The Asterisk War, Vol. 11: The Way of the Sword Read online

  Which meant—

  “I suppose, seeing as it was a draw, you do have the right to demand at least something from me.”

  “Huh?” Kirin squeaked, her face turning stiff.

  She pulled her legs up from the balcony, before moving to kneel formally across from him.

  “K-Kirin?”

  “Ayato. I think you should face your father properly and tell him how you really feel.”

  At this, he found his body trembling ever so slightly. “That’s… I mean, I’m already…”

  “Then you need to try harder,” Kirin bit back. Her hands, resting upon her knees, tightened visibly as she took in a deep breath and looked straight at him. “If I could do it, so can you!”

  “—!”

  The truth of that statement hit him right in the chest.

  It was the kind of sincere honesty that he should have expected from her.

  That was no doubt why he was able to answer as readily as he did: “…You’re right. Okay, I will… You sounded a little like my sister just now, you know?”

  “R-really? Sorry, I didn’t mean to…,” Kirin answered respectfully, waving her hands in embarrassment.

  Both of them had returned to their usual selves.

  “No, there’s nothing to apologize for. I guess I can’t keep patting you on the head, though, like an elder brother…”

  “Huh?!” Kirin blurted out, averting her gaze. “Th-that’s… D-don’t change…” Her face had turned red all the way to her ears.

  “Ha-ha, I’m just kidding,” Ayato said with a warm chuckle as he moved to place his hand on her hair—before stopping so suddenly that not even he knew exactly why.

  He had been able to do it so easily up until now, but this time, he hesitated.

  “Huh? Ayato?”

  He could feel his heart racing as Kirin tilted her head to glance up at him. “Ah, I…” But even so, he steadied his resolve as he began to slowly pat her on the head—more awkwardly than he remembered it ever having felt before.

  Kirin, too, must have realized that as she stared up toward him, her lips curling in a warm grin. “Ayato… Are you blushing?”

  Ayato decided to head home again the next day.

  Kirin, it seemed, wanted to stay at her own place for a while longer, but when he left, he heard her calling out after him: “You can do it!” That was enough to give him the strength that he needed.

  “…I’m back.”

  Since he had called in advance, Masatsugu was waiting for him in the living room.

  “…”

  As Ayato stepped inside, his father merely glanced toward him, as silent as ever.

  But that was fine. He hadn’t come back to engage in idle chat.

  Kirin had told him to face his father properly and tell him how he really felt. Of course, there was little chance that would turn into a lively conversation, nor was that his intention.

  For Ayato, the best way he could think to approach it was to simply say what he needed to say, and hear what he needed to hear.

  “I’ve decided, Dad—about what to do to help Haruka. I’ve thought it over.”

  “…I see…”

  “I’m not asking you to change my mind. I just wanted to hear what you thought was best… Your real thoughts about it all.” Ayato spoke softly, slowly, trying to keep his emotions from gushing up.

  “…” His father, however, remained silent, arms folded.

  Ayato, on the other hand, had decided to wait him out. He would be as patient as he needed to be.

  At long last, his father spoke up: “…I suppose I don’t deserve to be called a father. I don’t have the slightest clue what I’m supposed to do, for you or Haruka.” Masatsugu’s tone of voice was as muted as Ayato’s had been.

  That wasn’t the kind of answer Ayato had been hoping for, but he kept staring at his father, not once averting his gaze.

  They remained that way for a long time, silent, until finally, dusk began to creep into the room.

  All of a sudden, Masatsugu let out a deep sigh of resignation. “If I could, if it were up to me—there’s nothing I’d like more than to hold Haruka in my arms again.”

  At this, Ayato’s eyes snapped wide open.

  His father’s expression remained stern, but a crack in his voice finally gave shape to his inner turmoil and the truth that lay behind his words.

  “…I see. Thank you,” Ayato replied quietly as he stood up.

  This was enough. For now, at least.

  The atmosphere of the room, always so oppressive, felt somehow lighter.

  He felt as if he had managed to pull open a window that had remained lodged shut for many years, finally allowing a breath of fresh air to blow inside.

  “I’ll bring her home with me next time.”

  “…I see.”

  That was the full extent of what passed between them before Ayato departed once more.

  As he made his way to the bus stop along the twilight country road, he took his mobile from his pocket and summoned his desired contact.

  Now that he thought about it, this was no doubt why she had called him the other day.

  It was exactly as she had said.

  No, as she had foretold:

  “Remember this, Ayato Amagiri. You will ask me for my help, sooner or later. I’m sure of it.”

  She had been right. There was no denying it. The prophecy was about to be fulfilled.

  Just not, however, as she was expecting.

  “Kee-hee-hee-hee! I’ve been waiting to hear from you, Ayato Amagiri.” Hilda Jane Rowlands, alias Magnum Opus, appeared in the air-window in front of him. “Seeing as you’re calling me this time, I take it you’ve decided?”

  “…Yes. I want you to wake my sister.”

  A look of delight spread across Hilda’s face as she flashed her sharp, devil-like teeth in a smirk. “Wonderful…! A wise choice, Ayato Amagiri! So that means that you’ve accepted my conditions?”

  “Yes.”

  And by doing so, he was practically setting this savage beast loose on the world once more.

  The responsibility for unleashing that creature rested with him. He was prepared to accept that.

  But first—

  “I also have some conditions.”

  “Oh?” Hilda paused, the whites of her upturned eyes peering down at him from behind her glasses. “And what would they be?”

  First, he had to be sure that he could at least hold this creature back.

  Ayato gave her a sharp look through the air-window as he carefully, cautiously, enumerated his requirements.

  “Kee-hee-hee-hee! Things are going to get a lot busier around here!” Hilda laughed delightedly to herself once the air-window snapped shut.

  Ayato Amagiri had finally made the decision. Freedom would be hers once more—soon, she would once again be able to devote her every waking hour to her research and experiments. She glanced around at her laboratory deep inside Allekant Académie’s research facility. Though now barren and empty, it too would soon finally be restored.

  True, it all came with some rather meddlesome strings attached, but they were nothing she couldn’t work around.

  First, she would have to assemble her team and calibrate the mana accelerator.

  As she was planning her next moves, however—

  “You look like you’re enjoying yourself, Hilda Jane Rowlands,” came a cold voice, stripped of all emotion, calling out from behind her.

  She turned around, her gaze falling on an unfamiliar woman standing in the corner of the room. “…And you are?”

  It should have been impossible for anyone other than her to enter the lab. The vast majority of Tenorio’s members wouldn’t even bother trying, as Hilda could be guaranteed to deny them entry.

  The woman wasn’t wearing a uniform, nor did she have a school crest, so she probably wasn’t a student.

  Only when Hilda noticed that she was wearing a strange, mechanical necklace did she realize whom she was spe
aking to.

  “Ah, I see, I see. So you’re using a new body now… Varda, wasn’t it?”

  “Indeed, I am Varda. Varda-Vaos.”

  “Yes, yes. We met at that meeting, didn’t we, the one with the funny name? Oh, I was so young and naive back then!”

  At that time, she had still been a student at Allekant’s middle school.

  Even then, she had been in command of several research teams, and she had been considered a prodigy in meteoric engineering capable of standing alongside Ernesta Kühne.

  “Well then, what business did you have with me? I’m afraid things have just gotten remarkably busy here, so I don’t have time to stop and chat…”

  “I’m interested in you. On a personal level.”

  “Oh? An Orga Lux like yourself, interested in a human like me? And here I was thinking you had already enlisted Ernesta Kühne?”

  Hilda had known for a while now that Ernesta had established some kind of relationship with the Golden Bough Alliance.

  That was no doubt the reason behind her frequent trips off campus.

  “This has nothing to do with their plan. They might be making progress, but Madiath’s way of doing things is too abstract, too lacking in rationality.”

  “Well, I suppose that’s only natural.”

  Madiath Mesa was that kind of man.

  “And Ernesta Kühne will always take the side of humans. Unlike you or me.”

  “That does sound like her.”

  Ernesta Kühne was that kind of woman.

  “In other words… To put this in human terms, I’m still attached to Ecknardt’s old plan.”

  Finally, Hilda’s surprise and curiosity were piqued.

  The Varda she had known had been more mechanical, less tainted by human emotion.

  “But with Ecknardt gone, isn’t that now untenable?”

  Hilda had once lent her assistance to the Golden Bough Alliance. It had only been a short-term arrangement, brought to an end through a failure to reach consensus with her colleagues, but even so, intrigued by their current plans, she had continued to monitor them from a distance.

  Which was how she knew that, at the present moment, they seemed to have reached an impasse.

  “Our goal is similar to what you seek to accomplish. That being the case…”

  “Unfortunately, I have no intention of cooperating with you ever again so long as you keep that underhanded fox around.”

  That should have gone without saying. Hilda still resented him for snatching away Orphelia.

  “And what about our policy of mutual noninterference?”

  “…Don’t you want to know about Orphelia Landlufen?” Varda asked, abruptly changing the subject.

  Hilda, however, often did that too, and so she thought little of it.

  “There are several reasons why you haven’t been able to replicate it.”

  “Oh?”

  The conversation was finally getting interesting.

  “The first is that you’re dealing with a prime field. Orphelia Landlufen is a particularly rare, unique specimen.”

  “Yes, I’ve come to realize that, too—that she only turned out so well because of her latent potential. But I don’t need to reproduce the results at quite that level. It would be enough simply to confirm my theory.”

  And yet, she hadn’t been able to do even that much. In all her life, that had been her greatest humiliation and defeat.

  Varda merely gave her a slight nod. “Exactly. Your theory is not incorrect.”

  “Then why?”

  Varda pulled something out of her pocket, casting it toward her.

  “Is this…manadite?”

  It looked to be of high purity, but apart from that, there was nothing remarkable about it. It was the kind of specimen one could find in just about any research institute.

  “The second reason why you haven’t been able to replicate your experiment with Orphelia is this—the purity of your tools.”

  “My tools…?”

  “That is a piece of a class-one grade Vertice Meteorite, freshly cut. You have no way of measuring it, but now that it has come into contact with the outside environment, it will have started to decay.”

  “Decay… I see. An intriguing hypothesis.”

  At the very least, none of the prevailing theories thus far in the field of meteoric engineering had posited such a process.

  “What specifically is decaying? Artificial manadite might not be particularly long-lasting, but the purity of natural manadite doesn’t change over time…”

  “Not purity. Memory.”

  “…Come again?”

  Hilda herself was often wont to jump between topics, but this Orga Lux looked to be even more erratic.

  “Memory, you said?”

  “Of the other world.”

  “—!” At that moment, Hilda’s eyes lit up. “I see! Yes, that’s it! Yes! Kee-hee-hee-hee!”

  “It will hold its form so long as it remains deep inside a dense meteorite, but once removed, the deterioration is swift. Those of extremely high purity, such as myself, are a rare exception.”

  “This is invaluable information, I must say.” Even Hilda was possessed by a sense of duty and obligation—or so she liked to think.

  She had her own distinctive way of showing that, however.

  In any event, having been given inspiration that could lead to a significant breakthrough, she wouldn’t be able to sleep easy unless she gave Varda something in return.

  “I understand. If there’s anything I can do for you, let me know. If it has to do with this matter of yours, I’ll be pleased to help.”

  “That will do,” Varda responded, before melting away into the shadows.

  Of course, she hadn’t disappeared exactly—rather, she had no doubt interfered with Hilda’s sense of recognition. Varda herself might prove to be a specimen of great interest to her research, but now wasn’t the time to be thinking about that.

  “Kee-hee-hee-hee! Research beckons! But first things first! Once this little errand is over and done with, then it will be time to focus on matters of import!”

  EPILOGUE

  Claudia, sitting at her desk in the student council room at Seidoukan Academy, handed her a large case.

  “In that case, Kirin, please take a look.”

  “Y-yes!” Kirin replied, lifting it open and picking up the activation body that lay inside. She took a long, careful breath, before switching it on, when the blade of a Japanese katana emerged out of the sheath.

  It looked to be slightly longer than the Hiinamaru—perhaps around thirty-six inches in length.

  Even when she had gone to perform the compatibility test, Kirin had felt a startling level of affinity with this katana-shaped Fudaraku.

  “You had a compatibility rating of ninety-three percent, so the school has no objections about lending it to you.”

  In the end, Kirin had decided to accept the Orga Lux.

  That was, in itself, a sign of her growing strength. The younger Kirin—even just a short time ago—would have wanted to wait and see before making a decision.

  But things were different now.

  On top of that, she could tell at first glance that this Orga Lux’s ability was highly compatible with her own fighting style.

  “Well then, why don’t you try out?”

  “Huh? H-here?”

  “How about that sofa over there?” Claudia said with a wide grin as she pointed across the room toward the expensive-looking piece of furniture. “Please don’t worry about damaging it.”

  Kirin hesitated in momentary confusion.

  “It’s okay. Please, go ahead. You already know the Fudaraku’s ability.”

  “Y-yes. If you’re sure…” Kirin, seeing no alternative, swung the blade downward toward her target.

  And yet—

  As a sudden jolt raced down her arms, the blade bounced right back up from the cushions.

  “…It didn’t even leave a scratch.”
r />   “Indeed. It has only just chosen you as its user, so it hasn’t had much time to store energy. Right now, it’s as blunt as a broomstick.”

  The Fudaraku’s unique strengths lay in its ability to accumulate energy. In short, the longer it was stored in its sheath, the more energy it could accumulate from its user, which would then increase its power and sharpness. Since that ability came with its own burden, there were no other costs involved.

  “According to our calculations, there’s no limit to the amount of energy it can store. However, it does seem that it will become unmanageable after a certain amount of time, so you will probably first want to confirm its limit.”

  “I see…”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if, in the hands of a swordswoman like yourself, you would be able to exchange blows with one of the Four Colored Runeswords after around a month.”

  “I understand. I’ll look after it.” Kirin deactivated the Orga Lux before placing it in the holder at her waist. On her left side was the Hiinamaru, and on her right the Fudaraku.

  “Now you’ll be able to stand head-to-head with Ayato’s Ser Veresta,” Claudia said with a soft chuckle.

  “N-no, I still need to build up my strength before challenging him again…”

  She may have been able to bring her duel against him to a draw the other day, but doing so had required her full strength. On top of that, Ayato had been at a disadvantage. It would be meaningless to fight him again before developing enough confidence in her ability to win.

  “Speaking of which… Won’t Ayato and Julis have made it there by now?”

  “Ah yes, it is about time.”

  The two of them stared out of the window, their thoughts reaching out into the distance.

  “Let’s hope everything works out for the best,” Claudia said, her voice soft.

  “…Yes!” Kirin replied with a powerful nod.

  A month had passed since Ayato had requested Hilda’s assistance in waking Haruka.

  He had just arrived with Julis at the research facility in Geneva—a gargantuan installation equipped with the world’s largest mana accelerator, a circular underground tunnel a little under nineteen miles in length.

  “Kee-hee-hee-hee! Long time no see, Ayato Amagiri! I’ve been expecting you!” Hilda said in greeting as the two of them stepped down from their airship.