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

  The snow flitting down from the overcast sky was exactly as he remembered these European winters—cold so strong as to freeze one’s body to the bone. Hilda, however, was ecstatic, paying it no heed.

  “And this would be…?”

  “Julis-Alexia von Riessfeld.” Julis’s voice fumed with quiet, controlled rage.

  Hilda merely tilted her head to one side, wearing an exaggerated look of confusion. “I see… And why are you here, exactly?”

  “I’m accompanying Ayato. Is there a problem with that?” Julis stared back at her, her gaze so sharp that it could have skewered her right through.

  “Hmm… Well, I guess it’s fine. This way.” Hilda paid her no further attention, simply turning around to guide them toward the facilities. Her dangerously unsteady gait was precisely as it had been a year ago.

  “So that’s Magnum Opus…,” Julis spat out under her breath once they had fallen back a short distance. “I swear, I’d like to—”

  “Calm down, Julis. Today’s just about—”

  “I know! But now that she’s standing there in front of me… Because of her, because of what she did to Orphelia…” Julis pursed her lips so tightly that Ayato feared she would draw blood.

  It pained him to think of the agony that this must be putting her through.

  It was Julis herself who had wanted to accompany him here.

  Ayato had promised her last year that he wouldn’t accept Magnum Opus’s assistance. She had agreed to forgive him for going back on his word but had insisted upon being there with him when the time came.

  “I want to see her for myself,” she had said.

  Fortunately, there had been no problems when Ayato contacted Madiath to confirm this arrangement.

  “But do you really think she’ll honor her word?” Julis asked dubiously.

  “Everything’s being overseen by the IEFs, so it should be fine…”

  In order to ensure that the tragedy that had befallen Orphelia could never happen again, Ayato had insisted on two conditions for rescinding the penalty that had been imposed on her:

  Firstly, when using Level 5 facilities like the mana accelerator, she had to publicly disclose all information relating to her research.

  Secondly, she had to acquire the full consent of all subjects involved in human testing.

  He had actually wanted to prohibit her from engaging in human experimentation at all, but Hilda had refused to accept that. That wasn’t entirely unexpected—it was her specialty, after all.

  As such, he had at the very least wanted to impose certain limitations and obligations on her. That was his first condition.

  His second condition wasn’t entirely unrelated to the first. Those people who were subjected to human testing often found themselves forced into that situation due to circumstances outside of their control, and even when they didn’t want to participate, they were often made to do so against their will. Like Orphelia had been.

  Which was why Ayato insisted on seeing it all through for himself.

  If Hilda ever violated those conditions, if she ever again engaged in such inhumane conduct—

  “If that happens… I’ll destroy this place myself.” Ayato’s voice was even colder than the landscape around them.

  For the first time since they had arrived, Julis showed him a satisfied smile. “What a boneheaded idea! True, with the Ser Veresta there probably wouldn’t be much stopping you, but that would be criminal, you know? Very criminal.”

  “I understand that. Anyway, so long as she knows I’m serious…”

  Of course, he had no right to do such a thing, and as Julis had said, it would be a crime of the highest level. This mana accelerator had no doubt cost an astronomical sum of money to build and maintain, and it wasn’t only Hilda who made use of it.

  But even so, this was his way of taking responsibility.

  He wouldn’t allow another tragedy like what had befallen Orphelia to occur. No matter what.

  “Well, I guess there’s no helping it. I’ll be there to give you a hand, when the time comes,” she said, patting him on the back with a grin. “We’ll burn this place to the ground.”

  “Julis…” Ayato couldn’t be more grateful to hear her say that. His spirit lightened, he decided that now was as good a time as any to ask her something that had been on his mind for a while. “By the way…why are you always covered in injuries lately?”

  Since the New Year, Julis seemed to be receiving new wounds and burns faster than he could count.

  None of them were in any way major, and Genestella were, of course, fast to heal. And yet, it seemed that no sooner did one mend than another took its place.

  “—! I’m… Well, I’m doing some intensive training, I guess.”

  “Intensive training? With whom…?”

  “Uh-oh, look! We’re going to get left behind if we don’t hurry up!” Julis said, before increasing her pace and taking off in front of him.

  Well, if she doesn’t want to talk about it, I can’t force her.

  “Come now, this way,” Hilda said, inviting Ayato and Julis into a large elevator.

  She pressed some buttons on the air-window by the wall, when, with a low, rumbling sound, the elevator began to move.

  “Now, I did mean to have all the preparations taken care of as quickly as possible, so you’ll have to forgive me for making you wait this long. But I’m sure you understand. Experiments like this are most time-consuming. Something lasting only a few seconds can take dozens, even hundreds of hours of preparation.” As she spoke, Hilda opened another air-window, before rotating it in their direction. “Now, I’ll explain everything one more time. We’ll use the accelerator to excite a sum of mana into a high-energy state, and then map that mana to the junction pattern of her ability to cancel it out. You can see a map of the facility here. This here is the injection point, and this here is the exposure point. I’ve already installed special equipment at the exposure point for your sister.”

  Hilda continued her explanation for what felt like several minutes, but Ayato couldn’t quite grasp all of the technical concepts. The same must have applied to Julis, too, as she wore a look of obvious boredom.

  At long last, the elevator came to a gradual stop, and the heavy doors slid open.

  The sterile passage in front of them led straight to a gigantic control room, filled with raised voices and countless staff each dressed in the same type of white lab coat as Hilda, each busy at work doing one thing or another.

  “Now, then…” As Hilda sat down in the main seat in the center of the room, a wall of air-windows and holographic keyboards appeared all around her.

  One of those air-windows displayed Haruka’s unconscious figure. She was lying inside a large device in a small room somewhere, as if she had been swallowed up by some kind of mechanical monster.

  “…Hmm, everything looks to be in order,” Hilda said as she looked over some figures and graphs. “We can start whenever you’re ready.”

  Ayato was slightly taken aback by how quickly things were proceeding, but then again, he, too, had no desire to engage in needless talk. He gave her a brief nod.

  “In that case,” Hilda said with a click of her fingers, “let’s begin!”

  Almost at once, a flash of light lit up the air-window depicting the room that Haruka was in.

  “Nngh…!” At the exact same moment, Julis bent forward, grasping her head in her hands.

  “Julis!”

  “Ah, highly sensitive Stregas and Dantes sometimes get a bit of a headache from the accelerated mana. Although we are supposed to be completely isolated from the accelerator in here… She must be very sensitive indeed. Don’t worry, it won’t be permanent,” Hilda explained as she calmly looked back and forth at several of the air-windows. “More importantly, Ayato Amagiri, let me show you why exactly no one but me can do this. Watch and learn!” Her fingers danced atop the holographic keyboards that surrounded her. “See here, to cancel out an ability with a mana
accelerator, you first need to analyze the target’s junction pattern—which would normally take an extraordinary amount of time. Not for me, though. I’ll do it in real time.”

  As Hilda spoke, the light engulfing Haruka began to gradually take the form of heavy, glowing chains.

  “Adjusting the albedo like this not only uncovers the junction pattern but at the same time negates it. You could search the world over and never find anyone else capable of doing this! Only I’ve been able to master it! Kee-hee-hee-hee!” Hilda’s burst of laughter was drunk with more than a touch of madness.

  Even if he didn’t understand what exactly she was doing, Ayato could sense for himself that what she said was true. For better or for worse, she was possessed of a rare talent.

  The chains surrounding Haruka, though first all but transparent, gradually became more and more well-defined, until blinding cracks began to run down their surface—until they shattered in a brilliant flash of light.

  “And… We’re finished!” Hilda cried out. Her fingers, until now racing along the holographic keyboards as if playing a crescendo on a piano, came to a rest.

  As silence engulfed the control room, Ayato leaned forward, staring into the air-window before him, when—

  “Aya…to?”

  Haruka’s voice came out as a soft whisper as her eyes flitted open.

  AFTERWORD

  Hi there, Yuu Miyazaki here.

  As promised at the end of the last volume, this one was mainly about Kirin. The cover illustration might be of Haruka and Varda, but well, Kirin was given center stage there last time, and we’ve got to give everyone their turn! And, of course, this is the first time we’ve really gotten to see Varda, which is pretty exciting.

  Now, I’d like to touch on what happens this time around. There will be spoilers here, so do take care if you haven’t finished reading!

  To be perfectly honest, this volume was probably the hardest for me to put together thus far. I already had a general outline before setting out to write it, but whenever I sat down to work, it was unexpectedly difficult to make Kirin step off the page and come alive. She’s timid and reserved in character, tender-hearted and with an indomitable will, so I ended up wracking my brain trying to work out how she would convey her feelings. In the end, after trying a bunch of different scenarios, this was what I came up with. That said, while I did want her to take a step forward, maybe she’s gone a little too far…

  I’ve also finally been able to pull back the curtain a bit on Ayato’s family, Haruka included. I had been holding back on revealing too much about them until now, but seeing how it all ties into the main events back in Asterisk, I thought it best to start shedding a bit of light on everything.

  As mentioned above, okiura’s wonderful cover illustration depicts Haruka and Varda! The same goes for the covers for the side-stories, but okiura’s designs are about to enter new territory! I can’t help but be struck by how awesome they are! The basic rule for the Phoenix arc in the first six volumes was to show just one character, while for the five volumes of the Gryps arc, we wanted to feature two characters on each one. We’re going to be introducing a new format starting with Volume 12, so I hope you’re all looking forward to it as much as I am!

  Ningen’s manga adaptation of The Asterisk War in Comic Alive is about to enter its final round! I’m so grateful to Ningen for really bringing the first three volumes to life so stylishly! I’d like to express my thanks for all the hard work!

  Also, the final volume of Akane Shou’s manga adaptation of The Asterisk War: The Wings of Queenvale in Bessatsu Shōnen magazine is scheduled to be released on September 10! It’s truly a wonderful series, especially considering that the manga version is an original work, which we then worked on adapting into a pair of light novels! I’ve lost count of the times we both got so excited talking about everything over the phone. I’m so grateful! I hope you’ll all join me and keep following Minato and all the other characters who are featured in it until the very end!

  On top of all that, the anime adaptation of The Asterisk War has successfully reached the end of its twenty-four episode run! Now that a few days have passed since the last episode aired, I’ve had a bit of time to reflect on just how superbly everyone working on it managed to adapt everything to the screen! It’s been quite a while since the project first got underway, but it feels like it’s all passed in the blink of an eye. As the author of the original novels, I couldn’t be happier! I hope one day we’ll be able to bring Ayato and others back to the world of anime!

  On top of all that, I’ve been involved in supervising the setting for the mobile phone application The Asterisk War: Brilliant Stella, which is now available! Please take a look at it!

  Last but not least, I’d like to express my thanks to everyone who’s helped me out so much again this time around. Or rather, I’d like to apologize for always causing you all so much trouble once again.

  I want to extend my deepest thanks to O, my new editor, along with my previous editors I and S for all their work organizing the anime and dealing with the rights. I’d also like thank everyone else in the editorial department, everyone involved in the anime, everyone who worked on the video game adaptation, and everyone else who’s supported me along the way.

  I hope to see you again in the next one!

  Yuu Miyazaki

  July 2016

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  Contents

  Cover

  Insert

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1: Separate Ways

  Chapter 2: The Amagiri Household

  Chapter 3: Father and Mother

  Chapter 4: Haruka Amagiri

  Chapter 5: The Toudou Household

  Chapter 6: Family Ties

  Chapter 7: What Comes Next

  Chapter 8: Determination

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  Yen Newsletter