"How is he?"
Kirito had gone silent after testing Eolyne's pulse and heaving up the commander. I figured that he was thinking about something or, by the way he was looking at Eolyne, someone else. A person I never met but heard plenty about, someone who mattered to Kirito and Kirito alone.
To Kirito, the week he spent in the Soul Translator prior to the maximum acceleration was about two years. Two years to develop a deep friendship with a boy called Eugeo, and a lifetime to remember and regret the other boy's death. It's a cold sensation I've felt every time I used to think about Koharu and, while her (second) death doesn't affect me, there's other regrets I have for Medina Orthinanos.
"Jaymes...no, Joshua, my savior, I'm so glad I met you. Thank you for helping me restore my family. Thank you for being the light in my darkness. Thank you for instilling memories of our days to the very end. But most of all, thank you for being my lycoris flower-for being the ideal that gave me hope. I ask of you...to never forget me."
I shake those thoughts off and focus on the moment. Eyes on the leader in the lab, I sharply hiss, "Kirito. We got to get out of here."
"Huh... Oh, yes, you're right." He frowns and looks around the chamber. "We can't use Incarnation to burst out of here to the roof. We can't risk that guy going into hiding and the Divine Beast being killed."
"And my teleportation art is out the question."
"Yeah. We'll have to escape as quietly as possible. Can you take point, then?"
"Any objections to me getting physical if need be?"
"None." Kirito lifts his head to look back to the lab with me. where Their Excellency is now joined by the two researchers from before. The cold aura they emanated before remains, even though the distance between us and them had increased. The trio halts in front of the Divine Beast, the leader analyzes the tubes in the beast's mouth.
"...The stasis measures seem to be holding up as desired," they say, their voice coming through from the speaker.
A researchers replies, "Th-that is true...The chemicals are being administered in the proper dosages."
"Good. And where is the juvenile you say you've found?"
"W-well..." The researchers glance at each other, not wanting to answer before the other...or at all.
One of them eventually answer, "We...we lost sight of it when we evacuated the chamber. I believe it should still be somewhere in here..."
"In other words, both the juvenile's source and destination are unknown."
"W-well...at present, I suppose that is true..."
"Find it and capture it."
That terrifies the researchers, but one of them musters up a rebuttal. "B-but Master Istar...if we attack a juvenile, we might once again draw an Incarnate attack from the Divine Beast."
Istar — finally a name to the being, if not a gender — turns on their heel to face the researcher. Their black hair moves with the head, revealing red highlight on the ends of the strands. "Even if the Incarnate attack came from the Divine Beast, the target was the syringe, wasn't it?"
"Y-yes...that is...accurate, but..."
"In other words, if you do not attempt to kill the juvenile, you will be safe. If you wish to continue this argument, I would be happy to do so in the interrogation room above."
"N-no, Your Excellency! We have no quarrel! We'll begin searching for the juvenile now!"
There's not much to search, but with Istar distracted for the moment, I sense our opportunity. Whether or not the juvenile is recaptured or remains in hiding, that's up to it. I do find it strange that it wasn't found at the head of its mother, that's where it went.
"Kirito, we need to..." I pause there, seeing that damn expression on his face. The one that always gets us in trouble. "Us" as in me and whoever I'm partnered with. But I guess I cannot snap at him — I know I made that face when I saw Obsidia Palace was under attack.
That face says, "I got to do something," even when doing anything is more risky than beneficial.
Sighing, I fall in line. "Okay, what are you thinking?"
He looks up from Eolyne's unconscious face to the window. "We...should save the baby snake."
"No, I got that. I'm asking how? I mean, I have no issue busting in there and kicking butt, but recall that I have two kids outside this base who can be endangered if we do. That Istar looks more formidable than the rest. That slash...hadn't seen that skill since Sheyta. Or Asuna, considering the speed."
"I know. We can't use force, else we lose all the evidence present here. So what can we... Wait, do we need to hold back on Incarnation in the first place?" Kirito looks to his hand, gripping it tight. "Remember that the Incarnameters couldn't accurately pinpoint the location of the power?"
I recall Eolyne saying that earlier. "Yes, but only because it was a short usage of the power. If one of us elongated that time period, it could get more precise. So...what if we make them believe the Divine Beast is using Incarnation?"
"Then I'll leave you to it." Kirito nods and focuses on the lab. I watch him think for a few seconds, then he takes a deep breath in and out. Watching the lab, the first thing that happens is the eyes of the Divine Beast finally open with red anger. its head rises, snapping the catheter tubes free. Frightened, the researchers fall and move away from the spewing toxic fumes, but Istar takes a calmer step back.
Following that, panels covering a hatch in the middle of the ceiling breaks loose. One of them land by the researchers, the other by Istar. The sparks and noise from the fallen panels do get Their Excellency to move for once.
By now, I notice movement by the Divine Beast's head. That has to be the baby snake, and Kirito unleashes the climax of the grand escape.
The Divine Beast's eye flash red again, and the metal and glass around us break apart and shatter. Those particles of glass is converted to an insane amount of dark elements — a simple thing to do in place of using spatial resources — and burst into a dark mist.
That's our signal to leave.
Purely with Incarnation, Kirito flies off with Eolyne towards the hatch. Following along with him is the Divine Beast, carried by Kirito's Incarnation too. Meanwhile, I warp out of there, appearing instantly at Sylvie's side on the hill beyond the base.
"Wuah! H-hey, what's going on? What's with all the noise?"
Wrist to my mouth, I shout into the bracelet, "Cordelia, we're coming now!"
"Huh? Wh-what?"
I give neither girl any time to figure out what's going on. Once I see Kirito exit out of the tunnel, ascending towards the dawn-lit sky, I grab Sylvie with my hand, grab the nearby motorcycle with Incarnation, and teleport to the Chaos Drake.
Kirito
Kirito didn't stop until he was above the dense clouds high in the sky. Wherever Jaymes went, he didn't follow after Kirito, so it's him, Eolyne, and the Divine Beast alone.
Releasing the breath he's been holding, he checks on Eolyne first. The commander is still unconscious but color has returned to his face. Next is the snake, eyes covered by pale embrances remains unconscious as it rests on the clouds. The "eyes" from earlier were an illusion of heat elements placed over the eyes.
He wishes his otherworld partner had not left him behind in case the Divine Beast woke up from the aforementioned "stasis measures" Istar mentioned and was understandably unfriendly to any human it sees. He won't be able to fight it and protect Eolyne, so it's best to find wherever it calls home and drop it off safe and sound...but it could get recaptured.
Gweeee!
Kirito grunts as white-hot pain pierces through from the back through his chest. His immediate concern goes to the slumped Eolyne, but whatever traveled through Kirito only grazed the commander's bangs. Relieved, Kirito raises an Incarnate Shield and turns in the direction in which he was attacked.
To his knowledge, only two people had the ability to fly with Incarnation, and the person before Kirito is not Jaymes. It's Istar, hair and coat flapping in the wind, right hand extended and holding a large gun. He...shot Kirito?
The wound is below the collarbone, spurting blood out and emitting burning pain. Under different circumstances, Kirito would have lost half his life value and bled out over time, but after battling two gods, Kirito learned his flesh is an extension of his soul. Had not Gabriel Miller severed Kirito in half and carved his heart out, Kirito wouldn't consider the bullet hole a mere scratch.
Fixing the wound and the damaged uniform with his blood as a resource, Kirito feels another pang in his chest. If he knew how to use Incarnation at the level now back then, he could have possibly saved Eugeo.
Shaking that thought off, he gazes at the silhouette of Istar. With his back to the rising sun, the figure looks like a black painting on white canvas. He can't see Istar's face, he can't figure out how Istar found him, and even more perplexing, he cannot determine how Istar is flying.
While Kirito is deciding on questioning Istar or retreating with Eolyne and the Divine Beast, Istar approaches the former Star King with incredible speed. On reflex, Kirito enhances the Incarnate Shield's range and durability. He expected Istar would slam into the wall, but the icy-eyed person skids to a stop thirty feet from Kirito. Somehow they can sense Incarnation or something of the sort.
Istar's beautiful, emotionless face says nothing for a couple of seconds, simply analyzing the two men in front of them. He may have even frowned, but Kriito didn't catch it quick enough. However Istar's feeling, it is void on their face and in their voice as they addresses Kirito for the first time as they glance at the gun. "I apologize for shooting you from behind without warning. I wanted to test it first to see if it would work."
Kirito's first thought is how much an asshole Istar sounds like. Not even the "act first, speak later" actors of his friends would be this insincere. The second is how androgynous he remains upon direct observation to the point it bothers Kirito he can't determine a sex. The last thought is the action Istar took. "Did you shoot me there on purpose? Or did you just miss my head or my heart?"
"It's not realistic to aim for any particular spot at that distance. It was a major success just to hit you anywhere at all."
Istar's probably right. According to Sinon, a real-world handgun has an effective range of twenty yards and fifty in GGO. A more skilled player could possibly hit someone at double the range. It might be a miracle Kirito was hit at all by the crude-looking gun.
"...How is that gun firing bullets?"
"It's a simple mechanism, just expelling the bullet with the release pressure of a wind element. Though there's a trick in the regulating mechanism to let off excess pressure in the compression chamber."
"I see..." That "regulating mechanism" must be the source of the gun's noise. Stifling his curiosity, Kirito turns to the other question he has. It's obvious Istar is using Incarnation instead of any other mechanism.
Incarnation is the power of the imagination to overturn the world's rules. An Underworlder would believe that people cannot fly, and therefore wouldn't fly. But someone with strong Incarnation — a strong imagination — could envision themselves flying and therefore act on it. Up to now, only Administrator accomplished that feat. Vecta and Jaymes are the only otherworlders to accomplish absolute Incarnation flight without the trials Kirito had to experience to do so on his own, but the strength of Jaymes and Kirito's imagination are rooted in those battles.
So either Istar had partake in a battle against someone on the level of Administrator and Vecta or achieved it in another manner.
"I have answered two of your questions, so you ought to answer the same number," Istar states while placing the prototype gun in its holster.
KIrito figures it wouldn't hurt to get information from Istar. It gives Eolyne and the Divine Beast time to recover, which is a good thing for the former and a variable for the latter. At the least, it gives Jaymes time to do whatever he's doing and possibly return.
"...Sure, if it's something I can answer."
"Were you the one who eliminated the Abyssal Horror?"
Answering truthfully might give Istar a placement of Kirito's abilities. It's unlikely to end the conversation into an attack, though. A small lie would help too by not mentioning Asuna, Alice, and Jaymes were there, if it makes Kirito seem stronger than he is. "That's right."
"I see... But you don't match the descriptions I received from..."
Kirito barely heard the last part, nor did he understand the significance. He focuses on drawing more information from Istar. With the sun approach a position of four in the morning on this part of Admina, he has about an hour left before Dr. Koujiro returns him and the others to the real world. Give him five minutes into a conversation, and if Jaymes doesn't return, Kirito could capture Istar with Incarnation and escape.
"It's a play for time," a faint voice says. Cradled in Kirito's arms, eyes forming narrow slits behind the white mask, is a barely conscious Eolyne. Sensing Kirito's confusion over the previous statement, the commander continues, "By now, they're evacuating personnel from the base down below. Once that's down, they're going to erase the facility itself."
"E-erase? How?"
Looking down in the general direction of the cloud-hidden base, Kirito senses heat and movement with Incarnation. People were moving down the runway to the Avus dragoncraft that's preparing to launch.
"Very perceptive of you," Istar coldy states.
"Just the sort of thing you would come up with, Tohkouga Istar."
"I had a feeling you were our intruder, Eolyne Herlentz."
They know each other?
"I'm fine now. Let me down." Eolyne mouths Kirito's name in the end, intentionally not revealing his identity. Kirito acts to stand Eolyne up, but to do so requires him to create of foothold for the commander to stand on or maintain a firm grip on him. Eolyne sees Kirito's hesitation and whispers, "You don't need to hold me up."
"...Got it." He lowers the left arm that lifts Eolyne's legs, watching as the commander also hover in the air with Incarnation. Well, given that science had advanced two hundred years in the Underworld, it makes sense advances in techniques of incarnation had as well. But this is going to trip Jaymes up when he sees this. Their safety net that is the Incarnate power they possessed is diminishing quickly.
"Drop your gun and sword and surrender. What you are committing is undeniable rebellion against the Stellar Unification Council. I must apprehend you and take you to Centoria to be judged."
"Still as uptight as you always were, Eol. If I were going to surrender just like that, I would've run away already and not chased you all the way up here."
"...You've changed, Kouga. The old you wouldn't have risked personal danger to buy time for subordinates to escape,"
"Risk personal danger...?" Istar repeats as if they didn't understand what Eolyne meant. Brushing their hair aside, istar continues, "I am doing no such thing, of course. I will simply occupy you until the Avus takes off, and after that I will walk...or fly...away." Istar doesn't perceive either Kirito or Eolyne as a big enough threat to believe he can be apprehended in the slightest.
Shrugging, Eolyne says, "Yes, I take that back. You haven't changed. But it was that arrogance of yours that caused you to lose to me in the final of the Human Unification Tournament."
"A duel that forbids Incarnation is nothing more than a sideshow. I'm going to show you what a real battle looks like," Istar pronounced, and then drew their saber again in a long arc, then murmurs more words to himself before eyeing Eolyne intensely.
Eolyne produces his sword from his belt. Understanding that the two have a score to settle, Kirito was going to let them have at it, but his Incarnate Wall remains active. There's also the problem of the dragoncraft. Whispering an apology to Eolyne, Kirito initiates an attempt to ensnare Istar with Incarnation. Istar may can fly, but that's an adept's skill in comparison to blocking the Abyssal Horror's attacks.
The walls surround Istar, trapping him inside. Then the human places their hand on the wall. A cold sensation wrecks through Kirito's conscious as it feels something slips through. Up ahead, Istar is physically moving through the wall as if its made of air, just like when the bio-missile did the same earlier, but this time it's much more powerful by hundreds of times.
The new technique of Incarnation-Eroding Incarnation.
Once he's through, he engages Eolyne. What proceeded is a lightning-fast battle on top of the clouds. It wasn't as flashy as when Kirito and Jaymes fought Gabriel Miller/Vecta as the end of the Otherworld War, but had the makings of an ordinary sword fight reinforced by Incarnation on attack and defense.
Eolyne and Istar's mastery of Incarnation was so great that if either one delayed in the application of their imagination in time with their swings, their swords would break. Yet here they are, moving so fast that it's hard for Kirito to keep up. He couldn't pull this off, switching Incarnation on and off in a delicate fashion. Definitely not as Kirito the swordsman, that is. Kirito the Star King may have had the years to train this ability.
Then there's a brief opening, a short pause before both men roar at each other and strike high. As their blades clashed, a shockwave precipitates in the air around the blades. This is due to a collision of Incarnation n a gap between the swords, each dueling to be strong enough to surpass the other and break the opposing sword.
The pressure overflows, knocking the men backward. Kirito keeps his eye on Eolyne, noting that istar mentioned the man's weak disposition. He was unconscious moments ago, yet got up to fight despite his ailing body. Then again, Eolyne mentioned he won the Unification Tournament and Istar was his opponent.
As a guy with a rivaling swordsman as a friend, it makes sense Eolyne would want to put his skills against Istar. It's a duel between two great swordsmen of their time. Kirito normally wouldn't interfering in that, but Istar is the fresher combatant. He'll have to disable Istar without Incarnation first.
As he geared up for that, he senses three things happening below. One is movement of the Avus dragoncraft down the runway. Two more dragoncrafts were taking off from the runway was well. Third, there's a multitude of heat and wind elements being activated from deep underneath the base. Dealing with three dragoncrafts and preventing the two elements from reacting and exploding...yeah, Kirito can't manage that and stop Istar.
Oh, and there's a fourth dragoncraft incoming from the west, and based on its size, its near equal to the Avus. Great.
What can he do? Assist Eolyne? Fight the attacking dragoncrafts? Block the Avus? Stop the explosion?
"I leave this to you now...Protect this...world...and its...people..."
That voice in his head... Those words came from Cardinal, the sage who helped him and Jaymes in their respective fights against Administrator. When she was critically wounded in the first round, she spoke those words to Kirito. Somehow she survived that fight, but her words meant plenty to Kirito as they remained close to his heart in his battles with Administrator and Vecta.
The time for being a passive observer is over. Now it is time to act, and for those who put their trust in him two hundred years ago and those who did so hours ago before his departure, he has to act, else Asuna, Jaymes, Kureha, and Alice wouldn't let him live it down.
If Alice and Asuna were here, they could take care of this mess.
...No, that's absurd. Central Cathedral is tens of thousands of miles away. It took Kirito and Jaymes an hour and a half from Cardina to Admina on the X'rphan and Chaos Drake at Mach 300...but then again, it could work. No, it can work Jaymes and Cardinal are living proof that great distances can be traveled in a short amount of time
Cardinal herself used teleport gates to ignore physical distance. Kirito learned from the sage's arachnid familiar Charlotte that sacred arts are merely tools for controlling Incarnation. He learned to produce elements without commands, a high-level skill back in the day. Why couldn't he create a teleport gate?
Jaymes reported that his teleporting ability requires him to either be familiar with the location he wants to go to or a person he's targeting. All Kirito has to do is follow those same principles.
Taking his eyes off Eolyne, he glances up to the sky, spotting a massive half-blue planet. At this point in time, Centoria and Admina's Ori were lined up. Cardina and Admina have the sam rotation speed and direction, while the two cities were on opposite sides. Ori's dawn is Centoria's dusk, for example.
Kirito focused on that picture alone. First the planet, then the earthy red continent, then a circular mountain range with greenery inside. That's the End Mountains, which house the human realm on the inside. Within the greenery is a second circle that marks Centoria, and in the middle of Centoria is the cathedral.
With the sun's spatial resources, Kirito manipulates a multitude of crystal elements, bringing them together to form a door and a circular platform underneath it. It took two seconds to formulate the door and platform, and a third to envision Asuna and Alice on the other side.
Once the picture of the girls held firm, Kirito opens the door. At once, the cathedral and the fields of Admina were continuous. He didn't spend a second longer on the matter as he spotted the girls and shouted, "Asuna! Alice! Sorry! Help me out!"
Without hesitation, the women answer the call to arms. They bolt through the door one at a time and stand on the platform. They couldn't go anywhere else, lest they fall off down to the clouds and ground underneath.
"What should we do, Kirito?" Asuna asks swiftly.
With Incarnation, Kirito parts the thick clouds to clear their vision of the land below. "Asuna, make that entire base down below float into the air! There's a bomb underneath it that's about to explode!" He says that, but by the way the people on the ground are still scrambling, time is running out.
And speaking of running out, the Avus is accelerating down the runway, almost ready to lift off. "Alice, stop that huge dragoncraft! Just don't destroy it entirely!"
"You certainly do like to ask for the absurd!" Alice hisses while drawing the Osmanthus Blade from her hip.
"I'll find a way!". Eyes on the base, Asuna points the kitchen knife in her right hand at the building.
As the three other dragoncrafts...well, it seems the two that came from the base were ascending towards them, unbothered by the change in cloud cover, but then a large streak of red and black split the air between them. Through intuition, Kirito could sense the two in the Keynis Mk. 7-like crafts were Istar's personal aides, Sugin and Domhui, and the one in black and red didn't need to be identified.
Who else but Jaymes would don those colors.
Jaymes
It all happened at once.
First thing I noticed was familiar rainbow appearing the the sky, followed by the song of angels. On the ground, the three-story building and its underground compartment is wrenched up from its foundations. Once free, the building is shifted to the right, out of the way of a enormous plume of fire bellowing out from the depths of the earth.
I couldn't see her, but there's only one person who could manipulate the earth on a greater scale than pure Incarnation: Stacia, the goddess of creation, and her avatar Asuna Yuuki. How she got her must've been due to a surge of Incarnation — Kirito's, given how it overcame the two blips of Incarnation coming close by — and she's not alone.
While the building was being lifted, a line of yellow petals flow down from the atmosphere to the departing Avus. It was my initial target, but the petals took care of it. Instead of ripping the craft apart, the stream splits in half and rushed towards the flaps at the rear end of the wings, eviscerating them.
With the supports gone, the Avus drifted back down to the ground, landing in the field of yellow flowers. All thanks to the Osmanthus Blade's Enhance Armament.
As for why I diverted from the Avus, I spotted the two dragoncrafts and went to intercept.I guess they didn't see the Chaos Drake ascend at full (planet-appropriate) speed and, braked to a sudden halt, take the missile attack destined for the black serpent. The Incarnate Shield projected by me and Cordelia around the craft absorbed the hits, but the craft still rattled in place. After being shaken and stirred, I eye Kirito, Asuna, and Alice, all standing beyond a teleport gate on a crystal platform.
I glance at the serpent next, confirming its safety, then to the combating Eolyne and Istar. Both are holding the Sonic Leap still in place, daring the other to unleash it first.
Eyes back on Kirito, a silent message passes from my eyes to his and back. Leave the dragoncrafts to me. Get Eolyne and the serpent out of here.
I will. Don't...cause casualties.
Got it. The Chaos Drake's engine roars back to life, daring the enemy dragoncrafts to follow it towards the brightening horizon to the east. They take the bait, zipping past the floating audience after me. With that taken care of, I address the girls behind me. Cordelia sits behind me on the right, projecting the shield. Sylvie is on the left, at the weapon controls, thinking how to operate them. Someone — no name to be stated — put an auxillary weapon control system at that seat and at the control board in front of me. But I rather focus on where to do than where to shoot.
"Cordelia, keep that shield up! Sylvie, figure out the weapons system quickly!"
"Why am I having to do that? You designed this craft! Why you make it so freaking complicated to have two weapon control systems?"
"In case you haven't been following, I don't remember this! Aren't you trained on how to use a dragoncraft?"
"PILOTING! I'm trained to pilot a dragoncraft! Why would I know how to use the weapons system, never mind one separated from the control board?"
"Because that's what pilots do!" I feel an artery burst in my head. This loud, argumentative, abrasive brat is not my child! Eydis and Kureha are wrong about us being similar! There's no way I ever acted like this in my childhood and adulthood here in the Underworld! Even if her logic is sound, it annoys me to no end.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Another volley of heat missiles peppered the shield around us. Being the one projecting the shield (thus taking the mental damage), Cordelia grimaces and faces us. "Hey, I'm all for the father-daughter bonding you guys are doing, but I'm not sure I can hold for much longer!"
See, I believe Cordelia could be mine. She's smart, coolheaded, and doesn't argue every two seconds. But that accounts for a character trait I do not possess. I mean, Kirito and I are somehow blessed to be surrounded by girls, but there's no way he'd cheat on Asuna. Forget the lacking ability to do so, he has a diamond in the rough with her. And for me, I might have the ability to mess around, but the courage to do so? When you've had a dagger at your throat, a hammer bashed against your head, a semiautomatic gun pointed at your dick, a seen a katana that wields either the power of darkness or a storm of lycoris petals, and piercing eyes that say "Test me," you learn how much courage you have even as the Crimson Warrior and the Emperor of the Dark Territory.
So I guess Sylvie is mine out of a damned sense of loyalty I had to Eydis. That is probably keeping us from tearing each other apart literally. "Just figure it out."
"Whatever."
"Jaymes, first get low."
"Why?" Turning to the redhead, I notice Cordelia's green eyes shine with a glint that makes me forget she isn't Medina. I have a bad feeling about what she's thinking, but it says all I need to know.
"Let's just say it'll make it hard for them to hit us, hehe."
"...Your ancestor is going to kill me... Hang on!"
I dialed back on the controls, sending the Chaos Drake in an arcing ascent and nosedive for the ground. For a second, we're behind the enemy crafts, but without operation weapons, we can't fire on them. The flower field underneath shudder, kicking petals into the air. My focus is on the red streaks whizzing by my window, however, trying to avoid them as best I can.
BOOM! That hit our left wing. Oh, that doesn't sound good. "Hey, what the hell are you doing back there?"
"Are you flying directly into the path of their missiles?"
"Excuse me, Princess, but are you going to fire back? I happen to like my ship!"
"It's just as trashy as the X'rphan. We should have taken Mother's dragoncraft, the Yomi; at least that has working weapons."
Lord, grant me patience, because if you grant me strength, I'm going to send Eydis' daughter to Yomi. I sweep the Chaos Drake down then swing back to the sky. "Cordelia, hold on a little longer."
"Yeah..."
"Ah... Got it!" From behind, I hear the turrets on the wings make some mechanical movement and start firing at the crafts tailing us. Sylvie grunts maliciously as she tries hitting our enemies, but since I don't hear an explosion, seems like she's not hitting them. On the flip side, they're not hitting us.
"Jaymes, do you see anywhere we can close them off?"
"No, it's open field all around us. If only Asuna came with... Oh." To the far left, hidden by the rising sun, is a group of smooth, raised elevations. Probably better to call it hills instead of mountains from this distance, but they'll do. "Sylvie, Cordelia keep it up. We're heading for those hills." One hard turn to port (and hard scraping of the left wing against the ground) later, we're gunning hard for the hills.
As we get closer, I curse my luck. Yes, those are definitely hills, but they're not completely smooth at all. Beyond the hills I spotted is a deep, irregular cavern, and the range stretches far into the distance. I sigh to myself, pray to the heavens, and bolt down to the depths of planet.
I don't know whether it's instinct or traces of the Emperor in my soul piloting right now, but somehow I'm bucking and weaving through the cavern well enough to keep us alive. But the Keynis Mk. 7-like crafts are having an easier time navigating since they're smaller in wingspan. I can tell because Sylvie is cursing them very creatively in dark realm slang while shooting; calling someone "goblin's turd" just sounds insulting.
"Come on, come on... Why can't I shoot to kill?"
"Because Kirito said so."
"Do you do everything the Star King asks?"
"We do have different ideologies when it comes to this sort of thing. Normally I'd tell you to take them out, but... This is one of those times."
My daughter groans. "Seriously, my image of you guys is forever irreparable... Go back up, then on my signal, come down hard. I need to hit their thrusters."
"On it." I see the perfect obstacle to make that move. A bridging piece of land intercepts our path, but instead of flying over it, I turn the nose of the Drake skyward as if to exit the ravine. The two Keynis crafts follow, then on Sylvie's signal, I push the controls forward to suddenly nosedive. As the first Keynis passes us, Sylvie fires furiously. Looking over my shoulder, I see the left thruster erupt, but the craft remains intact. It flies out the ravine while the second one continues the chase.
"You missed one, Princess."
"'You missed one, Princess.'"
"That's so mature for someone of royal standing. Did you skip Etiquette 101?"
"I know you aren't talking, Emperor."
...Point taken. I straighten us out and continue deeper in this earthly scar. It's narrow and tight in this part, so it takes my full concentration to pilot in this section. But once again, the Keynis is shooting...and I think, based on the latest violent shake of the aircraft, we've take structural damage. "Cordelia, you okay?"
She pants for air and apologetically says, "I'm sorry. I can't hold it any longer."
"That's fine. Hey, getting low was your idea. I assume you had a plan in mind back then?"
"Oh. Yes, indeed I did. What I'm about to tell you is something Mathias taught me, which I guess Dad taught him. He says it is an Orthinanos original, dating back to Selina Orthinanos, the tenth head of the family."
No wonder I feel uneasy. Hearing Medina's daughter created a manuever makes me unwilling to try it anymore. "What is it?"
"First get high in the sky with some distance between us and them. Turn the craft backwards with the engines off. And Sylvie, don't shoot."
Sylvie gawks at her best friend. "The hell you mean?"
Forget what I said earlier about wishing Cordelia was the daughter I had. Both these girls are insane that I don't want any further relation to them. "Do you know what you just said? Turn the engines off and let gravity carry us down to the surface? That's stupid!"
"Well, Mathias told me that you taught Selina the move, so... Trust yourself."
Oh fuck you, Crimson Emperor Jaymes. "Urghhhh... Screw this! Sylvie, save the shot for the opportune moment. Hang on tight!" I sharply turn upward again, gradually rising out of the canyon. Once I see a clear path, I push the engine to the tolerable limit, going as fast as we did in space for a short boost out the ravine and to the atmosphere. Cordelia gives me a signal with a shoulder tap, so with doubt prominent in my mind, I dial back completely on the engine and turn the craft one hundred and eighty degrees.
I can see red missiles head our way now, so I project an Incarnate Shield to protect us. Meanwhile, the Chaos Drake is starting to accept the pull of gravity and drift downward to the yellow fields three thousand mels below. Maybe ALO has tamed my senses to falling head first, but tail first opens a pit in my core. "C-Cordelia..."
I turn to look at her — unwise choice for my stomach — and see her eyes are closed, hand on the sheathed Mirage Blade. I wonder why she's doing that...then I understand as she whispers, "Enhance Armament." She's using the blade's power to control lycoris petals, and like her ancestor and Alice with the osmanthus petals, she had complete control over their appearance. That includes making them invisible to the naked eye. But unlike with Medina, in which I could detect the petals if I focused, I cannot get a hint of the petals' location. Cordelia must be hiding them with Incarnation-Hiding incarnation.
And the poor Keynis' wings rip and tear apart when we're a thousand or so mels above the surface.
"Go!" my daughter shouts, not that I need to be told to turn the engines back on. I fire them on to the max and direct us back in the direction of Kirito and the others.
"Wooooo!" Cordelia shouts, clearly excited that her family's secret technique worked. "That was awesome! Double high-five, Sylvie!"
"Yeah!" The girls clap hands in the back of the cockpit, celebrating our victorious dogfight. As stoic as I try remaining, the corner of my mouth extends upwards. It may be two hundred years later and the girls are nothing like them, yet I feel the same sense of camaraderie as I did with Eydis and Medina.
"Jaymes." Cordelia's hand is extended, signaling for a fist bump. I look up to her eager face, then raise my fist.
"Good work, Cordelia." She grins even more and bumps it three times, middle, high, and low. Once she's done, I turn back and continue piloting. Instantly I feel like I forgot something and figure it out quickly. I look over my left shoulder, seeing Sylvie fiddle with her fingers. She looks conflicted...just as I am.
We argued for most of the fight, and I guess I was too hard on her. I've never piloted a dragoncraft in combat before, or one at all, since returning to the Underworld. In the end, she figured out the complication cockpit her father set up, and took one of the crafts out. That alone deserves some recognition. "Good job too, Shi."
"Huh...Oh, thank you... Wait, that's not my name."
Oops. "Oh, ah...Sorry about that. It's just, in my world, your name is derived from my mother's language. But from where my father is from, your name is written as I just said, which I bet inspired your name as it is. 'Shi,' which means 'purple,' and 'ri,' which means 'beautiful.' Knowing your mother, she definitely liked the second part for you. And...you like purple as much as I like red, so..."
"I..." She looks out the window, not saying anything more. Man, this is awkward. I rather be we openly hostile to each other than not being able to talk. Then again, this is my fault. I was the one who got offended that she thought she could beat the Emperor in a duel whenever he returned. Since that duel, we hadn't had a moment that we could act like ourselves fully. If only I could take Philia's advice and not act like her father, but as someone her age. But that chance was nipped in the bud the moment the Dark Territory was attacked.
"...Mother calls me Ri at times, I guess for that reason, So if you want, you can call me Shi."
That comment startles me. I didn't expect acceptance of it, yet I can't contain the smile that forms on my face. Maybe we made progress after all. "Okay then. Let's catch up to Kirito."