VOLUME 3
Chapter 3: Part 2
The next day of school ended with just a school-wide a.s.sembly and pa.s.sing out report cards. And summer vacation would begin from the day after that.
Sera had saved every single person in the school from danger. Though there were a few students who had only narrowly escaped and were shorter as a result.
And after successfully capturing Kyouko, I had begun to regain some of the confidence I had lost to the King of the Night. Even if I had teamed up with Haruna, I had still managed to win without transforming. Wasn’t that pretty amazing?
True, Kyouko never transformed into a masou shoujo, and we had fought against her many times before, but she was still a strong opponent. Was it just me, or had I gotten stronger?
Ufufufufu. I’m acting gross, you say? Ufufufu.
If I could just learn magic now, maybe I’d even be able to beat the King of the Night. And then I could welcome Yuu back with pride.
And with Kyouko’s information, I now knew where all the fake Megalo were coming from:
They were not being produced in one place, but in dozens of factories in different places. It now made sense why they were everywhere and so hard to pinpoint.
Haruna was in Virie right now, attending a meeting where they were discussing how to destroy the fake Megalo factories.
Swoosh. A green sword hit me on the shoulder.
“Ayumu, why are you just standing there? If you look away in the middle of a battle, you will be killed.”
Sera stood in front of me with a sharp glint in her eyes. Once Haruna got back, we were going to go look for the King of the Night and Dai-sensei, so I was learning swordsmanship from Sera while waiting.
“Sorry.”
I held my chainsaw up high.
“Well then, shall we continue?”
Hiken, Tsubamegaeshi: an attack where you make your opponent flinch from a small first cut and make your true attack with the second cut… Gyah!
“Ease up a bit! Why are you cutting me so deep?!”
“I was just suddenly caught up in the moment. Sorry for getting carried away.”
Suddenly… But you’ve been coming at me with full strength for a while now!
“So, what shall I call that skill I used just now?”
“What should you call it? It wasn’t Tsubamegaeshi?”
Hah. She gave me a single ridiculing chuckle. Her laughter was as beautiful as it was irritating.
“Your eyes are so poor that it makes me want to vomit.”
“I see. Well… A cool name would be nice, I think.”
“Hm. A cool name… Exploding Demonic Dragon Divine Kick… Gaeshi.”
“Why is it a kick? Isn’t it a sword technique?!”
“There was a time, long ago, when I also thought there were no kicks in sword techniques.”
Sera looked back to her past with a vague expression of sorrow.
“Why don’t you just call it Fry-gaeshi or something?” (1)
“Hah.” She sighed in exasperation and looked me straight in the eye. “Your unimaginative suggestion makes your lack of vocabulary all the more obvious.”
“Well, what if you just add a cool name to Tsubamegaeshi?”
“For example?”
“Like Ice Break: Tsubamegaeshi.”
“Hmm.” She looked like she liked it!
“Or maybe Heaven and Earth: Tsubamegaeshi.”
“Oh hoh.” She looked really delighted by that!
“Or Divine a.s.sault: Nibelung Tsubamegaeshi!”(2)
“Umm…” c.r.a.p! Everything had been ruined!
“I want to slice you in half right now.”
And then she hit me with her true feelings!
“But really, only cutting is a bit plain. Wouldn’t it be better if you shot a laser out too or something?”
“If I shot out a laser, what would be the point of the sword?”
Well, that’s true.
“I guess that in the end, your most lethal weapons are those two plump bouncies you have.”
Zaaaaaaaap!! Electricity ran through my entire body.
“You did… use a laser…”
“That’s just a lightning attack. It’s a form of ninjutsu. It’s not my strong suit, though.”
“If you cut someone with a sword and then use that attack, wouldn’t it be pretty cool?”
“You mean, like this?”
Swish. Zaaaaaaaap! Gyaaaaaaah!!
Sera quickly circled behind me and slashed my back, and electricity ran through my body.
Just because I’m a zombie… Can’t she show me some mercy?!
“Hm. Not bad at all. What should we name it?”
“S-something cool, probably. And we don’t have to get too stuck on working ‘Gaeshi’ into the name.”
“Something cool… Calamity Blade: Darkness Slash.” (3)
“That’s not Grungust, it’s Boing Bust!”
“Ah?” Sera grabbed my cheeks.
…S-sowry.
“There are some pretty common ‘cool’ words, right? Like dragon or G.o.d. If you just use words like those, then the name will naturally have a cool ring to it.”
“…I can see where you’re coming from. So, for example?”
If I failed here, then I was going to get slashed and zapped again.
I timidly, timidly muttered:
“Dragon Fang Thunder G.o.d Thrust… Or something like that?”
“Oh hoh.” Awesome! She looks really happy!
However, in order to perfect that “Dragon Fang Thunder G.o.d Thrust” technique, in the end I had to get shocked quite a few more times. Well, in return, she taught me a bit on how to handle my chainsaw, so it was give and take.
We had been practicing for around two hours (with a few breaks in between) when Haruna finally returned.
“I’m back. Ayumu, why do you look sunburned?”
“Ah, I was. .h.i.t by some lightning.”
“What in the world are you two doing right outside the front door? Do you want to get thrown in prison?”
“I wasn’t worried about that at all. So, how was it?”
“It seems that the Virie people can handle the fake Megalo by themselves.”
“In other words, we shouldn’t b.u.t.t in. What about Dai-sensei?”
Haruna shook her head.
“Seemed like they couldn’t find her.”
I see. So in the end, once the King of the Night threw Kyouko away, he also changed his base of operations. I would have probably done the same. So now we had to start over from square one… Or, no, if we could get rid of the fake Megalo, then that was a step in the right direction.
“So let’s go look for Dai-sensei again, then.”
“I’ll… stay out of it this time.”
“Why?” But after I asked that, I noticed the expression on Sera’s face.
She still didn’t want to meet the other vampire ninjas. The vampire ninjas were also chasing after the fake Megalo, so there was a high chance we would come across some.
“Haruna, let’s go by ourselves then.”
“Just the two of us? D-d-don’t you go thinking this is a date!”
“Should I call Tomonori too?”
“No! I-I guess there’s no helping it, then… I’ll go with just you.”
“It’s a search. You understand that, right?”
“Hmm, I wonder what I should wear~~.”
She wasn’t listening at all… Well, whatever.
TRANSLATOR’S NOTES
(1) Fry-gaeshi is actually the j.a.panese word for spatula.
(2) Signature attack of the Valkyrie Profile valkyries. “Divine a.s.sault” is the lead-in used by Lenneth from the first game.
(3) Taken from an attack by the same name used by Grungust, of the Super Robot Wars series.