Chapter - 4

Stella's loud and beautiful voice reverberated through the assembly hall that had lost its enthusiasm. Naturally, it also entered Shizuku's ears. This voice, from a rival in love she knew well, hit her earlobes giving a cry that sincerely wished for Shizuku's victory. To that cry, Shizuku clenched her fist hard enough to block the bleeding.

I'm not exactly happy about being cheered on by someone like you!

Raising her eyebrows, Shizuku pretended to be tough. Feeling it inside her heart, in order to ignore a terribly itchy difficultly-shaped emotion. If she accepted that, it would give a mood of having a permanent change to the relationship between that girl and herself.

But however much she ignored it, Stella's voice had certainly shifted a feeling in Shizuku's heart. That was the competitive spirit.

Stella-san will definitely go to the Seven Stars Sword-Art Festival.

She was simply the one A-Rank knight in Hagun. Right now she was someone higher ranked than Shizuku, and Raikiri who Shizuku was confronting. She didn't think it would be likely that Stella would stumble during selections. Furthermore, Ikki who took a victory over that Stella would probably advance again, into the national stage. Shizuku understood her brother's strength more than anyone. For that reason, she had no doubts about this truth.

Therefore―she couldn't be the only one to lose here.

I'll also win, and advance. With Onii-sama, with everyone together, to the Seven Stars Sword-Art Festival―!

The moment she became aware of that, the fighting spirit of Shizuku who had lost strength out of hopeless inferiority surged upward. While healing her wounded body, she held her head high and glared at the enemy before her eyes.

「Oh, contender Kurogane who has been one-sidedly defending hasn't given up the fight! She's given her body some healing, and has taken a stance to keep on going! Could it be she has found some way to win!?」

She hadn't found any such thing. But she had found determination.

…Touka's approach, she couldn't follow it. What kind of mechanism it was, Shizuku didn't understand it, but she realized enough that she already detested only that. In that case―she couldn't keep defending. More than the fact that she couldn't see her opponent's moves, the tactic of spraining the first step with long range was failing. Huddling up at a distance would only make the situation worse and worse. Therefore, reserving herself for survival would naturally only distract her offensive.

Her opponent was Raikiri. Hagun's highest knight who held an invincible single slash in close range. But if there was no other way to take the victory―

I'll capture it! That invincible close range!

Shizuku prepared herself that way, and put her strength into her grasp on Yoishigure. But knowing nothing about that determination, Touka ruthlessly, mercilessly, again penetrated the thin space of Shizuku's consciousness with Trackless Step―

In that instant, Shizuku moved! She stabbed Yoishigure into the frozen ground, and yelled out.

"Byakuya Kekkai!!!"

Together with the words of that incantation, the ice of the Frozen Field changed from solid to vapor in an instant, and became a smokescreen-like deep white mist that swallowed the entire field!

Shizuku had changed her way of thinking. If one couldn't see in this direction anyway, it'd be fine to make everything invisible. Therefore in the face of the Joules of heat, the Frozen Field that wasn't serving its function was already vaporized, dispersing as a thick fog that one couldn't even see a meter into.

In the middle of this magic mist, the only one who could move freely was its practitioner Shizuku. Without being able to see, this mist was the same as a part of Shizuku's body. What was there? Who was there? She could feel all of it. And that perception had undoubtedly captured the position of Touka who had been brought to a standstill and lacked a technique to establish the middle of the fog.

Shizuku immediately circled around Touka's back.

"Hisuijin."

Acting with the voice, the water in the atmosphere gathered on Yoishigure's edge, and soon took the form of a large Japanese sword. That was a blade of high-pressure circulating water current(s). That was to say, it had the strength of water that wears through stone drip by drip. If it was with a high-pressure current, water could change into a tool that can cut apart even metal like butter. In the first place, for the entire Earth, it could be said that water had sculpted its shape. There was nothing on its surface that hadn't been cut apart by water. Shizuku, with outstanding Magic Control, had compressed that power of Mother Nature into the shape of her blade―

Let's do it―!"

And broke into a run toward Touka. Was it a reckless suicidal attack? No, she had a conviction of victory in her heart. The overhead surprise attack from the beginning, she didn't understand the reason that had been seen through. However, using Narukami to try to deal with Hisuijin the same way as that time, it would be impossible. Why? However much one possessed a famous sword or cutting power, water was fluid. Narukami, which had a solid form, could not stop such a blow. Hisuijin would pass through Narukami that came to block it, and cut down Touka's body.

Shizuku could see that vision. For that reason, she charged into Raikiri's distance with conviction held in her heart, and―

"Eh…."

In that moment, Shizuku saw it. Within the mist. With a pair of eyes trained on Shizuku who couldn't possibly be perceived, it was the sight of Touka's form that had taken a stance to quick-draw her sword. A visible flash of lightning violently moved at the black scabbard where Narukami had been restored.

She knew. Shizuku saw and remembered the image many times over. This technique that releases a blinding light. That was a trump card that cuts through all resistance in a single flash―!

"―Raikiri."

Spraying plasma, burning the world to white. An overwhelming heat released in an instant.

Shizuku, who initiated the clash, couldn't stop. She was swinging Hisuijin downward with her full strength. Raikiri who had released her power, with only that speed, erased that sword of circulating current in an instant.

As if everything up to now had been like that. Shizuku Kurogane's wish―had been cut down with one stroke.

Part 8[]

The moment that Raikiri, who was clad in plasma, followed through, a blade that transcended the speed of sound blasted through the surrounding atmosphere. The same windstorm that burst open swept over Toudou, and blew apart Byakuya Kekkai's mist. That aftermath reached even the audience seats, and grated the cracked assembly hall. The force of the atmosphere was already to the point people couldn't even stay up.

But in the middle of it, Ikki didn't close his eyes even one time. Within the raging windstorm, staring down on the ring beneath his eyes―to the end, without averting his gaze, …he saw Shizuku Kurogane's fallen form with his own eyes.

「A flash of lightning! A blade descended! At the same time, the referee has cross his arms! The match is over!!! Contender Kurogane has shown us a brave fight but even so the obstacle of last year's best four was insurmountable! The one who conquered the life-and-death struggle with a fellow B-Rank is our student council president, 'Raikiri' Touka Toudou!!!」

The live broadcaster announced the winner's name, and lowered the curtain on the match.

Putting up a good fight―certainly the offense and defense in the beginning far transcended the level of students. However, the natural contents of the match was probably Shizuku's complete defeat. Because however it happened, she was never going to be able to touch Touka.

But―even so….

"Hey, Ikki."

"I get it, Alice. I was watching properly."

Answering Arisuin's voice that way, Ikki stared at a speck in the ring. What he was staring at was the right hand of the fallen Shizuku.

That right hand was gripping Raikiri's leg.

Right, it was certainly a complete defeat. However―

"She was splendid. Shizuku."

It was probably Shizuku herself that felt more than anyone the difference between her power and that of another. Despite that, she didn't concede to the end, and continued to fight.

…She's gotten stronger, huh?

That small girl, who always followed him with tiny steps―around this time today, there was no instant of Ikki not feeling four years worth of progress. And―

Ikki stared at the back on which chestnut-colored hair waved and was leaving the ring.

…As I thought, she's strong.

At that time, Shizuku had definitely not made a reckless suicidal challenge. The Byakuya Kekkai that snatched away her opponent's field of vision. In the middle of the Noble Art that Shizuku possessed, the strongest cutting ability that she boasted of, Hisuijin. She, by means of her entire strength, seriously carried out a strategy against Raikiri. She probably could see the vision of her own victory. But to seize it, she cut forth head-on. How much did she try her best, even thinking about the highest one effort, the existence that heads toward that distant higher hypothesis.

Ikki, who fought the "Sword Eater" Kuraudo Kurashiki, knew this. The extent that the people who resided at the top of the Seven Stars, not a single one of the people who resided at that domain was ordinary. They were superhumans who surpassed common measurements.

For that reason, Ikki thought―how much effort would it take to ascend to that summit?

Touka Toudou, Raikiri…. It looks like I'll definitely cross swords with her, huh?