Fangaku:Volume1 Act2 Chapter3
Chapter 3[edit]
●
We were skating rapidly down the pathway that passed through the forest when the battle began.
“Whoa!?”
As I watched, Hanako spun around and attacked with that glowing wall.
She started from the closest of the swarm. What she did wasn’t exactly rapid-fire, but…
“Hey, you! Outta the way!!”
She hit it from behind with her hammer to send it flying like an artillery shell.
The attack gained even more force from our “fall” up to this point.
“…!?”
The dragon’s entire form was sent flying.
And when another wyvern closed in…
“Stay back!”
She launched an attack with her long hammer.
She hit it hard.
The striking weapon accelerated in the air and a spell sign frame opened at the moment of impact.
The spell expanded the striking surface.
That eliminated the difference in their size, sending damage straight into the dragon’s great body.
The impact was loud.
“––––”
The giant beast was knocked back into another one behind it.
We ducked below them and accelerated.
“Wow…”
We were in the forest as a wyvern swarm approached, blotting out the sunlight shining in from somewhere.
If the previous group had been the vanguard, then this was the main force.
This was the real beginning of the battle.
●
Shiroma responded to the mass wyvern attack.
…This is my chance to shine!
She wanted to make sure Deko didn’t have to change her stance up ahead.
Deko was a beginner, after all.
She couldn’t manage any tricky maneuvers.
So it was best if she could continue to accelerate ahead in that stance.
And as per Hanako’s instructions, Shiroma wanted to make sure she could remain stable.
So…
“Hanako-saaan!”
“Yeeeeeessssss!?”
Shiroma activated a spell before responding.
She used the spiritual connection created between them by the call and response in order to cancel her range and coordinate settings.
And with her Blessing usage reduced, she could now…
“Do the work of 12!”
●
Deko saw several glowing walls appear around Hanako as the girl made hammer strikes and did shield casting in something like a dance.
Those walls weren’t doors. The rectangular objects were…
…Shields!
Deko had seen these before.
Shiroma-senpai had activated these in the dragon battle that morning.
When the dragon had triggered the final ether explosion, she had launched several of these glowing shields to surround the dragon.
And now they were surrounding Hanako.
“Thanks as always!!”
Hanako used her expanded striking surface hammer to attack in all 360 degrees around her.
She added a slight angle to it to intercept the dragons rushing in from all around.
And she hit.
With a slight time delay between each one, she landed 12 consecutive destructive blows. And…
“––––”
Hanako launched a single shield straight up.
At the same time, something came from dead ahead.
It was a big one.
30m big.
This had to be their leader. The Boss Wyvern. But…
“…!!”
Instead of charging at us, it moved back in the air in pose similar to a back dash.
Its neck was pulled back in preparation for…
“A dragon cannon!!”
“Hah! How’s he plan to take responsibility if he destroys the pathway with this!?”
Just as Hanako pulled back her long hammer, I saw something happen.
Instead of launching a dragon cannon, the Boss Wyvern suddenly flew this way.
●
“Eh!?”
The wyvern approached without warning.
Had that dragon cannon pose been a feint?
No.
“…!?”
I realized the dragon itself looked confused. It frantically worked its wings to move away from us, suggesting the approach hadn’t been its choice.
But it was no use.
I didn’t understand why this had happened, but our skating approach was faster than the flustered wyvern’s retreat.
No part of the scene came to a stop.
“Eat this! It’s made from a cute girl’s Blessings!”
Hanako launched a shield bash and then hit that with her hammer from behind.
The glowing wall flew as a counterattack against the enemy’s approach.
The Boss Wyvern was too confused to dodge it in time.
“…!”
With the distinct crunch of breaking bone, its great form spun away to the side.
It had been eliminated.
●
<Shiroma-sama is hosting a limited mode session.>
<That battle must have looked weird, huh? Should I explain it for you?>
<Um, yes, it did. Why did the big wyvern start to shoot a dragon cannon and then stop?>
<That’s because Hanako-san activated her Expression Gear.>
■Expression Gear
<Allow me to explain. Expression Gear is gear unique to an Expresser. It allows them to activate an ability inherent to that Expresser. This is closely related to an Expresser’s special ability known as their Expression Power, so there are many different ways to acquire one, some Expressions have no associated Expression Gear, and they are not always necessary to activate one’s Expression Power.>
<Hanako’s is that hammer.>
<The Boss Wyvern was pulled this way because it was “sucked in” by the hammer’s special ability.>
<Sucked in!? By a hammer!?>
Hanako’s Long Hammer: Hanako’s primary weapon. Normally folded up and kept in a case. A careful look will show a very Hanako-style gimmick.
<Look, do you see the thing center of the hammer’s head?>
<…>
<Ahh!! That’s a vacuum cleaner!? What the hell!?>
<Hanako-san has a pretty major Expression, so it comes with a lot of different abilities. I mean, she’s…you know.>
<Wait, you don’t mean…?>
<That’s right. The toilet ghost. She’s an Expresser of Hanako of the Toilet.>
<Wait! People can Express that kind of thing?>
<You are now exiting limited mode.>
●
“She uses the stall door as a shield and for shield bashing. And she can pull enemies and throw them using the ‘suction’ of the vacuum cleaner she uses as a pole weapon. Her customizations seem awfully aggressive for a school-based ghost.”
●
Some things suddenly made more sense to me.
Like why she wore a little kid’s backpack. And…
“There’s a gap! Speed up!”
It felt like I was passing “below”, through the opening she had created up ahead.
I fell.
But the dragons all around us reacted.
“They’re all preparing to shoot dragon cannons!?”
They weren’t trying to approach us anymore.
They were using their explosive dragon cannons from a distance. And in response…
“Shiroma!”
Shiroma-senpai swung both her arms faster than she could reply.
Held under one arm was that weapon that looked both like a broom and a cannon.
“–––––!!”
She took action.
●
Everyone in the arena saw it.
Explosive blasts were launched in from all around the trio rapidly skating along the pathway, but all of them were individually repelled by white shields being ejected in quick succession.
“What’s this!? A chorus of dragon cannons from hundreds of wyverns has created a true Dragon Tachikawa Stage Garden! But Shiroma’s defensive song is deflecting them all!”
The screen showed her skating and spinning along the pathway, occasionally even moving out in the lead as she used her weapon.
She held her white gunbroom in both arms.
Her left hand grasped the head and her right tapped at the body.
The movement showed she was using…
“Musical spell control.”
Kisaragi laughed loud.
“When rapidly activating defense barriers, precision isn’t much of a requirement. The barriers cover a general area and, if you want them to protect you, there are only so many coordinates that will work. So you can automate the incantation and both speed up and duplicate the coordinate settings to activate several at once. And one common way of doing that is with music. It’s the best option when you don’t want the coordinate setting to be too vague.”
“I see! If I understand you correctly, then the battlefield has become an all-direction rhythm game for Shiroma! She taps and taps and gets a combo of ‘greats’ to defend her party, which is certainly a familiar method for all of us! Great! …But, Kisaragi-san!”
“What is it?”
“I get that she’s skilled, but why is she opening individual barriers to defend each coordinate instead of activating a single domed barrier to fully cover them?”
“They’re probably prioritizing energy efficiency. That’s why Hanako-kun set things up in advance.”
●
“Set what things up?”
Kisaragi operated her sign frame to seek through the record of the run so far.
“On Level 1, the wyverns won’t actually attack the pathway itself. The pathway carries food to them and it also carries in the wind and water. That’s why we’ve even seen the swarm’s leaders repairing damage with sticks and vines. But…”
But…
“That’s why they show no mercy to anyone traveling on the pathway. A counterattack will require some kind of setup. …In this case, it was this.”
Kisaragi tapped her sign frame.
The video on the screen began to play in reverse.
The speed was also increased as it showed Hanako’s initial shield bashes.
“This looks like an endless swarm of wyverns, but they don’t all charge in at once because they split into a few groups which take turns attacking. Hanako-kun noticed that right away and attacked each group in turn.”
“By bringing down the closely-packed groups in order, the next wyverns in each group will also approach and attack in order. So…look. Even with so many groups, they might as well be dealing with a single row of them. And Shiroma-kun is skilled enough to deal with the few that don’t fit the pattern.”
Look.
“They’ve made it through the Dragon’s Nest.”
●
“We’ve made it through. But…”
It wasn’t blue sky I saw before me.
As soon as the forest came to an end, I reached the end of the pathway, which took the shape of a ramp. So…
“I know I’m supposed to fly…but what is that!? That thing up ahead!”
Ahead, I saw a stone wall.
A massive vertical wall floated in the sky.
It covered so much up ahead I had trouble telling how far away it was.
…Am I going to crash into it!?
By that point, the pathway was ending.
I let my speed send me into a leap.
“Yahoooo! Finally back in the sky! The top of that wall’s our goal, okay!?”
I looked up into the sky.
Sure enough, I could see the wall end so far up it was fading into the blue haze of the sky.
…How many kilometers up is that?
But more than that…
“We’re going to run out of time before we can climb that far!”
●
Everyone in the arena had a good view of the trio’s actions.
A great wall floated in the sky.
No, that wasn’t just a wall.
“This is Level 1’s final section. Units have attempted this wall so many times, exploring it from top to bottom. But not once have they found anything. However…”
“If a group of four or more can reach the Great Hall at the very top within 10 minutes, the boss will appear. Or so a previous investigation tells us!”
“Then that wall – that colossal vertical piece of stone – is actually the platform for the hall where the as-yet-unseen level boss will appear.”
The trio leapt out of the dragon’s nest and toward the flat wall.
●
They had a long way to go, but they had plenty of speed.
The first to take action in midair was Shiroma.
“Shiroma is on the move! She’s started flying with her gunbroom, the standard weapon of a witch! That means she, at least, can reach the goal within the 10 minute time limit!”
“She can, yes. But what about the other two?”
“The question is how they will climb that vertical wall! What options do they have?”
Meanwhile, Hanako held onto Deko’s right wrist as she landed on the giant wall as if standing perpendicular from it.
“–––––”
She stood on the wall with an ejected shield directed skyward.
She didn’t fall.
She held her position.
Neither Hanako nor Deko fell, suggesting they had a fall buffering spell in place.
But simply standing perpendicular from the wall didn’t let them climb upwards.
What did that mean?
“Angel Stare is in trouble now! This huge midair wall is the reason Level 1 exploration teams had been split between an upper and a lower route! As you would expect on a lower level, it’s an ordinary stone wall and doesn’t provide much in the way of resources! It’s like a rocky Tokyo Desert! But right now, it’s become a wall in the way of their speedrun! What will Angel Stare do now!?”
“Previously, the best option was to ‘fall down’. Anyone whose done runs along Level 1’s lower route knows what I’m talking about.”
Why was that?
“As a 5th-Gear level, Level 1’s top and bottom are linked.”
●
Kisaragi watched the two pasted to the wall on the screen.
“So before, falling down from there would bring them to the lower limit, where they would be warped to the very top. They could then reach the hall at the top of the wall. But they can’t do that this time.”
“Yeah,” agreed some of the spectators.
Kisaragi smiled at their understanding.
“Completing the loop from bottom to top takes nearly seven minutes, so that isn’t an option now that they have a 10-minute time limit.”
“Then Angel Stare really is in a bind!”
“I know you already knew that. You are one brazen commentator, Kyouko-kun.”
“Hey, that’s what the job requires! Anyway! What do you think Angel Stare will do now? Will Hanako think of up as ‘down’ and pull Deko on up?”
“It doesn’t look like she’s doing that at the moment.”
“Oh…”
“Looking at the wall probably reset their sense of ‘down’. That means all the gravity they hadn’t been feeling is hitting them all at once while they’re standing on the wall. That makes it hard to think of up as ‘down’.”
And something else happened.
Something came from the forest.
From the dragon’s nest behind those two.
“…!”
The swarm was coming.
It wasn’t a massive barrage of a group anymore, but…
“What’s this!? Angel Stare was doing so well, but is it finally over for them!?”
“No. Now they have everything they need, so they’ll make their move.”
Kisaragi smiled a little.
“They prepared for this.”
●
Deko saw it.
“The wyverns are pursuing us?”
The incoming wyverns knew she and Hanako couldn’t move.
So they were charging in instead of firing dragon cannons. And when she saw their approaching claws…
…Oh, no!
●
<Hanako-sama is hosting a limited mode session.>
<Why aren’t they keeping it safe by finishing us off with dragon cannons? If I had some way of fighting back, they’d be in trouble.>
<I was going to ask why you were wasting precious time on that question, but it’s 300s/1s, isn’t it? In that case, I’ll actually response. Could it be some kind of “tribal rule”?>
<Tribal rule?>
<Um, yes. You know, like in movies and anime. An enemy will be safely wearing down the protagonist with a long-range attack or something, but right at the end they’ll pull out a close-range weapon and go, “I’ll finish it with this!”>
<Oh, yeah, that. And that always leads straight into their defeat.>
<Right. I’ve always wondered why they would do something like that and the only sensible answer I’ve been able to come up with is that it’s a rule in their tribe.>
<I see. So when some guy who isn’t playing fair suddenly pulls out a weird weapon at the end, or when the boss starts monologuing after trapping the protagonist, it isn’t because they think it’s a good idea – their tribal rules say they have to!>
<Which means it isn’t really their fault!>
<It finally makes sense!>
<Please, you two! You’re in serious danger!!>
<In a way, this was the most useful limited mode yet.>
<You are now exiting limited mode.>
●
Oops. I got yelled at.
“But we didn’t solve anything!”
Of course we hadn’t.
We were stuck standing on the wall, waiting for the wyverns to attack.
This seemed especially dangerous to me because Hanako had both her hands full. And her left hand was holding onto my right wrist.
So the best answer was for her to let go of me and counterattack.
But I recalled that this run required all four of us to reach the goal.
Still, I didn’t understand what I was supposed to do in these circumstances.
And…
“Hey, Deko! I’ll show you what to do in a situation like this.”
“Eh!? You will!?”
“Sure will. Smile and say ‘Help me, Hanako-san! If a cute badass like you comes running, I just know you can solve everything!’ That’ll fill me with the strength I need to solve everything.”
“Ehh?”
“C’mon, say it! You’re no fun!”
I hesitated before a moment and finally said it.
“ ‘Help me, Hanako-san! If a cute badass like you comes running, I just know you can solve everything!’ ”
And…
“Ha ha ha! I can’t believe you actually said that! What are you, stupid?”
“Oh, come on!!”
●
“…”
“…”
“Um…what was that?”
“I’m playing the ‘no comment’ card on this one.”
●
The enemy was closing in the entire time we were being idiots.
They were coming straight for us.
The lead wyvern’s claws were within arm’s reach.
“––––––!!”
But just as I raised a voiceless scream…
“Good, she made it!”
I sprang straight up, like Hanako was pulling me up.
●
I rose in an instant.
“Whoa!”
The wyverns crashed into the wall below.
While they lost sight of us, the next group came for us.
But they too wound up far below us.
We were still rising.
I was pulled up the wall, dragging along it a bit.
I could only think that Hanako was rapidly climbing the wall. But…
…How!?
Hanako should have lost her propulsion too.
●
I looked up to see what was going on and saw Hanako holding a shield up toward the sky.
And I noticed something odd.
Her shield had several black spear-like objects stabbed into it.
“Are those…!?”
“Yup. Those are Kuro-san’s repulsion acceleration spells. She normally uses them to accelerate her gunbroom, but she launched these ones down in a reverse configuration.”
■Repulsion Acceleration Spell
<Allow me to explain. Repulsion acceleration spells are a specialty of black magic. Before the Tokyo Liberation, the primary distinction between white magic and black magic was defense versus offense, but one of the alterations caused by Musashi of the Tokyo Five Great Peaks was giving black magic the trait of repulsion. Instead of using sequential acceleration, black magic acceleration spells accumulate energy before repelling it all at once. Using them is a lot more technical and tricky.>
“Um, which means…?”
“We’re ‘catching and pulling on’ the spell shells Kuroma shot this way. The repulsion of that force will instead pull us up toward her!”
Up.
I saw someone on the top of the wall aiming a cannon-style weapon our way.
It was Kuroma-senpai.
She had fired the acceleration spells into Hanako’s shield.
The end result was plain to see.
“Kuro-san’s gunbroom is fast! So this won’t take long!”
Shiroma also mounted her gunbroom and ascended vertically.
We accelerated up after her.
“And with this much speed, you can think of up as ‘down’, right!?”
Hanako let go of my hand.
Thanks to the vertical wall, I could only see the endless sky below me.
There was nothing to support me. But…
“I can do this!”
We were moving fast enough for me to think of up as “down”. So I stared into the sky above and “fell”.
Upwards.
I traveled in a straight line until…
“You made it!”
The three of us reached the top of the wall.
●
“8 minutes and 12 seconds!”
Kyouko shouted the time the four had reached the top of the wall.
Countless voices cheered inside the arena.
On the screen, Kuroma stood atop the wall as she took Shiroma and Deko’s hand and helped pull them up.
“Kisaragi-san! What was their key to success!?”
“Hmm. I want to say it was Angel Stare’s teamwork, but it can’t be that since Deko-kun was with them. If I had to narrow it down…maybe the combination of their strengths?”
“I see! So could you share with us a general explanation of what they did!?”
“Well,” said Kisaragi, glancing at the still-running clock.
“I already explained about Hanako-kun and the others choosing the lower route, right? Meanwhile, one of their group chose the upper route. That was Kuroma-kun.”
●
“Kuroma-kun’s job was to fly out ahead and reach the top of the wall. As you saw, she used a spell to tow Hanako-kun up along the wall.”
Kisaragi took a breath and mimed holding a gun.
“While riding her gunbroom, she has her own weight to consider and wouldn’t be able to get much speed while towing someone like that. That’s why she went ahead and launched just her acceleration spells in the form of a shell. Of course, that shell is destructive. Her shells are powerful enough to defeat a lesser dragon, but Hanako-kun’s shield was enough to stop that force.”
“They couldn’t do that if all four of them stuck together, could they!?”
“No, they couldn’t. Also, sending her along the upper route while the other three took the lower route provided a number of benefits. The risk would have been higher with Shiroma-kun’s defense music guarding four instead of three and I bet they could only react to the wyvern swarm’s actions so well because Kuroma-kun was up above observing them.”
“…? Why are you so certain Kuroma was doing that?”
“Do you remember when Hanako-kun sent a shield straight up for seemingly no reason? That was a signal to Kuroma-kun. It showed her their coordinates and their progress along their route. Furthermore, Hanako-kun shouted during their fall. That was to let Kuroma-kun know that the wyverns were coming their way and to keep the wyverns from taking the upper route toward Kuroma-kun.”
Honestly.
“Earlier, I said you should trust Shiroma-kun and Kuroma-kun more, but I take that back. Now I say you rely on them too much, Hanako-kun.”
And…
“We’ve just reached 9 minutes. 1 minute remaining. If the conditions were correct, than the floor boss will be making an appearance.”
●
“Is it coming!?”
It came without warning.
While they stood below the blue sky on the vast field atop the wall, it landed like it was crashing down from the sky.
“…!”
“So it’s the leader of the swarm we beat! He’s back as the floor boss and this time he’s mad!”
| Back to Act 2: Chapter 2 | Return to Main Page | Forward to Act 2: Chapter 4 |
