"Yes, that's right. What of it?"
"The hell do you think you're doing?! How could you do something like this!?"
"I don't know how to answer you except to say I was entrusted with this charge."
"Entrusted...?"
To Lester's expression, already a mix of shock and outrage, was added another emotion–– confusion.
If this was an act, he could win an Oscar for this performance. Julis knew, however, that Lester wasn't that kind of scheming person. Sighing, Julis spoke.
"I'm not sure which school he's working for, but he's attacked students intent on entering the Phoenix at least several times before. You weren't aware?"
"...!"
Lester was unable to speak in his shock.
From what he'd thought he'd known, Cyrus was a rather obedient subordinate.
However, that did nothing to dispel the reality of Cyrus openly sneering at him as he shrugged his shoulders.
"I'm different from you, who never employs any stratagem in battle. If there's a way to earn money without putting myself in harm's way, isn't that best?"
"Even if it means selling out your own schoolmates?"
"Schoolmates? Haha, don't make me laugh."
Cyrus laughed as he shook his head.
"Those who gather here are all enemies, no? Sure, there are times when you might work together for a team or partner battle, but aside from that, this is a dog-eat-dog world. You of the Top Twelve ought to be more than familiar with that fact, no? Life and death struggles. Victories obtained via blood, sweat, and tears. A hard-fought and harder-kept position. And for what? All that just to live your life constantly being targeted by others? I say no thanks. If I can earn the same kind of money without ever having to stick my neck out...isn't that just called using your brain?"
"...It's not like what you said is wrong. Even if we are schoolmates, it's not like we're life partners here. In order to stand at the top, you must grasp whatever opportunity arises, and spare no expense."
"Oi, Julis...!"
Giving a seemingly heartfelt response, Lester frowned.
"But–– don't think for a second what you said is right, either."
"Oh my, how unexpected. I was sure you and I were of the same mind."
"Unexpected for me as well. I never would have guessed that you'd even think of mentioning me in the same sentence as you, you bastard."
Julis seemed to tire of their banter, as she began to glare at Cyrus.
Lester cut in.
"Before I beat the shit out of you, there's something I want to ask first. Why did you call me out here? Did you really think that I was going to agree with you? If that's the case, then all I can say is your stupidity is without limit."
"No, no, no. It's you who's the idiot here. You're my backup plan. In case negotiations with Julis failed, I need a scapegoat to take the fall for me."
"...You stupid piece of shit. You really think I'm going to just listen to you?"
"Oh, no worries. After I'm done here, it's not like the two of you will be able to say a word. I'll just throw a few excuses here and there, and that'll be that. For example, 'refusing to budge an inch, they fought to their very limits before both falling victim to their wounds.' Sounds good, doesn't it?"
Those words seemed to be the straw that broke the camel's back. Lester lost all semblance of reason.
"Alright then. If you really think you can silence me, go ahead and try. Let's see what you've got!"
As he spoke, Lester pulled out his Lux, Bardiche Leo, which was almost as large as he was.
"Lester, don't rush things. I'm sure he's got traps in place. For better or worse, he is a Dante," Julis said, without letting her guard down around Lester. In this situation, however, she didn't have the option of simply ignoring him.
Utterly ignoring her words, Lester leapt forward, closing the gap between Cyrus and himself in an instant. The enormous axe of light swung down with vigor.
"Die!"
Suddenly––
"Wha–?!"
A brawny black shadow dropped down between them, obstructing Lester's vicious attack.
––Barehanded.
Blocking his blow barehanded was frightening enough already, but even as Lester began to exert the full might of his physique, the other party refused to so much as budge. Lester, confident in the fact that his physical strength was preeminent at Seidoukan Academy, was astonished beyond belief.
Despite his shock, he still jumped back, putting some distance between them.
"Hmph. I see, so that's your companion?"
"Companion? Haha. Honestly, please try to keep up."
Cyrus snapped his fingers. Immediately, two more black-garbed assailants joined the first.
"––Allow me to introduce my puppets. Cute, aren't they?"
The attackers proceeded to strip off their clothing.
Hidden underneath were what were undeniably puppets.
There were empty sockets where their eyes should have been, and they lacked any hint of either a nose or mouth. Most notably, their bodies were entirely smooth, and spheres took the place of joints.
Although while, strictly speaking, they were humanoid, the discrepancies proved highly disturbing.
"Combat replicants...?"
Combat replicants were indeed very practical on the battlefield, but their use required specialized equipment.
It was highly unlikely that such complicated machinery was at work here. It wasn't impossible, technically; however, to accomplish such completely in secret here in Asterisk might as well have been.
"Please don't compare that sort of crude garbage with my puppets, OK? They don't have any machinery in them whatsoever."
If that was true, then there was no way they could move.
And yet, the evidence stood before them. Not only could they move, but their movements were incredibly life-like.
"––I see. This is your true ability as a Dante, isn't it?"
The reason she'd never been able to sense their presence was finally clear: her opponents were inanimate objects. They were naturally incapable of feeling bloodlust, and so she had been unable to sense such from them.
"You tricky bastard, so you still had this up your sleeve...! Didn't you tell everyone that the extent of your ability was controlling swords...?"
"Can you seriously be this stupid? Hahahaha. Oh man, this is too funny. Anyway, try and think about this for a moment–– what kind of moron freely reveals his trump card?"
Cyrus threw up his hands in an exaggerated shrug.
"Lester-san, you got it. My ability allows me to use Mana to exert control over any inanimate object bearing my mark. As long as it's inanimate, even something as complex as these puppets will heed my will. Of course, no one in this school has heard this before."
Julis began to understand the reason for his boundless confidence.
"The reason you use puppets in your ambushes is because no one knows about your ability. They'd never guess it was you."
This would always give him the perfect alibi. Using this ability made things perfectly simple. As long as it fell within the operational reach of his powers, he'd never need to appear himself. If his puppets wore cameras, then he could follow the situation from afar.
If a Strega or Dante were to commit crimes with such an ability, they'd be extremely hard to catch. Accordingly, those with abilities of this type were usually required to register themselves––
"Whatever! All I have to do is kick your ass here, and hand your ass over to the disciplinary committee or Stjarnagarmr. Problem solved."
"Let's see whether or not you two make it out of here in one piece first, OK?"
"That's fine with me. Allow me to show you my true strength...!"
As Lester concentrated his Prana, the light blades of Leo Bardiche grew to double their former size. Julis had already witnessed this on many previous occasions; this was Lester's Meteor Arts.
The battle-Axe was now closer in appearance to a giant war hammer.
"Take this! Burst Nemea!"[1]
Lester howled as he struck with his full might, blowing the three puppets away.
With a horrifying boom, the puppets crashed into a pillar, shattering into splinters and cracking the affected pillar.
Of the three puppets, two were utterly destroyed. Their arms and legs were snapped clean off, their bodies twisted in a sickening posture.
The brawny puppet appeared mostly unharmed, however; its body showing only faint traces of cracks. Removing itself from the pillar, it nonchalantly faced Lester down once more.
"Cheh. Rather tenacious bastard, aren't you?" Lester muttered out of the corner of his mouth, his confidence seemingly waning.
"This is an especially sturdy type designed especially to handle you, Lester-san. Its defensive abilities are quite something. Both its physique and armament were designed to imitate you, so that it could take your place if necessary."
"In order to frame me, I assume? That would make the one with a bow a copy of Landy?"
"As you say."
"Heh, you've really thought this through. Too bad for you your effort's all going to go to waste!"
Lester again swung Bardiche Leo.
Just as its blade was about to cut into the puppet before him––
"!?"
Two more puppets appeared from behind the pillar, firing at Lester in a torrent of small arms fire.
"Urgh––!"
"Lester!"
Julis, unable to restrain herself any longer, attempted to dash to his side, only to be be obstructed by yet another newly-appearing puppet.
"...!"
Three more puppets still surrounded Julis. They were slightly different from the others in that they were dressed entirely in black.
All wielded a sword-type Lux.
Julis didn't dare do differently, activating her rapier-type Lux "Aspera Spina".[2]
"Hmph...I should have guessed. You always rely on this kind of contemptible tactic, after all...!"
Lester, kneeling on a single knee in seemingly great pain, glared at Cyrus.
"Wow, still so lively."
He appeared to have focused all his Prana on defense at the moment of ambush. Although he was bleeding heavily, his will to fight didn't seem to have decreased one bit.
That said, it wasn't like Prana was limitless.
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Once his Prana was exhausted, he would fade into unconsciousness. In this situation, however, it wasn't just his consciousness that might fade, but the flames of his life.
"I-It doesn't matter how many puppets you bring out, they're nothing to me..."
"Honestly, Lester-san. You really just don't get it, do you?"
In the next instant, more puppets dropped down before Lester's eyes.
One after another they came, jumping down from the ceiling two or three at a time.
Lester watched the scene unfolding before his eyes first with malice, then with shock, and finally with terror.
Julis, originally planning to break through the puppets encircling her, was left similarly frozen speechless.
In front of their very eyes stood not just ten or twenty puppets. No, the number was closer to––
"It 'doesn't matter how many puppets I bring out'? Alright then, I'm game. The maximum number of puppets I can control at any given time is one hundred and twenty-eight."
"One hundred..."
Bloom Proudly - Snapping Firebloom of the Engulfing Dragon, Antirrhinum Majus
Lester revealed an expression fraught with deep despair.
Cyrus looked down at him with glee and cleared his throat.
"Oh... the expressions on your faces! This is it, this is what I wanted to see! Alright, I am going to savor this."
Cyrus waved a hand. All the puppets simultaneously charged Lester.
"Stop this, Cyrus!"
Julis tried to forcibly break through her surrounding puppets, but their numbers were too vast by far.
While individually they were nothing special, their coordination was remarkable.
From behind Cyrus' giggling visage, Julis could hear the occasional miserable scream, but soon enough, even those ceased.
"Hey, no need to rush, alright? Feel free to struggle all you want. I need to make it look you were the one who took Lester-san out, so I need to prepare the scene just right."
"Bloom Proudly - Antirrhinum MajusSnapping Firebloom of the Engulfing Dragon!"[3]
Things having reached this point, Julis' personality wasn't so laid-back as to simply allow Cyrus to continue talking. Tracing the orbit that Julis weaved with her Lux, magic circles began to appear from which an intense heat burst forth. Immediately following was an enormous dragon of flame which appeared as if bursting forth from a magic circle.
"Ooh, that's a new one on me."
Cyrus mumbled his admiration. This was natural, as this technique was one of Julis' trump cards. There's no way she'd casually allows others to witness it.
The roar of the flame dragon shook the very air. Immediately following, it crushed the puppets encircling Julis in its jaws.
"Uwa?!"
Although the puppets were all flame-retardant in preparation for the battle with Julis, that didn't provide the least protection against the overwhelming force with which they were being crushed.
"Amazing. It looks like that fifth rank isn't just for show..."
Cyrus opened some distance between them and snapped his fingers once more.
"But, in the end, quantity over quality!"
Five puppets bored through the dragon's lower jaw, encircling and attacking Julis once more.
"Tch––!"
Julis raised her Lux to meet them head-on. However, since the majority of her attention was focused on controlling the dragon, her reactions were slower than normal.
She barely blocked an attack that nearly cleaved her in half. The tip of her Lux began to erupt with a blinding light.
"Don't look down on me!"
Julis kicked the chest of the puppet before her with force, dodged the weapon of the puppet who had snuck behind her, and thrust clear through it with her Lux.
––Unfortunately.
The puppet wasn't in the least affected as it grabbed ahold of Julis.
"Wha–– A kamikaze attack?!"
"Hehehe. Rather effective isn't it?"
As he spoke, the row of puppets by Cyrus' side took aim.
"!"
Julis called her dragon to her to ward off her attack, but she was a second too late.
"Guah!?"
Streaks of light flew at her and pierced her thigh.
Unable to stand, Julis fell to her knees. Two puppets grabbed her by her arms and pinned her to the wall.
At the same moment, her flame dragon faded into nothingness.
"Your ability really is quite powerful, but it sure has a problematic weakness. It's limited to what you can see with your eyes."
"...You really are some stalker..."
Julis struggling with the pain, taunted him with a smile.
"But you know, I've figured out something myself."
"And what is that?"
"Allekant's the one pulling your strings."
Cyrus' smile vanished.
"You just mentioned it, didn't you? That these puppets were 'specially designed'. These designs, specifically intended to counter Lester and I–– how did you come by them? To say nothing of the sheer number. Simply put, there's no way they could have come from any other school."
"You really are too smart for your own good. Oh well, all you've done is reaffirmed that I really can't let you go."
"Bullcrap. Like you ever planned to let me go."
Cyrus approached Julis, and stomped on her thigh wound with great animosity.
"Guwaah-!"