Chapter 73

Their magic flares up and explodes. The shock wave sends me flying, and I spin gracefully through the air before sticking the landing perfectly a short distance from them. “You stole my tribute to our lord, you mangy mutt. You’re dead meat.” “You made a big fuss over my rightful reward, Felid. You’re deader meat!” “Uhh… Look, I don’t think I’m really following here, but what’s important is that we’re all in agreement that this isn’t my fault.” I decide to quietly back away. Zeta and Delta have never gotten along, and the two of them fight constantly. Their brawls usually last until they tear up a field or knock over a house or something and Alpha gets pissed at them. “Make sure you guys don’t go too overboard, ’kay?” The one silver lining is that the shock wave didn’t reach the dorms. “I’ll crush you,” Delta says, readying her sword and entering her combat stance. “You need to be punished.” Zeta narrows her cold eyes—then vanishes. There’s no warning or anything. She’s just gone. Delta cocks her head in puzzlement. “Did she run away?” The moment the words leave her mouth, a black blade materializes behind her back. “” Delta dodges just before it can mow her down, but doing so forces her into a precarious position, and she tumbles to the ground. Voom. Voom. Voom. Another set of blades comes raining down on her. “Hmph.” Delta dodges them all. After crawling across the ground, she rolls over and leaps back up in a way no human could have pulled off. “Where are you hiding, Felid?” Zeta is nowhere to be seen. The only thing visible is the array of black blades hanging in the darkness. Hey, I know that move. That’s the one the Blood Queen used. I had no idea Zeta could use it, too, but knowing her, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Of all the people I know, she’s always been the cleverest. Whenever I ask her to do something, she always nails it, even if it’s her first time trying it. On top of that, she improves superfast, and her instincts are fantastic. She might very well be one of the biggest geniuses around. When it comes to raw talent, she’s as good as it gets. However, even Zeta the Prodigy has a glaring weakness. “…Huh?” I hear Zeta’s voice, and her tail materializes out from the darkness. Ah, there she goes again. Zeta is fickle and gets bored easily, so she never takes the time to truly master any skill. “Oops, I didn’t practice enough.” “Found you!” The tail transforms into black mist and vanishes right before Delta’s mighty sword can cleave it in twain. “That was too close.” The only thing perceptible about Zeta is her voice. “I need to take this seriously.” With that, the black mist gathers and coalesces into tens of thousands of tiny swords that twirl around Delta. “A Thousand Blades. Certain Death.” There are clearly way more blades than that, but Zeta keeps her declaration conservative. The lethality of her attack, on the other hand, is anything but. The swarm of blades thrust into Delta and hoist her body up into the night sky. “Agh, agh… Arrrgh!” Delta is helpless to resist as she gets sliced up in midair. She narrowly manages to use her arms and legs to protect her vitals, but it looks like she might be in real danger here. Zeta’s gotten stronger than I expected. She’s a relative newcomer to the Seven Shadows, but she’s a bona fide monster who’s been improving like nobody’s business. “GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” Delta’s howl thunders through the night, and her magic sweeps out in a terrifying shock wave. The ten thousand blades get obliterated. “N…no way,” Zeta mumbles in disbelief as she spills out from the cloud of mist. She lands like a cat and stares over at Delta’s blood-soaked figure. Splatch. Delta spits out a mouthful of blood and glares at Zeta. There isn’t a hint of playfulness left in her eyes. “………” Every hair on Zeta’s body stands on end. Delta manipulates her slime into a colossal black sword. No, that thing is too big to be called a sword. Too massive, and too brutish. When Delta uses it, we call it the Large Hunk of Iron. Normally, Delta mimics us and fights with the same weapons we do, but that isn’t her final form. The savage Large Hunk of Iron is her true weapon, and when she brings it out, that’s proof that Delta the Tyrant is done messing around. “Grrr…” A low growl escapes Delta’s throat. Zeta breaks out into a cold sweat. I glance over my shoulder, more than a little worried about the safety of the dorms and school building. What to do, what to do? At this rate, they’re liable to get blown away. The problem is, it bugs me to no end when someone interrupts me in the middle of a battle where I’m playing for keeps, and I’m a big believer in the whole “do unto others” thing. So I guess that’s it. I say a silent prayer. So long, Midgar Academy. Rest in peace, Skel and Po. “YOU’RE DEAD.” Delta’s bloodthirsty magic permeates the Large of Hunk of Iron. I retreat with some legitimate gusto to put some distance between us. Meanwhile, Zeta…flies into the air. That’s not a metaphor or a turn of phrase or anything. She actually flies upward. Upon strengthening my vision with magic, I discover that she’s clad herself in a thin layer of black mist. Oh, huh. I never knew you could use it like that. “Bye-bye, Doggy.” With that, she soars off and vanishes into the clouds. After the briefest of pauses, Delta’s entire body shudders with rage. “G-GET BACK HERE, YOU STUPID CAAAAAAAAAAAAT!!” She, too, vanishes, leaving a massive gust of wind in her wake. “Same old same old, huh?” Their fights never reach a proper conclusion. Either Zeta leaves, or Alpha gives Zeta a piece of her mind. Not me, though. I prefer to just sit back and watch. Anyhow, guess I’d better head back and get some shut-eye. “Hmm?” I sense a number of people drawing closer. It makes sense, considering how much of a ruckus Zeta and Delta just made. “I know those presences… It’s Alexia and the guards, right?” I decide to conceal myself and see how this plays out. Alexia rushes over to the yard behind the dorms. Honestly, it’s not much of a yard. The area is poorly maintained, and it’s completely overgrown with trees. The night dew soaks her boots. She looks back over her shoulder as she runs. “Come on, hurry up!” The guards race after her with looks of terror on their faces. “That magic is dangerous, Princess Alexia! We need to wait for reinforcements!” “If you keep dawdling, the culprit’s going to get away!” “Princess Alexia, wait!” Alexia ignores the guards and pushes her way through the thicket. Soon, she finds the aftermath of a battle. “No way…” The ground and vegetation are riddled with lacerations, and the area lingers with traces of powerful magic. “Who even has magic this strong?” “Princess Alexia, we— Ah! What is this?” When the guards finally catch up to her, their voices get caught in their throats by the choking quantities of mana still present in the air. “I-it’s dangerous here, ma’am. The culprit might still be in the area.” “Exactly. And it’s your job to catch them.” “B-but, ma’am…” The guards glance at one another, unable to look Alexia in the eye. Alexia sighs, but she makes sure they don’t see her doing it. “This here—this is blood.” She traces the bloodstains splattered across the grass. “Someone lost a lot of it. They could be badly wounded. They might even be the culprit behind the incidents…” The Case of the Missing Students is the talk of the campus, but the Knight Order is completely butchering their investigation. They’ve ignored the mountains of evidence and declared that no criminal activity has taken place. Alexia, on the other hand, suspects there’s more to the case than meets the eye. “There were some elite dark knights fighting here. But why here?” she says. The spot they’re in is no battlefield. It’s just the yard behind some student dorms. “It makes sense to think this could be related to the case. There’s clearly some powerful force at work here…” One of the guards’ panicked voices interrupts her train of thought. “P-Princess Alexia!” “What?” “O-over there!” The guard is pointing at a silent figure dressed in a jet-black longcoat. “When did he—?” Alexia shudders. She didn’t sense his presence at all. “W-wait, that’s…” The figure is wearing his hood low, and he wipes his fingers across a bloodstain on the grass. His voice rumbles like it’s echoing up from the depths of the abyss. “This is the toll that a battle demands, is it?” “Shadow…” There’s something strikingly melancholic about him, and Alexia finds herself at a loss for words. “Was the life shed here a necessary sacrifice for the sake of the world?” “Did you have something to do with this, Shadow?” Shadow pays no heed to Alexia or the guards. Instead, he sinks deep into thought. “P-P-P-P-Princess Alexia, get back! You need to retreat and call in the Knight Order—” The guards tremble as they draw their swords. “Stand down, all of you,” she replies. “Our swords are no threat to him.” Despite knowing that, she levels her sword at Shadow all the same. “Answer me, Shadow. What happened here?” When she pours magic into her blade, Shadow finally turns to face her. The red eyes beneath his mask home in on her. “And what would you do, knowing the truth?” “Catch whoever was behind it. I won’t let them get away with this.” Behind his mask, Shadow lets out a small laugh. “Your efforts are futile.” He vanishes. No, wait—there he is, right in front of her. “Wha—?” She failed to sense his magic, his presence, his anything. Before she knows it, he’s standing directly before her with a sword pressed to her throat. Alexia recognizes that sword. After all, it belongs to her. “My…sword…” She never even noticed him steal it. “We live in different worlds.” “What does that even mean?” Alexia clenches her jaw. She’s put in so much work. She was so sure she’d closed the gap a little. “Front and back, shadow and light… There exists a world that people from the frontside would be best served avoiding.” With that, he retracts the sword and turns to leave. His black longcoat flutters behind him, and he strides unhurriedly into the night. “It’s time,” he says. “Time? Time for what?” “They’re making their move…” A black liquid gushes forth from Shadow’s feet, surging upward and engulfing him. Then the wind blows, and Shadow vanishes in a cloud of black mist. Alexia’s sword topples to the ground where he was standing. “He’s gone… Who was it he was talking about?” Alexia doesn’t understand any of it. However, learning that Shadow is involved is a step in the right direction. A small step, she admits bitterly, but a step all the same. She turns around. “Why aren’t those reinforcements here yet? We need to hurry up and preserve the scene of the—” She freezes in shock. “What…the…?” All the guards are unconscious. In the span of that brief moment, Shadow knocked each and every one of them out. And Alexia didn’t notice a thing. “How is there still such a gap between us? I’m trying so hard… I really am…” She hangs her head and clenches her fists tight.