“He’s tough,” Babel thought. Likely even tougher than Babel had been when he’d been sixteen. Sigurd wasn’t even an Einherjar, so his ceiling for growth should have been much lower than Babel’s—Sigurd must’ve trained relentlessly to bridge that gap with his own blood, sweat, and tears.
That didn’t upset Babel—on the contrary, it only improved his opinion of the boy. There was a certain type of strength and resilience that only those like Sigurd exuded.
“You’ve still got some growing up to do, kid.” With a loud clang, Babel parried Sigurd’s oncoming attack. Babel’s decision to take up a defensive stance hadn’t been made thoughtlessly. He’d been carefully observing Sigurd’s techniques and his movements the whole time. The boy’s swings were fast and powerful, but they didn’t have much else going for them. Given his young age, it was to be expected, but he lacked finesse. At Sigurd’s current level, he was simply no match for Babel.
“My turn,” Babel said with a smirk. He promptly unleashed his own flurry of strikes.
“Rgh?! Ngggghh!” In no time at all, the tables had been turned. Sigurd was just barely managing to maintain a defensive stance against Babel’s onslaught.
“What’s wrong, kid? Where’d all that bravado go, huh?!” With each swing, he pressured Sigurd further and further, even throwing in a taunt for good measure. Sigurd wasn’t weak by any means—in fact, he was far stronger than most boys his age. That on its own wasn’t enough, however. Babel had undergone years of Sigrún’s harsh training and had stood on countless battlefields. He’d overcome all of that and still remained in one piece. Put simply, he had practically a lifetime of experience on the boy.
“Hiyaaah!” Babel swung with all his might. The impact sent Sigurd’s sword off-kilter. Then, reversing the trajectory of his sword, he cut a quick, powerful slash across the boy’s unguarded abdomen. It was a fatal blow—or so he’d thought.
“What?!” Babel’s eyes went wide with astonishment when he saw what had actually occurred. Sigurd had stopped Babel’s attack midswing—he’d used his knee and elbow to clamp down on either side of the sword, perfectly trapping it between them. Babel couldn’t believe his eyes—no one in their right mind would even attempt something so outlandish in training, let alone in actual combat.
“Haah!” Without a moment’s hesitation, Sigurd released the sword and brought his own sword down on top of Babel.
“Rgh!” Babel managed to evade, but his shock at Sigurd’s feat had ended up delaying his reaction time. He felt a searing heat down his face, but he could tell it was a shallow cut—not fatal by any means.
Kicking off the ground, Babel leaped backward, gaining distance from his opponent so he could check the wound. Fortunately, it seemed to run from between his eyebrows to the top of his lips—in other words, away from his eyes. That meant there was no danger of blood seeping into his vision and hampering his ability to fight.
“Huff...huff... You gave me a scare there, kid,” Babel said. It was no lie. In fact, he couldn’t recall ever being so stricken with terror in his entire life. The fear of his potential imminent death was one thing, but it was Sigurd’s extraordinary understanding of the flow of battle that really made him shudder. Normally, the ploy Sigurd had used to trap his sword wouldn’t even have had a one-in-ten chance of succeeding, yet he’d managed to execute it perfectly on his first attempt. That level of concentration and good fortune could only be possessed by someone blessed by a god of war. He may have been a young kid, still wet behind the ears, but he’d sent chills down Babel’s spine nonetheless.
“But you paid a high price for that move, didn’t you?” A vicious grin stretched across Babel’s lips. That should’ve been Sigurd’s chance, but not only had he neglected to properly follow up on his ambitious gambit, he stood rooted to the spot, a pained expression on his face.
“You can’t fight with that knee or elbow anymore,” Babel said with a grin. Sigurd’s limbs had received the full brunt of a steel sword at midswing—there was no way he’d be in any condition to continue. Most likely, the bones in his arm and leg were broken, or at the very least, fractured. He’d have difficulty moving around or even standing. In other words, he was no longer a threat.
“Seems like I’ve lost this one,” Sigurd muttered.
“That’s right, kid. You lose—or should I say, all of you lose.” There wasn’t a doubt in Babel’s mind that the ambush waiting in the forest had been Nozomu’s ultimate trump card. With that shut down, there was nothing stopping Babel from using his superior numbers to crush the rest of Nozomu’s rebellion. The moment Sigurd lost, Babel had won this war.
“Heh... I wonder about that. The way I see it, now that we have her on our side, there’s no way you can win,” Sigurd responded, practically bursting with confidence.
“‘Her’...?” Babel frowned in suspicion. The moment he did, an unpleasant chill raced down his spine. Feeling an intense, otherworldly presence at his back, as though a god—or perhaps a demon—had manifested behind him, he turned around in a panic.
“If you end up losing to this bunch after coming this far, you might as well go back home and redo your training from scratch,” the presence said, her long black hair fluttering in the wind. She was so beautiful that, at a glance, she seemed out of place on the battlefield, but Babel was too focused on her eyes to notice her looks. Bewitching runes gleamed in both of her pupils. A peerless warrior with the power to trample anything and everything underfoot stood before him.
“The tyrant Babel has been captured! Victory is ours! Glory to the divine emperor!”
“Glory to the divine emperor!” Spirited cheers arose from the battlefield in unison. Somehow, they’d managed to eke out a victory. If Nozomu had to guess, Homura had likely done the honors. It wasn’t that he hadn’t had faith in Sigurd’s abilities—Sigurd was, without a doubt, the most skilled out of his siblings—but capturing an Einherjar alive was likely beyond Sigurd’s means.
“I suppose using our last-ditch insurance was the right call after all. With any luck, Sigurd’s managed to not kick the bucket, so we can call this a complete victory,” Arness said breezily.
“Don’t say something so ominous,” Nozomu said with a shudder. He knew Sigurd could be hot-headed—heck, even during their prebattle strategy meeting, Sigurd had been unrelenting in wanting to face off against Babel one-on-one—but he could only pray that Sigurd’s injuries hadn’t been too severe.
“Come to think of it, how’d you even manage to get Big Sis Homura to cooperate in the first place, considering how fickle she can be?” Nozomu asked, rather belatedly. Back then, his mind had been so preoccupied with the battle in front of him that he hadn’t paid it any mind, but now that he had room to breathe, he found himself curious.
Put succinctly, Oda Homura was a free spirit. She didn’t even count herself as one of Yuuto’s subordinates; she was treated more like a special guest. In other words, even Yuuto had no control over her. She was an audacious, intrepid woman who marched to the beat of her own drum.
“I didn’t really have to do anything. It was simple, considering her weak points are Big Sis Ephy and Sinmara,” Arness explained.
“Ah...” Now that he thought about it, that was true. Regardless of how self-centered and haughty she was, there were times when she begrudgingly ended up doing what Ephelia asked of her. When Nozomu had become curious and asked her why, she’d replied that she’d rather do Ephy’s bidding than have her friend cry on her.
“Get Ephy worried enough about her husband to come crying to Homura for help and bingo, she’s on our side,” Arness continued.