“Mm!”
“Roger.”
The Spirits raced after Kotori down the hallway. Shido followed suit and proceeded through the base, where the sounds of explosions and gunshots still echoed. They encountered and destroyed Bandersnatches twice before finally reaching the hangar where Fraxinus was waiting.
“…! Commander!” Kannazuki’s voice came over the speakers the moment they stepped inside. “How wonderful you’re all right!”
“Yes. Sorry to keep you waiting,” Kotori replied, raising a hand briefly, and strode toward the ship. Shido and the Spirits trailed after her, and with the same trick as before, they were instantly transported to the bridge.
“Situation report.” The second she was on the bridge, Kotori undid the buttons on her jacket and swung it over her shoulders as she walked forward briskly, heels clacking. She then held her right hand out to one side where Kannazuki stood at the ready. He bowed reverently as he offered her a Chupa Chups on a tray. She took it, peeled the wrapping off, and popped the candy into her mouth, all while she settled down into her captain’s chair. Shido was strangely impressed at the smooth flow of this dance.
“Sir. One Arbatel-class airship is currently in the air above the base. Approximately one hundred twenty Wizards and Bandersnatches are assumed to have invaded the base itself. At present, twenty-one casualties have been reported. One hundred eighty-five evacuees have been confirmed.”
“… I see.” Kotori grimaced, and the word M-A-R-I-A was displayed on the main monitor.
“You do not have the luxury of sadness now, Kotori,” the AI said. “You must take action.”
“Yes. I know.” She let out a quiet sigh before lifting her face as though she had firmed up her resolve and put aside any lingering regrets. “We have a job to do. Fraxinus Excelsior, prepare for departure. I assume everything’s ready, yes?”
“Yes sir!” the crew replied as one.
“But the hangar’s electrical system was hit in the enemy attack, and the hatch won’t open,” someone added.
“Tch! Of course. Smash through it,” Kotori commanded, and threw a hand up into the air. “Activate Basic Realizer parallel operation, deploy Territory, initiate Invisible and Avoid.”
“Roger. Basic Realizer parallel operation starting.”
“Territory deployed. Whenever you’re ready, Commander.”
Over the voices of the crew, the faint hum of motors starting up came from somewhere in the ship and grew louder.
“Here we go.” Kotori gave a slight nod and glanced back at Shido and the Spirits. “Might wanna grab onto something, just in case.”
“Right. Got it.” Shido reached out for a pole by the wall. The Spirits did the same, except for Origami and Nia, who grabbed hold of Shido. In the end, they were peeled off by Tohka and the others.
Kotori let out an exasperated sigh before turning her face forward again and raising her voice. “Fraxinus EX, go!”
The ship shuddered, and the walls of the hangar displayed on the monitor were pressed outward in a circular shape as though crushed from the inside by some invisible force. And then a strange sense of buoyancy enveloped the entire ship as the scene displayed on the main monitor instantly changed to the sky.
“Whoa…!” A cry slipped from Shido’s throat as he got his feet under him.
Rather than getting lift and flying like a plane, the airship used Realizers to wrap the massive ship in a Territory and make it float, which allowed it to dance through the sky in a way that common sense insisted should be impossible.
Just as a large silhouette came into view in the sky shown on the monitor, an alarm began to go off inside the ship.
“Enemy airship confirmed in the air above the base.” Maria’s voice came through the speakers. “What will you do?”
Furrowing her brow, Kotori flicked up the stick of her Chupa Chups. “We have to get into space right now.”
“Yes.”
“Even if we know there’ll be more massive damage coming, we can’t take any time for that thing.”
“Yes.”
“You get what I’m trying to say, right, Maria?”
“Yes,” Maria replied dispassionately.
Kotori grabbed hold of the stick of her Chupa Chups and snapped the lollipop out in front of her. “You have one minute to finish them.”
“The decision I knew you’d make, Kotori,” Maria said, somehow happily.
Kotori began to issue orders to the crew. “Fire Yggdrafolium numbers one through thirteen. Use jamming mode to get them into the enemy Territory, then change the attribute to mine mode.”
“Roger. Firing Yggdrafolium numbers one through thirteen.”
On the silhouette of Fraxinus shown on a sub monitor, the tree branches of the rear of the ship blinked red, and a number of “somethings” flew through the sky on the main monitor.
The reason for describing them as “somethings” was simple—they were cloaked in Invisible, and Shido couldn’t see them. But he could just barely make out the slight distortion of their trajectories as the transparent Yggdrafolium flew toward the enemy ship at top speed.
A few seconds later, they reached the DEM airship hovering ahead of them and exploded as one.
Most likely, the enemy had no clue what had happened. The broken DEM ship dropped toward the ground, plumes of smoke jetting from it.
“Hmph.” Kotori snapped her thumb out downward.
“Time required was fifty-two seconds.”
“Not too shabby. We’ll get that time back, though,” Kotori said. “Increase altitude. We’re busting out of the atmosphere.”
“Yes sir!” the crew shouted, and Fraxinus shuddered faintly.
The scene displayed on the main monitor flowed downward at an impossible speed. It was almost like watching a video recorded by a camera on a bubble played on fast-forward. In mere minutes, the scene on the main monitor had the sky below them.
The blackness of space filled the screen, stars invisible from the earth’s surface glittering against the velvet backdrop. Shido had seen this same sight through the drone camera. He swallowed hard and stared at the feed from the drone searching the area.
And then. There. The figure of a girl sleeping quietly, long golden hair drifting around her.
“…! Mukuro…!” Shido called, clenching his fists.
His voice couldn’t possibly have reached the outside of the ship, but her eyebrows twitched nevertheless.
“…Hmmm?” She slowly raised her eyelids, turned her gaze in the direction of Fraxinus, and stretched out from her sleep position curled up like a fetus. “…Oh-ho, my. Quite a few visitors todaaay.”
He heard a quiet voice, but definitely that of Mukuro, over the speakers. Fraxinus was probably picking it up from the outside. Her voice normally would not have been transmitted through the vacuum of space, but her Astral Dress was likely performing the role of a makeshift Territory. Her voice was quiet but clear in his ears.
“I believe I warned you. Do you come at a different angle from the earlier lot? …Nnngh.” She stretched, raised her right hand, and parted her lips. “Michael.”
A scepter in the shape of a key materialized out of thin air and settled into her waiting hand. She thrust the tip of the scepter into space, turned the key, and created a large door.
“Lataib.”
She raised her hand, and when she brought it down again, the array of space debris floating in the area was sucked into the door.
In the next instant, exits opened up all around Fraxinus, and speeding bullets rained down on the ship.