There was but a single moment where the Particle Storm's mantle—like a bulwark, lacking any gaps in its outermost layer—parted. That moment directly followed the artillery fire, which seemed to fly in out of nowhere and pierce straight through the storm's supreme defenses.
In this fleeting moment, Toroa the Awful took stock of where his opponent was and unwaveringly jumped inside the storm.
In the middle of such extremity, the ideas of his own individual self, long since cast aside, floated like bubbles to the forefront of his mind.
Why… Why am I doing this?
Kiyazuna the Axle had gotten hold of an enchanted sword. She had laid eyes on Toroa the Awful's form. If he was to follow the legend of Toroa the Awful exactly, he should kill her, with no responsibility to fulfill his promise to her. Why then was Toroa still fighting?
It's because I'm weak. I know.
It was because he couldn't be the invincible Toroa of legend. He hadn't fully cast aside his weak self, from when he lived in the Wyte Mountains. He was aware that he couldn't endure as a merciless vessel to the god of death, guided solely on the path his enchanted swords led him down.
Though he understood this, though he acted in opposition to the legends, he stood against the Particle Storm.
Still, Dad would have done the same.
Even if Toroa the Awful wouldn't have, he was certain the father he knew wasn't the type to break a promise. He wouldn't have wanted him to look upon a mother trusting in her child, and a child full of love for his mother, and simply point his sword at them.
Should his father's actual deeds suggest otherwise, he wanted to believe it was true.
"How pitiful… How wretched you are. Knowing not a thing, and yet…"
The vibrations echoing from the wurm's cranium began once again to turn sand into storming winds. The sand scraped away at the earth, and the new
sand—soil turned into particles—coiled around him. An endless weather phenomenon. A living disaster with a malevolent will.
"You do not know, do you? The world is particles. Simple specks forming shapes, moving, and saying wordlike nonsense. They all fear me. As shall you."
"—Migration—!"
The Howling Blade produced an explosive gust. The gale, continuing even after the sword's slash had ended, cleared a path for Toroa to push forward. His enemy was the Particle Storm. Though this enemy was possibly the strongest Force Arts user in the land, controlling each grain of his enormous swirling sand at will—
Even still, as long as he's in this space, within range of my enchanted swords…
"This, indeed, is the authority to bestow such truth to all the world. Now, you too shall beg me for mercy!"
"That power of yours…"
His muscles groaned. Forcing his body past its limits with his immense strength, he utilized the sword's hidden technique endlessly, not letting up for a single instant.
"…is a far cry from Toroa the Awful's!"
He advanced. A colossal boulder was flying around, mixed in with the sand. Sinking his body low, he rolled to dodge it. Another swing of the Howling Blade. The vibrations from the ground informed him the wurm's main body moved. Wicked Sword Selfesk. He shot out the enchanted sword, composed of many rivets, forward in a fan shape.
One of the rivets dug into his opponent. The magnetic force that radiated from the hilt sent the recoil from the rivets' landing back to Toroa himself.
"You cannot run, Particle Storm! Not from this god of death! Not from Toroa the Awful!"
"Run, you say?"
The wurm, incensed, aimed his jaw toward the dwarf.
"Me, run?! Pitiful! Truly wretched and pitiful, you are! Worthless sack of particles!"
Overcoming the meteorological death swirling around him, Toroa finally arrived—right in front of Atrazek, where no one had ever been before. In front of the god of destruction. There was no weather phenomenon that could
deter Toroa the Awful.
He was a death god who had survived hell itself.
"You too…you too, shall be swept up in the particles!"
Toroa stepped forward and put his fingers on an enchanted sword. He felt the ideas dwelling within, its secret techniques.
He would kill him in one slash. He could do it. "Charijisuya, the Blasting Bla—"
The heavens rent the air.
The impact, breaking the speed of sound, destroyed the scene before him, piercing through the barrier Toroa instantly put up with his enchanted sword of wind, rattling his skull.
The air pressure from the aftermath instantly reversed all the distance he had desperately closed, slamming into the rock wall of the ravine. Blood spewed out of his torn stomach.
—It was a shot from Mele the Horizon's Roar. "…Dammit. Not now…"
Mele's latest arrow was rather far off the target. From Toroa's position, it landed on the far side of Atrazek from where he was standing.
Nevertheless, it exerted power far beyond the feats of any other, like an act of the gods.
"Y-you!"
Hit with the same considerable impact, Atrazek had caught Toroa in his range. The Particle Storm was still blowing unperturbed.
The wurm's humongous tail was closing in on him right before his eyes. Toroa tried to stand up. It would be impossible to defend against the enormous physical mass with the Howling Blade. Toroa's death was certain.
If he'd just had that Luminous Blade. The Burning Blade. Wailsever.
Right now his only options left were…
Yet, unable to come up with a strategy, he bent his knee. A groan escaped his lips.
"...?! Hng, grnnk!"
It came from the sudden pain he felt run through his whole body.
The feeling was beyond words, as though everything beneath his skin was boiling.
"A-aauuuugh…!"
Atrazek, too, had stopped moving, just as he tried to smash Toroa into the
earth.
He was attacked by the same pain as Toroa. An abnormal attack without any real form, impossible to defend against.
"APFSDS artillery. Napalm. Thought up a bunch of different methods, y'see."
Muttering inside her vehicle, beyond the Particle Storm, was the demon king, Kiyazuna the Axle.
"The Particle Storm's like a thousand layers of air armor, so to speak. Armor-piercing rounds won't penetrate 'em, though. If he's controlling sand 'n' wind, then dousing him in napalm fire won't work either, right?"
The iron colossus standing at her side was none other than her ultimate masterpiece, Mestelexil the Box of Desperate Knowledge. Right now, he had octagonal metal plates spreading out from both of his shoulders.
"That led me to this—an ADS directed-energy weapon. Even someone like the Particle Storm can't defend against subcutaneous, microwave induction heat, can he?!"
"I-I can, make, anything! Particle Storm! I am…going to be, useful to, Mama!"
The true origin of the pain was direct heat from underneath the skin.
Microwaves were attenuated by the moisture in the air, but on the other hand, they easily penetrated through dry dust and sand. The construction itself closely resembled the millimeter wave weapons that existed in the Beyond, but this weapon's intended purpose wasn't to quell a riot, but instead to directly wound and kill Atrazek and Toroa.
Reproducing the weapons from Beyond wasn't the only thing Mestelexil was capable of—he could also further strengthen their lethality to match up against his enemies.
"Die in agony! Feel the parental hate from the children you killed…and die, Particle Storm!"
"Ha-ha, ha-ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha- ha-ha!"
"Ngaauuuuuugh!"
With a scream, the sand and dust that made up the Particle Storm fell. Exactly like the brief moment following Mele's arrows, the sand lost the
Force Arts' effects.
"Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!" "Perfect, it's working, now… What?"
Kiyazuna felt that something was wrong. It was too quick for him to lose consciousness from the pain.
While it was possible, she'd eventually kill him if she kept irradiating him
—
"…Tch!"
She clicked her tongue in frustration, looking at the scene once the
Particle Storm cleared.
Covered in wounds, Toroa the Awful had fallen to his knees. But there was no sign of her bitter enemy.
A massive hole was carved out of the ravine wall. She had, of course, factored in the wurm's biological behavior—that was why she had picked an attack that would make it impossible for him to move.
"Why the hell can he move…?! That much pain should've knocked him out cold!"
As arrogant and proud about their own power as the draconic races were, they generally didn't turn to such methods. However, they could.
"That damn wurm turned tail and ran!"
There had simply never been a situation where it had become necessary.
The Particle Storm, wielding the power to eradicate anything in a single attack, could also bury underground to retreat and launch surprise attacks.
"Kuuro. Come on."
He heard Cuneigh's voice coming from inside his coat. She sounded like a child on the verge of tears. She probably was crying, in fact.
"Come on, let's run away."
"Koff."
Kuuro spit out blood. He had inhaled debris from the Particle Storm.
Several grains of sand, most likely. Kiyazuna the Axle, inside her Chariot Golem, was still in a safe position—from his current location, he was now close enough to look down from high on the cliffs at the chaotic battlefield below.
Despite his position, he still couldn't spot Atrazek properly. That last shot was horribly off the mark.
He should have been able to see, been able to bring the wurm down, yet even after borrowing the strength of a champion like Mele the Horizon's Roar, he still hadn't accomplished anything.
"What am I doing…? Hahh, hahh…hahh…hahh." Kuuro gripped the ground, spitting out droplets of blood. "I can't see anything. Nothing at all. It's all black."
The most powerful shura in the land, beyond all imagination, were right before his eyes. The domain of true power, lost to Kuuro. As he witnessed them right before his eyes, it only made him more aware of his own wretchedness and powerlessness.
"Hey. Kuuro, it'll be okay. Let's run away." "Shut up."
He wiped the edges of his mouth. If he wanted to survive, he just needed to run away. He knew that.
However, that would prove for a fact that he could no longer see the world as he once could. To Kuuro, darkness was nothing but a synonym for death.
He wasn't needed by anyone. It was only his clairvoyance gift that was ever sought after.
"Don't say anything, please…! Damn it all…!"
There were times he was horribly envious of Cuneigh.
She always seemed to be enjoying herself. Living with no desire for talent, and without stealing anything from another. Despite her short homunculus lifespan, she lived without fear of the future.
"It's okay." Cuneigh repeated.
The sand below him began moving again. Atrazek had dived into the ground.
Nevertheless, if he appeared up on the surface again, he was sure to reform this tempest of carnage.
Next time the storm might come in direct contact with him. He could not
afford to miss his next mark.
But he knew the shot wouldn't hit.
At this point, he couldn't even imagine a future where his shot was successful. It was the darkness of death, a darkness he would never be able to see through.
"Cuneigh. There comes a time in everyone's life when they wither away and die. No one lives forever."
Kuuro spoke, his head still drooping low.
No matter what happened, the Particle Storm would get put down for good. If it continued to move according to the forecast, it would next arrive at the Sine Riverstead. Even without Kuuro's scouting, there was no doubt Mele the Horizon's Roar could use his own eyes to hit the Particle Storm with one of his arrows. That would be the end of it.
His struggles here would ultimately end up saving a certain number of lives within the Sine Riverstead.
"…Still, I don't want you to tell me to run away. Don't reject my eyes… for my sake…"
"…What?"
The foolish young homunculus girl then shouted something unbelievable. "None of them hit because you've been able to see everything this whole
time!"
If he really could see with the clairvoyance, then one of the arrows would have hit its mark. If he really had the power to triumph over the Particle Storm, there wouldn't be any reason to flee their current position. Cuneigh's words were incoherent and contradictory.
His eyes couldn't see anything. That was how it was supposed to be. "You've… Kuuro, you've seen it all this whole time. I can tell. Right?
After all, you've got clairvoyance and can see everything. The fact you're unable to see Kuuro—it's all because you think it's better if you can't. You're the one who hasn't been hit with any attacks!"
"That's not it. I—koff—I'm going along with the plan…" Was that really true?
His power of clairvoyance allowed him to perceive things with senses that far surpassed the visual and aural range of normal perception. It was the power to take in things beyond the five senses—intuition, heat, magnetism, and synesthesia.
If he hadn't, in fact, lost these senses of his, then wouldn't he have known that from the very start?
Know that these arrows should not hit their target. "I… Ah…dammit."
Kuuro covered his eyes.
It was something he never would have done, had he still been in constant fear of the darkness.
Cuneigh was telling him he hadn't lost his senses. Then, in the same breath, she told him to flee from their position.
Those ideas seemed to contradict each other, yet they made perfect sense. "…I get it. So that's what it was."
He could only see things that he focused his senses on. That was it. That's what he had believed. At the start of his spotting duty, he had even felt the beating of Toroa the Awful's heart.
With the Particle Storm in front of him, a battle between the strongest shura in the land before him, he didn't have any attention to spare for any other direction.
That was why it became as if he couldn't see at all. From the very start, I wasn't the only one here.
Intricate topography with steep differences in elevation, perfect for spotting and observation. This was just as true for himself as it was for others.
Being a spotter didn't mean he wasn't being spotted himself.
There were others observing the battle in this ravine, just as he was.
They weren't Old Kingdoms' loyalists. Otherwise, they would have shot Kuuro immediately as he started aiding the arrow shows from afar.
Someone was there, tasked to get rid of him after Mele's attack was confirmed successful, when he wasn't needed any longer.
If from the beginning…Aureatia planned on snuffing me out after they got their use out of me…
Everything was consistent. The New Principality of Lithia. The Old Kingdoms' loyalists. The Free City of Okahu. With a new era dawning, they were trying to clean up all the threats to their kingdom.
If Kuuro the Cautious's clairvoyance, the ability to divulge every single
one of their secrets, was no exception…
If it was proof that his waning clairvoyance was a response dictated by his own survival instincts…
If I don't have to be on the criminal side for once…
If his all-perceiving clairvoyance was even capable of observing possible future outcomes…
Then his eyes were looking out on such a world.
Oh, how nice that would be.
Kuuro closed his eyes.
The darkness that shut him off from the world, where death could come to take him.
It was the first time he had ever wanted to perform the action, considered completely normal behavior to the average person.
He shut off his senses. He laid to rest all his senses that had fought against the world for so long.
He immersed his body in death. The terror he had long avoided was there waiting for him.
Then, he opened his eyelids.
There was color.
In the devastated ravine, there was blue soil, purple rocks, green sky, and orange water. The vivid and deeply coalesced colors rippled out like waves, shimmering. Somewhere flowers swayed. The wind caressing the water's surface sent different sizes of spray into the air. Bird feathers flying in from somewhere danced in the wind.
Far away, the line of the horizon curved in a circle.
Kuuro was above the stars, and the world extended out endlessly in every way with him at the center.
For as far as the sky continued onward, he fully perceived all beneath it. He realized that he had been able to see all of it from the very start. "…Ha."
For the first time, Kuuro smiled from the bottom of his heart.
Now he could see it all clear as day. One person eighty-two meters behind him to the right. One twenty-six meters behind him and above, to the left.
One thirty-one meters below, to the right.
After fleeing for so long from his life of theft, there was now nowhere left for him to run. If he accomplished his mission, they would take his life, and if he ran away, he would lose his place in Aureatia.
Despite this, even with this future clear in front of him, he was filled with happiness.
"I, I never lost my world at all…" "Kuuro!" Cuneigh shouted.
Now he knew for certain why he had kept her hidden inside his coat. No one else had seen her. She was the only one he wanted to make sure lived on.
Now, he had become able to hope for such an outcome, regardless of the reason or reward for doing so.
"Cuneigh. I have a wish of my own…a foolish wish."
Kuuro was worn down by his life, forced to keep stealing, trampling others underfoot.
He didn't want to see others die. He didn't want to hear others' screams. He knew the answer from himself from the start.
More than his own survival, he didn't want to steal anything anymore, even if it meant being used and having his life stolen from him. Now, he truly wished that from the heart.
Unlike how he was before, now he was able to save some unknown somebody somewhere.
"Even if it's foolish, it's something I've always wanted to do." "No!"
"Mele! Here's the coordinates! These'll be the last ones…! 1360 by 628!"
He shouted into the radzio. The meteorite arrow fell, and every moment he appeared on the surface, it pierced through the Particle Storm.
The storm cleared. He saw the calamitous wurm's torso run right through. In that instant, arrows pierced Kuuro from three directions.
He heard Cuneigh's scream. "This is fine."
Kuuro was smiling. The clairvoyance he was gifted with from birth had truly been his own after all.
He had won. He could see the world. "My wish came true."
He could perceive the entire world through senses that transcended the limits of his race.
He possessed the precision to see all the way through his target's five senses and recognize and mark the exact moment of lethality.
He had an ability that, with intuition that far surpassed any amount of experience, chose the best possible answer, even unbeknownst to himself.
The bearer of clairvoyance, able to choose his future of his own will, from among his own omniscience.
Seer. Leprechaun. Kuuro the Cautious.