Pythie Frederica
One strike, two—surprisingly, Frederica’s attacks were turned aside. With the physical capabilities of an incarnation, even just skimming her should be able to break bones, but Old Blue turned her strikes aside softly and gently, her palm nearing Frederica’s face. With the body of an incarnation, she would take no damage. In fact, smashing that fist with her forehead could break Old Blue’s bones.
…No!
Frederica leaped backward. Old Blue followed her closely. Though she should have been pressed, though there was no way she could have anticipated this encounter with Frederica, she even wore a thin smile on her face.
The surrounding rubble was flung about. Before the scattered bits could fall, Old Blue and Frederica clashed, swapping positions, clashing again, and Old Blue broke through a wall with her back, going into the old school building.
Having anticipated what Old Blue would do, Frederica decided to ignore her and rout the Lightnings. This was the most straightforward thing to do, and it would help her outmaneuver Old Blue. So she had thought.
The lightning bolts coming from behind were fired as if they were ignoring Old Blue’s presence, but despite that, they didn’t touch Old Blue at all, surging toward Frederica only. Even if the lightning did touch her, it shouldn’t damage her much, but she didn’t want it giving Old Blue an opening to attack her. Forced to evade, she had even fewer places to back away.
These Lightnings moved differently from the ones she had fought before. There were three of them. So these were Old Blue’s guard? They were most likely not simply Lightnings. They were disgustingly well-coordinated with Old Blue. The suit that she got a glimpse of near her shoulder was spade—she couldn’t see the number, but if this followed the law of Shufflins, then it should be correct to assume it was a higher number.
Frederica breathed a little sigh.
It wasn’t that Old Blue had known what she would do. She had also not laid a trap for her. But despite having not predicted their encounter here, she had anticipated a fight with Frederica—no, a fight with an incarnation.
Stepping right, then left to avoid the thunderfall, Frederica went from a left kick to a right spear-hand at point blank, using her skirt as a blindfold, but Old Blue was already gone—she just about captured Frederica’s arm, and Frederica backed off automatically, and there the lightning fell again.
She peered into Old Blue’s eyes. They were pale blue, the color of Lapis Lazuline. In the middle of a bloody battlefield, the scent of nemophilas was so strong that it was almost choking.
A knife-hand, a scratch, a low kick, lowering her stance all the way down to knee level for a low tackle—Old Blue read all of it, and nothing connected. Conversely, Old Blue almost caught her, making her hastily draw back, where she was struck by a follow-up attack, forcing her to go around evading in a panic.
She was fighting an ordinary magical girl. Old Blue had even once lost to the Musician of the Forest, Cranberry. It seemed doubtful that she could injure the body of an incarnation. But watching the attacks come at her, Frederica avoided them reflexively. A part of her close to instinct was screaming that she could not take those attacks.
It was also difficult to defeat the Lightnings first. Old Blue was conducting herself so as to keep her from doing so. Frederica could not bulldoze them with the physical strength of an incarnation. Though all her stats had to be superior, between their technique, experience, and coordination, they had her where they wanted her.
How amusing… But what’s this?
While fighting, Old Blue and the Lightnings were gradually moving away from the courtyard. Even as Frederica followed them, she was confused. They were moving away from the courtyard precisely because Frederica was following—but if Frederica took this as an opportunity to head to the courtyard, then what did she plan to do?
✦ ✦ ✦
Calkoro
The wild bouts of shaking came in succession. Calkoro deduced an answer for that with her abacus. The epicenter was underneath the magical-girl class. It was near the surface. This was clearly no ordinary earthquake. There was something happening, but Calkoro couldn’t tell what.
The sounds of struggle were fading. There were also fewer footsteps running around the school.
Calkoro had sneaked along under the floor and then over the ceiling, then through the rubble, and when she’d made it to the courtyard somehow, she’d found it no time to go in at all. Courage crushed, Calkoro turned back the other way. But then where would she go? She had no goal. Clearly, the sounds of conflict were diminishing, so then maybe it would be best to continue hiding and wait until the robbers were gone, or maybe until the authorities came, but doing that would make her conscience prickle.
She was not at all a good teacher. But even so, a teacher was a teacher. When the homunculus incident had happened, Calkoro had gone into the mountains. She had neither run nor waited for help. You could call that indulging in heroism, but it was also fair to say that she’d been able to show magical girl–appropriate courage. Put that nicely, and it was a good thing; put it badly, and it would be a bad thing. All things had two sides that way.
There was no time to be waffling around. So with the thought of doing the minimum, she headed to Halna’s office. It was empty. She sneaked around like a mouse, and seeing the heavy wooden office door had been destroyed, she sighed. Of course, the office had also been ransacked. The heavy metallic safe had been cut clean in two, and documents were scattered about. Perhaps it could be called fortunate that there were no bodies or any bloody marks. Was Halna still alive? Thinking about it didn’t get her any answers.
She searched around under the desk and behind the sofa, but Halna was not there. Calkoro’s brow furrowed slightly. She picked up a single document and swiftly read over it, searching for two, three pieces, fishing through what remained in the safe. Then she turned back toward the courtyard.
Her expression gradually turned severe and eventually became an expression of clear anger.
Crumpling up the document she held had in her hand, she tossed it away, and then she set off once more for the courtyard—sneaking along so that nobody would discover her.