Kei: You can't!
I leap for Uzuki-san's sword.
As I lift it, its weight is remarkable.
Just in lifting it with my thin, untrained arms, I immediately begin to tremble.
Trying to lighten it the best I can, I open the vacuum and draw the blade from the sheath.
Nozomi: What can't I do?
Kei: Using those hands of yours... to oppress her, to hurt her......
As I drop my eyes to the halfway lifted, dangling Ito, in the cold, hard, sharpened blade are reflected a feeble pair of eyes.
Bleary, as if ready to cry even now, those feeble black eyes are the eyes of an herbivore.
Kei: Above all, I can't allow that!
I firmly wipe at them, lift their corners and fix them ahead with a glare.
Hidden under my closed eyelids, I redraw Uzuki-san's strong, black gaze, the gaze that captivated me with one look...
Releasing the last of the blade, one swipe. I throw the golden sheath to the floor and take a stance.
Kei: Nozomi-chan... I won't forgive you!
Even without the weight of the sheath, the heaviness of the steel quivers with a grating sound in my hands.
Nozomi: Without forgiving, what will you do? Swinging around such an unbecoming thing, what could you possibly do?
Kei: I'll protect Uzuki-san.
That's why these hands won't let go.
Starting with the pinky, I gather power in my fingers, gripping the hilt as if to wring it out.
Nozomi: Hmm...... can you really protect her, I wonder?
Kei: I'll protect her, no matter what!
Nozomi: Can someone as powerless as you protect her?
Kei: I admit that I'm weak, but...
Kei: ...I made a promise with her!
Even if I like period dramas, I've no idea how to use a sword. Hefting Ito through the air, my swing looks more like something from golf or baseball.
A moonlight-colored gale traces a curve as it slips through the air.
My hands are pulled by Ito's weight, and my upper body is swept into the momentum.
In their force, my arms try to drag my body with them.
Within these hands, the katana is fearsome, just as likely to wound me as anything else.
Even if I was holding a stick, it would truly hurt if it hit, a giant swing.
Yet, Nozomi-chan doesn't dodge it. She doesn't even try.
Imagining the awful sensation of the blade cleaving into flesh, I shut my eyes without thinking.
Why was it? They say to never close your eyes in combat, no matter what...
And so I cut through with the Ito no Tachi.
Kei: What...?
Shuffling my feet as my body staggers, I nervously open my eyes.
Nozomi: Fufu! What is it you find so strange?
Nozomi-chan stands in the same place as before - the place where the Ito no Tachi passed straight through.
Kei: W-why aren't you hurt?
Nozomi: I suppose you wouldn't know with your eyes shut. But it's not like you didn't wound a single hair on me, you know.
Nozomi: Look...
Nozomi-chan grabs Ito's blade of her own accord, and shows the proof of her words.
Slipping the gripping palm through it, in the place of spouting blood is born a red light. Exploding like the sparks of toy fireworks, it spreads as a fog and blurs.
Ahh, now I remember...
Even when Uzuki-san cut her before, the enchanted blade passed straight through without any great effect, didn't it...?
Then, using her ougi, Tama Kezuri, Uzuki-san chased Nozomi-chan's group away.
In other words, a layperson like me who can't even swing a sword has no way to deal with this situation, does she?
What do I do... what should I do...
Nozomi: And with that, I'll go next.
*gunyari*... (condition of strength leaving the body)
The world revolves, spiraling in twisted ripples.
Even knowing it's her usual suggestion, my consciousness is played for sport. The concentric waves of illusion bring illness.
I slip into vertigo.
I slip into nausea.
My feet lose their hold, quivering. It's so hard to keep standing.
But I can't fall. If I fall, I'll lose the ability to swing Ito, my only option with any effect, no matter how faint.
If that happens, it's over. Like the predator hunts you see on TV, Nozomi-chan would probably pin me down and sink her fangs in my throat.
The spiraling world brings vertigo.
The rippling earth brings nausea.
There's no way I can stay standing at this rate.
So, into my trembling leg...
Kei: Aagh!
...I swing Ito, biting in.
The heat and pain spreads thoroughly, carving a strong, concrete sensation into my leg.
Illusion yields to reality. In the end, illusions must disappear before a stronger light, after all.
The feeling of the retreating trembling and whirling inspires the image of poison leaving a wound in the company of blood.
Nozomi: Ahh, what a waste.
It really is a waste. The blood inside of me is low enough as it is.
But, I couldn't think of any other way, so there was no avoiding it. For such a cliched solution, I couldn't have done better...
The tension in my lips softens.
What do you know...? I've plenty of fight left, after all.
Nozomi: Hey, what makes you able to push yourself so far?
The pain of my leg, so painful it's hard to stand, holds fast my retreating consciousness.
Just like two minuses add into a plus.
But that's little more than crossing a dangerously suspended tightrope. If my resistance fails, the situation will be completely reversed.
But, I can still go on.
Kei: Because I made a promise... because I believe in her.
Nozomi: What do you mean, you believe?
Kei: Because Uzuki-san promised she'd protect me... I know she'll protect me...
Nozomi: The human that's just sleeping over there? You think she can protect you like that?
Kei: Even so, I promised I'd believe in her!
Kei: So I'm not going to run! Because I'm waiting for her to come and protect me!
In the thin dark blinks a blue star.
It is the kenki of Uzuki-san's right eye, the shine that knows oni, and measures right and wrong.
Opening their once closed lids, Uzuki-san's eyes reflect this part of the room.
Uzuki: ...Kei-san!?
Without a hint of freshly-awakened sluggishness, she rouses her body with the speed of a spring-loaded toy and embraces me from the back.
...Eh!?
Folding her arms over mine, she swings Ito even as I still hold it in a grip.
Of course, the step is weak, the swing is slow, even the timing doesn't match. The resulting swing is less capable than a layperson's, but...
...the strength of the power itself, flowing into Ito, is real enough.
And, thanks to Nozomi-chan's boastful disinterest in avoiding the strike...
After a late and fretful attempt to dodge, she grasps at her chest and takes distance.
Nozomi: You little...... how dare you......
Her once playfully narrowed eyes are now wide, wet with tears, and scowling at Uzuki-san.
When I take in the gaze in front, then whirl to follow it, I see Uzuki-san with her hands over mine.
Uzuki: Kei-san... you believed in me...?
Closed over the hilt with such force, I can't pry them free, strained and white, my hands soften at the warmth she brings.
Kei: Did you think I wouldn't believe? That I'd give up on believing and run away?
Cold with the loss of blood as it encircles Ito's hilt, my promised finger is warmed by her touch.
Uzuki: It wasn't that I couldn't believe in you, Kei-san, but that I lost my faith in myself.
Uzuki: But...... I'll believe.
Uzuki-san accepts Ito from my hands.
Uzuki: If you'll go that far believing in me, then I'll try believing in myself.
Kei: Okay.
At last, the baton has been passed.
Having made it to my goal, I'm finally allowed to sit down.
Though it's mostly because the power is gone from my lower body.
Nozomi: ...!?
The tailwind of a sword cleaving the air, and the ring that flees from it.
Without a word in answer, Uzuki-san chases after it.
Nozomi: Khu!
Uzuki-san has no need for words now.
Her chest holds a strong will, trembling no more.
Without even chanting a sutra to concentrate her spirit, her slashes hit in succession with the power to cut spirit itself.
Before the blue-tinged vestiges of ghostly light fade comes another, and yet another attack tracing the trail of the blade.
Before my eyes can catch, a diagonal slash to the shoulder, reverse to the torso, and a chop from overhead.
If it were me, they would all be clean hits, and I would be cut in six.
But, Nozomi-chan is not human, but an oni.
With suggestion as her attack, she might seem cultured and quiet in comparison, but her reflexes exceed the usual human range as well.
Nozomi: Khuu!...
She clearly evades the first blade, the second blade, and the third blade merely scrapes off the back of her wrist.
Jumping back with the clean cut, she swipes her hand in a wild swing at the moment she lands.
Nozomi: ...Take this!!
A red light spreads from the wound. Much more dense than the fog from before, like blood, it solidifies into a mass of power itself and...
...it splits into several spheres and freezes.
One at the head, chest, stomach, crotch, left hand, right hand, left leg, right leg, eight altogether...
And with the bell as a signal, they rush into motion, all at once.
The spheres change shape. Change shape and lengthen. Lengthen and writhe into a line. Then, writhing, they press forward.
These clearly differ from any kugutsu string.
Their widths are more fitting to be called ropes.
And from the forward edge, poisonous fangs reach forth.
They are serpents, scaled in the color of blood.
Tracing a zig-zagging trail like bolts of lightning, they launch abreast of the ground at the speed of an arrow.
Kei: Uzuki-san!
Uzuki: Sei!
Uzuki-san makes no move to dodge. Rather, she swings Ito as she proceeds forward.
The blade cuts through darkness with a moonlight shine.
Her technique draws a circle in the air, and before the burning light fades, it becomes a full moon.
That full moon is a shield.
It's not a shield that stops attacks, but a fearsome shield that mercilessly destroys all that touch it.
One snake, two, three...
The three snakes that tried to pass through its lower half back away, then flicker and fade in the showering blue light from the sky.
The serpents from both arms converge intermittently from the left and right, to which she lashes out with the back of either hand.
If you can bind power in a blade, you certainly must be able to bind it your own flesh, and Senba Myouken-Ryuu is a style that includes unarmed arts...
The fourth and fifth serpents, struck by a backhand covered with a vambrace, vanish in a burst.
The remaining three, from the head, chest, and stomach, pass through the openings and latch onto her.
Uzuki: Khu!
While leaking out a moan of pain, Uzuki-san unceasingly thrusts forward. Despite the large number, the many snakes have but one true body.
With one step, Nozomi-chan is brought into attack range.
With one more step, she would be pinned down.
Up until now, this would be the point where Mikage-chan steps in to block her, but...
Having drunk the Nie no Chi, Yumei-san has gained a corporal body and is several steps above in power, and with butterflies holding her at bay, Mikage-chan has no room to act.
And even if she moved now, it would be too late...
Uzuki: Hah!
A vertical slash rips straight forward and down the seichuushin. (TN: Seichuushin - the body's line of symmetry.)
As the blade falls and severs the attached serpents, without question, it captures Nozomi-chan as well.
Without flesh to hold the blade, it would pass straight through her spirit body. Thus, knowing that, Uzuki-san...
...in vengeance for the eight snakes, continues with seven more strikes, flashing the sword eight times in the span of a single breath.
Nozomi: Kwaaaaah---------!!
She just received eight strikes from a secret blade that would each kill a person in one. There's no way she wouldn't fall.
Releasing an agonizing death cry, Nozomi-chan's form turns to red fog and melts into the air.
And then, at the same moment...
Continue...