Auroch’s brow furrowed. This was the first time he’d got under her skin.
“What’s so funny—?”
He stepped in.
Auroch’s rapier snapped up in front of her face. She was trying to block his blow with it—but he didn’t care.
He smashed right through it.
She wasn’t the only strong arm here. Rogue threw a mean punch himself. His fist snapped the magic sword. The broken half soared high into the air. That felt good, so he swung again, and Auroch’s feet left the ground.
“Gah!”
She flew backward.
Auroch landed and, with a clang, stabbed her broken sword into the ground.
“If only that was all she was,” Rogue muttered.
His head turned to Auroch. Her hair was dangling over her face, but he could see her biting her lip, glaring up at him.
“……You’ve gone and done it now,” she growled, standing up. Her hand was still gripping the broken magic sword.
“Yeah, you bet I did.”
He didn’t bat an eye.
“……I’ve changed my mind about how you get to die. I’ll make you into a puppet and feed you to my dogs.”
“You’ve dropped the pretense, scumbag.”
“Watch your tongue, lowlife,” Auroch spat. “Giselle will be back any moment. And then your doom is sealed. I’ll make you suffer for smearing dirt on my face.”
The gate began to glow. Auroch flashed a triumphant grin—but it soon froze.
“Detective!” Catherine called, vaulting out of the gate.
“………………”
“Guess my backup showed. Your move.”
Auroch said nothing. One hand remained on her broken sword, while the other covered her face. After a long moment, her head came up.
That same phony smile back on her lips.
“Oh dear. It seems the odds are stacked against me.”
“……Got a backup plan?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“I have no plans. You’ve demolished them all. Without Giselle, I cannot slay the remaining witches. I must give up. Loathe as I am to admit it, this is the hand that fate dealt me.”
“In that case, come quiet—”
“However…”
She cut him off.
“…I can still make you suffer.”
Thunk.
A loud noise came from the cellblock.
He’d heard that sound before. He’d heard it a lot facing criminal scum.
Auroch smirked.
“I’ve released everyone under my Synchro. They’re barely a backup plan, but since you have me cornered, I must now resort to them.”
That sounded unpleasant.
Her glare followed his every move.
“Not just prisoners, of course. All the citizens I turned into bombs will get their chance to Bloom. Oh, I just triggered them. How many will die? I never intended to come back here at all, but you’ve forced my hand.”
As she spoke, the door to the cellblock opened. People in prisoner uniforms poured in. All of them had fuses sprouting from them. If she’d turned every prisoner in the block into a bomb, there must be over a hundred.
And she slipped off into that crowd.
“Auroch!”
The noise of the crowd drowned him out. None of the prisoners seemed to have a clue what they were doing, but they were rushing toward him, covered in blood, their arms and legs bent asunder. Some even had their skulls caved in. That explained how they’d escaped their cells: unpleasantly.
They’d forced their way out, heedless of the physical toll.
That piece of shit.
Prisoners now filled the space around the gate. The only other way out was the entrance proper. Since the first row of prisoners broke into a run, Catherine and Rogue did, too. Explosions went off behind them, singeing their napes.
“Where is she?” Rogue asked.
“Breaking down walls. She’s outside, in the garden. But I don’t get it; she’s stopped there.”
Catherine was using a detection spell.
“For someone who claims she had no plans, she sure had traps galore ready. Dammit!”
Rogue pulled out his phone, dialing.
“Humafu! She had backup. You ready?”
“Fuck you, I’m always ready,” she yelled back. “I’m already on the move!”
It was reassuring how she never changed.
“You holding up your end?” Humafu asked.
“We’re chasing her down!” Rogue claimed.
“You gotta kill this bitch for me. Else, you gonna make me bust a cap in your ass.”
“I hear you! Later.”
He hung up. Catherine was waggling a finger, making metal doors fly off the hinges. Through the last door, they found blue skies waiting for them, along with dazzling sunlight and a pleasant breeze. Were this not a jail, it would have been perfect picnic weather.
The explosions continued. Glancing back, he noted there was way less of them. Those fuses weren’t very long. Even as he watched, one after another went up in smoke.
“Detective,” Catherine said.
“What?”
“Thank you for trusting me.”
It was a bit late for that. But it tickled him pink.
“……You gave your word.”
“But it pleased me. The fact that you trusted me again.”
“……”
He wasn’t sure what to say. Rogue didn’t have the words in him. He just made a noise, running alongside her, his eyes on the wound on that right hand.
“……You’re going to the hospital once this ends.”
“So are you, Detective.”
“Yeah.”
“Heh-heh, we’ll go in together,” Catherine said, chuckling.
That witch smiled the smile of someone far older than anyone around.
…Goddamn it.
Everyone looked like this when their lives were on the line. Like they’d looked death in the face and taken something away from it.
…Arrests first.
Catherine’s detection spell showed them the way through countless cellblocks, into an open courtyard. The place didn’t exactly scream prison. Grass covered the ground. A white brick fountain stood in the middle. There weren’t even the fences one might expect in a place like this.
Auroch was alone at the center.
The surviving Headtaker rested on the fountain’s rim, out of breath, shoulders heaving.
“The bombs bought me some time, I suppose…,” she said when she saw them coming.
This shitstain…
“You think you can get away?”
“Hardly. This is the end.”
She turned toward them, revealing the side of her body that had been facing the fountain. It was a sight that made Rogue freeze.
She was impaled on the magic sword.
In hindsight, she had impressive physical stats; a little jog like this would hardly leave her gasping for air. But with that sword in her—
“……What’s the big idea?”
“I imagine you know better than me,” Auroch said, sweat pouring down her brow.
Catherine gasped.
“You can’t mean—”
But Auroch was nodding.
“Yes. I’ll be like you—a witch.”
At first, he assumed she was bullshitting him with a desperate lie. But her eyes meant business. Her face had gone quite pale, but the light in her eyes were uncanny.
Rogue had no clue how spells wound up melded to a person. Was there a specific process? Was it pure happenstance? But he’d heard her magic sword was melded with one. Perhaps it was possible to transfer that meld to a human body.
He sure wasn’t about to find out.
“Don’t, it’ll kill you!” he yelled, dashing forward.
Auroch flashed him a toothy grin.
“Ha.” She laughed once, then toppled over on the grass. A moment later, she let out a bloodcurdling scream. “Aughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” Her hands grabbed fistfuls of grass, her legs thrashing despite herself. She was foaming at the mouth, her eyes open so wide, they seemed ready to pop out.
_____Dammit!
“Detective! Stay back!” Catherine called, yanking his hand.
“………Is there any way to stop her?”
“None. We can’t stop this anymore. But…this isn’t…”
Catherine looked downcast.
That reaction baffled him but also shut him up. He saw Auroch pull the rapier out of her arm. She was upright, on her knees.
“Oh…,” she said. “So this is how you see the world.”
……Too late.
A new witch was born.
And she was the worst person imaginable.
“How wonderful… I’ve never felt the like… I no longer need resign myself to anything! I can do anything! My whole life was leading up to this moment! Ha-ha-ha, wonderful…wonderful.”
The sword on the grass was magic no more. Auroch herself spared the broken blade no attention at all.
“Ha-ha-ha, what should I do first? I know! I’ll kill the thorns in my side. That’s what’s best. That’s a good first step.”
Her eyes narrowed.
And then…
“■■■■■”
An unknown language.
“……What was that?”
Auroch’s head swiveled, looking around.
“Who said that? You’re not making sense. Stop hiding! Come out where I can see you!”
She seemed to have forgotten them entirely, searching for someone who was not here.
What the…?
Catherine’s lips parted. “She’s melded with a spell. But that is all she’s done.”
_____She had not become a witch.
Auroch could no longer hear the actual witch’s words at all. She was spinning—and black smoke began belching all around the doomed defect, much like it had with Chronos Drakenia.
“Who is that? Stop this!” Auroch demanded. “I’m a witch! Obey me! Obey, obey, obey me, me, meeeeeeeeeeee—”
The black smoke concentrated around her head, and a moment later, the volume expanded exponentially. Wind swirled, shaking the grass.
“■■■■■”
Something massive emerged from the smoke. At a glance, it resembled…grapes. The head on Auroch’s shoulders had swelled, multiplying in clusters. Each head swiveled like that of a lost child. Human words mingled in with that unknown language: “Me? Me? Me? Me?” like that was the one word she still knew. There was an unsettling innocence to it.
“……You were a very sad person,” Catherine said, clasping her hands as if in prayer.