CHAPTER 4

THE VAMPIRE PRINCESS

On the second day of the Phoenix, Julis and Ayato strolled around the outskirts of the central district’s commercial area.

“Let’s see… The Procyon Dome is—Oh, is that it?”

Ayato followed the floating three-dimensional signs to see a rounded roof, just visible beyond the crowds and the rows of buildings. It belonged to one of the three large arenas in Asterisk, commonly known as the Procyon Dome. The preliminary matches were held in three large arenas, seven medium-sized ones, and the central stage where Ayato and Julis had fought the previous day. The main tournament would be held at the main arena and the three large ones, the semifinals, and finals held exclusively at the main arena.

Ayato and Julis were on their way to the Procyon Dome to cheer for Saya and Kirin.

“There sure are a lot of people, even for the Festa…,” Ayato said.

The masses filling the streets made it difficult even to walk in a straight line, driving home Asterisk’s status as a tourist destination.

All the cafés and restaurants facing the streets were full. The numerous patrons with open air-windows were probably watching matches. Some places sold same-day tickets; perhaps these people were hopeful spectators unable to secure them.

“During Festa events, the crowds are exponentially denser. So be it.” Julis’s irritation was visible.

Not only were the streets congested, but people also actively stopped Ayato to talk to him, express their support, request a handshake or an autograph, and generally take his time in unexpected ways.

“Those Allekant dolls may have taken away a lot of the attention, but you still made quite an impression in your debut,” Julis told him. “Unlike the fans in the schools, fans from the outside don’t have many opportunities to meet the contestants in person.”

Julis’s own devotees approached her on occasion, but she only delivered well-practiced refusals.

Ayato considered that he might have an easier time if he did the same. He felt bad turning them down, though, and couldn’t quite pull it off.

“Who knows when we’ll get there, at this rate,” he sighed.

It was only a short distance from the subway station to the Procyon Dome, but their progress was at the pace of plodding cattle.

On top of everything, the fiery midsummer sun beat down mercilessly and roasted his skin. Ayato used his sleeve to wipe the sweat pouring from his brow.

“They’re fighting in the second match, right? Then we still have some— Hmm?” Julis began, waving a round fan at herself, then looked suspiciously at something up ahead. Ayato followed suit to find an unmoving mass of people.

They could hear a faint clamor and angry yelling.

“A fight? Is that why we’re not moving…?” Julis said.

Things certainly didn’t seem peaceful, especially with the people trying to flee upstream.

Ayato and Julis nodded at each other and waded forward.

Emerging at the front of the crowd, they saw a girl standing in the middle of the street, surrounded by several men. They all wore Le Wolfe uniforms, and Ayato almost instinctively entered a fighting stance—considering that the last time he’d encountered this situation, he’d been attacked—but then he noticed several male students already on the ground. This seemed to be a real fight, not a trick.

But the girl was clearly in another league. The men wielded Luxes, but she beat them with her bare hands. Despite the heat, she had a scarf wrapped around her neck, whipping about in the wind of her movements.

“That girl— She’s the Vampire Princess, Lamilexia” Julis said.

“Huh?” The alias sounded familiar to Ayato.

The third-ranked fighter at Le Wolfe—the one Julis had named as the most troublesome in this Phoenix.

Her name, as he recalled, was…

“Irene Urzaiz,” Julis finished his thought. “What does she think she’s doing at a time like this? She can’t possibly be in her right mind.”

Julis had every reason to be astonished. During a Festa event, there was a total ban on duels in the city. This was, needless to say, a provision established for the safety of visitors.

Dueling was allowed within barriers, but this meant the only legal venues were the stadiums in use for the Festa. In practice, the only fights allowed during the preliminary tournaments were the official ones.

And if dueling was banned, brawling, of course, was out of the question. A Festa participant would be subject to considerable penalties, possibly even ejected from the tournament.

“Man, you guys are annoying. ‘Settling old scores’? What century are you from?”

In no time, Irene had all but taken care of the men. Of nearly ten opponents, only one remained.

“Sh-shut up! It’s a matter of pride!” the man barked at her, even as he clearly wanted to turn and run.

“You really are a cheap bunch, getting so worked up ’cause I wrecked a casino or two. And all because you were cheating. Besides, if you get too outta line, won’t that little fatso be mad at you?”

“I don’t give a shit what the prez thinks! We got our own way of—”

“Ugh, shut up already.”

Before the man could finish his sentence, Irene’s roundhouse kick landed squarely on the side of his head. She watched with cold eyes as the man crumpled soundlessly to the ground. She let out a long sigh.

Her movements were not those of someone who had been trained in martial arts. They were fluid and bestial.

“Hey! What’re you dipshits looking at?!” Irene shouted at the spectators—until her glare paused on Ayato. “Huh?” She peered sharply at his face. “Ooh, if it ain’t the Murakumo. Nice. That saves me some trouble.”

Irene grinned, revealing a pair of pointed fangs.

So she knows who I am, he thought.

She strode over to Ayato to appraise him. It was unclear what she wanted, but he didn’t sense any enmity from her, so he let her look.

Finally Irene laughed through her nose at him. “Heh. So this is the guy…”

“Exactly what business do you have with my tag partner, Lamilexia?” Julis interjected, and less than cordially.

“The Witch of the Resplendent Flames, huh? My business ain’t with you. Stay outta this.”

“I don’t think so. A fighter brawling during the Festa—in the middle of a crowd of tourists, no less—is too dangerous to ignore.”

Irene’s eyes narrowed. “Those guys wanted to pick a fight with me. Wasn’t my idea.”

“Even so, to accept a challenge in a place like this is absurd.”

The tension between them threatened to turn from uncomfortable to ugly. This doesn’t look good, Ayato thought. “Um, hey, Julis…?”

“Oh yeah? Then why don’t you show me how you’d handle it!” Irene drew a Lux from her hip holster and activated it.

Ayato and Julis both jumped back and fell into stance.

The weapon took shape as an enormous scythe, longer than Irene was tall. There was something sinister about its purple blade, an uncanny air clinging to it.

“Ooh, better reactions than I thought,” Irene taunted. “Guess I shouldn’t judge books by their covers.”

“So that’s…the Gravisheath.” Ayato gulped.

It was the notorious Orga Lux in the possession of Le Wolfe, known for its ability to manipulate gravity. Unusually for an Orga Lux, it yielded a high compatibility rating with anyone, allowing it to devastate the Festa in the past.

There were few, however, who had wielded it with much skill. Whether Irene could do so was still unknown.

“Let’s go, Ayato.”

“…Yeah.”

Neither wanted a duel here.

“So, you’re the type to turn tail and run. Pretty smart.” Irene laughed high and cruel, then her eyes lit with a vicious gleam and she readied the Gravisheath. “If you can, that is.”

She emanated a chilling thirst for blood that choked the air around them, as if a momentary lapse in concentration would spell the end.

The crowd surrounding them watched in total silence. And then—

“Heeeeeeeeeeeey!” came a jarring call. “Are you getting into fights again, sis?! After I told you and told you to stay out of trouble?!”

A savagely furious girl emerged from the crowd. Her braided hair was the same color as Irene’s, and there was a clear resemblance in her features as well. She also wore a Le Wolfe uniform.

“Gah! P-Priscilla…!”

“I let you out of my sight for one second… How did this even happen? You better have a good explanation, Irene!”

“Well, uh, see, it’s just…”

As Ayato and Julis blankly watched the exchange, the girl noticed and bowed to them. “I’m so sorry my big sister’s causing you trouble!”

“Oh, well… It’s nothing…” Julis, all the fight taken out of her, could only give an awkward reply.

“You apologize, too, Irene.”

“Wh-why do I—?”

“Just say it!”

“Ugh. Fine.” Berated into submission, Irene reluctantly dipped her head in a chagrined bow. “Sorry. Now get out of here.”

“Seriously? You have to apologize and mean it!” Priscilla put her hand on Irene’s head and forced it downward alongside her own in a show of contrition. “I’m so sorry. I’ll give her a good talking-to.”

Yanking Irene away with her, she disappeared into the crowd.

Ayato and Julis, as well as the spectators, were all left momentarily speechless.

“…Oh, so that was Irene Urzaiz’s tag partner, right?” Ayato said.

“Um, yes, I suppose. She called Irene her big sister, so she must be.”

They were still rather stunned, but when they checked a mobile device, they found the face of the second girl.

Priscilla Urzaiz, Irene’s younger sister and tag team partner. But beyond her name and photo, there was hardly any data on her.

“Anyway, why did you talk to her like that just now?” Ayato demanded.

Julis averted her face to feign innocence. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Come on, don’t play dumb. You know you didn’t have to provoke her like that.”

Irene might be the hyper-aggressive type, but the situation might not have become so volatile if Julis hadn’t intervened.

Julis gave up with a sigh and leaned in to murmur in Ayato’s ear. “You really didn’t notice?”

“Huh…?”

“Irene said, ‘My business ain’t with you.’ Even though I was the one who confronted her. That can only mean she had some particular reason to go after you.”

“Okay, but… It’s not like we’ve met before.”

It was nothing strange for Irene to know who he was. If she had files on him that was only natural; he was ranked first at Seidoukan. Other contestants would have taken note of him.

But now that Julis mentioned it, there was something more behind the way Irene had spoken to him.

“People at Le Wolfe will use whatever means they can to accomplish their goals. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had some illicit scheme up their sleeve.”

“I dunno…” Ayato would have liked to say that Julis was overthinking—but that was the scary thing about this city. She may not have been.

“I wanted to see if she would give away anything more, but… Oh, well. I didn’t think she’d actually want to start a fight. That was my fault.” Julis bowed, sincerely apologetic.

Ayato waved it off. “No, no, it’s fine—” Then he remembered. “Oh no! We’d better run, or we’ll miss Saya and Kirin’s match!”

He checked the time to find that they didn’t have very long.

“You’re right,” Julis agreed. “Let’s get to the arena.”

Just as they were about to head to the Procyon Dome, they noticed another hubbub slightly up ahead.

“What could it be now—? Oh, that’s not good! It’s the city guard!” Julis frowned.

Ayato could see two men in unfamiliar uniforms wading through the crowd toward them. “The city guard? So that’s Stjarnagarm?”

That was the peacekeeping organization that acted as a police force in Asterisk. He had heard about the city guard, but it was his first time seeing them in person.

“This is no time to stand around gawking! Let’s get out of here!” Julis took his hand and pulled him away from the guards.

“Wait, it’s not like we did anything wrong…”

“I hate to say it, but the city guard are not the understanding sort. Who knows how long it’d take to explain this to their satisfaction.”

Ayato looked around at the men sprawled on the street. True. This would not be easy to justify.

“I guess you’re right,” he sighed.

The city guards were approaching from the direction of the Procyon Dome, so they had no choice but to distance themselves from their destination.

“Hey! You two—Stop right there!”

Without a glance back toward the authoritative shouts, Ayato and Julis blended into the crowd and escaped down an alleyway.

“Time’s up.”

“So it is…”

Saya and Kirin each let out a small sigh and rose from the sofa in their waiting room at the Procyon Dome. The two girls had waited for Ayato and Julis to fulfill a promise of moral support, but there was no sign of their friends.

“I wonder if something happened to them…?” Kirin worried, just as Saya’s mobile received an incoming call.

“Sorry, Saya! Something came up and we’ll probably be late…”

It was Ayato. Was he whispering for some reason, or were they imagining it?

Kirin peeked over Saya’s shoulder at the air-window.

“…The match is starting,” Saya said.

“Yeah, we know… Sorry.” The tiny image of Ayato hung his head.

“Fine. Waiting room after the match. We’ll hear your excuse then.”

“Okay. Well, good luck! You, too, Kirin.” Ayato nodded to her.

“Thank you!”

The air-window turned off.

Good luck. Those simple words were enough to turn Kirin’s mood around completely. Moments ago she had looked so glum, and now her head was high with determination.

“…Doesn’t take much for you, does it?” Saya remarked.

“Huh? Wh-what do you mean?” Surprised and flustered, Kirin flushed crimson.

Saya tapped her on the back and walked out of the room.

“Oh, wait—wait for me!” Kirin hurried after Saya as she ambled down the hallway. “Whew. You certainly like to do things your own way, Saya.”

“I get that a lot.”

Kirin caught up with a forced smile, but Saya was as unreadable as usual, showing not a hint of excitement or anxiety. Being the timid type herself, Kirin envied her composure, although it did nothing to quell the butterflies in her stomach.

Still, there was something comforting about that, too, for some reason.

“And here we are! Walking up to the stage are Kirin Toudou, the former top-ranked student at Seidoukan Academy, and her partner, Saya Sasamiya!”

They went through the gate to take the stage, where dazzling lights and an overly enthusiastic announcer’s voice greeted them.

“Toudou is just thirteen, but she climbed to first place in her first month at school! Although she lost that rank a short while ago, her abilities are beyond question! But I gotta say, seeing her for myself, she has a rare sangfroid to her—so small and yet cool as a cucumber…”

“Nana, Nana, c’mon. I think you got it backward. That little one is Sasamiya. And the nervous one next to her is the former top dog.”

“Whaaat?! You mean that’s a high schooler? For real? Uhh… Ahem. Sorry about that, everyone!”

“I told ya to look through the files. Seriously.”

The announcer and commentator at this arena seemed to have a good deal of personality.

“…How unpleasant,” Saya said, flat and sullen, as Kirin giggled nervously.

Saya looked at the two students standing opposite them onstage.

One was a frail-looking young man with long hair tied at the nape of his neck, and the other was well-built and bald. Their school crests depicted golden dragons—indicating that they attended the Jie Long Seventh Institute.

Jie Long was the most eccentric of the six schools of Asterisk, with two defining characteristics. One was the widespread use of their own mana-wielding technique, known as Seisenjutsu; the other, a complete dedication to perfecting the martial arts.

Although there were many separate martial arts styles within Jie Long, including some that specialized in the use of weapons, the school’s name connoted a high caliber of unarmed combat. Of course, unarmed fighters were generally at a disadvantage against those using weapons, but this was also the only way to directly convert prana into an attack. These attacks, compounded by their finely trained martial arts prowess, gave them peerless might in close-range combat.

Indeed, of the two students in front of Saya and Kirin, only the bald one held a massive falchion-shaped Lux. The long-haired one stood unarmed.

“They’re both unranked, but they seem quite capable,” Kirin said.

Being the largest of the six schools, Jie Long boasted many skilled fighters outside of the Named Cults. They could not be underestimated.

“We’ll work it out,” Saya said. Still calm, she activated her Lux with practiced ease.

A massive, inelegant gun materialized in her hands, setting the crowd to murmuring. They were apparently impressed by its height relative to hers, but in truth, this was relatively small for her arsenal. Still, it was almost as large as she was.

“Um, that’s your…”

“Type 34 Wave Cannon, Ark Van Ders, improved model.”

Saya had over ten Luxes, and Kirin had seen them all at least once. This was only natural when they were fighting together as a team. Some of Saya’s weapons, however, were frankly just startling.

“…Which one do you want?”

Kirin blinked in confusion for a moment, until she figured out that Saya was asking her to choose her adversary. “Huh? Oh, hmm… I don’t mind.”

“Then I’ll take the big one.”

“Understood.” That meant Kirin’s opponent was the long-haired one.

She steadied her breathing and deliberately drew her katana an inch from its scabbard.

“Phoenix, Block L, Round One, Match Two— Begin!”

The very moment the announcement ended, Kirin leaped into range.

As if he had predicted her move, his fist shot out toward her. But he was too slow. Kirin ducked and sliced up toward his chest from a low stance.

The fist met the flat of her blade and brushed aside the attack. At the heavy impact, Kirin let out a startled cry. A barehanded blow powered with prana really was something else. Without weapons in his way, his agility allowed for few openings to attack.

…And yet, this was tepid compared to Ayato’s movements.

Turning the katana with her wrists, Kirin slashed downward from an upper stance. Her opponent twisted to dodge with a grunt, but he was clearly off balance.

He unleashed a kick, quite fierce considering he was on the defensive. Kirin evaded it effortlessly and swept the Senbakiri straight across.

As she felt the unmistakable sensation of cutting through a solid object, her opponent’s school crest announced his defeat.

Kirin let out a breath of relief and swung her sword a final time to shake off any debris, then turned her back to the man dropping to his knees. The announcer’s excited voice filled her ears.

“S-so fast! You’d expect nothing less from Seidoukan’s former star. That confrontation barely lasted moments, with Toudou coming out on top. The fight was decided in no time!”

“Yo, Nana! The fight with shorty over here is getting interesting, too!”

Kirin turned toward Saya’s own bout.

“Whoa, you were not kidding! This is also quite the heated contest—These partners are not to be outdone! And get a load of this! I thought from her equipment that Sasamiya would be sticking to long-range combat, but wow-ee… She is going all out in close quarters!”

Saya was indeed fighting at close range. As the bald man brought down his falchion, she parried the blow with the Ark Van Ders. Then she counterattacked with the barrel as if it were a club. The massive firearm in tiny Saya’s grasp already made for quite a sight, and the way she swung it with one arm was beyond astonishing.

On top of that, she was not simply flailing it around. With her parries and well-timed counters, it was immediately clear she had been trained in close combat.

Even Kirin had been surprised to see that the first time, she recalled.

Initially, she had been amazed at Saya’s high level and finely honed skill. Then, that her attacks were the same as Ayato’s—which was to say, the Amagiri Shinmei Style.

Her opponent growled and sparks flew fiercely as his falchion clashed with the Ark Van Ders. Saya clearly had him on the defensive, while she was calmly waiting for the right time. As stoic as ever, she executed one attack after another.

As the battle continued, the manadite of the Ark Van Ders shone brighter and brighter. Panic crept over the bald student’s face as he realized what was happening.

He attacked even more relentlessly, his blade clashing against the barrel of the gun. Neither Saya nor the Ark Van Ders budged an inch.

The instant the glow of the manadite reached its apex, Saya knocked the falchion upward with her fastest stroke yet and placed the mouth of the gun at the student’s gut.

“…Burst.”

The shock wave felt like a catastrophic earthquake, and the blast knocked the man to the opposite end of the stage. A booming roar drowned his scream as he slammed into the barrier, and his motionless body slid to the ground. Smoke rose from him as if he’d been burned to a crisp.

All of Saya’s Luxes had tremendous destructive power. Taking fire from one at point-blank range didn’t exactly allow an opponent to fight back.

“End of battle! Winners: Saya Sasamiya and Kirin Toudou!”

As the mechanical voice announced their victory, Saya turned toward Kirin and, without so much as a smile, extended her right hand. “…V for victory.”

The waiting room was well equipped, outfitted with enough showers to accommodate several people, since this building also hosted the team Gryps.

With their match over, Saya and Kirin were rinsing off.

Basking in the pleasant sensation of hot water, Kirin asked a question she had held in for a while: “So, it’s not simply that your gun is made of a hard material?”

“…Right,” Saya replied. “The high power output enabled by the LOBOS transition method is too unstable for a gun to withstand. So, as a way to regulate the output, part of it is diverted to a defensive energy field.”

In the stall next to Kirin’s, Saya was coarsely scrubbing her hair.

“That’s why you can exchange so many blows against a close-range weapon.” Still, Kirin felt that using the gun as a blunt weapon had to be outside its intended usage.

“…I couldn’t have sparred with Ayato without something like that,” Saya went on, as if she’d read Kirin’s mind.

According to her, she had developed the skill in order to help with Ayato’s training when they were children.

“So, you’re not a student of the Amagiri Shinmei Style.”

“Just monkey see, monkey do. Well, Ayato did teach me a little.”

Kirin tried to imagine Ayato and Saya as children—which was easy enough, since they probably were not very different from now. Despite the fact that she was only imagining it, the scene made her a little jealous.

“…But Ayato and Julis are late,” Saya remarked. The pair still had not arrived.

“They really are… But at least we had time to clean up,” Kirin said. They had no plans after their match, so they could just relax and wait.

“I’m getting out,” Saya said, shaking the water out of her hair like a small animal.

“Oh, Saya, you should dry off properly.” As Kirin tried to hand her a bath towel, Saya stopped and stared.

It would be more accurate to say that she was staring not at Kirin, but at her chest.

“Wh-what is it…?”

Kirin tried to back away, but before she could, Saya reached out.

“Eeek!” Kirin just barely managed to cover herself with one hand and knock Saya’s arm away with the other.

“Hmph,” Saya sulked.

“Wh-wha—What are you—?!”

On her guard, Kirin slowly backed away, but Saya closed in.

The fairly spacious shower room was still just a shower room. Kirin soon found herself trapped against a wall with nowhere to run.

Saya’s eyes gleamed with impure intentions as she waggled her fingers. “…It has been said since ancient times that kneading the breasts makes them grow larger.”

“That’s obviously wrong!”

Undeterred, Saya swiftly grabbed for her, but Kirin frantically whacked the groping hands aside. It almost looked like a sparring match. Kirin did have the advantage in close-range combat.

In the end, Saya, unable to lay one finger on Kirin, puffed out her cheeks in frustration. “…No fair.”

“I—I don’t think that’s…” Bewildered, Kirin wrapped her bath towel tightly around her body. “Anyway—You’ll catch a cold if you don’t dry off!”

As she opened the door to leave, an air-window suddenly opened.

It was the intercom for the waiting room. The video feed was one-way, so the visitor could only hear their voices.

“Sorry we’re late! Are you both still there?”

The air-window showed Ayato out of breath.

Beside him, Julis was also heaving her shoulders. “Damn those city guards. I never thought they’d be so persistent…”

Clearly, something had happened to them.

Julis and Ayato had access to the room, but that had been temporarily suspended while Saya and Kirin were in the shower.

And Kirin was only wearing a bath towel. She couldn’t greet them like this. “Um, we’re sorry, but could you wait a little—”

“Finally,” Saya interrupted. She called up the air console and promptly unlocked the room.

“Huh…?”

The door opened, so of course Ayato and Julis walked in.

“We’re really sorry. But we saw your match on the broadcast, and…”

“Honestly, I can’t believe it was so much trouble to get here…”

Each with one foot into the room, they froze in tandem.

Kirin, too, stiffened at the door to the showers.

Saya walked up to the two visitors as if nothing was awry and spoke with just a hint of pride. “…We won.”

What followed, needless to say, was that Saya received a lengthy earful from Julis.

It was the fifth day of the Festa, and they were at Sirius Dome.

“So…” Julis stretched out onstage and looked back toward Ayato with a faint smile. “The first match was all you. Now it’s my turn.”

“Got it. I’ll take it easy this round,” Ayato replied with his own regretful smile, and patted her lightly on the back.

“All right, here we are, just about to start the second day of the Phoenix! For today’s first bout here in Sirius Dome, we’d like to introduce a team who blasted straight through Round One—Ayato Amagiri and Julis-Alexia von Riessfeld from Seidoukan!”

“Round One was Amagiri’s show for sure. Let’s see how Round Two turns out. Looking forward to it.”

Hearing the familiar voices of the announcer and commentator, Julis focused on her targets for the match.

It was a tag team consisting of the thirty-seventh and fifty-fourth ranked fighters from the Queenvale Academy for Young Ladies. One girl wore her hair in pigtails, and the other in a single ponytail. They both had exquisitely well-proportioned features.

Opinions differed on which school was the strongest in Asterisk, but Queenvale’s reputation as the weakest was nearly unanimous. In the entire history of Asterisk, Queenvale had finished in first place in the overall Festa standings only once.

But their lack of prowess had little to no bearing on their popularity. In terms of the sheer number of fans, Queenvale had maintained a high standing since its founding. Queenvale did not concentrate on the overall score in the Festa, but rather viewed the Festa as a stage for highlighting the most attractive aspects of their students. Hence their popularity.

It was the only all-female institution of the six, as well as the smallest. It had unique standards for matriculation, famed for its low rate of admission. Queenvale was an academy of goddesses who sought the ideal through beauty and strength.

“Good grief, those are some cheers,” Julis muttered as she activated the Aspera Spina.

As usual, the audience was loud enough to break the dome, or so it seemed. But most of the noise was clearly in support of Queenvale.

“Thanks, everyone!”

“We’ll give it our best shot!”

The two fighters from Queenvale beamed at the crowd, waving with both hands.

The girl in pigtails held activated twin-sword Luxes, while the one in a ponytail held a spear-type Lux. Contrary to their dainty appearance, they left no gaps in their defenses, and showed fine control over their prana.

Queenvale may have been the weakest school as a whole, but that had more to do with their practice of very careful selection, which resulted in rarely filling all the slots allotted to their school in the Festa. It did not mean that individual students were poor fighters.

Corroborating this was the fact that Queenvale’s top-ranked student had come in second at the previous Lindvolus tournament.

“Don’t you interfere, Ayato,” Julis said.

“I know.”

She stepped forward, composed and confident. The school crests declared the start of the match.

“Here we go!” The girl in pigtails was the first to make a move. She sliced at Julis, but Julis easily parried with her rapier.

“This is nothing compared to Ayato’s or Kirin’s swordplay,” she said to herself.

The girl with the ponytail jumped in with a yell, but Julis did not allow her to get close.

In the few weeks of her training, the area where Julis had improved the most was, beyond question, how she handled herself in close combat. She wasn’t yet good enough to hold her own when fencing Ayato or Kirin, but she could handle ordinary opponents with ease, even if there were two—just as she was doing now.

Although her main strength was long-distance attacks, her skills with the rapier had always been decent. She had been instructed in the basics from an early age.

“Take this!” cried the girl with the sword.

“Burst into bloom—Anthurium!”

The girl executed a sharp thrust, but a shield of fire instantly materialized to deflect it. She was knocked back with a scream.

“Oh—Are you okay?!” The one in pigtails rushed to her aid.

Julis took advantage of the pause to leap back, putting distance between them.

“Now you’ll see what I can do.”

Mana stirred around her. “O flames of Trocchia, fly over the castle walls and burn away the Nine Plagues…,” she intoned. Flames rose up and swirled to form around her nine fireballs in the shapes of delicate primroses.

“Burst into bloom—Primrose!”

At her command, the flames dancing around her like fireflies surged at the pair from Queenvale.

Unable to withstand the omnidirectional attack, the girl in the ponytail cried out as her crest shattered.

As her own emblem announced her partner’s defeat, the girl in pigtails dodged the fireballs and sliced them away one by one.

“Hah! This won’t take me down…!” she boldly declared, and cut down the last one, but—

“Blossom—Semiserrata!”

A magic circle appeared below the girl’s feet.

“Wha—?”

A fixed ability—which was to say, a trap.

Julis had used the fireballs to deftly lure the girl to that very spot.

An enormous camellia flower made of flame opened up above the girl as she stared, stunned, toward the sky.

“What even is that?!” In a panic, she began to run—but it was too late.

The flower of fire exploded on impact, engulfing her.

“End of battle! Winners—Ayato Amagiri and Julis-Alexia von Riessfeld!” the mechanical voice announced.

The roaring gust and whirling flames eventually subsided to reveal the girl lying on her back, unconscious.

“A-and there you have it—another one-sided match! This time, it was Riessfeld’s one-woman show! My, my… I can only say that there’s more to see from this pair! The Phoenix is, of course, a tag team tournament, but they have yet to fight together… What do you make of it?”

“Well, it’s a pretty effective strategy for not showing your hand as a tag team. And there is some precedent, so. But I was impressed with Riessfeld. Now there’s a clever fighter. Her ability is so versatile, she can respond to a wide range of situations. That’s a point in her favor for sure. Particularly that move at the end there…”

The keen-eyed commentator explained in detail how Julis had led her opponent into her trap.

“Not bad, I guess,” Julis said, letting out a short breath.

“Good work, Julis.” Ayato greeted her with a grin, raising his hand.

She returned the smile and met the high five, making a bright, pleasant slap.

“Honestly! Don’t they know when to stop? Just one stupid question after another…”

Returning to the waiting room after another dragged-out winners’ interview, Julis sank into the sofa with a sigh.

“Well, they’re just doing their jobs.” With a nervous laugh, Ayato turned on the kettle to make tea. “Oh, there was something I noticed in the match today…”

“Hmm?”

“Do you always do incantations with your spells, Julis?” He was thinking of the mystical lines she’d spoken before using her Primrose.

“Oh, that. Well, you know, it was just a little something I threw in for the fans. I hear that’s the sort of thing they love.”

“Huh.” This surprised Ayato. He had thought Julis would be the last person to indulge fans that way.

“No need to be so surprised. I know my role here. When I’m onstage, I can give them that much. Well, when I can afford to, anyway.” She shrugged. “What it takes to activate one’s abilities varies from person to person. In theory, there’s no need to vocalize or gesture, but some people need to go through certain motions. For my part, I don’t need incantations, but vocalizing makes it easier to image my powers.”

“I see…”

Julis sipped her tea and gave Ayato a pointed look. “Anyway, you name your techniques aloud, too.”

“Oh, that’s just an old habit. When Saya and I used to train together as kids, she told me it was cooler that way…and then it kind of stuck.”

“Hmm. So that’s why.”

Because he was forbidden as a child from sparring with other students, the only people who could help him train were Saya and his older sister. And because they could not do so at the dojo, they usually went up into the nearby hills and used low-level Luxes meant for self-defense.

Thinking back on it now, it was not very far removed from ordinary playing, which could have been why his father overlooked it.

“So, what do you want to do now?” Julis asked with a cup in her hand.

Ayato crossed his arms to think. “Hmm. Well, I’d like to go root for Saya and Kirin…but we wouldn’t make it in time, would we.”

“Yes, their match would probably be over by the time we get there.”

Saya and Kirin were not with them today, since they had their own fight.

The first round was held over four days, but the second round took two days, and the third round would conclude in just one day. So unless they were at the same arena or their matches happened to be scheduled at very different times, it was difficult to go watch their friends.

“B-besides, we haven’t eaten lunch yet,” Julis added stiffly.

“Oh yeah, you’re right.”

Due to the timing of their match, they had put off lunch. Ayato had not paid it much mind until Julis reminded him and the hunger came on suddenly. The human body works in mysterious ways.

“Well then, maybe we should stop somewhere for a bite…,” Ayato began, until Julis cleared her throat in an oddly theatrical manner. “Julis?”

“Um… So, actually—the thing is… I did bring something today.” Julis went to the locker and retrieved a large basket.

“Oh… Did you pack us lunch?”

“Y-yes. Well, you could say that.” Bashfully averting her gaze, Julis pushed the basket toward him.

Ayato had spent many days off with Julis for training and other things, but he could not remember her doing something like this. Even at school, Julis tended to eat at the cafeteria—of course, students who packed their own lunches were in the minority—and she had never cooked or made food that he knew about.

Then it hit him. “Oh—Is this because Saya and Kirin made lunch the other day?”

Julis was competitive to the core, so maybe that had triggered something inside her.

“N-no, that has nothing to do with it!” she denied, going crimson. “I did this—on a whim! Yes, that’s it.”

“Oh, okay.” Ayato laughed. “Well, thanks, whatever the reason. I think I’ll dig in.”

“It… It’s very simple. Don’t get your expectations up too high,” Julis stressed.

Answering with a weak smile, Ayato opened the basket to find a row of adorably small tea sandwiches.

“Oh, sandwiches.” They were standard fare, like ham and lettuce, eggs, bacon. He picked up an egg sandwich and took a bite.

“H-how is it?” Julis asked with visible uncertainty.

“Mm. Pretty good.” This was no less than his honest opinion.

Ayato did not often eat sandwiches and had little basis for comparison, but it was the type of thing he liked. The black pepper was a nice touch.

“Oh—good!” Joy immediately spread over her face, but she turned away to hide it as soon as she noticed him looking at her.

“I didn’t know you cooked, too, Julis.”

“Well, something like this is easy enough.”

Even with her back to him, he could see pride straighten her spine.

She really could be very cute sometimes.

“Are you going to have any?”

There were clearly too many sandwiches in the basket for him to finish on his own. This had to be a portion for two, Ayato thought, but Julis showed no signs of partaking.

“Well, sure, I will, but…” The unspoken half of the sentence weighed down on her.

Confused, Ayato tried to imagine what she wanted to say but couldn’t think of anything.

This went on for a bit, until Julis grew impatient and her glare became sullen. “…It’s not very fair, you know.”

“Fair?”

“Well, um… To do that to Sasamiya and Toudou but not to me seems, well, inconsistent… Er, not that I particularly want you to do anything, but…,” Julis mumbled vaguely.

Finally, Ayato realized—Could she be talking about that?

“Oh, is that it…? You too, Julis?”

The color in her cheeks high, Julis briskly turned away, but she did not deny it.

“W-well then, um, if I may…”

Ayato lightly placed his hand on top of her head and petted it gently. A scent of flowers softly tickled his nose. Alone in the room with her, he felt a little embarrassed.

Julis appeared to share the sentiment; her already red cheeks blushed redder still.

How long have I been doing this? In their mutual silence, Ayato had a poor grasp of time and had no idea when he should stop.

“I know! We should check on the other matches while we finish lunch…!” After a moment, Julis abruptly changed the subject and turned on the television.

“Oh, yeah. It looked like there would be lots of interesting matches today.” Taking the hint, Ayato pulled back his hand but did not know what to do with it.

Coming up empty, he reached for another sandwich. Just as tasty as the last.

“Oh…” Julis flipped through the channels until her finger froze in place. “So, their match is today, too.”

Hearing the gravity in her voice, Ayato looked up at the screen to see a male student built like a boulder bulging under a Seidoukan uniform.

The fighter facing him was a female student from Le Wolfe wielding an enormous scythe.

“Don’t rush in. Got it, Randy?”

With the Bardiche-Leo in his hands, Lester MacPhail called to Randy Hooke behind him.

“I know, Lester. We’re going to stall them as much as possible. Right?”

“Right. Just keep ’em at bay. I’ll take care of the rest.”

Stalling for time was an atypical strategy for him, but he had little choice. Their opponent was ranked third at Le Wolfe. Much as he hated to admit it, she was far stronger.

“Hey there—Lester, was it?” Irene Urzaiz casually addressed him.

Although the match had already started, she hadn’t even bothered to take a fighting stance. Her huge scythe, the Gravisheath, still rested on her shoulder.

“What do you want?” Lester cautiously kept his distance.

If there was one thing he had learned in the recent past—specifically, from his bitter defeats—it was that discretion might be the better part of valor.

“You’re a friend of the Murakumo’s, right? There’s some luck. You wanna tell me about him?”

“Huh?” Lester scowled at the unexpected question.

“It’s not like I’m super-interested but, you know, since we’re here.”

“I’ve got no idea why you’d wanna know, but lemme clear up a couple things. First, I only happen to go to the same school as him. I’m not his friend,” Lester said, disgusted, then repositioned the Bardiche-Leo and pointed it toward Irene. “And second, I came here for a fight, not some stupid chitchat.”

“Heh… Yeah, okay. Sorry.” Irene shrugged, then spun the Gravisheath around and slammed its butt against the ground. “Well then, if you that’s what you want, let’s get started.”

Irene bared her teeth in a grin, and the Gravisheath roared like a wild beast.

“Randy, run!” Lester shouted, and began to run himself. But he did not charge in recklessly. He skirted around his opponent from the right, maintaining distance and waiting for an opening.

Irene’s Gravisheath was a powerful Orga Lux with the ability to control gravity. However, that didn’t mean there was no hope of defeating her.

First of all, that ability was widely known, which made it possible to form a strategy against it. The Gravisheath’s power could not target a specific object, but only an area. That meant its target could avoid its power by staying constantly on the move.

Second, the Gravisheath’s biggest weakness was how much energy it took to wield. Orga Luxes were generally known to have some side effects—a “cost”—and in the case of the Gravisheath, the cost was particularly vicious. This was why it had passed through the hands of so many students with only a few able to use it fully.

That means if I can drag this out, we’ve got the advantage!

Lester’s usual style was to strike first and strike hard, but that wouldn’t work here, and there was nothing to be done. After all, winning was the most important thing.

If there was one cause for concern, it was Irene’s partner, Priscilla. She was backed up against the corner of the stage, showing no sign of making a move. She followed Irene with anxious eyes, but nothing more.

There was almost no data on Priscilla, but seeing how she had behaved in just the same way in the first round, she did not seem to be a proactive fighter. It was possible that she had some sort of ability—perhaps as a Strega with the power to attack from a long distance or defend her partner—but for now, Lester thought it was enough to keep an eye on her.

“Jeez… Everybody always tries the same damn thing. Don’t you have a shred of originality?” Irene looked supremely irritated as she swung the Gravisheath with one hand. The purple urm-manadite shone brighter, enough to illuminate the floor of the stage. “Besides, you’re not even good enough to pull it off.”

“Guh!” Randy, who had been running around Irene opposite Lester, suddenly fell to the ground.

It looked as if an invisible hand was pinning him down, and his face contorted in pain. Irene must have strengthened the gravitational field around him.

“Randy!” Lester cried out.

“See, what’d I tell ya? You can scurry around all you want, but all I have to do is to set the area a little wider—and then it’s all over.” With that, Irene swung the Gravisheath again. This time the purple light gathered around the fallen Randy.

Randy groaned in agony. Apparently, narrowing the area of the effect made the gravitational field more intense.

“I don’t think so!” While Irene fixated on Randy, Lester closed in behind her and brought down the Bardiche-Leo. But—

“Didn’t I tell you? No creativity.” Irene used the Gravisheath as a pole to vault into the air, dodging Lester’s attack while landing a sharp and forceful kick to his neck.

As Lester went down on his knee with a grunt, Irene struck with another kick to his stomach, sending his enormous body flying.

“I’ll get to you in a bit. Hold on tight,” Irene said as she sauntered over to Randy.

“Stop—You…!” Lester croaked.

Irene ignored him and spoke to the prone young man. “Wanna give up?”

“N-never…!”

Irene coldly towered over him as he struggled to speak. At his reply, she let out a short sigh and swung the Gravisheath nonchalantly. Its purple glow intensified even further as Randy tensed up, voiceless.

His efforts to push himself off the ground failed. His arms went limp, and the emblem on his chest announced—

“Randy Hooke—unconscious.”

“One down.” Irene turned her eyes on Lester, who had just managed to stand up. “Wow. You’re pretty tough, Ax of the Roaring Distance.”

“Your mistake, if you think I’m not…!” Lester focused prana into the Bardiche-Leo, where it reacted with the manadite for an explosive burst of energy.

It was his Meteor Arts technique, Blast Nemea.

“Take this!”

He delivered a stroke with his ax of light, twice the usual size.

Irene blocked it with the Gravisheath, but it was impossible to fend off completely. She was sent flying backward.

“How’d you like that?!” Lester was confident that the raw power of the Blast Nemea had no equal at Seidoukan. Even if it was not a direct hit, he was sure he had dealt her some damage.

“Ouuuch… Guess I did take you a bit too lightly. You’re not ninth at Seidoukan for nothing. ” But Irene got back on her feet with only a slight grimace.

Did she actually jump back to soften the impact…?!

Her earlier kicks and this latest defensive maneuver spoke to some extraordinary skills in physical combat. “So… There’s more to you than just the fancy weapon.”

Focusing his mind anew, Lester re-established his distance from Irene. Losing Randy hurt, but things were still going according to plan. If he kept forcing her to use her ability, she would hit a wall. All he had to do was hold out…

“Tch. I didn’t wanna show my hand before the main tournament, but…guess that’s what I gotta do,” Irene said. “Out of respect for your strength, I’ll let you see my full power for a bit.”

“What—?” Lester scowled.

He knew, more or less, the power of the Gravisheath. It could intensify the gravitational field in an area to push down an opponent, or control the direction of gravity’s pull. Although there were probably many ways to utilize it, as far as he knew that was the extent of her weapon’s power.

Is she bluffing…? he thought.

Ignoring Lester’s suspicious glare, Irene walked toward Priscilla and gently drew her close.

“Irene…”

“Sorry, Priscilla. I’ll only take a little.”

Irene opened her mouth wide. Two long, sharp canines glowed eerily, and she sunk them deep into Priscilla’s neck.

“What the—?!”

As Lester stood stunned, the Gravisheath glowed brightly in Irene’s hand, like it was throbbing with joy.

Irene released her bite and softly exhaled. Blood trickled down to stain Priscilla’s chest, but stopped before long. The small bite wounds on her neck closed as Lester watched.

“See, the Gravisheath demands blood as the cost for its powers. It’s not exactly fuel-efficient, so it would drain you bone-dry in no time, normally. That’s why it transforms the body of the user to take the cost from an outside source. A real scary Orga Lux, don’t ya think?” With a chuckle, Irene readied the scythe. “But I’m told the transformation only occurs if you have a pretty high compatibility rating.”

“I see… So you’re literally a vampire.” Lester couldn’t hide the shock on his face, but he could not retreat, either. He held up the Bardiche-Leo and focused his prana, intending to launch a Meteor Arts counterattack.

“Okay, then. Here goes!” Irene swung the Gravisheath, and deep-purple spheres appeared. There were three, about an armful in size, floating in the air around Irene. “Go—Tres Fanega!”

The spheres rushed at Lester.

As he tried to dodge them, he was astonished to find he could barely move. His body felt as heavy as if he’d been tied down with lead weights.

“I went ahead and made the gravity a little stronger on you. Oh, and the area of effect is the entire stage. There’s no getting away.”

“Ngh!” Lester barely dodged the first sphere but had to receive the second and the third with the Bardiche-Leo.

And as he did, the spheres shrunk down, swallowing the Bardiche-Leo with them, and burst into nothing.

Irene laughed. “If you want to block my gravity spheres, you gotta at least bring an Orga Lux.”

“Dammit!” He had no chance fighting her unarmed.

The moment he reached for the backup Lux at his waist, he felt the downward pull increase.

Bellowing in pain, he was dragged to the ground, and his body creaked against a gravitational field so strong it seemed he would break through the arena floor.

“So, you wanna keep going, Ax of the Roaring Distance?”

Lester felt the blade of the Gravisheath come to rest against his neck. He couldn’t even get any words out, but he glared at Irene with clenched teeth.

He wanted to at least land one blow. But those eyes staring down at him turned his blood cold.

They were glinting with an icy light—something inhuman.

If he were to resist now, Irene would not hesitate to reap his head with that scythe.

Of course, doing so would result in her immediate disqualification. But the savagery he saw told him she didn’t care.

Letting out a heavy breath, he muttered, “All right. You win.”

“End of battle! Winners—Irene Urzaiz and Priscilla Urzaiz!”

At the automated announcement, Lester ground his molars.