Chapter 3: A New Life

1

Once, the wasteland beneath the waves had been known as Osaka. In its place now stood an ethereal fortress, floating atop the water on a lotus flower pedestal. The brilliant crystal walls were immaterial, phantasmal, and only once it crossed the border from Param on the other side did it take physical form, whereupon it would become both a portal and a keep for a monstrous military.

The archmage Scullchance of the Pride helmed this particular castle. The dainty girl was lounging on her golden-maned lion in the keeper’s hall, and she made no effort to right her posture for her comrade.

“Good day to you, Quldald,” she greeted. “Word reaches me that your nose is finding itself in places where it ought not to be. Particularly with the black-and-gold warrior who escaped my grasp.”

“Word travels fast then,” the handsome archmage replied. He smiled cheerfully. “It may relieve you to know that he escaped my grasp as well.” The man in the blue robe was not physically present in the room. What spoke to Scullchance was only a projected illusion of the mage himself. It matched his elegant features perfectly, only with a more ghostly, translucent aspect to it. “Must you really fault me? You know how my restraint simply fails me in the presence of such beauty.”

“As does your memory, it seems. Much more will fail you should you continue to fail to remember that the Lioness does not like her prey to be stolen from her.” The girl’s eyes narrowed slightly, an expression of stark impertinence. Her gaze, though lazily wistful at a glance, was indeed imbued with pointed anger. “I suggest you do not interfere with my hunt.”

“My, how unfortunate this is,” Quldald said with exaggerated distress. “For you see, I, too, have vowed to slay this one by my hand. And as you know, the duty of purging the western reaches of the region known as Japan falls to both of us.” His mirage shimmered. “Whatever our course, whosoever shall slay the black-and-gold warrior—it matters not to the Awakened One.”

“I should have known better than to expect courtesy from one such as you, Whirlwind.”

Scullchance’s eyes and mouth sharpened into a bloodthirsty sneer. “Perhaps I ought to teach it to you.”

Quldald laughed. “Perhaps another time, my lady. What might escape the great Awakened One’s watch might not his children. Let us avoid conflict for both of our sakes.” The keeper presented a closed hand and opened it, revealing a twelve-sided object resting in his palm. On each face was a number, counting up from one to twelve. On Earth, it was known as a die. “No more words. Why not let fate speak them for us?”

“Yes,” Scullchance agreed. “Let us see whose destiny is more worthy of facing the warrior. The numbers will show us.”

The Chosen Dharva—or archmages, as the humans called them—did not regard the throwing of dice as a mere test of luck. To them, it was a very important ritual used to measure one’s fate. The one more capable of commanding destiny, the one in fortune’s favor, would roll the higher number.

Scullchance clutched her own twelve-sided dice in her willowy hand, and together they tossed them to the ground. When the rolling ceased, the top face of the illusory dice displayed an eight, while the real one presented a nine.

Scullchance giggled menacingly. “I believe we have our answer.”

“Ah, and so close!” Quldald moaned. “So be it. I will stand aside and forward my efforts on the western front.”

To most, this meeting would appear odd, meaningless. But to the archmages of Param, it meant everything.

Elsewhere, another meeting was taking place, and arguably one just as strange.

Jurota Shiba, acting as an impartial observer, did his best to make his awkward presence as inconspicuous as possible. Sitting in a row at the conference table before him was a group of the brightest, most elegant, and most peculiar individuals on the planet—the migrant sages.

“At last, our prodigal son has returned home.”

“Rudra, the King of the Storm. The culmination of the foundation laid by the Mark 0 prototype, as well as the Mark I and II thereupon. The Mark III has come to answer our prayers.”

“Colleagues! I’ve had a flash of brilliance! You must read my poem in Rudra’s honor!”

“Ah... Moving. Eloquent. An exquisite piece, my friend!”

“Speaking of exquisite, the new Devicer Three is truly remarkable. Not only does he harmonize beautifully with the Asura Frame, but he even awakened the old royal blood.”

“He is the chosen great traveler of the Path.”

“All is as it should be, for all is as it is.”

“Indeed, by the Three Vajras are we made ascended. We hapless souls adrift on the whimsical waves of destiny and the universe!”

A surge of laughter suddenly rose from the table. Shiba, try as he might, couldn’t for the life of him figure out what had been so funny. He might have been able to deal with the painfully high register of the conversation, but the inappropriately timed poetry and indecipherable interjections made the entire affair rather daunting for a plain old human. Of course, this was plain old to the elves.

Yeah, no, call the desk worker in for the esoteric convocation, he thought to himself. Leave it to intellectuals to be exceedingly unsociable. And he wasn’t even allowed to nap through the thing, for crying out loud.

“Shiba,” Nadal said from one of the seats in front of him. “About the dregs festering among the utterly decimated remnants of the Defense Force—oh, pardon me. I mean the brave and valiant souls who so courageously—and of course intentionally—ceded ground to the enemy thus unintentionally causing a domino effect of powerlessness ultimately leading to the Defense Force’s untimely demise. Those people. How are they?”

“Um. Right.”

Speaker Nadal’s sarcasm knew no bounds, a habit Shiba had become intimately aware of since becoming his military coordinator. Before that, though, Shiba had been a warrant officer for the Ground Defense until the collapse of leadership caused him to seek refuge at Nayuta. He’d gone to great lengths to keep his military service under wraps, but four months was all it took for Nadal to sniff him out.

“What do we have here? A Ground Defense reconnaissance officer with three years of experience as a drone operator?” he had been accused at the time. “If it’s all the same to you, your talents would be put to much better use with me than with that seagull you’re butchering.”

And so put to use Shiba’s talents were, as the military advisor to Nayuta’s own public defense militia. Quite the promotion for a man of almost thirty-two.

He typed on his laptop for a moment before various holograms were projected above the conference table.

“According to information gathered by our surveillance droids,” Shiba reported, “they plan to attempt to wrest control of the settlement’s primary facilities and usurp power for themselves. If you’ll direct your attention to this feed here...”

Next to his laptop were several small machines, finely crafted into the shapes of insects—house flies, ladybugs, antlions, and more. In one of the windows displayed above the table, footage was being streamed of several uniformed soldiers gathered in a large meeting room, conducting a clandestine meeting of their own. The sound data of their voices was parsed and transcribed into subtitles.

Nadal regarded the stream for a moment, then nodded. “Resorting to violence. As expected.”

“They’ve acted precisely as you said they would, speaker,” one of his colleagues remarked.

“So they have,” Nadal said, nodding again. “The bureaucrats and politicians seem to be under the impression that they deserve the same authority here as the one they practiced in the homeland they abandoned. Their squawking’s been a hindrance, and in order to quiet them, I’ve treated the Defense’s...remnants, or what have you, favorably. Allowed them to grow. In doing so, the squawking has diminished by well over thirty percent.”

The speaker recited all this like a mathematician explaining his formulas. Out of all of the speakers that comprised Nayuta’s council, Nadal Rafthul was considered to be the strategian of the group. And at first, Shiba hadn’t believed such a buffoon could possibly be as intelligent as everyone said he was. He’d written it off as another quirk of the elves when they called him as much.

But as the months went on, and as Nadal seemingly haphazardly dealt with the incessant and tiresome demands of mainland refugees on Nayuta’s policies, the old Diet members, ministers, and elite dignitaries started to finally shut their mouths. All it took was showing a bit of favor towards the military. A lot of skill, leadership, and charisma was required to be able to bring such a group of people to heel. A group of people who effectively held the power during peacetime, and the guns during wartime.

And Nadal took it further. By buttering up the Defense Force veterans and their young officers with special privileges, like priority access to fossil fuels, he not only fattened their egos, but created a rift between them and the civilians.

He practically neutered the old senior and general officers by giving them honorary titles with the militia and setting them up in fancy houses, Shiba recalled. The only ones left are the young folk holing up in that moored Aegis warship. And no one’s got a hotter head than a green soldier.

Shiba had been one of them, admittedly, but he held no special feelings for his old uniform. He did, however, feel a twinge of sympathy for the poor young officers dancing in the palm of Nadal’s hand. But only a twinge, before he focused back on the task at his hand.

“We must ready security droids for a possible assault,” a somber-looking elvish speaker said. “Counter preparations must begin at once.”

“Or perhaps we shall call upon the prodigal son,” a rather flamboyant elf added gently. Speaker Raghu El Lapan. His ash-blond hair flowed down to his waist, and his appearance stood out strikingly, even among the rest of the council. “That said, I hear there have been complications. High Priestess, you are well versed in the sciences that birthed Rudra. What say you?”

“Very little, save that the situation is...complex,” the angelic Azalin replied. “Readings show no malfunctions in either the device or its human aspects, yet Rudra remains in a catatonic state. Although the new Devicer Three has regained possession of it, armorization success rates fail to exceed thirty percent.”

“Strange, that,” said Raghu El. “Very strange for a match so compatible.”

Azalin ruminated for a moment. “The Asura Frame is a hybrid being. Both organism and machine. And it is the former that allows a god-given form to resonate with Devicers. Perhaps it is also what impedes it. Perhaps the problem lies not with Rudra, but with the boy.”

2

“This is kinda fun!”

Ijuin was having the time of his life. Debatably he shouldn’t have been, because he was supposed to be working.

Floor twenty-five of Central Tower was a research facility for autonomous droids, and Ijuin currently occupied the testing room. It was a wide-open area, mostly illuminated by sunlight and completely barren save for the next-gen drones, two laptops courtesy of Shiba (technically Ijuin’s direct superior), and a touch pad control device. Several tiny droids were flying around the room—three of each in the shapes of a housefly, ladybug, and antlion.

They moved according to Ijuin’s will in complete silence. Left, right, up, down, in loops, fast, slow... Watching them was kind of addictive.

“These are way easier than some helicopter drone!” A ring of light shone in his right hand.

Sitting a good distance away, the militia’s executive officer, Jurota Shiba, had his eyes fixed intently on the boy’s skill. “Man, those augmentations,” he said, impressed. “How many are you controlling at once right now? Eight? Nine?”

“Honestly, I think we could bump it up to ten. Prob’ly more.”

“We’ll have to test that next time! Now if you can do the same with mid- or large-sized droids, you’d really be saving my bacon.”

Shiba fiddled with the touch pad on his laptop, and a portion of one of the white walls slid away. Inside stood an upright, anthropomorphic robot and a quadrupedal doglike one. The very same droids they had seen patrolling the fields on their first ride to Central Tower.

Ijuin held out his right palm to them, and the link was established. At once the two droids marched forward, a quiet whirring coming from their limbs as they moved. He was pleased with the simplicity of the controls.

“Oh, I can remotely operate the Mark III’s auxiliary droids too,” he said.

“Perfect,” Shiba replied. “We’ve got all these machines here, and they do the jobs we give them well enough on their own, but some things just need a human touch.” He let out a subtle groan. “I’m in charge of operating them, since I used to fly old-gen drones. Problem is there’s only so much I can do with old laptops. We were really hurting for someone with the right augmentations.”

“Yeah, you gotta get ’em while you’re a kid or they don’t stick.”

“That, and you need to have the right aptitude,” Shiba added. “Not many do. I sure as hell don’t, and they put me in charge of the unmanned droid division.”

“I mean...” Next to Shiba’s laptop was a wireless apparatus very much like a video game controller, only bigger and with more buttons. Just earlier he had been using it to demonstrate operating the mechs. “You can fly these little bug things pretty well, can’t you? You sneaked them onto that Defense Force ship at the harbor, after all. I’d say that’s pretty dang impressive.”

“Maybe, but it’s mentally exhausting,” Shiba replied.

The bug-shaped machines flew about the room, powered by solar batteries and nano-motors. They were modern marvels and testaments to the power of nanotechnology.

Ijuin used the touch pad to replay the videos they had captured with their onboard cameras and microphones. The following footage showed a quiet meeting behind closed doors. The voices in the recording spoke about droid patrol routes, the elves’ combat capabilities and resources, as well as dates for the day of action.

The audio the high-tech drones had intercepted seemed highly confidential, and Ijuin wasn’t sure how comfortable he was with it.

“You positive I’m allowed to hear all this?” he asked. “I’m just a middle schooler, y’know.”

“More than positive. You and your friends are with the Asura Frame and Devicer Three. You’re also in extremely high demand with those nanomachines of yours. Plus, I’d be an idiot to treat any of you like children at this point. After the things you must’ve seen? In this day and age?”

That last bit hit close to home. For being ex-military, Shiba was surprisingly humble and down-to-earth. Nothing like the officers Ijuin had known personally. Shiba wasn’t the most confidence-inducing guy around, but he was decent and occasionally demonstrated a remarkable level of professional knowledge.

“I saw the numbers on your friend Ichinose. They were really incredible,” he said. “He blew the last Devicer out of the water in every respect. With him around, we may really get to see the full extent of the Mark III’s droid complement. The fifty thousand could be a reality.”

“I heard about that online! And on some action figure promo text and stuff!” Ijuin shouted excitedly. “They’re the Mark III’s own elite legion!”

“Something like that. But only assuming its adaptive nanofactors can be utilized to their fullest extent. Mizuki—the last Devicer Three—never managed to pull it off.”

“You’re saying the media lied to me?!”

Shiba gave a humorless laugh. “Blatantly. Advertising agencies had a whole lot more say in the Mark III’s marketing than truth or facts did. They cherry-picked what they needed to sell Devicer Three as a real-life Superman.”

“Now that you mention it, I remember them selling some special CD albums or something for fans.”

Every Japanese soccer enthusiast knew the artists behind them—the band had been on good terms with a few athletes who’d made it to the World Cup—and the lyrics were about as cheesy as could be. Complete with such obligatory phrases as: “be yourself,” and “never give up.”

“Right,” Shiba said with a tired smile. “Anyway, the other issue was that there weren’t nearly enough hands in the ground operator support team. Long story short, the fifty thousand was a pipe dream.”

“Ground operator?” Ijuin repeated.

“Think of it like this. The Mark III is the commander, ruler of the skies and the air droid division. But armies are made of more than commanders, right? Every general needs a tactician or lieutenant or two.”

Just when things were getting good, a pleasant pinging noise sounded and particles of light shimmered from the ring in Ijuin’s palm. The particles floated into the air, where they stopped and twinkled. Shiba gave him the okay with a nod, and Ijuin visualized the message opening. When he did, the particles projected a text window displaying a commlink from Aliya in a soft, rounded font.

“I’m heading into town. Want to come along?”

“Still at work,” Ijuin voiced his reply. “Aren’t you the speaker’s assistant? Where are you getting all this free time?”

His words appeared on the screen as text before being sent back to Aliya. Central Tower’s own proprietary messenger application allowed for direct and instant communication. Indeed, Aliya’s next message came a second later.

“Uncle’s busy playing with blocks, which according to him is a very important meditative exercise. So he gave me the rest of the day off.”

Ijuin looked at the attached image. “Where the hell’d he find a Mechagodzilla Lego set?”

Shiba smiled and grimaced at the same time. “Apparently before the Evacuation his room was filled with distractions like that. Some people make a living off of scavenging goods and rare items from the sunken city too.”

“Treasure hunting. Sounds fun!”

“Where is his niece living? In the tower?”

“Yeah, too dangerous for elves on the outer block. She’s not very happy about it, though.”

Ijuin had found work as the militia executive’s assistant, while Aliya tended to secretarial duties for her uncle.

“Then are you sure she should be going out there alone?” Shiba asked.

“Good point. Lady Ein and Ichinose are away right now, so I’ll shoot Natsuki a DM.”

The electric-powered scooter hummed across the seaside road at a brisk pace. It was a twenty-minute trip from Central Tower to the outer block, but it was time well spent to Aliya. She had replaced her characteristic beret with a helmet.

She shouted over the whipping wind and purring of the engine, “I am an animal, and I will have MEAT!”

Aliya didn’t have to make the commute every morning like Shiba and Ijuin did. She lived in Central Tower, which, after she’d become accustomed to the stringent rules and acquired her own room—away from the idiosyncrasies of her peculiar uncle—wasn’t all that bad. Still, though, she found herself making this trip at least once a day for a chance to unwind.

This was one such occasion.

“I wish they’d let me live here. I really don’t see what the big deal is.”

With the sun high in the sky and the salty wind at her cheeks, Aliya arrived at a business quarter on the outskirts of the settlement, parking her trusty scooter in one of the public parking lots. She would make the rest of the journey by foot. Her destination: the food market.

For a district whose architecture consisted mostly of shacks and prefabs, the streets were fairly lively. There was the energy of a prosperous boomtown in the air.

But it wasn’t always in a good way.

Aliya frowned. “The nerve of some people to line up for that nonsense in broad daylight,” she muttered to herself.

The general goods store she had just passed by was stocked with, well, general goods of all kinds, but Aliya had caught sight of something a little less ubiquitous on their shelves. Black DVD and Blu-ray cases, unmarked and unlabeled. It would have been impossible to tell their contents if the handmade sign next to them didn’t read “18+ ONLY.” Two more signs read, “MATURE ELVES” and “NOW ON SALE.”

A poster, plastered right outside for all to see, depicted a half-naked human woman with a doll face and an alluring body, along with the actress’s name. The work’s title, if the rest of the context clues weren’t enough, was clearly adult in nature. And true to the advertisement’s word, the actress wore fake ears to imitate the appearance of an elf. She even wore a fine, blonde wig.

Someone must have pirated an old adult film from before the Evacuation. Perhaps it had been burned from a video file, or perhaps the discs had been fished out from the underwater city. Either way, it spoke to one of two things: the tenacity of humanity’s capitalistic spirit or the nature of the male gender.

Aliya took no personal issue with the existence of such material, but did they really have to advertise it right in the middle of the street? In a city built and shared by genuine, actual elvish migrants? She herself was half elf, and a growing teenage girl. She could feel the gazes clinging to her, and it made her shudder.

Determined not to let it get to her, Aliya shook the anxiety off and kept walking. But just then, she heard a metallic clack. The distinct shutter sound of a camera.

She whipped around, spinning her head left and right. There were people everywhere. Men, women. Young, old. But no one carrying any cameras. The thought crossed Aliya’s mind that she’d just been peeped on, but it was an uncomfortable one that she couldn’t stand to entertain for longer than a moment. She returned to her own business.

Or she tried to, at least.

Suddenly, every male eye, every sideways glance directed at her felt prying. And the worst part was she knew she wasn’t imagining things. One of the men at a nearby bar pointed right at her and started chatting with his friends.

“She’s cute, eh?” he said.

“The fuck, dude. She’s a kid,” his drinking buddy snapped.

“Look at the ears, dipshit! That’s an elf right there. I’mma hit on her.”

“See if she’s got any big sisters and let’s get a mixer going!” another cheered.

“They’ve got different life spans than humans, yeah? Who knows how old that chick is! Y’all owe me drinks if I put a halfy in her!”

The men had obviously had one too many drinks, and Aliya was starting to panic. “I-I need to get to Natsuki’s—”

Another camera shutter clacked nearby. Aliya could feel her heart beat out of her chest in fear. She was at her limit and tears threatened to stream down her face, when speak of the devil, she heard a familiar voice.

“Oh, jeez, I’m sorry!” the cheery voice said with frighteningly deceptive sincerity. “I was totes not even looking where I was going!”

There stood the ex-high schooler herself, Natsuki Hatano, standing out like a sore thumb in her peony furisode. She had bumped into a particularly pathetic-looking man of about thirty. Knocked flat on his butt, the scrawny man reached frantically for a digital camera that had fallen at Natsuki’s feet, which she lazily picked up first.

“This is mine now,” she said, smiling. “We good?”

The man glared at the katana on Natsuki’s back, then quietly spat a choice and vulgar insult at her before scurrying away.

“H-How did he get it under my skirt...?” Aliya murmured.

They had cracked the password on the confiscated camera with nanomachines to verify the contents, just to be safe. Aliya somewhat regretted it.

“Gotta watch your back out here,” Natsuki said. “Word’s already getting around about the pretty half-elf who likes to take walks around the outer block.”

“Wh-Who, me?!”

“Yeah, you. Listen, I’m sure most people really appreciate what the elves do and act respectfully and all that, at least in public, but they are humans. And the elves are, well, they’ve got a lot ‘going on.’ Let’s just say our monkey brains are sorta wired for ‘humina humina,’ if you catch my drift.”

“Humina humina...”

“Humina humina. Sure, a fan club or two might be cute, but then there’s the ‘yikes’ stuff like the porn and cosplay. And then you’ve got the straight-up criminals, like stalkers or the people who sneak photos to sell in sketchy back alleys. A girl like you? A cute half-elf who takes the same trip here every day makes an easy target for freaks.”

“W-Well...!” Aliya stammered. “What about Ein?! She lives here!”

“Oh, I’m sure she has her fair share of creeps, and some of them are probably other women. But Ein’s shot Anomalies dead with the militia. Girl’s good with a gun, Aliya.”

The sages rarely left Central Tower, but Ein, knowing well the risks her heritage brought, had chosen to forgo a life of safety in favor of staying closer to Yu.

“No one’s got the balls to mess with her,” Natsuki went on languidly. “Except for that one time a drunk came up on her with a knife. You know those boots she wears? Imagine getting kicked in the face with them. ’Cause that poor guy sure didn’t need to. It was great.”

“That sounds like something a queen like her would do,” Aliya admitted.

They had made it to a food stand run by Natsuki and a few of her friends, including some of the Maizuru crew—that is, Yu and Ein. By day they ran the business, and by night they lived in co-op trailer houses. That had been their life for the last few weeks. What made the shop unique, though, were the ingredients.

“Here ya go, fresh off the grill.” Natsuki offered Aliya a skewer of roasted poultry.

“Finally!” she moaned. “I swear, the sauce you use is divine. I dream about it every night. Yu’s recipe, right?”

Aliya took the skewer impatiently. The meat was special. Not because it was chicken, and certainly not because it was gull, but because it was freshly hunted from far off the island. Today’s game was spot-billed duck.

Mallard was supposedly better for stewing, but those juicy spot-billed thighs marinated in their special, one-of-a-kind sauce and roasted over a smoky charcoal fire were positively to die for.

“I’m becoming more and more convinced that stealing Yu for myself would be a wise investment towards the perpetual fullness of my belly,” Aliya said. She nibbled off a bit of her duck. “If I’m desirable enough to get creeper shots of my underwear taken, then surely I could bag one boy.”

“I like your guts,” said Natsuki, “but good luck getting past Ein. She watches that guy like a hawk.”

“Are they out again today?”

“Yep. Keepin’ that dough flowin’. We have people lined up every afternoon, and we’re already one of the most popular joints around, all thanks to those two.” Natsuki grinned wide, then nonchalantly added, “Now as long as they can actually make it back again today, we’re golden.”

3

“Don’t need a ride back, do you? Same as always?”

“N-No. We’ll manage,” Yu replied to the big Russian man, Aleksei Volonov. Apparently, he had also come to the floating settlement as a refugee, and now he captained an official public transportation ship.

Boats were understandably vital to the survival of a city that had to sustain itself in the middle of the ocean, for a multitude of reasons. One being for collecting building materials from the sunken archipelago, another being for trade and mutual aid with other nearby countries that had just barely managed to keep their governments intact like Korea, China, and Taiwan. There was no end to the need for ships.

Yu looked over Volonov once more. His face was always locked in a stern grimace and his muscles were bulging. He looked like he belonged in the mafia or the military—the latter of which he did, Yu supposed. Aleksei was a member of the militia, and he had proven his skill with a gun and knife during Anomaly hunts.

He and Ein were like-minded, and she gave her stalwart friend a pleasant smile. “Visit us when we return. We must thank you for your constant assistance.”

“Goes both ways,” he rumbled. “I like keeping things simple.”

Volonov had rowed them out to a deserted island somewhere in Wakayama Bay. He pushed the dinghy from the sand and back into the ocean with ease and began the trip back to the transport ship, pushing and pulling the oars with fluid, practiced motions.

He’d done something involving international trade in the past, supposedly, which explained his fluency in the Japanese language. Yu and Ein watched him shrink into the horizon.

“Shall we begin?” Ein said.

“Guess we should. You remember your promise, right? I want to give it a try today.”

“Of course. I’ve been looking forward to it!”

Pop!

The dry crack of gunfire rang out. Ein used a simple hunting rifle in place of her usual Type 89. The untouched and uninhabited island was brimming with nature and the perfect spot for hunting, but before being cleared out and made into a tourist attraction, it had been used as a fort during World War II. In more recent years, however, it served only as a home for wild animals.

Ein had just killed a rabbit, and it was Yu’s job to collect the game. Its little body was still warm. But it was unmistakably dead. Its head had been blown clean off.

Ein never pulled the trigger heedlessly. The way she skulked through the greenery was purposeful, alert for any signs of life, and even when she spied them, her expression hardly changed. She simply raised her rifle and took aim. When she finally pulled the trigger, it was with confidence. And although that didn’t mean she never missed, it was rare. Maybe only two out of every ten targets.

Rabbits, bulbuls, and doves alike met their end by that calm, calculated conviction. The two were making fast progress.

“We’ll have plenty of options for the stand,” Yu commented.

“I would like to try my hand at larger game, though.” Ein looked aside and perked up. “Yu, look.”

Between the trees and shrubs, he saw an adorable baby deer, its innocent eyes yet devoid of caution for the world around it. Yu and Ein could see it, so it could certainly see them, but it made no move to run.

Ein readied her rifle, and Yu got ready to stifle his sympathy.

Pop!

The fawn collapsed on the spot and the two of them walked up to where it fell. The bullet had passed near its heart, but it wasn’t enough. It was still alive. Twitching and convulsing.

Ein looked down and said to Yu, “We need to put it out of its misery. Can you do it?”

“Y-Yeah,” he stammered in reply. “Yeah.”

Yu carried the same rifle as her. He raised it up, took aim at the fawn’s head, and when he pulled the trigger, he did so with confidence.

The fawn stopped twitching.

They hunted four more adult deer after the fawn. Presently, Yu and Ein were bleeding and gutting the corpses of their quarries at a pristine creek. The work was a little painstaking, truth be told. One cut to the carotid artery with a disinfected knife, flush out the blood, slice the gut, then remove the entrails. This was usually Ein’s job—she was more efficient, after all—but today, Yu wasn’t a mere assistant.

“Four-legged beasts will spoil if they aren’t handled properly and quickly,” Ein lectured. “The taste will suffer as well. You’d best stick to birds or those with torso wounds for now.”

“Got it,” Yu replied nervously.

Today, he was bloodying his hands. Ein observed from behind, offering advice and occasionally demonstrating more appropriate techniques. She was a good teacher.

Yu had never taken much of an active role on their hunting trips, until this one. He had specifically asked Ein to teach him more about the process during this excursion, how to butcher and slaughter. He wanted to feel the weight of the flesh, of the life they were taking.

“Impressive as always,” Ein said. “You have dexterous hands. You’re already improving.”

“It’s not all that complicated.” Yu cracked a self-deprecating smile. He didn’t feel like he’d ever get used to Ein’s endless praise.

Soon, he found a rhythm. Yu always was quick to pick up on things, and this was no exception. He absentmindedly looked up and met eyes with the fawn he’d killed, its round, faultless orbs staring back at him. It reminded him of the corpses. The piles of gored, massacred Anomalies. Many of them weren’t monstrous abominations. Many were trolls, goblins—intelligent fae races. Humanlike.

But none, of course, were as human as the greatest enemy of all: the archmages.

“How do you fight something that can talk to you?” Yu muttered. “That can feel?”

The fawn gave no answer. Any that could be gleaned was only a reflection of pity in its emotionless eyes.

Yu hadn’t realized just how deeply his meeting with the two archmages had affected him. It weighed heavily on his mind. But he would have to fight them nonetheless if he wanted to protect those dear to him.

He continued to work, his grip on the knife still firm. And Ein continued to watch him, nodding once in quiet conviction.

Few people in Nayuta didn’t own guns, and Ein certainly wasn’t the only experienced hunter in the city. What most residents did lack, however, were the means to make productive use of these tools.

There was more to hunting than simply shooting an animal dead. One needed a ship to transport the carcass, of which there would need to be many in order to justify the trip to begin with, which then meant that not just any boat would do. You needed a big one. This, in turn, demanded fuel, personnel, money to compensate said personnel, and the costs only continued to compound from there. One could potentially butcher the animal on-site and ship it in a more compact form, but then that would require a decently large refrigerator in order to keep the meat from spoiling.

In summary, going hunting was a costly affair for Nayuta’s people. Consequently, meat was extremely valuable. Yu, however, had a trick up his sleeve.

“That’s the fourth time,” he moaned. “Still nothing. I don’t know what’s been going on lately.”

“Take your time, Yu,” Ein comforted him. “It’s different without the presence of enemies, I’m sure. Try it again.”

“Okay. Yeah.” He focused once more. “There! I armorized!”

A cloud of adaptive nanofactors glowed all around him before finally plating themselves over his body, enshrouding him in the black and gold nano-armor. It had taken Yu the better part of five minutes.

He nodded at Ein through the helmet. “The usual.”

“Understood.”

A window popped into his visor and a string of text scrolled across it.

[Mantra Server Startup Complete. All PRAJNA running.]

[System Now Booting Spellbook “VAJRA-SEKHARA SUTRA”...]

Once Ein finished reciting the Gospel Code, two kinds of auxiliary droids materialized. The first was a large box resembling a big, metal storage container. The second was the MUV Airmobile—the jet ski-esque device he had used with the Mark III’s Full-Armor form.

Yu faced the giant container—that is, the heavy-duty transport droid, MUV Storebox—and configured it for cold storage. He began hauling the fruits of their labor into the oversized freezer one by one, the corpses as-of-yet unbutchered and normally very heavy. Lugging around a few rabbits, birds, or even the almost half-dozen deer they had shot was easy work for Devicer Three though.

And with that, their part of the job was done. All that was left was to carve it all up and turn it into food.

“Let’s set the timer for...twelve hours, just to be safe,” Yu murmured. “Mark III, map... Perfect. Send it to the settlement.”

The Mark III quickly charged both droids with enough energy to last for the allotted uptime. After activating the onboard intelligence for autonomous behavior, the MUV Storebox took off into the sky. This was the day that refrigerators flew—at seventy kilometers per hour, to be precise. It would arrive at its destination in a little over an hour. Mundane as it was, there could be no downplaying the sheer science and technology that went into allowing such a device to exist.

Yu let out a sigh as he de-armorized. “It feels a little wrong to be using the Asura Frame like this.”

“But it’s because you do that so many can enjoy affordable luxuries,” Ein said. “You use it for others, rather than for personal gain, and personally I see no harm in that.”

The food stand Natsuki and her friends had started had made a name for itself, rising above its business rivals fairly swiftly with their roasted skewers and improvised udon. The staff, Yu included, were rather young, the oldest being in their twenties, and no one was by any means an experienced chef, but their popularity grew nonetheless. The reasons were twofold and simple: it was cheap, and it was made with real meat. Not every day, granted, but the prospect alone was enough to launch their joint to public acclaim.

There was just one bottleneck: Yu and his situation with the Mark III.

“We’ve been fine so far, since the portal-keeps and Anomalies have been quiet, but that won’t last forever,” Yu murmured. “If I can’t fix things soon, I might not be able to protect everyone.”

He swallowed after that last word. Fix what? What obligation was he under to do anything? He wasn’t Devicer Three. He was just a middle schooler. A middle schooler who had managed to fluke his way into activating the Mark III. A stand-in. Why shouldn’t he use this opportunity to step down?

Because if he did, he wouldn’t be able to protect them. His friends. The people who gave him the strength to go out hunting on days like this. The courage to stare death in the face and fight the Anomalies and archmages in the first place.

He thought of them. Ein. Ijuin. Aliya. Even Natsuki had become someone he cared about. And the elves. And the ex-soldier Shiba. Volonov, the scary mafia man. Those were the faces that came to mind when Yu thought about the people he wanted to protect. But what about everyone else?

Yu could only come to the conclusion that he was a very close-minded and pigheaded person.

“I have an idea,” Ein said suddenly. “Care to indulge me?”

“This is even more fun than I thought!” Ein shouted, roaring with laughter.

“C-Can we have fun a little slower, please?!” Yu pleaded.

“Slower? Yu, the Asura reaches speeds thousands of times greater than this! This is nothing!”

Yu screamed at the top of his lungs. It was so much different when he could feel the wind whipping against his face and hear his ears pop.

He and Ein zipped across the ocean surface aboard the MUV Airmobile, slicing through waves and soaring through the air with the help of the anti-gravity lifters. The device came with a very convenient autopilot mode, but Ein didn’t much care for that function right now. She steered the vehicle herself, gliding it just above the water like a jet ski. Yu, on the other hand, sat behind her with his arms firmly locked around her waist and trying desperately not to fall off.

Ein’s laugh cut through the whirling wind. “I saw someone using a similar vehicle at the harbor and I simply had to try it for myself!”

“I didn’t know you could drive a jet ski!”

“I can’t! I thought it might not be too different from riding a horse, but this is far more exhilarating! I quite like it!”

“Wait, what?! What do you mean you can’t?!”

“Relax!” she shouted back. “I think I’ve got the hang of it! I might be a natural at this, Yu!”

“I don’t know about—Whoa!” Yu tightened his grip as they collided head first with a particularly large wave.

Ein was apparently intent on relishing this bit of seaside leisure—as evidenced by the fact that she had brought a change of clothes specifically for the occasion. She had changed into a navy blue, waterproof rash guard, with flower-patterned swim trunks over a pair of leggings and a sun visor on her head. And she absolutely killed the look, the skintight clothing accentuating her figure all the more.

“Forget about the world for a moment,” she said. Yu’s heart skipped a beat. Her voice was bright and pleasant. Clear. Clear enough to shine through the gloom. “Empty your mind and enjoy yourself, so that you’re better prepared for tomorrow’s troubles. You’re not going to let me have all the fun, are you?”

“I mean, don’t get me wrong!” Yu shouted. “I like roller coasters, but this is ridiculous!”

The screaming continued for some time as they strode along the ocean. Eventually, when he was calm enough for it, Yu took the helm for a while, and they went on taking turns until at last they neared the shore of Nayuta.

The sun was deep in the western sky. Dusk would fall soon. They had played the entire afternoon away, and now Ein guided them towards the city steadily and calmly, which Yu greatly appreciated. But then, before they’d reached the shore, the droid suddenly slowed to a stop. The anti-gravity lifters kept them afloat, even without forward motion.

Ein remained facing forward. “Yu. No matter what decision you ultimately reach, I will support it,” she said softly. “So I want you to keep looking inward. To take as long as you need to find your answer.”

Yu was silent for a long moment. Finally, he simply replied, “Yeah.”

He couldn’t see her face, but he knew it must have been as beautiful, proud, and dignified as it always was. He admired that about her. His mind was so fragile, so easily clouded with worry, but she had a way of making his world feel brighter.

The clone of a great elvish warrior queen. It was an incredible title to hold, and Yu didn’t understand what could have possibly made him worthy of standing beside such an amazing woman. Maybe he wasn’t yet. Maybe he was meant to try. Maybe, one day, he would be worthy...

“W-Wait, uh, Ein? When did you turn around?”

“I was wondering where your mind had gone,” she said. Ein was supposed to have her hands on the controls, but at some unknown point in time she had spun around and was now staring Yu right in the face.

He could see her every feature. Every unique, irreplicable detail. Her sharp, almond-shaped eyes gazed deep into his own. He could feel her breath against his nose.

“L-Little close there,” he stammered.

“Of course I am,” Ein replied coolly.

“You’re doing it on purpose?!”

“Really, Yu? We’ve shared one kiss already. I should think my intentions are obvious.”

“I don’t know about all that.”

“You’re normally so perceptive. Need I really spell it out? This is the part where you’re supposed to fall madly in love with me and steal my lips.”

She fluttered her eyelashes alluringly and slightly parted her lips.

“Listen, I-I really think this isn’t the right time yet!” Yu stammered.

“‘Yet’...” Ein echoed pensively. “Very well, I suppose I’ll take what promises I can get. I will say, however, that I would like to see a little more assertiveness on your part.”

“I’m a middle schooler! I don’t even know how I’d do that!”

“It’s not so hard. You could take me in an impassioned embrace, for example.”

“I really hope you’re talking about a hug,” Yu groaned.

“A hug... An expression of love through the mutual caressing of one another. I know of this concept. Yes, this will work! Let us engage in a hug, my fated one!”

Ein’s seductively languid expression instantly transformed into a giddy smile, her arms stretched out wide for optimal hugging conditions. Yu was at a loss. His pensive mind didn’t know how to handle such levels of positivity, but there wasn’t much of a choice anymore. Yu was going to have to hug that girl.

The pivotal moment was at hand when gunshots filled the air. Several at once. The rapid pop of machine guns, the punctuated cracks of rifles.

“Ein! Yu!” Aliya’s voice echoed through the commlink. “Thank goodness you’re back! It’s Anomalies!”

4

Due to its location far off the coast, floating in the Wakayama Bay between Shikoku and the Kii Peninsula, Nayuta was relatively safe from Anomaly attacks. Or at least, it had been until two or so months ago.

Airborne and aquatic Anomalies were becoming more prevalent. The city had been discovered. And the masters of the portal-keeps, the archmages that Yu himself had faced, had set their sights on it—the Chosen Dharva, Scullchance of the Pride and Quldald of the Whirlwind.

Half-fish, half-man merfolk had invaded—anthropomorphic creatures coated in scales, with gill-like slits along their neck and fins jutting out from their limbs. Nearly two hundred of them were encroaching on Nayuta, wielding vicious-looking tridents, and they leaped gracefully from the ocean depths along the perimeter of the harbor. The unfortunate dock workers were the first fatalities. The merfolk skewered their soft flesh like shish kebabs, but the humans were swift and fierce in their response.

Militia volunteers rushed to the scene. There weren’t enough hands around Nayuta for the city to maintain a standing army, so in times of emergency, every resident in possession of a weapon was called to action. Participation would be compensated. The only permanent military officials on the island were executives like Shiba, and the settlement owed much of its long-standing safety to its brave conscripts.

Now it was their job to protect the city once more. A seemingly simple task against the merfolk, given their lack of firearms--but it wasn’t that simple after all. The scales lining the enemy’s body were tough as iron, possibly tougher. Standard firepower couldn’t put a dent in them.

“Guns don’t work!”

Exceptionally strong weapons, like high caliber rifles or shotguns, however, proved effective. Machine guns showed some manner of success as well, mostly in that there were more bullets to potentially hit an eye or gap in the scales. But anyone unlucky enough to have been equipped with a sidearm—or, heavens forbid, a bladed weapon—met with a gruesome death at the ends of the enemy’s three-pronged spears. Those even more unlucky were torn to shreds by their jagged, razor-sharp teeth.

Before long, the chaos was underscored by the low wailing of the settlement’s emergency siren.

Elsewhere in the harbor was the moored Naval Defense warship.

“Anomalies in the city!”

“Move, move, move! Rescue civilians! Hustle!”

The Izumo-class destroyer’s days of seafaring were over, but that didn’t stop what was left of the Defense, about one hundred twenty people all told, from making use of the convenient living space. Nothing was necessarily stopping them from living ashore, where there was functional, albeit limited, electricity and running water. Yet they chose to remain on the ship, purely out of distrust for the elves and their artificial city.

“Bet those elf assholes called ’em here!” one sailor spat.

“The hell’re they doing up in that tower? Can’t trust a thing those sneaky bastards do until they come clean and let the real leaders take charge.”

“They’ve even got the old Diet members in their pocket.”

“And our old superior officers. Scratch that, former superior officers.”

“Would you all zip it?” a tall young man interrupted. “Go and protect those civilians!”

Captain Shiro Sakuma was both the oldest and highest-ranking member aboard the warship. Partly because few commissioned officers had made it to Nayuta, partly because anyone old enough to outrank him was too infirm and simply wanted to live in peace. And it wasn’t long before the elves had them wrapped around their fingers.

So the younger officers denounced the cowards, defected to the decommissioned Izumo destroyer, and began to plot their takeover of the settlement. Against their superiors’ orders. Naval, Ground, Air—branch divisions stopped mattering underneath their shared goal. A goal that Sakuma championed as their leader. At his command, the group hurried off the ship and rushed to the people’s aid.

Meanwhile, Yu looked at Ein in panic.

“What do I do?!” he shouted. “I can’t armorize!”

“Stay calm, Yu! No hero can stand on every battlefield. Help me aid our allies from a distance!”

“R-Right!”

“Take the controls and I’ll attack!”

The MUV Airmobile glided towards the harbor with Yu in the driver’s seat. Ein aimed her rifle from behind him and pulled the trigger once. Twice. Each time, one of the merfolk fell, punched between the eyes, beneath the arms, along the seams between scales around the waist—anywhere Ein could find a kink in their natural armor. Yu stabilized the Airmobile along the water, giving her as clear a shot as possible.

“Sorry, guys. Me and Shiba tried to get the droids up, but by the time we did the fight was already over.”

“Don’t beat yourself up, Ijuin.”

Yu listened to Ijuin and Aliya’s conversation via commlink, but his mind was elsewhere. He stood alone at the harbor.

“The surveillance droids all have eyes on the air,” Aliya said. “It was just bad luck that they came from under the ocean.”

“We’ll have to start keeping watch down there now too,” said Ijuin.

“I’ll look into seeing if we have any droids that work underwater.”

The fight had ended about half an hour ago, and the docks were still ringing with the post-battle silence. Some of the militia volunteers were celebrating their survival with a few cigarettes—precious commodities that weren’t consumed lightly. Others grieved for lost friends. Ein was going around offering comfort and words of consolation to them. Shiba, too, was busy scurrying around on executive duty. Paying the volunteers, compensating the families of the dead, and organizing the paperwork was part of his job.

And for those lost, there were just as many wounded, bleeding from holes bored by the merfolk’s tridents. Those with injuries too deep to treat themselves were transported to Central Tower by relief vehicles, and those who didn’t have that kind of time were being surrounded by expedient EMS teams composed of elves from the tower’s emergency room.

Despite being in a state of crisis, their beauty and skill was captivating. Even to their barely conscious patients. Their harried yet precise techniques captivated the audience as if they were putting on a thoroughly practiced performance.

Not everyone was amused, however.

“Get off of me! I don’t want...your help!” a man in a military uniform groaned. Despite the blood gushing from the gash in his flank and the dark circles of death forming beneath his eyes, he was somehow still awake. And he refused to let the elves near him. “If Three had been here... If Devicer Three had been here, this’d never have happened! He’d have saved us! Just like he did before! Stop hiding him, damn you!”

“At ease, sergeant,” a tall and attractive young man interjected. He addressed the elves. “We’ll treat our own.”

Yu recognized him. It was Sakuma, the captain who had barged into the MRI room, and the goalie he had played soccer with. A group of people who looked to be his subordinates gathered around the critically wounded man and placed him on a stretcher, heedless of the elvish doctors’ warnings.

The people within earshot of the scuffle suddenly started to whisper with uncertain expressions.

“Hey, yeah, I thought Devicer Three was back. Where is he?”

“The elves are hiding him? How would they even do that? The Asura Frame’s the strongest weapon in the world.”

“I mean, the elves did make it. It’s not that far-fetched.”

“But how do we even know the rumors that he’s back aren’t a load of bull?”

“You calling me a liar?! I seen him with my own eyes! Saved my life, he did!”

The relief and triumph of a battle won had all at once become shrouded by doubt. Shouting matches started to break out over what was true and what was mere gossip, and some were getting heated.

“You know what? It doesn’t even matter if he’s back or not!” someone screamed, making Yu jump. He looked around for the source of the shout. “The cold, hard truth is Three left his nation and countrymen to die when they needed him most! I hope to god he is back, ’cause if I see him...”

The man took a swig of some clear liquid from an unlabeled bottle in his hand. Yu could smell the alcohol from where he stood. It couldn’t have been anything commercially sold, so it had to be home-brewed. And poorly, at that. Clearly he’d wasted no time indulging himself once the battle was over. He was plopped lazily onto the ground, his Type 89 thrown haphazardly to his side—Defense Force standard-issue.

Upon closer inspection, Yu could just barely make out a camouflage pattern beneath the dirt and grime on his clothes. He was ex-military.

“You’ve got some balls to talk like that, old man,” someone growled.

“And what’ve you done, huh?! He saved lives!”

“And look where that’s gotten us.” The veteran scoffed. The crowd stepped closer. “H-Hey now, back up. Listen, I get it, I crossed the line.”

A mob of fans, frantic with worry for their hero, formed around the disdainful old man, and they started to assault him. Fists were thrown and feet were brought down wildly. Bystanders tried to break up the violence as best they could.

It was his fault. Yu dragged his feet into motion and started to leave. His heart felt like it would burst at any moment.

“Looks like you’re pretty popular.”

Yu turned around and saw Natsuki. She was smiling. As carefree today as she was the day before and every day before that. But Yu wasn’t in the mood to smile just then. He wanted to be alone.

He turned his back to her once more. “Sorry, I’m not...feeling too well.”

He took a single step forward, when he felt a hand clamp down on his shoulder. Natsuki had sneaked up on him without a sound.

“Sorry to hear that,” she said. “Why don’t you come back to my place with me?”

“But—”

“But nothin’! What, am I not good enough for you?” Natsuki locked her arm with Yu’s and pressed her body against his, turning him around the opposite direction and dragging him along. “I could pick you up like a princess if you want. You did say you weren’t feeling good.”

“I-I’ll manage.”

“I’ll take that as consent. You and me are going on a date.”

“How is this a date?!” Yu exclaimed.

“Look at us, dude.” She smirked mischievously. “Ein’d kill me if she saw this.”

It dawned on Yu that she had a point. Walking arm-in-arm the way they were was just asking for misunderstandings. He tried to wiggle free, but he might as well have been trying to bend iron. Natsuki wasn’t going anywhere.

She winked at him in her usual charismatic way. “Gimme a chance and hear an old pal out, won’tcha?”

Yu finally realized that this wasn’t about her. It was about him. Although her appearance certainly made her the center of attention, Natsuki was not a self-centered person. She was worried for her young friend and wanted to be there for him.

He stopped resisting. He wasn’t sure how to thank her for her compassion, but he was glad she was there, and his eyes started to burn with emotion.

5

It warranted no mention that Natsuki Hatano the kabukimono samurai girl and her katana-shaped monomolecular sword were an indomitable force on the day’s battleground. Dozens of merfolk were now nothing but rust upon her blade. Presently, though, there were no more fish people in need of slaying, so she had returned home with Yu.

It was twilight. The only light that remained was the last of the evening, and the setting sun’s reddish hue tinted the neighborhood trailer houses a dark orange. The provisional housing area had originally been planned for use as an emergency refuge, hence the mobility of the shelters that occupied it. Technically that was still what it was, just without the “provisional” and “emergency” aspects.

Two residences had been allocated to Yu and his friends. He and Ijuin shared one together, much to Ein’s annoyance, while she ultimately, and reluctantly, ended up rooming with Natsuki and several of her female acquaintances.

“Looks like we’re the first ones back,” Natsuki commented.

“It is the busiest time of day for the food stand,” said Yu. “We should be there helping them.”

It was right about dinner time, and bellies would be calling for food before the power went out at 2100. Natsuki, however, showed no inclination to get back up now that she had already sat down and thrown off her peony furisode—her “coat,” for all intents and purposes. The living room carpet was comfortable on her bare, leisurely crossed legs, the former quality standing out most uncomfortably to the young middle schooler.

Natsuki seemed to either not notice or, more likely, not care for his discomfort. “Eh, I already did work today. And you’ve been out hunting all day. Figured you’d be beat.”

“Well, yeah.”

“Then boy, do I have a proposition for you—you and me...doing absolutely nothing! All work and no play makes Yu a dull boy, y’know?”

The cramped trailer house offered little room for furniture, not even enough for a table and chairs. So Yu plopped down on the carpet like Natsuki. And it was only then that he realized that he’d never had the chance to be alone with her before.

“Think I’ll pull out something special for today,” she said. She reached over to a box by the wall—pretty much the only thing that could amount to her own private storage, given the circumstances—and rummaged through it, eventually pulling out a coffee mill and a jar of beans. Both rather rare sights in Nayuta.

“Oh, I’ll grind them for you,” Yu offered.

“Nuh-uh, you cook everything. I’ve got this one,” Natsuki insisted.

“If you say so.”

“Don’t get me wrong, though, I’d have no shame if this were anything even remotely more complicated.”

Natsuki put a kettle on, and while waiting for the water to boil, she ground a few handfuls of beans in the mill. The smell quickly became hard to resist. When the water started to boil, she replaced the paper filter on the coffee dripper, filled it with the powdered beans, and slowly poured the water through.

“Here.” Natsuki handed Yu a mug of the steaming black beverage.

He took a sip. “I don’t know what it is about someone brewing coffee for you that makes it taste...better. Maybe it’s just me.”

“I wouldn’t say it’s just you. I could always make it for myself, but I’m like, what’s the point? Feels a little empty. Bein’ alone.” She lifted her own mug to her lips.

Yu dared not take this rare opportunity for granted, and he savored every sip. After a long while, he set his empty cup on a tray on the carpet. Natsuki had long finished hers. Her taste for the drink was more than a little evident.

“So...” Yu fiddled with a question that had been on his mind for a while. “Where were you augmented, Natsuki?”

Their ages weren’t so far apart, really. They weren’t so different. She would have been studying for college entrance exams in any other time. Like any other seventeen-year-old.

“Same place as you guys, probably,” she said. “Went to school in Kyoto. They determined my nano-fitness during physicals. Without actually telling us they were probing for it, of course.”

“I remember hearing there was another nano-tech facility in the west.”

“Yup. Everyone with a high-enough number got rounded up and augmented. And then crazy things started happening to my body. Lucky me, right?”

Natsuki’s nanomachines manifested primarily in her physical abilities. In her strength, durability, eyesight, hearing... The effects of her augmentations were conspicuous and easily the most extensive out of everyone Yu knew. Natsuki was extraordinary, even without the Asura Frame.

“My dad was a stuntman, fun fact,” she said. “When he retired, he got into choreography, stage fighting, that sorta thing. He used to teach me kendo and how to box when I was a kid.”

“Wow,” said Yu. “Sounds like a cool dad.”

“So I was, y’know, always the tough girl. But the nanomachines made me into a straight-up action hero. And that’s how I felt. Like a superhero. All I needed was a shield to throw or a web to sling!”

Yu snorted. Her jokes reminded him of the way Ein would always cheer him up, but in a completely different way.

Natsuki’s shoulders dropped. “And then the Evacuation happened, and I think that sorta speaks for itself. Without any leaders, police, or military, it was up to me to protect my friends and family. From Anomalies. From people... No matter what.”

“You fought people?”

“Yup. It wasn’t very fun, I’ll tell ya that much!”

Yu hadn’t expected a straight answer. But it made sense. Not everyone had taken shelter with the Defense Force like he had. They had met Natsuki in a dissolute, lawless refugee town. There had been no elves, no local government, no militia, and certainly no surveillance droids.

Natsuki had said it well enough herself at the time.

“It was like, three whole seasons worth of drama.”

“Gave a few bad guys what for, maybe gave a few badder guys a little more.”

Humans were at least good at one thing—constantly fighting with each other.

Her carefree smile returned. “I’ve done a lot of thinking about who I was back then. Ultimately, I decided it was time for a bit of a class change. And so I evolved from ‘high school girl’ to ‘defender of the people’!”

The people. There it was again. The very thing plaguing Yu’s mind.

He straightened his back and looked Natsuki in the eye. “What does ‘defender’ mean to you?” he asked.

“I’m strong,” she replied. “So I protect people who aren’t. Everyone. And my pay for a job well done is just a simple ‘thank you.’” Natsuki thought for a moment before correcting herself. “Not that I’ll turn a donation down or anything! But what I mean is that’s not what I do it for.”

“I...” Yu’s voice was hoarse. “I don’t know if I can be that kind of person. There are so many people in the world, and they say bad things, and they hurt my friends. It’s just, I don’t know if I can bring myself to risk my life for them.”

Last June, Kanto became the bottom of the ocean. The heart of Tokyo was lost, the government in shambles, and ever since, Yu had only been betrayed by the adults in his life.

Like the military. They abandoned the people and left them to die while demanding respect and authority, all the while abusing them in Maizuru.

Like the barbarians who would have rather bickered and pointed their guns at each other than the Anomalies.

Like the racists who rejected any incongruence with their own little bubbles. Who treated Ein, Aliya, and all the other elves with blatant disrespect. Who were too blind to see the potential for friendship and family, simply because of a petty difference in race.

“I don’t think I’m cut out to be a hero,” Yu confessed. “I can’t say the things the last Devicer Three could. I can’t pretend to fight for ‘my people and country’ like he always talked about in the interviews.”

“Hey, that makes two of us.”

“And I just... I don’t like killing. Even someone who’s supposed to be my enemy,” he said. “So I think, if I really do plan on being Number Three, then I need to be something else. Something other than some random middle schooler. I need to become something more than I am.”

Yu and Ein had once talked about masked heroes before. She had told him something then that he hadn’t quite understood. That she was witnessing the birth of something incredible. But Yu didn’t know if he could meet those expectations—to become something greater than she could possibly imagine.

Yu noticed the prolonged silence. “Is everything all right, Natsuki?”

“Yeah, uh. Just thinking a little,” she laughed. “You know, I think you’re onto something. Yeah, all that cliché ‘I’ll fight for myself, my way’ crap’s old news these days! I really like the way you think!”

Here Yu was, opening up about his struggles, and his confidant was smiling? And it wasn’t a comforting smile either. It was the exact same grin Natsuki had on her face at pretty much any given moment, but there was something more to it. It was an expression of willful defiance against these dark times. An invitation to be one of the few who smiled in the face of adversity.

And a statement of respect for the man called Yu Ichinose.

“I might be starting to get what Ein sees in you,” Natsuki said.

“What do you mean?” Yu asked with a puzzled expression.

“Oh, stop. Loosen up a little, we’re friends now! Use that big brain your girlfriend likes to brag about all the time, will ya? C’mere!”

Natsuki yanked Yu directly into her bosom.

“Owowow! That hurts! Also, y-your chest!”

“What about it? Hush and let your big sis rub that smart head o’ yours! Lemme mess up that hair, you rascal!”

Perhaps noogies were simply Natsuki’s love language, but Yu was finding it hard to appreciate with his face pressed against her less than subtle bust, and her meager tank top and hot pants did very little to suppress the soft sensation of her skin.

Despite the obstacles, however, Yu managed to collect his thoughts.

“Do you think I’ll ever be like you?” he asked.

“Sure you will!” she replied cheerfully. “It’s easy, really. All you’ve gotta do is try your best to help people, when you can, where you can. That’s it! Heck, with that Frame you’ve got, you might even make a better hero than you think!”

Her answer was swift and final. Very much hero-like in and of itself.

Yu would never be even half as heroic. He knew that. But oddly enough, he was okay with it.

Five days later, two things would occur to test the limits of Yu’s conviction.

The first was a commlink that said the elves had been taken hostage. And Aliya was with them.

The second was an amber aurora billowing in the sky.