Did you finish it?

She can see that they were being surrounded by numerous muzzles. All of them were aimed at them.

Iberis clawed at the ground with her remaining left arm and gritted her teeth to the point of breaking. She could feel the Bandersnatch wriggling all over her body as if it were bouncing around.

It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. The pain was so acute that it made her vision flash bright red. It wasn't because her arm had been severed.

The Bandersnatch was attempting to flow backwards from Iberis' body and flee to the "outside". In other words, the Bandersnatch, sensing the stench of death of their host, Iberis, chose to abandon her body. Iberis had taken a direct hit from the counter-current, and her body was convulsing in a raging sensation of pain that threatened to rip her apart from the inside out.

There was very little room to manipulate them. They wouldn't listen to her.

… These things.

These "living things".

They're going to abandon me and search for another host.

Iberis tried desperately to shove the Bandersnatch inside her body. But the screaming… noise that stirred her brain reverberated through her head, sending her shrieking and sprawling.

"Quick! Shoot them dead!" Stelcis was screeching hysterically. At her side, the Mock Turtle backed away, her eyes wide and hands over her mouth. Watching this, Iberis finally grasped the meaning of the words that Raffi had spoken.

Right.

… That is.

No.

From the beginning, that was not an "ally".

The existence of Stelcis had already been…

She had already been killed.

After that thought, she focused on her remaining left arm in her reddened vision.

If that's the case…

If that's the case, now's the time.

If I don't kill it now…

We will not be able to win.

The slightest hint of a listening Bandersnatch gathered at her fingertips. Then she heard the stun guns emitting a series of shots.

◇

At that moment, something that looked like a white flash leaped into the air. It surged up from under the ground, splitting Iberis and Raffi from Stelcis, and when that wasn't sufficient, it pierced the ceiling of the shelter and exploded with a thunderous roar.

The steel frame and smelting smoke were scattered in a disorganized manner. The sound of something metallic cracking could be heard in succession.

Sparks from the blue-white stun guns flew everywhere. Iberis struggled to direct her vision, which was tinged red, upwards. From the ground that had been ripped in half, something like an arm of armor shining in silvery-white rose up.

It was a bizarre sight as if it had sliced through the air from somewhere else, not in the ground but in the space itself… The "arm" seized the edge of the space and dragged out his huge body.

… That is…

In a fading vision, she frantically sought to capture the sight.

–White Knight!

The Nightmare, which was supposed to be killed, pulled his body out of the rift in space while the eyes behind his helmet flickered bright red. As if embraced by his left arm, Alice and Philrain were there. Philrain was clinging to the White Knight with a stunned look on her face.

Alice was extending her right hand straight towards Stelcis. Her Bandersnatch spread out in a hemispherical shape like a shield, effortlessly fending off a volley of shots from the stun guns.

The ceiling… of the shelter, part of its steel frame, shattered and crashed into the city. Alice extended her forefinger with an inorganic expression, her pupils half-diffused, towards the followers of Stelcis, who were all wailing.

Then, with one hand, she formed a pistol-like shape and squeezed out an inaudible "scream" from her half-opened mouth. The densely compressed "Bandersnatch mass" shaped into a black "something" at Alice's fingertips.

It was a whirling, horrifying "something". Stelcis and the Mock Turtles were stunned to a halt. And then, facing all the soldiers, Alice shot it out without a moment's thought nor a moment's hesitation.

The "something" that was released from Alice, who was being held by the White Knight, emitted an extremely high-pitched sound that destroyed the eardrums, spun around, and instantly spread out in a radial pattern over a range of several hundred meters in front of her. All the buildings, roads, and even people in the line of the shot; everything was scraped away and "gone" with a screeching sound.

Alice, who emitted pale smoke from the hollow of her right eye, descended from the White Knight's arms to the ground with an indifferent expression as the soldiers who had been crushed and reduced to mincemeat rained down in disarray from the air. And then she looked sideways at Iberis. Eventually, Philrain finally came to her senses, jumped off the White Knight's arm, and rushed to the unconscious Iberis.

"Lady Iberis! Lady Iberis!"

Screaming as if crying out, Philrain held Iberis, whose arm was brutally bisected and blood was dripping from the wound. Through gritting her teeth but taking in the sight of the rain of sloshing pieces of flesh in the scraped space, Alice moved to the side of the White Knight. Then she opened her mouth.

"… They severed her arm?"

"That seems to be the case."

A muffled voice flowed out from the White Knight. Hearing that, Raffi's eyes widened. When the black cat moved to Alice's feet, he looked up at her.

"Are you… Alice…? And that one is…"

"We'll talk later, Raffi. The enemy still seems to be in the vicinity."

The White Knight called out Raffi's name and dropped to his hips so that he was back to back with Alice, raising his Dáinsleif.

"Jack…! How did you…?"

"Raffi, stand back," Alice told Raffi in a calm, nonchalant voice. The wounded black cat staggered back towards Philrain, who was tending to Iberis.

The White Knight, called Jack, turned his red eyes to his surroundings and said. "Alice, do you feel anything?"

"… I don't feel anything. But they are there. The Bandersnatch is very boisterous."

"I see. So that's what their Seventh is about."

At the moment the pair had a brief exchange, the White Knight moved his huge body with a reaction speed that no human being could possibly accomplish.

Then, as if to protect Alice, he reversed his body and swung the Dáinsleif in both hands to the top. From the rooftop of the building on the other side of the building that he had just "cut down," the Bandersnatch of Stelcis was flooding in at a tremendous rate, screaming. Those that flew in like light were shattered and scattered by a flash of Dáinsleif, making a sound like glass breaking. A gruesome cry was heard from the building.

"You hit it…"

"Yeah."

Jack and Alice exchanged words in a calm tone of voice. Again, Alice formed her finger into the shape of a pistol and aimed it at the rooftop where the scream had originated.

In the following moment, the Bandersnatch strike, without any hesitation, swept through "there". The building was blown to pieces by a collection of unidentifiable "horrible things".

"Did you finish it?"

"Hmmm. It seems to have escaped again. But they're close. I don't think they've given up." Alice said, pale smoke billowing out of her right eye.