The bald-headed, hook-nosed man wore trench coat shrouded in darkness…
“Oh, Pyrovault. You’re right on time,” Asahi Fujinaka said calmly.
“Heh, ’course I am. I take my job seriously, you know,” Pyrovault said, shrugging his shoulders.
There was no doubt about it: This was the very same man Karamori had carved up with his sword just the day before.
He looked at Karamori and gave a friendly wave.
“Hey, Vanit Slayer. Haven’t seen you since yesterday.”
“Pyrovault…! H-how are you…?!” Karamori stammered.
“Eh? Gimme some credit, kid. I ain’t gonna die that easily. I’ll admit you got the best of me, though,” Pyrovault said, shaking his right sleeve. It dangled past his elbow; a reminder of where Karamori had cut off his arm.
Karamori broke out into a cold sweat. The situation had just worsened considerably.
“So what’re we doing here?” Pyrovault asked. “Should I kill him? Makes sense to eliminate a Noary birdie when we can, right?”
Asahi Fujinaka stroked his chin. He looked at Tyrfing, and his eyes shined with childlike glee.
“That is true, but I would very much like to make Tyrfing mine. It’s a first-class piece of distortion and a relic from the time of myth. I must add it to my collection.”
“Gotcha. Leave it to me!”
Pyrovault rushed at Karamori, kicking off the ground with such force you would have thought a landmine had exploded.
“And try not to hurt my daughter,” Asahi Fujinaka called out behind him.
Showing no sign he’d heard the other man, Pyrovault raised his empty right sleeve. It fluttered in the wind until it was suddenly ripped apart by a giant metal arm that appeared to replace his missing forearm.
The arm reached into his coat and pulled out a long weapon—a metal pole with a round road sign attached to one end and, for whatever reason, an animal skull on the other. The arm and road sign were clearly both vanits.
He swung down the road sign with the force of a hurricane.
“Fujinaka, get back!” Karamori yelled, pushing her away and barely avoiding the sign himself. Then, without missing a beat, he drove the half-drawn Tyrfing at Pyrovault’s abdomen.
However—
“…!”
—the azure blade froze. Its tip stopped right before the road sign, which Pyrovault had lifted to defend himself. The word STOP had appeared on the sign.
“Ha-ha-ha. I came prepared this time. That sword might be able to slice through anything, but it can’t cut what it can’t touch!” Pyrovault punctuated that last word with a vicious kick to Karamori’s stomach.
Karamori spit up blood, twisted his body, then swung the sword again, and Pyrovault used the pole of the road sign to deflect the scabbard.
“Crap!” Karamori spat. The situation was only getting worse for him.
“Third,” Asahi Fujinaka called out.
“Okaaay!” Third responded enthusiastically, swinging a fist of hair clasped so tightly it could squeeze a person to death.
“Ngh,” Karamori grunted as he turned and parried Third’s hair with Tyrfing. He knocked the hair only slightly off course, causing it to crash into the ground next to him and gouge into the earth.
“Aaah!”
A chunk of shattered white tree root crashed into Fujinaka, knocking her onto her back.
“Fujinaka!” Karamori cried out.
It didn’t seem like Pyrovault and Third were trying to hurt Fujinaka, but they clearly didn’t care if she got caught in the crossfire. If the fight continued like this, she could be killed just from getting caught up in one of their attacks.
“Eyes on me, kid!” Pyrovault yelled, jabbing his road sign at his face. Karamori quickly tried to block it with Tyrfing’s chains, but Pyrovault’s weapon slammed straight into them and forced the weapon back, hitting the youth square in the face.
Karamori tumbled to the ground. Third immediately followed up by swinging a fist of hair at him, which he dodged by rolling out of the way. He was clearly overmatched on his own.
“Archive! Please! Just protect Fujinaka!” he yelled, desperate for the quietly observing Archive to do something.
She simply shook her head. “I cannot. I was fated to fight you here.”
Any attempt by her to help would be pointless, as her fate would just force her back to the actions detailed in the book. Karamori could only imagine the despair she felt.
Archive held up her string.
“Exorcism.”
“Grk…!”
Karamori braced himself for her attack—but it didn’t come. Instead, bands of light formed around Archive and wrapped around her own body, immobilizing her and forcing her to the ground.
“…?!”
Anguish contorted her face. The bands of light held her so tightly that she couldn’t move a muscle.
It wasn’t hard to figure out why she’d done that; it was probably the only thing Archive could do to resist. She couldn’t attack him if she couldn’t move.
“Ha-ha-ha. I like your resolve.” Pyrovault once again leveled the road sign at Karamori.
Archive’s form began to blur and return to its original position again, but the bands of light seemed to slow the process. The restraints must have had special properties.
“Fujinaka! Run! Get away from here as fast as you can!” Karamori yelled.
“O-okay!”
He was too hard pressed to be able to look in her direction and see if she’d listened.
Archive had temporarily made the fight one against two, but Karamori knew Pyrovault and Third were much too strong for him to take out quickly.
He still had one option, though.
Karamori picked up Tyrfing by the chains and looked at it.
I need to draw it, but if I do it now while Archive isn’t helping me…
Even if he managed to kill Third and Pyrovault, there was no guarantee that would be enough blood to satisfy Tyrfing—meaning the blade’s next victim would be Fujinaka.
Karamori dodged a swipe from Third’s fist of hair and threw the sheathed Tyrfing at Pyrovault. The man dodged it and knocked the sword down with his road sign.
“…!!”
Tyrfing fell point-first and stabbed into a Duplicator Tree root, still in its scabbard. Karamori froze. In that split-second, he was totally defenseless.
His two opponents turned toward him. Murder shined in Pyrovault’s eyes.
Karamori no longer had a choice.
He yanked hard on the chains attached to Tyrfing’s handle, forcing the sword free of the scabbard, which remained protruding from the root.
The azure sword arced through the night sky.
In seconds, Karamori’s dark flame-shaped mark grew to cover most of his body.
He dodged a strike from Third’s hair without even looking, yanked on the chains again, and grabbed the sword by the hilt. Pyrovault immediately sent firebirds at him, and Karamori easily cut them all down without even moving his feet.
“Heh, nicely done,” Pyrovault said, grinning.
Asahi Fujinaka looked at him with wonder. “Incredible! So this is the sword with the power to distort a person’s fate?! Oh, how I want it!”
“Could you quiet down a bit? It’ll be yours soon enough… Okay kid, let’s see how long you last with the sword drawn… Third, now!”
The shoulders of Pyrovault’s coat swelled and two rings flew out of it. Third reached out with two arms of hair, deftly slipping one through each ring.
“These are so cute! My power’s a hundred times stronger than before!”
Third, now with her pigtails back, curled one into a fist and swung it at Karamori. The force of her attack alone swept Duplicator Tree root fragments off the ground and sent them flying.
“I increased their power,” Pyrovault said. “Let’s crush him!”
“You got it!” replied Third.
Karamori remained expressionless and drew a gun from his hip without a single wasted movement. He aimed it at the man with the eyepatch—Asahi Fujinaka—and pulled the trigger without hesitation. Multiple gunshots echoed in the night.
However…
“Oh my, how quaint. You’re the first person to shoot a gun at me in a very long time.”
The bullets froze in the air directly in front of the man. Unsurprisingly, he’d taken measures to defend against guns.
Next, Karamori made for his scabbard, which was still jutting out of the Duplicator Tree root. He cut through Pyrovault’s flames and dodged Third’s hair on the way, then jumped forward to dodge an attack and used his momentum to kick the sheath. It flew at Asahi Fujinaka like a golden arrow, but Third deflected it with her hair just before it reached him.
“Phew. That almost gave me a fright,” the man said calmly.
“Hey, what gives?!” Third shouted angrily.
Karamori didn’t react. He simply watched Third, who was visibly panicked, and Asahi Fujinaka, who’d reflexively raised his arms to defend himself.
Darkness glowed in the young man’s eyes.
Without giving his opponents time to collect themselves, Karamori shifted his grip to the end of Tyrfing’s chains and threw the blade at Asahi Fujinaka. This forced Third to abort an attack directed at Karamori and use her hair to knock away the blue sword.