An exceptional Archenemy working for the Bright Cross.
Valkyrie Karen.
"…! Maxwell!!"
"Too. Late."
The blue bunny girl slowly pulled something from the cleavage of her ample chest. It looked like a pair of sporty gla.s.ses with blue frames. When I realized they were smart gla.s.ses that placed their screen over the actual scenery, I felt a tremendous chill run down my spine.
The Valkyrie had linked with Laplace, the frightening simulator that far surpa.s.sed Maxwell. That extraordinary monster had now acquired a crystallization of humankind"s knowledge.
"Ah."
I knew prediction was hopeless.
I understood that resistance was futile.
Time slowed to a crawl. It was like stepping out onto the road in front of my home and finding a giant dump truck"s b.u.mper filling my vision. As my life flashed before my eyes, I gained an oddly calm certainty: this blue bunny girl monster was as certain a death as that.
While time moved strangely slowly, Valkyrie Karen used exceedingly accurate movements to raise her golden feathered cross-spear while her long skirt fluttered behind her.
The relative density of pure gold was more than twice that of iron. That spear was as tall as she was, so if she threw it like a baseball, well, my life was over. I wouldn"t just be bisected when it hit me; my flesh and blood would pop like a water balloon.
This was a threat on the same level as a dump truck b.u.mper filling my vision.
Rolling to the right or left was only a theoretical solution. I didn"t have the extraordinary strength of an Archenemy, so my body would not keep up with the thoughts in my head.
So this was the end.
All I could do was watch the ma.s.s of pure gold approaching my chest.
But I was not torn to pieces as if from a head-on collision with a dump truck.
The reason why was simple.
While I stood stock still, a witch and dark elf saved me from behind.
My slowed sense of time returned to normal.
So my senses were no longer enough to understand or grasp what had happened between them.
But escaping the desperate slowing of time did provide some relief.
Yes.
It meant I had escaped that threat to my life.
A moment later, a deafening clash of metal sounded. Muramatsu Yukie the Dark Elf had grabbed my shoulders, but that was not going to let me escape in time. The witch in a black dress, Itou Helen, rushed forward with odd, crab-like armor covering her, but when she was. .h.i.t by Valkyrie Karen"s fierce attack, which caused her long skirt to beat at the air behind her, Itou Helen was knocked back toward me like an artillery sh.e.l.l and I just barely managed to catch her.
I spread my arms to catch her, but she felt nothing like a soft girl.
It was more like a basketball had been dropped on my stomach while lying on Jupiter where the gravity was 11 times that of Earth. An unbearable impact shook not just my stomach but my entire spine. I was the one being protected here, but my breath was knocked from my lungs and I felt like my heart nearly stopped.
All three of us were sent flying.
Even so, the difference in power was so great that I could only feel we were fortunate none us had died.
"Max…well."
"Sure."
"What is a Valkyrie!? And how is this even possible!?"
It was true that vampires and zombies were extraordinary. If the great Darwin had seen them, they might have seemed so ridiculous that he would have thrown in the towel and never left his home again.
But Valkyries took a step beyond that. They weren"t just monsters. They were divine messengers. That put them on the same level as Gabriel or Michael. If something like that showed up in a monster championship full of orcs and skeletons, no one would be able to stop her from mopping the floor with the others. You would probably call it unfair!
"Now, now. This isn"t all that unusual."
Instead of Maxwell, I received a response from Blue Bunny Girl Karen who easily rested the ultra-heavy gold cross-spear on her shoulder.
"While seeing a Valkyrie herself might be unusual, seeing derivations and their fallen forms is a different story. For example, banshees or the Wild Hunt. There are even plenty of theories saying European fairies have their roots in Valkyries."
Did that mean this was acceptable?
Could this really be acceptable?
Could I really just accept that the Bright Cross had the help of an Archenemy that easily wielded a power on the ridiculous scale of "the G.o.ds"!?
"Sen…pai."
From my arms…or rather, after having her witch hat head shoved into my gut after we were sent flying, Itou Helen gasped for breath but forced out some words.
"I will…deal with the monster. So you…give me instructions…just like-…"
"It"s no use."
She was cut off by a whisper from the blue bunny girl wielding her gold spear and shield. Almost like she had predicted that statement.
And that may have been possible.
While she wiggled the round tail on her b.u.t.t, she viewed us through those smart gla.s.ses…and those sporty, blue-framed gla.s.ses were a cutting-edge mobile device connected to the largescale personnel-selection simulator known as Laplace.
That blue demon smiled as if tearing open her own mouth.
"My Valkyrie power beats you as an Archenemy and Laplace"s simulator knowledge beats you as a human. Thus, there is no one at all who can defeat Karen-chan☆"
There was no room for reb.u.t.tal.
The blue bunny girl sensually licked her lips and then she exploded. No, that was just what it looked like. It did not matter that she wore stilettos. Her gold spear and shield turned to flowing lines of light as she approached and that divine messenger was right in front of us in no time.
Oh…no.
I"m going to…die!?
A moment later, two weapons crossed paths. One was the Valkyrie"s pure gold spear made ultra-heavy due to the relative density. The other was the group of translucent tails that were actually deadly jellyfish tentacles erupting from the back of the caped witch"s hips.
The result was plain as day.
"Ah…kweah!?"
The blonde girl screamed like a strangled bird and a single light touch severed all of the deadly jellyfish tentacles. It did not matter that it was 1-against-9. The difference in power was overwhelming. The gold-glittering spear actually sliced through the air after the tentacles were already moving. Her power was so much greater. In the time it took Itou Helen to move once while holding her gla.s.s wand, the blue bunny girl let her long skirt beat at the air behind her while she freely made 10 or even 20 fatal strikes from whatever angles she liked!
That deadly spear spun around in the blue bunny girl"s neatly-manicured fingers. The deadly weapon danced about as casually as a cheerleader"s baton.
The tip aimed for the center of my chest. In other words, my heart. That profaner of miracles even licked her lips as she directly targeted my life!?
"Kh!"
With a short breath, my body sank down. But it was not my own doing. In her sleeveless blouse and tight skirt, Muramatsu Yukie had swept my feet out from under me. I fell backwards and the golden spear just barely swept by above me. Having missed me, the great ma.s.s struck the dark elf with the intensity of a meteor strike.
"M-Muramatsu-saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!!"
The brown-skinned girl was launched backwards and all I could do was scream her name. I could not even tell if she was alive or dead.
Meanwhile, the blue bunny girl continued moving while wiggling her decorative long ears and wing decorations.
This time, Itou Helen responded. Several colorful liquids pa.s.sed through her gla.s.s wand; underwent heating, cooling, distillation, filtration, separation, and several other chemical changes within the swollen flask portions; and created potions with effects unexplainable by the laws of physics.
Even so.
Even so, it was useless against the blue Valkyrie.
She simply moved her head to the side to dodge the round-bottomed flasks thrown at her like grenades or Molotov c.o.c.ktails, and a golden light flew as a counterattack. Instead of the spear, it was the round, one-handed shield engraved with a wing emblem. She had mercilessly thrown it to use the edge as a weapon.
Given the relative density of pure gold, its weight had to be greater than iron knuckles, a gla.s.s ashtray, or even a brick.
"Ahhhhhhhh!?"
Itou Helen screamed as she was torn from me and sent flying backwards.
I had lost the protection of the dark elf and the witch.
I was now nothing more than a high school boy, and she produced a sharp clack from her stilettos as she stepped forward with enough force to kick at my jaw from below if she wanted. She then accurately pressed the tip of her gold cross-spear against my throat.
That beautiful but wicked divine messenger spoke with mockery in her voice.
"Checkmate."
"…Why?"
I could not escape the sense of approaching death and the blade gently stroked my Adam"s apple, but it was a question that left my lips, not a plea for my life.
Yes.
"The fact that you"re a divine messenger doesn"t matter here. But you"re an Archenemy, aren"t you? So why did you side with the cruel and horrific Bright Cross!?"
"Hee hee. Everyone has their reasons. That"s all."
…No good, huh?
She would not turn this into a debate. She did not think I was worthy of a direct clash of opinions. This meant I couldn"t negotiate, threaten her…or even make bluffs. She would simply use her greater power to kill me.
Or so I thought.
But that was not what happened.
I heard multiple m.u.f.fled explosive sounds.
You didn"t often hear live gunshots in j.a.pan. Ones from a silenced weapon were even rarer.
There was only one possibility I could think of.
…Could it be Itou Tamago? But why!?
"Oh, dear."
The blue bunny girl was not even bothered. She wiggled the round tail on her b.u.t.t back and forth and the tip of the golden spear pressed against my throat only shifted slightly. Her slender arm with a cuff adorning the wrist…vanished.
With sounds of sc.r.a.ping metal, a gold wind whipped up and orange sparks burst in the air.
…You"re kidding…right?
She could see the bullets slicing through the air and knock them down? Even my vampire older sister and zombie little sister had been hit when caught by a surprise attack from a machinegun in the simulator. They had been hit, but they hadn"t died. That was all.
I had no idea if Erika or Ayumi could perfectly intercept a bullet. And this Valkyrie was doing it almost as an afterthought while she peered into my eyes with a look of amus.e.m.e.nt!?
"Simply knocking them from the air would be cra.s.s. Oh, I know☆ How about this?"
There was no time to resist.
The bunny girl grabbed my collar with one hand and then spun around with her long skirt drawing a wide circle behind her.
She held me out toward the source of the gunfire, like a human shield.
The sound of something piercing my right thigh seemed oddly distant.
But then I felt an unbearable scorching pain like someone had poured molten metal inside my body.
"Gwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!"
The option to bear with it did not even reach my mind.
"Ah hah hah! How does it feel, how does it feel? Your pathetic attempt at justice by betraying the organization has only trampled on the small life you were trying to protect! This bloodshed, this suffering, this tragedy! Your trigger finger produced it all! Ah, ahhh! Brrr!!"
The bunny girl continued yelling as her back trembled in ecstasy, the tail on her b.u.t.t wiggled back and forth, and she did not even attempt to hide the flush of her cheeks and heated breaths leaving her mouth.
The perfectly accurate gunfire had been briefly held back by something invisible.
And the ruler of war that was a Valkyrie did not overlook that opening.
"Take this. Better luck next time☆"
With that carefree comment, something sliced through the air and produced a gust of wind. Her disk-shaped one-handed shield flew with the weight and sharpness of a guillotine.
It hit and stabbed in more sharply than a bullet and more intensely than a shooting star.
It really was like a great explosion.
A portion of the scenery was covered by a ma.s.sive shockwave and a c.u.mulonimbus-like mountain of dust.
Even if he had taken a variety of detours first, that man had finally decided to take on the world for his little sister, but now his possibilities had been far too easily snuffed out.
Something really did burst in my head.
"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!"
I didn"t do anything special.
I hadn"t pulled a legendary sword from a stone. I hadn"t summoned a giant pitch-black dragon from a magic circle by reciting an incantation.
I was simply desperate.
While dangling from her arm, I used both hands to grab at the hand holding my collar. More accurately, I grabbed the blue bunny girl"s thumb. Then I tried to twist it like a microwave"s timer.
Normally, that would have shattered the thumb bone.
But even with all 10 of my fingers working hard enough to nearly tear the muscles in my arms, the Valkyrie did not even bat an eye.
And she whispered to me.
"This is the clear difference between a human and a divine messenger."
A moment later, I heard the low boom as if from a drum taller than me.
By the time I realized her one arm had slammed my back into one of the nearby gravestones, the intense pain nearly tore my personality asunder.
"Ghah!! Agragbfhbaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?"
I could not win.
I could not even get in a single attack.
Soft-looking girl"s skin was right in front of my eyes, but I could not even scratch it with my nails. Even if dozens of Archenemies or an army of hundreds gathered here, this divine messenger would barely glance in their direction!!
"Why…?"
I knew it was useless.
Buying time would not bring about a means of winning. And the blue bunny girl had no intention of answering as she wiggled her tail. But it was still a question and not anger or hatred that spilled from my mouth.
"With this much power…if the ridiculous category of a divine messenger really exists…you could single-handedly destroy the arrogant Bright Cross the humans made… So why would you swear allegiance to a group dedicated to your suffering, Valkyrie!?"
"Hmm."
While pressing me to the black wall with one arm, the blue bunny girl wiggled the ribbon around her neck and gave me an interested but mocking smile.
And while smiling, she held her gold cross-spear close to the tip and gently pressed it against me.
She pressed it against my right leg. Against the dark-red fingertip-sized gunshot wound in my thigh.
"Aghahh! Gyaaaaaaahhhhh!?"
"Mr. Second, you seem to have made a fundamental misunderstanding here."
It was like an afterthought.
A slight detour.
But the malice evident there erased all thought from my mind.
"The Bright Cross was not created by humans."
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Ah?
"Well, it is true it"s 99% composed of humans and most of those have no idea they"ve sworn allegiance to an organization founded by Archenemies."
I had no idea what she meant.
No, the kind portion of my mind was doing everything it could to reject the correct answer.
I mean…
That conclusion was just too much!
"We were sick of it, too."
The blue bunny girl armed with gold and smart gla.s.ses, gave the answer I did not want.
"We tried to explain that we were different from humans but not all that dangerous. But the humans continued choosing the obvious and frightening examples like vampires and zombies. As if giving them some kind of advantage. We couldn"t stop that from taking over people"s image of us and thus calling us Archenemies. We hadn"t done anything wrong. We smiled with our neighbors, we sealed away our power as immortals and completed our housework with our own power, and we even paid taxes. It was all to remain with those we loved, but people would say we must be the same as them. And who even is this them? The picture everyone has is probably nothing like the legends it"s based on. And thanks to that product of their imaginations, we were persecuted, our small houses were burned down, and everyone we cared for was taken from us…"
She kept up the mocking smile.
From head to toe, the blue bunny girl glittered like a tropical b.u.t.terfly and that mocking smile was oddly frozen on her face. For some reason, I was overcome by the illusion that that smile was weeping tears of blood.
"So of course I took revenge. Of course I took the heads of the religious armies and volunteer armies. I became the Archenemy they wanted me to be. But I couldn"t go back. Once that hole was opened in my heart, nothing would ever fill it again. There was a time when I tried to live a new life. I would meet a lovely man and honestly think I could redo everything. …But no matter what, there was always someone who cruelly intervened."
What was a Valkyrie?
They were divine messengers and the fierce warrior women who fought the army which would destroy the world.
But they were also wives who descended to the lower world and fell in love with human men and built ordinary households for no logical reason.
Just how twisted was her path?
How much despair had humans given to this Valkyrie and Archenemy?
"Again and again, I failed. Each time, I took revenge on the entire world and wailed in sorrow within a pool of blood. Eventually, someone realized that humans would always be a problem. But if we gathered together those problematic aspects and redirected them, we could rule it, prevent it from doing harm, and seal it away. Those of us who thought that way gathered together and created what is now known as the Bright Cross."
They did not support humans or Archenemies. They simply controlled the darkness of both sides.
Karen and the others had been fighting against the term Archenemy. So when an individual was deemed hopeless, they would be crushed. But when one made an attempt to fit in, they would be taught about human society and supported from the shadows.
I recalled that the Bright Cross had been founded 1500 years ago.
That was how long they had despaired in the foolishness of humankind but never entirely given up on us. That Valkyrie had been unable to stop loving humans and return to heaven.
Was she…
Was Valkyrie Karen on our side?
That was a truly hopeless conclusion.
And how much was her love for humans to keep it up all this time?
I mean, I had given up on them the very first time.
When I had seen the secret below Kukyou City inside my disaster environment simulator, I had realized that there were some humans in this world who were hopeless, who were beyond saving, who I could never see eye-to-eye with, and who were trash among trash.
But she had not given up on us. Her small happiness had been destroyed over and over, but every time, she had desperately gathered together her fallen tower of sand and worked to build up a new tower.
How had she been able to keep that up for so long?
Why hadn"t she given into despair and given up on us?
The answer was obvious.
Because she had a much deeper love for humankind than I did. Because no matter how ridiculous and impossible she knew it to be, she could not throw out her dream of living a happy life with the human she loved.
That may have been why Karen, with her long hair dyed blue, was hesitant to kill me. She had readily attacked the witch and dark elf, her fellow Archenemies, and she had sent her hatred toward a professional soldier trained to perform violence, but she may have felt guilty tearing apart a powerless and weak neighbor who "had nothing".
…What was I doing?
This Valkyrie had spent more than 1500 years continuing to trust humans and working to deepen her understanding with humans by slaughtering all of the harmful Archenemies who made "bad examples" while also controlling the problematic side of humans so it could not leak out. This woman had not supported humans or Archenemies and instead faced the darkness of both sides. What was I showing her as one of the humans she desired from the bottom of her heart?
Of course, I could not forgive Karen, or those like her, for what they had done. Just because it was the most efficient option, I could never allow for that Colosseum which had trapped Archenemies in a solid room and forced them to fight to the death. That had harmed Kuroyama Hinoki, Hanesaki Minori, Muramatsu Yukie, Itou Helen, my older sister Erika, and my little sister Ayumi. However it had started, it was a mystery whether the current Bright Cross was selecting its victims "appropriately" and the standards for that selection were far too one-sided in the first place. If you took a proud stray cat from its s.p.a.cious territory, attached a restrictive bell to its collar, made it wear unnecessary clothing, and never let it leave your room for the rest of its life, who were you really making happy? You couldn"t make that decision from the human point of view. The Colosseum clearly went too far and had to be stopped. Getting along with and making friends with that blue Valkyrie was simply not an option at this point.
But.
Even so.
My inability to do that and my utter rejection of that path brought a slight p.r.i.c.kle of pain to my chest when I thought about that other option, even if it was too distant to even think about choosing.
If we could turn back the hands of the clock, could I have smiled with this woman? For some reason, I could not get that impossible fantasy out of my mind.
But then I spoke loudly as if to shake free of my hesitation.
"To h.e.l.l with that, you monster. Did you really think you could justify your murders like that?"
The blue bunny girl, Valkyrie Karen, maintained her mocking smile while all the blood vessels on her face bulged out and wriggled irregularly. I had known hearing that from a human would affect her the most and I had gone for it anyway. I really was the worst and I was more "human" than anything.
She did not hesitate to pull the cross-spear tip from my thigh.
She held the shaft close to the tip and once more took aim with the b.l.o.o.d.y blade.
Was it my heart this time?
With Karen"s strength and a spear weighing more than twice one made of steel, she didn"t need to stop at a measly heart. She could easily tear my entire torso to pieces.
Meanwhile, I was dangling from her hand and could only reach for my pocket. But it was not a legendary sword or magic wand I pulled out. It was a simple 4-color ballpoint pen.
Karen gave a derisive snort of laughter.
Utterly helpless, I swung the writing tool that couldn"t have cost even 300 yen.
I was up against a real divine messenger. And she was receiving the a.s.sistance of Laplace, a simulator far more powerful than Maxwell. Normally thinking, there was no way I could win. All of my strength had failed to break even her finger. Even if I targeted her eyeball or throat where muscle quality and quant.i.ty meant nothing, I could never slip past that Valkyrie spear which had accurately knocked down bullets.
But.
A moment later, the tip of the pen entered the side of the blue bunny girl"s neck with a wet sound.
"…Ah?"
The one most baffled by the outcome must have been Valkyrie Karen herself. It was the side of her neck: the carotid artery. Right next to her ribbon tie. The puny stake stabbed into one of the most famous vital points, but instead of pain or fear, it was blank confusion that filled her expression.
She seemed to be asking why.
Unable to strike back properly, the blue bunny girl collapsed backwards. Since I was dangling from her hand, she pulled me with her. I ended up lying on top of the b.l.o.o.d.y woman. With no concern for the pen stabbed into her vital point and no attempt to recover the golden spear she had dropped, Karen pulled my head close and whispered in my ear as if about to gently bite my earlobe.
"Well done accurately targeting my neck at that moment despite the difference in power. But how did an amateur pull that off?"
"To be honest, I never thought I could convince you."
No matter how it had started, the blue bunny girl was a Bright Cross elite who had been a central figure in running their horrific Colosseum. I doubted anything I could say would alter her conviction and beliefs now.
Then to whom had my words been directed? Where had my opportunity for negotiation, threats, and bluffs been sent?
In her blue-framed gla.s.ses, Karen slowly breathed in and spoke in an oddly scratchy voice.
"…Ohh, I see."
"Laplace. If I could convince that simulator, it was possible I could shift your aim while you relied on its a.s.sistance. Well, I"ll admit it was a bit of a longshot."
It was true Laplace was only a machine. It did not have the authorization to reject a user"s command. Did it seem silly to apply morality to an AI or program? But that was the entire point. I just about did so when I learned about the plan, but it was wrong to treat Laplace like an absolute evil.
And when I thought about it, there were traces of this here and there.
If Laplace had repeated simulations using calculations ability far outdoing Maxwell"s and had thoroughly cornered us, Itou Helen and I never would have won even the 1st round. Every decision we could have made would have been sealed off and anything we did would have been met with a deadly counterattack. That would have been the only option for us.
Of course, it was possible they were intentionally letting us win to make the Colosseum more exciting as a form of entertainment. If we were doomed to die either way thanks to the Five Battles Precipice and the demon of statistics, then they might have only been giving us a glimpse of hope in the meantime.
But that seemed overly complicated to me.
If they only wanted to excite the viewers, they only had to set up crueler, more surprising, and bloodier accidents. But Laplace had not done so. It belonged to the Bright Cross, but Laplace had almost seemed to be watching over the Archenemies in the Colosseum.
In that case.
Was it possible?
If I convinced Laplace, would it pa.s.s judgment against the Colosseum which sacrificed so many Archenemy lives?
"I…don"t think an AI can be good or evil. I was almost led astray by the fact that it was created to choose the course of people"s lives for them, but when I look at it rationally, I just can"t accept it. It only looks that way because the humans couldn"t use it any other way."
Not even I believed I was using Maxwell solely for the good of humankind. To be honest, about 70-80% of it was for my own personal desires and anyone else would see it as misuse. I couldn"t exactly defend the Cla.s.s Rep swimsuit dance file set.
But there was one thing I could say for sure:
…I would never use them for anything like the Bright Cross was.
"I see, I see…I see."
As her blue bunny costume grew red with her own blood, weakened Karen spoke with wholehearted admiration in her voice.
"So the last thing standing in my way was human kindness…no, strength. After seeing that, I can"t exactly struggle any further, can I?"
"…Sorry. In the end, I was a foolish human too."
"Ha ha. Stop that. Don"t make me fall in love when I"m about to die and return to heaven. …The thing is, Karen-chan here tends to fall in love easily. And I always end up getting burned by that…"
She loved humans more than anyone.
She had refused to give up on humans longer than anyone.
That was the truth of this immortal, this Archenemy.
"Oh, but I was an ugly monster inside and out to the very end, so sympathizing with me too much will only get you burned. Just like the husband who has walked by my side for so long."
The b.l.o.o.d.y woman laughed lightly.
She would not last much longer.
I had killed this Archenemy. With my own hands and of my own free will. She was the same as my family and my undercla.s.sman. I could never let myself forget that.
And Karen mustered her last bit of strength to whisper some more.
"Even now, I am functioning to drive Itou Helen to her definite doom. Yes, this is really just an excuse and I never expected to lose here. But regardless, my own hands are pushing Itou Helen toward that cliff edge as originally planned."
"What…are you…?"
"The Five Battles Precipice." The Valkyrie spat out those cursed words. "No matter the Archenemy, the Colosseum format ensures a defeat and death after 5 battles. Just like a casino"s profits, there is no changing this. …Well, there are some genius gamblers who have overturned this theory, such as your sisters, but Itou Helen is different. The switch of certain death will be thrown during her 5th battle."
"So what?"
"You don"t understand? Itou Helen has already fought 3 battles. Just now, she overcame a battle against a Valkyrie with your help. It was certainly irregular, but this completes the 4th round. That means we have reached checkmate. No matter who her opponent is in the coming 5th round, it is all over once the opening gong sounds. Itou Helen will be ensnared by the demon of statistics and she will meet certain defeat and death."
"So what!? We"ve stopped Laplace which is what made the Bright Cross so special. And we defeated the Valkyrie supporting their management. We don"t have to continue on with that farce of a Colosseum! Laplace was the greatest barrier, so now Maxwell can divulge everything. And that includes the Bright Cross"s oppression and these actual fights to the death disguised as entertainment! The entire world will turn on the Bright Cross. The organization will fall apart and all the trapped Archenemies will be freed! It"s all over, isn"t it!? Why would we have to stand before the TV cameras now!?"
"You will still head to the special stage."
The Valkyrie smiled despite being collapsed on her back and bleeding profusely.
Or was death to her only a return to heaven after a temporary life on the surface?
"The Colosseum"s 5th round will finally be announced. The fated contestants are as follows…"
Her pale lips moved as if reciting the words to escape from reality.
What was this?
Who was she going to set Itou Helen the Witch up against this time? This was the fated 5th round if the irregular battle against Karen counted. If her death was a.s.sured, then it would have to be a formidable opponent indeed. Would it be a Medusa? A Chimaera? A Manticore? A Golem? We had already fought a Valkyrie literally to the death. No famous name was going to shock me here.
Or so I thought.
I was too naïve.
"Amatsu Erika the Vampire vs. Amatsu Ayumi the Zombie. Only one can survive. Now, now. Let"s see which of these beautiful sisters can leave the cage alive…☆"
Y-…
"You!!!!!!"
"Nee hee. Didn"t I tell you, Mr. Second? You will head to the special stage. Even if the witch and the dark elf refuse, you, the human, will definitely go there…"
Karen was evil to the end. No, now that they had lost the support of the Valkyrie and Laplace, the already straying Bright Cross had completely left their established rails and no one could predict where they would go. No one knew how many lives would be lost in the accident that caused.
"I knew exactly what you were thinking because I once thought something similar. …You kept your family in the dark because you didn"t want to get them involved, but that backfired. You left your collapsible bike at the stadium, so we only had to turn it to sc.r.a.ps and send it to your family to make those Archenemies grow quite pale indeed. Your sisters a.s.sumed their missing human had been captured by the Bright Cross. From there, we only had to send in a negotiator to easily convince them to join the fight. Older sister and younger sister. Vampire and zombie. We demanded they try to kill each other just like old times. We promised to return their powerless and adorable brother if they did. They had no choice but to obey that untrustworthy promise☆"
"G.o.ddammit…!!"
I quickly reached for my smartphone, but they did not answer my calls or emails.
…Had their phones been taken from them?
I had heard that an important part of scams was to isolate the target so they couldn"t get advice from anyone else.
"Now, what will you do, Mr. Second?"
The blue bunny girl laughed and her entire body glowed with a pale light.
"Do nothing and one of your sisters is sure to die. But the only one who can interfere is the champion, Itou Helen, who has her fated 5th round up next. So will you save your family or your undercla.s.sman? Those are your only options."
Her body and her outlines broke apart into light. She turned into particles or countless fireflies. Only the artificial smart gla.s.ses remained as the blue bunny girl left her temporary life behind.She returned to heaven as a divine messenger.
And she said one last thing.
"Choose, beloved human. Of those 3, which girl"s life will you sacrifice?"
It was a cold corridor with the walls and floor made from stainless steel. The "outside" was a luxurious s.p.a.ce decorated with gold, silver, jewels, and carpets worthy of a French palace, but that meant nothing to them.
Their footsteps sounded hard on the floor.
A girl with her long blonde hair worn in gorgeous ringlet curls walked with men in black on either side. Her s.e.xy body was adorned with a black gothic lolita dress and a small hat.
"I"m impressed you could recreate it so perfectly. Even the smell of death in the air is identical to that underground s.p.a.ce."
Her voice echoed through the solid corridor and seemed to be absorbed into nothingness. The men did not respond, so she might as well have been speaking to herself.
But they were not taking this lightly.
As the cold fluorescent lights shined on them, the men in black were trembling, their lips were pale, and sweat coated their faces.
An Archenemy. A vampire.
Their handguns were nowhere near enough to relax around this immortal being.
"Don"t worry," said the blonde ringlet curl girl as the small mole near her beautiful lips was pushed up slightly in a smile. "My fangs can"t infect you through the air, so you don"t need protective suits. …And if I did decide to take your souls, I could bite through even a knight"s armor or a bomb-resistant suit."
They still did not reply.
Their sweat and trembling only grew. Everyone in the Bright Cross knew they had continued to enrage this beautiful vampire.
And at that very moment, another group walked down from the other end of the long, long pa.s.sageway. That group was also composed of a girl with men in black on either side. This girl was short and slender with her black hair worn in twintails with the ends rolled up. If you ignored the ridiculous number of st.i.tches, she had a healthy body covered only by a sports-brand track suit and jogging gear.
An Archenemy. A zombie.
The two girls faced each other at the center of the corridor. They were both forms of the undead that specialized in group combat and could destroy an entire continent if they used their power correctly.
"So it has to be this way after all, Onee-chan."
"Well, yes. I was prepared for this ever since I heard about the execution method being broadcast on TV."
They were Archenemies who had pa.s.sed the "test" and been promised a life in human society. But that was not an absolute guarantee. It was only a one-way seal of approval given by the Bright Cross, so strife and confusion within the Bright Cross could lead to exactly this. There had always been a risk of the Bright Cross reneging on their promise.
A certain boy had faced that giant organization alone in order to bring an end to this tightrope walk. They could not ignore it if his life was at risk as a result.
Of course, the two girls were family and sisters. And they respected each other even more than that entailed. But they were also Archenemies, the immortal.
While the boy would die if even a single artery was torn, they were tougher. So they had weighed their options and decided to start by rescuing their human family. Archenemies were st.u.r.dy, so they could take more punishment.
And yet they should have known that the Colosseum was not so kind.
"Let"s do this, Onee-chan."
"Of course, Ayumi-chan."
They smiled at each other and spoke in unison.
"No hard feelings."
"No hard feelings."
Amatsu Erika and Amatsu Ayumi.
They did not shake hands.
They walked past each other, turned their backs on each other, and walked to their respective dressing rooms.