Chapter 472: O Dragon, O Dragon! We Race Toward the End of Our Longing — O Dragon, O Dragon! Part Forty-Nine
[Author’s Opening Note: I'm writing at such a fever pitch that I can't even remember what I wrote three lines ago.]
[Author’s Opening Note continued: Wait, could this possibly be...?]
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The battlefield fell silent, as though it had frozen solid.
A mechanical narwhal had literally punched through the sea to appear before them. Everything stopped moving, and every eye turned toward it.
Siegwurm: "——————"
Not even Siegwurm was an exception.
He froze with astonishment written across his face, his reptilian eyes opening wider than ever before.
Far, far back in the Dragon King's memory, blurred and faded yet still unmistakably there, was an enormous steel fish that had swum the sea of stars.
Perhaps seeing the real thing from those memories appear before him brought countless forgotten recollections rushing back. Or perhaps he was simply overcome by emotion.
When Akitsu Akane saw Siegwurm stop moving, his very thoughts short-circuited, a starter pistol fired inside her mind.
Akitsu Akane: "I'm going in!!!!"
Akitsu Akane had eyes only for Siegwurm. She knew there had been a tremendous noise out at sea and that everyone else had turned to look—but even knowing that, she kept watching Siegwurm. Siegwurm alone.
—No matter what happens, don't take your eyes off Siegwurm.
That was the message from Sunraku, who was not here. Even with the "distraction" he had created—something that had captured even Siegwurm's attention—off to the side, she was to keep looking forward. He trusted that she, of all people, could do it.
And for Akitsu Akane, that was practically an everyday occurrence.
Akitsu Akane: "Hup!!"
She poured her focus, honed to its absolute limit, into her body and released the tension packed into her legs like an arrow loosed from a bow.
Forward, forward. People in the way... Jump.
She searched for somewhere to land. Too far. She used the Skill "Hermes Boot" to run through the air and make up the distance... Land.
There were still too many people, but not so many that she could not get through. Left, right, then another leap—forward, forward!
Siegwurm: "—You ins—"
Akitsu Akane: "Dragon Breath! And layer on [Dragon-Might Breath]!!"
She had been spotted. To make herself disappear from sight once more, Akitsu Akane opened her mouth wide.
She layered the trait of her current form over the dragon breath that was her secret technique, producing a colossal roar of light in a double helix.
The intertwined black and gold blasts struck Siegwurm beneath the jaw. He had noticed her, but the surprise attack still snapped his head straight up as though he had taken an uppercut.
Siegwurm: "Ngh, you impudent little...!!?"
Rust: "...Mm. Good angle."
Siegwurm: "GRAAAAAH!?!?"
They say a bee will sting a face already wet with tears, but what struck Siegwurm's left eye was no bee's stinger. It was Suzaku's talon—an incinerating blade that severed magic.
He had seen it. But Siegwurm's barrier had to be deployed consciously, and a flaming feather shot through the tiny gap between his noticing the attack and responding to it.
Squelch. Glosswing Suzaku had dived from heaven to earth in a flying-kick pose, its wing thrusters blazing at maximum output. The blade extended from its heel like a stiletto sank deep, then tore through flesh as it passed.
The Dragon King screamed as an extraordinary torrent of damage effects erupted from his left eye.
The bird of flame had severed a dragon's eye, but the price should have been a crash into the earth...
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Mold: "Ah... Rust, pulling up after dropping to extremely low altitude is your specialty."
Rust: "...Amazing. Even the feeling of getting flattened is super realistic. Is NephHolo 2 seriously going to be this realistic too?"
Mold: "It's only at the project-announcement stage, so I really can't say..."
While fending off Rust, who had become almost unsettlingly talkative in her excitement, Mold watched the light of operation fade from Suzaku.
Rust: "...Ugh, Suzakuuu. Good work..."
Suzaku: "GOOD WORK. I... AWAIT THE DAY... WHEN I CAN FLY WITH YOU AGAIN..."
Rust: "...Too cute. This is bad. Ba-bad."
Mold: "Does the superlative make it ba-ba-bad?"
At this rate, Rust was liable to start rubbing her cheek against Suzaku in the middle of the battlefield. Mold somehow managed to coax the utterly smitten Rust away from the front line.
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Siegwurm's left eye had been destroyed. Suzaku—Rust, presumably—had done it.
But Akitsu Akane did not let that become the focus of her thoughts. Her attention remained fixed on one thing and one thing only: Siegwurm.
She had made it behind him for the moment, but his reverse scale was at his throat. No matter what she did, she would have to circle back around to his front.
Akitsu Akane: "............"
When Akitsu Akane focused to her absolute limit, she became remarkably quiet. Her body was simply wired that way, just as she never spoke while running track in real life.
Akitsu Akane: "...!!"
She broke into another sprint, circling clockwise and closing on the reverse scale through the blind spot left by Siegwurm's ruined eye.
Siegwurm: "GRAAH!!"
Akitsu Akane: "Ugh!"
Before the dagger she had thrust out could reach the reverse scale, a shock wave erupted from Siegwurm's entire body, slammed into Akitsu Akane, and sent her flying.
Siegwurm, in turn, caught sight of the airborne Akitsu Akane with his remaining right eye.
Siegwurm: "A dragon and humans would join together to strike me down?! Very well! If that is the path humanity has chosen!!"
Noirlind: "Then I shall send you to your grave, Siegwurm!!"
Noirlind borrowed the silent Akitsu Akane's mouth and shouted in her place.
Only then did the players who had been distracted by the "something" Akitsu Akane had never sensed turn their eyes back toward Siegwurm.
???: "Gah, that distraction worked too well... Everyone, snap out of it! We're almost out of time!!"
P.T. Overwerke: "Akitsu Akane-chan! Switch!!"
P.T. Overwerke leaped forward to trade places on the front line with the airborne Akitsu Akane. For the briefest instant, the man gazed almost wistfully at his own sword. The next moment, his eyes held nothing but Siegwurm as he shouted the words of his spell.
P.T. Overwerke: "I offer up my other half and invoke the rite of the covenant that brings ruin!!"
A fatal crack raced through the sword he had painstakingly built amid the hardships of his private life: Ritus, Ritual Spirit Sword. But this was the ending its wielder had chosen.
He would offer everything to achieve overwhelming firepower just once—
P.T. Overwerke: "Nnngh...! [Last Geas]!!"
Ritus, Ritual Spirit Sword, shattered. From the hilt vanishing in P.T. Overwerke's hand, a blade of jet-black magic punched into Siegwurm like a pile bunker.
P.T. Overwerke: "Drive it innnn!!!"
Taking that tremendous blow, bought with the sacrifice of a beloved sword, as their signal, the players unleashed a simultaneous barrage upon Siegwurm.
Siegwurm: "GR-GH-GRAAAAAAAH!!!"
Noirlind: "Hey! You there—the one called Sheeckle or whatever!"
Ceecrue: "Could that possibly mean me, de gozaru?!"
Noirlind: "Start with this one! Make a path!!!"
The players who distinctly heard that command tilted their heads at "Bamboo...?" But those involved understood each other perfectly.
Ceecrue: "Understood! Nnngh! One extra-generous serving of... [Takemikazuchi]!!"
The earth rose in a circle centered on Siegwurm. Fresh green bamboo burst through ground that humans, dragons, and the Dragon King had trampled firm time and again, rising like a wall.
It encircled the Dragon King, separating him from the front line, yet also formed a conical path whose spear-like tips pointed toward Siegwurm.
Akitsu Akane: "!!"
She sprinted again, racing up the bamboo slope toward the reverse scale...
Siegwurm: "Too naive!"
Akitsu Akane: "Agh?!"
Siegwurm's clenched fist struck Akitsu Akane. Launched once more with momentum she could not control, she nevertheless twisted her body by force in midair and "landed" on empty space.
Akitsu Akane: "Not yet!!"
She unleashed the double breath a second time, but this time Siegwurm answered with a breath attack of his own.
Akitsu Akane: "Fgh!"
She was effortlessly driven back. She barely managed to dodge, but failed to escape the lethal zone, and the light swallowed and scorched her left arm.
But Akitsu Akane would no longer stop. Nor would the situation around her.
Ten-Don: "Hey! Long time no see—since just a moment ago! This time I'm here to back you up!"
???: "Match my timing, Ten-Don!"
Ten-Don: "You got it!"
Two blades and six. Eight Sworvants in all flew through the air and closed in on Siegwurm.
Time remaining... ten seconds.