—
That opening has already been done, so I'm scrapping it.
— Cecilus Segmunt is the star performer of this world.
That fact has been demonstrated through showing rather than telling, so it's redundant.
— Cecilus Segmunt is one of a kind in all the world.
That claim isn't exclusive to Cecilus, so it gives me a splitting headache.
— Cecilus Segmunt is Cecilus Segmunt.
That definition fits best, so I'll adopt this approach for the opening this time.
Very well— △▼△▼△▼△ — Cecilus Segmunt is Cecilus Segmunt.
Swearing upon the Tenchi Shinmei, this is Cecilus's absolute, unshakeable axiom.
No matter what might happen to him—even if he became the handsome, long-limbed, refined young man everyone kept telling him about, a full-grown adult—that would merely be the Before Cecilus. Here and now, in this very moment, only this singular self called Cecilus Segmunt truly existed.
Therefore, he would prove it.
"May the watchers in the heavens bear witness.—What the world will choose."
He finished tying back his hair with a strip of cloth, then slapped both cheeks hard with his open palms.
Cecilus rarely psyched himself up like this, but making one's emotional shift clear to the audience was critically important in stagecraft. By inserting this kind of scene, the audience was made aware that the stage had shifted alongside the character's feelings, transitioning to the next act.
After that, Cecilus tilted his head as if suddenly remembering, "You're all surprisingly well-behaved. By all means, feel free to resume your lovely conversations as usual—I won't mind one bit."
"●●■▼●■●!" "▼■■—" "■■■■■!!" "▲■■▲●●●■▲●●▲▼■●▲■■●●●" "●■●●■■■!" "—▲▼▲" "●●▲▼▲●●" "■●▲●■■●●▲■●! ●■●! ▲▼■!" "●●■■■▼●■—"
Instantly, the voices of the audience who had been forced into silence erupted, and Cecilus nodded to himself with an "mm-hmm," regaining his rhythm amid their familiar clamor.
Cecilus, who normally derived endless satisfaction from having them wrapped around his finger, had never before made them go quiet like that. It was an unexpected move even on his own part, and the shock of being silenced so abruptly must have thrown them for a loop.
That fact alone was deeply pleasurable—what a fantastic start.
Because— "—I'm heading out to settle the score with the one who underestimated me."
No sooner had those words left his lips than a flash of light pierced Cecilus's face.
"Ceci—"
Aru cried out at the sight of Cecilus, his grinning face punctured dead center.
Aru had been charging over, and seeing Cecilus like that, he inexplicably tried to channel power into the Blue Dragon Blade pressed against his own neck. But he stopped himself just in time.
Because the image of Cecilus with a hole through his face wavered—he realized it was a leftover afterimage.
And then— "You'd better keep your distance."
No sooner had those words reached Aru's eardrums than Cecilus's afterimage shattered and a shockwave rippled outward.
The sound, arriving after the flash of light, tore through space, and the noise grew in pursuit of the spreading destruction. The street, already beyond recognition, was blown away in a perfect circle for over a dozen meters.
"Whooooaaa!?"
Aru's scream trailed off as he was caught in the aftershock of the attack. Cecilus, facing forward, didn't even register him in the corner of his vision. However, he didn't completely ignore Aru's existence either.
Piecing together Aru's prior behavior and physical capabilities, the distance and trajectory of his fading scream from where he'd been standing, and all such peripheral information—along with the natural dramatic effect inferred from the enemy's attack pattern—Cecilus painted a mental picture of Aru's invisible form inside his brain theater.
It probably turned out exactly like that. Because that was the version that looked best on stage.
—An actor may not be able to see every edge of the stage, but an actor must understand every edge of the stage.
This was the expansion of sensation—or rather, the expansion of one's imagined vision within the mind.
Cecilus designated himself as the center of the stage, then orchestrated the movements and stage effects of the cast arranged around it to his liking—sprinting headlong toward the most visually stunning development possible.
"——"
Atop Cecilus, who danced along the razor's edge of death, the heroine hovering in the air continued her grotesque transformation.
The heroine, who hadn't so much as flinched from Cecilus's full-powered knife-hand strike, had sprouted thin crystalline rods along her slender shoulders and arms, transforming into an ethereal figure draped in luminous wings.
Of this form that could only be called beautiful, what drew the eye most were the bands of light that floated around the heroine, gently caressing the sky—thin, flat constructions of magic crystal.
How they worked was a mystery, but these demonic ribbons, reflecting back the red of the burning cityscape, swam through the air on trajectories like gossamer caught in the wind, and in the span of a heartbeat, pierced through the world lengthwise and hurtled toward Cecilus.
The same kind of thing that had blown Aru away earlier—it approached Cecilus's gleaming face, closer, closer, closer— "—Lick. Hmm, what an odd flavor. What would you call it—gemstone?"
In that instant, Cecilus licked the ribbon with a pointed tongue, tasting it just before it would have punctured the center of his face. The sensation on his tongue tip was soft yet hard, and the taste was, quite literally, close to a gemstone.
It looked like hard candy, and the taste was identical to rolling a gemstone in your mouth and feeling disappointed—in other words, what the heroine was wrapped in was a ribbon of gems.
"Now that I think about it, at the start she was hurling light and fire, then midway through it switched to stone pillars with earth for hands and feet. So the gems are an extension of that... How wonderfully elegant, and to my taste! Excellent, excellent—the climax is really heating up!"
He retracted the tongue that had tested the ribbon, and Cecilus let out a hearty laugh of exhilaration.
Having to face a celestial maiden draped in a jeweled raiment at this critical juncture—what an honor. Besides, he was perfectly satisfied with the outcome of their earlier exchange.
Cecilus's lightning-fast knife-hand strike had the power to cleave not just stone walls but iron fortresses in two. But then again, he'd heard that among gems, there were some harder than any of those.
In other words, the heroine Cecilus now faced was— "—A diamond celestial maiden!!"
No sooner had the words tumbled out than diamond bands shot forth from the celestial maiden's raiment.
Flashing, bisecting the world as they surged forward—twelve of them in all, minus the one he'd dodged and licked, leaving eleven that closed in from every direction to engulf and kill Cecilus.
An absolute domain of Death, a mountain of corpses and river of blood that dared him to dodge a single raindrop— "If that's what it takes! Then I'll dodge every last one—be it raindrops or grains of sand!"
Eleven death lines raged; one returned, making twelve death lines again. He slipped past them, slipped past them, slipped past them—!
A direct hit meant death; death meant destruction; destruction meant curtain call.
His toes were ground away, blood sprayed from the wound in his chest and evaporated, and he forced his small body through the lattice gaps of the interlocking ribbons, refusing the final curtain. Well? See that? This is the advantage of having a child's body—my adult self couldn't have squeezed through those gaps.
Having won, and having resolved to keep winning, Cecilus bared his teeth in a gleaming smile— "Now, let the imagination take flight!"
The torrential onslaught left no room for hesitation; he ignored everything, bleeding from wounds not at all superficial.
The acceleration of thought during combat was staggering, and this grand performance so far had earned thunderous applause and ovation. But if things continued like this, it would devolve into a slow, tedious grind. Cecilus shifted his body's functions to a stage-first gear change, searching for the optimal performance plan.
—First, he cut his color perception. The world was painted black and white.
The richness of a colored world was lost, but a monochrome world possessed a beauty of essence that could only be expressed in monochrome.
—Next, he cut his hearing. The voices of the audience, his own heartbeat, the sound of the slower light ribbons cutting through air and the stage being demolished—all of it was abandoned.
A silent world was desolate, but there was a flavor that could only be savored through the elegant endurance of deprivation. In this environment, one could appreciate the joy of being moved by a performer's gestures and the subtlety of their facial acting.
—In addition, he cut pain, taste, smell, and all related functions. His body went all-in on combat; his mind went all-in on the flashing thoughts—the curtain rises on the brain theater.
"—Now then."
With that brief pause, Cecilus—in the colorless world, in the space where he continued dodging the relentless assault of diamond ribbons—literally observed himself fighting splendidly from above.
It was the sensation of expressing accelerated thought through fantasy, stretching out a single instant. But even this had its limits. A star actor might have the skill to command the stage, but if the situation didn't advance, there was a limit to how long you could hold an audience's attention. A story moved—that was what stirred the heart.
The diamond heroine had begged him through tears, and Cecilus had been absolutely livid about it, but he had to twist the true meaning of her plea to suit his own purposes. He needed a catalyst to get this slow-motion, yet steadily progressing, situation moving.
"——"
Normally speaking, she was someone connected to Cecilus. She might even be a core fan who knew the famous Cecilus one-sidedly, but even if that were the case, there was no issue with his reasoning going forward, so he wouldn't question that point.
What mattered here was that the Cecilus Segmunt she was conscious of was not the current self, but the sensational Before Cecilus who'd been the talk of the town.
Others might find this laughable—Schwartz and
Whatever was said about him, it was someone else's business; whatever he did, it was merely resemblance to a stranger; whatever he left behind belonged to another.
That was Cecilus's feeling, and so the division between Before and After within him was complete. It seemed the heroine—who was reportedly in danger of suffocating from an excess of scavenged food—shared the same sentiment.
The heroine did not equate Before Cecilus with After Cecilus.
"In itself, that's a welcome thing, and since you can't just become big again by being told to, we have no choice but to proceed with the current status quo!"
"Hmm, how interesting. Even though I'm grateful to be considered a separate person, I can't help but feel distinctly dissatisfied that it's not *this* me who's needed."
Cecilus pondered, nodding to himself, when another Cecilus popped into view beside him.
Right after insisting that Before and After Cecilus were different people, here came another Cecilus—but having a conversation partner did make things flow better.
"Well, let's just put it down to heightened concentration making the acceleration of thought more visible. More importantly, we should talk about the heroine."
"I'd say it's less about her and more about my stance toward her. Of course, if you've been watching Boss and Tanza, it's easy to imagine that a key figure in the story and a heroine together would create a chemistry unlike anything before—but still."
"Which means there's that kind of chemistry between her and me?"
"I wonder. Actually, what was the original intention behind deciding she was the heroine?"
"On a whim."
"On a whim, huh~"
"But but but—what Boss calls the 'live performance factor' shouldn't be underestimated. Instant decisions, gut reactions—it all boils down to intuitive inspiration, but hasn't that been my approach in most situations?"
"That's true. Which means the current situation is also the result of following your intuition, so wouldn't continuing to follow instinct be the best approach?"
"I'm starting to think so. But if that's the case... My intuition is telling me that I can't rely on anyone other than Cecilus Segmunt—the me of this very moment."
"I see. But she said she's looking for someone who isn't the current you. The one being asked for is Before Cecilus, but could that be because she believes there are things Before Cecilus could do that After Cecilus can't?"
"Ah—then if the current me surpasses the previous me, problem solved!"
"No objections here!"
The two Ceciluses nodded in agreement, reaching a mutually satisfying consensus—then got into a squabble over which one would return to the real Cecilus who was observing from above.
A pointless battle to determine which was the true Cecilus's soul began and ended—and immediately after, the real Cecilus's time resumed at normal speed, and he recommenced dealing with the twelve death lines produced by the twelve diamonds of the celestial maiden's raiment.
"—It looked slow, but the perceived speed is fast fast fast!"
The twelve dancing light ribbons acted with apparent volition, each moving independently and, unlike ordinary weapons, establishing irregular trajectories like living things. When he tried to cut one down with a knife-hand strike, the point of contact was gouged out in a visually painful chunk. Their cutting edge was far superior to Onibami—the blade Rouhan treasured above all else. A genuinely tough opponent.
Yet even surrounded by these lethally beautiful gems, Cecilus mused: "'Kill me'—that demand. The Cecilus in her mind could do it."
In other words, the Cecilus she imagined would have easily broken through this diamond encirclement, reached her, and cleanly struck her heart.
Obviously, a Cecilus who intended to surpass his former self needed to go above and beyond that— "If the Before-me who can't be hit or touched wouldn't do *this*—then how about this?"
His thoughts sparked for the hurdle he'd prepared to overcome himself.
Before Cecilus might have evaded the entire barrage wholesale, but After Cecilus, fused with Another Cecilus into the Perfect Cecilus, could create a spectacular showing beyond mere dodging.
A light ribbon aimed at his head from above, a glinting one charging at his torso, a sweeping slash targeting not so much a leg sweep as a leg *shaving*—he dodged them all by tilting his head, twisting his body, stepping over his left foot then his right in sequence, then arching back, crouching, straightening his knees to leap up—evading every single one. The result— "The light yoyo!"
He kept dodging the twelve independent light ribbons by the narrowest of margins, guiding each to tangle with the others in midair, weaving them into a beautiful mesh of knots. This was "Tokyo Tower."
He was recreating the string trick that Schwartz had idly demonstrated on the journey from the Sword Slave Island—the one that had made Tanza unreservedly impressed and turned Schwartz bright red with embarrassment.
Of course, doing something like this was pointless.
The diamond bands, constructed from vast quantities of mana, had no limit to their length. The knots he'd made would simply unravel, be disassembled, reassembled, and return to how they were as if nothing had happened.
He couldn't afford to show that smug, mistaken confidence of "I've sealed away their attacks."
But he had gained something. Certainty.
"I can surpass myself."
He'd never seen the real thing. He'd never actually compared.
But the Before Cecilus he imagined in his mind could not have created this "Tokyo Tower." After all, "Tokyo Tower" didn't exist in his repertoire.
So Before Cecilus might have dodged them all—but since he'd succeeded in creating a spectacle beyond mere dodging, the current Cecilus had pulled ahead by one step.
"——"
Immediately after that conviction, the light "Tokyo Tower" directly beneath Cecilus began to unravel.
The flow of returning to mana and being reassembled was as expected—what went slightly beyond expectations was the colorless explosion that occurred at the moment of disassembly.
If he'd only unraveled it, he'd be toying with them while still losing—that was an expression of defiance he refused to show.
"You're quite the sore loser yourself!"
Still in a world without color, where even his own voice was ignored by his eardrums, Cecilus gazed at the heroine from a distance and admired her.
Admiring her, he watched the colorless radiance surging up from directly below—a direct hit would erase all the ground he'd gained from dodging the ribbons, and suspended in the air, his freedom of movement was incomparably lower than on the ground.
Bad bad bad bad bad—he was fired up.
—Expanding his inner vision once more, he dared to gear-change his body's functions.
Color perception: maintained. Hearing: maintained. He reactivated pain and touch, and the agony that instantly surged forth was hidden behind a bared-teeth grin as he searched within a sensation that split one second into a hundred parts for the "key."
If it existed—the "key" to turn the script to the next page.
"—Found it."
With every nerve in his body exposed—performing a feat of reckless dimensional daring akin to thrusting himself into the wind—the rising Cecilus's outstretched foot struck something.
Not a convenient wall or building. What he struck was a fragment of rubble kicked up from the cityscape being destroyed in the battle between Cecilus and Arakia—a single pebble.
He used it as a foothold.
"Sei."
With the faintest sensation of contact on his sole, Cecilus's body bounced in midair.
To avoid being caught by the rising column of colorless destruction, Cecilus kicked off further—off an upturned splinter of wood, a shard of shattered window glass, and finally a sizable piece of ash, launching himself high and away.
Why could he do this? He could because he could, and he made you believe what you saw.
Defying all reason and convention to flee into the sky—Cecilus's was an assault upon common sense itself. Those who witnessed it might call it a miracle, but in Cecilus's view, this was merely the appetizer—a handful of the countless miracles that visited every moment and colored the world.
And if you kept creating miracles— "—Reality bares its fangs."
Cecilus escaped the radiance through an unreasonable ascent, and before the verdict on whether his flight was viable or not could be rendered, the colorless radiance was burst through from within, and reconstructed light ribbons pursued the airborne Cecilus.
The twelve ribbons wound together in a helix, their tips fanning out radially as they closed on Cecilus—like an insectivorous flower seizing a winged insect with its beautiful petals. As the petals closed like a bud, Cecilus was about to be swallowed by a diamond flower with no means of escape.
That would have been true if—if—if he were any other Cecilus than the current one.
*Boom.* The air detonated with a sound a hundred times louder than the word he'd uttered.
Unfortunately, Cecilus himself—who had shut out sound—couldn't hear it, which was a shame for Arakia and Aru's eardrums present at the scene. Though the one who'd most want to complain was probably the sky itself, which Cecilus had kicked and detonated.
Having abandoned sound and capable of moving at lightning speed, Cecilus knew the air possessed a wall. Kicking through that wall wasn't easy, but he'd rather you not underestimate him as some amateur who'd fumble the big moment. Whether improvised or rehearsed, only a star actor who delivered perfection truly deserved the name.
The result: accompanied by the detonation, Cecilus's body was launched straight downward this time. He dove at breakneck speed, escaping through the petals of the diamond flower before its bud could close, falling to the ground.
Cecilus struck the earth head-on, generating an impact like a bolt of lightning.
The cost was his right leg from the knee down, which was reduced to a truly wretched state—but whether it was the dashing image of winning unscathed or the fierce image of prevailing while wounded, both were equally compelling on stage. Second-guessing what he should or shouldn't have done after the fact was an insult to the audience. Basking in the sensation of thunderous applause, he thrust out his bloody chest and pressed forward, forward— "—Ten paces."
He estimated the distance to the airborne heroine and deliberately stepped onto his bloody leg.
As Cecilus broke into a run, the bud that had closed once reopened, and diamond petals rained down like spores. He left them behind with one long stride.
"—Nine paces."
The space to Cecilus's left and right warped, and stone pillars shot out from the twisted gaps.
The stone pillars—another attack method beyond the diamond light ribbons—resumed here. Gritting his teeth at the vicious planning, he forced his right foot, already planted on the ground, through unreasonable strain and recklessness, accelerating through the gaps between the stone pillars jutting from both sides with only a lock of his hair as sacrifice, crushing nothing but air.
"—Eight paces."
The ground burst open, and multiple house-sized rectangular—cube-shaped—boulders rose up, launching at him like javelins in a downpour.
He extended his left knee, stepped on the tip of an incoming stone spear, then used that lethal projectile—now suitable as a tombstone—as a foothold to leap into the rain of stone.
"—Seven paces, six paces—remainder omitted!"
Adapting to the unexpected, he reset his step count, weaving through the storm of stone pillars erected to shut out After Cecilus, closing what seemed an infinite distance toward zero.
The heroine, who raged with fury, refusing to let anyone draw near except the Cecilus she acknowledged as worthy of reaching her.
And Cecilus, who burned to prove that even his current self could reach her.
This was truly a clash of dangerous, catastrophic stubbornness—one that belonged on a world-class stage, etched into imperial history.
And in this contest of wills, Cecilus prevailed.
Not for any particular reason—it was because he wanted to prevail that he prevailed.
"—Two paces!!"
He blasted aside the stone pillars blocking his path with double knife-hand strikes, gauged the distance to the heroine hidden behind cover with gut instinct, and upon lunging forward, spotted her roughly ten meters above. Marveling at his own intuition—and giving himself a standing ovation in his mind—he locked her in range.
"——"
And there, having passed through disassembly and reconstruction, the twelve diamond light ribbons stood in his way once more.
The heroine redirected her light ribbons toward Cecilus, who had broken through the storm of stone pillars and now gazed up at her. In that instant, the tips of the ribbons, spread wide to cover a larger radius, flashed slightly—their ultra-thin forms splitting further, from twelve to twenty-four, twenty-four to forty-eight, forty-eight to ninety-six, ninety-six to one hundred ninety-two, one hundred ninety-two to three hundred eighty-four, three hundred eighty-four to— "—!"
The branching ribbons multiplied to such an absurd number that counting them was pointless, cascading down through the sky like a waterfall, each one glinting beautifully.
Left, right, and behind—every direction of retreat was sealed by stone pillars. The stage had become an inescapable barrier. The only path was forward, and the falling droplets of light were not just lethal on contact—even grazing them meant certain death.
—Lethal, inevitable. Lethal, inevitable. Lethal, inevitable. Lethal, inevitable. Lethal, inevitable. Lethal, inevitable. Lethal, inevitable. Lethal, inevitable. Lethal, inevitable. Lethal, inevitable. Lethal, inevitable. Lethal, inevitable.
"——"
A world without color or sound was filled to the brim with the possibility of Death.
Confronted with this inescapable fate, Cecilus recalled the miracles he had been accumulating.
His right leg from the knee down still being connected was a miracle. A chest wound so deep his heart was visible, yet still being able to move—miracle. His torn kimono not falling off to expose him—miracle. And his own existence—gazing at the still-crying heroine and feeling nothing but motivation—was itself a miracle.
And— "——"
—In Cecilus's hand, reaching toward the heavens, a prop arrived at the most perfect timing—a miracle.
△▼△▼△▼△ —Twelve thousand two hundred and eighty-eight.
That was the number of times Aru had spent trying to grasp his role on this stage.
"——"
The moment Cecilus, having tied back his hair, shifted his mood through reasoning Aru couldn't fathom, the battle accelerated further into a domain that sneered at Aru's intervention.
This had always been a battlefield where Aru knew he could do almost nothing.
Within the defined parameters, after nearly two hundred rounds of trial and error, he'd only managed to intervene twice. Those two times had meaning, certainly—but in a battle that had geared up even further, not a single opportunity for Aru to intervene had come his way.
In the first place, Arakia couldn't withstand even the aftershock of an attack aimed at Cecilus.
Unlike before the crystalline transformation, when the attacks had been crude bursts of mana, Arakia's current attacks were clearly refined. The destructive force of those light bands—or whatever they should be called—ravaged the surrounding area, and Aru, caught in the crossfire, was blown away more than two thousand times.
What could he possibly do in a fight where mere presence meant death?
Yet he couldn't abandon all intervention and flee the battlefield. Because if he did, Cecilus would be killed by the light bands before reaching Arakia.
To change what seemed an unchangeable result, Aru searched for room to intervene—and accumulated collateral damage. Again and again, hundreds, thousands of times repeating, and he noticed.
It was a matter of positioning, and sometimes Aru, carelessly distracted, would be reduced to charcoal by a single ribbon as casually as swatting a bug—but if he could at least watch until Cecilus reached Arakia, then in the moments before Arakia's inescapable attack, he'd glimpsed Cecilus's inexplicable movement.
—Just before the light bands, now branching into a hopeless number, rained down, Cecilus extended his hand toward the sky.
"——"
At first, Aru thought Cecilus was about to unleash another full-powered knife-hand strike. But Cecilus's right hand showed no sign of moving even as the rain of light descended.
It took Aru hundreds of attempts to realize that the hand wasn't forming a knife-hand, but was open with all five fingers spread.
Neither a knife-hand nor a fist—an open palm aimed at the sky. The meaning escaped him. He'd even considered the possibility of a sudden magical spell, but in the end, Cecilus would be swallowed by the gleaming light with his magic still fizzling, and Aru would be annihilated in the blast all the same.
"——"
Even after confirming this, without room to intervene, the trial counts accumulated in vain.
Super-high-speed combat produced results in the blink of an eye. In the time it took to assess the situation, consider possibilities, and give shape to an idea, irreversible defeats accumulated exponentially.
Even if there was no impatience in that fact itself, the knowledge that he couldn't reach beyond it bred a quiet desperation.
Had he hesitated when he should have pulled back, and stumbled into the wrong dead end? Such an immense regret gnawed at him, and he was consumed along with it—all turned to ash.
Despite Aru's desperate efforts, that particular Cecilus didn't so much as glance back. Arakia hadn't given Aru a single look either. An inexplicable fury welled up.
Was this just their battle—just the two of them—and nothing more than thousands of times of being told this through violent, impulsive means?
—What if it wasn't?
"——"
The possibility brushed his mind out of nowhere, and Aru immediately shook his head to deny it.
He'd witnessed the budding of that fleeting thought, and glimpsed signs of its development on a few occasions, but none had borne fruit—each time, he was swallowed by the light of destruction and obliterated.
But this time, for once, it crossed the finish line and was carried over to the beginning of the next restart.
What if it wasn't? —What if there was room to intervene?
"——"
Aru decided, thoroughly, to cling to that possibility.
Cecilus dodged every attack and reached Arakia. Arakia's dazzling light bands branched into countless ribbons, descending as light swallowed the world—the final curtain.
In the interval before that finale, Aru challenged again and again, repeating and repeating, to fully grasp what was happening.
In one loop, he noticed Cecilus licking a light ribbon and nearly choked.
In another, he saw Cecilus kick nothingness and fly—and nearly choked.
In yet another, he realized it wasn't nothingness but a pebble and ash that Cecilus had kicked, and nearly choked even harder.
And so his understanding advanced, advanced, advanced—and he raised his head.
Cecilus was, perhaps, possibly, might just be— —When Cecilus reached toward the sky, he might have been creating a spectacle.
"——"
Aru was stunned—mid-destruction—to realize what was being asked of him.
The bar was so impossibly high that "could it be? surely not?" began dancing in his head. But he'd realized it. He'd thought of it. He'd been dragged to it.
Not just whether to descend—he was being pulled to center stage itself.
"——"
The struggle from that point on was long. No one would understand. No one needed to.
He had to survive until that moment, reach that moment, arrive in time for that moment, and intervene at that moment.
For that, he struggled through struggle after struggle. But it was fine. —Not as many as the stars.
So— "—Go, my thousand-gold leading man!"
In Cecilus's hand raised toward the sky—the hilt of the Blue Dragon Blade, hurled at him for the twelve thousand two hundred and eighty-eighth time—was gripped tightly, tightly.
△▼△▼△▼△ —Once, there was a building called the "Treasure Vault."
In the slums of the royal capital Lugunica—a place that could only be described as a deep shadow where the illicit trade of stolen goods was conducted brazenly—the Treasure Vault stood as a symbol of the kingdom's long-held debts.
The Treasure Vault had served as the stage for the battle over a crucial item that would decide the kingdom's fate, and in the end, it met its fate—collapsed—through the intervention of the current Sword Saint,
The weapon Reinhard wielded then was an unnamed, mass-produced sword.
Nothing special in terms of edge or quality—merely a chance blade Reinhard had borrowed from the Treasure Vault and put to use. A passing stranger's sword.
And yet, that single swing, wielded by the Sword Saint's hand, granted an opportunity that even the finest legendary and treasure swords could never experience.
Of course, no ordinary blade could withstand that flash, and the sword crumbled in Reinhard's hand, closing its life as a physical object right there.
But was that broken sword unfortunate?
No one could presume to know a tool's feelings, but which fulfilled its purpose more as a crafted tool—the sword that sat in a corner of the Treasure Vault gathering dust, rusting for decades before being discarded, or the one that was wielded by a worthy hand?
Could it not be said that the sword accomplished in that single swing everything it might have taken a thousand or ten thousand swings with an ordinary wielder to achieve?
The digression has gone on long enough—let me correct course.
Put simply, the building called the Treasure Vault was brought down because a commonplace blade crossed paths with a wielder who could fulfill its purpose as a sword, and was swung.
If the Sword Saint could accomplish it, there was no reason an equal wielder couldn't.
"—You did excellent work, Aru."
Cecilus confirmed the sensation in his outstretched hand and praised the man who had achieved a miracle.
He would admit it—declare it. In this moment, the difficulty of hurling the Blue Dragon Blade to Cecilus from Aru's position was something Cecilus could not begin to imagine.
Human imagination was infinite, but even suggesting it could reach infinity was presumptuous.
It was like the peak of a mountain you knew existed but could never reach—truly a phantom, no different from the "Heavenly Sword" Cecilus continued to pursue.
But Aru had made it in time.
Through some method Cecilus couldn't even conceive of, Aru had scaled that mountain and delivered the miracle Cecilus desired into his very hands.
Magnificent, magnificent, magnificently magnificent—a standing ovation, a chorus of bravo.
"——"
The rain of light descended upon Cecilus as inescapable Death.
A star actor of Cecilus's caliber would understand the audience's desire for a beautiful, star-studded finale rather than a pathetic death—and depending on the circumstances, it might even be appropriate. But the timing was wrong. It differed from the curtain call he envisioned.
Therefore— "That ending is being rewritten."
The Blue Dragon Blade, slightly too large for Cecilus's frame, was elevated—transcended—into a masterwork of swordsmanship honed through countless thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of millions of swings in his mind.
Though it was the first time he'd wielded this weapon, in Cecilus's expanding inner vision—in his brain theater—he had a record of swinging this Blue Dragon Blade until he coughed blood, dripping with sweat, swinging it morning, noon, and night. However, depicting that scene was a no-go in Cecilus's book, so he'd snipped out only the fruits of that effort.
—In the span of a heartbeat, a flash of lightning beyond the Blue Dragon Blade's limits sliced through the descending rain of light and sent it flying.
Annihilated by that single flash were not only the countless split light ribbons. The dense forest of stone pillars that had covered Cecilus's left, right, and rear—blocking every avenue of escape—was reduced to splinters and blown apart.
In this moment, Cecilus Segmunt's sword strike surpassed the Spirit Eater Arakia—no, it surpassed
"——"
And then, beyond the cleared rain of light, Cecilus and Arakia's gazes met— "—!"
The thirteenth light ribbon—Cecilus dodged it by tilting his head. His right cheek was grazed, the lower half of his right ear was blown off, blood evaporated from his scraped neck and shoulder, but he succeeded in evasion.
He praised the fact that she'd hidden yet another card behind that rain of light—one step— He resumed the step count for the remaining distance, kicked off the ground with his left foot, and rose into the air.
From there, Cecilus's lightning-speed dash would close in on Arakia in the sky— "——"
In that instant, the dodged light ribbon detonated with a colorless explosion, and the blast struck Cecilus's head.
△▼△▼△▼△ "—Oh?"
Standing suddenly in an unfamiliar room bathed in the dying light of dusk, Cecilus tilted his head.
He looked around, but the place was entirely unknown. Cecilus was known for being forgetful, but he was actually quite good at remembering places and objects he'd seen.
Every situation and every prop might prove useful someday. Stage effects could be born from the most unexpected of ideas.
"—It's a place that doesn't match my own knowledge. Or rather, the very fact of being in a place like this has too much dissonance—it's practically working overtime."
Even though he had no recognition of the room, he wasn't so careless as to forget what he'd been doing moments ago.
Cecilus had been in a capital crawling with corpses, with a sobbing heroine demanding he kill her, and he'd gotten furious about it and resolved to surpass his former self. He'd shattered Aru's Blue Dragon Blade.
"—If it ended there, it would look like I was escaping reality to avoid the guilt of breaking Aru's sword. Even I have to draw the line there... T-t-t."
Breaking someone else's possession—Cecilus's heart ached too. But everything had a lifespan and a fortune of its own. If opportunity knocked, then its destruction was simply meant to be. Aru's Blue Dragon Blade fell into that category. Once everything was sorted out, he'd just have Schwartz settle the debt.
Having reached that conclusion, a change came to the room. Through the window where the setting sun poured in—the entrance to the unfamiliar room opened.
And— "Oh, how nice—there's nothing quite like a summons you weren't expecting! Usually when I get summoned it's for a scolding, but today there's no worry of that!"
"—Aha, I see."
Laughing with a cheerful ring, entering the room with light, buoyant steps, was a slim young man with blue hair—a figure in a pink kimono and wearing zori. Cecilus had no memory of this person, but he felt a sense of recognition.
In those long, elegant limbs, that refined face that left an impression of softness, the commonalities with his own face—checked daily in the mirror—left absolutely no room for doubt.
"—An adult version of me. Which means this is Before-me's memory?"
Confirming the existence of his past self—"Cecilus"—Cecilus deduced the situation.
With how widely the "Blue Lightning" had been discussed everywhere, it would have been unreasonable to doubt his absence, but seeing his own adult form in the flesh was genuinely moving.
Given that he'd aspired to surpass himself, this "Cecilus" should theoretically be a rival of sorts—but— "—Hmm hmm, not bad at all! Quite the ideal upbringing, I'd say. The elegance is maintained while adding a dash of sex appeal and manliness—what an upgrade!"
He gazed at the "Cecilus" before him and admired him openly.
His mindset must have been the same as the current Cecilus—maintaining the spirit of a star performer, keeping mind and body in peak condition.
Seeing that philosophy properly implemented was, in itself, cause for celebration.
"—Hm. But now that I'm facing my grown self, I can't read what comes next. Do I break into a sword fight with my former self to realize the concept of surpassing myself? That seems like a stretch... and this other me doesn't seem to be aware of me at all..."
After letting the emotion wash over him, Cecilus reconsidered the situation.
Even if he waved his hands in front of the "Cecilus," he showed no awareness of Cecilus's presence here. If he couldn't interfere with this scene, what did that imply?
The answer was revealed in due course.
"—It may or may not constitute a reprimand—I'm of the opinion that it depends on whether one is conscious of it—but relying on the absence of awareness for comfort would be premature, wouldn't you say?"
The voice that followed came from a person who entered the room after "Cecilus."
That person closed the open door behind them, regarded "Cecilus," and narrowed those narrow, elongated eyes.
It was an extraordinarily peculiar-looking individual.
Long white hair, white face, white attire and white war fan held in hand—a figure even taller and thinner than "Cecilus," resembling a strange apparition from an illustrated tale.
Visually speaking, exactly the kind of impact Cecilus favored.
"—Hm. If you're going to say things like that, perhaps I'm just unaware and it really is a scolding? In that case, letting me into the room first was a mistake on your part. All I have to do is burst out that window—bang—and sprint down the castle walls to escape. Tch."
"I'd appreciate it if you'd refrain from such eccentricities—the castle guards would make a fuss. And for the record, today really isn't about any scolding. There's no need to be so guarded."
"Oh my, don't scare me like that. Really, Chisha—you're incorrigible. That part of you hasn't changed in all these years."
"—Indeed. For once, we're in agreement."
"Cecilus" called the white figure "Chisha" with familiar ease.
So the man's name was Chisha, and "Cecilus" seemed quite close to him. Currently, Cecilus had no acquaintance with Chisha, but from their exchange it was clear they'd known each other for years. And from "Cecilus's" words and the scale of those years, the timeframe became apparent.
"—Hmm."
Roughly, "Cecilus's" age appeared to be in his early twenties, give or take a year or two. If so, the gap with the current Cecilus was about ten years—and with Chisha, their relationship spanned that interval.
Ten years. Given how widely Cecilus's "Blue Lightning" name had spread, that felt about right. —In other words, the past scene Cecilus was witnessing had very likely taken place within a year or two of reality.
Seeing through this, Cecilus advanced his thoughts further and tilted his head in puzzlement.
What nagged at him was the reason he could see this past, and why he was seeing it—the latter aside, the former he had some inkling of understanding.
"—The shrinking is real, but I think the memories from before I shrank were just sealed away, not completely erased."
He had no memories of the shrinking itself, so the mechanism wasn't clear, but the decade Cecilus had lived couldn't simply be dismissed. That he couldn't recall those ten years was a result of the mutual influence between body and spirit.
Just as Cecilus's body manifested what his mind believed possible, when his body proved it had shrunk, his spirit had to regress in kind. —Probably something like that.
So this memory had merely been dormant—it had always been within Cecilus. The fact that he could see it was therefore no problem.
The problem was, as always, the reason he'd been shown it.
"—...This looks like the memory of when I shrank, doesn't it?"
The reason Cecilus wore such a bitter expression was that an unpleasant possibility had occurred to him.
Cecilus had never experienced it, but humans on the verge of death were said to search their life memories for a way to escape the approaching death—rummaging through the accumulation of their years for something that could deny the "Death" before them.
And Cecilus's bitter expression was the answer to a suspicion that this scene—the very reason his life might be saved—was the spark found within his own memories.
In short—if this was indeed his memory of when he shrank, as he suspected, then might the reverse also be true?
"—Am I supposed to watch myself shrinking here, find a clue to restore myself, and break through the situation? That's incredibly lame, isn't it?"
He'd declared he would surpass himself, undertaken a death-defying dash to reach the weeping heroine, and a supporting character named Aru had delivered the greatest assist beyond his role—yet he himself would fail to follow through on his initial resolve.
It felt like the answer to his own failure was right before his eyes, and Cecilus's stomach turned with disgust.
"—No, no, no, no!"
He actually flopped onto the floor, flailing his limbs and throwing a tantrum. But his resistance couldn't stop "Cecilus" and Chisha's conversation.
Left sprawled on the ground, the two's discussion moved forward.
"You seem to have a complicated expression, Chisha."
"—My, my. You're usually not one to pay attention to people's expressions, yet you're so sharp at times like this. It's precisely that quality that makes you such a troublesome person to deal with."
"Ha ha ha, how interesting. I *do* pay attention to everyone's expressions at all times—I just choose not to address most of them!"
"Then why address it today?"
"If a friend looks troubled, wouldn't you be concerned? That's fairly normal."
"The word 'normal' coming from your lips is hardly reassuring."
Chisha's expression didn't crack even a sliver of a smile as he answered. "Cecilus" pursed his lips at this.
Watching from the sidelines—unable to command their attention—the Cecilus who had given up his tantrum sat cross-legged and looked up. Friends, of all things. Even saying it himself, the fact that he had any was the ultimate surprise.
Schwartz, Tanza, Gustav, the Pleiades Battalion—they might have been allies, but they weren't friends or family. And yet "friends" for him— But even as Cecilus reflected on this, Chisha's gaze drifted far away, and he spoke, calling "Cecilus" by name: "If His Excellency and I were to disagree and come into conflict—what would you do?"
"You and His Excellency? If it's something you can talk through, talk it through. If it can't be resolved through discussion, then you'd have to settle it through combat, wouldn't you?"
"And in that combat—what side would you take?"
"His Excellency's side, of course. Goes without saying, doesn't it?"
Without pretense or hesitation, "Cecilus" answered in the same flat tone. He then perched himself on the desk at the back of the room, dangled his legs, and looked at Chisha.
With one cheek resting on his knee, "Cecilus" winked one of his blue eyes shut— "A roundabout and baffling hypothetical... But I can't help but wonder—are you planning something, Chisha?"
"Yes, indeed. I must prepare for a great—a very great battle."
"—A 'great battle.'"
Both the past and present Cecilus reacted simultaneously to Chisha's words.
"Cecilus" didn't seem to recognize what it referred to, and Cecilus himself didn't know Chisha well enough to say. At those words, Chisha clasped his hands behind his back and walked to the window.
"No matter what it costs, it is a battle we must win. However, His Excellency and I are at odds regarding the terms of this great battle. We cannot agree on the victory conditions. There appears to be no room for compromise."
"Chisha and His Excellency at an impasse? That's rare. More than rare—hasn't that never happened before?"
"I wouldn't say that. On many occasions, His Excellency has imposed his will upon me..."
"Yes. But you've never before given up trying to out-argue His Excellency, right?"
"——"
Chisha gazed out the window and said nothing. His silence spoke volumes—it confirmed that "Cecilus's" assessment was correct.
They'd known each other a long time, but Vincent had a habit of making unreasonable demands of Chisha. The reputation of being the wisest emperor since the founding of the empire had been built on Chisha's blood, sweat, and tears.
"—Hmm."
Cecilus found himself feeling as though he knew Chisha well. The face of the "His Excellency" they spoke of also came vaguely into view—somehow, he could picture a furrowed brow. The face was blurred, but the furrow between the eyebrows was distinctive enough to seem like the defining feature.
With a feeling he didn't entirely welcome, Cecilus nonetheless found himself interested in "Cecilus" and Chisha's conversation and watched how it played out.
Chisha and His Excellency—Vincent—at an impasse. And then: "I have no intention of clashing with His Excellency on this matter. The absolute condition is that I allow not even a shred of suspicion to reach him. For that purpose..."
"—I'm in the way, aren't I?"
Quietly, almost gleefully, "Cecilus" called toward Chisha's back. At this, Chisha turned in silence, his white form bathed in the orange glow of the setting sun, and narrowed his eyes.
Once again, no denial. Silence—the mark of confirmation.
"If you and His Excellency's opinions diverge and you come into conflict, I will absolutely side with His Excellency. That is my foundational principle, an oath of the sword that cannot be yielded."
"Yes, I knew you would answer as much. Moreover, if you stand on His Excellency's side, my chances of victory are virtually nil. Even if I were given Arakia and Orbalt and every other Divine General except you—I still couldn't beat you alone."
"Oh my, oh my—what a fascinating proposition. I've been thinking this for a while, actually: the Empire's strongest force, the 'Nine Divine Generals'—isn't nine too many?"
"—I think so too."
Shaving off four or five to form something like the Five Supreme or Four Heavenly Kings wouldn't be bad either.
Cecilus held this assessment while "Cecilus" gradually stoked his fighting spirit. Bathed in the stares of both Ceciluses, Chisha's expression didn't waver.
When Chisha wore this expression, he was to be watched closely—he had some extraordinary scheme in mind.
"As it happens, I haven't actually won over the Nine Divine Generals."
"Oh? But of course—I mean, Goz and Moguro would never betray His Excellency. So what will you do?"
"——"
"You're not the type to give up. That expression says it all."
A flood of nostalgic emotions surged forth, bolstered by "Cecilus's" response. "Cecilus" remained perched on the desk, eyes tracking Chisha's every movement.
No matter how Chisha moved, "Cecilus" could suppress him. But Chisha knew this too.
So what was he planning? How would he find the opening in this "Cecilus Segmunt" and bring him down to the form of a small child?
"Cecilus, I will remove you from the board. There will be no place for you in the reading game between His Excellency and myself. I have prepared a different role for you."
"Even if you say that, I can't exactly respond with a spirited 'yes sir!' As for removing me by force—if you can't do that either, will you try to exclude me with words? After all, I'm the General the Empire trusts the least, as you well know."
With that, "Cecilus" hopped off the desk, landed on the floor, spun around with a dancer's grace, and came face to face with Chisha. Bathed in the setting sun, he leaned forward, looking up at Chisha with his eyes from below.
Two people who'd known each other for years, intimately familiar with each other's strengths and flaws. Peering into his friend's face, "Cecilus" smiled.
He smiled, and challenged Chisha to play his trump card.
"So—what words, what opinions, what logic will you use to persuade me? Even
At "Cecilus's" cheap provocation, Chisha closed his eyes and paused for a beat.
Then, opening them, fixing "Cecilus" in his gaze— "Cecilus. —Please, I entrust you with His Excellency."
——.
—————.
A favor—not a trick, not persuasion, but a *favor*. What an unexpected approach.
"—. That's cheating."
"——PERFECT!!"
△▼△▼△▼△ The splatter of red blood overlapped strongly with the red of the sunset in that memory.
With the evening glow at his back, Chisha Gold had struck Cecilus down in that office. Not by exploiting an opening, not by patiently making his case—but by entrusting him.
*That* was the reason Cecilus Segmunt had become Cecilus Segmunt.
"—!"
A searing, scorching pain struck his head, and Cecilus's consciousness returned to reality.
The pain in his head and half his body was the result of the light ribbon he thought he'd dodged detonating, and the time his consciousness had spent in that evening's dusk—wasn't even a quarter of a second.
But that momentary pause was more than enough for the heroine who stood in his way—Arakia.
"——"
The Blue Dragon Blade shattered and disintegrated in his hand, and the light ribbons he'd cut down with that full-powered strike were reconstructed by Arakia's power, reviving to five, then six.
Even she couldn't immediately recover the power broken by that one strike. The crystal wings on her back were cracked, glittering shards scattering around her.
Inside that slender body, had she absorbed the power of Muspel the Stone Mass?
Biting into the very earth of the Vollachia Empire itself—her recklessness was astonishing. Then again, even Cecilus wouldn't think that after seeing those tears.
Having heard those words, he couldn't tease her in his usual manner.
"But requests made with *that* kind of expression? I'll have to decline."
If you truly wanted Cecilus to grant a favor, you should at least smile your hardest. If you told him, with a genuine smile, that you had no regrets about that choice, even Cecilus would take you seriously.
Like that hopeless friend of his, who had smiled and commanded Cecilus to shrink.
"—Ah, so that was it."
Even now, Cecilus's limbs were short, and the memories that had surfaced were only fragments of what had been sealed away.
He didn't know how to restore his shrunken body. The memory ended before he could recall Chisha's specific method, and that was the purpose of the flashback fulfilled.
A human on the verge of death searches their memories for a solution—that phenomenon was unmistakably at work here. Only the answer had been different from what he expected.
At the end of that flashback, Cecilus had expected to learn how to restore his adult form. But that wasn't it. And it was better that it wasn't.
A human on the verge of death had searched their memories for a way out.
That—Chisha's face, and the request he'd heard—was more than sufficient grounds for Cecilus Segmunt to reject death.
"After all, there's no way I'd lose."
The words brimmed with self-assurance and confidence, but they weren't grounded in ability alone.
Cecilus had his own philosophy, his own answer for why he wouldn't lose to Arakia here.
Because— "—Boss isn't here. If there were any chance I'd die here, he'd break his promise without a second thought and come running."
With that murmur, Cecilus let out a wry smile beneath his blood-stained, beautiful face.
Natsuki Schwartz was that kind of boy. On the journey from the Sword Slave Island, during the eastward march under the name of the Pleiades Battalion, Cecilus and Schwartz had exchanged a promise under the moon.
Using Schwartz's miraculous "Farsight"—to not save Cecilus.
They'd agreed to respect each other's autonomy, but Cecilus knew. Schwartz would break that promise in a heartbeat if the situation called for it. Cecilus himself was the same way. Schwartz was cut from the same cloth.
And so, he knew.
If Cecilus were about to die, and Schwartz saw it through his Farsight, Schwartz would come running here.
That hadn't happened. And that could be called trust from Schwartz.
And Cecilus held the same for Schwartz.
"——"
The lateral-thinking certainty he'd gained, Cecilus was struck by six light ribbons blazing toward him with furious speed.
Already airborne, he couldn't easily make his next move, and couldn't dodge. But even when he couldn't dodge, there were things he could do. The trump card he'd brought back from that waking dream.
—In the hand of Cecilus, who had lost the Blue Dragon Blade, gripped the hilt of a different blade.
"—Masayume."
Called by its name, its temper line rippled like waves—this was a demon sword. The "Dream Sword" Masayume, wielding tremendous power, owned by Cecilus Segmunt.
Rouhan had lamented its disappearance; like the other "Evil Blade," Murasame, it was a transcendent sword permitted to cut what transcended the laws of this world.
It had been lost along with Cecilus's memories—no wonder everyone had been troubled over its whereabouts.
The "Yang Blade" Volakia used the sky as its sheath. The "Dream Blade" Masayume used dreams as its sheath. —Thus Cecilus had borrowed Masayume from the waist of "Cecilus" in the waking dream.
Masayume pulsed in his hand, acknowledging the diminutive Cecilus as its owner. Had this been Murasame, it wouldn't have been so easy. He was grateful to the coincidence that had brought him to this.
Gratitude, and a single flash—he cut down the six approaching light ribbons and surpassed them.
"My target is—"
Arakia—the center of her chest, where a massive cluster of power sat.
He would subdue it. He'd never done it. But he believed he could, and he would realize it. Cecilus had that power. Masayume was reliable. Aru was present as a witness. He couldn't fail—he was on fire.
All that remained— "Dreams are meant to be witnessed from the waking world, to be *shown*—Anya."
With those words, Cecilus gazed into Arakia's eyes amid the stretched-out hyperspeed. Blood tears streaming from her left eye, her beautiful face harder to read than ever—the girl he knew so well.
Floating in her right eye—he could see blue flames.
"—The person you hold dear holds you dear as well."
So gently spoken, yet a peal of thunder—releasing the flash that would end the nightmare.
As if to prove that dreams were the domain of the star actor upon the stage— —that was Cecilus Segmunt's answer to the heroine's plea.