[Miu's Side]
I knew the difference in strength between Vika and this child. Even so, to break the current deadlock, I jumped at her proposal.
Did I think it would go smoothly? Did I believe I could save her without fail? Did I think we would be just fine?
The result of that choice lay right in front of me.
A girl with purple hair lay collapsed on the ground. Her entire body had been impaled, and on top of that, remnants of holy bullets had been driven into her flesh. Smoke rose from her body—perhaps an effect of the holy energy—as if she were on the verge of vanishing into thin air.
I shouted her name over and over again. I applied recovery magic that served as nothing more than first aid, doing everything I could to cling to her fading spark of life. Yet, no voice answered me back...
"Stay with me! Diru-chan! Hey, Diru-chan! ———Saraaaaah!"
Her true name, hidden behind Diarmuid: Sarah Odina. The real name that only I knew. She, who had kept her heart locked tight for so long, had shared it with only me.
We had once talked about telling my older brother and the others someday. When the time was right for her, eventually.
Until then, I had intended to keep calling her by her current name. And yet, I broke that promise, screaming her true name into the air.
"The holy power is stronger than I thought...! Sarah! Open your eyes, Sarah!"
As I stopped the bleeding, I poured in my own magical power to purge the holy force eroding her body. I wrapped my energy gently around hers to keep the holy power from repelling it and causing a lethal backlash... but Vika's power was simply too overwhelming, making the process excruciatingly difficult.
I placed my hands on Diru-chan—on Sarah's chest—and poured everything into her treatment. There were no Tears of the Phoenix left, and Asia-san wasn't here. I had to use every ounce of recovery magic at my disposal. Healing injuries this severe consumed an absurd amount of power, but this was no time to complain!
As I continued the healing, Sarah's fingers twitched faintly.
"...Hey... Sister..."
"Sarah! Thank goodness... Just stay still. Like this, I'll—"
I'm going to keep healing you, I meant to say. But Sarah cut my words short. Grabbing my arm with a frail, trembling hand, she squeezed out broken words.
"I... I'll be fine. For now... please, fight..."
Sarah shifted her gaze slightly to the side. In that direction, Alice-san was taking on both Vika and Belle simultaneously. Spattering lightning from her entire body, swinging her spear wildly, she was a living storm. Unleashing overwhelming divine power, she fought on equal footing against the pair.
To an outside observer, it might have looked like Alice-san was toyed with both of them. But it wasn't true. Alice-san was pushing herself past her limits. She was burning through her power without a thought for what came next. Even Alice-san had to know she couldn't hold out fighting like that for long. Why was she fighting so recklessly?
Vika spoke, brushing aside a surge of lightning.
"Push yourself too far and your body will break, Princess! Are those two behind you really that precious to you?"
"Of course they are! I am the 'Queen' of the Red Dragon Emperor's peerage! With that 'King' of ours away, I have to protect his peerage!"
"Admirable sentiment! But on your own, you lack the strength to face the two of us!"
Vika held a palm up to the sky. Immediately, a colossal cannon manifested in the heavens. With three barrels lined up side-by-side, it resembled the main battery of a massive battleship.
Vika snapped her fingers, and energy concentrated into the muzzles. Its target was locked onto us— The moment I realized it, all three barrels spewed fire.
Sarah couldn't move, and I couldn't block a hit like that with makeshift defenses. Just as I braced myself to intercept it, Alice-san stepped in front of me. Spinning her spear, she created a shield of lightning and took the full force of the bombardment head-on!
Holding back the relentless flurry of shots, Alice-san screamed:
"Miu-chan, pull back with that girl, fast! I can't hold this much longer!"
I tried to move according to Alice-san's instructions. However, the enemy wasn't about to give us an inch.
"My, my, do you really think I'd let you escape? We'd like to wrap this up soon, too! Belle!"
At Vika's signal, Belle summoned two new paintings. Depicted within them was a scene of apocalyptic cataclysm. The pitch-black sky rained down relentless lightning; the sea raged wildly; the ground split open; mountains erupted, raining massive boulders down across the entire area.
As the two canvases glowed, the worlds drawn within them manifested directly into reality. The sea, the sky, the earth—every imaginable natural phenomenon descended upon us!
Furthermore—
"Belle, can you do that one?"
"...Mm. Already painted it."
Belle spread both arms wide, deploying magic circles at her sides. As the circles glowed a deep crimson, space-time distorted behind her, and a massive painting emerged. It was a canvas dozens of meters wide and tall. Depicted was a bearded man standing against the backdrop of a raging ocean.
Belle's eyes gleamed with an eerie light—
"———Demon God, the strongest Demon God I have created. Become my spear and trample them."
The instant those words were spoken, an enormous surge of power was unleashed from the painting! A giant arm thrust out from the canvas, followed by a head. The giant's eyes locked onto us—
『OOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!』
It unleashed a roar of staggering volume! Even with my hands pressed over my ears, my eardrums felt like they were about to burst!
Before long, the giant's full body stepped out from the painting. It was so impossibly huge that the Demon Gods Belle had summoned up until now looked cute by comparison. How many hundreds of meters tall was it? Two hundred... three hundred... maybe even more? It wore red gauntlets on its hands and gripped a Holy-Demonic Sword that reached up to its chest. On top of that, its entire body was draped in a aura of pure destruction—
Belle spoke.
"...The strongest Demon God current Belle can create. It can use all the powers of everything Belle has drawn up until now."
Vika chimed in.
"It can create Holy Swords and Demonic Swords, multiply its power, manipulate the weather—a do-it-all Demon God, basically. Well, it consumes so much power that it can only be summoned inside the barrier of the 'Magical Painter's Art Festival'... but right now, we are inside the barrier♪"
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