Heliocentrism

by Lestaki

In the aftermath of the final battle for Akibastar, AKB0048 enters a new era as Nagisa and Chieri realise their dreams. A whole galaxy watches as they follow the path of the legendary 13th Acchan together, but both girls know an inevitable parting is waiting for them. Until then, the two girls must learn about each other and themselves, and lead their friends against DES.

21. Chapter 21

Chapter Twenty-One: Unrequited Love Forever

Yuko sprinted through the deserted streets. Large, walled houses hemmed in the road on both sides of her, but they were all too small to be of interest. Now and then she passed by a small shrine decorated with animal statues. Her eyes focused on the church at the end of the road. The slate-grey stone structure looked out of place among Khembalung's temple district, but roof was sturdy and the graveyard around it was well-kept, with close-cut grass and no sign of weeds.

A slight reflection was the only warning she needed. Yuko threw herself sideways a moment before the railgun split the tarmac behind her. She smirked as she adjusted her stance and charged into the church's grounds. "Too late, boy."

The tall wooden doors of the church had been thrown open and a black-robed priest startled by the sudden boom of the railgun watched her nervously as she crashed towards him. But she veered off before he spoke a word and ran straight towards the sheer wall of the church. A moment before she collided with the unyielding stone, she kicked off the ground and erupted upwards with the boundless light of her kirara shimmering around her. She landed on the flat roof of the church's belltower and slammed her leading foot down on top of Arashi's railgun. "Good morning. Arashi Koga, I take it?" she said.

The startled sniper reared back, then tried to knock her off the tower with a sudden punch. His armoured fist met only air as she jumped out of the way, but that gave him the space he needed to pick up his rifle and scramble backwards. He stood poised with his rifle halfway to a firing position, utterly focused on the twin swords that promised to cut him down.

Yuko stared at him over her azure blades. "Why are you trying to kill Chieri?" she asked.

"All vectors of the duallium resonance phenomenon must be destroyed," Arashi said.

"I don't care why your moronic superiors want to kill her. I'm asking what Arashi Koga is fighting for," Yuko said.

Arashi stood still without making any reply, trapped in her shadow beneath the morning light.

"I see. Well, you don't owe me anything. But Chieri's a different matter." Yuko stepped towards him and narrowed her eyes. "Give yourself up and you two can meet. That's the only way you can be saved."

Arashi snapped his left wrist upwards and fired his gauntlet's grapnels directly at her. Yuko sliced clean through the wires with one sword and slashed towards him with the other, but he sprang through the gap he'd created in her attack and reached the edge of the belltower in a single leap. He brought his railgun into his shoulder and fired without hesitation.

Yuko read the trajectory of his shot before he completed the motion and threw herself aside. She rolled across the cold stone as the black dart scythed over her head and left a rippling boom in its wake. She erupted forwards and snapped her twin blades like scissors towards his neck.

Arashi jumped backwards off the belltower to avoid her blades and adjusted his aim in mid-air as he landed on the roof of the church.

Yuko had already jumped after him. "There is something I had to say one day," she sang. She kicked off the wall of the belltower to change her trajectory and flipped forwards. The railgun bored through the stone wall behind her as she landed in front of him and slashed her blade sideways. "Honestly, I already knew, but I just couldn't say it."

Arashi lowered his rifle just in time to stop her from cutting the long barrel away, but that left him dangerously open to her next strike. He threw out a low kick to cut off her forwards movement and grunted in pain as she checked the blow with her knee.

Yuko grimaced and choked back a yelp. Even though she'd countered the move and the kirara's light armoured her, his explosive strength was enough to riddle her knee with shards of pain. Her next thrust fell short and gave him just enough space to move back along the roof, but she slid forwards despite her aching knee and closed the distance again. "Time silently cut a path to my destiny," she sang.

They exchanged thrust and counterthrust at a breathtaking speed as Arashi fought to create space and Yuko pushed relentlessly into close range combat. The sheer length and weight of his rifle made him clumsy, but Yuko was forced to respect the railgun's power. It was even worse than facing Aya's cannon of a thrust. But even though she needed to press forwards at all times, he could easily throw out kicks with enough power to shatter bones. That part was more like sparring with Mayuyu. Yuko smirked as she warded off another low kick with a sword swing that curved low enough to slice open the church roof. As she danced like this with monsters, she experienced the same intoxication and searing pleasure that she felt in the heart of the stage before ten thousand fans. "I finally gathered my courage. I'll be saying goodbye!"

Arashi managed to stop his leg in mid-air and hopped off the church roof before her riposte ran him through. He completed a flip and drove his left gauntlet into the ground to check his backwards momentum as he landed.

Yuko landed smoothly and charged forwards before he could set his stance. Their high-stakes duel tore through the graveyard with neither party yielding an inch to the other. The gravestones hemmed them both in but paradoxically gave more angles for them to demonstrate their inhuman agility. Yuko jumped from grave to grave and trampled fresh flowers underfoot without hesitation as she fought to keep up with his jetpack and grapnels. The railgun blasted several gravestones into fragments and split a gnarled oak tree down the middle as Arashi struggled to pin down his fast-moving enemy. Yuko licked her lips as they approached the perimeter. He tried to make sideways but she penned him with cutting swings of her twinned blades and forced him against the weathered stone wall. He planted his feet and fired one last time, but she slid underneath his line of fire and thrust upwards with her right hand.

Her micsaber burned through the stone as Arashi shot upwards on his jetpack and kicked off the very edge of the wall. He shot over her head as she scrambled to turn and used the momentary opening after he landed to eject the clip from his rifle.

Yuko faced him with a runner's starting stance and grinned. Sooner or later, any gun had to be reloaded, but if he thought this was enough space, she'd be happy to cut him down. Her energy blades evaporated the grass beneath her as she erupted forwards.

Arashi slammed the clip back into place and brought his rifle into his shoulder as she charged headlong towards him. He fired the railgun at point-blank range.

Yuko's eyes widened as she realised his feint at the last possible moment. She nearly twisted her ankle as she planted her left foot and threw her whole body sideways. Pain erupted up the right side of her body as she slammed into a gravestone. Heat seared her left side and for a horrific moment she was sure her left arm had been blown away, but when she staggered up she found the wake of the black bolt had ripped away the sleeve of her blouse and left her with shallow burns. It had missed her by an inch at most.

Arashi jumped towards her and nearly decapitated her with a dropkick, but she threw herself away and scrambled up while he plowed through the grave. Thrown off by her rapid recovery, Arashi fired his jetpack and burned towards the church itself. He frantically dropped the spent clip and reloaded his railgun in mid-air.

Yuko fought down the pain of her battered body and scrambled for the lyrics of her lonely song. "For everything, everything, thank you. Until the day, one day, we sing together again," she sang. She chased after him with a strength that defied her injuries.

The priest had slammed the doors shut but Arashi forced them open with one hand. The civilians sheltering in the pews of the church screamed in fear at the sight of his hulking armour and threw themselves to the ground.

"We're not done here, Arashi!" Yuko screamed. She charged him down as he turned to face her and planted her feet in striking distance before he could take aim with his railgun. He managed to sway away from her micsabers, but she drove a heel kick into his ribs before he could step out of range. Her kirara shimmered with a warm light as she followed through and slammed him into the wall of the church. Using the opening, she dived past him and reversed their positions. It was the work of a moment to force him back out of the church and into the graveyard again.

Arashi traced the cracks in his armour where she'd kicked him, then snapped his rifle up to a ready position. "I don't have time for this. Get out of my way!"

Yuko chuckled as she ran sideways to bring the church out of his line of fire. "Sorry. This dance goes on until I'm bored with it."

Bravado was a fine mask for the pain. Her body had been battered by blunt injuries and her breath hammered fast against her sore ribs, but she still charged him down without hesitation. The moment she let up, he'd turn his railgun on her friends again. She'd burn herself out before she let that happen.

---

Takamina's group had sallied forth without hesitation while the 76th Generation performed from the temple building behind. Even if she was short some of her usual pieces, she had grounds for hope. Mayuyu pinned the enemy down with another volley of the missiles as she ran, then drew her micsaber and leapt on her preferred target. With that flank secure, the others moved in two groups to engage the remaining targets. When explosions shook the horizon and the temple guard had been routed in mere minutes, her mind had darkened with visions of an endless horde of troops that broke over them like an avalanche. But that was just her fear, the bastard child of a battlefield's uncertainty. Now they'd made a stand and gained clarity, she knew there were just three enemies. Given their prowess and the power of surprise, three had been plenty. But now 00 was on the offensive while Yuko had neutralised Broadsword's sniper. This was a winnable battle.

Aya rushed down the armoured commando. She drew her sword and swung in the same motion, but her crystal blade met only air as their enemy jetted backwards out of range. His retreat was cut off by Mariko, who struck before he could open fire on Aya and forced him to dodge away again. Given the time she needed, Aya switched to her preferred stance and thrust her long blade towards the joints of the powered armour. He deflected her thrust with his armoured gauntlet and opened fire on Mariko with the assault rifle in his other hand. Seeing her moment, Takamina dived forwards into his shadow and swung her mic-saber two-handed. He fired his grapnel and pulled himself up onto one of the torii gates that protected the stone paths around the temple, but the three girls ran him down without a word and surrounded his position. Mariko leapt upwards and was swatted down by a barrage of bullets, but she fell back and rolled clear with a smile as they bounced off her shimmering shield. Using that opening, Aya landed on the torii gate behind the commando and nearly skewered him with her long-armed thrust. Takamina watched carefully as he swayed away and maintained his balance on the gate with inhuman poise. As the others took the lead, she'd follow up at the decisive point. One swing would be enough.

Even without help, Mayuyu was the first idol to corner and strike her enemy. She wordlessly blocked blows capable of shattering concrete and pushed relentlessly inside his guard where his firearms were least effective to strike at him with her sword. Frustrated by the unrelenting threat, he fought unsuccessfully to shake her off, then used his jetpack to blast high up into the sky. He brought his assault rifle into his shoulder, but he'd momentarily lost track of her position. When he found her in his long shadow and twisted to face her, he was already staring down her missile launcher. He fired his grapnels through the roof of a storehouse and yanked himself just out of the way as the missile streaked up into the sky, but that committed him to a definite trajectory. Mayuyu leapt upwards and slashed through him in mid-air before he could react.

Mayuyu followed through to land on a torii gate in front of the entrance to the storehouse. He smashed into the straw roof in front of her. "Well, you're energetic," she said. "But in comparison to Shin Ito, this is pretty lukewarm."

She'd already half-turned away when he smashed his way to his feet and unloaded his clip into her back. He roared as the bullets hammered into her shield and exploded into fire and shards of glittering metal. Mayuyu jumped from the torii and took cover behind the red pillar as he reloaded and jumped towards her. "Takamina, we have a zombie problem."

"What?"

"I struck to the bone with my micsaber but he's still quite enthusiastic about killing me," Mayuyu said. She took off as his gauntlet split the pillar she'd taken cover behind. Her eyes widened as he pulled a shotgun from his robotic arms and rushed her down. Even though she could read his movements, she could barely stay a half-step ahead of him as he unloaded pellets into her shield.

"Okay. I hear you," Takamina said. She stop short and caught her breath as Mariko and Aya struggled to keep up with their own enemy. "Is it the armour?"

"No. I cut that properly," Mayuyu said. She reeled back as he rained blows against her guard, but her sharp eyes still caught the deep cavern she'd rent in his powered armour. She parried his next strike and drove a savage kick towards his exposed skin. That forced him to throw himself backwards and gave her space to recover. "So I'll cut his guns next."

Takamina nodded. "Everyone, change of plan. Forget about striking a decisive blow, fight defensively and wear them down. If we disable their weapons and armour, it's our win."

"Okay. But it's easier said than done," Sayaka said.

To say the least. Takamina gritted her teeth and rushed in as a grenade blasted Mariko's shield apart. "Fall back and wait for the right time to strike," she snapped. Bullets skipped around her as she charged the commando down and forced him away from Mariko.

It was too early for her to be on the frontline, but she had no choice. All her calculations and all the experience they'd accumulated until now relied on the notion that they could bring their enemies down with their micsabers. Though the commandos were cornered, they fought like feral beasts, and through sheer persistence they wore down the idols and broke through the protective embrace of the kirara. She knew she needed to think. They had to adjust or even retreat. But there was no time. The armoured giant before her hammered her defences with a half-dozen shotgun blasts and tried to crush her skull with the stock of his firearm. Takamina warded him off with her micsaber and scrambled away. Aya curved her crystal sword into his back before he could react, but he powered out of her restraining light with a primeval roar and slammed his fist against her guard. She was blown backwards by the force of the impact.

Mariko rushed in as he pulled out his pistol, but he turned with a snakelike quickness and smashed her micsaber out of her hands before she could strike him down. He caught her neck with his left hand and lifted her bodily upwards. She struggled against his crushing grip as he placed his pistol against her chest.

"Mariko!" Takamina screamed. She raised in hand, but she could barely muster a few pitiful scraps of light.

Aya stepped in and thrusted at the very limit of her range. Her crystalline sword pierced his arm through and erupted out the other side of his armour. Blood ran down the duallium blade as his pistol fell from his hand. She retracted the blade as he threw Mariko down and rounded on her. "I can kill you, if that is my will. Surrender now," she said.

His ruined right arm hung limply by his side, but by way of reply, he pulled his assault rifle from his spider's arms and aimed at her one-handed.

Takamina pulled Mariko into cover behind a small shrine tucked away next to one of the paths. The young woman coughed violently, but she still found strength to pat Takamina's arm as gunfire split the air again. "Don't worry about me. Go."

Takamina nodded. "Sit tight."

Aya tried to make it behind one of the large boulders that decorated the elaborate temple gardens, but the commando chased her down and poured fire against her crumbling shield. She held her ground with her back to jagged rock and gravel shifting beneath her feet. Despite the pressure, she spoke clearly as Takamina came running. "You know what to do."

Takamina breathed out and tightened her grip on her micsaber. The sudden sight of red blood focused the mind. She knew everything. Her sword of light was her will itself. If she chose, it would cleave through flesh and bone as surely it could split metal. And she knew that the moment she did that, she would no longer be an idol. She'd just be another killer who sullied a fallen world. Even so, she was responsible for ensuring that none of her friends died. If someone had to sin, it should be her. Those thoughts burned through her in a guttering, ephemeral world, but they didn't quite add up to an answer.

She knew everything except her own heart.

Until she'd swung her sword, she wouldn't know whether or not she'd be able to cross that line.

Aya stepped forwards and fired her cannon thrust at his neck. Taken off-guard by her reach, he threw himself backwards directly into the path of Takamina's charge. He pivoted with inhuman quickness and pulled his rifle into his chest as he took aim. Takamina narrowed her eyes as she stepped into the shadow of his giant frame and took her final swing.

Fluffy pink hair filled her field of vision as Tomomi threw herself into the path of the two combatants. Takamina pulled her swing and drove her shimmering blue blade into the gravel beneath her feet. Thunder split the air as the commando fired at point-blank range, but he missed both idols entirely and split a wizened tree behind them. He recoiled as if he was the one who had been shot and took several steps backwards.

"Thanks, Sou-chan. Leave the rest to Tomo, chiyuu," Tomomi said. She straightened and let her micsaber fall low to her side.

Takamina breathed out and took a step back. "Thank you. But be careful. Our micsabers-"

"I know," Tomomi said. She blew the armoured commando a kiss with her left hand. "But I don't need a sword to pierce his heart."

Yuu-chan slid to a halt next to Aya and raised her sword to guard. "Sorry I'm late." Her eyes flickered sideways and took in the blood dripping from the tall girl's sword.

"Don't worry. Now you're here, I won't disgrace myself any further," Aya said. A single clean swing was sufficient to shake off the remaining drops of blood.

"Go to Sayaka's group," Takamina snapped. She cut off Aya before the tall girl could respond. "Go!"

Kojiharu had likely already made it there, but this was no time to be stingy. Now reinforcements had arrived, they could turn this battle around in one shot.

The commando pivoted to fire on the two members of the Five as they retreated, but Tomomi reached him in an instant and pushed his gun upwards with a soft hand. "You're hurt. But if you give yourself to me, I can make the pain go away."

He threw an explosive punch towards her button nose, but his aim was off and she could slip out of the way with a single step sideways. Tomomi's sword curved up from below and split open his armour at the leg. He leapt ten feet backwards and stared at her in disbelief. Tomomi giggled. "You're still energetic. If so, I'm happy to dance with you."

Takamina didn't so much as raise a hand to help. She knew well enough that Chiyuu would never share this stage with anyone. And even alone, Tomomi pressed forwards. The commando's fear turned to an incandescent rage as his dead-eyed gunfire and flawless martial arts shifted away from her youthful body without ever striking home. He crashed against her in a wave of steel and lead, but when the spray cleared, she still stood unharmed before him. Even as she dodged his blows, she held his gaze with a lover's ardour, leaned forwards, and sang to him with the voice of a fallen angel. Her shining micsaber curved in from unexpected angles and shredded his armour into pieces. Sweat ran down her pale skin and her chest heaved as she snatched breath between each explosive blow. If he'd managed to take even a single step back, he might have been able to outlast her. But something in her fey beauty and her unblemished smile led him on like a moth to a flame and burned him away.

Tomomi vaulted over his final wild punch and cut his helmet away with a wild swing. Her smile faltered for the first time as she saw his face.

In other circumstances, he might be considered ruggedly handsome. But his face was taut and coated in lines of blood. His eyes were bloodshot and half-focused on Tomomi's face. His thin lips had been pulped into a mess of blood and blisters by his sharp teeth. Bereft of weapons, he limped forwards and growled like a wounded wolf. "Die," he snarled. "Die, die, die, die, die!" His eyes fixed on Tomomi's face and scented weakness. He leapt forwards and smashed her micsaber out of her hand before she could react.

Takamina raised her micsaber and stepped forwards.

"It's okay," Tomomi said. She smiled and rolled beneath his long arms when he tried to chop her down with a crushing right. The gravel behind her was crushed into a cloud of white dust. She jumped on his back before he could turn and wrapped her arms around his neck. "It's okay. You don't have to fight any more. You can sleep." She tightened her grip and stole his breath away.

He bucked violently and fought to shake her off, but she held on with all her remaining strength. His wounded arm hung limply by his side, but he reached up with his remaining hand to grip her arms and pull her off.

Takamina closed the distance between them in three steps and drove her micsaber into his good arm before he could reach Tomomi. Lightning crackled through him and tore the strength from his fatigued muscles. The commando lashed out with his left foot and forced her to jump backwards out of range, but the damage had already been done. He sank to his knees as he was starved of air and collapsed with the majesty and finality of a stone keep crumbling to dust. Tomomi let go of his neck and rolled off him before she took his life.

"You're amazing, Tomomi," Takamina said. She rolled the fallen commando onto his back and checked his pulse. Knowing their enemy, he'd be out for a few minutes at most. But that was plenty.

"That's right. Praise Chiyuu, she's great." Tomomi fell to her knees and gasped for breath. "But I'm sorry. I don't think I could dance with another today."

Mariko approached on steady feet and ruffled Tomomi's soft hair. "Well done. Leave the rest to us."

"Help her back to the temple. I'll meet up with the others," Takamina said.

Just watching Tomomi fight made Takamina shiver. Even now, she wasn't so different from a timid and shy understudy. But she made a virtue of her weakness and a mockery of strength.

Sayaka's enemy had fought his way through the garden and cornered his pursuers, but the arrival of Kojiharu, Aya, and Yuu-chan turned the tide. Caught out by the worsening odds, the assassin had used his camouflage cloak to melt into the shadows of a grove of cherry trees and attempted to pick them off one by one. But Kojiharu had led the charge with reckless abandon and flushed out their enemy before he could break through her shield. By the time Takamina caught up with them, the end was already at hand. Aya's cannon thrust split open his battered helmet without breaking the skin beneath. He kicked her sword away before she could strike again, but in the next instant his bloodied head was sandwiched between Sayaka's axe kick and Kojiharu's two-handed baton swing. He sagged and fell to the ground at the foot of an elderly cherry tree.

Kojiharu struck a victory pose and looked through her fingers at Takamina. "All done. And you?"

"Tomomi took care of him. It was ridiculous," Takamina said.

"Isn't it great? Ridiculous is, like, Tomomi~'s thing," Kojiharu said.

Sayaka checked the fallen soldier's pulse and sighed in relief. "You were way too late this time, Kojiharu. Thirty seconds longer and you'd be speaking at my funeral."

"I don't recall making a promise to do something like that," Kojiharu said. "But you should thank Yuu-chan. Without her, we wouldn't even have made it back at all."

"Not at all. I just followed Yuko Oshima's orders," Yuu-chan said.

"Aren't we forgetting something?" Aya said. She sheathed her crystal sword. "Mayu Watanabe is still fighting, isn't she?"

"Mayuyu will be just fine," Kojiharu said.

Sae nodded her agreement. "If it's Mayuyu, you don't need to worry."

"You're being complacent. Nothing is certain on the battlefield," Aya said.

Takamina finished giving her orders to the remaining members of WOTA and turned back to the others. "Well, just tag along and you'll see."

A sudden silence had fallen over the temple gardens. The grass had been trampled underfoot and carefully arranged gravel had been kicked onto flowerbeds. Bullets had riddled the tree trunks and shredded the leaves. One of the boulders left at the heart of a wavelike swirl of gravel had been smashed into four uneven pieces. But the area around the storehouse had been laid to waste with a degree of thoroughness that made everything else look ordinary. All five of the red torii gates over the path had collapsed onto the path beneath. The idols picked their way over the splintered wood to reach the storehouse. Stone walls had been shattered in all four cardinal directions to the point the whole structure had fallen in. Though Mayuyu was bruised and wounded, she still stood tall as her enemy charged into her. They exchanged blows faster than the eye could easily follow, then broke off in mutual exhaustion and stepped back. Mayuyu glanced sidelong at the idols as they approached. "Welcome back," she said.

Takamina scooped up Mayuyu's micsaber from the floor and threw it to the blue-haired girl. "Settle it."

"Yes, Captain," Mayuyu said. She activated the azure blade and stepped forwards. The first stroke sent him reeling, but he gathered himself and surged upwards, only to crash straight into her sword again. She struck repeatedly until he finally buckled and collapsed under the searing weight of her micsaber's lightning. Mayuyu put a foot on his chest and sighed. "I think he'll get up in a minute."

"WOTA's coming with bindings. We'll need to thoroughly restrain them," Takamina said. She stepped on half of a broken pistol and caught herself before she tripped. Broken weapons littered the area.

"Then we can go get Yuko," Kojiharu said. "She might still be fighting."

Takamina nodded and activated her headset. "Yuko, what's your situation?"

"Kid gave me the slip when things turned bad and headed for the tunnels, so I broke off. Our reinforcements arrived- a pile of warframes, helicopters, and dropships. They'll be with you soon," Yuko said.

"We've already settled things here," Takamina said. She looked to the east and saw the promised wave of black shadows as they accelerated towards the island.

"Right after the nick of time, I guess. Still annoyed I didn't bag Arashi," Yuko said.

"Buying time was plenty. We can leave the rest to the planetary authorities," Takamina said. She pursed her lips as she searched for what else needed to be done. "Chieri, Atsuko, stay put for now. We'll come get you when things have been locked down here."

A yawning silence followed her words.

"Chieri, Atsuko, come in," Takamina said. "Repeat, Atsuko, Chieri, come in."

"I'll go," Mayuyu said.

"They're at the summit. It's an absolute sanctuary," Aya said.

Yuu-chan nodded. "Stay calm. Do your comms even reach that far?"

"They reach orbit," Takamina said. Fear riddled her and left her bleeding, but a rugged nut of calm nestled just below her heart. She squeezed it tightly. "Yuko, head for the outer temple. We'll send someone to pick you up. I'll remain in command here and liaise with the reinforcements. Mayuyu, Kojiharu, Sayaka, Tomochin and Sae will head for the summit. Sayaka, you're in command. Aya, can I trouble you to guide them there?"

"Asuka's there. I'd go regardless," Aya said. She broke into a run without looking back.

Takamina breathed out as the group scattered. All she could do was hope they made it in time.

---

Gunfire echoed through the crystal cave. Chieri leapt over a clear pool of water and slid behind a duallium pillar. She hadn't fully recovered from the manic rush up the spire, so now the sheer toll of this running battle was crushing her. Her snow white cheeks were wet with a sticky mixture of sweat and blood. It tore at her chest just to take breath. Suppression fire slammed against the crystal behind her and pinned her down as One slowly advanced through the cave. Chieri's leaden fingers tightened around her micsaber's grip. Her eyes darted left and right as she confirmed the position of her friends; they all nodded fractionally as she held up three fingers and counted down. Fighting him at close range was like trying to box an avalanche, but they had no choice.

A grenade bounced to a stop in front of her and made her last finger moot. Chieri dived out of cover and rode the explosion with her jade mantle. She stared down the barrel of the commando's assault rifle and forced herself to rush on.

Atsuko jumped out of cover on the commando's left and pulled her micsaber back behind her shoulder-blades. Light bled from her body as she threw her sword straight towards him. She followed through with her whole body and nearly fell over as the glowing blade spun through the air and cut his assault rifle in half.

Asuka charged in the same instant and reached his flank in a few wide steps. One checked her charge by throwing his broken weapon towards her and drew his shotgun from his suit's robotic arms. An explosive blast of pellets slammed into her shield and ricocheted wildly across the cave. Asuka smirked even as she slid backwards. Her charge, too, was a feint. "Chieri!"

"I know," Chieri said. She raised her left hand and cast a single jade chain through the air. It snared Atsuko's micsaber before it crashed into the wall and pulled the sword into her hand. She charged straight down the middle with twin blades raised in an earnest imitation of Yuko's favourite stance. Her eyes narrowed as she reached her striking distance just as he turned his shotgun towards her. She feinted left with her eyes, then slid right. His next shot caught only shadows. He dodged the crescent slash of her right sword in the next instant, but his sway only threw him deeper into range of her other sword. Her left blade cut inwards with perfect form.

And yet her aching body betrayed her. He jerked his shotgun over the course of the blade with inhuman reflexes and drove a crushing kick into her flank before she could exploit his broken stance. Her phantasmal shield shattered like broken glass and she reeled back in a frantic attempt to reach a safer distance.

"Chieri, now!" Atsuko yelped. She leapt bare-handed into his shadow as he took aim with his shotgun.

Chieri threw Atsuko's blade.

Atsuko caught her micsaber just in time to cover her upper body. Pellets slammed into the shining blade and fell like molten rain onto the crystal floor beneath her.

It was a futile gesture. His left arm curved over her outstretched blade and blasted through her shield of light. Atsuko barely blocked his armoured fist by raising her shoulder, but the force of the impact still threw her head over her heels.

Asuka slid behind him and pulled her crystal sword back to cut him down, but he fired his jetpack without warning. The jet of flame slammed into her crimson mirror and checked her advance.

The same act threw One straight towards Chieri with the speed and inevitability of a meteor. Her sword warded off his shotgun but his left fist unloaded again. She barely swayed away from the blow, but her headset was smashed into pieces. Chieri's eyes widened in shock as she threw herself out of the way of his charge. An inch to the left and he'd have torn her ear off. Another inch again would have been fatal. She sprawled across the ground and searched frantically for Atsuko.

Atsuko managed to force herself up from the uneven floor of the cave and stared back with wide eyes. "Behind you!"

One fired his grapnel wires through a vein of softer rock in the floor of a cave to yank himself to a halt, then turned on Chieri with his shotgun raised and unloaded a perfect shot towards the back of her head.

Chieri scrambled up and threw herself behind Asuka just in time. Asuka planted her feet and gritted her teeth as pellets scattered around them. Jagged cracks raced through her crimson mirror.

Atsuko forced herself up. Her right arm hung limply, but she snatched up her micsaber with her left hand and rushed One down before he could fire again. Her frantic shoulder tackle knocked his shotgun aside and left him open enough for her to drive her micsaber through his stomach. One doubled over and roared in pain, but he barely remained standing and caught her left arm in a boa's crushing grip before she could move back. "I have you now!"

Chieri and Asuka both crashed towards him, but there was no time. A meter was far as the gap between the stars.

One dropped his shotgun and threw a right straight towards Atsuko's face. Her kirara broke his grip on her outstretched arm with a glove-sized orb of light and she threw herself backwards, but he followed through with the full length of his arm and barely kissed her chin with his armoured gauntlet. Atsuko fell back in deadly silence and sprawled across the crystal floor of the cave beneath him.

Chieri froze behind the armoured commando. Only long habit stopped her from dropping her micsaber where she stood.

Asuka forced One to leap away with a wild swing before he could follow through. Then she kicked his shotgun up into the air and cut it in half. "Go to her!"

Chieri's gaze flitted over the hateful ogre of a man who stood before them. He'd already pulled a large pistol from his suit's robotic arms. "But-"

"Just go!" Asuka snapped.

Chieri ran to Atsuko's side without looking back. Gunshots rang out and their echoes multiplied as Asuka's shield scattered bullets wildly across the unyielding walls of the cave. Chieri checked Atsuko's pulse, then sheathed her micsaber and picked her up bodily. Atsuko blinked rapidly and half-focused on Chieri as she was lifted across the room and into the shadows of another crystal pillar. Chieri knelt and lowered her gently onto the cold ground, then cradled Atsuko's head on her lap and checked her breathing again. Atsuko's eyes danced dimly from place to place and closed at times as she drifted in and out of consciousness. It was hard to say how long she'd stay jarred out of the world, but she'd survive. Chieri stared at her blank face and took a few moments to breathe in and out. It was only now that she could look outside herself and feel anything but fear for the bottomless darkness surrounding her. Atsuko's breathing returned a pastel semblance of colour to the crystal cave.

Asuka changed her stance to hold her crystal sword up to her face. She stared at him through the translucent surface of her crystal blade. "Your armour is hard. Can it stop that pistol's bullets?"

One pointed his pistol at her face and took careful aim. "I have no obligation to reply."

"Your heart spoke for you," Asuka said. Her whole body churned in violent protest at the hardships of their duel, but her head was frighteningly clear. She licked dry lips and closed her eyes for a moment as she groped for those familiar blank pages. Even now, she could hear the music and remember the first words of the song entrusted to her. "I'll never forget you," she began.

"I won't let you sing," One growled. He pulled the trigger once then adjusted his aim.

The bullet smashed into her mirror shield and was reflected back in an instant. It tore a rent in One's pistol and embedded itself in his black armour.

Asuka narrowed her eyes and continued to sing as he reeled back. "I want to stay by your side forever, but I suppose we have no choice." Her round mirror sprouted like a seed and twisted. Curving lines of red light surrounded her body. Within moments, she stood at the heart of a blood-red orb. Her kirara crowned her and released waves of light in a steady pulse. "Ah, I think I'm gonna cry."

One tilted his helmet to search for Chieri, but she threw herself in front of him before he could advance. He fired another experimental shot into the heart of her protective shell and grunted in pain as the bullet was reflected back into his armour.

Asuka nodded as if in answer as she sang. "Here's a toast to the day we met. Did you know my hair's grown longer since then?" If he gave her sixty seconds, she'd force open the gate and defeat him. That was how foolish it was to challenge a dragon in her lair.

One pulled a matching pistol from his robotic arms and unloaded both pistols one-handed into her shield. The reflected bullets slammed into his powered armour but he drove grapnel wires into the ground to lock himself into place and continued to unload into the crimson mirror.

"Was it chance that we met? So is our parting also a coincidence?" Asuka sang. Her mirror cracked before her eyes but she continued to sing without flinching. Her kirara painted over the imperfections as soon as they appeared.

The storm of bullets battered against One's pistols and eventually bashed them to pieces. He threw the useless weapons away and retracted his wires, then threw himself into close quarters combat. He drove a right heel kick into her mirror and nearly fell over as the force was reflected back into his leg.

"The stars you see in Tokyo and the stars you see back home, you taught me they were the same," Asuka said. Now his most dangerous weapons were exhausted, he'd survive her mirror, even if his stubbornness forced him to break a limb or two.

One planted his feet in front of her and raised his armoured gauntlets. "Silence, witch!" He unleashed a devastating barrage of punches. The reflected blows ripped through his armoured fists and steadily shredded his armour, but sheer force and persistence drove cracks into Asuka's mirror faster than she could repair them. His powered armour's robotic arms twisted into a forwards position and deepened the cracks with their own rapid blows.

"You'll never forget me. Don't forget about me," Asuka sang. She placed the palm of her right hand against the surface of her crimson dome as he screamed in pain. She wouldn't run, even though that primeval sound of a suffering creature rent at her soul. All she could do was watch over him as they determined which of them would triumph. Her eyes widened as the cracks in her mirror deepened and spread.

"Shut up! Just die!" One's final blows caused her mirror to buckle and groan, but the sheer force of the impact shattered the front of his gauntlets. Blood ran down his exposed fingers. He collapsed to his knees as if he was kneeling in homage to her.

"That's enough!" Asuka said. She took a breath to refocus before her song drifted away. "I want to stay by your side forever!"

"You're strong, witch!" One reached back and took a football-sized black grenade from the back of his belt. "But I refuse to die alone." He snatched the detonator from a damaged robotic arm and reared up to press it.

He wasn't bluffing. Asuka broke her stance and slashed her sword forwards. "Go!" Her crimson shell sprang into motion and wrapped tightly around the explosive charge a moment before it detonated. Enough blasting fire to bring the whole cave down in their heads was reflected endlessly within her ruby, then crushed and snuffed out.

One slid past it before she could move back and drove his right leg into her flank. The sheer force of the impact sent her flying into the crystal wall of the cave. He pulled his combat knife from his belt and stepped forwards. "With that power, you alone might have survived the explosion. Your death is a result of your own naivete."

Asuka fell to the floor and clutched her wounded flank. Thousands of burning needles ripped up both sides of her body and tore a wretched scream from her throat. Her crystal sword slid out of reach. She nearly blacked out from the pain but his words caught against her. She snatched at that thread without quite knowing why she was fighting so hard and forced her cracked lips open. "Even so, I would do this a thousand times before I let you take your own life."

"Moronic," One said. He stood over her and raised his knife.

Chieri barreled into the shadow of his body before he could stab through Asuka and cut his long knife apart with a single slash of her micsaber. "Enough!"

One jumped out of range and threw his broken knife aside. "This saves me the trouble of hunting you."

Asuka's eyes settled on Chieri's long hair from behind. "Please save him," she said.

"I will," Chieri said.

Asuka let her head fall back and closed her eyes.

Chieri gripped her micsaber with both hands and measured the distance between her and One. When he'd hurt Atsuko, she'd been crushed by an anger she didn't fully understand. It reminded her of the Void Gemini's curse, but her boiling blood and her revulsion for her skin, blood, and bones had authentically come from within. Asuka had fought to protect them both when she'd lost herself in that poison, and that only intensified the ache that squeezed her heart until even breathing was painful. Now Asuka, too, had been wounded and left on the brink of death. She felt hatred and anger for the man who stood before her, but she knew firsthand how easily anyone could come to hate another, and how easily they bore those emotions. It was a wasting disease that ate you from within and slowly killed your heart. This agony came from her self-hatred. She'd been naive. Self-indulgent. Arrogant. She knew how strong her friends were and so she shied away from her fears in the belief they'd be able to protect her. She believed her song could always bring them sure victory, so she'd neglected her training even as their battles grew ever more deadly. Now she was alone, far from her friends, against an enemy who would never let her sing

"If you give up now, I'll spare the other two," One said.

Chieri smiled at him. "Even if I sacrificed myself here, no one would be saved."

"So you think you have a chance to win? I don't need weapons to kill you," One said. "And when I'm done with you, they're next."

Chieri nodded her agreement. Naivete. Self-indulgence. Arrogance. An ace who lacked those things would never dare risk everything in pursuit of victory. They'd never be able to earnestly pursue the impossible and inspire the hopes and dreams of others. Even if she'd been mistaken about the correct path before now, her hatred of violence wasn't wrong. Now she'd seen Atsuko's face and heard her breathe, a sound sweeter than any melody. She'd watched Asuka put her life on the line for the sake of two girls she'd known for all of a day. She could remember 00 and the Five, so different and so alike. At the very last moment, like a frantic understudy who barely grasped a key dance move minutes before her debut, she'd understood what she needed to do. Any way of fighting was just a semblance, an empty shell that signified nothing. What mattered was her purpose.

Chieri slid her feet into a neutral stance and let her left hand fall from her micsaber. "If you must go forwards no matter what, I'll stop you here. Until I've done that, I won't be able to save you."

"Then die." One charged her down without even attempting to feint and slid past her thrust. His fist curled round to crack her skull open.

Chieri ducked under his razor-sharp left hook and drove her left fist into a rent in his armour. Jade light glowed around her fingers and erupted as she followed through.

One grunted in throttled pain as his ribs cracked from the force of the impact. He raised his hands and took aim again, but her glowing blade warded him off and forced him to slide backwards out of range.

Chieri stared at him over her closed fist and smiled. "What song would reach you?" she asked. She stepped forwards before he could reply.

One took an orthodox striking stance for the first time and fired controlled jabs at the edge of her defences, but she parried his blows with a flurry of motion and made it inside his body again. She switched stances with the swiftness of a magician and nearly tripped him as their leading legs crossed. Her micsaber parried his kick and ripped through his armour as she stared up at him. "This world isn't just made of happiness," she sang. "At times, sad things happen."

One planted his damaged leg and blocked her swift right jabs, then shifted his weight and struck with his other leg.

Chieri switched hands again in a single clean motion and blocked him dead with her micsaber. Lightning sparked through his body and caused him to stumble. "But with comrades right here supporting each other, we've always managed to stand up again, right?" she sang.

One drew in his armoured hands to block her jabs then slid his leading leg forwards to cut her off when she moved to switch stance. He unloaded his cannon of a right straight from above her and spread his enormous hand as she moved to parry his blow with her blue blade. Lightning raked up his arm but his fingers closed around the burning blade. Even as his gauntlet melted away, he forcefully tore her sword out of her hands and threw it headlong across the room. "Checkma-"

Chieri took him to the ground with a low tackle that swept him from his weakened legs, then locked in an armbar that hyper-extended the arm her sword had just ravaged. He roared like a gored bull and fought to rise. Chieri sensed his enormous body shifting beneath her and released the hold a moment before he powered his way out. His arm was a slab of muscle and bone, but she'd definitely inflicted joint damage. She leapt backwards as he struggled to his feet and breathed out. "Do your best! Just like sunlight, everyone's voices illuminate me!"

One drew himself up to his full height and took a ragged breath. "I will break-"

Chieri stepped in and drove her shin into his exposed left flank. He fought back furiously, but Chieri was just a hair's breadth too fast to catch. "What do we believe in? What lies ahead of this path?" she sang.

The lyrics flowed like water without a moment's thought, just as her body reacted to his every movement by instinct alone. That left a part of her to watch herself. She'd already chosen to sacrifice her shield and put every fragment of her light into strengthening her body. But though she could finally follow his motions with her eyes, this wasn't enough to match the ideal she was chasing. Left foot forwards, then right, then left again. His head was more than protected by his towering arms, but she could still force blows through the rents in his armour and hammer his stomach and ribs. Faster. She was still wasting movements on unnecessary things. Each and every counter-attack had enough force to split her in half, but she still had to narrow the margin she was using to escape them. Only then could she counter his blows with her slender body. Faster. He tried to trample her under his charge and take her to the ground, but she planted her feet and sent him sprawling back with a pinpoint kick that stabbed through his guard. Faster. She had to completely unify her intentions and her actions, just as Ryoji Shinkai had done.

No, that was wrong. Even if he'd been her teacher, he wasn't her ideal martial artist. She'd seen the face of a demon with absolute self-control behind the barrel of a revolver. Revulsion twisted her gut but she forced it down and emptied herself again. If she held her intent closer than love in her heart, she would remain herself even as she pursued the ideal that was Susumu Hashimoto.

One pried her guard open with snakebite jabs and smashed his right fist towards her face with the full weight of his body behind it. But she ducked sideways fast enough to put the lie to her previous weakness and drove herself forwards into his shadow. Her counter crashed into his helmet and cut to the bone. Jade light spiralled around her outstretched arm and hammered down black steel.

One staggered back on unsteady feet and warded her off with frantic jabs. His right hand tore off his misshapen helmet before it cut any deeper into his bloodied jaw and threw it down in disgust. That had been reckless. That had been stupid. Sheer pressure had driven him to seek a frantic one-shot victory only to crash into her trap. He spat blood and tightened his guard as she pushed in again. It should be impossible for him to lose to a mere teenage girl, but her speed was incomparable to what she'd shown him before.

Pure blue eyes stared through him and made his hands twitch with fear. "I'm not just faster. You're slower, One," Chieri said. She trapped his foot by changing stance and forced another blow into his exposed ribs.

One gritted his teeth as pain lanced through him and fired back, but she'd already melted away. "You witch," he growled.

Chieri stepped back and took a neutral stance. "Someone quietly murmurs 'we won't lose', and so our hearts become one," she sang.

He should look like a monster in her eyes. But she held his gaze without blinking, and he was the one who felt an incomprehensible fear of the unknown. She had a witch's fell arts and warm eyes, but she was taking apart his body with the swiftness and precision he used to disassemble firearms. His ribs couldn't take much more punishment. One bit his lip hard enough to draw blood, then lowered his fists a fraction and returned her stare. "I was the spotter when we killed your father. I didn't understand at the time, but now I do. You were right there on the other side of that door, weren't you?"

Chieri nodded in affirmation. "What do we believe in? I closed my eyes and thought about it…"

One talked in a rush and spoke over her song. "He was drawn to that light, and that put him right where we needed him. One shot through the spine and heart. He never had a chance. Do you want to know why?"

Chieri stopped singing. "Tell me," she said.

"I can't. I never felt the slightest resentment for your father. I simply killed him, just as I'd killed everyone I was told to kill, man, woman, or child. I remember finding a pregnant woman who had barely survived our attack. She begged for her life, but I choked her to death with these hands," One said. He stepped forwards and spread his hands. "And I felt nothing. Nothing. I'd do it all again in a heartbeat. You can't save me, Chieri Sono! No one can. How could you possibly save someone who doesn't even want to be saved?"

"Do you want to protect your comrades?" Chieri said.

One snorted. "That's a poor joke. We're all just tools that exist to complete the mission."

Chieri looked through him and shook her head. "No. You want to save them."

"You know nothing about me!" One's hands curled into fists.

Chieri pulled the key out from under her sweat-soaked blouse and squeezed it tightly in her right hand. "I don't know if I can forgive you. But if you have even a single human feeling left, you can still be saved."

One charged her down, but it was already over. Her lightning blows killed his momentum before he could reach her, then she broke his ribs with perfectly calculated kicks. His legs were next. After thirty seconds of methodical violence, One when he fell to his knees and dropped an arm to hold himself up.

Chieri struck the final blow with a simple front kick to his head and stepped backwards as he collapsed. "I'm sorry. This was the only way I could stop you."

Not even the serum could mask the pain. One stared up at the crystals that lined the uneven ceiling of the cave. Fairy lights glittered within the curves of the duallium and danced strangely with the spots of light dancing behind his eyes. "You have the heart of a killer, just like me."

"A sword is a mirror. I won't let this define me," Chieri said. She extended her right hand and traced a long chain from her kirara's light.

One pulled another syringe from his shattered gauntlet and drove the needle into his neck. His blood burned but he still felt strength surge through him. Thirty seconds would be plenty. He forced his battered body up using the remains of his powered armour and threw himself forwards. Caught off-guard, Chieri bound his arms with her jade chain, but he broke free with a moment's wild strength and caught up to her. She jumped away but he barely managed to drive his right leg into her stomach. One spat blood as she crashed into a crystal pillar and charged towards her. He'd smash her skull open before the darkness took him.

His right fist was stopped dead inches from her head by a rigid shield of orange light. One's eyes widened and he turned his head to sweep the cave.

Atsuko's eyes met his between the splayed fingers of her extended right arm. Soft motes of light bled from her body. "It's over. Don't hurt yourself any more."

One convulsed as Asuka's crystal sword pierced the back of his powered armour and forced a wave of paralysing light into his spine.

"Sleep. We mean it this time," Asuka said. She threw her sword away and barely caught him as he collapsed backwards. Only her wisp's light protected her from being crushed under the sheer weight of his armour.

Chieri pushed off the pillar despite the pain and rushed to help Asuka lower him to the cold ground of the cave. "That was close. Are you both okay?"

Asuka touched her ribs and winced in pain. "I've been better."

"I have a headache, but I'm tougher than I look," Atsuko said. "As if I could lie around forever when you were fighting."

One convulsed and vomited a thick stream of blood from his mouth. His massive limbs stiffened as he tried to forcibly suppress the spasms that ripped through his body. Asuka and Chieri barely had time to step back before he smashed his shaking arms against the crystal floor and screamed in pain.

Chieri stared at him and groped for clarity. "Asuka, can you heal wounds with your light?"

Asuka shook her head. "The most serious injury we've ever experienced was that one time Aya rolled her ankle!"

"Sing. I'll do what I can," Chieri said.

One laughed for a moment, then doubled over as a wet cough pierced his throat. "It's too late for me. But this is still better-" He broke off with a sharp roar of pain.

Atsuko rushed forwards and held him down with her light as he writhed on the crystal floor.

Chieri knelt and placed a hand on his bloodied chest while Asuka forced her voice to rise above One's screams of pain. When she closed her eyes, she could feel a shadow of his searing pain. The stimulant rippled through his veins like a deadly poison; his whole body was shutting down so fast from the shock that she didn't know where to start. She could face down a battleship without blinking, but the skill and precision required to use her power on living tissue without breaking it was incomparably more difficult. If she had time, she'd probably muddle through, but he was dying before her eyes. Tears pricked at her as she poured light into his body and fought a futile rearguard action against the all-devouring poison.

One wrapped a hand around her wrist tight enough to leave welts in her pale skin. "Forget me. Watch how I die, then save Seven if you can. The boy."

"Arashi Koga," Chieri said. She held his outstretched arm tightly with both hands.

"Yes. He's done bad things, just like the rest of us. Killed your father. But please. There's no one else I can ask," One said.

"I'll save him," Chieri said. She took a ragged breath and gathered herself. "I'll save you, too." It felt like a lie even as she said it.

One just shook his head and closed his eyes. "But he'll fight you until the end. We all will. That pride is all we ever had."

Chieri's tears fell onto his bloodied chest. All she could do was ease his pain as he died. "I'll defeat him. I'm pretty strong, actually."

One chuckled. "I know."

Chieri bowed her head and closed her eyes. He died without a sound as his ruptured heart stopped beating. "I'm sorry."

Atsuko hugged her from behind without a word.

A metallic click echoed through the cave. Chieri's eyes widened as she felt a new poison spill out into One's still body. A wall of heat erupted and spread across his corpse as his cells were cannibalised to fuel a chain reaction. She let go of his hand and fell backwards onto Atsuko just in time as One's body burned up and erupted into flames.

Atsuko scrambled back and pulled Chieri away from the body as it burned. "What the hell?"

Chieri gritted her teeth and punched the crystal floor.

In less than a minute, the flames guttered and died. His broken armour was empty; nothing but blackened ash and a few fragments of bone remained behind.

Asuka threw her long mantle over the ashes and clapped her hands together in prayer. As she lost herself in an eternal moment, the kirara that had hidden in the shadows of the cave emerged from hiding and flocked around her. From where Chieri knelt, they looked like a class of frightened children who needed reassurance. Or perhaps she was the one being reassured by the wordless warmth of the kirara.

"It didn't have to be this way," Atsuko said. "Why didn't he just stop?"

"Perhaps it's not that simple. The fire was Wellspring's failsafe, so I think his fate was sealed the moment he lost," Chieri said.

"Why would they do that to their own soldiers?" Atsuko asked.

"He had a number, not a name. There probably wasn't even a single moment when they thought of him as human," Chieri said.

"But he was human. A murderer, perhaps, but still as human as any of us," Asuka said. She turned away and let her hands fall to her side.

Chieri nodded.

Their aspiring saviours poured out of the birdcage the moment it arrived and rushed across the crystal cave. Chieri wiped away the tears that still clung stubbornly to her face and took a deep breath. A moment later, she was swept away by Kojiharu's embrace. There was an uncomplicated pleasure in sinking into the older girl's arms.

Tomochin took Atsuko's hands and squeezed them tightly. "Is everything okay?"

"We've been better, but we're alive," Atsuko said.

Aya ran to hug Asuka, but the younger girl kept her at arm's length with firm hands. Asuka shook her head and pointed at her ribs. "I'm hurt. Badly."

Aya took her hands and nodded. "Come with me. We'll get you medical attention."

Mayuyu looked around the crystal cave as the kirara hovered overhead, then knelt in front of Asuka's discarded mantle and lifted up a corner.

"Don't touch that," Asuka said.

Aya reeled around to glower at Mayuyu, but the blue-haired girl had already stepped back.

"What happened here?" Sayaka asked no one in particular.

Chieri pulled herself free of Kojiharu's embrace and stepped back. "Their leader was waiting for us here. We weren't able to save him."

"I see," Sayaka said. Her eyes drifted to the mantle. "Let's head back. The others are waiting."

Chieri's eyes widened as gears rusted by the salt of her sweat ground into motion again. "What happened below? Is the rest of Broadsword still at large?"

"Arashi made it out, but we captured the others," Sayaka said.

Chieri snapped forwards and grabbed Sayaka's shoulders. "What about the failsafe?"

Sayaka blinked. "Pardon?"

Chieri tripped over her words in her haste to explain and Sayaka's even expression darkened as she understood. Chieri stepped back and bit her thumb as Sayaka turned away to radio the others. Her mind raced down narrow paths as she searched in vain for a way forwards. No one was singing below anymore, while Asuka was in too much pain to sing. Running was too slow, and no one else had the required ability. So there was only one choice. "Asuka, I'll sing with the others. Open the gate and go to the prisoners!"

"That's unreasonable!" Aya snapped.

"I'll do it," Asuka said.

"Chieri," Sayaka began.

"It's a capsule somewhere on their skull. It'll spread from there," Chieri said. She pivoted from foot to foot. "Let's sing! 'Kibou ni tsuite'!"

"Chieri!" Sayaka said. She put a hand on the younger girl's shoulder and held her gaze when she surfaced again. "Yukirin says it's too late. I'm sorry."

The nervous energy that had coiled through her unwound in an instant. Chieri collapsed to her knees and closed her eyes.

Atsuko ran to her side and lifted up her face with warm hands. "Don't lose heart. This wasn't your fault."

Chieri sank into her blood-red eyes and felt scalding tears drip from her reopened wound. "I should have been able to save them!"

"All we could do was survive," Atsuko said. She hugged Chieri tightly and stroked her sweat-stained hair.

"Why am I so powerless? It's like nothing has changed since my father died," Chieri said. She gripped her necklace so hard the cold steel bit into her skin.

"You are not God," Atsuko said.

Chieri took a sharp breath as those sharp words cut through her. Disarmed by Atsuko's earnest gaze, she let her friend gently uncurl her fist.

"There's no point in worrying about what's done. Let's just keep trying without losing hope," Atsuko said.

Chieri finally let go of the key and wiped away one of Atsuko's tears. When she focused on the world outside her own mind, her love was little better off. She took so much more than she gave. How many times had she been saved by those eyes?

Atsuko laughed and wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her blouse. "Sorry. It's a little hard, I know."

"It really is," Chieri said. She pushed herself up and offered Atsuko her hand.

Sayaka breathed out as both girls rose. Aya was similarly wrapping up emotional triage with Asuka. "I feel bad, but I think only you girls could weep for men who tried to kill us all."

"They were what they were made to be, then they were killed when they failed," Chieri said. "How could I not cry for them?"

"Not all of us can see what you see," Sae said.

"Can we go? I want to be with Yukirin," Mayuyu said.

"Give me a moment," Chieri said. She picked her way between the scattered pools of clear water and the crystal pillars that held up the low ceiling of the cave. One's broken weapons and fragments of his armour were still scattered here and there. She stopped close to the spot where she'd hammered him with a counterblow and picked up his damaged helmet. Her fallen micsaber wasn't so far away, and once she'd picked it up again, it was the work of a moment to cut away most of the black steel. His headset remained behind, though it didn't even come close to fitting her. Chieri sheathed her micsaber and crammed the ring of black metal over her head. "Arashi? This is Chieri," she said.

There was a long pause without a response. Conscious of Mayuyu's glare, Chieri shrugged and followed the others back into the birdcage.

"What happened to One and the others?" Arashi asked.

Chieri blinked and pressed herself against the edge of the cage to open up a little space between her and the others. They descended into the depths of the mountain again. "We defeated them. One was killed by an overdose, and the others were killed by Wellspring's failsafe."

"You're lying."

"It's the truth. You're in danger as well. They can probably kill you at any time," Chieri said.

Another pause, then more terse words. "Even if that's true, it doesn't change anything."

"One told me to save you. I'm going to do just that," Chieri said.

"It's impossible."

"Not for me. I'll open the gate during the concert and destroy their poison before they can kill you," Chieri said.

"Not that. There's no turning back after everything I've done," Arashi said.

Chieri reached for a smooth reply, then stopped short. "Did you kill my father?"

"Yes."

Chieri's eyes wandered across the desolate wasteland of the abandoned dome as the birdcage descended. She could see a rusted children's playground still standing next to a bombed out apartment block. "Why?"

"That was the mission."

Chieri pressed her forehead against the bars of the cage. The metal was cold against her skin. "I had a pretty bad relationship with my father. We were the only ones left, but he was still so cold. Always busy with work. He locked me up and threw away the key. He forced me to play the piano, recite poetry, and practice self-defence with an ex-soldier and his daughter, but he never watched me and he never praised me even if I did my best. When I saw 00, I finally found something I wanted to do for myself, but even then he discouraged me. That's why I ran away from home." She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "00 was supposed to set me free, but even then, I couldn't really escape him. I was ashamed of being the daughter of Zodiac's CEO. It was painful when he used his resources to support my career. Worse when he went to war with 00 to pursue his incomprehensible agenda. That's when I realised that wherever I ran to, he'd still be my father, and I'd still be his daughter. I returned to Sagittariusstar because I wanted everything to change. I wanted to understand him. I wanted to be understood. I wanted tomorrow to be better than yesterday. Maybe that was all an impossible dream, but I held onto the hope that we could reach a place where we could honestly love each other. And you took that away from me."

"Even if I apologise now, nothing will change," Arashi said.

"That's wrong. Nothing can bring my father back, but if you apologise, we can both change," Chieri said.

"Perhaps you can, but I'm different from you. I had nothing from the start. No family, no name, no life but killing the people I was told to kill. I'd cross the stars for the chance to have a tenth of your bittersweet memories to call my own. And now I've even lost my comrades. We killed hardened soldiers, a man who called himself a god, even a king of the DGTO, but we lost to a bunch of teenage girls play-fighting. Can you tell me what I even have left at this point? My pride's been trampled into dust. My mission means nothing anymore. I have no future and nowhere to go home to. The only thing I can think of is the rifle on my back."

"You're still a child in the eyes of the EPS," Chieri said. "If you give yourself up now, you'll have second chance to live your life. Not as Wellspring's assassin, but as your own person."

"That's what I'm saying! I'm an assassin, that's all. If you take that away from me, there's nothing left."

"You have me," Chieri said. She forced the words through despite her doubts. "Even now, I want to believe you're one of my fans. If you found anything you liked about us during your time at 00, that's something that belongs to you and you alone. A song, a gesture, a smile, something someone said to you, anything's fine. It doesn't matter whether it was me or another girl or even a member of WOTA. You fought with us as we pursued our dreams, so you aren't just an assassin anymore."

Arashi snorted. "Everything I did there was for the sake of killing you."

"I know. But 00 is a special place. Even if you're our enemy, I'm confident you've changed a little since you met us," Chieri said.

"That's some impressive confidence."

"I'm 00's ace. That much goes without saying," Chieri said.

"Yeah. It's quite like you," Arashi said.

Chieri closed her eyes. "Your mission is over, Arashi. If you have nothing left to lose and nowhere to go, come see me. I'll do what I can."

"I'll think about it."

Chieri sighed and pressed her forehead against one of the cage's metal bars. In a better world, someone other than her would take care of this. But right now, it felt like she was the only one who could, even if it meant wilfully gorging open her wounds.

By the time they descended the spire and reached the temple again, the island had been transformed into an armed camp. Over a hundred soldiers patrolled the outskirts of the temple while a wing of aged warframes flew overhead. A knot of heavily armed soldiers were waiting to escort them. "We stand before the pillars," their Captain said.

Yuu-chan raised her hands when they stood to attention. "At ease. The Koryu is injured, so please attend to her."

"Yes, ma'am," the Captain said. "We have medics on standby at the temple."

The next two hours passed in a blur as Chieri waited for attention from the overstretched medics. The corridors outside the main hall were thick with people running back and forth, but an uneasy peace reigned inside as the lucky ones like her tried to stay out of the way. Kaori and Kojiharu did their best to entertain the temple's frightened novices while Megumi led the 76th Generation in a frantic last minute rehearsal. The kirara of the temple clustered close to the crowd in the hall. Chieri stayed out of the way and read quietly from a paperback book. She'd hidden the headset she'd salvaged from One's helmet in her bag, but the memory of it still needled her.

"Um," Ayame said. She breathed out when Chieri looked up at her. "How is As- the Koryu? We haven't seen her."

"She's receiving medical attention, but her injuries weren't so bad she couldn't walk back herself," Chieri said.

"I see. Thank you," Ayame said.

"Is this the first time she's been injured?" Chieri said.

"I think so," Ayame said.

"I see. Keep an eye on her. She is who she is, so she'll definitely try to rush her rehabilitation," Chieri said.

"The Five will do that. It's not like I see her every day," Ayame said.

Chieri smiled. "This isn't a large island. Do what you can."

"I'll think about it," Ayame mumbled.

"Chieri, you're up next!" Atsuko said from the doorway.

Chieri slipped her bookmark into place and closed her book. She was going to say something more, but Ayame had already drifted off to rejoin the other novices. She picked her way to the door of the hall. "How are you?"

"Yukirin says I'm surprisingly fine, but she still wants me to sit out the concert just in case," Atsuko said. "I tried to argue, but she got really angry with me, so I gave up."

"It's not surprising. It's a miracle you weren't concussed," Chieri said.

"I'm tougher than I look. And I think my boy was looking after me," Atsuko said. She raised a finger and smiled as her kirara perched on it.

Perhaps Asuka's song had made a difference. They really had been saved by her. "Either way, just look after yourself for now," Chieri said.

"I know. You too, actually," Atsuko said. She led Chieri up the corridor. Armed soldiers guarding the door to one of the triage rooms nodded fractionally was they walked past.

The more serious cases were being treated in the other rooms. Now that the remaining wounded soldiers were in the hands of Shangristar's combat medics, Yukirin had holed up in one the main temple's guest rooms to help treat the battered idols. She interrogated Chieri about her symptoms and whistled when she saw the vivid yellow bruises that tattooed one side of her body. "Does it hurt to breathe?"

Chieri shook her head. "The bruising hurts, but I think my ribs are fine."

"You're lucky. A slightly worse angle and bruising wouldn't have been the half of it," Yukirin said. "I'll ice that in a minute and reduce the swelling, but it should heal cleanly in time. I'll get you something for the pain, as well."

"It's okay. It's already a lot better than it was before," Chieri said.

Yukirin sighed and put a hand on Chieri's face. "Girls your age shouldn't be this used to dealing with pain."

"It's not just 00. I had to go through my share of knocks training at home," Chieri said.

"Speaking of which, show me your hands," Yukirin said. She studied the reddened skin and swollen knuckles. "You stopped practising martial arts after you joined 00, right? You've lost your old calluses, so this will happen when you throw repeated heavy strikes. I'm not criticising you, of course. You did what you had to do. But if you expect to fight like this in future, you need to train properly."

"I'm aware. I should probably thank Sayaka for our spar. Without that, things would have gone a lot worse for me," Chieri said.

"Certainly. And thank your teacher for your proper form, or I'd be dealing with multiple fractures right now," Yukirin said. She turned away and began to treat the minor cuts and scrapes Chieri had picked up during the running battle.

"How is Asuka?" Chieri asked.

"She cracked both her ribs. They should heal in a month or so," Yukirin said.

"So she can't perform," Chieri said.

"Obviously! She gave me a death stare when I told her, but no one can sing properly like that," Yukirin said. She finished bandaging Chieri's cuts and pushed the girl down onto the futon. "Mayuyu, ice!" she shouted down the corridor.

"I feel bad. She was dragged into my battle," Chieri said.

"The Five chose to fight. All we can is be grateful for their courage," Yukirin said. She turned away as a ruffled Mayuyu stepped inside with a fresh tray of ice-cubes in tow along with a bowl of cold water and cloth. "Thanks. Wait there a second."

Chieri lay on her side and stared at the paper wall as Yukirin draped a wet cloth over her bruise, then placed the ice on top. "It's cold."

"That's the idea," Mayuyu said.

"How is everyone?" Chieri asked. "I heard you had to fight three of them down here."

"We're alive," Mayuyu said.

"They took some bad knocks but made it through. Having seen what they did to the soldiers, we were lucky," Yukirin said. She turned away. "Leave the water there, then fetch me some more clean bandages."

Mayuyu nodded and walked out.

Yukirin sighed and knelt on the floor next to Chieri's futon. "Just bear with me until the swelling recedes."

"I will." Chieri closed her eyes. "Thank you for everything. No one else could do what you do."

"It's nothing. I just find this easier than fighting, that's all," Yukirin said. She paused for a long moment. "I'm sorry. I couldn't save the prisoners."

"I'm the one who should be apologising for that," Chieri said.

"Either way, I hate to see my patients die before my eyes," Yukirin said. "Why would anyone do something that horrible?"

"I don't know," Chieri said. "Broadsword were people who were treated as objects and disposed of when they were no longer useful. But I don't know who created them, who gave them orders, and who killed them. Without that I can't understand at all."

"It was a rhetorical question, you know," Yukirin said.

"I know," Chieri said.

Fifteen minutes. She could afford to lounge around and do nothing for fifteen minutes longer. The cold ice dulled the pain and she had some precious time to try and shake her thoughts into order. And it was welcome to rest her body, as well. Tonight's concert was going to be rough enough as it was.

Then time was up. She rose, pulled her blouse on and stepped out into the corridor to fix her hair. When she was armoured appropriately, she headed back to the main hall and tapped Atsuko on the shoulder. "Ready to go?"

"Sure thing. Where to?" Atsuko asked.

Chieri looked to Kanata. "Do we know where Takamina is?"

"Last I saw she went with Yuko to talk to Shangristar's CO. They're with Captain Yoshida and the rest in one of the prayer rooms. The big one opposite the dojo," Kanata said.

"Thanks," Chieri said. She turned away.

"Wait!" Kanata rose and caught her arm before she could leave. "We may have a problem," she whispered.

"What is it?" Chieri said.

"Remember the weapons inspection at the spaceport? WOTA smuggled some firearms planetside and used them during today's battle," Kanata said. "Mamoru even had his Type 48."

"This isn't a third order world. How did they get them through security?" Chieri asked.

"I don't know. I think they bribed staff at the spaceport, but admitting that won't help," Kanata said.

"Okay. I'll see what I can do. If I don't come back here in half an hour, take appropriate measures," Chieri said.

Kanata groaned. "Please don't let it come to that."

After asking Kaori, they found Asuka and Aya secluded in the gardens outside the main temple. Female soldiers watched over them from a discreet distance while the two girls knelt in prayer. Aged, scraggly trees leaned over a clear pond. Aya had changed into clean white robes without any form of adornment, a plain sight in comparison with Asuka's red-sleeved robes and golden hairpins.

"I'm sorry to interrupt. I have urgent business," Chieri began.

"Why white, out of interest?" Atsuko asked Aya.

"This is repentance," Aya said.

Asuka opened her eyes and sighed. "It's not like she killed anyone, so I've already forgiven her. But she's going to stay like this until she's satisfied."

Aya closed her eyes. "Today I cut a man. This is an inadequate form of repentance. Misogi would be more appropriate."

"Are you contradicting me in a question of faith?" Asuka's expression softened when Aya didn't reply. "Repent by singing. That is our master's desire."

Aya nodded. "Thank you for your guidance, Koryu."

Asuka put a hand on Aya's cheek. "Today's been horrible. Do you really think I want to see you hurt yourself?"

Aya put her hand over Asuka's hand and closed her eyes. "I'm sorry. I just can't forget what happened."

"Don't rush. We'll work through this together," Asuka said.

"If anyone should apologise, it's us," Chieri said. "This was our battle to fight."

"I can assure you they gave me plenty of reasons to be angry with them," Asuka said.

"They do tend to upset people," Atsuko said.

Asuka snorted. "I wonder why."

"I hope your ribs aren't troubling you too much," Chieri said.

"I'll live," Asuka said. "What's your urgent business?"

Chieri relayed what Kanata had told her. She bowed her head when she'd finished. "On behalf of 00, I apologise for the liberties our followers took. We've betrayed your hospitality, and that hurts me deeply. But I believe WOTA only wanted to protect us, and events have demonstrated their fears weren't groundless. If possible, I'd like to discipline them internally rather than being forced to leave them on Shangristar."

Asuka sighed. "Did you know about this before now?"

Chieri held her gaze. "I did not."

Atsuko nodded her agreement. "Honestly, we mostly leave them to get on with things. Maybe that was bad of us."

"I've saved you once already today. Why not twice?" Asuka said.

Chieri bowed her head again. "Thank you very much. I'm grateful from the bottom of my heart for your kindness."

"Raise your head. I haven't forgotten WOTA shed blood to defend our holy ground," Asuka said.

Chieri led the way back to the temple complex. When they reached the room in question, two soldiers barred the way until Asuka stepped out of Chieri's shadow. They melted away when she approached and threw the sliding door open.

A dozen soldiers stood by with their assault rifles to hand. The unwounded members of WOTA sat on the ground opposite them with their hands above their heads. They'd been herded into the far side of the large, empty room. Takamina and Yuko stood in the shadow of a tall soldier in a squashed cap. The Brigadier rounded on the newcomers. "I said not to-" he began. He broke off when he saw Asuka and started again after a moment's hesitation. "We stand before the pillars!"

The soldiers stood to attention.

Asuka pointed at the Brigadier. "State your name."

"I'm Brigadier Tatsuo Kaibara. My apologies for not introducing myself sooner, but I was given to understand you had taken to seclusion after your medical needs were attended to. I have been busy with operational matters," he said. He had a narrow, craggy face and eyes that swiftly darted from place to place. In moments, he took in the three newcomers, then shifted briefly to glance at Yuko and Takamina as their eyes lit up in recognition.

"Explain the present situation," Asuka said. Her voice was a shade softer than usual, but she stood tall despite her laboured breathing.

Chieri blinked and looked around. Without Asuka's permission to stand down, Kaibara's men were trapped at attention with their eyes staring into the distance. Even the Brigadier was obliged to stand rigidly with his arms at his side.

"In resolving the present situation, we uncovered the fact that AKB0048's paramilitary unit had illegally smuggled firearms onto Shangristar," Brigadier Kaibara said. "We have taken them into custody. Investigations are currently ongoing to determine whether or not AKB0048 are involved."

"Let the record state this is bullshit," Yuko said.

Asuka raised a hand to silence them both. "The Centre Nova has raised this regrettable incident with me. I believe AKB0048 acted in good faith, and while WOTA's excesses are unfortunate, they were instrumental in the defence of Shinkiyomizu-ji. I have received assurances that 00's soldiers will be punished internally, a solution I consider satisfactory."

"With all due respect, Koryu, this is a military matter," Brigadier Kaibara said. He narrowed his eyes. "And while your instinctive mercy does you great credit, we must consider the temple's reputation. Given the controversy over receiving 00, it would be damaging for the Five to be seen to unduly favour these 'idols'."

Chieri narrowed her eyes as she studied him. There was something about his curled lips that grated against her. One way or another, she'd have to speak up when the time came, but she couldn't find the right line yet.

"Do not presume to tell me what to do. I will always seek what is right without regard for what is popular," Asuka said.

"Of course, Koryu. I would never dare interfere in the temple's affairs," Brigadier Kaibara said. He put a long-fingered hand to his lips and coughed just once. "And I am sure you would never interfere in matters pertaining to the security of Shangristar."

"I have expressed my views, but it is true that this case falls under military jurisdiction. I cannot overrule you," Asuka said.

Chieri glanced sidelong at Asuka, but the red-haired girl's face was inscrutable even to her eyes. Not good. If it came to this, she'd just have to go for broke and beg him to reconsider.

"I appreciate your understanding. Your plea for clemency carries great weight with us, but I must also consider the views of my superiors and of the general public," Brigadier Kaibara said. "Please leave this matter in my hands."

"Brigadier Tatsuo Kaibara, who is the Commander-in-Chief of Shangaristar's army?" Asuka asked.

Brigadier Kaibara blinked and hesitated for a heartbeat before he replied. "His Majesty the Emperor, of course."

"And who does His Majesty acknowledge as his sovereign lord?" Asuka said.

Brigadier Kaibara clicked his tongue. "The CEO of Zodiac."

"Wrong. In truth, that title was vested in the person of Kazuhiro Sono. And now that he has regrettably passed, the title has rightly descended to his only daughter," Asuka said. She stepped to one side and nodded to Chieri. "Shangristar's ultimate military authority stands before you, Brigadier Kaibara."

Chieri took a moment to gather herself, then sallied forth. "Though AKB0048 acknowledges the hospitality of Shangristar and deeply regrets the transgression committed by WOTA, we agree with the Koryu's considered position that we should investigate and discipline our men ourselves. So in my capacity as the Emperor's sovereign lord, I must ask you to release these men immediately."

"This is sophistry!" Brigadier Kaibara snapped. "You aren't even a citizen on Sagittariusstar any more, much less our overlord!"

Asuka stepped forwards. "Watch your tone, Brigadier. If you misunderstand your current position and continue to insult our Emperor's sovereign lord, I will be forced to appeal to His Majesty directly to resolve this situation."

The Brigadier balled his hands into fists and took a deep breath. "Do you know what you're doing, girl?"

"I believe so," Asuka said. She smiled brightly at him. "After all, I am sure you would never interfere in matters of executive power far outside the jurisdiction of a military officer."

Brigadier Kaibara held her gaze for a long moment. Then he nodded curtly. "I am in no position to acknowledge Chieri Sono's claims. But since the Koryu has appealed for mercy, I will give up these men to the temple's authority. You may dispose of them as you see fit."

Asuka bowed her head. "Thank you very much, Brigadier. At ease!"

The Brigadier stormed out. His men hesitated, then turned and rushed after him.

Takamina rushed forwards and bowed before Asuka. "You're our saviour."

Chieri nodded. "That was beyond what we could ever reasonably expect. Words can't express our gratitude."

"That's enough. If he'd been more polite, I wouldn't have gone that far," Asuka said.

Atsuko giggled. "I'll be sure to never get on your bad side."

"No kidding. That guy didn't know what hit him," Yuko said.

"Don't try anything funny, though," Asuka said to Chieri. "What I said was nine-tenths bluff and he knew it. But no loyalist would dare put the Emperor in a position where he had to answer one way or the other."

"I'll be good," Chieri said. "But is this really okay? Will there be any backlash?"

Asuka shrugged. "Hard to say. If you're worried, make sure you put on a great show tonight."

"That won't be a problem," Yuko said. "We're on a tear right now, and this time DES won't be there to interrupt."

"Yesterday you put on a magnificent performance. We'll be sure to return the favour," Chieri said.

They parted ways at the temple's main hall. Asuka settled down with Aya and the novices while Takamina gathered up all of WOTA's able-bodied members and placed them around the perimeter of the hall. At first glance, they were protecting the idols, but from where Chieri stood, they were the ones being protected by Asuka's presence. Megumi and her friends doggedly continued their rehearsal while the other members watched, listened to music, and played around. It was a marked contrast from the stiff faces of the temple novices and Aya's obvious gloom. Somehow, they'd become used to a life of sudden battles.

Takamina stopped behind Chieri and Atsuko as they stood a little apart and watched. "Thank you. Things would have been difficult if you hadn't bailed us out."

"Thank Kanata. She's the one who warned us about the situation," Chieri said.

Atsuko nodded her agreement. "And then Asuka did all the work. We're just middlemen."

"I see. Then I'll have to thank Kanata later," Takamina said.

"So what now?" Chieri asked.

"Good question. Yuko, it's time for a walk," Takamina said.

Yuko sprang up from her comfortable position in the middle of the Successors. "Really? I just got to the bit where I kicked him in the crotch!"

Takamina dutifully rebuked her as they headed out into the corridor. Shangristar's soldiers were posted by every door and kept an eye on them as they walked down the temple steps and into the garden again. Warframes roared overhead on close-range patrols. "The concert goes ahead. We won't compromise on that," Takamina said.

Chieri nodded her agreement.

"The question is everything else we had planned today, right?" Yuko said. She put her hands behind her head and stretched. "I'd like to go if I could, but it's tough."

"Yes. If those assassins are still at large, we won't be able to do anything," Takamina said.

"Arashi is the only one left. If he's captured, this will all be over," Chieri said.

"You're excluding the possibility they have reserves," Takamina said.

"He said himself that he was the last. But if he's captured, he'll probably be killed by Wellspring, just like the others," Chieri said.

Takamina sighed. "I'm not going to like what you say next, am I?"

"I want him to survive until the concert. Then I'll use my power to save him," Chieri said.

"Can't we just perform in the meantime?" Atsuko said.

Chieri shook her head. "This time, I'll need to alter matter on the molecular level to stop their poison. It's not something I can do without opening the gate."

"Maybe Asuka can do something," Atsuko said.

"Her ribs are cracked, right? It was all she could do to talk just now," Yuko said.

Atsuko nodded.

"And we don't have the infrastructure planetside for a major livestream," Takamina said. "Shangristar will come after him, though. There's nothing we can do about that."

"Isn't it fine? He's reaping what he sowed," Yuko said.

"That's not very kind," Atsuko said.

"Why should I be kind? He's already done things that can't be taken back," Yuko said.

"It's not like I've forgiven him either. But if it ends like this, he'll have lived his whole life as a tool and died for Wellspring's convenience. I won't accept that," Chieri said.

"We all saw what happened to the others. We feel the same way. But a DGTO world like Shangristar won't question Wellspring without proof or easily believe our words. It's more convenient for them to eliminate the immediate threat and overlook the wider problem," Takamina said.

Atsuko sighed. "I always hate the politics."

"There's one more reason to try and stop them. Even if he's cornered, Arashi won't just lay down and die," Chieri said. "Nor is he an opponent a planetary defence force can easily deal with."

"True enough. Even if he's called a sniper, he could fight me off at my ideal distance," Yuko said. "That railgun is ridiculous."

Takamina sighed. "I suppose we have to try, even if it's futile. I'll see if I can find that Brigadier again."

"I'll talk to Arashi and see if I can persuade him not to fight," Chieri said.

"What?" Yuko said. She spoke eloquently for Takamina, who merely raised an eyebrow.

Chieri coughed and pulled her stolen headset out of her bag. "I took this from his leader's broken helmet."

"Don't mention this to the locals," Takamina said.

Chieri nodded.

Atsuko knelt and rested her chin on her hands as Takamina and Yuko walked away. "I wish we could just go after him ourselves."

"That won't help," Chieri said. "Not this time."

"I know," Atsuko said.

Chieri pulled the headset over her head again and sighed. "I'll do what I can. But the rest is up to him."

---

When? How? Why?

The lie was that Arashi Koga lived to follow Chieri Sono.

The truth was that Seven lived to kill Chieri Sono.

That was how it was supposed to be.

But at some point, the lie had become more than nothing and the truth had become less than everything. He didn't know how to understand something like that. He didn't know why he saw her face more clearly when he closed his eyes.

He remembered the first time he'd seen her perform live. WOTA fought like dogs over their precious block tickets to see Atsuko and Chieri become Successors. He'd opted into the lottery just to protect his cover as a Cherry fan and beat the odds to pick up a ticket for himself. It wasn't just. There were many real fans of the two girls who missed out while a fake like him attended a once-in-a-lifetime concert just to keep up appearances.

Arashi had worn casual clothes uneasily and left his quarters without a lethal weapon to hand for the first time in his life. He'd met up with faces he half-recognised, a knot of men and women clad in outrageous costumes and weighed down by banners and signs. For his part, he had nothing but his bandana to declare allegiances, but that didn't stop the others from foisting the second I in Chieri on him and instructing him to hold it up when the time came. Hardened soldiers who he acknowledged as fellow professionals waved glowsticks and chanted until they were hoarse. The arena was a huge space that overflowed with people. When they'd first arrived, he'd tried to scan the crowd, but hundreds of faces blurred past him before he gave up. It was figuratively impossible to keep track of every possible threat in a place like this, but more importantly the sheer number of people made him so uncomfortable he didn't want to contemplate it any further. He'd been in crowds before, but he was always moving with a purpose, a predator who sought out and killed his prey in silence before melting away into the river of flesh. More often he'd stood above them, a lofty reaper who looked down at the misshapen mass of humanity from a rooftop and narrowed his perspective with the purity of a rifle's scope. Now the weight and warmth of the crowd was pressing against him and pulling him outside himself. With nothing to distract him and nowhere to hide, he was just one of the commoners he'd looked down on before. He echoed the chants and held up the sign they'd foisted on him in time with the others as Chieri finally ran on-stage.

Her voluminous white dress flowed behind her as she came to a stop by Atsuko's side. For a moment, the two girls gazed at each other, then Chieri faced her fans and smiled. "I am Chieri Sono. I am right here."

Here, he was one of thousands who called her name, but that made him feel bigger, not smaller. Everything was different. He'd listened to all the songs. He'd watched concert recordings and broken down the dances with an athlete's precision. Light, motion, sound. The intersection of the idols and their songs with the audience and their chants. He knew it all but he didn't understand anything at all. At that concert, everything came together in an overwhelming moment. He had no past, no future, no self. There was just now, tossed by the waves as he was swept away by emotions he'd never known. Young love, passion and fear, yearning and a needless intensity that frightened and transfixed him. The joy of friendship and belonging. The pride of tradition and the shared aspirations that bridged the past and the future. The sadness of inevitable partings and a forlorn, defiant hope to stay true to love despite them. He'd never known them, but Chieri could give them to him.

In the end, she smiled through the tears in her eyes and spoke of the father she'd lost forever. That had been enough to bring him back to reality.

Chieri bowed one last time to the audience as applause crashed over the stage like an avalanche. Then she took Atsuko's hand and fled as if a spell would break if she stayed even a moment longer. Arashi closed his eyes as he applauded.

Her body.

Her voice.

Her soul.

She'd gouged out everything and offered it to the world. This was all he could do to thank her for that.

But in retrospect, he couldn't let his mind rest there. He wasn't sure if the world changed after that concert or if he just saw it differently. Perhaps a little of both. Either way, his exquisite problem wasn't so neat that he could explain it away with a single memory. Before that concert, he'd met her face to face and she'd spoken kindly to him. He'd realised with a start that her beauty wasn't just a phrase nailed to the page of his briefing materials. He couldn't meet her eyes. He'd felt her fingertips through the fabric of his coarse uniform when she held his bandana against his back and signed her name. And yet that wasn't enough of an explanation, either.

He'd studied her face for a moment with his sniper's scope when she opened the door. Then he'd fired. She'd tripped in the same instant and he'd missed completely. He'd fired a perfect shot that should have dashed her lovely face to pieces, but she'd scrambled to her feet and struggled on. Even though he'd shrugged it off at the time, it should have been impossible. In firefights and simulations, he was willing to acknowledge he possessed a mortal's fallibility. But when he fired the assassin's shot from the dark at the perfect place and time, he never missed his mark. It was more than skill. Once, it had merely been a pleasing fact, but sheer mind-numbing repetition had elevated his kill count to the status of a charm he held close to his chest. Thanks to that unblemished record, he'd been able to become Broadsword's unquestioned sniper ace.

Chieri Sono broke his spell and defiantly lived again and again. He'd lost count of how many times he'd tried to dash her to death with his rifle, but all he'd gained from his efforts was memories of her face. When they fought, he saw the darker shadow of the intensity she showed when she performed. She was a brilliant long sword that shone in the noon light exactly because she was sharp enough to slash men's necks to the bone. Even if she didn't kill, she breathed the same air as he did. Her sharp eyes always searched unblinkingly for the thread of victory in a bloody and chaotic battle. She went forwards by forcing down her fear and welcomed confrontation. He'd engraved her on his eyes in those battles and tried to resolve the contradiction. She was the sheltered princess who could sing of a teenager's simple-minded love and the courageous warrior who could face his railgun head-on. When she'd reached him a half-second before he could kill her and knocked his rifle aside, a blistering gust of wind swept over him and threw him off his feet. She wasn't just another target.

Perhaps a boy who began and ended with the word assassin could only fall in love with the girl he couldn't kill. Either way, he'd felt a strange sense of relief when her sword tore his mask from his face. He'd finally been able to face her honestly as her enemy.

But their duel on Bazaarstar wasn't everything, either. Every moment of the journey he'd begun when he became Arashi Koga was marked by her shadow. He couldn't break his memories down and isolate the moment he'd fallen for her, any more than he could amputate his fear and shame before the rot spread. And it went without saying that there was no 'why'. No one could be more distant from him. Nothing could be more futile.

It didn't matter, though.

Seven was dead.

The WOTA sniper from Glenstar had never been real to begin with.

All that remained was a memory of her face and his pride as an assassin.

Arashi Koga opened his eyes.

He squatted on top of a tunnel at the edge of a residential zone. His back pressed against the curved walls of the sky dome. Strange lights flickered and shifted across his insectoid body armour as his body interfered with the projection of a holographic horizon. Railway bridges criss-crossed beneath him; some shot straight ahead in a narrow cluster towards the other side of the dome, while others fell away rapidly and descended to reach the stations beneath. The city itself was a chaotic cluster of roads lined with houses and the occasional towering apartment block. With his eyes, he could pick out details even from this distance. Schools, hospitals, clusters of shops and offices: everything men needed to live happily had been gathered here. Many cities on younger worlds still possessed a laser-straight neatness but Khembalung was too old for that. From a height like this, he could see the ordered design the dome had once possessed and all the places where those rules had been broken to serve the needs of a growing city. The buildings spilled into each other and overflowed, some aging and some being rebuilt, all busy with the ant-like shadows of ordinary people. His secret war meant nothing to them, just as their peaceful lives meant nothing to him. They would never know his name.

A freight train erupted from the tunnel at the promised time. Arashi jumped onto the roof and steadied himself with a hand. After taking a moment to gather himself, he worked his way down into the narrow gap between carriages and punched in a security code. The carriage door slid open and he stepped past piles of crates to reach the middle of the room. He heard breathing before he saw anything and snatched a silenced pistol from his armour's robotic arms.

The contact stepped out from behind a pile of crates and raised his hands. "It's me. Don't shoot."

Arashi lowered his pistol. "Just get me the gear."

The train rumbled on as the contact took out an electronic key and opened several of the crates. "We have enough munitions to start a war. But you're the only one left."

"I see," Arashi said. He pushed past the man and scooped up a half-dozen railgun clips. He'd need more than ever before if he was going to pull this off.

"That's not much of a reaction," the man said.

"I'll mourn them when the mission's done," Arashi said. Robotic arms snatched up the clips and stowed them in recesses in his powered armour.

"Even with a plan, your team failed. What can you do by yourself?"

Arashi pulled his railgun from his shoulders and held it at arm's length in front of him. He stared the nervous man down over the black stock of his rifle. "As long as I have this, I have hope. This is the only weapon that can to kill Chieri Sono."

"Every plan revolving around your sniping has failed," the contact said. His words were flat and emotionless; he was just a voice for whoever was buzzing in his earpiece.

"Yes. I've given up on sniping. But at point-blank range, the railgun will kill her," Arashi said.

"You will die," the contact said.

"I'm aware of that," Arashi said.

"Fulfill your mission. KIll Chieri Sono." The contact turned and walked away without another word.

Just another puppet. Everyone he'd met on Wellspring's side had been the same. No, there was one exception. That woman, Wellspring's CEO, his God. She'd met him just once, permitted him to live, and killed all his old comrades with ease, the same way she dictated everything to everyone. How could billions of souls, untold wealth and power, and even life and death itself be subordinated so easily to her purposes? He'd burn with anger if he felt he could do anything about it, but he didn't have any way to rebel against her. The moment he tried, his life would snuffed out without a moment's thought. The death of his comrades had made that perfectly clear.

Arashi replaced his broken grapnel wires and stocked up on fuel, grenades and explosives. Then he stepped out of the carriage just before the train finished crossing the city. A momentary burst of his jetpack was sufficient to throw him up into the sky by the edge of the dome. He landed on top of a tunnel exit while the freight train rumbled on beneath him and settled down to plan his attack. By now, the temple island would be like a fortress. His only chance was to strike when 00 moved out for their concert in the evening. He had to put a plan together now, then move out before Shangristar's drones caught him.

"Arashi, let's talk. I want you to work with me so I can save you," Chieri said.

Arashi looked up from the holographic map he'd been studying and sighed. "If you have sensible people around you, I'm sure they've told you that there's no meaning in saving me."

"I promised One. I'm not going back on that," Chieri said.

"I didn't expect that from him," Arashi said.

"I have a mountain of complaints about him, but he was thinking about his comrades until his last breath," Chieri said.

"I see. But that just means he tried to kill you until his body failed him, doesn't it?" Arashi said.

"You're right. But there's a better way. We can end this without anyone else dying," Chieri said.

Arashi snorted. "Are you stupid? Shangristar's army will definitely come after me. When they do, I will kill them."

"For the record, I'm getting pretty tired of you people insulting my intelligence," Chieri said. "Putting that aside, though, can't you just run? You have that cloak and everything."

Arashi smiled despite himself, then stared at his armoured gauntlet and took a long breath. He couldn't afford to invest any more emotion in her words. "That won't be enough. It's just a matter of time before I'm run down," he said.

"If Wellspring would kill you rather than let you fall into enemy hands, you'll always have an exit strategy," Chieri said.

"Do you think I'd live if I fled without killing you?" Arashi asked.

"You'll have other chances to kill me."

"This was always the end of the line for us," Arashi said. "Now my squad's dead, they're just holding out to see if I can bring you down with me."

"So stay alive. If you get into a shootout with the authorities, you'll die," Chieri said.

"Maybe. But I'll stand more chance if I fight back," Arashi said. He touched the strip of his rifle. "Do you want me to live or do you want me to stop killing?"

"Aren't you a power-armoured superhuman?"

"I'm alone against an army. I'll need the railgun, and even then it's all I can do to buy time,"Arashi said.

"What if you had a different weapon?" Chieri said. She breathed out as her mind raced ahead of her words. He'd never exactly followed her orders as a WOTA, but even he recognised that tone of voice was nothing but trouble. "Mamoru was using a Type 48. How's that?"

Arashi paused for a long moment as he tried to work out what she was implying. "If I had a Type 48, I could fight infantry without killing them."

"Give me a little time and I'll arrange a drop for you," Chieri said.

"I don't just walk into obvious traps,"Arashi said.

"Look, if I wanted you dead I'd sing for ten minutes, leap across space and time, and punch your fat head off!" Chieri said.

Arashi snorted with laughter, then coughed to cover himself. "Fair enough. But it's still ridiculous. Neither of us have any reason to take that kind of risk."

"Maybe you don't, but I do, and we're doing things my way-" Chieri said. She broke off suddenly.

"What's wrong?" Arashi said.

Chieri blinked rapidly. "Look, I'm pretty busy here, you know. I can't spend all my time talking to you."

"I don't remember asking for this. I'm quite busy running for my life."

"Sashiko's on her way here to talk to me. I guess I'm needed back at the temple or something," Chieri said.

Arashi hesitated for a moment before replying. "I will fulfil my purpose. Don't forget that."

"I know," Chieri said. There was a moment's awkward static while she fumbled with the off switch, then the transmission abruptly ended.

Arashi rolled to his feet and breathed out. He couldn't entirely rule out the notion that a member of 00 had taken the name Rino Sashihara at some point in the last thirty-six hours, but it didn't seem particularly likely. If he discarded that option, it was interesting to think through what Chieri was trying to say to him in those last frantic moments. Arashi smiled despite himself. She still wasn't much of an actor; he'd have picked up something was wrong even if she hadn't dropped that name like a brick from a high building. From the start, he'd just been marking time until their communications were intercepted by Shangristar's authorities.

Arashi pulled his phone from a pouch on his belt and stabbed at it with his armoured gauntlet. This, too, was something he'd picked up from WOTA. At first, he'd just thought of it as mission equipment, but he'd learned by imitating the others. He plugged the phone into a socket of his armour and opened his sprawling 00 playlist. It was the work for a moment to blast 'Kibou ni Tsuite' over his armour's integrated speakers.

Arashi hummed to himself as he ran to the edge of the tunnel roof and leapt off. He let himself fall for a moment before he fired his jetpack and parked himself on the roof of another tunnel. He heard the rumble of the freight train before he saw it; it was the work of a moment to jump onto a fast-moving carriage and root himself with his grapnel lines. He ducked low and retracted the wires as the train swept back towards the centre of the city, then crawled to the edge of the carriage. Normally, he'd abandon his comm unit here and rig a trap with plastic explosives. It would be the work of a moment to blast the first hunters into ashes while covering his tracks. But he'd been hemmed in by a certain someone's unreasonable demands, so he'd have to improvise.

He made the necessary preparations, thenset up inside one of the carriages. Heat seeped from his armour as the refrigerated air caressed his face and made his breath mist up. Crates of fresh food from the plains were stacked up in walls five high on either side of him. His railgun rested in easy reach with the stock against his shoulder. Arashi placed his helmet next to it and raised a hand-held radio to his mouth. With a touch of a button, he called Chieri.

The seconds stretched out in silence before she responded. "I told you, I'm busy right now."

"I remember what you said earlier. But this won't wait,"Arashi said. He was running out of time.

"I'm listening," Chieri said.

Arashi took a deep breath. His hands shook, so he tightened his grip on the railgun with his free hand. "I still haven't answered you properly, so I figured I'd do it now. I'm grateful for the fact you're trying to save my life. Even if it was a promise to One, or just you upholding your principles, it's more than I deserve. It's the only kindness an outsider has ever shown me."

"Thank me face-to-face when I've saved you," Chieri said.

"When we meet again, one of us will die," Arashi said. He licked his lips. "I'm just as an assassin at heart and my mission is meaningless now. But if I kill you, that would definitely prove that I was alive in this world."

"It doesn't have to be this way," Chieri said. "We're both kids, even now, so we can reinvent ourselves over and over again!"

The freight train rumbled on relentlessly. "I'm sorry. I don't know how to change,"Arashi said.

"I'll teach you how," Chieri said. "I used to be a girl trapped in my father's gilded cage, but Acchan shone a ray of light into my life. Because of those meetings, I could learn to change myself. I could embrace my own dream for the first time and pursue my own desires, not the values forced on me by my father. That's why if you follow me, I'll show you the same light. If people try hard enough without losing sight of their dreams, they can change as much as they want!"

Arashi breathed out again and watched the mist diffuse. He'd have to clean his scope after this. "Perhaps you're right, but this is my choice. I killed your father and I'll be the man who kills you. So throw away your rhetoric and accept me as your enemy."

That would make everything so much easier for both of them.

Chieri hesitated for a long moment before she replied. It felt like he had half her attention at most, but she still spoke with a firmness that cowed him. "Two things, Arashi. Firstly, it will be a solid three to five years before I start considering you a man. Secondly, even if you're my enemy, I'll still fight to save you. Understood?"

"How many people would I have to kill to make you change your mind? Or is the 'who' more important? How about Atsuko Maeda?"Arashi asked.

Chieri sighed. "At this point you're just being a sore loser."

"This isn't over until I say it is," Arashi said.

"Then I'll make you say it," Chieri said.

By now he could faintly hear the sound of jet engines. Lights flickered on in the display of his discarded helmet. One steady burn and two smaller engines. They didn't sound like war jets. He raced through a morass of half-remembered sounds and traced a mental image of an aging dropship model and two warframes. It'd be another minute or so before he was out of time. "One last question, then. What's your favourite song?" Arashi said.

"Um, 'Yume wa nando mo umare kawaru' is probably my favourite. 00 has so many great songs, but I've always felt a special connection to the songs entrusted to my generation of understudies. And I think it's inspiring to reflect on how our dreams have been passed down to us by our predecessors," Chieri said.

Arashi smiled at the polished reply. How many times had she had to answer that question? "I see. That was the song they played for you during the Senbatsu Election, right?"

"Yes, but that was all arranged for me. I wasn't mentally prepared to place at all, much less pick a song for when I did," Chieri said.

The steady thunder of the jet engines swelled up as the dropship crashed towards its prey. Arashi licked his lips again. Just a little longer. "I was shocked to see you hyperventilating. Normally, you're one of the calmest members of your generation," he said.

"I always feel bad for making everyone worry," Chieri said. "But that was how I felt at that time. My father was using his connections to support me, so I just felt so fake, and it became too much to bear."

"You still made the most memorable speech of the night,"Arashi said.

Twenty seconds until contact.

"Please forget that speech if you can," Chieri said. She breathed out. "You really are my fan, aren't you?"

"I won't ever forget it. And you're right. Even though I'm your enemy, I'm also your fan," Arashi said.

Five seconds. By now the screaming of the jets echoed all around him. Arashi lowered the hand-held radio and slammed his helmet back into place. Lights flickered on his heads-up display as he adjusted the settings and linked the railgun's scope to the drone camera he'd placed on the ceiling of the target carriage.

"Arashi-" Chieri began.

"It's fine. I've already made my choice," Arashi said. "I won't die until we've met again."

Rappel lines, shouted commands, flashbangs. The enemy commando team stormed the wrong carriage with their assault rifles raised and nearly tripped over his decoy. He'd ripped out his integrated headset and left it next to the second of two hand-held radios. Arashi took aim at the first target's head using the drone camera, then adjusted his aim downwards and fired. The railgun's black bolt screamed through the steel walls of two carriages without shifting and scythed through the target's leg. He gauged their reaction to the sudden attack as he hammered back the railgun's bolt, then neutralised a second target with another precision shot to the leg. They scrambled to take cover, but crates of lettuce and carrots were no protection from his rifle. His third shot destroyed his target's arm. Realising their situation, several members of the team blind-fired in his general direction while the others surged up the train towards him. Bullets slammed against the steel door of his carriage without penetrating. Arashi pressed a button mounted on the side of his gauntlet and detonated his explosive charges. Half of the train detached in the precision blast to the coupler and fell away while the rest of the freight train screamed on. This was about the time their remote support would try to remotely override the train's control systems, but he'd already locked them down. The door of his carriage fell away as another result of the explosion and gave him a clear line of sight as the carriage holding his prey slowed down. His parting shot cut through a man's elbow and forced the others to throw themselves down.

If they were lucky and their medics were good, they'd survive. That was all he could do.

As the train roared on, his real target came into view. Arashi adjusted his bipod and aimed at the black shadow of the dropship as it rushed to assist the special forces team. The TX-71 Remora was a Zodiac model, a sturdy workhorse with VTOL capabilities and heavy armour, but the twin rotating jet engines were dangerously exposed. One shot was sufficient to blast through an engine and send the dropship into a death spiral.

Arashi scrambled up and shouldered his railgun as the two escort warframes reacted to the unexpected attack. He wrapped himself in his camouflage cloak and jumped out of the back of his carriage. The world swirled beneath him as he drifted over the railway bridge beneath and fell thirty meters. He took aim in mid-air and fired his grapnel wires into the bridge above. He jerked to a halt five meters above the ornate passenger railway beneath and lowered himself onto the middle of the lower bridge. The two warframes had already looped round and destroyed the front of the freight train with a missile barrage; now they curved round again and raked the remaining carriages with a barrage of high-calibre rifle fire. A simple, linear attack pattern, typical of amateur pilots. Arashi anticipated their trajectory and fired the railgun again. The shot carved through the warframe's engine and ripped it from the sky. The front armour erupted as the pilot barely ejected in time. The second warframe scrambled to respond by accelerating away then searching for its target, but Arashi's cloak concealed him for just long enough. The railgun's judgement barely left the pilot time to eject as it smashed the warframe from the sky.

Arashi reloaded his railgun and took the chance to survey the battlefield. The dropship pilot had barely contrived to crash land the sturdy black ship in a park, but one of the broken warframes had smashed into the street outside an office building. He had no time to worry about whether anyone had died. He passed the railgun back to his armour's robotic arms and broke into a run up the railway bridge. After ten seconds, he'd reached his top speed of seventy kilometers an hour. The very air was an immense wall pressing against his armour, but he scythed through it with a low stance and burning limbs. Warning lights flickered on as a train ploughed towards him. He jumped and fired a calculated burst of his jetpack. After a moment's pinwheeling flight, he crashed down on the roof of the train and threw himself forwards. He caught his breath while lying on his stomach and pulled his cloak over his segmented armour to conceal himself.

It was easy to say he should fight without killing, but even when he applied his considerable skills to the task, there were no guarantees. Humans were just too fragile, or perhaps their weapons were too powerful. And even if he'd destroyed the first attack, he'd only brought time before they tracked him down again and sent a stronger force after him. One way or another, he'd have to ruin dozens of lives if he wanted to make it through the day. Arashi groped for his phone and played the new duet cover of Nagisa no Cherry. He smiled stupidly as the joy of Chieri's voice and the exhilaration of a hard-fought victory ran together like wet paint.

Suicide was a rational choice, but he was a sore loser to the end. He'd go to see her, no matter how many battles he had to fight along the way.

---

The largest room in the dojo had been turned into a field headquarters by Brigadier Kaibara's staff officers. An enormous map of the city was projected just above the floor and dozens more screens were projected by the large black holographic devices placed around the raised wooden areas at the edge of the room. Captain Nishi strode from place to place as he parsed the flow of data and snapped orders to the other officers. Takamina stood between two armed soldiers at the far side of the room and watched proceedings with an unreadable expression. Yuko and Atsuko flanked Chieri like bodyguards while she stared down the Brigadier. Outside that point of calm, the other officers barked reports and scrambled to coordinate a response to the ruin left in Arashi Koga's wake.

"Do you understand now? That boy's only target is me, so don't force any more pointless battles," Chieri said.

Brigadier Kaibara hissed like a wounded animal. "You bitch! You warned him!"

"It's common sense that communications can be traced. I warned you from the start he'd be prepared," Takamina said.

They were both correct. Chieri would feel more apologetic if she hadn't been forced at gunpoint to set a trap for the very person she was trying to save. If there was anything to reflect on, it was simply that she should have anticipated the fact that Brigadier's men would retrieve Broadsword's headsets for analysis. "You've intercepted all my communications with him since I left the spire," Chieri said. "If I had anything to hide, you would already know about it."

"A signal. You must have worked out a signal in advance," Kaibara said. He stared at her with bulging eyes and spread his arms wide. "That's right, isn't it?"

"You're wrong. I only wish I had thought that far ahead," Chieri said.

"Does it even matter?" Yuko said. She smirked at Kaibara. "You don't have any reason to keep us here any more. And we have no reason to stay."

Takamina nodded her agreement to the brash teen's words. "You've lost your chance to track him by triangulating his communications. From now on, you'll have to sweep the city with drones and prepare a company-sized force for rapid deployment to defeat him. Given the circumstances, of course, I think a policy of containment would be more prudent. Broadsword's target is Chieri Sono alone."

"One and all of you, running your mouths as if you know anything about the world," Brigadier Kaibara said. "It would be funny if it wasn't so sad. Do any of you understand the political cost of dropping a hammer to kill one man? There are smarter ways to solve this problem."

Captain Nishi stepped out of the shadows and folded his muscled arms behind his back. "Sir, I believe letting them remain here any further would compromise military security. Say the word and my men will escort them back to their quarters."

"I have a better idea. Seize them and take them to the dropship." Brigadier Kaibara said. He smirked at Chieri with the characteristic pleasure of a small man who had just attained his idea of a historic victory. "We'll use the Sono girl as the bait we need to draw out the target!"

Chieri's eyes widened as she looked into his decayed eyes. She caught Yuko's shoulder as the older girl drew her twin micsabers. "Wait!"

Atsuko drew her micsaber and activated it with liquid familiarity. She stared down the line of gun barrels surrounding them over the edge of her blue blade. "That's not going to happen."

Chieri placed her other hand on Atsuko's arm. That certainly wasn't the direction she'd expected trouble from. "I am Chieri Sono. You will not be forgiven if you raise a hand to me without due cause."

Brigadier Kaibara rounded on his men with a snarl. "Didn't you hear me? Seize her! Kill the others if you have to!"

Captain Nishi held up a hand to still the soldiers. "Sir, a firefight in the command post would endanger our men and equipment." He nodded to indicate the scattered staff officers uncertainly holding their firearms.

"Are you contradicting me, Nishi? This is insubordination!" Kaibara roared.

Captain Nishi pursed his lips and looked straight ahead as Kaibara sprayed him with spittle. "Your safety is my responsibility, sir," he said.

"Useless bastards, one and all of you," Kaibara spat. He pulled his pistol from his holster and clicked back the safety.

Chieri caught how the Captain's body shifted in the corner of her eye and held tightly onto both Yuko and Atsuko. She planted her feet as her self-appointed bodyguards kicked slid their feet forwards and almost fell over as she checked their charge.

"Let go!" Yuko snapped.

Captain Nishi pounced on Kaibara from a standing start, locked up his arm, and disarmed him in less than two seconds. "Stand down!" He glowered at the older man as he struggled impotently against his grip. "Ishimoto, Kudo, the Brigadier is ill. Escort him to the infirmary with all necessary care. I will take full responsibility."

Two of the heavily armed guard detail swept forwards and bodily seized Kaibara. He kicked and cursed at them as they dragged him out of the dojo.

"I am assuming command for now. Lower your weapons," Captain Nishi said. His eyes roamed the room as several of the staff officers hesitated. "Don't make me repeat myself."

"Stand down, girls," Takamina said. She sheathed her own micsaber.

Captain Nishi breathed out as the remaining holdouts, not least Yuko, lowered their arms. "Okabe, Yano, please escort the civilians back to their quarters."

Two more soldiers nodded and stepped forwards.

Chieri caught Captain Nishi's gaze for a moment and bowed her head. "Thank you."

Nishi grunted. "Just go. This is no place for a teenage girl."

Chieri nodded and turned away.

The sky dome's false sun was bright above them as they stepped out into the temple gardens again. Chieri paused for a moment to catch her breath and nodded to the soldiers when they glanced back at her.

"I always assumed that if I was ever taken prisoner, it'd be DES, not these goons," Yuko said.

"DES is worse, go figure," Chieri said.

"Oh, yeah. Today's like your third time, right?" Yuko said.

Chieri nodded.

"Honestly, getting captured is becoming a bad habit of yours," Atsuko said.

Chieri giggled. "Sorry. I don't enjoy it, if that helps."

"We still had our micsabers. We weren't exactly prisoners," Takamina said.

The soldiers left them by the temple steps. Yuko ran on ahead, then stopped abruptly at the top and turned to look down at Chieri. "Next time, don't hold me back."

Chieri tapped her mirror steel pendant. "I was accounting for the worst case scenario."

"I knock people out if they point guns at us," Yuko said. "It's a matter of policy."

"My policy is to avoid pointless fights," Chieri said. She walked up the stairs and drew level with Yuko.

"All's well that ends well, okay?" Atsuko said. She ran up the last few steps and took their hands. "We'd better check in with the others."

"Atsuko's right. Kanata's probably ready to tear the place up to find us," Takamina said.

Chieri held Yuko's gaze for a moment longer and nodded. "Okay. But let's regroup after that. There are still some things I need you all to take care of."

"At least life's never boring when you're around," Yuko said.

"If I wasn't here, you'd make your own entertainment," Chieri said.

Yuko laughed as they took off their shoes. "Damn right I would."

They returned just in time to forestall Sayaka's rescue mission. Chieri sprinted through the usual pleasantries and peeled off from her friends to talk to Asuka. The red-haired priestess was watching the 76th Generation practice when she approached. "Can we talk somewhere privately?" Chieri said.

Asuka met her eyes and groaned. "Not again."

"I'm sorry. But this is a serious problem," Chieri said. If she didn't say anything here, the Captain would be court martialled.

The Five met with 00's quad in one of the side rooms. The most lightly wounded patients had already been cleared out and dispatched to a military hospital by airdrop. Only crumpled futon and torn sheets remained behind as proof of their presence. Chieri explained her latest entanglement with Brigadier Kaibara and watched with concern as Asuka's pale cheeks were stained a vivid red. It was hard to say who she was angry with.

Asuka buried her face in her hands. "You're an idiot, but he's worse. What to do?"

Yuu-chan smiled. "Koryu, please leave this matter to me. I think it might be wise if I gave papa a bell."

"Say what?" Yuko said.

"Very well. Take care of it," Asuka said. She folded her hands together and waited patiently while Yuu-chan fished her mobile out of her sash and stepped outside.

"Sorry for causing so much trouble," Atsuko said.

Kaori chuckled. "I'm glad you're aware of that, if nothing else."

"Our soldiers have been discourteous. We also apologise," Asuka said.

"Apologising for every little thing is boring. We're all friends here, right?" Yuko said.

Asuka folded her arms and shrugged. "I suppose we can leave it at that."

Takamina nodded. "Even so, there are no words to express our gratitude for everything you've-"

Kaori leaned forwards and pressed her fan against Takamina's lips. "The Koryu has spoken, my girl."

Yuko laughed at Takamina's rumpled expression.

"If you're feeling apologetic, just don't cause us any more trouble before the day's out," Asuka said.

"I don't make promises I can't keep," Chieri said. "But I'll try not to drag anyone else into my battles."

Asuka wagged her finger at Chieri. "If you're going to cause trouble anyway, drag me into it. You might as well do it properly," she said.

"That's very kind of you. I might do something discourteous and take you seriously," Chieri said.

Asuka caught her gaze and caged it neatly. "Can you really save him?"

"I don't know. But I want to try," Chieri said.

"I hate to say it, but letting him roam free might just multiply the casualties," Aya said. She ran her fingers up and down the hilt of her sword. "At worst, you may die."

"Don't apologise for stating the obvious. If it was up to me, we'd deal with that kid ourselves," Yuko said.

"I know. It's selfish of me to force this on everyone, but it's something I need to do," Chieri said.

Yuko waved her off. "It's fine. This is what friends are for, right?"

They snatched a few minutes peace from a messy day before Yuu-chan stepped back inside with her phone in hand. "Daddy says he'll make some calls and clean up the situation here. He'll make sure justice is done."

"That's very encouraging. Please convey my thanks," Chieri said. There was something to be said for knowing an imperial princess, after all.

"You can do that yourself. He'd like to take this chance to formally invite AKB0048 to stay in the palace until it's time for your concert," Yuu-chan said.

Chieri blinked. "It's a very kind offer, but isn't that dangerous?"

"More dangerous than you continuing to stay here?" Aya asked.

"Don't worry about security, we have people for that. And I promise the food will be good, at least," Yuu-chan said.

Takamina caught Chieri's eye and nodded.

"We'd be happy to accept, but I do have a condition," Chieri said. "Can I address the media outside the palace this afternoon?"

Asuka sighed. "You're planning something, aren't you?"

Chieri smiled. "Maybe. But it's also true that my many fans would love to see my face after a day like this."

Yuu-chan glanced sidelong at Asuka. "It's not a problem on our end, but what do you think?"

"Humour her. If she has more eggs thrown at her, that's her problem," Asuka said.

"Don't worry. I'll catch them with my face again," Atsuko said.

"Have you tried catching them with your hands?" Natsumi asked.

"Understood," Yuu-chan said. She pressed her phone to her ear. "Sorry for the wait, daddy. They're happy to come over, so send some cars and a escort to pick us up. And one more thing-"

---

Arashi knelt on top of one of the smaller government buildings close to the imperial palace. The uneven, slanted tiles were worn with age and made for poor footholds, but this was the ideal spot to survey the scene. He toggled his visor's zoom as he swept the rooftops. Just as he'd suspected, drones patrolled the sky and several of the rooftops had been seized by local fire teams. As if to bait him, the buildings with the best sightlines to the square were superficially undefended, but that was a trap to channel him into their kill zones. He knew that a single long-range shot wouldn't be able to kill Chieri anyway. And she had to know that he knew. Arashi broke off from his search and breathed out. It was polite of her to advertise the place and time of her press conference so loudly to the world. Thanks to that, he was sure it was a trap, rather than being prickled with uncertainty.

Given her and Asuka could both stop his railgun with their shields of light, long-ranged sniper fire was a futile endeavour. After two shots at most, she'd retreat inside the palace and he'd be swarmed by the locals. He needed to fire at close range to break her shield, then close to melee range and execute the next phase of his plan. There was only one building that would allow for that.

Arashi jumped from the rooftop of the Ministry of Faith and Culture and wrapped his cloak tightly around himself as he fell. He landed on light feet and ghosted through the crowd of tourists, fans, and protesters who were converging on the palace. Polite but high and sharply spiked walls separated them from the sanctuary within. Arashi shoved past a balding tourist who looked around in confusion at his brush with an invisible wall of steel. He attacked the clear run the rest of the way at a sprint and vaulted over the fence in a single leap. Patrolling soldiers armed with assault rifles passed each other beneath him as he fired his grapnel wires into the roof of the palace. For a moment, his world was a blur of motion, then his armoured chest slammed into the ancient tiles and cracked them. Arashi adjusted his cloak to conceal his body, retracted the grapnels, and checked his footing. Then he worked his way sideways across the roof of the palace until he reached his goal, a flat-roof dormer window that overlooked the square in front of the palace.

Arashi clambered onto the red tiles and nearly collided with a black bag. He recoiled and flicked through his helmet's filters as he searched for traps. After a moment's careful inspection, he located a familiar Suzuko patch that had been stitched onto the hard-wearing fabric. Arashi unzipped Mamoru's sports bag to expose the smooth curves and sturdy stock of the Type 48. A smirk twisted his lips in spite of his sudden fears; there was no one else but him on the roof, but he couldn't possibly be alone. So this was the mood of the Monkey King trapped in the buddha's hand.

He passed the non-lethal rifle back to his suit's robotic arms and punched a command into his armoured gauntlet. After a moment, his suit's acoustic radar activated and pinged his surroundings. Three markers flashed to life on his heads-up display in a triangle centred on his current position. Arashi moved slowly as he confirmed the location of each. Given an indication of their location, his inhuman eyes could pick out the slight haze of active camouflage. They must have scavenged the cloaks of his fallen comrades to pull off a trick like this. Their approximate heights were too short for the average soldier, though one of the three was notably taller than the other two. In the worst case, he was being watched by Yuko, Mayuyu, and one other- probably Sayaka or Sae. A second ping confirmed they were still for now, but if he reached for the railgun he'd be taken out in an instant.

The cheers of the crowd refocused his attention. Chieri emerged from the palace and swept up the path to the square. She was flanked by Atsuko and Takamina. Asuka and the other members of the Five followed shortly after her and proceeded at a stately pace to join 00 at the raised stage in front of the square. Hundreds of civilians had crowded themselves in between statues of Shangristar's dead heroes to see their idols. Arashi stood slowly and zoomed in on Chieri's back using his visor. She shook out her hair with one hand as she mounted the stage to address the crowd. If she was in pain, she didn't show it. Even One hadn't been able to mark her in a place the world would see.

Arashi stepped down from the dormer window and adjusted his cloak. Being pulled around by a forceful girl was pleasant enough, but he wanted their last meeting to be on his terms. The ornate spiral towers above him cast strange shadows as he fled without looking back.

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Author's Notes

This chapter took some time to write. Initially it was written solely from Chieri's viewpoint and Arashi refused to compromise on his lethal methods, but her standing around at gunpoint and watching monitor footage of him blowing people up with C4 traps and railgunning warframe pilots to death didn't work on multiple levels.

Even an Arashi Koga who is willing to compromise at the eleventh hour and fight as non-lethally as he can with a giant anti-material rifle may not deserve to be saved, but I think Chieri's ideals of extending a hand to her enemies are more beautiful in a difficult situation like that. The question is whether even she can defy Wellspring, Shangristar, and everyone else who rightly wants his head.

This chapter was supposed to be the end of the Shangristar arc, but it wasn't to be. Next chapter will be the last on Asuka's fine planet, even if it kills me.