2023-01-04 16:49:49“Ring any bells?”
“Well…” Haru curls her hair around her finger. “Not really, no. I’m pretty bad with faces and voices so…”“Tsk.” Kazuko puts the pair of glasses back into her pocket. “Regardless! The consequences of your actions have finally arrived.”
“Consequences…?” What is this girl talking about? “Listen, this isn’t exactly the best time. Could we do this some other time? There’s a bomb in the stall.”
“...oh. That is rather serious, actually.”“Yeah, so either help me out or get out of my way.”
“Take your time.” Kazuko raises her hands and leans against the wall while Haru opens the stall and starts defusing. Or tries to, anyway.
“Have you ever defused a bomb before?”
“Nope, but I’ll figure it out.”
“...”
“Errr, you know how it’s always red or blue wire in the movies?”“Yeah?”“What am I supposed to do when all the wires are black?”“Jeez. You really don’t know what you’re doing, do you?”
Haru places her hands on her hips. “Well, excuse me for trying. Tell you what, why don’t you give it a try, huh, missy?”“Fine.” Kazuko pushes Haru aside, draws her rapier and slashes through all the wires with a single strike. The bomb beeps one last wavering beep before falling completely silent. “There. Easy.”
“...Huh, well, that’s one way of going about it.”
“Anyway!” Kazuko walks back over towards the door and Haru walks back over to where Kuroko’s bleeding out. “Judgment waits for no one.”
Kazuko interposes the rapier between her and Haru. Haru does the same, mimicking her stance with KANNIBAL, mostly out of confusion. “Brace yourself, Tot-the-Rocker!”
“Strider!” Ethereal energy begins to blaze from Kazuko’s feet. She moves, nearly faster than the eye can see. A single step is all that it takes for her to cross the gap between her and Haru. She holds out her rapier and immediately goes for a deathblow, lunging towards Haru’s heart.
Shit! She’s fast! Haru barely manages to swing Kannibal upwards in time. Sparks fly as their weapons cross each others’ paths. As fast as KANNIBAL is in Haru’s hands, she seems ponderous compared to Kazuko with her rapier. She tries to counterattack with a wide sweep but the other girl backsteps and is instantaneously out of her reach.
“What’s wrong, Tot? You’re not putting up as much of a fight as I thought.” Kazuko grins wickedly as she dives back in for another strike. A more conservative one this time, aiming for Haru’s side.
“I’m trying my best here!” This time, Haru doesn’t block, instead she just lets the rapier plough through her side. Blood comes trickling out. Not just from her, but from Kazuko as well.
“Damn. I had my guard down.” Kazuko stumbles back a few steps, her off-hand suddenly missing. In the time that Haru could have blocked the blow, she instead opted to go for an attack of her own. If Kazuko had committed any more than she did with her lunge, she’d be missing a head. It’s a grim reminder that in spite of the speed advantage, a single strike from Haru could kill her instantly. “I really had my guard down.”
“That all you got?”
“Hmph.” Kazuko takes a few steps back before suddenly dashing forwards. Haru raises KANNIBAL, ready to counterattack once again. But that’s when Kazuko reveals the ace in her sleeve. She starts running along the stall doors. Not beside them, on them.
It catches Haru by surprise. There’s an entirely new angle that she has to guard against. There’s no time to move KANNIBAL into position or to cast her guard spell. She just raises her hand in a desperate attempt to block the blow. First, her palm is pierced, then her left eye. It hurts. It hurts so much the inhibitors can’t keep up.
Desperate, Haru kicks wildly. It’s through sheer luck alone that the sole of her foot meets its mark. Kazuko stumbles backwards, taking the rapier with her. There should be relief as the blade is removed from Haru’s body but she finds none.
There’s no time to waste, while Kazuko’s still vulnerable, Haru swings KANNIBAL in a wide arc. For an instant, Haru thinks she has her but again, her sheer speed means that her retreat is as quick as a scorpion sting. KANNIBAL hits nothing but air.
The two stand at opposite ends of the bathroom. They’re both breathing heavily, the strain of the fighting is starting to catch up to them. Though it’s only a hand, all the blood that Kazuko’s losing is no joke. And Haru’s still exhausted from spending all of herself fighting against Kuroko.
“You…” Kazuko takes a gasping breath. Strider. A powerful spell, no doubt about it, but there’s a reason why it’s almost never used. It just puts too much strain on the body. The fact that this girl is still standing after using it for over five seconds is a testament to her resilience. “You really don’t remember, huh?”
“It doesn’t ring a bell, but it does sound like something I would do.” Haru straightens herself out. “How important was this girl to you anyway?”
“For the first time in my life, someone was relying on me and I felt like I could rely on her. She was my first friend.”
“Really? A cold-blooded murderer was your first friend?”
“You wouldn’t understand what she was going through. Besides, I could have fixed her.” Kazuko takes a deep breath as she stands back upright. “Not that you ever gave me the chance.”
“Sorry? I guess?”“Would you just shut up for a second? Every word that comes out of your mouth just pisses me off more and more.”
“Geez, alright. Touchy Touchy.”
Kazuko sighs. “Whatever. Let’s just get back to killing each other.”
“Let’s.” Haru’s arms wheel KANNIBAL around her shoulders before suddenly throwing it across the room. Kazuko’s body contorts. Even without strider, she manages to sidestep with little more than a graze. Though, Kazuko isn’t Haru’s target. Too little too late, she notices what she was aiming for. The light switch.
There’s a crackle of electricity as the ax wedges itself into the wall and severs the wires connecting the lights to the rest of the system. They flicker one last time before the room plunges into darkness.
“Just kidding!” Haru breaks into a dead sprint towards the door. A quick click of her tongue allows her to echolocate exactly where it is.
“You son of a–!” Kazuko goes for a blind swing of her rapier but Haru hears the air it displaces and slides underneath the blow.
“See ya!” Light floods into the room as Haru slams open the door, blinding Kazuko. As clarity fades back into her vision, she manages to catch the corner of her shadow as it leaves the room.
“Get back here!” The politeness slips from Kazuko’s voice as she snarls. She kicks the bathroom door wide open, much to the surprise of everyone else at the gala. They stare at her with agape mouths and she stares back with the ferocity of a hunting predator. But in spite of the myriad faces, she spots neither Haru nor KANNIBAL.
“Goddamnit.” Well, she got away. But at the very least, she still has the lanky girl. Turning around, she storms back into the bathroom. The light from the gala casts a grim spotlight onto the pool of her blood. But that’s all she finds, just a pool of blood. The lanky girl herself is nowhere to be seen.
“...”
“...”
“...heh.” She wipes the sweat off her brow. The back of her hand is a lot wetter than she anticipates. Jeez. She’s sweating a lot more than she thought she would be. Darkness creeps in at the edge of her vision.
“Ack–!” She’s never had Strider active for that long before. She clutches her chest. Her heart’s pumping at least twice as fast as it’s supposed to, if not even more. At this rate, her heart’s going to burst. Not good.
Someone taps her shoulder. Turning around, it seems to be a woman dressed as a maid acting as a waitress. “Excuse me, miss. You’re disrupting the gala, I’m going to have to ask you to leave–”
“Yeah, yeah.” Kazuko snags one of the champagne flutes from the platter and downs it in one go. She isn’t usually the type to drink alcohol, matter of fact, she’s acquired a distaste for it but she understands now, why people drink alcohol. It’s for when it’s extreme.
Tot-the-Rocker… and that lanky girl…
It’s for when it’s extreme.
I’m definitely going to kill them next time.
That is, if there is a next time. Her overuse might just kill her at this point. Goddamnit, she got carried away again. She starts stumbling away from the gala. She’s outstayed her welcome. To where exactly? Not even she knows.
She crushes the champagne flute in her grasp. Though, strangely enough, she doesn’t hear the glass shattering. It’s completely eclipsed by the sound of an explosion.
“What in the goddamn?”
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“Long time no see, Tot.” “It’s literally been a single day.” Kazuko walks along the pristine battlefield and comes to a stop exactly ten paces away from where Haru’s standing. “What do you want?” Haru adjusts her stance, placing herself between Kazuko and the unconscious Tsumugi. “I’ve come to talk.”“That’s it?” “Yep. I realized that after all this time, we never got a chance to properly talk to each other.” “I suppose you’re right.” “I must thank you, Tot.” Kazuko plants her rapier on the ground. “I think you’ve helped me to realize something about myself.” “And what is that?” “That you and I are the same. We’re two sides of the same coin, you and I. We can claim to be soldiers or heroes or avenging angels all we want, but in the end, we both kill.” “You’ve come all this way just to tell me that?” “Not quite. I’ve decided that I won’t tolerate any more excuses. From you or from myself. Regardless of whether we chose our lives or our lives chose us, we’re both killers. Jud
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A gargantuan scythe blade the size of a mountain manifests from the tip of Tsumugi’s staff while Gleam blazes pure white, light magic seeping out of her very being. With a ponderous sweep of her arm, Tsumugi brings the scythe down, its tip aimed right for the crowd. The Deathless start to disperse but there’s not enough time. Someone trips. She closes her eyes to brace for impact but the impact never comes. Instead, there’s a brutal grinding sound. Opening her eyes, instead of seeing the tip of the scythe bearing down on her, she sees Gleam’s back as she clashes against Tsumugi’s scythe. “RUN!” The girl scrambles to her feet and runs away. Now all Gleam has to worry about is the mountain of cursed energy bearing down on her. “GRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHH!!!” Gleam lets out an unearthly cry as she wills herself to go faster, to break through Tsumugi’s attack, to turn the tides of this battle. “STELLAR!” The speed of light isn’t fast enough to move the scythe more than a few inches.
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They come bursting out from the trees. Large metal transports with segmented armor that makes them resemble pillbugs. A far cry from the train-like things the Monarchs used all those years ago. They speed across the landscape, skimming across the flora of these lands. One transport in particular rushes ahead of the others, setting an example that the other transports follow. Atop its roof, stands a green-haired girl shredding her guitar. Heavy rock music, amplified by her sound sorcery, blasts outwards. It’s so loud that the ground almost seems to vibrate as they approach. But they find nothing. No patrols. No Deathless anywhere. It reeks of a trap. Tsumugi sticks her head out of the transport she’s in to yell at Haru.“Stick to the plan!” Haru nods and swaps tracks to the one corresponding to the signal for ‘Stick to the Plan’. The transition is nearly seamless. One by one, the transports climb the walls protecting Takakumo like it’s nothing. In the distance, they see it, Takakumo
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“It seems we’re not welcome here anymore. You’ve been exiled.” Haru relays Gleam’s speech to Tsumugi. “What do we do?” Florence asks. “Nothing has changed. Let’s keep moving.” Haru waves her hand out the car window at the other Elites to follow close behind. They comply, mostly out of fear. They know that their duty is to Lady Kentomi first, Takakumo second, and Haru third, but the thought of going against Haru is just too much. The streets are empty, nearly everyone’s attending Gleam’s speech. What few people are left behind smile and wave at them as they pass, blissfully unaware of what Tsumugi’s become. They know not what she knows. “Where are we going exactly?” “To the forest on the edge of Takakumo’s borders. I’ve arranged for a meeting there.” Ah, to where it all began. The memories of a month or two ago come flooding back to Haru. It felt like a lifetime ago they were on that train and came crashing into Takakumo, completely unwelcome. “This is nostalgic.” Haru rests he
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Chapter 64 Preparations
As soon as the door closes behind her, Tsumugi immediately breaks down into tears as everything she’s done and everything that happened to her comes crashing down in a terrible wave. She starts to run, as though she might be able to outrun her guilt. “What have I done?!”She keeps running. Further and further away from Gleam. Further and further away from the best friend that she threw away. Further and further away from any chance of going back. More than once, she considers turning around and apologizing, telling Gleam that she was foolish, begging for her forgiveness. But no matter how much she wants to, she knows she can’t. Tsuki believed in Tsumugi to be able to turn her own dream into a reality. This is the only way. Her dream was always incompatible with Gleam’s. From the very beginning, she knew that. It’s only natural that they would both eventually come into conflict with one another. But even then, her heart aches so much she fears it might shrivel up and die. She slowly
Chapter 63 Preparations
As soon as the door closes behind her, Tsumugi immediately breaks down into tears as everything she’s done and everything that happened to her comes crashing down in a terrible wave. She starts to run, as though she might be able to outrun her guilt. “What have I done?!”She keeps running. Further and further away from Gleam. Further and further away from the best friend that she threw away. Further and further away from any chance of going back. More than once, she considers turning around and apologizing, telling Gleam that she was foolish, begging for her forgiveness. But no matter how much she wants to, she knows she can’t. Tsuki believed in Tsumugi to be able to turn her own dream into a reality. This is the only way. Her dream was always incompatible with Gleam’s. From the very beginning, she knew that. It’s only natural that they would both eventually come into conflict with one another. But even then, her heart aches so much she fears it might shrivel up and die. She slowly
Chapter 62 Bad to Worse
“Kikimi faltered.” Kazuko takes a deep breath just to check if her lung is still punctured. Surprisingly enough, it seems that the damage Tsuki dealt her just a few hours ago has already healed. Usually, it takes a few more hours.“That’s fine. She’s more useful to us dead.” Florence stares out the window at the full moon hanging in the sky. “Now that she’s out of the picture, Gleam’s a legitimate threat to both Tsumugi and Tomoe. But now that they’ve already severed their alliance, it’s going to be that much more difficult to stop her.” “Yeah, whatever. I don’t care about any of that stuff.” Kazuko slowly lifts herself off the chair she was sitting in. “You’re on your own from now on.” “Wait, hold on, what happened to owing me your life?” “A life for a life. My debt has been paid in full.” Florence saved her, and she killed Kikimi. Fair’s fair.“How do I know you won’t just rat me out?” “You don’t. But you don’t have any other choice.” Florence looks on as Kazuko slings her cape
