章節 92: I’m going to be killed.
Alice was gnashing her teeth and extending her right hand to the Duchess, while a tremendous pale flame erupted from her right eye. The pulsating Bandersnatch in her arms kept on spinning in a wide shaky motion. Her petite body jolted and shuddered.
The open palm of her hand slowly closed as if she were crushing it. As if in tandem with this action, the movement of the Bandersnatch, which amplified the sound in the Duchess' head, gradually accelerated.
"Aaagggaaaahhh!"
While emitting a scream that could no more be considered a verbal expression, the Duchess stood and clawed at her head. Her eyeballs were halfway bulging out, and black blood began to gush out of her nose and ears.
"You must… collapse!"
Alice let out a broken voice, appearing extremely pale as if she couldn't breathe. However, she did not loosen her strength, on the contrary, she concentrated and reinforced it.
The Duchess staggered to her feet, clawing at her head, and stepped towards Alice. Then she reached out a trembling hand to her.
"S-Stop… it…. I-It's my loss… my loss… My head is… going to… burst… if this countinuesssssss…!"
The Duchess pleaded, her head swinging wildly. Regardless, Alice was still trying to apply pressure to her…
"Please… Alice…"
For a moment, the Duchess reflexively suspended her movement at the sudden, clear voice of a "different" woman.
"Don't hurt my mother any more… than you already have…"
The voice seemed to cut deep into her ears. There was a sharp pain in her heart.
This was a fatal gap. Alice stumbled back from the unanticipated pain in her chest, and her strength momentarily slackened.
The Duchess laughed and stomped the ground as if she was rolling. Then in a motion reminiscent of a quadruped, she lunged at Alice, seized her by the head and slammed her to the ground.
There was a roar and a blast of sand. As Jack crumpled to the ground, he called out Alice's name.
The Duchess gripped Alice's thin neck with both hands as the sand rose and swept up. A tremendous weight was imposed between her hands. The Bandersnatch that was protecting her neck was producing a strange whirring sound.
"… Guu."
Alice, stuck in place, clutched her left hand as the "mass" squeezed her trachea. She then gathered the mass of Bandersnatch into her palm and pounded it into the Duchess' ear once more. The massive amount of Bandersnatch penetrated her head, spinning, screaming, and amplifying the "sound" even more.
"Die…e…eeeeeeeee!"
The Duchess screamed as her head deformed into an ugly mess. Alice's Bandersnatch that was shielding her neck cracked and the desert around her couldn't bear the weight and started to collapse again. As the space collapsed, a pitch-black void began to appear and disappear.
She couldn't breathe. Her vision was flickering white from the lack of oxygen. The weight that was being inflicted on her was no longer dense enough to exist in space. And it was growing at an accelerated rate.
It was no longer a matter of taking a breath. The feeling was that her body was about to be twisted apart. And the sound of the space gradually breaking down and disappearing was heard. Holes opened up all over the desert, and the shockwaves that jolted the surroundings drove the sand into them, where it began to flow in like an avalanche.
Alice looked at the Bandersnatch's protection as the cracks began to spread, and turned her gaze frantically towards Jack. Jack, whose abdomen had been blown off by the Duchess' blow, was reaching for Alice. Looking at his fingertips… she gritted her teeth and moved.
With no visibility any longer, she collected the Bandersnatch on her left arm using only her senses. Then, scrambling through the "mass," she grasped the Dáinsleif that had been impaled on the Duchess's head.
This sword sucked the life out of the people. Would that be the case for herself as a Nightmare? She didn't have time to ponder upon it.
Alice drew down the Dáinsleif with all her strength. The Duchess was severed from her face to her abdomen in a slashing motion.
But even so, she refused to loosen her hold on Alice's neck…
In a fountain-like spray of black blood, Alice drew the Dáinsleif and thrust it like a saw into the white sphere that glowed deep in the Duchess' chest.
The Nightmare let out a squeal. Looking up to the heavens, her body jerked and swayed. As Alice's arm was about to snap, she simultaneously retracted the Dáinsleif.
◇
"… Geeho… geeho…"
Coughing up blood, Alice managed to lift herself up. Sand had drifted into the hole in the space, and she was being swept away by it. Her vision was still not restored to normal. There seemed to be something wrong with her eardrums, and she couldn't hear a sound.
She couldn't breathe.
The Duchess had fallen. Yet she was still clutching Alice's ankles. Her Seventh had not disappeared.
With her last-ditch effort, the weight on her surroundings intensified.
This was not good. Although she was aware of the severity of the situation, she could not escape. Protecting her body with the Bandersnatch was all she could do, and she was unable to move a single fingertip. Nothing can be moved.
Death.
I'm going to be killed.
A cold, chilling sensation spread through Alice's chest. It was like fear, but it was instantaneous and it spread…
The next moment, all the "mass" around her vanished.
The Duchess' head, which had been gripping Alice's ankle, finally burst like a pomegranate. The blood and flesh of the Nightmare splattered all over her surroundings.
Having lost her strength, the Duchess was swallowed by the error… the "hole" of the void that had opened up in space. Alice couldn't even confirm it… Jack's armored arm caught hold of her body and pulled her up just in time.
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