“…Don’t you think that’s awful? I’m telling you, it’s like I got put on public display!” The girl’s high-pitched voice was audibly agitated.

The only response she got was a “…This is the fourth time,” from another girl, sounding very tired.

The difference in mental states between the two talking over the phone was like summer and winter.

But maybe that was unavoidable. Honoka had a good reason to be this excited, while Shizuku had an equally good reason to stress a need for sleep.

The reason Honoka was so worked up: Her secret, intimate affections had been exposed, and it wasn’t just that she liked someone. Details about how she wanted to dedicate everything she had to that person, a thought that seemed maybe just a little too serious even to Honoka. It was already embarrassing to hear about her yearnings coming from the mouth of someone else; on top of all that, her secret had been revealed not only to the object of her affections but to a large audience as well. It was only natural that she was agonizing over it.

The fact that it had been not a person who had acted as her mouthpiece but a maid robot possessed by a parasite didn’t make her feel any better, either.

“Well, it was embarrassing enough to say it four times,” she insisted, her need for reassurance seeping into her sullen voice.

As Honoka sulked, Shizuku, on the screen, breathed a light sigh. “I get it, so I wish you’d take my situation into consideration, too. What time do you think it is right now?”

Meanwhile, the reason Shizuku emphasized that she was sleepy: It was a simple matter of the time…or rather, the time difference. As Shizuku spoke, a three-handed clock appeared over the whole display. The short hand on the classic, arabesque design pointed between the IV and the V on the face. The time difference between Tokyo and Berkeley, California, was seven hours. If it was 9:30 PM in Tokyo, it was 4:30 AM in Berkeley.

“I would have appreciated it if you’d waited at least another two hours.”

Shizuku’s grumblings were also quite natural. Her eyelids seemed ready to close at any moment. Noticing that finally put an apologetic look on Honoka’s face, and she shrugged her shoulders.

“I did actually wait one hour, but…”

Shizuku blinked her tired eyes at the excuse and sighed again, this time in resignation. “That part about you never changes…”

“I’m sorry for always bothering you…”

“You’re not bothering me…as long as you consider the time.”

Honoka mumbled, “Sorry…”

Seeing from across the screen that her conversation partner couldn’t give any more excuses, Shizuku sighed once more. This time, she appeared to expel her drowsiness along with it. Aside from her half-opened eyelids, her expression settled into a fairly steadfast one.

“But maybe it was good for you, in hindsight.”

Shizuku’s voice didn’t carry much intonation—but it never did, and her pronunciation was clearer now.

“What? What was good? There was nothing good about it!”

Shizuku’s words had sounded pretty detached as an attempt at comfort, and Honoka lashed out, completely forgetting how downhearted she’d been a second ago.

“But you couldn’t tell him your feelings, could you?”

Shizuku hadn’t claimed that what had happened might be good without thinking it through first. Whether it was because of her friend’s tone of voice or the suggestive words themselves, Honoka’s argument ended with that one shot.

“You know about your habit of dependence, right?”

“No, that’s…”

Honoka reflexively tried to deny it, but she couldn’t even fully convince herself. Her argument faded out partway through, and she averted her eyes as Shizuku stared directly at her—albeit sleepily—from across the screen.

“Honoka, how long have we known each other?”

Shizuku admonished her gently to emphasize her point.

“…But it’s not like I can help acting that way,” admitted Honoka, her voice resigned but also defiant. “I’m part of an Elements bloodline.”

Shizuku always doubted that genetics played much of a role in personality, but arguing the point here wouldn’t accomplish anything.

“It’s not about whether being dependent is good or bad. If everyone was a natural-born leader who didn’t need to rely on anyone and always wanted to take the initiative, I don’t think the world would be running this smoothly.”

Honoka knew her friend wasn’t trying to criticize her. She hesitantly returned her gaze to the screen.

“What I’m trying to say is that Tatsuya is a good person for you to lean on.”

Their eyes met through their cameras as Shizuku spoke each word as though giving careful instructions.

“You…you think?” asked Honoka nervously.

“Mmhmm.” Shizuku nodded without even a second’s hesitation. “I think Tatsuya’s the kind of person who won’t respond to anything unless it’s explicitly asked. In exchange, he’ll always respond to things people need of him.”

“So if I don’t say it clearly, he won’t understand?”

“Yeah, I think so. And I’m sure he’s not the insistent type.”

“Umm, what do you mean…?” Honoka asked back.

“I mean that even if you’re at his beck and call, he won’t force you to do something indecent or anything like that.”

Shizuku’s answer was truly honest—or blunt.

Honoka’s face turned red immediately. But even then, there was a visible glimpse of a slightly disappointed expression.

“Maybe you should be a little bit more forceful in your advances.”

“Shizuku!”

Honoka raised her voice and glared at the screen. But the only thing displayed on it was Shizuku’s face, looking at her as if to say Well, it’s true.

“Hmph!” Sullenly, she turned her face to the side.

“……”

“……Shizuku?”

But the next one to make a sound was still Honoka.

“What…should I do?”

“Your only choice is to be aggressive.”

It wasn’t as though Shizuku had much romantic experience. In fact, some would argue she had even less experience than the average teenage girl in Japan in this day and age. Still, to put it simply, her friend was thinking too much and needed a push forward to get her out of the dead end she was in.

“I’ve been trying to be as aggressive as I can…”

“You need to try harder. Your rival is too strong.”

“My rival…?”

“It’s going to be very hard to beat Miyuki.”

“Miyuki? But she and Tatsuya are—”

“—Siblings, yes. And?”

Shizuku rejected Honoka’s commonsense argument with only a few words, packing into her response the nuance of You’re saying this now? You should understand at this point.

“But that’s—that’s not…” With a shocked expression, Honoka shook her head at the camera.

But Shizuku had known her for a long time, and to her eyes, it only seemed like she wanted to be shocked.

“Tell me, Honoka, are you sticking around Tatsuya because you want to have sex with him?”

“O-of course not! Which isn’t to say I’m not interested at all, but…”

As Honoka grew flustered, Shizuku looked at her from the screen with eyes that said, What is this girl even saying? But Shizuku was the one feeling uncomfortable because of her silence. She began to try to wrap up the conversation herself.

“The only time blood relation is an issue is when doing things like that. If she’s satisfied with just being with him, then the fact that they’re siblings isn’t an obstacle. I actually asked Miyuki.”

“…Asked her what?” replied Honoka, her expression making it clear she didn’t want to listen, but she had to hear.

“About what she thinks about Tatsuya.”

“…And what did she say?”

“That she loves him.”

“Oh… Then she does…” said Honoka quietly to herself rather than crying it out despite her crimson cheeks.

“In a nonromantic way.”

“…That’s what she said?”

“She told me she doesn’t love Tatsuya the way a girl would fall in love with a boy. It didn’t seem like it was simply because she’s his sister, though.”

“?” But Honoka looked like she was having trouble deciding how to interpret the extra bit of information Shizuku had tacked on.

“But…” Shizuku hesitated.

“But?” repeated Honoka, the same word but in a different tone, urging her to continue.

“But I think that’s just what she tells people, since she doesn’t realize it herself. I think she does love Tatsuya as a woman.”

The continuation was a categorical conjecture without a hint of hesitation.

“So you think so, too…”

Honoka didn’t object to her friend’s conclusion, even though it was somewhat (?) outside the realm of common sense.

“Yep. So I think the battle will end when she realizes it.”

“What do you mean?” Honoka asked back honestly.

“You have to take the top spot with Tatsuya before Miyuki recognizes how she feels.”

But as she heard that it was highly probable that Miyuki would eventually sort out her feelings, the future began to weigh on her.

“But I can’t do it…” muttered Honoka, her shoulders falling.

“Only give up when it’s over. What happened to you might have been a disaster, but I think you can use it to appeal yourself.” Shizuku encouraged her with a slight degree of forcefulness—that was really all the force she could manage.

“Appeal to Tatsuya?”

“Mmhmm. You might as well just tell him everything now.”

“But he might think I’m being annoying…”

“It’s all right. I’m sure Tatsuya wouldn’t feel burdened.”

The statement wasn’t empty consolation. It was an odd kind of trust, and Shizuku truly believed it was true.

Right about when Shizuku was lighting a fire under Honoka…

Tatsuya was face-to-face with Lina, who had transformed into Angie Sirius.

Scarlet hair, golden eyes. It was all an optical illusion, but her features and height had changed, too—he couldn’t see any of the actual Lina in there. With this, even if she didn’t hide her face with a mask, anyone who didn’t already know her true identity would probably never link Angie Sirius with Angelina Shields. In fact, it seemed to Tatsuya that not hiding her face was more effective.

Tatsuya carefully watched his opponent. He hadn’t been goofing off for the last half month, either. With Yakumo’s Cocoon as his practice opponent, he’d accumulated a wealth of countermeasures for her information-falsifying spell Parade.

As a result of his training, he could tell that Lina had used Parade for the exterior alterations but wasn’t currently overwriting any coordinate information. With the feedback he was getting now, even if she did tamper her coordinates henceforth, Tatsuya figured he could still keep track of her.

Of course, this situation wasn’t one he could think optimistically about, either. The fact that Lina hadn’t messed with anything besides her appearance wasn’t because she was overconfident or letting her guard down. It was doubtless because she wasn’t sure she had enough magical power for it all.

Which means her spell requires that much capacity.

The code name Sirius was given to the leader of the Stars, the USNA military’s most elite magician force. In other words, the magician with the most powerful magic abilities in the entire USNA. And she had to focus all her resources on this one spell.

The shining ray of light that had shot through the dark night to attack Tatsuya and Naotsugu Chiba. That attack’s identity was probably a high-energy plasma beam. Which meant the name of the spell that had created it was…

I don’t think there’s much doubt. That was Heavy Metal Burst.

The strategic-class spell Heavy Metal Burst, belonging to one of the Thirteen Apostles, Angie Sirius. It converted heavy metal into high-energy plasma, then further amplified both the pressure increase caused by the ionization process that turns gas into plasma as well as the natural electromagnetic repulsion between positively charged ions, scattering the plasma over a large area.

Incidentally, very few people aside from Angie Sirius could use spells that converted matter to plasma. However, when simply ionizing atoms, the generated plasma as a whole has a neutral charge, which didn’t cause repulsion. The scope and speed were obvious reasons nobody but Angie Sirius could use Heavy Metal Burst, but there was another factor as well: Only she could realize the process of discharging electrons outside the plasma cloud while maintaining the process of ionization.

Heavy Metal Burst supposedly emitted the high-energy plasma in all directions, radiating out from the blast center. The plasma that had attacked Naotsugu Chiba had been a directional beam.

She didn’t just converge it. She controlled its effective firing range…and its area of diffusion.

The reason the plasma ray hadn’t damaged any of the buildings along the road after missing Naotsugu was because the attack never reached them. Maybe the spell was constructed in a way that the energy dissipated after passing by the target, or maybe she set up a force field that would act like a stopper at the beam’s end point.

What could have allowed her to do something like that? At a mere glance, he couldn’t tell for sure, but it was probably…

…that staff.

This was the first time he’d ever seen the staff Lina was holding. It was likely what made it possible. It was probably—no, definitely a spell assister developed by the USNA. If their positions had been different, he wouldn’t have been able to keep himself from praising the technology.

But right now, it’s an incredible threat.

He didn’t understand the details of how the plasma flow control system worked, but that didn’t mean he understood nothing. If he “saw” it again, he’d be able to come up with a countermeasure. Maybe that was wishful thinking? No—Tatsuya denied that immediately. Nothing good would come of being weak at a time like this.

No, right now the problem was…

…whether I can take a direct hit and still have energy left for a counterattack.

Tatsuya had virtually unlimited restoration ability against physical attacks, but he could only Regenerate—he couldn’t defend.

Furthermore, “unlimited” referred to a wound’s severity, not the number of times he could pull it off.

The beam earlier had been significantly slower than the speed of light. At most, it was one-third of that. It was less than a lightning bolt, which traveled around six hundred times the speed of sound before hitting the ground. The plasma beam had been maybe a hundred times the speed of sound.

And yet, it wouldn’t take two milliseconds for it to cross the sixty meters between them. It would literally be the blink of an eye. It would be impossible to dodge it after seeing it.

However…

If a physical object moves at a speed that fast, even if it’s a rarefied gas, it would create a powerful shock wave. If that didn’t happen, that can only mean that it creates its travel path beforehand.

If he could sense the creation of that “path,” then he could get out of the line of fire.

Tatsuya mobilized all his senses and focused on Lina.

Under the streetlight, separated by darkness, Lina abruptly averted her eyes from his. She spun around on her heel, then cast a quick glance over her shoulder—he could see a thin smile.

It was clear she was calling him out.

Tatsuya wavered.

It was obviously luring him out, but he was already well within the trap’s jaws anyway.

He didn’t think she’d let him go if he didn’t take her up on her invitation, either.

Having a shoot-out in a place like this was out of the question, even if it was to throw off her aim.

As Tatsuya tried to decide what he should do, he saw Lina’s feet kick off the road.

He threw away his hesitation.

Lina’s scarlet hair quickly grew distant as she ran—or, more accurately, jumped away.

Leaving Naotsugu behind, who was completely frozen and at a loss, Tatsuya used the same kind of gravity-control spell as Lina to chase after her.

“It’s Major Sirius—she’s made contact with the target!”

“Any response?”

“No, ma’am!”

The secret command center set up inside the Japanese branch office of the USNA military’s dummy corporation had descended into a nearly panicked state.

Ever since step one, they’d needed to change their capture plans, but that wasn’t enough to make Virginia Balance’s arms and legs shake.

In fact, she’d even predicted the intervention of armed personnel thought to be an agent in the Japanese military.

The reason was something else.

Lina leaving her position on her own judgment had started the chaos.

The Stars commander, Sirius, was granted the right to act independently, so Virginia couldn’t quite call it a breach of military discipline. But there was currently a team-based operation in progress. Just because it was technically allowed didn’t mean the major could do whatever she wanted.

And it was Balance who told Lina to use her own judgment when using the Brionac, but to do something with it in the middle of traffic had been completely unexpected.

“The target has begun following Major Sirius.”

The new report caused some calm to return to the air in the command center.

Thinking about recovering the Stardust along with the rest of the cleanup was quickly becoming a headache. But for now, the plan was back on its original track—thought, at least, everyone except for Colonel Balance.

I should have been more thorough with the operation’s exit conditions…

“Summon the relay vehicle.”

Her voice was level as she gave the order to the operator, concealing any irritation she felt inside.

It seemed as though light invaded every last corner of the city, but there were spots where it would abruptly cut off.

Dark, blank areas created by the city of Tokyo that never slept.

The park he’d been lured into was one of those gaps between streetlights.

Actually, the place was more like a vacant lot than a park. The hedges surrounding it had been maintained, but there were no benches, much less playground equipment. And only a token number of streetlights had been placed there. It was probably public property claimed during wartime as an empty spot for dealing with disasters, but it had likely been neglected during the redevelopment process.

Lina’s golden hair shone under some of that sparse streetlight.

The darkness hung over her like a lid. It was cloudy tonight, with both the moon and the stars hidden, but Tatsuya could tell at a glance that was not all it was.

There was an optical spell in play here that obstructed cameras aboard surveillance satellites and stratospheric platforms.

He was inside the enemy’s encirclement. He knew it was a trap when he jumped in, so he wasn’t surprised or panicked at this point. Instead, what he found unexpected was that there was no trace of any active magic other than the concealment.

Avoiding interference between spells, then…

That meant the magic Lina was trying to use was incredibly advanced even for her—powerful enough to make her allies decide that leaving her to attack independently would be more effective than acting as a group.

Canceling her camouflage was probably to focus her mind on this attack spell as well.

So it’s Heavy Metal Burst again.

“Tatsuya.”

As his conviction about what cards she held in her hand strengthened, Lina spoke.

“I didn’t think you’d be concerned enough to come.”

“Having you flit around all the time would be annoying.”

When she heard his contemptuously nonchalant answer, Lina gave a cold-blooded smile. “You’re quite confident. But this time, your head was a little too big for your own good.”

Lina brought the staff she was holding beside her up, grasping it under her arm, and pointed it at Tatsuya. “You’d better surrender. I don’t know how you disable magic, but you won’t be able to mess with the Brionac.”

For Lina, that line was nothing more than a simple recommendation to surrender.

“Bree-oh-nake”… That’s how she’d said it. So not “Bu-ryu-nak”?

But in Tatsuya’s mind, the clue in her words assembled the puzzle pieces nearly to completion.

Names always meant something, and the name of a weapon usually gave an indication as to some of its attributes.

Preoccupied with observation and his thoughts, Tatsuya had forgotten to give Lina a response.

She took that as a refusal.

He couldn’t criticize it as a hasty move. It may have been an accident on his part to forget to answer, but staying silent when asked to surrender customarily meant refusal.

Lina grabbed one side of a crosspiece sticking out horizontally from the staff.

It had to be what served as a grip, because—

A two-layered spiral of psionic light ran through the Brionac’s bottom two-thirds; through the thin, eighty-centimeter-long pole; and then, in the staff’s thicker upper third, a magic program was instantly constructed inside a forty-centimeter tube on the end of the grip. Upon detecting it, Tatsuya tried to activate Program Disper—

Only to realize he didn’t have time.

The staff’s tip glimmered.

A tightly bundled ray of light shot by Tatsuya’s right arm.

It had only grazed him—but his arm carbonized from the elbow down and blew off.

His body twisted on impact.

He gave into the momentum and used it to jump over the hedge behind him.

Lina let go of the grip, then positioned the Brionac like a long sword and charged.

She closed the distance, then aimed at the hedge Tatsuya had hidden behind and swung horizontally.

The raw wood immediately burned and scattered—but only the shrubbery in the hedge had been hit.

The plasma hadn’t reached the man behind it.

Holding his right shoulder and hiding his right half behind him, the now-kneeling Tatsuya watched as the light-giving plasma blade disappeared like an illusion.

“Brionac… ‘That which pierces.’ One of the weapons the Celtic god of light Lugh possessed. Does that naming mean you’ve reproduced the mythical weapon?” wondered Tatsuya, still kneeling, as Lina walked over to him.

There was no sense of pain in his voice. Lina assumed it was because he had a high resistance to it; not unusual among unique soldiers who had been trained in anti-interrogation methods.