Chapter 50 - 'Decisive Battle on the Ice'

—The six-colored light that had pierced heaven and earth slowly unraveled and faded away.

Color seeped back into the sky that had faded to ashen white, as if it had forgotten its true hue, and before long the firmament seemed to remember why it had once been called blue, turning pale and clear.

“——”

Before that sight, Roswaal saw tears spill from Ezzo’s eyes beside him. Whether they were joy or frustration, either way it was only natural to be moved to tears. Even if it had taken the two of them together, Roswaal and Ezzo had accomplished a feat that would be inscribed in the history of magic for the first time.

Limit-pushing control of magic divided between four colors and two, the construction of a flawless formula that allowed not a hair’s-breadth of slack, and an ultimate harmony that would fail if off by even a heartbeat—that surpassed the Divine Dragon’s aura. Ultra magic that could not have been realized had either Roswaal’s training or Ezzo’s exploration been lacking. However—

“Someday, I will construct this formula all by myself…!”

Even as tears flowed without end, Ezzo boasted that, and Roswaal smiled at the sight. It wasn’t exasperation or sarcasm. —Yes, that is exactly what a mage is. With magic, image is everything. If you can picture it, magic can do anything.

“Right, Sensei.”

As Roswaal murmured that, his body pitched, about to collapse to the ground. Ezzo instinctively reached out to catch him, but sadly, being the more depleted of the two, he was the one who stumbled first. Roswaal kept falling, about to topple right onto Ezzo and crush him—

—“I made it in time. Good news.”

At the last moment, that cool voice and a strong arm saved both Roswaal from falling and Ezzo from being crushed beneath him.

“——”

Looking at Clind, who was supporting him, Roswaal exhaled. The all-purpose steward who had flown beyond the sky in the midst of battle and even shattered a star before returning. At some point he had set his monocle back on his face, and the black horn on his head had retracted—his normal state. However, he hadn’t restored his habitual immaculate grooming; his clothes were disheveled, a rare sight.

“Even so, to come out almost unscathed aside from your butler uniform—dragonkin are kind of a cheat, are—n’t they?”

“My lord, with apologies, a correction. It is not because one is dragonkin; it is only that I, the Divine Dragon’s dragonkin, am exceptional. Assertion.”

“…So you are bragging after all, huh? Thanks to the vessel you’re using, look at the state we’re in over here, you know?”

“Don’t point at me! My back—no, my whole body’s gone limp; I just can’t stand!”

Still pitched forward from his fall and unable to get up, Ezzo groused like that. Clind merely shrugged as if to express his regret—honestly, what a character.

“You’ve changed. You used to be more the transcendent type—detached and enlightened.”

“In that case, allow me to return the very same words. Returned. —Weren’t you yourself supposed to devote yourself to being a clever, underhanded, and thoroughly ordinary mage? Confirmation.”

Clind narrowed his eyes behind his monocle and pegged Roswaal’s thinking exactly. That had indeed been his intention. And yet Roswaal could not do it. In the end he stood up and did something reckless he had never even imagined. But that was because—

“I only realized something, that’s all. …That in all these days up to now, I haven’t been walking alone—”

“——”

At that answer from Roswaal, Clind fell silent. For some reason, so did Ezzo.

“Calling it ‘for some reason’ is a bit too coy, I su—ppose.”

Clind, who had known him a long time, of course—and even Ezzo, in the instant before they fired the ultra magic, had come to the verge of their minds blending. The feelings and prayers Roswaal had held there were not something he could have hidden from them.

“Come to think of it, I’m used to that sort of consciousness-merging, so I can manage, but how are you all right, Ezzo? Ordinarily, it would drive you mad, rii—ght?”

“Don’t toss off something so terrifying so casually! …It’s probably thanks to the Book of the Dead.”

“The Book of the Dead at the Pleiades Watchtower?”

“That’s right. While we were on standby at the Watchtower I read more than ten volumes of the Book of the Dead, and to do that I had to learn the technique of emptying my mind…”

“I see; so this is what a mage is. Understood.”

Roswaal felt as though Clind had arrived at a somewhat rude conclusion, but he did not press the point here. In any case, he did not find anything odd about what Ezzo had done. Be that as it may, what should take priority now is—

“My lord, we have certainly fulfilled the duty entrusted to us. Accomplished. However…”

“Ah, I kno—ow.”

Picking up where Clind left off mid-sentence, Roswaal quietly let out a breath and looked into the distance. Clind and Ezzo down on the ground turned their eyes the same way—beyond the horizon, to what lay past it. Past the rocky wilds whose environment had changed beyond recognition in the battle with the Divine Dragon, and farther still, lay the final destination of Aldebaran’s crew—

—Mogoredo Great Vent.

What flashed through Roswaal’s mind as he murmured was the last exchange between sorcery and dragon that tore heaven and earth apart. Having seen the dragonkin rise skyward to intercept the falling star, the Divine Dragon weighed two choices on the scales: eliminating the two mages who were weaving ultra magic, or carrying out its own appointed role.

The conceit that it could surely win did not exist in the Divine Dragon in that moment—not even a fragment of it.

Therefore, the Dragon, following the conviction of the persona dwelling in its dragon shell, chose one of the two—and with the breath it released, took aim at the gigantic hole in the earth far from the battlefield.

Why Aldebaran’s crew set their sights on that place is unknown. But there is no way the Divine Dragon’s action is unrelated to their objective, and, prepared to be slain itself, the Divine Dragon prioritized striking the hole with its breath.

What that will mean will surely be borne out from here on. And then—

—we’ll see whether what you’ve cultivated can outstrip your opponent, Subaru-kun.

△▼△▼△▼△

—An irregular.

Rem recognizes that as the role expected of her, the duty she must fulfill. Using the out-of-scale authority called Time Reversal, Al has broken through every obstacle that has stood in his way to this point—the thing needed to stop him is an irregular.

“Certainly, that helmeted bastard’s authority is a fearsome piece of work. By and large, even in all I know, I’ve seldom come across a power so far beyond reason. But no matter how strong the power, the one who has to master it is still a human.”

“Shove countless unforeseen turns onto him and keep forcing the helmeted bastard to use that authority. There’s a limit to how far back he can rewind. Pile them on, pile them on, smother him with them.”

“If you wear down his reserves, the helmeted bastard will make an irreparable blunder. That’s how you seize a chance at victory against him.”

So went the proposal of Old Man Rom, who once drove Al to within a single step of defeat. The tactically minded—Ram, Roswaal, Clind—did not object to his counsel. Thus Rem puts her faith in it without hesitation. What they ought to hurl at Al are so many unforeseen twists that he cries uncle. And if what’s demanded is a contest of endurance, Rem is hardly one to be underestimated. Because—

—I’ve been watching that man up close.

If you ask what her greatest winning chance is, that is Rem’s greatest chance. Fortunate or not, until very recently Rem had been forgotten by everyone. While she was erased from “memory,” her interactions with Al in the Empire were by no means many; before that, if you speak of her dealings with him tied to the Royal Selection, even less so. But precisely because of that, Rem’s actions may slip past his expectations. However—

“Yaaah!!”

With a roar, putting her all into it, the spiked iron ball that left Rem’s arm a beat after her full-force swing tore ferociously through the air. Its straight, spinning flight line targeted the red-haired shinobi, Yae Tenzan—the battle, staged in the 5,000‑meter‑deep Agzadd Canyon and continuing even as they fell, had moved to its next stage against this astounding shinobi.

It was a contest of raw ability on ice disks conjured in midair to serve as footholds. Even that was the result of Rem working with Emilia to press an irregular on them, but there was frustration over having been brought into that situation at all. Al and his lot weren’t the only ones to have an irregular shoved in—the same goes for us.

——

With a boom, the blow that rose with a howl while killing the wind was heavy and sharp. No matter what vaunted cutting art you have, a spiked mass of iron will not be deflected even if you bunch slender threads together. That burst straight toward Yae, herself an irregular.

—!

Letting out a small click in her throat at the looming threat, Yae abandoned any counter and cartwheeled. Passing right beside her as she rolled along the ice disk, the iron ball hurtled uselessly through the air—

“Eiya!”

A sharp yet breezy shout met the iron ball along with a crack. It was the crisp sound of Emilia, on the far side past Yae, punting the iron ball coming her way with a foot shod in ice boots. Emilia’s long, slender leg whirled, the iron ball was sent rebounding by sheer force—and went chasing after Yae’s slim frame as she escaped with a cartwheel. Just like that, the iron ball was about to mercilessly sink its teeth into Yae’s flank—

“That won’t be happening.”

Right after she said that, the surface of the ice disk Yae had planted her hands on mid-cartwheel was peeled up by steel threads to wrap around her, becoming a shield that caught the iron ball pursuing her. Of course, it was too thin a shield to completely stop a blow. In half a second it cracked, in half of that it snapped, in half of that again the spikes jutted through to the far side, and at exactly one second it was blown straight through. But for a swift shinobi to set up her next move, that one second was plenty.

"No way!?"

The one who involuntarily screamed was Emilia. But Rem felt the same. In their field of view, Yae, who had escaped the pursuit with an improvised ice shield, planted her bare foot on the fully extended morning star chain with a light hop and sprinted along it in one go. Emilia gaped at the acrobatics and sense of balance; Rem, on top of that, at the footwork that conveyed no weight at all even across the chain—but the surprises kept coming. In time with the swing of Yae’s arm, blades of ice and stone came raining down on the two from overhead.

"These are—"

They were the ice and stone weapons that Emilia and Al had created while fighting twenty seconds earlier and left as they were in midair. Yae yanked them down with steel threads extended toward the sky and repurposed them as a deadly rain.

"Because I didn’t clean them up properly!" "Al-san didn’t clean up either!" "When your master’s bad at tidying up, we both have it rough, don’t we?"

Contrition, cover, and provocation overlapped, and Rem and Emilia were kept busy dealing with the falling blades. Emilia batted them aside with the twin ice swords in her hands, but the one in trouble was Rem. Her right hand was occupied with the morning star, and that very morning star was being used as Yae’s footing, so she couldn’t recklessly reel it back. She had no choice but to defend with her bare left hand alone.

"In time—"

It won’t, she braced herself to take the hit—at that very moment. Someone shoved Rem’s shoulder, and the one who shoved her had their chest pierced by the falling stone sword.

"――――"

Rem’s eyes widened at the selfless leap, and when she saw who had done it, her astonishment deepened. It was a gallant figure, chest pierced yet still mustering a brave thumbs-up to her—

"—Subaru-kun!"

Right before the blurting Rem, the one whose chest had been pierced was an ice doll modeled after Natsuki Subaru. The absurdly detailed ice Natsuki Subaru protected Rem, flashed a valiant smile as if he were the man himself, and toppled over.

"Wha—? Was that Lady Emilia just now?"

"Yes, that’s right. And Subaru isn’t alone!"

Right after she answered the grimacing Yae, six figures burst out from behind Emilia. Each was an ice statue identical in appearance to the Natsuki Subaru that had just fallen. All of them, as if each had a will of its own, in their own distinctive ways wrenched free the weapons that had been knocked away and stuck into the ice disk, and leapt all at once at Yae running along the chain. If even one of those icy fingertips reached her, it would serve as a foothold to corner the nimble Yae—

"Unfortunately for you, fighting multiple opponents is what I’m best at."

In an instant, twenty dancing steel threads ensnared the lunging ice Natsuki Subarus. The threads tightened around their necks, torsos, and limbs, and the six were mercilessly chopped to pieces.

"Subaru—!!" "Subaru-kun!!"

At the pitiable wreckage the ice Natsuki Subaru had become, Rem and Emilia’s screams overlapped. Beyond the shards of the scattered ice statues, Yae kept running along the chain, heading toward Rem below. In a snap decision, Rem let go of the morning star’s handle, depriving Yae of the support for her footing. As the shinobi would then be left to flail her feet in midair, Rem twisted her body wide to drive in a powerful back kick—

"As you’d expect, I’d rather not take an oni’s kick head-on."

As she said it, Yae let her knees drop, compensating for the chain’s sag—that flashed at the edge of Rem’s vision. Lowered at the hips, Yae did not lose balance in midair, and the lethal thread loosed from her fingertips looped toward Rem’s neck. Her head would fly, or she’d be strangled—right before that, beneath Yae’s feet the chain snapped taut, overturning her expectations.

"Wha—"

Eyes bulging, Yae flicked the chain with her toes and leapt of her own accord—credit where it’s due. Her gaze clearly caught what had pulled the morning star’s chain in Rem’s stead. It was the ice Natsuki Subaru who’d first gone down with a stone sword through his chest. Even fallen, the ice Natsuki Subaru hadn’t thrown the fight and saved Rem. Really, this man is always doing reckless things for someone else—

"It’s not even the real one!"

"Even so!"

Rem’s all-out back kick drove straight into the center of Yae’s chest, whose lip had curled.

△▼△▼△▼△

—Irregular.

Yae recognizes that stopping that is the role expected of her, the duty she must fulfill. Her estimation of Al as a capricious, terrifying monster does not change. — But what wears him down and puts a load on him are the irregulars that can be stacked.

"Listen, yeah? I've crossed blades with my betters more times than I can count and come damn close to dying, y'know? The world's nothing but monsters—enough to make you sick. — But in the end, I'm the one still alive, which means there ain't nobody you can't kill."

"If both sides are at full strength, there are gaps you just can't bridge. So we chip away to fill that gap—that's the sneaky craft we've polished bit by bit."

"Rob the other guy of his full strength and the chance to slit a superior foe's throat will come around. — That's our blood-reeking way of getting by."

Those were the words of counsel from the village chief who taught Yae the shinobi way of life and techniques—the "Wicked Old Man." Yae had no objection to the chief’s thinking. Yet she rarely had chances to actually test it. Most opponents were weaker than Yae; even in a straight-up fight she wouldn’t so much as lose. The one who handed her her first defeat was Al, and Yae’s way of being became warped. Now, with this person who makes her whole body bristle with fear just by contact, she wants him gone as soon as possible—even a second sooner. For that to happen, Al has to have his wish, his desire, fulfilled. And so—

"—I don’t want anything that would corner him getting close."

Twisted, warped, thoroughly bent—Yae knew that about herself. But it can’t be helped. Yae likes spicy things and can’t stand sweets. That, too, is an inborn temperament, a lot she cannot change. Born this way, she’ll carry through living this way.

Yae has her own ideal way for her relationship with Al to end. To achieve that, removing the irregulars is the shape of Yae’s distortion. However—

"—!"

Taking the kick from the horned girl called Rem full on, Yae stifled a groan deep in her creaking body and dispersed the impact she had taken into her hands and feet through bodily control. It was a shinobi technique that conveys will even to muscles and organs—a survival art. But even so, it wasn’t damage-free. Pins and needles ran through her extremities.

She hadn’t underestimated the power of the oni. However, for Yae—who can generally gauge an opponent’s ability by their stance and how they move—the oni racial trait of explosively boosting physical ability by absorbing ambient mana through their horn exceeded her expectations. In addition—

"Lady Emilia’s improvisation is way too troublesome~."

Swallowing the bitter pain, Yae muttered while keeping a relaxed expression. In truth, it had hurt quite a bit, but she could not let them realize that. A shinobi doesn’t let the opponent gather information; and if they do, it’s false information meant to steer them. Given how solidly that blow had landed, Rem—and Emilia, who had seen it—would judge that Yae had taken considerable damage. All the more if Yae looked unfazed, human nature would make them hesitate to follow up.

"Lady Emilia!" "Yes! I’ll follow up!"

Only, that holds if the opponents are proper combat sophisticates. After landing a hit, paying no heed to the calm face she put on, the two shadows chased hard after Yae as she was blown away. It isn’t that they’re thoughtless. They’re desperate, earnest. And that, right now, is what gives her the most trouble.

"In that case, I’ll counter with my nasty hand-and-foot tricks!"

To counter, Yae spread the toes of both feet wide and, together with her hands, manipulated twenty strands of steel thread. The many blades stuck into the ice disk that served as their footing—those made of ice and stone—she ensnared with the threads and set dancing, and met Rem and Emilia, who were poised to pursue, head-on.

In time with her deft fingerwork, the blades whirling as they sliced the air and the invisible, soundless steel threads formed a twin assault of heavy and light, and rending winds that threw off her opponents’ timing raged across the ice. If they tracked the blades with their eyes, their hands and feet would be caught by the threads and they’d lose combat capability. Al had ordered her not to kill, but even if she lopped off a finger or two—or all four limbs—so long as they lived, she could claim she had met the demand. Thinking so, Yae let her killing edge surge. However—

"Haaaaa!!" "Hyah! Tei! Tah!"

The parries of Rem, who roared, and Emilia, who raged, swept away every one of Yae’s attacks. A combo play: Rem took the blades, Emilia took the steel threads. Rem shortened the chain of her cherished iron ball by wrapping it around her arm to make an improvised gauntlet, and Emilia transformed her twin swords into a huge halberd; without exchanging words, with sure-handed coordination they completely warded off her assault.

"How…?"

To ward off blades you can see, skill suffices, but to defend against invisible steel threads, you need something to go on. Yae, questioning that basis, catches in her vision the faint whitening of her breath and realizes—there’s a cold that pricks the skin beyond even the fall from extreme altitude and the expanse of ice beneath them.

「――っ、Ice Mist」

Minuscule ice particles flicker through her view, and their glints trace out the paths of the steel threads. Yae feels a quiet amazement at the way Emilia saw through the invisible steel threads, and at the instinct that let her make it work. And she recognizes the possibility that things could get even worse.

「――Icicle Line」

In that instant, in time with the woven chant, the air begins to let out a shrill scream. The ice grains that made up the Ice Mist link to their neighbors, and the cold that dyes the world white bares even more savage fangs. The first prey will be the steel threads, inferior in mass. The very advantages of the steel threads—their lightness and thinness—are crushed by the freezing world. Steel threads can cut the wind, but they cannot cut a blizzard. —Therefore, the decision came immediately.

Yae kisses the ring on her finger, and in that split second, flame runs along the steel threads, blossoming into blasts upon the ice. A heatwave that pushes back even the freezing, rending gales; it strips the steel threads of their strength of being 『invisible』, but in return cloaks them with power that won’t lose to the cold even within the Ice Mist.

「Please accompany me in a flame dance!」

She whips the flame-clad steel threads, unleashing searing thread-strikes as the dance of 『Crimson Sakura』 is performed. Against that blazing performance that brilliantly lights the ravine, two figures trailing crisp ice and snow—no, with seven ice statues added, nine shadows—come diving in.

「We’ll take you up on that!」 「Sorry if I step on your toes!」

On the ice, into the reach of Yae, who is birthing a vortex of infernal flames, Emilia slides in with twin ice swords in hand. In ice boots fitted with blades she skates across the floe, tracing circular arcs, and, matching this flame dance, launches attacks that are gently curving yet keen and never to be underestimated. Alongside Emilia’s offense, which swings between slow and fast to the utmost, Rem, in scrum with the ice figures, charges straight in—a choice that is both direct and overwhelming—

「Aaaahhhh—!!」

Letting out a beastlike roar, Rem, hands empty, drums those white knuckles in a flurry. A barrage—that is the fitting name for the number of blows—pours down like a storm, and Yae twists, crouches, bends back, steps over and ducks under in turn, slipping past by the linked movements of her dance.

「If it’s just bare-handed brawling, you’ll never catch up—I can keep this up forever.」

Even with an oni’s physical prowess, if limbs extend from a torso, the flow of force traveling through the muscles is plain to see, and Yae’s eyes won’t miss it. Rem’s ogre-blooded strength is astonishing, but it does not, like the Sword Devil’s, outstrip Yae’s reaction speed. By that logic, the seven ice effigies that, in the gaps between Emilia and Rem’s attacks, throw in checks with motions anatomically inexplicable are the irregulars that betray Yae’s expectations. At this pace, just as declared, Yae could keep handling the two of them forever—

「—No.」

On the verge of drifting into the easy choice, Yae puts a stop to herself. This battlefield was chosen by the enemy. Letting them do as they please would be just what they want. To block the irregulars, she too must become the opponent’s irregular. For the time being—

「This platform—」

The ice disc that Emilia and Rem created together, separating Yae from Al. As it is bathed in wind it loses its transparency and clouds white, and beyond the fogged ice Al’s figure is hazy. Deciding this footing is no good, Yae parries Rem’s flurry, slips past Emilia’s attack from behind, uses one of the ice effigies coming in for a tackle as a springboard, and bounds into the air. Then she fires the steel threads from hands and feet toward every side of the disc, pours her whole strength in, and adds a twist to her entire body. The result—

「I’ll change the situation. Was this within your calculations as well?」

In response to Yae’s all-out effort, the battlefield upon the ice disc changes—the disc spins like a top, and immense centrifugal force seizes everyone on the ice. The battle shifts to the next stage.

△▼△▼△▼△

――『irregular』。

It means something unforeseen, and Emilia steels herself that piling them up is their weapon right now. When she’s startled out of the blue, Emilia can’t immediately begin her next action or thought. The same holds true for Al. He must have thought about all sorts of things and planned this whole affair, but he can’t read all the way into Emilia and the others’ heads. That’s what the 『irregulars』 are for.

『Lia, when you’re in a pinch, you immediately try to just brute-force your way through anything, right? When that doesn’t work, that’s when you first start worrying about what you should do… but stopping your feet there isn’t like you, and I don’t think it suits you.』

"My cute daughter has the power to just bam—shove aside any problem. So don’t just try once; keep stacking up attempts and do your best, okay?"

"Don’t worry; when the moment comes, Lia’s own body will naturally teach her what she needs. Lia is my pride and joy—she inherited the strongest genes."

Yes—words Puck once told her resurface gently in Emilia’s mind. Lately, the ones she recalls with reassuring warmth are always Subaru’s, but now that she knows Subaru is in danger, it is, after all, Puck’s teaching that comes first to encourage her. Their attack on Al, undertaken together with Rem, is mired in hardship thanks to Yae cutting in—already they’ve passed two more of the marks carved into the cliff, and there are only about thirty seconds left until they reach the bottom. She feels an intense urge to panic. But she must not let it win. She isn’t very good at it, but she has to push this pressure onto Al’s side. To stop Al—no, to talk with him properly, this time for real. Because—

"—There’s no way Priscilla would ever want something like this."

Emilia also knows that saying this is cruel to Al. Even now, when she thinks of Priscilla and speaks her name, her chest aches and her eyes threaten to moisten—she feels it too. She wants to let Al spit those feelings out. Emilia owes Al for having saved her before; even putting that aside, she wants to be his strength. Not merely because they share the same pain, but as something else—an instinctive feeling—Emilia wants to save him. And so—

"—Subaru!"

With a roar, heat-laden wind whirls into a vortex, and the ice disk centered on Yae begins to spin. On the rapidly spinning disk—like a plate on a stick—the Subaru-shaped ice soldiers can’t withstand the added centrifugal force; they lose their footing and go flying. Some are hurled off the disk helplessly; the unlucky ones smash against the canyon wall and shatter. But before that happened, when the rotation nearly took her legs out from under her, they grabbed Emilia’s hand and kept her from falling—she won’t forget that they saved her.

"Rem—"

Skating over the spinning ice disk in her ice skates, Emilia searches her field of view for Rem, who should be in the same predicament. Surely she hasn’t been thrown off like the ice soldiers— Just as Emilia’s worry peaks, a thunderous roar and an especially large plume of flame burst up before her eyes.

The collision happens at the center of the disk, where Rem and Yae crash together, and the flames billow higher. Rem reclaims the iron ball she’d sent into the air and brings it down in a swing; Yae deftly diverts that descending blow, using the tension of bundled threads to absorb it. As a result, Rem’s wide swing stalls—and into that opening Yae’s toe drives straight in.

"Gah"

Letting out a pained grunt, Rem is knocked away, tumbling across the ice disk toward the rim. With the disk’s rotation and Yae’s kicking power, there’s no way to stop Rem’s sliding body. This is bad, Emilia thinks, and considers leaping to grab her—

"—No looking away."

The instant she kicks off the ice, a warning from Yae shoots in like a stab. A strike from the stone‑dragon blade ensnared in burning steel threads, followed by a delayed thread lash—the two‑stage assault demands two phases of evasion across a wide area. Emilia starts to think—then abandons it, recalling the words of Subaru and Puck, those two she can rely on.

Trusting her senses over thought, Emilia flew beneath the battered Rem—literally flew to her, beating her wings.

"Wha—"

Yae’s eyes widen, stupefied by the astonishing sight. It’s the first time she’s shown such a gaping opening, but unfortunately, Emilia in that moment has no attention to spare for it. She simply streaks straight to Rem, catches her before she can be flung off the disk, and climbs.

—Emilia, bearing wings wrought of ice upon her back.

"Th-thank you, Lady Emilia… these wings?"

"Subaru drew it for me before—an angel, he said, with wings growing from the back. He’d mention it now and then, and when I tried it, I could do it!"

Answering Rem’s question as she scoops her up, Emilia’s cheeks soften into a smile. Of course, they’re only imitation wings that mimic the shape. She can’t flap them like a real bird; at best she can catch the wind and glide. Even that only works under circumstances as special as these—a very rare magical success. Subaru would probably be delighted if she showed him, but for that she’d need him to fall alongside her for something like five thousand meters. And for that—

"Lady Emilia! Let’s pay them back!"

"Right!"

Within Emilia’s arms as she spread her ice wings, she nodded back to Rem’s valiant voice. At the words pay it back, what flashed through her head—she instinctively believed it was the same as Rem’s, and together with her she dropped straight down toward the ice disk. There she shed the wings, and Emilia and Rem, cast into the air, spun midair—at the same time, their two heels came crashing down and forced the horizontally spinning ice disk into a hard vertical spin.

「――――」

As payback for having the ice disk spun sideways, they spun it vertically. It was very simple, but a zany counter one person alone could never have done, and Yae, left on top of the disk, had to have been thunderstruck. Up became down and then back again, only to flip once more in an instant—reverse, then right side up, then reverse and right side up again, over and over, tossing everything about. And on top of that—,

「The horizontal spin is still there too！」

As a result, the ice disk whirling every which way in both vertical and horizontal axes turned into a random battlefield that drew not a single predictable trajectory. It was like the rickety, wobbling 『attraction』 in the training ground Subaru and Garfiel built behind the Roswaal Manor. And with that thought, Emilia was able to race through the ice disk’s 『attraction』.

「Ya! Ta! To… soya!」

Changing the direction of the crushing weight with ferocious speed several times in a single second, Emilia relied solely on the sensations in the soles of her shoes, accepted it, and used the rebound to leap forward. She was relieved just to be able to run somehow. On the other hand, she worried about whether Rem would be okay.

「There is no need for concern！」

Answering thus, Rem drove her morning star into the ice disk, used it as a pivot, and reeled herself in along the chain in one go, aiming for the center. Her speed fell short of Emilia’s, but in terms of certainty she was far more stable. If anything, Emilia was the one who had better be careful not to slip.

「That girl…」

On the ice disk thrown into chaos vertically and horizontally—or beneath it—struggling not to be flung off, Emilia searched for the figure of Yae she ought to be chasing, her violet eyes blinking. There. Yae was as before, at the very center where the disk’s centrifugal force was weakest in both vertical and horizontal axes. Even so, she should still have been being swung about, Emilia thought as she stretched her loaded legs to spring—and realized.

「――――」

Yae had crouched on the disk with her knees tucked in, and she was not being tossed by the platform’s rotation. The reason was obvious—she had cut out the very center of the ice disk with steel threads, creating a safe zone there alone that was unaffected by the rotation, and was lying in wait for Emilia and the others.

――In that instant, the steel threads, bearing flame, were bundled together, and an extra-thick, burning silver flash cleaved across her vision.

△▼△▼△▼△

――A burning, crimson silver flash.

Had there been someone looking down on it from above, and had they possessed knowledge of the technique, they would have realized that what Yae Tenzan unleashed was iaijutsu performed with steel threads. No one would ever imagine that something so thin and formless could take the shape of iaijutsu. What’s more, steel-thread art is a phantom craft that, even across the long, long history of the shinobi, not even the basics can be trod by any but a handful of geniuses. That sure-kill, polished to still greater heights by the 『Crimson Sakura』 who possesses the greatest shinobi talent in history—this was a fact known to no one, Aldebaran included. Therefore—,

「――――」

――Therefore, the fact that Rem managed to block the fiery silver flash could only be called a miracle.

「――Priscilla-san」

The name her lips spun was that of the woman who bears one of the reasons Rem could stand and make it this far. And just now, she was the benefactor who had left the sign Rem needed to snatch her life back.

――She felt it. The clear killing intent of Yae that, until now, she had never once been made to feel.

Human emotions dwell in mana. Those who are gifted at sensing that mana find it easier to perceive others’ feelings. It is even thought that the reason spirits can vaguely read their partner’s thoughts is due to this sense. And Rem, who in her oni transformation was absorbing the surrounding mana through her horn, was picking up—with a keenness many times greater than usual—sensations she normally could not.

「Up until now――」

She couldn’t feel it—no, even if she had felt it, she hadn’t been able to notice it. There are various factors behind why she can feel it now: that she regained herself, that she bears the sense of mission to take Subaru back. But the foremost reason lies elsewhere. Foremost is the influence of the days she once spent together with Priscilla in the Fortress City Guaral.

In a span of time that was by no means long, Priscilla would often toss words at Rem like riddles, giving her chances to face herself more deeply. Back then, with only inadequate healing magic and the frustration at being of no use, Rem tried to trace Priscilla’s words only on the surface, but—

「Only now do I feel like I finally, just a little bit, understand.」

Even now, she cannot say she understands all the answers to the words from back then. She thinks it is a lifelong assignment. And she can no longer check those answers. That is sad. Lonely. Her chest aches.

"—Right now, I want to speak with you, Priscilla-san."

Murmuring that, she closed her eyes. And when she opened them, Rem’s talent as an oni awakened. What she could keenly perceive was the faint hostility, killing intent, and will to attack mixed into the mana—within a space where those seemed to take on color, Rem matched her iron ball to it without a hair’s deviation.

The fiery silver flash rushing in to cleave both herself and Emilia—she slammed her morning star into the spot where a single swing would sweep it aside, turning a sure kill into a nonlethal outcome.

A shrill clang of steel on steel rang out, a fierce shock rebounding into her hands, as Rem’s counter struck Yae’s one-stroke head-on and batted it back.

"——"

She drew in a faint breath at that fact, and even so, a crouching Yae readied the next. She could tell that the countless raging silver flashes would, the instant before they were unleashed, race through the air as killing intent; Rem seized the initiative, driving her iron ball, her chain, her magic along those lines. For several instants layered atop one another—moments that felt almost simultaneous—Yae’s attacks were warded by Rem.

Ah, a breath leaked out in her chest. Ah, this is the vista a true oni sees.—In this moment, more than ten years late, Rem finally managed to hook a fingertip on the edge of the realm that Ram had been born already having reached.

"—Rem!!"

While making the iron ball dance, batting aside the blazing storm of steel threads, Rem heard Emilia call to her. The urgency packed into that voice was not gratitude for being protected, but an appeal announcing a change in the situation—and not for the better. Catching Emilia at the corner of her eye, Emilia, stretching her long legs to stick to the ice disk, sent her gaze roving through the spinning view,

"Al isn’t here! Nowhere!"

"—!"

At Emilia’s desperate cry, Rem too finally registered the fact that Al had vanished from her sight. Al, who should have moved under the ice disk to a position where he could do nothing but spectate their fight, was nowhere in the sky now that their rotation had eliminated what blocked their view. Where—? The instant she thought it, a jolt of realization ran through Rem; she squinted toward the distant sky.

As they fell through Agzadd Canyon, beyond the long, great fissure that split the earth, far away from the falling Rem and the others, she could see a receding silhouette. It was Al—like Emilia earlier, catching the wind in wings on his back—wings made of stone—and gliding at furious speed.

In that instant, what flashed through Rem’s mind was the blow she and Emilia had struck against the ice disk. It had set their footing into vertical spin and shifted the fight with Yae to the next dimension—only for him to exploit it.

"Timed with Lady Emilia and me kicking off the platform—"

At that moment, Al had plastered himself to the back of the ice disk, and by using the momentum of its rotation—born from Rem and Lady Emilia’s kicks—he gained the thrust to vault in one go into the far sky.

"——"

If Al gets away like this, the plan falls apart. They won’t be able to keep piling on irregulars, wear down Al’s reserves, and then arrive at the trump card they must play. That must not happen—so, in an instant, the decision was made, and Rem’s and Emilia’s gazes crossed.

"—Rem"

And Emilia’s will, which should not have been audible, reached Rem through the mana. What an oni’s horn senses is not only signs of hostility. By taking in unwavering trust and expectation as well, it grants Rem boundless strength. She even feels that shouldering those feelings is more of a source of power than taking in mana itself. Yes—because that strength was surely shared with her—

"—I’m going!" "Please return safely!!"

With a full-force blow raised and brought down, she smashed the ice disk, spiking the disk’s vertical spin; catching that momentum, Emilia, who had been plastered to the ice, was shot up into the sky in one go. Wreathed in the glitter of ice, Emilia once more spread ice wings on her back, took the wind and momentum, and, chasing Al as he flew away, soared, soared, soared across the sky of Agzadd Canyon.

And so, leaving the pursuit of Al to the flying Emilia—

"—I won’t let you pursue."

"That’s my line~"

—They pass yet another mark scratched on the rock wall of Agzadd Canyon: twenty seconds to the bottom.

The two maids left on the falling ice disk—Rem and Yae—faced each other. The oni and the shinobi, the Hero's Attendant and the Crimson Sakura—at last, their final clash began.