“Right, we can start slowing down now...”
Gravity control restored, the Samidare continued falling slowly through the eye of the red spot. Akane wiped a cold sweat from her bow. She’d bet her life and beat the odds.
“Eek! Senpai, there’s some sort of tower!”
About half an hour after restoring gravity control, a long, thin, bizarre object appeared before the falling ship. It was made of something transparent, like a diamond; even in this darkness it reflected the light, sparkling. It was an extremely sharp cone; while quite thin at the top it gradually widened out until it became a giant wall.
After a while, the tower branched. Like a snow crystal, with countless smaller branches off the thick center, each of which split into even smaller branches. Liquid was gushing out from the tips of the branches. Some branches ejected this liquid with great force, like a fountain, while others were oozing stickier-looking fluid.
There were narrow grooves from the central tower to the branches, carrying the fluid. Like blood vessels.
To think something like this lay beneath the red spot. No, perhaps this being here was why the red spot existed. The red spot was a Taylor Column created around the obstacle this tower formed.
A Taylor Column. A stagnant cylindrical current that forms above an obstruction beneath. When there is no other influence affecting it, this theorem suggests the current will form directly perpendicular to the obstruction. As the current below is deflected by the obstruction, it flows upwards, making it appear like a speck on the surface. For instance, it’s well-known that the Kuroshio current is influenced by a Taylor Column created by the landform on the sea bed.
However, why would there be a giant, unstable-looking construct deep inside Jupiter? It looked like something that should have long since collapsed under the massive gravitational pull.
“Senpai! I can see the bottom!”
The Samidare began hovering in midair. The ‘bottom’ was the ocean of liquid metallic hydrogen. The point at which pressure grew so great even hydrogen became metallic.
The tower rose out of the peaceful, stormless sea. It looked like the tower continued beneath the surface.
Forgetting that the detectives were still after them, Akane paused to gaze at the scene before her. The sea rocked softly, so transparent it looked like liquid glass. Near the sea’s surface, like oil floating on the water, there were irregularly shaped membranes, like amoeba, and from time to time these would cling to the tower and began sliding up it, seemingly without resistance. The branches continued down into the sea, and the amoeba clustered around these branches, entering the tower interior. It was a magnificent work of art. Staring at it gave her a strange, pleasurable-yet-ticklish feeling, like down being stroked against her brain. Such a strange shape; she couldn’t tell if it was natural or man-made.
“Senpai, something’s flying at us!”
Sachii’s voice snapped Akane out of it. One of the branches had shot a transparent fluid at the Samidare, like a fountain.
“Don’t worry, we have the aether barrier.”
But Akane’s optimism soon proved unfounded. When the liquid touched the aether barrier, there was a brilliant burst of light, and it seeped right through.
“You’re kidding! It’s sounding aether?”
That was the only explanation. This mysterious clear fluid was controlling aether, neutralizing the barrier. If a being that could control aether at will was defined as a seiyuu, then this fluid was a seiyuu, too.
The mysterious fluid passed through the aether barrier and reached the ship itself. It pooled on the side, gradually broadening until it covered the entire exterior.
“Superfluid helium infecting 70% of the ship,” came the computer’s calm analysis.
Superfluid. A condition in which quantum properties are expanded to macrosizes exclusively in extremely low temperature environments. Viscosity becomes zero, and it becomes capable of slipping through the gaps between atoms.
Indeed, while Akane was looking at information on the properties of superfluids, the superfluid helium seiyuu permeated the Samidare’s interior.
“Senpai! It’s already here!”
The superfluid helium seiyuu passed through several walls, reaching the studio and crawling along the walls as if searching for something. Little multicolored lights showed on the clear surface. It was vibrating the aether.
Akane felt an odd movement at her throat. Her laryngeal sac was vibrating on its own, against her will. All the sacs she’d transplanted onto herself vibrated with it. A terrible pain ran through her, like she was being twisted from the inside, like nothing she’d ever experienced before. Like part of her own body was literally betraying her, the laryngeal sacs moved as they pleased. Up, down, right, left, forward, back, diagonally. Twisting all about, sounding the aether, blue, red, green, orange, yellow, purple... One color after another surrounding her body.
The helium seiyuu was sounding all sorts of colors, too. These seemed to be responding to the colors her laryngeal sacs were producing. Like a colorful game of hacky sack, they generated colors, interacting with each other.
“Are they... Having a conversation?”
Akane couldn’t believe this. Part of her own flesh was chatting up some superfluid helium? But that was the best description she had for the phenomenon before her eyes. They were using aether to communicate.
A moment later, an extremely childish flash of rage swept over Akane. This was like she was being left out! Like friends she’d shared everything with had suddenly rejected her!
“Don’t let that helium tempt you! I’m much stronger than any helium seiyuu!” Akane yelled. To prove this, she attempted to steal the seiyuu power from the helium seiyuu. “Radarederodo, daraderedoro, zodezadoze, zedozadozoda, dazozado, dozazoda!”
Chanting a mantra she’d learned in training school, she focused her mind, trying to regain control of her laryngeal sacs. And using the conversation channel they’d opened with the helium seiyuu, she absorbed its power. Like a hungry ghost, without a thought for anything else, she stole the helium seiyuu’s power.
Like she was snapping threads around them, she regained control over her sacs. A moment later, the aether sounded, and heat rays fired. Powerful beams! The helium seiyuu tried to cancel it, but her power overwhelmed it. She fired heat ray after heat ray after heat ray, saturating her foe’s aether vibrations.
The helium seiyuu began to vaporize. Superfluids don’t boil. Their thermal conductivity is extremely high, so heat is carried to the surface and only the outer layer turns to gas. The volume shrank without a sound, eventually vanishing entirely.
“Got ya!” Akane roared, and roughly kicked the Samidare into motion. She circled round the tower at high speeds. She was feeling omnipotent, like she could even move mountains.
“Nice work, Senpai! You’re a bad ass!”
“Right? I kicked its ass!”
She was so busy celebrating she failed to notice the ship approaching from above.
“Akane Yomokura! Sachii Amamiya! I knew you survived!”
“You’re as durable as cockroaches.”
The detective and her assistant appeared on the screen. The Cruadín had caught up with them. But Akane was not in the mood to turn tail and flee again. She had more than enough power now. She’d show them what a seiyuu could do!
A wave of aether left the Samidare’s amps, headed for the tower. The tower began to lean. A tower at least as tall as the Earth itself. The tower was held upright by gravity control generated by the helium seiyuu. Akane temporarily canceled that control. And Jupiter’s immense gravitational pull was enough that even a momentary fluctuation in that power was enough to destroy the tower.
The tower collapsed, slowly, very slowly. Or at least, it appeared slow, but was actually incredible fast. As proof of that, the tower’s collapse was generating shockwave after shockwave.
The powerful shockwaves were snapping off the tower’s delicate branches. Thousands and thousands of branches rode the shockwaves like jagged missiles. Directly towards the Cruadín. They pierced the aether barrier, countless branches impaling the ship. Even a sturdy detective agency ship couldn’t stand up to this.
An escape pod shot out of the Cruadín’s side. Looks like Akane wasn’t the only durable one. The detectives might be even more roach-like.
“Yikes, Senpai! We’re in trouble!”
The falling tower reached the sea, generating a tsunami. A tsunami of liquid metallic hydrogen. As tall as the Earth’s radius.
“Let’s get outta here!”
The Samidare shot towards the sky. Sounding the aether with all the power she had left, the ship went up and up and up.
In the ship’s wake, the red spot spun wildly. But that spin was destined to subside.