The Purple Demon vs. the Indigo Witch (2): Yes, I'll Admit It.

Yulia was steadying her heart and settling her breath, her eyes on Blow, when he—who hadn't looked away from the match for so much as an inch—turned to Rachel beside him and spoke, a little too heated.

"My lady. The senior isn't swinging the battleaxe at all, is she? She's just bringing it straight down. Not swinging it."

"Hah. You actually caught that? Yeah. Straight down. She's using the weight of the axe."

"Figures. Swinging it never made sense, no matter how I turned it over. Physically it looked pretty much impossible."

"Why?"

"Because it's heavy."

"Please. And just how heavy do you think that thing is?"

Rachel's tone was flat, faintly put out.

As she'd said, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Yulia's way with the battleaxe was not to swing it, but to drive it straight down. What made that possible was a weapon-binding spell, together with Attract—magic that could haul a weapon back along a straight line from within a fixed distance. Among knights, those with a gift for mana learned it so they could wield their arms freely on a battlefield, or so they wouldn't be helpless if the weapon ever left their hand. Which was precisely why, from where Hervena stood, the spell could only have felt strange.

When Rachel had first shown it to Yulia, Yulia had studied it with care, then shrugged, perfectly at ease.

Recalling that exchange, Rachel stroked her chin and went on, speaking to Blow.

"Still. Suits her better than you'd think, doesn't it? Yulia with an axe."

"She's such a gentle person that it looks unbalanced on her. But it suits her much better than I expected."

Even as ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠he said it, Blow was watching Yulia shape an indigo magic circle. The high-waisted slacks made her look, for all the world, like one of those New York career women he used to see on the other side. And yet there she stood with an axe in her hands. Somehow she looked as if she'd have more of a knack for scaling towers than for magic.

A laugh escaped him before he knew it. Rachel, meanwhile, went on stroking her chin, her face gone bitter.

"Didn't think it'd get broken in a single pass, though. I thought she could get a lot more use out of it than that."

"It's Hervena."

An attack built around that axe demanded tremendous focus, and it would put a brutal strain on the arms. She ought to have burned through a great deal of mana early, while she still could—but Hervena's answer had been far too precise. For Yulia, and for Rachel cheering her on, it was hard not to feel the loss.

"Pace yourself, Yulia Edfolk."

While Rachel murmured it, Yulia was carrying the match as if the battleaxe didn't exist at all, buying time until her muscles recovered.

The shape of it was the same as the opening of the match. But after watching an indigo circle tainted by violet and snuffed out some three times over, Yulia narrowed her eyes and put the question to Hervena.

"No intention of using any other magic, I take it? Hervena Westriver?"

"You'd do better to just keep on with what you were doing, Senior."

"Honestly."

Hervena was feeling something very like humiliation. Today was the final. Today was supposed to be the day she stamped her magic, and her name, into every person watching. To do that she had to show them what she had shown Rebecca last time—a performance perfect, flawless, and crushing. And yet that last minute of exchanges had been nothing like it. To have let an offset show meant Yulia's magic and her strategy had worked. That said everything. Which was why, for Hervena, everything from this moment on mattered more. Carry the present momentum cleanly through to the end, and the opening exchange would be written off as a fluke.

Yulia was reading every bit of that thinking. Of everyone standing in the arena, she was the one most like Hervena—brilliant, ravenous for recognition, and, it seemed, even mindful of Blow. Hervena's whole manner in the match, as if Yulia were nothing more than some rite of passage to be cleared, soured her mood at a stroke. She drew her brows together and murmured, just on the edge of hearing.

"Haha. And just what does she take a person for."

Little by little the muscle had all come back. Yulia's right hand glittered indigo once more.

And she launched herself up over Hervena again. Everyone watching the match, Hervena included, waited for Attract. Instead Yulia hung there on flight magic and summoned a different indigo circle entirely. As if that suited her even better, Hervena reached toward it.

Violet swallowed indigo once more. For an Inverse Calculation, far too little mana seemed to be burning, and Hervena's face twisted without mercy.

A goddamn beginner spell? The return on that's garbage.

Inverse Calculation was Advanced magic no matter how you cut it. Even if the thing she was canceling sat at the beginner tier, her mana was being burned away all the same, absolutely.

The battleaxe was sucked back into Yulia's hand. She caught it, spun once around the axis of her own body, and sent it flying straight at Hervena. Hervena chose to freeze the axe in midair, just as she had before.

Then, meaning to intercept Yulia where she still hung aloft, Hervena summoned another circle. Yulia's left hand lit indigo.

...Didn't she just use that?

Ah.

A longsword was flying toward Yulia, and Hervena saw it. Yulia snatched it out of the air and came down on her even faster than she had with the axe.

Something that light, I can just block and be done with it.

Thinking so, Hervena summoned a shield of mana, and the rupture of steel meeting shield rang through the hall. The speed of the answer left every spectator unable to close their mouth.

"Her reactions are seriously fast."

The words spread through the stands like a contagion, and in that same moment Yulia let the sword go again.

"What is she even doing?"

Hervena's face crumpled into every shade of annoyance, unable to tell what her opponent meant to do next. Yulia took to the air once more, flew, and caught the end of the axe haft still floating overhead.

Under the sudden pressure, Kinesis shattered, and Yulia came flying at her again with the axe.

...This is a fucking pain.

This time Hervena didn't bother meeting it. She kicked off as if from the ground itself and opened the distance. A few seconds after she had cleared the spot—

KRAAAAAA—

A tremendous sound, and the place where she had been standing was split by the vicious crack the axe had torn open.

Yulia caught her breath, planted the axe in the earth, and stuck to Hervena again. Hervena shook her off in turn and threw a checking bolt of ice magic her way.

And so began a flight of ferocious speed. For a while they chased and were chased through the empty air, hurling magic and answering it, a pursuit that never quite touched the ground. It was like watching two hummingbirds fight in free flight, and the heads and eyes of everyone trying to follow spun in circles.

Yulia, finding a pocket of ease inside it, nodded to herself. Provoking Hervena at the start so she would go out of her way to spend Inverse Calculation. Landing a spell only once so far, and yet still driving one home hard enough to force an offset. All of it had been her plan.

....Just what do you take a person for, Hervena Westriver? Did you really hold a thought that childish—that you would simply keep me from casting at all? But that is what will catch your ankle. You're human too, whatever else you are. Just as I already made your offset flare.

Thinking so, Yulia stopped chasing directly behind her. She held her distance off to the side and flew wide, and the two of them took on the look of a formation in flight. Yulia's hand flashed indigo.

You think I'll just stand there and take it?

Like an acrobat in the air, Hervena folded her head and her whole body backward and dropped. Yulia didn't follow. She glided, unhurried, along the straight line joining Hervena to some imaginary point.

The axe shot toward Yulia in a dead-straight line, and fast. Hervena's heartbeat kicked up as she realized she was standing on that very path—the path the axe would take as it was dragged in.

This—?

She meant to slip aside just enough, but Yulia was already holding the line, calculated or not. At this rate the incoming axe would intercept her clean.

....Stopping it with Kinesis while it's already in flight is too much of a risk. I'll just block with a shield. There's time enough.

KWANG—

Once again the axe buried itself in her shield. This time she'd had the moments to prepare, and so the axe failed to crack the shield the way it had before. Hervena let out a breath of relief—and from behind her came the sound of Yulia's chant.

Shield raised in one hand, Yulia's Advanced spell canceled with the other—archmage-class conduct of a match. Then something she hadn't accounted for happened, and Hervena's teeth ground together.

"Fuck—another beginner spell?"

Having sold the feint, Yulia released the Attract she had already cast and dropped toward her. The axe, suddenly bereft of force, plunged, and Hervena's balance—braced against it—collapsed.

"You're casting it again, just like that?"

But the axe didn't so much as stir. Neither did the longsword. Hervena turned, and what she saw was Yulia's hands pressed together.

Too late.

An indigo circle unfurled in front of Yulia as she closed the distance fast. From it, formless blades of wind poured toward Hervena. Hervena saw them and raised her shield—but she had been chaining Supreme Tier magic, and she had thrown the shield up in a rush, and two of the wind-blades bit in. One at the thick of her right shoulder. One at her side.

Through the clothes torn open, Hervena's violet mana flashed. In the same instant a cheer burst from the stands.

"It got through!!!"

"Yulia! Yulia!"

"Go!!"

Upperclassmen roared her name. The younger students watched in a string of no way, no way. Even Aurora and Mnevoir, up in the judges' seats, had gone wide-eyed at a development no one could easily have predicted.

Struck clean, Hervena fell headfirst toward the ground. Yulia didn't miss the moment. She called the axe and hurled it toward the line of the fall. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠The axe had closed to about five meters when—

In the very instant every spectator was thinking it couldn't be, it couldn't be—a magic circle summoned itself at Hervena's head and at her feet, and the girl who had been falling vanished like smoke.

KWANG—

The boom startled everyone into searching the arena. In a corner a violet circle bloomed, and out of it stepped Hervena, brushing off her clothes as she came forward.

"Whoa—Hervena's teleportation magic..."

Yulia, who this time had truly believed the axe would land, let out a thin sigh. Everyone in the stands clutched their heads, each lost in a feeling of their own. And Blow, as if murmuring to himself, spoke to Rachel, who had been watching in silence at his side.

"That one didn't go in, but Senior Yulia is completely alive out there, isn't she?"

"Obviously."

"She keeps throwing binary choices at her. Hervena's going to be under insane stress."

Rachel nodded, conceding the point. Just as Blow had said, the way Yulia ran the match was to force one choice after another onto Hervena without pause.

She uses Attract—battleaxe, or longsword? A weapon's in her hand—will she use it, or won't she? You're going to Inverse-Calculate? Then is what I'm casting right now Advanced, or beginner? Am I casting at all, or aren't I?

Question after question, scraping at Hervena's temper while steadily gnawing down her mana. The axe hadn't landed, but Sylph's Onslaught clearly had, and so along the side and the shoulder of Hervena—now down on the ground, staring quietly up at Yulia—an offset had unmistakably burst.

"Senior Yulia!!!!"

"She's insane...!"

Against a Hervena who until now had looked untouchable, the match seemed ready to overturn a prediction of nine to one, and the chant of Yulia's name swelled. Linne, too, more excited than she had ever been, spoke from behind Blow.

"A-at this rate, d-don't you think Senior Yulia might actually win?"

But Blow breathed out a thin sigh and shook his head at her.

"She probably hasn't even burned twenty percent."

"Y-you're talking about Senior Hervena's mana...?"

"Yeah. Hervena's mana probably isn't even twenty percent gone."

Linne's mouth fell open. Jane nodded along as if to say he was right. The two of them knew better than anyone what kind of talent had been laid on Hervena.

Meanwhile Hervena, having caught her breath, bit down on her lip as she looked at her own torn clothes.

You dare tear clothes the young master bought me? I will not let this go.

Anger flooded her eyes all at once, and she threw an Advanced wind spell at the approaching Yulia.

In the brief moment the wind magic made Yulia hesitate, Hervena formed a violet circle of enormous size beneath her own feet.

With the chant, the arena flash-froze, starting from around her and racing outward.

"Ah."

By the time Yulia, sensing the shift, arrived below, the arena—save for a few corners—had frozen solid, like a lake in the dead of winter.

Crack—

Now ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and then an ominous sound of something splitting rose from that field of ice. The sheer scale of it quieted the stadium as if water had been thrown over the crowd, and from Yulia's lips a faint sigh escaped.