Chapter 3: Journey’s Beginning

1

Three days after the destruction of the camp.

Yu had taken Ein into the city early that morning to collect some feminine necessities. Namely in the way of clothing.

“One must be fit for a journey!” Ein said proudly. “I full expect your cooperation today, Yu.”

“Personally, I think you look fine in what you have now,” he confessed.

“Yu, really now? These fatigues? Even their name bores me. This top does not complement this bottom. Simply too much green. I require a more becoming outfit.”

“I never took you for the type to care about something so normal.” Unlike foodstuffs, clothes were in ample supply. Ein carefully eyed the interior of a store while Yu lingered behind. “You’re always so, well, gallant.”

“That does not preclude me from having taste, Yu. I am very discerning when it comes to clothing.”

“Noted.”

“And with weaponry as well,” she added. “Speaking of which, I’d like to visit an armory or a smithy next to procure a sword and bow.”

“Yeah, that’s not going to happen. Best you’ll get is a knife and a gun.”

Yu genuinely thought that Ein had looked perfectly fine. Even in drab military garb, the Replicant girl, with her midnight blue hair and striking elegance, was absolutely radiant. Though Ein disagreed.

Free from her “uncouth rags,” Ein adorned her new outfit with pride. She wore a white sweater top, dark gray leggings stuffed into sturdy combat boots, and a black cap on her head that did little to conceal her pointed ears. Especially considering how much longer than Aliya’s they were. Her heritage was clear at a glance, if her stunning attractiveness and, above all, her powerful eyes weren’t enough to make her stand out. And Yu was lucky enough to be walking around town with her.

The Gorogatake camp was in ashes. Yu Ichinose and his three friends were the only survivors.

The days following the disaster had been busy with scavenging the few unburned buildings and digging through ashes for anything usable. They also conducted funerals for the dead. Most of the bodies they found had been charred from flesh to bone, but the four did what they could to afford whatever remains they found, flesh or not, their last rites. Try as they might, though, there were simply too many.

Along with all their other problems was the question of how to deal with the dragon’s corpse. Despite being engulfed by its own flames, nearly half of its body still remained, and if left alone would have attracted bugs and diseases. They’d even discussed using the Mark III to dispose of it, but ended up not needing to bother.

“I’ve seen it a million times, but still,” Yu muttered pensively as they made their way back from the clothing store. “They just fade away. All the people, all the monsters. Anyone who dies around a portal-keep.”

Yu remembered sighing yesterday morning, the weight in his chest as he agonized over the heaps of the lost that might not receive a proper funeral, when that very night, both the corpses and his worries vanished with the wind. The skeletons of the incinerated had disintegrated into ash and ridden the breeze far away. Flesh had all but decayed to bone in the span of half a day, then crumbled into dust, and returned to the soil.

It was only today that they found the time to go clothes shopping. Ein strolled next to Yu, clad in the spoils of their venture. “When the spectral fortresses appear, the land starves,” she said. “The earth, the water, and even the air. They feed on the dead, yearning to restore the energy and mana that left it.”

“Professor Chloe mentioned something like that too.”

“She, too, is likely with the waves and gales now.”

Chloe Todo had not received a traditional burial. They had placed her on a boat and set her body out to sea, as was elvish tradition, according to Ein.

His thoughts with the late professor, Yu and Ein soon returned to the wooden inn that they were staying at. Far from the ashes of the old camp.

“Ichinose and Lady Ein have returned!” Ijuin announced.

“It’s time to decide our destination!” Aliya said. “Team huddle!”

They were waiting in front of the inn. Yu and Ein regrouped and the four sat down on the pavement to begin the meeting.

“My vote’s for following the coast to Fukuoka,” Ijuin said. “Last I heard from my family, that’s where they said they’d be, with what’s left of the government.”

“I say we cross the mountains and head for Osaka,” Aliya resolutely challenged her elder. “The floating city of elves mom mentioned is in Wakayama Bay. We can find a boat to sail there from the city, and even if we can’t, the Mark III can connect to satellite communications once we clear away from the portals.”

The half-elf girl was putting up a good front, considering the fact she had lost her mother just a few arduous days earlier, but it wasn’t flawless. Yu could see the cracks showing in her mask, and he tried not to add to her pain with needless pity. Sometimes a smile was what you needed to overcome tragedy, even if it had to be faked.

Yu and Ijuin were in surprisingly good spirits as well. As horrifying as the events just three days prior had been, the boys were not strangers to death and combat. Ten months of life after the Evacuation had toughened their nerves. For better or worse.

“That’s where Professor Chloe’s brother is, isn’t it?” Yu asked.

“Right,” Aliya confirmed. “The settlement is called Nayuta, and it was built by sages entirely on the water. My uncle Nadal is one of the founders. And I think there’s a good chance he’s still alive! He’s not just smart, but a total conniving fox too.”

“Nadal?” said Ein. “Nadal Rafthul T’ashsakharington?”

Aliya leaned towards her fellow elf. “You know him?! Yeah, Nadal Rafthul, um, something. I could never remember his full name, but that’s him!”

“The original me... My source-mother seems to have known him.” Ein shut her eyes. “As I slept, I dreamed. Of this world. Of disaster. Of battle. Memories from my past life are dulled, and I can’t recall faces I once knew. When I heard that name, though, I felt the fluttering of a recollection. It spoke to me. ‘That man never changes,’ it said.”

“Wow, that definitely sounds like you’ve met him,” Aliya said.

“I’m certain we’ve met in a time past. I take it he must have left a strong impression for this to come back to me.”

“Well if Lady Ein says so, he must be an interesting guy,” said Ijuin. He’d taken to prefixing Ein’s name with ‘Lady’ at some point. He stifled his curiosity. “But I still say we shoot for Fukuoka. I wanna see what the government’s doing, and I wanna make sure my folks’re safe. We can go to that floating settlement later, yeah?”

Ijuin still had a chance to see his family again. Yu, more than likely, did not. When he realized this, he felt strongly for his best friend. He wanted to have Ijuin’s back. After all, what was the rush? They could visit this city of elves whenever.

“I will follow Yu wherever he goes,” Ein cut in, “but there’s something that I’d like Ijuin to investigate for me.”

“Me?” he questioned. “What?”

“I want you to examine the state of Yu and his Asura. You should be up to the task.”

“Oh, you want me to do some poking around like when I mess with nanotech!”

While Aliya’s nanomachine abilities had awakened in the form of magic and Anomaly detection, and Yu’s as the power of Devicer Three, Ijuin’s took the shape of gadget manipulation.

Ijuin extended his right hand with a playful, “C’mere,” and Yu raised up his own. They touched and began to exchange information through the interfaces in their palms. Ijuin hummed in thought. “The Mark III took some damage in the fight, but it’s already fixed itself up. Good as new. They aren’t kidding when they say the Asura Frame’s basically a living organism.” He relaxed his eyes shut. “I think Professor Chloe called it a ‘cross between man and machine’ one time. Thing probably won’t need any regular maintenance, that’s for sure. Crazy stuff. It packs a punch for somethin’ so small.”

“Yes, Asuras pack more than a ‘punch,’ but how is Yu?” Ein pressed.

Ijuin frowned in concentration. After a moment of silence, he opened his eyes and said, “I take it back. We should head to Nayuta first.”

“What?” Yu blurted. “You’re sure?”

“I think it’s for the best,” his best friend affirmed. “You’re a new Devicer and there’s no telling what changes that means for your body. We gotta get somewhere with experts, where there’s elves.”

“You’re kind of scaring me now!”

“Well, I mean just in case, y’know? Also, I wouldn’t stay armorized for long periods of time. I got this weird feeling while I was digging around.”

“What does that mean?!” Yu sputtered.

“I saw, like, an image,” said Ijuin. “A bad one. Like gears that don’t really fit together. You’ll probably be fine in ten, twenty-minute bursts, but if you keep it up for hours at a time, we might, uh, have some trouble. Anyway, that’s why we gotta get you to the experts!”

What his pal’s warning lacked in specificity, it made up for in the foreboding stress that now plagued Yu’s mind.

Their destination was decided. A military jeep that had avoided the destruction was stuffed full with everyone’s luggage and ready to go. They’d managed to scrounge up enough gas to fill its tank, but nothing more. Hopefully they would find more on the road if need be. Yu and Ijuin had changed out of their stuffy uniforms, the latter replacing his for a pink hoodie while Yu wore a white, long-sleeved shirt beneath a khaki military jacket. The youngest of the bunch, Aliya, maintained her trademark outfit and beret.

“No one’s around to get on your back anymore. You sure you want to keep wearing that?” Yu asked.

“It’s surprisingly well made and durable,” Aliya replied. “And very breathable as well. I prefer to prioritize function over form.”

Yu turned to the oldest member of the team. “Do you know how to use a gun, Ein?”

“More or less,” she said. “I’m more comfortable with bows, but can make do. I’ve already fired a few practice shots, actually.” The Replicant girl flashed a handsome grin, grasping the Type 89 hanging from her shoulder by a nylon string. “I quite like it.”

She seemed to be in such good cheer to at last have a weapon in hand that it looked like she might break into merry humming at any moment. They had equipped themselves with enough weaponry for everyone, but their greatest defense was undoubtedly the Mark III and its Replicant.

“You’re really positive about this?” said Yu as Ein glowed with joy. “You don’t need to hang around with us. Now that you’re out of that weird pod, you’re free. You can go wherever you want.”

“Unfortunately, no such place exists for me,” she answered coolly. “All I have are hazy memories of a past life and an incomplete collection of knowledge spanning two separate worlds. That, and a sense of duty to aid the Asura’s master. I’m ignorant as a child in my present state.” She put her hand to her chest. “I would entrust myself with you. If I may.”

“I mean, of course, but I’d hardly call you a child. You seem like the most mature one here.”

“Hm, bold of you to assume I can’t be exceedingly petty.”

“You did get pretty pouty about the clothes,” Yu ceded. “Anyway, amnesia notwithstanding, we can at least say you’re the clone of an elvish queen and work from there.”

“Wait, when did you hear that?” Aliya accused. “Ein, I didn’t know you were a queen! Why don’t I know that? You need to fill me in on these things!”

“I told no one,” Ein said, unfazed by the younger girl’s flustering. “Yu is simply that sharp-witted. He must have deduced it himself from the words I shared with your mother. Your shrewdness continues to astound me.”

Yu blushed awkwardly at her pride-filled smile. “It’s not that big of a deal. Anyone could’ve put it together.”

Ein was certainly skilled at positive reinforcement. She never seemed to miss an opportunity to sing Yu’s praises.

“In any case, I’m glad we’re going to the settlement first,” said Aliya with a hint of relief. “Rightful ownership of the Mark III is a little messy right now, so it would be safest for us to return it to the Elvish Foundation for now.”

“Huh?” Yu raised his voice slightly in surprise. “I thought the Mark III belonged to Japan’s Defense Force!”

The half-elf shook her head. “Devicer Three does. The Frame does not.”

“Right, yeah. It’s not like Japan’s the only one who’s got one, after all,” Ijuin murmured. “There are Frames in China, and Russia, Korea... Now that she mentions it, it wouldn’t make much sense for it to be Japan’s sole property.”

Yu thought back to the propaganda commercials that used to play on TV—the ones that constantly appealed for new recruits or the purchase of wartime bonds. The Mark III had been all over them. They must have colored his perception.

“So it’s like...” Yu pulled his thoughts together, “on loan. Like how athletes get contracted.”

“Something to that effect,” Aliya said. “The Asura Frame is considered a national treasure of the elvish people. Think of how the paintings of Renoir or da Vinci are lent out to different places for a limited time.”

The bureaucratic logistics of the Mark III were evidently more complicated than Yu had thought, but their meeting with the architects was at hand. This was the beginning of their journey.

2

Ijuin drove while Yu took the front seat next to him. The girls were packed into the back. They traveled from the city of Maizuru on the coast of the Sea of Japan south through Kyoto prefecture. Houses and urban stores flanked the expressway for much of the first several minutes of their trip, infant ghost towns abandoned only a few short months ago. The occasional stray car, macaque, or deer stood out in the otherwise barren scenery, but no people. Never any people.

The further they drove, the scarcer buildings became and the closer the mountains in the distance grew. The road began to curve up and around the hills, snaking through the peaks. But the rough terrain quickly proved to be problematic.

“Well, that didn’t last long,” Ijuin spat. “Freakin’ landslides!”

“We haven’t even been on the road twenty minutes,” Yu groaned.

The face of a mountain, fallen away from its body, was blocking the entire road.

Ein poked out from the back seat, grinning. “Your time has come, Yu. Show us what you can do.”

Aliya popped up with her. “You know, the Mark III could take off with this whole car and still break the sound barrier!” she provoked.

Yu shrugged and pulled himself out of the jeep. The moment the desire to use the Frame entered his thoughts, the nanofactors spilled out and armorized in an instant. The peanut gallery back in the jeep witnessed the transformation of Devicer Three in all his black and gold-accented glory.

“Wonderful,” said Ein. “You’ve tamed the mighty Asura well.”

“Still,” Ijuin said with dissatisfaction, “it’s a bit plain, don’tcha think?”

“The casualness feels almost tryhard, so to speak,” Aliya agreed. “It doesn’t quite sit right. Although, a special phrase or pose would definitely be taking it too far.”

“WHICH ONE OF US IS DOING THE PHYSICAL LABOR HERE?!” Yu snapped back, his voice suddenly amplified through speakers in the suit. His words echoed across the mountain pass, before slowly dying into an awkward, shocked silence.

With almost perfect timing, the Mark III displayed a window to Yu.

“Oh. I can adjust the volume,” he said. “There’s a voice changer too. Why would I need that?”

“Yu, let’s send out an auxiliary droid with a camera,” Aliya suggested. “So we can see how the road looks beyond here.”

“Not a bad idea,” Ijuin said. “Not bad at all. Should be able to control it remotely as long as it’s in commlink range.”

Yu tilted his head quizzically. “I could always just fly around myself.”

“No, this is a good opportunity to test the Asura’s abilities,” Ein said. She made a good point.

A mechanical noise came from behind Yu as the aerial surveillance droid ejected itself from his back—a MUV Bumblebee. It was about the size of a carpenter bee and had the appearance of one too, with the exception of its unmoving wings and soundless flight. A simple drone that didn’t even technically need nanofactors to function.

“It’s live,” Yu said, footage from fifty meters up streaming directly to him.

National Route 27 cut through Maizuru and its surrounding mountains, and it was littered with rubble from landslides and fallen trees. Not good.

Yu activated the anti-gravity lifters and hovered less than half a meter above the ground. “We need to get over this one first or we’re not going anywhere,” he said. “Hey, it might be easier if I just picked the whole jeep up and flew us straight to Osaka.”

“No, it’s too dangerous,” Aliya quickly responded. “The last Devicer had a similar idea during a search and rescue mission. With a bus full of survivors. It...did not end well. Let’s just say the military covered that little accident up.”

“They said a plane crashed because of a malfunction, yeah?” Ijuin added. “It was a huge scandal!”

“Got it. I’ll keep to the road and shuttle you one at a time,” said Yu.

He knelt down and lifted the jeep first. He hoisted the vehicle up and ferried it over the obstructive mound of earth with little effort, then returned to carry his companions one by one.

“W-We’re flying! In the air!” Ijuin hollered. “I don’t even have a seat belt on!”

“Do not drop me!” Aliya squealed when it was her turn. “If you drop me, we are not friends anymore!”

Ein came next, and out of all of them, her cheers were the most joyous. “I love the sky,” she uttered, her arms wrapped firmly around the Mark III’s neck—Yu’s neck—with a smile of pure glee. “It reminds me of a memory. Of a time I once rode on the back of a dragon.”

She rested in Yu’s arms like a princess held by her knight, but this heroine was twice as brave as her champion.

“Nothing scares you, does it?” said Yu.

“Not true,” she replied. “It’s better you learn now that alcohol and I are not on good terms. Do not ever ask me to drink, Yu. I will cry.”

“You’re kind of making me curious now.”

The voyage screeched to a crawl. Piles of earth, collapsed trees, utility poles, and toppled buildings impeded their progress at every turn, and each time Yu would need to meticulously fly them across. By the time they reached the neighboring city of Ayabe, it was already two in the afternoon. The streets, as deserted as all the roads before it, were lined with convenience stores and Shinkin credit unions.

But something wasn’t right. Dozens of cars were gridlocked in front of the buildings.

Ijuin stepped on the brakes and shouted, “What happened here?!”

The cars weren’t just stopped. Most of them had been completely totaled. Sedans were plowed into stores, kei cars wrapped around street signs, mini trucks slammed against older accidents, only adding to a chain of wrecks.

“I’m going to check it out. Everyone stay here,” Yu said.

“R-Right,” Ijuin stammered. “Get somewhere safe if anything dangerous pops up.”

“No. We ought to go as well,” Ein stated. “Something must have caused such unmitigated destruction of so many vehicles.”

Aliya shuddered. Her voice wavered. “Do you think it’s an Anomaly, Ein?”

“I don’t know,” she responded, swinging open the backseat door. “We won’t until we investigate further.”

The other three followed her lead and scurried out of the car with her. The Replicant girl readied her Type 89 with practiced hands.

“Looks like you know what you’re doing way better than us, Lady Ein,” said Ijuin.

“I do like to think I’m a rather skilled warrior,” she boasted. “War is war, regardless of the weapon of choice.” As was befitting of her royal genealogy, Ein commanded an imposing presence. So much so that it had elicited respect and admiration from Ijuin.

The four approached one of the massive pile-ups of ruined cars. Yu shuddered and moaned uncomfortably at the human bones scattered about the asphalt. He didn’t want to know how many had died here.

“They were probably refugees looking for shelter.” Aliya put her hands together and closed her eyes solemnly. “May they rest in peace.” A moment of silence later, she cocked her head. “Hold on, if the bodies had decayed naturally, wouldn’t the skeletons all be in one piece?”

“You’re right. These are all over the place though,” Yu said.

“Yeesh, look at the huge hole in that skull,” Ijuin moaned. “And all these other broken bones. Someone smash ’em?”

“Perhaps,” said Ein, “something was hungry.”

Her words rang with unsettling possibility. Upon closer inspection, many of the wrecked vehicles were stained with blood, both inside and out. Yu did not hesitate to armorize. The Mark III detected two heat signatures.

Headed right for them.

Yu transmitted the enemies’ locations via commlink and called out, “Everyone split up!”

Ijuin plodded, Aliya pattered, and Ein nimbly trotted away. The enemy descended from the sky seconds later.

“What is that?!” Yu cried. “A chicken?! A lizard?!”

“Anomaly identified!” came Aliya’s transmission. “It’s a cockatrice!”

The monstrous beast clumsily thrashed its wings as it alighted on the quiet streets of Kyoto. It measured about five meters long, maybe less, and almost resembled a dragon, but with the head, wings, and plumage of a chicken and the lower body of a lizard. The second avian-reptile chimera joined its partner.

They screeched in unison and fixed Yu with fierce, predatorial gazes. He assumed a defensive posture. He could do this. The Mark III hadn’t faltered even in the face of a dragon.

Pop!

A gunshot rang across the street. At its source stood Ein, aiming her Type 89, her form flawless. The bullet hit its mark and blood spurted from the first cockatrice’s neck, though it only managed to make the massive beast flinch.

Yu hurled himself into high-speed flight towards the cockatrice. “Then we’ll have to hit it harder!”

He placed his palm against the Anomaly’s feather-covered chest and activated the ultrasonic oscillator, emulsifying the monster’s insides before it could even attack. A horrific shriek erupted from its beak, and the strange creature fell.

Just one more. Yu was feeling confident. But not for long.

“What?!”

Three video playbacks popped into the Mark III’s view, along with a warning message. In one, Ijuin was coughing painfully. In another, the frail Aliya was doubled over and hacking in much the same way. Ein was running towards her in the final feed, grimacing as she covered her mouth.

Meanwhile, the remaining cockatrice had not moved to attack any of them. The chimera was flapping its wings, beak wide open in some sort of animalistic display of intimidation.

And then, it dawned on Yu. His mind flashed back to the camp days ago. “That’s it!”

The jet stream thrusters came online and whipped up a whirlwind, with the Mark III at the eye of the storm. Yu did not stop. The squall churned the air, gusts and gales raging, and continuing to rage.

A new window alerted Yu that it had detected poison in the atmosphere.

“I’ve got it,” he said. “It should all be blown away by now.”

“Yu! Well done!” Ein’s ecstatic voice came. “You perceived the threat before the Asura could!”

“You told me about poison in the wind the first day we met. I just thought a strong breeze might help,” Yu said unassumingly. “I’m protected by the Mark III, but you guys aren’t. I need to make sure you’re safe.”

“We did find ourselves in a similar predicament before, didn’t we? All the same, such decisiveness...” Yet more windows revealed themselves to Yu. Ein’s eyes were full of admiration. In the others, Ijuin and Aliya still looked pained, but not in life-threatening danger. “That must be it. Your keen mind. It’s one of the things I saw in you. What the Asura saw in you.”

“Well, we’ve still got one left, so can’t let our guard down yet!”

Yu focused on the last cockatrice as its beak continued to gape. There could be no other explanation. It was exhaling poison from within its own body. The toxin in the air was what had caused all the cars to lose control. All the beast would have to do was watch for prey, expel its toxic gas, and the driver would suffer a painful death before careening into some obstacle or another. Just like that, it had a free meal.

The cockatrice suddenly let out a shrill squawk. Its eyes emitted an ominous glow, and an explosion detonated directly on top of the Mark III. The black and gold ADAMAS armor was unscathed, but the blast repeated, over and over, in the exact same location.

“The... The cockatrice is releasing invisible beams of light from its eyes!” Aliya wheezed between coughs. “Anything it comes in contact with combusts!”

“Thanks, Aliya. I’ll see what I can do,” Yu said. It was a wicked power, to be sure, but nothing the Frame’s anti-magic shell couldn’t withstand. The real danger was to the people around him.

“Let’s do this, Mark III,” he muttered with quiet resolve.

Yu sped towards the enemy at thirty meters a second and met it face-to-face. Detonations shook the air behind him as he pounced and drove his knee into the cockatrice’s head. Metal gouging through feathers and flesh, he actuated the ultrasonic oscillator, turning the attack into a scythe of encephalic death. The cockatrice’s brain became mush and it collapsed, defeated.

“I should’ve known better than to get cocky,” Yu scolded himself.

He landed from his hover and glanced behind him. Yu did not like what he saw. The creature’s stray explosions had claimed their jeep in the chaos of his reckless charge. Only a smoking heap of wreckage remained of their beloved car.

Their wheels were no more.

3

Yu and his friends were stranded in the streets of Ayabe, but thankfully not for long. There was no shortage of nearby vehicles to choose from, and some were still in good condition. Like the small van they found, which was conveniently left with the key still in the ignition. Even more miraculous, it had a functioning battery and engine. They siphoned gasoline from the surrounding cars to fill the van’s tank up, and even stored some extra in an empty gas can they’d happened upon. Though this was where their good fortune ended.

“We’re not replacing the stuff we had in the jeep anytime soon, are we?” Aliya said despondently.

“All our crackers, and cup ramen, and canned food... Poof,” Ijuin grumbled.

The equipment they had taken with them—the HMD goggles and weapons—had survived, but their food and miscellaneous necessities were toast.

Yu hung his head and sighed, “I’m sorry, guys. I should’ve been more careful.”

“No, you were right to prioritize defeating the enemy,” Aliya consoled him. “Frankly, you deserve a standing ovation for taking out not one, but two threat level B+ Anomalies in only your second fight.”

“What she said,” Ijuin added. “We can always find more grub!” The young boy certainly wasn’t lacking for appetite, and yet the months of scraps he’d endured scarcely dampened his enthusiasm. “Osaka can wait for now! It’s time to set up camp and cook up some dinner! Whaddya say?”

Ayabe was located in an area colloquially known as “upper Kyoto”, where the local mountain range dominated the scenery. The Yura River that ran through the city was ripe with sweetfish. It was a city of beautiful views, but without the people to enjoy them. Even in better times, its population had been less than half of Maizuru’s, and few houses or shops polluted the landscape.

For Yu and the others, it came as an oasis in a vast desert. It didn’t take much exploring in their new van to happen upon treasure troves of supplies.

“No way!” Ijuin shouted. “Look at all this food! And it’s totally unopened!”

“Canned food, retort pouches,” Aliya listed off, “juice, instant coffee, mineral water... There’s so much!”

“I don’t know how long it’s been since I last saw ramen packets that some rat hadn’t gnawed through,” said Yu.

“Dude, rice! Dried pasta!” Ijuin cheered. “Even flour?!”

The city’s residents were long gone by now, but the things they’d left behind brought Yu and the others great respite. Every dilapidated convenience store or supermarket they broke into was a joyous occasion.

For all except Ein.

“You all must have been awfully hungry,” she said coolly. “I must admit, though, I haven’t the foggiest clue what any of these products are.”

“Anything in particular you want?” Yu asked. “I know you’re not big on alcohol, but what kinds of snacks do you like?”

“Yu,” Ein began, her eyes fixed and voice stark. “I have but one heartfelt request. Save me the sweets.”

The barren cityscape was much like Maizuru in some ways—no electricity, no running water, no gas—but so unlike it in others. Maizuru was picked dry, while here, something had preserved the town’s food stores far more reliably than a simple lack of looters could explain.

“Forget mice, I haven’t seen a single dog or monkey since we got here,” Aliya commented, glancing around from inside the van. The occasional flit of a building punctuated vistas of expansive nature along the country road. They were a long way from the suffocating flurry of urban sprawl. “There probably aren’t even any bears. Now, I’m glad for that, since we have all this food now, but why?”

“Because of the creature Yu slew. The one you call a cockatrice,” Ein replied. “It’s common for beasts near its nest to gradually disappear. Some are hunted out, others are eradicated by its toxins.”

“Makes sense that they wouldn’t wanna stick around where the predators are,” Ijuin said.

“Though the cockatrice is an exceptionally poor flier, so they tend to have little interest in beasts of the sky,” said Ein. “Or perhaps they feel a kinship with their feathered brethren.”

Yu recalled seeing plenty of starlings, crows, and bulbuls, now that she mentioned it.

When the sun was low, the four stopped the car and set out in search of edible flora. In particular, a certain weed whose favorite time of year just so happened to be the end of March: dandelions. Surprisingly, its leaves and flowers weren’t that bad when cooked right. They might have even found some mustard greens or wormwood if they looked hard enough.

“Remember that time we found those plants in Maizuru? That was the best,” Yu reminisced. Oddly enough for a boy his age, he never did like junk food all that much, and he missed fresh vegetables dearly.

“Those tempura tara buds were delicious,” Aliya concurred. “And oh, the butterbur sprouts!”

“But we barely got anything,” said Ijuin. “Feel like it was just scraps at that point ’cause there were too many people. Also, the shepherd’s purse was nasty.”

Their lazy conversation was suddenly cut short when they spotted something. Something stirring close by in the grass towering over them. It took off into the sky.

Ein acted swiftly and silently. In one fluid motion, she aimed her rifle, fired a single bullet, and the creature fell back to the earth with a thump. It flaunted flashy green feathers all the way down its neck and along its stomach, and bright red skin beset both its eyes. A green pheasant. Male. It most definitely wasn’t the sort of bird a city kid would be used to seeing.

Yu was speechless.

Ein was not. “I wanted to help.”

Night had fallen. Ijuin’s suggestion that they check out the hardware store near Ayabe Station, just off the San’in Line, for cooking utensils and bottled water had been a smart one. They had set up a wooden table out in the spacious parking lot with whatever random chairs they could find inside, everything illuminated by an LED lantern.

“I totally get why people hole up in shopping malls in zombie flicks now,” Ijuin said. “Can’t go wrong when the place has everything you’d ever need!”

“And there’s not a soul to bother us!” Aliya agreed cheerfully.

Ijuin kept a keen, if impatient, eye on the rice boiling on the bunsen burner. It was a less than ideal method but nothing they weren’t used to by now, and there was plenty of gas and charcoal to light their fires. Aliya also made good use of their fuel as bacon sizzled on her grill, which she insisted was “totally fine,” despite the best-by date on its vacuum-sealed packaging stating otherwise.

Meanwhile, Ein was finishing her own task. The freshly killed pheasant’s blood was drained, feathers plucked, guts removed, and was beautifully carved into meat that actually resembled food.

Yu regarded her handiwork with admiration. “Wow. Reminds me of that hunter guy from back in Maizuru.”

Among the many residents trapped in the city, there had been an especially skilled huntsman and farmer. He would sometimes bring in boar or deer from the mountains, and Yu and Ijuin would help butcher them. Until one day, he encountered a pack of wild dogs and never returned. Just like all the rest.

Ein arched an eyebrow, uncertain of how to react to the boy’s praises. “I wouldn’t consider this particularly impressive,” she said.

“Really?” Yu questioned. “Wait, I thought the elves were vegetarians. Professor Chloe was, anyway.”

“Abstaining from meat is a practice observed by the sages. Those of royal blood are warriors—huntsmen and huntresses. We abide by different rules.”

“Culture, huh?” Yu mused as he eyed the pheasant. The breast meat, its thighs, the neck, the tenderloin, the sinew of its tail, its wings. How he wanted to devour every inch of it, including the gizzard and offal, but it was too dangerous to consume the innards of wild game. Sadly, Yu would have to control his urges. He peered into the stainless dutch oven, boiling with the bird’s extracted bones. “Fitting that we’re having pheasant hot pot in the countryside.”

The aroma of cooking sake and ginger wafted from the soup. Soon, the salty, golden delicacy would be complete.

Yu’s job for the night’s dinner was the entree, but he wasn’t satisfied with simply stewing a hunk of meat in a pot of water. Thus, joining his concoction were rehydrated shiitake mushrooms, glass noodles, various freshly picked greens, and the highest quality kombu he could get his hands on. He even added a dash of watercress he had found growing by the river to combat the meat’s gaminess.

Ein watched with keen interest. “You’re very skilled, Yu. I respect it. I can only roast meat, myself,” she said. The charming girl’s face lingered uncomfortably close to his own, her commanding eyes set intently on every move Yu made.

“I never planned on living with my parents for long,” Yu muttered, trying to speak over the flustered beating of his heart. “And I try to watch what I eat, so I picked up on it. My mom and dad were foodies and they taught me a lot.”

Yu was a twig of a boy, but he refused to stunt his growth by working out until he was fully grown. Until then, the best workout for him was good sleep and a proper diet, thank you very much.

“Is it not Japanese custom to stay with one’s family until they come of age?” asked Ein.

“I played soccer. Wanted to go pro,” Yu replied. “Even made it into the Urawa youth team. And if you don’t end up on a Tokyo team, chances are you’ll end up going overseas instead, you know?”

“Sock-err?” she parroted awkwardly.

“I’ll teach you if we ever find a ball laying around somewhere.”

Before leaving Tokyo, Yu had been practically inseparable from his ball. But he’d lost it during the military’s retreat—or “repositioning”, as they liked to diplomatically term it. He hadn’t so much as touched a soccer ball in ages.

“God, there’s that smell!” Ijuin cried, full of emotion. “It’s done!”

That indescribable scent of freshly cooked rice filled the air.

“God, I haven’t had actual rice in ages!” cried Ijuin.

“Oh, how I’ve dreamed of this day!” Aliya all but wept. “We need to find some nori next and make rice balls!”

“I didn’t know plain white rice could make a man cry!” Yu sniveled.

Ein remained thoroughly placid while the emotional Japanese middle schoolers stuffed their faces with the food of their home. Aliya, although half elf, had lived all her life in Japan and shared the boys’ sentimental attachment to the dish.

“The processed fat and grease on this bacon will be the death of me,” Aliya said between mouthfuls of rice from the mountain on her paper plate. “And I do not care!”

“How long’s it been since we had pork?” Ijuin asked.

“The broth in the pheasant soup is so awesome!” Yu exclaimed. “The meat’s a little tough, but it totally works! Ugh, I haven’t had real meat in so long, I can feel the protein seeping into my muscles.”

“You have my compliments for the presentation. Forming it into meat balls was a great choice,” said Aliya.

“I added some ginger and miso to give it a little spice,” said Yu. “I was planning on turning the leftover broth into a stock for udon if you guys still have room for more.”

“Absolutely!” Aliya vehemently agreed. “My mouth’s watering already!”

“And then we top it off with some zosui soup!” Ijuin shouted. “Don’t you worry, I got two stomachs!”

The starved youths ate well that night. They downed bottles of barley and oolong tea and made merry over the taste of a better time. Ein watched quietly, affectionately, as she enjoyed her own meal in respectful silence, deftly handling her chopsticks without difficulty. But when they were done and their rice soup was polished away, Yu produced one final item, and her attitude changed.

“Yu!” she exclaimed.

“You said you wanted sweets, right?” Yu opened the can of peaches and emptied the contents into a bowl. “Maybe you’ll like this.”

Stars sparkled in Ein’s eyes. She took a small nibble of a piece of fruit, a gulp of the clear, syrupy liquid, and then promptly drooped her head. Yu almost leaned over to see what was wrong, when her shoulders started to tremble. A grin spread across her face and a broken chuckle escaped her lips.

“This...” Her voice broke. “What is this?!” she cried. “What is this nectar of the heavens?! Yu, this is quite possibly the greatest thing I’ve ever tasted in both of my lives!”

“It’s just canned fruit!” blurted Yu.

“You remembered my love of sweets!” she proclaimed as if shouting it to the world, positively beaming. It was nearly blinding. Yu’s heart skipped a beat and he turned away, only to be met with her gaze yet again as she peeked back at him, her smile in full bloom. “As your future bride, it warms my heart to see you act with such consideration.”

“Okay, time out! My future what?! When did that happen?!”

“Am I so wrong? Over these last days, this fondness I have for you, this bond of fate between us has only grown stronger, I feel.”

“Aliya, Ijuin, a little help with Her Highness over here?” Yu pleaded.

“Hey, if that’s what she wants,” Ijuin said. “It’s not like you’re losing out here, dude.”

“Yu is certainly out of his league, but that hasn’t stopped some couples in the past. I’d love to be a bridesmaid,” Aliya jokingly offered.

“Neither of you are helping!”

The night went on and only quieted down when the futons procured from the hardware store were laid out, and it became time to rest. The group slept like logs and started their morning whenever their weary bodies felt like it. Consequently, they had a late breakfast.

“Yu! Rice balls!” Aliya shouted excitedly.

“You inspired him! Nice!” Ijuin commended her.

“Something like that,” Yu said. “I made some tuna-mayo ones, some with canned chicken and spam. Oh, and these are fried with miso.”

“I take back what I said last night,” said Aliya. “I’m marrying you for myself!”

“Now, now,” Ein said sharply. “I would choose my words more carefully if I were you, daughter of Chloe.”

For lunch, they went the extra mile and boiled some somen noodles, threw on some canned mackerel, some ginger, a sprinkle of white sesame seeds, and mixed it with miso, then washed it all down with some coffee, brewed straight from the beans. And for once, they just chilled out.

“Feels nice to get to relax after months of, well, everything,” Ijuin said.

“We won’t be able to bring everything with us, so I suppose we should enjoy it while we can,” said Aliya.

“In that case, let’s go all out,” Yu suggested. “I saw a few different kinds of flour, so I bet we could make some gyoza.”

“I think I saw some hot plates!” Aliya added.

“And with that solar-powered generator, we got ourselves a party!” Ijuin hollered.

That evening, dinner was shoyu ramen, accompanied by the highly anticipated gyoza. Freeze-dried vegetables garnished the instant noodles, while another pheasant Ein had acquired would substitute well enough for chashu. Tying the breast meat up in string and zipping it up in a cooking bag, they submerged it in boiling water and let it sit for about an hour to simulate a slow cooker. The slow, gentle process made for exceptionally juicy and tender meat. The rest of the meat was minced and parceled in gyoza wrappers with some garlic and ginger.

“It’s nice getting to cook for once,” Yu said.

“Yeah, you’re always grumblin’ about retorts and instant stuff,” Ijuin heckled.

“I don’t want to hear that from Mister ‘Licks Oil and Margarine Straight From the Container.’ That was gross, man.”

“Hey. Do not underestimate the siren call of pure, concentrated fat.”

“Oh, you made dessert gyoza too?” Aliya asked.

Ein winced from sheer emotion. “How can there be so many kinds of sweetness?!” she demanded. “Each and every one unique and precious as a gemstone!”

“There’s chocolate ones, dried fruit ones, ones with jam,” Aliya went on. “This one’s milk chocolate. And this one pineapple! And peaches too!” she raved. “If Yu hadn’t captured my heart before, he’s certainly captured my stomach.”

“Aliya, please,” Yu begged. “Ein looks like she’s about ready to kill someone.”

The next day was more of the same. Yu and his friends idly passed the time, their weary bodies and minds understandably unwilling to abandon their one paradise. But Aliya’s discovery within a Kyoto area guidebook quickly changed things.

“Look at this!” she shouted. “It says there’s a natural hot spring just a little ways away. We could all take real baths!”

“That is good news,” Ein said with good cheer. “I, personally, take my hygiene very seriously.”

“But aren’t those usually pumped out of the ground with machines?” Yu wondered skeptically.

“It could be naturally flowing,” Ijuin murmured. “If it is a pump, though, who says we can’t figure something out?”

“I like your optimism, Ijuin,” said Ein. “Naturally, I will do what I can as well!”

They had maintained cleanliness as best they could, making do with wiping themselves down with cloths whenever possible, but without enough of the scarce clean water to justify setting up even a primitive drum bath, no one was getting a proper soak anytime soon. In short, the decision was a quick one. Yu, Ijuin, Aliya, and Ein packed the van with as much food as it could fit and set off.

The trip lasted a few short hours, and then, in the desolate streets of the old country neighborhood, the hunt for the hot spring began.

Aliya exhaled a long and deep sigh. “I think I’m going to live here now.”

“I can sympathize,” said Ein. “There’s little else quite as soothing as a warm bath.”

The toil and pains they had gone through to arrive at this one reticent bathhouse in the middle of Kyoto prefecture seemed to ripple away with the pacifying spring water. They weren’t naked, of course. Ein wore a checkered, frilled bikini that accentuated all the right curves of the Replicant girl’s body. Almost a little too well for some of the other bathgoers. Aliya, on the other hand, had a swimsuit that appeared to be a black one-piece from the front, but a lack of fabric around the back revealed it to be closer to a bikini. It might as well have been a lacy negligee.

Yu did his best to keep his awkward glances to himself while he and Ijuin enjoyed the water in their own swimsuits.

“I’m turning to mush over here,” Yu sighed.

“Wanna have some soda when we get out?” Ijuin said. “I’ve got ’em all chilled in that mini fridge we found.”

The boys’ minds were a million miles away, awash in pure, relieving bliss.

They were supposed to be taking turns, but no one was selfless or patient enough to endure the waiting, and so this was the only solution. Aside from the hot spring, there was even a hot stone spa and a little shop, from which the girls had procured the swimsuits that allowed them to soak together as they now did.

“Yu. I’m curious,” Ein spoke up. “Now that you’ve finally had the chance to truly take in my body, what are your thoughts?”

“I’m not touching that,” Yu said flatly. “What am I even supposed to say?”

“Bro, I’d tell it to her straight,” Ijuin egged on. “What’s there to lose?”

“Call me crazy, but I think he’s more interested in my swimsuit than Ein’s,” Aliya said playfully. “Those mature types can be awfully intimidating. You’d be much happier marrying me, you know?”

“Can we please stop with these jokes?” Yu groaned.

Ein shot a look at Aliya and sharpened her voice with a regal edge. “Yes, I agree,” she said. “Scoundrels who pilfer what isn’t theirs are apt to lose their hands, you know?”

Aliya stuck her tongue out and replied with a mischievous smirk, then sank into the water up to her shoulders and murmured, “I’m not sure where happiness is other than here, to be honest. With just us. Something tells me that we’re bound to find ourselves in trouble again the moment we run into other people.”

How little they knew of the truth lurking behind those words.

4

“I knew what to expect, but it’s still hard to believe,” Yu muttered inside the Mark III. “Seeing it doesn’t make it any easier.”

Yu hovered four hundred meters in the air, above the summits of Satsukiyama and Minooyama, two mountains in the north of Osaka prefecture. Half a year ago, they would have commanded breathtaking views of the port city to the south, the Osakan megalopolis tangled in a jungle of buildings and roads anywhere the mountainous terrain permitted. Now, though, the only kingdom that the peaks reigned over was an ocean of water. The Osaka Plain and the cities it cradled had become the seafloor to the Osaka Bay.

Yu, high in the sky, could see all the way to the shores of Kobe and Himeji, and that the waters had engulfed them just the same. The greater metropolitan area of Japan’s Kansai region was destroyed. It was Tokyo all over again.

“Mom told me something once,” Aliya transmitted to Yu, breaking him from his trance. “She said that the waters and winds of Kansai had been cursed last September, three months after what happened in Tokyo.”

“Then they got it too,” said Ijuin. “The typhoons, the rain, the flooding...”

The Mark III shared its perspective with Aliya and Ijuin through their HMD goggles. Their voices were low. Toneless.

Yu turned northeast. “Kyoto’s flooded too.”

“Whole Yodo River System’s overflowed. The entire basin’s filled with water,” Ijuin said. “God, the ocean reaches all the way up to Kyoto now.”

“This isn’t Osaka Bay anymore,” Aliya murmured. “It’s the Great Kansai Bay now.”

The Mark III’s long-range scope only brought empty sighs from the trio.

“Why don’t I just take this thing and have a quick look at Kyushu and Hokkaido?” Yu suggested. The thought had crossed his mind on more than one occasion. “It wouldn’t take me more than a few hours.”

“I wouldn’t try it,” Ijuin refused. “Like I said, we don’t want you in that thing for long.”

“He’s right,” Aliya agreed. “The longest you’ve been armorized was your first fight, and that was only for fifteen minutes and forty-two seconds. The last thing we need is for you to tempt fate with an extended flight.”

Yu surrendered and began to smoothly descend, stabilized by the anti-gravity lifters, until he entered a low hover at about the same altitude as the Tokyo Skytree.

Toyonaka had been an up-and-coming commuter city in Osaka prefecture. The Tamba Highlands weren’t too far north and the terrain was dominated by green and nature. Most of which was now underwater. Yu landed on a runway, splashing into the saltwater that flooded the old Osaka International Airport, a relic of an interconnected world. The Mark III was almost knee-deep, yet it was still only low tide. Small fish darted between his legs. Dry land was still about a kilometer north—the new coastline of the Great Kansai Bay that extended all the way to Hyogo prefecture at just about the 35th parallel.

Yu took off once more and activated the Mark III’s optical camouflage. The black and gold armor melted away into the background and became virtually invisible. He flew north-northeast for about five kilometers, carefully, almost perfectly silent without the jet stream thrusters, before landing stealthily in a residential area filled with nothing but houses and apartment complexes. His friends were waiting there with the van.

Although sparse, the occasional passerby was becoming more common. They weren’t alone anymore.

Yu slinked into the van with his camouflage still on, then de-armorized when he was free from any potentially prying eyes. Better to avoid the trouble that would undoubtedly come from the Mark III’s sudden return.

A week had passed since leaving Maizuru. After an easygoing journey over mountains and hills, through various detours, they came to a city in Hyogo prefecture called Kawanishi. To some, it was considered the mouth of the Tamba Highlands.

Yu and company had begun to see people again, but they did not receive a warm welcome. Small patrol groups carrying threatening guns gave their van distrustful stares, making it more than evident that their presence was not wanted. Shattered glass and battered doors decorated nearly every building like some sort of slum town. The atmosphere was, in a word, unsettling.

The team drove to the water’s edge, then started gathering information. An airborne mic snooped in on a conversation while the others listened to the audio feed from the van.

“You hear about that car that showed up this morning?” a voice asked.

“You think it’s rescue?” another said hopefully. “Never mind, probably not. Prob’ly just a bunch of outsiders looking for a place to squat.”

“Not like we’re ones to talk. Wait, you’re a local, ain’t cha?”

“Yeap,” a voice grunted. “Can’t expect anyone to lend us a hand anymore. Gotta rebuild by ourselves if we wanna make it. Just hope those outsiders don’t cause problems.”

“Gonna be trouble if it’s robbers again.”

By the tones of the indistinct voices, these men were not to be played with.

Ijuin heaved a sigh from the driver’s seat. “Aren’t Takarazuka and Minoo near here? I’m really not getting the uptown, high-class vibe you’d expect from a place like this,” he grumbled. “Guess most of these folks aren’t from around here.”

“There must have been a lot of troublemakers before,” Aliya surmised. “It sounds like they’re a sort of militia, or local police force.”

Ein picked up her Type 89 without hesitation. “Hard information will carry us further than conjecture. Let’s speak with the people directly.”

“At gunpoint?” Yu asked.

“It wouldn’t be particularly wise to wander an area like this without protection, now, would it?”

“Are we in twenty-first century Japan or a western?” Aliya mumbled.

Yu couldn’t very well argue with the seasoned warrior girl. They parked the van somewhere discreet, then followed the street by foot in the direction with the most people.

Monorail tracks and elevated railways extended east to west. Below, on a local road, a kind of bustling shopping district had blossomed, barricaded at both ends to prevent vehicles from entering and strewn with a plethora of stands and stalls. The street even bordered a large university campus.

It seemed like forever since they had last seen so many people. A crowd of well over a hundred lingered about, haggling at shops, chatting over food and drink, but what was strange was that the vast majority of them were men. The treacherous air about the place seemed to have scared most of the women and children away, probably for the better.

The four of them entered the chaotic jumble and at once their heads were swimming.

“They’ve got a little town goin’ on here!” Ijuin exclaimed.

“I was expecting something more like a refugee camp,” Aliya said.

“Hey, look, they’re selling vegetables over there,” said Yu, glancing at one of the stalls. “Five thousand yen for one head of cabbage?!”

Yu looked again. The exorbitant price on the label plastered to the cardboard box piled with vegetables did not change.

“That guy’s got potato chips at seven thousand a bag,” Ijuin continued incredulously. “A bar of chocolate for ten thousand yen.”

“I just saw a stand selling cutlery for fifty-three thousand each,” Aliya added to the absurdity. “These prices are out of control.”

Ein put a hand to her chin thoughtfully and said, “Commodities grow scarce during war, thus their value goes up. It’s an accurate measure of troubled times, to be sure.”

The street was abuzz with life and an amalgam of voices of varying accents and dialects, not just the local variety. So it was strange when the sounds died out all at once and dozens of eyes fell directly onto Yu and his companions. More specifically, onto Ein and Aliya’s pointed ears.

“That elf’s got a cute face,” a man rasped.

“That’s how they trick ya, ya idiot,” another said. “Thing’s no better than the monsters.”

“This is all their fault,” one growled under his breath.

“We’ll hafta take ’em in. Them’s got guns. Might cause trouble like the other lot.”

“What if they’re scouts?” another man hissed. “From the other side.”

“What if they call their friends?!” one blubbered.

Maizuru had its fair share of Takedas, but what Yu felt from these people was entirely different. An altogether unique sort of danger. Malicious whispers thrummed with vague ill intent while the gazes on Aliya and Ein oozed a palpable foulness. Aliya cowered behind her, and the Replicant girl faced the crowd directly, her almond-shaped eyes unblinking, unwavering.

“Why don’t you folks come on over this way?” a kindly man beckoned. “Just want to ask a few questions. We don’t wanna be in anyone’s way, though, so we oughta go somewhere private. You can go ahead and leave that scary toy you’ve got there behind.” He pointed to the rifle on Ein’s shoulder, smiling. “Whazza matter, little lady? They speak Japanese where you’re from?”

The eyes behind the man’s deceptive smile were dead. The geniality was a ploy. There was an obvious air of cynical caution about him, and though Ein regarded the man with courtesy, she didn’t let her guard down.

Aliya yipped. Someone grabbed her shoulder and several men from the crowd started to pull and yank on the half-elf, trying to whisk her away. Her face distorted in fear. She was paralyzed.

“Yu,” came a commlink from Ein, “I’d rather not complicate things, but should matters get any worse...”

“I know. I’ll do what I can,” Yu telepathically replied.

Yu took one step towards his endangered friend, fully prepared to use the Mark III, when someone beat him to the punch. The mob of men suddenly parted and a human being fell straight from the sky. Yu shouted with a start. The girl couldn’t have been older than a teenager, and the sleeves of some loose, coat-like garment fluttered like wings. She landed with what could only have been intentionally bombastic showiness.

All eyes were on her. The girl stood up, not even flinching from the fall, and confronted the crowd.

“All right, folks, move along now, nothin’ to see here!” she yelled out with a devil-may-care voice. “Beat it!”

Yu realized that she was wearing traditional Japanese dress. Except, not exactly. She had a casual tank top on and a pair of shorts, but draped over that she wore an extraordinarily flamboyant furisode—snow white and embellished with peony patterns—like it was a coat. Her hair was dyed bright red and done up in a ponytail.

“C’mon, fellas, I’m being polite here,” she said. “Don’t feel like doing your pal Natsuki a favor? Maybe I’ll stop feeling like beating up monsters for you.”

The girl’s appearance did far more than stand out. It brought her straight through to sore thumb territory. She was an attractive girl, except there was one more notably ostentatious aspect about her—the katana sheathed on her back.

5

Fifteen minutes was all it took for the team to find themselves in a completely different world. The girl in the furisode had guided them through the neighboring university and up to the third floor of one of the buildings on campus.

“Natsuki Hatano,” she said. “Seventeen. Ex-high schooler. Nice to meetcha.” Natsuki and her one-in-a-million smile monopolized an entire sofa meant for three people, her shapely legs folded into a lazy pretzel shape.

The old lecture hall was huge, and all the chairs and desks had been replaced with tables, couches, and legless tatami chairs, all resting on a large and cozy rug. There was the occasional firearm, metal bat, or gardening hoe, but nothing too out of the ordinary given the way things were. Several people lounged around the room, and they were all women.

“I don’t see as many men here as outside,” Yu noted.

“Well, they tend to have trouble keeping their hands to themselves,” Natsuki said. “So this is where all the people who need protecting go to help each other. And ya girl Natsuki’s their personal bodyguard!”

On their way through campus, the vast majority of people they passed had been women. Many had been foreign, with skin tones and hair of all colors and types.

Natsuki turned to look out the window near her couch. The view from up here was incredible. “They just wanna protect their town.” She gave a sarcastic shrug. “But they take it too far sometimes. Especially when it comes to outsiders or ladies. I keep watch and make sure they aren’t getting up to no good, and that’s how I found you guys. Knew something was gonna go down when I saw elves.”

“Oh, thank you!” Aliya shouted, still shuddering from the experience. “Thank you so, so much!”

Something was puzzling Yu. If she had been keeping watch from the third floor, and she had fallen from the sky, she couldn’t have...

“The whole crowd broke apart the moment you showed up.” Ijuin marveled at the mysterious ex-high schooler. “Gotta say, you were pretty amazing.”

“Aww, shucks, no way,” Natsuki replied, her pitiful attempt at humility shattered by the smarmy grin plastered on her face. She winked at Aliya and Ein. “I had an ulterior motive this time.”

“Please, tell us how we might repay you,” said Ein. The clone princess glanced at the katana leaning against the sofa. “You’re clearly a distinguished fighter in this community. It’s only right that your valor be returned in kind.”

Natsuki laughed. “Thank ya kindly. I am pretty strong.” Her expression settled into something somber. “But not everyone. The sick, elderly, kids, they slip away so easily. Sure, there’s food if you can till soil, cast a line, or hold a gun, and we get water from the purification plant, but medicine? Gauze?” She trailed off into silence. “Whatever government there is in Kyushu, they’ve left us out to dry. Our radios don’t even work anymore.” She threw her hands up and continued, “Being strong only gets ya so far. I was at my wit’s end for a while, when I started hearing rumors.” The girl looked them over. “About an island of elves in Osaka Bay. You wouldn’t happen to be from there, would you?”

“What if we were?” Ein countered.

“I’d ask you to take me and my pals back home with ya!”

“Very well.”

“Okay, that was fast!” said Yu. “You’re sure about this?”

“Yeah!” Aliya said. “You can’t just—”

“Can I not?” Ein interjected. “If the elves will not have them, then we’ll simply find them another haven to the best of our ability.” Her voice resounded with clear and commanding grace. “A replica I may be, but within me is a royal and noble blood. I can not do my mother the injustice of forsaking people in need.” A smile came to her lips. Simple and artless. “We cannot save everyone, true. But what wrong is there in wanting to leave a wake of happiness at our backs?”

Yu felt a pang in him. Of amazement. But partly of jealousy. How could someone be so unequivocally kind? So unconditionally generous?

Yu put those questions aside and asked, “Natsuki, did you say your radios aren’t working?”

“Uh-huh,” she replied. “This place used to be pretty safe from the Anomalies—until one of those phantom castles showed up. Haven’t been able to contact anyone ever since.” She sounded almost indifferent. “I swear, not even the town’s safe from the monsters anymore. I’ve already got my hands full! I don’t need the idiots getting more trigger-happy than they already are!”

A bell tolled. Natsuki scowled and took up her katana.

“God, they’re everywhere,” Ijuin said. “Where did all those tentacles come from? How many even is that?”

“A surveillance droid is currently counting,” Aliya said. “We’re already past 152. It’s unreal.”

A MUV Bumblebee streamed the situation directly to Aliya’s and Ijuin’s HMD goggles. Ein looked down nearby, surveying the town from the campus building’s rooftop. She didn’t need assistance to tell what was going on.

Countless white tentacles were writhing from the ocean. Suction cups dotted their length, reminiscent of some kind of squid or octopus. They wrapped themselves around every building or unlucky individual that they could, crushing wooden structures and cracking concrete. Any humans caught in their grasp shriveled into empty husks.

“Leecher of life,” Ein muttered. “A kumbhanda lurks beneath the waves.”

The town struggled to meet the enemy. The men who had assaulted Aliya fired on the tentacles with hunting rifles, shotguns, and military-issue Type 89s, and while the bullets opened gaping holes in the trunks of wriggling flesh, the enemy was unimpeded. The seemingly invincible life-form went for the shooters, and they summarily withered away. And yet, the offensive continued as close-range forces advanced.

“N-Types!” Ijuin exclaimed. The fighters wore Normal-Type Exo-Frames—bulkier off-shoots of the A-Type that looked like the wearer had attached barrels to their arms and legs. They lacked flight capabilities, but came stocked with an arsenal of weaponry and a powerful punch to boot. “No way. If they’ve got those, then some of them have gotta be survivors from the Defense Force!”

The soldiers armed themselves with combat knives the size of hatchets and sliced at the tentacles, not wildly, but precisely, with experienced technique. They had clearly been trained. Their blades severed the appendages like butter. Evidently, they were the same vibroblades that the Mark III had access to, though it still wasn’t enough to stop the tendrils’ rampage. The serpent-like limbs slithered around the attackers, their titanium shells the only thing protecting them from the life-draining suckers. Even still, the soldiers flailed their knives against the foe.

But there was one less clumsy presence on the battlefield. One who evaded the tentacles effortlessly and with style.

Ijuin noticed her first and shouted, “Dude, that’s sick! Natsuki’s moving like water down there!”

Steel flashed and the peony furisode fluttered like the wings of a butterfly as Natsuki Hatano, the samurai girl, danced upon her stage, uttering spirited shouts when she leaped from one side to the other. Even amidst the chaos, she was grinning from ear to ear.

She was never in one place for more than a second, and by the time a tentacle came down she had already flown meters away, almost as if she had teleported. But she wasn’t only incredibly lithe. Even as she weaved among the innumerable appendages, she still slipped in clean and fierce flourishes of her katana.

“You guys don’t quit!” she laughed with glee. “Lucky for you, I’m a girl who likes her theatrics!”

With every brandish of her blade, a tendril fell. And when the stump continued to move, it was pruned yet shorter, until less than a meter remained of the anomalous flesh. The clippings undulated on the ground powerlessly. Natsuki’s swordplay amputated tentacle after tentacle with terrifying power, speed, and artistry. Not even the slippery ooze coating her katana could dull its edge. And try as it might, the enemy could not cage her.

“Where ya aiming? I’m over here!” she cried. “Tell you what, catch me and I’ll owe you a drink! How’s amazake sound?”

Her smile was like a firecracker, and this battle of life and death but a game.

Fiery as the blazing hair on her head, flowing as the furisode on her arms, powerful as the katana she wielded, and joyous in the face of danger. That was Natsuki Hatano. A modern-day kabukimono plucked straight from Japan’s feudal past.

Aliya fixed her eyes on her. “That sword,” she said. “It’s a monomolecular blade! It’s exceptionally sharp, but I thought only the military had them. And the way she moves... Who is that girl?”

There was one more unique soldier taking the field as well. His pitch-black armor shimmered gold in the sunlight. Yu fought with just as much bravery, flying back and forth, cleaving his hand-turned-vibroblade through the enemy, emulsifying them with ultrasonic waves emitted from his palm, and mowing them down with bursts of wind from the jet stream thrusters. Tentacles split apart, turned to chunks, were blown to pieces, but it was taking too long.

“Yu, the surveillance droid has finished acquiring the targets!” Aliya reported.

“Thanks!” said Yu’s voice over commlink. “Ein, the Gospel!”

“Its power is yours,” Ein said. “Use it as you see fit!”

At last, Yu soared into the sky. The droid had already calibrated the system and targeted all 1,062 tentacles encroaching from the sea.

“Ijuin, can you manually ignore any enemies near Natsuki?” Yu asked.

“Uh. Why?” he said.

“I think the droids will just get in her way. We need to give her as much space as possible.”

“Good point! I’ll see what I can do.”

Natsuki’s region soon disappeared from the area of effect. That was fast, Yu thought. Leave it to Ijuin to know his way around nanotech.

Then, just as quickly, it came.

—Witness the truth. Envision vajra.

—See, says the Enlightened One, true strength in tathata.

—Give form to invincible serenity, flawless as the full moon.

Ein’s melodious voice resounded and the Prayer Wheel began to spin. Adaptive nanofactors fell from the Mark III, just like they had against the army of trolls.

“We got this, Mark III,” Yu muttered.

“The MUV Chakrams are online!” Aliya transmitted.

Exactly five thousand annular droids had materialized seemingly out of thin air. They swarmed down to the earth, spinning, and shredded the white tentacles all over town. As durable as the tendrils were, they could do nothing in tiny pieces.

A man’s shriek was cut short, and he glanced around him, dazed. “I’m saved?”

“What was that just now?” another wondered to himself.

“Number Three?” one said, uncertain for a moment. “Hey. Hey, look up! It’s Three!”

“Devicer Three! Son of a bitch, you’re right!”

Once the men of the town recovered from their stupor, pulled away from the embrace of imminent death, one by one they began to look up and point at the same thing. The Mark III—Yu Ichinose.

“What the heck, why can they see me?!” Yu shouted.

“Duh! Of course they can!” Aliya chided. “Did you think the optical camouflage would just stay on while you whipped out every weapon in your arsenal?”

“Don’t worry about it! As long as they don’t see your face,” said Ijuin.

“Yu,” came Ein’s voice, “Natsuki could use your assistance. Her weapon is failing her.”

Yu jetted towards the Osaka International Airport at once. There, on the runway flooded with seawater at low tide, Natsuki was fighting as a one-woman army. She flitted from one place to the next, putting tentacles to her katana-shaped monomolecular blade, but their viscous mucus was finally beginning to blunt her cutting power. Yu tore a piece of the yellow scarf around his neck and the Holy Shroud entered Excalibur Mode. He swiftly dispatched a tentacle approaching her from behind.

“Oh?” Natsuki said. “A big strong man came to save me?”

“Came to give you a little hand,” Yu replied. “Take it.”

“Hm?” Natsuki accepted the Holy Saber without a second thought, but hummed at the Devicer with a skeptically arched eyebrow. “Have we met before?”

Yu immediately wanted to kick himself. She had recognized his voice. This, he realized, was what the voice changer was for. He ignored her question and took off into flight before he could screw something else up.

This time heading offshore, Yu scanned the ocean and ejected more nanofactors. “Ein!” he called. “I think it’s time we drag that thing out.”

“Very well! The titan’s hand is yours!” Ein declared. “Command it well!”

The nanofactors began to form into a new auxiliary droid, and before long, a giant arm flew abreast the Mark III—a great limb the size and semblance of what might be seen on a superpowered mecha from any number of anime Yu had seen. MUV Puppeteer.

The Multifunction Unmanned Vehicle moved like magic, exactly to Devicer Three’s will. From end to end it measured about fifteen meters, easily as large as a fighter jet, as if the arm of a titan had been severed at the elbow and suspended in air. Yu thrust his fist out—and the droid broke the sound barrier as it immediately slammed into the water. A great wave surged, but Yu was not taking his frustrations out on the ocean floor. He was after what the surveillance droid had identified there—the source of the tentacles.

It was a direct hit. The punch landed squarely on the hidden Anomaly. The arm of the ferrous giant captured the massive creature in its iron grip and hauled it up to Yu, breaking the water’s surface with a rush of crashing waves. A squid creature of over twenty meters long hung in its grasp.

“Anomaly identified!” Aliya said. “It’s a kraken! Threat level A!”

Even as the report came in, Yu was delivering the killing blow. He tore through the wind directly at the creature’s single grotesque eye, rolling his leg back and initiating the electromagnetic contractor. Without slowing down, Yu threw his entire weight into a crackling kick of electricity, and the monster perished instantly. The arm droid flung the kraken’s limp body far away.

They had made it out once again.

Yu looked southwest as he caught his breath. The long-range scope flagged the location of an enemy stronghold thirty-three kilometers off the coast, and an accompanying window showed a crystalline palace of forbidding beauty resting on a lotus pedestal atop the water. The portal-keep’s status read “Aerial”—immaterial.

“The elf settlement is beyond there, isn’t it?” Yu said.

“Let’s send a droid out to check!” Ijuin suggested.

“It can herald our arrival,” added Ein. “Send word that the Asura has chosen its new master.”

“I’ll input the message,” said Aliya.

Yu stared at the threat on his screen that stood between them and their destination. He sighed.

Natsuki wielded the strange sword with skill, pouncing here and there like an acrobat and carving up tentacles. She slew the last of them and exhaled heavily. She had survived, unscathed.

“Nearly had me there,” she breathed. She hadn’t anticipated the appendages’ secretions to hamper her monomolecular blade to such a degree.

Devicer Three’s sword melted from her hand. Such a curious weapon. Its edge had been keener than her own. But what piqued her interest more was the voice of its owner.

“Guess you can’t judge a book by its cover.” She gazed out over the ocean at a point in the sky. “A tiny little nerd like that. The hero behind the mask,” she said with a twinge of humor. “Think I found some new friends.”

Number Three was far enough away that the average person would never be able to make him out.

But Natsuki’s eyes were fixed.

“They’re augmented too. I can feel it.”