Kir swung his sword savagely at Guinness, as if mocking that idea.
But just then—
“Kir! I’m over here!” Belle shouted without a hint of hesitation.
She picked up the bench she’d been sitting on and flung it at Kir. As the bench soared through the air, making its way toward Kir, it suddenly caught fire. Kitty had swiftly deployed a carefully calculated formula, turning the bench into a flaming battering ram.
Kir swung his sword violently, the sound of Belle’s voice making him grin with savage glee. Once again, the noise made by that invisible fang filled the air as the bench split in half, shattering the split glass doors. The glass fragments cut through the formula, disrupting the calculation, causing the spell to fizzle out into particles of light. And with it, the fire vanished.
“He severed my Mathematics…,” Kitty said in alarm.
It was a fearsome sword, on par with Runding. Anyone who faced Kir understood that his sword unleashed some kind of invisible fang, and they were all desperate to unveil the mystery of it.
Kir didn’t have eyes for Guinness or Benet at this point. His hooves clicked as he approached Belle. No one could stand in his way. All the guests scrambled to get out of Kir’s way, forming a path between them like the aisle of a wedding.
“Where’s your sword, Lablac? Get it, now. You’ll die if you don’t!” Kir shouted like a child throwing a tantrum. “Or are you telling me to kill you unarmed?! Will you betray me, Lablac?!”
He hardly sounded sane at this point.
“That’s no way to ask, is it?” Belle said, exasperated.
She didn’t need Kir urging her on—she’d been waiting for a chance to get her sword. However, it was possible that the moment she turned her back to go for it, Kir would fly into a frenzy and attack her, and he clearly wouldn’t listen if she asked him to wait.
“To hell with this!” Guinness suddenly shouted.
He picked up a sword, declaring his refusal of God’s divine proclamation. Benet followed suit. They were about to charge at Kir’s back, when the one person who could stand in his way stopped them.
“Allow me to keep you company until your proper opponent in this duel retrieves her weapon.”
It was Kitty. As soon as he said that, he deployed formulas over the floor and began calculating. As a traveling Rabbitia, Kitty was allowed the privileges given to all Nomads, meaning he could act in opposition to the divine proclamation.
Guinness swung his sword in salute.
“Out of my way!” Kir bellowed.
He charged ahead, only to be held back by Kitty’s calculations. At first, Belle thought flames were rising from the floor, but in fact, the spell used the flagstones as a catalyst to create a wall blocking Kir’s path, while daggers of ice rained down on him from the ceiling.
Seizing this chance, Belle took off to get Runding—but before she could, Kir’s blade blew away all Kitty’s calculations in a single swing.
She stared dumbfounded at Kir’s hand, which clutched that sword capable of producing intangible fangs.
“His arm…”
Why…?
Thoughts raced through Belle’s mind: Adonis’s smile when he’d talked about Kir’s sword; Tiziano’s tattered body. Tiziano hadn’t died no matter how many times they were cut down, yet their body was devoured from the inside out by a sword—an image that dominated Belle’s mind.
“Belle!” Kitty scolded, causing Belle to snap out of her thoughts with a jolt. “The divine proclamation chose you! This is your final trial before you can depart on your journey!”
He cried out with his back to her, continuously deploying more formulas. His voice lacked its usual composure.
It was only then that Belle finally grasped the situation. Until now, she’d thought that Kir had just stormed in and indiscriminately started attacking people, but Kitty’s words hammered home the importance of the duel.
“Get your sword while I keep him occupied!” Kitty yelled.
Belle turned around, her dress fluttering, and the crowd parted to open a path for her. Even those trying to escape through the narrow doors followed suit and got out of her way.
She started running.
The antechamber was empty. Runding was there, lodged inside that bench that served as a strange scabbard for it. Belle looked at the giant sword in surprise.
She was having jamais vu. It felt like she was meeting the sword for the very first time. Runding stood there just like it had when she’d found it that day now far in the past, shackled and left to wither in the castle’s treasure vault. The intense emotions she’d felt at their first meeting filled her heart, but it wasn’t a sense of nostalgia that moved her. This was a surprising new feeling.
EREHWON
Utopia. That spell from the ancient age of gods, the meaning of which had been lost, transcended the long years since they’d first met. It looked back at Belle, revealing its meaning for the first time in that very moment.
“So that’s why…,” Belle whispered, holding out a hand to Runding. “It’s not you who changed. It’s me.”
The sword howled, responding to Belle’s hand. The moment she touched the spell, the dark surface of the blade suddenly shone lily white. The bench creaked as the sword revealed its sharper, elegant form.
It was like the sword was forged of unripe steel, yet to bear fruit, that was being born anew before her eyes by the second. It howled, brimming with seemingly bottomless power.
Belle’s fingers slid over the surface of the blade toward the hilt. The sword trembled, its grip jumping toward Belle’s hand. She wrapped her fingers around it, then placed her other hand on it and picked up the sword like a wolf baring a vicious set of fangs.
An ecstatic smile played over her lips. She felt no more doubts or confusion about Kir’s change, just a resolve to wield her sword. She was determined not only to fight, but to knock on the Door of Journey. All her senses and emotions were focused on that wish, converging until they burned white-hot inside her. But despite that, Belle’s smile was the epitome of calmness.
“Let’s go, partner,” she quietly murmured. “Our audience is waiting with bated breath.”
Belle felt like she was finally whole again, just like when she’d visited the Hall of Blades with Gaff. Every part of her—her legs in stride, her hands gripping the sword, each individual cell in her eyes—was brimming with power and in perfect coordination.
As she left the antechamber, the wide ballroom spread out before her. But the whispers of the crowd, the sound of her own footsteps, the clashing of swords, and the shouts of her comrades were all drowned out by Runding’s howl.
“Fall back, Kitty the All! He’s mine!”
Kir turned to face Belle even faster than Kitty did.
“Belle, his fang!”
As Kir confidently turned his back to him, Kitty used that opening to chant a mathematics spell, raining fire on the Centaurus. Kir’s blade easily cut through the formula, leaving Kitty momentarily defenseless in the face of his invisible fang.
But Belle knew Kitty had done this on purpose, intentionally making it look like he’d fallen for Kir’s blatant taunt.
The sound of fangs sinking into flesh had filled the room as part of the formula was torn apart, vanishing. In so doing, the flames exposed Dillegnave’s invisible fang, which bit deeply into Kitty’s shoulder.
“The sword is imbued with the power of Rest au Rant—consuming magic! It’s a sword that tears through dimensions, meaning no shield can block it!” Kitty shouted as he tried to cast more formulas to defend himself.
He was gasping for breath. In the brief time Belle had been away from the ballroom, Kitty had become even more winded than she’d seen during their battle in the Catacombs. The fact that Kitty was in such a bad state spoke to just how fearsome Kir’s power was.
Belle swiftly raced through an opening in Kitty’s formulas and stood in Kir’s way, guarding the Rabbitia. It was a reversal of what had happened just minutes ago.
“Thanks, Kitty,” Belle said slightly bashfully, her back still to him. “It seems I really am useless without my sword.”
Belle took a step forward out of the formula, and Kitty quickly undid the spell. Behind them, Guinness hurried over carrying a bottle of sacred ashes. Benet stood beside them, watching over Belle and Kitty as the Rabbitia was treated.
Belle moved forward, close enough that she could cover the distance between her and Kir in a single bound.
I guess this is fate…, Belle whispered internally.
She silently faced down Kir, whose expression was one of unabashed joy. The crowd looked on fearfully, but as Belle steeled herself to fight this lonely battle, she found her heart was oddly calm.
Gaff once told me that I share a bond with Kir since the first time I took this sword…
Belle suddenly saw an illusory door, huge and heavy, standing behind Kir. It looked a lot like the door she’d run through all those years ago, trying to escape the castle with Runding in hand.
…I fought Kir for the right to knock on the Door of Journey. It was in the Hall of Blades…the place that governs over the yellow hour. Back then, the majority of my power came from my loneliness and anger.