedience.
During that time, he also extracted a promise that Rahe would not use her power to attack heroes or cause trouble for civilians.
From what little more he revealed, it seemed there was some kind of power struggle among villains, and he wanted her help with it.
…That can’t be all there is to it.
Rahe could see the faint, poorly concealed lust in Villain No. 13’s eyes as he looked at her. He kept stealing glances at her legs and the swell of her chest.
She felt no particular discomfort, nor did she feel the need to comment on it. It was a gaze she encountered often enough, and she understood that even the most morally upright person was not entirely free from desire.
Especially when the other party was a villain who paid no heed to morality in the first place.
Once she entrusted her body to him, she never imagined it would be used only for the innocent purposes he had described. It would likely be subjected to far more sordid acts, or perhaps he would vent his frustrations on the captain of a hero unit. He might even take shameful photographs to crush the morale of the entire hero division and socially destroy her.
Even taking all of that into account, Rahe promised to accept Villain No. 13’s proposal.
She was not the type to cling to something as trivial as her virginity, and if enduring a little humiliation and disgrace could secure a future for her subordinates, then the price was cheap.
“Then let us each swear upon our constellations. You have no objections, I assume?”
[No problem.]
Rahe proposed it, and Villain No. 13 answered.
A vow sworn to the constellations.
Awakened individuals could make promises in the name of the constellations that had granted them power and grace.
Any promise made this way had to be fulfilled. Failure to do so would bring down some form of sanction from the constellation.
What that sanction would be could only be known when the time came. Depending on the constellation’s nature or the severity of the broken oath, it might be nothing more than the minor misfortune of stubbing a toe, or it could be a calamity great enough to wipe out three generations.
In other words, for the awakened, a vow or promise made in the name of a constellation had to be kept at all costs.
It was precisely because such a method existed that Rahe had been able to seriously negotiate with a villain.
At any rate, the discussion was over. All that remained was the final vow.
Because Rahe still refused to allow Villain No. 13 to speak, he was writing the oath on the whiteboard.
Once he finished writing the vow on the board, Rahe would recite the words of the oath along with him.
After that, this incident would end. Everything would be settled, and Rahe would become Villain No. 13’s puppet for three days…
“Whoops.”
Suddenly, while writing the oath on the whiteboard, Villain No. 13 dropped the eraser that had been sitting on the board.
He bent down and reached for it.
And then—
Swish—
It happened in an instant.
With a soft thud, Villain No. 13’s severed hand fell to the floor.
Amid the loud noise, the chair Rahe had been sitting on was kicked away, and she now stood at a distance, sword pointed at him.
Villain No. 13’s arm, which had been reaching downward, had been cut off at the wrist, blood gushing from the stump. He tried to staunch the bleeding by grabbing the arm, but there was no way to stop the blood spurting from the severed wrist.
“What do you think you’re doing, Villain No. 13?”
Rahe’s voice was a low growl.
Her gaze fell on the severed hand at his feet. A smartphone was clutched in that hand, now cut cleanly in half.
He had pretended to pick up the dropped eraser while using some sleight-of-hand trick to produce the smartphone.
Rahe’s eyes had caught it perfectly and stopped him.
“Graaah…!”
“You were acting so obedient, and this is what you were after? Didn’t I ask you not to make any suspicious moves? Couldn’t you have predicted this would happen? Or did I really look that easy to fool?”
An intense killing intent, far stronger than before, erupted from Rahe.
At the same time, her mana whipped through the space like a storm, filling the room.
Villain No. 13’s face twisted in pain, yet he looked at Rahe with a stiff smile, as if he had forgotten the situation. The smile soon collapsed under the agony.
Rahe took one more step forward.
“This is your final warning. Obey me and swear the oath upon your constellation. Swear that you will fulfill your promise to me. Now!”
Her voice carried such crushing pressure that the air itself seemed to tremble, and it felt as though her internal organs were being squeezed.
Ah, there was no helping it. There was no way “It was just a joke” would work in this situation.
He had no choice. For now, he could only pretend to comply.
And so, looking troubled, Villain No. 13 opened his mouth.
“『Rahe’s universe—』”
CRACKLE-CRACKLE-CRACKLE!!!
The moment Villain No. 13 began to speak, a massive icicle erupted from the floor at his location, piercing straight through his body.
She had clearly realized that those words were not part of the oath.
Perhaps she had sensed from the very beginning that he would never go along with her proposal.
In any case, Rahe had noticed his intent, decided to eliminate him before he could do anything, and carried it out.
Villain No. 13 was impaled from abdomen to jaw on the towering icicle. Rahe stared at his upper body, now grotesquely split in half, without so much as a twitch of her eyebrow.
Then, suddenly, the hand gripping her sword moved again.
Clang!! A phantom sound rang out. At the same time, the space roughly three meters away in the direction she had swung her sword “shattered,” revealing Villain No. 13 and 7th Division member Coco beyond it.
In its place, the Villain No. 13 impaled on the icicle wavered and vanished.
It was Coco’s Illusion Magic.
“Damn it…!”
“Villain No. 13!!”
Villain No. 13 tried to throw something at Rahe with his remaining arm. But both the object and his hand froze solid. New pillars of ice then shot up from the floor like bamboo sprouts, targeting both him and Coco.
The two of them narrowly dodged the attack and once again concealed themselves with illusion magic. Rahe could clearly sense their presence rapidly retreating.
As the two figures vanished like a mirage, Rahe was about to pursue them by tracing the faint remnants of their mana when—
BOOOOOOM!!!
“?!”
The ceiling above where Rahe stood collapsed.
A mass of old concrete mixed with dust, rebar, and buried pipes rained down toward her.
“Rahe, Captain!!”
“Pardon the intrusion!!”
From within the falling debris, new figures appeared and plummeted toward her alongside the rubble.
Check and Spade.
Already radiating their full power from the moment they appeared, the two unleashed blue and red mana flames respectively as they aimed their weapons at Rahe.
Rahe had already hidden herself inside a dome of ice she created in an instant, like a turtle retreating into its shell.
And just before the two reached the ice dome—
──────!!
The ice dome shattered, and in its place, two swords shot outward.
The flying blades were aimed precisely at Check’s and Spade’s necks.
Check barely managed to dodge the blade filled with deadly killing intent and mana, while Spade struggled to evade hers.
Realizing the ambush had failed, the two immediately put distance between themselves and Rahe at Check’s command.
The falling concrete and rising dust gradually settled, revealing Rahe’s figure beyond.
Standing atop the rubble, Rahe gazed at Check and Spade with cold, composed eyes.
“……So it was true.”
Rahe muttered, her voice tinged with faint regret.
She hadn’t wanted to believe it. She had hoped it wasn’t true. But Villain No. 13’s words had not been lies.
Apple, Coco, Check, Spade—and Club, who had yet to show herself.
Every single member of the 7th Division had fallen into Villain No. 13’s hands. It was a truly heartbreaking situation. This was clearly the commander’s failure.
Rahe had no desire for power, so she was not afraid of punishment or any kind of disadvantage. Even if she were dishonorably discharged, it would not matter.
But the thought that her precious subordinates had become a villain’s playthings, and that she would now have to “deal with” them with her own hands, filled her with rage.
“Can the two of you hear me?”
“……” “……”
“Both of you, step back. Let me chase after that villain. If you do, I won’t have to hurt you.”
Though her words were calm and solemn, her voice carried a faint plea.
Please listen. Please. It sounded as though she were begging.
But Rahe’s plea did not reach the two of them.
Both Check and Spade raised their weapons toward Rahe once more, their eyes and expressions unreadable. Their mana flared again. They were clearly displaying hostility toward their superior.
Rahe simply met that hostility with a cold, sharp gaze.
Then, with a resigned “I suppose there’s no helping it,” she extended the swords in both hands toward them.
One was the sword she normally wore at her waist. The other was a blade of ice, from hilt to tip.
Aiming both deadly weapons at the two, Rahe also released her mana.
What first surged forth was white mana. But soon the color began to change.
As the white mana gradually turned golden, Rahe’s eyes and hair also shifted to match that golden hue.
Rahe’s full combat stance.
It was the form that had once earned her the title of Golden Reaper on the battlefield, in addition to Ice Witch.
She had no intention of holding back. She had to finish the two of them as quickly as possible and pursue the fleeing Villain No. 13.
“……I’m sorry, both of you.”
With that quiet murmur, the differently colored mana radiating from Rahe, Check, and Spade collided.