A male voice fell to the nighttime snowy plain.
"Hey, Takumi. Now that we've crushed most of them and are getting a break, I'd like to say something you might not like."
"Then I'd really rather you didn't say it, but I guess I'll hear you out. ...What is it, Chi-chan. Are you feeling lonely?"
"No, it isn't that." Akasora used his chin to gesture forward because his hands were in his pockets. "We took these ones out, but I'm betting Mei is sending in reinforcements now. Even if that could be considered normal, we both know what's actually happening."
The aftermath of a battle covered the vast snowy field in front of them.
The sky was dark and the ground was mostly white. The white of the false trion soldiers' colored the ground across the large space.
Far in the distance near the surrounding forest, figures could be seen moving about.
But...
"You can see that, right? This has gone beyond just a test for her."
Akasora was referring to the new white color he could see.
At the base of the mountains far to the northwest were large trion soldiers measuring multiple meters long. They were halfway through their landing process and countless figures were approaching on land.
"With only two people this time around, it took a bit of time. That gave her enough time to get into her weird zone that I saw at the demonstration. It looks like that's five thousand more to deal with."
"Another five thousand soldiers really is a lot of trouble. ...Of course, I can get by if I pay an extension fee. Although I'm sure Shobu-chan wouldn't mind too much if his lovely uncle cut down on costs."
"Where will you get the money?"
"I can get that from either one of you two for letting this happen in the first place."
"In that case..."
Akasora gestured with his chin again. This time, it was toward a color in the northwest sky.
That color was black, but it was not the color of the night.
"Hey."
He raised his eyes a little.
"How many do you think will be coming from there?"
A city floated in the northwest.
The giant floating island was approaching with a strange emblem on its side.
.
Rindō saw the city approaching.
...That previous battle had been the initial testing of their equipment. That means everything from here on is just Takato letting her mind get to her.
"This will be something. Maybe she is now testing us as actual members and branch directors."
"It's been a while since I've seen that. It was their oldest city that chose to be purged because they wanted something different. ...And they didn't give any help to other forces while we kicked their asses. They're probably a lot of trouble to deal with."
The two of them looked into the sky and saw a giant bowl there.
The shallow hemisphere appeared to have been directly scooped up from the earth's crust. That table was at least ten kilometers across and it contained earth, hills, a river, and the buildings of a city on top. However...
"There aren't any lights. Just like I remember."
"Right. That isn't surprising. The city was populated by experiments, which would mean they didn't want others to see. So the trion soldiers and regular soldiers really had no will of their own."
Rindō looked at the black object around his wrist, but he did not know if that made him a good match for this opponent or not.
"Hey," said Usami from behind them. "Are we going to be okay here? I know you two are strong and all, but didn't it take more of you last time you had to handle this amount? And with people who were as skilled as you?"
"Yes, we know, Shiori-chan. They were indeed strong. The thing that is different from then and now is obvious. This is just a recreation from our own technology, so they aren't as strong as they were as originals. And even if we don't have as many fighters on our side or this advanced test, the two of us are well off with more experience and the use of a Black Trigger."
"Keh." Akasora turned to the side and looked up at the floating city. "So you're saying that because she died, we have a better chance? That's just messed up."
"Wait, what? I figured those Trigger were generally different, but that's all. I thought that the Yagura Branch would also have specially made Triggers. Not a Black Trigger."
Akasora turned back and found Usami had approached within arm's reach. She readied herself for an explanation.
"Oh yeah, I had forgotten that you didn't know that. Yagura will indeed be having their own Triggers, but that's due to their members all being oddities in their own right. What we are using is something completely different. They are both a single Black Trigger."
"Really? But I don't remember hearing about any other Black Trigger before Yūma-kun came."
"Right," replied Rindō as he looked to Akasora as well. "It was made a good while ago and has been erased from records. Rather, it was never put on any records. Chi-chan and Shinoda made sure that it wouldn't be used unless absolutely necessary. They are very particular about it."
"Is it that important? Oh! I'm sorry! If it's a Black Trigger it probably really is important. I messed up my wording with that one."
"It's no problem. And yes, it is important. I would honestly say that it holds as much importance as any other. It really depends on the people who know about it. Because of it, we lost two..."
Rindō looked up at the floating city sitting motionless in the sky.
"Well, that's getting into a bad memory. Although I suppose that thing up there isn't one that's any better."
"But what is inside that bowl that they would want to protect that badly?"
"Who knows. In all honesty, it's hard to remember that thing at all. Maybe it did have something to do with why we were there, maybe it was just something pointless. Maybe that is is where the 'cancer' came from. Either way, something was going on that we had not clue about at the time."
Rindō's breaths were not colored white, but he still took a breath just for show.
"I am getting a bit worried that we could be repeating too much history by letting Takato continue this while we can't see her."
From his side, Shokubutsu pressed his hand against his side.
Oh, even though I'm not your uncle? Am I scoring some high points right now!? he thought while watching the floating city.
As soon as he looked down, a wind blew along the ground.
It came from much closer to the false buildings behind them than the snowy field. It blew toward the area behind the three standing there.
"...!?"
Figures of white rushed from the forest on either side.
Snow was kicked into the air as a group rushed toward those three and the false buildings.
.
Usami was the first to react as groups of white charged their way from ahead and either side.
"Waaaaah! Tenryū-kun, what are we supposed to do!?"
"...Calm down..."
"...Shiori-chan, why didn't you rely on Chi-chan or me first?"
"Hey, if it's just going to be us around, then I'll take care of them all myself. Is that okay with you?"
Yes, thought Rindō as a tremor ran through the snowy field.
...Others would still see this as a "test of equipment" and would stay out of it.
In that case, what were they supposed to do? He of course felt he had the power needed to handle this, but...
"...Isn't this weird, Takumi?"
"You think so too, Chi-chan?"
"Right." Akasora nodded and fixed his tracksuit to leave it unzipped. "Even if she was going along with her calculations, shouldn't she have done something in a 'protect the castle' kind of way? Her calculations work with information, so the 'recreation of history' should have been made exactly the same."
"Eh? Eh? What do you think that means? Akasora-san, Boss, what is it?"
"Oh, well, it mean Takato trusts you, Shiori-chan. Or rather, that she trusts us to follow through for you."
"...Eh?"
Even in the dark, Usami's face visibly paled.
"You don't mean..."
"I do. I really do, Shiori-chan. Takato is not the one making these for us. Someone else is doing it, following her instructions. And..."
Rindō turned around.
"And she knows that we can deal with whatever is thrown at us."
A single figure was visible in the false buildings back there.
It was a feminine figure. She was slender and wore a unique uniform and long sleeves that made it seem like she was protecting from the false cold. She raised her hand and shouted over to them.
"Akasora-san, Rindō-san, Usami! I need to discuss some things with you!"
"Is that...?" asked Usami. "Mei-san!?"
"That's right," said Mei as she continued waving their way.
.
The ground was white and the sky was black.
On that battlefield, Mei wore a strange uniform for a battlefield as her voice ran out.
"I want to run some things by you guys. I have a list here."
.
Someone turned back toward Mei's voice.
It was Akasora. He checked on the surrounding movement as he quickly turned back her way.
...Oh, no!
It was obvious what he meant. Mei was walking calmly towards his way and now looking down at a list. Her comment was clearly direct at him, so...
"Mei! What the hell are you thinking!?"
"I left that new girl in charge of this test. In all honesty, I couldn't deal too well with her, so that's why I came out here. I'm trying my very best tonight."
...This idiot!
"Why do you have to make things more difficult for us!?"
"Chi-chan!"
The false enemy was already approaching from either side, so Rindō shouted out while pulling on Usami's hand and running toward the false enemy formation up ahead.
"I'll head this way with Shiori-chan, so you deal with that girl!"
"Of course!"
He expanded the pink glow from his wrist onto his arms, but instead of planting his feet on the ground to prepare for a punch...
"Shikifuku!"
He used the Black Trigger's amplification on his legs to make a shallow leap toward Mei.
.
Akasora made his way forward.
He was approximately three hundred meters away from Mei who was defenselessly walking his way. Instead of landing, he took a skidding first step that brought him to one hundred twenty meters.
He prepared to take his second step which would bring him all the way to Mei.
...Why is she using her real body to come out here!? Is she that lost in her calculations!?
He was taking the step with his right leg while his left was his dominant leg, but he was well trained. He was not about to mess up a simple high-speed leap. So he did not hesitate to make the final preparation for the leap forward.
"Shikifuku!"
The pink glow appeared on his bent right leg. Glowing light appeared on the ankle and even the joints of his toes as he made that second leap.
But he was too slow.
As soon as he launched himself forward, a white form fell between him and Mei.
A trion soldier with reinforced legs had jumped down from on high and descended from the sky above.
...Dammit!
"You're in the way, you piece of crap!"
Akasora transformed his leap into a kick. Instead of just sticking the sole of his left foot forward, he kept a downward angle to the strike. The false enemy that had dropped in front of him had no time to dodge.
"Get destroyed all over again!"
The kick hit.
He used the force of the blow to pass over the false enemy that rotated three times in the air and he glided along a shallow arc.
The force of his leap had weakened, but it had not vanished. Unfortunately, the false enemy was approaching quickly from either side.
...Will I make it in time!?
His second step ended at fifty meters from Mei.
The enemies to his left had arrived too close, and...
"Oh. Something is going on."
Mei finally noticed the approaching enemies.
...Oh, no!
The false enemies on the left had almost reached her. There were still thirty meters between them, but that distance could be covered in an instant by trion soldiers and physically strengthened individuals.
Akasora did not have time to take all of them on before saving the Trigger-less Mei, but something rolled and bounced quickly in from the back and to the left.
It was the trion soldier with strengthened legs that he had knocked forward with his kick.
He had passed it by, but now it was rolling past him.
He took a combat stance as the mass of trion tore across the snowy surface to his left. He also looked to the false enemies approaching Mei on the left up ahead.
"Take this!"
He sent out his left elbow and slammed his pink glowing fist into the trion soldier's back as it bounced up into the air.
"Shikifuku!"
With a roar of impact, he used his left fist as the explosive to launch the trion soldier like a shell. The strike was a corkscrew that added an inward twist from his hips to his wrist. A powerful spin filled the trion soldier as it flew.
"...!"
After the bursting sound of something breaking, the trion shell reached the false enemy. The demon-like trion soldiers rushing in from the left were blown away by the hit from a body spinning due to a powerful gyro effect and by the wind that reached them.
The first three rows were soundly crushed.
Akasora ran on ahead of those results. More false enemies were approaching from the right, but...
...I'll make it in time!
He would be able to snatch Mei with only a lag of two or three meters. Sure of that, he made a third leap.
He would easily make it in time. Or so he thought.
As he made his leap, he saw Mei hold her forehead and shrink down.
"Ah."
It was a bullet.
.
In midair, Akasora did not so much hear the gunshot as he saw Mei's movements.
She wobbled on her feet and then her slender upper body bent forward toward the snowy ground.
The gunshot only reached him afterwards and Akasora continued watching what had happened up ahead.
...Oh, no.
His leaping body went a little limp in midair.
He realized the slower group on the right had been the true threat. Most trion soldiers primarily used physical strength and some enhancements, so they rarely had any distance attacks.
"But was it that rarity that slowed down the group on the right!? They didn't have these kind back then!"
He realized he would not make it in time anymore, so he ended his leap partway and kicked deep into the snowy ground as he landed.
The sound of breaking ice burst out as he stopped himself while the false enemies on the right sped up in their race toward Mei. They all raised their weapons toward her.
"—!"
In that instant, Akasora saw a color race by before his eyes.
That color was black. It moved in every direction imaginable as it raced between the warriors on the left and right.
As the raging black movement made its counterattack, something happened to the several hundred demon-like trion soldiers on the front rows of either side.
"...!?"
They were all sliced through and green trion sprayed into the air.
.
It did not happen instantaneously. Some time was needed for the wind to whip up.
But after that short time, everyone involved was able to see what had happened on the battlefield.
The front few hundred of the two thousand rushing toward Mei had collapsed to the snow with trion spraying from them.
.
...What was that!?
Usami had looked back and seen what happened.
It was Mei.
However, something about her was different from when Usami had seen her just a moment before.
Her build was the same, as was her hair's length, her shoes, and everything else.
It was her stance and clothing that had changed.
...She's hanging her head!? And when did she go into her trion body!?
She was looking down and almost seemed to have folded her body below the chest. Her head was bent down as well, so her head was closer to navel height than shoulder height.
Every last hair on her head was dangling down, hiding her eyes like a tube.
And a voice left the bottom of that hair tube.
"Ah..."
That syllable continued quietly.
"Aeeeeee..."
The exhaled air was quiet and yet it seemed to carry endlessly across the plain.
"Ee."
She was sobbing.
The voice escaped from deep within the tube of hair.
"Hyaah."
Mei could clearly be seen with a pair of gauntlets and boots now on her limbs, imbedded slightly in the snow.
Soon, Mei's entire body trembled. At the center of the false enemies scattered across the snow and at the destination of the approaching false enemies, Mei bent her body even lower. A powerful tremor ran through her. She was crying. She shook her head once and a swinging wave ran through her silky dangling hair.
"Ahhhhhhh!"
Mei's black exploded within the approaching army of white.
.
Mei moved in curves.
When a demon-like trion soldier approached with a sword arm for a right hand, she made a quick rotation back and to the right. Her backwards kick sent her heel to the inside of the inner part swinging down the sword arm and deflected the entire arm outward.
The sword arm's trajectory grew diagonal and Mei lowered her body in the middle of her rotation. Her hair trailed after all of her movements and she slipped out and to the left as if circling below the demon-like trion soldier's right arm and blade that she had sent diagonally outward.
The trion soldier made a clicking sound as Mei slipped below it's right arm and behind it.
"—!"
It tilted it's body left and lowered it in order to increase the right diagonal motion of its sword arm. Now the blade would not hit the snowy ground and it could continue the swing of its right arm to pursue Mei behind it.
It did so. It made a right backhand as if scooping up the end of the blade from below. Even with its diagonal path, there was very little space to dodge it.
But Mei chose to dodge regardless.
Something extended from her spinning body. It was the very head that was swinging her hair far out from her body.
"Ee."
The action seemed more careless than flexible, as if she had dislocated her neck, and it brought her head into a rotation outside her body's rotation.
"Eeeaah!"
Instead of circling behind the trion soldier, she entered a confused spin.
It was an inhuman movement. The twisting, unstable rotation looked like a dance and she kicked her right heel into the snow. That launched her in front of the demon-like trion soldier who was swinging its sword arm back and to the right. She was just below its forward-leaning stomach.
Mei had intentionally thrown herself off balance to launch herself over the blade and back to her original location.
The false enemy had fully swung its sword, so the body was wide open. Mei tilted her still-spinning body to the right and placed her hand on the snow as if cartwheeling away from the false enemy. Except she was not trying to escape. Her hair swept across the snow as she rotated her body vertically and sent her foot up into the tip of the trion soldier's head.
The sole of her left heel hit the trion soldier's head with a gouging diagonal blow.
A solid sound rang through the chilly sky.
Mei bent her body forward and stood up just as the trion soldier's head was swept sideways.
"Kh."
"—!"
With that noise, it took a certain action.
It thrust both arms forward to grab Mei.
As soon as the thick arms wrapped around her slender frame, the trion soldier's false comrades rushing in from behind or in front of it.
Different types of trion-made weapons were thrust into the body.
"—!"
.
They looked towards the false buildings. The sword arm the previous trion soldier had been cut off and it was now being dragged around by someone such that the tip scraped along the snowy ground.
That person was charging toward them while accelerating her rampaging spinning movements.
"—!"
It was Mei.
Black hair moved like a raging storm as she collided with the white circle without slowing down.
.
Mei was hanging her head.
She spun, swept the false enemy's feet out from under them, slammed her weapon into the enemy at full power, let go of it, stole another weapon from the rolling and scattering false enemies, made another full-body spin to slam that weapon into them, grabbed the weapon she had let go of earlier, slammed it into them yet again, and let go of it yet again. She would hit and let go, steal and strike, and it all happened at the leading edge of her fluttering hair.
"Ee...!"
With her head hung and her entire body trembling, she rapidly rotated while sticking her hips, shoulders, and elbows out ahead of the spinning momentum. She would send it all out ahead of her as if collapsing and she would accelerate further.
Her hair hid her face as a black tube. The only sounds were the slicing, the clashing of weapons, the breaking, the collision of body against body, and...
"Eeeeeeeeeee!"
Her wail rose high into the sky and she seemed to be tearing at her hair with her entire body.
"Eeaaaaaaaaaaah!"
She stole weapons, cut down false enemies, threw the blades out of reach, smashed legs, used the collapsing bodies as shields and stepping stones, and swung weapons around in both hands as additional acceleration.
"Ahhhh!"
She moved onward.
Even as she nearly fell over, she forced herself into a rotation to hop back up. She ran fast enough to surpass the false enemies trying to fall back, she thrust and swept with blades as she passed them by, and she constantly grabbed weapons from midair after having let go of them earlier. As if moving from weapon to weapon and as if attacking with every last weapon on the battlefield at once, in every place her rotation took her, she would grab a flying weapon's grip, spin it around with her fingers, and throw it to stab it into something.
"Eeaaaahhh!"
The wailing black hair raced across the battlefield.
For each weapon present, a false enemy fell.
.
Usami was running with Rindō.
Even if they were moving away from Mei, she was not so sure running toward the false enemy was such a good idea. But when she looked back, she saw a black whirlwind of motion approaching them.
"Eh? Wh-what is that?"
The false enemy was packed in tight around them. They were gathering along the central line from the left and right.
For the lowered-head motion that was stealing their weapons, running, and slicing through them, that central line was where the most weapons were gathered.
And just as Usami had predicted, Mei was approaching.
The white false enemies scattered to the left and right along a rapid and meandering path and the lowered-head blackness continued accelerating and wailing.
...Wow.
The demon-like trion soldiers on both sides and to the front cowered back and put up their guard.
"—!"
It was not a sound that urged those false weaponized warriors to resume their charge.
The more slender-looking trion soldiers made their own expressionless charge.
They were made for a different purpose, but they had similar features to the other ones created from the memories of the two directors.
"—!"
They raised their weapons, gave strange noises, and faced their foe.
They used their modified bodies as if offering themselves up as sacrifices.
"...!"
With a noise, they added in their own destruction.
They collided and were destroyed.
They were scattered, broken, split, and sliced, but they acted as if this was the proper course of action for them. They never stopped and the ones that could still move acted like it was amusing. All the while, they gathered around Mei and returned to their state of fighting.
The demon-like trion soldiers followed. Their programming had seemed to be changed as they fell behind, so they now faced Mei instead of Usami and Rindō.
They ran right past those other two on their way to Mei, but...
"Ee...ah...ahhhh!"
After that cry, the entire group exploded in white.
Mei has activated her own personal Trigger as gauges moved along her limbs.
She did so while wielding each weapon she swung and abandoned in the air.
"...Kh!?"
As if counting out the number, the weapons stabbed into the ground in an arc.
A moment later, a chain of explosions linked that arc and the explosions traveled through the gathering trion soldiers.
A timed Meteora
"...Ah!"
But it did not end there. Usami saw the black form jump.
...Up!?
Mei held two large sword arms.
She had used the explosion to make a great leap and rapid rotation. She had been mainly attacking horizontally before, but now she used a vertical rotation to make her sword strikes.
And the attack was directed toward Usami and Rindō.
.
Usami saw Mei rotating toward her.
She was coming this way.
The lowered head and hair were using the explosive Trigger to power her jump.
"Ee...ah!"
She was rapidly approaching.
Usami was running away, but she would not make it in time. Mei's rotation was going to accurately bring her right behind her.
...Here she is!
She landed but did not stop moving. She made a single roll forward to try to negate the momentum of her fall.
Usami could tell her body was in the middle of the circular path Mei's two swords would take.
With the size of those swords, she would be sliced in two.
Those swords were already being swung by her rotating body.
Usami knew she was not going to make it in time and she would be hit.
"Ohhhhh!"
But a voice and a wind cut in.
"Akasora-san!"
That was exactly who it was. He had caught up to Mei and was about to pass her, but he gave Usami a sharp look.
"Guard!"
"R-right!"
Just as she turned toward him and placed her arms in an X-shape, a strike hit the center of the X.
"Shikifuku!"
.
Usami was knocked backwards.
It was a light blow from Shikifuku, but it was enough for her to feel the full weight of an actual attack. Turning off all feeling in a trion body is sometimes a good idea, she realized as she flew back.
She seemed to float in midair as her acceleration left her and that was when she saw it.
Mei was charging in behind Akasora. She had finished her first flip and was preparing for the next which would slice through Akasora. So...
"Akasora-san, behind you!"
She was trying to get him to dodge, but the timing was poor. His Black Trigger would not reactivate in time.
As she flew through the air, Usami tried to make sure she would fall butt-first to the snow and tried to gather strength in her legs.
...I have to do something!
But just as she thought that...
"I appreciate how you charged on in here fully intending to rely on me, Chi-chan."
Three actions followed those words.
First, Rindō stepped up to Usami's right in his coated uniform.
Second, a yellow wall appeared above the ground to support her as she fell.
And finally...
"Chi-chan, I just have to buy some time, right?"
Yellow walls appeared between Akasora and Mei.
"They won't turn to zero, but Shikifuku doesn't like this prototype Trigger being used against it."
There were three in all, but they were immediately smashed by Mei's blades and strength.
However, they scattered a bit and still pushed against those blades, briefly delaying them.
"Shikifuku!"
The three yellow walls scattered, Akasora's Black Trigger reactivated, and he leaped over Usami's head all at the same time.
She looked up in surprise from the supporting wall as he flipped through the air, but he bared his teeth toward her in a look of joy.
"You idiot! Get running!"
"Don't be so mean," she said before realizing what he had meant.
Mei was already accelerating toward them again.
.
Usami screamed and quickly tried to get her feet back on the ground, but Rindō called over to her as he ran behind her.
"Oh, Shiori-chan, you're slow, so don't bother moving."
"Eh?"
Her question was answered by something appearing under her.
It was a solid wall of yellow.
.
It was a wall of trion created from Rindō using the Black Trigger known as Shikifuku and it forced her to trip over it. It then lifted her up.
"!?"
The wall of yellow began to move in the air, following Rindō.
"Th-thanks..."
Some smaller walls began to shatter, from behind them, but to Mei, they were another barricade in addition to the gathering false trion soldiers.
Of course, neither the demon-like trion soldiers nor the quickly made walls could stop the fluttering black hair of that lowered head.
Usami recovered her balance as she was carried and she looked again to the raging wind behind her.
The black series of slashes and wails was still sweeping across the battlefield.
The crying never stopped.
Usami did not know why since she did not know Mei like some others.
"What is going on? I'd heard rumors, but why is Mei-san doing this?"
"Oh, yeah. It's been so long since anyone has seen it, so you wouldn't know."
She tilted her head at Rindō's comment and some movement arrived on the right.
It was Akasora.
He slowed his pace to stay alongside them.
"You say that, but you saw it only once and no one gave you a proper explanation. I'm the one you should be asking for this kind of information, not Takumi."
"Right."
Rindō shrugged at the cries and collisions heard behind them as his feet ran along the snowy plain. He stared straight forward as Akasora's opened his mouth.
"The truth is, that is Mei when her calculation are applied to battle."
.
"What?" asked Rindō from in between Akasora and Usami who was being carried by the yellow wall. "Her calculations?"
"Correct. It's exactly as it sounds like. ...Mei has a calculating Side Effect that is extremely helpful to everyone except her. That kind of thing appeared here."
Another wail echoed behind them.
"She must have been an emotional person. You two didn't see it in person when we were doing the presentation, but she could not be stopped and overwhelmed Kyōko-chan. That's why Yuki had more to deal with more than usual. When in battle, she has that kind of switch as well."
And when she switches, she turns into that? wondered Rindō as the source of the screams crushed the false enemy several dozen meters behind.
The Mei that Rindō knew was always looking out for others and enjoyed cooking and tangerines.
He could remember several times when she had brought some food for everyone at the Tamakoma Branch without telling anyone.
"But," said Akasora. "An even bigger problem would show up and crush her from the inside. She was probably exhausted from switching to a version of herself that was nothing but ones and zeroes. So..."
So...
"When asked by a fool a few years ago, she withdrew from being a fighter so skilled in everything she did to become a humble and mild manner Operator. Do you know what happens if she gets too stressed again?"
"That's obvious," said Rindō.
But Usami answered, so she said, "yes". When Rindō gave her a look of meaningless curiosity, she feigned ignorance and turned towards Akasora. He had some thoughts about her attitude, but...
...Well, it doesn't matter.
They were acting just like always despite being on the battlefield with a wailing and raging wind approaching from behind. He figured it was a testament to their strength that an idiot unaccustomed to the battlefield could be so carefree.
"Then can you explain what happens, Usami? Go on. We won't interrupt."
"Okay. Mei-san has said that she use to get cluster headaches all the time until something had managed to stop that by knocking her unconscious. She said that the something that managed that continues to make her happy and annoyed to this very day. But she also said that she has not been stressed out since that time either. But she had muttered something under her breath, likely not knowing that I had heard it."
Rindō knew what happened after that because he had been the one she asked after that moment.
"She had said that when she was stressed, she becomes something that she never wants to remember."
.
"That's right."
Rindō heard Akasora speak quietly.
His voice seemed too soft for the destruction occurring behind them.
"Mei had gained an odd, but fitting, nickname after a certain stressful incident. It was caused by a certain red-haired woman that honestly needs to be stopped at some point. It was enough for her to forego ever fighting again out of fear of showing off that side of her. It's a miracle that she did not become like that during the recent invasion. If I had to guess, I would say that it was because of that idiotic student of mine."
"Then what was that we saw during that other time in the city?"
Akasora recalled Mikado City's inhabitants. They had been left with no choice but to destroy the area while moving the people out of the area for a certain reason.
Their main goal had awaited them in the middle of the destroyed area and could did not resemble a cityscape.
"Mei was there wailing with a dead child on her right arm. We only fought the trion soldiers at the outer edge. They were supposed to be a large amount of Neighbors in the area that was destroyed, but they had all been taken out and thrown about."
And...
"As she wailed, Mei made short work of the agents who went."
"Don't remind me how pathetic I was there, Chi-chan. But that's when she got that nickname by everyone who was afraid of what they saw."
Akasora frowned with disgust.
"Rampage Dress."
Rindō smiled bitterly and faced forward as he ran.
"Chi-chan, you handle this."
Akasora also looked forward. They were already in the center of the snowy plain. The false enemy trion soldiers seemed to be on their way to face Mei, but they were showing more than enough hostility as they ran by.
Akasora moved ahead and collided with the false enemy, but he was not the only one confronting them.
He heard a loud sound from the false buildings behind them. It was the wave-like rumbling of a charge.
"So your nephew is becoming active."
The false enemy formation had crumbled thanks to Mei's charge, so Shokubutsu was cleaning up the remaining ones.
In that case, thought Akasora as he continued forward, swung his arm, and pumped his body full of acceleration.
"Shikifuku!"
A strike starting from his right fingertips blew away the center of the false enemy's front line.
Their front line bent and swelled out. Finally, several of the large demon-like trion soldiers were blasted into the sky. But...
"Chi-chan!"
Rindō's voice coincided with a second explosion of light behind them.
The wind seemed whipped up by that light and it seemed to fly through the night sky to land in front of them.
"Mei!?"
.
Akasora saw bending and fluttering black hair pass by overhead.
The flow of black dropped in front of him with the movements of a paper fan being swung around.
The fall was clearly faster than simple gravitational acceleration, but that disturbed momentum brought it right into the false enemy formation up ahead. And it did so in a path traveling over those Akasora had blasted into the air.
"...Ah."
In an instant, Mei sliced through all of the giant forms he had sent flying and blades grew from their bodies. Before they could fall to the ground, Mei jumped further toward the center.
"Ahhh!"
She moved.
She rotated her entire body, rotated her arms, and sent hidden swords flying in almost every direction around her.
"Aaeeeee!"
Explosions went off in every direction at the very center of the false enemy unit.
Tearing sounds rang out as the trion soldiers were smashed, exploded, or blown away.
Even then, it was not over.
As Mei rotated, the false enemies who had slipped through the three hundred sixty degrees of explosions rushed toward her.
They used their positions, numbers, and momentum for this final charge. Mei was unarmed after unleashing all of her weapons, but a certain thought came to Akasora's mind as he too approached Mei.
...Oh, no!
His premonition proved accurate.
Several weapons reached Mei's hand as she rotated at the center of the attacking trion soldiers. They were all of the sword arms that had destroyed the false enemy in midair. She had launched them outward, but the recoil of the explosive blast had sent them back to her before the false enemy trion soldiers could reach her.
"Hyaaaaah!"
The term "counterattack" did not seem adequate to describe the precision of the sword arms launched in every direction.
.
Mei was moving.
She spun around and raised her arms higher than her hanging head.
"...!"
And she sliced through her enemy.
This was not a mere wide-range attack. She thoroughly cut and chopped at each individual false enemy. She did not hold back in the slightest as one attack led into another.
Blades flew, thrust, rotated horizontally or vertically, sliced, smashed, stabbed, and were pulled out.
For each weapon, an enemy fell.
They were directed in every direction and toward every location and the collapsing battlefield seemed to blossom like a flower around Mei. The sounds filling the air were the breaking of the bodies plus the waves of objects collapsing to the snowy ground.
Enemies were blown away, torn into, and destroyed before falling limply to the snow.
All the while, the rotating hair and body never stopped.
She released weapons, threw them high into the air, and never stopped even with no one taller than her remaining in the vicinity.
"Ee."
Her toes, shoulders, bent back, and turning hips all looked in a certain direction: the south.
The false buildings and Shokubutsu were there, as were Akasora, Usami, and Rindō.
As she turned her lowered head and body that way, she spread the claws of her fingers without hesitation.
"...Ah!"
She was about to move. She would race forward as she wailed and tear into enemy and ally alike. But...
"Mei!"
Someone kicked the snow into the air as they charged straight toward her.
It was Akasora as he tilted his entire body forward to dash.
"I'll deal with you!"
.
Akasora did not hesitate.
...I'll stop her!
The fact that she was his former student's partner did not matter here. If nothing was done, she would destroy everything around her until she was stopped.
So he raced straight at Mei who was running their way.
After one, two, three steps, the distance between them vanished.
The approaching enemy was currently unarmed, but that did not mean he could relax. After all, Mei had been unarmed at the start of this mess.
He did not have a weapon either, so it would come down to close-quarters combat. So to accelerate...
"Shikifuku!"
He shone the pink light on his feet, knees, hips, shoulders, and back.
"Orahhh!"
His accelerating step smashed the frozen ground below him.
He showed no sign of holding back because he had once heard that, if not for this indiscriminate way of attacking...
...Mei would rival me, Shinoda, and Seidō.
What he had seen at that destruction site was enough to not feel insulted by that comparison. As was what he had seen here.
...She's a monster.
As a human, she could "switch off" the fact that she was human and enter an inhuman realm by letting her calculations go wild. And after she became a "monster", she did not try to control herself as a human would. She abandoned herself to all of the strength built up inside her and she ruled the battlefield while making no distinction between enemy, ally, good, or evil.
"Dammit..."
If I could do that, thought Akasora, things would be so much easier.
He knew that there were always major downsides to Side Effects. His own made it hard for him to properly greet others while others like Kikuchihara and Murakami had to work hard for friendships. Then there were ones like Yuki and Toby who would lose control of their bodies because of it.
But this was different than those. This Side Effect always rivaled Jin's foresight. That meant it also had one of the worse drawbacks to it.
"...!"
He continued on.
Akasora used his entire body to attack Mei.
In an instant, black flowed through his vision.
While running, Mei had swung her entire body to the side and launched her sweeping hair toward him.
A sheen darker than the night sky swept by before his eyes.
It did not hit him. The hair simply swung by in front of him. It was almost like a warning or a sensor. It seemed to say that death would come to whoever touched that.
But Akasora did not hesitate.
He chose to move forward, but then a color other than black appeared in his field of vision from below.
It was the white of the snow hiding the ground.
Under her sweeping hair, Mei had kicked the snow up toward his face.
"...!"
His sight was stolen by that rising snow.
Is she completely insane? he wondered.
She had directed his attention the side with the horizontal movement of her black hair and then kicked up the contrasting snow in a vertical movement. Also...
...So that's what you're after!
Mei was trying to acquire a weapon, and there was only one she could acquire while empty-handed here.
"The ground!"
Thanks to the weight of the snow on top and the moisture that had seeped down and refrozen, an icy layer had formed below. It would normally not have broken and would only have been gone when the testing was over.
...But I stomped on it!
The piece of Shikifuku Akasora was using used his trion and had strength that was determined by his emotions. When used to accelerate or attack, he would shake the earth with a powerful stomp or leap.
Mei had seen and understood that Shikifuku had destroyed the ground.
...Is she actually perfectly sane!?
She had rushed in unarmed to get him to attack.
She was not simply on a rampage. She would wail and react to the battlefield with split-second decisions, but for the most important points, she would predict things out a few steps ahead.
What made matters worse was the knowledge that the boots and gauntlets on her limbs were prototype Triggers that had been modeled after his piece of Shikifuku. That alone was a good enough weapon, but she seemed to want to disregard them.
Her weapon now was a fragment of the ground she had kicked up.
It was over a meter long and formed a sharp spear that would function as a piercing weapon.
Beyond her rotating and fluttering hair, her right hand grabbed the airborne ground spear.
She thrust it straight out toward his face and Akasora opened his mouth at the accurate attack.
"Oh..."
But he was not wailing.
"Ohhh!"
With an almost angry roar, he took action.
He swung his entire body and stabbed his raised right lower leg toward the snowy ground.
"Shikifuku!"
He launched an all-out attack toward Mei.
.
Akasora stomped his right heel forward and turned his entire body a bit to the right.
He lowered his hips, stuck his right hand forward, and slowly thrust his raised fist straight forward.
This was not a mere fist blow. His arm was still half-bent at the elbow and it was more like a tackle with his hand held a little forward.
But enduring the speed allowed the strength of his full body to rush forward.
He perfectly matched the timing of the stomp with the moment of impact, so the attack placed all of his kinetic energy on the front of his body. Lowering his hips placed his support closer to the ground, gave the force nowhere to escape, and stopped his movement, but...
...I just have to touch her to send the full force of the blow into her!
This technique allowed him to use his full strength over short distances.
The lowered hips left him with almost no reach, but he had immediately decided this opponent left him with no other option. She moved erratically, so he had made the split-second decision that a counterattack that supplied a powerful blow from a touch would be better than a normal punch.
He built up his power and released it.
He left his footprint in the ground below and the rest of that frozen ground shattered.
For a few inches around him, the ground bounced up from the stomp and the snow became a white mist. And in the center...
"I don't care if you have a weapon!"
He knew what to do now that she had abandoned unarmed combat and prepared a weapon.
"!"
The spear burst and vanished when his pushing fist struck it.
From the tip to her hand, it instantly turned to dust, as if being devoured, and then his strike continued on toward her hand.
...Hit her!
A simple touch would supply the same amount of force that had bounced up the ground for a few inches. The stomp prevented him from moving. Even if he shifted his stiff stance forward to extend his reach, it would only give him a few centimeters.
This attack only worked as a counterattack.
Meanwhile, Mei did not have anything like an acceleration Triggers without losing power. He had instantly switched his attack and she could not dodge, so it would hit. But...
"Ee...!"
Akasora saw the black tube vanish from before his right fist.
"...!?"
He immediately saw something else in front of him.
A vertical white line had fallen from directly above.
...A sword!?
.
It was one of the sword arms used by the trion soldiers.
It was one of those Mei had stolen, wielded, and thrown away.
She had thrown it high into the sky, having predicted Akasora's charge.
It was falling directly along the path of his charge, so if he had continued with his plan after having his vision stolen and being lured into attack, it would have sliced straight through his body.
But he had made a split-second change of plans.
That kept it from slicing through him and it instead fell right in front of his eyes.
Mei had missed, but so had Akasora.
"Kh!"
His fist was going to strike the sword stabbed into the ground in front of him.
But before it could, Mei took action. She placed her foot on the hilt of the sword and launched herself high into the heavens above.
"Ah...!"
She jumped over Akasora.
.
"...You're kidding."
From about twenty meters behind Akasora, Usami watched Mei's movements. The woman made a large leap and avoided Akasora's attack.
"You mean she's after me!?"
The answer to her question was about to land right in front of her.
It was Mei.
She must have barely pulled off the leap because her vertical spin was lighter than usual, but her feet were already positioned diagonally. The instant she landed, she intended to rotate and stand up.
She was also dropping accurately toward a certain object: a demon-like trion soldiers who had earlier been hit by a sword and collapsed.
It looked like it was functioning but not moving and the sword Mei had stabbed it with was still in the back.
Mei's landing point would allow her to grab that sword arm's end.
...The jump wasn't shallow because she had trouble getting higher.
She had adjusted the jump perfectly even while moving like that.
"...Kh."
This isn't good, Usami thought.
Up ahead, Akasora had yet to eliminate the momentum of his attack, so he could not even turn around yet.
As for Rindō to her left...
"Shiori-chan! Over here! Hurry!"
Usami looked over to find Rindō a full twenty meters to her left for some reason. She thought about why he would be there and found an answer.
"You ran away, leaving the girl in danger!?"
"Anyone would run away from that! Chi-chan's just weird!"
He makes a good point, she thought while Mei prepared to land in front of her.
"—"
She determined what she needed to do, so she took a step toward Mei.
.
...I-I need to be prepared!
With that thought, Usami stepped forward.
This might not work. No, it probably won't, she also thought.
But she was a Border girl, so there was one thing she had to do. If she tried to run, Mei would only catch up, so she had to move a little forward, and...
...Take that sword!
If she could get rid of the weapon, she could stop Mei from attacking. At the very least, if she erased the possibility of instant death from a blade, more possibilities would open up.
But was that really the best option here?
She did not know. But as far as the best option for Tamakoma Operator Usami Shiori was concerned...
"This is all I can think of!"
She could feel tears welling up in the corners of her eyes.
"...!"
Still, she leaned forward and took her step.
She was determined to do this, but then...
"Oh, now that's the spirit. You could learn a thing or two from this girl, Rindō."
A wall moved in front of her.
...Eh?
It was Kushikage.
.
It all ended with a simple movement.
The black fluttering was falling down toward the weapon.
"I love how fucking passionate you are, Fuji. ...That's the best fucking lifestyle!"
With those words, Kushikage snatched her from the air with her body and right arm.
She then breathed in and let out a cry that reverberated through the sky.
"Quit the crap! I'm really fucking bored of this now!"