“…I only had two seconds left…,” Chiyuri muttered regretfully in his arms.
Haruyuki started to nod and then stopped himself and shook his head forcefully. “No, if you kept going like that, he would’ve run you down. You’re our trump card, Chiyu. As long as you survive, we’ll make as many chances as you need.”
“…Right. I’ll go smash some buildings and charge up my special-attack gauge.”
“Do it!” This time, he nodded deeply and descended to the ground, where he passed Chiyuri to Takumu. “Taku, guard Chiyuri until she’s charged up! There was a building just to the south of the crater that looked breakable! Niko and I will lead that guy away!”
“Roger, Haru! Red King! Don’t do anything reckless!”
“We’ll be back in a minute!” Chiyuri added.
As the childhood friends raced off, Mark II spun around at the northern edge of the crater, smoke snaking up from all six of its squealing tires. It stopped with Haruyuki and his comrades before it, and the six shutter leaves protecting the eye opened slightly. Even if it was a lump of Enhanced Armament moved by something inhuman, it apparently still needed to see what was outside.
Mark II, Haruyuki, and Niko glared at one another for a bit, separated by less than fifty meters.
“Crow,” Niko murmured abruptly, standing to Haruyuki’s immediate right. “I’ll say this now. Thanks for coming to rescue me.”
Haruyuki swallowed before responding in a hushed tone, “Of course. I mean, you came with us to help us, after all.”
“But gettin’ caught by that pile of panels was entirely on me. And four o’ my Enhanced Armaments got taken ’cause I couldn’t get out of that restraint under my own power. So all the responsibility for this sitch is on me.”
“……”
The small, red-type avatar spoke with resolve, her eye lenses still turned toward Mark II. “So I’ll finish this guy off. You take Pile and Bell and head back to Midtown. Don’t worry. Once we take care of this lug and get my Enhanced Armament back, Pard and I will—”
Haruyuki grabbed hold of Niko’s wrist tightly. He had no intention of letting her say anything more. “We all go back together, Niko. I made a promise.”
“I said I’d protect you.” He didn’t say those words out loud, but he believed she heard them through the armor of their touching avatars.
Niko didn’t answer right away. Instead, she raised her hand and gripped Haruyuki’s tightly in return. “…nks.” She murmured something in a voice so faint that Haruyuki couldn’t catch what she said, and then she shouted loudly to make up for it, “Ya never listen, huh? Even though you’re just a baby bird! Well, that’s it, then. We’ll knock this guy flying together!!”
“Roger!!”
As if roused by the pair’s combined battle spirit, the armored tank also jetted dark steam from the gill slits covering it. The eye shutter opened even farther, and a red light flickered in the darkness inside. Deep down in that darkness, Wolfram Cerberus was being held prisoner.
After appearing in the middle of a duel with Haruyuki, Cerberus II said he’d been “tuned for a certain purpose.” And this purpose was to equip that thing Haruyuki had sealed away. This “thing” was obviously the original Armor of Catastrophe, the Enhanced Armament, the Disaster. But the armor had been split into its original components using Ardor Maiden’s purification ability and left to rest in a place where no one could touch it for all eternity.
The Acceleration Research Society, most likely having learned this fact through Argon Array when she’d attended the meeting of the Seven Kings, had thus launched their backup plan. Use the ISS kits, the Red King’s Enhanced Armament, and Cerberus III aka Dusk Taker’s theft ability to produce a new Armor.
The reason the Acceleration Research Society was so utterly fixated on the Armor of Catastrophe was unclear. It might have been simply because they wanted to sow destruction and confusion in the Accelerated World, but it also could have been nothing more than one element in a much larger plan.
But there was no need to wrestle with that now. If they could rewind Mark II with Chiyuri’s Citron Call and return Invincible to its original owner, they could thwart the Society’s scheme. And they’d be able to free Cerberus from this mission he hadn’t wanted, because he would no longer serve any purpose to the Society.
“Just wait, Cerberus. We’ll make you a regular Burst Linker soon, just like I am. And then we’ll fight again. We’ll win and lose and delight and cry. Any number of times,” Haruyuki vowed.
Almost as if sneering at this promise, the armored tank moved the main armaments on either side of the vehicle body. The 60-second recharge time had long since passed, so Haruyuki was ready for the fearsome lasers of annihilation to be fired at any second. He just had to dodge the attack one more time and close in on the tank.
The Armor of Catastrophe, Chrome Disaster—he should probably call it Mark I now—had had any number of abilities. On top of the greatsword that was its main weapon, there was the Wire Hook launched from both hands, the fire-breath attack Flame Breath, the short-distance teleportation Flash Blink, and the ability to make the health gauge of a devoured enemy its own, Energy Drain. But these techniques had been left to the armor by the successive wearers. The newly born Mark II should have only had Cerberus’s armor strength and Invincible’s main armaments. If they stuck close to the vehicle body, they’d muddle through this somehow.
“I’ll fly right before it fires,” Haruyuki murmured, still holding Niko’s hand.
“Counting on ya.”
Evading the laser on the ground meant they would get sucked into an explosion of the same scale as the single blow that had created the crater where they currently stood. They would need to make it shoot into the sky and dodge it there like they had with the second shot.
The eye of the tank opened even wider. The instant the overflowing red malice flashed brightly, Haruyuki instinctively kicked off the ground and flew. Yanking Niko up, he engaged his four wings with everything he had. The double barrels turned sharply up to chase them as they rapidly ascended.
Zzshunn! The launch of the reddish-black lances shook the air. Haruyuki dropped to the left and twisted through the sky to avoid them. Powerful though they might be, a straight trajectory long-distance attack with no homing function wouldn’t be able to take Haruyuki down as easily as—
“Crow! Still coming!” Niko shouted suddenly, while a second heavy vibration tried to drown her out.
Mark II had fired the two guns separately.
“Nngh!!” Haruyuki yanked himself out of the roll to the left and veered to the right. The pressure threatened to rip his entire body apart, but he gritted his teeth and kept turning. The great nihilistic lances grazed the tip of his lower-left wing, sending black sparks shooting off around them. Although he tried to pull away, the laser itself seemed to have some kind of gravity; he was being yanked toward it whether he liked it or not…
“Rah…Raaargh!!” In response to Haruyuki’s battle cry, Metatron’s wings flapped powerfully. The momentary thrust severed the laser’s pull, and Haruyuki and Niko started a sharp descent, spinning and falling downward to the right.
In the center of his upside-down field of view, he could clearly see the massive bulk of the armored tank. Perhaps intending to avoid a collision with Haruyuki and Niko, the many tires were spinning frantically backward, while the shutter in the eye started to close.
“Like I’m lettin’ that happen!” Niko thrust her gun forward and fired blindly. Flames of impact bloomed one after another around the shutter, and the speed at which it was closing slowed.
“Laser…” Concentrating on the image of light in his left hand, he shouted at the top of his lungs, “…Lance!!”
He thrust his hand downward, taking advantage of the added speed of their free fall, and a silver light jetted forth to hit Mark II’s eye just as the shutter was on the verge of closing completely.
The blowback to his arm was fierce; sparks flew fr
om his wrist and elbow joints. The 50 percent remaining in his health gauge was cut that much further, but the shutter that protected the enemy’s eye was damaged. It stopped moving, leaving a hole about five centimeters across.
“Niko! There!” Haruyuki said as he spread his four wings and decelerated, but Niko was already stretching out her right hand, the red handgun clenched tightly in her small fingers, and pulling the trigger.
Krk, kew, kew, kew! Six light bullets drove into the darkness of the hole.
The massive armored tank shuddered fiercely, emitting a strange pained noise: “Deel…looroodeeroo…!!”
We gotta keep this up! Haruyuki flung himself at the front of the tank, half colliding with it, and grabbed onto the opening of a gill slit with his left hand. He had no sooner checked that Niko was similarly supporting herself than he was opening his hand and brandishing it high above his head.
“Laser…” Pushing his imagination to the limit, he brought a powerful light into his right hand. If he could pierce the eye, even the mighty Mark II should stop moving. The power of the nihilistic laser and the transformation into Dreadnought put the fear of the fight in him, but he would end it all right now. Today, he would forever check the ambitions of the Acceleration Research Society. He started to bring down his light sword—
But he failed to notice one thing. The fact that Mark II had fired the two guns at different times showed its learning ability—the evolution of its fighting style.
The word sword was on the verge of leaving his throat in a yell when a black shadow, a fast-moving mist, charged in on him from both sides of the vehicle and seized him. “Wha—?!”
“Crap!!” Niko yelped at the same time.
They were already being peeled away from the front of the tank with an irresistible force, caught up in Mark II’s arms, which had supposedly fused into the sides of the tank. Three massive talons squeezed his avatar, and the incredible pressure made his armor squeal. His health gauge dropped even further until it was dyed a deep yellow.
“Ni…Niko…!” Fighting back the dizzying pain, Haruyuki desperately reached out with his right hand, now bereft of the Incarnate light.
But he couldn’t reach Niko where she was trapped by the arm growing from the left side of the tank. Before his eyes, the crimson armor—already badly beaten—split and crumbled with tiny fragments gleaming like blood as they fell to the ground. She might have been a level-nine king, but the armor strength of the pure, long-distance-type Scarlet Rain was likely less than that of his metal color. But she did not so much as groan in pain.
“Tch! Messed that up,” she remarked bravely. “Forgot this guy’s arms’ve got hands, unlike my Dreadnought.”
“Hang on. I’ll…get out soon!”
Perhaps it was fortunate that he was being held on the top of the tank. Unlike Niko, who was snugly wrapped up in the massive fist, arms and all, Haruyuki was held only from the waist down, leaving his arms and wings free. Enduring the agony, he brandished his right hand once more and called back the Incarnate light. His Laser Lance had a range of more than ten meters, so it should make it to her.
“Forget about me!” Niko shouted in a sharp voice before he could launch the technique. “Hit the eye!!”
“B-but!”
“I’m not gonna get done in by somethin’ like this! Hurry and shoot, Crow!!” The Red King sounded like her impatience was greater than her pain. She must have felt it, too: that Mark II’s battle sense was improving at a terrifying rate.
“Got it!” With no other choice, Haruyuki shifted his gaze from Niko to the armored tank. Although the shutter was damaged, the diameter of the hole that led to the eye—the monster’s lone weak point—wasn’t even five centimeters. He might not make it through the hole with Metatron Wings’s Ektenia. His only option was his Laser Lance, but would he be able to accurately fire at a pinhole while his lower body was being crushed?
No, it wasn’t a matter of could or could not. He had to. He turned the tip of the Incarnate lance lodged in his right hand toward Mark II’s single eye. His silver overlay output was unstable; it trembled and flickered.
More. More light! He focused intently on pulling out every bit of energy left to him.
Mark II didn’t let this mere millisecond of stagnation slip by. It stopped trying to crush Haruyuki and Niko and suddenly threw its arms out. The fists clutching them were thrust out forcefully.
“Nngh!!” Haruyuki cried out at the shock, so great that it threatened to tear his soul right out of his avatar. He lost both vision and hearing, and the dim world became nothing but a high-pitched screeching. In the upper left side of his field of view, his health gauge dropped more than 20 percent all at once, plunging into the dangerous red zone.
“Deeloooo…” A low groan came from the tank with arms. Its fists were still spread out to the sides, and there came another collision. Boom! The massive roar was like a cannon shot, and his gauge lost another 20 percent, leaving a mere 10 percent. If he took another hit like that, he would die.
The extreme agony went beyond pain—it felt like his body was about to fall apart, but he still managed to squeeze out, “Ni…Niko!”
“I…I’m still here…” The reply, similarly weak, came from a little ways off. Then she said, with just a bit more strength, “Crow. I’m gonna create an opening, just for a second. You gotta use it to escape somehow.”
“Huh? An opening? I mean…how?” His eyes widened in desperation, and as his vision slowly recovered, he caught sight of the small figure of the Red King.
She was held firmly from shoulders to hips by the three massive machinelike talons; there was no way she could fire the gun in her right hand. The damage to the exposed parts of her armor was severe, and a blood-red light effect poured from those areas. Inside the fist, the damage probably reached the avatar’s naked body. The small, battered figure began to recede. Mark II was opening its arms for the third time. If they were slammed outward again, both Niko and Haruyuki would die.
Suddenly, from a gap in the claws that held Niko came a crimson glimmering many times more brilliant than the twilight sun pouring down over the stage: It was overlay, proof of the activation of the Incarnate System. But the only Incarnate attacks Niko could use without her Enhanced Armament were Radiant Beat, which launched flame bullets from her fist, and Radiant Burst, which fired a succession of these. If she activated either technique while she was caught in Mark II’s fist, the flames would burn up not only her enemy, but also Niko herself.
This was Niko’s plan—no, resolve. She was going to sacrifice herself to create an opening for Haruyuki to escape from the restraint.
No. You can’t. Absolutely not. I said I’d protect you.
“I…promised!!” Haruyuki spread his wings in a trance. The Mark II’s claws ate into his avatar’s hips and legs like a vise. No matter how he tried to fly, he wouldn’t be able to shake them off. But there was one thing he could still do.
His mind, half-muddied from the double impacts, had no way to generate the focus needed to activate his Incarnate technique. But flying—revving up the wings that were his duel avatar’s reason for existence—and aiming for the sky…
“Niko! Trust…me!!” he shouted again as if to rip his throat open, pouring all his remaining willpower into the silver-and-white wings.
“Deeraaar!!” Unleashing a roar of rage, Mark II moved to slam together once more the fist that held Haruyuki and the hand clutching Niko.
In the next instant, a shooting star shining a deep red pierced the gap between the two. The ball of light smashed into the front of the armored tank and exploded magnificently. Fortunately, Haruyuki and Niko were wrapped up in the fingers, and neither took anything more than a little scraping damage. But Mark II’s single eye had been wide open when it took that direct hit. The giant lurched backward, howling in agony.
A long-distance firing attack?! Who on earth—?!
Eyes wide open, Haruyuki spotted a figure in the middle of the dying bo
nfire: a crimson leopard, throwing her body back as she fell to the ground.
It wasn’t a gun attack. It was the special attack Bloodshed Cannon, which turned the very body of Blood Leopard—Bloody Kitty, one of Prominence’s Triplex—into a bullet. She had gone beyond the crater to recharge her special-attack gauge and was now taking decisive action to save Niko and Haruyuki with a suicide attack.
After hitting the front of Mark II—equivalent in strength to Wolfram Cerberus’s tungsten armor—with a body blow, Leopard slammed into the ground, pieces falling from her own armor.
This sight roused a new flame in Haruyuki’s heart. I can’t waste this last chance Pard created for me. I have to fly. If I don’t fly now…Then why do I even have wings?
“Ah…Aaaaaaaaaaah!!” As Haruyuki howled, ribbons of dazzling silver light unfurled from his back. His own wings sang in loud resonance with Metatron’s and shook the Twilight stage.
The enormous fist clutching Haruyuki reached out, showering sparks. The front of the armored tank rose several dozen centimeters into the air, thanks to Pard’s attack, and stopped at that angle. Although the tension threatened to rip him to pieces, Haruyuki kept fueling his wings with all his strength. Waterfalls of sparks shot out from the armor joints of his shoulders and chest and stomach. Already down to just 10 percent, his health gauge was carved away bit by bit.
So heavy. He’d known in his mind that the Armor of Catastrophe, Mark II’s mass far surpassed the range of a Burst Linker, but this was something else. It might have been missing one of the original Invincible’s parts, but it still didn’t so much as shift, almost as though it were fused to the stage itself.
Snow White’s Slumber Page 5