Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume9 Chapter 3 (section)

===Part 14===

Putana Highball fell onto her butt.

The black smoke and dust obscured her vision. The disastrous scene was only revealed once the sea breeze blew the smokescreen away.

[[Image:HO_v09_289.jpg|thumb]]

The container research room was taller than she was, but it had been blown to pieces and the walls and ceiling were scattered everywhere.

Quenser Barbotage had pushed her out of the way and he was lying face-down on the ground. Metal wreckage covered him from the waist down.

“Teacher?”

“Dammit. Hurry up and go, Putana.”

There must have been firearms in the research room because they were lying all over the ground. He was trying to reach a shotgun that would be relatively easy for an amateur to use, but he could not reach it. That proved that he was pinned either at the legs or the waist.

Putana quickly grabbed at the container wall, but a human’s strength was not enough to move it. It did not even budge a few millimeters, so it felt like it was welded directly to the deck.

“It’s no use, Putana, so hurry to the Object! The powered suit is still moving!!”

“You can’t defeat that with a shotgun!”

“I can destroy its camera lenses or sensor heads!!”

“You can’t even shoot a 9mm handgun!”

The powered suit produced a rough metallic sound. It must have carelessly fired all of its rockets, so it was selecting another weapon.

“You weren’t this kind of person. You weren’t like those powered suits that don’t care if they die as long as they can help someone save the world!”

“I know that. I know I’m just trying to look good.”

He breathed heavily and stretched his hand even further out.

His fully extended hand touched the shotgun’s grip.

“But I can’t help but wonder. If we fail here and you can’t get to the Collective Farming, what will happen to the Princess who’s still fighting? What will happen to everyone else who’s counting on her to win!? So please, Putana! Please!! Get in that Object to go save the Princess!!”

This time, Quenser’s hand got a solid grip on the shotgun.

He aimed not toward the powered suit but toward the brown girl.

Putana shook her head.

Still, she took a few steps back.

She moved toward the Object.

“Sorry, Putana…”

Quenser said the same thing the old maintenance lady had.

But what he meant was probably a little different. He said more afterwards.

“I was ecstatic. At the time, I laughed and thought that was the best possible method. We didn’t have to fight a war, the Princess didn’t have to head out to battle, the enemy Elite didn’t have to die, and we could still win. It seemed like a dream come true and I was so happy. But I was wrong.”

“…”

“It may have changed form, but war is still war. I set up a cheap surprise attack and stole your life from you. I finally understand that. So I’m sorry, Putana.”

A metallic sound burst out.

The powered suit’s palm had changed form and a harpoon-like tip jutted out.

It was probably a speargun but with enough power to tear through a steel wall.

Quenser held the shotgun’s stock to his shoulder despite not really knowing how to hold it and he gave a shout to numb his fear.

“Go, Putana!!”

That finally gave the girl the push she needed.

She grabbed the tablet that had fallen nearby.

She turned her back on the boy whose legs were pinned and she ran as fast as she could. The sounds of the powered suit continued, but the speargun did not skewer her back. Instead of a laser pointer, the shotgun had a circular guide light and Quenser relied on it to fire just before the speargun did. The scatter shot hit the arm and body to shift its aim just enough.

But it was obvious what the powered suit would do after that interference.

It would temporarily take on a new target.

“…!!”

Putana did not turn around despite the repeated gunfire she heard.

She made her way to the Object held between the two small aircraft carriers by wires. The wires both held the Object in place and allowed the maintenance soldiers to move around. They would walk on one while another two acted as railings. She followed that upside-down triangle layout toward the spherical body.

''Sorry, Putana.

Two people had said that to her here.

And of all people, they were soldiers of an enemy nation.

Her parents, teacher, instructor, and priest had all insisted piloting the Object was the right thing to do, so she had not even questioned it when they trampled on the dream she had drawn in crayon while little.

What had she truly wanted to protect?

What path had she truly wanted to take?

She had gotten unusually angry at the talent trafficking in Lost Angels’s northern mountains. She had seen herself in that, but wasn’t that because she was not entirely satisfied with her upbringing?

When the Sarasvati had been taken, she had felt like she had lost a part of herself, but had that really been pure anger? The Sarasvati had trampled on her true dream, so hadn’t her hatred of the Legitimacy Kingdom come from her fear of no longer being able to justify the fact that she had thrown away her dream?

“…!!”

The identity within her was stripped away, bit by bit.

Or perhaps the safety device the Legitimacy Kingdom had installed to effectively control her and her unique power was beginning to break.

She reached the back of the spherical body. When she brought the tablet close, a wireless signal opened barriers one through seventy, exposing a straight slide-like tunnel. She ran inside. What awaited her at the very end was the cockpit of the colossal weapon that she had relied on and that had relied on her.

All of the monitors were dead and none of the lights were on.

The only light source was the tablet and it linked with the Pilot Elite voice recognition system.

So she spoke.

Quenser Barbotage and the old maintenance lady whose name she did not know had said something to her that no one else had during her life.

She thought of them as trustworthy comrades a she spoke.

“I’m back, Sarasvati. It’s time for war.”

All of the monitors immediately came to life.

She stripped off the short dress she had worn from Lost Angels and she donned the special suit of a Pilot Elite. She attached the many belts and they tightened to hold her in midair. Ten or more endoscope-like sensors extended to observe various parts of her body.

She became a weapon.

She combined with a colossal weapon that had the destructive power of a god.