Hidden Code (4)
The battle between the Allied forces and the demons in the flower field felt like a deadly game of musical chairs.
Dazzling maneuvers and powerful spells alike resolved into nothing more than simple ratios.
"There's no end! I'm not exaggerating!"
No matter how many they cut down, the demons were back in an instant, and the Allied forces were starting to lose heart.
"Khahaha! I'll wrap your intestines around my spear!" A horned demon aimed its spear at a soldier's belly.
"Guhk!"
The air screamed as the demon's torso was twisted and torn off at the waist.
"Oops. Sorry."
Natasha appeared with an afterimage trailing her, grasped the demon's spine and stuck out her tongue.
"Why… why would you—"
The demon's upper body, lying on the ground, cocked its head in bewilderment, but Natasha looked away.
Where did he hide?
In a fight so blisteringly fast that "high-speed" was insufficient, mistaking a target was common.
It simply meant she was that focused—her consciousness pinned entirely to Rian's position.
"Yaaah!"
Rian's shout burst out. The scenery seemed to shudder, and demons within dozens of meters were sliced down.
His view cleared above the waist and he saw the yasha form exposed in his body.
"There he is."
The instant the words left her mouth, Natasha and her avatar vanished from the space at the same time.
Rian snapped his eyes open.
Seesaw of time.
The phenomenon humans call the life-flash separates sensory time from the brain's time.
The body remains in reality, but the brain is flooded with an enormous intersection of signals.
Usually you die. If you feel this, you die.
Except for rare strokes of luck, escaping such a crisis by your own power is almost impossible.
But I—
Denial of Divine Transcendence activated, and Rian's body tore past its limits and began to move.
It's Ozent Rian!
The moment he hauled his greatsword up to his chest, Natasha's fist slammed into its broad face.
"Ugh!"
From repeated training, Rian thrust the greatsword forward before the shockwave could breach him.
The force that threatened to overload both shoulders came less from raw strength than from supersonic speed.
I'll counter here!
Fighting inertia, Rian froze in midair, planted a foot, and swung the greatsword.
Natasha sprang up with her knees bent, twisting her torso instead of using the upper body.
Incredible flexibility.
Even in the life-flash, her torso looked doubled as punches fanned out like shrapnel.
Dodge.
Rian spun his body and pulled the greatsword inward to slice at her, when—
"Guhk!"
A dull blow hit his unguarded flank, and he heard the sickening crack of bone.
"Arrgh!"
Rian was thrown sideways and tried to resist the momentum, but his legs went weak.
How the hell—? Where did that come from?
Bending at the waist, Rian looked forward. Natasha had already closed the distance.
This woman really fights well.
It wasn't just that she was strong—though she was strong—it was that she'd taken something to its extreme.
A combat genius.
There was a reason people called her "Gustav's Fourth Prodigy."
"Hmm."
Natasha propped her chin and checked Rian's condition, pinching her brow slightly as she spoke.
"I've felt this before, but…"
Rian, normally indifferent to others' judgments, swallowed and waited for the next words.
"You really have no talent, do you?"
Her face didn't change, but a weight settled on Rian's chest.
"Why do you use so much force? You should calculate time and space as you move. Your rhythm is a mess, and you lack creativity. Fighting you is really not fun."
"We're not fighting for fun."
Natasha accepted that calmly.
"Of course not. But it matters. Do you want to spend your life doing something joyless?"
Rian fell silent.
"You're strong… but I can't find any other advantage."
Rian was strong. But he was also the sort of person farthest from someone who excelled at pushing a single thing to the extreme.
"That's why it's a pity. Want to learn combat from me? Fix a few things and you'd be fine."
"Shut up."
Rian's ribs popped back into place.
"Learning doesn't care who it teaches, but you're an exception. There's nothing to learn from a villain like you."
"Then if I'm not a villain, will you learn?"
A pause.
"What do you mean?"
"You said you wouldn't learn from a villain, right? Then while you learn, I'll be on humanity's side. You've got great physical ability. It's a shame to leave it like this."
Natasha was still an unknowable woman, but that very unknowability defined her.
"I see."
Rian gave a bitter smile.
"You must not have any flaws."
Among the many geniuses Rian had met, she was close to perfect.
"I'll accept the sentiment. Even though you're an enemy, I can tell it's sincere. But you cannot teach me. If it were fixable, I would've fixed it myself already."
"That's why I'll help."
"For some, the thing you see as a flaw will be just that: a flaw. You slot in the right part and everything's solved."
"Is that so?"
"You don't know."
This time Natasha closed her mouth.
"How many times I swung my sword trying to overcome that one flaw. What I tried. How many years I hated and cursed myself."
"So you call it a pity."
"Have you ever thought about it? Not the flaw itself, but what the person carrying that flaw must have gone through."
A genius dancer was born in the Gustav Empire!
Natasha first stood out in the dance world at seven.
Even before the empire's highest powers, her dance was flawless art.
"Impressive. That child shows no nerves."
There was no need for nerves.
Spin.
She raised both hands above her head and turned on one toe; her center of gravity aligned exactly with the direction of gravity.
Leap.
With a spring beyond her years, Natasha leapt high, her body drawing a beautiful arc.
"Ooh!"
It felt as if even the audience widening their eyes was visible.
I'm happy.
To be good at something felt like this.
I want to be better. That will make it more joyful.
The angles of ten fingers, the bend of a knee, the position of the chin, the pull of gravity, distance from the floor, air resistance, line of sight, facial muscle—everything.
I can feel it all.
Not by checking each piece in turn, but as if the body itself had become the brain.
Countless thoughts passed while she hung in the air.
And the instant I land—
As the music quickened, Natasha's feet began crossing rapidly.
Music played in her mind while her body chopped the beat into pieces.
Rhythm.
A measure of how many events can fit inside a single beat.
"She's a genius! No doubt about it!"
Daphne, her classmate, stood beside her, but to the managers' eyes only Natasha existed.
Even the troupe director felt the same.
Off-beat. At least one thousandth of a beat.
When a rhythm locks to the downbeat, someone might take the tempo 0.1 slower—that's a tenth of a beat. Skilled people can feel down to a hundredth of a beat.
But being off by one-thousandth of a beat is beyond human perception.
It's a sensation that brings a chilling, uncanny feeling.
"Brappé!"
Gustavian exclamations of awe poured out and applause thundered.
Natasha became a star overnight, but all she wanted was to dance well.
"Daphne."
Natasha called in the practice room.
"Yes?"
Though close friends, Daphne always felt small before the world's attention that Natasha drew.
"Your center's a little off."
"Huh? Me? I don't notice in the mirror."
"By about two degrees. At our age we don't have much strength, so keeping a precise center is more important than anything. When you spin, don't put awareness at the crown—imagine a round band."
"A round band?"
"Centrifugal and centripetal force. Instead of forcing it, imagine the force gathering naturally."
"Ohhh…"
Daphne, struck by realization, popped her bent knee and turned on her toe.
"There—!"
Startled at herself, Daphne went blank for a moment, then grabbed Natasha's hand.
"Thank you, Natasha. I thought since you're famous you wouldn't care about someone like me."
"What are you saying? I want everyone to know the joy of dance. Let's work hard and stand on the same stage."
"Okay."
Tears gathered at the corner of Daphne's eyes.
Years passed; Natasha and Daphne came of age.
Daphne worked hard, but in the end the greatest dancer in Gustav—no, in the world—was Natasha.
"Daphne, don't listen to the music—play it in your head. Then give a slight push. Like this with your fingertips…"
Even Natasha's hand gestures were wondrous.
"Beautiful."
Daphne couldn't see with her eyes what made them different, but she could feel it.
One-tenth of a beat. No, one-hundredth of a beat.
Daphne forced a smile.
"Okay, I'll try."
"Right. Fight on!"
Watching Natasha return to practice, Daphne's feelings were complicated.
She never rested.
Unlike other girls—going to cafés, meeting boys—Natasha showed no interest.
Only dance.
When she danced, she always wore the happiest expression.
Daphne bowed her head, grabbed her bag, and passed behind Natasha.
"I'm going in. I'm not feeling well."
"Huh? Suddenly? What's wrong?" Daphne opened the practice room door without answering; despair was in her eyes.
Then one day years later, Natasha was grabbed by an assailant and came home with a fractured spine—her career shattered.
The genius dancer retired.
Back in the present, Natasha spoke.
"I never thought about it. But if that's really why they hated me…"
Natasha's cheeks puffed.
"That would be unfair."
"I don't know what you went through. But this I do know: what's a flaw to you was something they had to carry in their hearts for life. Unless you can understand that—"
Rian leveled his greatsword.
"Your goodwill will never reach them."
Rian's words pierced Natasha more painfully than any vow to kill.
"…You didn't work hard enough."
The eyes that had always shone like a cat's took on a chill for the first time.
"You didn't work as hard as I did."
"Probably. I don't know who you mean, but it surely isn't you."
The Reaper arm controlling Natasha shifted.
"They stole what was most precious to me." Natasha never even bothered to find out whether Daphne had hired the assailant—she preferred to put her emotion into becoming the best at what she could.
That extreme tendency was itself genius—but still…
I want to dance.
The days when music alone could carry her body and make her happy would never return.
"I will kill them. That is my job."
The Dance of the Reaper—Off-Beat Concerto.
When Natasha moved inside the seesaw of time, a tone ran down Rian's spine.
What is that?
One-thousandth of a beat.