Unabara Mitsuki and Xochitl stood in the juvenile hall's exercise area.
The brown girl pulled a feathered decoration from her pocket and put it next to her ear.
"Are you so impolite as to face me with a false face, Etzali?"
"Sorry, but I like this face. And I have no right to use that face since I left the 'organization'."
"You're wrong about that," said Xochitl quietly as if to cut him off. "Right now, you don't even have the right to live."
"!!"
Unabara felt an odd deadly aura and pulled the obsidian knife from his pocket without thinking. He hadn't intended to use the Spear of Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli on his former comrade right away.
"What were you looking at as you came here?" said Xochitl in a shocked sounding voice.
As she did, Unabara's right arm from the wrist to the elbow locked up. Before he could react in surprise, the obsidian knife he was holding turned towards his face against his will.
"What!?"
He quickly grabbed his right wrist with his left hand.
The point of the knife slowly moved towards his eye. It may have been because he was right handed, but he couldn't stop it completely.
Xochitl's expression remained unchanged.
She didn't even show any joy at the situation being in her advantage. It looked more like she was watching a boring play.
(Kh…! If I…don't do something…!!)
"Oooohhhhh!!" yelled Unabara as he forcefully moved his left hand and dislocated his right wrist.
He felt the intense pain of bone scraping bone and then the feeling in his right hand disappeared. The hand lost its grip and the obsidian knife fell to the ground.
Holding his wrist, he moved backwards.
Xochitl pointed towards the ground and spoke with no real change in expression.
"You dropped something. Aren't you going to pick it up?"
Her spell must have been one that interfered with people's weapons. It took over the weapon, borrowed its destructive power, and had the enemy commit suicide so she didn't have to sully her own hands. To escape that attack, he had to abandon all weapons and spiritual items and fight using only spells that could be activated with his bare hands or his body. Meanwhile, Xochitl could use all of her special weapons and skills to attack him.
This gave him an overwhelming handicap that essentially denied him all of human civilization.
(However…)
The Xochitl he knew didn't use this kind of spell. She was known as the "Corpse Worker". It may sound macabre, but Xochitl's job was to obtain residual information from corpses and confirm whether that person's will was accurate. She only performed after care for the dead by making sure everything was settled at the funeral.
She had studied every kind of magic dealing with the dead, but it was only to be used for peace. The brown girl known as Xochitl had been someone who was not used to hurting people.
"…What happened? No, what is happening in the 'organization' right now!?"
Xochitl did not respond to Unabara's question.
She swung one hand and a huge sword that couldn't possibly have been hidden in her hand appeared. Unlike Unabara's knife, the sword's blade was made of white chalcedony. It was a double-edged sword, but both edges had sharp notches like the ones on the back of a survival knife.
(A macuahuitl…!?)
It was the kind of weapon Aztec warriors used. The Aztec culture did not use metal for weapons, so, instead of chopping like a Japanese katana, the wooden sword had small stone blades lined up on either side so it could cut more like a saw.
"I'll listen to what you have to say later. Of course, that's only if you're lucky enough that your brain doesn't take too much damage."
Holding up her macuahuitl, Xochitl started towards him.
Unabara had to fight bare handed, so he had quite a disadvantage.
"Shit!!"
He couldn't let himself lose.
Unabara back stepped to put some distance between them. Xochitl lost her timing and had to come in even further and Unabara dug some dirt up with his shoe kicking it forwards. When Xochitl stopped due to the dirt getting in her eyes, Unabara tried to kick her in the side.
However, she swung her macuahuitl horizontally.
As Unabara hurriedly drew his foot back in, a thin scratch as if from a razor appeared on his leather shoe.
"That kind of makeshift attack suits you well, traitor," said Xochitl in a calm voice.
The way she was speaking didn't sound right to Unabara. Before, she had hesitated to use deadly weapons. Because her job was to read the residual information from the dead, she understood the terror of weapons more than the average person.
And yet…
"But no matter how much you struggle, you have no choice but to fight unarmed. I'll at least give you the right to defend yourself, but your body will be closer and closer to being torn to shreds each time you do so."
"…That kind of weapon does not suit you."
"Are you saying that form suits you? You left the 'organization', hid your face, and indulged in the peace of Academy City."
"Xochitl…"
"If so, then you really are a traitor. If not, then you're deceiving yourself and have no right to say anything here. Either way, you need to die here!!"
Holding the Aztec sword in both hands, Xochitl came straight toward him. Her eyes, her face, her hands, and her movements all showed no sign of mercy.
She was truly trying to kill him.
He might be able to avoid an attack or two, but he couldn't keep it up forever. And if she got even one clean hit in, the great loss of blood would take his life. At the moment, it was also difficult to fall back. He needed some room to get away. If turning his back and running would let him avoid being cut down, he would have done so.
On the other hand, Xochitl's magic was still active, so he couldn't use any kind of tool to block the attack. If he did that, his own weapon would attack him.
It was a hopeless situation.
"Shit!!"
Unabara clicked his tongue and tried to fall back. The point of the macuahuitl ripped at Unabara's jacket and cut off a few hairs from his head.
"It's over."
Xochitl forcefully stepped forward and brought the macuahuitl down at a distance from which she was sure to hit. And she did it with timing that kept Unabara from avoiding it.
There was no sentimentality in her due to him being her former comrade or having belonged to the same organization.
She swung the sword down with great force.
(…!?)
Unabara lifted the arm with the dislocated wrist above his head. Xochitl saw it and smiled. She must have been thinking about how it would be useless as a shield. She put her entire weight behind the macuahuitl with its saw-like blades and it struck down with enormous speed.
The blade tore through Unabara's jacket and then into the flesh of his arm. A scraping noise could be heard as it reached the bone. Unabara's face twisted in pain.
But…
That was all.
It did not sever Unabara's arm.
Instead, he gathered strength in his arm while the macuahuitl was still stuck in it and he pushed back.
"Wha-…!?"
Xochitl stood in shock at what had happened and Unabara slammed his foot into her gut. Her small body lost to the momentum and she fell to the ground.
"…The Aztecs did not have the ability to manufacture weapons with metal, so their swords are not all that sharp. Instead of a blade made of a single piece of metal, the blade is made from small stone razors lined up on the side of a wooden staff. Even an expert can't cut bone with it, so he'll go for a grazing strike on an artery with the entire blade. Basically, your sword can be stopped with bone."
Unabara still had the Aztec sword buried in his right arm and he was breathing erratically.
"Why do you think I gave up on avoiding it and brought my arm up to block it? You thought it would sever my arm and go right into my body, so you would never have thought it was an effective means of defense. If I continued to partially dodge it, I would have eventually lost due to lost blood."
It was because Xochitl was a short girl and was unfamiliar with sword fighting, that his strategy worked. A true warrior could have cut him down without having to cut through the bone.
"That's why I told you that kind of weapon doesn't suit you."
Unabara looked down on Xochitl who was having trouble breathing and couldn't move.
He still couldn't use a weapon, but he had gotten Xochitl's macuahuitl away from her. He could now win by strangling her or breaking her neck. From the difference between their sizes, he could easily jump on top of her and prevent her from moving before she could get another weapon.
(Xochitl…)
But Unabara couldn't do it.
He simply couldn't.
"I won't take your life. Just go off somewhere," said Unabara bitterly as he relocated his dislocated wrist and shook his arm until the sword dislodged itself and fell to the ground.
Hearing him, a slight smile appeared on Xochitl's lips.
That was when the brown girl's body began to collapse.