CHAPTER 9
ROUND FOUR
“Haah… I’m so nervous!”
Minato Wakamiya was pacing back and forth in her prep room at the Sirius Dome.
“…Calm down a little, Minato.” Remonstrating her in a cool voice was her composed teammate Chloe Flockhart.
“That’s right, Minato. You won’t be able to show them everything you’ve got if you work yourself up. Act natural.” With a warm smile, Yuzuhi Renjouji, the most relaxed of all of them, gave her a gentle pat on the back.
“R-r-r-r-really, Minato! E-even if he managed to smash through my brother, you’ve been training under Xinglou, right? H-have a bit of confidence!” Her words may have been encouraging, but Sophia Fairclough looked even more nervous than Minato herself, the teacup and saucer in her hand clattering so loudly that it seemed like they might shatter at any moment.
“Y-you’ll be fine! I mean, you’ve got me—you’ve got all of us, Minato!” Nina Achenwall, normally the most timid, had taken her hands firmly in her own.
“R-right. Yeah! Thanks, everyone!”
Thanks to her friends, the tension gripping her had subsided somewhat.
“Well, we’ve still got time before the match. If you need a distraction, why don’t we watch some of the others?” Chloe suggested, opening an air-window through her mobile device.
Almost instantaneously, a fierce battle spread out before them.
“By the way…I thought Minato and Ayato’s match was supposed to be the first one? Why have the others started earlier?” Yuzuhi asked.
“Ah, they keep the most popular time slot for the main stage here. They want to keep everything balanced between the different venues, you know? It was like that in the preliminaries, too,” Chloe answered, clearly disinterested.
“Yeah…”
Minato turned her gaze to the match playing in the air-window, when all of a sudden something stood out to her.
“Hey, hey, look! Everyone! Look!”
She had taken the first seat in front of the air-window, beckoning for the others to come.
The others glanced toward one another in confusion, before going to join her.
“What’s going on?”
“It’s Le Wolfe’s number eighteen and Seidoukan’s number nine. They fought against each other in the Phoenix, too, right…?”
“Not that—look! The way they’re moving!” Minato pointed to the air-window, until, after a second, the others seemed to realize it, too.
“Oh…!”
Surprise was plastered over all four of their faces.
“Yep, I was right! See how they’re moving, how they’re fighting? They’ve both been training with Xinglou!”
“Hrraaaaaaaaaaagh!”
“Hyaaaaaaaaaaaagh!”
Two thunderous roars echoed throughout the arena as power collided with power.
The first—Lester MacPhail, alias Kornephoros—lashed out with his gargantuan ax-type Lux, the Bardiche-Leo.
The other—Irene Urzaiz—used her bare hands to thrust his weapon aside.
This contest, on the stage in the Canopus Dome, was their first encounter in nearly two and a half years.
“I know that move! Don’t tell me you were training at the Liangshan, too?!”
“That’s my line, you giant clod! No wonder you’ve gotten so strong!”
Lester swung the Bardiche-Leo with enormous speed, while Irene leaped forward as it scraped past, too close for him to land a direct hit.
“That goes for you, too! Erenshkigal might have snatched your Orga Lux, but you’re a hell of a lot stronger than last time!”
Irene stabbed forward with her hand with unbelievable speed, but that alone wouldn’t be enough to stop him.
As she closed what little distance remained between them, Lester moved to strike her outstretched hand with his elbow, but she ended up delivering a biting strike into his upper arm.
“Idiot! Did you think I’d forgotten that? You ain’t fooling me twice with that one!”
“Yeah? This is the perfect chance to repay you for last time! Take this!”
Ignoring the pain, Lester shifted his grip to take hold of the Bardiche-Leo single-handedly, using his free hand to unleash a powerful punch.
“Guh…!”
Irene managed to catch the blow with both hands, but the force behind it was enough to send her flying backward across the stage.
The next moment, Lester readjusted his grip on his weapon and pounced upon her from above, aiming for a decisive overhead strike.
“Not so fast!”
Irene, however, twisted her body through the air, dodging the blow by a fraction of an inch. Then, landing with her right foot atop the Bardiche-Leo, which was now wedged into the ground, she used her left foot to deal a powerful turning kick.
“Tch!”
Lester guarded against it with his left arm, but the strike was so powerful that it practically echoed through his whole body. To think that she could deliver such a formidable strike from such a disadvantageous position…
“Impressive, Irene Urzaiz…!”
“Heh, you’re no slouch either! You sure couldn’t have pulled that off last time…!”
With that exchange, they each drew back to catch their breath.
And then—
“Raaaaaaaaaaaarrrgh!”
“Hraaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
Once more they leaped toward each other, both unleashing terrible war cries.
This time, however, Lester attacked from directly in front, while it was Irene who tried to circle around to his side.
Damn it, she’s fast!
Before he could reach her, Irene jumped—and then, curling her body into a ball as she dived through the air, she spun around and delivered a shocking ax kick.
“Gah…!”
Lester shielded himself with his arm and reached out to grab her leg, but Irene was one step ahead, using that outstretched arm as a foothold and launching into a somersault over his head. Then, upside-down and in midair, she unleashed a powerful spear-hand strike into the back of his head.
He managed to dodge the blow by feinting forward, while at the same time twisting around and swinging the Bardiche-Leo.
His reach, however, fell but a fraction too short.
“Ngh…!”
“Tch…!”
Irene, having landed safely on the ground, and Lester, raising his ax before him and restoring his fighting posture, fixed each other with baleful glares.
They were, for all intents and purposes, evenly matched. Lester had the advantage as far as the destructive power of each strike was concerned, but Irene came first when it came to speed and the rate of her attacks.
The sheer power of Lester’s Bardiche-Leo was such that he would normally have little difficulty pushing his opponent onto the back foot. Irene, perhaps cautious of that battle-ax, or perhaps wary given the difference in the reach of their respective attacks, was being unusually careful about pursuing him.
However, with the way she was focusing her prana into her fists, her own attack power couldn’t be underestimated. Even if he dedicated some of his prana to defense, if those spear-hand strikes were to make contact, they would tear through him like paper. Indeed, he doubted that focusing any amount of prana would be effective at stopping those cutting blows. He had researched similar fighter’s prior to the match and found an old martial artist from Jie Long with a similar attack style, but unfortunately, that hadn’t helped him develop a counterstrategy.
To add to his difficulties, Irene had evidently tempered her skills to an extreme. There was no way any average fighter would have been able to pull off that midair movement that she had managed a few moments earlier.
“…Just out of curiosity,” he began, “what was your final ranking at the Liangshan?”
“Otsubu. You?”
“Koubu.”
“Tch! So you’re higher than me?!” Irene broke into a frustrated frown.
Xinglou’s ranking system at the Liangshan was divided into four levels: koubu, otusbu, heibu, and teibu, in that order. In other words, Lester ranked among the strongest fighters gathered there. However, it was practically impossible to gauge much more about the system than that. To begin with, Xinglou had never revealed what factors contributed to it, nor had she ever told them how many students she was teaching.
Well then…what next?
Since he had begun training at the Liangshan, Lester’s level of skill and technique had surpassed his wildest expectations. As one of the highest-ranked fighters there, he was confident he could defeat most opponents—but to his chagrin, he was having a hard time getting a handle on Irene’s movements.
However, for her part, Irene wouldn’t be able to deliver a decisive blow without coming into his range, either.
In that case…
“All right, you giant clod. I’ve got a proposal for you,” Irene called out. “Stretching this out is getting boring. Why don’t we decide this now? Let’s both put everything we’ve got into one final attack!” And with that, she raised her index finger into the air, fixing him with an indomitable grin.
“…All or nothing, huh?”
“That’ll be more interesting than us wearing each other down like this, don’t you think?”
“…All right. Sounds good! I’ll bite!”
He had to admit, that kind of battle better suited his own tastes, too.
“Heh-heh! Now you’re talking!” Irene laughed, putting one leg forward and preparing to charge.
In response, Lester tightened the grip of his right hand on the Bardiche-Leo, holding it out horizontally, so no matter which direction his opponent lunged from, he would be ready to counter.
“All right… Now!”
And with that, Irene seemed to completely disappear.
“Tch!”
Of course, she hadn’t simply vanished. Her explosive speed was such that he hadn’t been able to catch her movements.
Just like that brat from Jie Long…!
It was a technique for ultra-high-speed movement, produced by focusing one’s prana into one’s legs. While rare, given that it was common enough for martial artists to focus their prana into their fists, there was nothing particularly strange about it.
He swung the Bardiche-Leo to his right, but he was too slow. There was no way he could have made it in time.
And yet—
“Guh?!”
—Irene’s spear-hand strike came to a sudden stop mere inches short of his school crest.
“Y-you…!” Coughing up blood, she fixed him with a baleful glare.
“Sorry, but you weren’t the only one keeping your best move for last.”
Irene lowered her gaze, only now seeing that, in his left hand, Lester was gripping a second Bardiche-Leo, its pommel embedded deep into her abdomen.
It was a mixed defensive–offensive technique, made possible only by wielding two weapons simultaneously. This was the new battle style he had mastered during his time at the Liangshan.
“Feh…! You… You got me…!” Irene breathed out, before falling unconscious to the ground.
Catching her in his arms, Lester murmured, “Consider the score settled, Irene Urzaiz.”
“End of battle! Winner: Lester MacPhail!”
And with that, the automated voice rang out, announcing that he had made it into the final sixteen.
“Ngh…! Here!”
Saya unleashed a simultaneous barrage from every last barrel of her type 41 Lux homing blaster, the Waldenholt Mark II.
Six arcing lines coursed through the air, descending upon her opponent, Curtis Wright, Allekant’s Ningirsu, the Double-Headed Eagle, when—
“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Keep going!” Curtis dodged all six blasts, as if dancing through the air.
She had been able to track her opponent adequately enough and had used the Waldenholt Mark II, the most accurate Lux in her arsenal, to fire six synchronized charges, and still it wasn’t enough.
Slipping through that torrent of light, he charged toward her with impossible speed. At his feet were two great spears—or more precisely, two spear-shaped glowing blades of a Rect Lux.
In other words, he was using that Rect Lux to fly through the air.
“Ugh…! You Allekant people and your annoying contraptions…!” Saya spat out, falling back in an attempt to stop him from reaching the vernier of her back unit.
She wasn’t quick enough, however. Curtis grazed past, gouging the section that covered her arm. His incredible speed was too much. Saya had diverted what power she could afford from the vernier to its recoil-control mechanisms and specifically tuned it for high-speed aerial maneuvers, but it still wasn’t enough against her opponent’s Rect Lux.
“Annoying contraptions…? I could say the same thing about yours, Miss Sasamiya! I’ve never seen anything at Allekant like the Luxes you use!” Curtis, hovering in the air, laughed as he crossed his arms.
He was a first-year student at Allekant Académie’s high school, assigned to the practical class, with unruly chestnut-colored hair and a youthful, almost childish face.
His combat skill, however, was far beyond the norm.
He may have merely been using a normal Rect Lux, but his degree of control over it defied all reason, and Saya’s attacks were left unable to reach their target.
“Type 35 Lux Gatling cannon, Granvaleria,” she murmured, returning the Waldenholt to its holder at her waist and activating a gargantuan log-sized auto-cannon.
“Whoa! That looks like it’s packing even more than the last one!” Curtis exclaimed, falling back across the stage.
As far as raw speed was concerned, Hufeng Zhao from Jie Long easily had her present opponent beat.
And as far as mobility went, Rimcy, with her flight unit, was undeniably his superior.
The real reason Saya couldn’t land a hit against Curtis was his sheer unpredictability—she couldn’t predict what he would do next at any given moment. The Rect Lux terminals at his feet effectively functioned as vernier thrusters, allowing him to rapidly accelerate and change direction in midair. But even more troubling, their user’s actions were simply so chaotic that she was left unable to read them at all.
I’ll just have to resort to numerical superiority, then…!
Bracing her own Lux under her arm, she aimed directly toward him and fired.
The Granvaleria could fire four thousand rounds per minute. The barrage it let forth was practically a hurricane.
“Yahoo!”
Even so, not a single one of them reached their target. Curtis more or less surfed right over her barrage in a wide arc as she chased after him.
“Grrrrrr…!” Saya ground her teeth in frustration.
Her opponent’s only means of attack was by scoring a direct hit with his Rect Lux. He didn’t appear to be carrying any other weapons. As far as Saya was concerned, that was more stupidity than bravery.
That being the case, it would have been logical to attempt to lure him into an ambush as he made his attack—but to Saya’s great frustration, that, too, had proved ineffective. He would sway from side to side like a wild current, at times climbing dangerously high into the air, and at others, plummeting toward the ground. No sooner would he appear to be leaping upward than he would wrap around behind her and come flying down from overhead.
But in spite of his limited options for attack, he continued to vary the formula so much that Saya was left completely astonished. Indeed, her opponent had to be some kind of natural genius to be able to make such efficient use of his limitations.
Which meant, she suspected, that his talent had been forged by the Ban’yuu Tenra.
“Come on! Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha!”
This time, he spun in circles through the air on his Rect Lux as he dodged the Granvaleria’s continued bombardment.
“You’ll need something better than that peashooter to take down this Rect Lux of mine! Don’t underestimate the Shalurgus!”
“You’re a talker…!” Saya murmured under her breath.
It was true that each individual bullet fired from the Granvaleria wasn’t particularly powerful—the idea was to use it to deliver an overwhelming barrage—or else as suppression fire. Short of installing multiple pieces of manadite using the LOBOS transition method, if she was to attempt to increase the power output any further than she had, the Lux’s core would inevitably collapse.
For Saya, who had always emphasized big guns and enormous firepower, Curtis’s words were nothing short of humiliating.
“Speed, freedom, and strength! That’s my motto!” Curtis exclaimed as he jolted back and forth through the air, the terminals of his Rect Lux leaving blinding arcs of light in his path.
He’s still getting faster…?!
She mixed straight-flying bullets with arcing ones, but still none managed to reach him.
And then—
“Got you!”
“—!”
Saya leaped forward to dodge Curtis’s next attack as he swung around behind her and swooped down from above. She managed to escape injury, but he came close enough to tear through a few strands of hair, sending them falling softly to the ground.
“Hu-uh? That’s weird, I thought I had you that time… Ah, I see! Miss Sasamiya, you’re so small I must have misjudged my aim!”
“How dare you?! That’s unforgivable!”
Once more, Saya let forth a wide sweep with the Granvaleria, but as she had feared, it still wasn’t good enough to score a hit.
“Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha! You know, I thought pretty highly of you after watching your battle with Rimcy, but I guess that puppet mustn’t have been everything people say it is!” Curtis laughed mirthfully as he skipped through the air, his tone of voice, despite his words, seemingly devoid of malice. “Well, not that I thought I’d have any trouble beating Rimcy myself, though!”
“…Oh?”
With that, Saya stopped firing and hung her head.
“Now then, maybe it’s time to finish this!” No sooner did Curtis finish speaking than the twin blades of his divided Rect Lux began to swell.
He was using Meteor Arts to increase their size. No doubt any attempt at defense would prove ineffective.
“All right, then, I’m coming for you!”
He increased his speed yet further, arcing through the air in ever-shrinking circles like a giant drill. A powerful vortex of wind sent Saya’s hair streaking in every possible direction.
“Imdolgud!”
“…You’re going to regret this, brat.” Completely composed, Saya activated one of her new Luxes. “Type 42 Lux pile blaster: Aresbringer.”
As she spoke, a long, cylindrical Lux emerged to encompass her entire right arm.
This was one of her newly developed Luxes, the ultimate personalized weapon, designed specifically both to release tremendous power at close range and to make maximum use of her own specific fighting techniques.
She had succeeded in tricking Curtis into swooping downward on his Rect Lux, waiting until he was almost close enough to pierce her through, before deftly stepping aside and smashing the Aresbringer into him with all her strength.
“Amagiri Shinmei Style, Sasamiya Swordgun Technique—Four-Hornet Detonation!”
“Wha—?!”
As the blast was released, an ultrapowerful, ultrashort-range burst of energy engulfed the blades of Curtis’s Rect Lux, sending him plummeting defenseless to the ground.
Its manadite core destroyed, Curtis’s Rect Lux exploded in a brilliant conflagration, scattering across the stage in minuscule fragments.
However, it was unlikely that Xinglou Fan would be willing to train students from the other schools without some kind of precondition. She was no doubt demanding something from her students in return.
“You must have a wish you need granting if you’re willing to go that far…!”
Ayato rushed forward, bringing his sword down upon his opponent from above.
Minato, however, caught the blow with her fists and then kicked him in a counterattack.
“Of course!” she replied. “I’ve got a dream that I need to make come true!”
Ayato spun backward to avoid the tips of her shoes.
At first, he had been taken aback by her considerable level of power, but the nature of her attacks, all requiring a buildup of momentum as she drew long arcs through the air, was in and of itself a considerable limitation. If he was to approach the battle calmly, it wouldn’t be impossible for him to avoid her strikes even at close range—but of course, he wouldn’t be able to let down his guard.
A dream, huh…?
The dazzling glint in Minato’s eyes suggested that she truly was fighting for something.
While Ayato knew many students at Asterisk who fought to have a wish granted, he knew of no others who fought for such a pure reason as a dream. For Julis and Kirin, and for himself, too, what they fought for wasn’t a dream so much as a means toward accomplishing a goal. As similar as they were, there was unmistakably something different between needing to achieve something, needing to prevent something from happening, and wanting to make a dream come true.
Perhaps that was why there was something refreshing, something that left him feeling unexpectedly warm inside, about this close contest of offense and defense.
“If you don’t mind, won’t you tell me about this dream of yours?”
Ayato rushed to strike his opponent with his right elbow, before bending down and trying to trip her with his leg—but Minato quickly swung around, leaping backward to put some distance between them.
“Oh? Are you interested?” She broke into a joyful smile as she corrected her fighting stance. “My dream…is to go to the moon!”
“Huh?!”
Minato lashed out with a straight, direct lunge. Unlike her previous, arcing attacks, this was much more similar to the kinds of moves employed by Jie Long’s martial artists.
She leaped across the ground, each step leaving the earth shaking as she ran, bearing down on him with a decisive strike.
“The moon…? What a…nice…dream!”
“—!”
Ayato couldn’t help but be impressed as he repelled each of her consecutive punches. There was something pure and honest about her ambition, something that made it seem like the most fitting wish imaginable for a tournament like the Festa.
“Thank you! It was originally my dad’s dream, but now I’ve made it my own!”
“Oh…?”
Ayato countered with the Twin Serpents, but Minato crossed her arms, catching his blade with the Járngreipr.
At that moment, Ayato realized something that made him stop in his tracks.
Huh…? The moon…?
In the present era, there remained precious few organizations willing to invest in large-scale space exploration. But there was one that he remembered hearing about not long ago…
“Don’t let down your guard!”
“Oops…!”
He had allowed himself to get distracted, delaying his response. Unable to dodge Minato’s oncoming punch, he focused his prana into the side of his body as a jolt of piercing pain ran through him. The blow was powerful enough that it had probably ended up cracking at least one of his ribs.
“Ha-ha… Maybe I should focus on the matter at hand…,” he said, falling back.
A flash of pain swept across his face, but he quickly worked to get his breathing under control, correcting his stance with the Ser Veresta.
“In that case…maybe we should finish this?”
Minato’s expression turned grave as she lunged forward, sticking close to the ground. By the looks of it, she was preparing to deal the decisive blow.
There was little doubting that Ayato would have the advantage in a prolonged contest. He could always choose to maintain the current exchange of blows, waiting for her to make a mistake—as he himself just had.
Prior to the match, he had looked over all available data on his opponent and found that she had two major weaknesses. The first was her lesser ability to deal with long-range attacks, while the second was her relative paucity of prana. Indeed, she had ended up exhausting her prana midbattle during the Gryps the previous year. And seeing as one’s amount of prana was part of one’s physical constitution, and remained fixed from birth, not even her training by the Ban’yuu Tenra should have affected it.
If they kept fighting the way they were, she would end up exhausting her prana whether she wanted to or not. Her use of the Járngreipr certainly wouldn’t help in that regard. It was definitely better than fighting empty-handed like one of Jie Long’s martial artists, which required considerable prana to begin with, or combining that kind of fighting style with a regular knuckle-type Lux, which would have required the use of Meteor Arts to face the kinds of fighters who had entered the Lindvolus. Compared to that, an Orga Lux that didn’t require the immediate consumption of a huge amount of prana was clearly the most appropriate means of increasing her fighting potential—but she was still only delaying the inevitable.
In any case, waiting for her to exhaust her prana was clearly a logical strategy.
Logical, yes, and yet—
“I want to fight you with respect. Not everyone enters this tournament in pursuit of such a pure dream.”
Ayato honed his prana, matching Minato’s fighting spirit as he prepared to launch his next attack.
Of course, he couldn’t afford to lose this match, either. He knew also that this wasn’t the best choice to make right now if he wanted to be sure of winning.
However, if he was to focus on nothing but immediate victory, he would essentially be mistaking the insignificant for the essential. If the match was prolonged, he would end up exhausting his own prana, too, and could end up revealing his hand before he was ready. Taking into account that he meant to make it to the next match, and the one after that, all the way to the end, it was hardly the best option available.
That being the case, his present actions carried some risk, but a quick, decisive finale suited his needs, too.
“Here I go!” Minato cried, leaping in front of him. “Raaaaaaaaaah!”
She’s fast… But I can still…!
Ayato shifted to the side, letting her open-hand punch slip past him. Then, with her school crest left exposed, he raised his blade over his head and—
“Now!”
“—?!”
Minato, perhaps having guessed his moves, quickly withdrew her arm.
No, even if she had read his actions, she wouldn’t have had time to correct herself as quickly as she had.
And for her to be able to do that, the Járngreipr would have to be incredibly light—
Did she eliminate its weight entirely…?!
Given that she had the power to freely control the Orga Lux’s mass, it should have been more than possible for her to increase it only at the moment of impact—at all other times, it only made sense to keep those gauntlets as light as possible. However…what if she were used to wielding them in a somewhat heavier state? Then, at the critical moment, she could let that weight abate and take her opponent unawares…
“Oh, what’s this?! Contestant Wakamiya has caught the Ser Veresta in midair!”
When Ayato realized his mistake, Minato was already raising her arms into the air, catching his blade between her hands.
An incredible force wrapped around the Orga Lux, wrenching it from his hands. She must have increased its weight for a brief moment, just enough to disarm him. Minato herself had crouched down to the ground so as to keep her arms from being torn off, a crater forming beneath her.
“Ugh…!”
Ayato moved at once to retrieve the Ser Veresta, but before he could reach it, Minato threw it over her shoulder high into the air.
“Oops…!”
He had no idea whether he would be able to defeat her if he challenged her empty-handed.
At the very least, he needed to put some distance between them both, and then he could—
“I’ve got you now!”
All of a sudden, Minato leaped upward, thrusting her right fist toward him with all her strength.
If it’s come to this…
Wasting no time making a decision, Ayato concentrated his prana into one leg and, just before Minato’s Járngreipr-clad fist could reach him, jumped high into the air.
“Huh?!”
Of course, if he had miscalculated his timing by even a fraction, he could have been sent flying in any direction or even ended up flipping over—or worse, if he had seriously misjudged it, he may have even ended up crushing his own bones.
However, halfway into her current attack, Minato’s options for countering were extremely limited. That being the case, reading them wasn’t all too difficult.
“Guh…!”
Seemingly thrown up into the air from his opponent’s punch, Ayato, his face writhing in pain, reached out and plucked the Ser Veresta from midair. He almost reached the ceiling of the protective gel that encased the stage before beginning to fall back down.
“Impressive, Mr. Amagiri! But I still have the advantage!”
Of course, Minato was waiting for him.
It would have been different if he’d had abilities that would let him fly through the air like Julis could—or an Orga Lux like Hufeng Zhao’s Tongtianzu—but in his current state, it was impossible for him to freely control his descent. At this rate, he would practically fall directly into Minato’s next attack.
In that case, he would simply have to finish the match before then.
“Hauuuuuuuuuuuh!”
With all his strength, he poured every last ounce of his prana into the urm-manadite core of the Ser Veresta.
“—! Meteor Arts…!”
Having triggered a mana excitation overload, the Orga Lux’s blade swelled to a gigantic size as Ayato let out a terrible roar.
Minato, perhaps having realized that she wouldn’t be able to avoid the oncoming strike, raised and crossed her hands over her head in an attempt to catch it.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaugh!”
“Yaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
The urm-manadite cores of both the Ser Veresta and the Járngreipr glowed brilliantly, a dark pattern flowing across the gleaming blade as it collided with those silver knuckles in a dazzling burst of light.
Both Orga Luxes strained against each other, until—
“Ugh… Ahhhhh!”
Unable to bear the brunt of the attack any longer, Minato’s arms were brushed aside.
And with that, the tip of the Ser Veresta fell downward, slicing clean through Minato’s school crest as she fell backward.
“Minato Wakamiya—crest broken.”
“End of battle! Winner: Ayato Amagiri!”
No sooner did Ayato land safely on the ground than the automated voice echoed across the stage.
“Phew…”
He wiped the sweat from his forehead before approaching his fallen opponent.
“Are you all right, Minato?”
“Ah-ha-ha… I guess I’m still not good enough…” But despite her words, her expression seemed to be one of relief.
“Not at all. If I had made even a single mistake, you would have had me.”
Ayato undeniably had greater overall strength, but if he was being honest with himself, he had only barely managed to pull through. In terms of strategy and techniques, Minato, it seemed, had made some very successful preparations.
“Yep, you really are strong,” he continued, holding out his hand to her just as he had at the beginning of the match.
“…Thank you, Mr. Amagiri,” she replied shyly as he helped her to her feet.
A wave of cheers and applause rained down upon them from the galleries.
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