Vol 1 Chapter 3 (2/2)

“Hm? Oh, it’s the suspicious-looking film director,” was Saten’s arbitrary response to Beverly Seethrough whose b.r.e.a.s.t.s were as huge as ever.

Saten may have been the type who gets...o...b..ard each new big thing, but she had no interest when it was in a genre she did not care for.

Beverly stared at Saten’s red bikini.

“Have you gotten tired of the one you’re wearing?”

“Umm…no.”

If she actually explained what was going on, something bad would probably happen, so she had no choice but to evade the question.

“A friend of mine had her swimsuit’s strap break, so I was sent out on an emergency mission. She’s trembling in a thicket even now.”

“Oh, poor thing.”

“Oh, don’t feel sorry for her. She’s about as arrogant as you can get. I was thinking of getting revenge by choosing some terrible swimsuit that was so showy it would make her cry.”

“Hmm. How about this one?”

“No, that’s not nearly enough. I want something at least this bad.”

“No, no, what about this one?”

“No, no, no, this one has the destructive power I’m looking for, so…”

The organization Xochitl belonged to was created by gathering people from Central and South America and gathering techniques that were different from the existing scientific technology. That organization had been continually fighting with Liberal Arts City for years.

That brown girl who was all alone in the middle of enemy lines may have been hiding like a beast within the thicket, but she was actually feeling rather depressed.

It wasn’t that she could not take a step out of that afro-like thicket. She had actually been moving about slipping through gaps in the security since the day before. But moving around while having to cautiously pay attention to her surroundings like that had worn her down mentally. That was why she felt that stealing an official’s outfit or getting a swimsuit so she could mix in with the crowds would be much easier.

(…But I’m still in the middle of enemy territory. I guess things won’t go that easily.)

She had no idea when her comrades would come to help her, she would clearly be outnumbered if the officials found her, and despite her threats, she could not really do anything if that girl she had sent for a swimsuit actually ran away. Even if she did get revenge on the girl with the remote control, it would just mean mutual destruction.

And on top of all that, Xochitl had become fairly injured in the process of hiding herself and she had eaten practically nothing for an entire day.

Xochitl checked on her weapons while in that isolated state.

However, she barely had any weapons.

She was not trained for battle. Her role was to recover the pilots from the Mixcoatls that crashed or became otherwise unusable.

She had ended up there because the pilot who had escaped from the Mixcoatl that had crashed on the Liberal Arts City beach the day before had sent out a distress signal.

Xochitl had been flying a one-man reconnaissance craft. She was supposed to have only confirmed the location of the injured pilot and then sent that information to the rescuers, but the pilot had been too greatly injured. It had been necessary to take him back to their base as quickly as possible. Xochitl had let him use the tiny one-man craft meant to be used for reconnaissance which left Xochitl as the one needing rescue.

“…”

Xochitl looked down at her knife made of obsidian and sighed. If it came down to fighting the officials, she needed to be prepared, but just as she was about to focus on that…

“Hey, have you been waiting, little kitty? Saten-san is back with a swimsuit for yo—gfh!?”

The idiot was back, so Xochitl covered her mouth and pulled her into the thicket.

Xochitl pulled a plastic bag from Saten’s hand. Annoyingly enough, it had the Liberal Arts City’s logo on it.

Saten made a pouting expression with her lips.

“C’mon, you don’t have to be so arrogant.”

“Shut up.”

“Oh, and could you take that thing out of my nose?”

“…Okay, fine.”

Xochitl muttered something under her breath and Saten frantically reached up to her nose. She most likely thought she had a runny nose, but it was the thin rod that came out.

“I’ll be changing, so get out,” Xochitl said sounding annoyed.

“Okay, okay. Heh heh heh.”

“What? Why are you laughing?”

“No reason, no reason. Geh heh heh.”

Xochitl stared at Saten oddly as the girl headed from the thicket back to the promenade. Xochitl finally opened the plastic bag with the swimsuit in it and stuck her hand inside.

And then…

“Are you done?” Saten Ruiko shouted in a carefree voice toward the green afro-like thicket.

No response came, but the entire thicket shook as if to indicate the trembling of Xochitl’s body.

Saten ignored that and asked again.

“Are you done? If you don’t come out, I’m heading back in there.”

“What…?” said a voice from within the thicket.

“Hanyah?” Saten said purposefully tilting her head to the side as she pretended to be confused.

“What the h.e.l.l is thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiisssssssssssssss!?”

Two arms shot from the green afro and Saten was swallowed up by the thicket as if it were a ridiculously huge sea anemone from a tropical ocean.

Saten was annoyed at how much the branches and leaves sc.r.a.ped against her and Xochitl was standing dauntingly on the other side of the thicket.

Seeing her, Saten Ruiko couldn’t help but laugh.

“Ahh…You really put on that s.e.xy swimsuit…”

“How can you say that when you’re the one that bought it!? What! The! h.e.l.l! Is! This!? How stupid can you get!? Were you not embarra.s.sed to take this up to the register!?”

What Xochitl was wearing was what would commonly be referred to as a bikini.

However, all of the narrow strings were covered in beads of various colors as if they were rosaries and the actual cloth was made of sparkling lamé. The cup portions covering the b.r.e.a.s.t.s were not made of cloth. They were made of spirals of strings with red, blue, and yellow beads that just barely covered up what needed to be covered up. This left the bottom of Xochitl’s b.r.e.a.s.t.s almost completely bare.

Saten put a hand to her mouth and a smile spread across her face.

“Heh heh. That’s called a jewelry bikini. You have much to learn, Xochitl-kun. Don’t you look a lot like a samba dancer!?”

“Th-this is…This is no time for joking around!!”

“Oh, watch out. If you move too much, something might pop out. Unlike my zip-up bikini, that isn’t made to stick to your skin, so you might end up putting certain things on full display. …And don’t try to go swimming. The resistance of the water would strip it all off.”

“Do you not see a problem with a swimsuit that can’t be used to swim in!?”

Due to both anger and embarra.s.sment, Xochitl’s face was red and she was breathing erratically. It seemed she wanted to attack Saten right then and there but she could not do so because she was afraid the jewelry bikini would catch on something.

Xochitl finally realized she was at the disadvantage, so she gave up on heading over to punch Saten.

“…Hey, come with me.”

“Eh? I already bought you the swimsuit.”

“If you don’t, I’m prepared to take you down with me by ripping off your swimsuit. …Do you want both of us to be naked?”

Saten Ruiko was not able make a careless bet on whether Xochitl was bluffing and she would rather not have that strange rod stuck up her nose again.

And so Saten Ruiko ended up walking around Liberal Arts City with the mysterious brown girl named Xochitl. Xochitl did not want to go shopping somewhere or to ride on a roller coaster or anything. She was not walking around heading for a destination like that.

As she walked by a beach and a shopping mall, Xochitl gritted her teeth.

“(…Dammit. I want to take out at least one facility, but I can’t get a chance to do anything like that when I stand out this much!!)”

Probably due to her showy swimsuit, everyone’s gaze gathered on her wherever she went. The colorful beads glittered in the sun and living beings tended to turn their gaze toward s.h.i.+ny things, so all the men’s gazes were naturally drawn in toward the bikini covering her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and waist. Drops of sweat appeared on her skin due to the heat and her embarra.s.sment. They also glittered, but in a much healthier and more lascivious way than with the beads.

“(…W-well, I have more than one goal. If I can’t destroy anything, I just have to put my focus on something else. Maybe I should try to get some more complete information on the enemy. If I don’t get at least something, this will have been such a waste that I’ll might feel like killing myself.)”

“What are you muttering about?”

“Nothing. I was just thinking that I might need to change my face if it comes down to it.”

“?”

Saten put on a puzzled expression but did not ask any more as she walked along.

She was being dragged along without knowing where they were headed. Her amateur thoughts led her to a.s.sume Xochitl was walking around with her because she would stand out less as she looked around if she had someone with her.

But…

(Oh, no. I chose an extremely showy swimsuit for her and I’m betting the officials have me marked after that incident yesterday.)

An unpleasant sweat started pouring form Saten, but Xochitl did not seem to notice.

After walking through an area made up of a couple of artificial islands created by artificial ca.n.a.ls, Xochitl suddenly put her hands on her small waist and sighed slightly.

After walking all over the place, they had ended up near the shopping mall where Saten had bought the jewelry bikini.

“…Well, I guess that’s pretty much it.”

“What is?”

“The traces of underground facilities cannot be completely erased. The general size of a facility can be deduced from the number and locations of the ducts. …And so many of my comrades have been injured for the sake of those ridiculous underground areas.”

“…Underground facilities?”

“Basically, they need facilities prepared in order to fill in the discrepancies between a real battle and a show and they have all sorts of different kinds of ammunition stored up.” Xochitl seemed annoyed. “But the main facility for a.n.a.lysis and research doesn’t seem to be here. I guess the rocket launch pad in the center of the city is the most likely place. …Hmph. This artificial island was created by piling sand and manmade objects on top of the rocks that jutted up from the bottom of the ocean to only about 20 meters from the surface. In that case, they wouldn’t have the proper depth needed for a shelter. …Yes. If they dug too deep, they would open up a hole in the supporting rocks which would weaken them and could possibly cause the entire city to start to tilt.”

“???”

“Underground shelters are strong, but only if they are deep enough. If they aren’t there is a great risk of a cave in from the shock of an attack even if the shelter itself is not hit. And this country’s bunker busters are said to be able to blow up bases 20 or 30 meters below the surface. In that case, it would indeed be safer to not build their most important facility underground.”

“Xochitl, what are you going on about…?”

“Don’t ask. It’s better if you don’t know.”

At that time, Saten Ruiko saw multiple white contrails cutting through the blue sky above. It was the Laveze Squadron from Alien Wars doing an acrobatic show. Saten let out a stupid voice as she watched the multiple jets fly straight from the land out to the ocean.

“Wow. They’re doing that battle show today, too!”

The two of them were standing in an inland area a bit away from the beach. Even so, there was only white sand beneath their feet. The bricks of the promenade and the roads as well as the buildings such as the shopping mall and the hotel were all built atop the sand.

The blue ocean could be seen in the distance between two buildings.

Finally, Xochitl muttered something.

“So they’re finally here.”

“?”

Saten looked puzzled and then a tremendous explosive noise struck her ears. The noise was louder than one would expect from a show. It was more like an accident had occurred during the aerial acrobatics. Saten covered her hurting ears with her hands and saw some black smoke rising up in the distance seeming to sully the blue sky.

With another explosive noise something fluttered through the sky. Looking up, it looked like a small fragment of something, but it was actually a large fighter over 20 meters long and it came cras.h.i.+ng into the beach. The sound of steam came from that fighter that was one of the s.h.i.+ps used by the Laveze Squadron. The pilot must have ejected because the gla.s.s canopy covering the c.o.c.kpit was gone.

“Wha—Eh…Th-this is…?”

Saten did not have time to be surprised or to think that it was just a show.

Dozens of white lines cut across the blue sky. They looked similar to the contrails from before, but they were narrower, sharper, and faster. The white points were reminiscent of spears. They stabbed across various parts of Liberal Arts City, mercilessly exploded, destroyed building walls, dug up sand, and generally spread about damage and confusion.

One of those white points landed near Saten and she was knocked down on the hot sand despite not having been directly hit.

Xochitl calmly remained standing.

The girl’s expression did not change in the slightest as she slowly looked up into the sky and muttered a few words.

“You certainly took your time.”

As if in response, the beach right next to Xochitl exploded as if it were being lifted up from below. It was less like something was breaking out from within the earth and more like something was breaking through the ceiling of an underground facility. What appeared was one of the things that had been fighting the Laveze Squadron the day before. The craft looked like it was made up of a 5 meter long canoe with another one placed on top upside down. A short wing and a long wing were on both sides of the front of the flying fish-like craft.

Xochitl turned toward the flying fish and spoke in a much, much more friendly way than she had toward Saten.

She was speaking in a language Saten did not understand.

“So my survey of the enemy land was a waste, hm? My prediction was that the real a.n.a.lysis and research was not carried out in the facility underneath the attractions but in the rocket launch pad facility at the center of the city.”

“You were correct, but the two facilities share a large underground area, so they can travel between them without leaving.”

“And so you got in. How did it go?”

“I carried out the minimum amount of destruction needed and I retrieved you know what. But the inside was much more toughly built than I had expected. Personally, I didn’t like it.”

“Don’t get greedy. You shouldn’t have gone this far inland using a sea battle Mixcoatl in the first place.”

“And who do you think I did that for? I used one of these because you might have had a broken bone making you a complete burden.”

With a sound like a can of something carbonated opening, the upper canoe-like section slid back opening up the craft.

Inside that acutely angled main body was a girl with brown skin just like Xochitl’s. She appeared to be just a bit older than Xochitl. The gap in age was small enough that an adult would probably just refer to them both as kids, but a middle schooler like Saten noticed age differences like that.

It may have had some formal meaning or it may have functioned as a kind of pilot suit, but the girl was wearing the same kind of tribal outfit as Xochitl had when Saten had first met her.

The girl in the canoe looked at Xochitl and then pointed behind her.

“Hurry up and get on. All four wings are almost crushed because I forced it to walk on the land. Just getting back to the ocean will be about the limit.”

Xochitl headed to the canoe as instructed.

“Ah…” said Saten without meaning to upon seeing that receding back.

Even Saten could tell by then that she was not just seeing some kind of show. She had not just seen an explosion; she had gotten caught in the blast. And now Xochitl was headed toward the person who seemed to have caused the explosion.

She wanted to say something, but nothing came out.

Xochitl did not turn back toward Saten.

Xochitl put her small body into the back of the canoe and the upper part slid back to its original place closing up the craft. The flying fish made of wood, cloth, and obsidian vibrated as if it were trembling and used the four wings carefully crushed underneath it to walk away from Saten.

The Mixcoatl made it from the beach to the ocean and then used its wings to float up a few centimeters from the water’s surface allowing it to regain its normal speed.

The girl in front of Xochitl who was controlling the Mixcoatl was named Tochtli. She spoke without turning around.

“Well, it looks like you didn’t get any obvious injuries.”

“I was only unable to contact you. Well, I’m thankful you went out of your way to retrieve me.”

“I’m impressed you managed to wait it out there.”

“The center of the land of the enemy we’ve been fighting for years was as boring as I expected.” Xochitl sighed. “…I’m sure Tecpatl isn’t going to shut up about this once I get back.”

“Well, the higher ups are afraid of losing any of their fighting force, so it’s unlikely you’ll be seriously punished.”

Tochtli did not turn Xochitl’s way, but from the shaking of her shoulders, she seemed to be laughing.

“So you said you managed to retrieve it?”

“Yeah.”

Tochtli nodded without turning around and pointed to the side.

Right next to her was an object about the size of a softball that appeared to have been casually placed there. It was wrapped in a soft cloth like one that would be used to wipe gla.s.ses with, so its outer appearance could not be seen.

“I see. So it’s finally returned to our hands,” Xochitl muttered.

“But we won’t be able to activate it right away just because we got it back. It seems the a.s.sembly and adjustments will take some time. But even so, we’ve made quite a bit of progress.”

“…Xiuhcoatl, hm?” Xochitl muttered.

The inside of the craft fell silent for a short time.

Finally, Tochtli spoke while operating the Mixcoatl.

“That was a nice girl.”

“What?”

“That girl was quite nice to help you even though you were about as suspicious as a person can get,” Tochtli said completely seriously. “Did you see her face at the end? Her head was full of questions and she wanted to ask you all sorts of things, but she was clearly troubled because she wasn’t sure how to ask those questions without hurting you. In the end, she ran out of time and didn’t say anything, but she was definitely a nice girl. This city itself may be twisted, but it seems good people do come in from outside. I’ll admit that much.”

“…”

Xochitl did not respond.

Tochtli did not say anything more and merely piloted the Mixcoatl outside of Liberal Arts City’s sphere of control.

Tochtli finally recalled something.

“By the way, Xochitl.”

“What?”

“What’s with that ridiculous swimsuit? Even if you were trying to mix in with the crowd in enemy territory, wasn’t that a bit too risky? Well, I suppose it’ll make a nice souvenir for the guys back at the base.”

“…I’m reminded of something I said back in Liberal Arts City: I could always just steal what you’re wearing now.”

“…!?”

The sounds of the girls yelling back and forth and enjoyable sounds of destruction resounded within the Mixcoatl.

“Do you really think I’ll let you!?”

“You idiot!”

“Shut up!”

“If you don’t like it, then come up with something better!”