"We will now begin. Thank you both for participating in this test. All information will be sent to the Engineers, so you may ask them anything when I am not available."

Hoshi let out a breath while stepping back.

"Wow. You sound very professional right now, Hoshi-chan."

"Do I? I am only saying what I normally hear when working with the Engineers. I do add some of my own words, but they sound much more refined than I do."

Besides what they had seen with Minoru upon his arrival, there had been other things that she felt she needed to focus on.

The first had been the attack on Border. Even while being with Obishima, she had been informed by her squad that she may be needed if things got too chaotic.

The entire time it had been going on, she had been worried about what was happening.

Her worries had been put to rest after a few messages from her team.

Colors: "There is no need to worry anymore, Hoshi. The fighting is now over. Sorry if it was bugging you the whole time…"

Lobo: "We didn't get to do much, but Take got to let off some steam by blasting through a big Trigger. Oh, and Suzume got some dancing in."

Honest Sister: "The beginning was fun and all, but that honestly pathetic woman got me mad. No, not mad. She doesn't deserve my anger. She was only a disappointment. And now Miwa is rejecting me! Hoshi-chaaaaan! These idiots around me are terrible! Honestly teeeeeeerrrrrible!"

She had felt bad for her upperclassman, but there was nothing she could do at the moment. Miwa was not someone she had regularly come in contact with, so she felt it would be rude to ask him for help on that matter.

But it sounded like everything worked out well for everyone on their side. Nothing had been lost and they had managed to push back the invaders.

That was one load off of her.

As for the other one…

"I really want to see Tamakoma-2's match, but this takes priority."

"You watch their matches too?"

She nodded to Obishima. From the tone the smaller girl took it was clear that also watched them.

"Osmau-kun and I are friends, so I have been watching his matches as frequently as I can. If I cannot make it to the match then I watch the logs to speak with him afterwards. Sometime we do watch them together, so that has also allowed me to get a bit closer to his teammates."

"I see."

"And what of you, Yukari? Is there someone on Tamakoma-2 that you have an interest in?"

"I-it's not so much an interest as much as I admire him."

"Oh?"

"Kuga-senpai. He is new and yet he is so skilled. In a way, you remind me of him. B-but that's not to say that I am your friend because of that!"

"It is fine, Yukari," Hoshi answered with a slight laugh. "I understand completely. I feel the same way towards Takeshi-kun and Toby-kun after all. They all have something that makes you want to admire them and continue watching to see where they go. Although I would not compare myself to any of them. I still have much to learn before even trying to reach them."

"But you seem so skilled already."

"As do you."

The second load had easily been lifted by talking to the smaller girl.

Now that there was someone else in a similar situation as her, it meant that there was now a new friend who she could watch the logs with. It would be less lonely and they could look over everything together.

It put her mind to ease.

With a new sense of lightness, Hoshi turned back to the task set out before her.

Minoru and Kanzaki had been waiting for them to start, so she would do just that.

She faced the screen in front of her and began the simulation.

"We will now begin proper."

Kanzaki was the first to make an attack.

But it was not directed at Minoru.

It was directed at a trion soldier.

Instead of it being a one-on-one battle, Kanzaki had asked if they could make it seem like the fights going on outside.

At the time Hoshi and Obishima had begun whispering to each other, but she did not mind.

She had gotten a nervous look from Hoshi, but she agreed to it so long as Minoru was also fine with it. Although some things would be kept from him so that it did not seem so strange.

Kiyoshi-dono's younger sister is a very kind person for allowing me this. Minoru-dono is also very kind for not rejecting it. Even though the feeling I got from him did not seem the same as usual, he still went along with it.

Two kind people were allowing her to have this chance while everyone else would be out fighting others.

That was why she started her attacks by giving it her all.

As an added difficulty spike for this, she had decided to limit herself to only making attacks possible for her while also saying her next actions. It was not a way to insult Minoru's skills but a way to strengthen her own skills to reach him.

So once she saw the trion soldiers moving, she made an immediate movement.

"I join the battle."

With those words, she lowered down in front of the trion soldiers.

"I name myself! I, Solo Pseudo-A-Rank Agent Kanzaki Shizuka, have shown my cleverness by finally figuring out how to challenge myself…so I will join the battle!"

The female warrior was quick even at her normal speed and she ran with Kōgetsu-Spear in hand.

.

Kanzaki ran toward the battlefield.

…Basically, I have to say everything out loud without thinking too much about it.

In that case, she thought while opening her mouth.

"I move forward."

She started forward.

"I accelerate."

She accelerated.

"I maintain my speed."

She maintained it and understood.

"I thought I could do this."

And so she continued on, speaking all the while.

"I run."

"I dash."

"I rush."

"I arrive."

"I rush and arrive."

"I reach them." "I greet others. Taiyōko Younger Sister-dono, thank you for this opportunity."

"I-I speak. You are welcome?!"

"I thank her once more."

"I pass by them." "And I continue on." "I point out that the 'on' was unnecessary."

"I face forward." "I jump right." "I observe. I do not let the descending trion soldiers distract me." "I lower down." "I leap…no, I run toward the trion soldiers." "I rush my legs along the closer trion soldier."

"I leap."

"I place my feet atop the trion soldier rising into the air."

"I run." "I run onward. I race along the armor."

"I detect the initial movement of the trion soldier's body." "I realize how it will move." "I jump to reach the enemy's moving body." "I do not hesitate to thrust myself forward." "I catch up to the pulling motion." "I place my feet on it." "I stand upon the neck that is pulled back in preparation." "I endure." "I detect the motion of the neck I stand on."

"I predict its future movement." "I run."

"I run along the trion soldier's body." "I reach the top." I see the enemy's core." "I can see them."

"Now, Senkū."

"Understood."

One heavily-armored trion soldier fell backwards as a diagonal line of damage cut across its body.

Obishima watched Kanzaki through the cameras of the training room

…She can do that with only her normal movements!?

It also helped that Kanzaki's acceleration Trigger used resistance reduction and therefore did not apply a burden to her body. However, her basic movements and decision-making speed had to have dropped quite a bit.

…And it took her less time than before to defeat the trion soldier.

"Did you see that, Yukari?"

A voice reached her from the spot next to her.

"She saw through all of its movements. She understands just how far the trion soldiers' arms and legs can move, where its armor creates blind spots, and the trick I have added to their programming. She must have learned all that while fighting so many times. And the heavy equipment on this one weighs down its movements and provides more space to stand on. That's why she defeated it so much faster than the previous ones."

Kanzaki leaped from the collapsing trion soldier. Her ponytail trailed behind her through the air and she faced the enemy group approaching from the north.

…Minoru-senpai is still to the south.

Minoru was moving slower than she would have thought, but his current results and Kanzaki's current actions prevented any of the forces from carelessly attacking. It sounded fine and would likely be great in an actual situation, but...

"…!"

A tremor filled the ground as the trion soldier Kanzaki had defeated collapsed in the center.

"Yukari."

"O-oh, yes! I understand. …When she stood on the trion soldier's body, she grasped the surrounding situation and made sure it would fall in the center as an obstacle. That's what you want to say, isn't it?"

"No... I-I mean it is good that you understand that, b-but also that it would be best not to watch that hard."

"Right..."

She looked over at Hoshi then averted her gaze.

She looked away and towards Kanzaki Shizuka.

"I charge!" shouted the girl.

"I attack," repeated her spear.

She ran with her spear to diagonally tear into the back end of the enemy trion soldiers moving north.

She's intense, thought Obishima. Can she really take out a lot before meeting up with Minoru-senpai?

Suddenly, the trion soldier battle line heading north exploded.

"What!?"

Kanzaki watched the trion soldier running north.

However, the explosion of the trion soldiers beyond was also in her field of vision.

They were directly torn into and launched upwards as if something had burst from directly below them. The line of customized trion soldiers was lifted into the air much like a spear driven into the bottom of a snake from the side.

…What was that!?

"I question."

The trion soldiers charging toward her suddenly flew into the air and scattered with a wavelike motion.

It made no sense, but Kanzaki had a sudden thought.

…Tactics change with the times.

Therefore…

…Don't tell me…

"I grumble. …Don't tell me that explosive destruction is a new Neighbor tactic Taiyōko Younger Sister-dono knows of!"

Tera-zō: "I'll be blunt, but I really think they were just blown away."

So that wasn't it? she wondered while deciding not to worry about the explosive destruction. They must be into that kind of thing. I suppose that is another kind of illness people can have.

That settled it for her. The real issue at hand was the large trion soldier charging toward her, so she focused on it.

"I lower my stance."

Her stance changed accordingly, but she heard another voice before she could accelerate. It was a male voice.

"Yushi!"

As if responding to the resounding words, the trion soldier exploded in front of Kanzaki.

It was smashed to pieces.

.

…What!?

Kanzaki's eyes opened wide.

"I show my surprise. Don't tell me this trion soldier's self-destruction is a new Neighbor tactic that Taiyōko Younger Sister-dono knows of!"

As Kanzaki cried out, the trion soldier fell forward. She could see cracks spreading through all of its armor, its outer shell, and the moving parts beneath and it soon broke apart along those cracks.

It collapsed to its knees.

"…!"

And it split open. The core inside of it could be seen before the cracks running oolong that also started to break it apart.

Next, the airborne trion soldiers reached their apex and began to fall.

Their overlapping trajectories turned downwards.

And as they started toward the ground, Kanzaki spotted the opponent.

A simple man stood below the trion soldier with his feet planted far apart. He had black hair and freckles. His hollow expression turned to her as he moved through the trion soldiers.

"I finally caught up."

Kanzaki asked a question while the trion soldier fell to its knees between them.

"I ask!"

She asked.

"Are you okay, Minoru-dono?"

"You're just gonna ignore my answer anyway."

He fixed his clothes for a moment just as the trion soldier's knees struck the ground. A beat later, the trion soldier's core and joins were destroyed, but the remaining ones still rushed toward him.

To Kanzaki, the man looked almost calm even as the customized trion soldiers attacked from every single direction around him.

"!"

Around a dozen trion soldiers attacked at once, but Terashima saw something else from elsewhere in the Border base.

…That light.

It was trion light.

Several trion soldiers had surrounded Minoru and began their attack toward him, but trion light leaked out from between them. Terashima recognized that specific trion light.

…What am I supposed to say for this? Um…

Due to not knowing the full circumstance, he had to announce himself up front.

"I'll explain!"

Jinsoku turned toward him with a surprised look after announcing he would.

"Do you know what this is? I guess you would since you helped Taiyōko, but still…""

"I'm surprised. …Heh. You certainly are well-informed, Terashima."

Shut up, he thought while opening a screen and displaying an image.

Secretary: "I will give you some advice, Terashima-san! Raise your index finger like this! Like this! And then say 'Allow me to explain!' That's how you show off when you want to explain something!"

"I'll ignore that."

At any rate, he had something he had to say.

"I will tell all of you. That light is the same as Yagura's Shikifuku."

As soon as he said that, the light grew and the full silhouettes of all of the trion soldiers attacking Minoru could be seen in it. There were fifteen trion soldiers in all and many of them had striking weapons instead of piercing ones for limbs.

However, Minoru stopped them all.

He defended with various parts of his body: his raised arms, his back, his stomach, his thighs, etc.

The weapons struck him, but he gently raised his arms as if nothing had happened.

Terashima saw wing-shaped tattoos on his right and left arms. The tattoos emitted bright light and definite wings appeared on the surface.

…Those really are the same as the Black Trigger they used out there.

Next, the light formed further objects. Overlapping flowers appeared across his arms, his legs, and other parts of his body. They were all Hatohara Squad emblems.

Lily of the Valley and Snowdrop. A return of happiness and hope. That was the Hatohara Squad's emblem.

The emblem that spread out across Minoru's body.

The meaning was nice and fit the squad well, but this did not feel like it. The hollow expression on his face as he moved seemed to only make that wonderful emblem shine even more. They were the lights on that dull body of someone who was not focused on the things around him.

"This is Yushi."

He trembled so hard he almost seemed to jump, he raised his arms, and all fifteen trion soldiers surrounding him were blown away.

They flew through the air, rotated, and floated up. Next, Minoru left that scene overhead as he began to move.

"Let's go."

He blew away the still-recognizable wreckage of the destroyed trion soldier and leaped forward.

His path took him directly toward the back.

Oh, no, thought Terashima, but…

…Ah.

He relaxed when he noticed someone else there.

Kanzaki had begun to race forward as if planning to collide with Minoru.

Prototype Star: "Kanzaki-san. I am worried about Minoru-senpai. Would you mind using this test to see if you can gauge anything from fighting with him? He looks to be focused elsewhere, so no need to hold back."

Taiyōko Younger Sister-dono certainly is kind! thought Kanzaki while thanking her from the bottom of her heart.

"I move forward." "I raise my weapon." "I thrust it forward."

"I strike," added Kōgetsu-Spear as its tip shot forward.

Fragments of the trion soldier were blasted away by the pressure as the weapon moved toward Minoru.

He was unarmed. He simply raised his right hand and moved forward in a compact manner.

…He's fast!?

He had only taken a single step, but that step had brought him past the trion soldier and to her. The leap measured twenty meters.

By the time Kanzaki recalled Yuki's Hassou Tobi from long ago, Minoru's strike had reached her.

"I'll knock you back."

Kanzaki responded to those words by jabbing Kōgetsu-Spear straight forward.

Just before they collided, she saw something.

An emblem of light had appeared on the pivot leg kept behind Minoru.

…Hatohara Squad's emblem!?

That was not the only one.

The emblems of light blossomed one after another, moving from his knee to his waist, stomach, right shoulder, right elbow, and wrist.

It almost looked like a flower extending its stalk to bloom in a higher place.

Finally, the glowing flower bloomed along his hand.

"Yushi."

The leg Minoru brought forward sank deep down and the ground shook.

"…!?"

The shaking felt more like a miniature earthquake than anything else.

.

…So it was a powerful stomp!

Before Kanzaki came to that realization, all of Minoru's Hatohara Squad emblems glowed brightly. The blossoming flowers raced from his foot to his hand.

"Next one, Yushi."

She realized an attack was coming but also realized she could not evade.

"Clear it up! Senkū!"

She sent the spear tip directly into the oncoming power.

She tried to pierce the tip of his jabbing hand with the tip of her own power. She perfectly and calmly read his movements and sent in a counterattack.

"I will make it so."

Despite Kōgetsu-Spear's displayed announcement, the weapon was crushed.

The blade and base were unharmed, but the shaft did not survive.

It was completely smashed.

With the sound of shattering metal, pieces of the three meter shaft scattered in every direction.

The primary segment of the weapon was deflected into the air.

The weapon had been destroyed.

.

Kanzaki had poured all her strength into the spear's shaft, so she lost her balance. She primarily chained attacks together, so this sudden change in her center of gravity caused her to stumble forward.

"—"

She had been right to lower her head. Minoru's barehanded jab shot by above it.

She wore a horn-shaped decoration that both bound her ponytail and provided her with certain amounts of data.

"…"

An instant later, Minoru's strike smashed the right horn, but it seemed the shaft's destruction had caught Minoru by surprise as well. He was unable to fully eliminate the recoil from the powerful stomp he had used to attack her.

"Hm."

He gave a small hum and flipped a dozen meters to the side.

Kanzaki cried out while grabbing Kōgetsu-Spear's primary section as it rotated through the air.

"I warn! Taiyōko Younger Sister-dono!"

Oh, no, thought Kanzaki.

After all, Minoru's leap had brought him past all of the trion soldiers but still quite near them.

Once he landed, he turned around and took action. He almost slid his body while turning and leaped toward the trion soldiers.

"Th-that is all!"

Everything came to a sudden stop.

Hoshi let out a breath she did not know she had been holding.

The test had turned into something that terrified her for a reason she was unsure of.

Kanzaki had been doing her own thing, as had Minoru, but it had been the moment the two met that had her shaking a bit.

She had checked the readings on Yushi the entire time and found something strange with it.

Based on the materials she had worked on with the Engineers, it should have done nothing more than boost the physical abilities of the user. But then something else had happened.

The trion meant for it's activation had been stored instead of used.

Minoru had started out by using the Trigger, but the more he moved without using it, the more of his trion it started to store. It had only been after attacking did that stored trion get released.

The released trion then provided him with the enhancements to his physical abilities by spreading out the Hatohara Squad's emblems around his body.

It may have been an accident, but I think I have found out what the Trigger really does…

Mimicking a Black Trigger was already something of a challenge. Like Fujin and Gauge, there were things that were completely different from the Black Triggers they were based on. Their power output and general abilities lacked the necessary numbers to even try and rival those Black Triggers. But they held their own special traits that made their differences something good.

From what she had heard, some of the trion soldiers involved with the fighting tonight also had limited gravitational control, something that the Black Trigger Murasame had. It was proof that no matter what the abilities a Black Trigger had, they could be replicated to some degree so long as they could be understood.

Feeling herself get tired from this revelation, Hoshi began to lean back into the seat she had been using. She could see Obishima looking over at her with worry, so she responded with a smile.

"That was certainly…something."

"…You are worried about our senpai, aren't you?"

"Of course," she said readily.

Besides what she had seen with Yushi, she had also been keeping an eye on both Kanzaki and Minoru the entire time.

Kanzaki's attitude towards the whole thing had been fine up until the point of having her Trigger partially destroyed by Yushi. From there she had shown urgency in wanting to stop the training.

Hoshi understood why.

It was because of Minoru.

"There is indeed something wrong. That much was clear when he first arrived, but this has given us a better image that it is something major. I will admit to not knowing him all too well due to only having met him recently, but even I can tell that he is a good person. For him to attack like that…"

"Should we do something?"

"I…"

Hoshi stopped herself.

She slowly brought up her arms to her knees and folded her fingers in front of her mouth.

It was true that she wanted to help her upperclassman if something was wrong, but for it to affect him like this meant that it was not something she could understand without being nosy. Something she did not want to be.

Going through the list of people she knew, there were a few names that came to mind when it came to who they knew mutually.

Continuing to look at Obishima, she gave a sheepish smile.

"It would likely be better to inform someone who he trusts more than us. Even if we want to help, there are so many things that we cannot do. For starters, we do not even know when he joined Border. That could play a major role in what is going on right now. Or maybe it is just a personal thing that we are not meant to know about."

"So then…"

She nodded.

"I will let someone know, but I will not be deep diving into this matter. For now…I will continue to refine Yushi so that it can be a perfect fit for him once it is done."

Fulling turning her body to the side, Hoshi smiled kindly toward Obishima.

"Yukari?"

"Yes?"

Holding her hand out, she continued to smile.

"This may be odd, but will you continue to be my friend as I do something selfish?"

.

What does she mean?

What part of this entire situation made her selfish?

Hoshi had not said or done anything that seemed even lightly selfish.

It was all more of a reason or her answer.

With no hesitation, she grabbed hold of the outstretched hand.

"Of course I will continue to be your friend. Please do the same for me."