Vol 1 Chapter 8 (1/2)

The fourth and final Xiuhcoatl entered Liberal Arts City.

The attack range from orbit had a diameter of around 10 kilometers, so the antenna had to be deployed at the very center of the city in order to blow away the entire manmade island.

From within her Mixcoatl flying across the ocean, Xochitl watched the Xiuhcoatl fly off. She would soon head slowly away from Liberal Arts City. She had no intention of getting caught in the blast.

(I guess our objective is as good as complete.)

That facility had caused many tragedies by investigating and researching the techniques of Return of the Winged One. Xochitl had no strong feelings about it meeting its fate. She was not thinking about the success for her organization.

She was wondering what would become of all the tourists.

She thought for a bit, but then shook her head.

(I didn’t tell her everything, but I gave her the necessary hints.)

There was nothing more she could do.

She sighed once and then turned the Mixcoatl around so she could escape the attack range of their ultimate weapon.

Suddenly, Xochitl heard a tremendous roar. She looked over and saw a girl with six glowing wings charging from the ocean into Liberal Arts City as if she were chasing after the Xiuhcoatl.

The girl landed on the roof of a nearby building and seemed to lay down the girl she had been holding in her arms. Afterwards, she spread her six wings once more and charged after the Xiuhcoatl.

“Her…!?”

It was the girl Xochitl had thought she had stopped back over the ocean.

Xochitl did not know what the laws behind her power were, but the girl was a monster that had shot down three Xiuhcoatls with no real weapon. Xochitl gritted her teeth, hesitated, and then headed back into Liberal Arts City. There was a danger of getting caught up in her ally’s bombing, but she could not allow the final Xiuhcoatl to be shot down after coming that far.

The girl with the six wings seemed to have noticed Xochitl who was approaching at high speed along the waterways running through the city. As she chased after the Xiuhcoatl, the girl glanced over at Xochitl. She smiled while looking at her new enemy.

The girl seemed to have said something, but Xochitl couldn’t hear what it was.

However, she was able to see what was in the girl’s hand.

Something was placed atop the girl’s right thumb.

It was an arcade coin.

There were no longer any guards.

With the chaos continuing within Liberal Arts City, there was almost no security left at the entrance to the restricted area. Uiharu Kazari and Saten Ruiko left the unlocked door open as they returned to the sunny ocean city.

A crowd of people seemed to be following them.

They were the people who had been imprisoned within Liberal Arts City’s restricted area. The group of 20 or 30 people included men, women, adults, and children. They wanted to hurry, but their weary bodies did not allow them to run at full speed. According to Saten, they were the “criminals” that had caused some sort of trouble in the city, but…

Uiharu looked up at the blue sky.

“We should be fine now… We just need to head for one of the lifeboat docks. There will probably be officials there, but that’s the only way to escape!!”

A battle between multiple fighters and flying fish was continuing on the horizon visible from the beach. It was unclear when that battle would reach the island and it was possible a stray bullet or missile could suddenly come flying their way.

At any rate, they had to hurry.

The people had been in an area with contamination warning labels pasted all over the place, but they did not seem to be having any issues. It seemed Liberal Arts City was just planning for the worst possible situation because they did not understand what it was they were researching. Saten said that Olive had mentioned the contamination being an erroneous decision by management.

(The docks haven’t been taken out yet, have they? No, we need to hurry to a lifeboat!! With s.h.i.+ps that big, they should easily be able to hold 20 or 30 extra people!!)

Saten was guiding the group of people by gesturing, but she suddenly froze. Uiharu looked over and noticed that a battle was occurring within the city, too.

The scenery was a mess. Buildings had collapsed and tilted and crushed rollercoaster tracks were blocking the path. A large Ferris wheel collapsed and crushed a few buildings as if it had been pushed by a giant.

Some people were fighting amongst that.

One of them seemed to be Misaka Mikoto. Uiharu did not know how, but she was flying around using six glowing wings. The other was one of the flying fish. One seemed to be trying to destroy a 100 meter aircraft and the other seemed to be trying to defend it.

“Xochitl…?” Saten muttered upon seeing that flying fish.

“Eh?”

“No, don’t fight that person, Xochitl!!”

The next thing Uiharu knew, Saten was already running.

The girl was wearing only a swimsuit, but she was running toward that battlefield in which small missiles and Railgun blasts were flying back and forth. She was charging into a site of intense fighting where stray shots were destroying empty buildings or blowing away roads.

“Saten-san!!” Uiharu yelled, but Saten only turned back once.

Uiharu thought she saw Saten mouth the words “I have to go”, but she was unable to hear the other girl’s words. Saten then once more started running toward the front line of the fight between Mikoto and the flying fish.

The fight between Mikoto and Xochitl continued.

However, Mikoto had a definite advantage given the situation. After all, Mixcoatls were meant to be used on the ocean. They could fly by temporarily increasing the output of their hovering, but that was not what they were made to do. They were not suited for defending a flying s.h.i.+p from an enemy that could fly freely through the sky.

(No…)

Xochitl denied her own idea as her Mixcoatl jumped from one waterway to another running along parallel to it.

(It isn’t just this specific situation. She’s just too strong!!)

Even if she was flying through the sky using some kind of special power, that enemy was still a flesh and blood human.

Even so, she was fighting more than evenly with Xochitl who was piloting a weapon. She was firing something like lightning from her bangs, swinging around a giant sword made of iron sand from the beach, and even firing a tiny coin at three times the speed of sound.

She had plenty of different types of attacks and each one of them was quite strong. Also, she did not simply focus on attack. Merely getting out from in front of the girl was not enough. There had been plenty of opportunities for Xochitl to circle around behind her, but each time, the iron sand sword had bent like a whip and prevented Xochitl from hitting her with even a single attack.

As Xochitl moved from waterway to waterway, she used the hover function at full capacity to jump up a few dozen meters into the air.

At the same time, she fired multiple missiles.

Mikoto did not evade.

She charged straight toward Xochitl with much sharper angles and with a much more direct path than the missiles. The wings erupting from her back blew up the missiles that just barely pa.s.sed by her without hitting.

Bluish-white sparks flew from the approaching girl’s bangs.

It was the omen of an incoming lightning-like strike.

Xochitl immediately fired new missiles, but her opponent was clearly faster.

However, she heard a dull clunk.

It had not yet reached the center of Liberal Arts City, but the final Xiuhcoatl was opening its umbrella wide. It was the giant parabolic antenna that had been made from the very best of Aztec astronomy. It seemed the ones operating it remotely had decided that it was better to get in a strike even if it would not take out the entire city than to have it shot down.

They intended to blow away half of Liberal Arts City along with Xochitl who was trying to protect the Xiuhcoatl.

(That’s none of my concern…!!)

Xochitl gritted her teeth and tried to focus on the enemy before her eyes.

However, that enemy did not.

Despite having been given an opportunity to shoot Xochitl down from the front, the girl’s focus had been turned solely to the Xiuhcoatl. Immediately afterwards, Xochitl’s Mixcoatl charged in toward Mikoto. The girl used her wings to try to evade to the side, but the tip of one of the Mixcoatl’s wings grazed her, throwing it into a tailspin. Something must have happened to the girl too because about half of her six wings disappeared and she started to fall as her speed fell.

(So this…)

Xochitl thought as she glanced over at the completely opened parabolic antenna.

Even if she tried to escape at full speed, it was too late.

(So this is the end.)

Xochitl gave up even on piloting her s.h.i.+p and closed both of her eyes.

She imagined the attack raining down from orbit, but…

“Oh, h.e.l.l no!!”

Xochitl heard the girl’s voice.

She had thought the girl had been knocked from the sky, but when she opened her eyes in surprise, she saw her sticking her right hand out toward the Xiuhcoatl while still unable to properly control her position. She was more or less falling, but her aim was perfect.

A single coin lay on top of her thumb.

In flicking that coin lay the conviction of the one who did not give up to the end.

Xochitl grabbed the helm again to try to intercept the girl, but she did not make it. The gap between the one who had given up and the one who had not given up opened up greatly as the girl fired her final attack from her hand.

An explosive noise ripped through the air.

The coin was fired at three times the speed of sound and it became an orange line in an instant.

That attack directly hit the outer edge of the opened parabolic antenna. The destructive power concentrated on that one point spread to the entire craft all at once. Like a crease spreading along a piece of paper, a large crack spread across the circular parabolic antenna blowing away about a third of the whole.

The shock from that direct hit greatly changed the direction the antenna was facing.

Even so, it was not utterly blown to pieces.

The basic outline of the Xiuhcoatl remained floating in the air.

(What’s going to happen…?)

Xochitl quickly changed directions and worked to keep Mikoto in her sights while half of her focus was on the Xiuhcoatl.

(What’s going to happen…!?)

Did she want it to succeed and blow away Liberal Arts City as well as herself?

Or did she want it to fail and allow her to survive?

Xochitl was not sure which outcome she was wis.h.i.+ng for as she watched to see which would actually occur.

And then a few seconds pa.s.sed without anything happening.

That elapsed time sent a powerful tension through Xochitl’s body.

But nothing happened.

The Xiuhcoatl’s giant parabolic antenna started to fall as it was swept away by the impact of the damage done to it. The antenna may have acted as a parachute to a certain extent because its speed was surprisingly slow as it headed for the ground.

That may have been why Xochitl was able to notice it.

Xochitl saw Saten Ruiko standing utterly still at the spot the remains of the parabolic antenna were likely to land.

“…!!”

A strange feeling rose up from the depths of Xochitl’s stomach. It was an odd torrent that seemed to be a mix of different feelings like tension and anger. Xochitl did not know why the girl had come there, but she was standing there in a swimsuit like an idiot.

She was looking up, but not at the large construction falling toward her head.

She was looking up at Xochitl’s Mixcoatl.

Xochitl bit her own tongue.

(d.a.m.n her…!!)

She clenched the helm as if she were trying to crush it and immediately dropped down. She checked on how many missiles she had left. There was simply no way she could move Saten out of the way using that craft. If she was going to save the girl, she had no choice but to blow away the falling wreckage.

Even if the Xiuhcoatl was half-destroyed, it was still a symbol of their power.

Also, she had no way of knowing if it had lost all of its functionality…

“Right now…”

Xochitl moved her lips.

Her trembling hands touched a b.u.t.ton on the helm.

“Right now, it’s nothing but junk…!!”

As she yelled, she fired multiple missiles.

The missiles flew in arcs through the air and struck the large wreckage of the Xiuhcoatl. Multiple explosions occurred one after another. The giant wooden construction cracked, burst, broke, and was otherwise smashed to pieces. But it was not enough. Just destroying one portion of the wreckage left the large ma.s.s dozens of meters across still falling for Saten’s head.

And then, the girl that had been her enemy and who had lost most of her wings fired a coin at three times the speed of sound. With a tremendous roar, the side of the wreckage was greatly blown away. The craft had been split in two, but it had not been utterly smashed. However, the trajectory of the large ma.s.s had been skewed diagonally a bit. It was now heading on a line where it was hard to tell if it would hit Saten or not.

If it hit her, it would all be over.

Even if it did not hit her, the wood fragments that would be scattered around once it hit the ground might hit her.

“!!”

Xochitl did not hesitate.

She lowered the Mixcoatl’s alt.i.tude even further. She headed down as if she were charging straight into the ground and then suddenly raised the Mixcoatl’s nose right in front of Saten Ruiko. She just barely got the belly of the craft to hover.

And then the Xiuhcoatl wreckage fell mercilessly down.

A great amount of sand was forced up into the air. Wooden fragments that were as sharp as a ferocious beast’s fangs scattered in every direction. However, Saten Ruiko did not receive a scratch.

The Mixcoatl stood between her and the Xiuhcoatl wreckage like a s.h.i.+eld.

The rain of wooden fragments was like a rain of spears.

The wood was the kind that would be used in a house’s pillars and countless pieces stabbed into the side of the Mixcoatl.

Seeing that, Saten let out a scream.

“X-Xo-Xochitl!! Waaah, Xochitl!?”

The Mixcoatl remained motionless before the panicked girl.

Saten was unable to run over and she merely sank down to the ground. Just when tears were about to come flowing down from her eyes, the double canoe-like body shook slightly. It opened up as if the top half were sliding back.

“Dammit…” spat out the seemingly uninjured girl inside.

Even so, there were deep wrinkles on Xochitl’s face.

“I really am an idiot.”

“Xochitl?”

Saten approached on wobbling legs and Xochitl pulled out her knife.

The strange blade was made of a mineral known as obsidian. While holding it out toward Saten to keep her from getting closer, Xochitl yelled out from the bottom of her gut.

“It may have been greatly damaged, but the bare minimum of functionality may have been recoverable!! It was worth at least trying to get the Xiuhcoatl running again!! Why did I do that to save someone like her!?”

At first, her words had seemed like she was just yelling at herself.

But then Saten realized something.

She had been speaking in j.a.panese. When Xochitl had spoken with her comrade, she had spoken in some foreign language, but she had used j.a.panese, a language she was not accustomed to, when she had spoken just then.

That meant…

“Oh, c’mon. You know why.”

Xochitl frantically turned in the direction of that voice.

Misaka Mikoto had landed at some point and was now looking Xochitl in the eye. She was not unscathed after having a few of her wings disappear causing her to stall in midair. Xochitl hesitated upon seeing the eyes of that girl with injuries in various places across her body.

“I…”

“You had realized that this way of doing things was not right, hadn’t you?” Mikoto said cutting off Xochitl’s words. “That was why you told Saten-san about the lifeboats. No, it wasn’t just then. That was also why you saved her from the official that was trying to kill her. You risked your life for that even though it had nothing to do with your organization’s mission.”

“…”

“We know that the people of Liberal Arts City are rotten. Your comrades must have had fairly horrible things done to them. But we do not think your organization is absolutely in the right either for trying to purge everyone here. If you insist upon selfishly continuing to fight and killing all of the normal people trapped here, then I must fight you.”

With a hiss, the remaining wings on Mikoto’s back disappeared.

She was not unscathed.

Even so, Mikoto refused to fall back.

“I thought I could get through to you since you saved Saten-san. I thought you would agree that there is a way to solve this other than violence. …What will you do? Are you going to continue this ridiculous fight in front of the girl you saved?”

“Xochitl…” Saten slowly called out the brown girl’s name.

Xochitl did not respond.

She continued to hang her head down as she gripped the Mixcoatl’s helm and trembled. That directly displayed the state of Xochitl’s heart. She had to fight, but she did not want to. Finally, she yelled out a curse in a strange language and pounded the helm with her fists like she were breaking her own core.

Xochitl limply sank down into the Mixcoatl with its open top. She frowned up at the sunlight pouring down from above.

Saten Ruiko and Misaka Mikoto were talking about something nearby, but Xochitl was not listening. She merely thought about what had occurred there.

Liberal Arts City was likely done for.

The attacks over consecutive days had destroyed quite a few buildings. The ground had been torn up by many explosions and some areas were flooded with seawater from broken waterways.

The foundation of the manmade island had not been destroyed, but they would not be able to carry on as before after such a great disturbance. It was possible a few restricted areas were still functioning, but Xochitl alone could easily sneak in and destroy them given the current chaos. If she did, the fruits of their research would be utterly destroyed.

Wouldn’t that be fine?

That way, it would not be necessary to utterly destroy the manmade island getting all those normal people wrapped up in the process?

“…”