Two weeks after the battle between Nayuta and the portal-keep...
“Ein!”
“I can always count on you, Yu!”
Yu, dressed in his kit, displayed a brilliant through pass to the Replicant girl. She was garbed in the same outfit and had skillfully slipped past the defense with a beautiful off-the-ball maneuver. Catching up with the ball in front of the opponents’ goal, she delivered a textbook-perfect kick without even trapping it first and sent it straight out of the goalie’s grasp. It was her second goal of the match.
Her teammates ran up to congratulate their new superstar, but Ein was already throwing her arms around Yu, nuzzling her cheek against his.
“P-Personal space, Ein!” he stammered.
“Do the athletes of this sport not all embrace one another when a point is scored? The others can wait! I wish to share this moment with you!”
“Soccer is a team sport! You can’t show favoritism on the field!”
“Well, I’m going to anyway!” Ein pouted. “I know you and Natsuki were doing something very similar behind my back.”
“Not this intimately!”
They owed this frivolous moment of peace to the efforts of everyone in the city who had been busy dealing with the aftermath of the battle. Only now had they found the time to resume their regular soccer matches as a bit of respite. Many talented players had scouted Yu for their teams, but ultimately he’d chosen a more casual one. One where he could play with his friends.
“Lady Ein’s known about soccer for barely a month,” Ijuin said from the sidelines. “How’s she pulling off plays like that already?”
Shiba stood nearby, holding a paper cup of watered-down shochu liquor and idling away his day off. “Her footwork could still use some practice,” he remarked. “But her game sense is impressive. And that sort of thing doesn’t come easy.”
“You’re the one who set Ichinose up with his team, yeah? You like soccer?”
“I watched it quite a bit. A lot of J1. Occasionally foreign leagues,” Shiba replied, smiling mildly as the game resumed. “Your friend’s an observant guy, you know? Solid judgment and a quick thinker too. It’s funny seeing him play soccer like he uses the Mark III.”
“I wish Her Highness would hurry and grow tired of this particular fancy,” a less enthusiastic spectator grumbled.
“Or else she’ll be dragging you outside every week, I bet,” Aliya said teasingly. “Just like today.”
Nadal grunted and quickly changed the subject. “Anyway, about the Mark VI Frame,” he muttered. “I believe we owe its awakening to you, Aliya.”
“Y-You think so too?” she murmured.
“We’ll need more data to know for certain. But it is safe to say that your nano-abilities may be coming into a new kind of power. We’ll have to investigate the Mark III’s awakening next.” The speaker stroked his chin. “My sources tell me you conducted tests by inducing a sort of artificial awakening via the previous Devicer’s ashes. But given the circumstances surrounding the Mark VI, you appear to be the common denominator.”
“Me?”
He nodded. “If you possess the power to bring life back to dormant Asura Frames, then perhaps there is still hope for...” Nadal’s words trailed off into his mind.
Aliya shrugged, more than aware that once he was gone, there was no bringing him back.
“Long story short, I’m pretty sure that means you saved the day,” Natsuki chimed in next to her. She wore her peony furisode like always, but her trademark katana was nowhere to be seen. That was because she didn’t need it anymore; her new partner was at her beck and call. She grinned lazily at the ongoing match. “A lot of people lost their lives, but even more are still here thanks to you.”
“Oh!” Aliya exclaimed. “Ein scored again.”
With her third goal, the game was set. It had been an impressively flashy volley, and now she was forcing Yu into yet another round of nonconsensual skinship. Once she had hugged him to a satisfactory degree, she went around high-fiving the other teammates.
And then she came to the last of them.
“You play well,” she complimented him. “Guard steadfast!”
“Right...” he replied.
“Show me your palm. We must share the moment!”
The young goalkeeper hesitated for a while, before softening his expression and surrendering. The two high-fived. The former captain had yet to give up a single point to an enemy team. Sakuma had indeed played well.
Natsuki nodded as she watched. “Heard the coup got brushed under the rug, and now he’s an executive for the militia.”
“My uncle and a few other people probably have some concerns about that,” Aliya said, glancing at Nadal. He was still off in his own world. “But at the end of the day, he’ll probably say we’re ‘simply too short-staffed to afford turning competent workers away!’”
Natsuki laughed. “So decrees the great Devicer Three, after all.”
“They’re still everyone’s hero, even though the military has no idea who they are anymore. Apparently that captain let Yu join the team with Ein without much of a fuss.”
The team that the two of them had joined consisted primarily of people within the Defense Force. Shiba was apparently acquainted with them from his Ground Defense days, which was how he had managed to set them up.
“People change when they’ve got a weapon in their hands, especially in chaotic times like these,” Natsuki murmured resolutely. “I’m glad no one here did.”
“Where’s this coming from?” Aliya asked.
“I’ve seen it happen a lot. People take up guns and swords ’cause they’re scared of the Anomalies, but eventually everyone tends to find an excuse to start pointing them at each other. It’s easy to make people listen through the barrel of a rifle.” She took a breath. “I’m tellin’ you. Three whole seasons. So much drama.”
“Oh... Yeah.”
“They weren’t kidding when they said you never know what you have ’til you lose it,” Natsuki said. “There was a reason we had the protectors, the peacekeepers, the criminals, the lawmakers—all these different people in specific roles. When everyone’s got a weapon, and everyone’s trying to enforce their own authority, well, that’s when you get crap like people at the end of the century trying to be supreme rulers, if you know what I mean.” She laughed again, her tone still serious. “But Yu... He’s got the strongest weapon of all, and he’s still Yu. I feel like sticking with him’s the right thing to do.”
She spoke that last part not as Natsuki Hatano, but as Devicer Six.
The boy in question was in the middle of a pass, running down the opposing team’s defense. In that moment, he appeared as nothing more than a middle schooler playing soccer. The truth, though, was that he was the black and gold warrior.
He was the one.
“Come to think of it,” Aliya muttered, “I wonder where the other Devicers are?”