My Beloved Princess ~The Boy Called Incompetent Rises with Only a Sword and the Princess's Devotion~

Brilliant sunlight poured down onto the stage of the Circular Arena.

Under the blue sky, the crowd in the spectator seats was in an uproar.

A large hemispherical hole had been blasted into the wall of the colosseum. Dust and powdered stone still hung thick in the air around it. Several teachers and students jumped down from the stands.

They must have been people close to the boy. Multiple figures ran toward the dust cloud in a panic, shouting his name one after another, then vanished into it.

As though it were all happening to someone else, Unran, Commander of the Imperial Guard, watched the scene in a daze.

That final horizontal sweep, released with an afterimage trailing from it—he had ended up slamming visible [Sword Aura], clear enough for anyone to see, into the boy’s side at full power.

Even though it had been a blow from a practice sword, its force had still been one of certain death. If it had landed cleanly, it would have been enough to bring down even His Majesty the Dragon Emperor. It was already far beyond the limits of dragonkin durability. No one could simply endure it.

It was the very definition of a sure-kill strike.

Which meant the boy’s chances of survival were hopeless.

No—there was not even one chance in ten thousand.

Unran clenched his back teeth, his expression twisted in pain.

A student capable of wielding [Sword Aura] at that level was vanishingly rare. One in a hundred years. No, perhaps one in a thousand.

Had he been allowed to grow as he was, he would surely have reached the seat of Dragon King. Perhaps even beyond that. Almost certainly, he would have become a figure of great significance.

And Unran had severed that possibility with his own hands.

Worse still, he had killed the fiancé of Princess Kuroyō—a girl he had watched over since childhood. That fact alone made his sin feel unforgivable.

What excuse could he possibly make to her?

Closing his eyes, he silently prayed for the boy’s repose.

A cold wind passed over him. His body, still retaining the heat of battle, felt none of it.

Then, before the eyes of the dreamlike Unran, with the buzzing arena behind her, he saw a beauty who had inherited her mother’s features walking toward him.

Her back was straight. Her pace was slow.

Even from a distance, the overwhelming beauty she carried was unmistakable. When she stopped before him, Unran dropped to one knee and bowed his head.

“Princess Kuroyō.”

A metallic ring cut through the air.

A silver blade had been drawn and was now resting against the neck of the kneeling man.

“Why did you use the Dance of the Water Dragon?”

The voice was cold enough to freeze the marrow. Kuroyō was known for her lack of emotional fluctuation, but now quiet fury seeped unmistakably through her words.

“I have no excuse.”

“I asked why you used it.”

“Because I am an immature man.”

That final slash the boy had launched had been a full-force blow that could neither be received nor evaded. Though it had been delivered with a practice sword, even grazing it meant certain death. It had contained [Sword Aura] on a level so far beyond reason that Unran had resolved himself to die.

So he had used the technique unconsciously.

It had been the body’s instinctive act of emergency evasion for the sake of survival.

Pressed by the boy’s overwhelming assault, he had ended up using the trump card he had sworn never to use against a student.

Immature.

There was no other word for it.

“I see. Kishō was too strong. That is why—”

The face of beauty, sculpted as though by the gods themselves, darkened with grief.

Her words broke off, and Princess Kuroyō fell silent.

The fact that she had come straight here instead of rushing to the boy meant she understood it as well.

That his survival was almost impossible.

“Do you have any last words?”

The quiet anger of a Princess who had lost her fiancé hung in the air.

The Imperial Guard was the Dragon Emperor’s own personal force. And Unran was the Commander who led it. Even for Princess Kuroyō, she would not walk away unscathed if she arbitrarily executed him. But she knew that already, and still she held her sword to his throat.

And Unran, ashamed of his own immaturity, had no desire to resist.

“I have none.”

The tip of the blade left his neck.

Unran closed his eyes tightly and waited for the end.

“……”

And yet, no matter how long he waited, the strike did not come.

His head was still attached to his body.

When he raised his face in confusion, he saw—

“————”

Princess Kuroyō had turned the blade upon her own slender neck.

At the sight of her poised for suicide, Unran gasped. A great stir spread through the arena.

“I have owed you much since childhood. I cannot kill you. But—”

The silver edge bit into her pale skin, and red blood began to drip from her neck.

The fact that she could press a blade without hesitation into such flawless skin was proof of the strength of her resolve.

Unran could not move a single step. He knew that if he moved, her head might fly from her shoulders that instant. His body locked more rigidly with tension than it had even when the sword had been at his own throat.

“Please wait! You must not act rashly!”

“To share life with one’s master is the fate of a Consort.”

The white blade gleamed in the sun.

Her pale pink lips were pressed tightly together, as though embodying that determination.

“You have not even formally married yet!”

“No. My master is Kishō alone, in the past and in the future.”

At that, Princess Kuroyō lifted her eyes to the distant sky.

“From the very beginning, in this match, I intended to follow Kishō in death. If that man wagered his life, then I would wager mine as well. That was my decision. I will not let him go alone.”

Unran was no longer reflected in those jet-black eyes. They looked hollow, as though they could no longer hear any attempt to stop her.

Her mind had already gone somewhere far beyond the sky.

“I have no attachment to a world in which I cannot walk beside him. I want to meet you again in the next life, Kishō.”

At the end, the beautiful face clouded like that of a ghost as she called the name of her beloved.

A single tear slipped from the corner of her eye.

More strength entered the hands gripping the hilt, and Princess Kuroyō tightened her lips in final resolve.

“Farewell.”

“—Wait!”

The tear that ran down her cheek fell onto the white tiled floor.

Princess Kuroyō moved to pull the blade across her throat in one swift motion.

At least, that was how it looked to Unran.

But the blade only trembled in place.

It was not that Kuroyō had hesitated. Someone had caught the white blade from behind and was holding it down with greater force than she could pull with.

Standing behind Princess Kuroyō, gripping the blade without flinching, that person said boldly,

“Oi, oi. Jumping to conclusions like that isn’t like you, Kuroyō.”

“Kishō…?”

The long sword fell from her hands with a dry metallic sound.

And at the same instant Princess Kuroyō turned around, the boy wrapped his arms around her slender body.

◇◇◇◇◇

Held so tightly that he felt his spine might break, Kishō nearly lost consciousness from the sheer depth of that love.

Stopping his soul from escaping through his mouth, he forced himself to joke instead.

“Everyone came over worried, but you weren’t there, Kuroyō, so I was feeling lonely.”

“I… I thought there was no hope anymore. I thought you were dead…”

The Princess was trembling in his arms.

That fragile 모습, so unlike her usual self, seemed to embody the despair she had fallen into. Or perhaps it was relief, relief that things had not reached the point of no return.

She kept trembling like an abandoned puppy.

Rubbing her forehead against his chest, she shook her head like a small child. In that moment, she looked every bit her true age—a fifteen-year-old girl.

“This isn’t like you. For the always calm and composed Kuroyō to be this shaken…”

“Y-You are… if I lose you, I cannot keep living. That’s why—”

The Princess raised her face.

That beautiful face was wet with tears. More spilled from the corners of her eyes.

Seeing someone as sparing with emotion as her so utterly undone, Kishō felt the heat rise in his chest as he understood just how deeply she loved him.

Scratching the tip of his nose awkwardly, he said,

“Well, knowing I’m loved that much doesn’t feel bad.”

He wiped the tear-stained face with his fingertips. Then, brushing back her elegantly flowing black hair as though combing it with his hand, he saw the raw red mark on her neck.

“Reckless. What were you planning to do if that scar stayed?”

“Would you dislike a woman who became damaged goods?”

“No way. Even if your face were scarred by burns, I’d still have every confidence I could love you, Kuroyō.”

“In that case, there is no problem.”

Without another word, the Princess buried her face against Kishō’s chest, as though entrusting her whole body to him.

Then—

A shadow approached the two of them as they clung to one another.

A tall, beautiful man in a black Dragon Robe that fluttered in the wind. Commander of the Imperial Guard Unran stepped in hesitantly.

“Sorry to interrupt while you are occupied. It may be rude to ask this, but… are you all right?”

The disbelief on his face was so clear it almost seemed written there.

Kishō could only smile bitterly.

“Yeah. I’m completely fine. Though as expected, I didn’t get away without a scratch.”

Murmuring, “Sorry, just a second,” to the Princess, Kishō lifted his left sleeve.

His Dragon Robe was torn all over, but the left side in particular had been ripped badly. And on the exposed left flank, where the hard lines of his abdomen showed through, there was a severe bar-shaped bruise of internal bleeding.

Peering at that wound, Unran exclaimed in shock.

“Are you saying you really took that strike and only suffered this much?!”

“I did take damage properly, you know. Look, it’s bleeding internally, right?”

“Does a wound like that count as ‘damage’?!”

Perhaps because the black-clad handsome man was so shaken, the Princess seemed to calm down instead. She gazed fixedly at the wound, then leaned forward and traced the bruise with her long, slender fingers.

“There is no way someone could take that [Sword Aura] directly and come away with only this much damage. If that is the case, then you must have mitigated it somehow.”

She looked up at him from below.

At that innocent gesture, Kishō’s heart nearly skipped a beat, but he managed a nod.

“Ah. If I hadn’t reduced it, my body probably would’ve been cut clean in two. In that case, I wouldn’t have been blown all the way into the wall of the colosseum in the first place.”

At that, the Princess straightened and fell into thought.

“Then it was [Battle Aura]? Even I cannot perceive that secret art.”

“Ding-dong. Correct. As expected of Kuroyō.”

“However, [Battle Aura] is a lost secret art considered inferior to [Sword Aura], is it not? Can it really block high-output [Sword Aura] like that?”

“It’s true that martial arts are considered inferior to swordsmanship. But that doesn’t mean [Battle Aura] itself is inferior to [Sword Aura]. Think back. What determines the power of a slash?”

The Princess thought for only a moment before answering.

“The power of a slash is determined by [mastery of [Ki] × quality of the weapon].”

“Right. Exactly. And that same logic applies to [Battle Aura] too.”

The Princess nodded solemnly.

“……I see. [Battle Aura] is refined [Ki] housed within the body. Then the power of a strike would likewise be determined by [mastery of [Ki] × strength of the body].”

As always, she heard one thing and understood ten. Her mind moved quickly.

Kishō rubbed his aching side and continued,

“Dragonkin bodies are tough. Against a famous blade, of course, you can’t win. But against a practice sword, the body almost never loses. In other words, in terms of quality, the body is above the mock sword. So if a mock sword’s [Sword Aura] collides with a dragonkin’s [Battle Aura], then the latter has the advantage.”

“You raised [Battle Aura] and defended yourself in that instant.”

“Yeah. As expected, I didn’t have enough time to knead enough [Ki], so I couldn’t block it completely, though.”

The moment Unran vanished, leaving only an afterimage made by a movement Kishō had never seen before, a chill had run through his whole body. The instant he lost sight of the target, he knew the next thing coming would be a surprise attack from his blind spot. He acted before the thought had even fully formed.

“The total amount of [Ki] in the body is fixed, right? So I instantly released [Sword Aura], wrapped [Battle Aura] around my whole body, and defended.”

Especially carefully around the left side, where the concentration of [Ki] had been strongest.

That instantaneous switch had only been possible because Kishō had reached the point where he could manipulate [Ki] as naturally as breathing. It was the result of the nightly training he had kept up without fail.

That said—

“By the way… does this mean I lost after all?”

Since he had been struck, it would count as ippon in a mock match.

But if this was a duel, the fight was not necessarily decided. Kishō’s limbs were still intact. He could still fight.

This battle had used practice swords, but it had been a duel with no referee. In that case, where exactly was the line drawn?

The one who answered Kishō’s question was Commander of the Imperial Guard Unran.

“There is no need to worry. This match is my loss.”

“Your loss? At the very least, I haven’t won yet.”

“In this match, I had decided to fight using only pure swordsmanship. But in the end, pressed by your spirit, I broke the vow I had imposed upon myself. Therefore, I have no right to claim victory.”

If the Commander of the Imperial Guard lost to a student, his name would suffer for it. And yet, knowing that fully well, he still declared the loss as his own.

Even so, Kishō was not convinced.

“Students at this academy say it all the time, don’t they? In the wilderness. It’s their way of talking about what things would be like outside the academy, once they had fledged into actual dragonkin society.”

Inside the academy, conflict was allowed, but all manner of precautions were taken to prevent death. Breath was prohibited. Magic was prohibited. Carrying real weapons was prohibited.

Students were protected so they would not cross the line called death.

But that was only the rule of a sheltered miniature world, one largely divorced from real society.

Precisely because it felt so lukewarm, the students often said, In the wilderness.

If he was going to take that way of thinking seriously, then—

“If this were the wilderness, I would’ve died. If that attack had been with a real blade, I probably couldn’t have blocked it. So calling this a win feels a little wrong.”

It was not false modesty.

He was only stating the truth.

But Unran only gave him a maddeningly clear, refreshing smile, then turned away in silence.

And he began to walk off briskly.

“—Oi, wait.”

The Princess tugged at Kishō’s sleeve before he could follow.

“Where do you think you’re going? I haven’t been spoiled nearly enough yet.”

Her face, swollen from crying, had already returned almost entirely to its usual expressionless calm, which only made it more troubling.

This was still the middle of the arena stage, under the attention of a three-hundred-sixty-degree audience. Kishō very much wanted to avoid further public displays of affection. There was a limit to how much embarrassment a person could take.

“Besides, I’m not the only one who wants to cling to you. Look.”

At the place the Princess indicated, several familiar faces stood waiting a short distance away.

Ōka, Kōran, Alice, Tsukino… and Mion, Meika, Fūyō, Hyōri, Riju, Ayana.

The moment they noticed Kishō looking at them, they all began waving both hands and shouting over one another.

The Princess tugged on his hand again.

“Now then. Let’s go back to everyone. This is your triumphant return, Master.”