New Chapter 13.3『The Clash of the First Sound or the Limits of the White Conductor』
The raised baton tears through the air and falls.
At that signal‚ four sounds explosively burst from the center of the deathly silent arena.
「0.01 seconds! If there’s even the slightest deviation‚ you’ll all turn into beautiful ice sculptures!」
Behind them‚ Kotone slams the hologram monitor at a blistering speed while screaming.
「Hell yeah! My soul tuning is perfect! My latissimus dorsi won’t allow even a millisecond of error!!」
「You can’t measure time with muscles! Lord Cross‚ your step-in is too strong—my shield can’t fully pick up the reverberation!」
「Stop complaining and just hold your shield! Here‚ inhale the heat boost from the five-fold miso properly!」
「Whoops‚ I’ll open a wind hole before the heat gets here! The loudest‚ most obnoxious fanfare—enjoy it from the best seats!」
Rinne swings her ladle‚ sending up violent steam. Liam’s heavy bell tones and Cross’s roar overlap. Slipping through the gaps‚ Mark scatters neon-mint sparks from his magic shoes 『Gale』 and leaps.
An extreme battlefield.
In accordance with the trajectory of the baton released from white-frozen fingertips‚ their disjointed sounds surge toward a single point.
However—.
At the edge of his sharpened-to-the-limit vision‚ a clear 『noise』 ran across.
The timing of Cross’s physical impact: 0.009 seconds.
The timing of Mark’s super-acceleration carving through space: 0.012 seconds.
（……It’s off.）
Real combat‚ and moreover in an extreme state bordering on death. It was fundamentally impossible for flesh-and-blood humans to align their sounds with machine-like‚ flawless timing.
「……The deviation has exceeded the acceptable range! Mark is late—no‚ Cross is too fast! At this rate‚ we’ll be eaten one by one in serial!」
「It’s the result of my soul getting too fired up! Don’t sweat the small stuff!」
「Sweat it‚ you muscle idiot! You’re cutting into my charge course!」
「This isn’t the time to be arguing! Just force it through!」
Curses and roars intersect.
However‚ that awkward‚ distorted deviation is precisely the true sound spun by an imperfect ensemble.
「……Yeah. That’s fine.」
A natural smile spilled from his ice-cold lips.
Far from perfect. Full of gaps‚ an unstable dissonance that seems ready to self-destruct at any moment.
Yet within it dwelled an overwhelming heat and mass that could never exist in Solan’s 『absolute zero silence』.
Liam’s bell tones envelop the impact deviation they created with reverberation‚ forcibly twisting it all into the same coordinates.
（……Don’t erase this sound. The conductor’s role is to guide the clashing sounds into the same moment.）
I do not unify the rough sounds into one.
I simply hammer their deviated selves into the same instant.
But—that comes later.
（……Sorry‚ everyone.）
He quietly apologized in his heart and twisted the angle of his wrist gripping the baton by just a few millimeters.
Cross’s physical impact‚ Mark’s super-acceleration‚ Liam’s reverberation waves‚ and Rinne’s illogical heat—all of that violent noise is woven along the baton’s trajectory into a single line with zero deviation.
Immediately after‚ a change occurred in the center of the arena.
「……W-What the—!?」
Cross‚ who had lost his balance in mid-air‚ lets out a strange voice.
「My rampaging soul is being forcibly lined up all neatly on its own!?」
「Khh…… My shield’s reverberation is being forcibly sucked toward a single point!」
Liam couldn’t support his shield and slid his boots across the stone floor.
「Hey hey‚ no way!? My wild charge course is being perfectly corrected into a straight line with zero deviation!」
Mark glares at his own legs‚ which have been fixed into an unintended perfect trajectory‚ with annoyance—and unmistakable dread.
「Hey Aria! We said we’d fire separately! Why did you tidy it up so neatly!」
Amid the chaos of roars and confusion—the four released powers transformed from parallel input into 『ultimate convergence (serial)』 with not even a millisecond of error.
Forcibly commanding the movements of flesh-and-blood humans like the gears of a precision clock—the abnormal conducting ability of the former child prodigy.
When he turned around‚ his eyes met Kotone’s‚ reflecting the light of the hologram monitor.
She smiled faintly‚ sinking her gaze into the depths of the monitor—while a bold‚ analyst’s grin quietly formed on her lips.
（……My‚ what a beautiful convergence. Be sure to collect the empirical data‚ okay?）
A silent signal exchanged between accomplices.
The 『false first sound』—kept hidden even from their comrades‚ meant to probe the limits of the enemy’s defense patch—rushes straight toward the cross-section of the sky far above.
Far above in the sky.
The four masses I had forcibly bundled into a single line surge toward the 『cross-section of the sky』‚ exposed by slicing through the sea of clouds.
An ultimate convergence (serial) with not even a millisecond of deviation.
The culmination of the cold‚ precise calculations from the time he was called a 『child prodigy』.
The Solan camp that met it did not stir in the slightest within the absolute-zero airspace.
「……Measurement complete. Target waveform: complete single convergence (single thread). Error 0.00%.」
Elze announced in an inorganic voice‚ letting the blue logs sink into the depths of her eyes.
「However‚ the output itself exceeds the assumed threshold. Processing with the defense patch alone is not recommended.」
At that report‚ Solan quietly toyed with his ebony baton using his left hand clad in a white glove.
The gray petrification hidden beneath the glove continues to gnaw at his nerves.
Yet he coldly discards even that intense pain as 『cost』‚ not changing his expression. It was as if the weight of the stone that had crawled up to his elbow granted him unshakable stillness.
「……A splendid convergence. To think you managed to command mere humans like the gears of a clock without the slightest deviation.」
Solan’s voice pours down like cold starlight.
「But it is‚ after all‚ a degraded copy of my score. Did you really think you could pierce my 『perfect silence』 with outdated serial processing? …What do you think‚ Celes?」
「Yes‚ Chairman. Past relics are unnecessary for the Chairman’s perfect silence.」
Celes‚ who stood by his side‚ quietly lowered her amethyst eyes and clasped her hands as if in prayer.
「The absolute silence that allows no blade to pass through us……」
Along with that serene prayer‚ the magical defense wall dominating the space grew even more solid and stable.
After a glance at her‚ Solan quietly raised his baton.
「Let us end their childish performance here. …It is time for the true opening.」
The baton flashes faintly in the void.
At that instant‚ the 『completed parts』 surrounding him began to operate as a flawless serial circuit.
「……Friction coefficient zero. Mowing down outdated resonances in a vacuum.」
Zephyr stepped into the void without a sound. His petrified right arm sliced through the air‚ accurately shaving away the 『head』 of the mass we released with a physical vacuum blade.
「Heat is meaningless. I will freeze that impatience along the shortest path.」
Cold sparks without heat scatter from Ignis’s stone right arm. He completely canceled and froze the energy from the very root‚ along with the shockwave Cross released.
「……Fluctuation‚ 0%. Absolute barrier‚ fixed.」
Gray magical power deploys from Valt’s fused feet‚ forming an invisible fault line in the sky.
DOOOOOOOOOOON——!!
The full-power 『false first sound』 we released collided with the Solan camp’s absolute barrier.
However—no catharsis of hope was born there.
「W-What the hell……!」
Cross widened his eyes as if seeing something unbelievable.
「Even though you unified my rampaging soul so beautifully…… you’re crushing it head-on!?」
「Khh…… My shield’s reverberation is disappearing as if sucked into a mud wall!」
Liam couldn’t support his massive shield and dropped to one knee on the stone floor.
「Hey hey‚ no way……! My maximum-speed charge was repelled as if it had stopped!」
Mark lost his balance in mid-air and fell while scattering neon-mint sparks.
「Even though we forced it together so hard…… it’s all being repelled!?」
Rinne grips her ladle and looks up at the sky as if seeing something unbelievable.
The 『first sound』 we released couldn’t even put a crack in the barrier. Zephyr’s vacuum and Ignis’s shortest-path spear had precisely pierced the very structure that should have been perfectly converged.
Ruthless individual destruction through serial processing.
The perfectly commanded attack was instantly disassembled and swallowed into absolute zero silence.
「Gah……!」
「Kyaaa!」
The intense repulsive energy now bared its fangs at us. The mass that couldn’t be fully canceled was reflected back and mercilessly slammed into the arena’s stone floor.
Thick clouds of dust rose‚ and only coughing voices and dull thuds echoed vainly.
He felt Solan coldly looking down at the miserable scene from the cross-section of the sky.
「……Is it over‚ failure?」
Solan’s voice‚ carrying no heat whatsoever‚ pours down on us on the ground as simple fact.
「Your theory is a relic of the past. No matter how much you refine the precision‚ it will never reach my 『present』. …Reject it‚ Elze. Further observation is meaningless.」
The arena sunk into the abyss of despair.
However—while collapsed in the dust‚ I quietly suppressed the dry laughter welling up from the depths of my lungs.
The thick dust is swept away by the cold wind of the arena.
Amid the creaking of every bone in my body‚ I slowly rose.
The dry laughter welling from the depths of my lungs spills from my lips and cannot be suppressed.
「……Aria? Why…… are you laughing……?」
Rinne‚ still collapsed‚ looks up at me as if seeing something unbelievable.
「Hey hey‚ did your own full-power conducting fail and blow a fuse in your head……」
Cross groans while holding his aching arm.
The shadows of despair in my comrades’ eyes were unbearably dear—and reassuring—to me right now.
Ignoring them sinking in despair‚ the sound of footsteps rings out sharply from one corner of the arena.
「……Empirical data acquisition complete. Good work‚ you clever elite specimens.」
It was Kotone.
She quickly flicked the monitor with her fingertip and deployed a huge analysis magic circle at her feet.
——Kah!
Pale blue spell light explosively erupts from the arena’s stone floor.
At that moment‚ intense backlighting shone through the white coat and tight skirt she wore. The heated outline of her skin‚ unimaginable from her usual cold analyst demeanor. The soft silhouette floating in the light creates a contrasting‚ almost perverse effect with the magic circle’s glow.
Every time the pale blue waveform pulsed‚ it was as if her very computational speed was accelerating beyond its limits.
「Hey Kotone! What are you doing at a time like this!」
Rinne lets out a strange voice.
「It’s a ritual to run my logic at full throttle. …Still‚ the significant difference is better than expected.」
Kotone shows no sign of minding the gazes gathering on her figure and quietly flicks the floating hologram monitor with her fingertip.
I brush the dust off my clothes and quietly regrip the white-frozen baton.
「……Sorry‚ everyone. But with this‚ we’ve measured the limits of their 『within expectations』.」
「Haah!? Limits…… Our full-power souls didn’t even scratch them!」
Cross widens his eyes in protest.
「Yes‚ exactly.」
Kotone smiles boldly and deploys an analysis graph in the air.
「Solan’s system is completely invincible against serial processing of 『a single massive load』. No matter how much mass you converge into one point‚ he processes it effortlessly as 『just one error』.」
「In other words…… Lord Aria knew from the start it would be repelled‚ and forcibly unified our sounds……?」
Liam looked at me as if realizing something.
「Yeah. With this‚ their defense patch (alert) has been completely stripped away.」
I coldly stared at the 『cross-section of the sky』 above.
「Solan is now fully convinced that I am 『a degraded copy of Mother’s theory』 and is completely at ease. This was the best offering (decoy) to make him believe the next one would also converge into a single point.」
「……Wait a second. So this whole despair-filled atmosphere was all you two……」
Rinne points alternately at me and Kotone while her ladle trembles.
「Deceiving even your own comrades is the ultimate hack‚ right?」
Kotone winks.
「You used our pure souls as decoys for system analysis!?」
「The worst! You two really have terrible personalities!」
Rinne shouts in anger—but the cold despair vanishes from her eyes.
More than the anger of being deceived‚ the fact that Solan’s 『perfect silence』 is not absolute lights a ferocious heat in the hearts of her comrades.
「I admit my personality is bad. But……」 I ready my baton‚ strongly feeling the heat of the 『ancient heart fragment』 in my left chest‚ and smile boldly.
「From here on‚ this is our real noise (sound).」
「So that’s how it is!」
Cross shoulders his greatsword again with an exasperated look. However‚ a ferocious smile was plastered on his face.
「Heh‚ the way villains think is terrifying and unbeatable. But…… if it means smashing that unpleasant silence‚ it’s cheap pay for the job.」
Mark snaps out poisonous neon-mint sparks from his magic shoes.
「My shield will resonate with the real reverberation this time!」
Liam nods powerfully and plants his shield into the stone floor.
The cold air of despair was completely swept away by the heat they emitted.
Tap. Tap.
Imagining a steady rhythm‚ I close my eyes and slowly concentrate.
In response‚ my whitened right arm creaks violently‚ as if announcing its limit.
「……Alright‚ this time I won’t hold back.」
（Sorry‚ from here on you’re coming with me too…… Just a little‚ I’ll borrow the remaining echoes of your life‚ Iris.）
I take a deep breath and pour the heat from the 『ancient heart fragment』 in my left chest all at once into my white-frozen right hand.
Boiling magical power races through my ice-cold blood vessels.
Kiiiiiiin！
Golden highlights explode in the depths of my pupils‚ and extreme magical power emits light.
『White Singularity』——Forced activation.
Unnecessary information peels away from my field of vision‚ and everything in the arena unfolds as a frame-by-frame 『golden score』. My comrades’ movements exceeding their limits‚ the Solan camp’s perfect attack trajectories‚ and even the numerical values of their slight deviations——I could now understand it all as if it were in the palm of my hand.
「Sorry for forcibly weaving everyone’s sounds into a single line earlier. …This time‚ I won’t force anything. I’ll conduct (link) all of your 『deviations』 as they are‚ simultaneously.」
「Hell yeah! My soul is completely out of control this time!」
「Whoops‚ even the conductor won’t be able to keep up with my top gear!」
「I’ll reflect everything with my bell!」
「Don’t forget my five-fold miso boost either!」
The heavy vibration of Cross shattering the earth with his kick. It transmits directly from the soles of my feet.
Mark’s super-acceleration that physically burns away wind resistance. It produces a friction sound that splits the eardrums.
The countless reverberation waves created by Liam striking his shield. The air vibrates intensely.
And the violent heat of the five-fold miso that Rinne swings behind me surges in‚ as if scorching the skin.
While grasping those disjointed timings and masses with all five senses‚ I vigorously swung the baton with my whitened right hand.
（……Tap‚ tap-tap‚ tap！）
I don’t kill anyone’s sound. I don’t correct anyone’s trajectory.
I take them——who are leaping beyond the rails of logic and predicted limits——and elevate them into a single狂騒 (session) while keeping perfect parallelism.
「Now take this‚ Solan. This is our——true first sound (first note)！！」
Toward the cross-section of the sky‚ this time a raw dissonance bares its fangs and surges forth.
Not a single-point convergence (serial)——but an unpredictable muddy torrent of noise rushing in simultaneously from all directions.
「Right! Liam‚ step back two paces and raise your shield angle by fifteen degrees！」
My instructions sharply cut through the ice-cold air.
「Y-Yes！」
The moment Liam moved as ordered‚ Ignis’s spear slid off the edge of the shield and was neutralized.
「Mark! Delay by 0.008 seconds‚ then kick off Cross’s right shoulder and jump！」
「Tch‚ what a rough taskmaster of a conductor！」
Mark used Cross’s shoulder as a foothold to sharply change trajectory in mid-air and slammed a powerful kick from Zephyr’s vacuum blind spot. The perfect defense line shook slightly for the first time from physical impact.
「Cross! Now‚ swing through straight ahead！」
「Hell yeah！ Taste my soul！！」
Cross’s greatsword slips between the off-balance Zephyr and Ignis‚ delivering a heavy blow to Solan’s protective wall.
A godlike conducting that tramples the battle line in an instant.
In response to the baton pushed beyond its limits‚ Cross‚ Mark‚ and Liam’s fierce counterattacks steadily push back Solan’s absolute barrier.
In the arena——the muddy dissonance regained its fervor once again.
The silver-haired dictator looking down from high above showed not even the slightest stir at the heat we were pushing back.
「……Abnormal rise in output confirmed. Noise exceeding predicted values. However‚ even that noise is still within the assumed scope.」
Solan’s cold voice echoes through the boiling arena as if pouring ice water over it.
The moment he quietly regripped his baton‚ even from afar it looked as if the silver threads fixing his left arm let out a creaking scream at their limit. Yet he coldly swallows even the intense pain that gouges his own flesh as the necessary 『cost』 to maintain perfect silence.
「It’s futile. It’s nothing more than the struggling of an 『unfinished product』. It is no threat to my completed score. …Elze‚ Zephyr. Raise processing speed by two stages. Completely crush the impurities.」
「……Understood. Rejection process‚ accelerating.」
Gray blood vessels surfaced on Elze’s neck pulsate thickly and dark red.
The vacuum surrounding Zephyr expands its range further‚ and the surrounding air freezes with a physical scream.
In that instant.
Into the gaps of the 『golden score』 that I should have read completely——a thick gray wall violently cut in at a speed surpassing calculation.
「……Wha‚ it was repelled！？」
Mark’s kick from the blind spot slides on the new vacuum fault line created by Zephyr. His leg‚ completely stripped of friction‚ cuts vainly through the air.
Even Cross’s greatsword swung with all his might has its vector canceled at the root by Ignis’s cold spear and is stopped without scattering a single spark.
「Hey hey‚ no way！？ My muscles have no feedback‚ like I’m punching tofu！」
「Lord Cross‚ fall back！ Even my shield’s reverberation is being swallowed like mud！」
Liam desperately strikes his shield‚ but Valt’s absolute fixation completely absorbs the sound waves.
（……Khh‚ it’s being blocked……！）
In my frame-by-frame vision‚ I desperately continued swinging the baton.
However——no matter how much I burned my life to issue extreme parallel instructions‚ the Solan camp’s perfect serial circuit‚ with its raised speed‚ continued to reject everything in real time as 「expected errors.」
My whitened right arm creaks with strain‚ and the cold air of death crawls up to the depths of my heart.
「Aria！ This is impossible any further！ My logic is completely unable to keep up……！」
Kotone lets out a blood-curdling scream in front of the sparking hologram monitor. Behind her soot-covered glasses‚ the eyes of an analyst are deeply stained with despair.
「Kotone is right！ Aria‚ pull back once and regroup……！」
Rinne grips her ladle and cries out in a pained voice.
There was no retreat from the beginning. Everyone should have known that.
Faced with the perfect completed product (Solan)‚ is this the limit of our imperfect parallel attack?
However——.
As my right arm screams at its limit‚ I firmly regrip the white-frozen baton and smile boldly.
「……Kotone. Your calculations were perfect. That’s precisely why we reached the limits of their 『within expectations』.」
「Wh-What are you saying……？ Even if the calculations reached them‚ if everything is blocked it’s meaningless……」
「Yes‚ that’s right. We are unfinished. That’s why we deviate.」
At those words——Solan’s hand‚ which had been holding the baton aloft‚ stopped dead still.
I looked over my comrades as they endured the pain and readied their weapons again.
Cross’s sword stance was slightly heavier than before. Mark’s shoes scattered hotter sparks than before. Even Liam’s shield angle had unconsciously been optimized.
In the extreme state of real combat. Within it‚ their sounds are——definitely 「changing」 beyond basic calculation.
「Yes‚ precisely because we are unfinished…… we can play a different sound the next instant. Right？」
At my question——the despair in my comrades’ eyes quietly reversed into ferocious heat.
「……Let’s go. The rails of calculation end here. From now on‚ this is our improvisation (ad-lib).」
The moment I raised the baton high again——without even waiting for a signal‚ my comrades’ 『sounds』 explosively burst forth.
「Here we gooo！ I don’t give a damn about calculations‚ this is the trajectory my muscles (soul) feel best on！」
Cross swings his greatsword with a war cry. A wild blow carrying nothing but his own heat‚ with no theory or anything.
The old Liam would have tried to stop that rampage head-on with his shield and 「tune」 it into a safe sound. But the current him deliberately tilts his mirror-like 『bell shield』 at an angle and smiles boldly.
「Yes‚ I won’t take it head-on！ I’ll jam your rampaging soul and reflect it in a completely random direction！」
GOOOOOOONG！
The impact wave from Cross that struck the shield is deliberately sent flying upward at an irregular angle.
「Haha‚ what a completely insane off-beat rhythm！ I’ll use that wave as my foothold！」
Mark kicks the invisible wall of reflected shock waves in the air with his magic shoes 『Gale』. Neon-mint sparks scatter‚ and the trajectory that should have only been able to go straight begins infinite refraction like a three-dimensional pinball.
It is not a new technique. It is solid proof that‚ in the extreme state of the battlefield‚ they are learning each other’s sounds in real time and 「changing」 their very tactical thinking.
There‚ the violent heat of the five-fold miso that Rinne swings creates turbulence‚ pushing Mark’s speed into an even more unpredictable dimension.
（This is it……！）
I grip the baton with my whitened right hand and feel their rampage with my skin.
I do not correct them. I do not bundle their sounds into one. All I do is——carve the minimum beat so that the rampaging sounds do not kill each other.
I cannot simulate what anyone will do next. However——I could clearly‚ almost painfully‚ understand where the 「living sounds」 they produce want to go next.
（That’s right‚ Aria. It’s okay to rely more on your comrades‚ your friends…… Don’t carry everything alone.）
（……Yeah. That’s right‚ Iris.）
Cross’s weight‚ Liam’s reverberation‚ Mark’s speed‚ Rinne’s heat.
They are not independent noises. They complement each other’s shortcomings and update their own waveforms every second——an endlessly changing muddy torrent of energy.
（My role is…… to swing the baton in sync with the moment (groove) when this raging living sound resonates most beautifully！）
「Go！！ Our living dissonance！！」
The moment I swung the baton toward the sky.
The four disjointed sounds amplify by devouring each other’s changes in the air——and connect.
It is not a miracle that relies on luck. It is a single ferocious life form that leaps beyond the rails of calculation‚ fills each other’s shortcomings in real combat‚ and continues to 「grow」 in real time.
Toward Solan’s 『absolute zero silence』——our muddy pulsation itself bares its fangs and surges forth.
＊＊＊
Right after Solan’s baton stopped in the sky above.
Irregular warnings (noise) suddenly ran across Elze’s retina UI supporting the 『cross-section of the sky』.
Piiiiiiiin——……！
Her field of vision‚ filled with inorganic blue logs‚ is dyed bright red in an instant.
Heterogeneous values that cannot be defined by formulas. The noise that should have been 「rejected」 until now proliferates like cells with a will‚ devouring her computational ability from the inside.
「……Chairman.」
Elze’s voice trembled for the first time. Behind her soot-covered glasses‚ her eyes are stained with primal terror as an analyst.
「……Unexpected fluctuation detected in enemy waveform. The computation patch cannot keep up. This is……」
The baton in Solan’s hand creaked as he listened to the report.
A physical crack appeared in the ebony baton. His 『completed score』‚ which had only allowed 100% correct answers‚ was screaming under the raw heat.
「……An error？ Or merely a bug？」
Solan’s voice remained cold. However——clear 『doubt』 was mixed in his eyes.
「……No.」
Elze stared at the red-flashing monitor as if seeing something unbelievable‚ her lips trembling.
「……It is growth.」
At that moment——a decisive crack ran through Solan’s absolute zero silence.
The unknown terror mixed into a future that should have been 0.00%.
It was the moment the stone child prodigy who had stopped growing felt the fangs of an imperfect ensemble that continues to evolve at his throat.
---
New Chapter 13.3 「The Clash of the First Sound‚ or the Limits of the White Conductor」 End
---
|