A Name Forged in Fury
Raon entered the arena with the Light Wind Squad, just as he had the day before.
"Wooooaaaaahhh!"
"It's Zieghart!"
"The Frost-Flower Sword Hero is heeeeere!"
"The Whirlwind Sword is right there with him!"
"Azure Moon Sword! Smile for us, please!"
The crowd's reaction had flipped a hundred and eighty degrees from yesterday. The same people who had ignored and mocked them now roared the name of Zieghart until it felt as if eardrums would burst.
That staggering ovation belonged to Raon — the one who had saved Burren, Runaan, and everyone in the arena even as they had been beating each other unconscious despite belonging to the same house, and who had then gone on to defeat Borini Kitten while still carrying his injuries.
Raon led the Light Wind Squad toward the dais. Unlike yesterday, the leaders of the Six Kings were seated above.
Their personalities are written all over them.
Glenn's face was a blank mask. King Lecross wore a gentle smile. Chamber kept pelting Glenn with questions he refused to answer. Ogram yawned as if the whole affair bored him, and Derus was still wearing that same theatrical smile he had put on the day before.
"We are in your care."
Raon and the Light Wind Squad bowed respectfully to the leaders, then made their way to the waiting seats.
"Who's this Whirlwind Sword they're shouting about?"
Burren glanced around, tilting his head.
"You."
Raon pointed at him with a quiet snort of laughter.
"M-me?"
Burren's eyes, still half-lidded from wounds that had not fully healed, flew wide open.
"That's right. Whirlwind Sword is your epithet. They saw you wielding the wind that rose off your blade and started calling you that."
"An epithet. My epithet…"
He curled his hands into fists and lowered his head. He had wanted an epithet for so long; the handsome name the crowd had given him seemed to have left him genuinely moved.
"Runaan. You're the Azure Moon Sword. They said the blue frost blooming from your blade looked exactly like winter moonlight."
"Azure Moon Sword…"
Runaan murmured the words a few times, then nodded. The corner of her mouth lifted, just barely. Even for someone whose expressions ran that thin, a beautiful epithet was apparently a joy.
"What about me?"
Marta came up beside them and swallowed hard.
"You don't have one."
"Then why don't I have onnne?!"
It had been a while since Marta's tongue got tied.
"You got a bye into the round of four, so you didn't leave the kind of shocking impression Burren and Runaan did, didjaaa?"
Raon snickered, mimicking her slip of the tongue, and hooked the corner of his mouth up in a taunt.
"You didn't show them anything, so you've got no epithet."
He had said it to needle her, but it was not a lie. Marta had advanced to the semifinals on a walkover, and next to Burren and Runaan her impression on the crowd had been faint.
"Damn it. You think I asked for a bye…?"
She chewed her lip, irritated at being the only one without a name.
"If you beat Princess Jayna and Prince Grier today, you'll get one whether you want it or not."
Raon looked down at her, his gaze settling into something still and serious.
"You can do it, right?"
"Obviously."
Marta nodded at once, without even pausing to think.
"You're not going to tell her?"
Tell her what?
"That you spilled every last strength and weakness of the Beef Girl to that insolent brat."
I'll tell her. Just not yet.
"Hmm?"
It'll be much more entertaining if I wait until she's in the middle of the fight, wondering why something feels off.
If he revealed the secret right around the time Jayna was using Marta's weaknesses to drag the match her way, the provocation would cut that much deeper.
"Haaaah…"
Wrath stared at Raon, his mouth hanging open.
"Never, ever let anyone out there call you a demon."
Why not?
"Because even in the Demon Realm, there isn't a lunatic like you!"
The announcer climbed onto the dais and raised a finger toward the sky. A voice packed with aura rolled through the entire arena.
"Thank you for waiting! We will now begin the Expert-rank semifinals of the Six Kings Duel Assembly!"
"Wooooaaaaahhh!"
"It's finally starting!"
"I couldn't even sleep last night!"
"We believe in you, Third Prince!"
"Princess Jayna! Glory to Balkar!"
"Marta! Smash them all like the rest of Zieghart!"
The crowd roared, pouring more heat into the festival atmosphere.
"Regrettably, there is only a single match in the semifinals — but I am confident it will deliver the thrill of two or more! First match! Marta Zieghart versus Jaina Ruin Balkar! Please take the arena!"
At the announcer's call, Marta let out a short breath and climbed onto the floor. Across from her, Jayna shot Raon a glare — yesterday's humiliation still unspent — then sprang up onto the arena herself.
"Are both of you ready?"
"Yes."
"Ready."
When the two of them nodded, the announcer descended from the floor.
"Then let the first match of the Six Kings Duel Assembly semifinals — begin!"
The instant his hand went up, Marta kicked off the ground. She charged like a wild boar and brought her sword crashing down.
"Hmph…"
Jayna watched the rush in silence, then slipped out of Marta's range as if she had folded the space itself. It was Folded Wind, a movement art born of spatial magic.
Marta used the force of the sword she had driven into the arena floor to spin her body around. She chased Jayna again, drawing up even more aura, and her speed climbed.
Marta's footwork compressed with a sudden, violent pull just before it entered Jayna's range, and in a blink she had punched through the space between them.
"Hmph."
Jayna did not so much as flinch. She had expected it. Folded Wind carried her to the opposite side.
It was all true…
The movements and breathing Raon had described to her had not been a lie. If she had not heard it in advance, that explosive footwork just now might have caught her clean.
I don't know what he's thinking… but I'll use it properly.
A cold little smile touched Jayna's mouth as she slipped past Marta's sword, which came on as hard as a stone flung from a catapult.
"Reverse Mirror!"
She clenched empty air in her right hand and shoved it to the left. Marta went flying as if a sledgehammer had taken her in the chest.
"Kh…"
Marta wiped the blood that had spilled past her lips with the back of her hand and charged in again. Her body had loosened; she was faster than before — but the flow of her martial art had not changed.
Using Raon's advice as a foothold, Jayna unspooled Folded Wind in a continuous chain, slipped every one of Marta's attacks, and crooked a finger.
Space folded into a thin crease, and bright red blood fountained from Marta's shoulder and arm. It was a cutting spell, its power amplified by spatial magic.
"Heh."
Jayna looked down at Marta's twisted face and let a cold laugh slip out.
The reason you're going to lose is that your vice-captain is insane.
Marta tore herself free of the space Jayna had ripped open and bit down on her lip.
What the hell is that?
She had known Jayna's spatial magic was dangerous. She had not known the girl had talent in physical arts as well.
Jayna moved as if she knew every one of Marta's motions and every current of her aura; landing a hit was next to impossible. The movement magic she used at the critical moment made it impossible even to throw a feint and break the read. It felt as if the entire shape of Marta's mind had been laid bare.
"Tsk."
Marta clicked her tongue, short and sharp, and kicked off the ground. She predicted Jayna's movement, cut off the left-hand path, and drove in — and Jayna used something like Blink to slip out to the right instead.
Marta tried to chase her again, but spatial magic had been laid over the floor where her footwork needed to land, and it caught her a second time.
Scowling, Marta cut away the spatial magic sprouting at her ankle and above her head, then sprayed sword aura in a continuous storm.
She blocked Jayna's vision with the aura, then crashed in from the left. She gathered aura in her left hand as well, ready for a retreat, and brought the sword down with the certainty that a strike covering every direction would land.
"Slow."
Jayna snorted and leapt into the air where there was no sword aura at all. She seized empty space and shoved, and in an instant she had transferred to the opposite side of the floor.
She even read the attack from behind?
The way she had moved to another space immediately suggested she had grasped not only the left and the right, but the fist Marta had been about to throw from behind as well.
It's like she knows the entire flow of my offense.
She had not shown enough for anyone to have mapped her that completely — and then, as Marta bit her lip around that wrongness, an aura message arrived from Raon.
What. I'm a little busy right now…
Huh?
That languid voice made her jaw tremble.
Don't tell me you…
Marta clenched her teeth and turned her head. Raon was smiling, and he winked.
That son of a bitch actually…
Raon waved, as if to say go get 'em. Rage surged up in her so hard she wanted to tear that hand off at the wrist. More than the princess preening in front of her, she wanted to smash the mouth of the man sitting down below.
"Is the struggling over now?"
Jayna smiled, cold, and brought both hands down on a diagonal. Space folded in from both sides and crushed in on Marta's shoulders.
"Struggling? Struuuugglinnng? You filthy bastards!"
Marta detonated her fury and raised every last drop of her Titan Aura. The yellow force that erupted from her dantian shoved Jayna's spatial magic back and roared up into a colossal blaze.
"Hrrraaah!"
White steam burst from Marta's mouth.
"Do whatever you want. Magic that isn't even worth a pair of rusty scissors isn't going to work on me!"
"How dare you!"
Jayna's face tightened, and she cranked the intensity of her spatial magic higher. Space folded larger and longer — but it still could not push Marta's aura back.
Fire lit in Marta's eyes as she slammed a crushing stomp into the earth. The center of the arena, layered with two sheets of protective magic, caved in on itself, and the floor in every direction split like a drought-cracked field.
"Kh…"
The instant Jayna lost her balance lasted no more than a blink, but for Marta it was time enough. She shot forward in a single burst and arrived in front of her.
Blink!
Jayna could not buy the time she needed for Folded Wind. She used Blink instead and transferred to Marta's back.
Now to attack agai— wait?
She had been about to strike Marta's legs with spatial magic once more — and a massive fist was already filling her vision.
"Die!"
Marta had read the simple movement of Blink and chased her down at once.
"If you extend any farther, your arm will be cut off too!"
"I don't care!"
True to her blood as a direct descendant of Balkar, Jayna still managed to set spatial magic in that sliver of time — but Marta drove her fist through anyway, torn hand or not, and smashed it into Jayna's jaw.
A sound like a drumhead splitting open rang through the arena. Jayna, eyes rolled back, tumbled across the floor.
"Ghh…"
"Huh…"
The announcer stood there vacant until Jayna's groan snapped him back to himself.
"T-the winner is Marta Ziegha—"
"You crazy bastard!"
Marta was off the floor before the announcement had even finished, and she seized Raon by the collar.
"What the hell was that?! What did you even get for selling my information?!"
"I didn't get anything."
"Then why?!"
"Your aura's realm and quantity went up a bit, didn't they?"
Even with a fist knotted in his collar, Raon smiled as if he had all the time in the world.
"What are you talking about… wait."
Marta let go of him and stopped where she stood.
It did go up. A lot, actually…
Betrayed by the person she trusted, she had been too angry to think and had dragged up every ounce of power she possessed. Looking at it now, both the quantity of her aura and the realm of it had risen, unmistakably.
"Lately you've been forcibly swallowing your rage so you can keep your reason in a berserk state, haven't you?"
"How did you…"
"One of the sources of your power is rage. You think that power is going to come out if you keep crushing it down? Reason is fine — but every so often, you have to let it loose."
Raon snorted a quiet laugh and waved her off.
"As the Head of House said, you have a habit of sinking too deep into a single thing. Berserk is well and good, but you're still at the age where you should be able to see more than one possibility. Widen the range of what you think about."
"S-so that's why you told that brat my information?"
"Go get yourself treated."
He did not answer her. He only pointed toward the temporary infirmary set up at the edge of the arena.
Marta stood there, unable to say a word.
"Squad Leader. Let's get you treated first."
Yedi, vice-leader of Unit 1, took Marta with him toward the healers.
"Haa…"
While a healer worked on her shoulder and her hand, Marta looked at Raon.
Did he really hand my information to Jayna just to make me grow?
That even voice of his, and that composure — looking at them, there was no other explanation. He had truly done it to push her somewhere higher.
Is that guy actually an idiot?
He should have had his hands full with his own fights, his own work. And in the middle of all that he was still looking after her and the other swordsmen of the Light Wind Squad. It struck her as almost foolishly stubborn.
"An idiot? Stubborn?"
Who was calling whom that?
Marta stared at the ground and bit down hard on her lip. A bead of blood fell from the split and darkened the floor.
The hopeless idiot is me.
Gratitude toward Raon heated her chest — and at the same time a raw scrape ran across her heart, as if someone had taken sandpaper to it.
Today isn't even the first time he's helped me. And me, on the other hand…
She had done nothing for him. She had not given him a thing. If anything, she had only ever caused him harm.
As a trainee she had attacked him first, mocked him, and picked fights with him without end. It had been a mess of childish pride, the inferiority of being an adopted daughter, and her rage toward the White Blood Cult all detonating at once — but the fact that she had gone after him did not change.
And I never even apologized.
After she lost to him they had let it blur over, vaguely. She had never given a proper apology for the mockery and the scorn. She had leaned on his kindness, said that the loser follows the winner's words, and let it all slide by as if it were water.
"Hoo…"
Marta slapped her own cheek and looked at Raon and the Light Wind Squad.
Just looking at them warmed her chest. The people she had not even been able to stand the sight of had, at some point, become family she would stake her life on.
Is it time, then.
The moment the Head of House had spoken of — the time to open her heart and lay her circumstances before her comrades — seemed to have arrived.
If I win today…
After she beat the Third Prince in the final, she would tell everyone in the Light Wind Squad who had been waiting for her the truth of her situation. And then…
Marta looked at Raon and closed her hand into a fist.
The apology too. I swear it.
"Ahahahaha!"
Chamber burst out laughing as she looked down at Raon standing below the arena. She seemed to be having so much fun she even kicked her feet against the chair.
"He sold his comrade's information and didn't take a single thing for it!"
She had apparently read the contents of the aura message Raon had sent Marta; she knew the entire exchange.
"That kid is actually insane. This is too much fun!"
Chamber grinned, still drumming her heels on the seat.
"He is certainly an unusual child."
King Lecross stroked his beard and laughed, easy and warm. Pleasure sat on his face as well.
"You can tell he has been watching his comrades very carefully."
"I thought he was a real man — turns out he's just a lunatic!"
Ogram chuckled, twisting his mouth. He had called Raon a lunatic, but he looked, if anything, even more interested in him than before.
"Heh."
Derus said nothing. He only looked down at Raon, slow and steady. The smile was so thick it looked less like a face than a doll's.
"Old man!"
Chamber climbed up onto her chair and called to Glenn on the far side.
"How did you even raise that one? How do you make something like that? And include the part about how handsome he is!"
"I did nothing."
Glenn shook his head, using aura itself to force down the corner of his mouth, which had begun to tremble.
"From the time he was small until now, that child has judged and done everything for himself. Neither I nor anyone else has done a separate thing for him."
He insisted he had contributed nothing, and turned all the credit back onto Raon himself.
"The fact that he thinks and moves on his own may well be what grew him into what he is. His martial prowess goes without saying, of course — but his cunning, his chivalry, and even his face…"
Glenn's voice, which had begun so even, started to heat and quicken.
"Old man?"
"You geezer?"
Chamber and Ogram tilted their heads at him. It was a sight they had never seen; they looked a little thrown themselves.
"Ahem!"
Glenn cleared his throat and stopped talking.
"A-anyway. That's just how it turned out."
Nobody was quite sure what "that" was supposed to mean, but since Glenn had said it, they all nodded along for the time being.
"As there is only a single match in the Expert-rank semifinals, and as Swordsman Marta Zieghart is injured, we will begin the Master-rank semifinals first in place of the Expert-rank final!"
The announcer called it out — a way of giving Marta even a little time to recover.
"Oh, so we get to see Raon right away? The one whose head is crazy and whose face is crazy?"
Chamber smiled and leaned forward, eyes on Raon.
"Kahahaha!"
Ogram let out a booming laugh and turned his gaze on Glenn.
"Now what are we going to do? That self-made little brat you're so proud of is going to hit his ceiling here."
He jerked his chin toward the Dragon-Cleaving Asura, Garona, standing opposite Raon.
"A sword that pokes around half-heartedly won't work on that one."
"Is that so?"
Glenn turned a cold smile on Ogram.
"Then he'll just have to smash him properly."
"What?"
"Watch closely."
His red eyes gleamed the way Raon's did.
"That child is going to break those vanity muscles of your boy to pieces."
"Wooooaaaaaaaahhh!"
"Raon! Raon! Raon!"
"Garona! Garona! Garona!"
The crowd waved and shouted the names of the two men standing on the arena floor.
"Hoo, I'm nervous. Who's going to win?"
"You could call this a contest between a spear and a boulder."
"A boulder, not a shield?"
"Garona isn't just defense. One clean hit and the match is over."
"That's true of Raon too. If it's the Ganggi that smashed Borini Kitten's sword, Garona won't be able to take it either!"
"Will it be Raon's sharp blade, the one that put Mathis and Borini Kitten on their knees — or Garona's heavy fists, the ones that blew every opponent away?"
"A contest of power versus technique, then?"
"Right. Raon will be looking for Garona's openings."
The spectators licked their lips, already certain this would be a fight of power against skill.
Power and technique, is it…
Raon listened to the crowd's roaring and smiled.
Unfortunately, I won't be granting that wish.
What he needed to take from a fight with Garona was not the honing of technique.
"Raon Zieghart."
Garona rolled fingers as long and thick as the hilt of a wooden sword and lifted his head.
"One warning."
He smiled, baring teeth as sharp as a beast's.
"If you lean on that toothpick, you'll be torn apart in a single blow."
As if to prove the words were no bluff, a savage wave of presence erupted from Garona's entire body — a terrifying aura, extreme physical power condensed to a point.
"I'll give you a warning too."
Raon drew the Heavenly Sky Sword, a chill little smile on his mouth.
"If you take this toothpick lightly, I'll put a hole through that oversized body of yours."
"Kahahahaha! Good! If you can do it, you're welcome to try!"
Garona pounded his own chest, boom, boom, as if to say come as hard as you like.
"A-are you both ready?"
The announcer, apparently frightened, was already down off the floor.
"Hurry up and start!"
"Y-yes."
When Raon and Garona nodded, the announcer pointed a shaking hand at the sky.
"Then let the first match of the Master-rank semifinals — begin!"
The instant his hand fell, Garona's body vanished. No — it was not only Garona. Raon's figure was wiped from that spot as well.
At the center of the arena, Ganggi collided with Ganggi, and a terrifying shockwave swept the entire space.
"Aaaagh!"
"W-what was that!"
"Why is the wind this—"
The spectators could not even get their eyes open properly. They ducked their heads and shielded themselves.
The gray smoke laid over the floor peeled away, and the two of them came back into view.
At the heart of the arena, Raon and Garona had raised a vast tide of Ganggi and were shoving each other in a contest of raw force against raw force.
"W-what is this…"
"Raon isn't giving ground?"
"It's not technique versus power — it's power versus power?"
"And he isn't even being pushed. The Frost-Flower Sword Hero isn't yielding an inch to the Dragon-Cleaving Asura!"
The crowd's eyes went wide as they watched Raon refuse to be moved so much as a hair by Garona's strength.
In the enormous collision of force against force, brilliant yellow sparks sprayed endlessly between Raon and Garona.
"Khnn…"
Raon looked at Garona, who was snarling like a beast, and rolled the edge of his mouth up.
The way the Beast Alliance uses their strength. I'll make sure to learn it well.