The tip of the staff ignited. A tightly focused thread of light lanced through the air, grazing Tatsuya's right arm. It was a mere graze, yet Tatsuya's arm from the elbow down was carbonized and obliterated in an instant. His body twisted under the sheer force of the impact. Rather than fight the momentum, he leaned into it, hurling himself into the safety of a nearby hedge.
Lina released her grip on the crossbar and leveled the Brionac like a spear, charging forward. She closed the distance and swung the device in a horizontal arc toward the greenery where Tatsuya had vanished. The living wood didn't just burn; it disintegrated into ash. Yet, beyond the scorched shrubs, the plasma failed to reach its target.
Tatsuya knelt on one knee, his right shoulder pulled back to shield the injury. As he watched, the shimmering blade of plasma bled away into the night like a dying phantom.
"Brionac..." Tatsuya's voice was steady, devoid of the agony one would expect from a missing limb. "The 'Piercing One.' The weapon of Lugh, the Celtic god of light. Is the name meant to imply you've successfully replicated a weapon of myth?"
"Is that really what you're worried about?" Lina snapped, her voice trembling slightly. "You're standing on the precipice of death, Tatsuya."
Lina was unsettled by the lack of pain in his tone. She rationalized it as the result of high-level anti-torture conditioning—a peak tolerance for physical trauma. She centered herself and began the activation sequence within the staff once more.
With a blade of heat and electricity virtually at his throat, the final piece of the puzzle clicked into place within Tatsuya's mind.
"I'm curious by nature. Humans have a fondness for imbuing names with meaning," Tatsuya said. "Legend says Brionac could manifest a spearhead of light to pierce any foe, or fly through the air as a volley of light. The keyword there is 'at will.' A replica of a divine artifact... I see. To think you've actually put FAE Theory into practical use. The USNA's technical prowess is truly formidable."
Lina, who had been listening with feigned indifference, froze. Her eyes widened, her expression hardening into a mask of shock.
"...How do you know about the FAE Theory?"
Tatsuya tilted his head slightly, appearing genuinely surprised by her reaction.
"It shouldn't be that shocking. FAE Theory was originally a hypothesis born from a joint research project between Japan and the US."
"That was a Top Secret project! And it was supposed to have been scrapped years ago!"
"Evidently, it wasn't. The 'Artifact' in your hands is all the proof I need."
Tatsuya looked at the Brionac with a sense of clinical appreciation.
"FAE—Free After Execution. In Japan, we call it the 'Post-Activation Event Variability Theory,' but the English name captures the essence far better. Events modified by magic are, by definition, alien to this world. Therefore, in the immediate wake of that modification, the laws of physics are momentarily loosened. You could say there is a microscopic time lag before physical laws reassert their dominance over a magical phenomenon. According to FAE Theory, it should be simple to give direction to plasma that would otherwise scatter chaotically, or to neutralize high-heat states back to room temperature regardless of natural cooling rates. You can even force the plasma to maintain a specific shape... just like you did.
"However," Tatsuya continued, his voice dropping into a lecture-like cadence, "the time lag in which physical laws are suspended is incredibly brief. It was believed impossible for a magician to define a new set of parameters for a phenomenon in that split second after activation. No human being can define an event in under a millisecond. But you... you perform the magic inside a containment vessel that creates a vacuum against the world's physical laws, artificially extending that time lag. I must offer my sincere praise. I take my hat off to you. The person who designed Brionac is a genuine genius."
"Tatsuya!"
Lina's shout cut through his monologue. She gripped the Brionac with white-knuckled intensity and dropped back into a firing stance. Her voice sounded forced, as if she were screaming to drown out her own fading will to fight.
"I'll say it one last time. Surrender! You can't use your martial arts with only one arm. You have no chance of winning!"
At her cry, Tatsuya's lips curled into a smile. It was a cold, inhuman expression—far more terrifying than the one Lina had worn earlier. His voice, however, wasn't cold. It was soft, sweet, and invasive—the whisper of a devil gently exposing a sinner's transgressions.
"And what would you do with me if I surrendered? Human experimentation? To turn me into one of them?"
Lina was intelligent enough to know exactly who he meant by "them." He was referring to the Stardust units.
"Naturally... I have no intention of becoming a lab rat."
"Then I'll just have to break you until you can't move!"
Lina aimed the tip of the Brionac at his remaining leg from point-blank range. But as she prepared to fire, Tatsuya jammed a device into the muzzle of her staff—his silver-plated CAD, the Silver Horn Custom 'Trident'.
He held it with his right hand. The arm that should have been a charred stump.
"Your arm!?"
The shock of the sight delayed her activation by a fraction of a second. It was all the time Tatsuya needed. His spell was already woven. The 'Trident's' muzzle served as a guide, directing his magic straight into the heart of the Brionac's containment vessel.
Within the replica artifact—the pride of the USNA's strongest magician—Tatsuya unleashed his decomposition magic: Mist Dispersion.
Metal particles, reduced to a harmless gas at room temperature, geysered violently out of the Brionac's tip. The sheer pressure of the backfire sent the Trident flying from Tatsuya's hand, but Lina fared far worse. Because she had been gripping the device so tightly, the recoil was catastrophic.
The force of the unintended discharge sent Lina flying backward. She slammed into the ground, the impact causing the "Parade" armor of information around her to flicker and fail.
Tatsuya didn't even wait to retrieve his weapon before invoking Regrowth. The structural data of the CAD and its relative coordinates were instantly restored; the Trident vanished from the ground and reappeared, fully repaired, in his hand.
In a rapid-fire burst of six shots, Tatsuya's Decomposition shredded Lina's remaining magical defenses and pierced her limbs.
"——!?"
Lina didn't even have the chance to scream. The mental strain and the shock to her system tripped her internal circuit breaker, and she plummeted into unconsciousness.
A short while later, after tending to another "errand" nearby, Tatsuya returned to the park. He looked down at the girl lying limp and defeated on the grass.
"Lina," he whispered to the silence. "You should quit the military as soon as possible. 'Sirius,' Commander of the STARS... I don't think it's a job that suits you."
He hoisted her onto his shoulder and vanished into the shadows of the city.
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