“Then now’s when you start getting out there and seeing everything you can.”
✦ ✦ ✦
The escape container’s door was locked from the outside. A moment later, the container slid along a short rail before being tossed into the open sky.
For a while, Kamijou watched the container as it fell and grew smaller.
Eventually, he shook it off and peered up.
The final container had launched.
There was no longer any way for him to safely escape this fortress.
And then it happened.
There was a thunderous boom. The raging winds changed direction. Kamijou, having unconsciously covered his face with his arms, spotted a fighter jet. It was called a VTOL, an aircraft that could ascend vertically like a helicopter and stop in midair.
He knew the face of the person riding in the cockpit.
It was…
✦ ✦ ✦
“More to the right!! …Little more!! Get a little closer!!”
Mikoto Misaka, leaning out of the rear seat, shouted at the Sister operating the flight yoke.
Finally.
After all this time, finally.
She’d finally reached the same time and space as that idiot!!
“Big Sister, your face is eerily smiley, indicates Misaka.”
“Bfuh? That’s not true!! And you’re just comparing me to yourself, which is messing up your judgment!!” said Mikoto, hastily pulling on her cheeks to check. She continued, “Argh! What the heck is even happening?! It was floating up there just fine until a minute ago. Why did it decide to start falling now?!”
“Misaka’s apologies for interrupting your excitement, but if you don’t open the cockpit canopy, your voice will never reach, indicates Misaka.”
“Where is it? Which button?!” asked Mikoto before suddenly having doubts.
They were high up, past ten thousand meters. The outside air was below negative fifty degrees Celsius, the air pressure was very low, and there was little oxygen. Would it be okay for her to open the canopy now?
If she didn’t, she’d never reach him. But the elements wouldn’t let her open it.
Caught in an incredible dilemma, the Sister, impassively bending her head to listen to something, said, “…Something is strange about how the engine sound is reverberating, reports Misaka.”
“?”
“This transmission pattern is for below one atmosphere at negative seven degrees, says Misaka, finishing precise calculations. The exact mechanism is unknown, but despite being at an altitude of ten thousand meters, the outside environment seems set up in the same manner as the surface, reports Misaka, giving her conclusion.”
“Meaning…”
“You should be able to open the canopy without a problem, declares Misaka.”
A moment later.
The canopy, shaped like a rugby ball cut in half lengthwise, opened right overhead. The Sister must have pushed the button.
Just as she’d said, Mikoto had no trouble breathing. She felt a chill on her skin, but it was a far cry from dozens of degrees below zero.
The Sister, keeping the VTOL slightly tilted, moved it slowly. Not with the nose pointed at the fortress, but vertically…in other words, with the right wing tip approaching it, steadily sidling foward.
Just a few meters left.
Only a multiple of a hundred centimeters.
The fortress was swaying unstably, and the precise distance changed each time.
But it was far closer than she had been when she was hesitating in Academy City.
“This is as close as we can get…,” the Sister declared. “Landing may be too much of a problem, says Misaka, tightening her grip on the yoke.”
The fighter jet’s forward movement stopped dead in midair.
They’d only had a little bit left until they reached the fortress.
“VTOLs are for slowly landing on the surface, explains Misaka. If we were to try to force a landing on the fortress when it is bobbing up and down like this, we run the risk of crashing the underside of the fuselage into it, says Misaka, voicing her concerns.”
“What about a wider area? The fortress is gigantic. If we go up some more, we should find an area bigger than a midsize farm.”
“The fortress’s rumbling itself will not change, so we cannot avoid the risk of crashing no matter where we are, says Misaka, responding with a negatory viewpoint. And even if we were able to land on the fortress, if the plane loses its flight capability, escape would become impossible, says Misaka, frowning.”
“Fine, then.” The canopy still open, Mikoto reached for her belt buckle. “Keep it as balanced as you can! I’m going out to the wing to pull that idiot up here!!”
Mikoto rose from her seat and crawled toward the wing on all fours.
She felt less fear than she thought, maybe because she could glue her feet to the main wing with magnetic force.
She inched forward.
The distance to the spiky-haired boy closed.
Come on…
Clunk. The fortress gave a major rattle.
Her altitude had decreased.
It didn’t feel as stable as before.
The rattling was like…
…the invisible strings holding up the fortress were being cut, one by one.
Come on! Reach!!
The VTOL, its body wobbling around and Mikoto plastered to the main wing, closed in on the fortress a little at a time.
And then:
Her eyes met the idiot’s.
The spiky-haired boy seemed confused at the means of escape that had suddenly sprung up. Part of her wanted to yell What the hell were you planning on doing, stupid? but now wasn’t the time to be sticking to her old ways. She’d scold him until he was dead after this.
After coming to the wing’s tip, Mikoto stretched her hand out as far as she could.
Would she reach, or wouldn’t she?
Their fingertips drew near, until they almost touched.
However.
Then the boy did something she’d never expected.
He shook his head.
And his hand, which he’d almost reached out far enough, stopped.
Wha…?
Mikoto was dumbfounded, and then the boy’s lips moved.
She couldn’t hear the words.
But she could read his lips.