“I’m picking up something manmade floating out there! It must be—”
The sea stretched out to the horizon, its surface broken only by the manmade island, Giga Front. It was only 200 or so square meters, but its surface absolutely bristled with shipping containers.
“It looks like a beehive,” Laura said.
She was right. The unbroken field of hexagonal containers looked like a honeycomb. Then suddenly, a warning blared into view.
“Picking up drones! Four, five... No, way more!”
Giga Front shuddered as it began to rise into the air. As it broke away from the surface, it became obvious that it truly was nothing but a honeycomb of containers.
“Go forth, my Akebachi...” The cadets prepared for combat at the sudden echo of a voice.
“Look, Ichika!” Looking down on them, the sun at her back, was a girl in what looked like a more sinister version of the Akatsubaki. Her face was young, her form lithe and delicate. A black visor covered her eyes—no, it didn’t just shut her out from the world, it shut the world out from her.
“What’s that IS? Where’s Houki?!” Ichika turned to her, ready to leap to the attack, but Cecilia and Charlotte caught him by the shoulders.
“Wait! IR sensors are picking up something in the containers! Here they come, Ichika!”
“Dammit!” he griped. “We were almost there!”
“We still have a chance! Don’t give up yet!” The cadets fanned out into a loose circle around Kanzashi, readying their weapons as Tatenashi moved to cover them.
“Enemy lock detected! It’s too dangerous to go in on your own. Wait for Kanzashi’s orders!”
As Ichika slumped back, Tatenashi spread out a mist of nanomachines in the path of the incoming Akebachi. Ten of the drones came flying through the wall of fire.
“Set up curtain fire, and make them close in! Don’t engage until they’re in melee— Ichika?!”
“We can’t just sit around! Houki’s waiting for me!” Ichika rushed out ahead, shocking the other cadets with a single shot that took down three Akebachis. “Out of my way!”
Ichika could feel the adrenaline running through his veins, telling him that he could do this.
“Wait, Ichika! No!” Charlotte and the others were realizing that their engines couldn’t keep up. Their IS’ reactor output had dropped suddenly as soon as they entered this sector. They couldn’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t just a mechanical breakdown, something here was causing it.
“I’m coming for you, Houki!” Breaking free of Charlotte, Ichika charged at the girl in red. Charlotte chased, trying to stop him, only to be intercepted by an Akebachi.
“Wait, Ichika! Ichikaaaa!” It was like something was drawing him in, and he, and his target, disappeared into the glare of the sun. The cadets, left behind, plunged into a pitched battle.
“Ugh! Why aren’t my engines working? Kanzashi, can you pick anything up?!” Laura grimaced as she yelled in confusion.
“I’m running analysis now! ‘Code Red’?! A backdoor output-limiting mode...?!”
It didn’t matter where it was coming from. Nothing could be done about it now. All they could do was fight as well as they could with the strength they could bring to bear.
“Time to kick some ass! Let’s go, Shenlong!”
“We can do this, Blue Tears!”
“We’ll open a gap in their line! Charlotte! Laura! Follow Ichika!”
“Got it!”
The next three minutes felt like they lasted an eternity.
✦ ✦ ✦
“I can do this! Byakushiki and I can take anyone on!”
Ichika shot down Akebachi after Akebachi, unquestioning of his newfound confidence. A squad spread out around him, their arms opening to reveal Tsukumobari, ‘99 Needles,’ beam machine guns.
“Too slow!”
Spreading his energy wings as wide as he could, Ichika soared upward through the circle of enemies, scattering untold numbers of energy bursts. A rolling thunder of explosions echoed below him as the energy lines collapsed. Diving back down and breaking through, he pressed on, finally catching up with the girl in red.
She was silent. Wordless. Forbidding.
“Where’s Houki?!” Ichika’s voice was filled with rage, but the girl answered calmly.
“You already know.”
“What?”
“So why ask me?”
“Well...” Ichika was stumped. His confusion was only broken as Charlotte and Laura called out to him.
“Ichika!” Their armor was peppered with bullet holes, suits scorched and torn, and their skin scratched and bruised. Charlotte, especially, had taken a heavy beating as she covered Laura’s assault.
“Are you two okay?!” The shock on Ichika’s face was met with anger on Laura’s.
“Damn it! You think you can win this fight yourself?! Quit fucking around!” That was the best way Laura could think of to show how concerned she was, but Ichika didn’t get the message.
“Listen, I’m going to save Houki! Then this whole mess will be over!”
“Dammit...!”
Laura wasn’t the only one set off by Ichika’s self-centered response. Charlotte wound up and slapped him straight across the face.
“Get a hold of yourself! You’re not the only one who wants to save Houki!”
That was enough to make Ichika come back to his senses.
“...Sorry.” Shocked by the slap, Ichika sheepishly apologized.
“It’s okay. As long as you understand now. Right, Laura?”
“Yeah.”
And then, there was the silent, unimpressed fourth participant in the conversation.
“You never do learn...” Sliding Akatsubaki’s twin blades from their sheathes, she rushed toward Ichika swifter than even Houki could. So fast, so fierce; her movements were uncannily precise.
“Keep going! I’ll hold her off to buy time!” Ichika called out.
“What?! That’s too dangerous, Ichika!”
He locked blades with the girl, only for her to swiftly slide hers around, making him stumble to the side. Charlotte and Laura didn’t realize, but Ichika did, that it was the Shinonono-style tsubazeri-gaeshi technique.
“H-How do you know how to do that?!” he blurted out.
“.........”
Having dealt with Ichika for now, the girl turned her attention to Laura and Charlotte.
“You may be good, but you’re not good enough to take two of us at once!” Laura spread her AIC stasis field, only for the girl to carve through it with her Kawaware at max power. “Ugh!”
Laura flinched back as the blade closed in, but Charlotte was there to cover her.
“Not so fast!” Two shields layered made for an impressive physical barrier, strong enough to stop even a blow from Akatsubaki. But only once.
The blow which was meant for Laura cleaved Charlotte’s shields in two. Behind them, Charlotte and Laura leveled their guns.
“Eat this!” Laura fired a burst strong enough to pierce even an IS’ shields. The close-ranged blast was enough to send the girl sprawling.
“I’m not letting you get away!” Charlotte’s bullets fell like rain. But just as they were about to finish her off, another wing of ten Akebachi appeared.
“Why don’t you busy yourself with these?” Charlotte and Laura were driven back by the coordinated assault as the girl turned back to Ichika.
“There’s too many! We can’t—”
“Not yet! This isn’t over yet!”
They fought on bravely but outnumbered, with more and more shots catching them as they maneuvered. But then, just as their shield energy ran out, an unexpected voice came over their comms, “GET DOWN!”
Before they even had time to wonder how going prone would help in an aerial battle, a wave of explosions enveloped the Akebachi.
“Graviton Cluster?!” They turned to see Iris in Seventh Princess and Djibril in Imperial Knight.
“Princess?! What are you doing here?!”
“After that match earlier, I’d feel guilty if I simply took advantage of someone else taking her out of my way.”
While Iris was perfectly calm, fresh, and self-composed, Djibril—who’d given everything they had to get Seventh Princess in position—panted for breath, “Anyway, though. I’m glad we made it in time.”
“I can’t begin to say how grateful I am.”
The Imperial Knight had been stealthily equipped with a supersonic shuttle package to ferry the heavy Seventh Princess into combat; though only Djibril knew that Maya had been a willing co-conspirator. Sometimes it paid to have connections.
“Leave these insects to me!” As Iris began to charge a second Graviton Cluster shot, more Akebachi poured forth from their hive. Djibril, Charlotte, and Laura moved to her defense.
“Go, Ichika!” He hesitated, worried about overextending again, but Laura’s voice spurred him on.
“Cover me! I’m going to get Houki back!” His eyes gleaming with determination, he chased after the girl.
“Welp,” Charlotte sighed as she watched him go. “Looks like we drew the short straw.”
“You know it.”
“It always seems to turn out that way.”
“Yeah. But that’s a soldier’s duty. To fight when they’re ordered to.”
Their comrades were fighting somewhere out there. But all they could do was believe in them. If Ichika was going to go on ahead, the best they could do for him was to make sure not one pursuer made it through.
“So let’s do this!” At Charlotte’s cry, the battle was rejoined.