A demon turning into an angel. That was the impression left on
Tatsuya's mind, so vivid was the change.
The scarlet hair, reminiscent of the darkness of the abyss blazed into
gold shining in the feeble light.
Cruel golden eyes transformed into the serene blue of an azure sky.
The curves of her face softened, and her figure slimmed down.
Even her height seemed to shrink slightly.
Such beauty couldn't possibly have been hidden by such a small mask.
Of course, if one could change even their physique, it's no wonder
they could have fooled the world.
If various evidence had not built up until now, even Tatsuya probably
would not have known.
Tatsuya's hand moved unconsciously. From the hand of the goldenhaired
sapphire-eyed girl flew another five bullets, all of which
disintegrated before reaching him.
Then just before she could fire off any more bullets, the slide of her
handgun flew off and the barrel fell out.
Being forced to stop shooting, not to mention having her Device
impossibly destroyed by magic, the masked girl froze.
"That's enough, Lina! I don't want to fight you!"
Taking advantage of the lull, Tatsuya tried to contain the situation. His
goal today was the capture of the Parasite. To restrain it, and find out
it's identity. That was why he had taken the hard route of firing a bullet
which would shoot out an anesthetic needle from that single-shot gun.
To him, the fight with the masked magician/Lina was a pointless
waste of time. That line should have been the end of the battle, but...
It was a bad move — achieving instead the opposite effect. From
behind the mask, blue eyes glinted with a hard light.
Returning the wrecked specialised CAD to it's holster with her right
hand, she withdrew it holding miniature throwing daggers instead.
The magicians of the USNA favour and make widespread use of
integrated armament CADs. It was more than possible that those
daggers weren't simple blades, but some sort of armament device.
Short boots kicked off from the surface of the softcourt. It was hardly
a speed one would expect out of a young lady, but it didn't exceed the
limits of ordinary men.
Tatsuya took a ball of lead out from his pocket and flicked out his
fingers.
Whistling through the air, it flew straight towards Lina's right hand —
and passed right on through.
There was no spray of blood. It hadn't hit flesh, but rather an illusion.
At that moment Lina pulled back her arm. The dagger sped towards
Tatsuya from a metre away from where his naked eye had perceived it.
Jumping aside to dodge, Tatsuya's eyes traced it's trajectory. Where his
eyes led, he saw an illusion throwing another dagger.
His naked eyes saw a small masked girl, yet his minds eye knew it
was only an insubstantial stereoscopic image.
(How troublesome!)
Tatsuya let out a wordless complaint. The difference between knowing
and actually dealing with something really was quite pronounced.
The technique Parade created an Information Body containing all the
elements 'colour', 'shape', sound', 'heat' and 'position'. It was the same
as Yakumo's 'Matoi'.
Unlike 'Matoi', which projected a Body identical to the original in
colour, shape, sound and heat yet with a different position, Lina's
Parade emphasised projecting different colours and a different shape.
However, that didn't mean Parade was unable to shift position too. The
technique which the Kudou devised, and Lina inherited, was perfectly
capable of doing so as well.