Chapter 307

Chapter 307: Chapter 307

Benihime struck the Sun’s Flamberge hard enough to scatter sparks across the hall.

Hyakinthos let the impact carry him into his next attack, drawing his short sword with his left hand and driving it toward Rayleigh’s ribs rather than trying to overpower him directly.

Rayleigh twisted aside, caught the shorter blade against Benihime’s guard, and shoved both weapons away before Hyakinthos could pin him in place.

The captain used the momentum to spin clear, landed several meters away, and immediately closed the gap again to deny Rayleigh a chance to use Shinsō.

It was the right choice.

Hyakinthos had watched enough of the War Game to know that giving Rayleigh room to use that sword would only make things worse.

The flamberge descended toward Rayleigh’s shoulder while the short sword came in low from the opposite side.

Rayleigh stepped inside the longer blade, knocked it off course with Benihime, and drove an elbow toward Hyakinthos’s chest.

The captain abandoned his low attack and brought his forearm across in time to absorb most of the blow, though it still sent him sliding backward.

Hyakinthos dug in his heel after several meters, stopped himself, and charged again.

Rayleigh met him halfway, and steel rang through the hall as they fought at close quarters.

The captain’s experience showed in the way he shifted between his two weapons, never repeating the same sequence.

Whenever Rayleigh began to control the rhythm, Hyakinthos broke away and changed his angle of attack, coming at him again before that superior speed could decide the fight.

Rayleigh parried a thrust at his throat, leaned beneath the returning flamberge, and struck Hyakinthos in the side with Benihime’s sheath.

The captain grunted and staggered, but stepped into the next swing instead of retreating.

His short sword caught Benihime near the guard while the flamberge swept toward Rayleigh’s stomach.

Rayleigh pulled back just far enough for the wavy edge to miss his coat by a few centimeters.

Hyakinthos followed, drawing a slight smile from him.

’Good.’

He had expected the fight to become straightforward once they were alone, but Hyakinthos was making the most of the one advantage he had.

Knowing he could not win through speed or strength, he had committed himself to keeping Rayleigh busy reacting to his attacks.

That approach held until Rayleigh stopped letting him choose their distance.

When the short sword came at him again, he caught Hyakinthos’s wrist instead of evading the thrust, then ducked beneath the answering swing of the flamberge.

He twisted the captured arm and drove his knee into Hyakinthos’s stomach, folding him forward.

Without releasing his grip, Rayleigh pulled the captain past his shoulder and threw him across the hall.

Hyakinthos hit the stone floor, rolled, and forced himself upright just before Rayleigh reached him.

He barely managed to catch Benihime on the flamberge, and the force drove him onto one knee, cracking the stone beneath it.

Rayleigh adjusted his grip and pressed harder.

Hyakinthos’s arms shook under the strain, and the difference between them became impossible to ignore.

He had known that Rayleigh was holding back during the climb because this was a War Game, but knowing it and enduring that strength himself were very different things.

The adventurer before him was far stronger than his Level Four status suggested.

Hyakinthos let go of his short sword and grasped the flamberge with both hands, managing to push Benihime aside long enough to roll clear.

This time, Rayleigh let him keep the distance.

Hyakinthos rose with blood at the corner of his mouth and began to chant.

"My name is love, beloved child of light. I offer this body to my sun. My name is sin, jealousy of the wind. Call the gale and bring it to this body. Cast forth the wheel of flame—come, western wind."

Flames gathered around him as the chant ended, condensing into a blazing disc that spun beside his body.

"Aro Zephyros!"

The wheel of fire shot across the hall.

Rayleigh evaded it with Shunpo, but the spell curved after him, following just as readily when he changed direction and moved along the side of the chamber.

Hyakinthos was already running behind his own Magic, using the homing attack to steer Rayleigh along a predictable route.

Rayleigh recognized the plan and kept moving, drawing Aro Zephyros around a stone pillar while the captain cut across the center of the room.

When Rayleigh emerged on the other side, Hyakinthos was waiting with the flamberge raised.

Rayleigh blocked the descending sword as the fire wheel closed in from behind, and Hyakinthos shouted the Spell Key.

"Rubella!"

The wheel exploded, engulfing the center of the hall and blasting apart the nearest pillar.

Broken stone flew through the chamber as the shockwave shattered windows and tore away part of the ceiling.

Apollo threw himself behind the raised platform beneath the flag to escape the debris.

Hyakinthos retreated from his own spell with an arm shielding his face, only to see Benihime’s crimson barrier emerge through the flames with Rayleigh advancing behind it at full speed.

He barely raised the flamberge before Benihime struck, snapping the weapon near its center.

Half of the Sun’s Flamberge spun away and buried itself in the floor, while Rayleigh’s follow-up blow caught Hyakinthos across the chest and hurled him into the base of the platform hard enough to split the stone.

Apollo called his name, but Hyakinthos was already struggling upright.

Blood stained his white clothes, his breathing had grown ragged, and the hand holding the broken flamberge shook from the repeated impacts.

He discarded the ruined weapon and retrieved his short sword as Rayleigh stepped out of the lingering flames.

Benihime’s barrier faded behind him.

"You can stop here," Rayleigh said. "Everyone downstairs has already done their part."

Hyakinthos wiped the blood from his mouth and took a moment to steady his breathing.

"If I surrender just because you’re stronger, then everything I said before this fight means nothing!

I wanted to understand what the sword saw when it rejected me. I think I’m finally starting to, and backing down from a stronger opponent won’t change what it found. So finish the fight properly."

Rayleigh studied him for a moment before lowering Benihime.

"Fine."

Hyakinthos rushed forward, aiming the short sword at Rayleigh’s chest before turning it upward toward his throat at the last instant.

Rayleigh leaned away, caught his forearm, and struck the inside of his elbow hard enough to numb the arm and send the weapon falling.

Hyakinthos tried to headbutt him before he could follow through.

Rayleigh turned just enough to take a glancing blow against his temple, then answered with a palm strike to the chest.

The captain stumbled but stayed on his feet and threw a punch.

Rayleigh slipped outside it and struck his ribs, only to have to block a second punch from the other hand.

Hyakinthos pressed closer and drove a knee toward his stomach.

Rayleigh caught the leg, and Hyakinthos realized what was coming too late.

A pull brought him forward into Rayleigh’s shoulder, which struck him in the chest and knocked him off balance.

Rayleigh released the leg and landed a clean punch across his jaw.

As Hyakinthos reeled sideways, Rayleigh followed with a blow to the body and another to the shoulder.

The final strike caught him square in the chest, lifting him from the floor and sending him crashing across the raised platform, where he rolled once and came to rest beneath Apollo’s flag.

Hyakinthos planted an arm against the floor and tried to push himself up, but his strength failed.

He collapsed again, still conscious but no longer able to fight.

The hall fell quiet apart from the crackling remnants of Aro Zephyros.

Rayleigh sheathed Benihime; he had finished the duel without calling on Shinsō or Kidō, and made it through the entire War Game without needing Bankai.

Apollo stared down at Hyakinthos, then at the man who had fought his way through the whole Familia alone.

As Rayleigh approached the stairs, the god moved into his path, all trace of a smile gone.

"You’ve already won the fight," Apollo said. "There’s no need to make this more humiliating than it already is."

Rayleigh stopped at the foot of the stairs, with Apollo blocking his way to the flag.

"You made Cassandra’s freedom one of the victory conditions. I’m finishing the War Game."

Apollo’s expression tightened, but he stepped aside.

There was nothing more he could legally do to stop him.

Rayleigh climbed the last few steps to the tall pole bearing Apollo Familia’s golden sun.

As he reached for the flag, he remembered Cassandra’s dream of the broken sun and pulled the cloth free.

The Guild horn sounded almost immediately, its long note carrying across the fortress and the surrounding fields.

Hephaestus Familia had won the War Game, and the viewing areas throughout Orario erupted in celebration.

Rayleigh looked down at the golden sun embroidered on the captured flag, then folded it over his arm and descended from the platform.

Cassandra’s dream had reached its end!