“Wh-Wh-What in the world just happened?! Just as Moroboshi was about to decide the match, he sank to the ground! He must have been struck by Kurogane, but… I-I’m ashamed to say that it all went too fast for me to see!” Iida yelled, the pitch of his voice rising with every word. The great distance between the announcers’ booth and the arena made it hard to follow Ikki’s movements—he seemed to disappear from sight and reappear behind Moroboshi, cutting him down in the process. “What does this all mean?! Kurogane’s movements were clearly very different!”
Iida couldn’t contain his surprise, opening his eyes wide in disbelief. Next to him, however, the Mage-Knight known as Muroto was shocked to a different extent altogether.
“I-Impossible! It can’t be, but… No, that’s inconceivable!”
He knew exactly where the swordplay and footwork Ikki had just used had come from. Iida almost snapped at him for more information.
“Coach Muroto, do you know something about this?! Could this be the Worst One’s legendary Ittou Shura?”
“N-No, that’s not Ittou Shura. You can tell that the magic in Kurogane hasn’t changed. This is pure swordplay! There are differences between two-sword and one-sword styles, but that instantaneous acceleration and blinding-fast strike bring to mind something that I’ve only seen once before!”
“Where have you seen that?! It couldn’t have been in the A-League, could it?!”
“You’d never see it in a place like that,” Muroto replied while shaking his head. “That style belongs to the worst criminal in all of history. She’s the world’s strongest knight—so powerful that nations have given up on apprehending her. Kurogane is using the same swordplay as Twin Wings Edelweiss!”
The Dome filled with shouts in response to Muroto’s claim, causing the venue to shake it more than it had at any point in the day.
“Say what?!”
“You mean the Twin Wings?! But why can Worst One use her swordplay?!”
“Wait! I heard he can steal his enemy’s swordplay!”
Everyone in the stands exploded with screams of astonishment and confusion. Ikki’s friends as well were, for once, just as dumbfounded as everyone else. They of all people knew that Ikki Kurogane was the kind of person to constantly defy common sense, but if Muroto was correct, then he’d done something far beyond anything he’d done before.
“B-Big Brother really did that?!”
“So he didn’t just live to tell the tale, he lived to steal the strongest swordsman’s own style?!”
“Th-That can’t be!” The one who oppugned Alice’s shaken question was Kiriko. She claimed that it was impossible. “If that’s true, why didn’t he use it from the start?!”
That was the obvious question to ask, but Kurono responded to it with a denial.
“It’s not like he chose not to. Until just now, he simply couldn’t remember it.”
“Ah!” Kiriko squeaked as she recalled the conversation Ikki had had with Yagokoro the night before.
“The fact that he didn’t remember served as the cause of his condition, too.”
“Mind explaining what you mean, Director?”
“Edelweiss’ swordplay is abnormal. Normally, a human’s movements are the result of muscles working in unison, but her style doesn’t work like that. To instantly go from zero to a hundred percent, you have to move all of those muscles at exactly the same time, condensing all of your muscular strength in an instant. That said, the brain can’t fire off enough electrical impulses to command all of those muscles at once. So, to make it possible, you have to change your brain’s very signaling.”
One had to create signals that were wholly different from those created by a normal human. Such so-called “battle signals” were shorter, yet denser with information. Without using those to their fullest extent, the intricate machine known as the human muscular system could not be put into simultaneous full-power operation.
“In their high-speed, blink-and-it’s-over battle, Kurogane acquired these when he was struck by Edelweiss’ blades. Even though he couldn’t retrieve the memories, his brain still retained them. And for a swordsman at Ikki’s level, once they took in such an incredible technique, they would unconsciously begin to reproduce it.
“In other words, when his battle against Moroboshi reached a decisive point and Kurogane’s concentration was at its limit, his brain used those battle signals. But much like Kurogane himself, his body had forgotten them, unable to understand the strange, different impulses.”
“And because of that, his body couldn’t respond in kind. Is that what you’re saying?”
Shizuku’s confirmation was met with a nod from Kurono.
“Right. Basically, Kurogane wasn’t broken by Edelweiss. It was quite the opposite: that battle forced him to evolve tremendously, to the point that not even his muscles could keep up. At least, not until just now.”
On the verge of defeat, Ikki’s body had finally grown to accept the power he had acquired. In doing so, he created a new way of moving that differed entirely from how he had done it in his sixteen long years.
“His brain—an engine idling at super-high speed—and his muscles—the clutch—have finally connected. At this point, the end of the match is nigh. Yuudai Moroboshi may be the strongest Seven Stars King in the last ten years, but this opponent is just too much for him. It doesn’t matter that Kurogane lost to the world’s strongest swordsman; his life-and-death battle with her and his ability to learn have combined perfectly, giving him skill that eclipses that of all other student knights. He has become far stronger than necessary for being in this tournament. The boy standing in front of Moroboshi right now is truly a beast.”
Perhaps, Kurono thought, the one who had an unlucky first-round matchup was actually Moroboshi.