6
Leaning her body forward from the top of the white tower, Sirius seemed to be in a very good mood. Even if the bandages kept her expression hidden, her voice overflowed with emotion.
Sirius savored the red, magical glow floating in the blue sky before clapping.
“Yes! Now then, everyone, so sorry to interrupt. Good day to you all!”
The thundering sound of her clap echoed loudly, and the audience, which had been focusing on the Goa spell that Lachins had unleashed, reflexively turned toward Sirius.
“No, don’t look!!”
Worried that this was the condition for her Authority activating, Subaru yelled out in warning. However, no one heeded his words and averted their gazes. Of course not—Subaru himself had done the exact same thing that they did upon coming into contact with Sirius for the first time.
The eccentric was instinctually provocative. Her words and actions made you unable to look away.
“My. You have gone quiet far sooner than I thought. It is surely because these two drew everyone’s attention before I came out. Thank you. Applause, please!”
Clapping as she spoke, Sirius indicated Subaru and Lachins with her chain-wrapped hands.
Amid sparse applause, Subaru endured the terrible chill running up his back as he desperately turned his head away in the hopes of escaping from the effects of her Authority. However, it was probably too late for that.
After all, Subaru already found himself unable to cover his ears.
Subaru had deduced that the condition for Sirius activating her Authority was for a potential victim to see her or hear her voice. Therefore, at first, he thought that maybe averting his eyes or plugging his ears might be enough—but what did he need to cover his ears for anyway? After all, Sirius’s voice was so soothing.
“—Ah.”
Before he realized it, Subaru had turned back around, staring right at Sirius.
For Sirius’s part, she swayed her body with delight when she noticed Subaru was gazing up at her. The hooks at the tips of her chains clattered as they scraped along the floor, and this metallic sound pierced Subaru’s mind.
“Yes! It took nineteen seconds until all of you looked in my direction. I’m so sorry, but this is joyous indeed. Also, it would appear there is a child here thinking of me with much more intensity than I expected. Now, I should introduce myself.”
As the massive audience gazed up at her in silence, Sirius politely bowed her head. As she did so, she peered down upon the square with only one eye uncovered.
“I am the Witch Cult’s Archbishop of Wrath—my name is Sirius Romanée-Conti.”
Normally, the repulsive being invoking that terrifying name would be regarded as an object of fear and hatred.
And yet the throng of people accepted it as if it were the name of a neighbor whom everyone knew. Sirius gently acknowledged this mild reaction, smiling and nodding like a benevolent mother.
“Tee-hee, thank you. I am so sorry to make all of you spare time for me like this. But rest easy, for it will be over in short order.”
Gently, like that of a mother reading a picture book in her child’s bedroom, Sirius’s voice had a lulling effect.
All they wanted was to hear her voice more. That impulse was so strong that—
“—Oh, really now? In that case, I should finish this sooner rather than later.”
This new voice was deeper and more caring than Sirius’s hollow affections. The emotions that had been sinking deep into the bodies and minds of Subaru and the others in the square were shaken.
“ ”
Sirius opened her eye wide while Subaru and the rest of the audience joined her in turning toward the edge of the square as one.
Their gazes fell on a waterway flowing behind the square. The normally gentle stream of water was flowing backward as something was moving through it with incredible force, kicking up a spray of water in its wake.
His vivid red hair blazed like a beautiful, flickering flame.
He had eyes that seemed like a polished cut of a magnificent blue sky.
He was built so handsomely that any manner of being might fall for him.
—This man was the epitome of what all people pictured in their hearts when they heard the word hero.
“Looking for the shortest route took some time. I’m sorry I’m late.”
The hero apologized for running over in thirty seconds rather than five.
The Sword Saint stood in the square after taking a path that no one else could as his so-called shortcut—or, more specifically, having accomplished the superhuman feat of running upstream. Then when he caught sight of Wrath, who was standing atop the time tower, he took a breath.
As he hardened his blue eyes, a short “I see…” was all that emerged from the Sword Saint—Reinhard.
“I understand why you called me here. You made the right decision, Lachins. Or was it you who summoned me, Subaru?”
Slowly, Reinhard walked over and patted Subaru and Lachins both on the shoulder. Instantly, strength returned to their totally immobilized bodies.
“R-Reinhard…?”
“Yes, it is I. This seems to be quite a predicament. That’s an Archbishop of the Seven Deadly Sins, isn’t it?”
As Subaru called out to him in an unsteady voice, Reinhard nodded firmly. The palpable wariness visible in his serene blue eyes showed that Reinhard had instantly realized the danger that Sirius posed with a single glance.
Gulping at how quickly he’d understood, Subaru replied with an awkward nod of his own.
“She…she has the power to brainwash other people. Seems like we’re okay for now, but it happens when you hear her voice or look at her.”
“No, it’s not only her voice and appearance. It would seem that anyone who merely knows she exists is affected. It’s possible that I won’t be able to maintain my composure for very long.”
“No way, even you…?!”
Subaru was stunned seeing Reinhard acting so meek.
Though he had no basis for his belief, he’d thought that Reinhard of all people would be all right. If even he wasn’t immune to Sirius’s Authority, then Subaru’s plan was already falling apart.
And during this exchange between the two, Sirius reacted as well. The bandaged eccentric gazed steadily at Reinhard with a purple eye.
“Could it be…? You with the red hair, are you the famous Sword Saint?”
“That’s correct. I am Reinhard van Astrea, current holder of the title of Sword Saint. Unfortunately, I have yet to merit such a lofty title.”
Reinhard boldly confirmed Sirius’s suspicions. Coming face-to-face with the most powerful being to set foot in that square, Sirius was far from being afraid and actually cried out with an “Ah-ha!”
She shouted and squirmed in place. The eccentric’s cracked, high-pitched laughter echoed toward the sky.
“Ah-ha! Ah-ha-ha! Ahh, what a splendid turn of events! What a fortuitous day it is for you to have come like this! You are known as the most splendid knight in all the land! Everyone loves you, and you love everyone! You are the living manifestation of the hope, the very love that I preach!”
“I wonder about that…”
Sirius writhed with emotion, getting incredibly worked up as she flew into what was truly a wild dance of mad delight. Meanwhile, Reinhard was still engaging in conversation with Sirius, who continued rambling, though he didn’t so much as look in her direction.
This was far too risky against an opponent with an Authority that joined minds in mutual madness.
“W-wait, Reinhard… It’s not a good idea to keep talking with her. It has to be bad. I think…it’s bad. I’m not really sure why, though, but…”
“…So it would seem. Putting my own interests aside, this is not something that should be drawn out for long.”
“Reinhard?”
“—I will do what you called me to do. It’s time to deal with the issue.”
With those final words, Reinhard took a single step forward, slightly bent his knees, and leaped up.
His stance made it seem as if he were just jumping over a puddle in front of him—but the resulting gale-force winds, the tremors that shot through the ground, and the shock wave left in his wake made everyone in the square draw in their breaths.
As astonishment rippled across the crowd that he left behind him, Reinhard used that explosive power to rise high into the air.
“Hee-hee-hee! Ahh, how extraordinary!!”
As the Sword Saint shot out a kick at her from below, Sirius crossed her arms to shield against the blow. Her body was easily launched far into the sky above the tower.
“Wh-what in the…?”
—Isn’t…isn’t this basically aerial combat…?
After taking flight to attack Sirius on the high ground, Reinhard followed up by leaping off the edge of the time tower to pursue his opponent, whom he’d already kicked even higher.
“Hee-hee!! Ahh, what overwhelming power!”
As she watched the hero soar after her from below, Sirius swung her arms as her voice trembled with delight. Hooked chains flew toward Reinhard, slicing through the air with more of a roar than a whistle.
Those razor-sharp hooks could easily punch through the human body, and the sinister chains were no less dangerous, as they could shatter bone on impact. The cacophony of chains rattling seemed to make the very air groan, conducting a symphony of violence and destruction as they snaked toward the Sword Saint.
Sirius exhibited incredible skill as she freely manipulated the flight path of her chains in midair. There was no mistaking that Sirius’s mastery was beyond the ability of any ordinary human. One look was all it took for anyone to grasp this.
—That was why what happened next shocked everyone.
“Chains? How troublesome.”
The Sword Saint frowned, focusing on the chains that rattled sinisterly as they homed in on him.
Then the spectators were left dumbfounded at how the grimacing Sword Saint dealt with them.
“Hee-hee-hee!!”
Sirius laughed. It was unclear whether the laugh was an expression of enjoyment or desperation.
But for everyone else watching, what could they do but laugh as well?
She slammed her chains down in a hail of blows—but Reinhard did not draw his sword.
According to what Subaru had heard once, it wasn’t that he chose to not draw his sword. He simply couldn’t. The holy sword that Reinhard possessed was designed to be impossible to draw except against a worthy opponent.
As such, Reinhard was challenging Sirius unarmed. Even Reinhard should have difficulty fighting her under such circumstances—or so Subaru thought, but that was proof that he didn’t truly understand Reinhard yet.
“ ”
The raging chains attacked in concert, letting out high-pitched cracks as they were thrown back one after another.
The sight of the resulting shock waves and scattering sparks was such a ferocious display, it made Subaru and the others on the ground feel like lightning was crackling above them.
Reinhard was holding his ground with footwork that surpassed all comprehension.
He met the first strike with the sole of his shoe, purposefully wrapping the oncoming chain around his ankle, instantly gaining control of the hook on the end and using it to knock down each and every subsequent attack.
All that happened in the span of less than a second, meaning the only ones capable of tracking Reinhard’s unconventional movements were the few seasoned warriors present. As soon as they realized what they had just witnessed, they would abandon any attempts to understand what was going on.
The audience was suddenly struck with the impulse to laugh. They released the breath they had been holding and let the tension drain from their shoulders. It was good that Reinhard was on their side. If he’d been an enemy, that scene would have left them with buckled knees and weakened bladders.
“Hee-hee, hee-hee-hee! Ah-ha-ha-hee-hee-hee!!”
Seized by a totally different impulse, Sirius kept on laughing.
Of the two sets of chains wrapped around the eccentric’s hands, one remained coiled around Reinhard’s foot. With her options dwindling, Sirius launched a wild flurry of attacks with her left hand to try and beat the hero down, only for her attacks to fail in a shower of sparks.
The erupting fireworks showed no sign of stopping or slowing. The blue sky seemed to be burning white. But before the air itself was reduced to smoke and ash, the Sword Saint finally closed in on his mysterious attacker.
“To think you would push me this far! Incredible!!”
“You are quite skilled yourself. I can’t help but be disappointed all the more seeing you use your talents for wicked deeds.”
The instant the two crossed paths, they traded words as well as mighty blows.
Reinhard pulled his right foot back, replacing it with his left hand in a chop. Sirius counterattacked with a downswing that had such force, her golden chain seemed ready to split the sky itself in half.
—Seeing that solid metal chain being severed with a single hand chop was nothing short of astonishing.
A long time ago, Subaru had seen someone use a chopstick to slice a bag of chopsticks as a sort of party trick. If it were Reinhard, he was sure the man could do the same thing to a steel sword like it was made of paper.
Reinhard’s hand strike was so sharp and beautiful that Subaru believed that with all his heart.
The twirling golden chain that Reinhard had severed twirled around, breaking through the time tower’s wall and whirling somewhere within. It was when Subaru saw smoke and rubble falling down onto the square that he finally came to his senses.
“I’m such an idiot. This isn’t the time to gawk. If Reinhard has her pinned down, then…!”
At that very moment, the boy held captive inside the time tower was out of Sirius’s sight.
Pulling himself out of his dazed state, Subaru darted through a gap in the crowd and raced toward the time tower. He’d free the hostage—Lusbel—and get rid of his worries in one fell swoop.
He also needed to make sure that Reinhard didn’t have to deal with Lusbel being used as a human shield.
Even inside the damp and murky air of the time tower, the battle between superhumans was just as audible inside as it was outside. Focusing on the task at hand, Subaru dashed up the long, spiraling stairs.
“Lusbel!”
“Ngh! Mnnngh!!”
On the topmost floor, Subaru spotted a young child chained up right beside the inspection window. When Subaru picked up the hysterically sobbing Lusbel, the boy desperately shook his head and struggled.
Subaru knew he’d taken the place of his childhood friend out of concern for her well-being.
“Don’t worry, I’m on your side. That bandaged freak is our enemy, and right now, she’s got her hands full with a superhero outside. That’s why I’m getting you out of here while I can.”
Patiently explaining the situation to the writhing boy, Subaru seemed to get through, as Lusbel stopped flailing. When Subaru saw reason rather than fear gradually return to the boy’s eyes, he nodded reassuringly.
“You just wait. I’m gonna get those chains off right now.”
The still-anxious boy nodded in acknowledgment as Subaru carefully unraveled the chains binding him. When he finally freed him from the chains, which stretched from shoulder to ankle, and removed the one that was serving as a gag, relief finally appeared on Lusbel’s face.
“Good, they’re off. Can you stand on your own? If not, I’ll carry you.”
“I-I’m all right… Tha-thank you very much…!”
Rising on trembling legs, Lusbel summoned his courage and thanked Subaru. His face was still marred by tears, but Subaru had seen his bravery several times now. It was worthy of praise.
Nodding in respect, Subaru turned his attention beyond the window to the ferocious battle still raging outside the tower.
“One wrong move, and this whole place might go down. Let’s get outta here. You hurt anywhere?”
“Earlier, my left hand got a little…”
Lusbel grimaced as he showed Subaru his injury. The boy’s left arm sported a dark bruise and a cruel laceration, like a snake had been wrapped around it. Seeing how the wound seeped with blood, Subaru twisted his face in anguish.
“Did that asshole really have to hurt a little kid like this? Tying one up wasn’t enough?”
“No, that’s not it. This…started hurting all of a sudden when I was tied up earlier.”
“Wait, what?”
Lusbel’s words made Subaru furrow his brows.
He recalled that Lusbel’s body had been completely ensnared from his shoulders down to his ankles. If the boy’s arm hadn’t been injured before being tied up, there was no way it could have been injured afterward.
—The contradiction left Subaru’s chest throbbing with a deep foreboding.
“…Let’s go. Either way, we can’t stay here.”
Leading Lusbel by his uninjured right hand, Subaru raced back down the spiral stairway of the tower. The two descended down to the lowest floor and proceeded outside.
The instant the two emerged, the scene unfolding in the square before them was—
“ ”
“—Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!”
There were thunderous calls for murder. The crowd screamed for blood, for the execution of the stranger who was on the ropes.
Their eyes were bloodshot, and their teeth were bared. Their hatred was born from the physiological revulsion that accompanied enmity, and every one of their negative emotions culminated in an all-consuming desire to kill.
—The sum of these phenomena was wrath.
“—Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!”
Standing shoulder to shoulder with complete strangers, they raised their voices for a single purpose.
“—Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!”
Before this ordeal, their hearts had coalesced into one, all sense of good and evil superseded by the demands of extraordinary circumstances.
“—Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!”
This union, this simple honesty, this pure act of will, this was—
“—Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!”
“—To become one—is that not love? If so, then this is nothing short of a utopia that gives rise to true love!”
In a scene straight out of Hell, Sirius spoke in a voice that was tinged with ecstasy as the crowd continued braying for blood.
With her back against the time tower, the maverick stood on the ground, finally cornered by the hero. The nearby crowd demanded her death, as though their screams would empower the Sword Saint, whom they had entrusted with their bloodthirsty intent.
Sirius had apparently completely lost the chain on her left arm at some point in the time that Subaru had spent in the tower. That meant both fighters were now equally unarmed, but not a single person present thought she could beat Reinhard in a fair fight.
She was clearly in mortal peril—and yet Sirius continued to laugh, her demeanor wholly unchanged.
“Do you have any last words?”
“Thank you for your thoughtfulness, and my apologies. I shall share a warning. The other Archbishops are not as polite as I. Should you ask them for their last words, a terrible fate shall surely befall you.”
“—I will take your warning to heart.”
In response to Reinhard’s charity, Sirius offered a provocative message that seemed to be coming from a place of genuine concern. The Sword Saint dutifully acknowledged her as he raised a flat hand to carry out her execution.
“—Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!”
The voltage of the audience rose even higher as Sirius’s life seemed to be nearing its end.
And yet Subaru, still standing at the entrance of the tower, couldn’t ignore the terrible chill stirring in his chest.
He desperately searched for an explanation, a clue of some sort, but he simply couldn’t think of the right thing to say. If he opened his mouth now, that incomprehensible misgiving would cause a flood of words to pour out.
“To understand one another. To yield to one another. To accept one another. To forgive one another. To become one like this is the purest form of love.”
Heedless of the anxiety gripping Subaru, Sirius opened her mouth to recite her creed.
On the surface, what she said sounded correct, but the instant he thought about Sirius’s ways, they mutated into the logic of an abominable heretic. This incorrigible distortion was the Witch Cultists’ true nature.
Reinhard seemed to have reached the same conclusion as Subaru.
Deciding there was nothing left to say, Reinhard stepped forward. Sirius simply laughed, stretching her arms toward the sky. The next moment, chains shot out from the sleeves of her robe as if fired out of a cannon—when the chains hidden inside her surged forth, they bit into the walls of the tower as they wrapped around the eccentric’s body all at once.
During that shameless attempt to flee, Reinhard closed the distance, effortlessly slipping through the air.
Leaving footprints behind on the paving stones, the red flame chased the fugitive into the sky. His raised, flat hand was an instant-kill weapon equal to a holy sword or a demonic blade—the instant it connected, Sirius’s life would be forfeit.
“—Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!”
The throng’s cries would be answered.
Unspeakable terror raced up Subaru’s spine with incredible force, a harbinger of something irrevocable.
“Reinhard!!”
Obeying his instinct, Subaru called out the name of the hero.
And then with equal force, he shouted:
“—Kill her!!”
Reinhard’s open hand shot forward.
Tracing a white line, he neatly bisected Sirius’s body from the left shoulder to the right flank.
The blow was so keen that it took several seconds until the body noticed that it had been split in two. Belatedly, blood gushed from the massive wound as Sirius’s severed lower half fell away.
“…Ahh, what a kind world.”
Sirius whispered deliriously as she split apart, her innards spilling out.
With chains still wrapped around it, her upper body scattered gore and viscera as it sailed through the sky, while the lower half trailed blood like a gushing fountain as it spun down toward the square.
It was a terrible spectacle that would make most want to avert their eyes. But not a soul in the square did.
They could not.
“…No…”
Turning back, Reinhard stiffened as a word of utter shock trickled out.
His blue eyes swayed with confusion and remorse. Subaru saw the despair spreading across his beautiful face.
And that was the last thing Subaru saw.
“ ”
Subaru and the other spectators had all been cleaved in two, transforming the square into a lake of carnage.
Each of them bore a wound like a filleted fish, all neatly severed from the left shoulder to the right flank.
His blood and organs scattered about, Subaru’s mind vanished without any idea of what had just happened.
But in his final moment, he thought he felt something.
The right hand of the boy… The right hand of the boy, who had been severed in half just like Subaru, seemed to faintly grasp Subaru’s left hand in search of salvation.
He thought he felt that.
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