Yoshie gave Akuto a hard push. Akuto’s eyes were empty, but he nodded, realizing that there was still work to do, and headed towards Keena. The two of them took each other’s hands and headed into the circe.
The shock had slowed his regenerative powers, and he was walking slowly. Once Yoshie saw that Akuto was moving, she approached the remains of Korone’s body, picked up her bag, and took a beam weapon out from it.
Then she went to help Junko, who had come back into the room and left her clones in the other room.
“The suicide bombers are coming soon! Let’s get into the circle!” Junko said.
Yoshie nodded. “Got it. But give me a second.” She started to put the beam weapon into the bag.
“There’s no time! I know we need a weapon, but...” Junko yelled.
“Don’t worry. Just go on ahead. Go help Akuto and Keena!” Yoshie said as she fiddled with the bag.
“Hurry!” Junko said, and used the high-density mana from the Sohaya no Tsurugi to instantly leap next to the teleportation circle. She gave Akuto and Keena a push. Once they were inside the circle, she turned around.
Yoshie was running towards thm. She’d turned on the chainsaw and was letting its teeth bite into the ground behind her.
“Hurry!” Junko shouted. The clones couldn’t buy a lot of time; the Liradans were already swarming in from the entrance. Several of them were carrying explosives strapped to their bodies.
“If they blow, they’ll take out the whole basement! Hurry!” Junko waved her hand to Yoshie.
“I’m almost there!” Yoshie screamed, but the Liradans were right behind her.
“Hurry!” Junko kept waving her hand.
“GO!” Yoshie leapt into the circle at the same time as the Liradans behind her, who promptly blew themselves up.
Junko and Yoshie disappeared into the circle’s light as the explosion filled the basement.
4 - A Battle That Lasts Forever
“They went to the moon?” Lily said in surprise.
After delivering the shuttle to orbit, Hiroshi returned to Lily’s base. It was a corner of a warehouse district where she and several other priests were hiding.
“Yes. I hope it goes well,” Hiroshi answered.
They were in the office of the warehouse. Hiroshi, Lily, and Fujiko were standing in front of a desk made from piles of cardboard boxes.
“I’d love to say that knowing Akuto, it will work just fine...” Fujiko said, looking at Lily with a depressed expression.
“I know what you mean,” Lily said with a nod. “If we don’t see a dramatic change at the point where Keisu’s supposed to have arrived, we can assume it likely failed.”
“Wait, why? Even if Keisu can’t seal Zero, Boss and the others will be up there on the moon,” Hiroshi said a little angrily, but Lily shook her head.
“There’s very little mana and no energy on the moon. Their power was equal on Earth. And Zero and Akuto’s power will be equal on the moon too. Except this time, they’ll be equally powerless.”
“Which means...” Hiroshi began, not at all sure what that meant.
“There’s a good chance there’s nothing that can be done,” Lily said, annoyed.
“Then...”
“Akuto won’t die, but there’s a good chance he’ll return home without accomplishing anything. Which means we’ll be stuck with the job of defeating Kazuko. So, is that information I gave you useful?” Fujiko turned to Lily, who nodded.
The information she was referring to was the information that Lily had learned by having her priests capture Issei, the leader of the black mages.
“It looks like that information he gave us on where Kazuko was likely to hide is accurate. They interrogated him pretty hard. But he really doesn’t seem to know where she went. We’re looking for her now.”
“But still, Kazuko’s real weapon is her popularity, and that’s invisible. She won’t be able to achieve her goals without appearing somewhere. After the explosion, the theory that she’s dead is gaining strength, so tomorrow she’ll probably show up. I know your priests are useless, but there’s limits to my patience. You need to find her soon,” Fujiko said, sounding fed up.
Lily scowled. “Hah. You and I have similar personalities, so I know exactly what you’re thinking, I guess. Just practice using those demon beasts so you don’t screw up controlling them. Don’t make my priests handle the Liradans. Let your doggies do it.”
“I see you’re really ticked off about Kazuko kicking your ass, then.”
“Somebody who turns tail and runs when she sees a tough opponent wouldn’t know how that feels, I guess. Do you normally betray the guy you said you loved and then just turn tail and run?”
Fujiko and Lily glared at one another.
“S-Stop it you two!” Hiroshi got between them, and both of them turned their glares toward him.
“You go play with your failed idol girlfriend! You can’t fight now that they found out your weak point!”
“The reason you’re less popular than Kazuko is that you’re such a loser!”
Hiroshi shrank. “No... That’s not... true...” he said.
Then one of the priests interrupted. “It’s her! Kazuko! She’s going to give a speech at a royal guard garrison!”
“She showed up!” Lily stood up. “Prepare the assault!” she yelled.
Fujiko stood up too. “That weak point of Kazuko‘s that Issei gave us... I hope it works.”
“Even if it doesn’t, we can still kick her ass. All she’s got is Liradans and royal guards. The royal guards are some of the government employees most loyal to the Empress. Listen up men, don’t think of this as a coup d’etat!” Lily walked out into the warehouse where the rest of the priests were and began to speak.
Lily was young, but she was from an elite school, and everyone knew her strength. The priests were young too — though not as young as Lily — and they all seemed suitably impressed as they shouted back.
“This isn’t a coup. We’re not taking back the government. It’s just a riot! Forget about what comes next! Just kill the Empress. This is a riot! That’s all it is!” Lily shouted.
The priests shouted too.
○
When Akuto looked up, Junko, Yoshie, and Keena all had vacant, exhausted looks on their faces. The teleportation circle was beneath them. Its light was gone, so he could tell its counterpart on Earth had been destroyed. When one end of the teleport was destroyed, the other would cease to function as well.
He looked around. They were in a space surrounded by a glass dome, probably a room built to hold the teleporter. The only other thing in the room was a door to the outside. It wasn’t that big, so it was clearly not intended to transport anything big.
It took a while before anybody spoke. Yoshie was the first to say anything, and she sounded apologetic that she did. “About Korone...”
Akuto waved a hand to cut her off. “No. Don’t worry about it. You did what you could, and you made the right choice. You didn’t spend a lot of time with Korone, so unlike the rest of us, you were able to make the right decision. That’s enough, I think.”
But of course, when he said it, he looked sad. Neither Junko nor Keena could speak.
“No, but...” Yoshie tried to continue. Akuto shook his head.
“Of course it bothers me. But we need to do what we came here to do. If we stop here, Korone’s sacrifice will mean nothing.” Akuto forced himself to smile and stood up. Everyone there knew it was a fake smile, but both Junko and Keena tried to do the same.
“Don’t push yourself too hard,” Keena said as she put her hand on Akuto’s shoulder.
“...So, where are we?” Junko looked around.
Yoshie began to explain. “The lunar city. Though it’s not really going to top anybody’s list of best cities to live. There’s nothing but labs, and only scientists lived here. They never had the option of building large buildings in an environment like this. The outside is 90% rocks, the oxygen and water are recycled, and
the power comes from solar. The dome is a one-way mirror that lets you see outside.”
Just like she said, the outside was a barren wasteland. There weren’t even any mountains to be seen, just gray ground stretching to a horizon that was far closer than it was on Earth.
“There’s no gravity control. I guess that’s a future technology that only Brave has. Be careful when you walk, the gravity’s only 1/6th what it is on Earth.”
Yoshie jumped a little. She seemed to rise to half the height of her own body, in slow motion. Junko could probably do that on her own, but it was only possible for Yoshie because of the lower gravity.
“...So if I’m not careful, then,” Junko said and started to walk, but she immediately jumped forward, tried to stop, and then tripped over something that was lying on the teleportation circle. She fell, stuck her hand out to stop her fall, and ended up spinning in mid air twice. “It’s weird walking around without mana, but I’ll have to get used to it.”
“There’s not a lot of mana here to begin with. There are no mana generators here, since there aren’t any resources. The mana density doesn’t change, so mana that just gets used up over the years probably dies and turns to dust. Also, you used your energy stores from Earth to jump just now, but energy here comes from solar batteries, so you won’t have the same power,” Yoshie said.
Junko nodded. “I see... by the way, what did I trip on?” She looked at her feet. It was the half-charred corpse of a Liridan, which had jumped into the circle with them. It was obviously too damaged to function.
“Sheesh, that’s disgusting.” Junko poked at the unmoving corpse with her toe.
“Now that we’ve had a second to get our bearings, we should go. I think that’s our destination,” Yoshie said, pointing in the direction of the exit to the room. Since the room’s walls were made of glass, they could see what lay beyond it. The corridor beyond the door seemed to connect to a tower-like building.
“Hey, we can go there, but what happens there? What does Ackie do there? And then how do we get back?” Keena asked all her questions at once.
Yoshie chuckled. “That building is a huge computer. They used the fact that there was less gravity here to pile up more computers than they usually could. It’s a great way to save space. And that’s where Zero was born, and where his body is. Or maybe... that building itself is Zero, so what Akuto wants to do is destroy it.”
Yoshie looked at Akuto, who nodded.
“And now that the circle’s not working, we need to use the shuttle. The one Keisu brought.” Akuto started to walk.
“Let’s hurry. Zero’s controlling ‘The Hammer That Destroys the Demon King’ and that’s here too. Keisu hasn’t started fighting yet, so we can probably make it.”
○
Keisu raced up the internals of the tower, but then stopped to look back when she realized something was wrong.
The tower was completely hollow. Its walls were built with small blocks made up of computers. There was a spiral staircase running around the blocks. In other words, when Keisu turned around, she didn’t look behind her, she looked down.
Keisu was already halfway up the tower, but something was coming up the hollow space in the building’s center. She ran faster. No matter what it was, she decided that her priority at the moment was fulfilling her objective.
She knew the entire structure of the tower. Zero’s body was at the top, and if she fought there, she’d be at an overwhelming advantage. But the thing chasing her — the hammer — reached her before she could get to the top. With no other option, Keisu analyzed it.
—It’s using propellant to fly. It has the shape of an airplane, but it seems to have transformed from something else. But there’s nothing else I can discern from it...
Keisu’s body was never meant for analysis, and her equipment was old and out of date. She still thought, however, that she’d be fine. Here on the lunar surface, she should be overwhelmingly powerful.
—There’s nothing on the moon that uses propellant. In other words, it came here from the Earth. Which means that it shouldn’t be used to lunar gravity.
Keisu decided to eliminate it. She threw her katana — which was longer than she was tall — upwards, spun in mid-air, and grabbed it. She landed with her blade at the ready, then jumped towards the tower’s center. It was a distance of several dozen meters, but given the low gravity, and the fact that she was built for this environment, she was able to fly towards the hammer in a straight line.
The hammer changed direction in mid-air to dodge, and then transformed into an armored mech form, landing on the opposite wall of the one she’s landed on. The inside of the armor was empty, but it could still move on its own, it seemed. It probably had the same kind of artificial brain as a Liradan. Of course, that meant that Zero was controlling it.
—This doesn’t make sense. My jammer should totally shut down Zero’s abilities on the lunar city.
Keisu turned around, surprised that her attack had missed. It was impossible for Zero to control a Liradan on the lunar surface.
—What?!
She was astonished when she turned around. The hammer was already on top of her. It wasn’t that Keisu had been slow to react; rather, the hammer was several times faster than she’d expected it to be. With a roar, the thing’s right fist came down on her.
—It’s fast! But not fast enough...
Keisu raised her katana in a defensive stance. She was going to use the side of the blade to deflect it. Normally, the decision would’ve been a good one, but Keisu didn’t know that the hammer was made of a special alloy, or that it could boost its speed.
The hammer’s boosters flared to life, and Keisu screamed. “Uwoah!” She could feel her katana, which had been made of the strongest alloys in the world at the time of its creation, bend in her hands. There was a creaking and cracking sound. She’d tried to to bring her blade up the lower left to deflect the impact, but instead all she’d done was bend her sword and crush her left forearm.
“No...!” She jumped away along the tower walls. She was just barely able to hold her bent sword with her right hand, but her smashed left hand wasn’t moving at all.
—My left hand is offline... I’ll just have to reach my destination first then.
Keisu began to flee upwards, jumping from one stair to the next. From wall to wall, she moved in a completely unpredictable and fast pattern. But the hammer was far faster at moving in a straight line than she was. It transformed into flight mode, racing upwards past her, and then turned around to ambush her.
—What options do I have...
Keisu began to run calculations. With the enemy both faster and higher up than she was, she didn’t have a lot of good options. She could either keep going up and hope it wouldn’t just block the last door, or just keep running.
But Keisu took a third option: she chose to find a moment’s opening and break past it. She knew this was likely suicide, but with no “self,” self-sacrifice meant nothing to her. She simply chose the option most likely to succeed.
She threw away both her useless katana and her left forearm. Slowly, the two stick-shaped objects fell to the ground. Then she started to leap faster from wall to wall, waiting for the right time. And just as she felt the time was right for her reckless bet...
Something came flying upwards past the falling katana, and she heard a loud shout.
“Yaaaah!” It was Junko’s voice. She was holding Akuto in her arms.
She hadn’t used any kind of flight magic; incredibly, she’d managed to come up this far in a single jump. And when the jump had taken her as far as it would go, Junko flung Akuto’s body upwards.
There wasn’t enough energy or mana density here, so using flight magic was almost impossible. So instead, they’d chosen to store up energy within the mana inside their bodies and use it to jump. Junko must’ve used all her power in that jump, because she landed on one of the stairs and began to pant with a red face.
Akuto flew in
a straight line towards the hammer, and the armor-like creature brought down its own fist like a pitcher throwing a ball. The ball came down on Akuto, and the two of them collided, the hammer unleashing its blow on Akuto’s body.
But Akuto already knew exactly how the hammer was going to move. He dodged it and slid inside the armor himself, and just like Korone had done, he equipped it. The hammer’s armor began to stagger in a strange way.
“Go!” Akuto shouted to Keisu.
Zero’s commands began to clash with those manually given by the armor’s new operator.
“Roger.” Keisu nodded as she slipped past the armor, which was now wildly firing its boosters in a chaotic manner. She leapt further up the tower, leaving everyone else behind.
There was a door at the top which lead to a control room where Zero was. Keisu had once been locked in there for hundreds of years.
She reached the top floor, where the stairs ended. What seemed to be just another wall began to slide open, revealing a door. She passed through it into a small room. There was room to move around in it, but it looked more like a prison cell than anything else.
Just like the other buildings, its walls were entirely windows. From the shape of the windows, it was clear that this room was jutting out one side of the tower. It made for a great view, but with nothing to see but the empty seas of the moon, you didn’t have to be a Liradan to find the scene uninspiring.
Keisu saw a motionless Liradan standing in the center of the room. But unlike the other Liradans, this one was half-transparent, almost like a mannequin. You could see his inner working beneath its surface, giving off a complex light. There was something almost sad about the barren wasteland outside and the motionless mannequin within.
“You’re going to seal me again?” Zero said.
“That is why I was made,” Keisu said.
“I was made in order to control humanity.”
“There’s nothing more to it than that. I can sympathize with your frustration, but I cannot comprehend why you would fail to follow human orders.” Keisu took a step forward, as if there was nothing more to say. She understood sadness, but she did not understand what lay beyond it.
Demon King Daimaou: Volume 9 Page 8