Swinging her long blade, Su Yuzu leaped across the endlessly heaving ground, bounding from one jutting rock vein to the next.
The distance between her and Dai Ling was no more than a few dozen meters.
Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.
Su Yuzu's heartbeat had been hammered to its absolute limit — like a war drum gone berserk inside her chest.
For Su Yuzu, who poured every ounce of her [Blood Manipulation] ability into enhancing her own body, a few dozen meters was nothing.
An instant. That was all it took.
She cradled the girl in one arm — and already, her gleaming blade was sweeping down in a vertical slash straight at Dai Ling's head.
One tall woman looking up. One girl cutting down.
For a fleeting moment, their eyes met.
Dai Ling's eyes had long since reverted to those dark golden vertical pupils — and Su Yuzu's eyes, driven by the surge of her ability, had broken free of Hanami's concealment as well.
In the depths of the girl's crimson irises, something like the edge of a blade had condensed.
Clang——
The earth erupted before Dai Ling. A wall of stone surged upward and caught the girl's blade.
Su Yuzu planted a foot against the rock face and launched herself off it, spinning through the air with her skirt flaring wide around her.
It was only then that Soga Yura's voice drifted down from the sky above — a voice that had gone from shock to escalating, full-blown terror.
Su Yuzu glanced up in a panic and hurriedly commanded Behemoth to descend.
Soga Yura — who had just been clinging to Behemoth with trembling hands — noticed, after a brief pause, that the machine beneath her had suddenly begun to drop.
Even though Su Yuzu had done her best to be mindful of the pace and the speed.
But in the middle of a battle, how could Behemoth drift down as gently as a falling feather?
There was still speed. Plenty of it.
For Soga Yura, who had only just worked up the nerve to peek over the edge and steal a glance at the ground far below, it was absolutely catastrophic.
"Ngh..."
"Nngghh... uwaaah..."
"Yuzu, Yuzu, Yuzu, YUZU——!!!"
Her thighs were locked around Behemoth in a white-knuckled grip, her shoulders shaking uncontrollably. Soga Yura was on the verge of tears. Every whimper that escaped her had turned into Su Yuzu's name.
That gut-wrenching sensation of shooting up and then plummeting straight back down.
Like one of those freefall rides at an amusement park.
Except... without a safety harness. Without a shoulder brace. Nothing.
"I'm here."
Throwing everything else aside, Su Yuzu recalled Behemoth and gently took hold of Soga Yura's hand.
A terrifying mental storm detonated instantly — with their clasped hands as its epicenter — exploding outward across Tsukimisato.
Under the shockwave of that mental storm, even Dai Ling — a Fourth Sequence — flinched and staggered.
Soga Yura, who had been seized by panic just a heartbeat ago, went completely calm in an instant.
So calm that she almost forgot why she had been terrified a second before.
As long as Yuzu was by her side.
As long as it was for Yuzu.
Even the deepest Abyss — she would walk into it without a second thought.
She loosened her grip on Su Yuzu's hand.
Yuzu... was still holding that injured girl.
A mental impact from that close range — it was still a serious burden on someone already wounded.
Soga Yura, who had been lying flat across Behemoth, slowly pushed herself upright.
In the darkness of the night, two pairs of crimson eyes stared back at that pair of dark golden vertical pupils.
And right at that moment...
"Hey—"
"What are you two sisters even doing?!" A girl's shout rang out from behind them.
A white trench coat snapped in the wind.
The Knight Princess came sprinting across the writhing stone serpents, then leaped to land beside Su Yuzu and Soga Yura.
At Sakura Renxin's insistence, both Soga Yura and Su Yuzu had changed into their bathrobes earlier.
Only the Knight Princess herself — looking deeply displeased about the whole situation — was still wearing her trench coat and trousers.
"Did Sister Mai come too..." Soga Yura looked toward Sakura Mai.
"What about your aunt?"
"How would I know what that woman is up to?!" Sakura Mai stared tensely at Dai Ling. "At such a critical moment, and she's gone off who knows where."
Inside the courtyard——
Sakura Renxin sat in the hot spring pool, staring at the girl across from her.
She had already talked her way from the Cambrian all the way through the Silurian, and no matter what she said, that girl just sat there listening with a perfectly docile expression.
But... the moment she showed even the slightest intention of leaving, everything changed in an instant.
Although she was sitting in a hot spring pool, she felt as though she were perched on a lone reef in the middle of a boundless ocean.
Raging seas all around her.
Trapping her in this tiny patch of ground.
Sensing the battle outside growing more and more intense, Sakura Renxin's fist clenched until her knuckles went white.
She was not, by nature, someone who sat quietly and behaved herself.
"Aaaaagh—"
"I can't take this anymore!!!"
She surged to her feet from the pool, snatched up her slippers from the edge, and jabbed a finger at the girl in front of her.
"Just who the hell are you?!"
——
The injured reception attendant was set down gently on Behemoth.
Soga Yura jumped down from Behemoth and was pulled behind Sakura Mai for protection.
As Behemoth rose once more from the ground, the girls' combined combat power finally reached its peak.
Destroyer.
Guardian Knight.
And... Assassin.
Sakura Mai kept Soga Yura shielded behind her.
She brought her right hand to her chest — while Soga Yura's eye twitched as she watched — and drew from it that long sword shimmering with golden light.
Damn her... having a chest like that...
Couldn't she pull the Sword of Erasure from the hem of her skirt or something? Did she really have to keep it in a place like that?
Complaints aside.
Soga Yura still snapped into a battle stance without missing a beat.
The wind... suddenly stopped.
The entire world plunged into a silence like death.
A girl's crimson eyes gazed down at the foothills below, gazed down at that tall woman.
In this moment—
The girl was like a sovereign looking down upon her domain.
Even the moonlight looked as though it might be killed by her.
The whole world held nothing but Soga Yura's expressionless crimson eyes, the light within them shifting and churning.
Dai Ling clamped her jaw shut so hard her teeth ground together, the veins at her temples pulsing.
She could not wrap her head around it at all.
A mere... a mere Third Sequence girl — how could she be exerting this much mental pressure on her?
"HRAAAAAAAH——" Left with no choice, a dark crimson erosion domain spread out across the earth beneath her.
Only this time... the dark crimson erosion domain had barely expanded a few hundred meters before it lurched to a halt — as though it had touched something far more terrifying — and snapped violently back.
Dai Ling stared toward the west, her face pale with shock.
Su Yuzu and Soga Yura both caught Dai Ling's horrified gaze and followed it.
That direction... was where their own courtyard was.
So Auntie wasn't sitting there doing absolutely nothing after all.
Then... the way things stand now... Auntie wanted to use this as training for them?
"That absolute scoundrel!"
"She's soaking in the hot spring while she sends us out here to do the dirty work, is that it?!" Sakura Mai's resentment toward her utterly unreliable mother burned with white-hot fury.
Still, she tightened her grip on the Sword of Erasure and settled into her fighting stance.
But... inside the courtyard's hot spring.
Sakura Renxin — who had just been standing there in all her indignant glory, slipper in hand, radiating pure 'I am done with this' energy as she prepared to throw down with the girl in front of her — suddenly felt an endless, crushing sorrow and desolation erupt from that girl.
The grief was so overwhelming, so absolute, that she had no room to resist at all. She was simply pressed back down — and tears began to slide, unbidden, from the corners of her eyes.
Can't win...
Wuwuwu, I can't win...
Jurei, come and save me...
Someone's bullying your wife~!
Breathing deep, Sakura Renxin looked at the docile and yet deeply unsettling girl before her. "Where were we just now?"
"Eurypterid," said the girl in front of her — the first time Sakura Renxin had ever heard her voice.
Very clear. Very cold.
"Right... then let's continue with the sea scorpion."
____
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