The girl's offhand words seemed to enrage the "Seat of Evil" utterly, in a single instant.
The figure wrapped inside that armor seemed not to possess memories identical to Kirishika's.
She was the incarnation of the Abyss Will.
She was the pitch-black Throne that, more than a century ago, had raised blade and sword and cut down countless Aberrants.
To her, the girl standing before her was nothing more than a feeble latecomer.
A nobody. A mere weakling who could barely stand in her presence at all, and only by borrowing another's hand. How dare such a creature insult her.
Crunch. Crunch. Crunch —
With a grinding shriek of metal that set the teeth on edge, the "Seat of Evil" forced her body upright.
Su Yuzu had never truly possessed the power of the "Supreme Lord."
She didn't even know where Kirishika had stored the "Supreme Lord" twelve years ago.
All she knew was that Kirishika had handed that authority to her.
And the "Seat of Evil" in front of her now was nothing more than a Sixth Sequence Aberrant.
With no power of authority or rule behind her.
Su Yuzu had simply applied the "Godmother's Laurel" to force the "Seat of Evil" onto her knees.
But the "Godmother's Laurel" would not last forever.
"I have only the shape of it?" the "Seat of Evil" roared, hauling the body beneath the armor upright.
Buoyed by that vast, surging power, the shadow of the black armor swelled until it seemed immense enough to blot out the sky.
As the "Seat of Evil" roared, the storm clouds that had been split open overhead came sealing shut again. The moonlight vanished. The clouds hung so low and so black they looked ready to crush the sea flat.
Without the moonlight, the outline of the "Seat of Evil" blurred into the drizzling rain.
Only when a bolt of blue-violet lightning cracked open the dark could Su Yuzu make out that monstrous, savage silhouette of armor.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
The ground beneath her feet was shaking.
No — it had never been ground.
It was ocean.
Catastrophe Crystals, sprawling and growing outward within the power domain of the "Seat of Evil."
Su Yuzu felt as though she stood in the middle of a howling gale and towering waves, and the thing charging at her through the wind, fast and merciless, was less an opponent than a fortress on the move.
"If I am only the shape of it —"
"Then what does that make you?!"
"A brat who can only steal the authority of others! A useless coward who handed her own power away!"
A heavy metal greatsword grew inch by savage inch out of the gauntlet of the "Seat of Evil," then came down straight at the crown of Su Yuzu's head.
Su Yuzu tightened her grip on the Sword of Erasure.
Broken as this "Seat of Evil" was, incomplete as she was, the sheer pressure and menace radiating off her went far beyond any enemy Su Yuzu had ever faced.
Zero, who had ascended the Pseudo Throne, would have looked like nothing more than a mewling little cat before this "Seat of Evil" — even stripped of the "Supreme Lord's" power.
She knew it. She stood here only because of Saint Michael's power, and trading blows head-on with the "Seat of Evil" was the height of stupidity.
And yet a voice rose inside Su Yuzu all the same.
This was a conversation between one "Throne" and another.
If she gave ground now, even one step, then the battle was already over.
Su Yuzu brought the Sword of Erasure up in both hands.
The blade flashed like a detonation, lighting the whole battlefield white.
The vicious armor of the "Seat of Evil" took on a sleek, flowing beauty under the rain, as if she were a killing machine, gazing down in cold contempt at everything that dared stand in front of her sword.
Except — a great notch had been carved out of that heavy iron blade.
The transparent, shadowless edge of the Sword of Erasure had already bitten into the spine of the iron sword in the hands of the "Seat of Evil."
Had that iron sword not still been growing, second by second, the Sword of Erasure would already have been resting against the throat of the "Seat of Evil."
[Erasure!]
Under the crushing weight of the Seat of Evil, Su Yuzu's body looked twisted out of true, like something bearing a thousand pounds on its back.
She fought to hold the Sword of Erasure up, and her bones cracked and popped inside her.
Bone splintering. Tendons snapping.
The wounded body was already knitting itself back together under the Holy Flame, but the pain still came through in full, every last thread of it.
"A hollow Throne will only ever draw hollow devotion." Dark gold light guttered in and out of the slits of the helmet as the "Seat of Evil" looked down at Su Yuzu without a shred of pity.
In her eyes, the girl who could only stand before her on borrowed strength was nothing but a pitiful clown.
A clown who had spent her whole life being toyed with by others, dangling from the thin strings of so-called Fate.
"Only what belongs to you —"
"— can command real authority and real power."
She pressed the sword down inch by inch, watching the girl's body contort, watching the edge sink toward her shoulder, watching that sweet, cold, fragrant blood begin to rise.
"A sword that isn't yours —"
"— how could you ever hold it?!"
"You're…" Su Yuzu forced her spine straight. "…right about that."
She clenched her teeth and glared into the slit of that armored helm.
Her mouth was full of the taste of blood.
For one moment Su Yuzu genuinely considered blackening right there on the spot, just to find out whether the armor in front of her tasted as formidable as it sounded.
To hear whether the "Seat of Evil" would still run her mouth so freely while being eaten, one bite at a time.
But Su Yuzu turned the idea down.
Not because ascending the "Throne" here would be seen by Imperial Capital University, seen by Tokyo, seen by the entire world.
But out of a contempt she couldn't quite name.
This was only an old King with the shape of the thing and nothing inside it.
Only a broken, ruined Throne.
"Then how about you taste this instead!"
Under the disbelieving stare of the "Seat of Evil," the heavy greatsword in her hands — that endlessly, wildly growing blade — bent inch by inch in an instant, curling up like a weapon out of a slapstick cartoon, coiled into the shape of a mosquito-coil.
The strength went out of the "Seat of Evil's" grip.
Su Yuzu, meanwhile, threw everything she had into the push.
Under the influence of Saint Michael's power, the light off the Sword of Erasure swelled until it seemed ready to illuminate heaven and earth together.
But this was nowhere near the end.
On the contrary.
This was only the beginning.
The "Seat of Evil" discarded the greatsword outright, and in the span of a breath she and Su Yuzu traded dozens of blows, then hundreds.
She could feel it —
The power blazing so fiercely around the girl was thinning, bit by bit.
The one who walked away with victory would be her. It could only be her.
The "Seat of Evil" swung her fist at Su Yuzu again, metal crystal sprawling and growing across the knuckles.
But this time, something struck her as wrong.
She stared into the girl's eyes.
She was the incarnation of the Abyss Will.
She was the Throne that bore the name of "Evil."
And yet for one instant she felt as though the girl in front of her had the corruption of the entire world hidden away inside her.
And was holding it back.
Gazing into the girl's eyes, she was suddenly, unmistakably gazing into the Abyss.
And yet — for a girl of such absolute evil, the light around her burned so brilliantly.
Like the sun.
Only this sun was not in the sky. It was the earth itself, on fire.
The world was falling toward a blazing Purgatory.
Yes. Purgatory.
Without the slightest ceremony, Su Yuzu opened her fourth authority.
She said: "Let there be Light."
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