Editing Apocalypse Witch:Volume3 Chapter4 (section)

===Part 1===

“Oh, what’s this?”

Yamane Deiri expressed his surprise while waiting in midair.

The Sparkle lion’s anti-air lasers had stopped. He stayed on his guard while counting to 10, but still nothing.

Had something happened over there, or was this a trap meant to mess with his timing? He could not let his guard down for a moment since these were lasers. Once you saw the flash of light, it was too late to move out of the way.

“Hirosuke.”

“Oh, looks like the roof collapsed.”

Even at their height, they could not see 30km away with the naked eye at night, but Nekoumi Hirosuke did not hesitate to respond with his crystal armor active.

“That lion isn’t there anymore. M-maybe it fell in a hole?”

“Is this our chance?”

“I doubt it. The Sparkle’s lasers can easily pierce the ship’s walls, so it’s still just as powerful. If anything, this is more dangerous since we can’t use visual information to predict where it’s aiming.”

Omotesandou Kyouka had taught them all to remain pessimistic when there was any uncertainty. The anti-air lasers had stopped, but that was not enough for them to charge in toward the ship.

And…

“Y-Yamane-senpai! And Nekoumi-senpai!! Why didn’t you wake me when it was time to head back out!?”

“And here’s the little kitten in heat.”

“I am not a kitten!!”

Natlena’s face grew red with anger as she flew up to the same height as the high schoolers. Changing the subject had failed to distract her, so the two boys secretly exchanged a glance.

They knew exactly what to do. It was time for the trial in absentia plan – aka shifting the blame to someone who was not present.

Deiri shrugged in the pouring rain.

“What choice did we have? If we let you suffer a single scratch, Karuta would kill us! And your Crystal Magic regeneration doesn’t matter as far as that’s concerned!!”

“Eh?”

Her thoughts froze for a second.

The red on her face was no longer from anger.

“Y-you can’t weasel out of this by bringing up Karuta-senpai!! I can fight and it doesn’t matter what he thinks!!”