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"No matter how I look at it, Kenshi's Seikijin has a completely different art style from everyone else's."
"Is this the protagonist premium?"
Kaito watched the white Seikijin Kenshi was piloting from the elevated platform, then looked at the three Seikijin currently moving to confront it.
"Let's go to Swan. The head coach needs to warm up. We can leave these small fry to Kenshi."
He turned and disappeared from the platform with Sakuya.
On Swan, a maid stood before Lashara with a report in hand.
"A total of 1,149 students and staff have been safely brought aboard Swan. Condition is good. Those injured sustained only minor wounds."
Lashara nodded with quiet satisfaction, then turned back to the screen and muttered with a helpless expression.
"Honestly, I would be relieved if those two just wiped each other out."
"Little girl, would you like me to help you get rid of both of them?"
"Where have you been, you scoundrel! You are supposed to be my advisor. I never see you anywhere."
Lashara turned to see Kaito and Sakuya walking in, and planted her hands on her hips.
"Hahaha! I am a teacher. Someone had to oversee the student evacuation."
"And I will ask again. Do you want me to help you get rid of both of them?"
Kaito put on a perfectly earnest expression.
"If you actually have that ability, then do something about Babalun."
"As for that old woman, she does not have many years left. Leave her be."
There was not a trace of genuine belief in Lashara's expression as she said it.
And even so, she had not asked him to deal with Flora. Flora was Maria's mother, her biological aunt. The teasing was simply Flora's way of showing she cared, in her own particular fashion.
"Understood. Since you say so, I will deal only with Babalun."
"Fine, fine. Get on with it then, Advisor. I need to think about the next move."
Lashara waved a hand, still not believing a word of it.
Kaito had some unusual abilities, she would grant him that. But taking on something the scale of a flagship fortress was another matter entirely. He was a long way from that.
"Kenshi has been forced into the arena!"
Lashara snapped upright, staring at the screen.
On it, Kenshi's white Seikijin was being run down by a swarm of others until it was driven into the circular arena.
"The hunt is starting."
Kaito, rather than looking worried, watched the screen with open interest.
"Mobility is useless in those stone pillars. Spread out and bring him down."
Dagmyer issued the order with a confident expression.
The moment he finished, the white Seikijin that had just vanished from sight reappeared directly in front of a female-piloted unit.
"No — ah ah ah!"
"What?!"
Dagmyer raised his weapon and fired wildly along with everyone nearby. Kenshi was already somewhere else, dodging between the pillars with ease, gone before anyone could track him.
"Bang!"
"Ah ah ah!"
"Monster, stay away!!!"
Moving continuously through the maze of stone, Kenshi worked through the isolated units one by one.
A male student, his Seikijin reduced to its upper half, clutched his arm and watched Kenshi move through the arena.
"We walked right into it. We thought we were hunting him. This is his ground."
Elsewhere in the arena, students still in the process of evacuating had stopped to watch.
"Who is that? Who is piloting that Seikijin?"
"I have never seen a pure white one before."
Three female students pushed to the front of the group with proprietary expressions.
"You really do not know? That is our Kenshi. Masaki Kenshi."
The response that spread through the crowd was immediate and loud.
"Kenshi? Lashara's attendant?"
"He is a Seikishi?"
"I saw it myself when the cocoon took damage!"
"The white Seikijin is Kenshi?!"
"That Masaki Kenshi?!"
Up above, Chiaia stood watching Kenshi systematically dismantle every Seikijin in the arena below her.
She remembered arriving at the Holy Land. Kenshi looking at the arena with a puzzled tilt of his head and saying, quietly, "Is it really that difficult?"
She understood now. It probably was not. Not for him.
"That silly boy."
When the last enemy Seikijin had been dealt with, the flagship fortress commanded by Babalun finally reached its position and began constructing the anti-barrier array.
The moment the array was complete, the Seikijin that had been resting on the arena's high platform began to move.
Chiaia saw her at the same moment. Mexiah, changed into Doll, standing beside the Seikijin.
"Sister!"
"Mexiah!"
Chiaia called out desperately, but Doll only whispered back.
"Get everyone out of here. You do not want them buried alongside us."
She turned and climbed into the cockpit.
"It is finally my turn."
Kaito felt it the moment the Seikijin activated. The time had come.
"Lashara. You said you did not believe me." He smiled at her and patted her head. "You are about to find out exactly whose leg you have been clinging to all this time."
He tapped his foot lightly against the floor.
He was gone.
"He disappeared?!"
He reappeared in the open air, suspended between Kenshi's Seikijin and Doll's, between the two giants.
"Haruki-sensei!"
"Haruki-sensei can fly?!"
"It's Haruki-sensei!"
"But what is he going to do up there?!"
The students who had finished evacuating were crowded around the screens, staring.
Kaito had an enormous following across the entire academy thanks to his magic lessons. Some of the students had even formed a support club in his name, with a membership that had grown rather larger than anyone expected. Aura and Lithia were both on the founding list.
Kaito looked at the vast body of the Seikijin, a thin smile on his face.
"Babalun. Come out. Let's have a conversation."
A projection of Babalun in his prime minister's uniform shimmered into existence before him.
"Hmph. What do you want to say? Having some ability does not mean you can stop anything here. You do not begin to understand what the Seikijin is. This world will be ruled by me."
Kaito listened to this with the expression of someone hearing a mildly entertaining joke.
"The Seikijin is a relic of the previous era. Only you treat it as something special."
He raised his right hand.
"Allow me to show you what actual power looks like."
"Take this. My Big Finger!!!"