Die – Part 04

Clang!

The sword never hit me. Instead, it let out a metallic ring. A green sword swept past and drove Kyouko back.

Perfect timing. I’d said that before, hadn’t I? I let out a sigh of relief.

Right in front of me stood Sera, her crimson eyes gleaming. In her hands were a leaf sword and a chainsaw.

“I came to help on Miss Hellscythe’s request and find out the enemy is human?”

She studied Kyouko with what looked like mild discomfort. Right, Vampire Ninjas couldn’t kill humans.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “That thing’s just a monster wearing human skin.”

“Is that so? You certainly have it rough. This town is far more violent than my village ever was.”

I pushed my body back together and took the chainsaw from Sera. Her usual dignified expression looked, oddly enough, pleased.

“Huh? That eye.” Kyouko pointed her blade at Sera. So she knew about Vampire Ninjas? “It’s the same as mine.”

Kyouko’s large, youthful eyes turned crimson. She twirled on her heel, and a black cloak flared out behind her.

“Sera.”

“I don’t know her. I sense a different kind of power from mine.”

I’d assumed Kyouko might be an acquaintance since Sera was a Vampire Ninja, but she shut that down quick.

Then I saw what she meant by a different kind of power.

A gust of wind blew out from around Kyouko. I knew that wind. That nasty purple wind that always came when a Megalo shifted into battle mode.

I glanced over at Haruna. She had her eyes shut tight and was trembling behind a gravestone.

Kyouko was a Vampire Ninja, a Magiclad Girl, and a Megalo? What the hell was going on?

“Why… Why does she have the same kind of mana as a Megalo?” Haruna mumbled. From the looks of it, she was already out of the fight.

“Here I go.”

Sera’s black cloak fluttered as she gripped her leaf sword. She charged straight in like she was going for a shoulder tackle, and the purple wind started to swirl.

Two crimson-eyed girls crossed blades. Sera clenched her teeth, while Kyouko wore a faint smile. As the clash of metal began to find rhythm, the wind behind Sera twisted into a long and narrow vortex.

Kyouko’s reverse-grip wooden sword swung in, aiming for her side. Sera jumped back, right into the twister, and was flung away. I let go of the chainsaw and sprinted to catch her.

“Sera! You okay?”

She slid across the gravel and slammed into my chest so hard I nearly toppled over. Her beautiful hair was dusted with dirt, but her eyes still held their strength. She looked okay, thank god.

Supporting her by the shoulder, I turned and glared at Kyouko. “Hey, I just need to know. Why did you kill all those people?”

“If you found out you could get eternal life by killing someone, wouldn’t you do it too?”

“Don’t give me that crap. I don’t want something like that.”

“That’s a lie. You’re immortal, aren’t you?”

Another twister formed. Both collapsed in on themselves like crushed soda cans, then transformed into spinning tops about the size of volleyballs.

Whirling rapidly, the twisters orbited Kyouko like satellites.

“What the hell is that? I’ve never seen anything like it,” Haruna said, eyes wide.

So it wasn’t magic. Most likely her power as a Vampire Ninja. Just like Sera could create and control leaves, Kyouko created twisters.

“Then… I’m going all out.”

With two twisters at her side, Kyouko rushed me, and I charged straight at her.

Her sword came down hard. I didn’t dodge it. I couldn’t, thanks to those twisters blocking my way. Blood sprayed and painted the air red.

The twisters closed in from either side like brushes in a carwash. They’d extended like loose-fitting socks and were trying to crush me between them. I felt a sharp jolt in my back. I fell forward, throwing my arms around Kyouko, but she had already jumped back, so I hit the dirt. Just behind me, the two twisters shredded the ground.

“Sera! What the hell was that for?!”

“Those twisters are dangerous. You’d have been minced.”

She didn’t have to kick me, though. Sera and I stood side by side, ready to launch an attack.

I struck from the front, Sera from the side. The twisters weren’t all that fast, so I dodged while winding up and slammed my fist down hard. The exaggerated move was intentional: to bait an attack. The powerful tend to be greedy. Show them an opening this big, and they won’t be able to resist striking back.

Sure enough, Kyouko took the bait and swung her wooden sword upward from the ground.

“Secret Art: Swallow Reversal!”

Sera’s strike closed in. I thought it was over for sure, but somehow, Kyouko narrowly dodged the follow-up slash. A piece of her black cloak and a spray of blood drifted slowly through the air. Kyouko raised her sword toward Sera, who clicked her tongue in annoyance.

Kyouko attacked with a high-speed slash. The strike was so fast I couldn’t even see the blade, like when Sera took down that anteater Megalo.

Blood sprayed again. This time, it came from Sera’s leg.

She must’ve pulled back just in time. Her leg wasn’t severed, but the wound split wide open.

This was the moment. I brought my heel down toward the top of Kyouko’s head.

I dropped the kick like an axe splitting firewood. This heel drop was my strongest move, charged to 600% power. If she didn’t die from this, she had to be an idiot.

The timing was perfect. It should’ve landed cleanly. But Kyouko, even while swinging at Sera, twisted her body to the side.

Yeah, she’d seen it coming. Damn it, I jumped too high. My strongest heel drop barely grazed one of her cute pigtails and missed completely. And as she went down, she managed to strike back.

Normally, if you’re falling, you’d brace with your hands. And yet here she was, doing the unthinkable.

I heard a crack as the wooden sword shattered the bones in my leg. I tried to backstep and put distance between us, without realizing I was stepping into a twister.

A grinding sensation tore across my back like someone was rubbing me with a giant file. What the hell? Was this wind made of blades?

Kyouko came in again. I tried to retreat. No, wait.

Still getting my back scraped raw, I took her attack head-on.

A thin blade stabbed deep into me. Her angelic smile looked far more like a demon’s.

“I’ll grind your whole body to pulp.”

“I wouldn’t want that.”

I wrapped my arms around Kyouko’s body and held her tight. I didn’t run or struggle, just embraced her, the way you’d hold someone you loved. So she couldn’t move.

From behind her, Sera plunged her green sword through both of us. Kyouko’s mouth fell open as she let out a yelp.

When Sera pulled the sword out, the twisters stopped spinning, and Kyouko collapsed onto the gravel.

I let out a long breath and sank to the ground. It was over.

She was ridiculously strong. I couldn’t think of any way to win besides that.

“Looks like it’s over,” Sera said.

She offered a hand, and I took it, pulling myself up. Then, out of nowhere, she fell into my chest.

“Whoa, hey!”

Her sudden closeness flustered me. But that feeling didn’t last long.

There was a sword sticking out of her back. And the one holding it was the same pigtailed girl we’d just killed.

“I just died once. But too bad.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I have about ten more lives.”

What the fuck? That’s cheating!

I stood there, stunned, but quickly snapped out of it. Holding Sera in my arms, I ran to Haruna.

She had the chainsaw. I needed to grab it.

Sera didn’t move, limp from that last attack. The leaves that had been swirling all around us were gone. She wasn’t dead, but… damn it. She was bleeding too much.

“Haruna, you know about Life Orbs, right? Explain it to Ayumu, will you?”

Kyouko walked slowly, chuckling. Her face looked just as cute as when this started. Was she really giving us time for an explanation?

“Tell me,” I said.

“A Life Orb is an Artifact that revives the dead,” Haruna began. “If used on someone still alive, it nullifies death once.”

Yeah, that kind of thing shows up in RPGs, but seriously, who makes that stuff for real?

“But it needs massive amounts of mana to create. A regular Magiclad Girl couldn’t possibly have ten of them.”

“I see. So that’s where the sacrifices come in,” I said.

Kyouko’s face twisted in shock.

“Sacrifices?” Haruna’s cowlick bobbed as she repeated the word.

“In short, if you’ve got enough mana, you can make those things, right? If you kill people in this world and convert their lives into magical energy, you can create those Life Orbs. Am I wrong?”

Kyouko smiled brightly. “Correct.”

“But regular people in this world shouldn’t have anywhere near enough mana!” Haruna said, her cowlick twitching. Impossible, it seemed to say.

“You offer them as sacrifice,” I said. “That supposedly multiplies the mana output.”

I’d heard that from the dog. I couldn’t remember the details, though.

“You know quite a bit, Aikawa. I never thought you’d even know about that person.”

That person, huh. The one who gave Kyouko everything—Vampire Ninja powers, Megalo magic. A real pain in the ass, whoever they were.

The world blurred for a second, and Kyouko was right in front of me.

I backed up to dodge, but the tip of her blade stopped inches from my face, and then a massive fireball erupted behind her.

I kicked up her sword, but the fireball didn’t vanish. It came straight at me. I had no time to dodge. Just when I braced for the worst, it disappeared into nothing.