Chapter 3

They barely defended against the enemy's bombardment using the Life Saver.

"Kuh...! Thi, this thing... uu!"

Yurishia couldn't endure and moved back from the pressure.

Himekawa and Aine were also the same.

It was anti air shooting with dreadful density. There was no place to evade or escape.

{Oi! You all okay!?}

Communication from Reiri came, but they couldn't even respond.

And then, the large battleship's main cannon began to move. The cannon turret was facing diagonally above and ominous light began to gather in that direction.

Aine and the others opened their eyes wide.

――Time up.

The battleship from another universe was beginning the bombardment.

Glaring flash ran. The explosion shockwave assaulted the three above the sky like an earthquake.

"-!?"

A giant ball of light flew heading to Ataraxia.

The ball of light landed on Ataraxia in a flash, it crashed into the defensive wall at the outer circumference and exploded. The building's armor was torn off and broke down.

Intense bombardment was beginning.

Bombing of light was thrown from the enemy battleship one after another.

It hit the city one after another, the streets and buildings that lowered down shutters were blown away ridiculously. Large amount of glasses and fragments scattered apart, they were breaking down in flame.

Enemy bombardment covered the sky and literally rained down.

"Aaa, geez! What should we do now!?"

Nearby the large battleship, Yurishia and the others were also bathed in concentrated firing.

"If, if it keeps like this, our Hybrid Count will only decrease little by little! We have to do something!"

Aine was staring at the enemy's flagship.

"――Nothing we can do but flying into its bosom."

Aine's thrusters radiated light, raising its output.

"Aine-san? What are you planning to do?"

"We have no chance of victory in bombardment battle. If that's so, then we have to board the enemy's battleship and fight hand-to-hand."

Himekawa and Yurishia doubted their ears.

"Please don't say something absurd! There is no way you can get close through this barrage!"

"That's right. First we have to take distance, yes, from different direction we――"

Aine flew away without listening to the two's talk.

"Aine-san!"

Himekawa immediately yelled.

"No-! Aine!!"

Aine deployed the shield of Life Saver right from the start and charged into the enemy ship with her full speed.

Enemy's shell hit her and greatly affected her trajectory. Even so, she pushed on.

At that time, her lifeline the Life Saver vanished.

"Wha-...!?"

'――Why!?'

She immediately understood the reason.

There was no more energy.

Aine bit her lips.

She had no means of defense anymore. Aine dodged the enemy's shot while heading to the battleship. She predicted the orbit of the enemy's main cannon and evaded with marvelous mobility.

'――Just, a little more.'

The anti-air cannons at her flank fired all at once.

With a turn she largely rotated to the side, from there she spun and took a nose dive.

The enemy's anti-air cannons too couldn't follow that movement.

'――Reach!'

She could feel the battleship's deck was within the range where her hands could reach.

At that instant, she felt an impact as if she was fiercely struck from the side.

'――Wha...?'

It was the bombarding of the escort ships accompanying the flagship which were silent until now.

Getting hit directly straight from the side, Aine was sent flying.

"CHIDORIGAFUCHIIII-!"

Kizuna screamed while looking up at the monitor of the command room.

Her silver hear was spreading out, Aine's body was falling to the sea.

Kizuna rushed out from the command room.

"Wait, Kizuna!"

He shook off Reiri's restraint and ran through the corridor.

'――Just wait, Chidorigafuchi!'

"Eros!!"

Part 3

Aine was in a pitch black world.

She didn't understand just where she was.

She didn't understand who she was.

Where could she go?

She could see a faint light.

Was it okay for her to go there?

Aine walked forward heading to that light.

"Chidorigafuchi!"

"...Hida, kun?"

She could see Kizuna's face with blurry eyes.

"I'm glad! You've come to yourself."

They were in a pure white room.

She was not on a bed, but lying down on the floor. Beside her was Kizuna wearing his Heart Hybrid Gear sitting on his knee.

"This place..."

It was a room she remembered seeing, but her head was in chaos, she couldn't recall the name of the place.

"This is the adjustment room of Nayuta Lab. You were shot down and fell into the sea. You were safe from being hit directly by the escort ship. You can thank your lucky star."

Aine's body was still wrapped in Zeros. She tried to raise up her body, but she couldn't put strength into her arm.

"Oi, don't force yourself."

After she lied face down, she managed to raise her body into creeping on all fours.

But just by doing that much, she needed to put all her body strength into it. In addition from the damage of getting shot down, this was also because of her little remaining Hybrid Count.

"The situation... what is going on?"

"The enemy fleet has advanced until fifty kilos from Ataraxia. Right now their bombardment is stopping, but in its place magic weapons' descending unit is landing down."

"The bombardment stopped? Why is that..."

"Who knows... perhaps the plan is to occupy the Megafloat, not sinking it down. Well, we don't know what those guys from AU are thinking... aah, also don't worry about Yurishia and Himekawa. They came back safely... well, in a nutshell, the strategy failed."

"I have... to go back soon."

Aine stood up even with her knees trembling.

"That's why wait... I told you."

Kizuna put his hand on her knee and she finally managed to stand with great difficulty with his help.

"Here we go... Chidorigafuchi. You cannot go back to the battlefield.

"Why?"

Kizuna took out his student device and opened Aine's vital sign to show her.

Aine saw her number and for an instant she made a grim face.

"...Is that so, my remaining Hybrid Count is below 5%. I see, it won't be strange if my gear stops working anytime, that's what you mean."

Aine who smiled self-deprecatingly stared at Kizuna with a serious face.

"Even without looking at this, you are at least aware yourself that you're not in a condition to fight right? Even if you go right now, you are just going to die."

"...Even so, I don't mind."

Kizuna stood in the way of Aine who was trying to head to the entrance.

"Move aside."

"There is no way I'm going to let someone who is trying to go to her death go."

Aine stared fixedly at Kizuna's eyes.

There was no luster in Kizuna's black eyes.

"Even you are looking tired aren't you?"

"Yeah. Nursing a certain reckless someone left me so tired. I wonder if this is what is called nursing fatigue?"

"I don't remember asking you to do that for me!"

Aine's sharp voice resounded.

After that silence visited the room.

"I, I, I don't have anything else other than Heart Hybrid Gear! I cannot forgive myself that I'm inferior to anybody else in Heart Hybrid Gear."

Aine was making a face that even now looked like she was going to cry.

"And now... I cannot even fight? I cannot even equip my gear you said? Something like that, means... I don't have any worth anymore. There is no meaning in me existing. Then doesn't that mean there is no meaning in me to keep living!"

"Chidorigafuchi..."

"Inside me, there is nothing. Nothing at all. I don't know who I am or where I came from. Name, family, home, I don't remember anything at all."

Aine was staring at Kizuna's expression, but before long she suspiciously asked him.

"...You aren't surprised. By any chance, did you already know?"

"Yeah, I knew it only just before this."

"Is that so... then the talk will be quick. I was taken into this lab. After that, I became Professor Nayuta's guinea pig all this time and helped with the research."

Kizuna's heart felt a stinging prick.

"Apart from that I know nothing about my past. Apart from that I was only being used as a guinea pig here without thinking about the future. That's my everything."

"I understand that you are amnesic, and also that you were raised in a unique environment. But, isn't it okay if you just make new memories. Things like your favorite food, new hobby, even friends."

"Even if I have an interest in anything, my true... my past self, did she have an interest in something like that? I will start thinking like that, it made me unable to have interest in anything. When the test for real battle began and I attended high school, it became excessively hard."

"Just why, isn't it fine if you just talk normally and get along well with your classmates?"

"It's scary to come into contact with other people. Because in the lab, I didn't talk with anyone there. I cannot do something like talking properly with other people."

Kizuna recalled Aine's wicked tongue.

So that was actually the materialization of this girl's desperation.

Or else, that was a shield to protect herself from fear. Possibly it might be a camouflage to hide her heart. He guessed that most likely, even she herself wasn't aware of it.

"But you see, even for me there is one single thing, something that became my place to belong."

"...Heart Hybrid Gear."

Aine nodded.

"――Yes. When I become strong, Professor Nayuta praised me. She was happy for me. At that time, I was the only one who could use Heart Hybrid Gear. Saying it in reverse, I couldn't do anything other than that. Using Heart Hybrid Gear more skillful than anyone, stronger than anyone. That was me."

"Even now you are still like that aren't you? You have an amazing genius, even everyone else thinks that you are amazing. Even Yurishia and Himekawa, they should be relying on you too."

"Don't say whatever you like!"

Aine's voice was trembling.

"I'm tired of getting told that I have an amazing genius! No matter how strong I am in close range battle, there is no meaning in it at all! I cannot defeat the enemy at all! Hayuru has shot down two hundred enemies, Yurishia is in three hundreds, I only shot down thirty eight enemies until now!"

"Chidorigafuchi... that's…"

"At that time I remembered. In the past, Professor Nayuta talked to me. There is an amazing weapon called the Corruption Armament sleeping inside me, she said. When the Hybrid Count passes the limits, there is the possibility that it will materialize."

Mother said that? Then as he thought, the one who sent the data about his Heart Hybrid Gear was――

"If I can obtain the Corruption Armament, I will make it somehow. But, how can I make my Hybrid Count that just keeps decreasing to go further than the full charge? As I thought it might be impossible, when I thought like that, you appeared."

Aine pointed at Kizuna.

"You, Hida Kizuna. Limit Breaker(The Man that Breaks the Limit) of Hybrid Count."

'I... am?'

"I was happy. I was filled with hope, the world looked different all of a sudden. I felt like you are the prince that Professor Nayuta created for me."

"Pr... prin, ce?"

He couldn't see that at all from her attitude until now.

"I have to make you pleased. I have to make you like me. But, I don't understand what to do. I searched the database, looked at the magazines that boys read, I investigated various things. There was an article written that boys will be happy from a girl's handmade bento so... but, I cannot cook or anything, just when I thought what to do――"

'Aah... so because of that she made that sandwich from the convenience store.'

"I prepared a bento that I didn't make myself, then I read a porn book for boys, what to do that would make a boy happy..."

"Don't tell me... you looked at that porn magazine aimed for males, because of that, you came waking me up that morning?"

"Ac, actually, there were more things... various plans to wake you up but... tha, that was impossible for me."

"At the school... that time you flipped up your skirt outside?"

"That time, it was so embarrassing that I was going to die already. And, an underclassman also saw that..."

"Bu, but, your face that time was really unconcerned! You said that you weren't shy! Weren't you even talking on and on wickedly to me!"

"That's because if I didn't do that, my head would go strange from all of that embarrassment!"

Kizuna faltered from Aine's yell.

"Even before this, there was an article that wrote if I just go alone to a boy's room at night giving the OK sign... I didn't know what I was doing but... it was scary but, even so, if I did that, I thought that Hida-kun will also lay his hand on me."

"Tha, that's... even I, that was really chaotic for me, I kept getting worried――"

"What do you mean by that! This useless man! Coward! You didn't even know what I'm feeling!"

"Yo, you are fucking kidding me! Just who is a coward. Besides, looking from your usual behavior, just how can I possibly understand your feelings like right now huh! The difficulty is just too high! No matter how you think about it, that's lunatic level difficulty right!?"

"Understand it if it's just that much!"

After yelling that, tears were gathering in Aine's eyes.