Gakusen Toshi Asterisk - Volume 16 - Chapter Ep

EPILOGUE

From his seat in the lakeside terrace café, Allekant Académie’s student council president Shuuma Sakon was staring absentmindedly, his chin resting on his hands, at the face of the girl in front of him, who was busy chewing on a piece of pancake.

“…? Don’t you want some, Shuuma?” Perhaps having noticed him watching her, she glanced up and offered him a fork.

“I’m fine.”

“Really?”

The girl, with her fluffy curled hair, her cute glasses perched on the bridge of her nose, and her small stature and slender body, was Fevroniya Ignatovich. She might not have looked it, but she was Allekant’s top-ranked fighter, the Witch of Foundational Principles, Apeiron.

In terms of overall fighting level, Allekant was said to be the weakest of Asterisk’s six schools. There were multiple reasons for that, but the most obvious was the negative effect of acute factionalism. Students in practical classes were all but surrounded by various factions, and in most cases, the will of their faction took precedence over their own wishes. Similarly, it was the faction heads who decided who would participate in official ranked battles, or even whether someone could participate in the first place.

What’s more, even performing well in the Festa was rarely enough to earn a positive appraisal, seeing as most individuals in positions of power at Allekant valued developing new technologies and weapons more than the growth or performance of the students themselves.

Given those circumstances, it was all but impossible to motivate the students in practical classes, and Allekant was famous for its students’ short terms of enrollment. The most common pattern was to quickly try one’s luck three times at the Festa, then graduate as soon as possible. There were those students who went on to the university, but they were a clear minority. And so, Allekant was regarded poorly by Festa enthusiasts and bookmakers alike. They even had a saying: There’s nothing more unreliable than the official rankings at Allekant. Even Shuuma, the student council president himself, considered the unofficial rankings on the fansites Hexa Pantheon and Odhroerir to be much more reliable.

But even at Allekant, with its unique pecking order, the position of number one occupied a special place.

As the representative of the whole school, it symbolized their maximum strength. Neither concerns for maintaining the balance of power nor the customary bartering between factions held sway over this position. Only someone who had truly demonstrated themselves as Allekant’s strongest could take on the mantle of number one.

And the face of that school, Allekant’s absolute toughest Strega, was at this moment chewing on a large pancake with an utterly impassive look on her face. She might have been the school’s most powerful, but no matter how you looked at her, she seemed more like a small, defenseless animal.

Why must she act up and be so selfish on today of all days…?

Yes, his position might have been merely symbolic without any real authority, but Shuuma was still the student council president. By rights, he shouldn’t have been lazing around in a place like this on the day of the championship match of the Lindvolus, not with the contest about to start at any moment.

However, circumstances outside of his control had forced the matter.

Fevroniya was a treasured prodigy of the Methuselah faction, which dedicated itself to working on the basic theories of meteoric engineering and the natural laws of mana. At Allekant, students who took part in practical classes occupied a lower status than those in the research classes. Despite belonging to the former group, however, Fevroniya had earned herself a privileged status within Methuselah on account of her extremely rare abilities.

That being said, she showed exemplary dedication, seldom asserted her individuality, and quietly engaged in the research tasks assigned to her without complaint—except for once a month, when she would make some selfish demand and refuse to compromise.

For instance, she might make incomprehensible requests like I wanna go eat some côtelette d’anillo ozomal truffle osztol frito marron chantilly! or I wanna go play Nine Men’s Morris at an altitude of thirty thousand meters! Sometimes, she even made trivial requests like I wanna read my book or I just wanna take a nap. In any case, if she couldn’t fulfill her monthly whim, she would become extremely irritable—a prospect that Methuselah sought to avoid at all costs.

Well, Shuuma could understand why. When Fevroniya got grouchy, there was no telling what she might do. He understood that personally, to a painful extent. After all, it was his sister Chitose, the former student council president and now a popular commentator for the Festa, who had scouted Fevroniya for Allekant. Shuuma had known the girl for years.

This time, her request was a rather low-level one: I wanna eat pancakes in a café with a view of the lake. The problem, however, was the addendum: With Shuuma.

Of course, he wasn’t obligated to respond to Methuselah’s request. Mere figurehead or not, he was the student council president, and that title did come with a certain degree of official power. However, it was also true that he wanted to maintain good relations with each of the school’s factions.

Shuuma may have been somewhat mediocre as a researcher and as student council president, but he took pride in his ability to negotiate with each of the varying factions and find a middle ground between their oftentimes conflicting interests.

For some time now, power dynamics at Allekant had been centered around the opposition between the Ferrovius and Pygmalion factions on the one hand and Tenorio on the other. But now, the tides were turning. Tenorio had lost its representative Hilda Jane Rowlands, and Ferrovius, the largest of all of Allekant’s factions, had become disunited ever since its former head Camilla Pareto stepped down. Pygmalion may have achieved some commendable results in the Lindvolus, but it was simply too small to hold much sway over the school as a whole. And so Methuselah, which had always managed to preserve its own standing, simply couldn’t be neglected.

Which was why Shuuma now found himself staring across at Fevroniya as she took another bite from her serving of pancakes.

“…You’ve got cream on your face, Fevroniya,” he said.

“Where?”

“On your right cheek… Ah, I’ll get it. Don’t move.”

As he reached out with a handkerchief, Fevroniya narrowed her eyes like a happy cat.

She wasn’t one to show a lot of emotion, but it was clear she held a special affection for Chitose. Maybe that was why she seemed to let her guard down around Shuuma, too… It seemed logical, at least. He wasn’t entirely sure.

Well, I should be able to make it in time for the award ceremony…

It was customary for the student council presidents of Asterisk’s six schools to attend the award ceremony of any Festa tournament. Some, like Xinglou, tended to send proxies, but Shuuma didn’t have the gall to try anything so flagrant.

With that in mind, he turned his gaze to the lake outside—when a ferry anchored at the nearby dock exploded into a sea of flames.

“Huh…?”

His jaw dropped, his eyes widening in shock.

Fortunately, the passengers had yet to board the vessel, and the crew quickly leaped into the lake to escape the conflagration.

Nonetheless, amid the shouts and screams of the milling tourists, explosion after explosion kept sounding off into the distance.

Hurrying out onto the terrace, he came across a familiar, large-bodied autonomous puppet holding a weapon and wreaking destruction.

“AR-D…? Why is that here…? N-no, stop! What on earth are you doing?!”

Anyone who had seen the Phoenix would know that AR-D was the property of Allekant. If the puppet rampaged through the city, the responsibility wouldn’t just fall on Shuuma’s shoulders—the school itself, and probably even Frauenlob, wouldn’t be immune from criticism.

He rushed toward it, instructing it in a stern tone of voice to halt what it was doing, then the puppet turned his way, staring down at him in silence.

Only then did it dawn on him. The machine may have resembled AR-D, but it was something else entirely.

On top of that, looking closely, he could see that it wasn’t alone. There were five in total nearby—maybe more, given the explosions erupting all over the place.

They were mass produced…? But no one ever—

…No. He wouldn’t put it past her.

The individual in charge of developing the AR-D was Ernesta Kühne, the head of Pygmalion. Next to Magnum Opus, she was one of Allekant’s most gifted minds—and greatest troublemakers. It wouldn’t be at all surprising if she had produced more units behind the scenes.

The puppet staring down at Shuuma must have decided to treat him as a combat target, because it suddenly raised its hammer-type Lux over its head.

“Whoa…!”

Shuuma might have been a Genestella, but he belonged to the research class, not the practical one. He had no combat training, and there was no way that he would be able to fight a puppet on the level of AR-D.

The hammer swung down with tremendous speed, only to be easily blocked as a new figure swept in front of him.

“Fevroniya…!”

Having caught the blow in her right hand, she was holding open a thick book in her left.

“…What are you doing?”

It wasn’t clear whether she was addressing Shuuma with that comment or the autonomous puppet. Nonetheless, it was obvious from her tone of voice that she was in a particularly bad mood. After all, her wish—“I wanna eat pancakes with Shuuma in a café with a view of the lake”—had been unceremoniously interrupted.

Fevroniya squeezed the hammer-type Lux with her right hand, then lightly tapped the puppet on the chest as though knocking on a door.

The next moment, its entire body vanished without a trace.

Did she just rewrite Newton’s laws of motion…?

Fevroniya’s ability—Apeiron’s ability—was control over the laws of physics.

Newton’s second law of motion simply stated that mass and acceleration determined the magnitude of any given force, but Fevroniya had adjusted it so that even small amounts of mass and acceleration could result in a tremendous quantity of force.

And that wasn’t all.

It looked like she had also altered the third law—that for every action, there is always an equal reaction. Otherwise, her small hand would have been crushed to a pulp just now.

“Do you mind not interrupting?” she murmured.

Fevroniya always spoke in a questioning tone, irrespective of the occasion or who she was addressing—as if to suggest there were still so many things she didn’t understand about the world.

Soon, the remaining puppets gathered around them.

And without even the slightest change to her expression, Fevroniya turned the page of the book in her left hand.

It was blank—or rather, the entire book was blank. It seemed she used the pages for her calculations to compose new laws of physics. She didn’t need to use a pen, though—her eyes alone were enough to inscribe the changes. In other words, this blank book was her weapon and the medium for her abilities.

She raised her right hand into the air and clenched her fist.

At that moment, the puppets let out a crackling sound and crumbled together like a ball of wastepaper. Before long, they had been reduced to the size of a pebble, floating in the air at first, then falling heavily to the ground. Given the way the object dug into the pavement with a hard thud, the mass must have remained the same. Shuuma couldn’t even begin to guess what laws of physics had been adjusted this time.

“Let’s go back, Shuuma?” Fevroniya said, tilting her head to one side and glancing at him as though nothing at all was out of the ordinary.

By go back, no doubt she meant the terrace café, not Allekant.

But this was no time for that. Explosions and fires continued to burst up all across the city. He had to figure out what on earth was going on, and naturally, he had plenty of questions for Ernesta.

Yet…right now, he couldn’t refuse her request.

“Ah… All right. I’ll tag along,” he said with a heavy sigh before following after her.

Everything would have wait until Fevroniya’s whim had been fulfilled.

There were no other customers or even staff left in the café—no doubt they had all fled. Returning to their table amid the scattered and upturned chairs, Fevroniya set to consuming what remained of her half-eaten pancakes.

“…If you would have at least entered the Festa, it would make my job as student council president a little easier,” Shuuma grumbled in resignation.

Fevroniya nibbled at her meal, washed it down, then said, “You know I hate fighting, right?”

“Yes, yes, I know,” Shuuma said, his shoulders drooping.

That was why she so rarely participated in official ranked battles. Besides, Methuselah wasn’t willing to let her enter the Festa anyway. They would sooner use her powers to advance their research than let her waste her time on something as trivial as fighting.

Still, he couldn’t help but wonder…

If she had signed up for the tournament, maybe it would have been her in the championship arena today.

The elevator doors opened onto a vast, sprawling space.

It was a hexagonal field, perhaps modeled on the Festa stage. A pillar stood at every corner, each of which housed an elevator.

No sooner had Ayato and Saya stepped out onto the field—the site of the illegal Eclipse tournament—than a voice called out to them from the darkness.

“Well, well, well. So we have a pair of uninvited guests.”

Far across the field, perched atop the wreckage of a collapsed pillar, sat a man, fixing them both with a faint smile. The figure, his face behind a mask, garbed in the white battle jacket used by Eclipse fighters, spread his arms wide as he rose to his feet.

“But now that you’re here, welcome, Ayato Amagiri, Saya Sasamiya! I was just thinking how it would feel a little lonely to watch this city’s demise all by myself.”

“…Madiath Mesa,” Ayato murmured through clenched teeth.

The head of the Festa Executive Committee and one-time champion of the Phoenix.

A regular fighter at the Eclipse under the guise of his alias Lamina Mortis, and the user of the Orga Lux the Raksha-Nada.

The one who had tormented Ayato’s older sister Haruka, his own biological daughter.

And, right now, he was also the leader of the Golden Bough Alliance, intent on destroying Asterisk and as a result, inflicting unimaginable pain on Ayato’s dear partner Julis.

“…We’re here to stop you,” Ayato said, activating the Ser Veresta.

“Hmm… A little impatient, aren’t we? How about we enjoy the entertainment first? I’m sure you want to see how your little scheme plays out, no?”

With a snap of his fingers, Madiath summoned up enough air-windows to fill the field, more than Ayato could possibly count.

And displayed on those screens—

“Kirin…! And Sylvia and Claudia…!”

In the air-window Saya pointed to, Kirin could be seen engaging in combat with Percival, while Claudia was likewise in the midst of battle against the Varda-Vaos.

Not only that, others showed Stjarnagarm officers confronting huge swathes of Valiants, busy destroying facilities all throughout the city.

“These are all real-time images from our Valiant units. Oh, there’s no need to worry. The puppets’ job is just to destroy any escape routes and distract the city guard.”

In any event, it looked like Claudia’s group had successfully reached the Varda-Vaos.

Thank goodness… At least the first step was a success.

All that remained was to trust them to finish the job.

“…Oh? Is that Minato Wakamiya alongside Miss Enfield?” Madiath said as he watched the video, surprise evident in his voice.

“Minato…?”

When had they found time to call her?

But there could be no mistaking it—that was Minato fighting by Claudia’s side.

“Well, I suppose she has the right. As far as I’m concerned, she can do as she wishes.”

“The right…? So it’s true! You were behind the accident that killed her father!” Ayato cried furiously.

Minato had lost her father when an experimental rocket engine that he was working on had supposedly malfunctioned and exploded. Ayato had long suspected that the Golden Bough Alliance was involved, but to hear Madiath practically admit to it…

“Yes, we needed the rocket engine. Desperately,” Madiath said with a shake of his head. “It was Varda’s sole decision to stage the accident… But I do believe her actions were regrettable.”

“How dare you…?!”

Madiath’s words had been totally devoid of emotion.

Fresh anger welled up in the pit of Ayato’s stomach. To have such utter disregard for human life…

“I never expected you to get this far at this point in the game. It’s reckless, this plan of yours, but it’s considered, too. It’s true we can’t contact Miss Orphelia right now… But let’s just see how long she can keep that up.”

Madiath turned his gaze to another air-window, one that showed Julis in the heat of battle against Orphelia.

It was a live feed of the championship match.

The two contestants were throwing everything they had against each other, letting loose with their abilities.

“Julis will be fine. All we have to do is finish here before she finishes there.”

“Ayato’s right. We won’t let you get away with this,” Saya added, activating her Helnekraum and pointing the muzzle straight at Madiath.

“I see. So you’ve both come for me, while Miss Enfield and her companions are going for Varda. But you do realize we have a third comrade? Unfortunately, we don’t have any Valiants with him, so I don’t have any footage, but I wonder how things are going on his end?”

“That’s…”

Right.

There were three ringleaders behind the Golden Bough Alliance—Madiath Mesa, the Varda-Vaos, and Dirk Eberwein. Even if Ayato and Saya managed to defeat Madiath and Claudia’s team was able to take out the Varda-Vaos, so long as Dirk remained, there could be no stopping Orphelia.

Eishirou was supposed to be on the Tyrant’s trail, and yet…

“Ha-ha, you’re a bad liar. The truth is written right there on your face.” Madiath chuckled as he looked Ayato over. “This is good timing. Let’s call him and see how he’s doing.”

With those words, he pulled his mobile from his pocket and opened a new air-window.

“…Tch! We were just getting to the interesting part! What now? This had better be important.” The surly red-haired youth on the other end of the line clicked his tongue in annoyance.

“Oh, it’s certainly important,” Madiath answered with a theatrical wave of his hand. “Varda and I have been visited by unexpected guests. I was worried about you, my friend.”

“Ah, I get it. Sounds like you’ve got a bit of mess on your hands. But don’t worry. Nothing out of the ordinary over here.”

“Excellent. So everything is proceeding according to plan?”

“It will,” Dirk answered blithely, before shifting his hate-filled gaze. “Yo, Ayato Amagiri. Your buddy Yabuki was sniffing around… Sorry, but he ain’t found me.”

“Ngh…!”

Ayato couldn’t tell whether Claudia’s plan had somehow been leaked or whether Dirk had hidden himself exceptionally well, but if Eishirou couldn’t find him, it would have been hopeless even if Ayato and the others had helped.

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Saya said. “I don’t trust Yabuki as a person, but I have confidence in his skills. He’ll find you before time runs out.”

“Ha! You don’t even have your head on straight, do you?” Dirk shot back condescendingly. “Where exactly do you think I am? An airship. Up in the sky. No matter what you do, it’s impossible for you lot to get to me here.”

Up in the sky…?!

That would make it difficult for Eishirou to track him down.

It might be possible, but in the limited time they had left…

“Wonderful. You seem to be doing remarkably well. I’m envious,” Madiath interrupted, applauding theatrically. “By the way, I do have one question.”

“Huh? And what’s that?”

“Why did you betray us when we’re so close to fulfilling our goals?”

“…!”

In contrast to Madiath’s perilous words, his tone of voice was light, his smile unwavering.

“Hmph. So you caught on?” For his part, Dirk didn’t seem fazed in the least, admitting to the accusation without hesitation.

“Of course. All our information told us their group had no idea of our true purpose or whereabouts. For them to have acted so aggressively over the past twelve hours, it’s only natural to suspect a leak. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Just so you know, I didn’t give them squat about Orphelia. She probably gave that up herself. All I did was offer them a couple of hints about where to find you and Varda,” Dirk said unapologetically.

“…What does that mean?” Saya said, staring at Madiath and Dirk, eyebrows raised in suspicion.

It was only thanks to the information that Dirk had provided Eishirou that Ayato and the others had been able to locate Madiath and the Varda-Vaos, and even after confirming its accuracy, he hadn’t been able to shake the suspicion that it was all a trap. But it seemed like the members of the Golden Bough Alliance really were turning against themselves.

“I thought all three of us were in consensus when it came to the implementation of the plan, even if we each had different agendas. For you to try to upend it all at this critical juncture… I find it difficult to comprehend,” Madiath said, sighing deeply as his shoulders slumped.

“Difficult to comprehend? Yeah, I guess it is. If you had ever bothered to understand even the first thing about me, you would’ve known I’d do this. Come on, as far as you’re concerned, Varda and I are no different from the rest of them, are we? To you, we’re all equally worthless.” Dirk’s voice lowered even further, his frustration emanating through the air-window.

And it wasn’t just frustration. Ayato could clearly feel the black depths of his hatred, his disgust, his resentment, his anger, and a swathe of other negative emotions swirling around him.

“Listen up, Madiath Mesa. Yeah, I hate this screwed up world. So I teamed up with you and Varda to destroy it. To force all the winners, those worthless integrated enterprise foundations included, to crawl down in the filth with the rest of us.”

To destroy the world.

So that was the goal of this young man, the famed Tyrant. Ayato was immediately convinced of the veracity of his words.

This, he felt, was the true Dirk Eberwein.

“But I hate you just as much as these guys do. You cling to the past, wallowing in your pathetic delusions and your pointless anger. I don’t much like Varda either, what with how she’s always looking down her nose on our world, chasing after her stupid fantasies. Or Orphelia, running away from her own damn responsibility. Or Percival, letting her natural talents rot. Or you, Ayato Amagiri. You’re an eyesore and a goddamn pain in the ass.”

Dirk’s outburst wasn’t emotional, but neither was he speaking calmly or matter-of-factly—rather, this tirade was delivered deliberately, with a deep, dark passion.

“If I had kept silent, nothing would have stopped us from winning. A complete and total victory… But I can’t just sit by and let someone I hate win. And that goes for everyone, myself included. I hate myself just as much as the rest of you. I make myself sick. So I thought I’d stir things up a little. But don’t feel bad. If things keep going like they are, the plan will still work out, even if it’s not exactly how you intended. You might not get everything you wanted, but neither will they. Both sides will lose. Yeah, you heard me. We’ll all lose. You, me, Varda, Ayato Amagiri, the integrated enterprise foundations, everyone in this whole shitty world. We’ll all wind up in a nasty, miserable place, stuck dragging each other down, none of us ever winning.”

Then, in the softest of murmurs, Dirk finished, “And that’ll make me feel just a little better about it all.”