Thanks, Sherlock.

The illustration poll is pretty neck and neck for once, so I'll probably have to check the tie breaker votes and go from there. As always, thank you to everyone on pa treon for supporting this release.

Additionally, if anyone knows how to bypass this site's formatting issues it would be greatly appreciated lol. My bolds and italics are cooked still.

X

Houki, freshly-showered and dressed in her yukata, hummed a happy little tune to herself as she made her way down the hallway leading to Ichika's room. She sifted through the deck of Hanafuda cards that she borrowed from the reception, making sure that every card was accounted for.

It would be fun, she thought. They had time to themselves for a little while, so why not just… take it easy? Everything they did was so stressful nowadays. The other girls kept getting on her nerves, Ichika kept getting on her nerves… Everyone could just forget about all of that and occupy themselves with something that wasn't giant robot war machines or relationship drama. Hell, she didn't mind inviting the others if it meant that she and Ichika could have an honest-to-God conversation, for once.

A pleased smile rested merrily on her face. She had a good feeling about—

Her thoughts were brought to an immediate halt.

Coming her way from the opposite end of the hall where the private suites were located, a sullen expression on her face, was Tabane.

Her sister.

Houki hadn't seen Tabane in ages. She had a sneaking suspicion that the woman was here—even finding hints and messages sprinkled throughout the resort that had "Tabane" written all over them—but honestly, she really didn't have any intention of catching up with her estranged relative. Not right now.

Was this because of… that? Did Orimura-sensei actually—

Tabane didn't break her stride; she was getting closer. Houki looked down to her feet nervously.

At this point, it was probably unavoidable. Time to face the music.

"O-Onee-san!" Shit! She stuttered. "What's going on? Is there something wrong with—"

"Of course something's wrong," her sister glowered, "the surprise is ruined."

Houki blinked.

"Surprise?"

"Why don't you ask them?" her sister spat back bitterly, looking over her shoulder and glaring conspicuously at the single door in sight at the end of the hall: Orimura-sensei's room.

Them?

Houki was taken aback; it was the most un-Tabane reaction she'd ever seen from the woman. She didn't jump on her younger sibling and greet her in that sickeningly sweet kiddy-bullshit voice of hers. The performative "pep" in her step was ripped away.

A cold sweat ran down Houki's spine. Were they… even talking about the same thing?

And just like that, the moment was gone. Tabane pouted, her balled fists covering her eyes.

"Waaa!" she wailed fakely, stomping off like a frustrated toddler, hopping into the rocket shaped like a carrot parked within the garden and blasted off, upending grass and pebbles, sending the intricately arranged dry garden in disarray.

The girl silently watched the World's Most Wanted Woman fly away and disappear into the skies then slowly turned back to face her front. Her eyes kept getting drawn back to the path leading toward Orimura-sensei's room.

Honestly, she should just forget all of that happened. That was usually the safer course of action when getting involved with Tabane's antics. She should continue on her way to Ichika's room and get him to play a nice game of Koi Koi with her or something.

Her expression morphed into one of consternation.

Or…

Frowning, she turned back, slowly making her way towards Orimura-sensei's room.

It wouldn't hurt to just check that everything was in order for tomorrow, would it?

X

X

"Okay~ everyone!" Yamada-sensei called out to them, her voice still sounding a little tired. "Welcome to the second day of camp! Thank you for waking up early; we have a lot to cover and very little time. We'll be working on our equipment testing to start, so I'll invite you all to bring your attention over to the Uchigane and Revive training units stationed behind me. We'll be collecting your performance data as we go along!"

The secret beach Ichika and his class found themselves on was enclosed by high cliffs on three sides. To get to it, they had to be bussed through a tunnel through the mountain near the Ryokan. It was the kind of place you'd shoot a movie. Everyone was in their IS suit, but being by the sea just made them seem even more like swimsuits than they already did.

Indeed, there were several inactive IS units plopped down in neat rows along the sandy beach. Few students were willing to give them more than a passing glance, however, as they were all much more preoccupied with the sight of one really miserable-looking Orimura Chifuyu.

Despite being dressed for a summery day at the beach, no one would mistake her for someone having a good time. The bags under her eyes were dark, her shoulders were tense and her hair was barely combed. The woman hadn't said a word yet today, instead allowing her TA to take the lead.

Ichika was pretty sure why she was acting that way, but he was in no rush to out his sister. These were details that his classmates—and his physical well-being—could live without.

Speaking of classmates, actually…

Cecilia tapped Charl on the shoulder.

"Hey," she whispered quietly to her fellow blonde, "where's Kurt Russell?"

The French girl blinked rapidly.

"You mean Laura?" Charl whispered back after taking a moment to decipher the ridiculous nickname.

Overhearing them, Ichika couldn't help but wonder the same thing. Laura was pretty punctual, normally. Whatever happened to 'military precision' and all that?

"Bodewig!" Chifuyu barked, causing the two of them to jump. "How kind of you to join us. Found the cool side of your pillow, did you?"

The entire class turned around to face a frazzled Laura scurrying over toward their group.

"I—I'm sorry, Instructor! It won't happen again."

Frankly, Ichika was surprised that it happened at all. He had never seen Laura act this way before. Was she really so thrown off by what happened the other day?

At once, he remembered the smacks and squelches and shuddered.

…Actually, he couldn't really blame her.

"Thank you for volunteering." Chifuyu crossed her arms. "Why don't you give us an explanation of the IS core network?"

Laura stood at attention. "Yes, ma'am. IS cores are equipped with mesh networking facilities to share information. These were developed for communication across long distances in outer space, but are now used as the open and private channels over which pilots can converse."

"Close enough." Chifuyu grumbled. "Now get in formation with the rest." She waited a moment as Laura scurried in line before continuing. "You've each been issued a to-do list for equipment testing in the morning. Any testing that requires live-firing will only be done, under our strict supervision, please approach us as required. After lunch, we'll break off into groups and start with the open-air flight manoeuvres. I don't care how fast your IS can go, you'll all stay within our designated airspace or so help me, I'll punch you into paralysis for causing an international incident."

"Jeez," he grumbled, leaning closer to Houki so that she could hear him. "I hope Chifuyu doesn't push us too hard. I mean she did say—hm? Houki?"

Oddly enough, his childhood friend might've been the only person actually giving any mind to the IS units. She seemed lost in thought before he spoke her name.

"Uh-oh! Sorry, Ichika. What was that?"

He frowned worriedly. Houki too, huh? Chifuyu really knew how to strike fear in the hearts of others.

"Shinonono!" the devil herself shouted. The girl in question squeaked and instinctively smacked her feet together before facing their teacher squarely.

"Yes, Ma'am!"

Chifuyu's stink eye lasted for a second longer before a tired sigh escaped her lips.

"As you're aware, starting today, you'll be piloting your own personal—"

"Uhm, Orimura-sensei," the bespectacled TA interrupted her unsurely, staring off in the distance, "I think there's someone over there."

Looking for what the younger woman was talking about, Chifuyu snapped her head over her shoulder and shot a scrutinising glare at the figure of a man sitting by the edge of a nearby pier. Though his back was facing them, he appeared to be… fishing?

Ah. Wait. He looked familiar, actually.

Chifuyu grumbled something under her breath and marched all the way over to the supposed errant passerby. Being so far away, no one could actually hear what they were saying, but judging by the body language and the loud noises that could be heard in the distance, she was really giving the guy a piece of her mind.

After a little while, it looked like she had convinced him to take his hobby elsewhere as the man began packing his things.

"How did a civvy get here?" one of their classmates asked, taking advantage of the stalled time in their lesson plan.

"No clue," another one chipped in. "This beach is supposed to be, like, super off-limits to the public, right?"

Ichika gave a side-eye to his friends. From the looks of it, they figured it out, too.

It was a matter of waiting a few seconds longer before Chifuyu returned with the strange fisherman in tow. The unusually large-framed man earned a series of owlish stares from the girls.

Chifuyu let out a thunderous sigh and Shirou-san laughed sheepishly, offering the class an awkward wave. Wearing cargo shorts and a tank top under what could only be described as a Hawaiian shirt, his bulging muscles were left for all to see as they carried the weight of a particularly large cooler, freshly-caught fish barely visible within if one peered over its edge.

The looks were too much for the woman. Caving to a rare instance of social pressure, she kept an awkward glance flipping between the man at her side and the expectant crowd before her.

She coughed into her first.

"Hm. Right. Everyone, this is my husband."

The announcement was met with a deafening silence. Not one soul knew what to do with that information; the ones who already knew wouldn't risk worsening their imminent punishment and those who didn't were rendered completely flat-footed.

She elbowed him hard enough that he almost dropped everything that he was carrying.

"Oh!" the man exclaimed. "I'm Orimura Shirou. It's a pleasure!"

Yamada-sensei didn't seem as affected as the others. With an expression that might have been her attempt at looking stern, she cleared her throat.

"Mister Orimura!" she addressed him awkwardly. "This is a restricted area, unfortunately. Only IS-related personnel are allowed to be here."

She looked to Chifuyu for guidance as she spoke, as if making sure that she got that right. Chifuyu's defeated look was all the confirmation that anyone needed to know for sure that, no, he really wasn't supposed to be here.

" I know I'm… kind of trespassing —" he was very visibly avoiding the unimpressed look that Chifuyu was levelling his way "— it wasn't like anyone was using the area until just now, but I lost track of time!"

Huh? Lost track of time? Didn't he just say that he was trespassing? Since when was trespassing a time-related offence?

Chifuyu clearly had her own thoughts on the situation; Ichika knew his sister well enough to tell that it was taking herculean effort on her part to not smack her husband upside the head.

The bizarre reprimanding could only hold the girls at bay for so long, unfortunately. At once, the floodgates opened.

"HUAAAAAAH!"

"Sensei's married?!"

Ichika winced and pressed his palms against his ears as grating shrieks burst out of the teenage girls surrounding him. Shirou-san was forced on the defensive as damn-near the entire class forgot that they were in the middle of military training and swarmed him like an exotic animal brought for show-and-tell.

"Ooh! How old are you?"

"How did you two meet?"

"What's your bust size?"

"Is this a honeymoon?"

"Is Orimura-sensei a screamer?"

The line of questioning grew exponentially more inappropriate with every subsequent one pelted at the man. Knowing that his wife was about to instil the fear of God into them—him too, maybe—Shirou-san put down the cooler and pulled out a metre-long yellowtail.

"Ha… Haha– Look at this beautiful hamachi that I caught!" he shared pridefully, his jovial expression doing little to hide the way that the colour drained from his face.

This felt familiar, somewhat.

Suddenly being face-to-face with such a large fish was enough to make the girls back off, but it didn't look like Shirou-san minded at that point. He really did look happy with his catch. Chifuyu looked pretty exasperated by it all—that was her default setting, to be fair—but she probably wasn't liable to murder someone for now. Nice job, Brother in Law! You've expertly navigated the situation by bringing the conversation elsewhere with no attempt at a transition whatsoever.

"It's as big as a salmon!" one of the students exclaimed.

"You caught that all by yourself?"

"Course he did, look at those guns—"

"You're pretty strong~"

Could Shirou-san tell that they were buttering him up? Maybe he did… or maybe not. He laughed bashfully at their sudden show of interest.

"It was a feisty one, but—"

All of a sudden, his eyes widened, whirling around and—

"BOOM!"

Everyone was forced to cover their eyes as a massive metal structure fell out of the sky and cratered a nearby sandbank. Ichika could've sworn that he actually heard a woman's voice say "Boom" as it happened, but he was probably mistaken.

As the airborne sand particles slowly settled, the silhouette of the invasive structure revealed itself in its entirety. It was a… giant carrot… missile… aircraft… thing? Sitting on top of it was…

A woman with robo-bunny ears on her head.

…Hey. Wasn't that—

"Tabane!?" squawked Chifuyu.

Shirou-san stared down at the fish in his arms despondently. The yellowtail was encrusted with wetted sand and his open cooler fared no better.

Ichika could have sworn that he saw a mocking smirk on Tabane's face, but he was probably mistaken. It was gone in an instant.

"He~llo everyone!" chirped Houki's sister animatedly. "It's me! The supergenius adored world-round: Shinonono Tabane! Please do your best to contain your excitement."

Before anyone could process her strange and sudden arrival, let alone get a word in, the woman zipped around from student to student, shaking their hand animatedly with a cheerful and welcoming smile.

"Hello! Hello! Hello, hello, hello…"

"Ack!"

Houki was last, but certainly not least.

"Houki!" She cheered, pulling her in for a bone-breaking hug. "It's been so long, hasn't it? You've gotten so big, Houki! Especially your breasts! How about I check for myself—"

That was all she managed before she jumped off, narrowly avoiding the whoosh of Houki's shinai.

"How about no." Houki mumbled.

"Mou~ Meanie! Houki, you're a meanie!" Tabane pouted before about-facing and skipping toward Chifuyu and Shirou-san, seemingly unbothered by the uneven sandy surface beneath her glossy high-heeled shoes.

In a sudden shift in attitude, a now stone-faced Shirou-san stood firmly in front of his wife and glared at the strange woman unflinchingly. She met his gaze for all of a second before shoving past him and jumping into Chifuyu's arms.

"Chiichaaaaaaaaan! I missed you~uhuhuhu… You should call more!"

"Yeah. Sure. Hi, Tabane," was the teacher's comparatively lacklustre response. She patted the bunny-girl on the back placatingly.

"You wouldn't deny me, right Chi-chan?" Her eyes gleamed, wiggling her fingers in anticipation. "It'd be like old times–"

Before Chifuyu could say anything, Shirou-san grabbed the eccentric woman by the collar of her cutesy blue dress and pried her away, holding her at arm's length like she was a mangy cat.

Ichika blinked.

Those were some… seriously unfriendly sneers on both their faces. Shirou's in particular aged him a good few years.

"Tabane." He muttered.

"Homewrecker." She spat.

Ichika tapped Houki on the shoulder.

"Hey," he whispered. "Does your sister normally act like this? I remember her being much less…"

"Snappy?" Houki finished his thought, observing the tension blankly. "Yeah, I have no clue what's going on."

There was obvious bad blood here compared to how friendly Tabane was with everyone else just a moment ago. It was painfully awkward to bear witness to.

Chifuyu groaned.

"It is 8 in the goddamn morning and I am hungover." Chifuyu palmed her forehead in abject misery, briefly gaining the two's attention. "I really don't have the energy for this. Can you two please behave for once? At least try to be courteous to each other while I'm working."

Tabane scowled, before going limp as Shirou reluctantly set her down.

She took a deep breath.

"Hello, Mister Husband," tried Tabane through gritted teeth. It looked like it physically pained her to give even that much, though she still refused to call him by name.

Said husband blankly gave the woman a once-over in silence.

"You've aged horribly," Shirou-san finally said.

Tabane immediately tried grabbing his face in anger, but his reach allowed him to keep her at bay. He flicked his head to the side whenever she managed to jab her fingers up his nose.

The whole class, Ichika included, watched it all happen with blank looks fueled by an unbridled lack of understanding of what it was, exactly, that was unravelling before them. Houki buried her face in her hands in shame as she watched her sister acting like a toddler.

"Asshole!" Tabane screamed at him, all pretences of whimsical fairy-like behaviour now dead in the dirt. "I don't know what she sees in you! You show no respect for the personal boundaries of others, force your big face into places where it doesn't belong, you dirty—"

"I will not be lectured on boundaries by the likes of you," he muttered exasperatedly, rolling his eyes.

"Do something useful for once and kill yourself!" she commanded ruthlessly, wailing blindly at him but only managing to flick his earlobe a few times.

The whole thing was like a fever dream; Yamada-sensei had joined the students in watching silently in stupefaction. Here were two grown adults—that most of them had never met before!—showing up out of nowhere to argue about something seemingly unrelated to anything going on right now. Ichika, as one of the few who had met both, didn't even feel like he had a leg up on anyone because his impression of how they behaved didn't match what he was seeing whatsoever. They might as well have been strangers to him at this point.

"Enough!" Chifuyu barked, prying the two off of each other. "What is this, sexual tension?"

"Chifuyu!"

"I'd rather eat my own—"

"Then shut up and behave yourselves." She snapped, before turning towards her husband, irate. "Shirou. You got what you wanted. Congratulations. Now shut your trap. Tabane," she turned to her friend, "you've got your big entrance, so how about you just cut to the chase!"

Tabane took a few dozen angry little steps away from Shirou-san and pulled out some kind of remote from… somewhere. She pressed a button and—

BOOM!

Suddenly, in the blink of an eye and the crash of a heavy impact, a block of metal plunged into the sand. In the next moment, its glimmering silver walls parted, revealing its contents: a form clad in crimson armour pulled itself from the container, as if answering Tabane's call. Gold maki-e on its arms and legs glimmered in the sunlight, as if to emphasise its newness. It was clearly an inactive IS frame, though no one would confuse it for an Uchigane.

"Ja-jaan! This is my latest work, a cut above all the rest!" Tabane waved her arms proudly. "I present to you all… the Akatsubaki!"

X

The very second that Shinonono revealed the shining red mass of machinery, it was met with wondrous awe. It was understandable, to a degree: these kids hadn't been exposed to Infinite Stratos for that long, and this one just so happened to be the most visually striking and wildly-designed of them all. It was to be expected if Shinonono was the one who oversaw its full production.

This wasn't his first time hearing about this frame, however.

Or at least, what it used to be.

"Houki-pokey, could you come here, please?" the woman asked her sister in a baby voice. Despite the obvious embarrassment that she was feeling, Shinonono Houki could only do as she was told, though she seemed unable to look anyone in the eye, so mortified was she. "I present to you… Your very own personal Infinite Stratos frame! Yay! Congratulations!"

The moment when the younger sister went from embarrassed to shocked was clear-cut, as was the moment when the class broke into jealous grumbles.

"This feels like favouritism."

"More like nepotism."

"It's not fair…"

"Haven't you been paying attention in history class? The world has never, ever, ever been fair!" Tabane sing-songed cheerfully then quickly moved on. "Get on into the cockpit, please and thanks. Time to get you set up and customised, Houki! I'll help you out, so it should be over in a jiffy~"

Seemingly by voice command, the Akatsubaki opened itself, presenting a vacant cavity to welcome its pilot. It even kneeled automatically for ease of mounting. After a moment's hesitation, the younger girl gingerly clambered in.

Closing up in an instant, the IS frame activated, almost alive as it thrummed lowly, held down by cables attached to the metal box.

"I've already started to set it up with your data, so it should be just a quick update. Here we go! Beep, boop!" Tabane slid her fingers over the console. Six holographic displays opened in midair, displaying a tremendous amount of data. At the same time, six holographic keyboards appeared in midair under them. "Your big sister put a lot of work into this, so get ready for a little extra 'oomph'!"

While they made idle chatter, Tabane's fingers never stopped flying over the keys. No matter how much that woman played the fool, she was obviously something beyond even the average genius during moments like these. As more figures were entered, the Akatsubaki seemed to adjust itself to Houki's body in real-time.

As the woman worked, Shirou glanced over to Chifuyu.

His wife was visibly unnerved upon seeing it, her shoulders tense and fists balled tightly. She did her best to hide it—rather, it was likely she didn't even notice her own reaction, keeping as straight a face as ever.

It would have been alarming in any other circumstance; Chifuyu was rarely phased by anything. This time was different, though. Her history with this thing ran deep.

He knew that Tabane could feel his glare on her back, but the woman did a tremendous job of ignoring it.

"All right! Synchronisation's complete. Give it a try, Houki! It should mirror your thoughts exactly."

"...Very well," the girl answered slowly. "I'll do that now."

The cables attached to Akatsubaki disconnected with an audible pop. Houki closed her eyes, focused for a moment, and the already over-the-top frame instantly looked like it was twice as big as it really was as wings of all things sprouted out of it.

"Wha—"

The Akatsubaki took flight, stirring up whirls of sand as it blasted off, Wincing, Shirou held a hand over his eyes and squinted as he took stock of where the machine was hovering some 200 metres above.

"It's an all-purpose frame specialised in close combat!" Tabane presented, splaying her arms out over her head. "Houki-chwan, you've been working on your swordsmanship a lot, right? Right? I can tell! That's why I know that it'll suit you just fine. I even included a bunch of helpful autopilot features so that you don't have to deal with the boring stuff! My IS is the best, dont'cha think? After all… the Akatsubaki is the world's first fourth generation IS!"

Shirou's expression soured.

Excited chatter broke out amongst the students and it didn't take much guessing to figure out why. Most advanced countries were running with second generation units in their fleets and only now were the prototype units of some third generations starting to pop up. Tabane was claiming to have built something so impressive that it eclipsed the technology that most people didn't even know about yet.

It would have been nothing more than a weightless boast coming from anyone else.

"Those wings of plasma? Fold-Out Armour! It lets you switch the frame's inherent function in real time, without all that nitty gritty implementation of equalisers! Think of all that time saved!"

The pilot, as much as she seemingly didn't want to give her elder sister the impression that she was grateful, couldn't hide the exhilaration on her face as she spun around in every which way. It was clear to all that it was frightfully easy to manoeuvre that thing.

"And now, onto your two katanas! Get ready, Houki!"

The crazy woman pushed another button on her remote; a massive missile launcher emerged from the sand and locked onto the airborne IS.

It all happened too quickly for the students to properly figure out what was happening, but Shirou was ready to intervene instantly. What the hell was Tabane thinking, hiding something like that in such close range to Chifuyu's students!?

All he managed was a step forward before Chifuyu put a hand on his chest to stop him. His questioning look caught the sight of her shaking her head with a small frown thinning her lips.

"Just wait," she told him simply.

And so he did. Shirou forced his shoulders to relax and pretended not to notice Tabane's smug grin.

"You have two katanas!" Tabane told the pilot. "Amazuki on the left and Karaware on the right. Let me give you the rundown."

A button was pressed. A single missile left its carriage and flew toward the airborne girl.

"Amazuki is good for one-on-one fights. A single swing is enough to turn any opponent into Swiss cheese; speed, distance, accuracy… it has all of that in spades. It's got about the range of an assault rifle, b-t-w."

Houki was quick enough on her feet to get the memo. She drew the left sword and swung it at the explosive, though perhaps sooner than she should have in an effort to keep it from going off near her. It didn't make a difference in the end, however, as a flying blade of pure energy left the edge of the sword, destroyed the missile on contact then continued unimpeded on its path well into the distance before dissipating.

Chifuyu closed her eyes and exhaled sharply through her nose.

Shirou gave her a quick look but snapped his attention right back to the missile pod when he heard the deafening noise of firing rockets: all remaining ballistic missiles were launched in unison.

Many of the onlookers choked out shocked gasps.

"Houki!" Ichika yelled.

Of course she'd be worried; there was a big step up between a single missile and a few dozen. The poor girl was a first-year! She had spent the past few weeks working with nothing but training units. It was only natural that she'd be overwhelmed—

"I can do this—" Her voice rang out from Tabane's comms. "Now that I have Akatsubaki!"

Shirou blinked.

… It seemed, as expected, the girl took to power quickly.

"Of course you can!" Tabane continued her "showcase" unimpeded. She spoke as the swarm of flying bombs travelled through the air. "Karaware is good for groups! You should definitely use that one!"

Houki did just that without needing to be told twice. The right sword was, drawn, swung, and Shirou had to blink back the harsh glare of a large beam slash in the form of a crescent moon spreading itself across the skies and through the wave of missiles—

KRA-KOOM

Everyone on the ground had to cover their faces as the sea of explosions kicked up the sand below. The sky was painted over in smoke and flames as far as the eye could see.

It began to clear several seconds later. The undamaged form of the Akatsubaki was revealed, the vestiges of a forcefield vanishing as the ruined shells exploded benignly and dropped to the ocean's surface.

Houki was breathing heavily. From the exertion, surely, but it was more than that. Her eyes were wide and her smile even wider.

Yes. It really was a powerful IS frame.

Shirou scowled. An awful, sinking feeling flickered to life at the back of his mind.

Tabane wasn't messing around. It was by no means a "stretch" to call this thing a fourth-generation Infinite Stratos unit. As short-lived as that demonstration was, there was no arguing that a third-gen model would have no hope of performing as effectively with an equally inexperienced pilot.

Without looking away, his hand snapped out to grab his partner's. He kept her trembling fingers pressed tightly against his palm.

A jolt ran through her.

"Shirou, what—"

She cut herself off as her attention was shifted away from the side of her husband's stone-faced head and down to the muscles flexed on her extended arm. To her credit, she only wore a wide-eyed look for a second or two before quickly schooling herself.

"Oh," she uttered quietly. Her hand gave his a grateful squeeze.

None of the students would have caught their little moment; they were all much too focused on Akatsubaki's impressive display.

Tabane, however, saw it quite clearly. She sneered hatefully but it was wiped away before even he could be certain that it was there at all.

"So?" she asked expectantly, smiling brightly at Chifuyu. "Impressive, right? Remind you of anything, Chi-chan?"

…What? What did she mean by that?

Of course it did. Why would Chifuyu not recognise it, after everything? Sure, it was given a few upgrades; that automated defence response was—

A chill ran down his spine. His eyes shot wide open as he finally understood what Tabane was alluding to.

Shirou clenched his feet so tightly that he could feel his jaw pop. Tabane didn't notice his fury this time, however, as Chifuyu was given her full and undivided attention.

Tabane really didn't see the problem here, did she? She wasn't trying to rile Chifuyu up. Of course not. She loved Chifuyu, after all. This was never about the Akatsubaki. It should have been, but it wasn't. Tabane's only focus was on what the damn thing was pretending to be.

That woman's own sister was nothing more than an accessory to her obsession with Orimura Chifuyu.

As Tabane stood there with her big stupid smile, Shirou knew that she thought that she did a good thing. She was waiting for praise to come. Chifuyu's obvious discomfort wasn't ignored but rather missed entirely.

More prominently, however, Orimura Shirou was angry at all the reasons why Shinonono Tabane was Orimura Chifuyu's worst friend.

"Uh—Ma'am!" Chifuyu's TA called out to her before he could do something that he shouldn't. "You should see this!"

Chifuyu was snapped out of her daze.

"Yamada?"

The bespectacled woman ran up to them and showed the older woman something on the screen of her mini-terminal. Chifuyu took a moment to read it over silently before a clear-cut look of alarm washed over her.

She pushed the terminal to the side.

"This is an emergency order, everyone! Training is cancelled," she shouted loudly. The students turned to her in surprise. "Those of you with a personal unit, stay here. Everyone else, head back to your rooms. Immediately."

The TA's visible panic told Shirou that the command wasn't an overreaction, not that Chifuyu was prone to overreact in these types of situations. She had always done a good job of keeping a level head.

The students were doing a poor job of appropriately responding to the severity of the situation. They shared looks of uncertainty amongst themselves.

"Eh…?"

"What do you think is happening?"

"We're stopping everything, like, right now?"

"I got out of bed for this?"

Chifuyu wasn't going to wait for them to catch a clue.

"Now!" She screamed at them, and that did the trick. The students scurried back toward the resort, leaving behind only the representative candidates, Ichika, and Houki, who was making her controlled descent.

"Can you look after them?" Chifuyu asked Yamada. The woman offered a silent nod and ran after them.

This was serious, then.

"Chifuyu," he started. "What's—"

"Not now."

She didn't say anything more than that, but it shut him right up.

Chifuyu looked like she wanted to say something else right after the words left her mouth, but she decided against it.

"Follow me," she beckoned the remaining students instead and turned away. Houki, seemingly with newfound confidence, was the first to do so, but it didn't take long for Ichika and the others to follow.

As they left, no one remained to witness the accusatory glower that Shirou kept planted on Tabane, nor the woman's own joyless grin.