Gakusen Toshi Asterisk - Volume 13 - Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4 
THE PRELIMINARIES I 
“What’s that?” 
At the sound of the sudden voice echoing from behind him, Dirk Eberwein sat up from his seat on the sofa, furrowing his brow and glancing around. “What are you doing here?” he growled. 
He was in Le Wolfe Black Institute’s luxurious, hotel-like special viewing lounge at the Sirius Dome, and he was supposed to have been alone. 
“I came to see Madiath, but it sounds like it would be best not to approach him right now,” replied his visitor—the Varda-Vaos—coolly. 
“Of course. The Enfields and their ilk are still sniffing around.” 
The fact that they were paying so much attention to him lately no doubt meant that they had unmasked his alter ego, Lamina Mortis. In spite of that, however, they had yet to make a direct move against him. That could mean only that Galaxy was behind them. After all, if any of the other foundations knew what the Enfields seemed to know, they would no doubt put everything they had into apprehending him immediately. Galaxy, however, had more important considerations that prevented them from acting—they undoubtedly wanted to recover Varda or, at the very least, make her disappear forever, and any rash course of action could jeopardize that. Which meant, too, of course, that if Varda was to go and brazenly reveal herself, she would end up blowing the whole thing. 
“So? What are you doing here? Go somewhere else if you want to watch the match. Somewhere where you won’t bother us.” 
Dirk waved his hand as if to shoo off a small puppy, but Varda merely ignored him, approaching the window. Below her, Ayato Amagiri’s match against Gose Kevut was well underway. 
“What’s that?” she repeated, her voice unusually sullen. “Last year’s mass-produced Orga Luxes were almost all abominations…but they hardly compare to that. It’s…so disagreeable.” 
“Oh…?” 
Dirk found his lips curling in amusement at her obvious frustration. For him, watching the misfortunes or failures of others was like having the barren wasteland of his soul be nourished with cool, sweet nectar. 
All the more so when it was this visitor from the other world who hardly ever revealed her emotions. 
“Huh,” he said, crossing his arms. “You’re telling me you’ve never heard of the Lost Luxes?” 
“…Lost Luxes?” 
Dirk activated the air-window by his armrest, enlarging it for her to see. 
Shown there was the live broadcast of the match unfolding below. As far as Dirk was concerned, this was the easiest way to watch it. 
At that moment, Gose’s second spear-shaped Lux managed, somehow, to deftly repel Ayato’s rapid counterattack with the Ser Veresta. 
“Hmm! Azdaja must have been hiding a pretty powerful pawn, if it can hold off the Murakumo. Well, I guess it’s just a useless treasure as far as those old ghosts go…” 
“Azdaja? In that case, the Lost Luxes are…” 
“Right. Azdaja developed them…or was developing them. They were never finished.” 
From the very outset, the Lost Luxes had been designed with the goal of producing weapons more powerful than any other Lux—Orga Luxes included. The Lost Page Incident that had taken place many years prior and, indeed, the similar yet-unnamed disturbance that had occurred just a short while ago had both involved these Lost Luxes. The individuals responsible for both incidents had since been arrested, but the official investigations hadn’t gone so far as to reach the organization behind them. 
That was to be expected. It was widely believed that the organization—Azdaja—couldn’t possibly exist. 
“There are a few prototypes lying around… They’re pretty powerful, but they demand a hell of a cost. I hear they sacrificed dozens of people to test them, with only one success, so they must have decided that they weren’t worth it. I guess it wasn’t the outcome they were hoping for, huh?” 
“What are they trying to achieve by doing this?” Varda, still staring down at the ongoing match, asked coldly. 
“Well… With how worked up everyone’s gotten about the Lindvolus, they’re probably just trying to shake things up. I wouldn’t put it past them to try to throw a wet blanket over this whole thing.” 
Azdaja’s guiding principle was clear—to take revenge on the six foundations that presently controlled society and the world. They simply didn’t have the means to wage that war directly. 
Ever since the world economy had collapsed following the Invertia, the remaining corporations had engaged in an aggressive contest of mergers, acquisitions, and partnerships, until at last only eight great behemoths had remained: Galaxy, Jie Long, Elliott-Pound, W&W, Solnage, Frauenlob, and the now-defunct Samandal and Severclara. 
Samandal had originated as a major oil company based in the Middle East and, at the beginning of the Reconstruction, was said to have had an overwhelming advantage over the other integrated enterprise foundations. They began to decline, however, once society’s chief energy source switched to manadite. Finally, finding themselves at the losing side of a prolonged economic war, their competitors broke them apart and split what remained between themselves. 
Severclara had been based out of the north, with a research and development division that was said to have been the most advanced of any of its time. However, they had found themselves in direct confrontation with the other foundations following the discovery of a class-one-grade vertice meteorite deposit in central Asia, which eventually developed into a large-scale open conflict involving Solnage, Frauenlob, Jie Long, and Galaxy. While they had met with initial success in their war efforts, the remaining companies worked to isolate them and pick off their supporters, until finally, abandoned by their one-time allies Solnage and Jie Long, their defeat was ensured. As a result of that dispute, the remaining IEFs agreed to avoid open conflict as far as was possible, and thus the modern balance of power was born. 
Azdaja had been founded by the remnants of those two organizations and, even today, possessed a considerable degree of power and influence. It was, therefore, reasonable enough to suspect that they had placed pawns of their own within Asterisk’s six schools. 
However, whatever resources they possessed still paled in comparison to those of the aboveboard foundations. At most, they could only hope to be a momentary nuisance. 
“Throw a wet blanket over it? What specifically do you mean?” 
“Come on, think about it. For example…if they could stop Orphelia from claiming three consecutive wins or get in the way of Murakumo or Glühen Rose scoring a grand slam. They probably want to eliminate those three as early as possible.” 
“Pathetic,” Varda all but spat out. “What a waste of effort.” 
“I don’t like saying this, but I agree,” Dirk replied, giving her a slight nod. “Then again, who can say for certain? But that isn’t the problem here. This is the opening match, of all things. I wouldn’t put this down to coincidence, but I doubt they’ve got enough sway to influence the tournament brackets.” 
“…It must have been Madiath, then…” 
“Probably. I wouldn’t put it past him to go and do something like this without consulting anyone.” 
It was hard to believe that Madiath would have had any direct contact with Azdaja—given their history, the prospect of them teaming up with someone directly affiliated with the IEFs was extremely slim. He was probably just taking advantage of them as a means toward his own agenda. 
Dirk glanced outside at the amassed crowds. Based on the way they were working themselves up, anyone would have thought that they were witnessing the championship match itself. 
Sure, it’ll keep them on their toes, giving them a high-level match right from the get-go. But he’s not going to be happy if the Murakumo ends up losing. Not that I care one way or the other, but isn’t he taking too many risks lately? 
As far as the Golden Bough Alliance was concerned, the greater the frenzy surrounding the tournament, the better. 
Dirk understood that, and yet— 
“It’s almost over.” 
“…Hmph!” he snorted, returning his gaze to the air-window. 
 
“Ha, you’re even better than they say, Ayato Amagiri!” 
A blinding blast of light burst forth as Ayato repelled the head of Gose’s oncoming spear with the Ser Veresta. The impact was so strong that it almost felt like it was ripping his arm clear from his shoulder. 
“Ugh…!” 
“That’s got a kick…!” Gose seemed to be having an equally difficult time withstanding the blow, so he leaped backward to save himself from its full force, using his spear to soften his landing. He may have had a large build, but he was clearly highly flexible, his movements quick, leaving little in the way of openings that Ayato could try to wrench open. 
Even more pressing was the fact that whenever his spear, that Lost Lux, made contact with the Ser Veresta, the two weapons repelled each other with tremendous force. Not only that, but with each and every blow, the Ser Veresta seemed to cry out in immense pain. 
By the looks of it, the Orga Lux seemed to be having an even harder time of it than its user. 
The same, however, could be said about his opponent. 
Sparks were already beginning to fly wildly from the core of Gose’s Lost Lux, and its brilliant, glowing spearhead looked to be growing unstable. Ayato doubted that it could withstand exchanging blows with the Ser Veresta for much longer. 
Perhaps having noticed Ayato glancing at his weapon, Gose’s lips curled in a grin. “Oh, are you worried about it? How considerate. But what can I do, eh? Your little Ser Veresta’s supposed to be able to cut through just about anything. Of course it’s gonna hurt.” 
“…Let me ask you again,” Ayato called out. “How did you get your hands on that Lost Lux?” 
Even though the two weapons so violently repelled each other, it was Gose’s spear, with its considerable length, that held the advantage. Because the Lost Lux would always reach him before he could bring the Ser Veresta close to Gose, he was effectively forced to play defensively. 
“How many times do I have to tell you? I’m just using the weapon they gave me. Sure, I had my doubts when I first got my hands on it, but it ain’t half bad. But I guess it ain’t as all-powerful as they made it out to be either, though.” 
“But who gave it to you…? They should have told you how dangerous it is…!” 
“Ah, no need to worry about that. This ain’t that lady’s Lost Lux—our staff have used the data on that one to make it more general-purpose… They got rid of all those useless functions and just boosted its output… Although, it still needed a few dozen people’s worth of prana to activate it the first time around.” 
“…! If you knew that, how could you…?!” 
“Hey, hey! Don’t get yourself so worked up. Shouldn’t you be more worried about what’s right in front of you?” With that, flashing him a grin that didn’t seem to contain even the slightest hint of malice, Gose pointed his weapon at the Ser Veresta. “If this were just any old Lux, you’d probably wreck it in a single blow. But now I’ve proved that the almighty Ser Veresta ain’t all that.” 
“…It looks to me like yours has taken more damage than mine.” 
The Lost Lux might have been able to survive making contact with the Ser Veresta, but unlike the Orga Lux, it didn’t look like it could hold out for much longer—indeed, Ayato suspected that even one more blow might end up being too much for it. 
“Heh, you’re right, of course… I guess it’s about time I brought in a replacement, then,” Gose said, pulling the activation body of yet another Lux from his pocket. 
“Another one…?!” 
As it activated before him, Ayato recoiled at the sight of yet another identical Lost Lux. 
“I knew that one wouldn’t be enough for your Ser Veresta. And if two won’t do it, how about three? Or four? I can’t afford to be frugal here.” Gose lobbed a sneering grin his way as he readied his fresh weapon. “And stop calling them Lost Luxes. These days, we prefer to call them Lux Eaters!” 
No sooner did Gose finish speaking than he lunged toward Ayato. 
“Ugh!” 
Ayato, unable to catch each blow of the three-stage attack with the Ser Veresta, tried to leap out of the way, but he wasn’t fast enough. The weapon cut across his cheek, his flank, and his upper arm, deep enough to draw a noticeable amount of blood. 
“What a surprising development! Contestant Amagiri, one of the tournament favorites, seems to be at a disadvantage! Zaharoula, does this mean we’re looking at a major upset?” 
“Hmm, I wonder. Amagiri still has the edge as far as raw specs and skill is concerned. But then again… Kevut is good.” 
“Good…?” 
“Basically, he’s more experienced, I guess—more familiar with these kinds of matches… He’s probably used to fighting against stronger opponents.” 
Ayato, for his part, had already come to the same conclusion. 
As Zaharoula had pointed out, Ayato’s raw strength was most likely superior. However, Gose seemed to excel in his ability to deceive his opponent—and he was remarkably capable of capitalizing on that ability. From the way he feinted, his timing when he leaped forward, and even the way he held his body, each and every one of his actions was almost impossible to properly read. 
When Ayato thought he was trying to knock him off his feet, he would instead adjust his trajectory and shift into an upward lunge. When it looked like he was aiming for his chest, the next instant he would switch into a broad, overhead slash. 
And whenever Ayato tried to counter, Gose would inevitably shift his fighting stance once more, taking away any momentary advantage he might have had. 
And because of all that— 

“What’s wrong, Murakumo? We can keep playing cat and mouse like this, but something tells me you can’t keep dodging me forever!” 
Ayato used the palm of his hand to deflect a blunt-force strike from the reverse end of Gose’s spear, then bent backward to dodge a follow-through sweeping slash—but his opponent, as if having read his movements, instead delivered an unexpectedly devastating kick. 
“Guh…!” 
Ayato focused his prana to withstand the blow, but the impact was so powerful that it threw him backward across the stage. It seemed that his opponent’s skill at martial arts was also greater than he had initially let on. 
Gose wasted no time in launching into a follow-through attack. With insufficient time to regain his fighting posture to evade, Ayato had no choice but to catch the strike with the Ser Veresta. 
“Urgk!” 
He was thrown back once more by the shock, but this time he managed to maintain his balance and land ready. 
“Ah… Sorry, Ser Veresta,” he said to the Orga Lux gripped tightly in his hands. 
The weapon responded with a slight vibration. There was no mistaking that it was in pain each time it made contact with that so-called Lux Eater, but Ayato knew it wasn’t about to give up, either. Indeed, he could sense something bordering on anger bubbling up from inside it. 
Even so, neither could afford to blindly lay into a full-frontal attack. 
So this is what it feels like to fight as one with the Ser Veresta… 
Given that neither he nor his opponent could afford to cross swords with each other, Ayato was left with surprisingly few options. But while he understood that at an intellectual level, it was another matter entirely in the heat of battle. 
“…I guess I’ve got no choice.” 
Lamina Mortis was undoubtedly watching the match. Ayato had wanted to save this technique—one of several—for his eventual confrontation with him, and he hated having to reveal it so early, but it would all be for nothing if he lost this battle. 
He let out a deep sigh, letting the Ser Veresta in his right hand droop down as he adjusted his upper body, lifting his center of mass and shifting his weight to the tips of his toes. 
And then— 
“What’s this?! Contestant Amagiri’s closed his eyes in the heat of battle?!” 
“Hey, hey… What’s all this, then?” 
Ayato, however, made no effort to respond to his opponent’s bewilderment, instead focusing his entire attention into a single point. 
The state of shiki, the Amagiri Shinmei style’s perception-expanding technique, gave those who could master it the ability to sense their surroundings well enough that not being able to see would pose no hindrance—but this was an ever deeper, more developed mental state. 
By pushing his concentration to its utmost limits, he could focus purely on his foe and his movements—allowing him to immediately sense Gose’s every move. 
Every single one of those movements, everything from his breathing, to the beating of his heart, to the subtlest contractions of his muscles, appeared in that world of darkness as a steady stream of silence and motion. If his concentration was to falter for even the slightest of moments, however, that stream of continuous light would immediately dissipate. In order to prevent that from happening, he continued to push the boundaries of his awareness, as if he were sharpening a blade on a whetstone. 
And then— 
“You don’t look like you’ve given up… Ah well. Let’s see if you can—” 
—at that very instant, his eyes still firmly shut, Ayato knew that Gose had come within range. 
“Wha—?!” 
There was no need for haste. He needed only to deliver the right blow to the right place. 
A wide, gentle movement in that river of darkness. 
Gose continued to rush forward, clearly intent on launching into a devastating assault. Ayato, however, moved barely enough to dodge it by a literal hair’s breadth, and then, with a flash of the Ser Veresta— 
“Amagiri Shinmei Style, Ultimate Technique—Tsugomori!” 
When Ayato opened his eyes, Gose’s school crest lay broken on the ground, shorn into two clean halves. 
“End of battle! Winner: Ayato Amagiri!” 
“Ha-ha… Seriously…?” Gose wore a look of mute astonishment as the automated voice announced the conclusion of the match. 
One more second of silence passed before the entire stadium erupted into deafening applause. 
“What a stunning end to the opening match! I think that was much harder fought than many of us predicted, but Contestant Amagiri pulled through to snatch victory in the end!” 
“Yep, that was pretty impressive. I guess it was worth coming here, after all.” 
Mico’s voice, echoing across the arena, sounded somehow relieved, while Zaharoula’s, on the other hand, could be described only as vaguely satisfied. 
“Argh, you got me,” Gose called out. He seemed surprisingly indifferent to the match’s outcome. “I thought I had you up until that last move. What kind of trick was that? Some kind of ultrahigh-precision counter or something?” 
“Something like that.” Ayato’s reply was noncommittal. If he could help it, he didn’t want to reveal any more than he already had. 
“Seems to me like it all went downhill when you changed your stance, when you stopped using that old-fashioned posture, sticking close to the ground. You switched to one that prioritized movement, right?” 
“…” 
Ayato didn’t answer. 
Gose, it seemed, had a very good eye. 
The Amagiri Shinmei style’s Ultimate Technique Tsugomori was essentially the perfect countermove, made possible by a complete and total awareness of one’s opponent’s every action—whether defense, offense, or evasion—and realized as a single, unerringly accurate strike. Those qualities made it perfect for dealing with Gose’s normally unpredictable feints. 
Moreover, there was no fixed form in its application—although, this was common to all of the Amagiri Shinmei style’s Ultimate Techniques, which strove toward abstract ideals much more than they did to rote learning. 
As such, even if an opponent was to see him use it once, they wouldn’t be able to fully prepare themselves to deal with it a second time. That said, Ayato suspected that a fighter of Gose’s ability wouldn’t allow themselves to easily fall victim to the same trick too many times. 
The same applied, of course, to Lamina Mortis. 
“Heh, well, I guess it’s done with. A loss is a loss. It was fun.” Gose flashed him a carefree grin and, with a wave of his hand over his shoulder, made his departure. 
“Ah…,” Ayato began to call out after him, before stopping himself. 
He had many questions that he wanted to ask about those Lost Luxes, but he suspected that Gose wouldn’t be able to answer them. 
“Phew… But if this is what the first match ended up being like, I’m going to have to start planning a bit better for the others…” 
He had known it from the beginning, at a certain level, but it was clear to him now that winning the Lindvolus would be no easy feat. 
The opening match had made that perfectly obvious. 
 
When Gose returned to the gate leading back to his prep room, a small figure stood leaning against the wall waiting for him. 
“I told you, didn’t I? He’s strong.” 
“Oh? So you came after all?” he answered. 
“When it comes to this city, I am your senior.” 
The figure was hooded, making it impossible for Gose to read the person’s expression. 
“But for our top ace to lose his first match… That’s a real shame.” 
“Heh, what can I say?” he replied. “I thought getting assigned to him in the opening match was too good to be true. I guess we were outdone, huh?” 
The only possible explanation was that someone in the Festa Executive Committee had seen through Gose’s identity and sought to manipulate the situation to their own advantage. 
“Well, at least you still know how to pull the wool over people’s eyes. You didn’t really have any other Lux Eaters left, did you?” 
“Heh, they are priceless,” Gose replied with a dauntless grin. 
He may have suggested to Ayato that he had readied three or four of the weapons, but in reality, he had only ever had two. 
“You had me worried about losing the second one there. The plan is, after all, for me to take possession of it.” 
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Gose muttered, tossing its activation body to the hooded figure. “We’d better get out of here. Who knows how quickly the city guard will get here? I guess it’s time to say good-bye to this place, huh?” 
He had no doubt attracted significant attention to himself, what with using that Lost Lux so blatantly in public. 
“Indeed. The warm-up’s over. We’ll take care of the main event.” The figure hid the Lux’s activation body deep in its cloak as the two began to head down the corridor in the opposite direction of Gose’s prep room. 
Azdaja had given Gose two orders. 
The first was to enter the Lindvolus and eliminate as many star players as he could. Having to do so was a nuisance, of course, but work was work, and so he had endeavored to carry out his instructions to the letter, no matter how petty they were. 
And the second one— 
“By the way,” the figure called out to him, “it still isn’t clear what this Golden Bough Alliance is plotting. I’m grateful you’ve started to help. I was at my limits trying to sound them out by myself.” 
“This whole city’s swarming with security, what with the Concordia coming up. It’s going to be hard for us to stay in the shadows.” 
Lately, rumors of the Golden Bough Alliance’s activities were beginning to spread even in the underground society in which Gose and Azdaja operated. 
As far as Azdaja was concerned, the organization wanted to find out what kind of effect the Golden Bough Alliance’s plans might have on the foundations. 
Depending on what precisely the group’s goals were, they might even be inclined to cooperate. 
And, of course, the opposite might be true as well. 
“We’d better get to work, then. Take a look around the docks, Gose. There’s been a lot of freight coming into port over the past few days. Nothing’s stood out so far, but there’s definitely something fishy about it all.” 
“Yeah, yeah, got it. You sure drive your people hard, huh, Ruf?” 
Conversing like that, the pair’s hushed voices faded away into silence as they disappeared into the darkness of the corridor.