Part 4: I Don't Do Politics
-NEXT DAY-
All of Japan is reeling from the battle of last night. As in, they have their first real debate over whether to keep things the way they were, or ditch the Alaska Treaty and weaponize the IS altogether.
-TOKYO UNIVERSITY, TOKYO PREFECTURE; BATTLE VIEWPOINT BYAKUSHIKI-
A newscast in the main gym, from freaking NHK of all stations, especially the morning round table...forget it, just listen:
"We have just witnessed the unthinkable! That IS has the Barrier Void ability, and he used it on-"
"A woman. There is no doubt in my mind that the IS is defective. He must be held accountable for his actions."
"One big problem with that theory: We can see here that the renegade was his intended target, but someone forcefully redirected him to a known terrorist."
"Why does that matter?! Phantom Task would not have even existed had he not been dumb enough to get himself lost in his middle school!"
"I wonder, would another group have risen anyway?"
"And what about her, Chen Xingjia, the woman who forced his hand?"
"What about her? She was doing everything in her legal rights to-"
"Why are they even talking about this?!" a female student yelped, "We all saw what happened! We know that something's wrong!"
"Yeah," another one, "Your brain."
"What do you say when a woman makes a man kill another woman?!" And another one.
"I say, she was doing his job for him," and another one, "Besides, he wasn't needed-"
"Did you see the way he tore that mountain up because of that Chinese woman?!" And another one.
And then the entire gym, then the building, then the school had in on the talk. Pretty soon, this will be the topic of the final exam.
-TOKYO HOSPITAL; BATTLE VIEWPOINT SCHWARZER WÄCHTER-
Not even excessive amounts of morphine can ease Laura's mind. Not after what she witnessed prior to her checkup. Speaking of...
"Please," Laura asked the nurse, "No pain reducers."
"Are you sure?" The nurse asked, "We're checking up on your legs today-"
"It'll be easier for me," Laura said, "I can take it."
Take it, she did. Through the reflex test, daily exercise, and the agonizing treatments, none of it could compare to watch her "bride"(?) kill someone, even if it was a terrorist. In fact, that was the weirdest part. Even though she knows Squall is a villain, even though she knew she led the kidnap of Ichika and forced Chifuyu to withdraw from the Mondo Grosso...
...why can't she stomach him killing her outright?
Once the treatments were finished, she made her way to the cafe. There, she tried to ignore the talk about kicking the renegade out of Japan and taking the Byakushiki away from Ichika. For the most part, she was able to drown out the noise. What she couldn't drown out was the bit where the news people went on about how she tried to stop him five times. Some suspected her of sympathizing with the renegade, when others made it clear she hated his guts.
Like right now, when she stared at the TV screen and bent her spoon.
"Again..." she hissed, "Does no one have the sensibility to kill him..."
"What's gotten into you?" one of the patients asked.
Laura snapped out of it and looked at her. "Nothing..." she mumbled and went back to eating.
"Hey," the patient sat down with her, "I recognize you! You're that girl with the golden eye!"
"What about it?"
"Didn't you try to take the renegade down before?"
"Yes," she grumbled, "but now I feel like scheisse..." She got up to get another plate, and the patient followed her, "Every time I try to kill the little pig, it always ends in disaster. Someone, or something, always saves him at the last minute."
"That's harsh..." the patient commented, "I thought you had an entire army behind you."
"I put Clarissa in temporary command, but clearly that was a mistake. I can see not she can't handle brigades of units and manga, much less strengthen her spirit against suicidal spirits."
They went back to the table and found more guests.
"Did you really fight the renegade?" One of them asked, "How strong was he?"
"What do you mean, how strong?" Another interrupted, "He blew a gash in Mount Fuji!"
"Fuji?!" Laura piped, "Isn't that an active volcano?... and a sacred one at that..."
"Yeah," one of them answered, "but the renegade's not powerful enough to trigger that eruption."
"If he did, it would be the end of Tokyo," someone quipped, "and we would have to launch a worldwide manhunt for that nasty little termite."
"Maybe then, we'd FINALLY have an excuse to kill him," Laura said, "I tell you now, the only reason the renegade keeps escaping is because they want him captured and tortured, not killed. That kind of mercy will only bring destruction in the disguise of spiky hair!"
"Whoa..." a patient was miffed by that last one, "You from Germany, kid?"
"Why, yes," Laura smiled, "yes I am."
And she spent the rest of her stay chatting with nearly everyone in the hospital.
-ODORI PARK, HOKKAIDO PREFECTURE; BATTLE VIEWPOINT BYAKUSHIKI-
The entire prefecture was still shellshocked. They just saw the unthinkable: a woman dragged a man's sword into killing a fellow woman. Were women always this guileful?
Normally the park would be thriving with the spring festival, but today nothing went on. Not even the sakura trees let a single leaf fall. The only noise that accompanied the entire prefecture was just traffic. Traffic, and a few women who dared venture outside their homes and into the urban sanctuary. Two of them ran into each other by the Crystal Fountain.
"Hey..."
"Hey yourself..."
"So...about that battle last night-"
"Don't even talk to me about that thing, ok?!"
"Oh, if I don't, someone else will," she showed her a live stream of HBC Morning Report:
"Right now, local politicians are gathering signatures for a legislative committee that could lead to a change in the Alaska Treaty. Takuno Mamiya is leading the petition, and she has currently gathered at least 500 signatures within the first hour-"
A stranger shut it off, "Can we not have this conversation for one moment?!"
"Well, every single person in the country is doing it."
"Dude, no! This is the very spot where the IS was introduced!"
"And the spot where the White Knight struck down like every single middle ever."
"It was supposed to be a woman's fight! Woman's!"
"I always said, men will drive women crazy."
"Why'd he even butt in, anyway?"
"'Cuz he was a wild card. And they shouldn't have seen him coming."
"Well, they did, and now he's gonna make things worse thanks to that little stunt."
"Who? The renegade, or the ponyboy?"
"I dunno. Both?"
"Ugh, why do I even bother?!" She stormed off to try and escape the park. Only to run into far more intense conversations outside. One of them, about finalizing a piece of legislation about expanding availability of the IS to the military.
-AKINA SPORTS BAR, GUNMA PREFECTURE; BATTLE VIEWPOINT SHENLONG-
The bar was full of angry women slamming cups and bottles on the floor, taking their frustrations out on each other just to forget what they saw. The situation was so unstable that an ambulance was present since last night.
And once again, Kanzashi was on a table by the window, able to spectate everything that happened. She was twirling a lollipop in her mouth, while everyone else was twirling words.
"Did I really help cause this?..." she whispered in awe.
"I can see it all now!" A drunk woman shrieked, "Me! With a man under my feet! Dragging his sorry face across the street, blood spewing from his every orifice, begging for mercy! But he'll never get it! No thanks to that faded stallion and the renegade accomplice!"
"I'll deal with him first!" Another grabbed that woman's face, "He's my beef, not yours!"
"Get in line, womb raider!" She said the beloved. And they fought.
Kanzashi facepalmed. Why were they fighting over a man killing a woman? Instead of wasting on each other, they should be wasting on the Empress to order the men to Tokyo for prosecution or something. But don't tell them that. They're a little slow.
She suddenly got a message on her glasses, "How's everything in Japan? :3" She tapped her hairpins and took a snapshot of the crowd. She sent it with, "Just swimmingly -_-"
And in return, she got, "Hang in there little sis : 3" with a picture of her goofy face plunging towards an angry crowd at the bottom of the Eiffel.
"Haahhhhhh..." she sighed, "I don't know how you do it..."
Then, her table got hit with a bottle and a body. She lazily peeked up and saw the woman she humiliated before.
"Hey, I know you!" the woman pointed, "You're that freak I throttled a few weeks ago!"
"*SIGH...*" Kanzashi pissed her off.
"Don't you wag your s*t over me!" The woman screamed, "You owe me for the bike you trashed!"
"Pipe down, fleabag," Kanzashi groaned and leaned on the guardrail, "You'll have babies with the renegade you're so loud."
That did it. The woman and her friends surrounded Kanzashi, who just rolled her eyes.
"Looks like this bimbo needs a lesson in respect," the woman cracked her knuckles while the others chuckled maniacally, "Any last words?" She didn't give her a chance as she threw the punch right after finishing the question.
Kanzashi redirected the fist at the woman behind her. She tripped the woman over, making her stilettos pierce the third woman's crotch. She then flipped over the rail, kicking all three women in their chins. When she landed, she did a twirl and a curtsy.
"Thank you for giving me a bit of your attention," she said as she strut her stuff in front of the entire bar, earning the vain of practically all of Gunma.
The women stood there, building their rage at the only woman who isn't freaking out. How could she act so calm at a time like this? How could she not take offense to the fact that a man, the lowest life form on the planet, sullied the purity of a female, who represents everything that is just and righteous? Well, no more. They would wipe this stain from the clean, white canvas themselves. If Kanzashi was 99.999999999% for them, then she was 100% against them. The woman who pined for revenge drew all her rage into her gun. She yanked the trigger back and fired at Kanzashi. The entire street heard the shot. They stood still, waiting for the sound of blood.
Instead, they got a sound of a metal rainbow. The bullet hit an invisible barrier. The woman dropped her gun, face twisting in irreversible anger, as she realized that she had been had for the third time by the same slimeball.
That slimeball who materialized a giant spear, aimed at the bar.
"Feel better now?" Kanzashi smirked.
The woman screamed in agony. No one in the entire prefecture could stand up to an IS pilot, since everyone born in the prefecture maxed out at a D-compatibility rating! The woman would never get her just privileges, as she continued to curse Kanzashi, who stole her motorcycle and made for the Tower.
-HAMAMATSU CITY HALL, SHIZUOKA PREFECTURE; BATTLE VIEWPOINT SHENLONG-
The mayor was addressing the public about a petition to force a change in the Alaska Treaty.
"Since my announcement two hours ago, the website has crashed multiple times due to overwhelming traffic of users trying to sign the petition. The good news is that we were able to update our system as of five minutes ago, and boy! Oh, boy have you delivered! We already have a hundred thousand signatures! And as I speak, more are coming!"
Loud cheers for the mayor and jeers for the renegade erupted from the gigantic assembly.
The mayor continued, "Thank you for your support, and extra thank you for letting the country know where we stand on the so-called women's rights, when they should have been given to us long before Eve took the apple!"
Even more praise as posters demanding the Byakushiki be confiscated shook wildly.
The mayor continued, "The government should never have given that boy a personal IS unit! In fact, from the moment he wandered into the charging room in middle school, he should have been locked away!" Applause. "Now is the time for the government to open its eyes and see the corruption its man animals have wrought upon Japan! Now is the time to force the nations of the world to change the Alaska Treaty! So that the working woman will never lose her place on top of the world!" Cheering and applause. Then...this. "Hear me now, man who has no right to be related to Chifuyu Orimura! Hear me now, little boy who is not registered as a Japanese citizen! You are no longer welcome here in our great land! We will snuff you out! And we will take back what is rightfully ours!" And the crowd goes ballistic.
In a bad way. Because this very speech, which simply rallied the woman of Japan to storm the world political front...
-KOIWAI FARM PARK, IWATE PREFECTURE; BATTLE VIEWPOINT SCHWARZER WÄCHTER-
...was already being employed in full force.
"Momma! Momma!" a little boy screamed, "Don't let them take me!"
"No!" His mother begged, "Please! I'll do anything! I give you anything! Just don't take my only child!"
"Shut it, clad," a yakuza woman shot the mother in the foot. The little boy flailed and broke free of his captors' grasp, only to be knees in the gut by the mafia woman, "You know I hate men. You know I told you what would happen if you tried to harbor a filthy s*bag like this monkey."
"No! Have mercy!" The mother clung to the boss's leg, "There must be something you can do! Anything! He's just a little boy! He can listen! Please, just spare him!"
"Well," the boss scratched her head, "Since this is a special occasion, I guess I can show mercy..."
The mother wiped her tears from her eyes. She felt so thankful that the boss would listen to her for once. Her son was a little relieved to see them talking about lightening the tensions.
"Thank you...thank you..." the mother wept, "You won't regret it..."
"I know," the boss said-
*BLAM*
...before she shot the mother's neck.
The boy looked horrified when he saw her mother go down. She was literally the only thing protecting him from this cruel world. And now, he will be consumed.
"NO! MOMMA! MOMMA!" he screamed and thrashed as his captors threw him in the trunk and hauled him away.
The mother looked on, and muttered one final word, "...wh...why..."
"Because I'm being merciful," the boss woman answered, yanking the mother's head up by the hair, "If I wasn't being merciful, I would've knocked you unconscious and sent you to the Cali Farm. Just like I did your worthless husband."
The mother was devastated. The one person who promised to bring her family back turned out to be the one behind the strings of her permanent heartache. She couldn't believe that her belief in the good of all people had failed her. She carried the extreme sorrow to the grave with one final shot to her heart.
"Now, hurry up and die," the boss stomped her head in the dirt, "before I change my mind." And she left the mother to wallow in her own regret. She got in her car and dialed her subordinates, "Package en route to Suicide Forest. We'll trap the renegade with this." She hung up as she les the car on a very brief but very bumpy stretch of dirt, then onto the highway. "That pubic disease won't know what hit him when I see the anger turn to fear."
Well, she wasn't alone on that thought.
-HAMADA STATION, SHIMANE PREFECTURE; BATTLE VIEWPOINT SPLIT-
For some reason, the entire prefecture, plus seven others, saw the fight from both Ichika's and Lingyin's viewpoint. Now, the very play station of Ichika's hometown has become a battleground of views ranging from "Give Ichika a second chance" to "Why did he have to be born".
"Come on! You saw what happened! That Chinese girl shoved his ego right into someone's junk!"
"I knew that Lingyin was shifty, but to make someone else do her dirty work?!"
"Never trust squinty-eyed people who look alike..."
"The hell did I hear you say?!"
"You heard me?!"
"You didn't see what that guy did?!"
"He shoved his sword into that woman! And he's the guy that said he values all life!"
"He's a fraud, and you know it!"
"I know I saw him get winded up by that freak!"
"He's the freak!"
"Who's the one that attacked the Mondo Grosso in the first place?!"
And then it escalated quickly and stayed that way.
-IS ACADEMY; BATTLE VIEWPOINT SPLIT-
But none of it compared to what the pilots would face back on home base.
Somehow, Ichika was able to make it back to the campus without being seen. He was able to manipulate the Byakushiki's barrier into an anti-detection shield, and it bought him enough time to sneak into a speed boat and hightail it to the island. But the instant he docked, he was bombarded with staff, journalists, and pilots, all toppling him back into the water, demanding answers from him.
"The hell?!" he knocked the sea out of his ears, "Since when did they get here?!"
"Sorry, Ichika!" Houki pushed her way to him and pulled him out of the water, "They got here as soon as you entered the mainland! We tried to stop them, but-"
"There he is!" A reporter found them, "Get him!"
They media stormed the deck and hustled them with questions about what else.
"How do you feel to have degraded yourself to the most heinous crime ever?!"
"Did you plan to use the Barrier Void Attack on anyone besides the renegade?!"
"What would you say to those who believe that men should stay away from the Infinite Stratos?!"
"Why are you defending a criminal, Miss Shinonono?!"
They couldn't take it anymore. They deployed their swords and rushed their way to the central park.
Where even more media hassled every single person on the island. And they were relentless, questioning Chifuyu on her brother's true relationship, Xingjia and Lingyin on their perspectives, and the rest of the staff on God knows what else.
"Where are the kids?" Ichika asked.
"Residence hall, top floor," Houki said, "They're really scared of the presses."
"We gotta comfort them!" Ichika grabbed Houki and made towards the-
"Where do you think you're going?!" Xingjia singled him out, "That's him! That's the man that killed a fellow pilot!"
"Not again..." Ichika braced himself for the worst.
"Wait!" Houki tried to settle them down, "That woman was a terrorist, a member of Phantom Task!"
"We don't care!" A reporter for TXN said, "And while we're at it, why would you want to associate yourself with him?!"
Before Houki could give an answer, she and Ichika were cut off from each other. They faced the onslaught of ridiculous questions and accusations of abuse and abuse of abuse by abuse.
Ichika tried to shake them off, but Xingjia made sure they stayed on his tail. "Tell them to leave me alone!" He screamed.
"Tell them why you chose to kill of a female pilot!" Xingjia demanded.
"ALRIGHT! THAT'S ENOUGH!" Chifuyu punched a camera down and shielded Ichika from further attack, "If you want him, you'll have to get through me!"
"What are you saying?!" Xingjia confronted her, "Do you not realize what he did?! Do you not realize who he is?!"
"I already know who he is, thank you," Chifuyu answered, "Sure, he's a dunderhead, and a big one at that. He can be rash, blindsided, and even annoying!" Ichika dropped his head in embarrassment. But then this happened, "But he's my brother above all else. We may fight every now and then. We may question each other's actions, but we're family. That's all that matters."
Ichika marveled. His big sister was finally stepping up for him. He thought he'd have to do it without her, but it felt like she lifted a giant weight off his shoulders.
She winked at him and turned back to face the crowd, "And I saw the entire fight through his eyes. I can say with 100% confidence that he did not mean to kill Squall so brutally! He was forcefully redirected to strike her by one of his own teammates!"
"His camera was defective!" Xingjia screamed, "President Lingyin's viewpoint tells the complete story! You don't know what you're talking about!"
"Oh, I think she does," Lingyin pushed the spectating crowd aside and confronted the group.
"President!" Xingjia gleefully cheered, "You can clear up to her that she is wrong, can you?"
"Uh...yeah, have a look at this," Lingyin projected a video from her wrist, "Got this off of your IS, Major Liang."
"Mine?..." Xingjia took a step back, "How..."
"It's Chinese law that all IS pilots have footage of their battles streamed directly to the Central Communications Administration," Lingyin said, "Holdzebluhh, I believe this is what Lady Orimura was referring to."
And right then and there, everyone saw what truly happened. It was the battle from Xingjia's viewpoint. Right when Ichika chased after the renegade, Xingjia interrupted him, yanked his arm, swung him around, shouted "Make yourself useful and stay down!", and shoved his sword into Squall. All the reporters immediately questioned Xingjia's true motives for joining the fight. All kinds of questions were being whispered.
"Yes...I did it..." Xingjia curled an evil smile, "And I would do it all over again. The IS is a woman's right! No man is allowed to change that! I would see to it that every man who dares look at an IS is driven out of his life!"
"Even if it meant betraying the very gender you oh so graciously glorify?" Chifuyu could smell the crazy.
"Shut up, you sick slut!" Xingjia snapped, "Women who associate with the filthy beasts have no right to talk!"
"I would associate with that filthy beast," Lingyin butt in, "Do I have a right to talk?"
"You are different!" Xingjia walked closer, "Can't you see that you have been corrupted? The mere smell of a man is enough to make a woman bow down in shame-"
"Yeah, hold that thought," Lingyin slammed on Xingjia's mouth and went crazy with her wrists.
"Uh...what are you doing?" Xingjia muffled.
"Making sure everyone in China and the entire ASEAN sees this," Lingyin dropped, "I'll discuss your punishment tomorrow."
"Wait, we can talk about this!" Xingjia stammered, "Surely you-"
Lingyin deployed her arm and sword and stuck it in Xingjia's face. "Bunker. Silence. Now."
She saw through. Xingjia had no choice but to obey. She left, with the entire media squad tailing her for questions.
"Uh... Listen...I just-" Ichika was about to say something, but he was strangled by Chifuyu.
"YOU GOT SOME NERVE MAKING ME SAY SOMETHING SO EMBARRASSINGLY CHEESY, OUT OF CHARACTER, RED BLUSH GOD HELP ME WHY!" She screamed.
"Can't...I...say...thanks...just...once?!..." He managed to squeak the words out of the choke hold before he was released into fresh air.
"Don't act like you didn't deserve that," Chifuyu plucked his head, "You keep throwing your life in the trash can! We always have to get it back out for you!"
Ichika stood back up, "Well, what can I say? Everywhere there's danger..."
"You gotta learn to take it easy every now and then," Houki said, "That's how you got entangled in this mess to begin with."
"She's right," Lingyin commented, "Normally, I'd have butt in and pounded you, but this time seemed like the only time to let it simmer down."
"It wasn't you who killed her," Houki said, "Even though she captured you, stole your IS, tried to kill you on several occasions-"
"Ok, enough re-pep," Chifuyu shoved everyone en route to the cafeteria, "Let's talk this over breakfast and figure out where to go from here."
"YAHOO! Sweet and Sour pork, here I come!" Lingyin cheered.
"I swear, you're addicted to the stuff..." Houki said.
Ichika radioed the kids to meet them at the cafeteria. After all he's been through in the last FOUR HOURS!, he needed it. Anything to get his mind off of the impact his recent hit had. After all, he may be staying at the Academy for a lot longer than he intended.