Chương 10: Through the Heart

"There's a strange one among the bunch, isn't there?" The Crimson Ringmistress's gaze was clinging to Yuto's back, sticky and cold. Yuto felt it with his entire body. It was extremely unpleasant. It felt as though those eyes were studying some kind of worm. He felt an impulse to rush at the monster right away, stab her, and choke her. This killing impulse bubbled inside him. He couldn't explain it, but it returned the moment she looked at him.

No.

He fought back the impulse, knowing that attacking her now would be suicide.. She was on a completely different level from him. With a flick of a finger, she could erase him from existence. There was nothing he could do about the monster at the moment. Therefore, he would ignore her for the time being. He turned his back on her and walked toward Garon and Lugil. These two were at their limit.

Lugil was barely managing to push back a fighter who attacked him, given his narrow field of vision, and Garon was next to him, struggling to hold his own because of his limp. They would not last long in this condition. They were already very close to death. The fighter who had been attacking Lugil fell to the ground after being cut across the back. The others who had intended to attack the two abandoned the idea immediately and backed away when Yuto approached.

So did the fighters from the other leagues who had never seen Yuto until today. Not only had he stolen a guard's sword in the blink of an eye, but he had used that same sword to cut down other guards. They knew by this point that the boy was built differently.

"Take these," Yuto said. He handed the swords he had taken from the guards he had just killed to Lugil and Garon.

"Don't attack first. Just focus on standing your ground and covering each other's backs." Both were injured and unaccustomed to using a sword. If they tried to go after someone, it would only make them vulnerable. The best option for them right now was to stand back-to-back and focus on defense. At least mediocre fighters would not kill them in that state. Eville glared at Yuto. There were bodies all around her.

Even the fighters from the upper league had been no match for her since they were just slaves that she had collected and trained. They didn't have any magic or the support of a Constellation, and to them, she was absolutely superior. She had proven this. She had already killed over ten fighters in the arena, but she still hadn't gotten the Ringmistress's attention. She had run wild for that purpose, but the red eyes were watching Yuto instead of her.

Yuto.

Eville ground her teeth. She had had so many questions about that boy. He claimed not to remember a single thing about himself other than his name, but he was excellent with his sword and knew how to get the crowd excited. Maybe he was lying about losing his memory. Not that Eville had thought this was a problem. As long as she had the choker around his neck, she'd controlled his fate. And he had been a valuable fighter. She had only needed to make good use of him. But now that was no longer the case.

In fact, he had become an obstacle to her. The Crimson Ringmistress was already focusing on him instead of her. Her next course of action was very clear. She would not be able to attract the attention she needed, even if she killed other humans or Evomon. Eville owned this Colosseum, after all, and understood how audiences worked. She just had to kill the one that currently held their interest. That way their attention would come to her instead.

She stepped through puddles of blood and over bodies on the floor as she walked toward Yuto. Yuto sensed a disgusting hostility approaching him. He turned around. Eville, her hair a mess and her body covered in sweat and dirt, was coming toward him.

"How dare you...!" Eville yelled, fuming.

"How dare you steal her attention? You don't deserve it!" Her voice was filled with deep jealousy. Bright red balls of flame appeared behind her. Garon and Lugil backed away, scared, but Yuto thought carefully and coolly as he held his sword. This base hostility, rage, and resentment told him something. Right now, she was more emotional than logical. She did not have full command of her ability to reason. Her dirty face was dripping with sweat. Her breathing was uneven, and she walked unsteadily.

A Constellation's power was not infinite, and neither was ether. She had already consumed a lot of stamina and ether. No matter how superior her power might be, if she didn't use it smartly, it could cut her as easily as it could cut her enemies. She didn't have to be wounded in order to make herself incapable of fighting. If she ran out of stamina, the same thing would happen.

"You slave!" Eville screamed. She swung her arm through the air, and the balls of flame that had been following her shot forward. Yuto launched himself away from the spot where he had been standing, which exploded in a burst of flame. Dust filled the air. Yuto tumbled along, got up, and leaped again. He could feel the heat against his skin. Explosion after explosion followed him.

Magic. She was different from the others he had fought. The guards had been quick with their weapons, but they had relied purely on physical strength. There were always the key tells—the shoulder moving first, the center of gravity shifting, the gaze refocusing. By reading them, he could easily avoid the attacks. But magic wasn't like that. It activated with a single gesture. The trajectories were irregular, and the explosions were so broad that getting out of the way wasn't enough sometimes.

He could read malicious intent and predict the general direction, but ducking beneath individual attacks to counterattack was not as easy as it was against a swordsman. Besides, Eville did not just use magic. There were rippling blades of wind floating around her body. If the flaming balls she had just used were magical in nature, these wind blades came from her Constellation. If he approached her carelessly, they would cut him apart.

At long range she had magic, and at close range she had her Constellation's power. Yuto got up from the ground, and Eville laughed out loud. She put her hands in the air, and more balls of flame appeared. Yuto rolled and rolled, using other fighters' bodies as his shield. I can't take her on head-on, he thought coolly. It's the magic that annoys me. I have to make her use up her ether first.

All of her powers consumed her energy and ether, and she had been fighting without rest for some time, killing the fighters, attacking the Evomon, and now casting spell after spell at Yuto. She would run out eventually. He knew that for certain. That was why he didn't try to hit her back and began to run—or rather, made it seem like he was trying to get away.

"Die! Die!" Eville's body floated into the air. She had begun to use her Constellation's power fully in order to chase Yuto down. She flew through the air rapidly, firing spell after spell at him, and he avoided them, making it seem as though she had nearly got him each time. The flaming balls burned his clothing, and the wind blades snipped at his hair. Using instinct alone, Yuto was able to evade attacks too fast for the naked eye to follow You could be reading stolen content.

Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. In the process, he grew certain of something. He had fought people like her before, not just people with swords. And he was good at it. Just how much experience was packed into this little body of his? He pushed the question aside for later.

Go on. Attack me more. If he made it seem too easy, she would be wary and try to save her strength. But if it seemed like she was almost there, she would be unable to resist going all out in her current frenzied state.

More! Yuto rolled among the bodies and counted in his head. There had been twelve flame balls so far, and nine wind blades. Every time she used them again, their power diminished a little more; the fireballs got smaller, and the blades of wind moved slower. The downtime between casts was longer, too. Her breathing grew rapid. She chewed her lip, frustrated.

"Wh-why won't they hit? Why won't you die?" Her agitation was wearing off, replaced by anxiety. She finally realized that her power was running out, and she hadn't managed to take him down at all. At this rate, she would be drained before she could defeat him. In fact, her ether was already almost completely gone. This was the moment Yuto had been waiting for. When Eville cast her fireballs again after a slight delay, Yuto leaped. Eville's eyes widened.

The slave who had been so eager to run away was suddenly attacking her, and much faster than he'd moved so far. Then she realized that the close calls she had seen had all been fake. The realization confused her and slowed her spellcasting even further. A fireball that had been forming behind her scattered and fizzled out. She jumped back in a panic.

Unlike her magical spells, the sovereign power of the Constellations could be activated more quickly because she didn't have to form them herself, but they took a greater toll on her ether. Her ether was almost gone already, and she had to squeeze out every last bit. As a result, the wind blades around her body were not even a quarter as powerful as they had once been.

Yuto's sword flashed between them and slashed open Eville's side. Blood flew. Yuto had not been able to go as deep as he had wanted because of the wind blades, but Eville's face turned pale. She wasn't used to this kind of pain.

"Aaaah!" She screamed and twisted. She swung her arm, and once again, a tiny bit of remaining ether entered her hand. The blades that used to be for defense gathered around that hand, and a biting blow now flew toward Yuto. The wind was difficult to even see, but he let his instincts take control. With a quick duck, he avoided the attack. A few strands of cut hair fluttered in the air, and Eville's eyes bulged. At the same time, Yuto swung again, and this time cut off her right leg.

She screamed and rolled in the dirt. She now had a cut in her side and a missing leg. She was bleeding rapidly and her mind went completely blank. Yuto steadied his breathing. He was out of his comfort zone, just as she was, because he had moved too much in order to make her use up her ether. He didn't have to do that anymore. She was completely incapacitated. He forced himself to breathe slowly. He strode toward her.

She was on her back, unable to get up, moaning and sobbing, and dragging her bottom along in the dirt. This was the end. He would be able to kill the same person who had created this Colosseum, run it, and made its slaves fight each other. There was no reason for him to show her any mercy. She had treated him well, granted, but it had all been part of breaking him in as a slave. His heart raced as he approached her. It was a strange feeling that came over him now.

He had an absolute advantage over her right now, but something warned him that he shouldn't go closer.

Why not?

The experience was embedded within him, but he didn't know how deep it went or what it consisted of. He could go closer and stab her, and she would be dead. There was no reason to back away now. But he listened to his instincts and flinched to a stop. Then he took a step back. It was at that moment that a light green-tinted gust shot up from her body. She was out of ether and fatally wounded and should not have been able to summon that kind of power, but it was so intense that it could be seen with the naked eye.

It was not hers. It was a blessing from her Constellation, the Deer That Runs with the Wind. She was a nobody compared to others who also held contracts with them. The only reason they would grant such a thing to someone as insignificant as her was that they wanted to see her struggle even more. The gust of wind flew at Yuto, and it was far more powerful than any of the attacks that Eville had used so far. It was too late to move out of the way. Yuto gritted his teeth and raised his sword upright.

He had to withstand this attack in whatever way he could. But was it possible? His expression was distorted. Then someone pushed Yuto to the side. Whoever had touched him had hands as hot as fire. Yuto turned around as he was pushed aside. It was the fox. It had defeated the other Evomon, and despite its battered state, it had rushed from the other side of the arena and shoved Yuto out of danger's path.

As he watched, the wind tore into the fox—the flames around its body fizzled out, and the orange fur and skin tore and bled.

Why...?

The fox had clearly moved to save him and taken the Constellation's offense for him. Now it was covered in blood and lying in the dirt. Like all Evomon, the fox was difficult to kill and was still alive. It raised its blood-drenched head with difficulty and looked at him. The eyes, which had contained nothing but rage, hatred, and madness, suddenly seemed capable of reason.

"Yu... to..." the fox stammered, and Yuto felt a powerful thrill run through him. The fox knew him as well, just as he knew the fox. This tiny creature remembered him and knew his name.

"Flo..." Yuto said involuntarily.

"Flokiro...?" Relief spread through the fox's eyes, and then more of the green wind shot up from Eville's body.

"No... no... no..." Eville said, her body twitching in the dirt, facedown. She had no more ether inside her, and she had lost too much blood from her wounds, but she was still alive. If she did not have ether, she could use her fading life force and empower herself to fight. The Constellation was helping her not to protect her, but to lengthen the show. Yuto set his teeth and lunged forward. The constellation's power was acting more slowly and had weakened unlike before.

This was an opportunity for him to get close. And get close he did. He struck her with his sword. The blade sank into her heart, and she was pale as her lips spread open. The green wind around her body began to fade.

"I... I..." she stammered, twisting weakly. Her gaze moved with difficulty to the Crimson Ringmistress in the VIP area, not Yuto, who had just sealed her fate. Ah... The Ringmistress had a broad grin on her face, but she wasn't smiling at Eville. Feeling the despair of that realization, Eville passed away. She had failed to get her idol's attention in the end. Yuto pulled the sword out. Eville's face was grimacing and ugly, having died amid more despair than pain. Yuto, on the other hand, felt nothing.

She had deserved to die, and die she had.

"Flo... kiro," he said, turning away. Flokiro was a bundle of bloody fur on the floor, still breathing rapidly. But the wounds were serious. Yuto rushed over to the fox.

"Why did you...?" Yuto murmured, kneeling by Flokiro. Flokiro stared up without speaking, as if he had no energy to talk. He just seemed relieved to have protected Yuto.

"Why?" Yuto said again. His heart was racing again, and an emotion that he couldn't really identify as either sadness or rage choked him. Somewhere deep inside him, amid his vanished memories, a voice seemed to be speaking to him. It was the voice of someone very precious. Yuto reached for Flokiro cautiously. Then Yuto stopped. He heard the sound of clapping. With a chill, he turned around. The Crimson Ringmistress had gotten to her feet.

She grinned from ear to ear as she slowly brought her hands together in praise.

"Interesting," she said.

"Far more than I expected." She had eyes only for him.

"A kid who doesn't even have a Constellation to help him just killed a noble, and with the Constellation helping her too! And an Evomon that isn't bound to him in any way protected him for some reason. How entertaining." She raised the bottle beside her and swallowed the rest of its contents. She tossed it away carelessly. The sound of the glass breaking was strangely loud.

"But the thing is..." She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and tilted her head lazily.

"I think that's probably all the fun I'm going to get out of this," she said. Then the amusement vanished from her voice.

"I've already seen the highlight of the show. The remainder will be just the boring aftermath. The rest of these fools will have to kill each other as well, but that's boring." She put her hand in the air.

"I think we've had enough for today." A red storm overtook the Colosseum.