Due to its location far off the coast, floating in the Wakayama Bay between Shikoku and the Kii Peninsula, Nayuta was relatively safe from Anomaly attacks. Or at least, it had been until two or so months ago.
Airborne and aquatic Anomalies were becoming more prevalent. The city had been discovered. And the masters of the portal-keeps, the archmages that Yu himself had faced, had set their sights on it—the Chosen Dharva, Scullchance of the Pride and Quldald of the Whirlwind.
Half-fish, half-man merfolk had invaded—anthropomorphic creatures coated in scales, with gill-like slits along their neck and fins jutting out from their limbs. Nearly two hundred of them were encroaching on Nayuta, wielding vicious-looking tridents, and they leaped gracefully from the ocean depths along the perimeter of the harbor. The unfortunate dock workers were the first fatalities. The merfolk skewered their soft flesh like shish kebabs, but the humans were swift and fierce in their response.
Militia volunteers rushed to the scene. There weren’t enough hands around Nayuta for the city to maintain a standing army, so in times of emergency, every resident in possession of a weapon was called to action. Participation would be compensated. The only permanent military officials on the island were executives like Shiba, and the settlement owed much of its long-standing safety to its brave conscripts.
Now it was their job to protect the city once more. A seemingly simple task against the merfolk, given their lack of firearms--but it wasn’t that simple after all. The scales lining the enemy’s body were tough as iron, possibly tougher. Standard firepower couldn’t put a dent in them.
“Guns don’t work!”
Exceptionally strong weapons, like high caliber rifles or shotguns, however, proved effective. Machine guns showed some manner of success as well, mostly in that there were more bullets to potentially hit an eye or gap in the scales. But anyone unlucky enough to have been equipped with a sidearm—or, heavens forbid, a bladed weapon—met with a gruesome death at the ends of the enemy’s three-pronged spears. Those even more unlucky were torn to shreds by their jagged, razor-sharp teeth.
Before long, the chaos was underscored by the low wailing of the settlement’s emergency siren.
Elsewhere in the harbor was the moored Naval Defense warship.
“Anomalies in the city!”
“Move, move, move! Rescue civilians! Hustle!”
The Izumo-class destroyer’s days of seafaring were over, but that didn’t stop what was left of the Defense, about one hundred twenty people all told, from making use of the convenient living space. Nothing was necessarily stopping them from living ashore, where there was functional, albeit limited, electricity and running water. Yet they chose to remain on the ship, purely out of distrust for the elves and their artificial city.
“Bet those elf assholes called ’em here!” one sailor spat.
“The hell’re they doing up in that tower? Can’t trust a thing those sneaky bastards do until they come clean and let the real leaders take charge.”
“They’ve even got the old Diet members in their pocket.”
“And our old superior officers. Scratch that, former superior officers.”
“Would you all zip it?” a tall young man interrupted. “Go and protect those civilians!”
Captain Shiro Sakuma was both the oldest and highest-ranking member aboard the warship. Partly because few commissioned officers had made it to Nayuta, partly because anyone old enough to outrank him was too infirm and simply wanted to live in peace. And it wasn’t long before the elves had them wrapped around their fingers.
So the younger officers denounced the cowards, defected to the decommissioned Izumo destroyer, and began to plot their takeover of the settlement. Against their superiors’ orders. Naval, Ground, Air—branch divisions stopped mattering underneath their shared goal. A goal that Sakuma championed as their leader. At his command, the group hurried off the ship and rushed to the people’s aid.
Meanwhile, Yu looked at Ein in panic.
“What do I do?!” he shouted. “I can’t armorize!”
“Stay calm, Yu! No hero can stand on every battlefield. Help me aid our allies from a distance!”
“R-Right!”
“Take the controls and I’ll attack!”
The MUV Airmobile glided towards the harbor with Yu in the driver’s seat. Ein aimed her rifle from behind him and pulled the trigger once. Twice. Each time, one of the merfolk fell, punched between the eyes, beneath the arms, along the seams between scales around the waist—anywhere Ein could find a kink in their natural armor. Yu stabilized the Airmobile along the water, giving her as clear a shot as possible.
“Sorry, guys. Me and Shiba tried to get the droids up, but by the time we did the fight was already over.”
“Don’t beat yourself up, Ijuin.”
Yu listened to Ijuin and Aliya’s conversation via commlink, but his mind was elsewhere. He stood alone at the harbor.
“The surveillance droids all have eyes on the air,” Aliya said. “It was just bad luck that they came from under the ocean.”
“We’ll have to start keeping watch down there now too,” said Ijuin.
“I’ll look into seeing if we have any droids that work underwater.”
The fight had ended about half an hour ago, and the docks were still ringing with the post-battle silence. Some of the militia volunteers were celebrating their survival with a few cigarettes—precious commodities that weren’t consumed lightly. Others grieved for lost friends. Ein was going around offering comfort and words of consolation to them. Shiba, too, was busy scurrying around on executive duty. Paying the volunteers, compensating the families of the dead, and organizing the paperwork was part of his job.
And for those lost, there were just as many wounded, bleeding from holes bored by the merfolk’s tridents. Those with injuries too deep to treat themselves were transported to Central Tower by relief vehicles, and those who didn’t have that kind of time were being surrounded by expedient EMS teams composed of elves from the tower’s emergency room.
Despite being in a state of crisis, their beauty and skill was captivating. Even to their barely conscious patients. Their harried yet precise techniques captivated the audience as if they were putting on a thoroughly practiced performance.
Not everyone was amused, however.
“Get off of me! I don’t want...your help!” a man in a military uniform groaned. Despite the blood gushing from the gash in his flank and the dark circles of death forming beneath his eyes, he was somehow still awake. And he refused to let the elves near him. “If Three had been here... If Devicer Three had been here, this’d never have happened! He’d have saved us! Just like he did before! Stop hiding him, damn you!”
“At ease, sergeant,” a tall and attractive young man interjected. He addressed the elves. “We’ll treat our own.”
Yu recognized him. It was Sakuma, the captain who had barged into the MRI room, and the goalie he had played soccer with. A group of people who looked to be his subordinates gathered around the critically wounded man and placed him on a stretcher, heedless of the elvish doctors’ warnings.
The people within earshot of the scuffle suddenly started to whisper with uncertain expressions.
“Hey, yeah, I thought Devicer Three was back. Where is he?”
“The elves are hiding him? How would they even do that? The Asura Frame’s the strongest weapon in the world.”
“I mean, the elves did make it. It’s not that far-fetched.”
“But how do we even know the rumors that he’s back aren’t a load of bull?”
“You calling me a liar?! I seen him with my own eyes! Saved my life, he did!”
The relief and triumph of a battle won had all at once become shrouded by doubt. Shouting matches started to break out over what was true and what was mere gossip, and some were getting heated.
“You know what? It doesn’t even matter if he’s back or not!” someone screamed, making Yu jump. He looked around for the source of the shout. “The cold, hard truth is Three left his nation and countrymen to die when they needed him most! I hope to god he is back, ’cause if I see him...”
The man took a swig of some clear liquid from an unlabeled bottle in his hand. Yu could smell the alcohol from where he stood. It couldn’t have been anything commercially sold, so it had to be home-brewed. And poorly, at that. Clearly he’d wasted no time indulging himself once the battle was over. He was plopped lazily onto the ground, his Type 89 thrown haphazardly to his side—Defense Force standard-issue.
Upon closer inspection, Yu could just barely make out a camouflage pattern beneath the dirt and grime on his clothes. He was ex-military.
“You’ve got some balls to talk like that, old man,” someone growled.
“And what’ve you done, huh?! He saved lives!”
“And look where that’s gotten us.” The veteran scoffed. The crowd stepped closer. “H-Hey now, back up. Listen, I get it, I crossed the line.”
A mob of fans, frantic with worry for their hero, formed around the disdainful old man, and they started to assault him. Fists were thrown and feet were brought down wildly. Bystanders tried to break up the violence as best they could.
It was his fault. Yu dragged his feet into motion and started to leave. His heart felt like it would burst at any moment.
“Looks like you’re pretty popular.”
Yu turned around and saw Natsuki. She was smiling. As carefree today as she was the day before and every day before that. But Yu wasn’t in the mood to smile just then. He wanted to be alone.
He turned his back to her once more. “Sorry, I’m not...feeling too well.”
He took a single step forward, when he felt a hand clamp down on his shoulder. Natsuki had sneaked up on him without a sound.
“Sorry to hear that,” she said. “Why don’t you come back to my place with me?”
“But—”
“But nothin’! What, am I not good enough for you?” Natsuki locked her arm with Yu’s and pressed her body against his, turning him around the opposite direction and dragging him along. “I could pick you up like a princess if you want. You did say you weren’t feeling good.”
“I-I’ll manage.”
“I’ll take that as consent. You and me are going on a date.”
“How is this a date?!” Yu exclaimed.
“Look at us, dude.” She smirked mischievously. “Ein’d kill me if she saw this.”
It dawned on Yu that she had a point. Walking arm-in-arm the way they were was just asking for misunderstandings. He tried to wiggle free, but he might as well have been trying to bend iron. Natsuki wasn’t going anywhere.
She winked at him in her usual charismatic way. “Gimme a chance and hear an old pal out, won’tcha?”
Yu finally realized that this wasn’t about her. It was about him. Although her appearance certainly made her the center of attention, Natsuki was not a self-centered person. She was worried for her young friend and wanted to be there for him.
He stopped resisting. He wasn’t sure how to thank her for her compassion, but he was glad she was there, and his eyes started to burn with emotion.