“Geshti Nanna.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Saya! Are you okay?! Saya?!”
Ayato’s voice echoed from beyond the fog clouding her consciousness.
Saya shook her head slightly, waking up to find herself in a space narrower than she had expected, filled with what looked like old benches. Rising to her feet, she realized that she was looking down on the Eclipse stage. Ayato was staring up at her with a worried look.
She appeared to be in the spectators’ area above the stage. When the Helnekraum had exploded, the force of the blast must have thrown her up here.
“I—I’m okay… No probs.”
She gave Ayato a thumbs-up, though she still felt a bit wobbly.
That being said, it was frankly a miracle how little damage she had sustained. If she had taken a direct hit from the Raksha-Nada, she could have easily been completely dismembered.
Seeing the broken pieces of the Helnekraum scattered beside her, Saya gritted her teeth. She had only survived relatively unscathed because her weapon had taken the brunt of that last attack for her.
“Tch! Ayato! Watch out!”
At that moment, a second barrage of Raksha-Nada shards lashed out at Ayato like a passing meteor shower.
Ayato quickly leaped back to dodge the strike, but the fragments chasing after Saya joined the others to create an impressive mass, pursuing him as he fled. He managed to avoid them by darting across the stage, but if he had slipped up even for a second, it would have been the end of him.
Saya wanted to help in some way, but she had almost exhausted her supply of armaments. With only a handgun or two left, it would be reckless to go after Madiath Mesa directly. She gritted her teeth in frustration—she simply wasn’t on his level. If she had been fully armed, she might have stood a chance. But as she was now, rushing in carelessly would only serve to hamstring Ayato.
So what could she do? She glanced around and spotted something in the aisle between the audience seats.
“No way…?!”
She rushed over to make sure, but there could be no mistaking it.
This was—
“Ayato! A bomb! There’s a military-use manadite composite explosive here!”
“What?!” Ayato cried out in astonishment.
Just then Madiath, who had been leisurely directing the shards of the Raksha-Nada from afar, turned his gaze on Saya.
“Oh, did you notice? Perhaps I should have camouflaged them a little better.”
Indeed, the device was installed haphazardly, with most of the mechanism out in the open.
A quick look across the audience seating revealed six identical devices placed at intervals around the stage.
They were roughly half Saya’s height in size. Even one would have been immensely powerful, but six in combination? If they all went off at once, they would have enormous destructive power.
“What are you playing at, Madiath Mesa?!” Ayato demanded while dodging the fragments of the Raksha-Nada.
Something about his movements seemed confident—casual, even—like he was beginning to see through his opponent’s attacks. The more fragments Madiath Mesa divided the Raksha-Nada into, the more difficult they would be to control, and the less precise his attacks would become. That said, Saya would never have been able to see through an opponent of his level in such a short span of time. Ayato’s talents really were amazing.
“Hmm… Well, I don’t suppose there’s any way you could have known. This venue serves a hidden purpose.”
Madiath must have sensed that his attacks were losing potency, and he recalled the fragments of his weapon, letting them recombine into a sword blade.
“A hidden purpose…?”
“As you know, the city of Asterisk is often called a miniature garden, designed to contain Genestella. And when you’re containing something, it’s prudent to have a way to dispose of it, should the time come. That goes without saying, don’t you think?”
Dispose of…?
That turn of phrase sent a shiver down Saya’s spine.
“Why are you so surprised? As you can see from its construction, the stage for the Eclipse has been part of the city’s design since its very inception. You couldn’t possibly add a space like this once everything was finished. Even during large-scale renovations, it was left completely untouched. Do you think it was intended from the outset to be an arena for illegal matches? Of course not! The Eclipse is nothing more than a sideshow, a distraction from the structure’s original purpose… No, this is a safety device, in case of emergency… A switch.” Madiath paused there for a moment. Then he continued, his tone relaxed. “The foundations of this floating city are remarkably robust. Hardly anything can shake it. But it was designed with a certain inherent weakness from the very beginning. Yes, if this area were to be destroyed and flood with water…well, the base structure supporting Asterisk would collapse. In other words, the entire city would sink to the bottom of the lake.”
“No…!”
Saya found it hard to believe, but if true—if Asterisk itself were destroyed, they would be doomed even if they succeeded in stopping Orphelia.
She couldn’t even imagine how many lives would be lost.
“But of course, that’s no easy feat. The walls here are multilayered, the sturdiest in the whole city. You’d need to focus on certain points and destroy them simultaneously. Without such safeguards, you would hardly want to hold an event as dangerous as the Eclipse down here, would you?”
Madiath’s voice was laced with scorn—but Saya couldn’t begin to guess who it was directed at.
“Why do such a thing…?! If Erenshkigal carries out your plan and slaughters everyone, there shouldn’t be any need to destroy the city itself!”
“Even if Miss Orphelia should succeed in her task, it would all come to naught if the integrated enterprise foundations’ investigations uncovered the truth, no? There are those with delving abilities capable of seeing into the past. This is me destroying the evidence, just in case.”
Just in case.
He would go to such extremes simply because of a possibility?
Once again, the madness of the Golden Bough Alliance, the degree to which they were all out of touch with the world, was brought home to her.
“Saya, can you disarm them?” Ayato called out.
“Huh…?”
She was taken aback by the abrupt question, but she quickly pulled herself together and started examining the bomb. Compound explosives incorporating manadite were much more powerful than conventional ones, but like Luxes, they required a control device to function. Perhaps she would be able to stop it by overwriting its programming.
“I don’t know…but I’ll try!”
Saya pulled out her mobile device and connected it to the control unit, then she began to analyze it.
“Hey, hey. Do you think I’m just going to sit here and watch?” Madiath said, readying the Raksha-Nada once more—but not before Ayato lashed out from above.
“Ngh…!”
Ayato’s attack was much sharper than before, forcing Madiath to fall back a step.
Following through, Ayato attacked again, unleashing an upward diagonal swing, his blade gleaming in the air.
“Oh…!” Madiath exclaimed. “You’ve adapted to my moves, I see… Well, this is our third time crossing swords. I’d be disappointed if you couldn’t pull off that much!”
After falling back, he placed a hand on his shoulder and glanced around.
“Very well. I can’t risk you getting the better of me while I’m distracted. I’ll deal with Miss Sasamiya after I kill you.”
At that moment, an incredible bloodlust seemed to emanate from Madiath’s body.
Even from a distance, Saya felt as though her internal organs were being crushed into a pulp. The temperature seemed to drop below freezing, and the air around them weighed heavy as if it had turned to lead. Before she knew it, her hands were trembling.
Is this the real Madiath Mesa…?!
Just how much pressure did Ayato feel facing this murderous aura head on?
But with a slight shake of her head, Saya turned her focus back to the task in front of her.
She had work to do.
This must be the reason she was here.
In that case, she would just have to do a perfect job.
She activated the encryption-cracking tool that Eishirou had provided her with—incidentally, the same one he had used while searching for Flora in the Rotlicht—and started rewriting the control device’s programming.