Chapter 52: Pacific Partition

Chapter 52:
Pacific Partition

 

YOMOTSU HIRASAKA ISLAND.

Shinji blocked Torwächter Toji’s spinning spindle with his glowing hand.

“You have to stop, Toji!”

Meanwhile, Torwächter Kodama circled over to the twitching Wolfpack to lop off its head.

What should I do?!

The American attack platforms fended off Torwächter Kodama’s attack by focusing their gatling guns on it.

Shinji was being forced into melee combat, and he prepared himself accordingly.

But then he was caught off guard.

Toji’s Torwächter rushed him, flinging the physically superior Final Model over his head. Toji was good at judo, and it was paying off deadly dividends now.

“Urgh!”

Torwächter Toji grabbed the Powered 8 at his waist.

Crap!

The railgun folded its acceleration barrel into a compact figure eight, opened fire, and shot down a flying platform intercepting Torwächter Kodama. Its pilot and gunner crawled out of the wreckage and looked up, only to see even stranger things in the sky.

“Look! The tip of the roots!”

The roots, which had been floating aimlessly before, were stabbing the Earth one after another.

“The tips are turning into black arms. There’s more of them coming down!”

“Focus on the roots! Take them down!”

The remnants of the North American Alliance got to work, their fighting spirit restored after seeing this new threat. Their cannons had been level with the ground to fend off Torwächters, Angel Carriers, and black monsters spawning from the Ark. But now they pointed up. Ships coming in from Saipan Island to replace the convoy also provided supporting fire.

But the roots raining down from the sky kept piercing the ground.

“What the hell are those things?! They look like Armaros’ arms.”

It was as if the Earth were being held in place by anchors that fell from heaven.

“Whoa!”

Final Model tumbled again, riddled with the 8’s high-speed rounds. Most of the bullets were melted away by his field, but pain still coursed through his body. Still, two of his pylons were destroyed, and his restraint armor was heavily damaged.

He’d underestimated Toji. His A.T. Field didn’t work well against an opponent he knew.

“Stop it! Please…Toji!”

He slashed at the air with his knife. But the next attack didn’t come.

The two Torwächters disappeared into the roots that covered the sky.

 

Screams rent the air as everyone lost their balance. The whole island was being pulled westward. The Akashima hovered over the battlefield, until a mountainside rammed into it.

“What was that?!”

Endo would’ve been gravely injured if he weren’t strapped into his seat. The Akashima wasn’t moving; the rest of the landscape was.

“This isn’t your regular tectonic plate shift!”

You didn’t have to be a geophysicist to know that much. The screaming continued from down below.

<<This is Ogasawara front line to Yomo…Tsukino Yami Island. Akashima, we’re seeing some crazy things over here.>> Lieutenant Colonel Kasuga contacted them from the JSSDF base at Chichijima. <<Endo, the island is currently being dragged west by the roots in the sky!>>

Warrant Office Endo balked at this statement, but a quick look at his map confirmed his superior’s mad claim.

They’re dragging us west, all right. And then…what, are we going all the way to Okinawa?!

“Lieutenant Colonel, we might ram right into the Ogasawara Islands at this point!”

<<No,>> Kasuga shot back. <<That island won’t reach here. The Earth’s rotation has been thrown off significantly. Right now, Tsukino Yami is headed north-northwest by previous calculations.>>

Pillars of fire erupted out of the sea, following the island’s  trail.

Endo checked his map. “Izu Peninsula? Oh, no…”

Yomotsu Hirasaka had fallen right into the Earth’s mantle from orbit. It was now cutting through the ocean floor like a knife, its destination its original landing spot before Shinji had diverted its trajectory—the place that lay just beyond Izu Peninsula, Hakone.

 

A bulge appeared on one section of the primary roots. It traveled down, growing larger and larger, so that by the time it reached the Atlantic Ocean, it had become a giant whose feet could touch the Earth.

Armaros had taken the roots of the World Tree into herself, growing to the size of the giants of light who would cause the Final Impact. She was a pitch-black giant of darkness.

Her arms sprouted from her shoulders into many fine branches, twisting around the roots of the World Tree. She continued westward until she reached the east coast of the United States. Then she began moving northeast, toward the Arctic Ocean.

The branching arms started weaving together, forming a single arm. In the distant Pacific, the roots pulling Yomotsu Hirasaka formed the second arm.

Shinji pursued Toji and the other Torwächter, but he couldn’t ignore the Carriers attacking him. As he fought off the giants, he witnessed the moment the roots came together to form two giant arms.