The Mark VII shined, radiant and blistering. The Asura given form inhabited the center of a sphere of heat with Yu and the Mark III enduring within its sweltering reach of over thirty meters. According to his sensors, the surface of the nano-armor had surpassed three thousand degrees Celsius. Although the interior was not so excruciatingly intense, it most certainly wasn’t comfortable, and Yu had to fight to keep from vomiting from the searing pain. Were it not for the anti-magic shell weakening the effect of Agni’s magic, he and the Frame would have long been reduced to a soup of atoms.
But staying alive was all Yu could realistically manage in this situation. Every bit of the Asura Frame’s energy was being poured into the shell and life support functions just to keep its Devicer alive.
“Spin, Agni! Turn! Unleash the Prayer Wheel!” Leo boomed. “Give me the power to crush everyone in my way!”
The boy sounded positively insane. More proof of Yu’s hunch.
“Just a little more,” he whispered to Rudra. “Just hang in there a little longer. It’s almost time.”
And then, more abruptly than he could have anticipated, the time came.
Leo recoiled in shock and barked at his Frame, “What are you doing?! The Wheel’s slowing down!”
“This is it!”
Yu watched the numbers on the data window drop in relief. It had been firmly at 90,000 prana per second for what felt like an eternity, but Agni’s magic output was finally beginning to fall—85,000, 60,000, 25,000, 10,000, 7,300...
Back at Nayuta, Yu had asked High Priestess Azalin, the supervisor for all Asura series Exo-Frame development, a question he’d never expected to find so relevant...
“Ein’s Gospel Codes give the Frame a huge boost in power, but is there any sort of limit to it?”
“That depends largely on the compatibility between Devicer and Asura Frame.” The cherubic woman had been a royal advisor long ago. When she spoke of topics such as this, though, her childlike eyes glistened with passion once again. “So it’s impossible to really give any sort of specific range, but in the event that one does surpass the limit, the Prayer Wheel will enter a dormant state. So be careful out there!”
“The Frame powers down?”
“Exactly! The safety mechanism will kick in to prevent overheating.”
Yu could all but hear her cheery, rhythmic cadence all over again. He never could have imagined such an innocuous interaction would one day be the key to his victory.
The Mark VII’s heat field gradually shrank, dissipating into the surrounding atmosphere without a source to fuel it, until it finally vanished entirely. Next, even the Asura’s avatar—the giant of light—disappeared as well. All that remained was the standard Photon-Frame and Leo staring down at his belt in dismay. His widened eyes were fixed on the slowly turning Prayer Wheel.
Yu didn’t hesitate. “Now, Rudra!”
He charged Devicer Seven faster than the wind. Placing his armored hands on the force field surrounding the boy, Yu once again activated the ultrasonic oscillator and the incapacitative paralytic sound propagator.
Leo shrieked and immediately lost consciousness.
“Rudra! Interface with the Mark VII’s intelligence and activate controlled flight! Life support functions to max!”
Leo was no friend of Yu’s. But unless he did something, the boy would have likely lost control and free-fallen all the way from the stratosphere. The Photon-Frame was supposedly linked with the user’s mental state, and it could weaken accordingly.
But just as Yu was basking in the solace of victory, a commlink came that made his stomach sink.
“Yu, I’m sorry! I really tried!” Natsuki shouted, frantic. “Three meteors got past me!”
“What?!”
“They haven’t landed yet, though! Can you help me clean them up?!”
“On it!”
Yu shot back down to Earth.
Natsuki controlled MUV Avatar: Vritra—the Mark VI’s incarnation in droid form—from a vacant lot in the northeast corner of Fukuoka. The flying saucer-shaped serpent shot down the storm of extraterrestrial rocks as they pierced the stratosphere, utilizing its entire suite of weaponry from photon lasers to supersonic missiles to high-powered particle cannons.
The Green Dragon Crescent Blade’s Prayer Wheel spun, singing the Traveler’s Hymn and supplying a constant flow of energy as Natsuki decimated the shower enough to allow nearly the entire barrage to burn to ash in the atmosphere. But it wasn’t enough.
“Gah, I can’t believe I missed three!”
Natsuki looked up at the sky in frustration. The stratosphere covered an area roughly between ten to fifty kilometers above sea level, and three fast-approaching asteroids had just broken through. They were now visible to the naked eye.
Ijuin looked up with her. “On one hand, this is kind of amazing to see, but on the other, we’re all totally gonna die!”
The falling masses of rock left trails of fire along their path over the Sea of Japan as they hurtled towards the city at a gruesome skew... They were clearly heading straight for northern Kyushu. And it was mere seconds before impact.
Natsuki, Ijuin, Executive Shiba, and Officer Kaji nodded to each other.
“All right!” the samurai girl cried. “I’m gonna head out and do the whole struggle in vain thing with Three while I still can!”
“Your attacks have definitely made them smaller,” Shiba said, slightly panicked. “They’ll only keep breaking apart as they fall. If you Devicers give it your all, there still might be a chance!”
“Oh, but if they blow up in the sky, we’ll still have the shock wave to deal with, just FYI!” Ijuin added.
“Aw, man,” Kaji moaned, clutching her head in anxiety. “I thought we were done when Three sorted Leo out, but now this! We’ve got to run for shelter!”
Natsuki regarded her with a sidelong glance as she swung the guandao Asura Frame. She floated up into the air and swiftly rose higher.
“Ein! The usual!”
“Understood. Fight well, Natsuki!”
The Replicant princess offered a prayer for victory as she transmitted the Gospel Code.
—The born that know not life live apart.
—And in death do we breathe while the mind clings on.
—Until death itself dies and we transcend beyond.
“Let’s go, Vritra! Doomsday Book part two!”
Natsuki thrust the Green Dragon forward and darted through the air. About a kilometer from the tip of the guandao was a meteor on a collision course with the ground, a burning fireball trailed by a line of smoke and light. Steadying her aim, Natsuki swung the Frame in a straight line, and a glowing edge shot towards the plunging rock. It instantly cut the burning mass clean in two as if slicing through paper.
And then, it stopped. Dead in the air. The smoke behind it froze, the light trapped in time. A black stain spread throughout the amputated fireball, even creeping along its white fumes. When the blackness consumed everything, it faded from existence.
Vritra’s Doomsday Book, chapter two—Karmic Break.
“A sword that can cut through causality itself, severing existence,” Natsuki muttered. “I think that’s what it is? Anyway, it lets me cut through anything, and that means one less space rock!”
While Natsuki celebrated her small victory, the Full-Armored Mark III was approaching yet another flaming meteor.
“Rudra! Ein! Deploy droids!” Yu commanded.
A swath of adaptive nanofactors spread out and transformed into five hundred MUV Crow Gauntlets, the clawed arms that the Mark III had equipped to itself. The arms rushed to the asteroid, keeping pace with its rapid descent, and covered it in a structured lattice of limbs. With a simultaneous attack of hundreds of electromagnetic heat radiators, the second meteor at last burst apart.
The shock wave displaced clouds for a hundred kilometers in every direction like the infrasonic blast of a volcanic eruption. Thankfully, however, it was still above the Sea of Japan, and only the abandoned Tsushima Archipelago sustained damages.
Only one meteor left. A young man shadowed the remaining target, watching alone from a single point in the sky.
“Now, heavenly blade. Fall.”
Quldald of the Whirlwind waved the magical artifact known as the Starcaller—and the earth exploded, violently and spectacularly. The third meteor crashed into Fukuoka.
Right on the reclaimed island by the sea where Natsuki had left the others.