A night in the Beyond. He wasn't sure if the memory was before the steel tower or after.
Tsukayoshi had his katana drawn and looked to be training in some old- school swordsmanship style. It was the same katana he had emphasized that he didn't draw lightly, but Soujirou didn't intend on pointing out that fact now.
Tsukayoshi's practices weren't a consistent habit to begin with, little more than self-gratifying training that he only ever did on a whim when he was bored.
To Soujirou, it didn't seem like anything but a magnificently useless waste of effort, but it was too much of a bother to get up and go point this out to him, so he kept his mouth shut.
"Soujirouuu. How do you do that thing where you block gunshots? The thing from yesterday."
Tsukayoshi shouted from outside the tent. Soujirou wanted to pretend he was asleep. Why did this man insist on asking about things totally beyond him?
"I ain't blocking them at all. If I blocked them, the blade'd break, stupid." "Hey, don't call your master stupid."
Soujirou truly thought it was a giant nuisance, but if he didn't answer, then Tsukayoshi would probably come talk to him about something. He was old enough to be Soujirou's father, yet he acted like a child.
Even as he rubbed his sleepy eyes, he continued with his half-hearted explanation.
"…All right, so. With that, I ain't hitting the bullet tip, see? I sorta smack the side of the bullet with the flat of my katana, thrusting it into its flight trajectory, see… That way, see, with the sideways force, the blade acts as a springboard. Match the bullet's rotation, give a hard pull, and it'll deviate on its own away from ya."
"Hold up… Yeah, no way, nu-uh. Run that back again. We're talking about rifle shots here, right? What you're talking about's a whole lot stranger than just blocking them, you know that?"
"And that's why I'm saying it's impossible for you. You're way too weak."
Soujirou could manage about ten rifle shots coming at him at once. He had never attempted any more than that before, but considering their shot grouping at midrange, it was possible for him to maneuver effectively against their firearms.
However, that level of technique wasn't enough to survive in this world. When flamethrowers or grenades showed up, he would need a completely different method of dealing with them.
Tsukayoshi Yagyuu was too weak to fully deal with everything using his katana.
"If it's swords or knives flying at ya, though, there's probably a better way of deflecting them. Vertical rotation's part of it, so ya can't smack their central point from the side."
"Vertical? So if a bullet's rotates sideways, a knife's vertical?"
"…I mean, a knife's sideways, too, I guess. Which one's vertical then?" Soujirou wouldn't be defeated by a blade.
Even in another world, this should have been an unchanging fact.
Soujirou the Willow-Sword had cut himself.
As Ozonezma had told him, the taste of relief brought about the nightmare.
An unhinged madness ordinarily unthinkable to see from Soujirou.
It had all been under the control of the singular arm, Ozonezma's trump card. The Demon King's arm, its mere existence terrifying, was the wickedest deterrent in the land, operated with intelligence and strategy by the butchering
beast, Ozonezma.
The situation was beyond the realm of merely keeping his guard up against the trump card's counterattacks when he was in sword range. From the moment Soujirou had established this distance, from the opening moment of the fight, he was checkmated.
As long as he fought Ozonezma from close range, he would be unable to resist the ultimate terror.
Don't got time to stop the bleeding... Hell—
Soujirou thought with a foggy mind. He was experiencing hemorrhagic shock.
His blood pressure dropped, his motor functions were deteriorating, and he was wearier than he had been at any point during this third match.
Minia were awfully fragile, descending into this state just from losing their left leg.
…I can't even move at this point, huh.
Still, he had to move.
Brandishing the scalpel in his hands straight out in front of him, he showed he had no intentions of surrender.
Even if doing so was entirely meaningless, it was necessary. "BRILLIANT COURAGE."
Ozonezma didn't speak long before galloping again.
As he ran, the chimera's head split. A delicate white arm lithely stretched out of it. The Demon King's arm.
Soujirou could see Ozonezma's life as he pressed in.
It wasn't the life of the myriad organisms that composed the chimera's entire body.
If there was indeed a life within him that, with one clean cut, could end all of
them at once.
Don't lower your sword.
He was frightened. Terrified.
Just maybe, this was how his master has been feeling.
While Soujirou had enjoyed himself in that inferno of battle, had Yuno felt the same?
Why the hell are you thinkin' about all this stupid stuff now?
All he had to do was stab his blade and slice through the beast's life. That would easily give Soujirou the victory.
With certain death awaiting him, there wouldn't have been any reason for him not to do so.
Five more paces left. Four.
Ozonezma's trajectory and speed should be exactly as Soujirou's intuition had forewarned.
He just needed to cut him. That would end it all. It was terrifying.
…Don't ya dare lower it, dammit!
His arm tried to relax, counter to his will. What was it trying to slice? It was horrifying.
The Demon King's arm. It hadn't even touched Soujirou.
Like a tidal wave swallowing a metropolis, levees and all, the terror unilaterally destroyed all in its progress.
Soujirou wasn't able to move.
With an unreliable single short blade, he was facing off against this terror.
It hadn't arrived yet. Even as Ozonezma charged with such terrific speed, rushing through such a short distance.
Not yet. Not yet. He had space to think.
He just had to cut him down. It was too late.
Even if he started his slash now, at this range, it wouldn't make it in time. The terror. The horror. It was frightening. Dreadful.
Time was slowing down, just like one's consciousness moments before death.
In such a state of awareness, he simply understood that there was nothing he could do.
The terror, bordering on madness, was prolonged several times over, gnawing at his mind…
One more step. Then.
Don't lower…
He, at last, realized he didn't feel the scalpel in his hand.
Beads of sweat bubbled to his forehead. He absolutely couldn't let it slip. White.
A white hand was right in front of his eyes. Ozonezma was extending the Demon King's arm.
The master swordsman from another world lost to the terror. "UNGH!"
Ozonezma was the one to let out a groan.
The Demon King's white finger bent seconds before it could touch Soujirou and missed its mark.
"...! WHAT…DID YOU…?!"
Ozonezma looked at the abnormality in the Demon King's arm. A scalpel had pierced through its elbow.
Ozonezma should have been able to crush the stopped Soujirou in his jaw, but he was in an abnormal state of confusion. Right in front of Soujirou, he halted then groaned.
"MY ARM."
He couldn't afford to stop, either.
Next, a different scalpel, with a spin, twisted off the flesh of the Demon King's arm.
The beautiful arm was shredded mercilessly, separating from Ozonezma's body and flying into the air.
Though he shouldn't have had any ability to feel pain, Ozonezma shouted. "HNGAH, GAAAAAAUGH!"
It was the second scalpel—no.
The crunching and mashing sounds continued. In a position shifted slightly from the two scalpels, there were five sticking up from the ground. More than seven scalpels had rained down from the sky… In other words—
"AH, AAAAUGH… MY ARMS… IMPOSSIBLE… Y-YOU… REPELLED THEM…?! IN THAT MOMENT!"
The transcendent swordsman was capable of precisely repelling the blades thrown his way.
Which was precisely why Ozonezma was confident he had outdone Soujirou's ability to counter him with a surprise projectile attack, immediately after he had instilled him with terror. Then he chose to charge him as a method
of finishing him off. Instead of projectiles that risked deflection, he had tried to eradicate Soujirou through direct contact with the Demon King's arm.
"YOU LAUNCHED…THE BLADES UP INTO THE AIR…?!"
Soujirou had no possibilities available to him. Soujirou understood that. In which case, what if Soujirou's own will didn't intervene at all then?
A direct attack from the Demon King's arm, the best guarantee of bringing instant death to the frozen Soujirou.
Confident, with his superpowered combat intuition, that the chimera would choose this method of attack…
What if there was an unearthly technique that made it possible to sync up the free fall of Ozonezma's scalpels previously deflected high up into the area, to that certain future?
1181, the fourth year of Jisho.
There was an anecdote of a warrior-monk who fought bravely under Minamoto no Yorimasa, named Gochi-in no Tajima.
Facing off against three hundred Heike horsemen, the imperial forces battled them on a bridge with fifty horsemen of their own. Gochi-in no Tajima, with just his naginata, cut down all the Heike's hailstorm of arrows and was given the nickname of Tajima the arrow-cutter.
It was not simply slicing something that could not be cut, nor was it slashing at speeds faster than his opponent could.
Even within a nightmare horrible enough to sever his own right leg, Soujirou the Willow-Sword was able to do it.
He looked at Ozonezma. Even with the Demon King's arm lobbed off, he had physical abilities that far outstripped Soujirou. An extremely crafty intelligence. A myriad of lives, more than he could kill.
Nevertheless, right now, he could cut him down.
Soujirou grabbed the scalpel that had severed the Demon King's arm in midair. The scalpel was a new weapon.
It was plenty.
"An accidental death's all I got," Soujirou bellowed. "An accidental death, to kill that thing for good!"
"GWA-GWAAAAAAAH!"
Ozonezma spread out his numerous arms.
Within distance to touch each other, the two beasts clashed swords.
Nevertheless, even should he lose a leg, even should death be right before his eyes.
For the master swordsman from another world, in the realm of bladed combat…
The small blade pierced Ozonezma's heart as it passed by, severed a ganglion, before splitting open another heart. Lethal. Lethal. Lethal. All of them were fatal spots in Ozonezma's body.
…That was as far as he got. The thin scalpel blade shattered in Soujirou's hands.
"Huh?"
Any other living creature would have died by his hand.
Ozonezma's fur blocked him, armor itself. His muscle, as dense as steel, blocked him. More than anything, however, the terror and fatigue he had accumulated throughout the fight had hindered Soujirou's technique.
Just as Soujirou possessed unrealistic swordcraft, Ozonezma had an unrealistically strong body. That was all.
The deviant swordsman from another world had, for the first time, broken a blade.
Ozonezma's forelegs were closing in. "..."
There was wet slapping sound.
"HNG, AUUUGH… GLLRG… NGH, AUUUNG."
Ozonezma moaned vaguely.
Once again, his claws came down. Next, bones shattered, and it lost its original form.
Still unable to stand, Soujirou watched the chimera's movements.
Ozonezma didn't even glance at the minia gazing at him, and he continued to focus solely on destruction. On destroying the severed arm of the Demon King.
"HAAH, HAAH… HN-GAUUGH… NGH… HRN…"
His groaning voice trembled. He was scared.
The unrivaled beast was haggard, as if the recoil from the entire fight had hit him at once.
Once again, his claws tore at the carcass.
It was nothing more than a corpse. Transformed into a meaningless lump of flesh.
"Looks like I was right. That was the one, eh. That one was your life, huh."
The strongest chimera of all, an amalgam of physical abilities capable of surpassing the inscrutable visitor, tactics based on his many fights against other champions, and a trump card that brought instant death to all the living creatures of the world.
Ozonezma the Capricious was truly a fearsome monster. But there was something even more terrifying.
"Ain't no way you ain't scared of something like that. No way you got used to it. You probably get it by now, but… Me, you, we've both been freaked out by that thing."
"NGH, GAAAAH… I… I…"
"... You… You were going to die by suicide, weren't ya? You were fighting to try to get yourself killed."
The terror of the True Demon King… Dying by suicide and killing those you're close to.
Unable to remove it, even escape was impossible. It drove you mad all without you even realizing it.
"N-NO… I WILL KILL THE FAKE HEROES! IT IS MY ONLY WAY TO ATONE! THAT IS MY OWN WILL… IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN…! I—I…! THE DEMON KING'S ARM! SUCH BLAPSHEMY…! HNG… AUGH… THE TRUE HERO… IT'S NOT TRUE; THAT'S NOT IT…! I'M SORRY… OLUKT…!"
"I don't give a crap about whatever you got goin' on… Ya hear?" Soujirou thrust out the broken scalpel in front of him.
This time, it wasn't a bluff from sensing he would give in to terror.
Even if this battle continued, Soujirou likely had no chance of winning. Understanding that it would end as he simply waited to bleed to death, he remained with his weapon raised, because despite everything, he would fight.
To fight, and fight even more.
Especially after learning what terror felt like. "I just wanna have fun, see?"
"I… I…"
Ozonezma, trembling at the fear he had finally become conscious of, barely managed to squeeze out his words.
"…SURRENDER."
"..."
"HAAAH, HAAAH… VICTORY IS…YOURS…SOUJIROU!"
No matter who it may have been, it was impossible to resist that one singular
fear.
Having lived through the age of the Demon King, he should have known it better than anyone else.
Soujirou looked at the pool of blood that had formed on the ground. "..."
While Ozonezma had thrown away victory in the match—perhaps, in fact, all while throwing away his own life, long, long before any match at all—the young girl's arm, destroyed at last, radiated terror no longer.
After the match, Ozonezma was taken into a huge carriage, specifically for beastfolk.
Riding along in the freight car, Yuca spoke to him with concern.
"Are you really all right? You're wounds look terrible, but do you think you'll last until the doc gets here?"
"…I AM A DOCTOR. PHYSICAL WOUNDS…DO NOT PRESENT ANY CONCERN…"
"Really, now. I just thought I'd listen to any final words you had if it looked like it was too late for you."
While there certainly was no small number of those in the audience who had been exposed to the terror of the Demon King's arm in the match earlier, it was interpreted as fear from seeing the grotesque chimera itself.
Now that the arm was gone from this world, Yuca would also never know the truth Ozonezma held.
"…YUCA."
"Hmm?"
"…WAS I…TRYING TO DIE?"
He definitely hadn't ever been aware of it himself.
Ozonezma had been convinced he was acting in accord with his own sense of justice.
He couldn't abide a false hero. He had believed that now he was the only one in the land who knew of that battle he had witnessed. Believed that the ones left behind had an obligation to do so.
However. What had he expected to happen when, after using the True Demon
King's power to kill all the self-proclaimed heroes and advance through the tournament, he revealed the truth before the people?
Ozonezma's thoughts never once extended to the tragedy that would occur afterward.
He had been rushing headlong into destruction. He himself had chosen death
—and no one else.
Suicide.
Had he not understood any of it until that moment?
"Hrmm. I don't really get it, but you fought hard, Ozonezma. Hell, I've never seen such an incredible fight before. Look, if you had had any chance of winning, however slim, then it definitely wasn't suicide, right?"
"…IN WHICH CASE…WAS CHALLENGING THE TRUE DEMON KING SUICIDE?"
"Conversation's heading in a real strange direction." Yuca smiled awkwardly.
The general who was chosen by happenstance, simply as an easily manipulated pawn. To Ozonezma, as long as he had a sponsor in name only, that was enough. Nevertheless, it was good fortune that this man had been the one to do so.
Ozonezma spoke as his profound exhaustion brought him to the verge of sleep.
"SOUJIROU…SAID IT WAS AN ACCIDENTAL DEATH. THAT IT WAS THE ONLY WAY TO DEFEAT THAT TERROR…"
"I mean, that's about the only way I can see that Demon King kicking the bucket. Sure, whoever makes it through the Sixways Exhibition'll be declared hero in name, but…for the citizens who've never stepped on a battlefield themselves, they'll never truly understand that terror."
"…THAT IS NOT IT."
Ozonezma knew the full circumstances behind the Demon King's demise.
It may have been true that, among those involved in the Sixways Exhibition, only he knew.
"THE TRUE HERO DOES EXIST."
The True Demon King had definitely been defeated right before his eyes. "…IT IS TRUE… THERE IS SOMEONE IN THIS LAND…WHO
DEFEATED THE DEMON KING… I WANTED…TO TELL…"
Right before his eyes closed, he got the feeling he had seen them among the crowds passing by.
It was assuredly an illusion of the past, seen through the gaps of his fading consciousness.
The Final Party.
Olukt the Drifting Compass Needle was there. Ozonezma the Capricious was there… As well as—
"…SETERA…"
This was one of the outcomes of those who once challenged the True Demon King.
The True Demon King died, and at the end of a long journey, their physical carcass had now been fully destroyed.
However, a little longer of a wait would be necessary before learning what happened over the course of such events.
And this was, after all, a story about determining a single hero. Match Three. Winner, Soujirou the Willow-Sword.