Chapter 70: The Scholar's Awakening

I am Yogawa. I am a scholar. I am a coward.

My world is a pinpoint of cold, suffocating terror. I am huddled on the sticky, vibrating floor of the Abyss, my grimoire clutched to my chest. It is a useless comfort. It is a book of paper in a world of gods and monsters.

I am watching them die.

Kizawa is a blur of blue-black rage, his steel a hopeless, defiant clang against the Spinner King's obsidian hide. He is a masterpiece of suicidal, beautiful swordsmanship, and he is achieving nothing. He is a gnat attacking a mountain.

Hachiro is worse. He is a torch burning itself out. His Miasma-chi is a raw, green, furious light, but it is fading. His shattered arm is a useless ruin. His one good fist, encased in brilliant, dying energy, slams into the King's leg, a blow that could shatter stone. The King does not even flinch.

Erima is the only one thinking. She is perched on a high thread, a ghost in the silver-white light, her obsidian bow a thing of alien grace. She fires, a black streak. The arrow hits the King's eye-cluster. It bounces off. The King does not even feel it.

And Mizuki. She is a silent, silver-gold promise, a prize held in a translucent cocoon of Void-silk. She is the reason we are here. She is the reason we are dying.

FUTILE, the King's voice booms in my mind, a vibration of pure, cold amusement. INSECTS.

He lifts a colossal, jointed leg, a pillar of shadow and spite. He is not aiming for Kizawa, the "Blade". He is aiming for Hachiro, the "Fist", who is on his knees, panting, his green light almost gone. He is crushing the loudest one first.

"NO!" Erima screams from above.

Kizawa roars, his voice a broken thing, and throws himself at the leg, his swords finding no purchase, just skating off the alien chitin.

It is over.

I am a scholar. I collect facts. Fact: We are dead. Fact: I am a coward.

The King's leg descends.

And in that final, absolute moment, a new fact presents itself.

My grimoire is vibrating.

It is humming against my chest, a low, angry, offended sound. It is not afraid. It is insulted.

I look at the King. I really look at him. Not as a monster. As a thing.

He is a creature of Void. He is a physical manifestation of anti-light, of shadow.

But he is also... magic. The web. The cocoon. The gravity that holds us here. It is a spell. A cosmic, unfathomable, ancient spell.

And I... I am a scholar.

My book, my human, paper book, is a book of rules. It is a book of Earth's magic. It is structured. It understands order.

The King's magic... is chaos. It is wrong.

The grimoire is not afraid of the King's magic. It hates it. It finds it illogical. Sloppy. Primitive.

A new feeling enters my body. It is not bravery. It is academic fury. It is the righteous indignation of a mathematician watching someone get a sum wrong.

"You... are messy," I whisper, my voice a dry, unused thing.

Hachiro is about to be a stain.

I open the book.

K'THALL'S REBUKE, I think, my mind, for the first time, not panicked. Order against Chaos. Structure against the Void.

"YOGAWA, NO! GET DOWN!" Erima screams, thinking I am attacking.

I am not attacking. I am editing.

I find the source of the King's spell. It is a low, vibrating note in the air, the frequency that holds his physical form together.

And I slam my hand on a page of my book.

I do not cast a spell.

I cast a CONTRADICTION.

A pulse of *pure, cold logic emanates from my grimoire. It is not a light. It is a wave of absolute mathematical certainty.

It hits the King's leg.

The King's magic and my grimoire's logic meet.

And they cancel each other out.

The King SCREAMS. A new sound. A sound of pain and shock.

His colossal leg, the one descending on Hachiro, does not stop.

It dissolves.

It unravels in mid-air, disintegrating into a billion motes of black dust.

My contradiction did not fight his magic. It proved it FALSE.

Hachiro blinks, staring at the empty space where his death was supposed to be.

Kizawa skids to a halt, his blue eyes wide, staring at the King's gushing stump.

The Spinner King roars, his voice no longer amused. He turns his mountain-sized body. His countless eyes swivel.

They ignore the Blade. They ignore the Fist. They ignore the Arrow.

They land... on ME.

YOU.

The word is a spike of ice in my brain.

I... am Yogawa. I am a scholar.

And I have made a very powerful enemy.

I swallow, my own fear a cold splash of reality.

"I... think... I made it mad," I whisper.