While Shizuku was stoking the fires of Honoka's resolve, Tatsuya stood face-to-face with the figure of "Angie Sirius."
Lina's transformation was thorough. Crimson hair, golden eyes—even her facial structure and height had been altered through visual interference. To any observer not already in the know, there was no link between the USNA's "Starlight" and the girl known as Angelina Shields.
Tatsuya observed her with a hunter's precision. He hadn't spent the last two weeks idle. Using his training sessions with Kokonoe Yakumo's "Matoigoromo" as a benchmark, he had been systematically building countermeasures against Lina's information-falsification magic, "Parade."
Thanks to that training, he could tell that Lina was currently limiting "Parade" to her physical appearance. She wasn't falsifying her coordinate data. If this is the extent of it, he thought, I can lock onto her even if she starts warping her position.
(She's likely unable to secure the necessary magical capacity... which means her primary spell requires an immense amount of processing power.)
The code name "Sirius" was reserved for the head of STARS, the USNA's most elite magic unit. It was a title that signified the most powerful magician in the nation. For someone of her caliber to be forced into such strict resource management, the coming attack would be nothing short of catastrophic.
He thought back to the dazzling lance of light that had struck Shuji. Its true identity was almost certainly a high-energy plasma beam.
(Most likely, a variation of 'Heavy Metal Burst.')
Heavy Metal Burst: the Strategic-Class magic of the "Thirteen Apostles'" Angie Sirius. It functioned by transforming heavy metals into high-energy plasma. As the metal transitioned into a gaseous and then plasma state, the spell amplified the resulting pressure and the electromagnetic repulsion between cations, scattering the lethal energy over a wide area.
(However, 'Heavy Metal Burst' is supposed to be an omnidirectional radiation spell centered on the blast point. The plasma that hit Chiba was a focused, directional beam... and it wasn't just converged. Its effective range and diffusion were also under strict control. Did she bake a decay sequence into the activation to make the plasma lose energy after passing the target? Or did she project a force field to act as a 'stopper' at the beam's terminus?)
As Tatsuya's eyes swept over Lina, they caught on a specific object.
(That staff.)
He surmised that the unfamiliar device in her hand was the key to this level of control. Under different circumstances, he would have offered nothing but praise for such exquisite technology.
(But right now, it represents a maximum-level threat. If I can 'see' it in action one more time, I can formulate a countermeasure. The only question is whether I'll have enough left of myself to counter-attack after taking a direct hit.)
The beam he had witnessed earlier was nowhere near the speed of light. At its peak, it reached perhaps one-third of that speed—slower even than a natural lightning bolt, which averages about six hundred times the speed of sound.
(If a physical object moves at that speed, even a thin gas should produce a massive shockwave. The fact that there wasn't one means a 'path' was prepared for it in advance.)
If he could detect the creation of that "path," he could move out of the line of fire. Tatsuya mobilized every ounce of his sensory perception and locked his gaze onto her. Beneath the dim streetlamp, Lina finally broke eye contact. She spun on her heel, glanced back with a faint, mocking smile, and vanished into the night.
It was an obvious lure.
(What now... It's clearly a trap, but...)
Across the distance, he saw Lina's feet lightly kick off the pavement as she accelerated.
(I suppose I have no choice.)
Tatsuya activated gravity control magic, hurtling through the air like a shadow in pursuit of the receding flash of crimson hair.
In a city like Tokyo, a "city that never sleeps," light seems to touch every corner—and yet, there are always black voids where the glow fails to reach. The park Lina had led him to was one such void, a pocket of darkness nestled between the city's lights.
Lina stood beneath a sparse row of lamps, her golden hair now exposed. Above her, a lid of absolute darkness seemed to hang in the air. She was using optical-type magic to blind surveillance satellites and stratospheric platforms. Aside from that concealment, however, there were no traces of other magic in effect.
(She's avoiding magical interference...)
This confirmed Tatsuya's theory. The magic she was about to use was so complex that she couldn't afford any overlapping sequences. It also suggested her superiors believed her solo attack would be more effective than a coordinated unit strike. She had dropped her "Parade" illusion for the same reason: to focus her entire consciousness on the offensive sequence.
(It really is 'Heavy Metal Burst.')
Just as Tatsuya solidified his conclusion, Lina spoke.
"Tatsuya. I didn't think you'd actually be naive enough to follow me."
"Being stalked is a nuisance," Tatsuya replied flatly. "I'd rather settle this."
A cold, thin smile touched Lina's lips at his blunt response.
"You certainly have confidence. But this time, you've overreached."
Lina tucked the staff under her arm, leveling it at Tatsuya.
"Surrender, Tatsuya. I don't know what trick you're using to neutralize magic, but you won't be able to stop this—not 'Brionac.'"
To Lina, it was a simple ultimatum. But to Tatsuya, that single name was the final piece of the puzzle.
(Brionac? Like the 'Spear of Lugh'?)
Names held meaning. Often, the name given to a finished weapon reflected a core aspect of its attributes. Tatsuya was so caught up in his rapid-fire analysis that he forgot to actually answer her.
"I see... Fine then. Goodbye, Tatsuya."
Lina took his silence as a rejection. In the world of combat, failing to respond to a demand for surrender was a declaration of intent to fight.
She gripped one side of the horizontal crossbar protruding from the staff—a part that clearly functioned as a trigger or grip.
Double-helix Psion light surged through the bottom two-thirds of the device—a slender rod eighty centimeters long. Within the thicker top third, a forty-centimeter cylinder beyond the grip, a magic sequence was constructed in an instant.
Tatsuya sensed the activation. He moved to invoke "Gram Dispersion" to dissolve the spell—but he realized in a heartbeat that he wouldn't make it. He was too late.
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