The next battle happened several days later.
This hero had an aquatic theme, and just as expected, it was able to manipulate water. It resembled an enemy out of a comic book, but fighting a creature like that in real life was much more difficult than in the comics. It had appeared in the locker room of a swimming school. Next to it lay a red swimsuit and swimming cap.
Of course, water couldn’t be cut or punched. This battle was mostly on Koyuki.
“It’s so cold…!” she moaned.
The hero activated almost as soon as the fight began. With its ability to gradually fill the locker room with water, their work seemed cut out for them.
Koyuki took up position on top of a row of lockers as the sound of trickling water filled the room. So far, the water level was only up to their knees, but it was enough to sap the heat from their bodies subtly.
The hero’s egg was visible, ensconced deep within the creature’s liquid body. On the one hand, that made life simple, seeing as they didn’t have to search for it this time. But on the other, it seemed the egg was only visible because the hero didn’t need to hide it in the first place.
Azuma firmly gripped the hilt of his katana, which felt fairly familiar to his hand by this point, as he withdrew the blade in one smooth and silent motion, steady against the scabbard. He knew even this motion would cause a fair amount of pain.
But he wasn’t so weak that he would hesitate to draw his weapon in combat.
“What do you think, Koyuki? How many shots will it take?” Azuma asked.
“Ten might be enough to reach it… It seems pretty viscous.”
Koyuki had just fired off one shot earlier to check the creature’s viscosity. The bullet had penetrated the hero’s body with a quiet thwump, stopping just a few centimeters in.
“But if its body is thick and viscous…,” Azuma said, taking a step forward—he was both the captain and the point man. “That also means it will be slow to recover. I’ll secure a trajectory. You just shoot once I’ve opened up a path.”
“Fine by me, but try not to get hit. I only have so many bullets,” Koyuki said coldly before turning her attention back to finalizing her position.
Azuma took several steps toward the hero. Keeping his movements as economical as possible, he carried through with the momentum and struck at the creature in a flash.
The water split open. There was no blood. No screaming. It felt like cutting through slime. Almost immediately—before the cleft had a chance to close again—the sound of gunfire filled the air. The bullet, shot from behind by Koyuki, whistled past Azuma’s ear and buried itself into the hero’s body. Azuma quickly struck again, widening the gap.
They repeated this operation several times.
“We’ve gotten pretty deep.”
“Yes. This next shot should finish it.”
Azuma heard her quickly reload—the sound of metal dropping and bouncing and then splashing into the water. That’s going to be hell to clean later, Azuma thought, slashing as deep as he could this time before leaping back quickly. As he moved, he caught sight of Koyuki out of the corner of his eye, hunkering down into position, her eyes like steel. She had swapped Chronoses and now had a rifle suited for indoors but still capable of powerful impact.
She rose up slightly to redirect the fearsome weapon’s recoil, allowing Azuma to see her finger as it moved clearly. Then she fired.
Bam! Almost immediately, the air echoed with the sound of gunfire, and a hole split open in the hero’s body. There, inside that opening, was the egg.
Kaguya was not with them at the moment.
After learning of Koyuki and Kaguya’s conversation, Azuma had initially wanted to ban Kaguya from participating in missions for the time being. Koyuki had pleaded for him to do so as well. It wasn’t like they could rely on Kaguya all the time.
But there was always the possibility that being too heavy-handed could backfire and make things worse. Unable to ignore that possibility, he gave Kaguya permission to join them but only on the proviso that she keep her distance from the heroes. As a result, Kaguya was currently stationed farther back, on standby.
“Koyuki, I need to match your timing. How many more seconds?”
Koyuki didn’t answer.
“Koyuki,” he added more strongly. That seemed to snap her out of it.
“Sorry. Two and a half seconds.”
“Got it… Koyuki, I understand how you’re feeling, but right now—”
“Yeah. I got it. I said I was sorry,” she repeated, sulking slightly.
Azuma sighed inaudibly. He understood that Kaguya and Koyuki were fighting, but Kaguya wasn’t even here. Why was Koyuki letting it bother her so much?
The door to the locker room was closed. The only ones who were inside now were Azuma, Koyuki, and Rindou. Participation had been limited to those who could use Chronoses. Because the hero had appeared inside a pool locker room, the situation was more cramped than they were used to.
It looks like we’re going to wrap this up faster than I had thought.
Azuma opened another gash in the hero’s body, acquiring visual confirmation of the egg. Ignoring the unpleasantly gummy water that clung to his body, Azuma swung his katana as the creature continued to heal rapidly and aimed to slice the egg in two.
He felt the blow make contact. It was over. Now all they had to do was retrieve Kaguya and the others, head back to base…and think about how they would handle things the next time.
That was when Azuma noticed something was off.
The hero hadn’t dissolved.
There was no collapse. No dispersal. No breaking down. No fall.
Was this some new type of hero that didn’t die even once its egg was destroyed? Impossible! No organism could evolve to survive the destruction of its heart.
But the hero was still alive, despite the fact that Azuma had destroyed its egg. That could only mean one thing.
“A decoy!!”
There was a cracking sound, and then the egg broke. The hero’s body vanished, and a flood of water began pouring into the room, equal in volume to the size of the creature’s body.
“The real hero must be—”
Somewhere else? Outside—probably. Outside, where Kaguya was waiting.
Azuma tried to open the door, but the water pressure was too strong. He screamed, his voice lost in the sound of rushing water.
“Kaguya!!”
“…!!”
Kaguya froze, staring at the creature in front of her.
It appeared as soon as the locker room door was closed. It looked like a doll made of craggy stone.
“T-two heroes at once…?! Or is this some kind of clone…?!”
Kaguya fought back as hard as she could. She was essentially facing a boulder. She could see weaker chinks of flesh between the stone, but Kaguya was clearly outmatched, forced onto the defensive with her tiny little pistol.
Clone or not, it didn’t make much difference. This fight was all one-sided. She was doing what she could with her pistol, but the deficit in strength was too much. She was stuck on the back foot the entire time.
“Ah…!”
Before she knew it, the creature’s stone arm was coming straight for her face. Kaguya was trapped with nowhere to run.
But there was still hope. She wasn’t done yet.
Kaguya was holding her pistol, a Chronos, in her hand—and she was in the perfect position to shoot and enter this hero’s mental world. If she could get inside the hero, she could stop it.
Kaguya readied her weapon, just like always. She held it up to shoot, as she had done a thousand times before. All she had to do was squeeze the trigger, and the person inside the hero was sure to—
“Huh?”
She couldn’t do it. And it wasn’t because she had been attacked first. No, for some reason, her legs wouldn’t move. Her hands. All she had to do was pull the trigger, but…
“Wh-why?”
She froze. This wasn’t some ability the hero was using against her. She had been fine just a moment earlier.
“Lieutenant Shinohara!!” someone shouted.
The hero’s arm was moving straight toward Kaguya. Unless she did something now, she was going to die.
From out of the corner of her eye, she could see that someone was trying to force open the door. But it was obvious they were never going to do it in time.
In time…?
Since when did Kaguya need anyone to save her?!
“…!”
Just as the stone arm was about to connect, Kaguya dodged it by a hairsbreadth, pointed her gun at the hero, and pulled the trigger. Instantly, as if her consciousness were being funneled down, she disappeared within her target.