“Don’t be ridiculous,” replied Ras. “I was in a Gent. It was all I could do just to get past that custom defense system of his.”
Unconsciously, Ras lowered his guard. The woman riding the Chasseur was ten meters away, but Ras understood she could kill him with a snap of her fingers if she wanted to.
“Still, you have no right pretending that disgraceful display was one of my techniques. Do I have to remind you what a real Seraphic Blade looks like?”
Fon tore off her coat, and her entire body began surging with aura.
“You’re mad, Fon!” yelled Ras, drawing his sword. “Are you really going to use one of your techniques in a place like this?!”
But Fon didn’t answer him. Instead, six pairs of enormous crimson wings silently extended from her back, covered in feathers the size and sharpness of short swords. It was a beautiful yet terrifying demonstration of her skill.
A real Over Art, performed by the one and only Black Blade.
Seeing the look of pure terror on his face, Fon Cigel grinned a charming smile, and the next moment, all twelve wings screeched as they flew toward Ras.
✦ ✦ ✦
Twelve blades of concentrated aura spread their sharp-edged feathers and came at Ras from all angles, like an inescapable coffin of knives. This was the true form of the Seraphic Blade, one of the twelve fundamental techniques in Fon’s arsenal, the Black Arts. It was a technique made possible only by the bottomless reserves of energy that she alone had the potential to access.
And the most terrifying part of all was that each one of those carefully crafted blades was equal in strength to an ordinary aura knight’s most desperate, powerful attack.
For all the beauty its name inspired, Seraphic Blade was a fiendish, brutal art.
“Haaah…”
Seeing Fon smirk at him from the other side of a wall of aura blades, Ras let out a languid sigh.
Seraphic Blade produced an attack from every conceivable angle at once. It was impossible to block, but that didn’t mean you couldn’t avoid it. All the blades had to move in perfect harmony with one another, and if two collided, both would be annihilated. As a result, their paths couldn’t cross.
That left a gap. Of course, it was a gap that only existed for a fraction of a second, and it was barely large enough that a human body could fit through it, but if anyone could capitalize on it, it was the student of the Black Blade. If Ras couldn’t even do that, Fon’s training would have spelled his end a long time ago.
“You really like to push me, don’t you?” yelled Ras, combing back his hair, which was disheveled by the wind. “Are you trying to get your own student killed?”
The stones at his feet shattered, pulverized to dust by the force of the technique. When it was over, only a fan-shaped zone of death remained. That and Ras himself, standing at its center, completely unharmed. Only his sleeves and the tassels on his uniform were even slightly scathed.
“Don’t be silly, Ras. I was going easy on you; you know that,” said Fon, a smirk appearing on her lips. “Or are you trying to say this isn’t enough for you? Okay, then. I haven’t cut loose in a while. Let’s take the kid gloves off!”
With that gleeful declaration, Fon pulled her sword from its sheath. There was no stopping her at this point; Ras knew that painfully well. Fon was an amazing teacher, but more than that, she was a tyrant.
However, before the two could come to blows, one reckless figure stepped between them. It was Fiarca.
“That’s quite enough, Fon Cigel.”
“Oh.”
At that moment, Fon seemed to register the princess’s presence for the first time. Dressed as her brother, with the mask covering half her face, Fiarca stood fearlessly before her.
“These are the burial grounds of my ancestors. It matters not if you are one of the four Blades; even you cannot disturb this sacred place.”
“Get out of the way, Fiarca!” Ras called out without thinking. The Blades were powerful enough to be bound to no organization. The only one who could hold them to account was another Blade. Even the princess of the imperial family couldn’t order one of them around. In fact, Fon Cigel could cut the princess down, right here, in cold blood, and nobody would be able to do a thing about it.
“…Fiarca? Did you say Fiarca? Fiarca Jeva Argenteia?”
Fon’s eyes widened in surprise. While the princess was dressed in Auriol’s clothes, she was making no attempt to hide her gender. Faced with a princess who was supposed to be dead, even Fon was taken back.
“Ah, I see. Now I get it.”
Hopping down from the Chasseur’s shoulder, Fon landed in front of Fiarca and began studying her face rudely.
“You’re Ras’s fiancée, aren’t you? The one who died in the war.”
“…Eek!”
Fon suddenly grabbed Fiarca’s rump, causing her to yelp. It seemed like she hadn’t predicted the woman would make such a bold move on their very first meeting. Of course, even if Fiarca had predicted it, she wouldn’t have been able to stop her.
“That explains it,” Fon said. “I was wondering what on earth could have possibly convinced Ras to turn over a new leaf. If he’s back in bed with his old flame, then that makes a lot more sense.”
Fon seemed to have come up with her own reasons for Ras’s behavior without any outside help. Ras said nothing in his defense. If Fon found that explanation easy to swallow, then so be it. Besides, it was probably a waste of time to try to convince her otherwise.
“If I had to guess, I’d say you came up with this little ruse in an attempt to prevent your country from being divided into civil war,” said Fon. “Deceiving not only your people, but your own fiancé as well. You may look like an angel, Princess, but there’s a real devil in your heart, isn’t there? Not bad!”
“Huh?”
Fiarca didn’t expect to suddenly earn the Black Blade’s praise. She blinked a few times in astonishment.
“I respect a woman who doesn’t care how history remembers her,” said Fon. “I think I like you, Princess Fiarca. I can see why Ras fell for you.”
With that, Fon stepped up to Fiarca and gave her a great big hug. The imperial princess had no idea what was happening, and even if she did, there was nothing she could do against the Black Blade’s strength—even though Fon was shorter than her, there was no escaping her grip.
“If I learned you’d lured Ras away with promises of fame and glory, I had a mind to cut you down on the spot,” Fon said without a hint of shame. “But since it’s for the girl he loves, I guess I can overlook it. How’s that for generosity, huh?”
Ras felt a chill run down his spine. Fon’s words sounded selfish at first, but the pupil of a Blade was no laughing matter. If a nation got its hands on that kind of power for selfish needs, it could topple another country easily.
“Does that mean you will allow us to grant your Chasseur to Ras?” asked Fiarca calmly, once Fon finally let go of her.
“My Chasseur? You mean the Vildhjärta?”
Fon looked back at the Chasseur she had just dismounted. It was still sleeping within its invisible shell, completely ignorant of the commotion unfolding at its feet.
“That has nothing to do with me,” said Fon simply. “It’s not my decision to make.”
“What do you mean, it’s not your decision?” asked Ras.
The Vildhjärta was Fon’s machine. Ras had assumed that in order to ride it, he first needed to earn her approval. But from the way she was speaking, it didn’t sound like that was the case.
“I mean what I said. If you want to ride the Vildhjärta, you’ll need to ask her yourself. It doesn’t matter whether I accept you.”
“What…?”
Ras gulped. He suddenly understood what Fon was getting at.
“Of course,” he said. “The Vildhjärta is alive!”
“That’s right,” said Fon. “It’s not strange for custom Chasseurs to have a mind of their own. The Vildhjärta is one of them.”
Fon walked over to the Chasseur and brushed her hand against the crystal casing, a protective layer so hard that even a ceramic blade had not been able to damage it. At her touch, it fractured, before exploding into a shower of crimson particles. The cloud of aurons was sucked into the Vildhjärta through the gaps in its armor, and like a sleeping giant, it began to stir. The jet-black Chasseur was waking up.
“Good luck, Ras. I’ll be here, cheering you on.”
With a smile and a wave, Fon took a step back. Ras finally understood what he was here to do. To earn the right to command the Vildhjärta, Ras needed to break it—to take it on in single combat and win.