Chivalry of a Hollow Cryo Dragon Devil Knight

by Gaevontracey24

Ayato Kurozakuro Sparda will enter the world of Devils and learn more about himself as Rias Gremory's Pawn & Stella Vermillion Gremory Phenex's Queen , along with his mysterious family past which allows him to wield a legendary demonic sword... and he's the next Red Dragon Emperor. Harem with Stella,Rias and Mio being the main girls.

23. Chapter 23

Chapter 23

'' - Talking

"" - Thought

{} - Sparda

[] - Ddraig

….

"Listen up, kids! Alcohol is a drink for cool adults, meaning anyone who can drink alcohol is an adult!"

Somewhere in northern Eurasia, under a gray winter sky in a snowy city, a red-haired girl, ten years old with a bottle of liquor in her hand, made an announcement to the congregation she'd gathered in the storage shed behind a church.

"Drink this," she told them, "and you won't be children anymore! You'll join the ranks of cool adults like me. And cool adults never betray their friends! We don't abandon the weak! This drink is a promise between friends. Are you two man enough to make that promise?!

"Yes, we are!" the two boys before her, no more than five or six years old, replied loudly as they straightened their backs

"Good! Then show me just how manly you are!"

"Yes, ma'am!"

The boys held out their small hands, using them to make bowl shapes, and the red-haired girl poured a bit of liquor into them. Bringing their hand-bowls to their lips, the pair resolutely drank the liquor…

"Bleeegh!"

…then vomited it right back up.

"Wh-What is this? So gross!"

"My throat's on fire…"

"Looks like you're not ready yet!" the red-haired girl said, laughing cheerfully as she looked down upon the sick boys, their hands on the ground for balance.

"You can try again next year. Until then, you're staying under the protection of Alice and me!"

"Aww…"

"Being a grown-up sucks, huh, Timur?"

"Teehee. The road to being a 'cool adult' is quite the long one, I suppose."

Watching over the two, who wiped their mouths with snow as tears formed in their eyes, from afar was a little girl with darkish ash-blonde hair, about the same age as the red-haired girl. She was smiling with an almost motherly expression. Though she seemed impoverished at a glance, covered in soot and mud, closer inspection revealed chillingly handsome features. That child was Nagi Alisuin, the girl who would one day enter Hagun Academy.

"You're not ready to be an adult yourself, Yuuri," Alisuin—or rather, Alice— said to the girl who had just gotten done teasing the two boys.

"Timur and Condra are only six years old. You had to know they weren't going to be able to drink that stuff."

"It's fine," the girl named Yuuri said as a wicked smile crept across her face. "Having them bite off more than they can chew will make them stronger in the end."

Yuuri and Alice were street children, using the decaying storage shed they were in as the headquarters for the gang of children they led. Though the two were polar opposites in many ways, they did have one thing in common: the ideal of protecting the poor, weak children who couldn't make it on their own. The daring and heroic Yuuri, the strict father figure, and the sensitive and gentle Alice, the caring mother figure, carried out their self-imposed duties well despite being young, raising the children on their own by providing them with protection and shelter.

The ritual they had performed was a sort of rite of passage for their gang. If a child could drink down all of the liquor that they had put into a green bottle, they would no longer be children under the gang's protection; they would be adult allies.

They had no parents or other adults to rely on, so even if it meant doing more than they were capable of, the children had to mature and become adults as quickly as they could. With that belief in mind, Yuuri had started the ritual, even though she knew it was wrong for children to drink.

"Hey! Yuuri! Are you still giving those poor babies liquor?!"

"Crap, it's the Sister! Everyone, scram!"

The sole devout nun who managed the church found them, prompting Yuuri and the two boys to scatter. The boys had great trust in Yuuri, as they dashed off the moment she gave a single order.

"Hold it, you naughty, naughty kids! If you don't come back here this second, you'll get no soup tonight!"

"Leader made us drink it!"

"It's all her fault. We're not bad kids, honest!"

That trust folded like tissue paper against the promise of warm soup, though.

"G-Guys?! I'm not gonna forget this!"

"Teehee," Alice chuckled at the two boys as she stood up. The sun was setting; it was almost time for her to start her work.

Suddenly, three girls, about five, six, and seven years old, exited the shed. The oldest of the three, Anastasia, stood before Alice, her white cheeks as red as little apples.

"H-Hey, Big Sis Alice. H-Here…"

She timidly offered Alice a scarf she'd spent the past few days making, learning from Alice's dexterity and using the yarn given to her by the nun. Alice assumed she wanted her to look at it, so she took it and looked it over.

"My, the knitting on this is very neat. You must have worked hard on it." She complimented Anastasia's work and tried to return the item, but the girl pressed it into Alice's chest. "I-It's for you, Alice!"

"For me?"

"Yeah," Anastasia replied, her head bouncing as she nodded. "It's because you're always working so hard in the cold."

"…That so?" Sympathizing with Anastasia's feelings, Alice wrapped the handmade scarf around her neck. It mysteriously felt much warmer than the scarves she would pick up off the ground. "It's quite warm. Thank you, Annie."

"Heheh." Anastasia broke into a smile when Alice thanked her, warming not just Alice's body, but her soul as well.

Frankly, life was difficult for them. Even if they had a storage shed to live in thanks to the nun's kindness, there was a limit to how well two ten-year-olds could raise two boys and three girls.

Alice did work for the town's mafia, but after paying her tribute, she was often left with very little. The children subsisted entirely on the nun's occasional meals of soup and rock-hard bread stored in plastic bags, splitting the food evenly among everyone. It would be wrong to call it anywhere near enough for growing children, as their stomachs were constantly empty, but for Alice, it was a time of happiness.

There was less food for her than there had been when she'd lived alone, and she had to work more than ever to feed the children, but being able to love and be loved by others was so much more fulfilling than when she'd lived alone, hiding and stealing from others.

She got to live with her beloved friends; she couldn't ask for anything more than that. If only all of her tomorrows could be as peaceful as her todays. Yes, if only…

….

"This should be fun…" The blue coated figure spoke, standing up as he regarded Ayato who was a few feet away.

"Who are you?" Touka & Rias asked seriously, as the white haired young man smirked as he kept his gaze on Ayato.

"I am Katsu Saken…Descendant of Sparda's Son, Vergil…I am here to face the descendant of Dante, Ayato Kurozakuro"

Ayato slipped into a fighting stance as Katsu pointed at him as he decided to ask "Why?"

"You are a disgrace to Sparda's name…and once I've defeated you I'm going to take Kuraokamitsu from you and then I'll have Sparda's full power" Katsu shouted as he launched himself towards Ayato faster than the silver haired teen was expecting.

"Too slow!" Katsu called, slamming a fist into Ayato's stomach and launching him back.

"Boosted Gear! Kuraokamitsu!" Ayato called flipping back and landing on his feet with both his weapons active before he shot himself forwards to slash at Katsu, the white haired young man drawing the katana and easily blocking the overhead strike.

"So…that's Kuraokamitsu" Katsu spoke, looking over the large cleaver sword as he added

"That has nothing on the Yamato" Katsu slammed a fist into Ayato's gut launching him back into the school wall and through it as Asia and Rias gasped and Katsu laughed darkly.

"What a wimp-"

"Getsuga Tensho!" Ayato called out, the red reiatsu wave blasting out as Katsu just swung Yamato to split the attack in half as he walked forwards, Ayato emerging from the rubble as he shot off towards the Descendant of Vergil.

"So you are tougher then you look" Katsu smirked, disappearing as Ayato swung at him only to reappear behind him and grab Ayato by his head and fling him into the ground behind him.

"ARGH!" Ayato shouted as the ground cratered around him as Sparda spoke up

{Ayato, take your time and relax…his power is stronger than yours}

[Let's teach him what the Sekiryuutei can do]

Ddraig added, Ayato mentally agreeing as the timer for Balance Breaker appeared on the jewel of his gauntlet, a ball of destruction launched at Katsu by Rias, the white haired young man simply batting it away with Yamato.

"Summoned Swords" Katsu spoke, white blades shooting at Ayato who dodged mostly with his Sonido as he called

"Buchou,Kaichou, leave him to me…! Bala!" Ayato threw his free fist forwards covered in red reiatsu and slammed Katsu into the hole he'd made before, going after him as he heard his Boosted Gear call out

[Welsh Dragon Balance Breaker!]

Ayato's armour changed as his Scale Mail appeared, dismissing Kuraokamitsu as he launched his left fist at Katsu and sending him flying across the classroom they had entered, smoke and rubble blasting out from the hole.

[Divide!] Ayato's Left gauntlet called, Katsu surprised at feeling his strength leave him through Yamato before they broke away from each other, Ayato launching himself after Katsu, surprising the devil with his speed as he swung upwards and slashed across Katsu's chest.

"This…This is nothing" Katsu spoke surprised as blood spurted out from the shallow cut, his Devil Trigger disappearing as he stumbled backwards a few steps as Ayato panted deeply.

"This is nothing for a Son of Sparda!" Katsu roared, a pulse of power being launched from his body before he shortened the distance between him and Ayato in moments, punching the silver haired teen in the stomach before knocking away Kuraokamitsu as he continued

"And you will now die!" He thrust Yamato towards Ayato's chest, the blade pulsing with blue energy as he froze an inch from sinking into the red armour as Katsu's eyes widened.

"What…? How can you defy me now Yamato!" Katsu shouted at the blade, not noticing the dull red glow in Ayato's eyes as he held his left hand out towards Kuraokamitsu

The cleaver sword wobbled for a few moments before going flying, hilt first, towards Ayato's hand. The silver haired teen grabbed his sword before pointing the tip towards Katsu's neck as he spoke "Looks like the sword has chosen a new owner".

Katsu tried to move the sword from its frozen position, only for the Yamato to break free of his grasp and embed itself into the ground away from the two combatants as Ayato continued "Go before I decide to end it"

Katsu scowled taking a few steps back from Ayato as he growled "I'll be back for my sword and Kuraokamitsu…So don't die cause I want to be the one who kills you"

With that Katsu disappeared with ease, Ayato sighing in relief as the dull glow of his eyes faded as did his armour and Kuraokamitsu before the silver haired teen moved to pick up the Yamato.

{You did good Ayato…and my power seems to be active now}

Sparda spoke up, Ayato freeing Yamato as he looked over the katana for a few moments before deciding to put it into his pocket dimension as he wobbled tiredly as he walked to the Bus for the camp.

Late July. The rainy season was over, ushering towering white clouds into the blue sky. A semester of selection battles had passed in the blink of an eye, and summer vacation had begun at Hagun Academy.

With the long vacation, many students returned to their homes, leaving the campus sparsely populated. The only ones who remained were those who wanted to freely enjoy their summer in Tokyo, those who wanted to use the ample facilities on campus to train, and those who couldn't go back home due to family issues.

Strangely, Ayato Kurozakuro could not be found among those who had stayed behind. His friends and sister were similarly absent. The reason: they had to prepare for the impending Seven Stars Battle Festival, which would begin in mid-August.

No matter what sport one played, it was common for athletes to attend a training camp before a major tournament. Hagun students were no exception, taking part in an annual Seven Stars training camp that consisted of ten days of focused training at a campground in Okutama. Professional Mage-Knights from the King of Knights league were called in to act as instructors for the camp, so there was a vast difference in potential between those who participated and those who did not. Naturally, Ayato and his friends—both the representatives themselves and those they'd chosen to help them with their training—were participating.

The training camp was moved from its usual venue, however, due to the incident with the rock giant. It had been filed as an unsolved mystery, and there were no further reports of the rock giant that had attacked Ayato, but that didn't mean the area was safe. As such, Director Shinguuji had requested and successfully persuaded Kyomon Academy to allow Hagun's students to lodge with them at their training camp in Yamagata Prefecture.

Stella Vermillion, the Crimson Princess, had crossed vast oceans to reach the land of the samurai in hopes of reaching even greater heights. In Yamagata, far from her home away from home in Tokyo, she had found a difficult fight that would help her do just that.

"Ngh…!" In a mock battle arena at Kyomon's training camp, crimson flames and golden lightning clashed fiercely, sending sparks flying. The person controlling those flames as they enveloped her massive sword was Stella, whose peerless strength and overwhelming magical power Behind Ayato Kurozakuro made her a force to be reckoned with.

One could say that the knight known as Stella Vermillion had no weaknesses to speak of. Her offensive power was remarkably high, leading many to focus too much on it, but Stella was a master of every element of fighting. Offense, defense, and speed; her talent and abilities were virtually unmatched while remaining well-balanced. That was what made her a Rank A knight.

Even so, the opponent she was crossing blades with was holding their own against her ferocious assault. They used graceful parries to abate her rain of blows, but by no means were they forced to stay on defense, as they immediately put their well-honed skills on display by moving directly into a counterattack.

There was more than enough power behind Stella's attacks to batter the average person beyond recognition, so to successfully trade blows with her in such a way meant they were quite skilled.

It came as no surprise to Stella that her foe was so prepared to face her. The knight she was fighting was a volunteer coach from the student council and the greatest student knight in all of Hagun Academy: Touka Toudou, the Raikiri.

"Tch!" In their sword fight, where every fraction of a second counted, Touka's skills shined. With each clash of steel, she twisted her wrist to fend off the impact and redirect its force back toward Stella, causing Stella to lurch backward.

"Rgh!" Stella lurched back to evade the attack, but her sword slipped as a result. Even so, Stella was a first-class knight; the pull of her sword wasn't enough to endanger her balance. Her well-trained lower body had the tenacity to keep her firmly planted on the ground.

Raikiri had created an opening, though, and she wasn't about to miss her chance. She quickly returned her Device, Narukami, to the black scabbard attached to her hip, then widened her stance and discharged electricity into the hilt.

"Ah!"

A shudder ran down Stella's back. She knew what that stance foretold: Touka's Noble Art and namesake, Raikiri. Her trump card, once unleashed, could cut down any foe in a single stroke. Though she had been defeated once, her strength in close quarters was nonetheless awe-inspiring.

Katharterio Salamandra was vastly superior in terms of power and range, but speed was all that mattered against Raikiri, and even the Crimson Princess fell short in that regard.

Stella had no way to fight back, her only option being to fall back the moment Touka took up her stance. I've been waiting for this too! Stella thought. Heeding the shudder that ran down her back, she kicked off the ground.

All of her attacks had been for the purpose of entering Raikiri's range and coaxing Touka into using it.

Raikiri was a quickdraw that used super-electromagnetism to eject Narukami from its sheath.

The explosive propulsion it created couldn't be stopped even by Touka herself; once she drew her sword, she had no choice but to follow through even if she didn't hit her opponent.

That was why Stella had intentionally put herself in the line of fire and leaped away once her opponent had prepared to use her trump card.

Despite her plan, however, that trump card was never used. Touka stood stock-still in her quickdraw posture, staring at Stella as she jumped out of range. Stella could only sigh inwardly in admiration of her opponent, whose vision penetrated through her actions. Figures she wouldn't fall into a trap like that so easily.

Forcing her to whiff on Raikiri was a plan that anyone could come up with; it was the most logical countermeasure. Touka had likely fought countless foes who had tried the very same thing, so of course she wouldn't be baited into it.

In that case, I'll just have to go with a plan that only I can use! Kicking off the ground once more, Stella put over thirty feet between herself and Touka.

The distance between them was too great for lances, let alone swords.

She had moved to long-range, the domain of bows, guns, and magic.

Stella wasn't a one-trick pony who focused only on close-range combat; long range was another area where she excelled.

In long-range magic battles, the knight with the greater magic capacity had an overwhelming advantage, and Stella had the highest magic capacity of all registered knights Behind Ayato.

Touka had long-range attacks as well, but she knew she would be overpowered by Stella's sheer firepower if she were drawn into a battle reliant solely on magic. She rushed to clear the gap between them, but it was already too late.

"Haaah!"

Continuing to increase the distance between them, Stella focused even more magic into the Dragon Breath that enveloped her Device, Lævateinn. The flames devoured her magic, burning hotter and brighter than before.

"Devour, Dragon Fang!"

Pointing the tip of her fiery sword at Touka, who continued to dash straight at her, Stella attacked. The fire gushing from Lævateinn's tip quickly took on the form of a living creature—the form of a flaming dragon, with the long, slender body of a snake.

Opening its toothy jaws wide, it descended upon Touka. She narrowly evaded its deadly bite with a sidestep, but it wasted no time in twisting to the side, once again baring its fangs at her.

More than just a bombardment of flames, Dragon Fang was a guided missile that melted anything it touched as it endlessly pursued its prey. It was impossible for Touka to shake the dragon off; it would chase her until it could finally chomp down.

The whole of Stella's staggering magic capacity was being channeled into her Noble Art; a half-baked attack would have no effect in the face of such incredible power. Thus, Touka responded to the approaching fire dragon with the only option available to her: her strongest, fastest attack.

"Raikiri!"

The plasma blade decapitated the dragon. As it did, Stella kicked off the ground with all her strength, like a burst of wind headed toward Touka.

Got her! Caught in Stella's trap, she had been forced to use Raikiri, and as a result, she had been forced to follow through with a full-power swing of her sword—in other words, she was completely defenseless. If Stella was going to settle the battle, there was no better time.

Not even giving Touka time to breathe, Stella used her explosive power to close the gap in an instant, swinging her sword for the match-deciding blow. Having just used her ultimate ability, Touka wouldn't be able to react to the direct, vertical slash in time. At least, she shouldn't have been able to.

"Huh…?" Stella's attack should've been a guaranteed hit, but in that fraction of a second, Touka moved in a way that Stella never expected. She had definitely followed through with Raikiri, but she didn't stop as if she had. She used the momentum from Raikiri to spin and attack again?! The explosive propulsion from her super-electromagnetic skill allowed her to strike a second time after a high-speed spin. She had seen through Stella's scheme, boldly using Raikiri to bait Stella into thinking she was defenseless and jumping in to attack, and Stella had fallen for it hook, line, and sinker.

"Agh!" Though she was the one who had leaped in to deal the finishing blow, it was Stella's own stomach that suffered a blow from Raikiri. The strike from Touka's Phantom Form weapon didn't physically wound Stella, but it did sap away her stamina, making her fall to her knees. The moment she did, Narukami was pressed against her neck and the battle came to an end.

"Nobody ever told me you could use a feint like that," Stella lauded. "That's because this was my first time ever doing it," Touka replied.

"Searching for your opponent's weaknesses is a good foundation in itself, but at the top of the nation, opponents will also know their own weaknesses and use them to ensnare you. That includes the Seven Stars King, Moroboshi, too. If you want to win against people like us, it's important to manipulate our way of thinking. You've got a long way to go, Stella."

Once Touka had explained to her redheaded underclassman why she had won, she offered a relaxed smile. That, however, merely frustrated Stella all the more, and she groaned in shame.

"Did the Crimson Princess seriously lose?"

"What a joke."

Two girls from Bunkyoku Academy, each wearing the yellow armband signifying their roles as members of their school's newspaper club, sighed. They had come to the camp and watched Stella and Touka's fight from afar in search of a scoop; the Seven Stars training camp was a rare chance to get information on students from other schools. It was an important event for journalists from all of the schools, and the girls had traveled all the way from Kyushu to write articles about Stella Vermillion, the legendary princess knight

"Pretty lame, right?"

"It would've been way more exciting if we could've gone with the title, Princess Bests Raikiri!"

"Yet here she is, too weak to win! So much for our article."

They had wanted to write an article that took advantage of Stella's notoriety, but a front-page story about her losing would leave a lot to be desired. The club members were sorely disappointed to be so let down.

"Wow, Bunkyoku. Why are they zeroing in so much on who won?" Hearing their grumbles from nearby, another girl with a yellow armband was astonished.

"Honestly. How can they call themselves journalists if they're so blinded by the result they want that they can't see the truth that's right in front of them?"

Offering her agreement was Nagi Alisuin, who had been watching the mock battle alongside Kagami Kusakabe of Hagun's newspaper club. The two of them had seen Stella fight in the past, so they knew the battle hadn't ended as such due to Stella being weak.

There were others who could see the same thing as well, despite not being from the same school. A boy and a girl had also been watching the fight together, somewhat far away from Kagami and Alice.

"Wooow! That was an awesome fight! They should've charged for that!"

"Hagun's bringing the cream of the crop this year, eh, Kusakabe?"

"Hey, Yagokoro, Komiyama," Kagami responded with a smile as the pair approached them. "Were you spectating too?"

"Of course we were! Even if it's just a mock battle, no journalist worth their salt would miss a fight between Raikiri and the Crimson Princess."

"Absolutely." While Kagami greeted the pair, Alice tapped her shoulder from behind. She signaled a "What's up?", urging Alice to say what was on her mind.

"Who might these fine people be, Kagamin?" It was then that Kagami remembered that Alice had never met these two.

"Oh, right, you haven't been introduced," Kagami said, finally realizing that Alice had never met the people she was talking to.

"The lady here is Yagokoro from Bukyoku Academy's newspaper club, and the guy is Komiyama from Donrou's."

"Nice to meet you, Alisuin."

"Good to meetcha."

"I see. So, you all share the same occupation?"

"Yep. We've got the same armbands, see?" Alice finished their exchange of greetings by nodding in assent. As soon as she did, Yagokoro approached her, gawking.

"Man, I've heard rumors, but you really are one heck of a lady-killer. I bet you could get rich with a face like that."

"'Luck of the draw'? Sounds fishy. I can't imagine 'luck of the draw' is how you won twenty consecutive battles."

"Well, one way or the other, I won. There's not much I can do about it now."

"Everyone sees things differently, I guess. If that's how you feel, then fine by me."

"Ooh, I love open-minded men."

"G-Gimme a break…" Komiyama backed away, turning pale under the weight of Alice's flirtatious gaze. Kagami stifled her laughter as she watched the two, then suddenly remembered something she wanted to ask the other journalists.

"By the way, you two, what did you think of the match?" "

You mean Raikiri and the Crimson Princess' duel?"

"Yeah."

"Huh? Let's see… They were crazy strong."

"Who was?"

"Both of them." Kagami grinned at that response. It meant the two of them understood. Yagokoro and Komiyama had correctly perceived the true reason that Stella lost her mock battle.

"Just like the rumors say, the Crimson Princess is ridiculously powerful. The power behind every blow, her instantaneous force… Incredible, top-class knights like her only come around once a decade. The Crimson Princess isn't weak, Raikiri is just unimaginably strong. That's the only reason she lost."

"I was thinking the same thing. Komiyan and I are third-years, so we have information on Raikiri from last year, but she's so much more powerful and skilled than last time. There's no comparison."

"She must have been honing her skills to finally defeat the Seven Stars King this year," Komiyama added, "which makes it all the more unbelievable that she's not a representative. Raikiri got so strong, but she's only at this training camp as a volunteer coach, and even though she just proved she's good enough to take down a Rank A knight, the one who took her place was a Generation of all people. That just adds insult to injury." Komiyama turned his attention to the edge of the training ground. There stood the man who had stolen Raikiri's seat as a representative: the Cryo Gale Sword Emperor, Ayato Kurozakuro.

Despite his status as a Generation, the Strongest of all knights, he had mowed down top-ranking knights one after another until he'd climbed all the way up to claim his seat as a Seven Stars representative.

Speaking of, what's he doing in the corner over there with the Frozen Ground?"

"A mock battle, maybe? He's holding Ryuuzetsu."

"He's with the Hagure sisters, two of Hagun's other representatives."

"Is he really having a two-on-one mock battle?"

"It's Kurozakuro we're talking about here. I wouldn't be surprised in the least."

Kagami's assumption was correct. As the four watched, Ayato was in the midst of a mock battle with the twins Kikyou and Botan Hagure, per their request.

"I've got you now!" With her lance Device in hand, Kikyou Hagure used her instant-acceleration Noble Art to charge at Ayato, approaching sonic speed. Ayato didn't seem at all hurried despite her absurd speed, though.

She slipped on the frozen as he stomped on the head of her spear just before it reached him, stabbing it into the frozen ground.

"Whoooa?!" Kikyou, attached to the other end of the lance, launched into the air like a pole vaulter, guided by her momentum. She flew clear over Ayato and crashed straight into her sister Botan, who was in the midst of pulling the triggers of her two guns, aimed at Ayato's back.

"Hngh!"

"Aaah?!"

"Are you okay?" Ayato asked the twins, worried after they'd rolled together across the Ice.

"Oww… Yeah, I'm fine. You okay, Botan?"

"Ugh… I'm a little scraped up."

"Shizuku!"

"Of course. Leave it to me, Big Brother."

On Ayato's command, Shizuku, who had been waiting in the wings, used her healing magic to mend the cuts on Botan's knees. While she was doing so, Ayato addressed the Hagure sisters.

"Kikyou," he said, "your speed is a great asset, but as a lancer, you can't just charge at foes who have shorter reach than you. That's essentially throwing away your advantage. I think you'd be better off adding a bit of patience to your battle plan. Also, if you're going to fight together with your sister, you shouldn't stand in her line of fire."

Watching from afar as Ayato indicated the major problems in their strategy, Alice voiced her thoughts about the fight.

"Rather than a mock battle, it looks to me like Ayato's just training the two."

It was too one-sided to have been a mock battle. The Hagure sisters had asked Ayato to fight a mock battle in order to train them, however, so Alice's view was more or less correct.

"'Training', huh? Still, he overwhelmed them. The Cryo Gale Sword Emperor over there didn't even have to swing his sword or use his Cryo Powers."

"Kagami, are those two weak?"

"Definitely not," Kagami replied, shaking her head in response to Yagokoro's question.

"A lot of people say they just got lucky to not have to fight people like Ayato or Stella, but they're not weak. Both of them defeated knights from among the top ten in Hagun and have undefeated twenty-win streaks to their names. They're probably not as strong as Raikiri or Runner's High, but don't go thinking they're anything but tough."

"Guess I've been treating them like children, huh? They're a bigger deal than I imagined."

"They're definitely taking advantage of this training camp, though, training under him."

"Kurozakuro just loves being overly helpful, doesn't he?" Kagami asked. "Maybe it's a nice mental break for him."

"Well, he did beat all of Kyomon's coaches within three days of coming here." Alice spoke the truth. It was only the fourth day of their training camp, but Ayatohad already beaten all of Kyomon's professional Mage-Knight coaches in mock battles, leaving him with nobody to fight with. Even Raikiri, the knight who was likely the most powerful coach at the camp, had fallen in a real battle against him. "And of course, Kyomon has already called in a special emergency coach to deal with him. Guess they weren't too happy to be shown up by the Cryo Gale Sword Emperor."

"Who do you think i'll come? I bet Director Shinguuji or Ms. Saikyou would have been willing to rush over here, but I heard they headed to Osaka to prepare for the Seven Stars and the KoK. Then again, all of the coaches here are ranked in the National League, so there's no point in calling any normal Mage Knight."

"If they don't call someone powerful like that, there's a chance they won't be able to keep up with the students."

"Hagun's so strong this year! Looks like those of us at Bukyoku had better watch our backs."

Yagokoro praised Hagun's representatives with a sigh.

"Oh, don't give me that," Kagami replied with a sarcastic grin. "We know good and well that you're here to keep up your win streak. Besides, you've got someone who's pretty tough even by Bukyoku standards this year, right?"

Bukyoku was a prestigious school among prestigious schools, having been hogging the top spot at the Seven Stars for the past several years. The school's representatives were all incredible knights, and the reigning Seven Stars King, Yuudai Moroboshi, was so strong that his name was known around the world.

However, just before the tournament's entry deadline, a certain man scoffed at the famed hero and became a representative himself. That man, the Gale Sword Emperor, was the only Rank A student born in Japan aside Ayato Kurozakuro : Ouma Kurogane.

"For some reason, a third-year Rank A student who didn't care about official battles in his first two years is showing his face now," Kagami continued.

"I was really surprised when I saw Bukyoku's lineup."

"Me too," Komiyama said. "I didn't think he would try to enter at this point. Maybe him going to the Seven Stars means Bukyoku's putting everything they've got into this year's Festival."

Excluding the Crimson Princess, the Rank A from abroad, and the Cryo Gale Sword Emperor, the man who had defeated Raikiri with a single slash & won the Junior League when he was younger, there was an abnormally high number of nameless first-year representatives for the Seven Stars, all of them spread throughout the participating schools. The tournament hadn't even begun, yet it was already progressing unnaturally.

Amidst the uncertainty that came with that unnatural progression, leaving Ouma Kurogane, a knight ranked higher than Moroboshi, idle would have been a senseless decision for Bukyoku to make. Komiyama and Kagami wondered if that was the reason behind his entry, but Yagokoro shot that theory down with a shake of her head.

"Nope. The Gale Sword Emperor isn't the kind of guy to listen to what the school wants. Heck, he usually doesn't go to school at all, or even let them know he's still alive. He entered the Festival of his own accord; it surprised us just the same."

"So the school didn't order him to join?"

"Right."

"I see. If it was his decision, I doubt the school would have any reason to refuse him."

"Well, he challenged Shibata, Bukyoku's sixth representative, to a duel with the Seven Stars rep spot on the line."

"So Ouma won, then."

"Honestly, it wasn't much of a fight. He was way out of Shibata's league."

There was a look of pity on Yagokoro's face as she explained it. Shibata must have been badly beaten.

"It's a shame about Shibata, but isn't the Gale Sword Emperor's random whim actually good news for journalists like us?"

"Definitely. High-profile guys like him give us more exposure in the papers."

"Everyone on the internet is expecting two fights between the Crimson Princess vs the Gale Sword Emperor or the Cryo Gale Sword Emperor vs the Gale Sword Emperor."

"No surprise there. They're all waiting for the first two battles between Rank A knights since World Clock versus Demon Princess."

Their battle was revered as legendary. Coincidentally, that battle was another Hagun versus Bukyoku fight, serving as a battle for supremacy between east and west.

"Sucks for us in Donrou, since we're in Tokyo too."

"But ever since my exposé on his fight with the Cryo Gale Sword Emperor, I hear the Sword Eater's really been giving it his all."

"That's the only silver lining, really. We're expecting great things from him this year. There are some problems with how the guy acts, but the Sword Eater's got a mind for battle that's second to none.

Then again, even taking that into account, Cold One is really the person everybody's got their eyes on this year."

Komiyama expected great things from his classmate, the Sword Eater, but his journalist's intuition was telling him that the real dark horse of the Seven Stars was Ayato.

"There's been hushed speculation ever since his match with the Crimson Princess," he continued,

"But now that he's defeated Raikiri and started to stand out on the national stage, everyone's secretly wondering just how far this nameless Generation besides winning the Junior League in his younger days can go against the strongest students in the nation. This is off the record, by the way, but all the networks are working to gather as much info as they can on him before the start of the Festival."

"He's the Gale Sword Emperor's little brother, not to mention the man who defeated the Crimson Princess and took down the Raikiri in a single blow & won the U-12 World Tournament. How else would they treat him, right?"

Yagokoro's agreement made Kagami smirk inwardly. It was very satisfying for her to see that the knight she had been following for so long was finally getting recognition from everyone, proving that she really did have an eye for talent.

What made her all the happier was that everyone had come to know what trials the knight known as Ayato Kurozakuro had gone through to get to where he was.

Not that it was a great idea to get so invested in one guy, she thought, but what girl wouldn't want to support such an earnest, trustworthy man? She figured that since it was Ayato, she couldn't help but to do so. It wasn't her fault, she decided.

"Hmm?" Suddenly, when Kagami tried to look back toward Ayato, she noticed someone else in her periphery. Like her and the other journalists, an ash-blonde girl was watching Ayato from afar.

"Is that the Icy Sneer from Kyomon?"

"Sure is. Maybe she's here to scout the Cryo Gale Sword Emperor."

"Let's go."

"We've definitely gotta get her comments on— Wait, Komiyama, you're already going?!"

"Hang on, Komiyan! You can't have her all to yourself! Oh, Nagi, I'll come back for your interview later. Bye!" Yagokoro and Komiyama ran after the knight, careful not to burn bridges with Alice all the while. Kagami, however, remained, because she had Alice with her. It would have been rude to leave her by herself, so Kagami started by asking for permission.

"Alice! I wanna go with them. You mind waiting here?"

"…" Alice's response didn't come immediately. Her head was dropped down, her face looking as though she was lost in thought.

"…Alice?"

"Oh, uh, sorry, Kagamin. I was just daydreaming a bit. What's the matter?" Once Kagami finally received an answer, she explained that she wanted to go interview Icy Sneer.

"Go ahead," Alice told her. "I'll wait here for you."

"Okay. See you soon!" Kagami ran after the two other journalists, but on the way, her thoughts turned to Alice once more. What in the world was she daydreaming about? Is she getting nervous about the Seven Stars too? In all the months they'd known each other, Alice had never just ignored someone talking to her. What's more, she had been silent throughout the whole previous conversation.

Was there something about Ouma Kurogane that bothered her? Well, I guess everyone daydreams sometimes.

While thinking such things, Kagami met up with Icy Sneer, so she quickly shoved the thoughts out of her mind. She happened to arrive just after Komiyama had begun his own interview.

"Hello there. I'm Komiyama of Donrou Academy News. Mikoto Tsuruya, what do you think of the Cold One—or rather, Cryo Gale Sword Emperor, Ayato Kurozakuro? Do you think he'll be able to compete with students in the top eight like yourself?"

"Hrm. You journalists certainly are impatient, aren't you?" A very sudden interview, but someone as strong as Tsuruya was sure to be used to sudden attacks from the media; she wasn't taken aback by the abrupt questioning. On the contrary, the calmness in her face was betrayed by a knowing grin.

"So, what thoughts came to mind while I watched him? There's little point in communicating that with words; for knights, results in battle are the only facts we need. The stage has already been set for battle. Whether he can compete with us or not will be made abundantly clear in due time.

The truth will be made evident in the most merciless way." As she made that declaration, her lips curled into a smirk. The coldness emanating from her sent a chill down the backs of the three journalists who accosted her.

"Haha. Well, I'll be taking my leave," Tsuruya said, leaving the three frozen journalists in her wake as she headed toward the exit of the training field. She hadn't given them a concrete answer, but she was so elegant and composed as she departed that her complete lack of doubt in her own strength was made crystal clear.

"Guess that's the kind of dignity you'd expect from the top eight, right?"

"So much gravitas. It kinda scared me." Yagokoro and Komiyama were starstruck.

Kagami felt similarly, but of the three, she was the one who had the most faith in Ayato. After all, he had already taken down the Sword Eater, a quarterfinalist, and Raikiri, a semifinalist. You can't keep feigning invincibility forever, she thought. Of course, Tsuruya hadn't made it to the quarterfinals of the previous year's Seven Stars by being as naïve as Kagami thought she was.

"Hey, Miko." One of Kyomon's other representatives called out to Tsuruya at the exit of the training field.

"What do you make of Hagun this year? Think you can beat 'em easily?"

"No way," she proclaimed, flashing her trademark icy sneer.

"Didn't you see him crush three professional knights like it was nothing? That's downright insane." Mikoto Tsuruya was much stronger than Kagami and the others had imagined, and that strength was precisely what made her so apt at judging the strength of others.

The Icy Sneer herself perceived more acutely than any of the three that she couldn't defeat the Cryo Raikiri Sword Emperor.

Groaning, Tsuruya leaned her back against a wall. As she did, she heard an uproar coming from the training field she had just left. "Hey, isn't that Torajirou Nangou?!"

"They called in the God of War to coach the Cryo Gale Sword Emperor?! How extravagant can you get?!"

"That's downright insane…" Still leaning against the wall, Tsuruya slid down until she was sitting. There was only one thing she could wish for now.

"Ugh, just don't let me be up against that monster in the first round!"

The man who was once mocked as the Cold One had become known across the nation as an unorthodox genius again. The Seven Stars King, Yuudai Moroboshi; the Rank A Crimson Princess, Stella Vermillion; the Rank A Gale Sword Emperor, Ouma Kurogane. Ayato Kurozakuro stood among them as a fellow favorite to win the Seven Stars Battle Festival.

How long could he continue to cut down such powerful opponents? Just how long could the uncrowned Generation upset match after match? Knights and spectators alike watched each battle with bated breath, awaiting the unconventional sword master's results.

Kyomon's training camp had nothing akin to a schedule. The coaches invited to the camp would give special lessons and the like, and each representative could decide for themselves whether they wanted to attend or not. There existed as many Blazer abilities as there did Blazers.

Among the countless distinct classifications, each one had its own optimal training method, so attempting a one-size-fits-all curriculum was likely to have a negative effect on everyone's training.

As such, the students were allowed to set their own schedules, either alone or with their friends. Making use of that freedom, Stella invited Ayato on an evening jog to a downtown area six miles away from the camp.

Even the twelve-mile round trip was too short a distance to be called "training" for the pair, however; it was more of a diversion than anything else. Stella just wanted to run and run, to distract herself from her loss at the hands of Raikiri.

"Ugh! Argh! I can't take iiit!" In a park in the downtown area where they'd planned to turn around, Stella stomped her feet like a child as she sat, resting on a bench together with Ayato.

"Not even running helped make you feel better?"

"No! Not even a little bit!" Though she had run at twice her usual pace, and though she had washed her face at the park, the clouds in Stella's mind hadn't cleared in the slightest. Back during the incident in Okutama, and when she saw Ayato's fight, she had a feeling that Touka & Ayato was stronger than her but having that fact thrust into her face in such a palpable form made her so mad that she didn't know what to do with herself.

"When I fought her, I realized that she really is incredibly strong."

"Toudou's close-range fighting is pretty much impenetrable. It's basically impossible to defeat her with normal tactics."

"But you beat her, Ayato."

"Well, I'm nothing but close-range. If I lose there, what do I have left?" Seeing her boyfriend's modest smile made her a little envious. Though she hadn't a leg to stand on against Raikiri, that man, with his warm smile, had defeated her in the fairest fight imaginable.

Touka and Ikki's one-second clash was still burned into Stella's mind. She was proud of Ikki, but ashamed all the same, because he was at a place that she was yet unable to reach. "And to think, she was only fourth place last year. Japan is definitely at a high level." "Well, it's a tournament, so the matchups come down to luck. Toudou placed fourth, but that doesn't mean she's fourth-strongest. Didn't she forfeit the match for third place because one of her relatives had a medical emergency?"

"That doesn't mean it's okay for me to lose to her. My main objective is to become the new Seven Stars King by beating you and everyone else, and since at least you and the current Seven Stars King have beaten her, I have to beat her too. And… there's one other representative I'm nervous about."

"Who's that?"

"He's from the same school as the Seven Stars King. It's Ouma Kurogane."

"Ah…!"

The moment Stella said that name, Ayato's face visibly stiffened, confirming her doubts.

"Looks like I was right. You guys are related."

"…Yeah. He's my brother, a year older than me."

"I had no idea you had a brother, Ayato. Actually, this is also my first time hearing that there's a Rank A in Japan's school system besides you and me."

"Well, in the two years since he entered high school—no, actually, in the five years since middle school, he's been missing."

"Huh? Did he just completely disappear?"

"Not quite. It was rare, but he would contact us from time to time, and he showed up in public sometimes. He'd go missing again a day or two later, though, and he hasn't had a single official battle in all this time. When we were kids, he was the champion of our elementary school league two years before me, so people really had their eyes on him. Still, no matter how talented you are, the world tends to lose interest when you go into hiding for five years. Shizuku & I are probably two more noteworthy knights by now, so it's not surprising that you don't know about him, Stella."

"I see. Yeah, I guess if you avoid official battles for five whole years… Wonder why he's suddenly so interested in Seven Stars. Any idea, Ayato?"

"Nope," he replied, shaking his head. "I'm completely in the dark."

"Even though he's your own brother?"

"I wasn't the only misfit in the family," Ayato chuckled, a smirk on his face.

"Ouma was one too, so there's almost no relationship between us. Honestly, he's even more distant to me than my stepfather, so I really don't have any idea. But, well, if I had to speak based on my own impressions, he seems like a very stoic person."

"What do you mean?"

"He's the kind of guy who lives to become stronger."

"…Are you sure that's not you, Ayato?"

I am Actually Ayato said. "Ouma is totally uninterested in anything besides getting stronger. He did care about me all because I am better than some point, he said in an interview that the reason he doesn't do official fights like the Seven Stars is that nobody is worthy of being his opponent."

"Pretty confident in himself, isn't he?"

"He has the strength to back that up, though. If someone like him, who's only interested in getting stronger, is entering the Seven Stars, it must be for the sake of getting stronger. And… This is just a guess, but I think he's after you & me, Stella. You're both Rank A knights; it would normally take at least a trip around the world to find someone like you & me. I can only imagine he wants to fight you & me to draw out my full power."

Stella couldn't help but agree with Ayato's explanation. It would have been a lie to say that she wasn't interested in fighting someone like Ouma, who was as talented as she & Ayato was. If given the opportunity, she would accept a challenge from him, and he most likely felt the same way.

"By the way, Ayato, how strong would you say Ouma is?"

"As strong as he claimed he is."

"How strong is that again?"

"When he said nobody is worthy of being his opponent, he really wasn't exaggerating."

Ayato's reply, somewhat strained with nervousness at the thought of his brother's participation, sent a chill down Stella's back. From Ouma Kurogane's point of view, people like Raikiri and even the Seven Stars King were mere fleas compared to him. For Ayato to agree with a statement like that meant that Ouma was far from normal, and if someone that powerful was going to participate, it only furthered Stella's need to win against Raikiri.

"That settles it!" she yelled, setting a new goal for herself. "I swear, I will become stronger than Touka by the end of this training camp!"

There were five days left. If Stella challenged her to a mock battle every day, then counting the one from earlier in the day, they would fight a total of six battles. She had to win more of them than she lost.

With her new goal clear in her mind, it was in Stella's nature to feel an itch within herself. She didn't want to sit around in a park any longer, so she hopped off the bench and rushed Ayato to do the same.

"Ayato Let's get back to the campground! After I get some food in me, I'm ready to keep traini—"

Grrrrr. An adorable little growling noise came from Stella's stomach, interrupting her. Since it wasn't the time of day for children to be at play, the park was just about empty, making it sound even louder.

"Haha. That was a cute noise," Ayato laughed, causing Stella's cheeks to turn redder than apples.

"Hnnngh! I-I can't help it! I've been exercising all day! It's almost time to eat, too!"

"Yeah, you're right. The fact that your stomach is empty is just proof of how hard you're working. It's nothing to be embarrassed about."

"U-Uh, right. I'm glad you understand."

"But it's not a good idea to push yourself with an empty stomach. Let's go have a nice meal first."

"Ah." As he stood up, Ayato took the blushing Stella's hand. The sudden gesture surprised her, but Ayato seemed not to have taken notice.

"I'm sure there'll be something in the shopping district. C'mon," he said, and started walking with a smile on his face and Stella's hand in his.

It was evening, so the shopping district was crowded with students on vacation and couples out to get dinner. Among it all, Ayato and Stella walked together, holding hands. As they did, however, they could hear murmurs about them.

"Isn't that Princess Vermillion and the Kurozakuro kid from the news?"

"Sure is. They say he tricked her into sleeping with him, right?"

"I heard they made all that up." After their relationship was exposed to the world, Ayato's face—alongside Stella's—became known worldwide. That the two were in love was also made known, which meant that no matter how they felt about it, they stood out whenever they walked together.

"Look, they're holding hands! They really are dating!" "Whoa, the princess is even more ridiculously gorgeous in person."

"Man, I wish I could bag a girl like that."

"Hnnngh!" Their curious gazes dug into Stella, causing her ears to turn a shade redder. She and Ayato had gotten used to being treated as a couple in school, but Stella still found it embarrassing to be seen like that by everyone outside of school as well. Noticing this, Ayato asked,

"Hey, Stella? If you're embarrassed, do you want to stop holding hands?" Ayato asked, noticing how she felt. It was the least he could do to help after realizing that she was red from how fixated she was on the fact that other people were looking at them.

"I-I'm not… embarrassed," she lied in response. Despite her embarrassment, she loved holding hands with him.

"That's good. Don't push yourself, though." Ayato understood her inner workings well enough, but rather than prying, he offered her a smile and a tightened grip on her hand as he continued to walk, pulling her along once again.

Ayato's changed, hasn't he? Stella thought as she looked at his profile. The Ayato Kurozakuro she once knew had never been so forward about their relationship.

Like her, it was his first time falling in love or even dating, so with each and every step they took as boyfriend and girlfriend, they would both be strangely surprised by whatever they did. Recently, though, something about him had changed. He was strangely assertive, like when he had taken Stella's hand in the park.

Holding hands was one of their favorite shows of affection, and they had often found themselves naturally, gently coming together often, but that was no longer the case. It's like he's clenching it, or squeezing… Instead of meeting naturally, Ayato was actively seeking out her hand to hold it.

Even in the middle of the busy shopping district, he was holding her hand without a single sign of worrying over the glances from all directions. Discretion and sincerity were two of Ayato's virtues; such a change in him not only surprised Stella, it occasionally made her feel apprehensive as well. Curious about what had caused his mental state to change, Stella decided to ask him point-blank about it.

"Hey, Ayato? You seem a little different."

"Me? Different?"

"You're more, um… assertive? Or maybe more dignified than before." Or maybe cooler and more manly… For a moment, Ayato looked surprised by her question. He then scratched his cheek, seemingly a little embarrassed.

"Guess you would notice, huh, Stella?" His reply revealed that he had some knowledge of the change himself.

"Sorry. I suppose I'm being a little greedy."

"I-It doesn't bother me or anything! I was just wondering why, that's all."

"Well, it's not really anything worth mentioning," Ayato prefaced his explanation before delving deeper.

"It's just, ever since I proposed, I've found myself becoming so much more attached to you. It even surprised me. I just can't help how much I want to make it clear that you're the woman I love. It just makes me want to hug you so badly. I realize that's probably unethical, though."

Though slightly ashamed of his inner feelings, Ayato told Stella why he'd changed, as she wished. The proposal after his fight with Raikiri served as a major turning point for him. To that point, he was certain that he loved Stella more than anyone else could.

With their intense love and mutual feelings for each other confirmed with the proposal, Ayato's desire to monopolize Stella, to never let anyone else lay their hands on her grew far stronger. As a result, something budded within him: the acute awareness of his duty to protect his woman.

That new awareness had made Ayato more assertive than ever … You're so cute, Ayato. Stella felt her heart beat harder and faster at his confession, with each thumping beat bringing forth a ticklish adoration from deep within her heart. Her boyfriend had staked his claim, albeit indirectly, by stating, "

You're mine. I won't let anyone else have you."

Simultaneously, he projected an air of coercion to the people around them, silently telling them, "

This is my woman. Stay away from her."

Stella hung her head to hide the grin that was threatening to force itself out. She couldn't handle how adorable it was that, despite his inexperience, Ayato was trying to hog her for himself.

She had no doubt that he would be loath to be found "adorable" for doing so, but to her, his actions were almost dizzyingly cute. As a woman—as his woman—Stella wanted to reward him, so she took the arm that held her hand and embraced it with her entire upper body.

"S-Stella?" "Maybe if I do this, they'll finally get that I'm yours, Ayato."

Stella smiled and pressed her cheek against his arm. The stares of passersby had stopped bothering her; the desire to reward the boy who wanted to keep her all to himself was much greater than any such triviality.

For Ayato, however, just holding hands while they walked together made keeping a straight face almost impossible. With Stella having taken things a step further by clinging to him, it became painfully obvious that his mind was in a frenzy. Even so, he was the one who had wanted to stake his claim, meaning that it was hardly his right to ask her to let go.

"R-Right. Good idea. Yeah…" Though Ayato was doing his best to remain calm and continue walking, his cheeks were red with embarrassment and sweat had started to slick the hand that held Stella's.

Heehee. I'm so happy.

Ayato's show of bravado was just too cute for Stella to handle, so she relaxed her legs and let herself be dragged along. Anyone who saw them would probably be grossed out by how lovey-dovey they were being, but Stella didn't care.

They were in love, after all. Make me all yours, my prince. She whispered those words—words she'd be too ashamed to ever say aloud—deep in her heart. As she did, however, Ayato suddenly stopped walking.

"Hm?" Stella thought that it might have been because he'd found a place for them to chow down, but quickly realized that was not the case. Ayato's face, turned to look behind the two of them, had become disturbingly pale.

"What's wrong?"

"Do you see that guy in the coveralls who just went by?" Ayato asked, staring at a man who had just walked in front of them.

"Don't you think he's walking funny?"

"Maybe he's got an injury?"

"No…" Ayato had thought the same thing at first, but quickly inhaled and sharpened his focus. Probably not. Based on the man's stature and the width of his shoulders, his skeletal structure could be grasped. From there, Ikki could estimate how the man's muscles were attached and how they would move his limbs, comparing the result to the way he was walking. According to Ayato's analysis, the man's walking pattern was unnatural. Steps with his right foot were subtly different from steps with his left, but it didn't seem to be due to injury or trauma.

Each joint appeared to be working normally as they pushed him forward, but something alien, something that didn't exist naturally as part of the human body, was disrupting his stride.

Judging by the wrinkles in his pants and the way he's walking, there's something in his right pocket. The man had his hand shoved into his right pants pocket, but the way his pants creased made it clear that his hand wasn't the only thing in there.

He was holding something, hiding it. It was long and somewhat broad, in the shape of, perhaps… a survival knife. He must be an electrician, based on his clothes. It was normal for electricians to carry knives so they could peel the insulation off of thick wires.

Ayato had a feeling that the man's knife was a little big for that kind of work, but that could easily be explained by his own lack of knowledge or the man's personal tastes.

When they passed by each other, however, Ayato caught sight of a glimmer from under the brim of the man's cap. It had come from his bloodshot eyes, like those of a beast hunting its prey.

There were plenty of people who couldn't help but look unpleasant, and the man's eyes could have been bloodshot from lack of sleep. Similarly, the object in his pocket could have been a tool for his job.

Those were probably far more likely than the worst-case scenario that Ayato was imagining, and yet his heart wouldn't stop pounding at the thought of that worst-case scenario.

"…All right."

"Huh? Ayato? Where are you going?!"

"Wait here for a sec."

He freed his right arm from Stella's grasp and ran alone toward the electrician. His only goal was to confirm what was in the man's pocket; if what worried him was his own rude assumption, he would simply apologize. If the man didn't forgive him despite his apology, it was nothing more than an inconvenience if it meant refuting the scenario pervading his mind. That was what Ayato thought as he called out to the man in the coveralls.

When he was called out to, the man stopped walking. He had stopped in the very center of an intersection in the shopping district, the place where the largest number of people would be walking. Why would he stop somewhere like that?

"Tch! Hey, the heck?! Why are you standing around in the middle of the road, old man?!" The answer to Ayato's question became all too clear the moment the man ran into some middle school-aged kids.

"Hreeek!" The man made a bizarre noise, perhaps a groan or a scream, and immediately moved to pull the item from his right pocket. The object the man had kept hidden there would finally be revealed. Ikki watched closely with his honed concentration and kinetic vision, seeming to almost stop the flow of time itself, as the man acted.

The moment the object peeked out from his pocket and began reflecting the lights of the shopping district, Ayato confirmed that it was, as he had feared, a thick survival knife. Given that they were in the middle of an intersection, there was only one reason to draw a knife: the worst-case scenario that Ikki had hypothesized was becoming a reality.

Once his biggest fear had been confirmed, Ayato leaped into action.

He kicked off the ground and slipped into the crowd that was still slowed by his concentration, running to capture the man with the knife standing twenty or so feet away from him. I can make it! The gaggle of middle schoolers in front of the man still hadn't noticed what he was doing, but only about half of the blade was out of his pocket.

With Ayato's speed, he had plenty of time to get there. As long as he kept running, he could strike the man in the back and knock him unconscious, ending things before the man could even finish drawing the knife.

It came with the risk of causing an uproar afterward, but Ayato's quick thinking and trust in the gut feeling he got from the split second when he and the man passed by each other would at least prevent any sort of tragedy.

Although what was happening was, to Ayato, the worst-case scenario, it still fell within the realm of what he'd expected. However, in the following moment, something unexpected occurred. "Whoooa! Stop, stop! You can't do that!" A high-pitched, panicked voice—seemingly a girl's—echoed through the intersection. Then, incredibly, the source of the voice latched onto the man's arm. Huh?!

Ayato, despite focusing his attention solely on the man's pocket and making use of his incredible, time-slowing concentration, hadn't even reached the man yet.

The blade of the knife hadn't even been fully removed from the man's pocket. Nobody else should have been able to get to him before Ayato—not without having physical & magical abilities equal to his own.

Ayato hadn't even begun to expect that someone else would jump in; it took him completely by surprise. Worst of all, the girl's sudden clinging to the man pushed him aside slightly, putting her directly in his line of fire.

"Tch…!"

Ayato couldn't charge in with things the way they were. He had no other choice but to decelerate until he came to a stop, the situation continuing to transform all the while.

"You can't do this, sir!" the girl, with her high-pitched voice, screamed at the man who was still shocked at her sudden appearance.

"It doesn't matter how much your company restructures and goes into debt! You can't resort to murder-suicide!" Thanks to her screams, the people around them began to realize what was going on around them. The knife was still partially hidden within the man's right pocket, but once the gleaming blade's existence had been hinted at, everyone took notice of it.

"Wha—?!"

"H-Hey! This guy's got a knife!"

"Huh? Aaahhh!"

"Eeeek! He's a murderer!" The crowd went into chaos. Some people shoved others out of the way, some tripped and spilled the contents of their bags everywhere, but everyone scrambled away from the intersection. Just the man and the girl clinging to him remained.

"You can still get off with just attempted murder. Let's go to the police, okay? Your mom out in the country would be so sad if you hurt someone. Don't worry, though! As long as you keep on living, your luck will turn around someday, right?!" The girl cheered him on, her pretty face soaked with sweat yet still wearing a smile. She seemed to want nothing more than to soothe the man, but he refused to listen.

"You stupid braaat!"

"Whoa!" His hunt interrupted, the man roared at the poor girl and shoved her away forcefully, her slender figure so light that she was easily pushed onto her backside.

Then, a shadow fell upon the girl—the shadow of the man wearing a demonic expression as he brandished his knife.

Wh-What do I do?!

Watching the scene unfold from within the crowd of fleeing innocents, Ayato was unsure of what his next move was.

Normally, he would fearlessly jump in to save her, but there was one factor that made him hesitate: the girl herself, who had appeared out of nowhere. Nay, they were actually not girls.

The cuteness of their voice and features would lead one to believe they were, but that was wrong, because they were wearing Kyomon Academy's boys' uniform. Ayato knew the boy's face, too. At first, he hadn't noticed, but he remembered upon taking a closer look.

After the selection battles ended, Kagami showed Ayato a list of the Seven Stars Battle Festival representatives for the year. The boy's face was on that list. Someone like him wouldn't go in without a plan.

Ayato couldn't remember his name, but he was a strong enough Blazer to make it to the Seven Stars. He wouldn't have shown up if he was going to be useless beyond spitting some cheap crime drama lines.

He must have had some way, some ability to subdue the man, and as long as Ayato didn't know what that ability was, it was possible that he would only get in the way if he wasn't careful. That was Ayato's analysis of both the boy and the situation. I'd best leave it to him, then.

"S-Somebody help meeeee!" Just as Ayato finished his thought, the blond boy looked up at the knife being swung down at him and held his head as he screamed.

He didn't have a plan?!

Shouting internally at the shock of the unexpected distress call, Ayato immediately took action. He wouldn't have made it in time if he ran, but because of the pandemonium the fleeing civilians created, items lay scattered all over the ground.

Among those items was a bottle of lipstick, which he kicked as hard as he could toward the man, hitting the knife in his hands with it.

"Ngh?!" The sudden impact caused the knife to fly out of his hands and fall to the ground. Meanwhile, Ayato broke into a sprint and put his fist square into the man's face.

"Gah?!" Blood gushed from the man's nose, drawing a parabola through the air as he fell onto his back and stopped moving. That single punch had knocked him unconscious. Anyone watching from the sidelines would have seen it as a splendid display of Ayato's skill & Power. Ayato himself, however, was panting frantically, cold sweat trailing down his back.

Th-That was close! He seriously didn't put even a little thought into what he was doing?! If not for Ayatohaving clocked the man, the boy would've been killed. He had been completely defenseless as the knife came down on him.

Fighting back might have been overkill, but he hadn't even tried to protect himself with his Blazer abilities. All he did was freeze and cower in fear at the sight of the blade; his rash actions were even more horrifying than the knifer's.

"Ayato!" "Haah… Stella! Could you call the police and tell them I've caught a knifer?"

"O-Okay! Got it!" With the late-arriving Stella contacting the police, Ayato turned back toward the boy, still sitting on the ground, ready to read him the riot act. The boy had only been trying to prevent a tragedy in his own way, however, so Ayato kept his complaints to himself and extended a hand.

"Are you hurt at all?" he asked.

"Oh, I'm okay. Thank you. You saved me." Relieved, the boy smiled and thanked Ayato as he took the outstretched hand.

"Huh?" Suddenly, as soon as he got a good look at Ayato, his eyes went wide.

"…Uh, is there something on my face?"

"Ahhh! A-Are you Ayato Kurozakuro?!"

"Huh? Yeah, what—"

"Wow! Wooow! It's the real Ayato!" The second Ayato confirmed his identity, the very excited-looking boy, having not so much as finished standing up, pulled him into a hug.

"Wh-Whoa!"

"H-Hey! What do you think you're doing, bub?!"

"I'm touched! I was already so eager to meet you, but here, of all places? How lucky can I get?!"

Ayato and Stella were equally confused by the abrupt embrace, but the boy, unmoved by their bewilderment, continued to express his excitement. He began hopping up and down like he'd been reunited with the best friend he'd lost contact with a decade prior, and beneath his long eyelashes, the tears threatening to spill from his bright-blue eyes betrayed his deep affection. He seemed truly, deeply happy to have met Ayato, but that made it all the more bizarre for the object of his affections.

Why would someone be so happy to meet me? he wondered.

"Who are—" Stella acted before Ayato could finish his question, Stella jumped into the fray. Completely forgetting about calling the police, she ran over and grabbed the shoulder of the pretty-faced boy who had been clinging to her boyfriend. She then forced him back and stood between the two, protecting Ayato.

"What's with you?!" she cried, glaring threateningly at the boy.

"You're wearing a boy's uniform, right? Are you gay or something? Because you're definitely acting like it!" The boy was surprised at being pried away from Ayato so suddenly, but he quickly realized that the perpetrator was Ayato's partner, Stella. It was easy for him to guess why she was so angry, so he offered an explanation and an introduction.

"Oh, sorry, Stella. And no, I'm not gay, I just got so excited about meeting Ayato for the first time. Nice to meet you. I'm Amane Shinomiya, a first-year student at Kyomon Academy. Like you two, I was picked as a Seven Stars rep… and I happen to be a huge fan of the Frozen Beast King!"

Returning to their original objective after the police had received reports of the knifer and came

to take him off of their hands, the trio entered a chain burger joint in the shopping district. The third wheel tagging along with Ayato and Stella was the boy who had introduced himself as Ayato's fan: Amane Shinomiya. He had offered to treat them to a meal as thanks for saving his skin.

"Mmm I've never been to this place before, but these fries are delicious. They're so greasy and salty that I might just find myself addicted to ruining my health."

"I like them too, once in a while. Are you sure you're okay with paying for this, though?" Ayato asked Amane, who sat across from him

"Definitely!" Amane responded, nodding emphatically with a cute, friendly smile.

"I owe you my life, Ayato, so a meal at McRonald's is just a pittance." By no means was "owe you my life" an exaggeration. Amane would have been killed if Ayato hadn't stepped in. From his point of view, a meal to repay Ayato was the very least he could do, to stop himself from feeling awful about what had happened.

"…Then I gladly accept." Catching on to that much, Ayato accepted Amane's goodwill as he unwrapped his burger and stuffed his face. The taste of it was so stimulating, yet still comforting. His and Stella's standard meal plan was mostly based on dietary science, so he rarely got to taste greasier food.

"So, you said your name was Shinomiya, right?" Having already finished her own burger long ago, Stella suddenly addressed Amane while picking at the fries scattered about her tray.

"You can just call me Amane. We're in the same grade, after all. Besides, I should be the one addressing the princess respectfully; it feels weird the other way around."

"'Amane' it is, then. So, you're one of Kyomon's representatives?"

"Yep, that's right." "I haven't seen you at the training camp. Where have you been?"

"Oh, I just wasn't taking part in the training camp. I only just came out to this area today, so it's no surprise you haven't seen me."

"I see. Does that mean you're going to participate soon?"

"Nope. Soon as I bring some supplies to my upperclassmen at the camp, I'll be going right back home."

"That's a shame. You came all this way, so you might as well try it out for a while."

"Ahaha. Well, unlike you and them, Stella, I'm not all that interested in the Seven Stars. I'm really weak, and I don't know any martial arts, so there's no point in someone as useless as me taking part. I was only chosen because I happen to have a rare ability."

He didn't care about the Seven Stars, but he was chosen anyway. It wasn't a rare situation for schools that didn't use Hagun's and Bukyoku's systems, which involved real battle. Amane probably wasn't just being humble, either.

"So the reason you noticed the knifer was because of your rare ability?" Ayato asked, joining the conversation.

"What makes you think that?" Amane answered with a question of his own, tilting his head with his small neck.

"Just the process of elimination. Judging from your reaction when the knifer was about to attack you, it's clear that you don't know martial arts. But despite that, you reacted abnormally fast—so fast that it would be impossible for someone who hadn't trained themselves incessantly to do what you did. If that wasn't the result of martial arts training, then I figured the only other possibility was a Blazer ability."

"Wow, Ayato. The rumors about your insight definitely weren't wrong if you could figure me out from just that." A look of surprise spread across Amane's face after hearing Ayato's train of thought. Frozen Beast King's incredible insightfulness was sometimes said to be akin to an all-seeing eye, and Amane seemed happy to have caught a glimpse of it firsthand, as he spoke with wonder in his voice.

"But I can't tell you what my ability is. My teacher told me I can't tell students from other schools about it. Sorry."

"Oh, well, I don't mind. We're representatives too, so we get it." The enemy knowing his ability could only be a bad thing, and Ayato had no intention of pressing him on it.

"But Amane, if your ability isn't useful for subduing an enemy, I'd suggest maybe being more careful next time. It's your own life that's at risk, after all." Ayato looked Amane in the eyes as he told the harsh truth, to which Amane nodded, dejected at Ayato's sternness.

"Y-Yeah, you're right… I got so frightened that I completely forgot about protecting myself with magic. If you hadn't been there with me, Ayato, who knows what would've happened? I really was lucky. But…"

"'But'?"

"Thanks to that, I got to see you, my hero, in the flesh! Maybe I actually made all the right moves I'm serious, man, you were like an actual superhero out there!"

Amane quickly transitioned from being regretful to grinning effeminately. Ayato felt his head start to ache, faced with the thoughtlessly optimistic boy. W-Well, at least he's not a bad guy.

"Oh, hey." Amane seemed to suddenly remember something, reaching into his bag.

"You see, I actually knew in advance that Hagun was coming to Kyomon's training camp. I got a little excited when I thought that I might actually get to meet you, and, um, I brought an autograph card with me. Would you, maybe… let me have your autograph?!

His eyes sparkled with excitement as he presented a gaudy-looking autograph card, ready to be signed. "Huh? Y-You want me to sign this?"

"Yes! Do you mind?"

"Well, I don't not mind, but…" Ayato was unsure of how to respond. His first fight with Stella had made him pretty popular at Hagun, so it wasn't like he'd never been asked for handshakes or autographs before, but nobody had ever brought him something that solely existed to be autographed. "I don't think a signature like mine should go on something so nice…" Ayato, a middle-class-High Class student, was starting to lose his nerve. It felt wrong for him to sign such a thing, like it was something only entertainers were meant to do. While Ayato was busy making excuses, Stella chimed in with her own opinion.

"Who cares? Why not just write your name there?"

"But Stella…"

"This guy really looks up to you. There's nothing wrong with showing him a little appreciation, is there? Besides, the one who decides the value of your autograph is the one receiving it, not you."

"Ugh…" She was right. At the very least, Amane believed Ayato's autograph was worth having; otherwise, he wouldn't have asked for it. It would be wrong for Ayato to force his own sense of value on him. Thus, Ayato agreed to Amane's request.

"But I really can't do much better than just writing my name. Are you okay with that?"

"I don't mind one bit!" Once he had confirmed with Amane one last time, Ayato wrote his full name on the card. It couldn't really be called an autograph, but it was his name. "Wooow! Thank you, Ayato! I'm gonna frame this and treasure it for the rest of my life!"

Taking the signed autograph card, Amane nearly jumped for joy as he hugged it. Ayato chuckled at him, whose joy was similar to that of a child who had just been given the toy he'd always wanted.

He's going to have my name hanging on his wall forever?

Maybe Ayato should have been proud that he'd earned the admiration of at least one person, but being treated in such a manner was too much for him, causing sweat to form on his brow. Before he'd met Stella, he'd lived a life in which praise and respect seemed like such distant concepts. That was why—to an extent, at least—maybe the deep discomfort he felt was natural. But someone else had feelings very much unlike Ayato's.

"You really do have a thing for Ayato, don't you, Amane? Out of curiosity, what exactly is it about him that made you like him so much?" Stella's feelings were very unlike Ayato's. The question she asked Amane centered the topic of conversation even more squarely on him. "

I like how he fights, and stuff. Using just his sword & Cryo Powers to cut through one powerful foe after another was really cool and stylish!"

"Wait, weren't videos of the selection battles supposed to be banned from being shared?"

"They're supposed to be, but there are heroes out there in every school who upload the videos for the rest of us. Bukyoku and Hagun make up almost all of the videos, seeing as they're always fighting in front of big crowds.

That's how I've been able to watch all your fights from start to finish, Ayato!

I downloaded them onto my student handbook, and they're all on my heavy rotation with hundreds of views apiece! I even remember all of your lines! 'I'll use my greatest Strength to shatter your indomitable strength!'"

"Bah!"

Watching as his words and facial expression from his fight with Raikiri were replicated before him, it took everything Ayatohad to stop the ginger ale he'd just drank from spewing out of his nose.

"Your catchphrase really gets me tingling! Oh, but I think I like the version from when you fought The Hunter more."

"H-Hey, how about we change the subject? C'mon, let's talk about something else! Okay?!"

"'I'll use my greatest strength to take hold of your greatest strength!'"

"Aaahhhhh!"

"See, instead of shattering The Hunter, you took hold of him! It really packs a punch!" "W-Would you cut it out?! I was just getting in the mood! When I'm in a battle, I just have to get in the mood, okay?! Please, just make it stop!" Unable to take the embarrassment any longer, Ayato, his face so red that it looked like he'd spit fire at any moment, clung to Amane and pleaded with him.

"Aww, why?" Amane asked, seemingly disappointed by Ayato putting a stop to his fun. "I thought it was really cool. Right, Stella?"

"Y-Yeah, totally. Mm-hmm. Ayato's sooo cool… Pfft!" Stella, roped into the discussion, had to hold back her laughter, tears in her eyes.

"Stella, look me in the eye and say that again."

"Hnnngh!" She immediately looked away, but Ayato understood how she felt, so he couldn't really complain. Somehow, he had said those lines without the slightest bit of shame. The heat of the moment was truly a powerful thing.

"You're cool when you're fighting, but…"

Ayato's fan, speaking highly of Ayato's charm, conveniently ignored how he squirmed when reminded of his own words and actions.

"I think you're even cooler when you're just about to head into battle."

"When he's about to head into battle? What's that mean?" "Right, so, it might be rude of me to say this, but Ayato really got the long end of the stick when it comes to strength as a Blazer. At the very least, he's definitely blessed with talent but can't fully control it . Even so, he's never complained about it even once. No matter how strong his opponent, no matter how much more blessed they are, he fights them with pride. The way he believes in his self-worth of controlling his powers as a Generation like that is just so incredible to me."

Amane declared just what had drawn him to Ayato in the first place, his confession spurring more surprise than embarrassment within Ayato.

He really is watching me carefully. Believing in his own self-worth of Controlling his powers. That was, in fact, the very truth within Ayato each time he headed out into battle.

"Ahaha. It is kinda embarrassing to say this to you in person. I can feel my cheeks burning up."

"…Trust me, it's worse for me."

"Haha! Sorry." Amane laughed it off and stood from his seat. "Well, I'd better get going."

"Hm? You're going to the campground, right? Let's go together."

"If I tried to keep pace with you guys on your daily run, I'd do more than just vomit up my food." Amane declined Stella's offer, also bringing up the fact that he hadn't yet done the shopping for his schoolmates. Before he left, he turned to Ayato again and pledged his support with a smile.

"Thanks for the autograph, Ayato. I'm always rooting for you to make it through every difficulty and stand at the top of the Seven Stars!"

It was quite strange to Ayato that he was being supported by someone whom he might end up fighting against during the Seven Stars. Considering how affable the boy was, though,Ayato saw no reason to mention that. He's honestly supporting me, so I'd better live up to that.

Ayato smiled and went to thank him for his encouragement, but in that moment, a strange feeling welled up within him, leaving him speechless. H-Huh?

"Ayato…?"

"…Oh, uh, yeah. I'll do my best. Thanks."

After a moment's silence, he finally squeezed out an answer.

"Well, later!"

Amane put on a dubious expression in response to the sudden silence, but Ayato's reply must have satisfied him, as he grinned slightly and left the building.

After Amane left, Stella was all smiles while she enjoyed his leftover fries. "Heheh. Looks like you're good enough to make fans even outside the school now. It's pretty crazy, considering where you started."

"Yeah," Ayato responded with a slight nod.

"So, Amane had a total crush on you." "You seem surprisingly happy about that, Stella."

"Yep, I am happy. Not just because people are finally seeing how strong the guy who beat me is, either. More than that, Amane wasn't focused on just your obvious strength.

Instead, he had his eyes on one of the reasons I fell in love with you. That's what made me happy. I doubt you mind yourself, do you, Ayato? It's rare to have someone really 'get' you and want to support you all the more for it."

"Yeah, you're right. I shouldn't mind it."

"Ikki?" Stella noticed the way Ayato's voice had faltered, and looked up from the food to his face. He had turned to look at the doorway Amane had left through, wearing a strained expression, though perhaps "strained" wasn't the right word. Sweat was visibly forming on his face, even in the air-conditioned restaurant.

"What's wrong, Ayato? You're sweating so much."

"Hey, Stella?" Ignoring Stella's question, Ayato asked his own. "What kind of person did Amane look like to you?"

"What kind? Well, he seemed nice, he had a cute face, and most of all, he seemed like he was really paying attention to you. I'd say he seems like a pretty good guy."

"Yeah, maybe… You're probably right…" Stella's answer prompted a groan from Ayato, accompanied by a furrowed brow. Of course. There's nothing to dislike about him. Still, though, I just didn't get a likable impression from him. Amane Shinomiya. His adorable, girly looks, his kindness in risking his life to stand up to the knifer, even if he couldn't avert tragedy alone, and above all, his admiration and respect for Ayato.

They were all reasons to like him. He should have been likable. Nevertheless, Ayato realized something was wrong when Amane had turned to offer his encouragement and thanks as he left. It took Ayato a surprising amount of effort to force a smile onto his face.

Amane's words, his expression, his puppy-like affection—it would all normally have been likable. Everything about Amane that Ayato thought to be likable had actually failed to resonate within him. What did it all mean?

Not even Ayato understood why he wasn't able to muster up a single ounce of affection for the boy.

The indescribable, uncanny feeling created by that lack of understanding adhered to and weighed on Ayato's heart like tar.

He couldn't take his mind off of just how eerie it was, so he opened his student handbook and made a call.

"Hellooo?" The call was answered immediately. "I don't usually get calls from you, Ayato. Something wrong?"

"Hey, Kagami. Is now a good time? There's something I want to ask you."

"Sure, I've got time. I'm just having a little tea party with Alice and the others. So, what did you wanna know?"

"Do you happen to investigate knights from schools other than Hagun?"

"Of course I do. I've taken a close look at every other school's representatives, more or less."

"Then do you know what Amane Shinomiya from Kyomon is like?"

"What is he like? That's a vague question if I've ever heard one."

"Yeah, guess you're right. Hmm…" Ayato realized that his question was certainly too vague for her to answer, but what sort of knowledge about Amane would possibly help to soothe his unease? Unsure of exactly what he was looking for, Ayato labored over the question for a while.

"Well, it's not a big deal," Kagami told him after hypothesizing that he wasn't sure how to proceed. "Everything I know about Shinomiya is just as vague."

"Really?"

"There's not much info on him. He didn't even join his middle school leagues. What I do know, though, is that his Blazer ability is one of the rare types that can manipulate cause and effect; that's why he was chosen as a representative. Actually, there are a lot of people like him—no-name first-years who didn't fight in middle school—suddenly being picked as representatives this year.

My only real impression of him was that he was one of those people. But now that you ask about him, I'm pretty interested too. Did something happen between you two?" Ayato didn't know whether to mention his discomfort. After all, not even he was sure exactly why he had that problem. He didn't want to speak poorly of others without good reason, and most of all, he didn't even have the words to express the bad feeling he got from the boy.

"Oh, no. I just happened to run into him while I was out on a run, and I got curious about what he's like," Ayato fibbed.

"Huh. I didn't think he was at the training camp. Why's he here in Yamagata?"

"Apparently, he was doing some shopping for his upperclassmen."

"Maybe I oughta ambush him and get an interview. Heheh."

"Ahaha… Well, don't work too hard. Sorry for the random call."

"No prob! I'm sorry I couldn't help you out more. If I learn anything juicy, I'll come to you first!"

"Cool, thank you. Bye." After thanking Kagami, Ayato hung up, unable to get any useful information. If even Kagami's sharp ears had heard nothing of Amane, then there really must have been no info on him.

"You're probably overthinking this. I bet you two just don't mix or something. One of you killed the other in a past life, or stole their wife, or maybe even both!"

"You really think so?"

"Some people just don't get along with each other. It happens all the time."

"…Yeah, you're right. It's probably something like that."

"Some people just don't get along with each other." Ayato wasn't sure something so simple would be enough to assuage his fears. Even so, given that he couldn't adequately explain the reason he felt the way he did, there was little he could do but to agree and give up on it.

Despite how Ayato tried to convince himself that he agreed with Stella, his words rang false; he couldn't wash away the unease that clung to his heart. An ill omen took over his mind, an awful foreboding for the future. Continuing to stare at the entrance of the restaurant, Ayato's sole thought was that he may have just run into something horrifying beyond words.

...

The faint rays of the sun began to rise over the snowy horizon as Alice started on her way home, having just finished a job she'd received from her hometown's mafia. Because of the time of year, the temperature at dawn was lethal, but even in the air so chilly it felt like needles against the skin, the warm scarf knitted by her little sister was comforting.

"Heya, Alice," a voice from above suddenly called out to her.

She looked up to the top of a nearby wall to see a familiar redhead walking along it. She chuckled to herself, thinking that the girl was much like a cat.

"Hi there, Yuuri. It's not every day that we get to walk home together."

"Yeah." Yuuri hopped off of the seven-foot-high wall, landing next to Alice. Then, she held her shoulders as she shivered.

"Ugh, so cold. That scarf must be really warm."

"Haha. Are you jealous?" Alice responded, flaunting the scarf ostentatiously after Yuuri shot her a greedy look.

"Here, let me try it on."

"Absolutely not. You'll just get it dirty."

"Wow. No one'll ever date you if you're just gonna let them freeze to death, you know."

"And you can't be girly only when it's convenient for you. But…" Alice moved closer to Yuuri and unwrapped her scarf a little, enveloping Yuuri's neck with it as well.

"There. Now we can both use it."

"H-Hey, this is kinda weird…"

"Don't worry about it. We'll be warmer this way."

Yuuri's face blushed red, a seldom-seen feminine reaction from her, and Alice grinned at her mischievously. The two walked together like that along the still empty city's new street. Along the way, they talked about the rite of passage they attempted before they left for work.

"If those two feel ready to be adults now, they must have grown so much."

"It's been two whole years since we took them in," Yuuri reminded Alice.

"But they're still kids. When we were their age, we were a whole lot tougher."

"…I'd rather not think about that," Alice replied, her expression having soured. "Rude. I've still got this scar from when you stabbed me."

"I've got one to match, too. The whole reason I'm under you now is because I lost to you. Don't start acting like you're the victim here." Pouting, Alice reminisced about the past. Both she and Yuuri were orphaned Blazers. Because of their powers, it had taken a fair amount of time and bloodshed for their relationship to settle into what it was. The number of times they'd nearly killed each other over a little bit of food or a bed was too large to count on one hand.

But the two of them eventually tired of that fruitless existence in which they stole from others for their benefit alone. At the end of those wasted days, they exchanged a promise as they drank liquor together: "With how strong we are, we can protect so many other kids. Instead of using our powers to steal, we'll use them to give love to others. That's the kind of 'cool adults' we'll be."

With renewed determination, the two lived their lives in accordance with the vow they swore on the liquor. They took powerless orphans into their gang and looked after them.

"Come to think of it," Alice continued, "we nearly killed each other on this road once." "Yeah. This place is a lot cleaner than it was when we were kids, though." Back when they'd fought, the cobblestone road they walked had been in such poor condition—so broken and gouged out in places—that not even cars were able to traverse it safely. Pedestrians were unsafe as well; any clueless travelers who happened to wander into the area were stripped of their possessions in mere seconds.

That dilapidated road had since been repaved with pristine white stones. The buildings that lined it had been repainted as well. Such renovations were made for reasons related to the posters that lined the walls all over, displaying five overlapping rings.

"It's a huge event. People come from all over the world, so I guess they don't want people seeing an ugly place."

"An 'ugly place', huh?"

"The government came again, didn't they?" Alice asked, having quickly gathered what Yuuri's meaningful whisper meant.

"Yeah. Yesterday." Though she and the others were impoverished, Alice loved life. A modest lifestyle didn't matter to her as long as she could be with all her friends. With the Olympics approaching and enthusiasm mounting, however, a shadow extended over their lives. The government began hunting the homeless.

As a country and as a city, they didn't want the world to see something so ugly. Under that pretense, they began chasing homeless and street children out of the towns closest to where the event would be held.

Despite that, the hunted weren't offered protection; they were merely beaten with sticks, kicked while they were down, and chased away like rodents. Alice's gang was, naturally, not exempt from the hunters' chase.

"Those jerks," Yuuri complained. "They said only you and I could be taken in. Just 'cause we have powers."

"That's not happening." "Right. Without us, what would happen to Annie and the others? The Sister is on our side too, so she told them to go eat dirt. I seriously can't stand those government jerks." "Well, we're an eyesore to them. They don't want us begging when there are spectators here." They may not have been welcome, but Alice's gang wasn't ready to leave just because someone had told them to.

Being forced into a place that they knew nothing about during such an intense burst of cold weather would be tantamount to a death sentence. "If Annie and the others could at least be taken into an orphanage, we'd be free to leave. The two of us can live anywhere we need to."

"That would be tough. If it were that easy to find a caregiver, the streets wouldn't be full of kids like us." Alice was right. The street children population was a problem the nation as a whole was faced with; they couldn't all be taken care of.

No, perhaps they could have been, but no administrative action was taken to do so. The government was too busy building useless roads and empty museums to care for street children. The children had to live using only their own power, and if they wanted to survive, they couldn't be chased out during the cold season.

"I think our time is coming soon," Alice whispered.

"…Yeah." Yuuri nodded slightly.

"We've asked too much of the Sister already. It'd be wrong to keep burdening her." The nun was a good person, letting the kids take shelter in her storage shed. For so long, she had used her own paltry cash flow—she only owned a church in the slums, where money was scarce—to give the children soup. In their short lives, not yet even ten years long, she was the kindest person they'd ever met, but that made it all the worse for them as they watched her be yelled at and subjected to the city government's abuses. The children couldn't bear the sight.

"That's it, then!" Suddenly, Yuuri jabbed a finger in the direction of the distant rising sun. "Alice. When winter ends and things get a little warmer, we're all leaving this city. I'm tired of cold places, so I say go south." You're pointing east, though. Choosing not to correct her, Alice merely nodded. Yuuri was probably just pointing in the direction that seemed the warmest.

"…Sure. Let's do it. We'll find a warmer city." Alice had actually been waiting for the right time to suggest that they move to a warmer city. The little siblings they looked after were bigger and stronger now, so if they could survive the winter, they would be able to travel a greater distance. "Watch out, equator! We're coming for you!"

"This is our first move, so maybe aim a little closer," Alice sighed, though her expression showed no dissatisfaction. Her dreams were filled with thoughts of a warm spring journey, along with the hope that everyone would be able to live more easily in a new, warmer city in the south. Those dreams, however, would never be realized.

They would be set upon by abrupt tragedy, their happiness so easily wrenched from their hands. Not even Alice's modest happiness was safe. Suddenly, a single black car passed next to Alice and Yuuri. An old man sitting inside the back of that car spoke to the driver, his secretary.

"Reconstruction isn't progressing much here, I see."

"Hmm? I think it's just fine," the secretary replied. "The main road just had its tiles almost completely redone, and the wall repainting is approaching completion as well."

"I saw filth hiding in the corner just a moment ago."

"You mean street children?" "Even if you cover the place in Persian rugs, having filthy children like them around will sully the whole thing. If there are beggars running around during the Olympics, it'll hurt the city's reputation."

"But street children are a nationwide problem. I'm not sure we alone can do that. Not to mention that Yuuri's gang, the one that controls this area, is made up of nothing but small children. Its leaders are both Blazers, too, so there are some issues with mere officials like us laying our hands on them…"

"Coward! What do you have to fear from two mere children?!" "Shall we have the police force them to leave?"

"Don't be silly. The chief of police is aiming for the mayorship in the next election. If I ordered him to do that, he'd be more than happy to call it inhumane and use it as a negative campaign against me."

"What would you have me do, then?" the secretary replied to his boss, who spoke with flippant disregard for the suffering in the area, with a bored tone.

"Send garbage to take out the garbage, of course," the boss replied nonchalantly, as though he were demanding his morning coffee. "It'll save us the trouble."

On the second-to-last night of Kyomon and Hagun's joint training camp, the weather was, unfortunately, rainy. It wasn't strong enough to be considered a storm, but large raindrops were loudly smacking against the windows.

Enjoying the pleasant background noise, Kagami Kusakabe of Hagun's newspaper club inhabited a room in the facility the campground lent to them, organizing all of the materials she'd gathered during the training camp. The documents scattered under the light of a small desk lamp were both the notes she'd taken during the trip and student information that had been traded between the schools. On her laptop screen was information about other schools' training camps, gathered by their respective newspaper clubs.

The amount of information available to Kagami gave her a bird's-eye view of all seven schools' trends and strengths. All her hard work was for the sake of a special issue of the Hagun Academy Bulletin that was to be published before the Seven Stars, and during the course of her work, she made a discovery. The impetus for that discovery was a phone call from Ayato Kurogane, who had expressed interest in Amane Shinomiya.

With so many first-year representatives who never joined their middle school leagues and those reps' lack of publicly known Blazer abilities, Amane Shinomiya was even less of a stand-out. Furthermore, to Kagami, Amane wasn't the kind of knight to stand out as more than just another nameless rookie. He wasn't someone who spurred her into further investigation by inspiring greater interest within her. There were many other representatives worth focusing on, such as the Gale Sword Emperor, Ouma Kurogane, the Crimson Princess, Stella Vermillion, and the current Seven Stars King, Yuudai Moroboshi.

Still, Ayato's phone call had sown the seeds of interest somewhere in the corner of Kagami's mind. That was why, as she organized her information from the seven schools, Kagami decided to indulge in her interest on a whim. The result: Kagami was left completely aghast.

"What… the…? What's with this kid?" The mountains of northeast Japan were cool even in the summer, but that didn't stop a cold sweat from creeping down Kagami's back. Her eyes were fixed on Amane Shinomiya's first semester grades, which she had worked very hard to obtain.

There, the records of his class-sanctioned mock battles were written. Six wins in six battles—each one a victory by default. Kagami had seen the battle records of a great many students, but never had she seen one so eerie.

Speaking of things I've never seen before, there's never been a Seven Stars with so many nameless freshmen participating. It's almost like someone's trying to gather all sorts of unknown knights together. Perhaps because she'd seen Amane's bizarre results, Kagami cast her mind back to something she hadn't thought much of before, realizing just how unnatural it was. Was it mere luck?

She had thought as much before, but was such a thing even possible? In the modern world, if one was strong, they'd catch everyone's attention whether they wanted to or not. How could so many first-year students have been strong enough to be chosen as representatives without a single one of them having attracted attention in the past?

"…Ah." Kagami came to the sudden realization that she was in the process of stumbling upon something huge. To make matters worse, it was something far too outrageous for a student like her to tackle alone.

That doesn't mean I can just ignore this, though. She had to pursue her discovery; that was what it meant to be a journalist. As such, Kagami scoured every last one of her notes in pursuit of solving the mystery that was the unknown students. All the information about the seven schools' representatives, the members of their boards of directors and the Seven Stars Battle Festival's management committee, and even the list of sponsors who cooperated with the management committee.

Utilizing her boundless information on all the cogs in the Seven Stars machine, Kagami Kusakabe finally, in the dead of night, after several consecutive hours of scouring, reached a conclusion. Her extreme prowess as a journalist, finely honed over time, allowed her to arrive at a truth that was meant to be unknown to her. As she looked over her lists of participants—documents with the names of students from all seven schools—at length, Kagami finally, indubitably cracked the code.

"There's… an eighth school!" she cried

. "…Huh?" A burning heat immediately pierced Kagami's back. Still looking down toward her files, she watched as a dark grey blade sprouted from her chest. Kagami knew the shape and color of this blade, as it dimly reflected the light of her desk lamp. I… knew it… The dagger-like Device that had stabbed through her back was Darkness Hermit. The owner of that Device was…

"A…lice?"

"…"

Straining the last of her energy, Kagami looked behind her. There, she saw the face of her classmate and friend, colder than she'd ever seen it before. Nagi Alisuin's lips then parted, and she spoke in a corpse-like voice that harbored not even a shred of emotion.

"You were too clever for your own good."

After that, there was an audible squelching noise as the blade was removed from Kagami. No longer supported by the dagger, she fell forward, landing in the mountain of documents.

No… She tried to get up and run, but she didn't have the strength to move a muscle. The fatal wound caused by Alice's Phantom Form weapon mercilessly stole away Kagami's consciousness, forcing her to black out.

Ayato… Stella… Be careful. This year's Festival… is teeming with monsters! Unable to even scream, Kagami Kusakabe prayed that perhaps at least her thoughts could be communicated to her friends, then fell completely unconscious.

Alice crouched down to inspect Kagami's fallen body. She had definitely fainted, and considering the circumstances, it would take at least a full day for her to awaken.

"What a shame. If you were just a little bit dumber, Kagamin, we would have still been friends for a few more hours."

Kagami's conclusion that there existed an eighth school was right on the money. Just as she had come to find, the upcoming Seven Stars Battle Festival was under the influence of some power working from the shadows—a power calling itself Akatsuki Academy.

A newly created school sponsored by a major organization, Akatsuki Academy existed for the sole purpose of causing the collapse of the Festival. There were only seven students enrolled, but almost all of them were elite members of the international terrorist organization known as the Rebellion. Akatsuki Academy's seven students had infiltrated the other seven existing schools, each of them securing their place in the Festival.

By conquering the Seven Stars Battle Festival with an external force unrecognized by the International Mage-Knight Federation, they hoped to make a mockery of the event. Kagami deduced their existence, and as a result, she was dealt with.

"It's really such a shame."

As soon as she finished her sentence, the student handbook in Alice's pocket began to vibrate. She had been getting calls incessantly, but had chosen to ignore them in favor of watching Kagami from the shadows.

Alice removed the handbook, different from Hagun's, from her pocket. She knew who the caller was without even checking its display, as it only received calls from the one man who handled any and all communication between members of Akatsuki Academy: Reisen Hiraga, also known as Pierrot.

"Yes?"

"Oh, you finally picked up. And here I was starting to think you hated me enough to give me the cold shoulder."

"Why would you ever think I like you?"

"A scathing rebuke indeed."

Alice narrowed her eyelids, annoyed by the cackling coming from her handbook. Try as she might, she couldn't bring herself to feel anything but hatred toward the sound of his voice. It was calm and easy to understand, but it contained a thinly veiled frivolity that made it seem as though he was laughing at all the world.

"So, why didn't you pick up sooner?" Hiraga asked. "I ran into some trouble."

"Oh? What kind of trouble?"

"A girl from Hagun's newspaper club was starting to figure us out, so I decided to shut her up."

"…How much does she know?"

The voice on the other end of the line had taken on a slightly yet perceptibly more serious tone. In response, Alice picked up the last document that Kagami had looked at and began reading from it.

"Donrou Academy: Yui Tatara. Kyomon Academy: Amane Shinomiya. Rokuzon Academy: Sara Bloodlily. Bunkyoku Academy: Reisen Hiraga. Rentei Academy: Rinna Kazamatsuri. Bukyoku Academy: Ouma Kurogane. Hagun Academy: Nagi Alisuin. She knows enough that she's drawn stars next to the names I just gave you, which includes yours and mine."

"Well then."

"I wasn't told about any of the members other than you, The Liaison, and Ouma, The Guest, so I can't be sure whether or not this list is accurate. Seems that she's got a vague idea of who we are, though, so I silenced her for the time being. Tell me, was her list correct?"

"My sincerest apologies, but I can't divulge details about the other members at this point in time. It would create too much risk. That said, the Eve will be carried out tomorrow, so you'll get to know each other whether you're ready to or not. Save the introductions until then. Still, though, even if I don't tell you about the others, you know this girl got at least three out of seven names correct. How do you think she found out?"

"From what I can gather of these documents, it looks like she was probing into the pasts of each representative. All of us have fake backgrounds, barring The Guest, so I suppose the cracks would show through under close scrutiny."

"I see, I see. All a result of our forgers being clumsy, then. I'll be sure to press them on that later. But anyway, good job. You did exactly what was needed of you, which is just the reliability I'd expect from the Black Assassin. By the way, how did you dispose of the clever little rat?"

"I just knocked her out for the time being. Oh, but if you want me to kill her, I will." There wasn't an ounce of hesitation in Alice's voice despite the fact that they were supposedly friends just the day before. Her merciless, cutting voice was met with a flustered one from Hiraga on the other end of the line.

"Oh, heavens no! Covering up the murder would be too much trouble. Our Akatsuki Academy will be known to the world this evening one way or another; locking her away somewhere until then should be more than enough."

"That's fine. I was just poking a bit of fun, anyway. So, what business was so important that you had to call me about it?" Alice rushed Hiraga to get to the point, practically hissing her question. She hated him. There was no point in them chattering away idly.

"Oh, it's not me that has business with you. There's someone here who wants to chat. I'll put him on now," Hiraga said, then gave the phone to the "someone" he'd mentioned.

"It's me, Alice." That voice caused Alice's expression to stiffen. Though she couldn't see the person speaking to her, she knew who it was. She could never mistake that stern voice, as heavy as lead. "It's been a while, Master Wallenstein."

"That it has. I haven't seen you since you left for Japan." Sir Wallenstein, the One-Armed Sword Master. As one of the Numbers—one of the twelve strongest Apostles within the Rebellion—he noticed the orphaned Alice's strength and raised her to be the group's most effective killer, nicknamed the Black Assassin. "You're in Japan too, Master?"

"Of course. A supervisor has to be present on the scene." Wallenstein was already in Japan.

That fact made Alice tense up slightly, likely because she dreaded the man's strength. If he were a member of the MageKnight Federation, he would surely be a Rank A. There were no weaknesses in his offensive or defensive abilities, and he excelled at swordplay. He was, without a doubt, one of the strongest fighters in the Rebellion. Having someone like him present to lead them in person meant that the Rebellion's conspiracy against the Seven Stars Battle Festival was of the utmost importance. "Well then, Master, what business do you have with me today?" Keeping her greeting short, Alice got right to the point and asked Wallenstein why he had contacted her. In response, his stern voice answered her question with one of his own.

"Alice, you're the greatest of all the students I've taken under my wing. The mafia, cults, terrorists… Every time we've used assassination during territory disputes with other organizations, no matter how important the target was or how hard it was to get to them, you've gone above and beyond in your work. There may be little point in asking you this now, but you are aware of your role in this, yes?"

Alice remained silent for a moment. Then, she closed her eyes as if coming to terms with impending farewells and spoke resolutely.

"Yes, I'm well aware. To that end, I've taken no shortcuts in my preparation. I've built a high level of trust between myself and Hagun's strongest, so at the very least, my first move should go unopposed.

Furthermore, my Noble Art, Shadow Bind, has the ability to render an opponent unable to fight with a single strike. You have no reason to fear, Master; I will make the Eve a complete success. I swear it on my name as the Black Assassin."

"It soothes me to hear you say that," Wallenstein said encouragingly, the smile evident in his voice. "We're counting on you, Alice."

"Of course. I'll see it done," she answered, nodding. Leaving that exchange behind, Wallenstein ended the call. It was quite unusual for him to contact Alice, but perhaps it wasn't all that surprising.

The Eve was an order from the sponsor funding Rebellion. It was essentially a ceremony, a raising of Akatsuki Academy's flag before their conquering of the Seven Stars. No failure could be permitted. If they botched the job, all of Rebellion and its sponsor's machinations would go to waste.

Now then, Alice thought, I suppose my first duty is to clean up the mess in front of me. To carry out the Eve as planned, Alice first had to hide Kagami and all of her documents until at least the evening.

To do so, she transferred magic into her shadow, which began to gradually swallow the unconscious Kagami and her papers.

"Don't think badly of me," Alice said.

"I just can't have any extra uncertainties getting in the way of the execution of our plan." Just like that, every last bit of evidence was spirited away.

With Kagami and her findings hidden, Alice returned to the representatives' lodging. She made a beeline to her room and opened the door to find that the only light was coming from a small lamp. Within that light was Shizuku, lying in bed in her negligee and reading a small book.

"Welcome back, Alice."

"Oh. Still awake, Shizuku?"

"I was just about to go to sleep." Shizuku gently flipped a page of her book. There were very few pages left in it.

"What are you reading?"

"The Mother-in-Law's Guide: 108 Ways to Torment a Newly Married Woman." Alice found that rather scary, but Shizuku spoke again after a brief pause.

"… Leaving that aside, Alice, you've spent a lot of nights out partying recently."

Alice racked her brain, contemplating how best to respond. She had overheard Ayato and Kagami's phone calls, leading to long outings at night so she could keep watch on Kagami.

It was natural that Shizuku would be suspicious after several consecutive nights like that, especially on such a rainy one.

Shizuku was a very discerning girl, sensitive to the workings of others' hearts. Alice had to concoct a good lie, lest she see right through it.

"I'm not partying, silly. The Seven Stars is right around the corner. I have to make my own preparations, you know," Alice replied in a roundabout way to avoid both lying and being honest.

"Right." Shizuku continued to read, giving only a short, disinterested response. Given the situation, Alice was nothing if not grateful for Shizuku's general apathy toward others; what little interest and concern she had was directed at her brother, Ayato Kurozakuro.

I can't help but be jealous. Emotion welled up within Alice. The coming day would be her and Shizuku's last together.

Once Eve was over, she would distance herself from Hagun, never to return again.

"Hey, Shizuku? Mind joining me for a drink?" Entering the room, Alice pulled a dirty bottle of whiskey from her suitcase in the corner. To remember their last night together, she invited Shizuku to share a drink. Shizuku accepted the offer, slowly sitting up in her bed. She then turned her eyes toward the bottle that Alice held.

"Is that the drink we had when we went to the bar together that one time? The one that stunk like medicine?" Right. Alice recalled their trip. We went drinking to celebrate us winning our first selection battles.

In reality, "drinking" might not have been the right word to describe what Shizuku had done.

the strongest drink she'd had was a small sip of Alice's whiskey, and that alone had been enough to make her, teary-eyed from its medicine-like stench, down a whole glass of water as a chaser.

"Sorry, I forgot about that. Guess I'll just drink it myself—"

"No, it's fine," Shizuku said as she moved from her bed to the sofa.

"Are you sure? I thought you didn't like it."

"Just this once is fine. Today is a special day, after all."

"Special"?

Why? Did something happen? Despite her questions, Alice didn't particularly care about answers as long as she could drink with Shizuku. She got out two glasses, took a seat across from her friend, then poured the amber liquid into both glasses. Shizuku accepted the one offered to her and brought it to her nose.

"Ugh."

Her face immediately scrunched up in disgust. There was no way she would have gotten used to such a unique, pungent stench in such a short time.

"You're strange, Alice. There are so many other drinks out there, and most of them are easier to get down."

"Haha, maybe. But I don't think there would be any point if it were easy to drink."

"Why not?"

rsting into laughter. "What in the world? That's some interesting logic. It's cute, though." "You're absolutely right. But for us, kids who could drink this became fullfledged adults." "I guess that was like a rite of passage for you and your friends, then?"

"It wouldn't be wrong to see it that way." "Someone was a bad little girl. You weren't even of age yet, were you?"

"Well, my home didn't have any laws like that," Alice answered before drinking the whiskey in her glass. The biting, stimulating alcohol in her mouth, the stench of medicine that rose to her nasal cavity.

She was definitely drinking hard liquor. Incidentally, the brand she was drinking was so strong that it was controversial even among the whiskey-loving community.

"Honestly, even I still can't stand the taste of this."

"Why do you drink it so much, then?"

"It's like tasting my memories. But it's not often that I drink from this particular bottle."

"Hmm… Well, I don't have any memories like that. To me, it's just a crappy drink," Shizuku commented, then gulped down the contents of her glass all at once. After that, she made a sour face.

"Okay, yeah, I hate it. It hurts my throat, and I'm starting to get a headache from the smell of medicine on my breath."

"You didn't have to force yourself to drink it…" "I'm fine," Shizuku said, massaging her throat with her fingers. "Like I said, today's a special day."

"Special". There was that word again. Curious about what she meant, Alice decided to ask about it.

"You said that before, too. Why is today special? Did something good happen?"

"I'm not talking about me," Shizuku replied, shaking her head.

"It's a special day for you, right?" …Huh? Shizuku's claim caused Alice's heart to skip a beat. She was right; it was their last night together. Once the sun rose and set again, Alice would be known as a member of Akatsuki Academy. Shizuku shouldn't have known anything about that, though.

"What makes you think that?" Alice asked, shock visible on her face like a deer in headlights. "Because you've never invited me to do something with you before."

"Never? That can't be right. After Ayato fought The Hunter, we went drinking together, remember?"

"You were just thinking of me back then, because I was so worried about my big brother. You've never approached anyone, including me, for your own sake.

You speak so intimately with everyone, you act so motherly, and you're so approachable, but you never let anyone else do those things for you." Alice gulped inadvertently. As Shizuku had claimed,

she was intentionally acting that way. She was pleasant toward everyone, as friendly as could be, but she never opened up or allowed anyone to get unnecessarily close to her. It was all an act; she had infiltrated Hagun with ulterior motives.

At no point had she thought that someone had caught on to her behavior, but Shizuku had noticed, and it was honestly unexpected. "I'm surprised. You really pay attention to me, Shizuku."

"Duh. You're like a big sister to me, Alice." Shizuku acted like it was nothing while letting a smile spread across her porcelain doll-like face. "This is the first time you've ever said something to me for your own benefit. I don't know why, but today must be special for you, right?

Assuming it is, I'm more than happy to share a glass with you. But only one glass, okay? And next time, maybe bring a drink I can enjoy too." Shizuku poked her lip out like she was pouting. Her cute expression naturally made Alice relax a little.

"Heehee. Just one is plenty. Thank you, Shizuku."

Probably fatigued from her many long days at the training camp, Shizuku started dozing off on the sofa shortly after she chugged her first—and only— glass of whiskey. It didn't take long for her to fall fully asleep.

Come to think of it, she fell asleep back at the bar, too. Pondering if perhaps she was the kind of person who got drowsy when she drank, Alice lifted Shizuku off of the sofa, bridal-style.

It was the summer, so she wasn't likely to catch a cold from sleeping on the sofa, but it was still poor etiquette to let her sleep there. As such, Alice decided to carry her to her bed.

"Mmn… Big Brother…" Suddenly, Shizuku stirred in Alice's arms, talking quietly in her sleep.

"Heehee. I wonder what she's dreaming about."

"Stand aside, or I can't kill… Zzz…"

"Wh-What is she dreaming about?" Her face pale, Alice slowly lowered Shizuku down onto her bed, being careful not to wake her up. She then pulled a comforter over top of Shizuku, which prompted her to smile and curl up under it.

"She's so cute when she's asleep." Looking at Shizuku's adorable sleeping face, Alice sat on her own bed, next to her friend's. She then remembered the title she'd been given.

"'Like a big sister', huh?" Whispering to herself, she turned to look toward the sofa they were sitting on earlier. She gazed at the bottle of whiskey on the table, its label soiled and faded, as she cast her slightly lightheaded mind back, her memories a little hazy from the alcohol.

Memories connected to that bottle, from before she was picked up by Rebellion as an assassin. Memories of her final day in a foreign land, where she and her friend Yuuri raised street children who thought of her as their big sister.

※ ※ ※

She would never forget the freezing rain that morning. It wasn't quite snow, but it chilled the body even more than snow could. In that freezing rain, Alice opened a vinyl umbrella while facing a tall man.

That man was her Brigadier—her mafia group's captain. Alice handed the man the profits from her most recent job, from which he took fees and taxes.

He then returned her portion of the earnings. As an underling within the mafia, however, he was not one to keep promises.

"…Hey." She was given back far less money than she was supposed to receive. "You said I'd get twenty percent—" Alice's complaint was cut short by the man spitting on her face. He glared at her as though he was looking at garbage. "Don't bitch at me, brat. Be grateful we're even letting you do business on our turf," he said before walking away.

"Thbpt!" Once Alice had confirmed the man was gone, she blew a raspberry after him. We live in the same city, stupid, she thought as she wiped the spit from her face.

She then dug around in a pile of snow, hidden in the shade. There, she found a plastic container wrapped in pink cloth.

"Guess it's a little cold now." Inside the container was a meat pie, given to Alice by her client. If that man had known it was there, he definitely would've taken it too. To avoid that, Alice hid it before their meeting.

"It's been so long since we've had meat. Everyone's gonna love this." I'd better save some for the Sister too.

Oh, but she's leading a congregation today, so she'll be in the next town over. Alice hurried home, thinking of how she'd share the meal.

She just wanted to see everyone's smiling faces. When she arrived, however, she found that the door to the storage shed had been kicked in and left barely attached to the frame.

"…Huh?" Well-used to battle, she quickly came to the conclusion that some malicious party had attacked them.

"G-Guys?!" Alice screamed, dropping everything in her hands and dashing into the shed, but there was nobody inside. It was still very early in the morning; her little sisters shouldn't have woken up yet.

Even they were absent, however, having left only their dirty blankets behind. What in the world happened?! Where did everyone…

The moment Alice lifted one of the blankets, her breath was taken away by what was hidden underneath.

It was a bloodstain, still fresh enough that it hadn't dried. Upon further inspection, she found drops of blood leading out of the shed, in the direction of the main road.

They had been diluted by the rain, so much so that Alice wouldn't have noticed them at all if she hadn't discovered the horrid scene, but there was no question that they were there.

Alice leaped outside, in such a hurry that she tripped over herself as she followed the drops of blood.

She had an awful, terrifying feeling that manifested as cold sweat trickling down her back. Blood meant that someone had been hurt; possibly one of her friends.

It can't be!

Even with nothing to back her claim, she tried to convince herself that it was all a lie.

…Ah!

As she walked out into the street in front of the church—the opposite way from where she came—she found that the truth had no compassion for even a child's wish. A red-haired girl, her stomach soaked with fresh blood, was leaning weakly against a brick wall at the edge of the other side of the road. "Y-Yuuriii!" Alice screamed her name and ran to her side.

"Nh…" Yuuri reacted clearly to her voice. She slowly opened her eyes, gazing at Alice as she approached.

"Oh… You're safe, Alice… That's… one good thing, at least."

"What happened?! T-Tell me!"

In a mixture of pain and outrage, Yuuri's face distorted

. "I dunno. Sergey and his men attacked us outta nowhere… Said they were 'cleaning up the garbage'. Dammit… They took everyone with them. Cowards…"

"It was the mafia?! B-But why?! We paid all of their taxes!"

"Dunno… Gah! Ack!"

"Yuuri! D-Don't say anything else!" Each time she coughed, Yuuri spewed blood onto the black ice covering the ground. Talking would only make things worse; Yuuri had to see a doctor. Fortunately, the road was reasonably busy, so people walking along had taken notice of what was happening.

"Excuse me! Somebody, please get a doctor!" She screamed in hopes of someone listening. Much to her dismay, however, the people who'd been watching the spectacle unfold all turned to look away from Alice and Yuuri. They then rushed to leave the scene, as if they hadn't heard a word she'd said.

"P-Please! At least let me borrow a phone! I'll even pay you!" Alice continued to beg, but they all continued to ignore her.

Though they had watched with great interest as the girl bled out, more than anything else, Alice's voice seemed to scare them away as they separated themselves from the spectacle. It was as if all of them were trying to avoid the inconvenience of dealing with it. The sight was unbelievably cruel. Huh? Wh-Why…? She's bleeding so badly, and everyone's just…

"Hey! You all have ears, right?! My friend is dying!"

"It's not gonna work…" Yuuri struggled to speak in response to Alice's heartrending cries.

"Nobody's… gonna help out. There's no one out there who'd help street children like us… You already know that."

"Ah…" Alice was well aware that Yuuri was right. They were abandoned children, with no relatives or money. There was nothing to gain from helping them, and the onlookers knew as much.

"But we're different, right?"

"Huh…?"

"We're different from them… We're cool adults…! Right?" Alice opened her eyes wide. "Cool adults". Those silly words held their shared vow and discipline. The day Alice and Yuuri first banded together, they made a promise over that liquor. They would cease living their lives

thinking only of themselves; instead, they would help others, love others, the way cool adults were supposed to.

"Yeah. Of course we are! But why does that matter now?" Yuuri didn't respond to Alice's question right away. She simply looked at her in silence for a while.

"Then you have to… go help them…" When she finally spoke, her words suggested that she wouldn't be there to help. Alice, feeling an awful, uncomfortable foreboding, seized Yuuri by the shoulders.

"Wh-What are you saying?! Get real! You know I can't do that all by myself! You beat me, Yuuri!"

"Hehe… Yeah, right… We've been together long enough now… I always knew that you were… holding back so that you wouldn't kill me."

"Gh…!"

"With your strength… I know you can protect them."

"Shut up! I don't wanna hear your excuses!" Tears poured from Alice's eyes as she screamed, while Yuuri merely gazed at Alice with a vacant look in her eyes.

"Please… Alice…" Finally, Yuuri closed her eyes, as if falling into a deep sleep. All the strength seemed to leave her body at once.

"…Yuuri? H-Hey, come on. Answer me, will you?" She shook Yuuri's shoulders and raised her voice, but Yuuri never awoke, never opened her eyes.

"You can't do this to me, Yuuri. We can't just sit here. We just promised each other we'd go south… remember…?"

Alice continued to plead, tears dropping from her cheeks. Of course, Yuuri did not answer; Alice knew that she would never wake up again. It wasn't the first time Alice had seen such a thing happen, and it wouldn't be the last. Death was common in her city, but she still didn't want to accept it. She didn't want to recognize that even the place she tried so hard to protect had been so thoroughly stomped down. The truth was too painful to accept, but time paid no heed to her wishes in its endless, merciless march forward. "Ooh, looky here, boys! Alice is back!"

"Good. Go capture the twerp. That one's worth twenty of them other little shits, though, so make damn sure you don't get that cute little face scratched up." Rough voices were accompanied by footsteps behind Alice. She turned to find that the same mafia members that she associated with were now approaching her, guns and Devices in hand. Before she knew it, they had surrounded her, brandishing their respective weapons.

"Why did you do this?" she asked, the light gone from her apathetic eyes.

"We never missed a payment."

"Hehe. Well, we got an order from some bigwig government guy to clean up the city. They paid us so much, it makes the money you scrounge up for us till now look like chump change. And since they even offered us a bonus to sell you out, what reason did we have to not betray you?"

"It's eat or be eaten in the world of adults, kids.

Give up, and don't even think about resisting. That is, unless you wanna end up like that dipshit over there." One of the men reached out to take Alice by the hair and drag her off. She glared at his arm as it approached and began to think.

"Eat or be eaten", huh? I suppose so. The men surrounding her had been alive much longer than she and her friends. Their claim was correct; if it wasn't, tragedies like the one that had just befallen her wouldn't happen. Society wasn't the one in the wrong. What happened was neither illogical nor unfair.

The philosophy of becoming "cool adults" was mistaken. That ideal had manipulated the children and led them to their downfall.

It was all too clear, to the point that Alice had become painfully aware of the truth. I'll steal everything from you monsters, she decided, just like you stole everything from me. Right as the man's hand finally took hold of her hair, her vision was dyed red with the flames of rage.

"Ah… Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!"

Everything was over in an instant. When color returned to the world, Alice was inside the mafia's hideout, in a room that seemed as though it had been splashed all over with buckets of red paint.

She was atop a pile of human carcasses that resembled minced meat. Standing stock-still, she was covered from head to toe in blood and bathing in the steam that rose from the scattered entrails. With the color returned to her, she saw the corner of the room. There, her younger siblings trembled in fear, their teeth chattering audibly.

"E-Eep…"

"P-Please, d-don't kill us…"

"W-Wahhh…"

Their small eyes, clouded by a jumble of fright and despair, were pointed directly at Alice. The reverence they once held for her was nowhere to be seen. Not even a shadow remained of their smiles, which had once warmed her heart. The moment she saw her siblings, Alice knew once and for all that she had both protected them and lost them forever.

※ ※ ※

When she came to her senses, Alice was alone in the rain with her umbrella collapsed, walking aimlessly like a wandering soul. She was soaked from head to toe, but she hardly noticed. It would have been silly for her to care about water when she was already drenched in the blood of her victims.

Occasionally, passersby would gawk in wide-eyed shock at her bloodstained figure, but they would quickly avert their eyes and move away. It didn't affect their lives if an orphan was covered in blood or even near-dead.

She had stopped being angry about it, and she experienced neither sadness nor frustration. Every emotion had left her body as the tears that had since run dry, but she decided that was for the best.

Her dear friend's last moments as she lay dying in her arms, and how her siblings had all looked at her with such intense fear—the pain of losing those she loved and was loved by—were still fresh in her mind. She was happy to be rid of her emotions if it meant she wouldn't hurt the way she had before.

"I never thought a child would beat me to the punch." Suddenly, the wandering spirit heard a voice from behind her. Alice turned slowly, sluggishly, toward the source of it, searching with her murky eyes. When they finally stopped, her eyes were fixed on a gentleman dressed in a black robe. The man was gazing at her, his expression and aura familiar to the girl who had lived her whole life surrounded by violence.

By no means was he a decent man. He was something far less human than even the mafia Alice had just slaughtered. Even so, she felt no fear; fear was just one of the emotions that had been washed away by her tears.

"Who are you?" Alice asked, undaunted.

"I'm just a dimwitted assassin who had his prey stolen by a child." The gentleman's answer revealed that he'd been sent by the mayor to clean up the garbage known as the mafia. It was so unbelievably ironic.

They had called Alice's gang "garbage", but while they had been trying to take out that garbage, they were disposed of themselves. It's all such a farce.

"And? Here to complain?" Alice asked the assassin as a sardonic smirk spread across her face. "I'd never," the gentleman replied.

"I'm only here to give you your cut, since you did my job for me. This is for you." The man pulled something like a ball out of his robe and rolled it over toward Alice. That ball-like object was actually an old man's head—the head of the city's mayor, the man who had made the decision to dispose of Alice's gang. She looked down at it, showing no signs of shock.

"What a thoughtful gift. Heheheh… Ahaha…"

She wasted no time in stomping on the head, laughing from the bottom of her heart as she did so. Yuuri was killed by the mafia, the members of which were, in turn, meant to be killed by the machinations of the mayor, who ended up being killed by the self-proclaimed assassin standing in front of her.

This world really is something else. Alice was surer than ever. She'd always thought that hell was somewhere a person went when they died, but what could have possibly been worse than the hell she was already living in? To try to protect something in such a world, to love something, was beyond ridiculous.

God. We were all such fools.

"The realization that you've just reached is correct." The gentleman suddenly spoke, interrupting Alice's hoarse laughter.

"Love, money, ethics, morality—the whole world's full of lies like that. So much deception, so many excuses soil and obscure the truth. There's really only one hard and fast rule: The strong take everything, while the weak lose everything. The greatest from among us impose their will upon society. That is the world's sole providence. Now that you've come to this realization, you have what it takes to become one of us. We, Rebellion, will convey the truth to this deceitful world. Your talent for killing will be of use to us. Come with me, child."

"And if I say no?" Alice asked of the invitation to a world yet darker than the one she was already in.

"I already told you that the strong will take everything. That's the truth of society. If you refuse, then I'll prove firsthand how true it is and take you by force." Bloodlust emanated from the man's every orifice. Alice, however, was affected by it no more than she would be by a slight breeze. The threat of violence was nothing to her; violence existed to take from others, and she had nothing left to take.

"Heeheehee. Interesting. I love the simplicity of it." It was precisely because she had nothing that Alice was interested in the offer.

"I don't really mind. I have nowhere left to go and nothing left to protect, after all. So, if you accept one condition, I'll join you."

"What's your condition?"

"A hundred million. Give me a hundred million and I'll do your dirty work."

"A hundred million for a kid with no background? That's a steep price." The man's already-severe face hardened yet further.

"And if I refuse?" Alice laughed mockingly at the man who mirrored her question.

"There's no need for me to explain that to you, is there?" All she had to do was take it. She desired money, and no paltry sum of it, either. The simultaneous insolence and desperation were enough to make the man take a liking to her.

"…Heheheh. You certainly are an interesting one. All right, I'll get your money." He readily assented to Alice's outlandish demand.

"So, kid. What's your name?"

"Everyone calls me Alice."

"I'm one of the twelve pillars of the Numbers, the One-Armed Sword Master, Wallenstein. Welcome, Alice." Extending an arm from his robe, Wallenstein offered a handshake. Alice responded in kind, sealing their contract.

She would take every last bit of the money given to her and give it to the nun in order to cover the cost of rearing her remaining siblings. Then, she would cut all ties with the city and leave once and for all.

Just as Wallenstein desired, she would devote the whole of her talent for killing, once suppressed by falsehoods like ethics and morality, to the Rebellion's cause. At long last, the first chapter of the life of Nagi Alisuin, the Black Assassin, had come to a close.

It truly is an absurd story. Looking back on her old life, Alice let out a chuckle. Though it was all for the sake of her infiltration, she found it ironic that she was once again playing the role of an older sister to her peers. But that farce was about to end. Soon, those false relationships would be severed.

What would be the look on Shizuku's face when that happened? Alice recalled the horrified faces of her siblings, the absolute denial and disgust in their eyes as they looked upon a murderer. Shizuku, too, would probably hate and fear her.

She wasn't especially sad about it, though; their relationship existed solely for appearances, to make Alice's job easier. Lorelei was a Rank B knight, one of the key players of Hagun Academy.

Treating her like a younger sister was the most efficient way to close the distance between them. There was nothing more to it.