She spoke in Japanese, so she clearly wanted him to understand her.

“I know you are powerless.”

“…”

She probably wanted to apply pressure before the match began to throw him off his game.

She hoped to prevent him from fighting at his best so she could crush him with ease. Karuta was impressed because that idea hadn’t occurred to him. It was an unimaginable tactic with the Problem Solvers or the Threat who would kill you if you tried it.

So he did not bat an eye and whispered back so only she could hear him.

“Would you prefer this ends with you unconscious or dead?”

“You can’t trick me. You can’t do anything without that crystal girl of yours.”

No hesitation from her.

Was that a sign of confidence or of nerves? He had never met her before, so he had no way of making that judgment.

Hetepheres might be disqualified for jumping the gun, but she would still hold the title of the person who won a flawless victory over one of the world’s strongests. She didn’t need Second Grimnoah’s help after that. As long as she had that title, she could milk it for all it was worth, like a martial artist known for killing a bear with his bare hands, and live however she liked in the world of magic. Really, she had no reason not to do it. The loss by technicality would be a temporary blot on her record and a small price to pay for the fame it would bring her. All of the contestants were risking their lives in a major gamble, so why actually wait for the starting bell?

Something worked its way into his ear along with the growing cheers.

He heard some whispered non-Japanese words. This was something Hetepheres would prefer did not reach him. But Egyptian hieroglyphs were a fully decoded language. Karuta had learned the basics in his magic classes. Translated into Japanese, this is what he heard.

“…ction – Ho…s – 1/1…4…”

Or was he overthinking this?

Utagai Karuta had gotten his start in bloody revenge, so maybe he had a bad habit of viewing everything in as noncharitable a light as possible. It was possible that Hetepheres Men-Nefer had come here carrying the pride of the many generations that had passed down her Egyptian magic and thought this only counted if she fought fair and square. This all came down to what was in her mind. That was not something that could be measured with logic or numbers. Karuta had no way of seeing what was going on inside Hetepheres’s head.

[...]

She grinned and extended her right hand. Almost like she was asking for a handshake.

“I hope my trash talk didn’t offend you.” She switched back to Japanese for his benefit. “Let’s enjoy this, okay? Let’s do this fair and square so we can both accept the result, whatever it might be.”

Karuta smiled a little too. Or he thought he did.

Her gentle expression made him glad he had fought to protect this world. He felt ashamed of himself for assuming an ulterior motive and tensing up instead of shaking her proffered hand. He and the others had gotten rid of that sort of malicious world when they had defeated the Problem Solvers. They had created a pure and just world. He was so glad he had clenched his teeth and fought for this!! This girl here proved to him that he had done the right thing.

He wanted to make this an enjoyable match.

If at all possible.

Cinderella Queen raised her voice with her finger on the button for the bell.

“Now, let’s get this match started! Join me in the countdown, everyone! Threeee, twoooo, o-”

“You’re dead meat, Utagai Karuta.”

Some Ancient Egyptian words proved he had been right the first time.

Humans were trash after all.

His strike was rejected with a dull clang.

His flashlight was forcibly held back by an empty patch of air. He grimaced at the pain in his wrist bones and forced himself to make careful observations.

“Jackal – Connection – Anubis – 1/96.”

A bluish-white light spread from her outstretched palm like an opening umbrella and that blocked his blunt weapon.

[...]

If she could cover her entire body with that barrier at all times, she would have done so from the beginning. She had only tried to cheat and kill him with her first attack because she was worried about something.

There was a downside.

And not just that it didn’t last long.

The smoke and dust from the detonating cord blast had gotten in her black hair. That meant the barrier didn’t provide 360-degree protection.

It was a shield, not armor. So if he didn’t attack from head on, he could hit her!

“Ibis – Connection – Thoth – 1/96.”

Her right palm turned to face him, her shoulder moving in a way the joint shouldn’t have allowed.

He dodged out of the way and made a feint, but his flashlight was still deflected by the shield of bluish-white light. He tried a second and third time, but he could not slip past that swiveling shield.

(Is she predicting my moves!? But if she could always do this, that first attack wouldn’t have caught her by surprise.)

“Bull – Connection – Apis – 1/8.”

The shield swelled out.

No, she took a forceful step toward him with the glowing shield still held out in front. It was like a dump truck’s bumper crashing into a human.

Shields were generally considered defensive tools, but there were techniques that struck with the edge or tackled with the full front surface. Based on this, he guessed Ancient Egypt had some kind of specialized shield techniques.

His own thin barrier was breached immediately and he fell backwards. If he had tried to stand his ground, she would have snatched his only weapon from his hand.

He heard a high-pitched clink as a thumb-sized clear vial dropped to Hetepheres’s feet. The action was reminiscent of an empty cartridge, but it wasn’t empty.

Karuta watched as dry brown sand crumbled away, but he had seen the true identity of the vial’s contents first.

(A…mummy?)

[...]

But this mummy was not the preserved remains of a pharaoh. It looked like an animal. That stout livestock was a cow, but it didn’t look like a fetus. Somehow, it had been dried down to the point that it could fit in a vial no larger than a size-D battery.

(But more than that…)

Where had it come from?

He did not know what it was, but if it was necessary for her magic, he could stop her from using her magic by preventing her from pulling those things out.

He had been distracted.

He had not seen the moment when she pulled it out. Her loose-fitting Egyptian priestess outfit looked perfect for hiding small objects, but she had not actually reached into a pocket or something. And she wasn’t wearing long sleeves, so it couldn’t be hidden at her wrists. So when had she pulled it out and from where!?

“Falcon – Connection – Horus – 1/144.”

He had seen this one before.

The bluish-white shield vanished and a compressed ball of fire appeared in her hand instead. This was the bomb she had attempted to throw at him before the bell.

He also saw another vial in her hand. But he had again missed precisely when she pulled it out.

Now, that explosion was designed to be thrown first – which meant she needed to move it away from herself before it detonated – so would she escape unscathed if it detonated in her hand?

“Gahhhhh!!!???” she screamed, swallowed up by her own explosion.

Karuta did not let his guard down while he gripped his flashlight and stood back up. He wanted to rush in and ensure she stayed down, but the blows from his blunt weapon would be blocked by her bluish-white barrier shield.

That swiveling defense blocked his attacks automatically.

She shouted at him while the explosive flames burst like a balloon. And a white tornado emerged from within.

No, that wasn’t accurate.

He heard the rustling of cloth because these were long bandage-like strips of fabric. And not even her expertise in Egyptian magic allowed her to create something from nothing.

Her loose-fitting white priestess outfit was coming apart into those bandage-like strips.

The strips were curled up like an old phone cord and each loop contained a small vial.

“Papyrus,” said Utagai Karuta with a grin.

She had been pushed far enough to let her clothing fall apart and reveal the majority of her brown skin so she could access those vials more quickly. She trembled and blushed in the humiliation of having her methods revealed, but the boy continued the verbal assault.

[...]

“Most people think of papyrus as the water plant used to make Ancient Egyptian paper, but it was actually an all-purpose material with so many more applications, wasn’t it? It was used for carpets, tableware, boats, and buildings. The pith could even be eaten. But most importantly, it was used to make clothing. You didn’t just have a secret pocket or two. You could open slits anywhere you wanted to pull out your weapon.”

(Hetepheres is a priestess of the Osiris line of Egyptian mythology. She specializes in mummification. Egyptian mythology has divine beasts that correspond to the gods and mummified birds or cattle worshiped as divine incarnations have been discovered in the ruins much like the mummies of the human pharaohs.)

[...]

(She uses this by indirectly drawing on a god’s power through a mummified version of an animal corresponding to that god, such as a falcon or jackal. They are so small because, after the life-size mummy is made, each part is boiled down and concentrated into something like a soup stock, making them portable.)

The information was valuable, but not enough to give him an actual plan.

Since those were real mummies, he felt like they would have a weakness to moisture, but that wasn’t much help when they were sealed inside airtight vials.

“Why do you assign different ratios to each power?”

“?”

“Is it because reworking the power back to life size takes too long, so you’ve found shortcuts that make that method viable in combat? So the greater the denominator, the more shortcuts you use. That would also explain why you can use some of the powers simultaneously and not others. Our crystal magic seals the name of a god in our crystal blossom, so we aren’t using the god directly. Of course your way would be trickier to use.”

Instead, he threw his heavy flashlight straight at her.

She gasped and moved, like her bonds had been broken.

She immediately held a brown palm out in front of her, activating the bluish-white shield to deflect the attack aimed at her face.