Ba-zammm!!!!!!
The deadly light beam fired, completely missing its target. The tilt-rotor had lost its balance and was rotating in place while steadily losing altitude, eventually crashing into the wall of the tower several levels below where Kaname and Midori were standing on the twentieth floor. The aircraft’s body dragged along the side of the tower as it continued to fall, spiraling to the ground in a hail of glass shards and iron plating.
There was no recovering it now.
They heard a loud explosion, and the entire building shook ominously. This sort of damage was far beyond what the earthquake mitigation systems were designed to deal with.
Kaname put his hand to his breast pocket, a bitter expression on his face. After everything I did to get Mother Loose and Smash Daughter on my side, he thought, I never needed to use my ace in the hole. Perhaps that’s because I didn’t have to look him in the eye and do it.
“…It’s over.”
Midori dropped the monstrous shotgun to the ground.
“We…,” she began in a whisper. “…We managed to go through with it in the end, didn’t we?”
As Midori went to peer over the edge of the ruined wall, Kaname grabbed her hand. He didn’t know why, but he felt like if he didn’t, she might suddenly fly away.
And yet.
“I wonder what it was, in the end,” said Kaname.
“Hmm?”
“#flash.err was no ordinary anti-air laser weapon—it was one of the Legacies. It should have had some sort of secret power that defied the laws of physics… And yet Takamasa lost without ever tapping into its full potential.”
This floor of the building had been ripped to shreds by the laser, but it had once been Takamasa’s research laboratory. And that man was a compulsive note taker (even though he had no need to be, since he could remember all the details of his projects in his head). Kaname had a quick look around to see what he could uncover, before taking out his smartphone and sending a message.
Kaname: Tselika, Cindy. We’re done here.
Tselika: We can see that, My Lord.
Kaname: Head over and check out the crash site. I want to know what state #flash.err is in.
Each Legacy exposed a glitch in Money (Game) Master. Kaname’s plan was to find them all and use them to lay bare the game’s secrets. If #flash.err was damaged, it could pose a problem.
Getting back on the leaf-patterned motorcycle, Kaname and Midori rode down to the first floor. There were still PMCs and Dealers hanging around, but Kaname didn’t need to bother with them now that their kingpin was down. It was a simple matter to shake them off.
Gunfire rang out from all around, but the shooters weren’t just aiming at the pair on the bike. Hanging on to Kaname from the rear seat, Midori looked around in panic.
“Wh-what?! Why are they shooting each other?!” she asked.
“Now that Takamasa’s out of the picture,” Kaname replied, “the PMCs he was controlling have returned to their original mission—the removal of any intruders from restricted zones.”
The Legacies were useless in the hands of the ignorant. Kaname doubted even a single Dealer would manage to get away with one of them.
After breaking through the crowd, Kaname noticed a few Dealers, already half dead, still stubbornly on his tail. He took care of each of them with a silenced .45-caliber bullet right between their eyes.
Tselika had kept her word and fished out the mint-green coupe. It was covered in mud but seemed to run well enough.
Kaname tossed her a revolver.
“Add this to the list. Picked it off a Dealer on the way down here. It’s called #firecracker.err. Don’t know what it does, though.”
“Hmph. I’d rather you picked up a new set of alloy wheels if I’m being perfectly honest.”
The blackened shell of Takamasa’s aircraft lay amid a sea of broken glass. The bespectacled dark elf crouched to examine it.
“It’s taken a beating,” she explained, “but it looks like the only damage is to the shipping container. The laser unit itself seems perfectly operable.”
“Even after falling twenty floors?”
“It wasn’t a straight drop; it was spiraling and scraping against the building. There should be plenty of semitrucks lying around. Let’s get this thing hooked up and get out of here as soon as possible.”
“I agree… Too bad Takamasa got away, though.”
At Kaname’s offhand comment, the air suddenly grew tense. It was Tselika who spoke up, her elbow resting on the driver’s seat window.
“Hold on, My Lord. Now, I didn’t want him to Fall any more than the rest of us, but…just look at that burned-up shell! Takamasa could not have survived, even if he had been wearing a blast suit!!”
“Take a look at this.”
Kaname showed her his smartphone. Its screen displayed photos of bits of paper. Documents, notes—remnants of a man who despised the digital. As usual, they were encrypted using Takamasa’s own proprietary scheme, but Kaname could decode them using the decryption key he’d swiped following his clash with Bloody Dancer.
“This explains the quirk behind #flash.err—the thing that makes it break the laws of physics.”
Kaname had previously acquired a list of all the Legacies, but that had only told him how many there were and their names. The only person who knew their effects in detail was Takamasa himself.
Kaname wished he’d had the time to read these notes earlier instead of having to wait until now.
“#flash.err has the ability to fire any object or material at the speed of light, not just light itself.”
“What?!”
“It ignores air resistance, friction, inertia, momentum, anything like that. It’s the ultimate transportation device. You could load it with a thermonuclear or biological weapon, and nobody would have time to shoot it down… And if you wanted to, you could even load a human body and send them into space.”
At the very last moment, the tilt-rotor had fired a shot in an unexpected direction.
Kaname had assumed it was a misfire due to the aircraft’s instability…but it wasn’t. Sensing he’d lost, Takamasa had activated #flash.err in order to escape.
“All Takamasa needs is for his Legacies to come into contact with the Zodiac Children. That’s why he’s not shy about lending them out. His priority isn’t hunting me down; it’s the Zodiac Children he’s after.”
“Kaname,” said Cindy, tossing him something she’d picked out of the wreckage.
It was a smartphone, though the screen was cracked. Kaname pulled out a cable and connected it to his own phone. Luckily, the internals still worked, and he brought up a view of the data on his own phone’s screen.
“Analysis results.”
“Of what?” asked Tselika. “What is there left to analyze at this point?!”
Suddenly, they could hear several sets of footsteps pounding the ground. The sound of military-spec boots scraping across the asphalt could mean only one thing—AI-controlled PMCs.
This had been Takamasa’s goal all along. He had finally tracked down one of the Zodiac Children, but if this game of cat-and-mouse went on any longer, he could lose them, or they could get caught in the cross fire and Fall. The base, the Legacies, they were all decoys. Decoys meant to lure Kaname deep into Takamasa’s territory and surround him with a thick wall of PMCs so he couldn’t escape. In the meantime, Takamasa could close in on his target without any interference.
The next battle had already begun. Kaname sucked in a deep breath, then explained what he had found.
✦ ✦ ✦
“It’s Pavilion…that girl with the auction obsession. She’s one of the Zodiac Children, just like me. This calls her the Maiden’s Survival.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Phew.”
Criminal AO, aka Takamasa, took a deep breath where he stood in the parking lot of a faraway diner.
He may have had to give up one of his hideouts, but the PMCs would keep Kaname busy for the time being. If only Kaname would agree to work with him, then he wouldn’t have to do this, but since there was hardly any hope of that, Takamasa thought it better to proceed with his plans while he had the chance.
The Zodiac Children.
Across all of humanity, there were only twelve. Twelve chances to succeed. It was actually quite generous, all things considered. It meant he didn’t need Kaname’s cooperation to secure victory.
…Still, very few Zodiac Children have revealed themselves. There are too many holes in the data, and I have to do a lot of extrapolation just to keep up.
Takamasa refused to turn to the Magistelli or AI society at large. As a result, he had to do all the calculations himself.
The task at hand was simple. Whatever he did in this game required money.
Kaname’s been raiding my safe deposit boxes wherever he can find them. I guess it’s time to change tack…
Just then.
✦ ✦ ✦
Click!
He felt the cold steel of a gun barrel pressed against his back.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Huh.”
The voice sounded unconcerned, but Takamasa had no way of turning around.
“How’s this for proof?” The voice continued. “I bet you didn’t expect me to get the drop on you, right?”
Stuck facing away, Takamasa glanced at a window in the wall of the diner to see who stood behind him.
“…Lily-Kiska.”
“I’m a lot better than you are at predicting what people will do,” she said. “Whether it’s gunfights or trading, you’ll never catch me off guard.”
Takamasa took a deep breath, then asked a question.
“A bolt-action sniper rifle? What happened to the gun I gave you, #swallowdive.err?”
“I find it’s more effective if I save it for the right occasion. Besides, Kaname Suou needs all the Legacies, doesn’t he?”
Takamasa listened to her words, but he couldn’t grasp what she was up to. Even Criminal AO, the master of analysis, was stumped.
Lily-Kiska had always been an excellent sniper, but even she had never been capable of coming this far. She had to be using something to compensate. Takamasa realized what it was immediately.
“You’ve teamed up with them.”
“So what if I have?”
“You, a Zodiac Child! You were supposed to join forces with me and take down the AI for the sake of humanity!!”
“Unfortunately, I don’t care what happens to humanity. Now that I know I can get the drop on a legend, next time will be more than a rehearsal. I’m going after him.”
A merciless gunshot rang out.