That shriek was the Jave victory cry.
I’m going to die, Hanabi thought.
The monsters’ celebration began.
This was revenge for all the Jave Hanabi had slaughtered, joy over obtaining the best meal—a Division 5—and frenzy at the sight of their Queen for the first time in over a decade.
The Jave loved to eat humans alive, Rin had explained. This was true. They loved fresh magic. Magic was the energy of life, and only faint traces of it could be harvested from corpses. That was why the Jave swallowed humans whole whenever possible, slowly digesting them inside their bodies. Since their entire species did as such, the Jave wouldn’t drive humanity to extinction. They were taking care to let a few humans live, not eating too many. Getting too greedy and leaving nothing left to eat was why they’d been forced to burn so much magic opening a Gate to this world.
Even monsters could learn.
In the world beyond the Gate, there had been humans with a special talent, able to use magic without wearing a DM. They were called witches. Humans had used witches’ powers in war, transforming them into Jave. For the first three years, they’d maintained control over that power, but, out of anger, despair, and hunger, the monsters that were once witches turned on mankind. They attacked, killed, and devoured. Memories of when they’d been witches vanished, their very souls becoming monstrous. Humanity had vanished from the world. Then, they opened a Gate.
It would be some time in the future before the humans of this world would learn that.
As Hanabi sat, dazed, the Jave Queen drew closer. She seemed to be moving much slower than she actually was. She was just so big that she gave the illusion of sluggishness. As she descended toward Hanabi, she stretched out hundreds of long tentacles.
Hanabi was confused to find herself somehow still sane. Behind her, she heard Rin screaming. Stand up! Run! What are you doing?! Hearing this without actually listening, Hanabi understood the reason she’d survived as a child. Potential magic didn’t change, no matter how old you were; it was set at birth. Since Hanabi had always been a Division 5, the Jave that day were saving her for their Queen. That’s why they hadn’t killed her, hadn’t eaten her, and tried capturing her alive, she realized.
She was right.
The Gate was maintained by Jave magic. To maintain the sheer size of it, the Queen entered their world once every decade or so, her appearances matching the rate at which Division 5s appeared. The last Cavalleria the Fuji Squad rescued had been half right: The four flesh pillars were switches, but they weren’t automatic. The Jave Queen lurked inside the Gate, keeping it open, and she could detect when someone strong enough to destroy her kind had appeared.
The injuries another human had given the Queen thirteen years ago were not yet healed, but she wasn’t about to let this meal go uneaten. What had brought the Queen here was unmistakably Hanabi’s magic.
If Suzuka Hanabi had been snatched up here, she would have spent at least seven days being tortured inside the Jave’s body, her magic slowly drained away. Nerve-corrupting tentacles would have inserted themselves into her mind through her mouth, nose, and ears, scooping out Hanabi’s memories, slurping up what made her her, and destroying her very mind.
If she had been snatched up here.
But it had been more than ten minutes since they got word that a DM belonging to no other squad was going to drop from orbit from the Mobile Mothership Kuou. A full minute had passed since the Cavalleria who’d destroyed the flesh pillars spotted a comet over the Pacific.
The Jave around them were in a frenzy, ready to see their Queen have her way with Hanabi. The Queen, having been forced to flee without eating the previous ultimate snack—Suzuka Hachishiki—was too hungry to notice.
Hanabi herself was petrified, too afraid of the horrifying number of tentacles streaking toward her. The world in front of her no longer seemed real. It was like she was gazing at a distant memory, at the tentacles that had reached out for her in that burning town years ago. She could no longer remember who it was she loved.
And yet…
Shichisei Kenbu.
Hanabi heard those words. She thought she was hallucinating. She was all alone in a burning town, the Jave Queen’s tentacles about to grab her, and Kuon wasn’t coming.
Hanabi thought she was about to be tortured to death.
As she stood, surrounded by Jave, she saw her younger self surrounded by flames. Little Hanabi turned and spoke to her: “But I know he’s coming,” she said. This was definitely a delusion, a sign her mind was beginning to snap. The Queen’s tentacles were only a few centimeters away from Hanabi.
Something flew out of the sky, landing between them. It was made of something black and gleaming, a powerful, durable, hardened material designed to absorb magic. It was the same Ultra Magic Hardened Blade widely used in Sixth Generation Division Maneuvers. Every living creature on the battlefield looked up. By the time they had, the Cavalleria was already yanking the Blade back out of the ground, having slipped right through their fields of view. The only one who saw him clearly was Hanabi.
Activate Armament:
The little Cavalleria raised his Blade toward the sky. This was an art he shouldn’t have been able to use. He didn’t have enough magic to do so, and the magic you were born with could never change. Hanabi knew this, but she also knew of a means to break through the limits of talent. She heard him whisper the words:
Nine-Count Strike.
The backpack on Soukyu (Pleiades) opened. Nine arms extended in a fan-shaped pattern, gleaming like a sun behind it. Those arms were a unique weapon inherited from Kuon’s master, a precious treasure customized for him alone. In the corner of Hanabi’s vision, a magic gauge with Kuon’s name on it began rising like a mad thing. By the time the Jave’s attention was on him, it had stopped at 999,999. Hanabi knew the weapon could turn him into a Division 5 for nine seconds, but she had no idea combining it with the Shichisei Kenbu methods to enhance one’s magic in a DM could achieve a number like that.
Kishin.
The sun on the DM’s back grew bright, as if igniting. The heat from the magic exhaust alone vaporized the tentacles and minor Jave around Hanabi. Kuon’s bubble protected the three Fuji Squad members, who remained frozen to the spot, staring at the little Cavalleria.
“Ryuenbu!”
A wind blew, as strong as a storm—no, a tornado, Hanabi amended herself.
Kuon was at the center of the tornado that covered the entire battlefield. A terrifying ring of violent winds began blowing everything away. Disk-shaped guillotines, each the size of a Jave, spun like mad within the winds. Kuon had used Tensetsu to pinpoint the locations of friend and foe alike before unleashing an attack which never harmed a hair on the squad’s heads, while exterminating the monsters. The tornado sliced and diced, mowing down everything in its path. A merciless trail of body parts was left in its wake, but to Hanabi it seemed like the sweetest wind that had ever blown.