Episode 2: Hidden Truth
When Ichika woke up, Ichika expected to see several things; either he woke up in his room after oversleeping to find out everything was a dream, he woke up to see his sister's pissed off face due to one reason or another, waking up in a hospital and to see the face of a doctor, or waking up to find out that he had fallen asleep during the kidnapping. He'd preferred if his first expectation was the one that came true.
What he didn't expect is to see the face of a red haired older girl holding a black marker close to his face.
"Ara, you're up?"
"Uwaa!"
Ichika immediately jumped out of the bed he's been lying on in surprise, causing the red haired girl leaning towards him to fall backward. The girl then nimbly leapt over his bed and landed on her two feet perfectly. Once Ichika had calmed down somewhat, he noticed that there is another person with the red haired girl.
Sighing while shaking her head in disapproval is a familiar blue haired girl dressed in school uniform. She's the girl he saw in his dream (?) when he was kidnapped… which meant that it was not a dream. While as a healthy young boy who is about to enter puberty he is quite happy to see two attractive girls visiting him in… a hospital room which he could only tell after looking around, the logical part of him is telling him that this is not what he's supposed to see when he woke up.
"W-who are you two?"
Ichika asked as he sat down on his hospital bed, eyes looking at the two girls, though mostly at the red haired one since she appears to be the friendlier of the two. But before the girl could answer though, the doctor opened the curtain beside his bed to reveal herself, or, at least Ichika assumed that the woman who had just opened the curtain by his bedside is the doctor from the white lab coat she's wearing.
The doctor in question is a glasses-wearing woman with very long brown hair done in a hime cut wearing a lab coat and holding a clipboard. Pinned to her lab coat is a tag that displays her name which reads 'Dr. Sakurai Ryoko'.
"Good morning, Orimura Ichika-kun. It's about time you wake up since you have been asleep for almost two days."
So he had been unconscious for two days. Wait, two days?
"Chifuyu-nee!"
Ichika immediately panicked when he heard how long he had been unconscious. Did Chufuyu know he had been kidnapped? Is she worried and looking for him? Fortunately though, Ryoko can resolve that particular worry for him.
"It's fine. We have contacted your sister about your situation. Unfortunately, she can't be here due to… circumstances."
Ichika felt relief when Ryoko told him that Chifuyu had been informed. That is one less thing for him to worry about. Although what she said after that gave him another thing to worry about. What did he get himself into this time?
"Orimura-kun, what was the last thing you remember?"
The doctor asked with a serious expression. When she prompted it, Ichika tried to remember what happened. He remembered that he was kidnapped and that his kidnapper wanted something from Chifuyu. Then there was… there was…
"I-I was kidnapped and… you guys saved me?"
Ichika answered but he's not sure about the last part. Was he knocked unconscious and rescued? He can't remember what really happened, only a figment of his imagination. Did the blue haired girl use an IS to rescue him but he was knocked out along the way and it messed up with his memory? Certainly all that happened after the kidnapper try to call Chifuyu are only a figment of his imagination caused by stress… right?
"…you don't believe what you experienced, do you? Perhaps this would jog your memory."
Ryoko then took something from the floor Ichika can't quite see from his position on the bed. She lifted a heavy-looking long metal case and place it on the bed. She gestured at Ichika to open it and so he did. The boy slowly opened the case while feeling nervous. There's a part of his mind telling him not to do it, that something will be irreversibly changed once he opened the case. But he ignored it, thinking that it's nothing.
Ichika opened the case and his eyes widened at the content. Resting inside the case is a familiar item, a sword, a golden sword that he now really wish was just a part of his dream. Resting inside the case is Durandal, and that in itself is proof that what he had experienced was real. Realization dawned on him and his brain immediately summarized his situation into one single word.
"…shit."
Crude, but Ichika believed that it summarized his feeling right now. Ryoko chuckled at the boy's reaction and proceed to examine him. It doesn't take Ryoko too long to finish Ichika's checkup. Actually, the boy is physically fine and did not have any lasting physical injuries. In fact, according to Ryoko, the biggest injury he suffered during the whole event was some minor scrapes that could easily be treated overnight. The reason why he was even unconscious in the first place was due to fatigue caused by being drained by Durandal.
"So… everything was real?"
Ichika asked Ryoko who had just finished his checkup. The doctor nodded. She then motioned for the other girls to come. The blue haired girl and the red haired girl took a stool each and sat beside her. Ichika knew that what comes next will be a serious discussion. He gulped and focus all his attention on Ryoko.
"Before I forgot, let me introduce you to these girls. The blue haired one is Kazanari Tsubasa and the red headed troublemaker is Amou Kanade. Aren't you lucky to wake up to see two cute girls?"
Tsubasa sent Ryoko an annoyed glare. She reminds Ichika of Chifuyu a little bit. The older of the two, Kanade, is grinning though, as if she is amused by what Ryoko said. She does seem to be the more friendly of the two, and mischievous too. He recalled that she was planning to draw on his face with a marker earlier if he had not woken up in time.
"Now, with introductions out of the way, let's get into the main topic shall we, Orimura-kun?"
-2 years later-
Two years have passed since that kidnapping incident. Two blades clash in the middle of the training field. One is an European great sword wielded by a boy and the other is a katana wielded by a girl. The girl moves blindingly fast, delivering multiple attacks in a single clash, while the boy is firm, maintaining his stance as he made minimal movement to block all the girl's attacks and counter when he saw an opening.
Orimura Ichika, wielding a training sword modeled after Durandal parried another thrust from Kazanari Tsubasa wielding a katana. He uses the weight of his sword to break Tsubasa's rhythm and went for a stab. Tsubasa leapt backward to avoid it and block it with her blade, letting the heavier sword slid on the surface of her katana. She pushed the larger blade away, making Ichika stumble due to the weight of his own sword.
Tsubasa then lunged at Ichika and was about to deal the finishing blow when a thrown weapon hit her blade, making it go off course. It is a naginata, which alerted them of a familiar person joining their spar. A red blur joined them and picked up the naginata. Both Tsubasa and Ichika turn to the newcomer and swung their blade.
Amou Kanade smirked as she spun her naginata, parrying both the great sword and the katana. She duck low and spun her polearm at Ichika's leg, tripping him. She twirl her naginata again and switch it to her left hand to block a downward slash coming from Tsubasa. The red haired girl smirked and use the butt end of her spear shaft as she spun to knock Tsubasa on her head just as her katana slid down the flat side of her naginata. With both younger kids down, Kanade stopped moving and stood above both of them while sporting her usual grin.
"That's for starting without me."
Kanade said to the two of them as she help them stand up.
"Ahaha, sorry nee-san but you won't wake up no matter what we did so we decided to start without you."
Ichika chuckled wryly with Tsubasa nodding in agreement. They had tried waking Kanade up using any method short of dropping a book on her face or splashing her with water. The red haired girl pouted in annoyance.
"Besides, you have just returned from your mission in Mongolia. We thought that it's better to let you rest since you did come back late at night."
Tsubasa added with Ichika this time nodding in agreement. They would've splashed her with water any other day to wake her up but because she had just returned from Mongolia they figured that they should let her sleep in. She always came back tired after a mission. This is due to her being their main fighter against the Abyss.
The Abyss, Ichika still cannot believe that such thing exists and their existence was kept a secret by the governments of the world to prevent panic. After all, letting the public know about the existence of dangerous alien lifeform on earth is not exactly a good idea. There aren't many things known about these aliens called Abyss. What was known is that the Abyss did not originate from earth and that they are intelligent while also feral at the same time.
Nobody knows their purpose and where they come from or when did they arrive on earth in the first place. The only reason they even know that they are aliens is because they emerged from pieces of a spaceship buried under a mountain in Canada as if they were released from stasis. That incident caused an explosion that wiped out a mountain and destroy the spaceship itself. It was disguised as a failed nuclear experiment by Canada though thankfully as a related personnel he is privy to some of the truth.
Modern weapons are not very effective against them, even IS weaponry. Solid shells, even from IS-caliber guns, bounced off their skin. Only the strongest gun with a very high penetrative power could break through an Abyss' passive shielding and their tough skin, and this is only speaking of the gargoyle type, the weakest and most common Abyss type. Energy weapon fares better but it is still not very effective.
This is due to the passive defense of an Abyss that takes on a form of a thin energy layer right on top of their skin. It works nearly similar to an IS' energy shielding but its property is vastly different. This energy field dispersed the energy in a beam attack, thus weakening it greatly. But it also chips away the energy field little by little, allowing an IS' energy weapon to break through the field with enough power and hits. It is still difficult though as the use of energy weapons drains an IS' energy supply much more quickly.
Plus the Abyss themselves are very dangerous. Putting aside their resilience, they also have great speed and bestial instinct, making them a dangerous opponent. While every types have different capability, they all have immense strength that can push back even an IS with brute strength and their claws are also dangerous.
With enough force, an Abyss could punch through an IS' absolute defense field and strike directly at the pilot thanks to the energy field surrounding their body countering the field that surrounds an IS. While only higher level Abyss actually possess the physical capability to tear an IS, a concentrated effort from multiple lower level Abyss could easily tear away an IS' shield energy bit by bit until the pilot is exposed and an Abyss never hunts alone. With the limited number of IS in existence, humanity would've run out of IS before the Abyss can be eradicated, especially because nobody is sure how many of them exists.
This is where people like them, relic users, came in.
Relics are items from age long past that contain great power within them. They are the source of many mythologies and legends on earth and each are frighteningly powerful in their own way. Just a fragment of it in the right hand can enable someone to take on an army, even IS, without much difficulty. For example is Ichika's very own Durandal.
In legends, it was said that the sword is indestructible and could cut through rocks easily and its most famous wielder, Roland, managed to kill thousands of enemies in a single battle with the sword. While the world knew that deed as part of an embellished legend, Ichika knew that it is true. Durandal does possess such destructive power. And the only proof he needed above all is how easily it could slice through an Abyss with a single swing.
Where common weapons and IS weapons would have problems taking down even a single Abyss, Durandal can slice through multiple Gargoyle type in a single swing. The same can be said of Kanade's Gungnir and Tsubasa's Ame no Habakiri. These weapons or fragments of weapons of legends are powerful, able to break through even the strongest armor and shielding. Kanade, their most powerful and experienced fighter, could solo a high-ranking Abyss,
While he is still far from that level of power, and so is Tsubasa for that matter, he is sure that he would reach that level in the future. That is the reason why he is here with Tsubasa and Kanade. The Abyss is a threat and he has the power to fight them. So he will fight so that other don't have to, especially his sister. It's a chance for him to finally do the protecting.
"Speaking of which, it's almost golden week soon, right?"
Kanade suddenly asked out of nowhere. Tsubasa and Ichika looked at each other and recall that yes, it is almost golden week. Their red haired senior then put her hands around their neck and shouted in excitement.
"So, wanna go somewhere for the week? What about hiking on the mountains?"
Kanade proposed. Ichika and Tsubasa sighed.
"Well, it's not a bad idea."
"We could ask the commander to borrow one of the Kazanari family villa."
The two juniors replied.
"Then it's decided. This golden week, we're going hiking!"
Okay, sorry for the long wait and definitely sorry for the short and definitely bad chapter. I was having some problem on how to write this so I decided to make a timeskip for the intro and a bit of info dumping. Next chapter will be better, I promise, because it will be the first story arc and will feature the third series in the crossover in full. Also, I have fixed Ichika's age to 12 during the kidnapping which means he is currently 14. Tsubasa is 2 years older than him and Kanade is 2 years older than Tsubasa.
This info dumping chapter explains the Relic's place on the power scale along with the Abyss. This scale will shift when newer weapons are developed and more are revealed.