“Easy, easy. Let’s get back on topic. You buying or not?” “You really know where Sui is?” “Of course. I gave her the Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi myself,” Ed confessed shamelessly. “What the f—?!” “Wait, Narusawa! Calm down!” Zen grabbed him by the shoulder before he could get his hands on Ed. “Surely for a reason, Mr. Salas?” Rosé shot him a cold glare. Ed caressed his chin. “I suppose there are many reasons. Would ‘because it was the dragon medium’s wish’ cut it?” “The dragon medium’s? Doesn’t sound like you mean Sui Narusawa. Nina Himekawa’s?” “Nina’s wish? What’s she trying to do?” Iroha asked while trying to calm Yahiro down with Sumika and Zen’s help. Ed looked at her with great amusement. “You gonna cheer on the girl chasing her dreams if I tell you?” “You son of a—!” Yahiro yelled at him in Iroha’s stead. “Ho-ho! I’m being serious. The gate to the new Afterlife is already open. No one can stop the Ouroboros’s ring from spinning. The only question that remains is, who will dream up the new world? I believe you still have the right to that, dragon mediums.” Ed shot a testing glance at Iroha before looking at Sumika. “Acedia’s medium. If you wish, you could turn back time and undo the four years since the J-nocide. Your family and friends will revive, and those painful memories will disappear. How’s that sound?” “Ha-ha, pretty nice.” Sumika cackled at the temptation. Despite her usually cheery attitude, there was no way her life after the J-nocide was peaceful. She must have been through experiences too terrible to speak of. Yet she laughed off Ed’s invitation to change the past. “I would’ve been moved before, but I don’t care anymore. Don’t you think it’s lame to think about what you could’ve done and whatnot all the time? I’m not living in the past. I’m living in the present. And presently, Zen says I’m pretty and he likes me.” “Hoh…” Ed exhaled in surprise, and apparent satisfaction. He nodded, impressed, before looking at Miyabi. She shook her head with annoyance before he could repeat the question. “Not interested in building a world. Can’t call a reality twisted to my own convenience ‘real.’ I don’t care to move anyone’s heart doing that. I’d rather shut up and watch the world end.” “I see. Then what about you, Avaritia’s medium?” He gave Iroha a naughty smile. Iroha gasped in fear. “What would you wish for if you could rebuild the world? A world where your kids were spared from the J-nocide and got to live in bliss with their real families? Or a new world where they become kings? Not that you’d have a place in either.” “I… I…” Iroha whispered weakly with her eyes closed. The dragon medium could birth any world she wished for—but she would never experience it herself. Iroha would have to remain trapped in the Afterlife as the sacrificial medium to keep devoting her wish to the world dragon. “I don’t know… I’m not like Sui or Nina. I don’t know how to make everyone happy. I can’t decide what world would be best!” “I see.” Ed sighed with disappointment. “Then you have no right to get in Nina’s way. Whatever her wish might be, she chose it of her own will.” Sumika, Miyabi, and Iroha refused to create a new world. They lacked the right to enter the Afterlife. Ed no longer had any intention of telling them where Sui was. Although his goals were different from those of Eusebius and the warmongers, he, too, was a member of Ganzheit. He wanted a new world to be created, and Nina Himekawa was doing just that as they spoke. “No. You’re wrong, Ed.” Yahiro wore a ferocious smile as he propped Iroha up. “I will make her wish come true. Tell me where Sui is.” “Yahiro…?” Iroha’s eyes grew wide. Ed raised his eyebrows in amusement. “Giuli, Rosé, our contract is to kill all the dragons, right?” Yahiro asked the twins. They nodded in sync. “Yes, and we will give you and Iroha any support necessary to fulfill it.” “The contract still holds, then?” “Obviously.” “Then that does it. Take me to the Ouroboros.” “You’re going to sacrifice Iroha to make a new world?” Rosé’s brows furrowed in surprise. Yahiro shook his head with a smile. “No. We don’t need a new dragon medium. I’m gonna kill the world dragon. I’ll take down the Afterlife system.” “Destroy the Corpse…huh? You realize what will happen if you do that?” Ed wiped the smile off his face and glared at Yahiro. Yahiro glared provocatively back at him. “Yeah. It might erase all the illusions it created. The world.” “And the world won’t be rebuilt without a new dragon medium.” “Yup. No more worlds built atop someone’s sacrifice.” Yahiro felt refreshed by the look of confusion on Ed’s face. It was the first time something like this had happened since he met the old man. “Ouroboros eats its own tail, right? It represents the endless cycle of the old world falling and the new one being born. I’m gonna destroy that loop.” “You’re saying you can free the world from the loop?” “Not alone. But I think we’ve got a chance if Iroha wishes for it.” Yahiro smiled strongly. Understanding filled Iroha’s wide eyes. The world had begun collapsing just because Sui and Nina reached the Afterlife because the Ouroboros was eating itself. Yahiro had to kill the chain of autophagia. If he could kill the world dragon and keep only its corpse, couldn’t that stop the world’s collapse? That was Yahiro’s idea in simple terms. Killing the dragon that covered the whole world wouldn’t be possible, normally. But there could be a nonzero chance if Iroha wished for it. After all, it was her past self, the Kushinada, who birthed it. “Hoh… That’s funny. To think that shrewd weasel’s son would turn out this stupid. Maybe that would make you deserving of the Dragon Slayer title.” Ed’s lips curved cruelly as he glared at Yahiro. “Shrewd weasel? Wait, you knew my old man?” “Unfortunately, I couldn’t stop him from trying to use Sui Narusawa.” He sighed with what sounded like regret. “Sui Narusawa headed over to the first and biggest Ploutonion in the country. Nina Himekawa should be with her.” “…The first Ploutonion?! The 23 Wards!” Surprise filled Yahiro’s and Iroha’s eyes. They were both very familiar with the biggest Ploutonion in Japan, which extended outward from the center of the former Tokyo Station. Sui chose the very first gate she created to use as a passage to the Afterlife. “Why are you telling us? What’s the price?” Giuli shot Ed a look of suspicion. Ed chortled and rolled up his shirt to show a jade pattern like a tattoo on his back. “I’ve lived too long. I’m tired of this world. The wishes of humans don’t change much, no matter how many centuries go by.” “A Relict Regalia…?” Yahiro gasped. The mark on Ed’s back was the crystallization of the dragon factor, the mark of a Relict Deserver like Nathan and Ayaho. The Lazarus had immortality, but not eternal youth. The same should apply to Deservers. Still, that did not mean they had the same lifespan as regular humans. One could surmise from his comment that Ed had lived for centuries. Perhaps this was the reason he wished for the world to end. “But when you say that you’ll destroy the loop of the world, I start to think those boring days might’ve not been so bad. Yahiro, I want to see how you change the world.” “What a capricious old man you’ve been to the very end.” Yahiro looked at him, flabbergasted. Ed gave Yahiro a look of amusement as the wrinkles around his eyes grew deeper. “Let me give you a warning. In order to destroy the world dragon, you’re going to have to fight Nina to the death. Her wish cannot be granted without Ouroboros.” 4 After ruffling everyone’s feathers, Ed—Alfred Salas—walked off into the ruins without saying good-bye. Yahiro felt no desire to stop him as, with complicated feelings, he watched the old man’s back disappear into the night. “So Sui Narusawa really is in the 23 Wards,” a Black man in a suit said to Yahiro. He popped out of nowhere like always, now with a strange comms device in hand. The logo on its back read the name of Ed’s shady store. “Nathan… You called Ed here?” Yahiro glared at him. “Is that surprising? I am a Ganzheit agent, if you recall.” Nathan smiled at him. He was Sui Narusawa’s supervisor, affiliated with Ganzheit. It looked as though he had betrayed Ganzheit after handing Sui over to Galerie Berith and getting in touch with Karura, but he never explicitly said he did. In the end, he was only against Eusebius’s warmonger faction, not Salas’s main one. “I thought you were with Karura.” “I did respect her. Shame about what happened.” Nathan closed his eyes as if in prayer. He didn’t seem to be lying, but it didn’t take him long to lift his head and get back to his usual detached tone. “So, what will you do? Go after Sui Narusawa?” “You need to ask?” Yahiro nodded right away, but there was some hesitation in his voice. The 23 Wards were about 370 kilometers from Kyoto. Following the roads, it was 450 kilometers. It was a hopeless distance with the current state of Japan’s infrastructure. “That’d be about six hours with the Yáo Guāng Xīng at full speed, no stops. But with the Moujuu attacks and stops to switch points, that’ll be a few days,” Giuli said, reading Yahiro’s mind. The armored train had excellent specs, but it couldn’t live up to its potential without a proper railroad. Indeed, it had taken them seven days to get to Kyoto from Yokohama. Even without the mess with the CFA, it would have taken them over three days. “We can’t use the Galerie’s choppers?” Yahiro asked. “That’d be tough with all the Moujuu activity around Japan,” Giuli answered. Nearly no one used flight routes within Japan due to the risk of flying Moujuu attacks. Although the Far East Branch owned two tilt-rotors, they would only use them over sea, where there was a low emergence ratio. The only exception was when a dragon medium was on the helicopter, as the Moujuu didn’t attack them. This was how Sui and Nina had reached the 23 Wards so quickly. But now… “Things aren’t normal. I heard plenty of ships out at sea have already been taken down. We can’t be sure the Moujuu won’t attack us even with Iroha on board. And, worst-case scenario, the pilots turn,” Rosé explained thoroughly. Yahiro couldn’t argue. The Galerie members had been injected with the serum made from Iroha’s blood, and even without it, they had little fear of the Moujuu and the dragons as they were aware of the truth behind them. And yet, they couldn’t be sure they wouldn’t turn into Moujuu now that the Afterlife’s influence had grown stronger. Their decision not to use the helicopters was the correct one. “We’ve finished refueling the Yáo Guāng Xīng. We can leave at any time,” Rosé said with a sigh. No matter how long it took, they had no other means to reach the 23 Wards. The problem was that it was unlikely they would make it before Nina changed the world. “Hold on. Our sponsor says they want to talk about our transport.” Sumika stopped them in a hurry as they began moving to the train with an air of hopelessness. “Your sponsor? You mean Noah Transtech?” Rosé asked with a surprised look on her face. “Yup!” Sumika nodded as she pointed her smartphone at them. The screen showed a middle-aged man with tanned skin and a rugged face reminiscent of a pirate. “Hey. Long time no see, Berith twins. As pretty as ever, are we? And your chests have been developing well, I see.” The man spoke so loudly that the phone vibrated. “What do you want, Noé Antonios Gionis? We don’t have the time to deal with your vulgar jokes.” Rosé glared at him. “Oh, don’t look at me like that, Rosetta. I’ve got good news. In return, I just ask that you give me Paola’s number. What’d you say?” “…This is not the time for jokes, Director,” Zen reproved. Noé groaned. “Ease up a little, Zen. You’re as stiff as my crotch! Also, I’ve told you multiple times not to call me Director, but Captain.” “Okay, Captain. Just cut to the chase, will you?” Zen sighed. Noé shook his head dramatically. “Fine, then. I don’t know the details, but I heard you need to take your armored train to the 23 Wards ASAP, right? I can help you with that. You are valued clients, after all.” “Help us how?” Rosé furrowed her brow. Noé’s lips curved into a smile. “Supporting the train’s operation and eliminating Moujuu and other obstructions. Also, how about I ask the international armies to assist? I think you can shorten your trip by a lot if things go well. Small potatoes if that fixes the shenanigans around the world.” “Huh. Doesn’t sound bad. Please do help us. I can’t give you Paola’s number, but I’ll ask her to dance to one song at a party.” “Ha-ha! Sounds good. So generous of you, Giuli.” Noé accepted her offer right away with a smile on his face. Yahiro knew the name of the corporation behind Zen and Sumika: Noah Transtech. They were one of the top maritime transportation companies and took on all supply operations for the international armies and PMCs stationed in Japan. Noah Transtech gained nothing from the collapse of the world. It was only natural that they would want to stop Nina. “It’s a deal. Give me thirty minutes. I’ll get my henchmen on it.” Noé hung up as he let out a hearty laugh. Yahiro and the rest remained in silence for a few moments, overwhelmed by the man’s character. “What a guy your captain is, Sumika,” Iroha said with a tight smile. Sumika nodded with a giggle. “Yeah. But he’s pretty nice. He messes with Zen all the time, though.” “Don’t worry about me. Everyone, get ready to leave. Even with Noah’s help, we have no ti—” Zen came to a halt in the middle of a step toward the Kyoto Station. Yahiro noticed at the same time—the feeling of shocks running across his skin. A piercing bloodlust. Bare malice enveloped in dragon aura emanated from the darkness. “Phew, I caught up to you in time.” A listless, bland voice contrasted with the overwhelming aura. It was a short, thin young man. His long, unkempt gray hair stuck damply to his cheeks. On his shoulder he carried an unsheathed straight sword, ghastly at over six feet in length. “How mean of you to leave me behind.” “Toru Natazuka…!” Yahiro and Zen raised their weapons on reflex. Giuli, Rosé, and the rest of Galerie Berith’s operators quickly dispersed and distanced themselves. Most of them didn’t know his face, but they understood that this small man was more dangerous than any Moujuu. “You’re going after Sui Narusawa? Would you please let us join you, then?” A girl in a hakama accompanying the young man bowed cordially. Then she, Kaname Kashima, spun the naginata in her hands and smiled savagely. “You’re free to turn us down, but if you do…we’ll have to kill you.” 5 “Natazuka… What do you want with Sui at this point?” Yahiro got closer to him, katana in position. Toru Natazuka. The strongest Lazarus. Yahiro knew firsthand how dreadful the other Lazarus’s Regalia was. The force of his wide-range electric shocks was monstrous, but the real threat was his frightening speed. There was no normal way to block the strikes he unleashed in a flash. Running away was not an option, however. Any non-Lazarus would be killed with a single strike, so Yahiro had to step forward to get everyone else out of Natazuka’s crosshairs. Perhaps aware of Yahiro’s decision, Natazuka replied casually. “You’re Sui Narusawa’s enemies, aren’t you? Then you’ve got nothing to worry about. I’m just gonna kill her.” “Kill…Sui?” “Yeah, she hit me when I was trying to save her. What a bitch. She asked for it.” “But you attacked Paola’s team first!” Yahiro glared, unable to believe the young man’s twisted logic. He had figured already that Natazuka couldn’t be reasoned with. Even if he was against Sui, cooperating would be impossible. “Oh, right. There’s someone with Karura’s Relict here, yeah?” Natazuka ignored Yahiro’s objection as he looked around. Iroha’s shoulders trembled and he smirked at her. “Mind giving it back? Kaname wants it.” Natazuka reached his hand out to her, but Iroha stepped back in fear. Nathan stepped forward to defend her. Natazuka frowned, but Nathan paid him no mind. “Kaname Kashima. Why did you take Natazuka out of the forbidden zone?” he coldly asked. “Lady Karura left me first! She betrayed me! And all to give this random girl the Heavenly Imperial House’s divine instrument! I can’t look the other way!” Kaname screamed and glared hatefully at Iroha. “She recognized Yahiro Narusawa as the new Dragon Slayer. By granting Iroha Mamana the divine instrument, she showed the will of the Heavenly Imperial House as a whole.” “I can’t accept that!” Bluish-white lightning enveloped Kaname’s naginata. Her Regalia activating subconsciously was a sign she’d lost her cool. “You heard her, Nathan. Now get out of our way.” Natazuka swung his sword effortlessly. Nathan blocked the shock fired by the long blade with an invisible barrier. Then, with the shrill sound of glass breaking, the barrier collapsed. The buildings around shook with the explosive shock wave and the tall man was blown backward. Yahiro’s jaw dropped. He could not believe the power of Natazuka’s Regalia to break Nathan’s impregnable barrier with just one swing of a sword. “Narusawa, you protect Iroha Mamana and the children! I will take down Toru Natazuka!” Zen had activated his Regalia the moment Natazuka attacked Nathan. A pure-white stream of liquified air shot at Natazuka like a spear. “Take me down? Are you kidding me? Know your place!” Natazuka took Zen’s attack head-on. The high-voltage shock wave flicked off the low-temp stream and hit Zen. “What?!” The ice wall Zen pulled up to defend against Natazuka’s counter went up in smoke. A dazzling flash dyed the night sky white. Natazuka was holding a nearly twelve-meter-long sword of light. The lightning itself took the form of a giant blade. “Zen?!” Ignoring the danger, Sumika ran up to her Lazarus as he fell to his knees, his whole body letting off steam. The fallout of the attack was enough to blaze his whole body. That would have killed him instantly if he weren’t a Lazarus. Its tremendous power pierced the Goreclad protection with ease. “What the hell’s with his Regalia?!” Yahiro growled as his hair stood on end. The Regalia were absurd to begin with, but as a fellow Lazarus, he understood how truly preposterous Natazuka’s was. The dragon aura imbued in every one of Natazuka’s attacks was on the level of draconized Yahiro and Douji Yamase. There had to be a price to pay for using a Regalia this powerful. “Kotofutsu-no-Mitama…” Nathan muttered as he stood up from within the debris and wiped the blood off his cheeks. Yahiro turned to look at him. “Kotofutsu-no-Mitama? That’s the name of that sword?” “It’s the Kashima family’s Relict Regalia, the catalyst to bring Tristitia’s blessings to full power. Right after the J-nocide, Toru Natazuka used that sword to annihilate an independent mixed brigade from Ganzheit that tried to subdue the Heavenly Imperial House. In just two hours.” Nathan said that was why Ganzheit couldn’t lay a hand on the Heavenly Imperial House. Natazuka swung the lightning blade again. The Galerie Berith armored cars parked in the camp were sliced through like butter and exploded. The operators who couldn’t get away were burned to ash without the time for a scream. This was no battle—this was a massacre. However, the operators still put up a fight. Remote-controlled turrets rained bullets on Natazuka. Yet all of them had their trajectories redirected before they reached him. The electromagnetic field surrounding him flicked them away. “Damn monster…!” Zen shot another sharp spear of liquified air. The rainy city was an overwhelmingly advantageous stage for Zen’s water molecule control, yet Natazuka showed no care for his attacks. The ice that surrounded him turned to steam in the blink of an eye. “He’s boiling it with microwaves…?!” Natazuka used electromagnetic radiation to stop Zen’s attacks. The Kotofutsu-no-Mitama’s overwhelming dragon aura allowed him to damage Zen’s body with the lightest swings. “Follow my lead, Sagara!” “Yahiro Narusawa?!” Yahiro leaped into reach the moment Natazuka swung his sword. He boosted himself with the flames around him to launch a kamikaze attack. The purifying flames enveloping him slashed through Natazuka’s electric shocks. Zen saw the opening and charged at him, too. “Blaze!” “Vapor Cloud!” Yahiro and Zen coordinated on the spot, both fully prepared to be struck themselves. The flames of purification and steam over two hundred degrees Celsius spread widely robbed Natazuka of a place to run to. And still, he managed to avoid the attack. He moved like lightning and accelerated with the same principle of a linear motor to take himself to safety in the blink of an eye. “Impossible…! How did he dodge that?!” Despair spread across Zen’s face as he realized the attack had failed. Yahiro was equally shocked. If their combo suicide attack didn’t work, how on earth were they supposed to defeat him? “Is that it? Eh, that’s fine. I’m bored already.” Natazuka raised his sword high. A bolt more terrific than any so far reached to the heavens. He meant to rain thunder all over the Galerie camp. Yahiro and Zen’s attack to prevent it was blown away easily by his thunder shock. The thundercloud overhead shook the air with static. So, nobody noticed. The other sound was too small to be heard. “Huh?” Kaname muttered. A hole opened in her chest. A small hole, like a stain. Fresh blood gushed forth and dyed her chest stark red. A handgun bullet, an object just a couple of grams in weight and with infinitely less power than Natazuka’s Regalia, pierced Kaname’s heart. “Kaname…?” Natazuka whispered upon realization. But then, a second bullet blew through Kaname’s face. The shots came from Rosé. Faint smoke rose from the barrel of her gun. “No… What the hell…? Why did you…shoot Kaname…?” Natazuka looked at Rosé in shock. It shouldn’t have been possible to shoot a dragon medium that easily. Not when she was under the protection of the strongest Lazarus. Yet Natazuka had moved at lightning speed to escape Yahiro and Zen’s suicide attack, leaving Kaname defenseless. Although Yahiro and Zen’s attack didn’t harm Natazuka, their efforts were not wasted. “‘Why’? Funny question, Lazarus,” Giuli said with a sigh. Sharp wires entangled Natazuka’s whole body as he came to a halt from the shock. Dragon mediums did not die so easily. Even though their regeneration ability wasn’t on par with a Lazarus, the dragon factor within their bodies forced their bodies to live. But by harming Kaname, they created a blank in Natazuka’s concentration. Giuli did not waste the opportunity given to them by the strongest Lazarus. “You should’ve been prepared to die the moment you said you’d kill us. Right, Ayaho?” “Y-yes!” On Giuli’s signal, Ayaho Sashou raised her dagger in front of her. Instinctive fear struck Natazuka and he tried to run away, but he could not move at lightning speed. Giuli’s wires kept his body tied down. And then… “Saber Hills and Blade Groves!” Ayaho stabbed the dagger into the ground. Metallic crystal blades shot up from Natazuka’s feet and pierced his body from all directions. 6 “Ayaho…!” Iroha ran up to her sister, who lay weakened on the ground. Ayaho breathed heavily and shook. Her face was pale. It was only a surprise attack, but the girl had never been on the front lines before, and she had struck against the strongest Lazarus. There was no way she could keep her composure. Still, she dealt the decisive blow to the foe Yahiro and Zen could do nothing against. Natazuka was paralyzed in the skewer of countless blades. Natazuka’s thunder shock ran through the metallic crystal blades and into the ground. Try as he might to rip himself from the Regalia’s reach, Ayaho’s attack never stopped. New blades grew from the ground and skewered him there. “Gwaaaaah…!” Natazuka yelled in fury. Iroha and her siblings propped Ayaho up as her shoulders trembled in fear. Ayaho’s Relict Regalia was a remnant of Vanagloria’s Lazarus, Amaha Kamikita. It was none other than Natazuka and Kaname who had taken Amaha’s life. Now it was Saber Hills and Blade Groves that pinned Natazuka to the ground. Natazuka and Kaname had not known that Ayaho had become a Relict Deserver. Giuli and Rosé saw their chance for victory there. They prepared for his next attack and told Ayaho the plan. “Fuck off! You’re not taking me down…! Shitheads!” Natazuka howled, spitting blood. He could do nothing but writhe in pain as his electric powers were rendered useless. He glared with wrath and hatred emanating from every part of him. Still, he did not die. His Lazarus powers did not allow him to die. The pain was not dulled, nor did he lose consciousness. He would keep suffering so long as Ayaho’s Regalia remained active. “Yahiro…” “I know.” Yahiro nodded gravely when he saw Iroha’s teary eyes. The only thing that could give Natazuka the salvation of death was Avaritia’s Regalia: the flames of purification. They had to burn every bit of dragon factor in his body. There was no other way to put him out of his misery. But the slightest mistake could free him from the bounds of Saber Hills and Blade Groves. Yahiro had to go in ready to unleash the strongest, most thorough firepower possible in case Natazuka were to attack. “Any objections, Giuli, Rosé?” “We can’t stay here like this forever.” “It’s up to you. Just be sure to show no mercy.” They gave their permission. “D-don’t…! H-help, Kaname! Kaname! Uwaaaah!” Natazuka’s face contorted in fear at the sight of Yahiro’s Kuyou Masakane. Natazuka had trampled on so many people with his overwhelming power, yet now the strongest Lazarus trembled in fear of death. Kaname’s gouged head twitched, and then… “Ah…” The girl facing up on the ground lurched from the blood puddle. Rosé noticed and shot a rapid-fire volley. Over five bullets hit Kaname’s torso with perfect accuracy. She did not try to dodge. The bullets pierced her body and gouged her heart, yet she did not scream. The spurting blood glowed and turned into an effulgent blue thunderbolt. Her skin was revealed through the cuts in her tattered kimono—covered in transparent scales. “Ah… Ahh… Aaaaaaah!” A monstrous screech escaped Kaname’s throat—the roar of a dragon. A colossal dragon aura spread and shattered the crystal blades of Ayaho’s Regalia. “She draconized?!” Zen scowled and held his sword tight. He threw a spear of cold, liquified air at Kaname on reflex. Kaname’s draconized body froze, and her left arm holding the naginata shattered. And still, she continued walking. Toward Natazuka. “Dammit… Not now…!” Yahiro accelerated with a boom and stabbed his flaming sword into Natazuka. The Kuyo Masakane easily pierced the other young man’s heart and engulfed his body in flames. Natazuka’s wounded body carbonized and began collapsing in a flash. Yahiro prayed that he could finish the job, but then… “The sky…!” He heard Iroha’s frightened exclamation. The rain clouds covering the night sky whirled like a giant tornado emitting light. Then devastating thunder struck the ground. “Gah…!” Yahiro was blown away like a weak leaf as the direct thunderstrike dyed his vision white. The flash seared his eyes and the boom blew out his eardrums. It took him a moment to realize what had happened. All the blood in his body boiled, and all his veins tore apart. Even the Lazaruses’ regeneration could not heal him so soon after that. Zen received similar damage. The five-meter radius around where they had stood had turned into glass from the immense heat and pressure. The heat was astounding even for a Regalia. The Galerie’s armored cars blew up one after the other, and the buildings around caught fire. Lightning crawled on the ground like a giant snake and destroyed everything it touched. The Galerie’s camp would have been wrecked in one strike had it not been for the protection of Nathan’s and Ayaho’s Relicts. The destruction was brought about by a dragon. A golden dragon wrapped in lightning circled overhead. Kaname’s half-dead body became the source—she sacrificed herself to summon the thunder dragon, Tristitia. “It…gobbled up Natazuka…?” Yahiro groaned as he looked up at the dragon covering the city’s sky. Tristitia was about forty-five meters long. It was quite small compared to Vanagloria, but the scope and brutality of its indiscriminate lightning matched or perhaps even surpassed the mountain dragon’s. In the golden dragon’s maw was Natazuka’s burned, dying body. Natazuka’s screaming echoed among the unceasing thunder. Tristitia chewed and tore Natazuka apart without mercy, as though saying it could not forgive that the Lazarus it blessed had been defeated. What killed a Lazarus was the oath—the hero’s oath that, upon breach, turned into a curse. Upon losing the conviction that he was the strongest, Natazuka lost Tristitia’s blessings and his Lazarus powers. “Kaname Kashima… She reached the Four Symbols? But in this state…,” Nathan muttered coldly as she looked up at the golden dragon undulating in the sky. After it finished chewing Natazuka, an even more violent dragon aura enveloped Tristitia’s giant body. But then its golden body shed its scales. Tristitia’s front left leg disappeared suddenly, and its right eye was crushed. Fresh blood coated in lightning spurted out of every inch of its body. Tristitia likely wasn’t fully cognizant at the moment. A massive amount of power manifested with Kaname’s forced draconization while she was in a moribund state. The dragon’s body began to lose its foundation of self and collapse. It was without a mission, without a goal to live for—only a mass of meaningless power. If the dragon lost its form, all the vast energy inside it would be freed indiscriminately across the area. The surroundings would not survive that. The entire city of Kyoto, or worse, maybe even a radius of over twenty-five kilometers, could be burned to the ground. “Iroha, lend me your power.” “Yeah. Let’s stop them.” Iroha nodded to Yahiro’s call. They needed no more words. They knew what to do. If they didn’t erase Tristitia, they would not be able to catch up to Sui and stop the world from collapsing. Iroha put her hands on Yahiro’s left arm as though offering a prayer. Her dragon aura flowed into him as he, too, held his sword in a praying stance. Flames burst from their bodies up toward the thunder dragon. Tristitia twisted its body to escape the fire. Thunder struck Yahiro and Iroha, but the whirling flames absorbed it. Avaritia’s flames of purification could cancel out other dragons’ Regalia. They had no recourse other than betting on this power to save the surface from Tristitia’s collapse. They had to burn away the golden dragon’s massive dragon aura before it rained upon the ground. The problem was, could they pull off such a feat? “It’s not looking good.” Nathan frowned, uncharacteristically uneasy. Lightning shot along with Tristitia’s roars of pain from the purifying flames. Nathan blocked the thunderstrikes with a repelling barrier while Ayaho created lightning rods to ground the electricity, but the balance couldn’t keep up for long. They were only delaying the arrival of certain destruction. “Hurry, Yahiro Narusawa! We can’t hold much longer!” “Please, Yahiro! Iroha!” Zen and Sumika protected the station and railway with giant ice walls, but they, too, were near their limits. Even closer to her limit was Kaname—Tristitia. A fissure ran across the golden dragon’s body and the spurting blood turned into lightning that rained to the ground. Yahiro and Iroha’s purifying flames could not cancel it all out. “Gu…oh…” Yahiro fell to one knee under the pressure of Tristitia’s attacks. “We’re…not gonna make it…?” Iroha exclaimed in despair. Tristitia’s contour crumbled and glowed like the noon sun dying the night sky. The thunder dragon exploded… Or so Yahiro and Iroha thought, when someone gently placed hands on their cheeks. “Runa?! Why…?!” It was a young girl with a white Moujuu. The youngest of Iroha’s siblings gently called her name. “Mama.” The light of fire engulfed Runa’s whole body. A gentle light, like the soothing spring sun. A pure-white dragon. Her eyes as she looked at Iroha nearing the limits of her energy were so tender. Like a mother’s gaze looking at her grown daughter. “Take it…back.” “Runa?!” The white light enveloping the young girl flowed into Iroha. In that moment, power filled Yahiro’s body. It was a tremendously dense dragon aura, far beyond what he had felt before. Pure-white flames engulfed the blade of Yahiro’s uchigatana. It looked like Natazuka’s Kotofutsu-no-Mitama, but the glow of its blade and the density of the Kuyo Masakane’s dragon aura far surpassed Kotofutsu-no-Mitama. This was the gap in power flowing from the dragon medium, and the moment Yahiro touched it, he understood. This was Iroha’s—Avaritia’s—real power. “Burn it down, Avaritia!” Yahiro swung the light blade and slashed Tristitia’s giant body in the air. A faint glow like the moment before a candle consumed itself enveloped the golden dragon for just a moment. That was it. There was no grand explosion or shock wave. Tristitia’s dragon aura, which seemed to cover the whole night sky, instantly burned away without a trace in Avaritia’s flames of purification. Iroha’s siblings, Zen, Sumika, and the Galerie’s operators stood, mouths agape, at the sudden conclusion. A little bustle came moments after, followed by an explosive ovation. Everyone shed tears of joy and hugged each other when they realized they had survived. Even grumpy Zen blushed as Sumika embraced him. Among all that, Yahiro and Iroha remained unable to recover from the shock. “Runa… What are you…?” Iroha asked her youngest sister. Runa simply looked at Iroha in silence, the white Moujuu in her arms.
Chapter 74
29 min read