“Yes. Absolutely no problem whatsoever. There were a few unforeseen changes in our circumstances, but if anything they worked to our advantage. We will also be deploying the new model of biological drone. We’ll monitor its performance and collect data. Yes. Yes. Of course.”
The last of the Project’s Managers, Foghorn, held his holographic terminal up to his ear, conversing with another man who was far away. Just ahead, where he was looking without paying particular attention to anything he saw, heroes said to have been resurrected from antiquity were put to rout as they spouted something about cursing the world. Yet another point in the Reincarnators’ favor was the fact that the heroes seemed to have no desire to fight alongside Dill Steel-Link and his allies. Their enemies would split up if allowed to flee and remain at large for just the right amount of time. After that happened, a detached force of Reincarnators could hunt them down.
The streets of the Tower Capital had sustained profound damage, and it would be necessary to take retaliatory measures. However, this was not the duty of Foghorn or the Project at large. Therefore, he could simply leave it to others.
“But, well, certainly...it is regrettable. Our Yuujin plan went off the rails, and our Shiden plan has been delayed. There seems to be a concomitant cost to the creation of new types of Skills. Other companies have also expressed their intent to participate in this field, so there will be an arms race...no, no,” Foghorn said into the communicator, continuing his conversation with the person on the other end of the line. “It isn’t all bad. This time, we were at least able to confirm that such a thing existed. Yes. Naturally. We will definitely make that arrest. Our company’s hold on the initiative will not falter.”
Now, in the spot where Foghorn was looking, a man known as Whitehead had just fallen. To protect Sid, he had taken all of the Reincarnators’ gunfire himself, turning him into little more than a sack of flesh leaking blood. Foghorn hadn’t gone so far as to remember all the mercenaries’ names, but he would remember that one.
The collapse of their enemies’ forces was near. That was the only natural outcome.
The subject of Foghorn’s long-distance conversation relaxed somewhat, turning toward small talk. “Even so, I just don’t understand. Even if the intruders had made it to the city center, at that stage wouldn’t Lily have been prepared to wipe them out along with the whole Harbor District? Not that we have any right to know about matters outside of Panopticon jurisdiction, of course. A vulnerability of our cyclical Reincarnation system has been exposed, though. To think such an unstable bunch of girls are in control of our whole system’s very heart...oh?” Foghorn looked up at the sky, blinking a few times. For a moment, his eyes—which had glazed over in the course of the formal conversation—began to sparkle.
“Ah, no...excuse me. It’s nothing important. Only, this is a rare sight... There’s a rainbow above the Tower Capital.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Aah...aaah! Lieutenant Whitehead...this is all my fault!”
“Orestes!” Dill shouted at Sid, who clung to Whitehead’s lifeless body. “Stand and fight!” Still sobbing, Sid tightened his grip on his sword. His concentration on his Skill, which was what allowed him to emulate Dill, fell into disarray, and the form of the youth Orestes was in tatters. Dill’s words were brief, and he would not pause to follow up. As they were in the middle of a battle, this was only natural. Although Sid understood this, he still thought his heart might break.
Nue continued to sing, and the gravity imparted by her voice caused bullets to plummet in midair. In the window this created, Dill leaped forward, cut down a Reincarnator, and using the corpse as a shield he proceeded to kill the next in his path. Then, he held the body up again to move to the next Reincarnator, and then the next. Perhaps Dill genuinely intended to kill every last Reincarnator on this day.
But he had no other allies left. Halberd and the brigade, who should have been fighting some distance away, had been engulfed by the waves of enemies and could no longer even be seen. The heroes of Krios also seemed to have retreated, although Dill couldn’t imagine that they would make it home alive.
There was no way the inexhaustible hordes of enemies would allow Sid to rest. Sid pushed back the Reincarnators who came to attack him, cut them down, then evaporated away the gore that might dull his blade using his phosphors before cutting down the next attacker. However, he had long since tired to the point where his Skill and martial prowess had lost their luster.
“Aah...Rei. Rei. Where might you be? Don’t tell me you’ve died already...?” At some point he had even lost sight of the girl who had supported his spirit up until this point. Despair now weighed heavily on Sid’s shoulders.
The next enemy came, and then the next. Incessantly they assaulted him, but Sid could only deal with them one by one. He was nearing his limit. If anything, I wonder why I haven’t reached it already. I mean, my spirit has long since failed.
Clang. With a feeble sound, Sid’s sword shattered at the hilt. The blade slid away, tumbling to the ground, and Sid’s heart broke at the same time. His phosphors vanished, and Orestes became a mere boy once more.
As if the timing had been carefully judged, it was at that very moment that the fighting paused. Nue’s song stopped as well. Both Dill and the Reincarnators were all looking at the same thing—the rainbow stretching across the sky. Its beauty was extremely out of place.
The clouds holding the artificial rain that would have otherwise fallen eternally over the Tower Capital had been swept away by Prodotis’s Skill and evaporated by his sun orb. The resulting rainbow now stretched even farther across the sky.
Is this all it took? Sid felt incredibly foolish, embarrassed that he had been spellbound by a rainbow, if only for a moment. He assumed a thoughtless and desperate sneer, but Dill’s reaction was quite different.
“Iris...her name meant ‘rainbow.’” Right before their eyes was a young, blonde-haired girl holding hands with the others—it was Iris.