Ayato slashed at his foe’s feet as they changed places, but Madiath’s blade instantly repelled him.
His automatic defenses, it seemed, were still alive and well.
And just as his own Ser Veresta was repelled, something slashed at him from behind.
“…?!”
Though he dodged the attack thanks to his heightened senses, if he had been even a half-second slower, he would have been cut in half.
Glancing around, he spotted a red battle-ax floating in midair.
And that wasn’t all.
Following behind the battle-ax, a cross spear lunged for his throat, while the blade of the Raksha-Nada itself, gripped firmly in Madiath’s right hand, shot toward his thigh.
“Gah…!”
A Rect Lux…?! No, this is something else…!
Before he knew it, the Raksha-Nada had changed in size to match Ayato’s own Ser Veresta, from that of a huge longsword to a standard blade.
He must have used the remaining material to forge that battle-ax and cross spear.
“Well, I am missing one arm. I need something to even things out, no? Think of this as the ace up my sleeve.”
Madiath laughed breezily—but this battle had already taught Ayato just how much danger this posed.
With the fragments combined into weapons of these sizes, he could probably control them just as accurately as if he were holding them in his hand. He was essentially wielding three different weapons freely, each with different stances and attack methods, while keeping Ayato surrounded. On top of that, as a combat genius, Madiath was just as skilled at fighting with axes and spears as he was with swords.
Ayato, too, had learned all the different martial arts while training in the Amagiri Shinmei style, but he probably fell short of Madiath’s ability, with his formless, unpredictable style.
And to top it all off, Madiath had his automatic defense system.
In terms of both offense and defense, Ayato’s opponent was clearly superior.
“Now then, are you having second thoughts? Do you still think you can extricate yourself from this situation without slaying me? Don’t be shy, unleash your inner savagery…!” Madiath demanded again as he lashed out at Ayato, now completely on the defensive.
“…I refuse!”
Ayato was shocked by the weight of the battle-ax’s strike.
Its output was completely different from a Rect Lux. The oversized Rect Lux wielded by Rodolfo Zoppo had also packed considerable power, but its speed and accuracy fell far short of what Ayato was fighting now.
“You fool! You ignorant fool! You’re so crippled by your naïveté that even I feel sorry for you! Your body is constrained by the Amagiri Shinmei style, your soul shackled by petty human morality! You’re bound hand and foot!”
The truth was, Ayato wasn’t refusing out of moral conviction.
But if he was to overcome Madiath Mesa here, it wouldn’t be by stooping to his opponent’s level. He knew that intuitively, in his gut.
Ayato had never killed anyone before. He had once resolved to take down Orphelia for Julis if it became absolutely necessary, but he realized now just how naive, how shallow, how foolish his thinking had been back then.
Madiath’s very existence was a denial of this whole city—of Asterisk. For that reason, Ayato felt that if he was going to oppose him, he had to work within Asterisk’s framework, and the Stella Carta that governed the Festa didn’t permit intentional killing.
Even Ayato didn’t fully approve of everything Asterisk stood for. In fact, in his own way, he was rather critical of it. But the truth was, there were things that could be accomplished only in this city, and he was where he was today thanks to this place.
It was wrong for those who had left that framework to try to crush it.
That was why Ayato had no intention of killing Madiath.
“So…! You…! Are you claiming you’re free?!”
Ayato barely avoided a string of three sword, ax, and spear strikes. Their timing was irregular yet unsparing.
“More than you, at least!”
In fact, Madiath’s fighting style didn’t seem to be bound by anything. It was truly without form or rhythm. His weapons moved seamlessly, imbued with a heavenly beauty that any martial artist would aspire to.
And yet—
Just then, a question popped into Ayato’s mind.
“…You said your goal was to accelerate progress, right?” he asked.
Madiath’s eyebrows twitched. “Yes, indeed! To accelerate the flow of time! To sweep away the dregs of this bygone age!”
The Raksha-Nada crashed into Ayato’s torso, knocking him back.
He was bleeding so badly that he could barely stay on his feet, but he clenched his teeth and managed, somehow, to keep going.
Then, fully cognizant of the distance between himself and his opponent, Ayato regulated his breathing.
“You know what they say about people who encounter misfortune or tragedy?” Madiath said as though he was making small talk. “They were born in the wrong era. They were ahead of their time. Whenever I hear some flippant excuse like that, I think to myself…” He paused there, lowering his head as he took a long, deep breath. “What a joke.”
Ayato shivered at the deep hatred and immeasurable rage that lay behind those words.
“Their time? The wrong era? Don’t try to cover it up with some vague, hackneyed cliché!” Madiath’s roar reverberated through the chill underground air. “Yes, if Akari had been born earlier, she wouldn’t have had so many worries. There would have been no room for that. For a while after Genestella came into the world, they didn’t even think about things like discrimination. They were too few in number, and their lives were completely controlled. If she had been born a little later, no doubt she would have lived more freely. In the not-too-distant future, I’m sure regular people will have to fundamentally rethink the way they relate to Genestella.”
Though Madiath was speaking aloud, Ayato got the feeling that his words were directed inward.
“No, she suffered only because she was born in the dim twilight of this hazy in-between time, neither day nor night. I can still see her bitter smile. Neither laughing nor crying. That smile was like a symbol of Akari Yachigusa’s situation in life—and the city of Asterisk itself… It’s utterly repulsive.”
“…So that’s what you meant by acceleration.”