Maybe it was because he kept shifting position, but his aim wasn’t very consistent; he would hit the creature in the head, then the shoulder. Then he would miss with a shot...
But no matter. He had stopped Hatsune from crushing Dasa. In fact, Hatsune kept having to move right and left to dodge the bullets, using her left arm to cover her chest and then her head—in other words, the places where the machine was joined to her body. It seemed like it was causing her great deal of trouble.
She might have been able to ignore Dasa’s Red Chili, even from close range, but Derrringer’s sniper rounds appeared to nettle her. She was taking care to evade or defend against them.
“No way...”
Still clutched in her right hand, Yukinari focused on the sparks. Suddenly, he realized he could see tiny holes in the armor all around the giant’s body.
Derrringer uses armor-piercing rounds. That’s why...
As we’ve said, Derrringer was originally designed to counter the statues of the guardian saint; hence it was created with anti-armor properties. Due to the extremely long barrel, the explosive power from the charge could be converted into muzzle velocity without any waste, and the tips of the bullets also had a pointed, armor-piercing shape and smooth surface. Thus, they were capable of making holes in the giant’s armor even from a great distance.
Arlen tenaciously continued sniping. At a glance, it looked like he was merely making sparks fly off the giant’s armor, but in fact he was slowly but surely producing a series of tiny holes. And since Hatsune had to defend against the assault, she had to put off killing Dasa or Yukinari.
It was unlikely that the giant was equipped with any long-range weaponry. So even if the sniper shots weren’t doing serious damage, her armor was exposed to a unilateral attack.
Not all of the sniper shots pierced the giant’s armor. Some came in at too shallow an angle and simply bounced off. Others only scratched the surface.
But this giant, mobile humanoid contraption that it was, did not have perfectly uniform armor. There were presumably places that could be destroyed by Derrringer, such as the joints, or the organs that were cycling Holy Oil to help it move. Weak or vital points. Hatsune certainly wouldn’t want any of those to be damaged. Yukinari assumed she could repair them, but she would be vulnerable while doing so.
This turned out to be a spectacular way of stopping Hatsune cold despite her having the powers of an angel, which should have made her more potent than any human being. No matter how large something was, the person controlling it could only focus on one thing at a time.
“Well, all right then.” Yukinari twisted around, placing a hand on one of the giant’s fingers.
He used physical reconstitution—or rather, simple dissolution.
The finger went limp, its joints destroyed. Yukinari forced his way out of the hand’s grip. He moved to the arm, then grabbed onto the giant’s chest. He dissolved the top layer of armor there as a starting point, then went on breaking things down. Hatsune immediately tried to repair herself, but with Arlen peppering her with sniper rounds, she couldn’t muster enough focus to stop Yukinari.
Using his powers of physical reconstitution, Yukinari began to bore into the metal giant. The creature twisted, attempting to pluck him out, plunging its hand into its own wound, but the metal monster lacked the flexibility of living flesh. Its hand got caught on its own armor and couldn’t reach him.
What a strange feeling, Yukinari reflected briefly. He was practically among the monster’s organs. He was literally inside Hatsune’s body.
If Hatsune were to use all her angel powers in reverse—essentially, to focus everything she had on dissolution—then she and Yukinari both would be turned to dust.
That meant he had to end this before the idea occurred to her. At length...
“Hatsune.”
The feel of the “digging” changed. Yukinari forced himself into the space his hand had found—and there was Hatsune’s face. Her body was all but buried in a mess of metal pipes, several of which pierced her flesh. Perhaps, by sharing Holy Oil with this beast, she was able to extend her senses to the giant itself.
She was utterly unable to resist. The structure she had created to control the giant was also her cage. Of course, she could attempt to remove her arms and legs from the giant by force, but at this range Yukinari would never allow her to do it.
“Hatsune...” Yukinari reached out and brushed aside her bangs, her forehead slick with sweat. It was an achingly familiar face; his sister as she had looked when they were young. He stroked her lovely cheeks and forehead tenderly—and then he brought up the Red Chili he had formed in his left hand and pressed the barrel to Hatsune’s head.
The chamber was loaded with an armor-piercing round. He had triple-charged the shot, using three times as much gunpowder as normal. This bullet would cut through anything, titanium or not. Even if the bullet was somehow stopped, the shockwave wouldn’t be.
He cocked the hammer.
“Hatsune... I’m sorry.”
He wanted those to be his last words to her. But then...
“...Mn. Thank you.”
She spoke at the same instant that the hammer was coming down, that the gun was firing.
Yukinari was shocked. Why had she said that? But his question could not stop the gun.
The gunshot roared inside the metal giant, reverberating from every surface. At the same instant as blood sprayed out of the back of Hatsune’s head, the giant went limp, slowly collapsing to its knees before it began to fall apart piece by piece.
With a series of great crashes, its armor came off and its structure began to disintegrate, the pieces of it falling apart around Yukinari’s ears. He dragged Hatsune out from her place at the heart of the giant machine, and atop what was now a mountain of metal junk, he asked: “Why? Why...? Why would you say thank you? I knew you must have been brainwashed...”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Who... me...? Of course not...” The words dripped hesitantly from her lips, along with blood-like Holy Oil. The red liquid leaking from her eyes, ears, nose, and mouth was a sign of how severely she had been injured by the shockwave as it passed through her—but miraculously, she still retained a measure of consciousness.
“I just had... poison... in me...”
“What...?”
“My life in this world... was only ever going to be... six months or so.”
She had made her decision to die once—but then she had been brought back to life in this world. Ordered to kill her beloved brother, and with only six months to live at that. And so...
“I thought it might be nice... if we could die together...”
Was she talking about their previous world? Or this one?
“You could have just neutralized it with your angel powers!”
“I couldn’t... It was mixed into the Holy Oil... flowing through my body...”
“No...”
“Don’t make... that face.” Hatsune smiled, her features covered in blood. “The best thing for me... would have been to die with you, my dear Yuki... But if that’s not possible... then, at least to die by your hand...”
“That’s ridiculous...”
“Yes... I suppose it is...”
Hatsune convulsed. Or was that laughter?
“Sweet Yuki... I died in that world... and only my soul came here, right? I was reborn into a new body, wasn’t I...?”
“Yeah. That’s what it sounds like.”
“What about my baby...?”
“What?”
“Our child... I wasn’t able to give birth to it, but do you suppose... it’s been reborn here... too...?”
Yukinari found himself unable to speak. He had never even considered it. But if babies—if fetuses—had souls, too...
“If it... has... then, Yuki... If you find that child... make it happy... the way you made... me happy.”
“Hatsune—”
“Tell it... its mother says... sorry.”
There was nothing more Yukinari could say. He hated himself for not having known. He was angry at himself for having been unable to do anything.
“My dear Yuki... My dear, sweet... Yuki...”
It seemed the miraculous time they had been granted was almost up; Hatsune’s voice was fading.
“A sister...” A soft voice spoke suddenly. “...ought to be separated from her brother one day.”
“Dasa...”
The girl with the glasses looked expressionlessly down at Hatsune—at the angel who looked so much like her. Her words may have sounded ruthless, but—
“You’re... right. I’ll... sleep, now...” For some reason, Hatsune was smiling. “I’m sorry.”
Those were the last words she spoke. Just as she had said she would, she closed her eyes as if sleeping, and then ceased to move. Even through his armor, Yukinari could feel the warmth seeping out of her, her spiritual power dispersing.
“Dammit...”
This word of regret was the only one he could summon. What Hatsune had done was unforgivable, and her logic was something he could never accept. And yet, she had been his family, the person he had loved most, and the only other one like him in this world. How could his heart not ache to have her torn away from him again?
Why hadn’t they been able to speak differently in this brief life she’d been given here? Why hadn’t they been able to live differently?
Wracked with regret, all Yukinari could do was weep.