Part 5
(November 10 – Kauai – Napali Coast – From UAV Lesser Emperor #300)
Napali Coast was registered as a state park, but the areas deeper into the park could only be reached by heading along a few kilometers of saw tooth-like cliffs where no normal car could pass. A log house stood in that deep cliffy area.
Harzak Lolas, a large man who towered over two meters tall, was tending to a terraced vegetable garden he kept near the log house. It had originally been to grow food, but chaos had taken over ever since its proper owner had started growing flowers in it. Harzak was not growing food in it either. Unbefitting of his large body, he was replanting a small seedling from a planter into the garden with delicate movements of his hands.
Suddenly, the log house's door opened.
Without turning around, Harzak spoke to the girl who had to stretch up and turn the knob with both hands.
"If you aren't going swimming, you don't need to wear a swimsuit."
"It's hot. The power generators and the solar panels aren't enough to keep the air conditioner on all day. And it'll be hot tonight, so I have to save up power in the batteries. Also, I'm gonna go fishing again this evening."
That conversation was a custom of theirs, so Harzak was not actually trying to fix the girl's habit. He changed the subject and said, "Your textbooks are in the mailbox."
"You're the one that brings the mail, so you don't have to just leave it in the mailbox, Harzak."
"This is your house, Lindy. I am only here to help out. More importantly, you need to check the textbooks to make sure none are missing. I'll make that long trip as many times as it takes."
"…I don't like textbooks."
"No one likes studying."
"I'd rather listen to your stories."
"Unfortunately, those won't be of any use to you," Harzak said as he adjusted the soil where he had just transplanted a small seedling. "Will you gain the knowledge of a citizen of the United States or of a native Hawaiian? Both have value. I don't make the cut on either count. You can tell just by hearing my name. My parents did a poor job of naturalization, so I don't have a good grasp of the native language or culture. And yet I can't get used to life in modern America either."
"Mhh…" The girl named Lindy puffed out her cheeks. "But I still like your stories."
Having said what she wanted to say, the girl grabbed the textbooks wrapped in plastic and headed back into the log house.
Harzak truly thought she was a good, pure girl, but that was exactly why he could not let an idiot like himself influence her too much.
He had heard that a true king still lived somewhere in the Hawaiian Islands, but he had never even seen a hint of it being true. Was this king in some unexplored land or had he blended into the cities? Harzak had lost even the slightest desire to search him out and become a member of his kingdom. He was sick of running out of strength partway up the mountain and heading back down.
After finishing his work on the garden, Harzak stood up, wiped sweat from his face with his arm, and looked up into the blue sky that was thinly covered by volcanic ash.
It was rare for the ash to make it all the way to Kauai. He started to wonder if he should cover the garden in plastic if it was going to continue for much longer.
That was when he noticed something odd.
He saw what looked like a twenty or thirty cm long dragonfly.
But that was not what it was.
It had a body made of polycarbonate and wings made of ABS resin, it moved around using a motor, and it was equipped with a transmitter and a camera, so it could hardly be called a normal dragonfly.
"…A lens…A camera…" muttered Harzak.
He then recalled why Lindy Blueshake was living in a place like that. He recalled what it was she utterly loathed. He recalled why government workers had introduced her to that "unexplored land" that lacked any and all presence by the mass media.
"Not good… Lindy, Lin—!!" Harzak started yelling as he turned back toward the log house, but a hand reached from behind him and covered his large mouth.
He had no idea when, how, or from where someone had gotten there.
Still having no idea what was going on, Harzak was pushed down to the side of the garden as if his opponent had used some kind of magic trick. Due to the glare of the sun, he could not see his attacker's face, but the silhouette was enough to tell him he held a handgun.
Harzak would be shot.
He felt a pain like his heart was bound in something like a kite string, but the sound of a gunshot never reached his ears.
He had no idea what was going on.
Bit by bit, he realized that the attacker sitting atop him was trembling, that the attacker had a transparent spear pressed up against his throat, and that the owner of the spear had approached silently from behind the attacker.
An Asian boy and girl stood there.
The boy had spiky hair and the younger girl had a nasty look in her eyes that made her incomparable to Lindy.
They started saying things in Japanese.
"You're from Trident, aren't you?" The speaker continued without waiting for the attacker to respond. "Would you rather take a nitrogen spear or a fist?"
For an instant, the attacker looked down at the handgun he was pointing at Harzak and then quickly turned it toward the two Asians.
However, before he could actually use it, the girl's spear sliced off the barrel of the handgun as well as the front of his helmet. In the next instant, the boy's fist slammed into the attacker's face. The silver soldier collapsed backwards and the boy spoke to him in Japanese.
"You should thank me. I actually saved your life."
"I did most of the work. All those ones collapsed over there were my doing," the girl said.
"Kuroyoru takes everything too seriously. If I wasn't here to stop her, she probably would have taken off all of your heads."
"Where are the others? Are we the first ones here?"
Harzak could not understand what they were saying, but four other silver soldiers lay collapsed in the direction the girl had pointed.
As Harzak lay there in shock, the boy looked over toward the ocean that was visible beyond the cliff and said something.
Harzak could not understand his words, but a strange phenomenon followed.
The phenomenon came from the right hand of the girl with the nasty look in her eyes.
The motion was similar to typing on a keyboard, but it was as fast as an electric sewing machine. The repeated sound of her fingers striking the garden's fence came together to form English words that sounded like someone accurately reading from a textbook.
"The troops Olay Blueshake hired have begun to move in order to take Lindy back. If you are the one charged with being her guardian, you should more or less understand the situation. Do not let her fall into Olay's hands. Take Lindy with you and flee!"
"Wh-what…?"
Harzak was utterly confused, but the girl was not about to let him argue.
"Hurry! They are coming up from the ocean!! You have no time!!"
Harzak looked over and saw a large hovercraft approaching the base of the cliff that looked like a saw blade.
However, he did not have time to just leisurely watch.
A few of the silver soldiers clinging to the cliff were pointing bullpup-style assault rifles their way. As high-pitched gunshots rang out, the boy and girl lay down on the ground and Harzak frantically made his way into the log house.
"What'll we do now?" asked the girl.
"We have to at least let Lindy and her guardian escape. Then we just have to fight until we can stop Saronia."
"You certainly sound calm for someone up against assault rifles, Mr. Japanese."
"To be honest, I think I'd be too scared to do anything if they had handguns. However, this is on such a huge scale that it just doesn't seem real."
The two heard the noises of Harzak and Lindy escaping from the backdoor of the log house. After making sure those two were gone, they started to circle around to the side of the house to use it as cover.
But then the boy suddenly smelled flowers.
Immediately afterwards, the boy's left arm suddenly dropped.
It dropped straight down. Limply. The joint was still connected, but it dropped down and swayed with no strength in it. He could not bring any strength to the arm from the fingertips up to the shoulder. He felt no pain, heat, or cold. He also felt an odd numbness on the left half of his face. He was unsure what expression was displayed there.
"Gh!?"
He frantically grabbed his left arm with his right hand, but there was no response. It was apparently not something that could be simply fixed with Imagine Breaker.
"My left arm…?"
"What? I'm not detecting any kind of chemical weapon," said the girl while making an action with her right hand as if she were gently grasping something.
The girl must have come to the idea from the trembling of the skin on his face, but the boy was half sure it was something else.
Magic.
They were up against users of magic that had modified spells so they would work against a certain boy and make him suffer.
Still holding his unnaturally limp left arm, the boy looked back toward the cliff from around the outer wall of the log house. He spotted a familiar face among the silver soldiers.
"Saronia A. Irivika!!"
Part 6
(November 10 – Kauai – Northern Off Limits Area of Napali Coast – From UAV Lesser Emperor #210)
The deeper areas of Napali Coast were made up of repeated saw tooth-like cliffs and normal cars could not traverse the dangerous paths.
But nothing was without exception.
For instance, there was such a thing as a monster truck.
In Japan, radio-controlled toys were often more well-known than the actual trucks. With four exceedingly large tires and suspension as thick as pillars, they were the ultimate off road vehicles. As the vehicle flew easily through the air while using forty-five degree slopes as jumps, it truly seemed to live up to its name as a monster.
It was of course stolen.
They had borrowed it from some tourists who had fled in the middle of a barbecue party.
"There she is!! It's the girl from the picture! Why isn't she waiting in the log house?" shouted Hamazura Shiage as he drove the stolen vehicle over a steep slope with a roar of the engine.
In the passenger seat, the president's face had paled to the point it looked like he could barf at any second. In the backseat, Birdway was arrogantly sitting with her arms crossed and without a seatbelt while experiencing the shaking of the truck defying gravity.
Despite Hamazura's complaint, finding the target so soon made things easier.
Hamazura started to bring the monster truck around toward Lindy and the large man pulling at her arm as they escaped along the dangerous path.
Suddenly, Hamazura heard a crash and his vision turned pure white.
Or rather…
"The windshield…!?"
A soft, ball-shaped projectile used for riot suppression had been fired from a grenade launcher. Instead of a piercing shock, the force of the impact had spread out across the windshield.
With his vision cut off, Hamazura immediately slammed on the brakes, but he realized an instant later that the attacker had been hoping for precisely that.
"Shit…not good! Get out, Hamazura!! Even if you speed up now, we won't make it in time!!"
Roberto Katze half-rolled out of the passenger seat and Hamazura followed suit after turning the key. First, the windshield was completely shattered by gunfire and then the scattered gunfire focused on the president and chased after them. Rolling along the sharp ups and downs atop the cliff, Roberto quickly reached cover.
In fear of accidentally shooting Lindy, the silver soldier used the stock of his bullpup-style rifle to beat down the large man with her instead of shooting him. He then grabbed the girl's arm and threw her into the backseat of the monster truck. He climbed in the driver's seat and turned the key that was still in the ignition.
Immediately afterwards, the silver soldier's body bent backwards with a crackling noise.
"That's what happens when someone has messed with the ignition and the ground," said Hamazura as he calmly returned to the truck and opened the door. "No matter how much you train, you can't win in a fight against a high-amperage, three-hundred-volt current."
Repeated primitive sounds of violence could be heard.
Once the silver soldier could truly not move, Hamazura took his handgun and assault rifle and tossed him from the driver's seat. Hamazura undid the trick he had applied to the vehicle and turned the key like he owned it.
A bit later, the president climbed into the driver's seat, turned around, and got a shocked look on his face.
"Miss Birdway! You didn't escape!?"
"There was no need," said Birdway simply as she lightly swung about a dagger she had seemingly pulled out of thin air.
Having been thrown in next to Birdway, Lindy Blueshake was leaning away and grabbing onto the driver's seat headrest out of fear of the blade.
"U-um, Mr. President!!"
"Oh!! F-finally…Finally I meet someone who recognizes me as the president at first glance!"
"D-don't get tears in your eyes like that! U-Um…The thing is…!!"
"Huh? But I thought this girl hated the media and didn't read the newspapers or watch TV. How is she so familiar with how you look?" cut in Hamazura.
For someone reason, Roberto puffed out his chest and said, "Back when suspicions about the FCE were being investigated, Olay Blueshake got some help from a pain-in-the-ass group of lawyers and just barely managed to escape all legal responsibility, but that was when the household environment Lindy was in came to light. It was basically a crazy form of a gifted children's program. It was the kind of thing where the parent shows her love by insisting her kid lives out the ideal she sees in their head and so she puts all the blame on the kid and says the kid betrayed her when it doesn't work out exactly right. Roseline said it would be difficult to interfere and that it would have a major effect on how the news reports things about me, but I'm just too much of a dandy, so I had to help her no matter the cost. Ain't I great?"
"So this isn't the first time she's met you. Of course, she recognizes you!"
"Let me get to my point! Please!! What is going to happen to Harzak!? He's getting smaller and smaller back there!!"
"Girl, I understand how you feel, but you and I are their targets." The president grabbed her small shoulder and pushed her back into the seat. "I promise I will return you to him, but right now it is safest for him if you are not with him."
"…"
Lindy Blueshake shrank down into the back seat.
She was not lost in confusion because she did not know what was going on.
She had the face of someone who was seeing the terrible situation they had seen coming.
"…Has my mom gotten this close already?"
"Yes," the president admitted. "The time to overcome her is approaching fast."
Part 7
(November 10 – Kauai – Napali Coast – From UAV Lesser Emperor #300)
With his left arm unusable, Kamijou Touma hid behind the log house along with Kuroyoru Umidori. Even then, the mixed unit of Trident and Gremlin was continuing to land. The silver soldiers disembarking from the hovercraft by the cliff easily moved about in that dangerous area and aimed their bullpup-style assault rifles toward Kamijou and Kuroyoru.
Along with a loud noise, the logs making up the building were torn into by the bullets.
"That #1 is completely fucking useless! He isn't pulling any of them away from us! What the hell are we supposed to do? At this rate, they'll have circled around behind us before long!!" spat out Kuroyoru.
"A collection of ordinary firepower, hm?" Kamijou looked down at his unmoving left hand. "This isn't just for me. It's a means to fight against supernatural powers in general. People like Birdway and Misaka can't be defeated with bullets, but they're still human. If bullets are flying their way, they have to use their supernatural powers to counter them. While they are being stopped by that and unable to use their powers for their full potential on something else, Saronia and the Gremlin magicians can circle around and get in a fatal attack."
"Thanks for the explanation, but that doesn't answer my damn question! Our only weapons are your right hand and my two hands. How are we supposed to get out of this!?"
"They have to be thinking that we will be afraid of the rain of bullets and avoid trying to break through the center. Of course, the magicians will be blocking any other path of escape."
"And?"
"If we do what they don't expect and do go straight through the center, we'll cut Trident and Gremlin off from each other."
"Are you fucking insane? We don't have the firepower to pull that off!!"
"Just to make sure, you're a cyborg and you can make as many nitrogen spears as you have arms, right?"
"How the hell does that help us!? You all took every single one of my extra arms back in Academy City, so I only have these two!!"
"If you don't have enough, we just need to get you more."
"…Seriously?"
"Technology is not a talent given only to certain chosen people. This is not Academy City, so we won't be able to make an arm that looks perfectly human. But if we focus only on having it function as something to produce nitrogen spears from, the materials outside Academy City might suffice."
"Keh. So what, you're thinking the more additional hands we hide around, the higher the odds of getting in a successful surprise attack?"
"Do you have data on a diagram or something? To be honest, engineering isn't exactly my forte. I'd have to leave it all to you."
"…I can manage, but what are you going to do?"
"The enemy has more than just conventional firepower." Kamijou Touma pulled out his cell phone. "We need to come up with a way to deal with Saronia."
He called Leivinia Birdway.
"Birdway! Have you made any progress on analyzing the spell Saronia uses? The Leshy thing!"
"The automatic analysis done by the papyrus was completely fake. Mark and the others are gathering data while aiding the marines fighting Trident across the Hawaiian Islands, but they have not gotten any real results yet."
"Even if they were fake, can't we use the results from the papyrus?"
"?"
"We were led to that fake information by Saronia, so that means it's exactly what she wanted us to think was the case. …If I were her, I would have given the enemy fake information that would lead them away from my own weaknesses. Something like saying Imagine Breaker was a projectile weapon. We may not be able to do an in depth analysis of her psychology or anything, but can't we at least try to see what she was trying to hide with the fake information?"
With the additional arms and using the fake information from the papyrus against Saronia, that boy's cleverness had gone beyond the norm. It may have been due to his many similar past experiences.
"I see. That is a promising proposition. I'll pass the information on to my subordinates."
Kamijou hung up and then heard Kuroyoru shouting at him, urged on by the gunfire.
"Hey, hero! Quit leaving everything to others and help me take apart this generator's transformer and this hot-water heater!!"
"...You're getting your cyborg parts from there?" Kamijou said half in shock but quickly got to work.
They simply had not time for him to argue.
Part 8
(November 10 – Kauai – Northern Off Limits Area of Napali Coast – From UAV Lesser Emperor #210)
In order to protect Lindy, the monster truck roared off, leaving the large unconscious man behind.
"Hey, Mr. President. You said we need to take her somewhere safe, but where can we escape Olay's FCE!?"
"I don't know, but with this monster truck's mobility, we should head to the central mountainous area of the island! After we lose them, we can think up a way to get off the island!!"
They had no definite means of escape.
The Hawaiian Islands had emergency underground command centers in case there was a crisis on the mainland, but even those thick shelters could not be said to be absolutely safe.
A fixed facility that was already registered was of no value.
Constantly moving around and keeping their location fluid would lower the danger of attack.
Even doing that was like walking a tightrope, but with Trident and Gremlin approaching from behind, Hamazura and the others had no choice but to keep running.
Meanwhile, Roberto Katze checked the Imperial Package and let out a surprised noise.
"Wow…"
"What is it?"
"Warnings are being sent out like crazy over the marine network. Those two—you said they were Academy City Level 5s, right?—are going around neutralizing any force they come across whether it's marine or Trident."
"That would be the #1 and the #3. It's hard to believe that they're officially known as students," said Birdway happily.
Even then, red x-marks were appearing one after another on the map. Dozens of x-marks formed two lines showing the routes they were taking.
Napali Coast was rich with untouched nature and areas too dangerous to enter with normal cars covered much of it, but the relatively gentle areas functioned as tourist sites. The two lines of x-marks were scattered about mostly on those areas where people would have been gathered.
"Those damn monsters. Are they trying to get Hollywood to make a movie about them?"
"Here one comes. Ah! The fantastic girl is passing right over us!!"
"Hah?" said Hamazura as he looked up.
At the same time, he heard a dull clunk come from the roof of the monster truck. It sounded like someone had landed on it after falling from the sky.
The roof was forced open and Mikoto's head stuck in upside down.
"Are you all okay!?"
"I thought you were going around with Accelerator and Misaka Worst, throwing the other two forces into confusion?"
"I did what needed to be done. …Is that girl Lindy-chan?"
"We were just barely managing to get away, girl."
"That's good. …Is that idiot not with you? Ugh, and I still haven't been able to give him the Cupid Arrow tag ring," muttered Mikoto.
"Are you looking for a boy you're interested in?" asked Lindy in English.
"Bwoh!? Cough cough! That was all it took for you to figure out what I was talking about with such pinpoint accuracy!?"
"Umm… With a boy, you just need to throw your bra at him and then embrace him without your bra on while he's taken aback. After that, he'll be like a dog that was just given its food."
"Do you know what you're saying!? Please tell me you don't understand what that means!" Mikoto shouted and added under her breath, "And I'm sure someone your age doesn't even wear a bra."
"That's what the president told me when I met him before, so it has to be true."
"She's right, girl. If you want to get yourself a guy, you need to change into a skimpy swimsuit and have a beer in one hand. All you have to do then is press your chest up against him and undo your bikini. Your point will be even more obvious if you do it near a beachside motel."
"Even if you're the president, I'll still punch you!! If you try to say that's the American way, it would be an insult to the American people!!"
"Girl, you don't need to worry. When I gave money to fund the development of string bikinis, my approval rating went up a bit. The population of the United States is aging and some issues are arising with social security, so some drastic measures are needed to raise the birthrate."
"This isn't an issue with America!! There's just something wrong with guys!!"
"Roseline buried her head in her hands for some reason too. I just don't see why everyone is worrying so much over such a simple matter."
Suddenly, with the sound of a low thicket being crushed, a mass of steel headed their way. It was a khaki-colored tank with lots of phonebook-like explosive reaction armor attached. As the large mass advanced, its treads seemed to tear into the rock surface, but it was surprisingly fast. It was catching up to the monster truck at over 80 kph.
In shock, the president shouted, "That's from a Northern European company that entered the tank industry when their country wanted to be like Germany! I thought they had lost to the competition in the EU and disappeared, but it looks like they fell to this level!!"
"So it's from Trident?"
"Yes. I doubt they'll fire the main gun at us, but the light machine guns are enough of a problem!!"
"Birdway! Can't you do something with your magic!?"
"Well, I could, but at this range, I'd blow away the monster truck as well."
"Then I'll just have to do something," said Mikoto.
She pulled her head back up followed by a loud noise. Hamazura checked in the rearview mirror and saw her land neatly on the saw-like bare rock.
Merely being able to counteract such a great speed was enough to set her apart from normal humans.
She stood directly in the path of the tank that was moving at over 80 kph. It was unclear what she had done, but the tank suddenly stopped as if it had run into an invisible wall.
"…How much of a monster is she?" muttered Hamazura in shock after the girl disappeared from view.
But the danger was not over. A new disaster showed itself.
It started with a noise.
At first it sounded like the roar of fireworks being set off and a high-pitched whistle-like noise continued on above them. The same thing happened ten to thirty times.
The president realized what it was first and his face paled.
"Brace yourself!! Here it comes!!"
Hamazura did not even have time to ask what was coming.
With an explosive noise, tens or even hundreds of thousands of blades rained down from the heavens.
They were a type of bearing cluster weapon called Cutters. The killing power of a 180 mm gun was enhanced with blades wrapped within the shell like a spring or coil. Like a box cutter, the blades were purposefully made to cut easily and countless numbers of them spread out in the shock of the explosion and rained down on the enemy.
The danger spread seventy meters out from the area of detonation.
With ten to thirty of them, the sharp metal fragments spread out over a wide area with almost no gaps. They were being fired by mass produced guns, but their trajectories were not necessarily the same. Small differences such as temperature, humidity, wind direction, and the way the gun's combustible gas escaped could change the trajectories. The fact that they were so evenly covering the area showed how skilled those firing them were.
The branches of the trees in the mountainous area were chopped off and the roof and hood of the monster truck were covered in orange sparks.
The truck's tires were torn to shreds and the giant four-wheel drive vehicle slid to the side.
"!! Trident again!?"
"No, I signed the bill that led to the adoption of those 180 mm guns. So unless they've been stolen…"
"So it's the marine volunteers!?"
They did not have time to come up with a countermeasure.
Multiple figures silently approached and simultaneously attacked the driver's side and passenger side of the half-destroyed monster truck. Without even opening the doors, Hamazura and Roberto were pulled out through the shattered windows. Another man who was peering into the backseat spotted Birdway and Lindy. Oddly, the man seemed to overlook the fact that Birdway was holding a dagger in her right hand while crossing her arms.
"Thirty-one. I have located Lindy Blueshake and will now bring her in. Prepare for the 'negotiations'," the man said into his radio.
"Wait…" gasped the president after he had fallen onto his back when dragged from the window. "I…do not authorize…the use of that method. As the President…of the United States of America…I order you to…"
"What are you going on about? You've lost," spat out the marine. "Who's going to obey a president that won't do anything to protect his own country? You have a duty to at least protect the ones who voted for you. If you won't even do that, then stop calling yourself the president." The man raised his assault rifle. "The job you're supposed to do has been handed over to us. If you're going to interfere with that, then there's no hope for you. …Fortunately, I never said anything about you when I reported finding Lindy Blueshake. No one will find it odd if you don't come back with us."
The marine unhesitatingly aimed at the president's face and smiled.
"Are you an idiot?"