“Ms. Yamada! Wake up! Ms. Yamada!” Tatenashi had been caring for Ms. Yamada at the ryokan following her collapse.
“Ugh, where am I? I remember, Squall Meusel was there, and then...”
“You shouldn’t try fighting an IS on foot. You’re not Ms. Orimura.” Seeing the alarm on Maya’s face, Tatenashi tried to calm her.
“Anyway, I met with our contact, and took delivery.” Tatenashi passed a brooch to Maya. “Show me why they used to call you ‘Killing Shield.’”
“Ahahahah, can’t you just forget about that?” Maya adjusted her glasses, and then spoke with a serious face. “Anyway, let’s hurry.”
“To the battlefield?”
“Yes.”
Tatenashi nodded while wrapping an arm around Maya, and opened her IS Mysterious Lady.
“Let’s go!”
They flew to Shirokishi.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Wake up, Ichika!” Ling and the others were trying their hardest to get through to Ichika as they dodged Shirokishi’s attacks. But there were no signs of his awakening, only fiercer and fiercer attacks.
“What do we do? Our shield energy won’t hold out much longer!”
“I was rather hoping your Kenran Butou would help with that!”
“But...!” She’d never been able to use it for anyone but Ichika’s sake, and in this situation... Still, not wanting to admit that, she took point. “But! I won’t let you just grind us down! If you won’t wake up, we’ll beat some sense into you!”
Houki sprang to the attack, her Karaware clashing against Shirokishi’s Yukihira Nigata.
“Now I understand why Forte betrayed us!”
For the sake of the one she loved, she’d give up anything. Make any sacrifice. Even risk her life.
“I don’t care what it takes! I’ll save you, Ichika!” Shouting, she slapped Shirokishi’s blade away, but it raised its left arm and let loose a particle burst. The blast of energy scorched across Houki’s torso.
“Gah!” As Houki stumbled, it followed up its attack, only to be repelled by a precise shot from Blue Tears.
“If it’s for Ichika’s sake, I’m in too!”
“Same here. I won’t give up either!”
With Cecilia and Ling on the front lines too, the battle heated up. But the memories of a Brynhildr contained within Shirokishi were more than enough to handle a three-on-one fight.
“I will not lose! My feelings for Ichika mean more than that!” Cecilia thought back to the first time they’d met.
Maybe she’d fallen for him then? But there was no way she could have admitted it to herself that soon. It was only fighting alongside him, knowing each other’s weaknesses, that she first discovered love.
“You’re ten thousand years too soon to take Ichika away from me!” Cecilia yelled as her bits focused their fire. At the same time, Ling opened up with her impact cannon.
“Hey, quit trying to take Ichika for yourself!”
Ling’s feelings were just as strong. She remembered back to elementary school, when Japan was a strange and foreign place, and she had to act tough to hide her fear. Ichika was the only one who understood why she acted like she did. Whenever it was too much for her, whenever she felt alone, he was by her side. And somewhere, deep inside, Ichika was fighting alone against whatever had overcome him. She had to reach out to him. Just like he did for her. This time, it was Ling’s turn. The flames of her first love, still smoldering in her heart, demanded nothing less.
“I won’t let some half-forgotten memory of Chifuyu’s have my Ichika!” Ling slammed Souten Gagetsu together and flung it at Shirokishi, which wavered as it took the blow. As it did, a burst of shotgun fire followed up.
“Charlotte!”
Charlotte had recovered from her beating at Tabane’s hands, and she, Laura, and Kanzashi immediately joined the fight.
“Hey, I was listening in on the open channel, so I think I know what’s going on. We’re all here to tell Ichika how we really feel, right?”
“It’s my turn, then!”
“I won’t get left out this time!”
Their hearts beating wildly, the three joined the fight.
“Me first!” Charlotte flew out ahead of the group. “Wake up, Ichika!”
Purging her shield, she brought forth her Grey Scale Pile Bunker. The others almost shouted out ‘Wait, isn’t that going too far?’
“This’ll do it!”
From the moment they’d met, Ichika had set her free. He’d told her she always had a place alongside him. And that was the place in life she wanted. She knew what her heart longed for. And now, she wanted to say it. Wanted him to hear.
“Turn back into the Ichika I love!” Her pile bunker pierced the armor on his left arm. With the Setsura weapons pack knocked out of action, Laura followed up, stabbing with her plasma daggers.
“You promised me you’d protect me, Ichika!”
Her love for Ichika, growing from their star-crossed first encounter, was as strong as her pride. He’d promised to protect her. And now, she was going to protect him. She wanted to be at his side forever.
“Ichika, can you hear me?!”
“It’s ‘us,’ Laura!” A salvo from the Yama-arashi missile pods closed in on Shirokishi. Just as they were about to detonate, Charlotte, Laura, Houki and the others all opened fire. “Give me back my Ichika!”
Kanzashi had always lived in Tatenashi’s shadow. It was only Ichika who brought her out into the light. Yes, to her, he was light. Sometimes dazzling, sometimes warming, always direct. And she wanted to be bathed in that light. Never to lose it again. So that she could be herself.
“Sorry to keep you waiting!” The group was shocked by Ms. Yamada’s sudden arrival in Tatenashi’s arms.
“What are you doing here, Ms. Yamada?!”
“Stand up! Hurry! It’s showtime!” Her body was enveloped by the glow of an opening IS—one none of them had ever seen.
“Is this your IS, Ms. Yamada?”
“It sure is. I call it the Rafale Revive Special, ‘The Show Must Go On!’”
Gasps arose.
“Now show them what you could do as a cadet!”
“I’d really rather that this never came up again, but...” Reticence or no, four gigantic shield wings swept back from Ms. Yamada. “Here goes! Shattered Sky!”
Like a hawk spreading its wings, the bottom faces of the shields swiveled forward, then shot out from her IS under wired control.
“I don’t want to hurt any of my students, but—”
To get Ichika back, she’d have to take up arms against Shirokishi. That much was clear. Maya’s shots tore at Shirokishi with unrivaled precision. And the moment it slowed, her four shields pinned it down. “This’ll do it!”
While her shields held Shirokishi in place, Maya leveled a submachine gun in each hand, and squeezed the triggers.
Rat-a-tat-a-tat! The roar of her guns echoed across the battlefield. Bullets ricocheting inside its shields, Shirokishi’s armor was torn to shreds by the hail of fire.
“Whoa!”
“Ms. Yamada, that’s overkill...”
With its shields spent and its armor torn away from the inside, the Shirokishi fell to earth.
“Ah—!”
No, not the Shirokishi anymore. Its armor, its form, were back to that of Byakushiki.
“ICHIKA!” the girls shouted out as he was plucked from the air just before crashing down.
“Phew...” No one was quite sure who gasped in relief. Ichika’s loss of control, and the girls’ confessions, were over.