Fifth Bullet Olmes

It depended on the type of stimulation I received, but hysteria mode only lasted from around twenty to forty minutes. By the time I had reached terminal two of Haneda Airport, I was already back to normal mode. Even so, I couldn’t afford to stop. If my deduction was correct, Aria was about to come face to face with that person. She was about to come face to face with the “Butei killer.” With a flash of the badge in my Butei handbook, I bypassed the check-in area as well as the metal detectors and ran through the gate.

Aria. If you want to go back to England, be my guest. But don’t engage in combat with the “Butei killer” any more. If the “Butei killer” defeated my brother…you won’t be able to beat the “Butei killer” on your own. That’s a fact. My brother was strong—stronger than anyone. He was clever too. Even if I were in hysteria mode, I couldn’t even begin to compare with him.

Aria…! Next time you won’t get off with just a wound to the forehead! You’re gonna get killed! You’ll die!

I ran down the boarding bridge and as they were closing the hatch, just barely managed to get on ANA flight six hundred, Boeing 737-350 headed for London Heathrow Airport. The hatch made a loud sound as it shut behind me.

“I’m a Butei! Cancel this flight!”

I thrust my Butei badge in the face of a flight attendant with a small build who looked at me with eyes wide open.

“S-Sir, I’m terribly sorry, but what exactly–”

“There’s no time to explain! Just see to it that this plane stays grounded!”

Quite startled, the flight attendant nodded her head up and down and hurried up the stairs to the second floor. I wanted to go with her, but fell to my knees instead. Leaving Assault and letting my stamina drop so low had taken its toll on me. I was completely out of breath from sprinting all the way here and didn’t feel like I could take another step.

Well…at any rate, I’ve managed to keep the plane from taking off.

Just as that thought entered my head, I could feel the plane jolt into motion.

It’s…moving.

“U-Um…I-I couldn’t stop it. T-The pilot said that according to regulations, once we’ve entered this phase, the flight can't be aborted without orders from air traffic control,” said the flight attendant coming down from the second floor and trembling as she looked at me.

“W-What kind of idiot…?!”

“P-Please, don’t shoot! First of all, are you really a Butei? The captain screamed at me saying, ‘Stop the plane?! We haven’t received any instructions like that!’”

What a moron! What should I do? Should I force them to stop the plane even if it means threatening them with my gun? No, that’s no good. From what she just told me, it’s evident that the captain doesn’t trust me. Threatening him at this point probably wouldn’t stop the plane.

Looking out the window, I saw that ANA flight six hundred had already entered the runway. If I forced them to stop now, we’d be running the risk of colliding with another plane on the runway. I gotta think of another way. It’s too late to stop the plane. If I’ve lost the initiative, then I’ll just have to fight defensively or we’re going to lose. There’s no other choice but to change strategies. The plane had risen into the air and the fasten-seat belt lights disappeared. It was a hassle, but I calmed down the flight attendant and had her guide me to Aria’s seat—or rather, private room I should say. The cabin deck structure of this plane was clearly different from that of a regular passenger plane. The first floor was an expansive bar, and on the second floor was a center passageway with doors lined up on the left and right side. I had seen something like this on the news before. It was an ultra-luxurious passenger plane called a “flying resort”, and all of its seats were located in suites. In other words, it was a newly designed aircraft patronized by celebrities that didn’t have typical seats, but instead was built with twelve private rooms you would find at a first-class hotel, and each room was completely furnished with its own bed, shower room, and other amenities.

“…K-Kinji?!”

Aria opened her crimson eyes wide when she saw me enter her suite decorated with fresh flowers.

Great. For the time being, at least we’ve managed to meet up with each other.

“…You never cease to amaze me, milady Aria. A one-way ticket like this probably costs around two thousand dollars, no?” I made the comment while admiring the double bed and Aria got out of her seat glaring at me.

“Barging into a person’s room without permission? How rude!”

“You have absolutely no right to say something like that, wouldn’t you agree?”

Aria must have remembered how she forced her way into my apartment because she held her tongue despite her anger.

“…What did you follow me here for?”

“Why does the sun rise? Why does the moon rise?”

“Oh, shut up! If you don’t answer me, I’m gonna open a hole in you!”

I think Aria was displeased with me using her own line against her, seeing as she placed her hands on the hem of her skirt. I was actually relieved.

Good. She has her weapons with her.

“Butei Charter, Article Two, ‘Fulfill the contract made with your clients at all costs.’”

“…?”

“I promised to work with you to resolve the first case that came up after returning to Assault. That case of the “Butei killer” still hasn’t been resolved.”

“What are you boasting about? You’re just a useless guy who can’t do anything!” Aria howled like a lion cub, bearing her tooth.

“Get out of here! Thanks to you, I know all too well now. I really am suited for an “aria”! There isn’t a person in this entire world who can be my partner! That’s why I’ve decided to continue fighting alone! It doesn’t matter if my opponent is the “Butei killer” or anyone else!”

“…I wish you had said that a little sooner.” I sat down in the other available chair and looked out the window at the city below us as if it actually held my interest.

“…Once we get to London, go straight back to Japan. I can at least get you an economy class ticket in exchange for your severance pay. You don’t have anything to do with me anymore! Be sure you don’t talk to me!”

“I’ve never had anything to do with you.”

“Shut up! I forbid you to speak!”

Amidst strong winds, ANA flight six hundred soared in the skies above Tokyo Bay. Aria, with a miserable look on her face, had her arms and legs crossed as she was sitting in her chair and staring out the window. ‘I might as well be hanged’ is what I was thinking to myself. Whether the destination was London or anywhere else, if I was going to get on a plane, I would be flying regardless. At this point, the only thing left to do was wait for the enemy to make the first move.

“This is your captain speaking. I want to apologize to our guests, but in order to avoid turbulence from the typhoon, the plane will be making a detour, so our flight is estimated to be around thirty minutes late.”

The captain finished his announcement and the plane shook slightly as it resumed its flight. The shaking itself wasn’t such a big deal…

Crack! Craaack!

The sound of thunder could be heard from the comparatively nearby thundercloud.

Craaaaaack!!

A particularly loud thunder strike resonated, causing Aria’s eyes to open wide as she ducked her head.

“Scared?”

“O-Of course I’m not scared. Don’t be dumb. More importantly, don’t talk to me. Hearing your voice is irritating to no end.”

Another loud boom echoed as soon as she finished speaking.

“Kyaaa!”

I smiled wryly at seeing Aria yelp out.

Well, well. There’s something that even Miss Aria the Quadra can’t handle. Who would’ve thought it’d be thunder.

“If you’re so afraid of thunder, crawl under the sheets and tremble all you want.”

“S-Shut up, you.”

“It's gonna be a big mess if you wet yourself.”

“Y-Y-You’re an idiot!”

Craaaaaack!!

“Uwah!”

It had finally reached to the point where the deafening sound of thunder caused Aria to jump right up out of her seat. And then she really did crawl under the covers of her bed. The situation developed so identically to the way I had imagined that I couldn’t help but laugh, ignoring the dire circumstances.

It’s possible she actually wet herself.

“Aria, do you have a change of underwear?”

“K-Kinji, you’re such an idiot! I-I’m gonna open a hole in you later!”

Whoa. She’s seriously shuddering like crazy.

Craaaaaaack!! Craaaaaack!!

I’m not sure if it was just bad luck or if the captain wasn’t a very good pilot, but this plane was flying right next to a thundercloud.

“…K-Kinji~~~…”

From underneath the blankets, Aria called out to me in a tearful voice and grabbed a hold of my sleeve while I was sitting next to her.

“C-Come on. You don’t have to be that scared. Here, I’ll turn on the television.”

I shrank back a little from Aria, who was tenaciously hanging onto my sleeve like a child, and flipped through the channels after turning on the television with the remote. Recent movies and anime flashed by. I left the channel on a historical drama that was probably included for the more elderly passengers.

“Don’t claim to have forgotten about me, the great Sakurafubiki! I won’t stand for it!”

Oh…this is a sword-play samurai movie that’s based on one of my ancestors—Kin of Tohyama, a famous magistrate.

According to my brother’s theory, Kin of Tohyama also had the genetic make-up allowing him to go into hysteria mode, and apparently, he was something of an exhibitionist because by stripping himself to the waist, his intellectual and physical abilities would rapidly increase.

“Look. Watch this and take your mind off of it.”

“R-Right.”

It would seem Aria’s rule stating that I couldn’t talk to her had been rescinded. Her trembling hand, which was clinging to my sleeve, was so small and frail… At this moment, I really did think of it as the hand of any normal girl. If—and this is a big “if”—Aria were just a normal girl right now, I, being just a regular, everyday high school guy…

“Aria.”

…would bring my hand over her trembling hand…just like this…

“K-Kinji…?”

Sure. As a regular classmate, as a friend, I could at least ease her trembling.

After a few seconds of hesitation, just when Aria’s fingers were about to close on my hand…

Blam! Blam!

…a sound resonated throughout the plane. This time, it wasn’t the sound of thunder, but a sound that we the students of Butei High are more used to hearing—gunshots. Stepping out into the narrow corridor, I found the place to be in utter chaos. Passengers coming out of the twelve rooms and a few flight attendants—a medley of the young, the old, males, and females—were creating a ruckus with anxious looks on their faces. Looking towards the front of the plane where the gunshots came from, I saw that the door to the cockpit was wide open.

“!”

Beside it stood the small-figured idiot of a flight attendant I dealt with earlier. She was dragging the captain and copilot out of the cockpit. I wasn’t sure what happened to them, but they weren’t moving at all. Seeing the attendant cast them aside on the floor of the corridor, I hurriedly drew my gun.

“Freeze!”

Upon hearing me, the flight attendant raised her head and smiled with a face lacking any characteristic features. She then winked at me and went back into the cockpit saying, “Freaking attention please.”

I heard a brief, sharp noise like a pin being drawn, and the flight attendant threw a can at me that she pulled out from inside her blouse. It rolled up next to my feet and a chill ran down my spine.

“Kinji!”

Subduing her fear of thunder, Aria cried out as she came out of the room.

Psssssshhhh!

I could tell from the noise. It was a gas canister. Sarin. Soman. Tabun. Phosgene. Zyklon B. The names of all the poison gases I learned about in Assault raced through my mind. If it were a particularly strong type of gas, this battle was already lost.

“Everyone, get back into your rooms! Shut the doors!” I yelled as I pushed Aria back into the room.

Just before I closed the door, the plane shook violently. All of the lights went out, and the fearful screams of the passengers could be heard one after another. Before long, the darkness was illuminated by red emergency lamps.

“…Kinji! Are you okay?!”

I looked up at Aria who was showing concern for my well-being and tried taking a deep breath. I was able to breathe. I could see. My limbs weren’t paralyzed. I’d been had. Apparently, the gas ejected was harmless.

“Aria. That ridiculous way of speaking…that flight attendant was the “Butei killer”. The perp showed up after all.”

“…after all…? You knew the “Butei killer” was going to show up…?” Aria looked at me with her camellia-colored eyes wide open.

I decided to tell her about the deduction I made while I was in hysteria mode.

“The ‘Butei killer’ started off with a motorcycle-jacking and a carjacking. This is something I just learned about recently, but…a certain Butei was also killed in a boat-jacking incident. In that particular case, the Butei probably confronted the ‘Butei killer’ face to face.”

“…Why do you think so?”

“Because the boat-jacking was the only incident you didn't know about. You didn't intercept the radio frequency, right?”

“Y-Yeah.”

“The ‘Butei killer’ wasn’t sending out any. In other words, there was no need to control the ship remotely. The culprit was there on the boat in person.”

I had always found it odd that my older brother, of all people, “didn’t make it out in time”.

“But the targeted vehicles—a motorcycle, a car, a boat—which became larger each time, suddenly got smaller. My bicycle. After that was the bus.”

“…!”

“Do you get it, Aria? From the very beginning, it was a message. She had you in the palm of her hand from the start. She pinned the guilt on your mother and declared war on you. And now she’s planning on having a confrontation with you during this third incident just like she did with my brot…I mean, the Butei who was killed in the boat-jacking. Only this time a plane’s been hijacked.”

Aria, who wasn’t very good at deduction, gritted her teeth in frustration. All of a sudden…

Beep, beep. Beep. Beep, beep, beep.

The fasten-safety belt lights made emergency high-pitched noises as they began flickering erratically.

“…Japanese Morse code…” whispered Aria.

That being the case, I tried my hand at deciphering the flashing lights as I was rocked back and forth in the plane.

Come on over. IU is heaven. Come on over. I’m at the bar on the first floor.

“She’s inviting you to come down.”

“That’s just fine. I’ll open a hole in her,” said Aria narrowing her eyes in anger and pulling the pistols out from underneath her skirt one right after the other.

“I’ll come with you. I’m not sure if I’ll be of much help in my current state though.”

“I don’t need you to come with me.”

Craaaaack!

Aria’s entire body went stiff as the thundercloud outside made its presence known again.

“Should I come or not?”

“I-If you want to come so badly, I won’t stop you.”

Following the small guide lights that were installed on the flooring at regular intervals, the two of us cautiously made our way down to the first floor. The first floor was a lavishly decorated bar, and underneath its chandelier, a woman was sitting cross-legged at the counter. It was the flight attendant from earlier.

“!?”

With our pistols pointed at her, both of us knitted our brows. She was wearing a Butei High school uniform. Not only that, but it was a remodeled school uniform trimmed with innumerable frills. Her skirt, bulging outwards like a flower with the help of a pannier, was the same one Riko was wearing at Odaiba.

“You freaking played marvelously into my hands this time as well.”

As she said this, the flight attendant tore off the mask-like prosthetic makeup she was wearing over her face. From behind it appeared…

“…Riko?!”

“Bon soir.”

There was no mistake. The person in front of us who guzzled down a blue cocktail and winked at me was none other than Riko. I was utterly astounded at this bizarre turn of events. Did this mean that after parting with me in Odaiba, she got on that customized Vespa and tracked down this plane just like I did? Did she then dress up like a flight attendant and used her Butei badge to get onboard?

“A person’s talents for doing battle with others by utilizing both brain and brawn tend to be inherited, don’t they? There are quite a few gifted people at Butei High who inherited their talents like the two of you did. But…your family is special, Olmes.”

“…!”

Upon hearing Riko say that word, Aria stiffened up as if an electrical current had passed through her body.

Olmes…? Was that the family name of Aria’s British relatives, the “H’s”?

“Who…are you exactly?”

Riko smiled at Aria who was furrowing her brow, and the lightning that flashed by the window illuminated her smiling face.

“Riko Mine Lupin the Forth. That’s my real name.”

…Lupin…? That Lupin? The great French phantom thief who we read about in our Inquesta textbook? Riko is…the great-granddaughter of Arsène Lupin?!

“But…no one in my family ever called me ‘Riko’. They wouldn’t call me by the cute name my mother gave me. They had a strange way of addressing me.”

“Strange…?” whispered Aria.

“Fourth. Fourth. Fourth. Miss Fooourth. Every single one of them…even the damned servants…that’s what they called me. Isn’t that horrible?”

“W-What of it? What’s so bad about “Fourth”?

For some reason, Riko suddenly opened her eyes wide and glared at Aria who posed the question.

“…What isn’t bad about it?! Am I a number?! Am I nothing but DNA?! I’m Riko! I’m not a number! Damn you all!”

Without warning, Riko went into a rage. She wasn’t screaming at us per se, but at somebody else. Her anger wasn’t directed at the present situation, but at somewhere else.

What’s with this girl?!

“Unless I exceed my great-grandfather, I’ll never be able to be myself. I’ll just be treated as ‘Lupin’s great-granddaughter’. That’s why I joined IU and obtained this power. Using this power, I’m going to take myself back!”

Aria had a serious look on her face while she was listening to Riko, who wasn’t making a bit of sense.

“Wait. Hold on. What are you talking about…?! What is Olmes? What is IU? Were you…really the one behind the ‘Butei killings’?!”

“…‘Butei killings’? Oh. That was just…” Riko shifted her gaze to Aria. “…a game I was using as a prologue. The person I’m really after is Olmes the Fourth—you, Aria.”

Her eyes were no longer the eyes of the Riko I knew. They were the eyes of an animal fixated on its prey.

“One hundred years ago, the battle between our great-grandfathers ended in a draw. In other words, if I can eliminate Olmes the Fourth, I can prove that I’ve surpassed my great-grandfather. Kinji…be sure to play your part.”

The animal-like eyes turned towards me.

“Members of the Olmes family require a partner. Olmes the First, who fought with my great-grandfather, had an excellent partner. That’s why I had you hook up with Aria—to keep the conditions the same.”

“You brought Aria and me together?”

“Yup.”

Riko giggled and reverted back to her usual frivolous self.

This girl… The whole “idiot Riko" character was just an act she had been putting on the entire time.

“I planted a bomb on your bicycle and had it send out a reeeally simple radio frequency.”

“So you realized I was tracking the radio frequency that the ‘Butei killer’ used…!”

“Well of course I did. I mean, you were so overtly checking with Connect. But Kinji didn’t seem very interested…so I had him cooperate with you during the bus-jacking.”

“The bus-jacking too…?!”

“Kinjiii. A Butei should never entrust his watch to somebody else, no matter what the circumstances are. If you keep track of time with an imprecise watch, you’ll be late for school.”

My watch… So when we were in the greenhouse, she broke it on purpose. Then she offered to repair the watch as an excuse to take it home with her where she tampered with it. As a result, I missed the seven fifty-eight bus that day…

“So…everything went just as you planned, is that it?!”

“Mmm, not exactly. There was one thing that was completely unexpected. I used the bicycle-jacking as a way of getting you two to meet, and I had you team up with each other during the bus-jacking. But I hadn't counted on your unwillingness to stay partners with Aria. I was rather surprised that you didn’t take action until I told you about how I took care of your brother.”

Kinichi.

“My brother… It was you…?!”

Kinichi. The person I idolized and respected more than anyone. She’s the one who killed him…!

I could feel it. I could feel the blood rushing to my head.

This was my weakness. When my brother was involved, I couldn’t keep my cool…!

“Hee hee. Look, Aria. Your partner’s upset. Fight alongside him!”

Riko… Just what one would expect from the granddaughter of phantom thief Lupin. I assume this is all going according to plan as well…!

“Kinji, I’ll let you in on something special. Guess what? Your brother…he’s currently my boyfriend.”

“Cut the crap!”

“Kinji! She’s trying to provoke us! Calm down!”

“How the hell am I supposed to calm down!?”

I am not going to let you continue to insult my departed brother!

I impulsively tightened the grip in my right hand, which was holding the Beretta, and at that instant, the plane shook violently again.

“!”

“Oh là là♪” Before I realized it, the Beretta had disappeared from my hand. The gun made a hollow sound as it broke apart on the floor right behind me. All I could see was the smiling face of Riko who was pointing a small-sized pistol at me—a Walther P99.

“Non, non. We can’t have that, Kinji. The way you are now, you won’t be of any use in a battle. And besides, Olmes’ partner isn’t the type who participates in fighting. He takes the viewpoint of a regular civilian, giving Olmes hints and drawing out her full potential. Play that role.”

Seeing an opening while Riko was busy giving her lecture, Aria made her move. She was like a little lioness. I had just noticed her spring forward when she had her two pistols out homing in on Riko. She must have judged from seeing Riko’s weapon that it would work. In close combat between two Butei who always wore bulletproof clothing, a bullet was no longer a weapon that penetrated and killed the opponent in one shot. It became a blunt weapon. That being the case, the total number of bullets in one’s possession would determine the outcome. If Riko were hiding an Uzi, which can contain twenty or thirty bullets, underneath that large skirt of hers, Aria would be at a disadvantage. But a Walther 99 normally only held up to sixteen bullets. In comparison, Aria’s Government held seven bullets. If you put a bullet in the chamber ahead of time, or inserted one into the ejector, that would make a total of eight. Since she had two pistols, that gave her a total of sixteen shots. It was even.

Or so I thought.

“Aria, you shouldn’t assume you’re the only one who uses twin pistols.” Riko threw aside her cocktail glass and with that hand, pulled out another Walther P99 from underneath her skirt.

“!”

But Aria wasn’t in a position to stop now.

Blam, blam blam!

Aria started firing her pistols at Riko from point-blank range.

“Grah! Why you…!”

“Haha! Ahahaha!”

Aria and Riko were competing to hit each other with their bullets, the two of them only inches apart. Butei Charter, Article Nine, “Under no circumstances shall a Butei kill another person while operating as a Butei.” Aria avoided aiming at Riko’s head in order to uphold that law. I’m uncertain if Riko was attempting to fight on the same terms, but she wasn’t aiming at Aria’s head either. Aria’s and Riko’s hands intermingled as if they were in the middle of a fierce martial arts competition. A close-combat gun fight between Butei involved staying out of your opponent’s line of fire, dodging, or using your own arms to knock aside the arms of your opponent.

Bang! Bang, Bang!

The bullets fired from their guns miss their small-bodied targets and instead embed themselves into the walls and the floor.

“Ha!”

Riko laughed aloud when both of Aria’s guns signaled that they were out of ammunition, but at that instant, Aria pinned both of Riko’s arms underneath her armpits. The two of them stood there together as if they were embracing, and Riko’s pistols went silent.

That’s the way! In hand-to-hand combat, the odds look like they’d be in Aria’s favor…!

“Kinji!”

Aria called out to me, but there was no need. Spinning it in my hands, I opened the butterfly knife I kept as a keepsake of my brother. Its blade looked red, glinting under the emergency lamps.

“That’s as far you go, Riko!” I said as I ran towards them, careful to stay clear of the pistols sticking out from behind Aria.

“Quadra… It’s such a coincidence, isn’t it Aria?” said Riko. “You and I are alike in many ways. Our lineage. Our cute looks. And…our nicknames.”

“?”

“I have the same name as you do— ‘Riko the Quadra’. But you know, Aria…”

I stopped in my tracks. Instinctively, it was all I could do, faced with the surreal and eerie scene that spread out before me.

What…is that?!

“…Your ‘Quadra’ isn’t the real thing. You’re still oblivious…to my real power!”

Riko laughed. And as she did so, one of her pigtails was moving—just like the hair of Medusa from Greek mythology. It grabbed onto a knife that Riko had probably hidden on her back and used it to attack Aria.

“!”

Just as shocked as I was, Aria dodged the first strike…but Riko’s other pigtail, which was also armed with a knife, found its target, drawing fresh blood.

“Aaaaagh!” screamed Aria reeling backwards.

She had been cut on the side of her head. Red blood gushed out from the wound.

“Aha…ahaha! Great-grandfather, after one hundred and eight years this much of a difference in ability between descendants can change, can’t it? This girl can’t even use her own powers let alone a partner! I can win! I can win! Today, I can become me! Aha! Ahaha! Ahahahaha!”

Riko laughed as she started to talk unreasonably again, all the while thrusting Aria backwards with her hair. That hair must have been exceptionably powerful because it was startling to see just how easily Aria was knocked back before falling at my feet like a tattered rag.

“Aria…Aria!”

Tightly closing her eyelids against the blood that painted her face dark red, Aria continued to grip the pistols in her hands. Riko licked the blood off the knife being held by her hair with a gratifying look on her face.

Unreal…She’s a monster. What I need to do right now is get Aria out of here.

I could hear Riko laughing at the top of her lungs as I turned my back on her and ran with Aria in my arms.

“Ahahahahaha! Come on, now. Where do you think you’re going to run to in a small plane like this?!”

It had been a while since the last time I held Aria in my arms like a princess—and she was so light, it filled me with grief. When human beings become stiff or struggle about, they feel heavier than they actually are. Aria must have been losing consciousness because she was in a complete state of lethargy. I ran into the suite we had been in previously and laid Aria on the bed. The first thing I did was clean the blood off Aria’s face with one of the towels that the room was supplied with.

“Ngh…..” Aria groaned.

Above her temple was a deep cut underneath her hair.

This is bad. It hit an artery on the side of her head. It’s not as vital as the carotid artery but I’ve got to stop the bleeding right away…!

“Get a grip…the wound isn't that deep!”

Using the hemostatic bandage in my Butei handbook, I sealed the wound on Aria’s head. The bandage was nothing but a temporary form of treatment that used petroleum jelly to forcefully stop the bleeding. I wonder if Aria was aware of that; she smiled listlessly, paying little heed to the lie I told her.

“Aria!”

Half crazed, I stuck my fingers into the penholder of my Butei handbook and pulled out a small hypodermic syringe that had the words ‘Razzo’ written on it.

“I’m gonna use Razzo! You’re not allergic, right?!”

“…n…o…”

Razzo was like a condensed mixture of adrenaline and morphine. Basically, it was a restorative drug that contained both an analeptic and an analgesic. “Razzo is a drug that’s injected directly into the heart. This can’t be helped, okay?”

Having given Aria advanced notice, I climbed on the bed and sat straddling her small body. I then took a hold of the collar of Aria’s sailor uniform.

“I-If you…do…anything..weird…I’ll…blow…”

“Right. Do me a favor and recover to the point of being able to blow a hole in me…!”

I aggressively unzipped and opened up her blouse.

“Uu……” Aria trembled slightly.

That bra decorated with the symbols from a deck of cards was completely exposed. Her skin was like white porcelain. Her breasts were adorable, covered by a single thin cloth. My heart raced with a nearly audible thud. At a time like this…talk about indiscretion.

But damn it, why is every inch of this girl so cute?

“Aria…!”

I laid trembling fingers on her white skin. Searching for her sternum, my fingers traveled down her miniature torso. At two fingers length higher, I found her heart. It was right where the front hook of her bra was at.

“K-Kinji…”

“Don’t move.”

“I…I’m scared...”

As she spoke in such a feeble voice, I used my teeth to remove the cap from the syringe I held in my right hand.

“…Aria, can you hear me?! Here it comes!”

She didn’t answer. She didn’t budge. The beating of her heart—it had stopped.

Aria!

“…come back!!”

I thrust the syringe into Aria’s chest as if I were slamming my fist down on top of her. Hesitate and it’s over. That’s why I strengthened my resolve and just injected the medicine into her heart.

“…!”

Aria went into convulsions. Her face twisted in response to the intense power of the drug. But I was happy to see her face even in that condition. It was proof that she was alive. She had been resuscitated.

“Ngh…!”

Aria inhaled deeply through her nose and opened her small mouth in a quiver.

What’s the outcome…?

On the verge of reviving, Aria’s pallid skin began to retrieve its pink color and, and her respiration gradually became stronger. And then…

“Hwuah!” Aria gasped, and the upper half of her body sprung up like a zombie does in the movies.

“Huh…wha?! W-W-W-W-What the-?! What is this?! M-My breasts?!”

It would seem that due to the medicine, Aria’s memory was in disarray, and she was unable to remember a few details.

“Ki-Kinji! You did it again, didn’t you?! W-Why do you want to look at my breasts so badly?! Are you trying to make fun of me? Is it because they’re small?! They just won’t grow, no matter how many years pass! I’m just gonna be one hundred and forty-two centimeters tall for the rest of my life!”

In her confused state, not only Aria’s face, but her entire body was as red as a boiled octopus while she was closing her blouse. Soon enough she realized that there was a syringe stuck in her chest.

“Gyaaah!”

She let out a scream unlike anything you’d think you would ever hear from an elegant high school girl and swinging her arm in a wide arc, wildly yanking out the syringe.

“Look at what you’re holding! You were taken out by Riko, and I used Razzo to…”

“Riko…Rikoooo!!”

In a frenzy, Aria fixed her clothing and grabbed her two pistols off the bed. She then tried to stagger her way out of the room with the look of a demon on her face.

Not good.

Razzo was a restorative, but at the same time, it was also a stimulant. Aria’s physical constitution must have made her particularly susceptible to its effects because she wasn’t in her right mind. She wasn’t able to judge how much of a difference there was in combat ability between her and Riko.

“Aria, wait! You won’t be able to win against her using standard means!” I yelled as I stood blocking the door and grabbed both of her gun-toting hands with my own.

“It doesn’t matter! Let…go! You go hide in fear somewhere!” Aria yelled back with her hands grasped by mine and bearing her fang-like tooth.

“Q-Quiet down, Aria! Riko’s going to find out that we’re in the same room and that we’re also not working as a team!”

“I don’t care! I’m ‘Aria’, anyway! I’ll take care of Riko by myself! And besides, you didn't need to come here to help in the first place!” A crazed look had surfaced in the red pupils of Aria’s eyes, which were glaring at me.

This is not good. It doesn’t look like I can get her to calm down.

“You hate me, don’t you?! You said it yourself before you went looking for that cat when we were in Oumi! I remember it clearly!”

God, what can I do to shut her up? I’ve got to seal this mouth that hollers with an anime voice. But there’s no way I’m letting go of these hands that are holding onto her guns. The second I do, she’ll probably shoot me and run right out of this room. There’s got to be some way to… There might be one…

It was a last-resort measure that would take advantage of Aria’s weak point. But if I were to go through with it, I…almost without a doubt would go into hysteria mode—that hysteria mode which brought nothing but bad memories and caused my brother’s downfall. It would summon forth my other self whom I absolutely didn’t want to be and didn’t want to show anyone, especially a girl.

But…but…! But right now, there’s no other way! At this rate, Riko is going to come straight for us. She might even already be behind the door.

If Riko were to hear us arguing, she would probably reason that she could finish us off easily. And she would be right. Unarmed as I am, naturally I’d be killed, but so would Aria…!

“I remember! You told me, “I absolutely, positively hate you”! I was acting like it didn’t bother me when you said that but…I was thinking of you as a potential partner and yet…you told me you hated me! The truth is I was really hurt back then…!”

Aria…forgive me!

“So I don’t care anymore! If you hate me, that’s fine! Just go ahead and hat–”

I sealed Aria’s screaming mouth…

…with my own.

“………!!!”

Aria was so surprised, her camellia-colored eyes seemed like they might pop right out of her head. As I suspected, this midget of girl who didn't know how to handle romantic situations, went completely stiff as a result of the kiss I gave her out of desperation. She didn’t just quiet down, her whole body, even the tips of her hands became as rigid as stone.

And this kiss…It was a double-edged sword.

Aria’s lips, like the petals of a cherry blossom, were so small and soft… I could feel those lips, slightly warmer than mine, becoming the embers that set my entire body ablaze. My heart thumped loudly. I felt a painfully sharp constricting sensation at the core of my body. It burned like fire, and I could feel something surging up from there that I couldn't hold back.

…Incredible. This is the first time in my life…I’ve ever experienced such an intense hysteria mode…!

The two of us took a deep breath as our lips parted. It was a rather long kiss since both of us had frozen up.

“Aria…forgive me. There was no other choice.”

“…o-o-o-open a h-ho-…” The strength left her legs, and she sank down onto the floor. “K-K-Kinji, you idiot…! What d-do you think you’re doing…at a time like this…?! That…that…that was my f-f-f…first kiss…!”

For a second, I thought she was going to cause another commotion, but it didn't look like that was the case. The tearful voice that was coming from the back of her throat was dull and husky.

“Don’t worry. It was mine, too.”

“You idiot…! T-Take responsibility…!”

Now in hysteria mode, I knelt down and brought my eyes at the same level as Aria’s who had been looking up at me on the verge of crying and shaking like a small animal.

“You got it. I’ll take responsibility in any way you’d like. But…first we’ve got some work to do.”

“…Kinji…! This is the second time you…”

Aria seemed to have noticed that my voice was much calmer and deeper than it was previously. She opened her eyes wide with an expression on her face that indicated she had remembered something—most likely the bicycle-jacking incident. I brought my mouth to the side of her head that wasn’t injured and whispered into her ear.

“Butei Charter, Article One, ‘Believe in your comrades and help one another.’ I believe in you, Aria. So believe in me, and use me as a decoy. Listen to me. We’re going to work together…and arrest the ‘Butei killer.’”

“It’s time for the ‘bad ending’. Hee hee. Hee hee hee.”

Using a key she must have procured from somewhere, Riko opened the door to our suite. She held the door open with her knife wielding hair just as if it were her own hand, and in each of her actual hands, she held a pistol as she smiled at me.

“I figured you two might have killed each other after fighting among yourselves. But that doesn’t seem to be the case, so here I am! Ah…”

Did Riko catch on to the fact that I was so calm I could have been mistaken for another person? She truly looked happy as she clapped her guns and knives together.

“Haha! Did you and Aria do something together? I’m surprised you could under these circumstances. Hee hee.”

Riko… Did she know about it? Did she know about my hysteria mode?

“So? What’s going on with Aria? Don’t tell me she died,” said Riko pointing to the bed with the knife in her hair. There was a lump underneath the blanket consisting of a pillow and sheets that was made to look like a person was lying in the bed.

“Who knows?”

Just very briefly, I looked towards the shower room to the side of me with my eyes, and Riko, observant as she was, followed my gaze.

“Aaaaah…I just love it when you’re like that. It makes my heart race. I might lose control and wind up killing you.”

“That’s the attitude you better have when you come at me. Otherwise you’ll be killed,” I said in a warning tone.

Riko had a look of shock on her face as she pointed her gun at me.

“You are the greatest. I just love you to death, Kinji. Come on. Show me what Olmes’ partner can do.” Riko started to pull the trigger of her gun, and I raised the emergency oxygen cylinder, which I had hidden next to the bed, in front of her vertically.

“…!”

If she were to fire, it would explode. I would be done for, but so would Riko. Realizing this, Riko hesitated for an instant. That instant was all I needed. I threw the cylinder at Riko, and then lunged at her myself. If I could get next to her, I could overwhelm her with the difference in our physiques. The butterfly knife I had hidden made an audible noise as I opened it in the palm of my hand.

“…!”

Riko knit her brows, and at that exact same moment…

“Whoa!”

The plane must have entered an air pocket because it suddenly lurched wildly. I hadn’t planned on this sort of bad luck manifesting itself again. It took me by surprise, even in hysteria mode. Losing my footing, I fell on one knee and watched as Riko laughed and pointed her Walther at my forehead in the tilted room. And then…

…!

From the muzzle of her gun, a bullet came speeding towards me. I could see it. I can’t dodge this—not to right or left. There’s absolutely no way. If that’s the case…!

Screeeech!

Using my knife, I cut the bullet in two. I was in astonishment myself at the feat. The effects of the hysteria mode I had gone into this time were tremendous. Splitting a bullet in two—to be honest, I was only half way convinced it could be done. I could hear both halves of the bullet driving themselves into the wall behind me to the left and to the right. While Riko was looking at me wide-eyed, a hint of awe mixed with the expression of surprise on her face, I drew the black Government I had borrowed from Aria and pointed it at her.

“Don’t move!”

“Shoot me and Aria’s dead!” Riko threatened.

She seemed to have judged that, given the position her body was in, she wouldn’t have been able to aim the gun at me in time and pointed it toward the shower room. At that moment, the door to the small cabinet next to the ceiling opened, and Aria came rolling out with her silver government in hand.

Blam, blam!

She shot both pistols out of Riko’s hands with amazing precision.

“!!”

Then, while still in mid-air, she discarded her gun and pulled out two Japanese swords from behind her that arced toward Riko like meteors. In that one fluid motion after drawing the swords, she continued to bring them down on Riko’s pigtails, severing them from the rest of her hair. The light brown frizzy hair that had been fashioned into pigtails fell to the floor along with the knives.

“Ah...!”

Riko placed her hands on the sides of her head and let out a cry of anxiety for the first time. Aria put away her swords and recovered her pistol in one smooth motion.

“Riko Mine Lupin the Fourth.” “You’ve been caught in the act of attempted murder, and we’re placing you under arrest.”

I started the sentence and Aria finished it as we simultaneously pointed the black and silver Governments at Riko. Riko looked back and forth between Aria and me with a huge smile on her face.

“I see. You made it seem like she was under the bed and in the shower room, but you were bluffing in both cases. In actuality, you made use of Aria’s small size and hid her in the cabinet…Very nice. You can’t pull off a double bluff unless you’re really in tune with one another.”

“It was against my will, but I did live with her for a while. You get in tune even if you don’t really want to.”

“You two should be proud of yourselves. This is the first time I’ve ever been pushed this far into a corner.”

“We’re far beyond pushing you into a corner. It’s checkmate.”

“You’re such a moron,” said Riko, her voice dripping with venom.

Riko’s hair suddenly began to wriggle about in its entirety. I was late to react to the uncanny scene in front of me. Inside of Riko’s hair…something was being operated?

“Stop! What are you doing?!”

I charged at Riko in an attempt to seize her, but at that moment, the plane lurched violently again. It was descending rapidly…! Aria lost her balance and slammed into the wall. It was the best I could do to simply stay on my feet.

“Buh-bye” Riko said as she dashed out of the suite with lightning speed.

I thought it was odd. This plane reeled in Riko’s favor way too often. She probably had a remote control hidden in her hair that she was using to control the plane. ANA flight six hundred was losing altitude at an alarming rate as it descended among the clouds of a typhoon.

What is she planning to do by decreasing the plane’s altitude this much?

I raced through the corridor surrounded by the screams of the other passengers and went down the stairs. Riko was standing with her back against a window in the corner of the bar.

“Where do you think you’re going to run to in a small plane like this, my little squirrel?” I threw back at Riko the same words she used earlier as I pointed the Government at her.

“Hee hee. Kinji, I’d advise you not to come any closer than that,” Riko smiled, showing off her white teeth. Clay-like objects—most likely bombs—were taped to the wall, forming a circle around Riko. “As you know, being the ‘Butei killer’, I specialize in bombs.”

Seeing me stop, Riko gathered the hem of her skirt in her hands and raised it slightly, bowing to me in feigned politeness.

“Say, Kinji. Want to come over to the heaven on earth known as IU? Bringing one person along wouldn’t be a problem. I could take you with me. You know, in IU…” Riko narrowed her eyes. “…you’ll find your brother.”

I don’t believe this girl. She’s desecrating the memory of my brother again.

“Don't make me any angrier than I already am. Mark my words, Riko. Mention my brother again and I just might violate Article Nine on impulse. That would result in an undesirable conclusion for both of us, wouldn’t you say?”

Butei law, Article Nine, “Under no circumstances shall a Butei kill another person while operating as a Butei.” “Ah. We can’t have that. I need you to remain a Butei,” said Riko winking at me and wrapping both of her arms around her body. “Let Aria know that we’ll welcome the two of you anytime, then.”

Boooooooom!

Without warning, Riko detonated the blasting charges behind her.

“…!”

A circular hole had opened in the wall and Riko used it to leap outside of the plane. And she did so without a parachute…!

“Ri-…!”

I tried to shout out her name, but I couldn’t. The air within the room was rushing towards the window as if it were being sucked out by a giant vacuum cleaner. The alarms inside the plane blared, and oxygen masks fell from the ceiling like an avalanche. All the various objects in the bar were sent flying towards the gaping hole—paper, tablecloths, glasses, wine bottles…me.

“…!”

I grabbed onto a stool that was fixed to the floor, and the plane’s automated systems started to scatter about fire extinguishing substances and sheets of silicon from the ceiling. Those adhesive sheets, which were like birdlime, amassed in mid-air and closed off the hole Riko made just like a spider web. Reaching out to a nearby window, I pulled myself up and looked outside. What I saw in the faint moonlight was Riko drifting farther and farther away as she spun in circles like a dancer with the sky as her stage. I watched as Riko unraveled the ribbon on her back, causing her excessively large skirt and blouse to transform into an awkward looking parachute. The last I saw of her was when she waved her hand in my direction and vanished into the clouds with nothing on but her undergarments.

I see now. She lowered the plane’s altitude this far so she could make her escape.

“…?!”

There were two flashes of light that showed up from behind the clouds Riko had just disappeared into, and they were heading this way at a ridiculously fast speed. My hysteria mode-enhanced eyes closed in on the objects.

You…you gotta be kidding me. Missiles?!

Boooooooooom!!

A devastating sound thundered, and ANA flight six hundred experienced the most sever oscillations of its flight. The impact was clearly unlike something caused by a gust of wind or lightning. It was like the plane had been struck twice by a giant hammer.

“…!”

I hung onto the window as if my life depended on it. Then I looked towards the wings of the plane, praying that they would still be there. It had taken one nightmarish beating after another, but ANA flight six hundred managed to be holding up. There were two jet engines situated on each of its wings, and the inner engine of each pair had been destroyed, but the remaining outer engines were intact. The plane was just barely staying airborne as smoke trailed behind it like shed blood. I was still feeling dizzy due to the sudden drop in air pressure, but I had to hurry to the cockpit. ANA flight six hundred might have withstood the missile attack, but it was still continuing its rapid decent.

The captain and co-pilot seemed to have been hit with tranquilizer darts courtesy of Riko, for they both were unconscious.

“…What took you so long?!” Aria, who I presumed entered the cockpit by using the IC chip embedded keys she took off the pilots, turned around and screamed at me while bearing her tooth when I arrived. At her feet lay an odd piece of equipment which resembled the barbette that had been attached to the Segways. It appeared to be the remains of a device Aria dismantled—the one Riko installed for the purpose of controlling the plane remotely via the controller she had hidden in her hair. Aria fit her small body snuggly into the pilot’s seat and took hold of the steering wheel-shaped control column.

“Aria, can you pilot an airplane?”

“I could if it were a Cessna. I’ve never flown a jet plane before.”

She pulled back on the control column with so much force and so little hesitation that I had trouble expelling a few doubts in my mind. ANA flight six hundred responded by elevating its nose as if it had suddenly woken up from a slumber.

“I can control the planes altitude and direction, but…”

“Can you land?”

“No.”

“…I see.”

I could tell that the plane was flying horizontally. Returning my attention to the window, which was streaked with heavy rainfall, I noticed the plane was flying so close to the ocean surface that a chill ran down my spine. It couldn’t have been much more than three hundred meters in the air. It was a perilous situation. I sat down in the other chair and upon finding the radio, switched from intercom to speaker.

“…Please respond…thirty-one. I repeat. This is Haneda Control Tower. ANA flight six hundred, respond on emergency communication frequency one twenty-seven six thirty-one. I repeat. One twenty-seven six thirty-one. Please respond.”

Their communication came through. I turned on the microphone that was installed on the instrument board.

“…This is flight six hundred. The plane was hijacked moments ago, but we’ve managed to regain control. The captain and co-pilot are incapacitated. Currently, we two Butei who were passengers on the flight are piloting the plane. My name is Kinji Tohyama. The other is Aria H. Kanzaki.”

The voices of the people at Haneda were mixed with both relief and surprise in response to my statement.

Great. For the time being, at least we’ve established a connection with the control tower.

I then proceeded to make use of the satellite phone I took off the captain’s belt a short while ago. This type of phone, which was very similar in appearance to a cell phone, was also used in maritime communications, so it was capable of making a connection to a phone line via satellite no matter where you called from or at what speed you were traveling. As I started making the call, I connected the phone to the speaker using Bluetooth. I was still in hysteria mode. Everything I needed to do came to mind in perfect order.

“Who are you calling?”

Aria’s question was answered by the new voice that came from the speaker.

“Hello?”

“Muto, it’s me. Sorry for calling from an unfamiliar phone number.”

“I-Is this Kinji?! Where are you right now?! Your girlfriend is in trouble!”

“She’s not my girlfriend, but if you’re referring to Aria, she’s right here next to me.”

Goki Muto was an excellent student in the Logi division. Keeping relations with the guy seemed to be my inescapable fate, but the time had finally come for it to pay off.

“Wait…What are you doing…?!” Muto said, confused.

“G…gir…girl…”

Having been called my girlfriend, Aria displayed her proneness to blushing and became a stuttering mess. She looked like she was about to start protesting so I placed my index finger on her lips and put a stop to it.

“…Ngh!”

Aria became redder still, but more importantly, she stiffened up and remained quiet.

“…Muto, I’m surprised you knew about the hijacking. Is it on the news?”

“It’s been big news for a while now. A passenger probably used one of the phones inside the plane to report the incident. The guys at Connect looked up the list of passenger names in no time. Aria’s name was included so we all gathered here at the classroom.”

I gave a brief explanation of our current situation to Haneda Control Tower and Muto. I told them how the plane had been hijacked and that the perpetrator escaped. I also mentioned that we were hit by missiles and two of our engines were destroyed.

“ANA flight six hundred, remain calm. That B737-350 was made using the most state-of-the-art technology. It can fly without any problem using just the remaining two engines. That’s a benefit that won’t change regardless of how bad weather conditions are.”

Aria showed signs of relief at hearing the information Haneda Control Tower provided.

“More importantly, Kinji, you said the two engines that were destroyed were the inner engines, right? Tell me the number on the fuel gauge. There should be a square-shaped screen a little above the center of the EICAS (Engine-indicating and crew-alerting system). You’ll see a circular meter with two rows of numbers, each with four digits. Below that, there are three graduations next to the word ‘Fuel’. Tell me the number that’s in the center, marked ‘Total.’”

That was a vehicle geek for you. Muto spoke as if he were looking right at the instrument board.

“It just became five-forty. It seems to be dropping little by little. It’s at five thirty-five now.”

I heard Muto click his tongue after I told him what he wanted to know.

“Damn it…it’s really leaking excessively.”

“The fuel’s leaking…?! T-Tell me how to stop it!” Aria cried hysterically.

There was a short pause.

“There’s no way to stop it. Simply put, the engines of the B737-350 that are closer to the fuselage are also the gates to the fuel system. If they’ve been destroyed, the leakage can’t be stopped no matter what you do.

“H-How much longer will the fuel last?”

“There might be a lot of fuel left, but it’s leaking out at a fast pace. I hate to tell you this, but…around fifteen minutes.”

“This state-of-the-art technology is really something.” I said in a word of sarcasm to the people at Haneda Control Tower.

“Kinji, I heard this from the guys at Connect, but apparently that plane had just been flying in circles above Sagami Bay. Right now, you’re flying above the Uraga Channel. Head back to Haneda. Considering the distance to other airports, that’s you’re only option.”

“That was my intention all along,” said Aria.

“…ANA flight six hundred, how are you piloting the plane? Make sure you don’t take it off of autopilot.”

“The autopilot went off-line a long time ago. I’m piloting the plan right now.”

Aria looked at the section of the instrument board where a red light that read ‘Autopilot’ was flashing, accompanied by a warning tone that beeped at the same tempo. I didn’t know the details, but Aria was probably right.

“…that being the case, I’d appreciate it if you’d tell me how to land.”

“…it’s not the sort of thing an amateur can become capable of doing right on the spot… Currently, we’re preparing to engage in emergency communications with the nearby aircrafts in the area. We’ll try to find a captain with a long history of flying the same model plane…”

“There’s no time,” I interjected. “I want you to open communications between us and every other aircraft in the vicinity. Can you do it?”

“W-Well, yes, that’s possible, but…what do you plan on doing?”

“I’m going to divide them up and have all of them explain to me at the same time the different procedures required to land this plane. Muto, you help out too.”

“At the same time?! Kinji, you’re not Prince Shoutoku!”

“I can do it. In my current state, I can do it. Could you be quick about it? We don’t much time, after all.”

I noticed Aria looking at me with an expression of surprise on her face. She looked like she was about to say something, so I silenced her with a wink of my eye and returned my gaze to the front of the plane. Flying under the clouds, through the raging rainstorm, I could see the lights of Tokyo coming into view beyond the black ocean. We were headed straight for the lights as if we were on a collision course to Tokyo.

Listening to eleven people speak at once, I instantly understood how to land the plane. Now I was able to read all the gauges on the instrument board. We were currently at an altitude of one thousand feet; that was around three hundred meters. It was a dangerous altitude to be flying at no matter how you looked at it, but since we would only remain airborne for ten more minutes, we couldn’t afford to waste a single drop of fuel, so I didn’t dare to climb even one meter higher. As we approached the airspace above Yokosuka, we heard a deep voice come from the speaker connected to Haneda.

“ANA flight six hundred, this is the Ministry of Defense, Aviation Administration.”

Aria and I exchanged glances.

The Ministry of Defense…?

“You are not granted permission to use Haneda Airport. The airport is currently being blockaded by the Self-Defense Force.”

“What the hell are you talking about?!”

The person who yelled was neither Aria nor I. It was Muto.

“Who is this?” demanded the deep voice.

“I’m Goki Muto, a Butei! Flight six hundred is leaking fuel! They can only fly for ten more minutes! There’s nowhere for them to make a diverted landing! Haneda is their only option!

“Butei Muto, yelling at me isn’t going to get you anywhere. This is an order from the Minister of Defense.”

I felt an unsettling presence and looked to the side of us. Aria followed my gaze outside the window and I heard her catch her breath. Right outside of the plane, an F-15J Eagle, the Japan Air Self-Defense Force’s fighter jet, was flying right next to us.

“Hey, Ministry of Defense. I can see one of your friends outside the window…”

“…He’s there to guide you. Follow him out to sea and head for Chiba. He’ll take you to a safe landing zone.”

Aria rotated the hand wheel to the right and starting turning the plane towards the ocean. As I disconnected the line to Haneda, I placed my hand on top of Aria’s, stopping her.

“…Don’t head out to sea, Aria. That guy was lying.”

“?”

“The Ministry of Defense doesn’t think we can land safely. Once we’re over the ocean, we’ll be shot down.”

“Y-You can’t be serious…! It’s not just us; there are civilians on this plane as well!”

“If we crash land in Tokyo it’ll be a big disaster. They’re desperate.”

My hand still on top of Aria’s, I turned the wheel to the left and had the plane head towards Yokohama.

“K-Kinji?” With her fingers somewhat stiffened, Aria looked up at me anxiously. It was a look that said I was being depended on.

“If that’s how they’re going to be, then we’ll respond respectively and take hostages. Aria, fly over the city.”

ANA flight six hundred flew over Yokohama Minatomirai and into the Tokyo metropolitan area. There were seven minutes of fuel remaining.

“So where do you plan on landing, Kinji? There’s no other airstrip in this city.”

“Muto, how long of an airstrip would we need?”

“For a B737-350 with two engines…I’d say about two thousand four hundred and fifty meters.”

“…do you know what the wind speed is over there?

“Wind speed? Reki, what’s the wind speed at Academy Island?”

“My sense is that five minutes ago, it was forty-one point zero two meters per second heading south-southeast.”

I heard the voice of Reki from Snipe in the background.

“In that case, Muto, how long would the airstrip need to be if we came down against a wind speed of forty-one meters per second?”

“…I guess…two thousand and fifty meters would do it.”

“…Just enough,” I whispered to myself, and both Muto and Aria went silent for a moment.

“W-Where do you intend to land?” asked Aria. “There’s no straightaway like that in Tokyo.”

“Remember the way the Mega-Float that Butei High lies on is shaped? It’s a rectangle two kilometers from north to south and five hundred meters from west to east. If we go in at a diagonal, we can secure two thousand and sixty-one meters.”

“H-Hey…” Muto sounded concerned.

“Don’t worry, Muto. We’re not gonna come down on Academy Island.”

“…?”

“We’ll use Empty Island. There is another Mega-Float to the north, on the other side of Rainbow Bridge.”

“Dude, you’re…How do you come up with these outrageous ideas? Is that really you, Kinji?”

“Haha…Aria, who’s sitting right next to you?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Go ahead and answer.”

This is no time to be teasing Aria, hysteria mode Kinji, I reprimanded myself.

But Aria just gave another demonstration of how susceptible she was to blushing. Her indignant eyes began to open wide, and she looked like she was going to make an objection, but it probably dawned on her that I was the leader taking charge at the moment. The proud little princess turned away from me and answered.

“Kinji.”

She said it ungraciously with the attitude of a child who surrendered to an adult.

“There you have it, Muto. I wish I could be elsewhere though.”

The night view of Shibuya and Harajuku passed by directly underneath us. Everyone in the city must be pretty startled.

“The Mega-Float…In theory, it’s doable…” Muto replied with a sigh.

The hardened expression on Aria’s face suddenly lightened up.

“But you know, Kinji,” Muto continued. “That place is really just a floating island. It doesn’t even have guidance lights, let alone any guidance systems. Regardless of the type of plane, even in the worst situation, at the very least, you need guidance lights or you can’t make a nighttime landing. Not to mention your vision is gonna be horrible due to the heavy rain; plus, there’s a windstorm. Add to that the fact that you’re going to be landing manually–”

“Well then, Aria, do you wanna give up on landing and commit suicide with me?” I interrupted Muto’s lecture and asked Aria.

“I-I refuse to commit suicide with you even if it kills me.”

Aria made somewhat of a contradictory statement and stuck her tongue out at me.

“Haha. This is a happy occasion. Our opinions matched for the first time.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m against committing a double suicide myself. I refuse to let you die.”

Aria ducked her head down and turned red again, looking as if she was thinking something along the lines of, “Why do have to go and say things like that?!”

“That’s the situation, Muto. This plane is going start making preparations to land.”

“Wait! Wait, Kinji! Empty Island is wet with rain! You won’t be able to stop in time with two thousand and fifty meters!”

“I’ll do something about it. Have faith in me.”

“D-Do whatever you want! Screw this up and I’m gonna run you over!”

He must have gone berserk because before he hung up, I could hear him yelling at everyone else in the classroom.

Nearly grazing the skyscrapers of Shinjuku, ANA flight six hundred made a wide turn to the right. There were three minutes remaining. Needing to reduce speed in order to land on a short runway, flight six hundred flew over Tokyo Dome and soared past Tokyo Station and a rainy Ginza at an annoyingly relaxed pace.

“Aria, this plane is flying lower than Tokyo Tower. Make sure you don’t crash into it.

“Don’t take me for an idiot.”

Aria extended the landing gears and transferred the main controls to the co-pilot seat where I was.

Okay, Tokyo Bay is coming into view. I should be seeing the Mega-Float any time now…

But my brain, being in hysteria mode, came up with the conclusion right away. We had done our best up to this point, but landing the plane…was impossible. I couldn’t see even a trace of Empty Island. Just like Muto had said, past Shiodome, Tokyo Bay was shrouded in darkness. There were no guidance lights or anything, so it fell to reason. I knew it would be dark, but to think it would be this dark… The way things stood, I had no idea what angle to land at or how high I was flying. Under these circumstances, not even a veteran pilot would be able to avoid a disaster. I had no choice but to change my way of thinking and come up with a method to crash land that would result in the fewest casualties. Aria’s sixth sense must have told her that’s what was going through my mind.

“Kinji. It’s okay. I know you can do it. You have to. If you want to quit being a Butei, dying as a Butei would mean defeat. And you’re not the only one. I still haven’t saved my mom!!”

As Aria was speaking to me, just like magic…

“I can’t afford to die yet! There’s no way I’m going to die in a place like this!”

…lights became visible on Empty Island in front of Bay Bridge…!

“Kinji! Are you seeing this, you damned idiot?!

The line connecting us to Muto became active again, and I heard his voice along with the heavy rain splattering on the windshield.

“Muto?!”

“If you die, Shirayu-…I mean, there are people who are gonna be in tears! I stole the biggest motorboat they had at Logi! We all brought Armed’s (Equipment Division) Maglites out here without permission, too! You be sure to write everyone’s apology letters for them after this is over!”

Following Muto’s complaints, a third party and a fourth party, one after another, people’s voices came through on the line between Muto and me.

“Kinji!”

“I can see the plane!”

“You’re almost there!”

“Hang in there just a little longer!”

Being in hysteria mode, I could tell. These voices. It was them. They were the students Aria and I rescued during the bus-jacking…! They had crossed over to Empty Islands from Academy Island and were making guidance lights for us!

Butei Charter, Article One, “Believe in your comrades and help one another.” I carefully lowered the plane’s altitude and made my way down—down to the island to which they led us…!

Screeeeeeeeeeeeech!

ANA flight six hundred went through with its forced landing on the rain beaten Mega-Float. Enduring oscillations that seemed strong enough to make the eyes come out of one’s sockets, Aria activated the reverse thrusters.

“Stop, stop, stop, stop, stoooooooop!!”

“Here we gooooo!” I yelled in tune with Aria’s high-pitched anime voice.

I quickly maneuvered the steering wheel used for taxiing the plane and made it curve. It would take more than two thousand and fifty meters for the plane to stop on a runway wet with rain. Muto was right about that. But I had a plan. I had come down on the Mega-Float prepared to initiate that plan. It was coming up ahead—the pillar of a wind turbine generator…!

Crash!

I steered the plane so that its wing collided with the pillar and swung around it, sending the plane spinning as it slid. Inside the cockpit, Aria and I were tossed about like clothes in a washing a machine.

…

“Ngh…owww…”

I smell…gardenias. Oh, right. This is Aria’s scent.

Suffering from the pain that I felt throughout my entire body, I opened my eyes. Outside the window, I could see Rainbow Bridge. ANA flight six hundred…had come to a stop. Everything was as close a call as it could have been, but somehow, it worked out. But…for some reason, I was unable to move. At that point, I already knew to expect the situation that Aria and I were fated to end up in. Just as I predicted, I was sitting in a reclined co-pilot’s seat with Aria lying on top of me. Aria was unconscious and had her legs around my waist, her arms over my shoulders, and her pretty face resting on top of my head.

“Haha…”

I slowly looked down towards her upper body…and there was no problem. Her blouse wasn’t lifted up.

Looks like I’ll get out of this without being shot at this time.

Or at least, that’s what I thought for the next three seconds. While Aria’s blouse may have been in order, her skirt was completely turned up.

“…!”

I quickly averted my eyes. Then, without looking and careful not to wake Aria up, I gently fixed her skirt for her.

That should do it.

I managed to survive after nearly being killed for seeing the top half. I sure as hell wasn’t going to be marked for assassination again for seeing the bottom half. Can you blame me?