Operation - From_the_Start
The gates of hell opened.
Amid all the many goals and objectives, the one that pulled the trigger was the sound of a great blast.
With them all together, the blast did not reach them, instead it moved down so that it hit the ground. Since it hit the ground hard and shook it, it was a truly strange sight.
Several events had gone by in quick succession.
It felt like time had stopped.
But finally everything began to move once more.
When the dumbfounded people in the area finally realized the blast had come from a shell fired along a path that made its way through the gaps between them, an explosive panic suddenly fell over the crowd. People let out meaningless screams and people fled every which way, paying no heed to whether they were on the road or the sidewalk. Car horns blared and, in some places, people fell like small lines of dominos.
"..."
Seidō move the others away from with a simple movement. Satori and Kitora helped as well so that the children were not involved with any more attacks. It was best to make sure that there would be no casualties in case another attack came.
And then Seidō looked in the direction the shell had come from.
He had assumed something like a tank had fired it...but he was wrong.
It had come from a giant white rhinoceros beetle that was 15 meters long.
Its form was constructed solely out of the curves, both gentle and sharp, found in biology. Its surface was covered with the same smooth luster as a new car.
However, its eyes let out an eerie green light and the tip of its thick horn shook. The thick horn was hollow as if its core had been removed, so that was likely the barrel. Despite having fired a shell, nothing like smoke could be seen coming from the barrel, so it may have used some special means of firing.
It was an eerie shade of white.
It was a familiar shade of white.
The rhinoceros beetle's armor opened up. Giant thin wings that had been folded up over its back spread out and began vibrating at high speed. Those vibrations produced something like a voice.
"I'll give my greetings as the Wanderers' best Trion Soldier."
When Seidō saw that bizarre material, saw how they moved in a very mechanical way, and most of all heard the voice produced by the vibration of the wings, he spoke as if spitting out the words.
"That's a disgusting voice that children need to be kept away from."
"Well, it doesn't really matter."
"This at least helps me deal with you. I don't have to worry too much about getting on anyone else's bad side. This is almost laughable."
"I am aware of that."
New screams filled the air.
Seidō could see the people who had tried to flee down other roads to escape the main road returning to the main road as if they were being pushed aside. They were followed by several more beetles. They appeared from all over the place. The giant pure white rhinoceros beetles used their 6 legs to move out to the main road.
"I won't bother to ask whether you can fight while protecting your allies. ...I do not care about anyone but that girl with a large a Trion source. It doesn't matter to me if anyone else is caught up in this or if they are blown to pieces."
"...What a tedious bastard," spat out Seidō. "Arrogant as well. Just telling us outright what his target is."
If the beetles opened fire with their shells from multiple directions at once, he would make sure to protect at least the children. He could protect the other people there by removing himself from the location. He could also protect them from stray shots by controlling the entire "location" like a billiards board, but it was still best to keep them from getting involved in the first place.
And that meant it would be best to completely lose the Border agents, drop the children off at some safe place, and then return alone to confront Pyrínas.
With that plan in mind, Seidō looked up toward a building rooftop, viewing it as a wall he needed to surmount.
However...
"..."
"Did you really think that was all?"
Seidō could see human figures standing on the edge of the building's rooftop. There were enough of them to completely cover the edge. Completely identical figures covered almost all of the building rooftops along the road.
"So you decided to overwhelm me with numbers since you know you can't defeat me in straight fight? With most things, quality matters more than quantity. Although I suppose that may fly over the head of someone like you."
"Did you really think that was all?"
The white rhinoceros beetle's wings whispered the same words once more.
"Did you think I merely deployed tons of puppets made of Trion? Did you think that was all the threat I could muster? Come on now. The threat approaching before your eyes is known as the best Trion Soldier ever made. Of course it isn't going to end that easily."
"You can't mean..."
Those words were muttered by Kitora, not Seidō.
It may have been her experience as an A-Rank of Border that allowed her to more keenly grasp the bizarreness of that possibility.
But the beetle continued speaking nonetheless.
It continued speaking the truth.
"I see that you lot aren't so stupid as to ask a question about me. Good. I'm not so stupid to answer anyway, so that's a good thing. Glad to know that Miden's warriors know a bit about general things and common sense."
As if in response to his voice, giant wings appeared on the backs of the countless figures standing on the building rooftops.
"Although at this stage, it really doesn't matter since you guys can easily be taken out. Like that man said, 'quality matters more than quantity.' I have both on my side, so I'll give you guys the chance to just hand over that girl so we can have a great amount of Trion on our side."
The multiple rhinoceros beetles created a circle around Seidō and began to slowly approach.
The countless white figures on the rooftops spread their wings wide in preparation to immediately crush Seidō if he tried to take any kind of action.
"Now let's begin the battle. If this is enough to overwhelm you, then that's that. If you are able to push back, I will have captured that many more varieties of possibility. Your strength will be directly used to level me up infinitely. ...I look forward to finding out when the eternal chain of death will end."
Seidō could destroy them all.
Pyrínas could produce even more.
Offense and defense.
That was the type of fight this was.
But Seidō had an Achilles' heel. To use everything he had meant he would have to divert his attention away from his main goal. These goals had to be done within the day and could not be delayed for too long to begin with.
The biggest danger for him was wasted time.
This was a never-ending battle yet he could not afford to hold back.
That sort of situation could cost him.
"Hey," Seidō whispered to Kitora next to him. "I'm going to destroy the ground. A subway tunnel runs underneath. The rest of you need to use the tunnel and the passageways for workers to escape."
"What about you?"
"I'll stay here to crush these eyesores."
He did not wait for a response.
With an explosive roar and a flash of yellow, the ground completely crumbled away within a 10 meter radius of Seidō. Kitora, Michelle, Sthénos, Mitsubachi, Stepney, and Satori were within that range and they fell down below.
Only Seidō, the one who had caused it, shot straight up like a rocket.
Once he reached the exact same height as the nearest building rooftop, the former Border member and the Trion Soldier's eyes met.
And then everything began to move.
"Do it," said the Trion Soldier.
In the next instant, the Trion Soldier's whiteness rushed in from all directions toward the former Border member's whiteness.
A young and handsome man walked down the street with an older man right next to him. They were both in regular clothes you could find anywhere, so they didn't seem suspicious in the slightest.
That was their goal anyway.
"When can we start~? I'm sure the others are anxious to begin as well~"
"Sir, please calm down. We've been placing the items all around this whole time while we were looking for the branches. Not to mention we had to be more cautious since Sanshū's Falcon caught Border's attention."
"Seriously~!? That girl needs to calm down. No matter what order I give her, she always disobeys and does her own thing. At least we don't have to worry about anyone from this city going to the next city over."
"Exactly, Sir."
"Urg. How many times do have to tell you, Hatomi, just call me by my name. People here have been looking at us weird when you say 'Sir.' They clearly don't see it right for someone so old to call me that. Especially since you say it so casually and with a dead tone!"
"Right...Futoyuki-sama."
"...That's not really any better..."
The two stood in the Forbidden Zone around the main Border base and looked up as something hovered above it. It was small and others really wouldn't be able to see it unless they really tried to look for it.
The something was a small ball that had multiple holes in it. It was a wonder how it was even in the air to begin with, but that thought would be thrown out once others realized it was something a Neighbor had made after a long time of research.
"Is everything ready?" The look on the younger man did not change from its casual expression, but his tone proved that he was serious. "No one is around the branch offices and there are no agents going in or out of this base?"
"It seems that Pyrínas has been found out by someone. He is currently leaving the tunnel system he found so that he won't be caught."
"That's fine. If he has already ordered the Beetles to action then we can go about doing what he need to do."
"Everything is set. We can see exactly if they are worthy of our attention or help depending on the results they give."
"Good. Let's start the lockdown now."
Akasora let out a tired sigh.
He and Shinoda were sitting in the Yagura Branch, just finishing up a chat when they felt the building start to shake.
They looked out the window and saw Trion coming down from above and go passed the window. They got up and looked out to see that the while building was covered in Trion.
"Now what's going on? Isn't that guy more than enough to deal with? Now we have to deal with this crap too?"
"It's not like I'm not irritated with this as well. Let's just get out to see what's going on."
"Can't you just contact HQ?"
"I just tried. It won't go through."
"If I find the idiots who did this I will give them a nice beat down that they'll feel for at least three years."
"Save that for after our escape."
"Yeah, yeah."
"Aaaah!"
Mitsubachi let out a short scream as she rolled down into the subway tunnel.
Kitora stood up and tapped on the hard floor with her foot.
"You can see the good side of that guy in how he makes sure we don't sprain our ankles in the fall. Even if we just met him today."
Meanwhile, Satori had not fared so well.
He had not been injured in the collapse the former Border member had caused, but he had noticed something important. That being a fact they were vulnerable at the moment.
"Satorin, are you okay?" asked Sthénos.
"This is just an odd day that makes me wonder if things will go south."
"You're thinking about her, aren't you?"
Michelle also looked over worriedly at Satori, but she then felt a tug on her clothes.
She looked over to find Michelle and Stepney looking at her.
"(Hey, Mitsubachi.)"
"What is it?"
When Mitsubachi replied after getting translation, Michelle switched over to whispering mode for some reason.
"(We have to make sure that we follow everyone here. They know things better than us in this case. Don't try to do anything bad.)"
"I-I seriously wasn't going to... How did you...!? W-well, well, well... Fine! I was going to follow Ken-chan's instructions anyways. My sister seriously trusts him so there's no reason for me not to seriously do the same."
"Mitsubachi, you said 'seriously' twice in one sentence. Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, Stepney!"
"Attention everyone," said Kitora as she clapped her hands to gather attention. "That man bought this time for us at his own risk. Whatever our individual issues may be, we need to escape from the Neighbor."
"No argument here," replied Satori while noticing a distinct flavor of dirt in his mouth. "Those were strong fighters. I can instinctually tell both of them are bad news. Whether they intend to or not, just being in the same place as them could get us smashed to pieces. It's obvious what would happen if we tried to support him without any real plan."
"So you're saying you would go back if you could come up with a plan?" asked Kitora for confirmation, but Satori irresponsibly averted his gaze.
At any rate, they needed to escape.
After that, he would observe from afar in hopes of finding an opening in the Trion Soldier's defenses and provide support if he found anything.
With a general plan in mind, Satori and the others began walking through the dark tunnel.
But then they heard an odd buzzing noise coming from deep in the darkness. It sounded like the vibrations of some large device operating. But that was not what it was. Satori had seen what caused that noise not long before. It was coming from giant wings beating the air.
"The rhinoceros beetles!"
As soon as Satori came to that realization, the vibrations of the air changed to a "voice" a human could understand as if a radio dial had been tuned to a proper station.
"Checking oral order. 'Destroy any and all elements that obstruct our mission.' ...Beginning value conversion for shift to autonomous tactics order."
Unlike before, the voice sounded like that of a recorded operator.
And it was not just a single voice.
"Compilation of autonomous tactics order complete."
"Primary objective determined."
"Checking effectiveness of eliminating the reason behind Miden actions."
"Battlefield determined, target action time determined, ideal ammunition expenditure determined. Preparations for attack on Trion Source and surrounding people complete. Executing autonomous tactics order under additional rule requiring minimal damage to surrounding environment."
Several green lights glittered in the darkness.
As they slowly approached, the silhouettes of several giant rhinoceros beetles grew visible. The giant cannons taking the form of thick horns made grinding noises as they readjusted their aim.
In that tunnel, the fragments and shock wave from the shells would likely kill all of them no matter who the beetles aimed at. And the beetles showed no sign of taking that into consideration.
"...!"
The one who received the greatest shock was Mitsubachi.
She had once been targeted by an oddly-shaped Trion Soldier operated by an unknown source. That battle had also used a narrow tunnel as its stage.
An unpleasant sweat quickly covered her entire face.
Strength left her legs and half of her vision seemed to be covered by something like fuzzy static. Mitsubachi was not even aware of the fact that her breathing had grown extremely erratic.
Michelle and Stepney were quick to try and comfort her.
The seven rhinoceros beetles continued their approach nevertheless.
Whether it was right or not, that group of weapons would use their cannons to blow away whatever target met the conditions they had been given. Even if Mitsubachi and the others tried to turn tail and run, there was only so much human legs could do. No matter how much they struggled, they could not escape the beetles' cannons. The first wave would blow them all to pieces, leaving behind a horrible scene in which no one would be able to tell which limbs belonged to which person.
That was what should have happened.
But...
"...K-ksh...?"
One of the rhinoceros beetles that had been moving as accurately as a machine let out a strange noise. It seemed some problem had arisen in the movements of the giant wings producing the artificial voice and that had caused an error in the voice conversion.
"What was that?" said Sthénos as she blinked a few times.
No, it was not an issue with the hardware.
The source of the problem was in the software signal that produced the artificial voice.
"Rechecking oral order... 'Destroy any and all elements that obstruct our mission.' Beginning value conversion while breaking order down word by word... Rechecking while searching for changes in meaning based on the word combination..."
The beetle's cannon began to sway slightly, unrelated to its targeting information.
The movement resembled a human tilting its head in confusion.
"Focusing on term 'mission'... Requesting help from all accompanying models... More information needed to set objective of autonomous strategy order..."
The seven rhinoceros beetles all spread their wings at once.
They vibrated those wings at high speed to create human language.
Isn't that obvious?
That was what the other beetles seemed to say in the readiness with which they replied to their malfunctioning friend.
"The objective of the current mission is to capture and use the large Trion Sources around the city. Current target is the one without a Trigger on their body."
"The objective of the current mission is to eliminate anyone who would obstruct our mission as Wanderers as well as our hidden objective."
"The objective of the current mission is to secure the battlefield."
"The objective of the current mission is to eliminate the recent continuing threat to ourselves by defeating all dangerous elements."
"The objective of the current mission is to protect the residents of different worlds from all currently anticipated dangerous elements..."
The rhinoceros beetles stopped moving for a moment.
But they took action shortly thereafter.
The seven rhinoceros beetles all rotated at once with enough force to send orange sparks flying from the concrete ground. Then, with their cannon barrels pressed against each other at close range, they unhesitatingly began firing.
He was just a teacher. He had no connections to anyone major. He knew that Border was locatated in Mikado City, the next city over, but he didn't care. He was fine with his small teaching job and being in the small classroom with his small class.
He was fine being a nobody.
"What the hell is going on!? I thought those thing were only suppose to appear in Mikado!"
He was worried about the odd looking animals walking around and destroying anything. He saw them take some people away as soon as the giant green wall fell upon the whole city. Even the huge multi-layer overpass didn't seem to stop the wall from falling as each layer got cut through by the green wall.
When he had first seen this all happen, the teacher quickly hid his students so that they would be safe. What he didn't notice was that one if his students had gotten lost in the escape.
Once he had been told of the missing child he went out to search for her.
He crawled along the ground to make sure he didn't get spotted by the weird animals around. As soon as he got to a destroyed gas station, he saw the missing student.
He also saw something else.
One of the strange animals, looking like a bear, was right behind her and seemed ready to either grab her or hit her, obviously making her go flying.
Panicking, he let out a yell of "Miki-chan, move!"
The girl seemed frightened when she looked over at the teacher and pointed behind him.
That's when he felt like there was something behind him. Slowly looking back, he saw one of strange animals glaring down at him.
"HELP!"
Just as the teacher squeezed his eyes shut, he heard a loud crash.
The animal behind him had suddenly flown a few meters to the side.
For an instant, the teacher thought the animal had been hit by a dump truck.
Even after turning around and seeing it with his own eyes, he could not believe that the animal had actually been struck by a single punch of a slender arm.
The great crash of the strange white animal's body destroying a vending machine brought all attention on that spot. However, the one who had thrown the punch did not seem to care.
"Looks like these ones are also Trion Soldiers."
"What a pain."
Two people accompanied her. They both looked ready for a fight, even if they seemed casual. One was standing atop the fallen bear-like Trion Soldier with her large sword stabbed into it. The other one a grin on her face.
Speaking to the one with the large sword, the girl that had saved the teacher said, "Try not to destroy the entire city, please."
"Look who's talking. With the queen of destruction on the scene, I have no room to actually shine on the battlefield."
"Please stop talking before I punch you all the way back to Mikado City."
While creating an extremely threatening atmosphere, the two of them slowly headed for the area where they figured their targets were. They were of course headed there to beat the crap out of the enemies and to take down the wall made of Trion.
The teacher was completely taken aback and the girl with a grin turned to wink and said, "Basically, those two woman are saying everything is going to be okay."
With countless explosions, two monsters ruled the battlefield.
They were the #1 and the #3 when it came to destruction of property via Trigger.
Those two A-Ranks had singlehandedly traversed through battlefields and now a tornado of destruction surrounded them.
"That much Trion..."
Yuki couldn't help but to stare at the cocooned building as he cut through the falcon-like Trion soldier with Idōgetsu.
He had been looking for Michelle after having accidentally lost her while also keeping an eye out for Seidō, but he had to stop when he saw the main Border building start to be covered by a wall of Trion. He had seen multiple people talking and panicking over the whole thing, but thanks to Tokieda's help as someone from Arashiyama Squad, the crowds were settled down from them saying it was just a test for some new defense.
After that, Yuki had decided to go back to the Yagura Branch office, but was stopped when he saw a speck in the sky. He had been informed about the flying Trion soldier Karasuma and Konami saw, so he took to the sky and dealt with it immediately.
Now here he was, falling from the sky. From his spot in the air he could see that not only was the Border headquarters covered, but also the branch offices he could see.
"What the hell is this...? That much Trion is crazy."
From the corner of his eye he could see another building trapped by the wall of Trion. The only thing was that it was a mall and had nothing directly to do with Border.
"Now that I think about it... Take invited me to go with them..."
Finally landing on the ground, Yuki let out a sigh as he scratched his head. He was about to head over to help his own branch, but stopped when he heard someone's voice.
"Ki... Yuki!"
"Hm? Tora-san?"
"Finally. There's something I need you to do."
"Does it have to do with why all the branch offices and HQ are trapped?"
"So you've noticed, huh? I guess that's not surprising. Well either way, you're right. Chishi and I were stuck in the Yagura Branch office for a bit there. We found out that at the top of the 'cage' there's a small machine. It's probably the thing that's making the 'cage'. Chishi should be on his way towards you right now. You need to go with him to the next city over."
"Hm? Is there something important there?"
"We had noticed that there was some line connecting to the machine over the office and the direction it was connected to is where the city is."
"Alright. I've gotcha now. We have to go and take out the main thing that's supplying the Trion for these 'cages,' right?"
"That's right. I'm leaving it to you two."
"Sure thing."
Ending the conversation, Yuki got ready to go. Before that though, he heard multiple steps coming towards him.
He felt a nasty feeling and quickly turned around with Idōgetsu pointed at the middle person.
"What do you want?"
There stood Ninomiya Squad in all their glory. Ninomiya simply looked at Yuki without paying the weapon pointed at him any attention. Inukai was just waving with a grin. Tsuji was standing there.
"We will be going with you. It'll get things done quickly. Not to mention I'm sure you can't take any opponent on yourself," Ninomiya said all this with an almost smug look.
"Sorry, but I'm gonna go with Sensei, so there's no room for you. I could use Inu and Tsuji's help though." Yuki looked back up at Ninomiya with his own irritated look. "Besides, what are you doing eavesdropping on other people's conversations?"
"Now isn't the time for your stupid fighting!"
The four turned to a car rushing at them. It stopped just before hitting them to show Akasora in the driver seat.
"Yuki and Masataka will go with me. Inukai and Tsuji, you go and help out the branch offices. There's something at the top of the whole thing you need to attack. Get the agents inside the 'cage' to help you destroy it. It has it's own defensive barrier around it, so relentless attacks are best."
"Roger that!"
"Now, you two idiots, get in already."
Doing as they were told, Yuki and Ninomiya got inside the car. They wasted no time as the car sped away.
"Guess we've gotta give it our all!"
With a nod from Tsuji, the two went off to take care of their assignment.
Satori used both hands to cover his ears with all his strength.
Even so, the roar within the tunnel was enough to feel like it was tearing apart his eardrums. The sound of the shells would have been loud enough at the best of times, but the close quarters and enclosed environment of the tunnel made it much worse. Given the circumstances, he counted himself lucky that none of his organs were injured.
"What the hell, what the hell, what the hell, what the hell!? If they were gonna start fighting each other, couldn't they have done it before approaching us!? What are they trying to do!?"
"Seriously... I feel dizzy..."
The seven rhinoceros beetles were not firing at Satori and the others.
Satori was not sure if those monsters were living creatures or just weapons, but they had pressed their cannon barrels against each other as if creating a ring and then unhesitatingly begun firing repeatedly at each other at point blank range.
While holding her own ears just like Satori was, Kitora grimaced and said, "It looks like their friend/foe identification and destruction priority order have been thrown out of order thanks to a difference in interpretation over their orders. But how?"
The explosive noises continued.
One of the white rhinoceros beetles that must have weighed several tons was torn from the ground and blown in a large parabolic arc. It flipped upside down so the area of armor meant to store its wings was pressed up against the concrete and subway track.
"Wah!"
"Satori-senpai, move back," said Kitora.
Immediately after he was pulled backwards by a surprisingly strong tug on his clothes, the upside-down beetle slid into the spot he had been standing in.
Either their "opinions" had coincided or they were simply going to destroy the enemy they could because the other six beetles all aimed at the single upside-down beetle.
As the rhinoceros beetle's six legs wriggled around, it forcibly vibrated the wings trapped between itself and the ground to create an artificial voice that could reach Satori and the others who were nearby.
"...What was I trying to do...?" it asked.
"How the hell should I know!? Don't come on out here if you're just going to get confused!"
"I suppose so... I agree that this is something I should decide for myself..."
While still on its back, the beetle beat its thin wings against the ground to rotate around. Using that method, it accurately aimed its thick horn. Its target was Michelle who stood behind Satori.
"Seriously!"
Mitsubachi immediately moved forward to cover Michelle who was behind Kitora's leg.
But...
The shell never came.
While still on its back, the rhinoceros beetle vibrated its thin wings to create a voice once more.
"Activating order wizard... Validity of oral order 'destroy any and all elements that obstruct our mission' in question... No threat detected in designated individuals... Continuation risks leading to destruction of entire order list..."
"Wh-what? What do you mean by that?"
"I am saying I will save you in order to protect my order list from a fatal contradiction..."
The other six beetles took action.
Without producing any flames or smoke, shells bigger around than an arm were fired from the tip of the barrel that looked like a thick horn.
Immediately afterwards, the beetle that had been lying upside down near Satori and the others twisted itself around and fired from that position. One of the pillars supporting the subway tunnel was smashed to pieces and a shower of fragments fell in the path of the shells fired by the other six beetles, altering their trajectory.
At the same time, the one rhinoceros beetle used the recoil of firing that shell to leap over Satori and the others' heads, rotate halfway in midair, and land with its six legs clawing at the concrete ground.
"Protecting system and setting up new position from a different angle... Checking to confirm no contradictions were produced by battling fellow beetles..." Its giant thin wings vibrated, producing an artificial voice. "Rhinoceros Beetle 07 will now protect you in order to optimize the oral order from Pyrínas..."
With a sound like a cathode ray tube, the color of Rhinoceros Beetle 07's eyes changed from green to red.
It changed from a symbol of safety to the representative color of warnings.
It may have been nothing more than a bug created when it converted the oral order given by a human into a numerical order script.
It may have been a conversion error wanted by neither Pyrínas nor the woman he had spoken to at some point.
But...
Even if it came from a mistake, some form of "direction" had appeared within Rhinoceros Beetle 07.
It was an odd situation.
The elevators and stairs were sealed off and everyone was trapped on one of the mid level floors. The worried people meaninglessly rushed toward the exits, but no one tried to actually touch them once they realized they were reenforced with Trion and connected to the larger barrier right outside. As a result, they were packed in tightly enough that they could all topple over like dominoes at any time and yet a gap remained around the closed emergency exit.
Even with all the noisy people around her, Suzume still found that she wanted to keep shopping.
Takeshi and Toby were speaking in front of her.
"I checked every part of the damn thing, but they really are cluttered with Trion. It isn't just locked and it doesn't just have furniture piled up on the other side. The gaps in the damn thing have been filled to create a solid wall."
"So I'm guessing a Neighbor did this?"
"I don't know who did it or why, but it's really annoying."
"Yeah." Takeshi sounded like he was vaguely recalling something. "Wasn't Amatori able to blast through HQ's wall with an Ibis?"
"She has a crazy amount of Trion, so it would take tons to properly reenforced it so that something like that wouldn't happen again."
"As long as these walls aren't as reenforced as HQ I should be able to get through, right?"
Toby gave an uncertain look.
Suzume tilted her head and asked a question with her mind still wondering what she should buy. "What are we going to do, Take?"
"It doesn't really matter. We need to make up our mind, but I see two real options here. The first is to try and get some kind of contact with the outside."
"What's honestly the second one?"
"To create an escape route right now. Like this for example."
As he spoke, Takeshi casually held out a hand horizontally.
A moment later, a brilliant beam of light surged outward and tore through the Trion wall that could probably withstand a direct hit from an Ibis used by an A-Rank.
This was Border's one-of-kind special Shooter Trigger.
The high firepower strike was made as a specialty for Takeshi so that he could get the job done without worrying about certain things. The emergency exit and the surrounding wall were transformed into a perfectly circular hole two meters across. The edges were cleanly cut and there was no hint of what had happened to the materials that had previously formed the inside of the circle. The sight almost seemed to ignore the fundamental law of conservation of mass.
The surrounding noise had already quieted down.
First, the general pressure of being trapped inside a giant building had been overpowered by their direct fear of Takeshi for having instantly pierced through the Trion enhanced materials.
Second, the exit had finally opened, but no one wanted to approach it when the edges of the perfect circle were still looking to be a little small for adults.
And lastly…
With a sound like a rope being stretched until it nearly broke, countless lines shot horizontally and vertically across the hole to form a lattice.
Their path to freedom had not remained open for even five seconds. The building materials hadn't been brought back, but Trion covered the destroyed area and spread further as they began to repair the wall.
"Huh?"
With a tilt of the head, Taieshi fired a second shot. From there, he fired a third, fourth, fifth, and sixth.
"W-wait, wait, wait! Takeshi, wait!"
"You're shooting way too much! Take, that's way too much!"
"But it got covered and regenerated."
"Takeshi, that honestly isn't an excuse."
"And stop pouting your lips! Everyone around us is ultra freaked out! Try to sense what's going on!"
"Reflex boy is telling me to sense what's going on? Heh. You're kinda risking it with that one."
"Ahh! This is getting to be too much for me to handle! Don't you get what's going on here!?"
Toby's blood vessels bulged out on his face and Takeshi grabbed his forehead to hold him back.
Suzume simply flipped her hair and asked, "What do we do now?"
"We have two options. First, we can give up on escaping. We'll find a way to contact the outside, and then try to find the idiots who set this up."
"What's the second one?"
"That's obvious."
Toby regretted his question once he realized this was going the same as last time he asked, but it was too late.
He heard multiple sounds much like some sort of Sci-Fi laser beam being fired from an intergalactic ship. Yes, multiple.
Three to five fist-sized orbs hovered around the Shooter.
"We continue trying to make an escape route. For example, we can see just where this thing's endurance level is."
A moment later, he provided an encore presentation with three laser-like beams coming out of each orb.
The members of the Tamakoma Branch that were actually at the branch office looked forward at the green wall that was in front of them. It looked thin enough to break through as it covered the entire office. Even the water the building was on had the green wall going into it.
Konami Kirie clicked her tongue as she walked forward and tapped at the wall. No on dared to stop her as her irritation showed through her facial expression.
Someone had actually trapped them all without any of them noticing it.
"What the hell is this!? Who covered the whole building in a cube!? If someone comes up and calls it Perfect Cube, I will make sure they get beaten down. Let's make that clear right now."
"Konami-senpai, it's probably best to just calm down right now. Doing something rash could have backlash that would make things worse."
"I figured that much. It's just annoying as hell that this happened when we were all here and no one noticed this until it came down on us."
"So would you be fine if someone did notice but this still happened?"
"Of course not. That would at least give me a target to attack though."
The members of Tamakoma Branch stood outside of the office building, but still in the barrier made of Trion. Attacking right away seemed to be a bad option since they did not know anything about this wall at all. That just meant they needed to figure things out.
They had been discussing the man and the Trion Soldier from earlier and had come outside when they felt a rumbling feeling. It came to everyone as a shock when they saw the wall of Trion cover their entire building before their eyes.
"How are we suppose to get out?" Osamu asked as he examined the cube.
"What a stupid question." Pulling out her Trigger, Konami grinned. "We'll just bust right through it. Backlash be damned. You guys can deal with that after I attack. At least we'll know what happens after we attack it."
Getting right down to it, Konami connected the two weapons in her hands to make the great battle axe she used to mow down her opponents.
She charged forward and easily cut through the wall of Triom while using Meteora for good measure.
"See? Nothing to it."
Just as she said this, the wall of Trion started regenerating. It did not take more than 5 seconds for the whole destroyed part to be rebuilt.
"'Nothing to it'..."
"Keep talking! Yeah! Keep talking, Torimaru! It'll give me the motivation to kick your ass after we get out of here!"
"Karasuma-senpai..."
Mikumo shook his head at his upperclassman as he continued to give small remarks or statements towards Konami, who was busy trying to break through completely. The amount of power he saw from Konami was amazing, but it was clear that any time she broke through that the wall of Trion would regenerate.
Under normal circumstances it would be safe to assume that the Trion keeping the wall together would run out at some point. Since they had no clues as to where the Trion was coming from it was hard to determine what they could do to speed up this process. That could backfire on them by forcing them to use up their own Trion before they had any chance of breaking through the wall of Trion.
"Ah~ Looks like she's already tried~"
Everyone looked over to see Jin walking up to them with a grin in place. His expression and posture gave no sign of urgency. It seemed as if he did not mind what he was seeing at all.
"Yo~ You might want to aim for that thing. Just destroy it and you'll all be fine. It's what's ho,ding the Trion that's making this wall. The other branches have to deal with this as well. Yagura had Akasora-san and Shinoda-san in it, so they just told the rest of us out here how to deal with it."
Following the direction of the finger, they saw a small ball above the building that seemed to be encased in a ball of Trion as well.
Using the pent up anger in her, Konami quickly got to work by jumping from the ground to the building. With an extra strong leap she was in the air and sliced through casing that was protecting the item, but could not destroy the small ball.
That go covered by a shot that went by her. It destroyed the small ball, making the Trion barrier start to fade away.
"See? That wasn't so bad," Jin said as he walked towards them. "Now we just need to take care of those things."
Looking up, everyone saw specks in the sky that looked too far away to identify.
Karasuma and Konami knew what they were though.
They had seen those specks in the sky earlier in the day. It had turned out to be a large falcon-like Trion Soldier. Seeing that many in the skies above Mikado City made the two of them get ready for a vicious fight.
Seeing how the two acted, Kizaki moved forward to speak with Jin. The tone he used and the expression he wore was of someone calm and collected. It had been best to follow Jin's lead on how to respond to those specks.
"Jin, is this another invasion?"
"No. It's actually nothing that we particularly need to worry much about. Oh. By that I mean when it comes to hostility. The fact they went to the trouble of migrating the civilians out of harms way helps to prove that. They don't want to get anyone innocent involved. You guys have probably noticed that certain areas aren't that populated when they really should be."
That was something they had all noticed.
The day had been odd to them since they had either seen areas where crowds of people gathered or areas where only a few amount of people were. It was strange given the time of day. Hearing this from Jin give them the information as to why that was happening.
"They probably came up with some way of diverting people's attention away from certain places. They are deeming that certain places are 'dangerous' and others are 'safe,' meaning that the people will always head towards the areas that are 'safe.' I've been getting that feeling when I wasn't paying attention and wasn't in my Trion Body. I guess it affects people's subconscious more than anything. I don't know if this is because of some sort of Trigger or what, but it's a nice way of saying that they don't like dragging civilians into this."
It was strange to hear such an explanation. It seemed rather civilized and kind of the attackers. This meant that they had battlefields they could fight in without having to worry about the citizens of Mikado City getting caught up in some way.
That was not appear to in their most recent invasion.
"'People Clearing Field.' Let's just call it that for now. Anyway. Taking those soldiers out and finding the ones controlling them are still important. We can't really just let these guys do as they want after all."
Having said what he needed too, Jin started to walk away with a wave.
"Where are you going?"
"I'm going to see if I can stop a certain someone before they meet up with Akasora-san. That's something we don't want to deal with."
Reiji and Rindo nodded their heads. They already knew what this meant and left it to Jim with no problems.
Everyone else was wondering what that meant though.
The branch offices of Border, along with a certain mall, had ended up getting overtaken by walls of Trion that would continuously regenerate the moment they were broken. Both the Yagura Branch and Tamakoma Branch had managed to break through those walls and escape their prisons.
The same could not be said for the main Border building.
The large building in Mikado City seemed to be covered in a multi-layered cube of Trion. It seemed to be built like the ones covering the branch offices. The ones inside the cube had no way of knowing that it would regenerate once destroyed, or even how to destroy the cube at all.
That was why every Attacker was using their blades to break through while Shooters, Gunners and Snipers focused their fire at the cube. It was all in an attempt to break out and free themselves from the cube made of Trion.
"Whoa~ This is really tough. We've even been concentrating to a single point and it doesn't look like it does anything. Whoever made this wants to make sure we don't get out."
"This just means we need to put more force behind our attacks. That way we won't give the thing any time to reform. There doesn't seem to be any backlash to attacking so that's the best we've got at this point."
Kako looked over to see Yoneya and Izumi talking while continuing their attacks on the wall of Trion. She had been keeping up with the other Shooters and Gunners that were focusing on a single point of the wall. It was rather annoying to have to fire so much with little effect.
"If we had a real powerhouse with us this would make things easier. Hm~ I'll make sure to send in a complaint towards Yagura for having their field trip and taking both those monsterous girls with them. They are perfect for this kind of thing."
"Disregarding the want for two people who would readily attack us as well... Those two guys have a point," Kumagai said from her spot next to Nasu. "We can hardly do any damage to this thing. Is it even worth it to use up Trion instead of wait for a definite answer?"
"We already have others working on that. Even so, I doubt any of us really just want to sit back and wait for something to happen. Some others, like those guys, rather make result themselves then wait for it. I actually thought you were someone like that as well."
"What!? Who said that!? Show yourself for comparing us like that! I'll punch you before going back to this!"
Nasu laughed a bit at Kumagai's antics while concentrating on her own attacks toward the wall of Trion.
They had been at this for a while now and still could not find out the solution to this problem.
It was a miracle when they finally found a hit to work with in the form of something falling.
"You're attacking the wrong area!"
They all looked up to see one of the specks in the sky speeding towards them. They were not sure if it could actually reach them, but they got ready anyways. The speed it was coming at did not make it seem like it was attacking. Rather, it looked as if it had been struck down from the sky and just happened to be going towards them.
It shocked them to see it ram right into the top of the barrier and actually break through it. They saw that it had went for a specific part in the middle of the top of the barrier.
That was when Director Shinoda Masafumi appeared from above it with Kōgetsu in his hand. He cut through the small ball that looked like it was the cause of the barrier.
The only thing was that it was not what created the barrier, seeing as how it was still active.
"I should have expected something like this."
Shinoda looked around from his spot on top of the cube of Trion. He could see everyone now looking directly at him, and what he was standing on.
He had managed to get into the air to see exactly what was flying in the skies above Mikado City. It was surprising to see multiple falcon-like Trion Soldiers flying in the air, as if waiting for something.
He had taken the initiative by cutting one down and forcing it down so that he could deal with one of the spherical objects that created the cube of Trion.
Once he noticed that he really did have everyone's attention on him, he looked down and addressed them all in a booming voice so that they would hear him from inside the cube.
"Look all around the building and try to find one of these balls! Or even anything that looks like it doesn't belong! They are probably multiple ones scattered all around to make sure we are locked up for a long while! I'll looked around the parameter of the barrier while you look in the building! We don't have time to lose! Let's find and destroy these items!"
Doing as they were told with no problems, all the agents that were there quickly went back in the building and started their search while Shinoda started his own search.
Looking up at the sky he saw all the specks start to be more clear. That was when he saw a certain something.
Why is that one so much bigger than the rest of them...?