A few days later, the Lunatic Order were in a mock battle.
It was on their usual training ground, but there was one major difference. They’d merged training grounds one through three, creating a genuinely huge space. There was also one other difference.
“Suzuka-kun, the attacker at five o’clock is bait. So is the one next to it and the one in back. The real one is—”
“No, wait, Hanabi, don’t move so fast, please, it’s making me sick…”
“Senpai, I’ll take the main attacker up above! Rin-san, take out the artillery for me!”
“Cut off the enemy retreat. Launch Servant Pods two seconds after Okegawa-kun’s attack. Motegi-kun?”
“Wait, wait, I’ll do it. Just wait… I had curry for lunch, and it’s all coming up, so wait!”
A light shot across the blue sky. At the heart of this vast virtual battlefield, three figures clung to the back of a dragon. Shots flew towards them, but the dragon dodged as if predicting the future, dragging the attached three figures along with it.
Kuon, Fuji, and Rin were all attached to Hanabi’s Kiryu.
Just as he did in the last battle, Kuon rode on the back of the Kiryu, cutting enemies as they approached. Fuji was working Control on the left wing, and Rin was on the right, trying not to puke while maintaining a one hundred percent hit rate one-handed.
“High Nova Launcher firing!”
Hanabi fired the Kiryu’s main weapon, taking down two enemy gunners as they evaded the Servant attacks. Less than half remained. It was seven against one.
Not personnel—squads. Seven Lunatic Order squads—a total of twenty-eight Cavalleria—were all gunning for the Fuji Squad.
This was the Jogen Maneuver Academy Fall Exhibition Match, a Lunatic Order battle royale where everyone ganged up on the Fuji Squad.
The match had been planned by Headmaster Nanahoshi Kaede with the stated goal of knocking the Fuji Squad down a peg. Since they weren’t satisfied by being permanently top ranked within the school, they’d gone and gotten themselves medals to boot. It all seemed familiar somehow, but she was their headmaster, so they’d lose the fight the moment they let themselves get upset.
Besides that, their real goal was checking on the adjustments to Hanabi’s Drag Ride. Their new chief mechanic, Tooka Nürburg, had made considerable improvements to it. Given the operations scheduled in their future, they needed to put it through its paces. “They’re dominating, huh? Boring,” Kaede muttered to herself, watching the battle.
Kaede’s number one student raised a Blade to the sky. “Nine-count Strike! Kishin Ryuenbu!” A guillotine tornado sprang up. Cylindrical Blades each as large as a Jave raged, storm-like, across the battlefield around Kuon.
Hanabi’s Kiryu alone had half-demolished them, and now Kuon used a Shichisei Kenbu area-of-effect attack to polish them off. He’d used the same technique in the Capital Gate Recovery battle to finish off nearly all the enemy Jave and save the Bushi Hime at the last second, so this art was particularly famous within the Air Force. The opposing Lunatic Order forces were taken down so quickly, one could almost feel sorry for them.
Only seventy-seven seconds had passed since combat began. Funds for the newspaper club—who ran the betting pool—were in great shape.
The Imperial Army’s final goal was to seal all the Gates on the mainland. They’d sealed the Capital Gate, so that left thirteen more: Sapporo, Sendai, Yamagata, Ashinoko, Owakudani, Mount Myoko, Matsumoto Castle, Nagoya, Kyoto, Osaka Castle, Seto, Hiroshima, and Fukuoka.
The Empire would crush those Gates one by one. To give themselves a foothold, they’d chosen the Fukuoka Gate in Kyushu to start with. At the center of the operation would be their two heroes.
Expectations were particularly high for Suzuka Hanabi and her Drag Ride. They’d poured a fortune into manufacturing the new weapon, and nobody wanted it turning out useless. Hanabi needed results as explosive as her name.
But while the manufacturing costs might be immense, the research and development had not been. After all, Tooka designed the whole thing herself.
Wheeling through the air, Hanabi glanced to the corner of the training ground. A small girl was looking up at her, donut in one hand. She must really like those, Hanabi thought. The taciturn genius child had nearly always had a donut on her since the day they met. They were easier to get than chocolate, but did all Shichisei Kenbu students have a sweet tooth? She had plenty of order rewards left, so maybe she’d have to bring more donuts tomorrow. It sort of felt like taming her with treats, but she wanted to do something for her cute “little sister”.
The Heavy Magic Engine her sister developed was the core of the Drag Ride. Inside was the one thing that could store high-purity magic, the Crystal II, which Tooka had also invented. The system vibrated this magic, compressing it at high purity, and let it explode to produce energy. This explosion made the magic vibrate, so once an explosion happened, the engine had an inexhaustible supply of energy. However, that initial vibration required a twelve-second kick from a Division 5, and Hanabi was the only person in the Empire capable of that.
Hanabi had a lot of magic to begin with, and this system effectively doubled that, enabling her to use powerful weapons like the Servant Pods and the High Nova Launcher. But the most insane function was definitely the Heavy Magic Field. By compressing magic and increasing its mass, deploying Heavy Magic around her unit, she could cause Jave bullets to slide off her. High-purity magic would even bend space.
This was impossible, according to everyone else working in DM development. But after calculations several hundred pages long and simulations run over a thousand times, the allies had granted permission for development of a prototype, and then Hanabi had proven its effectiveness in the last battle.
As long as they had the Heavy Magic Engine and Heavy Magic Field, mankind could finally win decisively against the Jave.
Whether the Imperial Army HQ was unanimously that optimistic was another matter. Tooka coming here was related. She’d requested it, but the allied forces’ reluctance was likely a factor.
As a side note, using this Heavy Magic under certain conditions allowed one to intentionally overdrive things, causing the phenomenon known as Magic Dispersal. That phenomenon was at the heart of the Soryu Ranbu art Suzuka Hachishiki had used to blow himself up, as well as Kuon’s ultimate move, the Mumyo Tosen.
Moves it had taken Shichisei Kenbu hundreds of years to develop had been achieved by Tooka in a mere ten. When Tooka first explained the principles of Heavy Magic, Nanahoshi Kaede’s face had been a sight to behold, and it was a real shame no one but Tooka had been there to witness it.
This genius opened a window comm to Hanabi. “Hanabi-onee-sama, how’s the Kiryu performing?”
As always, she had no expression, no emotion in her voice. Hanabi was getting used to that, though. “No problems,” Hanabi said. “Actually, it’s a little too good? Like, astonishingly so. I’ve got three riders, but the maneuverability is still better than before.”
“I’ve tuned it to you specifically, so it should be responding like that. The more we link and synchronize, the more your magic and the Kiryu’s Heavy Magic resonate.”
“It’s the strangest sensation… To me, it feels like the Kiryu itself is alive.”
“That’s an extremely healthy response. There’s autonomously intelligent growth-type—NSR-type—AI Device functionality incorporated into portions of it, so it is absolutely ‘thinking.’ Even if it weren’t, I personally believe all machines have a form of consciousness. Spiritual, electrical, or magical.”
“Huh… Mechanics sure think differently.”
“I think your perceptions are quite good, onee-sama. The test riders were not able to control Kiryu anything like you do.”
“I’m glad I can help.”
“You’re being very helpful. The data you’re providing is assisting with development of projects beyond the Kiryu.”
“There’re more?! This isn’t the only project you’re working on?”
“Right. I have three other projects supported by the Kiryu development. I suspect the international forces will brief you on them in the near future all because of the data you’ve provided. I’m grateful.”
“Th-that’s really… You’re amazing.”
“Thank you,” she said, sounding both super earnest and entirely emotionless. Then the comm cut out.
Hanabi shook her head. But Rin, recovering somewhat from the motion sickness, said, “She’s a lot like you, Hanabi.”
“She is?!”
“You were just like that when you were her age! Super flat. Almost frozen.”
“I was?”
“You don’t remember?”
“I wish I knew more about Hanabi-senpai’s childhood,” Kuon said.
“Ah ha ha, I’ll fill you in sometime. I got loads of juicy stories.”
“Please don’t, Rin. Kuon-kun, don’t you dare ask.”
Fuji jumped in. “I really didn’t expect Motegi-kun to get motion sickness. Your extra weapon, Falcon, is also a high-spec mobility unit. Same as the Kiryu.”
“Controlling it myself is totally different! Seems like I can’t handle someone else at the wheel.”
“Hmph… Interesting.”
“But Rin,” Hanabi said, “You’ve got to get over it. I can’t exactly drive safe in combat.”
“I know! I’m working on it…” Rin fluttered a hand.
“How long are you gonna jabber?” the headmaster cut in. “Wrap it up.”
“Roger that!” The entire Fuji squad responded reflexively.
Then Kaede addressed all Lunatic Order members who had participated in the mock battle. “Well done, soldiers. I’ve prepared a modest reward. Details in email.”
Everyone thought the same thing: This will definitely be hazing disguised as a reward.