Chapter IV: Showdown! The Class League Match

It was May. Even a few weeks after the fact, Rin’s mood was still foul. Or rather, it had gotten worse by the day. She never came up to me again ever since she left my room in tears, and whenever we ran into each other in the hallway or the cafeteria, she ignored me. It was clear to me that she was angry. If the flak she was giving me had protected the battleship Yamato in World War II, maybe she wouldn’t have sunk. But maybe not.

“Ichika, the class league match is next week. The arena will be remodeled for it, so today is the last day we can practice.”

It was after school, and the sky had taken on an orange glow. We were at the third arena to practice. “We” being, as always, Houki, Cecilia, and I. The two girls had calmed down a lot over the course of the last few weeks, and it was astonishing that I rarely found myself under verbal siege or encircled by their glares. That said, I was still the focus of everyone’s attention, and the seats of the arena were basically filled. A bunch of second year girls who had tried to sell “reserved seats” had gotten punished by my sister Chifuyu the other day; the ringleader has been unable to leave her dorm room for three days. What had my sister done to her?

“Your IS piloting has gotten a lot better. Now is the time we should—”

“Well, he is keeping up with the training I am giving him. I would have been more surprised had he not learned all these things from me.”

“Hmph. As if teaching him mid-range combat tactics is of any use?! His IS has no ranged capability.”

Houki responded with a bit of barb in her voice because she’d been interrupted. And she was right, anyway. My IS, Byakushiki, didn’t have a single ranged weapon. I had only Yukihira Nigata, and nothing else. It’s normal that all IS units had their own sets of equipment. Typically the default equipment wasn’t enough, so they also carried auxiliary gear. In Cecilia’s case, the default was Blue Tears, and the auxiliary gear was her rifle and and a close-combat knife. IS units carried expansion slots to allow auxiliary equipment to be added. How much equipment could be added depended on the individual unit, but generally at least two more pieces of equipment were possible. Generally... My IS unit was different. It had no expansion slots, and the default equipment couldn’t be changed, so I was stuck with my single close-combat blade.

“How is that different from the sword practice he does with you, Shinonono? Practicing without the IS is just a waste of time.”

“Wh-What? Don’t you know that kendo can be adapted to anything you need? It provides a foundation for all endeavors you could—”

“Ichika, let’s start by practicing the zero-recoil turn today.”

“You little— Listen to me, Ichika!”

“I’m listening!”

Why was she upset at me now? I felt this was really unfair as I reached for the door sensor to arena three, pit A. It checked my fingerprint and vein pattern, and the door cranked open. The air rushed out from the pressure. I always thought that sounded really cool.

“I’ve been waiting for you, Ichika!”

Rin was standing inside the pit. She had her arms crossed, and smiled confidently. The last time I’d seen her previously, she was still angry with me, so this turn of events was surprising. Houki and Cecilia were frowning behind me. I hoped everything would work out.

“You! How did you get in he—”

“This place is off limits to unauthorized personnel.”

Cecilia interrupted Houki. I gave up. The day was going to end with blood.

“I’m authorized because of Ichika. This is fine, isn’t it?” Rin smiled, triumphantly.

—That’s... not really how the rules worked, but okay.

“Uh-huh... I’d love to hear what about you and him authorizes you to do anything.”

“You impudent little girl!”

Cecilia was beginning to lose it, too. I looked at Houki. The corners of her mouth were twitching, and it scared me. When her rage was quietly boiling like that, it put me on edge, even if it wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t for the faint of heart! There were deadly weapons nearby.

“You’re thinking about something weird, Ichika.”

“Nah, nothing. Just a warning going off inside my head that the slasher is in town.”

“Y-You goddamn—”

Houki came forward to grab me, but Rin jumped between us.

“This is my turn to shine! I’m the main character! You’re all extras!”

“E-Extras?!”

“Look, I’m not getting anything done. See ya. So, Ichika. Did you realize your mistake?”

“Hm? What do you mean?”

“Like... I... said! You’re probably thinking it was pretty awful how you made me angry, and how you wanted to make up, right?”

“Well, you know... You were avoiding me.”

“What...? Like, would you leave a girl alone just because she says she wants to be left alone?”

“Yeah.”

Sure I would. If she wants to be left alone, that’s what you do, right?

“Did I say something weird?”

“Weird? Argh!”

Rin was holding a hand to her head. She was visibly angry, and a little frustrated. I just hoped she wasn’t going to blame me if that ruffled her hair.

“Apologize to me!”

That was so straightforward I didn’t know what to say. It’s not like I was unable to bow and say sorry, but I wasn’t going to do it for no reason.

“Why, though?! I remembered our promise!”

“Are you still going on about that? This is so stupid. You don’t understand the meaning!”

—Meaning? Like how to take a mean? Excuse me, I passed math class.

“You’re thinking about a dumb pun, aren’t you?”

Damn it. Only my two childhood friends knew me that well. I had to be more careful.

“This is insane. You’re saying you’re not going to apologize?!”

“I will if you explain what’s going on.”

“I-I’m doing this because I don’t want to explain it!”

Yeah, that made no sense to me. How could I solve a problem when I didn’t even know what was wrong? But now that she’d shown herself to be so angry with me, I couldn’t just leave it. A man had to live up to his word. If we don’t do what we say, then people won’t trust what we say. Sincerity comes from utmost consistency in our actions. As a real man, I had to prove mine.

“All right, let’s do it like this. Next week’s the class league match. Whoever wins can make the other say exactly one thing, okay?”

“Right. I’ll have you explain this to me,” I replied.

You get what you ask for. That was the very basis of our economy. And if I’d brought this on somehow, I had to make it right.

“E-Explain... Um...”

Rin was frozen, still pointing her finger at me dramatically. She was turning red. I didn’t understand. Was it really so humiliating to be asked to explain why she was angry?

“Well, if you don’t want to do this, we don’t have to.”

I said that out of the goodness of my heart, but it had the opposite effect.

“Like hell we’re dropping this! You better rehearse your big apology to me!”

“Why would I, dummy?”

“You’re the dummy! Blockhead! Moron! Idiot!”

—Wow...

“Shut up, flat chest!”

Oh. That was probably a bad one.

Fshoom!

There was a loud, explosion-like noise, and the entire room shook a little. I looked at Rin, and her body was surrounded by IS armor, from her right index finger up to her shoulder. It had felt as though she had punched the wall as hard as she could, but her hand was nowhere near it.

“Now you’ve done it... You’ve said the one thing you shouldn’t have!”

Blue lightning raced over her IS armor. Yeah, now she was really angry. This was bad.

“H-Hey, I’m sorry! That was my bad. Forgive me.”

“Of course it was ‘your bad!’ It’s always your fault!”

That was kind of silly, but it wasn’t the time for more arguments.

“I was going to give you a chance, but it looks like you really want to die. Fine, then. I’ll grant you your wish. I’ll beat you to a pulp!”

She glared at me one last time and disappeared. I heard a door slam shut somewhere; even the door sounded afraid. Rin was totally serious now. I looked at the wall and saw a crater about 30 centimeters in diameter. Being able to dent a wall made of special alloy metal was pretty scary.

“She’s a Power type. And also a close-combat model, just like yours.”

Cecilia was studying the damage to the wall. Meanwhile, I engaged in the most profound regret in years.

—Me and my big mouth... I just had to mention her chest. Come on now, Ichika.

That was the thing that she worried about the most, and which also got her the most upset. That had been absolutely, unequivocally, my fault.

—Damn it...

Whether or not I won, I’d have to apologize to Rin regardless.

◇

The day of the match came, and we were at the second arena. It was the first battle. Between Rin and I, that is. News had spread that the two new students were squaring off, so the arena was filled to the brim. I could even see people standing in the aisles between the seats. All the students who weren’t able to get in were apparently watching a live broadcast outside.

—I don’t really have time to worry about all these people...

I looked across the arena and saw Rin and her IS, Shenlong. She was quietly waiting for the match to begin. Just as with Blue Tears, I could see she had unattached units. They were floating above her shoulder in the form of spiked balls. Some kind of attack equipment? They didn’t look like something you wanted to get hit by.

The reading of her IS’s name reminded me of that Chinese dragon. It wasn’t written the same way, but still. Whatever, if you read the characters the Japanese way, you could just call it Kouryuu... It was a legit reading.

“Okay, both of you go to your starting positions.”

Rin and I flew up into the sky. We were about five meters apart, and Rin and I were talking on an open channel.

“Ichika, if you apologize now, I’ll let you off easy.”

“If that’s all you’ve got to say, then I don’t need it. Come at me with everything you’ve got.”

I didn’t say that to sound tough. It was the same it’d been with Cecilia. I just hated not taking these sorts of things seriously. Battles were serious business; there was only a point to them if you thought as much.

“Just to let you know, the Absolute Defense system isn’t perfect. You can hurt the pilot if the power of the attack pierces the total shield energy.”

That wasn’t a threat, it was the truth. It was only a rumor, but supposedly there were even weapons designed specifically to hurt the pilot. Those were obviously against the competition rules, and they were very dangerous. Still... The point being, that it was possible to directly torment the pilot, and for a National Cadet, being able to do that was definitely feasible. The fact that my battle with Cecilia had been so close was nothing short of a miracle. Miracles don’t occur twice.

“Both of you, please start the match.”

A buzzer sound rang out and as soon as it stopped, Rin leapt forward.

Bam!

I brought the Yukihira Nigata out and just barely managed to block her attack. Then I used the Cross Grid Turn that Cecilia had taught me to swing the IS around and face Rin again.

“Hmm. Not bad, blocking my first attack. But...”

Rin was holding two oddly-shaped halberd-like weapons which she swung around like a baton. The blade on them was so large it looked more like a blade with a small arm attached, and Rin swung them around like they weighed nothing. What’s more, her attacks were so fast it took all I had just to parry her.

—This is bad. At this range, it’s going to drag out forever. I need to create some distance.

“Gotcha now!”

The armor above Rin’s shoulder slid open. Inside were glowing balls, and I was slammed away by a powerful force. For a moment my mind went dark as I almost lost consciousness. Rin didn’t stop attacking, of course.

“That was just a jab,” she smiled at me, confidently.

After a jab, the boxer goes in for the knockout punch.

Wham!

“Ngh!”

An invisible fist slammed into me, and I hit the ground. I could feel pain because some of the impact had penetrated the shield barrier. It had done 76 damage, all in one blow. Things were going really, really badly.

◇

“What is that?” I asked, as I looked at a live feed down into the pit.

“An impact cannon. It uses air pressure to make a gun barrel of sorts, and fires a concentrated ball of pressure forward,” Cecilia answered, as she was staring at the same monitor.

Cecilia continued on and on about third-generation units like Shenlong and Blue Tears, but I wasn’t listening. I couldn’t stand watching him fight so desperately. It hurt my soul hurt every time he took a hit.

—Ichika...

This was way more brutal and merciless than when he’d fought against Cecilia. I just hoped he’d come back safely, above all else.

◇

“You can dodge pretty well. I’m amazed, because the nice thing about my weapon, Ryuuhou, here, is that you can’t see the barrel or the bullets.”

Yes, that was true. Not only were the bullets invisible, but so was the barrel. It was really hard to keep track of, and it seemed like her cannon could more or less fire in any direction around her without restrictions. I could try above or below her, but it even fired on me when I was behind her. It went straight for me every single time. Granted, Rin was also a very good shot. She was really skilled at basic movements and maneuvers. Everything she did was fast and effortless. To simply call her “good” was an understatement.

—I could use the hypersensors to detect unusual patterns in the air flow, but that takes too long. I need to get the better of her, somehow.

I clenched my fist around Yukihira Nigata and tried to remember all of my training.

“The barrier cancellation?”

Chifuyu nodded. After the battle with Cecilia, Houki and I were thinking a lot about why it I had lost suddenly. We had sifted through the IS log files and couldn’t really make sense of them. Chifuyu eventually got sick of it and explained it to us.

“That’s Yukihira’s special ability. It can bypass the enemy shield barrier and damage the unit. What happens then, Shinonono?”

“U-Um. The IS Absolute Defense system activates and drains a very large amount of shield energy.”

“Exactly. I made use of that ability a lot to become the world champion,” said Chifuyu, offhandedly.

She didn’t make a big deal out of this accomplishment. Every three years the IS global tournament called “Mondo Grosso” was held, and she had won the first iteration, even if she rarely talked about it. I had complex feelings about having such a formidable and well-known sister. There were lots of bad aspects to it.

“So if that strike had hit her, I’d have won?”

“If it had, yes. Why do you think you lost?”

“Um... I don’t know why, but my shield energy hit zero.”

“There’s a reason for it. There always is. Yukira’s special ability comes at the price of your own shield energy. Obviously it would, you idiot.”

“Oh...”

—Yeah, that made sense, so...

“So... You’re basically converting your own shield energy into damage output?” Houki asked, to which Chifuyu nodded.

“It’s a defective unit.”

—What?!

“A defective unit? What the hell do you mean?”

Wham!

I guess that hadn’t been polite enough towards a teacher.

“I suppose that isn’t entirely accurate. The IS is far from a finished development, so you can’t say it’s defective. However, it’s a little more focused on attack than other units. Did you see how all the expansion slots are taken up?”

“O-Oh, that’s a defect?”

“Listen to me; the point is that you can only use Yukihira by sacrificing all the expansion slots. In exchange, the attack power is outstanding.”

—Hmm, I remember that Chifuyu only ever used Yukihira...

It seemed inhuman to me that someone was able to win with just that. I’d always known that my sister was really good, but only since becoming an IS pilot myself did I realize just how good she really was.

“A novice like you could never handle ranged fire, anyway. Recoil compensation, leading the target, controlling the distance, 1-0 stopping, zero-recoil turns, ammo types, atmospheric interference, planning your battle out... There’s so much you can’t do... Or can you?”

“I’m sorry.”

If you understand your faults, apologize. Chifuyu nodded. This was enough for her.

“Focusing entirely on one thing suits you. After all... You’re my brother.”

After that, our practice focused on close-combat and basic maneuvers like high-G stops. It turned out that my experience practicing kendo with Houki was useful in being able to control the distance, and also overall becoming a better fighter.

—Now the important thing is spirit...

Normally you’d think that she was far superior in skill; in opposition to Cecilia, Rin became more composed the more hectic combat was. She was just a fundamentally strong combatant. The only thing that could bridge the gap with an opponent like that was spirit. Without the right mindset, I couldn’t win. That was my single ray of hope in this desperate battle. Now all I had to do was act upon it.

“Rin.”

“Yeah?”

“I won’t hold back.”

I stared at her. The force of my gaze seemed to push her back, as her features melted a little.

“Wh-What... Of course you wouldn’t... A-Anyway! I’ll show you how big the gulf between us is!”

Rin twirled her twin blades around herself and entered a new posture. I readied myself to accelerate and close the distance before the impact cannon could hit me. Much of the time during the preceding week had been spent practicing Ignition Boost. As long as I aimed it right, I could fight on even footing, even with National Cadets. The IS and its safeguards made sure I didn’t lose consciousness from the G-forces involved.

“HAAAAAH!”

I only had one chance at this surprise attack, which was why I also activated Yukihira’s barrier cancellation. Unless I took away most of her shield, her cannons were just going to whittle me down.

BA-BOOOM!

“Huh?!”

Moments before my blade could touch Rin, a blast shook the arena.

—Was that Rin...? No, it couldn’t have been.

Both the area of effect and its destruction were an order of magnitude larger. There was smoke rising from the center of the arena. Apparently something had penetrated the arena’s isolation shield and impacted in the center.

“Wh-What was that? What’s going on?”

Rin was just as confused as I was and had opened a private channel.

“Ichika! The match is off! Go back to the pit!”

—What’s with all the shouting all of a sudden?

Just as I thought about that, my IS hypersensors sounded off all kinds of warnings.

[HEAT SIGNATURE DETECTED. SOURCE: UNKNOWN IS UNIT. ENEMY LOCK-ON DETECTED.]

“Wh—”

The arena’s isolation shields were the same as those used on IS units. An IS unit powerful enough to blast through those shields was now in the arena, and it was locked on to me. What a situation to be in!

“Ichika! Hurry!”

“What about you?!”

I didn’t know how to answer on the private channel so I made an open one.

“I’ll buy you time! Run away!”

“Run away?! I’d never leave a girl behind!”

“Idiot! You’re a weaker fighter than me! Just do it!”

She really wasn’t pulling any punches. Since I hadn’t responded on her private channel, Rin was answering me on the open channel, too.

“I’m not going to stick around either. With a situation like this, I’m sure the academy brass will show up in a moment and clean it u—”

“Careful!”

In the nick of time, I carried Rin out of the way of the blast. A scorching ray seared through the sky where Rin had been.

“A beam weapon... And with a lot more output than Cecilia’s IS.”

Just seeing the estimates the hypersensors were showing me gave me goosebumps.

“H-Hey! Idiot! Let me go!”

“H-Hey, stop struggling. Don’t punch me!”

“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”

I still had the shield protecting me, but she was still slapping away at me. It did not feel great.

“D-Don’t touch me there!”

“It’s firing!”

I ignored Rin’s complaints as rapid-fire energy beams seared through the surrounding smoke. I managed to dodge them somehow, and the shooter began to slowly lift up into the sky.

“Who is that?”

It looked totally different from the IS units I knew. It was dark, mostly black or gray, with unnaturally long arms that were longer than its legs. And it had no head; the shoulders and the head were fused into one. But the strangest part about it was the fact that it was fully covered in armor.

Normally an IS unit has only partial armor plates. Why, you ask? Because more wasn’t necessary. Covering the unit in armor would make no sense. Of course, Guard type IS units carried physical shields, but I’d never heard of an IS that fully covered the pilot. And it was also very large. Clearly, this was no ordinary IS. The arms alone looked to be more than two meters in length, and there were thrusters all over its body, perhaps to maintain altitude. Near the fused head I saw sensor lenses distributed irregularly, and the beam cannons were mounted two apiece on the arms.

“Who’re you?”

“.........”

But of course, the mysterious intruder didn’t respond.

“Orimura! Huang! Leave the arena at once! The teachers will subdue the unit!”

Ms. Yamada popped up on my com. She sounded a lot more dignified than I remembered.

“No, we’ll stop it before you’re all here.”

The IS had penetrated the isolation shield. That meant all the spectators and everyone outside of an IS were in danger of being injured.

“You all right, Rin?”

“A-Are you talking to me? L-Let me go! I can’t move!”

“Oh, sorry.”

As I let go of her, she wrapped her arms around her body protectively. She must have really hated it. I felt sorry for that.

“Orimura! D-Don’t do that! We can’t have anything happen to the stud—”

That was all I managed to catch from her. The enemy IS was attacking again and I had to dodge.

—Phew.

“Hmph. That unit sure is motivated.”

“Looks like it.”

Rin and I were hovering side by side and observing our enemy.

“Ichika, I’ll back you up with ranged fire. You go and attack it. You only have that weapon, right?”

“Yeah. Okay, I’ll do it.”

We tapped our weapons together, then we went in. Rin and I, the improvised team.

◇

“Hey! Are you listening?! Orimura! Huang! Are you listening?!”

There was no reason to yell on the IS com systems, but Yamada was too nervous to realize that. Meanwhile Chifuyu, looking at this from a few meters away, was more calm.

“They said they will do it. Let them.”

“M-M-Ms. Orimura! You can’t be serious about that!”

“Calm down. Drink some coffee. The lack of sugar is making you nervous.”

“Um... That’s salt.”

“.........”

Her hand stopped and returned the white spoonful to its vessel.

“Why is there salt here?”

“I-I don’t know? But it says on the jar that it’s salt...”

“.........”

“Oh! You must be worried about your brother after all! So you mistook it fo—”

“.........”

There was an uncomfortable silence. Too uncomfortable, in fact. Yamada tried to divert the conversation in the hope of changing this.

“U-Um...”

“Yamada, here’s your coffee.”

“Um... But there is salt in it already...”

“Your coffee.”

She drank some of the coffee. It was a little salty. Tears stood in her eyes.

“Thank you...”

“Drink it while it’s hot.”

Truly, demons lived among men.

“Give me permission to pilot my IS! I will attack immediately!” Cecilia pleaded.

“I would like to let you, but look at this.”

She touched the terminal a few times, and the information on it changed. Now it displayed status values about the second arena.

“The isolation shield was set to level four? And now all the gates are locked? Did the IS do that?”

“It looks like it. They can’t escape, and we can’t support them.”

Chifuyu said this in an even, composed voice, but when she punched buttons on the terminal, her irritation was obvious.

“Th-Then we need to request immediate assistance from the government!”

“We’re doing that. The elite from the third years is hacking the system right now. We’re going to send in a rescue squad once the isolation shield is down.”

Chifuyu’s eyebrows were twitching. Her growing irritation was showing. Cecilia interpreted this as a sign of the danger they were in and sat down.

“Hah... So I can’t do anything but wait...”

“You’re not going to be in the rescue squad anyway.”

“Wh-What?!”

“Your IS is designed to fight several opponents at once. Fighting together in a group against one is going to make it harder for the rest.”

“That’s not true! I wouldn’t make it harder for them!”

“Did you practice team combat, then? What was your job there? How did you use the bits? What did your allies do? How competent was the opponent? How much team combat did you—”

“F-Fine! I get it!”

“Hmph. Good.”

Chifuyu could have kept going for another hour. It stopped Cecilia in her tracks. She gave up.

“Hah... I’m upset that I can’t respond to that...”

She felt exhausted, and sighed a little deeper than before, then she noticed something.

“Um... Where is Shinonono?”

Cecilia looked around. Chifuyu looked at the monitors grimly, and somewhat differently than before. But at the time, the others did not notice that.

◇

“Tch...!”

I was in range for my ultimate attack, but my strike was dodged by the enemy. That was the fourth time I’d missed my chance.

“Ichika! You idiot! Do it properly!”

“I’m trying!”

I attacked so fast and ferociously that nobody could have dodged it, but the enemy IS’s thrusters had an astonishing level of output. It needed no more than a second to create massive distance; no matter how much Rin distracted the enemy, it always managed to dodge my attacks in time.

—This is bad...

My shield energy was down to just 60. I had only one more shot to use my barrier cancellation.

“Ichika, break away!”

“Okay!”

Whenever the enemy unit dodged my attacks, it responded with a ridiculous counter-attack. It came at me flailing its long arms, like a spooked horse, all the while still shooting beams from said arms.

“This damn thing is so annoying!”

Rin opened her impact cannons and fired. The enemy slammed aside her invisible projectiles; that had been her seventh attempt. Either way, her fire support distracted the unit, and I escaped its immediate range. Thankfully, its beam weapon’s effective range while in rapid-fire mode was only about half its normal distance.

“Rin, how much energy you got left?”

“About 180.”

Our shield energy was quite spent. She’d lost a fair chunk, but not as much as I had. Having to use the Yukihira Nigata was taking its toll.

“This is tough... The chance of hitting it hard enough to power it down with what little we have left is probably in the single digits.”

“Yeah, but it’s not zero,” I said.

“I give up. We’ve basically run out of options. When faced with something you don’t understand, you take the safe and boring way out like some old man. But really, you like to gamble, don’t you?”

“Oh, shut up.”

I didn’t gamble, by the way. That stuff was addictive for me. Betting on dumb crap with Gotanda in middle school had cost me a lot of soft drinks. I’d decided back then that I wanted to save the normal way, and I was going to need to because our pensions were all toast.

“So what now?” asked Rin.

“Run away if you want to.”

“What? Are you making fun of me?! I’m a National Cadet, you know! Like hell I’d run away with my tail between my legs!”

The single most desired trait in all National Cadets was apparently pride. Cecilia always acted the same way, after all.

“Right. Well, I’ll make sure I have your back, then.”

“Uh... Oh... O-Okay... Tha—”

Rin was turning pink when a beam seared by next to her. Well, we were still in battle after all. It wasn’t like we were paying no attention at all, but we had to focus again.

“Hey, Rin. Don’t its tactics remind you of something?”

“Huh? I dunno. You’re not going to say it looks like a horse, right?”

“That’s just what it looks like. No, I mean, like... Remember that humanoid robot some car company made a long time ago?”

“Nope...”

She must have been living under a rock at the time. ASI-something? I couldn’t remember either.

“I mean... It moves like a machine, don’t you think?”

“An IS is a machine.”

“That’s not what I mean. Like... Do you think there’s really a person inside there?”

“What? An IS can’t move without a human ins—”

Rin fell silent.

“It hasn’t attacked us much whenever we were talking. Like it’s listening to us...”

Rin was trying to recall the battle. These were the times she was dead serious about everything.

“But... An unmanned unit shouldn’t be possible. An IS can never move without a human being inside. That’s how they work.”

I’d also read that in a textbook: there had to be someone inside the IS. But was that really true? We had no way of knowing what cutting-edge research was already up to. They wouldn’t be telling anybody about it, after all.

“Okay... Let’s just assume... What if this unit is unmanned?”

“What, are you saying we can win if it’s unmanned?”

“Yeah. We can attack with everything we’ve got if we know there’s nobody in there.”

Between Yukihira Nigata and Reiraku Byakuya, my ultimate attack, my IS had a ton of destructive power. It was simply too powerful to be used in league matches or training, but against an unmanned unit, it didn’t matter what havoc it could wreak. I had come up with a plan.

“You’re not even hitting it, though. ‘Give everything,’ my butt.”

“The next one will hit.”

“I wanna see that. I don’t think it’s possible, but let’s assume that the unit isn’t manned.”

Maybe Rin knew that I had a plan. She was smiling at me. She’d shown that smile to me before, sometimes. It was the kind of face that said “And if you’re wrong, you’re treating me to crepes.” She was the devil. She’d been basically extorting me since middle school.

“Ichika.”

“Hm?”

“What should I do?”

‘I’ll do whatever you need. But if it fails, you’re treating me.’

She was very good at communicating that with her eyes. There’s a good phrase for this: tacit understanding.

“When I give the signal, I want you to shoot him with everything you’ve got.”

“Okay. But it’s not going to hit.”

“That’s fine.”

“All right, let’s—”

I repositioned to attack, but then a voice blared out over the arena’s speakers.

“ICHIKA!”

High audio feedback noise followed. Houki was yelling at me.

“Wh-What are you doing?!”

The referee and the commentator were lying next to her. Apparently she had stormed in and knocked them out. They weren’t going to wake up for a while; Oh, boy.

“You’re a man... How can a man not manage to win against this thing?!” yelled Houki.

Her voice generated a lot of audio feedback again. I could see her enlarged on my hypersensors. Houki was out of breath and panting. She looked angry, but also scared... It was strange to see.

“.........”

Shit. The enemy IS had become distracted by the arena-wide transmission. Its sensor lenses turned away from us and were now aimed at Houki.

“Houki, run!”

She wasn’t going to make it. I had to go in immediately. I changed my posture and accelerated. My eyes were leveled at the enemy IS, which was turning towards Houki.

“Rin, fire!”

“O-Okay!”

Rin lowered her arms to let her shoulder-mounted cannons fire forward. She was going to fire a full-power shot, so she had to expand her auxiliary-powered wings. I moved my unit straight into her line of fire.

“H-Hey, you idiot! What are you doing?! Move out of the way!”

“Just fire!”

“Damn it! Don’t blame me!”

When I felt the high-energy reaction at my back, I activated my Ignition Boost. The principle of instant acceleration was as such: I was going to expel energy from my rear thruster wings, absorb it with the main frame, and eject it with even more pressure. In turn, this would generate an explosive amount of inertia that I could use to accelerate. All in all, that meant I could use any energy coming in from behind, and the speed I got out of it was proportional to the amount of energy put in.

Bang! I felt a massive energy impact on my back.

The projectiles from the cannon had hit me. My body creaked, and I was thrown forward.

“WHOAAA!”

The light of Yukihira Nigata in my right hand burned even more brightly than before. The blade size around the fuller had grown by one.

I could use Reiraku Byakuya now; energy conversion rate was over 90%.

I knew it. I could feel it. It felt just like the first time I’d touched an IS. Everything was clear and lucid, like I understood all that was around me. My focus was ten times better than normal, if not more, and my mind so much faster. I could feel the power in my hands.

—Chifuyu... Houki... Rin... I will protect them... I will protect everyone!

I cut off the enemy’s right arm with my massive slice. In return, its left arm hit me dead on, and just at the point of impact, I sensed a heat signature. It was firing its beam weapon.

“ICHIKA!”

Houki and Rin were yelling.

—Hang on, it’s not over yet!

“Locked on?”

“Perfectly.”

I could hear her clearly. She could be annoying sometimes, but I was glad to hear her voice then. The four units of Blue Tears fired on the enemy IS from the stands. My attack had destroyed the isolation shield. My plan had been enacted.

Bam! The enemy IS was thrown to the ground by the laser hits.

Without the shield barrier, the enemy IS took all the shots without any time to react. Perhaps a human could have anticipated this attack, but not a machine. Improvisation was the greatest asset of human beings, after all. Human beings were crafty; they found ways to trick you. Machines couldn’t do the same.

“That was close.”

“I knew you could do it, Cecilia.”

I answered with full confidence. I’d fought her before, after all. I knew how good she was. Perhaps she didn’t expect this? She seemed flustered when she answered.

“I-I see...... Of course! After all, I am Cecilia Alcott. I am the British National Cadet!”

This was going on over our private channel. I didn’t know how to answer someone privately I hadn’t met before, but older contacts turned up in my log, and I could use that. I just had to picture them at the back of my mind, and imagine myself talking to them.

“Hmph. At least it’s over now.”

[WARNING: LOCK-ON DETECTED. ENEMY IS REACTIVATED.]

“Wha—”

It only had its left arm. The cannons on it had changed into high-output burst mode and were aimed straight at me. I could see the gathering light in its cannons. I dove straight towards the brightness without hesitation. Everything was bright. I couldn’t see anything, but I could feel my sword striking heavy armor.

◇

“Huh...?”

I felt pain in my body, and opened my eyes. I looked around, not knowing where I was. It seemed to be the infirmary. I was lying in bed, and the curtains were drawn around me. It made me feel confined, but also gave me a sense of peace. Quite the contradiction.

—So... What happened? My attack hit the enemy, but after that...

“You’re awake.”

The curtains were drawn aside. Action before thought. Yes, my sister Chifuyu had come.

“You’re not in danger anymore, but you are pretty bruised. It’s going to hurt like hell for a few days. Just accept it.”

“Right...”

I was still a little out of it. I could listen to Chifuyu, but it didn’t make much sense to me that my body was bruised. Outside the window, the sky was turning orange. It was after school, clearly.

“You took the impact cannon to the back at maximum capacity, and you cut off the Absolute Defense system, didn’t you? You’re lucky you didn’t die.”

I couldn’t remember.

—Hmm, I didn’t know the Absolute Defense system could even be cut off.

“Well, I’m happy you’re alive. I wouldn’t like seeing my little brother die.”

Chifuyu’s expression was much softer than it usually was; we were the only family the other had. She would never have let anybody else see such a soft side of her.

“Chifuyu...”

“Yeah?”

“I, uh... I’m sorry I worried you.”

“I wasn’t worried. You’re my brother. You wouldn’t die so easily.” Chifuyu smiled.

—That is an abnormal level of trust.

But I knew she probably wasn’t comfortable showing more affection than that, so I didn’t mind.

“Well, I need to deal with the aftermath, so I’ll be back at work. Get some rest, and then you can go back to your room.”

With that, Chifuyu marched out of the infirmary. She was always serious about her job, and was definitely the person I looked up to the most.

“Um... Ahem! Ahem!”

Someone came in, in Chifuyu’s stead. I recognized that fake coughing. It was Houki.

Ga-sha! The curtain was drawn apart again.

Chifuyu had only drawn it halfway, but Houki didn’t hold back, not like that was really necessary.

“Hey, Houki.”

“H-Hey.”

My ponytailed childhood friend crossed her arms. She didn’t look mad at me, but she didn’t look happy either.

“S-So, um... About the battle today...”

“Hm? Oh... Speaking of which, what happened to the league match? Did they annul it?”

“Oh, yeah. Of course. They had to after what happened.”

—That makes sense. I wonder when the rematch will be. At the very least, it hope it’s after I’m fit again.

“Wh-What were you thinking about?!”

“What?”

She was mad suddenly. I had no idea why she was indignant, or perhaps she was just acting like she was mad to hide something else.

“We won, so it turned out well, but... You should have just let the teachers deal with it! Your confidence is going to be the end of you one day!”

“Oh, so I won.”

“That hardly counted as winning!”

—So which is it?

Houki’s shoulders were heaving. She was pretty worked up. I couldn’t imagine what had her so befuddled.

—Ah, right.

“Were you worried about me?”

“N-No! Who’d worry about your safety?”

Guess not, then. I was hoping my childhood friend would do that, but no such luck.

“A-Anyway! You should understand how good it was that we trained now. We’ll keep going with that. All right?”

“Yeah, that’s fine.”

“Good. I’ll be back in our room.”

She wasn’t going to wait for me, huh... Some loving childhood friend she was.

“Ichika...”

“Yeah?”

“So... I was looking at you fighting, and you looked really c... c... c...”

—Crazy...?

“Coo— Forget it!”

I couldn’t quite catch that. If she wanted me to forget, then fine. That’s what I was going to do.

“L-Later!”

Houki stormed out of the infirmary. She could have at least closed the door and pull the curtains closed, or something.

“Hm... I’m getting sleepy...”

Perhaps I was still exhausted, but sleep dragged me into its embrace. I welcomed it. The bed was nice and comfortable.

“.........”

I could feel someone was near me; so close that our faces were almost touching. Who was it? How long had I slept?

“Ichika...”

“Rin?”

“......?!”

I recognized her voice and woke up. Rin’s nose was about three centimeters from mine.

“What are you doing?”

“Y-Y-You were awake?!”

“I woke up from your voice. So what’s going on? Why are you so flustered?”

“I-I’m not flustered! Don’t get the wrong idea, you idiot!”

The word “idiot” was part of the grammatical makeup of her sentences, apparently. I could do without that kind of pop culture character trait.

“Oh... I heard the battle was annulled.”

“Oh, yeah. I guess that happened...”

Rin sat down on a chair next to the bed. Perhaps she was going to peel me an apple? I couldn’t see any apples.

“Oh.”

“Y-Yeah?”

“What are we doing about the match now? Did they set a date yet?”

“Don’t worry about that.”

“What? Why?”

“J-Just don’t worry about it!”

I had no idea what was going on, but all right, I won’t worry any longer. Either way, a real man had to own up to his mistakes.

“Rin.”

“Yeah?”

“Um, I’m... I’m sorry. About a lot of things. I really am,” I nodded to her in apology.

Whatever the details, whatever the result, if you messed up, you had to apologize. That was my belief. This took Rin aback, but she quickly recovered her composure.

“W-Well... I guess I took it too seriously as well... It’s fine now.”

She forgave me, it seemed. Blessed be the common past of old friends. I didn’t want to ruin our friendship, either.

“Oh. I just remembered.”

The time I had made a promise with Rin came to mind again. It’d been during our last year of grade school. We were in a classroom, and the sun had been as red as it was now.

“What you asked me was whether I’d eat your sweet-and-sour pork every day once you got good at it, right? So? Did you?”

“I... Um...”

Rin looked left, then right, and eventually at the ground. She was very confused now. Her face had turned red.

“So, I was thinking. Maybe there was a different meaning to that. I always took it as me getting a bunch of food for free, but maybe what you meant was—”

“N-No! That’s right! Cooking gets better if you do it for others, right?! Yeah! That’s what it meant!”

She’d gotten up from her chair and looked down at me. It was positively imposing.

“I guess, yeah. Like, I thought it could have been like one of those veiled romantic things in movies where it’s a metaphor, but maybe not. I must have read too much into that.”

“.........”

“Rin?”

“Um... Y-Yeah! You read too much into that! Hahaha!”

Rin’s laughter sounded uncomfortable, like she was trying to hide something. Well, if she didn’t want to talk about it, I wasn’t going to force her. There was something else I wanted to ask her, anyway.

“If you’re back in Japan, does that mean your family has a restaurant again? Your dad made great food. I wanna eat it again.”

“Oh, no... We... don’t have a restaurant.”

“Why?”

“My parents got a divorce...”

That surprised me. They’d looked like a happy couple, by all accounts. But I thought she wouldn’t have lied about that. I looked at Rin. She looked depressed and unsure what to say to me.

“I had to go back to China because of that.”

“I see...”

Now that I thought about it, Rin hadn’t looked like herself back then. Like she was trying to hide something by being positive and bright.

“My mother has custody of me on paper. Women are in power now everywhere, so that makes sense, but...”

She was trying to sound upbeat again, but the tone of her voice was gloomy.

“I haven’t seen my father in a year. I think he’s doing well, though.”

I didn’t know what to say to her. I felt depressed as well, knowing that her parents had divorced. It had pulled her family apart. That was never good. There must have been something that forced this. I remembered her generous father, and also her hard-working mother.

—Why? Just... Why?

I couldn’t bring myself to ask Rin. She was probably suffering the most from this.

“Family is hard, isn’t it?”

I didn’t know my own parents. Chifuyu was my only family, so I couldn’t say I knew first-hand what she meant.

“Hey, Rin.”

“Yeah?”

“Let’s go have fun somewhere one of these days.”

“Uh... Is that a da—”

“We can call Gotanda, too. Get the old crew back together.”

“.........”

For a split second Rin had looked incredibly happy, but now she had wheeled straight back around to gloominess. I didn’t understand.

“No way.”

She was pouting now. I was trying to do this for her, though. Is that not what friends are for?

“I-I’d only go if it’s just you alo—”

Wham! The door to the infirmary was slammed open.

“Ichika! How are you feeling? I asked the nurses and... Oh.”

Cecilia strode into the room, but stopped talking. She had seen Rin by my bedside.

“Why are you here? Ichika is a member of Class A. There is no reason for a girl from Class B to visit him, I should think.”

“What are you talking about? I’m visiting him as his childhood friend. You’re just a random stranger!”

“I-I’m his classmate! And I’m also his exclusive combat tutor as well!”

The emphasis on “exclusive” was strange. Cecilia also added that she was a National Cadet for good measure, but that only served to dig her hole deeper.

“All right. Then I’m going to be his exclusive combat tutor as well, starting tomorrow. After all, I’m also a National Cadet.”

“Y-You can’t!” Cecilia exclaimed.

“Why not? Ichika, you are fine with that, right?”

“Y-You’re not, right? Ichika?!”

Why were they asking me? I really didn’t care either way. I just wanted to be taught how to use an IS. Maybe Rin was a better fit? She had close-combat abilities, too. It was more of a multipurpose unit, but still.

“I think Rin is more compatible.”

“Wh...”

“Hehe... Yes, yes. There you have it.”

“Since she also has close-combat weapons.”

“.........”

“.........”

Both of them were dumbfounded. That had seemed like a perfectly decent reason to me.

“I suppose you’re right. Yes, she does have close-combat weapons, if nothing else. But I, Cecilia Alcott, will have to continue to teach him mid-range combat as his exclusive tutor.”

This time she stressed the “if nothing else.” Now it was Rin’s turn to look unhappy and glum. She was staring at me. Glaring, even.

—What did I do wrong now?!

“Well, then. Let us analyze today’s combat performance. Alone.”

“What are you talking about? Ichika and I were the ones fighting out there, so we should go over our performance together! Are you stupid?”

“Stu... Hmph. This is why I hate uncouth plebeians.”

“Better than being stuck up like you!”

“Excuse me?!”

“What?!”

Those two were really not getting along. Cecilia wasn’t really getting along with either Houki or Rin. I wished she’d try. She probably wasn’t going to, though.

—Man... I want to go back to my room and sleep... I want to take a bath...

My gloomy mood was being ignored. Instead, the other two kept fighting.

—Sigh...

◇

Fifty meters underground, below the academy. Only those with level four clearance were allowed into these facilities. It was a secret base. The disabled IS unit had been brought here, without delay, to be analyzed. Chifuyu, in the meantime, had been watching the arena’s combat footage for two hours straight.

“.........”

The room was dark, lit only by the illumination of the monitors. They made her face look cold and austere.

“Ms. Orimura?”

A window opened on her screen. It was an image from a surveillance camera outside the door. Ms. Yamada was standing there, book in hand.

“Come in.”

The door opened, having heard this command, and Ms. Yamada strode in.

“The analysis report on the unit is in.”

“Good. What does it say?”

“It... It was an unmanned unit.”

The technology to make a unit unmanned did not exist anywhere in the world, be it remote control or stand-alone. One of these, or perhaps both of these, had been used with that unit. There was going to have to be a gag order because of this.

“It’s unclear how it was made to move. Orimura’s final attacked destroyed core elements of the system. We probably can’t reconstruct its functions.”

“What about the core?”

“The core is unregistered.”

“I see.”

She was expecting that. Ms. Yamada noticed that Chifuyu was feeling validated about something.

“Do you have an idea?”

“No, none. Not yet, anyway...”

Chifuyu looked back at the screens. Not as a teacher, but as a warrior. As a legendary pilot, once the best in the world. The focus in her eyes hearkened back to those days as she stared at the combat unfolding on screen.

◇

“You’re late!”

That was the first thing I heard when I came back to my room. My childhood friend was a demon.

“What were you doing? I’m hungry. I kept waiting for you.”

“Waiting? What, you haven’t eaten anything yet?”

“I told you that I was waiting for you.”

—You could’ve just eaten without me...

But I didn’t say that. That would probably have made her angry. I was learning!

“Let’s go eat, then. Off to the cafeteria! We can still make it.”

“W-Wait!”

Houki stopped me as I was about to leave. What now? We had little time before the cafeteria closed at eight. I wasn’t going to dine on dried sardines or something.

“T-Today, uh... I... Um...”

“Is that... the smell of food?”

Freshly cooked food, at that. My stomach growled at the prospect of sustenance.

“There’s something on the table. Wow! Fried rice! What’s going on?”

The enticing smell I had caught was that of sesame oil. I was immediately hungry enough to eat.

“I-I, uh... M-Made this!”

“Really?”

“Why are you so surprised?!”

—Well, anybody would be.

I was mostly surprised that it wasn’t traditional Japanese food. It was a strange turn of events. Was she trying to get something out of me? I had no money, so no problem.

“Well?! A-Are you going to eat, or what?”

“Oh, I’m gonna eat it. Why are you angry?”

“I-I’m not angry!”

She seemed angry when she answered me as well, but apparently that wasn’t the case. If she said she wasn’t angry, then she wasn’t. The basis of human society was trusting one another, after all.

“So, can I eat?”

“Wash your hands first. And brush your teeth.”

Everything had to be according to the rules for Houki. Perhaps doing this was normal at one point, but in our day and age, these customs were being abandoned by people of all age and sex. Still, I would have done it anyway. I didn’t have to be told. I finished that up quickly. When I came back, Houki gestured impatiently for me to sit down. She was already waiting. I sat down and thanked her for the food.

“Thank you for the food.”

“Hmm. Eat now.”

I ate.

“.........”

“How is it? Good, right?”

Houki looked at me proudly. I wasn’t able to agree immediately.

“It has no taste...”

“Wh-What?! Let me try!”

Houki grabbed my spoon and ate some of the rice.

“It really has no taste...”

“Right?”

It looked just like Chinese fried rice was supposed to look, but it tasted like nothing. How was that possible? She probably hadn’t used enough flavoring... or any at all. It was extremely strange that the food had the right texture, then. It looked just about perfect. Was this magic?

“I-I must have forgotten! You can forget these things!”

“Forget the seasoning? I dunno, that sounds unlikely...”

“Shut up! I’ll just eat it all, then!”

“I didn’t say that. Come on, give me the spoon back.”

I took the spoon from an irritated Houki and ate more rice. It had no taste, but I still made sure to savor it, for whatever that was worth. I was glad just to have something to eat, and a real man showed his gratitude by eating it up.

“Thank you.”

I finished my plate and put down the spoon. I also folded my hands.

“.........”

“Wh-What?”

Houki was looking quietly at me with an expression that was extremely difficult to explain. I could see elements of anger, happiness, joy... But it was none of them.

“D-Don’t get the wrong idea!”

“Hm?”

“Today I... Had some very bad luck! Against all odds! Normally this always works!”

—Okay. Didn’t know that, but sure.

I’d never seen Houki’s food before, anyway. I guess the last time I’d seen her was in grade school, so it was no wonder, really.

“Why did you make Chinese food, though? Don’t you like Japanese food a lot more?”

“F-Food is international. I wanted to prove that.”

—And you failed, so what was the point, really?

Her food was so international it could have been anything.

“B-But... You know... If you insist, I will cook for you again.”

“Hm? Oh, it’s fine. It’d just be a bother for you. We can hit up the cafeteria.”

“Y-You don’t want to eat my food?!”

“That’s not what I’m saying... Look, what’s wrong? You haven’t been yourself.”

“I-I’m saying I’ll cook for you every day if you want,” she mumbled.

Her voice was now very quiet. Too quiet. I couldn’t make out what she’d said.

“Th-This is your fault! How are you going to take responsibility for that promise?!”

“Promise? The one with Rin? We cleared that up.”

“Wh-What?”

“Yeah, we cleared it up. I apologized and she forgave me.”

“.........”

She gave me a dubious look, one of distrust.

“Like that would be enough!”

“No, that’s what happened.”

She was being so stubborn. I didn’t understand.

“And besides, you’re throwing away something that could—”

Knock, knock.

I was still being held down by the machine gun fire of Houki’s rhetorics when she was interrupted by a knock on the door.

“Um... Shinonono, Orimura... Are you there?”

That timid voice no doubt belonged to Ms. Yamada. I opened the door, and she came in. And yeah, it was her.

“What is it, Ms. Yamada?”

“Um, yes... You’re moving.”

“What?”

Moving? Who was moving? Both of us?

“Ms. Yamada, please tell us who is moving where.”

“Y-Yes... I’m sorry.”

Houki glared at her, and Ms. Yamada twitched like a small animal.

—Don’t bully her, Houki.

She was still our teacher... Sort of.

“Um, you’re moving, Shinonono. We have arranged a new room for you, so you won’t have to live with him anymore.”

—Live with him... Heh, that could be taken as a pun. Nice one, Ms. Yamada.

“Ichika.”

“Y-Yeah.”

She knew. Damn it. How?

“Um... I will help you gather your belongings. Let’s get this done!”

“W-W-Wait. Does it have to be so soon?”

I didn’t expect Houki to say that, nor had Ms. Yamada, apparently. She blinked a few times.

“Well... Yes, it does. We don’t want a boy and girl your age to be living together, and I’m sure you can’t relax, Shinonono.”

“I-I’m...”

Houki didn’t finish her sentence and stared at me.

—Oh, okay. I get what’s going on.

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. I’ll get up in the morning, and I’ll even brush my teeth.”

“......!”

Tching!

Weird. I could have sworn I heard something snap. Someone was angry with me.

“Ms. Yamada, I’m moving right now.”

“O-Okay! Let’s get started!”

Houki’s sudden change of mood startled Ms. Yamada, and she twitched again.

“Should I help?”

“NO!”

Wow, she was so angry that if I had touched her, I would have cut myself. She was like a katana. It was best to just stay quiet.

“You’re just horrible. Think about what I was trying to do...” Houki mumbled again, now filled with rage.

Anyway, Houki being Houki, everything was finished after barely an hour.

“Hm...”

I felt like the room had become twice as big with my roommate gone. That said, it felt a little lonely without her.

“Guess I’m gonna sleep. No use thinking about this.”

I wanted to take a bath, but there was still no gender-separated timetable for the big bath. They’d told me it wasn’t going to take much longer.

—It’s pretty weird, though. Ever since I came here due to the IS, I met Houki and Rin again, and I even met Cecilia.

The way people met was strange. Reality was weirder than a novel. And light novels were more picture book than book, so the last one wasn’t necessary. It was a bit insulting, even.

“Time for sleep.”

I’d taken a shower and brushed my teeth. I had even changed, too. Granted, when I sat around the room I just wore shorts and a t-shirt, anyway.

—M’kay. Dream Town here I come.

Knock, knock. Someone was knocking on the door.

I was already in bed, but...

Wham, wham! Someone was knocking with their fist.

I ran to the door.

“Hello, who is th—”

“.........”

Outside was Houki, frowning, after she had switched rooms just earlier.

“What, forget something?”

“.........”

Houki didn’t answer. She looked frustrated and unhappy, like a time bomb down to five minutes until detonation. Not that I’d ever seen a time bomb.

“What’s wrong? Well, come in.”

“No, this is fine.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“.........”

“.........”

—Hello? Earth to Houki?

“Houki, if you’ve got nothing to say, then I’m going to bed.”

“I-I have something to say!”

Her sudden yelling startled me.

—No yelling in the hallway. The dorm mother will get mad at you.

“Th-There is a grade-separated tournament next month...”

Near the end of June, there was going to be a tournament where everyone could take part, unlike the class league match. It was separated by grade, and nothing more. The ones with a personal unit still had a huge advantage, though.

“I-If I win...”

Her cheeks turned pink, but Houki continued. She was embarrassed and looking down at the ground.

“I-If I win, I want you to go out with me!”

She pointed her finger at me.

“What?”

I was totally confounded. It almost seemed like a declaration of war. Not that I knew who was declaring war on whom, exactly.

End of Volume One.