White Lightning's Blessing, the Heavenly Demon's Guidance

"Right! Cut further south! Avoid the dragons!!"

Behind Merea, the 〈Sword Emperor〉 Elma was shouting.

The 〈Demonic Sword Krishra〉 was raised high in her right hand. Listen to my voice — that was the posture, plain to the riders behind her.

She had read Merea's intent faster than any of the others. And —

— Sorry.

— she was accepting it.

---

She had wanted to go with him.

But the reason Merea had said what he'd said, the reason for his action — she had read those too. So going with him had to be put aside.

— You're going to use yourself as the wall against the dragons.

He intended to handle three adult land dragons alone.

Defeat them, or hold them — either way, until the column secured a route east, Merea would absorb the dragons.

Yes — if the dragons stalled them and Mūzeg's cavalry closed, the column was finished. So Elma agreed with the read; she should have agreed.

"Don't drift too far! It'll be a worse detour!"

The single anxiety was, of course —

— Just one man — but a single man.

— sending Merea into a dangerous wedge alone.

Elma carried a different shape of responsibility from his.

It was she who had pulled Mūzeg's pursuit onto the rest of them. Self-reproach over that had been at the centre of her interior on the road.

So she would have shielded them gladly.

And yet, now —

— Merea — who had, by the same logic, also been pulled into this — was choosing to take more weight than her.

That fact left a stone in her chest.

"Tighten formation! Anyone confident in their arms — outside!"

— But you wouldn't want me to follow you, would you.

That was the other side. And if Merea had decided this, the role of those who had let him become master was to back his decision.

— I know. I know.

She decided.

---

— Then I'll answer your decision first.

---

She matched it.

She put down her own pride, cut the niceties, apologised internally to him — and —

"— Don't look back! Push through!"

— switched gears.

The three dragons would be Merea's. If anyone could do it alone, it was him.

So her job was to lead the column for him to come back to.

Trust your master, now.

"— Move!"

She raised the demonic sword high again.

---

The column accelerated to the engagement-line, hard.

The horses, as if to use up the pace they'd been saving, surged on the riders' shouts.

At the head, Elma — without blinking through the dust — held her attention on Mūzeg's cavalry.

The cavalry, at distance, had read that she was angling south, and was already swinging wider to cut her off.

"Their reads are fast…!"

A small, profane mutter under the hoof-thunder.

These were veterans. Even through the dust — where intent should be unreadable — they were tracking her decisions cleanly. Elite, unquestionably.

"— Oi! They're doing something!"

— Salman, shouting from her left rear.

She didn't have time to turn. She kept her gaze forward and intensified.

Mūzeg's cavalry had split into two columns.

Their formation-change was startlingly quick. On horseback, mid-charge — that level of execution spoke to drill of a high order.

But the speed of the manoeuvre wasn't the point. The intent was.

"— !"

Then she saw it. At the head of one of the split columns, a structure was lighting up mid-air. The line of the horses' charge ran straight through it.

— Spell-circle…!

Some kind of magic.

She gripped the demonic sword harder.

Attack? Or some other art?

— Answer was immediate.

The lead horses passed through the circle — and abruptly accelerated, hard.

Not an attack.

This was —

— an Acceleration Formula.

Bad.

Her timing —

— off.

The acceleration was bigger than she'd projected.

One column at the original speed, charging the column straight on.

The other column, separated, on a wide arc to seal her route — now sprinting there.

The road ahead was being closed.

— Pincer.

The acceleration wasn't going to last forever, granted; that was the small mercy. But the bigger arc with sprint-mode was probably enough to land her in the encirclement.

A further detour east meant veering away from Lemuse — meaningless. They were already on the cleanest line.

She hesitated.

The column was holding tight formation, but if real engagement broke out at speed, the formation would scatter. The cavalry had split for the pincer, which meant their individual line-density was lower in pieces. There might be a thin spot in the line she could thread.

— I can't see it from here…!

Truthfully, no. Threading the right gap through a moving cavalry line at speed was, for normal eyes, near-impossible.

Natural-born intuition or transcendent strategic sight could do it. Elma did not, at this moment, have absolute confidence in either of hers.

— What do I do.

How, exactly, do I clear that line.

What route.

Stop, and we lose. I know that.

But pushing in here, can we clear it?

The frustration peaked. A line slipped out of her —

"Damn it! I have never wanted a bird's-eye view this badly in my life!"

If she could see the field from above the way a bird could, she could thread the gap.

The line landed inside her.

— Bird's-eye…!

She got it. She started to twist around to look behind her.

Before she could turn —

---

"I'll — be your eyes…!"

---

— a warm pressure against her back.

A girlish voice, with a single thread of core through it. A voice she knew. Above all — the voice she had been wanting to hear at this exact instant.

"— Aiz!"

"I'm on…!"

The 〈Heavenly Demon〉 Aiz.

The slightest, frailest body in the party. The silver-eyed girl.

"You — jumped horses in this state?!"

Mid-gallop. At full sprint.

"M-Marisa-san helped a little…!"

A small pair of arms came around her stomach from behind. Elma laughed in spite of herself.

That was Aiz's grip, beyond any doubt.

She had, in fact, moved horse to horse mid-charge.

"Hah — ha! You may, in fact, have the most nerve of any of us in this party!"

She had to laugh; it had to come out. Even in the floor-shaking thunder of hooves.

— If she'd missed, she could have died!

Worse — if she'd dropped, the horses behind would have trampled her instantly. Death, certainly.

Aiz had known that and made the jump anyway, off Marisa's horse.

So that — with the 〈Magic Eyes of the Heavenly Demon〉 — she could show Elma the route.

Marisa, holding the position to enable that jump, had presumably worn an extraordinarily strained face. The maid who rationed her own attention to Merea and Aiz alone — taking that mother-watching-her-child-walk-the-cliff feeling, no doubt.

Aiz, when set on a course, was — strangely — immovable. Marisa, in the end, had had no choice but to support it.

Elma briefly pictured the humanly anxious crease appearing on the doll-faced maid's brow, and let one more quiet laugh out.

Back to it.

"Can you see it?"

"Mm — yes!"

She'd already triggered her 〈Magic Eyes〉. Elma confirmed it and bet the final call on those eyes.

"Subjective reading is fine! If you decide we can punch through, grip my stomach as hard as you can! If it's a no, pinch my flank to tell me!"

"As-as hard as I can…?!"

"It's fine! My abs aren't soft enough to hurt from your grip!"

Light banter, deliberately, to keep Aiz's nerve up. Elma waited.

The wait felt long. Probably it was short. The cavalry was still closing.

Then — Elma noticed something.

The adult dragons that had been flickering at the edge of her vision — gone.

Half-fear, half-relief — she swung her head to find them.

— There.

In one short turn she caught the three dragons. Wrapped in a strange white flash. Hesitating.

In the moment of taking that in, she could not help, internally, an exclamation.

— You really are something else, Merea.

A single look told her enough.

The white light was a line — moving so fast it had become a line — wrapping the three dragons' faces and necks, binding them in place.

The light was lightning.

Sheer speed.

A wind-of-wings trailing behind it.

A trajectory so close to flight the eye couldn't quite call it running.

White lightning that read each dragon's intent in real-time and slammed the opening move back into the dragon's face before the dragon could finish it.

The dragon's absurd toughness, plus zero spare time per dragon, meant Merea couldn't get a finishing blow in. But blink, and the dragon would close on the column.

So: speed-prioritised continuous check.

Holding that alone — no one in the party could fault Merea for the call.

The instant Elma confirmed the picture —

— the small arms around her stomach gripped.

— …Got it.

Aiz had decided.

From here, leading the column was —

— in the name of the 〈Sword Emperor〉.

"Right. We're threading the thin spot. — Don't worry. I'll keep you safe. So — show us the route!"

"Yes!"

Aiz pressed herself tighter against her back.

The point of intersection with Mūzeg's cavalry was now sharp in Elma's head.

— Contact's coming.

But —

— I'm not hesitating any more.

The demonic sword was, she felt, crying for blood.