“Throw as many as you like. This is no different from being in a batting cage,” said Aria, holding her katana as if she were getting ready to take a swing with a baseball bat.
The sound of a door being closed caught our attention, and after a short moment of silence. …
“She ran for it.” Aria spun around, and after pulling out the bayonet planted next to me, carelessly flung it aside. She then squatted down next to my head. “Well, I guess even as a idiot, you were a little useful.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“They say a courageous person can make use of barbarians while a wise person can make use of fools, don’t they? There are ways of using you when you’re in idiot Kinji mode too.”
She showed up only to start talking nonsense again. And don’t squat down right in front of my face.
I turned my neck—the only part of me that I could move freely—to avoid getting a glimpse of the inside of her pleated skirt. Straightening out her knees, Aria ran to go check on Shirayuki, but then made a screeching noise with her sneakers as she came to a halt, sending her long ponytails waving in front of her.
“…?” I looked at Aria with puzzled eyes.
Aria took a step back and stuck her katana out in the air. I heard something I couldn’t see get cut in two.
“. . . What was that?”
“Piano wire. To be precise, it was probably twisted nano-Kevlar wire. It was set up at the same height as my neck.
Aria looked around and cut another wire.
“This one was set at the height of your neck. It was perfectly lined up on a diagonal axis so that if you were to run straight through here, your carotid artery would have been severed. She probably intended to kill you with this if the knife didn’t finish the job.”
“S-She’s a cautious one! Attempting to kidnap Shirayuki and laying traps all the while. …”
“But her traps won’t work. My eyes can’t be fooled,” said Aria, full of confidence. She picked up the katana that she threw when she saved me earlier and made her way towards Shirayuki once more. Before very long, she came back and kneeled by my side.
“How’s Shirayuki?”
“She’s not hurt. But she’s tied up. Help me set her free,” Aria said with one of her knees placed on top of me as she used her katana to chip away the ice fusing my limbs to the floor.
“Aria …what have you been doing?! I haven’t seen or heard from you since that day.”
“Durandal was observing Shirayuki from someplace hidden. And I had a feeling she was rapidly closing the distance between her and Shirayuki. But she never dared to attack when Reki or I was around. That’s why I intentionally stopped being her bodyguard.”
“When you disappeared after our fight on the roof of Assault … that was a part of your strategy?”
“Butei Charter, Article Two: Fulfill the contract made with your clients at all costs. I’ll never abandon a mission. Well, I was seriously mad at you when you were sleeping out on the roof, but I thought it would also be good opportunity,” Aria said as she freed my elbow from the floor. “Durandal is one of IU’s top strategists. But since you were only moderately guarding Shirayuki, I was finally able to divert her attention away from me. What are you looking so discontented about? You have some kind of complaint?”
I finally regained the ability to move around, but I didn’t voice my grievances at repeatedly being called an idiot or Aria’s consistently dangerous ways of doing things. Looking at the outcome, she had saved me, after all.
“I don’t … sense the enemy’s presence anymore. Did she escape?” I asked
According the floor plan that I check in my student handbook earlier, it should only have been possible to ascend to the higher levels from here.
“In the event that she has to deal with multiple opponents, she’ll first place some distance between us and work on dividing our forces from afar. She’ll then try to dispose of us one after the other, one-on-one. That’s the strategy Durandal uses.”
I see. … So that’s why Shirayuki and I were separated from each other so skillfully.
“But strategists like that tend to try and erase everything when something unaccounted for disturbs their plans. If that’s the case, there’s a possibility she’ll come back again to kill Shirayuki. So first, we’re going to set her free,” said Aria, pulling on my sleeve as soon as I stood up and leading me to where Shirayuki was.
Shirayuki was next to the wall of the warehouse where she was chained up in a standing position. She was gaged with a cloth and making grunting noises with her throat. When I removed the cloth …
“Kin-chan, are you okay?! You’re not hurt?!”
… she expressed her concerns for me, disregarding the predicament she was in.
“I’m fine. What about you …?” I asked as I took the chain that was fastened around her upper abdomen into my hands. The chain was wrapped multiple times around a thick pipe that ran along the wall and had the diameter of a hamburger. The huge locks keeping the chain in place were called drum locks. They were about the size of wall clocks, and three of the dreadful things were clamped onto the chain. Aria and I took out the bump key from our butei handbooks and started working on the locks … but they must have been very intricately made because we couldn’t unlock a single one.
“Kin-chan … I’m sorry … I was told to come here in these clothes without informing anyone … otherwise they would blow up Academy Island and kill you as well . …”
Upon hearing that, something painful welled up again in my heart. Without my knowing it, I had been used as bargaining chip.
“When did they tell you this?”
“Yesterday. … It was when you went to go buy the fireworks for me. I received a threatening e-mail. The thought of you get hurt terrified me. … I had no choice but to do what they said …” Shirayuki said, beginning to sniffle.
“Don’t worry about it now. Stop crying.”
So that’s when it was. No wonder she seemed so strange after I came back from buying the fireworks.
“I have to apologize to you too, Aria. You came to save me even after I did all those horrible things to you . …”
Aria seemed to be bewildered by Shirayuki’s apology, and her cheeks became slightly red.