Disclaimer : I don't own Naruto or Toaru Kagaku no Railgun/Toaru Majutsu no Index
The Trinity of Tokiwadai
Chapter Ninety Five: Return of ITEM
Fremea Seivelun was a blue-eyed Norwegian girl of eight years old. She had slender arms and legs, fluffy blonde hair, and white skin. Something which when combined with her choice of clothing, which today consisted of a light red beret, a fluffy white and pink top full of frills and lace, a miniskirt and thick, wine-red tights, made her look like a doll. Or as she preferred, like an idol one would see in a video game. A look that she tried hard to achieve and was very proud of. Especially because she was meeting some of her closest friends today and wanted to look her best.
"Hanzō-nii, Kuruwa-nee, how do I look? Do I look cute? Nyaa~!" Fremea asked her two former guardians as she spun around for them to admire her look as they walked out of the restaurant in the Underground Mall in School District 7 where they had met up to have lunch together.
"Of course. You're always cute, Fremea-chan." Kuruwa-nee said, shooting Fremea an indulging smile. Despite the rather insincere edge to her praise, Fremea preened from it regardless. Praise from someone as cute as Kuruwa-nee was to be treasured.
And the kunoichi - and, yes, Kuruwa-nee was a bonafide ninja - was definitely cute. She was an older girl with black hair that had some yellow around the bangs that she decorated with ornate hairpins of various colors with beads in them. That made her cute enough but she added to it by wearing a flamboyant outfit. An outfit that consisted of a lace fingerless glove on one arm and glittering nail art on both hands; a type of sandals with thin straps that stretched up to around her knees; a bright yellow mini-yukata that completely bared her thighs and the left arm to the shoulder; a wide obi made out of translucent material that served to partially bare her midriff; two thin leather belts wrapped around and over the obi; and, on top of all that, she wore a metal shackle around one ankle that was attached to a long chain that served as some kind of decoration.
"Yes, you're looking really cute, Fremea." Hanzō-nii added with a more genuine smile.
Hanzō-nii's full name was Hattori Hanzō, same as the name of a famous ninja from the Sengoku Period, which hinted at how he himself was a ninja. But beyond that he was also the leader of a Skill-Out gang and it was in that role that he and Kuruwa-nee had helped look after and protect Fremea when her Onee-sama was working with ITEM and was too busy to do so herself like she did now that she was working for the Trinity. Both of them having stepped into the role after the former leader of the Skill-Out gang that they were both part of, Komaba Ritoku, got killed by Accelerator-sama on the orders of the City for, according to Saten-sama, being a positive influence on the Skill-Out scene which apparently made him too dangerous and influential.
But back to Hanzō-nii! He was a lean high schooler with short cropped black hair dressed in white combat boots, a black sleeveless jacket, black slacks, a long sleeved shirt and skull cap. The latter two of which were decorated with white cross patterns. Not quite what someone might expect of a ninja, at least in comparison to Kuruwa-nee who was obvious in her occupation, but that, Fremea imagined, made sense in its own sneaky way.
"But watch where you're going, Fremea-chan." Hanzō-nii said as he reached out and stopped Fremea's spinning by grabbing hold of her shoulder.
"Huh?" Fremea asked, blinking in confusion as she came to a stop.
Kuruwa-nee just pointed behind her at a sandwich board set up in front of the entrance of the restaurant that they had just exited which detailed the establishment's menu. A board she'd almost crashed into.
"Oh~! Oops!" Fremea said as she blushed and giggled in embarrassment.
Kuruwa-nee just shook her head in amusement. Hanzō-nii on the other hand just offered her a kind smile, "Yes, oops. Like I said, watch where you're going, Fremea-chan."
Fremea nodded, chastised and face flushed in embarrassment.
"Hey Hanzō, Kuruwa! Fancy seeing you guys here!" A familiar voice called out from nearby, causing Fremea and her two friends to turn towards it and seeing Hamazura Shiage, another of their friends from Ritoku-nii's old Skill-Out gang, walking towards them whilst carrying several shopping bags. "And hey! Is that Fremea-chan?"
"Shiage-nii~! It's nice to see you! Nyah~!" Fremea greeted her blonde haired friend, waving at him enthusiastically.
"Hi Fremea-chan. And what's up with the 'nyah'?" Shiage-nii said, looking at her like she'd grown a second head.
"She's started speaking like that for some reason." Kuruwa-nee explained with a shrug. "We have no idea why. Good to see you by the way, Hamazura-shi. How have you been?"
"Don't question it. Got it. Nice to see you too, Kuruwa." Shiage-nii nodded. "And yeah, it's been hel-tic, hectic getting back into things."
"Essentially, I think it's cute to talk this way. Nyaa~!" Fremea said with a cheeky grin.
"Well, she's not wrong." Hanzō-nii said with a chuckle. "It's good to see you, Hamazura. What brings you here?"
Lifting his shopping bags up a little, Shiage-nii shrugged. "Happy to see you too, Hanzō. I was running some errands for my teammates. I'm heading home now. You guys?"
"Same." Hanzō-nii said with a nod. "We just finished lunch and catching up."
"I see." Shiage-nii nodded back. "Then would you like a lift? I drove."
Hanzō-nii and Kuruwa-nee exchanged a look, but Fremea shared none of their hesitance. "That sounds fun! Essentially, we can chat during the drive. Can I stick my head out the window, nyah?"
"No." The three told her bluntly, shocking her. What powerful sibling energy!
"Aww~!" Fremea whined.
"Don't whine, Fremea-chan." Hanzō-nii told her firmly. "You know if we let you do that, your sister would kill us."
"Good chance that would be literally true too." Shiage-nii said with a shiver.
"I'm more worried about what she'd get Saten-sama to do to us myself." Kuruwa-nee said, causing both Hanzō-nii and Shiage-nii to pale and shoot her horrified looks.
"Saten-sama is not that scary." Fremea said with a roll of her eyes. "Essentially, being scary is just a mask she wears."
Honestly, from what her investigating of the level 5s revealed, those working with the Trinity were pussy cats. Big softies! At least that's what her totally legit interview with Last Order-chan relayed.
"That doesn't stop what she does to people who earn her displeasure from being scary." Hanzō-nii told her as he nodded at Shiage-nii.
Nodding back, the blonde began leading them in the direction of the underground mall's car park. As they did, they passed by more than one group of people clustered around their phones and complaining about how they were having trouble with the mobile network. Not that any of them paid them any mind. They were too busy chatting among themselves.
"Essentially, I guess that's true." Fremea conceded to the fair point, though she held up a finger to signify that she had a counterargument. "But she's really, really nice inside. The other members of the Trinity and Accelerator-sama too."
"Accelerator-sama too?" Kuruwa-nee said, shooting Fremea a disbelieving look. "Did you forget what he did to Komaba-sama, Fremea-chan?"
Fremea snorted and rolled her eyes. "Of course not, but in the first place he only did that because the meanies in charge of the City ordered him to. He didn't have a choice. So I forgive him. Plus Accelerator-sama respects Ritoku-nii and regrets having to kill him."
"The Number 1 respects Komaba?" Hanzō-nii asked, blinking in surprise.
"He did get his face punched in by a Level 0." Shiage-nii said with a shrug. "I heard he respects strength."
"Yeah, but that Level 0's a freak of nature. Does Kamijou even count as a Level 0?" Kuruwa-nee objected.
"Yes, but he's still a Level 0." Hanzō-nii reasoned with a shrug. "But is the Number 1 really like that?"
"That's part of it. He did say he was impressed Ritoku-nii didn't just surrender when he learned he was coming after him." Fremea said with a nod as Hanzō-nii held the door to the car park open for them as they reached it. "But essentially after he found out why Ritoku-nii got a kill order, that he was being punished for doing the good thing, Accelerator-sama really started respecting him. He wants to do the same thing but keeps getting held back from doing so too."
Well, to be honest, Accelerator-sama hadn't exactly told Fremea that. But Fremea had pieced the Number 1's opinion together from her limited conversations with him but mostly from all the talks she had shared with his daughters, who were all too happy to talk about their Papa.
"So where did you park, Hamazura?" Hanzō-nii asked as he stepped into the carpark, closing the door he'd held open for them behind him.
"Not far." Shiage-nii said as he continued to lead them towards his car.
"By the way, Hamazura-shi, why are you still running errands for ITEM?" Kuruwa-nee asked, eyeing the shopping bags that Shiage-nii was carrying curiously. "I mean you're not their runner anymore are you? I mean, aren't you a full member now?"
"Don't think too much into it." Shiage-nii said with a shrug. "We don't have a runner at the moment and our situation with our subordinate organizations is a mess too. So we had no one to run errands for us and we needed to, so since I had experience with it, I volunteered. Better me than say Mugino anyways. She'd empty our accounts by overspending on the littlest things if she did it."
"Oh? What about Takitsubo-san and Kinuhata-san?" Hanzō-nii asked, his interest piqued.
"Rikou is my girlfriend, I'm not sending her to do errands on my behalf. I'm liable to end up on the couch if I did. I asked her to come with me, but she wanted to sleep in. We kinda had a tiring night last night."
"Tiring night, nyaa?" Fremea asked, shooting Shiage-nii an innocent look even though she knew perfectly well what her friend was implying.
Much to her satisfaction, her fellow blonde blushed crimson. Something that had Hanzō-nii and Kuruwa-nee smirking in amusement. Despite that, Shiage-nii recovered quickly and deflected. "Nothing that you need to know, Fremea-chan."
"Aww~!" Fremea whined insincerely.
"Okay, that explains why Mugino-san and Takitsubo-san aren't running the errands but what about Kinuhata-san?" Kuruwa-nee asked, offering the ITEM operative a lifeline.
Shooting her a grateful look, Shiage-nii jumped on it immediately. "She was hitting the gym when we decided we needed to get some errands done, I didn't want to interrupt her."
"You're too nice." Hanzō-nii said with a shake of his head.
"To be honest, I think so at times too." Shiage-nii said as he came to a stop at a rather plain car. "This is it. Just give me a minute to unlock the ca-"
He had just put down his shopping bags and was fishing out his key fob when with a sound of screeching tires, a pair of lorries suddenly appeared out of nowhere and proceeded to block the road on either side of where Hamazura had parked.
"What the-" Shiage-nii began even as he, Hanzō-nii and Kuruwa-nee tensed.
He was again interrupted - How rude! - when a door of one of the lorry cabs popped open and someone in a sleek, brown and gray Powered Suit jumped out and shouted out a demand. "Hand over Fremea Seivelun!"
Fremea felt a shiver of fear run down her spine at the scary man coming after her. Why!? Why was he even targeting her? She was nobody!
"Over my dead body." Hanzō-nii said, his eyes narrowed as he pushed Fremea behind him and Kuruwa-nee moved to stand next to him, the two of them collectively acting as a wall between her and her would-be kidnapper.
"Over our dead body." Kuruwa-nee corrected as she drew a kusarigama out from somewhere and brandished it at the man in the Powered Suit threateningly.
Shiage-nii's reply was the most dramatic however as he simply drew a pistol and fired a shot at the man's head. Sadly, the bullet just bounced off his Powered Suit's helmet harmlessly.
The man sighed. "The difficult way it is."
With a snap of his fingers, the sides of the lorries' box cars slid open and from within five automated unorthodox Powered Suits skittered out on eight insectoid legs. Suits that had no head and had lenses and other sensors built directly into their chassis, including a radar receiver on the bottom part of their body. Machines that had waist portions that were over five meters tall and, by the way that they were spinning around as they stepped out of the lorries, were capable of rotating 360 degrees. Their left arms were twice the size of a human arm and had a built in machine gun whilst their right arms were four times larger and were armed with a tank grade smoothbore gun. Guns that they promptly leveled at Fremea and her friends.
"Those are specialized heavy weapons Powered Suits known as Enemy Blaster that Silvercross Alpha of Freshmen designed and which the City military has purchased the plans for to supplement their forces." Kuruwa-nee explained, eyeing the machines warily.
"Silvercross Alpha? The Powered Suit collector?" Hanzō-nii said as he let a Uchine, an extremely short arrow of only about fifteen centimeters long that he usually used for stabbing instead of throwing, fall into his right hand and ready for use.
"The Kamen Rider wannabe?" Shiage-nii asked in bewilderment. "From Freshmen?"
"Yes." Kuruwa-nee said with a nod. "Looks like that's who we'll be facing today, Hanzō-sama, Hamazura-shi."
While they were figuring out who he was and they were held at gunpoint by his automated drones, this Silvercross Alpha person jumped into one of his Suits which was of a different type compared to those holding Fremea and her friends hostage and which had still been waiting for him in the boxcar of the lorry he had used to drive in. Said Powered Suit was huge, being at least twice the size of the already quite large Enemy Blasters, that had a giant sensor dome for a head, two arms, two legs, and twelve poles extending from its back. Poles from which a hundred and twenty drones were deployed, ten from each pole.
These were circularly shaped drones with a radius of about seventy centimeters that had a metal border, inside of which contained two sets of hollow propellers that looked like shampoo hats which provided lift and propulsion. Drones that were armed with a chainsaw surrounding the circular border and had the name Edge_Bee printed on top of that border. Drones that spread out to secure the area.
"Shit! He's using his Bee Launcher too." Kuruwa-nee hissed as the massive Powered Suit stepped out of the lorry. "That's one of his personal Suits. If he's rolling it out then he's serious about this fight."
"That I am." Silvercross Alpha said through the speakers of his Suit. "Now, hand over Fremea Seivelun or you will see what I am capable of."
"Hanzō, Kuruwa, you ready?" Shiage-nii asked without taking his eyes off the enemy.
"Waiting on you." Kuruwa-nee said with a nod.
"Go!" Hanzō-nii said in reply, prompting everyone into action.
He immediately charged towards Silvercross Alpha whilst Kuruwa-nee spun around, grabbed Fremea - earning a surprised squeak from her - before using her kusarigama to secure a hold in the roof before swinging them out of the enemy's encirclement. At the same time, Shiage-nii somehow used his key fob to turn on his car and sent it crashing towards one of the Enemy Blasters.
Their burst of action seemed to surprise Silvercross Alpha and he was a little slow to react with the Enemy Blasters only opening fire with their smoothbore guns after they had all already got out of their killzone. Heck! One of them even got tipped over onto its back by Shiage-nii's car and pinned, only to be destroyed when the car suddenly exploded.
Even as Kuruwa-nee swung them to safety, Fremea did the mature thing and fumbled around for the keychain that served as her panic button. Pulling it from her skirt pocket, she quickly pressed it to call the Trinity for help!
Only for one of the bad guy's drones to smash into Kuruwa-nee from behind and knock her out of the kunoichi's arms, causing Fremea to crash to the ground in a painful landing.
"Owie!" She cried out, her bottom that she had landed on hurting. Tears pricked her eyes, but pushing through her pain, she looked at her hand. Her now empty hand. Frantic, she looked around, but only saw one of the armor guy's drones holding her button between the teeth of its chainsaw!
"Hey, essentially taking things from little girls is bad!" She pointed out, her logic flawless.
"I don't care." He said through the drone, crushing the device into little plastic bits. "And did you really think that it was going to be that easy? We made sure to jam all outbound signals and suppress the City's surveillance network that the Number 3 relies on. You didn't have a chance to call for help."
"...Oh." Fremea said, feeling very small and scared right now.
"And by the time the Trinity realizes you're in trouble? We'll be finished here and long gone." The man said as the drone that had crushed her panic button shot towards Fremea and Kuruwa-nee with its chainsaw spinning threateningly.
She flinched, squirming away on the ground. She tried to turn around and run away. Running was a good thing. It was the smart thing to do.
Sadly, her little legs didn't feel like being smart.
Thankfully, she was not alone.
"Didn't I say you could have Fremea-chan over my dead body?" Kuruwa-nee said as she swung her kusarigama at the drone, where its sickle blade proceeded to dig deep into the machine before she quickly spun and threw it away, seconds before it self-destructed.
"Now be smart and don't struggle." The evil robot guy said, like the type of person she was supposed to kick in the groin, from a half dozen other drones as they floated over to confront them.
"Your Edge_Bees aren't gonna be enough, Silvercross Alpha." Kuruwa-nee said as she began to dance - She was so graceful that Fremea could not call it anything else. - around Fremea as she used the sickle and chain of her kusarigama to destroy all of the flying drones that were attacking them.
"Then how about one of my Enemy Blasters? Can you take that on, little kunoichi?" The Kamen Rider wannabe said as one of his spider-like Powered Suits with the big guns moved away from the fight with Hanzō-nii and Shiage-nii to level its machine gun at Fremea and Kuruwa-nee.
"Did you forget about us, Silvercross!?" Shiage-nii said as he fired a salvo of shots from his pistol at the Enemy Blaster. He must be using special armor piercing rounds because his shots tore plenty of holes open in the Powered Suit, though not enough to take it out.
That was accomplished however when Hanzō-nii appeared out of nowhere and, blurring around the Enemy Blaster, stabbed Uchines into the various holes torn into its armor by Shiage-san's bullets before leaping away. Seconds later and with a press of a few buttons on Hanzō-nii's phone, the short arrow-shaped weapons impaled into the Enemy Blaster detonated, consuming the Powered Suit in a fireball and reducing it to slag.
"Huh? It looks like Hanzō-sama and Hamazura-shi have been busy." Kuruwa-nee as she finished off the Edge_Bees around them. "There's only one of the Enemy Blasters left."
She had just said that when a bright, neon green energy beam suddenly shot through the car park and proceeded to disintegrate the last of the Enemy Blasters. A second beam soon followed, aimed at the boss Suit. It did its job in destroying the huge machine but it failed to take out its pilot as the wicked Kamen Rider wannabe leapt out of the Suit just in time to avoid being disintegrated.
"Mugino!?" Shiage-nii shouted suddenly. "What are you doing here?"
"Rescuing you apparently." A girl that looked about twelve, with short brown hair in a bob cut and dressed in an orange hoodie and hot pants, said as she punched her way through one of the lorries that the Silvercross guy had used to try and trap them.
"Kinuhata, you're here too?"
"We're all here, Shiage." A tired looking highschool girl said. A girl with black hair that was cut evenly at shoulder length and was dressed in a pink tracksuit.
"Rikou?" Shiage-nii said, shooting his girlfriend, Takitsubo Rikou, a shocked look.
Ah, was this what was called the Harem Rescue that Onee-sama spoke about? Its prowess was truly legendary! As expected of Shiage-nii!
"Hamazura! Did you forget about me?" An older girl, older than even Onee-sama, said. She was a very pretty girl with a tall and slender figure, soft tea-colored hair and was dressed in a light yellow jacket over a cream shirt with a bolo tie, pink pants, a brown belt, and brown boots.
"Sorry. Thanks for the save, Mugino."
"ITEM!? What are you doing here?" The evil Kamen Rider wannabe said as the silent retreat he was attempting to make whilst everyone was surprised by the arrival of Shiage-nii's team was cut off by Kinuhata-san blocking his way.
"Hah? You thought you could mess with a member of our group and not get knocked down, moron?" The Mugino lady snapped with a glare. "Plus, your jammer gave you away. We tried calling Hamazura to pick up some snacks on the way back but couldn't get through."
"I wanted some mochi." Kinuhata-san said with a shrug.
"W-We were discovered… by a snack run request…" The dummy Kamen Rider said. "It didn't occur to you that maybe he was just uncontactable for mundane reasons?"
"Shiage is never uncontactable." Takitsubo-san said with certainty. "He always makes sure that he is contactable."
"I see." Silvercross Alpha said. Fremea couldn't see his face but by his tone, she expected that he was frowning. Or crying. He seemed like a total cry baby now that he wasn't going to win! "Still, I am surprised. It is unlike you [Meltdowner] to care so much about one of your subordinates. It is quite a departure from what you were previously reputed to be like."
The Mugino lady scoffed. "What can I say? World War Three was a great learning experience for me. Now, surrender you moron. I want you alive to find out what the hell prompted you to pick a fight with a Level 5."
"Mugino, above." Rikou said as she suddenly detected an unfamiliar AIM field above them. A field that belonged to someone who [AIM Stalker] had never met before but was eerily similar to Saiai-san's.
Before her team leader could react however, part of the roof of the underground car park was suddenly torn open. Revealing someone that though Rikou hadn't met, and which was why she did not recognize her AIM field, she recognized regardless. After all, it was rude of her to not learn about her teammate's past and as the only other survivor of the same Dark May project lab that Saiai-san had, Umidori Kuroyoru-san, was quite - unfortunately - memorable.
"Oi oi, don't ya know it's not nice to gang up on people?" The goth-loli known as Umidori Kuroyoru said, as she leapt through the gash she had created. "Makes others sort of annoyed."
As she landed, a wide, crazy grin spread across her face as she looked at everyone present with eyes full of malice and murderous intent. Something that was quite a contrast from the cute looking large dolphin shaped backpack that she was wearing.
"So cute~! Nyaa~!" Fremea-chan squealed, pointing at Kuroyoru's backpack. "But why would an older girl wear such a childish backpack?"
"Oi! Don't you know it's rude to call someone childish, brat!?" The leader of Freshmen, as the intel Rikou had read on Kuroyoru identified her as, said as her AIM field spiked.
Knowing the attack that was coming, Rikou sprinted forward and picked up Fremea-chan and dove out of the way of the lance of nitrogen that Kuroyoru shot at the little girl.
"Rikou-"
"I know, Shiage! I'll get her out of here!" Rikou said as she sprinted away, carrying the little girl away, ignoring her protests.
"Thanks!"
"Still, you shits wanna die, by all means!" She screamed out, cackling as her backpack unfolded into dozens of long tentacles that ended in mechanical hands the size of a child's with a glossy coating. Machines that moved and attached themselves to her back where the long and sinuous limbs began to stretch forward from behind her back as the crazed girl exclaimed. "Get ready to die!"
A number of them stretched towards Rikou and Fremea-chan but a few of Mugino's Particle Waveform High-Speed Cannons dealt with them with help from the Skill-Out kunoichi, Kuruwa-san, that was Shiage's friend and her kusarigama.
"Oi! Do you honestly think you can pick a fight with ITEM and ignore me, you brat?" Mugino shouted angrily at Kuroyoru as Rikou continued to carry Fremea-san to safety.
She trusted her team to deal with these Freshmen idiots. Honestly!? Picking a fight with a Level 5 team? That's just stupid!
Well, sad to say, the City seems to have no shortage of exactly that kind of fools. Rikou thought with a sigh as she completed her escape from the underground car park battlefield.
Thankfully, there's also plenty of us to set them straight.
As senpai usually did for their kohai.
While Rikou made her escape from the battlefield whilst carrying Fremea-chan to safety, Hamazura Shiage's attention was mostly focused on his girlfriend as she fled. As she successfully made her getaway however, the former Skill-Out finally turned his full attention back to Kuroyoru Umidori and Silvercross Alpha. However, it seemed like everyone's attention had been as distracted as his had. Something that had been helped along tremendously by the leader of Freshmen's efforts as she attacked everyone with her multitude of cybernetic hands and the piercing and cutting nitrogen lances she launched with them using her Esper ability, Bomber Lance. A distraction that had allowed her to create an opening to grab hold of her ally and lift Silvercross back up to the surface.
"Shit!" Shiage cursed as he fired a volley of shots of AP (armor piercing) bullets at the Powered Suit clad Freshmen operative, only for Kuroyoru to deflect them with what he assumed were some kind of use of her nitrogen lances. He might know what the Freshmen leader's Esper ability was from the intel he'd read up on her but that did not mean he knew the full specifics of what she could do about it. Espers, especially Dark Siders, tended to keep that close to their chest.
But Shiage honestly wasn't worried about that at the moment, instead he was more worried for Kinuhata. She'd been the one to initially cut off Silvercross' escape, so if he was escaping now then something must've happened to her. He found her quickly enough and saw that it seemed like Kuroyoru had managed to get Silvercross away from his teammate by cutting a square out of the roof on top of Kinuhata and allowing it to drop on top of her. The Level 4's Offense Armor might have made her practically invulnerable, and if the intel on Kuroyoru's ability was to be believed particularly effective against protecting her from her fellow Dark May survivor's power, but that did not make her immune to the effects of the laws of physics. At least not completely. And having what was probably about a ton of concrete falling on her wasn't something his teammate could ignore. Oh, she'd used her nigh invulnerability to punch the debris that Kuroyoru had dropped on her into small enough pieces that she wasn't crushed outright and further did her best to run out of the crash zone, but enough still fell on her that she was pinned and had to punch her way free.
Seeing that Kinuhata was alive and unharmed, just incapacitated for the time being, Shiage breathed a sigh of relief and turned his attention back to the fight. It seemed that whilst he was checking on her, Mugino, Hanzō, and Kuruwa had been doing their best to take Kuroyoru down. However, between the massive offensive power that the Level 4 could bring to bear thanks to her many hands; and the agility that those same cybernetic limbs granted her, with her using them to swing around with some impressive parkour moves, the Level 4 was proving more than able to keep them all back. Oh! She was being hard pressed, with more and more of her robotic arms being destroyed by Hanzō's explosive uchines, Kuruwa's kusarigama, and Mugino's Particle Waveform High-Speed Cannons. However, with the latter holding back so as not to bring the entire underground car park crashing down on them, they were having some difficulty taking her down.
I have a bad feeling about letting Silvercross get away like that… Shiage thought as despite his attempts to shoot the Powered Suit obsessed man, he completed his escape back to the surface. Not that he thought he was fleeing the fight. If anything, he was sure that the man was just regrouping somehow. Probably arming himself with some kind of new weapon that his boss had set up for him up there, almost certainly yet another Powered Suit.
Suddenly, there was a sudden spike of static and ozone in the air. Something that caused Mugino to frown and shout out a warning.
"Incoming railguns!"
Heeding the Level 5's warning, Shiage and the rest of his allies - including a freshly free Kinuhata - scattered. Just in time to avoid a volley of railgun shots fired down from the surface. In the wake of which Silvercross leapt down and back into the fight in a fresh Powered Suit that Hamazura recognized from the intel file on it as being the FIVE_Over Modelcase_"RAILGUN".
I hate being right. Shiage thought with a tired sigh as he warily eyed Silvercross' new Powered Suit. One that had an appearance that bore a striking similarity to a five-meter-long praying mantis. It had two sets of arms, including a robotic pair that ended in sickles; two legs; and translucent wings that spread out from the back of the armor. It had a large cylinder-like thing used to store shells mounted on its back; shields on the front side of each of its front legs; and a 3-barrel gatling railgun placed between those shields.
"Tsk. Looks like the rumors that Silvercross got his hands on a FIVE_Over was accurate after all." Mugino said with a frown.
"You must still be catching up from your trip to Russia 'cos Saten-sama confirmed that a week ago." Hanzō commented absently as letting its railguns cool down, Silvercross raised its twin sickle arms and revealed that besides the melee weapons, the same arms were also armed with autocannons from which he proceeded to unleash a continuous stream of lead at them.
"A week ago!? Was she even back from Russia herself yet at that point? How the hell did the Number 3 even manage to release intel under those circumstances!?" Mugino shouted as they all dove for cover.
"She's not the only person in her intel brokering outfit nowadays, you know that right, [Meltdowner]?" Hanzō retorted from behind a car that was being torn apart by Silvercross' autocannons.
"I'm more concerned about why Freshmen is even targeting Fremea-chan." Shiage muttered under his breath, not willing to shout over the roar of Silvercross' guns to be heard. He wasn't anywhere curious enough to bother.
"They must be suicidal! That's why." Mugino snorted from a lot nearer than Shiage had thought she was as it seemed her choice of cover was a concrete pillar less than ten feet away from behind the truck he was crouched behind. "If by ITEM or the Trinity, I guess they want to go out in a bang."
And here comes the quip. Hazuma thought.
"If they want to be a legendary example of how not to die, by all means." The blood thirsty Level 5 grinned like a shark as she began fishing for something out of her pockets.
"Who do you think we are?" Silvercross said, somehow having heard Shiage despite the roar of his weapons. Probably thanks to the advanced sensors of his Suit. "A bunch of third-rate idiots who tell everyone their plan just because they were asked?"
"No! Just a bunch of idiotic corpses!" Mugino said as she found what she was looking for and proceeded to toss it over her head.
In response, Silvercross shifted the fire from his autocannon towards the object that Mugino had thrown into the air, shattering the silicon cards into hundreds of tiny bits. Immediately exploiting this, the Level 5 fired one of her Particle Waveform High-Speed Cannons at the tiny silicon fragments, using them to scatter it and turning it into hundreds of smaller beams. Dozens of which proceeded to slam into Silvercross and managed to burn off both of the FIVE_Over's sickle arms and, more immediately relevant, its autocannons with them.
"Good shot, [Meltdowner]!" Hanzō shouted as he and Kuruwa leapt out from behind their cover as Silvercross recovered from Mugino's attack.
Time to teach this idiot the price of picking a fight with a Level 5 team. Shiage thought as he popped out of his own cover and began providing cover fire for his ninja friends.
Saiai was not having a good time. No, she was having a super shitty time in fact. Not only was cute little Fremea-chan being attacked, but she had to deal with this shitty loli bitch! A reminder of the worst time of her life no less!
Damn what she would give for a drink right now. That was the only means to deal with this headache in the flesh.
"What's wrong, Kinuhata?! Can you only weather my attacks? Can't you at least fight back a little?" Kuroyoru jeered as her freaky-deaky hands fired off the nitrogen lances conjured by her Esper power like machine gun fire. "Either way, it's been a long time since we last saw each other when Dark May was shut down, so it's good for us to catch up like this!"
"You are super pushy! No one likes the yandere act!" Saiai pointed out with a deadpan as she just let Kuroyoru's nitrogen lances deflect off her own Offense Armor, the superdense layer of nitrogen that her ability granted her being super effective against the other Level 4's Bomber Lance. "Besides, I super don't care about that. Just because we won the survival lottery doesn't mean we're magically connected. Not everyone is Saten-sama and her siblings, you super weirdo."
"Haaah?! You just want to ignore our connection!? Don't wanna be my onee-chan?" The punk-like loli mocked with a twisted grin as she had a set of her mechanical arms that had wrapped around her exposed midriff began to unwind themselves. Arms that Saiai noticed were notably different from the rest of her robo arms.
"I'm a super professional, unlike a whiny brat like you." Saiai said as she grabbed a piece of concrete and tossed it like a bullet at the other Dark May survivor, only for it to be pulverized into dust by her nitrogen lances.
"I'm plenty professional! I'm a Dark SIder, unlike the sellouts you hang off of!" Kuroyoru retorted as her newly deployed cybernetic arms finished unraveling and she pointed them palm first at Saiai.
"Sellouts? What the super fuck are you talking about?" Saiai frowned as she tanked another salvo of piercing nitrogen lances.
"Don't you know what the shitty graduates you work with have gotten away with!?" Kuroyoru shot back as dolphin head shaped muzzles pushed through the palms of her newly deployed hands and proceeded to shoot freeze rays at Saiai.
Shit! Those rays are literally freezing the air they're passing through! Saiai panicked and desperately evaded the chilling beams shot her way. If they hit me, it would freeze my Offense Armor solid and probably turn me into an icicle in the process too!
"'Graduates'!? What super nonsense are you talking about?" Saiai shot back as she dove behind a pillar that was swiftly frozen solid. "And what's with the super obsession with dolphins? Do you have a problem or something?"
"GROUP, you bird brained idiot!" Kuroyoru barked as she destroyed Saiai's cover by slashing it to pieces with her nitrogen lances, leaving her open for her freeze rays. Something that forced the ITEM operative to desperately rush for new cover as her heart pounded in her ears. "And the rest of your ITEM teammates too for that matter! What gives those fucking graduates the right to special treatment!? Why are they allowed to clear their debts to the City just because!? What about us, the rest of us Dark Siders!? What makes them different from us!?"
"Seriously!? That's why you're picking a fight with us and the Trinity!? Are you super stupid!?" Saiai shouted back incredulously as she picked up a whole car with some difficulty and using it as a shield, she charged towards Kuroyoru. "They had leverage, that's why! What do you have!? Except being super suicidal?"
"As if we would even have a chance to get that! We'd never get that privilege! We're nothing more than the pawns of this cesspool of a City!" Kuroyoru snapped back as she tried to cut Saiai's shield to pieces.
Sadly for the leader of the Freshmen, the car she'd cut apart had served its purpose and Saiai had made it within melee range of Kuroyoru. Where she promptly reached out and grabbing hold of the dozen or so freeze ray equipped cybernetic arms, violently pulled them from the cyborg body.
"Ow! That hurt, you bitch!" Kuroyoru whined like a little girl as she proceeded to shoot nitrogen lances at Saiai in a desperate bid to force her back. It was just as ineffective as it had been all along and Saiai just ignored the effort entirely.
"That's the point, you super idiot." Saiai replied with a roll of her eyes even as she caught Kuroyoru into a headlock and began to choke her out. "Just pass out already! I'm super done with dealing with you, you crazy yandere!"
Must I really do everything myself? Mugino thought with a tired sigh as she stepped out from behind the pillar she was using as cover earlier and saw that even though she had taken out the FIVE_Over's autocannons and gave them an opening, her allies had failed to successfully take advantage of it.
Oh! They tried. She could give them that much. But they just failed to achieve anything. Hamazura's bullets just deflected off the Powered Suit's armor and the two ninjas' weapons similarly failed to deal it any damage.
Thus completely unfazed by their efforts, Silvercross Alpha just casually began leveling his tri-barreled railgun in their direction. Based on the electricity that was charging up within the weapon, Mugino could tell that unlike the rapid, all or nothing fire from the weapon that he had used to announce the FIVE_Over's joining of the fight, this time Silvercross was planning for a slower, more sustained fire.
Yeah. No. I'm not going to allow that. Mugino thought as she fired off one of her Particle Waveform High-Speed Cannons at the Powered Suit. She had miscalculated the amount of charge its railgun needed to fire though and Silvercross proceeded to counter her beam with one of its shots.
Her electron beam traveled far faster than even a railgun shot but the latter was still fast enough to intercept it before it could score a hit. For a fraction of a second, the two powerful attacks struggled against each other. However, in the end there was no comparison between the power of a Level 5 and a machine attempting to duplicate such. Thus, the railgun round was soon consumed by Mugino's destructive beam and it surged forward to hit its intended target, destroying the FIVE_Over's railgun.
The destruction of its primary and, from what Mugino could tell, last weapon, seemed to make Silvercross Alpha reel back. Taking advantage of this, that ditzy kunoichi - from the Iga clan if her Intel file was correct - who was Hamazura's friend used the kusarigama she was armed with to trip the man. This was followed by that Hattori Hanzō character - And damned! Wasn't it presumptuous to take on the name of such a famous historical figure!? - leaping on the downed Silvercross and drawing a wakizashi from some kind of hidden sheath strapped to his back under his jacket, proceeded to use it to begin to cut the man out of the FIVE_Over.
"Rikou! What are you doing back?" Hamazura shouted suddenly, neatly explaining why he hadn't joined his friends in finishing Silvercross off.
"Wow! ITEM is essentially super cool! Nyaa~!" Fremea-chan cheered as she looked at them all with awe, stars in her large eyes.
"Uh? Why are you back, Takitsubo?" Kinuhata said as she walked over with an unconscious Kuroyoru draped over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
"She ran off the moment I put her down." Takitsubo said with a sigh. "She's fast, I couldn't catch her and she ran all the way back here."
"Takitsubou, you need to workout more."
"Fremea!" Frenda-chan said the moment that Ruiko teleported both of them into the car park of the Underground Mall in School District 7 where Freshmen had launched its attack on Fremea-chan.
"Onee-sama!? What are you doing here?" The aforementioned little girl said as she turned to look at her older sister in surprise.
"I was so worried!" Frenda-chan said as she pulled her sister into a hug.
"But why?" The younger Seivelun sister said in confusion even as she returned the hug. "I mean essentially with ITEM, Hanzō-nii, and Kuruwa-nee here, I was never in any danger."
Speaking of those Skill-Outs… Ruiko thought as she turned her attention towards the two ninjas.
"Thank you for protecting Fremea-chan." Ruiko told them with a grateful bow.
"Uh, yeah. It was our pleasure. We've been taking care of Fremea-chan for a while now, we weren't about to stop now." Hattori Hanzō said with a shrug, whilst Kuruwa nodded in agreement. "But I think it's about time we made a move."
"Aw~! Hanzō-nii, Kuruwa-nee, you're going already?"
"Yeah. I think it's best." Hattori said with an apologetic smile. "Bye, Fremea-chan."
"See you soon, Fremea-chan." Kuruwa added, offering the girl a wave.
"Bye bye, Hanzō-nii, Kuruwa-nee. Nyah~!" Fremea-chan said, enthusiastically returning the wave.
After that quick goodbye, the two left.
With that dealt with and Frenda-chan still clinging to Fremea-chan, Ruiko turned to ITEM who were busy policing Freshmen. Specifically, Kinuhata was pulling Silvercross Alpha out of the remains of his wrecked FIVE_Over Powered Suit.
"Do you have them handled?"
"Yeah, Number 3. We do." Mugino assured her.
Ruiko nodded in satisfaction and was about to turn her attention back to Frenda-chan to see if she had calmed down enough so she could have a chance to check in on Fremea-chan herself. Before she could, however, Kinuhata put up a hand and caught her attention.
"Saten-sama, I'm super curious. Why were Freshmen targeting Fremea? Kuroyuro was blabbering super nonsense when we fought, but I didn't get what she was saying."
Seeing that the rest of ITEM seemed to share Kinuhata's curiosity, Ruiko nodded and turned her attention to the two Freshmen operatives. Curious about their motives as well, she promptly proceeded to use some emulated Mental Out to read Kuroyoru and Silvercross Alpha's minds.
"Interesting." Ruiko said with a thoughtful hum. "It seems that they were targeting Fremea-chan because they saw her as the weak link of the Trinity. They planned to kidnap her and proceed to blackmail Frenda into assassinating us."
"I would never do that!" Frenda-chan piped up vehemently. "If they tried that, I'd just tell the Trinity what had happened and help them drop the hammer on these idiots."
ITEM nodded in agreement with Takitsubo expressing their thoughts on the matter. "That's the logical thing to do."
"Okay, Saten-sama, that explains what they intended to do but why did they do it?" Takitsubo asked, shooting Ruiko an expectant look.
"Money was a big factor. Someone paid them to carry out this scheme. In cash."
All the Dark Siders frowned as they understood what that meant. Payment in cash meant absolute secrecy. Cash being notoriously difficult to track. It wouldn't mean Ruiko wouldn't try. Considering someone was hiring people to target people under the Trinity's protection, she would use every tool at her disposal in the attempt to find out who it was. However, she was realistic too and knew it would be a tough case. Perhaps even outright impossible.
"But beyond that," Ruiko continued. "They were also motivated by them being unhappy with how we in the Trinity have come to dominate the Dark Side and how we are trying to "graduate" more people from it. They are upset that we have helped some of our allies escape it when they have to continue working on that side of the City. This just aggravated their hatred for those they consider elites, since they assume "freshmen" like them are deemed inferior by said elites and the City administration. To them, the kidnapping of Fremea-chan and subsequent plans involving Frenda-chan was the perfect chance to take us down a notch or at least bloody our nose."
For a long moment everyone just stared at Ruiko in disbelief. Occasionally glancing with just as much shock at the two Freshmen.
"Seriously!?" Fremea-chan said, breaking the silence. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!"
Everyone nodded in agreement with that assessment of things.
Just then Naru-chan teleported in, followed seconds later by Mikoto-senpai and Kuroko-san. Because of course she had contacted them about what had happened and they had rushed over to help as soon as she could.
"Who wants some?!" Naru-chan exclaimed in her Festung Frame, its many cannon barrels aimed everywhere.
"Naru-chan, it's over already. Guns down please!" Ruiko called out to her blonde best friend even as she sighed in resignation knowing that she would have to explain all this to her newly arrived friends.
That's going to suck! Just describing their idiocy makes me feel like I am getting dumber too.
Naru felt like she couldn't believe what she just heard. That despite Rui-chan herself explaining everything in her crisp, alluring business-like tone. The fact that Freshmen attempted to kidnap cute, little Fremea-chan to somehow blackmail Frenda-chan into pitting herself against the Trinity brought her and the rest of the rest of the listeners to a single conclusion.
""What a bunch of idiots."" Everyone stated as one.
Naru pinched the bridge of her nose, "I mean, what were they thinking? Even with all their 'contingencies', why do all these people think attacking us and Accelerator is a smart idea?"
Senpai sighed, giving her a dry look. "Naru, don't think about it too hard. Idiots are idiots at the end of the day. Don't weep for the stupid."
"We'd be here all day if we did." The blonde agreed as she bobbed her head in agreement.
"I'm just happy I didn't get attacked or kidnapped this time." Kazari-chan brought up as she happily sipped from a strange drink she purchased. "Even if I got a new taser just for the occasion."
Kuroko-chan just let out a gusty sigh, looking mentally exhausted. "Why are these miscreants so eager to get, to be frank, slaughtered? I know Dark Siders skirt proper justice, but this was just moronic!"
"I hear ya, Kuroko-chan." Naru happily agreed. "Maybe we can make a poll for Dark Siders on why they would take us on and for what price?"
The Level 4 paused, looking at her with a morbid curiosity. "I am actually curious about that myself now. It might offer insight into the minds of these lunatics."
"Hey, we're in the same line of work as those lunatics now." Senpai scolded, paused and then grimaced. "Forget I said that. And no, we are not doing a damn poll!"
"Boo, Mikoto-senpai is boring as usual." Naru pouted, getting a bonk on the head, making the blonde wince.
You asked for that.
So? She doesn't have to show her gorilla side! Naru refuted her partner.
No, I just think you enjoy getting your masochism kink met by older girls.
Naru's face lit up at that, struggling to respond as her demonic friend cackled at her.
Thankfully, she was ignored as Rui-chan added to the idea.
"I do think it would be an interesting way to identify future enemies and the like. See what level of motivation they would need to pick a fight against us and allow us to come up with plans on how we could counter that ahead of time."
"Oh come on, how hopeless are you girls?!" Senpai whined, planting her face into the table they sat at.
Ah, just another day for the Trinity and company it seemed.
It must suck to be the 'rational' one of us, huh?
Done and done! Thanks to Nameless as always!
And thus judgment, not the organization, was delivered upon the hapless fools who would challenge the superpower within Academy City. Twas righteous indeed! Still, I mean, can't these guys learn? From what other similar idiots always do? If not, how can they honestly expect different outcomes? Props for going for a weak link, but overall? 4 out of 10, would not recommend. Still, it was nice to let the other characters shine here instead of the usual Trinity stomp.
Nameless: Hope you guys liked our take on the Freshmen arc. We know it's quite different from canon but we've essentially run out of access to our primary reference, namely the anime adaptations. Without the anime as a guide, we're mostly relying on the wiki as with our schedules, we don't really have the time to read the LNs for all the details we'd forgotten. As such, our adaptation of canon arcs will mostly be original work. Whilst we try to continue to adhere to canon as much as possible, we'll certainly make mistakes but we'll try to be internally consistent at least and we hope that's going to be enough.
You know what to do! Smash that review button and tell us what you love! No flames and peace off my peeps!