Batenkaitos, who had supposedly stripped away
The agony in his groaning, the gastric fluid spewing from his mouth—there was no artifice to the Gluttony's suffering. He hadn't put anything with physical form into his mouth, yet when he vomited, it was as though his stomach were being wrung dry.
An absurd observation to have in the face of such a bewildering sight.
"Damn, that hurts… You've gotta be kidding me…"
Felt rubbed her battered chest where she'd been shoved, rising to her feet with abrasions all over. Her expression held irritation and discontent, but she bore no signs of critical injury.
The Gluttony's meal had failed.
"Ggh—gehoff—euuugh!"
"I don't know the reason… but this is our chance!"
Batenkaitos was spilling gastric fluid from the corners of his mouth, his awareness entirely removed from the battlefield, and Dinah launched a violent assault against him. Two blades whirled and struck the Gluttony without mercy.
A blade's flash closed in on his exposed neck— "Gy—oooh!"
A roar like a beast's cry erupted as Batenkaitos deflected the blade with hand-to-hand combat. A few strands of hair too slow to dodge were sliced away, but the strike failed to cut skin. Spinning his small body at high speed with nightmarish agility, the Gluttony escaped the attack range.
"Merchant!"
"I know, I know—!!"
At Beatrice's call, Otto responded, swinging his right arm free. From his sleeve, two magistone projectiles flew toward Batenkaitos, who had just evaded the attack.
In that instant, light exploded and a torrent of mana blasted his body away—but Batenkaitos responded with astonishing reflexes.
"Hyu—maaa!"
At the very moment the surging light was about to swallow him in its destructive force, Batenkaitos cast a spell, encasing the exploding magistone in ice and freezing it solid.
The magistone's detonation lost all direction of force, becoming nothing more than a chunk of ice that crashed to the ground with a clatter. It was a supremely advanced technique—slicing a spell formula into the magic wave at blinding speed.
Even that had likely been accomplished by one of the "names" Batenkaitos had devoured until now. The thought that some "someone" who had mastered such skill now lay forgotten in the depths of his stomach was enough to make one gag.
But those sentiments would have to wait.
What mattered right now was— "Hah! Close one, close one… but I made it through!"
Batenkaitos kicked the ice encasing the magistone into the waterway and grinned. He spat out the gastric fluid still in his mouth, wiped his lips with his arm, and tilted his head.
His murky gaze fell on Felt, who was checking the extent of her injuries by moving her limbs around. Felt noticed him looking and snorted through her nose.
"What? I'm just as sick of you as you are of me, pal."
"Sick of me? Not at all—I'm actually impressed! I thought you'd be a bit slow between the ears just from looking at you. Sorry about that."
"Huh? What the hell are you—"
"I never imagined you'd have the cunning to use a fake name against us. I was completely fooled. I was trying to avoid getting greedy until I uncovered your 'name'… but to think you'd turn that against me."
"————"
Hearing Batenkaitos say the word "fake name," Felt fell silent.
Her furrowed brows were the reaction of someone blindsided by unexpected information. It was safe to say she had no idea what Batenkaitos was referring to.
Meanwhile, Beatrice, who had been listening, now understood the reason behind Batenkaitos's earlier failed "meal."
The Gluttony possessed the authority to devour a person's "name" through touch, by some means—but it had to be the person's true name.
A pseudonym or nickname would not work.
Felt's name alone had not satisfied the conditions for a "meal," which was why the Gluttony who had tasted it ended up in such a sorry state.
If that was the case— "That brother over there doesn't even know Felt-chan's name… Two people whose names I don't know, and I've decided to eat them both? How troublesome."
Otto, whose name was genuinely unknown, and Felt, who apparently used a fake name. Dinah and Beatrice—whose names were already known from
"Hey! I've been sitting here listening to your crap—what the hell are you even accusing me of?"
Beatrice was lost in thought, Batenkaitos was surveying them with cold eyes, and Otto and Dinah were both biding their time. It was Felt who raised her voice.
Furious at having a conclusion imposed upon her as though she didn't matter, she thrust
"Fake name, my ass. I've been living with the name Felt that Gramps
"So you're the type who doesn't even realize they have a fake name? Then that just means your foster parent did a remarkably good job of it. It's incredibly troublesome for us, but… it means there's a name properly given to you before that one."
"The deadbeat parents who dumped me in some back alley gave me a name? Then it must've been 'Pest,' 'Useless Mouth,' or 'Trash.' Wanna give it a lick and find out?"
"Don't make wild guesses that go against a gourmand's sensibilities. —Ah, right."
Batenkaitos clapped his hands together as Felt bared her fangs in a rage-fueled grin. He looked her up and down and said: "After devouring everyone else, I'll keep you safe and sound. Then we'll go meet that Gramps Rom of yours who gave you the fake name. Gramps Rom might know your real name. We're rather good at getting information out of people—so leave it to us."
"…You'd really go through all that trouble? Is giving up not an option?"
Otto couldn't help but interject at the Gluttony's nauseating plans. Batenkaitos put a hand to his mouth, chuckled with pleasure, and said: "If the number of lives in this world is finite, then the number worthy of being called fine cuisine among them is also finite. So we never let an opportunity to meet that limited fine cuisine slip by. Binge drinking! Binge eating! We lick, suck, slurp, and sip, savoring every last drop of sauce on the plate. Oh, and don't worry—big brother, you're no exception."
Batenkaitos's gaze made it clear he would not let any of the four remaining people escape.
The Gluttony's obsession with his meals was incomprehensible to Beatrice and the others, who had been evaluated as "fine cuisine." All it meant was that they had drawn the attention of a tenacious pest.
And his blasphemous appetite was enough to earn Felt's deep displeasure.
"I see. So if I don't put a stop to you right here, you'll go after Gramps Rom too."
Felt spoke in a quiet voice and shook out her leg. Her shoe popped off. She did the same with the other foot. Barefoot on the cobblestones, she rolled Meteor aside and drew a short blade.
"…? I don't get it, Felt-chan. Isn't that your trump card?"
"I'm more comfortable with something I'm used to. Besides, I never cared that much about it. The rule is, the one who knows how to use a tool should use whichever one suits them best!"
Her bare feet curled against the ground like claws, and in the next instant, Felt's body launched forward as if fired from a spring. She closed the distance in the blink of an eye—her speed was like the wind itself.
Even Batenkaitos's eyes widened at that, and he abandoned his leisurely demeanor to deal with the blade being swung at him. He parried with his arms, twisted his body, and pulled up buried combat techniques to fight back.
"Tch—!"
Barefoot Felt's speed far exceeded what a nimble girl could ordinarily produce.
She was undoubtedly blessed with power beyond human comprehension—a divine protection. Her short blade flashed repeatedly, matching Batenkaitos's swordsmanship to a reasonable degree.
Of course, Batenkaitos held an overwhelming advantage in skill, but the reason Felt wasn't simply being pushed over was because Dinah was providing support.
"Don't push yourself too hard with your body in this condition!"
"You're the one who's too slow—keep up!"
Skillfully wielding two blades, Dinah filled the gaps in the Gluttony's counterattacks. In that opening, Felt circled to his blind spot and launched a surprise attack. Steel bit into steel, and sparks flew as the three figures clashed in a tangle of shadows.
Once again, a chaotic melee with no decisive blow.
However, this time, a decisive blow was being carefully prepared outside the chaos— "The spell formula… it's through—time to unleash it!"
"You two, get clear!"
Placed outside the fray, Beatrice had been meticulously assembling a spell formula, taking her time.
A process that normally required no special effort had, because of an added filter of caution, demanded the most painstaking attention.
And after all that effort, it had finally taken shape.
"————"
At Otto's shout, Felt and Dinah pulled away from Batenkaitos. The Gluttony instinctively reached for Felt, but at the point of contact, his preparations to devour Felt's "name" were still incomplete.
"Let go!"
She wrenched her ankle free from his rough grip and leaped far backward with one leg. Dinah tumbled away as well, and only the Gluttony remained in Beatrice's line of fire.
Targeting him, Beatrice channeled a full thousand points of power through a spell that demanded exactly that, and completed it without compromise.
"This time, without any jokes—truly… Ul Minya!"
Purple radiance erupted in response to her incantation, light tracing a circle with Batenkaitos at its center. He raised his face to see what was coming, but his reaction was too slow.
The correct response would not have been to brace himself—it would have been to flee by any means necessary.
"———!"
The ring of light contracted all at once, clamping down around Batenkaitos's torso and arms. With his upper body restrained, additional rings of light chained together and began to close in further.
If his entire body was encased in the rings of light, there would be no escaping the power of Ul Minya.
Crystallizing purple light tightened around Batenkaitos's upper body one band at a time. The rings then extended to his lower body, and sensing movement, the Gluttony collapsed to the ground.
And with a sound like the atmosphere groaning, an immense deep-violet radiance rose above the fallen blasphemer's head, its tip aimed squarely at Batenkaitos.
The power of Ul Minya—to bind, and to crush.
Beatrice poured every last shred of her technique into this emergency execution, and the destruction descended upon Batenkaitos.
"————!"
A strangled roar could be heard, but it was swept away before the purple light that birthed annihilation.
The overwhelming force of the light peeled up the cobblestones, and the ensuing blast engulfed the great plaza in light and rising smoke. Beatrice's dress billowed dramatically.
"Did we do it!?"
"Did it work!?"
"Did we finish him!?"
All three, crouched against the blast, shouted in unison.
At the epicenter, Batenkaitos had had no means of evasion. If that strike had landed squarely, his body would have been obliterated without even bone fragments remaining— "Not quite finished yet, I think!"
—That is, if it had landed squarely.
Beatrice's sharp warning erased the triumphant expressions from all three faces. It wasn't hard to understand why Beatrice had noticed the misfire before anyone else.
She could feel it.
"…Four more."
The large magistone she had kept tucked in her garment had failed to withstand the Ul Minya spell formula and shattered just before delivering the killing blow to Batenkaitos.
It had made it to activation, but it had fizzled out at a position too insufficient to display the spell's full effect. The radiance had fallen short of incinerating Batenkaitos, and the Gluttony's body— "I might've panicked just a little just now!"
"———!"
Bursting through the smoke, Batenkaitos lunged at Beatrice from a low stance. He had evidently decided that, given the power of the spell just deployed, she was the one who needed to be eliminated first.
Beatrice possessed extraordinary ability as a magician, but her physical agility was that of an ordinary person—true to her appearance, she had not outgrown the body of a young girl.
She had no capacity for close combat against a master martial artist like Batenkaitos.
So for this engagement, Beatrice immediately deployed her third magistone.
"——Mulak!"
"Your little tricks won't—"
Just before Batenkaitos's hand reached her, Beatrice's incantation barely managed to get the first word in.
The reaching fingertips carried a will that would allow no obstruction to let Beatrice escape. But that will failed once again.
The instant his fingers grazed her dress, Beatrice's body blew backward as if shoved by the wind.
"————"
The "Mulak" Beatrice had incantated was a shadow magic spell that interfered with gravity—the force pulling one toward the ground, one's own body weight, and so on. Beatrice had used it to reduce her own weight to precisely zero for a single instant.
Just enough to be lifted by the wind and blown far from grasping fingers.
"Th—this—!?!"
Exactly as planned, Beatrice's body shot away from Batenkaitos and flew all the way to the far edge of the great plaza. Batenkaitos attempted to give chase, but hearing exaggerated footsteps behind him, he spun around on instinct.
He drew his short blade behind him to cut down the uninvited interrupter. But his strike hit air—because there was no one there.
"People like Garfiel and the 'Intestine Hunter' always fall for this kind of thing!"
Using a wind magic application, Otto had "flung" the sound of footsteps elsewhere. With Batenkaitos's back now fully exposed, Otto hurled another magistone. The heat wave of the detonating stone slammed into his bare back, and this time, Batenkaitos was sent flying by an explosion he couldn't defend against.
"Now it's really over!"
Batenkaitos tumbled across the plaza and collapsed with all five limbs splayed. Dinah leaped upon him, twin blades reversed, ready to deliver the finishing blow— "————"
In a whisper, the fallen youth murmured something.
Whether it was a plea for mercy or words of regret, Dinah would not have hesitated. For a man who had lived the life of a mercenary, taking lives was the harsh result of competition.
The question of adult or child was trivial, and mourning or regretting—those were sentiments one could only afford after surviving.
So he had made his peace with it. And yet, even with that resolve, an inexplicable feeling rose in Dinah's chest.
Because what Batenkaitos had whispered was— Eclipse.
"——Hm?"
The moment the correct sound of that word registered, an idiotic voice leaked out.
In the next instant, blood erupted simultaneously from all four of Dinah's limbs. Deep stab wounds appeared on each, his tendons precisely severed.
It meant a complete loss of function in all four limbs—and he could not stop his collapsing body.
"Gu—ah!?"
Dinah's face hit the cobblestones, and his head was stomped on from directly above. His nose was crushed against the stone, and the impact shattered his consciousness.
Left prone and motionless, Dinah's body was kicked aside as Batenkaitos slowly rose and turned toward Otto.
"…Ah."
This was not the first time those murky eyes and Otto's gaze had met.
And yet Otto's mind was ensnared in an instant by those turbid pupils.
Because the swirling madness and resentment were incomparably darker than before.
"————"
It was over in an instant.
The distance closed in the space of a blink, and by the time Otto realized it, scorching heat had already pierced both his legs. Looking down, he saw that a short blade had carved cross-shaped wounds into the front of both his thighs.
As easily as peeling the skin from fruit, his trousers and the skin beneath were rolled back. The red cross-section of flesh, the pink muscle, the white nerves and bone crawling within—all of it had been extracted with a green vein of blood vessels completely untouched. Otto's throat choked on an out-of-place sense of awe.
He was stunned. He had never witnessed such beautiful technique.
Minimal blood loss—no, there was no blood at all. Only a truly transcendent mastery of the blade could devastate a human body with such decadent precision.
"————"
Crouching down, Batenkaitos pressed his lips to the wound. The rough texture of his tongue lapped at the inside of Otto's skin, touching every critical structure—muscle, bone, blood vessels, nerves.
The sensation of being licked made his body shudder. In the next instant, both visually and tactilely, unbearable revulsion and searing agony boiled over in Otto's brain.
"Ahh—gyyaaaaah—!!?"
There was no blood. He didn't understand.
There was only pain. And in place of gushing blood, exposed bone and nerve were caressed by the damp air, muscles meticulously flayed with needles—an agony beyond endurance.
His vision flickered. His brain was bursting. The organ that processed pain was rejecting its own understanding. His throat convulsed as if about to vomit blood, and he could not even writhe, his legs useless.
As Otto screamed, Batenkaitos looked down at him and tilted his head. His long dark-brown hair slid over his shoulder, and the Gluttony released a weary sigh.
"Thought it was a meal break and this is what I find. Fine cuisine, bad cuisine—who even cares? Honestly, none of you besides us have any idea what a meal really is."
The manic grin and demeanor from before were gone, replaced by a voice of remarkably clear-headed resignation.
Batenkaitos slowly shook his head in what seemed like self-mockery—then his expression suddenly shifted.
"Don't put it that way! Sure, playing around was a bit of a hassle, but we still found a delicacy to Louis's taste!"
Baring his teeth, Batenkaitos turned his gaze toward Beatrice and the others. That gaze, combined with Otto's horrifying state, made both girls involuntarily catch their breath. But upon seeing their reactions, Batenkaitos's expression turned vacant and languid once more.
"She certainly doesn't look bad… but it's the vessel that matters more than the contents. Besides, we haven't finished reading the Gospel."
"Louis might not be able to see it, but the girl inside us is telling us. That one over there—Beatrice—is the one, probably. If we finish her off, both body and soul will be full—it's the perfect opportunity!"
Looking right and arguing, looking left and arguing—Batenkaitos conducted a back-and-forth that was visible even from the outside, as though he were not deliberating within himself but conversing with someone entirely separate.
It was like watching someone talk to another being inside them.
No—in fact, that possibility was real. Within the blasphemer Rai Batenkaitos, who devoured "names," dwelled countless souls. It was entirely possible that he could exchange words—or even reach consensus—with any one of them.
And if so, even this loathsome self-debate was comprehensible.
"Can you still move, runt?"
"Oh? You're the one shaking in your boots, shorty."
Beatrice and Felt exchanged words while hurling insults, peering into each other's eyes to confirm that neither had lost the will to fight.
Felt snorted softly, then jerked her chin toward one corner of the great plaza. Beatrice checked what lay scattered there and grasped her intention.
"…They'll come after me next, won't they? I'll hold them off."
"Can you even do that? I'd be better for disruption—"
"I can't exactly expect someone who vomited twice to pull off anything clever. And the decisive tool here is something only I can use, no matter how you look at it. You'll have to be the one."
Beatrice's proposal made Felt appear to consider it. But after furrowing her brow, she quickly shook her head, clawed at her golden hair, and shouted, "Ugh!"
Then, pointing her fist at Beatrice, she said: "Don't mess this up, runt."
"Same to you, shorty."
Neither returned any gesture for the fist—they simply traded barbs and headed into the final battle.
Beatrice's conference ended at nearly the same time as Batenkaitos's self-debate. If the combat power that had cut down Dinah and Otto were deployed in full, Beatrice had no confidence she could face it head-on.
"Are you ready, Beatrice?"
"If saying 'no' would buy me time, I would. But if that won't work, then the question has no point, does it?"
"Quite right. Well then, once more—Itadakimasu!"
Head-on, Batenkaitos launched himself straight at Beatrice. His speed was not the nightmarish velocity from before, but it was still a sufficient threat. The disadvantage in close quarters had not changed.
That was precisely why, as a shadow magic user, not meeting him head-on was the proper approach.
"Right—th—ere!"
In front of Beatrice, Batenkaitos planted his hands on the ground and cartwheeled his body vertically. His heel descended from directly above her—a razor-sharp strike aimed at the crown of her skull.
"Not happening."
—At the last moment, Beatrice's body tilted backward once again from the kick's wind pressure. She had deliberately maintained the "Mulak" effect from earlier without dispelling it.
Leaning back from the wind pressure, Beatrice launched herself straight up from where she stood. Freed from gravity and unburdened by weight, the girl's body floated upward with effortless lightness.
Skillfully flipping the hem of her dress, Beatrice's body danced irregularly through the air.
"Beautiful! But your response is too lenient!"
Batenkaitos extended his tongue and circled to her landing point. Without waiting for her to touch down, he lunged for Beatrice in midair.
With the speed and precision of a raptor seizing its prey, his fingertips reached for her. But at the same time, this also meant he had followed her into a sky with no escape.
With her remaining magistone supply limited, hitting him was the paramount focus.
Beatrice aimed her palm at Batenkaitos approaching from below and chanted the spell she had used more than any other in her four-hundred-year life—and this past year above all.
That spell being— "Shamak!!"
A magistone shattered within her garment, and in response to Beatrice's incantation, black mist erupted—Batenkaitos, mid-leap, plunged headfirst into it and was sealed away in a world of incomprehension.
"Gu—what—!?"
The black mist clung to him, and Batenkaitos's body fell defenselessly onto the cobblestones. He should have been unable to do anything until he broke free, but Shamak's effect did not last that long.
Beatrice's remaining resources—a single usable magistone—were insufficient to deliver a killing blow. So what option did Beatrice have in this moment?
"Oh! How nice of you, Beatrice. You fight just like that person did… Did his influence rub off on you!?"
Batenkaitos shook off the Shamak and whirled around, baring his teeth. He scanned the plaza, spotted Beatrice, and spoke.
According to the girl's memories within him, there should have been no scene of Beatrice standing alongside Subaru. So even if he detected Subaru's influence in her fighting, he couldn't grasp what a profound significance that held.
"This is the last one—go big or go home!"
Shaking off sentiment, Beatrice directed her palm toward Otto, who lay rolling on the ground nearby. Using the magistone's mana, she sent a healing wave into the agonizing wounds on his legs.
Full recovery was far off, but the crushing pain should have been eased. Otto, who had been rolling and weeping, let out a massive cough mixed with sobs.
"Bringing that useless fool back now—what good does that do?"
"Like this!"
Beatrice shouted back at Batenkaitos, who sneered at what he saw as a wasted move.
The moment he scowled at her retort, something sank its fangs into Batenkaitos's left leg from behind. Deep teeth pierced his flesh, and his stance crumbled.
He glanced down at his leg in that instant, and his eyes went wide.
"Hah!?"
Shock at something incomprehensible. There, latched onto him, was the blood-soaked water dragon.
Stretching its neck, the water dragon had charged across the cobblestones and bitten into Batenkaitos. The creature that had been pushed to the brink of defeat had clung on with its last ounce of tenacity.
This was the purpose of the third of the five magistones.
The first had powered the fierce but ultimately misfired Ul Minya. The second had been used for the emergency evasion Mulak. And with the third, Beatrice had restored the near-death water dragon that Mulak had deflected into its path.
The fourth had unleashed Shamak. The fifth had eased Otto's pain.
Those were Beatrice's five moves—the purpose of each magistone, in pursuit of victory.
"Ahhh! It hurts—it hurts, it hurts!"
Otto screamed until his voice was hoarse, hiding within his cries the call to the water dragon. Having fulfilled his role, he now wept and wailed for his own sake.
It was a testament to just how capable Otto truly was that, the moment Beatrice's treatment reached him, he immediately understood what was needed of him. Unwilling as he was to be dragged into battle so often, the domestic affairs minister of Camp
"Well done—that is your calling, you know!"
"I don't understand any of it but I'm not happy at all!"
Drenched in Beatrice's rare praise, Otto responded through his tears. And before their very eyes, Batenkaitos—the water dragon's fangs still locked into his leg—was dragged to the ground. He managed to wrench free and tried to stand.
But all of those reactions came too late to beat his trump card to the punch.
"——All set. You've worked hard for me, runt."
A triumphant voice rang out, and the butt of Meteor struck the ground with a hard crack.
Felt planted her weight and leveled the staff at Batenkaitos. In her hands, Meteor began to glow faintly, and the residual wave of power blew away its wrapping.
The white cloth fell away, revealing a pure-white, slender staff.
Its length was enough to be called a spear, with no elaborate ornamentation and no eye-catching mechanisms built into it.
That construction, devoted entirely to practicality, truly reflected its maker's spirit.
The spirit of
"Mother…"
Beatrice had never actually seen Echidna wield that staff. But she knew its purpose and its power.
A weapon designed to harass the Divine Dragon
That said, several conditions had to be met for its use.
Between the difficulty of satisfying those conditions and the issue of the user, fully extracting its bottomless specifications was a tall order—but "Now—see if this has the power to work even on Reinhard!"
With the conditions met and Felt, brimming with mana, as the wielder, the expected output was more than sufficient.
Draining mana from its owner's grip at a voracious rate, Meteor accumulated power without limit, and the light converging at its tip locked onto Batenkaitos.
"———"
Even Batenkaitos could not maintain his composure in the face of that power.
Sensing the possibility of a lethal strike, Batenkaitos struck the water dragon's snout with a single slash of his short blade. The instant its grip loosened, he ripped his leg free and leaped backward with a gash across his flesh.
In that instant, Meteor flared with blinding intensity.
"Go—!!!"
Light swelled at Meteor's tip and a white beam was unleashed toward Batenkaitos.
Having barely escaped the water dragon's hold, Batenkaitos managed to roll off the beam's trajectory with his wounded leg. The light missed him and was about to strike the water dragon instead—when, at the last moment, its path curved. The beam traced a complex arc and pursued Batenkaitos.
"Wh—at—!?!"
At the homing projectile chasing him, Batenkaitos cried out. With razor-sharp agility and a leap, he slipped off the beam's renewed trajectory once more.
But it was futile. Whether Batenkaitos dodged, rolled, or leaped, the beam arced, circled, pursued, and targeted him for a direct hit.
That was the greatest strength of Meteor—the magical weapon forged by Echidna.
Its perpetual homing function, locked onto a designated target.
Echidna had created this weapon to "harass" the Divine Dragon Volcanica. When the fastidious Echidna seriously crafted a tool for nothing more than "harassment," it was only natural that the result would be an instrument that tolerated no compromise whatsoever in fulfilling that purpose.
And so that magical artifact had become a weapon that never missed, never failed, and always reached its target.
"Nu—gh… then how about this!?"
Driven to desperation by a light that chased endlessly no matter how far he ran, Batenkaitos counterattacked. His mana surged, and the area around him froze solid.
Multiple ice pillars rose up, aiming their sharp tips at the beam. A storm of projectiles hurtled toward the white light—but that resistance was a mistake.
The ice pillars, moments before contact, reverted to raw mana from their tips and shattered before hitting, swallowed up by the beam. Not only that—the beam absorbed every incoming magical intercept, further amplifying its power and scale as it closed in on its target.
"Damn—this—this is—!"
Rolling, desperately evading the beam's trajectory, Batenkaitos cursed. But the wound on his left leg was deep, preventing any full-powered leap.
Had he been more agile, he might have been able to lure the beam toward Beatrice and the others, or even aim it at Felt herself. But he had no strength left for that.
Eventually the beam circled around Batenkaitos as he rolled, sealing off his escape, and slowly, almost teasingly, engulfed the Gluttony's body in its destructive force— "Like this—like this, with something so stupid, we— I—!"
"Squabbling is so noisy. Just cut to the Eclipse already."
At the moment of impact, Batenkaitos's miserable cry was drowned out by a voice that had gone ice-cold. And then the light detonated.
"————"
A blinding white radiance swelled at the center of the great plaza, creating the largest crater yet.
The blooming light painted the world white, and the sections it consumed vanished as though they had lost all color.
A perfect spherical gouge had been carved through the plaza, and water from the waterways rushed in to fill it.
But— "My, my, honestly. Having truly incompetent siblings is such a headache."
Beside that scene of devastation, a figure peered into the waterway.
A person with long dark-brown hair and a battered, wounded body. Their physical features were unmistakably those of Rai Batenkaitos—the very same person they had been facing.
By what means had he avoided the beam's attack?—and yet, the most startling thing in this place was not that.
"What is… going on here?"
Beatrice's murmur was not a reaction to the missed attack.
The issue was never whether the beam would hit or not. It should have hit Batenkaitos, and no one but Batenkaitos.
So naturally, it wouldn't hit the powerfully built man whose back was now turned to them. The question was where this man had come from.
"Is that… the Gluttony?"
Otto raised his painful face and muttered.
Beatrice wanted to deny it, but she had no words to do so. As Beatrice and the others stared in silence, the man turned toward them.
The face that met them was nothing like Batenkaitos's—a severe, hard-featured countenance. He appeared to be approaching his forties, with not a single point of overlap with the blasphemer. As Beatrice narrowed her eyes, the man placed a hand on his chin and said: "There's no need to look so surprised. We simply did this."
In a voice that contradicted his appearance—distinctly feminine—the man lightly chopped at his own long hair with a hand blade. Tresses fluttered down, and seeing that, Beatrice understood how he had evaded the beam.
Meteor's homing would remain active until a confirmed hit was registered.
With that level of power, a strike on even a single part of the body would be sufficient to engulf the entire target. That fact had been turned against her.
The man—probably Batenkaitos—had severed his own hair and used it to trick the beam into registering "physical contact." Then he had fled the attack area with everything he had, escaping unharmed.
It was a strategy that might not have worked under other circumstances, but this time it had been a perfect answer.
Originally, to lock Meteor onto a target, one needed to align the "sighting" for identification purposes.
Linking to the target's od or gate would be ideal, but in this emergency, Batenkaitos had used his own severed hair as bait during the battle. As a result, the beam had deviated toward the decoy.
"————"
Having reasoned through it all, Beatrice gritted her teeth at the direness of the situation.
She never imagined Meteor—her trump card—could be evaded by such a method. The magistones were spent. All she had left was one she needed to keep in reserve for Pack.
Otto and the other men could not fight. And Felt, most of whose mana had been drained by Meteor, had collapsed on the spot and was breathing hard.
All was lost—such a thought flickered through Beatrice's mind, but she shook her head.
One should only accept defeat in death. Just as Subaru found a way forward even in the most hopeless situations, so must she.
Beatrice raised her head firmly and glared at the man.
Receiving that glare, Batenkaitos widened his eyes. Then he placed one hand on his hip, covered his face with the other palm, and said: "Good—good, yes, good, good—how wonderful, how wonderful indeed, and it's precisely because of that… that we, too, see in you the worthiness to 'eat.'"
Before Beatrice could counter his babbling, a change came over Batenkaitos's body. Bones shifted audibly, blood sprayed grotesquely, and the large man's frame withered.
Blood poured from newly formed wounds, and the one gasping for breath as he regained the form of a youth was Batenkaitos.
Covered in wounds yet grinning maniacally, the Gluttony watched them with a low rumble in his throat. Spreading both hands wide in delight, he declared: "Our name is: Archbishop of the
"Ley…?"
Rai Batenkaitos—that was supposed to be his name.
Unable to read the intent behind suddenly announcing a different name, Beatrice furrowed her brow. In that moment of hesitation, Batenkaitos kicked off hard with his right foot alone.
Beatrice braced herself, but the Gluttony was already flying toward the edge of the plaza. He retrieved a tattered piece of cloth that lay there and draped it over his wounded body.
And then: "遗憾 but today ends here. Both Rai and Roy have overexerted themselves. Any further would hinder delivery. Let's meet again, darling little miss."
"——! You think I'm going to let you escape!?"
"Stop pretending to be tough. We can't handle the Eclipses properly with this body, but we could still wipe you all out. The only reason we aren't is because the table isn't set."
Pointing a finger at Beatrice as she moved to close in, Batenkaitos shook his head.
A distinctly feminine gesture—no, in truth, the current Batenkaitos might actually be female. Something incomprehensible was happening at the deepest level of his being.
As Beatrice, held in place by revulsion and wariness, stopped in her tracks, Batenkaitos nodded.
"Neither Gourmet Rai nor Bad-Taste Roy understand a thing. Because that's right—a meal isn't about 'what you eat.' It's about 'who you eat with.'"
"————"
"Well then. Next time, we'll definitely come find you with someone precious to you."
"Wait—"
Before she could even finish calling out, Batenkaitos slid into the shadows of the great plaza and vanished. Pursuing him in her current state, with so many wounded, was beyond Beatrice's capacity.
And to press further would be reckless—to be drawn into a situation favoring the Gluttony.
The moment Meteor, her trump card, had been dodged, there had been no other outcome.
"…So we've been beaten."
Suppressing the urge to click her tongue, Beatrice scanned her surroundings.
Otto lay barely conscious, the mercenaries and Felt's retainer were unconscious, and Felt looked frustrated but on the verge of collapsing.
And Beatrice was no different.
That she had managed to avoid any deaths, in response to Kiritaka's desperate plea, was perhaps the only thing she could call the result of her joining this battlefield.
In any case— "I suppose I can't exactly puff out my chest and ask Subaru to carry me…"
The prey that had escaped—within Rai Batenkaitos, a girl's soul lay sleeping.
Having gained that conviction, Beatrice now faced the question of how best to convey it to Subaru.
With a heavy burden of worry pressing on her, Beatrice turned toward Felt, who was fading, to speak to her.
And so, ironically, with the departure of the Sin Archbishop, the fighting in this battlefield came to an end— And the battle at the Water Gate City had only a little left to go.