Issei looked at everyone who was there. Keena was holding Akuto’s body, and Fujiko and Yoshie were standing there in silence. Kazuko had already teleported away somewhere.
“So Akuto never had any kind of great destiny. He was just a boy unlucky enough to be born with incredible power?”
“He probably just figured that out a few moments ago, which means that what he just did was, in a sense, heroic. Now go, acquire the power. But how much better would it have been if that power could only be used to destroy the world? Then he’d just have to not do that. But it’s actually a safety valve that somebody has to hold, a safety valve that grants someone incredible power.”
“Why did you never make this public?” Fujiko asked.
Issei snorted. “Hah! It would just make the war come sooner. A little bit of storytelling kept that away. We just tell people that the Demon King is evil, and everyone believes it.”
“But...!” Fujiko almost screamed, but Yoshie put a hand on her shoulder.
“Let’s go. We can argue once Akuto wakes up. No, it will be his decision to make then. You know, all I ever did was watch, but I love him. I don’t want him to stay dead.”
Fujiko took a deep breath, composed herself, and turned towards Keena. “Keena, let’s go. Take us there.”
“I don’t expect this to make up for anything,” Issei said, “but I’ll teleport you there.”
“...We’re not going to thank you.”
“That’s fine. Where do you want to go?” Issei asked Keena.
“All I know is that it’s in Roppongi, its latitude and longitude, and how many meters underground it is... There’s an underground facility there that was made a long time ago. Is that enough for you to teleport us there?”
“It is.” Issei nodded as he began to cast the spell.
“Ooh, send me near the palace instead!” Yoshie cut him off.
“Are we splitting up?” Fujiko asked. Yoshie nodded.
“I need to find Keisu. My guess is that if we haven’t found her yet, she might be in the Megis temple. I don’t think they’ll arrest me if I go now. Oh, and since I don’t think anybody will be looking for me now, I’ll stream what my goggles see on the internet. Your terminals will be able to watch.”
“Alright. Thanks.” Fujiko nodded.
Issei summoned the teleportation circle.
○
Hiroshi was standing by high in the air, but he didn’t have any time to rest. A flying combat unit was climbing towards him.
“We’re in the middle of a city...!” Hiroshi looked around him. He was above the park surrounding the palace, and there were people all around him on the ground below. He would have to make sure the enemy landed inside the palace.
—There are 20 of them.
He checked his energy levels and the number of enemies. He wasn’t inside the field, so the energy charge was at 100%. But he’d have to avoid using his high-energy weapons that required a cool down before he could use them again.
“High-frequency blade.”
The special alloy claws came out of his hand. They used high-frequency vibrations to enhance their cutting power, and required very little energy to work.
“Hah!” He sliced through the nearest enemy. The suit was faster than his enemy could evade, and he easily sliced them in half.
“It’s a pain to figure out where the enemy’s going to fall,” he muttered to himself as he watched the falling remains of his foe.
But then, the enemy came in formation to try and catch him off guard. Several of them flew at him at once, tracing mysterious orbits in the air.
“But they’re probably just programs...” Hiroshi used the eye-tracking on his visor’s multi-display to predict the enemy’s movements. He spoke to the suit to tell it to hurry up. “Give me a targeting priority list. No laser usage.”
“Command received. Enemy flight pattern recognized. If orders are given within .5 seconds, escape is possible. If orders are given with 1 second, destruction of the enemy is possible. Recommended course of action: destruction.”
“I’ll take the latter. Give me the orders!”
“Attack the target designated by the pointer. Designating first target...”
Hiroshi followed the suit’s orders, dancing in between the enemies. His foes were using a pattern that involved three enemies attacking at once, which was effective against a slow enemy, or one that tried to run. But if you could attack them faster than they could hit you, they were helpless.
The combat unit’s bullets and laser beams failed to even target Hiroshi, so they didn’t fire a single shot. They didn’t have time to come up with a new formation to deal with him. It was a battle between computers, and his was better.
“I can win this...! How many flying units are there? Are their reinforcements?”
He looked around after he’d shot down a good number of them. The battle was easy enough that he was able to hear the words coming up from below.
“That’s him!”
“That’s our Brave!”
“That’s our Hero!”
He realized he’d never fought in front of this many people before. Just like Lily had said, he could feel the weight of that responsibility on his shoulders.
—What I do as a Hero...
The responsibility was heavy, but more than that, the fact that so many people were cheering him on gave him courage. It was reassuring to know so many people were on his side, and more than anything, that all these people shared one will. They had to be on the side of justice.
—I’m fighting for the sake of the people... I’m carrying the will of the people, and fighting for it!
Hiroshi felt like he’d just understood something important.
He sliced through the last enemy and checked his energy levels. It would take 20 seconds to recharge to full power, so he’d be fine.
He looked down. The huge polygon, Zero, was below him.
—I don’t know how to beat it, but I can buy time...
The inside of the polygon was a virtual phase space, where Zero’s program was being run. In other words, he had no physical body. But if Hiroshi could destroy the majority of the data that kept his program running, it would lose the majority of its functions. That was how Akuto had destroyed the god Suhara.
“Let’s do this fast. I’ll use the plasma ball,” Hiroshi said.
The plasma ball was the most powerful weapon the suit had.
Junko and Yuko were looking up from the ground below, watching Hiroshi. They couldn’t move a muscle. Both they and Keisu were buried in a sea of people.
“Oh no... We can’t move.”
“But what are we going to do at the palace?” Yuko asked.
She was right. All they could do was watch. At least, that was all she and Junko could do.
“Can we send Keisu alone...?”
“No, I can’t move either,” Keisu said. She was stuck in the crowd of people as well. She was so small that she had to keep hanging on to Junko’s sleeve to keep from being knocked away.
“We can’t fly because we can’t use magic... Can you fly?”
“I wouldn’t carry such inelegant equipment.”
“You can’t fly?”
“I don’t like it when people make fun of me.”
“Fine. Let’s get a little bit away, and then come up with a way to get into the palace.”
They started to back towards the Megis temple.
“Hey, how do you seal Zero, anyway?” Yuko asked Keisu.
Keisu seemed to think for a moment before she spoke. “I don’t remember.”
Meanwhile, Fujiko, Keena, and Akuto’s body were all inside a vast space somewhere. They weren’t sure exactly where “somewhere” was. They knew the latitude, the longitude, and how many meters underground they were. But they weren’t sure what this place was supposed to be.
There were countless numbers of huge pillars, several meters in diameter, holding up a ceiling so high above that they couldn’t see i
t. The room was completely empty, except for a single coffin next to the three of them.
“I bet nobody’s been in here for hundreds of years...” Fujiko said as she looked around.
The only light in the room was coming from around the coffin. There wasn’t even dust on the floor, which was proof that no human had ever been here before. If there were no fibers to fly up into the air, there wouldn’t be any dust. It was clear that the only point of this place was to hold this coffin. Without knowing its precise location, there was probably no way to get there.
It felt like the place hadn’t been made to hold the coffin originally, but had been abandoned at some point. It was safe to assume that there was no exit and no entrance.
“This is the coffin, isn’t it?” Fujiko said.
Keena was the only who had heard Peterhausen’s voice. It was probably only the data left behind between the gods, and not some kind of spirit, but it still felt like fate that it had talked to Keena.
“Don’t worry. This is it,” Keena said.
She tried to lift Akuto’s body up to move it into the coffin, but it was too heavy for her.
“Let me take the head,” Fujiko sighed, “and you take the legs.”
“Thank you. Umphh....”
Keena and Fujiko laid him down in the coffin, and the coffin reacted. A mana screen appeared a little bit away, displaying what work it was doing and why the coffin had activated.
“Do we just have to wait?”
“I guess so.” Keena nodded.
Fujiko let her body slump down to the floor.
“Are you okay?” Keena asked. Fujiko answered with a nod and looked up at the ceiling.
“I just started wondering what happens if Akuto never comes back,” she said, almost as if speaking to herself, “When he died, I got emotional, but strangely I managed to keep control...”
Keena smiled a little. “I was the same way.”
“I want him back. I really do. But...”
“But?”
“Is that really what should happen? When he comes back, will he still be himself? And won’t he just suffer if he does...?” Fujiko wasn’t sounding like her usual self.
Keena walked over to her, and put both arms on her shoulders from behind. “Ackie is Ackie. He’s not anybody else. I’m sure it’s the same for everybody else in the world. Maybe Ackie can only be revived because he was created by someone instead of being born, but everybody is who they are. Don’t worry.”
Fujiko knew Keena didn’t have any evidence for what she was saying, and her words only served to remind her that Akuto could be revived because he was closer to a Liradan than human. But she still felt a bit better.
“Yeah. I hope he’s okay. And knowing him, no matter how many times he comes back, he’ll still make the same choice.”
“He’ll think way too hard about what’s best for society, like he always has.” Keena laughed.
The coffin continued its work, but it didn’t say when it would finish. Every second seemed to last an eternity.
“Is he okay, you think?” Fujiko asked.
“Don’t worry... It’ll be fine. Um... If you’re really worried, you can pray.”
“Pray?” Fujiko asked, surprised at the seemingly idiotic suggestion.
“Yes. Pray. It’s all we can do, right?” Keena said innocently.
But Fujiko shook her head. “Yes, but to God? There’s no such thing...”
“I think there is. If there’s not, Ackie’s just going to have to suffer forever, right?”
Fujiko gasped. “You’re right,” she said after a moment. “Maybe faith is something that humans need after all.”
The gods were real beings, at the core of the evolution of those humans that believe in them, or perhaps the core of their souls. If you didn’t believe that, then the lives of men called Demon Kings had no point at all.
Keena kneeled before the coffin and folded her hands.
Fujiko closed her eyes and prayed to... “something.”
The coffin silently continued its work. But nobody knew what would happen next.
Yoshie sighed when she realized that she hadn’t been teleported inside the palace. “Well, so much for that. I guess the palace is probably guarded. Wait, is this place...”
She looked around and realized she recognized where she was. It was the lobby of the Megis temple. “Well, that’s something at least,” she said, as she walked over to the window to see what was going on outside. The crowd had swelled to an almost unbelievable size.
“Those people aren’t just there to gawk, are they? Man, people are scary when they get mad.” Yoshie fiddled with her goggles. The video of what she was seeing began to be broadcast on the net.
“I suppose this is actually the perfect place to look for Keisu though... Oh?” Just before she turned around, she saw a few people moving against the crowd. When someone does that in a group of people, they stand out a lot. “Woah! Lucky me. I guess I’ve got good karma?”
It was Junko, Yuko, and Keisu; three people that Yoshie knew (she recognized Yuko from watching her on TV). Yoshie went to the entrance to the table and waved to them. “Hey, over here! Wow, I’m so glad I found you!”
But all of them seemed confused.
“Who are you?”
“Are you with the temple?”
“It feels like I know you, but I’ve never seen you before...”
Suddenly Yoshie realized that she’d only ever met them inside phase space. “Well, it’s a long story, so I’ll cut it short. I’m Yoshihiko,” she said.
None of them seemed to understand what she was saying. Perhaps the idea of using a different identify in VPS than in the real world was something hard to understand for a girl who was used to being honest in everything, because Junko seemed to understand it less than Fujiko.
“I’ll explain everything later, but for now, just know that I’m on Akuto’s side. And yes, I am with the Megis temple. I helped the priests. Oh right, there’s a levitation boat we use for emergencies. It can take us to the palace. I’ll explain on the way.”
The three of them still didn’t seem to understand, but at least they knew she wasn’t an enemy. So Yoshie took them to the lever that released the boat. There was an emergency escape door halfway up the building, and next to it was a levitating boat with room for six. It used mana to keep itself afloat. Releasing the lever would unmoor the boat.
“If you’re doing this for us, you probably really aren’t our enemy, but...” Junko said as she yanked the release lever.
“Believe me. I feel bad for tricking you, but I really am Yoshihiko,” Yoshie said again, but Junko only seemed more suspicious. “L-Let’s just get on the boat...”
Just as Yoshie spoke, there was a flash of light above. The battle between Hiroshi and the Zero polygon had begun.
“It’s dangerous to get too close, but... we have to hurry. Oh, I guess I should take some kind of weapon, too.” Yoshie threw an emergency escape chainsaw into the boat. Then she jumped in herself and grabbed the oars, which were coated with a special film that allowed them to travel through mana. The other three followed, and Yoshie started to row.
“That’s the guy who defeated the Demon King...” Yoshie said as she looked up at Brave.
Yuko nodded, deciding to keep the fact that it was Hiroshi to herself. “That’s right. And he’ll do it again too, I’m sure.”
“Yeah, if he can defeat Zero, that would be great. We’d be just fine then. Yeah, he looks really strong,” Yoshie said hopefully, “so maybe he can.”
“Transferring Anti-Heat Cape. Transferring Plasma Ball.” Hiroshi’s suit covered itself in the cape, and then balls of light appeared around it. Each of them was an incredibly intense sphere of heat that would burn anything it came into contact with.
Hiroshi ordered the suit to make a hard dive. He had to make it through the field that blocked his suit from transferring energy and instantly destroy the polygon behind it. This attack would take all the
energy he had, and then he’d need five minutes to get his weapons back. He needed to finish things in a single strike.
His cape flapped in the wind as the balls began to spin around him. It was like a high speed drill slamming down on his foe from above.
“Plasma field stabilization complete. Setting time from contact to release to one nanosecond. Adjusting visor translucency from 23% to below 18%. Deploying dimensional fault field. Contact with the target in three seconds,” the suit reported calmly.
Ahead of him, Hiroshi could see the shining polygon. It was giving off an eerie red light as it reflected the plasma balls, and it was getting closer and closer.
“Go!” When the whole of his field of vision was almost filled with the reflected light of the polygon, Hiroshi was sure he’d won. But then his body was hit by a powerful impact. He didn’t know what had happened, but the crowds below saw it all.
Just before Hiroshi had hit it, the polygon had moved, almost as if it were a living creature. It had seemed to be fixed in space before, but now its body twisted slightly before bounding at Hiroshi like a bouncing ball.
And above the polygon’s mirrored surfaces, there seemed to be some kind of field. Hiroshi only realized after he’d regained his balance that the field had survived his plasma balls.
“The plasma balls dissipated after release. The field appears to be a dimensional fault.”
“A dimensional fault field...” It was the same futuristic technology that the suit used. It was only that field which enabled him to survive the plasma explosion at close range.
—Why...? No, instead of thinking about the reason, I need to get ready for the next attack... Don’t tell me it’s going to be what I think it is!
Hiroshi tried hard to calm himself down so he could think. He got some distance and climbed into the air, but he didn’t turn his back on his foe.
What Hiroshi was expecting was a dimensional severing; the future technology that Boichiro Yamato had used. It probably worked on the same principle.
Demon King Daimaou: Volume 8 Page 10