“Thanks,” Kyoya grinned.
Sayaka nodded her head respectfully. “We appreciate being invited to such a splendid banquet.”
“If I had my druthers, I would have invited only you.”
“Um—” Sayaka responded, her cheeks flushing.
Alarmed by the possibility that Sayaka might unexpectedly have a thing for middle-aged guys, Kyoya put on a warning expression.
“But,” she continued, “why did you invite me and the others in the first place?”
All at once, she cut to the heart of the matter.
“All the relevant reasons will come to light later.” The eyes deep within the mask seemed to smile.
He’d ducked the question, leaving Kyoya all the more put out.
“Kyoya Izayoi-kun?”
“Yeah.”
“The rumors have reached even this newcomer’s ears that you are a practitioner of the rare talents of nenpo.”
“Well, ah, sure.”
The masked man directed his attention to Kyoya’s right hand. “And that is Asura. Could I?”
“Go ahead.”
A strong hand reached out—and stopped.
“What?”
He let his hand fall to his side instead, and turned away from the sword. “It seems not to have an affinity for me. Unfortunately.”
“Sure,” said Kyoya, though his voice communicated that he had no idea. “By the way, is the reason you invited me still a mystery?”
“No.” The masked man looked at Kyoya and spoke quietly. The kind of voice that made Sayaka turn a bit pale. A commotion behind them caught their attention. “Ah, the show begins,” he said, turning around. “Please enjoy yourself. Till we meet again.”
The begowned man slipped back into the crowds.
“That guy gives me the creeps,” Kyoya said.
“How’s that?” Sayaka said, her breathing a bit rough.
Kyoya switched Asura to his left hand and shook his right. “Feeling’s gone right out of it, from that guy only getting his hand close. If he’d actually touched it, might have been a lot worse.”
He glanced over at the basin. Men in armor were standing in the middle of the oval. Kyoya could make out one person to the left and three to the right. They were about the same size, though they carried different weapons. The three on the right had long swords. The one on the left, a lance. The swordsmen wore black armor. The lancer’s was dark blue.
They had appeared at some point and would be putting on some sort of performance.
“So this is the entertainment. Interesting,” said Kyoya, massaging his right hand with his left. He was obviously looking forward to it.
“But it’s a sword fight,” Sayaka observed darkly.
“Aw, relax. It’s a show. I’m sure they’ve taken the edge of those weapons off. The lance too—”
The rest of the sentence stuck in his throat, as he noticed that the armored knight facing the other three was the one who’d dueled with Mephisto and then picked a fight with him.
“Now then, everybody!” The masked lord’s voice spilled out of the air. “The first act begins, more exciting and thrilling than anything you will ever witness in the world below.”
The guests had already ascertained the nature of the performance and pushed to the edge of the basin. Kyoya and Sayaka tagged along as well.
“One way or another, not your regular sporting event,” said Kyoya.
Ten feet separated the four. Based on the length of the weapons alone, the lancer would have the advantage. But considering number and size, the swordsmen were hardly lacking.
“Man, this is giving me the shivers,” said a well-known business writer, his face flushed with anticipation. “For a bunch of robots, they’re really selling the emotion.”
“They really are,” agreed a voluptuous actress, famous mostly for her physical assets. “It’s like—like that ancient Roman thingy.”
“The Coliseum.”
“Yeah, that’s it!” She licked her lips.
A cruel air enshrouded them. The tension and curiosity rose to a fevered pitch.
The black knights suddenly moved, fanning out around the dark blue knight. One lunged at him from the right. With a whoosh of wind, the swing of his sword swept out a radius of no less than six feet.
Without even looking at him, the blue knight swung his lance. The lateral blow made contact. The right-handed knight had switched the weapon to his left hand.
The altogether strange sound of steel against steel, like a mallet striking a drum, rang out from the black knight’s abdomen. Like a doll tossed through the air, the black knight flew a good twenty yards and struck its head against the rim of the basin.
“What the—!”
“That is—!”
“Blood!” a woman screamed.
From the cracks in the armor—fallen in a heap like a grotesque mannequin, dripped a red liquid that moved out in a spreading stain. This was anything but a fight among robots.
Above the heads of the spectators, his presence forgotten in the spectacle before them, a voice said, “Relax. That blood is artificial. Those you see fighting before you are nothing more than synthetic life forms built here in my home.”
A collective sigh of relief dissolved the building tension. As if to rend that apart, the black knight on the left jumped up. At the same time, the third brandished his sword and charged straight on.
The blue knight met the simultaneous attacks from the ground and air with a single turn of the lance. The terrible ferocity of the arc repelled the descending sword and slammed against the head of the knight on the ground.
Somebody screamed as the head sailed into the air like a comet. It was still in mid-flight when the blue knight spun the demonic lance again and speared the knight through the chest as it tumbled to the ground.
The mouths of the guests opened in a silent shout. A second later, the blue knight had hoisted the body into the air in an atrocious boast of his victory.
The spectators turned away their faces.
The blue knight shook the lance, digging it deeper into the black knight, who writhed on the end of the spike like the impaled meal of a butcher bird. Even a synthetic life form could feel pain.
“Stop it!”
A stern and angry voice rippled through the perverse atmosphere. They all gulped as a young man jumped from the stands and down into the pit.
“Quit clowning around, you homicidal maniac!” came the coolly condescending command.
The blue knight just as calmly turned his attention to Kyoya Izayoi. The demonic lance faced off against Asura.
In a place unseen murmured a voice unheard, “And now the second act begins, in which the interloper is obliterated.”