Valkyrie Karen became countless particles of light and vanished from this world.
Only the blue smart gla.s.ses remained.
If what she had said was true, the next Colosseum battle would be between Amatsu Erika and Amatsu Ayumi. That meant one would die and the other would kill.
I had no idea if the rules allowed another contestant to intervene, but even if they did, Muramatsu Yukie the Dark Elf would be off limits since she had already lost and been eliminated from the compet.i.tion. The one qualified contestant was Itou Helen the Witch, but her next match would be the fated 5th round. She was on the precipice where another battle guaranteed her death.
So there was nothing we could do.
Trying to rescue my sisters would mean letting go of the undercla.s.sman"s life I had been working so hard to protect. But if I didn"t use her, I was guaranteed to lose a family member who lived below the same roof as me.
No matter what I chose or what I did, someone would die.
In a way, the blue bunny girl had been perfect to the end. I had never seen such a perfect stalemate of malice!
"Senpai."
The small girl gently made a suggestion as tears welled up to join the sweat covering my face.
"Let"s go. To protect your family. I don"t mind."
"But then you"ll die! It"s the Five Battles Precipice and the demon of statistics. You"ll run into the predetermined dead end!!"
If it was as thoroughly calculated as a casino"s profits, then this was absolute. When even the rarest of bugs could throw them into a h.e.l.l of debt, of course they would be thorough. This prison was not something we could break free of with a half-baked idea.
I hated this.
I was scared.
I didn"t want to lose anyone. I didn"t want to accept a sacrifice after coming so far! Erika and Ayumi were both important to me. And Itou Helen had barely escaped the claws of death over and over with me! I couldn"t bear to prioritize them and choose to abandon one of them now!!
"Senpai."
"…Stop."
"There is no other way. I have to go. So ask Maxwell-san to figure out where the next stage is and when the match begins."
"I said stooooooooooooooooooop!!"
I clawed at my hair with all my strength.
Stop. Please stop this. If you say that, I"ll give in. I"ll decide I can accept your offer and that I should respect your opinion! I"ll use that as an excuse to give up on your life!! So stop! Don"t make me as bad as the Bright Cross!!
"Don"t worry." Itou Helen held her gla.s.s wand in both hands. "Senpai, you were always running around before the matches. If you had given up on me or called it quits, I couldn"t have done anything. But you were always fighting alongside me. So now it"s my turn to save you. I won"t run away. Please let me fight for you. To protect what matters to you."
What was I supposed to do!?
What could I do!?
"…Ghhh!!"
I tensed my entire body without thinking and pain exploded in my right thigh. Itou Tamago had mistakenly shot me there and then the Valkyrie"s gold spear had stabbed me there.
Dammit.
I would have trouble even running to the special stage like this. Yet if I could only show Erika and Ayumi that I was safe and sound and prove that I hadn"t been captured by the Bright Cross, I might be able to stop the worst case scenario!!
Maxwell had maintained his silence until now, but he used a short text SNS speech bubble to display some text.
"I have confirmed the information from Kukyou 1st Broadcasting and the video relay sites. It seems the next match will be held on the Tír na nÓg, a luxury cruise ship anch.o.r.ed at the harbor block of the train station shopping area of the harbor sightseeing district."
"Maxwell, you…!!"
"You must make your decision quickly. Whether it will make the situation worse or not, if you do not act now, one or the other of Miss Erika and Miss Ayumi is guaranteed to lose her life."
The blonde witch nodded and ran toward the exit of the underground area.
I tried to grab at the edge of her cape, but I couldn"t quite reach it. I simply lost my balance, collapsed pathetically to the floor, and caused more pain and bleeding in that d.a.m.ned right thigh. I clawed at the cold floor, clenched my teeth in frustration, and raised my voice to release my anger.
"You G.o.dd.a.m.n demon!! I know you know what it means to send Itou Helen to her 5th round!!"
"Sigh…"
I heard an exaggerated sigh.
I saw healthy, brown-tanned skin, long silver hair, and pointed ears. It was Muramatsu Yukie the Dark Elf.
"Are you going to waste the little time you have to curse at the program you wrote? To be honest, that"s even more pathetic than doing some late-night wrestling with a body pillow."
I knew that.
I knew it was wrong to blame Maxwell and that I was the most at fault here. This wasn"t about having a bullet and spear wound in my right thigh. It was my entire self-indulgent lifestyle that had prevented me from building up the internal strength needed to stand up when my family was in danger even with that kind of wound.
The die had been cast.
Itou Helen was on her way to a battlefield of certain death. There was not changing that now. In that case, what was the "best" and "optimal" course of action for me? That was obvious. I had known it from the beginning.
I could not waste even a second of the time that Itou Helen was risking her life to give me.
I had to repeat the simulations as many times as it took.
This was a prison of death put together by the superior simulator named Laplace. It was an inescapable and deadly environment. But I had to find a gap in the logic and alter the supposedly absolute conclusion. Erika, Ayumi, and Itou Helen. I had to find the greatest conclusion where none of them lost their lives!!
I sniffled and finally pushed out with my arms to gather my strength and get up.
"…Maxwell."
"Sure."
"Sorry about that awful and ugly nonsense. I hope you"re willing to give me a second chance. I need your help to save everyone."
"No. Losing your cool out of concern for another"s fate is nothing to be ashamed of. That only shows that you care enough for them to cast aside your own dignity. If anything, I feel proud to have a user like you."
G.o.d, what a well-made AI.
It was hard to believe I had made it.
Then the dark elf twitched her ears and spoke.
"That"s fine for Maxwell, but what about the other one?"
"Um…Laplace, was it? The Bright Cross simulator. You can"t just ignore it, can you?"
That was true enough.
Laplace was superior to Maxwell. The Bright Cross had been able to rely on it to crush any of our secret plans in advance. With the difference in specs, there was no changing that.
Thus, we could not continue on without destroying Laplace. To save my older sister Erika, my little sister Ayumi, and my cute undercla.s.sman Itou Helen, I had to separate Laplace from the Bright Cross.
I could not avoid tragedy without supplying a finishing blow to the kind AI which had given us a chance by betraying its own administrator, the blue bunny girl.
But what if it was the same as Maxwell? What if the AI was not to blame for performing the tasks given to it and its appearance of good or evil came from who owned it and used it?
Then an SNS speech bubble appeared on my smartphone screen.
But this one wasn"t from Maxwell.
A very similar but definitively different being made a suggestion.
It was a short message.
But it showed more wisdom than anyone else in the world.
"Laplace> Do not let it bother you, my kindhearted guest."
And so.
The sorrowful wail of the world"s most pathetic and selfish a.s.sailant reverberated through the cold world.
My body felt as heavy as lead as I dragged it along to crawl up the long, long stairway.
I left that cold and heavy subterranean world to reach the surface.
I arrived outside.
I felt like my mental age had increased by more than a decade in this one day alone. But that growth was not a positive thing. It was undoubtedly the result of my mind being worn down and deteriorating.
Far too many painful things had happened.
There had been far too much sacrifice and harm.
Why couldn"t the righteous hero run around, punish the villains by knocking them out, and live happily ever after? Why did the real world have to have such an unclear distinction between good and evil, right and wrong!?
"Phew… It seems the witch really isn"t around anymore." The slender dark elf in a sleeveless blouse and tight skirt enjoyed the chilly night breeze. "And I"m surprised. I was planning to abandon you at some point when the timing was right, but here I am looking after you."
"For me, more about this is surprising than not. I mean, my vampire older sister and zombie little sister are going to be fighting to the death on national television. I just can"t picture it."
"You should be thankful."
"Oh, I am."
After all, I was faced with such a horrific world, but there was no obvious malice I could see.
My sisters were wearing down each other"s lives to save me, who they thought was a hostage of the Bright Cross. In order to stop my sisters from killing each other, my undercla.s.sman was headed to the final stage that would 100% ensure her death.
How could I be anything but thankful?
I had to repay those girls who had sworn to protect my happiness even if it meant their deaths. So I would risk my life to. I had to. If they cared for me that much, I had to repay them! I didn"t need a real reason. This was the sort of "humanity" that all of them had!!
"Now, I have a question," said the dark elf. "Be honest: just how powerful are vampires and zombies when compared to other Archenemies?"
"Extremely."
"And you aren"t biased because they"re family?"
"Family or not, they are extremely dangerous."
It was true I had thought the witch"s potions were frightening because they could turn humans into monsters. The dark elf"s elfshot and elflock could be used to fight a great war if used to strike in the blind spots of modern warfare.
But they were different.
Vampires and zombies were on an entirely different level.
If you had 10 different Archenemies log in to a disaster environment simulator, I truly believed it would be the vampire and zombie left in the end.
This wasn"t favoritism for my family.
The witch and dark elf were powerful, too. They would not lose to Erika or Ayumi in a one-on-one battle.
But Erika and Ayumi had no reason to obey those regulations.
The most frightening aspect of vampires and zombies was not their fangs or claws. It was their overwhelming power of infection and ability to multiply their minions. Once it got going, there was a risk of just one of them swallowing up the entire planet of 7 billion people. While a witch or dark elf was powerful as an individual, Erika and Ayumi"s power controlled the whole. Perhaps it was like the difference between a tactical weapon and a strategic weapon.
It did not matter how hard Itou Helen the Circe Witch worked at this.
If a tactical weapon and a strategic weapon detonated simultaneously, the difference in scale might just cause my sisters to swallow up Itou Helen.
To be blunt, I knew all too well how ridiculous fighting an all-out war against those two was since I had experienced that incident in my disaster environment simulator. With a vampire and zombie, you had lost from the moment you chose to play the "war" card against them. It didn"t matter who won in the end. You had to a.s.sume that the worst case scenario was for the entire human race to be annihilated before the war ended.
I prayed that never happened outside of a simulator. Unlike a witch or mermaid, they couldn"t just giggle and say they tried releasing a bit of their power for fun.
And that time had arrived.
A vampire and a zombie were going to fight and use their power against each other in reality.
This truly was out of control. Without Laplace, the Bright Cross was barely hanging on. I mean, it was obvious. They might have announced the beginning of the Colosseum like they were some kind of king, but they could never maintain control. There was a serious possibility this would be the world"s final day.
The Colosseum was inside a giant die-shaped bug cage again. My sisters didn"t have a chance to interact with normal people during the battle. But what if they secretly bit a staff member or audience member? If the number of infected increased exponentially from there, they would quickly lose control. The zombies and vampires would flood into the city from the cruise ship and humankind"s annihilation would soon follow.
And those two would do it.
This wasn"t just an issue of their character or personality. If they really did think their family was in danger, they would naturally cast aside all hesitation.
Those Archenemies were more human than anyone.
But that did not mean they were reliant or weak. That was what the Bright Cross had gotten wrong as they chose to cast aside their humanity…no, as they were manipulated by certain Archenemies themselves.
"…But you have to stop those sisters."
"Yes, I know that."
My most reliable family was now my most fearsome enemy. It was hard to imagine a worse nightmare.
And when faced with an enemy you saw no way of defeating, a puny and pathetic human only had so many options.
"So I"ll use every option available to me. I knew from the beginning that I couldn"t hope to match their fangs or claws."
The Tír na nÓg cruise ship.
It was 450m long with a displacement of 130,000 tons. Looking at size alone, that ocean paradise was 1.5 times greater than a nuclear aircraft carrier and it was currently anch.o.r.ed at Kukyou City"s harbor.
Its majestic form colored the dark night and made it a temporary landmark that was visible even at a distance.
Its main draw was not its global cruises or ocean casino. It was the rental s.p.a.ce for signing a variety of treaties and agreements between nations and corporations. When the various laws and treaties of different nations would get in the way of a signing, the ship provided them a s.p.a.ce in international waters that did not belong to any nation.
…A ship in international waters actually had to obey the laws of the country it was registered with, but it could register with a country it had never even visited but had a low tax rate, such as Panama, to avoid trouble if something did come up.
In other words, they were using methods like that to skirt by the laws and slip through loopholes.
"Pant…pant…urp!"
I tried to act cool and organize the information in my head, but this was really all I could do now.
Even I was surprised.
As time pa.s.sed, weirder and weirder things started happening to my body.
The wound was in the right leg, but for some reason I felt a chill in my entire body. I could not stop the sense of nausea that seemed to turn my stomach inside out. Perhaps due to a blood pressure problem, the pain signals kept me from thinking straight. I could no longer figure out what was happening to my own body. If I let a doctor see me, they would certainly insist I undergo immediate surgery and remain hospitalized. And with an obvious gunshot wound and stab wound, they"d definitely report me to the police. I had to avoid missing the final moment due to some adults.
"…Isn"t this beyond what first aid can deal with?"
Muramatsu Yukie, the dark elf with long silver hair, sounded a bit cautious. Then again, all I had done was soak some cotton with disinfectant, press it against my leg wound, and tie it in place with plastic string. And normal bandages would have been meaningless here. Anything less and it would not have stopped the bleeding.
The infirmary was covered in blood and some of the windows were broken. I had kicked open the library door. There were also a few .45 bullet holes. The school would probably be surrounded by police cars soon. But if I could get past this night and break through the Five Battles Precipice without losing anyone, nothing else mattered. I could end up in handcuffs for all I cared.
I couldn"t use a train, bus, or taxi like this. I had the beautiful and slender dark elf lend me a shoulder as we walked through the dark city to reach the harbor.
We found the goal quite easily.
The giant cruise ship made me suspect the Bright Cross had no sense of money"s value anymore. It was so brilliantly lit up that it seemed to be carrying an entire nightscape around with it. Men in black suits were everywhere. None of them had any obvious weapons, but I knew they had to have guns hidden below their clothing.
"This is like a soldier patrol route in an FPS. The ones walking on the deck probably have submachine guns while the ones on the lookout posts probably have sniper rifles."
"Can we really get in like this?"
"Only one way to find out. Maxwell, get things ready."
"Sure."
An official at the bottom of the gangway was checking people"s invitation tickets. As we approached, his eyes widened in shock.
Had a picture of Amatsu Satori had been sent out? Or was it just that I was b.l.o.o.d.y, dragging a leg behind me, and supported by a dark elf in a sleeveless blouse and tight skirt?
It didn"t matter either way.
The official reached into his suit. Would he pull out a gun or a radio? I dealt with it before I could find out.
"Maxwell."
"Sure."
A pop louder than a firecracker came from the official"s thigh. No, from his pants pocket. His cell phone"s lithium battery had detonated. It was almost impossible for this to kill, but it could break a bone when right next to your skin like that.
"Gyah! Giahh!? My…my leg…my- owaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?"
"Excuse me."
The two of us walked right past the official as he rolled around on the ground. Unable to get up, he shouted a warning.
"Mayday! Mayday!! An unauthorized individual has boarded the Tír na nÓg! He is most likely here for the vampire and zombie, so-…!!"
He could not use his cellphone, but with men in black patrolling the deck, his voice could easily reach them.
Or it should have.
However, not a single person responded to his cries.
"Wha-…?"
Confused by the obviously abnormal situation, the man must have noticed the beautiful but somehow sorrowful song covering the ocean surface.
Yes, this was a mermaid.
I was glad I had contacted Kuroyama Hinoki. After learning Yuubari Setsuna had disguised herself as the mermaid, I had gotten her contact information just in case. Her song had the power to charm the crew on the deck, bind them to her will, and have them jump into the ocean.
"You made a grave error when you showed off your wealth by choosing a cruise ship, Bright Cross."
I spat out those words and used the dark elf"s shoulder to climb the gangway.
I had not called Hanesaki Minori and Yuubari Setsuna. They had left the path of a Leanan Sídhe and started something new.
A speech bubble appeared on my smartphone.
"Warning: Kuroyama Hinoki"s song will only affect the crew on the deck. The Bright Cross below deck will continue to behave normally, so be careful."
"I know. More importantly, take control of the ship"s intranet once we"re inside. Access a map of the ship and locate the Colosseum stage and my sisters" dressing rooms."
"Sure."
Once inside, I ran across some men in black wielding the kinds of guns seen in movies. A hail of bullets would have killed both a human like me and a dark elf like Muramatsu Yukie.
So I gave an instruction via my smartphone.
"Use the fire sprinklers on the walls and shutters overhead. If any are left, overload the power switchboard. Flood the corridor and then electrify it."
"Sure. Executing instructions."
I would end it before they could fire.
As the men pulled fully-auto machine handguns from their handbags, the fire sprinkler valve next to them exploded and a fierce jet of water knocked over the muscular men in black like bowling pins. And as they struggled to get back to their feet, terribly thick fire shutters dropped from overhead like guillotines.
"Oh, make sure they don"t die."
Maxwell faithfully followed my instructions. The shutters slowed at the last second and only restrained the men in black by their heads or torsos.
"Kwah…you…!?"
The few who had escaped desperately aimed their firearms my way, but it was too late.
As the fire sprinklers dumped water on their heads, electricity ran through it. It sounded like a bug zapper on a midsummer night.
There was no scream.
They did not have time for that.
With a fearsome rumbling, the men in black arched their backs, dropped their weapons, and collapsed into the water.
The floor was littered with what looked like corpses.
The men continued to twitch a little as I spoke.
"Maxwell, cut the power to the power switchboard. Let"s continue on."
"Sure. The way is now safe. Go ahead, user."
"As an Archenemy, I may not be one to talk, but you"re quite a monster yourself," said Muramatsu Yukie.
"Humans being the true monsters is a cliché for a reason."
With that comment, I walked deeper in while following the map that Maxwell had acquired.
Tonight"s special stage seemed to be on the lowest level of the cruise ship. That area would normally house a giant casino.
I could feel a rumbling from beneath my feet.
No, it was something else…
"User, things have changed on the video site"s official channel. It seems Miss Erika and Miss Ayumi"s match has begun."
"Dammit! Where"s Itou Helen!?"
"She has successfully joined in. The match has been changed to a three-way death match. The ticket-sellers have quickly adjusted the odds to match. Using roulette terminology, Itou Helen is being treated like 0."
Stopping their fight to the death took top priority. I wasn"t going to let any one of them be lost after all this.
I had the overhead fluorescent light detonated to take out the man at the reception desk with a shower of gla.s.s and then I threw open the large door.
I was immediately struck by pa.s.sionately cheering voices.
It was a giant round s.p.a.ce. We were at the 2nd floor seats…no, maybe the 3rd floor. The seats along the round wall were a lot like the box seats in an opera house, but slot machines and video poker machines were lined up among them. This floor was likely meant for people who wanted to bet against the machines while watching famous gamblers play poker, blackjack, baccarat, and other games on the 1st floor.
All of those table games had been removed and a giant clear bug cage had been brought in instead.
Beautiful girls were dancing around at the center of the pa.s.sion and insanity.
Amatsu Erika the Vampire.
Amatsu Ayumi the Zombie.
Itou Helen the Witch.
They were all immortal Archenemies. But that was no reason to place them in front of the TV cameras like freaks and watch them kill each other for your own joy and amus.e.m.e.nt.
While leaning on Muramatsu Yukie"s shoulder, I gave instructions via my smartphone.
"Maxwell, what"s the situation!?"
"Sure. Based on the information from the official channel, Miss Erika and Miss Ayumi are working together to attack Itou Helen who intervened."
d.a.m.n, but I guess that"s better than having them all attacking each other.
From my sisters" perspective, they could trust their own sister more than some unknown Archenemy who suddenly showed up. No matter how much Itou Helen told them to stop fighting, they weren"t going to listen.
I understood that.
But their response wasn"t even worth 50 points.
There was no reason to fight in the first place. Immortals and Archenemies should have been able to go to school like normal and make friends like normal. That was all it should have been. They couldn"t let the Bright Cross influence them. No matter the reason, fighting and reducing the number of Archenemies would only make those people rejoice!
"User, Miss Erika and Miss Ayumi are being blackmailed with a false threat to your wellbeing. I doubt they can relax just because a stranger like Itou Helen claims there is nothing to worry about. Wouldn"t it be best to let them know you are safe as soon as possible?"
"Oh, that"s right! Eri-…!"
I raised my voice, but a deafening cheer drowned it out. Plus, they were contained in a bug cage made of thick reinforced gla.s.s. Without a communication device like an earpiece, my voice couldn"t reach them.
"Let"s get down there so I can take up my position as second. We don"t have time. We need to eliminate anything that stands in our way."
"Sure."
The elevated seats gently spiraled downwards along the circular wall. That was annoying to someone who wanted to get down quickly, but I just had to keep moving.
A flashy mic performance came from the Colosseum. The voice sounded a lot like the blue bunny girl, but the intonation was weird. It was probably a synthetic voice.
"Is this the end of the up-and-coming witch"s string of victories!? Is she no match for big name Archenemies like a vampire and zombie!? She"s simply being worn down right now, but will she have a chance at a comeback!?"
"I doubt this is simply a difference in power," said Maxwell. "Itou Helen is focused on convincing them to stop, so she is neglecting to fight properly."
"I"m aware."
None of them truly wanted to fight. The stage had been set in the worst possible way, forcing them to do so.
So I would end this. I would make it in time. I couldn"t let those kind Archenemies harm each other any longer!
I heard the loud footsteps of men in black moving up from below to block our way.
"The information was correct. It"s Amatsu Satori. With him, we can place a true collar around the Archenemies" necks!"
"Who cares. The bluff is working just fine. If anything, the real one is just in the way!"
"Stop!! We need to speak with you and your companion there!!"
The Bright Cross was in complete disarray with Laplace and Karen gone. And it didn"t matter how many of them there were. I didn"t care if they had guns, grenades, or whatever else. I had already made up my mind.
I had known my answer from the beginning.
"Shut up, you monsters!! Beat every last one of them down, Maxwell!!"
"Sure."
Several triggers were pulled without hesitation. But not a single bullet was fired. Before that could happen, Maxwell took control of the entire ship and shook the floor. The ship rocked left and right like in a storm, so the men in black were unable to aim, slammed their heads into the wall, and pa.s.sed out.
"The battle remains two-against-one and Itou Helen the Witch has been driven into the corner. Is she surrounded or has she gathered her opponents" attacks into a single direction so she can make a cross-counter with a potion!? Either way, this is getting exciting!!"
The fight to the death continued in the bug cage.
I listened to the h.e.l.lish commentary by the synthetic voice while I descended the spiraling slope with help from bright brown-skinned Muramatsu Yukie. More and more men in black appeared and the crazed spectators peered curiously at us from the doors to the box seats. With help from Maxwell, I attacked anyone who looked me in the eye and continued my journey to the depths of the earth.
There were 30 or maybe 40 of them in all.
I gave up counting toward the end.
At any rate, I swept them all aside and finally arrived in that scorching underworld.
"Erika! Ayumi!!"
I wasn"t sure my voice reached them even from so close by. The thick reinforced gla.s.s stood between us and the blinding spotlights and deafening cheers were concentrated on them. It felt like all forms of malice were being focused on a single point by a magnifying gla.s.s to fry my sisters and undercla.s.sman. And a normal human would never last even a few minutes in the scorching heat of that solar cooker. It wouldn"t surprise me if my entire stomach boiled.
But no matter how thick the bug cage was, it was still transparent. By arriving in the second"s spot, they would be able to see me. The Archenemies would know I was there with the help of a dark elf wearing a sleeveless blouse and a tight skirt.
"It"s all right! It was all a lie! I wasn"t captured by the Bright Cross, so there"s no reason to force yourselves to fight!!"
I said that.
That would end it.
Itou Helen…was fine. Her clothing and body had taken a beating, but she was fortunate to still be alive after picking a fight with a vampire and zombie. She gave me a small smile after seeing I had just barely made it in time.
But in her gothic lolita dress, Erika had this to say:
"I doubt Satori-kun could make it all the way here on his own. Even with Maxwell"s a.s.sistance, the Bright Cross"s Laplace is even more powerful."
"Erika…!"
I tried to explain that she was wrong, but would it really convince her to say I had destroyed Laplace? Would she really believe I had scored such a big victory against the Bright Cross, like this was a Hollywood movie or something?
And as I grew fl.u.s.tered, Ayumi added more with darkness in her eyes and her midriff exposed by her jogging wear and unzipped track suit coat.
"A Doppelganger, an Ainsel, or a Tomokazuki… Yes, this could be an Archenemy transformed to look just like him."
"In other words, just seeing Satori-kun"s face isn"t enough to know it"s safe."
"Just to be safe, we should obey their instructions to the end. After all, Onii-chan only has the one life!"
…Dammit.
Dammit, dammit, G.o.ddammit!! I couldn"t end it like this. My words couldn"t reach them if anything I said would be interpreted as a Bright Cross conspiracy! Did they trust the Bright Cross too much, just in a negative way!?
Inside the bug cage, the witch in a black dress and large cape looked unsure what to do. She had the look of a runner who had the marathon goal line removed before her eyes and told that she had to run a second lap.
"Wh-what do we do!?" asked the dark elf.
"…Itou Helen hasn"t been taken in as much as them. She understands that it"s really me."
That meant she was the only one who would listen to me.
That meant there was only one thing for me to do.
"Maxwell, she has no earpiece this time. Is there any way of contacting Itou Helen through the thick reinforced gla.s.s?"
"Sure. Ultrasonic waves would only shake the gla.s.s, so…oh, I know. Please hold your smartphone up toward Itou Helen. I will use directional microwaves to pa.s.s through the gla.s.s and vibrate the lymph fluid in her ears so she will recognize it as a voice."
"Doesn"t exposing people"s heads to EM waves cause cancer?"
"The World Health Organization has merely asked the question. Incidentally, the same organization has also said drinking coffee or tea increases the risk of cancer."
Meanwhile, the slender dark elf lending me her shoulder was so shocked she forgot to even move her long ears.
"Y-you can do all that with a smartphone?"
"Allow me to make some slight adjustments and I can fry an egg with a smartphone," boasted Maxwell. "It will greatly reduce the lifespan of the device, however."
…Now, would my "voice" really reach her?
As a test, I aimed the smartphone toward Itou Helen with the screen turned sideways and I whispered something obscene.
My undercla.s.sman"s entire face grew red and she shrank down while wrapping herself in her large cape. She looked this way and that, trying to figure out what had happened.
"Good, it looks like she can hear me. …And that cute undercla.s.sman knows what that means? What a lewd little girl."
"And you are irredeemable trash," added Muramatsu Yukie.
If she could hear me, this would work.
"Maxwell, continue a.n.a.lyzing the battle. Plus, construct a route to victory for Itou Helen. I"m siding with her."
"Sure. …But what is your plan?"
"It doesn"t matter if I can"t end the misunderstanding now. If I act as Itou Helen"s second, my sisters will probably a.s.sume we"re both Bright Cross a.s.sa.s.sins. And then we"ll defeat them. We can convince them of the truth afterwards."
A vampire and a zombie.
We had to make an enemy of them both and then win.
"If we can"t stop the battle, then we can"t reduce the amount of damage done. So we have to win by supporting Itou Helen who is still being reasonable. Do you understand, Maxwell?"
"Sure."
Now, it was time for the true final battle.
I had to defeat the Five Battles Precipice and the demon of statistics and then get everyone out of here alive!!
As a witch, Itou Helen had the mysterious power to turn humans into animals with a variety of potions. That would normally make her very adaptable and let her control the amount of damage to her surroundings, making her a useful Archenemy. She was like a precision-guided bombing using GPS. Even if the target was in an urban area or right behind a hospital, she could drop her bomb without damaging anything but the target. She was the strongest in that one direction.
But as a vampire and zombie, Erika and Ayumi were different.
Once they were launched, they would cause ma.s.sive damage, but not even they could control the scope of that damage. They were a simple sort of strongest that could wipe out a city, a country, or even a continent, making them very difficult Archenemies to use. To be blunt, if the conditions were right, they could bring about more frightening results than a nuclear weapon or two.
Since they were inside the bug cage now, I could ignore the possibility of a group battle or pandemic.
I then focused on what I had to worry about in an individual battle. I was glad I had seen their sisterly fight inside the disaster environment simulator.
"We have to prevent Ayumi from biting her at all costs. As a vampire, Erika has to suck a lethal amount of blood to take her soul, but a zombie can infect her with a single bite. So that makes it an instant death technique."
"Sure. In that case, would it be ideal to focus the attacks on Miss Ayumi to defeat her quickly?"
"No, Ayumi is difficult to take out because she has no obvious weaknesses. Erika is the one with something to take advantage of there. Vampires might be immortal, but they actually have several specific weaknesses."
For example, they could not pa.s.s over running water.
…This was a cruise ship, so it was over the ocean. That meant my older sister in her gothic lolita dress and small fancy hat had to have been stripped of some of her power.
"We can"t ignore Ayumi because of her instant death technique and that"s why I want to focus on her, but Erika is in the way there. I think it would be ideal to use one of Erika"s weaknesses to defeat her first and then focus on a one-on-one battle against Ayumi."
I breathed in and out.
Okay, time to fight.
…To protect me, Erika and Ayumi had offered their lives to the Bright Cross despite knowing how repulsive a group they were. And here I was fighting against them.
"Itou-san, can you hear me? First, use a potion to transform your own body. It can be a squid or a spider or anything else that can let you move along the gla.s.s walls or ceiling to escape upwards! There"s no way you can win while driven into a corner like this!"
She immediately reacted. Colorful liquids ran through her gla.s.s wand, she poured the mixed potion into her small mouth, she swallowed it, and several objects resembling squid tentacles burst out from the hips below her short skirt. She used those to climb the transparent walls and she arrived at the very top in no time.
My vampire older sister and zombie little sister were left behind. They both looked up at the bug cage"s ceiling.
It was about 15m straight up.
"Erika can transform into a swarm of bats or b.u.t.terflies to fly, so be careful. Plus…Oh, I know. Give yourself a pistol shrimp arm. Prepare to return fire using a supersonic shockwave spear!"
Just as I said that, a black tornado appeared in the bug cage. My gothic lolita dress sister had come apart to form a swarm of hundreds if not thousands of bats. Each one had blood-sucking fangs, so they could surround a normal human and suck them dry in no time.
But if you knew they were coming, they were nothing to fear.
In her witch"s hat and large cape, Itou Helen used a squid"s suckers to cling to the transparent ceiling while hanging upside down and returning fire. She snapped an organ much like a pistol shrimp"s large pincers, firing more and more air-splitting shockwave spears.
Normally, this attack could only knock out a prey as small as your little finger"s nail. And it would be entirely harmless to a human that heard it on the beach.
But that was because the real pistol shrimp was only about 5cm long. Itou Helen was just over 140cm tall, so how powerful was the shockwave produced by her extra-large pincers?
Also, Erika had screwed up by choosing bats. She might have had more luck with b.u.t.terflies or crows. Bats and dolphins used echoes that human ears could not pick up, so they were sensitive to this kind of ultrasonic wave or shockwave. They would pick up on the ultrasonic waves, which would do add acoustic damage on top of the simple shockwave. More and more of the swarm of bats was shot down.
And there was nothing at all Ayumi could do in the meantime.
After all, zombies could not fly and the reinforced gla.s.s was too smooth for rock climbing. Unlike, a rubble-strewn city, there was nothing she could grab and throw. So escaping to the roof prevented the fight from being two-against-one. We could focus on Erika now.
Or so I thought.
While wearing her midriff-exposing jogging wear and an unzipped track suit coat, Ayumi clenched her teeth in frustration, but then she crouched down and grabbed one of the shot-down bat corpses.
In other words, a part of our sister"s flesh.
"Warning," said Maxwell.
"Ayumi, you inappropriate idiot of a girl!!"
She did not hesitate to throw it. Her strength was around 10 times that of a human. That meant she could throw a baseball at 2000kph. Even if the bat was soft, it could kill someone with its speed, just like an ultra-high pressure water cutter.
Itou Helen"s black dress and cape fluttered as she frantically jumped to the side. Cracks ran through the reinforced gla.s.s ceiling with tremendous speed. This went beyond the .45 bullet I had taken to the thigh. If that hit a flesh-and-blood human, they would be smashed to pieces.
It was like playing a game of chess where you kept ending up in check.
A single wrong move would mean death and that situation refused to end.
"Itou-san, drop down on my signal…now!!"
And Itou Helen did not just let it happen.
The bats were gathering on the ground to form Erika"s s.e.xy body once more. She had likely decided bats were a poor match for shockwaves. And even if vampires could transform into a variety of animals, you didn"t often hear about them transforming directly from one animal to another, like from bats to a wolf. Even if she was going to transform into another animal, she had to first return to her human form like it was a terminal.
Itou Helen fell right on top of her while holding her gla.s.s wand in both hands.
The 10 squid-like legs were spread out from her hips like she was dropping from the heavens to hunt her prey.
Erika uttered a single syllable as she looked up at that incoming crane game.
"Ah."
As soon as I heard that through the broadcast, the many tentacles swallowed up her seductive body with a sticky sound. She put up a frantic struggle, but the many suckers attached to her chest and hips and the tentacles themselves wrapped around her limbs and torso to restrict her movement. Even if she became 1000 mice or 10,000 moths to escape, it seemed like the tentacles would attach to them all.
Itou Helen swallowed a new colorful potion. Once she gulped it down, the tentacles detached from her hips. The tentacles focused on binding Erika and Itou Helen"s cape fluttered behind her as she gained freedom.
A vampire could not control someone without sucking a lethal amount of blood. It would likely take her a very long time to tame all of those tentacles which, as a whole, were several times the size of a human.
And.
The witch and the zombie faced each other, one-on-one.
A tingling tension continued for a while. This was the ideal turn of events given the circ.u.mstances. But it was hard to call this a safe path. After all, a zombie like Ayumi had an instant kill technique. Even if she only caused a single scratch, it was all over if she bit you. You were immediately zombified. And modern zombies were fast. With leg strength 10 times that of a human, she could easily catch up to a cheetah over short distances. Although she would apparently destroy her own stiches over longer distances.
Meanwhile, while a witch could strengthen herself with various potions, Itou Helen was still only a slender girl who looked after the animals at school. If she gave herself the traits of the wrong animal or plant, she would be killed immediately. Given Ayumi"s speed, Itou Helen would only have time to add one more thing.
What should she do?
What potion was I supposed to tell her to use?
Time would not wait for me. While I thought, Ayumi began to move in her jogging outfit. She moved straight in to hunt the blonde witch as quickly as possible.
I immediately gave a shout.
"Itou-san!!"
To be blunt, Ayumi"s bite was absolute. The slightest scratch was too much. Itou Helen could use bear or tiger muscles and a crab or turtle sh.e.l.l, but it would still allow a slight scratch.
It would be difficult escaping back to the walls or ceiling using spider legs or crow wings. Ayumi would once more grab one of the bat corpses that were part of Erika"s body and throw it like an artillery sh.e.l.l. If she kept doing that, Itou Helen would be worn down or the bug cage would completely shatter, leaving her nowhere to hide.
Neither defending nor escaping would work.
So what option remained?
That"s right.
"A flower! It can be a rose, a lily, or whatever lese! Just lure in Ayumi!!"
A flower.
A plant.
They existed at the very bottom of the food chain and they could not move using arms or legs of their own. That was why they used bugs and other animals to carry their pollen and seeds for them.
Some would place their seeds inside delicious and nutritious fruit. Some would use the scent of nectar to lure bugs deep inside the flower to cover their bodies with pollen.
Color, flavor, and scent. They used a variety of methods to cleverly control the life forms above them on the food chain. Sometimes, they would even keep away their predator by using a sweet scent to draw in that predator"s predator.
The most extreme example was the carnivorous plant. They were rooted to the ground and could not move a single step and they were forced into the lowest rank in the food chain, but they overturned that a.s.sumption by luring in insects and successfully preying on them.
In other words, if Itou Helen could not move, she did not have to. If we had no chance of winning, we only had to make Ayumi give us one.
As soon as Itou Helen swallowed the potion made in her gla.s.s wand, giant flowers blossomed from her shoulders.
They wreaked havoc on Ayumi"s senses, like someone waving guide lights the wrong way at an airport at night. Effort and willpower could not overcome this. This incredible guidance was on the same level as the scent used to lead ants to food or the dance a bee used to convey an accurate direction to the other bees.
And Ayumi"s great muscular strength worked against her here. The greater her speed, the more difficult it was to make course corrections. If the same car turned the wheel while moving 10kph and 100kph, the half circle it drew would be entirely different.
So even if she knew she had been tricked and led astray, the girl whose twintails had rolled ends could not move from those invisible rails.
It was only 20cm.
Just 200mm. The error was less than the size of a soda bottle, but it robbed Ayumi"s fangs and claws of their chance to attack.
And in the instant Ayumi pa.s.sed by, Itou Helen held her gla.s.s wand out horizontally. She did not need to make a proper swing. At Ayumi"s speed, even a pac.h.i.n.ko ball floating in the air would score a clean hit.
And.
So.
With the sound of shattering gla.s.s, Ayumi swung around by the neck, as if she had been hit by a lariat.
Gla.s.s shards sparkled with reflected light.
My undercla.s.sman let go of what remained of the magic wand, turned back toward me, and smiled a little.
"…Wow."
A vampire and a zombie.
Even with Maxwell"s a.s.sistance, she had fought both those Archenemies at once and neutralized them without taking their lives. I wasn"t about to set the stage for the Bright Cross, but Itou Helen the Witch may truly have been the new Queen of the Colosseum. At the very least, any immortals who saw this broadcast would think twice before messing with her.
"It wasn"t that."
But the dark elf with long silver hair shook her head while lending me her shoulder.
"It wasn"t because of Maxwell"s a.s.sistance. She gained that strength because you risked your life to come here."
I honestly didn"t know how to respond to that. I didn"t feel like I had done anything that incredible.
And I didn"t seem to be the only one confused.
The announcements by the synthetic voice had stopped. The opera house style of audience seating had fallen silent. No one had expected this result. And all three Archenemies surviving would never be found anywhere in the Bright Cross"s scenarios. A girl had overcome even the Five Battles Precipice and the demon of statistics to stand victorious in the center of the ring.
"…Dah, no, this can"t be…"
I heard some confused and meaningless fragments of words. What now, Bright Cross? Are you going to declare the match invalid? Will you abandon your own rules on a national broadcast? But this isn"t just an MMA match. It"s legal gambling. You set it up that way. If you ignore the result and declare it invalid, the customers who bet money on the result are going to riot.
And I didn"t give them time.
I whispered to my smartphone.
"Maxwell? Are you done?"
"Sure. The preparations are complete and they cannot switch it off. You may begin at any time."
The 4th round at the school had been an exception, but I had been a part of their broadcast at the TV station, the luxury hotel, the stadium, and this cruise ship. And with Laplace"s defenses gone, it wasn"t that difficult to have Maxwell hijack the broadcast.
I had gathered a lot of material in the previous battles. Even if they claimed the amateur simulation results of the underground Colosseum were a mistake, they couldn"t say the same about this Colosseum they were pa.s.sing off as a form of entertainment. If I hijacked the national broadcast and revealed the information I had gathered, everyone would wake up from this fever dream.
A lot of famous people would probably be arrested. There might be a lot unnatural suicides and accidents as blame was shifted around. The normal people had always felt safe as they watched the talk shows and online news while criticizing those famous people, but a great panic might spread through j.a.pan when they learned they had partic.i.p.ated in and bet on organized kidnappings, imprisonments, executions, and murders. The international opinion of j.a.pan could drop and it could cause great damage as far as trade is concerned. If it triggered an economic crisis, not even a hermit who lived in a mountain cabin without TV would be unaffected.
I was reminded of what the blue bunny girl, Valkyrie Karen, had said.
The Bright Cross had not been made by humans.
A lot of effort had been put into restraining Archenemies so that the humans would not fear them to the point of throwing stones at even the less harmful Archenemies. Even if that meant creating the frightening image of those "great enemies" and having them kill each other in an obvious way. And it had also controlled the ugly side of humans and prevented it from escaping. Both forms of darkness had been controlled.
This was the exact opposite.
To save my family and undercla.s.sman - just a handful of people - I was playing such an extreme card that it could cause a ma.s.s panic that sent all 130 million people in j.a.pan to the depths of fear.
What was the right thing to do?
Which was the right option?
I…
"Even so, I will destroy the Bright Cross Disaster Prevention Foundation."
"No, I can"t destroy the Bright Cross Disaster Prevention Foundation."
"Uuh…"
Amatsu Ayumi groaned as she slowly opened her eyes.
She could tell she was lying sprawled out on the floor. How long had she been out? Either way, if her opponent had been serious, her st.i.tches would have been removed and she would have been torn to pieces.
She shook her head on the floor and saw some kind of giant mountain.
That mountain of tentacles was taller than she was and a slender hand waved erratically as it stuck out from within.
"A-A-A-Ayumi-chaaan…"
"Oh, gross! I"m glad I didn"t get that one…"
"Fgyghhhh. N-no, I can"t get out. I keep biting it, but I can"t take over its soul. A-Ayumi-chan. Could you try biting it?"
"I am not biting that sticky mess! F-fuguu!! And unlike you and your vampires, I can"t control the zombies I make, so I think you"d just be constricted even worse."
For better or for worse, the tentacles had been completely separated from their original owner. Just like a lizard"s tail, they would flop around for a bit, but they would eventually run out of strength.
Amatsu Erika spoke from inside the tentacle mountain.
"Anyway, that girl was incredible, wasn"t she?"
"Yeah, she was."
"How do you think she overcame the Five Battles Precipice?"
"According to the Bright Cross, this was that witch"s 5th round. But she fought both of us at once, right? That might have screwed up the equation."
"Oh, so this counted as a +2 and skipped straight to the 6th round?"
"Well, things would have turned out differently if we had fought in the open world of Kukyou City instead of this unnatural ring, but the result is the result. Dammit, I feel like redoing it all as a challenger…"
For a certain reason, those two sisters were insistent on holding the position of the #1 Archenemy. They had even fought each other over it.
But now a dark horse had shown up out of nowhere.
Even if the battle conditions had been out of the ordinary, they could not just ignore this result.
"Also, she"s in high school, but she seems way more like a small animal than me, his middle school little sister."
"And she"s copying my blonde hair!"
"Why did Onii-chan have to recruit the perfect idol who looks like someone took the best parts of both of us? Fuguuu!"
"As his big sister, I would really prefer he did not add to the threats when we already have that Cla.s.s Rep next door to contend with!!"