“Mrreeww...”
I was standing in front of Aoyuki and scanning what remained of the underground arena after her fight with the fake C. The Black Fools had once used this space to take on Gira, and when Ellie had originally built it, she had designed it to withstand huge amounts of physical and magical damage. Sure, I’d wrecked the place during my battle and ended up having to patch it up again, but after this particular battle, there was rubble everywhere, and it looked like the whole arena was on the verge of collapsing in on itself.
“Nice work, Aoyuki,” I said. “I see you really went all out.”
My lieutenant dropped to one knee and hung her head in remorse. “On the contrary. I ultimately failed to carry out your orders, master. I will accept any punishment you deem appropriate to make up for my transgression.”
Even Fenrir, the Phoenix, and Cerberus followed her lead and subserviently laid their heads on the ground, while I silently turned my head to look at what my lieutenant was referring to. I’d ordered Aoyuki to capture the fake C alive so we could scan his memories, but at that very moment, our target was starting to disintegrate into ash, starting from the ends of his limbs. The fake C had known all along that he had no hope of beating Aoyuki, but his insanity had made him fight on to the bitter end. Aoyuki had been forced to borrow powers from monsters under her control to wear him down, but that was ultimately where the problem lay. The fake C ended up creating shadows and weapons that would rob his opponents of their life force to make himself stronger, but to pull off such a feat, he had to burn through his own life force. Normally, no one would be stupid enough to unleash enough shadow energy to basically commit suicide, but in this case, this guy was mad enough to do it. The fake C had fought on and on without any hesitation and without caring one bit about his life or anyone else’s, and as such, he had ended up destroying himself in what turned out to be a completely senseless rampage.
I used one of my gacha cards to watch the whole battle, so I really can’t blame her for what happened, I reflected. It would’ve been next to impossible to actually capture and detain this fake C without one hell of a fight.
The fake C had been able to hold his own at the beginning of the tussle by using those bizarre curse-like abilities of his, but once he’d shown everything that was up his sleeve, it became Aoyuki’s fight to lose. If the fake C had been capable of logical thinking, he would’ve realized he couldn’t win and simply admitted defeat—or at the very least, tried to escape or something—yet he had continued battling Aoyuki and her monster sidekicks like some kind of rabid animal. That said, he was still a Level 9999 rabid animal, so it wasn’t like he was just some run-of-the-mill opponent you could score an easy victory over. I felt it would be cruel to punish Aoyuki for not being able to capture this powerful but clearly insane lunatic alive. I strolled up to Aoyuki and patted her on the head.
“You can get up now. I’m not going to punish you,” I assured her. “I knew this fake C guy was crazy, but I didn’t think he’d be insane enough to lack any survival instincts whatsoever. If you couldn’t capture him safely, then I doubt anyone could have. I’m just glad you were able to take him out without suffering any casualties.”
“Mrrow!” Aoyuki instantly perked up and lifted her face toward me. I rewarded her by giving her cheeks a rub and scratching her chin, and she was so content with this, she half closed her large, innocent-looking eyes. While I was petting Aoyuki, I turned to Mei and Ellie, who were standing behind me.
“All right, Ellie, you’re up,” I said.
“Leave everything to me, Blessed Lord Light,” she replied.
“I don’t think he has any more fight in him, but take care all that same,” I said. “Mei, Aoyuki, you two stay alert and provide her with cover if she needs it.”
“As you command, Master Light,” Mei replied.
“Mrrow!” was Aoyuki’s feline-like response.
Ellie approached the fake C so she could scan his memories before he completely wasted away, and although Aoyuki had weakened C to the point where he was on the verge of disintegrating, I knew there was no such thing as being too careful, so I warned Mei and Aoyuki to stay vigilant. Even I gripped my Gungnir a little tighter just in case I suddenly needed to use it.
Ellie gingerly placed her hand on the fake C’s head, then just as quickly backed away with her hand over her mouth, and the color drained from her face.
“Ellie?” I queried, raising my staff.
“I-I’m terribly sorry, Your Blessedness, for that undignified display,” Ellie said. “However, it isn’t possible for me to read his mind. His thoughts are too crazed to allow for a proper mind reading. I can hardly believe Aoyuki had the mental fortitude to even engage with an opponent this dreadfully psychotic.”
“Nrrow!” Aoyuki replied, puffing her petite chest out with pride. But the fact that she had been able to withstand the fake C’s madness for as long as she had wasn’t due to her displaying more fealty to me than Ellie. No, if I had to guess at the reason, it was because she had only fought against the delusional energy that was filtered through her Beast Chain. Ellie, on the other hand, had touched the fake C with her hand and peered directly into his madness, which I assumed made all the difference.