Volume 2, Chapter 4

Something is odd, I think. While I watch onee-sama walk onto the stage, what’s running through my head isn’t anything to do with her, but rather curiosity about that guy from earlier. Questions like what exactly is this ‘Demon’s Door’ to cause that flickering between people phenomenon. Also, why did he say that I was ‘close’ to it?

Well, it doesn’t matter. Currently, what I should be focusing on is onee-sama and the battle which is about to occur. That is the most important thing right now, not feeding my curiosity. I should focus only on this and anything else, well that can be dealt with later.

Actually focusing properly, onee-sama is giving off a surprising aura. Although I was expecting a domineering aura, like the one that she gives off when she is training me, it’s actually elegant. I had thought that her domineering aura when fighting was simply due to her personality, but that’s not the case. It seems more like she chooses to change the aura when in a proper fight…

I think I’d call it her ‘pride’.

Well, opposing her, the aura of the opponent seems to be severely reduced. If it’s done on purpose, than the opponent…well, her name should have already revealed it. She’s an assassin. Knowing this, I wonder how the battle between onee-sama, who I feel is a brawler who likes to fight in a sort of honourable manner, and this assassin who fights dirty.

Then again, onee-sama is probably more flexible than I give her credit for. After all, although she still gives off a front of being cold towards me, she grew so much better. If I had to say it, the reason she made me come fight here was not for her benefit.. It was for mine.

I’m not sure exactly why I feel this way, but it’s certainly the sort of feeling that I’ve been having. I wonder…is there many times where I’ve missed someone trying to help me simply because I’ve been thinking they have an agenda against me? Or am I overthinking things?

“BATTLE START!”

Doesn’t matter, it’s time to watch the battle.

The first thing that happens is that onee-sama gets into a battle stance… Hmm, the assassin disappeared into the shadows at the same time? But… I can still estimate her location right now…

In a split second since the battle had begun, the assassin had snuck behind onee-sama in order to stab from the back.. Ah, that’s why I can guess where she is.. The assassin has strong ‘intent’, I think. Similar to onee-sama, she’s not trying to hide it?

She appears and quickly attempts to end it.

However,

“…attacking from behind, is it?”,

Onee-sama mutters so and side-steps the attack.

Haha, as I see it, rather than reading intent like myself, onee-sama judged the location of the assassin by the wind the assassin generated. I think that, because onee-sama didn’t react when the assassin was hiding, but rather, when she began to move. At least, that’s my guess. I’m sure there are other ways to explain it.
“…”

Of course, the assassin was not as polite as to remain around and quietly hid in the shadows once again…

I probably should have thought of this earlier, but it’s odd that there are enough shadows for the assassin to hide in… unless the assassin isn’t human, perhaps? Magic is at play?

It’s not like I can see her face that well, as she’s wearing a cloak. I can just make out that ‘Phantom’ is female, however anymore than that, is beyond my ability.

Actually, I don’t need to. A certain someone is fluttering around excitedly underneath my robes.

“Oi, fess up. You know something, right?”

I speak to the fairy who’s struggling hard to keep her promise of not keeping trouble.

“Of course I do! This person – You need her! Get her, get her, get her!”

‘This person’s incoherency is annoying’.

Thinking such a thought, I flick the fairy trying to avoid notice from other people. If people saw me, they’d think I’m strange, as I’m trying so hard to conceal the fairy…for some reason, all I can think is that if she get revealed, she would manage to start a fight some way or another…

Anyway, let’s get her to be clearer.

“Please speak properly. You’re not really answering me.”

“Get her! She is a rare breed! Deviation human!”

I guess she answered my question, for now. At the moment, I want to focus on onee-sama’s battle again. It can wait until after the battle, I think.
Onee-sama is still fighting against the assassin… and fairing pretty well.

It was stupid of me to assume that onee-sama was always someone of pure brute strength. After all, she is the person to become the future ruler of the continent (although, for some reason, I can picture the current king, my father, to live for another thousand years or more).

I guess it was my bias against her which caused me to feel this way… in fact, when she’s fighting, onee-sama looks pretty cool! Well, my own opinion does not matter. I’m getting sidetracked.

The assassin is quite powerful. I have worked out that rather than her using the shadows to hide, she is controlling the shadows! The fact that she can do this pretty much makes her position as an assassin pretty obvious. The power helps the profession out so much… Though, I’m unsure of why an assassin would participate in a battle like this? Perhaps, I really should consider what the fairy said and try and get her… Whatever that means?
Onee-sama is carefully watching the shadows, as they are now, instead of simply hiding the assassin, snaking around trying to trip her and just distract her, in order to create a distraction good enough for the assassin to attack.

Well, it doesn’t seem to working however. In fact, it seems that onee-sama has stopped treating this as a serious battle and is instead honing her battle senses… Seriously onee-sama! Just how much do you like fighting, to train in the midst of a battle?

Oh… it seems she’s preparing to make her move now. Previously, she was simply defending but now she is preparing to attack. I do not think that the assassin will be in a good shape. All I have to do is look at onee-sama’s muscles tensing to know it’s going to be a big blow.

Then, if you have a look at her eyes, she’s already pinpointed the location of the assassin as well as where she is going to attack from. Man, isn’t the assassin pretty dumb? From her intent, I can tell… She’s preparing to attack just as onee-sama is predicting! How could she not tell? Once she does this, it’s her loss…

When she attacks… what I predicted would happen, didn’t happen.

Realising that she had fallen into a trap, the assassin reacted so quickly that not many people noticed what had happened… But she had raised a wall of shadows up around her body in order to pad the damage. As soon as she had done that, she released it.

Looking around the other spectators, probably… five other people had noticed what had happened and had curious gazes on their faces. However, the rest… all had mouths gaping in shock, basically.

They are probably thinking something along the lines of ‘How did the assassin survive such a heavy blow?’, and with good reason. The blow which had struck the assassin had around 50% of onee-sama’s power put into it, enhanced by only a single Martial Practice of hers. However, it seemed like the blow of a tiger hitting a mouse. The idea of the mouse surviving a direct hit from the tiger would be unimaginable!

The assassin, after receiving the blow, ran back into the shadows. Onee-sama did not even receive a little bit of shock. She simply looked at her fist, shrugged, then grinned.

“…impressive.”

I’m fairly sure I heard her mutter under her breath.

Well, I wonder how this battle is going to end. Onee-sama will not be able to do a similar blow again, as the assassin now knows to be cautious of it. I wonder if the assassin has another trick up her sleeve, though. After such a thing happening, she did not give up. Rather she took the time to escape back into the shadows.

Yuuki, beside me, has her attention paid completely to the battle. I think that even if I tried to talk to her, she would not react. Well, it is a fairly interesting match.

“I said, I said! Get her! She’s perfect!”

The fairy, although not making a racket publicly, has managed to transmit her voice only to me. It seems that she has a real interest in this assassin. Then again, so do I. Though, it’s fairly certain, the reason for our interest is completely different. As well as our level of interest.

Oh, I can feel it. The assassin is intending on finishing this match. Onee-sama hasn’t noticed it though, I think. Rather than her usual hit and run tactic, I think this one is going to be different, though I can’t seem to determine how. I’m really interested because of this.

In a few seconds, I think her final move will happen. If this fails, she will probably surrender. That’s the feeling I get from her.

Three.

Two.

One.

After my internal countdown, the entire arena goes dark. The spectators can’t see, the judge can’t see. I can’t see.

I don’t need to see. I can feel it.

The intent to slice onee-sama’s throat.

The intent to avoid the attack.
It’s so simple. The assassins last stand ability… Is to completely disable the sense of sight.

The darkness dissipated and…

Onee-sama is standing while the assassin has been knocked down. It looks like she won. Of course she did. I never lacked faith.

“UNKNOWN CHALLENGER A WINS”

Well, with that… as the assassin walks off the platform I move to pass by her before she runs off.

I whisper to her,

“Meet me at Ingrid’s hotel. I have something to discuss.”

She passes by as if she heard nothing, but I know she heard me. If she turns up at the hotel (it was simply a place which I saw on the way here), it means she’s interested in what I have to say. If not, well, too bad. I just won’t be able to placate my curiosity.

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