“Senpai! Hanabi-senpai!”
Hanabi was out front, preparing to fire at the enemy. Her back twitched. Rin and Fuji’s reactions were more or less the same.
“Kuon-kun…?” Hanabi looked up, as if she couldn’t believe it.
You idiot, Rin thought. Don’t sound so happy.
“What’s going on down there? The main force has retreated, right? Why are you still in enemy territory?”
Each of them responded in their own way. “They retreated because we fought to let them get away! You should be thanking us,” Hanabi snapped.
“Kyuu-kun, feel free to call her an idiot for us, and to call us idiots for staying here with her,” Rin said.
“I appreciate you coming,” Fuji responded. “I’m sending you our coordinates. But don’t think you have to make the drop. I leave the judgment call to you.”
Their focus was beginning to fray and their bodies felt heavy, exhaustion making their vision blurry. Hanabi was Division 5 and could still fight, but Fuji and Rin were almost out of magic.
The voice from above gave the squad hope. “Roger that. I’m fully aware of both your courage and what colossal idiots you all can be.”
“Ahahaha, you’re calling us idiots? You sound like the headmaster.”
“I’m coming to save you. I would never abandon you. So please, don’t die before I get there.”
Rin made an impressed noise, Fuji nodded as if to say he was waiting, and Hanabi turned to face her companions, looking extremely proud.
“See? My Kuon-kun is the best. The greatest!”
Rin waved a hand, conceding defeat. “Okay, you win, he is. Your precious Kyuu-kun.”
“I completely underestimated the boy,” Fuji said. “You were right about him, Suzuka-kun.”
Even if he was too late…
Even if they all died here…
How much time would it take him to cross the wall of flames and get to them? The boy couldn’t even fly. Could they survive that long? The answer was obvious, but it didn’t matter. For a cocky, arrogant old man in a boy’s body, that Division 1 kid had a strange strength. He’d come running, having never given up on them, and that was all that mattered.
But only Rin and Fuji thought that way. “Kuon-kun,” Hanabi said, as if there was nothing in this world that could scare her now. “We’ll be here waiting.”
“Got it, Hanabi-senpai.”
There was a crackle, and the transmission cut out. It didn’t matter to Hanabi if that was caused by combat or re-entry. Either way, she knew he was coming.
She stopped looking up and focused her eyes in front of her. The sky was blotted out by Jave, all after the three of them. The swarm was thickest in front of them, and the Gate loomed behind those monsters.
Hanabi popped her last capsule into her mouth. Her field of vision narrowed, turning red, and her heart raced. The capsules were definitely not good for you, but they could restore your magic in an instant. It felt like her blood was flowing backward, but she forced that sensation back and grinned. She wasn’t scared of anything. Kuon-kun was coming.
Hanabi launched herself forward, drawing the enemy toward her to protect the two behind her.
The fires of Suzuka Hanabi’s life were raging, bursting like the fireworks she was named after. She fired her massive Scout Nova Rifle at the swarm in front of her. The explosion was like a sun appearing on the surface of the Earth. The clouds being blown away showed the path of the shockwave. Any Jave caught up in the explosion were vaporized instantly.
After her magic light beam destroyed the first wave of enemies, she turned her rifle, sweeping away all the Jave around them. A fifth of the enemy on the radar were now gone. She fired a second and third time. Even monsters could learn a little; the manta fired bullets of their own, all targeting Hanabi’s rifle shots and shooting them down. “Clever,” she muttered. She deployed her Servants, liquifying any enemy that got within range.
She was only able to keep this fight going for less than ten minutes.
On the other hand, lasting nearly ten minutes against overwhelming odds was quite impressive. After getting the transmission from Okegawa Kuon, the Fuji Squad held back the Jave swarm with everything they had left.
At the front, Hanabi used the full force of her Type-3 Artillery to blow away the enemy. Just behind her, Rin’s support fire took care of any mantas that got in Hanabi’s blind spots. Back-to-back with Rin, Fuji’s Control monitored the flow of combat and made sure Hanabi knew what actions to take next.
This was what they’d considered their optional arrangement before Okegawa Kuon joined the squad. They’d had a senpai Attacker the year before, but after that person graduated the team had only grown stronger, and they’d been convinced adding one or even two new members would likely not improve their effectiveness as a team. While it would increase their options, they ultimately believed a new member would be detrimental to their overall prowess.
And they’d been right. At least until Okegawa Kuon learned to fight as part of a team.
The Shichisei Kenbu that Kuon brought not only expanded their options, it had dramatically improved them. Their win rate had gone from a highly-ranked “stable” to “unbeatable.”
But Okegawa Kuon wasn’t there yet. This was previously their best formation, but Fuji and Rin were already at their limit.
When Hanabi’s remaining magic crossed the 30 percent threshold, support fire and Control went silent. The squad members at Hanabi’s rear were no longer able to maintain their DMs. All they could do was stay out of Hanabi’s way, maintaining silence to avoid distracting her, waiting for the inevitable.
The Jave swarm filled Hanabi’s vision. She couldn’t let her concentration drop for an instant.
The manta swarm fired at her. Enemies that only appeared as red blips on her radar exploded in balls of fire, but, by the time they did, they’d already fired invisible bullets her way. Her DM sounded the alarm. One hundred and thirty-two shots were headed right for her.
Kuon-kun is coming, she whispered to herself. Saying it out loud gave her strength. Her evasive maneuvers couldn’t avoid all the shots, and several of them burst upon her Witch Bubble. Several others made it through the barrier and blew bits of her armor off, but these attacks were normally powerful enough to kill a human instantly, so getting off this lightly was a godsend. The radar on her left shoulder went down, and the fragments scratched her forehead, drawing blood. The DM’s Witch Bubble had a simple healing function and soon sealed the wound, trying to restore her to combat readiness.
But the blood covering half her head had rattled Hanabi. This isn’t right, she thought. This wasn’t how she fought nowadays. This was how she fought when she was alone. But she had companions now.
Hanabi spun around. A ground Jave was reaching its tentacles out toward Rin, ready to eat her.
A disgusting, quivering mass was approaching. Writhing tentacles were flailing everywhere, slowly, as if it wanted her to panic.
Just kill me quickly, Rin thought.